A side story to Fallout: Equestria that takes place in the Crystal Empire
Daystorm Jet and his best friend Candy leave Stable 27 in search of answers to what happened during the Great War 200 years ago. Along the way, they meet new friends, new enemies, new romance, and new excitement that they never would have found inside the stable. But, was leaving the stable the best idea? Or will the residents of Stable 27 suffer because of the actions of their Overstallion?
Stables. The underground shelters built by Stable-Tec. Meant to shelter the ponies inside from megaspell devastation, with a single Overmare or Overstallion in charge. Me? I was the Overstallion of a particularly unique stable. Stable 27. In many ways, Stable 27 was built just like any other stable, with radiation-proof outer walls, an atrium, and an Overmare or Overstallion’s office. But when there is likeness, there is difference.
All stables were built with a single purpose in mind, to protect Equestria’s citizens. However, Some stables were built to house scientific experiments for Stable-Tec. Stable 27 was one of those stables. It’s experiment was that, after the door was sealed, it would have visual contact with the outside world, via a telescope in the “Observation Room”. Nopony enters or leaves the stable. You are born in the stable, and you die in the stable. This was how it had been for over 200 years.
It was never to happen, and for 200 years, it never did. Everypony stayed nice and happy in the stable, no knowledge of the outside world, not a care in the world. A list of instructions on how to run the stable, left behind by the first creators of Stable-tec, and passed down for generations from Overmare to Overstallion to Overmare.
It was never to happen, but after 200 years, it finally did. A pony left Stable 27 to pursue his own goals. Was he being selfish? Leaving his home in the pursuit of his own goals? Perhaps. Maybe he didn’t care about the stable anymore. Maybe he became crazy and was forced out of the stable. Or maybe he was protecting the ponies from the wasteland because he knew just how dangerous the outside world was. That pony, was me.
Names. Names are important. My name is Daystorm Jet. My mother’s name was Daystream Jet, who named me after my father who died before I was born. The residents of Stable 27, which was the name of my home, called me the “Overstallion”. It was a name I wore with pride, and also with slight embarrassment. I wanted to be as friendly as possible with the ponies in Stable 27, but being the Overstallion, ponies were always formal with me. Not that I didn’t appreciate the formality, but I just wanted them to treat me like I was a normal pony, like I wasn’t special, like I was just like them. That is why I have ponies call me by my initials, DJ.
It was actually quite fitting to have initials like “DJ”, because my stable was all about music. Stable 27 was always playing music through the speakers, and when it wasn’t, I would be at my DJ Studio in the atrium, which had sound-proof walls to make sure ponies were still able to sleep, that is, when they weren’t on the giant dancefloor in the atrium, or eating in the cafeteria. The stable had everything a pony could ask for. Music, technology, pools, tennis courts, books, oh sweet Celestia the books. Everything was perfect. Until the day I left.
The day I left the stable started out just like any other day. I got up from my bed in the Overstallion’s private quarters, my head still throbbing from when I had fallen out of it earlier. I showered, brushed my teeth, and looked in the mirror. Goddesses, was my mane really that messed up? My normal blue and black DJ style mane was completely frizzled, and it looked like I had just escaped from an insane asylum. Was my bed mane that bad?
I spent half an hour brushing my mane to get it straight again. I always liked how the black of my mane was the stark contrast of my white hide, with my vinyl record cutie mark easy to see on the blank canvas.
I put on my red-tinted Dj glasses and checked my pip-buck for the time. Funny, with or without an alarm clock, I always seem to wake up at the same time, but after a lifetime in the stable, you get used to waking up at the same time every day. I prefered to wake up on my own because I found the constant ringing of an alarm clock rather annoying.
- - - - - - - - - -
I walked out of my room and reached the stairs that led down to the atrium. Being a pegasus, I spread my wings ever so slightly so I glided down the stairs to the atrium.
The atrium was, as usual, not silent. But it wasn’t blasting music loud either. Soft music played through the speakers while Treble Clef was practicing her violin in tune with the music. I stood in the doorway listening to her for a while before she saw me and stopped playing. “Aw, done so soon?” I asked as she blushed, “Hello Overstallion, you look great, as usual.” Now it was my turn to blush. “Really, you don’t have to call me that, just call me DJ.” She blushed even more. “Well, ok DJ, have a nice day.” She said before she trotted past me with haste.
A lot of ponies were nervous around me because I was in charge of the whole stable. As if I would punish somepony for doing something wrong. I really hated that. Couldn’t they just talk to me like I wasn’t special? Because I wasn’t that important. Just the leader of an entire stable. Same as my mother, and her mother before her. The setup of Overmare or Overstallion lineage in 27 was usually through birthright. If your father was Overstallion, so were you after he died. If you ended up not having any children, then the stable would have a vote on who would become the new Overmare or Overstallion. After my brief chat with Treble Clef, I went to the observation room. The one room in the entire stable that I liked the least.
- - - - - - - - - -
The room wasn’t big, about the size of the Overstallion’s office. It had five desks with a terminal on each one. In the center of the room, there was what looked like a submarine scope from the books in the stable’s library. It was one of the restricted rooms, which meant only I could enter it, with the exception of the security ponies.
I looked through the scope and saw the world above, the Equestrian Wasteland.
The terminals showed constantly changing images of settlements and where they were located. I saw Hoofington, Old and New Appaloosa, and Tenpony Tower. I backed away from the scope and noted their locations on the map on the central table, and noticed that, somehow, my pip-buck had the same on it’s map. I wondered how it did that, seeing as I never knew how to add the locations myself. I made a mental note to find out.
As I left the observation room, I saw Turnables working on the turntables in the center of the atrium. Maybe he would know, as he was good with technology. His cutie mark was a Dj booth after all. In Stable 27, ponies who showed extreme excellence in something were assigned to a job related to what they excelled at. Turnables for example, showed promise in technology, and so he was assigned to maintenance.
“Hey Turnables, I hope those work properly for tonight’s birthday party.” He gave his response with a smile instead of a blush. “Don’t worry, they’re all set. After all, I do check them everyday.” Then I remembered my mental note.
“Hey Turnables, do you know how my pip-buck update it’s map on it’s own?” He looked at me curiously, “Hmm, I don’t know. But maybe you should ask Candy, the pip-buck technician.” Of course! If anypony would know more about pip-bucks than anypony else, it would be Candy. The master of pip-bucks. “Oh yeah! Thanks Turnables! Gotta run! See ya!” I said in a rush.
- - - - - - - - - -
Candy greeted me excitedly as soon as I walked through the door of the pip-buck technician stall. “DJ! How are you? It’s always great to see you!” Did I mention that Candy was my closest friend, and the first pony who started calling me ‘DJ’? Candy was a unicorn. She had a pale pink hide and a mane color of two different shades of light green.
“Nice to see you too Candy, and I’m great, thanks.” The pink mare’s smile got even wider. “So, what brings you down here today? Pip-buck uncomfortable? You need new padding! Not working properly? I can fix it!” Her light green mane was shaking with excitement, probably from one too many energy drinks, or seeing me, or both. If it was the former, I shouldn’t have been surprised. If it was the latter, I still wouldn’t be surprised, as I was voted the most handsome stallion in the stable, though it could have been because I was the Overstallion, or because I really was that handsome, but I didn’t boast about it. Candy and I had been friends since kindergarten, when I was just a colt, and she a filly.
“Actually, I’m here to talk to you.” Her eyes widened at that, “Oh My Gosh really?! Well that’s amazing! What is it?!” She was getting closer to me. “Do you know how my pip-buck automatically updates it’s map?”
She backed away, and looked stunned at my question. “Hmm, I never thought about it, maybe some kind of location magic?” I considered that, and then had a second thought. The stable’s library had a book on almost everything you could think of. No doubt there was a pip-buck owner’s manual “Maybe there’s something I can find in the library. After all, you can find just about anything there. Bye Candy.” and with that, I headed for the library. I looked back at Candy, who was waving back at me. She had her signature smile back, goddesses how I loved that smile. It made her look cute.
- - - - - - - - - -
The library was as big as the atrium. But instead of a DJ booth and dancefloor, it had rows of shelves of books. There were books on carts, books on desks, books lining the walls, even the wallpaper that covered the usual, dull gray walls of the stable had books on it. The entire room was dedicated to books.
As I looked through the shelves, I saw many different types of books. Fiction, non-fiction, biographies…...a copy of playpony…...AHA! A pip-buck owner’s manual.
I sat down at a desk and started reading. I learned quite a lot about the pip-buck. Apparently,it had had something called an “Eyes Forward Sparkle”, or E.F.S. and a “Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell,” or S.A.T.S. Both apparently, were arcane spells that anypony could use, not just unicorns. But nothing on the map.
I closed the manual and chose a dusty book about Equestria before the stables. There were pictures about green fields, blue sky, and a bright yellow sun. Then another book about the war that happened 200 years ago that destroyed the world.
That brought a new question to mind. I had seen what the world above was like now, and what it had looked like before the megaspells fell. But now I was curious. How could Equestria go from what I’ve seen in the books to what I’ve seen above ground?
I knew that Equestria wasn’t always a place full of raiders, hellhounds, and alicorns that just knew weren’t normal. I had read that before and during the war, there were only three alicorns. The three princesses, Celestia, Luna, and Cadence. What had happened that made Equestria a landscape dominated by hate, death, and murder?
Now I had a personal mission. To find out what had happened to make Equestria the way it was now. The only way to do that, regretfully, was to leave Stable 27.
- - - - - - - - - -
I didn’t like it, in fact, I hated it. I hated the thought of leaving the stable, I hated myself for thinking of leaving the stable, and I hated, most of all, that had to do it alone. If too many ponies left the stable, it would fall apart, or worse, I could get ponies killed.
Apart from the security ponies, I was the only one who knew about the outside world, and I didn’t want to get anypony killed who didn’t deserve it. Nopony else knew about the horrors of the wasteland.
I was in my office for the last time. Or at least, would be for a really long time. I needed to let everypony in the stable to know that I would be gone, so I activated the loudspeaker, my voice echoing through every hall of Stable 27. “Attentain Stable 27, this is the Overstallion. I regret to inform you that I must leave the stable for a while. Do not panic. I hereby leave the head of security in charge during my leave of absence until I return. Do NOT attempt to follow me, as I must go alone. I repeat, do not panic.”
As I ended my speech, I could only imagine the other residents’ reactions. The Overstallion leaving the stable? What would happen? Where would he go? What would he do? What would happen to the Stable? Those very questions, I was asking myself at that very moment, but sadly had no answers to. I knew that Subwoofer, the head of security, was more than capable of running the stable while I was gone.
The best area to go to that was inhabited, according to my pip-buck map, and from seeing it in the observation room, was Tenpony Tower, so I guessed I would head there first, although it would be a bit of a walk.
- - - - - - - - - -
I checked my pip-buck’s inventory. I had taken some purified water, a security baton for defense, some sugar apple bombs, some healing potions in case the worst came to the worst, and my headphones, hey, just because I was heading out into an apocalyptic wasteland, didn’t mean I had to do it without music.
I stared at the massive door at the entrance to Stable 27. It was shaped like a gear, and had a bright yellow “27” in the center of it. It might have been seconds, but it felt like years. Staring at the door, I heard a voice call out my name. “DJ! Don’t go!” and my eyes shot wide. I recognised the voice, a voice I new all to well. It was Candy’s voice.
“Candy?! What are you doing here?!” I asked with a combination of anger and concern. I turned around, and I saw her. My best friend. The mare was frantic, her mane was frizzled, like she had just gotten out of bed, and with the time frames of the stable, she might as well have.
“DJ please don’t do this. You don’t have to.” Yes I did. As bad as anypony thought it was, even myself, I needed to do this, or I would drive myself crazy thinking of the possibilities of what really happened. “I’m sorry Candy. I really am. But I have to do this, and alone, so please go back to-” “NO!” She yelled, cutting me off. “I won’t let you do this. If there’s no changing your mind on going, then there’s no changing my mind on coming with you.” WHAT?! HAD SHE LOST HER MIND?! “Are you crazy?! It’s dangerous out there, and that’s why I have to go alone. For the safety of the stable.”
“But what about your safety?” she shot back. Damn, she was persistent. “Look, I appreciate your concern, but I have to do this alone.” Then I thought about being alone in the wasteland versus being with my best friend. I closed my eyes in defeat. “Fine” Her expression changed from anger to confusion. “What?”
I opened my eyes and managed a smile. “You can come with me” She just looked more confused. “But what about going alone?” I was actually surprised myself. “The reason I wanted to go alone was because I wanted to protect the ponies of the stable. If I got hurt in the wasteland, at least I would know that all of you were safe. Especially you Candy.”
At least she looked prepared. She was floating a baton in front of her with her magic. She also had two saddle bags filled the Celesia-knows-what. It was as if she knew I would eventually say yes. But she couldn’t see the future, could she? Was there a spell that allowed her to do that? Not as far as I knew. And as far as I knew, she didn’t know one.
“Thank you DJ. I know we mean a lot to you, and you mean a lot to us, after all, you are the Overstallion” That last part she said with a smile. The sight of my cheeks turning red made her smile. There was something about her that always made me blush when I was around her. Usually because she had said something that made me embarrassed, which she seemed to know how to do very well.
“Alright. Let’s do this Candy, and please stay close to me. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Her smile faded, but she nodded. I cared for her more than anypony else in the stable. I pulled the lever.
Suddenly, a large robotic arm lowered to slide the door out of the way. The door to Stable 27 rolled out of the way, and the two of us stepped out. Into a black void.
Darkness. I saw nothing. I felt nothing. I only heard the soft echo of Candy’s voice. “DJ? Are you there?” Thank the goddesses she was alright. “Candy? I’m right here. I can’t see you.” I knew she was right next to me, but in the pitch black darkness, it seemed like she was a mile away.
Then a bright light pierced the darkness. I looked at Candy, and at the tip of her horn, there was a soft glow that must have been the source of the newfound light. Her face was blank with no expression. Her mouth was hanging open.
I looked around, and in shock, I saw bones. Bones of ponies. Dozens of piles of bones that must have been there since the massive door of Stable 27 had closed over 200 years ago.
I took a closer look at the bones of the ponies closest to the door, and saw that their hooves were cracked. “What happened here?” I mumbled as I looked at Candy, who seemed to be thinking the same thing. “I don’t know, but it looks like after the door sealed, ponies tried to pound on the door to get in, but it wouldn’t open.”
I could only imagine the cries of ponies that hadn’t made it into the stable in time. Were they separated from friends? From family? Then I remembered that it had happened centuries ago. Why was I contemplating the deaths of ponies who were centuries long dead? Still, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. “Come on, let’s go Candy.” She nodded and we walked on.
At the end of the tunnel, there was a metal staircase that led upwards. At the top, there was a metal door with the Stable-Tec logo on it. I nodded to Candy, who knew what I was thinking. This door led outside. She couldn’t see my hazel eyes behind my red glasses, but inside, I was shaking.
Two minutes we had been outside the stable, and we had already found bones. Now we were to enter a landscape that was completely alien to us. I could tell Candy was scared too, as she was also shaking ever so slightly, and her breathing was shaky. I opened the door, and we entered the Equestrian Wasteland.
- - - - - - - - - -
As soon as we stepped outside, both of our pip-bucks notified us that we had “discovered Stable 27” I pointed it out to Candy, who just shrugged. The area around was just as I had seen it in the observation room.
The sky was covered in clouds, so I couldn’t tell if it was day or night. As a pegasus, I had read about clouds, the sky, the sun and moon, and the weather as part of my education in the stable. All I saw now was clouds, clouds, and more clouds. No sun, no moon. Just clouds.
The open space gave me an idea. I spread my wings and took off. Never before had I had so much room. Stable 27 had an “Outside room” designed specifically for pegasi, where the ceiling was so high, I couldn’t see it.
I felt bad for Candy, because as a unicorn, she couldn’t fly. However, I had also read about a really powerful spell that only the highest level unicorns could use. Self-levitation.
I guess unicorns became jealous of pegasi, so they invented a spell that would allow them flight. But apparently, it took a lot of strength to cast, much less maintain. I joked at the thought of Candy using such a spell. In the stable, she had used pretty basic magic. But she once surprised me by levitating me when I tried to tell on her for breaking one of my toys when she was a filly.
I was a pretty good flier, as I had practice in the “Outside room” but I wasn’t nearly as good as the best flier there ever was. Rainbow Dash. I had read about her in the books of the stable’s library. She also was kinda cute...
Apparently I was taking too long for Candy’s taste, as I heard her voice from the ground, interrupting my thoughts about Rainbow Dash. “DJ! Can you get down from there? We have work to do!” I flew down at a steep angle, stopping at the last second to get a reaction out of Candy. She wasn’t impressed, but I was grinning from ear to ear.
“Alright, you’ve had your fun, can we go now?” My smirk didn’t fade as I replied with a witty comeback. “Hey, based on what I’ve seen back in the stable, we won’t be able to have fun for quite a while.”
The facehoof and groan she gave as a response made it all that better. I was outside, but I wasn’t alone. I had my oldest and bestest friend with me. As long as I had her, we were unstoppable. That was my first big mistake.
- - - - - - - - - -
We had been walking for an hour before we found the nearest building to the entrance to the stable. Then there was good news and bad news. The good news was that there were ponies here. Actual living ponies. The bad news was, as soon as they saw us, they started shooting at us. SHOOTING! Three ponies in spiked metal plate armor were shooting at us with guns and bullets.
One with a sawed-off shotgun, one with a 10mm pistol, and the third was charging at us with a baseball bat in his mouth. “Stop shooting! We mean no harm!” They kept shooting. “Didn’t you hear me?! I said stop!” They kept shooting. Then it was Candy’s turn. “If you don’t stop shooting, we will be forced to kill you!”
What surprised me next wasn’t the fact that Candy had just threatened another pony, or the fact that they were still shooting after Candy threatened them, or the fact that these ponies were even shooting at us for no reason in the first place. It was the horrible, maniacal laughter that filled the air. The other ponies had stopped momentarily to laugh their heads off! Their eyes were yellow, and their mouths were foaming.
When they resumed shooting, we took cover behind a large pile of rubble near their camp. These must have been the “raiders” I had seen in Stable 27’s observation room. They were named because of their habit of invading buildings, taking things of value, and turning it into a gorey, bloody, makeshift base. There were dissected corpses on the ground, heads on stakes, and many corpses had bite marks on them! They were eating ponies. They were cannibals. They had to be stopped.
The sharp blow to my side snapped me back to reality. It didn’t hurt, but damn, I felt it! The raider kept laughing, even with the bat in his mouth. I pulled out my own weapon. I swung the baton over his head as I shouted out the words, muffled through the baton, “IT’S! NOT! THAT! FUNNY!” One word for each swing. On the fourth swing, I heard a sharp crack, and I felt something break.
His skull cracked, and he fell silent into a bloody heap. I had just killed a pony! I didn’t have time to get over my initial shock when I heard one of the remaining raiders yell in pain. Crack! Crack! Crack! The second raider fell. Over her body stood Candy! How had she gotten there without anypony noticing?
Her eyes wide, she drew her attention to the last raider, anger in her eyes. The raider looked as shocked as I was, as she dropped her 10mm. Four more cracks and the last raider dropped.
The two of us were once again alone, both in shock of killing another pony. Candy picked up the 10mm from the raider she had just killed, and tossed me the shotgun. “Well, at least we both have a ranged weapon.” She gave me a look that read, “yeah shut up”.
- - - - - - - - - -
After our encounter with the raiders, with their gory decor, dismembered bodies, and by the way, very little ammunition, we picked our jaws up from the ground and started walking again.
I knew there were ponies who wouldn’t try to kill us on sight, so I checked my pip-buck for radio stations, and sure enough, there was at least one. I clicked on the first one and was greeted with a strong, deep, male voice.
“This is DJ Pon3, and that was Sweetie Belle, singing about that one great truth of the wasteland: everypony has done something they regret. And now, my little ponies, it’s time for the news! Now you ponies remember when I told you ‘bout those two ponies who crawled themselves out of Stable Two? Well, I’ve been gettin’ reports that one of those little ponies took out the raider nest in the heart of Ponyville, and saved several pony captives -- including the beloved author of The Wasteland Survival Guide, Ditzy Doo! Hey kid, thanks! From all of us! And now the weather: cloudy everywhere, with a chance of rain, gunfire and bloody dismemberment...”
At the moment, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Then he spoke again.
“…one last thing, the other Stable Dweller was last seen out near Appleloosa. My prayers go out t’ that one. And that’s the truth of the matter. Now back to the music. Here’s Sapphire Shores singing how the sun can’t hide forever. From your lips to Celestia’s ears, Sapphire!”
His voice cut off, and was replaced by music. At first, I wanted to question which Appleloosa he was talking about, but I changed the question. “Stable Dweller? You mean there are more of us?” I turned to Candy. Her expression was smug. “Well you didn’t honestly think that we are the only ponies to come out of a stable did you?” I wanted to slap that smirk right off her face, but at the same time, I also liked it. “For your information, that wasn’t what I was thinking at all.” A ‘yeah, right’ look from the smug mare said she didn’t completely believe me.
“Can you please stop giving me looks that make me want to slap you?” The stood her ground and said with satisfaction, “Nope.” Great. Just what I needed. The very pony I was traveling with just happened to be a smartass unicorn who had perfected the art of giving looks. “Let’s just get to Tenpony Tower. Maybe we can get clues as to what happened. Maybe we can find out where this ‘DJ Pon3’ is and ask him.”
Candy just kept up the smart remarks. “What if this DJ Pon3 is in Tenpony Tower, and asking where he is will make us look like complete idiots” I was really getting tired of her remarks. “If that pony knows what’s happening in the wasteland, then maybe he knows what happened before the wasteland.”
Our discussion was interrupted by a strange, floating robot. It looked like a metallic bug. Then a voice came out. “Are you two new around here? I’ve never seen you before.” Candy and I blinked, stared at the robot, then Candy answered the thing. Him? Her? It? The voice sounded masculine, so I assumed it was a male. “Yes, we are. We just came out of Stable 27, then we ran into some crazy ponies who tried to kill us just back there.” She gestured back at the pile of rubble that used to be a building.
“Raiders.” He replied, confirming my suspicions. “Be careful, it’s very dangerous in the Equestrian Wasteland. There are five things you would want to have if you want to survive properly out here” Five things, right. “What are these five things?” I wanted, no, needed to know how to cope with the dangers I’ve seen out here. “First, you need weapons, preferably guns, then ammunition for said guns, armor to protect against hostile ponies with weapons, and healing potions for when weapons inevitably hurt you.” Ok, so guns, ammo, barding, and healing potions. I did the math in my head.
“Wait, that’s four, you said there are five things we need.” Was it me, or did the robot chuckle a little at my response? “You’re right, but I can tell you already have the fifth thing” We did? Well, Candy and I already had the other four things on the robot’s list. We had security barding from the stable, I had healing potions, and we both had a gun with ammunition. But other than that, what did we have? Was it something Candy had in her saddlebags? If so, how did the robot know? “Well, what is it?” I was starting to grow impatient. Then the robot’s answer surprised me. “A friend.” I blinked, then looked at Candy. Had the robot somehow known that we were friends, or had it just guessed?
I turned to face the robot. “Who, or what are you?” I tried to look friendly. “Right now, you can call me Watcher.” Watcher? That was a strange name. “I’m DJ, and this is Candy.” I nodded to the mare next to me, who smiled. “Time is running out DJ.” Time for what? “Why? Is something going to happen to us if we stay here?” Watcher’s voice seemed almost desperate.
“Have you heard about DJ Pon3 yet?” Well, this seemed to be going off topic. “Actually yes, we just heard his report on somepony he called, ‘The Stable Dweller.” I thought I heard him say, ‘I’m glad she’s safe’ under his breath, but I could have been hearing things. If I was, that was probably just me. If I wasn’t, that meant that the Stable Dweller was a mare, and Watcher somehow knew her.
“Well, stay tuned to his radio station, because pretty soon, I’m willing to bet he’ll do a report on you two.” Ok, confusion level was escalating from ‘I have no idea’, to ‘What the fuck’. “Us? Why would do a report on us? He talked about the Stable Dweller because they saved ponies from raiders. All we did was kill raiders.”
Watcher wasn’t letting up. “You’re missing the point. Sure, the Stable Dweller saved captives from the Ponyville ruins, but she came from a stable. Just like you two.” She? My suspicions was correct. But how did Watcher know that? DJ Pon3 hadn’t mentioned the Stable Dweller’s gender in his report. “After all, his motto is ‘Bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts’. That means he will broadcast the fact that you two came out of your stable any time now. He has eyes and ears all over the wasteland.” Then his voice cut off, and music played, and the robot floated away.
“Wait, so Watcher wasn’t the robot, he was just controlling it.” That meant that he could’ve been on the other side of the Wasteland, and we wouldn’t even know it. That was probably how he met the Stable Dweller.
“Wow, the Stable Dweller. Really inventive when it comes to names, isn’t he?” My sarcasm invoked a smile from Candy. “I wonder what your nickname will be?” I also detected sarcasm in her voice. Was it hard? We had just come from Stable 27, I called myself by my initials, I was wearing my DJ glasses and I had my headphones.
Since we had been walking the entire time we were talking to Watcher, we weren’t very far from Tenpony Tower now. I was curious about DJ Pon3. If he really cared about the ponies in the wasteland, why would he only make reports about what was happening in the wasteland instead of doing something about it? That was a question I would be sure to ask him when we tracked him down, along with the questions of what happened before the megaspells. If he really had a reason for telling ponies about the wasteland and not helping the wasteland himself, then it had better be a damn good reason.
- - - - - - - - - -
We stood at the base of Tenpony Tower. It was in the location my pip-buck called the “Manehatten Ruins”. The tower was obviously made to withstand anything. Even a megaspell blast like the ones that had destroyed the world, because it looked compact, solid, and indestructible. One side of the building was blackened, scorched by the megaspell. If you looked at it from the right angle, the tower, aside from the black burns, missing chunks, and obvious decay due to time, looked almost new.
There was a guard at the door, not outside, but inside. His voice came from a speaker on the outside. “Welcome to Tenpony Tower. Before I let you in, you must please remove all ammunition from any guns you have.” What? I didn’t understand. “Why do we have to do that?” I hoped he was in a talkative mood. “Sorry, it’s just policy.” Very well, it seemed reasonable enough. If this was a settlement, then they had to be careful. I nodded to Candy, who nodded back. “Okay. How do we do it?” Then a slot opened next to the door. “Please deposit all ammunition. It will be returned to you when you leave.”
I was surprised to see Candy easily eject the clip from the 10mm, seeing as she had never used a gun before. Meanwhile, I took the shells out of the shotgun, and we also put all our extra ammo in the slot as well. The slot closed. The door opened. “Thank you, and have a nice day.” I turned to Candy as we walked through the door. “He seemed friendly enough.” Yet again, I was answered by a, “yeah shut up” look. I really wished she would stop doing that.
- - - - - - - - - -
It wasn’t as I had pictured it. The inside of Tenpony Tower was a marketplace with stalls selling everything from clothing to rubber ammo. Wait, rubber ammo? The ammo for the 10mm and the shotgun were metal, but never before had I seen or heard of rubber ammo. I walked up to the pony running the stall. “Hi, do you know where I can find DJ Pon3? I want to ask him something.” The pony’s smile changed to a frown, as if he didn’t like what he had to tell me. “DJ’s up in the radio station on the top floor, but don’t waste your time.” The last part was unexpected.
“Wait, DJ Pon3 is in this building?” Candy was right! I couldn’t believe it! “Well, yeah. What? You didn’t know that? Have you been living under a rock your whole life?” The irony of his question was almost amusing. “Nevermind, why would it be a waste of time?” His serious expression seemed to change to an annoyed one. “Because nopony here has ever seen him. Only his little assistant Homage goes in and out of the studio.” Maybe I couldn’t talk to DJ Pon3, but maybe his assistant could tell me what I wanted to know. “Do you know where Homage is?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe in the station, maybe in her room, nopony keeps track of her.” At least I had a lead. “Thanks for your help.”
I walked back to Candy, who was talking with a vendor at the moment. “Candy, you’re not going to believe this, but you were right! DJ Pon3 is in Tenpony Tower! She didn’t look surprised. “I know, this vender told me the same thing. Another thing I found out was that ponies in the wasteland use bottle caps as currency.” That must have explained why we found bottle caps on each of the bodies of the raiders we had killed. We hadn’t taken the caps because at the moment, we had dismissed them as trash.
“Another thing Candy, is that nopony here has seen DJ Pon3 go in or out of his studio. They’ve only seen his assistant Homage.” She seemed to contemplate some sort of possibility. I did too. If nopony saw DJ Pon3 enter or leave his studio, and they only saw his assistant go in and out, then maybe…
No. It wasn’t possible. DJ Pon3 was a male. The way the other vendor had described Homage, she was the opposite of DJ Pon3 in every way possible. There was no way they could be the same pony. “I’m going to check the studio on the top floor and see if I can find DJ Pon3 or his assistant.” Candy nodded. She turned to face the vendor as I headed for the stairs. The last thing I heard her say was, “So how can I acquire more caps?”
- - - - - - - - - -
The studio was very different from the one in the atrium of Stable 27. There was a single headset and microphone in the center of a large desk. There were dozens of terminals that were showing images of the whole wasteland. There were only one or two terminals that were dark, and showed nothing. The terminals reminded me of the stable’s observation room, and made me homesick.
Then I heard a voice from behind me that made me jump in surprise. “You must be new here, because everyone knows the studio is off-limits.” I turned around, and there was a pony standing about five feet away from me. She had a steel-gray hide and light blue hair. The smile she wore assured me that she was friendly.
“Umm, are you-” “Homage” she said, interrupting me. “I’m sorry, I was told that the studio was where I would find DJ Pon3, I didn't know it was off limits.” Sweet Celestia, that smile was actually cute. “That’s because nopony said it was, I’m just messing with you.” Wait, was I blushing? “You what? Oh haha, very funny.” I said with sarcasm. I couldn’t see myself, but I was faintly sure I was blushing.
“You seem like a nice pony. Did you touch anything?” Holy merciful Luna I was blushing! “No, I didn’t, do you know where DJ Pon3 is? You’re his assistant right? How come nopony has seen him leave or enter the studio?” It was time to get answers.
“You sure are talkative. DJ Pon3 has his reasons for staying out of sight.” Reasons? “What reason could he possibly have to only broadcast news about the wasteland and not help it himself?” She then changed the subject. “You have your suspicions, yes? I’m the only one who’s been seen going in or out of the studio, DJ Pon3 has never been seen in the tower, and I’m his assistant?” Was she hinting me, or reading my mind, or both? “You mean? That’s impossible. DJ Pon3 is a male with a deep voice. There’s no way you are him.”
“Don’t be so sure. Not all is as it seems. Some things are exactly as they seem.” Great. Now she was talking in riddles. She spoke again, but this time, her horn glowed and her voice was deeper and masculine. “How about now?” It was the same voice that I had heard on the radio! “Wait, so you and DJ Pon3-” “Are one in the same” She cut me off again. “So if you’re the one doing reports on the wasteland, and with all these terminals-” “I know who you are” How did she do that? “How did you know what I was going to say?” She shrugged. “Just a hunch”
Then I remembered. “Ok, DJ Pon3, or Homage or whatever you want me to call you.” She chuckled a little at my comment. “You can call me Homage, most of the ponies in Tenpony don’t know who I really am, except for a select few.” I dared not to ask her who the select few were. “Well Homage, if you know everything that happens in the Wasteland, then do you know how it became this way?” She laughed. “I forgot you’re from a stable, because many ponies in the wasteland know how the wasteland came to be.” I blushed again. Not because of the cute little mare in front of me, but because for once, there were ponies who knew more than I did.
I had spent my whole life in Stable 27, I had read all the books in the library, and was by far the smartest in the stable. I had read about the princesses, the elements of harmony, and six ponies who appeared a lot. Maybe she knew about them.
“Homage, when I was in the stable, I read about six ponies who were mentioned quite a bit. Do you know about them?” I felt hot, like the red in my cheeks was burning me. “Do you mean the Ministry Mares?” Ministry Mares? I had only known them as six friends. “Who were they?” She just seemed more amused by my ignorance. “They were the ponies you were talking about. Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle” That was them! The ponies I read about! Two earth ponies, two pegasi, and two unicorns. “Yes! That’s them! Six Friends!”
I wasn’t blushing anymore. I wasn’t nervous, or agitated, or bashful of the cute mare. Now I was excited. Excited to finally find out a lot more of what had happened. “I’ll tell you, if you do something for me.” A favor? With the excitement I was having right now, I would have done anything for her. Jumped over the moon, slap the next guy I saw, had sex with her, wait what? Why did my brain go to those places?! This isn’t the time or place for naughty thoughts DJ! I locked those thought out of my mind and threw away the key. “What is it? I’ll do anything.” What she said wasn’t what I was expecting, or hoping. “I’d like you to kill some raiders”
Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Swift Learner- You are indeed a Swift Learner. With this Perk, each level gives you an additional +5% bonus whenever you earn experience points. This is best taken early.
Shock. I was in shock. In shock from leaving the stable, in shock from killing somepony, and now in shock from the fact that Homage had just asked me to kill more ponies. Sure, they were insane, foaming, murderous raiders, but they were still ponies. I had only killed a pony once, and it had been in self defense. I didn’t know If I had it in me to willingly walk into a raider camp and kill ponies. I wasn’t going to be a murderer. But I didn’t want to disappoint Homage, so I sighed and asked, “Where are these raiders?” Then she got serious. “The raiders I’m asking you to take out are north of here. I think your pip-buck already has it on it’s map.” I checked, and sure enough, there was a new image on the map marked “Raider camp” It actually wasn’t that far.
That brought up a new problem. In 27, I had seen the horrors of the wasteland. Then outside, I had encountered raiders who had shot without warning. I had a feeling that my stable barding that Candy and I had from 27 wasn’t going to protect us as much as we had hoped. We needed better armor. “Homage, when we came here, there were shops set up. Is there one that sells armor? Preferably better than my current stable barding?” She seemed enlightened by the change of topic, nodding with a cute smirk on her face. Don’t stop smiling.
- - - - - - - - - -
After Homage directed me to the right booth, I found out that what Candy had told me earlier was right. The ponies were using bottle caps as currency. Everywhere I looked, ponies were shifting bottle caps on either side of the booth. One pony gave a vendor two bottle caps, and took what looked like a glass of sparkle-cola sitting there.
The pony in front of me dumped a sack of caps onto the booth, and in return, got what looked like some leather armor. “Hi, do you have something that offers more protection than stable barding?” The pony grabbed something from underneath the booth and set it on top. “A thousand caps for combat armor.” A THOUSAND?! I didn’t even have a single cap, much less a thousand. “That’s a little expensive.” A little was an understatement. The pony shrugged. “Hey, that’s the sale price, and with the discount that Homage told me to give you. You can also sell your items and get caps in return.” I didn’t have anything I wanted to sell, so I walked off after saying, “I’ll come back later.”
I met up with Candy, who seemed to be doing better than I was at buying and selling, because her saddle bags were bulging. She took one look at my nearly empty bags and gave a look that read, “Aww, not as good as me at bartering?” “Haha, yeah I know, I know.” I knew I wasn’t very good at it, but she didn’t have to rub it in my face.
Candy had always been good at persuading others. Once, when we we in the stable’s kindergarten, she got a toy from another pony by repeatedly saying, “Please please please” until he couldn’t take it anymore and lost when he crumbled and said in frustration, “Here just take it!”
So naturally, she would be able to haggle with ponies for a cheaper price, even with a currency she had never used before. “How did you get so much stuff? We didn’t have anything to sell or trade.” Her look got even more smug. “Before we left the stable, I grabbed every piece of scrap metal and other junk I could find that was lying around, just in case the was civilization above ground that had a new currency.” That smug mare had planned this!
“Well I hope you bought more healing potions, because we’re leaving.” Her smug look remained as she asked, “Where are we going?” I got the feeling that she would like it as much as I did. I sighed. “We need to kill some raiders in order for me to get some answers out of Homage.” Her mouth fell open. “Before you say anything, I know it’s dangerous. You don’t have to come with me. I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.” Then she smirked. “Don’t tell me you thought I was going to even consider letting you go alone.” I smiled. “There’s the Candy I know. Super Stubborn.” Then we both laughed. Don’t ever change Candy.
- - - - - - - - - -
When we left Tenpony, the guard at the door had kept his word. All of our ammo was returned when we left. The raider camp was just east of Tenpony. Almost near the water. There were hills between it and Tenpony, so we could see how far away we were. It turned out to be farther from Tenpony than I originally thought, so it took us longer to reach. On our way there, Candy started asking me questions.
“So, did you see DJ Pon3?” I forget that Candy didn’t know about Homage’s secret, and I didn’t want to tell her until Homage said it was alright. “No, but I did have an interesting talk with his assistant.” I shouldn’t have said that.
Now she was digging deeper. “Homage? What did you two talk about?” I didn’t want to say much, but I also didn’t like to lie to my friend. “Not much, we talked about how I was from a stable, and about what happened before the megaspells.”
Now she was digging ever deeper. “What did happen before the megaspells?” Honestly, I didn’t know. I shrugged. “She didn’t say much, until I mentioned six ponies I read about, and she said they were called the ‘Ministry Mares’. After that, she asked me to kill these raiders if I wanted to know more.” Candy finally seemed to turn down the drill, if not turn it off. “Did she say you had to do this?” I shook my head. “I chose it. I want to find out what happened. That’s why we’re up here in the first place remember?”
“Hey don’t look at me, you wanted to leave the stable, remember?” she asked with a smug smile. “And you insisted on coming with me, remember?” I responded matter-of-factly. “Touché” I was getting pretty good at arguing.
When we reached the top of the last hill, we saw the camp. It was pretty small, about the size of the last raider camp we came across. Candy asked me in a whisper, “So, how do we handle this? Sneak around the back, or run in guns blazing?” I rolled my eyes. Sometimes she could be so dumb. “There’s two of us, and-” I checked my E.F.S. for the first time. Instantly, I saw three red markers and one green marker in my vision. I guessed the red ones were hostiles, and the green one was Candy. “-Three of them. So, we should be able to take them head on.”
That was a mistake. That meant they had us outnumbered three to two. They could probably get more shots in on us than we could on them, even if we took them by surprise. “Follow me.” I said to Candy without turning me head as I brought out my sawed-off shotgun. I had twenty three shots left, including the ones in the barrels, that made twenty five. “How many shots do you have left?” I asked, again without looking. “Five clips, each with Twelve shots. That makes sixty shots.” How did she do the math so fast?
We hid behind some rubble, and waited for the nearest raider to get close. Hopefully, a sneak attack from behind would end him in one shot. “Shhh, here he comes.” I whispered to Candy, who nodded. With the perfect timing, and the element of surprise, I fired once at the back of the raider’s head. Only once. The good news was that it was enough to kill the raider in one shot. The bad news was that we had just revealed our location. The second raider grabbed a shovel that was sharpened to form a blade. Candy and I fired at the raider, two shots from my gun and eight shots from her gun, and the second raider fell, merely about ten feet away from us.
Now that we were in the open, it gave the sniper a chance to fire at me. Candy noticed the raider lining up to take the shot. “DJ! Watch out!” I heard her yell and she pushed me out of the way just in time to have it pierce her right hind leg! She yelled in pain, that meant she was alive! I had just enough time before the sniper reloaded to get her behind the pile of rubble. “Wait here, I’ll take care of the sniper.” I ordered her.
She nodded, tears in her eyes. As if she was going somewhere with a hole in her hind leg. I shook my head. No time for jokes DJ! Your friend was just shot! I moved from cover to cover as I closed the space between me and the raider. I was close enough to hear the raider say with an insane giggle, “Come out, come out wherever you are” This was my chance. “RIGHT HERE” I yelled as I brought my shotgun to the raider’s head. “Shit” the raider said and I pulled the trigger. Her head exploded into bloody bits. The last red light on my E.F.S. disappeared.
I ran back to Candy. “Candy! Stay with me, you've lost blood, but you’ll survive!” She winced as I put a piece of cloth I had torn from one of the raider’s armor and wrapped it around her wound. “This should stop the bleeding enough for us to get back to Tenpony.” She nodded as I pulled her shakenly on all fours.
The way back to Tenpony took even longer than the way to the raider camp, due to Candy’s limping, and me supporting her. Then she started becoming herself again when she started asking questions. Again. “Where and when did you learn to do that DJ?” I didn’t want her to talk, she had lost blood from the wound and was breathing abnormally, but I answered her question. “Stable 27’s library. It had a book on basic medicine and treatment.” Candy’s eyed widened in surprise. “And you read it?” Why was she surprised? “What? I ran out of other books to read.” She laughed a little. At least the loss of blood hadn’t resulted in a loss of humor.
- - - - - - - - - -
When we got back to Tenpony, I yelled to the guard. “Open the door! My friend’s hurt! She needs a doctor!” I don't even know if Tenpony Tower had a doctor. But no time to lose hope. “I need your ammo first, sorry rules are rules.” SERIOUSLY?! “But my friend is hurt! She needs a doctor now!” The guard didn’t seem sympathetic. “Is she dying?” Well, no, she wasn’t dying, but she was my best friend and she was bleeding from a hole in her leg! “I don’t have time for this! Here take it!” I ejected Candy’s and my ammo into the slot and the guard finally opened the door.
“Where’s the doctor in this place?” I asked the guard at the entrance. “Down the hall on the left.” We hobbled down the hall and entered the Tenpony Tower clinic. “Hello? Is somepony here? My friend needs help.” My call was answered by the soft hoofsteps of a pony. “Yes? What’s the matter?” a voice asked calmly. There stood a light bluish-gray pegasus pony with a slightly darker hair color, a sleeved blue and white doctor’s coat, a stethoscope around his neck and small, and rectangular glasses on his nose in front of his blue eyes.
“Can you help? My friend was shot in the leg. She lost blood.” I laid Candy on the floor and he studied my friend’s leg. “Of course I can help. After all, I am a doctor. I treat bullet wounds all the time.” He opened a small cabinet that hung on the wall and pulled out a glass container that held a purple liquid. “Here, drink this.” He said calmly. She grabbed the glass in her magic and swirled it around, as if questioning if it was safe.
“Is it supposed to be purple?” Oh goddesses, she was going to make this difficult wasn’t she? “If it’s purple, then it means it’ll work.” Her response confirmed that she was going to make this difficult. “What is it?” I facehoofed while the doctor answered. “It’s a healing potion. It should heal that hole in your leg and make it good as new.” She finally drank it, and I saw that the doctor was right. The hole in Candy’s leg was sealing up! In a matter of seconds, it was fully closed. “Woah, that powerful stuff.” The doctor chuckled at my comment.
“Actually, healing potions aren’t really that rare or special. Find a medicine cabinet anywhere in the wasteland, there’s a good chance you’ll find at least one healing potion, along with, possibly some negative drugs.” I blinked, then stared at the doctor. “What do you mean, negative drugs?” He seemed to also look surprised, as if he didn’t expect me to hear that. “You know, things like dash and hydra. How do you not know about drugs? Have you been living under a rock your whole life?” That was the second time somepony asked that, and I didn’t expect it to be the last time either.
“Well, we did come from a stable, so yes?” His eyes widened to impressive sizes. “What? Stable ponies? This is amazing! Please, you have to tell me about life in the stable! How big was it? Did you have a doctor? How many rooms were there? How many ponies were there? Please you have to tell me anything and everything!”
His sudden change in personality caused me to stagger. “First of all, who are you?” He regained his composure and polite smile. “Dr. Wonderhoof, at your service.” I gave him our names while Candy stood up, staring at her leg where her wound was a minute ago.
“We’re from Stable 27. It was centered around music.” Then he wrote something down on his notebook, probably notes about the life of a pony who lived in a stable his whole life. I didn’t think I had the patience for this, but I thought I didn’t have the time either. My best friend had just regenerated a hole in her leg, and I had just remembered to report to Homage on the raider camp. That gave me an idea.
“Oh hey, I just remembered! I have to tell Homage about what we just did to the raiders. I’d love to stay and tell you more about the stable. I’ll definitely come back to tell you more” Eventually. I mentally added. “Candy, are you feeling well enough to come with me this time? Or would you rather stay here and talk to our new friend about life in Stable 27?” I said the second part with a smirk that, I hoped said, “What are you gonna do about it?”.
“Well, I do have all four of my legs, and none of them have a hole in them anymore. So yes, I will be coming with you. I would also really like to meet this Homage you told me about.” Our medical friend seemed disappointed, but understanding. “Well, I hope you come back soon so you can both tell me about stable life, and try not to get shot at too often. Nothing bugs me more than having to heal the same pony over and over again. Not that I mind.” Candy and I simultaneously grinned and nodded, and I led her up to the studio.
- - - - - - - - - -
The only difference in the studio from when I had seen it earlier was that the door was closed, and Homage was standing in front of it. “By coming back in one piece, I assume you dealt with the raiders?” I nodded. Then I gestered to Candy. “Homage, this is Candy. Candy, this is Homage.” Both ponies smiled, which meant that they were getting along, at least for the moment.
The friendly moment didn’t last long, because Candy instantly turned on Homage. “What were you thinking, asking us to kill ponies who also had guns, and could get us killed?! I got shot in the leg because of you!” Homage’s smile turned to a concerned frown as she struggled to explain herself. “I...I...I’m sorry. I d-d-didn’t mean anything b-b-bad to happen!” Goddesses, Candy was really scary when she got mad. “Well because of you, I had to go the doctor for something other than my regular shots!” O.K. I had to stop this RIGHT NOW! I moved myself in between Candy and Homage and I yelled, “Candy! That’s enough!”
She had the decency to stop yelling at poor, defenseless Homage enough for me to calm her down. “Yes Homage asked me to take out the raiders in that camp. But remember that I agreed to. You even insisted on coming.” She countered with, “You allowed me to come with.” Damn, she was persistent. “You would have come with either way.” I was sure I had the argument in the bag, because her expression became blank. “But you’re right.” Then she blinked and stared at me. “ Right about what? ” Her baffled expression was almost worth it. “ I let you come with. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten shot.”
Was it just me, or was she starting to look apologetic? “No, you’re right. I wanted to come with. Homage asked you to kill those raiders. She never said anything about me.” She was really good at arguing, even when it was about who did wrong. “I didn’t think she meant for me to go on my own, now did she? ” I looked at Homage, who blinked in surprise, then shook her head. “But I guess both of us were to blame weren’t we?” Her smile returned in addition to her agreement. “Yeah, but you were the slightest bit more responsible.” Good old stubborn Candy. I smiled. She smiled. Everything was alright. For now. “I love it when a plan comes together.” Then I turned to Homage.
Time for answers. “Sorry about that Homage. Please go on.” Her worried expression became more subtle as she nodded. “It’s alright. I should have known that you would have wanted to bring you friend with. I really didn’t expect anything bad to happen.” I hadn’t thought that Homage had actually thought of me going alone. I actually was going to bring Candy with anyway. It was my fault that Candy got shot. I wasn’t about to start that argument again, but it would still be on my mind for a while.
“Actually, at first I didn’t want to bring her with, but after some persuading on Candy’s end, she convinced me to let her come with.” I probably didn’t have to tell her though, because she had probably figured out most of it from my argument with Candy.
“Well, it’s a long story. Do you have the time to listen?” Right now, I had all the time in world. I nodded excitedly. “Are you sure you don’t have anything else to do?” Something else to do? Was she trying to make me reconsider this? What could I possibly have to do at a moment like this. I shook my head. “Alright. It all started when Princess Celestia sent her student, Twilight Sparkle to Ponyville...”
- - - - - - - - - -
More shock. It took Homage a few hours to explain everything, mostly due to the fact that I kept interrupting her to ask questions. Eventually, I stopped interrupting her because it was taking too long for her to finish. That, and I didn’t want to upset her. She seemed nice, and kinda cute, but you never know.
“And then the war started, and the zebras fired megaspells on Equestria. Many ponies died. Some survived, those who were in stables, or became ghouls.” What? This I had to know about. “Ghouls?” I asked in confusion. “Ghouls, or zombies, as the ponies in the tower call them, are ponies who have been exposed to an ungodly amount of radiation, and haven’t had the good fortune to die.” That made me curious, but it also made me shiver. Ponies that didn’t die upon mass exposure to radiation?
“What happens to them?” I feared the answer. I didn’t want to know, but at the same time, I did want to know. It was like a tug of war in my head, with two tiny versions of myself pulling on a piece of imaginary rope. The pony in my head who wanted to know was winning.
“Their skin rots and they become feral, savage beasts intent on eating living flesh.” Okay, not what I wanted to hear. The pony in my head who didn’t want to know was gaining ground in the tug of war. “So if I encounter a pony sized living lump of flesh, bad news right?” Then she surprised me. “Well, in most cases, yes. But some ponies have been able to become ghoulified with their sanity intact.” Ghoulified? Was that even a word? “So how do I tell if it’s- Oh wait, dumb question.” I blushed while realizing I was starting to look dumb. That made her smile.
“Thank you for all the information Homage. I really appreciate it.” She smiled again. It was almost as cute as Candy’s smile. Almost. “You’re welcome. And if you see any more raiders, you seem to know how to handle them.” That made me look at Candy. Her flesh had been healed, but I still had the image of the bleeding hole in her leg fresh in my head. I had the feeling I wasn’t going to sleep very well that night. I wanted to tell her no, but her smile was so friendly, I could only say, “Sure” That seemed to be good enough for her.
I had an idea in my head. A crazy idea, but it was an idea. “Candy?” She turned her head sideways, and seemed to know I had something in my head. “DJ? What is it?” I knew she wouldn’t like it, but I had to tell her the truth. “Candy, I want to go back to that raider camp.” She suddenly stared at me like I had just sprouted a third wing. “What?! Are you crazy?! The last time we went there, I got shot in the leg!” I should have known she was going to make this difficult.
“Yes, but I killed the last of the raiders. The only thing left to do there is to find out if there is anything worth salvaging.” Then I added with a smirk, “Of course, you don’t have to come with me if you’re too scared.” Her face and tone became defensive. “What? No! Are you seriously thinking that I’m afraid?” Yes. Yes I was. I made a decision that it was going to be my trump card when arguing with Candy from now on. “Look, are you coming or not?” I wanted her to say no, but I knew her pride wouldn’t let her. She didn’t seem to rethink her decision. “Yes, I’m coming with you.” She then added quickly, “And I’m not scared!” I responded with a roll of my eyes.
Another thing I had on my mind was the doctor who healed Candy’s leg. Dr. Wonderhoof seemed like a nice pony, he had expertise in medicine, and I owed him. “Candy?” I asked. “Yes?” she replied. “Remember the doctor who healed your leg?” She gave me a funny look. “Dr. Wonderhoof? Yeah I remember him. Why?” I really didn’t want to endanger the life of another pony, but he could prove useful with his knowledge. After all, knowledge is power, as my mother always said. I wonder how she would have felt about my recent actions.
“I think we should pay him a visit.”
- - - - - - - - - -
“Dr. Wonderhoof?” I called in the clinic of Tenpony. It was the same as when we had seen it earlier. There was an examination table near the back of the room and medical tools on a tray next to it. “Yeah? Is that you DJ? I recognise your voice.” I looked around, but i couldn’t see where he was. “Yeah, it’s me. I got something I’d like to tell you.” Suddenly, Wonderhoof came charging out of the back of the clinic, a grin on his face. “Is it about your life in the stable?! You said you’d come back and tell me more!”
I chuckled a little. “Yes I did. But that’s not why I’m here. Well, not the only reason. Candy would love to tell you about the stable” I turned my head to her. She had a look on her face that read, “I’ll get you for that”. I turned back to Wonderhoof. He looked so excited. “Well then, what is it?”
Candy and I told him about how the two of us were going back to the camp for scavenging. “-and you can come with us if you’d like. Who knows, we might tell you more about stable life.” His dumb grin returned at that last statement. “Are you kidding me?! I would love to come with you! Finding out everything I can about a stable pony’s life has always been my life’s goal. That and becoming a doctor and helping ponies. I can leave this place in the control of the other doctor, Helpinghoof.”
That made me grin. We could use all the help we could get. I would still protect him and Candy. But he could help us with our injuries, should we get more. And I was certain that we would get hurt a lot more. If only I knew.
- - - - - - - - - -
Once again, the entire time we were walking to the raider camp, Candy insisted on making things difficult, as she kept talking about what we might find at the camp. “Maybe there’s more 10mm pistols. What about shotguns? Maybe there’s a new gun we haven’t seen yet? What do you think DJ? Wonderhoof?” Huh. I had no idea Candy would be so interested in guns.
“I don’t know. I was a little busy saving your flank to pay attention to what kind of guns they had. Or did you forget about that already?” I tried not to let her see that I was annoyed, but she was expecting it, so I wasn’t going to give her that satisfaction. Wonderhoof seemed to be amused by my annoyance.
As we reached the camp, I wanted to get away as soon as possible. The reeking stench of dissected corpses filled the air as the bodies of the raiders and their victims slowly rotted around us. “Let’s just find what we can and get out of here.” I said to Candy and Wonderhoof. They both nodded and we began our search.
Halfway through our scavenging, we heard a muffled voice shout out, “Hey! Is someone there?! Help!” There was nopony else here, so who was that? When we were fighting the raiders, I hadn’t heard anypony cry for help. Maybe it was because the sound of gunfire has drowned out his voice. “Hello? Who’s there? Where are you?” I called back.
If somepony was crying for help, then I was going to do everything I could to help them. If I was in trouble, I would want somepony to help me. “I want to help! Where are you?!” Then I noticed that there were three green bars on my EFS instead of two. I looked at Candy. She was one of them, and Wonderhoof was the other. But in the corner of the camp, I saw the third bar. “Over here! Under the rubble!” Sure enough, there was a big pile of rubble exactly where the second green bar was. “Candy! Wonderhoof! Help me move the rubble!” I yelled to my unicorn friend and my pegasus acquaintance as I ran toward the pile.
My hooves weren’t as useful as Candy’s magic, and Wonderhoof seemed to help as much as I did. Unicorns had their magic and pegasi had flight. What did earth ponies have? Super strength? It was a possibility. Mos of the strongest ponies in the stable had been earth ponies.
Eventually we freed the pony from his prison of rocks. No. This wasn’t a pony. He was about the same size as us but there were differences between him and a normal pony. He had a blue hide, blue eyes, a curved horn, a strangely transparent tail, wings that were inside a red shell, and what looked like three diamonds on his neck. He looked like a crossover of a pony and an insect. He also looked very glad to see us.
“Oh thank you! Thank you! You have no idea how long I’ve been trapped under there! And to be honest, neither do I.” He seemed friendly enough, his bar was green on my EFS and he was definitely very thankful. I could have been a ploy, and if it was, it was very convincing. “You’re welcome. I hope you don't mind me asking you a few questions.” He seemed like the talkative type, so maybe I could get some information from him.
“Sure, anything. I have all the time in the world. I’m just so glad that somepony finally rescued my from those fiends.” Raiders, actually. But I kept silent. “You don’t look like a normal pony. What are you and where are you from?” I hoped I didn’t just insult him. He kept his smile, which was a good sign.
“I am what is known as a changeling. As of now, we live in the Crystal Empire.” Okay. I had read about the changelings when their queen tried to replace Princess Cadence. That plan was foiled by Twilight and her friends.
The pictures in the book showed the changelings as more bug-like creatures who all looked the same. They were all black and had holes in their legs. I wasn’t really sure this guy was really a changeling. I was about to question him when he answered my unasked question. “If you’ve heard of us from before the war, the changelings share love instead of feeding on it now. The wasteland isn’t full of love, but the Crystal Empire was pretty much spared. Only a few bombs were directed at the Crystal Empire. I guess it wasn’t a high priority target for the zebras.”
The Crystal Empire I had read about when the evil tyrant, King Sombra was defeated by Twilight and her friends, and the crystal heart was restored. I hadn’t read about anything that happened during the war in the Crystal Empire, and Homage hadn’t even mentioned the Crystal Empire when she was telling me about what happened.
“What happened in the Crystal Empire during the war?” He shrugged. “Nopony really knows. Except maybe Princess Cadence and Flurry Heart maybe.” That was the lead I needed. If Princess Cadence didn’t know, then nopony did. But who was Flurry Heart? I’d find out eventually. This changeling seemed to know quite a bit about the Crystal Empire. Maybe he would help us. “Can you lead us to the Crystal Empire?”
He nodded. “But before I do, who are you two? I’m pretty sure you would want to know my name if I saved your life.” I would and did want to know. If I was trapped under rubble, I would want to know the names of my saviors. “I’m DJ, and this is Candy and Wonderhoof.” I gestured to my mare and stallion companions respectively. He held his hoof to his chest. “My name is Cobalt.”
Candy and Cobalt. Funny, the simple fact that their names had the same first letter was enough to make the dirty part of my mind start thinking. I made sure to lock away those thoughts and throw away the key. Same as with my…..other…..thoughts on Homage. I doubted Candy would be interested in this changeling, and I doubted he liked her, even if she was a little cute.
“Thank you. I hope you three have the patience.” Patience? For what? “The Crystal Empire is a very long way north. Up in the Crystal Mountains.” I checked my pip-buck’s map. In the very north of the map, a marker had appeared marking ‘Crystal Empire’.
We were in the southwest corner of the wasteland. Celestia knew how long it would take us to reach there on hoof. We were northeast of Tenpony Tower, and southwest of Tenpony, there was a gear symbol that marked “Stable 27”. I turned off the map before I got homesick.
“How do you expect to take us there? It’s all the way in the north!” His face turned smug. “Don’t tell me you’re going to chicken out already.” What?! I was no chicken! I left my safe, peaceful home for a life out in the dangerous wasteland didn’t I? True, I was a little afraid at first, but I got over my fears. I wasn’t afraid anymore. “I am not afraid. Wonderhoof’s not afraid. Candy’s not afraid. Are you guys?” They both shook their heads. “There. See?”
He chuckled. “Relax. I’m just joking with you. I didn’t expect you to be afraid, as nobody in their right mind would just attack raiders out of nowhere if they were afraid.” I had a feeling he was joking, but I just had to be sure. “Well, how long will it take?” He held his hoof to his chin. “Hmm, well, it took me about five days to get here, but that was...how long ago? I also ran into several irradiated creatures that slowed me down. I also had to go around Ponyville and the Canterlot Ruins. It might take us at least a week to get there if we don’t stop moving, go in a straight line, oh, and don’t die along the way.”
His humor didn’t amuse me. I didn’t think death was funny. “Yeah, my doctor said that dying is very bad for my health.” I said with sarcasm and a smile, which made him, Candy and Wonderhoof laugh. I guess it was funny, at least when you weren’t serious.
“Why did you have to go around? Couldn’t you just go straight through?” He shook his head, as if I had said something dumb. “Do you not know? Have you been living underground your whole life? The Ponyville Ruins are filled to the brim with raiders, and the Canterlot Ruins are inhabitable, that, and it’s in the mountains anyway.” Great. And yes, we had been living underground our whole lives.
“You didn’t know somepony cleared out the raiders?” I hoped they weren’t radioactive, mutated, invincible, super raiders. That probably wasn’t it. “Well we can, but I prefer not to die right after you saved me.” Way to be optimistic Cobalt. Then he looked stunned. “Wait, did you say somepony cleared out the raiders?” I decided to respond with sarcasm. “Hey, we dealt with our fair share of raiders since coming out from Stable 27, but somepony beat us to the Ponyville ruins before we could clear out the raiders there ourselves.”
Candy then turned her head to me, an annoyed look on her face. “We killed a total of six, DJ.” I looked at her with my own annoyed face. “Well, yeah. But isn’t that a fair share?” She shook her head. “And if you remember, I killed one of the three raiders in the ruins outside our stable.” I shook my head. “And then you got yourself shot in the leg and I had to kill the other two raiders here.” I said ‘here’ with a stomp of my hoof. She raised her hoof to argue, but then opened her mouth, then closed it, and lowered her hoof. “I win.” She rolled her eyes at my victory of the argument. I really was getting good at this.
We were interrupted by a soft, “Ahem” from Cobalt. The three of us turned our heads to face him. He had an admiring smile on his face. “If you two are done arguing, I suggest we get a move on?” The two of us blushed. I had only seen Candy blush a few times before, and every time I had, I blushed as well. Candy was just so cute when she blushed.
Back in the stable, when we were in preschool, Candy was a little shy around other ponies. She would sometimes curl up in a ball in the corner of the room while other fillies and colts would talk and play with whatever was around. Then one day, when I saw Candy sitting in the corner, I decided to go over and talk to her. Ever since then, the two of us have been best friends, and she had been open minded and friendly to everypony.
I then heard a patient, “Well?” from Wonderhoof, snapping me back to the present. “Shall we?” I smiled again. I nodded. We started the long walk to the Crystal Empire.
Footnote: Level up
New Perk: Friendship Power- The more friends the merrier! For every friend you have in your party, you gain a +5% damage increase.
Time. Time is a precious thing. Sometimes ponies have too much time, sometimes ponies have too little time. Sometimes time seems to move fast, sometimes it seems to move slow. The amount of time it takes to do something is usually determined by how fast you do it. The amount of time it took Candy, Cobalt, Wonderhoof, and I to walk to the Crystal Empire was unbearable.
Because we were in the eastern corner of the wasteland, it took us several hours to reach the Ponyville ruins, and it became dark by the time we got there. From the information in the stable’s books, 200 years ago, Ponyville was the home of Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity. From what I heard from DJ Pon3 and Cobalt, nowadays, Ponyville was now the home of raiders. But we had told Cobalt that the Stable Dweller cleared the ruins of raiders and saved multiple ponies from them. He apparently forgot everything we told him.
“How come it’s so quiet? Raiders are never quiet.” Cobalt commented. Yep, he forgot what we told him. “Oh yeah. There’s something we forgot to tell you Cobalt. There’s this pony called the ‘Stable Dweller’ and she’s the one who killed all the raiders in these ruins remember?” His expression became a combination of surprise and confusion. “Stable Dweller’? But you came from a stable didn’t you? Why are you calling somepony else ‘Stable Dweller’?”
I had forgotten two other things. One, that we had just rescued him from being trapped under a pile of rubble several hours ago, and two, that he didn’t have a pip-buck. So even if he hadn’t been trapped, he wouldn’t have been able to hear DJ Pon3’s radio broadcast.
“Well you see, there’s this pony on the radio, DJ Pon3, and he broadcasted a report after we left the stable, and he’s how we found out about the Stable Dweller.” I hoped I wasn’t going too fast for him, but he seemed to be following what I was saying.
Then Wonderhoof spoke. “They told me a little about the stable they came from. Stable 27.” Cobalt then seemed to ponder something. “I see,” he said. “So DJ Pon3 broadcasted that before you three rescued me. Did he say how long ago the Stable Dweller came out of their stable? Or which Stable it was?” I shook my head. “Only that they came out of Stable 2.” I doubted that ‘The Stable Dweller’ was the pony’s real name. Just a name used for discretion when talking about somepony’s heroics. My thoughts were once again interrupted by my pip-buck. The music cut off a second time, replaced by DJ Pon3’s voice.
“That was Sweetie Belle with ‘Let it go’. Just giving us all a reminder that sometimes, when things are at their worst, it’s best to just forgive and forget. This is DJ Pon3 with a shout-out to all my listeners back east around the Hoof. I know some of you feel like you don’t get as many headlines out there, but it’s a great big old Wasteland. So this news is just for you, Hoofington. Turns out the road between Manehattan and the Hoof is just a little safer now thanks to a pair of ponies fresh from a stable. You’re gonna love this… looks like the Hoof has just a little more Security than a few days ago. That’s right, she’s got it displayed loud and proud. She’s already carved up the raiders from Withers all the way to Megamart, and she doesn’t look like she’s going to be stopping any time soon. So here’s a big thank you from DJ Pon3 to the Security Mare. Looking forward to seeing what law and order you bring down next.”
Just like before, his voice ended, and music continued to play. “First ‘The Stable Dweller’, and now ‘Security Mare’? This guy is really inventive when it comes to nicknames.” Cobalt said, almost exactly quoting me from the first time I heard DJ Pon3 talk.
“I said the same thing when he did his report on the Stable Dweller.” I replied, letting him know he almost quoted me. “Really?” He replied. As if he didn’t believe me. Or maybe he was just joking. “Yeah, almost the exact same thing. Except I said ‘Stable Dweller’ instead of ‘Security Mare’.” Then it was Candy’s turn. “And I joked about what name DJ Pon3 would give our own DJ here.” I rolled my eyes. The conversation was still fresh in my head, along with the sight of bones outside my stable and me blowing somepony’s brains out. Once again, I locked those thoughts in my inner closet of thoughts I didn’t want to think about.
“That makes two more ponies who came out of their stable. What is going on? Is this a big coincidence or what?” A part of my mind thought it was too big of a coincidence, but the other part didn’t want to think about anything other than it being a coincidence.
Cobalt then shared his thoughts, “‘Law and order’? Seriously? This is the wasteland! There is no law and order!” Before Candy could share her thoughts, my pip buck chimed in with DJ Pon3’s voice again.
“This is a special announcement about yet another stable dweller. Actually, two more stable dwellers! One a DJ like yours truly, and the other a unicorn! The DJ and his friend came to visit yours truly before taking out a raider camp that was a little too close to Tenpony with the help of the local doctor, and in the process, rescued a lonely changeling from being trapped! What is happening in the wasteland nowadays? Are all these ponies coming out of their stables just to help us? Your guess is as good as mine my little ponies.”
“And now it’s time for a public service announcement. Remember ponies, when the raiders come, there’s no shame in hiding under the nearest table and hoping they just pass by. Raiders can’t be bargained or reasoned with. So run, hide, or fight if you’ve got the courage and the ammo. But by the looks of things, we won’t have to worry about raiders for long, because all these ponies are coming out of their stables and taking them out! And now, time for some music.”
Unbelievable. Watcher was right. DJ Pon3 actually did a report on us. I didn’t think it would happen, but it did. I looked u from my pip-buck and saw the floating robot Watcher hat controlled the last time. “You get all that Watcher?” I asked the machine. Watcher’s voice came from the depths of it’s mechanics. “I told you so DJ” Wonderhoof and Cobalt were surprised that I knew the name of the machine, or that I was talking to a machine, or both. “There’s more of you than last time.” Congratulations Watcher, you just named yourself Captain Obvious. “Watcher, this is Wonderhoof, the doctor from Tenpony, and Cobalt, the changeling we rescued.” I said while pointing with my hoof to each of my new companions respectively.
I then looked at my surroundings again. The Ponyville ruins were, as the name implied, ruins. Some buildings were completely destroyed. Some buildings had chunks missing so you could see the inside of the building. One or two buildings were miraculously intact. The one thing that was in abundance was graffiti.
Apparently, the raiders were also into spray painting. On every building, there were graphic images. One of somepony blowing another pony’s brains out. Similar to what I did to a raider once. One of, well, multiple swear words and other vulgar language, and several of...mating....ponies. Those of ponies having sex I was most uncomfortable with. It was sad how this town could have changed so much from one of the happiest, friendliest places in Equestria to what I was seeing before my eyes.
Suddenly, I had and idea. Even if the Stable Dweller cleared out all the raiders in these ruins, I didn’t want to risk the chance of getting somepony hurt if she missed any. I didn’t see any red bars on my E.F.S, but you can never be too careful. I wanted to take Cobalt’s advice and go around. And I knew exactly where to go.
In DJ Pon3’s report on the Stable Dweller, he mentioned a ‘Wasteland Survival Guide’. He said the Stable Dweller saved the author. I tried to remember the name of the author. What was the name?! Suddenly it came to me. Ditzy Doo.
- - - - - - - - - -
“DJ, are you sure about this? If we make this side trip, it will take us even longer to reach the Crystal Empire” Cobalt complained after I told them my plan. “I promise this will be worth the time Cobalt. Who wouldn’t want a survival guide to the wasteland?”
“Oh I don’t know, maybe somepony with a sense of time?” Jeez, somepony was on edge lately. Ever since he heard DJ Pon3’s latest report, Cobalt seemed a little bit tense. “Is something wrong Cobalt?” He shook his head. “No, it’s just, how did DJ Pon3 know what happened? We were the only ponies there when you killed the raiders and rescued me.” I just shrugged because I didn’t really know. Watcher had said that DJ Pon3 had eyes and ears all over the wasteland. Maybe it had something to do with all the terminals I had seen in Homage’s studio.
“What are your thoughts on this Wonderhoof?” I turned my face while we kept walking back south to Old Appaloosa. I didn’t know which Appaloosa was the one where Ditzy Doo lived, but my pip-buck probably knew. And if I got it wrong, then we would just go to the right one. But what if I got it wrong and somepony got killed? I would never be able to forgive myself if that happened. I would do everything in my abilities to protect my friends.
Wonderhoof seemed lost in thought, so I asked again, slightly louder “Wonderhoof?” Suddenly, he whipped his face around to face me. “Sorry DJ, I was just…....lost in thought. What did you say?” I started to wonder what he could possibly have to be lost in thought about, but I figured it wasn’t my business. “What are your thoughts on DJ Pon3’s report about us?”
“Oh” he said, still slightly confused. “I’m not really sure what to say. Nopony in Tenpony has any idea who DJ Pon3 really is. The only thing we know about him is that his assistant is Homage, nothing much else. And about his report on us, I have even less to say. He has eyes and ears all over Equestria and has been reporting about everypony’s heroics for years. Some ponies say that DJ Pon3 is an immortal ghoul and that’s how he’s been around for so long.” I remembered Homage telling me about ghouls. They were ponies who absorbed enough radiation to become undead monsters.
“Some say he’s a unicorn who found an undying spell or through some necromancy.” Cobalt chimed in. Wonderhoof turned to face him and told him something else he heard about the famous DJ.
“I’ve heard that he’s an earth pony”
“I’ve heard he’s a pegasus”
“Maybe he’s a changeling like you”
“Or some kind of Unity defected alicorn”
“Probably not. The Goddess keeps them in tight connection.”
Unity? Alicorn? Goddess? I knew I saw alicorns from the observation room of Stable 27, but I didn’t know they were in some sort of named group, or had a leader. I had to ask. “I’m sorry.” Candy and I interrupted Wonderhoof and Cobalt’s back and forth banter about the possibilities of what kind of pony DJ Pon3 was. “What are Unity Alicorns? And who is the Goddess?” We asked in perfect unison.
Apparently,Candy was wondering the same thing as I was, because we both stared at each other in shock. Cobalt’s mouth dropped while Wonderhoof answered me. “I keep forgetting that you and Candy are from a stable.” We both blushed before listening to Wonderhoof again. “Nopony really knows where they came from or what they actually are, other than they are really tall ponies with magic and flight abilities, so ponies just started calling them ‘alicorns’ because before the war, there were the princesses who were alicorns, and they say the blue ones look just like Princess Luna.”
I shook my head again, confused. “I’m sorry, blue ones?” Wonderhoof chuckled, “Sorry, maybe I should slow down a little. There are three types of Unity alicorns. Blue alicorns, green alicorns, and purple alicorns. Each with their own unique powers and abilities.”
I seemed to be following along. So blue, green, and purple alicorns. “What powers do they have?” He shrugged. “Nopony knows except those who have actually seen them with their own eyes. I’ve never seen an alicorn for real, so I can’t say.”
Damn. I was really hoping to find out exactly what power these “Alicorns” had. If they were anything like Celestia, Luna, or Cadence, they had to be good. But anyway, back to the task at hoof.
Reaching Appleloosa was going to take even longer than it did to reach the Ponyville Ruins because we had to go even further south than Stable 27, which was already in the southern part of the wasteland. If we traveled all the way to Appleloosa, it would take us longer to reach the Crystal Empire than it would if we would just keep walking from where we were.
Still, it would be very helpful to have a guide to the wasteland.
- - - - - - - - - -
After a few more hours of walking, we finally reached what my pip-buck indicated as “Slaver Town”. The entire town was fenced in, with guard posts every so dozen feet. I had a feeling we came to the wrong place.
“Hey!” A guard yelled from above us. We looked up to see him. “Are you slavers or a caravan?” He asked us. Slavers? As in, buying and selling ponies like someone’s property? And caravan? I tried to remember what that word meant, but I couldn’t.
“I don’t see a brahmin with you, and that armor. Are the you and the unicorn from a stable?” He asked as he pointed at me. “Yes. You two are definitely from a stable. But what about that other pegasus and the weird bug-pony?” I looked at Cobalt, and saw that he seemed serious. The guard laughed and pointed at him “Are you mutated or were you just born like that?”
I looked back to Cobalt. He was glaring at the guard like he wanted to kill him. I think the guard might have struck a nerve. As for Cobalt, he wasn’t saying much. Candy was just staring at the guard with a mean look in her eyes. I had never seen that kind of look on Candy’s face before. It didn’t belong there.
“Well?!” The guard yelled. “Are you gonna say something or what you freak?!” That was the straw that broke the changeling’s back. The shell on Cobalt’s back opened, and out sprouted two transparent wings. They started buzzing like a fly’s and Cobalt lifted into the air to the guard tower. Don’t be impulsive Cobalt. Please don’t antagonize the guard who was nice enough not to shoot us with the gun on his back.
A second later, Cobalt was face to face with the guard. The guard jumped back in surprise. “Now listen here!” Cobalt yelled at the guard. “Where did you learn your manners?! Just because I don’t look like a normal pony doesn’t give you the right to make fun of me!” The guard was shaking now. A green flash of light illuminated from Cobalt’s body, and Cobalt became an exact clone of the guard. That made him even more scared. “Gah fuck! What the hell are you?!”
Cobalt reverted back to his own form and stared straight at the guard. “I’m a changeling! Not a mutated, bug-pony combination FREAK!” At the word, he flew back down to us. When he landed, he was completely calm.
“What?” he asked when he realised we were staring at him in complete shock. “What’s wrong with blowing off some steam?” We just still stared at him. True, nothing was wrong with blowing off steam. But that, that was not blowing off steam. That was complete anger rage. It was not something we had seen in Cobalt.
Brushing the last few seconds aside like they didn’t happen, Cobalt turned back to the tower. “I would like to talk to your boss if you don’t mind,” he yelled at the tower. A few seconds later, the gate opened without the guard having said a word. Wow, I didn’t think that would actually work.
Once we were inside, we saw what looked like a makeshift base. Ammunition boxes were scattered around. Some looked like they were locked. Guards were on top of posts and were looking out to the wasteland. We also saw ponies in cages with collars on their necks. What they were for, I had no clue.
Suddenly, a guard was walking up to us. “Come with me. I’ll lead you to the boss.” he said, and turned away before waiting to see if we would actually follow. I guess we had to, seeing as how the guard had been so serious. He also had a sniper rifle slung across his back, and I could still remember the raider with a sniper rifle shooting Candy in the leg. So we followed.
We passed several cages with several ponies in them each. We also passed several guards cleaning guns. They payed us no attention as we walked by.
After a few minutes of walking, we reached a set of double doors. “Wait here,” the guard told us, and he slipped inside and closed the doors behind him.
“Well?” I asked Cobalt. I turned around and saw that he still had a stern look on his face. “What was that all about?” He had the nerve to respond with, “What was what all about?”
“Are you serious?! You just yelled the ears off of that guard back there, and then you ask to see his boss?!” Before Cobalt could explain himself, the other guard came out again. “The boss will see you now.” I guess i would have to drill Cobalt about his actions later.
The inside of the room was dark. There were no windows, and the only illumination was from a single light hanging from the ceiling. The only furniture was a desk at the end of the room with a swiveling chair on the other side facing away from us.
“Welcome,” said a voice. It was deep and raspy. Cobalt was the first of us to speak. “You! You traitor! Show me your ugly face!” Huh? Candy spoke next. “Cobalt, do you know this pony?” Cobalt nodded. “Or at least I thought I knew him. That rat bastard left me to the raiders.”
He what?! I had wondered what Cobalt was doing under a pile of rubble when we found him. Now I knew. This traitorous little piece of shit left him to die and he knew it. He didn’t even have the humility to show his face.
“I didn’t betray you, I made a strategic retreat. I was going to come back for you.” Apparently, the bastard was going to make an excuse. Cobalt wasn’t buying it. “You liar! You were never coming back! I waited for who knows how long under that ruined building!”
The voice kept it’s cool as it tried to explain. “Look Cobalt, I was going to get the others to try and dig you out, but I forgot I had an important meeting to attend.”
“See?! You just made that up! You didn’t have a meeting to attend!” Cobalt yelled back. He sure was pissed at the pony in the chair. The chair swiveled around. Celestia help us. Half of the pony’s face was gone, exposed to the bone, and the other half looked burned and was rotting. Candy screamed.
That explained the raspy voice. This pony was a ghoul. I remember Homage telling me about ghouls in Tenpony Tower, but I didn’t think I would see one for real, much less so soon. “Cobalt, I was going to come back for you. In fact, I was making a plan to arrange a rescue party right now.”
Cobalt still wasn’t fooled. “You changed the story again! Admit it! You were never coming back for me!” Cobalt was mad, Candy was frightened, Wonderhoof wasn’t saying anything, and I had had just about enough of this. “THAT’S ENOUGH! BOTH OF YOU!” I yelled at the two of them, who looked at me in surprise. “That’s better.” I said more calmly. “Now Cobalt, explain to us exactly how you know this pony and what happened between the two of you. But calmly.” Cobalt sighed. Either because he realized that this wasn’t going anywhere, or because he thought I was scary when I was mad. Probably not the second one.
“I met him weeks ago.” Cobalt started. “When I first left the Crystal Empire, being the first to leave in over 200 years. I met him soon after I passed the Ponyville ruins. He said he would stay with me, help me fight. Until we went against the raiders, I actually thought I could trust him.”
“So what happened when you went against the raiders?” I asked. Cobalt sighed again before continuing. “We were outnumbered and outgunned. The raiders were beginning to surround us. He threw a grenade at the wall behind me. It exploded, causing the wall the fall on top of me. The last thing I remember hearing is the raiders shooting at him as he ran away.”
So that explained everything. I assumed the raiders trapped him there, but now I understood that it was this pony’s fault that Cobalt was trapped under rubble when we found him. “But what is his name Cobalt?” I looked at the rotting ghoul. Cobalt pointed at him and said, “Crossbones”.
Crossbones, huh? Ironic name for a ghoul. “So he was alive before the bombs fell?” I asked Cobalt. “Yep.” The ghoul replied for him. “And during. And after.”
Before, during, and after the war? Becoming so irradiated that you live forever? No wonder Homage told me that most ghouls lose their minds after transforming. But somehow, this ghoul had managed to keep his sanity. How? I needed to know.
“Did it hurt?” I asked the ghoul. His became howling laughter. “Oh yes it did! Of course it did! It hurt so much that I wanted to put a pullet in my head. Fortunately, there were no guns nearby. And I’m glad there wasn’t, because now I’m immortal! I will live forever! I have outlived the princesses! I will outlive you! I’m practically a god! HAHAHAHA!”
He finally stopped laughing, caught his breath if he was breathing, and calmed down. “Anyway, I wandered the wastes for years, seeing how everything had been destroyed, trying to find a reason to live. Then, I found this place after almost two hundred years of walking around. Finally, a place to call my own again.”
Cobalt interrupted him with anger, “It’s a slaver camp! You killed the original boss here and took over as the leader!” How did Cobalt know that?
“Wait, so it was a slaver camp before or after you took over?” I asked Crossbones. He kept smiling. I wished he would stop doing that, because it was taking a lot of effort not to throw up from the sight of the ghoul, not to mention the smell. Something told me that Crossbones hadn’t bothered to wash himself after 200 years. It was either that or the fact that he was a walking corpse. Maybe both.
“Both my friend.” He said as he got out of his chair. Now I could see him better as he stepped into the light. He was a light brown earth pony with a skull and crossbones for a cutie mark. It also wasn’t just half of his face that was exposed. His entire body was decomposing. Chunks of flesh from his right foreleg and left hind leg were missing also, revealing the bone underneath.
Candy stood frozen, Cobalt wasn’t phased, and even Wonderhoof made a disgusted face. It seemed that ponies living in Tenpony were used to a higher standard of looks.
“You see, when I got here, the slave business was already up and running.” he started. “When I asked if I could stay here for a while to get back on my hooves again, they told me to either fuck off or put on a collar. Naturally, I wasn’t gonna do either of those things, so I blasted his brains and took over, bada bing, bada boom.”
I really found it distasteful how the ghoul ended the story. Also, ‘bada bing bada boom’? Who says that?
“But how did this place become a slaver town anyway?” I asked him. Crossbones frowned. “Look kid, I get stuff done first, ask questions later, so if you ain’t buyin’ or sellin’, get the fuck out.”
Cobalt was suddenly in the ghoul’s face. “Hey! That’s my friend you’re talking to!” Crossbones kept his cool despite having an angry changeling in his face. “Aw, that’s sweet, but you who else was your friend? Me! And as soon as you saw an opportunity, you betrayed the one pony who loved you the most!”
Now I was confused. What was he talking about? “Uh, DJ?” Candy asked me. “What is he talking about?” she said, replicating my own thoughts. “I have no idea.” I responded.
“It was an accident!” Cobalt said, redirecting our attention. “I didn’t mean to! It wasn’t my fau-” “THEN WHO’S WAS IT?!” The ghoul shot back, once again frowning. “Who’s fault was it if it wasn’t yours, hmm? Are you saying it was my fault? Are you saying it was your friends’ faults?” He asked coyly. “Who’s fault was it really?” he continued.
Cobalt started looking guilty. And it was time I stepped in. “His fault for what?!” I asked Crossbones. The ghoul looked at me like I just rained on his parade. “You haven’t mentioned, said, or referenced anything that Cobalt did!” The ghoul chuckled. “Oh but I have mentioned it. Weren’t you paying attention? I said he betrayed the pony who loved him the most.”
I tried to wrap my head around who a pony could love the most. A friend? A family member? “Cobalt?” I asked cautiously. “Who was the pony he is saying you betrayed?”
Cobalt sighed and stifled a sniffle. “My brother.”
Candy, Wonderhoof, and I all gasped at the same time. “Your brother?! You didn’t tell us you had a brother!” We all said simultaneously. Cobalt took a step back in surprise. “Well, it was never really brought up-” “Ah! So you haven’t told them your little secret.” Crossbones interrupted Cobalt again. Something told me Cobalt didn’t tell us the whole story.
“Cobalt! Crossbones! Both of you tell us exactly what you are talking about and exactly what happened!” I yelled at them.
“Wow, this one is annoying. Constantly yelling.” I shot the ghoul a nasty look and shut him up. “I mean in a good way.” I groaned. “Calm down DJ. This isn’t anywhere near as annoying as he was when I first met him.” Cobalt replied in response to my increasing frustration. These two were really working my last nerve.
“Alright, enough of this. Tell us everything and tell us now.” I demanded to know why this ghoul would say this changeling betrayed his own brother. Seriously, its like they were trying to stall forever.
“Fine, fine. We’ll tell you.” Crossbones said impatiently.
“You see, when Cobalt came to find me, he wasn’t alone. He had his brother with him as well.” He started. “It was the both of them who asked me for help. I must admit that my first thought was that you and your brother would fetch a high price on the market Cobalt.”
Cobalt looked horrified. “You were going to sell us?!” Crossbones waved the question aside. “Sell you, keep you, kill you, it doesn’t matter. But what does matter is this. I didn’t. Instead, I gave you a much better deal. I stick by your side and help you get where you wanted to go, you keep to yourself about your past, why you wanted to go there, and I keep to myself about asking you, because honestly, I just didn’t care. As long as you paid me for my services.”
“He’s not lying.” Cobalt added. “He agreed to show us where to go as long as neither of us asked the other about why. Oh, and as long as I paid him in caps for his help.”
I tried to follow the story, but Crossbones talked a mile a minute, but luckily Cobalt gave me the abridged version, so I didn’t say anything.
“Anyways.” Crossbones started again. “We both agreed to the terms, so that’s basically how we met each other. Then came the raiders.”
“You already know the basics.” Cobalt stepped in. “But here are the details. You see, the first time we fought raiders, my brother and I didn’t have any experience at all with fighting, so Crossbones here tried to protect us. He was doing very well, but even he couldn’t keep it up forever. The raiders started surrounding us. I got the feeling that we weren’t going to make it out alive, so I told him to make run for it. He told me I was crazy if I thought he was going to leave me there, but I told I’d be fine and that he should get help. He finally agreed, but the raiders saw him trying to fly away, and… and they shot him down. I saw my brother killed right in front of my eyes.”
I was going to try to convince him that it wasn’t his fault. “Cobalt you couldn’t have known that would happen-” “But it did!” Crossbones interrupted. “And if it weren’t for you, Copper, that was his brother’s name by the way, would still be alive! Do you deny it?” He asked Cobalt. “No.” He said silently.
“Then you’re guilty.” the ghoul said. Cobalt’s response to that was even more shocking. He yelled, “NO!” and ran out of the room. “Cobalt!” Candy yelled. “Wait!” But it was too late. Cobalt was gone.
“You!” I yelled as I turned to the living corpse. “How could you say suck a thing?! It wasn’t his fault that his brother was killed. It was the raiders!”
Despite the fact that I was yelling at the top of my lungs, Crossbones continued to stay calm, which really annoyed me. “But if Cobalt wouldn’t have told his brother to fly off, he wouldn’t have gotten shot down.”
I hated to admit it, but he had a point. What was Cobalt thinking? And what about running off just now? What would he do? He could get himself killed if he just ran out into the wasteland. In all honesty, despite the fact that Cobalt kept a secret from us, he was still our friend. I had to go after him.
Without another thought, I darted out of the room too, with Candy and WOnderhoof right behind me. We ran up to the first guard we saw.
“Did you see Cobalt? Tall changeling? Blue with a red shell?” Luckily, the guard nodded. “He said something about going to the cells.”
“The cells?”
“Yeah. The cells are where we keep all the slaves before we either sell them or move them.”
“Where are these cells?”
The guard pointed his hoof to a door. Behind the door was a long hallway. There were windows on either side looking down on what could have been hundreds of cells. At the end of the hallway, there was a terminal next to an elevator. On the terminal, there were three option.
> Activate Elevator
> Slave Profiles
> Cage Cameras
Before activating the elevator, I clicked on the cage cameras. Another screen popped up.
> Cage 02
> Cage 11
> Cage 27
For some reason, I went straight for Cage 27. What I saw and heard were simply horrible. They were actually selling the pony inside. I couldn’t see the buyer or the seller. Just the pony inside. Se was a unicorn mare with a white hide, a light blue name, a cutie mark of a cupcake, and a red spray paint over said cutie mark of the number twenty seven.
Around her neck was a metal collar also with the number twenty seven on it with a rope attaching it to the wall. There was also a thick, gold ring around her horn witch in my guess stopped her from using her magic. There were also scars on her back that looked like marks from a whip. Red dots on her left foreleg also implied that the slavers had been using injected drugs to control her movement so she couldn’t resist. Her left ear was torn halfway down the middle, and her eyes were red and puffy like she had been crying.
Part of the rope was stained red, with a tooth stuck in it. She tried to chew through the rope. Two more teeth were on the floor next to a puddle of the mare’s tears. Then the two ponies outside the cage started talking, but not before the mare said, “Who am I anymore?”
“She’s a good mare and she will do anything you tell her to do.”
“Does she have drug problems?”
“How do you think we trained her?”
“Can I whip her?”
“Or course. After you’ve paid for her.”
I couldn’t take any more of this. I closed out and activated the elevator. Apparently, my friends could tell I was up to something, because Wonderhoof asked in a cautious tone, “DJ what are you doing?”
I didn’t really want to tell them what I was about to do, but I had no other choice. After all, our changeling friend was down there anyway. “You heard what’s going on down there. We can’t just stand by and do nothing.”
Candy and Wonderhoof looked to each other, and then to me, with a concerned look on their faces. “DJ, I understand that you want to help,” Wonderhoof said, “But there’s just nothing we can do to help her.”
Nothing?! There was nothing we could do?! I just didn’t buy it. There had to be something, anything that we could do to help that poor mare down there.
“No.” I said. “There has to be some way, any way we can help her, even just a little.” My friends were still skeptical, but I could tell even they couldn’t say no forever.
Wonderhoof spoke up. “As a doctor, I have little to no combat experience. But maybe you and Candy can knock out the two ponies who were talking, and then try to pick the lock on the cage.”
Picking a lock? For some reason, Stable 27’s library had a book that taught you how to pick a lock using a bobby pin and a screwdriver, so I had a basic idea on how to do it, but until now, I had no reason to put that skill to use.
“Sounds like a plan.” I said before anyone had time to hesitate. The three of us got in the elevator and I pushed the button with the arrow pointing down.
A minute later, we were on the same level as the cages. “Alright, look for cage number 27.” I said to my friends, who nodded in response. Each cage had it’s number above the door, so all we had to do was look for number 27 to find cage 27.
Suddenly, I stopped dead in my tracks, and I motioned for Candy and Wonderhoof to do the same. Why? Voices. They were the same voices we had heard on the terminal. They were the voices of the slavers who were buying and selling the mare in the cage.
I looked around the corner and sure enough, there were two ponies talking. One of the ponies, who according to his voice, was the one buying the mare. He was dark brown with a short blond, spiky tail. He was wearing leather armor and had a red cap on his head, with a unicorn horn poking out the top.
The other pony, the one selling the mare, was a white unicorn with a black mane and tail. She wasn’t wearing any armor, but simple clothes with a strap with lots and lots of bullets on it.
“Alright,” I said to Candy in a whisper. We didn’t want the slavers to hear us. “Can you levitate one of those boxes over there, and slam it into those two ponies?”
I thought it was simple enough, but of course Candy had to make things difficult. “Mind explaining to me why?” I facehoofed. Wasn’t it obvious? “Because if you do, it’ll knock those ponies unconscious so I can pick the lock and free that slave.”
Finally, Candy understood. “Oh, that makes sense. Sorry.” She said with a cute blush. Honestly, sometimes I really wonder about her. I rolled my eyes as I looked back around the corner.
As Candy worked her magic on one of the boxes, it started floating with the ever so slight glow of unicorn magic.
“Hey, what the-” was the last thing the male slaver said before both he and the other slaver were knocked out cold.
So far, so good. But now it was time for my part of the plan. I had to pick the lock on the cage. “Candy, do you have a screwdriver? And possibly some bobby pins?”
As Candy dug around in her saddlebags, she replied just like the smartass she was. “You mean to say that you put together this genius plan while at the same time either not knowing or forgetting that you didn’t have everything you needed to put it all together?”
I gave her my reply as she gave me the screwdriver and five bobby pins. “So I made a mistake. So what? Everything worked out in the end.” Then Wonderhoof stepped in. “I don’t know much about life in the stable, but I do know that out here in the wasteland, you can’t afford to make mistakes. It could get you killed.
What I couldn’t afford right now was distractions. I had already broken two pins trying to pick the lock while talking. Moving the pin into the right spot while turning the lock with the screwdriver was harder than t looked.
Finally, the lock turned all the way, and the door opened with a nice little click. “Hey.” I said to the mare inside. “We’re here to rescue you.”
“It’s no use.” The mare said with a sniffle. “Even with the door open, I still can’t get out as long as the collar around my neck is attached to the wall.”
Damn, that meant that even with all our hard work, we still couldn’t- “I got this.” Wonderhoof said, cutting off my thoughts. “I can get you out.” But how? The rope attaching the mare’s neck to the wall was as thick as my leg. Then he answered my unasked question by pulling out a bonesaw from his own saddlebag.
“Ah, I see.” I said in realization. “Yep. I’m gonna saw through this rope faster than Rainbow Dash could fly.” So Wonderhoof also knew about Rainbow Dash. He had been kinda quiet after we left Tenpony. Maybe he knew about Homage’s secret.
Apparently, he wasn’t kidding when he said he was fast. His bonesaw sawed through the rope like butter. In almost no time at all, the rope binding the mare to the wall was severed.
This time, the mare smiled for the first time since we had seen her, and probably for the first time in a long time. “Oh thank you, thank you. Thank you so much.” Same as with Cobalt, I was going to ask this mare her name. “My name is Cupcake. I know because I kept telling myself that I would never forget who I was. I have been praying to Celestia and Luna for years, and finally somepony has saved me from these awful slavers.”
Praying to Celestia and Luna? I didn’t need help to feel bad for her. “I’m DJ, and this is Candy and Wonderhoof.” I introduced myself and companions. “And don’t mention it. We just did what anypony would have done.” I said. “Oh, not everypony is a charming, handsome……..courageous…….Oh where was I? Oh, and brave pony as you are DJ.” I blushed as my friends rolled their eyes. “I’m very flattered Cupcake, but I just realized that you’d better save your thanks until we’re far away from here.”
Cupcake frowned, then looked around. “Sweet Celestia! I was so caught up in the moment that I forgot that we’re still in the building!”
“Technically, since we went down an elevator from ground level, I’d say we’re actually underground.” Cobalt corrected. We all shot him a dirty look. “Oops, sorry. Not helping.” he apologized. We rolled our eyes again. “Come on, it won’t take long before these ponies regain their consciousness and see that we’ve set you free.” Cupcake nodded, eager to leave.
We were just about to turn the corner when the two unconscious unicorns woke up. “Hey! What are you doing with that slave?!” the male yelled. “AW, SHIT! I JINXED IT! RUN!” I yelled, which was not really necessary, as my friends and I were already running from the slavers who were yelling, “STOP!” and “COME BACK WITH THAT SLAVE!” Yeah, right. I thought as I kept running towards the elevator that had brought us down. The four of us jammed into the elevator and pushed the button. The screen closed just in time. As the unicorn slavers started pounding on the door, we lifted into the air. As we looked down on our pursuers, their horns glowed and they started talking to the air. That couldn’t be good.
As we ascended, the gears in my brain started churning. What did that last spell the unicorns used do? They started talking to the air as if somepony were in front of them. Whatever it was, I was sure that it spelled bad news for me and my friends.
We reached the top of the elevator. And as we walked out, I was still thinking. Lost in thought, I was surprised to feel Cupcake touching my shoulder with her hoof, trying to grab my attention. “DJ, what will we do once we’re out of here? Its not like I can live the rest of my life as a runaway slave.” Honestly, I didn’t want to think about what to do with her once were a safe distance from the slaver camp. But, my brain did some quick thinking and came up with a temporary solution. “You can travel with us until we find someplace safe and far away from any slavers.” She seemed okay with my suggestion. For now.
Slowly, we stopped walking. Our path was blocked by a brown earth pony stallion with an afro mane and tail, a business suit, and dark black sunglasses. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me. The boss wants to have a word with you.”
I almost choked on my own breath. Oh no. Was it about freeing the slave from captivity? Or something completely unrelated? Either way, I whispered to my friends to play along, hopefully out of range of the stallion’s earshot. “Alright, I’ll follow you.” I said as we started walking again. “Did he say anything about why he wanted to talk to us?” In front of us, the stallion shook his head. “All he said was for me to bring you to him.”
That didn’t sound good. Either somehow, Crossbones had found out about us rescuing Cupcake, or he just wanted to say goodbye to us before we left. But I didn’t intend to leave until I had found Cobalt. I would search the entire base if I had to!
Afro slaver stopped before a familiar looking set of doors. “Wait here.” Afro said to us, sneaking inside. I turned to face my companions. “Well, this isn’t exactly going according to plan now is it?” Candy replied with a hushed yell. “No it’s not! What are we still doing here?! We should be halfway to Appleloosa by now!” I reminded her that we were still looking for Cobalt. “What?! Are you crazy?! You are going to get us all caught! I’m surprised that they haven’t raised an alarm by now!”
I actually had been wondering about that myself. Why hadn’t they raised an alarm? If they knew, then why didn’t they just send every slaver in the camp after us? It would be the most efficient way to dispose of unwanted freedom fighters.
“Alright. Come in.” The Afro pony popped his head out to say. I gulped. Hopefully this was just a friendly conversation.
Crossbones sat in his signature chair with his signature smirk on his signature rotting face. His grin made me want to buck him upside the skull. But instead, I kept my emotions in check and kept my mouth shut. He had the home field advantage.
“Candy, DJ, Wonderhoof! So nice of you to join me again.”
Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Element of Surprise- You should have seen this coming! Your sneak skill is increased by ten and you have an increased critical strike chance.
“Never give up hope, no matter how dark things may seem.”
Lies. Deception can come in many forms. With trickery being just one. The deceitful tell one lie after another. Doing and saying whatever it takes to get what they want. By any means necessary. Crossbones was more than that. He didn’t just lie. He didn’t just say anything and hoped that somepony would believe him. He knew what he had to say to get ahead. Talking to him was like playing a verbal game of chess. And he was about to say what he needed to get his checkmate.
“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this delightful visit?” Crossbones asked in a sly tone. “As I remember it, you called for us.” I replied. “Ah, yes.” the ghoul said, pretending to recall a forgotten memory. “And who may this be?.” he said as he looked to Cupcake.
“Broken rope attached to a metal collar? Red 27 painted over a cutie mark of a cupcake? I’d recognise you anywhere. You’re slave number 27. What are you doing out of your cage?” He asked in a suspicious tone. I had to do some quick thinking so our cover wouldn’t be blown.
“She’s with us.” I said confidently. “We were going to buy her after we tested her loyalty to her new master.” Candy looked horrified. “DJ!” I turned to her and winked. “You...never...told us who this is. Which one of us is her new master again?” Good. Now if only Crossbones would buy it.
“Really? Because I thought that the policy here was that you give your payment first. Then you receive your new servant.” Crap he wasn’t buying it. “Oh, well. We didn’t know that, you see. So we’ll just be on own way back to the cells.” I tried to sound convincing, but his stare seemed to break me down from the inside out.
“Why then, if you are who you say you are, would I receive a message on my terminal from one of my employees saying that you helped to free a slave by knocking them unconscious and picking the lock on the cage?”
What? How? When? The answer hit me harder than any sledgehammer. That last spell the unicorn slavers had cast. Somehow, they had sent a message to Crossbones’s terminal using some sort of spell. I didn’t know how though. I would never understand unicorn magic.
“Oh, no. This is a big misunderstanding. We weren’t freeing her. We thought the cage seemed a little small, so we simply wanted to give her a time to stretch her legs.” This was going downhill fast, if it came to it, we needed to be able to make a quick escape. I was focused on the task at hoof, but in the back of my mind, I was creating an escape plan.
“Normally, I would’ve had you shot on sight for your actions, but I’m a reasonable business pony, so I think we can come to an understanding.” I didn’t like the sound of this. Was he going to offer us our lives if we handed back Cupcake? “I propose a trade.” That was unexpected. Still, I didn’t trust him. What could he possibly have that we wanted? Much less something that equalled the life and freedom of a pony?
“You don’t believe me?” he said, as if reading my thoughts. “See for yourself.” he said with a stomp of his hoof. A light behind him lit up, revealing something that I wouldn’t have believed even if somepony told me what was coming. Bound in chains and held in place with leather straps on the wall behind Crossbones, was Cobalt!
The poor changeling looked like he had been put through quite the rough time. He was bruised and beaten, and now had a collar around his neck. It was similar to Cupcake’s, but still different. It had no loop on it for a rope to be put through. It actually looked more like Cupcake’s magic repressor ring.
“Cobalt!” Candy yelled, running over to him. Crossbones didn’t even move a muscle. “What happened to you?! How did you end up like this?!” Cobalt opened his eyes slowly, barely able to move. “C...Candy? What are you…” he asked weakly, before losing consciousness.
“What did you do to him?!” Candy asked Crossbones angrily. The ghoul turned around. “Do you want to tell them or should I, Cobalt?” he asked our friend, who was still knocked out. He wasn’t bleeding, but he was badly hurt nonetheless.
“I guess I’ll have to. On account of you barely being able to retain consciousness.” That bastard was really pissing me off now. He was being an ass because he thought we wouldn’t do anything about it. But because he had hurt my friend, if he made one wrong move, I wouldn’t hesitate to blast his brains out, no different than I had done to a raider.
“Cobalt, like you, was found in the cells area of our base.” Crossbones began. “When somepony found him trying to pick the lock on one of the cages, they asked him what he was doing. When he didn’t answer, they kicked him to try and make him talk. He still wouldn’t say anything, but he did ask them to stop because he said it was giving him a boner. Which, in turn, made them stop hitting him.”
Excuse me what the fuck?! I turned back to Cobalt. “I’ll…..explain….later.” he said before passing out again. Well, that sure was convenient.
“Anyways” Crossbones continued. “They finally subdued him, although he put up quite a fight a I was told. He was brought here, and we strapped him down to prevent any further struggling. We also found out that he was what he called himself, a ‘changeling’. So we also added a special device that prevents him from using any natural abilities. We call it the ‘Power Restriction Collar,’ or the P.R.C. collar for short.”
So Cobalt also wanted to free a slave? Did he have as such strong feelings about slavery as we did? Why didn’t come up with a plan first? Reckless changeling got himself caught because of it. And did he only say what he did to get them to stop hitting him, or did getting beaten actually make him horny? The last part I didn’t even want to think about.
“So, here is my proposal.” The ghoul slaver said, redirecting my attention. “You return the young mare at your side to me, and I will return your friend to you. Should you refuse, you can have the slave you freed, free of charge. But your changeling friend replaces her in cell 27. Sound like a fair trade?”
A fair trade?! How could this rotting son of a bitch think I would agree such a deal?! The life of one being in Equestria did not equal the life of another. And neither could a pile of caps come close to the value of something that is alive and breathing.
Still, I had to do something, otherwise he might have decided that he wanted to keep both Cobalt, and Cupcake. Or worse, he might try to enslave all of us. And if that happened, by the goddesses of the sun and moon, we were all royally fucked.
Before I could make a decision, Candy said, “Alright.” Surprised, I shook my head. I had to have heard her wrong. Did she just agree to his terms?!
“Candy! What are you doing?! You can’t be serious about this!” I yelled at her. Probably unfairly, as she was a full grown mare and was entitled to make her own decisions, but this wasn’t exactly what I would call the best idea she’d ever had.
Candy turned to me and replied unexpectedly, but with a look that read, ‘get ready to start running.’ . “Trust me, DJ. I know what I’m doing.” she turned back to Crossbones. “Can you at least release him before we give you back your slave?”
Crossbones seemed to ponder something. As if trying to figure out what she was up to, and why she had agreed with him. Finally, he caved. “Fine. Just don’t do anything reckless.”
I started to understand what Candy was planning. I got myself ready to bolt out the second Candy told us to. Candy freed Cobalt and he dropped to the floor. He seemed a little better, but still had trouble getting up. “Candy.” He said with a frown. “How could you? Why would you? The slave.”
Candy hushed him with a hoof. “Can you walk?” That made Cobalt smile. “Hell, I could run from here all the way back to Ponyville.” he said with a small laugh. There was no way Candy was planning what I thought she was. Crossbones tapped a hoof in impatience. “Alright, you’ve had your little heartwarming reunion. Now can we get on with this?”
Candy answered him by trotting up next to him. “As we agreed.” But she was slowly walking behind the ghoul, facing away from him. She wasn’t going to do what I thought she was, was she? She answered my question with a hard “Yes” by bucking with her hind leg as hard as she could right between the ghoul’s hind legs. He let out a small squeal before slowly falling to the ground. She didn’t need to say her next sentence twice. “Run.”
In an instant, Candy, Wonderhoof, Cupcake and I were all running for the exit. Even Cobalt was holding up, which amazed me, considering the beating he had endured. Which went to show me just how tough changelings were. We passed several guards on our way out, who all gave us confused looks, but none pursued us. We were lucky that our flesh-rotton friend had only squeaked instead of yelled, which would’ve alerted almost every guard in the building.
We finally reached the gates, which were opened almost as if on command. We kept running until we had left the town far behind. We ran so far that I couldn’t see it anymore by the time we stopped.
We were all panting from our sprint. I decided to confront Candy about what exactly happened back there. “Mind…..explaining…..to...me...exactly….what the fuck…...just..happened?” I said in between hard breaths. I had never run that far or that fast in my life. But then again, my life had never been on the line like it had been mere moments ago.
Candy had already caught her breath by the time she answered me. “I quickly thought of a plan while he was explaining his terms of surrender.” I managed a smile. “But kicking him between the legs? Where did you learn that?” Candy blushed. “From the stable library.” Aha! “So you do like reading books!” She had to admit, I had her beat. Nopony could resist the precious knowledge of books for long. “It was in a book about self-defense for mares. It had nothing to do with wanting to read it. It was assigned to me by my teacher.” Still, it was a win. And I knew exactly which teacher had assigned it to her too.
Back when my grandmare, Cloudy Breeze, was the overmare of Stable 27, my mom had been a teacher herself. She was the one who gave all the little colts and fillies an assignment about self-defense. The stable’s library was filled to the brim with young ponies reading about the topic. Every single book on the subject was checked out. Luckily, I had been sure to be the first one there during that period of time. Seeing everypony else have to share their textbooks with one another made me sure of myself that I was going to pass the class for sure.
But then I looked over at Candy, who was sitting all by herself at one of the empty tables, she was crying. When I had asked her why, she said that there were no more textbooks left, and that nopony wanted to work with her. So I myself offered to help her. She gladly agreed. And that experience further strengthened our friendship. “Yeah. I remember that day. You were quite the cry-filly.” I said with a giggle.
That made her blush with a pout. “I was not. I was just disappointed. That’s all.” Yeah right. Cry-flly. I still teased Candy about our childhood together. Because we had shared so many memories, I had lots of things I could bring up to make her embarrassed. But that meant she had just about as much to embarass me about.
Snapped back to reality, I realized that our friends were staring at us. They all had admiring smiles. Cobalt was also try to hold back his laughter. Wonderhoof just chuckled. And Cupcake…
‘What to do with Cupcake?’ I asked myself. What do you do with a rescued slave? My first thought was that we ensure her safety at the nearest settlement, but then I thought it might make us look like we were abandoning her. Which felt wrong.
Then, I thought we might bring her back to Stable 27. Everyone there was friendly enough, but maybe ponies would give her the cold shoulder for being an outsider. Nopony outside of the stable had ever stepped hoof inside for over 200 years. What might the residents respond with for me changing all that all of a sudden?
All of the possibilities of where to send her and what might happen that would’ve made that choice a bad one were giving me a headache. Until we figured out what to do, I guessed she would be travelling with for a while.
“So, Candy.” Cobalt said, redirecting my priorities. My brain thanked me for the change of subject. “Why did you rescue me? And even less, why did you rescue me AND the, young mare here? No offense miss…?” “Cupcake” the ‘young mare’ replied. “And none taken. I’m just relieved that i’m out of that unfair prison, and outside it’s walls again.” That made me curious. “Where, did you come from anyway? Another settlement?” Her pupils dilated in surprise at my question. “Oh, it’s not important.” The subject seemed to make her uncomfortable. So I didn’t pry.
“So.” Cobalt said, making me turn to him again. “To New Appleloosa is it?” I nodded. If not for the recent events, we probably might have made it to New Appleloosa already, and maybe been on our way to the Crystal Empire by now.
But if we hadn’t stopped at the slaver town, we wouldn’t have rescued Cupcake and given that over-200-year-old ghoul the slip. So in a way, I was grateful for the interference.
- - - - - - - - - -
It took a while, but we finally made it back to Ponyville. Or rather, the Ponyville Ruins. Despite being cleared of raiders, the run-down town still reeked of corpses, and all of the buildings were still defaced with spray paint. It would take a miracle at the very least before this place could be called an official town again.
We were just about to turn south when we heard a soft and muffled banging. Clank. Clank. It sounded like somepony knocking against metal with another piece of metal. Very faint, but it was there. “Did you hear that?” I asked my companions. All of them nodded. The sound appeared to be coming from near the center of town. When we approached the area the sound was coming from, we saw a half broken fountain that was long rusted, and water didn’t flow through it for centuries.
“Home to the fountain…” Cupcake mumbled. We turned to her. She was trembling. She took a step back, then another, then she tried to run the other way. Before she could get out of hoof’s reach, Wonderhoof grabbed the rope attached to Cupcake’s neck in his mouth and pulled on it, causing Cupcake to fall on her rump.
“Now, come on Cupcake. It can’t be that bad can it? It’s just a fountain.” He reassured her. Something about the fountain seemed to really freak her out.
Then we heard the sound again. Clank. Clank. It was coming from underneath the fountain itself! “Should we really check if there are ponies down there that know or remember what happened before?” Candy asked cautiously. “I thank we should at least knock back to see If they need help.” I replied. Same as with Cobalt, and as with Cupcake, I was going to try to help if I could.
I reached my hoof forward and knocked on the stone. To our surprise, the whole structure started moving on a track system. The entire fountain moved out of the way to reveal a set of stairs leading down into a pitch black bottom. Slowly, a pony walked out of the darkness.
The pony that walked out was a white earth pony with a silvery grey mane and tail. He had yellow eyes, and his cutie mark resembled a razor blade. He wasn’t a ghoul. “Hello, I am Razor Blade, and welcome to the unofficial stable of Ponyville.” Razor Blade? Unofficial? Stable? So many questions rised to the surface of my thoughts that I was starting to regain my headache.
Razor Blade seemed to look behind me at my friends, as if seeing something. Or not seeing something that should be there. “Where are my manners? Please follow me.” he said as he turned tail and started walking down the stairs. My friends and I exchanged concerned glances, but we followed him into the underground.
The stairs spiraled down for what seemed forever, with torches lighting the walls every few steps. After a few minutes, I was getting impatient. “Not to be rude or anything, but huw much further untl we reach the bottom?” Razor smiled as he looked back at me. “Come on, we are only 65 feet of the full 80 feet underground.” 80 feet underground? I didn’t know how far down Stable 27 was, but 80 feet seemed like a lot. Especially when you were walking in a circle.
We finally got to the bottom, where there was a bright red door with a single light above it. Two guards stood at either side, which was strange for a stable. The door was in the center of a wall that was colored an odd combination of black, red, and a very deep brown.
Cupcake turned to Wonderhoof. “Are you okay? You seem pale.” Wonderhoof shrugged it off. “I’m just a little nervous because I’ve never been this far underground before. Or at all for that matter.” Cupcake also looked a bit pale. She seemed to be reminiscing something. “I feel like I remember this place. But I don’t know how or why.” Yeah. Deja vu. Been there. Done that. Had that feeling.
Stepping behind the door was like walking into one of the stable’s history books. The entire place had been arranged to resemble a house from before the war. Before the bombs. Before the stables themselves. It was both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.
Razor walked over to a door with a bright sign labeling it, “Kitchen”. He opened the door, but only slightly to talk to somepony on the other side. “Get some snacks out. We have guests.” A moment later, a mare walked out and put a big plate of snacks on the table in the living room we were all standing in.
As we sat down, Razor Blade asked us, “So what brings you through Ponyville?” So, I explained to him. “Well, we were going to head back south, and we heard a banging noise coming from the fountain. Above the entrance and all we did was tap back, and you opened the door if that’s what you mean.”
Razor seemed troubled. “Well, I was expecting somepony else to come back with a ‘helper’ that was supposed to be put to good use cleaning up around here.” he placed down another place with a strange looking meat on it. “Here is our house special. Beef Jerky.”
We all looked down at the meat Razor had provided us with. We had had something similar to this beef jerky in the stable, but something wasn’t right. But we didn’t want to be rude, so we started eating. The meat tasted strange. Almost nothing like beef jerky. The only one who didn’t touch his food was Wonderhoof.
“Aren’t you going to have any?” Razor asked our medical master. Wonderhoof was pondering something. “Well yes, but I’m still full from breakfast this morning.” Razor didn’t seem offended. Not even disappointed. His smile was a guilt trip in itself, so Wonderhoof ate a piece of the meat anyway.
Once we were done eating the beef jerky, Razor sat down on the chair across from us. “I’m sure you have many questions about how we came to be here.” I did, and I was sure the others also had questions of their own.
“Well, it all started when they were building the stables. Out mayor was seeing that the war was getting worse and, with our race to create bigger and more deadly weapons. She got scared and ordered that this ancient site be converted into a shelter in case the bombs fell earlier than ponies expected. So in forty days of working around the clock, the mayor got this ready for us. But when the bombs did fall, the ponies that made it into the stable, they were locked inside. But the rest of us ran in here, and everypony made it down before the bombs exploded, and turned our once thriving lands into an apocalyptic wasteland. These are the stories that were handed down to us, and they kept us from going insane from a long time of isolation from ponies that live on the surface.”
While he was explaining the history of this “Unofficial Stable,” something caught the attention of my eye. It was a bottle cap on the end table with a lamp in the corner of the room. Just like the ones we saw being used back in Tenpony. “Oh, look at me going on and on. Would any of you like something to drink?”
There was a difference between being rude and politely declining. “No thanks.” we said nicely. Cupcake was moving back and forth on her hooves, so either she was still nervous about this place, or she had to go to the bathroom. “Excuse me, but where is the little fillies’ room?”
Okay, so it was the second one. But maybe she still was paranoid about the underground portal to the past. I tried to wrap my brain around what “Home to the fountain” could possibly mean. Was this where Cupcake was originally from? Or was this the place where she was going to be sold to? And if that was the case, then that meant that these ponies were in league with the slavers, and that wasn’t the best scenario for us to be in right now.
“Fifth door on the right down that hallway.” Razor told Cupcake as she squirmed like a filly who had drinken one too many soft drinks. “Thank you.” she said hastily, before running down the hallway that Razor had pointed to.
“So how well stocked are you in this unofficial stable?” Wonderhoof asked. Razor seemed surprised at his question. “What do you mean stocked?” Wonderhoof replied hazily. “Well, I meant with food, water and energy supplies.”
Razor chuckled as he corrected himself. “Oh, that. We are stocked plenty and we are thriving with our system that we have here.” As he took a bite of the beef jerky, I noticed just how sharp his teeth were. They looked as sharp as his name implied. How could a pony’s teeth be that sharp? My friends also looked at how his teeth compared to a normal pony’s.
“Well, I am the head of a stable myself, and I know how important it is that you know all your supplies are well stocked at all times, and it is strange that you don’t know that.”
I was trying not to make a comment about his teeth that were in plain sight for everypony. I knew it would be rude to say anything, but it was just so damn hard! His teeth were more like those of a predator than anything else.
“So what else do you have to eat here? Or something to drink?” I asked, trying to redirect my train of thoughts, but they were still focused on his razor-sharp teeth. “Oh we have lots more. What would you like? Sugar apple bombs? And to drink, we have Sparkle-Cola along with some normal water.”
Wonderhoof asked for a Sparkle-Cola while I requested water. I wasn’t that thirsty, but I hadn’t drinken since I left the stable, so I would need it soon. It was important that I stayed hydrated.
“Of course.” Razor said before going into the kitchen. “Well?” Candy asked. “Well what?” I asked back. “What do you think of this place?” I was stunned. I wasn’t sure what it was that I was feeling. Nostalgia? Homesickness? Jealousy? “I think it’s nice.” was all I managed.
“It’s roomy. Nice sense of space too.” added Cobalt.
“Reminds me of my old textbooks.” said Wonderhoof.
“It makes me miss my old life.” mentioned Candy.
I had to admit it. I was missing my old life in the stable too. Seeing a place underground that had weathered 200 years of isolation. Even if it wasn’t built directly by Stable-Tec.
When Razor came back from the kitchen, he was carrying another tray. This one with assorted beverages. As I retrieved the water and started drinking, the clicking of my pip-puck informed me that it was slightly radioactive. I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t deadly radiation, but it showed me that my pip-buck’s radiation detector actually worked.
Suddenly, a loud alarm rang through the entire stable. Razor was standing in front of Cupcake, who was covered head to hoof in splattered blood. Cupcake ran behind us, not even looking back. RUN! THEY ARE CANNIBALS!”
What?! Cannibals?! We all started running for the exit. Luckily, the guards for some reason weren’t there. I could still hear Razor Blade saying, “Why must everypony run after they find out that we want to eat them?”
That meant that Cupcake was right! These ponies weren’t raiders, but they still ate other ponies. I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. “What was that beef we ate?!” I asked Wonderhoof. He replied quickly. “I’ll tell you later!”
I then turned back to Cupcake, who we had managed to catch up with. “What in the goddess’s name happened to you?!” She just stared ahead. Cobalt shouted out with disgust. “At time I trust any creature that lives underground! Besides you and Candy of course!”
I didn’t have time to roll my eyes. As we approached the stairs back to the wasteland, Razor, still chasing us, yelled, “Activate the stairs! We aren’t letting them get away!”
Damn, this cannibal was persistent. “This is as close to hell as I ever want to get!” I shouted to the air. Cobalt, Wonderhoof, and Candy all agreed in their own ways respectively.
“I second that!”
“Me too!”
“Same here!”
As we started running up the stairs, they started retracting into the walls! That made me start to panic. “Oh fuck, we’re not going to make it!” My brave example allowed my friends to follow suit. Except Wonderhoof. “Everypony please be quiet!” We ignored him as we all panicked. “Everypony SHUT UP!”
We stared at him like he had just sprouted a horn. “Everypony, Cobalt, DJ, and I have wings, and you ladies can ride on our backs.” It was so simple that we all started laughing. “Ready, Three, Two, One, NOW!” Wonderhoof yelled. Just as the retracting stairs had reached us, the three of us jumped, with me and Wonderhoof carrying Candy and Cupcake respectively. We flapped our wings as hard as we could, because of the extra weight, it was harder than normal flying. And Cobalt buzzed his transparent insect wings.
Moments later, we all flew out of the open hole of the fountain, landing safely on the ground on the other side. Wonderhoof and I were breathing hard as the mares climbed off our backs. Cobalt landed next to us, not even having broken a sweat, lucky bastard. I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to have carried Candy out of the stable, but damn, she was still a little heavy. She almost needed to go on a no-junk-food diet. I wasn’t going to bring it up though, because I knew Candy wouldn’t keep it for even twenty four hours.
After I had caught my breath, I decided it was time for answers. Wonderhoof marched up to Cupcake. “That pony down there, Razor Blade, was he the pony that was going to buy you from those slavers?” It seemed like a random question, but I was thinking about it too. Razor had said that he was expecting somepony to come back with a “Helper”. But I started thinking that what he meant to say was “Slave”.
Cupcake explained what the scenario was. “Yes he was. And this is where the slaver camp gets their slaves. When we are born here, half of them become slaves, and the other half either go to the “Feed pile”, or are spared just to be raised to eat their own…..” She trailed off, staring into space. Suddenly looking around.
“Stairs are retracting!” then she blinked. “How are we outside?” That was weird. “Umm, Cupcake? Don’t you remember us escaping from the underground cannibals?” She looked at the ground and drew a circle in the dirt with her hoof. “No, I don’t. I’m sorry.”
Anyways, Wonderhoof broke the tense atmosphere. “How’s about I suggest that we keep moving forward before they can come up to get us this time?” We nodded. It was a good change of pace.
- - - - - - - - - -
We kept running until we were miles from Ponyville. Which was good for two reasons. One, we were far away from the cannibals in Ponyville, and two, we were closer than ever to New Appleloosa. It was dark. Well, darker than it usually was, and a look at my pip-buck’s clock sad it was almost midnight. We decided it was time to stop running for once, so we gathered some dried leaves, and set them on fire for a cozy setup for the night.
While we were resting, I asked Cupcake what had happened to make her covered in blood and so frightened. “When I went to use the bathroom, the light was broken, so I found a door, not knowing if it was the right door or not.” Cupcake started explaining.
“When I opened the door, I fell down a flight of stairs that were hidden by the darkness. At the bottom, the was a hallway filled with ponies in cages. I slowly walked down the hallway until I reached the end, where the path turned right. In the cage in the center of the small mini room to the right of the passage, was a light purple pony with a light blue mane. She spoke to me softly. And she said, ‘My daughter. What in Equestria are you doing here? You need to get out of here before they trap you!’”
Celestia have mercy. Cupcake saw her mother in a cage being held captive by cannibal slavers? I could only imagine her reaction.
“Coming to my senses, I said I could get her out of there. But she said it was too late for her. And the last thing she said was goodbye, before…” she trailed off, tears in her eyes.
“Before what? I asked, trying to console her. “The chains that bound her by the neck and hind legs pulled her straight back into a sharpened steel spike that pierced her from behind and exited her mouth, so she vomited out blood that sprayed me and covered me. I was so shocked that I tried to run out of there as fast as I could. But two ponies came out of the darkness.”
I was so involved in Cupcake’s story that I hadn’t touched my sugar apple bombs that I had in my saddlebags.
“The male spoke first, and he said, ‘Well, isn’t that a pleasant sound. A scream. It sounds like dinner. Doesn’t it to you, Canned Meat?’ Then a female was frantic. She said, ‘I want to eat her now. Raw is the way I like unicorns.’ I tried to run the other way, but because of my collar and rope, the male grabbed it. He asked me where I thought I was going. This time I got a friction burn from the collar. I hit my head on the ground to hard that I almost lost consciousness. As I was being dragged back, I remembered from Candy’s example, that if somepony is a threat to you, you kick them in the groin.”
Sweet Celestia, she was learning from Candy?! Sure, she was there to see Candy kick Crossbones in his two hundred year old crotch, but I was the most conventional method of dispatching an attacker. What if the attacker was a female? Would the kick to the crotch still work? Either way, I let Cupcake continue her story.
“So I bucked the male as hard as I could. And he let go as he fell on top of the female. The last thing I heard was the mare telling the stallion to get off her and that I was getting away. I knew that I couldn’t leave you there with those terrible ponies, so I tried to warn you, but the alarm went off before I could reach you.”
As Cupcake finished her story, I still couldn’t believe that Cupcake had taken after Candy’s display of self-defense. The saddest thing was that she had to endure seeing her own mother killed before her very eyes. If it had been me, I probably would’ve had a mental breakdown. Sure, I was sad when my own mother died, but that was of natural causes, this was because she was pulled against a spiked piece of steel. Then I remembered the meat we ate.
“Wonderhoof, you still have to tell us what that beef was.” I was sure Wonderhoof knew, being a doctor and all. “Are you sure that you really want to know?” I saw the two small versions of myself in my again. This time, instead of a tug of war, they were hoof-wrestling. He one who wanted to know won. “So what was it?” The answer was what I had feared it was. “The muscle tissue of a pony’s hind leg.”
Candy was so surprised that she turned around and lost her lunch. “You mean to say that I actually ATE somepony?!” Wonderhoof sighed and looked down. “Unfortunately, yes.” I almost emptied my stomach myself. Unlike Cobalt, Cupcake, and Candy.
“How did you know that the meat we ate wasn’t beef jerky?” I asked our local doctor. “I sometimes perform autopsies on dead bodies of ponies. You know, find out what the cause of death was? And I see meat that looks exactly like the meat Razor Blade presented us with.”
We spent the rest of the night in silence. Still processing everything that happened in the last couple of days. First Candy and I leave the stable, get shot at by raiders, meet the wasteland legendary DJ Pon3, or as I knew her, Homage, then Candy gets shot in the leg, we meet a stable obsessed doctor, then we rescue a changeling from being trapped under rubble, then we meet the very old friend of Cobalt’s and rescue a slave, then escape underground cannibals from an unofficial stable.
I was starting to wonder if the wasteland would ever give us a break. Come to think about it, this passing moment of rest was the most relaxed we had been in at least two days. It was a well deserved break.
- - - - - - - - - -
We woke up early the next day to find Candy squirming in her sleep. She was saying things like, “Everypony get down.,” “No no no no no,” and “AAAH, The PAIN!”
I shook her from her nightmare. She woke with a gasp. “What happened?” I comforted her with a hug. “You were having a nightmare. But it’s okay. It was just a dream.”
Before she calmed down, I opened my eyes and the terrain had changed. The trees had leaves. The grass was green and flowing in the wind. And ponies were running scared from something invisible. “Are you guys seeing this?” I asked my friends. “Yeah. It’s freaky.” Cobalt said back.
I looked in the sky. And I saw rockets. No, missiles. I noticed something else. All the ponies were running in the same direction. And it was towards the area of the stable. They were pounding against the door, begging to be let in. But it was too late. The megaspells exploded with devastating force. The sheer heat from the blast was enough to melt my face off, but for some reason, it didn’t. In fact, I only felt about enough heat to make me feel warm, like when the stable’s furnace was running.
When the explosion hit, a blinding light surrounded the area. The ponies who didn’t make it into the stable screamed in pain as the power of the heat and radiation burned them, dripping flesh from bone like water. Candy was freaking out again. But so were Cobalt and Cupcake. Only Wonderhoof and I didn’t scream.
The blast ended with me back on the ground, having only woke up, but the surrounding area was still shaking heavily. Once the shaking stopped, I asked the most obvious question. “What in Equestria was that?!” Wonderhoof answered with the reply that surprised me. “I know what that was.” We all looked at him for answers. We all wanted to know what had just happened. “That was what is called a Ghost Shock.”
Cupcake asked another obvious question. “What’s ghost shock?” I rolled my eyes. I would have asked the question too.
“It’s when a high energy event happens on a surface like rock like the stone under this soil. The energy gets passed through, but some energy gets trapped inside and released at unknown intervals of time. Lucky for us, we were here at the right place at the right time to experience one.”
Now it was my turn. “Why do you say we’re lucky?” Cupcake also asked the question. “Well, it’s basically a Time Capsule that stores the paranormal energy of that time and makes anypony that would live here remember what happened on that day. But more psychic ponies wouldn’t just feel it like we did, but they would be brought back to the event itself and see and feel what the ponies felt when they died there.”
I turned back to Candy. She was still squirming in her sleep, and hadn’t awoken like we did. “What’s wrong with Candy? Why is she still asleep? What’s happening to her? You’re a doctor. Come here and take a look.” I asked each question with more and more anger, but managed to calm down by the time of the request. “Is she a psychic pony?” Wonderhoof asked. “I don’t know.” I answered. Candy hadn’t shown anything close to being psychic back in the stable. If she was, then why would it appear now?
“I’m sorry. I know you care about her. We all do.” he said with a light hoof to Candy’s face. Her eyes shot open, and she woke up screaming. “They’re dying! Somepony help them!” Okay, this was not a case of psychic. Psycho, maybe. But probably not psychic.
“Come on Candy. Wake up. Look around you.” I said, shaking her awake. She did as she was told. She looked around. “Where are the bodies? There were so many bodies.” Finally, she had snapped out of it. “Come on, they died over Two hundred years ago. There is nothing you can do for them now.” Candy layed down again. I cradled her affectionately. She whimpered throughout rest of the night.
I had never thought Candy to be a psychic. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. Only time would tell.
Footnote: Level Up
New perk: Freedom Fighter- For Freedom! You now do an extra 15% more damage with all weapons against slavers.
Quest Perk added: Visions Of The Past- You were really lucky to see that! If you are in the right place at the right time, you will see what happened 200 years ago!
Appleloosa. New Appleloosa to be precise. After the “Ghost Shock” the night before, it was a silent walk all the way to New Appleloosa. Unlike the slaver town, this settlement’s barrier was a collage of boxcars from old, disassembled trains. Stacked op top of each other forming a ring around the entire town. A pegasus could still fly over them, but it would be more polite and customary to use the front door, so to speak.
Speaking of doors, it didn’t take long before we found the entrance. There was a giant gate on each side of the town.Guards were patrolling on the top of the train cars, looking down on us. Perhaps deciding if we were danger, but not attacking without reason. And we didn’t plan on giving them one.
But at least we had finally found it. The one place that had taken us almost a week to walk to on hoof. Cobalt, Wonderhoof and I probably could have reached it faster by flying, but Candy and Cupcake didn’t have wings, and those of us with them were still sore from carrying the mares out of the cannibal hideout in the remains of Ponyville.
As we approached the gates, they opened pleasantly. We made sure to close them behind us. Didn’t want any unwanted wasteland critters following us in, now did we? When we went inside, we realised that not just the wall defending the town was made of trains, the entire town was created from old train cars. Houses were two to three passenger cars stacked on top of each other. Catwalks connected the highest structures to one another. The highest of them all boasted a neon sign that read, “Turnpike Tavern”.
Wonderhoof noticed a giant tower of metal that overlooked the entire town. When he pointed it out, we noticed it had another long piece of metal that jutted out from near the top. It had a hook attached at the end. I realised that the crane we were looking at was how the ponies who built the wall had stacked them on top of each other with such precision.
The pony who greeted us was a grey earth pony with a black hair color. “Welcome to New Appleloosa.” he said with a warm smile. “Mah name is Railright. Ah’m the sheriff/mayor of this here settlement. What brings you fine folks here today?” He had a sort of country twang to his voice. Like he wasn’t the most educated pony ever, but the way he greeted us still assured me that we were welcome.
“We were looking for somepony named, ‘Ditzy Doo’. We heard about her writing something called the, ‘Wasteland Survival Guide’.” I told him, explaining our reason for being here.
“Ah, yer here to see ol’ Ditzy, is that it? Well, yer in luck, ‘cause she runs the local general store, Absolutely Everything. Would ya like me to point ya in the right direction?” Yes! He knew exactly where Ditzy was, but I was surprised to find out that she ran a general store. I nodded excitedly like a foal who had just gotten his cutie mark and found out that the job he received in the stable was exactly what he had wanted.
As Railright guided us, Candy trotted up to me. “He’s pretty helpful. He didn’t even ask us about our assortment of armament.”
“Maybe he’s used to ponies coming into town with weapons?” Wonderhoof suggested. “Or maybe he just didn’t care.” Cobalt thought out loud. “Cobalt! Shame on you!” Cupcake shot back at the changeling. “What?” he asked defensively. “Railright obviously cares. Or else he wouldn’t have offered to show us where Ditzy Doo is.” Cupcake said matter-of-factly. “And he didn’t ask us to remove all our weapons like in Tenpony, so he must trust us.” Candy added.
Whatever his reasons were, he was being helpful. That was really all that mattered. Except for the fact that he was giving us an extended tour instead of bringing us straight to Ditzy’s shop.
- - - - - - - - - -
Absolutely Everything was the fourth stop on the tour that Railright had given us. Though we were only here for Ditzy Doo’s Wasteland Survival Guide, it seemed rude to turn down helpful information about the town we were in. The general store was a combination of three different train cars, melded together to create the strange building. The one on top was a black metal coated car with a chimney out the top with smoke billowing out of it.
The door had signs below the name of the store explaining a little bit about how it worked:
Yes, I do deliveries!
No hooves, nasty stingers? No service.
Ask me about special orders! I won’t answer, but I’ll get right on it!
Wasteland Survival Guide! Available now! First copy for every family is free!
The first two signs didn’t concern me much in the least. The third sign made me wonder why she wouldn’t answer. But the last sign was what my eyes were drawn to. The Wasteland Survival Guide was free? Or at least, the first copy was free? The pony who ran this store sounded like one of the nicest ponies ever.
Opening the door, we were met with somepony who reminded us all too well of the slaver who had held Cobalt hostage. Luckily, it wasn’t Crossbones. Unless he had cleverly disguised himself as a female pegasus ghoul with more flesh over her whole body than he had on just his face.
The ghoul looked at us, surprised, then looked to Railright. “I brought some customers Ditzy. Hope that’s okay with ya.” Obviously not, because Ditzy immediately came to greet us. Smiling with her rotting teeth. Candy and Cupcake resisted the urge to purge their stomachs. Wonderhoof, Cobalt, and I just smiled back awkwardly. I’ll admit it. This wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. But at least she was still friendly.
“Ditzy here was one of the ponies the Stable Dweller rescued back in the Ponyville Ruins. Isn’t that right Ditzy?” She nodded in response. And I noticed that one of her eyes rolled up while the other didn’t, giving her an almost amusing feel.
We had all seen ghouls, except for Cupcake. Unless she was also acquainted with the leader of the slavers in the camp we had rescued her from. Either Ditzy or the store excreted a rotting smell. My brain went with the former, as I had recognised the smell from our encounter with Crossbones.
“Be sure to show these ponies around. According to DJ Pon3, they also rescued somepony. Just like our heroic Stable Dweller.”
Before Railright walked out of the store, my pipbuck’s music cut off. It was time for another one of DJ Pon3’s reports.
“I’ve been warning everypony for some time now to steer clear of Appleloosa. Well, it seems like the Stable Dweller either didn’t get the message, or chose to ignore it. I’ve gotten confirmed reports that the little gal marched into Appleloosa, and brought hell on her hooves. Freed over a dozen slaves, many of them foals. I’m happy to report that they’re safe and sound. But there’s a bitter note to this song. When a small army of slavers tried to take their captives back, our heroine of the wasteland sacrificed herself making sure everypony got away safe. So this next song goes out to you Stable Dweller. May Celestia and Luna wrap you in their tails…”
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. Could it be true? Was the famous Stable Dweller dead? It was a heroic act though. If I knew there was no way out, then I would want to go the same way she did. Protecting somepony from harm’s way. My prayers went out to her and to anypony who knew her.
Cupcake also was stirred. She had come from a slaver camp, so I could sympathise with her at the thought that there were others who were as fortunate as her to have been set free.
“Sweet Celestia…” Railright mumbled. “What?” I asked him. Something about DJ Pon3’s latest report shook him. Even more than me. But what? “Oh, it’s not much. It just so happens that ah knew the Stable Dweller. An’ shortly before she died, ah kinda had ‘er banned from entering New Appleloosa.”
What? WHAT?! What could have she done to deserve that?! I asked him this. Along with so many other questions I had waiting for his sorry ass.
“Well, she kinda got six of our best train ponies killed by slavers. Some of ‘em were friends o’ mine. She also destroyed one of our only functionin’ trains, and burned whatever peaceful relations New Appleloosa had with, um, some less than peaceful ponies. Now I gotta put more guards on the walls and send more ponies to guard the caravans we send out.”
I couldn’t believe any of this. The Stable Dweller obviously wasn’t perfect, but they couldn’t just forbid her from the town forever. “It’s not permanent.” he added. “Just until we’re sure she’s safe.” I still wasn’t buying it. “She may have made a few mistakes, but you can’t just do that to her!” I yelled in his face. “She was reckless an’ dangerous!” he countered.
I hated to admit it, but that did make sense. But wasn’t almost everypony in the wasteland reckless and dangerous? What made her any different?
I realised that we were still in Ditzy Doo’s shop. I apologized bashfully. “I looked like a fool, didn’t I?” I asked my friends. “If only you knew how foolish you looked.” Candy replied. Way to help.
Another thing struck me as odd. Ditzy Doo hadn’t said anything about my argument with Railright. In fact, she hadn’t said anything since we came through the door. “Is something wrong with her voice?” I asked Railright. He sighed before explaining.
“I’ll tell ya what Calamity told the Stable Dweller. Ditzy’s tongue was cut out by slavers.” She opened her mouth wide. I could see that she did, in fact, have no tongue. Ditzy walked behind the sales counter, and wrote something on a piece of paper. I mentally read the note. ‘Because I can’t talk, I started writing everything. Then I became the author.’
Author? Of the Wasteland Survival Guide? Which reminded me. “I forgot! That’s why we came here. To get a copy of your book.” She scribbled another note before picking up a thick cover book in her mouth, hoofing it to Candy, who grabbed in her magic to put in her saddlebags, then Ditzy showed us the new note. ‘Anything Else?’
I hadn’t thought to buy anything from Ditzy’s shop, but now that I thought about it, we were low on ammo, food, and medical supplies.
“What do you sell here?” I asked. The pegasus ghoul seemed to giggle at my question, or something relatively close to a giggle. Then wrote something else on her notepad. ‘Why do you think I named this store Absolutely Everything?’
Right. I sure felt silly now. However, I had originally thought that the name, “Absolutely Everything” was just a name. Not that it implied that Ditzy actually sold absolutely everything. “So you sell ammo? What about food? And medical supplies?” I asked as separate questions. She wrote down her answer. ‘Yes, Yes, and Yes.’
- - - - - - - - - -
We had really hit the jackpot with this friendly ghoul. Not just because she didn’t want to eat us, or sell us off to Celestia knew where, or because she wasn’t lying when she said she sold everything we needed and more, but because she seemed genuinely concerned about us, and that she actually cared that we were okay. She wasn’t just some random pony selling whatever junk she found, trying to earn enough caps to buy food just to survive.
She sold what ponies actually needed. She cared for ponies’ good health. I would almost consider her part of my family because she was so warm and welcoming. The cross-eyed pegasus was also kind enough to insist that we take blueprints for something called a “Sparkle Grenade”. Apparently, filling somepony’s belly wasn’t all that a sparke-cola was good for. A sparkle cola that exploded when thrown. It sounded wonderful.
When we left the store, there was a little colt outside who apparently was about to open the door. “Hi!” the little colt said to us. “Can I see Derpy?!” Who? At first, I thought he meant to say, “Ditzy”, but he might have actually meant to say Derpy.
Suddenly, a mare in a straw sunhat was running up to the colt, trying to pull him away from the store. “Oh, there you are! I’ve been looking all over for you! Please excuse me. This one is hard to keep track of. And for some reason, he keeps insisting on bothering the ghoul in there, even though I tell him to stay with me!” She said the last line to her colt harshly before trotting away. Keeping an eye on the colt to make sure he didn’t wander off again.
When I asked Railright why the little colt had called the pegasus trader, “Derpy” instead of, “Ditzy Doo,” he said that some ponies in New Appleloosa called her that because of her wandering eye. Poor thing. And I was pretty sure some of them even referred to Ditzy as a “Thing” because she didn’t look like a normal pony. I wondered if she got harassed because of it…
Before my brain could go down that route, my eye noticed a vague shadow in the corner of my vision. It looked like a pony, with wings, and a horn! But when I looked at the figure directly, the image disappeared from my vision. I reappeared when I looked away. Weird.
It reminded me of the pseudo-alicorns I had seen in the stable’s Observation Room. Was it really one of those? Or were my eyes just playing tricks on me? Either way, it was hard to believe there was an alicorn other than the goddesses.
“Did any of you see that?” I asked my companions. “See what?” Wonderhoof asked. “Oh, nothing. Just a pseudo-goddess-alicorn by any chance?” They smiled. “Good one DJ.” Cupcake replied.
“It’s no joke.” said a voice. We looked around for somepony who could have said it, but we didn’t see anyone. Just a hooded figure leaning against a building in the shadows...Oh. Well, it seemed we had found the voice.
“What is it?” I asked the stranger. He kept his face hidden under his hood, so I couldn’t tell who it was. I could, however tell it was a he because the voice was deep, and masculine like mine. “It’s what the ponies here and all over the wasteland call an alicorn.”
So it wasn’t my eyes playing tricks on me! I actually HAD seen an alicorn. I tried to look back to where I had seen it, but even in the corner of my eye, there was nothing to see this time. The alicorn was gone. My friends looked at me strangely.
“What can you tell us-” I managed to get out before I realised that the pony was gone! We tried to run into the alley to see where he went, but no luck. He had simply vanished.
“Damn!” Exclaimed Cobalt. “How’d he do that? I wished I had that kind of disappearing act.” Wonderhoof chuckled before reminding Cobalt that he could just turn into something that nopony would suspect, like a trash can. Cobalt remembered, and turned into said trashcan to prove it. “Nevermind.”
I rolled my eyes at his antics. I still wanted to know about these “Alicorns”. And moreso, who that pony was that told us what to look for. But one step at a time.
We started asking around for answers to what they knew about the alicorns. Most ponies didn’t know anything. Some only knew that they had horns and wings. Some ran away when we asked. Strange. We finally found a batch of ponies who didn’t seem in a hurry. “Excuse us, but have you heard of the alicorns?” we asked them.
“Go away! We don’t need preachers of the goddess in our town! Tell her we’re not interested in joining her stupid ‘Unity’ or whatever!” they yelled before trotting away like the rest.
This was just like Cobalt and Wonderhoof had talked about before we went to the slaver town. Except nopony had mentioned the colors of the alicorns or what powers they had.
Then we saw a pony with enough scars to give Crossbones a run for his caps. But he wasn’t a ghoul. He was a flesh and bone normal pony. Just with lots and lots of scars. I walked up to him, with my friends close behind.
He was a light brown earth pony with a blood red mane and tail, which I saw as an odd color combination. His cutie mark was three scratches. Either that, or some creature had scratched the area where his cutie mark used to be. “Excuse me?” I asked.
He was wearing a green camouflage shirt. His left hoof had three scratches on it, similar to his cutie mark, and his left eye also had a scar over it.
“What do you want?” he asked in an annoyed tone. Either we had come at a bad time, or he was just the grumpy type. He also had a knife held in a sheath on his right foreleg. I hoped he wouldn’t decide to shut me up with it.
“Sorry to be an inconvenience, but we were hoping you could take the time to answer some questions for us?” I asked nicely. He responded to my question by pouncing on me like some sort of massive cat, pinning me down. “Who are you?! Why are you here?! Who do you work for?!” he yelled at me. Okay, the jumpy type. Literally. “DJ!” My friends yelled. It was nice to have friends who cared so much.
“Ow! I mean, my name is DJ, I don’t work for anyone, and if you let me get up, I can introduce my friends.” I said, answering two of his questions. He finally moved away, allowing me back up to my hooves, while still being cautious.
I dusted the dirt off my barding and pointed my hoof to each of my friends. “The two unicorns are Candy and Cupcake. The changeling is Cobalt. And the other pegasus is Wonderhoof. He’s a certified doctor.”
The scratched pony narrowed his eyes. “You still didn’t tell me what you’re doing here. Why would five ponies be going around in New Appleloosa asking questions?” If he would have let me finish, then he would know why we were going around asking questions.
“Well, we-” I started before getting cut off by Cobalt. “We were asking questions about the alicorns everyone’s been talking about. What do you know about them? What’s your name anyway?” I facehoofed. “Cobalt, I was going to say-” I started again, and again I was cut off. This time by the scratched pony.
“My name is none of your concern, changeling. I don’t even know why one of your kind is down here in the mainland wasteland anyway.”
Mainland? What could he mean by that? “Why should I tell you my reasons for being down here, if you won’t even divulge your name?!” Hoof, meet face. Also, light meet eyes as Cobalt turned into a duplicate of the scratched pony. “I’m not surprised by your little tricks. Any unicorn with half a brain could find a spell to do just that.”
“Uh oh.” I heard Cupcake say. “Does that mean I don’t have half a brain? Because I don’t know any spells like that.” Face, welcome back to Hoofville. Population, one hoof. “How’s about a challenge?” I heard the pony say, redirecting my attention. “Challenge you say?” Cobalt asked as he reverted back to his own form. “Yes. If you beat me in a one on one match of strength, then I’ll tell you everything I know about the alicorns. And I’ll even tell you my name.”
Cobalt couldn’t seriously accept this pony’s crazy challenge. “Cobalt, maybe we can just find somepony else?” Candy asked. Cobalt stood bravely.
“And run away from a challenge? Never. I accept your challenge. May the best brawler win.” I facehoofed for the third time in five minutes. It was also my record for most facehoofs in one day. “Alright. The terms are set. But let’s not fight here. We don’t want any innocent civilians getting caught up now do we?”
Cobalt replied like a warrior, or perhaps more like a scholar. It was hard to tell. “I see you are a pony of culture as well.” Culture?! Cobalt had just accepted a challenge to fight for answers from a strange pony we barely knew, and he was talking about CULTURE?!
- - - - - - - - - -
The pony had led us outside the gate of New Appleloosa for the standoff. But still close enough that we could easily run back for help if things got out of control. I was also sick of referring to him as, “The pony,” or, “The scratched pony,” so until we would learn his real name, I was just going to refer to him as, “Scratches”.
He had drawn a circle about 20 feet in diameter. Which was pretty big, considering this was only a friendly sparring match. Scratches had made the rules very clear. The first pony to set a hoof outside the circle he drew would lose. He also said that if somepony was unable to continue the fight, then they would lose.
Scratches stood at one side of the circle, and Cobalt stood at the other. “Alright, you know the rules. First one to knock out, or push the other out of the ring wins.”
Before they started, Cupcake asked the stranger, “Um, you won’t kill him will you?” He smiled. “Don’t worry. At worst, I’ll just hurt him. A lot. But nothing close to death.”
That didn’t really reassure me. We didn’t know this pony, or what he was capable of. We only knew that he had a sharp, serrated knife at the ready.
“Three! Two! One! Fight!” Wonderhoof yelled, starting the match before trotting back to join up with the rest of us.
Scratches didn’t waste any time. He ran at Cobalt, who jumped out of the way at the last second. His opponent was fast! But something told me he also had experience. No matter what move Cobalt made, Scratches stayed on his transparent tail. Cobalt weaved left and right, trying to avoid being cut by the blade of the knife. But he wasn’t looking where he was going, and almost stepped clear out of the ring!
As Celestia and Luna would have it, luck was on his side, as he jumped back closer to the center of the ring after being only inches from the edge of the circle. This wasn’t going to be easy.
Finally, Cobalt stopped dodging, and turned into a pony with claws on the ends of his legs that ended with paws rather than hooves. He looked like the mixture of a pony and a wolf. This new form was entirely grey with white fur on the underside of his belly, and on the ends of his paws.
Cobalt started swiping his paws at Scratches, but he easily dodged Cobalt’s strikes, even trying to close the gap and strike Cobalt himself! The knife cut through the fur covered hide of Cobalt’s form, drawing blood, making Cobalt yell out in pain. The crimson color started staining the fur on Cobalt’s form.
Cobalt jumped back, holding a paw to the gash that was now bleeding profusely. Breathing heavily, he reverted back to his normal form. And to my surprise, the gash healed! “Ah, I see.” said the pony who had put away the knife to speak clearly. “When you change your form, you heal whatever physical injuries you have.” he said in understanding. “But how long can you keep it up? I imagine it saps your energy to change forms, much less sustain them. How long will it take for you to run out of juice, I wonder?” he said before pulling the knife out again, still stained with red.
Cobalt changed back to the furry form of a wolf/pony combination. Trying to avoid the knife, but also trying to land a hit as well. So far, no such luck. Scratches landed another slash, this time grazing his back. Not as bad as last time, but still making Cobalt flinch in pain, and making his coat stain red with his own blood.
This wasn’t looking good. Scratches had already landed two blows to Cobalt, and the changeling had yet to draw blood from the pony.
Why didn’t Cobalt just change into something bigger, or something that would give him the edge in this fight. I had an idea. “Cobalt! You should-” “Don’t help me DJ. It wouldn’t be fair.” Cobalt cut me off again. Fair?! This fight was already one sided! “Cobalt! Don’t be stupid! He’s-” Cobalt cut me off again. I hated that. “Listen DJ. This isn’t about being smart or stupid. This is a matter of honor and pride.” was all he said.
“Honor?! Pride?!” I asked my other friends who would actually listen. “How could he talk about something like that at a time like this?!”
Wonderhoof answered me as we watched the fight. “DJ, Cobalt doesn’t want help, because he feels that if you helped him, then if he won, wouldn’t feel like he deserved it.” I couldn’t believe him! “DJ. Try to understand. If you wanted to beat somepony one on one, and someone else told you how to win, then would it really have been a fair fight?” he asked me.
But. I. He. Huh? Well, it wouldn’t feel like a real victory, but when you’re fighting for your life, why would someone care about something as ridiculous as PRIDE?
As Scratches chased Cobalt around inside the circle, I tried to understand. I really did, but I just couldn’t see the reason. What good is honor if you kill your opponent? What good is pride if there’s nopony else? “DJ!” Scratches yelled at me. I looked up to see he was finally wounded! Cobalt had managed to scratch one of his sides. It wasn’t as bad as Cobalt’s own wounds, but it proved that Scratches couldn’t dodge forever either. “See this scratch?! This is proof of a warrior’s pride! Of a soldier’s courage! These aren’t just battle scars. They are marks of pride and honor! Don’t you see?! Cobalt managed to get a hit on me without anyone else’s help! Don’t you have faith in your friend?!”
The last question cut through me worse than any knife. Of course I had faith in Cobalt. I had as much faith in him as any of my other friends. I.....just cared about him, that was all. If he died in battle because I didn’t help him, because I stood aside and let him die in the name of honor or pride, when I could have done something about it. Done something to prevent it from happening, then I could never forgive myself.
“Alright. That’s it. You win.”
What? Why was he saying that? All Cobalt did was graze his side. In fact, I was willing to bet Scratches could still have won. Why was he forfeiting? As he stepped out of the circle, I realised something. Cobalt had proven his strength against someone stronger than him.
“Cobalt, the real reason I challenged you was to see if you were a true warrior. If you had the same pride and honor that any good soldier had. And because you refused the help of your friends, and still managed to land a strike, I hereby accept you as someone who deserves the truth.”
Cobalt pretty much radiated with pride. His smile was that of someone who had proven themself. “And by the way. My name, is Tigerslash.”
- - - - - - - - - -
Scratches.….No…...Tigerslash had led us back to his house in New Appleloosa. Wonderhoof insisted on tending to the cut on his side, but our new honor-bound friend had declined medical treatment. What with the new scar that was forming being a “New mark of pride and friendship” as Tigerslash had called it.
“So, explaining what I know about Alicorns was it?” he asked us. We nodded. We could use whatever information he had. “Well, to start off, the alicorns are all connected to somepony called, ‘The Goddess’. And they’re all connected to each other through the telepathic communication connection they call, ‘Unity’.”
So alicorns were connected to The Goddess through Unity. Got it.
“The Goddess is stationed in Maripony, to the northeast. But be careful. That place is swarming with alicorns. The Goddess is sort of like the Queen Bee in the Hive of Unity. It is through the Goddess that every alicorn can hear, see, smell, and feel what every other alicorn can. That means that if you somehow manage to kill one, the others learn from it, and you can’t kill one using the same method again. It’s like the old saying goes. ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’ You can’t kill two alicorns using the same strategy twice.”
“What about the different colors? What do those mean?” I asked Tigerslash as he gave us some sparkle cola and sunrise sarsaparilla to drink.
“The color of the alicorn tells you what special ability it has. The blue ones can turn invisible, the purple ones can teleport, and the green ones, huh. I can’t seem to remember what the green ones can do. Sorry.”
I shook my head. “Don’t apologise. You’ve been such a great help. You said that the alicorns and their Goddess are in Maripony, correct?”
He nodded. “But I would advise against going there. I’ve heard that some ponies that go there never come back.”
Okay, THAT was a thought I didn’t need in my head. But if it was just a rumor, then there was a chance that it wasn’t true right?
“But how do you know so much about alicorns? Did you fight them?” I asked in an excited tone. I would love to know how to dispatch one if one started attacking. But then I remembered that it wouldn’t matter because the alicorns learn each time one of them is killed.
“Oh, that was a long time ago. But it wasn’t me who fought them. I once knew the legendary alicorn hunter, Steelhooves!”
Steelhooves? Alicorn hunter? He sounded strong. Very strong. But whatever happened to make them part ways was his business. We thanked him for everything and were about to leave when I remembered something. When we first asked him, Tigerslash had been very paranoid about something. “Tigerslash?” I asked before turning around. “Why were you so nervous the first time we asked you?”
I hoped it wasn’t too much of a sensitive subject. “Oh, it’s just that I pissed off some slavers a while back, and they’ve been after me ever since. Thought you were maybe one of them.”
It sure was a relief! Slavers wouldn’t look in such a place. But if they would, then they would probably be shot on sight by the guards on the walls. It made me so much more depressed that we would be leaving the comfort and protection that was, New Appleloosa.
- - - - - - - - - -
“I really miss the protection of New Appleloosa!” I thought out loud as I ran away from the spray of bullets that was flying at me. Since we had left the sanctity of New Appleloosa, several raiders had thought to use us for target practice.
The raiders had seen us before we had seen them, which allowed them to land a few bullets in my hide as well as my friends. As I chugged a healing potion, I thought if this was really necessary as I watched the holes in my side heal slowly.
Beside me, Candy shot back at the raiders with her 10mm pistol. I wondered if she knew about S.A.T.S. If she did, then she wasn’t using it on purpose. If she didn’t, then that was at our disadvantage. One more raider fell, full of holes. These raiders were taking more shots to kill than any of the others we had encountered yet. “Why is this taking so long?!” I yelled. “We should be halfway to Maripony by now! But these raiders just won’t quit!”
Wonderhoof yelled back. He and Cupcake didn’t have any weapons, so they were behind us, out of the battle. “I think they might be high on drugs! Depending on which ones they’re using, it might explain why they’re so much stronger than the others!”
I had no idea what he was talking about. He rolled his eyes at my confusion “They’re giving themselves advantages!” he simplified, making it clear to me.
“Ah! Now I get it!” I yelled back. Even if these raiders were using some sort of drugs to enhance their abilities, they still were no match for the combined firepower of Candy, Cobalt, and I.
It may have taken longer than preferred, but the raiders were falling. Slowly, but they were. One after another. They might have been high, but to me, that more than guaranteed our victory.
The last raider was heavily guarded by sheets of metal. We couldn’t lay a shot on him. I had an idea that would bring him out of hiding if it worked, but could prove fatal to myself if it didn’t.
I turned back to my friends who were hiding behind separate piles of rocks, still trying to hit the hidden raider, preventing him from getting any closer. “Candy, I’m going to try and draw his fire away from you. That way, you and Cobalt can hit him when he comes out of hiding.”
Candy looked at me with her mouth open. “Are you crazy?! You could get yourself killed!” I had expected as much from her. Cobalt shot me a look that was probably saying this was a bad idea.
“Candy, if I don’t draw away his fire, we’re going to run out of ammo. Then what’s stopping him from killing us?” She was stunned. I had her up against a wall and she knew it.
“But…DJ…you…what?!” She stuttered. “I’m sorry. But don’t worry. I don’t plan on getting killed anytime soon.” I answered. Before she could protest further, I ran in front of the rubble we were using for cover, and made sure the raider saw me. “HEY!” I yelled. “I’M OVER HERE!” I called to the raider. I now had his full attention. He even stopped shooting at my friends to look over at me. I could see his grin widening as he thought I was dead.
I started running. Not towards him, that would be suicide. But away from the cover he was using. I looked behind me and sure enough, the raider was giving chase. It was a mistake. My friends ambushed him with Candy’s 10mm and Cobalt’s assault rifle.
Cobalt had swapped out his form of a wolf-pony hybrid that he had fought Tigerslash with, for a more suitable weapon for fighting raiders. Even though he could just heal his wounds by changing his form again.
I caught up with my friends who were now taking the time to loot the bodies of the raiders we had just killed. Candy greeted me with a hug. So strong it was almost strangling. “AH, Candy! I’m glad to see you alive and well too! But it wouldn’t have made any difference if you constrict me here and now!”
Candy finally released me from her choking grasp. “Sorry! I’m just so glad your plan worked so well! And you made it out without a scratch!” Well, if a scratch was a few new bullet holes in my hide.
“Let me see if can do something about those wounds.” Wonderhoof said as he walked towards me and Candy. I scoffed at the thought that a doctor in the wasteland didn’t know how to cure ponies of bullet holes.
“We need to stop getting shot up so much.” I commented after drinking one of the purple liquid miracles. “We’re almost out of healing potions.” I added as I watched the holes in my hide slowly close. And I wasn’t wrong. We had used up almost our entire supply of healing potions since leaving New Appleloosa, and were running dangerously low.
“Don’t worry.” Replied Wonderhoof. “I always carry an emergency supply in my saddlebags.” But the ones we’re using are fromyour saddlebags. I mentally added, but didn’t say out loud.
“But we should restock as soon as possible anyway.” He added, apparently seeing my concern. That reassured me enough to not insist we turn back to New Appleloosa immediately. But it still worried me how short our supply had grown so quickly.
“We are also a bit short on ammunition for the guns we’re using.” added Cobalt as he walked up to us. “Didn’t you find any ammo boxes? Every raider camp we’ve come across so far had at least two of them.”
Cobalt nodded. “There are three ammo boxes here, but they were locked, so I came to you to see if you could work your magic on them.”
Magic. Right. I shook my head and smiled as I followed Cobalt to where the raiders had stored their ammo. Just as he said, there were three small green boxes that were indeed locked. I pulled out my screwdriver and bobby pins.
The first box gave pretty easily. The second one gave a little resistance, but still opened without much trouble. “This is too easy.” I said with a smirk. I was proved wrong when the third box proved to be tougher than both of the other ones combined. I moved the pin steadily, trying not to break it. Snap.
I pulled out another bobby pin. “I stand corrected.” I said to the box, as if it was a pony who was beating me in a hoofwrestle. I gently moved the pin into position, and thought I had found the perfect spot to move the screwdriver. Snap.
I was starting to get annoyed with this ammo box. I tried once more, moving the pin a little more than the last time. Snap.
Okay, I had just declared this ammo box to be my nemesis. I couldn’t keep this up. I was wasting all my bobby pins on what was probably just some 10mm ammo or shotgun shells. I decided that if this next bobby pin broke, then I would quit and let this box keep it’s secrets.
Thankfully, Lady Luck was smiling on me just as I thought the pin was going to break. I heard a click, and the box opened. I finally released a breath I didn’t realise I was holding. Opening locked boxes is hard.
Inside the boxes, we had found plenty of shotgun shells, a suitable amount of assault rifle clips, and enough 10mm rounds to last a good long time.
We were just about to leave when I noticed something under a piece of cloth. It was a sphere, and it looked like it was made out of either glass or some sort of crystal. “What is it?” I wondered out loud as I showed it to everyone. Wonderhoof jumped to see it. “I know what this is!” He exclaimed.
“Oh really? Well, don’t leave us in the dark.” I said inquisitively. He answered while inspecting the item in question. “This is a memory orb. They were used before the war to magically record events that happened. They are extremely rare. I’m surprised that these raiders had one.”
I was about to remind him that raiders didn’t care what they took, and probably didn’t even know what it was that they had in their possession, but I kept silent. They probably took it off some poor pony minding his own business. Then one thought went to another, and I was suddenly wondering if the pony had either been enslaved or killed. Another one for the closet of locked away thoughts.
“How do they work?” I asked, trying to redirect my derailed train of thought. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve heard that only certain ponies can use them, if they know how they work at all.”
Great. I put it in my saddlebags for later use. If it was a recording of what happened before the wasteland, then it could be of use to us later on.
Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Special Speech- During interaction with someone else, you now have the chance for unique dialogue options.
Maripony. The central area of command for what, or who ponies called “The Goddess”. Despite knowing very little about The Goddess or her “Alicorns” as ponies called them, we had not encountered a single one since Candy and I had left the stable, which I found odd.
We had defeated at least several dozens raiders between New Appleloosa and Maripony. I wondered how they could be so large in numbers, but still only be a minor inconvenience to ponies. Well, at least ponies who could defend themselves.
Halfway between the last raider camp and Maripony, DJ Pon3’s radio station broadcasted another message.
“Good evening wastelanders! How’d everypony doing? Got some good news for you today! Remember that little Stable Gal who took on the slavers of Appleloosa and saved all those ponies? Well, don’t ask me how, but she survived takin’ a nosedive off a cliff in a speeding train. That’s right fillies and gentlecolts: she’s back!”
I thought I could feel my heart skip a beat, but before I could start asking questions, the recording played on.
“And what’s she been up to now, I hear you ask? Well, sit down an’ put on your listening ears, cuz it’s time for DJ Pon3 to tell you a story. Ready? Good. This is the story of a little filly named Silver Bell…”
- - - - - - - - - -
After we had listened to the entire story, we were a mixed batch of shock, worry, pain, anger, and sadness. The filly named Silver Bell. It was unbelievable. Slavers. The cruel, black-hearted bastards. The story only helped fortify my feelings towards them that I already had.
I could tell Cupcake was also having a reaction to DJ Pon3’s report. I could understand, as she was a rescued slave herself, and would have mixed reactions after hearing that somepony took on the slavers of Old Appleloosa.
Along with the story on Silver Bell, DJ Pon3 also updated his (or her as I knew, but would never say) listeners on the progress of Security’s journey through the wasteland.
“And for all you folks out east who feel like you don’t have a ‘Stable Dweller’ of your own, here’s a little heads up on what Security’s been up to. Yes, Hoofington, she’s been busy busy busy. If you thought cleaning up the Manehattan Highway was impressive you should see what else Security is doing for the Hoof. It looks like the Fluttershy hospital is open for business again, courtesy of… whoa, can this report be accurate? It must be! Looks like Security actually got the Eggheads and the Bluebloods working together. Talk about a miracle. And it seems like she’s got a bone to pick with the slavers in Paradise. Let’s play the audio!”
“Get the fuck out of here. Find another line of work. Tell every slaver you know to find another line of work. I see you doing this shit again and I will turn you into paint! Do you understand me? Do you fucking understand me?!”
‘Yes!’
“Looks like the Security Mare is just reminding Paradise that ponies selling ponies to ponies who work ponies to death is wrong. And Security doesn’t like wrong. So in light of that, Hoofington, this is just for you from Sapphire Shores’s hit…”
I turned off the radio without waiting to hear the name of the song. As I tried to wrap my brain around DJ Pon3’s latest two broadcasts, I noticed something. When I was in the Observation room of Stable 27, I vaguely remembered that The Hoof was somewhere out in the western part of the Equestrian Wasteland. We were in the eastern area between Ponyville and Fillydelphia. Or, as the ponies we talked to referred to Fillydelphia as, “The Fillydelphia Crater”.
Apparently, during the war, the zebras had detonated a megaspell directly under the city center, creating an extremely radioactive crater where the center of the city used to be. Two hundred years must have lowered the danger of radioactivity, but as it turns out, the rumors, the rumors say that anypony who is told to go into the crater by their slaver masters was told to walk into their eventual death.
Did I forget to mention that Fillydelphia is where somepony called Red Eye is building an army of slavers?
Despite Tigerslash’s warnings that alicorns attacked without concern, no alicorns attacked us, which was strange. Maybe they thought that if we caused trouble, they could swarm us in an instant. Or that we wouldn’t be dumb enough to cause trouble with so many alicorns around anyway.
As we approached the area the alicorns were circling, we saw that it wasn’t just a building, it was a building that had a third of it missing! Where that said third should’ve been, there was a massive crater that looked to be several miles across.
As I tried to get closer to the crater, my PipBuck alerted me that the crater was radioactive, as the geiger counter gauge in the corner of my PipBuck that had always remained in the green without moving, was now creeping towards yellow with a steady tick tick tick.
I stared into the crater long enough to see that there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of holes within the crater itself. Something told me that the alicorns weren’t the only inhabitants of Maripony. My thoughts were proven correct when I felt the ground shaking. I thought it might have been an earthquake, as the ground shook when there was an earthquake as I had read.
Unfortunately, that theory was proven wrong when a hole appeared in the ground mere feet from where my friends and I were standing. A second later, a creature looked at us from inside the hole. I had never seen such a creature before. Even in the stable’s library, there was not a single thing that resembled anything close to what this was.
It looked somewhat canine, with sharp teeth, sharp eyes, and sharp claws. Correction, REALLY sharp, REALLY LONG claws. I felt fear for the first time for real in the Equestrian Wasteland. If just looking at it made me scared, then I didn’t want to imagine how easily it could turn me into ground meat with a single slash. In it’s really sharp, really long claws, it held a box shaped device. Again, this was something completely alien to me. “Maybe its friendly’ I thought desperately as I stared into it’s face. I realised too slow that the creature was now pointing the box device right at us!
Instincts kicked in as I jumped out of the way just in time as a bright pink beam of light cut through the air right where I had been standing a mere millisecond ago. “How did you do that?” Cupcake asked in astonishment. There were two reasons why I didn’t answer her. One, I had no idea, and two, there was a ferocious dog-looking monster pointing something possibly deadly at us!
I immediately reached for my shotgun that, once I held it in my mouth, simply fell apart! “GOTH DAMM ITH!” I yelled through the now useless grip of the gun. I spat out the broken piece and grabbed my security baton. “If I can’t shoot you, then I’ll beat you to death myself!” I said, forgetting the incredibly sharp claws the creature had. “DJ! DON’T DO IT!” Wonderhoof yelled as I charged the beast. I ignored him. I planned to protect my friends. Besides, how sharp could the claws be anyway?
As I charged the creature, it looked up from the scope of the beam gun it was using and looked at me in surprise as I readied my weapon. I slung the gun across it’s back and held it’s claw to the side, ready to swat me away like an annoying bug. Then I did something reckless. I spread my wings and flew above the creature’s head, but not out of it’s claw range. It’s claws grazed my underside and cut me open as if I were made of butter! I exploded in pain as I felt my blood staining my hide. I lost balance in flight and ended up crashing headfirst into the ground several meters away from the creature, and even further from my friends.
“DJ! NOOOO!” I heard Candy scream as I rolled onto my wings and saw the world go sideways and then upside down. I saw my blood pool around me as I started to feel dizzy. I was going to die and I knew it. Blood loss from what was definitely not a simple graze. ‘Very sharp,’ I mentally joked as Candy and the others ran up to me.
Then a miracle happened. Three of the alicorns circling the building flew down to where the creature was and raised magical shields. I wondered what they could possibly do to help without weapons. Then my mind took a darker turn. What if they saw me as dying prey, and were going to pick my bones clean as I slowly died of blood loss? Luckily, they seemed more interested in the creature that sliced my stomach open. One of the alicorns, a purple one, conjured magic arrows and flung them at the creature. Too distracted by the green one, who suddenly disappeared, the creature didn’t have a fast enough reaction time to dodge the arrows shot by the purple one. The arrows tore through the creature’s skull and chest with such force that it was identifiable by the time the last arrow shot through it.
“Wow.” I said weakly. My heartrate was slowing down. “They make it look easy….” I strained before feeling even more intense pain, this time from my chest. “Okay, talking’s a bad…..idea...…” I trailed off before I started seeing my vision darken. I coughed up blood. “NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo. Don’t die DJ, please. You can’t die, you won’t die. I need a healing potion!” Candy yelled at Wonderhoof, who was startled before frantically searching his saddlebags, which I now noticed had three faded yellow butterflies on the sides of them. His rummaging stopped and he looked up sadly. “Candy. We’re out of healing potions.”
“What?!” she exclaimed angrily, now half-crying. “NO! This can’t be! We have to have at least one! Please! He needs a healing potion RIGHT NOW!” I was deeply moved by how insistent Candy was with saving my life. But if we had no healing potions, then I was screwed. “I should have known things were going too well for us.” I heard Cobalt say.
As my vision was darkening, I realised that I might also have internal bleeding from the impact of the fall. I was going to die even faster than I thought I was. “Wonder…..hoof.” I tried saying despite now seeing two of everything. “DJ, don’t talk. You’ve lost so much blood already, that-” he stopped in the middle of his sentence. At first, I thought it was the Angel of Death who had come for my soul and to guide me to the afterlife. After further inspection, I realised that it was not The Reaper Pony, but in fact, the green alicorn that had disappeared earlier.
She stood tall and mighty over the five of us as she said nothing. Her flowing mane resembled that of the Princesses before the world went to Hell. I was now beginning to feel faint as I did some math and calculated that I had lost about thirty five percent of my blood by now. I was going to be dead within three minutes. Staring at the alicorn, I found my eyes drawn to her flank, where I saw…..NOTHING! The green pseudo-goddess had no cutie mark at all!
“It is not yet time for you to die, DJ.” she said somehow without moving her mouth. Then her horn glowed, and I felt myself lift into the air, surrounded by a sheath of green magic. It felt similar to flying, except my wings weren’t moving. Then, it all happened at once. My blood flew back into my wound, the giant slash in my chest healed, and I felt rested, renewed, and exactly how I felt before leaving the stable. Okay. I hadn’t felt this way in, how long? Three days? Wow. Time sure flies when you’re fighting just to stay alive.
The alicorn then rested me softly back to the ground, where I was instantly hugged furiously by Candy and Cupcake. Cobalt seemed relieved, but also troubled, and Wonderhoof was in awe of the miraculous healing magic of an alicorn. “Candy! Cupcake! You’re squishing me!” I tried to exclaim, because I really was being killed with kindness as the two mares continued to crush the wind out of my lungs. Finally, the hugging subsided, and I could now see clearly and without darkened vision, that they were both crying their eyes out so intensely that they were both still sobbing.
“DJ! We thought you were dead for sure!” Cupcake cried. Honestly, so did I. The only reason I was alive right now was because of the generosity and kindness of the Unity Alicorns. Which reminded me…
I glanced at the alicorn that had told me I wasn’t supposed to die, and I saw that she was gone! I looked around for her, and I saw that she was now flying above us and looking back with her body facing Maripony. I had the feeling that she wanted us to follow her. Lucky for her, that was where we were planning to go anyway.
Then Wonderhoof bit me in my wing, trying to arouse my attention. I winced as his teeth dug into my feathers, but otherwise felt no more pain. “What?” I asked half annoyed. His expression read that he was no longer excited, but now he looked…….concerned. “I don’t think we should trust them DJ. Who knows what their alternative motives are.” ‘Alternative motives?’ I thought. I felt it ridiculous that they would so graciously save my life and then expect something in return, or even that they had anything sinister planned for us. If they wanted us dead, they would have let me bleed out from a giant gash in my chest and simply killed the rest of my friends.
“Why shouldn’t we trust them? So far, they saved my life, and in extension, our lives. So in my book, I think they have reason to have their voices heard.” Metaphorically, of course. Because for some reason, when the alicorn spoke to me, I didn’t hear her voice with my ears, but rather in my head. It was as if she was talking to me telepathically. But that was impossible……..Right?
“I think your book is a few hundred years out of date…” Wonderhoof mumbled, but I pretended not to hear. I didn’t need a sour apple ruining the bushel of sweet luck that was my head still attached to my shoulders. “I don’t know, DJ. Wonderhoof has a point.” Cupcake added. Great, now that was two ponies who didn’t agree with my judgement. I was the Overstallion of my stable. I was incapable of making bad decisions. After all, if I made one bad decision as the leader of the stable, then the entire population would suffer because of my incompetence. Or at least, that had been what my mother had told me.
Candy spoke next. “I think we should hear them out. Maybe they could help us get to the Crystal Empire faster.” THANK YOU! I was enjoying her company more and more in this harsh environment. The four of us slowly turned our heads towards Cobalt. “What?” he asked stupidly. I rolled my eyes as our local doctor explained what his importance in this conversation was. “That makes two for yes and two for no. You have to be the tie breaker Cobalt.”
His pupils narrowed extremely before he started stuttering. “Wha...wha…..wha…..why me?? You can...come to some sort of…...conclusion…...on your own. I…..I....can't be....the tie breaker.” This time Wonderhoof rolled his eyes. “You don’t have a choice. As a wise pony once said, it is not my honor, but it is my duty to be the tie breaking vote.” Cobalt was surprised by Wonderhoof’s answer, and it was my turn to roll my eyes. “What wise pony said that?” Wonderhoof simply smiled and said, “Trust me, you don’t know them.”
“Soooo….” Candy said slowly, trying to redirect the situation. “What do you say Cobalt?” Now, all of us were staring at Cobalt, waiting for an answer. All of us except for the alicorns, who I now realized hadn’t moved an inch. They were like statues now, simply waiting for us to make a decision. But it was really creepy.
“Well, it isn’t really that simple you guys…” Cobalt said cautiously, obviously trying to avoid the question. “We should consider our options, look over the statistics, and figure out which choice is the best course of action.”
Candy suddenly became the leader for the moment. “Guys, we came here to see The Goddess anyway, so we should follow the alicorn to Her because She’s the pony we’re here to see.” I realized that she was right. I remembered now that we had come to Maripony to see The Goddess.
Looking back at the alicorns, who were now moving their heads as they silently motioned for us to follow. Walking towards the central area, I thought I heard Candy saying, “Well, are you sure?” under her breath, but it might have been one of the many voices in my head from The Goddess’s telepathy. I hoped it was from the Goddess’s telepathy. I hoped she was just trying to communicate with one of the Goddess’s many echoing voices, but I was skeptical now. Candy hadn’t really acted like herself since we left the stable, and I had been growing concerned for the pink unicorn ever since our first encounter with raiders. “Candy?” I asked cautiously. “Who are you talking to?”
Candy started looking really nervous, like I had just struck the broken key on a piano and the whole keyboard would break because of it. “Nothing. It’s nothing. It’s just those many voices that speak individually when The Goddess talks. I thought one of them had told me to do something, but it must have been my imagination.” Now I was really suspicious. There was something about the way she had asked whatever it was that had supposedly asked to do something if it was sure. Sure about what? “You looked like you were actually in a deep conversation with the voice Candy. Are you sure there’s not something you’re not telling me?”
This time she collapsed, hunching over as we continued to walk with the alicorn. “Alright fine, it was Her that told me to convince you guys to follow her alicorn to her. She said there was something She wanted to show us.” I had broken the lock on the chain. She told me the truth. Was it really that hard? But wait. “Did She happen to mention what it was that She wanted to show us?” Cobalt asked sarcastically. I shot him a look. He shut up, but maintained his composure. “She didn’t say.” Candy replied with a shrug.
Now, the alicorn had stopped walking and was in front of the huge building. “Inside here,” the alicorn said without turning her head or even waiting for a response. We followed.
Inside the massive building, there were multiple hallways branching off into different areas. All of them were broken, crumbling shells of actual buildings, but miraculously hadn’t collapsed entirely yet. Near the end of the hall, we were guided to what looked like a security substation.
The two strangest things about this new room were, one, it was almost new in comparison to the crumbling remains of hallways we had been led through, and two, the choice in furniture was odd. There were some chairs, four monitors covered in dust with a microphone, a filing cabinet and a few impossibly untouched coffee cups. The wall above the monitors was made out of glass, but the window looked out at nothing but a metal wall mere inches away. The wall on the other side of the room had a closed door. I also noticed strange grooves in the walls, about the size of a pony’s hoof.
{{WELCOME, MY CHILDREN! DO NOT BE ALARMED! FOR YOU WALK ON THE SACRED GROUND OF THE GODDESS!}}
I neared holding my hooves to my ears like Cobalt and Cupcake were, but I recognized by this point that The Goddess spoke not only in one voice, but in many. I assumed Wonderhood and Candy had also realized this, as they had not tried to uselessly block out the volume of the Goddess’s telepathy.
{{SPEAK NOW, LITTLE PONIES! FOR THE GODDESS HAD YOU BROUGHT HERE SO SHE COULD ANSWER THE MANY QUESTIONS THAT PLAGUE YOUR MINDS! JUST AS THE GODDESS HAS SENT HER CHILDREN INTO THE WASTELAND TO ELIMINATE THE PLAGUE OF THOSE WHO CHOOSE NOT TO CONFORM TO UNITY!}}
Answer our questions? How did She know we came here looking for answers?
{{THE GODDESS KNEW BECAUSE YOU THINK CLEARLY LITTLE ONE!}}
Wait what? How did She? Did she just read my mind?
{{YES LITTLE PONY! THE GODDESS IS ALREADY GRACIOUSLY ANSWERING YOUR QUESTIONS! BUT BEFORE THE GODDESS CONTINUES, THE GODDESS WISHES TO GRANT YOU MORE KNOWLEDGE REGARDING THE GODDESS!}}
“The Goddess needs to stop talking in the third person,” I heard Cobalt say under his breath.
{{YOUR INSOLENCE SHALL BE FORGIVEN THIS TIME, CHANGELING! BUT YOU SHOULD BE MORE CAUTIOUS IN THE FUTURE, AS THE GODDESS’S PATIENCE CAN ONLY WEAR SO THIN!}}
“Okay, okay, sorry, jeez,” Cobalt said in an annoyed tone.
{{NOW BEHOLD! AS YOU WITNESS THE CREATION OF THE GODDESS!}}
“Creation of the Goddess”? I had no idea what The Goddess meant my that. Maybe she was referring to her birth? But I had a feeling I was going to find out shortly.
The security monitors activated on their own, drawing my friends’ and my attention. One of them looked like a pre-recorded scene of colorful ponies in lab coats walking around a much larger variant of the room we were in, full of monitors, mainframes, and blinking lights. “Ready when you are,” a chartreuse pony with a cutie mark of a flask filled with bubbling green liquid said, glancing up at us through the monitor.
“This must be pre-recorded security footage,” Wonderhoof awed. I agreed. There was no way that that was happening right now.
Another monitor showed an expansive factory floor. The factory was filled with six huge, interconnected vats of churning, luminescent, glowing gunk that rippled with purple and green beneath glass coverings, with the light casting colored shadows over everything. Catwalks hung from the ceiling above the vats and a large one hung suspended from the ceiling above and between them, stopping midway across the room with a control panel at the end.
“Is that…?” Candy half asked as a very distinct pony appeared on a third monitor. An elderly lavender pony with grey streaks in her purple mane. The room behind her was about the size of the one we were in, filled with identical monitoring equipment. But where we saw a metal wall in our room, her room looked out into the factory floor in monitor two.
“Twilight Sparkle,” I nodded, confirming that Candy actually did pay attention in history class, while provoking a confused expression from Cobalt. Wonderhood tapped on the fourth monitor, which had a large crack running through it, and was displaying only rainbow splotches.
“Ready to begin pony testing,” Twilight Sparkle said, sounding just a hint nervous. “Send her in.”
“Sending in Test Subject One,” the pony on monitor one announced.
“Don’t call her that!” Twilight snapped in a warning tone. She trotted over to look out the window, floating a coffee cup filled with what looked like tea to her lips, sipping from it. She set the cup aside and leaned her muzzle over a microphone. On monitor two, a blue unicorn with a mane that had aged to silver slowly made her way out onto the suspended catwalk.
She turned and looked up to the window. “Twilight Sparkle, I just wanted to thank you again for giving me this opportunity. It means so much to me.”
“You’re welcome, Trixie,” Twilight Sparkle said back kindly. The name rang a bell, but it took a moment to place it. Trixie. The unicorn who had challenged Twilight Sparkle to a magic duel, had lost, and then was a laughing stock all across Equestria.
The lavender pony hit a button with her hoof and an ornate golden cup rose out of the console at the end of the walkway. Purple and green liquid rose through tubes running from the vats to the apparatus above. Then a thin stream poured into the cup.
Trixie walked across the platform and sniffed at the cup. “Is that roses?”
Twilight chuckled softly. “Yes. I added the scent. Hopefully, it will taste like roses too.”
“Really?” Trixie asked in astonishment, looking up at Twilight.
Twilight’s ears drooped. “Unfortunately, probably not.” She hesitated. “Trixie, you know you don’t have to do this…”
“Oh, I want to,” the blue unicorn insisted. “I want to help. And… this will make me more powerful? Like Luna and Celestia?”
“Well, not that powerful. But more powerful, yes.”
“Like you then?”
Twilight Sparkle looked uncomfortable. “We’re hoping for more than that.”
“And… it’s safe, right?”
“Absolutely,” Twilight Sparkle assured the blue unicorn on the catwalk below her. “All the tests have come back looking spectacular. The only variable is, well, dosage. And for that we need to do testing with pony volunteers like you. With luck, we’ll get it right the first time, and you’ll be the first new alicorn since Luna was born.”
The unicorn at the end of the catwalk nodded, but mumbled something that sounded like “Great and powerful smells like roses,” then looked up with wide eyes. “You sure I shouldn’t start with a little more, then?”
Twilight Sparkle stifled a chuckle. “No, I-“
On the monitors, everything happened at once.
From the broken one, I could hear a terrible roar and the rainbow sprays turned to a flaring light.
On the other three, the world shook as if it were a snowglobe in a little filly’s magic grasp.
On the first, chunks of ceiling came down, some killing ponies immediately, one blocking the door. A maneframe crashed to the ground in a spray of sparks.
On monitor two, the entire factory floor shook. I could hear the loud twangs as several of the cables holding the suspended platform snapped out of the ceiling. Sections of the catwalk fell. Two of the vats were ruptured as a third of the ceiling came down, spilling their glowing contents onto the factory floor. I could see automatic systems severing and sealing the connections with the other vats. Trixie cried out as half of the cables holding up her section of the catwalk gave way, turning it into a freely-swinging platform.
On the third monitor, alarms were blaring: “Radiation surge detected!” “Seismic activity detected!” “Toxic contamination warning!” “Safe rooms sealing!”
“No!” shouted Twilight Sparkle as a massive plate of solid steel slid down over the door to her room. She turned to the window as massive armored shutters swung down from above.
“TRIXIE!”
On monitor two, Trixie’s platform tipped, swinging in a low arc. The unicorn slid down the inclined surface, trying to find a foothold. As the lower end of the catwalk segment hit the glass roof of one of the vats, the glass shattered, and the blue unicorn fell screaming into the vat.
All of the monitors flickered and died, once again filling the room with silence. My friends and I could not believe what we had just seen.
Monitor three flickered back on.
“Dear anypony. This is the Mare of the Ministry of Magic, Twilight Sparkle,” a weakened Twilight said. “It’s been two days now since the megaspell strike on Maripony. I can only assume by the lack of rescue that this was not an isolated strike.”
“I’m leaving this record in case somepony does come. I’m trapped in Safe Room Three on the Maripony Vats Level.” The elderly lavender pony said to the camera. “The safeguards that should allow me to open it aren’t working; and unfortunately for me, I designed these rooms to withstand a nearby megaspell strike, so the room is more than a match for my own magic.”
“I’m out of food, and the safe room’s water talisman seems to have been corrupted.” She gave a wry smile as she said, “At least, I’m fairly confident that pure water isn’t supposed to be that color. I’m also beginning to suffer hallucinations. I think that I’m hearing the screams of the ponies in Maripony, like something horrible is happening to them. But I know that’s impossible. These walls are soundproof. “I keep hearing Trixie’s voice in my head, screaming. Sometimes, it gets so bad...”
The lavender pony waved it off. “Not important. What’s important is that we tried. We tried, and we came so very close. Another week, maybe even just a few more days, and the work we did here would have not only changed the war, I believe we could have forced a peaceful resolution.
”What’s important now is that we still have one more chance. Find Spike. He’s my most loyal assistant… my number one assistant …Find him...”
Twilight Sparkle seemed to fall asleep. The Monitor flickered out again. “Spike?” Cobalt asked curiously. Patience Cobalt, patience.
The monitor flickered back on again. Twilight Sparkle’s face was pressed close to the camera. She looked crazy. “Something’s going on here. I… I don’t know what. But it’s bad. If you’re in Maripony, get out. Get out while you can and drop a zebra missile on this place…”
Suddenly, there was a loud, metallic grinding from the speaker below monitor two. On the monitor, we watched as the metal plate over the door lifted up, the metal shutters over the windows lifted.
Monitor two sprang to life as well. The vats room was an unnatural disaster. The floor was waist thick in mixed fluids. Something swam in the water. No, not swam… the body of a light red unicorn pony was being dragged through the liquid by a telekinetic tendril. My friends and I watched as the tendril hauled the body out of the pool and up the side of one of the vats. A moment later, the body disappeared over the lip and into the vat.
Streaks of blood rose up several of the vats.
On monitor three, Twilight was crawling towards the door, too weak from hunger and dehydration to stand. And being unable to stand, she couldn’t see what was just outside her window.
Light flared in the room. A blue light that took the form of Trixie. The blue unicorn stood shimmering in front of Twilight. From this angle, we could clearly make out her face as she spoke to the lavender unicorn who once bore the Element of Magic. The Trixie illusion spoke, but no words came out.
“I’m sorry, Trixie,” Twilight whimpered.
As the Trixie illusion’s mouth continued to move, Wonderhoof leaned closer to the monitor. “I can read lips,” he explained. For a moment, silence, but then Wonderhoof began to speak, reading the lips of Trixie’s transparent form.
“………..worked more wonderfully than we ever dreamed it would. Don’t be sorry. Be happy. We’re going to live forever, you in I.”
I felt a deep, dark chill and prayed that Wonderhoof had mistranslated that. “What?” asked a startled Twilight.
“I’m sorry it took so long for me to be strong enough to save you, Twilight Sparkle.”
Candy gasped as light blue tendrils of telekinetic energy snaked into the room and wrapped around each of Twilight’s hooves.
“No!” Twilight Sparkle struggled with more strength than should have been possible in her current condition.
“It’s time to save you now, Twilight Sparkle,” Wonderhoof spoke for illusion-Trixie. “We’re going to be very close now, you and I.”
“Oh Goddesses,” Candy moaned and buried her face in my mane as the tendrils slowly dragged Twilight Sparkle, kicking and screaming, towards one of the vats.
I was shaking violently. I wanted to turn away, but couldn’t. It was as if The Goddess’s magic was forcing me to watch Twilight’s fate until the end.
Twilight Sparkle let out one final cry as she was dragged over the lip of the farthest vat. One word, a name I thought, but couldn’t make out what it was.
The two monitors went blank. And this time, they stayed that way.
- - - - - - - - - -
All of us were paralysed. Me, Candy, Wonderhoof, Cupcake, and Cobalt. All of us were stunned. I had no idea what to say, and I had a feeling none of my friends quite knew either. We stayed in silence for several minutes. The only sound being our heavy breathing from what we had just seen. Finally, The Goddess grew tired of waiting for a response.
{{THE GODDESS IS PLEASED THAT ALL OF YOU ARE IN AWE OF THE GODDESS’S POWER! YES! THE GODDESS WAS ONCE A SIMPLE UNICORN! BUT THE GODDESS HAS SINCE BECOME MUCH MORE THROUGH UNITY!}}
Okay, I just had to ask. “What exactly is Unity?” I asked the surrounding area, because I honestly had no idea exactly where The Goddess was. The voice boomed back patiently.
{{WHY, UNITY IS WHAT PONIES JOIN WHEN THEY ACCEPT THE GODDESS AS THEIR SAVIOUR!}}
So, Unity was as I thought it was. The group name for The Goddess and her alicorns. The next question was asked by Wonderhoof. “If that was how you were created, then where did all these alicorns come from?”
{{THE GODDESS HAS CREATED HER CHILDREN THROUGH THE SAME MEANS OF WHICH TWILIGHT SPARKLE HAD WISHED TO CREATE THEM! BUT INSTEAD OF BEING FORCED TO WORK FOR BRUTE MILITARY FORCE, THEY LIVE UNDER THE GODDESS’S PROTECTION! SAFE FROM BOTH THE DANGERS OF THE WASTELAND AND THE TYRANNY OF WAR!}}
“Tyranny of war”? True, the Great War may have been over 200 years ago, but the devastation it caused is still very much present. After all, Trixie’s new form as “The Goddess,” was a result of the extreme amount of effort that Equestria put into the war. If the “Tyranny of war” hadn’t happened 200 years ago, Trixie wouldn’t be “The Goddess” right now. Speaking of The Goddess, her voice became even louder and more angry after she read my mind.
{{THE GODDESS IS NOT TRIXIE! THE GODDESS IS MUCH MORE! THE GODDESS IS MUCH GREATER! THE GODDESS IS MUCH MORE POWERFUL! THE GODDESS IS THE SOLUTION TO THE MANY PROBLEMS THAT THE PONIES IN THE WASTELAND FACE! IF ONLY THEY WOULD PUT THEIR ARROGANCE ASIDE AND JOIN THE GODDESS AND HER CHILDREN IN UNITY!!}}
Okay………...my mistake. Apparently, The Goddess didn’t like being called by her former name. Another question was raised after my mishap. This time by Cupcake. “So, what happens to ponies who join Unity?”
{{YOU HAVE SEEN THE RESULTS OF THE PROCESS OF JOINING UNITY ALL AROUND YOU! OR HAVE YOU NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO THE GODDESS’S CHILDREN?!}}
That raised more questions than answers. What did The Goddess mean by that? And why did she keep calling all the alicorns her “children”? And did that mean that you had a choice to become an alicorn when you joined Unity? Or would you be forced to become an alicorn? Would you still have your free will? Or would you-
{{SILENCE!!}}
The voice of The Goddess boomed in our heads, this time loud enough to make even me, Wonderhoof, and Candy hold our hooves up to our ears.
{{THE GODDESS TOLD YOU SHE WOULD ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS, BUT ONE AT A TIME!! THE GODDESS IS THE SAVIOUR OF THE WASTELAND, NOT AN ORACLE!!}}
Okay, jeez. Somepony had anger issues. Maybe if she would stop reading my mind, then maybe-
{{ENOUGH OF THIS!! YOU! CANDY! YES, YOU ARE THE ONE! YOU ARE THE ONE WHO SHALL DESTROY YOURSELF AND ALL OF THOSE WHO YOU HOLD DEAR!}}
What to the what to the what in the fuck? Candy? Destroy herself? Destroy others? That was impossible. The Goddess must have not only been reading my mind, but the minds of my friends as well.
{{WONDERHOOF! YOUR QUESTION AS TO WHY THERE ARE NO MALE ALICORNS IN UNITY IS QUITE AMUSING! DO YOU WISH TO KNOW WHY?}}
Wait, I hadn’t gotten my answer yet, and now The Goddess had just simply changed the subject after saying something deeply concerning about my best friend. “Hey! Goddess! What do you mean Candy will destroy herself?!” I yelled at the air. The voice of The Goddess laughed in sheer amusement.
{{ALL WILL BE REVEALED TO YOU IN DUE TIME, DAYSTORM JET! BUT FOR NOW, THE GODDESS HAS GROWN TIRED OF ANSWERING YOUR USELESS QUESTIONS! YOU ARE TO LEAVE AT ONCE! BUT DO NOT WORRY, THE GODDESS WILL BE SURE TO HAVE HER CHILDREN ESCORT YOU BACK TO NEW APPLELOOSA! JUST TO ENSURE YOUR GUARANTEED SAFETY FOR THE TIME BEING!}}
“So that’s what DJ stands for!” Wonderhoof exclaimed suddenly, looking at me with a smirk. I was hoping that they wouldn’t find out. The reason I told them my name was DJ was to avoid formality, like I did in the stable. I guess I had seen the outside world as a sort of escape from the routine day-to-day routine of the Stable. “Wait, so DJ is just his nickname or something? They’re just his initials,” Cobalt recapped, sounding surprised.
“Why yes, my good changeling,” Cupcake mused. “What? Don’t tell me you didn't figure that out the moment you met him.”
“First of all, I was caught up in the moment of being freed from a pile of rubble, and second, I didn’t know much about ponies in the mainland, so I didn’t think it was uncommon,” Cobalt replied defensively. At least he was being honest about it. In that brief moment of distraction over my name, I had forgotten about The Goddess in the room.
{{THE GODDESS HAS SPOKEN! YOU ARE TO LEAVE AT ONCE!}}
The Goddess repeated, and before we could ask any more questions, or bicker over any more names, the four alicorns guarding the exit were suddenly surrounding us, standing dominantly over the five of us while also demanding we be escorted out of the building.
“Okay, okay. We get the picture. We’ve overstayed our welcome. No need to be rude and start shoving,” Cobalt said impatiently before we started walking with the alicorns, following them out of Maripony.
Halfway through the hallway we were being led out of, Cupcake suddenly turned on me. “What the hell was that, Daystom?!” she yelled, even though she was only three feet away from me. “What?! What did I do?!” I asked defensively, trying not to yell back. If there was nothing else I learned from my mother, it was that yelling back at someone who was already mad tended to escalate the issue, making things worse.
I had hoped this was only about the name thing. I was prepared to tell her the reason I stretched the truth about my name, when she surprised me with something completely irrelevant to the naming situation. “It’s your fault we were stopped from asking more questions! You just had to go and yell at the all powerful, telepathic, psycho, alcorn-creating, possible abomination of science!”
Candy defended me from Cupcake’s sudden anger. “Hey! He was trying to inquire more as to what She meant when she said what she said! That’s no reason to start accusing him!” Good Candy. Protect your Overstallion from the former slave who could possibly be resisting the urge to blow my head off.
“But if he hadn’t asked, we wouldn’t be trotting through the hallways, quite literally being forced to leave right now!” Cupcake countered. I was starting to see a trend with my choice in companions. They were all persistent and damn near impossible to force to back down once they had made up their mind. Candy had refused to stay in the Stable, Cobalt had insisted on saving a slave from Crossbones, and now Cupcake was not backing down from this argument.
The disagreement could have lasted the entire trip back to New Appleloosa, but fortunately, Wonderhoof and Cobalt pulled Cupcake and Candy respectively away from each other, nearly bumping into two of the alicorns flanking us due to the tight confinement of the hallway. For the rest of the trot through the hallway, Wonderhoof held Cupcake close, and Cobalt kept Candy from tearing Cupcake’s flesh from her bones.
We all remained quiet until the alicorns had led us out of Maripony. We expected them to leave us to the razor sharp claws of the mutant hounds in the valley, but to our surprise, they beckoned us to climb onto their backs. “Uh, thanks, but we can-” I started before being hit in the stomach by Candy. “Oof…..Hey, what was that for?” I asked her. Her response was a simple wave of her hoof under her chin; a sign to stop talking.
Instead of complaining, I kept quiet and climbed onto the back of one of the alicorns. I could have flown back myself, but given the expanse of flat land where I was sure more mutant dogs were hiding, waiting for unsuspecting chickens in the sky to fly overhead, before shooting them down with their modified lazer guns.
After Cobalt, Cupcake, Candy, Wonderhoof, and I were safely on the backs of the alicorns, they spread their regal wings, put up magical defensive shields of pure energy, and took off into the air. They were fast in the sky. I hadn’t noticed it before when they saved me and my friends from those creatures, but now that I was experiencing their speed and agility in flight first hoof, I could honestly say that they were even faster than me, and definitely faster than an average pegasus. Candy was holding on tight, hugging my waist tightly, almost so that I couldn’t breathe, but I still managed.
“Hey Candy? I asked clearly without any trouble. I had almost expected some wind turbulence or resistance, or anything other than the hindrance of only being able to hold onto the alicorns back, but there was nothing. I assumed that either the alicorn’s shield or other form of magic she was using was preventing any of that.
“Yeah?” she asked back. “Do you know what The Goddess meant by, quote, ‘You are the one who shall destroy yourself and all of those who you hold dear’?” I asked seriously. I looked back to see her shake her head. “No. I have no idea what she meant by that…..,” she said quietly. Something was bothering her and I could tell. But she wouldn’t tell me what it was. “Candy, spill. I know there’s something on your mind, so what is it?” I said sternly. No reply. I looked back again to check that she was still there. She was, but she had gone silent. “Candy?” I asked again. This time, she smiled at me kindly. “You know, ever since we left the Stable, the wasteland has thrown so much against us already. Do you think there will be more things for us to have to go through? I mean, I almost lost you back there. Had it not been for The Goddess telling her alicorns to save you for some unknown reason, I would have had to dig you a grave before we even got back to the Stable.”
I appreciated her deep concern, and nodded, confirming and mentally re-telling myself the scene that had almost killed me. I saw myself jumping over the dog-like creature. I saw its super sharp claws. I saw my blood spill. I saw the deep gashes in my chest. I saw Candy starting to cry over my dying body. I saw Cobalt, Cupcake, and Wonderhoof standing silently nearby in mourning. I saw the silhouette of the alicorn who had saved me…….. And I saw Candy’s tears in her eyes as she hugged me to death. I wondered…… If she cared that deeply for me, not as the Overstallion, but as a friend and companion……. Then maybe she could be my…….
I shook my head and laughed at the idea. There was no way. Candy was my best friend. There were absolutely no romantic relations between us. We had always been friends and we would always stay friends. Maybe not forever, but for the most of the foreseeable future, Candy and I were inseperable………. As friends.
Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Strong Skin- You learn from your experiences, and it helps you greatly! Your limbs take 5% less damage from enemy attacks!
