Chapter 1: Sunshine and Rainbows

Chapter 1 -

Sunshine and Rainbows

“Alright, alright so it’s been a little while since we’ve seen the sun”

I remember that day.

“Ugh. It’s bright,” I groaned, squinting bitterly at the bright ball of light in the sky. A glare from the sun bounced off one of the numerous SPP towers that dotted the horizon, stinging my eyes. Recalling that I’d heard something about those towers before, I fruitlessly tried to block out the blinding relics of the old world. Their size alone dwarfing my hoof as they pierced into the now clear skies with their mind-numbing height.

Pieces of old world machinery built in the back when times is what they were, stretching across the skyline in every direction. Those towers were the source of the overcast that kept us under permanent darkened skies for two hundred years. Most ponies in the wasteland learned to live with it. We didn’t give them much a second thought until they actually started doing something, on “The Day of Sunshine and Rainbows”, when they all lit up together simultaneously and blew away the cloud cover, allowing sunlight to finally return to Equestria.

We had the Stable Dweller to thank for that.

I looked to the east, where the light shined directly into my face, further souring my mood. I pressed onward already not looking forward to today. Admittedly, I was still a little bit nervous about my destination.

Sunlight was still a new sensation for most of us. The new scheduled weather took some getting used to, but then living your life under nothing but an eternally roiling blanket of stormy weather has a tendency to do that. To me though, they were just a constant reminder of what happened that day.

It had been like this since the fighting died down. I was just your average wasteland mare in her prime. A lone pony caught up in the chaos of events I had no control over. The Enclave Wars took everything from me, so I turned to any job I could find. A lot of the times my fortunes were left up to chance whether I’d be able to find a pony who’d give me work.

"Maybe I should’ve thought about buying a pair of shades first," I griped, continuing to shield my eyes from the blinding light with my one hoof. They hadn’t fully adjusted yet, even several months later. Or maybe I just hadn’t gotten used to the idea.

If there’s one thing I learned in the wasteland, it was backbone. Even after something tragic we were forced to keep moving. Wasteland ponies were hardy, that was to our credit. “You have to be strong, otherwise the wasteland will just leave you behind.” I repeated the old mantra in my head, as much as I’d rather have dropped dead at that moment. The pony who told me that long ago surfaced in my thoughts, leaving me wondering what he’d make of all this.

I scoffed at my own effort in futility. That pony was probably long gone, like everything else. If I had been able to find that old pony years ago, I wouldn’t be here now.

‘Delinquent’. ‘Newcomer’. ‘Outsider’. It was no different than before the Enclave Wars. They all had their own to look after, with their own problems to deal with. Not enough to go around. That’s the way it always goes. The influx of displaced ponies made things even more difficult in recent months. On top of that, the news cycle had become so depressing that I hadn’t listened to the radio in months. I caught bits and pieces of current events occasionally though whenever I stopped in towns during my travels.

As I kept pace along the road, it felt like I was making good time towards my destination. The scenery here was different from up in the North-East. It was hard to remember how many towns I’d been through on the way. Everything in the last half a year went by like a blur looking back on it.

Mercenaries were in high market demand lately, luckily for me, but if this didn’t work out, I’d consider heading somewhere else to make a fresh start. It didn’t matter where. Scavenging pre-war junk was already becoming less and less profitable before the Enclave Wars, and I didn’t want to go back to it if I could help it, but it didn’t matter that it hurt my pride doing it either. Just so long as I could get somewhere as far away as possible and forget about everything.

“You already tried forgetting, you idiot,” my brain reminded me. “If you could, you wouldn’t be here in the first place.”

I caught a brief glimpse of a road sign advertising “The Outpost 52”, causing me to let out a weary sigh as I came to the sudden realization of what I was about to do.

All that mattered to me was that I had proven in these last months. Some small bit of positivity I could fall back on. That I didn’t need anypony else to make it on my own, was enough to keep me going. At least that’s what I continued to repeat over and over inside my head.

You could say I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this reunion, all things considered. We didn’t part ways on the best of terms. When his name came up in a sleazy backwater wasteland joint, I asked if they were talking about “that Fair Trade?” From his bald head to his bottlecap cutie mark, they all but confirmed it and told me he had gotten himself involved in some big righteous cause. “Fighting the Good Fight,” as ponies liked to say. That initially piqued my interest because the old stallion had been against joining up with big moral crusades for as long as I knew him.

After hearing one too many reports over the radio of brave ponies and heroic wasteland adventures, I became fed up enough that I made up my mind to go see him. He was already middle aged when I was was a filly, so probably old and geriatric by now. I assumed he would’ve retired long ago. It might be a miracle if he even remembered me. Make no mistakes though, for me to come crawling back to ask him for another favor again after all these years was the last thing I wanted to do.

The odd mechanical spritebot passed me on my way. Despite all the new trade running back and forth between settlements, the roads seemed oddly empty today. Worst of all, my mind kept returning to that day again. It was like the annoying bloatsprite that wouldn’t leave me alone. I shook my head vigorously while doing my best to ignore it.

I looked up. Finally, I had arrived at the crossroads on the edge of the Canterlot Valley, albeit still in a bitter mood. The Canterlot Castle that had survived for so long had been blasted off the side of the mountain, and a big salvage operation had formed around the ruins. There were some changes brought about by Operation Cauterize and the subsequent Day of Sunshine and Rainbows that felt only surface deep, but then there were the scars that weren’t so easy to forget. Proof that things could never go back to the way they were. The wasteland was a constantly changing place with a long sordid history, but this strange new Equestria felt alien to me.

Up ahead, was my destination. The Outpost 52. “Looks like I’m in the right place” I nickered.

From far away, it already looked like an impressive operation, but up close even more so. The outpost was built on top of an old stone bridge that had been scaled up to accommodate for increased traffic entering the royal city during the war. Traders and mercs from Junction Town set up shop not long after the fighting died down and built further on top of what was already there. Together they formed the groundwork for what would become a prosperous trade post.

Centered near the crossroads where all cities in Equestria converged, it stood near to the North West of the Canterlot Valley monitoring all travel that passed through the territory. It also oversaw the nearby salvage operations going on at the ruins. Once before the war, this was probably one of the most important places in Equestria. Now the top portion of the tallest tower of the castle stood out amidst the wreckage. Yet another casualty of the Enclave.

Spotters were posted inside a pair of security stations on either side of the bridge to keep an eye on the roads. Another one was stationed up on a watch tower, surveying the situation in the outpost itself. They were armed with some pretty fancy looking scoped rifles and high quality combat armor.

Upon a second initial inspection, I noticed that the outpost also had working electricity! Impressive. Maybe they’d have a barracks where I could rest up. A place where I could get myself restocked and resupplied, along with some much needed rest and relaxation. Despite only having been set up in recent months, it looked like the geezer was doing pretty well for himself. I only hoped that he’d be happy to see me. As I got closer the Outpost it sounded like there was some sort of commotion.

The beige blonde-maned guardmare stopped me at her security station on the way to the outpost. She barked at me from atop her own personal barstool. “Hold it right there, ma'am! Who are you and what’s your business here?”

She kept her rifle trained on me the entire time. It looked to be freshly Ironshod Firearms manufactured, unlike a lot of the recycled models circulating throughout the wasteland. The other watchponies were carrying similar weapons, each of them wearing a “52” patch on their shoulders to mark themselves apart from the normal civies.

“Roulette.” I answered, “Is this Outpost 52?”

She groaned. “Great, just what we need.” I could hear her muttering under her breath. The mare made little effort to hide her annoyance at having to actually do her job. There was a slight country twang in her voice.

“Yeah, this is Outpost 52. What’s your business here, ma'am?” she sounded like she’d already asked that same question a thousand times that day, “Are you another refugee? You hiding wings underneath that jacket of yours, pegasus? I haven’t seen anypony travelling from along that road in weeks! So answer me!” she demanded, pointing back the way I came.

“Um...no. I’m a pony for hire,” I corrected, answering steadily, “and I’m one hundred percent earth pony. No wings, see?” I looked no different than any other wastelander. All I had to my name was my special jacket, which I’ve kept with me since I was a filly, my trusty ten millimeter pistol, along with ammunition to go with it, a hoofful of bottlecaps, and provisions for the road. Nothing special.

She rolled her eyes back at me, “You ought to head back the way you came and find a different route to Junction Town. The roads here are closed off due to reports of raider attacks along the highway. Bastards must be getting desperate.” She chuckled slightly. I almost lost my temper right there. Like hell, was I about to be turned away at the gate by some lazy for-hire after coming all the way here. “Prove it,” she spat, and I screwed my face in annoyance.

“Are you kidding me?” I began getting slightly annoyed. “What’s with the security detail?”

“We can’t be too careful, you could be a raider for all I know! This outpost is under Gawd’s protection! So don’t try anything funny! I won’t hesitate to smear your brains across the pavement.” The earth pony asserted her position, waving her rifle in order to get across to me fully where we both stood. It almost seemed like she was getting some enjoyment out of it.

“Who?” I asked, returning her a confused look.

She tilted her head back to let out a grunt in frustration. “You ain’t too smart, are ya?” she asked. “ Gawdyna Grimfeathers of New Canterlot, and the coalition forces! She’s the one in charge of this whole damned territory! Haven’t you listened to a radio at all in the last five months?”

“I don’t listen to the news,” I admitted, feeling foolish. My ears folded back in embarrassment.

“Well, unless you got business here I can’t let you through.” The guard mare kept her rifle trained on me the whole time, a welcomed and familiar hospitality in the Equestrian Wasteland. I didn’t flinch, because I was well used to it by now. Instead we both exchanged dirty looks. She wasn’t going to let me through after all...

“Look, I’m here to see Fair Trade. It’s important.” I huffed.

The guard mare seemed satisfied with that answer, “Oh, the boss? Why didn’t you just say so? If you’re here for work, I suppose you check out but you’ll have to take it up with him in his office. Listen here, this is a New Canterlot Operation so any contract you sign is going through them. Payment included. Understand?” I nodded, and she plopped back down onto the barstool. “We got another one coming through!” she called, and the rest of the outpost's security signalled to each other to let me pass.

She let me be on my way, on the stipulation that I didn’t cause any trouble for her. “I wouldn’t want to have to leave my post to go deal with you.” she cautioned as a kind of half hearted threat, while giving me the stink eye. Bitch.

“What’s your name by the way? So I can report your sorry flank.” I scoffed as I passed her security station.

“It’s Mags. Good luck getting me fired. His office is over there.” she taunted, and let me though to the outpost.

As I climbed up onto the crowded bridge, it was like a bazaar of the wastes, complete with every type of wasteland pony you could imagine, with everypony too busy to notice me. Traders, mercenaries, and refugees. Some were salvagers from the nearby Canterlot ruins. A few griffons were playing cards amongst themselves. All of them waiting for the all clear signal that’d let everyone know it was safe for caravans to move out. A few ponies were whispering amongst themselves. Mistaking me for one of them?

“Some things never change.” I muttered.

I tugged on my Special Jacket which had always been just a size too small for me, and put on my best rough mercenary face. Keeping my eyes straight ahead of me, I ignored the ponies giving me glares. They went back to ignoring me shortly.

The clamor up top sharply contrasted the lonely quiet I was feeling earlier. This whole place was practically filled to the brim with ponies! I hoofed my way through the crowded outpost in the direction of Fair Trade’s office. I managed to take a quick glance inside the barracks, and saw several traders playing a game of cards atop a wooden crate that was serving as a table. The game was called “Caravan”, played by traders and mercenaries to pass the time. Its rules were sometimes considered dubious by non traders, but it was also one of the few popular wasteland games that wasn’t entirely based on luck.

I turned my ears to listen, and caught some details on a nearby dispatch radio blaring updates on the local news and events as I passed by. Several rough looking ponies were crowded around it. The music stopped, and I heard the clutter of a small studio …

Good morning, Equestria! This is Daily Day coming to you with the daily trade and reports, straight from Junction Town! It’s a lovely morning in Equestria, not a cloud in the sky! Raiders are dead and trade is up, all thanks to recent efforts of the New Canterlot Army! -Aw shoot! Now it’s all over the desk...Sorry give me a minute…

The clatter of something ceramic breaking across the floor interrupted the broadcast. I could hear ponies around me groaning. Clutter being moved, and the sounds of papers shuffling were all picked up by his microphone.

“As I was saying... This just in! Reports of recent raider attacks along the highways have been coming in and we’re still waiting on an all clear signal for Outpost 52. Likely to also cause problems for some of the nearby trade posts. Things look clear along the road from Manehattan to Junction Town, but travelling caravans should be wary of raider ambushes and take proper precautions. Gawdyna Grimfeathers has also vowed to ramp up efforts to deal with the Raider Threat. In other news, major victory in Fillydelphia today for the Coalition. We’ve been notified that Miss Grimfeathers is planning to give a speech later today...”

“Gawdyna Grimfeathers...” I repeated. The name of that Griffon mentioned by the mare sitting at the security station. She was apparently a very big deal. As I continued on, I tuned out the parts about the price of ammunition rising, along with a bunch of extra boring details that I didn’t care about. His reporting was bland to me, and his voice was annoying. “Did they just get some colt to read the reports?” I wondered to myself. He was no DJ Pon3, that was for sure.

I pushed through a group of ponies. It was so crowded on top of the bridge that it was difficult to get by in some places. With all the traders and mercenaries just standing around, I noticed it odd how few of them were actually trying to make a sale.They were just standing, baking in the hot sun with nothing to do. Enough to make any wasteland pony crazy. Then of course, there were the pegasi.

They arrived shortly after Sunshine and Rainbows, and more only followed during the coming Enclave Wars. Combined with the wave of refugees those conflicts created, they found little love down here. I took a chance look over some of the pegasi as I passed them, and was forced to acknowledge how many of them appeared to be normal ponies. Hardly what you’d think of former Enclave. Some of them were refugees with families trying to find a new home. That’s what I would’ve expected though. They turned to avoid eye contact and I took note how most of them appeared to act this way. It gave me a weird feeling.

I felt my gut wretch thinking about it, and that annoying bloatsprite buzzed a little louder. All it would take was one pegasus looking the wrong way, and there wasn’t enough security to go around. It seemed like recipe for disaster. Some of them crowded together amongst themselves while others glared at me. A small voice in the back of my head told me that this didn’t feel right, but fell silent before the memories of the bitter horrors they committed during Operation Cauterize.

Making friends with the Pegasi wasn't on my current agenda, however. Or making friends in general for that matter. I had too many of my own problems to deal with to put up with some pegasus trying to make friends with me. That was in part why I had come to see Fair Trade. He was the only one I could turn to about this problem. Make no mistake, he was the last pony I wanted to come crawling back to. If it was for any other reason, that wouldn’t have been the case.

A pony in the crowd backed into me, and I fell on my haunches. I rubbed my throbbing skull, expecting an apology. “Excuse me?” I asked, What I got was a mouthful.

“Excuse me?!” came the annoying voice of a pony that sounded as though he was at wits end. “Excuse yourself!” He turned up his nose with an air of unearned superiority that just pissed me off. The grumpy ice blue pegasus didn’t seem to understand what an apology was.

I found it a bit hard to believe this pegasus could have such an attitude, considering everything that happened. Another thing I noticed was how he ever-so-annoyingly hovered just barely off the ground. His mane was white and well groomed along with his coat, which possessed a notable shine. My eye flicked over to his hindquarters, bearing a cutie mark that depicted a modest group of three snowflakes. Something struck a nerve, as the pegasus rambled on about how he was trying to get back to his home in the clouds and that it was all our fault somehow. A whole bunch of entitled nonsense.

“Only living your whole life above the clouds would give a pony hooves that soft.” I thought silently to myself as he spoke, “I wonder what else is soft?”

“You may have forced me to come down to this muck coated disease ridden place you call a wasteland, but there’s no excuse for such uncouth behaviour! It’s not my fault I’m here! Now would you kindly direct me to the one in charge, so I can sort out this mess you surfacers caused?” he asked hoitily. I felt my anger simmering just below a boil. There was something about his smug tone of voice and mannerisms that made me want to punch this pegasus square in the jaw.

Before I could open my mouth to speak, Snowflake turned up his nose and flew off with little more than a few parting words. Leaving me with a hoofful of ponies staring. “What do you think you’re looking at?” I scoffed, and motioned them away with a wave of my hoof. They all returned to their own business acting as though nothing had happened. Mags who had been observing me from her security station, went back to watching the roads. I glared back in her direction and continued on to Fair Trade’s office.

As I came to the makeshift metal structure at the edge of the outpost, I stood there for a moment mentally processing everything. Finally, I was here. The door was unguarded. Nothing but a piece of rusty sheet metal between us. Thinking about what I should say, but nothing came to mind. “So, I’m really going to do this?” I asked myself.

I tried to dust off my special jacket just to make myself look a little more presentable. The double chevron patches were sewn onto each shoulder neatly, even though the sleeves were torn off at the knee. My hoof wraps were sweaty and dirty from use. Trying my best serious mercenary face, I looked like a properly experienced veteran. “Perfect.”

With a deep breath, I pushed open the door and stepped into the shack that served as a headquarters for the entire Outpost 52.

I was greeted by a dingy and run down looking excuse for an office. The place was hot and stuffy, scarce of luxuries but it got the job done. There was a desk at the center of the room where he sat in front of a typewriter, various papers strewn across his desk along and a lone bottle of hooch. The floor was stained with liquor and bits of broken glass. A H.A.M. radio was set up in the corner on its own table, where he could listen in on the various reports coming in. The tinny sound of decayed speakers echoing throughout the tiny shack that served as an office. An oscillating fan was the only source of air circulation in the room.

Fair Trade was a real looker, bearded and balding with a metal plate in his head. Clothed in old ragged leather that was too tight for his flabby aging body. Right down to his lucky star bottlecap cutie mark. His “first bottlecap,” he always made sure to clarify that. It was him alright. The years hadn’t been kind to him.

He was so caught up in his work and listening to the reports that he barely even noticed me come in. He just grunted at the sound of the door opening and shutting and continued working. I stood there awkwardly for a while waiting for him to notice me until I got bored of waiting.

“Hey you old goat.” I said at last. He stopped typing and looked up.

He just sat there silently for a minute behind is desk, upon making eye contact. The silence lasted a bit longer than I was comfortable with. I turned my gaze sideways, not sure if he knew who I was.

“I’d recognize that auburn, white-striped mane anywhere. That tan coat. It’s you... So… You’re all grown up now?” He offered a feeble attempt at conversation, finally breaking the silence. So he did remember me.

A half hearted, “Yeah... ” was all I could manage.

The old stallion seemed more than a little shocked to see me after all these years.

“Well, how about that?” His eyes milled about the room and he smacked his lips together trying to figure out how to make small talk. "Running around with any stallions I should know about?”

I rolled my eyes, "That's none of your business.”

It had never been his strong suit.

"Well excuse me, just wondering. Enough with the chit chat I suppose.” he must’ve gotten tired of the silence too, because he just up and hit me point blank with the one thing I was most not looking forward to. “I didn’t think I'd ever see you kids again."

I didn’t say anything, finding myself unable to think of the right words. So instead I just stared at the makeshift whiskey stained floor, like a moody teenager. He stepped out from behind his desk and walked to the far side of his office, where there was a small window revealed the rest of the junction. He pulled the curtains shut and turned to me, “So why'd you come back? You never struck me for the sentimental type." His voice was harsh and dismissive.

I raised an eyebrow, "What's that supposed to mean?"

He sat back down at his desk and gave me an eyeball. "Sentiments just make you emotional and reckless. You make mistakes when you should know better. Don't you remember what I taught you all those years ago?”

"Yeah, I remember." I replied, already able to tell where he was going with this. The whiskey glass nearly spilled over as he slammed his hoof down on the table. “When I found you kids, you didn't know a radroach's ass about the wasteland! From the looks of it not much has changed."

I scoffed, and was subtly reminded of why I had left in the first place. “We were just kids back then!” I countered.

“The only pony you can truly rely on out in the wasteland is yourself. Like I told you, there’s only one rule worth following in the Wasteland: survive. You do what you have to in order to get by, and that means the only pony you can really trust is yourself. If you get too attached, you'll just end up tied down to one place. And if you lose that one thing that's precious to you, it might break you.“

“Yeah, yeah... and you'll end up lying in a ditch somewhere with a bullet in your head,” I finished his sentence for him. I didn’t come back for a lecture, but I knew he was going to give me one anyways. “I know, I’ve heard it a million times.”

Fair had given me this spiel before when I was a kid, so I made my impatience pretty obvious. He wasn’t too keen on that, and I knew it. The bitter old mercenary had made sure to drill his set of rules into our heads we were younger, so I couldn’t forget them even if I wanted to. Rules to follow for surviving in the wasteland as a kind of weird post-apocalyptic manifesto he concocted for himself from years of experience. I rolled my eyes.

“When you left all those years ago, I always thought you had taken that advice to heart. Took solace in the fact that maybe I’d done right by you kids. So I take it the only reason you’re back here is because you broke one of my rules. So, which one was it? And If you roll your eyes at me again, I’ll smack em right outta your skull” he threatened.

I didn’t answer him, I was already breaking a rule by getting emotional right now. So what was a few more?

“You’re gonna make me guess aren’t you?” he pried further, “Are you in debt to the Dodge City Gang? You came back for money! I told you not to get involved with them!” The old stallion rattled off a bunch of outlandish scenarios going through his set of rules, trying to guess how I had broken each one without giving me much room to breathe. He was way off mark…. “Did you get your heart broken by some stallion or whatever, and then come crying to me about it? I don’t have time for your garbage right now!”

I didn’t have patience for this either. “No! Nothing like that!” I shouted.

“Why are you here then? Are those other brats here with you? You could’ve at least sent a letter first!” He raised his voice to the point I wondered if anyone standing outside could overhear us. I struggled to keep it together and find the right words. He wasn’t making it any easier.

“No, it's just me…” I said, “I was hoping you had some work for me?”

“You come back after all these years and that's all you have to say to me? Y'know I figured at least I could do right by you kids, after I found the lot of you struggling in the wasteland. Apparently that wasn't the case. After you had the nerve to try and steal from me too, ya ungrateful brat!" He was almost shouting now.

“Wh- you’re still gonna hold that over my head? We were kids! I thought you were supposed to be the adult here!” Good old Fair Trade, leave it to him to hold onto a grudge for that long.

“Well, get used to it!” he fired back. "I'm not your dad. This isn't how this relationship works! You can't just show up after all these years and ask me to stick my neck out for you again!"

“I’m not sure what I was expecting when I got the bright idea to come back here! You’re as stubborn as an old mule!” I huffed.

“Then go for all I care! I’ve got plenty of work to be doing to be helping the effort! We’re busy tryin’ to fight the good fight here! We need all hooves present here!” he waved his hoof dismissively towards the door, and went back to typing.

After the back and forth between the two of us that was it I couldn’t take anymore. It all came pouring out at once. "Help the effort? Sounds rich, coming from you! That’s not even the reason I came back!" I shouted back at him with a stamp of my hoof. He stopped typing.

"What do you want from me then? Spit it out you dumb kid!"

The emotion welled up inside of me, and I finally just said it, “They're gone, okay?”

He gave me a confused look. "What? The hell are you talking about kid?"

Crying was pointless, I knew that. But this was different. I was willing to break one rule for this occasion. I could feel something welling up inside me. The weight of everything coming down on me hit me like a rush all at once. I was still trying to admit to myself what happened. This was the first time saying it out loud.

“Didn't you hear me? I said they're gone…” I repeated, as my eyes began to water up “It's just me! I didn't have anywhere else to go.”

The pony fell back in his chair with a loud thud, and rubbed his eyes. He sighed, “You're bad for my heart condition… What was it? Ghouls? Raiders? Hellhounds...?”

“No, none of that. It was the Enclave. Operation Cauterize. It doesn't matter anyways, they're gone now. You’re the only other pony who knew them.” I lost everything that day. Everyone I loved and called family. The only reason I had came back to see Fair Trade was because there was nobody else left alive who knew them. There was nothing left for me in the wasteland. I just wanted to put it all behind me.

I wiped away the tears with one hoof.

“Celestia damned cloudfucking flying turkeys!” Fair Trade growled, and threw his cheap bottle of hooch against the side of his shack. He regretted the mess almost immediately. “Fuck.” He said flatly, the walls and floors now dripping with inexpensive liquor and bits of broken glass. “I should clean that up.” he sighed a ragged breath.

“Don’t start crying, kiddo. I wouldn’t know what to do if some poor filly started sobbing tears all over my office... Damn, I should've known. As if those damned featherfucks weren't causing me enough problems already.” the old stallion sounded exasperated. I sniffed, managing to collect my emotions.

“Oh!” he said pointing his hoof at me, gesticulating wildly like he had to spit something. “What about that one older feller you were always going on about? Sonar, or whatever? You ever find out what happened to him?”

“Wha- you mean Radar?! That was just me being a dumb starry-eyed filly...” I’d have spat myself if I had anything to drink. Hell, I was surprised he even remembered! Feeling slightly embarrassed, I turned my head away to try and hide the fact that I still admired my foalhood hero after all these years. I was still trying give off the appearance that I’d become a matured mare since we last saw each other. Somehow, I felt like admitting that would make Fair Trade think less of me.

“Don’t lie! I can see right through you!” he wasn’t buying any of it. I blushed.

“N-no it’s not like that! He was my foalhood hero and all, but that was a long time ago. Hell, I don’t even know if he’s still alive. I’ve also basically given up on the idea of ever finding him again. Who knows if he’d even remember me anyways?” I hung my head and stared at the floor for a moment before I finally decided, “No, he’s probably long gone.”

“Well he sounds like a deadbeat to me, if he just up and left you like that.” Fair Trade offered. I guess it was his way of trying to make me feel better. He spat on the ground and shook his head. Then his facial expression changed and he spoke to me softly “Well, I'm sorry about what happened to you kid, really, you have my condolences. But I can't drop everything to help you. All that was years ago, and I have too much going on right now to help you again. This Outpost. What we’re doing here is too important to the Effort.”

“But that’s why I came back! I’m tired of feeling sorry for myself! I’ve had almost five months to feel sad! I want to finally make something of myself!”

“I told ya already, I can’t help ya!” he repeated.

“You’re talking about the Stable Dweller’s Coalition, right?” I asked. “You were always the one who told me never to get involved in big moral crusades like this. What’s so special about this one that you’re willing to break your own rules?”

“This is an exception! It has to do with the natural order of things!” He asserted himself sternly. It was almost like when I was a filly arguing with him, the stubborn geezer never relented once he’d made up his mind about something. Though there was something off about him this particular time. It seemed like he was being for real. It almost didn’t feel like I was talking to the same pony.

I could feel the anger swelling up inside me again. “And Operation Cauterize?” I fired back. “Are black clad soldiers raining out of the sky, slaughtering ponies with magical energy weapons from the back when times all part of your natural order too?!”

Fair Trade looked a bit shocked by my sudden outburst, but he quickly regained his composure. He spoke in a soft but dead serious tone, “Kid, ain’t nothing about what’s been going on lately is anything I’d call natural. Something much bigger than you and me is going on here.”

There was a short silence between the two of us, as we both came to the realization that the string of events that had rocked the wasteland in recent months was way above our paygrade. “Okay,” I relented, “but, the coalition? “Fight the Good Fight”? That doesn’t sound like you at all...”

“I know what I said! Times change though, and I’m old enough now that I can break my own rules.”

“Tch, ain’t that crock of shit?” I scoffed.

“Like I said, this is different...” he insisted with a dismissive gesture. “I’ve been around for a long time. I’ve seen the wasteland and what it does to ponies. I’ve had bullets graze past me while I wasn’t looking, and seen ponies get killed over a hoofful of bottlecaps. The wasteland is hell, kid. I ain’t never been no great good in this world, but this is a chance for me to finally do right.”

His words resonated with me a little. Back then, we lived day to day like a dream. Maybe it was a nightmare to some, but we all knew that we’d pull through somehow. How completely and utterly naive I was. I thought back to all my time in the wasteland, and what that day of losing my family had done to me. Deep down I knew he was right, but what good was stating the obvious?

“It’s been a long time coming. What we’re doing ain’t never been done before! Not in two hundred years! Youngin’s like you deserve a second chance to live in a better world.”

“And what’s that?” I asked.

“We’re going to civilize the Wasteland...”

I felt my jaw hit the floor, having to pause for a minute to take it all in. Civilize the wasteland? Is that even possible?

Everything seemed so much simpler back then. Black and white. It just seemed so obvious to me. It just made so much sense. Sometimes we’d talk about the back when times, but it all only ever seemed like a storybook. Things were different now. That much was clear.

The sun had already come back to Equestria, and now they were already talking about bringing back law and order. Just like things were before the war. It felt like the chance I’d been waiting for. Although something else was there too. A chance to get back at the Enclave for taking everything from me. It was a really satisfying thought. They were still out there somewhere, right? Fair Trade didn’t need to know about that little detail though...

I couldn’t help but ask, “So do you go around fighting the Enclave and stuff alongside the Stable Dweller? Maybe I could join up? You always needs more ponies to help the effort, right?”

“Don’t be daft kid! The Enclave is long gone. Disappeared. Stable Dweller is up in them dern towers watching over the weather! We’re just doing our part down here.” He pointed to the window and motioned his hoof around in circles, “Er- Lightbringer. Whatever. Gawdyna is hiring a lot of mercs right now for her army. Anypony who’s willing and able. Oh yeah, and that thing about helping you mentioned? Don’t even think about it!”

Damn.

“Aw, c’mon! You know I can do it!” I protested.

“It’s specifically ‘cus I know you, kid! You’re too dangerous for your own good. You hardly knew the meaning of the word restraint. That was back when you were just a filly, and I don’t even want to think about what you can do now!

“I’m not a filly anymore, and I can take care of myself.” I asserted.

“I won’t have you making a mess of things for me and the New Canterlot folks!” he said. While his concerns weren’t entirely unfounded, I couldn’t help but feel a bit offended. He continued on with his tirade, “Talon contracts aren’t something you want to be involved with! Once you're locked into one, there’s no backing out! Griffons don’t joke around!”

I sulked, glancing off to the side in irritation and crossed my hooves. It didn’t take a genius to read me.

He exhaled, “Look, just forget about the Enclave, kid. Move on with your life.”

“Well, the Enclave Remnants could still be out there, right?!” I argued, and he let out a weary sigh in response.

“The group that called themselves The Grand Pegasus Enclave are gone now. They ain’t coming back. You should get that idea out of your head. The closest thing to Enclavers we have now are those Pegasi outside my office, and those are just civilians. It’s up to us to help them relocate.” I hung my head a bit and stared at the floor, contemplating the hard reality of the situation.

“How could I?! With everything they’ve taken from me, how could you expect me to just forget about it and move on?” I asked, knowing full well he wouldn’t provide me with a satisfying answer.

“Why don’t you head to Junction Town?” He suggested, “Start a new life for yourself there? Second chances are rare to come by in the wasteland. Something most ponies would kill for. You're still young, and you don’t want to be involved in this whole Talon business.”

I thought that his aversion to letting me join was his weird way of looking out for me, but even then I didn’t give much thought to the idea. In his head he was probably trying to protect me, but once I was set on a decision I never gave up on it easily. I was stubborn like that. “I don’t need you looking out for me,” I said.

Looking back, I was rushing into things like I always did, but something he said gave me pause. “Think about what your family would've wanted for you...” he said.

For a minute I stood there, deep in thought as I pictured each and every one of them standing there with me. It was unfair of him to bring them up at a time like this. I already knew in my head what they would’ve told me. Though for that same reason, it didn’t take long for me to decide.

I took a long deep breath before I gave my reply. But instead of a soft acquiescence like he was expecting, I reared backwards onto my hind legs and slammed my hooves onto his desk causing him to start. I looked the old mercenary straight in the eyes. The truth was, I had already made up my mind five minutes ago.

“I want to join up!” I said, brimming with determination.

He stared back at me with a look of intensity, as though measuring up every ounce of my resolve. I didn’t blink once. After a solid minute, he let out a deep sigh and relented. “Alright, you’ve convinced me. I can see that you won’t take “no” for an answer. So, would you please get your hooves off my desk...?”

I did as he asked and stood there, beaming with excitement. Doing my best not prance around the room, as my mind was suddenly filled with images of heroism and all the kinds of romantics in Sword Mare, Power Ponies Comics, and Daring Do novels I’d dreamed about as a young filly. Fighting off raiders and wasteland baddies in order to make Equestria a better place! “If I joined up with Gawd’s Army, I could finally be somepony!“ I thought. More than that though, it was something that they would be proud of if they were still around. But the most important thing was that I wanted it for myself.

Fair Trade stumbled out of his chair and over to his locked wall safe behind him. He carefully entered the combination, and the metal door latched open. It began emitting a strange yet brilliant blue light from inside as he stood in front of it. I tried to get a peek over his shoulder to see what it was, but couldn’t get a clear view. Shortly after, he pulled something out and quickly slammed the safe shut. He spun the lock, and approached me holding a sealed envelope.

He tossed the simple parcel on the desk. “Deliver this.”

I felt a bit deflated, my dreams of heroic grandeur suddenly dashed. My brow furrowed, getting slightly annoyed. “What do I look like, a courier? ” I questioned.

“Do you really think I’d trust you with anything valuable? You wanted a job, so you start small. If you perform this contract well, I’ll send you a letter of recommendation to Gawdyna Grimfeathers herself.”

“Really? You will?!” I asked.

“Yeah, but lemme make myself absolutely clear! Don’t go overboard with this. You always had a tendency to cause trouble back when you were a kid. It’s just trade reports, so not even you could fuck this up too bad. Hoof it on over to Junction Town and find the New Canterlot headquarters there. Give it over Major Silver Spur with the envelope sealed, and he’ll handle your pay.

“Thank you!” I beamed, but then I furrowed my brow in confusion. “Wait, why can’t you just get one of the Pegasi outside or a Griffon to deliver this...?”

“Do you want the job, or not...?” he ached.

I quickly signed the contract before he could change his mind, and stuffed both that and the envelope into my saddlebags.

“Just remember what I taught you back then and you should be fine. You remember all the rules, right?”

“I’ll be fine…” I said, dismissing his concerns. He didn’t look entirely convinced.

It was just about noon as I stepped outside of Fair Trade’s shack and the sun was shining brightly. I squinted while my eyes readjusted to the outside.

Now I was filled with new purpose. The idea that I’d finally be able to make something of myself excited me greatly. I would finally be be like the hero I admired, all those years ago. “Whatever happened to him, anyways?” I wondered to myself aloud.

I hadn’t thought this much about him in a while. The memory was refreshing, but I felt it was time for me to leave my past behind me. If the wasteland was really going to become more than all this, then I should probably leave that behind as well.

Ironically, it seemed that I would be headed to Junction Town after all. I hoped my family would still be proud of me. Deciding to hitch a ride with one of the caravans headed that way, I’d see about getting an official contract with New Canterlot after finishing this job. Then, hopefully after all was said and done, Miss Grimfeathers would allow me to enlist.

Over the hustle and bustle of the 52 Outpost, I overheard the sound of the old radio broadcasting across the camp. Gawdyna seemed to be on all the stations. No doubt giving some sort of speech. Curious, I listened in.

“Today marks a major victory for us. We have a tough task ahead of us! First it was Sunshine and Rainbows with Neighvarro, soon the city of Fillydelphia will be brought under our control! We’ve all heard the reports over the radio! Now is the time to act! And we need all the help we can get to bring Equestria back to what it once was. That means ponies like you who volunteer to join our Army. With the annexation of the Cloud Cities, we’re slowly beginning the process of reintroducing Pegasi back to the wasteland. It’s time for a unified Effort between all races in order to move forward!

“Sure sounds impressive,” I listened in awe to her voice on the radio.

Now you might wonder, why a Griffon might be concerned about the state of Equestria when this isn’t even her homeland? Well, Equestria is my home too! And I’m sick of watching my ponies and fellow griffons throw their lives away in this twisted hellhole! I’d say: “It’s high time for a change!””

I remembered hearing the words “backbone” and “responsibility” a whole lot in my foalhood. “Fighting for what you believe in”, and all that. Radar echoed those sentiments in everything that he did, with every story I heard about him. He was the greatest hero ever. After a while though, I stopped trying to follow in his hoofsteps and forgot about everything.

I’d heard rhetoric like this before... It sounded hollow back then to a young filly’s ears, but something about hearing it this time made it resonate with me. The difference was, now I was actually doing it. I was going to help make the dream of a better Equestria a reality.

This would be a new start for me once I reached my destination. I just had this one letter to deliver. Thinking back one last time to the pony from my memories, I thought to myself and wished him goodbye. “So long, I guess?” I whispered.

That was when I heard his name. Another pony shouted it from the other side of the Outpost 52, and I froze in place.

A small scuffle in the camp had escalated into an argument between the Pegasus that I had run into earlier and a survivor of the Enclave’s attack on Friendship City. It was one of the major settlements that was hit particularly hard during Operation Cauterize. His friend tried desperately to keep him from tearing the pegasus limb-from-limb.

“You dirty featherfucks took all those innocent lives at Friendship City over one old relic of a pony! He hadn’t hurt nobody in years! What’d Radar ever do to you anyways?!” The pony shouted. Apparently Snowflake’s attitude had rubbed him the wrong way.

All at once, the memories came rushing back to me.

Radar? Was it that Radar? The Radar? No, it had to be somepony else. Somepony with the same name maybe? It couldn’t be him, after all these years. I had to get over there! The broadcast continued playing in the background, as I shoved my way through the crowds. “Excuse me! Pardon me!” I said, trying to force my way past. There were gripes and curses, as I stepped on hooves and pushed ponies over.

Snowflake flicked up his nose, appearing completely oblivious to the situation he had thrust himself into. “I don’t know what you’re on about, but if he was a Dashite, then that means he was a traitor.” It was hard for me to believe that this Pegasus had managed to last more than a day down here. At least he had the presence of mind to try and diffuse an already volatile situation, hastily adding, “er- regardless of whether he was a traitor to a ‘less than stellar’ organization, a traitor’s a traitor!”

“This could get ugly,” was my immediate thought.

Snowflake wasn’t helping his case much either. “Besides, I had nothing to do with that! I only supported the Enclave military as a civilian from afar, I would never dream of getting involved in combat myself! That lifestyle isn't for me, no thank you!” I nearly facehoofed.

There were already other ponies gathering around that had probably been wronged in some way by the Enclave, just itching to get in on the action. Security for the Outpost was moving in to surround us.

I immediately decided to involve myself before the other pony actually killed him. It left a bad taste in my mouth to help an Enclaver, but I had to know. That turned out to be a mistake.

“Hold up!” I forced myself between the two of them, and pushed them both apart with my hooves. “Did you just say Radar?” I interjected, forcing myself into the conversation “As in Radar, the Dashite?”

“Who the hell are you?” He began, but he closed his mouth as soon as I gave him a dirty look.

“Answer the damn question!” I growled, nearly losing my temper. The earth pony stuttered a bit trying to get it out, clearly taken aback by the sudden interrogation from a mare he’d never met before.

“Y-yeah! That’s him! Why, do you know him?”

“Well, sort of...” I began, but was cut off by a grating voice.

“Radar? Pfft! What would anypony want with a traitorous Dashite?! Rainbow Dash and her Ministry were responsible for the Great War that destroyed Equestria! So blame her for your problems not us! Anypony following in her hoofsteps is just as trash as she is!” Snowflake interrupted with a line that made me immediately lose my cool. I grabbed him by the neck, ready to snap him like a twig.

“You want to say that to me again, molerat breath?” I snarled.

“Get your filthy hooves off of me...! B-but I’m just a civilian!” he began to plead. I liked that I could see the fear in his eyes now, when he was so chatty just a minute or so prior. The anger bubbling up inside my body was telling me how easy it would be to just break his neck. It was a sweet burning feeling, like eighty proof liquor.

I snapped myself out of it looking up. The tension of the crowd gathered around me threw a wrench in my train of thought. I was surrounded by nervous security ponies from the outpost, all giving me nervous looks. One of them had a hoof on her rifle hovering closeby to the trigger. Just one wrong move would’ve caused a whole lot of extra problems for Fair Trade. Soon realizing my situation, I reminded myself that I was a pony of the Coalition now and released the scared pegasus.

Snowflake scrambled away terrified flying to the opposite end of the Outpost before I could attempt an apology. It made me feel slightly guilty. Also that I’d allowed my anger to get the better of me. “They’re not Enclave anymore…” I repeated internally. Fair Trade was probably dealing with enough as it is, and I didn’t want to cause any more problems for him.

Griffons came by to break up the remaining crowds, with each of the guilty parties returning to their respective sides. We were lucky that the whole camp didn’t get involved in that mess. Mags, the security mare from earlier blamed me for “causin’ a ruckus” and then scolded me for making her leave her post. Only a small group of ponies were left staring at me after things had died down.

I was left alone with the Friendship City survivor. Thankfully he was nice enough to answer my questions, but that didn’t give me much to go off of. He was a rough looking stallion travelling west with a pair of binoculars for a cutie mark, though I never got his name. “Did you know Radar? Is he alive?” I begged him to tell me everything he knew.

The stallion shook his head. “Radar was hiding out from the Enclave in Friendship City for years. Never spoke with him really, so I didn’t know him too well. Just know that when he was younger he helped out the local settlements, so a lot of the older folks felt like they owed him.”

“Is he still there? Please tell me everything!” I asked desperately.

He shook his head again. “I was just a town guard on watch when the Enclave besieged Manehattan. As soon as the Raptors began bombarding our defenses, I high tailed it out of there. No idea if he made it out as well, but I can tell you that he was at least living a few months ago. I apologize that I don’t have more info for you.”

“I see. Thanks anyways.” I hung my head, deep in thought.

“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.” he nodded, and disappeared into the crowded outpost.

“Radar was in Manehattan all this time?” I repeated the newfound knowledge, not entirely sure if I could believe it. My mind repeatedly told me that he was probably dead, but my gut wanted to believe otherwise. What were the chances of a hundred-some year old pony escaping a warzone like that? If it were any other pony I’d have discounted that less than a percentage chance, but this was Radar we were talking about. He had to be alive.

“So what? Am I supposed to abandon my contract, and go to Manehattan on the off chance that he’s alive? I’d never be allowed to enlist as a soldier. On the other hoof, I may never get this chance again.” My hooves and the back of my mane itched, as this new information cast a shadow of doubt over my resolve.

I wished I had all the answers, but life’s questions never come easy. Especially in the Wasteland. It was like the past had come calling back to me at the worst possible time. “Dammit, why now?” I cursed, pausing for a moment to try and think while I listened to the remainder of Gawd’s speech.

The Stable Dweller set a precedent for all of us. We’ve all sacrificed something to get here today… It’s up to all of us, to move forward to a brighter tomorrow! Let us to set an example for future generations, so that they can look back and say “this is the day we brought change to Equestria!”

That means bringing back rule of law to the wasteland, and that starts right here in New Canterlot. The world as we once knew it will never be the same, but together we’ll move towards progress! Mark my words ponies! It’s been a long time coming, but this nightmare is coming to an end. And let me make one thing clear. I intend to do everything in my power to make this land more than just a Wasteland. So to all the raiders out there, and those who would call themselves enemies of the Stable Dweller just know this: We’re New Canterlot, and we make Equestria a better place.

A lot of things crossed my mind at that moment. The rhetoric sounded familiar, but something felt different this time. If there was anypony who could do it, it was the Stable Dweller. A part of me wanted to believe in it. I also wondered what this would mean for the rest of the Wasteland?

Griffons circled the skies, with orders to shoot raiders and slavers on sight. Some of us were left wondering what was making these raiders in particular so difficult to pin down, and they informed us that there were too many small gangs to deal with on an individual basis. Not being able to do anything about it made my hooves itchy. As I watched along the roads from the side of the bridge they seemed clear at a glance. You wouldn’t think that this area was having trouble with raiders, as the reports would indicate.

From the looks of things, we were more in danger here standing in the middle of a crowded outpost than being hit by a rogue raider attack. Everypony was still on edge after the incident. The sun beat down on the Outpost 52 with oppressive heat. Ponies glared at each other with eyes like knives. It felt as if things could boil over if just one pony gave another the wrong look, or said the wrong thing. It’s sometimes said that the heat of the sun can make a pony lose themselves. We had been trapped under the cloud cover for so long that we’d forgotten.

The radio gave us the all clear signal, as if to ease tensions at just the last possible moment. Griffon patrols from the outpost didn’t report anything out of the ordinary either. Many were left disgruntled and confused, as if we had just wasted all that time for nothing. Traders were given the go ahead to hoof it towards Junction Town, with the small caveat to watch for raider ambushes. Then one by one, they began to move out into the Wasteland.

I hitched a ride with one of the independent caravans headed to Junction Town, that had been contracted out by Fair Trade. Most of them were traders and caravan guards, with the odd Brahmin accompanying us. They had agreed to escort a hoofful of pegasi as well. Snowflake was among them. “Lucky me.” I thought. He caught me staring, and glared back with contempt. I had this one job to do, and that was it. I’d be a member of the New Canterlot Army.

Though I still desperately wanted to head back to Manehattan to see if anyone knew what happened to Radar. Maybe I could finally get some answers to the burning questions I’ve held onto all these years? His name popping up again after all these years definitely... complicated things. As I left the Outpost, I looked back one last time and wondered if I had made a mistake.

My decision was already made, and I had a contract to complete. Sometimes it’s best to leave the past behind you....

Chapter 2: Black Ships

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Chapter 2-

Black Ships

“Boggles the mind we settler ponies built all this in just the last year, don’t it?”

Radar disappeared into hiding close to fifteen years ago. I’d hear stories of his exploits in my travels but never anything concrete on his whereabouts. Everywhere I went it was the same old story. After years of searching for signs, even I had become jaded as I matured into marehood. That name from my past had come calling to me again at the Outpost 52, and after what felt like a lifetime I finally had something.

As we set out along the southeastern highway at about midday in the afternoon, griffons circled the skies overhead. Our covered wagons squeaked and jostled about on the uneven pavement as they were carted along by a trio of beefy stallions. We had a bit of a late start along the road, but things were moving now. It felt like the sun was already beating down on our backs. I huffed.

Most supply caravans followed the main highway towards Junction Town, while others split off along various roads, carrying important supplies for New Canterlot. Our lead caravan pony signalled to one of the griffons that we were taking another route, who returned a talonsign to show he understood. Griffon patrols had agreed to escort us for about an hour from the outpost. As I looked out across the roads, I was finding it hard to believe that all of these extra precautions were necessary. It didn’t look at all like this area was having trouble with raiders as the various reports would seem to indicate.

The lead caravan pony told us to “Listen up!” and informed the rest of us that we’d be taking a shortcut through the wash along a trail she knew personally. We wouldn’t have to deal with raider attacks there, and she was hoping we’d be able to cut an extra day or so from the usual three-day trek by hoof. I was well aware that I could’ve gotten there much faster on my own, but I didn’t want to be left alone with myself at the moment.

As we passed by the salvage operation of the old ruins, they didn't allow us to get closer without the proper salvaging permits. Fair Trade had gotten me curious as to what was so important about this operation, but I was forced to let it go as the outpost got further away. I managed to get a brief look over the Canterlot Valley as we passed. If it weren’t for the half-dead landscapes, it would be a thing of beauty. Now that Equestria wasn’t being marred by constant rainstorms, it was much easier to take in the panoramic view. From where we stood, I was able to see what was likely once a wholesome little town, nestled down in the valley, now being resettled and repopulated by ponies trying to rebuild some semblance of the lives they had before the Enclave. Numerous small homesteads like it dotted the valley, and altogether it gave off the air of civilization returning to Equestria. “Soon, all of the Wasteland might look like this,” I thought.

I could almost see the Smokey Mountains from here too, although they were mostly hidden behind another range. In lieu of a cloud cover, there was now a dense blanket of haze that had settled over them. It reminded me of the lingering cloud of doubt hanging over me.

“Why now of all times...?” I asked, resolve being tested.

Having successfully acquired a contract from Fair Trade, my desire to make something of myself was becoming a reality. Although I was left still wishing that Fair Trade would’ve sent me on some sort of mission to deal with the raiders that had been harassing his caravans, it was one less thing to worry about. “After all these years, he still sends me to perform menial courier work,” I complained to myself near the back of the caravan.

As I looked back one last time at the Outpost, I watched as it slowly shrunk into the distance. There was a part of me that wanted to just say “screw it” and take off running towards Manehattan to see for myself, but dropping everything over hearing his name again after all these years sounded like something a dumb kid would do. Even if the name in question happened to belong to the greatest pony to ever live in the last hundred years. “Okay, maybe the second greatest,” I corrected, looking up at one of the towers.

I was personally excited by the fact that at the end of this when I got to New Canterlot, I’d be a part of the Stable Dweller’s Coalition. “Focus on the contract. Fair Trade and Gawdyna are both counting on me to deliver these reports,” I reminded myself.

Once this report was safely in the hooves of Major Silver Spur, if I wanted I could opt to take a skywagon straight from Junction Town to Manehattan just to see if I could find anything on Radar’s whereabouts. Friendship City was destroyed, though, so I’d be picking up where I left off. Remembering the chaos following Operation Cauterize, it’d be a miracle if I could locate even one pony in all that. Maybe somepony could give me something at Junction Town. “New Canterlot supposedly keeps track of these things, right?” I thought. Sighing to myself, I took comfort in the fact that I didn’t have to come to a decision right then; instead I focused on the road ahead of me.

The sun shone brightly above us. With little else to do, most of the caravan was silent with only the occasional message being passed down the line amongst the traders. Hooves shuffled along as we trudged by what was left of an old skyway. Beat up skywagons and carts were strewn about the long stretches of broken pavement. The odd billboard from the back-when times still trying to sell me things after two hundred years of rot and decay. I turned my head to look at a happy advertisement for Sunrise Sarsaparilla. “I could go for an ice-cold anything right about now,” I said, picturing the tasty beverage.

The advertisement also reminded me that I should’ve remembered to buy a pair of shades while resupplying back at the outpost. “Fuck.” I facehoofed as I finally pinned down the source of that nagging voice in the back of my head. I’d purchased enough supplies and ammunition for the trip, but buying shades had completely slipped my mind. At least until I finished this job, I’d have to bear it for now.

Snowflake was taking expert care to avoid me and shot me dirty looks every time we made eye contact. I almost felt guilty, but not that guilty. Every time he opened his mouth made me want to stick my hoof in it. I was more concerned with trying to keep a cool head so there wouldn’t be a repeat of the same situation.

As we walked my eyes narrowed on a grey-brown pegasus. I’d catch him leering at me every now and then, and each time his eyes would dart off in another direction and he would play it off like it was some sort of coincidence. It was starting to get on my nerves. This pegasus struck me as somehow different from the others, about ten years older than me and easily young enough to have been stationed on the front lines. He dressed in a blue flight jacket and sported a fiery red-orange mohawk. His cutie mark depicted some sort of silver badge with a small flare next to it.

I stared fixedly at him as he began whistling innocently. Thinking that he was acting suspicious, I was considering reporting him to the lead caravan when a sickening thought crossed my mind. “Wait, where was he looking?” I shook my head vigorously and dismissed the idea entirely. The thought of some pegasus eyeing me up irritated me greatly. “H-hey!” I began, but after drawing looks from a couple of the traders I shut up. Instead I slowed my pace and fell to the back off the caravan where I’d be far away from him. He turned to watch me as I moved, and I looked back at him. “I’ll just keep an eye on that one in case he tries anything,” I thought.

“Pick up the pace!” came the ear-splitting voice of the lead caravan pony, and the traders passed the message down the line. We turned onto an open stretch of road just off the beaten path, and the rest of the caravan followed at a slightly faster trot. Our griffon escort signalled to us that things should be safe from here on out, and he headed back to outpost. The lead caravanner saluted as he left.

All of the traders and caravan ponies appeared mostly relaxed, clearly not expecting trouble. Regardless, they looked like they could handle themselves in a fight, should the need ever arise. Spritebots occasionally passed us on the roads, playing that same annoying song. I watched them go by, feeling like they were the only interesting sight out here.

“Bored…” I groaned as we trudged along.

I heard disaffected mooing coming from somewhere behind me. A burly, two-headed brahmin bull named Steve seemed to be cursing his lot in life. His hooves dragged with each and every step. “‘Help the effort; it’ll be a nice business venture...’ Honestly, this is the last time we take on a New Canterlot contract,” he mooed his complaints to his other head, who was also confusingly named Steve.

Steve was cleaned up pretty well for a brahmin, with his manes styled nicely. The brothers each wore fancy ties beneath a single revolver that dangled from both of their necks. One head wore a fancy trader’s hat, and Steve also possessed not one, but two pairs of shades for each pair of eyes. I looked upon their coveted eyewear enviously before finally deciding to strike up a conversation. Anything to help pass the time.

“Steve, was it?” I asked.

“He’s Steve. My name’s Stephen,” the brahmin corrected.

“So, what’s it like being a Brahmin working a trade caravan?”

“We’re actually both partners, holding shares in the Junction City Traders.”

“I thought it was called Junction Town.” I raised a brow curiously.

“It is. The owner insisted that when it becomes a city we’ll have first rights to the name. If you talk to her, it’ll become obvious.”

“So how does that work?” I asked. The brothers exchanged confused glances. “Do you two split your shares between your two heads fifty-fifty, or do you pool together into one lump sum?” These were the sorts of things I thought about when I let my mind wander.

One of the two Steves motioned to the other, then looked back at me. “Steve handles the accounting.” I frowned, quickly losing interest. A two-headed brahmin wasn’t as good for conversation as I initially thought.

I watched the roads roll by beneath my hooves as we went, unable to keep unwanted thoughts from surfacing. Feeling that tingling sensation in them and along my spine that had been there since I left the outpost, I felt some desire to hoof it there faster. The distance to Junction Town felt agonizingly far away.

After a while of walking I noticed a dust colored earth pony keeping pace with me. A quick glance at the mare’s flank displayed the image of a jackrabbit, with her mane and tail resembling poofy white cotton. Apparently at least one of the traders caught wind of me walking back here, and came to check on me. “Well howdy there! Lagging a bit far behind aintcha?” she asked.

“Is that a problem, seeing as I’m not technically working your caravan?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, I suppose not. That was quite a scene you caused back at the 52, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, about that...” I let out a bit of an awkward laugh.

“I’m not going to have to worry about you controlling your temper or nothing am I?”

“I’ll be good,” I promised.

“Well that’s reassuring then. The name’s Cottontail, but all my friends call me Cotton. I’m the one running this lil’ caravan outfit.” The eponymously named mare extended her hoof with a tip of her leather hat and I shook hooves with her. Cotton was a chipper looking pony with a welcoming smile, and an impressive-looking weapon slung over her shoulder.

“Woah! That’s a nice coach gun! 10 gauge? I’ll bet she packs one hell of punch!” I said, admiring the handiwork of her weapon. It had polished wood furniture, covered by a stitched leather stock wrap with unfamiliar tribal markings. A bottlecap dangled from the end of the buttstock by a strip of leather. The kind of shotgun for seeing off raiders before firing a single shot, and then sending them to an early grave if they didn’t get the message the first time.

“Oh this old thing? Yessiree, kicks like a mule too. Sounds like you really know your firearms. This here gun’s been in my family for generations! My daddy gave it to me, his daddy gave it to my daddy, his daddy gave it to him, and his daddy found it on a dead scavenger in a hole in the ground! These here are buffalo markings, yessiree!” she declared with a hint of pride in her voice. Then, laying eyes over the weathered old pistol strapped to my leg, she offered, “That’s a nice pistol though, I’d say.”

“Thanks. It was my brother’s,” I replied, acknowledging my own.

“Looks like the kind that they issue in some Stables. You from one of those?”

“Not that I’m aware of. I grew up in the wasteland.”

“I see. So,” she began, though she struggled figuring out what to call me, seeing as I hadn’t given my name yet.

“Erm- Roulette! It’s Roulette.”

“So Miss Roulette, how is it you know Fair Trade, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“He’s an old acquaintance.”

“Interesting! From what I overheard back at the 52 I assumed you two knew each other pretty well, given all the shouting coming from inside his office. He sounded a whole lot angrier than I’ve ever heard him, yessiree! Plus that old stallion doesn’t just pony up for any old pony, nosirree! Assumed you two had some kind of a special relationship. From what you’re telling me, that isn’t the case then, is it?”

My ears folded back, embarrassed at thinking of how many ponies must’ve heard us. “Not in the slightest,” I replied. Despite us having a history, I wouldn’t have considered the two of us being exactly close. Fair was just the only other pony I could turn to right then. Not my first choice.

She let out a hearty chuckle “Never would’ve pictured ole’ Fair Trade for the child-rearing type anyways. Nosiree. Long as I’ve known him he’s been all business. No mares or nothing! I mean, no offense at you being young or nothing.”

“None taken,” I replied. Cotton’s natural speech tendencies were a little grating to me, but she seemed like a nice pony otherwise.

That sounded like him, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty at her mentioning it and over the fact that I was being suspicious of Fair after he was doing me a favor in giving me this job. While I wasn’t sure what exactly his relationship with Gawdyna Grimfeathers was, it wasn’t adding up. I turned to confront her about it. “Fair’s also never been a big fan of causes like this either, or Talons for that matter. You don’t think maybe it’s a bit strange that now he’s involving himself with New Canterlot, “Fighting the Good Fight” and all that?”

“For an acquaintance, sure sounds like you know him pretty well.”

“I guess. So all this is out of the goodness of his heart then?” I asked.

“Time changes all ponies, I suppose? There ain’t nopony I know of who enjoys living in a hell-blasted wasteland,” she offered. Fair Trade had told me something similar, so I didn’t put too much thought into it. I could only wonder what might’ve changed in him between then and now.

I grew frustrated as we watched the caravan from the rear. The back of each cart was secured by a tarp, so I wasn’t able to see any of the contents. Smart for discouraging raiders and thieves, and good for securing your load if you needed to make a speedy getaway. The conversation about Fair Trade only made me more curious to find out what they were transporting. “It may be none of my business here, but what are you transporting?” I asked, turning to Cotton.

“Guns and supplies for the effort!” she answered. “Just doing our part down here to help those who are busy fighting the Good Fight! Mostly IF-15 Service rifles. Semi-auto. Not the best weapon around, but they get the job done.”

I turned away, pouting at feeling that my chances of seeing any action in the next few days had been drastically lessened. Seemed this was destined to be a simple and boring supply run. Cotton chuckled to herself, appearing somewhat amused by my reaction.

“Heh, I’ll bet you think ole Fair Trade is up to one of his harebrained schemes again, don’t you? Well I can give you my personal assurance that we ain’t carrying anything dangerous or out of the ordinary! I mean, aside from the guns maybe? Couldn’t tell you why the raiders would want to be risking their hides hitting our caravans, seeing as there are plenty of other easier targets. Raiders ain’t never been the smartest bunch.”

She laughed at the idea, but I still found it hard to believe that was the case. I nickered disapprovingly.

“Yessiree! I might’ve told you something different back a few years ago, but ever since the Lightbringer?” Cotton continued, removing her hat temporarily and holding it to her breast, “I’ve felt like a changed mare. Like the idea of settling down somewhere with a family don’t bother me quite as much as it used to.”

I cocked my head sideways, “Could you tell me more about Gawdyna Grimfeathers?”

“Miss Grimfeathers? What about her?”

“Why does Gawd need all this?” I asked.

“You need a lot of raw material to help rebuild after the Enclave Wars. Junction Town’s just hit a boom recently and they finished establishing New Canterlot Castle, but mainly I’d say it’s cus Miss Grimfeathers needs guns and scrap metal to work the machines they restored down a ways at the town of Hope. That’s what we’re transportin’, yessiree, got loads of shipments coming in to supply weapons and munitions. Enough to outfit a whole army!

“So what does Gawd need with a standing army? I thought the Stable Dweller left the Enclave battered and beaten. Didn’t they fly off beyond Equestria to parts unknown? At least that’s what I keep hearing.”

She returned her hat to its proper place and let out a long sigh, “Some ponies just ain’t ready to stop living in the wasteland...”

“Like who?”

“Well, it’s true the Enclave may be gone, but aside from raiders? There are the Remnants of Red Eye’s Army, Fillydelphia’s still a hellhole, whatever in Celestia’s name is going on up at Hoofington. You could probably pick any spot on the map and it’s got some sort of problem that needs solving. We’d need an army at this point just to sort everything out, yessiree. Thankfully, Miss Grimfeathers is up to that task.”

“Do you really think the wasteland was that bad before the Enclave?” I asked.

“Are you serious Miss Roulette? You telling me you ain’t never seen some of the hellspawns lurking around this country?!”

“I’ve been all over. They never really bothered me, I guess.” I shrugged, keeping my eyes on the road.

“That oughta be the first time I ever heard that one! You’re a strange one Miss Roulette, I’ll say that much. But if you’re as good as you talk yourself up to be, then the New Canterlot Army will pick you up right quick, yessiree!” Cotton laughed.

“So is that why you joined? To help ponies?”

“Heck, I’m just after that juicy New Canterlot contract money! Hell if I know where Miss Grimfeathers gets all them bottlecaps, but I’ve known Fair all these years and he never struck me as the charitable type! Me? I hate charity on principle of being a trader, yessirree!” Then after thinking about her answer for a moment she laughed and added “But, y’know helping the effort is its own reward! How about you, what made you want to join up?”

“My family,” I admitted. The words came out but I could hardly feel anything.

“Sorry to hear that. You lose anyone close to you?” She had a sincere tone in her voice.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, keeping my eyes trained on the road ahead of me.

There was a short pause between us, as neither of us said anything. It was getting easier to admit what happened, having told Fair Trade, but it still wasn’t something I wanted to get into with a random stranger. My mood sunk a bit further.

“So where are you from? If you don’t mind me asking, that is?”

“Starlight Bay.” I answered.

“Starlight Bay? I think I’ve heard of that place, a long ways north of here, right? I see…” Cotton trailed off, finally taking the hint. “Well If it makes you feel better, there are a lot of ponies who joined up with the Coalition for that same reason.” She offered.

“Thanks.” I said,

A certain nasally voiced pegasus broke my train of thought. “Personally, I don’t understand how you dirt ponies can stomach being on the ground for so long. All the germs, and potential diseases! Ech! Disgusting!”

"Hold up a sec", Cotton said putting a hoof to my mouth, and she let out an ear splitting shout right next to me. “Hey! Settle down up there!” she barked to some of her traders at the head of the caravan.

“Why couldn’t they just fly to Junction Town on their own?” I grumbled.

“Well y’know they’d make some awful easy targets for any half cocked raiders taking pot shots at em. I know he’s annoying, but it’s all part of helping the cause. So you may as well learn to buck up and deal with it!” I growled as Cotton chuckled to herself. It took all the restraint I could muster in order to keep a cool head. The dust coated mare brought her voice down to a low whisper, and leaned in close to me. I turned one of my ears to listen “Just between you and me though? I wouldn’t trust those Pegasi with the weather again, something about em’ just don’t sit right.”

I raised my eyebrow at her.

“We made the right call entrusting the Lightbringer to that duty if you ask me. I'll admit, it's probably just an irrational fear o' mine having lived under the Enclave's cloud cover for so long, but old habits die hard you know." she tried to laugh weakly, but it came out sounding nervous and awkward. It didn’t sound anything like the chipper mare I was listening to just a moment ago. I supposed that everypony had their burdens to bear from those times.

“Yeah.” I replied turning away. I began to look over some of the pegasi the caravan was escorting and thought to myself. I took a hard look at the suspicious pegasus with the mohawk who had been watching me earlier. Suspecting he was up to ulterior motives, I squinted at him. Although he wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. Just walking along road ahead of me. One thing I noticed, was that he had a certain weariness about him, and a steely eyed gaze that I hadn’t caught when he was busy staring at me earlier. “Asshole.” I muttered to myself. Turning to the mare again, I asked. “So is that why we’re escorting them?”

Pushing up on her hat she whistled. “Yesirree. Helluva situation, ain’t it? Gawd tried to alleviate relations between us and them after the Enclave Wars, by appointing a pegasus to a high ranking position. She offered the Star Generalship to one that fought by the Lightbringer’s side. The ‘Deadshot’ Calamity, if you can believe that! Seemed like a good political move. Except he turned it down for whatever reason!”

“Turned it down?” I questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“That’s what I said!” she insisted in a shouty voice that caused a few of the other traders to look back towards us, “The reason was something about not wanting to get involved in big military org’ ni’ zations again.” That sounded like throwing away the job of a lifetime.

I frowned. Politics were confusing.

Cotton blushed, twirling bits of mane in circles with one of her hooves, “Mr. Calamity could hit a bullseye on a raider from over a mile away! I don’t mean to brag but there was one time where I had him personally escorting my very own caravan!” And with a lustful look in her eyes she added, “He’s real easy on the eyes too, I’ll tell ya what. Damn shame, I hear he’s off the market now.” She sounded like a filly with a crush. I couldn’t help but feel like this was just an excuse to bring up her favorite topic.

“Lightbringer bless, I’d sure feel a helluva lot safer though if he was watching our backs right now.” she lamented. I still found all the reverence for the Stable Dweller as sounding a bit off to me. Especially now that it was becoming popular to treat her in a manner not unlike the Celestial Sisters. It was getting to the point where I was beginning to question if she was ever even a pony anymore.

Eventually something came up and Cotton had to go check on the rest of caravan. She turned to me briefly before leaving. “Sorry to leave you like this, but Steve needs me to go handle this personally. If I wasn’t around I dunno how that old Brahmin would even make it through the day!”

“Wait, Cotton? I have one more question” I said and she turned to face me curiously. “Why are you helping the Pegasi if you hate charity so much?”

The chipper jackrabbit of a mare smiled at me before turning away and said, “There’s a difference between charity and doing the right thing.” I stopped to think about it for a moment. She wished me well and then trotted off to check on the rest of the caravan, leaving me to stew in my own thoughts. I figured I’d speak with her again later.

We dipped into the wash and travelled down a ways without incident. If Raiders were going to ambush us, they would’ve done it here. It came as a relief to some of the caravan ponies on edge. The pavement had been very poorly maintained after two hundred years, with ditches carved out on either side and rocky hills surrounding us. Wagons had to take extra care not to get stuck in a pothole, because if just one cart got stuck the whole caravan would be easy sitting targets for any raider who wanted to pick us off. I imagined where the wagons might flip over sideways. One wrong step could spell disaster for a less experienced caravan. We soon found ourselves back on the road, and were able to take it more easily.

The wagons slowed their pace, and the caravaners let out a sigh of relief. I looked around to see mostly hills and roads, and it seemed wasn’t much to be had in this part of the wasteland. It would’ve been lonely out here without the caravan’s company. I wondered to myself if there was anypony else out here.

I thought I was growing delirious when I saw something flying over the horizon. It was too hard to see anything from where I was. When I blinked there was nothing there, and I found myself wishing I had a pair of shades right then. “I must be seeing things.” I huffed. With a hoof, I brushed the white stripe of my mane out of my eye.

We climbed up onto higher elevation, nearing the opposite edge of the valley. From this height I could still almost barely make out the haze of the Smoky Mountains. As soon as we left the valley I’d be unable to see them again. Something about those clouds were bothering me. White SPP control towers stretched out as far as the eye could see. It was clear everywhere else. I considered asking Cotton if it was just a natural hazard of that area, but she was busy overseeing the caravan. That would make sense, given their name, I thought. At this time of day sun shined directly into my eyes, as it was drawing later into the afternoon.

“Take it easy on the sunshine, will ya?” I growled.

I looked back at the towers again, grunting. They still had that awful glare. For just the briefest of moments I thought I saw something again. A little dot on the horizon, just over those mountains. Then I blinked and it was gone again. I thought maybe I had gotten something in my eye, but this was the second time I’d thought I saw something. “Maybe I need to get my eyes checked.” I said, rubbing them with my hoof.

The caravan wagons were travelling single file along the highway, and surrounded by grassy uneven terrain on all sides. Radbits and other wasteland critters scurried out of the way of our caravan as we pressed on.

I noticed it first, then one of the traders immediately alerted the rest of the caravan. A wrecked trade wagon had been pushed off into the ditch bottom on the side of the road. It looked as though it had been placed there intentionally. The disturbing sight spooked some of the traders, and ruffled the feathers of many of the pegasi travelling with us. Cotton was the only one who looked cool under pressure.

We slowed our approach. The caravan was going to pass it on our right. It seemed like the perfect place for an ambush. I had a negative gut feeling about this place, looking up at the highground overlooking us from the opposite side of the road. “Things just got a little more interesting.” I thought to myself, looking around the area for trouble. My spine tingled, and my hooves felt itchy.

“What’s the holdup?!” The irritating pegasus whined impatiently. “It’s just a wrecked wagon!”

“Would you shut up for a minute?” Cotton snapped. We took careful steps, all of us were expecting an ambush. I had a gut feeling that something was about to go wrong. I couldn’t explain it. As we came up to the caravan, there didn’t appear to be anypony. There were a few bodies stacked on top of each other, next to a wagon with “Balefire Bill’s” written on the side. It was hard to tell how recently the attack had occurred.

Cottontail slowed the wagons to a halt right next to “Balefire Bill’s” to get a better look at the name, appearing as though she might’ve known this pony. Everypony relaxed a little when Raiders didn’t immediately jump out from behind the old wagon.

She gave a great sigh of relief, followed by a frustrated grunt.

Off in the distance I spied a lone spritebot bobbing towards us, playing the same annoying polka track on repeat. The sun was lowering in the sky, and it was becoming a distinct possibility that we might have to call it a night out here. In that case we’d reach Junction Town in the morning. We could set up camp, but the longer we stayed exposed here on the road the greater chance of a night raid. From the look on her face, I was getting the feeling that Cotton wanted to push through.

I’d considered that maybe the raiders were moving around at night. That would explain how they’ve been evading capture by New Canterlot patrols and moving about the territory undetected. The theory didn’t explain how they’d managed to be so elusive however, and none of the reports on the dispatch had said anything about night raids.

Cotton already had us on a tight schedule, but this was just one more reason to hoof it to Junction Town faster. “Finally, something interesting. Looks like you got your wish after all.” i congratulated myself, with a hint of sarcasm.

Daily Day’s voice was coming in over the radio dispatch with updates on the raiders whereabouts.

Hello, this is Daily Day in Junction Town. I have a new report here on my desk with updates on the current raider situation! It says: “Any trade caravans heading southeast along the roads should be aware of raider attacks. Steer clear of any bombed out buildings, irregular topographical features or just any place that looks like an easy ambush.” -Wait, this can’t be right…

Okay, well we’ve been told here at the station that they haven’t been able to pin down the source of the attacks and, uh… We haven’t been able to get any further information from Gawdyna on the matter either. She’s assured us however, that top griffons are working on it! And, uh… and if you happen to see any New Canterlot Patrols in the area, be sure to flag them down for an escort! Also, stay hydrated, keep your provisions well rationed, and don’t talk to strangers. Be careful out there! This is Daily Day, signing out!

The broadcast transitioned to show tunes from before the war. Cotton let out a frustrated sigh, “Thanks for nothing, Daily Day....”

Steve turned to Cotton and mooed anxiously, “I don’t like us sitting here, Cotton. Let’s move it.”

After thinking it over for a brief moment, she turned to the rest of the caravan and shouted in that eardrum shattering voice of hers, “Alright, what’re y’all waiting for?! Get a move on!”

I was almost daring them to try anything so they could see what would happened. My trusty ten millimeter Pistol was holstered on my front leg for easy access. Meanwhile, my patience for Snowflake was about entirely used up. Cotton had threatened him earlier for causing problems. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded hobbling his kneecaps with a rifle so that he’d have a real reason to hover just slightly off the ground. My head began to ache.

Something was throwing me off my game that day.

It felt like I was beginning to get a migraine. That pegasus had this air of superiority about him as if he was too good for the rest of us, surface dwellers. It made me want to put my hoof in his mouth every time he opened it. Bringing him along was a mistake. “There’s no way that I’m going to be able to handle three more days of this dumbass.” I thought. What the Enclave had taken from me was something I could never get back, and that feeling still fueled the anger burning inside me. Even so, holding it against these ponies who did nothing wrong was pointless. I let out a deep sigh. These were just civilian pegasi, I reminded myself. They’re not Enclave.

I looked around, feeling something was off. Doing a quick headcount of the ponies, I couldn’t find that pegasus from earlier anywhere. “Wait, where’s Mohawk?” I asked, scanning the area. He was nowhere to be found. But I had been watching him this entirely time! I cursed myself. Sensing trouble in the pit of my stomach, I was interrupted by that grating voice again.

That damned annoying Snowflake. It was almost as if somepony had specifically placed him here just to annoy me. “And so, like I was saying I always much preferred clouds to dirt anyways. If you dirt ponies had just let us stay up in the clouds to begin with instead of forcing us down here to deal with your mess, you wouldn’t be stuck in this predicament. So I’ll bet you all feel pretty silly right now. I’m still waiting on an apology.” I would personally give myself a pass to kick his butt if he kept talking. For now I just had to stay sharp and keep a cool head. I began grinding my teeth together. “Now do you prefer ‘dirt ponies’? Or is there a more politically correct term I can use?”

Something about that irritating tone of voice struck the wrong chord with me. I had intervened to keep that Friendship City survivor from gutting him back at the 52, and I was beginning to regret having done so.

“Snowflake?” I said in as soft a voice as I could muster. He didn’t hear me. As the spritebot approached, the looping music track grew louder and louder. I could feel my head throbbing along with it.

“Snowflake?” I repeated, this time at a slightly louder volume. He didn’t hear me that time either, his attention continued to be drawn elsewhere.

I turned and squinted at the nearby tower as I caught its glare again, what looked to be something hovering over the Smoky Mountains on the horizon. Just a little speck. For a moment I thought it was just my eyes playing tricks on me. The music grew louder, but all I could hear was his annoying voice. Even over the blaring trumpets drowning out everything as that damned bot bobbed closer. It caused me to put a hoof to my forehead. I stumbled over to Snowflake and gave him a hard shove to the ground. He looked flabbergasted “E-excuse me?!”

I lost my temper and shouted in his face, “Would you just shut the hell up for one minute, Snowflake?! I’m about to kick your flying, feathered ass!! ” He tried to say something back to me. Whatever it was I couldn’t hear it over that damned polka track stuck on repeat. The rest of the caravan stopped and turned to me with looks of concern. I knew I was causing a scene.

Cotton was shouting at the two of us. It felt like my head was going to explode! Ignoring everything else, I slowly spun around, remembering that not everypony was present. There was somepony missing. I looked left, and then right across the caravan but there was no sign of him. Then I noticed something as I turned to look back to that same spot over the mountains in the distance. I saw several black specks on the horizon, and squinted.

That’s when I saw them!

Against the glare of the sun flying through the haze of the Smoky Mountains, those striking black cloudships that I’d never forget. That nopony had seen nor heard word of since the Enclave Wars!! I was the only one who seemed to notice anything! Dammit, If they would just turn their heads they’d see it! “I have to warn someone!” only one thought racing through my head. I raised my hoof and opened my mouth to say something.

BOOM!!!

The spritebot exploded, showering me in sparks and bits of white hot shrapnel as the thing’s mechanical guts sprayed across the broken concrete. A painful ringing sensation flooded all of my auditory senses.

I wheeled around frantically trying to locate the source of the attack, only to find complete bedlam. The distinctive sound of Enclave laser rifles striking at the head of the caravan. Sudden successions of rapid laserfire ripped into the rear of the caravan from somewhere behind us. I’d recognize those blasts anywhere! “What is the Enclave doing here?!” My eyes darted around looking for them.

There was a high pitched ringing in my ears, as my vision became clouded to unfolding events. My eyes couldn’t tell where the attacks were coming from. I was left completely disoriented in the middle of a crossfire. Returning to a distinctive familiar atmosphere to what happened on that stormy night, some months ago.

“Dammit, no!” I cursed repeatedly, as every worst case scenario flashed before me. I had been itching for something interesting to happen, but now I was acting like a terrified filly. The crackling energy beam heated the air around it, and I was able to feel as a very visible laser shot barely missed my head. That was way too close for comfort.

The shots seemed to be originating from somewhere within the drainage ditch dug off to the side of the road, but the attackers’ positions were completely obscured by the tall dead grass. More blasts hailed on the caravan from atop the ridge opposite Balefire Bill’s, causing one of the wagons to catch flame. We were caught in a crossfire.

“Raiders! Let em have it!” Cotton shouted at the top of her lungs, a thundering noise erupted from her coach gun, and blasted a pony hiding in the brush. I hadn’t noticed him there. “Not Enclave?” I cursed myself under my breath, “Damn, Maybe if I wasn’t so caught up in my own head I’d have heard them sneaking up on us.”

Briefly glancing back at the Enclave Vertibucks hovering on the horizon before they disappeared into the haze. The Enclave would’ve never pulled off an attack like this. Managing to force my hooves to move themselves, I found the cover of a nearby wagon that had overturned itself during the first strike and fumbled for my pistol.

With all the chaos and pegasi flying about in a blind panic, what remained of the caravan ponies attempted to encircle the wagons as they pushed back against the onslaught. Pegasi scrambled to take to the air but some were gunned downed by laserfire in the process. One of them ignited and evaporated into a cloud of red embers, that fell back to earth in a pile of smouldering dust. They were no match for the superior firepower of Enclave weaponry. I trembled as I tried to get my head back in the game, firing off a few shots.

As I spun around in a hectic frenzy, I looked for any indication of where the raiders were hiding. They were like ghosts.

The surrounding energy blasts were screwing with my already messed up head. The burning reminded me of our little seaside village. I got the feeling that it felt strikingly similar to something I’d experienced before. As if my world had been engulfed in flames, the vision playing out in my head began overlapping with the real world. For a moment I could see our little village by the sea. Our tiny beach house constructed from scrap metal and planks of driftwood. I briefly forgot about what was going on around me as I was forcibly dragged back to the events of Starlight Bay where the Enclave rained hellfire down on us and took my family from me. It was like I was reliving that day again in the present.

It felt like the world was playing itself out in stereo. Then, as the specters manifested, I saw them standing there before me.

I froze, looking upon a group of four pony skeletons. They were watching me silently through their empty eye sockets, with bones that were cracked and glowing with embers right down to the bone marrow. Yet despite their skeletal appearance, they looked strangely soft. They also didn’t seem to acknowledge the look of utter horror on my face. I turned my head back shaking, trying to return myself to my senses. “There’s nothing there.” I repeated to myself over and over.

One of them looked at me, and cocked his boney head to the side. It spoke with a very comforting familiar voice “Hey, Rou?” he asked, “Are you okay?”

When I opened my mouth to try and speak, no words came out. It was no use.

“You look a bit tense…”

A ways north of Manehattan sat a tiny village on the coast. The lack of surrounding SPP Towers let the starry night skies break through the cloud cover above the ocean, and it seemed like those moments were almost peaceful. Protected by a natural harbor, the fact that it hadn’t been touched by raiders yet was nothing short of miraculous. If a pony were to follow the shoreline on a starry night, they’d barely be able to make out a glimmer of light that was once a shining metropolis before the war. That place was Friendship City. I had never been to Manehattan before, but I always told my family how I wanted to go. Being able to see it, even from that far away, made it feel so close yet just out of reach.

Atop the nearby cliffs to the north there was a small beach house where the former occupant had passed on. Thus we were allowed to move in there so long as we kept to ourselves and didn’t bother the locals. It overlooked the village, Starlight Bay, named that long before the war. The only way to know this was by the old decaying billboard advertising a local beach resort, although what remained of that had been partially reclaimed by the sea. It was a fitting name, one that subtly reminded me of how we used to come up with silly names for all places in Equestria despite not having a map.

The inside of the shack was small and cozy. There was a bed and a couch that we shared, and took turns sleeping on the floor. Zap had managed to rig up lighting, electricity, and a small terminal to a relay of spark batteries: everything you could want in the post-apocalypse. We traded whatever scrap washed up on the beach to passing merchants in exchange for bottlecaps. It was hardly the best of circumstances, but we made the most with what we had.

“Say, Zap?” I asked.

“Yeah?” The self-proclaimed tech geek looked over to me curiously.

“Have you managed to find the next issue of Sword Mare yet?”

“Sorry Rou. I asked a few traders but nothing on issue sixty-three,” he sighed, and looked back to the old scrapped technology he had in front of him. He had already answered that exact same question earlier that day.

“This is the finale to the arc where she fights the abominable Star Beast from another dimension! I need to see what happens!” I exclaimed.

“Don’t worry, we’ll keep looking,” he reassured.

I moaned.

“We’ve got Daring Do,” he offered.

“Reading Daring Do out of order sucks. Besides, there are too many words...” I grumbled.

Years of travelling around with my family and still no word of Radar. Although we all had our own reasons for leaving home, being stuck inside a compound for the rest of our lives wasn’t something that any of us wanted. I finally got up the nerve to ask something that had been on my mind. “Hey, True?” I asked.

The youthful blue-coated unicorn stallion turned to me with an inquisitive look. “Yeah? What do you want?” Even though he spoke in a kindly voice, he was a real hell to be reckoned with. His short white mohawk had a few tones of light blue in it that complimented his coat nicely, and a quick glance at his flank would reveal his Silver Shield cutie mark paired with a lightning emblem. He often had his old ten millimeter pistol strapped to his leg, even when he didn’t need it. He had always been the leader of the group, mainly due to the fact that he was the oldest when we left and was elected leader by default. All of us looked to him for guidance, so he would always be thinking about what was best for his family.

I kicked back onto the dusty two hundred year old couch, bored out of my mind and proudly displaying my red 36 roulette marker cutie mark. “You said that we’d go to Manehattan and visit Pony Island Beach. What happened to that?”

“We will. I promised you that we would, didn’t I? But y’know...”

“But what?” I cut him off, taking a long chug from the bottle of Sunrise Sarsaparilla he had been saving. “Seems like you only keep promises when you want to, molerat breath.”

He groaned at the childish insult, “That’s not fair, you know it’s complicated!”

“I know, I know,” I droned. Looking closer, I noticed that the underside of the bottlecap was marked with a blue star. “Hey, a lucky star cap!” I exclaimed, “I get to make a wish now!” The rumor was that if you collected enough of these things, any wish could come true.

“Look, Rou,” my sister Cherish began. She was slightly taller and far more elegant than I, the tomboy of the group. She had an amber coat and tri-colored mane sporting magenta, orange, and yellow. Cherish always carried a sort of graceful air about her, often trying and failing to act as mediator for the group. “You know you’re my little sister, and I love you. Listen, we’ve all been talking…”

“This place is nice and all, but it’s so boring. How long are we planning on staying here?”

True Blue cut right to the chase, “Rou, we’re staying here in Starlight Bay. We don’t want to fight anymore.”

“Why? Are you worried I’ll kick your butt again?” I smirked, cracking my hoof joints.

“That’s not what I meant,” he replied flatly.

I ignored the uneasy air in the room, while trying to balance the bottlecap on my forehead. “So what should I wish for?” I asked excitedly.

After an awkward silence, I threw out a few options of my own. “Maybe I’ll wish for Wheelie to finally get laid? Better than a lewd pinup of Scootaloo!” I laughed to myself, seeming to be the only pony in the room to be relaxed and carefree. Wheelie was in another corner of the room fixing up his precious Red Rocket. The scooter enthusiast’s brow furrowed in response, although he pretended not to hear.

True began again, “We’ve been at this for a while, and all I want is to keep you guys safe. But I’m worried-”

“Star light, star bright, first bottlecap I’ve found tonight… I wish True Blue would stop worrying all the time and enjoy himself.” I grinned. It was also daytime, but the rhyme carried the same effect either way.

He rolled his eyes at me. “Rou, you’re not making this easy for us.”

“You know that biting, nagging itch in your hooves that makes us antsy if you stay in one place for too long? I know you all feel it too! We’re born wastelanders. I feel it now more than ever! How I just want to get back out there and kick some more raider butt!”

“Come on, be real here, Rou! Do you think we're ever really going to find out about what happened to Radar? It’s been years! We’re all tired of putting up with this charade, and none of us want to fight anymore. You’re the only one dragging this out! It was fun while it lasted, but maybe it’s time we settled down in a real home?”

“The wasteland is our real home,” I asserted.

“Radar gave all of us a second chance at a peaceful life. So I think it’s time that you gave some serious thought to settling down here with us, like he would’ve wanted for you-”

I shot up on the couch and the bottlecap fell to the floor with a ping. “Don’t you fucking dare bring Radar into this, True! If you loved it so much, then why didn’t you just stay back at the compound? You were the one who wanted to leave in the first place!”

“Can we not fight over this?” came an exasperated voice. Zap was over in the nearby corner fiddling with a war-time model spark-battery transistor radio. “This circuit board is corroded to hell and back. Gonna need to replace the capacitors and see if I can’t clean this sucker off.”

“No, I’m pretty sure we’re fighting over this,” I reaffirmed.

“Oh, good,” he scoffed, examining the components laid out in front of him. “I was just checking to make sure.”

My sister turned to Wheelie with a persistent look urging him to get involved. The orange stallion shrugged, preferring to stay out of it. “Hey, don’t look at me.” he said before turning back to his current task of fixing his scooter.

“Oh, so you’re gonna side with them Wheelie? Gee, thanks! I liked you better before you got all quiet!”

He grunted.

“Rou, don’t be mean to Wheelie!” my sister shouted.

I clenched my teeth and shouted back with righteous indignation, “I always do what you want, True! Don’t you forget that I walked out on Fair Trade for you! Even though I told you I wanted to stay!”

“We’ve been over this before. He was a bad pony! We couldn’t trust him! Jeez, why do you always have to be like this?!”

“Be like what?” I asked. True seemed to regret his words, but it was too late. It was already out in the open, and none of the others had the guts to say anything.

“Aha!” Zap exclaimed, as the radio came to life. An Enclave broadcast repeated across all stations, overriding most shorter frequency signals. “Damn. I think I’ve heard this one before” he joked. It did little to lighten the mood. The pony they called “The Stable Dweller” had raised the Enclave’s ire by killing off their High General, and one of the members of the High Council. Her exploits were already becoming well known across the wasteland. and the Enclave had decided to respond in force. Constant storm cycles and broadcasts interrupted the usual radio shows.

“Be like what?” I asked again, my voice wavering slightly, “A nuisance? You always do whatever you want, and I don’t get a say in anything! You always think you know best. Maybe I need this! Did you ever think of that? At least Fair Trade got me for who I was! If Radar was here, he’d be able to see that too!”

“We only want what’s best for you, Rou.” My sister tried.

“Well, I don’t want what’s best!”

“Maybe you should think about it sometime instead of only thinking about yourself!” True barked, “If you don’t want to be a part of this family, then fine. The door is right there!”

“It’s not like that… I like exploring the wasteland with all of you. You’re the only family I have…” None of the others had words to offer me. They just turned their heads away, ashamed to look me in eyes. I bit my lower lip.

True Blue was the only one who could strike up the courage to say anything. “We’re tired of playing around in the wasteland. You’re not a filly anymore. Once all this blows over if you want to go and find Radar, or go back to those Mercenaries then you’ll have to do it without us. It’s time for you to grow up Rou!”

The room was silent for a good while. My voice carried a tone of hurt in it, as I repeated, “But you promised me…”

He didn’t say anything, and I felt my eyes begin to tear up.

“C’mon Rou… don’t take it like that.” He groaned, trying to reason with me. It was no use, the damage was already done.

Grabbing the star bottlecap off the floor, I held it close to my chest. “Well, I wish Radar was here right now!” I shouted. Fighting back tears, I burst out of the front door and into a full gallop. Rocks raced past me as I ran along the jagged cliffside. I ran until I could just barely make out the little house in the distance, stopping just at the edge. I looked out across the water, and froze as gigantic waves crashed against the rocks below. For a while I just stared out over the ocean, observing the scene that was beginning to play out in front of me.

True Blue’s voice called out to me, being picked up by the winds. It wasn’t long before he came galloping after me and skid to a halt near where I was standing. “Don’t go running off like that!” He began, but then froze as he could see now what I was looking at. We both stood there in silence, with nothing but the waves crashing against the shores of the scrap riddled beach to fill the void.

I could just make out what looked to be monstrous black forms hovering over the tiny speck of a city that was Manehattan. They were too far off in the distance to give a detailed description, but I didn’t need much to be able to tell that they were Grand Pegasus Enclave battleships. An entire fleet of them.

“What do you think those ships are doing over Manehattan?” I asked in a low trembling voice, feeling genuine concern for all of us. Perhaps for the first time in my life.

“Nothing good,” he answered.

A voice far off in the distance called out our names, muffled by the winds. We both turned to see Zap running towards us, wearing a grim look on his face. He stopped just short, wheezing and gasping for breath. “H-hey guys!” It took a moment before his lungs finally caught up with him. The tech geek wasn’t in nearly as good shape as the two of us. “Come back inside! You’re gonna want to listen to this!”

We sensed a storm brewing in the distance.

I snapped back to reality, realizing what had just happened. The ships were nowhere to be seen.

More shots from Enclave weapons emanated from the tall, dead grass from the side of the road and from over a nearby ridge. Yet, even with that knowledge I still couldn’t get a clear read on their position. That’s right the Enclave was gone. My mind finally caught up to the catastrophe at hoof, as I recalled that I was still pinned behind a wagon in the midst of a burning caravan wreck. “Dammit… I’m seeing ghosts now.”

Chaos had overtaken the caravan. When things began to turn south and one of the wagons had attempted to book it towards Junction Town, they were gunned down like the others. The scene of a wagon flipped over in a ditch just a short distance from me down the highway painted its own picture of what happened. It didn’t manage to make it very far before being unsympathetically down like the others.

The remaining caravaners had tried desperately trying to fend off the raiders, but they didn’t fare much better. I turned my head to see the last one gunned down as he was hit by a malignant energy beam. He turned to look at me as he glowed for a few moments before bursting into a pile of ashes just a few seconds later. I winced a little.

It was fortunate that my brain had allowed me to place myself behind some decent cover before gracing me with those extremely vivid flashbacks. It was a miracle that I didn’t get shot during all of that. I noticed my pistol was missing. Likely I had dropped it while I was busy spacing out. “Fuck it all.” I hoofed through my saddlebags frantically, most everything was accounted for. Cotton and Steve were nowhere in sight, and I was a sitting duck here.

As far as I could tell, I was the only one left. There were nothing but ash piles and half-charred bodies scattered everywhere. Then my eyes fell upon Cotton’s hat lying on the road next to some burnt remains near one of the wagons. I felt a sickeningly bad feeling in my gut like I was going to lose my lunch. I breathed deeply trying to calm my shaking nerves, reminding myself that “I’m not afraid.”

I tried not to look at the horrible sight.

Searching everywhere I could think of for another weapon on immediate notice, I prayed to the Lightbringer that I’d be able to find Cotton’s coach gun somewhere closeby. Though I had no such luck. I ended up grabbing one of the IF-15 Service rifles off the cart and loaded it with an already prepared magazine. Firing the thing would be a damn chore without a battle saddle, but I could manage if I needed to. As I attempted to feed the strap through with my teeth, I found that my body was shaking on its own. I reminded it that “I’m not scared.”, but it didn’t hear me.

After a minute or two, the firing stopped.

“I’m not afraid. They’re only raiders!” I repeated, but for some reason I was unable to stop myself. The vivid memories from that day were flashing in my eyes and I almost felt like I was going to break down.

I sat cowering behind the wagon, trying to remind myself that I wasn’t afraid. The number of raiders I had killed personally in the wasteland was a long lost secret, because I’d lost count. Getting caught in the middle of a firefight wasn’t something new for me. In my mind I knew that I wasn’t scared of raiders, but my body seemed to think otherwise. “Get a grip already, they’re just raiders!” I cursed myself for being so weak.

There were no silhouettes in the tall grass. It was too difficult for me to tell at first how many of them were hiding. No way to pinpoint where all the shots were coming from either. These must have been the raiders hitting Gawd’s caravans. I could tell easily that they weren’t your average raiders from the wasteland. They were organized and playing it smart, firing from behind the ridge like that. This wasn’t some half assed attack, but none of that scared me. The truth was, it wasn’t the raiders that scared me most.

My ears perked up. From the side of the road I could hear several voices with accompanying hoofsteps approaching the burning caravan wreckage from behind the ridge, but they were muffled and difficult to make out. A quick peek behind the wagon revealed nothing. I could only guess based on the general direction of where the voices were coming from. They hadn’t noticed me yet hiding behind the overturned wagon.

I had come out mostly unscathed, at least physically. This wasn’t my first time seeing dead ponies, nor this manner of corpses. Something about the fact they were using Enclave weapons had shaken me to the core. The shaking stopped. Breathing to steady myself, I listened as the hoofsteps came closer and stopped about ten yards from where I was hiding. I exhaled again slowly.

Soon my any indication of fear was replaced by something else. Something red hot and fiery was burning inside of me, and it felt like my blood was starting to boil. Anger took hold of me. Fair Trade’s warning not to get too emotional echoed in my head, but i brushed it aside. Fuck that! The entire reason for the New Canterlot army existing was for moments like this! I gripped rifle, ready to burst out from hiding, but I quickly caught hold of myself remembering that these were Enclave weapon and exhaled. My temper had already gotten me into enough trouble for one day without me dying over it. Those weapons still terrified me.

Counting the number of voices in my head, I guessed there were about five of them. Except it was difficult to tell from where I was sitting. I could pick out a higher pitched raspy voice among them, “It was this caravan, right? We’re taking a fucking huge risk out here so this better be worth it!”

“Yeah that’s what he said... “ Another of them replied in a disgruntled tone of voice. “I don’t see anything here, that tipoff must’ve been bogus.”

The first voice became aggravated, and the of sound multiple spells deactivating at once echoed closeby. “Fuck, that bastard must’ve double crossed us! I knew we couldn’t trust him! When we get back let’s tell Jagged, that sonovabitch gave us the wrong info!”

The name Jagged didn’t ring any bells.

“Settle down, Sting.” One of them chided. “Fuck you!” The raider they called Sting hissed back angrily.

I slowly peeked out from behind the wagon to get a better look, and they were all standing there. They looked like raiders, for the most part. Except that they'd somehow managed to get their grimy hooves on Enclave weaponry. All of them possessed a scar or some sort of cut on their face. A mark above the lip. A sideways cut stitched up to look like a smile, on one side of the mouth. One of them wearing an eyepatch. Together they bore the same insignia of a pony skull matched with a knife somewhere on their person. Their armor was also not too far off from normal merc’s gear, so they could pass off as normal wastelanders if they needed to.

A sequence of events began to play out in my head, as I formulated the best way to take them on. I began to listen in on their conversation.

“Damn, there’s nothing here but these shitty Service guns! Are you telling me we just hit one of Gawd’s caravans for nothing?! I bet you that trash is laughing at me right now!”

“Don’t fret over it. Once the Boss catches up with him, he’s gonna be lying in a ditch somewhere. Jagged’s not a pony you cross and live to tell about.” his larger associate with the eyepatch stated in a more measured tone.

‘Sting’, appeared to be a scrawny male unicorn with a droopy teal green mohawk. He carried naturally sly looking features, and bore the cutie mark of a poison tipped dagger on his flank. The pony must have liked barking out orders to try and give off the impression that he was in charge.

“Search the bodies and the wagons for anything useful.” The eyepatched pony spoke in a low rumbly voice, “It’ll be easier on account of most of these folks being nothing but ashes now. “

“Hey I’m the one giving the orders here!” Sting barked, then he motioned up to one of the SPP Towers and added, “But yeah, hurry it up! Also, Jagged’s paranoid of those damned towers all of a sudden. Said we shouldn’t stick around for too long.”

“That’s our Jagged Knife for ya.” One of them laughed and the rest joined in. Sick freaks. While they were busy talking amongst themselves, I brought my rifle’s wooden buttstock to rest against my body. I had the perfect opportunity while they were distracted.

All of them were clustered together in a group, so it would be a cinch. I edged out from behind cover using the wagon to help support the rifle pressing up against me. Right here. I’d take them all out in one fell swoop. “I’ve got you right where I want you, molerat breath” I thought.

All of a sudden something shifted in the wagon, causing me to jump and one of the raiders to look back in my direction. I darted behind my makeshift cover, hoping they hadn’t seen me. A few moments passed and I thought maybe I was in the clear, but then one of them called out to me in a cheeky flirtatious tone, “Y’know we can see you back there, girly! Come out, and maybe we’ll play nice!”

“Fuck.” I silently cursed to myself. The moment I stepped out from behind cover with a rifle they’d just zap me. There was no way I could take them all on by myself. The wagon I was using for cover was thick enough to buy me a little bit of time, but sooner or later their concentrated shots would burn through and roast me. Taking them head on was no good. Enclave weapons’ one weakness was that they were prone to overheating, but if you’re waiting for your opponent’s weapon to overheat mid battle you may as well get down and pray to the Lightbringer to save you.

“Maybe if I can buy myself some time, a New Canterlot patrol will fly close enough to spot me, or they’d get caught by other ponies in the area?” I thought. “Somepony? The Lightbringer?!” Fuck me, who was I kidding? I huffed, “It looks like I’ll just have to wing it.”

A moment or two passed by. Sting called to me again, becoming impatient. “We’re waiting…”

Without further hesitation I threw my Rifle out from behind my cover and heard it clatter on the pavement in front of them. I stuck my hooves up where they could see them and shouted “Don’t shoot! I’m just a courier from the 52 carrying important information for New Canterlot!”

They paused for a moment, and I heard Sting’s voice call out to me. “How do we know that you ain’t just hiding a pistol back there?”

“What am I supposed to do with a pistol?” I called back.

“I dunno, I can’t still see you! How about you step out from behind that wagon and we’ll chat, nice and civilized-like?”

I complied with his demands, not making any sudden movements. Stepping out into the open, I saw there were two on the left, and two on the right, with Sting in the middle. The raiders seemed relaxed, like they didn’t consider a young mare like me to be a threat and were liking their odds. “How gracious of them,” I thought.

Sting appeared to loosen up a bit. “I like a mare with a bit of fire. You’re a bit cute, y’know?” he laughed, making poor attempts to flirt as he eyed my goods, “Why don’t you come back with us later?”

“You’re going to be disappointed when you find out that I don’t take kindly to being shot at.” I replied, swiftly rejecting his proposal. “What are raider shitbags doing this deep in Gawd’s Territory?” I asked, slowly continuing to approach them.

He seemed to be mildly amused, “Aw gee, we ain’t raiders! We’re just wandering gentlecolts out for an afternoon stroll!”

"This is just some misunderstood circumstances” he pointed his pistol back at me again and reiterated,“Why don’t you tell us what you got that’s so important to that old bird Gawdyna, sweet cheeks?”

“All I’ve got here is boring old trade reports. So unless you’re interested in Fair Trade’s bookings and ledgers, you’re shit out of luck.” I stated matter-of-factly.

“Alright, the attitude was cute at first but I’m starting to lose my patience,” he snarled.“We’ve got you outnumbered and you being compliant at the moment is the only reason we don’t proliferate you with these here Enclave guns right now! I might just do it for funsies now.”

Ignoring his orders, I kept walking towards him.

“Hold it right there!” Sting barked, waving his energy pistol about. “You deaf or something? Don’t come any closer!” He lost his temper when I didn’t respond initially, aiming his weapon in my face.

I stopped just in front of him, holding as deadpan a poker-face as I could, and looked him straight in the eye. “Y’know, that laser pistol won’t do you any good with the safety turned on. Idiot.”

The raider paused for a moment, dumbfounded at my suggestion. They all exchanged weird looks amongst themselves as he began aggressively inspecting his energy pistol, trying to locate the safety switch. After about ten seconds he finally came to the realization, “Wait a minute!!! Enclave weapons don’t have safety’s-”

WHAMM!!!! A right cross flew straight across his muzzle sending the unicorn toppling to the ground with his nose sufficiently bloodied. His weapon clattered to the ground with him.

Fun fact, Enclave weapons only have two settings: Powered-up and Powered-down. If they were smarter they might’ve picked up on that.

They all scrambled to pull up their weapons, but they looked like bumbling idiots who had just been caught with their pants down. The big burly raider with the eyepatch directly on Sting’s right was the first one who managed to bring up his weapon and fire at me. I firmly planted myself on the ground and pivoted towards him, as I ducked underneath his line of sight.

The crackling energy beam erupted from the weapons emitter gem, and missed me at point blank. Smacking the weapon from his grip with one hoof, I delivered a swift uppercut to his face with the other. I grabbed him by the shirt with my teeth, and him backwards into the smiley faced raider behind him. They both tasted pavement, as they fell on top of each other.

That was three of them out of the fight, floored by my martial prowess.

The one with tough looking armor and a scar on his lip was directly to Sting’s left. He finally managed to bring up his weapon, firing off a few shots in rapid succession. All of them missed as I crouched to one side underneath him. He reared up to defend himself. I wish I could’ve seen the last look on his face as my hoof kicked up into his neck, and I heard the sickeningly loud CRACK!

He landed dead on the ground, with several broken vertebrae and a completely dislocated jaw. “Four.” I was grinning like a madmare out of hell.

“That bitch killed No Dice! That’s it, tell Jagged I’m out!” The only raider left standing was the one with the unfortunate scar on his face. He had been busy fumbling his weapon the whole time, and now was turning to run away but I was too fast for him. I threw another haymaker that clocked him in the back of the head. The poor raider was sent tumbling forwards, and fell flat on his face.

Sting lurched back up at me with a knife, but my hoof met him halfway. He went straight back down to the floor with a black eye and a bloodstained muzzle. I punched him again for good measure and the knife clanged across the pavement.

The big one with the eyepatch whom I’d tossed earlier, had also managed to get up for round two. He rushed over to help his buddy, throwing a right hook that landed in my face. He looked surprised when I barely flinched and turned back towards him, the hoof still digging into my cheek. “Is that it?” I complained, and threw one of my own back at him which struck in his non eyepatched eye.

He reared back grasping his precious face, and I swiveled around to deliver a strong buck to his chest. Several ribs cracked under the force as he was sent flying into the air a few meters. The raider landed hard with a thud and the wind knocked out of him, clutching his chest with a hoof.

The lot were left battered and bruised on the hot hard pavement. “Heh, I’m a regular one-mare stampede” I quipped. Then I turned back to Sting with a menacing grin. Standing over the scrawny raider still trying to gather his faculties, I cracked my joints. “I’m going to enjoy this…” I menaced, and proceeded to trample all over his face. Unfortunately, I only managed to get in a couple of blows in before my hoof struck the pavement. I blinked twice to make sure I hadn’t taken one too many knocks to the head. Then I looked up and realized. “Unicorns…” I grumbled.

Sting had teleported a good distance away from me down the road. His somewhat effeminate face now slightly resembled pounded meat, and it sounded like he was having difficulty breathing through his nose. I snorted, trying to hold in my laugh.

“I’m taking these as evidence.” I taunted, stashing away his laser pistol.

“You’re gonna regret that girly!” Sting shouted back at me picking up and wildly waving his knife around. He looked humiliated after being both beaten senseless by me and having his guns confiscated. The others had also managed to crawl away during that time.

“Who are you calling girly? If you can’t even take a punch like that, you’d better get to galloping.” I yawned facetiously as I walked over to pick up my IF-15 Service Rifle off the ground, aiming down the sights at them. I fired off a few shots off in their direction to make my point clear, and that startled them enough to send them running.

“And whoever this Jagged Knife guy is, I’ll kick his butt too!” I shouted after him, which I followed with a few more shots. They all split off in various directions and disappeared from sight leaving me alone at the center of a burning caravan wreck.

“That was fun.” I sighed, as I I looked back at the corpse of the one raider I killed..

I felt pretty proud of myself, taking a moment to bask in my own glory. If you could call it that. Then as I turned to look back at the grim sight before me, and realized that it wasn’t much of a victory. I couldn’t help but feel for the innocent caravan ponies. Cotton especially, who I had just gotten to know. I’d definitely be questioned about this when I got to Junction Town. Great.

With one hoof I turned him over and saw the prewar stealth technology affixed to the back of his hoof. “Stealthbuck. Invisibility tech.” I observed. This one looked more advanced than any model I’d previously seen in the wasteland. The manner in which these Raiders were using to sneak up on Gawd’s caravans in her own territory without being caught was quickly becoming clear.

From the overturned wagons I could see the contents the caravan laid out before me. I picked up the pistol that Sting had dropped on the pavement and looked over it closely. The weapon also appeared to be highly modified from original standard issue Enclave Sunburst weapons. Higher powered to pack even more of a punch, with realigned optics. Holding the weapon gave me an uneasy feeling.

“If this Jagged Knife is the one behind everything, organizing the raider attacks, was well connected enough to get his hooves on top quality Enclave weapons and on stuff like this...” I began thinking to myself. “What would he need with a bunch of service rifles?” None of it seemed worth the risk. Not for simple guns. Certainly not for some trade reports. I pulled out the envelope Fair Trade had given me to deliver and stared at it thinking to myself. The more I thought about it, the less it made sense. Something about this struck me as suspicious. I stashed both the weapon and the stealthbuck in my saddlebags.

The wagon I was originally hiding behind began to jostle again, and a pony crawled out of it. The blue pegasus brought himself to his hooves and dusted himself off, looking irate at being forced into such an undignified position. “Snowflake!” I called, walking up to him. At least one other pony besides me had managed to survive through that mess.

I looked around. No sign of that orange mohawked one. It was just me and him now. I’ll say that I didn’t care for this annoying pegasus at all, but it was nice to see another face that wasn’t trying to kill me.

Taking charge, I turned towards him, “We’ve gotta get to Junction Town, if you don’t want me to leave you behind you can tag along. Just don’t slow me down.”

His eyes narrowed into a look of intense hatred. Why was I getting the feeling that he wasn’t happy to see me? He also was holding my ten-millimeter pistol in his mouth. “Hey, you found my pistol for me, thanks.” I extended a hoof, waiting for him to give it back.

He mumbled something but I couldn’t quite make it out. I cocked my head to the side and he spat out the pistol into his hoof in frustration. “For the last stars-damned time! My name is Frostforth!” he shouted. Of all the other pegasi, it had to be this one. I groaned internally.

“Look,” I said in as even a tone as I could, “Frostforth, I just saw Enclave ships flying on the horizon, so I don’t have time for your shit. We have to warn somepony!”

Pointing with my hooves, he looked back in the direction I had seen the black ships and gave me a confused look. “What the hell are you talking about?! The Enclave is gone! They’ve been gone for months!”

“I was sure that I saw them though!” I said, desperate to get him to see reason.

“There are no Enclave ships!” Frostforth aimed my gun at me. “You’re crazy! All you surface ponies are crazy!”

Trying to keep my anger in check, I realized there was no way to prove it to him. As much as I wanted to deck him at that moment, I still tried to act like I was a pony under contract. Although this pegasus was testing my resolve for all it was worth. I stuck out my hoof, “Give me my gun back, and I’ll escort you to Junction Town. But I’m warning you, you’re starting to piss me off.”

“What, so you can ‘help’ me too? I’d rather take my chances, thank you! You hate me and my kind, I can see it in your eyes especially!” He jeered. The pegasus began to ramble off to me about his problems again. “I was going to be promoted to regional manager of a weather factory! Another year and I would’ve been able to get a permit to live in a medium sized cloud villa in upper district c9! I would’ve had extra rations! Then, that precious Lightbringer of yours came and fucked it all up for me! Maybe you should take a look at some of the screwed up shit she did before you call her a hero! Just like that Radar you seem to idolize so much.”

“Oh, cry me a river! Give me back my gun already!” I didn’t give half a shit about his woe-is-me sob story. Here he was trying to act like the victim in all this?

Dealing with desperate ponies is always the hardest because they often act erratically and unpredictable. I tuned him out, as far as I was concerned he was some dumb Enclave citizen who bought into the propaganda talking out of his ass. His aim was shaky, and he probably never fired a gun before in his life. I didn’t see him as a threat, and perhaps that was my mistake. Without considering the consequences, I simply walked up and tried to take it from him.

BANG!!! A single shot rang out, and the pistol clattered to the ground.

I felt the a dull pain in my shoulder, it didn’t feel like a fatal wound but it hurt like hell. It was as if somepony had thrust a dragon fang in there and left it to fester. He dropped the gun and panicked before flying off.

“Stupid... Y-you got cocky…”

It was just one Raptor-class battleship split off from the main fleet, but even that was a force to be reckoned with. Plenty enough firepower to raze a small village to the ground Armor-clad soldiers rained from the sky gunning down the ponies living there, who were unfairly caught in the crossfire of these wars that had nothing to do with them. They offered little to no resistance.

We all hoped that they were far enough away from the action. That the Enclave would ignore such a small and inconsequential village on the coast. We hoped the natural harbor would protect us from sight, but something happened on that stormy night to draw them closer.

Hope is funny in the wasteland. Like sitting at a table in the Lucky Seven’s Club waiting on that big payout. It’s a seedy wasteland joint I know of on the edge of the San Palomino, with a reputation of all manner of sin and debauchery. As the croupier gave me another spin at the roulette wheel, I set my chips down to hit my bet. I hoped to go for a little longer. If I was smart, I'd get out. I knew their goal is to keep me playing for as long as possible. Screwing you over is practically in the croupier’s job description.

Whether the game is rigged or not isn’t an issue because I was addicted to the rush. but the mare that is Lady Luck enjoys cutting you off when you get to the end of your rope. Almost as if she does it to get a kick out of hitting ponies while they’re down. The wasteland is like that too. The longer a pony stays at the wheel, the more there is to lose. Not playing the game though, simply isn’t an option in this place. Besides, if I wasn’t going to play then I wouldn’t have set hoof into the Lucky Seven’s.

There's a kind of twisted humor in it. It’s always the House that collects at the end.

The thing about Enclave standard-issue Sunburst energy rifles is that, since they’re laser weapons focused through a gem, they don’t leave much waste behind. That goes for both the ammo cells wasted, and the ponies they incinerate. Ignites most wooden structures. Cauterizes wounds instantaneously. More often than not they don’t even leave bodies behind, so all you have to remember of the ponies shot down by these weapons is a smouldering pile of ashes.

After the soldiers finished combing the ruins of Starlight Bay, they returned to their ship and left the destruction of the coastal town behind them. Like a natural disaster leaving horrors and death in its wake, they left with as much haste and as little warning as they had arrived.

There was nothing left. Nothing but burning piles of ashes and flames.

My eyelids flickered awake and I felt a searing pain near the meat of my shoulder. With a hoof I applied pressure to the wound to keep myself from bleeding out, while doing my best to shrug it off. It was hard to move at first.

The sun was beginning to lower in the sky casting it shades of orange. If I wasn’t in so much blinding pain I might’ve taken a moment to appreciate it more. Instead, I looked back up to one of the towers and wondered if the Lightbringer was watching over me right then. It was a silly thing to do. There's no way that the Stable Dweller could actually see out of those things.

When I looked back, I saw that one pegasus with the red-orange mohawk staring at me. Where had he been during all of that? He looked like he came out of that mess completely unscathed. My eyes narrowed on him. With a bloodied hoof I pointed at the horizon line, where I had previously seen the black ships. There was only one question burning at the forefront of my mind. I felt my rage simmering just below a boil. “Did you see those Enclave ships?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, seeming at a loss for words as I stared him down on that lonely highway. The pegasus flapped his wings and took to the air, quickly speeding away in the opposite direction. I watched him as he became a tiny speck and disappeared into the distance.

Over what was left of the destroyed dispatch radio, a garbled mess of static attempted to play a song over the airwaves. It did little to suit the moment before shorting out. I imagined that Daily Day would be reporting on this attack shortly. If I stayed here, a New Canterlot patrol would eventually come along to take me to Junction Town. Being patient was never my strong suit.

I knew at that moment without a shadow of a doubt that Cotton’s words rung true. The wasteland was still very much alive, despite all the pretty words over the radio. It wasn’t going anywhere. I could feel it inside of me. Burning.

My throbbing shoulder drew my attention back to it. “Dammit, that fucking hurts!” Owing to the fact that there wasn’t an exit wound, I knew that the bullet had stuck deep inside my shoulder and hit the bone there. All I cared about was that it hurt like hell and I had to get it out. I struggled to bring myself upright onto all fours, taking care to keep the weight off my left foreleg.

I searched through the caravan wreck, and sifted around for medical supplies. Except, all I managed to find was some Dash, a bottle of homebrewed Wasteland Tequila, a Magic Bandage and a Healing Potion inside a metal box marked with three pink butterflies. No Med-X unfortunately, but I had what I needed. I folded my Special Jacket and neatly set it aside on the ground so that I wouldn’t get any extra blood on it, wincing at the thought of what I was about to do.

With one hoof I applied pressure to the side of the wound, where I could feel the bullet moving around inside me. The pain flared at the mere touch but I fought through it. Getting shot hurts like hell. “If I ever run into Snowflake again I’ll make sure to administer a painful asskicking as payback for this.” I cursed.

Using all the skill of a hellhound performing heart surgery, I bit into the burning wound and chomped down into the flesh with my teeth to feel around for the bits of metal. There was excruciating pain that followed. Burning agony shot through me as I fought with my body’s survival instinct, and I had to stop just a few moments later screaming in pain. I collapsed onto the pavement, my breath coming in ragged gasps through my now bloodstained muzzle.

I huffed down the Dash to keep my adrenaline going, and got back up to try again. With a metal rod this time from one of the wagons, I jammed it into the open wound to try and dig the bullet out. That just made it worse. I screamed again and pulled the bloody piece of metal from my body, flinging it at the ground with a metallic clang before toppling over sideways.

“Celestia Dammit. Get this thing out of me.” I wheezed. The bullet was stuck deep. I laid motionless on the pavement, breathing heavy broken breathes. It was a few more minutes before I finally felt like moving again.

Mulling it over in my head, I considered all my options.

If I were to for a patrol to come and take me to Junction Town, I'd receive the proper medical treatment but the reality of the situation was that it could take hours for them to find me here. I’d have lost any hope of ever finding that mohawked pegasus. It would also give the raiders the opportunity to hit Celestia knows how many more caravans, and I was the only one with any leads according to the dispatch radio.

On the other hoof, if I were to go after them I might miss out on my one and only chance to ever see Radar again. I’d fuck up this job by throwing away the opportunity Fair Trade had given me to join up with the New Canterlot army, which he stuck his neck out to give me. Making tough calls isn’t easy, but it was time for me to make one.

“Fuck, what am I supposed to do? Go back to Outpost?” I asked, not sure what to do in this situation.

Whether those were really Enclave ships or some kind of fucked up trauma induced hallucination, there was a very real possibility they were still out there. Those weapons on the other hoof, were definitely the real deal, and the mere thought of the Enclave still existing in Equestria made my blood boil. Simply observing the healing potion in front of me, I was burning daylight by hesitating. So I had to consider the consequences of just leaving it in there. “What would Radar do in this situation?” I asked myself. My face twisted at the thought.

“Fuck it.” I poured the Tequila over the open wound causing an intense pain to shoot through my whole left side, before greedily downing the entirety of the healing potion. The wound in my shoulder seamlessly stitched itself back together over a short period, sealing the bullet inside.

I breathed for a moment.

Using a cloth from the medical kit, I wiped my hooves and muzzle clean so that I wouldn’t stain my clothes. Then I applied the healing bandage for good measure. Shrugging back into my special jacket, I moved my foreleg around just to get a feel for it. It wasn’t exactly at one hundred percent, but aside from a weird hitch in my shoulder when I moved it into a certain position it seemed to function normally.

I walked over and picked up my brother’s pistol from where Frostforth had dropped it and hugged it tightly. Taking a minute to myself before returning it to its holster. It was the only momento I had left of him and my family.

Don’t play the hero, I could practically hear the old bastards voice yelling in my ear as I thought about my next move. Settle down for a few hours and stick it out until a patrol comes by to take me to Junction Town. That would’ve been the smart thing to do.

Fair Trade expressly told me not to pull any heroics or crazy shenanigans. I frowned thinking to myself and came to the conclusion, “Although since I’m under contract to and a soon-to-be considered pony of the New Canterlot army it would be even worse of me if in a non-official capacity I saw something dangerous like Enclave ships and didn’t report it back to anyone. Right?”

I’d consider it that I was doing him a personal favor by hunting down those raiders for him. He could thank me for it later.

Stripping the dead raider stallion of his armored gear, it seemed to be built for a pony several sizes larger than me. The shoulder pads were gigantic, and made of a tough material that could stop some small round ammunition. It was colored a rough dark green color. It’d mostly be useful in close quarters. Enough to provide me that extra bit of protection I needed. The only notable markings on it seemed to be of the pony skull symbol matched with a knife that’d mark me as a member of Jagged’s gang. Otherwise, it didn’t look too far off from normal wasteland gear. I donned it over my normal attire.

“This is no time to let myself be scared by some raiders using fancy energy weapons.” I said, looking back towards the mountains where I had seen the ships. Thinking about it further just served to piss me off. Something was stirring deep inside of me at that moment, spurring me into action. There was that tingling sensation in my hooves again, and it was stronger than ever.

I gathered up what ammunition I could scrounge together in my saddlebags, and slung the Service Rifle over my shoulder. A battle saddle would just slow me down.

Steeling myself with one more glance at the ownerless cowpony hat being picked by the wind, I realized that I didn’t have a choice in the matter. Cotton deserved better. It was the least I could do for her to get back at those raiders for destroying her caravan. But more importantly, there were questions I had for that pegasus when I finally caught up with them.

I knew for a fact what Radar would do, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting idly by waiting for backup. The Radar in my head would’ve done whatever was necessary to make sure other ponies were safe. Even if it meant I was potentially sacrificing the one chance I might ever have to see him again. I let out a soft sigh," Sorry, Radar. I know I said that I'd come find you after this job, but you're going to have to wait for me on this one."

“The Enclave ships are gone. The raiders would be long gone by now too. All I have left for a lead is that mohawked pegasus.”

I scavenged what supplies I could from the Junction City Traders, knowing they wouldn’t be needing them anymore and that I’d be repaying them shortly. Silently, I walked over to what I presumed to be Cotton’s ashes carrying the bottle of homebrewed tequila with me. It was a somber roadside funeral for a pony I had barely known.

Hopefully the Lightbringer was watching over her wherever she went off to. Holding a moment of silence, I poured what was left of the homebrewed tequila over her hat after taking a sip for myself to pay my respects. It burned as it went down my throat, and I gagged. To think that she actually drank this stuff on a regular basis.

I turned my sights on the horizon, and noticed an unbroken pair of reflective aviators closeby, which had likely belonged to one of the former traders. I picked them up and put them on, feeling that my eyes were no longer bothered as much by the sun. “I pull off the merc look nicely.” I thought, and flicked the golden frames.

With a burst of speed I took off galloping towards the sunset, feeling that lightning rush of adrenaline like I was back in the wasteland again.

“Sometimes you have to take a gamble.”

Footnote: Level up.

Perk Added:
Know Thy Enemy - Having been on the receiving end of something tragic you’ve gained extensive knowledge of your foe. You gain a +10% Bonus when fighting Enclave and Unique Dialogue Options with certain NPC’s.

Chapter 3: It Came Out of the Sky

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Chapter 3-

It Came Out of the Sky

“I hate losing…”

My hooves carried me along at a breakneck pace. Slightly slower than normal because of the weird hitch in my shoulder. It was lucky that I didn’t run into any patrols along the way, because I’m sure they would’ve stopped me for questioning about where I was going in such a hurry. Sneaking past the Outpost 52 without them noticing was also way easier than I thought. That watchmare I’d dealt with before was probably asleep at her post. It sure would be a shame if Fair Trade had to fire her. I smirked at the thought.

As the scenery raced past me, I soon found myself in the wilderness west of the outpost. Eventually my rush of exhilaration wore off, and I found myself following the long highway that twisted along for miles beyond the Canterlot Valley. It had been a while, but I still knew all the backroads and major landmarks in the area... more or less. Outside of Gawd’s territory was Raider Country.

I checked my surroundings, half expecting to find Sting and his raiders lurking about. Although I couldn’t be sure whether or not this Jagged Knife guy would have a stronger presence out here. There was nothing, so I continued into the wilderness in search of that Pegasus. I was mostly going off of guesswork based off of his trajectory and flight path. It was stupid of me that I was going entirely on a hunch that I’d be able to find him. There was no way for me to quite explain it, except that I had a strong feeling I knew where he was. It felt like I was hot on his trail.

“Seems like somepony else was in a hurry.” I observed keenly. My gaze followed the dead looking tree-trunks upward to the broken canopy. After noticing all the dead wood littering the ground not far off to the side of the road. A keen observation would indicate somepony flying had come in for a rough landing somewhere closeby. That mohawked pegasus knew about that attack beforehoof, I was sure of it. So if it turned out he was somehow involved in the attack, then I wanted answers straight from the horse’s mouth.

As I galloped hard along the road, but was forced to an abrupt halt as I felt a sudden sharp pain in my shoulder. “Ow! Dammit.” I cursed while nursing my foreleg. It flared up briefly, but then felt fine again mere moments later. Mildly concerned I moved it around just to make doubly sure it’d be okay. It felt like the bullet was scraping against the bone, but aside from that weird hitch there was nothing else out of the ordinary. For now it was a simple reminder not to let myself get cocky again. At least until I could get the proper surgery to get this bullet out of me.

Continuing onward at a slightly lessened pace at first, I forced myself back into a run. I didn’t have a clue what I would do if I actually came across the Enclave, but small details like that didn’t matter. In truth, it was a possibility I didn’t want to think about. If I ran into them, I’d just have to think on my hooves like I always did. The plan was a work in progress. At least I knew how to deal with raiders, just point and shoot. Easy.

The sky took on a blue-orange hue as the sun began to set behind the mountains. It was twilight by the time I reached the former town of Sunvale. Marked only by a weathered old sign post. I slowed my approach as I got closer, stopping at the edge of town looking for any places he could be hiding. The surrounding forest turned black like charcoal the closer I got, and the scattered debris of the pre-war town told the sad story of another place that was destroyed by the Enclave during Operation Cauterize. All the signs of a leftover Enclave military operation were here. Strategic fires in the surrounding woods to cut off escape, precise burn holes. It reminded me of the state Starlight Bay had been left in when their ships left the town behind, but most of the ashes had been washed away by the rain by this point.

“Why come here of all places?” I wondered.

The sight put me on edge more than it should have. Various houses, and structures lay collapsed in heaps of debris. Charred wooden beams jutted out of the rubble like skeletal remains. A small ruined shack was left on a hill on the edge of town, collapsed with barely any of its walls left standing. I remembered passing through here maybe once before, a long time ago. Now, only a hoofful of structures remained. There was little left here to be remembered by future ponies. I reminded myself that this was no time to get sentimental.

My ears perked up at the sound of music, echoing a familiar polka track. A lone spritebot bobbed through the town, and came to a stop hovering in front of me. I paused to look at it. The bot seemed to look back. The track came to an end and it fell silent, except for the hover spell that was keeping it afloat. It seemed like for a moment it was about to say something. Then I realized that I was blocking its path and stepped aside.

“Sorry.” I said, turning a glance at it as it passed me. The music faded slowly, before disappearing down the road. Those things always creeped me out. Spritebots have always hovered around Equestria, but during the Enclave Wars they used them to broadcast their propaganda.

Only one building of interest stood out, the old rest stop on the side of town which remained mostly intact. A sign that read “General Store” hung above the door. Old husks of wagons were parked outside of the shop with junk strewn about, like ponies had already gone through and sacked everything long ago. Anything left that might’ve been of value was destroyed in the fires.

As I came closer, I saw a dim light flickering from inside. Shadows cast through the cracks of the boarded up windows and beneath the door frame, from which the sounds of a pony’s low muttering could be heard. I immediately crouched my body close to the ground and held my breath. My ears perked up to the sound of a radio playing at a hushed volume. I raised my rifle as I approached, taking each hoofstep as carefully as possible so that I wouldn’t alert my query.

The radio shut off for a moment, and I stood in place. My rifle was trained on the entrance of the shop. I listened to the muttering and clutter shifting about from inside the building. The voice sounded like it belonged to an adult stallion. Although I hadn’t seen his face yet, I had a strong hunch who it was. He settled down back where I had originally heard him, complaining about hearing things. It was a minute or two before the radio turned back on, and I allowed myself to relax a little. So far as I could tell the pony inside hadn’t detected me yet.

I paused at the edge of the doorframe, taking one last moment to check for traps. The general store had gone silent aside from the static-ridden radio signal. They were reporting on the recent caravan attack, but no new information. What a coincidence. With a strong kick against the door I busted into the shop and trained my rifle against the first pony I saw. To my surprise, I found a laser pistol staring right back at me.

We stood for a minute in standoff. The gray-brown coated, mohawked pegasus glared back at me. He had a somewhat ragged desperate look about him. From a cursory glance it looked as though he was favoring his left wing. The radio continued to report on the attack as we stood there, but nothing I didn’t already know. They were way behind me as far as leads went. I felt my anger bubbling up inside me again, but then he spoke and I regained my composure. “Easy. I’m going to put my gun down.” he said. I nodded.

“One… Two…” he counted. On three, we both slowly lowered our weapons. He placed his laser pistol on the store counter and I set my rifle on the wooden floor, then he turned back to me with a glare. “How the hell did you find me here? Pegasi are impossible to track on a cloudless day. Let alone by some wasteland Earth Pony.”

“Well I’m not just any wasteland mare!” I boasted. It was true that I knew a thing or two about tracking in the dirt, but it felt more like I had found him here by complete accident. Even I wasn’t entirely sure how I did it.

“Did you know I’d come here? Who are you?”

My eyes narrowed as I sharply repeated my question from earlier. The only detail that I really wanted to know at that moment. “Answer me, did you see Enclave ships flying over the Smokey Mountains. Don’t make me beat the answers out of you. I don’t need a gun to punch a pony half to death.”

“You already made that plenty clear by how you handled Sting and the others. I’ll compliment you on a job well done, by the way.” he acknowledged.

“So you do know him.” I pressed.

“I promise you, they’re no friends of mine.” he seemed almost annoyingly apathetic to the whole situation. My gut was giving me a weird feeling about this guy.

“Know anything about those weapons they were using?”

“They’re raiders. What makes you think I’d know?”

“You’re a pegasus for one. A suspicious one at that!”

“Dunno. Maybe they picked them off some dead Enclave soldiers?”

“That doesn’t explain the Enclave ships I saw!” I fired back.

“Are you sure you’re not just seeing things?” he scoffed.

“I know what I saw!” I barked, not appreciating his tone. My face went red, and I added “By the way, don’t think I didn’t notice you staring!”

He shrunk backwards as he frantically tried to explain himself “H-hey wait a minute! I swear you’ve got the wrong idea!”

“I’ll bet you’re a real Lady Killer, huh? Tch, whatever.” He didn’t like that response.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble missy”.

“Well you’ve got trouble unless you start talking!” I made my point clear by stamping my hoof on the floor.

“This is all a simple misunderstanding. I’m just an innocent refugee from Neighvarro.” It was hard to believe based on his cooled composure whether he was being totally straight with me, but the whole room smelled like brahmin shit.

“Innocent ponies don’t fly away at the first sign of New Canterlot patrols. I’m just letting you know, if this screws up my chances of enlisting I’ll hold you personally responsible.” I spat, already upset at having to follow him all the way out here.

“Wait, aren’t you one of Gawd’s couriers? So you’re not with the New Canterlot army?” He appeared confused, as though this information came as a surprise to him.

My ego got the better of me. “Hey I’m no courier! I’m under contract, so that makes me legit! What I’m holding here is considered to be vital information for the Coalition! A-and...” I trailed off briefly, trying to think of what else I should say. Then puffing out my chest, I added, “And you’re a pony of interest delaying my investigation!”

“That’s not exactly how it works...” he sighed.

“Are you questioning my authority?” I challenged in my most official sounding voice.

The Pegasus rolled his eyes. “We’re getting nowhere with this. How about, you answer one of my questions, and I’ll answer one of yours?” His suggestion was a sound one, so I nodded in agreement.

“Exactly how do you know Fair Trade?” He asked leaning in closer, looking almost desperate to get to that information. I couldn’t begin to see where he was going with this.

Speaking in as sharp a tone as I could muster, I answered. “Fair Trade’s an old friend of mine. He was the only one I could turn to after I lost my family during Operation Cauterize. What do you care?” Mentioning that day often struck a sore spot with Pegasi, but I wasn’t in a position to care much about his feelings. He made little attempt to hide the cursing under his breath.

“Now it’s my turn to ask questions. If you’re such an innocent refugee, then why were you in such a hurry to leave? You disappeared right before the attack, like you knew something was about to happen, and you said you knew Sting just now. Tell me who you are.”

“My name is Hotshot. Let’s just say I have bad ponies after me. As for the raider attack, you could call it a hunch? I got lucky.” he offered weakly. My eyes narrowed into slits, feeling a tinge of irritation.

“Maybe you’d be more forthcoming if I hogtied your wings and dragged you back to New Canterlot for questioning, Hotshot?”

“Really now, that won’t be necessary!”

“Don’t like that, do ya? Why are you so afraid to answer a few of Gawd’s simple questions?”

“Well this isn’t exactly a walk in the clouds for me, sister! Are all surfacers this crazy?”

“Then why don’t you tell me everything you know about those Enclave weapons? Tell me who this Jagged Knife guy is while you’re at it.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” he said. I responded with a low growl.

“They’re bad ponies.” He put simply, “Ones I don’t want anything to do with, so as soon as I get out of here I’m flying straight to Las Pegasus and you’ll never hear from me again.”

“You’re not going anywhere until you answer my questions Mohawk!” I snapped.

“Forget about him, Jagged’s not the type of pony even a mare such as yourself wants to get caught up with. I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Thanks for your concern, but I can take care of myself.”

“Your funeral.”

“You saw those ships!” I asserted raising my voice.

The pegasus averted his gaze, turning sideways as if trying to brush it away like I was crazy. “Ships? What are you talking about? Listen, I’m just a civilian caught up in this mess same as you. The Enclave has been gone for months now-”

“Liar.” I snapped.

“Believe me or don’t. I’m sorry about what happened to your family, but I swear I’m not with the Enclave anymore.”

“I don’t want your damn sympathy.” I spat. There was no way that I was going to sit and listen to this pegasus give me a half-hearted apology. “I know I saw Vertibucks flying over the Smokey Mountains. So tell me everything you know about the Enclave. About the Remnants, Jagged, everything! Where did those idiots get their hooves on that kind of technology? Squawk, featherbrain!”

“Okay, hypothetically let’s say there were ships flying over the Smokey Mountains. What exactly do you intend to do about it?”

“I’ll figure that out as soon as I get there!”

“Impulsive tendencies seem to be your strong suit.”

“It’s none of your business anyways! Stop avoiding the question!” I growled. When I realized he wasn’t going to give me the answers I wanted, I put two and two together.

“You’re a deserter, aren’t you? What, afraid you’ll be convicted of war crimes?” I jeered, stalking around the room. That weary steely eyed look of his came out again. It seemed I wasn’t too far from the mark. His aversion to answer only fueled my anger. “Just how many innocent ponies have you killed?”

“I said I’m not with the Enclave anymore”.

"That doesn’t necessarily clean your hooves of the past though, does it? Otherwise you’d have no problems heading to New Canterlot to stand trial! Tell me the number! How many innocent ponies have you killed?! Five? Ten…? Twenty?!”

After a short pause he hung his head and almost shamefully admitted, “...I don’t know.”

“You’d better damned well remember the face of everypony you’ve ever murdered!” His answer struck a nerve with me, and I lost my temper right there.

Soon I caught him nervously eyeing his laser pistol on the counter. Taking momentary glances towards the door, he slowly began to reach for something inside of his blue flight jacket. I caught the glint of something metallic. A small sidearm tucked underneath his wing. My body unconsciously lowered down into a fighting stance, readying myself for what was to come.

Noticing where my eyes were being trained, he looked down at his open jacket and uttered a single word. “Shit.”

Everything went south in an instant. I sprung forward to knock him over but ended up barely missing. Instead I crashed head first into the wall behind him. He was slippery, even in that cramped space he was able to maneuver with ease. Jumping into the air after him, I barely managed to grab a few feathers. One of the empty shelving racks were knocked over as he darted past me, delivering a kick to my face in the process. He raced out the door, and I heard the sounds of wing flutters outside.

By the time I managed bring myself to my hooves and follow him, he was already long gone.

“Dammit. That hurt.” I said. I’d assumed that he wouldn’t be able to fly so easily with that hurt wing. Rubbing my nose as I walked back inside, I closed the flimsy door behind me. Admittedly, I could’ve handled that better.

As I found my way back into the general store, I took a moment to glance around the rickety old building. Hoping to see if he left anything behind. A lot of the store had survived the fires, but I couldn’t discern much from the place. Most of everything in the room had been covered in a light coat of ash. The shelving racks, probably once fully stocked had been long pilfered. Hotshot’s laser pistol was still sitting there on the counter next to a dirty old newspaper. Its text was left almost completely illegible. I had to squint to read one of the headlines beyond the soot and scorch marks. Something about “Hippocampus Energy and controversial Megaspell reactor technology to curb resource shortages.” Must have had something to do with the Great War from the back when times.

CRRRACKKKKKK!!~ A loud noise of something breaking echoed up from the floor. I paused for a moment, dreading to look at what I just stepped on. Mustering the courage to stare down at my hooves, I turned my gaze downward, and found myself standing on the pair of gold framed sunglasses. They must’ve fallen onto the floor when I lunged at that slippery bastard. The lenses were completely trashed, and the golden frames misshapen beyond repair.

“Fuck! Can I get just one break tonight?” I shouted, throwing a miniature tantrum to myself as I was reluctantly forced to discard the pair of broken shades to the floor. Stomping my hooves, I whined audibly until I tired myself out and calmed down.

Turning my attention back to the weapon on the counter, I observed it closely. The laser pistol was in pristine condition, even by Enclave weapon standards. Upon finding that it had none of the same modifications as Sting’s weapon, I was forced to raise an eyebrow. Although I still didn’t trust him, the part about him not being with the raiders seemed slightly more believable now. At least I could gather that he and Sting didn’t seem to be on friendly terms.

“Next time, I’ll tie his wings down and force him to answer my questions.” I muttered.

I walked back and forth across ash coated floorboards, picking up my service rifle and moving it beside the old mattress behind the store counter. Along with my armor and saddlebags which I piled in the corner next to it. Stashed there was also a hoofful of supplies that Hotshot had left behind.

The pegasus was in such a hurry that he had left most of his things behind. Grinning as I hoofed through his discarded saddlebags, I found myself dissatisfied when all I found were a few bottlecaps, a bottle of Sunrise Sarsaparilla, a Fancy Buck snack cake, and some ammunition that my guns didn’t use. I took it anyways. “Sweet, a snack cake! I haven’t eaten one of these things in months!” I chimed.

I fell backward onto the ash coated mattress and munched on my meager spoils of victory. The old bed smelled like the end of the world, but I was thankful enough to have something to sleep on that wasn’t the floor. Snickering at the thought that that pegasus was probably going to have to rough it for the evening, filled me with a minor sense of accomplishment.

The feeling was short lived however. As I finished my snack cake, I popped the cap of the bottle of Sunrise only to find there wasn’t a star hidden underneath. It brought me down off my high. My dissatisfaction turned to doubt as I realized how stupid I was being right now. This whole night had been a bust chasing ghost ships, without anything to show for it. “What the hell are you doing, Roulette?” I exhaled deeply, scolding myself for pulling something this crazy. Maybe Fair Trade was right. This wasn’t the wasteland I remembered.

Looking up at the ceiling, I asked myself, “Am I really starting to lose it?” As I thought back to my little episode during the raider attack, I could only remember just how vivid it was. I could’ve sworn I saw something. I’d heard that the Followers of the Apocalypse’s psychiatric specialists offered free consultation at Junction Town. Maybe another option to consider if this whole thing didn’t work out.

“No. Those ships were real. I’m sure of it.” I reassured myself. “Besides, it’s not like I can let something serious like Enclave ships go, right? Radar wouldn’t have... would he?” I felt lost when nopony had the answers I wanted to hear. The silence was a harsh reminder that I was all on my own. Truthfully, I had no idea what Radar would’ve done.

I removed my brother’s gun from its holster and held it in my hooves. “Hey...” I spoke softly. I placed it softly beside my head on the mattress and stared at it, letting out a heavy sigh, “I miss you guys.”

“This isn’t exactly the heroic wasteland adventure I had pictured in my head.” I admitted. “You’d think I’d have learned by now.” I had to admit to myself that those days were gone. My body wasn’t tired, but felt emotionally drained as I lay sideways on the mattress. My heart felt heavy, missing those days in the wasteland.

Staring longingly at the pistol, the memories kept coming back to me. I quickly lost track of time, figuring that Hotshot wasn't coming back. I'd sleep lightly, just in case case.

The silence of the town outside only served to keep me dwelling on those thoughts. I sniffled, feeling as though I’d gotten some ash particles in my nose. After a sufficient amount of time had passed, I became fed up with my nagging feelings and finally shut off the light. This caused the interior of the shop to be lit up by dim beams of moonlight that made their way into the shop. Stars twinkled above in the night sky. I tried to get some shut eye, but for some reason I just ended up thinking back to my family. My mind buzzed for a while longer, until I finally managed to drift off.

In my dream I found myself lost in the memories of my wasteland days. The old store gave way to a barren desert. Clouds roiled overhead, in a constant storm cycle. The white spires that littered the Equestrian hellscape brewed artificial weather to keep the kingdom above us running smoothly, and the rest of us in the darkness below.

Today was a nice overcast. Relatively nice by wasteland standards. It didn’t look like it would rain for several more days if we were lucky. We dug through an old hole in the ground where somepony had dumped a bunch of junk, sorting through what was there in hopes of finding anything valuable.

“Shoot, there’s nothing good here.” I complained, as I picked up an old radio and tossed it to the back of the pile, “There’s nothing but old garbage in this hole. And it’s so hot.”

True Blue hoofed through his own pile, while the others did the same. “Keep looking, we need to get enough bottlecaps so we can barter for supplies in town.”

“Sure, whatever.” I thought kicking another piece of scrap off the pile. He was the leader after all, even though we’d never had an official vote on it. Underneath some junk I spotted the glint of something shiny. As I tugged on the shiny metal bit, I pulled out a metal box that looked sort of like a microwave with a fan attached. Two gems were embedded into the side of the device, one green and one blue. “Hang on guys, I think I’ve got something!”

“Oh, nice! Is that a food sanitizer? If we sell it for caps we’ll be set for months!” Wheelie looked upon my find with awe, then added coyly “Maybe you guys will let me pay for some upgrades to my scooter?” It was a piece of tech that was created during the back when times before the balefire, in order to purge the radiation from food. I wondered if they also had to deal with radiation in their food back then like we have to.

“Get real Wheelie! I found it, so I should get to decide what we buy.”

“Both of you are wrong, we’re using this to pay for supplies.” True asserted himself as leader. Wheelie and I both groaned. Our eldest brother was a bit of a wet blanket at times.

“That’s amazing! We could use that to grow our own vegetables instead of eating mutant plants and spoiled meat all the time!” Cherish jumped with exuberance. We had been waiting on a score like this for a while. Zap was the only one who didn’t seem too pleased. He leaned in closely to inspect the device examining the talismans and inner components with a discerning eye. The unicorn tech enthusiast then shook his head and sighed. “Nah sorry guys, the thing’s missing several key essential components and I don’t have any of the spells needed to fix the matrix.”

We all let out a collective whine. I chucked the device as hard as I could in frustration and it skipped across the ground. “Hey, don’t throw it! There could still be parts we could use!” Zap frantically lectured me as he ran up and cradled the device like a crying foal, checking for damages. Cherish decided to take a break after that, and Wheelie went back to searching for parts for his scooter.

“Say, True?” I asked, looking over at my older brother and he turned to face me. He was sitting back on his haunches, and I sat down next to him. He had that look on his face as he often did when something was on his mind. “Yeah Rou, what’s up?”

“Where are we going after this?” I asked.

“Dunno, I haven’t decided. There were a few places I had in mind.” he admitted, averting his gaze from me. He looked troubled, I could tell something else was bugging him.

“You know there’s probably sunshine in Las Pegasus, right?” I asked, leaning over to look him in the eye. It was my not so subtle way of trying to take his mind off things using my own selfish request. That, and it was one of those places I always wanted to visit. “Would be a pretty nice change from all these clouds, if you ask me.” I laughed.

“Heh, there could be. Let’s go sometime.” he tried his best not to grin.

“What about Pony Island Beach in Manehattan? I’ve seen old postcards about it!” I grinned excitedly.

“Sure,” he chuckled. “Just don’t do anything too crazy while we’re there. Remember, Zap will get sick if we take him on any rides.”

I frowned and gave him a serious look, “Is that a Pinkie Promise? You still owe me for skipping out on Old Olneigh.”

True laughed a little to ease my worries. “Hey, you have to give us a break sometimes when you ask us to take you somewhere. That place is dangerous. Besides we already did the Scariest Cave in Equestria!”

I had discounted it because it was such a let down, the name was overrated. “Eh, I’ve seen scarier. Running away from Feral Ghouls inside of that abandoned Stable was way more fun! It really got my adrenaline pumping! Then there was one time I saw a mutant that had like twelve legs, two heads, and three tongues! Then it had another body coming out of its mouth, and- Oh! It was also an Alicorn! Wheelie didn’t believe me!”

He rolled his eyes, “Okay, now you’re just making things up.”

“You have to say it though! Say you Pinkie Promise!” I gave him a hard punch in his shoulder.

“Ow! Okay, alright! Stick a cupcake in my eye, just go easy on the punches!” he rubbed his bruised arm, but I was happy to get what I wanted.

“We’ll all go there together one day. What’s the big rush all of a sudden? We’ve got plenty of time.”

“Duh, because if you owe me you can’t leave. You’d be breaking a promise.” I sighed, sitting back down next to him.

“That makes sense, I guess.” He agreed.

“Oh remember that time, when the town turned out to be full of slavers, and we had to save Sis?! That was great!” The memories kept coming back to me. My sister interjected, “Are you crazy Rou?! That was horrible! Although… admittedly I did get a bit of a rush out of the whole experience.” She blushed. We all joined together in laughter and good memories about the sorts of things that any average pony in the wasteland would probably find horrifying. I wanted this moment to last forever.

True Blue turned to me with a solemn look on his face,“There’s no way I’d ever leave you behind, you’re my sister. I know we fight sometimes, but that’s just what families do, y’know? Do you remember the promise we made with each other on the night we left the Republic?”

“Yeah, I do…It feels like it’s been a while since then. The both of us are getting older though. I don’t know if you’ll be around forever.”

“I’ll be here for as long as you need me to be” he said. I leaned back and fell in the dust to look up at the clouds. True did the same, laying down next to me. We both stared up at the clouds together.

“Being raised by the wasteland doesn’t exactly make for the most stable of upbringings, does it…? Do you ever wonder who our parents were?” I asked. It was something I rarely thought about, but I just felt like making conversation.

“We were just orphans back then. So I guess I don’t think about it too much. You’re all my family I need, and I’ve always done my best to keep you safe.” The weary pony exhaled, “We had Radar, he was kind of like our dad wasn’t he?”

“I miss Radar, but he wasn’t exactly our dad. He’s probably busy doing wasteland hero things, or something really dumb and important.” I pouted, kicking the dust with my hoof. My brother didn’t have anything to add, so I took that as my cue to start thinking out loud. “I always hated that place. The less I have to think about it the better.”

“By wasteland standards, it was pretty good though. Wasn’t it?”

I struggled not to scoff at that statement, “If you put it like that, the Stables were pretty good. They probably would’ve wanted us to repopulate with each other. Bunch of weirdos. But sometimes I feel like maybe if I stayed, he would’ve come back? Remember all those stories we heard about him at the Compound? We were just some lucky kids he saved in the wastes. Couldn’t blame him if he didn’t remember us. ”

I sat up and sighed, turning to look at my brother. True Blue didn’t answer me immediately, he just kept staring up at the sky. It was as though he was lost in his thoughts. He seemed to snap out of it after a while, turning to look at me with that warm smile of his.

“Hey, I’m sure he’s out there somewhere thinking of you. You shouldn’t give up hope, you know?” He jabbed my shoulder, though his punches weren’t as hard as my own.

“Thanks for the advice.” I admitted. He always was knowledgeable about those sorts of things, but there was something else I was thinking about. “It’s not just that. And you don’t have to do that, you know. Keep me safe, I mean. We’re not even sure that we’re blood related...”

“Hey you don’t know that! Even if we aren’t, what does it matter? We’re still a family, and we’ll always be there for each other!” His reassurance felt heartwarming. I felt my eyes tearing up as I struggled to stay on that memory.

Cherish gave me a great big hug from behind and I tried to keep it together, she had a sisterly sense for these types of things. It felt like I was going to suffocate. “Just remember Rou, that you’ll always be my little sister no matter what! I love you so much.”

“Roulette, you’re crying!” My sister gasped, “Is everything okay?” They all crowded around me with looks of concern on their faces. I struggled to get the words out, “I know that things weren’t always perfect back then, but at least you were all there with me and we were together. Y-you know I loved you guys more than anything, right? I wish we could see each other one more time...”

“Don’t worry Rou, we love you too.” True smiled at me. Hearing those words, broke me. Their happy faces only filled me with bitter feelings of loss and sadness. I tried to hold onto that memory for a little longer, but then it began to fade away. As my happy memories faded away, I found myself standing on my own. That cherished image of me spending time with my family was replaced by four familiar looking walls. Our little beach house on the edge of the cliff, with nopony else inside.

I was all alone.

“Oh yeah, I forgot about our fight.” I sighed, remembering the events of the previous day. We had gotten into a fight about whether or not we should settle down.

They must’ve got fed up, and left without me…” Feeling the tears streaming down my cheeks, I curled into a ball and sobbed to myself. An ember sparked on the carpet, and the flames quickly spread to the rest of the house. I sprang to my hooves. The room began to fill with smoke and the walls caught fire. My eyes stung from the heat. I tried the door, but it was locked. Through the window I could see the horrifying sight of Starlight Bay burning in the background. Feint screams and cries for help echoed from the town below. I noticed myself standing in the ashes of my dead brothers and sister that were scattered across the flooring. The voices were mostly unintelligible yet accusatory. Blaming me for not being able to save them.

“I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid.” I repeated to myself. The fires grew larger, as I desperately began to pound against the door. “Please somepony! Help me! True! Zap! Anyone!” I cried.

The fire raged throughout the house, threatening to consume me. With one strong buck, the bolt holding the door broke off, and I tumbled out of the burning beach house. Starlight Bay lay in flames, with a jet-black Raptor-Class battleship stationed overhead. The single Enclave officer stood before me, flanked by black-clad troopers standing at attention on either side. The Officer spoke to one of his subordinates, but I didn’t hear any of the words that came out. He approached slowly with purposeful steps, cold and methodical. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the cool air, and his face appeared shadowed by the inferno in the backdrop. As the Officer came closer, I watched as his features became more defined. He stood above me, his eyes reflecting the scene of our burning beach house. Despite the heat of the raging fires I shivered frozen in place, as his face finally came into view.

“Blegh…I’m not a morning pony.” I slowly stirred from my slumber as the morning sun struck my eyes and found myself back in the burnt out storefront. Sunshine peaked in from the cracks of the boarded up windows. I wiped away a tear from my eye, and sat up on the grubby old mattress. This wasn’t the first time having experienced that dream since that day. I thought that I’d already been able to accept what happened, and moved on from this after so long. The day hadn’t even started yet and I was already in a bad mood.

“No time for nagging feelings.” It was like Fair Trade said, although I hated to admit that he was right about anything. This wasn’t the time to get sentimental. I had to get back to tracking those Enclave ships... as soon as I figured out if I hadn’t just burned my last lead. Though the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had nothing. No raiders. No Enclave Weapons. No Pegasus. That mohawked bastard could be anywhere between here and halfway across the Wasteland by now! I cried aloud in frustration, grasping my head in my hooves.

Grumbling, I brought myself upright. Something felt wrong. I looked down at my shoulder. It was as if all sensation in it had gone completely dead. Punching the meat a few times, I frantically moved it around trying to get feeling back. Slowly, blood began circulating and it felt mostly normal again. That hitch was still there, but otherwise nothing else out of the ordinary. “Well that’s a bit concerning” I said, making a mental note of it. It would be best to get that checked out as well when I got to Junction Town. Sooner, if possible.

I flipped on Hotshot’s portable radio as I thought to myself. Daily Day was just reading off the same old reports from yesterday. Nothing new worth noting. Then it transitioned to prewar showtunes, so I shut it off promptly.

“Think, Roulette. Think!” I tapped my head impatiently, trying to jumpstart my brain into figuring out my next course of action. There wasn’t enough time to go on a vacation to the Smokey Mountains, although I wondered what the Enclave would be up to lurking around there. I had a contract waiting to be finished, and Radar was getting further away from me the longer I hesitated.

“Ugh! If only I had waited for backup!” I groaned, holding my face in my hooves. Then as I remembered those Enclave weapons, I steeled myself. “No, it’s not the time to start second guessing myself here. I’ve come this far.” The scene of rapid laserfire from those weapons was seared into my brain. It was my fault for hesitating, that all those innocent caravan ponies got killed. This was my fight.

“If I can’t find anything on that mohawk guy, then I’ll just have to try and find those raiders again.” I said, nodding to myself.

Imagining that my contact within the New Canterlot Army, Major Silver Spur, wasn’t expecting me for at least another day or two I came to my decision. “Two days,” I repeated to myself. If I didn’t find anything, I’d turn around and head to Junction Town like none of this ever happened. I exhaled “Might as well look around here for a bit to see if I can find any clues.”

“First thing’s first, let’s get some light in here,” I said, finding it too difficult to think in darkness. The boarded up windows of the general store made the interior dim, even with the morning sun shining through and light poking through holes in the shabby run-down walls. My brows furrowed when the portable light that Hotshot had been using didn’t flick back on again.

“Typical.” I muttered, flipping the switch back and forth a few times. The light was busted. So instead, I threw it across the room, hearing a loud crash in the corner. I made my way over to the window, and began to tear down some of the planks, tossing them in a pile near my hooves. Sun flooded into the room, which caused me to squint briefly as my eyes readjusted. I look around the scorched store front hoping to find anything I might’ve missed the first time. Nothing at a glance.

Turning over crates and pulling up floorboards, I was determined to search every corner of the place. There had to be something leftover here that’d tell me about the Enclave. At the very least some extra supplies and ammo. I huffed. That pegasus must have thought of this place specifically as a place he could hide out, but the why of it escaped me.

A sudden knocking against the door startled me. My heartbeat sped up, wondering who it could be. Thoughts raced through my mind, “Did Hotshot decide to come back? Was this Sting and his raiders?”. Good on them for making it easy on me. Acting on the instinct that I’d honed in the wasteland, I dove behind the counter and I propped my service rifle on top of it. Pressing it against my body, I leaned forward and kept my eyes trained on the front entrance. “Wait why was he knocking, though?” Oh well, no time for little details like that. I was ready for a fight regardless. The door creaked opened slowly, and I heard a mare’s voice call out from behind it.

“Hello? Is somepony in here?” A seafoam green earth pony mare wearing a dark silk jacket and boots, stepped into the doorway. She cast a long shadow standing there, but I could make out her features. A silky blonde mane, tied back into a ponytail which reflected the sunlight. The cute image of a smiling sunshine accompanied by a couple of musical notes adorned her flank. The mare didn’t appear to be a threat at first glance. She blinked and looked at me wide eyed for a moment, as I was aiming a gun at her. Lowering my rifle, I let out the tension that I’d built up in my shoulders.

“O-oh, sorry. I thought you were somepony else.” I admitted.

“Oh... “ The strange mare paused for a moment. “Well that’s okay. Comes with the it territory, right? I was just passing through, and thought I heard something coming from inside. So I thought I’d look... Um, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you.” I replied, rubbing the back of my mane. The mare’s cheery attitude caught me off guard. “Is it only you?”

“Yup. Only me.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know any pegasi with a big reddish mohawk, or maybe an effeminate looking raider stallion? Scrawny? Annoying voice? Punchable face?”

“Um, no. Why…?” she cocked her head. “No reason.” I replied.

“I wasn’t really expecting to find another mare though… I like your jacket?” she tried awkwardly.

“Thanks, I guess. Somepony special gave it to me.” I said, posing for myself as I admired the old thing. It had seen better days, that’s for sure. Noticing some dust, I brushed it off with a hoof. I noticed her staring at me too.

“Oh. Well, the name’s Sunny Hymn by the by, just in case you were wondering.” She chirped. Walking up to me with a smile, she extended her hoof. “Quite the ray of sunshine to wake up to.” I thought.

“Roulette.” I said tapping her hoof lightly. Then I returned myself to the task at hoof. She watched me from where she was standing with a curious look on her face.. “Roulette. That’s a pretty cool name, did your mom and dad give you that?” When I glowered at her she backed off quickly, “Oops, is that a touchy subject? Sorry.”

I rolled my eyes, “It’s fine.”

Anything that might’ve been worth taking had been scorched by the flames. Old hardware, paint cans, abraxo cleaner, wagon repair tools, any food left that wasn’t destroyed in the fires had long past its expiration date. I wasn’t past eating expired food, but I wasn’t in danger of starving to death and half-charred grub didn’t look particularly appetizing. My belly rumbled to remind me that it was breakfast, so I took out a protein bar from my saddlebags. I didn’t plan on staying too long, especially since I had already grabbed most of what I needed from Cotton’s caravan.

“Oh, well um. That’s cool. So what brings you out this way?” she leaned to one side, tapping the floor awkwardly.

I answered with my mouth half-full of oats flavored protein, but my attention mostly drawn elsewhere as I hoofed around the shop “Roughing it. I came out here looking for somepony. They got away, so now I’m going around town searching for clues. And if I don’t find anything, I’ll just go onto the next town.”

“Oh, that sounds interesting. So, are you like a Mercenary then? Bounty Hunter...?”

“Kinda...” I said. Then added, “I guess I’m with the New Canterlot Army. The Coalition, or something.”

“Oh. The New Canterlot Army? So does that mean you’re a soldier? That sounds amazing!” she wowed, trying to sound impressed. Mercenary was still accurate. My current job title was “Courier” actually, but I was too embarrassed to admit to that fact. Her cheery demeanor reminded me a little of Cotton’s chipper attitude, though she had something of a wasteland weariness about her that this pony lacked. This mare was a lot more, Sunny.

“Sort of. I’m on contract. It’s complicated” I admitted, rolling my eyes a little. I stayed focused on my task at hoof, giving half thought out responses.

“Your uniform looks a bit unique.” She said pointing over to my recently procured raider armor sitting in the corner. “Are you like a super secret agent for Gawdyna?”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I asked.

“No...? Don’t you?” She seemed to ask that earnestly. If not she was very good at hiding her sarcasm. As I made my way around the store Sunny stood in place, watching me during all of it curiously. I double checked the shelves hoping maybe I had missed something. Disappointedly, nothing. Also not too surprising. There hadn’t been a whole lot to scavenge as of late.

“So Rou? Is this official New Canterlot business? Oh, I’ll bet it’s a secret!”

I rolled my eyes, but answered anyways. “There were some raiders I was looking for as well. I’m going to go after them next. After that, I’m headed to Junction Town to enlist.”

“You’re trying to join up then?” her ears perked up, “Actually, I was just on my way to Junction Town myself...” I ignored her mostly, kicking the mattress aside only to find an old safe hidden underneath. I grinned, thinking I had hit the jackpot. As excitedly attempted to open it, I was disappointed to find that it was unlocked and had already been raided of all its contents. Scowling, I quickly grew irritated. She pointed to a small area behind the register leading to a locked backroom. “What about that place? Oops! Sorry, am I supposed to be quiet still?”

“You’re fine” I said, waving my hoof dismissively.

I walked over towards the door and tried to open it. Still locked, even after all this time. It was probably the only place in the whole town that hadn’t been combed over a million times by scavengers. Sunny trotted next to me as I contemplated the best way to unlock it. The seafoam mare fished a bobby pin out of her ponytail, and leaned into me.

“Hey, I can unlock that for you.” she started to say, but was interrupted mid-sentence as my rear hooves slammed against the door. I repeated this several times until it came off its hinges. Pushing the door aside, it fell to the floor stirring dust into the air. I smirked with pride and stepped into the small backroom. Sunny put her bobby pin away, “Oookay, nevermind.”

Sunny poked her head inside after me, and her face sunk with a grim expression. It was the first time I saw her looking anything close to sad. A single unicorn mare’s corpse, still fully clothed in tattered wasteland garb over an unnumbered stable jumpsuit. There was a rudimentary lab that had been set up in here recently before the fire, and a lot of it seemed to have been spared. Very little in the way of supplies though. A computer terminal sat on the desk hooked up to a cumbersome looking portable spark generator, used for recharging spark batteries. Miraculously, it looked like it still worked.

There was a revolver still clutched in her hooves, and a circular hole through her head. Not the ideal place, but good enough to get the job done. I grimaced at the sight. Another reminder of the sort of thing you’d find all too often in the wasteland. Many bits and pieces of the past remained untouched until somepony like me stumbled onto them. I had to remind myself that this wasn’t the same wasteland as back then. Although I was unable to place it, there was something off about this room. There was an uneasy feeling in my gut about it.

“Another day, another dead Stable Dweller.” I sighed. It was almost sad that she never lived to see Sunshine and Rainbows. Some of us aren’t so lucky.

Beside her was an ash coated personal diary and an old pipbuck. A 3000 series model, only more advanced. It looked to be in good condition but the screen display was bio-locked. Without the proper technician’s key, the valuable piece of old world tech was about as valuable as a fancy paper weight so long as the magical lockout was in effect. Unless you were the dead pony in question or knew somepony yourself who could unlock the device, at best maybe you could find a middlepony to find you a technician willing to hire out their services. Even then there was no guarantee. The service charges often made it barely worth the effort.

Yanking the pipbuck off her corpse, I shoved the old prewar device into my saddlebag. Lucky for me, she had already removed it from her hoof so I didn’t have to dislocate her shoulder in the process. If I could get it decoded there would probably be more useful information on it. Possibly valuable information about the Enclave. “Or maybe Fair Trade will give me a decent finder’s fee.” I mused, albeit unlikely.

“You’re not going to read it?” she asked.

I turned to her and replied, firmly rejecting the idea, “What’s the use in reading a dead wasteland pony’s diary? I’ll just get all sad and mopey.”

Sunny looked looked somewhat dejected by my answer.“-But, wouldn’t it be respectful to at least hear her final thoughts?” She asked. I scoffed.

“Maybe if you’re nosey into other ponies’ business. She’s already gotten more attention than most suicide cases in the wasteland. It’s sad. Tough. That’s the reality of it. If you don’t keep moving, the Wasteland will leave you behind. So what are the chances of me finding meaning in some old words? I’ve had enough of feelings for one day, thanks.” I picked it up and passed over to Sunny. Finding myself echoing Fair Trade again, only served to sour my mood further.

Sunny rubbed her eyes, then pointed her hoof at the old computer terminal and smiled as if nothing had happened. “Ya never know! Say, I hear computer terminals often have interesting things written on them! There could be valuable information on it, that might be of value to the New Canterlot Army!”.

“I guess.” I said, sitting down in front of the terminal. An advertisement clipping for entry into a local stable was pinned to the corner of the screen. Upon flipping the power switch, the terminal hummed to life. Maybe this pony was the one who hooked up this old terminal. I was still unsure how all this survived the fire though. The screen was too dusty to read anything, so I blew on it. This only served to create a huge choking dust cloud which I gagged on.

As the computer lit up the room, I found myself staring at a dark login screen. Sighing to myself, I stroked the enter key and that brought up a display of numbers and ledgers. There were a few logged entries written on it as well. Sunny peaked over my shoulder as I went through the terminal.

“Ugh...” I groaned, already able to tell that this was going to be a waste of time. Sunny urged me to keep reading. Already bored out of my mind, I struck another key and began reading the next entry. As I skimmed over most of the logs stored on the terminal, I learned a little bit about the town. Though most of it was of little interest.

The logged entries were detailing events that took place during the Great War, written out by the most boring pony imaginable. Most were in regards to a mining company causing problems for the townsfolk. They weren’t hiring out local labor, and workers from the mine were hanging around causing break-ins, harassing the locals. Remembering that somewhere south of here was the Ghastly Gorge, I guessed maybe that was what they were referring to. The store owner mentioned in a log that he was considering giving his spot in the Stable to the daughter of some mare he knew in town.

“All of these ponies are long dead.” I thought.

One of the entries was a personal reminder not to get too worked up over the little things. He noted that if you want to believe something is there for long enough, you might start looking for things when there’s nothing there out of the ordinary. In reality it’s just been your imagination the whole time. No need to make a mountain out of a molehill. I scowled, feeling a tinge of irritation as if a two hundred year old dead pony was calling me crazy. “What’s a molehill? I thought it was molerat.” I asked, somewhat confused by the prewar terminology.

The only thing on the terminal that piqued my interest, was a large number of logs that had been created and deleted in the last year. After that there was nothing. The whole thing made me raise an eyebrow. I became curious as I looked back at the dead stable unicorn. A sudden thought struck my mind, and I turned to Sunny. “Hey would you pass me that diary?”

“But I thought you didn’t want to read it?” she cocked her head to the side.

“I need to check something.” I insisted.

She passed the diary to me, and I flipped to the last page.

Never in one million years did I think I’d be forced to venture forth into Equestria’s hellscape on my own. I was always the quiet, inquisitive one who buried herself in the Pre-Equestrian Sciences and History. I’ve listened to chatter over the radio, even against the wishes of Overmare Opus. Having gone through various recordings I’ve been forced to the only logical conclusion: The political situation above the clouds appears to be breaking down.

There’s only so much I can fit into one diary entry. So, Equestria is a land built upon a system of prime virtues. Without going too deep into Harmony Theory, if those virtues are lacking the system will fall apart. The Inventors knew this, and the founder must have possessed at least cursory knowledge on the topic. This is one of the theories behind the Monarchy, and there are numerous political science essays on the topic…

“Old news.” I groaned dismissively, and passed the diary back to her. I learned that the stable dweller’s name was Dusty Diary, and that was about it. Her final entry was filled with scientific concepts and theories that flew straight over my head. The odd mathematical equation and runic symbol were mixed in on top of the normal sentence structure. They might have made more sense to a scientifically minded pony like Radar but were completely lost on me.

Deciding in my head that the mostly likely reason, was that the Enclave had been after this Stable Dweller for whatever reason and went full scorched-earth on the town. It was like had been done at Starlight Bay. I felt my blood boiling, just thinking about it. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t begin imagine what might’ve possessed him to come here of all places. If I had been involved in something like this, I would have avoided this place like the taint. With that, it was time to move on.

I stood up, and switched off the old desk terminal.

“Is everything alright?” She asked, curious.

“Enough fooling around.” I said. Centuries old terminals and diaries weren’t giving me much to go off of. As I hoofed my way past her back into the front area of the story, I granted one last look at the dead stable unicorn. Sunny poked her head out of the backroom to watch me strap on my raider armor. After gathering up my remaining things, I picked up my rifle and made my way outside.

I stood in the middle of town as I wondered to myself where I should head to next. As I glanced around the burned out buildings looking for any sort of scrap that survived, it looked as though everything had been razed to the ground. I shifted some of the charred timbers and debris aside, not exactly sure what I was supposed to be looking for. The mare followed me out shortly.

“Maybe if I could just get a better look around.” I thought, “That would be the best move.” Although it was hard to get a good view of things from where I was standing. Searching the area for any sort of high ground, my gaze quickly fell upon what seemed to be a scenic overlook of the Canterlot Valley. Its height stood dominating the small town of Sunvale, and was only a short trot from where I was.

While I remained busy thinking about my next action she tried to get her own word in. “Excuse me?” She gave me a weird look as if she was trying to hold in a laugh. “What the heck are you wearing?” the pony snickered, pointing to my raider gear.

“What about it?” I questioned looking down at myself.
“What’s with the shoulder pads?” she stifled to hold in a laugh. It’s true that I got it off a dead raider, but it wasn’t too far off from normal wasteland gear!

“It’s for protection.” I said. She didn’t seem to buy it though. The sunny mare snickered, “You’re not going to stop any bullets in that. It’s more likely you get shot by ponies who think you’re a raider.”

“Hey, I think I’ve been doing this long enough to know how this works!” I protested. Although she wasn’t wrong, all it was good for was stopping low grade rounds and close quarters combat. It did look a bit mean with the pony skull marking on dark leather hoofball pads, but I was going for the rough mercenary look. Pouting my lips, I was a little upset by the fact that I didn’t look as cool as I thought I did.

“Suit yourself.” Then her eyes lit up and she darted inside the general store. “Hang on, I have an idea! I’ll be right back!” she shouted. I waited impatiently tapping my hoof as I heard rummaging from inside the store. When she returned she had a can of yellow paint and a brush in her mouth. The paint was long dried out, but nothing a little spit wouldn’t fix. She dipped and swiped the paintbrush across both of my shoulders, then blew on the paint so it would dry faster.

I took a moment admiring her handiwork.

It was done up to look exactly like the double chevron designs on my Special Jacket. I had to give her points for coolness. The little added detail definitely made it feel more military-esque than raider. She smiled nervously. “Hope you like it. I painted it to look like the designs on your jacket. It’s easy to see how much you like that thing, judging by how old and worn it looks..”

“Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.” I said turning away from her, embarrassed by the gesture. Unsure of what else to say, I rubbed the back of my mane. The wasteland prepared you for a lot of things, but random acts of kindness from strangers wasn’t one of them. Everything’s been so confusing since the Lightbringer. She seemed to take my look as approval.

“Hymn, was it?” I asked.

“Sunny!” She answered happily.

I inhaled and exhaled deeply, only able to imagine how crazy I was about to sound. “This is going to sound crazy but… did you happen to notice any Enclave vertibucks flying over the Smokey Mountains yesterday? They would’ve been obscured by the haze a bit, flying low to not be spotted.”

The mare gave me a strange look. After a brief pause she snorted, and laughed boisterously, “E-Enclave ships?! I mean- like that’s ridiculous! Who’s even heard of Enclave ships all the way out here? They were like defeated or something, right? What even is an ‘Enclave’ anyways? Have you ever wondered who decided to call something an ‘Enclave’? Pretty silly if you ask me!”

I raised an eyebrow, “Yeah, I thought so.” She was a bit eccentric, but she was right. I was the only pony so far that I knew of who had seen anything. Turning away to think to myself for a moment, the fact that nopony else had seen anything was starting to get on my nerves.

“Say Roulette, I’ve got a question for you. I think we’d make a pretty good team! So, I’ve been thinking. We’re both headed to Junction Town, right? They say two heads are better than one. It could be fun! Two mares together on the road... alone."

When I turned back to her, she was standing there smiling.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Trying to be useful and not get in your way.” she answered.
Her response forced me to raise an eyebrow,

“Right.” I said, as I began to walk away from her. She called out after me, pointing in the opposite direction. I didn’t respond. Instead I just kept walking towards the scenic overlook. “-Wait! Where are you going? Junction Town is that way!”

I kept on walking.

In my head I thought that the longer I spent here, the further away the Enclave was getting from me. Those ships were there, I knew it. I could feel it in my gut. Somepony besides me had to have seen them! Thinking that if I could get to that height, I’d be able to find some sort of clue of the ships I’d seen yesterday, I started down the road. “If not maybe the exercise will do me some good. Some reassurance that I’m not losing my mind, would also be nice.” I thought.

As I walked towards the edge of town, I brushed aside the mystery of why the Enclave would’ve attacked such a small town like this behind me. Any reason Hotshot might’ve had, didn’t have anything to do with those ships I saw yesterday. I had everything I needed in my saddlebags. It was just like at Starlight Bay, they attacked towns and wasteland ponies indiscriminately. That was the point of Operation Cauterize: “To cut out the festering wound that was the Wasteland below.” They were irredeemable monsters.

The mare cocked her head sideways, and began to follow.

“Um, excuse me? Roulette? There was a question I wanted to ask you!”

I turned to face her for a moment before continuing on my way, “Head back down that road, to the Outpost 52. I came from that way so it should be clear. If you can’t get an escort to Junction Town, ask for Fair Trade. Tell him I sent you.” I said. I’d probably regret letting Fair Trade know I was out here skimming my contract, but it was better than letting this weird pony come along with me and put herself at risk.

Roads here were less traveled than the ones back in Gawdyna’s territory, so they remained in better condition. Wagons were left in the middle of the road, although some were pushed off to the side. It seemed most ponies didn’t travel this way. Hopping over some rocks and debris in my way, I continued along the road at a trot towards the overlook. It was a mostly clear morning, despite the dead landscape. I looked back to see that the mare didn’t heed my advice. She continued to follow me, struggling to climb over the terrain I had just traversed easily. This mare was beginning to annoy me.

“Don’t follow me. It’s dangerous out here.” trying to sound official, I urged her to head back towards the Outpost 52. She ignored me, and continued to follow anyways. Seems I had a tagalong. I groaned, and kept on walking.

This mare seemed like she possessed at least cursory knowledge of the wasteland, but her whole attitude was off. I didn’t press it because I was too focused on my current task, but she had definitely raised my suspicions. “Obvious attempts at friendship, much? What the heck is this mare doing out here?” I found myself asking. Though thinking about it just frustrated me further.

“Y-you’re trying to join up with the New Canterlot army right?-” Sunny spoke as she scrambled after me. “Wouldn’t it be your job to help escort refugees, and protect ponies in that case? I sure could use some protection from a strong mare like you.”

“No offense, but you don’t really look like you can handle yourself.” I said.

“Don’t worry! You won’t even know I’m here!” She reassured. Although her attempts at doing so mostly fell flat. I stopped at the bottom of the hill and looked up. There were higher priorities on my mind at the moment.

“Whatever you say.” I sighed. The overlook was situated atop a hillside, part of which had collapsed due to heavy rains over time. The road continued into a tunnel leading through the hills, but split off onto a seperate pathway that led up to the top. Busted wagons were piled into the tunnel entrance to block off further travel unless you used the maintenance route. It seemed like the type of thing raiders would set up. The extra pathway normally leading up to the overlook was broken down in several sections, making the climb even more dangerous. I’d be able to see everything. If I was lucky, I’d even be able to find some clues about those ships I saw yesterday.

Sunny stopped next to me, huffing to catch her breath. “Where are we going?” she asked. Her questions were starting to get on my nerves. I grit my teeth, like I had something to prove.

“Stop following me.” I said again, getting slightly irritated.

“What’s up there?”

“I’m hunting the Enclave.”

“Enclave? Something tells me they’re not hiding at the top of that hill.”

I ignored her commentary. Not seeing a path up to it, I took the only shortcut. With a burst of speed I ran up the steep incline slowing towards the top, and grabbed onto the guardrail.

A small picnic setup had been left behind, littered with tin cans and empty junkfood boxes. Beside me was a sign that read “scenic overlook”, with what was left of the rusted guard rail. The footing seemed like it might come loose if presented with too much weight, so I stepped carefully. I climbed over the railing and turned to look across the grand Canterlot Valley and for a moment I simply stared in awe.

“I have to give you props for this Lightbringer.” I smiled. As I thought, I was able to get an excellent view of things from up here. A light breeze could be felt from this height, brushing against my coat. Somehow though, it was even more inspiring and I took that extra time to myself to appreciate grand vista. I let out a breath slowly, remembering all the places Of all the places I’d visited with my family, none were as beautiful as this. I bet they would’ve loved this.

Directly below, I could see the town of Sunvale where I’d just come from. A charred blot on the surrounding landscape. Beyond that, there was the 52 Outpost, and the nearby Canterlot Ruins. The recently resettled town of Ponyville nestled deep in the valley, lay on the edge of the half-burned remains of the Everfree Forest. Along with several small towns and villages that dotted its borders, and parts of the area were in the process of being converted into farmland. It looked as though society was finally beginning to rebuild itself, after two hundred years.

Sunny attempted to follow, sliding down the hill several times before she finally managed to reach me. “Why the big hurry? Are you looking for something up here?” She looked exhausted after trying to climb up several times. I raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t take no for an answer, do you?” I asked.

“Nope!” she chirped.

“Listen to me, this isn’t a joke! I can’t waste my time protecting you.”

“Jeez, I can take a hint. I’ll be fine, calm down.”

“I am calm!” I shouted.

I climbed up onto the guard railing, using the sign as support to get a better look. The Smokey Mountains were slightly obscured by another range at this angle, but I could still make out the permanent haze lurking behind it. Whatever was causing that, there was that same off feeling I had. I squinted at the mountains suspiciously but saw no signs of the ships from yesterday. So I continued, looking for any irregularities along the skyline. There was another weather front I could see forming on the far horizon.

A wing of griffons circled in the distance. I had to squint to make them out, so I couldn’t tell if they could spot me from here, though I’d been told their eyesight was supposed to be impressive. They’d probably find ashes and some of the weapons I’d left behind, but the modified stealthbuck I’d recovered from the site was tucked safely away in my bag.

No signs of Enclave.

A lumbering pegasus cloud city sat in the skies not far above Junction Town and New Canterlot in the far off distance, surrounding a monumental white spire. It was barely visible from here, also the only one in the skies at the moment. I already knew that one wasn’t Enclave anymore.

Nothing.

My eyes fell upon a downed Thunderhead Warship in the middle of the burned Everfree Forest, leftover from the Enclave Wars. A stark reminder of the Enclave’s terrible power during the wars. Although ponies seemed to be living in it now. It appeared to have been repurposed into some sort of weird Cathedral, and had some structures built up around it. “Maybe it would be worth checking out that place later.” I thought.

Still nothing.

Another small out of the way settlement that I hadn’t seen before, was hidden in a thicket of a forest that I was having trouble remembering the name of. I would’ve missed it if I wasn’t looking closely. The town must have been set up recently, It was on the far side not connected to any major trade routes, so it was unlikely they were seeing much trade. “Weird.”

No signs of Enclave anywhere.

I growled. It was much easier to see from here, but my new vantage point was offering me little in the way of clues. I was beginning to grow visibly irritated. This whole adventure felt like it had left me with less than when I started. My anger building, I stamped my hoof in frustration causing the guard railing to shift. Both of us latched onto it for support. Checking again, it seemed otherwise stable. I let out a sigh of relief.

“Are you alright?” Sunny cocked her head sideways.

“I’m not crazy! I saw Enclave ships!” I shouted. She waved her hoof trying to calm me down.

“Jeez, alright. I believe you.” She huffed. “Why do you care so much, anyways?”

“I hate the Enclave” I said. She gave me a perplexed look.

“But I thought you were searching for raiders?” she asked.

I rolled my eyes, “I’m looking for raiders because they were using Enclave weapons. Where there are Enclave weapons, there are bound to be Enclave ships. If there are Enclave ships, then I have to warn somepony.”

“Not trying to sound judgy, but you seem a little bit obsessive.” She puffed. I exhaled a single slow breath through my clenched jaw, I felt my blood simmering. The pony turned to me and asked again, this time with a hint of concern in her voice, “Roulette, is everything okay?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I mumbled, turning away.

Instead I turned my attention back to looking for any irregularities along the skyline. I was almost ready to give up hope, when I spotted something roughly to the South East beyond the valley. A patch of trees that looked oddly askew, broken and parted sideways in an irregular fashion. It was difficult to see from all the way back here, but I had to trust my gut instinct on this one. I slid down the incline and broke off into a gallop. “I think I’ve found something!”

“Wait! Don’t run off again! She shouted after me, scurrying to follow. I galloped as fast as my hooves could carry me. Faster. Faster! Desperately pushing myself as hard as I could, to prove to myself that I wasn’t just seeing things. I didn’t care if it caused my legs to fall off. I kept running until I arrived at the place I had barely caught a glimpse of from the overlook.

I paused to look at the scene, feeling an emptiness in my stomach.

My eyes followed along the skid mark raking across the ground to the end, where the wreckage of a single Enclave Vertibuck rested. There was a slight pain in my shoulder, but i ignored it. The ship had been battered and buried by the elements, with the pilot still inside. What lay before my hooves was the black armored X-01 helmet of a dead Enclave soldier. I knew it all too well. Looking down at the helmet, I bent over and picked it up between my hooves.

As I stared into it, something ticked in me seeing the reflection of my dead family in the yellow reflective visor. The helmet stared back at me, and I could see every atrocity that they had committed onto me and my family. A glint reflected across its eyes, which broke me from my stupor. All I saw there, was a reflection of myself. My anger began to boil up inside me, and I felt my teeth grinding together.

With one hoof I reared up and smashed the helmet against a rock so hard that it hurt my hoof. Hearing a loud a crack, the helmet’s lightweight poly-alloy material gave way. I stomped on it again, and then several more times until it was left crumpled with a gaping indentation. The visor was cracked and deformed. I exhaled.

When I turned around, I saw Sunny standing there giving me a nervous look. There was worry in her bright blue eyes, shrinking back almost like she was afraid. I wondered how much of that she saw? It was difficult to describe how I felt about her look at that moment. The seafoam green mare appeared to be struggling to come up with the right words. She finally managed to get something out. “R-Roulette... are you okay…? Is this the ship you were talking about?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” I answered, trying to ease her worries.

The seafoam mare turned to me, with genuine concern in her voice. “Roulette? Why are you so touchy about the Enclave?” she asked.

“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” I snarled. She shrunk back in fear as if I was about to strike her and a sense of guilt washed over me. I winced, feeling immediate regret at what I’d just done. “I-I’m sorry…” I said.

“I-it’s okay, really.” she said, seeming to accept my apology. Though when I walked up to her she flinched backwards. The damage was done already. It was an awful yet familiar feeling. “W-well, hey at least you found something! Right? Congratulations! You’re not crazy!” Sunny offered a meek consolation prize. She still looked shaken. I averted my gaze from her, feeling too ashamed to look her in the eyes. I had let my anger get the better of me.

“No.” I shook my head and spoke softly, “This one’s been battered by the elements for at least a few months. The ships I saw were flying through the haze of the Smokey Mountains just yesterday. It’s okay, I’m calm now.”

“You’re slightly less crazy...?” she shrugged sheepishly. I frowned, turning back to look at the downed Enclave vessel. It felt like I’d been led here for a reason.

I turned my attention back to the Vertibuck. The cockpit had come unlatched during the crash, but I still had to lift it to get it the rest of the way open. Then I crawled inside. Its pilot and interior were well preserved enough, though I showed little respect for the dead Enclaver as I climbed over him. The control dials were all cracked and useless, but otherwise much of the console appeared mostly intact. Taking a glance back at Sunny, I saw how she just watched me too nervous to say anything.

My eyes laid back upon an orange device hidden underneath the control panels and I tugged it loose. It was the ironically named “black box” that recorded all flight information for the Vertibuck. I climbed out of the vertibuck and sat down on one of its metal wings, examining the piece of machinery. A warning label read: “Do Not Open under penalty of Enclave Arrest”. I almost burst out laughing as I pried open the crash proof shell, “Sure, whatever you say Chief.”

The machine’s innards contained several doodads for recording various timestamped logs for altitude, engine performance, and a single audio playback device. A blinking red light flashed on and off, indicating that there was some sort of audio stored on the device. I pressed the play button, and static-ridden audio began to play from the device. Whirring engines, and the sound of turbulent weather battered the outside of the vertibuck. The voice of the pilot came in over the speaker.

"HQ, this is Vertibuck eight-niner-two, en route to Thunder Rock. Bearing five-eight-two-four, four hundred knots. Precious cargo on-board. Respond, HQ.... HQ, Vertibuck eight-niner-two. I say again, carrying Precious Cargo…” , The pilot’s voice carried an air of desperation in it, that I found some mild satisfaction in.

“This is Lieutenant Fly Steady of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. HQ do you copy? I don’t know who the fuck is in charge right now. This distress signal is going out over the Enclave’s hidden backup network. Probably against regs, but fuck it. Any acting Enclave personnel listening on this channel, please respond! I’m carrying highly classified materials in the cargo bay of my Vertibuck. Per Contingency Protocols all assets of interest are to be transported to a backup storage location. I’m attempting to remain out of sight. Flying low, in stealth mode. The payload is to stay out of the hooves of traitors, and surfacers at all costs!”

The pilot let out an exasperated grunt and repeated the broadcast. "HQ, this is Vertibuck eight-niner-two, en route to Thunder Rock! Bearing five-eight-two-four, four hundred knots! Precious cargo on-board! Respond, HQ!"

"HQ, Vertibuck eight-niner-two-" A loud boom was picked up by the recording as one of the engines blew out. Sounds from the recording picked up screaming metal engine parts scraping against the outer hull, and fuel igniting as it began to make its way inside. "Shit- Mayday, mayday! Any Enclave Callsign this is Vertibuck eight-niner-two, hit, cannot maintain altitude. Secure cargo at all costs! Crash co-ordinates four-six-niner eight-six-"

There was a clamorous roar of twisted metal digging into earth, and that was the end of the recording. I observed how it was likely shot down by something as it was flying over this region. That seemed to be the case looking over the damage to one of the wings, although it was hard to know for sure judging by the wreckage. A fitting end. “Good riddance to dead Enclavers.” I spat.

“Thunder Rock? Hidden Backup Network?” I couldn’t remember ever hearing about anything like that. “Maybe New Canterlot would want to know about it?” I stuffed the innards of the the black box into my saddlebags along with the pipbuck. All the extra weight shifted around in my saddlebags. The only thing I could hope for was that maybe I could take it to somepony who knew how to decode the information. “That’ll probably do for a start.” I thought.

The cargo bay was half buried, so I got to work digging. Putting my earth pony hooves to work, I pushed the dirt aside effortlessly as I attempted to uncover the cargo bay. Sunny seemed to hang back, too nervous to do anything. I felt like I was in my element moving all this earth around, until finally I managed to dig enough to open the cargo bay. It took a bit of force, but the metal doors opened after a few tries. Now I could see what he was carrying.

“Wait. This can’t be right.” I said. The space was dark and cramped. Mangled by the crash, but mostly intact. Checking thrice to ensure that I hadn’t missed something, all but confirmed it. I had expected to find some sort of weapon or at least something more interesting inside the cargo bay. More than a single tiny metal box. I slid on my belly towards the container, grabbed it, and backed out slowly.

Setting the steel box on ground between the two of us, we both were silently wondering what was inside. It appeared to be marked with a familiar looking insignia of a rainbow lightning bolt imposed onto a patch of clouds etched into the steel. The lock had come completely undone in the crash, making things much easier. Though, the exact memory of where I’d seen such a symbol escaped me for the moment.

We both exchanged glances. Thoughts raced through my head with possibility, wondering what could be so important. I gulped. The anticipation was killing me, so I opened it. Inside was a tiny orb, small enough to fit in my hoof. That was it. The contents of the box forced me to raise an eyebrow. “I think it’s a memory orb. But you need a memory recollector to view them. Got one?”

I turned to Sunny and she shook her head.

As I sat there and pondered what pony’s memory could be so valuable to the Enclave, I felt a sudden jolt up my spine. I was getting a feeling that there was somepony stalking us from just out of sight. SPP Towers lurked in the distance, and we stood with open wasteland surrounding us. The two of us had strayed far from the road. We were smack dab in the middle of raider country. I called out, “Hey?! Is anypony there?!”

No reply.

“Don’t mess with me!” I barked, only growing more irate when there was no answer.

Sunny looked around nervously as I pulled back on the charging handle of my service rifle, raising it against the rocky terrain. “I-Is something wrong?” she asked, and looked around confused. I stayed silent, continuing to point my weapon at a nearby rocky outcropping. My breath fell short.

My ears perked up at the sounds of approaching hoofsteps, and I watched a group of three wasteland ponies step out from their hiding place. They were dressed in raider gear with Jagged’s mark on them, all marked up with scars and decked out with Enclave weapons. Sunny darted behind the wreckage of the downed bird. I remained mostly calm.

“Looks like we finally managed to catch up with you.” said the one in charge of the small group. A brown earth pony with a dark mane and facial hair, with bright yellow eyes that shined like a serpent’s. His speech carried a San Palominoan accent. “You’re quite the runner Chica; saw you galloping down that ridge like a maniac.”

“Have we met?” I asked. “It’s morning and I’m already having a bad day.”

“You’re the one who should know me. I can see you’re wearing the Boss’ colors.” the raider replied, gesturing towards the pony skull-marking matched with a knife that was etched onto my armor. He wore Jagged’s mark as well, but this group wasn’t among the raiders I’d dealt with yesterday. It seemed like they didn’t recognize me, so I was safe for now. At least as far as I’d be able to pass myself off as a member of his gang. “Great,” I thought, “Maybe I can get some information out of them.”

“Oh, right. I didn’t recognize you...” I lied, doing my best to bluff my way through the conversation. I puffed my chest out and put on a slightly deeper, gruffer sounding voice.

“Angel Eyes.” he said.

“Um, yeah... The boss gave me a special assignment, you just don’t know about it because your normal run-of-the-mill raider operations are way beneath me. I’ve been tracking the movements of New Canterlot types in the area. Real black-ops tier stuff. I was just about finished scouting when you lot showed up.”

“That’s, interesting... I’ve never seen you before.” The raider squinted.

I scoffed. “I wouldn’t be a very good agent otherwise. Ask your boss if you don’t believe me. New Canterlot Forces have been way more active out here since the latest run of caravan attacks.”

“I haven’t seen any New Canterlot patrols around here...” he looked around and back to me.

Doubling down on my story, I shot blindly and hoped for the best. “Shows what you know. You should be more careful about hitting caravans. That last job you boys pulled was a mess. All of you are lucky that this whole area isn’t swarming with troopers by now.”

They exchanged glances, looking confused amongst themselves. Feeling a bit cocky I tried to push my luck a little, aiming for whatever answers I could get out of the raiders. “So tell me some things, there were a couple of details about the plan that the boss didn’t fill me in on.”

“Alright Miss Agent. First tell me who is that little mare hiding behind the vertibuck?” he asked. Sunny eeped and ducked behind the wreck.

“She’s not with me.” I answered, hearing the faintest whine from behind the downed bird.

“Excellente.” The raider smiled. “ Cute mares like her fetch a hefty price on the coyote market.” His response and the way he said it irritated me a lot more than it should have. I needed to keep my emotions under control. He could probably tell he was pissing me off, either that or he was just really good at reading ponies, and so he added, “Maybe after we all have a bit of fun with her first, of course.”

“Actually, you know what? I changed my mind. She is with me, so step off, molerat breath.” I stated firmly, digging my hooves into the dirt. Something about that line in particular made me lose interest in the conversation.

Angel Eyes grinned and laughed to himself. “Second, if you were really working with the boss, then you should know that he only tells you what he wants you to know. So your story is obvious bullshit. Y’know, we were originally told to be on the lookout for a certain pegasus. Oddly enough, he also told us there was a mare we were supposed to kill if she came out here. I reckon that’d be you. You match the description and general attitude.”

“That pegasus in question wouldn’t happen to be very slippery and have an orange mohawk, would he?” I asked. He didn’t answer, simply responding by chuckling to himself. I was beginning to find it slightly annoying. Now I had a general idea of why Hotshot might’ve been in such a hurry the day before. I still planned on getting some proper answers next time I caught up with him.

“Tell me about where you got your Enclave weapons. Those modifications aren’t standard issue.” I growled.

“Quite demanding, aren’t you? You made a mistake coming here, Muchachita.”

“Just tell me what I want know and this doesn’t have to get ugly.”

“A real firecracker, too. I heard how you gave Sting some impromptu facial reconstructive surgery! Beat down five guys with your bare hooves! I laughed my ass off when I heard about it. Lucky for you though, I hate that smug piece of shit. So don’t think I’m doing that asshole any favors by killing you.” he chuckled and grinned, showing off his misshapen teeth.

“You’re too kind.” I quipped sarcastically. Then bringing up my rifle, I barked. “Didn’t you hear? This isn’t a wasteland anymore! I’ll have you know I’m working on behalf of the New Canterlot Army!”

“You hear that boys?” they laughed amongst themselves. “Gawdyna isn’t here to protect you out here. This is Raider Country. None of her fancy mandates apply.”

I visibly scoffed. “I don’t need protection to deal with you, molerat breath.”

“You should’ve walked away when you had the chance.” He said, and their rifles powered up with a hum of energy. I quickly realized that they weren’t going to give me any useful information. Aiming back at them with my rifle, that familiar sound of crackling energy put me on edge, but I didn’t flinch once.

“You really want to do this? I’m ready for it.” I declared. There was a fiery ember burning inside me that was about ready to burst, because I wasn’t afraid this time. In fact, I was itching for a fight. We stood for a short while in a standoff, although, It felt much longer than either of us cared to admit. Staring down the barrel of an energy rifle really tests a pony’s nerves.

Angel and the others didn’t look so eager to throw their lives away either. I could see them hesitating, as a bead of sweat dripped down one of their necks. I hovered over the trigger of my service rifle. Their gem focus crystals heated with energy. I’d take all of them down before they got so much as a shot off. I held my breath waiting for the moment, but it never came. Angel blinked first. He powered down his rifle, and his buddies did the same. Lowering their weapons, he scoffed and turned his head away. “You’re not worth it.” he said, “The boss already has plans for you. I’ll let you squirm for a bit. Maybe some others will get a lucky shot off. That, or that foolhardy confidence will get you killed eventually.”

“Angel Eyes,” One of his friends looked to him nervously, “You sure? But the boss said-”

“Fuck the boss! He isn’t here right now...”

“Leaving so soon?” I asked in a mocking tone as they turned away.

“Don’t be in such a rush to die niña. You’ll get yours in time.” he replied. After they were out of sight and out of earshot I let out a deep sigh of relief. I took note of the what I had learned through our conversation, but still wasn’t anywhere to close to the information I needed.

Sunny crawled out from behind the Vertibuck. She hopped next to me with a look of genuine excitement and admiration.

“That was amazing, Rou!” she wowed. “Can I call you Rou?” It was strange that she could remain so cheery after that. I blushed a little, turning away so she wouldn’t see but I think she caught me anyways. Although I also felt deeply ashamed just underneath the surface at how I’d been treating this pony who was only trying to help.

I felt too guilty to look her in the eyes but I spoke loud enough so she could hear. “Listen Sunny, I was on my way to Junction Town when the caravan I was travelling with was attacked by raiders. They were using Enclave weapons. Right at that moment, I saw Enclave ships flying over the horizon. Nopony besides me seems to have seen anything. Everypony I’ve asked so far has either dismissed the idea completely or thought I was crazy. But I know I saw something! I won’t allow other ponies to be hurt by those weapons again!”

“I know it’s none of my business, but why do you care so much? Isn’t it like, the Lightbringer’s job to deal with this sort of thing?” She asked, but preemptively waved her hooves to try and calm me, “Oh, sorry… touchy subject again?”

“The Enclave took everything from me...”

“Oh...” The mare didn’t know what to say at first. Her face was wracked with a pained look in her blue eyes. As she regained some semblance of her speech, all she managed to say was, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I said. “The radio says that they still don’t know anything about what’s causing the caravan attacks, so it’s all up to me.”

“You said you were looking for a Pegasus with a mohawk, right?” she asked.

I nodded, “Hotshot. He knew about the attack somehow. I tracked him out here trying to get him to answer my questions, but he got away in the end.”

“Why didn’t you just report all this to New Canterlot? This is more their business, right?” she asked, “I’m sure the Stable Dweller would’ve done something about it.”

“I just felt a sudden urge to rush out here. I couldn’t stomach the thought of doing nothing. Besides, I’ve known too many ponies who were killed by those weapons.” I answered. She was right, waiting for backup would’ve been smarter but it wasn’t an option for me. The thought of ignoring it would’ve felt even worse. It wasn’t the first time my reckless nature had gotten me into trouble. That hitch in my shoulder seemed to be holding up fine at least, although I could still feel it."

“The raiders, those weapons, and the Enclave. I have a hunch that they’re all connected. I just don’t know how yet.”

Sunny rubbed her chin with her hoof, “Are you sure it wasn’t just a bad coincidence?”

“Maybe… I don’t know. Do you think I’m starting to lose it too?” I asked, not bothering to look back at her. As if I already knew what she was thinking deep down.

“Not at all! I don’t think you’re crazy! You came all this way out here on the off chance of trying to help ponies! That’s pretty admirable if you ask me! See? I knew you were a good pony deep down! Maybe the New Canterlot Army has somepony, or somegriffon that might’ve seen something? We could always travel back to Junction Town and file the report together. I’ll go with you, if it helps.”

“Thanks Sunny.” I sighed, trying my best to smile. “I really appreciate it.” She smiled back at me, seeming oddly innocent for living in such a Celestia foresaken place. Also earnest in her desire to help.

“But I’ve already made up my mind, that I’m not giving up on this. I’m going to that town that I saw from the overlook, to see if anypony knows anything. Those raiders are still somewhere out here using those weapons on innocent ponies. Let’s just say it’s personal.” I reaffirmed my stance, cracking my hoof joints.

“Well, they say two heads are better than one! How about I come with?”

“It’s too dangerous for a mare like you to be out here. No offense, but you seem more than a little bit inexperienced, and I’d feel guilty if those idiots hurt you. I think it’d be best if you head back to the 52 where it’s safe.” I said. Sunny rolled her eyes, and muttered something about me ‘sounding like her dad’.

I got flustered, “H-hey I heard that!”

“If all you’re worried about is lil’ ole me, calm down. I can take care of myself just fine. I was on my way to Junction Town myself, but got separated from my family coming over. Even though Gawd’s territory is supposed to be a lot safer, I heard about the recent raider attacks over the radio and felt like I should find a travelling companion. I’d say I’m pretty good at finding out things that ponies don’t want me to know, and I can pick a lock or two. You looked like a mare who could handle yourself, so when you said you were also headed to Junction Town it sounded like a match made in heaven.”

She could already tell by my look that I wasn’t entirely sold. So she gave me something that sweetened that pot. “Trust me, I actually know somepony who knows a ton about the Enclave. He might be able to help you!” she chirped.

“Wait, really?” I asked with astonishment.

“Yup! If anypony knows something, it’ll be him! So if you let me tag along with you, I’ll introduce you to him!”

“You’re sure he might know something?”

“Like I said, if there’s anypony who knows something about the Enclave, it’d him.” Sunny smiled and winked. It sounded almost too good to be true. “So, how about this? I’ll help you find out whatever you need about the Enclave, and you help me get to Junction Town? What do you say, partner?” She extended her hoof, acting coy.

That changed things immensely. I felt relief for the first time at my decision to come out here. She’d still be useless in a fight. It would fall onto me to protect her if anything went wrong, but I didn’t feel like listening to any of those lingering doubts I had about her. “Alright, you have a deal” I grinned. Hocking saliva, I spit into my hoof and we shook on it.

Sunny looked repulsed, staring at her slobber covered foreleg. “Ew... Why’d you do that?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s common custom in the wasteland.” I frowned, my lips pouting slightly.

“Maybe where you’re from.” She grumbled, wiping her hoof off on her silk jacket.

“Where did you say you were from again?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, I’m from... Vanhoover! You don’t want to know about that! Super boring! Trust me. The town I’m from is just has one shack in the middle of nowhere, with nothing else around for miles! So everypony has to share. There were provisions, and my daddy was always yelling at me to come back inside. And don’t get me started on the neighbors!”

“Right.” I said, raising one eyebrow. “Do you have a gun or anything?”

“Oh yeah, I nearly forgot!” The sunny pony turned to dig through her travel bag that she’d hidden away in her raggedy old coat. After rummaging around she pulled out a small pocket pistol. I almost facehoofed. “Well that would’ve been super helpful in the last fight. You should really put that on a leg holster.”

She looked almost offended at my assertion. “Well if I had trotted in with my pistol drawn, you might’ve shot me by accident! My daddy taught me everything I know about the wasteland, so I can take care of myself thank you!” The mare had a point, although I snickered slightly at the fact she was using that kind of language at her age. After she finished her retort, she flicked her nose up at me and returned the weapon to her bag. I was starting to like Sunny a little more. Perhaps I’d underestimated her.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” I said, offering a weak apology. “Do you have any supplies of your own?”

“A couple of days worth.” she replied. “Don’t worry about me! I managed fine before we ran into each other, yeah?”

Also Roulette might get a bit old after a while, so how about a nickname? What about Rou? Oh! Can I call you Rou-Rou?” Her eyes beamed.

“No.” I answered flatly.

“Rou it is!” she hopped enthusiastically. I grumbled, but tried to smile when she wasn’t looking. She must’ve taken it as a sign of agreement.. I felt my hooves itching again, reminding me that it was time to move on.

“Let’s go.”

“Roger.” She nodded.

Footnote: Level up.

Perk Added:

Intense Training: +1 Strength

Chapter 4: A Town Called Unity

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Chapter 4 -

A Town Called Unity

“Another settlement needs our help.”

As the two of us walked towards the town, Sunny kept up the conversation. She was a lot more talkative than I was. Not in an annoying way, but I’d have preferred if she stayed silent. The envelope in my saddlebags remained a constant nagging reminder of the job I was currently neglecting. “I know, I know!” I thought, dismissing the imaginary voice of Fair Trade in my head. How important could one little report be? Only one thing on the agenda: figuring out where those raiders got their hooves on Enclave weapons.

Every now and then I’d turn to look at her, and she’d stop talking for a moment before continuing. As if she was waiting for my approval. Things were still a bit tense after she saw how I looked at that Enclave helmet from the crash site. I felt like she was probably worried that she’d make me mad again. We were coming up on the woods where I had first glimpsed the town, and I began to search for some signs of it. Nothing.

I grumbled to myself, causing Sunny to put a pause again in her speech.

There was little for me to say though, otherwise. I was too focused on finding the place. However, I was starting to pick up on the mare’s more subtle cues now that I was paying more attention. She acted like she was on her own for the first time. Afraid and on constant alert, even though she did a good job acting like nothing was wrong. She was searching for her family. That detail alone made it hard not to feel at least a little sympathy for her.

We both stopped on the edge of the woods, staring into the forest. It was too difficult to see through. Everything was obscured by a thick morning haze that permeated the whole forest, that made the dead trees appear like ghostly silhouettes through the mist. Something about it looked familiar to me, but the name of the place didn’t come to mind immediately. Instead, only vague recollections of the area. I took a quick moment to glance around, but it was nowhere in sight. “I know I saw it around here somewhere...” I muttered, checking over over my shoulder again to make sure that we weren’t being followed.

I had hoped that maybe I’d get lucky here, but I was beginning to grow tired of all the dead-end leads. The downed vertibuck struck me as potentially valuable, but there was no telling if its contents would be of any use at to me all. I didn’t have the technical know-how to sort through any of it myself, and neither did she as far as I knew.

Sunny watched me nervously as I got a bit closer, and began listing off potential points of interest in my head. To onlookers it was like any other forest in Equestria, but temperature-wise it felt noticeably warmer. The name was on the tip of my tongue.

“What would a town be doing way out here anyway?” Sunny asked.

“Search me...” I answered, as I got a bit closer.

“You’re sure you saw a town?” she asked, checking over her own shoulder.

“Yes,” I answered bluntly. Squinting, I could almost make out something that looked like a town on the other side, if just barely. “Bingo. It’s on the other side of these woods. C’mon, let’s go through.” I gestured her to follow me, but she seemed reluctant to move. Somehow, I also felt content to stand there. Everything was warmer in the forest. It was a nice feeling, almost peaceful in a way.

“This place is making me nervous,” Sunny worried aloud. I could only make out bits of petrified forest, and the occasional ghostly shimmer as sunlight reflected against the eerie haze. As I got closer, I walked so that I was standing just inside of the woods, trying to see if I could get a better view through the thick haze. For a second I thought I saw a figure there as well, standing tall amongst the trees.

I blinked twice to make sure I wasn’t seeing things and stood there in shock as she came into view. It was an alicorn, except her coat was completely white. I had seen mutant alicorns in the wastes before, but always in shades of green, blue and purple, never white. She turned to look at me directly with her piercing, bright green eyes. We exchanged glances as it lowered its head, as if to beckon me closer. Whatever she was, the creature had an unusual quality about her that was both beautiful and slightly creepy. She also looked quite lanky and emaciated.

“Roulette?” Sunny called out my name.

I shook myself vigorously, snapping out of my daze. When I looked again the alicorn had gone. “What the heck?” I blinked. “That was weird.” Though my train of thought was interrupted by a sharp tingling sensation in my shoulder around where the bullet had hit.

It was suddenly hot, and I was burning up just standing there. I wiped away sweat from my brow. That was when I noticed several signs posted around me to mark the area. One of them pointed towards town. The rest were all warning signs for radiation. With even more of them posted deeper inside the woods, warning travellers to “stay clear”.

“Uh, Rou?” Sunny called out to me, pointing to one of the signs. Even though my scavenged PipBuck was screen-locked, I could still hear the geiger counter ticking like mad inside my saddlebag. My entire shoulder felt began to tingle with painful, white-hot pinpricks, and an intense throbbing caused me to draw back and clutch my arm. It was then that the name of this place suddenly clicked in my memory. This was the Whitetail Woods, one of the most deadly irradiated spots in the whole Wasteland! And I was standing right in the middle of it! I dashed quickly out of the pale of dead trees, taking deep gasping breaths, but not before soaking up a good amount of rads.

After taking a moment to catch my breath, I stood up and turned to Sunny. “Did you just see that?” I asked.

“See what?” Sunny cocked her head.

Frowning, I looked back a second time, and then back at the mare. It was seriously creeping me out. “Nothing...” I muttered.

She gave me a funny look as I exhaled and let go of my foreleg. The painful feeling in my shoulder began to subside, but I still felt a slight burning in the flesh around where the bullet was lodged. It made me slightly nervous to take off my jacket. I took a long, deep breath, completely in awe of the stupidity of the idea, and shouted at the top of my lungs, “What in the hell is a town doing next to the Whitetail Woods?!”

“... Whitetail Woods?” Sunny asked, cocking her head again. The mare looked completely lost.

I spoke softly, staring back into the woods. “My brother told me that this place was struck by a few dozen megaspells a long time ago, right at the end of the war. Now it’s one of the deadliest and most irradiated spots in Equestria.”

She paused for a moment to process that information, before exclaiming, “What the heck! Who builds a town next to such a dangerous place?!” Sunny cried. Then she sheepishly added, “You’d think they’d have posted a bigger sign… Wait, you have a brother?” Her interest was piqued by that detail. I rolled my eyes.

“Welcome to the Equestrian Wasteland,” I quipped, stretching my foreleg around to make sure it was still mostly functional. Aside from the hitch and the now lingering burning pain in my shoulder, it seemed mostly okay. Luckily for me, I had been standing on the very edge of it, but I still sure as hell wasn’t looking forward to minor rad sickness that I was probably going to experience later. Thinking I could see tiny glowing points in the distance, I looked closer and saw that they appeared to be glowing feral ghouls shuffling around in the haze.

“C’mon, let’s go around,” I told Sunny.

We both skirted the outer edge of the forest until I could see the town coming up around the trees ahead of us. “We’re here. Just stay alert, you never know what kinds of strange things towns in the middle of nowhere are always hiding.” I warned.

“Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.” Sunny chided.

As we walked into town it felt like my shoulder was burning hot. The pain was mostly tolerable, so I just grit my teeth and ignored it.

The place looked like nothing but a ghost town, just a collection of weird shacks and structures nestled on western side of the woods. It would be like any other peaceful little settlement in the wasteland, if it weren’t sitting next to one of the deadliest irradiated spots in all of Equestria. A radiation barrier ran straight through the middle of the town with warning signs posted across it. Strangely enough, all the amenities of prewar life seemed to be present: a sheriff’s office, a bar with crude lettering posted above the door, a water pump and various housings. Buildings dedicated to work and maintaining the small town were built from scavenged corrugated metal sheets and wood.

My eyes fell upon an oddly-built metal structure on the opposite side of town, which looked like it was supporting some sort of arcane coil device that was in-turn supplying electricity to the rest of the settlement.

“Maybe it’s just a normal town?” Sunny offered.

“It’s never a normal town. Places like this in the middle of nowhere always keep some sort of dark secret hidden away...” I replied, not ready to let my guard down. “Have to give ‘em credit, though; not every settlement looked this good after the Enclave Wars.”

As I observed the small settlement, I noticed the scrap-metal archway greeting us with Hearth's Warming lights. It was arranged around a large painted sign, that read: “Welcome to Unity.” Taking out my gun as I came to the sudden realization of what this place was and cursed myself. “Dammit. Now it makes sense.” I spat.

“Wait. What’s the matter? Is something wrong?” Sunny asked, not quite sure what was going on. Before I had the chance to explain, a tall dark green figure stepped out of the sheriff’s office, which stood closest to the entrance of town. She had to duck underneath the door frame in order to exit the small shack, and raised her head to full posture. The mare’s coat was dark green and she wore her mane in a light green braid. Wearing scrapped-together bits of power armor and a wide brimmed sheriff's hat, her golden star-shaped badge gleamed proudly on her chest. Her regal horn glowed with magic as she noticed me and spread her wings! She approached the two of us slowly and I brought up my rifle, ushering Sunny to get behind me.

“Stay back,” I threatened. “Just because you’re a gigantic mutant alicorn doesn’t mean I’ll hesitate to pull the trigger on you.”

The tall mare stopped in front of me, her sheer size making me look almost like a small filly by comparison. She looked down at my weapon curiously and smiled. “I like your gun. It’s very cute.” she giggled, not taking me seriously at all! I grit my teeth, both confused and slightly irritated. Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting such a reaction. She bowed her head to me, “Welcome to our town. Just call me Sheriff Green.”

I half-squinted one eye, still not quite sure what was going on. “We were just leaving,” I insisted, “So don’t try anything!”

“Really?” the sheriff drew back, apparently confused by my reaction. “But you just got here.”

“I don’t have the time to deal with you jokers today, and neither of us want anything to do with your little supremacist cult! You’ll find that neither of us are unicorns, so sorry to bother you.”

“Cult? This is a town...” She stated, rather obviously.

“Unity?” I pointed out, getting annoyed.

The alicorn chuckled to herself lightly and then burst out into laughter. I blinked twice just to make sure I was still in Equestria and not some alternate dimension. When she finally managed to compose herself, there was still a slight smirk on her face. “Sorry, I think you misunderstood me,” she explained, wiping a tear from her eye. “Unity is just the name of our little startup here. Mutants and Normals have made peace here since Sunshine and Rainbows. It’s not the same as the movement that gained prominence in the past, we like to think of it as a place where all creatures can live together regardless of petty differences. We called it ‘Unity’.”

“Oh, so the type of thing Gawd was saying over the radio in her big speech? About a brighter tomorrow and whatever?” I questioned, allowing myself to ease up on my rifle.

“I suppose you could put it that way, yes. It’s our own little slice of Equestria that just so happens to be located on the edge of an irradiated deathtrap. The high levels of rads don’t really bother alicorns. Just don’t cross the radiation barrier and you should be alright.”

“Perhaps we’d get more visitors if we had decided on a different name.” she mused, then sighed to herself, “Too bad we already had the sign painted.”

“That sounds great!” Sunny wowed with enthusiasm. “Hi! I’m Sunny by the way!”

“Welcome, Sunny.” She bowed her head, acknowledging her with a tip of her hat. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Sheriff Green.”

Sunny pursed her lips together looking puzzled, “Sorry to be rude, Miss Sheriff, but isn’t the name Green a bit… y’know, on the nose?”

She laughed, finding the question in good humor. “Well, it’s short for “Greenhorn”, actually. A friend of mine convinced me to shorten it, because he thought it was ’no name for a lady’. I could never understand why he was so against the idea. My horn is green, isn’t it?” She turned her nose up and drew her lips into a pout, as if she were pointing out the obvious. Sunny seemed to buy that explanation, but I was less than convinced that she knew the meaning of that word. It was hard to ignore the irony.

“You’re awfully well-spoken for an alicorn,” I pointed out, drawing the Sheriff’s attention again. This bizarre conversation was already getting too weird for me.

“I’ve had practice,” she replied. Then, craning her neck forward so that we were staring face to face, her eyelids lowered and she spoke in a low even tone, “We’re not going to have any problems, are we?”

“No. Sorry, I’ve had a rough morning,” I admitted, sheepishly lowering my weapon.

“Good!” She smiled, seeming to accept my apology. There wasn’t really anything for me to rebut or any clever comments that I could think to make, so I just stayed silent and kept my sarcasm to myself.

Rubbing my head with my hoof, I looked off to one side and back to Sheriff Green. “To be honest, I wasn't really expecting to find a normal town like this out in the middle of raider country, let alone one built on the edge of the Whitetail Woods.”

For a moment it was just the three of us standing around, but that quickly changed as a steam whistle blew nearby and the other residents began to move about the town. Ghouls and alicorns began to shuffle in and out of what looked like a working machine shop and across the rad-barrier. Some of them came out of the woods carrying piles of tech, which I assumed was from the Hippocampus facility. Suddenly the barren town seemed much more lively.

She smirked. “It’s an easy mistake to make. We’re not on any major trade routes, so we pride ourselves on our hospitality.”

Curious about the place, I pointed out ,“Seems like you’re doing pretty well for yourself. How long have you been here? And where did you even get the metal to build all this? I haven’t been to this part of Equestria in a while, but I’m certain there wasn’t a town here before.”

The Sheriff beamed with pride. “That’s because our little startup has only been here since Sunshine and Rainbows. To answer your other question, there’s actually an old Hippocampus Energy Plant that had an intact megaspell reactor that was nested deep inside the woods. So we siphoned scrap from there to build the town. Other things we scavenge from the facility we usually just end up selling to passing traders. I send my ponies out in daily shifts in order to collect useful pieces of salvage… Things have been a little slow lately.”

“Yeah, I noticed you’ve got a lot of interesting-looking technology… you wouldn’t have anypony who knows a thing or two about old tech living here, would you Sheriff?” I asked, pointing to some of the strange architecture behind her.

“Ah yes, Professor Mercury Switch. He lives in that big tower-like structure on the edge of town. If you see any strange inventions around, there’s a good chance they came from his lab. it’s his laboratory that supplies all the electricity to the town. In fact, The Professor’s help was invaluable in getting this place started after Sunshine and Rainbows. Any useful tech my ponies find in the Hippocampus facility we bring back to the Professor, and we purge it of rads. Then he figures out if we can use it to help the town or if we should sell it off to passing traders. He works day and night to help keep our town afloat… I’ll admit, we owe him a great deal.”

“Do you think I could speak with him?” I asked.

She put a hoof to her chin, thinking to herself aloud. “He’s probably busy with his work, so no guarantees that he’ll see you. But if you absolutely need to speak with him, then just tell him that I sent you. Otherwise, his work is extremely important to our town, so please refrain from doing so unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Consider it noted…” I said. “Tell me Sheriff, have you been having trouble with the raiders lately?”

“Raiders?” she scoffed and smirked. “Raiders don’t tend to attack towns populated by alicorns, ghouls and hellhounds. But that doesn’t mean that they haven’t caused problems for us in the surrounding area. It’s true that things have been rougher than normal lately, but we’ve survived worse. I’m glad that you happened by, we haven’t seen a new face in a while.”

“You should try putting up a bigger sign,” I suggested, with a slight hint of sarcasm.

“I suppose. So what brings you to our little town?” the sheriff asked.

“I’m under contract with the New Canterlot Army. ” I said, intentionally leaving out the part how I was basically a glorified courier.

“Curious. You don’t look all that official.” she noted.

“Don’t worry, it’s an easy mistake to make.” I assured her, echoing her line from before.

“She’s super official! Trust me.” Sunny added, really overselling it. I rolled my eyes internally, but at least it appeared she bought it.

The lawmare squinted, as if she were measuring up my story. Or maybe she was measuring me up, it was hard to tell. “So are you with those soldiers patrolling around south of here? I was under the impression that they wanted little to do with us.”

“Uh no, I’m here just on some non-official business.” I replied. Green’s eyes widened, seemingly finding that specific detail about me being with New Canterlot particularly interesting.

“In that case, it may be fortunate that you happened by after all... I might have some work for you if you’re interested. I’ll be sure to make it worth your while. If you wouldn’t mind stepping into my office, that is?”

I shook my head, “No thank you Sheriff, I’m not interested in looking for work.”

“Ah, I understand.” she nodded. There was a tinge of sadness in her voice, which she attempted to hide.

“Could I ask you a few questions, though?”

The Sheriff blinked and nodded in agreement, “Sure, what do you want to know?”

“Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary lately?”

“Ordinary, like what?” she asked, tilting her head back. “I’ve seen more than my fair share of weirdness since Sunshine and Rainbows, on this side of the Whitetail Woods alone.”

“Fair point, stupid question…” My ears folded back as I rubbed the back of my neck. “Like attacks on caravans being carried out by raiders using high-end modified Enclave weapons?”

Sheriff Green raised one of her eyebrows. “Well it’s not exactly uncommon for raiders to have access to Enclave weaponry nowadays. More of it has been circulating around since the Enclave Wars.” She said rather matter of factly, although I doubted that she’d know the difference in models.

“Did you happen to notice any Enclave ships flying over the Smokey Mountains yesterday?” I asked, pointing towards the hazy mountaintops on the horizon with my hoof. They were almost visible from where we were both standing, but less so from this elevation. I desperately hoped that she or someone here had seen something. There was a glint of that determination in my eye and I tensed up, awaiting her answer.

She frowned, thinking to herself she shook her head. “Sorry, can’t say that I did. I would imagine that sort of thing would be difficult to miss.”

“Dammit...” I groaned, hoof-smacking my forehead.

The lawmare bowed her head apologetically, “Wish I could’ve been more help.”

“Thanks anyways…” I let out a dejected sigh. “In that case, would you mind it if I asked some folks around town?”

The alicorn smiled and nodded. “Not at all. ”

“Thanks, are there any other rules I should keep in mind while around town?” I asked.

”Same as any other civilized town.” she said as though it were obvious. The novelty of the conversation was beginning to wear thin on me.

“Right...” I replied.

“Thanks Miss Sheriff!” Sunny beamed happily.

The sheriff gave me a tip of her hat before stepping back into her office, and left Sunny and me to converse between ourselves. “Enjoy your stay. I’ll be in my office if you change your mind about that job. Feel free to visit our saloon and general store if you’re looking for food and supplies while you’re in town. Oh, and: ‘Welcome to Unity’”

Through a small window, I saw her sit down at an old wooden desk. She noticed me watching her and waved hello. I pretended not to notice. The lawmare probably thought we weren’t crazy enough to try anything, or the town was just really that trusting.

“Hey, thanks for playing along back there Sunny.” I said. The mare blushed a little, surprised by my compliment.

“Oh, uh... no problem. Something on your mind?” she asked.

“Yeah, I don’t know if I like this place,” I muttered, motioning around the town.

Sunny frowned, a little confused. “Why? The Sheriff seemed nice enough.”

“I’ll let you know if I think of anything. ” I replied.

As we both trotted around the small village on the non-irradiated side of town, something felt off to me about the place. Maybe it was being so close to the Whitetail Woods that put me on edge, but I couldn’t put a hoof on it. My shoulder also felt like it was acting up more the longer we stayed here.

By all accounts it seemed like your perfect happy settlement, despite the strange residents. One of the ghouls walked by, giving Sunny a tip of his hat. She tried hard to smile and be polite, but her face ended up looking more like a contorted half-grimace. I snickered to myself, side-stepping out of the way of a huge purple alicorn that was accompanied by two other blues. “Pardon us” they said, each with a slight nod. Alright, this was getting too much for me. I needed some lunch.

I looked across the radiation barrier and into the forest, seeing a chainlink fence. Radiation signs were posted across it. Some of them looked a lot older. Factory made, unlike the other painted ones we saw when we first arrived. There was also a welded-together scrap metal sculpture, made to resemble a suit of Steel Ranger power armor. The proud metal stallion seemed to be staring in our direction, like he was watching over us and the town. Something possessed me to think, “Why here of all places?”

All current questions were shoved to the back of my mind as I felt my belly rumble, and turned to follow a couple of ponies who went into the saloon. The seafoam mare stopped me, putting a hoof on my shoulder. “So are you gonna speak to ponies around town?” Sunny asked. “What’s the game plan?”

“I need a moment to think.” I said, lightly pushing her away, and I looked off to the side. “All I had for breakfast was a protein bar, and I don’t want to think on an empty stomach. So, are you coming or not?”

“Oh, okay... I’ll follow your lead then.” She said, seeming to go along with it.

“Don’t forget: This is still raider country, so stay sharp.” I cautioned. Sunny nodded, sticking close as we both walked into the building with “bar” spelled out in broken red neon letters.

A few of the patrons watched us as we entered the saloon, allowing light from outdoors to flood into the dim establishment. We both looked around inside as the door shut behind us, and began to search for a pair of seats together. It carried a cramped steamy atmosphere about it, while upbeat prewar tunes played from an old radio. Ghouls, alicorns and some rough looking ponies were amongst the other patrons. There was a terminal for keeping track of the business numbers that hummed in a back room, behind the counter. Electricity, plumbing, and gasoline. Even a restroom with working toilets! This place had everything!

Most of the other tables were occupied. Mutants and Normals all sat amongst their own kind, painting a slightly different picture than the happy town just outside.

Sunny clung to me nervously as I glanced around for other ponies wearing Jagged’s mark on them. We ended up taking two seats next to a hulking beast of a hellhound whose head, even while seated, was almost touching the ceiling. Sunny sat down next to me on my opposite side. The hellhound glanced over at two of us and very visibly rolled his eyes, letting out a sharp grunt.

A fancily dressed ghoul bartender with an eyepatch and what was left of a moustache came up to us in a typical old fashioned bartender geddup. “Howdy ladies, welcome to the Dirt-Stop Saloon! ‘Name’s Gimlet, what can I get for ya?” he asked. “Drinks?”

“None for me. I’ll have a glass of water and a bloatsprite slider. Make sure the glass is clean, thanks.” I said, putting bottle caps on the counter.

“That’ll be extra.” he said.

“What?! That’s the price written on the menu!”

“We’re having a supply shortage at the moment. So increased price for increased demand.” then he added, “Last pony to stop by was some pegasus stallion about a week ago. Usually we don’t get too many tourists.”

“Pegasus?” I frowned, “He wouldn’t have happened to have a big orange mohawk?”

“Yellow.” he answered curtly.

“No wonder nobody comes here...” I grumbled reaching into my bag and pulling out a few extra bottlecaps. I placed them on the polished wooden counter and the ghoul greedily scooped them up in his hooves.

We both looked at Sunny, waiting for her to chime in. She eeped and nervously looked down at the mouth written menu, unsure of what to order. The both of us waited impatiently for her to decide, until she pushed her menu to the edge of the counter and sheepishly added, “I’ll have what she’s having...”

She reached into her blouse and fished out a single bottlecap. The seafoam mare blushed, and turned to me with wide blue eyes.“Would you mind covering the rest? I’m a little short on caps right now,” Sunny asked, putting on her cutest face and pouty lips.

Groaning again, I pulled out more bottlecaps and placed them on the counter. “Thank you, for your business.” The ghoul said, as he greedily snatched up more of my hard earned caps. He shoved them into a counting device on his foreleg and then shouted into my eardrum. “That’ll be two bloatsprite sliders and a couple of waters, non-irradiated! Coming up!”

After the bartender left, I kept thinking to myself as I listened to the radio. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to be doing. The upbeat music of the back-when-times gave me a moment to think, and provided an easy distraction from the pain in my shoulder. Then just as I was enjoying one of the songs, the track suddenly cut out to make way for a boisterous yet familiar DJ’s voice. It had been a while since I heard him on the air.

Hello Equestria, it’s DJ Pone3 coming to live from Tenpony! Feel’s like it’s been a while since I checked up on y’all! Don’t worry though, because I won’t leave my faithful audience hanging for too long! I’ve got some special new reports coming your way from my very own studio. Feels like just yesterday we were fighting ole Red Eye and the Enclave over the fate of the very wasteland, doesn’t it? Thanks, that was one heck of a speech yesterday Gawd! Talk about a brighter tomorrow, am I right? I can’t quite place it, but something tells this old DJ that something special is coming to Equestria and it's just around the corner! Now for the news…

Reintegration for the Pegasi will continue, with combined efforts by the Followers, Gawdyna, and Applejack’s Rangers. Along with any towns willing to take in new residents. With those mean freaks in power armor gone, it’s up to us to pick up the slack. Remember folks, Pegasi are ponies too!

All the politics and petty squabbles were the reason why I generally didn’t pay attention to the news, but I felt like I was finally motivated enough to begin to change my ways. Reports of wasteland heroism and ponies all doing their part like Gawdyna was talking about yesterday in her speech. DJ seemed on board with it at least.

News from Manehattan. There’s been a collaboration between New Canterlot Mercs and the Twilight Society to aid in the city’s refugee crisis, and not without some some disagreement over how to best handle the situation. A section of Manehattan center city has been restored to accommodate the arrival of new residents, with vagrants setting up camps in some of the rougher areas of the city. Including some folks who have actually settled into an Enclave raptor half sunk into the harbor! Now that’s what I call one heck of a housing shortage!

Reminder: if you’re still having trouble locating family and loved ones after the crisis, speak with Followers or at a refugee center to see if they’ve been accounted for. We’re all in this together.

Unfortunately, the report on Friendship City just made my mind drift back to Radar, and I zoned out during the rest of the broadcast. Details on current events flew over my head as I was lost in my own thoughts.

Sunny leaned in close to me and put her hoof on my shoulder. “Hey, Rou? Do you maybe want to talk?”

“No.” I huffed, brushing it off and folding my legs on the counter. “Lemme just focus on what we need to do, alright?”

“Okay, just know that I’m here for you.” Sunny said, sounding like she was almost sincere. With that she turned away from me and began looking around the bar to occupy herself.

“Whatever... ” I sighed dismissively. “Did I look like I wasn’t okay? I’m fine.”

When I turned to look at her again, Sunny was whistling, busy keeping herself occupied glancing around at the other patrons. Particularly the bartender. Part of me wondered if she had ever seen a ghoul before. She seemed sort of out of her element, but I hadn’t cared enough to ask her right then.

She had undone her ponytail and was busy stroking her silky blonde mane, pretending like she was the only pony in the room. After she finished, I watched her retie her mane again into the same style then turned back to look at me. We made eye contact and she tilted her head curiously, and I looked away awkwardly in the other direction.

A heavy grunt broke my train of thought.

I noticed sunny looking up nervously at the massive hellhound sitting next to me that was giving us the stink-eye. He blew heavy breaths out his nose, not at all being subtle. Unphased by his hulking stature I turned to look up at him. “You got a problem buddy?” I asked.

He snarled, “You smell funny...”

“What the-? You’ve got a lot of nerve pal!” I snapped.

“Bah! No, Dirt horse! There’s something off about your scent!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked, getting slightly irritated.

A low bestial growl came from the hellhound as he bared his teeth, a hulking mass of claws and muscle towering over me. Sunny’s was breathing nervously. “You ponies are rude! Sitting here with your strange smells. You’re hiding something! Don’t think I didn’t notice! Let me enjoy my meal in peace!”

“You want to make something of it?” I snarled as he lowered his hulking mass to my level. We both exchanged glares, but I still didn’t flinch. Sunny eeped, and I could practically feel her shaking behind me.

“Bah! Nevermind then!” The hellhound spat, losing patience with the conversation. “Seems all you ponies smell strange in some way or another...” He then picked up his dog chow, taking heavy steps towards the front of the establishment, and squeezing through the frame as he mumbled about rude ponies and strange scents.

I turned back in my seat, getting hungry. “Well, he was pleasant,” I quipped. Sunny laughed nervously, more relieved than anything. The seafoam mare leaned in close to try and ask me something else but was cut off by the bartender bringing us our meals.

“Order up!” the bartender came back to us with two wet steaming pieces of bloatsprite meat, and placed the two plates of questionable looking wasteland cuisine in front of us. It looked like mutated insect flesh and steamed fresh vegetables wedged between two pieces of hardtack. A bit soggy, but also delicious. My mouth watered as I leaned down to take a bite. Sunny was watching me with utter disgust.

“Y-you’re not seriously going to eat that, are you?” she asked, pointing to the food.

With my mouth full of bloatsprite meat, I gave her an incredulous look. “...Yeah?” I replied, spitting out bits of mutated insect flesh. Sunny covered her mouth with her hoof like she was going to vomit.

“Don’t you have any normal vegetables?” she asked, pushing her plate to the edge of the counter.

The ghoul snickered, “Picky eater, huh? The Professor might be able to help you with that, he’s got a whole hydroponics setup in his laboratory; all our fresh vegetables come from there.”

I interrupted their short conversation, my ears perking at this Professor's name being mentioned again and he seemed happy to talk about him. “I keep hearing about this Professor, doing all these things to help this town. He sounds like a real stand up guy.”

“This town owes a lot to him. All of our fresh produce comes straight from his laboratory. Like somethin' out of the old world!”

“Do you know anything about him?” I asked.

“Not really." the bartender shrugged, working away at an empty glass mug to make it something at least marginally cleaner than something sitting around for a couple hundred years, "The Prof’ helped this town when it was just starting up and gave us a place we could call home. Not everywhere is so welcoming to us Ghouls and Muties, so he’s constantly working on crazy new inventions and theories to help improve our quality of life here."

“Does he know anything about Enclave tech?”

The ghoul paused his polishing, and slowly turned his attention back to me, lowering his voice a tad as he leaned on the bar.

“Now that’s oddly specific. Sorry, it’s against my policy to divulge information on local residents." He said, gesturing past me to the rest of the crowd, "A lot of ponies... they come here with pasts that they don’t want to talk about. Unity? It's a fresh start. We respect that here and don't take too kindly to ponies that want to dig up things that are best left buried.”

I got irritated and reached into my bag, pulling out my Pipbuck and slammed it onto the counter.

Gimlet's rotted eye jumped between me and the disabled device. “Ah, so you’re a Stable Dweller?” he asked.

“No. Just a mare with a few questions.” I replied, countering his lean with a lean of my own.

“Right, right. A lot of ponies have them... In theory. He might know something about these things."

“Would he be able to bypass the encryption key on it?” I asked, holding the device up in my hoof.

Gimlet shrugged again, clicking his tongue. “I don’t really pay attention to all that sciency mumbo jumbo. And the Professor is a busy fella. Just hire a code breaker at the Raptor Graveyard near New Appleloosa and find out that way. That one’s on the house. Anything else will cost extra.” He casually motioned his hoof to ask for more caps. I shoved the old device back into my bag, huffing at the old ghoul. He was beginning to grow tired of my questions, but I didn’t care. His apathetic disposition was only pissing me off further.

“That would run me down several thousand caps with no guarantee of return!” I shot back.

“Your problem, not mine. Sorry. I can’t tell you anything more.” he said, brushing me off with a half-hearted apology.

“Can’t or won’t?” I challenged.

The old ghoul rolled his eye “I’ve got other patrons here. Anything else I can do for you girls?" our host asked, regaining that false sense of hospitality that was starting to piss me off.

“Yeah, you still haven’t answered my questions.” I said, putting a hoofful of caps onto the counter. It was most of what I had left.

He laughed, picking the glass back up and resuming his cleaning job. “Don’t you have anything better to do, kid?”

“I’m serious.” I spat.

“And I’ve got a serious business to run. But don't worry, this town won’t be around much longer if things keep up as they are. It's not like you’d care about a poor struggling town of ghouls and muties.”

I began to grow annoyed with his sob story “So the raiders don’t care about this place, but their presence is causing issues for your business. Which is it, then? Are the raiders a problem for you or not? Answer the damn quest-”

“Oh, no! Is this town in danger?” Sunny asked.

Gimlet gestured towards her with an approving nod, “You’re a lot more pleasant than your marefriend here missy.”

“Aw, gee. Thanks mister!” she blushed.

I practically rolled my eyes into the back of my skull and plopped down in my seat again. I nearly forgot she was there.

“Ole Gawdyna’s been making a big push to clean up raider activity in her territory since day one, driving unlawful raidery activity and otherwise unsavory ponies past the 52. The Canterlot Valley may look like something out of a fairytail from before the war, but a lot of places like this? We’re still living in the wasteland. New Canterlot doesn’t want nothin’ to do with us, and all the Caravans that would pass through here have all dried up. So the Raider Clans control this stretch of dirt, mostly because Gawd doesn’t give a shit.” The old ghoul shrugged. “Desperate times, kid.”

“Well you’re in luck, because Rou is actually with the New Canterlot Army!” Sunny exclaimed. “She could help!”

“Sunny...” I warned.

“Is it true? Are you with the New Canterlot Army?”

“Only under contract as a mercenary.” I admitted reluctantly. Sunny smiled meekly as I glared at her. “My reasons are my business.”

“I see.” he replied, not outwardly showing what he thought of my 'declared' allegiance. So I simply went back to what we were just talking about.

“Has this town been having raider troubles since it was set up?”

“What, are you supposed to be some sort of big hero, or what?” he laughed, and gave me the same line that Sheriff Green gave about raiders not bothering with a town like this. Something in my brain wasn’t adding up, so I took another approach.

“Does the name ‘Jagged Knife’ mean anything to you?” I asked.

When I spoke that name, Gimlet went silent and the bar felt slightly more quiet than before. I could see him glancing down at the mark on my chest and then try to play it off like he didn’t notice it.

“You know him?” I pressed. “I need to know where he’s getting his Enclave weapons.”

“Sorry, I-...No more questions! I Never even heard of the guy! Don’t go coming into my establishment causing trouble!”

“I’m not trying to start trouble! This guy’s going around killing innocents!” I shouted back.

"Bahahaha!" We both paused as mocking laughter cut through my little 'interrogation'. Slowly, I looked back to see a thin, grease ridden-pony with bloodshot eyes dealing cards on top of a wooden table sitting there, having interrupted his own conversation to turn and look at me. He had that scummy look about him like he was perpetually up to no good. Loosely clothed in ill-fitting armor that he was probably hiding a few hits of chems underneath.

“Something funny jackass?” I raised an eyebrow. A few of the other patrons and the bartender turned to watch me as I walked over to the other side of the room to meet him. He was sitting with a scrawny friend of his, and got skittish when I shot him a glare. The overly smug looking stallion seemed unphased as I stood over him.

He chuckled to himself lightly, like he just told a shitty joke. “That wasteland hero crap won’t get you anywhere nowadays. Who do you think you are, the fucking Stable Dweller?”

“Wanna try me then, asshole?” My eyes narrowed on him as I cracked my neck and walked up to him. A few of the other patrons stood up, but I barely paid them any attention. I felt my muscles tighten at wanting to punch that smug look off his face.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” The bartender insisted.

Sunny nudged me and whispered into my ear. “Rou, let’s get out of here...”

“He knows something.” I whispered back.

“We can come back later.” she pleaded.

I stared angrily for a moment at the smug asshole who I desperately wanted to punch in the face before agreeing. “Fine... but I’m taking my bottlecaps!”

Everyone in the bar watched me as I gathered my things and stormed out the front. I nearly took the door off its hinges in the process, barely making an effort to hide how pissed off I was. Sunny followed me shortly after and the two of us stood alone together in the center of town. I turned to Sunny and snapped at her, not sure whether or not the ponies inside the bar could still hear me outside. “What was that for? I was handling it!”

She shrunk backward at my sudden outburst with a slight gasp. It was a little painful watching her do that, but she also showed me a side I hadn’t seen from her because she displayed some confidence in that moment and fired back. “We can’t just go around starting fights with everypony who might know something! How do you expect to get anything useful if you get us both kicked out of town?” She seemed passionate about this in particular. I was surprised to see she had this side to her, but I was still caught up in the heat of the moment.

“I’ve been on my own up until now!” I countered, brushing her off. “The way I’ve done things up to now was never been a problem before.”

The mare huffed, “Well then what do you know about this Jagged Knife so far?”

I scoffed, not taking her entirely seriously. “I know I’m going to kick his ass when I find him.”

“So nothing, then?” she pointed out, and I got red in the face.

“He’s using specially modified Enclave weapons! That’s all I care about.” I insisted.

My shoulder was flaring up to the point I could feel it stronger than normal. I brushed at it with my hoof, mostly ignoring the pain and too pissed off to care. “Are you even planning on keeping up your end of the bargain?” I asked.

“Rou, I’m trying to help you…” she pleaded, looking almost hurt. “Just trust me.”

“Okay... I will.” I huffed, nodding.

“This town is struggling because of the raiders. Aren’t you the type of mare who ran out here on her own to help others, regardless of the risks involved?”

“It’s not my problem.” I insisted, turning to face her again. What the hell did she expect me to do? “I’m not an enlisted pony. My job is to take this envelope to Major Silver Spur, and that’s it! I’m already not supposed to be out here and there are more important things to put our attention towards! Whatever happens to a failing town, isn’t our concern. They wouldn’t want us getting involved, anyways!”

“The New Canterlot Army claims that they’re trying to help ponies, but they’re not here...”

“What does New Canterlot have to do with this?” I asked, not sure what she was getting at. The mare pleaded with me on this for some reason.

“I know you’re a good pony deep down. Don’t you think we should do what little we can to help this place?”

“The Enclave weapons stuff… t-that’s different!” I tried, but she had me pegged. I let out a deep breath. Her words resonated with me and I felt calmer than before. “Fine. I'll think about it.”

She hung her head apologetically and looked at the ground. “I’m sorry, Rou… I didn’t mean to snap at you like that.”

“It’s alright, Sunny” I replied, putting on a weak smile. “I needed it.”

“So how do you want to play this one?” She asked me.

I briefly glanced back to the bar, then back to her. “That guy knows something he’s not saying. It’s obvious.”

“Yeah, I know....” she agreed.

“I’m going to go speak with Professor Mercury Switch. I’ve got a hunch that he might be able to help clear all this up.”

“You think so?” she frowned.

“There’s something off about this place. A small perfect little town like this on the edge of the Whitetail Woods, out in the middle of raider country? One with all sorts of technology and they haven’t had raiders try to attack them once? Jagged’s ponies fuck with Gawd’s caravans on a regular basis and somehow they haven’t managed to pin him down yet, he’s got more than enough firepower to burn this town to the ground, alicorns or no. I’ve seen it myself, first hoof. Those weapons are no joke.”

“Well when you put it like that, it is a bit strange… Should we bring this up with the Sheriff?” she asked.

“No. I want to speak with him alone.”

“Let me do it. I’ll try and get the information on my own.”

“You?” I asked doubtfully.

“Yes, I had an idea. Plus it’s part of of our agreement, right? We’ll be able to cover more ground faster if we split up.” She said. This was another side to her that she didn’t show when we met initially. I stood by, silently weighing the options and had to admit, the mare had a point. Only after I forced myself to realize that it was the best option available, did I agree with her proposal.

“Fine.” I nodded. “Be careful, alright?”

Sunny nodded. Then having a second thought, she bashfully held out her hoof, giving me that look again. “Um Rou, could I have the rest of your bottlecaps? I’ll buy us some supplies for the road.”

“Aw, but this is all I have left… ” I pouted. That face is a cheap tactic. Sighing heavily, I fished out my remaining bottle caps and hooved them over to Sunny.

“Don’t worry, I can take care of myself. I’ve been on my own up until now too!” she teased, giving me a poke.

Suddenly, the pain in my shoulder flared up again. “Agh! What the-?” I grunted. Having something annoying under my skin that I couldn’t get at sucked. Then, I realized that Sunny was still watching me.

“W-What’s wrong?” she asked, with a hint of worry and confusion.

“It’s nothing.” I insisted.

She didn't look entirely convinced, but we both heard the steam whistle blow again behind us, marking the end of the current shift. That was our cue to get moving. Both of us nodded to each other and split up to focus on our respective tasks. Admittedly, I wasn’t sure how much faith I actually had in her ability, but I figured that she couldn’t get into much trouble as long as we were in town.

I glanced down at my shoulder briefly with growing concern. It felt hotter than before, and the burning feeling had gotten worse since I came to town. This place was so irritating.

“Dammit...” I grunted.

I walked up to the oddly shaped bungalow, staring up at the humming coil of arcane energy on top. Wires ran from it all over town, some of which were decorated with multi-colored hearth’s warming lights. Occasional power fluctuations burst forth from the arcane coil, creating the odd bolt of electricity. Tons of electronic measuring devices dotted the outside of the lab, with various warning signs of high voltage posted around the perimeter. One of the the bolts almost struck my hooves, causing me to raise an eyebrow at the structure.

The front door was locked with a complex electronic mechanism, lined with hearthswarming lights around the doorframe. The added touch of a welcoming mat, struck just the right balance between “welcome” and “get out”. There was only one window in the whole place, but the blinds were shut so it was difficult to see anything, anyways. I was getting the impression that Professor Mercury Switch was a bit of a hermit.

A voicebox with camera security sat right beside me. I stared into the lens directly with my eye, and tapped on it a few times. “Hello?”

No answer. I pounded on the heavy steel door with my hoof.

I knocked again, this time harder. Still not sure how to get inside, I pressed a button on the voice box and heard a loud buzzer that made me jump. “Hello...? Professor Mercury Switch?” I asked.

There was a click and a staticy voice chimed in over the intercom, “What do you want? I’m very busy!” it asked.

“Sheriff Green sent me.” I answered.

“Ah, Green. What does she want this time?” He sighed.

I heard an alarm buzz, and the sounds of electronic mechanisms shifting and unlocking themselves. The steel door swung open to reveal a short grey pony with round thick-rimmed glasses and a white labcoat. His white mane was combed-over, and he gave the impression as to the kind of the pony who hadn’t gotten a good night sleep in years.

“Professor Mercury Switch?”

“I don’t believe we’ve met.” He frowned, adjusting his glasses.

“No, we haven’t,” I said, “but I was hoping that you could clear a few things up for me.”

The old pony squinted at me, then looking down at my chest where he noticed the pony skull symbol on my armor, and his face went almost completely white. He quickly tried to slam the door in my face, but not before I managed to stick a hoof inside. “Sorry, we’re closed!” he grunted.

“I just have a few questions!” I said, struggling to pry it open. He was stronger than he looked. After a bit of fighting with him I finally managed to open the door. “Don’t worry, I’m not with whoever you think I’m with.” I said, huffing.

He paused for a moment and then opened the door, releasing my hoof. The professor looked over me silently for a moment before motioning me to come inside. “Come in then, let’s get this over with.” he sighed.

I entered through the door into the metal structure which shut behind me, locking itself with an electric whirr. Once inside, it immediately opened up into the main work area, and I was greeted by a number of things befitting a mad scientist’s laboratory.

The indoor walls were sleek metallic, with ceramic black and white floor tiling, projects were piled on top of projects and disassembled tech that was strewn about everywhere at his workstation. Several gadgets that I couldn’t begin to comprehend the meaning of were pushed off to the side to clear space, while computers and data processors were shoved off into another corner of the room as they produced constant readouts from the measuring equipment outside. Despite the size of the architecture from the outside, it still felt rather cramped indoors.

Down a single hallway, I looked to see several other steel doors leading to extra rooms. When I looked back I was surprised to see a robotic tortoise hovering via a propeller in front of my face. Its body was entirely composed of weathered steel, that looked like it’d seen better days. With bright glowing red eyes, its shell seemed to house other various tools within it. Several lenses adjusted, zooming in and out, as it appeared to examine me. It snapped with its steel beak and then flew around, circling the room several times before perching itself on one of the large data processors in the corner.

The professor waved his hoof, gesturing me to follow. “Don’t worry, that’s just T.A.N.K.. I found him and fixed him up in my spare time. Awful attitude, but good company. Don’t know his model number, probably older, but he seems to enjoy meeting new guests for some reason. He’s harmless.” The little robot beeped at me and then supposedly putting himself into “sleep” mode, but I could see him subtly keeping one of his eye-lenses open. Somehow, I got the feeling the little thing was giving me the eyeball.

“That’s...uh, interesting?” I replied.

An impressive-looking arrangement of planters, growing fresh vegetables briefly caught my attention as well. I presumed it was the aforementioned hydroponics setup the ghoul was talking about. I glanced at the large terminal giving out constant data on the plants' status and growth rate, among other numbers and symbols that were frankly lost on me. But of all the things in the room, my eyes were drawn towards a white tarp draped over a workbench at the back of the laboratory.

“That’s just the small version.” the Professor quipped, drawing my attention. He spoke with a slight tinge of pride, noticing me admiring the overgrown science project, “We have a whole building dedicated to growing food for the town.” He stopped in the center of the room and turned so that we stood face to face. Although, I was taller than him so I had to look down slightly.

“It all looks pretty fancy. Practically everypony in town pointed me here.” I said looking around. “Where’d you learn how to do all this?”

He pushed up on his glasses again, to re-adjust them. There was some attention to carefulness in his actions, as he kept me at a hoof’s length. “Just a few things I’ve picked up here and there over the years. Figured I could put my skills to some good use. So if you’re not with them, who are you?”

“My name is Roulette. I have my reasons for wanting to speak with you.”

“Really? And what would those be?” the Professor asked, then noticing a smudge on the lens. He took out a spare cloth from his labcoat and began cleaning his glasses with it. His eyes were tired, like the look of a pony who had given up on hope. I knew that look, but I wouldn’t have expected it from a pony like this that was owed so much to by the town. That just added to my suspicion.

“Something’s been bugging me since I got here…” I said, causing him to raise his brow. “I mean, a town on the edge of the Whitetail Woods out in raider country? And not just that, but with fresh food? Water? Fucking electricity?”

“Never seen a settlement use technology to its advantage?” he asked.

“You’d be surprised, actually.“ I answered. “That big lightning generator outside, doesn’t really look too far off from Enclave tech. If I didn’t know any better…” Trailing off, he didn’t respond immediately. That seemed to grab his attention, at least. He finished cleaning his lenses and put them back on, returning the cloth to a pocket in his labcoat.

“No kidding?” He laughed a little, returning his glasses to their proper place. “So you actually do know a thing or two...”

Getting impatient, I pulled Sting’s laser pistol out of my bag and held it up in front of his face. “Specially modified. Not standard issue. I’m no scientist, but I know when things look out of place. You seriously expect me to believe that raiders haven’t looked at this place once?!”

He observed it briefly and then shot his gaze away with a flinch. The professor had an obvious tell. Something was clearly off here. The constant question dodging around here was getting on my nerves, I just wanted some damn answers.

“You recognize this weapon, don’t you?” I pressed. He stammered with increasing instability.
“I, um-…” The professor looked away apprehensively. “Times have changed. We don’t have trouble with raiders anymore. ”

“It’s called ‘raider country’.” I reminded him. It was obvious he knew something. Then, I lowered my voice. “Do you know a pony named Jagged Knife?” I asked. The old pony’s face immediately went pale and his mannerisms shifted completely. He ran up and attempted to usher me out the door with his meager strength, but because I had the advantage in both strength and weight, his efforts were in vain.

“Sorry if this is inconvenient timing, but you should really get going! I’ve got a lot of work to do, and I don’t need another youngster trying to involve themselves in my work!” He grunted between panting breaths.

“This is my problem just as much as it is yours!” I shouted. My shoulder was starting to flare up as well, but I pissed off to the point where I could ignore it. “I knew ponies who’ve been killed by these weapons!”

As soon as I said that I felt the old professor stop dead in his tracks and he fell completely silent. I stopped feeling him trying to push against me, and he almost stumbled over as I effortlessly stepped out of his way like he wasn’t even there. After that, he stood there staring at the ground with a slightly dazed expression. It was like he was considering all his options, before he finally huffed and slumped over. “Oh, what’s the use? They’ll find out sooner or later anyways.”

“If you know something, then tell me!” I demanded. He sat there, completely unresponsive, not even acknowledging me for several seconds. “... Professor?”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me...” he sighed, walking over to a steaming pot that was sitting at one of his work stations. The Professor poured himself a cup into an old ceramic coffee mug. I watched him curiously as he did this. Then he took a sip and turned to me. “Tea?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Tea is good for the mind. Helps you keep your composure” He said finishing his cup and then placed the empty mug on the table.

“I don’t want tea!” I said, raising my voice. The robotic flying tortoise flew up right in my face again, this time with aggressive beeps. Slapping my hoof around in the air at him, T.A.N.K. evaded my strikes easily, snapping his beak. He flew away beeping rudely at me. “Back off you little flying tin can!”

“Sorry, he can get defensive sometimes...” The Professor sighed, setting his mug down on a workbench next to some of his other unfinished projects. He wore a deep contemplative look for a moment, and didn’t say anything.

“Tell me what you meant by that earlier comment!” I pressed.

"I... no, it’ll be easier if I show you.” He shook his hoof, gesture me to follow him down the hallway to his personal study. When T.A.N.K. attempted to follow us, the old scientist insisted that he speak with me alone. The small robot let out of a low dejected beep.

It was a small room lit only by a small desk lamp, with a bookshelf and a desk that had studies, periodicals, and hastily scribbled notes laid out across it. Diagrams and a number of books on biology were set on top of the small coffee table. There was a couch as well, where he offered me a place to sit, but I chose to stand.

“I'm starting to get tired of being dragged around like this.” I echoed my frustration growing with all the running around I’d been doing. “I'm not leaving until you tell me everything!”

The professor turned to look at me through his peripheries as he undid the buttons on his labcoat. Without saying another word, he shed the old white coat to reveal a pair of wings and spread them to nearly their full length. I could feel my body tense up, and the pain in my shoulder flared up along with it. Muscles in my legs tightened and my jaw clenched shut. “Relax, they’re just wings.” he attested.

I managed to get out a word. “Are you…y’know?”

He finished my sentence for me, “Enclave? No.” he replied, and I felt myself relax a little. “I was born in a Stable. Ninety-eight, if memory serves. It’s been a while. But that was before the Enclave came and cannibalized the place for resources... You didn’t think that just any old wasteland scientist was capable of building all this from nothing, did you?” The professor grinned slightly.

After he put his lab coat back on, the initial shock of that revelation wore off. I wasn’t expecting that, but I still had more questions that needed answering. “Okay, so now that’s out of the way, tell me what’s the deal with the Enclave weapons.” I said, while doing my best to keep my emotions in check.

“Is something the matter?” He asked “You look shaken.”

I shook my head. “No, just that the Enclave took something from me too.”

“Ah, I see...” He said, solemnly removing his glasses so that we could see each other’s eyes and all I could see just how tired his looked. His voice was sober, with hardly a hint of emotion at all as he spoke. “Well I have seen those weapons before, but they didn’t come from my laboratory originally.”

“Do you know anything about where they came from?” I asked.

“The short answer is no.” he replied.

“What’s the long answer then?” I pressed.

“In order to tell you that, first I have to give you a bit of a history lesson about this place.” He said, clearing his throat and returning his glasses to their proper place. I groaned out loud. History was one of my least favorite subjects.

He gave me the same spiel that Sheriff Green gave me when I first arrived in town: about harmony and mutual cooperation regardless of background, and all that. With added details about its founding. It was nothing I hadn’t already heard.

I nickered. As he spoke I did my best to not appear bored out of my mind.

“When I first came to Unity, the town was struggling. So I used what scientific knowledge I had to the best of my ability in order to help this place. Soon a number of talented individuals from many backgrounds came together to work towards a common goal-”

“I don’t want to hear about the town!” I snarled.

He puffed back at me. “Haven’t you heard that patience is a virtue?”

I grumbled. “So what’s with the Steel Ranger statue then?”

The professor nodded. “It was meant to honor Green’s Steel Ranger friend, with whom she founded the town with. Unfortunately, he had a heart condition... There was little that could be done, and he ended up passing away shortly after the town’s founding.”

I nodded along, half-interested. “Uh huh...”

“He was a hardy Steel Ranger stallion... though my description doesn’t do him much justice. However he did leave a lasting impression on Miss Green. Oddly, a lot of her strange mannerisms and personality quirks she picked up from him. It’s a strange phenomenon, having your personality imprint on an alicorn to that degree. Something I’ve observed among them following their separation from the Unity. New abilities have begun to manifest in their isolation as of late. The most notable I’ve observed is among the green coats, how they’ve taken to forming mental links between themselves and others-”

“That’s... interesting.” was all I could think to say.

“Apologies, I’ve gone and gotten ahead of myself.” The professor cleared his throat, and continued, “I saw this as a place of opportunity, where I could settle down and put time into my work. I wanted to use my scientific knowledge for the benefit of both pony and mutant-kind living here. The town was failing, but with my help we managed to turn around. Not only that, we managed to turn it into something spectacular! What I didn’t know I managed to pick up from old books, and I knew just enough to be dangerous. I worked daily to expand my knowledge and came up with new solutions.”

“Well, this town seems to think pretty highly of you anyways.” I said.
“They really shouldn’t…I’m just a pony of science. I read whatever I can get my hooves on and put it into practice as best I can. In my spare time I study theoretical biology.” he sighed. “I get way more praise than I deserve…”

“You see, from our increased prosperity my laboratory quickly drew interest of one raider in particular. But it so happens they never attacked the town. They wanted the technology…” he said grimly. I stood up, detecting a hint of sadness and regret in his voice. He had my full attention now.

“About a month later, I heard a knock at my door and a pair of stallions were standing there. One of them looked like your average pony turned raider. He was a small, slightly effeminate unicorn male. Hardly the type you’d expect to want to be a part of that life.” I recognized Mercury’s description as sounding like Sting, remembering how I nearly beat him to a pulp the previous day.

“The other pony never gave his name. He wasn’t particularly large or imposing but something about the way he carried himself. Like he was aware that I knew he would kill me for any reason, if he so much as fancied the idea or if I challenged him.” As Mercury spoke, his voice lowered to a hush and his eyes never left mine. “Those icy blue eyes of his looked like something that only the wasteland could dream up.”

“Who is Jagged Knife? Could you tell me what he looked like?” I asked, hoping for anything.

“He never gave his name, personally, I’ve only heard his contacts speak it...I do remember that other stallion’s coat was a light grey-green, almost resembling a snake’s... His mane, a dark blue with white mohawk running through it, with some rather distinct facial hair that had a similar coloration. He also wore a tattered old, rust-colored jacket. Marked with that same symbol on your armor.” Then he pointed to it and added, “You might want to be more careful when wearing that around in the open, in the future.”

“Thanks for the advice.” I said, committing the description to memory. It wasn’t much to go off of, but it was better than nothing. “What did he want from you specifically?”

Mercury Switch wore a puzzled expression on his face. “He showed me some advanced technology I had never seen before. On closer inspection, it appeared to be some form of data storage device. Except, the technology was too advanced to crack with even my best lab equipment! I nearly burned through several data processors trying to figure it out, but there was no way to access the data without completely destroying whatever was inside. I’m almost ashamed to admit that it was beyond me... When I couldn’t tell him anything, the stallion said 'now that I knew his face, he couldn’t just let me go. Unless I did him a favor and kept things quiet, he’d simply kill everyone in town and shut me up that way. He also said that he’d be sending his friends to check on me every now and again, ‘from now on.’”

“Where does the Enclave tech come into it?” I asked.

The Professor led me back into the main room of the lab, to a workbench covered by a white tarp. He tugged on it to reveal a strange partially assembled creation in the shape of an energy weapon. Green energy crystals and sleek black parts. It looked almost Enclave in design, but it was slightly off. More like he had taken recovered Enclave tech to make his own design. T.A.N.K. hovered over it, his mechanical propeller whirring as he bobbed up and down to get a closer look. “Like I said,” he sighed. “Just a few things I’ve picked up over the years...”

I looked over the small armory of weapons and Enclave technology and my blood went still. Everything suddenly began to click into place as my suspicions were confirmed one by one. “So that means: you’re the one who added those extra modifications...”

“Yes, this indeed looks like my handiwork. The models he showed me were a more advanced version of the Sunburst Rifles used during Operation Cauterize. He just had me make a few tweaks to the overall design so his raiders could use them more easily.” he then gestured to the incomplete weapon on his workbench, “And this was something I had been working on, in hopes that he’d let the town alone once I gave it over to him.”

My jaw clenched, and I could feel my internal temperature rising. “You’ve got blood on your hooves!”

Mercury sighed wearily, “He allowed the town to keep on prospering, and told me that if I or the town ever crossed him by doing something stupid, then he’d just kill us all anyways. In exchange for letting us live, I’d help him make certain upgrades to his Enclave weaponry and agreed to help him with any new tech he found. That was the arrangement…”

“And you just went along with it?!” I raised my voice, letting my anger get the better of me for a moment. “It should’ve been obvious that this town was in cahoots with the raiders somehow.“

A static-ridden voice chimed in over the intercom, interrupting our conversation. “Hey, Professor? Sheriff Green said she needs your help with something. She asked me to check on you.”

We both looked over to it, and I could see Mercury Switch reaching over to it. He stopped, looking over to me. “Does the Sheriff know about this too?” I snarled under my breath.

”No. Green is innocent here. This was all my doing.” he shook his head and I could tell he was being honest with me. At least that way, I knew the entire town wasn’t complicit in all this. That helped temper my anger a little, but not by much.

His eyes motioned towards the intercom. “ Don’t worry, I’ll send him away.” he assured me.
I released his hoof and he leaned over and press the button on the device. “I understand Deputy, but I’m currently in the middle of something. I’ll be sure to speak with her later.”

“Alright, I’ll let her know.” the voice chimed, and cut out. I let out a sigh of relief, looking again at the Professor.

“Why the hell did you do it then? Surely, you knew he’d just turn these weapons on other ponies.” I asked.

“Deep down I knew what he was doing, but I lied to myself. I wanted to preserve the innocence of this place. Shortly after, I realized that if I never came here in the first place, then Jagged would’ve never been interested in the town. Green welcomed me here without so much as a second thought. It was a place for me to continue my research, and I wanted to repay that debt of gratitude. I didn’t want to soil that. So if I could solve the problem on my own, then perhaps he’d allow the town to go on existing?”

“All of what you just said is a load of bull. Giving them what they want isn’t going to help anyone!” I shouted.

“I know I’m a coward, but it wasn’t like the Stable Dweller was coming to save us! I had to do it, because I felt responsible for preserving the harmony of this place. It was a second chance past all the sins we’ve committed in the wasteland and I wanted to believe in their dream. Ponies like Jagged just teach us the cruel reality of things. That those inspiring words over the radio aren’t worth a damn.”

“That’s why I’ve been working day and night to try and come up with some sort of invention that he’ll leave us alone. Something that’ll help the town and solve all our problems. As a way to make up for everything i’ve done and all the sins we’ve committed. It was never my intention to hurt others.” His eyes squeezed shut, and he wiped his tears with a handkerchief. It was a pathetic scene. I was almost finding it a little hard to be mad at this guy.

“Of all the stupid-” I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t you see? I had no choice but to do it!” the old pegasus snapped. Flaring his nostrils and beginning to sweat profusely, he started growing more hysterical the longer he spoke. “Maybe children like you are too young to remember what the wasteland was like, but here’s a quick refresher course: It was a wasteland! A true hell realized, conjured up by Nightmare Moon herself and perpetuated by us! What’s the damned point?! There’s no hope left for any of us-”

“Oh, don’t give me that load of brahmin shit! I remember...” I cut him off and he halted mid sentence. “But hey, I’m glad that you can still show a little backbone.” The old professor was left totally speechless. He had gotten himself all worked up, but it was still a good change from the defeated pony I was speaking with a few minutes ago.

He stammered and went silent. He pushed up on his glasses which had become loose during his tirade. “I-I’m sorry…I never wanted to hurt anyone. I just wanted to keep the special thing this town had alive.”

“Jeez, you’re not going to make me watch you cry again, are you?”

“I’ll be alright.” he said, dabbing his eyes with his handkerchief and shoving it back into his coat pocket. “What difference does it make though? Eventually, he’ll hear about you coming here, it’s only a matter of time.”

“Well, sorry to break it to you but the Stable Dweller isn’t coming to save you.” I said, then muttered to myself. “I swear to Luna, this guy is really pissing me off.” Now I was getting mad for another reason entirely. Professor Mercury had been so busy trying to help the town, they barely even noticed something was off. Worse was how the Sheriff just allowed Jagged’s raider contacts to come and go as they pleased while they unknowingly took advantage of the place. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. A town called Unity? What a joke.

“So all is lost then. Everything we worked for...” He said, giving a defeated sigh.

“Relax, the town will be fine.” I assured him, picking up my things that I left stashed by the entrance. “Nobody is going to be attacking anywhere.”

“How can you be sure of that?” he asked me, unsure of where my endless confidence was coming from.

“Because I’m going to kick his ass, and figure out where he’s getting his Enclave weapons.” I stated matter-of-factly and blew a heavy puff of air. “I guess, it would be too much to hope for that you’d know where he was getting them, huh?”

The Professor shook his head and and I stood facing away from him in the doorframe.
As I moved towards the door, I stopped to look back at Mercury Switch. “I’ve got one more question before I go: There’s this really smug asshole that hangs out in the bar, selling chems. Is he one of Jagged’s too? I didn’t see a mark on him.”

Mercury Switch shook his head. “I have no idea, if you’re referring to who I think you are.”

“Alright, thanks Prof.” I said, pushing the button to open the front door. The electronic mechanisms spun in place, and I heard a swishing noise as the door opened. “There’s something I need to take care of, so I’ll be back later. In the meantime, tell that little robot to-- Ah!” I cried as I felt a sudden jolt of pain shoot through my shoulder, and grabbed it reflexively.

“What’s the matter?” He asked, giving me a strange look.

“It’s nothing.” I said, stepping out the door. “I’ll be back later. Seeya, Tank.”

T.A.N.K. beeped at me again as I trotted outside. I thought I had some idea of what he was saying, but I ignored him.

I entered the Dirt-Stop Saloon again, seeing Sunny speaking with the bartender about something. She looked almost alarmed to see me, and was stammering to get out a sentence.

“Oh, hey Rou! Um, did you find what you were looking for?” she smiled walking up in front of me. I lightly moved her out of my way and she stood still watching as I strolled across the room, straight up to the overly-smug pony’s table. He was all alone this time.

“Let’s talk.” I said, glaring at him while ignoring the ghoul’s protests. The stallion was laying back in his seat pretending to ignore me, so I turned and spat in his drink.

He looked down at the saliva filled glass and muttered, “Well, that’s just gross.”

“You got a name?” I asked.

“It’s Slag” he answered.

I stuck my hoof on the table and looked him directly in the eye. “You’re going to tell me everything you know about Jagged Knife.” I demanded.

“Haven’t we already been over this?” The stallion chuckled, his attitude only serving to piss me off further. My blood was already at a boiling point when I walked through the door, and the burning pain in my shoulder was just a mild irritation by comparison. I swept my hoof across the table, causing all his food and drink to spill on the floor. He rolled his eyes off to one side. “What makes you so sure that I know anything?”

“Because if you didn’t, then you wouldn’t be such a smug asshole about it.” I replied. “I know you’re not one of his, but you know something.”

“Didn’t I tell you to get out?!” Gimlet attempted to shout over me, but I barely even cared.

“Go get the Sheriff,” I uttered in as low a tone I could muster, barely containing my rage. I hardly acknowledged him as he hurried out the door as fast as his rotted legs could carry him.

Sunny scolded me in a harsh whisper. “Rou, what are you doing?” I didn’t turn to look at her, but for some reason she was pretty peeved by the sound of it. She was probably in the middle of her own interrogation when I burst through the door.

I kept my eyes locked on the smug looking pony in front of me, but tried to reassure her. “Trust me, I’ll explain later.” I promised. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to do things her way, right now.

He laughed, “That mutie bitch won’t do shit.”

“Why do you live here, if you dislike mutants?” I asked.

He spoke like he was proud of himself, bragging about his operation. “I got a good thing going here. Some of these mutie freaks are my best customers! Got a few regular patrons hooked on my chems. They don’t say a word because the town is all about a fresh start, so it’s easy for a pony like me to sit back and reap the rewards while I play cards in the bar. They don’t ask questions. Plus if I’m gone, who’ll provide their fix? Green wouldn’t want a bunch of addicts all going through withdrawal.”

“Well, you’d better hope the sheriff gets here soon, or you’ll have to deal with me.”

“And what are you gonna do, hero?” he mocked, keeping up with his usual attitude.

“Spit it out, or you’re gonna find out what I do to raiders.” I threatened.

“I ain’t no snitch, you dirty tomboy dyke.” he jeered.

“Wrong answer,” I snarled. He shrunk back as I leaned in closer to him and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. “Jagged Knife is the one that’s been organizing the attacks in Gawd’s territory, and I need to know where the fuck he got those weapons.”

“Give me one good reason why I should!” he said. The longer this took the more pissed off I was getting.

I leaned in so our faces were almost touching and snarled “Cus’ I’m a pissed off mare that you don’t want to fuck with. Sunny!” She almost jumped when I shouted her name and glanced in her direction.

“Y-yeah?” Sunny stammered anxiously. “Everything going okay?”

“Change the radio station to the New Canterlot Trade Reports. I have a feeling that they’re going to be reporting some updated information on the caravan attacks, soon. So we’ll learn whether or not our friend here is going to live to see tomorrow.” I said, not taking my eyes off him.

“Oh, right!” She nodded and began struggling to work the old radio, turning the sticky dials until it tuned to the right station. Eventually, she found it just as the songs were cutting out, and we heard Daily Day’s voice blaring over the decayed speakers.

“Tell me what i want to know, and nobody gets hurt.” I promised.

“What the hell?! I ain’t got nothing to do with that shit!” he objected.

“Hello, this is Daily Day, back with the daily trade reports. We’ve received another report this morning in regards to another caravan attack that occurred near the 52 Outpost. This comes as a surprise, since it follows so closely to the one from yesterday. Supposedly, it occured late last night in the cover of darkness. New Canterlot officials are claiming this most recent attack has helped them narrow in on some key suspects.”

“You hear that?” I grinned, menacingly cracking my neck and joints. “Bad luck.”

“Hey c’mon kid! They’ll kill me if Jagged hears I was talking about him to other ponies behind his back.” he begged.

“Tch! And I’m supposed to care?” I scoffed, picking him up by the collar of his shirt and lifted him off the floor. The stallion yelped. “Tell me what I want to know first, and then I’ll let you go if I’m feeling generous! Tell me where he got those weapons!”

“Hey, let go of me!” he cried. “I don’t know, alright?”

“Then give me something I can use!”

We both turned to listen to the radio, to hear Daily Day reading off about the breaking news story, but there was a pause in the broadcast as another pony came into the studio. I almost hoof-smacked my forehead as we all listened to her whisper something into his ear as he nodded along.

He started sputtering “I got out of the game because because it was getting too rough for me. The only reason I’m here is because this town looks the other way to me being here. I didn’t have anywhere else.”

“What, was being a raider too tough for you?” I scoffed.

“Okay? Yes, we’ve just received a big report here at the station! This just in, regarding yesterday’s caravan attack: A lone mare was sighted leaving the scene of an attack en route to Junction Town yesterday. She was a young adult, noted as having an auburn colored mane with a white stripe, a tan coat, and she wore a forest green jacket with a pair of chevron stripes on either side. New Canterlot officials are saying that she should be considered a suspicious pony of interest until she’s been brought in for questioning on the matter. If you’re listening, please turn yourself in and submit to the proper authorities.”

“...Shit.”

She quickly shut off the radio. There was a long awkward pause where everyone in the bar seemed to turn and look at me. Slag broke the silence, bursting into fit of unabashed laughter. I desperately looked over to Sunny, who was staring at me speechless.

As I stumbled over my words to try and explain myself, I couldn’t think of anything to say that would help my situation. Slag’s ongoing fit of laughter was starting to annoy me, so I shut him up quick by giving him an extra-hard boop on his nose. I would normally smirk as he clutched his face in agony, but I was simply too stunned by the current turn of events to take any pleasure from it.

It was then, that I noticed the Sheriff standing in the doorway. She stepped towards me, followed shortly by the bartender. All the attention in the room was drawn by her presence alone. “Put him down!” she boomed, in a loud authoritative voice. I complied, dropping Slag onto the floor and I turned to face her as she approached. Sunny tried to hide herself in plain sight, not knowing exactly how to handle the situation in front of her. I felt guilty for stressing her out like that.

“Sheriff, before you say a word. I can explain about the raider thing-” I started, but Sheriff Green cut me off.

“I never took you for a raider,” she said, raising one eyebrow, “but I’d love to hear your explanation anyways.”

“Were you aware that raiders have been covertly operating in your settlement?” She managed to humor me as I pointed at Slag, who had lost his smug expression. “This pony let on that he knew about all the recent caravan attacks that have been plaguing your town, but the bartender kicked me out when I started asking questions!”

“I told ya to lay low here, ya freakin’ moron!” I could hear Gimlet’s voice in a harsh whisper, directed at Slag. He pulled his hoof back like he wanted to smack him upside the head.

“Did you know about this?” The Sheriff slowly turned to look at the bartender, who nervously shrunk backward and threw his hooves up in the air. He stammered trying to explain himself, while Green’s eyes narrowed into slits.

Gimlet’s level of commitment to his story was impressive as addressed Green, trying to appear relatively calm. “Alright. Now, I know this looks bad, but trust me I can explain...”

“We’ll talk about this later.” She said, tabling the issue and turning back to me.

I raised my voice so that the whole bar could hear me, puffing my chest out. “Something was throwing me off about this place from the moment I got here, but I couldn’t place it. So I spoke with the Professor on my own, since nobody else in town would tell me a damn thing! He told me everything, about how you basically allowed Jagged Knife and his raiders to walk right into town without any trouble! They threatened the poor professor at gunpoint into making their weapons for them and it got innocents killed! Honestly, that really pisses me off. The so-called peace and harmony in this town is nothing but a load of brahmin shit! And you have the gall call yourself a damn sheriff?!”

“Is that so?” she asked, seeming unphased by my insults and accusations. The alicorn craned her neck down to look at the small pony, half-her-size. I had to admit, that she was much more intimidating than I was. The type of mare that you really didn’t want to piss off, if you could help it. Slag began to sputter at the gigantic lawmare in front of him, when she turned to address him directly. She raised one eyebrow, waiting for a good explanation.

He looked around, darting his eyes from side to side, then back to the Sheriff. “I’m not a raider no more! I got out of that life like a lot of us did!”

“And I’m supposed to believe that story?” she snorted.

“It’s true! Things have been different since Sunshine and Rainbows, there ain’t no place for us anymore! It’s true that Jagged’s been sending his boys to town every now and then, but he cleared out recently, in the last few weeks! I’ve got some connections who’ve told me little bits and pieces! Didn’t hear much, just that it was somethin’ big with the other clans! I think it’s something to do with ole Gawdyna’s army and the caravan attacks!”

“Then why have the caravan attacks been getting more frequent?” I countered.

To my surprise, he turned to address me instead of Green, “Look kid, Jagged’s always been a player behind the scenes, but he only really hit the big time after he crossed paths with the Stable Dweller and survived! Some settlement he hit a while back. I don’t know the full details, just that you really don’t want to get on his bad side. Take my advice from before and walk away. That’s all I know kid, I swear. C’mon, help me out here!”

“So the raider game was too tough for you, so instead you took to getting ponies hooked on chems to turn a profit?” I spat sarcastically. “Not my problem, asshole.”

“Roulette, right? I need to speak with you.” Green stood over me, demanding my attention. “Privately.” she insisted.

I nodded silently, in agreement.

As she left, Slag shouted at her in desperation. “H-Hey!” he said, getting back to his hooves. “You can’t throw me to the wolves after I’ve told you what you wanted! Jagged’ll find out I talked! If they catch me out in the wasteland now, they’ll kill me! And if Gawdyna catches me in her territory and finds out that I’ve committed crimes then she’ll toss me in Arbu Prison and throw away the key!”

Green stopped at the door and turned to address the stallion before leaving. Her words were harsh, carrying a callousness that I hadn’t seen from her up until now. “I don’t care what you do.” The ex-raider stallion couldn’t respond, it was as if he was left still trying to process his situation.

Before following her, I turned to ex-raider stallion one last time. He looked totally desperate, so I gave him what little scrap I could offer, pity-wise. “Why don’t you put your skills to use doing something that’s actually beneficial for the town, instead of sitting here pushing chems all day? Maybe then they’d change their minds about you.” He tried to get a word in as Sunny and I followed Green out the door, but I wasn’t listening.

“It’s a shame things turned out this way.” Green sighed.

I found myself sitting at a wooden desk across from the Sheriff. Most of the furniture in her office was wooden or had an old fashioned looking aesthetic. She also had a small jail cell built into it, that probably rarely ever saw use. A framed photograph of the Sheriff and who I presumed was her deceased steel ranger friend, sat next to her on the desk. The Sheriff sat with her hooves folded, appearing much more serious than the happy hooved greeter I met when I first arrived. Considering her tall stature, the desk she sat at looked positively miniscule by comparison. Sunny had been left waiting for me outside, while I talked business with her.

“So you’re saying this raider boss has been acting behind the scenes, using top quality Enclave weapons to hit New Canterlot aligned caravans past the 52 in Gawd’s territory. You also say that there was another pegasus who was wrapped up in this mess somehow and you’re trying to get to the bottom of it. Do I have all that right?

“Yep. I just haven’t fully figured out what his game plan is yet.”

“Awfully brave of you to come out here on your own.” she said. “Despite this news, the raiders are not my biggest concern. ”

“Do you know why this town is so important to me?” The Sheriff asked me directly. She quickly answered her own question. “Because it was built on a dream that both me and another pony who was very special to me both shared, and I’ll do whatever it takes to protect that dream.”

I scoffed, although I didn’t take any satisfaction in being proven right. In truth, I knew from the beginning that it was impossible for such a prosperous town to be completely untouched by the wasteland. This experience made me start to wonder if what Gawd wanted to do was even possible, even though I was still gung ho about joining up with the New Canterlot Army at the time. I only hoped deep down that she and the Stable Dweller knew what they were doing.

She hung her head longingly and stared intently over at the photograph on her desk. Probably speaking from both shame and anger, “I was stupid and they took advantage of our hospitality. It’s true that this town was built on our past sins, but here in the town of Unity we like to leave our pasts behind us. All that said, I’m going to be forced to do something drastic about this.”

I gulped, “You mean about my punishment?”

“Please, I never believed you were a raider. So that detail doesn’t interest me.“ she said dismissing the issue, and I let out deep a sigh of relief. Then she took on a much more stern and authoritative tone, “That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t appreciate folks coming into town and starting trouble. Given the circumstances, however... I am willing to compromise.”

“Compromise? Were you even aware that the Professor was keeping information like this from the rest of the town?!” I shouted back, well aware that I was pushing my luck right then.

Sheriff Green shook her head. She kept her voice measured during our exchange, but sounded noticeably disappointed with herself. “I suspected there was a problem, but I had no idea it was this bad… If Mercury told us sooner we would’ve done something, but the time has passed to think about what could have been, in this regard.“

“Like hell it is! You didn’t for a second suspect that something was wrong?!” I shouted over her, allowing myself to get a little heated. As I looked off to the side, I fell back into the chair with a thud and huffed at the hell of a situation I’d gotten myself into. “Look, I’ll take whatever you want to give me. If you want to turn me in, that’s fine too. But I’m going to go after these raiders one way or another.”

“I’m glad to hear that actually,” Green said, “The the thing is… It pains me to have to ask you this, but this town needs your help.”

“...Wait, what?” I felt dumbstruck.

“We’re all grateful to you for sorting out that detail with the Professor, but I need to ask another favor. This town means everything to me, and this new information has put us in a tough spot. The raiders’ very presence in the area discourages trade to our settlement. Since we rely on trading scrap, they’re threatening our entire way of life here and I won’t stand for that. It turns out that they were a bigger problem than I realized. So I would like you to ask Gawdyna to send her troops to secure trade west of the 52. We’re willing to pay you whatever it takes.”

My mouth hung open in complete shock. I definitely wasn’t expecting that. “What?! Didn’t you hear over the radio?! New Canterlot wants to bring me in for questioning! Argh... my mane’s already going to be full trying to deal with this crap, I’m hardly in a position to bargain with Gawdyna. Not to mention Fair Trade is gonna chew my head off when he finds out!” I clutched my head in my hooves, wanting to scream.

“I know it’s a lot, but I’m swallowing my pride to ask you to do this,” she exhaled, “I can’t say I’m sure that I trust a bunch of former mercenaries to hold Equestria’s best interests at heart. In all honesty, I wanted to avoid this... but this is beyond my personal feelings now.”

Even though I was planning on speaking with the New Canterlot soldiers anyways, this was a little far past even what I was willing to do. I sputtered out, trying to make excuses, “I couldn’t even begin to ask for something like that ...I’m not even enlisted! It’s true that I was planning on trying after I finished this job, but-”

“A town like this could be valuable to Gawd. Especially one out here in raider territory. Unity could provide a strong foothold into the area, and the scrap from the Hippocampus Energy plant might be useful in supplying her army. It’s not much, but it’s all we can offer. If anything, you’d get credit for bringing this information to her attention, and if that’s not enough I can give you more.”

“Jeez, there’s no way I could take payment from a town that desperate…” I let out a big huff. There was no telling how this was going to turn out in the end. “Alright, I’ll do what I can. Just, no promises, okay?”

“Thank you. That’s all I ask.” She smiled, looking somewhat relieved.

Sunny met me outside of the Sheriff’s office, wearing a smile that almost convinced me there was nothing to worry about. Green escorted us both to the edge of town where the Professor was waiting for us, much to my surprise. He was holding something in between his hooves and seemed like he was in a good mood despite the situation.

“Hey Professor...” I said, not feeling too talkative.

“Hello, Miss Roulette and Miss Green! Lovely weather we’re having!” He greeted us cheerfully, “I just wanted to give you my thanks before you left. Seems we’re both stuck in an interesting predicament! Such fascinating probabilities, eh?”

“Yeah, don’t mention it…” I grumbled.

He turned to Sunny and bowed. “And hello to your marefriend as well!”

I groaned. “She’s not my-”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Sunny!” she smiled and stuck out her hoof.

“Ah, delighted to meet you my dear.” Mercury said, shaking it like a gentlecolt. I groaned harder. He turned to me again, and gave me a satchel containing basic medical provisions. The old pony smiled, “I’ve prepared a few medical supplies for you both from my lab to aid you both on your mission.

“Is the Professor gonna be alright in the meantime while I’m off getting arrested by New Canterlot soldiers?” I asked the Sheriff and she gave a slight nod.

“We’ll keep him safe. Enclave weapons or no, I honestly think there’s little to worry over from these raiders. They won’t be bothering this town again.” She insisted in a grave voice, that seemed to suggest she felt personally slighted by these raiders.

“There’s a healing potion and a few packets of rad-away for you in there. You should both drink a packet for safety’s sake. Even residual radiation from the Whitetail can be dangerous if you’re not careful! Feelings of nausea are only temporary.”

Sunny and I both drank a single packet rad-away. It had a gross aftertaste, and didn’t seem to do anything except make me feel like I was going to vomit. Meanwhile, my seafoam colored travelling companion looked completely fine, beaming happily. “Aw thanks! That was so thoughtful of you!”

“It was no trouble, really!” He waved his hoof in the air. “Your friend here is really the one to thank. I would still be cooped up in my laboratory if not for her!”

Bleh.

Mercury Switch looked over to Green puzzled at first as if trying to solve a difficult problem, before coming to the sudden shocking realization and gasped. “Miss Green, you didn’t! You don’t really think that asking Gawd for help is a good idea, do you?”

“No,” The alicorn mare , “and I trust the Stable Dweller even less, but I’ve made my decision. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to protect this town. So we’ll have to see if those words over the radio are the real thing or not.”

“What about your dream? Do you think he’d approve of you potentially gambling everything away like this?” He asked with an uneasy looking frown.

“He’s not here, so my main concern is the safety and wellbeing of Unity and its citizens.” The sheriff spokle clearly raising herself to full posture. A light stamp of her hoof settled the matter.

Feeling another sharp jolt of pain, I gave the old scientist a nudge. “Hey, Professor. I’ve got a quick question for you.”

“Oh-?” he began, and I suddenly dragged the Professor aside with my foreleg wrapped around the back of his neck. He looked confused at first as I asked him in a low whisper.

“Can we speak privately?” I asked.

“I-Indeed...” He replied, pushing his glasses higher on his snout. Sunny and Green were both watching me like I was crazy. Sunny turned and whispered something to into the alicorn’s ear. I had a feeling it was something about me...

The seafoam mare turned to the Sheriff, appearing somewhat timid. “Hey, Miss Green? Could I ask you a question?”

She blinked and answered. “Sure, ask me anything.”

The Professor and I spoke off to the side while Sunny and Green were busy speaking about Luna knows what. I double checked to make sure that they were ignoring me before saying anything. “Okay, I don’t want to make a big thing out of this, but...” I began, “yesterday, I got shot in the arm and sealed the bullet inside with a healing potion. It’s been giving me this weird hitch in my shoulder since then. Everything was fine until I came here and it started flaring up all of a sudden…”

“Oh my, don’t you know it’s dangerous to leave a foreign object like that inside your body?” he scolded.

“So I’ve heard… Say, would you be able to get this thing out of me?” I laughed nervously.

The Professor frowned, doing a quick mock examination. “I don’t have the the medical equipment here to perform such a procedure, nor am I a qualified surgeon. You should get that treated by a doctor as soon as you can.”

“Isn’t there anything you can do?” I asked.

The professor frowned, putting his hoof to his lip. “Sounds abnormal. You could have some sort of mutation that’s causing that reaction. The proximity to the Whitetail Woods might simply be inflaming it. Just a hypothesis. Although radiation levels beyond the barrier should be mostly nontoxic.”

“Well, I did take a quick dip in the Whitetail Woods when I first got here...” I admitted, and the Professor looked shocked to see I was still alive. “Mutation? That’s nothing dangerous, right?" I asked.

“That highly depends on the nature of the mutation. Mutations are fairly common in the wasteland. It could be anything, even a long dormant one in your system due to years of exposure. There’s no way to tell without doing some tests. If you want, we could go back to my lab and I could draw some blood samples-”

“No! Nononono!” I cut him off, vigorously shaking my head back and forth. “I-I hate needles...”

“What…?” He paused, surprised by my sudden reaction. “This is no laughing matter!”

“I don’t like doctors, alright…?” I admitted in a hushed voice, embarrassedly turning my head away. Then I turned back to face him with a genuine hint of concern in my voice, trying to keep it together “Is it really that serious?”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t give me a straight answer, but he tried to give it to me as easily as possible. “Mutations are a bit of a genetic gamble. It could be completely benign, or worst case scenario... it could kill you. You should get that checked as soon as you can.”

“So, there’s a small chance that everything’ll turn out alright if I ignore it…?“ I laughed weakly. The Professor remained serious, in spite of my meager attempt at humor.

“Take a small dose of the healing potion every few hours until you can find a doctor. That might help the symptoms for now, but it won’t do anything for the underlying issue. The effects will only be temporary, so I’d recommend getting in touch with the Followers of the Apocalypse as soon as you can, they’re good with this sort of thing.”

“‘Kay, thanks Prof...” I sighed. “Great, one more thing to worry about...” I thought, flexing my foreleg.

Sunny poked her head next to mine. “What’s this about the Followers?” she asked, being as nosey as ever. Apparently she had finished her conversation with Green while I wasn’t looking.

“Nothing.” I huffed.

“Hey Professor, I know you’ve had a rough day, but I do have another favor to ask.” I said, reaching into my saddlebag. Mercury Switch examined closely as I pulled out the pipbuck and vertibuck black box from my saddlebag. He studied both of the items, angling his lenses to get a better look as them. “I recovered these yesterday. The recording from the pilot said he was headed to a place called Thunder Rock. Could you look and see if there’s any useful data on them?”

“Never heard of the place... Alright, I’ll contact you via courier if I find anything.” he agreed.

“Thanks, I appreciate it…” I said, then pulling out the memory orb added, “Also, there was one more thing. Do you have a way for me to view this thing?”

The old pony furrowed his brow, observing the small crystal orb from several angles as he stroked his chin with his hoof. He drew back and laughed nervously, “Well, this is rather embarrassing. I actually had an old memory recollector, but I scrapped it for parts for a week ago. Sorry.”

“Ugh.” I nearly facehoofed. Seemed to be in line with my luck as of late.

Sheriff Green stepped forward, removing her hat. “Don’t worry, I can actually help you with that.” She craned her neck downward so that we were eye level, getting uncomfortably close. I leaned back and the mare smirked. “ Relax, I’m not going to kiss you.” she teased.

“I wasn’t thinking it…” I grumbled.

“You blushed,” she laughed.

“I-I did not!” I yelled, trying to hide my face turning red.

“Just touch the memory orb to your forehead and I’ll handle the rest,” The mare assured. I did as she asked, and her horn began to emit bright light. She brought it closer and touched the the tip to the memory orb and her aura flowed through it and into me. Growing up as an earth pony, it was my first time viewing an orb like this. “Hang on tight,” she said, and the world began to wash away around us as the memory took hold.

--oo0oOo0oo--

The ground felt strange returning to my body, and I felt slightly off balance. It was difficult for either of us to explain what we just experienced. Green levitated her hat back onto her head and brought herself to full posture again. I couldn’t tell if I was going to be sick or not.

“Was that your first time?” She laughed as I blushed angrily, pretending I didn’t hear that.

Something had happened in the memory orb, I just wasn’t sure what. I still felt disoriented after viewing it, needing a bit more time to process what just saw.

“Woah, so how was it Rou? What pony’s memory did you end up seeing?” Sunny asked, sounding excited.

“...I have no idea what I saw honestly, Sunny.” I answered. Then turning to Green, I asked her, “Any idea why would the Enclave would need to hold onto some pony’s memory from before the war at all costs?”

She seemed equally confused, and the alicorn just shook her head. “I’ve never seen that pony before in my life. Usually I have some recollection of most ponies I see in memory orbs, even if I don’t know them. In this case, even with my memories of the Unity, she’s not even vaguely familiar to me. The whole thing seemed fairly inconsequential, otherwise. ”

I shrugged, returning the orb to my saddlebag. “That’s one more dead end mystery to cross off my list. Guess we should get going then.” As I looked up at the sky, I noticed the clouds that were beginning to gather above us. Finally, some shade. Then remembering something, I quickly turned back to Green. “Oh yeah, Sheriff? One last thing.”

“Hm?” she asked.

“I saw a white alicorn lurking in the Woods earlier when I first got here, she almost made me jump because she was so creepy just standing there. You should tell her to be careful doing stuff like that from now on.” I grinned.

“White? Alicorn...?” Green looked at me like I was speaking nonsense. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. None of my girls were on shift this morning.”

“Hey, not cool! Quit messing with me!” I shouted.

“A white alicorn? Fascinating.” The professor remarked.

“Wha...? But I was sure that I saw something...” I felt a jolt of electricity down my spine. All of a sudden I was beginning to doubt my mental faculties again.

Sheriff Green began to have a fit of uncontrollable laughter, like someone had just told a hilarious joke that I wasn’t in on.

“What’s so damned funny?” I snarled.

“Oh, that.” She laughed, wiping a tear away. “I’ve heard that travellers not used to the glow occasionally see hallucinations in the haze. Sometimes ponies see family members or loved ones lurking amongst the trees, and when they realize it’s an illusion they’ve already sucked up a lethal dosage of rads. Either that or they end up as ghouls.”

“Well, that’s freaky.” Sunny said flatly.

"How odd," the Professor pondered to himself, "phantasms aren't usually a result of balefire radiation..."

Green thought about it a moment longer, then suggested, “Hmmm, you know now that I think about it, Princess Celestia did shoot down a number of Megaspells that were originally intended for Canterlot during the Great War. That’s what created the glow here in the first place. Maybe you were just seeing her ghost?”

“I guess…” I huffed, still not entirely convinced at what I saw. That was probably as good an explanation as I was going to get. I turned to Sunny and gave her a nudge, “We should get going.”

The steam whistle blew again marking the next shift and Green had to get back to overseeing work for the town, so we said our farewells. She nodded to the both of us, and Sunny ran up and gave the Sheriff a quick hug, before running back to me. She blushed a little, as the two giggled between themselves. That gesture left me wondering what exactly they were talking about.

“Thank you for everything, Miss Roulette.”

“Aw, shucks.” I joked.

“Hope to see you again soon, we’ll keep the town safe while you’re gone. I highly doubt that those raiders will try anything.” The Sheriff waved goodbye as we departed back into the wasteland. “I appreciate you doing this. We’ll be in your debt.”

“No pressure, right?” I laughed, “Don’t sweat it.“

Sunny accompanied me as we headed south together. Today was already turning out to be one heck of a mess. I really wasn’t looked forward to having to explain this whole thing to Fair Trade. Somehow I didn’t care as she turned to look at me, a big smile on her face. Her calm, cheery attitude was the only thing keeping me going.

“Hey, looks like we made some friends today!” she smiled.

“I guess. So, did you find out anything interesting out while you were out gathering information?” I asked.

“Well, I did…” Sunny started acting playful, making a light jab at me, “but you kinda barged in and ruined my lead.” It appeared that she was slightly amused by the whole thing. Then she declared with a big grin, “I got us some supplies though!”

I couldn’t help but smirk a little too. Her attitude was infectious. It would’ve been nice if things could stay like this. Maybe if we weren’t being stuck into such a shit situation and if I didn’t already have a goal in mind, then I’d have liked to stay in Unity. As she turned to look back at the Sheriff waving at us, for the briefest of moments, I thought saw something flutter underneath her shirt.

“My imagination?” I thought about it and sighed again, knowing in my head that this momentary high wouldn’t last. Looking up at where some grey clouds were gathering above us, I sighed as one of them passed in front of the sun, giving us some momentary cover of shade.

“Why am I not surprised?”

Level up!

Perk added:

Mental Cataloger - You have a talent for remembering specific details in an interesting way! +10% Experience Bonus

Chapter 5: Who'll Stop the Rain?

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Chapter 5-

Who’ll Stop The Rain?

“If that’s what it means to be a Wonderbolt, then i don’t want any part of it.”

Suddenly, I was sitting in some sort of office back during the war, staring down at paperwork. The memory orb showed me a glimpse of the life of a wartime administrator; Force disposition printouts, pending deployments, situation reports, and one important looking document describing an update to the development of “power armor” from the Ministry of Technology lay neatly organized in front of me. Perched precariously on the edge of the desk was a veritable mountain of fan mail. Most of the details seemed irrelevant based on a quick glance.

I could also feel two odd bumps moving on my back that belonged to my host. “I have wings!” I realized, as I felt them stretching on their own. It was such a strange sensation to comprehend being in the body of another pony, with me just being along for the ride.

My host paid little attention to the office she had seen dozens of times previously, which was decorated in pre-war paraphernalia and wartime propaganda posters. A nearby trophy cabinet displayed medals of honor and valor awards belonging to the owner of the office, with much of it dedicated to a particular elite flight group called the Shadowbolts. With extra emphasis placed on a certain blue pegasus with a rainbow-colored mane. There was a folded up yellow and blue jumpsuit encased in glass placed at the bottom, as if it held a special place of honor. At the center of the room was a golden cloud and lightning bolt insignia inlaid into the floor, which was polished to a shine.

There was now little doubt in my mind who this memory orb belonged to.

From all the wartime posters of her I’d seen, her multi-colored mane was instantly recognizable in the wasteland. I knew that Rainbow Dash was an icon during the war, but I never imagined what it’d be like to sit inside her office!

I heard three raps against the door, and my host lifted her gaze, to which a light turquoise pegasus mare with a swept back amber colored mane opened it and stepped inside. A white lightning bolt and three stars were emblazoned across the mare’s flank. She made eye contact with my host, but neither of them said anything. I felt the pony whose memory I was viewing tip her aviators down and raise her eyebrow. Cold determination in the other mare’s eyes, making it feel like there was a sense of history built up over the years between this mare and the memory orb’s owner.

The turquoise pegasus mare averted her eyes, like she was ashamed to be standing in the same room as my host. She gulped and looked back through her peripherals. There was a long silence between them. Then, after it became clear that Rainbow Dash wasn’t going to say anything, the other mare spoke first.

“Look, Dash.” She began, her voice full of regret. “I know I screwed up back at the Academy… ”

My host didn’t give her a response, so the mare continued.

“-And basically everywhere else... I’d understand if you have reservations about giving me a second chance.” The mare paused and exhaled for a moment. I felt my host raise her eyebrow while she waited for her to finish. Then the other mare folded her ears back and stomped her hoof on the floor, her voice full of passion and conviction and with fire in her eyes. “But Equestria is my home too! I want to get back at the Zebras just as much as anypony! I know you’re looking for talented flyers- And c’mon you know that I could fly circles around any of these guys! Dash, I’ve grown up a lot since those days, and all I’m asking for is you give me one more chance to make it up to you. I promise you won’t regret it!”

After that, the memory orb ended abruptly, fading away into nothing.

The contents of the orb left me completely stumped, much to my continued frustration. “But what was so special about this one?” I kept racking my brain over the seemingly meaningless collection of details as I walked with Sunny. In fact, it raised more questions than it answered! I felt like I could get behind the mare’s desire to enlist, if anything. At least it was something I could relate to her on.

We travelled south with the western side of the Everfree flanking our left. It was the side of the forest that hadn’t been burned to charred timber. I took the occasional sip of healing potion every time I felt my shoulder begin to flare up when Sunny wasn’t looking, but it would just feel like shit again a few minutes later. I figured that somehow I had managed to luck out up until now on the medical side of things. That rad-away I drank earlier didn’t make me feel any better either, and now I had a bitter aftertaste stuck in my mouth to boot. My mind temporarily lingered on what the Professor said about that possible mutation in my system. I really didn’t like the sound of that.

I looked up at the greyed out skies overhead, frankly amazed at how quickly the weather shifted from sunny to overcast in only a couple of hours. It was hard to tell if it was going to rain or not. My instinct for it had been thrown out of whack since Operation Cauterize.

Sunny had been silent for a good while since we left Unity in search of those New Canterlot soldiers. Based on the way she spoke back there, it seemed like she clearly had some unspoken reservations about going to speak with them. I could tell, there was something she wasn’t saying.

“So this guy,” I began, trying to start up a conversation. “Who is he, exactly? A scientist or what?”

The mare’s eyes darted from side to side, startled at my question. “W-Which guy?” she stammered.

“The one you said knows about the Enclave.” I reminded her, and she let out a strained sigh of relief.

“C’mon, give me a clue!” I pressed. She was almost reluctant to answer the question at first.

“O-Oooh him?” she she played. “He’s my dad.”

“Your dad?” I asked, a little surprised. “Well what does he do?”

“He knows from years of studying the Enclave’s inner workings. As long as I’ve known him he’s been incredibly dedicated to his work. He told my family that he’d meet us in Junction Town if anything ever happened, so that’s why I asked to travel there with you.

I nodded along at her non-answer, “Makes sense...”

“He always made sure we were taken care of as a family, even though it felt like he wasn’t always there. That didn’t stop him from always being super overprotective of me for some reason. Dads right, am I right? No matter what I did, I’d always be his little girl to him.”

I really didn’t know what it was like to have a dad, so I just took her word for it. I paused for a moment to think it over, before saying, “That must’ve been nice, having someone...”

“Yeah, but I’d really have liked to get out a little more when I was growing up, y’know?” she joked. I snorted, looking at the mare beside me, feeling like I could almost empathize with what she was saying.

She went silent again after that. I was starting to miss her normal chipper attitude. I sighed, looking back ahead. “Sorry about ruining your lead with Gimlet back there.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. It turned out to be a dead end anyways. ” She said, brushing it off absentmindedly. “Just that... I thought I almost found someone I was looking for.”

Hang on. She was searching for someone too? It was beginning to get harder to ignore all the gaping holes in her story.

I stared at her again without saying anything. Then she snickered and gave me a nudge, “It was kind of funny that you had the right idea all along.”

“Found who?” I asked, and she seemed startled that I would ask that.

“O-oh right. I’ve been looking for someone.” She admitted quickly, and I gave her a funny look.

“Who?” I pressed further, but the mare only replied with half-hearted non-answers. Then she hummed to herself pretending not to hear. I grunted, getting tired of playing games with her. She went quiet not long after.

When we passed the downed Vertibuck wreckage a second time, it was already being stripped to pieces by salvagers. It didn’t take them long to find it after we did. We just kept our distance as we passed, and they yelled at us to get lost.

Checking over my shoulder again to make sure that we weren’t being followed, there were still no signs of the raiders anywhere. For being called “Raider Country”, it wasn’t really living up to its name. But I still had that feeling of being on constant alert. I wondered if they were biding their time planning something, like that one pony said. What the hell did he mean “something big”? Hell, why wasn’t New Canterlot out here helping towns like Unity? All questions for later. Now the sheriff had me acting as a liaison between her and these soldiers. This was getting ridiculous.

When we reached the western side of the Everfree Forest, Sunny began to get more nervous with her occasional fidgeting. She slowed to a sudden stop and asked me something weird.

“Hey, Rou? Can we talk about something…?”

“What is it?” I asked, cutting her off slightly.

“Um… my mistake. It’s nothing.” She laughed it off nervously.

“Then c’mon, let’s get this over with.” I gestured her to follow.

“Okay, sorry.” Sunny nodded. She seemed like she had something else on her mind, whatever it was it could wait. Or not. “But everything will be okay with the New Canterlot soldiers, right?”

“Who knows.” I shrugged. “It’s my fault for running out here on my own and stirring up trouble. I’m sure they’ll understand once they hear my side of the story. Let’s go.”

The mare started dragging her hooves and i turned back to look at her. She fell behind and came to a complete stop close to the Everfree Forest. She stared at the ground for a moment, somewhat anxious to speak. “Rou, I… Travelling with you, that’s one thing, but I don’t know if going to deal with New Canterlot mercenaries is such a good idea...”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

She didn’t answer.
“You’re acting weird.” I pointed out, “...weirder than normal.”

“Sorry. I can’t help it. It’s just-” she didn’t finish her sentence. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t notice how she seemed uneasy whenever New Canterlot was brought up.

“Quit being so nervous. Everything will work out.” I gestured again for her to follow, but she stayed rooted to that spot. Instead, the mare shook her head vigorously. Grunting under my breath, I checked over my shoulder again to make sure nobody else was around. Something was majorly putting me on edge. It wasn’t safe to stay here. “Sunny, c’mon…”

“Hey, I’ve got an idea! How about we just forget about the New Canterlot soldiers and head straight to Junction Town?” she smiled weakly, tilting her head up to look at me.

I rolled my eyes, starting to lose patience with the mare. “That’s ridiculous. It’d be faster if we just get it over with.”

“I know, but-” She timidly tried to speak, but I cut her off again.

“C’mere.” I motioned again for her to move, but she didn’t budge. “It’s dangerous to stay that close to the Everfree Forest for too long.” Even in its half-burned down state the Everfree wasn’t something to be trifled with. I didn’t want to tempt fate. She shook her head again.

“Look here, I don’t have a choice in the matter! Besides, weren’t you one who was all insisting that I help the town?” I pointed out. I growled as the bullet in my shoulder started to burn into my shoulder again.

“M-Maybe we should just head back to Junction Town and sort things out there?” she offered weakly.

“Sunny!” I snarled, losing my temper.

She breathed in and out, as if to steel herself. “Roulette, I have to tell you something.”

We were interrupted by growls and vicious barks emanating from the woods. A lone timberwolf lept from the forest charged towards us. Its body was charred black from flames and its eyes glowed like embers. I readied myself, but I was too slow. It lept towards Sunny instead since she was perceived as the weaker target, pouncing on top of her as I was caught bringing up my rifle.

Sunny toppled over backward and the timberwolf pounced on top of her. She screamed, desperately trying to hold it back with her hooves while I was busy aiming down the sights. There were tears in her eyes as she stared into the jaws of death. It pushed past her defenses easily and sunk its teeth into her neck, tearing into her.

My first shot penetrated the timberwolf, splintering its lower jaw. Sunny winced. Then the first shot was quickly followed by several more, which took off big chunks of its body. The charred timberwolf toppled over onto its side, leaving Sunny scratched up and injured from the attack, covered in wood bits. Fire raged inside of me as I squeezed the trigger again, and again.

Grinding my teeth together as I let out a single slow breath in a growl, I unloaded the entire magazine. Then I realized there was nothing left but a pile of motionless sticks and I slowly let out a breath. That forest was as dangerous as ever.

“Fuck.” I grunted, quickly giving my attention back to Sunny.

The mare blinked unable to speak, just barely holding on. Her clothes were torn up and she was bleeding out. I quickly looked around to make sure there weren’t others, dragging her to a safe distance with my teeth. I crouched over and dug out my only healing potion, uncorking it, I pressed it to her lips and she drank slowly until there was nothing left. Her injuries stitched themselves seamlessly back together and when she was done with it I tossed the bottle away, hearing the glass shatter.

“Careful, that was our only healing healing potion.” I warned. Her coat was a little bloodstained and she was completely shell shocked, but she looked okay otherwise. Standing up, I walked over to the slain remains of the creature. Timberwolves were known to travel in packs but it seemed like this one was on its own. I gazed at the fallen beast, feeling some sense of remorse. “Must’ve been a lone timberwolf that was separated from its pack. All alone.” Then my pity ran out and I kicked the pile of sticks. There went our get out jail free card.

I turned to look at the mare again, “Are you okay?”

“Rou, y-you saved me!” Sunny Hymn exclaimed, shakily bringing herself to her hooves. She took unsteady breaths while she collected herself. Then with a bright grin, she put on another happy look that you’d assume she didn’t almost come within an inch of death right there. “Phew, I don’t know what came over me right then. Shall we go then?”

”Sunny…” I sighed, staring at something else. A feathered wing was poking out from under her shirt, which had come loose during the attack. It gave a slight flutter. For a short moment, I didn’t say anything. Admittedly, I wasn’t particularly shocked by it, but a switch flipped inside her head the moment she noticed what I was looking at.

Her pupils dilated and her whole face sunk. The cheery persona she’d been putting on was wiped away in an instant. “I-...I-, no. Rou, it’s not what you think.”

“Sunny...” I repeated, walking towards her.

“Y-you caught me! I’m actually a mutant, I’ve had this wing ever since I was born-…!” The seafoam pegasus trailed off into a weak laugh.

I didn’t say anything.

“Please Rou, we’re friends right? Don’t hurt me please. I’m sorry, I promise, I was going to tell you! I swear, I didn’t do any of that stuff the Enclave did- I’m not even military!” She begged. I put firm hoof on her shoulder. The mare looked terrified, her body was shaking all over.

“R-Rou…?” she barely managed to squeak out. “Please don’t hurt me…”

“Sunny, get a grip would you?!” I shouted into her ear and huffed. The mare blinked twice, trying to process my words until she half-came to her senses.

She cocked her head to the side. “B-but don’t you hate pegasi?”

“No, of course not.” I scoffed, but she looked more confused than convinced. “My foalhood hero was a pegasus.”

“R-really...?”

I spoke almost with a hint of pride in my voice, holding a hoof to my chest. “Yeah, you know Radar the dashite? He saved me and my family when we were little.”

“Wait, you knew Radar?!” she blurted out, looking shocked.

“Yeah, sorta… He didn’t raise us or anything.” I mentioned. I wasn’t expecting that reaction, and it felt a bit awkward explaining myself. Admittedly, it gave me an uneasy feeling, knowing that she had been holding this in the whole time. Angry with myself more than anything. “Why’d you feel like you had to hide this?” I asked.

The mare shook her head, still struggling to speak. “I just didn’t know how you’d react. Pegasi aren’t exactly well liked down here, and you...well... “ she trailed off and I urged her to continue. “The way you act whenever someone mentions the Enclave. I wanted to trust you, but didn’t want to take any chances until I knew for sure.”

I sighed to myself while the mare continued. Who could blame her?

“It’s safer to operate with my wings hidden than as a ‘citizen of the Enclave’.” Sunny admitted, allowing her eyes to fall to the ground. Then she folded her ears back and looked up at me, looking ashamed of herself. “So, you really don’t hate me just because I’m a pegasus?”

“Stupid…” I pressed a hoof to my forehead running it through my mane and she looked confused. “I don’t hate you. What I hate is…”

I fell silent briefly. My shoulders slumped dropping my rifle and saddlebags onto the ground. My head hung with my auburn and white mane covering my face. I didn’t speak for a good while, staring out over the horizon at an white SPP towers in the distance. “I hate the Enclave, because they took away the only thing I ever cared about.”

“What happened to you...?” she asked, with a genuine hint of sincerity in her voice.

I didn’t look back at her as I spoke, continuing to stare off into the distance. Swallowing hard, I grit my teeth. “My family is gone, alright? Don’t make me say it!”

“Oh…” Sunny said. The mare suddenly wrapped her forelegs around my waist in an attempt to hug me, and her soft wings embraced me. She was warm. I felt something bubbling up inside my chest and for a moment I desperately wanted to allow myself to feel something, but I stopped myself halfway. Pushing her away with my hoof, I breathed in and recomposed myself.

“I’ll be alright.” I insisted.

“S-sorry.” She apologized, then the mare took a deep breath and exhaled, “Alright, full truth here… I’m a pegasus. Technically a civilian, since I never served in the Enclave. I got lost on the way down from the cloud cities to the surface. The reason I’m out here is because I’m looking for someone… my dad.”

“I thought you said your dad was in Junction Town.” I raised one eyebrow.

“Oh, I did?” Sunny shrunk backward, blushing. “I didn’t know what to do at first. This was my first time on my own. He gave me specific instructions what to do in case of emergency, go to Junction Town and wait for him there. But my gut instinct kept telling me otherwise. I was there once before and I couldn’t find him anywhere. I waited, and waited… Then I got tired of waiting, and I came out here… It was stupid I know...”

I didn’t really have any room to talk.

“Before we met I had already been searching for a while. I’d gotten no leads and was about to call it quits. Then I thought that maybe if I tagged along with you, I’d be able to find him since you were so obsessed with finding out about the Enclave.… I’m sorry for lying.”

“It’s fine...” I sighed again.

Sunny Hymn gave me an uneasy look referring back to some information we stumbled upon earlier “Do you remember when that bartender mentioned the other pegasus that passed through town a while back?” She asked, and I nodded. “Well, I asked him again to give me a closer description and he sounded exactly like my dad! He might be somewhere around here. Only problem is… that was a week or two ago.”

“So that’d mean your dad is…” I trailed off as she nodded nervously. The mare didn’t have to say it for me to know what that meant. I don’t know what I was surprised.

She bit her lip. “His name is Airworthy. He was a famous Enclave scout… Sorry…”

I rubbed my eyes, feeling exasperated. “Let’s table that issue for now.”

The pegasus mare tried desperately to reassure me. “H-he’ll still tell you everything you want to know!”

“Thanks and all, but it’ll have to wait until we’ve dealt with this.” I said, and she seemed to agree.

“So, are you still okay travelling with me, knowing all that? Even though I’m a pegasus?” She asked, tearing up. “So many surface ponies still blame us for everything. They treat us like second class citizens, regardless of whether or not we had anything to do with it…”

“‘Heck yeah…a pair of wings doesn’t change how I feel about you.” I replied and then gave a slight smirk, “You’ve gotta stop worrying so much.”

“T-thank you.” She smiled wiping her eyes clean, “Gosh, look at me. I’m getting all sappy. I’m glad that you’re here to set me straight.” She cleaned herself up and smiled back.

Another sharp pain shot through my shoulder. This one was worse than the others, accompanied by a slight throbbing.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“N-nothing.” I answered. “It’s fine.”

“Really?” her voice took on a stern motherly tone.

“Yes, really! I’m good as gold!” I put on a fake smile, flexing my foreleg, “I’ll be fine, see? Better than ever- ow!” I suddenly felt another sharp jolt of pain in my shoulder. The mare didn’t look too convinced.

I groaned with a slight roll of my eyes. “I got leaded with my own gun yesterday. But it’s nothing to worry about, because I take care of my shit.” I said, intending to ease her fears, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. That part about getting shot with my own gun probably didn’t sound as good as it did inside my head.

“Rou, you’ve got to see a doctor and get that thing removed! W-What about infections?!”

“Infections? Sunny, you’re starting to sound like an egghead…” I said. Then she gave me a look that I didn’t particularly appreciate. “Well, it wasn’t intentional!” I fired back.

“C’mon let’s get moving. It’s going to rain… probably.” I said, looking up at the clouds and we began walking again. Although it was difficult to know for sure.

“How can you tell?” she asked.

I started walking South again and said. “Just something I can tell from growing up in the Wasteland.” I answered, and Sunny Hymn followed me shortly.

“So… ‘Creeps in power armor’?” I snickered, punching her shoulder.

She laughed lightly while rubbing it, “Well it’s not like everything was super hunky dory above the clouds...”

We searched around for awhile skirting the edge of the Everfree along the road, until we came across the New Canterlot patrols we’d been searching for.

I spotted some ponies in the distance who were distinctly un-raider looking. They all wore similar dark and tan combat armor that looked almost like a play on Talon gear, but with uniform scarfs, rifles and bandoliers. The initials “NC” were marked with a red star across all of their chest pieces. “That must be them” I thought.

All in all, there were eight ponies. Most of them dressed in combat armor, and carrying service rifles that looked similar to my own. A doctor seemed to be accompanying them as well. Looking up, I noticed two more pegasi troopers flying over head. That made ten. They had probably noticed me too.

“Do you trust me?” I asked Sunny while undoing the strap on my rifle.

She seemed confused. “What do you mean?”

It appeared like the patrol was coming towards us, so I tossed my rifle on the ground and looked to Sunny one last time. “Last chance if you want to leave... I won’t stop you if you’re scared.”

She nodded, “No… I’ll stick by you.” This provided me with a small sense of comfort. Sunny was probably already used to dealing with military.

“Okay then, look sharp...” I muttered. Then I inhaled, filling up my lungs and shouted as loud as I could, waving my hooves to get their attention. “Hey, you New Canterlot soldiers! I got something I want to say to you!”

I could see one of them point at me, alerting the rest of the squad and they all trained their rifles on us.

“If you don’t want us to use you for target practice, don’t move!” A stallion that sounded like he was in charge called out.

Right then I noticed a couple of pegasi hovering overhead. Why did they all have their weapons pointed on me specifically? This wasn’t my first time staring down the barrels of that many weapons, although I was really hoping that they all weren’t going to just shoot me on sight.

“Don’t try anything, raider!” they shouted at me.

“Wait! I’m not a-” I began, but was cut off by a warning shot and went still.

Then suddenly, I felt a force like a ton of bricks slam into the back of my head and I ate a mouthful of dirt as I was dropped face-first into the ground. For a split second I blacked out, but when I came to there was a heavy weight pressing down on top of me. I could feel a clawed hind leg pinning the back of my neck and the tip of a tail brushing against me. “Sit down, and stay put.” I heard a gruff female voice say as I spat up bits of earth.

“Was that really fucking necess-” I growled, but the griffoness stepped on the back of my head making me eat another mouthful of dirt.

“Hold your fire!” I heard barked to the rest of the squad.

“Don’t move a muscle.” she ordered, and I heard the hammer of large revolver cocked back. Sunny sounded fine from her nervous stammers. “And you - shut up, stay quiet and you’ll be okay.” She immediately complied.

“Fuck you! If you touch her, I’ll kick your ass!” I spat at the griffon as she remained holding me there, almost in spite of Sunny’s failed attempts to explain the situation. Thankfully she hadn’t come to harm.

“W-what about my friend…?” Sunny asked.

We waited as the pony who looked like the highest ranking in the squad approached us with the rest of his squad. His forest green mane was well groomed and his coat was immaculate white. He looked like he was a high society prick from Tenpony with the way he carried himself. “Thanks but we had the situation well in hand.”

“Name’s Gabriela Hawkins, New Canterlot Skyrangers. I was watching from above, Lieutenant. Good thing I came by too, you lot were about to perforate this pair of civilians. Raiders don’t travel alone.”

The New Canterlot officer turned to his sergeant, an aging tobiono painted stallion with a short white mane, and ordered him to set up a perimeter. His coat was faded and there were bags under his eyes, like he had seen a lot in his day. I barely caught a glimpse his golden sheriff badge cutie mark behind his armor as he grunted an affirmative and put the squad to work.

“Lieutenant Alabaster, Squad 1A, Balefire Platoon. It can be a dangerous task running patrols out here in raider country, especially this close to the Ghastly Gorge, so I suppose I should be honored that a New Canterlot Skyranger is looking after us.”

“Think nothing of it, I just had to get involved before you shot this idiot.” Hawkins replied.

The white unicorn looked down at me and back at the griffon pinning me in place. “Who is she then?”

“Dunno, but she’s the only one that looked like she’d pose much of a threat.” That line annoyed me for some reason. “She’s got a service rifle, IF-15 Model. Looks like one of our’s... Modified stealthbuck, an Enclave non-issue modified energy weapon, a ten mill and then some other junk in her bag.” I really wasn’t fond of being forced to eat dirt while a griffon went through my stuff either.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and assume she doesn’t have a permit for that.”

“Quit talkin’ like I ain’t here!” I growled, and the griffoness pushed me down into the dirt again with her hind leg. I was getting angry.

Hawkins motioned her head towards Sunny Hymn. “The other one’s just a pegasus civy.” Sunny gasped at how she was able to tell so easily, and the griffoness scoffed saying it was obvious by the way she moved. Griffons and Pegasi had a long history of conflict.

Finally, the lieutenant got around to addressing me specifically, “Ma’am, would you kindly identify yourself?”

“I was trying to tell you earlier: I’m not a fucking raider!” I yelled, thrusting myself upwards with my hooves and almost threw Hawkins off balance in the process. “That report over the radio is total bogus! I’m with you guys! My name’s Roulette, and I was hired by the Outpost 52 to carry out my assignment!”

“Hey, quit it! What the hell is wrong with you?!” The griffoness spat, forcing me back down with her whole body weight. “Stop fighting or I’ll fucking shoot you!” I simmered down as soon as she mentioned the gun again. “Report? What report…?”

“They reported over the radio pinning those caravan attacks on me, dumbass. I wasn’t the one who hit those caravans, it was a raider named Jagged Knife!”

“No sense in keeping her there. Let her up.” Alabaster said. Hawkins asked me if I was going to behave myself, and I gave a slight nod, holding back any sarcastic comments I wanted to make. She released me and I stumbled back to my hooves where I was allowed to finally get a look at her.

Hawkins was a slender built sniper griffon with yellow tipped plumage and a black-tipped beak. A white scarf was wrapped around her neck over her green vest on which she wore a stars decorated bandolier, with a gigantic pistol holstered underneath. She was giving me an irate look that mirrored my own, and we exchanged glares.

With a huff, I explained my situation and told them everything I knew. Unfortunately, they were initially skeptical of my story.

Alabaster looked over to Hawkins rubbing the back of his neck. “Enclave, flying over the Smokey Mountains...? That sounds a little far fetched.”

“I didn’t see any Enclave,” Hawkins scoffed, dismissing the notion entirely.

Getting desperate I blurted out, “Really, I saw them!”

“Also Jagged who…?” she tilted her head.

My mouth hung open, speechless. “...Of all the fucking-! Jagged Knife is the one who’s been organizing the raider attacks in the New Canterlot Territory using Enclave Weapons that you assholes were supposed to deal with! I barely survived one of those attacks! There are towns out here that need your help! What the fuck are you doing out here?!”

Alabaster raised his head tall like he was reciting from a script “Our mission is to secure a stronger foothold west of the 52, so the raiders have no way to advance back into the territory. We have it on intel that Papa Bighoof was behind those caravan attacks, so we’re just waiting for the rest of our forces to finish training up in New Canterlot.”

“No shit! Where do you think that intel came from in the first place?” Hawkins snapped at Lieutenant Alabaster, looking suddenly shocked by this information. “And on who’s authority? I wasn’t informed of this.”

“It’s from the top.” he answered, stone-faced.

“Blackhawk then?” She grumbled.

“I remember hearing about caravan attacks being carried out by raiders using Enclave weapons during a briefing, but I don’t usually pay attention during those. They’re boring as hell, so usually I’ll just come up with an excuse to avoid them. Just let the grunts deal with it.” she shrugged.

“Real model soldier, ain'tcha?” I spat.

“It’s Skyranger, kid. Don’t lump me in with the rest of them, because I’m not. As far as I’m concerned if I don’t know his name, he’s a fucking nobody! Papa Bighoof is the current big Raider Warlord in this area, not whoever the fuck this Jagged Knife guy is!”

“Don’t call me a damned kid!” I immediately fired back.

The griffon brushed my insults aside, continuing her verbal onslaught. “You came out here without knowing a damned thing about the situation? You really are a fucking idiot.”

“Why don’t you fight me for real, one-on-one, instead of sneaking up behind me?! What’s the matter, you big chicken?”

“Cocky, me likes...You wanna know a secret?” A wicked grin crept across her face, and she paused for anticipation. “Earth ponies can’t look up to save their damned life!” She laughed out loud and my face went red hot with anger. I was quickly learning what it must’ve been like to be the recipient of one of my asskickings. It wasn’t that fun being on the receiving end.

A light-blue unicorn stallion with a platinum blonde mane stepped forward and forced himself between the two of us. He wore spectacles and a look of impatience. A single silver lock of mane drooped in front of his face. As he pushed us apart, I noticed the symbol depicting three butterflies that marked his association with the followers was stitched onto his labcoat. “Excuse me ladies, but would you please be civil? There are more important matters at hoof!”

Alabaster nodded in agreement.

I lost my temper, but there was very little I could say either. I didn’t have any idea who or what they were talking about, only that I remembered Cottontail told me about what the weapons were for. But I knew for a fact that Jagged Knife was behind those attacks! That was the truth, whether they wanted to believe it or not!

Then the lieutenant asked me if I had any forms of identification. Despite getting heated, I still managed to keep a cool head. All I could think of on the spot was the envelope containing those reports, but Fair Trade told me I wasn’t allowed to show the contents to anyone. I told him what i could.

“Like I said, my name is Roulette.” I repeated. “I was hired by Fair Trade to deliver an envelope containing an important report to Major Silver Spur at Junction Town.”

“Fair Trade, huh? Seems to me... Junction Town is in the other direction.” He pursed his lips together, raising his brow. “What exactly are you carrying in ‘said envelope’?” he asked with sneaking suspicion.

Dammit. “Erm...I can’t tell you. My orders are to give it only to Major Silver Spur directly, sealed on delivery- not my business.” I was forced to say. I knew how bad it must’ve looked, but I wasn’t about to disobey instructions again. After all, I still had what was left of my reputation to uphold in the territory.

“And you honestly expect me to believe that?” The unicorn asked, lowering his eyelids.

“...Yes?” I grinned, trying to stifle fake laughter.

Alabaster was not amused. Hawkins then snatched the sealed envelope from my open saddlebag and examined it. I shouted in protest.

“Looks official.” she admitted, inspecting it from both sides and showing it to the lieutenant.

“This envelope checks out, but the fact that you’re carrying the very weapons the raiders are using in these attacks, by your own admission, casts some doubt on your story as to what you were really doing out here.” The lieutenant said, doubtful.

“No!” Sunny interjected, showing off and pointing to her wings. “She’s the real deal! I’m a pegasus civilian from Neighvarro who got lost and she was helping me!”

They both turned to look at her. “Miss, are you registered with the Neighvarro Provisional Government?” he asked, and she gave a reluctant nod.

Sheepishly, she replied, “My name is Sunny Hymn. It should be somewhere in the registry… C16273009”

“Do you really think I’d come here by myself if I was a raider?” I groaned.

“Fair point. I’ll take it on your friend’s word then, that you’re not a raider but you should probably be more careful about your choice of uniform in the future. If it wasn’t for that armor paint job we might’ve shot you by mistake.” He said, and I nodded silently. Sunny would’ve likely been proud of herself right then.

“Lieutenant Alabaster?” The sergeant interrupted us. He spoke with slight countryisms. “Sir, not to interrupt, but we should get moving... That storm is going to be here soon, and we can’t afford to stay here for too long.”

“Storm...?” I asked incredulously, “It couldn’t be more than a drizzle at most, it’s just a little cloudy!” I knew wasteland weather!

“It only looks like that right now, but it’ll be rolling in soon. There’s been a heavy thunderstorm scheduled for weeks. Supposed to be a big one. Lightbringer’s making up for lost time, I guess.” he replied. Fuck. I nearly forgot about the scheduled weather events. I should’ve been paying attention to the radio more. “What do you want us to do with these civilians?”

The follower’s pony seemed to be growing more impatient with the lieutenant. “Do we really have time for this? They’re civilians! The right thing would be to take them with us.” he insisted. I was a little surprised to hear him sticking up for us out of the blue like that. He barely even knew us. I guess that was the Followers for you.

“Doctor Page Turner, when you asked to come along with us, it was mutually understood we would agree to protect you on your business for the Followers but the mission would come first. You’ll have to trust me to know how to do my job.”

He pointed to his satchel. “Well, I don’t want any of this research data getting wet either. I’ll have you know, this work is valuable to New Canterlot as well!”

We all heard the crack of thunder echo in the distance and looked towards the SPP tower it seemed to emanate from.

“We’re taking them with us.” He ordered, and the lieutenant turned to me, “You can tag along with us back to our base, it’s just Southwest of the Everfree. Once we’re back there, we can file a report and figure out this mess.”

Begrudgingly, I gave the slightest of nods.

“Alright then. In that case, I’m sticking with you guys!” Hawkins called out, and there was general approval amongst the rank and file.

I saw the the lieutenant pull the griffon aside and ask her something. “Have the Skyrangers finished their scouting mission?”

Hawkins brought her voice down to a harsh whisper, “That information is supposed to be classified! How’d you find out about it?”

“It doesn’t matter.” he replied. I saw Lieutenant Alabaster lean closer to the Skyranger as he spoke under his breath. Even though they were speaking quietly, I could still overhear them. “You should get back and deliver that report to Blackhawk. It’s just a short march around the Everfree. My squad can handle themselves.”

“Like hell!” She returned, “Not while Papa Bighoof’s army is waiting just past the Ghastly Gorge! You need a skyranger like me to watch your back and take care of the civies. Are you honestly going to leave air support to the pegasi?!”

“That old warlord’s not going to show his cards to a single squad of New Canterlot troopers. He’s stayed up on that hill for nearly a century. That report on the other hoof is more important to helping New Canterlot, and if you don’t go now then you’ll get caught in the storm with us. It’s be just a march through some bad weather. One night we have to take shelter at the worst.”

I looked between them, still not entirely sure what was going on.

“Don’t you think I’m aware of all that? But the raiders have been getting more bold lately. It’ll be raining, so it’s the perfect chance for him to try something... Even if this turns out to be nothing, I’m not willing to let you take the risk with the civies here.” she insisted. “There are other Skyrangers. Blackhawk can wait an extra day or two for the full report.”

The Sergeant interrupted them both mid-conversation, “Lieutenant, we really shouldn’t turn down aid if she’s offering. It’d let the troops rest easier.”

“Besides, I’ve got a feeling deep in my gut that something might happen...” she said glaring at me like I was somehow responsible for this. I shot her back a dirty look of my own.

He relented turning back to the rest of his squad. “Fine, have it your way.”

“Form up!” Alabaster shouted, and then briefly addressed the two of us. “For now, can you keep pace?”

Sunny Hymn glanced towards my shoulder with concern and then back at Lieutenant Alabaster. We both nodded together.

As I picked up my rifle, a larger red earth pony stallion stood over me. He had a squared jaw like a big dumb jock and a tiny orange tuft of mane under his helmet. He ordered me to hand over my weapons. “That rifle is property of New Canterlot, so give it over.”

I refused, holding it behind me as he approached to try and take it. “Try it…” I growled.

Putting his hoof on the stallion’s shoulder, the sergeant gave him a stern look. “You’d better let her hang onto it, Ace. We might need her help.” He took a moment to process it before nodding, but I saw him eyeing me up and down like he was sizing me up. He probably had his doubts about me. I was pretty sure I could take him though if he tried.

I looked over at Sunny, where she was attempting to reassure herself more than me. “Everything’ll be okay...” I said, trying to give her a false sense of assurance and the mare nodded following along. What a shit situation I’d dragged her into.

We continued south along an old road along the Western edge of the Everfree Forest. We didn’t talk much, after all there’d be plenty of time for talking later. The weather was already taking a turn for the worse. I could see there were dark grey clouds above us now, covering up the whole sky. Now it felt more like the wasteland I remembered.

Even being escorted amongst the other troopers I didn’t allow myself to feel relaxed. Plus, I was still bitter about that griffon getting the drop on me. Something was going on here that I wasn’t fully aware of. I just hated being left in the dark about it. But rushing out here was what also got me into this mess, so maybe it was better to hang back and observe for now.

A pegasus trooper who flew down to chat was pestering me, making the task difficult. “Wowee!” he said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mare put up that much of a fight with a gun still pressed to her head!” I grunted, ignoring the dark brown pegasus trooper who was attempting to flirt with me. He whistled, “And you’re quite the looker too. Name’s Twister, ma’am!”

“Don’t fraternize with the civilians.” Came a sharp check from from Ace.

Twister shrugged, “Hey, I can’t help it if I got a thing for hot-blooded surface mares!”

“Twister, get back on recon!” A cream coated pegasus mare with a teal green mane flew overhead, to which Twister immediately took to the skies again. The mare looked very trim and by the books. She then spoke into a portable radio. “Camp Brave, this is Squad 1A Balefire Platoon, radio check, over.”

A staticky mare’s voice replied, “Squad 1A this is Camp Brave, reading you loud and clear.”

Getting tired of walking, I asked. “Any idea how far it is?” The sergeant replied to me, without taking his eyes off his surroundings.

“Camp Brave is on the southwestern side of the Everfree. Provided your story checks out, you’ll be turned over to New Canterlot Officials and they’ll deal with you from there. You might have to help file a report with Captain Sweetroll, and help us fill out some paperwork. With luck, we’ll sort out this mess quickly.”

“Aren’t you worried the raiders will try something?” I asked.

The stallion laughed confidently, “I was figuring we’d run into a few skirmishers at most, but I don’t expect they'll cause problems for us. My troops can handle it.”

I moaned, agonizing over what Fair Trade would say about all this. I really fucked up big time. We continued along the road, and my shoulder kept hurting. It felt like it was only getting worse in the meantime. Like the bullet was growing hotter under my skin and I could feel the constant throbbing around it getting more and more painful as we walked. I winced nearly every step of the way and they ignored my subtle requests for medical supplies. Sunny might’ve been the only one who noticed anything. They told me if I was good enough to walk, they’d take care of it back at camp.

“Hey, you’re supposed to be a doctor right?” I whispered to the blue unicorn stallion who was supposedly with the Followers.

“I’m a historian.” he answered, and I moaned audibly, tilting my neck over. “Are you alright...?” he asked, giving me a confused look.

“I’m perfect…” I mumbled.

Up ahead I could see an abandoned town sitting on the edge of the Everfree Forest. It had an off look to it, like it was halfway to becoming a prosperous startup with many small independent stores, but then they just stopped building it halfway through. There was little indication of what would cause the builders to do such a thing.

Most of the ruined buildings were bombed out with missing walls. Only a few of the structures remained fully in tact. There was a different feeling, like a sense of foreboding coming from the Everfree forest and that town, not unlike when . I was getting an odd feeling from it. We were going to pass it on the road.

“We passed by that town before, on our first rounds. Looks like it was some kind of failed startup from during the Great War. Now it’s just a ghost town.”

“Sure looks spooky... Would hate to have to spend the night there.”

“Coltsfield” I managed to read from a barely functioning sign. Most of the buildings had been reclaimed by the wasteland over two hundred years, with at least one wall missing on most of the remaining structures. The town looked only half finished, with piles of rotting lumber left abandoned in spots that were meant to become buildings. Strange pieces of machinery lay discarded at the edge of the Everfree, and I saw an old hanging banner that read “Opportunity in your Community!”

Hawkins called out from above, pointing to another figure standing in the road ahead of us. I heard the sergeant order us to be ready and for the civies to get their heads down. It was difficult to see past the other soldiers until we got closer.

“At ease.” Alabaster ordered upon realizing the pony was an ally.

A singular hulking figure in power armor stood in the middle of the road. They wore the telltale color-scheme of the Applejack’s Rangers, in glorious T-51B military grade power armor, and armed with some of the toughest heavy ordinance known to pony-kind. He also had a huge gash on the right side of his visor. The Ranger took heavy steps towards us, allowing the mechanisms in the suit to do most of the work and stopped in front of Lieutenant Alabaster. Hawkins landed beside him.

The stallion spoke in a southern drawl thick with mechanical distortion, “Well, well fancy meeting y’all here! I’m Star Protector Huckleberry of the Applejack’s Rangers. You fellas out on patrol?”

“What gave you that idea?” The Lieutenant replied dryly, and the Ranger gave a hearty laugh. “We’re on our way back to base, I’m Lieutenant Alabaster of the New Canterlot Army, and this is Skyranger Gabriela Hawkins.”

“It’s Hawkins.” she insisted, “Just Hawkins.”

“Pleasure to meetcha.” He said, tipping an imaginary hat.

Alabaster motioned around, “What brings you out here Ranger?” he asked. Hawkins appeared kind of annoyed that the lieutenant was acting like he was in charge of her, but she went along with it. The Applejack’s Ranger chuckled to himself.

“Funny thing, I’ve been carrying on my own investigation… Our main chapter is back in Manehattan sorting out Alliance business, so I’ve been assigned to do this mission solo. Hit a bit of a brick wall lately, so figured I’d come see what all you New Canterlot boys were up to. Heard something about raider attacks and the Smokey Mountains...?”

My ears suddenly perked up, overhearing them. I’d suffer through it if I could find out more. Listening into their conversation, the Ranger gave little concern for subtlety.

“Unfortunately, I didn’t get much further than the Ghastly Gorge… but since we’re all out here tonight, I figured we can help each other out?”

“Not interested.” Hawkins replied coldly. “This is a New Canterlot operation.”

Alabaster appeared to follow that up with an apology on her behalf, to which he received a death glare from the griffoness. “Sorry, but we aren’t allowed to discuss those details on orders from high command. Besides, we have civilians present.”

“I see...” Huckleberry replied, appearing to glance back at us briefly. It was difficult to tell what kind of facial expression he was wearing underneath his suit of power armor. “Well, I figure we might cover ground faster if we work together. We’re both after the same thing, aren’t we?”

“That’s awfully presumptuous of you...”

“Am I wrong?” he asked, and there was a long pause between them. I groaned internally, hating not knowing what was going on.

Lieutenant Alabaster was losing his patience. “With all due respects Ranger, I think we’ll be on our way. We have to get moving if we’re going to make it back to base before the storm hits.”

The Ranger motioned behind us to look at the storm forming, “That storm’s going to be here mighty soon, don’t think you’re gonna to make it in time. With the civilians here maybe y’all should consider resting in that town for the night and waiting for it to pass. I’d be happy to give you some extra protection.”

“We’ll be fine.” The lieutenant insisted. Something wet dripped onto my snout and I looked up. I could feel it starting to drizzle.

The blue unicorn with the followers joined in on the conversation.“Pardon me, I’m Page Turner, a historian for the Followers of the Apocalypse. Nice to meet you Protector Huckleberry.”

“Likewise.” he nodded.

All of a sudden, I felt a sharp pain like a knife jabbing into my shoulder and twisting around. I felt nauseous like I was about to vomit. Nudging one of the soldiers and moaning under my breath I winced, “I think I need a medic…”

“Shut it, we’ll get you taken care of back at the base.” The large asshole jock of a stallion snapped, barely paying attention to me.

“What a coincidence! A New Canterlot skyranger, a shining knight in power armor, and a Follower’s doctor with a hoofful of soldiers and civilians, all present on the same night.” Page Turner mused to himself. “I’d have to side with the Ranger in this instance, judging from the published meteorology reports.”

“Quiet down, all of you!” The Lieutenant barked, feeling like he was losing control.

“Um, pardon me sir?” Sunny asked, stepping over forwards to where most of them were congregating. “Is my friend going to be alright?”

They all turned to look at me, where I was only barely keeping it together. I grasped my shoulder with my foreleg, and felt it throbbing with pain as I took unsteady breaths.

Page Turner gestured at me, “Look at this mare! She’s hardly in any condition to walk!”

“I thought you were a historian...” I said.

“Please.” he jeered, “All Followers of the Apocalypse are given basic to advanced medical training.”

“Corporal Bandage?” The lieutenant looked over to his combat medic, a pink unicorn with a wavy orange mane and tired eyes, crouched next to me and began a mock examination of my foreleg. “Will she be able to make it?”

“I’m fin-” I winced as she grabbed my hoof without warning, causing a sharp wave of pain throughout my left side. The pink coated unicorn mare with an orange mane shook her head, “No sir. She’s not faking it.”

The Applejack’s Ranger gave a hearty chuckle, “What’s the matter? Ya sprain your hoof, kid?”

“Something like that…” I said, getting somewhat irritated.

“With all due respect sir, my soldiers won’t complain if we hoofed it through the storm, but maybe we should reconsider with the civilians present. One night isn’t going to make a difference. The old sergeant noted. “That town looks defensible enough.”

The country voice of the Ranger’s muffled voice came through his helmet, “I’d be happy to help bolster your ranks. It’s the least I can do for our fellow allies. Guess you might say, I’m your huckleberry.”

I saw Lieutenant Alabaster stare at the ranger with suspicion, before agreeing to his proposal. “Fine. We’ll set up camp here for the night.”

“Seems like some others had the same idea.” Hawkins pointed out the scavengers still searching through the ruins.

“Have you seen us?” Huckleberry laughed. “But I’m always up for a wranglin’.”

“What are your orders lieutenant?” The sergeant asked, but most of them were already leaving when we got to the edge of town. He and the immaculate white unicorn looked at each other.

“That solves that problem…”

The odd banner lay discarded, with the slogan “Opportunity in your Community!” spelled out across it in bold red letters. Among one of the only structures left standing was an F&F Tools Emporium, and a few others that still had most of their walls. A dentist, and what was left of a post office stood beside each other with busted signs. There was a single maildrop box on the edge of town. And a half-demolished Wartime Ministries office that was left standing all on its own.

“Luna-damned New Canterlot... We don’t need your damned law and order!” a few of them shouted as Lieutenant Alabaster ordered his squad to establish a perimeter and set up camp. They looked like your typical wasteland scum, taking whatever they could carry with them on their backs. None of them tried anything funny, fortunately for them. Apparently ponies were said to never stay the night here, but we ignored all their veiled threats and superstitious mumbo jumbo.

“Get lost!” Ace shouted tossing a glass bottle and they scampered away like radroaches.

To the old sergeant, the town looked mostly defensible even though our backs would be to the Everfree Forest. There was good cover here, and it would be especially difficult for anyone to sneak up on us. The squad got to work doing as they were ordered.

I looked over at Sunny who was standing completely still. The mare looked awestruck, smacking a hoof to her mouth. She was looking at one of the ponies in town. I turned to see who she was was looking at and saw a burly teal-green pegasus wearing a dark-green vest standing out in the open. His features looked similar to hers and I immediately put two and two together. “Oh my Celestia... Daddy!” she shouted, galloping towards him and running up into a hug.

They had all around similar features, both in color and facial structure although he was slightly darker in his coat and more grizzled with five o'clock shadow. He looked to be middle aged in his fifties or sixties, with a streak of dark silver running through his fading yellow mane. Finally, his cutie mark depicted a stylized gust of wind on his flank.

Remembering how he was formerly an Enclave scout, I regarded him with immediate suspicion. Not just any scout either, but a famous one within the Enclave. As Sunny ran up to him and they hugged one another I felt odd. Not happy or angry, just indifferent.

The pegasus mare hugged him tightly with glee. “I can’t believe I found you!”

He looked equally surprised to see her. “Sweetie! What are you doing here?”

“My new friend helped me find you!” she smiled, pointing at me “That’s her! Her name’s Roulette.”

“Touching reunion.” Lieutenant Alabaster stepped forward, cutting them short. Sunny’s look of happiness was immediately washed away, replaced by one of fear and anxiety. She shrunk back submissively and stepped behind her father who appeared unphased by the New Canterlot soldiers. “Pardon me sir, but would you please identify yourself?”

He put his hoof over her and answered the lieutenant’s questions calmly. “My name is Airworthy, and this is my daughter, Sunny Hymn.” He motioned towards her as if to introduce the mare.

She nodded. “T-That’s right, and Roulette can corroborate his identity!”

I saw Sunny turn to me, pleading for help. At first I was a little surprised she would ask me of all ponies, but then I noticed how that griffon was glaring at the both of them. She looked at me with begging eyes, knowing that we both knew what would happen if any of the others found out her father was former Enclave. So even if the idea of lying on an Enclaver’s behalf disgusted me to no end, the situation called for it put my personal feelings aside to help her.

Looking between them both I looked back at the Lieutenant and lied. “I... I was helping Sunny try to find her dad. They’re both pegasus civilians who got lost on the way down from Neighvarro. Both of them are refugees.” I inhaled and exhaled, breathing as the pain from my shoulder was causing my entire body to become tense. The intense burning in my shoulder was making it difficult to focus.

It was for Sunny, not for him.

For a short moment I noticed Hawkins was squinting intently at him, then rolled her eyes off to the side and huffed, “Their story checks out...” she said. Crisis avoided.

Sunny mouthed the words, “thank you”, to me and looked up at her father.

“Alright, you two are free to go. You’re welcome to settle in amongst the troopers for the night… but we still have a few questions for your friend here… ”

“I think I’ll take you up on that offer.” Her father chuckled, and pulled his daughter along with him. There was something about that guy I immediately didn’t like, but he was Sunny’s dad so I let it go. Remembering my agreement with Sunny, he was also the one who could tell me what I wanted to know.

I grunted, breathing more heavily. Holding onto my shoulder, I was having difficulty speaking. My entire body felt tense, and everything felt cold around me all of a sudden. I was burning up.

Suddenly, I felt a pain unlike anything I’d experienced in my entire life. All at once my whole shoulder lit up with blinding agony and it shot through my entire left side. I screamed and fell to the ground, wildly convulsing in the dirt. My blood felt like it was on fire inside my body. I dug at my shoulder with my hoof in vain trying to get it out.

I could only scream as the pain got worse from there. Sunny gasped and ran to my side, “Rou!” she shouted. The entire camp heard my cries and I was surrounded by the two doctors.

Bandage did a quick examination, putting her hoof to my forehead. “Lieutenant this mare’s burning up and she’s clearly in pain! We have to help her!”

“Bullet…” I struggled to say, and she checked my arm, confusedly not seeing any blood or exit wound. She gave me a perplexed look, unsure of what I was trying to tell her.

“S-sealed inside… with healing potion.” I rasped, trying to speak with great difficulty due to the pain.

The mare blinked, processing my broken sentences. “You sealed a bullet inside your body?! What are you, some kind of idiot?!” The medic rubbed her eyes, and her horn lit up. A light began to envelop my shoulder. “She must have an infection, I’ll cast a cleanse spell to keep it from getting worse. We’re going to have to get the bullet out.”

When her magic did nothing she looked overcome by shock. “W-what? That should’ve done something!”

Page Turner pushed the mare aside, the blue stallion levitating out his portable med-kit. “Step aside, this isn’t amateur hour!”

“Pardon?! I don’t care if you’re with the Followers, I know what I’m doing!” She snapped back.

“I don’t believe a simple cleansing spell will help her. Get this mare inside and on a level surface!” He put his hoof to my forehead. Then looking around he pointed to the F&F Tools emporium. “There should do nicely.”

Bandage looked offended, shouting back at him. “Doctor Page Turner, I’d prefer it if you let me do my job and help this pony!”

“I let you soldiers do your job, now let me do mine. Relax, the Followers are specially trained for this.” The blue unicorn turned to me, “Tell me in a few words where it hurts.”

I grabbed him by his labcoat and pulled him close, I looked him straight in the eyes and screamed, “Get this fucking thing outta me!”

The other soldiers restrained me, pinning me as I struggled screaming on the ground. I heard Sunny shouting my name. It looked like they were doing all they could to keep me from hurting myself. “W-what the hell? How was that Griffon holding this bitch down by herself?!”

“That’s not relaxed...” he chided.

It was hard to tell completely what was going on at that point. They took me into the building and carried me into a back room where it was closed off from the elements. I could hear Sunny calling my name, as she was forced to wait outside. Even in my delirium though, I noticed that her dad had gone inconspicuously missing. I tried to look around for him, but to no avail.

Setting up a makeshift surgery table with his telekinesis, Page Turner cleared off an old desk and rest me on top of it. Placing a lantern in the barren corner of the room, he lit up his horn to compensate for lack of electricity. The doctor stood over me, his spectacles hanging off the tip of his nose.

“Take off your jacket.” he demanded.

I folded my legs over myself, hugging it. “N-no... It’s special to me.”

“Please, I can’t do anything to help unless you show me. Trust me, I’m with the Followers.”

I relaxed my muscles allowing him to take it off, and I saw both of them gasp when they saw my shoulder. “W-what’s wrong?” I asked, unable to see what the ruckus was about. I think that only Page Turner and Corporal Bandage saw it, but they didn’t answer me.

“Alright, everyone out!” Page Turner shouted suddenly, and began shoving the other ponies, including Corporal Bandage, out of the crowded space. She looked a bit angry at her being discounted. Meanwhile, the lieutenant was the main one who seemed to have a problem with it.

“Doctor Page Turner, let my medic help you. Corporal Bandage is well equipped to handle any medical problems. At least let her help.”

“Thanks, I’ll consider the offer.” he replied, cleaning off his glasses.

Bandage got more than a little annoyed at that moment, shouting at Page Turner, “I helped wounded ponies at the Battle of Dragon Mountain, you pompous jerkoff! I know my way around a surgical knife!” While they were busy arguing, I tilted my head to look at my shoulder and saw glowing green spider-veins forming around the artificially-healed wound. They throbbed grotesquely making me cringe at mere the sight of them. I layed back down and pretended that I didn’t see anything.

“She’s my patient and under Follower’s protection! If you have a problem with that, you can take it up with Velvet Remedy.” That part about Velvet seemed to change his mind more than the other thing, although I didn’t recognize her name off the top of my head. I thought she must’ve been pretty important.

Alabaster lowered his eyelids, standing aside as Bandage exited the room shooting a glare at the follower’s pony and muttered about him being a stubborn jackass. After he got a final word in, Page Turner telekinetically shut the door behind him, leaving us both alone in a dingy manager’s office lit by the the glow of his horn.

He looked back over me as I was struggling to speak, let alone find the words. “Hmm?”

“Why’d you do all that?” I winced. The pain hadn’t gotten any better, but I was managing it better.

“Oh...uh, patient confidentiality.” the doctor replied, completely lacking any of that conviction on display a moment before. A closer view revealed he also looked not much older than my brother would be. Page Turner began looking over me curiously, trying to find the origin of the pain. “Now how exactly did this happen…?” he asked, and I could see from the sincere look of worry on his face over a complete stranger. I realized he was genuinely trying to help me.

“I don’t know...” I admitted. “Got shot? Took a dip in the Whitetail Woods...?”

With a sigh he pulled out another packet of Rad-Away and fed it to me, observing as I drank it all down. I gave a disgusted look as I felt the bitter aftertaste of medicine. He observed intently, studying me and I wondered if he was silently judging me for my stupidity.

He tapped his hoof on his chin, thinking for a moment. Then he pulled out a syringe and another packet of radaway, drawing the liquid into it. My heart rate increased as I stared at the needle anxiously, but felt way too physically drained to move. I was acting like a small filly afraid of getting her shot. He jabbed it directly into the wound and injected the chemical. Then to my surprise, I felt the pain in my shoulder suddenly subside. As I breathed in and out for a moment looking over at myself, I turned back to stare at Page Turner.

“As I thought...” he muttered.

“What the hell did you inject me with?” I huffed. Then, I collapsed back and fell out of consciousness.

Next thing I knew, I was waking up with the doctor standing over me again, sweat covering his brown with a bloody surgical tray beside me. I felt naked without my jacket. There was a bandage on my shoulder, and the glowing green veins were completely gone, along with the fiery pain in my left side. Feeling around my joints, I felt fine. Better than fine actually… I heard Page Turner’s soft voice. “You’re awake. Seems you've been out cold for an hour.”

I looked over to him, watching me. “You appear to have a remarkable resistance to radaway… Your body started having a negative reaction to it immediately. I had to inject it directly into your shoulder for it to have any effect at all.”

“Oh...” I said. “Well thanks for fixing me.”

“That wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill mutation, your body was fighting with me every step of the way…”

With a tinge of worry in my voice I began to tremble and wrapped my hooves around my body, looking down at the tiled floor. “This has never happened before…” I felt scared and alone, wishing that I had someone by my side right then. My sister had always been the one looking out for my needs when I needed emotional support and my brother always kept me out of trouble when I was being a moron. I felt totally lost without them.

“To be completely honest, I’m not even sure myself. Do you have any close friends or relatives? Known medical history? ...Possible surviving family members?” The blue unicorn sighed again when I didn’t answer. “Have it your way…”

“I was unable to get the bullet out. But your body seems to have stabilized at the very least. I can try again if you like? If you want to come back with me after this is through, the Followers might be able to help you. At least so we can figure out what it is.”

“...I’ll be fine, I think.” I answered uneasily, holding onto myself for comfort. “Y-you didn’t take any of my blood, did you?”

“Your...blood…?” he asked, surprised. “Don’t be silly, I wouldn't take your blood without your consent.” He assured me with a sense of warmth and comfort I wasn’t expecting from the unicorn. “Although…” he admitted curiously, “there are a few things about you that are bothering me more than when we first met...”

Preferring to avoid that line of discussion, I asked. “Is Sunny still here?”

“Your pegasus friend?” He responded with a nod. “She’s with her father.”

After a long silence, I asked. “Why’d you hide it from Lieutenant Alabaster and the others?"

“Like I said, we take patient confidentiality VERY seriously.” he began, but then let out another heavy sigh, realizing that explanation wasn’t quite good enough. “Sometimes it's hard to know who you can trust with these sorts of things…”

“Do you not trust them?” I asked.

“I trust most of them enough to be out here.” He answered, seemingly honestly. I didn’t have much reason not to trust him at this point. “But let’s just say New Canterlot’s goals doesn’t exactly always align with the Followers. Or with Applejack’s Rangers for that matter.” he loudly cleared his throat, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Did you really come all the way out here trying to help those pegasi?”

“Not exactly, it just sort of ended up that way.” I admitted.

Not too shocked, Page Turner nodded, “Regardless, if your mission is to help ponies still living in the wasteland, then you’ll always find friends within the Followers. And if you happen to change your mind, well, we’d be happy to take you in and treat you free of charge. We also offer other services if you’re suffering mental trauma. With all the recent disasters, not enough ponies are taking their mental health seriously. Either that or they’re too stubborn to admit it... N-not assuming anything!” he amended quickly, noticing my raised eyebrow at that last part.

“Nah, I’ve got other things to do first…” I said, then pointed out. “You don’t seem like you’re on the same page as the others...”

The unicorn stallion chuckled to himself, “Usually, I find it’s better to avoid wasteland politics. As a historian, it’s also my duty to understand the past and how it shapes current events. In that regard, political discussion finds me more often than I go searching for it. I wouldn’t even be out here under normal circumstances, but I’m tagging along with Lieutenant Alabaster in order to collect some data for a friend. Bunch of things you wouldn’t be interested in, measuring air currents, meteorology and weather patterns to find the most effective means of wasteland agricultural benefits, etcetera, etcetera... ” he said, then muttered with a slight hint of annoyance in his voice. “She couldn’t be bothered to come out and do it herself.”

“That doesn’t sound too nice. I sure hope whoever appreciates you coming out here in the middle of a storm… ” I replied flatly.

“It's a necessity. And it’s no trouble, really.” He laughed wearily.

I was glad he was out here, although that probably didn’t count for much. “I’m guessing that if I were to ask if you saw anything out of the ordinary lately, you’d give me the same answer as everyone else?” I attempted, trying my luck.

He gestured towards my shoulder, “Like that mutation of yours?” Then he smirked “If it’s about the Enclave then no I haven’t. I’d be more than happy to look into it for you though with the Followers.”

“Sure, I’d appreciate that.” I said, smiling weakly. Then I pointed towards the door. “Hey, I’m going to go see how she’s doing. I must’ve given everyone quite a scare. But it was good to see a friendly face for once.”

He smiled back warmly, “It’s my pleasure. I’ve got some work to go over anyways. My door is always open.”

Getting off the table, I stretched and shrugged back into my jacket. Then I left the small back room, leaving Page Turner to examine his notes free of distraction, the door slightly ajar.

The door opened into what was now serving as a common area for the troops and civilians, but when I stepped outside, I immediately saw the griffon Hawkins staring back at me. We exchanged dirty looks.

“What are you looking at bitch? You want to go for round two?” I snarled.

It was raining in buckets outside. A flash of lightning illuminated the room for a split second and thunder followed. She roared with laughter, “You couldn’t take me if you fucking tried, dirt muncher.” Adding the insult for good measure.

Letting my temper get the better of me again, I fired back. “You cheap-shotted me before. It won’t happen again.”

“Honestly, you barely look like you know what you’re doing. I bet you’d fall apart in real combat.”

“Not even, I grew up in the wasteland. I’ve seen my fair share of fights.” I boasted. She pretended to look unimpressed. Her attitude was pissing me off.

Hawkins strut up so she was overshadowing me, which just served to piss me off more. “Tch! Keep telling yourself that, kid.” she blustered. “So what were trying to say with that line earlier? You said you saw Enclave?”

I puffed my out chest, keeping my composure while confidently stating. “Yeah, that’s right! They were flying over the Smokey Mountains, and I was the only one who saw em. Those ships? The Enclave weapons? I’ve been investigating the connection between the Enclave and those raiders and I’ve got a hunch that they’re connected somehow.”

“You?” she burst out into a fit of laughter, and wiped a fake tear from her eye. “Wow, this mare is amazing... Look here, I was just there. There ain’t no Enclave in the Smokey Mountains. And this Jagged Knife dude you keep going on about? He’s a nobody. So quit trying to act like you’re some kinda hellmare and leave it to the professionals.” She pushed open the door, letting the rain blow inside briefly before it slammed shut behind her.

“Why is she such a huge bitch?” I muttered.

I looked around at the mostly empty floor. Anything of value had already been picked up by scavengers, now it was mostly just supplies that had been left there by the New Canterlot soldiers. Lanterns were lit in key parts of the room for illumination. More banners were lying around meant to advertise wartime products. Slogans like “Nonpareil!” and “I-Can’t-Believable!” That was probably true once, but now it was mostly junk lying around.

Uproarious laughter came from one corner of the room where soldiers were gathered around a roaring fire pit.

“Roulette! Thank Celestia, you’re okay!” Sunny tackled me from behind. When I turned to face her she began pounding on my chest. “What’s the matter with you?! Why didn’t you just tell me something was wrong?”

“Jeez, I’m sorry.” I apologized, defending myself from her weak blows.

“You’re a real stubborn piece of work…” she frowned at me and I smirked a little. Then I saw her father watching from the side and he approached us.

I tensed up a little as we made eye contact. He was still giving me a nasty feeling that I was trying to keep at bay even as he spoke kindly to me. “My little Sunnycakes was worried about you. Have you been taking care of her for me?” His question was innocuous, but I was suspicious if he had some ulterior motive.

I kept staring since I unable to find the words to answer him with.

He laughed lightly, not sure how to respond. “What’s the matter? Bloatsprite maggots got your tongue?”

Sunny gave me a nudge and a smile, “Rou, sorry for leaving you like this, but I have a few more things to discuss with my dad. You don’t mind, do you?” she asked. “I’m just relieved you’re alright.”

“It’s fine.” I said snapping out of it and the mare trotted over next to her father.

“Don’t worry, we’ll speak soon. She told me about your arrangement.” he said in a hushed tone.

“Yeah. No worries.” I put on a fake smile and nodded, and Airworthy smiled back at me. Then they sat together beside a lantern in the far corner of the room and began talking to each other.

I was left standing alone, in the middle of the common area. Taking another moment to myself, I could see the soldiers were leaving me mostly unsupervised. So I walked over to the boarded up window and squinted through the cracks into the rain. Outside I could see Hawkins speaking with Lieutenant Alabaster and the Ranger. I wished I had half a clue what they were talking about out there.

Left to my own devices, my mind drifted on something else that was really bugging me. Something about this town. I couldn’t pin down what it was. Just an uneasy feeling. Turning my head over to peer at Everfree Forest, I stared at the trees for a while where some strange magic operated machinery was left discarded and stripped for parts. It was a foreboding place. No matter how much I begged him as a filly, my brother always refused to take us through there. As an adult I understood why. Even if it was half burned to hell, there were still dangerous creatures lurking inside.

It was hard to see anything else through the storm outside, but for a moment I thought I saw a shadow, so I leaned closer. I squinted my eyes and another flash of lightning illuminated the trees. For a split second it looked like there was the figure of a pony standing there. It made me rear back putting my hooves on the windowsill, my heart palpitating. Then I looked again and there was nothing. “Great, more creepy hallucinations?” I quipped, telling myself that it was only shadows playing tricks on me. At least it wasn’t an alicorn that time.

Sitting back down by myself in a solitary corner of the room. My face was wet from sticking my nose outside. I cleaned it off with the inside of my jacket.

I glanced about the room, looking up at the ceiling and then over at Sunny and her dad. As soon as I got bored with that, my eyes wandered over to the soldiers who were talking amongst themselves. There were four of them sitting around a fire laughing. The rest were probably outside doing Luna knows what. I gazed over at Sunny and her dad again talking about something between themselves. She looked so happy sitting there. Honestly, it made me a little jealous.

It must’ve been only ten or twenty minutes of me moping by myself, before a tomboyish looking mare walked up to me and cast a shadow over where I was sitting. She had a dark brown mane tied into a very short ponytail. Her coat actually wasn’t too far off from my own, either.

She smirked. “Marefriend turned out to be a pegasus and now you’re having second thoughts?”

“Piss off, she’s not my marefriend.” I pouted, looking off in the other direction.

“Heh, don’t worry. I’m not here to cause trouble. Us earthies have to stick together, y’know?”

Slightly confused by her statement. “What?” I asked.

“Saw that you were wallowing over here and figured I’d chat you up. That and we’re supposed to keep an eye on you. Wanna play a round of cards?” The mare suggested enthusiastically.

Not too into it, I titled my head in somewhat-agreement, “I guess...”

“Great. Straight Poker or New Appleloosa hold ‘em?”

“Either.”

She started dealing out cards on the floor, “New Appleloosa hold ‘em, it is! More interesting for me that way. Roulette, right?”

I didn’t answer, looking over my cards. A ten and a queen.

“Even though we’ve gotta take you in for questioning tomorrow doesn’t mean that we can’t have some fun in the meantime. Did that mare mean anything to you? Guess you must not have known she was a pegasus.”

“We’ve only known each other for a day.” I answered.

She flipped over a card on the floor, ten of clubs. I kept my hand while she tossed tossed out one of her cards.

“Well they’re just civilians now anyways, so we’ve got nothing to worry about. We even got a couple of ex-enclavers on our squad.” She declared proudly, as if that was a thing to be proud of. Thinking about it, I guess that changed things a little. Apparently, their whole squad was formed from an existing mercenary company and pegasi who rebelled against the Enclave a few months back and that was true for the rest of the army right now. At least until Gawd got her real army...

“They were both confirmed to have switched sides during the Enclave Wars and then signed up with the New Canterlot Army right off. I think you already met Twister, and Chipper Wind’s out there trying to radio back to base. My philosophy is that it shouldn’t matter who we are deep down, we all have to live in this wasteland together. But that still doesn’t prevent folks from having their prejudices though.”

“I don’t care that she’s a pegasus.” I said.

The mare flipped another card on the floor, an ace this time. “Happy to hear. That’s uncommon nowadays, even with all the talk on the radio. I guess that makes you better than most. By the way, I know we got off on the wrong hoof but don’t mind them too much. They’re a rowdy bunch.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, only humoring the mare.

“Been with these jokers for way too long, even before Gawd recruited us into her army. They called us the Rough Riders. Al though? He’s one of Gawd’s. Pretty nice guy usually, I’m not one to judge.”

I looked outside at where the Lieutenant and that griffon were speaking, feeling fidgety where I was sitting. She flipped over the last card, a queen of diamonds, and I half-heartedly threw down my cards. I had two pairs.

“Hey that’s pretty good! I figured you must be pretty good at games of chance with a cutie mark like that! Is roulette your special talent?” she asked. She smirked flipping her cards to reveal three-of-a-kind, aces. “Hey, no worries though. I bet if this was your game of choice, you’d be kicking my butt right now!”

“You don’t have to pretend.” I scowled.

“Nah, I mean it. Thanks for playing with me. I never get invited to the squad’s card games anymore because I’ve beaten them so many times that they’ve just outright banned me from participating. Can’t help it though. Just a little skill I’ve picked up for myself over the years. Certainly helps having a gambling addiction, if you’re actually good at gambling.”

“I’ll bet...” I muttered.

“Well, they wanted me to keep an eye on you, but seeing as you seem like a nice mare and I’d rather be taking a smoke right now... You can at least walk around and hang with the rest of the squad. I’m sure they’d love to meet you since we all basically owe you one. Lemme know if you need anyone to cover for you.”

“Thanks...” I said, taken aback a little by her kindness. “What’s your name?”

“Jacaranda, or “Jack” for short. It’s supposed to be some sort of tree with flowers on it that my parents named me after, but I’ve never seen one.” The mare pointed to a weirdly arranged flower design on her flank. “I’m from the San Palomino, so not a lot of trees out there.”

She bumped my shoulder as she walked off. “Have a good night, killer.”

I looked over to where the other soldiers were chatting amongst themselves. The sergeant, Twister and a couple others were sitting there as well. After ruminating over it for a while, I stood up and walked up to them. Hopefully, they’d be willing to hear me out.

“Hey, it’s our hero!” one of them cheered.

“Hero…?” I asked.

“Yeah! Thanks to you, we don’t have to march through that!” He laughed pointing outside at the rain.

Ace was eyeing me suspiciously. “I still don’t think we should trust her guys. She’s probably a raider spy.”

“Come off it Ace! Ya big stick in the mud!” scolded a hulking grey mountain of a mare. She had a military buzz cut, and her biceps made my own pale in comparison. “Leave the poor girl alone, can’t you see she’s been through hell tonight?”

“Who are you guys?” I asked. Noticing that they’d stashed my things next to theirs I grabbed them without much trouble, strapping the rifle over my shoulder and holstering the pistol.

“I’m Sergeant Wounded Legs, and we’re the Rough Riders!” he declared while I observed the balefire phoenix patch on his shoulder. They all gave a collective holler. Apparently, their squad was formed from existing mercenary companies and pegasi who rebelled against the Enclave a few months back.

Going one by one, the sergeant introduced me to all the troopers sitting around the fire.“I see you’ve already met Jack, Ace and Bandage our combat medic. That’s Sugar Strongflanks. Then we’ve got Twister, Corporal Chipper Wind, and Surefire.”

Sugar laughed to herself, a little embarrassed. “Yeah, I’m sort of the de facto team mom.” Then she took a swig of hooch. “So what’s your story?”

“Hey, no drinking tonight. We’ve got to stay sharp until morning.” The old tobiano ordered and Sugar reluctantly agreed after taking one more sip. He raised his head and looked back over to me. The way he carried himself practically demanded respect, all his scars making him look like the sort of pony who’d been to hell and back twice.

“I’m Roulette, I’m just kind of a merc... but I was looking to join up.” I admitted, lacking my normal confidence.

Sugar grinned, “That’s great news! Gawd could always use more ponies!”

“Would you please hear me out? This is going to sound weird, but…” I had their attention. Gathering up the courage to speak, I told them what I thought I saw the other day, trying to sound sure of myself. “I swear, I saw Enclave ships flying over the Smokey Mountains the other day.”

The sergeant rubbed his head, not sure what to say at first. None of the others did either. “The Grand Pegasus Enclave? Well, gee we haven’t heard from them since the end of the Enclave Wars. Well, except for these jokers on my squad!” The sergeant chuckled, trying to play it off as a joke at first. But as they realized I wasn’t joking the lightheartedness in the room began to dim a little.

“I saw them!” I pleaded, but it was no use. “C’mon you’ve gotta believe me!”

“Easy kid, we weren’t sure if you were even gonna make it an hour ago and now you’re going on about the Grand Pegasus Enclave? Simmer down a bit.”

“I’m not a damned kid!” I shouted, getting flustered. “All these caravan attacks are being organized and carried out by one pony, a raider named Jagged Knife. And he’s been using the Enclave weapons to do it. I honestly don’t know if they’re connected or what, but don’t care what that griffon said. I’ve been tracking him myself and I heard that he may be planning something big!”

Instead of sounding impressed, the sergeant offered me another lecture. “Listen, I know you’re eager to join up and prove yourself. That’s understandable that you want to help, but we’ve got a better grasp of the situation than you do. So just sit back and let us handle it.” I held back my frustration as best I could. It was going the complete opposite of how I hoped it would. If I came here just to sit here and get lectured to, then I’d go and listen to Fair Trade

Sugar furrowed her brow, thinking aloud to herself. “Jagged Knife, huh...? I think I heard something about a raider who might’ve gone by that name a few months back.

My eyes lit up. “You did?!”

She nodded. “Yeah, if memory serves he hit some small settlement in the territory. Burned it to the ground, and the Lightbringer herself came and rained holy balefire down on him and most of his gang in retaliation. I’d be surprised if anyone walked away from something like that completely unscathed.”

“The Lightbringer...?” I asked a little awed.

“Yup. The Stable Dweller herself.” she declared.

“See? Nothing to worry about. Even if the Enclave was still around the Lightbringer would just blast them out of the sky.” The sergeant insisted, but it just made me feel more annoyed. My heart sunk a little. I questioned myself again, if all of what I learned was just a misunderstanding. Was that raider just lying to me about the whole thing? “The pony we really have to watch out for right now is Papa Bighoof.” he said pointing in the direction of the Smokey Mountains.

“Who is Papa Bighoof...?” I asked, and they seemed shocked that I had no idea who that was. I’d never been to to the Smokey Mountains in my life. It wasn’t my fault I’d never had a comprehensive lesson on the history of the wasteland.

Sugar went wide-eyed, nearly spitting her drink. “You don’t know who Papa Bighoof is?”

Wounded-Legs graciously filled me in. It turned out that he controlled a massive army of tribals who had held up in the Smokey Mountains since Celestia knows when. “He’s built up something of a legend over the years, and so many of the desperate raider clans have rallied around his banner as of late.” They sounded pretty confident he wouldn’t last much longer. It made some sense, but I was still unconvinced. They just left me wondering how Jagged Knife factored into all this.

“Yup, some say he’s as big as an Ursa Minor!” Twister added, waving his hooves around for dramatic effect.

“He is not!” Ace heckled with a slight eyeroll.

The sergeant stamped his hoof decidedly on the floor, “All that bluster of his won’t help him once the New Canterlot Army shows up. There’s no place in this world for old warriors clinging to the past.” He sat back down and the rest of them nodded sagely around the fire. He seemed notably confident with that declaration too.

When I asked him what made him so confident, he turned to me and said that they were only the advance squad, and the rest were currently still being trained back in New Canterlot. After they arrive and they take down Papa Bighoof, rule of law would return to Equestria, just like Gawd was saying over the radio.

Sugar wrapped her muscular hoof around Ace’s neck, laughing loudly. “That drill sergeant is one serious hardass! She knocked Ace flat on his haunches for mouthing off to her one time! It was hilarious watching her tear a strip off the poor bastard! Pretty sure she gave him a concussion from that beating too.”

They all laughed together, except for Ace who didn’t appreciate fun being made at his expense. “It wasn’t that funny...”

“Why would Papa Bighoof attack the caravans though?” I asked, slightly skeptical.

Wounded Legs answered, “Usually, he’s pretty good about not attacking independent settlements and caravans out of respect, but I imagine he’d make an exception for New Canterlot allied ones. To send a message, if anything, that he won’t go down without a fight."

Insisting that i was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, I let out a dejected sigh. It was pointless trying further. I glanced over to where Sunny was sitting with her father to wonder how she was doing. "One more question."

“What’s the Neighvarro Provisional Government?” I asked. “The lieutenant mentioned it earlier...” This was the only one they really seemed to have trouble with. It took a while before Wounded Legs finally spoke up.

“It’s a Governing body that was set up in place of the Grand Pegasus Enclave following the end of the Enclave Wars. Mostly they answer to New Canterlot, but they also handle the registration and oversight of all Pegasus citizens returning to the surface. They’re supposed to help make the difficult task of reintegration to the surface easier and help them find new lives.”

Sugar gave a shrug. “They say it has a few issues, but what government doesn’t have those? I’d be surprised if it wasn’t a mess, considering what they have to deal with.”

Twister as the only pegasus present, seemed to be the only one at a loss for words for once. “I suppose we should be grateful that it ain’t like the old days.” he shrugged.

“Who cares? It’s all just politics anyways. Nothing we can do.” Ace groaned. They all agreed with that general consensus.

“Let me give you some advice, kid.” Wounded told me, “You’ll find there aren’t really right answers in a situation like this… I understand some of the frustrations but there aren’t really any other alternatives.”

I remembered what Sunny had said to me in Unity. There were a lot of things I had missed in the last few months apparently. It just made me feel like an idiot for coming out here in the first place.

The doors to the tools emporium swung open and the power armored soldier ducked underneath. The stallion approached where we were sitting and the general mood of laughter around the fire shifted. His voice muffled by his helmet rebreather. “Howdy, what’d I miss?”

“Do you ever take off that armor?” Ace badgered, as water dripped off his gear over the floor near to where we were sitting.

“Not while I’m on duty.” he laughed. “Say, all you New Canterlot boys. Forgive me but I couldn’t help overhearing that small bit of conversation right then. Been hearing a lot lately, would ya mind filling me in on some things? “

“Didn’t get you were looking for with the lieutenant?” Wounded Legs asked, quickly giving off the impression like they weren’t really seeing eye to eye.

Huckleberry dismissed it with a hoofwave. “Nah, don’t worry, it’s nothing official. Soldier to soldier.” Wounded Legs raised his brow. “So what do you make of them Smokey Mountains? Lightbringer not doing her job properly?” he laughed, motioning his head outside.

The sergeant issued a stern apology. “Sorry, but the Lieutenant told us not to discuss mission details until we’re back at the base.” Huckleberry wasn’t too satisfied with that answer.

“Not even with a fellow ally? I wonder what’s your reason you fellers are out here at the same time as me? To me, that ain’t a coincidence. So whatcha thinking? Broken SPP Tower? Maybe a sleepy dragon taking a nap? We’d get a hell of a lot further if we all exchanged information and cooperated like friends.” The power armored stallion turned his visor to look at each of the soldiers present, but they all kept their mouths shut. I kind of wished they would just spit out what they were thinking instead of keeping me in the dark about it. I felt like I was the only pony in the room who didn’t have a clue. “Surely you’ve heard rumors?”

Wounded Legs gave him another sharp reply. “I’m not here to discuss rumors. Our mission here is to help secure a foothold in this territory until the rest of the army gets here. That’s it.”

“Look! I’m just trying to-” He raised his voice, losing his temper for a second, but then he immediately regained his cool. He exhaled. “There’s no need for us to keep each other at a hoof’s length. We’re allies, aren’t we?”

The old stallion nodded, not once dropping his composure. “That we are. The Applejack’s Rangers have been a great help to us, and I have to admit I admire your organization greatly.”

Huckberry granted him the slightest of nods. “One last thing, I’ve also heard talk of something called an ‘N.C.R.”?

“N.C.R.?” I asked. “What’s an N.C.R.?”

None of the soldiers answered me either.

“It’s just politics.” Wounded Legs answered.

Accepting that answer, Huckleberry bowed his head, “Thought so. Thanks. I’ll leave y’all be now. I’ll stick around for the evening like I said I would. Help deter any raiders who might not know better.”

I thought to myself if he’d be willing to hear me out. It was hard to tell where he was coming from, but maybe I’d be willing to take a bet that he might be willing to hear me out. They said it themselves, the rangers were their allies, right? So I got up the urge to speak. “Uh, Protector Huckleberry?” I asked, and the ranger turned his visor back at me. I felt all the eyes suddenly drawn to me as well. “Do you think it might be possible that there are Enclave up in those mountains...?” I suggested, and there was a long pregnant pause throughout the whole common area. Like he was considering it for a moment, although it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. Then the ranger then let out a boisterous laugh. He walked up in full power armored gear and ruffled my mane with his armored hoof.

“Enclave? Heh... don’t you worry your head, if those raiders come-a-knocking, then they’ll have to say hello to my custom modified ICM-2 heavy machine gun and side-mounted grenade launcher! I call him "Duke". Ya ain’t got a thing to worry about lil missy, the Applejack’s Rangers are on the job! ” And with that, he opened the door, once again stepping into the storm that was raging outside.

I scrunched my muzzle angrily, fixing my mane. I hated being treated like a kid. I still eyed his suit of power armor enviously as he left. It looked seriously cool. Twister whistled. “Wowee! I’ve never met an Applejack’s Ranger before!” The rest of us weren’t feeling quite as impressed as he was.

“What all that hostility was about?” I thought to myself.

Shortly after, the cream coated pegasus Chipper Wind burst through the door soaking wet. She shook herself off getting rainwater all near the entrance. “It’s really bad out there!” The mare approached the sergeant and gave a salute. “Sergeant, Lieutenant Alabaster needs us outside. I’ve been trying to get a signal back to base all evening with no luck. So he’s thinking of sending out a scouting party and needs more troops on sentry.”

“In this weather?” The old horse grunted, “Must be the Everfree Forest interfering with the damned signal.”

Looking around I noticed that Jack was missing. She must’ve gone outside already. I frowned at not having gotten the chance to speak with her more, but assumed we could just chat later.

“Whelp, orders are orders. Enough fooling around.” He said stretching, and they all hopped up at once and collected their gear, none of them too eager to step out into the rain. They left Twister to keep an eye on us sitting in the corner by himself, maybe because they thought leaving a pegasus in charge would put the civilians more at ease. He looked lonely over there, but so long as he wasn’t being annoying and trying to flirt with me, I didn’t care.

Putting my own irritation at being discounted aside, I wondered to myself what that hostility was about. I was feeling like I'd hit a low point after that conversation.

Another flash of lightning, and thunder boomed again outside.

Putting my own irritation at being discounted aside, I wondered myself what all the hostility was about. “They were supposed to be allies, right?”

After they left it was just the few of us. It was the perfect time to speak with Sunny’s dad. Fortunately, Airworthy seemed to be thinking the same thing ushered me over and they gave me a warm welcome. You wouldn’t think just by looking, that he was once a famous Enclave scout. But before we could get anywhere, Twister approached us acting friendly and trying to make chitchat. I groaned, wishing he would leave. He was just interrupting my chance at conversation with Sunny’s dad. For some reason the New Canterlot pegasus seemed to want to talk to Airworthy specifically.

“Howdy there sir! I just needed to up and ask you, were we in the same unit or something? You look sort of familiar.” he asked with a smile, but Sunny immediately went pale. I was expecting to have to lie again on his behalf but thankfully Airworthy did most of the talking for us.

“Nah, I get that a lot. Never had it in me to join the Enclave, there was always too much to lose.” He motioned towards his daughter who was pale and sweating nervously, her eyes darting side to side.

“Your daughter is quite the fine looking young lady mister! You ain’t got nothing to worry about from me though, no sir!” he joked and they both laughed together. Sunny laughed along awkwardly. “You sure you weren’t the drill sergeant who chewed me out back in Academy?”

“Not unless I joined the Enclave in my sleep! Airworthy replied, laughing too hard at his own joke. “Were you a cadet before you joined up with New Canterlot?”.

“Sure was! I joined the Enclave because I thought I was helping to keep our families safe from the wasteland below, but once I learned what they were really doing up in those clouds, I just couldn’t sit idly by anymore.”

“I admire your conviction. It takes a lot of courage to stand up for what’s right.”

“Darn tootin’!” he agreed enthusiastically. The pegasus kicked at the floor as he shambled back to his corner, muttering too himself. “Gosh, I swear I thought I knew you from somewhere...” Taking the opportunity to catch some sleep, he let us where we left off. “Ah, well. Just holler if you need me!”

Finally we were alone.

Sunny and her dad sat me down with them and offered me dinner of what her father had available. I was starving! But as we snacked leftovers, I felt something uneasy between the two of us. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the guy, but I had a feeling that I didn’t like him. Maybe I just couldn’t let go of the fact he was Enclave, or it was knowing he had a family just like I did that gave me a weird feeling thinking of them as anything less than monsters. I couldn’t put my hoof on it. His general demeanor and overall friendliness was a little disarming, not unlike his daughter. Maybe that was it.

Airworthy smiled, talking about his daughter like a typical dad. At least what I assumed one to be like. “So… I’ve been hearing a lot about you from my little girl. Roulette, right? Maybe i should watch out, or I’m not going to get any grandkids.”

I blinked. “What…?”

Sunny punched him hard in the side. “Dad! Shut up!” she hissed, her face turning hot red.

“Here, you should stay hydrated Sunnycakes” Airworthy hoofed her his canteen and urged the young mare to drink.

“Daaaaddy! Don’t call me that!” she whined, and her father chuckled. She puffed her cheeks up, turning her head away. They looked like a happy family together, just the two of them.

The other soldiers had gone outside, and Twister was fast asleep. Hawkins was gone too. Now was the perfect time to ask him about the Enclave. All my other leads were drying up, so this was my only chance to get some definitive answers.

As if predicting what was on my mind, he mentioned, “My daughter said that you wanted to know about the Enclave?”

I nodded. “Do you know what they’ve been up to recently?”

Airworthy looked around the room before speaking again. I was picking up on how he was checking his surroundings constantly. “I don’t know anything about current troop movements regarding the Enclave remnants.” he said. “I’ve kept a few back channels open, but the usual lines of communication are all dead.” I was disappointed again but not surprised.

He told me that the Enclave Government was collapsing long before the Stable Dweller came and upended the system. How during the final battle, the top brass of the organization tried to activate some kind of pre-war superweapon as their last ditch contingency. Fortunately for Equestria, the thing never went off. On the last day of the Enclave Wars, with all the chaos surrounding them, it was difficult to get a full view of what happened. Even months after the events in question, the details weren’t entirely clear. Conflicting reports and suicide orders were being given out left and right. Then everything went dead like the Enclave had let out its last breath. When the dust finally settled, we were left in the situation we’re in now.

By his admission it was the Stable Dweller’s actions that forced the rest of the wasteland into what it is now. That was his view of things, anyways.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked, and he nodded silently. “Why are you both running from the Neighvarro Provisional Government? Isn’t it a good way to start fresh? It’s good that they’re helping to relocate Pegasi after the Enclave, isn’t it?”

Sunny gasped, looking offended. “Wh- how can you say that?! Is that what those soldiers told you? They treat some of us like we’re second class citizens! It isn’t fair! Things weren’t great under the Enclave, but now everypony hates us for crimes we didn’t even-”

“Sweetie, can I speak with your friend alone for a moment?” her father put a hoof on Sunny’s shoulder.

“S-sorry…” she apologized, “Sure Dad, I’ll snoop around and see if I can find anything.”

“Be careful.” he warned.

She sang, “I always am…”

“I’m sorry about that, she’s young and passionate... You should be careful about who you trust, even your friends. Sometimes even when they have the best intentions, just one mistake can come back to bite you. I’ve been having regrets having left her in the first place.”

“Aren’t you the one who left her?” I glared, seeing a noticeable change in his mannerisms than what he displayed around his daughter. He was much more serious.

Airworthy nodded, “ I might’ve made an error in judgement in training her. I left my daughter behind because I didn’t want her getting involved in my past mistakes. If New Canterlot ever found out that I was a famous Enclave scout, it would cause trouble for her.”

“What do you mean, by “train her”?” I asked.

“Teaching her to survive on her own. That training never leaves you. Now she’s going to be confused, caught between two paths from now on. Eventually she’ll need to decide on the kind of life she wants to live…Anyways, I can’t promise I’ll be helpful, but since I owe it to you for keeping her safe... I’ll tell you what I do know.” He cleared his throat.

“The Enclave put many contingencies into place in case shit hit the fan. Things they left over from the Great War that they were holding onto. Since the Enclave Wars ended, I don’t know what the remnants have been up to, but last I heard they flew beyond Equestria’s borders. If you really saw them, then they would probably be operating from the shadows. I’m not sure of the root cause behind the lingering haze over the Smokey Mountains, but what I can say without a doubt is that it’s not a natural occurrence. It was something I was looking into before I left the Enclave.”

“Maybe they’re using a hidden backup network?” I suggested.

“That wouldn’t surprise me. The first step to finding the Enclave would be to locate any settlements or places they’re operating out of and find their allies. The Enclave lacks any long term sustainability now, so they’d have to rely on support from local populations to continue operating in Equestria. Or they’d change their tactics so that they were hiding in plain sight.”

I didn’t respond, instead just watching him silently.

Airworthy returned my look and sighed. “I can tell by the way you look at me, you must hate me. To be honest, I’m not sure i can say anything to replace what they took from you. If you blame me for what the Enclave did, that’s fine. I’d like you to do me one favor. All I ask is that you please don’t blame Sunny. I did everything to keep her out that life, so believe me, she’s the closest thing to innocent that you’ll find amongst the Enclave.”

“Sunny is my friend.” I replied.

That seemed to be of some relief to him as he patted his chest. “Good, then I hope you’ll do what’s best for her.”

“What does she have to do with this?” I asked.

“It seems my daughter thinks quite highly of you, you know? I’m planning to take her away from here, and I expect you’re not going to follow us or tell those soldiers where we’re going. If all goes well, you’ll never hear from either of us again. You have no problems with these arrangements, do you?”

What? I was slightly confused by what he was telling me. “Where are you taking her?”

“That’s for me to know... “ he replied. Airworthy paused a bit before revealing, “I decided, I’m going to complete her training. It was a mistake to think otherwise.”

He said that I’d become a source of indecision for her, even in the short time we’ve known each other, and also that I was dangerous. He was giving me all the information he had available, so there shouldn’t have been any issue.

I hesitated, not sure what to say. It was all coming so fast. It would be wrong of me to say anything. I hadn’t really given her much thought because we had just met, but if she went through with this, would that make her Enclave too? Would she be the same Sunny?

“We both leave here tonight with what we want.” The former Enclave Scout stated. “You can go and join the New Canterlot Army like you wanted. I can’t say I think very much of your declared allegiance, but a deal’s a deal.”

“Only if she agrees too...” I finally answered insisting it was her choice to make, which he accepted.

“She mentioned you knew Radar the Dashite?” he mentioned casually, and my eyes lit up.

“Do you know if he’s alive?!“ I asked, getting to my hooves.

He puzzled over how he didn’t remember Radar having any grandchildren my age and how I even seemed a bit young to know who he was, but I was serious in wanting answers. “Please. Do you know anything at all…?” I leaned in closer.

The Enclaver shook his head pensively. “I remember hearing chatter over the radio around the time Operation Cauterize started. A few reports came in confirming that Radar was in Friendship City, and that he was KIA during that battle... I’m sorry.”

“Oh…” I let out a lonely sigh, falling back on my haunches. I stared at the lantern beside us, feeling the ember of hope inside me flicker out. So I really was alone. I didn’t even realize how attached I’d gotten to the mere prospect that he might be alive.

“This may seem a little out of the blue,” he asked, “but how did you know Radar?”

“He saved me and my family a long time ago... I’ve been looking around for him since, but never found him. I got the news not long ago he was at Friendship City during Operation Cauterize. Guess it was stupid of me to think he’d be alive after all this time.” I stifled a laugh.

The pegasus stroked his chin, “I see… He was infamous to the Enclave back in the day. It was said he was always one step ahead of us. I’ve heard stories how once he put an entire raptor fleet out of commission by sabotaging all their radios. He was considered a worthy enemy.”

“Thanks anyways…”

Airworthy frowned, observing me closely. “Y’know, something’s been bothering me since I met you. You look almost familiar, somehow... have we met before?”

That set off a spark inside me and I looked up at him. My eyes narrowed into slits, staring at the Enclaver. “Not unless you were at Starlight Bay on the first night of Operation Cauterize.” I answered.

Suddenly the atmosphere felt a lot more tense. I could feel my blood boiling up remembering that night. Neither of us said a word, and the silence dragged on as I tried to picture his face on the body of the Enclave officer I met that day. Finally he shook his head apologetically. “No, I wasn’t. Sorry, I must’ve been mistaken.”

I let out a breath, realizing it couldn’t have been him.

Sunny came back to us with a cheerful smile, as if to ease tensions at just the right moment. The mare looked confusedly back and forth between me and her father, oblivious to our previous conversation. “You two seem like you’re getting along. I rummaged together a few things for dinner.”

Sunny looked up to her dad and he put his hoof around her. “Should I talk to her?” she asked, and he nodded. “I’ll leave you two alone. It was nice speaking with you Roulette.”

Rou, I talked it over with my dad, and we’re going to sneak out during the night. My dad thinks it’s not safe here. We’re going to go somewhere far away from New Canterlot and the Neighvarro Provisional Government. I guess this means we’ll probably never see each other again...”

“It’s okay, he already told me…” I said, unable to fully grasp what was going on. I turned on my side so that I was facing away from her.

“I asked him if you could come along, but he said it’d be safer for all of us if you stayed behind. He said you’d only slow us down. It’ll be okay though, you can join up with the New Canterlot Army like you wanted...“ she tried to reassure me. “Hey, Roulette...? If you want I can wake you up again before we leave, so we can say goodbye?”

“That might be nice.” I said yawning, “I’m tired.…”

I felt Sunny’s hoof rubbing the back of my neck and for a while I thought about scolding her, but I didn’t say anything. I tried not to think about it, just listening to the patter of rain outside. I didn’t want this moment to end.

“Hey, Roulette?” she nudged me as I was nodding off.

“Yeah?” I asked.

She struggled a laugh, but it was more like she was drumming up the courage to talk to me. “I wasn’t expecting today to turn out like this, honestly. You got me caught up in this huge mess, but you also saved my life. You gave me the courage to make the decisions I needed to. I really like spending time with you.”

I didn’t answer her, just wanting to let this moment be what it was.

“Even though we’ve only known each other for a day, would you still consider us “friends”?”

I wanted to say something else, but I knew it was coming sooner or later. Better to just get it over with. “What are you talking about?” I scoffed, curling up into a ball away from her. “We were never friends...”

I stopped feeling her soft touch on my neck and when I didn’t hear her soft breathing, I knew she had gone. It was better this way, despite any momentary feelings I had to deal with. I’d been on my own for the last few months anyways. As I listened to the rain, I felt my vision clouded by darkness and everything faded around me while I drifted off to sleep. Nothing except for me and the sound of rain of outside. It was my choice. Exactly the way I wanted it.

“Don’t worry young citizen. The pain will stop shortly.”

Level up!

Perk added:

Tough Hide: +3 DT Permanently

Quest Perk added:
Mutant Biology: You don’t yet know the full extent of this mutation, but you have a remarkable resistance towards both rad-x & rad-away

Chapter 6: Fortunate One

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Chapter 6-

Fortunate One

"Almost makes you wish for a Winter Rad-up."

I snapped awake, seeing only blackness as I frantically tried to get my bearings. For a few moments, my lungs wouldn’t work fast enough, and I gasped for breath. A cold sweat stuck to my coat, and my heart was pounding in my chest... My ears perked up at the pitter-patter of rain outside, and my breathing steadied. As soon I realized it was just a dream, I let out a slow breath and looked around.

All the lanterns around me had been put out. It was hard to see even my hoof in front of my face. There wasn’t much I could do as my eyes adjusted, so I just waited for a few moments. I suddenly felt my heart rise as I remembered something important. Frantically, I looked around for Sunny, but quickly concluded that she’d gone without saying goodbye. I couldn’t blame her...

I let out a broken sigh. “Why the hell did I even come back?” I sniffed. She was probably the closest thing to a friend I’d made since losing everything, and now she was gone too. I thought it would be for the best if she went with her dad. That I could spare myself from the pain that way. “Jeez, Roulette… how stupid can you get?”

This time, I saw that white alicorn again in my dreams.

Now I knew for sure Radar was gone, and that small spark of hope I’d been feeling flickered out. I was really alone. I pounded my head with my hoof repeatedly. “I should’ve said something different. Stupid, stupid, stupid!” I really was just some dumb kid getting involved in shit she didn’t understand… It was like losing everything all over again. I raised my voice into a shout, “Why does this shit always happen to me?!”

Sprawling out over the floor as my anger wore off and I stared up at the ceiling and mumbled to myself. “...It’s my fault though, isn’t it? What’s the point in crying anyways?” I lamented, wiping my face on the inside of my jacket. For a while I didn’t feel like moving, more than content to stew in the toxic mess of feelings bubbling inside me. That was until a strange realization washed over me and I slowly noticed that I was all alone inside the emporium.

I sat up. “Hello...?” I called out. No answer. No, now was definitely not the time for feeling sorry for myself.

Standing up, I peeked into the back room to double-check if Page Turner was still working, but he was gone too. There wasn’t even a hint of light from his horn casting a spell. Everyone was gone but me.

I couldn’t go back to sleep, instead I paced around the floor thinking about what I was going on, with brief thoughts on what I was going to do tomorrow. Should I go crawling back to Fair Trade? No. Obviously not. I wasn’t about to go crying to him again about how I screwed the one job he gave me.

Something possessed me right then to go to the window and look outside. My hoofsteps echoed as I approached, and I stuck my hooves up on the display. It was dark out there, and storming hard. I squinted, and my eyes started to adjust. The rain made it even more difficult to see without even a hint of moonlight, but I could see across the street at least. My eyes fell upon the old Ministry office again, casting a shadow in the storm that I really didn’t like the appearance of...

“They’re probably all out on patrol or something… in the middle of the night during the worst storm in three months. That makes sense, right?” I thought, tapping my hooves on the windowsill.

My eyes darted over to the Everfree forest, and an uneasy feeling washed over me. Something felt wrong. Really wrong. It was like it was calling to me. Remembering the superstitious warnings from before, I was deciding whether it was time to reconsider my belief in superstition and curses or not. “What the hell is up with this town? Maybe this was the reason ponies never stay the night here?” I pushed those thoughts to the back of my head.

I couldn’t say for sure if my mind was playing tricks on me again.

Then something suddenly clicked in my head, I rushed over to where I’d stashed my things, but they weren’t where I left them. My heart started beating faster. My brother’s pistol was gone. I frantically looked around for it, hyperventilating. The modified stealthbuck, the laser pistol, and the memory orb I’d found. All of it was gone.

Taking my hoof I slapped myself hard across the face to bring me back to my senses. I could see the shape of my rifle propped up against the wall so I grabbed, loaded and slung it over my shoulder with practiced motions. I stuffed a few extra magazines inside my jacket, just in case. I just needed to get outside and figure out what was going on, but it always helps to be prepared.

I strapped on my armor as quickly as I could and broke into a running start. I sprung across floor and held my breath as I burst out into the rain at a full gallop, then felt the sudden sensation of cold sprays of water blowing over me as I met with the storm outside. Luna, I couldn’t see anything in this damn storm. As another bolt of lightning flashed overhead, making things marginally easier to see for a short second, I took a few steps and came to a halt, coming face-to-face with the old wartime ministry office. The building’s propaganda posters looked spooky and deformed, displaying only the ghostly silhouettes of ponies with the print completely illegible. There were illustrations of pegasi flying in formation, wearing purple and black jumpsuits that were sort of reminiscent of the Enclave. This place gave me the creeps.

I paused for a short moment, thinking.

Oddly, I felt more comfortable out here than I did cooped up inside that dark F&F tools emporium. The feeling wasn’t so terrible. It was like a shitty old friend you were relieved to see again after a long time, if only because it was something familiar.

I felt another weird omen as I turned to stare at the Everfree again, and just barely caught the shadow of some dark figure lurking inside. I wasn’t sure if it was watching me or not, but I didn’t blink. A split second later, it disappeared within another flash of lightning. Uttering a low growl under my breath, I knew there was no way in hell I was going to let some stupid ghost or whatever it was get me.

The weather above the trees seemed freakish and unnatural, especially as it was interacting with the other SPP Towers. The roiling and swirling clouds overhead looked like something nightmarish only the Grand Pegasus Enclave could cook up.

I panted, taking quick breaths, getting drenched in rain as I frantically looked around to see if I could find anyone. I shielded my face with one hoof, but I still couldn’t see all that well. A lantern would’ve been nice.

Opportunity had a single main road, with mostly ruined buildings with defenses that had been set up around its perimeter by the Rough Riders. Barriers piled up with anything they could get their hooves on serving as defense. No sign of them though... I climbed over one of them as I followed along the only road. As I stood atop the earthworks and barricades constructed of rubble, my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness and I saw a group of ponies gathered on the edge of town. “That must be them!” I thought, providing me with a small sense of comfort, and I took off sprinting towards them.

As I splashed through puddles of muck, more water covered my hooves and underside, only to get washed off again by the rain running down my back. I was somewhat relieved that I wasn’t all alone after all. That feeling proved short lived though. As I skid to a halt behind Hawkins, my mane was dripping wet and clung to my face. I brushed it aside and I saw her aiming her pistol outstretched at another pony, delivering him a death stare. When I spoke to get her attention she didn’t respond.

I felt a hoof on my shoulder and looked behind me and saw Page Turner. He shook his head quietly.

A few of the other soldiers were here too, but as I looked around, it seemed like only half the squad was present. Sergeant Wounded Legs was gone, and so was Ranger Huckleberry. For a while, the others had their attention too drawn to even look back at me, and so I slowly turned my head to see where they were aiming.

To my horror, on the opposite side stood Airworthy, aiming a ten millimeter semi-automatic back at her. Not just any pistol, either. “My” ten millimeter! He was also carrying my saddlebag with all my things stuffed into it, and had the portable stealthbuck strapped to his foreleg. As the scene came into focus I felt a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, seeing the unconscious seafoam mare draped over his back. Fuck. I knew I had a bad feeling before.

Airworthy was surrounded by the New Canterlot soldiers. “Give it up Airworthy. You’ve got nowhere to go.” The lieutenant called out, and with Sunny on his back he wouldn’t be flying away.

“What the hell is going on here?!” I gasped, almost too speechless to say anything else.

Hawkins finally acknowledged me without even turning her head. “You stay out of this. This is between me and the Enclaver.” She ordered.

“Like hell!” I growled. The lieutenant granted me an impatient glare. He urged me not to get involved, but I brushed it aside and stepped forward anyways. He clearly didn’t know who he was dealing with.

Hawkins didn’t grin or appear even slightly amused. She was completely serious here. I had a hard time trying to get a read on her from the beginning. Even now, I wasn’t entirely sure what her game was, I was just glad she wasn’t pointing that giant gun of hers at me again. “Corporal Airworthy of the Enclave Scouts, you’re wanted for war crimes against the surface. We’ve got a cozy prison cell waiting for you back in Arbu.”

Twister cursed, breaking the silence. “Hang on, so you’re telling me that was Airworthy the whole time?! Shoot, I knew he looked familiar!”

“Well, I’ve put on a bit of weight recently.” The pegasus joked, making light of the situation. “I was wondering whether or not you recognized me. I guess I went through all that trouble of changing my appearance for nothing.”

“Enough with the jokes.” Hawkins spat impatiently. “You can’t fool these eyes. I knew it was you from the start.”

Airworthy appeared to nod his head ever-so-slightly sounding somewhat remorseful, but without pulling the gun away. “I’m not with the Enclave anymore. If they killed someone you know, then you have my condolences.”

“Then you won’t mind answering questions in front of a judge and jury back in New Canterlot, right?” she scoffed. “Don’t give me that bullshit, I know all about your generation of the Enclave scouts, Airworthy! The atrocities you committed against the surface and against griffonkind are nothing short of war crimes. Downright despicable is what it is. Fucking egg-breakers.”

“I thought your whole spiel was about change and second chances? I guess massacring an innocent town of civilians is okay so long as you save enough orphans to balance it out. It’s easier to ignore your own crimes when you’re the ones making the laws, isn’t it? History is written by the victors and all that… ”

“Yeah, yeah… Don’t patronize me.” Hawkins grunted.

“So are we done pointing accusations at each other?”

“I could go on a bit longer...” she replied, with an added hint of sarcasm.

“You made your suspicions obvious from the get-go, from the way you kept eyeing me and my daughter. Why didn’t you say anything? We could’ve easily avoided this mess and been on our merry ways.” he cocked his head. “Or perhaps the Talons have just gone soft?”

Hawkins fired back quickly. “You wish… I didn’t want to risk you trying anything with the other civilians close by is all…” It sounded a little like an excuse.

“You made a bad call.” Airworthy rebuked. “You’re still a bit young, despite your rank. Sorry, but I’ll have to decline on that offer, junior.”

“Fuck you.” She retorted.

The pegasus responded with a light chuckle.

“Details are unimportant. Point being, I’m not about to let you get away. Oh, and didn’t you hear? It’s Skyranger now.”

Airworthy replied assuredly, “If you want to risk getting into a shootout, be my guest. Then the raiders will know we’re here. After that you know what happens...” he warned.

“Raiders...? Wait, what happens when the raiders get here?” I questioned in my head, going back and forth between the two of them. I didn’t know what was happening.

Alabaster spoke up, injecting himself into the conversation. “We’re willing to negotiate...”

“Let me and my daughter walk.” He demanded simply

“I’m in charge of this operation Skyranger, so let me handle it.” The lieutenant attempted to assert. She and the white coated officer seemed to be at odds with each other.

“I don’t answer to you, ‘lieutenant’.” Hawkins said, reminding him of his rank.

Ace decided to chime in at that moment, spurring her on. “What are you waiting for Hawkins? Just shoot the bastard and be done with it!” he urged.

“That’s insubordination, Ace!” Alabaster barked.

“You’re not Wounded Legs!” he fired back at him, “I don’t care if the old bird put you in charge! You gotta earn your respect! So if you think I’m gonna follow your orders and let this bastard walk, just because they told us to follow some gutless unicorn who doesn’t have the stomach to do what needs to be done… Just do it already Hawkins!” The others began arguing with the jock stallion for disobeying orders and things began to devolve into chaos from there.

Hawkins groaned, “Shut up already, you idiot.” The lieutenant was quickly losing his handle on the situation as the Enclaver stood by, appearing to be getting a good amount of entertainment out of it.

Full of anger, I raised my voice and barked over them. “Would ya quit pointing your damn weapons at her already?! Can’t you see that Sunny is innocent?” All eyes were quickly on me as I brought up my service rifle and aimed it at Hawkins. Ace swung around his own twin rifles so they were pointed at me, threatening if I so much as dared to pull the trigger.

Hawkings granted me the briefest of glares, but kept her weapon trained on her original target, and instead said something that drew my interest. “Hold your horses there, Dirt Muncher… I’ve got something I want to ask him first.” Curiously, I lowered my weapon and we all listened in.

“Y’know, it’s funny, Airworthy,” She began, “something I’ve been wondering about... A lot of the same scorched earth tactics used during Operation Cauterize were pretty similar to the modus operandi of the Enclave surface ops, oh say... twenty years ago. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“You’re speaking nonsense.” he muttered.

“I’ll tell them if you won’t.” she promised.

“Wait, what happened twenty years ago?” I asked, more confused than a minute ago.

Twister frowned, equally so. “Frankly, I’d hate to side with the enemy but what kind of surface ops are you talking about Griff? There weren’t no surface ops back then from what I recall. Aside from the annual scouting missions, of course.”

Hawkins snorted. “Of course, because that’s the “official” story, featherbrain. Didn’t stop you from going beyond Equestria’s borders though. Aside from the wars us griffons fought against you lot, there were the abductions, the disappearances, experiments, the works. Even shortly before Operation Cauterize, you were sending down research crews. But his generation of the Enclave scouts was different. They were far more active on the surface, especially during that one year. Surface missions for who knows, doing who knows what. And you’re way too well connected not to have known about that, Airworthy.” She finished by addressing him again. “So how about you fill us in on the details, huh?”

Airworthy offered a strained reply, growing annoyed. “To be honest you seem a little young to know about all that…”

“I’ve done my research.” She replied, smugly looking pleased with herself.

“It was... a different time.”

“Have it your way. You can either tell me all about it, or we’ll squeeze it out of you later at Arbu. Your choice.” Hawkins spat, with a light added threat.

Lieutenant Alabaster spoke, taking on a severe tone. “Give it up Airworthy! You’ve got nowhere to go!”

Showing off a grenade held under his wing in response, he warned “Try anything and I pull the pin. Then we ‘all’ go together.” It was just a flash-bang though. Even I could see that much. Why did they look so threatened? I raised an eyebrow, not fully understanding the gravity of the situation.

“Why are you doing this? Is this really what Sunny would’ve wanted?” I asked, attempting to reason with him.

He turned to me with a look of depersation. Showing a small bit of the caring father I’d met earlier. “You wouldn’t understand… Roulette, I’m just doing what any father would do to protect his baby girl.”

The griffon turned her head and snarled at me. “I said stay out of it!”

“No, you stay out of this!” I shot back. “I actually know her! I can talk to him.”

Airworthy tried to plead with me, assuring me he was trying to do the right thing. “I’m protecting her! I know the way these bastards work. If I hand her over, her life will be over. They’ll never let her live peacefully again! Roulette, you have to help us.”

Something was nagging me in the back of my head though.

I was getting a slight headache, but I managed to hold myself together as I looked at Sunny again. She was completely out of it. Almost like she’d been drugged unconscious... “What did you do to her?” I hesitantly demanded.

He not-so-subtly dodged the question, attempting to change the topic. “We have to get out of here, there’s not much time. You should save yourself!”

I stared back at him with bewilderment. “You stole my things. Y-you were just going to leave me to rot…”

All of a sudden, that warm fatherly figure was cast aside in an instant. In its place, the veneer of a cold and methodical Enclave soldier. “She was emotionally compromised... hesitating. I couldn’t allow her to make the choice on her own. I had to take the decision out of her hooves.” I suddenly felt sick and confused, like I had been taken advantage of and found myself suddenly questioning everything of what he had told me. How much of it was true? Was everything out of this pony’s mouth a damned lie?!

I was at a loss for words. “W-What…?”

"I did this for her own good. She should've been able to prevent me from getting the drop on her,” he shook his head in regret. “She told me some interesting ideas she had with you. Maybe you were the genesis or perhaps you gave her the words she needed to tell me. You came out here looking for something, but you had no bearing on the situation. You should've never gotten involved to begin with.”

“How the hell is this my fault?!” I demanded, failing my composure. "What kind of fucked up "training" is this?"

He continued as though he were speaking facts, “Sunny is still untrained. That’s why I originally left her behind, in order to protect her. It was safer for us to remain separated. It was also necessary for her to grow as a scout on her own terms.”

“This isn’t training," I argued, "this is straight up abuse."

He scoffed, “You wouldn't understand."

I growled under my breath. Maybe that’s why she never said goodbye. This guy was really starting to piss me off, regardless...

Airworthy shook his head in amazement, almost out of pity. “It’s like you’re still living in the wasteland. What do you even know about my daughter anyways? Admittedly, I’m still grateful to you for keeping her safe. I don't want you as an enemy, but I'm not going to allow you to get Sunny hurt."

“Shut up... ” I felt intense rage bubbling up inside. Airworthy was showing me his true colors now.

“That’s enough!” Hawkins interjected. “Airworthy, you’re coming with us!”

“No....," he breathed confidently, "I’ll tell you how this is going to go down. You let me and my daughter walk, or I set off this flash bang and Papa Bighoof will know exactly where you all are hiding. You’ll all have about ten minutes before you’re skullfucked to death by raiders. Or we could just have a big shootout and draw their attention that way. Your choice.” None of that sounded very appealing. As I stood by, every word he spoke just made me want to hit him harder. While every sentence just made me want to beat him until he stopped moving.

“Leave Sunny, and never show your face or speak to her again.” I demanded, just as Hawkins had barely opened her mouth to retort.

Hawkins snapped back at me, “What the hell did I just-?!”

Seeming stunned as he attempted to process my words, he stared back at me in amazement. “...Who do you think you are? I am her father!”

“I don’t care if you are her dad! You’re a jerk, and I’m not gonna let you take her with you!”

“Please, you’re just some insufferable kid who doesn’t know when to let go.” He sneered, mocking me. “You wouldn’t know what it’s like to have a real family anyways, so just stay away from my daughter you little wingless freak.”

“Y-... You don’t know me, you Enclave fuck! You damn pegasi took my family away from me!” I cried, feeling my blood boiling in my veins like flamer fuel. Scratch that, I wanted to kill him. I wanted nothing more than to slowly to end this sonovabitch.

“Calm down. He’s just trying to bait you.” Hawkins chided.

Something in me snapped. “Why don’t you bite a bullet, you bitch?! I’m tired of your snarky-ass remarks!”

“Kinda ironic since you never shut up.” Hawkins scoffed which just served to piss me off even further, and sent me tipping over the boiling point. “W-what the-?!” she exclaimed as our heads clashed together. She growled, pushing back against me while we both attempted to overpower each other. The others watched along in confusion.

“You’ve been on my case this whole damn time and I’m getting sick of it!” I shouted.

With her fiery gaze meeting mine, she yelled back “Well maybe you should stay out of business that doesn’t concern you!”

“It does concern me!” I insisted.

All the other soldiers looked on in shock at the sight of seeing a supposedly elite Skyranger wrestling with some random earth pony. Until Page Turner finally stepped forward and forced us apart with his magic, speaking as the sole voice of reason. “Both of you, please… This isn’t the time for this!”

We were all so distracted that we had almost forgot about Airworthy for a second. In a flash, he grabbed Page Turner who was standing just a little too close and aimed the gun at the back of his head.

The Enclaver chuckled to himself, stepping back, hostage now in hoof. “Why thank you, Roulette. I knew I could count on you.”

We both immediately stopped what we were doing and turned back to look at him. Hawkins and I both swore simultaneously. “Fuck- That’s on you!” The griffon said, jabbing her talon in my face. “You’d better figure out what side of this you’re on, cus next time you get in my way I’ll just shoot you instead!”

Page turned and politely asked his captor, “Um, would you be so kind as to let me go? Thanks.”.

“Sorry, it’s nothing personal,” he apologized, “Just don’t make any sudden movements and I won’t have to gut you like a radroach. Also, no light shows please. Unicorn magic is... troublesome. For the record, I appreciate all the work the Followers do.”

“Oh, um… thank you?” he said, responding to the awkwardly timed compliment.

I huffed and took another step forward, stamping my hoof. “Let him go molerat breath!”

“You shouldn’t have taken your eyes off target. That was a rookie mistake, Talon. Now I think we’ll be on our way. You can have fun dealing with the raiders.” Hawkins aimed her pistol at him he ducked behind Page Turner in response and called out. “Tell your troops to stand down lieutenant.”

“Once an Enclaver, always an Enclaver...” I muttered.

“Think whatever you want,” he said, shrugging it off. “You can keep chasing the Enclave until you die for all I care.”

Uttering a low growl in response, I could only think of one thing I wanted to do at that moment.

Hawkins waved her revolver at him threateningly. “You try to leave, and I’ll shoot through him to hit you.”

“What?!”

“Hawkins, don’t!” Alabaster protested, horrified at the suggestion. “He’s under our protection! If you do that it’ll damage our relationship with the followers!”

“Better than letting the bastard walk. We can just heal him up later, anyways.” She sneered.

“Don’t you dare, you cold dead bitch!” I said, nostrils flaring.

“Not really the time for this, Dirt Muncher.” Hawkins muttered without turning to face me.

“Don’t worry. I’ll let him go as soon as I’m home free.” Sunny’s dad assured, taking on that superior Enclave stuck-up attitude. “Sorry, but I have to survive at any cost. I’ll do whatever it takes. Kill any one of you who gets in my way.” He promised, baring his teeth a little while pushing the gun against his hostage’s cheek. Then playfully added, “Though honestly, the good doctor would be safer with me anyways.”

“You’re dead meat if you try to walk away from me.” Hawkins dared, cocking back the hammer on her giant revolver with her free opposable claw.

“Over my dead body!” I cried. I scraped my hoof along the ground getting ready to lunge, but the lieutenant sharply ordered me to stand down, citing that I’d done enough already.

“Lieutenant. I think you have bigger problems to worry about. So how about it? Call off that overgrown attack bird.” He punctuated this by pressing the gun into the back of Page’s neck to make his point clear. I also hated the fact that he was using my brother’s gun in such a way.

We were all at each other’s throats. It seemed like the time when someone in charge would step in and make a decision. Unfortunately, these were far from normal circumstances. Lieutenant Alabaster didn’t have the same respect amongst the Rough Riders that Wounded Legs carried.

When it had gone on long enough, Alabaster finally spoke up, “Let him go, Hawkins…”

She looked at the lieutenant with both surprise and disgust. “I’m not taking orders from some pansy-ass bottom-rank CO.” Hawkins replied, keeping her gun trained on Airworthy. Even in the rain, she had remarkably steady aim and control. “All I have to do is wait for another crack of lightning, and you’ll be dead before you blink...” Hawkins cautioned, not budging. She didn’t even blink as she tried to appear as cold as possible, but up close I could see her flinch ever-so-slightly.

Airworthy called her out on her bluff, “You won’t do it. You kill me, then you’re all good as dead anyways when the raiders find you.”

“Miss Hawkins, just let me go. I’ll be alright.” Page Turner insisted.

“But why?” I asked, confused at what had gotten into his head.

“Don’t worry about me.” He assured us in a soft voice. “It’s my duty as a Follower of the Apocalypse to help creatures in need, and right now you need it more than I do, and so does this mare. So let me go with him. I’ll make sure she’s alright.”

“Page…” I frowned.

“C’mon Doc! I’m not gonna let y-” She fell silent, obviously conflicted. This was really getting to her for some reason. Although I still wasn’t fully sure where she stood on things, or if I was ready to trust her, I decided to go along with it. Hawkins and I were on the same page for once.

“Everything will be okay, I promise.” he said with that warm smile of his. I almost wanted to believe him, but that wasn’t the first time I’d heard those words.

Alabaster wore a pained expression. He had the look of a pony who had been forced into an unwinnable situation. “I have to make sure we all get through this. Mistakes were made, but we have to make the best of bad circumstance.”

Hawkins made a grimace, holding her gun outstretched. Time seemed to stop for a moment, with only the rain to remind us of time passing.

A flash of lightning lit up the night again, and there was a heavy feeling between all of us, expecting something to happen in that fraction of a second. It hung around for a while, even after it ended and nothing happened. Thunder rolled in the distance, and Airworthy’s smirk widened when she didn’t pull the trigger. “Thought not.”

“I’m sorry…” she mumbled.

I grit my teeth in anger and shouted, “So you’re just gonna let him go? After all that?!”

“I said stand down!” Lieutenant Alabaster yelled sharply at me. “I know you have personal stakes in this, but I’m asking you to put those aside. I don’t want to do it either, but we have no choice...”

He had to be kidding... “Screw that!” I thought, but the lieutenant made a point to shoot down anything I might’ve been planning in my head.

“If you want any leniency from New Canterlot... That’s an order.”

I spat on the ground and hung my head, eyeing up at him in contempt.

When I looked back at Airworthy, the old pegasus’ face looked so damn arrogant I wanted to punch it. Then he proceeded to talk down to me like a child. “Roulette, you were never a threat to begin with. No hard feelings junior, you just met someone better than you. Don’t blame yourself. If you’re lucky we won’t cross paths again.” I was raging hard right then.

I took heavy breaths, seething right under the surface of my skin. I hated that he was going to win...

It was almost like I could feel the fire licking at my insides and boiling in my blood. Any hotter and I’d spontaneously combust. Even more so, I was angry about the fact that I was getting bested. He was going to get away and I’d never see Sunny again. I thought about everything I’d lost up to this point. That nagging itch in the back of my head got louder. I didn’t want to lose again. The embers inside me I could feel were about to burst.

And truth be told, I’ve always been a really sore loser...

All of it happened in less than a second. The ex-enclaver didn’t know what hit him. He was caught off guard by how quickly I was on top of him. The instant he thought he was home free, that was the moment I dashed forward. Throwing my hoof between him and Page, I knocked my gun away before any of the others could react. Acting purely on emotion and unbridled rage, all that mattered to me in that split second was the here and now. The ten millimeter fired at me but missed, followed by a second that I only narrowly dodged to the right of. The Enclaver cursed under his breath. I could hear the lieutenant and Hawkins shouting at me in the background, but their voices were drowned out in the heat of the moment.

Striking my hoof across his face, he dropped the gun from his mouth and reared back slightly. Sunny slid off his back, and splashed into the mud, still unconscious. This caused Airworthy to loosen his grip on Page Turner momentarily, just enough for the doctor to wriggle free.

His horn flared in a bright flash of light, forcing Airworthy to squint his eyes shut and he stomped on his hoof hard, giving me an opening. I had to admit, for being a simple historian, he could handle himself pretty well.

The pegasus was wide open, so I went in for a second blow. My hoof connected, as Page Turner scrambled for safety, but it stopped short and suddenly.

All of a sudden before I could realize, I felt my foreleg being twisted around and pull against his chest, followed by a quick combination of successive hoofblows to my underside. The wind was knocked out of me as another blow hit me in the jaw, and I struggled to stay upright. They weren’t the worst I’d ever had, but certainly way more than I was expecting. He was definitely a trained fighter.

The stealthbuck on his foreleg switched on and he disappeared, just as another hoofblow popped me in the muzzle, slightly disorientating my vision. Between the storming weather and the portable cloaking device flickering on and off, I could barely tell where he was between each moment. Damn it, he was really agile for a fat guy!

Keeping me close so the other soldiers couldn’t get a clear shot, I found the former Enclave Scout constantly putting me between himself and their weapons. He knew what he was doing. Great, now I was the hostage! I groaned internally. “Guess he wasn’t a famous Enclave scout for nothing…”

As I just barely ducked out of the way of another blow, I was starting to get an idea of where he was and how he moved. He moved just like that Mohawked pegasus from before, always staying just out of reach! The magic cloaking device was disorienting to fight against, but I could also see the rain spraying across him left a faint outline. I threw another punch and felt like it hit something.

But then something sharp also penetrated my right hoof, in the middle of the joint. A combat knife he’d kept hidden on him wedged into my foreleg, acting as a makeshift splint. It flickered into view, no longer being cloaked by the stealthbuck, and I cursed out loud in pain.

Pain was something I could deal with, but the knife itself made fighting him almost impossible. I grit my teeth and fought on, despite being severely crippled by it. As I was trying to find my footing, he struck the hilt of the blade, sending a blinding wave of agony up through my hoof. I cried out in pain and held onto him with everything I had. Even as he was using the knife-splint to control my movements and force me into a hold.

Seemed that I made an error in judgement taking this guy on. I had to think of something fast. Something so I didn’t get killed. “Dammit, improvise!”

I was racking my brain trying to come up with something, as I heard Hawkins’ faint shouting, remembering that she was just behind me. The others couldn’t help me like this! Pulling at my foreleg, I was unable to free myself. It just made things hurt worse. I was on my own in this. Unless...

Then it clicked. I threw a fake punch with my good hoof and he dodged again, but pulled away in that moment as he ducked just out of reach. Rearing sideways in the opposite direction, I felt even more blinding pain as I thrust my foreleg free of his grip. I fell over backwards onto my side and heard a booming roar-like thunder echo from behind me, right as another crack of lightning filled the sky.

It ripped straight past me and penetrated the Enclaver’s wing. I heard him groan aloud in agony, with fresh memory of just how bad my measly ten millimeter hurt.

The stallion stumbled backwards and I heard another gunshot. Then I heard something drop just in front of my hooves. My eyelids opened with splashes of rainwater running down my face and I glanced down at something metallic and cylindrical. It was a flash grenade with its pin pulled. I shut my eyes and covered my ears, just as a blinding flash illuminated the town for a split second, drowning everything in white light.

I thought I heard the sound of a pegasus taking flight, followed by the roar of another gunshot from Hawkin’s revolver. When my eyes could see again and my ears stopped ringing, he was gone. Thunder rolled in the distance.

“…I should’ve gone for the stealthbuck first.” she griped. “He’s wounded now, so he won’t make it very far…” I guess I owed her one for that.

Lieutenant Alabaster looked like he had a million things on his mind. “Hell. Do you think they know we’re here now?” He muttered to Hawkins.

“Bout fifty-fifty…” she replied stoically, holstering her pistol underneath her bandolier.

There was little desire to go after him, and what little existed was overruled by the lieutenant who insisted there was another situation at hoof. A situation I still knew little to nothing about...

The rain felt colder as I looked down at the unconscious mare lying at my hooves. I grabbed my brother’s pistol out of the mud, wiping it with my wet jacket and stuffing it back into its empty holster. The knife in me still hurt like hell, and all my things were lying around everywhere. There was something in my eye. A simultaneous concoction of both relief and regret, and I collapsed on top of her apologizing.

“Sunny, are you alright?!” I gasped lying on top of her. “I’m sorry for what I said before, it was fucking stupid and I didn’t mean it, okay?” I tapped her face a couple of times trying to wake her up, but to no avail.

Just then, an ear-splitting deathly wail howled from the remains of the Everfree Forest, drowning out everything. We all looked around, scanning for the source of the noise. But it was everywhere and nowhere at once. It went on for several seconds, echoing inside everyone’s skulls and it shook us to our bones. A few moments passed and we all breathed an easy sigh of relief when it finally ceased.

Uncovering his ears, Ace was first to question. “...What the hell was that?!”

“Maybe a t-timberwolf?” Twister stuttered.

“Don’t ruffle your feathers, timberwolves don’t even sound like that.” Hawkins jeered, calmly shrugging it off. “Maybe it was an Ursa or something. Huh, I thought most of those were cleared out by now...”

“Know anything about this place Hawkins?” Ace asked.

“The Skyrangers scouted here a while back… I want to say it was unsolved disappearances?” She tapped her chin thinking aloud to herself, but the mere prospect made Twister even more of a nervous wreck. He looked like he might curl up into the fetal position at any moment.

The forest was in bad shape nowadays. I remembered a story my brother told me once about the big bad timberwolf lurking in the Everfree, and how it ate little lost orphaned foals. I’m pretty sure he just told me that to avoid taking me there. If such a thing existed, it’d probably be pretty pissed off about having its forest half-burnt to a crisp more than anything.

It was strange to me. The voice sounded almost like it was in pain? Although I didn’t mention that to the others.

Alabaster turned to Ace squinting harshly to address him, “Ace, we’ll discuss your punishment later.” he affirmed, to which the red stallion replied with a laggard nod.

“Ahh!” I remembered the sharp uncomfortable pain when shifting my foreleg again, reminding me of the knife still stuck in there. With the adrenaline still pumping through me, I barely felt it. That or maybe the pain of being shot and nearly being killed by my mutation had just boosted my pain tolerance a bit. I noticed Page Turner next to me, wearing a solemn look as he stared down at Sunny.

Looking over her, Page wore both sadness and regret. “She can’t hear you.” He said. “She still has drugs running through her system.”

“Can’t you do anything?” I pleaded.

The doctor shook his head. “Generally it’s best to let drugs like these run their course. We should take her inside and out of the rain though, so she doesn’t catch hypothermia.” he said, and I nodded. Then cocking his eyebrow he pointed to the knife and added, “But let’s get that thing out of you first.”

I laughed weakly and nodded.

Page with a light sense of humor warned, “Now you’re going to feel a slight pinch…”

The white unicorn officer was standing alone, staring silently across no-mare’s land, while the rest of us remained uncertain.

We sat under makeshift cover of a ruined building that still had most of its walls, where they had set a tarp above us and stashed extra ammo underneath. I grit my teeth and winced as Page pulled the knife out and applied pressure to the wound. The sharp pain quickly gave way as the wound was wrapped in a healing aura. Even if the raiders were watching, they wouldn’t be able to see any light from where we were sitting. I didn’t speak.

Page scolded me like a child at first. “I just wanted to let you know, what you did was totally stupid and reckless. You’re an idiot… but a very brave idiot.” the blue unicorn snarked with a smirk, giving me a light tap on the noggin.

“That’s a funny way to say thank you.” I snorted.

“Thank you.” he added, granting me a genuinely warm smile that time.

“Do you think it was okay of me to make a decision like that on her behalf?” I asked, looking at Sunny worriedly.

“Who can say? What do you think.”

“It felt like the right thing to do in my gut, but maybe I was overstepping my bounds…I barely know her and all.” Part of me was still trying grappling with it all. If I hadn't been such an idiot, she wouldn't have ended up like this.

“Guess you’ll have a lot to talk about when she wakes up.” he said, trying to sound comforting, while stating the obvious.

“Yeah…right.” I really wasn’t looking forward to it.

He and one of the Rough Riders carried Sunny back into the F&F Tools Emporium while the combat medic finished checking me over. I offered to help but I was denied. “Sunny, you’re gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be alright.” I promised. The level-headed stallion was also good enough to slip me a some Rad-X before leaving, citing that the rain here was likely pretty irradiated being downwind of the Whitetail Woods. Page almost reminded me of my brother True Blue in a weird way. Maybe it was the light shade of his coat.

I felt the pain in my shoulder flaring up slightly standing in the rain, but nowhere nearly as bad as before. More of an annoying itch this time. “So it’s affected by radiation...” I thought, as I popped a Rad-X. That made sense, given my previous encounter with the Whitetail. “Good to know.”

Twister tapped me on my shoulder, getting my attention.

“You were a little heated back there…” he mentioned after things had calmed, awkwardly scratching the back of his mane. I quickly remembered what I said. I hoped it didn’t sound too bad.

“Oh, uh yeah…Sorry. I didn’t mean it like-”

“We ain’t all like that, y’know?” he said, apologizing on the other Enclaver’s behalf. That took me by surprise. Wow, now this was all kinds of awkward.

“Um, no. I know. Don’t worry about it.” I said, and the pegasus seemed somewhat relieved. I still found it a bit weird being on the same side now. It’d take some getting used to, I guess.

He was forced to stand watch by his lonesome as a tired Bandage put the finishing touches on my foreleg. He kept nervously checking over his shoulder to look at the Everfree, worried about that noise from earlier.

The pink mare’s wavy orange mane was dripping wet, and she looked exhausted. She lit up her horn, casting a spell over me, and I glowed for a few seconds. It made me feel kind of funny. “That’s an anti-disintegration ward.” she said. “It’s my specialty. They came in handy at the Battle of Dragon Mountain. Just try not to get shot, because it still hurts like hell. Also warps your flesh so it doesn’t heal back properly.”

I stared at my hoof as the glow faded and got a small sense of comfort in my head at having one less thing to worry about.

“FYI, this isn’t fool-proof.” she mentioned flatly. “You can still die.”

Nodding along, I made sure to take note. Although only half-paying attention.

She gave me an additional doctor’s note to stop running headlong into danger or I’d probably end up getting myself killed. Pointing to my roulette marker number thirty-six cutie mark, she commented how fitting it was. I assured her that it wasn’t intentional and she gave me a thwack on the skull just to make sure I understood. I stood up with a huff. Admittedly, I didn’t care too much for Bandage.

As I briefly glanced back at the design blazoned across my flank, I didn’t have much time to self-reflect, because the moment she was through Hawkins was standing behind us with a very stern-looking lieutenant. The griffon was giving her the evil-eye, waiting on her to finish. Bandage awkwardly stepped around her, nervously glancing back, and then scrambled off somewhere else out of earshot.

“Glad you finally finished your beauty nap.” Hawkins sneered. I shot her back a dirty look of my own, and pissed off sparks flew between the two of us. We were right back to hating each other, it seemed.

“My patience with you is starting to wear thin.” Alabaster reprimanded, clearly at the end of his wits. “Pretty soon you’re going to have to explain yourself in front of a court.” I nodded silently.

She held my bag, dripping wet with all my supplies, in front of my face. “These are yours, right?” The griffon gave an accusatory snort, and tossed it on the ground in front of me with a wet plop. “You were speaking with him earlier. I could have you tried in court for aiding a wanted war criminal unless you start talking, fast.”

“He stole them.” I countered simply, picking up my bag and wiping it off. “And you were the one who decided to take the risk letting him stay in the first place.” I pointed out, causing the griffon to go red in the face.

Alabaster huffed, “It’s a moot point. The Enclaver was right, we’ve got bigger issues to worry about. Namely, Papa Bighoof.” The first thing he did was remind me that if I wanted any sympathy from New Canterlot, then I’d have to do exactly as he said from now on. I grunted, and nodded along silently.

“So is someone going to tell me what the fuck is going on around here?” I asked, hoping that they would finally fill me in. There was a veritable barrage of questions I had for both of them.

Alabaster summed it up in simple terms. “Our friendly neighborhood raider warlord decided to make his move tonight.” Hawkins was looking pleased with herself, giving a smug grin directed towards the unicorn.

I cocked an eyebrow, “What now?”

“Camp Brave, Outpost 52, and a number of other settlements in the New Canterlot Valley have been attacked. It was all coordinated.” he replied. “Battle is still ongoing.”

This sudden news came as a shock. “Hold on, what? Outpost 52?! Is everyone okay?” I asked.

“We don’t know.” he answered stoically.

Hawkins folded her arms. “New Canterlot is going to win, obviously.” She said it like it was a no-brainer. “And that’s the problem we’re facing.”

I looked at the griffon funny. “How is that a problem?”

“Because New Canterlot doesn’t know we’re here. And when they all retreat back here and find a lone squad of troopers, the raiders won’t be in a prisoner taking mood.” she replied.

“Oh…” I folded my ears back. Then suddenly I realized, “Oh shit. How are you going to explain that report was just a misunderstanding?!”

Alabaster sighed, frustratedly rubbing his temple. “That’ll have to wait.”

“Where’s the sergeant? Is this all of us?” I started to raise my voice asking questions, but Hawkins shushed me harshly. I repeated the same question in a low whisper.

“We sent Corporal Chipper Wind out on a patrol earlier, to make contact with Camp Brave. Thought it was just the Everfree interfering with communications again at first, but turns out it’s worse than that. They ran into an ambush along the way. Raiders.”

“Yup, saw the whole thing from here. Looked like they were using laser weapons. Guess you were right about one thing.” Hawkins begrudged. “But more importantly, I was right. Bet you’re pretty glad I insisted on coming along now, aren’t’cha?” Hawkins took the opportunity to further rub Alabaster’s nose in the fact she was right.

The stallion rolled his eyes.

“So where’s the sarge?” I asked, seeing only a few of us present. “And that other mare. Uh, Jack...?”

“I was getting to that…” Alabaster said, showing clear signs of impatience in his voice. “He’s still out there somewhere. Don’t know about the others.”

“She went out on patrol with them. Wait until they get back.” Hawkins gibed.

Ugh. “Can’t you look again?”

She scoffed at the suggestion, “Yeah, but I’m not about to fly up and check. If he makes it back, then he makes it back. It was their own decision to go out there.”

The lieutenant closed his eyes and exhaled before informing me. “Sergeant Wounded Legs insisted on going out himself to save Chipper and the others... I was against it, but he adamant about it. ‘No pony left behind’ is what he said, and Sugar went with him. He hasn’t gotten back yet so in the meantime I’m down half a squad.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the Lieutenant?” I asked.

He calmly answered. “That’s the way they did things back in the wasteland. I couldn’t change his mind if I wanted...”

“It’s a little harder dealing with an army of mercenaries, isn’t it? ‘Least until that blue bitch is finished with her work.” the griffon smirked.

“They get the job done fine.” He replied. I was almost surprised to hear the unicorn speak in their defense at all.

Hawkins kicked the dirt in frustration. “Fuck. We’re stuck with our pants down, that jackass knight-in-shining-armor-wannabe off and disappeared, and now we’re stuck dealing with this idiot.” She motioned a claw at me, but any offense-taking on my part was ignored.

“So why don’t we fight?” I asked, sounding rather obvious.

Hawkins pulled me aside so that we were standing just on the edge of town leaned her weight on a makeshift barricade, pointing across no-mare’s land. “Can you see over to that hill?” she asked.

“Sorta...” I answered hesitantly, just barely able to make it out.

“Behind that is Ghastly Gorge. That’s where the bulk of Papa Bighoof’s army came from. I dealt with them a bit during my scouting mission in the Smokey Mountains. That place is hell ‘cus of the Quarrays. Didn’t show up until after Cauterize, but the raiders know how to move through it unhindered. They’ve also stockpiled a fuck-ton of firepower and heavy ordinance.” Then she waved in front of my face, pointed back in towards the Outpost 52 and then over to Camp Brave. She made an exploding motion with her claws along with some other military gestures that confused me…

“The battle is still ongoing.” Alabaster informed me. “Papa Bighoof and the idea of a raider army, right now, poses to the greatest threat to New Canterlot Valley and the entire Heartland of Equestria. We’re surrounded on all sides and cut off from reinforcements, so if we reveal ourselves like we just did, we’ll have to take on the entire army by ourselves.”

Nothing even close to this was going on the last time I was here. New Canterlot, and now a raider army? Things had changed in the time I’d been away, that was for certain. I also felt a little sense of guilt and uncertainty in hoping that the citizens of Unity were okay in all of this. It would feel really shitty on my part if they all ended up being destroyed after I said I would help them.

The griffon tapped a claw on her cheek, thinking aloud. “Although I have to admit, Papa Bighoof attacking now still doesn’t make much sense to me... He’s openly declaring war? Seems a bit out of character for him. I was expecting some skirmishers or something, but this… Well, he’s gotta go to war with New Canterlot sometime, guess it might as well be now.”

“Weren’t you the one who was insisting he’d attack?” I pointed out.

“Yeah, what of it? I know Papa Bighoof better than most of the Skyrangers on account of my scouting missions. Point is, I was right, and that’s all that matters.”

“What if Jagged Knife had something to do with it?” I put forward.

“Shut up about Jagged Knife, already.” she snapped.

“Well, if even the “super-genius-brained” Skyranger doesn’t know...” I snarked, and her feathers got all ruffled.

“Hawkins is right, we don’t have time for anymore of these stupid games.” I folded my legs and huffed in frustration as the notion was quickly dismissed.

The remaining Rough Riders had approached until they were almost crowding us before adopting a position of attention. The lieutenant barely even turned them a glance.

Coughing to get his attention, the dark coated pegasus stepped forward hesitantly. “*Ahem* Beg your pardon, lieutenant? I know it’s against protocol, but I’m really worried about Chip. We did do things a little differently in the Enclave, but-”

“What are you doing?” he questioned, “Get back to your posts, all of you.”

Being the only other rank present, Bandage stepped forward. “Lieutenant Alabaster” she asked. “What if they don’t make it back in time? We can’t just leave them stranded out there...”

“Be ready to defend this position, regardless of what happens. We can retreat into the Everfree if need be. Now follow your orders!” he demanded. If the pressure was getting to him, he was trying hard not to show it.

“We just gotta have a little faith, y’know?” Twister said, offering hope to the others. He tapped on my shoulder, noticing the dour look on my face. “Do you have friends or family at the Outpost 52?” He was probably misreading my expression, and taken me for being worried in his attempts to reassure me. “It’ll be alright.”

I thought about it for about a second, then shook my head snickering. “Nah, I’m not worried. That wily old bastard can take care of himself just fine. I’d be more concerned for the raiders, frankly.” I smirked a little, although he seemed mostly baffled by my response. Fair Trade was the sort of pony who’d sooner shoot himself than let some raider finally off him.

Soon they spotted several ponies approaching through the storm. There were four of them, one being carried. “Lower your weapons, it’s just us.” came a familiar voice.

“Wounded Legs!” They all said together.

The sergeant was carrying the battered cream coated pegasus with Sugar’s help. “Bandage, get her healed up.” the old horse said, and she got to work immediately with her magic. That mare from earlier, Jack, was trotting just behind them. She was a bit scuffed up but nothing too bad, although she looked a little sad.

“Surefire didn’t make it” he informed us, hanging his head.

The heavy news hung over them. Ace was the most hard-hit by it. “Surefire’s dead?! Damn that bastard… We had unfinished business…”

Jack squinted her eyes harshly, the tan coated mare being quick to reprimand him. “Now’s not the time for grudges, Ace! He just died!” Ace went silent with unsaid words still on his mind.

Admittedly I hadn’t gotten a chance to get to know him, but it seemed to hit them pretty hard, regardless.

There was a short reunion between the two pegasi as well, where Twister attempted to hug Chipper, but stopped himself as soon as he noticed her injuries. “Thank the stars you’re alright Chip.”

“Same to you Twist.” she smiled weakly and winced in pain. Her wing had a circular laser-burn mark, and she looked like she had taken a bad fall. Her normally well-groomed teal mane and coat were all scuffed up and frazzled, not to mention soaking wet. “They got us good,” she wheezed. “They were using our weapons.”

“Heh, this reminds me of the battle over Hoof.” he laughed lightly.

“Yeah, except last time our positions were reversed.” She managed a wry smile, managing to find some small humor in it. Bandage made him stand aside while she healed her injuries.

I approached Jack with some amount of relief showing in my voice. “Hey, glad you made it back.” I grinned

“Hehe, yup. Same to you, but I wouldn’t go down that easily.” She grinned back. “Thanks for worrying though. You sleep like a rock. They tried, but they couldn’t wake you up.” she snickered, offering a hoof bump. I declined it. She could tell something was bothering me.

“Is your friend alright?” she asked, tilting her head. Her short ponytail swished a little.

“Yeah, I think so…” I answered, although not fully sure myself. “Hey, Jack? Something I wanted to ask you.”, remembering from a couple days ago. The mare perked her ears up curiously. “Do you remember the wasteland?” I asked, staring up at the rain.

Jacaranda wore a funny look on her face, attempting to piece the right words together. “Oh, you’re serious? Yeah, uh, sometimes…” Her eyes wandered off to one side “Usually I try not to think about it, but nights like tonight bring back... memories."

“Really... that bad, huh?”

She gave a little shiver, “Well it wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows, y’know?” She answered. “I remember some of the shit raiders used to pull on innocent mares back home. Can’t imagine anything worse. That’s what drove me to become a mercenary in the first place. Then later I joined up with Wounded Legs, and then Gawd after that. Y’know, making the wasteland a better place.”

“So you weren’t always with Al then?” I asked scrutinizing the hard-nosed lieutenant.

“Nah. He’s one of Blackhawk’s ponies, I think. General Blackhawk that is. He just oversees our operations in the field and back at the base. Real’ strict.” She began doing a nasally mock impression of him. “Jack, don’t forget to clean all the two hundred year old bathrooms for falling asleep at your post again.”

I snerked a little.

She jumped when Alabaster ordered her to get to her post, like he had been listening in on us. Jack apologized quickly and they all went back to keeping their heads down, silently keeping a lookout over no mare’s land. I glared over at him. To me, this felt like just a whole lot of standing around, and I was getting itchy hooves sitting here.

I was growing more irritated and impatient by the minute, so I trotted up to the lieutenant, interrupting a conversation he was having with Hawkins and the sergeant. “So what’s the hell’s the plan?” I asked.

He lowered his eyelids. “You’re really quite troublesome, you know that?”

“So I’ve heard.” I replied. I stomped my hoof to get everyone’s attention. “We’ve gotta do something! We can’t just keep sitting here!” All of the other soldiers who overheard turned to look at me with confusion.

“Be reasonable.” Alabaster chided dismissively. “That’s what we’re discussing.”

“It’s not ideal, but the best option is to just keep our heads down and try to not take on an entire army.”

“What?” I asked incredulously, “So we’re going to sit on our asses and do nothing?”

“That’s the plan.” She said. “Or at least it was, until that Enclaver decided to attempt an escape with that mare you brought along. They probably weren’t paying attention to us before, but whether or not they’ve noticed us, chances are now they’ve got their eye on this place. So thanks for that... Probably still trying to figure out what the hell happened just a few minutes ago. So now we’ve gotta come up with a new one.”

“Why don’t we shoot up a signal flare? At least somepony will know we’re here that way. We’ll hit them while their backs are turned.” I suggested. “C’mon, let’s fight!”

Ace seemed to agree briefly, but shrunk down as soon as Hawkins immediately glared in his direction, so he went back to manning his post.

“What, are you trying to do, get us all killed?” She jabbed back, poking at my chest with her talon. “Weren’t you listening? Because we’re completely cut off and we’ve got three civilians here. Scratch, make that two civies and an idiot. Papa Bighoof’s raiders would just swarm over the town before reinforcements got here.”

“Back off...” I growled.

“I sent a request to Skyranger HQ for reinforcements. Dunno if they got the message. Damned Everfree keeps getting in the way of comms.”

“Why don’t you fly then and deliver the message yourself then?” I asked in a mocking tone.

“Pfft, and risk flying over the Everfree?”

“For supposedly being some badass Skyranger you sure are useless.” I scoffed.

“Likewise, Dirt Muncher.” she fired back.

“Okay, that’s enough.” Alabaster snapped. “We were discussing a plan of action…”

Hawkins made us gather in close. “Alright, here’s the plan. Sarge, go grab the doc and the unconscious mare. Get a couple of your troops on escort. We’re going to head south through the storm, past Camp Brave and take the long way around the Everfree. Since it’s already been hit, there should be minimal raider activity. Not ideal, but at least we avoid having to take on the whole army. I’ll watch over you from the skies. We all rendezvous in New Appleloosa. Sort things out from there.”

“Sounds good. Might work.” Sergeant said, stroking his chin scruff.

Alabaster agreed to the plan as well.

I grumbled at my own idea being rejected. Then suddenly, I felt a tingling on the back of my spine. There was someone approaching. We both looked simultaneously over to our right, and Hawkins followed with her pistol in the same direction as I brought up my rifle. A hulking figure covered in mud was stomping through the storm towards us.

“Who goes there?!” she called out.

As the power-armored figure came closer, the griffon lowered her revolver, realizing it was just Protector Huckleberry. The mud began to wash off slowly, revealing the trademark insignia of the Applejack’s Rangers.

“Not to worry, the cavalry has arrived!” he declared, coming to a halt in front of us.

The griffon holstered her weapon and huffed. “Couldn’t blame someone if they mistook ya for a raider, skulking around in the darkness like that.”

“Sorry ’bout that.” he apologized.

“Where the fuck were you, dumbass?! Fucking around with your gay steel ranger buddies you chucklefuck? Would’ve been useful if you actually showed up during that hostage crisis.”

Lieutenant Alabaster breathed easily, “Well that’s a relief. Now that the ranger’s here he can help with-”

“Actually, I just succeeded in getting into contact with the rest of my chapter. They’re gonna let your New Canterlot friends know that there’s a lone squad out here surviving on their lonesome.” There was a collective, if subdued, cheer from the Rough Riders. Hawkins was the only one who didn’t seem too thrilled. “Since y’all weren’t having much luck, figured I’d do my part. These confounded radios don’t work all too well near the Everfree, y’know?”

“Well, I sure hope you brought a blasted battalion with you,” she snarked, “because we’re gonna need one.”

“Damn right, I did!” he replied, standing triumphantly, and the camp let out a sigh of relief at the news. It was the first bit of ‘real’ good news all night. “They’re trying to contact Camp Brave right now, to send you some reinforcements! Huh? Why do y’all look so down all of a sudden...?” I watched the squad’s morale catch fire and collapse faster than Camp Brave probably did.

Hawkins smacked her face in frustration. “Camp Brave was destroyed you idiot!”

The Applejack’s Ranger seemed perplexed. Finally replied after a long pause. “Huh...well that’s unfortunate.”

“Even if they know that we’re out here they still won’t know our exact location in this storm. So it’s good for nothing! We’ve already got a plan, and we don’t need you butting into it.” Hawkins pointed her gun at the Ranger, “Don’t move...” she snarled angrily.

Huckleberry stared her down, responding with the long barrel of his heavy machine gun, “I don’t think you want to do that griffon…”

The lieutenant tried to stop her before it was too late. “What are you doing Hawki-?!” BANG! BANG! BANG!

Three raiders fell limp in the mud behind him. Each with a bullet in between their eyes as their stealthbuck spells shimmered and flickered off, revealing their corpses. They didn’t look like Jagged’s ponies. Actually, they looked more like inbred mutants wearing combat gear, done up in warpaint and covered in mutant animal parts.

“See the war-markings? They’re Mountainfolk.” Hawkins stated, lowering her smoking pistol. “They don’t always go down when you shoot em either.” She shifted one of the corpses over, glancing at them.

I did a quick search over their military-grade combat armor, unable locate anything resembling the mark I’d associated with Jagged’s raiders. “Fuck …” I cussed under my breath, feeling a little let down. I didn’t know what I was expecting.

“I see you’re having some raider trouble missy...” Huckleberry stifled a weak laugh, looking over his shoulder. “Hehe, you should warn me next time.”

“I’ll do my best to remember…” Hawkins replied, reloading again. She spun the cylinder, then turned to all of us. “The jig is up. They know we’re here. We need to get moving.”

Alabaster ordered the Rough Riders to gather up all the supplies and ammo, and began shouting out orders.

Only Huckleberry seemed completely nonchalant and relaxed during all this, wondering what the fuss was about.

We all turned to watch as the Applejack’s Ranger cleared his throat, and strode past her. He took heavy steps, the pneumatic spell-matrix effortlessly carrying his bulk. “Well then, there’s only one thing to do with raiders.” Huckleberry said.

“Hey, what are you doing? Weren’t you listening?!” Hawkins questioned incredulously.

“Eyup, every word.” he answered back.

Her mouth dropped open, realizing what he was about to do. “Wait, what?! Didn’t you say you’ve already been to the Ghastly Gorge?! What about Papa Bighoof?!”

“Yes, ma’am I did. Shucks, s’awful cute of you to worry about me. Watching you New Canterlots runnin’ around for awhile was amusing, but I think it’s time we real Rangers stepped in and dealt with the situation. Don’t fret. I’ll take this one on personally.”

“That wasn’t flirting dumbass!” the griffon squawked

I sat back and watched the Ranger in relative silence along with the rest of the squad. Wounded Legs raised a hesitant eyebrow, “Uh, are you sure that’s the best plan of action...?”

With a confident chuckle, he kept stepping forward. “A lone Applejack’s Ranger is worth more than one hundred raiders!” he declared. “‘Sides, once my chapter gets here, there won’t be much more left but scraps. So sit back and watch a real soldier at work.”

“Stop! Protector Huckleberry!” The lieutenant yelled, then looked to Hawkins frantically for support. Seemed someone had failed to tell him about the plan, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer. Hawkins responded with a frustrated shrug. With a grim look stretched across his face, Alabaster ordered the troops to take defensive positions and be ready for anything. They all dropped what they were doing and and watched.

Hawkins was red as an apple as she shouted obscenities. “Don’t you dare fire, you fucking idiot! They’ll know our exact position!”

Ignoring her colorful swears, he took several steps out into the open of no-mare’s land, where he paused and sunk several inches deep into the mud. His weapon roared, and began to spray out bullets in the assumed direction of the raiders. Night almost literally becomes day as he practically lit up the entire hillside, unleashing his whole arsenal. Grenades exploded across the open field, forcing me to cover my ears because the noise was so unbearable. I could barely even hear Hawkins’ screeching at him over the sound of his guns.

When it finally appeared he had run out of ammo, there was a long stillness where all we heard was rain falling across the open field. For a moment it even felt like the storm was beginning to ease up. Twister whistled loudly, and a few of the Rough Riders cheered and laughed amongst themselves, giving hoof-bumps. He turned back to look at us, seeing a small glint in his visor. He was probably grinning under his helmet.

“See, what I tell ya?” he chuckled, fully turning around back to us.

A single “Wow…” was about all I could manage. I had to admit, I was a little impressed. Hawkins was the only one who seemed otherwise. I noticed she hadn’t let her guard down yet. The rest were looking on in awe of the ranger’s handiwork and I wondered for a second what it’d be like to have that kind of firepower, fantasizing about my own suit of T-51b.

Suddenly, we were all greeted by the screeching sound of a well placed rocket returned from across no-mare’s land. A bright light like dragon flame came out of the night and exploded a direct hit against the Applejack’s Ranger, flinging the power-armored soldier backwards into the mud.

“Hit the deck!” I heard called out from somewhere.

I shielded myself, then looked up again to see he wasn’t moving. The spell matrix in his armor was shorted out and blown to hell. I couldn’t tell if he was still alive in there, or simply lying there motionless. He had essentially been reduced to a heavy metal suit, stuck in the mud for the time being.

Twister gulped, all of us waiting for what came next.

That rocket was followed by a literal hellfire of laser blasts that hailed from across no-mare’s land, pounding against our meager defenses. “Return fire! Return fire!” I heard the lieutenant barking, but I felt like I was standing in the line of it.

A second rocket veered off course and hit one of the remaining buildings behind us, blowing off chunks of rebar and debris. “They have RPG’s too?!”

I pulled up my rifle and rested it against my body, then began to fire in the general direction of the enemy. But then I felt it beginning to happen again as a laser flew just a few feet from my head. I heard the ringing in my ears, and I stood with my legs rooted in place, not knowing what to do. My lip started to quiver as I saw Starlight Bay again burning within the mortal crossfire of energy weapons. The skeletons of my dead family charred to ash. The Enclave. All of it! I was shaking, overcome by an overwhelming dread that I was going to die in those laser blasts. I thought I heard shouting.

Wounded Legs grabbed me and dragged me behind cover himself. Noticing my pale, thousand yard stare, along with my quivering pupils. He shook me and smacked my face. “Hey kid, snap out of it!” he shouted, yelling in my ear. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I quickly came to my senses and took a deep breath. I looked up at the tobiano wiping my eyes and nodded shakily. “Y-yeah…I’ll be okay. Thanks for that.”

“Don’t go losing yourself!” Wounded Legs said, shouting over the sound of gunfire. “The fight’s just started!”

I shook it off, bringing up my rifle and breathing to steady my aim.

“Are you gonna be alright without a battle saddle?” he asked.

Replying by firing at an oncoming raider, I focused on the battle at hoof. I knew I needed one. In lengthy sustained combat, it made your life hell to try and reload without a battle saddle. My fights were usually one-on-one or against smaller numbers, so it didn’t matter one way or the other so long as I could think of creative ways to kill them. Had to make every shot count here. As I squeezed the trigger I began to repeat to myself over and over, reminding myself that they were only raiders.

Laserfire continued to burn into our makeshift defense as the raiders attempted to swarm over the town, shouting obscene war cries.

When I finished going through a magazine, I stopped, reloaded, then squeezed the trigger again. Pointing my rifle at whatever raider came into my sights, I just fired until they stopped moving.

Although I was finding it hard at first to just tell where the enemy was through the storm. Only Hawkins seemed to be unaffected by it, switching between her sniper rifle and gigantic pistol when the occasion suited her. She fired off another well placed shot from her revolver and felled another one.

“An EFS display would sure be useful right now...” I griped, wishing I hadn’t left that Pipbuck behind. Luckily their weapons would often give away their positions, so I could pinpoint them by following the pink lasers back to their point of origin, stealthbuck or no, and I’d make them dead almost just as easily. A few had just switched theirs’ off in frustration.

“No need to think about it, just keep firing!” I told myself.

Lightning flashed once more and I stopped and stared at seeing how many there were. That was when I saw for myself, and I fully realized the current state of affairs in the territory. They saw us for a split-second too. There were a lot of them casting silhouettes in the storm, even though this wasn’t even the bulk of the army. Some were carrying tattered war-banners from various other raider clans. “When they called this raider country, they weren’t kidding…” I thought.

Stampeding towards our meager defense, the raiders laid down suppressive fire with their Enclave weapons while they rushed the barrier. With a flip of her orange mane, Bandage’s horn lit up, briefly throwing a protective shield in front of us.

Dozens of shots plinked against her yellow magic aura, and the Rough Riders returned fire until cracks began to appear, and then fell not moments later.

Ace joked sarcastically. “Always wanted to die someday.” It hit me a little too close to home, I hate to admit.

I grit my teeth and bucked off a stallion who was attempting to climb over, carrying a stick of dynamite in his mouth. Seeing the lit stick of dynamite on the ground, I quickly grabbed it and threw it back over the barrier, hearing a loud explosion on the other side. Sugar was holding back several on her own, using her impressive muscular bulk to hold them back as we only barely managed to keep them at bay.

Pounding in another magazine, I awkwardly attempted to follow the orders he was shouting out.
The Rough Riders performed like solitary unit and I found myself lagging behind the rest of the squad.

With each shot of her massive revolver Hawkins felled another approaching raider, taking out key targets. She pulled out huge .45-70 sized bullets from her bandolier to reload with and then closed the cylinder. Still stuck bitterly reloading my own service rifle, I pulled back on the charging handle and began firing again, causing hot casings to grace the ground. I cursed under my breath, not about to be outdone by her.

After barely holding them back the first time, the raiders finally made a brief retreat to gather their forces, giving us all a second to breathe.

Hawkins did a quick flyaround, doing some split-second recon before landing back beside us. From the look she was giving us, it was bad news. “They’ve cut off our escape route.” she said, turning and firing another thundering shot from her revolver.

“We’ll have to make a stand here then!” Sergeant rallied, they gave a collective holler and the fight continued.

I was still struggling to get ahold of myself, steadying my breaths to stop myself from shaking. Right as a near-missing Enclave laser flying by, shook me to the core, “They’re only raiders…” I repeated.

Jack looked over at me and asked how I was holding up.

“Yeah, I’m good.” I grinned in an attempt to laugh it off. “Like that time I nearly died during Operation Cauterize.”

We both grinned at each other, laughing. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a faint shimmering outline in the rain approaching behind her. I pointed my hoof, shouting, “-Hey look out!”

The raider’s stealthbuck flickered off as he grabbed Jack by her her tail before she could even to react. “You’re comin’ with me!” He mumbled through his yellowed and crooked teeth, attempting to drag her over the barrier out into no-mare’s land, ripping off a piece of the mare’s armor as she struggled to get free. There were tears in her eyes as she desperately tried to kick at him.

He was a big, hairy, rural-looking earth coated stallion, sporting overalls underneath his war-painted combat armor. Deformed, with a pronounced jawline, he also had a grimy dark patchwork beard. Most of them seemed to possess similar looking features.

Still in the middle of reloading my rifle, I stood up without thinking and roared, throwing a punch as hard as I could. The ugly brute toppled over backwards and stopped moving. From the looks of it, I broke something in his face. I immediately double-tapped him with my pistol for good measure, then spat on the ground and whipped it back in its holster.

I looked down at the mare, still trying to gather her faculties.

Jack was stunned for a moment, looking up at me. “Y-you saved me…” she managed, before a stray shot caught her in the back of her head. The smell of burnt hair and flesh hit my nose as she collapsed to the ground in a heap with a look of confusion in her eyes. I didn’t even have time to savor the sense of heroic accomplishment.

That solitary instance made me take pause in myself. It seemed so stupid and senseless and just served to piss me off even more. That feeling of someone dying in front of me in the blink of an eye. This felt much different than the wasteland I knew. War was like the big, scary grown-up version of the wasteland, that was overall meaner and angrier. Like a manticore on psycho that’s liable to tear you apart if you so much as looked at it the wrong way.

I felt something forcefully pull me back behind cover, followed by more shots to where I was standing just a second before. It was Wounded Legs. I’d actually almost hit him by accident out of reflex. “Keep your head down, kid!” he shouted. “Don’t go running into gunfire!” Pretending I wasn’t shaken, I continued to fire and kept behind cover. Unable to shake the fact that just beyond it was a quick death.

“Darn it, we lost Jack!” he cursed.

All of the gunfire and explosions going on around me reminded me vividly of that day. But there was something different this time besides the fear.

I scoffed as I reloaded my service rifle and brought the sights back up, firing at the nearest raider. “What was the damn point of them anyways?” I thought firing upon a very ugly looking raider mare with an overgrown tangled rats’ nest she called a mane.

Crack!!! Crack!! CRACK!!! She fell over dead with several bullet wounds in her corpse. “It doesn’t matter, just kill anything that looked vaguely like a raider.” I told myself. Part of me was screaming to run away, but there was still that other voice telling me to fight, and it was drowning out everything else.

As another screeching raider missile flew straight towards us. I ducked for cover, but saw a flash of magical energy from the last place I’d seen Bandage, and the rocket flew off and spiraled into the Everfree where it exploded inside. Raising my head up, I saw that it had just barely missed the F&F Tools building. Letting out a short breath, I wiped the sweat off my brow.

Hawkins drew up her sniper rifle and closed one eye as she aimed down the sights. Taking two shots, she downed the two rocketeers from a distance. I assumed she did, at least. It was really difficult to see in this weather. She ejected the empty bullet casings and reloaded.

We all glanced back at the explosion, noticing some of the blasts from our battle were beginning to hit the forest. Hopefully, whatever the hell that thing was from earlier wouldn’t show up...

Rain continued to beat down on me as I fired again from my service rifle, and I wiped my mane from my eyes. Aiming at another nearby raider, my rifle was the only thing I could feel that was warm to the touch.

Then I managed to get in a lucky shot. The raider fell over limp with a bullet-sized hole in their brainpan. “It only took one bullet that time!” I felt particularly proud of that shot, taking a second or two to appreciate it. Seemed I was finally getting the hang of this!

“Hey, nice one kid!” The sergeant said taking notice, wearing a look of approval.

Something about being out here, killing raiders again was... almost refreshing in a way? It was a familiar sort of feeling that I couldn’t quite shake, as if it was becoming second nature to me. Like I was back in the wasteland again. I giggled a little under my breath.

Crack!!! Crack!! CRACK!!! Reload. Keep firing. Crack!!! Crack!! CRACK!!!

Rinse and repeat. Just kill them all.

Crack!!! Crack!! CRACK!!!

“Another… another… and anoth-” I heard sergeant’s voice and I snapped awake. I’d almost lost myself for a second and forgot what I was doing. He was telling me to focus my attention towards the raiders on the other side. Noticing all the dead raiders in front of me, the battle seemed to be going in our favor. We were pushing back against them. We were winning!

Then I turned my head and saw Ace looking at me with his jaw hanging open. “Woah...”

“Wait, what did I do…?” I raised an eyebrow, giving him a funny look.

Any fun I had been experiencing began to subside in lieu of growing concerns as I came to my senses, reaching for another magazine.

Despite our huge numerical disadvantage, we were holding the line successfully, but as I grabbed another magazine from the shrinking stockpile, I could see our biggest concern right then was lack of ammo… and we were quickly running out quickly. There were simply more raiders than we had bullets. Worse yet, it often took several shots to bring each one down. It didn’t take a genius to see the battle was going south fast. There were just too damn many of them!

Then, if that wasn’t enough to make a grown mare scream in frustration, their numbers had only grown since the battle started as more joined in on the fray. They were likely retreating away from their raid, and found a single squad holding out. They were probably hoping for an easy kill. Reloading my rifle again, I promised I wouldn’t make it easy for them.

BOOM!!!

Just then another explosion rocked us, blowing a huge hole in the town’s defenses. The raiders started flooding in through the breach and we laid down suppressive fire while Lieutenant Alabaster called out the order to retreat.

Grabbing everything, including my bag with all my things and as many magazines and rounds of ammo as I could, I sprinted back towards the F&F Tools Emporium, dodging fatal shots as I went.

Retreating further back closer to the Everfree, as they closed in on the town past the first line of defenses, at this rate we’d have to go into the forest. Watching the F&F Tools building, I only thought about how Sunny was still inside and that it would be my fault if anything happened. Thinking to myself we had to hold the line here, no matter what.

Hoping at any the moment that New Canterlot would arrive soon and drive them back into the Gorge, the longer we fought and the more our ammo supply dwindled, the less it felt like anyone was coming to save us.

Things were starting to look grim. I began to feel growing concern for both Page and Sunny hiding in the F&F Tools building. I would find myself occasionally glancing back to make sure the emporium was still in-tact. If any of the raiders snuck past, he might not be able to defend himself while protecting Sunny at the same time. “Were we gonna die here…?” Worries itched in the back of my head. “Dammit! Why tonight of all nights?” I cursed.

Then I was overcome by the weirdest feeling which caused me to stare back at the F&F Tools building again. I shouted over to Lieutenant Alabaster who was currently overseeing the battle, pointing to it. “Hey Al! I think I just saw someone go inside!”

“Stay and hold the line!” he ordered.

“But-”

“That’s an order!” he cut me off. Reluctantly, I followed his command, but the longer I fought the more worried I became about Sunny.

“Honestly, I don’t see how this could get much worse!” Twister shouted.

As if tempting fate, a sudden bloodcurdling howl came out of the Everfree as timberwolves rushed from the forest with hot embers in their eyes, and began attacking foes indiscriminately.

“Aw shit, way to jinx it you featherbrain!” Ace groaned, holding his head between his hooves. Then the jock stallion turned his twin rifles at the timberwolves and open fired. “This is too much! The Everfree is gonna need to take a damn rain check!”

A charred timberwolf charged at me making vicious barks. I lowered my stance and growled, ready to fight it, but turned my head around in confusion as it suddenly darted around me and jumped over the barricade, going after nearby raiders instead. I blinked. Apparently, they they were more interested in revenge on the raiders for shooting rockets into their forest than they were in attacking us. “Huh…”

With their attention shifted away from us, the raiders turned their guns on the timberwolves and began tearing through them with their heavy weapons fire. They wouldn’t last long.

Still, it provided me with the perfect distraction. “Hey, that’s actually kinda helpful for once.” I admitted. So while everyone was busy with the timberwolves, I made a break for the F&F Tools building.

I ran inside, and went silent as the door shut behind me.

The first thing I saw was Page Turner lying on the floor, bleeding from a large gash in his neck. A knife gleamed in the darkness, dripping with blood. “Hey there, girly…” came a familiar voice from the shadows, and my eyes fell upon the raider stallion. It was Sting. “You missing something?”

I glanced at the historian sitting at his hooves. Page Turner was putting pressure on the huge wound to stop himself from bleeding out. I could hear his desperate gurgles for air over Sting’s heavy breaths.

“So that was you hanging out in forest like a total creepazoid?” I asked, giving him an angry stare.

“Heh, what are you talkin’ about?” He cocked his head in confusion. Nevermind, that detail wasn’t important for now.

Sting gently ran his hoof through Sunny’s silky blonde mane making me more irritated. He looked different this time. Not only was he acting calmly for once, one of his eyes had been completely gouged out. I know I beat him up, but I never did that to him...

Drawing notice to his maimed appearance, I asked, “Woah, what happened…? You look even uglier than before.”

He gave a light chortle, squinting his good eye. “That’s the price of failure, girly. Something you’d probably know nothing about.”

”Yeah, whatever...” I said, firing a full magazine from my service rifle. I didn’t feel much like chatting. When the first couple shots passed through him though, I could tell something was off. As I continued to fire more rounds, I became frustratingly confused at how he was just standing there, looking completely unfazed. Why wasn’t it working? All my shots were passing through him like he was a ghost! Then I heard the rifle click. “W-what the heck?!”

The magic from his horn dimmed. “You won’t catch me off guard again…”

“Tch!” I grit my teeth, throwing down my rifle down and charged at him, but he blinked out of the way at the last moment and I got a hoof-full of nothing. It was like deja vu. I wheeled around and he was standing at the door.

“You care about this don’t you?” he grinned, rubbing his hoof against Sunny’s cheek. “Think I’ll hang onto this for collateral. Bring whatever you got from the 52. Don’t forget.”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?! Don’t touch her-!” He disappeared before I could finish my sentence.

Hastily looking back and forth between the door and Page Turner, still bleeding out, I had to make a choice fast. Fuck...

I rushed to Page’s side and applied pressure to the wound, but I was no medic. Dammit, if only I hadn’t used my one healing potion already! I cursed again as my eyes darted around frantically, unsure of what else I could do. His horn was flickering on and off and he was looking pale. “Wait, duh. Why don’t you use healing magic?” I asked, but he didn’t answer. I leaned in and sniffed the wound. Poison...

“But I don't know how to deal with poison!” I moaned. His condition was growing worse by the second. Then I noticed his eyes were motioning somewhere. He was pointing across the room to his medical supplies! “Right! Duh.” I rushed over and searched through them until I found a single corked bottle of faded red liquid. I galloped back and fed it to him, and then he gasped a deep breath of air. I felt a small sense of comfort, but after the wound had healed, then he began coughing uncontrollably. “What?! Did the potion have no effect?” I asked hectically.

“I’ll be okay.” he coughed, hacking up bodily fluids. “Just stuff in my lungs… Sorry… he caught me by surprise.”

“It’s okay.” I breathed an easy sigh of relief.

Page gestured me to leave him be. “G-go… *cough* save your friend!”

Picking up my rifle off the floor again, I burst into a gallop towards the double-door exit. That’s right. Sunny was my friend. And I wasn’t about to let another friend die tonight! I burst through the main doorway back into the storm busy raging on around me, feeling rain whipping against my face. Sting was standing out in the darkness of no mare’s land. I could just barely see him with Sunny. He gave a wicked smile before he blinked away into nothing.

I ran after him. That bastard wasn’t going to get away from me!

The Rough Riders had fended off any remaining Timberwolves and returned to the battle at hoof. They all looked a little beat up, but were handling themselves from the looks of things.

Uncaring whether or not I died, I made a gallop for certain death but was stopped by Lieutenant Alabaster outside. The New Canterlot officer shouted over gunfire, “I need you to go back inside. Go grab the doctor and your friend!”

“A raider snuck inside and attacked Page!” I said, peering around him while anxiously running in place. “He’s got Sunny! I’ve gotta save her!”

“We need you here.” he said, and I stopped. On second glance, the state of the battle wasn’t going as well as I initially thought. Their final defenses were just barely holding together as the other Rough Riders were laying down fire, trying to hold the raiders back. Ace was fumbling with loading a flaregun close to me.

“Wait- but…”

“They’re closing in on us. We’re not going to last much longer at this rate, so we’re going to shoot up a signal flare and retreat into the Everfree. Take our chances. Hopefully, we come out safe on the other side.”

The idea of heroism in me began to fade away. Here I felt like a foal who had finally stumbled into the real world by accident. I was catching my first dose of reality since Operation Cauterize and I didn’t know what to do. My mind stood still, processing the situation. I hoped Outpost 52 and the townsfolk in Unity were okay in all this... Then it hit me, I had a sudden burst of realization. “Wait… that’s it!” I ran up and snatched the flare gun from Ace who was busy fumbling with it. He smelled gross, like sweat and psycho. “Ace I need to borrow this.” I said, mumbling through my teeth.

“H-hey!” he shouted in protest. “Fuck you, I need that!”

“All of you hold the line! I’ve got a plan!” I said, making a run for it.

Hawkins landed in my path in front of me, before I could get any further. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?!” She pressed her pistol right up against my forehead “Seems like this is the only thing you understand. If you want to run out into that field and commit suicide, then I’ll kill you myself. Give it here.” She held out her claw in front of me.

None of the soldiers were in a position to get involved they were all too busy holding the line. All except the Lieutenant who stood by watching me without saying a word. Seemed like this was between me and her.

I growled. “Hawkins, I hate you, but you’re gonna have to trust me.”

“Give me one damn reason!” she demanded. “You’re running around like a loose cannon on fire. Get a clue, and scope out the situation for once!”

“I’ve got a plan,” I insisted, “and it involves me running across that battlefield.”

She looked unconvinced as I stared down the barrel of her gun, unflinching, but I got fed up with waiting. “You want to do this now?! Fine.” I snarled, “Fucking do it then! Or you can let me go and save all your sorry asses. But one way or another, I’m going out there! So don’t try to stop me!”

She replied, “I’m not going to let you kill this whole squad just to save some mare...” The griffon pulled back on the hammer and we stared each other down in silence. I felt a burning spark in my eye and I wasn’t about to let it go out here.

“Hawkins!” Alabaster shouted, and she finally relented. “That’s enough.” He briefly addressed me out of the corner of his eye, almost as though he were ashamed to look at me. “I don’t like it, but it’s the only option we have. You can try, but if you get left behind and die that’s on you.”

Chipper Wind looked at her commanding officer in disbelief and then briefly at me. The pegasus sounded uncertain of his decision, but wouldn’t say why. “But...but lieutenant, that’s...!”

“Enough, Chipper. Focus on the task at hoof.” he ordered and she did so reluctantly.

The others looked at me as well as though I were already dead. As I walked past them Wounded Legs gave me a slight nudge with his hoof. “Good luck, kid,” said the old tobiano.

Hawkins glared silently at Alabaster for a moment, then stepped aside and turned her head away from me. “Tch, then go out there and die for all I care.” She took off into the air before I could say anything.

I nodded, looking out across the battlefield and at the horror that stood in my way. Scoffing to myself, “If that’s what it took to be taken seriously around here, I’d throw myself into certain-death situations more often.”

Chipper watched with disgust as Ace pulled out a special looking syringe from underneath his uniform and injected himself with it. “Is that Stampede?!” she exclaimed.

“Fuck off, pegasus.” he spat, as the chem started to course through his veins. “This is my special ‘Ace in the hole’.” The earth stallion raised up and began firing off his twin rifles screaming like a madpony at the top of his lungs. “OH YEAAAH!!! Come and get some, raider bitches!!”

Sergeant Wounded Legs put on a do-or-die face. “Celestia knows, not like we’ve got a better plan, right?” They all let out a collective rallying cry as I walked towards certain death, beginning to pick up a running start. I probably could’ve used some of that stuff, all things considered.

I sprinted out into no mare’s land at breakneck speed, jumping over a raider with a stupid look on his dumb face. I’d either save her or die trying. “Oh well. When in doubt, double down!” I thought, galloping past more of them. They were so focused that they didn't all immediately notice me. That’s what I was counting on. For a second they looked literally dumbfounded at seeing a lone mare trying to run past them, but as soon as it wore off they aimed their weapons and fired on me. Literally dozens of shots and the odd explosion missed me narrowly. I eeped and ducked under a laser blast where only an inch separated it from my face. I felt the burn on the tip of my muzzle.

Through the storm, I could see a single weak spot. A gap in their defenses. Then looking past that, that was where I was aiming. Sting was on the other side, up in those hills. That’s where he went. So I charged straight through it!

More raiders everywhere. Thankfully, more focused more on the battle than on me, but I drew more fire as I went. On my right side, I could see the Ghastly Gorge, where they had set up some light artillery near the entrance. My mouth dropped open. “They have artillery?!” I cried. “That’s totally unfair!“

I didn’t even stop as the mortar shell streaked over my head like a comet, but then failed to hit its target. Thankfully it was wildly inaccurate, and it’d take them a while to reload to boot. “That was shot was too close for comfort,” I thought. Although, my sudden outburst also drew the attention of more raiders who hadn’t previously noticed me. My ears folded back and I made a bolt for it.

Finding myself dodging under more lasers and sidestepping raiders trying to grab me or my tail, I had the edge on them in terms of straight agility. With the laserfire flashing by my head, it was like being back at Starlight Bay, only tenfold. I was positive that I was about to die at any moment. All it would take was one wrong step, and I could feel the hitch in my shoulder starting to cramp.

Running faster, I pushed with everything I had! “Like hell! I wasn’t going to die here!”

There was this indescribable feeling. That unbelievable rush. The excitement. And everything that came with it! Something I’d not felt in a long time. Even though all my senses were being bombarded with multiple things at once, there was something exhilarating I got here that I couldn’t get anywhere else. I almost wanted to laugh at how horrifying it was as another shot ripped past me.

A big muscular mountain-pony with a pale-green coat charged in front of me, aiming his Enclave rifle. He had some sort of animal fang cutie mark on his flank, and he was the only thing left standing between me and where I needed to go. He was also the biggest pony I’d run into yet. A pink beam of energy missed me barely, and as I got closer he reared up on his hind legs to strike me.

“Don’t get in my way!” I shouted angrily, charging with all my might. As he went high, I went low. I slid under him and kicked up hard. I felt a crunch, and he howled in excruciating pain. Ducking between his rear legs, I broke back into a sprint on the other side, looking over my shoulder with a devilish grin on my face. One more shot passed me by, lightly singing my cheek as I sprinted away.

“Huh. I didn’t know a stallion’s voice could go that high…”

I ran. I just ran. I didn't stop, didn't look back. Not until the shots began to grow distant behind me.

Eventually I came to a spot that was relatively calm and away from the action. My heart was beating out of my chest as I collapsed gasping for air. “Okay, let’s never do that again.” I promised myself. I felt the hitch in my shoulder while running, so I took a second as I stretched my foreleg. “It’s going to take a while getting used to that…” I groaned.

I could see the battle continuing on in the distance. The Rough Riders were all back there still fighting. I didn’t have long. Who knew if the raiders would manage to get a lucky hit with that artillery? Didn’t want to wait to find out either.

When I got up, I began to look around searching for any sign of that bastard, but he was nowhere in sight. I looked up at the hill. “Gotta get moving.” My legs took the first step, dreading the climb, but then I heard a squelch and felt my hoof step on something soft. Looking down I saw a New Canterlot soldier’s corpse at my hooves, half-buried in a ditch.

What? “But why would…?”

I pulled her out, and saw a permanent look of horror etched across her face. This body was old, likely died some weeks ago. There were also more New Canterlot uniforms discarded into the pit with her. “That wouldn’t make any sense though...” My brow furrowed, as I added another question to the ever-growing list.

Looking at the high quality gear just laying there, I looked back at my own armor which was damaged beyond repair. I discarded it on the ground and wore one of the New Canterlot uniforms over my jacket in its stead. “Bad luck. Sorry to do this. I’ll be taking that from ya...” I apologized, strapping it on. The armor was much better than what I’d been using up to now. “But at least I’ll be slightly more resistant to bullets now.”

I got to work climbing to the top of the hill with the flaregun in my mouth as more rain batted against my face. I struggled to find my footing occasionally, but I managed it. I had to admit, it would’ve been way easier if I had wings.

When I reached the top, I glanced around looking for anyone else. I could see everything from up there. A fair distance away, I could even see the Whitetail Woods. Although I couldn’t tell if Unity was still around or not. Squinting hard through the dark, at least it appeared that it hadn’t been attacked. All my chips were riding on this. Hopefully Sheriff Green would get the message.

Briefly, I observed where the others were holding out desperately, and pointed the flare gun upwards at the sky. “This’ll draw their attention.” I thought.

Then I sensed a group of ponies behind me and lowered the flaregun. I wheeled around to face them. The head raider’s bright yellow eyes flashed in the darkness and he stepped closer to where I could see him. It was that dark-coated San Palaminoan I met before.

My eyes narrowed on Sunny who was with them, still unconscious. Sting and the larger pony with the eyepatch who had been present during the caravan assault were there as well. I still didn’t know his name, but his cutie mark seemed to be a depiction of three ornate playing cards with one flipped over. “What do you want?” I asked.

“Hey there. Glad you could make it, Little-Miss-New-Canterlot-Soldier.” the dark-coated raider replied, welcoming me.

“You’re not Jagged Knife.” I stated flatly.

“It’s Angel Eyes.” he corrected shortly.

“Who?” I snarked back. “Look, I’m feeling generous today, so how about you give her over before I put you in the dirt myself.”

“Hahaha! You should show that side of yourself more often! It’s a good look for you. Relax, I only wanted to have a little chat. Between the three of us.”

Sting was having trouble counting. Then out of nowhere the larger stallion knocked him unconscious, hitting him in the back of the head. Wait, what...? Now I was really confused.

“Oops.” Angel sneered.

“What was that for? Tell me what the hell is going on!” I demanded.

He shrugged. “I just needed him temporarily for his special talents. Y’know, so we could have a proper face-to-face conversation. You’ve got a beef with him too, right? Sting is the boss’ little bitch boy. So can’t have him snitching on us, now can we?” Angel Eyes bowed his head mock-apologetically. “Sorry about earlier, please accept my meager hospitality.” Then he turned his knife towards Sting, about to kill him.

“N-no, wait!” I stopped him, putting my hoof forward. I don’t know why I did.

“Why do you care about this little shit? We’d both be better off with him dead.” he pointed out, and he wasn’t wrong.

“I don’t know...” I replied, thinking of an excuse. “Just… If you’re gonna kill him, look him in the eyes first.”

“Pfft. Have it your way.” he snorted, pulling the knife away. “You came here for answers, right?”

“If you’ve got em, then start talking.” I demanded. I wanted to know everything. “Where’s your boss? I’m going to put a fucking cap in his head for causing me this much trouble.”

He laughed lightly. “The boss is no longer here. He went back to Dodge already.”

“Dodge? As in ‘Dodge City’ Dodge?”

Angel Eyes appeared amused more than anything. Then he pressed his knife against Sunny’s throat. “First thing’s first: you tell me what you were hired to carry from the Outpost 52. I don’t have all night.”

What was he talking about? I was drawing a blank. “It was just a trade report.” I answered. “Nothing worth noting.”

“You honestly think I’m stupid enough to believe that?” he spat.

“It’s the truth though!” I shouted, my frustration showing.

“Tell me or the bitch dies.” He pushed the knife deeper into Sunny’s neck causing it to break the skin.

“Leave her alone!”

“Then give me what I want.” Angel demanded, slowly pressing harder. “You’re killing her...”

I had to think fast, so I said the first thing that popped into my head and rolled with it. “A-Alright! You caught me!” I blurted out. He skeptically pulled the knife away, his yellow eyes flashed and he cocked an eyebrow, waiting. “It was a... memory orb!” I lied, “Of Rainbow Dash and some other pony. I don’t know who. Um… Gawdyna wanted it.”

“Good girl…” he smiled gesturing at me with his hoof, “Now give it over.“

I tossed the memory orb at him and it landed by his hooves. The larger earth pony with the eyepatch picked it and turned to Angel Eyes. His rough white coat drenched by the rain. “Rainbow Dash? What would the boss want with something like that?”

“No idea...” he answered. “One last job, he said…” Thankfully, they bought it. They looked more confused than me though.

“So what’s this plan of yours about? Are you working for Papa Bighoof or Jagged Knife or what? Which is it?” I asked.

Angel burst out in laughter “You really don’t know anything, do you? Well don’t worry, you’ll get your answers. Just meet me in Dodge City. I’ll give you everything you want and more.

“No deal.” I said. “I held up my end of the bargain. Give her back and tell me everything!”

A glint crossed his eyes as he had a sudden thought, and he paused. “Huh… Y’know, actually I think I’ll hang onto her for a while. Keep her safe.”

I shouted in anger, “If you think I’m going to play along with this, you’ve got another thing coming!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep her alive. I need you to cooperate after all.”

All I could feel was rage burning inside me, but then I looked behind them, and there they were. I had thought I saw something over the Smokey Mountains. They were hidden by the storm but this time I could clearly make them out. Vertibucks. Those were Enclave ships alright. It’s wasn’t just my imagination! I wasn’t crazy! They were only visible for a fleeting moment, but they were definitely there.

“They’re real…” I whispered in awe.

“Tell me one last thing.” I asked, staring back at him so I could see the expression of his eyes clearly. I wanted to know for sure whether he was lying or not. “Does Papa Bighoof use Vertibucks?”

He replied with bemused laughter at my request, “Doubtful. They’d draw too much attention. Why do you want to know?”

“I want to know if there are Enclave hiding in the Smokey Mountains.”

Angel Eyes laughed out loud. “Why do you give a shit if there are Enclave or not? Maybe you should ask your little pegasus friend…”

Sunny finally began to open her eyes, half asleep as the drugs finally began wearing off her system. “Rou…?” she asked, rubbing her eyes. “W-what’s... going o-?! Mmmph!” The larger raider bound and gagged her. She was confused and didn’t know what was going on. I felt bad for dragging her into this.

“Thanks” I replied, firing the flare gun into the air. It dyed the battlefield in a dim red light as it travelled upward, and I heard the fighting stop as the raiders took notice. Hopefully this wasn’t all for nothing.

I waited and prayed to Luna that they’d get the message.

“Sting, wake up.” Angel nudged the unicorn awake.

“Ugh, I got a fucking headache…” he groaned. “What happened?”

“Aw, Sting. You fell asleep again, you narcoleptic dipshit.”

“H-hey fuck you, Angel! Something hit me in the back of the head is all… Bet it’s this bitch’s fault!” he glared at me with contempt, and I almost rolled my eyes again at the irony. “Hey what’s that?” he asked, staring upwards.

The raiders were probably confusing it for the signal to retreat and were debating amongst themselves what to do. Then we began to see small flashes of light begin to appear on the battlefield, and I smirked.

We all looked down and caught the sight of a magic green bolts driving back the army. They were coming from a group of alicorns from the town of Unity, and they were being led by Sheriff Green! Together, they were fending off the remaining raiders, pushing them back towards the Ghastly Gorge. I wished I could’ve seen the look on Alabaster’s face when a troop of alicorns showed up to help!

Green’s horn fired up with crackling energy as she blasted another raider with her magic, while another one was making use of her teleport ability to disorient and confuse them. The gambit seemed to have paid off. Soon New Canterlot forces would see the signal and bring the cavalry galloping along with them! All of it according to plan.

“W-What the hell-?!”

“Battle’s over.” I answered. “You better get running soon.”

The winds began to shift, l and the clouds started to stir above us. I felt pretty awesome right then in that moment, not going to lie.

I turned back to look at Sunny, who was shaking and scared. With my eyes, I promised that she’d be alright. She could hear the barely calmed white-hot rage in my voice as I addressed Angel Eyes. “If you hurt even one hair on her head... not even dyin’s gonna stop me from killing you. You bastards are all officially on my shit list.” I couldn’t even remember another time when I’d been that angry. “Let her go. Now!”

Angel laughed. “Good. Stay mad. I’ll need you angry.”

I growled, whipping out my rifle. Sting levitated his knife up closer to Sunny’s neck in response.

Before I knew what hit me, I felt a familiar weight slam on top of me, dropping me into the wet hillside. Then I heard a familiar griffon’s voice. “Ya doing alright, dirt muncher?” she asked, then demanded Sunny with her outstretched pistol. "Let her go."

The sounds of the battle were drawing closer. A sudden stray bullet flew between us, far too close for comfort. That was the chance they'd been waiting for. The raiders made a sudden break for it as Hawkins aimed to fire. She picked me up and took flight while the raiders scattered, carrying Sunny away with them, meanwhile as I struggled to free myself, shouting curses at the top of my lungs.

Sting stayed behind to get in a final word. “Screw off, New Canterlot!” he shouted at her. “Tell Gawdyna to suck my cock, you stupid fat griffon bitc-” BANG!!! Hawkins interrupted him mid-insult, firing another shot from her revolver. The bullet phased straight through the back of his head, making him do a double take. “Woah! Hey! For Luna’s sakes lady?! I was only jokin’!” He blinked away as she began firing off more rounds.

“Dammit. I wanted to hit his other eye. Annoying little prick...” she complained. Even with her impressive aim, she couldn't manage a good shot while carrying me.

“Sunny!” I screamed, struggling with all my might to get free of her talons, but the griffon held on tight. I shouted every obscenity I could think of at her. “Lemme go! I’m not through killing them yet!”

“Uh, you’re welcome?”

“Luna fuck! Lemme go, you stupid cunt!” I screamed.

Flapping, she took off carrying me back over the open field below where the battle was still going. Sunny got further away as I thrashed around violently, ignoring the fact that a drop from this height might’ve killed me.

“Don’t make me drop you!” she threatened, her wings compensating for my extra weight.

I didn’t care about that though. “Luna fucking dammit! They’ve still got her!”

“She’s a goner. That’s the wasteland. Deal with it!” Hawkins hissed soberly, and as I continued to struggle, wanting to be back there, she grew further and further. Until I finally gave up and went silent, still feeling that unbridled rage inside. I wanted to kill them all, that was my one wish more than anything.

While the wind rushed past me and I looked down at the scene below, some of the raiders were still having trouble deciding if they wanted to fight or not.

“That’s why we do what we do.” Hawkins puffed, struggling to think of any nice words to say. “New Canterlot’s gonna have some questions for you. Go back to bed... We’ll sort this shit out in the morning...”

“She’s not gone.” I replied.

We both watched suddenly, as a heavenly pillar of lightning fell from the clouds, striking and turning one of the raiders into a sparking, smoking husk. That sent the rest running back to the Gorge, just as the New Canterlot Skyrangers finally arrived and started to pick off stragglers who fell behind. I glanced over at the SPP tower again as the weather shifted around and swirled above us. It was like the phrase I heard once: Execute one to warn a thousand. I Couldn’t remember where I’d heard it.

Although I was tired, I didn’t feel much like sleeping. However, I kind of did like the feeling of the wind against my face. As we flew through the air, I remembered I’d always heard other earth ponies talk about how terrifying the idea of flying was, but this wasn’t so bad. If only I could’ve actually enjoyed it a bit more.

I’d kill every last one of them. Especially Jagged Knife. Deep down, I knew he was the one responsible for all this. I’d go find him in Dodge and make him answer. But right now, my eyelids felt heavy. I couldn’t stay awake any longer.

Hawkins broke the silence between us. “Y’know. I’m not typically one to dole out compliments, but that was pretty well played back there. I honestly wasn’t expecting you to survive. Just make sure to keep it to yourself...”

“Yeah…”

The last thing I saw was the crack of dawn on a distant horizon, before I dozed off.

_{[You are now dressed as a member of New Canterlot.]}

Level up!

Quest Perk Added:

Rough Rider - You’re an honorary Rough Rider now! +10% Effectiveness with New Canterlot service weapons! +1 DT

Perk Added:

Battlesense - You are now more keenly aware of what’s going on around you in the heat of combat. +1 Perception in combat.

Chapter 7: Outside Bets

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Chapter 7-

Outside Bets

“Nopony’s that big, not even Big Macintosh, and he was ‘BIG’.”

“It’s bright…” I grumbled, squinting up at the sky.

I glared, half-closing my eyes over at one of the S.P.P. towers, speaking as though she could hear me. “Is it just your prerogative to make me miserable every single day, Lightbringer? How about you cut me some slack once in a while?” Whatever. As if she was even listening.

Yawning as I dragged my hooves into New Appleloosa, still groggy from the night before due to lack of sleep, this morning had been equally exhausting and I felt like I had bags under my eyes. Back in Gawd’s territory, the entire settlement was abuzz with rumors from events of the previous night.

My eyes briefly dwelled on the sight of one of the three downed Raptors outside the settlement’s walls as I walked past them on the way into town. The Raptor Graveyard as it were, just like the bartender in Unity said. It seemed less deserving of the name being here in person, but I hardly paid them as much attention as I normally would. Enclavers probably thought these gigantic black cloud ships were regal displays of their awesome power. I scoffed to myself. “Pretentious more like…”

I didn’t care about the Enclave anymore. Or at least there were enough far more pressing matters that I didn’t care about them at the moment.

Keeping pace alongside a hoofful of New Canterlot soldiers, nopony questioned me as I came into town. It might’ve been due to the fact I was wearing New Canterlot armor, so maybe they just assumed I was one of them… Lucky for me. I didn’t feel like talking anyways.

The sun was about late morning height, casting rays over the now expanded railroad town. The station house had been given a fresh coat of paint and the newly restored railroad ran all the way to Junction Town and back. Among many other fresh additions to the town, it brought stark contrast to my memory of when I’d last been here. More train cars had been added since then, likely to accommodate new wasteland citizens, but the overall look and feel of the place still felt familiar. Although it was much more lively now. Maybe that was partially due to the fact that the news of what happened last night has quickly circulated amongst all the nearby settlements.

“For real, another raider threat? Well, can’t the Lightbringer just throw a couple tornados at ‘em and be done with it?”

“Well, I heard that Gawdyna was discussing a plan of action with the Stable Dweller and her allies. There was a report about it not long ago over the radio.”

“That’s a relief!”

New Canterlot mercs were posted along the circular ring of rail cars serving as defenses around the town watching for threats in the distance. One of them had set up a lawn chair with a portable radio next to it reading off updates on the situation.

The Mayor/Sheriff was busy, caught up trying to address a few frustrated settlers voicing their concerns over the possible threat of a raider army now looming past the Ghastly Gorge. Some were wondering whether or not they should get out while they had the chance, holding mixed opinions on the matter, while others were discussing the possibility of postponing an election coming up, and whether or not it should be put on hold as the mayor tried to disperse the crowd.

Flanking his side was a bald-headed, scarred up, mean-looking deputy mare with a needle like dagger on her flank as a cutie mark. The mare was wearing some sort of cowpony getup with studded leather armor over her scarred coat, and I noticed her watching me through her squinted eyes as I passed her by.

Above, I could see Skyrangers circling somewhere overhead. New Canterlot’s presence in the area was really beefing up, taking the situation into account.

“Maybe I should move to New Bucklyn or Tenpony Tower? I don’t want to take my chances. Camp Brave wasn’t that far from here!”

“That’s it, I’m moving to Vanhoover!”

The mayor, Railright, stepped forward in front of the crowd in an attempt to calm their fears.

“Now, now, calm down… we’re all staying right here. No way in hell are we gonna let a few lil’ ol’ raiders scare us off. We New Appleloosans have weathered far worse storms than this.”

After the events of last night and this morning, I didn’t have the time or luxury to go back to Unity and cross-reference my sources, or to continue on some wild molerat chase after Enclave ships. None of that mattered anymore. I’d already decided where I was going...

I got approximately two and a half extra hours of sleep before I was rudely woken up by Hawkins, staring down at me. Surprising that she even gave me that much, before dragging me off to a secluded place where she sat me down away from the others.

That one Wartime Ministry office in Opportunity, which survived most of the fighting, had a small interrogation room tucked in the back where we could speak in private. Hawkins sat across from me, looking like a hard-beaked detective about to question her suspect.

I wanted to immediately get out of there and go after Sunny, and told her as much, but she ordered me to sit down so we could “have a little chat”. There were still a lot of things I had to supposedly answer for. Sitting here was just making my hooves itch.

So I told her what I saw up on that hill, insisting that I saw Enclave ships again last night. “They’re probably using the scheduled storms to move around undetected.” She didn’t believe me. Why wasn’t I surprised?

Frustrated, I kept repeating myself. “I really saw them!” But I caught her frowning for a brief second like perhaps she was thinking to herself, and she didn’t mouth off or insult me again like I thought she would.

“Listen,” she said, “Do you really believe that if there were Enclave vertibucks flying over the Smokey Mountains that nobody would notice? The Lightbringer would’ve seen them, no doubt.”

“What? Why would the Lightbringer see them? That’s stupid,” I scoffed, heavily confused by her dumb statement. Was that some kind of faith based thing? Didn’t imagine griffons to be religious, especially for some extremely recent wasteland heroine. She just rolled her eyes for some reason. “Didn’t you hear me? They’re using the storm systems as cover!” I repeated again. “O-Or something!”

Giving me a straight glare, Hawkins told me once and for all, “Listen, forget about Jagged Knife and forget about the Enclave,” and my eyes narrowed and my ears pinned back at her. “I’m not asking you to forgive them, but I scouted all over the Smokey Mountains and didn’t find a sure trace of them. There are details that we’re still confirming which you may be unaware of, and you running around screaming your head off about Enclave ships will only incite a panic.” I eased up a little from grinding my teeth together into a grumble. Much as I hated to admit, she was making some sense now, at least. Although I was still not entirely sold on it.

Again, I pointed back towards the Smokey Mountains and said, “Hey. I found a bunch of discarded New Canterlot armor pieces next to some of dead troopers laying buried in a ditch while I was out in no mare’s land. Know anything about that?”

As I waited for an answer, she squinted her eyes at me in annoyance. “I’ll look into it,” she said reluctantly.

“Right...” I muttered, not expecting much else.

“Anyways, we’ve got enough to deal with, and there would be serious political ramifications for not only you but New Canterlot as well. So do me a favor and keep your stupid mouth shut, Dirt Muncher.” She finished with an insult, naturally. But I wasn’t feeling right enough to get into an argument with her about it. I crossed my hooves and looked away, only barely responding with a single pouty nod.

“Good,” the griffon finished, seeing as we’d come to an understanding. She also added that anything regarding last night, should also be kept to myself from now on. Also to just play dumb next time I spoke to the Lieutenant or anyone above his rank that decided to question me about it. “Remember: things work differently now. Not everyone in New Canterlot is always looking out for your best interest,” she said.

“What, so I’m supposed to trust you, then?” I spat.

“I don’t care if you do or not. I’m just telling you that for your own good,” she rebuked. Wait, was she looking out for me now…? Was she confirming or denying? Or just trying to keep me out of her feathers? “So are we understood?” she repeated.

I sighed and repeated that I understood everything, and she promised that New Canterlot was going to stay in touch with me. “Great,” I thought, my inner voice dripping with sarcasm.

After subtly reminding me about my courier job, pointing to my slightly water-damaged bag which she left for me in the corner, Hawkins stood up and began to make her way towards the door. Pulling it open with her claw, she turned back towards me with a look like she was making a minor attempt at being sincere. I blinked back at her, waiting.

“Also, y’know…” she began, and I narrowed my eyes in spite. Was she going to take the opportunity to get one last dig at me? “You probably think I should’ve saved her instead of you, but there was only so much I could do in that situation. It’s partly your own fault for throwing off my aim so damn much with your struggling. But regardless, I’m sorry about your friend...” She closed the door behind her. I spat after the metal door shut, leaving me alone in the interrogation chamber.

“Tch.” Was that supposed to be her idea of an apology?

There was a smiling poster of a certain pink mare with a pink cotton candy-striped mane staring creepily at me through years of decay beside me. I stared back. Not the first time I’d seen her; that mare was damn near everywhere in the wasteland, like some kind of creepy stalker. Standing up, I picked up my things and exited the room, shooting her a dirty look out of the corner of my eye to let her know who was boss.

When I got outside, Hawkins had already gone. She didn’t even stick around to say goodbye or anything. “What the hell is her game?” I muttered to myself wondering about her motivation, but decided it was best not to trouble over it. Overall, I was still feeling kind of numb to everything. That sting of defeat was still weighing down on me to where I didn’t know what to think anymore.

It quickly dawned on me that I didn’t know any of what happened after I had been knocked out for the last few hours as I stepped out of the way of a pair of Applejack’s Rangers walking by with their trademark red accents and three apple insignia in full power armor. Because of the sheer bulk of their gear, they almost took up half of mainstreet! I almost had to squeeze against the wall of the Ministry office just to let them pass.

One of the Rangers spoke about how New Canterlot was sending one of their colonels to oversee things here. As they went by me, I overheard a bit of their conversation, but then I almost bumped into another New Canterlot pony going in the opposite direction and I huffed in annoyance.

“Any idea who?” the other one asked.

“Nope,” he replied flatly and with a hint of irritation.

“Great, just what we need, more bureaucrats...” the other Ranger griped. “Have you made contact with the Cathedral of Overcast yet?”

“No, but we’ve notified Elder Crossroads. Status seems to indicate they suffered no losses from the attack. Most of it was directed on the Outpost 52 and the Canterlot Salvage Operation. All New Canterlot locations.” He reported. All in all the attack didn’t cause too many losses, and it seemed like damages were mostly limited to this general area as Ponyville was mostly spared during the assault.

Three other griffons were leaning against the Tools Emporium across the street, mostly keeping to themselves. The lot wore New Canterlot dusters over their old Talon gear, generally looking bored. When one of them noticed me looking at him, I turned away and began looking for somepony I knew.

“Excuse me, ma’am.”

I side-stepped out of the way of another New Canterlot pony trotting in the opposite direction with supplies being carried across camp. Everypony looked busy here and I wasn’t sure who to speak to. “Maybe if I can find Page or the Lieutenant they’ll be able to help me sort through this mess...” I thought, muttering aloud.

Taking a quick survey, I couldn’t see anyone I recognized. Mostly soldiers, being either New Canterlot mercs or Applejack’s Rangers. The odd alicorn was here too, in the middle of a heated debate with a Protector. “Hey, I wonder if Sheriff Green is around here...” I thought to myself, I owed her big time.

As I searched, others trotted around me barely paying any notice. I saw that New Canterlot soldiers and the Applejack’s Rangers had established a larger base camp here in Opportunity. More dedicated tents and fortifications had been set up in just the last hour alone, with reinforcements currently being added to existing structures, especially to compensate for the damage sustained from last night’s battle. A couple of snipers were posted, keeping a careful watch on the Gorge.

Suddenly, I froze still as the grave and my mouth went agape, staring ahead. “Oh shit, it’s her!”

It was that bitch from the Outpost 52 who had given me a hard time before! She was wearing an Outpost 52 patch on her shoulder, looking off in another direction. “Dammit, she was here too?” I panicked. I think she said her name was Mags. If she told Fair Trade that I was here, then I’d get an earful for sure! I tried to duck out of sight so she wouldn’t notice me. Thankfully, I didn’t think she did, so I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I felt a heavy hoof slap my back and I nearly jumped.

Almost immediately I was surrounded by the Rough Riders, cheering me on and calling me a hero for managing to pull off a crazy stunt like that. It took a second for my mind to begin to process what was happening.

“Well if it ain’t the big hero!” Sugar cheered, pulling her muscular foreleg around my neck, making me look like a small filly in contrast. She was so strong that I nearly choked before she released me.

“A hero...? M-Me?” I asked, blushing slightly.

“Well heck, of course!” Wounded Legs chuckled, putting his hoof on my shoulder. “If it wasn’t for you running out there like your life depended on it and nearly getting yourself killed, then we’d all be dead more than likely.”

“What are you saying, Sarge?”

The old tobiano grinned. “If it wasn’t for her, then we’d have gotten to Camp Brave with no trouble.”

“So?”

Chipper Wind interrupted him mid-sentence and finished for him, “And since we were all forced to stop and deal with her medical issues and instead decided to wait out the storm for the night, since Camp Brave caught the full brunt of the first attack, in a weird way this mare’s incredible neglect for her own personal health and well-being actually turned out lucky for all of us.” The mare’s ears folded back and she apologized, “Oops, sorry Sergeant. I got carried away.”

The sergeant laughed to himself aloud. Oh, so that was the reason… I lowered my eyelids, appearing less amused.

“Know-it-all…” Ace grumbled, causing the pegasus to glare at him. Slumping over, he groaned. “Ugh. Got my pay docked by half...”

It was nothing more than dumb luck that one of those laser rifles hadn’t hit me during all that from my point of view and Green who did most of the work, but I still felt pretty awesome for it anyways.

Twister roared with laughter, slapping Ace on the shoulder like they were buddies as the jock sat deadpanning. “Ole Ace here is going to have to go back to New Canterlot as part of his punishment, and Sergeant Wispy Winds is gonna get to decide if any further corrections are needed. She’s probably gonna have him clean all the toilets at Shattered Hoof. With two hundred years of backed-up plumbing… Hoowee! I do not wanna be him right now.”

“She would too! I freaking hate that bitch…” he griped, and the other Rough Riders all joined in on the laughter.

I wasn’t too surprised then when the festivities were cut short by Lieutenant Alabaster approaching. He glanced down noticing my armor then looked back up at me. “I see you slept well.”

“Good morning, Lieutenant…” I replied somewhat sarcastically.

“It’s Captain now,” he corrected. “A field promotion, in light of Sweetroll’s untimely death.” Although he relayed the grim circumstance behind his sudden promotion, the former-lieutenant didn’t seem all too cut up about it, rather maintaining a rather stoic demeanor as he spoke. He cleared his throat as he continued, “So I suppose congratulations are in order. Thanks to your quick thinking, we managed to push the raiders back into the Gorge and establish a stronger presence on this side of the Everfree. But there is one other small matter to deal with...” Shoot! I only remembered now that there was still the issue of that “misunderstanding” from yesterday.

“So, about that report over the radio…” Alabaster began. I made a wry face, expecting the worst. Dammit, I was almost sure that I was going to get dragged off to New Canterlot for more questioning and be forced to file about a dozen reports. I didn’t have time for this! I tensed up, waiting for him to speak.

When he finally did, it was to reveal that the situation was far more anticlimactic than I could possibly have imagined.

According to the now-captain, apparently Daily Day had actually just made a simple mistake. Somehow I found learning that fact even more infuriating. “Wait. What?!” I exclaimed, shocked and a little pissed off. “Am I off the hook, then?” I realized.

I felt a wash of relief blow out of my chest at hearing that, shortly followed by about a dozen more questions. They said some pony named Watcher saw me fighting on the side of the caravaners during the attack and was willing to vouch for me. Whoever the hell he was. I scrunched my face in annoyance. “How the heck did they see me leaving, anyway?! There was nobody around!” I racked my brain thinking about it, getting nothing. “Well thanks Watcher, whoever you are," I said.

Another sprite-bot bobbed up and down the road, I followed as it hovered past me, playing that same familiar polka track. I sighed loudly, swearing I’d belt Daily Day one in his own studio and broadcast it across the whole territory for causing so much trouble.

As I did, Something possessed me to remember one of Hawkins’ offclawed comments from earlier. “Wait…” I paused. “The Lightbringer wasn’t seriously watching me from those towers. Is she...?” I felt a little uncomfortable, trying to keep my eyes from glancing back at the S.P.P. tower again. As I watched it, I realized how ridiculous that must’ve sounded. “Who cares, anyways?” I huffed. Long story short, I was free to go.

Captain Alabaster offered that he was willing to file another report based on what I saw, so long as I let New Canterlot handle things from here. He must’ve been referring to what I said yesterday since I hadn’t told him what I saw up on that hill. Didn’t Hawkins say I shouldn’t answer his questions for some reason? I rolled my eyes. As if taking advice from her now was a good idea.

“Uh...sure,” I agreed, but elected not to tell him about the second time I’d seen Enclave ships flying around during the storm. Less heeding Hawkins’ advice, and more feeling that I’d done enough obsessing over the Enclave for at least two days now. I had enough to deal with already.

“I will say, what you pulled off was extremely impressive. Heh, even I’ll admit, I had my doubts. I’m curious where exactly in the wasteland you came from?” he chuckled. “You wouldn’t happen to be another stable dweller, would you?” I couldn’t tell whether or not he was joking.

“Just your average wasteland mare.” I answered.

“Huh, interesting. Well with a bit of training you could be a great asset to New Canterlot one day. You said you were wanting to join up, right? That armor suits you, you should hold onto it. The rifle too.” I wasn’t sure exactly why he was trying to butter me up, but he was giving me what I wanted so I didn’t question it too much.

I heard Ace talking behind my back that he thought I was some kind of mutant freak now. “How else could she pull that off?” he whispered, “If I didn’t know better, I’d have guessed she was one of the raiders.” And apparently, I seemed like I was enjoying it a little too much. I’d have kicked his sorry flank for that if I were in a better mood… instead I frowned, all of a sudden feeling distant.

Captain Alabaster said that he was going handle any of the misunderstandings within the report that was sent out himself. I wasn’t expecting to hear that one. I guess on account of me saving the day, he was willing to be more amicable. It seemed like even I could catch a small break every once in a while, after all.

“By the way, I heard about your friend.” he said, and my heart sunk further. “You have our condolences.” I didn’t want to respond. He just had to say the one thing I didn’t want to hear. Instead I spoke with a barely audible grunt.

We all overheard the booming voice of a familiar Applejack’s Ranger, pausing the conversation to look in his direction. Apparently Ranger Huckleberry had survived the night as well, despite most of us thinking he was dead. He must’ve been stuck in the mud, forced to stay in that uncomfortable position all night.

As soon as they dug him and his suit of power armor out of the mud, Ranger Huckleberry burst out laughing like a mad pony. He was revealed to be a physically fit white stallion with a large blonde moustache and a sparkling slicked back mane. Having spent the whole night stuck in the dirt, didn’t seem to have fazed the white stallion a little bit. Boxing and bucking at imaginary raiders like he was already raring for another go at them. “Lemme at ‘em! Those sorry bastards won’t get the best of me again! They just got a lucky shot is all! Ahahaha!”

“C’mon Rangers, let’s get the whole Chapter in on this and we’ll send em to straight down to Tartarus!” he cried, his voice practically drawing the attention of the entire camp. “Just as soon as one of you scribes repairs my suit of power armor. Darn thing’s thrashed!”

A young initiate’s voice from inside a suit of power armor came up to him doing a salute and attempted to speak, “Um, Star-Protector Huckleberry sir? We’ve gotten new orders from Elder Crossroads to wait on engagement, sir.”

“What’s that now? Speak up now.” he said, inattentively cleaning dirt out of his ears.

“Elder Crossroads ordered us not to engage yet,” she repeated. “There’s been a development back in New Canterlot, thus the Elder has requested we hold further advances into raider territory and report back your mission status in the meantime. Uh… sir!” She added hastily, ending with another salute.

The stallion scratched his head in confusion at the orders, “You ain’t kidding? What’s that ole mare thinking?”

I wasn’t sure if I could fully blame him for the flying loop-de-loop clusterfuck of events from last night. Or maybe the raiders for attacking, or Sunny's dad for being a huge dick, or even Hawkins for dragging me away before I could save her. But I blamed myself more than anything, for not being able to help when she needed me to.

All the commotion around me was making me feel more and more like I wanted to be alone.

Another pegasus soldier landed beside Alabaster, delivering a salute. He was wearing New Canterlot armor and a courier’s messenger bag. “Captain, I was sent to inform you that the Colonel will be arriving soon.”

“Thank you for informing me, private.” he said, dismissing him and then he turned back to me waiting for him to finish. “Oh yes,” Alabaster mentioned, “And I spoke with Miss Green about your arrangement already. I’d be happy to take the town under New Canterlot’s wing. Excellent work.” Dammit, that reminded me, I had completely forgot to discuss it with him. Or I had been meaning to, but I was too caught up in the other things going on to get around to it. Wait, what did I do now and why was I getting praise for it?“Oh, whatever.” I relented, at least everything worked out for once. Mostly.

Captain Alabaster told me that New Canterlot soldiers would escort me to New Appleloosa and he’d handle everything. From there I could take the train from there to Junction Town. So all I had to do was say my goodbyes.

As thank you, and after some encouragement from the sergeant, the Rough Riders let me hang onto Jack’s battle saddle. Seeing that they all felt like they owed me. I thanked them back, with bittersweet feelings at accepting such a thing, but they insisted that she would want me to keep it. The thing was a bit heavy and annoying, but supposedly you got used to it. I still felt a little bad about what happened to her, but that was the wasteland. So I parted ways with the Rough Riders, figuring that wasn’t the last time I’d run into them.

Peering over my shoulder, I saw Page Turner, speaking with Sheriff Green and another pair of alicorns. Dismissing myself, I walked over to say hello and they both greeted me. There were only a couple of things I needed to ask him before being on my way.

“Hey, thanks for showing up at the last minute Sheriff. I really owe you one.” I grinned, being smart aleck-y.

“Why hello there, Miss Roulette. Happy to see you alive and well” she turned her body sideways to face me. “I was actually just speaking with the good Captain on your behalf. He spoke very highly of you.”

“Oh, did he now?” I grumbled.

“We’re already beginning talks now to bring the town of Unity under New Canterlot’s wing. He said you two spoke already on the matter.” Well that part was a blatant lie. I had forgotten to even ask him about it. Maybe that was the reason why he was being so helpful, because he had already taken the credit for everything himself... I folded my ears back slightly in annoyance.

Sheriff Green leaned down to me and asked in a hushed voice, “By the way,” she began, “you didn’t happen to mention anything about the Professor’s ‘side dealings’ to New Canterlot, did you?”

“Oh, no. I didn’t.” I assured. I’d failed to even consider that. It would’ve likely caused him and the town of Unity extra problems with New Canterlot.

Green raised an eyebrow, “Then I trust you’ll be sure to keep quiet about it?”

I replied with a silent nod.

“Good,” she beamed, raising her head back up to full height. “Doctor Page Turner here was telling me about possible assistance from the Followers of the Apocalypse.” She giggled, although her normally calm demeanor didn’t make her any less intimidating. She wore that sheriff’s badge well.

Green then motioned to the two other alicorns. “He was right in the middle of introducing me to a couple of his alicorn friends, actually.”

Page cleared his throat, caught off guard, “Right, um… Roulette, this is Nighttide and Eureka. I was instructed to teach them both about friendship and general sciency things. Eureka? Nighttide? This is Roulette.” The light blue unicorn gestured between us both. Then rubbing the back of his neck, added bashfully, “They followed me here to make sure that I was alright...hehe.” One of them rolled her eyes to the side. Nighttide was a dark purple alicorn who rarely spoke but wore a constant sour look, and Eureka was a green coat who was just a little...strange.

Eureka, the green one, walked up to me, looking down from her height. “You’re tiny.” she said, bending down on her knees so we were eye level. “You’re also missing your wings and your horn. Did they fall off?” The mare pressed on my snout with her hoof and then stood up.

I crossed my eyes. “Whu-?”

“No, no Eureka. She’s an earth pony. That means she doesn’t have a horn or wings.” he said as the strange mare sat trying to examine her tongue with her eyes crossed.

She gasped. “Whaaat?!” The green fell back on her haunches. She blinked, “What’s an earth pony? So she’s just...normal? You mean she has to walk everywhere?!”

“Yes, that’s usually how it works.” Page stated. He turned to me and whispered, “sorry…”

She pressed on her cheeks together, staring down at my hooves in mock examination. “Don’t your legs ever get tired?”

“No, they don’t.” I answered. “Page, uh, why’s this alicorn all… derp?” I asked, rather bluntly.

“Eureka is a very ‘special’ alicorn.” he corrected, scritching the back of her mane. “Not every alicorn came out of the Unity as functionally sound or as well-adjusted as Miss Green here did, but they’re ponies just like you or I. Our biggest task right now is to find out how to help many of them to better cope with and re-adjust themselves to living in the wasteland. The same is true of pegasi as well as Equestria’s many other residents.”

She responded happily with a rather fitting: “Pbbbt!” Then she slowly began examining her own tongue, crossing her eyes together, before skewing off in almost seperate directions.

“Gotcha…” I replied.

Sheriff Green observed her with a raised brow, “Intriguing. I’m sure you and the Professor would get along famously.”

She asked me if I needed anything from her or the Professor back in Unity and I shook my head. “Actually I just wanted to speak with Page, alone.”

Honestly, it would’ve been nice to see her if the circumstances weren’t so pessimistic. I wasn’t entirely clear on whether or not she knew about what happened with Sunny. Personally, I could could barely even stomach to admit to myself what happened, so I was thankful that she didn’t ask. It made things simpler for me. Although she was looking around like she might’ve been wondering where she’d gotten off to.

“That’s fine, I see you two have much to discuss then.” She tipped her hat with her magic. “‘Happy trails’, as my good friend used to say. Give Sunny my regards as well.” I felt a slight twinge, probably made more noticeable by the already sour look on my face.

She smirked, “Heh, I can tell by that look on your face that you’re worried. Fear not, I can handle New Canterlot on my own. I’ve already dealt with Papa Bighoof in the past.”

I drew back at the surprising revelation. “Hold up, you what?”

“And here I thought you were the investigative type,” she snickered to herself, her braided tail swaying as she walked away. “Don't worry, it's as I told you before. The long and short of this is, things are getting too chaotic around here and I need to look after my town.” Looking to the blue unicorn stallion, she smiled as their eyes met. “I should say this conversation has been delightful, Mr. Page Turner.”

“Please, call me Page. ‘Mr. Page Turner’ was my father’s name.” he smirked. I sneered in disgust. Good thing I didn’t eat breakfast yet.

Nighttide’s expression mirrored my own, remarking at Green with a hint of bitterness as she drew out of earshot, “Well, she’s certainly adjusted well Post-Goddess.”

Page turned nudged Nighttide, who granted him annoyed glance. “Nighttide, would you and your sister kindly check if anyone else needs help around camp? I need to speak with Miss Roulette privately. I’m sure they’d appreciate it.”

“Ugh. Fine,” she groaned, briefly glaring at me. The mare then teleported out of sight. Eureka stumbled to her hooves, trying to follow after, leaving the two of us alone. Finally. After all this, he was the only other pony I felt like talking to.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure they won’t get into too much trouble...” Page said with a dismissive hoof gesture, trying to reassure himself more than me. “Sorry about all that. What did you need?”

I put on a snarky grin, “So Doctor, Historian, Diplomat and Teacher? What’s next, Friendship Councilor?”

He snorted. “You’re hilarious. Well let’s’ just say my education was rather informal, but there’s still a lot of good information you can find lying around in old books. In retrospect, wasteland education’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Ain’t that the understatement of the year?” I snarked, having grown up in the hard-knocks school of wasteland survival myself.

When page looked up at me, the light-blue unicorn was giving me a look racked with guilt in his eyes even though he was trying hard not to show it. I held up my hoof before he went to apologize. I could tell that he was just going to say something sappy. “Fair enough…” He relented. “I just wish I could’ve done something…” It was easier to see now that Page seemed to have a million things on his mind as well. “It’s just if I was better, they wouldn’t have-”

“You did everything you could. Besides, Sunny’s not gone.” I informed him. “They took her to Dodge is all. So I’m going to get her back.”

“Dodge City?” he repeated, and I nodded. “... Not the best place, from what I’ve heard.”

“No, but that’s where I’m headed.” I stated.

Appearing as though a weight had been taken off his chest he offered, “Would you like the aid of the Followers of the Apocalypse in this? We could help. Maybe one of the alicorns would be willing to teleport you and we’d be there and back within almost the same amount of time. Hell, they’d be able to provide great backup in a fight. We could also get that thing out of your arm and you help you with your, uh…” He said motioning at my shoulder, searching for the right word, “problem.”

The doctor seemed like the type of pony who’d try to put everything on his own shoulders, but was finding this whole thing a bit beyond himself. Seemed like we were in the same boat as well. It made sense then that a pony like him decided to join the Followers.

“Nah” I said flatly, scratching the underside of my chin.

He looked more than a little baffled at my response.“No, but we could literally be there in the same amount of time.” he repeated, utterly confused by my reasoning.

“I said I’m fine.” I insisted.

The bullet itself felt like penance I had to bear for not being able to save Sunny when I had the chance. A little voice in the back of my head was telling me that I deserved it, and I couldn’t exactly disagree with it. I liked Page, but I wasn’t fully ready to trust him or the Followers yet.

“I’m glad you’re alright though. I just want to do this on my own.” I managed, and he smiled back.

“Yes, and I have you to thank. I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m a little in your debt.” he admitted, pushing up on his glasses. “I wish I could say these were better circumstances. But at least you managed to get a couple hours of sleep. I barely got any. Been up all morning dealing with New Canterlot soldiers prying into my research and inter-organizational politics.”

“Sounds boring.” I admitted

He rubbed his face in exasperation and replied, “You have no idea...”

There was something I felt like I had to ask him here. So I did. “Would you tell me the deal with the Neighvarro Provisional Government then, and why is everyone so damn uptight to tell me anything? You’re the only one I trust around here, so out with it. I’m tired of guessing.”

He looked a little hesitant to get into it at first, annoyingly. “Those are all… really complicated questions. Don’t you have enough on your mind already?”

“Don’t spare me the details. I’m not a child.” I snapped, pressing harder.

The unicorn sighed, “It has to do with the reintegration of the Pegasi post-Grand Pegasus Enclave. Some of them used to be former Enclave soldiers, so in the opinions of certain griffons they’re required to have a little ‘extra oversight’. You do the math. New Canterlot has their reasons for the way they’ve gone about it, whether or not I agree with them. I think it’s counterproductive. If you know anything about the state of the Enclave after Sunshine and Rainbows and Post-Reconstruction, then I’m sure you’re smart enough to put two and two together without me having to say it.”

“F-Fine, don’t tell me then.” I huffed, half-too embarrassed to admit I didn’t know any of what he was talking about. Or maybe it was because at the time I was too stubborn to fully grasp it.

“Anyways, I know a lot of ponies who were hurt in the attack. That’s my main focus right now. A lot of ponies still need help at the Follower’s Outpost, so I should get going." He suddenly grimaced, shrinking backwards. A hint of dread in his voice as if he’d realized something. “Sweet Celestia’s library. What will Velvet Remedy say...? Oh jeez… Not looking forward to that.”.

“What’s going to happen from here on out?” I asked.

“Well, logically speaking New Canterlot and the Applejack’s Rangers might end up forming another coalition to secure the west side of the Everfree, and collectively they’ll both become more serious about dealing with the raiders. But far more likely than that, they’ll act independently of each other causing more problems in the long term than they can solve in the short term. I overheard a few of the soldiers speaking amongst themselves, talking about New Canterlot now planning to go to war with Papa Bighoof over this… I’m guessing that means there’ll be some future implications on the political side of things too.” he said, sighing wistfully. “I respect his reasons of course, but I’m forced to wonder if we’d be looking at things the same way if Calamity had taken Gawd up on her initial offer….? We all have our place though.”

Turning my head to look back at the camp with him, it didn’t take a genius to see something big was about to happen. Except this time, instead of wanting to learn the truth I just felt defeated. “Well I dunno about any of that.” I admitted. “I’m just trying to get a grasp on things.”

“I’m just confused as to why Papa Bighoof would attack, since he has nothing to gain from picking a fight with New Canterlot. Despite his title of raider warlord, he’s been relatively peaceful, at least as far as raider warlords go. There were even a few towns under his protection. Call me idealistic, but before this incident, we were hoping we’d be able to deal with him diplomatically.”

“Not anymore, apparently.” I said, pointing out the obvious. I thought that I knew what was going on before all this happened. Now I wasn’t so sure. “Why so cynical?” I tilted my head sideways, “Aren’t you guys supposed to be allies? You sure don’t act like it.”

Page Turner let out a strained groan, “From a certain standing politics in the last two centuries have been nothing ‘but’ cynical.” but he likely realized that answer alone wasn’t good enough. “New Canterlot, the Applejack’s Rangers, and the Followers... All have their own vision for how they think things should be moving forward in the Wasteland. Most matters we agree on, but it’s always the minute details everybody always gets caught up in. Plus, New Canterlot isn’t exactly making it easy with how they’ve taken the lead. Celestia’s sun, it’s like the Ministries from the Great War all over again… only instead there are three instead of six… no, make that four.” The stallion rolled his eyes after his miniature rant, and I stared back waiting for him to finish.

“To be honest with you, you shouldn’t worry yourself over petty things like politics. They’re just as frustrating as they sound really. And once you get caught up in a certain way of thinking, it changes the way you see the world. Then you can never see things in the same way you used to...” The light-blue unicorn pushed up on his glasses, trying to smile. “But maybe that’s a good thing? It can be, anyways...”

“It’s okay.” I shrugged. “Nopony said that rebuilding Equestria was going to be easy.”

“Ponies are supposed to learn from the past so that we don’t repeat our old mistakes, but all too often we seem like we’re doomed to. We really do have our work cut out for us, don’t we?” he managed to force a laugh. “I suppose if we didn’t, then ponies wouldn’t need the Followers, now would they?” he chuckled. “Sorry for my “impoliteness”…”

“Don’t worry about it.” I said, my head not all together there. “I’ve got somewhere to be too. I just came to say goodbye.”

“Double-checking, now you’re sure you don’t want to accompany me to the Followers Outpost in Ponyville?” he tried asking again. “At the very least get you restocked on some medicine?”

“I said want to go it alone, and I meant it.”

The doctor stopped and sighed, realizing I was going to be stubborn about it. “To be honest, you’re the only pony I can think of who’d turn down willing aid from the Followers. You should hold onto that heart of yours then, if anything. It’ll find friends when you need them.”

“Thanks for the advice, but I don’t need any friends...” I replied, shooting my eyes off to the side.

“Well the offer is always open...”

“Page?” I asked, and he looked up. “Take care of yourself, and try not to get snuck up on by raiders again,” then putting on a light smirk, jabbed, “Wouldn’t want you dying on me.”

He scoffed, “I’ll do what I can from my end. Just do me one favor, would you?” he asked, and I turned my head away expecting to get scolded. If that was the case, I didn’t want to hear it. “Be careful,” he said. “This isn’t the same wasteland we grew up in.” and I glanced back at him and nodded, managing to smile, if only slightly. Strangely though he, added with a sparkle in his eye, “but everything will be alright in due time, that I can assure you.” I wasn’t sure where he was summoning this sudden bout of confidence from, but Luna help me, I was starting to get uncomfortable.

“Time to leave.” I told myself.

Mags finally noticed me as well, as I was beginning to walk away with my escort. “Hey! Aren’t you that mare from the 52? What the hell are you doing here?!” she called out, questioning. I pretended not to hear her and play it off like she was talking to someone else. Okay, now it was ‘really’ time to leave.

As we said farewell, New Canterlot and the Applejack’s Rangers were left to handle the situation in our place. Oddly, it was Huckleberry who got in the last word.

He called to me, approaching out of power armor and I stopped to wait while the other soldiers serving as my escort took a brief pause and waited for me. “You were the one who said there might be Enclave in the Smokey Mountains, right?” he asked, giving little attention to the other two.

“Yeah?” I answered. “Vertibucks.”

The Ranger looked back at the mountains tapping a hoof to his chin and glanced back to me. He frowned, briefly sizing up me and my story and then began to walk away. “Huh, interesting. Thanks kid. If you’re ever looking to join up with the Rangers, come visit our main chapter in Manehattan.” he said, his mind clearly on something elsewhere and that was all he said.

“Me join up with the Applejack’s Rangers? Pfft! That’d be the day.” I thought, almost immediately dismissing the idea as a complete joke. Although, then again… having the extra option never hurt anypony.

As we walked, one of the New Canterlot soldiers turned and asked me: “Hey, aren’t you that mare who’s supposed to be some kind of badass or something?” I raised an eyebrow. She turned to one of the others. “Took down a whole bunch of Mountain tribals on your own, then ran across the battlefield like a raving lunatic?”

“So I’m a badass now? Where’d you hear that one?” I scoffed. Seemed that I’d already begun to acquire something of a reputation among them for my deeds. Normally I’d be stoked, but I just felt empty inside as I marched towards New Appleloosa.

I eavesdropped, following along with my escort. From what I’d overheard, they didn’t take New Canterlot very long to decide it was Papa Bighoof who was responsible for those caravan attacks. To them the laser rifles and stealthbucks they used during the battle were enough to confirm it under the eyes of the top brass. Even if Jagged played a role somehow, he wasn’t that high on their list of priorities. Merely an accessory to the attacks. “A minor actor” if anything. They advised I post a bounty notice at New Canterlot Territorial HQ if I was really that interested. I rolled my eyes at the typically useless advice.

Outside of Gawd’s territory and especially out past the Ghastly Gorge, bandits and raiders were an altogether more common occurrence, although we didn’t encounter any others on the way back. In areas like Fillydelphia and the Hoof it was said to be especially bad. Honestly, I was a little surprised at how seriously they were taking the raider threat, but it was more like they were going full “shoot raiders on sight” mode in terms of their policy now. So much that it was rumored they were going to be bringing in more Skyrangers after they finished up with their individual missions stretching across the Equestrian Wasteland. If it was just some lil ole raider warlord, then why the need for such a heavily armed response? It felt like there might be other things at play here that I didn’t know about.

I still wasn’t so sure. Either way, Jagged was still high on my list. In fact, he was pretty much my priority number one. Before, I didn’t take it personally. Now I did. Plus, something wasn’t adding up with everything Angel Eyes said. Looking back up at the Smokey Mountains with steeled resolve, I turned away in the opposite direction. One thing was for sure. A dust-up was brewing in the near future and I was going to be right in the middle of it.

From my perspective, and the perspective of many others’ it sounded like New Canterlot was dead set on going to war now. Why? I couldn’t say. Maybe they took it personally, or they were really serious about their grand idea of civilizing the wasteland. A lot of them were holding something of a grudge against him now too. Me? I was simple. I was done chasing Enclave ships, and so I shoved that idea along with the growing list of inconsequential mysteries to the back of my head. I had my sights set on one pony.

Feeling determined to go solve New Canterlot’s raider problem myself, whether they wanted my help or not, I was headed for Dodge City.

As I shambled around the inside of the wasteland settlement, the only things I found myself able to think about was that one image of Sunny shrinking into the distance, and how I was going to squeeze that asshole’s brains dry for answers for everything he put me through. This time I was going to get my answers straight from the horse’s mouth. No more games. No playing around anymore. If Angel Eyes didn’t hold up his end of the bargain, I’d kill him and every last one of them.

It was all I could think about over the hussle and bussle of town square. Changing times had seen New Appleloosa grow into a more prosperous settlement in recent months.

The train station was empty, but the railroads themselves were pristine. Fresh steel forged-tracks, not the salvaged stuff. “Maybe from Fillydelphia?” I wondered. Or from some other place under New Canterlot controlled territory. A newly restored clock, working to tell time, was placed above the station house, telling me I had about two hours before the train arrived. If things kept to schedule. I thought that was how you were supposed to tell time at least…

Things weren’t like in the old days when caravans would ship supplies over long treacherous routes across the Wastes. They still had those of course, but shipping supplies by train or by courier was far more efficient.

You see, I actually had a very good reason for wanting to come to New Appleloosa first and take the train rather than going to see the Followers of the Apocalypse: Short of hiring a skycart to fly you there directly (which I was doubtful the raiders could manage), the train was the only other option they had for transportation to Dodge City if those raider bastards expected to beat me there. There was a good chance I’d be able to find them when the train arrived around noon-ish without even having to settle things on their turf.

Only one problem. I was flat broke. I didn’t even have enough for the train fare. For that reason, I’d have to take an extra job.

There was a pegasus sky carriage with “Ditzy Doo’s Absolutely Everything Mail Service” painted on the side was loading up cargo readying for take-off outside of New Appleloosa when I came into town. The store Ditzy Doo’s Absolutely Everything was moving their headquarters to Junction Town but planned on keeping the original store open. I did my best to keep my mind on other things.

I briefly saw a pegasus mare trotting by, eyeing me with a hint of nervousness. New residents I presumed.

I watched her, slightly being reminded of Sunny. I wondered for a second if I should just ask her some of these questions, but then reprimanded myself because of how stupid it’d sound. “Do you feel like you’re being oppressed by New Canterlot, former citizen of a totalitarian post-war government? And how does that make you feel?” So I just kept walking.

At least that hitch in my shoulder was holding up fine now. In fact, I was starting to barely notice it at all. I made a mental note, that I should probably make a point to avoid radiation if I could help it though. You know, just in case… Let alone, whatever mutation I had tried to kill me again.

Keeping my eyes on some fillies and colts playing with a ball, I had to consciously make an effort to put one hoof in front of the other. I was a little envious of them. It was almost like they were oblivious to everything going on. Also it made me feel longing for the good old days. Everything was so complicated now. Shortly after that I huffed, realizing how young I was and already complaining about my age. “Gee, I’ll be senile in no time.” I jibed.

A young mare galloped up to me and skid to a halt in my path, huffing to catch her breath. I stopped and waited impatiently. “M….Miss!” she gasped.

“What?” I asked, continuing to wait for the mare to catch her breath.

Standing in front of me was a mulberry unicorn with a silver-blueish well-groomed mane. She was also wearing a follower’s coat over her expensive frilly clothing underneath, and a pair of large round lensed glasses that all made her look completely out of place. She was also very young, maybe less than my age, and strangest of all, she was clean. I barely caught the first thing she sad because I wasn’t really listening.

“Thank goodness, the proper authorities. I’ve finally found you.” she asked again frantically, with a very deliberate educated way of speaking to denote status which I found slightly annoying. “You look like an experienced wasteland mare. Did you happen to see a young pegasus colt with a black coat run by here?” She gasped, sounding like she’d already run through that description a dozen times already. “Could you perhaps alert the other guards?”

She must’ve been mistaking me for a New Canterlot mare on account of the armor. The one and only downside to this look. I groaned and shook my head. “I’m not with New Canterlot, go ask somebody else.” I replied walking past her.

“B-B-but…you’re wearing-” she pointed at my armor in confusion.

“Who cares what I’m wearing? Leave me alone.”

This mare was so disorganized she made Sunny look like a wasteland veteran. The stray comparison going through my head only served to further sour my mood. My flat expression seemed to echo as such.

“Oh, dear Luna... I’ve only been in this rural wasteland town for a week as a part of the Friendship Outreach program for the Followers, and I’ve already gone and misplaced one of the children I was supposed to be teaching! He ran off while I wasn’t looking!” I rolled my eyes and began to walk away, not feeling like dealing with another tenderhoofed pony who barely knew her hoof from her head. She wouldn’t have lasted a week back in the wastes.

“Well, good luck with that…” I grumbled.

“D-Do please let me know?!” she pleaded with a weak smile.

“Sure, whatever...” I called back, not caring. “Just stay focused, Roulette.” I murmured. I wasn’t in a ‘helping ponies’ kind of mood.

I approached the strange building which looked like three different types of railroad cars fused together to create the general store. There was a “Help Wanted - Couriers” sign posted near the door of Ditzy Doo’s Absolutely Everything. “Perfect” I thought, stepping inside.

Hearing the bell sound as I entered the makeshift storefront, I looked around, and it appeared to contain a pretty competently run mail service and general store. Somepony had to employ pegasi after their reintroduction, so she had apparently taken it upon her business to do her part in helping. Despite me seeing it once before maybe some years ago, this was maybe the first time I’d actually been inside of the place. Standing behind the front desk, was a wall-eyed pegasus ghoul mare with a chalkboard hanging around her neck, and she greeted me with a happy wave.

A small lavender filly was drawing behind her in the corner, and a stoic griffon bodyguard stood leaning against the far wall like he never moved from that spot. Or slept. He eyed me without saying anything and I looked to the wall eyed pegasus.

“Uh, hi… “ I said, eyeing around the shop, “You wouldn’t happen to be the owner, would you?”

I awkwardly stood around waiting when she didn’t speak. Instead, she held up her chalkboard in a friendly professional manner. It read: “Hi, my name’s Ditzy Doo! How can I help you today?”

“Oh, awesome. See, I work for Fair Trade over at the Outpost 52? Though, cap payouts tend to be a bit low. I’ve got some other business in Dodge City, so I was wondering if you needed any extra courier deliveries that needed mailing there...?” I went with the most convincing story that came to mind.

Ditzy shrugged silently and then shook her head apologetically. She began scribbling something else down. “Sorry, but my last mail shipment just flew off. I don’t need anything else delivered…”

The small lavender filly jumped up next to her and struggled to push herself up onto the counter. She held up the piece of paper and showed me her drawing of her and her adopted mother with alongside a sunshine and rainbows. Ditzy looked proud, giving the young filly a warm, probably squishy, hug. “Hi! Lookit my drawing! I worked really hard on it!” she beamed. Briefly I felt the sick I was feeling wash away, and for a second I was alright. “Hey, that’s awesome! What’s’ your name kid?” I smiled.

“It’s Silver Bell!” she chimed happily.

“Hey, you’re really good! You should try drawing me.” I suggested cheekily.

The little lavender filly nodded, “Okay, I will!”

The griffon guard in the corner watched me curiously but didn’t move or say anything otherwise. Although he looked down when Silver Bell attempted to show him her new work of art, acknowledging her with subtle approval. “Look what I drew Gilgamesh!”

“Are you sure you don’t have anything?” I begged, turning back to Ditzy Doo.

Ditzy frowned and then shook her head again. I felt like I’d have to try somewhere else, but then a look of worry crossed her face as if remembering something important. She began looking around and smacked her forehead with her hoof foolishly, and then began writing something else down on her chalkboard. She flipped it over with a troubled facial expression and she put a hoof over her mouth. “Oh no! I forgot!”

Ducking underneath her front desk, she began tossing papers aside and then came back up with a single sealed envelope. She began frantically jotting more words onto the chalkboard, making the letters look rushed and sloppy. She spit out the bit of chalk and flipped it over, waving a letter in front of me. “I need this personal letter delivered from Apple Whiskey to his relative living in Dodge City. But I forgot to include it in the last shipment! No wonder they never wrote back…” it read, with an added frowny face at the end.

Picking up the stick of chalk again, she erased the board with her hoof and wrote something else. She flipped the chalkboard over again, showing me: “I’m too busy taking care of Silver Bell and overseeing the store to deliver it myself. Could you help?”

“Sure thing, it’s your lucky day!” I grinned, holding out my hoof tactlessly. “I’d be happy to deliver that letter for you!”

The griffon watching from the back of the shop raised his brow at me.

“Thank you!” she wrote elated. She flew over the counter, dashing over, and she gave me the letter along with a big hug. I couldn’t exactly fault her for being friendly.

“Uh, you’re welcome?” I laughed, turning over the letter.

It was addressed to an “Appleshot Brandy”. Taking the letter in my teeth and putting it into my saddlebag, I embarrassedly stuck out my hoof again. “Uh, would you mind upfronting me the caps though?” My ears folded back and I smiled nervously. “Hehe...”

Surprisingly, she happily did so.

Holding up her chalkboard once again, she nodded and beamed happily. It read: “Sure! You seem like the trustworthy sort of pony.”

I smiled a little, accepting her perhaps overly-generous compliment. “Uh, thanks? Hehe, this really helps a lot, I appreciate it.”

Silver Bell then climbed up onto the counter and gave me a hastily scribbled drawing she just finished. I smiled, staring at it.

“Hey that’s amazing. I bet you’ll be a famous artist when you grow up. known throughout the wastes. I bet this’ll be worth a million bottlecaps. A Silver Bell original.”

“I’m gonna spend it all on my mommy! B-but wait, you can’t sell it! I made it special!”

I snorted with a chuckle, “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t dream of it.” And I stuck the piece of paper in my saddlebag as they both waved goodbye. Fillies and colts were the only other thing in the wasteland that didn’t make me feel completely terrible. It must’ve been something about their innocence that was often lost too quickly in the wasteland. I always felt like I could talk on the level with them without worrying about any of the bullshit. Like they weren’t pretending to be anyone else. Adults were annoying. Especially the ones trying to murder you. I smirked with jingling caps in hoof, and turned and trotted towards the door. Quite the send off for just some random courier.

“Well I’ll get that letter delivered.” I promised, stepping out of the shop. Then a thought crossed through my head as my eye caught my blank shoulder-pauldron. I poked my head back inside. The friendly ghoul blinked expectantly. “Uh, by the way...?” I asked. “Do you have any yellow paint?”

Silver Bell’s eyes lit up.

Strutting through New Appleloosa at a slow canter to show off my armor which now sported two freshly painted yellow chevrons, I slowed down to a depressing shamble shortly after leaving Ditzy’s store. As the cloud hanging over me quickly caught back up with me again, I felt a sickening rise in my upper chest and turned to look up at the clock above the station. I felt like ass again. The train wouldn’t come for another hour so I still had some time to kill, so I sauntered over to the Turnpike Tavern.

Looking for the closest seat I could find at the bar, I let myself soak in the wasteland atmosphere and ordered myself up a whiskey, unloading my saddlebag and rifle next to me.

“That’s the very same seat the Stable Dweller sat in when she first visited this establishment on her journey!” I rolled my eyes.

Tourists wowed at the transparent encouragement to get them to spend some extra bottlecaps. I just sat down, contemplatively eyeing my saddlebags with the sealed envelope inside, and I squinted in irritation. “Tch…”

I still had an uneasy feeling in my stomach about those New Canterlot Uniforms that I found buried in the ditch. Dead soldiers, I could buy. Even using them to sneak up on caravans. But why were they buried in the dirt like that? Why even bother hiding them so close to the battle?

A thought crossed my mind: That one raider in Unity did say that Jagged was planning something big. Could it be this…? Whatever this was.

Then an even bigger thought presented itself in front of me. One that made me pause and look over at my saddlebag. ‘That’ delivery was only bit of business I had left to take care of, but now something else was bugging me about that job. Those guys wanted whatever I got from the Outpost 52… The thing they mistook for that memory orb of Rainbow Dash that pony because of my quick thinking. I paused for a moment, thinking. Then I asked myself uneasily, “Did Fair Trade know about it...?”

I leaned my weight against the counter, staring at my bag intently.

From all my years knowing him, I couldn’t entirely rule it out as something he would do. All this business with New Canterlot, and Fair Trade’s operation at the old Canterlot ruins. What exactly could they have there that’d be that valuable? It was Ministry Central during the war, right? I started to think twice about all of this.

Thinking back, I was practically a filly when I first met him, and it had been years since then. I mean, it’s true. I didn’t know everything about the guy. There could’ve been things he never told me. One of his rules he always lined out was even a reminder as to not get sentimental. Almost forcing myself to Remember how the very first thing he made me do was repay my family’s debt by tracking down and killing one of his former business associates pissed me off a little. “That’s right! He’d throw me under a stampeding brahmin bull the first chance he got if it saved him a few extra bottlecaps! Of course he’d be willing to use me for his own personal gain!” I reminded myself. Did I mention I was just a filly?!

Evidently, that was the same day I also got my cutie mark… I took a sip of whiskey and gagged.

Staring down into the shimmering amber liquid, I grimaced in disgust. This was maybe the second time I’d ever had alcohol. Part of me was thinking I should’ve spent that money on a Sunrise instead, but I just wanted to stop feeling for a moment. It also didn’t hurt that I had a few extra bottle caps to blow. Or I would’ve, but the prices on everything were temporarily inflated due to resource shortages, especially following that attack.

“And what was the deal with Neighvarro Provisional Government? New Canterlot was somehow involved with that, or something…?” I thought. All the questions ricocheted around the inside of my skull, giving no answers. “What the hell was going on here...?” Ugh. No more questions! I pounded on the side of my head with my hoof furiously.

“Luna, help me. Things were never this complicated back in the wasteland...” I complained, slouching against the bartop.

For some reason, that thing that Sunny’s dad said about me had stuck with me from last night. “Like I’m ‘stuck in the wasteland’, huh?” I snorted. “That’s rich. We still live in a wasteland.” I jibed and took a sip from the glass, then screwed my face as I felt the burn down my throat, nearly gagging. “Blegh!”

Coughing, I pounded on my chest until I could breathe normally again. “This stuff is disgusting. Why do ponies even drink this?!” I thought it was supposed to make you feel good, not the other way around!

The questions barely felt worth asking anymore. Just a bunch of random inconsequential details that only an idiot like me would try to piece together to make her life more fun and interesting. Dammit, the buzz wasn’t hitting me at all either.

My inner monologuing was interrupted by shouting in the tavern, as a few rowdy New Canterlot mercs had arrived within the last few minutes. Pinning my ears back, I glared over at them. They were hardly anything to look at.

One of them was particularly loud and grating to my ears with an equally stupid nickname: ‘“Big Shot” Bingo’. It was hard not to overhear his entire conversation. “Yeah, so I was hired for this merc contract, where my employers wanted me to kill some raider scumbags causing trouble for his caravans. I kill em all easily, with my trusty sniper rifle. Pop! Right between the eyes, every one of em. And then it turned out to be my lucky day, because they were actually harassing some random shithole town!”

Not what I would’ve expected from New Canterlot soldiers when thinking of Gawd’s speech over the radio. The hired mercenaries that were being used to fill their ranks in the meantime just wore their usual combat armor or whatever they had available with “NC” scrawled across the front. I’d have half-mistaken them for raiders if they weren’t wearing the armor, all done up in warmarkings and with their own personal touches. I was beginning to learn quickly that the Rough Riders weren’t exactly the rule when it came to the general quality of Gawd’s troops everywhere. Barely any semblance of quality control for some of them.

Returning to the refuge of the awful taste of two hundred year old whiskey, I tried really hard to ignore them instead trying to focus on the radio in the background but I could barely hear it over their shouting.

“They all were so fucking thankful, they were practically bowing at my hooves. All the mares in that town were ready to blow me! And that’s why they call me ‘Big Shot’”

One laughed. “Haha, that’s a fuckin’ great story Bingo!”

“Yeah, Thrasher. New Canterlot is just handing out these merc contracts right now like they’re Celestia damned party favors. Cushy pay and I get to get in on the ground floor of the winning team. I bet they’d make me a corporal if I joined up with the army.” he took another swig of his drink and began thinking aloud. “Y’know, I bet I should challenge Deadshot Calamity to a rifle match and strip that title off him. How do you like the sound of “Deadshot” Bingo?”

One of them noticed me and nudged his buddy. I rolled my eyes and stared down at my glass.

The group of assholish stallions approached me in an attempt to flirt. Their leader leaned against the bartop next to me and waggled his eyebrows, trying and get my attention. I nearly gagged.

“Hey there cutie. Drinking alone at noon, all away from your squad huh? How about you come hang out with me instead?”

I was in no mood. “Go suck-start a shotgun, fuckface.” This caused his buddies to snicker amongst themselves.

“Hehe, fire. Don’t to be that way, baby. I saw you admiring me from the other side of the room. They call me ‘Bigshot’ Bingo. I’m a regular hero around these parts. I saved this little wasteland town from raider scumbags a while ago ”

I was trying hard not to vomit at his painful attempts at flirting. “Bear through it Roulette. Only one more hour of this…” I told myself.

“So how about it then? I got a couple of hits of cloud kiss.” he said flashing a strange looking Dash inhaler filled with a pink cloud-like substance. “We can get outta here, then you can get high off this stuff and reminisce about the night we spent together in bed."

I couldn’t take it anymore and groaned loudly, “Why is it that every dipshit who slightly knows how to fire a gun, suddenly thinks they’re the best damn shot in the entire wasteland? And that’s cute lil nickname by the by, but I bet you couldn’t hit a hellhound from point blank range with that rifle because you’d be too busy pissing yourself.”

“Hey ease up bitch. I was just being friendl-”

A well placed kick backwards into his tender area, left him unable to finish his sentence over the sound of clutching his sack on the ground in agonizing pain. “Rifle doesn’t help you much when getting your sack tapped. Does it?” Dusting off my hind leg, I turned back to my drink.

“You just made a big mistake right now!” one of his friends threatened, surrounding me on either side. Other patrons were watching in silence. The idea of getting into an altercation with New Canterlot mercs in the middle of town was probably a bad one, albeit entertaining.

I snorted. “You losers got taint in your ears? Didn’t I already tell you to buzz off?” Quickly, the urge to resort to violence was becoming more and more appealing. I clenched my hoof tight ready for it to get ugly and looked back at them with a death glare, almost welcoming the idea. I didn’t care, I just wanted to hit something.

Before we could get into it, we were interrupted by the bald scarred deputy-mare from earlier. As she entered the tavern, all eyes immediately went to her. She looked around the bar and her eyes fell upon the four of us ready for a fight and she growled. “Hey, what’s all this shit?” she barked, approaching us where I was sitting and looking down at the stallion who was still struggling to stand up. “Picking fights again Bingo? What’d I tell ya already, ya fuckwit?!”

He pained through his speech as she stood over him like a simpering dog and picked him up by his shirt-collar. “S-Stiletto...!”

“So ya went and got your ass kicked then,” she mocked. Her eyes flicked down at the strange chem which had fallen onto the floor with Bingo then looked back at him with an accusatory gaze. “Cloud Kiss? Where the fuck you get this?”

“J-Just a guy I know.” he stammered.

Cloud Kiss was a relatively new chem on the market. It was said to be a new super-chem, having a stronger, longer lasting high than the normal Dash inhalers. Stronger than ‘rainboom’ with just a hint of ‘magic’, although it came with some extra nasty side-effects.

“‘Just a guy’? Seriously, do I look stupid n’ shit? The Mayor already said he doesn’t want you bringing this stuff around, so why don’t you go back to huffing dash like a normal addict? If your damn face rots off and you ghoulify from this shit then you’ll be even uglier for me to look at.”

“S-She’s the one who started it!” he yelped, pointing at me. His knees were shaking as he was still making a genuine effort to stand, trying to use her for support.

“Oh, really?” She painfully dropped the stallion onto the floor, leaving him clutching his you-know-where, and stepped over him to get to me. Speaking in an accusatory fashion, she barked in my face, “Hey Mare! What’s your name? What squad are you with? I knew you were trouble since the moment you walked into town.” I stared back, squinting my eyes at the scarred mare, standing my ground while she did the same. I turned so that I was looking her straight in the eyes while others in the tavern said nothing. It was practically a standoff inside the bar while rest of the patrons watched us.

Finally exhaling, I bowed my head limp in apology. “I’m sorry, it was my fault… I was just leaving.” Then I turned away, leaving the glass half-finished on the counter and made my way to the exit. I just wasn’t feeling up to it today.

“You do that Mare.” Stiletto threatened, getting the last word in. I didn’t care enough to respond as she watched me to the door.

The sun had risen directly above me. Barely keeping my eyes above the ground, I glanced up at the station clock again, thinking the train couldn’t get here soon enough. Not too much longer...

Among all the ponies shuffling about through the center of town my eyes fell on the foals playing again, feeling nostalgic.

In particular I watched a blue pegasus colt playing with some of the other fillies and colts. One of their coats was dark brown, and another’s was bright gold. I sighed. As they bucked the ball he went chasing after it. I saw it coming towards me and did nothing as he ran and it stopped near my hooves. Then a mare who looked like his mother ran up to him and warned him not to play out in the open.

She noticed me watching them both and ushered her colt behind herself. I remained still without saying anything.

“C-can I help you miss? Is everything alright?” she asked, trying to sound nice.

Studying the mare’s expression, I could see by the way she was looking at the armor I was wearing. Her colt was giving me a weird look too, although not the same kind as his mother. More like he was confused. Snowflake, Sunny, this mare. These weren’t just ‘refugees’ from the Enclave, like I had initially thought.

This mare was hardly the image of an Enclave soldier. I was the one standing here in the armor.

“...Nevermind. Sorry to bother you.” I mumbled, averting my gaze as I walked past her.

“O-okay”

Looking up at the station clock again, I saw that the train was supposed to arrive within the next twenty minutes. I didn’t have very long. So I turned and ran towards the gate, drawing the attention of a few of the town guards who didn’t know where I was running off to.

Peering around the Raptor Graveyard, even the empty skeletons of the Raptor battleships lacking their floatation clouds were still huge. Up close they were just as imposing as I remembered, but now with a mausoleum ghost-like quality to them, like monuments to the war and the old world. I could’ve probably fit my head inside one of the gun barrels if I wanted to.

A battle had taken place here during the starting days of Operation Cauterize where the local hero of the town, Ditzy Doo, had taken down three raptors at once, leaving the remaining cloudships, which now functioned mostly as a local trade post providing a small economic boom to the nearby wasteland settlement. I’d have loved to know how she managed that one. Most of the good stuff had already been salvaged along with most of the raptors’ essential components, but the bartender in Unity said you could still find code breakers and information brokers here. A few New Canterlot mercs were standing by in the hot sun, but they were off and not really paying attention.

I had a short conversation with one of the grifters who caught my eye, under the remnants of a raptor cloud ballast that he was using for shade where he set up shop. Hiding various Enclave weapon components and ship parts but mostly junk from the outset. He was a ghoul that looked completely stitched together, wearing some strange adjustable eyewear with multiple lenses probably for discerning the quality of salvaged parts and some tacky sweater vest from before the war. He was probably the sort of pony who picked things off of corpses and brought them to trade at his shop.

He also had a terminal hidden in the back with some other things that stood out to me. Seemed exactly like the sort of pony who’d know something, so I approached him first.

Judging by my armor, he was almost immediately standoffish and reluctant to give me anything. “What do you want? Get lost New Canterlot! I already paid you guys your damn cut. I’m trying to run my business here! Freakin’ buzzards...”

”I’m not here to cause trouble,” I assured, “I just some need info.”

“Alright, fine. How much you got?” he said motioning his hoof for me to give over some of my bottlecaps. I shook my head.

“I don’t have any bottlecaps to spare.” I answered.

He quickly lost his temper, shooing me away, “Then get lost and quit wasting my time! Information costs caps.”

I tried to reason with him as quickly as I could, using ever ounce of self control not to look over my shoulder at the station. “I’m not with New Canterlot, I’m a merc. All I need to know about is New Canterlot’s role in the Neighvarro Provisional Government. Is there anything you know about what they’re looking for in the Old Ruins?”

The ghoul laughed out loud so hard it looked like his jaw might fall off, “Right! Like I’m supposed to believe that? Y’already took all my best stuff! What more do you want from me?” He was probably able to tell I was desperate for time and was using that to his advantage. I didn’t have time for this.

Getting rough, I grabbed him and pulled him close with a threatening cock-eyed shooty look. I uttered a low growl and spat, “Look zombie, I already told you I’m not New Canterlot, it’s just the armor. I’m also not stupid. I can tell an XVB02 Skytank from long distance, and I know the difference between a model Sunburst standard issue and a Novasurge rifle. That includes knowing the cheap-ass crystals used in the mass produced models from the real deal alchesynthetic stuff made in laboratories. And I’m smart enough to tell from a glance that you’re hanging onto the most valuable stuff for yourself while trying to pass it off for scrap so you can skim more caps off the top. Funny, I heard New Canterlot’s in the market for crystals so I bet Gawd would love to hear about that. So answer my damn question or I report your little “scrapyard bargain bin” to the proper authorities.”

“H-hey no need for that kiddo. I’m just trying to make an unliving. Seriously, that’s it? That’s basic day one stuff, kid! How else do you think New Canterlot became practically an overnight superpower in the territory after the Enclave Wars?” I felt stupid as it took me this long to start putting all the pieces together. It took me an extra second to wipe the equally stupid expression off my face as one by one, all of puzzle pieces were starting to fit into the larger picture.

Looking back at the station clock, I could almost see the train coming in the distance. “I gotta go…” I said, releasing him and rushed back.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” he shouted after me.

Galloping back to the station, I didn’t have time to waste. As I ran, I saw that one strange mare again. She was still looking around asking everyone who came close to her if they’d seen a certain black colt.

“P-please, someone? Anyone?” she asked in a the mare searched around frantically, looking very out of her element.

Groaning at feeling just a tinge of conscience, I skid to a halt next to her causing her to raise her hoof to shield herself from the dirt. “Ugh. fine, I’ll help you!” I relented. “I’ll bring him back here ‘if’ I run into him.”

She put a hoof to her breast, relieved. “Thank Celestia.”

I rolled my eyes. Why was I even agreeing to this? With a sigh I asked for a name, ”Do you have any idea where he went, whatever-your-name is?”

“Uh… n-no?” she replied hesitantly. Then corrected, “And it’s Star Blossom. I’m with the Followers’ Friendship Outr-”

Great. “Alright, whatever. Now pardon me, I have a train to catch-”

I heard another small voice speak up from close by, and we both looked over our shoulders at the blue pegasus colt from before. “Blip said he was going to go to New Canterlot on his own because he was tired of staying here.” he said.

“W-why didn’t you tell me sooner?!” The mulberry unicorn gasped, frantically waving her arms as she imagined the worst possible situation. “On his own in the wasteland?! B-but what if he gets eaten by hellhounds, or stung by radscorpions, or-”

“Rebellious little squirt, huh? Reminds me of myself.” I noted aloud. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do, but FYI, you really should ask actual New Canterlot ponies to help with this sort of thing in the future.

“But… aren’t you one?” she asked, confusedly. Oh right, I forgot I was wearing the armor. I rolled my eyes to the side in frustration. Then hearing another whistle blow at the station reminded me I had somewhere to be and I bolted to the station.

“Kid, do me a favor and tell that bald-headed deputy mare!”

I got to the station just in time. The train was waiting in the station when I got there, like a blast from wartime Equestria. Not appearing to be running on coal, or using train pullers or anything. Capable of crossing the wasteland in merely a few days. But the tech added to the engine car however looked suspiciously familiar.

I trotted up to the conductor pony standing on the platform. “One ticket to Dodge City.” I said, handing over the caps for the train fare.

“You are aware that Dodge is outside of New Canterlot’s jurisdiction, right?” he asked, taking and counting in his hoof to ensure I had the right amount. “You’ll have to talk to Colonel Peregrine when you get there about getting a work permit.”

“Yeah, I’m headed there for work reasons. I’ve just got some business to take care of and a letter to deliver.” I replied.

“Just making sure. In that case, make a transfer at Junction Town to the Dodge City line.” the old unicorn replied, letting me onto the train. “Alright, you’re the last stop. You’re gonna want to get off and make a transfer once we get to the J-R7 Station in Junction Town. Catch the four-ten to Dodge. Got all that?” he asked. I nodded.

One last matter of business. Pointing to the engine car at the front, I asked: “Hey, how’s the train running? Where are the pullers? Does New Canterlot have access to coal again?”

“Oh, see that’s thanks to New Canterlot scientists. They’ve adapted the same stuff the Grand Pegasus Enclave was using to power their raptors to work the trains. So now we don’t need no coal, and we don’t need no pullers no more. Classic arcane ingenuity, plain and simple. Real progress!”

Looking at the hybrid arcanotech made me feel a little uneasy at first. That was progress, right? “Right…” I replied. “Don’t Spark Engines explode...? violently?”

The old unicorn laughed, slapping his knee. “Only if you shoot at em! But this one’s encased in steel-magic alloy plating, and inside an armored locomotive car, so you really gotta be aiming real hard to blow it up. Plus we got a hoofful of New Canterlot mercs on the train working as guard ponies, so don’t worry your head.”

“Got it.” I said, boarding the train. I was finally beginning to understand, although now I really wished I hadn’t. The truth was a lot less fun than I imagined it would be.

When it was all accounted for he gave me a ticket stub and allowed me to step onto the train.

I shambled inside the passenger car and found the seat furthest away from other ponies where I could sit down. Blocking another pony trying to sit next to me, I muttered to myself. “The wonders of modern transportation.”

I heard the conductor calling outside to the front of the train, “All aboard!”

My saddlebag lay beside me. Remembering the Canterlot salvage operation, I pictured in my head all of the old wartime Ministry secrets he might be digging up there. Weapons from the back when times. Undoing the flap and looking inside, the envelope was inside.

The train lurched forward and began to calmly pull out of the station as I removed it from my saddlebag and set it in front of me. The ride was much smoother than anything I would’ve expected it to be and almost immediately the train began to pick up speed. Although I wasn’t sure if that was a faint buzzing noise in my ears or if it was just my imagination. Out the view of the window, New Appleloosa began pulling away from me in the distance, making way to open wasteland.

I looked down at the sealed envelope, and a million thoughts started racing through my head.

There was no question anymore, that those raiders wanted whatever I was carrying…

Did he use me...? Had I been unwittingly implicated in carrying something so dangerous? Was Fair Trade the one responsible for Cotton’s death? For all of this?! All because of whatever stupid thing was in this envelope?!

“Just open it.” I heard whispered in the back of my mind.

Even though it would be violating all the terms of the agreement and every ounce of trust he’d placed in me, I desperately wanted to see what was written inside. I’d probably be breaking all of his rules at once. If I did, there would be no turning back.

“But who could say it was even a report anyways?!” I reminded myself. He could’ve been lying through his teeth about that in an attempt to pull the wool over my eyes! What better courier than one who was blissfully unaware of what she was carrying? I was just some dumb freaking patsy who was none the wiser!

Letting out a growl in righteous indignation, I tore open the envelope and whipped out the paper inside. I couldn’t resist the temptation any longer! I had to know! Then as I read the water-damaged “report” inside, I stared in complete and utter shock at what I read. For all my years knowing him, I would have never suspected he’d be capable of something like this.

It read:

Dear Silver Spur,

This young mare’s name is Roulette, and I’ve known her since she was a lil’ filly. She’s a good kid, although to be honest can be kind of a hoofful at times. I’m sure you’ll be able to find a good use for her. Silver, we’ve known each other a long time, old friend… longer than most ponies lived back then. So you know I’m sending her to you with my best recommendation. Take good care of her.

Fair Trade

PS: Don’t let her read this. I don’t want her to think I’ve gone soft.

“...”

For a few moments I was stunned in complete silence at the letter, not sure what to think. My mouth hung wide open for a moment, taking me some time to fully process what I was reading.

Then slowly, a misshapen scowl began to stretch across my face. In anger, I crumpled up the piece of paper into a little ball and tossed it out the window of the speeding train.

I almost wished it was the other thing...

[You are still dressed as a member of New Canterlot.]

Level up!

Perk Added:
Travel Light- 20% faster running speed when wearing light or no armor.

Chapter 8: Inside Bets

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Chapter 8-

Inside Bets

“Civilization? I’ll stay right here!”

Next morning, I had woken up on the train and was eating another of my provisions in place of a ‘wasteland breakfast’, in the furthest back passenger car away from other ponies. I had my pistol laid out for cleaning on the seat across from me.

Looking out the window at the long stretching desert, I watched the landscape go by. Suddenly we’d arrived, and I could see civilization. Outside we were passing worker ponies were breaking up rock in order to lay the foundations for future construction. Excavations being done out in the middle of the desert. “What are they building?” I wondered to myself. “More factories?” Some ponies would talk about the march of civilization moving forward, while the rest of the wasteland out here looked empty just beyond it. It was a little breath taking. Only one S.P.P. tower was closeby overshadowing us, with Dodge being on edge of the endless stretch of suicide that was the San Palomino Desert.

A steel mill-like factory marked with the logo “Desperado Steel”, likely pre-war, made parts of Dodge City almost begin to resemble a smaller Fillydelphia in the making.

Taking a quick look back at my service rifle, I considered on and off if upgrading to a higher caliber weapon would be a good idea, before I went to go confront Jagged and his gang. Thinking back to that battle how many shots it would take just to take down one of the raiders and weighing it against my meager collection of bottlecaps. I just kind of grabbed it without thinking out of necessity, certainly not because it was my first choice in firearm.

All of a sudden the train lurched to a screeching halt, causing some of the parts of my gun to go flying. Annoyed, I picked up all the pieces and double checked to make sure everything was accounted before putting it back together as quickly as possible. I could hear the conductor going around to all the cars outside, trying to check for passengers. I called to let him know I was back here and gathered all my things before stepping off the train.

Outside, a few armed guards and passengers who’d made the commute to Dodge City were waiting. Unfortunately I didn’t see Sunny, Sting or Angel Eyes anywhere. “I guess I must’ve beat them here after all” I thought, deciding I’d just speak with whatever New Canterlot official was in charge, once I got into town. “Tch”.

“Why’d the train stop?” I asked, sounding irritated by the inconvenience.

“Ya gotta take the wagon into town,” he replied, waving his hoof reassuringly. “Worry not, It won’t be but a few extra minutes.”

“The wagon?” I repeated, glancing over my shoulder at the old stage coach with puller ponies hitched to it. “Why though?” The conductor pointed to the busted up tracks, which were blasted outward indicating explosives.

The rust coated conductor pony replied with an exasperated yet ominous, “You’ll see…” Eyeing my rifle, pistol and battle-saddle he looked back up at me a second time and added, “By the way, you’ll want to take that weapon off your battle-saddle before we get into town. There’s a loose no-drawn weapons policy here enforced by the Dodge City Gang. Unless you want to end up in the hoosegow, stow your weapons before we ride into town. Pistol too.”

I gave him a strange look and hopped into the wagon with a few other ponies.

“No guns?” I gave him a funny look. “Are you kidding me?” But all of the other ponies were already busy complying. As soon as I removed my gear we began the bumpy ride into town. Nopony spoke as the wagon wheels squeaked along. I just sat by watching all the ponies working in the ditch, swinging sledgehammers. A lot of these buildings didn’t used to be here… It was weird.

“It’s special Dodge City ordinance which applies to New Canterlot personnel or anyone deemed a threat. That's part of the agreement that allows us to operate here. Only residents of Dodge City are permitted to carry guns openly within the jurisdiction of the town. You’ll be allowed to carry at the New Canterlot territorial embassy once you've had the proper paperwork filled out.” He gestured at my rifle and sidearm. “One fella a few weeks ago forgot and nearly got shot up by the Dodge City Gang, darn nearly sparked a big conflict.”

I pouted, all of that sounding incredibly unfair. I’d never heard of a place in the wasteland that was so damn strict on guns for specific ponies. It certainly wasn’t this way before.

The wagon driver spoke along the bouncy ride, giving us a quick rundown. He pointed in the direction of town, giving instructions so I understood where everything was as I leaned outside the cart watching ponies in the work ditch going by. All of it was instruction about what I should do once I got there. “Local New Canterlot office is at the station house. That’s where the barracks is. You’ll have to check in with Colonel Peregrine since you’re with New Canterlot.”

Dodge used to be some empty wasteland town out in the middle of nowhere. Now it was a major trading partner with New Canterlot. “What a day and age we live in.” I thought to myself, scoffing. Ponies just kept on moving as if we weren’t all trying to kill each other less than a year ago like it was business as usual.

Ponies in the work ditch sweat under the hot sun, breaking up the rock in order to lay foundations for future structures. This place was in the middle of nowhere though, and I couldn’t be bothered to ask myself what was the reason for the sudden boom in industry. I felt bored and sweaty just watching them, like I was in a daze. Then we skid to a halt without warning as the puller ponies dug their hooves in to brake the wagon.

I looked up and asked, “Hey, why’d we stop?” Other ponies had stopped what they were doing as well, much to my confusion. As I turned my head around, I thought I could hear a strange noise in one ear, it sounded like... buffalo?

Suddenly, a rush of galloping hooves thundered by, tipping over the wagon like a tornado. I was thrown against the side and tumbled out of the cart and into the dust, along with most of the other ponies riding.

I clutched my skull, feeling like I’d hit a rock, and I heard ponies muttering from the work ditch. “Here we go again…”

Rubbing the throbbing bump on my head, I groaned loudly. Unable to feel my leg as I struggled to bring myself to my hooves, I looked down and saw another barely-conscious pony laying on top of me. I pushed the unconscious stallion off and stood upright, then looked around for the source of the disturbance.

A group of buffalo were standing not far from me, covered in white warpaint, black feathers and braided fur. They were carrying machine gun battle-saddles. I was hardly an expert on buffalo, but they looked pretty young based on their appearances. Their leader, who appeared to be the biggest, strongest and stupidest among them, was dressed up in yellow and red tribal war-markings and a black buzzard feather headdress.

The lead buffalo cleared his throat and began to speak. “*Ahem*....Hear me New Canterlot!” came a great booming voice as dusted myself off , “I am the mighty warchief of the Great Horns Buffalo tribe, Battlescar!”

I slowly looked around at everypony who was just standing by not doing or saying anything, like I was the only sane pony around here as he continued his rant. “Is nopony gonna do anything?!” I shouted, but they all just stood by watching.

“I will trample your civilization into the dust! I will burn your ashes to ashes, and salt the earth where you stand! I will deliver upon you an apocalypse ten-times what the last one was! None can withstand the unstoppable might, of the almighty warchief Battlescar! Do none of you cowards dare to challenge me?!” he bellowed.

Growling as I drew up my rifle, I noticed the wagon driver waving his hooves frantically at a nearby sign telling me to ‘stow my weapons’. “What? No guns, are you kidding me? This is the wasteland!” I snapped. “They have guns!” The wagon driver shrugged.

Muttering to myself, I shouted, “Hey, what’s the big idea?! Why don’t you watch where you’re going?!”

Battlescar took one look at me and burst out laughing, somehow finding something about my statement amusing. “Ahahaha! ‘You’ will challenge me? All New Canterlot can spare to send me is one little mare?!”

Cracking my joints, I snarled. “I’d be happy to kick your ass, if you’re making a request.”

The scar-covered buffalo laughed even louder. “Ahahaha! And by what right do you challenge me?”

“Whu-?” Was something supposed to be funny? I was totally lost. So I snarked back, rolling up my sleeves, “By right of I’m the goddess damned princess of ass-kicking!”

Battlescar laughed, pointing at me while his friends were rolling around on the ground pounding the dirt. “What foolishness! I laugh at you! Ha! And ‘ha’ again! You have not even earned the right to face me! New Canterlot, next time send me a worthier opponent than this mare, and ‘then’ your day of reckoning will come! If by the sundown of the next full moon you do not grant me a worthy challenge, I will claim all lands to the south of here along with this blight of a city!” Finally, turning to his two closest buddies, they quickly stood at attention. “Pale Face! Ghost Legs!” he called out. “Let’s ride!”

“Earned? What the hell are you on about, you freaking idio-?!”

Before I could get another word out they charged, trampling over me and galloping off into the desert. They disappeared almost as quickly as they arrived.

I sat up with hoof marks all over my face and blinked twice to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. “What the hell was that about?!” Maybe I was starting to lose my touch. I looked all around to make sure nopony was pulling a prank on me. Discord was just something superstitious wasteland ponies believed in, crawling around like a lizard and sticking extra ammunition and random junk inside containers.

Some of the worker ponies had paused to watch and were snickering amongst themselves at me, as ponies attempted to turn the wagon upright. Thankfully everyone was okay.

A nearby older stallion’s voice sighed, “That’s the third time this week…”

I felt myself enveloped by telekinesis and brought upright onto my hooves, where I was then dusted off by the magic glowing aura. I flailed oddly, trying to reach the ground, before I was released. The stallion’s voice belonged to a yellow unicorn with an orange and beige-striped mane. “Sorry for the welcome wagon. Name’s Crane, I’m the forepony for the railroad here. It’s a pleasure to meetcha.” He tipped his construction hat with his telekinesis, and almost effortlessly returned the wagon ride-side up, allowing the other ponies to gather their bearings as they groaned in discomfort.

“I’ll be fine, thanks. Name’s Roulette.” I said, introducing myself. “What, you mean they do this all the time?”

The stallion nodded without a hint of irony. “That’s right. There used to be a peaceful tribe around these parts, called the Stronghearts, but they disappeared some years ago according to locals. Now we just got these jokers to deal with.”

Looking back towards the desert towards where they ran off, I grumbled, “Well they certainly make a hell of a first impression...”

Crane chuckled to himself. “Yup. This new Great Horns tribe ain’t been too shy about what they think of ponies neither. Never kill nobody though, is probably the only reason ole Peregrine has been soft on em up until now. Instead they show up to wreck the tracks several times a week and cause all sorts of trouble. Then Battlescar goes on a short rant and they run off again. Same deal, every time. It’s a darn miracle nopony’s gotten shot yet. Good thing too. There’s enough bad blood to go around, if ya ask me...” The last part, he said forebodingly.

Changing the topic, I asked, “On the off chance, you wouldn’t happen to know an ‘Appleshot Brandy’ would you?”

“Eyup, sure do! She’s the owner of the Saloon down on mainstreet. Contractors like us don’t know many of the locals, mostly working the railroads, but we all know her.” he answered. As he spoke he swapped a few of the tracks almost effortlessly using his telekinesis.

“Not from around here?” I asked.

“Nope. Originally from New Appleloosa,” he answered, forthcomingly. “Perhaps you’ve heard of me? Me being the best telekinetic in the wasteland n’ all. Even showed the Stable Dweller a thing or two in my old age!”

I scratched the back of my mane. Unfortunately, being an earth pony, I hadn’t really kept up with all of the famous unicorns in the wasteland. Unless the Lightbringer counted in that number. “Could you point me to whoever is in charge around here?”

“Well, if you’re looking on working the line, if ya can haul a load or swing a hammer I’d be happy to hire ya. Otherwise just talk to Colonel Peregrine if you’re here on more ‘New Canterlot’ type business.” He trailed off, glaring at a small red-orange lizard crawling on the tracks nearby. “Maybe you can manage to solve my salamander problem for me…” the stallion mentioned with a hint of irritation.

It stopped and turned to look at him, cocked its head and scampered off. “Darn varmints out here love lighting up anything they can find. Heating up the rails and bending the metal or lighting the cross ties on fire. Pests, I tell ya...” he cursed, muttering to himself.

Then he pointed over towards the train station in the distance and I began to walk along the side of the dusty road towards town by myself.

“Thanks.” I said with a slight wave of my hoof.

I cautiously glanced again at the “stow your weapons” sign directly outside the city limits, where a couple members of the Dodge City Gang wearing their trademark dark-brown dusters had shown up to check out what was going on. They gave me a dirty look after noticing my armor, before making a judgement that there was no cause for alarm and went back to what they were doing. All seemed to be business as usual. To them, I was just another New Canterlot pony in this armor.

Some merchants were congregating near the entrance, dealing chems and other illicit items. An oversized muscular goat with just a hint of mutation, served as a bodyguard to a female donkey selling questionable merchandise. His hide looked bloodshot, covered in patches of motley brown fur barely being contained by a patchwork button-up shirt. They called them ‘Radgoats’, depending on who you asked. The donkey merchant not-so-subtly hoofed over a few bottlecaps to one of the lawponies before the sale was allowed to go through.

That must’ve been what passed for local law around here. A small reminder of what I was myself stepping into. Muttering to myself how I felt that they seemed particularly useless as far as law ponies went. Not caring at all about a mare getting trampled by Buffalo. The nerve!

Dodge City was run by the mayor and her gang of of thugs, but the other notable gangs in the city included the Lucky Sevens, the Brawlers, and the Boudoirs, which more or less functioned as a sort of corrupt city council, and together they all served the Dodge City Gang's interests. There was also a Mercenaries’ Union now, but they must've been relatively new.

As I headed into town, the first thing anyone noticed was the gigantic black Ironclad Firearms factory, looming over the remains of the rustic frontier settlement. During the Great War, they specialized in creating heavy military-grade weapons and were the main rivals to the illustrious Ironshod Firearms Company that my service rifle's design was based on. Some of the war propaganda posters from back then had even managed to survive to this day on the sides of certain structures, with reminders to purchase firearms from Ironclad and support the troops. The factory itself also doubled as the mayor’s office, with the sharp contrast of architecture becoming more apparent as urban sprawl stretched outward into the desert.

Then I caught it. The stench of corruption filling the air. Most of them seemed to be scummy mercenaries, thieves or raiders of certain sorts. This was the refuse unwanted by New Canterlot. Gawd’s crackdown in her territory had driven many on the other side of the law to seek refuge in Dodge City, it seemed. I barely even knew where to begin. “How am I supposed to find Sunny in a place like this?” I wondered to myself. There were so many heads walking around too. And not just ponies either. Practically every equine race and creature you could think of was walking around Dodge. Oddly enough, the only one that seemed to be missing from the collection of wasteland denizens was pegasi...

Cherry Hill Ranch sat nearby, the mansion overlooking Dodge City on a hill, not too far from the town. With lush green and pink trees all over the property, it looked like an oasis by comparison to this lawless place.

Close to the factory was the train station, which served as New Canterlot's HQ all the way out here. Also my first destination. A lone soldier sat, bored to tears in the ticket booth, acting as a makeshift guard post. The mare nodded to me as I passed her on the way inside to speak with the griffon in charge, overhearing her snide commentary about the heat making her wish for an out-of-season winter-rad-up.

The station house served as a perfectly functional office where everything was kept tidy and neatly organized, with papers stacked and files stored properly. The old griffon offered me a seat in the chair across from him. After I told him my story, he seemed very interested in what I had to say.

Colonel “Steelbeak” Peregrine, was an appropriately nicknamed old no nonsense griffon who served in ‘the war’ and was a prominent Talon and Enclave War veteran in his time, now working for New Canterlot’s behalf. He had many scars and also a steel beak-plate literally welded onto his upper beak.

“So you fought in the Enclave Wars, Colonel?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“That’s right! All three of em!” he blustered proudly. “At least as far as the most recent ones go. Darn bug-eyes never did like to acknowledge them as anything more than skirmishes though. But you just ask em about Trotwynd and watch their feathers fall out! Ha!”

“Tea?” a young female griffon with red plumage wearing an officer’s uniform offered me a teacup filled with weird looking brown liquid. I’d never had tea before. By contrast, she was a lot more bubbly than the older bushy-browed veteran Talon. Ginger was her name and she held the rank of lieutenant, mostly acting on behalf of the Colonel as his personal secretary. She also had slightly dark markings around her eyes and a cheery disposition that slightly reminded me of Sunny’s.

Taking a sip of the liquid, it tasted funny. Bitter, but oddly soothing down my throat, even as it burnt my tongue a little.

“You also say you ran into lil Battlescar, huh?” he chuckled to himself, although judging from my memory he was hardly what I would’ve have called ‘little’. “Real batch of troublemakers they are. To be honest with you, most of us are completely stumped right now on how to deal with them. Certain folks back in New Canterlot don’t want it to come to violence. They think that by engaging them it’ll hurt our chances of getting the Buffalo to join up with Gawd’s new N.C.R., meanwhile others want to take a more proactive approach. If they don’t want to get along and play “civilized” for too long, that is…”

I had no idea why New Canterlot would be interested in some troublemaking buffalo. Perhaps some politicians thought they’d make good soldiers. Looking back at him, I asked. “N.C.R.? You mean the alliance?”

“More or less.” The old griffon stirred his tea to cool it down and took a sip. “It is a bit humorous, to be truthful. One problem though is the buffalo know these parts better than most ponies. Makes them extremely difficult to track down and speak with one-on-one. And when we try they don’t feel like talking much. Can’t really pin em down and force em to listen, and it ain’t like we’ve got any Skyrangers to spare here either... I swear, all it’s gonna take is the Dodge City mayor or some griffon back in New Canterlot getting ornery over lack of progress, then deciding to deal with them the ‘wasteland way’. Then it’ll be out of my claws at that point. But, that’s bureaucracy for you.” he ceded, setting his teacup back down on his desk. “Orders are orders. And I’ve got mine to sit here and oversee bringing Dodge to the table with New Canterlot on negotiations.”

“I see…” I replied, subtly dumping the liquid in a nearby potted plant. That sounded about right, based on my own encounter. It seemed apparent to me that they were probably playing their own side in this, but otherwise unimportant to my current goals.

He sat tapping his steel beak-plate. “Roulette, was it? I’m glad you came to me first with your problem. Dunno much about bug-eye weaponry or vertibucks flying around the Smokeys, that’s more Neighvarro’s department...”

Pulling Sting’s laser pistol out of my saddle bag, I showed it to him. He took it in his claws, examining it with a handy pair of reading-spectacles he kept in his uniform before giving it back to me.

“But perhaps our ‘interests’ might coincide with each other...” he said interlocking his talons as he sat back at his desk.

I raised an eyebrow, waiting to hear his proposal.

“What I’m saying basically is… I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of a smuggling ring that’s being carried in and out of Dodge. I want to know if it’s somehow connected to the Dodge City gang, and this might be just what I need to finally prove it.”

“Why’s that?” I asked.

“Because if the Dodge City Gang is somehow involved, it’ll show New Canterlot that the mayor’s been acting in bad faith. It’ll give us a leg up in negotiations with her. There’s been a big effort to rebuild the railroad in the New Canterlot territories, and the train runs between here and Junction Town almost every other day. We need Dodge City steel for the railroads and other projects, so effectively my talons are tied on this matter. A might inconvenient, on account of Dodge being one of our best trade partners right now… But this might actually convince them to take a more strongarmed approach in dealing with the old hag.”

“What about Fillydelphia?” I asked.

A hint of annoyance in his voice, he panged, “You probably saw some of the steel refineries on your way into town? We only recently gained access to a few of the factories in Filly. Gawd’s been aiming to further expand our influence there. Increase our output towards reconstruction throughout the rest of the territory. Although truthfully, it ends up drawing a ton of resources just to hold it. Hell of a state Red Eye and his slavers left it in after the Battle of Fillydelphia, lemme tell ya... So in the meantime, we're forced to use Dodge City 'Desperado Steel', but the mayor knows she’s got us over a damned barrel!” He banged his claw on his desk, nearly causing his teacup to spill.

Growing tired of listening to an old griffon complain about politics and eager to get onto business, I said, “I’m only looking for two specific ponies. One’s a raider boss named Jagged Knife who fled here, with possible connection to the recent caravan hits. I’m also positive that he was the one responsible for arming the raiders in the territory. And he might’ve also had something to do with the recent raid on New Canterlot Valley from a couple nights ago. The other was a seafoam pegasus mare. Her name is Sunny Hymn.”

“Jagged, huh? He sounds, familiar. Didn’t we already take care of him, Ginger?” he tapped on his metal beakplate, making a metallic sound each time.

I grunted through my teeth in annoyance, “I can assure you, he’s still at large...”

Ginger chimed in, flipping through a dossier, “Jagged Knife is one of the mayor’s hired guns. She hired him shortly after Cauterize, and he’s one of her higher ranking operatives in the Dodge City Gang. Remember sir? You detailed him extensively in the last report you sent out...”

“If that's true, there'll be hell to pay. I've been caught up handling trade negotiations here on Gawdyna's behalf, but why haven’t those featherheads in New Canterlot done anything about this yet?! According to this mare he’s gallivanting around the territory organizing hits on our caravans and we’re just sitting on our asses!”

“Something else has come up that’s drawing most of their attention.” The red plumed female griffon said as she examined a pinned bulletin on the side of the wall. "I believe there were new reports this morning that said they’re pinning it all on Papa Bighoof, their local raider warlord, instead.”

He sat up in his chair. “What?!” he exclaimed. “Do they even read the reports?”

Ginger cleared her throat. “Did you send the abridged version I made instead of the three hundred page draft you wrote...?”

“That’s obvious,” he squawked. “I sent the three hundred page one of course! They should have all the facts! How are you supposed to come to the right conclusion if you’re missing ninety percent of the context?!”

Ginger chided, “You need to make your reports shorter sir. Not everyone has the time or patience to read that much...”

“Nonsense!” he shot back boisterously, “I breeze through two hundred year old legal documents in my spare time! This is nothing!”

She smiled and laughed hesitantly to herself, “Heh, not everygriffon is you sir…”

“And what about the other one?” I pressed. “She was kidnapped and taken here.”

Steelbeak furrowed his bushy brows while a grim but reserved expression crossed his face. “Kidnapped? Best worst case scenario: forced prostitution. Possibly dead. We don’t make the rules here in Dodge. Necessity outweighs moral cost to the top brass calling the shots.”

Feeling overcome with regret, I put my head in my hooves and muttered, “Prostitution? Dammit, it’s all my fault…” I pounded on his desk in frustration.

“A seafoam pegasus mare...?” Ginger’s eyes lit up as she had a sudden thought, “Oh! You mean the mayor’s new caretaker up at Cherry Hill Ranch? A pony matching that description arrived in town yesterday afternoon on a skycart with three other ponies. That’s right, she was accompanying a few members of the Dodge City Gang. Funny, I didn’t realize she’d be so popular.”

I stood up and blurted out, “Ginger, you’re amazing!”

She tried hard to hide her own embarrassment. “I keep track of as many ponies coming and going from town as I can.” Puffing up her chest and looking proud of herself she chuckled, “Hehe yeah, I don’t mean to brag but… I’m really good at my job.”

I’d have kissed her if it wouldn’t come across as totally weird. That was great news! Knowing she was alright gave me a small sense of relief, followed by confusion. “Wait, is she working with the raiders now?!”

“Well, the mayor hired her yesterday, supposedly just after she got here.” she answered.

“No, there has to be a reasonable explanation for this,” I thought, trying not to jump to conclusions for once. For now I was just happy to hear that she was alright.

What looked like a smirk crossed the old griffon’s steel-plated beak. “My thinking is along the lines that: you and I can both help each other out.” he grinned. I was really starting to like this griffon. “What I could really use right now is a free agent.”

I grinned back. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking...?” I put my hooves up on the colonel’s desk, getting excited. “You’ve gotta get me in to see the mayor!”

“That’s the ticket!” he cheered, snatching a clawful of air. “And she doesn’t know your face yet, so you’re in the perfect position to do so. I’ll provide you with whatever you need, and in return report back to me anything you find about the mayor’s dealings. Find any evidence of chems or weapons smuggling into the territory that you can.”

“I’m game if you are!” I said with a devilish grin.

“Damn straight! Now it all makes sense! She’s hitting our caravans to try and increase demand from Dodge City and drive up business on her end. We got that old bitch right where we want her!”

Ginger looked unsure between the three of us, as both me and the Colonel were getting caught up in the heat of the moment. “Are you sure that’s what’s going on here, sir...?”

“What else could it be?” he chuckled, confidently dismissing her concerns with a claw-wave. “As for Papa Bighoof, maybe she’s just trying to keep eyes off of her?” Wearing an impetuous smirk as he fantasized aloud to himself, he said, "I can’t wait to bust into that old hag’s office and slap this in front of her face. The look on her lips will be priceless!”

“Y’know, I wish more griffons were like you. All the other ones I meet are super stingy about following the rules and contract to the letter!” I smirked, getting caught up in the heat of the moment. I wasn’t so sure about the Colonel’s theory myself, but at least we were finally getting somewhere.

“I’ll give you two hundred bottlecaps out of pocket if you can find me anything. Three hundred if it’s juicy. We’ll get to the bottom of the source of the caravan attacks and deal with the chem problem in one fell swoop!” he said. Then, he pulled out a stack of papers and a writing quill, and sat back in his seat. He huffed and began filling out paperwork in ink. “Come back in two weeks.” he said flatly, and I suddenly felt a cold wind blowing as all the excitement drained out of room and I was left trying to mentally process his words.

“TWO WEEKS?!” I shouted so loud that some of the soldiers outside probably heard me. “What the hell?! I don’t have two weeks to sit on my ass and do nothing!”

He didn’t even bat an eye at my outburst, calmly replying. “Mayor Rubi Royale doesn’t meet with New Canterlot often except to negotiate trade relations, so you’re operating on her schedule. By books, it’s two weeks. On short notice this is the best I can do. Throwing away protocol is against the rules! And without rules, where would we be?! Anarchy! That’s where! But of course... if you happen to find another way to get an audience with her, and then you so happen to find the information I’m looking for and drop it in my lap... Well let’s just say I wouldn’t exactly stand in your way. Keep me posted. If you need work, speak with Crane. I’ll try to get into contact with New Canterlot about it in the meantime.”

I nodded, beginning to understand what he was getting at. “Oh… right. I gotcha.”

Colonel Peregrine cleared his throat. “...by the way that’ll be four bottlecaps for service-taxes.”

Grumbling as I walked out into the midday sun. Taxes had to be the dumbest idea in the history of the wasteland. I scrunched my face and squinted upwards. For some reason being in the desert always felt hotter than just being under normal sunshine. Not that I wasn’t used to the heat by now. Still too bright.

Dodge was a city on the edge of civilization by practically every standard. A boomtown during the war, it had boomed again in recent months, and it was big enough that I might have difficulty finding the pony I was looking for on my own.

Some of the wartime posters had actually survived on the factory and in parts of old town. On one hoof, it encapsulated everything about the wasteland I knew from before the Enclave; bandits, lawlessness, along with all manner of scum and villainy. On the other, the Dodge City Gang had taken up control of the city and were trying to bring civilization to this place. Cowpony’s in dark dusters that marked their authority paced up and down the streets occasionally, while some stood in front of certain businesses of interest.

There was mainstreet with salvaged neon signs and guarded businesses, built up from what was left of old town Dodge, and that was where most of the hoof traffic was. Creaking wooden plank walks that were raised above dirt roads followed along on either side of the street. But beyond that were the slums and rebuilt remains of Dodge from during the war, made up of snaking alleyways of wrecked wartime structures and small-time gang turfs.

I got a few ponies giving me the evil eye as I hoofed my way through town. All the dirty looks was probably on account of the armor. Discarded trash littered the ground where I walked. Drunks and destitutes paced the streets, while scam artists and thieves kept to the alleyways. I even got a solicitation to star in a ‘sex’ memory orb from some creepy looking stallion, resisting my extreme urge to punch him in the face.

“Hey, you look tough.” whispered some shady pony hiding in the gaps between two structures. “Want to fight in the gauntlet? Grand prize is 10,000 bottlecaps.”

“Ten thousand?” I drooled a little at the prospect, but kept pace.

A drunk pony lay sleeping in an alleyway where some old discolored posters were slapped up against a wall, so much so that I couldn’t make out what any of them said, but on second look I realized that he had been stabbed in the gut and left for dead there. Ponies with the Dodge City Gang didn’t seem to care much though. I turned my head away and pretended I hadn’t noticed.

Occasionally, I could make out the faintest echoes of gunshots from somewhere within the city. Or maybe somewhere on the outskirts. It was a little hard to tell with all the ponies around, but they just kept walking around like it was business as usual. I’d have said if I had to elect a candidate for the title of ‘ass of the wasteland’, it’d be between Hoofington and this place. In short, Dodge was a collection of all my worst memories of the wasteland. The good times I spent back then felt a little faded in retrospect.

Looking up at Cherry Hill Ranch, I wondered to myself if maybe Sunny was up there. Thinking of what my next move should be, no way in hell was I going to wait two weeks to see the mayor. But without any serious firepower, I wasn’t about to go up there with gun’s blazing to kick Jagged Knife’s teeth armed with only a service rifle. There had to be another way. “What was that thing that Sunny was always telling me to do...?” I mulled inside my own head trying to think of the word. “Oh yeah, subtlety.”

Most of the shops were located on the populated mainstreet, being many of the types of places you’d expect. Any of the more raunchy establishments were off the beaten path. Chem brothels, organized fight rings, along with any activity that would normally be illegal in New Canterlot territory were all free reign here so long as you didn’t stand in the way of those in charge.

There was a general store. A single clinic in town, with a disreputable look about it. The large guns store near the Ironclad factory had members of the Dodge City Gang standing guard in front of it, almost making it look like the main attraction of the town. Then there was the Dodge City Wrangler Saloon on the edge of the street, with its old style architecture maintained and renovated over the years kept the old aesthetic going nicely.

I couldn’t resist stopping to peek through the window of the gun store, which was immediately enticing to me. Watching through the display window, I awed as I checked out their huge supply of top quality weapons. One weapon in particular caught my eye inside a sealed case, which contained a large service rifle far better quality than my own with polished wood furniture and the name ‘Winona’ carved into the buttstock. It even had optional fully automatic fire. I had no idea who the lucky lady was, but I had to have her.

I moved towards the door, trying to slip inside, but was stopped by two members of the Dodge City Gang. One of them was a gaunt unicorn with a lazy eye, who put his hoof on the door to stop me from opening it. “What are you trying to pull? New Canterlot is strictly prohibited from purchasing firearms without the proper authorization!”

They were wielding some pretty high end weapons. More than I would’ve expected for a podunk place like this. In fact, everyone around me seemed to be carrying some sort of ludicrously excessive gun. But none of the ‘Enclave’ weapons I’d been searching all over the wasteland for. Part of me was beginning to wonder if I’d even come to the right place or if Angel Eyes was just leading me on.

“Hey, I thought anyone could purchase a gun here!” I protested.

“That’s right. Anyone except for New Canterlot.” They both laughed together at their unfunny joke.

My brow furrowed in annoyance. “Well good news boys, I ain't New Canterlot.” I replied snarkily. “I just want a look, so lemme in!” Neither of them took too kindly to my response.

“Who in the hell are you trying to fool? Don’t get snippy with us, ya hear?” said the lazy eyed one.

“It don’t matter if you’re with Gawd. If you break the law, we’ll have you working a brothel for the rest of your damn life, mare. Now get your sorry hide moving unless you want Mama to change her mind on our arrangement and kick you lot out of Dodge!”

I glared knives, daring them both to try anything. Although, even if they were only making empty threats, I knew better than to further push my luck here. So I turned my head and kept on walking, eyeing the rifle longingly as I passed the display case for a second time.

At the very end of the street, was the Lucky Seven’s Casino, bringing back unwanted memories. With its familiar sights and flashing neon magic sign, a mare crier wearing an evocative outfit stood outside attempting to entice others in. Flanked by armed guard ponies.

I checked inside my bag, being reminded of the letter I still had to deliver. So I made my way to the Dodge City Wrangler on the street corner. How convenient the recipient also happened to live inside a bar.

As I made my way inside I was checked by four ponies decked out in steel power armor who stood in my way.

“Hey! Watch where you’re standing. I’m trying to get inside.” I snapped.

“Why don’t you watch it, New Canterlot?” came a mare’s bark out of the leader’s helmet. Her voice was especially venom-filled as she addressed me as ‘New Canterlot’. “You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face around here. Our local chapter might’ve dissolved, but we’re still Steel Rangers! Show some damn respect, tribal.” I noticed all of them had red x’s painted over their steel ranger insignia’s and shoulder pauldrons. They were all carrying their massive guns that looked like small twenty millimeter autocannons on their backs, off of their battle saddles. Armed to the teeth, but technically compliant with the local law.

“Rangers? You look like loser renegades to me.” I replied. “Now you're just a bunch of high-tech mercs with an attitude problem.”

The lead mare almost lost her temper, “What’d you say, bitc-?!”

“Easy, Bombshell. She ain’t worth it.” Came a cautious stallion’s voice from behind her, urging discretion. Probably more from the Dodge City Gang than from me.

Ponies here were supposedly armed to the teeth from the weapons factory, like steel rangers, but without the power armor. Plenty enough to keep most lowlifes in check. Or maybe it was more due to the barely-contained powder keg of conflicting gangs and mercenaries congregating within the city that dissuaded them?

“Damn this place. Every one of these lowlifes is trotting around with high-end weapons. Disgusting. If we still had the rest of our chapter backing us, this place’d be entirely under our-” She brushed his hoof off and scoffed. “Y’know what? Screw it. No point in getting worked up. Watch yourself around here, New Canterlot. If we catch you outside Dodge City, Gawd won’t be able to find enough pieces of you to I.D. what’s left of your smouldering corpse...” she threatened, before briefly addressing her squadmates. “Brunswick. Salvo. Frag. Let’s go find work someplace else.”

Back in the wasteland, my comments had a tendency to start fights more often. I thought to myself if maybe that was a sign of the times as I watched them trot off, before stepping through the double doors of the saloon.

The Dodge City Wrangler Saloon was a two story establishment, a bit more rundown than the Turnpike Tavern, but attempted to dress itself up in more of a country flair. It was populated by mercenaries and scumbags of all sorts, who all stopped briefly to stare at the New Canterlot mare before continuing on with what they were doing. From ex-raiders, thieves and bounty hunters to mercenaries. You know. The usual sorts of ponies you’d find in Dodge City.

It had stairs leading up to several closed wooden doors, under which guns-for-hire drank alcohol, while smoking and playing cards next to an old working jukebox and antique piano. Among them were a unicorn gunslinger in a serape with revolvers strapped to his chest, a minotaur dressed in a fancy black gambler’s suit, a raider stallion in waster gear, and an oversized radgoat sitting at a single table.

The minotaur stood grumbled to himself watching his bad hand and glancing up frequently at each of the other players. The gunslinger puffed his cigar smugly. Meanwhile the radgoat carried a stone poker face so good that it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. Or if he was thinking anything at all...

Taking steps on the wooden flooring and edging my way around other ponies, I made my way to the bar where the owner of the establishment was standing, a tired middle-aged poppy colored mare with a red bandana tied over her wavy brown mane with a black server’s apron that read “kiss my grits”.

I walked up to her and she raised an expectant eyebrow, inhaling her cigarette and blowing the smoke out her nose. “Yeah?”

“Are you an ‘Appleshot Brandy’?” I questioned.

“Who wants to know...?” she squinted at me with a slight hint of suspicion.

I reached into my saddlebag and leaned over to give her the envelope. “I’ve got this message to deliver.” I mouthed through my teeth.

“Oh. Thanks...” she mumbled, lowering her guard and looking down after opening the letter. A scowl contorted her face as she read, growing more irritated with each word.

I held out my hoof and smiled weakly. “Uh, delivery tax?.... hehe”

The mare snorted and stuck a sealed bottle in front of me. “Here, have a Sunrise Sarsaparilla, kid. It’s on the house.” Brandy walked to the other side of the bar and began to read the message to herself.

I popped the Sunrise open and checked the underside of the bottlecap. Miraculously, there was a blue star under it, so I stuck it in my pocket to save for later. Spare wishes were difficult to come by these days. As I sipped on it, even in the seedy atmosphere all the bitter memories of my favorite drink couldn’t help but bubble up towards the surface and make me feel slightly miserable.

“Haven’t seen eyes bluer than that since my ex-girlfriend’s coat. What’s eating you?” I heard a male voice from beside me, and turned my head to the right. It belonged to a yellow unicorn stallion with a purple mane sat down next to me. He was wearing what could easily be mistaken for raider-esque gear with a tall gangly physique, but nopony was really paying him any mind.

My eyes flicked down at the spear cutie mark on his flank, then came back up glaring.

He put his up hooves and leaned back on his barstool as though he were being accused. “Woah, easy there New Canterlot! What’s with the hostility? I can tell by that look, you got it all wrong!” I watched as he put both his forelegs back on the counter. “I’m no raider. I’m an ex-raider. Big difference!”

“Whatever…” I took another drink of the Sunrise.

“Jeez, haven’t you heard that you shouldn’t go around judging a pony by their cutie mark? It’s rude I tell ya what!” Changing his tone on a dime, he leaned close and stuck out his hoof as if to shake mine and introduce himself. “Anyways, pleased to meetcha. Name’s Pike, bit of a drifter you might say. What brings you out Dodge City way?” he asked.

”Unfinished business.” I replied.

“Hmmm… Reminds me of this one time me and a couple of compadres of mine were being chased by this mean pair of ghouls. Couple of bounty hunter gals. Pretty scary. I think one of my buddies got captured by em or something cus he had a bounty of his head. Yeah, that’s right. Don’t remember the reason why, or what happened to them after that either. Memory’s a bit fuzzy. I blame it on the chems.”

I scowled. “Is it normal for ponies to give out their life story without asking?”

“Just making friendly conversation...” he replied innocently. “What’s eatin’ ya, New Canterlot?”

“Tch.” I rolled my eyes. Why was it that I kept meeting so many strange characters today? “I’ve said it before, I’m not with New Canterlot…” I sighed, taking another sip of my sunrise and tilted my head back with a huff to look up at the ceiling. “Any idea why raiders would bury a bunch of New Canterlot armor pieces in a random ditch somewhere?” I asked, thinking aloud.

“Couldn’t tell ya,” he shrugged, “but in my experience ponies bury all kinds of dumb shit in random places.”

“Yeah, me neither.” I said to him half-heartedly looking away. “Thanks anyways...”

“You low-down rotten cheater!” I heard the minotaur mooing from across the room. “There’s only three aces in a deck! Not five! I counted!”

“There are four suits in a deck muscle-for-brains. You lost. Now pay up.” said the unicorn in the serape.

He snorted and stood up, scraping the ground with one hoof. “You calling me stupid Lone Hoof?! I oughta knock you into next week!”

The oversized goat snorted, saying nothing as he continued to sit at the table.

As the card players were looking like they were about to get into a fight my eyes wandered back over to the older mare running the bar, who suddenly got fed up and shut off the jukebox. Shouting over everyone, she barked, “Alright, everyone get the hell out! We’re closed for the afternoon!” Making her point extra clear by resting her shotgun on the counter. There were lots of complaints as the patrons shuffled out of the bar, but I stayed in my seat, going either being ignored or unnoticed. The establishment quickly emptied, draining most of the seedy atmosphere along with it.

“Come back ‘round sundown. We’ll have drinks.” she promised.

After they had all left, I watched as an older pale grey unicorn poke his head out of one of the rooms upstairs to see what all the commotion was about, his flank bearing a green bottle with an apple on it and an old-fashioned revolver. “Hey, Brandy? Whatchya got there?” he asked, peering over the wooden banister.

Brandy scowled, “Go back to your holotapes, Dad!”

Her father frowned, looking down at her scoldingly. “Is that any way to talk to your own flesh and blood? I’d recognize that look from my own daughter any day of the week!” The aged pony slowly made his way down the stairs, creaking with each and every step.

The mare groaned loudly. “It’s Apple Whiskey. He sent another offer to hire us to work at the Turnpike Tavern in New Appleloosa. Since we’re family, he feels ‘obligated’ to offer us a way out our ‘situation’.” she stated sarcastically.

Asking with a hint of sincerity in his voice, he leaned in close and put a hoof on her shoulder. “So whatchya thinkin’ honey…? I know there’s our family pride to think about, but maybe we should think about his offer.”

“There ain’t no, ‘situation’!” The mare insisted, turning away from him and crumpled up the letter. “I ain’t sellin’ dad! I already said I ain’t sellin’ and that’s final! Things ain’t got bad enough that I’m willing to abandon the other townsfolk in their time of need. It ain’t right!”

“Settlements come and go in the wasteland.”

“Things have been rough sometimes, sure, but Dodge City has always stuck around. We look after our own. That’s what matters most.”

“Dodge City ain’t getting any better, sweetheart. The mayor and her Dodge City Gang have seen to that. Sometimes things change. In my experience it's best not to get too tied down to the past...”

She gasped, holding a hoof to her breast. “I can’t believe my ears right now! We built this place up with our own blood and sweat! It’s been in our family for generations!”

“Trust me, it ain’t easy for me, but what’s important is that we’re alive. Folks say that a good run is better than a bad stand. Wood and Scrap buildings don’t matter worth a damn if you’re dead.”

The mare didn’t reply, instead displaying signs of internal conflict.

“Sweetie, I just want you to be happy…” he consoled her.

She put a hoof on her breast and proclaimed, “I’m plenty happy! Can’t you tell? Business is booming,” she added, gesturing to me. “You just can’t get rid of some of these lowlifes!” I whistled, trying to look inconspicuous.

“Y’know, sometimes I just wish there were no more guns in Dodge City. In the whole wasteland.”

“That might be dreaming too big. Guns are tools, Brandy. No better or worse than the pony using em.”

She sneered and shot her eyes off to the side, caressing her shoulders. “Yeah, don’t you think I don’t know that? You’ve taught me that plenty before. But we weren’t killing each other like we are now. Like before those weapons… The stories that ma told me from before the war, made it sound like paradise.”

“I wish I had all the answers darling…”

She frowned, finally addressing me directly. “You got somewhere to be, New Canterlot? Didn’t your mama ever teach you it’s impolite to eavesdrop on family affairs?”

“Not really.” I answered forthcomingly. “I’m also not with New Canterlot, it’s just the armor. I’m stuck in Dodge until I can find out how to get an audience with the mayor.”

“Well ain’t that just peachy?” she snorted.

I finished my bottle of Sunrise Sarsaparilla and set it down on the counter before standing up and leaning against the bar like in an old cowpony holovid. “Nope, on account of I never knew my mama, but to me it sounds like you fine folks are having some trouble. Ya got any work for me?”

“Heh, I admire your gumption kid, but we ain’t hiring at the moment. You’d be better off talking to the Merc’s Union or getting hired on the rail line. You’re the one who delivered me that letter. Thanks for that... Ya got a name?”

“It’s Roulette.”

The older grey unicorn smiled and shook my hoof before pulling up a barstool. “Howdy lil miss. I’m Appleshot Gin, and the prickly little owner of this establishment is my daughter. She’s as pretty as a flower but about as friendly as an exploding cactus.”

He looked down at my holstered pistol. “I see you got a ten mil. You a gunslinger? Don’t see many earth ponies who prefer pistols these days. You should lower that holster though so you don’t have to bend as much.”

“Thanks,” I chuckled. “It actually belonged to my brother.”

There was a sparkle in his eye like he was being brought back to his youth as we spoke. “What brings ya out Dodge City way then, stranger?”

“One of my friends was kidnapped and taken here. After I save her, I have some business with the Dodge City Gang. One pony in particular. Jagged Knife.”

His eyes widened at hearing those words. Then in a hushed voice, he warned. “You should be careful about uttering that name around here... If you go speaking it around town, he’ll hear you’re looking for him and you’ll wind up dead on Boot Hill.”

“That’s fine.” I said. “I want him to know that I’m coming for him.”

He laughed weakly, “Well you’re a brash one, I’ll give you that. …You have my condolences about your friend, even if it don’t mean much. But word of advice? Unless you’re a walking one-mare-army, trying to take down the entire Dodge City Gang on your own is downright foolhardy.”

“I’m kinda low on options.” I admitted. “What can you tell me?”

“Well, that’s a long story… ”

“I don’t have anywhere to be.”

Brandy corrected pointing to the double door exit, “Yeah ya do. Somewhere not in here!”

“C’mon sweetie, when’s the last time we had real company? Not all New Canterlot ponies are bad!” Gin chided. Pointing out the window at the lush greenery on the hill, he said, “Ya see that? I’m sure you saw Cherry Hill Ranch when you came into town?” He grinned, looking up at it with wide eyes. “A real sight for sore eyes in this desert, no doubt.”

I nodded silently as he watched longingly out the window.

“We used the tech from an old Stable to restore the green and that’s how we settled all the way out here. Have a water talisman hooked up to make the town sustainable and everything! But now the Dodge City Gang controls all of it, and just about everything else in this town. They control who comes and goes in the city, who can carry guns, who gets provisions from Cherry Hill Ranch. Practically everyone owes them some sort of debt. It's a town whose law is lawlessness, and the Mayor is the one in charge of it all. Jagged is just one pony among many, but as far as my memory goes, he definitely left the biggest impression...”

The barmare showed slight annoyance at his mention of it. “Dad, you don’t need to tell her that story. She ain’t a local, so don’t go bringing outsiders like her into our business, especially not New Canterlot.”

“Well, somepony might as well hear it!” he countered. “Besides, she seems like a nice kid.”

The barmare put up her hooves in annoyance and walked away from us. “Fine, just make yourself right at home then, why doncha?”

“What’s so special about this ‘Mayor’ lady?” I asked. “From everything I’ve heard about her, she sounds all hoity and self-important. It’s also freaking impossible to get an audience with her.”

Gin mostly agreed with that sentiment, responding in slight humor, “Yeah, pretty much…” Soon I noticed that Brandy had returned, standing next to us as she polished another glass to a shine. “Rubi Royalle, used to be a Dodge City prostitute. She was popular, but not too well liked either, if ya know what I mean…” he chuckled to himself. “She must’ve tried sleeping with every strong, virile stallion that came to town. Back in the day, I might’ve once or twice-”

Brandy cut him off harshly, “Dad!”

Waving his hooves to calm her down, he apologized repeatedly. “Sorry! Sorry! I’m just telling it like it is! Alright, I’ll give her the short version then...” I stifled myself, trying not to laugh. He coughed. “Anyways, Rubi always had more ambition than she knew what to do with. Lying, cheating, turning the townsfolk against one another. She clawed her way up to ownership, but one day after dealing under the table one too many times a lot of townsfolk got fed up with her shenanigans and ran her out of town.”

“She sounds like a real bitch.” I said flatly.

“Hehe, yup that’s just about the size of it.” he agreed, managing a weak laugh.

“So what happened?”

“She came back. Took over everything, and started the Dodge City Gang. Began inviting in lowlifes to invest in the town. ‘Infest’ is more like it though. You’re probably too young to remember what Dodge was like before they came along. I mean, it was always shit. There were still raiders and the like, but at least they were upfront about wanting to kill you. There was a sense of community.”

“Yeah, I stopped by here once when I was younger. I don’t remember all the industry from last time.” I admitted. “Or quite so much ‘wasteland refuse’...”

“Originally she was dealing with Red Eye and his slavers back in Fillydelphia before his whole empire up and collapsed. A bit of his influence must’ve stuck... but after Sunshine and Rainbows, she took to dealing with Gawd instead. Since their relationship was mutually beneficial for both parties, things didn’t get much better for us. Also a lot of the trash that gets driven out of Gawd’s territory ends up here.”

So that was the reason why Gawd’s territory seemed so clean compared to everywhere else. By all accounts, they had to end up somewhere.

“She’s trying to make Dodge into the next Fillydelphia. Like what another certain somepony was trying to do back during the war. She’ll probably succeed too, knowing her.”

The poppy barmare sighed to herself, desperately trying to distract herself by cleaning dirty glasses, albeit unsuccessfully. “I’m getting awful tired of hearing this story…”

“Rubi doesn’t care much about us locals nowadays. Probably because she’s making hoof over bottlecaps. Can't count on New Canterlot much neither. They’ve got too much riding on what she’s created here. I’m sure you probably know all about that though...” he said, hoof-waving the notion away. I didn’t.

“So why didn’t you fight back?” I asked, sounding obvious.

Gin sighed loudly. “We were all tired of fighting in the wasteland. She made us an offer, by saying she had our best interests at heart. We were just dumb enough to take her at her word. Then we let her stroll in and take what she wanted, and didn’t fight back until it was too late. That’s the only reason we’re stuck in this mess.”

“Sounds rough.” I offered.

Brandy scoffed. “Quit your simpering! We didn’t ask for your sympathy.”

"At least we locals get less heat from the Dodge City Gang.” Gin shrugged, still somehow managing to find humor in the situation. He smiled jokingly, “Heh, maybe if we get lucky, some do-gooder ponies will come along and miraculously solve all our problems for us like in the wasteland days?”

She rolled her eyes. “Please, dad. Don’t go pretending to get your hopes up on my account. That only happened once, and we both know how that turned out. Anypony who tries to play the hero around here ends up dead on Boot Hill. It’s neither here nor there at this point… That dream died with Gladhoof.”

Sighing wistfully, the old stallion leaned back in his seat to stare upwards. “You’re right... No use getting hung up on what was. Times change after all.”

“Mostly I don’t want you giving this mare any ideas.” She added, with barely a hint of sarcasm. “For some reason, I’m getting the impression she’d be dumb enough to actually try it…”

I wished that I knew how to help them, but I didn’t have all the answers either. “What about Jagged Knife though?” I asked.

Neither of them spoke briefly, leaving an atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a ripper. “That’s, uh...” he began. Brandy’s eyes fell upon the ground as if I was bringing up painful memories, meanwhile Gin struggled to answer.

“I heard he hit some small settlement in the wasteland, and crossed paths with the Lightbringer.” I mentioned.

“Heard about that, yeah… dunno how a pony manages to survive an encounter like that, but just goes to show you. He’s the right hoof of the Dodge City Gang now. If you’re looking for him, first thing you should know is what you’re up against. He was a real bastard back in the day. Although I admit he seems to have calmed down in recent months. Jagged mostly acts as the mayor’s lapdog now, always coming and going. Dunno what’s gotten into him lately. Don’t underestimate him, though. The mark he left on this town is still here. Last time somepony tried to oppose him, he made an example of them… but that ain’t worth discussing.”

From the way both he and Brandy’s faces sunk mentioning that pony, I felt it was best not to press it further. Thinking to myself, I had a few theories formulating in my head on what I was going to do moving forward.

“Dodge just ain’t been the same since Sunshine and Rainbows. Most of the locals have already up and left. Those that stayed we don’t see around much anymore.”

‘Thanks for the story.” I said, unsure anything I could say right now would be sufficient to ease their woes.

Brandy leaned against the counter, wearing a fake grin. “Any plans then, now that you’re in Dodge City?” the barmare asked sarcastically.

“Yeah, I still plan on kicking his ass.” I said, and she responded with a snort. “I guess I’ve just got to rethink my approach now. Might have to find some work in the meantime. I’ll think of something.”

Gin laughed to himself. “Brash don’t even begin to cover it with you. I gotta say, even if ya end up dead in a few days, that attitude of yours is downright refreshing around here.”

Brandy jabbed at my armor with her hoof, “What’s the matter Gawd ain’t payin’ you enough?”

“I’m not New Canterlot though, for the record.” I corrected.

“Between you and me then, you should ditch that armor around here,” the mare replied. “It’ll be easier for you to make friends if they don’t think you’re working for Gawd. New Canterlot ain’t too well liked around here.”

Snarkily, I replied, “Yeah, I was beginning to pick up on that…”

She looked me over and asked. “You got a place to stay, Miss?”

I shook my head.

“Well, if you can’t stay in the barracks, you’re welcome to stay in the second guest room upstairs. I’d feel bad about making a pretty young thing like yourself stay in the flophouse with a bunch of horny grown stallions. Make yourself at home up there. I’ll open up a tab for you, first night’s free.”

“T-Thanks…” I said, taken aback by her kindness. I didn’t think I’d find another friendly face in Dodge, let alone two, but I was happy to be proven wrong.

Leaning her weight against the counter she grinned. “Just because hospitality isn’t so fashionable nowadays, doesn’t mean we don’t make the effort.” Then she sneered jokingly. “Don’t get used to it though. Second night, you’re paying double.”

As I paced around Dodge in the late afternoon, I was unsure exactly what I was going to do while I was here as I paced down mainstreet. I left my armor and rifle up in my room at Brandy’s saloon, but kept my brother’s pistol holstered on my foreleg.

“Two weeks, huh?” I thought to myself. I had to find a way to see the mayor before then.

It looked like I’d have to find work while I was here, either with the Merc’s Union or New Canterlot. I still had no leads on how I was supposed to get an audience with the mayor, so I made the decision that I should probably lay low so ponies like Sting and Angel Eyes didn’t get the drop on me. I had a gut feeling that nopony knew I was here yet.

“I should also probably see about getting some better weapons while I was here too.” I thought, getting an idea. “Hey, I think I heard somewhere that gunrunning is supposed to be pretty lucrative. I could always give that a shot, and see where it lands me?”

Then I stopped and stood still. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a familiar face lying drunk on his ass. Turning my head enough so that i could see his charcoal grey coat, blue flight jacket, and his red-orange mohawk inch deep in a puddle of alcohol, where he was drunkenly sputtering incoherent nonsense.

I glared and began to walk towards him. He barely even noticed me as I approached and then silently stood over him, waiting.

“Ahem” I cleared my throat.

A stupid drunken grin stretched over his face. “Hey, sweet-cheeks, back for more-...?” When he turned his head and looked up at me, it took him a second or two blinking before he finally realized who I was. I didn’t say anything, as his intoxicated mind finally caught up with reality and his expression of joy slowly melted away. Suddenly, he snapped awake and jumped into the air. With a swift flap of his wings he took off into the sky with a streaking contrail behind him! I followed him with my eyes as he veered off and then hit the side of a nearby building. He slid down the side of the structure, and fell flat in the dirt unconscious, watching stars circle over his head. I winced. That looked painful.

The afternoon sun dyed the desert town in an orange hue, likely about an hour or two away from dusk. After having dragged him somewhere private where we could speak, he was still unconscious. Even after slapping his face around a few times with my hoof, I had to go find a bucket of water to splash his face with it, before the charcoal-grey pegasus with the red-orange mohawk finally opened his eyes.

“Sobered up?” I snarled.

“H-hey, what gives?!” he asked, struggling to try and free himself from his restraints. “I’m stuck!”

“Don’t bother, I tied you up nice and tight,” I said. “You won’t be getting away from me this time.” I figured the first thing he’d try to do was fly off again, so I made sure to hogtie his wings and hooves together while he was asleep.

“Shit, you’re that crazy mare from the caravan! C’mon, you followed me all the way to Dodge City?! Gimme a break!”

“Are you going to answer my questions this time, or not?” I squinted.

“You don’t ever make it easy, lady!”

‘Fair point.” I relented, grabbing him by the tail as I continued to drag him back towards the train station.

“H-Hey! Where the hell are you taking me?!”

“I’m gonna turn you in.” I grunted, speaking through a mouthful of rope. “Maybe if you won’t sing for me, you’ll change your tune once I take you into New Canterlot and they leave you to rot in a jail cell. I’m sure Colonel Peregrine will be willing to accomodate”

“W-wait! New Canterlot won’t believe my story! Especially if they’re as nice, reasonable and understanding as you are!”

“Oh, haha...” I deadpanned.

He squirmed around as I dragged him through the dirt with little concern for his well being. “Ow! Watch the threads, will you? Listen to me, it was all a simple misunderstanding. That’s it!”

I rolled my eyes and spat his tail out and glared at him, face-to-face. “Well that “simple misunderstanding” of yours got a lot of ponies killed.”

“Let me explain will you? For Celestia’s sake, I’m not with the raiders or the Enclave. I didn’t even want to work that job! I was blackmailed into it! Jagged said there was supposed to be a courier carrying an important package and all I had to do was single them out and he’d do the rest. It was no hard feelings, I’m just trying to pay off my debt to the Dodge City gang! I didn’t know he was going to hit an entire caravan! But because of that screw-up, he probably wants me dead. ”

My tone voiced mock-sadness, unmoved by his sob-story. “My heart weeps for you, really. Any idea what they were expecting? I peeked inside and all I was carrying was some sappy letter.”

“Yeah, I realized you were the wrong pony too late. I have no idea what he was looking for. Jagged didn’t give us any of the details… Not even his own guys knew.” That made some sense, considering I was able to pull a switcheroo on Angel Eyes with that random memory orb. Hotshot kept trying to plead with me. “Now they all think I screwed up and want me dead! So if you agree to let me go, I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.” he begged.

“Answer me this: Did you or didn’t you didn’t you kill wasteland ponies for the Enclave?”

“...I did,” he confessed warily, “but-”

I pressed my hoof to his lips mid-sentence, then proceeded to drag him again.

He shouted to get attention again, alleging, “I have the memory, I just don’t remember any of it! I just woke up and there were bodies. Yeah, I know you’re not gonna believe it. But that’s the truth!”

I groaned and spit the stallion’s tail out of my mouth, and turned around so I was staring him straight in the face. Raising an eyebrow, I asked, “So lemme get this straight? You killed ponies, and you ‘remember’ killing ponies? But you have no real memory of it...?”

He was clearly already aware of how ridiculous it sounded, making it slightly more believable. “More like they’re not ‘my’ memories. They were just dead. It sounds crazy, I know.” he assured.

“You’re an Enclaver though. How am I supposed to know you’re not just lying to my face?” I squinted.

“Frankly sister, even I don’t believe me...”

I stopped dragging and loosened my grip. To be honest, I’ve heard crazier stories. “My name is Roulette.” I corrected, “And fine, let’s assume you’re telling the truth. How does that make it any better?”

“Why do you care so much that you’re willing to track me halfway across the stars-damned wasteland? This is the wasteland. Lots of ponies die.” he protested, feeling that he was being singled out.

I scoffed. “Don’t think so high and mighty of yourself, featherhead. I’m not here for you. I came for Jagged Knife”

Suddenly, his face went pale. “Wait Jagged’s back in Dodge?! You gotta take me some place hidden! He can’t know I’m here!”

Shrugging my shoulders, I felt little sympathy for the pegasus. “Sucks to be you, I guess? I’ve got unfinished business with him,” I told him. “Just as soon as I manage to get a meeting with the mayor.”

Hotshot raised a sarcastic eyebrow, “Oh really?” he heckled. “And how exactly do you plan on doing that?”

Uneasily, I admitted, “I don’t really know yet… I was thinking of maybe trying to fight in the gauntlet. If you got any other options better than a full frontal assault, then I’m all ears.”

The pegasus shot me a funny look, unsure how to communicate just how completely stupid that plan sounded to him. “What? And assault Cherry Hill Ranch on your own? Storm into the mayor’s office, guns blazing? Better rule out fighting in the Gauntlet too, because Sting and Three-Card already know who you are. Even if you were strong enough to actually pull it off, if either of them catch wind of it and get to Jagged first, then there goes your element of surprise.”

“That’s fine. I don’t care if they know.” I answered. He didn’t mention Angel Eyes though, so I wasn’t sure if he was aware of him or not.

He laughed, not sure whether to be embarrassed for himself or for me. “Are you the same mare that tracked me across the wasteland? Because I’m starting to think that was all dumb luck back in Sunvale.”

I got a little red from irritation, and grabbed him by his scruff of his neck. Then I pulled him close so we were both looking face to face. “Alright, funny guy. You’ve got nowhere to go, right? So how about this: You can either tell me everything you know about him, or I leave you to rot in jail. What’ll it be?”

“You truly are lost without me, aren’t you?” he taunted, wearing an annoying smirk that I wanted to punch. Hotshot stared down beside himself at the dirt, then looked back up at me and spat, “Take me to jail then! At least I won’t be dead.”

“Fine.” I replied calmly and began to fulfil his request. He looked almost surprised that I’d react that way probably fully expecting me to blow my head off. I wouldn’t blame him for thinking that, but I was done trying to reason with him.

As I dragged the hogtied pegasus along towards his final destination, I could see a light on in Colonel Peregrine’s office with the old griffon sitting inside the station building. Hotshot growled as I dragged him over rocks, making little effort to avoid them. “What the hell did I ever do to you?! Why do you hate the Enclave so damn much?” He demanded. Was he trying to cause a scene?

I stopped and spit out the rope. I spun back around glaring at him which caught him slightly off guard. “Aside from singling out the caravan I was travelling with, you mean? Enclavers took my family. We weren’t threatening anyone, just trying to live out our lives peacefully and they gunned them down right in front of me. Without any mercy. And they were the only thing that ever meant anything in the world to me. There was an officer there. I don’t know what they wanted, or what they were doing there... But they took everything from me. So if you want to know ‘what the Enclave did to me’, there ya go.” I finished.

The pegasus looked at a loss for words at first, as everything sunk in. “This officer. Could you tell me what he was wearing?” he asked, although it seemed like a completely arbitrary detail.

“I dunno… Uh, his uniform was slightly different than some of the other Enclave officers I’ve seen. But what’s that got to do with anything?” I was having a hard time remembering the exact details. “Do you know something?” I asked with raised suspicion.

He sat there staring off into space, trying to think to himself before mumbling “No...it’s nothing.”

I pointed up at Cherry Hill Ranch and leaned in close, so that our faces were almost touching. “Well, now the raiders you were helping took my friend, and I intend to save her. I’ll bring down the entire Dodge City Gang if I have to. Just as soon as I figure out how to see the mayor... So do you want to help, or not?”

The mohawked pegasus stayed silent. Was that guilt in his eyes or was it just my imagination? It was beginning to look more like he’d rather sit in jail than give me anything else. So I huffed, getting impatient, and went to drag him again but he stopped me short.

“A-Alright, wait!” he stammered, and I halted. He hung his head somberly. “I can help you…”

I looked down at the pegasus stallion laying in the dirt, and was left trying to calculate his motives with glaring suspicion. “Oh, really?” I asked, and the pegasus nodded in response. “And you’re not going to bolt again if I let you up?” He shook his head assuredly.

Confused onlookers were beginning to notice us and began watch curiously. One or two passersby seeing a mare standing over a tied-up stallion and likely getting the wrong idea and some were beginning to give us strange looks. I ignored them.

“How do I know I can trust you to stick by me when the chips are down?”

“You shouldn’t.” he replied. “That’s not the way Dodge City works. Ponies here only look out for themselves. There’s always an angle. But you can trust at least that I’m not exactly on good terms with them either. So if you’re out to take on the Dodge City Gang, you won’t hear any qualms from me. That said, you’re not going to have to worry about me running away from you again. We both have a common interest, and they wouldn’t expect us to be working together. I could help you. ”

“I know how the wasteland works, you don’t have to remind me.” I scoffed. Admittedly, kind of a weird roundabout way of saying that he wouldn’t betray me.

“You don’t have to like me for doing what I did, but I did have my reasons… At least I think I did.”

That was good enough for me. I released my hoof, then undid his bindings and let him up. He brought himself to his hooves dusting himself off, and I was thankful when he didn’t make the effort to bolt this time. I spat in my hoof and extended it outwards to him and he shook it. “For the record, you’re not off the hook yet.” I threatened.

He rolled his eyes and groaned. “I’m sure.”

As I looked around we were starting to draw a small crowd. A lot of glares and unwelcoming eyes were on the two of us, but mostly on Hotshot. Recognizing that look from when I came into town, it seemed that even amongst thieves, ponies were still hateful of the Enclave. I made a mental note to myself that we should probably get out of here before any members of the Dodge City Gang showed up, or other ponies decided to try anything.

“What’d you have in mind then, ‘partner’?” I asked, still somewhat doubtful of his intentions.

His face winged, with unease present in his voice as he mentioned, “I might know a guy…”

The Lucky Sevens club was not a place you wanted to end up. Not as a filly or as a full grown mare. I don’t know when it was set up or how long it’s been around, but it’s always seemed like this place has been around cheating ponies out of their hard earned bottlecaps since the beginning of time in the wasteland.

I sniffed the air, which was thick with smoke and the smell of alcohol and ash trays. Turning a glance at the band playing on a lit stage, strumming slow heavy jazz music, I followed Hotshot closely as we were both escorted to the center of the room by members of the Dodge City gang.

From the looks of things, it appeared as though it’d come under new management recently. All renovations were new, from the fresh wood floor and the walls plastered with red wallpaper and gambling suits, to the flashing magic neon sign outside. Pictures of ponies from the war that I couldn’t recognize were hung up around us, all of them long dead, but a certain red maned belle kept coming up. Meanwhile, other patrons sat at various tables around the floor, throwing away their hard earned bottlecaps on a single night of cheap wine, attractive mares, and games of chance. Mares wearing casino bunny outfits and explosive collars around their necks were working the floor serving drinks. All the male employees on the other hoof wore pinstriped dress shirts with bow ties.

The hired muscle recognized Hotshot almost immediately and led us to the gambling table at the center of the floor sat solitary, sectioned off from all the others. It was currently being occupied by a white unicorn in a cheap suit jacket, pink button-up shirt and loose black tie sat with his hooves up on the table.

“Just play it cool…” Hotshot muttered under his breath.

I whispered back somewhat miffed, “Don’t worry about me...”

“And do me a favor?” the pegasus exhaled, and I cocked an eyebrow. “Just shut up and let me talk for once.”

I shot the pegasus back a dirty look, scrunching my face.

“The boss will be with you shortly.” Said one of the hired goons.

Hotshot whispered into my ear as we were invited to wait to the side. "Gamble handles most finances on behalf of the Dodge City Gang. He’s also a con-artist who fancies himself a gambler. If anyone can get you to see the mayor, it’s him.”

I still had no idea how the pegasus knew this guy or how he was going to help me see the Mayor, but I played along and waited, tapping my hoof on the floor impatiently to keep from going stir-crazy.

Their so-called boss’ cutie mark was a pair of dice. A six and and a one, to be precise. Some outlaw raider-looking pony sat across from him, glaring at his cards and sweating. A black scorpion cutie mark on his flank.

Confidently, the white unicorn blew on his wavy dark mane to prevent a lock of hair from drooping in front of his smug poker face. There was a huge stack of poker chips in front of him.

The second pony managed to grin steadily as he looked over his cards, slowly gaining confidence. From where I was standing, his cards looked pretty good. I’d be jealous of a hand like that. He lowered his hand just enough to look back at the smug unicorn, before revealing his hand on the table. “Full house!” He shouted twitching slightly. He looked up, waiting on his opponent.

The smug unicorn flipped over his cards over with his magic and smirked back at him. “Straight flush. Better luck next time.”

Across from him, the other pony’s jaw hit the floor, and a bead of sweat dripped from his neck. “No… that’s impossible!” He began grinding his teeth as a few ponies from the Dodge City gang approached him from behind. “You cheated, you sonofabitch!” Out from under his armor he whipped out his holdout plasma gun, but before he was barely even able to draw it, he had nearly every gun in the establishment already pointed at him. Meanwhile, the smug unicorn barely looked fazed at all.

My eyes widened upon seeing the weapon. It looked modified, similar to Sting’s in design. “Am I in the right place then?” I thought to myself. I tried to stay calm and play it cool as the raider pony eyed downward at the other pony levitating his gun from his grip.

“Threatening me in my own casino? Tsk, tsk. Didn’t you hear? Guns are only allowed by members of the Dodge City Gang. There’s a big sign right when you come into town.” Motioning to his fancily dressed bouncers they grabbed him and began dragging him out of the establishment. As the hired muscle pulled him away, I saw him silently hide the weapon inside his coat.

The unfortunate loser shouted, cursing obscenities as he was dragged out of the establishment past the two of us. “I swear you cheated! I’ll kill you, you bastard!” he growled, making threats before being taken somewhere where he could no longer be heard by either of us. “Mark my words, dammit!” came a muffled cry. Hotshot and I exchanged quick glances before looking back to the pony sitting at the table.

“You’ve got two weeks to pay off that debt.” The white pony muttered, flipping open a lighter and taking a quick smoke of a cigarette. He flipped a lock of his greasy black mane with a hoof.

After that outburst, some of the other patrons were asked to leave, and they shut the doors behind them. The band stopped playing as well and exited the building so that we were the only ponies on the floor aside from other employees. Then one of the bouncers turned to us and said, “The manager will see you now...”

“Be careful of this guy,” Hotshot warned. “Let me do the talking...’

“You don’t need to tell me twice.” I fired back in a harsh whisper.

The white stallion in the pink shirt welcomed the pegasus with open hooves, nearly giving him a big hug which wasn’t reciprocated. “Hotshot! Why if it isn’t my best friend in the whole wide wasteland! Welcome back. How’s that debt coming along? Heard that last job didn’t go so well?”

“Gamble, it’s uh… good to see you again. It went so-so” he answered, hiding his own worry. “I’m actually pretty close to paying it off!”

“I know you were working this one privately, but I don’t like to be kept in the dark loverboy. You may not have to answer to the Enclave anymore, but as long as I’ve got your number you answer to me.”

“Right. See, about that…” he laughed lightly trailing off. “That’s why I wanted to speak with the mayor about it. I was hoping you’d be willing to make an arrangement for me and my friend.”

“Jagged’s awfully cross with you…” Gamble pouted his lip, causing the pegasus’ face to contort and make him tug on his collar. “Second chances are rare to come by in this world.” He sighed as his eye flicked over to me, then to my hindquarters, then back to Hotshot. “Is that why you’ve brought this lovely specimen before me? Could it be you’re trying to bribe me to waive your debt with such a sweet offering?”

“Dream on molerat breath.” I snarled.

“Oh, she has fire. That’s a good start…” He turned his head slightly as if to acknowledge my place in the conversation. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. To what do I owe this pleasure then? I assume she’s here to speak on your behalf?”

“I’m going to pay off his debt, I heard you were the one to talk to about working for the Dodge City Gang.” I replied.

Hotshot snapped his neck over to me and hissed through his teeth, “You idiot. You were supposed to let me-!” but he immediately snapped his mouth closed when Gamble gave him a funny look.

I didn’t feel like he was getting anywhere. He glared at me silently with disdain.

Gamble put a hoof to his chin, stroking it. “Color me intrigued, but why pay off his debt of all ponies? He’s a killer. A liar. A murderer. He didn’t show mercy to any of the ponies he killed.” He put particular emphasis on those particular words as he spoke. As much it killed me to be helping an Enclaver, let alone one complicit in the murder of a pony I knew, I had to stay focused. “There ain’t no shortage of worthier charity cases than this lowlife. And worst of all, he skips out on his debts…”

Stopping mid sentence, he sneered. “Got something against Enclavers do ya? You need to work on that poker face missy.” I cursed myself internally. “Tell me the real reason.”

I attempted a quick, but weak defense. “What do you care? Isn’t it your job to hire ponies looking for contracts? I’m just here for a job.” I insisted.

“What I’m really interested in now, is learning how this relationship between you two came to exist.” He looked unconvinced by my fake justification. “If you want me to continue to entertain you, tell me the reason.”

“We met on the road. Now can you get me an audience with the mayor or not?” I asked.

Gamble laughed to himself, putting a hoof over his face. “I can. The real question here is: Why would the mayor want to see you? She’s’ a busy mare, you know?” Further musing to himself as he perpetually shuffled his deck of cards with his horn magic and took a sip of martini, he then turned so he was looking back at us through one eye. “In theory, I could let you join the Dodge City Gang right here, but first I want to know what’s so important that your worth my time. Answer honestly, or we’re done here.”

“Fuck.” I thought to myself. “Could you ask the tall, dark and gruesome twosome to step off first?” I asked, motioning at the two bouncers who were inching a little too close for comfort.

“They’re my employees. Anything you say in present company isn’t going to reach the mayor’s ear. Unless you give me good reason?” Gamble cocked an eyebrow, waiting to judge my response.

My face communicated well enough that I was unconvinced. “Employees?” I raised an eyebrow as well, and my eyes motions to one of the mares wearing slave collars. “What do you call ‘those’ then?”

The edge of his lip curled upward as he answered as one of the girls served him a drink, “Indentured servants. They’re under contract.” They all looked like they didn’t want to be here, forced to wear fake smiles all day and serve patrons against their will.

“Slaves then?” I spat.

He shrugged. “We prefer the term ‘indentured servants’. They agreed to work here under contract until their debt is repaid. They’re ‘employees’. The collars are just insurance. We’re ‘civilized’ now. We don’t need to work ponies to death like in Fillydelphia. It’s simply part of the contract.”

“Like I said, slaves.” I insisted, causing him to drop the grin briefly. “Give it whatever fancy title you want.”

From what little I knew of him already, this guy was a total slimebag, but I still had to be careful around him or I’d just end up making another powerful enemy. He could tell if I was lying simply based off my facial expressions.

Hotshot was quick to interject himself between us, causing Gamble to grant him a presiding gaze. “Look Gamble, she doesn’t really understand how things work here. We met one day on the road and it was love at first sight for her. One thing led to another and then...” He came off more like he was trying to placate him than anything. That was probably how he expected most ponies to behave around him. It was pretty pathetic.

I rolled my eyes, wishing he’d shut up. “So what happened to the previous owner?” I asked, still attempting to get a read on this pony, while trying to figure out what his game was. I was starting to get the picture.

The unicorn stopped shuffling the deck and turned back to look me in the eye, smirking again. “I won this place off him in a card game. You a returning patron? I suppose I should welcome you back to the Lucky Seven’s club in that case.” He shrugged. Then taking on a slightly more demanding tone, “Now tell me the reason.” he pressed, his patience beginning to wear thin on me.

“I have unfinished business with one of her hired guns.” I answered, unsure of how he’d respond.

Noticing Gamble briefly glancing between me and Hotshot, I watched as his brow lit up. I’d clearly caught his interest. He appeared to be busy mulling something over in his head. The silence was killing me though. I wished I had mind reading powers. “Which one if you don’t mind me asking?” he finally asked.

I realized I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this unless I played ball. Not having any other option, I answered, “It starts with a ‘J’”

His ears perked up at that. “Now that’s interesting…” He snickered to himself, leaning forward on the velvet lined table. “Did I say interested? Now I’m fully invested. I have to know, do you got some sort of a beef with him? Did he shoot you in the head and drop you into an early grave? Is this some revenge story, or do you have some other reason?” His eyeball slyly flicked between me and the pegasus. “Now it’s starting to come together a bit… Thing is, I understand why Hotshot might be in on this little plan of yours, but admittedly, I don’t know the first thing about you yet. So where exactly did you two meet and how did this unlikely partnership come to be?”

“Where didn’t we meet?” Hotshot groaned aloud, his voice dripping with overly-dramatic sarcasm. “I just plain can’t get rid of her… she’s obsessed with me!”

I shot him back a dirty glance, then raised an eyebrow at the gambler pony in front of me. “Do you have something against him too?” I asked.

“Heh, a gambler never reveals his cards.” he smirked annoyingly.

“What a load of brahmin shit that is.” I said, calling his bluff. “You and your hired goons have entertained me thusfar. That’s because you’re still deciding if you can use me to your advantage. Right? You’re just looking to move up the food chain. Aren’t you? That’s what it always is. You may be wearing a fancy suit and acting all civilized, but the wasteland is still the same as it ever was! So let’s cut the crap and get down to business.”

I felt Hotshot jab me lightly to try and get me to ease up, but I rightfully ignored the pegasus.

Gamble snickered to himself at first before bursting into full blown laughter, “You got me there.” then turning his gaze over to the ex-Enclave pegasus, who smiled nervously, he asked in raw excitement and intrigue, “Hotshot, where in the wasteland did you find this girl?” Then he looked back at me, where I was sitting impassively and he cracked a slight grin. “Simple. If our end goals are similar, then it makes sense to work together. But first I need to know that I’ll be able to use you. Comprende? A lot of ponies would like to see him dead, and the mayor doesn’t see just ‘anypony’. So what’s so damn special about you?”

I stared him straight in the eye so he could read me as I spoke. “I’m not like those other ponies.” I answered. “Once I decide to do something, I never lose.” He looked at me again, filled to the brim with determination. This time he could really see the spark in my eye and was taken aback by my resolve. He grinned wide with a smile that I didn’t like at all, somehow making him look even more sleazy, like a grinning radroach in a pink shirt and cheap suit.

“Let’s put that theory to the test, shall we?” he proposed. “Any game; your choice. You win, I get you in to see the mayor. You lose, you work for me from now on. So do we have a deal or what?”

Hotshot interrupted in a panic, immediately drawing all eyes on the floor to him. “No wait! That’s how he gets you. Don’t take him lightly!” he warned.

“No hints out of you. I’m dealing with the mare right now.” Gamble glared at him.

“Dammit…” he muttered under his breath, clearly trying to tell me something.

“I know what I’m doing.” I promised. “Deal.” Looking back at him, even though he had a somber beaten expression as if it was already over before it had begun. I scoffed and took a seat at the table, staring ahead at the pony sitting across from me.

Gamble chuckled and motioned to a pony behind us, and one of the bouncers put a hoof on Hotshot and locked an explosive collar around his neck. My eyes widened and shot back at the smug unicorn sitting across from me.

“Hey what’s the idea?!” I asked accusingly. “I said I’d pay off his debt!”

Shuffling his cards in an overly flamboyant way, he answered, “Sit back down. You haven’t yet been given the right to pay off his debt from the Dodge City Gang. This was the debt he earned on his own, and you’ll have a chance to accrue your own soon enough.”

The sound of a pistol cocked behind me and I grit my teeth in anger. Damn him, he was changing the rules on me.

“You cheating bastard…” I growled.

“I’m a pony of my word. You lose, and he’s free to go and his debt will be transferred to you. For now he’s simply collateral, so you don’t run off and leave me with nothing. You don’t mind, do you? Seeing as he already owed us and that as you hate Enclavers, what happens to this lowlife seems like a small pittance.” Addressing me while the pegasus was eyeing both me and his explosive necktie nervously, Hotshot was none too comfortable about his life being held in my hooves for the moment.

“Then if I win, you’ll get me an audience with the mayor, right?” I asked.

He gave a slight nod.

“Fine then,” I agreed. “Get on with it.”

Gamble smiled with mock-congratulations, “Looks like you might get to go free after tonight, Hotshot. Be grateful to this mare, if she can pull it off.” Eyeing me again while shuffling his deck with his magic, he asked me, “So what game is it gonna be? Blackjack? Poker? Roulette?”

I put my hoof over the cards to stop him from shuffling and looked him in the eye, and then with a swipe of my hoof I flung the cards off the table. The white stallion frowned. “Please, I’m not stupid. I saw the con you played when I first walked in here.”

Remaining stunned for a moment, he then picked up the cards with his telekinesis and began reshuffling them again. “A bold accusation, to come into my establishment and accuse me of cheating. If you don’t have proof-”

I cut him off, “You’ve got a magic spell that you use to cheat. When you’re dealing, your horn flashes ever so slightly extra. I’m sure you learned to conceal it behind your normal magic over the years with practice, but you can see it if you pay close attention and ignore the misdirection. That’s how you win.”

“Perceptive little thing…” he muttered, hunching over forward. “Earth pony style then? Don’t bore me to death with the obvious choice and challenge me to a game of roulette… It’s roulette, isn’t it?” He rolled his eyes and shouted. “Bring out the table!”

Hotshot whispered into my ear as a couple of Gamble’s bodyguards lugged a big roulette table towards the center of the room, giving us only a short window to strategize. “Listen to me, I know you don’t trust me, but you have to choose a game that leaves as little to chance as possible. Like caravan or something! Otherwise he’ll win and you’ll never see your friend again.”

Gamble hovered the explosive detonator with his telekinesis, shutting him up for good. “I don’t want you two scheming or giving any hints. This is between me and the lady.”

I cursed internally. I didn’t trust the pegasus at all, but I trusted this smug bastard sitting across from me even less. With my luck, in a game of roulette it’d probably be rigged with magnets underneath the table. I racked my brain trying to think of the right game. If I was letting the pressure get to me I was making an effort not to show it. Then it came to me in a sudden burst of inspiration. “That’s it!” I thought. I had an idea...

“No… I got a game for you.” I declared boldly, pointing at my hindquarters with the red thirty-six roulette marker showing on the side. “Guess my cutiemark!”

He burst out laughing. “Seriously?”

“Yup, I got this sucker on my very first job. So how about we lay a wager on it?”

I could hear Hotshot muttering behind me, “That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever-... You’re gonna blow it you moron!”

Gamble’s lip curled up and I could see a sly glint in his eye. “You truly are something else, ya know that? I knew from the second I saw you, that you were a cut above the rest. I can use a pony like that. Although, I don’t know if you missed it, but I have a gambling cutiemark too.” He gestured to the pair of dice on his own flank. “So I’ll play your little game. If I don’t get it in three chances, you win.” With a slight wave of his hoof, he ordered his thugs to take the table away.

“Fine with me. Guess then.” I demanded, sitting back down.

“I should let you know, just as a word of warning. I never lose though...”

“Me neither...” I replied.

“So we’re going through with this?” Hotshot groaned, prompting a slight jab from one of Gamble’s hired goons. “Fine, I’ll just sit here quietly with this bomb collar strapped to my neck…”

Gamble hunched over in his chair to rest his hoof on the table, musing to himself. “There’s just something about mares with gambling cutiemarks that seems to make them the most stupidly reckless and aggressive things in the wasteland.” he frowned. I didn’t quite appreciate the observation, but he kept talking. “Perhaps it’s because you want to leave your life up to chance or you have some sort of a death wish? It’s a topic that’s always fascinated me. To me, the one and the six-side up on my cutiemark means that I always come out on top, no matter what. You said you’re a mercenary, right? That’s a profession you have to be lucky to survive in. I’m a gambler by trade, so I know a thing or two about being lucky.”

“How are you supposed to get a special talent at being lucky?” I scoffed.

“I didn’t say that was my guess… You always get your mark. Is that the answer?”

“Wrong.” I answered. That was one down. “I do, but that ain’t what my cutie mark means.”

“Fair enough, second guess then.” He kept me waiting with anticipation like he was playing mental games, maybe trying to get me to give away a hint. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “If that mark on your flank meant you were good at roulette, then I bet you would’ve challenged me to it. You don’t seem like the type to back down at something you’re good at. But then again, you know I’ve got the house advantage here.”

I had to stay calm. If I broke my composure, he’d see right through me. We both knew it. My face stayed completely still as he spoke.

“Roulette isn’t a game for simple minded ponies. It’s fast paced and chaotic, where you can lose in an instant. You get in and you get out, because the longer you’re sitting at the table, the closer you are to losing everything. Playing the game stupidly is the opposite of how you make it as a merc in the wasteland, let alone one that survives past being a child and then grows into marehood. You knew the odds when you sat down at my table.”

“Is that your guess then?”

“There’s just one question I have for you first, you don’t have to answer me this time. Do you blame yourself at all for whatever happened between you and Jagged...? Or is it a purely vengeance based relationship?”

My face probably gave it away. Dammit. The smug bastard was playing with me now. I cussed, feeling my inner organs wrenching inside my body. There was a fire in my eye, and all I could think about was wanting to kill the one who caused me so much heartache.

“Wrong.” I repeated again, keeping my expression as reserved as I possibly could. “Ready to give up?” I asked. I wasn’t about to break under pressure.

Gamble looked slightly annoyed, almost breaking behind his smug poker face. Then I saw a spark in his eye and he grinned. “Not yet. I still have one more try.”

“Humor me.” I said, managing to smirk ever-so-slightly. He wasn’t the only one who knew how to play mind games.

“Funny thing a lil’ little birdie told me: there was some big to-do in New Canterlot territory a couple days ago. You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?” he asked. I hadn’t realized the news had already reached here.

“Sorry, I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.” I lied.

“Interesting… So who ‘are’ you then, exactly?“ he demanded, pointing at me accusingly. “You show up out of nowhere, and act like you’re some sort of newcomer trying to join up with the Dodge City Gang? Don’t make me laugh. I’ve made a living out of reading ponies, and there’s something off about you kid. Something you ain’t saying. All ponies who come to Dodge come here for a reason. But you? This isn’t just some petty revenge scheme, is it? I can tell by that look in your eye. This is something else entirely.”

“Get used to disappointment, cus I’m just your average wasteland mare.” I replied stoically.

Looking me over with an appraising eye, he frowned. “I’ll say you’ve got the attitude down, but you seem to be lacking a bit in the resume department and basic work experience...”

“Well, ‘wasteland experience’ is something I’ve got plenty of. And that’s all I’ve ever needed.”

“Good, that’s the answer I wanted to hear... I’d be surprised if you’ve never killed a pony before in your life, not with that look in your eye. No...” He said, chuckling to himself. “You’ll find things work a bit differently nowadays... Dodge City claims everyone sooner or later. Even the good ones. Everypony comes around to our way of doing things eventually. I just need to know I can use you.”

I scoffed.

“Call it gambler’s intuition, but times are changing in Dodge City. I need to make sure I bet on the right horse. Being a gambler has given me that skill over the years, where I can measure a pony just by looking at them. Whatever motivation might’ve brought you here, I can tell that you’re something else. It’s a longshot, but despite all logic and reason to the contrary, something’s telling me that you might actually pull it off…and if not, well, it’s always good to have an extra ace or two.”

“I already know your type. You’re the sort who’ll do anything to get what he wants, so long as you win in the end. I’m the same way. But you know what the difference between you and me is? It’s that you have to cheat to win. You play around at games of chance and look for cheap advantages to tip the odds. I don’t need any of that in order to get what I want. And I said it before: I don’t lose. So are you done jawing my ears off already? Then guess.” I demanded.

He stayed silent for a long time, until a smile crept across his sly face. “I think I finally get it.” He smiled confidently, finally answering, ““You make your own odds.” That’s what it means, right?” He raised an eyebrow and sat there waiting on my response. I stared back at him and took a deep breath.

This time, I smirked, putting on the biggest shit-eating grin I could muster. “...Wr~oooong” I sang. “Not even close! Jeez, can’t you guess right even once? I thought you were supposed to be good at this.” I kicked back and put my hindlegs on the table.

He took a long pause, before bursting out into laughter, “Well, what can I say? I’ve been bested,” he shrugged. “Congratulations, you’ve passed the interview. You are now officially a member of the Dodge City Gang. Work starts tomorrow in the morning. Pay is two hundred bottlecaps per week. You also get to carry your weapons around town, purchase from the store, and all other perks that come with being part of the family. Let’s you and I make this interesting, shall we?”

“You won’t have to worry about things being interesting.” I assured him. “Like I said, I never lose.”

“I think you’ll find in time, that maybe we’re not so different...”

They unlocked Hotshot’s explosive collar with the key and he breathed an easy sigh of relief. “Heh, I wasn’t sure if you were gonna blow it.” he joked.

“Ye of little faith.” I chided.

The other members of the Dodge City Gang cheered for me and we all shared drinks together, partying late into the evening. No sign of Angel Eyes, Sting, or even that weird pony with the eyepatch. Instead there was this mohawked pegasus, drinking a wasteland-brewed tequila next to me. Even though I would’ve considered him my bitter enemy just a few hours ago, tonight we were allies. Could I really even trust him? Just friends keeping knives at each others’ backs.

The pegasus nudged me, and when I turned around I saw him looking down at my hindquarters. I knit my brow in irritation for a split-second about ready to punch him, before realizing it was about something else. He pointed at my cutie mark and whispered into my ear, “Hey, so what does it mean?” he asked. “C’mon, just between the two of us.”

I smirked to myself and took another swig of hard liquor. “Keep dreaming Enclave-boy.”

One voice echoed through my head, over and over. Reminding me that tomorrow was when the real fun begins.

_{[You are no longer dressed as a member of New Canterlot.]}

Level up!

Quest Perk Added:

Gambler’s Bluff- +1 Charisma

Perk added:

Merc Ethic- You really know how to work a contract! +15% damage against all wasteland enemies, plus bonus caps for each contract you complete. Receive extra ‘negotiating power’ when sorting out contract details.

Chapter 9: The Wasteland

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Chapter 9-

The Wasteland

“I don’t want to set the world on fire...”

Ponies have always tried to come up with reasons to justify the wasteland in their heads, and make up excuses for what it is. Although the general consensus as of late seemed to be: Wasteland bad. Civilization good.

I’d always wondered, especially after coming to Dodge City, what it meant to me back then. Ponies would always tell me about what an awful hell the wasteland was, and then became extremely confused when I didn’t fully agree with them. More often than not, I was always too busy trying to pick fights with random ponies to think about dumb philosophical things like the great question. “Why do we exist? Who cares? I just want to kick that raider’s ass for fun!”

That night I had the same dream that I often did, but it was marked with a burning desire for what was to come.

Following a long night of I don’t know what, Hotshot agreed to meet me back in the saloon later where we could convene for strategy. It was best to carry on as if we didn’t know each other. That way, Jagged Knife wouldn’t find out he was in the city and we’d still have the element of surprise. Hopefully, Brandy wouldn’t make a fuss about him staying in my room. I still didn’t fully trust him and barely knew anything about him, but those were little details I could sort out later.

The Ironclad Firearms factory loomed over the rest of Dodge City, like a giant black wartime edifice dressed up with cheery propaganda posters.

I learned that Dodge City originally came from a Stable’s population, made up of war-time government officials and high-profile businessponies. No doubt many were interested in the technology, alas, the stable had been stripped for parts a long time ago. All that was left now was an empty hole out in the middle of the desert. Their descendants settled in Dodge and used that technology to start a life for themselves in the wasteland, but it was controlled by the Dodge City Gang now and sought after by ever wasteland scumbag this side of the San Palomino.

A pair of ponies in dusters and cowpony boots led me through the steel double doors of the Ironclad Firearms structure and onto the factory floor. Almost immediately, an exciting orchestral piece began blaring across all the loudspeakers over the lower level.

Who made the guns that won the West?
Yippe ka yay!~ it's Ironclad!
Steps up to the test and beats the rest?
Yippe ka yay!~ It's Ironclad!

One of my escorts, a red coated stallion, grumbled to himself in annoyance, “Ugh...sorry, this damned song’s rigged to play whenever we open the doors. We can’t do nothing about it.”

Donning a rugged set of burgandy leather armor over my normal jacket, with a recently acquired pair of aviators and an old cowpony hat I found laying around, I had my mane tied back into a ponytail, all figuring it’d make me harder to recognize. I was trying to pull off the rugged mercenary look. Based on other ponies’ reactions, the disguise seemed to be a success.

I went into the gunstore prior to coming here, but everything was too expensive. I got into an argument with Brass Casing, the owner, over his ridiculous prices. Then I got myself kicked out when I threatened to punch his face. I was joking. How was I supposed to know I still had to pay bottlecaps? So I was stuck with this same service rifle for the time being. Thankfully the ammunition for it was plentiful, albeit pricey, and I did manage to fit it with some upgraded springs at least. I also worked on Jack’s battle saddle to be more loose with a wider range of motion, since I liked to move around in combat.

As I followed closely behind them, I was silently trying to recite and remember all of Fair Trade’s rules for when I met with the mayor face-to-face.

The music echoed throughout the building as I climbed up the metallic stairs that led to the factory overseer’s office. Each step made a clang and the whole metal structure squealed, but it seemed to support our weight just fine otherwise. As I looked down at the ammo presses, belt assemblies and heavy ordinance scattered over the factory, it came as no surprise to me that not even some Steel Rangers might think twice to screw with the Dodge City Gang. I’d rarely seen weapons that big before. None of them the Enclave weapons I had been looking for since I came to Dodge City though, which left me further wondering.

“Yeehaw partner! I'm Cherry Jubilee, owner and CEO of the premier weapons manufacturer all over Equestria! All us ponies are doing our part to fight the war, but we can't fight the zebras without some BIG firepower. That's where we come in! We've got the biggest rootinest tootinest shootinest guns around! So make sure you purchase all your civil defense needs from Ironclad Firearms, at your local firearms dealership! Help support our troops!”

Defenses like automated turrets complimented the armed pony guards, hanging from the lofty ceiling. I imagined them trained on me as I took steps across the metal catwalk over to the mayor’s office. It was a long drop to the factory floor below.

I was looking all over for any hints of Enclave weapons, but there were none. Not even guard ponies were using them. “Am I even in the right place?” I asked myself.

“Mayor Mare will see you now. She’s just this way.” the stallion leading the way gestured at the metal door ahead.

“That’s Ironclad Firearms! We ain't sellin' Cherry Shooters here!” the speakers boomed.

The chorus repeated as they led me to the steel door, opened it, and ushered me to go inside. As they shut the door behind me I heard a muffled, “And don't forget! Guns are also useful around the home!”, leaving me standing alone in the office with a dusty-rose colored older mare with a peach colored mane. She was dressed from head to hoof in fine clothing, a white blouse dress and jacket with boots and a white hat. The mare didn’t say anything to me, not even a hello. Instead she sat dully going over paperwork.

The factory overseers office had a window that overlooked the factory floor, which was hard at work producing ammo as she sat at an antique desk going through paperwork. It felt nice and upscale in comparison to everything else I’d seen of Dodge City. Framed pearl-handled revolvers, and weapons sat inside display cases in her office. Framed portraits and newspaper clippings of that same mare from the Lucky Sevens club decorated the room, except now I could see her more clearly. A greying mare with a beehive manedo and beauty-mark below her eye. Most of the photographs displayed her making deals and having meetings with prominent figures back during the war that destroyed Equestria, including with Applejack the Ministry Mare of the Ministry of Technology. This pony must’ve been quite the shrewd businessmare back in the day.

A cybernetically-enhanced Griffon was standing in the corner of the room. He had a mechanical right arm that ended in sharp vice-grip talons and prosthetic left eye. He didn’t say a word as I entered, but I could feel his cyber-eye following me.

I waited in silence, unsure if she even noticed I was standing in the room with her.

I could hear the faint whirring sound of the griffon’s cyber eye zooming in and out, and looked over to see him studying me. I felt like I had to resist fidgeting, even though I was beginning to grow stir-crazy. Like how still I could make myself stand was going to make or break my chances here.

After what felt like too long, much longer than I was comfortable with, my hooves began to itch from standing in a single place, but I continued to stand at attention. I was beginning to feel like she was almost intentionally ignoring me.

“Are you supposed to be the new hire?” The mayor finally asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes, ma’am!” I answered hastily.

She mumbled something in acknowledgement, not even looking up from the magazine she was reading. The mare lazily turning the page of the pre-war pornography magazine as she multitasked on her paperwork, barely giving me a second glance.

Outside I heard hoofsteps echoing up the metal walkway. They approached the door then stopped, and I could hear muttering about being unable to find something outside. Then the door slowly pushed open, and I barely even breathed as I watched the stallion take a step through the doorway. The black-plumed griffon stared over at the figure entering the room.

Taking slow easy steps, he made his way over to the wall to hang his coat up. I followed his faded snake-green hooves up to his coat and caught a flash of his icy blue eyes as he walked straight past me. He was a middle-aged unicorn stallion with parts of his dark-blue mane greying and a white mohawk stripe running through the middle of it; his goatee was of similar coloration.

The mayor looked up from her paperwork and greeted him, “Ah, Jagged. There ya are, ya slimey piece of bloatsprite spit. Where’d you get off to this time?”

This was him. Jagged Knife. The pony I’d been searching for. I swallowed, feeling something burning down my throat.

“Sorry, Miss Mayor. I was gone a bit longer than I expected. Sorting out some business n’ all.”

I tried to find it in myself to breathe as he took off his coat, which was a tattered old rust-colored jacket with a pony skull and a knife sewn onto the shoulder, and then hung it on it the wall-hanger. He spoke as he dusted himself off carelessly.

“Business, huh? Hope you enjoyed your little vacation, because while you were out n’ about, I’ve been up to my ears dealing with the Merc’s Guild, and Gawdyna Grimfeathers is up my ass in negotiations! You’ve got one job! I need you here to help keep the other gangs in the city in check, until I can get my hooves on everything I need in order for my plans to move forward. Also why the hell are you wearing that old jacket? Didn’t I already tell you to never wear that trash in front of me again?!”

He bowed his head, delivering a half-hearted apology as he removed the jacket from the coat hanger and hid it from sight. “Aw gee, I’m real sorry Miss Mayor… Don’t be mad. Must’ve slipped my mind is all. I’ve just had it for such a long time, y’know? Brings back memories of the good old days. The history of it n’ all-”

“Burn it.” she demanded callously, cutting him off mid-sentence.

“Right... Of course. I’ll get right on that...” He nodded, stuffing it away. I watched him completely floored by the way he was acting. Was this seriously the Jagged Knife? The raider boss I’d been tracking halfway across the wasteland?! The pony, whom I’d been searching this entire time, was finally within my grasp... but he seemed like a total pushover! I didn’t know whether to be angry or feel pity for the poor bastard.

The mayor continued obliviously with her impromptu rant, “That little brat might spoil everything I’ve been working towards! By the way, I think that Peregrine feller could be getting close. Figure out a way to deal with it. Just make sure it look like an accident, like one of the townsfolk did it. Shouldn’t be too hard. They all hate New Canterlot anyways."

Inside my head, I was appalled at listening to them so casually discussing their assassination plans, but tried to appear unfazed. They had no reason to doubt me. I felt like a fly on the wall of the office, still debating to myself on whether or not warning the old bird about this was the best move for me right now.

“Sure thing Miss Mayor, I’ll get right on that… although I did manage to bring you back something special for your troubles.” he said while at the same time changing into a button up dress-shirt.

She grunted, slumping sideways. “Great, what is it?”

He draped a fancy black-duster over himself and then began to search for something else in one of his inner coat pockets. “This old audio log I picked up,” Jagged put the old recording on her desk in front of her, “from the lost audio logs from the late Radar the Dashite.”

She lit up and a diabolical grin crossed over her face. “Now that is what I’d call interesting… Why thank you Jagged deary. I knew I could count on you.”

“That’s why I’m here, Rubi. I know what you like.”

I nearly stopped breathing when I heard that name. As she pressed the button on the recording and I heard a hoof knocking on a door, then a familiar grandfatherly voice spoke through the holotape. “Luneshine?” I recognized that voice. My heart rose in my chest and I felt something gripping at my ribcage.

“Luneshine, is the doctor in today?” he asked.

“Ah. Radar... I wasn’t expecting to see you back again so soon.” came an older mare’s voice, dripping with false sincerity and concern. Although, she sounded as though she had been caught offguard. “Especially, not in your ‘condition’...” she finished flatly.

I felt something trigger in me immediately, as my heartbeat began to rise rapidly, it felt like it was beating out of my chest. My breathing became shallower making it harder to even swallow air. I tried to hide it, but I felt helpless like a small filly.

“Should I trust that your research is going well?”

She didn’t respond at first. “You made your disinterest known last time, but you should remember that my work is important to entire wasteland, Radar.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem. Anyways, enough with the pleasantries.”

The mare sighed to herself, “I supposed it’d be too much to hope for, that you’d finally come around to my way of thinking…”

“Not a chance, Luneshine. You and I need to have a little chat, darling. You know full well why I’m here. I flew here from Friendship City as soon as I heard.” He sounded furious about something. Much angrier than I remembered. “I know about everything!”

“Radar?!” I blurted out as soon as I heard his voice, and then immediately swallowed my tongue as I came to my senses. Suddenly everyone else went silent and I had every eye in the room looking at me.

The Mayor promptly paused the audio tape and squinted at me with suspicion. She stood up at her desk, looking straight at me. “What was that mare?” she asked. “You know something about Radar?!”

Realizing what I had just said I came to focus on the mare staring fixedly at me with ever-increasing suspicion. “Shit.” I thought. The longer I stayed silent, the worse I was making it for myself. Taking a glimpse between the others, Jagged’s ice cold eyes laid upon me now, showing me his killer. They were completely different than they were moments ago. He hadn’t paid me much notice prior, but now he was measuring me up for all I was worth. The griffon was watching me carefully as well from the corner of the room, his cyber-eye focusing on my every move. They were all waiting to see how I’d respond. “Damn me and my stupid, dumb mouth...”

“You look like you got something to say, mare,” the mayor demanded. “So spit it out!”

Uh, oh, I was in deep shit. “I dunno... I heard he was famous or something once...?” I answered hesitantly, trying to sound as clueless as possible.

That seemed to satisfy them, thankfully. The mayor appeared somewhat relieved by my answer, and the tense atmosphere in the office lifted as they all lowered their guards. “Phew… don’t scare me like that you damn fool!”

“Sorry. M-my mistake…” I apologized. I had dodged the bullet, thankfully.

All except for Jagged, who said, “Heh, you should be careful about who you mention that name around, kiddo. Even so much as breathing that name in the wrong company is a good way to get yourself killed.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I said, taking the advice to heart and breathing easy again.

“No worries. Simply chalk it up to inexperience.” he seemed to reassure me as though it were no big deal, although the fact that he was curiously eyeing me now seemed to suggest otherwise. I didn’t relax though. Not even a little. It felt like I might have caught a glimpse of the real Jagged Knife right then.

I cursed myself internally, “Dammit, I had to go and make things more complicated.” I wished that I had the power to read minds so that I could know what he was thinking about me. Remembering everything that this particular pony had put me through though, made me feel the rage beginning to build under my skin. If they hadn’t taken Sunny, nothing would’ve stopped me from killing him here and now.

After my little outburst, I kept my eyes focused ahead on the mayor, but I couldn’t be sure if I caught him staring back at me every now and then. My instinct was telling me that we both knew something. The occasional quick glance and a brief locking of eyes confirmed it.

Swooning back in her antique chair, the dusty-rose colored mare put a hoof to her breast. “Now Radar, ‘he’ was a stallion!” she pined. “Celestia-almighty, I wish he could’ve put a baby in me back when I was still a young mare, and my baby-maker was still ticking like normal… Or even that Red Eye feller, Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome himself! Oh, what a charmer that pony was!” she squealed like a schoolfilly.

Griping to herself as she rose from her seat, she let out a small sigh, taking distinguished hoofstrides towards me. “Anyways, time to give you the once over.” the older mare grumbled. She paused in front of me, before tossing my hat and sunglasses off and undoing my manetie. Then she held my chin up in her hoof, so that we were forced to make eye-contact, and began turning my face from side-to-side, examining my every feature. “Those are real nice… red like rubies. I like em… Gamble sure knows how to pick em,” she admired. Then she circled around me, and briefly examined my flank and hindquarters (taking special interest in my cutiemark too)!

Finally finishing her ‘inspection’, she demanded, “Get yourself a haircut mare, all cleaned up and looking real nice. See my mane-stylist as soon as you get the chance. Your mama wants you looking pretty as a peach, deary!” the mayor released me after giving me a small peck on the cheek and smiled like a dear old mother.

“Y-Yes, ma’am.” I promised, while the other two chuckled to themselves.

“Jagged?” she called over to the stallion, who raised his head. “You’ve got some work to do, I imagine? Figure out a use for her.”

Glancing down at my hooves then back up at my face, he nodded. “Follow me, kid.” he gestured, pushing open the door to the office with his telekinesis. I followed him with caution.

He intentionally walked out the main set of double doors instead of the clearly marked side-exit, causing the song to play throughout the factory again as we both left. I kept following behind him.

I was feeling a knot in my throat as I followed along silently without so much as a word between us. Until finally we were out of earshot of the others.

As I set one hoof in front of the other, I continued to watch him and wonder about this pony. I smelled a snake. This was the pony I’d been looking for. For now, just had to lay low and wait for the right moment. We both stopped for some unknown reason, and he turned to face me.

His ice cold eyes were upon me now, sizing me up from head to hoof as I glared back wordlessly. I had a few guesses as to what he was thinking, and I clenched my jaw in anger. Waiting, I guessed which of us would be the first to speak.

With a wave of his hoof he began muttering some nonsense, “So maybe talk to the railroad forepony, whatever-his-name was, run around and clear out a few salamander nests with that rifle of yours or whatever. The rail line is how most ponies come into town so the mayor will get awfully cross if it goes out of commission. I’ll see you later.” He dismissed me, and continued strolling away towards some unknown destination he likely had in mind. He had given me what sounded like a job apparently, and sent me on my way.

“So this was just grunt work.” I realized, somewhat irritated. Perhaps I had imagined all of that back in the mayor’s office. I wasn’t done yet though, so I continued to follow behind him towards whatever unknown destination. As I did so, I began to grow bolder, but right as I was about to say something, he spoke first.

“I see you’re still following.” he noted.

“Yeah, I’ve got some questions.” I replied.

Jagged Knife didn’t say anything at first either, with only the sound of hoofsteps in the dirt and the hustle and bustle of Dodge City in the background. “So how do you know the old horse?” he asked me out of the blue.

I almost stopped trotting. “Wh-?” I began.

He cut me off before I could even formulate a proper sentence. “Radar,” he affirmed with a short glance back at me. “I saw the look you gave when I spoke his name. Did you really ‘just hear’ about him, or did you know him personally?”

Not sure if going down this line of questioning was the best idea or not, I replied hesitantly. “He’s someone I met a long time ago. Mostly heard stories growing up. Never really knew him.” Then I added in an attempt at sounding distant, “Heard he died recently.”

“I see. That’s… interesting.” he mumbled to himself, keeping his eyes forward as he walked.

“What’s it to you?” I asked him.

“Well you could say I have a bit of history with that old pegasus. Enemies might be a little generous, but we weren’t friends.”

Letting out a small sigh of relief, I speculated if perhaps his gang hadn’t told him anything yet. Maybe he still didn’t know. Nothing was in the clear though, until I knew for sure that Sunny Hymn was safe.

“Kids these days are too quick to worship any newcomer in the wastes that does a few good deeds… Suddenly, they’re calling them the “Lightbringer.” he mentioned her name with a slight hint of contempt. I couldn’t tell if he was staring over at one of the towers in the distance.

“Well, she did bring the sun back and beat the Enclave.” I shrugged.

“I guess she did...” he muttered in seeming-contempt, also appearing to glare up at the singular SPP tower overlooking Dodge as he said it. It was difficult to tell if he was playing mind games, but it was getting annoying. Jagged let out a wistful sigh “Radar the Dashite was always a cut above the rest. At least in my humble opinion.”

“What do you know about him?” I asked.

“You don’t look like one of Rubi’s usual hires. Been going around asking some questions about me, haven’t you?”

My heart skipped a beat. “What are you on about...?” I asked, trying to keep up the act.

He smirked, grinning like a devil. “You might’ve managed to slip by Rubi with those eyes of yours, but not me.” My heart felt like it might’ve almost stopped beating, save the odd palpitation to remind me that I was alive. Then a wicked smile stretched wider his face and he replied, “Normal ponies don’t have eyes like yours… You’re the little filly who botched that job and cost Sting his left eye.”

Fuck. This had gone from bad to fucked-up-beyond-all-reason in a matter of moments. The question hanging around the back of my head was asking ‘what happens now?’... I dropped the facade as well, shooting a red hot glare at the old raider and his stupid facial hair. “So what if I am? It wasn’t my fault that those jerk-off assholes targeted the wrong courier.”

“There they are...” he laughed in amusement. “That fire in your eyes... So was it revenge you’re after? Are you here to kill me?” I felt my blood boiling just looking at him.

“You know why.” I growled. “You’d better give me what I came here for, unless you want me to rip that dumb goatee off your face.”

“I see… In that case, how about we wait until high noon and duke it out with pistols like in the old cowboy stories? Or maybe we can fight to the death, mono-a-mono, as though we were back in the wasteland. That strike your fancy? You kill me, save the town, and all the ponies worship you like a hero? About what you had in mind?” he suggested. Then he gave a slight smirk and started chuckling to himself. He laughed louder, but he had said it with a face so straight I almost couldn’t tell that he was joking. “Most ponies wouldn’t come straight out and confront me like that. You’ve got spunk, kid.” Then Jagged let out another chuckle to himself and kept walking.

I blinked twice as I watched him pace away from me. “Huh?” I was totally unprepared for that. After regaining my composure once again, I quickly followed after. “Hey, wait!” I called from behind, “Shouldn’t you be a little pissed off? You took Sting’s eye over it.”

“Suppose, he should’ve done the job right then. If I didn't stab a pony every now and again, others might start to think I’ve gone soft.” He said. "Look, no hard feelings, kiddo." Not at all the answer I was expecting, either. I sure wished that I could afford to be so cavalier about things.

Screwing my face in annoyance, I pressed further for answers, “How about you? I’ve heard a lot of rumors about how you’re supposed to be some sorta badass raider warlord. Aren’t you supposed to be the Jagged Knife? So far, I can’t say I’m all that impressed.”

“Maybe not all of the rumors are true... but I don’t pretend to be anything I’m not. It doesn’t matter anyways, I’m retired now.” he said, the news coming as something of a shock to me.

“Retired? So that fancy geddup isn't just for show?” I asked, pointing to his suit. Although, I found his claims doubtful for obvious reasons.

Jagged chuckled to himself in amusement. “This is what ponies like you and I have to look forward to.” he answered, sounding cynical as he gestured around the slum of the city. Beggars, thieves, and junkies in the streets were huffing down what looked like Cloud Kiss and other chems in the darkened alleyways. The sight of some old beggar mare sitting on her own made me feel a bit down. “We were all better off living in the wasteland, if you ask me.”

A lot of what he was saying was going over my head. Words like ‘retired’ and ‘future’ didn’t generally cross my vocabulary, nor did they linger there too often. Weren’t most ponies supposed to want to live in peace and harmony as opposed to a megaspell-blasted apocalyptic hellscape, Gawd or no? “I have to admit, you weren’t exactly what I was expecting,” I said.

“And what were you expecting?” he asked, maybe out of amusement.

“I dunno, somepony more vicious and…. generally sorta ‘raidery’?” I shrugged in confusion. “I heard that you had a run-in with the Stable Dweller not too long ago. So from everything I heard about you, I came here expecting to find a cold-blooded killer, not some old pony acting like a whipped dog in front of the Mayor.”

“Would you feel a little better if I flayed a pony alive and decorated a small shack with their internal organs?” he joked. “Things were a lot simpler back then. Only the strong survived. If you were weak in that world, then your sentence was to die and become sustenance for the strong. It was the one truth of the wasteland you could rely on. Alas, times they are changing. This new world is all about power. You don’t know what you’re fighting for half the time.”

I wasn’t one for discussions on philosophy, let alone with an alleged former raider boss. “Never thought I’d hear a pony getting nostalgic for the wasteland,” I scoffed, “but I think we both know that’s not true. You can drop the whole retired old grandpa raider schtick.”

“No idea what you’re on about darling.” he replied dismissively. “Like I said, I am retired.”

There was no way he was retired. Just no way. “That’s brahmin shit and you know it.”

Changing the subject on me, he asked “So why go through all the trouble of trying to track me down?”

For a moment, I hesitated. “What do you mean?” I asked.

The old pony raised a questioning eyebrow at me, “C’mon, you roll into town, join up with the Dodge City Gang, getting immediately hired on Gamble’s recommendation. You aren’t looking for revenge? How stupid do you take me for? Only a pony who’s really got their sights dead set on something would pull off a crazy feat like that... So now that you have me in front of you, be a dear and tell me what you want.”

I paused in my own mind. If he was asking that, then maybe really didn’t know why I was. Apparently, he still didn’t know about Sunny Hymn. That was a relief, but I was becoming more and more confused by the minute. Contorting my face in anger, I shot back, “That’s what I want to know!”

That seemed to catch his attention a little. He came up to me, stopping so that we were standing face to face as other ponies walked around us, completely ignorant of our conversation. “Nope. It’s no joke, kid.” he stated, “I’m really retiring. I plan to finally hang up my raider colors and live the rest of my years out peacefully.”

I scoffed.

“Believe me or don’t. That’s your prerogative.” Then he wheeled around and kept walking again. I followed. “Now don’t you have a job to do?”

Dammit, I was expecting that to work. Was he putting on an act or something? Nothing was making sense anymore. Either way, I was beginning to get annoyed.

“What kind of joke is this?” I demanded, but no response. There was a voice in the back of my head that was unsure if telling him my true intentions was the best idea, but there was another echo in there too that kept telling me otherwise. “Sometimes you have to take a gamble…” it repeated. “The Enclave.” I said loudly, and that grabbed his attention again. “Those Enclave weapons and whatever that doohicky was that you showed Professor Mercury Switch. Where does a raider get their hooves on that type of high-end weaponry?”

Jagged Knife stopped dead in his tracks and slowly turned his head, walking up so that he was practically breathing on me. “What are you talking about? Mercury Switch is dead.”

“Nope. Still alive and kicking, last I checked. He told me everything he knew.” I assured confidently. “I have to admit, giving those weapons to Papa Bighoof was a stroke of genius. You have everyone completely fooled.”

He huffed, shaking his head to himself. “Alright, so before we go further,” he said, “I want to know what you aim to get out of our little relationship?”

“Those things are way too advanced to be standard issue, and if Professor Mercury Switch didn’t make them, then I wanna know who did.”

The old raider licked the scar above his lip and smacked his lips in curiosity, attempting to get a read on this mare who had just shown up out of nowhere with these accusations. “What makes you so interested in the weapons in particular? If it’s not payback for the caravan raids or whatever you think I’m planning in your head? What are you really after? Did the N.C.R. put you up to this?”

I smirked in confidence, “Nopony worth noting. I’m just your average wasteland mare looking for some weapons. Tell me what I want to know and we both go our separate ways.”

He chuckled again, “That’s one hell of an odd reason to track me across the wasteland, kid.”

“Ponies are dying. That’s all the reason I need.” I replied.

“Thought you’d come here and play hero, did you? The wasteland doesn’t work like that anymore, kid.” Before I could even speak though, he had already turned and was walking away again at a spurred pace. I followed after him.

“Are the Enclave remnants still out there? If they are, I need to know about it.”

“Not here,” he said. “Go tell the head of the Merc’s Guild that I’m rescheduling our meeting to a couple days from today. He’ll probably get right pissed off at you. After you’ve finished that, meet me up at Cherry Hill Ranch. Then we’ll talk.” I watched him as he took his leave towards wherever he was going, and made an unflattering face behind his back.

“Courier work again? Great…” I scowled to myself. After he was out of earshot, I finally let out a breath I had been holding in. “Bastard...” I muttered.

Making my way over to the trainyard, I reminded myself, “It’s for Sunny Hymn,” I repeated in my head. The thought of getting her back motivating me to get through this task as expediently as possible.

Their headquarters was located in the middle of the railyard, surrounded by mercs and a fortress of derelict train cars. A makeshift stairwell led up to a particularly fancy first-class sleeper car that served as the office to Boss Haggard, the head of the Merc’s Guild in Dodge City. Made slightly less threatening by the fact that they were all unarmed, but I was feeling an itch in the back of my neck reminding me to keep alert around them.

“How tough can a few merc's be?” I asked aloud.

Pony mercenaries stood guard at the door, but let me through as soon as they found out I was on official business. “One coming in, boss,” the stallion said. Past them, the inside of the train car was carpeted and sparsed with old world decor, and a thin layer of smoke hung around the roof of the car. A table with an old pony sitting behind it at its center. An assortment of oxygen canisters, healing potions and a load of medical talismans were laid out in a secluded corner.

Then I heard a ragged old voice from the pony sitting at the center of the room. “You ain’t Jagged Knife, youngin’. Who are you?”

Boss Haggard was a skeleton of an old earth stallion who both looked and sounded like he smoked twelve cigars a day with a toad-like rasp and he was flanked by two of the roughest hired muscle he could muster on either side. The old pony shifted back and forth in his chair constantly as though trying to stave off back pain and muscle aches. One of the his attendants must’ve doubled as a nurse.

“Name’s Roulette.” I deadpanned. It had been a while since I’d dealt with mercenaries proper, but I learned from the best so I was no stranger to how they operated. “Jagged sent me to inform you that he’s moved your meeting to two days from now.”

He shouted, cursing as he threw his cigar on the ground, “That no-good sonovabitch! Where does he get off, disrespecting the Merc’s Guild like that?!”

“Search me,” I shrugged. “That was it, so I’ll be going.” I said, but as I turned towards the door to leave, another large pony stood in my way. The cock of a pistol rung behind my ear and Boss Boss Haggard chuckled course laughter. “You don’t think you can trot on in here after telling me that, and then get out scott-free, do ya?”

I glared back at the old pony who was lighting up another cigar, and answered, unintimidated by the old pony and his goons. “Pretty much, that’s exactly what I was thinking.”

He rasped and blew a puff of smoke in the air. “You must a new hire, so let’s have a little chat. I’ll tell you how things work around here.”

I waited impatiently to hear him out, barely-so-much-as cocking an eyebrow. “We’re the Mercenary’s Guild, and we represent ponies’ interests to work contracts in this region.” he rasped. “We get paid for our work and we do what we’re paid for.”

That mantra the old pony spoke caught my ears, and something clicked in my brain. “Hold up, I’ve heard that line before.” I said.

“Is that so?” he inquired, smoke pouring from his lungs and out the roof of his mouth.

“Yeah, it was one of the things this old pony I knew was always telling me back in the day. His name was Fair Trade.”

The old pony growled and he clutched his heart in anger and one of his aids went to bring him over an oxygen canister. Haggard put his hoof up to let them know he was alright before coughing and speaking to me again. “We’ve been around since those damn griffs came to Equestria during the Mercenary Wars of ‘72! Comparatively smaller and slightly less impressive compared to some recent events.... But we formed in order to protect Equestrian born business interests from being driven out by the griffons. In fact the only thing we hate more than griffons, is the Enclave! For driving them here in the first place!” he shouted, pounding his desk on the word ‘Enclave’. “Fair Trade used to be one of us, before he went and threw in his lot with that bitch Gawdyna. Damn traitor is what he was. So how about you?”

“I’m a free agent.” I scoffed. “What does it matter if I knew him or not?”

“Wrong answer.” he laughed in between coughs, and then he took another soothing puff from his cigar. “Between Miss Mayor and New Canterlot, our interests see to it that lone guns don’t last long around here.”

“What do you want from me then?” I demanded.

“What would say you to becoming an informant on behalf of the Merc’s Guild? I want to know what Rubi and Jagged are up to. I need ears on what she’s negotiating with New Canterlot. There’d be a nice cut in it for you.”

I scoffed. “I’d tell you to suck on brahmin shit, because I don’t roll that way.”

The old stallion laughed aloud like gravel, stifling coughing. “You must be new to Dodge City then, because that’s not how things work here. You don’t want to make enemies with the Merc’s Guild kid, I promise you that.”

“I’ll take my chances.” I said, turning to stare down the barrel of the gun pointing at me. I nonchalantly pushed it out of my face and continued out the door, giving the death glare to one of the guard ponies standing outside which caused him to flinch backwards. I could still hear the old stallion’s coughing as the train car drew further away.

I was in more of a hurry now than before, subtly increasing my gait speed as I made my way up to Cherry Hill Ranch. I had to resist my urge to run up there. Trotting down mainstreet, I passed by the saloon again where Hotshot was waiting for me. I groaned, imagining him racking up a huge tab for me. As I passed it I peeked inside, but I stopped and growled as I caught a glimpse of another familiar set of brown wings. I immediately turned and marched towards the saloon.

I barged my way through the double doors, seeing the same familiar sights as last time, and I saw the mohawked pegasus sitting at the end of the bar. Then my eyes immediately fell upon the griffon with a big crowd gathered around her to watch her chug an entire jug of moonshine, all cheering collectively when she finished the last drop and finally came up for air. Brandishing her massive revolver openly, she held little to no regard for Dodge City ordinance. I groaned in annoyance.

Hawkins slammed the jug down on the table after having gone through the entire thing and spat at the bartender. “Bring me another.” The brown plumed griffon demanded. Hotshot hid himself, attempting not to be noticed as he inconspicuously leaned away in the opposite direction and and ducked down in his seat. He quickly saw me approaching and drew a sigh of relief.

Cursing under my breath as I walked up to her, I snarled, pushing my way through and slammed my hoof on the counter next to her. “What the hell are you doing here? I’m busy!”

“Oh there you are...” she spat, wearing a tiresome scowl on her face as she turned her head to look at me. “And ain’t you a shit sight for sore eyes?” she scoffed. “Do you have any idea how hard it was for me track your sorry ass down Dirt Muncher?”

The crowd around her quickly dispersed, reading the tone of our conversation. “Tell me what you want and then get the fuck out of here,” I demanded. “and quit calling me a ‘dirt muncher’, unless you want to go for round two, cunt.”

“Real friendly of you Dirt Muncher. Are you just puffing out your chest to look tough?” Hawkins spat back sarcastically. “I’m on official N.C.R. business actually.” It had only been a day or two. I was surprised that she managed to find me so fast. I guess she wasn’t joking about keeping tabs on me from now on.

“You sure about doing this here in the open?” I questioned, gesturing at the other patrons. “Someone might be listening. Pretty amateur-ish if you ask me, Skyranger.”

“Relax, I’ve already ran background checks on all the regulars. The only pony I don’t recognize is that mohawked-boy sitting suspiciously over there in the corner. Besides, this won’t take long and everyone here is too drunk off their asses to give a shit. ”

“Don’t worry, he’s with me.” I huffed, staring vacantly at the pegasus. Hawkins glanced in his direction as well, and he seemed to get the impression we were talking about him.

The griffon turned back to me slowly, sounding rather grim and with a hint of humorlessness in her voice. “Well I’ve got some bad news for you, Colonel Peregrine didn’t actually have the authority to hire you under N.C.R. contract on this “mission” of yours. The brass found out about your little deal, so I’m taking over this investigation. Henceforth, turn over all the details you’ve gathered in relation to this Jagged Knife character over to me, and you’re gonna get back on that train and go back to New Canterlot to answer some questions. ”

“Wait what?!” I challenged, almost shouting. It was infuriating to me that they would try and involve themselves again in my business and claim it as their own. “Like hell! I’ve been yapping my brains out about this guy for the last two days, and only now does New Canterlot start to give a shit?!”

She spoke through her teeth glaring angrily towards the wall, as though out of embarrassment. “I went to give my report to the top brass. Everything was going good until I name dropped that Jagged Knife asshole you mentioned, then all of a sudden things were flying at me from every direction, and I was ordered to track you down immediately and find out what you knew about him. I had to spend the last day-and-a-damned-half looking for your sorry flank!”

Then I felt something odd that I’d barely had any of over the last few days. Satisfaction. An enormous smirk stretched across my face, feeling overly smug at finally being vindicated. “Sorry, I dunno if I heard that right. Could you repeat that again?”

“Fuck off! I don’t have all day. For the record, I blame you for all of this.”

“Oh no you don’t! This is my investigation! When I warned you all about this guy, you told me to fuck off. Now you think you can come crawling back and tell me what to do? I don’t think so.”

“You don’t know when to stop butting into N.C.R. business, do you?”

“They took Sunny, so this is just as much my business as it is yours.” I squinted, leaning in close to her so she could hear me perfectly clear. “And I’ll have you know, since I’m not ‘technically’ with New Canterlot I can do whatever-the-hell I want to.” I added, making air-quotes with my hooves.

“Maybe start off by telling me what you were talking about with Airworthy. Knowingly conversing with a wanted fugitive? That’s reason enough to bring you in.” she threatened.

I screwed my face at her. “We didn’t discuss anything interesting,” I insisted. “You’re already damn well aware of what happened, bitch, so I dare you to try and make me.”

She didn’t appear at all satisfied by my non-answer, but sat back and seemed to accept it anyways. Hawkins muttered to herself in annoyance, “The old bird folded pretty quickly, but he did warn me that I’d likely have to deal with you on my own. Dunno why I’m surprised, I bet you just can’t help that annoying personality of yours. I’m sure he planned it that way.”

“Gee, you sure sound disappointed.”

“I could think of better horses to bet on... Needless to say, you’ve drawn the eye of those at the top. They want to find out what Jagged knows and then bring him in, and I expect you to fully cooperate.” She rest her massive Talon revolver on the bar to make her point clear. Kingfisher revolvers were a griffon design that chambered huge .45-70 rounds. I remembered vividly how effective they were on the night of the raid.

Scoffing, I told her what I knew. How I had overheard a conversation between Jagged and the mayor, in her office. “She was mostly shouting at Jagged over how incompetent he was, but they discussed a few things like assassinating Colonel Peregrine.”

“Noted.”

“She also was pretty interested in an old audio-log from Radar the Dashite, and some other stuff. I wasn’t paying too close attention to her.”

Hawkins perked up at hearing that name. “Radar? What about him?” she asked.

I cocked an eyebrow at her, “Nothing of interest.” I replied. “Anyways, I confronted Jagged Knife about the weapons when we were alone, but I didn’t get anything useful out of him. That’s it. I’m still investigating. The weapons are my only lead so far. I’ve got a meeting with him up at Cherry Hill Ranch in a short bit.”

She laughed out loud, “Wow, Grade A detective work there.”

I went red in the face in anger. It didn’t take me very long to remember my intense dislike for her, but I shrugged it off with a huff. “Apparently he’s saying that he’s retired now,” I informed her.

Hawkins stopped and blinked twice. “‘Retired’? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she nearly shouted.

I scoffed back and replied, “His words, not mine.” Then I looked at her, trying to reassure myself. “I mean, clearly he’s up to something.”

She spat indignantly. “Of course! That’s a load of horseshit. You can’t just kill and murder a bunch of innocent ponies and then suddenly decide you’re gonna sit down someplace cozy and live in peaceful retirement! It doesn’t work like that!”

Honestly, I didn’t buy it either. After everything he’d supposedly put me through up until now, that he’d just give up and lay down his gun? It was way too hard to swallow.

“The guy’s bad news. Obviously.” I agreed. Then I paused as a stray thought crossed my mind, reminding me how most of us left alive after Sunshine and Rainbows running things since had lived in the wasteland as well. “Wait... does it work like that?” I questioned. Hawkins fished around in her head trying to search for a good response but couldn’t give me any reason that felt particularly satisfying.

She took a swig of ‘thinking-juice’ out of frustration and beat her chest. “I’ve got orders, so that’s all the justification I need. Ponies like Jagged Knife don’t just ‘retire’. It’s not in their nature to change. All it is, is a matter of time until they go back to their old ways.”

“Says who?”

“Says experience. That’s the way it is now.” she replied. Her response, I found bothered me quite a bit for some reason. It seemed like a rather bleak outlook to me, that ponies who couldn’t grow out of the wasteland were all eventually to be disposed of in her eyes. “Must be nice to always have orders to fall back on. You don’t have to worry about owning up to your mistakes.” I said.

“Contract is all that matters. The top brass wants him, so I’m gonna deliver. Even considering everything that happened in the wasteland, if he’s still organizing raids on caravans and making trouble for the N.C.R. then that’s good enough for me.” Hawkins seemed sure of herself. That part I agreed with, so at least we had an understanding in that regard. Admittedly, It seemed like a moral quandary that I wasn’t terribly eager to go down myself for the moment.

Jagged was my enemy. That much I could both be sure of. All I needed was to keep on the task at hoof, until I could figure out what he was up to.

“Honestly, I’m starting to get a little curious about why you want him.” I eyed the brown griffon with squinting suspicion. “By-the-by, you didn’t mention before that New Canterlot was also in the market for Enclave tech.”

“That’s classified.” she answered annoyingly.

“You know something that you ain’t saying, birdbrain?” I pressed raising my voice slightly.

“Classified.” she repeated.

I blew a puff of air out of my mouth in irritation. “Can’t you tell me anything useful?”

“That’s classified too.”

“Arrgh!!” I shouted out, beginning to grow increasingly frustrated. “So you don’t have anything useful then? Whatever. If you won’t tell me, I’ll just get my answers straight from Jagged.”

“Look, dumbass. I’m trying to look out for you. There are things going on back in N.C.R. that are way above your paygrade. Things that I’m not allowed to talk about. So you’re gonna have to trust me and take my word for it if you don’t want to end up at in a jail cell. This is stuff that could spell big trouble for the both of us.”

I snarled back. “That’s what you call help? All you ever do is get in my way and act like a huge bitch!”

She rolled her eyes showing her teeth, “You’re always galloping headlong in danger, acting like a reckless moron! It’s a miracle that you’re not dead already.”

“I can take care of myself just fine!” I countered. “Besides, aren’t you only here because you didn’t take me seriously to begin with?” I reminded her, and as expected I received no answers. “Yeah, I thought so. So was that everything lil’ miss Skyranger?” I was beginning to grow accustomed to being given the run-around by everyone, blowing a puff of air out the side of my mouth, I relented. “Fine, be that way... I’ll do it without your help. So tell me, what’s all this N.C.R. nonsense about?” I asked her trying to hide my own embarrassment at not knowing.

Hawkins snorted in response. “Tch, that’s what they’re calling it now. The ‘New Canterlot Republic’. Pretty impressive name, right? Gawd made a big speech about it over the radio a few days ago.” she sounded almost proud saying it.

“‘Republic’, huh…?” I grunted. “Sounds dumb.”

The griffon stood up in offense, “It’s not dumb!” she shot back. “And why don’t you pay attention to anything?!”

“That’s because nobody ever tells me anything!” I complained, standing up too.

She puffed indignantly, “It’s not anyone’s job to tell you!”

Unsurprisingly, we were back at each other’s throats again. Hotshot appeared between us, forcing us apart. “Ladies, please!” he interrupted, having finally grown tired of listening to the two of us bicker. “I preferred it when there was just one of you.”

“Don’t compare me to her!” Hawkins and I both objected simultaneously. We turned back to look at each other in mutual discontent.

Hawkins glared at him as he sat between the two of us and she took a seat beside him. “Finally decided to join us then, mohawk-boy?” she huffed.

“Call me Hotshot, sister.” he said, introducing himself. The pegasus grinned trying to act mysterious, as he leaned closer to her against the bar, “I guess you could say I’m a random street grifter-”

“Lemme guess, are you Enclave?” the talon guessed immediately, causing him to choke and start coughing uncontrollably. She wore a deadpan expression, looking unimpressed. “I could tell by your posture and how you were sitting over in the corner of the room. Also how you kept eyeing me despite having plenty of other eye candy in the room to gawk at. To be honest, you seem like the sort who’d fuck anything that moves.” she leaned into a cocky smirk. “So who did you get on the wrong side of in order to end up in Dodge City?”

“Dammit, was I really that obvious...?” he fussed, “and it’s ‘Ex-Enclave’,” he corrected. Hotshot tilted his head backward and sighed in defeat. Deciding to come clean, he told us his story. “Somehow I ended up in the remnants,” he said, “ I didn’t really know what was going on most of the time, and I felt like a machine. Even now the memory is still fuzzy. Something caused me to finally open my eyes as to what was going on, and I deserted not soon after, right as the Enclave Wars were reaching their climax. Obviously, I couldn’t turn to New Canterlot for help, so I ended up here. I drank and gambled my way into debt. The Dodge City Gang found out I was former Enclave and blackmailed me with it. Jagged offered to wipe the slate clean if I did one job for him, and I was dumb enough to take him up on that offer. Not really the most ideal of circumstances.”

“Sounds like you’ve had better days.” I snorted.

“Ain’t that the truth?” He casually grabbed Hawkins’ jug of moonshine and bummed a swig of it, before she greedily snatched it back.

Cocking an eyebrow, “‘Somehow’?” she asked, sounding skeptical. “You don’t just ‘somehow’ end up with the remnants. Weren’t good enough for the dashite mark, were you?” she took on a mocking tone. At least it wasn’t only me who found his story a little off. Then taking a shot in the dark, she asked him, “So if you’re wrapped up in all this, do you have any idea what he’s planning? Anything about the state of the Enclave?”

“Are you trying to get a confession out of me?” he jeered, squinting suspiciously.
She blew a puff of air, “No. I’m just making conversation, dumbass. Ya never know, it could help your case.” Hawkins made a shrug and went back to sipping on her alcohol only to scowl at realizing he had drunk the last of it.

The pegasus rolled his eyes and shook his head. “All the usual channels went dead months ago. Sorry, I’m as much in the dark as you are.”

I watched the pegasus, still not fully trusting him at his word. He told me his story and had agreed to help me, but something about him, including the fact he was former Enclave still didn’t sit right with me. Not to mention there was still a whole lot I didn’t know about him.

Hawkins groaned, “Why am I not surprised? You’re just as useless as the dirt-muncher.”

Sadly, the pegasus didn’t quite take too kindly to her repartee. “Gee, you don’t pull any punches do you?” he admitted. “But at least I didn’t make a mistake of overlooking obvious details, resulting in me having to foalsit some crazy action mare out on the ass-end of the desert.” He gave a sly smirk to which Hawkins ruffled her feathers angrily.

“Don’t think I’ve ever met an Enclaver whose special talent is coming in second place,” she snapped back.

“Can we please get back to business?” I made an exasperated plea, “I’ve got somewhere to be already.”

Brandy came back with another jug of moonshine for the griffon, which Hawkins picked up immediately. “She said that she was a friend of yours and to put it on your tab.” Brandy groused. Then the mare contorted her face in disgust upon noticing me wearing the colors of the Dodge City Gang. “If I knew you were just going to join up with the mayor, I wouldn’t have treated you so nice yesterday.”

I reassured her, “Don’t worry. This isn’t a permanent thing.”

“Good to know. And how exactly do you plan to pay for all this?”

“I’ll cover it,” I promised.

“You’d better...” she warned and trotted off, making a backhoofed comment about being forced to serve N.C.R. in her own bar.

After chugging several big gulps, Hawkins puffed to stave off the liquid burn, beating her chest in elation. “Good stuff! If nothing else, you ponies sure know how to make great liquor!” she cheered, then she set it down on the counter next to her rolling her eyes back over to me. “So are you going then?”

“Yeah,” I grunted. “I’m going.”

“So you’re heading up to Cherry Hill Ranch now? I was there once before. The place is built up like a fortress. Your best chance at finding your friend would be up at the big mansion, if you manage to get inside. If not there are a few other places she could be.”

I nodded along. “I’ll figure it out, thanks.”

“Do you still have my stealthbuck mk II? We could team up and use it to sneak in and run some reconnaissance? You shouldn’t go alone without backup.”

“Nah, it got stolen.”

“You’re kidding…” his face sunk, “Do you have any idea how hard those things are to come by?”

“No.” I answered disinterestedly. Hotshot appeared hesitant as though something else were on his mind. I looked at the pegasus impatiently and waited. “Yeah, what?” I urged him.

Following along a line of logic in his own head, Hotshot told me something I really didn’t want to hear. “You mentioned before how your friend came here with the raiders and then got here in less than a day. Then after that, she was immediately hired up by the mayor, all taking place before you got here. Can we trust her?”

I was offended by the mere implication, like he had just smacked me across the face. My face contorted into a scowl, “She’s a friend. That’s it.” I informed him, taking on a forceful tone and stamped my hoof.

“Are you sure about that?” Hawkins asked. “She is you-know-who’s daughter, y’know… I know it hurts to think about, but you can’t completely rule out the possibility-”

“Don’t you dare!” I snarled, pointing my hoof at her, cutting her off before she coulld finish.

Hawkins was the absolute last person I wanted to hear that from. “Sunny isn’t like that.” I insisted, “End of story!” I pounded the bar so hard with my hoof it almost caused the jug of moonshine to spill over and they went quiet. Some of the other usual patrons looked up from their card game and had turned to look at me. There was a long awkward silence between us, until I finally raised from my seat, and began to pace towards the double doors of the saloon. “We’ll pick this up later...” I mumbled.

She took on a grave tone as I stood up and began to walk away. “Careful,” she warned, her voice lacking any hint of sarcasm. “I’m not gonna watch your back forever.” I couldn’t tell if that was a veiled threat, but I didn’t bother glaring back at her. “Where the hell are you going? Do you expect me to just sit on my ass here with this joker?” she asked jabbing her talon in Hotshot’s direction. The usual card players looked up from their game to see what was going on and watched me as I paced up to the double doors of the saloon.

“Do whatever.” I replied, and she went back to drowning herself in the bottle.

“Hey, wait!” Hotshot put up his hoof to try and stop me from leaving. I groaned internally, rolling my eyes as I briefly turned to look at him. “What do you want us to do?” he asked, the doors open.

“Stay here and keep a low profile. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone, but I’ll try to be back here in a few hours. Try to stomach her as best you can. I’m sure you’ll both hate each other...” I muttered under my breath. It was probably best to do it on my own anyways. Less ponies to get in my way in that case. So much for strategizing.

As I paced away from the saloon, I left him standing in the center of the floor while Hawkins continued to drown herself in liquor out of boredom.

Brandy called after me as I pushed my way out through and walked outside, “Hey mare! If your friends are staying in your room, I’m charging you double!”

Part of me wanted to take off galloping, as I was unable to help escape the thought now that I had a ticking clock hanging above my head. As soon as I got up there, I’d slip away and search for Sunny at the first opportunity. I grit my teeth in anger. “If even one hair of her’s is out of place, I’ll shoot up this whole Luna damned ranch!” I promised the imaginary pony inside my head.

I shook the unwanted doubts lingering in my mind. “No, there has to be a reason.” I also still owed her an apology. I had an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach and gulped at the thought. Killing raiders was simple, but dealing with my fucked up emotions? Taking on the entire Dodge City Gang single-hoofedly sounded easier.

Metal barricades and barbed wire surrounded the whole estate as I trotted up to the old timey sign that read “Cherry Hill Ranch” at the front gate. It was written in ruby red cursive font, situated between two sniper towers where two ponies with rocket launchers kept their weapons trained on me, and a makeshift heavily armed guard barracks sat at the rear of the entrance. Perhaps the decision to not go in guns blazing was the right call for once. Ponies here were armed to the teeth and then some.

A pony in a black duster stopped me. “Oh, you must be the new hire. I heard somepony would be coming up,” he drawled, signalling to the others that I was okay to pass. “Jagged said to show you around the estate.”

“Yeah, thanks. That’s alright, I can show myself around.”

“The boss insists...” he said, implying that it wasn’t a request. Under his clothing I managed to glimpse a tattoo of Jagged’s mark on his neck beneath his shirt collar.

Seeing as I had no choice, I followed behind the dustered pony for an expedited tour of the estate, and I immediately found myself being brutally assaulted by the color green while being led past the front gate, seeing fields of grass and pink cherry trees scattered everywhere over the property. The orchard was accompanied by high-tech irrigation systems and radiation purging talismans. Similar systems existed inside of some stables, but I’d never seen a setup like this before. Especially outdoors.

The dustered pony led me up the path to the big mansion on the hill, but we first passed through a small village, with bunk houses and a general store for the property arranged in a circle. A closed barn that looked like it was formerly a cherry sorting and shipping plant sat just behind it. Now it was anyone’s guess what they were using it for.

As I dragged my hooves through the villa, I could see a lot of unsavory-looking ponies. Ponies with missing eyes. Ears. A scar above the eyebrow. One curious detail I noticed was how a lot of the ponies with scars had them on the same side of their face, on the right. I was starting to question to myself who was really running the show around here.

It didn’t matter whether or not I was technically with the Dodge City Gang. Here I was the newcomer, and I stood on a razor’s edge.

I felt my blood start to simmer as I spotted another familiar unwelcome face. Sting again. He spotted me come into the villa and grinned annoyingly. “Shit.” I didn’t say anything at first, choosing to follow along and act like nothing was wrong, but then he began following behind us.

“Hey, who’s the fresh blood?” he mock-questioned the pony leading me, clearly aware of who I was. I clenched my jaw in anger, trying to play it cool.

“This is Rubi’s new hire. Gamble said she had an impressive record as a mercenary and proper work ethic. The mayor took his word for it.” replied the pony in the brown duster, barely paying any attention to the effeminate raider stallion.

Sting snickered, “Is that so? Nice to meetcha, girly.” His laugh was grating that I had to make a concerted effort to not want to punch him in the face. To be fair, I wanted to do that anyways.

“Blow it out your ass. Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I asked getting agitated. It was exceedingly difficult to both search for traces of Sunny Hymn and possible Enclave weaponry on the side, while also ignoring his snide remarks.

“Why all the hostility? Not too friendly of you,” he admonished, making mock-offense. The other pony walked ahead.

“Tell me where?” I snarled in a low voice so that only Sting could hear.

“Oh she’s here. She might not be too happy to see you though… Funny, your friend was actually a huge help to us. I was totally floored by what a competent operator she was. She managed to convince a sky carriage to take us to Dodge City all on her own and everything. You might’ve beaten us getting here if not for her.”

“Shut up.” I muttered. Despite not wanting to, I couldn’t not acknowledge that there was at least a tiny possibility that what they were saying made some small modicum of sense, but I shoved that thought to the back of my head where I smothered it to death.

“That mare of yours makes you look like a total amateur by comparison, Girly. If you came here thinking you could take on Jagged by yourself then you’re even dumber than I initially took you for. What’s the matter? Struck a nerve?”

I didn’t say anything, instead shooting him back a cold glare that startled him into silence.

“Pfft, you’re no fun.” he spat and trotted off. The less I had to hear his annoying voice the better, far as I was concerned.

At the top of the hill I had a moment to look around the estate. The trail led back to town and I could see Dodge City below, sprawling across the desert. I also spied an old fashioned structure sitting on the northwest end of the property. It was out of the way and hidden in an orchard, making it immediately suspicious to me. “Could that be where they were keeping the Enclave weapons?” I made a mental note to myself, wondering if anything interesting was sitting inside.

Inside the mansion felt like it still existed in the back-when-times, trying to evoke an appearance of class and status for the owner, but to a pony like me it just came across as pretentious. Apparently, it belonged to that same wartime businessmare who had all the pictures taken of her in the mayor’s office. Due to the bad-blood between the Ministry Mare and her biggest competitor, Ironclad Firearms ended up being awarded a majority of the military contracts during the war. She ended up using that capital to put Dodge City on the map and wanted to turn it into the next Fillydelphia, sort of like the current mayor was trying to do now.

They led me into the foyer and up a grand flight of stairs. There were so many doors and creaky hallways, a directionally-challenged pony could easily get lost in this place. My eyes darted between slightly cracked doors, trying to peek inside inconspicuously for any traces of Sunny. Many of the rooms were empty, remaining untouched since the war. Now it belonged to the mayor and the Dodge City Gang.

The pony in the duster led me down a long hallway, at the end of which was a door which ushered me through. It was a dark room with shut blinds, that doubled as a home office for work. Filled to the brim with old antiques and other photos much the same as the mayor’s office The door locked behind me.

Jagged was staring out the window at the singular SPP tower overlooking Dodge. He immediately noticed me as I came through the door, and he flashed his plasma gun. Similar in design to the other enclave weapons I had seen before. I took a headcount of the ponies in the room besides me. There were four of them in total. I was confident I could take that many on my own, but the weapons put me a little on edge.

“Why all the secrecy?” I snarked.

“Sometimes it’s hard to know who you can trust.” Jagged replied stoically.

Muttering in response, “I can relate.” I replied.

That big white pony with the eyepatch and playing cards for a cutie-mark was standing in the room with us, along with another pair of dustered ponies guarding the door, although now he was wearing a buttoned vest and bowler hat. I couldn’t say that the new outfit suited him, but whatever. We made eye contact, both well aware of why I was here. As I glanced between them, I made a few quick calculations on the best order to take them out in and a possible escape route for if things went south. I had about a dozen questions waiting for him in the back of my head, but I was here for Jagged Knife, first and foremost.

“Sorry, we’ve not been properly introduced,” the eyepatched pony tipped his bowler hat. “It’s Three-Card Monte, ” his deep voice rumbled, “Don’t worry about happened before, you’re still in good company here.” He seemed to be subtly implying that Sunny was alright, for the time being. At least that was the message I took from him.

I scoffed and shot him a dirty look. “Yeah. No hard feelings...” I snarled.

“So you have something against the Enclave too then, Red?” Jagged Knife asked, making small-talk at me. “It’s okay, most of us surface dwellers carry similar sentiments.” The other ponies nodded silently in affirmation.

“Let’s get on with this.” I groaned, not interested in sharing stories. “Whatever you’re planning, I want in.”

“How about we start with a name. Your ‘real’ name.”

“Roulette,” I answered looking off to the side, and Jagged mock-bowed his head in response.

“Jagged Knife. Now that we’re properly acquainted,” he replied, glancing over his shoulder at the SPP tower outside. “You want in on the plan? I need ponies who I can trust.”

I scoffed. “What’s the matter, you and mayor Rubi aren’t seeing eye to eye?”

Jagged sneered and gave a slight chuckle. “Something like that… but I need to know who you are first. What the hell do you want? Who are you?”

One of his ponies tapped Jagged’s shoulder, then leaned in close and whispered to him, “Dunno if you were already aware, Boss, but I saw Hotshot is back in town. Figured I’d let you know.”

He nodded and replied, glancing between the stallion beside him and myself. “Huh, figured he’d have flown half-way ‘cross Equestria by now. Thanks for letting me know, Hoosegow.”

Just then, something in the office caught my attention as my eyes were drifting between the photographs of the pre-war businessmare. It was an inconspicuous photo hidden among the portraits, looking completely unassuming. I looked closer. Standing next to Cherry Jubilee was that one turquoise pegasus mare I had seen in the memory. She was dressed like a government official and they were both standing together in front of Dodge City like they had made some sort of historic deal. Who the hell was she?

Jagged’s voice drew my attention again. “So, onto business...” he said. “I have something you want, but you have nothing to offer me in return.” He frowned, briefly losing his composure. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just kill you where you stand, kiddo.”

I smirked, cracking my neck sideways “Guess what? I’m easily worth twenty of your guys. So you’re gonna need a lot more than four of you to put me down.” I warned, glaring back at the ponies hovering for their guns. “You needed strong ponies on your side, right? All I care about is the Enclave, so if you give me that then we can work together, no issue. But I guess, I could always go to the N.C.R. if you’re not interested?”

He wore a devilish grin, clearly liking that answer. The aging raider stallion smacked his lips.

“How about this then? You run a job for me. Something we can build on. When the time is right, I’ll tell you everything I know about the Enclave, and you can do whatever you like with that information. Sound fair?”

I hesitated briefly, thinking it over. “How do I trust you’ll hold up your end?”

“You came all this way just to back out now?” he questioned. “What if I did you one better though? If I told you that the Enclave remnants were still out there hiding? And I could give you a lead on their whereabouts. I’ll even tell you all about Radar while I’m at it. I guarantee you, it’s more than the N.C.R. would ever be willing to offer. All you need to do is help me on one job. Deal?”

“I’m thinking!” I replied as he waited impatiently .

“Y’know as bad as you make me out to be, Rubi would be far worse for the Wasteland in the long term. All that matters to her is bottlecaps. The corruption in Dodge City flows from her, to the gangs, down into the streets and out into the wastes.”

I rolled my eyes in disbelief. “Oh right, you’re a real philanthropist.” Scoffing, “So you’re worried about your ‘retirement plan’?” I asked.

“I’m just one lil’ ole raider. Rubi is the queen of Dodge City. I had my reasons for attacking those caravans, but those attacks still benefited Rubi most of all with what she’s been planning. I’m a scumbag, I won’t lie about that, but even raiders have standards.”

““Former-scumbag” you mean, right?” I corrected, cocking an eyebrow.

A sly grin stretched across the aging raider stallion’s face, showing me the killer in his eyes, and he gave a slight nod. “Exactly.”

I glanced at the white pony with the eyepatch and clenched my jaw. Then my eyes flicked back to Jagged Knife. “I heard that the mayor hired a new caretaker a couple days ago. Is she one of yours?” I asked.

“No.” he answered. “Nice girl, but she doesn’t run in our circle. Not like you or I, but she’s got her uses.”

So Jagged Knife really didn’t have any idea about Sunny. “So why the hell am I here then?” I thought, my eyes narrowing at Three-Card.

“Okay, how the hell do you know about the Enclave?” I demanded “Do you have some hidden connections with the remnants? Tell me.” Although it was much to my frustration, when his only reply was a devilish grin and a worrisome glint in his eye.

“Not so fast, kiddo. You still need to take the test,” he said.

“What was that job from before?” I protested.

“That was the test to take the test.”

“Of course it was…” I deadpanned. Clearing my throat, I asked him, “Alright then, what job do you need done ‘boss’?”

“There’s a popular hangout for ghouls and mutants, located right outside of town in an irradiated mineshaft. They call it, “The Rot”. I need you to retrieve a package of mine. Talk to a ghoul named Fester and find out what he did with it. Do this for me, and I’ll consider letting you in on the plan. Sound good?.”

The offer was tempting, but sounded like an easy potential setup for a trap. I still didn’t trust this pony as far as I could throw him. He could see me hesitating too.

Growing steadily more impatient, the old raider pony watched me almost unblinking. “Prove that you can handle yourself, I’ve got no use for you otherwise.” he said.

“You don’t need to worry about me. I can handle anything you can throw at me.” I insisted. “A package, huh? Sounds simple enough. Fine”

A sly toothy grin stretched across his lips as soon as he heard my answer. “That’s what I wanted to hear. One of the boys will take you there, you handle the rest.”

“Uh, hey, could I get a better gun in that case?” I asked. “IF-15 service rifles are fine at taking down normal ponies and wasteland scumfucks, but it might help me out a little if you let me use something bigger.”

He laughed under his breath in amusement. “You said you could handle anything, didn’t you?” So much for that. You couldn’t blame a pony for trying though. I nodded and one of the ponies standing guard at the door unlocked it and let me through, allowing me to leave on my own.

Grumbling to myself as I walked the strange hallways of Cherry Hill Estate, I was having a hard time finding my way around. “If only I could get to the stairs again.” Just then, a familiar tone caught my ear and I stopped. My ears perked up. I knew that voice. “Sunny?!” I blurted out, looking all around.

It wasn’t immediately obvious where the voice was coming from, but I rushed towards the source of the noise. Nobody else was around down either of the hallways. Looking both ways to check if it was clear, I tried the door, jiggling the handle. It was unlocked. Slowly, I pushed open the door and slipped inside. There I found what looked like a small playroom with toys and bright colored wallpaper, with clouds and sunshine painted on it. Inside was an apple-green filly silently staring up at me. She had an auburn mane tied into a single braid and no cutie mark.

“Uh, hey kid. Did you happen to catch a pegasus in here? She’s got a blonde mane like sunshine and a pretty seafoam coat...”

Her eyes kept on me in silence, not saying a single word. I looked down at her and could see she looked scared. She shrunk back as I approached her.

I sighed and smiled, crouching down next to her so we were nearly eye level. I reached my hoof out to the little filly. “Don’t be scared kid, everything’s alright. I’m friendly, I promise.”

For a moment she looked at my outstretched hoof, and then up at me. She slowly raised her foreleg and stretched it towards me, then without warning punted me right in the shin. The filly stuck her tongue out at me in contempt. “Nyeeh.”

“Ow! Luna, you little- !”

She scrambled out of the room screaming and galloping as fast as her little legs could carry her. I spun around after her but then I came face to face with a familiar seafoam pegasus mare looking frantic and apologetic.

“Roulette!” Sunny blabbered, trying to calm me down. “Oh my goodness, I am so sorry about that! I promise that Accolade didn’t mean it, please don’t be mad at her!”

I stared back at the pegasus mare bafflingly as though her comments felt unwarranted, “Um… I’m not angry? She looked like she...-uh, nevermind.” She seemed more than a little surprised by that response.

I slowly began to realize who I was looking at. “Sunny, is that you...?” I asked hesitantly, and she nodded with a cozy smile on her face. “Am I dreaming?” I asked myself, poking her to make sure it was real.

“Ow! Yes, it’s me.” she chided. It was the same old Sunny.

I wasn’t sure what I should say, but before she could do or say anything else I pulled her close into a big hug. “I’m sorry about what I said before… I screwed up bigtime.” I wasn’t good with these sorts of things. Swallowing a lump in my throat, the words that came out of my mouth felt all screwy and unfamiliar, but I felt her hesitant caress around my shoulders.

“It’s okay. Really…Alright, cramping.” she pained, and attempted to push me away awkwardly.

I released her and then hung my head, trying to figure out the right words. The mare blinked expectantly. Apologizing was hard. That must’ve been why I avoided it all the time. “What I said before… I didn’t want to lose anyone else, so I pushed you away. Then all that other stuff happened, I got caught up in the craziness, and I thought-” I paused, as though something were caught in my throat. “I thought I was going to lose you too.”

“Oh. That’s alright,” Sunny said.

I gave the mare a funny look. “Alright?” I repeated. “Are you alright?” I asked in bewilderment.

“Yeah.” she nodded. “I mean, we both kind of got caught up in things.” Something felt off. She was acting strange and this was going a little too well. I glanced around to make sure it was just us.

Then I put a hoof on her shoulder and huffed awkwardly, “Okay, we need to have a serious talk about your dad.” I said, trying to lighten the mood a little.

“Huh, about Daddy? Okay, what about him?” she just looked confused. I was afraid of that... She was probably fooled by his dear old dad routine too.

“Okay, I dunno how to tell you this, but he drugged you out cold and got into a standoff with the soldiers.,” I answered. “He called me a wingless freak, Sunny.”

She gave me a baffled look like I was talking nonsense. “Nuh-uh, Daddy isn’t like that,” she insisted, like she was the one speaking reason here. “Don’t worry, the only reason he got the drop on me was because I was unprepared. I won’t let it happen again.” Then the seafoam pegasus shook her head and brushed my hoof away, “Wait. No. What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to save you… duh.”

“No. I mean okay, but we’ve only known each other for like a day! Why did you follow me?!” I tilted my head. She went red with frustration, “I’m on my own now. I have to make these calls for myself!”

I shrugged, “I mean, we’re friends still. Right?”

Her sunny disposition turned cloudy, and her eyes fell off to the side silently. ““You said we weren’t friends anymore… After you didn’t get what you wanted, you told me to get lost. To be honest, a part of me didn’t think I was ever going to see you again. Then suddenly, I woke up and dad was gone. I was being held hostage with a knife to my throat. You were there, and I didn’t know what was happening-”

“Sunny, c’mon-” I began, but she just shot me a look as though she were offended by my very presence that felt almost out of character for her, and I closed my mouth shut.

“All I could make out was you standing there, across from me and the raiders. You looked angrier than I’d ever seen you, and it was scary. You were scary.”

“Sunny… I didn’t mean any of that.” I pleaded with her. “Look, forget about the Enclave. I came here to get you back. That’s all, because I wanted to say I was sorry.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, almost at a loss for words. Then she managed a weak little smile and held her hoof to her breast, but her eyes kept staring at the floor. “Don’t worry, I didn’t hold it against you.” She sighed, “All of this happened because I tried to go searching for dad while I was still too inexperienced about the wasteland. I went and dragged you into it, and I took advantage of you. The truth is, you were right to push me away.”

“Well of course I did, you idiot.” I smiled, but it waned slowly when I saw that she wasn’t smiling back at me. “Besides, if you hadn’t done that stuff, I never would’ve met you.” This apology really wasn’t going anywhere near as well as I thought it was going to. I felt so stupid. The comfort I experienced from being around her just felt like a complete misunderstanding now.

The mare’s tone was pensive, with barely any hint of joy in her voice. “They wanted to use me as collateral to get to you, but I convinced them that I could help. It was easy. Truthfully, there are moments when all that Enclave propaganda they circulated above the clouds feels almost true, but it’s almost more complicated than that.” Her words hurt to listen to.

This wasn’t sounding like the Sunny I knew at all. All I could manage was a contorted frown, but I was still curious to hear her side of things, so I allowed her to continue. “Yeah?” was all I could think to say.

“The N.C.R. wants my dad, and they’ll use me to get to him if they ever get the chance. He’s still out there somewhere, I’m sure of it.”

“I won’t let them hurt you.” I promised.

“The corruption runs deep down here, Roulette. Deeper than it did even up in the clouds. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the truth is, I don’t need to be saved.
‘The only pony you can ever truly rely upon is yourself’, I think that’s the lesson my dad wanted me to learn here... he would’ve wanted me to find out about what’s going on at the center of these events, then come to a decision and act accordingly.” she said, thinking to herself aloud.

Eventually, I got fed up listening to her talk like that, and interrupted to try and talk some sense into her, “What are you even saying? Then we’ll figure it out together!”

The pegasus mare began reciting words to herself aloud to help her think, although to me it just made her sound like a spastic training cadet. “Always keep sight of the mission objective. You are your own eyes and ears on the ground. Observe, learn, act, and report, etcetera, etcetera…” she repeated, breathing. “Only problem is, I’m not sure what the mission is supposed to be here. Dad left that up for me to figure out on my own.” It felt like I was trying to reason with a brick wall. Although, I was getting the feeling that maybe I hadn’t given her enough credit up until now.

“You don’t have to be a scout Sunny!,” I said. “You don’t have to follow in your dad’s hoofsteps. Once you throw away that part of yourself, you can’t get it back… and to be honest, I like that part of you best.”

The mare scoffed, her voice filled with derision, “Well, what am I going to do? Go back to the N.C.R.?” she chided.

“C’mon, don’t be ridiculous. You’re not Enclave. You’ve done nothing wrong!” I raised my voice in frustration.

“I’m the daughter of a famous Enclave scout, Roulette.”

At that moment, I suddenly realized that it wasn’t going to be as easy as just taking Sunny and leaving. I was really, really, beginning to hate Dodge City.

“And haven’t I? I helped the raiders already. That makes me an accessory to their crimes. It doesn’t matter anyways, they’d try to use me against my dad somehow. Even if you can’t understand how I feel, I won’t ever allow myself to be used like that.” She gave me a stern look of disapproval, clearly not appreciating me rolling my eyes at that comment. “I did what I had to in order to survive. That’s what the wasteland is all about, right?”

“That’s not what the wasteland is at all! It’s…” I paused, suddenly realizing that even I couldn’t come up with a good answer for her that she would listen to. My whole life up until some months ago, I’d always treated the wasteland like my personal playground, never really concerned about the constant struggle others faced. I only really caught a dose of reality on that day, during Operation Cauterize. “Well, it isn’t that!” Unsurprisingly, she gave me a deadpanned look in response. “You haven’t killed anypony at least, have you?” I asked.

She was almost hesitant to answer, but I was thankful when she responded with, “N-no…” and I breathed a small sigh of relief. “But regardless, over the past two days I’ve proved that I can stand on my own without having to rely on you or my dad. I’ve got a better grasp of the situation than you do, and I can take care of myself just fine. If you were my friend, you’d respect that. So you don’t have to worry anymore. You can leave. I’ll be okay. Bye!”

“Sunny…”

She groaned, and let out an exasperated sigh. “This is a complex political problem, Roulette. You just showing up out of nowhere does nothing to help me! Ugh... Things don’t work like you think they do anymore! We’re not just fillies playing around in the wastes! Nowadays there are consequences for everything, even if you haven’t done anything wrong. Why are you doing this now...?” Sunny crouched down to the floor, covering her head with her wings. “Jeez, why did you have to come back?” she whined.

“Because that’s what friends do,” I jabbed her lightly, “C’mon, you should know I'm no good at this civilization stuff. There are all these rules, and taxes, and things. It’s all really stupid and complicated.”

“You got that right.” she snorted and looked up at me again. “You’re a good pony, Rou. Even if you are a bit of a hot-headed idiot at times.” she laughed lightly. I did too, eagerly agreeing with that assessment, but then the laughter trailed off. She looked at the ground wearing an expression in between shame and conflicted. “… I’m happy to see you, really, but I can’t leave.”

“What do you mean? Quit talking nonsense… Sunny, you’re all I’ve got right now.”

“Roulette…please don’t say that.” she begged.

I put my hooves on her shoulders to try and make her come to her senses. “You’ve got to snap out of this, Sunny! You’re in danger here. Jagged Knife and the Mayor. These ponies are bad news! You’re just repeating all that stuff your dad put in your head. If Jagged finds out, something bad could happen to you and then I’d never forgive myself! Let’s get the hell out of here. Just you and me. Fuck this place, and fuck the N.C.R.. I’ll protect you. We’ll go to Las Pegasus or something.”

Sunny Hymn struggled to even look me in the eye. There was a heavy silence between us, as she searched for the right words to say. I was content to give her as long as she needed. “I’m sorry, I just can’t...” she confessed.

“Why the hell not?!” I shouted, almost losing my temper.

“Because Accolade needs me more,” she finally said, sighing aloud. I released her and the mare walked over and looked out the solitary window of the small filly’s room. “Things are different here. She’s just a scared little filly who has nobody else. I promised her that I would. I even did the weird hoof thing,” Sunny pointed to the underside of her hoof and showed it to me. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry, I promise.”

“You might be in over your head with this, Sunny. Jagged’s bad news.” I warned.

“Jagged Knife is a rogue actor. Nothing more. I may not fully understand what he’s planning yet, but the mayor likes me, so she’s not going to let him do anything. My role here is too important. Like I said, it’s under control. I just need to be sure of a few points.” She glared into my eyes. “You’re just going to have to trust me,” she answered. “It’s the NCR who are the real problem here.”

I groaned in frustration, "Have you seen the rest of Dodge City?!" I asked her in disbelief. “The place is a freaking slum!”

“Exactly. A lot of the ponies here are just trying to survive after being driven out of New Canterlot territory. I kind of understand what they’ve been going through and I want to help. I think I know how. You wanted that big hero moment, right? Well, now’s your chance.”

“Ugh! Sunny, what the hell are y-?! That’s freaking…!” I was at a total loss for words. She was really dead set on this though, and I was beginning to realize that no matter what I said, I wasn’t going to change her mind. If this was the only way to break through to her... I breathed in deeply and held it in for a moment, before exhaling a big sigh. “Alright, fine. You win,” I relented. “We’ll do this your way. I mean, if that’s okay with you?”

Her mouth hung open looking taken aback, as though that was the absolute last thing she was expecting to hear out of me. “You mean it?” she asked in disbelief.

If this was the only way, then I’d help her as best I could. I nodded, “You clearly know more than me, so yeah. Let’s do this.”

Then she smiled and nodded back, “Thank you…Rou. "I need this for myself.”

“Maybe I still don’t fully understand what’s going on, but I’m gonna fix this. I’ll take on the entire N.C.R myself if I have to, and that’s a promise. So, uh...friends again?” I stretched out my hoof awkwardly.

She took my hoof with her own and held it tightly, wearing a big grin. “Friends again.”

Having that moment between us gave me a small sense of relief that everything was going to be okay, even if we weren’t out of the fire yet. There was still a lot to say between us, but I was just happy to have the Sunny I knew back.

Sadly, that moment was short-lived.

I felt a tingling along my spine. We both looked around, suddenly on high alert. Sunny’s ears perked up and her eyes darted around. At that moment, another irritatingly familiar voice came from one corner of the room. “Aw, sorry to interrupt your touching little reunion, muchachita.”

My eyes zipped over to Angel Eyes and I lowered my stance, ready for combat. I could’ve sworn he wasn’t standing there a minute ago. “There you are, piss-for-eyes. Great, I was wondering when I was finally going to get to kick your sorry ass into next week.” I growled.

Standing in the middle of the doorway, was also the white stallion with the eyepatch, blocking our only escape route.

“I was hoping that it wasn’t going to come to this.” I snarled. Wearing a cocky smirk, I added, “Aw, hell. Who am I kidding? I’m totally down for a rumble.” Sunny didn’t appear at all threatened for some reason.

Sunny swiftly stood in front of him, shielding him with her body. “No! Roulette wait! Monte’s not a badguy!”

My guard slipped a little as I cocked an eyebrow in confusion. “Monte...?”

The stallion tipped his hat and nodded. “Three-Card Monte. Don’t worry, It was nothing personal back there. We aren’t looking for a fight.” My guard slumped, feeling totally lost all of a sudden. Was I the only sane pony here?

“Funny how every time we meet though, we’re on opposite sides of the firing line.” I snarked. He grunted in response, clearly aware of the irony. I looked back at the only other mare in the room. Did that mean that Sunny was already in on everything? I complained to myself inside my head, how it felt that everyone always knew more than me.

Angel Eyes glanced at the larger stallion with the eyepatch as he closed the door, “Is everything clear outside, Three-Card?” and the other raider looked out into the hallway with his good eye, then nodded. Angel turned back to me. “Glad you could make it. As you can see, I’ve held up my end of the bargain. Unlike you. What the hell was up with that memory orb you gave me, you stupid bitch?!”

“I gave you what I had. You jerk-offs were the ones who kidnapped Sunny and forced me to come here.” I fired back.

“I had to take a hostage, because you wouldn’t have come to Dodge City otherwise!” Angel lamented.

“Yeah, you’re damned straight I wouldn’t have come here. This place sucks!” I agreed. “By the way, who even was that mare? I saw an old photo of her on the wall while speaking with Jagged Knife. Is she important?”

Angel Eyes shuddered his head, not having any idea either. “Dammit. Because of you letting Sting survive, I’ve been up to my neck dealing with shit. He’s been a major thorn in my side, y’know that?!” he pointed at me in accusation.

“If he was going to be such an issue, then maybe you should’ve taken care of him. He isn’t exactly my favorite pony in the wasteland either.” I argued. Sunny groaned at feeling left out of the conversation.

“There hasn’t been a good time since we were up on that hill... That phase spell of his makes him a real pain in the ass to deal with, unless you get the drop on him first. We’re gonna have to play this by ear...” he whispered. I noticed his eyes were constantly checking over his shoulder and around the room.

“That sounds more like your fault, not mine.” I retorted.

Sunny tried to mediate. “C’mon, we’re supposed to be working together. Right?” she suggested, the only one sounding somewhat reasonable. It was good to have her back, even if the circumstances were weird.

“Since when are we allies with them?” I spat at the ground, “Jagged doesn’t seem all that tough. So what do you need me for? Why not shoot the bastard and be done with it?” I suggested, feeling like that was the obvious solution. “Also are you gonna tell me what I want to know already?”

Angel Eyes cursed, spitting sideways. “Perra estupida! Jagged is a snake. Don’t trust him for a minute. Listen up, shit’s about to get real bad, and I’m gonna need your brand of loco runs-across-a-battlefield guns blazing craziness!”

“Patience. This isn’t the time or place for that.” The white stallion with the eyepatch replied. “We don’t know who’s listening.”

“Monte’s right. Not here. I know a small hole-in-the-wall joint across the street from the Fight Gauntlet, where we can talk in private. Meet me there. Tonight. I’ll let you in on everything. As per our arrangement, your marefriend will be safe. Careful who you talk to in the meantime.”

Sunny blushed hotly, upset at being spoken of like she wasn’t in the room with us. “She’s not my marefriend!” she protested, trying to hide her face.

“Just do the job for now.” Angel urged and I nodded. I grumbled in annoyance at being constantly jerked around, but ultimately agreed. One step closer to getting what I wanted. Turning to the seafoam pegasus mare whose cheeks were still colored bright red, the mare stopped, then looked back up and blinked at me, calming herself down.

“Sunny?” I asked, and the mare looked back expectantly, “Try and see what more you can find out. Are you okay with that?”

The mare smirked, flashing a hidden stealthbuck under her sleeve and nodded. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about me.” She flipped it on and then off again, causing herself to go temporarily invisible. “I got this.”

Just then, there were three loud knocks at the door and it slowly creaked open. “What’s going on in here, are you girls having a tea party? You know the mayor doesn’t like us being in this room.” We all turned our heads as another annoyingly familiar voice greeted us. It was Sting, wearing his loose fitting raider gear marked with Jagged Knife’s insignia with a small filly accompanying him.

“Nothing you need to worry about...” Angel said, content to do the talking.

“I brought the squirt back.” he grouched, ushering Accolade ahead of himself into the room. The small filly timidly looked back at Sting, who pushed her forward, sending her running over to Sunny Hymn where she hid shaking behind her. Sting’s eyes flicked over to me, as though briefly questioning my presence here, before losing interest and yawning lazily. “Angel, the boss said he wants to have a word,” he huffed.

The brown-coated raider spat, “Fine. Tell him I’ll be right there.”

His reaction prompted amused laughter from Sting. “Pffft, you aren’t still cut up about the Boss’ plan, are you?” he snickered.

Angel muttered as he passed him out into the hallway, “It wasn’t right what the Boss did.” he said, speaking with a tinge of regret. “Doesn’t sit right with the old ways. Papa Bighoof deserved more respect.” Angel glanced back at me, but I already knew better to keep my mouth shut at this point.

Sting just snickered to himself as he watched him disappear down the hall.

Then Sunny Hymn puffed her chest out and stamped her hoof. She stood tall, gesturing towards the door with her wing, “Pardon me, Mr. Sting, but would you mind kindly leaving us? Poor Accolade’s getting scared, and you wouldn’t want the mayor’s little ‘investment’ to be too scared to remember her password, would you?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. The mare spoke confidently as though talking down to an unruly child while she unflinchingly addressed the raider. The scrawny stallion shot her a dirty look and flipped his mane, but did so without a fuss. I felt as though I’d just gained some newfound respect for her.

The small apple green filly clung to Sunny’s hind leg, peeking out from behind her wing at me. Sunny Hymn then asked me leave as well, the both of us communicating with a subtle nod while the rest of us gathered in the hallway. Although I didn’t like leaving her behind, we each knew what we had to do, and I trusted her to do it. I could hear soft cooing as she comforted the small filly from past the closed door.

As soon as we were alone, I glared at Sting, who was closely watching me out of his singular eye. “What was that about?” I threatened.

“What do you mean?” he sneered, “I was bringing the little brat back to her room. You shouldn’t have been in there, girly.”

“I mean, why didn’t you tell Jagged Knife about Sunny?” I snarled in a lowered voice. “What are you after?”

He gave me a funny look as though he were surprised that I would ask, which turned into a wicked sneer. “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “Because I want to hold this over your head... I want you to know that I can tell the boss at any time, and if I talk, nothing's gonna keep her safe. Not Angel Eyes. Not Three-Card. Not even the friggin mayor. That’s right. You’re under my hoof now, girly.”

I should’ve figured he wasn’t being charitable. “If you so much as-” I growled, feeling fire licking at my insides.

“You’ll what? Maybe I’ll have to reconsider telling Jagged after all...” he said, donning an extremely nasty yet punchable smirk, and I stopped myself short of a threat. “Aw, where’s that snappy mouth of yours, Girly?” he mocked. Every ounce of me was having to resist punching that smug look off his face. “I know you’ll do whatever I say in order to keep your little marefriend safe, because that’s your weakness. See? No matter how tough you are, I can watch you squirm around like the little bloatsprite maggot you are. Consider it payback for my eye. Now beg me to keep her safe, if you want the bitch to live...”

I muttered curses, but managed a, “...Please,” eventually.

“What was that?” he asked in mocking laughter, “I couldn’t quite hear you...”

I growled under my breath. “Please, I’m begging you…” I said, trying to keep myself calm enough to say it. Even though it was humiliating, I wasn’t about to let anything happen to her because of my dumb mouth…

“Again.” Sting laughed like a sick colt who’d just found a new plaything. I could see why he hung around with these scumbags. We were interrupted by a low rumbling stallion’s voice, saving me from any further humiliation.

It was Three-Card again, standing over him. “Sting, quit fooling around,” his voice reprimanded . The raider stallion stopped and quickly turned back to look at the white earth pony with the eyepatch. “She’s got work to do.”

Sting whined, “Aw c’mon, Three-Card. I was just having a little fun...”

“Later.” he insisted laconically, walking ahead of us. Why did he do it? He seemed to be the only pony here who really struck me as off, leaving me pondering what his motivations were.

“Fine…” Sting complained, sounding disappointed. “Com’n get moving, Girly.”

I stopped short at the edge of the irradiated mine, nothing but desert and more mineshafts around us. The mouth of the cave looked like any other of the many mines in the area, except for a wooden sign, with “The Rot” crudely spelled across it, was hanging above the entrance. Another one read: “Smoothcoats KEEP OUT!!!”. Various remains of mining equipment lay strewn about randomly, including a big earth movers, all belonging to a group called the Seapony Mining Company.

There was a subtle glow about the place. A salamander crawled out from under a nearby rock and on top of one of the earth movers, then it cocked its head at me and scurried away. “There are a lot of these little buggers out here.” I commented. The others stood, waiting for me to go inside. “Wouldn’t it be good to put on a suit or something first, to protect from the radiation?” I asked.

Sting gave me a funny look and then snickered to himself. “Now why would we waste a perfectly good environmental suit?” he sneered. “If you do the job right you won’t have to be in there long.”

I groaned, making a quick glance at my shoulder with the bullet still inside. Hopefully my shoulder would wouldn’t try to kill me again for at least as long as I needed it too. “Dammit,” I griped sarcastically, “I was hoping not to disobey doctor’s orders so soon...”

Three-Card gave me several doses of rad-x and rad-away, one of the former of which I immediately downed, before feeling a light shove. I turned glared back at him briefly before continuing down into the mine.

Stepping inside for the first time, I was immediately greeted by a stinging sensation in my eyes and the smell of sulfur in my nose, likely from blasting powder. I felt the stinging in my shoulder shortly thereafter, as it began reacting to the radiation. “That’s kind of cool. This bullet has rad-sense!” I thought in bemusement, as I felt the bullet squirming around in my arm.
“Who needs a Pipbuck anyways?”

“Okay, I just gotta talk to Fester and retrieve one package from a gang of ghouls. How hard could that be?” I asked myself.

The darkness gave way to mining lamps every ten or twenty hoof paces, providing pockets of light that showed empty veins of rock and led me deeper through the abyss. Dysfunctional mining robot parts, glowing green mushrooms and puddles of taint littered the cave floors. I had to step carefully or else I’d trip on the treacherous terrain. The last thing I’d want would be to grow a fifth hoof out my you-know-where.

Horrors flashed through my head, fearful of my mutation potentially acting up again here. I kept at a brisk pace through the darkness, motivated to get this over with as quickly as possible.

Inside the many networks of tunnels I would occasionally hear echoes and hissing sounds coming from the darkness. As I went deeper inside I began to see pink wisps hanging around the cavern ceilings in the lighted areas. The deeper I went inside, the stronger the pain got.

“Just get in and get out.” I repeated.

Eventually I came to a large well-lit opening with a soft green glow to it. Smokey pink wisps polluted the cavern like a fart, turning the atmosphere into a noxious cocktail of chemical haze and radiation. I sniffed the air and caught a dose of the stuff and scrunched my face, burning the inside of my nostrils. The cave walls were dressed up to look like a normal saloon. Liquor bottles balanced on a natural stone shelf, while radioactive taint barrels were set up around for their apparent enjoyment. The ghouls that were sitting at the tables all watched me, but didn’t say a word.

I felt another twinge in my shoulder.

Wooden crates and locked shipping containers were stacked up everywhere, with some even being used as makeshift tables. Most of the ghouls down here was huffing what looked like canisters of Cloud Kiss and drinking irradiated beverages. I could feel their eyes watching me as I made my way to the middle of the room.

“Which one of you rotten-faced assholes is named Fester?!” I blustered, raising my voice over them. As I did so I ripped open a packet of Rad-Away and downed its orange contents, tossing it aside.

Gazing upon a particular overly laid back green ghoul unicorn stallion with a russet cowpony hat, I began to walk towards the back of the Rot where he was relaxing at a circular table with a couple of ghoul mares on either side of him.

“Woah there, Calamity Mane.” he cautioned as I came face to face with him at the table, speaking in a rasping country drawl. “You can’t just come trotting in here like you’re the princess of the whole damn wasteland.”

“Why not? It’s always worked pretty well for me in the past.” I asked in confusion.

“Cus you’re outnumbered and on our home turf! How did you even learn to survive in the first place, you crazy idjit?!” he jeered.

“Thanks for the free advice.” I scoffed.

Fester chuckled, appearing entertained. “So Jagged didn’t even have the sack to come and face me himself? Instead he sends some rookie to come and put down his poor Uncle Fester. After all I did for that ungrateful brat too!” The ghoul seemed rather unhinged, babbling nonsense.

“I’m guessing you’re the one in charge around here?” I asked looking around at the other ghouls, “I’m not looking for a fight, I’m just here to retrieve a package and I’ll be on my way.”

“Sorry to tell you this, but that ain’t how things are gonna work out. It looks like Jagged sent another dumb fool to die down here...”

Suddenly I saw him go for his gun, but I had already had my rifle raised up by the time he got to it so that he was staring down the barrel. I saw him flinch a little at how fast I was and he eased up slightly in his chair. “Hate to disagree.” I deadpanned.

“Think you can outgun me, and my boys?” he gestured around himself at the other patrons were slowly reaching for their weapons. “I’m a little surprised he’d send a smoothcoat, let alone one without a radiation suit. That’s his style alright...”

“Yeah,” I answered, “but all I need is to take you ou-”

The ghoul grinned like he had a dirty little secret. “What’s wrong filly?” he rasped, “Feeling the effects of radiation are we?”

My thoughts were cloudy, like I was having trouble keeping my sense of balance. I began to feel nauseous like I was about to hurl the contents of my stomach, and I could feel the bullet throbbing in my shoulder the longer I stayed down here.

“After a few minutes you’ll start feeling nausea, followed by vomiting, headache, dizziness, fever, then mane and coat loss. Shortly after, either you’ll ghoulify or die from the radiation poisoning. The former's more fun.”

I felt strange, as the pain in my shoulder grew worse. “I don’t plan on staying long enough for that to happen...” I grunted, struggling to keep myself upright.

“That’s alright.” The ghoul smiled wide, revealing his disgusting rotten teeth. “We’ve got all day down here, unlike you.”

Level up!

Perk Added:

Grunt- Just good, honest infantry work! You do 25% more damage with 9mm and .45 Auto pistols, SMGs, service rifles, assault and marksman carbines, light machine guns, frag grenades, grenade rifles and launchers, and combat knives.

Chapter 10: The Mare Who Broke the Bank

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Chapter 10-

The Mare Who Broke the Bank

“Giddy up Fellas! I gotta get the heck outta Dodge!”

How did I end up inside of a dark, irradiated mine doubling as a poor excuse for ghoul bar, in the middle of an Old Appleloosan-style Standoff, with guns trained on me from every angle? Those were the questions that kept me going every night. And why was it always in a bar of some sort?

Each heartbeat felt longer. The invisible fires in the mine were there with me, even if I couldn’t see them. Moments seemed to drag on for eternity as we stood still. Time I couldn’t spare.

“I said, I don’t want any trouble.” I winced, the bullet in my arm painfully squirming around inside my shoulder. “But I ain’t no pushover, either.” I pushed the barrel of my rifle closer to Fester’s glowing slightly-translucent face, which caused him to shrink backwards. Even though they were zombies, they clearly still feared for their lives.

The ol’-timey-dressed cowpony ghouls all hovered near the triggers of their weapons. Waiting for me to flinch.

He put on a crooked, if twitchy, smile. Trying to act like he was still in control of the situation. “Easy now, we can still chat like civilized ponies, can’t we?”

The longer I stood here, the more I longed to down a packet of rad-away, but I couldn’t do that with all of these ghouls standing around me.

“Why do you all sulk around in an irradiated mine all day like a bunch of losers? Wouldn’t you rather be out in the sunlight like everyone else?”

“Down here the mayor looks the other way, so long as we pay our dues. We’re all just trying to make a living. Plus, we’re away from the bigots. We can just sit here and enjoy the glow. They were digging tunnels down here during the war and set off some sorta megaspell. Left the whole mine irradiated, with tons of untapped resources. Comfy for us ghouls. Not so much for smoothcoats like yourself. ”

“How does a small mining company get their hooves on something like a megaspell?” I questioned. And what were they even digging for, for that matter? Raw minerals?

“Who can say, really? I was never that high up the ladder, but... maybe I heard a thing or two?” From his disgusting gap-toothed smile, I could tell he probably knew something. His eyes rolled back as he reminisced, “Ah, Cherry Jubilee… what a lady. Down here we can huff Cloud Kiss all we like and remember the good ol’ days. It’s one of the few drugs that actually works on our kind. Gives a high like no other, too.”

“What a bunch of old stuff.” I scoffed.

Fester sat up a little, becoming less nervous as time went on. He snickered to himself, inhaling deeply and breathed out a huff of pink smoke. “Helluva mare she was. All sorts of backroom dealings, and government work. There was the showmare she displayed in public, but then there was the real pony. Y’know the feeling when you want something real bad, but deep down you know you can never have it? She was always just out of reach… She’s the one the mayor takes after. Rubi thinks she can have it all. Wants everything for herself too. She’s even got her other mining operations up and running, for trading steel to the NCR. I bet she’d kill to know what was down here though...”

Glancing around at them as he spoke, I counted, five, ten… twenty? Maybe more? Those sounds I heard deeper in the mine could’ve been ferals. Dammit. They were backing off for now, but for how long? The tunnels probably went on for miles further underground and maybe popped up Celestia knows where.

“And what’s that?” I asked, but he just smiled in response.

As I was busy calculating the best plan of action in my head, my eyes briefly dwelled upon the crates hidden down deeper into one of the mineshafts with a modified MEW poking out of one of them and I realized that I’d found the source of the weapons in the city. It looked like they were running a smuggling operation out of here. Had to give credit to these ghouls, since probably most ponies would have apprehensions about coming down into an irradiated mine.

From the crate, I noticed the stores upon stores of dynamite and many other high-caliber weapons that they poorly attempted to section off behind a barrier. Barrels and crates were stacked on top of one another. Some of it was stuffed into a tipped over minecart. I cringed, thinking that would be nowhere near enough if this place went up in a fireball. Then I felt another uncomfortable twinge in my shoulder.

“You look thirsty for some rad-away, filly…” he grimaced, raising his hoof up to the others to get them to relax. They slowly lowered their weapons. “It’s okay. We won’t gank ya from behind. Go ahead...” Fester rasped motioning towards the packets of radaway sitting inside my saddlebag. Hesitantly I eyed them, then the ghoul, then my saddlebag again. l darted inside, grabbing them up as quickly and began greedily downing their contents. One did help enough, so I drank the other one along with it. I gagged on the orange colored liquid and its medicine-like taste, taking several deep breaths afterwards before raising my gun back up.

Fester sat back in amazement, “Wow, you really scarf those down quickly!” He admired.

I scoffed in return. I only needed double the normal amount because only Luna knew my stupid fucked-up biology that made me resistant to the stuff. But I noticed something else when I went to reach into my saddlebag. Somepony had stuck a stealthbuck mk. II in there, along with a couple extra packets of rad-away. “Gee, how did those get there?” I wondered, my inner voice dripping with sarcasm. “Was it Three-Card Monte before he shoved me into the cave? It must’ve been.” Griping to myself, I lamented how grenades would’ve been more useful…

“But how many of those packets do you have on you?” He chuckled forebodingly, “Moreover, how are expecting to make it out of the Rot alive?” By my count maybe one left.

“Shut up.” I grunted, pushing the barrel of my rifle closer to his face. The others kept their weapons trained on me in response. Aside from him, there were about three of them closeby, their weapons hot and trained on me. Another four sitting at a table to my right, reaching. A couple of others to my left. Four at the bar, including the bartender-

“Hey mare. Ya listening?” he asked, cutting off my internal train of thought.

Screwing my face in annoyance, I answered with biting sarcasm. “Yeah. I was planning on grabbing that and walking out of here. So hurry up and give it over, then I think I’ll be goin- urgh,” I felt a sudden spike of pain, clutching my shoulder.

“We already moved most of the weapons like Jagged wanted. So you won’t find em here. Maybe a gun or two we’ve skimmed off the top for ourselves…” he admitted freely. I could see a good number of the ghouls were armed with the same type of modified weapons from before. “I suppose he’s talking about the other thing though.”

The bastard was trying to stall me, it was obvious. “How much do you know about Jagged Knife? The ‘real’ Jagged Knife? He was just a colt when I first met him. Now look at the little street rat, and what he’s built for himself.” the ghoul chuckled aloud. “I can see what he’s planning from a mile away. I gotta admit, I’ve still got a soft spot for the lil’ bastard, but I don’t plan on becoming a casualty in this lil rodeo of his.”

I clutched my shoulder, choking back the squirming agony inside my flesh. “You bastards are pissing me off,” I snarled, attempting to stay in control of the situation. The air in the Rot combined with the radiation was such an unpleasant sensation. I was already beginning to feel lightheaded, like I wanted to hurl, but also it felt sorta… weird. Like the radiation was simultaneously burning away at my insides while the bullet crawled around in my shoulder, but I also felt warm and fuzzy at the same time. Sort of dizzy too. “Must be the stupid chems in the air,” I thought. I had to get this over with fast, or there might not be anything left of me but a half-melted pony corpse.

“Jagged got where he is through cunning. It’s a mistake to underestimate the killer in him. Say you get out of here? How can you be sure he’s not just gonna gank you too once he’s finished with you?” He asked.

“He said he’s retired,” I grunted in response.

That caused the ghoul to burst out into laughter alongside the others. Not like I believed him, anyways. “Whaddya say, we cut a deal instead?” Fester reached into his duster coat and pulled out a packet of rad-away, which he set on the table in front of himself. “Tell me what this does, and I’ll give you the medicine.” He looked at one of the others standing off to the side. “Stagecoach. Bring it here,” he ordered.

The ghoul named Stagecoach, galloped off into one of the tunnels and I could hear his hooves echoing as he went. I was feeling too weak to do anything but wait as the effects of the radiation already beginning to set in again.

The glow down here was hot and the air was suffocating. Each time my heartbeat I could feel the bullet’s pulsations in my shoulder and my brain. My aim was starting to feel shaky, and I felt the barrel of my rifle drooping. Luna, this sucked. The noxious chemicals in the air weren’t helping either. I felt like I was going to lose my lunch in the meantime.

He came back carrying a strange cool-blue metal circular object, that perfectly matched the description of the object that the Professor talked about in Unity. It also had that weird cloud lightning cutie mark on it though. The same one as the box that I had found the memory orb inside. Stagecoach set it on the table in front of Fester, who picked it up and showed it to me.

“I stole this off Jagged Knife and now he wants it back. He sent you to collect it I imagine.”

“Yeah, if I could just have that I’ll be on my way, thanks.” I said, reaching out my hoof. This action caused the other ghouls around me to remind me of the weapons being trained on the back of my skull. They all laughed together in unison. If only things were that easy.

Fester’s grin sunk into a scowl, “Don’t you get it? He sent you to die down here. You answer my questions though, and you might get to live a little longer...”

Staring back at the ghoul, I grunted. “What makes you think that I know anything? Killing me won’t do you any good.”

Fester shrugged a rotten smile. “Then you die, and we wait for the next pony he sends us,” he admitted freely. The ghoul showed me the chip, glinting in the darkness as he balanced it on the tip of his hoof. “It’s got the seal of the Ministry of Awesome etched right into it. So I’d warrant a guess that it’s supposed to be valuable. Not unique, neither. I hear there’s supposed to be a number of these things out in the wastes. Hidden secrets leftover from the war.”

I was starting to get that feeling again, where maybe I had gone out of my depth. This was way more advanced than anything I’d ever seen technology-wise from the back-when times, or even anything I knew about Enclave tech nowadays. “What is he gonna use it for?” I asked.

“Dunno, maybe he thinks he can use it as a bargaining chip? Who cares? He wants it, so I want it.” he chuckled to himself, amusing himself with its almost poker-chip-like appearance. “Only problem is, none of us can figure out how it works.” It seemed like the sort of thing a pony might get shot in the head over in another time and place…

“Professor Mercury Switch knows more than me, but I’m pretty sure it’s a special kind of encrypted data storage device. Uncrackable by most tech standards.”

“Talk, talk, talk... every lock has a key, or else Jagged Knife wouldn’t be interested. Makes you wonder where he got it too, don’t it?” he asked, barely making his attempts at enticing me even remotely subtle.

“I don’t care where he got it,” I replied impatiently, strongly coveting the rad-away in front of me. “I answered your damn question,” I told him.

“Tell me how it works first,” he demanded, firmly putting his hoof down on the medicine I desperately needed.

That was the trouble with negotiating from weakness. I cursed under my breath, pausing for a minute to think inside my own head. Despite mocking commentary from the ghoul about ticking clocks and the annoying sound of him constantly flicking open-and-closed his silver lighter. My thoughts felt cloudy though, like swimming through thick green stuff. My stomach churned and my eyelids felt heavy. I waited, staring down at the small device in front of the ghoul. The occasional glance at his pocket watch. He was like death, watching the minutes roll by.

That symbol etched into it looked familiar to me somehow. Although I couldn’t quite remember where I had seen it before. I held my hoof outstretched close to the rad-away, to which the other ghouls reminded me of their weapons.

“Give it here,” I said, gazing intently at the small metallic object. “Do you want me to show you how it works or not?”

Fester paused suspiciously, doubting my intentions, but then he gave a subtle nod for the others ease up. The balefire-licked ghoul hoofed it over to me and I stared at it, the others ready to pull the trigger if I so much as tried anything funny.

As I took it in my hoof, it was immediately cool to the touch. Flipping it over, I could see the lightning-bolt cloud insignia on both sides. I’m not sure how I knew, but something clicked, like I knew exactly what to do. Maybe it was dumb luck. The device lit up brightly, displaying a strange hologram that illuminated the cave, and the sparkling white crystals inlaid around the edges of the chip, lit up in sequence. I couldn’t understand any of it.

“Ahh! What the fuck did you do?!” he shouted, slightly blinded by the sudden bright flash. The other ghouls reared back in astonishment, shielding their eyes as light filled the cavern, before it abruptly went dim again.

I don’t know what came over me in that moment. Something changed inside me.

The ghouls all still looked disoriented from the light, all of them trying to figure out what was going on, bickering between their ranks. “I’m not sure...” I replied, feeling just as confused as they were. The wisps in the air and that subtle green glow spoke to me.

One of the ghouls, the one named Stagecoach, spoke up, “Uh, hey Boss?”

“Shut the hell up you idiot!” Fester snapped.

“Uh…”

“What is it?!” He barked in frustration.

“Shouldn’t she be dead by now? I mean, it’s just sorta weird... she’s a smoothcoat, right? So shouldn’t her mane be falling out, or be vomiting up blood by now at the very least?”

Suddenly, I had a moment of clarity where my head felt strangely clear. Almost clearer than normal. I almost felt… almost sorta good in a way. Really good, in fact. Still a slight headache, but as I felt around with my foreleg, I could barely even feel the bullet for a moment. I looked at the ghouls who had all taken their eyes off of me. “Huh, weird.” I thought aloud.

Fester paused for a second, watching me as I stretched nonchalantly and cracked my neck. Then his eyes widened. “Wait. Shit, she’s a- !”

I lowered my stance and ducked underneath their modified enclave rifles before they knew what hit them. One of the disoriented ghouls, was in for a rude surprise when he suddenly looked down and saw my hoof on his shoulder. I punched across his face and put him in a swift chokehold, using him as an impromptu meatshield.

A pink beam from an opposing laser rifle seared through him and I felt him burst into ashes in my hooves. The sensation was still a little startling, but to the ghoul who fired the shot even moreso, at suddenly seeing my hoof already an inch from his face. I felt a sickening crunch from my left hook as glowing blood, and pieces of ghoul spattered over me.

“Kill the bitch!” Fester hissed, going for his pistol.

Thrusting the whole table backwards into Fester’s neck caused him to drop his weapon and hack stifled choking noises. It flipped it over on top of him, with the rad-away, the chip, and all of its contents went flying everywhere. I could hear Fester make weird strangled hissing-gurgling sounds as it weighed down on top of him.

The other ghoul lunged at me, but I caught his hoof and broke it backwards with ease. I heard a loud crack and he hissed in pain, then I took him by the neck and slammed his head against the upturned table edge, killing him. Wheeling around with my rifle, I froze in place upon suddenly seeing a whole line of ghouls with their weapons pointed at me.

“She’s out in the open, fire!” Stagecoach shouted.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I panicked and dove behind the table, dodging the flurry of shots. Both thankfully and surprisingly, it provided more than ample cover against their bullets and laserfire.

I huffed, searching for the chip amongst all the clutter. Seeing it beside me next to an ashtray, I picked it up and stuffed it into my saddlebag. “What happened to that damned packet of rad-away though?” I thought. I couldn’t find it anywhere. Then I spat a curse under my breath, seeing it across the floor underneath a barstool.

“She’s hiding back here! Hurry up and kill her, so you can get this thing off m-”

Halting mid-sentence to look up at the barrel, Fester’s mouth hung open. Aiming my brother’s pistol down at the pinned ghoul, I growled under my breath as I stared into his pale eyes. Every ounce of me was telling me to end the sonovabitch. I slowly squeezed the trigger on my brother’s ten millimeter, but I stopped short of a dead ghoul.

I heard my brother’s voice in my head, remembering my brother and my family in that moment and took pause. “What’s the matter, don’t have the stomach for it?” He cackled, and I punched hard, knocking him unconscious.

“You’re not worth the bullet.” I replied. Then I reminded myself, “C’mon, you’re in the middle of a fight, dumbass!” Peeking out from behind my cover with my brother’s pistol, a laser beam nearly singed the tip of my mane and I immediately ducked back.

The pain in my shoulder and the noxious wisps of chems in the air were throwing me off, but I saw that they were breaking out a big magical energy weapon they had hidden inside a coffin. It looked like one of the professor’s weapons! Like he had taken multiple modified novasurge rifles, broken them down and rebuilt it into some sort of… laser-minigun of death! “Aw, jeez…” I whined. Then I heard the loud successive rapidfire of lasers unleash and begin to tear into my cover. I wouldn’t last long against that thing. I could already feel the table coming apart.

I put the pistol away, downing my last packet of rad-away from my saddlebag to stave off the pain while trying to think. Getting an idea, I grunted, and began to push up against the table while they continued to pelt bullets and lasers against my only cover.

Leveraging my weight against it, I raised it off the ground and took a step forward, resisting another spike of pain. Then I took another. Slowly picking up speed and carrying the whole thing with me, I charged forward like a battering ram, protecting me from their shots as I galloped!

I crashed straight into the ghouls, and scattered their line. Just as the laser minigun ripped through my impromptu shield, I lunged forward, decking the ugly zombie with half a face as shots flew around me, knocking aside the laser minigun which continued to fire, leaving a streak of pink burn holes across the cave wall.

I threw a fast right-cross at the wide-open cowpony ghoul carrying the minigun of death, causing his hat to fly off his head, and also revealing his ugly half-melted face, covered with oozing pustules. He grit his teeth and tried to swing it around back at me, meanwhile other ghouls were forced to drop to the floor to avoid the rapidfire lasers.

Another punch and he was on the floor. I heard a soft squelch, and he dropped the laser minigun of death and collapsed over.

“Careful!” Stagecoach shouted over them in response to one of the shots coming dangerously close to the explosive storage area, “We’ve got volatile merchandise down here!” They all made more of an effort to keep their shots on me or fight me in melee as a result, which was my specialty.

They were too close to me to use their weapons effectively, so it was easy to duck and weave underneath them and sidestep their shots. Plus I was way better than them at close quarters combat. Often, they’d end up shooting each other instead. As I ducked to the side of another burning beam of energy, so close I could almost smell it, I stepped backwards again so that the next one accidentally shot one of the ghoul’s friends. Then I fired my service rifle into whatever was in front of me. Just run and gun. The lasers didn’t scare me anymore. They were just weapons.

After that, they began to grow wise to my tactics and spread out amongst themselves. But as I was pounding their ugly faces into meat, the sound of a shotgun wielded by the bartender blasted two of the ghouls in front of me. Somehow I didn’t get hit by that, but it left a loud ringing in my ears.

I gasped, running backwards away from the shotgun, only narrowly dodging the bartender’s second blast, followed by the sound of ejecting shells from his smoking double-barrel.

Another burst of pain shot through my body, causing me to lurch forward and nearly lose my balance while he was reloading. I tripped, and the cowpony ghouls were quick to swarm on top of me and attempt to hold me down.

Kicking back as they got ahold of one of my forelegs, I tried to free myself, only to fumble and drop my brother’s pistol in front of me. Close, but out of reach. I couldn’t use my service rifle from this angle either.

Snarling as i attempted to buck them off me, I punched one of them in the face, but they held me down to the floor and one of them tore my service rifle from my battle saddle while the others fought to keep me restrained. I struggled to reach for the pistol in front of me, but it was too far. I heard a revolver cock from somewhere behind me.

I bucked one off and kicked him in the family jewels to free myself, just a little. Enough to reach a nearby bottle from an overturned table, which I broke across his friend’s face, then stabbed the remaining pieces into him, hearing gurgling hissing sounds. I crawled and finally reached my pistol, turned around and fired.

More of them attempted to ghoulpile on top of me, but I kept fighting through it like it was nothing.

Then I felt something sharp stab into my foreleg by one of the ghouls. I felt blood and looked down at the knife. I let out a pained cry and kept fighting. It was horrible, but also just the kick of adrenaline I needed. I pulled the knife out and stabbed it back into his eye.

They had no idea what they’d bargained for!

Somehow, I managed to punch, kick, bite and shoot my way free of them. Pulling myself to my hooves, I left a pile of knocked out ponies and, badly beaten corpses behind me. The adrenaline was going so strong I barely even felt anything anymore.

I made a bolt for cover behind the bar, while they were busy struggling to their hooves, but paused for a second, staring longingly at the rad-away across the room. Pivoting, I made a gallop for it.

Stagecoach was already up again. He picked up the laser minigun of death off the floor and pointed it at me.

Scooping the lone packet of sweet, sweet rad-away up in my mouth, I slid over the bar top, finally coming to a rest behind cover where I could tear it open and drink it to keep myself going a little longer before my shoulder tried to kill me again. Just as flurries of rapid-fire death beams shot at where my head had just been.

Dropping down on my rump behind cover, holding the precious medicine, my ears flattened as I turned my head and saw myself staring down the barrel of the bartender’s double-barreled shotgun. A sneer was plastered across his rotten lips as he squeezed back on the trigger.

Immediately, I kicked upwards, forcing the shot into the ceiling and scattering dust. The bartender hacked up a lung and I snatched the weapon from him, and turned it around. Then a look of utter horror stretched across his face upon seeing his own shotgun pointing up at him. BOOM!

I smirked to myself as bloody chunks of ghoul brains flew everywhere.

Then I looked down again, feeling a mysterious searing pain in my chest, and saw that a stray laser shot had hit me. “When did that hit me...?” It burned straight through the armor and insta-cauterized the flesh, warping it and leaving an ugly scar patch. It was hot and painful to the touch. Those weapons were no joke. I heard shouting all around me as I stayed hidden.

I tore open and downed the final packet of rad-away, causing the pain in my shoulder to subside a little more, but not much. I still felt my flesh squirming around in there, just less than before. “Better than nothing, I guess.” I thought, topping it off with a bottle of whiskey.

Crawling behind the bar, I popped up in a place where he wasn’t expecting and fired a shot between Stagecoach’s eyes which caused him to slump over with the minigun. I breathed heavily, sitting down again.

True Blue’s voice echoed to me as I rested for a moment as I rested. It sounded exactly like him. “Hey Rou, why don’t you stay down here a while?” I could hear my brother’s voice calling to me inside my head. “We miss you…”

“Not the time, bro,” I grunted, shaking myself from the hallucination. I struggled to bring myself to my hooves again, but seeing that most of the ghouls were already getting back up again, I let out a cry of frustration.

“But you might have fun!”

As totally untempting as that offer was, it was also totally out of character for him. Cherish was the optimistic one, not True Blue. Must’ve been the damn chemicals in the air. Even my hallucinations weren’t making sense.

Suddenly we were greeted by a cacophony of loud hissing that echoed throughout the caverns. Fester cackled, standing not far away. His decayed skin lit up with balefire and I heard galloping converging on the main grotto.

Hearing the hissing growing louder along with brightening glows from one of the tunnels, I thought to myself that was way too many ghouls! But before I could turn to run, I could see they were coming from the other direction too. I grunted in pain. I was trapped, and now I was sans-service rifle. I glanced at the minigun on the other side of the rot, at my broken service rifle, and then at the ghouls surrounding me. “Not enough time.”

“So you’re like us then?” Fester mused. “Well, whatever-you-are... you’re gonna die down here, filly. Radiation, or no.”

Thinking fast, I grabbed a bottle of over proofed whiskey and emptied half its contents out. I also picked up a nearby mining lantern, and dumped its oil into the bottle as well.

Tearing off a long strip of cloth from the dead bartender’s outfit, I stuffed it into the bottle. My eyes then fell upon the gigantic stock of explosives amongst the weapons they had been smuggling. “Shit, I don’t have anything to light it with,” I groaned. Then I looked back at Fester, remembering his silver lighter.

I stood up and whipped out my brother’s ten millimeter, aiming it at him. The ghoul smirked in amusement as I emptied what was left of my magazine into him. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to do anything. “Would you just die already?!” I shouted in frustration.

He chuckled as my gun made a dissatisfying ‘click’, then casually pulled out his own, which he aimed at me, slowly. As if to savor the moment. “This has been interesting. Time for your dirt nap, filly...”

Then a hard metal object struck his head, and he paused to look down in confusion. He nearly dropped his weapon as he looked back up at me with utter bewilderment. “...D-Did you just throw your gun at m-?”

Crunch! My right hoof punched his soft face, plowing him straight into the ground. I felt bones break and ghoul squish under the force. He was down, although somehow still alive, albeit immobilized. “Ouch…” he groaned as I holstered my pistol and lit the molotov with his face. My eyes locked onto the stockpile of explosives at the end of the Rot.

“Wait, what are you doing…?” he rasped. “Are you crazy?! You’ll kill us all!”

“I get that a lot…” I huffed.

Then with all my might, I threw the bottle over the heads of the oncoming ferals at the store of explosives. The other ghouls who were still somewhat sentient all turned their heads and watched in horror as the bottle flew through the air. I dove for cover inside the steel minecart, hoping that it’d be sturdy enough to shield me from the blast.

There was a sudden KABOOM!!!! An ear-shattering explosion shook the mine, followed by a massive backdraft that engulfed everything in flame and flung the cart into the air, me along with it. I thought I could hear hissing and screams.

Thoughts flashed through my head as I soared. One of them being that this must’ve been what was the Cyclone ride would’ve been like at Pony Island Beach. I never got to ride it. Then I realized, seconds before I rocketed into a vertical cave wall “Uh, oh. I’m dead…”

Then the cart slammed into a wall on top of me. I blacked out.

...

When I awoke, the metal cart was upside down, above me, against the wall of the cave. I blinked, seeing I was upside down too. Then slowly I crawled out from underneath and saw everyone was either dead or blasted to high hell. Everything too for that matter. Most of the weapons they had kept down here for smuggling had been destroyed. Somehow I miraculously survived that and could still move. By any reasonable standard, I should’ve died. I dusted myself off.

“How did that even work?” I laughed weakly. “Hey, maybe I’m immune to radiation or somethin-” Taking another step, suddenly I felt like I was going to hurl again. Although this time, I wasn’t sure which orifice it was going to come out of. Another spike shot throughout my shoulder.

“I guess I spoke too soon...” I thought, nearly throwing up inside my mouth. Feeling the pain growing worse. I was feeling it in more than just my shoulder now too.

Giving one last look at Fester’s medium-charred corpse, and the chip in hoof, I started to make my way back towards the entrance. I had to get out of here quick.

Finding my way out was the hard part. As I followed the path back out again, each step felt heavier. Not only did I lose my service rifle in the explosion, but my battle saddle was in dire need of repair. I was out of rad-away and my current condition was worsening. The throbbing was growing more, and more painful with each step. “I’ll need a new weapon after this…” I griped, trying to distract myself.

From behind me, I thought I could hear my family calling out, asking me to stay for a while. I could almost imagine their ashen skeletons, waiting deeper in the mine for me when I looked back.

“Did you get into another fight again?”

“Hey, Rou? Why do you look so upset?” Asked my sister’s disembodied voice. Was that the Cloud Kiss in the air? Jeez, fuck this stuff, whatever it is.

It was warm down here. I felt like I almost wanted to get lost in that comfy glow. Although, I was quick to argue with my own brain of what a bad idea that would be.

“We can’t keep treating her like a foal… Talk to her, already.”

Another step, and I could see dim light up ahead. Pushing my hooves towards it, I was almost there! “Ugh, this sucks…” I breathed heavily, limping to keep the weight off my left foreleg.

When I finally found daylight again, I scrambled out of the mine until I could no longer feel the radiation. I’d never thought I’d be so happy to see that blinding light-ball-thingy in the sky. Then I looked down at myself again to see that I was covered from head to hoof in blood and bits of ghoul. No clue how much of that was mine. Then it all hit me at once.

I groaned and fell over again. Then suddenly and without warning, my stomach churned and I projectile vomited the contents of my last meal. So, I wasn’t totally immune to radiation after all, it just took longer to affect me. “Great. Good to know...” I thought sarcastically to myself. Collapsing on my side and clutching at my burning shoulder, I felt the pain overwhelming me and all my strength drain from my body.

“Woah, what the hell is wrong with you? You some kinda freak?”

Unfortunately, Sting was the only pony waiting for me. Just my luck. I looked around for somepony else, but it was only him.

“Wow, thought you might’ve gone and killed yourself with that explosion. Surprised you didn’t die,” Sting mocked in amazement, almost disappointed. “Where's the package?”

“Great, it’s you. W-Where’s Three-Card?” I pained, rolling onto my side.

Levitating his curved knife near me, a wicked grin stretched over his lips. “Even half-dying, you’re still a cocky bitch. Monte had other business to attend to. Now, do you have it or not?” he asked, holding out his hoof.

Slowly, I reached my hoof into my saddle-bag and pulled out the strange metal chip with the strange insignia and put it in Sting’s hoof. Observing it he smiled and flicked his knife across my cheek then began to trot away, leaving me there.

“W-wait!” I grunted, causing him to glance back at me curiously. “I did the job. Do you have... any extra rad-away...?” I begged.

Sting turned and jaunted back to me so that his shadow cast over me. He watched me for a long agonizing moment, before he finally pulled out a single packet of rad-away and levitated it in front of my face. With a swish of his knife, he sliced it open perfectly. Then with a sneer, he dumped the orange liquid contents onto the ground in front of me.

The raider flipped his mane and trotted off cackling.

“F-fuck you too…” I pained, losing strength.

Nopony else was coming. I tried to summon the strength to crawl but I was in too much pain. It felt like the blood was on fire inside my body, and that I was going to vomit again the entire time. An hour must’ve gone by. Two hours? It didn’t matter. Every second I wasted was another moment Jagged could be doing Luna knows what.

A little desert salamander crawled up on my body and licked my eyeball. I managed to shoo it away with my hoof using weak barely-audible protests. I could see buzzards circling me overhead. They probably mistook me for dead or dying. Pretty soon I’d be food for whatever wasteland critters wanted to make me an afternoon snack.

“I-I think I’m gonna die here…” I groaned, squinting up at the glaring light ball in the sky. That’d teach me to never go into somewhere irradiated ever again. Sadly, I didn’t have a choice though this time around. Yet I was going to die for it anyways.

Then a shadow stood over me, blocking the sun, but my vision was too blurry and fucked up to see properly. I couldn’t tell who it was, although I could make out a stallion with dark coat and wings. Was it death? “Fuck you, I ain’t dying yet!” I mumbled, but it probably came out as incomprehensible gibberish.

He smacked me out of my delirium, “Roulette, snap out of it! It’s me, Hotshot!”

Finally the stallion came into focus, and I blinked. “M-Mohawk?” I grunted in surprise. “You need to get out of here so Jagged doesn’t find you’r-” I was cut off mid sentence and recoiled in pain from my shoulder.

He grimaced in disgust then shook his head, “Not the time for that. You said you’d be back in a couple of hours. I got worried and came looking for you. There was an explosion. Everyone in town heard it. Was that you?”

“Things got a little side tracked…” I bemoaned. “You came to save me...? Alright, I think I’m dying after all. Whatever this thing in my arm is, s’tryin’ to kill me. D-Do you got any rad-away on you?” I asked hopefully.

“I don’t.” Hotshot answered, looking at me in my condition with growing concern. Noticing the blood, he slowly brushed my hoof aside and lifted up my jacket then winced at the creepy looking glowing spider-veins popping out of my shoulder. Then he quickly covered it up again looking like he was about to vomit too. “What in the wasteland is that?!” He gasped in astonishment.

“Mutation,” I answered, doing my best shrug with one shoulder. “I’m pretty sure it’s interacting with an infection from the hunk o’ lead that Snowflake shot into my shoulder, and that’s making it worse. It tries to kill me whenever it absorbs too much radiation.”

“Wait. Snowflake…?” He asked, unsure who I was referring to. Exhaling, he leaned over to pick me up, “Nevermind that. You have some sort of abnormal rad sickness from the looks of it. Plus...whatever this is. We should get you looked at pronto.”

“N-no! I hate doctors!” I pained, curling myself into a ball. “And needles!”

Hotshot paused, then rolled his eyes back in exasperation, “What are you a small filly? This isn’t funny. We’ve got to get that ‘whatever-the-hell’ fixed! Ponies are still trying to figure out what happened with that explosion. If they find you here, it’ll be big trouble..”

I shook my head in vigorous protest, “I know, but- Ow!” another sudden spike of pain caused me to wince, and Hotshot raised an eyebrow. I sadly groaned and relented. Even my body was against me on this one. I tried to push myself up again, but was too weak.

“Upsy, daisy!” He hoisted, and the pegasus stallion lifted me onto his back against my will. I moaned in agony as he started to slowly walk me back towards town. “I know a surgeon who might be able to help. Bit on the expensive side, but we can trust him. Also, try not to vomit on me...”

“This is so humiliating…” I whined as he carried me, and thought I saw him roll his eyes again. Although he did his best, each step was uncomfortable for the both of us.

I felt like breaking the awkward silence. “When I was younger... about thirteen, I nearly beat a colt to death,” I told him. The pegasus perked up his ears and looked back at me for a moment with a look I couldn’t interpret. He kept walking as though I hadn’t said anything, so I continued, “He insulted my sister and my family so I got pissed off, and we fought. They all thought we were freaks because we didn’t have any parents. Which is true of lots of kids in the wasteland when you think about it, but kids can be jerks sometimes... I didn’t know my own strength, and ended up nearly killing the poor kid by accident. He was older than me, so I assumed he was naturally bigger and stronger, right? Guess not. None of that mattered at the time though, I just wanted to hurt him... We had to leave that town quick and go to the next one, all because of me. The older ponies would’ve come after us for sure.”

“What brought that on?” he asked giving me a strange look.

“No reason. I just felt like talking…” I muttered.

There was another awkward silence, where I felt like maybe he hadn’t been listening, but then he asked, “So how did they take it?”

“About as well as you’d expect,” I grunted. “I remember crying to my brother about it afterwards. I was upset because I thought I was a bad pony now, and that they all hated me for it… he told me that I would only be a bad pony if I ever killed someone who couldn’t fight back. Since it was a fair fight, everything was okay, but I had to control my anger from now on. Kind of a weird way to justify it, now that I’m sitting here saying it out loud... I got into fights like that often and caused a lot of problems for my family all the time. Thinking back, he was probably just telling me that to calm me down, but having his gun on me always helps me remember to be good. At least it has in these last few months...”

“I can sorta relate,” he replied. “Admittedly, I’ve heard far worse reasons given to me by ponies living in the wasteland. If we’re being honest.”

Then I breathed and muttered, “Thanks…” It felt good to tell somepony who wasn’t my family for once.

“You’re welcome...” Hotshot sighed.

The ‘Doc Hearts n’ Hooves’ Clinic was located in a back alley on the side of town, away from prying eyes. It was a reputable place that did good work, if you had the bottlecaps to pay for it. Meanwhile, the surgeon in question was a pale old unicorn stallion with a persistent cough and sickly look about him, who went by “Doc Hooves” most of the time. He wore a bloody apron over his dress clothes, always addressing the wasteland with either apathy or wry humor as his basic expression towards everything.

He had me lying across a medical table with my jacket on. I was still in a lot of pain, and the blinding overhead light was making me squint. The strange thing was, that aside from the cauterization wound, I didn’t even have a scratch on me. Was it just my imagination? I was sure I remembered getting stabbed at least once in my hoof. My eyes fell upon the sharp looking surgical tools sitting near me, and I cringed at the sight of them.

“This young filly really did a number on herself. Just how long did she spend down in that irradiated mine?” he asked, performing basic physical tests. I moaned in agony. “There are much easier ways to dig your own grave, missy. Ways that don’t involve puking out your insides.” he lectured at me.

“No idea, I’m not sure what’s wrong with her either.” Hotshot replied.

Doc Hearts n Hooves coughed persistently while he spoke with Hotshot in a hushed voice, the matter of payment still firmly on the discussion table. Unfortunately for me, I was still flat broke and owed a lot of ponies already, because the mayor hadn’t given me my first paycheck yet. Imagining the veritable goldmine worth of weapons I left in that mine would’ve been more than enough to pay for it, if I hadn’t already blown them all to smithereens. “Dammit all…”

“Doc, we want to keep this between us, if that’s okay?” the pegasus told him.

“I can do that…” he assured, clearing phlegm from his throat, “She looks like she’s with the Dodge City Gang. So I assume that there’s a reason you came to me instead of using the mayor’s autodoc. You two are doing something you’re not supposed to, aren’t you? That’s alright. I can keep a secret as a professional respect courtesy, but unless the mare is the one paying for it, I’m not sure how you expect to be able to afford my services.”

“I’m good for it, trust me,” he promised, to which the pale coated stallion showed clear doubt.

“You’re already indebted to the Dodge City Gang, Hotshot,” Doc Hooves pointed out. “I can’t take you on your word alone.”

The pegasus groaned in frustration, “Isn’t there some kind of Hippocratic oath or whatever that you doctors are supposed to take?” to which the doctor frowned. Hotshot made a wry face, looking inside of his own pocket. After a second or two he reached inside, pulling out something shiny, looking at it in his hoof with a sense of nostalgia, “No, it’s alright,” he replied and showed it to the old pony. “I can pay.” It was a golden badge shaped like a winged lightning bolt. Looked Pre-War Equestrian “This is a vintage wonderbolts badge. Pure twenty-four karat gold. There’s only a small amount of these in wasteland circulation so it’s priceless to the right buyer. I’ve kept it with me all these years to remind me of what I wanted to be.”

“Wait…” I called to him, weakly. “Y-You don’t have to give that up just for me. I can pay it off myse- Aghh!” I grunted in pain, feeling the bullet stab me again.

“It’s nothing,” he replied, giving it to the sickly old doctor.

Doc Hearts n Hooves looked down at the badge appraisingly in his hoof, then back up at the pegasus hesitantly. “Are you sure? You probably could pay off your debt to the Dodge City Gang with this and then some if you wanted.”

Hotshot gave a slight nod, more sure of himself this time. “Yeah I’m sure,” he replied, “That part of my life is over now…”

Pocketing the badge, the old doctor immediately turned his attention to me. He was adorned in a surgical mask and rubber gloves as he approached me, gazing down at me clutching my shoulder. “Alright, take it off,” Hearts n’ Hooves demanded. I blushed and shrunk backwards, staring at the needle on his surgical tray.

Hotshot groaned impatiently. “C’mon kid, now’s not the time for this.”

“Don’t call me a kid! Hey, how old are you anyways...?” I asked.

“I’m twenty-eight.” he replied.

“T-twenty…”

“Then quit acting like a filly already!”

Bashfully, I undressed myself, while struggling to sit up and take off my jacket. I felt naked without it. And I could see the creepy green spider veins had crawled further up my shoulder from the original bullet wound. I was pretty sure that I’d never sucked up that much radiation before in my life.

“I’ve got this mutation and there’s also a hunk of lead in my shoulder. There’s a small chance I might also be resistant to rad-away...”

The pale stallion blinked and coughed, while examining it closely, “Sweet Celestia...”

Before he did anything though, he did some annoying pre-operative tests, where I was forced to recount the story of how I got shot with my own gun and then found out I had some sort of mutation after taking a short dip in the Whitetail Woods. Then also that bit about how I had spoken with both the Professor and the Followers about it, and he gave me a stern judgy look when I told him I came here without it getting more closely looked at.

Doc Hearts n’ Hooves was practically stunned into silence as he looked over the alien-esque mutation. “I’ll admit, I’ve never seen anything like it before… I’m gonna need help on this one.” the sickly old pony exhaled, pouring himself a glass of scotch. Then he picked up a hoof-mounted pipbuck terminal and affixed it to my foreleg using his telekinesis. “I don’t have any fancy auto-doc systems here, but I do possess years of experience and one of these stable-issued personal computer gizmos,” he said.

Then the device lit up and locked onto my foreleg, and it began to scan me. “See? It’s a portable diagnostics machine!” He smirked, praising his own ingenuity. Eventually, the little image of a pony with several listed status ailments appeared on the screen. “I learned most of these tricks from my old teacher, who was a Stable-Tec trained physician.”

The rad levels were off the charts, but as he scrolled through the notes displayed on the device, his face went from curiosity to pure fascination. “Luna in heaven above, filly. Does this happen often with you?”

“I lost track… What is it?” I asked, but he didn’t answer me at first.

He needed to take a closer look, so the Doc raised up an old camera to my foreleg at the source of the mutation in my shoulder and snapped a photograph. It must’ve had some sort of enchantment that allowed him to use it as a makeshift magical imaging device. It produced a picture, showing the bullet itself was still there, but it was totally fused to the bone! Also seeing the gross collection of flesh coalescing around the lead, pulsating every second or two along with my heartbeat made me sick to my stomach. I wanted to vomit, thinking that was squirming around inside of me.

“Damned shame,” the pale pony lamented. “When will ponies learn that healing potions aren’t a simple one-stop fix for everything?”

“W-what are you gonna do?” I asked shakily. “Even one of the Followers wasn’t able to get it out.” I paused mid-sentence as he was looking over me again, paying special attention to me and my jacket, poking his hoof around a hole that I hadn’t noticed there before.

“That bullet has to come out… but there’s something else in there too.”

I shrunk back in fear as he picked up a sharp surgical knife, watching the surgeon’s scalpel come ever closer to my shoulder. “Relax,” he urged slowly. Then pointing close to the source of the spider veins he made a small incision in my foreleg, groaning as my skin slowly healed before his eyes. The old pony took a swig of scotch from the bottle and coughed. “I was afraid of that... Either my eyes deceive me in their old age... or this young mare’s got a healing factor!”

“H-Healing factor?” I asked, still a little lost.

The unicorn cleared his throat, “Have you ever noticed increased metabolism? Perhaps you get up faster than most other ponies? Or that maybe you’re miraculously okay in situations that would kill somepony else?”

“No.” I answered sheepishly. “M-Maybe a little…” I admitted, thinking about the mine.

“In my expert opinion: When you got yourself shot in the shoulder over yonder, you drank a healing potion, right?” he asked, and I gave a slight nod. He frowned as if having his suspicions confirmed. “That bullet fused into your bone, then a small dose of radiation activated your healing factor... Your body triggered an immune response, naturally, so it kept trying to reject the bullet and push the lead out. Then your healing factor went and accelerated that process exponentially. Your body started attacking itself. The more rads you soaked up, the more painful.”

That explained things as well as I could understand. “But what about the weird veins?” I asked, to which he didn’t really have an answer. Just that the best thing he could do for me was to remove the bullet.

I stared at my foreleg in both bewonderment and confusion. Then I looked over at Hotshot who was likely just as confused as I was. “How are you gonna fix me, then?” I asked the pale doctor.

Doc Hearts n Hooves’ face contorted into a grimace. “This is going to be tougher than I thought… Normal surgeons don’t have to worry about patients healing mid surgery,” The doc replied coughing again. Using his stable technician’s master key, he undid the Pipbuck locked to my foreleg and set it on a nearby table, then poured himself a drink. “But I think I’ve got an idea…” he explained to us, “First, I’ll remove that warped flesh and let your body heal itself. Then I’ll inject you with just enough rad-away to slow down your healing factor. See if I can chisel out the bullet that way. You’ll be good as new after that.”

“Sounds good,” Hotshot agreed. “You think it’ll work?”

“Um...,” I grimaced at the proposal, “don’t I get a say in this? ” I asked. “Also, are you sure you should be drinking that much?”

“Not to worry, I’ve got one scalpel for each of you!” He coughed, giving me no reassurance whatsoever. “Don’t worry, that was a joke. I’m a back-alley professional.” he promised, though that hardly gave me any confidence. My heart skipped a beat as I saw him levitate a frighteningly long syringe and hold it near me. “Hold her down, Hotshot.”

“W-what...?! C’mon, please no!” I shrieked, begging for mercy.

The pale doctor groaned as I recoiled in fear, despite not having touched the needle to my foreleg yet.

They both rolled their eyes at me. “Do you want the anesthesia or not?”

I cringed, turning my head away, “J-Just do it!”

“Like I always say,” he chuckled while injecting my arm, “they can’t get angry at you if they die on the table.”

I opened my eyes again to see the pegasus stallion standing over me. “Was he worried about me?” I thought. Groaning aloud, my eyes looked around the room and dwelled on the bloody bullet sitting on a surgical tray next to me. I felt for pain in my shoulder, but there was nothing there anymore. No pain at all. The hitch was gone too. It actually felt kinda normal.

“You were supposed to be under the effects of the anesthetics for an hour, but you burned through it in under thirty minutes…”

“Yeah,” was all I could manage. Then I frowned, my head suddenly filled with many confusing questions as I looked down at myself. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for this weird...whatever-this-was, but where did it come from? Why was I like this to begin with? I’d have to talk to Page about this after everything was settled.

“While you might take this as an excuse to go charging headlong into danger, I’d advise against that course of action along with many of your current lifestyle choices. It seems you’re still affected by magical radiation, as far as I can tell, it just takes longer…and your body takes it differently. It’s also a lot harder to bring the rad-levels down. I don’t know how far it goes, or what damage it will do to your body long term.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be okay.”

“That’s what they all say… normally, I’d tell you if you keep acting the fool, you’d be dead before you’re thirty… but I don’t know the first thing about this. I imagine the same advice applies... even with that healing factor, ponies can’t come back from the dead.”

“I’ll take my chances… Thanks for fixing me, though.” I said. Although, I was beginning to reconsider perhaps taking the Followers up on their offer after this was over.

He coughed and nodded, “You did most of the work. I just did what I needed to. Once we’re done, I’ll dispose of your records as per our arrangement… ” Then he stepped into a backroom of his small clinic, “I’ll give you two a moment.”

Hotshot tried to offer some support, “Hey, well at least you look somewhat normal now.” Seeing as the green spider veins had disappeared completely. The bloody bullet fragments that were stuck in me lay beside me on a bloody surgical tray.

“...Thanks again.” I told the charcoal-coated pegasus, he looked back at me in silence as I turned my head away in shame. “After everything I put you through, and how I treated you, you still came and saved me.”

“It was no trouble…” he said. “I figured like I owed it to you. After you told me your story, I made up my mind that I wanted to help you. No parents, I’m assuming?”

“Nah, it was just me and some other orphans. We didn’t trust the adults. Together, we were all the family we needed.”

“Must’ve been nice, at least? Having others you could call your family.”

“Yeah it was…”

“If my whole family was killed by the Enclave like that, I’d probably blame all pegasi too.” he sighed.

“T-That’s not it…” I protested, “okay, maybe it was a little. But it’s not that way anymore. As far as I’m concerned, you saved my life. I should be the one who owes you an apology… thanks again.” I smiled.

“So are you gonna pay me back for that vintage wonderbolts badge then?” he grinned.

“Hey! What happened to forgiveness? No debt between friends?!” I complained, and we both laughed together. When we finally stopped, I asked him the most important thing on my mind. “What was that job about anyways? Why me?”

The pegasus shrugged in confusion and shook his head. “Dunno. Jagged said he knew the NCR had something valuable that was being transported by courier. I sort of assumed since you came from an offbeat road and you knew Fair Trade, that you were the courier. Jagged never told us what he was after.”

“Down in the mine, the ghouls had some weird chip with the Ministry of Awesome logo on it. Jagged wanted it. Could that have been it?”

Hotshot’s expression changed when I mentioned the chip, and he pondered to himself. “Might be… could be anything. Don’t like the sound of that though.”

That somehow made even less sense to me. “How so?” I frowned.

“MoA tends to mean there’s an Enclave connection somewhere. Not always, but… I never heard of anything like that in the Enclave. What could some raider know? For all I know, that whole job could’ve been a total sham. Some of his old gang-mates had been questioning his leadership lately, so he convinced them to go on one last job with him. I just got roped into it.”

“Huh…and I guess we both know how that turned out.”

Hotshot shrugged. “Not saying that we shouldn’t keep an eye on it, but there’s no point in speculating yet,” he said. A sentiment I couldn’t help but agree with. “Jagged Knife screwed both of us over. We might not be big-time heroes like the Stable Dweller, but I still think we’re both entitled to a little payback, regardless.”

“I can agree to that,” I grinned devilishly. Then I remembered, “Oh, yeah. I got another stealthbuck in my saddlebags. You can have that, to make up for the one I lost.”

Giving me a nudge, he joked, “I’ll take that as a down-payment towards all the other stuff you owe me for.”

I laughed lightly and then stared at my hooves. “He told me the Enclave were still out there…” I asked, “do you think he was telling the truth?”

Hotshot frowned, “Jagged might’ve been lying?” He shrugged. “But then, I’m an ex-Enclaver and even I’m not totally sure where he got his hooves on those weapons.”

“Do you remember anything about them? The Enclave, I mean?” I asked, getting curious. “Hawkins isn’t here. So you don’t need to worry about incriminating yourself… ”

“No,” he let out an exasperated sigh.

“What was it you did for the Enclave anyways, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“It’s...uh, complicated,” he said.

“Remember when you had a bomb-collar strapped around your neck?” I asked. As far as I was concerned, Hotshot had no reason to lie to me at this point. “Gamble said you were a killer. I’ve seen that fighting style you use before, when I fought an Enclave Scout named Airworthy. Was what he was saying true, or was he lying? It may be inappropriate, but given the circumstances, I think we should be open with one another.”

“Airworthy?” he asked in surprise, instantly recognizing the name. “What I told you before was the truth. I don’t remember… They did something weird to me. Only can recall bits and pieces.”

“Huh.”

He could read the confused look on my face, causing him to grow more irritated. “Look, the way I was acting wasn’t me. It was, I don’t know what. Somepony else… I flunked out of Enclave Officer Academy twice. I barely passed basic flight training. I was the guy everyone else liked to mess with. I was never some elite assassin, an all-star flyer or anything. Then by some miracle, I got selected for some special mission with Enclave Intel. Thought I’d hit the jackpot. I remember my first few days, but barely anything after that... I never joined up with the Enclave because I hated surface dwellers. Though there was plenty of propaganda that told me otherwise. Prior to that day I’d never even shot at a pony before. There are big gaps in my memory, I can picture some of it in my head if I think really hard, but all I know is that I was the one pulling the trigger.”

I imagined he had explained this to others before who didn’t believe him. Second chances were difficult to come by. He was at least trying to do the right thing. This pegasus saved my life, so I owed him that much.

“If that wasn’t you, then shouldn’t everything be okay?”

“I’m not here to make excuses...,” he said. “The circumstances won’t matter to those who’ve lost loved ones. But I’m going to try to make things right anyways…”

“For what it’s worth, I believe you,” I replied.

“Thanks…” he muttered halfheartedly. “So did you find your friend? You came all this way for her, right?”

I nodded, getting frustrated as I recounted everything to him. “Yeah, but she’s got some crazy notion in her head now,” I ranted aloud. “Like she needs to do this by herself for some reason. Sunny’s smart, so I think she’ll be okay for now, but I have to figure out how to get her out of this mess. It’s my fault she’s here to begin with.”

“We’ll save her, don’t worry. And we’ll take down Jagged Knife too.”

“Yeah, he really crossed the wrong two ponies, didn’t he?” I snorted.

Hotshot chuckled, “Pretty unlucky if you ask me.”

Not thinking much of it, a thought popped in my head. “By the way, this might sound totally weird, but have you ever heard of some turquoise pegasus mare with a blonde mane and lightning for a cutiemark supposedly existing back during the war?” I asked him.

Hotshot suddenly looked more concerned, “Lightning Dust...?” he asked accompanied by an eerie pause. “What do you know about her?”

His facial expressions became a bit more worrying as I answered about the crashed ship with the memory orb, and the strange pegasus mare talking with Rainbow Dash in a memory. “I gave it to the raiders as collateral for keeping Sunny safe. Who is she?”

“I-It’s nothing. Forget I mentioned it.” he replied. I responded with a very perplexed, unsatisfied look.

Before I could ask him anything else, we heard a commotion coming from outside. We peeked out from behind the curtain as I hastily put on my jacket. Gazing outside the window front, it was already mid-afternoon, and a lot of rough looking ponies were roaming the back alleys of Dodge City, with all manners of gunslingers, bounty hunters, and other mercenaries among them.

“Hey, what’s going on?” I asked my pegasus companion.

“I’m not sure…” Hotshot replied equally confused. “Sounds like a helluva racket though.”

Something had them all on high alert. I started to get dressed into my armor, and we thanked the doc on our way out.

Imposing muscular ganger stallions were all over the place, roughing up every other resident who came close. They looked like trained fighters, all wearing hoofwraps and boxer gear, so I assumed they must’ve come from the Fight Gauntlet.

A shrill foul-mouthed unicorn mare dressed in frilly red clothing trotted up to them. “Hey what’s the big idea?! Quit driving away all our damn customers!”

“This is Brawler turf! We can’t get any protection money from our clients until this matter is sorted. So we’re not gonna stop until we get to the bottom of this and we find out who caused it! You look like you’re one of the Boudoirs. You know anything, bitch?”

“Course we don’t know anything!” she snapped. “Why would we take down one of our own best business partners, moron?! It was probably that bastard Gamble.”

“Never did like you dirty whores. You always seemed like a shifty sort to me...” he spat through his teeth

“You dumbass hoof-draggers would probably stand to benefit if we lost influence in the city! Fat chance of that happening, jerkoff!” she mocked, levitating up a switchblade with her telekinesis.

Then they began to get into a heated argument.

It seemed like they were both searching for the ones responsible. Hotshot and I both exchanged nervous glances and tried to play it cool.

Our ears perked up as we heard gunshots from somewhere nearby. Wait, gunshots? “Weren’t guns strictly regulated within Dodge city?” I thought. The group of Brawlers pointed towards the source of the shots and all galloped in that direction.

“Hey, aren’t you Dodge City Gang?” asked an indignant looking chem dealer with a golden bottlecap for a cutie mark. He had a look like he sampled his own supply often.

“Yeah, sorta. What’s going on?”

“You gonna do something about this?!” he demanded. “Some pony blew up The Rot, right outside of town and nobody knows who done it! They says it was one of the other gangs, and they’re all pointing hooves.”

“That’s not what happened.” I countered.

“Wait. Do you know something? Nah, y’know what? I don’t care. Those zombies were some of my best customers! All us smaller players rely on the status quo that the mayor and the council of gangs provides. When the system is working, caps flow. But when that gets upended, everything goes topsy turvy! Nobody deals. We can’t make bottlecaps if you got some roving maniac going around singledhoofedly offing those at the top of the food chain!”

“Cry me a river! You’re selling chems! What the hell is in that ‘Cloud Kiss’ shit anyways?!”

“I’ll tell ya, for fifty bottle caps...” he grinned.

Some random jumpy raider was in a panic nearby, running around screaming at the top of his lungs, “It’s the Stable Dweller’s second coming! Everybody run for your lives!” I could feel my pegasus companion giving me a look right now, and I didn’t like it.

“I dunno about you, but I’m gonna get the heck outta Dodge soon, if this gets any worse!”

Looking back at Hotshot I said, “Let’s get going back to the Wrangler. We can get a better idea of things there,” He nodded to me, and we both galloped towards the saloon.

On our way there though, I spotted Colonel Peregrine waiting at the train station in full military attire. He had all of his things collected like he was ready to leave and was occasionally checking his pocket watch. I told Hotshot I’d meet him inside as I went to speak with the griffon.

“Glad I could catch you once before I left.” Peregrine said, checking his pocket watch again. “I’m on my way back to Shattered Hoof.”

“What do you mean? Everything’s going crazy! You can’t leave ‘now’!”

“It’s out of my claws, I’m afraid. I’m going to reason with my superiors in person. A lot of things are happening right now, and there’s too much to put into words. I will admit, you came to me at the last minute, and I took a bit of a gamble on you… it was like all the pieces were falling into place. I’m not sure what will come of this, but you’ve been doing great work so far. I have faith in you!”

Then a sky carriage arrived, being pulled by a team of pegasi. They landed in front of the train station and the Colonel stepped aboard, leaving me completely confused as to what was going on.

“W-wait! I need to speak with you about things!” I stammered, holding the door open with my hoof. “I still have questions!”

He took my hoof in his claw and gave me a firm shake and salute. “Talk with Ginger. She’ll explain everything,” he promised, then shut the carriage door himself.

The team of pegasi took flight, and I watched them fly towards New Canterlot, leaving me with my hoof still outstretched and equally confused.

“Ugh…”

“What in tarnation is going on here, mare?!” Brandy demanded, pointing her hoof at me as soon as I trotted through the double doors and saw the others were already waiting for me. Along with a very angry looking bar owner. “Are you gonna tell me or what?!”

“Why the hell are you blaming me?!” I protested.

“From what I’m hearing around town, some lone mare walked straight into The Rot and put down all ghouls in there, singlehoofedly. Now every gang in the city is blaming each other, and they’re putting the squeeze on all the locals trying to figure out who it was. And since you’re the only new pony around here that I still ain’t too sure of, I want to know if you had a hoof in it...”

I flattened my ears, “Oh…”

That was all the admission of guilt she needed. “So it was you… Why am I not even slightly surprised? I knew agreeing to board you here was a mistake,” she sneered. “Also, what's the big idea inviting all of these NCR-types into my bar? That’s it, I’m calling your tab! Pay it or get out!” The mare stuck her hoof out at me, demanding bottle caps.

“I’ll pay you as soon as the mayor gives me my first paycheck!” I argued.

“Get the hell out of my saloon!” Brandy pointed her hoof towards the door. “This town’s shook up like a bottle of sparkle cola, because of you!”

“It’s not me, it’s Jagged Knife. Yeah, I blew them all straight to Celestia, but they didn’t give me much a choice when he sent me into a radioactive deathtrap, patronized by insane ghouls running a smuggling ring.”

“I don’t care. Get out!” she yelled at me. A few of the patrons had turned around from their usual spot to listen in on our conversation, and the mare turned back and shouted, “You’d better stare back down at those Celestia-damned cards Wild Iron, or I’ll blow your head off with my shotgun!” she barked, and the minotaur ducked his head down, gluing his eyes to the cards in his hands. He clearly knew better than to get involved. In the background, I could hear Hawkins laughing her ass off, then Brandy turned towards her as well and added, “You too, griff. Leave the booze while you’re at it.”

“Calm down, sweetheart!” Gin pleaded. “Let’s allow calm heads to prevail here. We should at least let her tell her side of the story first.”

“Whatever this is, I promise you, it won’t end here.” I said.

“Alright, fine,” Brandy replied in a huff cocking an eyebrow as if to say, “you’d better start explaining things, quick.”

As I recounted my story to them, I gave the abridged version. “I went up to Cherry Hill Ranch and found my friend. She’s safe. There was a small filly up there.” I told them. I also told them about what happened in the rot, but left out the gritty details about my mutation and the surgery.

“So you met Accolade, did ya?” Gin asked me, sounding almost somber.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Something I should know about?”

Gin sighed to himself, as if the history still weighed down on them both heavily. Brandy seemed stare off to the side, as if she knew something too. “Y’know about that Stable most of us locals are descended from? Accolade is the last descendant of the old overmare, from before Rubi came along. Had no idea that kid was still alive...”

“C’mon Dad, we don’t have time for this...” Brandy huffed regretfully. “Celestia shoot me…”

“It can wait…” he assured me, agreeing with his daughter.

“Well, I think Jagged could be planning something big. I’m just scared about other ponies getting caught up in the crossfire.”

A lone figure who had been waiting patiently in the Wrangler came up to me. The red female griffon was wearing a brown cloak over her NCR dress uniform. I noticed she was also accompanied by a tiny escort of troopers who were also wearing brown cloaks, waiting nearby.

“Ginger?” I asked in surprise. “You’re here too?”

She pulled her hood down. “Miss Roulette,” she said sounding relieved, but spoke frantically. “Thank goodness you’re alive! There’s a lot to discuss, and not a lot of time.”

“Slow down, I already know all about the attack. I was there. I also met with Peregrine on my way here and he told me to speak with you. What’s going on?” I asked.

“This has become far bigger than just the investigation,” Ginger revealed.

“What happened?!” I asked again, growing frustrated at being kept in the dark for so long.

Hawkins interrupted before she could continue further. “Peregrine’s already been relieved of his authority in these matters, Lieutenant. And you, as well.”

The red griffoness deadpanned, yet remained collected and dignified, “Totally uncouth and unpleasant as always I see, Gabriela. I’d expect nothing less from a talon of your ill repute. I’ll have you know that I’m not here to divulge any classified information. This is solely in regards to other related urgent matters that have no relevance to this investigation whatsoever. Information she would be better off knowing, and I’m sure the higher-ups would agree. You can be the judge of that yourself. If not, I’ll happily explain the circumstances in front of a court martial.”

“Tch. Typical bureaucrats and your legal loopholes,” Hawkins muttered, acquiescing. “Fine. We probably shouldn’t discuss this here though,” she threw out, glancing around some new patrons in the establishment who were watching. “There are a few new faces I don’t trust.”

“Let’s reconvene this upstairs then,” Gin suggested. “Everyone okay with that?”

We all agreed, despite my minor annoyance, and ended up cramping ourselves into my small room which I had barely even used. Musk, their radgoat bodyguard, ended up watching over the bar downstairs.

Hawkins was squished into me, pushing up uncomfortably close. I felt her jab me with her elbow to make herself space. An awkward atmosphere hung around us, some in present company clearly not too happy about sharing oxygen with the NCR in such a small space.

“Do the civies seriously get to listen in then?” Hawkins scoffed, glaring at the bar owner.

Appleshot Brandy squared up to Hawkins unamused and puffed out her chest, “This is my bar. So I think I have a right to hear y’all, and make sure you NCR-types aren’t up to anything nefarious-like. Especially since you do nothing but sit around, drinking my booze all day!”

“They’re both trustworthy,” I vouched.

“Ugh, alright,” Hawkins relented, exhaling loudly.

Ginger then cleared her throat so that all eyes were on her. “While you were going undercover,” she began, “Colonel Peregrine contacted his superiors about the ongoing negotiations. He was granted one last chance to salvage the situation. That gambit failed, so he’s being relieved of his jurisdiction here.” she revealed.

“That’s what happens when you go against orders.” Hawkins sneered.

“Woah, what. Why?!” I asked.

“Orders are orders. Meanwhile, there’s another issue that’s arisen… Negotiations have fallen through.”

I didn’t understand what that meant. “These ongoing negotiations with the NCR; New Canterlot gets trade resource out of it, but what does the mayor get in return?” I asked.

Hawkins answered that one rather forthcomingly. “That’s easy,” she said. “Aside from bottle caps, she wants a say in all future NCR policy.” I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of all of NCR being run like Dodge City.

“Up to now, we’ve been going through negotiations with our talons tied behind our backs.” Ginger revealed. “That’s why we were forced to hire Miss Roulette, in order to try and avoid this exact situation. But now the mayor has given a single ultimatum to the NCR, and threatened consequences if we don’t agree to all of her demands within forty-eight hours.”

I laughed lightly, trying to remain positive. “Well, maybe the Mayor won’t be totally awful? I mean, how bad can she really be...?”

The grey stallion Gin groaned, rubbing the back of his mane. “Ehhh…?”

My false optimism soured quickly, “That bad, huh?”

“As much as I dislike NCR, one of the upsides is that it isn’t Dodge City…” Gin replied with bitter sarcasm.

Hawkins glowered at the old pony like he had just insulted her Great Grandpa Gruff. “What’s your problem with the NCR old-timer?”

His daughter Brandy snorted, “Bunch of former talons and mercenaries running around, pretending to be a government? Don’t see no good coming of that. Even if y’all do have Equestria’s best interests at heart.”

“And a whore leading hired thugs is much better?” The skyranger retorted.

The barmare laughed out loud, “A corrupt politician? Tell me one I haven’t heard before.” Then the mare shook her head. “Nope. Us locals aren’t big fans of Rubi. But we like things plenty well in our town without some big army coming in to ‘civilize’ things for us.”

“We also still have to deal with the Jagged Knife issue to deal with,” Hotshot pointed out.

Clutching my head between my hooves, I complained aloud so that everyone could hear, “Ugh, this would be so much easier if we were back in the wasteland! We could just shoot the bastard and be done with it...”

Sounding tired, Gin sighed, “The wasteland was only that way to ponies who didn’t know no better...” His comment sounded directed at me in particular. The others nodded sagely in agreement.

Ginger cleared her throat to gain everyone’s attention again. “Miss Mayor apparently learned of some of Jagged’s nefarious activities, and decided to pin most of the recent unrest between the major gangs on him. The mayor has effectively removed his protected status from the Dodge City Gang, which he was previously using to skirt around dealing with NCR law. So now we’re free to deal with him as we like. That blast also damaged a couple of her mining operations and standings with the lower gangs on the city council, so that also plays to our advantage.”

“Ha! Well that solves that problem,” I laughed. “The whole town will be after him now!”

Appleshot Gin chuckled in amusement, “Couldn’t say why she’s kept Jagged around for this long anyways. All he does is cause issues for her and the townsfolk.”

“Jagged Knife has been a wrench in everything for both the mayor of Dodge City and the NCR, and he's too dangerous to ignore. You’re the only pony who’s gotten close enough to speak with him directly, Roulette. Most of my sources have gone dry at the moment. Do you have any idea what he could be planning?” Ginger asked me.

I shook my head, “No idea,” I admitted. “There was some really weird poker chip sized thing-a-ma-jig with a lightning cloud mark on it, but that's it. Dunno if it has any significance… He said he’d think about letting me in on his plan, but other than that, all I can really think of is the weapons,” I looked around all the faces huddled together. Taking particular time to try and read Hawkins’ expression to see if she knew anything, but if she did, she had a goddess-tier poker face. I was almost hesitant to ask the question, “In a worst case scenario, what could Jagged accomplish with all of that high end Enclave weaponry?”

Receiving only a shrug from the ex-enclaver, Hotshot, he guessed, “Maybe start a huge gangwar and get a lot of ponies killed in the crossfire? Even if he somehow came out on top in that hypothetical, the NCR would just come right in and kill him. We’ll need a plan of action, regardless.”

“Who put you in charge, pegasus?” Hawkins challenged, and he shot her back a deadpan look.

“Jagged doesn’t trust anypony. Not even those around him. I was involved in maybe one or two jobs, but never got close enough to learn what he was plotting. Maybe I can think of a few ideas. All of them sound pretty bad, admittedly.” Hotshot pointed out and Ginger agreed. The local ‘experts’ concurred as well.

“Is that an admission of guilt?” Hawkins questioned, raising her brow.

“It is what it is....” he replied. “Underestimating Jagged is what got us here in the first place. We all need to come up with a plan...” Hotshot hammered again, “and I think it should be Roulette. She’s the only one who’s gotten anywhere near him before.”

“Uh, I don’t know if you’ve noticed... but he tried to kill me last time! How do you expect me to get close to him again?” I pointed out.

“Either way, it might be our best shot.” Ginger agreed.

It was crazy, but we didn’t have any other options. Except…

They could all tell I was thinking about something. Around the room, the others were silent, waiting on me. “Actually, I might have someone who can tell me something...” I revealed.

Ginger looked surprised. “Oh, do you have contacts close to Jagged Knife? My only informant within the gang went silent before all of this happened.”

“Yeah, I have a meeting with someone soon who said he’d fill me in on all the details... I’ll try and see what I can figure out and get some answers.”

“That sounds like a great potential lead!” She exclaimed.

I was trying to think to myself what it could be, but was coming up with nil. “What does the NCR know about him? About Jagged Knife?” I asked her, since she was apparently in the business of knowing things.

“Jagged Knife was the leader of the same Knifepoint raiders that sacked a small settlement some months ago. Called ‘the Republic’, according to some reports.”

“Did you say the Republic?” I repeated, hoping I heard right.

“Yes,” Ginger nodded. “Do you know of that place, Miss Roulette?”

“N-No,” I replied hastily. “I just… might’ve heard about it once, or twice.”

“Not to be confused with the NCR. It was a small enclave of settler ponies living together, and following rather strict cult-like traditions with the end goal of emulating pre-war Equestrian society. Jagged’s gang sacked that place prior to Sunshine and Rainbows, but about half of them split off after that. My guess? Likely due disputes over leadership. That was when the Stable Dweller and her allies wiped out the other half. And while even though the two never technically met, as common rumors suggest, he still used that event to gain notoriety within the criminal underworld. We sent ‘reports’ about it,” on that last sentence she left off deadpanning at Hawkins who replied only with an uncaring shrug.

“It seems he’s been rather active lately, despite claiming he’s retiring,” I scoffed.

She nodded in affirmation. “Although his current standings are dicey at best, above all, he is cunning and not to be underestimated. Plus, since he's on the run, he’ll likely be desperate and even more dangerous. Let’s all agree to meet back here soon,” Ginger told the others.

“Ginger? Could you please fulfill a personal request?” I asked her. “Please ask Peregrine to speak with his superiors to let them know that my friend Sunny Hymn had nothing to do with this. She’s just a civilian.”

“I’m sure once the Colonel explains everything to Gawdyna, she’ll understand. Right now, you just have to focus on the matter at claw- er, at hoof… erm… focus on the current matter.”

“Right,” I said, then glaring daggers at the griffon who had been tellingly silent during most of that conversation. “By the way. I need to talk to you Hawkins, Griffon-to-mare.”

“Yeah, what is it?” she asked impatiently folding her arms. The others took that as their cue to go back downstairs. Freeing her wings slightly, she leaned back against one of the walls and squinted at me.

I narrowed my eyes back at her in suspicion and spoke with my voice dipped in venom, “I heard that the top brass of the NCR might have some stake in what’s going on around here. You mentioned they became interested only after they heard Jagged’s name. I’m not a total idiot. You know more than you’re letting on? After all, friends don’t keep secrets.”

Hawkins sneered, “Since when are we friends?”

“Figured.” I spat, unsurprised.

She exhaled, her mood somewhere in between conflicted and annoyed. “Alright, I can tell you one thing,” she finally relented. “Whatever it is that Jagged Knife is planning, the NCR doesn’t have anything to do with it.” Sounded to me like she knew something, but I wouldn’t be able to pry it out of her, even with an expert safe-cracker.

“Tch. Somehow it’s hard for me to take that at face value, but then in that case, I want one thing from you,” I said, holding my hoof up to her face. “I’ll continue to play along and help the NCR under one condition. If I get my friend back and all of this blows over, then promise me: provided he’s still out there, you’re not going to use Sunny Hymn to go after Airworthy.”

The griffon grit her beak in annoyance. “That’s asking a lot, Dirt Muncher…” she growled, clearly not too happy about my request. Then she gave a singular reluctant nod. “Fine… you have my word,” she agreed.

“How do I trust you’ll keep it?”

“My word is my contract.” she answered humorlessly.

Good enough. I nodded back to her. “See ya later, I’ve got a meeting to get to.” Hawkins scoffed in response.

“Whatever...”

As we returned downstairs she plopped her rear at the bar again and went straight back to nursing the bottle. Ginger already had to leave and took her small entourage of undercover troops with her. Hotshot paced after me to the door and put his hoof in front of me. He looked like he had something to say this time.

“Wait, you shouldn’t go alone again,” he warned.

Grinning and rolling my eyes at my own stupidity from before, I replied, “Oh yeah, trust me. I’m not making that mistake again...”

The charcoal-coated pegasus looked back in surprise then gave a smirk, “Glad we’re on the same page then.”

“What are you waiting for? Wipe that dumb look off your face and let’s go already,” I motioned.

He pushed the doors open in a mocking gentlecolt-like fashion, gesturing forward with his wing. “After you, my dear,” he replied with a wry smile.

“Don’t even start,” I grunted, pushing my own way through.

As the sun set on Dodge City, I found myself at a secluded table at the proposed meeting spot across from the Fight Gauntlet. The small hole-in-the-wall establishment that Angel Eyes spoke of, was literally named ‘The Hole-in-the-Wall’. This was Brawler turf. Seemingly everywhere I looked, were posters put up about the current reigning champion, The Masticator. He’d be taking on another challenger tonight, although most betting odds seemed to indicate the champ would keep his title again.

This place was far more run down and seedier looking than the Dodge City Wrangler, which was a feat in of itself. Broken lights and spills of liquid on the floor that I really didn’t care to know the contents of colored the atmosphere, along with its beery piss-like stench.

“He’s late…” I thought, tapping my forehoof impatiently.

Grumping to myself privately, Angel was already fifteen minutes past the agreed upon meet time, that was reason enough for me to be a little pissed off. Not to even mention the whole ‘Jagged Knife trying to kill me’ thing with that last job. Angel told me explicitly that this was the meeting spot, and he’d fill me in on everything I’d been wanting to know. What was Jagged planning with those weapons? Where did they come from? Did it even matter anymore? Ugh. I just wanted to know already!

I told Hotshot beforehoof to try and follow behind me and blend into the crowds, because it needed to look like I’m alone. Although admittedly, the pegasus hiding in a barrel outside was likely far less comfortable than me sipping on complementary hooch.

It wasn’t just my usual impatience either. Thirty minutes had gone by, according to my approximation.

Glancing outside again for the fifth time, there was still no sign of him. I was starting to grow more and more impatient by the minute. Soon, a full hour had passed with no sign of him. I finally got fed up with waiting and stood up from my table, exiting the establishment.

“Maybe Gamble knows something about all this?” I thought, debating whether or not I wanted to suck up to that bastard for another favor.

Hotshot quickly came and caught up with me, pacing through the back alleys together towards the Wrangler. “Hey, how’d the meeting go?” he asked.

“That damned bastard blew me off!” I growled.

His face went deadpan. “Perfect…,” he moaned sarcastically. “So what now?”

Suddenly, I stopped, thinking again.

Looking up at the nighttime silhouette of the Cherry Hill Ranch estate, where some windows were brightly lit, I stared at one window in particular, which I thought might be hers. The moon was partly obscured by the house from this angle. Hotshot struggled to see where I was staring at, squinting in confusion. Then he began to follow again as I changed directions and marched towards it. “I got an idea…” I answered.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Cherry Hill Ranch,” I said. “Maybe my friend up there will be able to help us.”

The pegasus groaned. “This isn’t another solo mission, is it?”

“Nope,” I stopped and turned back to the pegasus, “We’ve got a stealthbuck mk II now. Let’s use it. I’m kind of a big gigantic idiot who always charges head-first into danger to solve all my problems. So I’ll need a good wingpony to watch my back.”

At an unguarded spot on the perimeter, it was a straight shot over the orchard to that building on the far side of the property. The big white manor sat at the top of the hill. It was unlikely that they’d keep anything worthwhile in the villa, but maybe we could get a clue about Jagged’s plan by searching around.

“I remember seeing a few suspicious buildings up at the ranch where they could’ve stashed them,” I said. “Scout around and see if you can find anything. Keep an eye out for me and don’t get caught.”

Hotshot’s eyes were fixed on the sky, judging his flight path, and the speed of the wind. It was a moonlit night, but that wouldn’t be a problem with his stealthbuck mk. II. My pegasus companion smirked. “Trust me, I know how the Enclave scouts used to do this. I’ll be in and out like the night,” he bragged.

“Were you a temp scout for the Enclave?” I joked.

“Uh… not exactly? I’ll tell you more about it later,” he answered awkwardly. Flipping on his stealthbuck, I heard wingflaps and felt a slight gust of wind as he took to the air.

I was able to trot in through the front gate without much trouble.

Infiltrating Cherry Hill Ranch was much easier the second time around. The ponies who did recognize me barely gave me any trouble because I was supposed to be here as far as they cared.

No signs of Angel Eyes. Not even in the villa. I imagined Jagged wouldn’t be here, given the circumstances, and as expected Sting was nowhere to be found... but what about Three-Card? I had a few choice questions for him too.

Making my way through the villa again, it felt like there were a lot less ponies compared to earlier in the day. Was anybody here?

I passed by several guards out front of the mayor’s mansion and told them I was on business for the mayor. They didn’t question it.

Searching through the halls, this time I was looking for a very specific door, but was having trouble remembering where it was. I clenched my jaw in annoyance. “All of the these doors looked the same!” I thought.

Finally, on the second floor, I came to the approximate location of where I was last time. Looking both ways to see that nopony was around. I turned the handle slowly and peeked inside the playroom. It was painted with cherry trees, sunshine and rainbows on one side, and a starry night sky on the other. Better than most kids had in the wasteland.

Sunny was nowhere to be found. I cursed under my breath, then my eyes fell downward, to the small apple green filly, staring back up at me with an apathetic look in her eyes. The one named Accolade. Her mane was cut with even bangs in front and the back tied into a braid. Still no cutie mark, even though she was almost at the age where fillies and colts usually got theirs.

She didn’t say a word or scream this time, or kick me in the leg again, thankfully. Instead she just stared back silently. Realizing that my butt was sticking out into the hallway, I quickly and quietly slipped inside and shut the door.

Pretending to look around the room awkwardly, I scratched the back of my mane with my hoof. “Oh, uh… hey there kid,” I said making pleasantries.

She didn’t respond.

“You didn’t happen to see where Sunny got off to, did ya?”

“I’m not supposed to tell you,” she answered, scrunching her face in annoyance.

That made sense, she was probably out scouting on her own or something. “Oh, is she on a secret mission then?” I asked her.

“It wouldn’t be a secret anymore if I told you. Duh.”

Fair point. “That’s okay, you don’t have to tell me in that case. She is coming back though, right?”

Accolade pondered in her head if whether or not it was okay to answer before nodding.

I gestured at the floor beside her. “You don’t mind if I sit down and wait for her to return in that case, do ya?” I asked, and the filly turned her head away in annoyance, which I took as tacit approval.

Pacing slowly over to the window, I checked outside. It was dark so I couldn’t see Hotshot anywhere. I figured he’d probably check the barn first before moving to that other suspicious building on the far side of the property. There was nothing to do but wait, so plopped my rump down on the floor and sat there in silence with the filly.

Neither of us spoke, but the filly kept glancing at me as though she were annoyed by my very presence. There was something else I thought I saw in her eyes though that also caught my interest. It was the look of a filly who had already taken life. Even in whatever you’d call this new-ish wasteland, that look was clear as day to me.

Who was she? And why was she so important to the mayor? I watched her silently for a while as we both waited for Sunny Hymn to return.

Oddly, the filly was the one who decided to break the silence. “S-Sunny told me you weren’t a bad pony. Why should I believe you?”

“I won’t bite ya, I promise.” I replied with just a hint of sarcasm.

“T-Then why are you working for Jagged Knife?” she stammered, her voice sounding accusatory. A hint of anger there as well.

“To be honest with you? I’m the one here to kick his sorry ass. I came here to save Sunny Hymn. They kidnapped her, but then I found out that she didn’t need saving.”

Accolade squinted at me, “...You’re not really working for Jagged Knife then, are you?”

“Nope,” I answered.

The filly sighed, then she scoffed derisively with just a hint of defeat in her voice, “You know you can never beat him, right? My daddy was way faster with his gun and he died. An earth pony like you is just gonna get killed by a unicorn.”

“That’s rude, discounting me already like that...” I frowned, feeling dejected by a small filly. Then I mumbled, pouting off to the side. “I’d prefer to let my actions speak for themselves…”

Accolade’s eyes lit up and she moved closer to me. “Wait, that was you? Did you really take down all those ghouls on your own? Everypony around town has been talking about it.”

“Yup. I fought most of them off with my hooves and bullets, then blew the rest up with a whole stockpile of explosives.”

She scoffed again, “That’s stupid. You could’ve died.”

“Yeah, I guess it kinda was…,” I agreed. “Maybe it was all just dumb luck. Who knows? Maybe I’m the one who needs saving.”

“Jagged Knife is still more dangerous...“ she contended, then she frowned and her eyes trailed off. A short pause hung in the air before she continued to speak to me, adding, “Sunny is really nice to me. I can see why you like her. Even then, I know Rubi just asked her to take care of me so I’ll give her the password. Most ponies I meet just want to use me to their own ends. She said I could trust you though. You seem alright, I guess... I’m sorry about kicking your leg before…”

“Mhm. Don’t worry about it, kid. I know what it’s like to be a filly living in the wasteland.”

“Y-you do?”

“I was an orphan too once, y’know? Didn’t have parents or anything. I even had to get my hooves dirty from time to time. Admittedly, I saw a bit of myself when I was looking at you. Sunny is new to the wasteland. That’s partly why she’s so kind, I think. She hasn’t really had to deal with any of the crap we’ve been through, but she tries anyways. That sun she gives off is better than the real thing, if you ask me... But hey, if you ever need anything, just ask me, alright?” I grinned, jabbing her shoulder lightly.

Accolade didn’t answer me that time. She looked like she wanted to say something, but was fighting herself not to. Maybe she didn’t fully trust me. I couldn’t tell if it was because she was walled off up here from the outside or what, but I wasn’t here to judge her for her reasons.

She gave a slight nod in agreement. “W-What was your name again?” she asked.

“It’s-” I began, only to be cut off by the door opening and closing suddenly, and we both turned our heads, I whipped out my pistol and pointed it in front of me, then light shimmered around Sunny Hymn as she shut off her stealthbuck, a look of surprise on her face. She held her breath, looking down the barrel of the gun.

I quickly returned my gun to its holster and apologized, “Um, sorry about that. I’ve been dealing with a lot of invisible guys lately...”

Sunny Hymn exhaled, holding her chest. “R-Roulette… ?!” she stammered, somewhat shaken. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh hey, I was just... uh, keeping Accolade company. Have you seen Angel Eyes?”

“Um, no… he went out on a job. He should be back later though. Why?” Then she looked down with a warm smile to address the young filly who happily trotted up and gave her a hug, “Thank you so much for keeping my cover while I was away, Accolade. I couldn’t do this without you.”

The filly smiled as she happily received headpats from Sunny. It reminded me of how she was acting around her dad a little. “Me and Accolade have been working together,” she revealed.

“Yeah, we had a whole meeting planned. You were there, remember? That last job I got sent on... Well let’s just say, now there’s an untapped market for fried ghoul jerky, if you’re into that sorta thing.”

Her eyes widened, “Wait, so you’re the one who busted up that smuggling ring? You did that all on your own?! Jeez Roulette, be more careful!” For a moment I thought I saw the Sunny I knew again.

“I’m fine, Sunny. Getting shot up is nothing I can’t handle,” I replied.

“What are you crazy? That’s not fine! What is wrong with you? How are you even alive right now?””

“You don’t need to worry about me. Something big may be going down soon. All the gangs around the city seem to be thinking the same thing.”

She cut me off in a harsh whisper, pressing her hoof to my lips. “I knew that already. I had most of this figured out on my own, and everything was going smoothly until you pulled that ridiculous stunt. Now everypony is all paranoid, and snooping around has been a huge pain in the butt for me.”

“I know…” I replied. “I’m sorry. Sunny, you’re better at this than me. That’s why I came by to ask you a few questions.”

“Okay. What do you want to know…?” she sighed.

“We’re trying to figure out what Jagged is planning. Do you know where he’s been hiding his weapons?”

Sunny rolled her eyes sideways, “Pfft. I’ve already been spying on him once. That old creep didn’t suspect a thing!” she boasted. “His little lacky Sting thinks he’s so damn stealthy, but I can hear his hoofsteps from a mile away. What a total amateur! Did you know he wears eyeliner? Except there was also that really creepy thing Jagged did where I wondered whether or not he could actually see me even though I was invisible. Pretty sure I’m safe.”

As much as I enjoyed hearing Sunny Hymn badmouth Sting, there were more important matters. “They were smuggling weapons down in that mine, but they already moved them somewhere else by the time I got there.” I said.

“So what’s he after?” I asked reflexively. “Is it the Enclave weapons?”

“It’s not about the Enclave weapons,” she groaned, “but the good news is, I think I know what’s been going on with those caravan attacks you were talking about before. I’m pretty sure that Jagged was just struggling to adjust to Post-Wasteland life. Had to get one last thrill.”

“What about all that talk about retirement?” I asked.

Sunny seemed to have a tendency to talk herself through her problems. It was sort of cute in a way. “He’s a raider. He lies. Anyways, there aren’t many places where he could be keeping them. If Jagged really was planning something, he might try to go after the mayor out of desperation, so I doubt he’d keep the weapons here. Other than that maybe out in the desert? Except it would be kinda hard to move that many weapons out of town without being caught...”

“That must be it!” I exclaimed. “There were a bunch of tunnels in the mine before I- uh, went and...blew them up,” I grinned sheepishly as she deadpanned.

The mare rubbed her chin thinking. “Hmm, I guess that’d make sense...” she admitted. “Really though, you shouldn’t worry. Jagged Knife thinks he’s so smart, but if he’s going to make a move now, it’ll have to be for his own self-preservation. Raiders are sooo predictable. In the end, all they want is self-gratification.”

“It’s not going to end here, Sunny.” I told her. The mare snorted, clearly not taking me seriously.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Accolade was beginning to look a little nervous. Sunny gave a brief motherly smile to the filly to reassure her, then the seafoam mare returned her gaze to me. “You may not know this, but there’s actually a secret weapons R&D facility below this very mansion,” she revealed. “Unfortunately, it’s locked behind several layers of state-of-the-art security terminals. The original owner of the property had a ton of connections to ponies in the wartime government. Accolade is the only one with the password, so Miss Rubi hired me to coax it out of her, but I promised Accolade that I would never ask her for it. That way we could keep each other safe, while I tried my hoof at hacking the security terminals on my own.”

“That’s… interesting. So that’s what the mayor is after?” I pondered, suddenly wondering in my head if it was possible if Jagged had already accessed the facility. Thinking of all the tunnels in the mines, one of the shafts could’ve gone underneath the mansion. That theory wasn’t too far fetched, right? I asked Sunny about it.

“Hmmm, I doubt it,” she replied. “I haven’t been able to get in, so there’s no way a deadbeat raider like Jagged Knife could do it… actually, I might have something that may interest you.” she said reaching inside her blouse and pulled out a small diary. In fact, it was the same diary I had absentmindedly given to her back at the burned town. My mouth dropped open.

“You seriously kept that?” I asked her in disbelief.

“Yeah? You don’t just throw away old notes without going through them first. What if you find important information? That’s Enclave scouting 101.” Sunny said, giving me a judgy look for overlooking obvious details, then began to skim. I watched her eyes darting over each page as she methodically flipped through, speaking aloud as she did. “Most of these pages are written in what looks like a simple vigenère cipher. Except whenever I’m getting close to decrypting the key, it changes to something else. I tried decrypting it three times already before realizing there’s probably a magic spell involved. I still did manage to glean some useful information from it, but nothing that’d give a hint to her origins.”

My mouth hung wide open as she looked up at me, completely floored by her intelligence. “Uh, yeah… all that sounds good.” I replied, pretending to understand. I had just mistaken it all for normal egghead scientific equations. No wonder I couldn’t read it. “Whose?”

“Dusty Diary’s,” she repeated impatiently.

“So what’s it supposed to mean?”

“She was being pursued by someone. The interesting thing is, this book was actually written fairly recently according to some of the dates. I’m not totally sure, but what if the Enclave is involved somehow? That’s just a theory and there’s no way to know for sure, but what if it’s all connected? It’s a far fetched theory, but it’s something!”

I rolled my eyes, “What would the Enclave even want with Dodge City?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but maybe I can find out if I can get into that R&D lab.”

We were interrupted as we both heard a sudden tapping on the window, coming from outside

“W-What was that?” Sunny Hymn asked, spooked by the sudden noise. It must’ve been Hotshot trying to tell me something. I ignored him for the time being.

“Don’t worry. I have a friend here going around looking for evidence,” I answered. “He’s a pegasus, by the way.”

She was a little surprised to hear that. “Well I sure hope this friend of yours knows what he’s doing. Just make sure you both stay out of trouble, alright?” the mare chided, wagging her hoof at me.

I groaned. “Sunny, I don’t know for how long you’re going to be safe here. You should come with us.”

Sunny Hymn scoffed derisively, “Jagged again?”

“You’re misreading the situation,” I told her. “You’re getting too cocky about this.”

“I’m not, I’m totally in control of the situation. That’s hilarious coming from you, by the way. I actually know how to read a situation without just rushing in. If it turns out that Enclave was involved somehow, even if it was back during the war, that’d be big! Maybe it can even lead you to potential remnants hideaways! Don’t you get it, Roulette? I’m close to figuring this out! This could help you too!”

My eyes narrowed, “Sunny, I don’t care about finding the Enclave right now.” I couldn’t believe I said that.

“Before long, Miss Rubi Royale will handle this small hiccup, then everything will go back to normal. I’m safe here. Safer than I would be with you or the NCR.” she insisted.

“So you’re just going to stay here? This is ‘normal’ to you?” I challenged, and a silent look of contempt was all the reply I got, punctuated by more tapping on the window. At this point, I beginning to grow frustrated with the pegasus. “The mayor isn’t a good pony. You’re only useful to her because she needs you to get the password from Accolade. That’s all she cares about! As soon as she has that, she’ll get rid of you once you’re no longer useful to her. Just like she did with Jagged Knife.”

“I’ll use my dad’s training. I’m sure she can find a good use for the daughter of a former Enclave Scout. Especially if I can crack that security terminal on my own without the password.” She replied, and revealed a small holdout weapon under her wing, “I’m not as helpless as you think.”

“Despite the fact you’ve never killed before?” I challenged, which caused the mare to flinch nervously. “Okay, you figure everything out. Then what? Who are you going to go to for help if you have to deal with a bunch of psycho-raiders looking to kill you?”

Sunny tried to remain sure of herself, holding onto her composure. “My dad knew Enclave techniques to manipulate information. I can use them to help ponies! I don’t have to use these techniques to hurt others like the Enclave did, because I can use them to help me and Accolade! I’ll just keep feeding the mayor false information to keep myself useful!”

“Do you even know half of the things the mayor does? This town is built on chems and debt slavery. She kills anyone who interrupts her business as usual, and she’s only interested in you as far as your ability to get that password from Accolade. How long can you keep up with this charade?”

“Ugh, you’re so stubborn!” Sunny stomped her hoof in frustration, ruffling her feathers. “Rubi’s not perfect and I may not agree with her methods, but at least she’s predictable. Unlike you.”

“A scout is supposed to observe and report. Not act on that information alone. What happens to Accolade after that?”

“A good scout can read a situation and react on her mission accordingly,” she argued. What mission was she even talking about? Must’ve been something her dad said, but I wasn’t sure why she was so dead set on this. “You’re not understanding, Roulette! I need this!”

“Understanding what? What am I not understanding? Quit acting dumb and listen to reason, would you?!”

“That’s how the wasteland works!” she cried. “I didn’t have a choice in any of this! Do you even know what happened to the pegasi during the initial reintegration process? Talons have always had it in for us above the clouds, but now they’re the ones running the show. They know who I am! I’ll be in danger without Rubi’s protection.”

“I mean, they’re sure as hell not perfect, but...”

“After the Enclave was defeated, they set up the Neighvarro provisional government with the help of pegasus supporters of New Canterlot. They needed to figure out who commited war crimes on the surface. Couldn’t risk Enclave infiltrators slipping through, after all. Now they’re going to be integrated into whatever this New Canterlot Republic is. My dad warned me about what they’ll do to ponies with information they’re after. So how is the NCR any different from how the Enclave treated ponies on the surface?! ...S-Sorry.” She quickly apologized upon seeing my stunned expression. “I just can’t trust them, Roulette... But the more information I have, the more power I’ll have to survive. As long as I stay on the mayor’s good side, me and Accolade can keep working together to stay here at Cherry Hill Ranch where we’ll be safe.”

I could finally see what she was doing here. “Is this really about helping ponies?” I asked her. “Or is it because you’re scared of going back to New Canterlot with me?”

“I can take care of myself and make my own decisions without you watching over me like a child, thanks.”

“Did you ask Accolade about any of this before you decided to do it? Is this what she wants?" I asked her, causing her to become more visibly angry. There was more annoying rapping on the window. I wished Hotshot would take a hint.

“Yes it is! Tell her, Accolade!” she snapped at the small filly, losing her temper and causing Accolade to draw back in fear. Sunny quickly realized her mistake and apologized, “S-sorry, Accolade. I didn’t mean it, I promise. Roulette is just...ugh.” With a look of frustration, she glanced towards the door then back to me. I got the message.

I began a retort, but decided I wasn’t going to argue with her further. I just had one final piece to say. “Listen, I got Hawkins to give me her word that the NCR won’t use you to get to your father. You’ll be okay.”

“And you actually trust her?” she scoffed. “You must be stupider than I thought. How am I supposed to know you’re not just working for the NCR now? That was what you wanted, wasn’t it? To join?”

“I’m not doing this for the NCR.”

“So all that stuff about trying to help me was a lie then? Ugh. All you’re doing is causing me problems, Roulette! Just get the heck out of here, would you?”

“Not without you,” I answered.

“Why are you doing this to me?!” she demanded. “Just go, already! I’ll be fine on my own!”

“Sometimes friends just need tough love.” I said, and sighed aloud. “Fine. I’ll leave you alone then, if that’s what you want.”

“It is,” she replied coldly and I began to walk away, patting Accolade on the head to let her know everything was going to be alright.

Leaving a single hoof on the door, I looked back at a friend, who was very angry and confused. It hurt, but I didn’t hold any ill feelings towards her over it, because I knew that her dad had put all of those ideas in her head. I just felt sorry for her. “Trust me, Sunny,” I warned. “I’m on your side. There’s still time for you to come back. But if you keep going down this road, pretty soon it’ll be too late.”

“I’ll take my chances. I’m good at playing things by ear after all...”

There was a sudden knock on the door out of the blue, and I wondered if it was Hotshot again. That theory was quickly debunked as there was another knock on the door and I heard a deeper voice from the other side. He must’ve been trying to warn me before! “I’m so stupid!” I thought.

“Roulette, you have to hide!” Sunny hissed, “If they find you in here, it’ll be trouble for all three of us! Accolade, help me hide her! Quick!” As she tugged at my arm she quickly attempted to stuff me underneath the filly’s bed amongst her toys, but tripped and fell over onto me in the process.

Then the door opened without warning and a pony I’d never met stepped through. He looked like he was one of Gamble’s employees, dressed in pin-striped overalls and a bow tie. He had a grease-black mane and a martini for his cutie mark. Upon seeing me and Sunny struggling on top of each other, he averted his eyes. “Umm... I’ll pretend I didn’t see... whatever this is…”

I heard Sunny groan in aggravated protest.

“It’s fine,” Sunny Hymn replied, bringing herself to her hooves and dusting her blouse. “This mare found her way into Accolade’s room, and I was convincing her to leave. She was just leaving...”

He nodded to the young pegasus mare, then addressed me, “Miss Roulette?”

I stood up quickly. “Y-Yes?”

“Mr. Gamble trusts that you’ve been handling things?” he asked, and I returned him with a single nod. “Good. Also the mayor wants a word with you. C’mon, best not keep her waiting.”

“At this time of night? Did she give any hints as to what she wanted?” I questioned.

“I-Is everything alright?” Sunny Hymn asked the stallion with a hint of nervousness.

“She said she wants to meet with you,” he informed me. “Alone.”

Quest Perk Added:

Mystery Mutation - Although you still don’t understand the full extent of this mutation or its origin, you now gain an incremental healing factor after being exposed to rads; rad-sense while being irradiated.

Perk Added:

Super Slam! - When somepony tries to block, you show them that you rock! Chance to knock down enemies with melee and unarmed attacks.

Chapter 11: Chips On the Table

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Chapter 11-

Chips on the Table

“I’ll pay you double to outrun them!”

As I was escorted through the double doors of the Ironclad Firearms factory, the jingle blared loudly again over the speakers. I didn’t find Hotshot outside anywhere, or stealthily following behind me. “Maybe he’s invisible?” I thought, looking over my head.

My escort was mostly quiet while I was busy internally panicking over what the mayor could possibly want at this hour. All my mind had to go off of was immediately jumping to the most outrageous conclusion it could think of.

When I got to the mayor’s office Gamble was already waiting for me there, along with the mayor and two other ponies I didn’t recognize. One was an older stocky earth pony gentlecolt wearing an old sweatshirt and beanie, and had on a permanent cock-eyed expression, while the other was a tall, gaunt unicorn mare with an overly styled purple-ish mane and way too much makeup on. She levitated her long cigarette holder up to her lips and exhaled a wisp of smoke. She creeped me out the most...

Their eyes all fell on me as I stepped through the door. What the hell were they doing here? Apparently I’d trotted in on a discussion that had just concluded, and I stood aside as they exited Rubi’s office in single-file. Gamble greeted me with an annoying smile as we exchanged glances on his way out.

The Mayor sat at her usual desk, watching me this time with a keen observant eye, dressed prim and proper as always, but wearing an uncharacteristically friendly grin. Her griffon bodyguard, Sharp Eye, remained in the corner and didn’t say a word. He watched me curiously, showing great interest in what the mayor was about to say.

Her office cleaned up nice as always, but I made a stronger point to look at all the photographs this time. My eyes followed along the room full of photographs and newspaper clippings, with pictures of the wartime mare shaking hooves with important government ponies and signing military contracts, painting a picture of a much more prosperous Dodge City back then. Another had her standing next to and marvelling over a giant gun, having just completed a successful test firing. There were even newspaper clippings of her standing and making deals with a Buffalo chieftain!

Then I noticed in the background of one of the photos an earth pony stallion who was dressed in similar attire to Fester, although he was a beige coated earth pony stallion here, with a grey mane. He was standing off to the side behind her, amongst a bunch of worker ponies. I supposed he was alive back during the war too?

Cherry Jubilee was the one who built this city into what it was during the war. This mare had connections to the wartime government, was the CEO of a major weapons manufacturer and had a secret weapons R&D lab underneath her mansion. I wanted to know who she was. But more importantly, I wanted to know who the hell that pony named Lightning Dust she was standing with, in that one photograph, was?

Rubi offered me a seat across from her, but I chose to stand. “This ain’t a bad time, is it?” she asked. It was, although she likely didn’t care and was merely making pleasantries.

“No, ma’am.” I answered. “What do you need this evening, Miss Mayor?” I was almost nervous to ask. My instinct told me nothing good could come of any request she was about to make.

“Y’see, I’ve got a problem,” she began. “I heard about how you were the one who blew up the Rot. Caused me a whole heap of trouble, you did.” My ears folded back as she continued. “Midas Touch, my forepony, was telling me about how a few of our mining operations had tunnel collapses as a result of that explosion. That alone might’ve singlehoofedly set profits back a week!” The dusty rose colored mare pounded her hoof on her desk.

“Oh… uh, about that. That just sorta happened?” I laughed sheepishly. She proceeded to go through a whole list of troubles like she was getting ready to throw the book at me.

Then the mayor stopped and looked back at me with her pink eyes in bewilderment. As if she couldn’t tell what I was anxious about, and she laughed as though someone had just told her a hilarious joke. I wished someone would tell me what was so funny already. “Aw, don’t you worry your pretty little head, filly!” she reassured. “Y’ain’t got nothing to worry about! Mama’s already pinned all of it on that no good bastard Jagged Knife!”

“Pardon? I’m not sure I heard that right. Are you commending me on a job well done?”

“No need to be bashful. You’ve done real fine work, darling! Never did like them much anyways! Those zombies might’ve provided a valuable service in the city, but Fester and his ghoul boys skirted their dues and cut a bit too much off the top too often for my liking. Plus their side dealings were disrupting my business interests at the casino and that ain’t no good! Dodge City will be better off for it, and it’s thanks to you!”

“Yeah. Um, I appreciate that and all, but why…?” I asked again.

“Aw, hush!” she chided, trotting right up to me. “Enough with those silly pleasantries, y’hear?“ She had on a warm smile not unlike a parent looks at their foal. “From now on just call me Mama.” As she squished my face between her hooves I was feeling even more confused than ever. “After Gamble told me everything, I just knew I had to speak with you mare to mare. I had a feeling he wouldn’t steer me wrong when he picked you! What a sweetheart he is! Ain’t you just the cutest lil’ thing?” She beamed. I was feeling extremely conflicted about this. Was it too late for me to escape out the door?

“Is that the reason you called me here, Miss Mayor?” I asked, still extremely confused while she was still rubbing my cheeks.. It was more than a little uncomfortable with her acting so nonchalant around me, especially with her olive green cyber-griffon bodyguard leaned up against the wall, silently watching, with a bemused smirk on his face. He was really the only factor unaccounted for in this. All I could really gather from him was his past association with Fillydelphia due to the faded insignia on his cybernetic arm. When she finally released me, I was allowed to breathe again.

“Please, call me Mama, won’t ya?” she urged, wearing a big smile.

“Right… um, didn’t you tell everyone that Jagged was the one who did that, Mama?” I asked, tacking on that last bit awkwardly.

She smiled deviously. “That’s cus I couldn’t let this opportunity go to waste.”

The griffon interrupted us, rapping a talon over his cybernetic arm impatiently. It was marked by a red eye-mark insignia on the shoulder which connected into the shoulder socket. “Why don’t you let me go after him, Rubi? Those are the terms of my contract,” he urged. “It isn’t good to have loose ends running around. I’ve heard there’s a skyranger in town looking into it too. Could lead back to you if you’re not careful.”

“Pay you no mind to all that! Trust me darlin, I’ve got this handled.” The Mayor told him, dismissing her griffon bodyguard with a wave of her hoof. “Now be a dear and leave us, Sharp Eye?” she requested, continuing to smile at me in a strange and overly-friendly manner.

The griffon jeered in annoyance. “So you’re gonna leave it to this rookie then? Fine. Tell me once you’ve finally come around to your senses.” He fell on all fours and shot me a dirty at me, scraping his cyber talon on across the floor as he passed me. The door shut closed behind him, leaving me alone with the smiling mare.

“Uh, I think you’ve got the wrong pony.” I said. “I’m nopony special.”

She scoffed. “Oh, please! I know full well enough that Jagged couldn’t pull off a move like that on his own. Fightin’ off Papa Bighoof’s raiders on your lonesome? Blowing up a gang of ferals in an irradiated mine! Mama knows everything about you. I know everything there is to know about you. From what Gamble’s been telling me, some of the things you’ve accomplished by yourself are downright amazing. I could use a pony like that!”

My ears flattened. “Wait,” I replied, “you know...?”

Rubi got up from her desk and walked up behind me brushing my face with her tail. “Of course I know! No need to be so humble in front of your mama, darling!” she came up close behind me and began rubbing my shoulders. “I dunno where in the wastes you came from, but I know greatness when I see it!”

She was getting a little too close into my personal space for my liking.

“Tell me, sweetheart. Did you ever have any parents?” I shook my head and she began to brush my mane. “Aw, poor thing. Ain’t you a cutie though. You look just like me at your age. I should buy you a pretty dress and curl your mane up all nice-like. Get you looking like proper lady!” I couldn’t see any resemblance personally. The last thing I wanted was to find out I was secretly related to a drug running mafioso ringleader this whole time.

“Did you need something from me?” I asked, not really buying into her act.

She groaned aloud. “I’ll cut right to chase, sweetheart. I’ll pay you ten thousand caps if you kill Jagged Knife.”

“Hubbasaywhut now?” Um. Did I hear that right? “How much?” I asked her to repeat.

“Fine. Make it twenty thousand,” she said and my mouth nearly dropped to the floor. “I want him dead, darling. He knows too much about my internal operations, and with everything I’ve worked for up until now on the line, it just don’t make no sense leaving a liability like that amongst the living.” She reiterated to me how important this job was. “I’m giving you a very generous proposition here, you understand? You can even have his job after you’re done! Just no more explosions from now on, okay?”

I agreed in utter confusion. “I, uh, promise. Why me though?”

The mare grinned. “Like I said, I know greatness when I see it!” She declared, taking great care to make sure her mane remained styled every two seconds. Rubi led me to the factory overseers window and draped her foreleg around the back of my neck. She pressed a button, causing the factory lines to light up. “Tell me, Roulette. What do you see down there?”

“Weapons?” I shrugged.

“Industry,” she corrected. “I ain’t stupid. I can see where this wasteland is going. Moreover, I want a say in how things are going to be run from now on. Only fair that I get what I deserve!” Rubi spoke matter-of-factly, as though she were truly entitled to everything the wasteland had to offer. “Stroke of genius, if I do say so myself! I secretly got all my ponies lined up to work the NCR’s factories while Gawdy wasn't looking. She might not be taking my demands seriously now, but this big dustup with Papa Bighoof was just the excuse I needed. One word from me, and I can bring her entire industry to a grinding halt! We’ll see how long she lasts with raiders breathing down her neck, and when she’s got no guns or resources to fight em with!” she snickered deviously. “See, darling? Everyone has a price. Sometimes you just gotta use a little extra leverage.”

As I watched the mare speak, I tried to wrap my head around what I was hearing. My mind was stuck. All I could think of was that this was way higher than I could’ve imagined when I started chasing after simple raiders conducting hits on caravans.

“To me, there’s only one thing that matters: that I’m always on top…. I just got this one final loose end to tie up. Then once the NCR agrees to all of my demands, I’ll be free to take over Gawdy’s little charity project for myself. Without even firing a shot! Sure, it might take a while. A corrupt official here, a bribed worker there, but I always get what I want.”

“How do you even have that kind of money?” I asked in bewilderment. “Did you rob a pre-war bank?”

Rubi laughed out loud at the mere suggestion. “You’re such a card! That’s easy, I acquired a bunch of Ironclad Firearms weapon schematics used during the war and sold em off to Gawdyna to help kickstart Dodge City, then made double the money selling those same weapons to other ponies who wanted em on the side. Weapons trade is always a booming market in the wasteland. But all I really needed, was to make sure the mines and the steel refineries were operational for Gawdy to open up trade negotiations. Their steel shortages just made em easy pickings. Dumbasses. Word of advice: never negotiate from weakness, sweetie. I just built things up from there, the rest is history! The gangs and mercs all serving my interests came after that, now this whole city is practically one big money machine, with me at the top! And I don’t plan on letting go of that any time soon… Red Eye’s time is over. Soon ponies across the wasteland are gonna know the name Rubi Royale!”

The mayor marvelled at the factory’s long line of weapons and stockpiles of ammo, infatuated with whatever twisted imagery she’d conjured up inside her imagination. After she finished her super-villain speech I was at last given a chance to get a word in. “What about all the ponies in Dodge City?” I asked. “Don’t they hate the NCR?”

She appeared mostly unmoved. “Most of them are bandits or outlaws with pre-established bounties from the New Canterlot Republic, so what happens to them is none of my concern.” she replied disinterestedly. “All the other gangs in the city have already signed onto my plan, except for the Mercenary's Guild, but they’ll have no choice but to come around. For now, just keep it on the downlow until the deal goes through.”

I stood still, nodding along. Hearing all of this straight from the mayor’s mouth was admittedly a lot to take in, but I still wanted to find out more about Sunny’s current standings with her.

“So then what did you need the password for?” I asked, seeing an opportunity.

Rubi wheeled around and shot me with a suspicious eye, “How do you know about that...?” she demanded.

Shit. “Uh... Jagged Knife mentioned it. Something about an Overmare?” I answered, playing dumb.

She bought it, thankfully. “Y’know what? Doesn’t matter.” She replied. “Guess it makes plenty of sense. Jagged always took a keen interest in that lil filly. I should probably put up more security up at the mansion just in that case. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, darling.”

My ears perked up again at hearing Accolade’s name mentioned. The more I learned about her, the further she baited my curiosity. Normal fillies don’t have eyes like that. I should know.

“No problem. So, uh, what’s it for?” I asked, trying my luck.

“Some bigshot from the NCR wanted whatever’s down there,” she replied with a dismissive hoof wave. “Supposed to be real hush-hush. Though, I suppose I didn’t need it after all. Despite this whole stunt, everything is playing out the way I want it to. So I’m considering just tossing that lil brat on the street calling it done, tell ya the truth. She’s been leeching off my hospitality for too long. In fact, we can forget about the password altogether. I’ll just have my boys bring down some heavy mining equipment and cut that door open with a thermic lance, lickity split-like. I only wanted to avoid damaging the wood floors, y’see? Historical Appleloosan architecture like that is so difficult to come by. Pity...” She pouted in sadness, clearly showing more remorse over the loss of artistry than tossing a poor filly out on the street. That alone nearly made me vomit inside my mouth.

“Hasn’t your caretaker been doing a good job?”

The mare’s patience began to grow short, a hint of annoyance barely present in her voice. Although she remained cheery and grinning from ear to ear, her mask was starting to slip a little. She wasn’t a mare who liked to hear no for an answer in any regard. “Well Sunny’s been a dear, and admittedly, I do like the idea of having an Enclave Scout’s daughter on my payroll, but I’ve got some interested parties in the wing who might want a word with her first. Funny, she just came under my employ a few days ago and now she’s gonna get me practically everything I was asking for! So if I had to answer...? It really depends on if she can make herself more useful than what they’re offering.” She smiled sweetly as my blood went cold. “Anyways, it’s nothing y’all need to concern yourself with, Roulette sweetie! It’s like your mama always says, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette! Now, about Jagged Knife?” She asked, batting her eyelashes.

“Uh, well with him on the run, how do you expect me to get close to him?”

Rubi dropped the facade entirely for a moment and spoke candidly with me. Her voice dropped into an almost threatening tone. “That’s your job to figure out.” she said. “See, I know Jagged Knife, and you were the only pony he let get close to him before. He’s wily like that. So I bet you’re the pony who can get close enough to kill him. You never send a stallion to do a mare’s job. That’s what I always say.” So that was the reason then. “So what do you say? You game?”

“I’ll need a new gun in that case...” I answered.

“Consider it done!” she reassured, smiling again happily at hearing the words she wanted to hear. Her ability to switch back and forth like that was impressive. “I’ll get you everything you need! Just say the word and your mama’s got you covered! See Brass Casing, and tell him that you're allowed to see the ‘special’ stock. Put it on my tab. You can even take a couple thousand bottle caps with you, in case he gives you any trouble.”

I nodded my head, barely listening as I accepted the huge upfront payment of caps with stars in my eyes. “Gotcha.”

“Jagged has been a major thorn in my side ever since he came to Dodge City. It was a mistake for me to take him in. I admit, I might’ve fallen for his charms once or twice…. You catch that no-good Jagged Knife and put a bullet in him for your mama, y’hear? It’s extra important to me that you put that sonofabitch in the dirt.” She trotted me over to a changing mirror where we stood side by side, while she admired the way she looked standing next to me. “Lookit you. Ain’t you a cutie? Like mother, like daughter. You look just like me when I was your age, pumpkin.” she marveled at. Then the mayor gave me a peck on the cheek, and began stroking my mane. I never knew what it was like to have a mother personally… but I was sure this wasn’t it. “Once he's dead, it'll be just you and me darling. There’ll be great things in your future.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” I said, still trying to imagine how all this was going to play out in my head.

“Please,” she insisted, “call me Mama.”

“Uh... Yes, Mama,” I corrected awkwardly.

Have you ever noticed how the ponies who are good at killing always ended up being the most sought after, for some reason? I noticed. I guess there’s value in a pony who can get results, regardless of who they are or what they’ve done. Ponies always say we’ve moved past that, but the wasteland was what I knew best. Sometimes you just happen to be in the right place at the right time.

After that semi-productive meeting with the mayor, I was allowed to leave, I felt even more uneasy than when it was only Jagged Knife that I had to deal with. I didn’t find Hotshot waiting for me outside either, so I figured he must’ve gone somewhere else. “Weird,” I thought. “He was so desperate to get my attention earlier.” Hopefully we’d meet up later and he could tell me if he found anything useful. I also had to figure out a totally-not-awkward way of telling him that I was just offered Jagged Knife’s job by the mayor.

They assigned me a pony named Deuce to work under me. He was a chubby grey earth pony with a thick jawline and a blaze on his snout. He was a good sort, as far as the Dodge City Gang folk went, if maybe a bit thick-headed and overly talkative at times. He followed me on my way out, but I quickly began to grow tired of his presence.

On my way to the Wrangler, I sent him to put in an order with Brass Casing to fix up my battle saddle and I’d meet with him in the morning. He gave a mock salute and “Yes, ma’am!” before galloping off on his task. Admittedly, it was good being the one in charge for once.

When I arrived back at the Wrangler, both Hawkins and Hotshot were absent from their usual spots, so I just went up to my room instead. Brandy asked me if I was doing alright but I ignored the poppy colored mare. I left her a hoofful of bottle caps for the night on the counter in order for her to collect.

As I lay on my bed staring up at the ceiling, having successfully paid my tab off thanks to the mayor’s generous upfront paycheck, I heard the rowdy ponies making a ruckus downstairs. The mayor had offered me free lodging up at Cherry Hill Ranch but I turned it down. The music and fighting somehow made me feel better, but also more alone again inside my head.

Finally left to my own thoughts, I briefly considered to myself if maybe my pegasus friend had the right idea. If this was the way things would be from now on, it made sense to get in on the ground floor. Right?

“That’s got to be the dumbest idea you’ve ever had...” I scoffed. Even though I was still hurting from what she said, I needed to warn her about the mayor’s plans. At the very least, I owed her that much.

My mind was too cloudy to think properly, so I just focused on that one spot on the ceiling until I managed to drift off.

In the morning, I awoke in my room and drew back the curtain without getting out of bed, staring outside at the Dodge City streets. I rubbed my eyes, yawning, but was jolted awake in an instant by a sudden loud commotion coming from downstairs.

I quickly got up and went outside my room to look over the railing. The annoying unicorn that I had become frustratingly-familiar with was casually sipping on a drink he had lifted off of Brandy. Others had stood up from there chairs, surrounding him while he smugly ignored them.

“Ah, just the pony I wanted to see,” said the smug looking raider, grinning up at me.

I uttered a solitary word in anger. “Sting...”

Brandy raised her hoof threateningly which he barely acknowledged with a passing glance. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, sitting there all smug-like!” the poppy mare growled.

I rushed downstairs, putting my armor on over my jacket as I went, and stood in front of the raider. He turned to face me with a flip of his midnight green mane, and an extremely punchable look on his face as usual. “What do you want?” I asked.

“How’s your girlfriend doing?” he laughed. Suffice to say, I was already in a bad enough mood without him showing his ugly face.

“Need me to punch your other eye out?” I spat.

The pony chuckled back gingerly. “I’m only the messenger, Girly,” he told me. “The boss wants to speak with you alone. You know the spot…. Later.” I had no idea where he was referring to at first, but before I could ask, Sting’s horn flashed again and he blinked out of existence, leaving me very annoyed and confused. The other patrons who were previously crowded around him looked at me for answers.

“I’ll be back.” I growled marching outside.

“Glad you could make it.” Jagged greeted me from a shadowed booth in the Hole in the Wall, balancing the single poker-chip-like device on the tip of his hoof out of boredom. It didn’t take me long to figure it out. It was dark in the saloon, even for this time of day. The piss smell of the dingy place filled my nostrils. It didn’t take too long for me to figure out what he meant, thankfully. “Seems the horseshoe is on the other hoof. Now you’re the one who’s doing mayor’s dirty work...”

I scoffed, stepping towards him. “Screw off. What’s to say I don’t just shoot you right here?” I asked. As I strode over to Jagged Knife, all the other patrons funneled out of the establishment so it was just me and him. Likely a few of them went to get the local law. “After what you put me through in the mine? I ought to call the mayor’s goons in here and have you arrested.”

Drawing out my pistol, I pointed it at the raider stallion, but he just smirked back and I realized that sort of intimidation tactic wasn’t going to work on him. I noticed he was wearing his wasteland jacket again. The one with his insignia sewn onto the shoulder. Still, he looked more...disheveled than usual. I probably screwed things up, big time for him.

Checking over my shoulder again in suspicion, I couldn’t see anypony else. It felt like a setup, but Jagged Knife was quick to alleviate my worst fears. “Simmer down. It’s just the two of us,” he promised.

I put my gun away and pulled my hoof back. “No funny business, or else you get punched.” I swore, then I sat down across from him. I watched in annoyance as he casually tried on one of the hats that a bar patron had left behind, silently judging his appearance before throwing it off in disgust. “You’ve got only until the Dodge City Gang gets here,” I said. “Now talk!”

He leaned in close to me, his face gnarled like a mad dog. “Hold on, I’m still trying to piece this together for myself. You just so happened to botch a caravan raid and then you come running after my boys into raider country, meet up with the professor who’s supposed to be dead. Then you have a lil’ meet and greet with the NCR, and you followed me across the Wasteland all the way to Dodge City. Do I have all that right?”

“More or less.” I scoffed. “Why? Didn’t Sting already tell you all about me?”

“Only the basic rundown. So how about you tell me, who the hell you are then?” he demanded.

“Name’s Roulette.” I told him again. “Nopony worth mentioning.”

His normally placid demeanor flared. “Bullshit. No normal pony could live through all that! Tell me who you really are!” He snarled back, leaning inward. “First, half my gang betrays me. Now Rubi’s sent every goddess-damned gang in the city after me! And all I’ve got to show for it is this little bargaining chip. Tell me your angle. Just to fuck with me?”

I leaned backwards, kicking my hooves up on the table. “Yeah, I guess I am pretty rad when you think about it,” I smirked, “but you’re also conveniently leaving out the whole ‘trying to kill me’ part...”

“That’s the point of a ‘test’.” Jagged argued sardonically. Hardly an acceptable answer from my point of view. “I’m relatively sure we haven’t met before. Thanks to you though, I didn’t have to go down there and get it myself,” he admitted.

“You went through a lot of trouble for that thing. What’s it for?” I demanded.

“No idea.” he shrugged forthcomingly, balancing the poker-chip sized device on the tip of his foreleg, then made it disappeared with some sleight-of-hoof. “Just figured it’d be worth something.”

I snorted. “I’m starting to see why your gang was taking issue with your leadership.” I spat out, and he laughed. “I heard about your little hit on the Republic a while back. How you lied about your brush with the Lightbringer to gain notoriety?” When I mentioned the Lightbringer again his eyes suddenly glinted at me, showing off his killer. At least somepony in the wasteland could put the fear of Celestia in him.

Then a wry smile crept across Jagged Knife’s face as he recollected the memories, stroking his goatee. “Ah, yes. It’s all about maintaining a fearsome reputation. Less young punks looking to prove themselves when they think you’re gonna gut em for looking at you funny,” he replied.

“...”

He chuckled in disbelief. “Heh, you aren’t going to go all goody four horse-shoes on me, are you? Trust me, they had it coming.”

“...Nah. That’s how the wasteland is.” I replied soberly. Although, there was an almost bitter curiosity that I needed to sate. “Are any of them still alive?”

“The adults? Nah.” he shrugged, levitating a knife from a leather sheath in his coat and waving it around whimsically. It was wicked and serrated. The exact sort of knife a pony like him would carry around. “After I didn’t get what I was looking for, I cut that stuck-up pegasus asshole’s wings off and slit his throat for good measure. Watched him choke to death on his own blood. Left the kids alive to let the wasteland deal with them. Only the strongest or the smartest survive.” As he recounted he mimicked slashing motions as to how he performed each slice. “Edgy stayed behind with a few others. We’d had one too many screwups for his taste, lately. Others agreed. You’ve heard the rest of that story, I’m sure. Reckon some of those fillies and colts are still alive somewhere back in New Canterlot.” Jagged put the knife away under his coat again, reminiscing. “Edgy was a good underling. Bit of a psychopath and with a thing for fillies, but then raiders never were the most mentally stable bunch. Chems addle the brain over years of continued use.”

“Boo-fucking-hoo.” I mocked. “Seems like most of your friends have a high mortality rate, Jagged.”

“Didn’t get as much as I was hoping for out of that job, but perhaps I found one or two useful things out of it… And you just so happen to have a connection to Radar too?” He grinned wickedly in response.

“Yeah, what of it?” I spat, getting further annoyed when he didn’t say anything. I blew smoke, raising from my seat. “Quit screwing with me! What the hell are you after?!” I demanded.

“I already told you. I want to retire,” he answered freely.

“Ponies like you don’t get to retire!” I shouted, losing my cool. “You’re the one who sparked off that conflict between Papa Bighoof and the NCR and sent me through hell! The one who killed Cottontail, and got me caught up in all this shit!”

“Personally, I think you give me too much credit,” he chuckled.

“If you were really planning to retire, then why don’t you do the obvious thing and hang up your pistol? At least pretend to show a little Luna-damned remorse, huh?!”

He shrugged, making mock apology. “Sorry, but it has to be this way. Do you really think that ponies in the NCR would let me live after what I done?” I sat unmoved. To me, that was more his problem than mine. “How do you know that you’re not the final loose end to tie up once I’m done? You know how Rubi is.” he asked. To that, I honestly didn’t have a good answer, though I figured I had a better shot dealing with her than with present company. At least talons stuck to their contract. “Tsk, tsk. So hard to find ponies you can trust nowadays...”

I squinted. “I’m sure it’s so hard.”

“Let’s use what limited time we have, shall we?” he suggested, and the flickering light seemed to agree. I plopped my rump back down in acquiescence, crossing my hooves, leaning back. “You have questions. That’s the only reason you didn’t come in guns blazing. Lucky you, I’ve got all the dirt on Rubi the NCR needs, but if I die, then you won’t learn anything or even have a chance at stopping her. That includes about potential connections to the Enclave and Radar I might have.”

I sat there wondering to myself what a raider could even know about them. “Do you know what’s in that R&D Lab? Is that what you’ve been after?” I asked, attempting to put two and two together.

Jagged was barely able to contain his laughter, “Nah. Whatever it is, likely won’t be of any help to Rubi either,” he replied. Always hinting that he knew something, but never revealing what. He really knew how to push my buttons. When I asked him for more he just grinned and answered mysteriously, “Who knows?” Maybe he already knew what was down there. No, he was just trying to bait me.

“That’s not going to work on me…” I snarled. “If I kill you, then maybe things will settle down. Everything can go back to the way it was.”

The seasoned raider smiled again, this time the flickering lights making him look almost snake-like in appearance. “You should know better than that. Things can never go back to the way they were.”

My eyes shot off to the side in annoyance and they fell to the ground, as I scowled. “And why should I accept that? Give me one good reason why I should give a shit?”

“You want to know?” he asked, calmly calling my bluff. “Then come on one last job with me. That’s my only condition.”

“You think I’m going to play your little game?” I asked, meeting his ice cold eyes with my fiery ones.

“I’m meeting with my supplier before I high tail it out of Dodge City. Just wanted to let you know. You can come of own accord, and you’ll get your answers then, but only then. Up to you whether you want them or not.”

“Tch.”

We could both sense we didn’t have much longer. The mayor’s thugs were likely making their way here as we spoke.

“Y’know,” He sneered a wicked grin. “I think, I finally understand what you are.”

“And what’s that…?”

Jagged Knife raised his brow and replied, “That fire in your eyes. You’re a killer, like I am. It’s easy to see.”

My face contorted in anger. “You and I are nothing alike.”

“Ponies like us… the wasteland is a part of us. It’s in our blood. It ain’t so easy to change your nature after you’ve already lived it.”

“You don’t know me…” I exhaled.

“You want to kill me bad right now. I can feel it.” He teased.

“It’s awfully tempting.” I spat sarcastically. “No deal! Cut the crap and tell me what you’re planning already!”

Jagged didn’t answer. Instead his ears perk up and he stood up from the table. He casually looked down and grabbed another hat off the floor in an aura of telekinesis, trying it on and looking at himself in disgust before donning a black coat over himself. “If you're not satisfied with your answers, then go ahead and kill me after it’s done. That’ll solve both our problems.” he said, heading towards the back of the establishment and drawing out his plasma pistol. “Meet me at Gallows Rock outside of town, after the sun reaches its highest point. Come alone. Don’t be late.”

Jagged waited near the back door of the establishment, plasma pistol drawn, just as enforcers from the Dodge City Gang stormed into the Hole-in-the-Wall wearing the rotten star of the law.

“You’ll never take me alive!” he bellowed, firing eldritch green blasts at the front entrance before darting out the back. Others galloped after him.

He must’ve thought I was stupid or something. I watched him in stunned silence, until I realized there were other dustered ponies watching. I quickly turned to face them and put on a gruff voice. “Uh, he got me with a stun spell... !” I lied. “Caught me off guard. Heh, I didn’t know he could do that sort of magic. Damn unicorns, am I right?” The others easily accepted that excuse, nodding amongst themselves in agreement.

Deuce shoved his way to the front of the crowd to praise me. “Wow, I saw it all Roulette! That was amazing! You almost had him!” He cheered enthusiastically. “Don’t worry, we’ll get him next time, guys!”

Pacing helps me think, so I took the long way back to the Wrangler. Deuce followed closely. What Jagged Knife said really weighed in the back of my head. Even though he was a rotten scumbag, the bastard had a sharp tongue and knew how to get under my skin.

Ponies whispered rumors about what had been going on, and strange suspicious glances were thrown at me as I passed. Shooting a look back at them made them act as though they had been looking elsewhere. I had to admit, it was interesting how ponies were now standing out of my way.

Not only was there Jagged, but there was also the mayor to worry about. At least I actually knew what she was planning, even if I had no fucking clue what to do about it. I was just one pony though. What the hell was I supposed to do? I stopped and groaned aloud in frustration.

“You say something, boss?” Deuce asked readily.

Oops. “No, it was nothing,” I replied. I had grown too used to being on my own in these past months.

Glancing for a second at my brother’s gun holstered to my leg, I paused, then looked back at the chubby grey earth pony. “Hey, you knew Jagged Knife for a while, right? What do you know about him?”

He was apparently caught off guard a little. “Uh, not much to be frank,” he admitted, rubbing his head in embarrassment. “Jagged was never the open-book type. You’re a lot nicer than he is though! He always used to threaten to gut me for talking too much.”

Not sure if I appreciated the compliment, I kept walking ahead and sent him go check on my order again. Telling him I’d meet him at the gun store.

After I stepped through the double doors of the Wrangler, I saw ponies crowded around the radio, listening to DJ Pon3 for radio updates on the situation. Or at least trying to. One of them pounded on it to clear out the static, but unfortunately there were only a bunch of weird unrelated news stories.

“Put on the New Canterlot Trade Reports! Maybe Daily Day knows something!” Another pony shouted, but as I sauntered back into the saloon, they stopped what they were doing and their heads turned to watch me. My eyes were locked on my usual spot which had been conveniently left open for me, where both Hotshot and Hawkins were in the middle of a heated debate over whether a single sniper shot she made against a raider once was actually possible.

"Twelve-hundred meters! No joke. Had to time my breathing between my wing-flaps and everything. Freefall, fire, then caught myself. Boom! Headshot." She boasted. “Superior griffon eyesight.”

Hotshot remained unconvinced. "That's next to impossible if you account for wind resistance, coriolis force, humidity and about a dozen other factors," he argued.

Hawkins looked stunned for a moment. Then she scowled looked away. "…Okay it was a thousand," she admitted, ever-so-slightly irked at being called out as Hotshot beamed victoriously.

“Good to see you two getting along,” I spat sarcastically.

Before I could even ask him where he had gone off to last night, Hawkins greeted me first. “Hey there, Dirt Muncher. What’s with the mood?” She joked, taking a long drink of Moonshine. “How’d the lil’ meet n’ greet go?”

“...”

Staring at the griffon skyranger in irritation, I had begun to grow more suspicious of her intentions. Doubly so, after my conversation with the mayor.

“I said, ‘hey there’,” she squinted back at me.

I uttered under my breath, “By the way, I heard some things you might be interested to know. Or more like, there are some things I want to know from you.”

The griffon stopped what she was doing and turned around to face me, the two of us getting into a minor stare-off. “Oh?” She snorted. “And what are those?”

Hotshot turned and whispered into my ear, “Uh, Roulette, we should probably get out of here…”

“Shut up.” I scoffed. “What are you worried about?”

Then I noticed the unusual silence, causing me to take a second to peek over my shoulder, where all of the mercenaries and vagrants who made up the bars’ usual patrons seemed to have stopped what they were doing as well to listen in. The card players had all paused their game, leaning inwards with anticipation.

“Hold up a sec...” I said, putting our conversation on hold. “Um, you guys need something?”

“Hey, don’t mind us!” One of them said. “Keep talking.”

My eyebrows arched in confusion.

Suddenly, a white cowboy unicorn stallion wearing a serape came up and leaned against the bar next to me, shoving Hotshot to the side.

“Why hello there lil senorita,” he smirked, tipping his hat with his magic. My pegasus friend scowled in annoyance, as my random admirer brushed his dark mane from his face seductively. “I couldn’t help but overhear about your daring exploits around Dodge City. That’s a pretty nice Stable-Tec issue ten mil’ you got there, if I do say so myself. They call me: Lone Hoof, the Gun Hunter.” I could see that he was hiding all sorts of weapons underneath his poncho.

My face was left somewhere between disgust and confusion, with a minor hint of wanting-to-punch-someone. “Uh…thanks?”

“And I’m Wild Iron!” The minotaur flexed, bowling ponies over to show off his hulking pecs and biceps. I backed away slowly as he posed and spoke in a booming voice, only to find another of the bar patrons in my personal space.

“Do you guys have brain damage?” I asked warily.

“We’ve just got a vested interest in what happens in Dodge City.” A mercenary stallion revealed.

Then some raider-looking mare added, “Every time something crazy happens here, you’re somehow in the middle of it! Things ain’t been this interesting in months!” I supposed that made sense, though it was still hard to believe that I had built up that much of a reputation so quickly.

“Yeah, we’re trustworthy! So tell us!” Shouted another pony from across the room. Then they all gave a collective “Yeehaw”.

“Oh. Um, thanks I don’t know what to say.” I said feeling embarrassed, rubbing the back of my mane at the room full of newfound admirers. Even though I had been coming here for the last couple days, I barely had taken the time to know any of them.

“That story about you trying to help your friend is just… so beautiful!” The minotaur sniffed, wiping a tear from his eye. “If that isn’t true friendship, I don’t know what is!”

“Wait, where did you hear that?” I asked, but instead everyone crowded around me, flooding me with questions. I attempted to look around at the ponies in the saloon. Something was wrong.

Hawkins appeared annoyed at the others pushing her and Hotshot aside to get to me, pointing a gun in some hapless pony’s face.

Wild Iron leaned in close with bottle caps in his eyes, pushing Hotshot out of the way. “I heard that the mayor is offering up a ton of money to kill Jagged Knife, that true?” Smoke blew out of his nostrils in excitement.

I put on a cocky smirk as I took a seat and ordered up a drink from the bar and answered him. “Oh, yeah. It’s all true. The mayor wants him dead, see? So she’s paying me to put that old hasbeen in the dirt.”

“So it’s all true then? Everything?” Another pony I wasn’t paying attention to asked from the crowd.

“Yup! All of it.” I replied confidently.

“Y’hear that? All of it’s true!” one of them shouted over to the others. “She says the mayor’s gonna sell us out to the NCR!” Ponies outside heard it as well.

My ears shot up in astonishment. “Wait. What?! That’s not what I said!”

Then the entire saloon erupted into a riot of shouts and obscenities.

“Screw the mayor!” shouted another one furiously while I made a futile effort to try and calm them down. A pony threw a bottle that nearly missed my head and I shot a dirty look around, searching for whoever threw it. Things quickly devolved into anarchy and confusion from there.

The confused minotaur looked around uncertain. “Uh, oh... NCR? Hold up, I owe Gawdyna a ton of money too! What am I supposed to do guys?”

Unfortunately, I had also neglected to notice the Steel Ranger Renegades who I met when I first moseyed into town, were also sitting in the bar that day.

Bombshell appeared to be a rather feminine, red-coated, earth pony mare with a stripe on her snout, and a luxurious blonde mane. More than I would’ve expected underneath that T-51b helmet, since she had the personality of a hellhound. She raised herself up and pointed at me accusingly. “That earth pony bitch was wearing NCR uniform when she first trotted in here, and I’ve seen her going back and forth between them and the Mayor! Now, isn’t that suspicious?” She sneered, and I heard shouts of agreement from the crowd.

They stopped and turned to look at me, smelling blood in the air. Threats of violence and vile obscenities spewed towards me as Bombshell and her crew stood up, enjoying the spectacle of some poor NCR saps about to get torn limb from limb.

Immediately sensing danger, Hawkins drew out her revolver and pointed it at the crowd of oncoming patrons to prevent them going for their weapons, and making distance between us. “Back the fuck away from the mare, dirtbags!” She snarled. Lone Hoof stopped short of drawing out his own gun with his magic, seeing Hawkin’s massive hand cannon pointed in his face, and she cocked back the hammer in response to his annoying commentary on the pristine quality.

I dropped into a fighting stance, having only slight reservations about getting my hooves dirty here. “I can probably take them.” I thought, looking back and forth between them. “Maybe that hulking minotaur in front of me? Yeah, he doesn’t look so tough,” I agreed with myself, cracking my neck. Glancing around, I noticed Hotshot had also disappeared from my side and I couldn’t see where he’d gone. Dammit.

No matter how fast and accurate Hawkins was, there were more than six ponies here. They had the exit blocked off and surrounded us. Meanwhile, Bombshell was grinning like the frigid bitch she was, content on letting the angry patrons handle us. It looked like there was a possibility we might need to fight our way out of this. We both glanced at each other and seemed to be thinking the same thing. “Just my luck. I’ve already been having a pretty shit day, today. It’d be nice to get a break once in a while.” I exhaled.

In retrospect, maybe making our home base the main saloon in town wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.

Nobody moved from their spot. Sweat crept down our necks.

Then there was the click of a shotgun cocking next to the skyranger’s head. “Drop the weapon, Talon.” Appleshot Brandy demanded. Hawkins groaned, but complied, sticking her gun underneath her bandolier and put her claws in the air. I waited, hoping that someone would come through that door to bail us out. Then the poppy mare turned to the others. “The rest of you too! We don’t do that here!” Everyone in the saloon murmured and moaned putting their weapons away. A few turned back to their seats, feeling dejected.

“Actually, it’s ‘Skyranger’ now…” Hawkins corrected, aggravated amongst the crowd of murmurs.

The Radgoat who was serving as hired muscle for Brandy raised his head and spit out the tin can he had been chewing, then immediately went back to… whatever he was doing, now that the situation was handled.

Bombshell was the only one who seemed to still have a problem. “Are you kidding me?! They’re NCR! They deserve everything coming to ‘em!” She argued looking dumbfounded, and there was some agreement from a few ponies. Especially from the her merry band of Steel Ranger rejects, trying to take advantage of the situation.

Brandy was quick to silence them though. “No. That ain’t our way!” She declared. “This mare ain’t the one responsible. Even if she was, killing her wouldn’t do ya no good.”

Still unsatisfied, the steelclad mare stepped forward and pointed her armored hoof at me. “We rangers are offering up a five hundred bottle cap bounty to the one who offs this bitch!” She declared boldly. It was chump-change as far as bounties went, but she was probably hoping for any pony desperate enough to consider it.

The barmare spat back, further admonishing her. “Don’t be daft! Anyone here knows you’d have to be crazy to accept that job! Five hundred alone is hardly worth the blowback you’d get from the Dodge City Gang!” This seemed to calm down most of the others.

Bombshell spat sideways, glaring at her. Then she donned her helmet, deciding to usher her little squadron out the door with her, but not before making one last threatening pass at me, telling me to watch myself.

Hawkins smirked and waved as the Steel Ranger left. “Sorry. Better luck next time, steel-rejects,” she mocked, causing the steel-clad mare to wheel back around.

Drawing up her autocannon briefly, the steel ranger snarled. “I bet I could take you one-on-one, Talon...” she growled, but the skyranger’s smirk just widened.

“Try me,” she grinned. I hated to admit it, but I liked this side of her.

“Not in here!” Gin pleaded, waving his hooves. “Who the hell do you think has to pay for all the damages?!”

I could almost feel the Bombshell’s eyes boring into me from underneath her helmet, but perhaps feeling as though it wasn’t worth it right now, she powered down her cannon and walked out the door. A collection of metal stomps followed out behind her.

I let out a small breath of relief.

After she’d gone, Appleshot shouted at the crowd. “Stop crowding her and let her speak,” she demanded, folding her hooves. I felt like all of their peering eyes were locked onto me, waiting on my next word. “From what we’ve been hearing, the mayor is planning on selling us all out to the NCR. Do you know anything about that, mare?”

“What have you heard?” I asked her, ignoring the pegasus’ strange and desperate hoof gestures. Was that supposed to be some kind of weird pegasus mating ritual? I shot him a funny look, telling him to “shut up” and he face hoofed.

“That’s what that feller who was in here earlier was telling us. Not sure why you both lied to my face yesterday, but I ain’t surprised.” Brandy informed me. Sting was involved in this? Shit.

“I wasn’t lying. I mean, she’s been in negotiations with the NCR for months…” I replied. “This shouldn’t come as a surprise.”

The mare’s eyes narrowed. “So that’s how it is…”

Hotshot appeared at my side again, and leaned over to whisper into my ear. “That bit about the selling out the town? Jagged’s been spreading that rumor all morning.”

My ears fell flat. “Why didn’t you warn me earlier?!” I demanded.

“That’s what I was trying to do!”

“Fuck me. I’m an idiot.” I thought, and facehoofed.

Appleshot climbed onto the bartop to address all the Dodge City denizens crowded around us. “Listen up! We’ve known this was coming for a while!” she shouted as everyone else stopped to listen. “I dunno about you, but I ain’t gonna stand for it anymore! Rubi’s gotten away with treating us like dirt for too long! Now she thinks she can sell us out to the NCR?! New or old, we’re all Dodge City folk!”

Most of them cheered in support, with some calling out for blood from the NCR and the Dodge City Gang.

“I’m gonna go around, roundin’ up as many as I can, to do what we should’ve done from the start! Probably can’t count on Brass Casing, since it don’t matter to that pony who’s in charge, so long as he’s making money, but I still know a few in this town who might be willing to support the cause! If we can get the Merc’s Guild on our side, our chances’ll be even greater!”

The crowd was beginning to rile up again, and ponies outside were joining in. Meanwhile, Hawkins and I were feeling exceedingly uncomfortable being placed in such a dicey spot. At least we had something we could agree on for once.

Her father Gin urged calm, attempting to be the voice of reason, “This ain’t nothing worth dying over, sweetie!” He called, but the mare shook her head. Her voice was filled with purpose now.

“I ain’t taking Apple Whiskey’s offer,” she replied, her voice filled with purpose. “This has gone on for long enough.”

“C’mon, be reasonable!”

“Y’know, maybe I’m a silly filly for wishing all the guns were gone from Equestria, but ponies like Rubi only understand one thing. Sometimes you have to take a stand for what you believe in. Maybe none of this would’ve happened if I’d been wiser back then, or y’all hadn’t been too scared to pick up your guns. She’d still be alive too... Don’t worry though. There won’t be no blood. Not if I have anything to say about it.”

“Let’s go boys!” She cried, accompanied by cheers and shouts. The barmare glanced down at me one last time, “Since we’re squared up, clear your things out from my upstairs, Mare.” Brandy informed me. “I don’t ever want to see your face again.”

I nodded, unable to think of another reply, and watched them funnel out of the Dodge City Wrangler, Brandy marching alongside the huge crowd of ponies. She put up a ‘we’re closed’ sign on her way out, leaving the bar practically empty. Drinks were left out in the open and tables overturned.

Hotshot gave a huge sigh of relief, nearly collapsing on the floor from the tense stress of that situation.

Her aged father leaned against the counter and pulled out a handkerchief, wiping his forehead. “Well, this brings back memories.” He exhaled, then turned to his hired muscle. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off, Musk?” he suggested, causing the radgoat to snort and leave as well. Then Gin began cleaning up the mess left behind, alone, polishing the countertop where his daughter just stood on.

“Alright, that could’ve gone better…” I admitted.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Gin sighed. “This has been building for a while.”

“Thanks for the backup back there, Mohawk!” I added with sarcasm. “You totally left me hanging!”

“I didn’t leave though…” he argued in his defense. “I’m not a hoof brawler like you.”

I rolled my eyes and noticed a cloaked NCR unicorn trooper standing in the doorway. He found the place mostly empty to his surprise, and trotted straight up to me. Then he gave a small salute. “Miss Roulette?” he acknowledged.

I facehoofed. “Jeez... you couldn’t possibly have worse timing, could you?”

“Sorry ma’am,” he replied indifferently. “Lieutenant Ginger Gale requested that you meet her at the territorial HQ.”

I scoffed. “You mean the train station?” These griffon and NCR-types were always keeping to protocol. I glanced at Hawkins who wasn’t saying anything but had her eyes locked on me and the soldier. “Fine. Tell her I’ll be there soon.” I told him, and he quickly departed with the message.

“So is all of that stuff about Rubi true?” Hotshot asked me.

I buried my head in my hooves and groaned. “Yeah, all of it...” I grumbled.

The pegasus went wide-eyed, “Damn. That bitch is seriously bad news. I mean, I should know.”

“She belongs in a Power Ponies comic.” I agreed. “Too bad, there’s no magical way to just make her disappear and everyone goes back to singing happy songs, right?” I grinned.

Hawkins chimed in humorlessly. “Ironically, if anyone were in a good position to assassinate her, it’d be someone technically not with the NCR. Someone who wouldn’t get bound up in red tape…”

That wasn’t what I meant. “Oh, I’m sure it’d make things much easier on you,” I growled, none too appreciative of that insinuation.

The griffon shrugged casually. “Hey, I’m just saying. We have rules and regulations we have to abide by. In a way, you’re lucky you still get to play by wasteland rules.”

“You make it sound so damn easy. And I don’t suppose there’d be plenty of pissed off ponies looking for someone to pin the blame, huh?” I asked her. When she didn’t give me a clear answer one way or the other, I became increasingly irritated. By wasteland standards Rubi had it coming, but I wasn’t in a rush to win the idiot awards. To be honest though, I wasn’t really gaining any sudden sparks of inspiration either. “And I don’t suppose you have a take?”

She sipped the last of her remaining booze and huffed. “Sorry, it isn’t my place to get involved. True, the mayor’ll cause big problems for the NCR in the long run, no doubt about it, but… eh, orders are orders. I’m only here for one thing.” The griff’s response was somehow even more frustrating given the situation. I scowled at her general unhelpfulness.

Hotshot, being the good wingpony he was steered the topic of conversation back to the task at hoof. “So do you know where Jagged Knife’s going to be?” He asked.

“Great suggestion, featherhead!” Hawkins grinned cheekily. “How about we focus on offing Jagged for now? Simple. You got no problem with capping raiders, right, dirt muncher?” She said, giving me a mocking jab with her elbow. “I know I ain’t got no problem with putting a bullet in some raider wife’s poor raider-husband. “Oh no, how am I ever going to put enough defiled pony corpses on the table to feed little junior McStabby?!””

I squinted back at her, unamused. “Would you just shut up, already? And quit calling me that...” I growled. Then I held my face and grumbled aloud. “Ugh... Jagged Knife wants me to come on some stupid job with him, out in the middle of the stupid desert...”

My pegasus companion frowned, pointing out the obvious. “You’d have to be stupid to take him up on that. Sounds like a trap to me...”

“Yeah, no duh.” I replied flatly. “But if he’s retiring anyways, why should I even be bothered to kill the bastard? Especially if that’d only help Rubi.”

My grim outlook on the matter only caused the skyranger to rather annoyingly point out, “We can’t pick and choose just cus it’s convenient. Some ponies just need to be put down. You saw firsthoof what he did.”

That sounded like the complete opposite of what she said before. “And who gets to make that call?” I asked, turning to look at her.

“We do.” She answered that so self-assuredly that it was almost annoying. “We’re the good guys, remember?”

After that whole fiasco, Gin suggested we all find another place to stay. We all agreed.

Thankfully, Hotshot told us about an old wind farm where we could rest and all meet up later to decide on a plan. “I was going to suggest moving there, but there was never a good opportunity. It’ll be safe. Don’t worry,” he assured, and flew off. I didn’t get a chance to catch up with him, but I was sure there would be plenty of time. Whatever it was, I’m sure he had a good reason. The griffon followed him out shortly.

I told them both I’d have decided by the next time we met.

I chose to stay behind briefly, to complete one last order of business I had with the old timer. As I dusted my coat off, I felt something inside of my front pocket. It was the star bottle cap. So much had been happening I forgot. I pulled it out and gazed at it briefly, pretty sure that I still had a wish to make. “I wish answers came that easily for me...” I sighed, barely able to make humor of the situation.

There was one other pony that remained who sat by himself, sulking alone. I thought I recognized him among the other patrons: A dark coated stallion wearing patchwork clothes. Down Luck was his name, I think. He sighed loudly.

“What a sad sack.” I thought. “Hey buddy, you alright?” I asked.

He shook his head somberly. “What’s the point? Don’t matter if it’s NCR or Rubi in charge, our debt ain’t going away… besides, I’ve got a family to feed.” he replied.

Gin feeling sorry for him said, “Hey Down, why don’t you take that drink on the house? You’ll pull through. Take care, and say hi to the wife for me.” The pony thanked him half-heartedly as he sauntered out the door.

“Yeah, that’s something that’s been on my mind since last night, actually. Do you know something about Accolade?” I asked, and he looked reluctant to speak, or maybe unsure of how to answer. “I get the feeling you might know more than you’re letting on.” I said accusingly.

“It’s among our many regrets…” he answered warily.

I asked him. “You holding out on me?”

“Nah.” The old unicorn shook his head. “That filly…,” he began, “before Rubi became the mayor of Dodge, there was a mare named Gladhoof. She was descended from a long line of stable dwellers, same as we were. Always looking out for the town, trying to steer us right when we were doing wrong. The only one of us who never stopped trying to do better. And that filly Accolade, shy little thing, was her’s.”

“That wasn’t the look of a shy child up there.” I pointed out. “She looked like she had death in her eyes.”

“That’s one way to put it...”

“Tell me what happened.” I pressed.

The old pony gave a sigh, recalling back to when Dodge City had a slightly different reputation in the wasteland. “I suppose somepony ought to know,” he said. “Dodge back then was hardly a paradise, but nothing like it is today.”

“Dodge City used to sell off outsiders to slavers. ” I interjected before he could finish his sentence. “I remember, 'cus I was here once a long time ago.”

“Eyup. Not a secret anymore. Figured you prolly knew that already, being NCR and all,” he admitted. “That was in the past though.”

“Not much has changed from my view.”

“So what are you looking for then?”

My eyes narrowed on the old pony. “Answers about Accolade.” It wasn't news to me, after all. Dodge City had always been a cesspit, but I had convinced myself for long enough that most ponies had wanted to do better, so I ignored it. This felt almost like a rude wake-up reminder.

“Rubi had been run out of town plenty of times before, but this time was different. She had made a few little investments in her time away. Called in plenty ’o favors and debts from gullible former-lovers and had enough dumb kids who were all willing to pull the trigger for her. With her Dodge City Gang in hoof, she came into town and we were all expecting a fight. Except that she told us she wanted to help. So we decided to hear her out.”

“Red Eye was interested in the old stable and the technology, and she intended to deal with him on behalf of the town. The factory would give us something to bargain with. We weren’t sure what to make of her intentions, but we all agreed to let her back. Even helped her fix some of those old broken machines. Things weren’t getting better on sentiments alone after all,” he said.

“Y’all may not agree from that look on your face, but just understand, we were all tired of fighting the wasteland back then and Red Eye was offering up a new future. Not like we wanted to do it. We just convinced ourselves that the ends justified the means.”

I felt my eye twitch, hating the fact that my brain would even offer a shred of sympathy for that perspective. “This wasn’t the same as back then...” I told myself. He continued in spite of my obvious hangups.

“Gladhoof was the only pony who was against it. She didn’t have it in her to go against the rest of us though, but she continued to let us know her thoughts,” he said. “As for the rest of us, thanks to the renovations to the factory, we were finally doing well enough to where those little sins didn’t matter no more. We’d be able to do better from now on. A better tomorrow in exchange for a little sin today.”

My eyes glowered in disgust.

“Remember ‘round when that whole Stable Dweller fiasco kicked off?” he asked, and I gave a slight nod. “That was when the trouble really started…” he sighed. “When Jagged Knife came to town.”

My ears immediately perked up at hearing his name and I gave a nod.

“Jagged came looking for a place to lay low and Rubi agreed to take him in in exchange for becoming an enforcer for her Dodge City gang. He was quick to settle and set up shop like he owned the place. They were quite the pair, those two... around that time we also got the news that Red Eye had fallen. Without Red Eye we figured there was no reason for her to stay, but more and more raiders continued to come in... started clearing out the mines and they began to outnumber us. Suddenly they started threatening anypony who questioned her. It was quickly becoming clear to us that we’d been duped.”

“So what happened then?” I asked, leaning impatiently. “What does this have to do with Accolade?”

“I’m getting there,” he urged, but this story was getting difficult to listen to. “We just wanted her and her cronies gone. Back then, we locals barely outnumbered the Dodge City Gang, but Rubi had Jagged’s gang and the Ironclad factory now. She had everything she wanted so she didn’t need us anymore. So we turned to the only pony we could. Gladhoof. She somehow knew about all about it, already. Gave us a stern talking to. Though, despite all the heartache Rubi had given us, Gladhoof still didn’t want it to come to violence. So she promised she’d give over the old overmare’s password if Rubi would be willing to leave us alone for good. Rubi was plenty interested in that offer. Though what we didn’t know was Rubi intended to have it all to herself. So one day when they were supposed to meet, she left and never came back... Met with Jagged instead, and her corpse ended up on Boot Hill like the others...”

I pounded my hoof on the table. “Get to the part about Accolade already!”

He was silent for a moment. The old timer’s voice sounded almost regretful as he got to the part of the story that apparently nopony in this town liked to remember. “She’d gone missing when we heard the news. The rumor started going around town that somepony from town killed Gladhoof. As we put the pieces together, we realized what’d been done.”

“What?!” I asked. “You’re saying that Accolade killed her?”

“Didn’t want to believe it either, but the look in that kid’s eyes seemed to speak plenty. She didn’t seem to deny it either.”

There was no way that was right. There had to be more to it. “So what did you do?” I snarled.

“Whether it was true or not though didn’t matter in the end. The mere suggestion was enough to kill any hopes for fighting back. If Jagged could turn a young filly on their own blood, then what chance did we have? Rubi took her in after what she did, and she’s been living at Cherry Hill Ranch ever since. Never could look at that filly the same way again.”

Gin strained out the words uneasily, despite my ever-increasing glare.

“Rubi Royale did what she wanted after that. With light of what was going on in Fillydelphia, Gawdyna needed a new trade partner for her lil’ NCR project. She managed to secure a deal and built all this place up over the last six months. Formed the gangs. Anypony who was smart joined up or picked up and got the heck outta Dodge a long time ago. And that’s the story as far as I can tell you.”

When he finished the story my blood was near boiling. “That’s fucking awful! Abandoning a filly like that!”

“That’s the wasteland. Not that I’m trying to justify it.” he said. “It ain’t fair, but that’s just how things are sometimes.”

“That’s not an excuse!” I countered, smashing a glass with my hoof in anger. “ Besides, this isn’t a wasteland anymore! What if she was just scared and confused?! And you all abandoned her when she needed you!” He simply stared back in stunned silence. I saw the look in that filly’s eyes. They were also the eyes of a foal who had given up on hope.

“She made her choice in the end. We’ve all got our sins to bear from back then. It’s a story best heard from Accolade, truth be told,” he told me. “Only she can tell you what really happened. Though I’d wager that filly’s got secrets she won’t tell nopony.”

“So that’s it then, huh?” I asked. This whole affair made me sick to my stomach. Now it seemed like his daughter might’ve been trying to right that old wrong herself as best she could. A stray thought then crossed my mind then. “Wait. What about the buffalo?” I asked. “How do they factor into this?” If at all.

“Who knows?” he shrugged and shook his head. “The Greathorns didn’t used to exist, and the Stronghearts before them were always a peaceful tribe. Nopony’s heard from them in ages though.”

I frowned as I processed this knowledge to myself. “Fine. One last thing then. If I’m going up against Jagged Knife… any advice on how to beat him?”

“Getting nervous?” He chuckled. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“No, I’m just looking at options.” I replied.

Gin thought for a moment, then offered me some sound advice. “When wielding the gun between two trained shootists, there’s only one thing that matters: reaction time. When you get right down to it, there’s really little difference between unicorns and earth ponies. Unicorns got their magic o’course. Makes it much easier to grab a pistol from its holster, but a unicorn’s telekinesis is only as fast as their mind can internally process. So just draw first. That’s all. I guess the thing that makes Jagged such a cunning bastard is that he’s always got something up his sleeve.”

Since I didn’t do much quick drawing, that approach wouldn’t help much. I wasn’t a fast shot like Hawkins. Maybe it gave me a few ideas though. With that weighing on my mind, I headed off to go meet with Lieutenant Ginger. “Thanks.” I said, turning away. “Oh yeah… also fuck you, and fuck this whole town!” I refused to look back at the Wrangler as I went.

I was really starting to hate this place.

The news quickly spread throughout Dodge City’s streets like wildfire. Suddenly there were thugs roaming the back alleys. More specifically, ponies openly carrying in brazen defiance of the mayor. Gunshots were becoming a more frequent occurrence in the city. With even a few of those aimed at Dodge City Gang ponies, forcing the mayor to further bring down the hoof of the law which increased tensions further.

The old unicorn local said he was going to attempt to keep tempers from flaring too high, and warned us that if we were planning to get out of Dodge City, it’d best be soon. I had no intention of leaving yet.

“Bunch of damn cowards.” I muttered to myself as I marched, remaining a little on edge.

At the train station what limited staff were available were on high alert. Peregrine’s office had been barricaded, and the train station was piled with flimsy makeshift defenses. They nearly prevented me from passing before they realized who I was.

Lieutenant Ginger was barking out orders in Peregrine’s stead at soldiers and NCR contractors who were scrambling around her. “Make triply sure that Crane has that train secured to leave at a moment’s notice! Keep those tracks clear!”

One of them saluted. “Already done, ma’am!”

She shouted at them, “Then check it again!” Her face immediately lit up when she saw me. “Roulette! Oh, um…,” she cleared her throat regaining her composure. “Miss Roulette. Fine day we’re having?”

I wore an unamused scowl.

Ginger Gale urged me to speak with her behind the train station, apologizing for the urgency and unofficial nature of the circumstances. “Sorry, with the way things have been going it was too dangerous to meet you in the saloon.”

“Yeah, things are getting bad around here.” I admitted, looking over my shoulder, which was punctuated by another gunshot. It felt like the gangs were losing their grip on control.

“I needed to tell you, that I received important info. I recently heard from my contact within the Dodge City Gang. He told me that Jagged Knife is planning to use this unrest to his advantage, but I don’t know the full details. Jagged still won’t have enough firepower to take on the Dodge City gang, or the NCR if he somehow takes over the city.”

“I can’t begin to think of what he’s after...” I replied. Though I was surprised by at least one part of the news. Not the bit about Jagged Knife, but that she was still in contact with ponies who were close to him given the situation. “Is it anyone I’m familiar with? Can they help?” I asked her, but the griffon seemed intent on not giving up her source.

“I’m sorry.” she said, bowing her head in apology, at least being understanding of appearances.

My glare at the first lieutenant griffon sharpened. “I heard from the mayor directly that the NCR have been plotting to bring Dodge City into the Republic under the table. I’ve got a lot of questions I need answered. Now.”

Ginger appeared equally uneasy. “This is actually the first I’m hearing of it as well. That’s part of the reason why Peregrine went back to New Canterlot. Someone within the NCR might be complicit,” she replied.

“Complicit how?”

“Listen up, this is your mayor speaking!” a voice announced over the loudspeakers of the Ironclad Factory.

We both stopped and turned to look up at the factory as Rubi’s voice echoed over the city, causing other ponies around to stop what they were doing and look upwards at the factory.

“I’m hearing a mess of rumors going around, accusing me selling Dodge City out to the NCR? Now see here! That’s nothing but a pack of seditious lies being spread around by Jagged Knife and his band of ne’er-do-wells! Why I’ve never heard such slander before in my life! So I’m offering up ten thousand to the pony who kills him dead! Y’hear that Jagged?! Nopony messes with Rubi Royale!”

Seemed that the mayor got fed up with waiting and declared the bounty open season. Although overplaying her cards like this reeked of desperation.

“There’s not a lot of time, so ask me anything and I’ll do my best to answer. You have my word.”

“Go back to what you were saying before. You said someone from the NCR might be in on it?”

Worry crossed over the lieutenant’s face when I mentioned the general. “General Blackhawk… it all makes sense. I’ll have to tell the Colonel about this right away.”

“General who?” I asked in confusion.

“General Griswalt Blackhawk. He’s the griffon hero who took the rank of Star General in Sir Calamity’s place when he turned down Miss Grimfeathers’ offer.” she replied. “There might be a level of politics going on that I’m unaware of.”

“Oh. Well, I got more bad news for you…” I revealed. “Rubi said she’s planning to use her money to buy off workers in NCR factories. She’s gonna bring your economy to a grinding halt if you don’t do exactly as she says in negotiations.”

The lieutenant’s eyes widened. Probably already stressed to all hell and back with everything she was dealing with, and now this on top of it. She held remarkable discipline in barely showing it. “...Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’ll relay that to the Colonel as well, but you may be forced to deal with it on your own.”

“Oh, sure! Just ask me to kill her, will you?! Why does everything have to be on me?! Am I nothing but a Luna-damned hitmare now?!”

The lieutenant nearly lost her composure for a second, hearing those words. “I wasn’t suggesting that… Sorry if you’re feeling under pressure Miss Roulette.”

I sighed, “I’m...sorry. I have to admit though, this wasn’t in the job description…”

“I have to apologize as well on the Colonel’s behalf, for letting you get caught up in this. He really should be here saying this to you personally.”

My eyes fell downwards. “It’s fine. I have my own reasons for getting involved..." I muttered.

“Thankfully, he and I are both behind you, and doing everything in our power to try and stop this. Admittedly, it might be hard for you to take at face value, but most of us really do care about what happens to the ponies living here.”

“It was easier when there was only one badguy to deal with and there weren’t a bunch of stupid politics involved...” I groaned. “Is there any way we can stop her that doesn’t involve… you know?” I made a mock gun motion and sound with my outstretched hoof.

“I’m not sure…” she admitted. “Dodge City lies outside the NCR’s jurisdiction, so it would undermine our standing with the rest of the wasteland and future plans greatly if we were caught assassinating major figures in rivaling settlements to achieve our own political ends.”

I hung my head in frustration. “Right…” I felt fire boiling in my gut, imagining Rubi being able to do something like this and get away with it. Even more so that there was seemingly nothing I could do to stop it. “Wait!” I blurted out as I remembered something important. What if I could do something to stop it? I looked straight at Ginger Gale with my hoof outstretched, and she blinked back in confusion. “Rubi openly discussed assassinating Colonel Peregrine while I was in the room! Couldn’t you arrest her for that?”

Her eyes widened in shock. “The mayor said that?!” She gasped.

“Yeah, I told Hawkins about it. Didn’t she pass that information along?”

She shook her head. “No. Gabriela didn’t give us anything...”

I cursed under my breath trying to imagine what that bitch was after. I thought we were all on the same team here.

“Between you and me, you should be careful around Gabriela,” she warned. “She’s taking orders from General Blackhawk on this mission.”

I cocked my head. “Who is this General dude and why is he so important, anyway?” I asked, feeling like I’d heard that name before.

“He was a respected Talon veteran from the Griffon-Enclave wars. One with lots of political clout.” Ginger warned. “I don’t know what exactly his involvement pertains, but I do know that someone back in New Canterlot was pigeonholing the reports we were sending about Jagged Knife. I found out about it this morning. This could be bigger than both of us, so you should be wary that her and your goals here might not exactly align.”

I felt a cold sweat, going down the back of my neck at the news. I nodded, promising to keep that detail in mind. “Fan-fucking-tastic”, I thought. Wasteland politics sucks ass. Yet another problem for me to throw on the trash fire. All this sounded way above my paygrade.

Then the lieutenant looked around both ways to make sure no one was listening. She spoke in a hushed tone. “It’s also none of my business, but I think you should know, Hawkins has a lot of unsubstantiated rumors surrounding her… well, there’s no easy way to say this.” She leaned in close and whispered. “It’s unconfirmed, but she might’ve broken contract.”

“Oh.” From the way she built that up, I thought it was going to be a lot worse. But it was a big deal to the NCR, because Talons were known for taking all of their contracts extremely serious. I remembered how she insisted on staying to help the NCR troopers over the night we spent in the spooky abandoned town, even though it was supposedly in spite of orders. So she couldn’t be all bad. Right? I wasn’t sure I was ready to buy that.

Ginger paused considering the proposal again, then frowned and shook her head. “Wait, no… It’s a nice idea, but like I said; Dodge City is technically outside of NCR jurisdiction.”

“Yeah, but what if you go along with it for now? If you agree to most of her demands, then you can just arrest her after she joins the NCR and undo any of those shitty provisions you want later.” I said.

At first she frowned, considering the idea, but the more she pondered on it, the more her face lit up. “In theory, if you testified before the NCR council... Wow that’s very astute of you, Miss Roulette! I never took you for a wasteland politico!”

I shrugged. “Eh, I have my moments.”

“This might actually work...!” She beamed. Then the starry-eyed lieutenant’s expression then sunk. “Wait, but that’d make you a target.” She realized.

“I’m pretty sure that I can handle whatever the mayor can throw at me.” I replied.

She nodded. “I’ll run it by the Colonel then. Focus on dealing with Jagged Knife for now. Do you have a way of getting close to him?”

“Yeah, I do. I’m about to meet with him soon.”

“Good” she said. “You should go handle that. If things get fubared from here, Rubi might end up asking the NCR to help put down rioting in the city. If that happens, there’ll be a lot of needless bloodshed. So for as long as I’m in Dodge, I’ll be able to help you, but with the situation here being what it is and law and order continuing to break down, I don’t know for how much longer.”

Hearing another gunshot echo prompted me to look over my shoulder.

“But if I do this for you, I need you to do one incredibly important favor for me before I go. Between the two of us? Please get into contact with Page Turner from the Followers of the Apocalypse. Tell him it’s from Roulette. Please?” I begged her.

Lieutenant Ginger Gale nodded, seeming to understand the gravity of what I was asking. “I’ll see what I can do.” she promised.

I saw the chubby grey earthpony waiting outside Brass Casing’s shop, wearing a big dumb grin and a new cowpony hat. Had he gone out and purchased that just to impress me? I scoffed.

“Howdy, Boss!” Deuce grinned, looking up in an eager attempt to get me to notice. “How do you like it?”

“It looks stupid.” I replied disinterestedly. To which Deuce immediately tossed it in the street and blasted it with his shotgun. He urged the other passerby’s to fire at it as well for good measure until there was barely a scrap left of it. Then he turned back to me, nodding with approval. My mouth hung open, staring down at the remaining tattered fabric. “I sure showed that hat what for! No ma’am, there’ll be no inferior headwear sitting on this head! Good call there, boss!”

I looked back up at him in disbelief. “Did you put in my order like I asked...?” I sighed.

“Yes, Ma’am!” he said moving to hold the door open for me. “Right this way!” The two guards who had given me a hard time the other day even stood at attention, practically afraid to look me in the eye. I followed him through.

Inside the heavily fortified gun store were highly attractive red carpets and oak wooden walls which were stocked with varying styles of battle saddles, rifles, revolvers and ammunition protected behind enchanted display cases. I jealously glanced at ‘Winona’ in the display case as the gun merchant tapped his hoof impatiently.

Brass Casing stood behind the service counter, and he was none too happy to see me. Remembering our dispute from the other day, he groaned. “Great, you’re not here to start trouble again are you?”

I rolled my eyes. “I was joking!” I repeated in exasperation.

“Hey, watch it Brass!” Deuce snapped, “This mare’s bout to take Jagged’s old job, so you’d better show some respect!”

The unicorn raised his brow doubtfully. “Oh really? I sure hope Miss Mayor knows what she’s doing then.”

“Duh, of course she does! That’s why she’s the mayor!”

“Is my battle saddle ready?” I asked him, and Brass went into the back muttered to himself. He came out lugging my battle saddle and set it onto the counter. It looked brand new with top-quality loading and ammo-switching mechanisms, with a quality machinegun hooked up to it. Then he began showing off each of the individual mechanisms in action, lecturing me on gun trivia before finally giving it over. “I think you’ll find everything is in working order. I couldn’t do a proper fitting since you refused to show up, but I took my best guess. Don’t blame me if it doesn’t fit.”

“Thanks, this is fine.” I acknowledged, trying it on. Though I frowned as I viewed the standard-looking machine gun at my side. “I want that one.” I said, pointing at Winona.

“What?!” he exclaimed. “You can’t have my Winona! It saw service by the hero Sergeant Big Macintosh during the Great War! My family’s spent countless hours polishing the wooden furniture and maintaining it down to the tiniest detail! It’s one of a kind! You can’t expect me to part with it!”

I smiled devilishly. “Gee, I wonder what Rubi would say about that?”

Deuce pounded on the counter. “You heard her! Or the mayor will hear about this!” He threatened.

Brass Casing sulked as he was forced to open the display case and affix the gun to my battle saddle. He looked like he was going to cry as he said goodbye to the gun and I carried it out of the shop with me. But all that really mattered was that I had this fancy new gun!

With an automatic rifle, and a few hundred rounds worth of ammunition I wouldn’t have to worry about Jagged’s stupid magic. I could just spray bullets at the fucker. That’s earth pony ingenuity for you! I even got a couple of grenades, for good measure. “Roulette, you’re a genius.” I thought, praising my clever brain.

As I stood outside the shop with my battle saddle shinied up and looking like a newborn foal, I suddenly paused dead in my tracks for a while. Noticing some orphans playing in the streets, I realized that I hadn’t seen other kids since I’d come to Dodge City. They were laughing, practically oblivious to all the shit going on around them.

“Think there’ll be trouble?” asked the lazy eyed guard, referring to ponies starting to gather outside of the Ironclad Factory, carrying whatever firearms they had with them. Some calling on the mayor for answers.

“Nah,” Deuce replied confidently, following me out of the gun store. “Miss Mayor’s got this.” Then he turned to me and said something else I wasn’t listening to. Probably something about Winona.

I stood by and watched the foals in a trance, remembering better days and reflecting on growing unrest in front of me.

Then one of the little colts suddenly bumped into me, and the rest scattered, galloping off. Deuce pointed to my empty leg holster.

“Whu- That little street rat’s got your gun! Don’t worry, I’ll get it for ya boss!” he cried, galloping after him like the wind.

Before I could stop him he had already turned down an alleyway after the small colt, completely unaware of me holding the pistol in my other hoof. I sighed aloud, looking back at the other two guards who were watching, and said in disbelief. “I grew up in the wastes. I wasn’t born yesterday.” They both nodded in approval, impressed by my sleight of hoof as I returned my brother’s gun to its rightful place. I wasn’t an expert, but I wouldn’t let some little kid get the best of me.

Looking at the motley collection of angry ponies gathering outside the factory, I could see that things were getting bad.

I remember hearing somewhere that Dodge City has always had a history of violence in the wasteland, but I always unsure where that rumor got started. Seeing it left an uneasy feeling in my gut. Hopefully, I could figure this all out before anyone got hurt.

When Deuce came back, he was carrying the small orphan colt by the tail. “Hey, Roulette!” he smiled stupidly. “I caught the lil brat who tried to steal your gun.”

I looked down at the little colt who was crying, begging for mercy. Fear filled his eyes.

“What you wanna do with him? Want me to string him up good?”

“Put him down!” I commanded, and Deuce immediately spat out his tail, allowing him to scurry to safety. The stallion seemingly unable to comprehend that he’d done something wrong, apologized in confusion. “Uh, sorry. I thought you’d be happier. Actually, I forgot to mention. I got a message for you, from Miss Caretaker.”

Sunny again. “Ugh, did she say what she wanted?” I groaned.

Deuce shook his head, revealing she hadn’t gone into much detail. “Nope. Just that she wanted to meet to discuss private matters pertaining to her role and your new position. I didn’t understand half of those words, but they sound pretty important.” I personally lamented how formal she was being here.

Admittedly, I even considered just blowing her off, before my conscience got the better of me. “Fine.” I thought. “I’ll try to reason with Sunny one last time. Even if she doesn’t want to be friends anymore… the least I can do is warn her about the mayor’s plans and wish her well from now on.”

I took my usual way into Cherry Hill Ranch, but this time with ponies averting their eyes with submissive glances like I was the one in charge. As soon as I got closer to Accolade’s room, I heard sobbing coming from behind the door of the painted playroom door and I could immediately sense something was wrong. I opened it and stepped inside to find Accolade, crying alone.

The apple green filly startled and looked up at me, only to relax when she realized who I was. “R-Roulette!” She cried, galloping up to me on her tiny legs. She hugged my foreleg and started sobbing into my breast.

“Accolade?” I gasped in confusion, putting my hoof on her head. “Is everything okay? Where’s Sunny?”

Accolade was too upset to get a word out, and my question just caused her to cry harder. She tried desperately to fend off tears, rubbing her eyes with her tiny hooves. “S-She tried t-to make me-...” she managed to force out. “She tried to make me-”

“Shh, it’s okay.” I said, attempting to comfort her. “Just tell me what happened.”

She managed to calm herself enough to finally speak properly. “S-Sunny tried to make me give her my password! She got mad and yelled!”

I gasped in astonishment. “What?”

“S-She broke her promise to me! She said she wouldn’t! Sunny knows how important it is to keep me safe! B-But she was real nervous after she stopped talking with you. She tried to make me give it over, and when I wouldn’t she got really mad and left me alone!”

My heart sunk. “Sunny…” I sighed in disappointment. “Sorry kid, that was kinda my fault. These sorts of things are complicated... she’s had her own share of troubles to deal with for a while, whether or not she’s willing to admit it. She didn’t mean it though, I promise. I’m sure she’s just scared. I’ll talk to her for you.”

As I stood up the small filly tugged on my jacket and shook her head. She was trembling. Accolade looked up at me with pleading eyes.

“Is this about Sunny?” I asked, and she shook her head again. I stayed silent for a moment. “Accolade? Is everything okay?”

She paused for a moment, unsure whether or not to speak, then ushered me in close. Accolade paused again, then whispered something into my ear, and my eyes widened. That changed things. That changed a lot of things...

Accolade looked up at me again, this time begging for help.

I felt my internal temperature spike up as my blood skipped past simmering and went straight to boiling. Thinking of everything she’d been through just made me forget about everything else in the moment. More than anything, it hit me in a place I didn’t want to think about. “I’m gonna kill Jagged Knife.” I thought.

“Please don’t go. I’m scared...”

“It’s okay, kid.” I told her, laying my hoof on her head. “Your big sis is gonna fix everything.”

Accolade cried into me and wiped her snout on my sleeve, making a wet patch. I stayed for a minute and took the small filly in my arms, and I could see the scars hidden behind the braid on the back of her neck as she did. All of this and she didn’t even have her cutie mark yet. I sneered in disgust imagining how she got those scars.

When I first met her she looked like she had death in her eyes. Now I finally understood why. Accolade didn’t need to worry about holding it in any longer though.

After she stopped crying, I set her down again. “Hey Accolade, I need you to do something super-duper important for me. Okay?” I asked her, and she tilted her head. “For now I need you to hang tight, and wait for me to come back for you.”

She didn’t know how to respond so she just nodded.

“You’re really strong, you know that kid? Stronger than me when I was your age.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the star bottle cap. “Take this,” I said, putting it in her little hoof. “Do you know the story about star bottlecaps?” I asked. “Keep it and you can wish for anything. I hear it works better for fillies than full grown mares.”

She nodded in confusion as I brushed her mane from her eyes.

“I’ll be back for you,” I said. “And, uh… try to use your wish on something good, alright? Heh.”

She was looking down silently, staring at the bottlecap as I turned away but she stopped me.

“W-Wait!” she cried. Her head hung down nervously. “I-I don’t know if it’ll help, but… I want you to have the old overmare’s password,” she said. “My mommy always said it was for emergencies, but maybe you can use it. It’s-” I leaned close to her and she whispered the password into my ear. ‘Chimmy_cherrychanga’. Hell if I knew what that was.

“What’s it for?” I asked.

She shook her head again. “I dunno... Miss Rubi always said it was used to open that door. So she could see the ministry secrets that way. My mommy gave it to me for safety before she… s-she-” Accolade began to choke on her own tears and I shushed her. I wouldn’t make her relive it again.

I gave her a hug and ruffled her mane, telling her that everything would be alright. “Thanks, I’ll try and put it to good use. Be back for you as soon as I can.” I told her, giving her one last smile before shutting the door. “That’s a promise.”

Sunny Hymn was standing outside in the hallway, looking like a mess with a look of guilt plastered all over her face. I immediately frowned at the mare who should've known better. “Rou, uh…. Can we talk?” she asked.

My brow furrowed at her in anger.

She averted her eyes, clearly aware of the deep load of brahmin shit she was in. “I thought I could get through it on my own... but I couldn’t hack the security system. There was another layer of security on top of it! It’s some kind of fancy triple-locked ministry tier door with backup systems for its backup systems! Hey, I’m thankful she at least disabled the turrets at least...heh.”

I wasn’t in a jokey mood. “I heard about what you did to Accolade. Tried to do, rather.”

The mare spoke through frantic breaths, checking over her shoulder constantly. “Yeah. I know. I fucked up bigtime, Rou… You were totally right! I panicked, thinking about everything you said. I’m screwed if the mayor finds out about this!”

I sighed out loud. “Sunny…”

“You said we should get out of here and go to Las Pegasus, right? Forget all of this! Let’s go together. Just you and me, like you wanted. Please, Rou? I want to get to know you. The real you. We’ll be able to get to know each other for real this time! No more lies!” She spread her wings excitedly, though tilted her head in confusion when I didn’t light up. “That was what you wanted… wasn’t it?”

Admittedly even now it did sound appealing to me, but it was too late for that. “Sorry, but there’s something I have to do now. Accolade told me everything. I have to pay back Jagged Knife for what he did to her.”

She turned her head away in shame, realizing she was still doing it. “I’m sorry… that was wrong of me. I noticed she was afraid of him, but I thought it was only because he was a creep. I saw her scars... I didn’t know what to do. She wouldn’t tell me about them when I asked. What did he do to her…?”

I shrugged, taking my best guess. “The scars? No idea. Maybe he was trying to groom her into being a raider or something? She lost everything and then the town turned on her. She’s been living with these sick fucks for months after what happened to her mother. What he forced her to do... It doesn’t matter the reason. That fucker’s gonna pay.”

Sunny put her hoof to her mouth and held her breath, quivering. “I broke my promise to her… I feel so ashamed.”

“I have the overmare’s password now too.” I revealed, but then she just averted her eyes again, too ashamed to even look me in the eye. “Call it a hunch, but I don’t think that it’s for that R&D lab, after all.” I admitted.

She looked back up at me slowly. “It’s not...? But if isn’t for the R&D lab then what’s it for?”

“Honestly, I couldn’t say… but you have to get to it before the mayor does.”

Rubi may have simply assumed that the password had to be for the R&D facility. That was the only explanation. Part of me suspected that Jagged Knife may already have known what was down there all along. That was the most concerning part.

“M-Me?!” She asked in disbelief. “Why?”

“I heard it straight from the mayor. Some General wanted whatever’s down there. She’s also planning to sell you out to the NCR. You were right... They’re involved in this after all.”

The mare’s pupils constrained in fear. She went breathless, quivering and barely able to speak, but I kept talking to keep her focused on my voice.

“Sunny, focus. Right now she’s distracted, but pretty soon the mayor is planning to come down here with mining equipment and cut the door open herself. I don’t know what the hell she wants or whatever’s down there, but if most of the other shit I’ve found in Dodge are any indication, it ain’t good.”

“Well... what are we going to do?”

“How close were you to cracking it the first time? ” I demanded. “Sunny, you still have that stealthbuck, right?”

“Whu-? There’s no way I can hack it on my own…! I mean, maybe with the right tools. If I had an automatic lockpick, perhaps.”

“Do you know where to get one?”

She paused, thinking for a short moment, “I-I think so…?” She nodded, anxiously ruffling her wings. “If I, uh… disabled enough of the security so I don’t trip the alarm? Yeah. That’d be easier than hacking the whole system. I think I could brute force the door without anypony noticing…” Sunny gave me a longing look as if she was biting back words. “Wait. Give me a moment. This is all coming so fast...”

We didn’t have the time, unfortunately. “Sorry, but this is important. Whatever’s down there, you need to make sure you get to it first. I’m going to settle things once and for all with Jagged Knife. I’ll be back later tonight, and we’ll all leave tomorrow morning. It’ll be all Sunshine and Rainbows. But if anything happens, I need you to take Accolade and run at the first sign of trouble. Take the next train back to Junction Town. I’ve made arrangements with the Followers for you. Remember Page Turner? You’ll be safe with him, I promise.”

Sunny stopped and shook her head, slowly. “Why are you doing this for me…?” she asked in disbelief. “After everything I said. After I lied to you. With the way I treated you.”

“Cus that’s what friends do, dummy.” I replied, cracking a tiny smile.

Sunny paused, swallowing back words. “Rou… did my daddy really call you a wingless freak?” she asked.

I frowned and nodded slowly, feeling the biting pain in my chest.

She choked, and tears began to well up in her eyes. “No… How could I have been so stupid...? Celestia, I’m so, so sorry Rou…!” Putting her hoof on my shoulder as she attempted to keep from crying more than me, but in the tears that came out I could see the Sunny Hymn I knew. The real Sunny. “H-How could he?! I mean, I can’t believe he said that to you…!” She sobbed. “Or that I didn’t listen to you sooner…! Stars above, I’m such an idiot! I feel like such a terrible friend!”

“I’m sorry too. You were also fighting hard and I didn’t see it...” I said. “We’re both pretty terrible at this whole friendship thing.”

The mare snorted, and managed a small laugh. Wiping away her tears, worry remained in her eyes as she looked up at me. “Yeah, but… will you be alright?” she begged.

I smirked and flexed my foreleg. “Yeah, I got healing powers, apparently. So I’m pretty much a force of nature.”

The mare nodded, brimming with new barely summoned false confidence. “A-Alright... I’ll have that sucker open in less than twenty-four hours! That security system’ll be singing like a canary in no time! Be careful though, please? Promise you’ll come back?”

“I will,” I promised with a smile. “Stick a cupcake in my eye.” We both hugged, and I felt her soft coat brushing up against mine. I wished I could savor this moment.

Sunny and I both turned our heads and quickly stood apart as we heard a familiar voice coming down the hallway. It was Deuce again. His special talent seemed to be bad timing and his inability to read the room. Or hallway, technically. I groaned in annoyance.

“Howdy, Boss!” Deuce greeted me eagerly. “I did everything you asked me to! Did you find out what Miss Caretaker needed?”

I had to come up with a fast excuse. “Oh, uh, Accolade was just nervous about Jagged Knife coming to get her. So I assured Miss Sunny Hymn that everything was perfectly safe.” Sunny nodded quickly in agreement, following ahead with the routine nicely.

Deuce smiled, grinning stupidly while eyeing her up and down. “Don’t you worry, I’ll make sure you stay safe from that no good Jagged Knife personally, ma’am.” he assured, making clumsy attempts at flirting with her. Sunny really didn’t seem to appreciate it, smiling awkwardly. He probably didn’t realize that her barn door didn’t swing that way. I rolled my eyes and groaned in annoyance.

“Heck, it’s just so doggone hot out here sometimes, y’know? I don’t know how ponies stand it so easy?” He complained, adjusting his armor and wiping the sweat from his brow.

Then I held my breath. For just a moment, he revealed a tattoo of Jagged Knife’s mark underneath his shirt. Sunny saw it too and she looked back at me, the color draining from her face.

He looked back at me confused “Sorry, you say something Boss?” he asked. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Uh, I was just saying, you done good, Deuce. Keep up the good work.” I said, catching myself. Then I turned to my friend and told her slowly. “I have to go now Sunny. And I don’t know that I’ll be coming back. I can’t keep wasting my time protecting you. You understand what I mean, right?” I asked her. The mare nodded subtly in response.

Sunny was a smart girl. She more than got the message. “I understand. This is goodbye then, Roulette.” She replied, mock-turning her nose up at me to really sell it. Then she subtly mouthed the words “good luck” to me.

Deuce tried to comfort me as I looked back at Cherry Hill Ranch. “Sorry, Roulette. I heard from Sting you two used to be friends? Sometimes friendships just don’t work out like that.”

My face contorted at the mere mention of his name. “That asshole should stay out of my damn business,” I thought to myself. “It’s whatever.” I lied aloud.

I told Deuce that I had something else to take care of and get away, although I had a feeling like he knew exactly where I was going. As I left the ranch I began noticing more ponies hiding Jagged Knife’s symbol under their clothes. Especially the ones with scars on the left side of their faces. I couldn’t believe it had taken me this long to notice.

How many? Less than half? A third? Not nearly enough to take on the whole of the Dodge City Gang. Not by a longshot. Although a sense of uneasiness tingled along the back of my spine, especially with the growing unrest in the town. Everything was up in the air. The chips were set, and even I couldn’t tell who really had the upper hoof. Debating if I had time to go warn someone, I looked up at the sun, squinting. It was almost time.

It didn’t matter how many. My blood was boiling, searing my insides and Jagged Knife was number one on my shit list. At least one of those ponies was going to die today.

If we were going to play this like we were back in the wasteland again, then game on.

I found the old wind farm outside of town where Hawkins and Hotshot were waiting for me. A tiny shack made of corrugated sheet metal and fixed up with wood. A lone windmill creaked in what little breeze was provided that day. Two makeshift headstones sat in the backyard, pushing up daisies.

Inside the old wooden interior, were the basic amenities of a wasteland settler’s home all completely abandoned. Credit where it was due, a great find by Hotshot. A two room, one story house with a musty old bedroom. Whoever lived here prior, likely wouldn’t object to us hanging around. Were they still alive, they’d have likely had a hard time making ends and avoiding bandits in recent days.

“Hey.” I greeted them.

The griffon was sitting at an old desk in a recycled office chair, with her rifle disassembled for cleaning. As I walked through the door she reached into her bag and tossed me a strange side-arm resembling a laser pistol. It was oddly reminiscent of Enclave tech, but also looked completely different than anything I’d seen before. This one’s components were fresh.

“Neighvarro R&D cooked these up with some help from the AJ’s Ranger Scribes and some science nerds. They’re called Compliance Regulators. Made them to outfit our peace-keeping force. They stun ponies and short out their magic temporarily afterwards. This one’s a prototype, but it should do the job. As soon as you get the chance, hit him with this and he’s done. You’ll have plenty of time to walk right up and do the deed.” As I ogled at the device in my hooves, she added, “Can’t have psychotic unicorns running around with magic, willy nilly.”

I made an attempt to contemplate her weird act of kindness, before speaking. “Thanks, I guess.” I replied, stuffing it in my pack. “Careful, I think Jagged might’ve turned some ponies to his side,” I warned.

“Copy. So are you sure that you want to do this?” Hawkins asked, looking through her rifle scope. “I could probably snipe the sonofabitch from here.” She grinned, turning the scope so my head was visible in the sights. She made a mock-firing sound, then lowered her rifle, confused at my general unresponsiveness.

“No. There’s something I need to know from him first. So stay low to the ground and keep out of sight. We’re playing this by wasteland rules. Keep your scope trained on him the whole time in case he tries anything funny.”

The griffon scoffed, checking through her scope again to zero it in. “Who put you in charge?” She frowned, noticing it was off slightly. “I dunno why you wasteland action-types always insist on doing things the hard way. Your technique is sloppy.”

I gave a snort. “I want to be the one who kills him. Got it?”

“Doesn’t make a difference to me.” Hawkins shrugged. She looked over and cocked an eyebrow. “Geez, what’s gotten into you, lately? You’re even more of a downer than usual.”

“Nothing. Just need to be sure we’re on the same page.” I said. She scoffed and went back to inspecting her gear for a second time.

“It’s most likely a trap,” Hotshot warned again, as if it weren’t obvious enough, but I had my machinegun, my trusty pistol, grenades and backup if I needed it. The pegasus hoofed me a few opened containers of rancid water which I initially viewed with disgust. “Here. It’s irradiated. It’ll activate your you-know-what.”

“Oh.” I said. Holding my breath, I downed its entire contents, feeling the burn go down my throat and screwing my face afterwards. Disgusting. I hardly felt any different though. No, it was a different feeling than before. “Thanks...” I said, then stashed the other bottles in my saddle bag.

Hotshot was giving me a look I couldn’t help but take notice of. “Hey, you remember what I told you when we first met in Dodge City?” He asked.

He was talking about when he told me I couldn’t trust anyone. As if I needed a reminder. Lucky for me though, I did have at least a few ponies I could trust. I glanced sideways at Hawkins for a second uneasily, then reached into my bag, pulling out Sting’s laser pistol. Holding it in my hoof made me feel uneasy, but I figured he’d have no trouble using it. It remained in remarkably good condition, despite the pummeling my saddle bag had taken in recent memory. There was probably enough of a charge left in it still. I subtly passed it to Hotshot so that the griffon wouldn’t notice. “You keep an eye on her if she tries something.” I whispered under my breath.

My friend seemed a little uneasy about the plan at first but nodded in agreement, hiding the weapon underneath his wing.

We heard her voice calling for us impatiently.

The griffon skyranger was already waiting by the door. “You two ready?” Hawkins asked, loosening the scarf she was wearing. She looked between me and Hotshot, jamming a magazine into her rifle, then pulled back on the charging handle with her claw. The inner mechanisms clicked as it flawlessly loaded a round into the chamber.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I replied.

Level up!

Perk added

Finesse- You’re bound to get lucky at least once. Higher critical hit chance (equivalent to +5 Luck)

Chapter 12: Rota Fortunae

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Chapter 12 -

Rota Fortunae

“We’ll pay you triple to slow down!”

The time for the meeting was fast approaching. We all walked together, but soon we were going to part ways for the plan.

There wasn’t a cloud in sight, but I still felt something strange as we began to make our way to the meeting spot.

Hawkins groaned loudly, stretching her wings now that she was no longer being confined to that small dingy shack.

Outside Dodge City sat a collection of rocky hills and mesas, just before giving way to an impossibly wide open desert. The last stop before that desolate stretch of suicide was Boot Hill.

From the southern outskirts of Dodge, I looked out into the San Palomino and felt a strange sensation. This was the closest thing to the wasteland I’d felt in months. There was a subtle breeze flowing through the air, adding fuel to the fire in me.

“You feel that?” Hotshot asked, curiously.

“Feel what?” I asked.

Hotshot didn’t give an answer, instead looking off into the desert. Suddenly his eyes turned down to a small salamander hatchling sitting in front of him. It raised onto its hind legs curiously, cocking its head, then spit out a tiny ember.

He sneered in disgust. “Ugh. Salamanders…. Beat it, ya little pest!”

“There’s clear weather scheduled for today, so he’ll spot you instantly if you approach him from the sky. Follow from the ground instead. Just keep low and stay out of sight. And don’t kill him until after I’ve talked to him.”

“Aw, why do you have to be such a drag?” Hawkins griped. “It’d be far more efficient to do things that way.”

“I’ve got to ask him something first.” I replied.

Hotshot turned towards me hesitantly, because he could see the look in my eye. “Hey, are you sure you want to do this? I mean, maybe we shouldn’t go through with it after all.” he floated.

“Not happening.” I answered swiftly. “I’ve already made up my mind.”

Unfortunately, I had little choice in the matter.

Hawkins smirked at the pegasus. “You getting cold hooves, pegasus?”

“I’ll be fine…” he glared. “It’s just... that we’re going up against Jagged on his own terms. It’s good to exercise c-”

“Hey, watch it!” I snapped suddenly, and he looked back in surprise. Then I pointed to a small quivering cactus. “You almost stepped on that exploding cactus there. Those things’ll burst at the slightest touch. You’d have been pulling needles out of your unmentionables for a week.”

“Oh, uh…” he replied, pulling his hoof away and edging away from it for good measure. “Thanks.”

Hawkins groaned and casually asked, “Hey pegasus. Do you know your way around a rifle at least from basic training?”

He sighed loudly. “I have a name you know. I can scout and do basic infantry work, but I wouldn’t be much help since the Enclave trained different tactics to be more effective in aerial combat.”

“Funny,” she grinned, finding amusement. “with a name like ‘Hotshot’, I’d have figured they’d let you into the Wonderbolts on name qualifications alone.”

His ears pinned backwards in annoyance. “It doesn’t work like that. Plus I was never cut out for the Wonderbolts, anyways. Yeah though, to answer your question, I can use a rifle...”

Glancing at him briefly, now that I thought about it, I hadn’t seen him in a fight once. All I really knew was that he was able to fight in the same way as that bastard Airworthy. Aside from Sunny Hymn, he was the only pony I really trusted right now.

“Shut up, both of you.” I told them both, trying to keep focus on what I was about to do.

“Tch. Bossy, much?” Hawkins scorned.

I shot a glare back at her, about ready to lose my temper, but then my ears perked up. All of us hearing a noise coming from Dodge City. Screeching blared over the loudspeakers of the Ironclad Firearms Factory, with the mayor’s voice echoing loud and clear over the whole town.

We all stopped and turned around to face the direction of the broadcast.

“Listen up, you lowlifes!” Rubi’s voice boomed. “This is your mayor speaking!”

“Oh, this should be good...” I groaned aloud.

Hotshot let out a concerned sigh in agreement.

“Alright darlings, there’s been a lot of confusion over the last few days, but I’ve always looked out for y’all in this town when you’ve needed me most. So rest assured: Dodge City will remain free!”

The griffon beside me muttered, “Last I checked nothing’s changed. Negotiations are still ongoing.”

I looked at her briefly. It was easy to see Rubi was bold-faced lying to the town. Likely a ploy to take the focus off her own dirty dealings. That mare had no shame at all.

“Onto the first order of business. To all of the ponies going around stirring up trouble: You’re all illegally disturbing the peaceful law and order for rule-abiding ponies in my town! So any good citizens of Dodge are encouraged to shoot those bastards dead on behalf of your mayor. That goes doubly so for the mare named Appleshot Brandy, the leader of these miscreants. Ten thousand caps to whoever brings me her head! I’m also putting out an open bounty for Jagged Knife to the tune of fifty thousand bottle caps! He’s outside of town right now at Gallows Rock. Bounty goes to the first one who kills him! Along with exclusive membership into the Dodge City Gang.”

“Rubi…” I muttered under my breath in contempt. She had such horrible timing. That mare could’ve given Red Eye a run for his money if she really wanted to back in the Wasteland.

Quickly trying to formulate a plan out loud, I suspected it wouldn’t be long before ponies were on their way here. Figuring that would be the end of the broadcast, I spun back around to get there first, “Whatever, we can deal with her later. For now, let’s just-”

“Lastly, there’s one more bounty I should mention. The mare who’s responsible for all of this!” she boomed over the loudspeakers.

My entire body froze, and my ears fell backwards. “Uh, oh…”

“The one who busted up the Rot and threw this whole town into chaos! She fleeced me and she tried to sell you all out to the NCR too! It breaks my poor lil heart to say this darlings. I treated that mare like my own daughter, and this is how she repaid my kindness? That mare’s name is Roulette! Another fifty thousand bottle caps for her, dead!”

My cover was blown and suddenly I had about a dozen targets painted on my back. All I could think about though, was how the hell did she manage to find out so soon?

“You think you can come and take what’s mine?! Don’t mess with me, this is my town!” she shrieked angrily into the microphone. The speakers gave off some ear-splitting feedback, then the broadcast ended abruptly.

I twitched slightly. Sweat crept down my neck, as I stopped to internally process everything. Slowly, I turned towards my two companions who were both watching me, staring awkwardly.

“W-What are you two looking at?!” I snapped.

Hotshot looked off to the side uneasily, while Hawkins smirked to herself.

“Y’know, putting out a hit job on an NCR operative would typically be pretty well frowned upon, but technically you’re not NCR. So I guess the mayor’s in the clear.”

I shot her an angry look.

Hawkins rolled her eyes, “Sheesh. Relax, will you?”

“How am I supposed to relax?” I shouted angrily. “Now I’m gonna have to fight off about a dozen bounty hunters just to get to Jagged Knife!”

“Because you’ve got me here with you,” she snorted.

Allowing my stress meter to come back down a little, I realized what she was saying was at least slightly true. I’d been dealing with problems mostly on my own up until now, but it was good to have others I could count on for a change. “Jeez, Rubi is such a pain in the ass…” I huffed.

She then paused for a minute, fiddling with her earpiece. Getting something from her superiors, her expression turned to disbelief. “What?!” she shouted. Although I could only hear half of the conversation, I could assume what was being said. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?!... Ugh. Fine… No. I understand. Yes, sir.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“The situation has changed.” she answered, reluctantly. “NCR brass has ordered me not to get involved for some reason. Makes no damn sense, but it looks like you’re on your own in this.”

“And you’re leaving, just like that?”

“Sorry. Orders are orders...”

“What happened to helping me kill Jagged Knife?”

“Think rationally, pretty soon the NCR is going to step in and force her to call off your bounty. Now you might not even have to deal with him yourself. This just makes your job easier.” she replied, though she seemed frustrated by the command.

My eyes narrowed on her. In reality, this current situation didn’t help me at all. I wasn’t worried for my own sake, but I still had questions to ask him before I killed him.

She sighed, slinging her rifle over her back. Spreading her wings, she prepped to take flight. “Later, Dirt Muncher.”

Hotshot huffed to himself. “Whatever. We just have to get to Jagged Knife before they do.” Thinking that was that, he turned to leave, but it seemed that Hawkins and I had other plans. “Uh, Roulette...?”

“So that’s it then?” I asked her, both of us ignoring the pegasus completely. There was a short moment in which neither of us replied. He looked between the two of us, unsure what was going on.

“Eyup.”

“Is everything alright?” Hotshot asked, sensing something was up as I approached the griffon. He looked uneasily again in the direction of Gallow’s Rock, then back towards the town again.

Something else was annoying me then, and I felt that something had to be addressed right now. “And Brandy?” I asked her. “Surrounded by that many opportunists with a high profile bounty on her head, will put that stupid barmare in a lot of danger.”

Brandy might’ve hated me and it was her own fault she was in this mess, but… dammit. Why did things always have to be so complicated? If anything she certainly didn’t deserve to go out like that.

The corner of Hawkins’ beak curled upwards in annoyance and she muttered a sarcastic reply. “That’s the wasteland, right?”

Losing my temper I argued back with her, “Do the rules matter to you more than someone's life?! I thought the NCR was all about protecting ponies. I didn’t realize you were the sort to let a bunch of stupid bureaucrats tell you how to live your life!”

Hawkins turned around to face me, puffing her chest out. "Follow your mission to the end, no matter the sacrifice! If you screw up and have to lay down your life for the good of your talon wing, then do so without hesitation. That is our creed!" she declared, pounding her chest twice.

I stopped in confusion for a moment, wondering what that was about, though I remained firm in standing my ground.

“You want to know what happened to her? She grew up. I’m not happy about it either, but those are my orders. Sometimes bad stuff happens and all you can do is sit back and watch. Sometimes bad stuff happens anyways. Do you think this is a game? There are strict rules and regulations that have to be followed in a situation like this, because what we do here affects the rest of the NCR. The world doesn’t work like that. It never did. Not even in the wasteland. You can’t just sing songs about friendship and expect things to turn out okay all the time.”

Trying to find the right words at a time like this was difficult. So I just said the first thing that popped into my head.

“Look... you might be a huge bitch, but I know you’re not all bad. There’s actually something beneath that irksome personality of yours. If it hadn’t been for you, most of the Rough Riders would probably be dead right now.”

She scoffed, looking off to one side. “That was different...”

“Point is, you don’t stop trying, Hawkins. If you’re going back to town anyways, then at least go help Brandy. Make sure she’s safe from those bounty hunters,” I told her. “While you’re doing that, I’ll take care of Jagged Knife.”

The griffon took it about as well as I expected.

““Don’t stop trying?” What do you think this is?” She scoffed. “My orders were to back your investigation and figure out what you knew. That’s it. The situation has changed now, so we’re done. No matter how much it pisses me off, that’s the way the world works.”

No matter what her possible reasons for thinking this way, to me it all sounded like brahmin shit. Anyways, I wasn’t ready to back down yet.

“You said it yourself in that weird creed thing! The mission isn’t over yet. Not until we’ve killed Jagged Knife. He’s a threat to the ponies living here or whatever, isn’t he? What happened to the snarky gunslinging bitch who would go out of her way to make sure a squad of troopers were safe since it technically wasn’t against orders? Plus you already owe me one, for pulling me away before I could save Sunny.”

“Wha- you owe me for saving your life, you dirt munching idiot!” she sputtered, ignoring my angered glare at that assertion. Raising up on her hind legs, she spread her wings in a confrontational manner and snarled. “Papa Bighoof was coming and I couldn’t very well carry you both! Ugh! Also that isn’t what that means, stupid- !” The griffon huffed loudly. “It’s more complicated than that…. When you don’t follow your contract, bad things happen.”

“C’mon, she may be a stuck up, annoying bitch of an old hag, and I wouldn’t normally care what happens to her,” I admitted, “but that doesn’t mean she deserves to be unceremoniously offed by Rubi like that! Besides, wouldn’t you love to swoop in and see the look on her face once she realizes she’s being saved by the NCR? She’d hate that!”

“You’re not even lis- Not everyone can go around pretending to be the Stable Dweller!” she snarled. “What the hell is with you? Don’t you ever have to think about the consequences to your actions?”

I had never really thought about it before. My body had a tendency to react on its own. I remained standing my ground though.

“I dunno about you, but I’m tired as hell of these assholes sitting on high thinking they can do whatever they want. You and I have both got our issues, but nopony else has to die today.”

Hawkins growled, clutching her head. “Ugh. You’re so damn frustrating! You know that?” When she regained herself, she had calmed down and shot me back a cold glare. “Give me one good reason why I should…,” she said with an audible snort.

Hotshot looked between the two of us, unsure if he should interject. Or if he could for that matter. This was between the two of us.

I exhaled my frustration, but managed to force out a mumble. “Because you’re the best… and I can’t do this without you.”

Hawkins fell silent, her eyes narrowing at me. The griffon blew up her cheeks, reared back and ruffled her feathers angrily then blew all the air out of her lungs in a single puff which turned into laughter. Hotshot watched, seeming at a loss for words.

“I never took you for such a big softie!” she pointed, laughing at me. I scrunched my face in annoyance. Then to my surprise, she took out her communications device and spoke into it, “Ccchhssszzz What was that, fzzt-at?- sir? I frszhnn't hear ffou! Zzzzt!''

The griffon shook her head in disbelief. “You’re really something else...," she said. "I guess, nogriff could blame me if I saw a random civilian in danger and acted in my best judgement to save them. Since that is the NCR’s prime doctrine and all. Alright, I’m in, if only to see that look on her face.”

I nodded. Were Hawkins and I finally seeing eye to eye? I was almost just as surprised, frankly.

Pulling her revolver from underneath her bandolier, she gave Hotshot her sniper rifle with an added death glare. “Give her sniper support. And if you scratch it or fuck up my scope, you’re dead. Got it?” she threatened, making a fist.

The pegasus nodded his head quickly, showing that he understood.

“I’ll make sure that old mare is safe. I figure you must have some kind of personal beef with Jagged? Just promise me you’ll put a bullet in that bastard’s head for me before this is over.”

“Tch. Yeah, you’re damn right I will.” I said. “I’ll kill Jagged Knife, then we’ll meet up, fight our way to the mayor’s office, and force her to call off that bounty!”

“I can’t put my talon on it, but there’s always been something about you.” Grinning playfully, she teased, “Could you please repeat that last part again about how I’m the best?”

“Don’t push your luck…” I grunted, causing the griffon to burst into laughter again.

“And you’re sure you’re going to be alright?” she asked. “That’s a lot of bottle caps….”

I grinned and flexed my foreleg. “A few bounty hunters are no problem for me! Didn’t you hear? I’m basically immune to bullets.”

Hawkins gave an amused snort, perhaps unable to tell that I wasn’t joking. “At least watch out for Sharp Eye. He’s Rubi’s hitgriffon. Let’s just say... we’ve got kind of a history.” Then actually sounding sincere for once, she warned, “You know though, I won’t be able to protect you from whatever happens after this is over.”

“Thanks, but I’ll take the risk.”

“Alright, I’ll come back to check on you after I’ve saved that dumb barmare. Just…” she paused as if she were choking on her words, attempting to regurgitate them, “don’t wuss out and die before then, Dirt Muncher.”

“Same goes for you, Featherbrain.”

Then she bumped my hoof with her claw. This must’ve been a groundbreaking moment for angry mare and griffon relations everywhere.

Hawkins smirked and spread her wings, taking flight back towards Dodge City. “I’ll make sure your marefriend is safe this time while I’m at it too!” she called back to me, her voice growing more distant as she flew back towards town.

I blushed hotly and shouted back as loud as I could, “She’s not my damn marefriend!” Unfortunately by that point she was already out of earshot, and I groaned in frustration.

Hotshot was continuing to watch in disbelief.

Grinning stupidly, I turned around and shrugged at the pegasus. “Hey, I wasn’t expecting things to go that well either. Though that solves our griffon problem at least,” I joked. “She seems alright, I guess.” I couldn’t help but get the feeling that I’d had her all wrong from the get go.

He looked off to the side distantly. “Are you sure you still want to go through with this?”

The laughter faded as I remembered the reason I came here, and gave the pegasus a silent nod. “Yeah....” When I was serious I looked like a completely different pony.

“You should shoot him as soon as you see him,” he suggested. “Anything that comes out of his mouth is going to be a lie.”

“Not gonna lie, that sounds awfully tempting,” I muttered, making an attempt at playful banter that fell flat. This was going to be easier said than done. He seemed to be having reservations though, eyeing the scoped rifle in his hooves silently.

“Seriously. It’s just- maybe you shouldn’t go through with this after all,” he said, staring at the ground. “I just have a really bad feeling about this.”

Shaking my head solemnly, I replied. “No way. I’m going all the way. I owe it to ponies. Especially to Accolade. Somepony I know always told me that sometimes you have to take a gamble in life.” There wasn’t a lot of time. “Hey, Mohawk? You alright?”

He looked up at me. “I guess… holding this brings back memories of the Enclave, y’know?” he shrugged. “Remember when I told you that you shouldn’t trust anyone in Dodge City?”

“It’ll be alright though, because I trust you.” I smiled.

He swallowed, and nodded. Waving for me to go ahead. “Y-yeah, alright. I'll cover you. Just be careful. You don’t know him like I do.”

“I always am. And hey, just shoot their guns if you’re worried about it. I’ll handle the rest.” I replied, repeating that mantra in my head again, but felt some comfort knowing that I had friends beside me this time. “Most things go alright for me in the end, anyways.”

He spread his wings and took to the air as I began to trot. Fire filled my eyes. Leaving Hotshot behind me, I began picking up the pace. Breaking into a gallop to make up for lost time. We had wasted enough time already. After all, there was no more time to waste. It was time to meet with Jagged Knife and finish this.

I came to a relatively flat area surrounded by a field of oddly shaped rocks, trotting towards a particularly large boulder with a withered old tree growing out of it where I saw five ponies standing underneath I recognized all of them. They didn’t look too happy to see me though. An open noose hung from the tree branch, swaying in the breeze.

They were all armed with those modified Enclave weapons. This was going to be more difficult than I thought.

As I approached them, I spoke in my best gruff mercenary pony voice. “Hey, guys. I’m here about that job.”

Sting greeted me with a poisoned, “Hey there, Girly…” and I shot him a quick glare.

There wasn’t much time to spend on pleasantries though and we quickly did away with them. Jagged held his plasma pistol aloft with his telekinesis and I aimed back with Winona. The others pointed their weapons at me as well.

The blood pumping through my veins was beginning to simmer with anger. We stood silently in a standoff, until he spoke. I hovered near the trigger, feeling the itch to shoot.

“You’re late.” Jagged moaned. He was wearing his rust-colored wasteland jacket again, with the raider insignia stitched onto the shoulder. “I reckon you heard the news over the loudspeakers? Guess we’re in this together now, aren’t we?” he laughed.

I snarled, bearing my teeth. “Yeah, what the hell was with that announcement? Did you have something to do with it?”

The side of Jagged’s mouth curled up slightly. “C’mon Red, you really think I’d ask Rubi to put a bounty on my own head?”

“Hard to tell, but I wouldn’t put it past you.” I scoffed.

His smile widened. “Now why would I lie to you?” he stowed his gun, urging the others to do the same.

I could think of a few reasons. My eyes flicked towards the large white stallion briefly who was standing beside him and I made eye contact with him for a split-second. He didn’t say anything though, as usual. I still knew better than to bring up our secret meetings in front of his boss, but he understood what I meant regardless.

Jagged Knife sighed aloud, really playing it up. “I figured she would pull something like this. That’s why I asked you to come along as insurance. Either way, it’ll be easier to trust each other if we’re both in the same boat.”

I really couldn’t guess what his game was, admittedly, but the sooner I killed him and got this over with, the better. Then I could go back and deal with Rubi.

Looking around again, there was no sign of Angel Eyes either. In fact I hadn’t heard from him since the last time we met, which gave me all kinds of bad feelings about this.

“We’re late enough as it is. I’ll tell you all about it on the way there.” Jagged Knife offered, urging for us to leave.

“Not so fast.” I replied, reiterating my point with Winona. “Not until you tell me about the Enclave.”

He groaned impatiently. “You really think now is the best time to be having this discussion?”

I clenched my jaw and stood my ground. “Either you tell me about the Enclave now, or we’re not going anywhere.”

“You sure about this, boss?” one of his underlings cautioned. He looked like one of the ponies I met on the caravan raid. “I don’t trust this bitch.”

Jagged put simply. “I don’t care if you do. I say, so that’s how it goes.”

The raider continued to protest his opposition. “But Boss, she’s killed our own! Why the hell are we going out of our way on account of this bitch?”

His boss didn’t say a word as his underling spoke, instead keeping his icy gaze locked on me.

“Ever since Edgy left the gang, we’ve been on a losing streak! Tell us the reason why we’re here. We’re at least entitled to a reason-” he complained. As soon as he mentioned that name, he immediately drew Jagged Knife’s ire. All it took was a mere glance. The pony hastily apologized. “S-sorry, Boss… I meant no disrespect.”

Jagged exhaled in annoyance. “What did I tell you about bringing up Edgy?”

While the raider begged for mercy, his boss’ toothy smile widened as he looked at him. “Trust me boys, this mare is our salvation,” he declared, putting his hoof on the pony’s shoulder. “She’s a bona fide killer. A regular one-mare army.” Jagged Knife said.

“R-right boss. Whatever you say.” he acknowledged, closing his eyes and shaking like he was about to be killed.

Instead Jagged Knife patted him on his shoulder, dusting him off. “What’s the matter? You look nervous, friend. Calm down.”

The raider let out a sigh of relief, but shot me with a subtle look of contempt.

Jagged then turned to me again, and said, “Let’s vamoose, before the party starts. There are bound to be more than a few of those bounty hunters on their way here.” He motioned, tilting his head sideways. “Shall we?”

It took me a few moments to mentally process his words. Every second that passed was another moment in which I wanted to drop him dead. I knew that I had to find out what he knew about the Enclave first, but my mind kept going back to what Accolade had told me. As I contemplated what I should do, I thought about doing the deed right now.

Before we could finish our conversation though, we were interrupted by bullets.

Acting quickly, they all darted behind a few of the rocky outcroppings as shots ricocheted close by and returned fire without hesitation. I followed.

They were bounty hunters.

“What do we do boss?” Sting asked.

“Stick to the plan,” he said confidently. Then he looked at me, holding my rifle and chuckled to himself in amusement. “Y’know it’ll be awfully hard to tell you anything if we’re both dead.”

“The plan? What the hell is ‘the plan’?!” I asked in frustration. Then I spat at the ground and poked Winona out from behind cover, and began firing towards where I was hearing the vague direction of gunshots.

Some of the bounty hunters who were eager to be the first to get their hooves on that fortune galloped into the crossfire with bottle caps sparkling in their eyes. They were practically foaming at the mouth as they rushed forward, drooling with anticipation. Only for them to be shot down by Jagged’s plasma pistol moments later.

More began to arrive shortly after, but they were smart enough to use cover. A dust cloud began to pick up around us as ponies joined the fight. Partially obscuring everyone’s visibility and adding to the chaos.

The rocks in the area created dozens of blindspots where ponies could flank you if you weren’t careful, but that also played to our advantage. Jagged chose this meeting spot well.

As I gazed at their lifeless energy-scorched corpses, I realized they weren’t your typical hardened mercenaries. A lot of these were simply normal townsfolk, dressed in ratty and poor attire, but they behaved animalistically acting with reckless abandon. They were almost like chemed out raiders from out of the wasteland, greed-crazed by the promise of a massive fortune.

“Rubi…,” I thought, my blood starting to boil. I’d say Luna-damn that mare to hell, if she wasn’t already the mayor of it.

Jagged noticed me staring at the corpses as he callously gunned down some poor hapless pony and grinned. “What’s the matter, Red? You’re not going to start acting like some namby pamby Stable Dweller who’s never killed before, are you?”

I scoffed, shaking myself out of it. “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, making a burst of bullets fire out of Winona’s barrel. “I grew up in the wasteland, dumbass.”

“We’ll settle this after we get ourselves out of this mess.” Jagged offered, firing shots from his plasma pistol in between sentences.

I grit my teeth in annoyance as I aimed my rifle at the bounty hunters trying to kill us. Not that I had much of a choice in the matter. Between the two of them Rubi and Jagged Knife were a match made in hell. “Fine,” I thought, but I was going to make him tell me everything after this. And I mean everything.

That’s when we heard a familiar voice call out over the gunfire. “Hey Jagged Knife!” it said. “How the hell are ya?”

It was that pony in the black hat and duster I had met at Cherry Hill Ranch. I guessed that he was siding with Rubi in this conflict.

“Diamondback, is that you?” Jagged called out. “Good to hear from you! Wish I could say it were under better circumstances!”

“Funny, Jagged.” he laughed. “You should’ve stayed loyal to Rubi. That was a bad move on your part. This is what you get for double-crossing the Dodge City Gang.”

Jagged Knife mock-sighed.

“Yeah, I figured Rubi would be awfully cross when she found out. It’s true I was planning on betraying her anyways, but technically she betrayed me first. So how about we call it even?” he quipped merrily. “Congrats on the promotion by the way!”

“Always with the jokes… You’re a fool if you think you’re gonna get out of this alive, Jagged.” he said. “We’ve got all the gangs in Dodge City working on our side, as well as certain interests within the NCR. Plus, we’ve already paid off the Mercenary’s Guild. You’ve got no allies, Jagged. You’re finished.” The pony in the black duster laughed as his group of bounty hunters continued to fire at us from behind their cover.

“I wouldn’t say no allies.” he grinned, glancing towards me.

As they spoke, I looked around for an escape but we were surrounded.

“Of course, I see you got that mare with you.” Diamondback called out. “I guess she was in on it the whole time. Just so you know, between the two of us though, it’s nothing personal.”

I shouted, “Hey! Don’t drag me in this!” but was ignored.

Jagged shouted back, “Yeah, no hard feelings then!” Then he shot the pony in the forehead with his plasma pistol. The crackling energy burned a deep cavity into the stallion’s brain and he slumped over, dead. “But I’ll tell you what: You can say hello to her for me, next time you meet her.”

Sting snickered at his boss’ actions.

With even more bounty hunters arriving from the East, the fire fight had begun to kick up a lot of dust to the point it was becoming difficult to see.

“Huh, that’s a bit more than I was expecting.” He mused, taking a seat next to me and turning to face the rest of us.

“I don’t suppose you have a way to get out of this?” I groaned, firing another burst from Winona’s barrel.

“Yeah... and it’s a good one.” He said, gesturing behind himself with a tilt of his head. “See that canyon back there?”

“That canyon?” I repeated, looking over my shoulder.

“Hope you brought a stealthbuck, kid.” he chuckled. “Alright, everyone ready? On three...”

That’s when I realized what he was getting at. “Like hell!” I objected, pointing Winona at him. Seeing where this was going, I was definitely not on board with this plan. “How stupid do you think I am?!” I growled, pointing Winona at him threateningly. “Try it and see what happens!”

“One, two, three, go!!” Jagged counted off rapidly, and the last thing I saw was his smiling face before he disappeared in a shimmer of light. The last pony I made eye contact with was Three Card who caught the white hot intensity of my anger.

I thought I heard the sound of faint galloping and wheeled around with my gun. “Wait! You can’t just- !” I shouted.

They were gone.

“You did…”

Cursing under my breath, I quickly tried to give chase, galloping after them, but a shot nearly hit me as soon as I sprung out into the open. Then another one struck near my hoof, and another one grazed my cheek and I quickly dived back behind my rock.

“He probably planned for it to happen this way too,” I muttered scornfully.

That open stretch of desert behind me was practically a killing field. Even if it was a straight shot to the canyon, the hunters had me pinned. Now I was alone. Solitary behind my cover. I looked around for an opening but there wasn’t one. I was almost completely surrounded.

“Damn that bastard…” I lamented. “I should’ve just killed him while I had the chance.”

Trying to think of a way out, slowly, I leaned outward and fired off another magazine to keep the bounty hunters at bay while glancing around.

My eyes darted around searching for my pegasus friend. “Dammit. Where the hell is that pegasus when I need him?” I spat.

“He’s hiding behind that rock!” one of them called out.

Wait, but I wasn’t a stallion. They must’ve thought I was Jagged Knife. Swearing internally, I imagined all of the ways I was going to kill that bastard as soon as I caught up to him. It didn’t help that I had my own bounty either.

I stared up at the noose hanging above me swaying in the wind and realized that I’d have to figure out a way out of this.

My attention turned towards another rock to my left and I saw a pathway using cover I could use to get closer and escape. If I could just make it to that rock at the end, then I could make a mad dash for it and lose these idiots in the canyon.

Just then, a shot ricocheted a little too close to my head for my liking, which caused me to grow more irritated.

Edging to the far side of the rock that was willing to provide me with a scrap of cover, I returned fire. “Dammit, I don’t have time for this.” I groaned. The longer I waited, the less chance I’d have of getting what I came for.

Looking around me, I couldn’t make out any signs of Hotshot anywhere. “Where’s that damned pegasus?” I moaned. He was supposed to be here to help me out in these types of situations.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the bounty hunters preparing to rush me.

Then a thought popped into my head. Most of the ponies were here for Jagged Knife and didn’t know what I looked like, right? It was worth a gamble.

“Screw this…” I grunted. Taking a deep breath, I shouted at the top of my lungs, “Everypony stop! Jagged Knife isn’t here anymore, so quit wasting your time!”

The firing died down a little, a few more shots followed until there was a pause in the action. Then one of the ponies called out to me “What do you mean Jagged isn’t there?! Don’t lie to us, we just saw him!” she asked in a droll. “You just want the bounty for yourself!” Then the shooting picked up again.

“I’m not lying dumbass!”

“Who’s this speaking?” they asked, pausing once again.

“Look you’ve got it all wrong!” I shouted back. “I’m, uh… nopony worth noting.”

“I find that difficult to believe… we were fighting until just a moment ago!”

“Uh, well, believe it!” I couldn’t exactly tell her who I was, so I made up a story that sounded good in my head. “I was going after that bounty too, but then you all started shooting at me! He probably gave us the slip. So how about you let up and go search somewhere else?”

“If you’re really not working for Jagged Knife, then throw out your weapons and surrender. I’ll hogtie you and take you back as a prisoner myself, and if your story checks out, we’ll let you go.” The mare called out.

That wasn’t going to happen.

Another pony called out, “Wait a minute, I know her! That’s the same mare who sold us out to the NCR! She’s got a bounty on her too!”

There was a short silence as I held my breath and heard muttering between them. After that, I heard the sound of guns cocking from behind the cover of my rock.

“I don’t want to fight you.” I called out to them, readying Winona just in case. I reached for a small stone off the ground and held it in my hoof, readying to sprint for it when they least expected.

She chuckled at me, their guns all cocking in unison. “Like you got a choice...”

They all probably had their rifles trained on my rock. Looking around, I muttered sarcastically, “Hey, Hotshot? Now would be a great time to start giving me some covering fire.” I was on my own it seemed.

Keeping my eyes locked on the closest cover in front of me, I lowered my stance getting ready to run.

That was when I heard the roar of machine-gun fire from nearby, but the shots weren’t aimed at me.

Instead the gunfire was coming from behind the first group of ponies. I heard shouting and they turned around to engage. “What the hell is going on?” I thought to myself.

Realizing this was my chance, I galloped for the next rock. One of them called out that I was making a break for it, but they were too busy fighting the new group of ponies to chase after.

I ran for the canyon as fast as I could. Jagged Knife was more important than these jokers. Unfortunately, there was another pony standing in my way. Some random stallion with a dual-action battle saddle equipped and a pair of rifles pointing right at me!

“You’re not getting to that bounty before me!” yelled the newcomer, choosing me as his target by complete coincidence.

“Get real!” I snarled, ducking to the side of his line of fire, and threw a knockout punch, leaving the stallion unconscious on the ground. “I don’t even give a shit about the bounty!” As I continued forward, I found myself thinking these guys were total pushovers.

But I stopped my advance as a larger group of bounty hunters stood in front of me, cutting off my escape.

Another pony quickly recognized me and pointed me out. “Hey! That’s the mare who sold us out to the NCR!” Repeating it loud enough that the others could hear.

Some mare was propping up an RPG to my flank. I yelped and wheeled around in the opposite direction back towards my original cover!

“Rubi sold you out! Not me!” I argued. Unfortunately, it made little difference.

I made a sprint for and dived behind the nearest rock, dodging more gunfire in the process. Grenades exploded behind me and bullets cracked. The RPG screeched through the air and exploded the rock ahead of me in a spray of debris, but thankfully, through the dust and confusion I managed to escape their sight.

I breathed. Okay, maybe they weren’t total pushovers.

There were too many ponies standing in my way between me and my destination. Stray shots banked off my cover like rain as I finally got a second away from the bounty hunters. I had to figure out a new plan to get to Jagged Knife.

This was no good. I was going in the opposite direction of where I was trying to get to! Keeping my mind focused on the canyon, most of my attempts to reach it were being thwarted by these annoying ponies obsessed over greed and an idiotic sense of revenge. Also the longer I fought here, the less chance I had of catching up to Jagged Knife! I could practically feel him slipping away from me. The mere thought of letting him get away after all this just angered me further.

“Who the hell are you?!” I heard a pony ask sitting beside me.

Turning my head, I found myself sitting face to face with another stallion who was also using the same rock as me for cover. He was a red pony with a pick-axe for a cutie mark in a tattered old hat.

He pointed accusingly, “Wait a minute! I know you! You’re that mare who disrespected the Mercenary’s Guild the other day!”

I rolled my eyes and threw a left hook into his face before he could turn his battle saddle, knocking him unconscious against the rock. Then I dragged his limp body behind cover next to me so he wouldn’t get shot.

Slowly, I peeked out to get an eye on the action again, and saw that more ponies had begun to arrive from the East and were searching for me as well. All of them trying to be the ones to get their hooves on that bounty.

That was when a well placed shot ricocheted right near my head. I thought it was a fluke at first, but a second equally well-placed shot almost hit me and forced me back behind cover.

“Okay, that one was way too accurate to be from one of those bounty hunters.” I thought to myself. So I grabbed the unconscious pony’s hat off the ground and held it out in the open.

Suddenly, a hole blew straight through the middle of it. Just as I thought. “Great, now I have some jerkoff sniper pinning me down.”

I managed to get a quick look and when I did I saw one of the ponies who was a regular patron at the Wrangler. It was Lone Hoof. The pretty-boy stallion smiled and waved at me with a tip of his hat, “No hard feelings, lil Senorita! I just can’t pass up a bounty that high!”

Growling in anger, I shouted back. “I’m gonna make you eat that stupid hat of yours- !”

Then I heard a thunk and looked down to see a small metallic object sitting beside me and my heart skipped a beat.

I scooped the grenade up as quickly as I could and threw it back out into the open. The rock shielded me from the explosion and I let out a breath of relief.

Gritting my teeth in anger, I came out from behind cover and fired Winona at Lone Hoof. The unicorn annoyingly retreated back behind his own rock and out of sight.

“She’s over here!” one of them called out.

The logical part of my brain was aware that they were all simply being tricked into going after a humongous pile of bottle caps, but in the heat of it I was beginning to lose what little patience I had left. Especially since they were all trying to kill me!

My ears perked up, hearing a strange noise coming towards me. They sounded like… “hoofsteps?”, but as they came closer they sounded more like heavy stomps.

“Yeehaw!” Cried the hulking wall of muscle of a minotaur as he smashed through my rocky cover with ease and I just barely managed to get out of the way. “It’s Wild Iroooon!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs.

Bringing myself to my hooves,I blew my mane out of my face and shouted, “You dorks are really starting to piss me off!!!”

There was another gunshot that followed, echoing in my eardrums and I felt a dull pain in my hoof. I saw Lone Hoof holding a smoking sniper rifle and I looked down through a gaping hole in my foreleg.

The searing pain came only a few moments later. I cried out grasping my bloody hoof, and stared through the wound in both horror and fascination as the burning subsided and it began to stitch itself back together, in slow, but real-time.

Lone Hoof had paused to watch for a moment as well, utterly captivated by the horrifying sight.

My mouth hung agape while the glowing spider-veins coalesced around the edges of the wound and then disappeared completely. This healing factor was no joke.

The opportunistic pony shook himself out of it, raising up his sniper rifle again. Glancing over my shoulder, the minotaur had been watching as well and was now preparing another charge, scraping his hoof over the dirt.

Side-stepping the charge easily, I heard another shot, but this one came from further away. A soft crack of lead against wood, and some of the firing stopped. Glancing over my shoulder again, I saw that Lone Hoof was examining his now-busted sniper rifle in confusion. The unicorn stallion muttered in annoyance, tossing his junked sniper rifle on the ground.

I looked around more but didn’t see anypony. “Hotshot?” I asked out loud, but couldn’t find the pegasus anywhere. Grunting, I began to run again.

Immediately Lone Hoof pulled out a much larger anti-machine rifle from underneath his duster. Levitating the weapon up at me with his magic. My ears fell flat.

“That was my favorite gun…,” he growled.

He pulled back on the charging handle and squeezed the trigger as I made a dash for cover, causing a thunderous blast to erupt from the end of the barrel. Its massive recoil caused it to miss, but I felt the wind pressure go by my face. Another pony who had been standing directly behind me wasn’t quite so lucky. What was left of them exploded in a shower of meat. He was using explosive-tipped rounds!

A vein popped out the side of Wild Iron’s neck as he looked at the eviscerated pony corpse now missing its upper half. “Hey, Lone Hoof!” he mooed angrily. “Watch where you’re shooting that damn thing!”

“Don’t be like that! I got here first, fair and square, Wild Iron!” Lone Hoof argued.

“Well I got here second!”

“Pardon me, my bovine compadre, but that doesn’t make any sense!”

While they were distracted, I thought this was my chance and made a run for it. On any other day I’d be happy to take them on, but I had a previous date arrangement.

Weaving between the rocks, Lone Hoof shot another explosive-tipped round and exploded another one of the outcroppings. I heard their voices getting further away, calling out for my blood from elsewhere.

“She’s getting away!” Wild Iron shouted after losing sight of me.

I had a straight shot to the canyon. So I took it. As I rounded another rocky cover though, I saw more ponies standing in my way, with their guns pointing right at me.

“I don’t want to fight you...” I growled, hoping they’d stand aside, but ready for a fight. They didn’t seem too interested in talking things out.

Instead a single bullet zipped by me from one of the ponies. I felt the sting of hot lead graze my flesh and I finally lost my temper. “Fuckit,” I thought and immediately shot the bounty hunter who fired it dead.

He became nothing but a smear of red in the desert as the other ponies around him looked startled. Before I could do anything else, my wasteland instinct had already taken over.

I threw myself at the group of ponies through the hail of bullets. A rocket propelled grenade veered off and exploded somewhere behind me as I threw a swift uppercut to the RPG mare’s chin, and snapped her neck with a sickening crack. Turning over, I threw a left hook at the pony on my right and sent the stallion’s body toppling backwards with a concussion .

Some yellow stallion in a cowpony hat attempted to swing a shovel at me and hit me in the back of my head. Slowly, I turned my glare on him, shrugging it off. He looked horrified, like I was more monster than pony, before I busted his snout within a few inches of his life.

Seeing nothing but red, I lost track of what I was doing in the heat of the moment.

Until all of a sudden, the wind was knocked out of me. I hit the ground in an instant feeling a pain in my chest. A mare wielding a shotgun snuck up and blasted me with flechette rounds while I was distracted. I breathed heavy painful breaths, until my lungs came back to me. Then the pain began to dull.

The other ponies watched in horror as I found my footing again and raised myself up like it was nothing. My healing factor doing its work. Luckily my armor had blunted the force slightly and I had probably drank so much of that rad-water that my healing factor was in overdrive.

“Get the hell out of here if you don’t want to die!” I yelled, holding up Winona like I was the grim pony reaper. They were pointing their weapons at me in fear of me, like I was some kind of monster. Groaning to myself, I prayed that they’d leave me alone already so that I wouldn’t have to fight all of them.

They started to back off a little, looking at the pile of pony corpses I’d just created. That’s when I came to and realized what I had just done. I stopped and stared at my bloodied hoof wraps unsure of what to make of them. These were just normal townsfolk. What was I?

That’s when I heard the deafening roar of auto cannons.

I turned to look to see what was happening only to find the Steel Rangers had shown up and immediately began raining hell. Blasting other ponies in the crossfire with no concern for casualties. The power armored rangers had just arrived and began mowing down other ponies indiscriminately.

“Shoot. They’re here too?”

They must’ve been here for the bounty. Or at least the technology, judging from how many weapons were left on top of corpses. It was almost like they were trying to kill them.

As I watched bodies being ripped apart by huge twenty millimeter rounds, most of the other ponies had already begun to turn tail and ran, leaving their weapons behind. The ponies around me got spooked as well and ran away as fast as they could.

“Oh, now you take my advice...”

At this point, there was nopony else around. I had my chance to escape. The rangers still hadn’t noticed me and the only ponies left were the sort you’d want to avoid even if you didn’t have a bounty on your head. Glancing sideways, I did have a straight shot to the canyon, but I began to feel more anger inside me the longer I watched.

I cursed and began to gallop in the opposite direction. Instead deciding to head directly towards the Steel Rangers.

I threw a rock at one of their helmets to get their attention. “Hey, I’m the one you’re after! Right?!” I yelled. “Fight me instead!”

They stopped firing and turned to face me. It didn’t take them long to realize who I was.

“Heh, well if it isn’t the NCR bitch!” laughed the steel-clad pony. I heard her speak into her communicator, “Paladin Brunswick, let Senior Paladin Bombshell know immediately.”

I put on a cocky grin “What’s the matter? Don’t you steel-assholes want a piece of me too?” I asked.

“We only came to Dodge so that we could collect enough guns and ammo to rebuild our Steel Ranger chapter,” she revealed. “This bounty’ll go a long way for us. Bombshell wanted to deal with you herself. She figured you’d show up if we started blasting ponies at random.”

“Too much of a scaredy-pony to face me herself?” I mocked. The mare laughed from behind her helmet.

Then I heard a bleep from their helmets that told me their auto-cannons had locked onto me. Thinking quick, I rushed forward and leaped, latching onto the ranger’s helmet, and I hocked the biggest loogie I could onto her visor.

She bucked around wildly in disgust, trying to shake me off, while her fellow rangers tried to figure out what to do. “Blegghh! Degenerate tribal!” Meanwhile I clung on for dear life as her autocannons blazed. If I was between both of her guns then she couldn’t blast me to smithereens.

I leaned back and threw a punch as hard as I could against her metal helmet. She looked disoriented and stumbled, almost losing her balance.

My hoof felt totally numb afterwards, but it was worth it. I let go and landed in range of their auto-cannons. Though she had failed to notice the pair of grenades I had slipped underneath her battle saddle.

The mare shook her head, and reloaded her autocannons, which caused the whole thing along with her stock of explosive rounds to detonate.

I grinned, holding the pulled grenade pins in my teeth and spat them out. “Yeah, you’re not gonna want to do that.” Thankfully for her, her power armor kept her alive after the blast.

The other rangers pointed their artillery-toting battle saddles right at me in response, but I just whipped out the compliance regulator Hawkins had given me. I fired the blue magic beam at both of them, causing their mechanized armor suits to suddenly power off lifelessly. They looked surprised, as they struggled inside their useless metal containers and I was able to push them over with ease.

“Y-You’re going to pay for this!” the ranger promised, fruitlessly trying to move inside her steel suit.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I laughed, easily side-stepping out of the way of the minotaur who was attempting to charge me from behind. Wild Iron tripped over my foreleg and barreled on top of the remaining rangers by mistake. I could hear him coming from a mile away. They all laid toppled over each other, together in a big groaning pile.

“Wow, I should’ve just used this thing from the get-go.” I marveled to myself. Giving it a smooch, I then stuck it back inside my saddle bag before heading off.

I leaned down and whispered into the mare’s ear before turning away. “Just so you know, if I actually wanted to kill you, I would’ve. Don’t piss me off again.” I threatened, and I heard her groan inside her helmet.

An explosion from Lone Hoof’s anti-machine rifle burst one of the rocky outcroppings behind me as he loaded another round.

Glancing back at the canyon, I realized it was now or never and made a run for it.

Emptying a magazine of rounds in his direction, I forced the bastard to retreat behind cover again, then continued to gallop towards the canyon. My hooves pushed over the sand as I attempted to zigzag, feeling totally useless. So I kept running, bracing for an impact that never came.

There was another shot that came from further away, and when I turned around again, I saw the gun-obsessed unicorn examining his busted anti-machine rifle in anger, throwing his hat on the ground.

My gaze slowly raised upwards and saw a solitary cloud sitting above the fray, where the mohawked pegasus was watching from and he gave me a salute. “Gee, you couldn’t be any less subtle?” I thought, raising an eyebrow.

He shrugged as if he could read my mind, signalling with hoof signs that we’d rendezvous on the other side of the canyon, then took flight.

I came to a halt and stuck my tongue out in defiance at Dodge City as I finally made it to safety, feeling a sense of victory.

Then I looked down at myself and saw my hooves covered in blood, feeling an uneasy feeling in my stomach. As I looked back again to my surprise, nopony else was even attempting to follow me. Instead, I was hearing gunshots in the distance. Though they sounded more like echoes from this far away.

“What the hell is going on here?” I huffed out loud.

Squinting my eyes, I saw a group of ponies I didn’t recognize fighting the Dodge City Gang. Were they bounty hunters? They didn’t look like bounty hunters. I could barely tell who was fighting who at this point. Something else was clearly going on. Though it was difficult to tell what. I didn’t need to repeat my suspicions out loud.

Mutant buzzards were beginning to fly circles overhead, giving off their distinct buzzing call as they eagerly awaited their next meal.

I stood still for a moment longer, before entering into the snaking canyon.

The entrance had patches of exploding cacti all around it so I had to step carefully. If you got hit by one of those things you’d be pulling needles out of your you-know-where for a week.

Inside, its high canyon walls provided shelter from the hot sun and a moment to rest, but I was still strictly on edge.

My eyes darted around every corner, looking for ambushes or the faint shimmers of stealthbuck invisibility.

“Hello?” I called out.

I was alone in here after all. Except for the salamanders which were crawling all throughout the canyon. They were behind rocks and scurried into each and every crack. There was probably a nest somewhere nearby.

“Hellooo...?” I called out again. Again, no one answered. I kicked the dirt and my temper started to grow hot, thinking that he probably ditched me after all that. “I knew it. All he needed me for was a distraction.” I cursed. I was beginning to suspect that there were never any Enclave either, and he had just taken me for a ride.

Scolding myself for being so stupid, I imagined what my brother would’ve said. Then I stopped as I felt a tingle along my spine and heard rocks shift behind me. I spun around pointing Winona.

“Who is it?!” I snarled. “Jagged is that you? I’m gonna kick your goat-faced ass for pulling that shit back there!”

Instead a grey pony dragged his hooves out of the shadows from where he was hiding, but it was not the pony I was expecting. Instead it looked like that sad sack I met at the bar. He came out from behind the rock and slumped over.

“Aw… I was going to jump out and ambush you.” he moped. “I had it all planned out too. Thought this was finally my chance...”

Immediately, I calmed down and lowered my guard upon realizing he was nopony special. “Oh it’s just you. What was your name again?”

“It’s Down Luck…” he moped. “I just thought that maybe if I could get that bounty and I’d be able to pay off my debt.”

This was incredibly awkward. I almost wished that he had been a crazed raider trying to kill me. Or at least that he’d leave somewhere else.

“Hey, I get it.” I sighed. “Trust me though, it ain’t worth dying over. Go home.”

“Yeah, you’re right…,” he agreed, turning away hopelessly. I watched him dragging his hooves past me, but then he stopped and I saw him reach for something. The pony had a sly glint in his eye. “Or…” he began.

He spun around gripping a kitchen knife in his mouth and lunged at me.

“I could just kill you and get those fifty thousand bottle caps for myself!” he shouted.

Stopping him, I held him back easily with my foreleg. Close up, I could see a glint of madness and a crazed look in his eyes as he desperately tried to reach me with the knife.

Even though he was a full grown stallion, he was hilariously weak. The knife itself probably wasn’t all that dangerous for me, but I tried to reason with him anyways.

“Woah! Hey, I don’t want to have to hurt you!” I warned.

He struggled in vain to push forward and thrust the knife into my neck, grunting in futility. “I want that bounty! As soon as I kill you… I’ll- !”

“Think of your family,” I said, trying to get through to him, continuing to hold him back with little to no effort on my part. “They wouldn’t want you to get yourself killed over bottle caps!”

He stopped pushing and cocked his head in confusion, then laughed, “Fuck those little free loaders! They can die for all I care!”

Those words caught me off guard and I slipped. Stunned and wide-eyed, my mouth hung open as the knife cut the side of my throat. He threw me off and pinned me to the ground laughing with glee as he stood over me. He tried to stab me again, but I blocked it with my foreleg.

“Y-You really don’t care about your family at all?” I asked.

“Who the hell cares?!” he laughed. “I’m gonna be rich!”

Suddenly there was a gunshot and the pony slumped over lifelessly with a fresh bullet hole in his brain pan. I sat watching the pool of blood that wasn’t my own collecting near me, somewhat shaken. Then I looked up to see Three Card holding a small pocket pistol in his mouth, which he slipped back underneath his vest.

I stood up quickly, somewhat shaken. Then I glared at the pony standing silently in front of me. “Y-You didn’t have to do that,” I said, regaining my composure. “I could’ve handled him on my own.”

“You were sloppy. Let him get the better of you,” he chided back. “Jagged Knife will be a lot more cunning. Kill or be killed. Have you forgotten already? That’s how it always was in the wasteland.”

“I would’ve been fine...”

The pony looked down at my healing wounds surrounded by green spider-veins in disgust and asked. “Is that normal?”

“Like I said, I’m fine.” I scoffed. My wounds were healing, but slower than before. So I pulled out one of the dirty bottles of rad-water and downed it. It didn’t go down well, but it did its job. “What are you doing here anyways?” I asked.

“You were taking too long. Why didn’t you just kill him when you had the chance?”

Of course that would be his response. “Not my fault I got caught up back there.” I snorted, “What the hell is your problem?”

The usually stoic pony looked rather annoyed this time as he pushed me back against the wall. He held me up so that we were staring face to face and demanded to know. “Why didn’t you kill Jagged when you had the chance? How many damned times are you going to let him take advantage of you before you get wise you stupid mare? I’m tired of putting up with your sorry flank just because Angel chose you for the plan.”

“W-What?” I sputtered, “I was gonna before those bounty hunters got in my way! I just needed to know a few things first. What do you care how I deal with him?”

He rolled his eyes and let go of me, shaking his head.

“You aren’t still pissed off that I royally kicked your butt that one time?” I snarked, which he didn’t really appreciate.

Instead, Three Card only grew more irritated. “Don’t you get it? We’re only in this situation together because you can’t seem to do what needs to be done,” he growled. “So quit with the damn pleasantries and kill Jagged Knife already.”

“First you don’t speak at all, and now you think you can order me around?” I challenged. “If you have a problem with my style of assassination, then why don’t you do it yourself?”

He muttered to himself out loud, “I can’t believe Angel chose an idiot like you for this. I’ve said it before: That marefriend of yours would’ve been a much better choice. She’s way more reliable.”

“S-She’s not my marefriend.” I blushed, quickly changing the subject past it. “And I’m not particularly thrilled about it either.” Then I looked around, asking, “Hey, where is Angel Eyes anyways? Have you seen him?”

Three Card let out an exasperated grunt, but I noticed he didn’t answer my question, so I assumed the worst. “Any other situation, and we wouldn't be speaking. But since I’m stuck working with you, I don’t have any other options. Our only chance going forward is for us to cooperate.”

My eyes narrowed on the raider. “Why should I even trust you?” I asked.

“Because I promised Sunny Hymn that I would protect you.”

“Protec- ?” I sputtered, my face blushing a deeper red. Sunny was reliable. I trusted her call more than anyone else’s. Though I was getting the annoying feeling that my accomplishments up to now weren’t being given proper acknowledgement. “Fine. What do you want already?” I snorted.

“I’m here to warn you,” he revealed. “This job isn’t a meeting with our suppliers. It’s a gathering. He just wanted to get you alone.”

“Give me a little credit. I brought backup….”

“Well that’s something. And I trust that you’ve got a way to deal with Jagged too?”

Giving a small nod in affirmation, I took out the compliance regulator Hawkins had given me. After allowing him to observe it briefly, I hid the weapon back underneath my jacket for easy access.

I had already figured that out by this point. To think that I had come all this way for nothing. Though that particular detail took me by surprise... “What does he want me alone for?” I asked, taken aback by that little revelation.

“I don’t know, but he’s been interested in you since you came to Dodge City. Couldn’t fathom why. He wouldn’t tell us the reason. Strangeness always seems to surround you, mare. Either way this is good. We can use it to our advantage.”

Even so, I was still a little skeptical if there was even a point to all this. “Literally everypony everywhere wants him dead. It’s not like he’ll be able to do anything.”

“Rubi’s underestimating Jagged Knife,” he answered. “She thinks she’s holding all of the cards. That’s her weakness. Jagged managed to get one of the Dodge City gangs to secretly back his coup.”

Somehow, that revelation wasn’t too shocking. News to me, but none-the-less unsurprising. Though I shouldn’t have been too surprised he couldn’t have pulled this off entirely on his own. “Okay then, what’s he after?” I asked. “What’s the point? If the NCR gets involved, it’s inevitable that he’s gonna fail.”

“He doesn’t know any other way to live. He might claim to want retirement, but that word means something entirely different to him. Jagged has become nothing but a rabid dog. Those ponies think they can use him to gain power, but it won’t work.”

“Then why are you helping me? And why go through all of this trouble instead of simply killing him yourself?”

His answer didn’t give me much. He just muttered, “I have my reasons…. Let’s just say that unlike some, I actually honor the old ways,” he answered, growing annoyed by my questions.

Old ways. New ways. His answer meant nothing to me. I muttered something to myself that he clearly didn’t appreciate. “Before we go further, tell me everything!” I stomped my hoof insistently. “Or else!”

He checked over his shoulder again for the third time, “The longer we take here the more suspicious Jagged will get.” he warned.

I didn’t care. I was so tired of being given the runaround, and dying to finally get some answers.

The white pony grunted in irritation. “Fine. We dealt with Papa. The Smokey Mountains are his territory, after all. That’s where the weapons are from, but they came from a place hidden deep near their peak. Sometimes Jagged spoke with a snooty unicorn, and that’s how he acquired them. We had to do some things we weren’t proud of to escape because of what Jagged did. Dunno about any Enclave though. Satisfied yet?” he snorted.

“No. Why would he go through all this trouble? What’s he planning to do?!”

He couldn’t tell me anything beyond that. Apparently Jagged had always played things annoyingly close to the chest, but especially so since Edgy left the gang. He had real trust issues apparently. Just my luck.

Still dissatisfied, I continued to press the issue. “I saw Vertibucks though!” I insisted. “I know I wasn’t seeing things. So tell me what’s so special about that place. You owe me.”

Three Card stood his ground that time. “I don’t owe you a damn thing, mare,” he said. “You made that deal with Angel. Not with me. Thus, I’ve got no obligations to honor it. As far as I’m concerned, they disappeared after Cauterize. You want to go chasing ghosts? Fine. Do it on your own damn time. This is about here and now.”

I scoffed.

“Enough of this. Now I’m done answering your questions. If you want more then you can ask him yourself.”

It appeared that I wasn’t getting anything else, so I agreed reluctantly to follow his plan.

“He’s going to take us to Boot Hill where the meeting is being held, and he’ll ask you to join up with him there. If you refuse, he’ll try to kill you. Wait for that moment when I create a distraction. That’ll be your chance. Some unnamed ponies have a lot riding on this, but if you stop him here, then everything falls apart. Nopony else has to get hurt.”

“And she’ll be safe too?”

He nodded. “You have my word. Though I think you’ll find that she can take care of herself on her own.”

Of course, I didn’t need him to remind me of that fact.

I motioned towards Winona, feeling a little cocky. “Well I think Jagged’s gonna get a lot more than he bargained for,” I laughed.

“Do you always act this nonchalant?” he grunted. “This is a dangerous job.”

My eyes narrowed on the pony. “Look I’m not stupid. I’ll do what needs to be done, okay?”

“Good. Just stick to the plan and there shouldn’t be any problems.”

“Yeah…,” I muttered. “Got it.”

Then as he began to turn away, he looked to be contemplating something else in his head and turned back around. “By the way… I’m not sure if it’s worth mentioning, but I know you’ve been hanging around with that Hotshot character. Dunno what sort of relationship you two have, but word of advice? I wouldn’t trust him if I were you.”

I wasn’t expecting him to say that, but I quickly snapped back without even having to think about it. “You’re wrong about him!” I argued. “He might be ex-Enclave, but I’d trust him over you any day of the week!”

The raider trotted ahead, shaking his head dismissively. “Think what you want.” I heard him say.

“And how do I know you’re not lying to me right now?” I asked accusingly. “We’re not exactly friends!”

The pony answered simply with. “Because your friend Sunny asked me to. Our goals align, even if we have different reasons.”

I gave another dismissive snort and nodded.

“I’ll leave first. Wait a few minutes, then follow.” he ordered.

Three Card began to trot out of the canyon, but before he flicked his stealthbuck on, he stopped and looked at me again. Then he muttered, “She’s too good for you.” and went invisible. I heard his hoofsteps getting further away.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I scoffed, and that was the end of the conversation.

I hated waiting.

It always made me feel antsy. Tapping my hoof, I waited impatiently until I got tired of counting in my head and followed him out.

Although I still wasn’t sure if I was ready to trust this pony, I did trust Sunny Hymn. This was getting to be too much though. I was considering if I should just shoot the bastard dead the next time I saw him and his stupid goatee.

I came out of the snaking canyon on the other side, looking around both ways for Jagged Knife. Dodge City was in the distance. Something was clearly going on. It looked like Three Card was telling the truth.

I was beginning to get an idea in my head. If I could just hit him with the compliance regulator, I could force Jagged Knife to answer all of my questions, then kill him.

That was when a huge twenty millimeter shell blasted the rocky canyon wall. Falling rocks and debris fell from overhead and I dived out of the way just in time, only to be greeted by more autocannon fire.

“An Ambush?! Shit!” I thought, looking back. That rock had just barely missed flattening me into a pancake.

I glanced sideways and saw the metallic sheen off a suit of power armor, hearing an annoyingly familiar laugh coming from behind the suit’s rebreather. “Well, well, well... looks like it’s our lucky day today. If it isn’t the NCR bitch again!” Bombshell laughed. “Thought you could get away from me and my rangers, didn’t you?”

It was the Steel Rangers again.

“Oh, great.” I rolled my eyes in exasperation. A quick glance around, and I could see they had formed a perimeter around the outside of the canyon to prevent me from escaping. Dealing with ponies trained in military tactics was always a pain in the ass. “Could we do this some other time?” I asked her. “I’ve got somewhere to be today.”

“Not on your life!” she snarled, with Bombshell and the rest of her cronies opening fire with a shelling bombardment.

I dodged more explosive shells and debris, galloping behind a small boulder that worked as cover. I switched Winona to armor piercing rounds, but they did me little good. Their armor seemed to be of higher quality than your average Steel Ranger as my bullets banked off uselessly.

Tossing my last grenade at her, it landed near her hooves. A direct hit, but to no effect. I cursed.

“Okay, I could really use some help about now...” I grunted.

Her squad of rangers concentrated their fire and the rock finally exploded. I felt the wind knocked out of me from the artillery shell going off too close and I blacked out for a second. When I woke up, I was on the ground, feeling the shrapnel damage from the explosion slowly healing itself.

Bombshell approached me, laughing under her breath while she ordered her fellow rangers to stand down. I tried to push myself up and aim Winona at her again, amazing even myself at my body’s resilience, but she put her steel-clad hoof on top of me

She leaned down so that I could see my reflection in her visor. “Did you really think you could cross the Steel Rangers and get away with it, NCR?” she mocked.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you steel-assholes to quit living in the past?” I huffed, still feeling pain in my chest. It hurt to chuckle.

“Plenty of times,” she laughed back, “but it’s difficult to argue when you have this sort of firepower. Oh well, guess you get to die for nothing then.”

“And for the last damn time, I’m not NCR!” I reached inside my jacket and whipped out the compliance regulator before Bombshell realized what it was. By the time she did, I had already fired the blue beam of energy at her, and it was too late- wait no. I had expected her power armor matrix to shut down completely and leave her locked in place, but she was completely unaffected.

Instead, Bombshell laughed and knocked the weapon from my grip, pushing down harder with her power armored hoof. “Never seen tech like this before,” she admired. “Pretty dangerous. Though tribals like you shouldn’t go around using this sort of technology.”

Sparks flew as she crushed it under hoof, leaving only a worthless pile of scraps and broken focusing gems. My face made a grimace looking at my junked compliance regulator

“Cute, but you should know that I had the scribe nerds from my old chapter make some special modifications to my T-51b,” she boasted. “My power armor is completely immune to matrix disrupting attacks!” Suddenly, I was staring down the barrel of her twenty millimeter autocannon.

“Any last words?” she asked, leaning down close to me.

I snorted and threw a punch at her helmet as hard as I could. The blow was so hard it made her reel back slightly, and my hoof was buzzing with numbness afterwards from punching solid metal, but it was worth it.

She was dazed for a moment, but quickly shook herself to her senses. “Holy fucking Celestia, I actually fucking felt that inside my helmet!” she laughed, “I’ll be sure to remember that one.” Bombshell lowered her cannon and I heard a blip, indicating her auto-cannons were locked on.

I hoped that I made her nose bleed.

“Say hi to the princesses for me,” she said.

Suddenly a shot from a sniper rifle cracked in the distance and downed one of Bombshell’s rangers. She turned her head towards the origin of the shots as the others tried in desperation to locate the sniper and a second round hit her dead on, but deflected off her superior armor.

Good timing. I hadn’t realized Hotshot was so deadly-accurate.

While they were trying to locate him, there was a second gunshot, but not a deafening roar from an auto cannon or the crack from a sniper rifle. Instead it came from a smaller caliber pistol and Bombshell suddenly stopped moving.

I looked around in confusion and saw Jagged Knife standing behind us, holding a smoking gun. He was wearing a wicked smile, and was flanked by both Sting, Three Card, and the others.

Then I looked back at Bombshell again, who was standing oddly still in place. I attempted to more closely examine the mare’s helmet, and to my surprise, I didn’t see a single bullet hole. It remained in perfect condition.

“Bypass bullet. Ignores armor completely,” he said, as if to answer the question on my mind, as well as anyone else who was wondering. “The ammo for this thing is extremely limited, so I usually don’t like to use it in a fight, but I figured today being so special… ‘Hey, I might as well’.”

He and the other raiders took aim at the remaining Rangers, who were now outgunned. The pony that Hotshot had downed originally, struggled to his hooves, still alive but with a bloody bullet-sized hole in their power armor. They muttered between themselves contemplating what they should do. Probably shaken up from seeing their leader so casually offed like that, they elected to run away.

Jagged watched them as they galloped off. “Live to fight another day…,” he mused.

Blood began to seep out of Bombshell’s helmet, as it pooled up in the sealing around her neck.

More surprising still, the gun Jagged Knife was holding in his telekinesis was actually one that I recognized. There was no mistaking it. I’d recognize that sleek steel gem-inlaid pistol anywhere from when I was a filly. It was Radar’s!

I freed myself from the dead mare’s grip and stared at his weapon in total silence.

Jagged noticed me watching and began to approach. Slipping it back inside his jacket, I got to my hooves and pointed Winona straight at him, praying to Luna in my head that he didn’t notice the sniper during all of that.

The others were quick to pull up their arms in response, but Jagged told them to stand down. “Lay down your weapons, boys. This is between me and the mare.” he sighed. His eyes flicked down over my bloody hooves, and he said, “I have to admit, I’m disappointed...”

“Screw you! What was the deal, ditching me like that?” I snarled.

“Hardly my fault that you came unprepared. Blame Rubi, if you want,” he replied. Looking down at my bloodstained hooves, he smiled. “I got to see a little bit of your fight before I high-tailed it out of there. You’re quite the combatant, aren’t you?”

“I thought that you wanted me for a job. Not fighting off bounty hunters…,” I said. Something in the back of my head was telling me that I should just pull the trigger right then and there.

“When I asked you to come along that was implied as part of the job description. What did you think you’d be doing out here? Besides, a few bounty hunters should be no problem for you.”

I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. I asked him to quit wasting my time.

“Of course,” he chuckled. “Look at it this way though, we all made it out of that mess alive. Now that it’s over, how about we head over to the meeting spot while Rubi is distracted? I’ll tell you anything you want to know on the way there.” he offered.

Glancing back towards the town, and then at Three Card. I was still able to think rationally. Those weapons were still a danger. It also seemed Jagged Knife didn’t happen to notice the sniper in the background of my last fight with the Steel Rangers. So luck hadn’t completely abandoned me.

A scope glint passed over my eye as I looked back towards the town. Probably Hotshot, letting me know he still had my back. I didn’t take as much comfort from that as I thought I would.

Hearing more gunshots coming from back towards town also didn’t give me a good feeling, but I trusted Sunny Hymn enough to make the right call if the situation fell on her.

“Shall we?” he offered, extending his outstretched hoof.

This was a bad idea. I knew it. Even so, there was a part of me that wanted to hear him out. I had to know about the Enclave.

Making a quick glance at Three Card who was hiding in the back, he gave me a subtle nod. I decided to stick to his plan for the time being. “Fine,” I agreed, and began to walk ahead. “Let’s get this over with.”

One of the other ponies was glaring at me. “Are you sure we can trust her?” he asked his boss.

Jagged Knife replied with smiling assurance. “Believe me, the things this mare’s accomplished hasn’t all been just dumb luck.”

A spritebot bobbing up and down passed by, playing its familiar polka track over the eerie silence between all of us. Jagged whipped out his gun and shot it down without looking, making it explode in a shower of sparks. “After you, Red.”

Accompanying the raiders out into the middle of the desert wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time. If my sister were still alive she would’ve lectured me for hours over what a stupid idea this was, but she wasn’t here right now.

Occasionally I’d look over my shoulder, back towards the town getting smaller and smaller as we got further into the badlands. As the singular SPP tower that overlooked Dodge shrunk into the distance, it seemed to represent civilization itself getting further away.

The trudge out to Boot Hill took longer than anypony in their right mind could possibly find comfort in. Usually it took only an hour or so to make it there by hoof, but the minutes seemed to drag on and on here. I always had a hard time staying in one place, but this walk was killing me. If I galloped, I thought, I probably could’ve made it in a quarter of the time.

For the last few minutes, I had kept mostly silent. Mostly thinking of how I was going to kill him at the end of this. And the more I thought about it, the more it made my blood boil.

Jagged led the way, with me trotting nearly beside him. Sting followed closely behind to keep an eye on me, while the other two kept watch on the horizon for threats. Three Card followed in the back, sticking to the plan. He’d help out when the time was right.

Meanwhile, the occasional scope glint from Hotshot was the only other indication that I wasn’t completely alone out here.

What Three Card said to me before we left was suddenly a worry. Before this whole thing started, I told Hotshot that I trusted him. “C’mon, are you really going to take a raider’s word over his?” I thought, scolding myself, but I silently promised myself that I’d pry more into his past after I got back.

With the wind blowing through my mane, this part of the San Palomino was looking a lot more like the wasteland I remembered. I felt a soft desert breeze blowing across my face. Looking out into the vast emptiness, it was almost like it was calling to me.

Then I noticed one of the raiders staring at me with some form of contempt.

“What are you looking at, molerat breath?” I asked.

“It’s Shiv, you dumb bitch,” he sneered, “and you killed my friend.”

I asked him what he was talking about, and he hatefully reminded me.

“No Dice? Back at the caravan raid? You broke his neck.”

“Oh yeah?” I replied dismissively much to the stallion’s irritation. “Well you killed Cottontail.”

The stallion got annoyed, but Jagged casually reprimanded his subordinate. I could hear Sting constantly snickering behind him. It was getting annoying.

“Hey, Red,” Jagged repeated again. I’d zoned out there for a moment.

“Yeah?”

“I said to watch out for rad spots. Certain places out here will kill you in an instant if you stay still for too long.”

I scoffed. “You don’t need to tell me twice.”

He smiled. “By the way, I also liked the look in your eyes back there.”

“Just shut up, and trot….”

We continued further into the desert, surrounded by emptiness on nearly all sides, but something caught my attention. We fell silent as we spotted a desiccated white corpse of something white, fleshy, and vaguely pony shaped lying in the sand. It had tendrils of melted flesh and half-formed body parts.

I had never seen anything like it before. I nearly stopped to look at it out of disgust and curiosity. Turning my head as we passed whatever-it-was, I continued to stare at it. The others barely gave it a passing look, but Jagged noticed me staring at it.

“Sometimes these things wander in from the desert,” Jagged revealed. “No idea what they are or where they come from, but most often they end up dying on their own. If they don’t get shot by other ponies first, that is.”

“I see…,” I acknowledged, realizing that must’ve been a pretty pained existence.

“Figured you’d be a lot more chatty, Red.” Jagged mentioned. “Weren’t there things you wanted to know?”

Oh. Right. I had been caught up in my own head this whole time that I almost forgot. They might’ve found that slightly suspicious.

Sting snickered again to himself, but this time drew a glare from me.

“Uh, yeah… so where’d you get that gun?” I asked, motioning at the pistol tucked away in his jacket.

Jagged smiled. “Oh, you mean, Radar’s?” he asked, pulling it out and admiring its sleek design in the sunlight. “When I heard the old pegasus bit the big one, I wanted to make sure I had something to remember him by.”

Yeah, right. I imagined he probably had to kill someone else to get his hooves on it. “You knew him too?” I asked. “So you said before.”

The pony looked back, flashing his ice cold eyes and smiled at me. “Course I did, Red,” he told me. “I knew him all too well. After all, he killed my family.”

That caught me off guard a little. “...You’re lying,” I said flatly.

Jagged Knife chuckled to himself. “Oh it’s true alright. Take it from me, it wasn’t all heroics and hot bedded mares with that old stallion. Some of the things Radar did back in his day were downright war crimes. But hey, when you grow up in a place like the Enclave, what do you expect?”

“You’re a raider, so you’re one to talk.” I spat angrily. Jagged Knife could’ve been saying it just to mess with me for all I knew.

He gave an annoying grin, able to see that it bothered me. Though this conversation made me realize that I really had no idea who Radar was in the past at all. All I had was a personal story of mine and hearsay to go off of.

“While we’re on the topic, why don’t you tell me everything you know about the Enclave. That was part of the deal, remember?” I demanded, causing Jagged’s eyes to light up.

“Ah, yes, the Enclave. How could I forget?” He said, mock-smacking his hoof on his head. “That’s quite the story, kid. See, back in my early raider days, bout’ twenty-some years ago, I ended up rolling with a crew fifty strong. Led by a mean ole bastard of a stallion by the name of Fester. You might remember him. We were all hired together by the Enclave to do a job.”

“Yeah, I remember.” I said with a scoff. I had gotten the radiation poisoning and impromptu surgery from him as a parting gift in the Rot. “That’s weird though. I thought the Enclave avoided the surface like the plague.” I said.

“Odd was written all over that job. They didn’t behave like your typical Enclavers either. Enclave law typically dictates they stay above the clouds. Control their population, and all that. Thing is, unless you have High Council approval, there aren’t too many situations where you’re going to be going down there as a pegasus. With there being only a few notable exceptions. You’d need special authorization in that case, meaning it was probably spec-ops.”

“Weird...” I admitted, though I became curious.

Jagged Knife continued, “The job was to kill a certain pegasus and take back what he stole since it was the ‘sole property’ of the Enclave. So naturally, we were all thinking of stealing it for ourselves.”

“Naturally,” I grunted. “Did it have anything to do with that device I was sent to retrieve from the Rot?”

“This?” Levitating out the strange looking chip-device, he observed it closely, before sticking it back in his jacket pocket. “I just needed it back from that crazy old ghoul.”

“And the Enclave?” I asked, trying to force him back on topic.

“The job, of course, didn’t quite turn out how we were expecting it to go. Radar set off a localized balefire bomb and most of us got caught in the blast. I escaped, but it was a lesson to my younger self to never underestimate him. Yup. A lot of my brothers died on that job, or worse…”

As he talked, a thought sprung up in my head. Didn’t Hawkins mention something about the Enclave being relatively active on the surface twenty years ago? I wondered if maybe she or the NCR or maybe someone else knew something about this.

“Didn’t bother finishing us off. The way I figured it, maybe they assumed we wouldn’t know what to do with it, even if we did get our hooves on the prize.”

I responded with mock-sympathy. “My heart weeps for you, really.”

“Easier, not to think about it, eh Girly? Not having to think of raiders as ponies too?” Sting mocked.

“What do you care? You’re raiders.”

“Now, now, Sting. No need to get nasty. You wouldn’t want to stoop to her level, would you?” Jagged chided playfully.

I scoffed.

The raider boss continued with his story. “That was how I first met Radar. What got me interested in following in his hoofsteps in the first place. Since he’s been all over the wasteland he knew all of its secrets, and those jobs with connections to the old geezer always tended to yield better results than others. That and a lil bit of desire for revenge. Maybe, there’s some database somewhere that could tell you more, but as for me, I never figured it out. I’ve moved on.”

“Have you though?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Ever feel like you don’t belong, Red? Like nothing makes sense anymore?” he asked me.

I thought about my reply before answering. “Sometimes…,” I admitted, “so I just try to keep moving forward.”

Jagged Knife smiled. “Exactly. That’s how it always is, isn’t it? You feel it too, don’t you? You understand, the wasteland is a part of both of us. We’re the same.”

Not exactly the same. I had freakish mutant superpowers that protected me from getting shot. Still, I didn’t appreciate the comparison. “We’re nothing alike. Raiders kill without reason. I never took pleasure in inflicting pain on others...”

“Is that so? And I suppose what you did back there, that was all a happy accident?” he pointed to my hooves and I screwed my face in anger. “C’mon you lived in the wasteland too. You know how it used to be. We were all fighting to survive.”

“I remember. I guess the wasteland just came naturally to me.” I said.

“In the old world, all that mattered was your strength and your will to survive. In this new one, everything is topsy turvy. The law of the wasteland barely holds meaning anymore.”

“Maybe that’s for the best.”

Jagged laughed. The first real laugh I’d heard from him. “So what do you make of the NCR’s law then?” he asked.

I sighed. “Wasteland governments aren’t my cup of tea,” I said, “but at least ponies can live out their lives peacefully, I guess.”

“Ain’t that the truth?”

We were getting closer to Boot Hill now. I could see it in the distance. The lone geographic feature on the map stood out on the edge of the endless desert to the South. Even from afar, I could see it was some sort of twisted graveyard.

Just a little bit further now.

“Lucky for you, me and my supplier go way back. He’s a pony who can tell you of the Enclave’s current whereabouts.” Wondering what this pony’s name was, I asked, but he didn't give me an answer. Instead smiling again, he told me, “You’ll get your questions answered soon enough.”

Oh well, it was worth a shot.

My thoughts again drifted back to what Accolade had told me. All that was going through my head at that moment was how I wanted to kill him. I wanted to get revenge for her and for everything he’d put me through, but I kept playing along.

“We’re supposed to be meeting with this supplier of yours, right?” I asked, knowing full well that wasn’t the case.

“Of course. Looks like we’re right on time too,” he answered cryptically. Sting continued to snicker like he had a dirty little secret. He had an annoying laugh.

I glanced at Three Card in the back who gave me a slight nod and silently urged me to keep my focus ahead of me. Hotshot was out there somewhere. I could feel my healing factor in my body going much stronger than normal. Whatever this feeling meant, I had no idea.

“Good. I’m eager for us to finally finish this and go our separate ways.” I muttered.

“And I don’t suppose there’s nothing I can do that’ll convince you to join up with me?”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll manage on my own after this…”

He exhaled, “A real shame….”

“I think that you and I both know that you were never planning on going peacefully. Ain’t that right?” I said, glaring at him. “So what’s your place in all this?”

The tip of Jagged Knife’s mouth curled upward and he spoke. “Once upon a time in Equestria, there was a great raider warlord. One that united the raider clans under one banner and struck fear into the hearts of ponies across the wasteland. Then one day, he was captured by Red Eye. His empire collapsed. That warlord’s legend supposedly came to an end in Fillydelphia. Fast forward to now, and this wasteland we know is becoming more and more civilized. With the NCR marking the end of an age. All the remaining raider clans who don’t know any other way venerate the warlord and the what was. They want to be the next one to take up the warlord’s mantle.”

I snorted. “And lemme guess, you want to be that warlord?" I couldn’t really say that I cared much for the sentiment.

“Actually, most seem to think it'll be Papa Bighoof. Since he was the warlord's only technical rival back in the day. Mostly due to the fact he never left his mountain, so most of their fights ended in draws. I don’t want to end up like that. To become nothing but a legend. I’d prefer to live on my own terms.”

“So what does this cutesy raider bedtime story have to do with anything?” I asked.
The longer this went on, the more my blood was heating up, but I kept staring ahead, trying to not lose focus. Not even for an instant.

"Like I said, the wasteland is becoming more civilized. It’s not an age for raider warlords or saviors born out of stables anymore. You can either get with the times, or be left behind."

As we approached Boot Hill, I wasn’t expecting the sheer number of wooden gravemarkers to be populating the hill. Dozens. No, hundreds, maybe? It was difficult to count how many in the wasteland probably bought it out here. How long had they been here?

“And what exactly are you planning to do about it?”

Naturally, he didn’t answer. Only hearing Sting’s veiled giggling behind me.

The silhouette of the singular SPP tower had shrunk far into the distance that it was almost like I was standing on the edge of Equestria. They had become such a common sight in the wasteland, that to not be surrounded by them on all sides almost felt alien.

There was a strange gust of wind gently caressing me as I stared across the endless void of desert expanse ahead of me. It was like the desert was calling, desiring me to trot out into it and never come back. I took a hard pass.

Standing at the foot of Boot Hill, I could see this place was likely the former location of the stable that Dodge City locals spoke of, now serving as a mass grave and corpse dumping ground for the Dodge City Gang. It was like a monument to all those who had died pointless deaths in the wasteland. Patches of exploding cacti surrounded the edges of the hill, drawing upon the discarded corpses as fertilizer.

Many of the weapons I’d been searching for were stored here in some open graves next to almost-fresh pony corpses.

All that was left of the original stable was the stable door, with its number so obscured by dust and sand that you could only barely make out the number ‘four’ if I squinted hard at it, maybe followed by a nine. Or a zero. It was difficult to tell. The rest was an empty hole in the ground.

“Since we’re nearing the end of our relationship, lemme tell you one last story,” he said. “Half of what you hear out of the wasteland sounds like made up bullshit, but one managed to stick with me over the years.”

“Sure,” I grunted.

I tried to signal to Hotshot to take the shot, but it was hard to tell if he was getting the message. Maybe Enclave sign-language was different?

“It was about this group of kids a while back who wandered from town to town, making the wasteland into their own personal playground. Nothing new for most ponies. We’ve all heard weirder tales told after all, and DJ Pon3 over the radio never talked about them much. These were the sorts of normal occurrences that could easily be chalked up to raiders. So most ponies wouldn’t ask questions, but settlements talked, and traders told stories. About how sometimes townsfolk would turn up dead after merely coming into contact with them. Or how sometimes everypony in a small village they visited would just disappear overnight with little to no explanation.”

Attempting to signal Hotshot again, I was growing more frustrated the longer this went on. What the hell is wrong with that pegasus? Couldn’t he take a hint?

“Crazy old horses would claim they were actually monsters who only looked like ponies on the outside. Bad omens from the back-when-times.” Jagged said, his voice beginning to irk me.

“Pffft. So you believe in conspiracy theories now?” I asked.

“Conspiracy theories? Nah. The thing about conspiracies is that they’re often a subtle misinterpretation of the truth. Some ponies talk about how MoA black ops stables were manipulating wasteland politics to keep us stuck in a wasteland. They just don’t want to face the truth that there’s a little bit of the wasteland in all of us. Though there are of course the rare occasional instances, where those conspiracies theories turn out to be true. ”

From the look on Three Card’s and the others’ faces, I was getting the feeling that they had never heard this story before either. So then why was I getting the sneaking suspicion that it sounded somewhat familiar?

“Actually, I was sitting here thinking to myself: “If they were really real, then why weren’t they ever reported over the radio? It all seemed like mythical wasteland nonsense to me. Traders telling stories to boost their sales. I didn’t start to believe it until someone I knew wound up dead.”

The grave markers were placed everywhere leading up to an empty hole that used to be a stable, with the paint so weathered and dusty you could barely even make out the number anymore.

“See, there’s no way in hell that Crazy Eights would’ve gone down like that. That’s when I realized that those stories were probably true. In the back of my head, I suddenly began worrying about some random kid coming up to me and killing me and my whole gang like we were nothing as I went about a normal day. That the wasteland could be such a terrifying place. Kids like that could probably take over a whole town if they wanted. Maybe the entire wasteland if they put their minds to it.”

One particular open grave at the top of the hill caught my eye, so I made my way towards it. Out of my peripheral vision I could see the others beginning to spread out and surround me.

Then I paused looking down, and saw Angel Eyes. An empty cavity burned into his lifeless forehead, and his yellow eyes seared open with a look of horror.

“So one day, I heard that Radar had connections to some place called the Republic and I knew that Dr. Luneshine had made some valuable scientific breakthroughs. So it seemed like as good a place as any to hit.”

Subtly glancing around with growing frustration, it appeared that the shot wasn’t coming. I cursed to myself, thinking that that pegasus was totally useless. It was up to me in that case. Getting ready with Winona, I waited for Three Card to create his distraction.

“My gang started having disagreements and we split off our separate ways. That was when the Stable Dweller showed up and the rest is history. Though despite my inability to recoup my losses, I did learn something incredibly valuable on that day.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked uneasily. “And what was that?”

“That those monsters had a weakness.”

My muscles twitched as I prepared to spin around and fire.

There was a click of a recording that began to play and I heard a familiar voice. A voice I hadn’t heard in years.

“Subject one! Pay attention, citizen.”

My heart immediately began racing in my chest and I was unable to move. My hooves were rooted to the spot, and I felt the words force themselves out of my mouth in a timid filly’s voice, speaking alongside the voice on the recording. “Yes, ma’am… Sorry ma’am.”

“The subject displays abnormally high aggression centers. Physical tests have revealed certain ‘abnormalities’. Now we begin the next phase of trials. Trial number thirty-eight.”

“Miss Luneshine, I don’t like this game… I don’t want to do it anymore.”

I felt like I was reliving the past from back then. Long before Starlight Bay. It was such a long time ago, that I thought I had gotten over it, but hearing her voice made me feel like a helpless filly again.

While the recording continued to play the others watched me like I was some kind of sick spectacle.

When I managed to shake myself free of the recording’s grip, I slapped my hooves over my mouth with horror and tears in my eyes. “What did you do?!”

Plasma shots burned into my chest and hit each of my legs, causing me to drop to the ground. The pain was unbearable and the magic from the weapon interfered with my healing factor, so I was totally incapacitated for the time being.

Three Card had been caught by surprise too. As he stood there with his mouth hanging open, he shook himself free from the shock and tried to aim his laser rifle at Jagged Knife, but he wasn’t quick enough.

“Too slow!” Jagged shouted, wheeling around in an instant.

Before he could do anything, Jagged had already fired an eldritch green blast at Three Card, and he collapsed on the ground, clutching his chest as the magical energy burned deeper. It was an intentionally non-lethal shot, meant to prolong his suffering.

Sting laughed in utter amazement, “That was freaking crazy, Boss! Uh, what was that...?”

“Just a lil something I picked up when we raided the Republic, my good chum.'' he answered.

The pain was so much, I could barely breathe at first, but despite the magical nature of my injuries, my healing factor was somehow still keeping me alive.

“I didn’t want to believe it was you.” Jagged snarled, pacing towards his fallen comrade. “How could you do this to me, Monte?! After all we’ve been through together, you go and betray me like this!” The normally cool-headed raider looked unhinged, firing shots into his limbs between each sentence.

The white pony had a fatal plasma burn in his chest, but he shot him in a place to where his death wouldn’t come immediately. I struggled to watch, as I was still recovering from the shock of what was just done to me.

Three Card looked like he was trying to crawl but was physically unable to.

His former boss stood over him looking down. “What’s the matter, you got nothing to say?!” he asked, firing another shot into his mutilated leg.

The white hot pain in my chest was still burning, making it hard to breath. My healing factor had a hard time with magical energy weapons, but I had consumed so much rad-water prior that it was somehow keeping me alive. I still had trouble moving, but if Three Card could keep him distracted long enough, I could get enough of my strength back to make another move.

Finally, with a gurgling cough Three Card managed to breathe out a few words.

“What you did… it wasn’t right with the old ways,” he wheezed. “What you did to Papa. I wouldn’t have killed my blood brothers like you did. You’re nothing but a rabid dog now... and you deserve what’s coming. We all do.”

Jagged sneered. “The old ways?” he mocked, shooting him callously in the head. “So that’s what this is about?”

“I knew someone close to me was leaking info to the NCR, but I didn’t want to believe it was you. I trusted you, Monte. What a shame. This is just like what happened with Edgy.”

The raider boss took a moment and exhaled. Addressing me briefly he sighed, “It’s all beginning to make sense now. Following Radar’s hoofsteps all these years made me think that I was chasing after some dark wartime Ministry secret just beyond my reach. The stories. Those kids. The Republic? The truth is, all along you were just some scared little filly. I must admit, reality is often disappointing. To think that I was ever actually afraid of you.”

The sun was beginning to lower in the sky. Searching for his scope glint desperately. What the hell was going on? What was Hotshot doing?

The raider boss nudged Three Card’s lifeless corpse into the open grave next to Angel Eyes.

“So hard to find good ponies anymore. They always stab you in the back.” He sighed, shaking his head. Then he looked back over at the single SPP tower lurking in the distance with anger, muttering, “This is all that damn Stable Dweller’s fault….”

From where I was laying, all I could do was watch.

There was a short silence until one of his raiders spoke up. “You still got us, Boss.” Sting assured, the others nodding in an attempted show of solidarity.

He sighed and turned to his underling, wearing a smile. “I do. Don’t I?” he looked to his other underlings, “I can always count on good friends to pull through for me.”

Shortly after, others began to show themselves, gathering around the graveyard like a congregation as Jagged Knife stood on top of Boot Hill, using a wooden grave marker as an altar.

“Looks like the festivities are starting.”

Stampeding hooves marked the arrival of a familiar herd of buffalo. Their warchief declared his arrival in a booming voice. “T’is I! The Mighty Warchief Battlescar!” cried their leader and Jagged Knife was quick to welcome him.

“Good of you to make it, Chief.’

Battlescar replied with skepticism. “I care not what you are planning, one called Jagged Knife. All me and my tribe wish for is to see Dodge City burn and the NCR flattened into the earth.”

“In due time, we’re just waiting on everyone else.”

More raiders began to arrive, dressed in blood, spikes and warpaint. Casting aside their Dodge City attire. This meeting was turning into a who’s who of nearly every group in the wasteland that hated the NCR.

Jagged apologized for the one death they had along the way, giving his condolences for Three Card like some kind of sick joke.

I was still incapable of moving, being forced to watch all this transpire, but I was starting to recover. Slowly but surely, I got a little more feeling back in my legs. At this point Jagged and the others were too preoccupied to notice me.

My ears perked up as I heard another familiar voice call out, drawing everyone’s attention. Amongst the crowd of raiders arrived two unexpected figures.

“Who the hell are you two?” Jagged Knife asked flatly, everyone pointing their guns at them.

“Well, Howdy there partner!” The white unicorn tipped his hat and introduced himself, “I’m Lone Hoof, the gun hunter, and this is my friendly compadre Wild Iron! We were both thinking about joining your little cadre of like-minded individuals!”

I rolled my eyes, “Oh, great…”

“Give me one good reason why I don’t shoot you two idiots right now.” Jagged sighed.

“Tsk! Tsk! We’d like to volunteer our services of course! We heard talk and if you’re planning what I think you’re planning, then we want in. A hundred thousand cap bounty is nice n’ all, but half the fun collecting guns,” Lone Hoof said, then looked up with a sinister grin, “is getting the opportunity to try ‘em out on something...”

The minotaur threw himself before Jagged’s hooves, begging for mercy. “Oh please, Mr. Jagged Knife! Rubi’s selling out the town to the NCR and we don’t got nowhere to go! So we decided to throw in our lot with you instead. Take pity on us! Oh, wise and powerful Jagged Knife!”

“Besides, think of all those poor lil orphaned guns that are gonna need a new home!” Lone Hoof added.

“Fine. Stop kissing my hooves and I’ll allow it,” he replied with a dismissive hoof gesture.

Wild Iron apologized profusely while Lone Hoof approached me, smirking. He stood over my incapacitated body and tipped his hat. “Well howdy there, lil senorita!” He frowned as he gazed upon the sorry state of my rifle, “Tsk. Tsk. Look at what you did to Winona,”

I grunted and spat on his hooves as he leaned close and his smirk widened.

“I’ll take that thank you,” he said reaching with his telekinesis, and slid my brother’s pistol out of its holster. “This here is payment for the one you busted.”

The second he touched my brothers gun, I felt white-hot anger drown out my other senses, including pain. “Give that back…” I growled, reaching my hoof forward.

The white stallion dangled it in front of my face like a colt playing keep-away.

My legs were beginning to feel like they could move again. I could still feel the pain in my chest and my aim was a little shaky, but it didn’t matter. The anger in me shot past its boiling point.

“Sorry, but finders k-”

Leaping to my hooves, I threw a punch as hard as I could at Lone Hoof, retrieving my gun off of him and aimed for Jagged Knife. The others were all caught off guard, unable to react fast enough.

Only Sting was able to get between me and my target. He levitated his knife out and swiped across my face. I dodged sideways but got cut. Firing a single shot in return, the bullet phased through him naturally due to his ghost-magic.

I’d already seen this trick once before though.

I fired again, but this time I aimed for where his hoof was touching the ground. That time it worked and Sting cried out in pain as I broke his spell. I threw a single, extremely satisfying punch straight into his muzzle. I hit him. HARD!

The raider toppled over, bloody and laughing his ass off as he went.

Before I could turn around and shoot Jagged Knife though, he already drawn his plasma pistol and was aiming it right at me.

There was a loud crack from far away, and a blow hit my shoulder. So hard that it nearly tore off my entire foreleg.

Blinking as I came to, trying to comprehend what just happened. I was on the ground again, bleeding. My foreleg felt like it was barely hanging on by a thread underneath my jacket, but I felt it slowly stitching itself back together again.

“Wow, you really are a monster! I thought you were down for the count.” Jagged laughed in delight.

Lone Hoof crawled over and silently snatched up my brother’s pistol again while Jagged spoke, hiding it in his duster and rubbing his swollen cheek.

“It’s all beginning to make sense. It’s because you possessed the strength back then to treat the wasteland like a joke. That’s how you were able to survive and where I’m guessing this weird hero complex of yours came from.”

“You don’t know me...” I snarled. Wanting to kill him with every ounce of my being, but my body didn’t have the strength to keep fighting. Let alone bring myself to my hooves again.

“Ah, there are those eyes again. You want to kill me so bad right now, I can feel it. It’s those increased aggression centers that Luneshine was talking about. You played games while others struggle to barely scrape by. I’m guessing you like to play the hero because you don’t know any better. It’s probably the only way you can make sense of the world.” He groaned with dissatisfaction, running a hoof through his mane. “What a waste...”

He noticed I was looking around in desperation, and a devilish grin stretched over his lips. His ice cold eyes flashing his killer again.

“Sorry, were you expecting someone to save you? Your ‘friend’ Hotshot, maybe?” he asked. My eyes widened with shock as he mentioned his name. “He’s working for me. I’m sorry to break this to you, but he sold you out. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to trust ponies in Dodge City?”

“N-no… he didn’t. He wouldn’t.”

“There was only one thing he wanted in exchange too. Such a stupid request. He asked me not to tell you that he was at Starlight Bay on that night during Operation Cauterize.”

Upon hearing this revelation, I felt all of the strength drain out of me. A mixed cocktail of emotions that I had no clue what to do with were bubbling inside me. To think I trusted him. I’d never felt this way before in my life.

The raider boss chuckled and shrugged. “No idea what was going through his head.”

Turning my head away, I went silent.

Suddenly, Jagged’s plasma pistol was shot from his grip, exploding into scrap and broken focusing gems. I heard the flapping of wings and felt a heavy clawed hind leg on top of me. Trying to turn my body to look upwards, I asked. “Hawkins, is that you?”

Instead though I saw a dark pair of wings and a cyber claw. With a cybernetic eye staring back at me. With his cybernetic gun outstretched, the hitgriffon was greeted with a warm welcome.

“Sharp Eye!” Jagged grinned, signalling his ponies taking aim. “So Rubi sent you to finish me, did she?”

“This is the end of your run, Jagged. So why don’t you just go and lay down in that grave for me?”

Signalling to the others to kill the newly arrived cyber hitgriffon, he gave him a smiling farewell. The raider chuckled back, “She must be desperate.”

With a flurry of shots, all of the raiders in the griffon’s immediate proximity were instantly disarmed. A wisp of smoke rose from the barrel of his cybernetic-pistol. Although it was a semi-auto, it sounded more like a submachine gun. He also fired it so fast that I nearly blinked and missed it.

Jagged Knife merely frowned in annoyance, “Hey, watch it. Those guns are expensive.”

The griffon was polite, but direct. His arrogance well-earned. “Are you going to make this difficult for me then? You decide. I’m fine with either, or.”

“Your reputation precedes you. I should’ve figured that she’d send you last. You’re the best of the best, after all. And your contract always goes to the highest bidder.”

“Contracts don’t matter. I go where the money takes me.” He rested his hind-paw on me as if to stake his claim. “But I am the best.”

Paying no heed to the griffon pointing a gun in his face, Jagged continued to chuckle to himself.

“Mind telling me, what is it you find so funny?” the griffon questioned.

“The fact that she waited so long to send you tells me she’s nervous. Worried that I might still have a card up my sleeve.” The raider shook his head, sighing. “That mare thinks that it’s money that controls ponies’ hearts. She thinks her money can buy her anything, including loyalty.”

The cyber-griffon smiled in agreement. “Well, she has a point.”

“Really? You’ve outright betrayed your employers in the past because you were offered more caps by the enemy. Maybe that has something to do with how she treats you with mistrust. Always keeps you at a hoof’s length.”

I heard an audible snort, Sharp Eye finding this funny. “So what? The main reason I’m still with Rubi is because she can’t be outbid. I don’t care who it is so long as she continues to pay me the most.”

Jagged’s smile widened. “Then it seems that I know Rubi a lot better than you do. Truth is, some things just aren’t for sale.”

Pointing his cyber pistol in his face caused every other raider to completely surround them in a circle of guns and novasurge rifles. Even the best shot in the wasteland couldn’t take down twenty at once.

“So are you going to make me an offer? Though I highly doubt you’ve got a hundred thousand bottle caps laying around.”

“What if I told you I knew where she keeps all of her business assets? I can tap you into her off the books accounts and you can pay yourself whatever you want for this job. More than you can count probably.” Jagged offered.

Sharp Eye was silent for a moment, but a glint flashed across his cyber eye. “I dunno, I can count pretty high. Still, it doesn’t seem like it’d be in my best interest to kill my meal ticket. Even if I were to end up fabulously wealthy afterwards. Wouldn’t really be worth it, having that many targets painted on my back.”

“New management isn’t going to have any problems. Besides, the only reason we’re speaking right now, is because you’re wondering if there’s something I can offer you that Rubi can’t. Otherwise you would have shot me down already.”

Sharp Eye chuckled appearing to be mulling it over in his head. Then he paused for a moment. “I have to admit, you have me curious. There might be one thing…”

“Name it.”

“I’ve been hearing that Gabriela Hawkins is involved in this? The truth is, I’ve got some unfinished business with that griffon, and working with Rubi won’t grant me that opportunity. So perhaps you could give her to me?”

A grim smile crossed Jagged Knife’s lips and he answered, “With what I have in mind, the NCR will have no choice but to get involved.”

He lowered his weapon in a show of the grim alliance. “Alright then, ‘Boss’. I’m all yours.”

The situation had changed. I had to warn someone!

Motioning at me laying on the ground where I was still incapable of moving, he asked, “What should we do with her in that case?”

“I’ll deal with her in a moment,” the raider boss replied. “Did you bring it like I asked?” he asked one of his underlings, placing a cigarette in his mouth. One of them quickly appeared with a fresh suit and held up a lighter. He inhaled and blew a puff of smoke.

“Right here, boss.”

Admiring the fine garment, Jagged removed his wasteland jacket and donned the black suit. As the other pony held up an old cracked mirror, he moved around, getting a feel for it and checking himself from every angle. Finally nodding in approval.

“And you kept Accolade safe for me too?” he asked.

His underling nodded again. “All of the arrangements are being made. Like you asked.”

“Good to know I could count on you,” he said, putting a hoof on his shoulder.

Then he took the lighter in his magic and put a flame to his old wasteland jacket. As it caught fire he tossed in the grave with Angel Eyes and Three Card. “I guess Rubi should be happy that I’m finally doing what she asked and getting rid of this old thing, right?” he mused.

After that, he climbed up on top of a grave that stood over me, and addressed his raider allies. His voice boomed loudly as he declared, “We’re all here today, because we have no future! Raiders, mercenaries and cutthroats. The wasteland has left us behind. There is no other option for us! As we stand upon this cemetery today, a monument to those who’ve had their lives taken from them prematurely, let all of us put up a toast to the old warlord!”

All of the others waited on his next word, at long last waiting to hear the words they had been longing to hear again.

“This’ll be our last night in the wasteland, boys!” he cried, and they all cheered.

Suddenly, Jagged Knife ducked as a shot from a sniper rifle narrowly missed his head. The raiders all spun around in a panic.

“What’s going on?!” he asked frantically.

I couldn’t tell what was happening from where I was laying.

A wicked grin crossed over Sharp Eye’s beak. “Speak of the devil...”

He proceeded to describe the scene to his new employer. Hawkins had attacked Hotshot and almost killed him, causing him to miss his assassination attempt. I remembered that she didn’t know about my healing factor, so she must’ve seen him shoot at me and immediately assumed he was working for Jagged Knife. Was she doing this for my sake? I also thought Hotshot was working for Jagged Knife though. Why did he just shoot at him?

The pegasus almost managed to catch her off guard with a hidden laser pistol, but she quickly disarmed him and had him pinned on the ground. Pointing her Kingfisher up to his temple, she noticed they were being watched. Taking one look at the cyber-griffon caused her to hesitate, looking at me, then hastily fly away in the opposite direction. Hotshot fled somewhere to the north-east, leaving both me and the sniper behind.

That’s when it dawned on me. I was really all alone.

“Do you want me to chase after her?” Sharp Eye asked. “She might be going to warn the NCR.”

“Don’t worry about them for now.”

I didn’t care anymore what would happen to him. The fact that he would lie to me after I trusted him. I turned my head away in anger, only to notice Jagged was standing over me again.

“I bet you’ve never thought your luck would ever run out this way. I’ll tell you one more story before I send you to the afterlife, kid. In the wasteland, there’s a little something called “Rota Fortunae”. It represents the Wheel of Fate. Just like that little roulette cutie mark on your flank. Must be some sorta fucked up version of fate, if you ask me. You came here expecting to kill me, but now you’re the one staring death in the face. Or something like that. Ironic, isn’t it?”

The raider boss turned back to me one last time and I looked into his eyes. They reminded me of the same look that the Enclave officer had given me on that day.

He tossed a recording of Radar into the grave next to me, which began to play. I heard his grandfatherly voice again, but couldn’t quite make out the words.

“You can have this. Sorry to break it to you, but you aren’t getting out of this.” he apologized. “Suppose it’s fitting enough that I use Radar’s old gun to kill you. Monster or no, I doubt even you can come back from the dead...”

“Radar, are you out there?” I thought. “Someone. Anyone?”

Jagged Knife admired the gun briefly before pointing it at me. “You know?” he said. “I could say a clever line right now, but… that’d be cliche.”

He raised Radar’s old gun with a half-cocked smile and pointed it at me.

For some reason, ever since I was a filly I always hated losing. I always got mad when I lost at a game, regardless of what it was. Everything was over now though. I gambled, and lost. So this was the wasteland everyone was talking about.

“Seeya.”

The magic bullet from Radar’s gun flooded my skull and everything went black.

Level up!

...

Intermission I - Tales of the Republic

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Intermission I -

Tales of the Republic

Endless cloud cover roiled above, as the group of foals no older than five stood together at the edge of the strange and unfamiliar settlement. They were promised that ponies here would be nice and take them in, but it was always hard meeting strangers for the first time. Grappling with the fact that this is how things would be from now on was difficult, regardless.

A little tan coated filly didn’t remember what happened to her family, and barely had any recollection of who her parents were. All she had was Radar, the old grandfatherly pegasus who had saved her and a handful of other orphans from somewhere out in the wasteland. She was the youngest of all of them, but none of them were related by blood as far as she knew.

“Nah, it’s best not to think about that for now youngin’. Just imagine sunshine and rainbows!” Radar assured with a smiling face, but there was a deep uneasiness present as she looked upon the Republic for the first time.

The others were just as lost and confused as she was. Radar was the only other adult any of them knew with clarity, and all of her other memories seemed fuzzy and hard to remember.

Two adults were discussing things they were far too young to understand. Radar was arguing about adult things with another older pale white unicorn mare. She wore thick circular glasses and had her dark mane styled into a bun. Immediately she gave off bad vibes that made the young filly nervous.

“Out of the question! Introducing unforeseen factors from outside a controlled environment could ruin the experiment.”

“Still on about that nonsense? Since when has the wasteland been a controlled environment? Science adds context to chaos. If your hypothesis held any water to begin with, then your system would be able to account for it!”

“It’s not perfect, but I make due with what I have. So is that why you came here then. To insult my work? If those children mean so much to you, then why don’t you just take them to some other place that accepts destitute wasteland orphans.” She suggested coldly. “Olympus comes to mind.”

“I’m not really on great terms with Olympus. Bunch of old fogies, the lot of them…” Radar grimaced. “‘Sides, realistically, there ain’t that many of those. Believe me, I’ve already thought of it. Their best chance is here, Lune.”

“It’s Doctor Luneshine,” she affirmed, “and what you’re asking is me to risk everything I’ve built here, Radar. I have a responsibility to the ponies who’ve put their faith in me. I don’t suppose there’s some convoluted reason why you can’t just raise them yourself?”

“C’mon, be real for a minute. Kids don’t want to be raised by an old geezer like me. They need ‘real’ family. Besides, you’re looking to expand anyways, so what’s the problem?!”

She scrunched her muzzle in annoyance. “Family that you aren’t able to provide, obviously.” the mare replied, coldly pushing up her glasses. The words they were exchanging sounded serious, but the foals were too young to understand and instead the filly cocked her head in confusion.

“Oh so it’s about that, is it?” The old pegasus groaned to himself as he looked around. “Alright. Where’s m’boy...? Is he here?”

Luneshine sighed exasperated, and replied with a slight nod. “Nadir is doing well. Although, he’d be doing much better if he had his father in his life. I’m sure there are many like-storied bastards missing their father out there in the wasteland...”

“Stars above Luneshine! Did ya really have to name him that?” He chided. “Such an awful thing to call a colt!”

“It’s a great name!” snapped back a mustard coated adult pegasus who had been listening in. He wore an old farmer’s outfit, and stood proudly with his head raised high. His dark brown mane and facial features greatly resembled Radar, although much more youthful in appearance. “It means that I know my place is right here. Something you could never seem to figure out!” he spat.

Radar made a paltry attempt at understanding, but the younger pegasus didn’t seem to buy it. “It’s not like that junior...”

“For all your chasing adventure and science experiments you were always too ego-driven to see what was right in front of you! And now you’re leaving again!”

The old pegasus groaned disinterestedly, seeming at a loss for words.

“Don’t talk that way to your elders, junior...” The old mare lectured, causing him to storm off into the compound where he sulked to some dark coated earth mare. She peeked out at the older stallion, before closing the door. Luneshine sighed in apology.

“You’ll have to forgive him. He’s still bitter about things. It's difficult to help. He’s brilliant in his own way, but sadly he doesn’t have that same spark of genius as his father.”

“It is what it is. I don’t have enough youth potion to make another trip back to the zebra lands since I used most of it up on this last mission. Gonna have to make this one last until I can figure something out...” he said forebodingly.

The older mare scoffed. “Off again, already? And all you have is a group of orphaned youngsters to show for it this time.”

“The plan for now is to hide out and lay low for a while. I’ve got connections in Friendship City who can keep a secret.”

Luneshine scoffed. “And what about next time? Are you just going to keep galavanting off on adventures?”

“It’s looking like there won’t be a next time! I promise ya, I wouldn’t have come back asking for this favor, Luneshine. Not unless I really needed it. The Enclave’s outlasted me, and I can’t keep fighting anymore. Not with these old bones. There aren’t enough youngins out there willing to take up the fight either. Might be time to think about settling down...” Turning on his old grandfatherly pegasus charm, he flashed a small grin, “C’mon, how about for old times’ sake, Luna?” he nudged her, giving a wink. “Do it for me.”

The old mare blushed and sighed. Removing her glasses for a moment to look back at her old flame, she smiled. “Very well. For you, Radar… I’ll make an exception. I suppose they’ll have a place here. Where did you say they were from again? Tribals?” she asked, and Radar nodded in return. “You know, there’s always a place for you here if you should change your mind.”

“I know, Lune. I know...”

One of the small fillies cocked her head in confusion, wondering why they were being forced to say goodbye. It all just flew straight over her head.

The foals were then invited into the compound, but as Radar stretched his old wings, prepping to fly off, one of the small fillies ran up and clung to the elderly pegasus’ leg sobbing to prevent him from flying off. “Wait! Radar, please don’t leave! I don’t want you to go!!!” she cried, “I don’t want to be alone!”

The others watched while the oldest of the colts sighed impatiently, already knowing that it had to be this way.

Looking down at the foal with aversion, the elderly pegasus clearly did not know the first thing about parenting. “Uh… c’mon kid. Luneshine will give you a much better life here in the Republic than I ever could. You got your brothers and sisters here too!”

“But I don’t wanna live with her! I wanna stay with you!” she sobbed.

“I’ll come back and visit ya, I promise. But you gotta be strong for me, okay? You’re a strong lil filly. Y’know that, right?”

“I-I am?” she whimpered, wiping a tear away.

“That’s right. Way stronger than me when I was your age, kiddo! But you have to promise you’ll be good here.”

She nodded in agreement, wearing a weak smile. “O-okay.” she sniffled.

Best of all, he gave her his special jacket for her to remember him by. It was an old military style jacketed, almost like the one he was wearing, “but better” he told her. Even though it looked suspiciously like something he had just found lying around, and she was a little disappointed that hers was different than his, but it made her feel special all the same.

He smiled and ruffled her mane and the little filly felt all warm and fuzzy inside.

Radar wished the six of them goodbye and they watched as he flew off and disappeared into the distance. After that, Dr. Luneshine smiled at them and showed them all inside the ecompound, upon which they were immediately greeted by an overly friendly mare. Her name was Creampuff. An older mare closer to Luneshine’s age. She told the kids that they would simply love it here. A stallion named Mr. Flowers staffing the security gate smiled and waved to the new foals. The gate which was powered by a magic spark-generator, shut behind them.

Slowly, the fears they were having started to fade with heartfelt assurances provided that everything was going to be alright from now on. Though they still felt uneasy about the happy settlement upon seeing it for the first time.

Radar was the only pony they had ever known, and the Republic was a settlement practically cut off from the outside world by four high concrete walls on either side, and auto-turrets defending the perimeter. While the inside of the compound was made up to evoke an image of old Equestria, with colorful murals of ponies playing in the sunshine together on its southern wall. They found farms and a number of simple barracks and other buildings. Approximately nine in total. With Miss Luneshine’s house existing separately from the others on the far end.

This was going to be their life from now on...

Currently, the number of families living in the Republic was small, but Miss Luneshine had plans to expand. Once all of the foals were properly evaluated, they would all be adopted by new families. Which sounded nice.

Luneshine believed that without a benevolent monarchy like the Celestial sisters, ponies would be forced to make due by self-rule. For that reason, a republic was the best system of government to foster peace and harmony throughout the wasteland, but ponies would have to be shown the way to rebuild society by example. She also would often rant to herself about her frustrations about how ponies refused to see the value in her work, but insisted it was a process. That was the reason for the Republic’s existence. For that reason everypony here was expected to do their part. Even the foals.

As they were shown around the compound, and each building, one by one, other fillies and colts peeked out look at them. They were newcomers. Ponies from the outside.

They were introduced to some of the adults. A young mare named Mrs. Tulip who was pregnant with another foal along with more of the adults, all of them extremely friendly.

“My name’s Double Digit. You can call me Mr. Digit,” waved a smiling stallion.

The only pony who wasn’t smiling was Nadir, who looked down and scoffed at the group of foals before going off somewhere else.

On the first night, while the fillies and colts were supposed to be in bed, one of Republic colts leaned over and whispered to them. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have a name…,” the filly whispered back.

“No name?” he asked in innocence and confusion, “Did your parents not love you or something?”

“I-I never knew my parents…” she sniffed. “I miss Radar.”

“None of us did.” answered a blue colt in her stead. He was slightly older than the others, and was the only one among them who already had his cutie mark. It was a shield with a lightning bolt streaking across it. “I’m not too sure where in the wasteland we’re from, but Radar was the one who saved us. We stayed in his old shack for about a week until he brought us here. You can call me True Blue, and that’s Cherish and.... uh, I don’t know all of our names…” he admitted.

Another colt told them, “Don’t worry. It’s not so bad here.”

“Nice to meet you. My name’s Amber,” smiled another young filly close to her age. She was sleeping near another two colts adjacent. With olive and khaki coats respectively. “Wanna be friends?” she asked, extending a hoof.

“Sure!”

“So is it true...? Did you all really come from the wasteland?” they asked.

“Sure did!” one of the foals said. A cocky orange colt who stood up on his cot proudly boasted. “The name’s Wheelie! Don’t wear it out. At least if I had a name that’s what I’d call myself. Out in the wasteland, we found these awesome posters of pro-scooter riders! But Radar wouldn’t let me take any of them with us.” The young colt crossed his hooves and pouted. “‘Only essentials’, blegh.”

A turquoise colt from amongst the group of foals introduced himself as well. “I guess you can call me Zap if you want. I like computer terminals and comics and stuff. Especially the Power Ponies!”

“Wow! That’s so cool!” said one of the Republic colts.

Stealthily climbing out of bed, they all crowded around the new group of foals, suddenly hitting them with a barrage of questions about the wasteland. “Wow, what’s it like out there? Is Lifebloom still alive? We’ve only heard stories from the adults.”

One of the fillies leaned in closer to ask the nameless filly, “Was it scary?”

Looking down, she tried her best to remember, but most of her memories were fuzzy. “Well, uh… There were monsters and stuff out there,” said the nameless filly. “Like giants made of steel, and also big scary creatures that’ll eat you if you’re not careful. We barely escaped the steel giants, but luckily we had Radar with us for protection.”

“Cool. Tell us about the steel giants!” they asked enthusiastically, immediately forgetting about Wheelie to crowd around her. Causing him to pout with envy.

She was obviously shy as she spoke, but did her best. “Well… they’re made of metal, so they have to find machines n’ stuff to eat. And they get really mad if you try to keep technology from them. But thankfully, they’re really slow. So Radar managed to trick them.”

They wowed in amazement, clearly impressed. “I think I heard about them. Miss Luneshine said that she used to deal with them before she founded the Republic. She didn’t like them too much because they wanted to steal her research.”

True Blue asked some of the foals who lived here and they learned a little about the Republic. “Radar told us that he and Luneshine were longtime friends?” he asked.

They nodded. “They used to go on adventures together out in the wasteland and did research together.” said one of the other colts, one with a greenish coat. “Radar’s so awesome! We hear about him all the time from Luneshine here.”

“Tell us more! Tell us more!” said the others. “Tell us what creatures were the scariest? I’ll bet you saw all sorts of terrifying stuff out there.”

“Oh, um...okay,” the nameless filly nodded, growing a little more comfortable. “There were lots of really bad ponies out there who kept trying to get us. I think that Radar said they were ‘rayders’? Normal ponies can turn into them, and there are lots of them out in the wastes. Most of them don’t act like ponies. They were really scary…”

“Oh, raiders? We hear adults talk about raider attacks sometimes. They’re a constant threat on the outside, but they can’t get us here in the compound! Mostly we just trade with some of the caravans that pass by, and sometimes ponies will even stay here. Miss Luneshine made special crops that can grow even in irradiated soil and with minimal sunlight, so lots of ponies want em. They taste a little funny, but it beats living out there.”

The orange colt scoffed, trying to act brave. “They weren’t that scary.”

Lowering her voice into a whisper, the other fillies and colts crowded around her listen as the nameless filly told the story. Shining a flashlight under her face for extra spooky effect.

“Well probably the scariest thing I saw out there though were the black demons.” she told them. “They’re supposed to be servants of Nightmare Moon… but I think maybe they got into an argument with her? Because they didn’t seem like they’re working together anymore.”

“Nightmare Moon isn’t real and there’s no such thing as black demons!” Wheelie heckled.

The other foals shushed him and True Blue urged her to finish the rest of the story.

“Yeah, there are! I saw them… One of them tried to get me, but Radar saved me. You have to be careful or she’ll take you back to her castle in the Everfree Forest and you’ll never be heard from again. I think I saw Nightmare Moon too while we were out in the wasteland, but Radar was there with us, so I think maybe she was too scared to try anything.”

All of the fillies and colts were awed at the nameless filly’s story, offering some support.

“You’ll be okay here from now on. There’s nothing ‘that’ scary here. I mean, maybe Nadir. He’s only sorta mean though.”

“The wasteland is scary, but… it was also sorta fun too.” she said.

“Fun?” One of the Republic fillies groaned, giving her a strange look. “That’s weird. You’re a weirdo.”

The orange colt joined in with mocking insults, “Your name should be crybaby from now on because of how much you were crying earlier. “Waaaaah! Radar, don’t leave!” Don’t you know, he’s never coming back?”

“Radar is coming back! He promised me!” she shouted.

“Radar lied because he doesn’t want you! He doesn’t want any of us.”

“S-Shut up or I-I...I’ll punch you!” she sniffed, beginning to cry.

“Nice try, but everypony knows that colts are stronger than fill- ow!”

Wheelie shut his mouth and pouted after receiving a punch from Cherish who was older and therefore stronger by default.

Cherish stuck her tongue out at the colt as the young filly started crying loudly and the older filly from their group attempted to comfort her. That is, until Nadir came in and yelled at all of them to go to bed. Disappointed at having been caught, they all climbed back into their beds and got underneath the covers.

Wheelie whispered to the colts near to him spitefully, “She’s a lost cause.” Before going off to sleep himself.

“Hey, don’t bully her!” The other filly scolded him harshly. “She can have whatever name she wants!” She leaned close to her bedside with a smile. “You never talked much when we were in the cabin. I don’t know my parents either, but we sort of look like each other! So maybe we’re sisters?” The young filly was taller than she was, and her coat was more of a butterscotch. She had a red mane with a pink and yellow stripe going through it, kind of like iced cream. Or at least what the old two hundred year old packages said ice cream was supposed to look like. Radar had said it was tasty.

“Yeah, maybe,” the nameless filly replied.

“We should all think of a name for you.” Cherish said thinking to herself, tapping her chin. “How about Hope?” she suggested excitedly. “That’s a cute fillies’ name!”

The younger filly shook her head and shrugged, not fond of the name. “Nah, Lost Cause is okay. Thanks though...”

Cherish frowned before pulling the covers over her head.

Their first day had been strange, marked by lots of crying and confusion, but they were all determined to make the most of what they had been given tomorrow. A chance at life in the Republic.

The next morning they woke up early.

Rather quickly, they found out that Luneshine wasn’t nearly as nice as the freedom and fun-loving Radar. Here they enforced a rigid rule-set with social structures and schedules for them to keep to: Wake up. Eat breakfast. Do chores. Education. More chores. Eat again. Homework. Then sleep. Then they’d wake up and repeat the same schedule the next day.

Some of the chores were difficult for foals, but they were told it was all necessary to build strong character and backbone. The cloud cover also acted like an oven sometimes, making the work days hotter than normal.

“If only the pegasi would be nice ponies and open up the skies again,” Lost whined.

All of the other foals and adults in the Republic didn’t seem to mind. They did their part here and they were all expected to do the same. Mrs. Tulip would sometimes offer the children lemonade as they worked to make it easier.

Miss Luneshine always spent her time in her little white house, working alone. It was more immaculate and separate from the buildings, with little lawn ornaments outside. Rarely was she ever seen, except to discuss important matters with the adults. Otherwise, she barely ever said a word to them. Her son would often strut around the compound in her stead giving out orders to keep the Republic running in her absence.

Whenever Nadir spoke it was almost always a punishment or to add extra chores, so the children quickly learned to avoid him where possible. He was mean to the kids, almost like he was taking out his own frustrations on them. They always had to whisper behind his back for fear of punishment.

As the days went by, the foals began to find out more about the daily goings-ons of the Republic.

After a filly or colt here got their cutie mark, they were finally allowed to have a say in what went on around the Republic. It was in a strange process called ‘voting’. A vote could be called over anything, but mostly it was when enough of the adults spoke up on a particular issue. They counted heads to determine questions over direction and leadership. Although Luneshine being the matriarch almost always won. Lost got scolded harshly for saying it was unfair.

This was what Equestria was like back before the war? Ponies must’ve had it really hard back then.

By one month all of the foals who were brought to the Republic were showing remarkable promise. They made progress twice as fast as the other foals, and all of the adults seemed excited for them and for the future of the Republic.

‘Lost Cause’ as she came to be known by the Republic, was the only filly who seemed to be lagging behind the others, so she got the short end of the stick often. Being forced to work longer hours, despite being the youngest. Her studies didn’t interest her so she was often slacking. She wanted to go live with Radar instead, secretly wishing that he’d take her away from this place.

Days passed, then weeks, then months, and still no sign of Radar. Though he promised he would visit her, so every day she would peek outside the compound when the adults weren’t looking, hoping to see him returning to visit her, but every day would end in disappointment.

One day while she was out working in the field, attempting to pull up roots with her teeth, Lost heard a small voice coming from underneath one of the sheds. She looked around, but couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from. The other adults weren’t watching her so she went to investigate. She slowly approached where she heard the noise but didn’t see anyone. “Do buildings talk...?” she thought in horror.

“Psst!” she heard again.

She peeked underneath and saw the other foals Radar had saved along with her. “Psst!” the orange colt whispered again, ushering her to join them in their hiding spot. She looked both ways to make sure nopony was watching, then slipped underneath and crawled over to their hiding place.

True Blue made a shushing motion with his hoof and gestured for her to come over. “The adults don’t ever think to look down here, so we made it our secret hiding spot.”

“Won’t they get mad if they find out that we’re skipping out on our chores?” she asked.

“Not if they don’t find out.”

That made sense. Crawling towards them, the young filly plopped her rump down next to them, all sitting in a circle together.

Zap groaned, rubbing his sore hindquarters. “If this is what old Equestria is supposed to be like, then maybe we’d be better off in the wasteland,” he whined.

True Blue told them sternly, “That’s just how it is here. Radar gave us a new life together. We shouldn’t screw it up, guys.”

The turquoise unicorn colt scoffed. “You’re just saying that because all the adults like you best…”

“It’s better than being out there.”

They all nodded reluctantly.

Lost’s ears fell back and she frowned. “I still miss Radar. I wish he’d come back...” The filly sniffed, drawing some sympathy from her sister who patted her on the head.

“I’m sure Radar will come back and visit you soon.” she smiled, offering some comfort. Looking to the others, “But here we’ll be adopted into new families. That's a good thing, isn’t it?” she asked.

“I guess, it could be worse…” Zap shrugged.

The young filly’s ears perked up. She could barely make out a faint conversation behind the wall. It was difficult to tell what they were talking about. “What’s going on?” Lost asked the others.

Cherish turned to her and whispered in her ear. “There’s another pegasus outside, talking with Nadir.”

Lost’s eyes beamed. “Is it Radar?!”

True Blue shushed her again and answered, “No. It’s some rust coated pegasus, but he has Radar’s same cutie mark. I only caught a glimpse of him outside.”

The filly’s excitement turned to disappointment. Then confusion. “That makes no sense. How can two ponies have the same cutie mark?” the filly asked doubtfully.

“I think it’s supposed to mean he’s an ‘exile’,” he replied. “They call them Dashites.”

“What does ‘exile’ mean...?” She tilted her head, now even more confused.

They heard the conversation outside ending on a sour note, and the sound of pegasus feathers taking flight. Nadir came back into the compound, and looked around muttering to himself. “Where’d those damn brats get off to? Shirking their chores again, probably.”

The eldest whispered to the others. “We should get back to work so the adults don’t get suspicious. Remember: the password is ‘wasteland’.”

After that conversation was when they began to notice that there were a few things that felt a little off about the Republic.

Things like schedules shifting ever-so-slightly. Or how the adults would say that the water pump would be out of commission one day, but it would be completely fine the next. Most often it just ended up resulting in more work, but none of the other ponies seemed to notice.

Then one day there was an announcement about raider attacks which riled up the adults.

Generally most raiders would avoid the compound entirely except for the ones so hopped up on chems they could barely form out coherent sentences besides mad cackling, though sometimes the auto-turrets would lock onto small wasteland creatures by mistake. This time though, the auto-turrets hadn’t gone off outside.

The announcement told them that there might be raiders with weapons that could disable their security system so ponies would need to be on extra alert from now on. Lost was scared, remembering the raiders from out in the wasteland, but True Blue assured her that they were safe and that was enough for her to calm down. If raiders ever did break into the compound, he promised that he would protect her.

Otherwise, things more or less continued as normal.

The threat of raider attacks was constant, but there never seemed to be any raiders. They asked some of the other foals who had been living here longer about it when they got the chance, but they shrugged and admitted they got used to it.

They also noticed that a lot of the adults in the Republic revered Dr. Luneshine in an almost creepy way.

“Oh, Dr. Luneshine? She’s a genius! I really admire her work!” said Civic Duty.

Ms. Goldenrod sounded as if she were speaking about Celestia. “She’s going to save us from the wasteland!” she declared, glowing with pride.

“I really like her mane!”

Though most often she would rarely be seen outside of her house. The group all thought it was weird, and came up with wild guesses as to what went on inside. Trying to figure out what weird experiments must’ve gone on in there.

On an unassuming Thursday, Lost Cause was being forced to do chores in Nadir’s house, away from the other fillies and colts. She had been given the task of moving provisions into storage. His wife was nice, but the young filly couldn’t imagine why she would be with a mean pony like him.

As she was working, trying to get it over with as quickly as possible she noticed him standing behind her in an imposing and scary manner, showing the clear difference in size between them. “You’re the one the other children call Lost, aren’t you?”

“U-Uh, huh…” she replied hesitantly.

The older pony sneered. “So you look up to my father, right?”

“Y-Yes,” she squeaked. “I like hearing stories about him. I want to grow up to be just like him!”

“Ridiculous, grandiose dreams about adventure and heroism are certainly something a child would dream of. You should focus on the real world. Actually work at trying to make something of yourself so you can better Equestria.”

Her ears flattened. “But Radar said I could grow up to be whatever I wanted...”

“You won’t help anyone that way. My father doesn't know the first thing about responsibility, or the sacrifices that need to be made for the sake of rebuilding Equestria. If he truly cared about you, or about doing what was best for the wasteland, then he’d be here helping what we’re trying to accomplish.”

“That’s not true though. He saved me… he’s a hero!”

“You have a rebellious attitude from being in the wasteland too long, but we’ll break you of those thoughts soon enough. You’ll make a fine housewife one day to one of the colts living here.”

“B-But, I don’t want to be a wife! I wanna fight and be a cool hero and stuff!”

“Useless aspirations like that have no place here in the Republic.”

Kicking Nadir had landed Lost in deep trouble. She had hurt his leg much more than she was expecting to.

As a result, she was sent to see Miss Luneshine in her cottage for her punishment. She’d never set hoof inside her house before. Outside were unassuming plastic lawn ornaments decorating the front porch, but the imposing door loomed over the small filly. What lurked beyond the happy cottage was unknown to her. She timidly raised her little hoof to knock once, but before she could knock a second time, the door opened in front of her and the old mare stepped out. She looked down at the frightened filly, adjusting her glasses again before inviting her inside.

When the filly stepped through the door, she had been expecting torture devices in a dark room, but all she saw was antique furniture, old photographs, and strange knick-knacks. Various papers and books were scattered about, but otherwise it was very neat and tidy. A pony could’ve even mistaken this for the house of a nice old grandmare. However, the looming threat of her punishment hung over her head like a storm cloud.

“I heard from my son that you’ve been misbehaving,” she said coldly. “You’re a lot stronger than you look for your age, young citizen.”

The young filly shook her head frantically and apologized, even though she wasn’t sure what she had done wrong. “I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to- !” she cried frantically. “I just liked those stories about Radar! About the wasteland!”

Luneshine poured tea for herself but didn’t say anything.

“I see. You’re the one the other foals call Lost, correct? The youngest of the five Radar brought with him.”

“Y-Yes.” She squeaked.

Luneshine levitated up a clipboard adjusting her glasses as she flipped through notes, only half-watching her. “You seem to be rather disinterested in your studies. I noticed on your CAT examination and on your worksheets that you intentionally leave answers blank despite clearly knowing the solution. It seems you prefer to sit and daydream. Do you think this is a game, young citizen? Everypony here must do their part.”

The filly repeatedly apologized, sniffing like she was about to cry as the older mare looked down at her coldly. After she felt it had gone on for long enough, she patted her head to calm her down.

“Calm down, young citizen. There’s no reason for you to be afraid.”

Lost Cause looked up, confused.

“You aren’t in trouble. In fact, I need your help.”

“You need my help?” she asked in surprise.

“Absolutely, You’re a bright young filly for your age. And in order to complete my research to help the wasteland, I need a young mind like yours. Nadir said you were displaying rebellious attitudes, so I felt you might benefit from some private sessions with me.”

“But you’re super smart. What do you need my help with...?” she frowned. “Private...sessions?”

“All of the foals that Radar brought the Republic are remarkable. I want to know more. I want the opportunity to mold your bright young mind into something beautiful.”

“My brain, you mean?”

“In order to rebuild the wasteland, first I need to be able to build young minds. And you seem to possess a very unique one.” Luneshine smiled, then offered her tea and cookies which she accepted happily. “Tell me, do you know of the Princesses? Celestia and Luna?”

“I know that Princess Luna watches over young fillies and colts in their dreams!” Lost smiled brightly. Growing more comfortable with a mouthful of cookies.

The older mare chuckled in amusement. “How quaint. They ruled before the Great War, for a millenia. Although, that was mostly Celestia. Luna took up the throne in her sister’s place during the war and well… the result is waiting right outside this compound. That’s why I made this place.” After she had finished her tea and cookies, she urged the filly to follow.

“Okay!” she agreed, trotting along happily.

Luneshine led her through the bright and happy house to a long dimly lit hallway, with a cold steel door waiting at the end.

“What do you do here?” Lost asked, standing still and gazing upon the door at the end. Trying to imagine in her head what might lay beyond it.

The mare stepped to the end of the hallway where she stopped and looked back.

“Psychology, and social engineering, mostly…”

Lost frowned in confusion, unable to recognize most of those words. “Sike-ol-ogee? What’s that?” she asked innocently, unsure of her confusing words.

“The entire Republic was set up as an experiment. It’s a proving ground for a system that I’ll use to make the wasteland a better place. In the absence of the Princesses, you could say we fell into a waste without their guidance. My aims is to provide that guidance, young citizen. I’ve dealt with many hardships over the years trying and failing to restore the rest of Equestria to its former glory, but true science takes courage. To step beyond the bounds of what some might call ethical.“

Luneshine turned the latch and opened the cold steel door, and a stinging of cool air crept down around her hooves. Only staring at the blackened room just beyond the doorway, the young foal felt her heart rising and falling in her chest.

No longer wishing to be here she looked up nervously at the older pony. “C-Can I go back and finish my chores, Miss Luneshine?” she pleaded.

“Don’t doddle, young citizen.” the older mare commanded in an authoritative voice, so she had no choice but to go along with it.

As she stepped forward one hoof in front of the other, her heart beat faster. She stepped through the metal doorway and it closed and locked behind her.

Doctor Luneshine urged her inside, where it was dark and sterile and full of beeping machinery. A single blinding light hung over her head that hurt the filly’s eyes and glared off of the older mare’s glasses, casting a frightening shadow over her. Doctor Luneshine urged her to take a seat where she was fastened to the chair with leather belts.

At her small stature, her eyes could barely see over the table, but when she climbed onto the cold chair, she shrunk back in fear at seeing the various syringes laid out in front of her.

Her heart began to beat a little faster.

“I have high hopes that this project will yield different results. Once we can show others what we’ve built here, we can help the rest of Equestria rebuild and become more than just a wasteland.”

The doctor took out a tiny black notebook, flipping to the first blank page and jotted something down with a pencil.

“You have no parents, or family history. That’s rather curious. In fact, Radar didn’t give me anything regarding your birth records or medical history. Could you tell me why that is...?”

“I-I never knew my parents… Radar was the one who saved us.”

“From where?”

Lost Cause shook her head, not sure how to answer.

The older mare sighed. “That pegasus has always been something of a brain-bender… but whatever his reasons, they no longer matter between the two of us. We can both figure those questions out together. You’re the youngest, least developed foal amongst your group, so you’ll be the perfect candidate.”

Luneshine tightened the straps on her chair to the point it hurt and levitated a syringe with her telekinesis in front of her. Lost’s eyes widened. As the needle approached her forcibly outstretched foreleg she begged and cried for mercy. “No! I promise, I’ll be good from now on! I’m sorry!” As the needle pierced her foreleg, she cried out in pain.

“Let’s begin. Subject #1. From this day onward, your name is Citizen.”

“T-That hurt...!” she sobbed, clutching her tiny foreleg.

Luneshine’s horn lit up with magic. “The pain will stop shortly, young citizen. Please remember that this is for the good of Equestria.”

She screamed but no one could hear her.

Lost was told that she couldn’t tell anyone about what happened during their sessions, since it’d ruin everything they’ve been working towards. She was being given a tremendous responsibility to the citizens of the Republic, and they would all be very disappointed in her for ruining Luneshine’s work if she told anyone. Her brother’s and sisters had to be kept out of the loop too.

Nadir walked with a slight limp in his step now, showing contempt for her specifically whenever he saw her. Even taking her special jacket away and forcing her to apologize. She became afraid of him whenever he was around with her tail tucked between her legs and her ears flattened backwards.

“If anything, for their sake.” She thought of how much they must’ve loved it here. And Radar was the pony who saved her from the wasteland, so it would be wrong to burden them by making them worry about her.

After their sessions together, Luneshine would always act incredibly kind and tell her what a good job she was doing. Despite the praise she was given, Lost only felt hurt and empty inside. She didn’t realize helping Equestria would hurt this much, and she prayed to Princess Luna every night that Radar would come back soon and save her from this place.

The sessions grew more intense with each passing week. Each month. Soon the foals would’ve been living at the Republic for a whole year. Lost never gave up hope that one day Radar would come back for her, often spending time alone.

After that, Lost started to become more distant from the others. Soon they began to notice something was off about her too.

The kids were going to be split up and adopted into different families soon. They would still be around the compound, but they might not get the opportunity to be as close as they used to. Though during this time, the group had been talking amongst themselves.

True Blue saw Lost hiding one day, alone under the shed in their spot along and went to speak with her. “Wasteland.” he smiled. She looked startled and rubbed her eyes as he crawled over to meet her. The smile wasn’t returned. “What’s up? Have your sessions with Dr. Luneshine been going okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine…” she mumbled. “They’ve been fine.”

“Lost? Are you doing alright? You seem… different. You never talk to anyone anymore. You don’t talk to your friend Amber anymore.”

The filly buried her head in her hooves, choosing not to speak about it. “I said, I’m fine.”

“You ever feel like this place is kinda weird?” he laughed, quiet enough so the adults wouldn’t overhear.

The filly glared at her brother with contempt. “Not at all. Miss Luneshine says it’s for the good of Equestria. You have a big responsibility.”

“I mean… that’s what all the adults say, but really, this place rubs me the wrong way sometimes. I mean, what does Luneshine care if you like mares or stallions?”

“You shouldn’t talk like that. You’ll get in trouble, True. Friendship is just a distraction from my studies. We all have to work hard to better Equestria.”

True Blue frowned, “Now you’re starting to sound like Nadir.”

“I’m great! I love it here! You’re just jealous because I’m getting special attention from Luneshine and you’re not. I’m gonna work extra hard today to better Equestria like Radar would’ve wanted me to.”

She stood up and went back to the field, where she began overexerting her little filly body to try and look extra busy.

“If you say so…”

Lost felt a small nudge in the middle of the night that night, and she woke up to find a small hoof covering her mouth. She almost screamed until she realized it was True Blue standing over her.

The young colt put his hoof over his lips and urged her to be silent so she wouldn’t wake the adults. She nodded and followed him out of bed, sliding out from underneath the covers.

As they crept out of the barracks, she followed him without saying a word. Cherish was awake too, the slightly older filly watching her with a look of concern. A few of the others also seemed to be awake, but they all stayed in bed, simply watching.

Together, the two foals snuck outside and crawled underneath the shed to their secret spot. Thankfully it wasn’t raining, although the dark cloud cover still rolled overhead.

Not sure why they were out here, her eyes fell to the side and instead they just sat together until True Blue finally broke the silence.

“Is everything alright?” he asked. “You barely talk anymore. You used to go on about how Radar was the coolest and the wasteland all the time, but you never talk to us anymore. You barely talk to anypony.”

Lost didn’t know how to respond, but her body tensed up and she could feel her heart beating faster. She swallowed. “I’m sorry I haven’t been the best sister...” she apologized.

“No, I mean, you stopped wearing your special jacket that Radar gave you. You also styled your mane differently. It’s weird. Is everything alright?”

The filly scoffed and looked to the side. “I like my mane styled this way…Besides, that jacket was dumb. Miss Luneshine said that my obsession was a distraction from my studies.”

Searching for the right words, the colt groaned to himself. “Sorry. It’s just, all the other ponies have been acting strange too. Weirder than normal anyways… Don’t you feel like things here don’t always make sense?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I dunno, that maybe you feel the same way. It’s just I figured, since you’ve been talking to Luneshine directly, maybe you’d have some ideas of what’s been going on?”

Lost didn’t answer, her eyes falling to the side. “Miss Luneshine has her reasons, I’m sure…”

True Blue stood up and sighed. “That’s okay, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. Maybe I’m the one who isn’t normal. I guess we should get back to bed in that case or we’ll get in trouble with Nadir.”

She paused as if debating something to herself inside her head, then swallowed and held out her hoof. “W-wait...” she barely managed to squeak out.

The young colt turned back in surprise to look at his younger sister. “Yeah?”

She didn’t say anything at first, but her eyes told a different story. Her body language and the way she was desperately avoiding eye contact.

Finally, he began to catch on. “Is everything alright, sis?”

She swallowed and spoke in stutters. “S-She told me not to tell anypony, or it’d ruin everything… and then everypony would be really mad at me,” she mumbled, having difficulty making eye contact. “I-I don’t want anypony to be mad at me. If I screw up then Radar won’t come back for us. He said I had to be strong for ‘us’...”

“C’mon, what could be so bad?”

She looked fearful of something, her breathing and heart rate steadily increasing.

“You can tell me, I promise. I’m here for you,” he assured her. “It’ll be okay.”

All of the feelings that she’d kept pent up for the last year and a half began to well up inside of her. The young filly choked and tears began to well up in her eyes. True Blue pulled her close and let her cry into him so that she wouldn’t wake the adults with her muffled sobbing.

She was barely about to choke out a sentence at first, but managed to calm down enough to tell him. “I-I… don’t like it here!” she cried. “I get in trouble for doing the wrong thing, and I get yelled at when I make mistakes or if I can’t follow directions properly. Miss Luneshine pokes me with needles in my arm and takes my blood, and then she hooks me up to a machine and does weird tests. She makes me answer questions and writes it all down. T-Then s-s-she says it’s for the good of Equestria though and that I’m letting Radar down.”

True Blue was stunned after hearing all that, but there was more. With each word, the look of horror that crept over the colt’s face gradually gave way to anger as tears streamed down her face.

“I didn’t want to do it, but she tells me how selfish I am and that Radar would be disappointed in me, and that I’m not doing well enough. I-I just thought that if I put up with it for long enough, then you’d all be okay and Radar would come back for us. Then we’d all live happily ever after together, but I don’t want to do it anymore. I just want Radar to come back…”

When she finished, Lost could see anger, clearly visible, reflected in his eyes.

“I- I’m sorry True. I don’t want anypony to get mad at me. Please, don’t tell anypony!” she begged.

Her brother looked her straight in the eyes and put his hoof on her head. “Don’t worry, Lost. You don’t have to do this anymore. Ever again. We’re leaving tonight.” he told her, and suddenly she felt a wash of relief, seeing a light from the outside.

“...B-But we can’t leave. What about the Republic? What if Radar comes back for us…?”

The colt sighed, “I don’t think Radar is coming back for us, Lost…”

“Radar said he’d come back though. He promised!”

“Radar’s too busy hiding from the bad ponies to come looking for us. He said that when he left us here.”

“But he promised…” she whimpered. The filly looked out at the mural of happy ponies painted on the grey wall, imagining what was just beyond. “We can’t survive in the wasteland on our own without him.”

“We were all born in the wasteland, so we’ll probably be fine out there,” True Blue answered her semi-confidently. “I heard stories from the other foals, about how there was this one colt who escaped before us. The adults all say he died, but I heard that he’s living in a great big tower now.”

Lost wowed. “In a big tower, r-really?” As she stared at the wall, she thought of the bad ponies, and the steel giants, and the monsters that lurked around in the wasteland and her heart rose in her chest.

True Blue nodded. “If he could do that, then we can probably do anything once we’re out there! We could live in a tower as a family together. You won’t have to think about this place ever again. But I have this, just in case,” he said, revealing a metallic object he had been hiding. Lost gasped when she realized what it was. “I stole this from the adults,” he whispered. “I can use it to protect us.”

“You’re not gonna kill anypony are you…?”

He didn’t answer for a moment, then replied, “Maybe, but that’s just how the wasteland is. It doesn’t care that we’re just fillies and colts. The adults here are all scared of the wasteland, but we were born out there. The wasteland is our real home. We might have a home that we left behind somewhere. Don’t you want to know about all the stuff Radar didn’t tell us?”

“That sounds nice, but I’m not sure...just us?”

“The others are coming too. We all came from the same place so we’re a family.” He wrapped his hooves around her and pulled her close into a hug. “Don’t you remember what Radar said?” he asked. “As long as we have each other, we’ll be a family. You won’t ever have to feel alone anymore, Lost, I promise. I’ll always be there for you.”

“Y-you promise?” she sniffed, hugging back as she held back more tears.

“Stick a cupcake in my eye.”

Lost Cause sniffed, wiping more tears from her eyes. “N-Nadir took my special jacket from me… It’s still in Luneshine’s house. Maybe we should leave it?”

“Stay here. I’ll get it for you.”

“D-don’t get caught.”

True Blue grinned back at her, crawling out from underneath their spot. “Don’t worry, I won’t.” he said and urged her to wait there for him.

While the young colt snuck out to get her special jacket, she sat in silence. Her heart raced at being unable to do anything but sit and wait, but she also felt a small sense of relief. Like hope was finally in sight for her. There was still a fear though in the back of her head that Nadir would pop out at any moment and she’d get sent to the dark room again.

Hearing movement, she jumped thinking it was Nadir, but it was just the others and she let out a sight of relief. The butterscotch filly Cherish crawled up and hugged her. She seems to be more upset than Lost was. Wheelie was here too, but he didn’t say anything.

She wondered why all of the ponies looked so sad for her. She was never much of anything to anypony before, so why were they all so sad?

Lost sniffed and looked up at all of them. “So… none of you guys want to stay either?” she asked in disbelief.

All of them shook their heads in return.

“A-And I’m not ruining everypony’s chance to have a happy life?”

Cherish gave her a warm smile and hug, “There’s no way my little sister could ruin anything that‘d be worth more to me than her.” Then all the other foals joined in. Even Wheelie, even though he had to be dragged into it, causing him to make a gagging face at first. Cherish helped her undo the braids and ruffled the young filly’s mane.

“As long as we’re together, we’ll always be a family.”

True Blue came back with Lost’s jacket shortly after, who hugged the article of clothing and nuzzled it before putting it on again. The colt looked at each of the others who were all sitting together with him and they knew what they had to do.

“Why hello there. Shouldn’t you kids be in bed?” asked Mr. Flowers, the security officer, upon finding Zap attempting to amateur hack his way into the gate’s security terminal with an open manual.

The older pony’s mouth then clapped shut and he stared wide-eyed at the ten millimeter pistol levitating in front of his face.

Seeing the young colt standing there, True Blue threatened him in a hushed whisper, “Open the gate. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”

Mr. Flowers smiled, growing steadily more relaxed. “Easy now, junior. How about you kids march on back to your quarters and-” The stallion began to shout, trying to alert the others. “Everypony wake up! The kids are trying to es- !”

BANG!

The older pony fell over in a lifeless heap with a bloody hole in his head. True Blue holding the smoking gun in his magic. He had killed him without hesitation despite it being his first kill.

Staring out into the silent abyss of the wasteland, Lost asked her brother. “I-Is it safe...?”

Hastily, the young colt fished the keys off the dead stallion’s corpse as lights in the Republic began to turn on. He jammed the key into the lock and the gate swung open. “You’ll get the hang of things quickly...” he assured.

“I disabled the security system!” Zap said, typing a rush. He struck a single key which caused all of the auto-turrets outside the compound to disarm and begin to malfunction. Zap then looked down at his glowing flank to see an insignia of a lightning bolt and three sparking gears had appeared. “Woah, hey! I got my cutie mark!” he beamed.

“Celebrate later.” The blue colt huffed. He turned to the other foals, and took a deep breath. “Everypony run!” he shouted.

Together they galloped past the gate as far as their little legs could carry them. Leaving the compound and its gray walls behind, they fled off into the wasteland night, where the outside world was waiting for them.

Chapter 13: Bad Moon Rising

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Chapter 13 -

“Bad Moon Rising”

“Did somebody say buffalo?”

I felt tired. Too tired to move. Although I remained blacked out, every now and then I would drift in and out of consciousness. I could remember that I had been shot in the head, but not much else. There was a part of me that wanted to cling to life, but also another part of me that felt like nothing mattered anymore. My memory occurred in flashes, to where I was still able to comprehend some of the things going on around me, but my sense of time was completely shot.

When I was in a moment of semi-clarity, I could hear a faint voice talking over me. “No, no, no…. Fuck! This wasn’t supposed to happen.” I heard the voice cursing. “I warned you not to trust me, didn’t I?”

Was that Hotshot? I wanted to tell him some things, but I was too tired and couldn’t quite remember what they were. I felt the warm sting of rad-water being poured over me.

“Lucky for both of us, Jagged doesn’t know how your healing factor works. Sorry for shooting you back there, but this should keep you alive for now. Just stay there for a while and nothing should happen to you….” He sighed. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry it had to be this way.”

“For the love of Celestia, I really hope this works...”

Another flash of consciousness occurred and suddenly there were emptied bottles all over the ground in front of me. The sun was also much lower in the sky.

Stuck somewhere in between life and death, all I could do was feel the earth beneath me, and the occasional fly buzzing in my face. How much time had passed? I couldn’t help but wonder if this was the end? Yet there was a spark still alive in me that kept telling me that I had to get back and finish what I started.

As I tried to look up, I still couldn’t move, but I could sense someone else’s presence. Hearing a beep in my ear, I noticed someone’s blurry shadow hovering over me. Or something. My vision was too blurry. It could’ve been robotic since it wasn’t touching the ground but I couldn’t tell what it was. “Wow, so you’re still alive somehow.” said a tinny voice. “That’s a relief. Perhaps not too surprising, all things considered,” it said, sounding almost regretful. For being nothing but a discarded corpse, I sure was popular today. I felt like sleeping again.

“Stay with me…” the voice urged. “It looks like you’re only barely conscious. Though if you don’t get help soon, you’ll die. I’m sorry about before. I should’ve approached you sooner. There was just never a good time. I guess it’s a good thing that you’ve made a few friends along the way. The Wasteland can be a rough place, after all.”

“Yeah, some friends…” is what I wanted to say. Though I was unable to respond in my current condition.

There was a short static pop in which the voice sounded broken and staticky. “Damn. It’s hard to send and receive signals this far out… apologies. Honestly, I blame myself for letting you get wrapped up in this mess. I’m sure you’re dealing with enough right now, but you’ll have to get up soon if you want to save everypony.” It was almost as if the tinny voice was trying to sound sincere, despite being a robot. Its voice shorted out again for a few seconds, but came back moments later, though it was growing more quiet. “Got to go now, ... almost o ... -f time … I’ll see if t-… nything I can do... Hang o-”

The voice popped out again, and it was replaced by a familiar tune playing in my ear. The tune started to grow softer and more distant. Me? Save everyone? That was rich. I tried to stay awake, but I was too tired. I ended up drifting out of consciousness again and losing another chunk of time.

Next time I awoke, it was closer to dusk. Was I going to die out here? I assumed with what little function my brain had left that I had hallucinated all that. It was difficult to tell, but I thought I could see a single twinkling star in the sky above me. I thought this was goodbye for good.

Except, something was happening right then. It started as nothing. There was barely a rumble at first, but the shaking grew, gradually becoming stronger. Something was approaching. I didn’t know what it was, but I could feel it. It stopped just short of me and overshadowed me along with several other large hulking figures. They spoke in tongues that I couldn’t understand, and one pointed a shaggy hoof at me. Whatever they were, they seemed to be able to tell I wasn’t completely gone.

Were they here to kill me? I was probably still hallucinating. I think I might’ve been mumbling something. Then as I felt myself being picked up, I closed my eyes and lost consciousness.

When my eyes reopened again, they felt heavy and I found myself waking up in a strange place I didn’t recognize.

I was laying on a straw mat underneath a blanket on the floor, next to a central firepit and felt an intense throbbing in the depths of my skull. As I looked around, I saw strange looking ornaments and charms hanging all over the inside of what looked like a burlap tent. Tribal star, sun, and moon paintings danced all over its interior and I recognized pieces of old tech scattered about the tent.

Trying to figure out where I was, my eyes passed over a skull, looking bovine in nature, and also seemed to stare back at me creepily. “What is this place?” I thought. Though the more important question was: How was I even alive?

Gazing off to the side, I noticed my clothing folded neatly in the corner. With my battle saddle sitting alongside it. Moving my body caused a dull pain in my head, and I noticed from the mirror at my bedside that I had wounds that hadn’t fully healed yet. Someone had also taken the time to wrap me in bandages. My healing factor also didn’t appear to be working either. It must’ve burned itself out after all that. Though I was alive. At least for the time being.

Examining myself in the decorative piece of metal that was polished to a reflective shine, I noticed a scar underneath my mane now and wondered if it was going to be permanent. It might sound weird, but this was the first scar I’d ever gotten in my life. I remembered being shot in the head, but I wasn’t fully sure what happened after that. My memories were coming back gradually though.

What I did remember was Hotshot shooting me. As well as the other thing. How could I forget? And the worst part of it was… for a while I was actually starting to think that we were friends. Then he goes and does something like this.

Picturing him standing over my limp body only managed to fill me with rage. No wait- it filled me with confusion. Lots of angry confused feelings. If he was the reason why I was still alive, I could only take a shot in the dark as to why he would’ve even bothered healing me after all that. “He should’ve let me die,” I lamented. At least then I wouldn’t be feeling this way right now.

In my current state, I didn’t want to think about it anymore.

That’s when I caught the gaze of a strange tiny black bird watching me. It had burnt green tipped feathers, and was sitting atop some decorative furry boulder, watching me like it was staring into my very soul. “So you’re finally awake...,” it seemed to say. “Your journey is not yet over.”

It caught me by surprise. “Wait- Did you just…?”

The avian cocked its head to the side. “Did I just what?” it repeated.

As I attempted to figure out if I was actually having a conversation with a bird, I noticed that the crow wasn’t actually the one speaking. There was another figure sitting in the tent with me, which had previously been sitting so still that I hadn’t even realized it was alive. The huge old beast with shaggy dark fur, dirty and tangled in clumps, shifted in place, causing the crow to fly off her head and perch on the nearby hanging bovine skull. She was a bison. One who wore a colorful poncho decorated in bits of scrap and trinkets found in the wastes, with a mask of red and white painted onto her face and a headdress fashioned from the upper half of an Enclave soldier’s helmet. It too had been painted with similar white markings and had been adorned with black feathers.

Upon noticing the Enclave helmet on her head, I immediately became defensive. Guarding myself in spite of my wounds. I held my breath, waiting for something to happen, although in my condition I wouldn’t be able to do much of anything. From her general demeanor, she didn’t really give off the impression that she was going to hurt me though. I relaxed my guard a little.

“Ugh, my head…” I groaned, feeling a sudden splitting headache finally catch up with me.

I shook myself with a grunt, my mind was still trying to internally process everything. She didn’t sound like Enclave at the very least, and she did save my life, after all. “It’s starting to come back to me now. My name’s Roulette- ugh... but who are you?”

“I am Many Moons. Chieftain of the Stronghearts tribe,” she said, introducing herself. “Count your lucky stars that we found you. Or perhaps, unlucky, depending on who you ask.” Noticing me glaring uncomfortably at her decorated Enclave headgear, she assured me that it was just a relic.

“Well, I’d count that as pretty lucky… thanks for saving me,” I grumbled. “Stronghearts? ” I asked wearily, recognizing the name. “You’re those buffalo, aren’t you?”

“That is correct. Although we have a tendency to keep ourselves isolated from the corruption of what they call the “Wasteland”, we keep vigilance as to not ignore it completely.”

Nursing my forehead, I asked her, “Why am I here?”

“You’ve been brought here under strange circumstances,” she admitted. “A week ago, I received visions from the great spirits that told me an ouslander would come to us bearing voices of the past. One who may foretell of great misfortune. Then our scouts found you lying dead at the place where death’s stench is strong. Only you were not dead. Not completely.”

My head felt like it was swimming and I couldn’t quite recall what I was supposed to be doing at that moment. Cringing, I paused. “Wait. You said the word “dead”. Does that mean that I was-”

Many Moons nodded. “Mmmm. You had passed on from this world, but you were not completely dead either. The weapon you were shot with is familiar to us. Each bullet carries within it a different magic spell. It is more of a tool than a gun. As I said before, yours is a unique circumstance,” She then told me, “It is because you bear the marks. That is how you were able to survive it point blank.”

“...Marks? What marks?” I asked hesitantly.

“The green marks.” she answered. “We call them the ‘Mark of She’.”

Glancing hesitantly at my shoulder, I tilted my head. “Mark of who?”

“She who infects many in the wasteland, twisting things she touches into other things,” she replied. “Why she does this? I cannot say. It is something considered to be cursed and unnatural magic, but it was that power which kept you alive.”

Still confused, I remained silent after hearing this, trying to think to myself how this could’ve happened. When this might have been done to me. I couldn’t think of anything. Wondering to myself if it might’ve been back then, even if I wanted to find out, the Republic was already long gone.

Observing the grotesque scar-tissue again from different angles, I at least was somewhat thankful that it was mostly hidden underneath my mane. Whatever this was, saved my life apparently. Somehow, even though I was shot with a magic weapon. Wasn’t that how this thing was supposed to work? I guessed the scar made a weird sort of sense, at least…

“When we attempted to remove the bullet from your skull, you thrashed around like a demon, and it required the strength of our strongest warriors to hold you down. During this time, you screamed about many things. Particularly about some mare. Under normal circumstances, this would be considered... strange.”

“Oh, uh, sorry about that,” I said, but shrugged. “To be honest, I’m barely even sure how this thing works …”

The ancient bison nodded sagely. “Mmm. Furthermore, there are many questions we wish to ask you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Questions?”

“Alas, I’m afraid we must ask you why you’ve come here?’”

“You brought me here,” I affirmed.

Fishing for something beside herself, “No. Though I suspect your circumstances were unplanned, you came here for a reason,” she insisted, holding an object in her outstretched hoof. “And with this.” I recognized the small recording device. She pressed the button, and the recording began to play and I heard Radar’s voice begin to speak out of it.

“You and I need to have a little chat, darling. You know full well why I’m here… I know about everything. You used Enclave social engineering on those kids!”

His voice was so full of anger. Much scarier than I remembered. My eyes opened wide at hearing those words. “H-Hey- that’s mine!” I said, quickly snatching it from her with lightning reflexes. I hit the pause button and breathed.

Looking surprised, she then demanded to know, “What concern is Radar to you?”

“Radar?” I had to pause and do a double take almost immediately. “Hold up a minute- You knew Radar?!”

Unsure of my reaction, she answered warily. “Radar was one of few friends to the buffalo. He earned our people’s trust and helped us in the wasteland when few others would. It was him who aided us in settling here, and we tasked ourselves to watch over this place in his absence. You however, we do not know. So tell us or we do not know if you can be trusted. How do you know of Radar? Were you attempting to find him?”

My enthusiasm dulled, and I barely scoffed, feeling a wave of depression come over me at that moment. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you? Never trust anyone in Dodge City,” I replied in a mumble. The crow perching nearby cocked its head at me. She asked me what I was repeating, but I didn’t answer.

“Ah, Dodge City. Yes, we have a long sordid history with that place. Enough to make this one wonder how you ended up where you were.”

I stared at the tent illustrations vacantly, but didn’t speak.

“You will have to tell us eventually...” she said. Was this an interrogation? It was difficult to tell if she was making threats.

Searching for the right thing to say, I let out a deep sigh. “He’s... someone I used to know a long time ago,” I told her. “Radar saved my life when I was a foal. That’s it. I barely knew him and it was forever ago.” Staring back at the old bison again, I huffed, “Look, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Radar’s dead. If there’s a reason I’m here, I don’t even know anymore.”

She stared back at me wide-eyed in disbelief. “Dead? Impossible! Surely he would’ve found a way to make contact in the event of his passing.”

I scoffed. “Believe me or don’t. I don’t care.”

“I sense no lies. How could this have happened...?”

“The Enclave happened...” I answered soberly.

“Wait. Then that would mean…” she fell backward onto her haunches and took a long pause, during which time she seemed to gaze forward breathlessly. Then her eyes fell back onto me for a moment, observing my every detail, until finally she answered with, “I see…,” as if she had come to some realization. “That would explain much.”

After that she seemed to have changed her tune a little from the beginning of our conversation, and I noticed she was looking at me differently. “Apologies for before,” she said. “I think I understand now. The real reason you’re here.”

I gave the ancient bison a strange look.

That’s when it all came rushing back to me. A look of horror suddenly cast over my face as I remembered everything. There was something incredibly important I had forgotten about! “Wait, what day is it?!” I blurted out. “How long was I out?!! You said I was asleep for a week?! You have to tell me what day it is!!!”

Surprised again by my sudden outburst, she held her hoof out in front of me to try to get me to relax. “Rest easy. You’ve not been out long. Despite the severity of your injuries, not a day has passed. The moon spirit still soars above in the sky. There are still hours left before first dawn. So you should sleep and regain your strength.”

Pushing myself up with a huff, I felt some relief. “Screw off. I don’t have time for that...” I huffed.

The buffalo stood up, using her massive form to block the entrance. “You mustn’t leave yet. We still have much to discuss.”

“Don’t try to stop me,” I snarled.

“Not at all,” she replied calmly. “Simply stating that you’re in no condition to go anywhere.” The ancient bison stepped aside and lifted the tent flap. “Try if you must.”

I grit my teeth, attempting to get to my hooves, though I practically fell over on my side again. Much to my confusion, I tried to stand up once again, but got the same result. “Huh?”

All four of my limbs felt noticeably weaker than normal. In the past whenever I’d been beat, no matter how bad, I’d be able to get up and go looking for fights again the next day after a good night’s rest. Now I felt like a foal attempting to stand for the first time. Only recently had I come to the conclusion that that had most likely been due to my healing factor, but this was still extremely annoying.

Many Moons closed the tent flap and calmly sat back down in front of me. “After we healed you,” she revealed, “we tried to purge the excess radiation from your body in a purification ritual. Thus, you are in a weakened state.”

“Purge? You tried to purge me?!”

“As a precautionary measure, and for your own safety,” she answered. “We could not remove the mutation itself however, since it is a part of you.”

Her slow pace and nonchalant attitude was irritating as I struggled to try to retain my footing. “Ask me next time before you do that! I need that!” I grunted. “There are other ponies out there… relying on me-!” I kept trying to push myself up but my body wasn’t listening. Even though this meant life or death for the ponies I cared about. “I- I don’t care what happens to me... I’m… I’m gonna kill that bastard!” I panted heavily, trying to remain standing while the bison continued to watch from the corner.

I blew out a puff of air and stood upright. I’d finally done it! My knees shaking to stay locked.

“See? I’ll manage, like I always do…” I huffed proudly. Then pausing for a moment, I slowly tipped over and fell on my side.

I went silent all of a sudden. The more I started to think about it, the more I began to see the futility of it all. I remained still, staring out in front of me at my reflection in silence and frustration. Listening only to the sound of my chest rising and falling as I breathed. My entire body felt numb.

“You should be careful about continuing to rely on it.” she warned. “Your strength will come back to you in time, but if there are others you wish to help, then realize you won’t be able to do much in your current condition. Least of all, help yourself.” I would’ve been pissed off if I could feel anything at all in that moment. “Are you ready to speak now?” she asked.

Not feeling like talking to her, I turned my head away.

Many Moons stood up with a sigh, taking this as enough of an answer. “Have it your way. I’ll give you some time to collect your thoughts. Perhaps you will be willing to then,” she told me. Then she exited her tent, presumably to go for a trot or whatever buffalo shaman did in their spare time. I didn’t figure she would wander too far.

“Help myself...?” I scoffed, but barely in a mumble after she’d left.

After, I just continued to stare in the mirror. Content to just lay there and stew in my own anger, I simply looked forward at my own reflection without saying a word. Occasionally I’d flick my eyes back at the crow who didn’t seem to look away from me for whatever reason. I almost lost track of time for how long she was gone, and left alone, all I could do was think to myself.

While I laid on the floor, I began to recount everything more clearly. How I completely froze up back there. Even now I remained slightly shaken by it. How I felt weak. Helpless. I hated that feeling more than anything. The weird thing was, that now I couldn’t feel anything at all though.

Glancing at the recording device in my hoof, it was the same one that Jagged played in Rubi’s office and had tossed into the grave next to me. The deeply curious part of my brain wanted to know what he said to her, but I couldn’t bring myself to listen to it. Whatever conversation that was, there was no way I was ready to listen to it right now. Jagged Knife probably had all the recordings of me as a foal and Luneshine’s research notes. Whatever he wanted them for.

I blew a puff of air to blow the mane out of my eyes.

It led me to question myself: Why did I even come here? Up until some moments ago I had been so sure of myself, but now? What was I supposed to do? I was beginning to feel like I should’ve just given up and gone to Friendship City from the start. Then maybe I wouldn’t be so confused right now.

“I came here to save Sunny from the raiders, right?” I asked myself, but then I realized after I got here that I had misunderstood our relationship. After that Jagged Knife told me he could tell me everything I wanted to know about the Enclave. That was most likely a lie, but I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. He probably intended to kill me all along, but then he found out he could use me. Then Hotshot, I didn’t even want to think about.

“The thing is, I already knew the Enclave was still out there. So why even come here?” I asked myself in my head. “Wasn’t I supposed to save somepony?”

Every thought that passed through my head only made me feel worse. I knew I couldn’t just lay here all night. I had to do something. If only I could figure out what that something was.

Many Moons came back shortly after and asked me once again if I was ready to talk. I took a deep breath and gave a single nod. “I’m having a hard time figuring out where to begin though.”

The shaman sat down by my side again and listened. “Start with what brought you here.”

Only two words managed to escape my lips, “Jagged Knife….” I told her, and her eyes immediately lit up as if she were already intimately familiar.

“Ahhh, yes. So you crossed paths with the one who chases Radar’s shadow,” she nodded sagely. “The one called Jagged Knife is cunning above all else. He knows the wasteland in the same way Radar did.”

“He beat me. I wasn’t expecting him to play me like that. He knew who I was. Practically everything about me. I didn’t stand a chance.” I said as I stared up through the roof of the tent, where I could see the stars in the night sky.

“I’m sure you noticed the sky opening up?” I asked. That sort of thing would be difficult not to notice, even way out here.

Many Moons hummed to herself. “We’ve been watching events unfold from afar, but have mostly kept to our own. Aside from the scouts who venture forth on occasion, it’s been some time since we’ve interacted with ponies of the outside. Though we’ve heard tales of the Lightbringer, and once the sky cleared we knew that the Enclave had been defeated.”

I sighed. “Yeah. Well a lot of things happened, and let’s just say most everyone I knew from back then is gone now. The Enclave took everything from me.”

Nodding sagely as I continued to talk, she seemed to be thinking something to herself. “Mmmm… I see,” she said, stroking her chin scruff. “Would be far from the first time this has happened…”

“I’m sure as far as the Wasteland goes my story isn’t all that unique. Let’s just say I grew up in it like most ponies, and that’s all I’ve ever known. But the Wasteland is gone now, and I’m finding things aren’t like I thought they were anymore. It’s even harder to do it without them...”

“Mmmm… ,” she nodded slowly.

“Something just possessed me to think that Jagged Knife could give me what I wanted. I told myself it was all for other ponies’ sake, but I don’t know anymore. Seems like he’s been making a fool out of me for the past week though.” I told her, recounting every painful thing that happened. “My reasons for coming here were slightly different, but right before I got to Dodge City, I heard that Jagged Knife had gone and killed a bunch of ponies I knew. From this place called the Republic. When I first found out, I just...”

“You felt regret?” the bison asked.

I shook my head. “No,” I muttered, “I wasn’t sure how to feel about it, actually. But the more I think about it, I think there might’ve been a part of me deep down that hated him for it.”

The bison looked confused. “Hated him? These were ponies you cared about?”

“No,” I answered, “I hated him because it wasn’t me who got to do it. I’m glad that they’re gone. Those ponies there hurt me when I was a foal and I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven them for that. It’s just that- I thought I left that part of my past behind already. That makes me a bad pony, doesn’t it?”

Many Moons hummed to herself, holding her decorative rifle in front of my chest. She closed her eyes, putting a hoof to her temple as though she were looking inside me. “Ah, I see. It is beginning to come to the surface, but I sense there is still guilt hidden deep within you. What else is there?”

“Why don’t you mind your business?” I mumbled, getting annoyed, then let out a sigh. “Okay, there was maybe one other pony. Someone I was trying to protect, but I failed them….”

“Ah, this pony. Yes. She was the one you spoke of while you were wandering the realms in between life and death. Who is she?”

“She’s all alone like I was…,” I told her, feeling tears starting to well up in my eyes, “and I abandoned her. What am I supposed to do though? I can’t beat Jagged Knife, but I can’t just leave her...”

“Then don’t.”

I snapped back, “Look, it’s not that simple! I’m not the Lightbringer! I’m just some wasteland nobody! What do you expect me to do on my own?!”

Feeling overcome by the venomous cocktail of emotions swelling inside me, I went off on an unprompted rant, spewing out my emotional frustration all over her. “Everyone I ever cared about is gone now,” I said, “and all these things are happening to me that I don’t understand. What are those weird marks that appear on my body? What the hell is happening to me?! I’m some kinda mutant freak apparently, and I just wish someone was here to help give me the answers! W-Why did they have to die...?!” I choked. “I don’t know what to do with myself anymore!” After I was done, I broke down sobbing.

Many Moons blinked. “Wow. I knew ponies were emotional, but…”

I turned my head away and scoffed, rubbing my eyes and feeling quite frankly embarrassed at having done that.

“It seems you are indeed quite lost.” the bison exhaled, “I can see that you’ve been through many hardships as of late. Mmmm, so this must be why the spirits sent you to me.”

She then held her cloven hoof over my body in various places, saying, “I sense there is something from your past that is keeping itself tethered to you. You are here, yet your spirit remains trapped in the Wasteland. It is obvious you would be struggling.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, replying with a cock-eyed expression. “They’re still out there. I saw the Enclave with my own eyes, flying over the Smokey Mountains. And I still hate them. How am I supposed to just forget about what they did?”

The old bison shook her head. “While it is okay to acknowledge pain, you must also be careful to not let vengeance consume you. Our tribe teaches young buffalo warriors that is how you lose yourself to the wasteland,” she answered.

I sighed. “And what if I can’t?”

“That is a path that you must trot on your own,” she told me, “but I believe you were sent here so that I could guide you to the right one.” I raised one eyebrow.

Another buffalo who had apparently been listening in on our conversation interjected from right outside the shaman’s tent. If I was less out of it I would’ve noticed him sooner. “Elder. Not to question your wisdom, but are you sure this is wise?” he cautioned. “We still don’t know if she’s one of them. Surely you’re not thinking of showing her that!”

Addressing the voice, but continuing to watch me, she answered. “Indeed, I am. I sense no murderous intent from this one, and I’ve determined that she means no harm. I believe that she’s one of those children from back then.” The ancient buffalo nodded to herself sagely. “I have a feeling we’ve been expecting her for quite a while.”

With no ideas what either of them were referring to, I gave the shaman a strange look. “What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Makes no difference. She bears the mark. She could still prove to be a danger to us here,” the voice warned. “Besides, the spirit cave is only for trained bison warriors who’ve come of age.”

She responded to the voice dismissively. “There is more to it than that, tatanka warrior. You are still young in years. Radar entrusted it to us for a reason. Now enough. I will hear no more of this, Follows Crow.”

The voice apologized and didn’t respond again, though he remained averse to the idea.

She then turned to me and answered as cryptically as I’d come to expect from her. “In order to help the ponies you care about, you must first be willing to help yourself,” she said. Then she told me I must travel to the spirit cave south of the village and perform a rite of passage. There, if the spirits there deemed me worthy, they would bestow me with the strength I needed to defeat Jagged Knife.

I gave her an even stranger look at receiving this task, before agreeing to it. This was definitely the weirdest day I’ve had in awhile.

Many Moons stood up and shuffled over to the side of her tent, picking up a bowl that contained a strange looking grey-green mush which she dropped in my lap. “Eat this,” she told me. It smelled funny and didn’t look appetizing in the least, but my tummy rumbled loud enough so that I could hear.

“For the record I’ve been all around the wasteland and I don’t believe in any of this spiritual mumbo jumbo,” I said, but accepted it. Screwing my face at the initial taste, until realizing it wasn’t actually that bad. To be honest, I’ve had worse. They called it “buffalitos”. An old bison tribal recipe. “So this is going to help me, how exactly?” I asked with a mouthful of the stuff.

“Eat. You will need the strength for your coming journey.”

I raised an eyebrow and swallowed.

“Alright...,” I groaned, finishing. “Enough feeling sorry for myself, I guess.” Reminding myself that I didn’t have all night, I got to my hooves and after some effort, began to move around somewhat. Despite the occasional trip and stumble, slowly I started to regain the movement in my body. “Show me to this spooky spirit cave or whatever.”

“Follows Crow will show you the way.” she said, motioning outside. I glanced at the crow atop the bovine skull, which peered back at me, then looked at her again. Admittedly, I was still a little unsure of her intentions, but I was desperate enough to go along with it.

It didn’t surprise me that most of my stuff had been looted by the raiders, but at least they left me with the clothes on my back and my battle saddle. Even an empty, weaponless one. Donning my jacket but leaving the battle saddle, I went through the flap outside the tent and saw the full moon hanging directly over me with a blanket of stars sparkling across the skyline.

Suddenly, I was standing at the center of a tribal village made up of burlap tipis, somewhere in the middle of a circular bowl-shaped canyon. It was surrounded by apple trees and various grasses with openings on the North and South ends. I was surprised to see so much green out here in the desert, even with a natural water source. I quickly realized that they were using the same sort of technology as Dodge City.

It was a refreshing change of scenery from Dodge City though at least. Almost relaxing in a way. “Wow, this place is amazing...” I awed, looking around. Usually by having technology like this you’d have others coming for a piece of it. It was hard to believe parts of the wasteland like this still existed in this day and age. Maybe I had been in “civilized” New Canterlot territory for too long.

A few other bison were watching outside their tents, but upon seeing me notice them when I stepped outside, they immediately retreated back into their homes. I guessed they must’ve been curious about me as well.

Only one buffalo remained standing in front of me. He was a bull so huge that I had to back up a little to look at him. He stared down at me. “You’re Follows Crow, I presume?” I asked.

He wore several black feathers and scrapped metal armor, with a red sun painted on his forehead. The ones I had met in Dodge City were only juveniles. This was a fully grown buffalo. Follows Crow nodded stoically. “And you’re the ouslander,” he replied looking down at me with his massive form. “Thought you’d be more impressive, honestly.”

“Hello to you too...” I replied deadpan.

The bison nodded in the direction of the southern canyon. “Come.” he said, twisting around. Then he trotted, heading towards the south end of the village, gesturing for me to follow. “I will show you the way.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Can’t you just point me in the right direction?”

He didn’t respond, instead trotting ahead forward. I rolled my eyes, trotting behind him.

Though as I came up next to him, I noticed some of the other bison were peeking out at me, watching me from their tents on our way out of the village. One of the young ones poked his head outside to get a better look, only to be pulled back in quickly by his mother. I knew what it was like to be an outsider from personal experience but never quite to this extent. This didn’t feel the same though. It was like they were spooked by my very being there.

My guide noticed my staring. “The power you possess is unnatural. It’s understandable for them to be wary.” When I asked him why, he merely pointed to my shoulder where the marks had appeared. He didn’t explain much beyond that though.

Two lit torches marked the very edge of the village. Follows Crow trotted past them while I held at the entrance for a brief moment. Although the way was mostly straightforward into a descending canyon, I saw other branching pathways and openings where someone who didn’t know the way could get turned around if they weren’t careful. Mistakenly thinking I had felt something before entering the network of canyons, I figured it must’ve been my imagination, and followed him down into it.

Climbing onto some natural stone steps, I felt myself stumbling on a rock as I attempted to follow closely. My weakened limbs were giving me more trouble than I was used to. I clenched my jaw, trying to keep balance, though I nearly tripped two more times on the dark path. Meanwhile my guide only slowed down when it was obvious I was lagging behind.

I made a strained grunt.

“Hissssssss!” I heard the sharp hiss and rattling of a snake’s tail. Then looked down and pulled my hoof back with a grimace, seeing that I had nearly stepped on one. I went around it cautiously.

“Careful where you step,” my guide warned. “More than just salamanders down here...”

I looked back to my guide, who was leading me. “Follows Crow, right? Can I ask you a question?”

“Ask,” he said.

“If they’re all scared of me, then why aren’t you?”

The bison gave a snort, and replied. “This is my test, just as much as it is yours.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, “Do you have some sort of problem with me?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t even know me though,” I countered.

The bison snorted again. “You bear the mark. That is enough. When you were brought to the village you were covered in them. The Chief seems to think there will be value in showing you the sacred spirit cave. I am not convinced.”

“Why?” I asked, still confused.

“You are dangerous and pose a threat to others. Whether or not you realize it.”

I started to get angry for a moment, but then I breathed to calm myself down, so I could at least attempt to be reasonable. “Look, I don’t know how I got this thing. I’m just looking for some answers.”

“Make no mistake, I will follow the elder’s wishes, but I will also not hesitate to kill you, should you try anything as they call: ‘funny’. Through our time in the wasteland, we developed special techniques that are especially effective in fighting mutants. Even were your healing factor working right now, it would not protect you,” Follows Crow stopped to shoot me a brief glare.

I reciprocated. “So you do know what it is,” I snarled, my eyes narrowing into slits accusingly. There was then a short, but heavy pause between us. As he watched me back and said nothing.

“This way,” he then said, and turned down another path. Becoming a little irritated as the bison just snorted and ignored me, I watched him as he trotted ahead. Giving him a dirty look, I sucked it up and continued along.

That’s when I noticed a crude illustration of a buffalo drawn on one of the walls beside me. It seemed to be running in the direction we were going. I stared curiously at it. As we went, I began seeing more of them. Depictions of running buffalo just like it and the outlines of white buffalo hooves. Running. “But from what?” I wondered. “And to where, exactly?”

My guide remained solely focused on what was ahead of him. Not saying much as he led the way. Somehow he managed to easily traverse the terrain in spite of his massive bulk, sharply contrasting me and my slow, clumsy steps. It would’ve helped if I knew where we were going at least.

“Would it kill you to slow down a little?” I complained after catching up to him. “Hello? Mare who was just shot in the head recently.”

He replied with the barely acknowledgement of a slight grunt.

We travelled together through the canyon for a while and there were no exchanges. I grew fed up with the silence. So making my own pathetic attempt at small talk, I asked my stoic bison guide, “So… uh, go to Dodge City often?”

“No,” he answered flatly, replying, “Any wise creature knows that place is best to be avoided. It is the epitome of the worst corruptions the wasteland has to offer. Only the truly foolish or desperate travel there.”

“Fair,” I acknowledged, “but then, not every place in the Wasteland is Dodge City.”

He grunted. “There’s little difference to be had if you ask me. We were nomads before we settled here. Travelled to many places.” He pointed to the illustrations of running buffalo. “Most were… unwelcoming. We’ve seen the worst it has to offer.”

“I guess my experience was a little different than most…,” I admitted, “but, hey. I can sorta relate.”

He snorted. “Do you always talk this much?” he asked.

Imagining myself wanting to punch out a fully grown bison right then, suddenly I stopped to look up, seeing something above. Some huge buffalo illustrations with blood running down their eyes had been drawn onto two slanted canyon walls here. He trotted past, ignoring them, but I wanted to take a better look. “Well, that’s not ominous at all,” I quipped to myself, staring up at the grim imagery. Then seeing he was getting further ahead, I went after him.

At some point, I thought I could hear something calling out to me. Though I dismissed this feeling at first, I was unable to shake an uneasiness that something was off in the back of my mind. I also couldn’t help but begin to wonder about this place he was taking me to. Or what would be waiting for me when I got there. The canyon walls only seemed to get higher the deeper we went.

“Um. So I’ve got another question. Who is ‘She’ exactly?” I asked when I caught up again. He had slowed to a more even pace now.

His eyes darted back at me with suspicion, before looking forward again. “I believe in your tongue they call her: ‘Nightmare Moon’.” he answered.

I scoffed. “Nightmare Moon? That’s just a little foal’s story. Princess Luna died at the end of the Great War. They say that her spirit helps watch over fillies and colts in need in the wasteland.”

“I am not referring to the Moon spirit, but Nightmare Moon.”

Giving the bison a disparaging look, I challenged, “How is that any different?”

“It is not an easy translation, but in our culture Nightmare Moon represents the corruption of the moon spirit and thus the corruption of Equestria into a wasteland as a whole.”

Now I was even more confused than I was moments ago. “Is this like a spiritual thing?” I complained flatly.

“‘She’ who corrupts the lands. Twisting creatures into abominations.” he said. “Even now her influence remains. Despite the sun's return, she lurks both in and beyond Equestria. Far beyond this canyon as well, her power lurks like old world spirits. Creeps further with each passing day. And it infects you as well.”

That still didn’t really answer my question though. If he were a pony, talking in riddles would be what he had gotten his cutie mark for. I blew out a puff of air.

“If Nightmare Moon is real, how did she get in me then?” I asked. “What makes this ‘She’, so dangerous, anyways?”

“You’ve seen the results for yourself. Echoes of what she used to be. Our tribe has long taught us to beware the wasteland, because it can corrupt the soul just as she corrupted the earth. You lose your connection to the spirits, and it is believed that if you lose yourself to the wasteland and die on the warpath, then you may never find your way back to the spirit realm. You forget what you were and end up stampeding across the wastes as a vengeful ghost for all eternity between the winds.”

“And that’s what you believe?” I asked, raising my brow.

He grunted derisively and I could hear him muttering under his breath about how he would overcome these trials. Even though he seemed a fair bit more grounded than the bison in the village, these buffalo were certainly a superstitious lot.

Eventually, we took a turn and I felt like we were going up a hill now. My guide’s occasional grunts and the sound of his hoofsteps on rock were enough for me to keep track of where we were going without watching too closely. It was when I took a short moment to rest myself though, that I noticed my guide had quietly disappeared without me. I looked around, but he was nowhere in sight.

I swore softly to myself. Then all of a sudden, I felt that odd sensation sweep over me again – the same thing I felt while standing on the edge of the desert. I quirked an ear in the direction I thought it was coming from, listening closely. It had been subtle at first, but now the voice was stronger than before, whispering as if it were beckoning me deeper into the canyon. I couldn’t explain it, but I felt it all around me. Along with the growing urge to follow it. I took a step towards it out of curiosity.

"Careful. It's easy to get led astray." Follows Crow said suddenly. I turned around in surprise, spotting the large-framed buffalo waiting beside me, carrying his usual stoic facial expression.

Managing to shake myself out of it, I pulled my hoof back. “Noted...”

Then with a sterner voice, he told me, “Don’t lag behind again.”

After that I followed his advice.

When we reached the mouth of the cave, I stopped and saw the entrance was marked by totems meant to ward off outsiders. Crafted from the discarded power armor helmets of enclave gear and buzzard bones. They certainly did the job, because they really creeped me out. It didn’t help that it was nighttime either.

Staring inside, I saw nothing except for darkness. I could feel it though. I could hear it too. Somehow I could sense that the voice was coming from this place the strongest. What was this feeling? From a gut fear instinct, I tensed up as if by reflex, expecting some sort of wasteland monster to pop out at any moment.

Follows Crow’s placed a hoof on my shoulder and startled me. “You feel it too, don’t you?” he asked.

I exhaled, turning to him in confusion. “W-What is it...?”

“Her voice calls out from here. Though its true source lies elsewhere. Many scouts have gone in search of its origin, but none ever returned. Or if they did, they had forgotten themselves. Your journey alone begins here.”

This whole idea was suddenly giving me some really bad vibes. Glancing over at one of the Enclave helmets belonging to one of the two inanimate cave guardians, I asked him, “What’s inside?”

“Different for every creature. Just be careful to stay on the path.”

Staring at him directly, I asked softly, “Hey. You’ve run into the Enclave before, haven’t you?”

It seemed as if he had little interest in recounting the story. “Not personally. It was before my time,” he snorted.

I frowned, trying to sound sincere and offer sympathy. “For what it’s worth, I lost my home to the Enclave, so I get it...” I told him.

He paused momentarily before answering. “You and I are not alike,” he snarled, apparently not interested. Then with a huff he turned his head away, appearing stoic again. “My task is done.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “Okay. Just tell me, what does this have to do with Radar?” I asked.

Looking back, he urged me again with a nod of his head to go in. “Mmmm. The answers you seek wait inside.”

Some part of my brain was beginning to have second thoughts. I hesitated for a moment. Glancing at my guide, then back at the cave. Groaning loudly to myself, I thought, “No time like the present,” and bravely trotted inside. My hoofsteps echoing softly as I stepped into the pitch black.

When I first entered the cave it was total darkness. To the point I could barely see my own hoof in front of my face. I could feel the call stronger in here, and it was all around me. Smothering my other senses. All I could do was feel around and keep putting one hoof in front of the other, and pray that I was going the right direction.

“Hello?” I called out. No response.

Muttering under my breath about sending ponies along into mysterious dark caves and how everyone I met seemed incapable of giving me straight answers, as I continued to venture further inside, somehow I felt my eyes adjusting to the low light. Noticing the glowing mushrooms dotting the corridors, they gave off an eerie green glow but illuminated the path enough for me to see.

I followed along until suddenly, the tunnel opened up into a large natural cavern, lit by nothing but those strange glowing mushrooms, bathing everything in a soft green. As I looked up at the ceiling, and around me all I could see was painted illustrations. Tons of them surrounded me everywhere I looked. Depicting not only the buffalo but many other ponies I didn’t recognize, as well as some that I did.

More of the paintings told other stories – stories about wasteland heroes and from before the war. All of it seemed to center around a great illustration of a balefire mushroom cloud and Nightmare Moon, but laid out in a tertiary pattern were also illustrations of two other sinister-looking figures. One laughing skeletal pony, and another sort of pony-headed, dragon, goat-legged thing. Whatever-the-hell that was. Then below, drawings of green flames over what I supposed was meant to be the wasteland.

I couldn’t see a beginning or end to anywhere.

I tried to look for a beginning and end somewhere, until I stumbled onto something I recognized. “Sun and moon? That’s Celestia and Luna.” Starting from there, the depictions seemed to be telling a story.

It began with Nightmare Moon being defeated and Princess Luna being redeemed by six friends. This allowed Luna to return to the throne. Everyone in the wasteland knew how this story ended: With a huge balefire mushroom cloud that destroyed everything. We were stuck in a wasteland for two hundred years until the Stable Dweller came along, and the rest was history now as far as most wastelanders were concerned.

According to the paintings on the wall, the buffalo had always existed alongside the sun and moon spirits. To live in natural harmony with Equestria and stampede in accordance to their sacred traditions and ancestry was their only concern over generations. Alongside this a pony who appeared to be Rainbow Dash seemed to be helping them sort out some issues with frontier ponies which ended in them all baking apple pies together.

“If only all my problems could end that well.” I quipped, suddenly having a craving for apple pie. “Or most wasteland stories.”

Perhaps this was a painted history of their tribe. Though somehow it appeared to be more than that. Much more. It looked like it was depicting events in the wasteland, stretching all the way back to the Great War. Perhaps even before it.

“Was this what Many Moons wanted me to see?”

My eyes briefly passed over the image of a rather plain looking stable dweller unicorn. Though I had my doubts that she was the actual Stable Dweller. She was way too small.

From there I saw countless more drawings, some extending into other passageways. I could at most take guesses as to what it all meant. I assumed it had to all be a metaphor for something. No, it was more than that… but it all just seemed like a bunch of random stories to me.

“Dammit, it’s going to take me forever to go through all of these!” I complained, hearing my voice echo throughout the cave.

One other strange image caught my eye though. One of Rainbow Dash. Except it wasn’t really the Rainbow Dash I was familiar with. She was grizzled and wore an old shadowbolts uniform, standing alone, instead of with the other ministry ponies as she was often depicted. “Maybe this is Rainbow Dash at the end of the war.” I thought.

Then suddenly I began getting that strange feeling again. Except now it was as if there was someone else in the cave with me. I looked around over my shoulder, but there was no one there. I sighed, feeling relieved.

Just then, I heard the faint sounds of hoofsteps. At the edge of my eye, I saw something dart out of the shadows and down another passageway. It must have been watching me. “Hey, wait!” I snarled, chasing after it.

I galloped after it into the next cavern, following the pictures of running buffalo which seemed to stampede past me. Though I slowed myself as I rounded a corner. Hearing soft crying, I stepped forward cautiously as I approached, but immediately stopped and my jaw dropped open, completely stunned at what I saw before me.

Suddenly, I was staring down at a young tan coated filly with an auburn white-striped mane. Cutie markless and alone, crying to herself. It was me. A younger version of me.

I didn’t even have time to ask myself how this was possible. The younger me sniffed and raised her head with tears in her eyes. “I-I can’t find my family,” she whimpered. “I came in here looking for them, b-but now I’m lost in this cave....”

After the initial shock wore off of finding myself face to face with my younger self, I knelt down next to the younger me. “Hey, it’ll be okay,” I smiled. “I’ll help you get out of here. I’m sure they miss you too.”

She nodded, wiping tears from her eyes.

Not a hundred percent sure what was happening, I knew that there was no choice in what I had to do next. Giving my younger self a warm hug, I told her “I know it’s hard,” holding her tight, “but you’ve got to be brave for me for now, okay? Be strong for me.”

“Uh, huh…,” she sniffed.

Leading her by the hoof, we went out the way I came in.

She grasped me tightly. Hearing the soft sobs coming from the younger me begin to grow softer and then stop as I led her out of the cave, I felt no reason in my mind to question it. It was just something I had to do.

As I stared down at myself, I found it hard to believe that I was ever that small.

We came to a split path that I didn’t remember being there. I looked both ways, thinking this was as I tried to remember the way I came, but I couldn’t quite remember. Scratching my head, I knew I couldn’t have come that far. Though I figured my sense of direction was pretty good, so I was confident we would find our way out soon enough.

“Everything’s going to be alright,” I assured her again and she gave me a small nod. I gave her a big smile in return. Telling myself I had to be strong here at least for her sake. Or my own sake. Luna, this was weird...

Looking around again though, I couldn’t recognize what part of the cave I was in. “Huh, I was sure that the exit was around here somewhere…,” I said, thinking aloud. “How big can this damn cave network be?” Holding onto her hoof a little tighter to comfort her, slowly I was beginning to feel like the one who was lost. At least she had stopped crying though.

My eyes immediately fell on some of the cave paintings depicting Radar. In which he appeared to be descending from the clouds into a wasteland, and another beside that in which he was fighting the Enclave. Another painting beside that one showed him gifting something to the buffalo, and helping them settle into the valley. Attempting to ease tensions between them and the townsponies.

Approaching the wall I stopped for a moment, to take a closer look, and I felt a subtle connection to him. We both paused to look at them, and she smiled up at me, before continuing on together.

Everything in the cave was starting to feel a lot bigger, and I was covering less ground with every step. It seemed like we were going the wrong way, and the deeper we went, the more it opened up into even larger caverns. With all these snaking passageways I was beginning to feel like we were never going to find our way out. If I had been stuck in this place on my own, I felt like even I would’ve started to lose it after a while too.

Feeling a tug at my foreleg, I looked upward and saw a huge adult mare, leading ahead of me. She was wearing my clothes and looked just like me. No. She was me. “Everything'll be fine,” she encouraged me. “Just be strong for me for a while longer, alright?”

“Huh?” Staring back down at my now foal-sized body, I looked back up at the mare standing over me. Not sure what was going on, I kept on following closely. Was this even real? It felt like this had to be a dream, but I felt my tiny hooves solidly on the ground. “Uh huh…” I nodded. She took the lead confidently, and suddenly I was the one who was being led out of the cave.

As we walked together, I had no idea what was happening anymore. Though as I quietly observed some of the paintings on the cave walls, upon closer inspection I realized they were of me. The crude drawings were all illustrations of my history.

I managed to pick out one of the drawings of me from when Radar left me and my brothers and sister at the Republic. Though looking at it filled me with both nostalgia and bitterness, beside it, was another of us escaping into the wasteland together. It showed me meeting Fair Trade after that, and the day I got my cutie mark. Everything was depicted here. Even that time I played a prank on Zap to make him think he had horn rot when in reality I had just painted his horn a different color.

A little taken aback that they knew so much about me, I was beginning to get uncomfortable. I could only wonder who took the time to make all of this.

“This is getting way too weird…,” I thought to myself.

My older self kept checking back on me to make sure that I wasn’t scared, continuously assuring me that everything would be alright. I was a grown mare though, and grown mares didn’t cry.

Together we walked through the section of the cave that was dedicated to us, remembering our fondest memories, until we came to the part where the paintings depicted ‘that day’. I didn’t need to squint to realize what it was. The simplistic drawings more than got the message across. What looked like a town surrounded with red markings and ponies burning as black bird-like figures soared over them, forced me to cringe and I began shaking, but my older self gripped my hoof a little tighter as we passed and I felt better.

It was good having another pony here with me. Even if that pony was myself. Staring down at the cave floor as I followed her along, and I felt comfort just being here with myself, even if it was an extremely weird out of body experience.

Oddly enough, I looked back and noticed there was one more painting I didn’t recognize all the way at the end. Although I couldn’t quite make it out what it was, because it was all black and painted over. Like somepony had tried to hide it. There was another memory? I tried to remember if I was forgetting something important, but as hard as I tried, nothing came to mind.

My older self didn’t seem to pay it much attention either, instead urging us to continue forward. I began dragging my hooves to try to get a better look at it, but she was too strong. I was no match for her strength at this size, so I gave up and went along with her. She merely smiled back at me, promising that we’d be out of the cave soon. I looked down at the floor with a sigh, kicking a small rock, and kept following.

As we walked together I thought to myself how this was too weird to be anything but a dream. At least I was here with myself though.

Then all of a sudden my hoof was empty, and I could no longer feel the warm embrace of her hoof holding onto mine. I looked up again to see she wasn't holding onto me anymore.

“H-Hello?!” I cried out, hearing an echo from deeper within the cave. Suddenly I felt scared and alone.

Frantically, I looked around in search of my older self, but she was nowhere to be found. There was only darkness around me. This had to be a bad dream. “Just wake up.” I told myself, and got the idea to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming, but to my utter horror, I felt it. I was still a filly.

My heart started to beat faster, as I looked behind me and saw the cave had given way to a dark steel door at the end of a foreboding hallway. I went pale, watching it. The latch on the door twisted suddenly with a loud metallic clack.

...

I ran away screaming before it could open, desperately looking in search of an exit. What the hell was I supposed to do at this size? No guns and no friends, and I was all alone. So I did the only thing I could think of and fled in terror, running as fast my tiny legs could carry me.

Somehow the steel door appeared again in front of me, and was already waiting for me at the other end of the cavern. So I quickly wheeled around and ran in the opposite way, but it was there too. The door slowly swung open and I could see a red light coming out of the crack, and felt heat pouring out of it from the other side.

I darted away, screaming down the first dark passageway I saw in an attempt to get away and somehow managed to escape.

Okay, I was a filly now, but I could work through this. Beginning to run in search of the exit, it had been a long time since I had to run on such short little legs. Not to mention, the passages seemed long and impossible to navigate. The cave darkened the further back I went, with less glowing green mushrooms to light the way until it was nearly pitch black. Now I was more lost and alone than before.

Who was I kidding? I couldn’t work through this.

Feeling completely lost, tears began to well up in my eyes as I slowly dragged my hooves, overcome by emotion. Maybe it was something about this place or that fact that I had been made a foal again, but I felt helpless. Even though it was nothing to cry over, I couldn’t think to do anything else. What else could I do?

I sniffed and sighed after I’d calmed down, accepting my fate that I was going to be trapped in here forever in this cave in a small filly body. Kicking a rock with my little hoof, I snapped. “Stupid cave! How am I supposed to get out of here now?!”

The rock skipped across the stone floor and landed at the hooves of another figure. I hadn’t even noticed anyone else standing there. It spooked me at first, but as I rubbed my eyes they slowly came into focus. There was a grandfatherly-looking sienna-coated old pegasus in a flight jacket, standing heroically in front of me.

My eyes opened wide with surprise, upon quickly realizing who it was. “R-Radar?!” I blurted out in shock at seeing him before me. “I thought you were dead!”

The pegasus spread his wings triumphantly though he didn’t say anything. He was just like the hero I remembered from my foalhood! He was everything I imagined him to be, standing right there in front of me. From my much shorter stature he really did look amazing. All that was missing was a shining backdrop behind him coupled with a slight breeze.

“Hello, uh... Radar?” I asked, smiling nervously as I approached him with adoration. “I-It’s me. Don’t you remember?”

Radar didn’t answer though. He wasn’t even looking at me. Instead he just kept standing completely still in silence.

“Y-You saved me a long time ago…. Hello?” I repeated. I could barely even see his face in this light as I waved my tiny hoof at him, even trying to jump up and down so he could see me more easily. Growing somewhat impatient, I repeated again, this time with a stomp of my tiny hoof, shouting, “Hellooo?!! Stop ignoring me!”

The old pegasus simply continued to stand heroically with his wings spread, not saying a single word. Feeling anger growing in my chest.

“Why did you just leave me at that awful place and never come back?!” I demanded. “Luneshine was horrible to us. Do you know how much stuff I had to figure out on my own?! It was a lot!” As I spoke tears welled up in my eyes, but I managed to hold myself together to say the words I’d been wanting to say for seventeen years. “There were so many things that I wanted to know from you, like who I am, who my parents were or where I came from. Things that I wish you had told me!” My little face scrunched, my anger growing with each word. “ And now everyone I care about is gone! You said we’d always be a family as long as we were together, so why weren’t you there for us?!”

Radar again didn’t reply, continuing to stand heroically.

“Ugh! Why don’t you just answer me?!” I screamed, all my bitter feelings from over the years finally coming out. “I hate you!!!”

After I said that, I threw a rock at him and he started to fade away in front of me.

“W-Wait, come back!” I cried, stepping forward and extending my hoof. There was a painful mix of emotions and regret in me immediately. Trying to grab at his hooves before he disappeared with my own just resulted in a hoof full of air. “Don’t leave me alone again!”

Digging through the rocks where he was just standing I fell down on my haunches and sighed to myself, but then I noticed something had changed around me. I looked up and saw that it had somehow gotten brighter. If only just slightly.

Somehow, I saw that I was no longer in a cave, but in a small room. It seemed like the inside of a small one-roomed wasteland shack. Various discarded old-world relics littered the place. Scattered playing cards from incomplete decks, A single lightbulb dangled over a roulette table with two chairs at either end, and crates stashed over in the corner. It was a room I recognized.

“You look lost, kid,” came another’s voice from the other side of the room.

Another pony was seated on the opposite end of the table. A pale old mare with a stringy grey mane, wearing a tattered old duster which had likely been to every place in the wasteland with her. A single string of dice hung from her wide brimmed hat. I knew this pony too.

I stared wide-eyed at the old mare, relieved to see another familiar face. “It’s you!”

“Eyup. It’s me alright!” she grinned. Like I remembered, her eyes always remained shaded and obscured no matter the angle, and she looked the same as the day I met her all those years ago. “Long time no see!”

“Hi, uh… I’m sorry but I forgot what your name was.”

“It’s Stranger. I never told you my name back then, so why would you remember it? Besides, I kind of like the idea of being anyone in the wasteland. It’s metaphorical like that.”

“That’s weird.” I scoffed.

She shrugged. “Well, it’s your spirit journey. So how’s that cutie mark been treating you?”

My eyes fell downward. “Okay,” I admitted. “Though I’m a little unsure what to do with it nowadays.” My eyes lit up as I realized. “Wait. So all this is inside my head, right? Could you help me get out of this cave, please? Pretty please?” I begged.

Stranger shook her head. “Sorry squirt. I can’t do that. On account of you haven’t found what you’re looking for just yet. You’d only end up right back here again in this room.” Then smirking, she pointed at my small filly body. “And you ain’t going anywhere looking like that.” The mare gestured at the empty seat across from her. “Why not have a seat then? Take a load off for a while!”

I cocked my head and frowned. “What am I looking for?”

She chuckled to herself in amusement. “C’mon, me telling you the answers would do you no good. You have to figure it out on your own. Trust me. That’s what this spirit journey is about. But I’ll tell you what, how about we make another bet on it?” she grinned, placing a single star bottle cap on the table. "You remember this, doncha?” She asked, pointing to the antique roulette table. It remained in pristine condition despite its age, just like how I remembered it. “Maybe if we play a game or two it’ll come to you.”

Scrunching my face in annoyance, I told her, “I’ve got too much riding on this to do another bet.”

“C’mon, I’ve got to pass the time somehow...” she moaned, spinning the wheel out of boredom. Dropping the steel ball inside, she watched it bounce around and fall into the slot of a random number. The old mare cursed under her breath. “Dammit, I can never get this old thing to work. I’ve just got the worst luck.”

I relented, struggling to climb up onto the stool with my tiny legs. Though I had to stand up just to see over the table. Stranger grinned, picking up as she balanced the steel roulette ball on the tip of her hoof.

Stranger frowned, shifting her weight onto the table towards me. “So I hear you got yourself beat by that loser Jagged Knife,” she mentioned. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I assumed she was giving me a look. The old mare slapped her hoof on the table. “What’s the matter? You should’ve been able to take down a pony like him easily!”

“Oh, yeah…,” I hung my head and gave a little sigh. “He had a recording of Luneshine. So I got scared and he shot me while I was out of it. He knew practically everything about me. Then another pony I thought was my friend betrayed me. I found out that he was at Starlight Bay on the night the Enclave attacked.”

“Details...,” she hummed disinterestedly.

With a huff I sat down on my rump and sighed to myself as Stranger fiddled around with the antique roulette table. “I thought things were always going to work out, but I lost everyone I cared about back then. Even those ponies at the Republic are gone. Radar too. I’m just… not sure how to move forward from here. I don’t know if I can do this on my own.”

“Please, lots of ponies have done it on their own. That’s how the Wasteland is. You’ve been getting by fine by yourself up until now.”

“B-But it’s not a Wasteland anymore! It’s…,” my voice trailed off briefly. “Well, I don’t know what it is. All I know is that things are different now.”

“You’re just making up excuses. We both know that it wasn’t just dumb luck that got you this far. You had what it takes to survive. If you had only embraced that side of yourself, like you did back then, then you wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“But what if I don’t want to be that sort of pony anymore?” I asked, my eyes falling downward. “They would’ve wanted me to be good. I just don’t know how to not live in the wasteland...”

Stranger scoffed.

“Jagged Knife said I was nothing but a killer, and he’s probably right. At the end of the day, I’m the same as he is...”

The old mare spun the wheel again out of boredom, her attention only half on what I was saying. “Take it from me, kid, Jagged Knife isn’t even half the pony you are,” she told me, though the compliment fell a bit flat. As she watched the ball skitter around, it landed in the wrong number slot and she cursed. “Dammit. Can’t get this thing to work right. Well, that’s the wasteland for ya. Or maybe my luck’s just shit. Heh, why don’t you give it a try?” she suggested, nudging the roulette table my way.

Rolling my eyes, I picked up the steel ball and tossed it into the wheel. Watching it bounce around, to my surprise, it landed on the double zeros. “W-Wait that’s not right…” I thought, picking up the ball to try again. I spun the wheel again only for it to land in the exact same slot as before. I gasped.

“Why isn’t it working?!” I demanded, puffing out my cheeks. “This wheel’s busted!” Giving up, I looked back up at Stranger with mild frustration. “What’s the point of this? I don’t have time for games.” I stomped my tiny hoof, which admittedly probably looked cute at my size instead of assertive.

“So you know you have to get out of this rut but you don’t know how,” she mused to herself, fiddling with the wheel some more. “Hmmm. Say, is that old crab apple Fair Trade still alive?” she asked me, seeming to ignore my useless foal-sized anger.

Growing annoying at her for changing the subject again, I relented and shook my head. “Yeah. I went to see him recently. Sorry to disappoint you.”

She cursed to herself, muttering, “Aw dammit. Was hoping he’d have croaked by now. I’d be really sour if he somehow outlived me. Ah well. That’s how the wheel spins, I guess.” Thinking to herself for a moment, “What about that marefriend of yours? Are you two an item yet?”

“Can we get back on topic, please?” I pleaded, blushing.

Stranger frowned and seemed to look down at me. “C’mon, I’m giving you hints, kid! I couldn’t make this any easier for you if I tried,” she groaned to herself. “Don’t you have any other ponies out there waiting on you?”

“I mean, there’s Accolade…,” I admittedly meekly.

“That one filly, right?” she asked. “Mmmm. Reminds me of someone....”

“I promised her that everything would be alright...,” I said, feeling the guilt weighing on my tiny chest. “I don’t want her to have to go through what I did.”

“The only reason I ended up like this was because I wanted to learn about the Enclave. So much so I got obsessed with revenge. If I had just killed him from the beginning then I never would’ve ended up here.” Letting out a heavy sigh, I looked down at the floor. “I’m starting to wonder if maybe she’d have been better off if she had never even met me...”

Stranger scoffed again. “You don’t actually believe that,” she sneered, and leaned in towards me. Though her eyes remained shaded by her wide-brimmed hat, I presumed she was giving me another look. “Do you really think Accolade gives a crap about any of what you just said?”

“But it’s my fault to begin with. I screwed things up and put the lives of ponies who mattered to me on the line. Jagged would never have gotten as far as he did if not for me!”

“Always with the excuses, filly,” Stranger lamented, shaking her head. “You were the only one willing to give a damn enough to help her! So you made a mistake and Jagged Knife played you. Jagged would’ve done all that stuff anyways. It’s in his nature,” she moaned. “She’s a small filly who’s just looking for a way out.”

“What about all those other ponies I killed back in the Wasteland? What about all those ponies that died? I’m just as bad as he is. What’s the point of me going after the Enclave if I’m just getting ponies killed? It’s pointless. They’re probably dead because of me, anyways….”

Stranger shook her head. “It’s like I’m talking here, but you ain’t listening. Kid. We both know that the Enclave is still out there, but those ponies you care about? They’re still out there too, and you’ve still got a chance to make things right here, ‘if you want’. ‘Cus you and I both know that you’re the only pony who can save them. The Enclave weren’t the ones who hurt that foal. You need to learn what’s at stake here and now, instead of letting what happened in the past run your life.”

My eyes fell downward, contemplating her words.

“B-But I failed...”

“So you’ve had a run of bad luck lately? Learn to roll with the punches. You can either sit here forever like a scared little filly, or pick yourself up again and do what needs to be done.”

I looked back up at Stranger. “Isn’t it supposed to be cheating for you to give me the answer?” I asked.

The mare revealed a big stupid smirk on her face. “Because in your heart of hearts, you’ve already made up your mind.” She scooped up the steel ball in her hoof and set it down in front of me. “You don’t need me to tell you that there’s only one mare out there capable of controlling that ball of impulsive hotheadedness you call a personality.”

At that moment I felt something stirring inside of me, and the old grizzled wasteland mare urged me to take another spin at the wheel. I felt sure of myself this time as I picked up the roulette ball and dropped it inside, watching the steel ball bounce around wildly.

“That’s right…,” I realized. “It’s been so long, I almost forgot what was on the line back then.”

The roulette wheel began to slow down, deflecting the ball several more times. “Truth is, you always had the strength you needed. Even back then. You just didn’t realize it,” Stranger grinned.

“I know,” I replied, now filled with determination, “but now I know what to use it for.” The wheel slowed to a stop with the ball sitting in the thirty-six slot and I stood up from the table. Except now I was a full grown mare again.

The smirk on Stranger’s face widened as she watched me and she laughed to herself. “Remember, it’s easy to look out for only yourself and cut yourself off from the world. Maybe that’s part of the reason why we were stuck in a wasteland for so long.”

“Yeah. I can’t sit here forever,” I agreed.

That’s when I noticed the steel door had appeared at the end of the room. Or perhaps it had always been there this entire time and I just hadn’t noticed until now.

As I gazed upon it, my heart started to pound faster and I looked back at Stranger. Asking her with a slight hint of fear in my voice, “What exactly is behind that door?”

“Beyond it is where lies your deepest darkest fears,” she revealed. “It’s okay to be scared, kid. Up to you though whether or not you want to face them.”

My heartbeat slowed, and I looked at the locked door again. Though I was resolute. “No more running away,” I said, and approached it slowly, reaching my hoof out. I could almost feel heat licking at it from the other side. Without turning around, I told the old mare, “It was nice seeing you again.” I turned the latch. Then with a deep breath I pushed open the door, and stepped through, ready to face whatever lay beyond it.

Stranger laughed to herself and I imagined she was smiling behind me. “Likewise,” she said. “Now get going, kid.”

Meeting the same pony twice in the wasteland was often few and far between, but I was glad that we had at least gotten the chance to say goodbye. Even if this all turned out to be just some weird dream. Her voice echoed as I stepped out of the room, and the last thing she told me struck a chord with me. “Y’know? I’ve always had something of a soft spot for you...” she admitted. When I glanced back, both she and the room had disappeared.

All of a sudden I was outside. Smoke from something burning filled my nostrils, and I felt the heat from embers licking at the back of my neck.

I could see a red light casting flickering shadows on the rocky wall in front of me and I turned around to see where the room had once stood had now given way to my worst nightmare of ‘that day’. The beach house from my memories towered over me aflame, and I felt as though I was about to catch fire any moment from the heat.

From where I stood, I could see the town of Starlight Bay burning below me, with all its citizens vaporized to ashes.

That’s when the silhouette of the Enclave officer stepped forth from the flames like a cruel effigy. The Enclave troopers formed out of the flames as well, following behind him and casting long shadows over me against the cliffside. I found myself paralyzed with fear as he took another step forward, and my heart started beating faster as he took another. The officer approached me slowly. He spoke, but his words came out in distorted whispers.

“I’m not afraid of you anymore…” I said.

As they surrounded me, their shadows turned to liquid underneath my hooves. The skeletons of my former loved ones reached out of the tar-like liquid attempting to drag me down into the depths with them and I wanted to scream. My eyes opened wide with horror as I saw charred skeletons of the towns’ residents crawling out of the shadows to begin clawing at my hooves.

“I said I’m not afraid!” I shouted.

I felt like I was sinking deeper into the dark pit below. Hearing the whispers of my dead family there as well, threatening to drag me into its depths. The Enclave and the officer’s shadow looked like twisted malformed monsters. I stood firm, even as the flames raged even higher, causing the silhouette’s shadow to lengthen like it was about to consume me.

“Hey! Weren’t you listening? I said I’m not afraid!” I shouted.

“You killed us…”

“This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real…” I began repeating to myself. That’s when I realized that that didn’t matter if it wasn’t real. What mattered was me. I was afraid of them, and I had to face up to my fears if I was ever going to get out of this cave.

I swallowed and puffed out my chest. “Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m still scared of you bunch of black-clad assclowns, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to back down anymore and cower to you like a little foal anymore!”

The oncoming shadowy figure stopped and paused. As if considering my words it appeared to back off slightly.

“So why don’t you take me on and fight me for fucking real?!” As I shouted at the oncoming darkness, it caused the silhouette of the officer to shrink back. The fires and shadows around me also retreated backwards. “What’s the matter? You scared? I’ll bet you are!” I yelled, grinning like an idiot. “Does it seriously take a whole squadron just to take down one little mare? Why not the whole damn Enclave?!”

The fires snuffed out, and the rest of the figures dissipated into dust. Until all that was standing in front of me was a faceless shadow of the officer blew away into nothingness as well. Then everything ceased and there was only calm.

For a moment, I was standing alone on a calm beach at Starlight Bay, staring across the water. Alone, but peaceful. It was a moonlit night and I heard the sounds of the waves crashing against the shoreline. I wore a smirk on my face. Though my victory was short lived.

The world around me started to fade to black, and suddenly, I felt like I was falling into an abyss. One that became darker and darker, and while I was there, I saw a horrible place. It was the dark place from the back of my memories. I couldn’t quite describe it, but I felt like I had seen it before. The only thing I could say for sure was that it was dark. Nearly pitch black, and all I could remember was the screams. The horrible screams that made my flesh crawl. The glowing spider veins began to crawl up my legs until they reached my neck. My eyes glowed green and I felt my flesh writhing as it consumed me and I joined in with the screams.

...

I blinked and woke up in the cave again, now looking up at the ceiling. I was wearing my normal clothes and back to my full-grown self again. Figuring a pinch wasn’t good enough, I smacked my face to make sure this wasn’t still a dream, and I felt it. “Yay! I’m back in my own body again!” I shouted excitedly, hugging myself. Though I looked around to make sure no one saw and quickly brought myself to my hooves, clearing my throat, “If I never have to do that again, it’ll be too soon.”

Giving the cave itself a suspicious glare, I exhaled and began to look around.

Somehow, I had reached the deepest part of the cave, but this place was different. I now found myself at the center of what looked to be a makeshift campsite. There was a single mattress here, with a firepit, a workbench, and locked footlocker. As well as a terminal which was hooked up to a portable generator. My eyes followed the cable backwards, running up the cave wall and saw that it was hooked up to some sort of transmitter dish which poked out of an opening in the cave ceiling.

The strange call from before had disappeared entirely. All I could feel was a slight breeze now, coming from out of the opening in the ceiling. From it I could hear a soft whistling wind. “Did I imagine all that?” I certainly felt something.

Looking around at the illustrations in this part of the cave, I noticed one major theme that seemed to stand out from others. They didn’t tell a story about the wasteland, but rather a story of two pegasus ponies from a long time ago and how they shaped the fate of the buffalo during the war. Depicting two in particular. A rainbow pony and a lightning pony. Whom I correctly guessed to be Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust respectively. Standing opposite, but side by side with each other with a ring of fire painted around the two of them.

The paintings seemed to suggest that they knew each other since before the great war. That they were once friends who had a history together, but they put their differences aside to fight a greater enemy. As I looked from painting to painting, the story became easier to interpret. Crude illustrations meant to be the machines of war seemed to be creeping outward from Lightning Dust over the left side of the cavern.

Weapons, megaspells and shadowy influence all emenated from her, and further out into the wasteland. Buffalo, zebras and ponies alike burned together in the balefire. I could almost hear the screams and dark whispers in the back of my head.

The buffalo apparently had tried to remain neutral during the war, but amidst these rising tensions between them and the townsponies, the war ended up affecting them anyways. So instead they decided to go somewhere far away where the war wouldn’t reach them.

That was all there was.

“Wait. That’s it...?!” I shouted in disbelief. Wondering if there was supposed to be another lesson here somewhere, I glared at the drawing suspiciously for a little while longer, until I gave up trying to guess the meaning. I had to know more about this pony. Who was she? What did she do? There was still a lot of missing information.

My mind automatically filled in the rest of the details I knew, that at some point later Radar helped them settle here but there was little else beyond that and even then it didn’t seem to fit together. “Maybe the terminal can tell me more,” I thought.

I slowly approached the desk that the terminal was placed on, seeing lots of junked high-tech looking magical devices and scrap metal strewn across it.

“Whose camp was this anyways?” I thought aloud, trying to guess to myself who else even knew this was down here. Though as I looked at the rusted spark-generator setup, I quickly realized who it must’ve belonged to.

Wondering to myself if the generator still worked after all these years, to my surprise, flipping the switch caused it to stutter to life and the terminal began to give off a green glow. I stared over at the blinking screen, seeing that it was demanding a password and scoffed. Absentmindedly striking a few keys, I groaned to myself that this was more towards Sunny Hymn’s field of expertise. I made a couple of botched attempts, to no avail.

So instead I decided to focus my attention towards my better areas of expertise. Notably: milling about until I figured out what to do.

I checked the footlocker for more clues. Locked. Luckily for me, I was able to find a key underneath the mattress. Ponies always seemed to do that so often in the wasteland, that you’d think they’d come up with a better hiding spot.

Fiddling with the key in my teeth I turned the lock and the locker clicked open. Success. Upon opening it though, a dusty old environment suit stared up at me, and I reeled back, until I saw that it was just old clothing. It was an Enclave science division uniform. One that had been left here a long time ago. As well as lots of audio logs, a memory orb with a note taped to it, and a recollector along with it. Though as I calmed down from the initial shock, a particular photograph caught my eye.

The photo was of a certain sienna-coated pegasus, except much younger, and standing side by side with another dusk coated pony. Both of them were dressed in Enclave science fatigues, with Radar’s hoof was around the other pony’s neck like they were pals. I breathed in and out. While seeing Radar in this way was extremely offputting, I tried to keep my personal feelings out of it. It made some sense that he must’ve had friends in the Enclave prior to becoming a dashite. He must’ve had others he left behind too. “Making a decision like that must’ve been difficult,” I imagined.

Looking at the note on the memory orb, it had not but a single word written on a note taped to it: “Danger”.

I picked up and pressed play on one of the recordings, and set it down on top of the mattress to continue to listen to his voice as I sifted through the past. Despite the audio coming out of it was old and somewhat distorted, I could make out his words perfectly fine.

“Hello, my name is Radar. If you know who I am, then you’re probably already aware that I was branded a traitor by the Enclave. I don’t claim to be a hero, although many consider me one. Truthfully, there’s a lot more to it than that. This is the story of my life.”

“In my youth, I enlisted in the Enclave as a scientist. Not because I had any grand plans about changing the Wasteland, but but just because it was something I was passionate for. Working on possible scientific breakthroughs to make life easier for those of us living in the clouds. That was what I lived for. It was all I was really concerned with. That and weapons research. Lots of it. The research I’ve done has probably been used to hurt lots of ponies over my extended lifetime. That’s partly why I did what I did. It was during this research that I began to learn more about the Enclave.”

Through the recordings, I felt a new connection to him that I never had before. I had begun to see Radar in a new light. There was much I still didn’t know about him, but like with other pegasi, he had seen the error of his ways in the Enclave and dedicated his life to trying to undo his mistakes. Except he had been one of the first to do so. I could only make guesses as to what caused him to change his mind.

“It was me who was tasked with performing an inquiry into the SPP towers. Or Single Pegasus Project…. To learn their full capability. Essentially, what it is, is a continent spanning megaspell matrix, but for weather. I’m not sure how many ponies realize how powerful that is, but put simply… something like that has the potential of wiping out all life in Equestria.”

Beyond that, things I began to stumble over in my research. The secrets. I learned the truth about the Enclave. I started to view the ponies I thought were my friends in a different way. The more I learned, the more I began to see the effects we were having on the rest of the wasteland. After learning the truth, I knew in good conscience that I could no longer remain silent. ‘Cept I was just one pegasus. What in the stars above was one little tech nerd gonna do? Nopony else had the guts to stand up to the Enclave since the war. Well, I showed ‘em what for.”

I stood up, then stumbled back over to the terminal and began fiddling with the keys while the message played. If there was clue anywhere in here to what the password could be, it had to be in these audio logs. Except there was like a dozen of them, and I didn’t have all the time in the wasteland to spend down here. Taking wild guesses: “single_pegasus_project”, “radar_is_cool”, “enclavesucks”, “enclavesniffsfarts”, all of them incorrect.

A dialogue box popped up, alerting me that I only had one more attempt before it locked me out and I growled in frustration. Then I heard Radar’s voice from the recording which drew my attention.

“Knowledge is the key. He who knows the wasteland, knows victory,” he said, and the recording ended.

When he said those words, I contemplated for a moment, then had a stray thought pop into my head. Turning back to the terminal, I looked at the blinking screen and started to slowly type out in the password Accolade had given me, pausing short of pressing the ‘enter’ key. “Could this be what it’s for?” I asked myself, hesitantly putting my hoof over the key. “Time to take a gamble.”

Suddenly the screen went dark, then lit up again. Showing what looked like a boot up screen, a small list of options appeared on the terminal.

“Aw, yeah! Look out Sunny! Roulette, hacker extraordinaire, coming through!” I cheered, then let out a sigh of relief, reading the new words on the screen.

The very first message at the top of the screen was from Radar: “Hello, this is Radar. Or, my message anyways... You’re currently using terminal no. 02, of a limited number across Equestria in which I have set up with limited EquiNet capabilities. You’ll be able to determine the operating status of a few of the terminals on this console. To lower risk factors though, I have kept their locations along with the total number a secret. Chances are if you’re using this, then you are one of a limited number of trustworthy individuals who I gave the password to in case of an emergency. If you are in dire need of my assistance, you can use this terminal to send out a distress signal and I’ll receive it on my primary terminal. If I’m able, I promise you I’ll do what I can to help.

PS: Of course if this is me using this login, then ignore this message. Ya dimwit.”

I snorted at the last part. Though I had to wonder what an ‘Equinet’ was. I deduced at least it had to mean that somehow this terminal was connected to the others. Scrolling through the list of commands, I brought up the system information, which showed many of the other terminals were offline. Though I could see that there were also messages that had been sent between the terminals. Most were from ages ago, probably before I was even born. Except for one. One message had been sent within the last year, and it was left unread.

Curiously, I opened it. It was from a mare named Dusty Diary. Reading through, she seemed to be trying to get into contact with Radar for some dire important reason, but wouldn’t say why. That name of hers also sounded familiar. “Dusty Diary, Dusty Diary…” I repeated again and again in my head, trying to remember where I had heard it before.

Then it came to me. That was the name of the dead mare corpse me and Sunny Hymn found back in Sunvale. My eyes locked on the terminal screen, skimming through the message a second time. “Okay, what’s going on here?” I asked flatly. “Who the fuck is this pony?”

She was trying to get into contact with Radar while all that shit with the Stable Dweller was going on? According to her it was urgent, and it being the most recent message, probably meant that he never got it. Sunny Hymn had said somepony was supposedly after her? “Ugh.” I couldn’t do anything without the diary in front of me though. “Seriously, what could’ve been so important that she had to get into contact with Radar over it?” I asked out loud. “Or maybe-...?” I pondered to myself. “Dammit all. I wish that I had that diary!” I cursed.

Anyways, I didn’t have time to review it all here. Who knew how much time I had left before morning? Too bad. Sunny Hymn would’ve loved to hear about this. I just had to gather everything I could while I was down here.

Digging through the foot locker, I cleaned out most of its contents, save for the Enclave fatigues, and packed everything I could fit into my jacket. Until the only thing of interest left was the “danger” memory orb.

Peering at the recollector sitting next to the terminal, the curious part of my brain had to wonder: What memory could be so valuable that he hid it all the way down here in the middle of nowhere at the bottom of a spooky cave? It was too tempting... I decided to go for it.

“‘Danger’? What could be so dangerous about a memory orb?” I thought, slipping the magical device onto my head. The dark cavern around me then began to give way to the memory as it started to take hold.

At first it was a very similar experience to the last time, except I was somewhere completely different. Suddenly there was snow, and I felt the cold rush of frigid air batting against my face and beneath my wings. I was flying through a sky watching a white wasteland far below. Only these skies were clear and I was in a pegasus body, that was flying in formation. The lead pegasus called out an order and the others followed. It was thrilling. More than it had any right to be for an earth pony.

Sadly, I had precious little time to enjoy this sensation, because I also began to feel a splitting pain in my frontal lobe. It grew more and more intense until the memory itself started to fracture all around me. Every thought became painful and distorted. Ahead of me I watched the same snowflake pass in front of my eyes several times, repeating rapidly. Behind me, the exact moment I had just watched myself observe moments before played out again as I watched myself watch it. Suddenly I was drowning in a sea of mental stimuli. It was too much and I blacked out unconscious.

Opening my eyes once more, I found myself staring at the cave ceiling again. I was an earth pony once more. “Ow, my head…,” I grunted. “That was one hell of a ride.” My vision was blurry, but things slowly began coming into focus. “So that’s what ‘danger’ means...” I had already taken one knock to the head today. Scolding myself to not kill myself twice in one day, I’d have to remind myself to be a little less reckless from now on.

Something was off though. Through the single hole in the ceiling, I squinted and saw that the night sky looked somewhat lighter than before. I gasped, realizing it was nearing daylight. I had to get out of here soon! Debating to myself for a split second, I snatched up the danger orb and set myself to looking for the exit.

Trotting through the caverns, I found that thankfully they were a lot smaller and easier to navigate than before. Soon I came back to the central cavern again and up ahead I could see the entrance.

Relieved to almost be out of this place, I suddenly stopped, sensing a strange presence. I looked behind me and saw the deathly form of the pale white alicorn, standing motionless in the dark, but when I blinked it disappeared. The feeling going along with it. I wanted to believe my eyes were playing tricks on me again just like with the Whitetail Woods and scoffed.

“Quit following me, whatever you are...,” I muttered, before leaving the cave behind for good.

Finally outside again, I inhaled deeply, feeling stronger than I did when I first entered. Breathing in the fresh air, it was good to be out of that cave. It was also just before dawn. “Good,” I thought. That would hopefully give me enough time to get back to Dodge City.

To my surprise Many Moons and Follows Crow were both there waiting for me at the entrance to the spirit cave as well. The shaman was holding my battle saddle and saddle bags in her hooves and gave me a warm smile. “You look different from the pony I met before. I can see it in the way you hold yourself, that you must’ve found what you were looking for in that cave.”

I nodded smiling back, but my smile faded. “I think I did, but I still have many questions. What about Lightning Dust? Who was she?”

A doomful look cast over the shaman’s face and she just shook her head. “I’m sure you do. Another time, perhaps we can have that conversation. In the meanwhile, you should be careful with whom you speak that name.”

“I’ll uh, keep that in mind...” I agreed, deciding to heed her grim warning. “Thanks.”

“There will be much turmoil in your future. Times ahead will be dark. Though for today, despite being born of the wasteland, you have stepped onto the path of the Dashite.”

“Dashite, huh? Don’t you need to be a pegasus for that? Or at least have been a part of the Enclave?” I joked, cracking a small smile. I guessed it was supposed to be some kind of metaphor. “Just don’t start telling me: “Roulette, you are the chosen one. Blah, blah, blah, ancient evil, ooOooooOOooo”-type stuff, and I’ll take it.”

Many Moons chuckled to herself. “The spirits, they work in mysterious ways. I believe that they sent you to me so that I could help repay the favor Radar did for us long ago. And between the two of us, I have a strong feeling he would’ve been happy you found this place.”

I was at a loss for words. “Thank you, for everything you’ve done for me. I won’t forget it.”

“It was your own inner strength that allowed you to overcome the trials of the cave, but I suppose being an old buffalo spirit guide doesn’t hurt.” The old shaman chuckled. Then she extended her hooves with a grin, offering me my battle saddle and saddle bags along with her rifle which she was using for support. “Speaking of which, the spirits also told me you’d need this.” It was a brush gun that chambered forty-five seventy Ministry rounds. Adorned with red warpaint and a few crow feathers on the end of the barrel. “It’s my ‘Medicine Stick’. Useful for fighting off raiders and evil spirits... mostly the first one.”

Admiring the formidable rifle now affixed to my battle saddle, from the size alone it had to have one hell of a kick. It was perfect. “Thanks. I guess this is where we part ways then?” I asked. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to repay you.”

Resting my saddlebags over me, she smiled, “Think nothing of it, young dashite. I mixed a special brew for you in your saddlebag. Strong buffalo magic. Use only in an emergency. I have merely one request for you, if you will listen.”

I nodded to her.

“You may have noticed that many of our youth have left the village. We have been struggling with this loss of a generation in recent times. The call of civilization in recent times is strong. They care not for the old ways and their hearts are filled with anger. They follow Jagged Knife on the warpath, but in truth, they are simply misguided. Do not slay them if you can avoid it. If you can, please convince them to return.”

I could see the sun as it began to break over the horizon, and a warm ray of light shone across my face. Though I felt no reason to have to shield my eyes from it anymore. “I’ll see what I can do.” I promised.

“And also be careful who you tell about this place,” Follows Crow added, giving warning. “We would prefer to keep hidden from outsiders.” To which the spirit shaman gave him a light jab with her replacement walking stick.

The bison turned and marched away in a huff, heading back towards the village.

“Do not blame Follows Crow,” she pleaded. “He lost both his parents long ago. That is why he stays so close to the tribe.”

Watching him trotting alone I thought to myself. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” I assured her. “Thanks for all your help, Chief Many Moons. Now I have to go. There are others waiting for me.”

“No need for goodbyes. I believe we’ll meet again soon...” she smiled.

I nodded back. “Right.”

Looking ahead, I flexed my leg muscles and began stretching my limbs. My neck cracked side to side. I felt strong again. Maybe stronger than before in some ways.

Able to feel my healing factor now, albeit just barely, it was like there was something alive inside me. My wounds were almost there, but not completely healed yet. Plus I had a permanent scar now as a reminder. “No ‘get out of jail free’ cards this time,” I thought. Not ideal, but it would have to do. “Time for me to go kick Jagged Knife’s teeth in. I’ve got a score to settle with some raiders.”

Quest perk added:
Way of the Buffalo - +1 Strength (another +1 while charging); special dialogue options.

Perk added:
Piercing Strike - Ignore 15 points of a target’s armor

Fallout: Equestria - Red 36

by ElDee

Chapter 1: Sunshine and Rainbows

Chapter 2: Black Ships

Chapter 3: It Came Out of the Sky

Chapter 4: A Town Called Unity

Chapter 5: Who'll Stop the Rain?

Chapter 6: Fortunate One

Chapter 7: Outside Bets

Chapter 8: Inside Bets

Chapter 9: The Wasteland

Chapter 10: The Mare Who Broke the Bank

Chapter 11: Chips On the Table

Chapter 12: Rota Fortunae

Intermission I - Tales of the Republic

Chapter 13: Bad Moon Rising