> Fallout Equestria: Standing Tall
>  by Pyrolich66
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter Zero: In The Beginning
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


“There is always a sadness about packing. I guess you wonder if where you’re going is as good as where you’ve been.”


I walked down the halls of my high school, chatting with my friend Tom. It was lunchtime, and the two of us were making our slow way to the lunchroom. A calm spring day, getting close to the end of the year. So we jumped pretty high as a classroom burst open to release a bunch of panicked students. They didn’t pay attention to us, just shoved past and kept running down the hallway. Me and Tom were still standing in shock when the mob disappeared around a corner in the hall.
Most people probably would’ve followed the bunch of screaming kids, but I was curious what they were running from. I peered into the now-empty room, and saw something completely new. A crackling ball of purple light hovered at the far end of the room, occasionally sending out arcs of purple lightning. I knew it should be scary, but…. it just wasn’t. Instead of driving me away, the ball felt like it was pulling me towards it, calling me to dive into the rabbit hole. I was in a daze, slowly walking closer and closer to the sphere.
I was vaguely aware of Tom shouting behind me as I reached out a hand towards the sphere. I touched it and gasped as an electric shock coursed through my body. All at once, it was painful and wonderful to feel. Every possible emotion coursed through my body, overwhelming my mind and making everything a blur. I watched as the ball expanded, slowly engulfing my arms. All I could do was turn my head and give Tom a last smile, then my world became a brilliant purple glow, and then pure white light….
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My eyes drifted open, but I was not in my bed. Nothing even close. I was in a…. case? My body was suspended in some sort of clear gel that cushioned me all over. Directly in front of me was a curved glass wall that totally blurred the world beyond it. I couldn’t feel any clothes on my body, but I could see and feel a number of tubes wrapping all over my body.
I became aware of sounds and shapes outside my confinement. Muffled voices came from distinctly inhuman shapes. The fuzzy forms came in an assortment of bright colors, and they were far smaller than people. To my eyes, they looked like they walked on all fours, like large dogs, or very small horses.
One of the forms stopped in front of me, raising a…. foot? Raising a foot to wipe away some of the condensation on the glass. For a moment I stared into a pair of huge green eyes, then they went wide in surprise. The owner turned away quickly, the noises and movements outside growing more hurried. One rushed towards me, there was a purple glow, and the world blurred back to that bright white mist.
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> Chapter One: Wake-Up Call
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


“Waking up every day is a blessing, not a privilege. Do not take it for granted.”


My eyes opened again, and the world was nothing as I remembered. The clear fluid that had supported me had yellowed, and the bright area outside had gone almost dark. Fortunately for me, a tube continued to push air into my lungs. I looked around, but all I could see was yellow gel…. and a tiny red light up over my head. Moving my hand was like pushing it through Jello, but I didn’t want to be trapped in this tube. At first, my extended hand touched only a smooth wall, and I panicked a little internally. I slid my hand all over the vicinity of the tiny light, praying for some way out of my confinement.
Finally I found it. A tiny bump on the wall. It was so small and smooth I wasn’t sure it was supposed to be found. I pressed the button, and the pod creaked open. My world tilted as the gel fell outwards, pulling me away from the tubes and wires that had surrounded me for who-knows-how-long. No sooner had the gel touched the floor then it liquefied, flowing away into drains around me. 
Without the gel’s omnipresent support, movement suddenly felt far more difficult. Not feeling ready to get up, I rolled over onto my back. From there, I could see that I was in a lab of some sort, but it was nowhere near the bright white room I’d seen last time I’d woke up. Many of the lights had gone dark, leaving the large room in splotchy darkness. Walls that had once been a pure, clean white were turned brown by dust and dirt.
Forcing myself up to a sitting position, I turned my eyes to myself. It was quite the shock. Going by shape, I looked much the same as I had, but many other things had changed. My skin had paled to a pale white, and my once-short hair had grown past my waist. It covered me like some kind of rough robe.
I pushed myself to my feet, and paused a second to marvel at my strength. If I’d been in the pod/tube thing long enough for my skin to go from tan to completely pale, my muscles should’ve atrophied to nothing. Instead, my arms and legs felt as good as the last time I’d used them. Maybe even better.
Also a marvel was the sizes of everything in the lab. I wasn’t even six feet tall, and yet my head almost reached the ceiling above. The tables all around me only came up to my mid-thigh, and the doorway at the far end of the room looked to be only chest-high on me.
It was during this marvelling that I noticed a small green light blinking under a thick layer of dust. Curious, I strode over and brushed the dust off the thing. Sitting on a small desk was a (relatively) bulky computer with a few messages on the screen:
>Power restored
>Incomplete entry unsaved
>Restore document? Y/N
I hesitated a second, then blew the dust off of the keyboard. The layout was normal, but the keys were completely off. They were larger than usual, and more tightly packed to make up for it. Not made for humans, maybe? The creatures outside didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen or heard of. I pressed the ‘Y’ key, and the screen blanked for a few moments. A document then popped up, mostly garbled, but still intact in places as I scrolled down.

	DAY 5


	Experiments can begin now that the subject is stable. There were a few tense moments when figuring out the nutrients feed, but we sorted it all out. Just think, a creature from another world! Who could know what we stand to learn from this! I cannot wait!


	-Dr. Hollow, MAS


	DAY 35


	There was a panicked moment at the lab today when the subject woke up in his stasis pod. It appears there was some kind of failure in the sedatives feed. Thankfully, Dr. Parsley was able to put it back under with a spell, and when we checked its memories, it hadn’t seen anything vital to the project. Even so, we’re fixing the system so he certainly won’t wake up until we want him to. We’ve been examining the subject’s memories, and we’re uncertain we ever want to wake him. These “humans” have a more bloody history than the gryphons.


	-Dr. Hollow, MAS


	the end


	it’s over. a balefire bomb landed in the city. I started the subject;s wake-up procedure but we just lost power and who kno


For a few moments, I just sat and looked at that final entry. I didn’t even have the name of whoever decided to wake me up, or an explanation for where they had gone. All I had was the cold, analytical feel of the earlier entries. If not for that last entry, I would’ve been pissed. They just…. what? Pulled me into the world and researched me? Looked into my memories? I’d have been fine with it if they’d talked to me, but being treated like some object pissed me off. And what were those balefire bombs they mentioned? The whole computer felt like it’d been placed to confuse me and piss me off.
The important thing was that one of the scientists here had chosen to wake me up. Being in the pod had done a number on me, and I didn’t want to think of what could’ve happened if I’d just been left in there. I looked around the lab once more, but nothing else caught my interest. There were a few other computers about, but their screens were dark and cracked. I felt a little compressed under the low ceiling, so I headed for the door. I had to crouch to go through the low doorway, but it was fine.
Beyond the door was a hallway with a ceiling that was mercifully higher than the one in the lab. I stood up and stretched a little, then froze. Distant metallic clomps echoed in the hallway in a rhythmic march. As much as I wanted to go towards the noise, the last note on the computer implied that something bad had been happening. Maybe whatever I was hearing was dangerous.
Instead of following the (maybe) footsteps I heard, I instead looked for a door to vanish behind. The noise was getting closer as I ducked behind another door not five feet down the hall. With it opened a crack, I could see into the door I’d left.
The booming footsteps grew closer and closer until they reached their full volume, which was pretty loud. Only then did their producer enter my field of view. It was the same general shape as the creatures I’d seen working in the lab. Unlike those scientists, this thing was covered in thick steel plating. It looked more like some kind of war robot, especially with the pair of large guns hanging on its sides. Suddenly, staying in this other room seemed like a lot better idea.
The thing stopped in front of the open door of the room I’d left. A slightly annoyed female voice came from behind it. “Why did you stop? We should be getting close.”
The mecha-pony’s voice was deep and slightly mechanical. “Yeah…. this lab you wanted…. it was sealed, right?”
“Of course it was, the entire facility was locked down when the bombs fell.” There was a brief pause, and then the voice came back a little more nervously. “Why?”
“It’s open.”
“WHAT?!” A multicolored blur zoomed past the robot and vanished into the lab I’d come from. “Impossible! This facility was locked down as soon as the bombs hit, and the ponies here certainly wouldn’t have let it out!”
The robot stepped into the room after who-or what-ever had preceded it. “Hey,” it rumbled,”you gonna check this terminal? The Star Paladin will be pissed if we come back totally empty hooved.”
A quick shuffle later I heard, “Journal…. junk…. junk…. journal…. junk…. fuck!”
“Yeah?”
“One of the scientists started to wake it up when the bombs fell, and we probably finished the process when we reactivated the generators! Who knows how far the damn things gotten by now!”
“You appear to have annoyed the ponies in this facility.”
The voice echoed in my mind, and I jumped straight up into the very solid ceiling. Only the things looking for me stopped me from swearing as I rubbed my head and turned around to see the…. creature that stood behind me. The other creature had mentioned ponies, but I had trouble applying that term to the creature now before me. She (I could tell by her voice) had the general body shape, but she was not by any means a pony as I knew the term. Her head was roughly level with my chest, which made her taller than the robot outside. She had dark green fur, very large red eyes, and a wavy lavender mane. Even more surprising than her coloration was the long, tapered horn that rested on her forehead, and the feathery green wings that rested at her sides.
Finally I recovered my ability to speak. “You’re not looking for me too, are you?”
The pega-unicorn cocked her head. “We may be. The Steel Rangers have killed many of my sisters. It would be sensible for us to want to deprive them of their prize.”
I ignored the fact that her mouth didn’t move when she spoke for the sake of time, and more important questions. “So…. you’ll help me get out of here?”
“Conditionally.” Great. “We wish to know of you. We have no memories of your race.”
Thank the gods. She just wanted me to introduce myself. “Well, um…. my name’s Keith Ledger, and I’m a human from Earth.” I paused a second, then added,”No offense, but what are you? And where am I?”
“We suppose that many do not know of our race.  We are Esmer, one of the many alicorn daughters created by our Mother. She sent us here, but we have forgotten-”
“ATTENTION ALL STEEL RANGERS!” I swore loudly as a very sudden, very loud announcement came over the PA. “THE EXPERIMENT WE CAME HERE SEEKING HAS BEEN RELEASED! BE ON GUARD, BUT REMEMBER: WE ARE TO RETRIEVE IT ALIVE!”
The announcement ended, and I waited a few seconds for the ringing in my ears to die down. Fucking speakers damned-near deafened me. When I could hear again, I turned to Esmer. “Never mind the other questions. The Rangers are looking for me, and you said they have a major hate-on for you ‘alicorns’. I don’t suppose we can fight our way out?”
Esmer shook her head. “Mother gave us no combative spells. We can shield ourselves against attack, but you will be left vulnerable. It would likely be best for us to search for an exit at the far side of the facility.”
“Have you explored this place much?”
“No. We know the entrance that the Rangers are using, but we do not remember seeing any other passages into the wasteland.”
I tensed, hearing mechanical footsteps in the distance. “You know more about the area than me. Lead on!”
I followed Esmer across the lab to another hallway, and we started to run straight away from the sounds of approaching Rangers. I expected my feet to hurt as they slammed into the ground, since I had probably lost my calluses long ago. Instead, all I experienced was a minor discomfort as I ran along. It didn’t make sense to me. It also distracted me from hearing the footsteps ahead of us.
Esmer and I ran across an intersection in the hallways, and too-late we noticed the pair of Steel Rangers coming from our left. Luckily, we surprised them as much as they surprised us, so we were across the intersection before they reacted. One of the rangers fired a shot from his cannons, and I flinched as it thundered in the enclosed space. Painfully loud was the explosion as his shot detonated somewhere behind me.
I started to run even faster, my ears ringing as I ran for freedom. The only reason I could hear the Rangers behind us was because they were running as well, their heavy metal feet pounding down on the ancient floor. I saw a set of double-doors up ahead, and I sprinted along behind Esmer. I saw the rocket that somehow missed us both and flew straight into the center of the doors, blowing them outwards.
The explosion threw me and Esmer to the floor, and totally wiped out my hearing. I raised my dazed head to see the Rangers running towards us. Such a funny way for me to die. I rolled over, and there was Esmer. I think she was shouting at me, but I could barely hear it over that awful ringing. I knew I had to run, but just getting to my feet was a struggle. I knew I couldn’t get away. Esmer’s voice came again, with a bit more uncertainty, but I couldn’t tell a single thing she was saying. She glanced past me at the approaching Rangers, and her horn glowed as I was sent flying out the door.
I enjoyed a brief moment of being airborne before gravity reasserted its dominance. I thudded to the ground, catching intermittent glimpses of clouds and dirt as I tumbled down the hill. Rocks and dead bushes tore at my skin as I failed to stop myself rolling. Occasionally I could see the doors behind me, and the armored forms pouring out after me.
Suddenly the ground was no longer beneath me. I tumbled through the air, faintly aware of cliff above me and water below. Then I hit the water and everything went dark.
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I tumbled down the dirty slope and a hand of water grabbed me and pulled me onto the sharp rocks of the river and I tumbled along and washed up on the shore but the shore was sterile white halls full of Steel Rangers who fired and the explosion threw me out the blasted doors to the waiting hand of water…
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Consciousness was slow in returning to my beaten body. I lay on a hard bed of wet rocks. Behind me the river flowed, a rushing backdrop to my debate whether or not to get up.
With a groan, I tried to roll over and stand up. That was how I discovered that I was tied hand and foot. The revelation made me that much more eager to be able to see the area around me, so I forced myself to roll over and sit up. Thick ropes bound my wrists and ankles, and another rope led to a stump a bit farther up the rocky shore. Being tied up was inconvenient, but I could reach my legs and that would get me halfway untied.
One result of reaching for my ankles was that I got a good view of my body. Specifically, my legs, and what was between them. I stopped mid-knot as I glanced down where my bits normally dangled.
Nothing.
Between my legs was nothing but smooth skin. Ignoring my reader’s discomfort, I hesitantly touched the area. They weren’t invisible. They weren’t anything. They were just…. fucking…. gone. 
For a moment, all I felt was numb. Then my eyes began to slowly tear up, not from sadness, but from a slow knot of anger that started twisting in my chest. “Fucking…. fucking PONIES! Putting me in a jar isn’t enough!? Taking me away from my life isn’t FUCKING enough!? What are you gonna take next? My fingers? My toes? My motherfucking eyes? Why the FUCK did you do this!? The fuck did I ever do to you!?”
My voice gave out, and my anger faded to a dull sadness. Tears kept coming and flowing down my face onto the wet rocks as I tried to accept that I had been robbed of my very gender. For now, all I could do was cry, and hope that I would run out of tears.
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As always, the universe didn’t wait on me. I was still crying when I heard the crunches of approaching footsteps in the gravel. I raised my teary face, and saw that approaching me was a white pony with an orange mane and a short orange horn. A unicorn, if mythology held true here.
I tried to stand up, only to remember that I’d never finished untying my legs. Once again, I found myself face-down on the stony beach. At least my body couldn’t get much more sore. I expected the pony to laugh, or even just giggle, but when I looked up it was staring on in stony silence.
The pony kept staring as I awkwardly shifted myself into a sitting position. It wore drab, old-looking clothes and had what looked like a leather pistol holster on one of its forelegs. The pony was looking at me as curiously as I was looking at it, resulting in several long moments of silence. I stretched, and the pony flinched away, her horn and holster glowing momentarily.
I tried for a casual grin. “So far, one group of ponies has tried to kill me, and one pony’s tried to help me out. Whatcha gonna do?”
My grin slowly collapsed as the pony continued to stare and tears dried on my cheeks. I didn’t have the strength to hold up any kind of emotional mask. I was about to start ignoring the pony when it spoke in a fearful feminine voice. 
“What…. are you?”
I sighed. If I lived through this encounter, I was going to have to answer that question a lot. “I’m a human.”
She narrowed her eyes a little at my answer. “Yeah, very helpful. Where the hells did you come from?”
“America.”
“Never heard of it.”
“I figured. When you gonna untie me?” 
“When you start answering my questions.”
“Well, of the ponies I’ve encountered, one tried to blow me up and one turned me into a science experiment. Now you’re here, and you tied me up and you’re standing there with a gun. I’m not inclined to answer any of your questions.”
“Except the fact that I might shoot you if you don’t.”
“That’s less of an incentive than you’d expect.”
The conversation stalled for a few moments. I coughed. She shuffled her hooves. I was about to say something, no idea what, when we both heard voices over the short cliff at the top of the beach. I think the mare before me recognized one of the voices. Her ears went down and her eyes went wide as she floated out the gun from her holster. Seriously? Unicorns could levitate things? That was awesome!
I looked at the ropes that bound me, then at the pony that crouched before me. Her giant eyes were focused fearfully on the cliff. “Hey!” My voice was hushed but her head turned to me anyways. I held up my tied limbs. “Look, I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but untie me and I might be able to help.
The mare looked uncertain, and I really hoped she believed me. Dying wasn’t something I planned to do any time soon. The voices above grew closer, and her doubts crumbled away. Her horn did its weird glow-show and my bonds were magically untied. Hands free, I grabbed a rock the size of my palm and held it at my side away from the cliff. The voices were getting closer, but I was paying more attention to the mare as she floated a tiny revolver from her leg-holster.
I was so distracted by the curiosity of horn magic that I almost missed the pony that stuck its head over the edge of the cliff. This one had a brown and red coloration. Its pupils were pinpricks in yellowed eyes. Seeing us, he laughed and spouted off a long stream of gibberish. It was pretty scary to see somebody so obviously insane.
It was even scarier when the pony was joined by three more similar ponies. All of them were wearing patchwork leather armor that was covered in spikes and bits of bone and metal. They carried a variety of weapons in mouths and magic, ranging from a lead pipe to what looked like a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun. Each pony had the same crazed look and mad voices.
There was a snarl, and the maniacs parted to let through a fifth pony. This one was coal black with a toxic green mane. He had far better armor than his companions: a thin metal carapace that encased his body and legs. A weird saddle sat on his back with rifles hanging at his sides. He looked pretty impressive, though the effect was lessened by him being maybe half my height.
To my surprise, the pony basically ignored me, instead smiling maliciously at the mare beside me. “This must be my lucky day! We finally catch one of those towny bitches, and it’s you! The boss is gonna be so happy when we get you on the table for your dear daddy to hear!”
The mare shuddered, but hid it behind a brave face. “You aren’t gonna touch me, Vex. One of us’ll be dead before that happens.”
Vex smirked. “Believe that all you want, bitch. As for…” his voice faded as he actually looked at me for the first time. “... the fuck is that?”
I took advantage of his shock to throw my rock. My arm whipped around, sending the smooth river stone spinning through the air. Ves had the presence of mind to try and dodge, but he failed. I expected to knock him out or give him a concussion, but I either underestimated the rock or my arm. There was a wet crunching noise as the stone smashed in Vex’s head. He sank to the ground with a rock buried in his face.
The surprise of my attack lasted long enough for me to pick up another large rock. Then the ponies on the ridge screamed in fury. It was an insane, angry scream that shook me to my core. It was the sound of… creatures completely stripped of whatever sanity they’d once had. They charged en masse, even the ones that had actual weapons. A pistol and a shotgun fired wildly, shots pinging off the stones around me and the unicorn beside me.
I threw my second rock just as my temporary ally opened fire. I missed, the stone thudding solidly into the dirt cliffside. Unlike me, the mare’s bullets found their mark. Two of the attackers tumbled to a stop, one with a bullet in its leg and the other with two shots in its chest. Then the other two were on us, one for me and one for her.
I should note something here. I was used to throwing odd things. Tomahawks, knives, sticks and stones; I could throw them all hard, far, and fairly accurately. But up close? I’d stayed out of fights since elementary school, and I hadn’t practiced Tae Kwon Do in years. Not that either one was likely to have helped as I fought hip-high ponies.
The unicorn charging me cackled as it smacked a length of pipe against my leg. The hit was harder than I expected, but there was far less pain than I expected from the blow. Wincing, I responded with the most basic attack that any person knows; I snapped out my leg and kicked the unicorn in the chest. He didn’t even try to dodge, and the blow landed firmly. The force lifted him off the ground, and I could feel his ribs crumble. The glow around the pipe vanished, and it landed aside the unicorn’s suddenly limp body. The body slumped limply, blood leaking from his lips. The first pony I ever killed, if he even counted as one.
My head swivelled to face the mare beside me. The pony she’d been fighting was dead. A bullet had mangled his eyes and punched its way out the back of her head. In my adrenal rush, I hadn’t even noticed the gunshot. My head swung around frantically. I had to move! To fight! To do something!
My body realised that the danger had faded, and the rush of adrenaline faded away. I went from a combat frenzy to quivering wreck in ten seconds flat. I fell to my knees as I was suddenly assaulted by the aftereffects of the adrenaline and the smell of freshly dead bodies. My head ached, my stomach was doing backflips. Before I could stop it, I threw up a thin stream of bile onto the stones. The acidic reek only added to that of the corpses.
I stayed on all fours, taking deep breaths and letting the shaking in my body fade. Just as I was starting to calm down, something nudged my shoulder. My head snapped up, and I found myself looking into the concerned (and nervous) eyes of the unicorn. The glow of her magic held a water bottle against my shoulder. I took the bottle with a nod of thanks, rolling into a sitting position facing the river. Human or not, I was not used to corpses. The water tasted a bit strange, but it worked fine for cleaning my mouth of the taste of vomit.
I wanted to know why we’d killed five ponies, but at the same time I didn’t want to think about them. Instead I watched the river, watching the water flow swiftly past me. Eventually a thought occurred to me. “You know, I never asked you your name.”
I could hear the unicorn move behind me, hear her grunt a few times before she answered, “My name’s Pearly Depths.”
Despite the grimness of the scene I sat in, I had to suppress a snort. Just hearing her name made me want to make a dirty joke. “How do you end up with a name like that?”
Grunt. “I’m white.” Clatter. “And I live in a fishing village.” Grunt. “Put two and two together.
Cool. An entire town of ponies to be suspicious of me. Changing the subject, I gestured behind me at the bodies. “These ponies… or whatever they are. They seemed to know you. Who are they?”
Pearly didn’t answer, but the clunking and clattering continued behind me until I was curious enough to turn around. Pearly was walking among the bodies, stripping away their weapons and armor. She was tugging at a more stubborn leg-guard when she finally answered. “These ponies, are part of a raider gang called the Flensers. They’ve been laying siege to my hometown, Harperville. When they catch anypony outside the walls, they strap them to a table and flay them alive.”
Oh.
Weellllllll.
At least now I felt somewhat justified for killing them. And now I knew what table Vex had been talking about. The fact that such a gang could exist told me a lot about this world, but there was always more to know. “What the flying fuck happened here?”
“We got attacked by a group of Flensers.”
I facepalmed. “No, I mean to this world. Everything I’ve seen has either been ancient and covered in dust or trying to kill me. There’s no way a civilization like this-” I gestured to the raiders,”-could maintain itself. Something has to have happened.”
Pearly huffed. “You’re pretty smart, aren’t ya?”
“I like to think so.”
“Well, you’re right. Something did happen. See, up north of here is a country called Equestria. About two hundred years ago they bumbled their way into a war with the fucking zebras. Instead of making out and getting over it like every other time stupid shit happened, they decide to keep it up. Between the zebras and the Equestrians, about every fucking race got pulled into the damned war. Then they both blew it all to hell.”
Pearly was angry now, talking in a snarl while she tore away the Flenser’s gear. “And now, the fuckers cleaned up their whole FUCKING country! Poof! One spell, all cleaned up! Do they SHARE it? Fuck no! THe only good thing Equestria has done for anyone outside its borders is this river!”
By the time Pearly stopped ranting, she had stripped all the corpses of their gear. Even Vex’s. She was still fuming even as she bundled it up. I, of course, ignored what she was doing in my effort to have a clue what was going on in this world.
“What’d they do for the river?”
“It starts off in their pretty little country. The assholes purified it by fucking accident when they cleaned house.” Pearly stopped talking, having bundled up all the gear she’d looted from our attackers into one large lump of leather and steel. It was hilarious watching her try and get it onto her own back to carry it. I couldn’t help but laugh as I watched. She glared at me. “You think it’s so easy? You carry it!”
For the gear of five ponies, the bundle was fairly small and light. I slung it under one arm, making Pearly even more pissed at how easy it was with fingers. I broke her glare as I asked, “So. I’m guessing you’re headed back to... Harperville?”
Pearly nodded. It’s not safe with all the Flenser patrols around recently, and there’s all kinds of dangerous shit out here besides. My dad’s probably having a fit worrying about where I am.”
Pearly started walking, me behind her, and I remembered, “Oh yeah, Vex mentioned your dad. What’s so important about him?”
“My dad’s name is Brash Ice. He’s the mayor of Harperville. These days his main job is making sure that the Flensers stay on their side of the wall, and all the townsponies are still on ours.”
We walked in silence a bit longer when one last question occurred to me. After all, almost every pony I’d met so far had been hostile towards or afraid of me. “So, your town… they’ll let me in, right?”
Pearly thought about it for a bit, then finally answered, “Probably.”
…
That was reassuring.
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It was only a minute or two later that we climbed up off the beach. From there, I could see far more of the area. As far as I could see, everything could only be described as wasteland. The earth was brown and cracked, occasionally speckled with rocks and half-dead plants. It almost looked like a desert, except I’d never heard of a desert with thick cloud cover over everything.
Harperville was far closer than I expected. It was also far smaller, which I supposed made sense (ponies being far smaller than humans, except Esmer). The entire town was maybe 20 or 30 buildings, surrounded by a wall and sitting on the edge of a river. Thin trails of smoke rose from several smokestacks, telling me that it was definitely inhabited. Even at this distance I could see the small forms of (presumably) ponies travelling back and forth atop the wall.
Near the town was another… habitation. I couldn’t make out a lot of details, as it was a ways past Harperville itself. It looked like a camp, a big grouping of tents and lean-tos and such. The smoke that rose from there was thick and black, like they were burning tires.
I tapped Pearly on the shoulder, and she jumped a foot in the air. “Hey Pearly, what’s with all the tents and stuff over there?”
Me pointing seemed to weird her out a bit, but she managed to follow the gesture. She shuddered as her eyes fell on the distant encampment. “That’s the Flenser camp. They send out patrols, occasionally they take potshots at the walls, but mostly they just sit and wait for us to let our guard down.” She shivered again, and added, “We should hurry before we run into any more of them.”
We continued our journey towards the settlement. As the walls drew closer, I could see the reaction to our approach. Someone shouted as we got closer, too far off for me to decipher it. Not much later, another half dozen heads popped up atop the barricade. I guessed the wall was maybe eight, ten feet tall. Esmer had had wings. How did they deal with flying attackers?
We were near a hundred feet from the wall when a gun went off, the bullet sparking off a stone near my feet. Both me and Pearly stopped, and I glanced down at my smaller companion. “Guess this is as far as I go. Tell me if I can come in or not.”
Pearly trotted forward alone, and the guards let her approach. Once I felt she was gonna be fine, I put down the bundle I still held and sat down. Up near the wall, Pearly was talking to the guards, a conversation that involved a lot of arm leg waving. After a minute or two, they waved her to the side, and Pearly walked over and stepped through the gate, which shut behind her. I got the strangest feeling that the guards still on the wall were staring at me. After a while of nothing at all happening, I got bored and unbundled the gear I’d been sitting against.
The long guns -the shotgun, Vex’s saddle rifles- looked like miniature versions of human guns. They had no trigger guards, so I could probably use them, and they were so small and light I could probably one-hand them. The “pistol” was different. It was a blocky thing attached to what looked like a mouthguard. I vaguely remembered one of the raiders holding the gun in their mouth. The clip fed into the side, and I used my better judgement to not feel around for the firing mechanism. It was probably on the mouth part, and no way did I want to touch that.
I was re-examining the rifle when I heard steps crunching closer. I put down the gun I was holding as I looked up. Pearly had returned, looking a bit distracted and concerned, not really looking at me or… anything really. She looked pretty spaced. I waved, and she snapped out of it.
“So! What’s the verdict?”
Pearly sighed. “You can probably come into town, but I can’t promise anything. You aren’t exactly…” She searched for a word.
“Normal?”
Pearly nodded. “Sure. That. Anyway, we should head over to town before something spots us out here.”
“Kay.” Pearly led the way towards the gate she’d gone in earlier. Every step, I could feel the eyes of the guards on the walls. One of them kept pace with us as we walked along the wall. Up close, I could see that the walls themselves were made from a complete mismatch of materials, ranging from cinder blocks and sheet metal to what looked like an i-beam.
It was kinda surprising when Pearly spoke again. “What were you doing with the guns, anyway?”
“Just looking. The long guns look like the kind I had at home, but the pistol was one weird piece of shit. I guess not having hands would change guns quite a bit.”
Pearly snorted as we approached the gates. The metal doors were level with the rest of the wall, and probably as strong as you could get from a hodge-podge of scrap metals. Pearly softly knocked with her hoof, and the doors immediately began to grind open. Despite being solidly made of rusty metal, they opened like a whisper. I guess the town didn’t want to alert the Flensers every time someone went in or out.
Behind the gate was a squad of five ponies. I didn’t get a good look at them, being more focused on the fact that four of them wore saddle-guns, and all of those guns were pointed right at me. The only pony not pointing a gun at me was a stallion in the middle of the group, white with an ice blue mane. As scary as it was, it apparently wasn’t as scary as I was. Most of them were sweating a little, and the blue pony one the far right was shaking.
I did my best to keep a calm face, avoiding giving any reason for me to be thoroughly perforated. After a second of tense standoff, the white stallion spoke up.
“Pearly, go to the house. We’ll talk later.”
“Dad, you said you’d-”
“I don’t care! I am in charge of this town, and I’m not letting in some monster you found in the river!”
Pearly’s ears drooped, and she frowned as she walked past her father and into town. All of us were silent as she trotted up the street and up into a larger house. Even at the distance, I still winced as the door slammed.
Pearly’s father (Brash Ice, I guess) turned back to me, and his eyes were a little colder than they’d been. “I don’t know what the buck you are, but you apparently saved my daughter. That’s keeping you from being shot full of holes right now. Now would you kindly just turn around and leave before this gets unpleasant?”
I sighed. So much for letting  me in. I was about to turn and leave when I remembered the bundle under my arm. Moving slowly, I pulled out Vex’s saddle and the twin rifles attached to it. The rest of the bundle was tossed to the guards. To their credit, they only almost pulled the triggers. Not like I could’ve done shit if they had. Brash Ice looked at me, then the bundle, both with an expression of disgust. “What’s this? Ponyhides?”
I did my best to ignore his hostility. “That’s the stuff we took from the Flensers we killed. It’s Pearly’s. I owe her that much at least.”
There was no response, so I turned and walked away, the gate sliding shut behind me. I kept walking straight away until I figured I’d gone half a mile at least. Then I had to sit down and think on my situation.
First thing, I was definitely not on earth. There was no way that Earth was suddenly repopulated by brightly colored ponies who had the tech to cause a magical apocalypse. Also, Earth had no magic, and Esmer and Pearly probably weren’t part of some elaborate deception. Not being on Earth meant I was clueless to politics, geography, everything. On the plus side, I’d at least recognized some of the construction materials at Harperville, so I had some minimal knowledge. 
My second step was what should’ve been step one in any survival situation: taking inventory. I still had the half-empty water bottle given to me by Pearly, Vex’s saddle, and his rifles. Each rifle had a full clip of five rounds, as well as a spare clip in small pockets on the saddle itself. Unfortunately, the saddle was my only way to carry the guns -or anything, really-, so I had to spend a few minutes messing with the straps and placement of the saddle. Eventually it ended up against my left side, the straps hanging over my right shoulder. Thankfully, no humans were around to see how ridiculous I probably looked.
Feeling thirsty, I downed what was left of the water I had, bringing me to my next problem. I had no food, and now I also had no water. Until I could get more, I was staying near the river. The road I was currently on led away from the river, but there was also the path Pearly and I had walked on earlier. It ran alongside the river as far as I could tell, and all paths tended to lead somewhere.
Upriver was the Flenser camp, so I headed to the downstream side of Harperville. After the warm welcome by the mayor, I couldn’t help but to feel like someone was watching my every move through a scope. The logical part of my mind said that any weapon like that would be used to snipe the Flenser’s patrols, but I couldn’t really shake the feeling. When I got to the river, I filled my water bottle, straightened my side-saddle, and started down the narrow, crude path alongside the river.
********************************************************************************************************
Walking is fucking boring.
Several things aided the mind-numbing effects. For one, the sky was an endless expanse of unchanging grey clouds. The land was brown, barren, and repetitive. The few trees I saw were as dead as the rocks, as dull as the dirt, and about as interesting as counting my arm hairs. As I travelled, I found I had three distractions: studying my gear in detail, self-teaching myself to braid my overly long hair, and singing. I knew all kinds of songs, from rap to country to hymns. Sure, I was iffy on most of their lyrics, but I could improvise pretty well. On a good day I’d find myself making up my own songs. Out of boredom, I began to compose my own ode to the wasteland around me.

“Welcome, to a world you can see,
Is as different from yours as you are from me.
We needed your knowledge we put you on ice,
The mind wasn’t willing the body sufficed.
We sent you ahead to learn what we’ve done.
Why tell you? Would telling have been any fun?”

Okay, so it wasn’t much about the wasteland, more about me. But which did I know more about?
I turned my attention from singing as I spotted something in the distance. “Daylight” was just beginning to fade, but there was enough for me to make out the squat form of a building not too far out of my way. It was small even if I considered it as a pony building, but it also looked like a fair shelter.
I approached from behind the squat brick building, so I circled around to the front. A faded sign hung over a set of boarded up windows and a rusty old door. The door was shoulder high, and it confused me immensely when I saw the doorknob. It seemed that ponies would have push doors. Why would they have a doorknob?
I pushed my confusion to the side as I tried to pull the door open. Nothing happened. I tried to push it open. Nothing happened. I yanked on it, and the door budged just enough to trickle some rust flakes on my feet. On one hand, I knew that the door was just rusted shut. On the other hand, it was totally mocking me. I took a few steps back and charged the door, slamming into it as hard as I could. There was a rusty crunk as the door collapsed inwards right off its hinges.
I had to crouch through the evidence, stepping over the bent remains of the front door. Flickering lights somehow still functioned, giving weak light to what was certainly, no doubt, hands down, … a convenience store. The checkout counter was right next to me, flimsy metal shelves filled the room, and cracked coolers lined the back wall. Once more I was confused. What the hells was a convenience store doing in the literal middle of nowhere? 
Despite being confusing, there were advantages to stumbling into a store like this. For example, the thick layer of dust gave me good odds that any food here was probably untouched. I didn’t feel very hungry, but I was still drooling as I started browsing through the abundant food.

…

… or not.

Most of the cans that stocked the shelves were empty. What were a bunch of empty cans doing all neatly set out on a shelf? To mock me even more, the cans that were still full were the kind that needed a can opener to open up. I checked the coolers more out of curiosity than hope, and to my surprise there were still some sealed drinks. Little glass bottles labelled “Sparkle Cola”, featuring comical images of carrots and a yellow-colored, pink-maned mare. I popped one open and took a sip, only spit it back out. It wasn’t bad, per say, I’d just never expected to be drinking a carrot-flavored soda.
The rest of the bottle went pretty slowly as I adjusted to the… unique flavor. As I drank, I spent the time between sips examining the illustrations, annoyed by the nagging feeling that I’d missed something. I must’ve looked that bottle over a dozen times before I realized what I’d been missing.
The mare on the bottle had wings.
The only pony I’d seen with wings was Esmer, and she’d had a horn too. So now I had evidence of at least four kinds of ponies in the wasteland. Not knowing what they called themselves, (except alicorns) I assigned the odd ones names from human mythology. Ponies, alicorns, pegasuses pegasi, unicorns. With mythical creatures wandering around as common races, I wondered what the monsters Pearly had mentioned were. Chimeras? Minotaurs? Dragons?
That line of thought kept me going for a while, but then I was back to trying to distract myself from the lack of accessible food. The only real place to check was behind the checkout counter. Being back there felt weird as hell. You don’t walk behind the counter at a store. That’s where the employees are, not you.
For whatever reason, it appeared that behind the counter was the only part of the store that’d been looted. The register was open, any cash was gone, and junk was everywhere. Out of lack of anything else to do, I rummaged through the mess. Wrappers, empty bottles, empty cans… and a safe. The safe was a black square in the floor about the size of my chest. Where any other safe would’ve had a keyhole or a dial, this one had a card scanner, like a hotel room. Either way, I had no way to open it.
I sighed in disappointment. Lame. I found something actually interesting, and I had no way to open it. If it’d had a combination lock, at least I could’ve tried guessing at the com. Instead, the card-swiper just sat there and mocked me silently. No way was I gonna find a keycard in this mess.
My annoyance at the safe faded a bit, and I let out a huge yawn. Between tumbling down a river, fighting off “Flensers”, and walking all the way here, I was pretty wiped. Exhausted, actually. I laid out Vex’s saddle behind me as a hard leather pillow. The debris on the ground was my rough bedding as I closed my eyes and let sleep claim my mind.
********************************************************************************************************
The realm of dreams was not the sanctuary in which I normally rested. The bodies on the beach and the scent of death were burned into my memory. Blood dripped from the dead, and I fell to my knees. The blood followed my vision, flowing towards me on the smooth river stones. I screamed, but the scream was a metallic screech that-

-woke me up. My eyes snapped open, and that god-awful screech kept going. Abruptly in panic mode, I reached for the tiny rifle next to me. Shaking fingers gripped the weapon… and the noise stopped. My eyes were wide open, adrenaline was rushing, and I had nothing to go for. The door was right where I’d left it. Nothing had moved in the store. Everything was just as I left it, which seemed to give my body even more reason to freak out.
Since there was apparently no hope of me falling back asleep, I checked outside, past the bent-up door. Still dark, but here I was, awake, all nerved up. Having nothing better to do with my nervous energy, I started grabbing tin cans and crushing them in my hands. The cans were as flimsy as tin foil, and they crushed easily into tiny balls of metal. The cans provided a pleasant distraction instead of the things I could’ve done at home. I had no books to read, no paper to draw on, and no games to play. Since I was trying to be quiet, I couldn’t sing and I couldn’t break things. Every one of my normal activities was down the drain. One way or another, I finally started to calm down.
Naturally, I couldn’t be calm for long. I had just closed my eyes again when there was another, very brief screech of metal. My eyes flashed open, and I saw the door to the floor safe clang wide open. I stared at the open door with wide eyes, nervously pointing a rifle at the door. From the hole came faint skittering noises, but they were nearly lost in the sounds of screams and gunshots that also rose from the ground. I stared in silence as the gunshots died away, the screams only getting louder. Out of the hole burst a screaming pony, and I would’ve pissed myself if I’d still had my… you know. The green and yellow blur of a pony kept screaming as she ran and hid behind one of the store shelves. I wasn’t sure she even noticed me in her terrified rush.
With the screaming and the gunfire both silenced, I could hear the skittering again. I could hear it as it got closer,and finally something followed the pony out of the safe. It looked like a cross-breed of nightmare and scorpion, resulting in a monstrosity as long as a pony and half as tall.
The giant scorpion only got about halfway out of the safe when I started spamming the trigger on my rifle.
BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGclickclickclickclick
The bullets punched disappointingly small holes in the scorpion’s carapace. A thick green ichor oozed out the holes as the monster climbed out of the safe and charged me. It’s tail shot towards my chest, and I rolled to the side… right onto my other rifle. The scorpion’s tail had swung forward so hard it was stuck in the brick wall, so I took the chance to roll off my rifle and swing it up.
BANGBANGBANGclick
The three shot burst landed around the scorpion’s eyes, and proved finally enough to kill the thing. It slumped to the ground in a rapidly growing pool of ichor. I tried to relax, but I could still here the skittering from the tunnel or whatever was below. If the screams below had stopped, then there were probably more scorpions heading my way, and I was out of ammo. Fast as I could, I darted forward and closed the safe, cutting off the noises completely.
There was a few seconds when all I could hear was the adrenaline pounding through my veins. When my body realized I was safe, the adrenaline drained away, leaving me shaky, weak, and nauseous. I didn’t throw up like I had after fighting the Flensers, but the aftermath of an adrenaline rush is not fun.
I’m not saying I hated the adrenaline, mind you. While it was there, while you were in the rush, it was amazing. Speed, power, and an almost complete immunity to fear. In a hard rush, the adrenaline is all that matters. Your conscious mind all but shuts down. You could get shot in the chest and still tear the shooter apart before realizing you were dead.
But the adrenaline wears off. Your limbs shake from exertion. Your head aches from the stress. Your stomach rebels against you. I loved the rush, but I loathed what came after. When my body functioned once more, I remembered the mare who’d run past me. At least, I assumed it was a female, and not a male with a very high-pitched voice.
Now that the rush was gone, I focused on my ears, searching for something new. The pony had stopped screaming a while ago, but now I could hear a faint whimpering in the otherwise silent store. I silently padded towards it, following the sorrowful sound. I admit that there was more to my slow approach than basic caution. I was afraid. Afraid of another pony trying to kill me or hurt me.
The pony wasn’t too hard to find in the small store. She had hidden under a tipped-over shelf, curled up in a whimpering ball.She didn’t look at me as I approached, so I looked at her. She was a horned pony, a unicorn, and was not, as I’d first though, green and yellow. Those colors came from a jumpsuit that covered her whole body except her head and hooves. She was actually kind of red-orange, with a more drab gray-green mane. A strange metallic thing was wrapped around one of her forelegs, with a gently glowing red display.
As curious as I was, as much as I wanted to touch her, to comfort her, I didn’t. Instead, I sat down nearby and just looked at her for a bit. The first time I really saw a still, live pony up close. I knew that if I talked to her, or made her look at me, it would only scare her more. Instead I sat and silently watched over her until sleep claimed me.
********************************************************************************************************
This time, they didn’t miss. 
Explosives punched holes in me. 
Twin rifles left twin holes in Pearly’s hide.
A scorpion tail bit deep into my chest, filing my veins with molten fire.
Esmer exploded into a cloud of fine red mist.
My friends looked on as pony scientists cut into my flesh, grinning wickedly as they drew out my-
********************************************************************************************************
My eyes snapped open wide. I lay on the store floor, gasping for breath. I’d only seen the scientists once! How had they entered my dreams, and why were they… cutting me like that?
I forced the fear down, out of my mind. There was no way I was going to crack after one day in this fucking wasteland. Ponies had taken my body, but not my mind, and I was not going to give that up. Gritting my teeth, I made my body obey, slowing my heart with slow, deep breaths. Not the best start to any day.
I looked over at where the pony had been earlier. She was still there, but now her head was up and she was staring at me with wide amber eyes. I almost snapped at her, but pulled myself back to a mildly calmer tone.
“What?”
Her ears and head lowered as I looked at her. “You… it’s just… you were screaming. In your sleep.”
I took a deep breath, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “I’m just not used to…” I gestured vaguely with my hand, “...this. I’m used to school, to my big worries being exams, or when I can game with my friends.” Another deep breath. “Magic, ponies, being shot at… all pretty new experiences for me.”
I was distracted from my frustrations by a low growl. Both me and the mare tensed before I realized it was from my stomach. I remembered my pile of closed cans, then glanced at the small bags mounted at the little mare’s sides. “Hey… I don’t suppose you have a can opener in those bags?”
“Say what?”
“You know, a can opener? I’ve got some canned food here,but I got nothing to open it.”
“You can rip a door off its hinges, but you can’t open a can?”
How did she… “How do you know about that?”
The mare paused, her eyes widening as she realized her mistake. “Umm… know what?”
“The door. How do you know what I did to it?”
“I… looked at it? This morning?”
“Calling bull on that. You haven’t moved since last night.”
I didn’t really know that, but the bluff apparently worked. She sagged, then pointed a hoof. “We had a security camera. In that corner.”
I looked, and sure enough, there was a tiny dot of still red light in the corner of the ceiling. I wasn’t sure how  I’d missed it before, but now I knew where it was, and so proceeded to ignore it. No reason to make the person (or pony) behind the camera dislike me. Thus, I let my mind wander back to the original topic of conversation.
“So, about that can opener…”
********************************************************************************************************
Frozen Flight, as the mare introduced herself over breakfast, did indeed have a can opener. As she explained it, she was from a secure bunker beneath the store, thus her jumpsuit. The bunker had sealed 200 years ago in “the war”, (I was still curious what that was) and it had remained relatively undisturbed since then. At least, they’s been undisturbed until I showed up. Me “opening” the store had set off gods-know-how-many alarms the current bunker residents had never seen before. Pulling out some old manual, the bunker residents turned on the camera, assembled a team, and sent them out to drive me away.
“They… they were right outside the bunker door. Probably woke up when we opened it, and they went right down into the bunker… I ran out, but I could hear the screams… oh gods, why did I have to hear the screams!”
Frozen broke down like the night before, curling up and crying. I became immobile as my mind tried to tell me what to do. I don’t do well with emotion. I can bottle it up fairly easily, so I don’t know what to do when other people can’t. Frozen’s open display was almost as alien to me as she was.
After a long pause, I scooted a little closer to Frozen and wrapped an uncertain arm around her… everything. She stiffened at first, but then let me hold her as she continued to cry. Her tears brought back the emotions from the beach, making me remember my family, my friends, my life… all the things stolen from me. A few tears of my own trickled down my face as both of us mourned our own losses.
********************************************************************************************************
It was sometime later that Frozen pulled away from me, wiping her eyes on her fetlocks (I think that’s the right word). Since we couldn’t go into the bunker and we’d run out of food here in the store, we had to leave the store. After some discussion, I turned my battle saddle over to Frozen, who had as much idea what to do with it as I did. We put it on under her saddlebags, remounting the empty rifle at her sides. On a sidenote, that also meant she was the one with all our supplies. I hoped I could trust her. I myself was, once again, naked. Of course, I didn’t mind as much as I would’ve anywhere else. My overgrown hair and beard covered a lot of my exposed skin, and my weird-meter was already maxed-out the moment I woke up in the pony wastes.
When we were ready to go, I walked over to the broken door and kicked it, sending it skittering across the crumbling road. I felt like a total badass, but Frozen just snorted and trotted out past me. Then she stopped. Then she slowly backed right back into the store. I waited a few seconds, but she didn’t come out again. I glanced back in and found her sitting ten feet back with wide eyes. I waved to get her attention, but she didn’t twitch.
I waved again. “Hey, uh, Frozen? You okay?”
Her voice was quiet, and I had to strain to hear her response. “It’s so big out there…“ 
The obvious dirty joke came to mind, but then it was replaced by a more obvious realization: Frozen was from a bunker. Every bunker I’d ever seen had been a bunch of cramped tunnels. I was used to the outdoors, and the wasteland still felt vast and empty. Frozen was born underground. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like for her to see the outdoors.
Unfortunately for Frozen, her newfound phobia didn’t change the fact that we’d have to move at some point. I stepped between her and the door, blocking her view of the outside. “Hey Frozen! We gonna get moving, or are you just gonna sit around all day?”
On the plus side, I got a response. On the downside, Frozen’s face twisted angrily as she shouted, “What the hells is wrong with you?! How can you be so calm walking into that?!”
I glanced around theatrically. “Walk into what? All I see is dirt and rocks, and I haven’t walked into any rocks yet.”
“You know what I mean!”
I sighed. Humor was not the right tactic here. “We can’t stay here, Frozen. We’re sitting on a nest of giant scorpions, and we only have food for a day or two. I’m heading out whether or not you come.”
Frozen shuddered, the anger draining out of her as fast as it’d come. “I… I can’t go out there.”
I sighed again. It wasn’t like I could actually carry through on my threat. Not only would I be leaving someone to her likely death, but there was also some selfishness involved. For one, she was carrying all my stuff, including the food. For another, there was the reactions ponies had had to me. If not for Pearly’s company outside Harperville, I would’ve been thoroughly perforated. No way could I go into any town without a pony to vouch for me.
“Can we try this? Just follow me. You don’t have to look up, or even look around at all, but we can’t stay. We’d starve.”
Frozen shuddered as she debated internally, but logic won out. She slowly uncurled and trotted up to me, avoiding looking out the door. I started walking, and cautious hoofsteps followed. Sure, every step made me distinctly aware of someone on eye level with my butt, but that wasn’t very high on my list of priorities at the moment.
The silence stretched on as I walked along the broken asphalt. I was about to start humming, or singing, ar anything to break the silence, when Frozen best me to it.
“Earlier, when you woke up… you said you were used to school, and that stuff. How long have you been here?” 
“Here? You mean the wasteland, or this… world?”
“... Both, I guess?”
“I’ve been in the wastes for a day or two now. Or at least, that’s how long I’ve been awake. As for the other number, I dunno. Since before the bombs fell, I’m pretty sure.”
Frozen stopped walking abruptly, and I glanced back to see her shocked expression. For not the first time, I was amazed at how expressive pony faces were. Finally she blurted out, “Th-that’s impossible!”
“What is?”
“The bombs fell two hundred years ago! No way are you that old!”
I shrugged. “I don’t know how it worked, but I’m alive, and that works for me. It’d be fucking depressing if I got summoned to another world only to sleep until I died. And good job looking up at me for the whole conversation.”
Frozen’s eyes immediately widened, then they quickly turned back towards the ground. After a moment, I went back to walking. Both of us travelled on with our own thoughts keeping us silent.
We walked on for hours, the dim circle of the sun rising higher in the sky. Around mid-day, I finally saw something other than broken road, endless wastes, and depressing clouds. Shading my eyes didn’t make the distant shape any clearer, but it did not look like a natural formation. I glanced back at Frozen, who was still staring rigidly away from the openness around us.
“Hey Frozen, I’m pretty sure there’s a building up ahead a ways. Hopefully we can get there in the next half hour or so.”
“Why the rush?”
“The air smells like rain. I don’t know what kind of stuff falls from the clouds around here, but I don’t think I want to be outside when it comes down.”
I picked up my pace, forcing Frozen to speed up to keep pace with me. Between breaths she managed, “Keith? What’s rain?”
“It’s water, falling from the sky in little drops. It’s really annoying, but it wasn’t too harmful where I came from. Of course, I hate getting wet, and I figure you don’t want to get soaked either. So let’s move!”
Thunder rumbled in the distance as me and Frozen jogged to shelter, a human and a pony running across the dead wastes.

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Footnote: Level Up!

Race - Human
Humans receive a +2 racial bonus to ST and AG (size and hands), but receive a -2 EN penalty (thin skin, unfamiliar diseases). Humans are also 10% easier to hit in vats, due to size.

Quest Perk added - It’s a Secret
Very proprietary, very hush-hush. Move along now.

Perk added - Little Leaguer
Who cares if you actually play sports? This perk gives you 10 free points in melee and thrown weapons skills.

Locations Discovered - Harperville, Infested Bunker
> Chapter 2: Reality (Incomplete)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter Two: Reality

“If it was heaven, then heaven was underwhelming. If it was hell, then hell was lame.”

I sat in the lobby of an office building, naked except for my hair. Across from me sat a reddish unicorn mare, wearing a jumpsuit and fiddling with a computer on her ankle. Ten feet away sat the 200-year-old, blackened bones of another pony. And past that, through the broken glass of the lobby entrance, fell a pounding thunderstorm of radioactive water.
It was a hard choice between being there or being in school.
Frozen had calmed down a lot with four walls around her, but she was still pointed straight away from the door. And while I was calm, I was also getting bored.
“Hey Frozen, it looks like this rain’s gonna keep coming down. Want to check out the rest of the building?”
She looked up from her Pipbuck to look at me incredulously. “You want to explore this place? It’s two hundred years old! It could be on the verge of collapse!”
“I’m two hundred years old and I still work fine. Also, this place is intact enough to have at least one working light. If it’s still standing after 200 years, I’m inclined to believe it’ll stay standing through this storm.”
Whether or not Frozen wanted to explore, I was tired of sitting around. I got up, walked over to one of the doors  into the building, and tried the knob. It didn’t budge. I twisted a bit harder, and there was a metallic snap as the handle came off in my hand. I walked over and tried the other door, to much the same result.
Frozen walked up behind me. “Well, that was an easy decision. Guess we’re staying out here.”
I shook my head. “Nah, I just need a more creative door-opening technique.” I looked around the room, and my eyes fell on the rows of chairs sitting in the lobby. They were those row chairs, with one attached to the next. One whole row had fallen over, and it was that row that I grabbed as a battering ram. I carried it over to the door on the left and slammed it into the rusted metal. Both the chairs and the door let loose showers of rust, and I hoped the chairs held out longer. I swung again, and was rewarded with a massive dent in the door. I kept going, and soon the door was bent almost in half. With a metallic groan, the door tipped back into the hallway behind it.
I dropped the bent chair-row with a victorious grin. Said grin didn’t last very long as the building’s ancient intercom crackled to life. “There has been a security breach in the main lobby. All employees, please remain in -BZCH- are deployed.”
I had a whole second to wonder about that before a panel in the hall dropped open, and strange metal contraption dropped out. It was basically a box with a barrel pointed at me. The turret started firing before it lined up on me, so the burst of laser fire hit me in the side rather than the chest. I didn’t dodge out of the doorway so much as fall, but I was swearing by the time I hit the ground. The turret kept firing, almost hitting me in the foot before I yanked that out of the way too.
“Son of a fuck!”
Frozen ran over to me as I gritted my teeth and checked on my side. There were six round wounds on my side, each as big around as a pencil and maybe an inch deep. The pain was… intense. I hadn’t really been injured since I’d arrived in the world, and now I’d taken a laser burst to my side. There were a couple of tears running past my gritted teeth.
Frozen looked at the injury for just a moment before floating something out of her saddlebags towards me. “Here! Drink this!”
I glanced up to see a bottle of purple fluid floating just in front of my nose. Frozen had little reason to betray me, and far be it from me to refuse help, so I grabbed the bottle and tossed it back. Best case scenario, it was some sort of painkiller. 
Turns out, there was an even better best case.
I forgot there was magic.
A warm, sort-of glowy feeling spread down my chest and out through my body, quickly concentrating on the laser burns in my side. I watched in awe as the holes almost grew shut, leaving neat little circles of scar tissue in their places. Then the glow and the pain faded away, leaving behind a dull ache, like I’d been punched in the side rather than shot.
I slowly turned my awed expression from my former wounds to Frozen. “Did you just… give me a healing potion?”
“Yeah, we um, used them all the time in the bunker…” Frozen paused a moment, looking at me in confusion. “... have you never seen one before?”
“Well, I have, in games and stories and wishful thinking! Healing potions actually exist here? And you just carry some around?”
The little unicorn nodded hesitantly. “Well, I only have a half dozen or so, but they were pretty common before the war. There should be some left around…”
I shook that little revelation from my mind as I stood up. “I have to admit, I’m a bit curious what was so important they put a turret in the ceiling to protect it.”
“I think they were actually pretty common back-WHAT ARE YOU DOING!”
I pulled my head out of the way before the turret could come to bear, and it’s barrage hit blank wall. “What? I’m not gonna just jump out in front of it.” I looked away from her to the rest of the lobby. I had a battle saddle and two bullets for said rifles. Frozen had her Pipbuck and whatever was in her saddlebags. Other than us, it was broken glass, really old chairs, and a very dead skeleton behind a very old desk.
With nothing better to do, I wandered over and started rummaging through the old desk. For a secretary’s desk, there was a startling lack of office supplies. There was just a stapler and a bunch of weird bottle caps featuring a carrot and the words “Sparkle Cola”. Yeah, that was the stuff I drank back in the rest stop where I met Frozen. I pocketed them ‘cause I wasn’t carrying anything, and didn’t question why they were there in the first place.
Since the desk was a bust, I tried my luck with the skeleton behind it. It felt kind of weird to shuffle through a pile of bones, but at the end of the day they were really only bones. I found what I wanted pretty quick anyway, where the ponies neck had once been. There was a lanyard with a picture of a red-maned, blue-furred earth pony mare. Apparently her name had been “Blue Raspberry”.
I tossed it over to Frozen. “Here! Try this on!”
She caught it in her magic and took a look at it. “Um… this isn’t mine, Keith.”
“I know, but it belongs to someone who works here, so maybe it’ll keep you from getting shot.”
She pushed it back my way. “I don’t want to try that! Why don’t you do it?”
“Because, as you may have noticed, I’m not a female or even a pony at all. You have a far better chance at fooling the security.”
“...and if your brilliant plan doesn’t work?”
I grinned my most shit-eating grin. “Well, I do know what a healing potion looks like now.”
Frozen looked at the lanyard, then back at me. Then did so again. And again. Finally she sighed in exasperation and hung the lanyard around her neck. “Fine, I’ll do it. Wait here.”
Gritting her teeth, Frozen stepped out into the view of the hallway turret.
Nothing happened.
I watched as my only friend in the world trotted into the unknown, then I sat back and waited for her to come back.

And I waited…

And waited.

…

I was beginning to regret sending Frozen away. I was pretty sure from the lack of lasers and screams that she was alive, but there was only so much worrying for her survival I could do. Once I ran out of that, all I had left was the lobby around me, and the only thing to do there was poke my scars and think. My scars weren’t too interesting, and I didn’t really want to think at that moment, so I fell on my fallback fallback, and started to sing. Old music, the kind that wasn’t made for music with it.


	(there was supposed to be a song here, but I couldn't decide on one. Well, on one that Fim would let me post. Probably "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford, so you can hum that if you want) 


I was about to start my way into the next verse, when I heard a sound like coconuts clapping together. Turning, I saw that Frozen had returned unnoticed, and she was clapping her hooves together with a surprised look on her face. She stopped almost as soon as I looked at her, looking slightly embarrassed. “Sorry, that was just… really good. Did you get your cutie mark for singing or something?”
“My what.”
“Your… cutie mark?”
“No, I heard that part. What’s a cutie mark?”
“There a symbol of a pony’s special talent. We have them on our flanks?”
“I mean…” I thought back on it, “... I think I’ve seen a few of them. I guess I haven’t been paying too much attention to ponies’ butts. I figured they were some kind of tattoo or something.” Seeing Frozen’s confused look, I clarified, “Tattoos are permanent ink images etched into your skin, but they don’t have anything to do with talents and stuff like that.”
“Humans don’t have anything even close to cutie marks?”
“Nope!” I shuddered. “Ugh, getting a job would be a nightmare. You chances at any job you weren’t talented for would just get bulldozed.”
Frozen thought over those deep moral implications for a minute, then shook her head clear. “Um, anyway, I couldn’t find a way to end the lockdown. There were very few areas I could access, and they were full of security. There’s no way you’d get anywhere without a pass.”
I sighed. Dammit. “Ah well, I guess it was just a hope that there’d be something interesting in there.” Standing up and stretching, I looked out into the overcast outdoors. “Well, it looks like the rain’s petering off. Want to keep going? See if we can find a town or something?”
There was silence for a while, and I finally glanced at Frozen. She was looking at me more than a little skeptically. I raised an eyebrow in response. “What?”
“You… want to go find a town.”
“Hell yeah. Towns have food, money, people to talk to… what, did you think I was planning to just wander the wastes randomly forever?”
“Not really, but didn’t you say that the last town you went to shot at you?”
“Nooooo. The ponies in the town just pointed guns at me until I left. The ponies surrounding the town shot at me.” And I killed them. “Besides, I have you with me now! You can vouch for my trustworthiness!”
Frozen snorted. “Yeah, that’ll work. ‘Oh, I know he looks like a monster straight out of a horror story, but I’ve known him for a whole day and he hasn’t ripped out anypony’s organs!’ I’m sure that’ll go over great.”
I beamed. “Exactly!”
“That was sarcasm!”
I sighed, dropping the smart-ass facade. “Look, I don’t actually care what you have to say to get us in. Say I’m deaf, or stupid, or you tamed me or something. If you don’t want to go to town, we can always stay in some ruins like last night. You know, out here with the flensers and the mutated gods-know-what’s.”
Even indirectly bringing up Frozen’s trauma was a low blow, but it worked. Once again, I found myself trudging across the wastes, Frozen at my tail. It was still cloudy, but at least it wasn’t raining anymore. Frozen’s Pipbuck clicked ever-so-slowly as it warned us of the tiny residual radiation of the wet dirt. She assured me the amount was (probably) far from dangerous, so we kept moving along.
The thing about walking long distance is that it is really, unfathomably boring. Even more so for Frozen, who couldn’t bear to look around for more than a few seconds at a time. After a while we started talking. I talked about the world that I remembered: politics, science, the lack of magic. My info may or may not have been two hundred years out of date, but that wasn’t what mattered. I was sharing my memories, and the world that I had come from.
In exchange, Frozen told me of the world that I had come to, though her info was more certainly out-of-date than mine was. The country we were in was called Sorata. It had once been a peaceful nation ruled by an alicorn (like Esmer, but more respected) called Lady Signis. A few hundred miles to the north was a country called Equestria, ruled by its own two princesses (more alicorns). 200 years in the past, Equestria got in a war with a neighboring country of zebras, some kind of race/culture clash. The war got big, world-war big, where every country got pulled into one side or another of the conflict- all, except Sorata.
Most countries were barely even aware that Sorata existed, but those that did send request their aid in the fight were adamantly refused by Lady Signis. Though she refused to let the war enter the country, she couldn’t stop the fear that came with it. Her subjects brought in new technologies from Equestria: reinforced buildings, robots, turrets, all sorts of things. In only a few years, the kingdom went from a fantasy wonderland to a paranoid suburbia.
It was thanks to Lady Signis’ denial that only one Equestrian company even managed to set up shop in Sorata. Of course, by most accounts that was the most important company, called Stable-Tec. Their business was setting up stables, huge underground bunkers to protect Sorata’s citizens if the war went south for the whole world. When the bombs fell, Stable-tec sent out the call, every pony that had space reserved went in and stayed there.
That was where Frozen’s knowledge of the outside ended, because her family had been one of those families… in a way. Her particular family lived in the bunkers and tunnels outside the stable entrance, which were somewhat less radiation resistant. They were a sort of rad meter, to let the Stable know when it was safe to come out of their hole. Since they were a bit more prone to diseases and the like from the outside, every year the family entered the stable, got checked out by the doctor, and left with a stable resident as a new “family” member. That’s how it’d been for years and years… until I messed it all up.
At that point she couldn’t really talk anymore, so I went back to telling her about Earth. Honestly, everything I told her was apparently astounding. A blue sky and the sun overhead was shocking enough, but cities with millions of people in them? A world where magic was the stuff of children’s stories and no more? The ability for everyone to eat fresh, sun-grown food? If it was that shocking for an underground resident, I could only imagine how the ponies of the wasteland would react.
Not that I just told her about the good stuff we had; I told her about the bad stuff too. The wars we were fighting, the people starving… the list went on and on. The more I thought, the more things that I knew we could be doing better. It was depressing, and soon I was back to just talking about whatever crossed my mind.
After so many hours of walking and talking, we - well, I - spotted something that looked like shelter. A barn and silo duo sat in the middle of nowhere, no farmhouse anywhere in sight. I stopped and looked around, but there was nothing around moving, either. Just the oppressive grey sky above the dead brown land. Even so, I stopped and held out a hand to stop Frozen too. She yelped as she walked into me anyway, then peeked around me to see what was going on.
I waved my arm at the ruined farm. “What do you think? Probably our best bet for a place to stay the night.”
“I wish it wasn’t. That place looks creepy enough in the light.”
I shrugged, pulling out my rifle and the whole two bullets it contained. “Well, tell you what. I’ll go in, and if I survive then it’s probably safe! Be right back.”
I left Frozen there, then crouched a bit as I crept towards the barn. For whatever reason, bending my legs 30 degrees made me feel a hell of a lot sneakier. The barn door (the one that wasn’t missing) was wide open, so I crept up beside it and peeked inside. The barn was basically empty, probably swept clear by wind and weather. All that I could see was a very old, worn tractor and a ladder up to a loft overhead. I stepped into the open space, then froze as I immediately heard movement by the tractor.
I waited, pointing my dinky little rifle at the rusted contraption. There was evn more rustling, then out leapt… a cockroach. Admittedly it was a really big roach, as long as my forearm. But it was a bug. I couldn’t help but snicker as I lowered my gun, looking around the room for something to crush it with. No need to waste bullets. There was a rusty old shovel leaned up in the corner, just what I needed. Backing carefully away from the hissing bug, I came back with said shovel in hand. The roach chittered at me as I got close, but a single thrust of the shovel cut it in half. It died with a gross little hiss.
With no warning at all, another roach leapt out of the tractor and dug its mandibles into my arm. Reacted on pure instinct, I yelled in pain, tearing the offending bug away and flinging it at the tractor, where it was impaled on a rusty lever. The wound it left on my arm was a mess, but thankfully I had the healing potion Frozen had lent me after our earlier incident. Not wanting to waste such a precious resource, I dripped the fluid carefully into my broken flesh. It was one of the strangest things I’d ever seen, watching my own flesh grow and knit itself back together.
I gave the tractor a kick, but no more roaches made themselves know. Assuming that was safe now, I headed over to the ladder and started up. Even in small pony architecture, the loft was a bit too high to jump up and climb onto. Halfway up the ladder, I paused as I heard voices above. They didn’t seem to react to me stopping, or sound panicked at all, so I resumed my climb. Just as I reached the top, the voices stopped and so did I.
I hung at the top of the ladder for a minute or two in silence, then gave up and lifted myself up into the loft. Most of the area was occupied  by bales of very old, very dry hay. Unable to see who’d been talking, I crept towards the largest stack of bales. Bracing myself, I stepped behind it to find… a skeleton. The ancient bones were laid over a box that weakly crackled with static.
Had anyone been around to hear, they’d have heard a sigh, and a palm against a forehead.
A radio, of course. The signal I’d been hearing had ended, but there was a handset attached. Maybe I’d mess around with the signal later, see what was being broadcast out over the wasteland. For now, though, I glanced around the rest of the loft. A skeleton and a bunch of hay bales. All clear.
Frozen was right out where I left her, staring down at the rocky ground. She glanced up at me as I approached, then her eyes slid past me to look at the sky and her head went back down with a shudder. I was about to report my findings when she raised her head slightly and raised an eyebrow at me.
“Why do you have a shovel?”
I gave the bug-stained rustlump a glance. “I picked it up in the barn, of course. I didn’t want to squish bugs with my bare hands.” Chuckling, I added, “Honestly, I expected you to ask more about the blood.”
As soon as I pointed it out, Frozen panicked, her magic lighting up her saddlebags. “Oh no! Are you ok? Do you need-”
I waved a hand and cut her off. “Relax, I already used a potion to clean it out. The barn is cleared, and there’s a loft where we can get off ground level for the night.”
Frozen nodded hesitantly, and I led her inside. The dead bugs got a grimace out of her, but in her defense I had killed them quite messily. I got halfway up the ladder when I stopped, (again) this time because of a realization.
“I, uh, should mention that there’s a pony skeleton up here. And a radio. In case either would freak you out.”
I paused long enough to hear a careful, “Thank you?” Then I continued on up the ladder.
There’s not a lot to do in an ancient barn while you wait for the unseen sun to set. I ended up burying the bones (at Frozen’s request) and eventually rearranged the hay bales to form a crude square for me and Frozen to sleep in. Just that bit of extra cover made the ruin feel much safer to sleep in. Even if all we had to worry about were scorpions and roaches on the ground, the visual barrier would help if we were happened across by Flensers. Actually, any encounter with ponies would be nerve wracking for several of those involved.
I had just finished cleaning the blood off of my arm when the radio crackled to life once more, making Frozen (and me almost) yelp in surprise. Fortunately, it’s not like we’d been foolish enough to turn on broadcasting, so we were alright.
A distinctly male voice came through, his words chopped up a bit by static. “NS Command, this is Corporal Bitter Wind -smkas- Sergeant Net Blade got hit soon after we -sdkfnjsd- There’s were at least a dozen raiders in the group that-” There was a metallic clang in the background, “-Bucking hell!” Pause. “We’re holed up in a safe room in the -jnej- but we need reinforcements, and soon. Over!”
I admit, the (assumed) pony was pretty calm for being trapped and surrounded. His transmission was quickly answered by a deep military voice. 
“Received, corporal. How many are left in your squad? Over.”
“Me, sir, and two privates. -sdnfi- on ammo, and out of medical supplies. Over.”
“All other units are recovering or on their own missions. You have to hold out until we can get someone sent your way. Over.”
I saw a chance, and took it, grabbing up the handset and pressing the button. “Sounds like you fellows are in a bit of a pickle. Over.”
There was a pause, then the military voice answered. “Who is that? This is an official military frequency!”
I sighed, and pressed the button again. “I know, and I’m not normally the type to interrupt a good drama, but it sounds like you could use a hand there. Over.”
“We don’t need help, whoever-”
I cut him off. “Corporal. How long do you think it’ll take for someone to bash their way into your room there? Over.”
There was a pause, then said pony came onto the radio once more. “It’s a good metal door, but -assdzx- won’t last long if the raiders really try. Maybe an hour or two. Over.”
“Now, Commander Loudpony, my companion has a Pipbuck with a map on it. I can help your soldiers, given their coordinates. Or, you can ignore my offer, and we can see how long it takes for there to be raiders on your little military channel. I leave the choice up to you. Over.”
There was a tense pause (at least from my side of the call). Finally the stallion from “NS Command” came back over the airwaves. “Get whoever has that Pipbuck on the radio.”
I gestured to Frozen, and she hesitantly picked up the set. “Hello?”
The command had brought over some sort of technician pony, and he guided Frozen through a maze of menus until she was ready to take the coordinates. With a brief screech of static from the set, the transmission was over, and a new place popped up on Frozen’s map. A supermarket, according to her device, maybe half an hour from our current location.
I smiled and picked up the handset once more. “We got them, NS. We’re thirty minutes out, moving now. Over.”
I was about to grab all five of my possessions when there was a final transmission from the Command. ”Hey, whoever you are. I don’t know how you got on this channel, but if you’re going to be on here you need a call sign.”
I thought for a moment… then another moment. When the answer occurred to me, it was as obvious as a brick to the head. I was chuckling as I picked up the button and said, “Call me Impulse. Over.”
A pause. “Understood, asset Impulse. New Sorata Command, out.”
“See you soon, I hope, Impulse. Bitter Wind, out.”
“Pleasure meeting you all. Impulse out.”
I set down the radio, and immediately noticed Frozen staring up at me. “...What?”
“You probably don’t even know who you just agreed to help, and I don’t even know what a raider is! Are you crazy?”
“Yep.”
That threw her for a moment, and I began my own counter. “I had reasons, of course. Yes, I just offered to help a group that I do not know. What I do know is that they’re powerful enough to have at least a somewhat organized and coordinated military. They have enough organization and awareness to send out patrols and mission teams, and they have the sense to let wounded soldiers spend time in recovery. I don’t like that they had nobody at all on standby, but everything else I know tells me this is a pretty good group to make friends with.”
Frozen faltered under the sudden stream of logic, but did her best to push through. “We still don’t know what a raider is, though.”
“Hmm… I’m pretty sure that Pearly mentioned that the Flensers around her town were a tribe of raiders. From what I know of that group, I don’t really have a problem fighting this one.”
Frozen’s ears laid back, and she shuddered. “You… you’re talking about killing ponies, to try and get someone to like you.”
“I’m talking about killing evil ponies that threaten a number of less well-protected non-soldiers throughout the wastes, and saving a group of ponies in the process.”
“You… you don’t know that they were attacked. They could’ve been lying.”
I raised an eyebrow at Frozen’s faltering argument. “You got me. They were probably lying on the distress call that they had no idea I was listening in on.”
“Yeah… I guess so.”
“We should get going. Those soldiers only have so long, and we only have so much daylight left.”
Packing was quick and simple. Frozen had to shrug back on the saddlebags that she’d taken off. I had Vex’s saddle, two rounds in one of my two rifles, the water bottle Pearly had given me, and the shovel I’d just picked up a few hours ago. I was really missing any of the backpacks I had at home. Maybe I’d have been able to take the radio with us.
The… generally bright area I thought was the sun was getting low in the sky as me and Frozen left the barn. I tried to move fast, but there wasn’t much I could do when the sun set on our way to our destination. With the seemingly-perpetual cloud cover, the world got dark far faster than I was expecting. Fortunately, by the time it was dark, we didn’t really need Frozen’s map. I could hear the distant gunshots that marked our destination.
We had to cross through a bunch of burned ruins near the end of our trip, but the one we wanted was plenty distinctive. There was a ton of firelight coming out the front windows of the building we’d been sent to, making surveillance easy. It was a little brick square, with wide windows across the front that had been destroyed a long while. As best I could tell, most of the shelves were still standing, keeping me from seeing much other than the firelight and the occasional flicker of movement.
Frozen and I were sitting in the frame of an old house across the street, taking it in. Even if raiders had some form of night vision, all they’d see would be two more shadows in an old ruin. While I was taking in the scene, Frozen only had eyes for one part of it: the headless corpse of a pony, tied up by its hooves in one of the windows.
“So, still think I’m helping the wrong side?”
Her only response was to stare at the body that adorned the ancient structure. I reached out and tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned to me with eyes so wide that I winced. Her mouth was moving silently, and finally she managed a murmur. 
“How… how could anypony do… that?”
“Madness, maybe. Mental illness. Whyever they did it, can we really leave those peo- ponies to do that to someone else?”
Frozen shook her head, and I started to stand up when she whispered, “They aren’t ponies.”
“What?”
“Whatever they are, they aren’t ponies. Ponies would never… they wouldn’t…”
At that very moment, I don’t  think I cared if the ponies in that building were evil. The brokenness in Frozen’s voice made me so angry I could’ve torn that store to the ground with my bare hands. It was the perfect feeling for tearing someone apart, but I forced myself to be calm. This needed to be done quietly. I wasn’t equipped for a heavy assault like I wanted to do. I stalked my way across the street, listening to the sounds of harsh, drunken laughter. Hopefully not the kind of laughter you’d make after breaking open a safe room and killing the soldiers inside.
I hopped through the shattered window, and immediately came face to face with my first raider (I wasn’t sure if the Flensers counted or not).