> FoE: Festering Virtues
>  by Gayle Softfeather
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The worst part about guard duty wasn’t the long hours, or the uncomfortable attic, or even the fact that you’re going to be the first one getting shot at.  Instead, it was trying to stay focused when nobody around you wanted to take it seriously.

“I’m bored, Red!  Give me a go!”  my younger sister whined, stamping a hoof.

“Not now, Yew.  Dad’s in the middle of something...” I refocused, staring out at the edge of our little homestead.  Normally, Dad chatted with Mr. Stable, the boss of the local bandits for a few minutes, gave him some of the white lightning from the still, and everypony left, right as rain.  But this time…

I took a few breaths, trying to control my heartbeat.  The sight picture was jumpy enough with three anxious bored foals, and I didn’t need my neck shaking in anticipation.  I resighted, making a lollypop out of the front sight post and the huge armored pony looming over dad.  The wagon wheel cutie mark wasn’t helping much.  My brain kept flashing between the different meanings of driver.  Caravan and slave.

“Though I suppose teamster isn’t as bad and means about the same…” I muttered around the firing bit.  I never try to get over focused before firing.  Getting tensed up and worried just meant less accuracy.  And, with what looked like a solid half inch of plate steel armor, I’d need to hit something vital, and that helmet wasn’t going to make things any easier, even if the horn looked like it was compensating for something.

“Yew, can you ask mom for the .308?  I’m not sure if this varmint rifle will do...” I said, Yew jumped to it, taking the stairs four at a time, excited to do something.  It looked like the negotiations were failing, judging by Dad’s face turning red and the raider squaring off.  They were still quiet, apparently not willing to get anyone else involved, but it was starting to look ugly.

The other 3 raiders, all nearly as massive as the first, were starting to pull out melee weapons.  Guess they think their bulk can stop bullets.  I chuckled, before stopping to think.  Assuming that the plate was as thick as it looked, yeah, there wasn’t much that could get through.  And, considering general markspony skill, clubs and sharp pointy sticks was probably enough to take on most farms.

I switched off the safety, and started calmly breathing in and out.  I opened my right eye and let it unfocus, taking in the entire front yard at once, noting every movement the raiders made.  At a gesture from the largest pony, the rest of the raiders had put their weapons down, but Dad wasn’t looking any happier.  I wasn’t close enough to try to make out the discussion, and the wind was wrong for hearing it well, but judging from the way they were gesturing at the wagon, they were demanding a lot more payment.

A few minutes later, Dad shook his head vigorously.  The raider looked offended, then he started looking really angry.  Glancing back at the other raiders, who started pulling out their weapons, he stepped forward, practically crushing Dad underfoot.  He reared up, and Dad crossed his hooves in front of his face.

I reacted reflexively to the sign.  Hooves in an x, make a dot.  I fired at a measured pace, working the bolt and making sure that my sight was realigned each time.  Two bullets, aimed at the head, and then I started working the other hostiles.  I thought I saw a bullet hit the first pony, but I couldn’t be sure.  I needed to try and keep them away from Dad while he ran to the house.  Aside from the crack of my gun, all I heard was my pounding heart and the litany of curses running through my head.

When the magazine ran dry, I dove for the floor, hiding behind the sandbags, fumbling for a moment with a spare clip.  I hadn’t really practiced shooting that many targets before, and shoving the clip into the internal magazine was always more fiddly than I liked. Especially as it sunk in what had just happened and my hooves started shaking.

Suddenly, noise returned.  The raiders were screaming in pain and anger, and there was an uncomfortably loud metallic noise.  At least one of them was carrying a long range weapon.  And a bolt that loud usually means automatic and military.

“Stop!” a deep booming voice roared.  I ignored it, and finished reloading, thought the raiders stopped everything, not even complaining about their wounds.  “I have your father.  You have one minute to come down here and surrender.  If not, well, it won’t take much force to crush him alive.”

The raider was strangely articulate.  Normally, somepony along that point in the muscle mass scale had traded early, or any, education for an intensive buffout addiction.  I peeked over the sandbags.

Dad was on his side, the raider standing there unafraid, a hoof on dad’s neck.  Blood was streaming freely down the raider’s face, his eye a gaping ruin.  That didn’t seem to bother the raider much, he was grinning madly.  Oh dear… I thought, starting to shake.

Not too much I could really do.  If somepony shrugs off an eyeshot, shooting them again probably won’t do much.  I was lucky as hell to get something that debilitating in the first two shots anyway, and even if I wanted to try for the other eye, there were three more raiders to deal with.  They might be less disciplined or less dosed on Med-X, but a killshot with a .22 was pretty unlikely.  Plus, I thought getting to my feet, I’m shaking like a leaf.  

Still carrying the rifle, I walked, concentrating on taking one step at a time and trying not to think about what ponies said about raiders.

Wonder if I’ll be raped before they dismember me.   my brain dredged up, failing entirely.  Still, not as if I have a choice.  When four raiders show up, shrug off bullets, and have a family member hostage, they sort of can dictate what happens.  Hopefully everypony else had the presence of mind to run away.

I pulled open the trap door in the roof, and headed inside.  Deserted.  I took a deep breath before I opened the door, and walked outside.  The scene hadn’t changed much, other than the articulate raider was now licking his own blood as it ran down his face.  I kept the rifle pointed at him, though it didn’t seem like it would do much good.  I crossed the yard, and walked through the gate.

“Can you get off my dad?” I squeaked.

The raider’s good eye swiveled and focused on me.  “Excuse me?”

I coughed, “Can you get off my Dad?” still slightly muffled by the rifle’s bit.

“Of course.  But I must ask, what do you intend to do with that tiny rifle?”

“Worked pretty well against your eye.” I muttered, planting my feet and aiming at the other one.

The raider laughed, “This?  It won’t stop me from crushing you into paste.”

What can you say to that?  I kept my rifle on him anyway, and slowly approached dad, helping him to his hooves.  “Get back to the house, I’ll handle this.”

“No, you should-” He started coughing, one forehoof going to his throat.  I nudged him, and he started slowly walking, obviously hating each step he took.

The raider waited until Dad reached the gate than trotted over, looming overhead.

“Now, your dad owes my boss a couple years worth of harvests.  He’s really behind on his taxes.  You can take that shot, and I’ll crush you into paste, burn down your farm, rape the rest of your family, and execute them with a rusty saw, or you can get into that wagon, pull out the manacles, and don’t make a noise.  Hey, I’ll tell you what, I’ll consider your family’s debt null and void.”

Well, damn.  Slavery or death.  I have always been a fan of the idea that it’s not over until it’s over, and it seemed like shooting meant that it was over.  “Mind if I pack a few things?”

“Bring whatever you want, not as if it’s going to matter.”

I pressed my lips together and nodded slowly.  Not too much that could mean.  Well, at least it would be over quickly.  Nevertheless, I walked back inside, put the rifle back in its place, dropped the makeshift armor on the floor, and gathered up some supplies.

Canteen, multitool, compass, blanket.  Well-worn overalls.  Cap.  Tools inside of a canteen sling, I tied the blanket into a roll over my shoulders, then shoved a few snack-cakes inside.  I looked around one more time, but nothing really presented itself.  I debated for a few seconds on a book, but shook my head.  Dad watched sadly, then moved to pick up the armor. He had the .308, and looked ready to shoot if the raiders decided to attack anyway.  I nodded to him, and headed back outside.

The raider grinned, enjoying my weak attempts to stay alive, and pointed to the wagon.  I walked there, hopped inside, and found the box of manacles.  One of the other raiders, a mare with bulging neck muscles, clamped the manacles onto my hooves and locked them tight against my fear taught muscles.

When she looked away, I relaxed my forehooves and the “tight” manacles loosened a bit.  Not enough to get out, but enough to be a little more comfortable.  Leaning back, I looked at the sky, thinking.  First, it was always nice to know a little more than the ponies around you, doubly so if they’re trying to kill you.  Second, these raiders didn’t know much about being slavers, even if they have the equipment to do it.  New to slaving?  Or is this something else?
> Prologue cont.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, two sisters ruled as goddesses.  One, Celestia, raised the Sun, the other, Luna, the Moon. Together, they ushered in a golden age of peace and prosperity.  But Luna was unsatisfied with her position, she resented her subjects not giving her the same adoration at night that Celestia received during the day.  She rebelled, corrupted into Nightmare Moon, seeking absolute control, but Celestia was more powerful and banished her to the moon itself, protecting Equestria.

1000 years later, Nightmare Moon returned, but was defeated once again, this time by six friends; friends who restored her mind and helped her become Luna once again.  And, with both sisters, a new golden age of technology and growth spread through Equestria.  

But the very drive and ambition that created the golden age also allowed greed, cruelty, and discontent to grow in the hearts of ponies.  Demands for more power and more resources led to conflict with the Zebras and their Caesar, culminating in a war where magic and technology fought against talismans and alchemy, killing millions on both sides.  
Eventually, facing certain defeat, the Caesar ordered a last ditch attack, attempting to obliterate Equestria, and every pony with it, from the face of the world, despite knowing that it would mean his own destruction.  And it nearly worked.  

However, Equestria was aware of this possibility and constructed massive underground Stables, designed to weather even the worst attacks and keep a nucleus of Pony society alive for the future.  These Stables saved, and damned, thousands, with each reopening offering the chance of redemption for the wastes. So far, they have all failed.  

And yet...

The Stables were not the only way ponies survived the apocalypse.  Some ponies, be it luck, timing, or planning, managed to hide from the attack and the aftereffects.  Occasionally, entire regions were spared, places so useless that the Zebras didn’t want to waste the bombs.  

Far to the north, one such place was Mane.  Little use to the military, few strategic resources, even most Equestrians barely knew that it existed, overshadowed by Fillydalphia and Manehattan.  Here, the apocalypse was felt, but society had slowly recovered. Raiders were replaced with mobsters, who provided protection for their extortion. 

But recently a new breed of raider had come in, pushing out the genial relationship between the mobsters and their clients.  Stronger, larger, and more resilient than any normal pony, rumors of mutations and unspecified drugs abounded.  The mobsters retreated back to their strongholds, beginning to reach into deep coffers to even the odds and bring in outside help.  

As both sides readied for war, the local population suffered, being forced to give aid beyond their ability, wary of both factions.
> Chapter 1
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I suppose an introduction is in order.  My name is Red Tree.  My parents are Banana and Pineapple Tree.  My sisters are Yew, Elm, and Pine.  We’re all Earth ponies.  I have a black coat, and a green mane and tail, with yellow highlights.  I’m still not sure why my name is Red, and my parents haven’t said much about it other than ‘it felt right.’ 

I got my cutie mark a few years ago.  Still have no idea what it is, looks a bit like a Hearthswarming tree made out of lines, triangles, and squares.  Don’t really seem to have any special talents, other than organizing stuff.  

As long as I can remember, I’ve helped out on the farm, mostly by repairing the machinery, keeping the books for us and a few neighbors, clearing the radioactive dust away from the seedlings, and, occasionally, guarding.  I’m a pretty decent shot, with enough prep time, but I suck at guessing ranges and I get tired quickly, the curse of an Earth pony without a battle saddle.  My sisters have gotten tree related cutie marks, all except Pine, and have thrown themselves entirely into that side of the family business.  

We live… well, I used to live in a farm a few miles from the ocean in Mane.  It was an orchard, with one of the largest distilleries in the region.  We used to trade the moonshine to the local mob, who kept the peace and helped out in the hard years.  Otherwise, we sold fruit, wood, and whatever else mom whipped up in the still.  

What else… My daily schedule was wake up at 0500, be in the fields by 0530, chores should be done by 0800, food until 0830, work on longer term projects until lunch, head to whoever needed something repaired or had an odd job, home by 2100, sleep.  Pretty much everyday for a decade and a half.  

I’m not bitter about it, but I’ve always wanted to see the wider world. There just was always something else to do, so it never really felt like the right time.  Suppose that’s sort of fixed now.  

“Hey, what’s your name?”  The still bleeding raider asked, head easily reaching over the side of the wagon.  Up close, I could see that his helmet’s horn wasn’t just for show.  

“Red Tree, sir.” I said scrambling out of my semi-relaxed position.  

“Right…”  He paused, looking mildly confused, then shook his head and looked expectant. Waiting for something. “Do you want to know mine?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Caravan, my name’s Caravan.”  He paused, waiting again.  “Don’t talk much, do you?”

“Sorry, sir.”

“That’s not an accusation or anything. Just wondering.”

“Just trying to keep my tongue, to be honest, sir.” 

“Keep your tongue?  What do- Oh.  No. We don’t do that.  You’re not a slave or anything.”

I raised the fetters.

“Oh, we don’t trust you not to run away. Yet, at least.  But there’s a big difference between some hoofcuffs and slavery.”

“So, I’m free to talk, sir?”

“Well, within reason, within reason.  If you scream, we might crush you out of irritation.  And you don’t need to use the ‘sir’.  I’m not that high ranking.”

“Ok, then.  Thank you.”  I thought for a few moments, trying to figure out what else to ask. “Where are we going?” 

“HQ.” I could hear the capitalization in his voice.  I waited for a few seconds, expecting more details.  

“Is there anything else you can say about that?”

“Not really.  Doesn’t matter to you right now, to be honest.”  Caravan walked away from the wagon, and started talking to the other raiders.  Though I was becoming increasingly convinced that raiders was the incorrect term.  These ponies, well, Caravan at least, were too rational for the stories that I had heard, and far too well equipped.  Obviously plenty of food and that armor had to be custom made.  Not exactly hard to fabricate with the right materials, but unfinished plate steel was pretty uncommon in Mane after 50 years.  If they’re spending most of a day walking around, they must have cleared this area pretty well, which implies lots of forces.  

Or I’m overthinking this and they’re just really stupid.  Still, Caravan’s confidence sort of argued against that theory, and the others hadn’t tried to skin me alive or worse, so that differed from the horror stories filtering in from Manehattan.  

“Hey Caravan,” the pony pulling the wagon called out.  “I’m staring to feel it bad.  Can we stop for the night?”  I looked around, there were at least a few hours until sunset, and it would be light enough for most of an hour after that. 

Caravan looked around, and saw the other raiders nodding.  He shrugged, and said “We won’t reach HQ by sundown anyway.  Might as well find somewhere safe to bed down.”

We were on a trail in an irradiated forest; petrified burnt out trees.  Not great for hiding, especially with the wagon.  I guess it makes sense to plan for setting up camp taking a while in that case.  

Caravan turned off into the underbrush the moment there was enough space for the wagon to squeeze through, and the wagon followed, leaving obvious ruts in the otherwise undisturbed dust.  We headed around a hill, leaving an obvious trail, and stopped the moment we were hidden from the road.  

I suppose they’ll leave somepony on watch, so it’s not as important. Oh, nope. All the raiders started removing their armor, and throwing it in a pile.  The three lower ranking ones were obviously panting and distracted, barely in control, driven wild by anticipation.  Caravan looked slightly better, but was enjoying the sight far too much.  He floated out three flasks of glowing pink liquid, and an equal number of syringes, as well as a single milky potion.  He rapidly filled the syringes and injected the other raiders with them, chugging the milky potion himself.  

They waited eagerly for the potions to take effect, collapsing to the ground as it did.  Then all hell broke loose. 

With a scream, the raiders started attacking each other, fighting to get into a dominant position.  I gaped in confusion, and decided to spend the night hiding underneath the wagon.  

I carefully climbed off the wagon, crawled underneath, and undid the blanket.  I decided not to attract any attention by opening one of the snack-cakes, instead just drinking out of my canteen.  The sound of crunching bone and cartilage put me off my dinner anyway.  

Goddesses, what the hell have I gotten into?  I wondered as I curled up.  I don’t think I fell asleep, but the fighting died down after a couple hours, replaced by uncomfortably organic squelching noises.  Eventually I dozed off and lost track of time, and the raiders passed out.  


***


“Guess Red ran off.  Pity, sort of liked the guy.”

“I don’t think that I killed anything last night...” 

“Me either, and I think I would have remembered somepony running away.”  

“Maybe he’s hiding nearby?”

I blearily rolled over, blinking in the predawn gloom.  Why is anyone awake now? I wondered, standing up.  

“What was that?”

“Sounded like somepony hit a plank with a club.”

Ow ow ow ow… I thought, clutching my head.  Why was the ceiling so low?  Oh, right.

“I’m under here,” I said, poking my head out from under the wagon.  Caravan looked relieved.  The other raiders didn’t seem to care.  

Gathering up my blanket, and retying it into a bundle, I stood up, trying to keep my balance on the squishy ground.  I don’t remember it raining last night. I thought looking around for the first time.  There wasn’t much light, we were far enough from the shore that the cloud cover was pretty much complete, though the new moon wouldn’t have provided much light anyway.  Still, the raiders had gotten a campfire going, and it was bright enough that I could even make out colors in the clearing.  

That is a lot of blood. I started gagging at the sight.  The clearing was coated in a layer of the stuff, with chunks of gore for extra texture.  Other bodily fluids could be seen here and there, and the raiders were just as bad.  Forget what I thought earlier, these are raiders.  Nothing sane could have done this.  

Caravan waved, his coat matted with gore, flinging congealed blood. I refocused, and saw that they had made a campfire, with a pot of… something cooking above it.  

“Glad to see you made it!  Come over here, we have porridge.” 

Something felt off about Caravan.  Aside from the thick layer of blood.  

“Your eye… it looks...”

“Normal?  Yep, mild healing factor.  Not much sticks overnight.”

“So you have a… blood orgy… and heal from any injuries?”

“Pretty much.  Plus full muscle recovery.  Part of the reason for the hand to hand combat.  Exhaust everything, eat a huge amount, come back stronger and more muscular the next day, ready for more.” 

“So… you left me, with no healing factor, still wearing hoofcuffs, in the middle of 4 ponies trying to fight until exhaustion?  How many prisoners live through a night?”

“Well, normally they join in after a while. Oh, I was supposed to give… right.  Never mind.  Do you want some porridge?”  He scooped a bowl and shoved it in my face.  “You should eat this porridge.”

“I’m fine. I brought my own food.”

Caravan sighed and said, “Look, I get that I was all buddy buddy yesterday, but when I tell you you should do something, it means you’re going to do it or I’m going to break your legs and make you do it anyway.  So, let’s pretend the last 10 seconds didn’t happen.  You should eat this porridge.” He finished in a singsong voice.  

I sniffed it carefully, and didn’t smell anything that abnormal.  Maybe a little sweeter than normal, so I hesitantly took a taste.  Pretty decent, and I started eating.  

Caravan beamed, and continued on his own food.  The other raiders were devouring theirs as if they were starving, which, considering the amount of blood loss last night, might not have been inaccurate.  

By dawn, everypony had finished their meal, and I felt uncomfortably full.  And weirdly energized.  Falling asleep extremely late, and waking up before dawn would have had me barely able to roll out of the blanket, but now I felt better than normal. 

A little worried, I made to get into the wagon, when Caravan asked “I think you should walk.”

I turned and shook the fetters, causing Caravan to sniff.  “Considering how loose those are, I’m sure you know how to get out.” 

Shrugging, I fished the multitool out of my bag.  I’d replaced the awl with a very thin straight piece of spring steel, which I inserted into the teeth of the hoofcuffs.  Keeping the shim in place with my teeth, I used my other hoof to press down on the hinged portion of the cuff, pushing it tighter and driving the shim between the ratcheting teeth.  I let up on the pressure and that half of cuffs fell open, quickly followed by the other.  

Caravan grinned, “I knew you were a smart one.  How’d you learn that trick?”

“Didn’t have much to do during winters, and I bought a book on escapology from a passing merchant.  Couple years on and I got pretty good at knots and simple locks.  Still never got a handle on actual pin and tumbler locks though.  Can’t figure out how to hold the picks and torsion wrench at the same time, and bobby pins and a screwdriver don’t make for a good substitute.” 

“You learned all that from one book?”

“It was a good book.”  I shrugged.  

“So, you’re a pretty decent shot and you know about locks.  Any other skills?”

“I wouldn’t really say that I know about locks.  Stuff like that just sticks in my head.”  

“So, good with mechanical stuff?  Repairing crap?”

“I guess.”

“What’s your cutie mark? I can’t figure it out.”

I looked at the ground for a few moments, trying to figure out what to say, while Caravan took the opportunity to get the wagon moving back on the trail.  

“So, about my cutie mark… I’m honestly not sure.” 

“Really?  How does that happen?  Shouldn’t you know what caused it?”

“Kind of?”  I offered hopefully, then sighed.  

Glancing up, I noticed Caravan looking towards the skies, muttering to himself.  “-work in either. Might as well push him through the-” 

“Excuse me?”  

“Oh, nothing.”  He looked around suddenly, “I think we’re in feral territory.  Keep an eye out.  And don’t talk.”

About 25 kilometers, and most of the morning, later, the blighted forests and concrete wastelands were interrupted by a large round building in the middle of nearly a kilometer of flat asphalt.  

“You’re living in the Lobsters’ Pot?”  I asked, in surprise.  Before the war, it had been a failed idea to bring a hoofball team to Mane.  Afterwards, the decorative, and now mutant, lobsters had colonized the stadium.  Not exactly aggressive outside their territory, they still cut into the major trading route south towards Manhattan.  If these raiders had taken it over, that was fairly worrying.   

Caravan glared, and kicked.  It made solid contact, and I heard a few things crack, and I fell on my side, screaming in pain.  A few seconds later, the shock had faded enough to breathe again.  Right… don’t talk. 

The other raiders surrounded me, practically salivating at the chance to beat somepony up.  

“Get the fuck up, maggot.”  One of them said, drooling and cross eyed.  I blinked, the guy was so gormed out of his brain on… whatever the stuff in the food was… that I was mildly impressed that he could even speak, let alone say something relevant to the situation.  I struggled to my feet, and started walking, wincing as white spikes of pain shot up and down my ribs. 

“Hurry up.” One of the raiders demanded, shoving me forward.  I barely caught myself, and started running.  

A few hundred meters later, we reached a fortified gate, and stopped.  I stood there, panting, trying to ignore my injuries, while Caravan chatted with the guards, as they lifted the stacked crates, looking for presumably stowaways or bombs or something.  The other raiders walked through the gate, while Caravan unhooked himself from the wagon.  

“Come on.” Caravan ordered, walking back outside and staring at me.  I nodded, and cantered through the gate.  “Follow me.” He demanded, walking down a nearby ramp.  It was fairly clean, no garbage, no body parts, just lots of crates, sacks, barrels and the small clusters of massive ponies in bloody raider armor.  The inside of the stadium was pretty empty, though that was pretty expected considering that it had been built for 50,000 ponies.  Ok, looks like 5 ponies in this section.  This is section 164. next is 101. 4 floors.  So, 1200? Maybe?  That seemed a little high, but assuming that they took a dangerous well defended location because they needed the space, then there was an organized raider band the size of a town.  

I shook my head, and hurried down the ramp.  In the basement, it was much more uncluttered, though there were still piles of stuff, just organized properly.  From the plastic wrap and consistent labels, looked like they were prewar.  Cans of food, emergency medical equipment, blankets.  A public bomb shelter?  

A couple normal sized unicorns with pens and paper sat at a table, quietly talking to Caravan.  I slowly approached, they barely spared me a glance.  

“Alright, you’re sure about the full program?  Sounds like he would be useful in administration.” The right secretary said, cleaning a pair of cracked glasses.  

“We’re going to need outpost leaders, and that means soldiers who can read and write.  He’s a good enough shot that I’d want him as a marksman anyway.”

“OK, we’ll put him through the leadership program.”  The left secretary said, ringing a bell.  A few moments later, yet another massive pony came through the door.  It might have been slightly larger than Caravan, but at some point, even bigger doesn’t really mean much more terror.  She pointed, and I walked in that direction without complaint. 

A few minutes later, I arrived at a medical room, the giant thundering down the hallway a few meters behind, with a couple zebras and unicorns in lab coats working on terminals and with large glassware setups. 

“Shooter.”  The giant rumbled, causing two of the zebras to perk up and walk over.  Twins, I thought, brother and sister.  
“Thank you, large one, please bring him to the table.”  The sister said, bowing to the giant.   

“We ought to make absolutely sure that he is stable.”  The brother replied, getting uncomfortably close and examining my face.  

I walked over to the indicated table, rigged with leather hoofcuffs and stained with what appeared to be some reddish brownish liquid. Probably not blood, I thought optimistically, attempting to bury an increasingly terrified portion of my brain.  Instead, I decided to concentrate on the table itself, minus the stains. I was mildly intrigued by the resizing system, ropes tied with a sliding knot allowed ponies on the outside to adjust it without needing to untie the person in question.  Somewhat insecure, but probably safe enough if the target was properly observed.  

And the leather cuffs were rather comfortable.  Very well worn.  And the table was still warm.  Felt nice against my flank.  
It wasn’t working, I was starting to feel rather nauseated.  The two zebras started cutting off my overalls and were arguing to themselves.  My gear was piled nearby, one of the unicorns was carelessly going through it and throwing it into a box.  After going through my blanket, he grabbed one of my snack-cakes and took it back to his desk with him, munching it idly.  

“Good muscular structure, no major injuries, how is his head?”  The brother said.

“Timid, weak, fearful, and would probably rather be dead.”  I was starting to get rather annoyed with the rhyming. 
 
“I’m not so sure.  I don’t like what I see in his eye.”

“What does it matter? The worst he can do is cry.”

“I see defiance and wit. Are they sure that he should keep his mind?”

“The last time we asked, they responded with that question in kind.”

The two shuttered, then the sister opened a medical box and pulled out a set of syringes.  She carefully removed an angry red potion from the set, while the brother started wiping down my neck with what smelled like disinfectant.  

“You don’t know lucky you are.” The sister said around the syringe clamped in her mouth.  

“Zebra brews will help you go far.”  The brother said, picking up a different one.  

“That wasn’t a useful addendum.”  

“Fuck off. I’m going to grab some gum.”  The sister jabbed me with her syringe.  I could feel the chilled fluid traveling into my blood.  Moments later, I started to feel faint.  

“Well, screw you, I want an orange.”  My eyes fell closed against my will.  

“Oh, come on.  You are such -”


***


Eventually, I woke up from a nightmare where nothing was right, to a world where everything was wrong.  I was hiding underneath my bed, cowering as my skin constricted and choked me, as my limbs prevented me from moving, as my mind couldn’t cope and went absolutely mad.  I frantically tried to get rid of all of it with my multitool but it wouldn’t, couldn’t, cut deep enough.  I tried vomiting, but couldn’t as my jaw unhinged and I stuck my entire leg down my throat without effort.  I tried digging out the wrongness, but it spread faster than I could scoop.  An eternity later, I couldn’t tell where that ended and where I began.  

I screamed, and a deep, strong, angry blast of noise forced me into silence, jolting me from the feverish half sleep.  
I tried to look around, but strong hard bands kept me from moving.  

I screamed again, and the same blast of noise reverberated around the room.  

Everything hurt, from a deep soreness that ran to the bone, to sharper points, places were I could feel the stickiness of dried blood.  My eyes ached and watered, by head pounded, my hooves felt like I had walked for days with a huge pack on my back.  Even without the restraints, which were tight enough that I could feel the dull thump of my pulse, I wasn’t sure if I could move.  

Frantically trying to focus on anything other than myself, I looked around my cell.  I was strapped to a slab leaned up against the wall.  A toilet was built into the floor, there was a heavy steel door, and a window near the ceiling.  I wasn’t aware of individual cells in the Lobsters’ Pot, so I guessed that this was probably custom built for holding… what exactly?  NOPE.  Not going there.  I tried to shake my head, stamped down a moment of anxiety, and continued looking around.  

Outside of the window, I could see bleachers, with individual shanty houses built into the seating.  The clouds seemed thinner than normal, and I could see a waning crescent through a break.  Well, at least I have a minimum amount of time.  I thought. Wonder what they could do in at least a full month.

Rather than go absolutely insane trying to imagine what horrors two rhyming zebras and a bunch of morally bankrupt snack-cake stealing unicorns would do while I was drugged, I continued to stare at the sky, until I fell asleep again.  





Footnote: Level Up.

New Perk: Thief: Practice with locks and getting into locations you shouldn’t has finally born fruit.  You get +5 to lockpick and sneak.

New Quest Perk:  Experimental Zebra Brew – Leader: You’ve been through an intensive augmentation process, with effects both big and small.  +10 to Strength and Endurance, -5 to Agility, -2 to Intelligence, -30% to radiation resistance.
> Chapter 2
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I awoke to the sound of one of the unicorn opening my cell.  The overcast skies indicated that it was daytime, though I really didn’t know exactly when.  I tried not to move, and pretended that I was still asleep.  The unicorn slowly walked forward, her hooves audibly clomping on the concrete, while she talked to herself.  

“Subject Sierra-19, standard nutrition pack, no anesthetic dosage, wait until he wakes up, mental capability test, euthanize if failure.” She recited, presumably reading it off a clipboard. I heard a bag open, and felt a pinch, and cold radiating from that point.  Then she settled down to wait, judging by the scrape of a chair.  Well, not much point in pretending anymore.  
I opened my eyes.  

The unicorn hopped back quickly, obviously prepared to run.  I opened my mouth and coughed.  “Hi?”  I frowned.  My voice sounded off.  Deeper, much deeper. I tried very hard not to think about it.  

She nodded and made three checkmarks on the clipboard.  I looked her over more closely.  She was much smaller than me, a rarity.  Well before, I realized, didn’t necessarily mean much now.  Lavender coat, purple mane cut into a bob, lab coat, and minimal makeup.  Though the bone deep weariness made the positives hard to see, I thought she was sort of cute.  

“Long night?” I asked.  

“Oh, sorry, I should have introduced myself.  I’m Red Tree.”  I said, after a moment.  

“Anything else important to say?  Oh, I have three sisters.  Elm, Yew, and Oak.  We work on an orchard.”  I said, when she didn’t respond.

“Well, worked, anyway.  My job was to keep them safe, so guard and repairman.  What do you do?”  I flowed into the next sentence with barely a pause.  

“It’s subject Sierra-19.  It is subject Sierra-19. .. Don’t think about anything else.  It’s subject S-19.” She shook her head, and continued examining me.

“I’m sorry?”  

“Stop talking.” She snapped, pointing her pen in my face.

“Just making conversation.”  

“Well, stop.”  

“Sorry.”

After a few minutes of poking and prodding, she asked “Alright, I’m going to release the restraints.  If you try to do anything, I will inject you with a paralytic agent.  Do you understand?”

“Yep.”  I said.  My cheerful reply seemed to unnerve her, and she gulped audibly.  

“OK, here it goes.”  She carefully started pulling clasps and undoing the straining bindings.  I made sure not to move too much until my neck was released, and I could start looking around.   “Alright, you can get up now.” I rolled over and slowly got to my hooves.  After the initial headrush, I mostly noticed how heavy I felt.  Like I was carrying a couple saddlepacks of rocks.  I walked a bit, trying to get a feel for myself.  Didn't expect to think that today.  Though a month long coma would have had the same effect anyway...

The unicorn coughed, and said “There’s a mirror on the wall over here.”  

Oh, that’s kind of horrific. I thought, looking at myself.  My skin was practically shredded from the rapid growth, leaving a patchy spotty coat and visible tears of angry red flesh.  I imagined that my insides weren’t much better.  Hard to tell without a better basis of comparison, but it looked like I had taken up most of the table, the straps were near full extension, and I probably multiple times what I used to.  On a slightly positive note, muscles visibly rippled under what remained of my coat.  

“How do you feel?”

“Heavy and big?  It doesn’t hurt but it looks like it should.”  I said, slowly turning around.  My voice still made me feel uncomfortable, but the only real cure to that was talking.  “How tall am I? Also, why aren’t I blob of cancerous tissue?”

“16 hands, and a mixture of zebra alchemy and magic.”

“16 hands?  Seriously?” I looked myself over, a little worried, before thinking about the second half of the sentence. “Seriously?” I asked again, eyes narrowed at the evasive answer.  

She tisked and said, “Fine, growth boosters, aggression raisers, and durability enhancers from the zebra alchemy, I don’t know the specific names.”  She finished that flatly, then resumed,  “With Gwamp’s connective stabilizer, Herringbone’s indefinite coma inducer, and the Shadowmare’s suggestive command.  Minimizes negative effects of quadrupling your mass in a month.”

“Suggestive command?”

“Tendons and ligaments need to be used to grow properly.  The command forces your muscles to keep working while you were comatose.”

“Guess that makes sense.” I said, turning back and inspecting my hooves. “Anyway, what’s your name?”

“You seem remarkably well composed for somepony who has been enhanced.  Did Caravan tell you what was going to happen?”

“Eh, the outside doesn’t really matter.  It's the inside that counts.”

“Oh, your internal organs have been substantially modified as well.”

“Thanks for that correction.” I said slowly, actively resisting thinking about it.  “To be honest, I expected to be tortured, raped, killed and eaten.  Or tortured, eaten then killed, and raped.  Or even tortured by being eaten and raped, and left to die.   Hard not to be pleasantly surprised in comparison.”  I shrugged. “When your standards are low enough, it’s easy to take things in stride.  And you never said your name.”

Her lips pursed as she thought.  After a few seconds, she shrugged and said, “It’s Melody Grey.”

“So, you’re a musician?”

“No!  Why does everypony ask that?  It's just a name.  I don’t even like music!”

“Sorry, didn’t realize it was a touchy subject.”

“It isn’t.”  She insisted.  I decided not to argue.

“Are you able to walk?”

“I think so.” I wasn’t falling down at least.  

“Good, follow me.”  Melody walked out of the room, I clumsily followed.

“Ok, you are scheduled for outfitting, weapon familiarization, and PT.  I’ll need to work in meals, but that should fill the rest of the day.  Catch.”  She said, removing a wrapped bar from a small bag where she kept her clipboard when it wasn’t in use.  

The bar landed on my nose, and I went cross eyed trying to look at it.  The packaging proudly proclaimed that it was a “Soldier Fuel Bar!” in cinnamon and apple flavor.  I flipped it onto the back and read the “Contains everything you need to give it to those stripped bastards!  Full day’s calories, nutrients, and protein, in one handy package!” sales pitch.

Eh, food is food. Well, here food is food only when it isn’t a way of delivering potions to unsuspecting ponies.  Still, wouldn’t have made sense to package those, so these are probably reasonably safe.  And not as if I really need to care too much about what goes into my body.  Hard to imagine more damage being done.  

I peeled off the wrapper and started chewing.  Bland, but was dense enough to make for pretty good gum.  

Still chewing, I followed Melody towards a large sign hanging from the ceiling that said “Outfitting.” 

Outfitting turned out to be several storage rooms that had been portioned into different piles of gear, with a number of administrative unicorns organizing, cataloging, and passing out the equipment as necessary.  

The first, and largest pile, was for armor, which also had several ponies manufacturing more.  Guess it’s hard to find stuff in our size.  

The bored looking unicorn in charge of customers took a few quick measurements then shoved the appropriate piece of armor in my face.  

“What is this?  Plate steel?”  I asked, interested. It looked like a cheaper version of Caravan’s armor, leather under plate, with the armor confined to the chest and shoulders, rather than having it distributed and overlapping all over.  That said, I wasn’t complaining.  It was hard enough for me to walk as it was.  The unicorn helped me put it on, and adjusted a few leather thongs to get it to fit better.  With a satisfied grunt, he headed back to the pile.  

“Erm… could you loosen it a bit? Sort of chaffing around the legs.”  I said, pointing, a little embarrassed.  The unicorn turned around and nodded, his horn started glowing. “Yeah, there.  Thank you.” I said fervently, stepping from side to side gingerly.  “That feels much better.”

It wasn’t long before we hurried to the next station, weapons. 

Most of the pile looked like looted yak weapons, probably the only group that made stuff large enough for us.  Unfortunately, that meant mostly spears and traditional yak swords, which tended to be more decorative than effective.  Still, I guess hitting somepony with a large enough piece of metal should work, even if there are better designs.  They tend to go for smashing rather than cutting or stabbing.    

While I was looking at the pile, the unicorn behind the desk and Melody had a whispered conversation, and the unicorn trotted off behind the pile.  He eventually returned with a large gun case.  

“Ironhooves Manticore Gun.  .50 caliber rifle, precision machined bolt action, 5 round magazine, currently equipped with iron sights, so long range shots are going to be somewhat hard.  Bullets aren’t really optimal for that anyway.  Hollowpoints for maximum energy transfer, hand drilled, so not necessarily perfectly stable.  Heavy armor might just shatter the bullets, so don’t hit it.  This caliber was mostly armor piercing prewar, so make sure you carry enough from us.
You’re not getting more in the field.”  He flipped the rifle upside down and pointed to the obviously modified stock and bit.  “We’ve adjusted these so they should fit you better, but the splice is a little weak, so it’ll induce inaccuracy.”  

He left the rifle on the table, and darted back to the pile to grab an oversized combat knife.  “You shouldn’t be in melee combat often, so you should only need this.”  He attached it to my armor.  Then shoved two cleaning kits in my face.  
“And you don’t own either of these, so I expect them to be spotless when I get them back.”  

The rest of the outfitting process was about the same, though the ponies doing it cared less.  Minus the weirdly intense person in charge of storage; I have never heard so much about canvas.  Still got a nice sack and a pair of saddlebags.  
At medical, I got a first aid kit and a pair of earplugs.  

Clothing, a thick wool jacket, a military style hat, and dark sunglasses.    

My saddlebags were completely empty by the end, while the sack was maybe half full.  Guess I was expected to scavenge for most of my equipment.   

Still, aside from the lack of gear, it felt weirdly organized and professional.  I’d say military-like, but the rantings of my grandfather dissuaded me of that comparison.  

So, enough infrastructure to create and outfit an army.  Not enough to actually reach army levels of inefficiency, at least in supply. I thought, adjusting a few straps.  Melody was waiting at the door, vibrating slightly.  

“Ok, where next?”

“We’re going to the shooting range for weapon familiarization.  Please follow me.”  She turned and walked briskly.  

The roar from high caliber rounds rang down the hallway, prompting me to insert the earplugs. I will not discuss the amount of effort it took to roll the little foam bits.  

Melody smirked and strode off, blithely endangering her eardrums.     

I rolled my eyes and kept the same pace.  A few minutes later, we arrived at the rear of the stadium, where the raiders had dragged a bus and attached plywood targets to the front.  

Melody shoved another ration bar in my face, which I started munching, while she grabbed a lane.  

“You lot are weirdly trusting.” I said, settling into a prone firing stance.  

“Look behind you.” The gate and some garbage.  Melody sighed.  

“Look behind you and up.”  Oh, that’s a big gun.  And a lot of snipers.  All with big guns.  

“If you do something wrong, I just need to say the word and you will be mulch.” 

“And inside?”

“There’s a couple hundred ponies who will kill on command.” 

“Huh, good answer.”

The manticore rifle was definitely better than the varmint rifle at the farm, even with the rough bit and stock.  My only complaint was that the word “familiarize” was a little too on the nose.  After I fired the last shot in the mag, and ejected the brass, Melody stepped in.

“Ok, that’s enough.” She said, literally standing between me and the ammo can.  

“Five shots?  How well do you expect ponies to shoot?”

“The expected combat range is less than 50m.”  

My eyes widened in horror.  “How are any of your foot soldiers still alive?”

“Aside from the armor, enhanced durability, and the regeneration?”

“I mean, hunting rifles should be able to decapitate any pony…” Melody was shaking her head.  “You can’t be serious.”  

“Charging at full speed with a spear and a helmet, farmers find it remarkably hard to hit a vital organ.”

“That’s kind of cheating.”

“It’s effective.”

“Against farmers… maybe, but not against the Mob.”

“You’d be surprised.  They really like their submachine guns.”

“That still seems suicidal.  Especially as ponies realize that they need more powerful weapons.”
“Its worked so far.”

“Speaking of which, why hasn’t that regeneration kicked in?” I asked, pointedly looking at my ruined coat.  

“It requires a massive amount of food, rest, and a chemical trigger.  No reason to waste those supplies on somepony when they could be incurably insane from the enhancement process.”

“I feel like that is a bit of a false savings.  Some of the insanity might be linked to waking up and looking like a ghoul.”  

“A fair point.  If you ever talk to the Colonel, feel free to ask about it.  Now, when you finish cleaning your rifle, we’re going to head to the field and do some physical conditioning.”

I shrugged and moved to the side of the firing range, pulling out a bundle of rags, rods, and oil.  An uneventful hour later, I put away the last brush, quietly cursing whoever owned it previously.  Eh, whatever, odds are that the lazy bastard is dead. I thought, looking distastefully at the carbon and oil soaked rag.  

Melody had disappeared after the first 10 minutes, apparently she didn’t realize what needed to be done to keep a weapon in working order.  And how long it took to remove caked on carbon.  

I stopped in a nearby restroom, and grimaced at my carbon stained teeth.  There are definitely times when I wish that I was a unicorn.  

Eh, whatever. I grabbed a drink and started looking for Melody.  I made it about 20 meters before a suspicious raider stopped me and demanded to know where my handler was.  

I shrugged and said she wandered off.  

The raider looked annoyed and led me to the field in the center of the stadium, where a number of other recruits, not raiders by their similarly damaged coats, were hauling boulders back and forth.  An angry looking guard ordered me to do the same. I threw my gear in a waiting bin and started hauling.  

A couple hours of hauling, drinking from a trough, and eating porridge later, the guards stopped us.  I wasn’t really paying attention, until they hit me on the side with a sledgehammer.  

I got to my feet and waited as they unhooked me from the bolder.  Breathing hurt but wasn’t important.  I followed the guards over to the side, where one of the zebras was waiting with a multitude of syringes.  I waited in line, and eventually got an injection.  Then a lot mattered.  

Some of the Others were trying to roll boulders on each other. They were easy to crush.  Just run and slam.

The Ones trying to eat were as well.  They were too distracted to see me spin and kick.

One had reared up onto her hind legs and… ouch… my head throbbed as I replayed what she did.  Something clicked.
One of the Others was nearby, not looking.  I clumsily tried to imitate the trained pony, and got up on my hind legs as well.  I jumped, and hit the Other with as much force as I could with a forehoof.  It struck her in the neck, and I heard something crack.  Correction, I heard at least two somethings crack as my hoof flopped around.  I tried moving it, and it weakly responded.  I tried harder and forced it to work.  

I felt more cracks, both in my leg and in what I was hitting, until I realized that bloodloss was starting to slow me down.  I shoved my forehoof against my chest, the blood soon matting the fur, but it didn’t matter.  I still had four limbs to fight with.  Five, if you counted my head.
  
Back on my hindlegs, I stepped into yet another Other and hit as hard as I could, trying to keep my forehoof more centered and taut.  

It impacted, and no cracks.  In my leg at least.  The other went down and I kept fighting.  Occasionally piles of thick sludge fell into the arena, and the fighting stopped as we shoved it down out throats.  We ate, and then the Others came back and I fought again.  

After what felt like an eternity later, I stopped, panting, as I looked out over the blood soaked arena.  

The Others were on the ground, broken and not fighting.  I dropped to all fours again and started dragging the quivering masses of bruises and broken bones to the edges of the stadium, as Angels fell from the walls and helped.  

The Others slowly ate and regenerated, and I followed the Angels up many stairs, until I was placed in a bed with several Others just as bloody and damaged as I.  I looked at the food and drink around me, the other fighters, the comfortable surroundings, and I slowly started smiling.  





Footnote: Level Up.

New Perk: Heavy Hitter:  Hours spent fighting has taught you how to deal with blocks and walls.  Melee and unarmed combat will deal more damage through armor and to cover.  

New Quest Perk: Experimental Zebra Brew – Recovery: Encouraging cells to divide like mad has benefits and detriments.  Plus some effect on your sanity.  -1 to Intelligence.  -30% to radiation resistance.  +10 to melee and unarmed.  All hitpoints restored, and limbs repaired.  Note: this perk can be taken multiple times, with declining effects.  
> Chapter 3
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up in a tangle of reeking sheets.  My coat was matted by blood, sweat, and other bodily fluids, there were strangers to either side of me, and everything hurt. 

Still, I marveled at how good I felt.  The hurt was the ache of well used muscle, without the sharp pain of injury.  I could barely remain still, I wanted to get on the ground and do 100 pushups.  My mind was racing, I felt like I could do anything and I wanted to do everything.  

But first priority…

I slowly and carefully got out of the bed, taking care not to disturb my bedmates.  The room was impressively opulent.  The decorations and furniture were in good repair, and obviously designed for the enjoyment of the occupants; recessed mood lighting hinted without revealing, the bedding was thick and laundered, and the bedroom’s far wall was made of glass. It overlooked the field, roughly half way up the stadium’s seating.  

Huh, always thought that a penthouse was on the top floor.   I shrugged and continued looking for the bathroom, idly musing on nothing.  The bathroom was installed in an adjourning, abet converted, penthouse.  A large number of showers and more mood lighting; it looked like it was more of a continuation of the previous room rather than an actual bathroom, with the service of dealing with bodily functions grudgingly tacked on later, a solitary toilet hidden in the corner.  The glass had been painted over with a reflective coat of paint, creating a giant mirror.  Not usually something that I would enjoy, but I didn’t think I would be nearly as against it as normal.  After last night, I was feeling pretty good about myself.  

I used the toilet, then started running the shower.  Fairly high pressure meant that it was probably from a public water main, which probably meant radioactive, but that’s not too much of a worry.  Biggest issue with radioactive water was drinking, thanks to the alpha emitters.

I got in and luxuriated in the lukewarm water.  Guess there’s not enough extra power to keep the water heater at running.  I mused. Assuming that these were the VIP quarters, that implied that either the emergency generators were less functional than the numerous lights indicated, or a lot of power was going somewhere else.  Or the “Colonel” just likes colder showers. I thought, trying out Occam’s Razor.  

Chuckling, I stood up on my hind legs and let the water run down my front, when I had a flash of déjà vu.  What the fucking hell did I do last night?  I took that sip from that water fountain and… it was like somepony else was in control of my body.  I didn’t care about anything, I didn’t want anything, until I got that shot and… I gagged, suddenly feeling sick. 
I fought and ripped and tore and killed. I felt my bones shatter and couldn’t care less.  I stumbled out of the shower, and fell on the ground, my blood running cold.  I looked at the pony in the mirror.  That’s not me.  That can’t be me.   

I unsteadily got to my feet and walked forward, until a hoof was pressed against the mirror.  Before, it was easy to tell that I wasn’t supposed to be in this body, or at least that it had been created from what used to be me.  Every flaw was accentuated, every scar emphasized.  The bump where I had snapped my leg.  The scar from when I had fallen from the rafters in the barn.  A couple bad burns.  After the enhancement process, they grew just like everything else.  Stretched across more flesh.  

Now, I couldn’t prove that the pony in front of me had a history at all.  

He was perfect, uniform.  Muscles you could use for an anatomy chat.  Stronger, more powerful, better than any pony, especially me, should ever be.  This was… something that was most emphatically not me.

the regeneration... I had eaten dozens of kilos of food last night, gotten an injection of who knows what, and passed out for hours.  Not necessarily healthy, but that seemed to be the trifecta.  Still, the few things that proved, to me at least, that I was Red Tree rather than an enhanced raider was gone.  

Almost in a trance, I stood up on my hind legs again, planning on putting a hoof through the mirror and following it to the ground.  I pulled back, and pivoted, but when my muscles tensed to throw the punch, a flash of pain jumped through my leg and my stomach churned with the remembered feeling of  what I had done to it last night, this time without the chemical fugue.  

I vomited, and fell on the ground, and curled up in a ball. 
Just sobbing.  

After what felt like hours, Melody appeared, standing over me with a syringe levitated nearby.  She offered it to me, the same chemicals that had made the horrors I had gone through irrelevant.  

I wanted it.  I wanted not to hurt, not to think about what I was going through, so badly.  

But… well, it didn’t entirely stop the hurt, did it?  When I tried to be smart, my head throbbed as if thinking robbed me of the drug’s protection.  

It wasn’t that the chemicals weren’t a solution.  They certainly were, in both senses of the word.  And the afterglow of the regeneration was addictive in and of itself, probably enough to live for it alone.  If I just wanted to enjoy myself, in a chemically induced delusion, overcoming everything around me with sheer force and confidence, well, that was certainly an option.  

But… I hesitated.  The only thing I felt like I was remotely good at was remembering and relating random facts; organization and memory.  This chemical would eventually steal that from me.  Or, if I chose to continue remembering, it wouldn’t allow me to avoid the pain, the one thing that really tempted me.  

At the time, it definitely felt like cutting off my nose to spite my face, but I rebelled at the thought of giving up what made me special to avoid a little pain or falling into an imperfect drug induced nirvana.  

Slowly, I got to my hooves, looked Melody in the eyes, and said “I’ve dealt with worse.”  before turning back to the showers to deal with the vomit.  

I caught Melody’s open mouth stare of confusion in the mirror, which slowly coalesced into a look of horror.  


***
 

After I felt clean and got back out of the shower, Melody was still standing there, though she had two boxes now.  One was filled with my issued raider gear, the other was the stuff I had brought with me.  

“Ooh, snack-cake,”  I said, the childish exclamation contrasting oddly with my new voice.  I gobbled one in a single bite.

Melody’s mildly concerned stare shifted into a mask of worry. Guess sudden emotional shifts are terrifying in chemically leashed monsters who could feasibly use their own broken leg to bludgeon somepony to death and not care.  I debated seeing how far I could go, but somehow that wasn’t as appealing as it ought to have been.  Might have been her ability to call an army to kill me.  

I decided to grab the rest of my stuff without causing Melody more worry.  She seemed cautious, but less concerned when I finished putting on the raider gear. Looking through the stuff from home, most of the tools had been designed for bigger ponies, which meant an uncomfortably small rather than unusable.  The only thing that was unusable was the blanket.  
It used to comfortably cover most of my body, but now barely could cover my back.  I thought for a few moments, then decided to fold it in half twice and tie the blue and yellow cloth into a neckerchief.   The rest of the box went into my saddle bags. 

“Congratulations...” Melody said, trailing off into a few seconds of silence.

“For what?”  

“Winning the arena, of course.” she said as if it should be obvious. “It means that, you get promoted from experiment to soldier, and you get to meet with the Colonel himself!”

She looked expectant, as if I should jump for joy at the honor.  I didn’t.  She sighed and led us out the door.

After a few moments later, she coughed.  “To be honest, I bet that you would win.  Experiments only get a full dose of regeneration brew if they win, so the longer they’re out there, the more injuries build up.  Officer track also get to keep higher brain functions, so the odds were very much in your favor, assuming that you had built up enough muscle mass.”

Melody prattled on as we walked down the hallway, passing by what appeared to be a mixture of administrative rooms and VIP housing. I swear I heard the twins arguing as we walked past a closed door, their rhyming making it somewhat easy to pinpoint them.  The hallway itself was not very busy, though a number of heavily armed raiders, soldiers I suppose, with shiny metal bars pinned somewhere visible, strode with purpose from room to room.  

At the end of the hallway was a set of double doors, with the words “Princess Suite” on a plaque nearby.  Melody opened the door and we both entered.  

It looked more like a club than anything else. Purple lighting, which caused clothing to glow, ringed the room, gradually shifting to white towards the center, where throne-like chair and a large desk with a map stood under bright white spotlights with yellow highlights.  Various soldiers ringed the room, relaxing at tables with cards, bringing documents to the center, or chatting in small huddles.  Polite and quiet ponies, normal sized, walked from the bar to soldiers as they signaled, bearing large drinks. 

We couldn’t see who was in the throne until we crossed most of the room. It was a pegasus ghoul, in formal military wear, silver oak leafs on his lapels, and a name tag that said “Wingsworth.”  He looked neater than most of the ghouls I encountered, no skin flakes or random scraggles of hair, and it looked like he took care to keep his uniform impeccable.  At his hip was a silver pistol, some sort of revolver.  But what struck me most was how intensely he stared at the map.  He barely blinked, and only turned away when a new document was placed in front of him.  A couple unicorns stood nearby, making notes and striding off as he requested various papers. 

His desk overlooked the stadium, where the experiments were once again pulling rocks.  We approached, standing off to the side until one of the assistants motioned us forward.  She whispered to the ghoul, who blinked and looked up at us.  

After a few seconds, he nodded and started speaking in a raspy, abet cultured voice.  “Hello Miss Grey, how is our newest lieutenant doing?”  

 Lieutenant?  I thought, moderately confused.  

“Very good sir, Currently adapting to the drug load, so he might be… erratic." She responded deferentially.  "But fully ready to fight!”  She added on hurriedly.

“Excellent.  Report to operations for his first mission.  I will be following his career with interest.”  The ghoul turned away from me and moved a colored token on the table.  

“Do you have anything you want to ask?  I find that my soldiers can be a little overwhelmed following their first promotion.”  He said, most of his attention on the papers again. 

I thought for a few seconds, then mentally shrugged.  “Why does everypony call you a colonel when the insignia is a lieutenant colonel?”  

The space around us went silent, and the other ponies started edging away.  Lieutenant Colonel Wingsworth gave his full attention to me for the first time.  “Military family?”  He asked, his face clouding.

“My grandfather.”

“Understood.  I’ll be making a note of that.”  He made a mark on a scrap of paper.

I waited for a few more seconds, but the ghoul refused to say anything more, turning back to his map.  Melody grabbed me and hurried us out of the room, as amused and sadistic smiles followed.  

“Why did you ask that?  He hates it when ponies correct him!”

“It wasn’t a correction, it was just a question.”

“It had the same shape as a correction, even if it was phrased as a question.  Look, you need to read the situation better.”

“How?  You told me nothing, and he asked for any questions.  All I know about the guy is that he’s a ghoul, was in the military, and is presumably in charge of this group.  Speaking of which, what the hell do you call yourselves?”

“… suddenly, I am vividly reminded why ponies don’t like escort duties.  Look, let’s get to somewhere safe and I’ll try to explain a few things.  Just keep quiet while we’re at Command.”

“Righty-o” I said in an annoying sing song voice.  Melody sighed.  

A few minutes later, several floors up in the newscasters box, we stopped at a door with the sign “Command” located next to “Signal,” “Logistics,” “Medical,” and “Sustainment.”  I cocked my head, trying to make sense of the grouping.  

“Ok, I get why all the others are necessary, but what is the difference between ‘Sustainment’ and ‘Logistics?’”

“Logistics deals with weapons and repairs.  Sustainment deals with food, water, and other stuff necessary for survival.”

“… that seems like it could get confusing.”

“Not really, they use a lot of the same assets and ponies.”

“… that seems like it would be more confusing.  But alright.”

“Look, normally Sustainment moves stuff ahead of time, while Logistics deals with issues as they come up.  So, Logistics has priority over Sustainment.”

“… I’ll take your word for it.”

“The Colonel believes that this is the most efficient method to ensure resupply in the event of a large battle.” 

I shrugged, and silently disagreed.  

“Anything else you want to argue about?”  Melody asked, facehoofing in exasperation. 

“Probably.  Nothing comes to mind though.”  

“You are a bit of a smart ass for somepony I risked my life for.”  I declined to start arguing again.  “Alright, please keep quiet.”  She knocked, and a bulky soldier opened the door.  She glared suspiciously, before letting us in.  

Command was centered around a larger version of the map upstairs, marking out various settlements and places of interest, along with their believed danger and allegiance.  Thankfully, there was a large key on the wall, as no soldier could be expected to remember anything that complex.

I craned a bit to see what these nutjobs were focused on and was happy that the family farm was denoted as non-hostile, not friendly, but also not dangerous.  Should keep them out of trouble.  It looked like most hostile areas were around Ponyland, the old capital, and the Mob's stronghold.  

Melody was talking with yet another administrative pony.  I wasn’t necessarily surprised, but I was getting the distinct feeling that there was a certain amount of species based segregation.  Wonder what they would do if they got a pegasus.  Or if a pegasus could even fly after going through the enhancement process.  Mass grows much faster than size, so they’d need some extremely targeted brews. Or maybe the zebras would add a couple more wings rather than growing the ones they already had…

“Hey.  Hey… HEY!”  Melody shouted into my ear.  

“Er… what?”  I said, suddenly jolted out of a weird train of thought.

“I have your orders.  We’re supposed to head 50 km due west and make contact with a patrol looking for Stable.”  

Remembering the no speaking request, I nodded and started out the door.  

Melody rapidly ran to get ahead of me, and said “Alright, we’re supposed to report to the loading docks, where you’ll be assigned a wagon to bring to the patrol.  They’re apparently low on flamer fuel and medical supplies.”  

“Meaning that they can’t regenerate?”

Melody flipped through the file, “Probably slower and weaker than normal.  They’re low not out.  Looks like it's more battle chems than actual aid.”

“Are you coming along?”

“I’ve been assigned to evaluate you and adjust dosage as necessary. So, yes.”

“Lead the way.”


***


A few hours later, after a lengthy holdup as Sustainment and Logistics coordinated their supplies, I was back on the road, abet in a harness pulling a wagon with an annoying, though not heartless enough to forcibly inject brain controlling drugs, bureaucrat.  

The departure had been pretty boring, to be honest.  Soldiers not currently assigned to anything important did the dirty work of loading the carts.  Melody making sure that everything was where it was supposed to be was probably the most interesting part.  

“Wagon, axles, wheels, supply crate 1 able, 1 bravo, 1 charlie, 2 able, 3 able, 3 bravo...” She muttered to herself while levitating various boxes, ammo cans, and medical cases into place, carefully checking them off a list as she did so.  After a few minutes of obsessive ordering, she reached the end of the first page of her list.  “Long range antenna, short range, improvised antenna, spark battery, microphone, cables 1, 2, 3… 4, and 5.  Why do I feel like I’m missing something?”

“Did you say radio?”

“RADIO!”  She shouted, diving into the wagon, and fiddling with a locked compartment near the driver’s seat. “Ok, radio.”  

The components flew into place as she keyed radio to the proper frequency.  “Command, this is Mike Golf Actual 1, radio check, over.”

She listened intently, so I decided to look over the rest of the supplies with checklist she abandoned in her haste to check the radio.  

“Ok, where did she leave off?” I muttered to myself, as Melody repeated her checks with somepony else, presumably further away or something.  

“RT gun, check, MG gun, check, bomb collar, erm…”  I looked at the explosive jewelry.  It had been extended to the widest it could go, but seemed pretty undersized for a solder's neck. I looked closer.  Seemed pretty simple.  Egg sized chunk of C4 was centered on the unfortunate’s carotid artery, while a wire running around the collar created a deadman’s circuit.  

Probably pretty sensitive to change, to keep ponies from looping more wire and breaking out that way.  Hopefully not so sensitive that rain would cause it to explode.  The bulky box next to the C4 hunk looked like some sort of radio receiver. Probably acted as a backup to the main deadman’s switch and allowed it to be remotely detonated.  Pretty simple, but definitely effective if you don’t have a decent set of tools to measure current and keep it within range.  

Melody noticed that I was examining the collar, and gently, but firmly pulled it away.  Wrapped by her magic, she held it up to my neck for a second, then sighed, firmly closing it around my left forehoof.  Guess bleeding out from losing a limb would be just as effective, even if it was messier and took longer .  It wouldn’t close, slightly too big.  I pulled my armor out of the way, but it was still wasn’t closing.  Still, Melody attempted to force the catch closed, until her telekinesis failed, the glow bursting at the effort.  She abandoned the radio and stomped on it to get the latch to close.  It was sort of adorable, but concerning.  Like a toddler laughing as they spray oil all over the room and are starting to eye the matches.  

It snapped shut, and a light on the radio receiver pulsed green 3 times before sticking to a steady red.   

“There.” Melody said satisfied, turning back to the checklist, while I continued examining the hoofcuff.  It had been applied pretty randomly, so I guess Melody either didn’t know much about the collars or she assumed that it would blow my forehoof clean off.  I was reasonably confident that I could tie a tourniquet well enough to survive amputation, but that’s not necessarily that reassuring when you need to walk for around a day to get home.  

Melody startled me from my thoughts with the command “Alright, let’s move out.” as she held a harness open for me.  


***


After a few hours of trudging, my wariness about talking to somepony who had the ability to remove my leg at will was overcome by boredom.  

“So, why did you lie to the lieutenant colonel?” I asked, pulling the wagon over the well preserved highway.  

“Excuse me?”

“Saying that I was getting used to the drugs.”

“Oh, well… I… didn’t think it would be good for your mental state.”

“That’s… vague.”

“Look, if you force the drug on somepony who doesn’t want it, it usually drives them insane, and they get scrapped.  We can’t field soldiers who will kill everypony they see.”

“Better, but you still lied.”

“Look, I’m not a bad person, and that would have crossed a line.”

“Kidnapping ponies, mutating them, shutting down higher brain functions, and executing them if they disobey is fine.  But not forcing them to take a drug?  I mean, I’m grateful, but it seems inconsistent.”

“No, none of those are fine, but they’re… necessary.  The 3rd Experimental Division has a good chance of restoring stability to Equestria.”  

“By acting like raiders, kidnapping ponies, stealing supplies, and waging war against the closest thing Mane has to a government?”

“You can’t seriously consider the Mob to be a government.”

“I don’t, but they were pretty good at keeping raiders out of here.”  

“We can do the same!”

“But in the meantime, the entire area is destabilized and it's only a couple more moons until the frosts start.  After that, you raiding to support your conflict is going to leave ponies too short of time for winter.”

“Look, war is always hard on ponies.  But we need to do it.”

“Because stability under a military dictatorship that controls the population through drugs and an enhanced warrior class is so much better than the loose peace under the Mob?”

“You know too much for a farm pony.”

“We had 7 books and a lot of time during the winter.”  

“All of them on political philosophy?”

“One was a griffin book discussing the various forms of government and the obligations the state has to the population.  Really against the idea of leaders beholden to nobody.”

“In that case, what do you think of the princesses? They successfully ruled for thousands of years!”

I looked around at the desolate landscape, the charred skeletons of pine trees standing forlornly, occasional groups of skeletons, the rest wiped clean by the fire storms.

“Well, that only happened because of the Caesar, who was elected by the 13 tribes!”  Melody was getting weirdly passionate about this.  

I frowned, trying to remember the book.

“Though on first impression the zebra’s electoral system appears to provide a measure of control over their leader, this tends not to be true during times of war or other serious emergencies, as demonstrated in the last decade.  The social divisions of the zebras, similar to the pony’s tendency to self segregate based on innate ability, means that the Caesar, as a military ruler, will have the support of the Achu, the Atoli, and the Roamani, out of martial obligation, while the remainder of the population will often seek to be, at worst, neutral to the Caesar’s demands.  It is only when the Caesar leads the zebras as a whole to certain destruction that their position becomes threatened, and, due to the culture of deference to just authority, perhaps not even then.  Upon full mobilization, there are only two events that will definitely end the Caesar’s reign, victory and retirement or assassination.  The latter helps outsiders understand why Caesars tend to select the most brutal and aggressive zebras as Legates, since, as they gain full military control until a new Caesar is appointed, potential threats are dissuaded from unleashing more destruction and bloodshed.” I recited.  

Melody gaped.  

“What?”

“And you don’t know what a box seat is?”  I flushed in embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, but we didn’t have a dictionary.”  I said in a huff, annoyed that I couldn’t stomp off.   


***


A few hours, and a couple dozen kilometers, Melody stopped idly playing with the antennas and  stiffened, hurriedly putting the radio headset back on.  After a few seconds and a couple hurried replies over the net, she pulled out a map, a compass, and wrote down some numbers.  

She sighted with the compass to a couple mountains in the distance, and drew on the map.  She carefully examined the map and looked around.  Shaking her head, she repeated the process a few more times before finally nodding.  

“Red, turn due west in another kilometer, then head 500 meters.  After that, go along the 192 heading for 200 meters, and then I’ll resight us and give you more directions.

I looked around, and saw a farmhouse about a kilometer and change away, to the left of the road.  

“So, we’re going to that farmhouse?”  

“How do you know we’re going there?”

“It's about a kilometer and a half away, to the left, which is west southwest.”  

“But there’s that grove of trees, and that water tower, and that off ramp.”

“Oh, that’s what the curvy part of the road’s called?  Err…  The grove is too small and provides too little cover to be tactically significant, the water tower is probably too radioactive to have real value, if it's even still full, and the off ramp’s below a hill, so it’d be stupid to hide there.  So, we’re heading to the farmhouse.”

“I see.  Yes, you can go there.”  She muttered to herself for a few seconds, annoyed.

I grunted as I pulled the wagon to a break in the concrete barriers and forced it up and over.  It wasn’t that hard, even though I could see my legs shaking with effort to pull it through.  Wonder if they messed with my adrenal system to get more strength at the expense of worse injuries.  The radioactive dust was mildly annoying to drag the wagon through, but it really only had an effect if you breathed it in, or spent a long ass time standing there.  Hooves, the most radiation resistant parts of the body, weren't in that much danger.

The farmhouse was pretty standard post war construction.  One room, shooting ports rather than windows, made from whatever seemed like it would last the longest.  In this case, cinder blocks from a ruined town nearby.  Held together with mortar, so somepony knew a bit about construction and got lucky on a scavenging mission.  Most of the time, ponies would just fill them with packed dirt and ancient wood.  

More telling was the fact that the ground was cleared around the farmhouse, no cover or concealment for 100 meters.  

Definitely somepony with a fair amount of tactical knowledge or common sense.  This was reinforced by the cluster of soldiers standing at the edge of the cleared zone.  As we approached, and Melody unhooked me from the wagon, we saw that the officer was dead, a new ventilation hole installed right through her brain stem.  

“What happened?”

“They shot the El Tee.” One of the less dull eyed soldiers said, idly chewing on what looked like an explosive detonator.  Judging from the partially healed scars radiating from his mouth, this wasn’t his first time chewing on one.  

“LT Red Tree, your first task is to get this farm’s owed taxes.”  Melody said, fishing a note out of the dead officer’s armor and reading it.  She looked at the body again, and quickly moved to place it between the house and herself.  

“Right...”  I said, chewing on the inside of my cheek.  Most of the time, taxes were supposed to be a set percentage of what the farm produced.  The Mob tended to be pretty lenient on what that actually entailed, since they mostly wanted caps rather than a couple hundred bushels of corn.  First few times they collected taxes around the harvest, they crashed the price when they brought it all to market, planning on selling it in one day.  Now, they mostly extracted it from the merchants who bought the food.  Still, everypony was expected to give something.  Meant an obligation was owed on both parties.  

The outline of a plan formed in my head, and I decided to follow it before I chickened out.  I pulled off my armor, and left my weapons on the ground, ignoring Melody’s increasingly frantic questions and shouts.  

Down the front path, in the most open area of a kill zone, I strode, naked except for my neckerchief.  I stopped about 50 meters away from the door, next to a piece of rebar hammered into the ground.  Odds that’s a range marker? I thought, before banishing it and trying to remain confident.   I planted my feet, took a deep, breath and “Do you mind if we have a quick chat?” I called out towards the house.  

A pop, and a burning line ran across my muzzle.  I strangled the impulse to run.  Forward would get me shot, backwards would get me shot slightly later.  

“Damn good shot, but I still want to talk.”  I said, standing there, feeling the blood dripping down my face.  I heard frantic whispering from inside the house.  My limbs itched with unspent adrenaline, and my head was pounding, but I did my best not to let it show.  My blank face involuntarily stretched into a sickly grin.  The whispering got louder, punctuated with “He is going to eat us!”  I tried to look as non-cannibalistic and threatening as possible.

 What felt like hours later, but was probably a few minutes, the door opened and a young stallion peaked out, holding a hunting rifle.  Certainly enough to punch right through my skull and helmet, if I had one.  

“wha- what do you want?”  He asked meekly.  

“I just want to talk.  Maybe have some tea.”

“Talk about what?”  I sighed.  

“Look, can I just come inside?  I promise that I won’t attack, and I guarantee that it’ll be better for you if nobody else needs to hear.”  The stallion looked dubious.  “Look, I’m unarmed, and I’m fine with you keeping your weapons trained on my face the entire time.”  He looked me up and down, taking in my absurd height and that I probably outweighed him by a factor of 4, but he nodded slowly.  

“You’re with the raiders, aren’t you, though?”

“Not my choice, I can say that much.”  I slowly walked inside, making sure that I didn’t make any sudden movements.  

“Alright, but if you do anything, we’re shooting.”  

Inside, we had a delightful conversation about obligations and the duties of government, and how they were on the wrong side of a war, not the ideological side, but a geographic side, sorry, I fully understand that you aren’t taking sides, and, well, I walked out with the next month’s tribute to the Mob.  

“Is that all they had?”  Melody demanded, craning her head to look through the solid cinder block.  

I put down the bag of dried apples and said “No, but this is what they set aside for the next month’s taxes to the Mob, and I wasn’t about to try to raise taxes without a lot more backup than what you lot could give me.”

“Your orders said to take as much as possible.”

“And I took as much as possible.  The issue is that possible here means almost nothing.  These are subsistence farmers.  They have almost nothing!”

“Every other raid I’ve been on has taken bushels of food.”  I gaped at her.  

“That’s not taxation, that’s killing a productive farm.”

“Come on, it's not as if they’ll starve from it.”

“In a couple months, maybe.  Especially if you do it to everypony, and try to support a military unit on the countryside.”

“Look, it's our orders.”

“I never got that order.  I was told to extract taxes, and I did.  Next month’s taxes for the Mob.”

“Oh, it’s that little? That might be enough to satisfy command, then.”  She trailed off obviously thinking.  Eventually she nodded and levitated the bag over to the other soldier’s wagon, which started off back towards the stadium.  “Why isn’t there much food here?”

“From what my dad’s said, most places live off scavenge, so if they get robbed and survive, it's not too much work to get food again.  Here, we need to grow our food, and with the winter coming up, ponies really don’t want to part with much of it.  If you wait until spring, you might be able to get more, but right now ponies are too scared about running out.”  

“Oh, so the firestorms destroyed the stores?”

“And the Royal Food Reserves, and most of the household stocks.  We really needed to restart from scratch.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when I make my reports.”  Melody said, strapping me in.  We started down the road.




Footnote: Level Up.

New Perk: Intimidating Presence:  Turns out that being absurdly huge scares ponies.  You’re more likely to succeed in intimidation, and unlock special speech options. 
> Chapter 4
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eventually, Melody called us to a halt.  I slowed down, bleeding momentum from the overloaded cart, and wincing a bit as my legs and tendons reported in.  

“50 kilometers in one day, and nothing attacked us.”  Melody said, satisfied.  “You couldn’t do that anywhere else in Equestria.”

As far as I knew, Mane tended to be extremely safe.  The firestorm had killed off pretty much everything above ground, and long cold winters meant that mutant animals found it hard to live here year round.  After a few enterprising hunters had set up shop in the mountain masses for manticore stingers and timberwolf kindling, the mirelurks really were the only non-ponies around.  

And when the Mob reorganized itself, it started coming down hard on raiders.  If somepony’s stealing from your marks, they have less to give to you.  

According to Dad, the only reason why Mane wasn’t a trading superpower was the lack of salvage.  Lobster, fish, and vegetables are all well and good, but your really need serious salt mines or large scale refrigeration for it to be a serious commodity.  And the Radical twins Pro and Ton’s plan to use radioactive rocks to boil sea water for salt stopped getting support after ponies’ tongues started glowing.  

Still, not as if Dad is a real authority on the subject, and I didn’t feel like getting back into that argument with Melody.  

“Alright, so over there?” I asked looking around.  Not much to see. In the direction I indicated,  ten kilometers east, there were the foundations of a Ministry of Arcane Technology lab, now only discernible by a scorched metal sign, while a hundred meters to the west there was a wagon refueling station, and a couple dozen kilometers of bare rolling hills.  The farm we accosted was probably the closest thing to a good, defensible location near a water source, but it didn’t seem to be the type of structure to put on top of a 1000 plus pony bunker.  Maybe they were hiding the access hatch behind the scavenged sofa.

Melody unstrapped me from the wagon and started walking towards the wagon refueling station.  

“No, the Stable is in the basement of this building.”  She said, picking her way through the broken glass on the ground and the occasional bullet casing.  “Careful about getting cut, this place should be classified as a hazardous waste dump.”

“Err… why?”  I asked, ducking my head to fit through the door.  “Oh.”  In front of me was a picture of a pony in a very elaborate… outfit, I suppose would be the best way of putting it.  Apparently full body wagon cleanings were a thing.  And somepony decided to use radioactive goo to do it.  Never seen a sexy rad suit before.  

We continued through the garage, past a 20 wagon shop floor and down a hydraulic lift.  Ahead, we heard thuds and muffled angry shouting.  Rounding the corner, several raiders with big sledgehammers came into view, fruitlessly pounding away against a massive gear shaped Stable door emblazoned with a yellow 38 in the center.  

Off to the side, from what looked like a security checkpoint, came angry yelling and desperate sobbing.  The soldiers near the door paused for a few seconds, realized that I was one of them, and continued smashing the door with big hammers.  Melody led us to the security checkpoint.

Inside was a pretty standard prewar office.  One terminal, one desk, one chair, a number of filling cabinets, an anti-zebra propaganda poster, and some coffee mugs.  

“Captain Fisher, 2nd Lieutenant Tree and Administrator Grey reporting as ordered.”

“You, don’t move.”  Fisher ordered, the filly cowering in the corner, who nodded frantically.  “So, ever break into a Stable?”  She asked, slumping heavily onto a couple mattresses piled in the corner, before turning back to us and raising an eyebrow.  

She seemed sane, far more stable and none of the twitchiness I’d seen on the other soldiers, let alone the intermittent giggling.  Heavy combat armor, a chainsaw strapped across her back, a nearby helmet with a long sharp artificial horn that proclaimed that she liked going hoof to hoof with the enemy, and her zebra enhanced frame that definitely allowed her to do it well.  

The only thing detracting from her fearsome features was her baby blue coloring and aquamarine hair.  

“Nope.” I said.  Melody gaped and hurried to apologize.

“Red Tree is very good at piecing information together.  He might be able to guess the override code.”

“Not going to happen.  She doesn’t know jack.”  Fisher said, nodding in the filly’s direction.

“I told you, we were only supposed to know one word each, and I’m second with ‘the’!”  She whined. 

“Like I said.  She doesn’t know jack.”

Nodding, I looked over the unicorn, pretty small, a little shorter than Melody, and young looking, though that might just be from avoiding the sun and a job other than farming.  She wore a blue jumpsuit with yellow highlights.  Looked like leather, brahmin?  Weird thing to keep underground.  Probably recycled from prewar stocks.  There was some sort of integrated strap system, which held a few empty holsters, and a canteen.  Two large, though empty, saddlebags rested on her back.  Her coat seemed to be a fairly vibrant orange, and her mane, green, was teased into a bob.  I bit back a snigger.  Her head reminded me of a carrot. 

I walked over to her, and sat down.  I thought for a few moments, and offered her one of the last snack-cakes from my bag, grabbing a ration bar for myself.  She practically snatched it from my hooves and shoved it in her face.  I waited until she swallowed.

“So, where are the other two?”

“Oh, I found a note in the MAS building about a Stable-Tek thingy like forever away.  Cheer and Joy told me that I should wait here.”

I blinked, didn’t really expect her to open up like that, especially since I still towered over her.  She went from crying to bouncy in a couple seconds.  

“What’s your name?  Happy, Grace?”

“No, they’re in Production.  I’m Judgment, 2nd shift trainee, Security Division.”  

“Judgment?  What’s your mother’s name?”

“Sentence.”

“Your supervisor?”

“Wrath.”

“I see… Aside from Production and Security, what other divisions are in your Stable?”

“Administration mostly, there’s a few weirdos who keep the old Stable-Tek stuff going, but a lost of admin dweebs.”

“Can you tell me about the ‘admin dweebs’?”

“Sure, there’s Content, she’s pretty nice, always has snack-cakes, Reason, talks with mom a lot, Logic, mostly deals with computers.”

Fisher’s face darkened and she rose from her mattresses, stomping over.  “Why the hell are you wasting time like this?”  

She demanded. “What does any of this have to do with the code?”

“Just trying to relax Judgment and make her feel comfortable.”  I turned to the cowering filly.  “Did Cheer and Joy program where they were going into your Pip-Buck?”  

“Oh, so that’s what they were doing?  Erm...yeah, here’s the map.”  

Looking over the highlighted location, I asked “So, how long ago did they leave?”

“I sort of took a nap before they decided to leave.  I guess sometime yesterday morning?”

“You didn’t notice them leaving?”  I asked Fisher.

Her permanent glower deepened.  “No, I assumed that we could wait until the breaching unit showed up, so I pushed everypony out on security.  I was upstairs scavenging and monitoring the radio.  The soldiers were supposed to push out a kilometer and stay on watch.  Two of them got bored and decided to kill a couple hours together.  We only realized that something had happened when I found her patrolling in front of the Stable door.”

I nodded, trying to keep the judgment out of my eyes.  The pulsing vein in her neck showed it was mostly futile.  “Alright, did they call back to tell you they made it or anything?”

“Yep, I didn’t even know that Pip-Bucks could have transmitters.  I think it was sometime around sundown.”

“Ok, I think we can assume that Stable Dwellers would be very used to a set schedule.  They probably bedded down for the night for a full eight hours.  Give them a couple hours to search the building, they should be coming back tonight.”  I said, trying to sound more confident than I actually felt.  

“And we can ambush them then.”  Fisher said, her eyes lighting up.

“As long as we take them alive, the Stable should be easy enough to open.”  

“Excellent.  Foxtrot Squad, on me!”  She shouted, running down the hall.  “We have an ambush to set up.”  She froze suddenly and spun in place.  “Judgment, you’re going to follow me.  And you are going to keep quiet.  Tell me when you see your friends.”

“they’re not my friends.” Judgment said under her breath, before following Fisher.  


***


Setting up the ambush was easy enough.  The ruins offered plenty of cover, and Judgment was able to tell us exactly the direction they went by setting the Stable-Tek building in her Eyes Forward Sparkle, the navigation spell built into her Pip-Buck.  The direct route, which still had hoofprints, went through the bored soldiers’ sector of fire, so that checked out. The rest was just choosing hiding places and waiting.  

Which was getting increasingly annoying.  

Fisher had holed up behind a concrete barrier to the west, using a pair of binoculars to scan the horizon.  I was to the north, with Melody.  In between us were the three soldiers.  Since we didn’t expect the Stable Dwellers for a few hours, Fisher decided to let the soldiers amuse themselves so they could concentrate when the time came.  

“I can keep watch, if it’s too difficult.”  Melody offered kindly from her vantage point.  I glared, looking up from where my distracted leg tapping had broken through the concrete.  Again.  “I’m honestly impressed that you are this controlled.”

“I’m not going through a drug induced fugue state, again. Especially not if we’re trying to take live prisoners.”  I replied, turning back to look over the wastes.  

“I’m still confused why you’re focused there.  Wouldn’t they go along the roads?”

“The navigation feature on the Pip-Buck is a flashing bar over the compass, according to Judgment.  It only does as the crow flies.”

“And you think they’ll do cross country?”

“Pretty sure.  They missed a couple soldiers enjoying themselves less than 800 meters away.  They’re focused on what’s in front of them.”

“Is that why you chose here?”  Melody asked, pointing at the hillside culvert we were hiding in.  My eyes just peeked over the concrete if I stood upright, while Melody lounged nearby on the loose dirt above the concrete lip.  Hard to see me from exactly one direction, while having great fields of fire over the entire engagement area.  

“Partially.” I said.

“Why else?”  She grinned, enjoying me struggle to justify why I was hiding in a drain.  

“I don’t know what weapons they have or how good they are with them.  Say what you want about Judgment being in Security, but I don’t think she was chosen for this mission based on her killer instinct.”

“Hey!” Judgment said from behind us, having successfully annoyed Fisher enough to get me saddled with babysitting duty.  She had amused herself for the past few hours by looking at the clouds, being scared, making lines in the dirt, and repeating the process, fortunately on the side of the hill away from the ambush.

“Speaking of Judgment, why did you ask about all those names?”

“I wanted to see if there was anything strange going on down there.”  Her quizzical expression made me fill in the gaps.  “I’ve met a few ponies who claimed that the Stables were part of some government experiment to create a new society.  So, each Stable had its own ‘special set of instructions’ on how it should be run.”  

“Wasn’t there one around Canterlot that was half zebra and half pony?”

“Yeah, stuff like that.  Trying out different ways of making it so that everypony could get along.”

“I’m not even sure if there are any that are still functional.”

“I mean, if they died, you don’t hear about it.  If they’re still working, you don’t hear about it.  The only ones you hear about are the ones that opened up, so they had to work for at least a while.”  

“I guess.  Any good ones?”

“Did you hear about Stable 69?  The one with 1 stallion and 999 mares? Major pornography printer?”

“No, what happened to the lucky stallion?”

“Well, the obvious, for the first few years.  He wasn’t the person in charge or anything, and they didn’t go nuts trying to fix the problem.  There were a few decades before anything became serious, so it was apparently pretty relaxed.”

“Huh, I would have expected something else.”

“Well, apparently the stallion started acting like an entitled prat, and started expecting stuff out of the other ponies.  It pissed off a few unicorns who used to work at the Ministry of Magical Research, who ended up developing a few gender change spells. Apparently, he got stonewalled for most of a decade after that.”  

“That’s less horrific than I was expecting.”  

I shrugged, “Hey, even out here ponies are still ponies.  And they still reprint ‘Magically Enhanced Everything number 1’ on occasion.”

“So, what do you think about this one?”

“Not sure.  I think it has something to do with emotions and moods though.  Everypony from Production had positive names.  Everypony from Security had negative or controlling names.”

“And everypony from Administration has, what?  ‘Nerdy’ names?”

“I’d say ‘logical,’ but yeah.  Plus did you see Judgment’s mood swings?”

“She seemed weirdly fine with answering your questions.”  

“Off the top of my head, I think this Stable uses emotional manipulation to work.  Could be just aimed at increasing productivity, could be absolute control, or anything in between.  Seems like the research would be perfect for your soldiers.”

“Oh, Command doesn’t want to capture anything, they just want it as a secure outpost.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, Vault Dwellers are really bad soldiers.  The living space is more valuable.”

“They’re a population conditioned to follow an absolute ruler.  At least judging by the Overmare comments I’ve heard.” I trailed off, trying to remember if I’d heard anything more specific, then rallied.  “Anyway, how can you call a settlement of at least 1000 ponies useless?”

“First, I never called them useless.  Second, not my call.”  I stopped tapping, well- stomping, my hoof in confusion.  Then sat on the ground as the implications became apparent.  

By sundown, Fisher had spotted the Stable Dwellers and made the soldiers knock it off.  I looked at them over the crest of the hill.  Quiet, not moving, big heavy weapons, semi-trained soldiers waiting in ambush.  The targets, covered in dust, sweat, and bruises.  The Stable Dwellers were squinting against the sun, looking tired, irritated, and walking in a straight line home.  The taller one was wearing sunglasses and carrying a sawn off shotgun.  The shorter one was carrying two pistols and had a few bulges that looked like grenades.  

From a tactical perspective, it was beautiful.  On my signal, the soldiers would charge from less than 20 meters away with the sun to their backs, overwhelming the inexperienced Vault Dwellers.  Even if they got a few shots off, the chances of a lethal hit would be extremely low.  Interrogate them, get the code, and then what?  Murder orgy through 1000 ponies?  Still working on that last part.  

Melody was right in front of me, starting at the targets slowly walking home, and closer to the soldiers.  Had to be in front, the slope of the hill meant she couldn’t see over unless she crouched much higher up.  I could still see Fisher, fully armored, though her chainsaw was stowed.  The soldiers were still behind cover, shaking with anticipation.  

I loaded my rifle, then worked the bolt to load a round.  We’d agreed that the shot would be the signal to attack.  Didn’t have any blanks, so the shot could have lethal effects.  

Breathing in, I sighted on the taller of the two ponies.  One shot, and they’ll all be safe.  I thought, but then went a little deeper.  Maybe Fisher could figure out the pass phrase with two parts.  And killing both would just mean that we’d need to wait for the breaching team.  The pass phrase was simply easier and faster than the drill.  

So, if killing them won’t help…

I breathed out, and breathed in again, holding it for a second and pulled the trigger.  

“Nightmare fucking Moon!” Melody screamed as a 50 caliber rifle went off by her head.  She cradled her head, moaning on the ground.   

The bullet flew straight at Captain Fisher’s head, punching right through the helmet and making her skull explode like a blood sausage. 1 threat gone. 

I frantically worked the bolt, moving the sight to the charging raiders.  

The raiders started sprinting and shouting war cries at the sound of the gunshot.  They were further away than they were supposed to be, maybe 50 meters rather than 20.  Still open ground, against unsuspecting untrained civilians, there was no way for them to live.  The bolt caught.  I cleaned this for TWO FUCKING HOURS! I thought. Fuck, they’re going to die. For nearly two seconds, the raiders charged, while the Stable Dwellers were frozen in shock.  Then they responded.  

The taller one yanked the shotgun out of the holster smoothly, almost as if on greased rails, and pivoted towards the nearest raider.  They fired twice, the first at the raider’s mostly exposed head, the second at his front legs, before reloading in that same weirdly mechanical manner.  The raider fell to the ground, at best blind, though likely dying.  Lead slugs and skulls don’t mix.  The taller Dweller looked at the body, mouth open in horror, recoiling.  

The bolt slid home, and I braced the stock against my chest.  

The shorter one levitated out two pistols, firing almost before they cleared the holsters.  Then the same mechanical excellence took over, and he fired multiple 10mm bullets at another raider.  The raider shrugged off the first few shots, but the sheer volume of fire rapidly pulped her skull.  The shooter shook his head and recoiled in horror.  He stared at the gore pile, seeming like he was going to vomit.  

The last raider didn’t care, and continued his charge, raising a club to crush the smaller Dweller in one blow.  
I fired again.  Center of mass this time, not trusting anything fancy.  Lucky miss on my part.  The raider’s neck exploded, and his head landed a meter away from the pile of gore.  Oh thank the goddesses.  

The two Vault Dwellers pivoted wildly, looking for me.  I was maybe 75 meters away, outside the range of a sawn off shotgun or pistols, and the smaller one levitated out his grenades, pulling the pin.  

I stood up, and laid my rifle on the ground.  The taller one looked at me warily, while the smaller one entered the same mechanical stillness for a fraction of a second, before coming out of it.  

Over the post battle silence, I heard something metallic hit the ground.  The spoon.  

“THROW THE FUCKING GRENADE!”  I shouted, diving for cover and then peaking over.  

The two Vault Dwellers stared at each other, then at the grenade, and back at each other. Stunned realization came over their faces, replaced by horror.  The levitation field winked out, dropping it to the ground.  The taller one ran to kick it, and… 

Dammit…  I slumped down on the ground and looked for Melody.  A trail of blood led towards downhill, back towards the service station.  Double dammit…

I started walking down the hill.  I didn’t want to kill her, since she hadn’t lobotomized me, but I still kept my rifle at the ready.  She had a pistol for self defense, but that shouldn’t pose too much of a threat, and not as if she had anything else that could…

Suddenly, the heavy bracelet on my right forehoof stopped feeling so decorative.  Right… Ok, so, erm…  It was pretty obvious what I had to do.  Tourniquet, then I needed to decide between detonating it myself and giving her the ability to cripple me.  Well, the tourniquet was easy enough.  Relatively speaking.  

I dug inside the medical pouch, pulling out the military style tourniquet, a magical bandage, a flask of alcohol, and wonderglue.  I slipped the tourniquet above the bomb collar, and pulled the velcro strap tight, then fed it through the second locking bit.  Now for the fun part.  I twisted the attached stick, until it started burning, then kept twisting.  One more half rotation.  And there.  

I nuzzled my forehoof below the tourniquet, feeling for a pulse.  Nothing.  Ugh, I hate this feeling, I complained to myself.
“Judgment, what time is it?” 

“1917, Red Tree.”  She replied, still weirdly chipper.  Ok, need to get it off in at most… an hour?  Or is it two? Or four?  I decided to limit it to one, gangrene wasn’t worth it.  And I could check based on bloodloss.  Now, for the really annoying part.  

I pulled out my multitool, and unfolded it into a pair of needle nose pliers.  Carefully bracing it, I wormed it under the restraining wire.  I need to get this off sooner or later, and this does it on my terms, at least.  I jerked my head.  
A small amount of shaped explosive concentrated the blast inward, minimizing the amount of damage to any slavers nearby, with enough force to gouge out somepony’s windpipe and certainly kill them.  On a mutant my size, a couple inches meant death by mangled arteries, rather than partial amputation.

I only realized that after the fact.  At the moment, I screamed as I was sure my leg was blown off.   I pulled at the bomb collar, the lock shattered easily.  

You ever look at a Salisbury Steak and try to figure out what pieces used to be connected to what?  Trying to figure out what piece of minced and ground meat, scraped off bone, interspersed with tendons and ligaments, how it used to be part of an animal?  It’s hard to do.  It’s hard enough that you can forget that it used to be part of some living creature.  
Now, take that and shove it into a 6 centimeter circle on your leg.  It was pulverized, mashed, shredded, and ruined.  Numbly, barely able to think of the mess as me, I started trying to what to do.  

Ok, severed artery, severed tendon. Bone, seems fine. Muscle gaping, skin shredded. Without an actual doctor, I wasn’t sure what would heal properly, or even if healing potions could reach something below a tourniquet.  Maybe they could because magic, maybe not because no blood flow, but that’s not a fun guess when staring at becoming a cripple.  It was “safer” to just use the bandage, since it was applied directly to the wound.  

Unfortunately, the wound was definitely dirty.  Metal fragments and explosive residue at the least.  Hair and surface dirt probably.  Thankfully not cloth or leather, made sure to roll that up when I got the bracelet.  

I didn’t have the skill to remove all the fragments, and digging with my needle nose pliers would probably just push dirt in deeper.  Just need to wash it out. I thought glumly, untwisting the flask.  I dumped it into the would, suppressing a groan as my muscles reflexively twitched at the pain.  Eww, I didn’t want to see my tendon twitching.  I shook off the feeling and finished pouring.  

Ok, possible circulation issues, probable movement issues, but hopefully not infection. I carefully bit the wonderglue, lifting it and coating the wound in a thin layer, holding the meat generally in place.  Before it dried, I held my forehoof with one leg, and used my nose to force the other side of the wound closed, covering the entrance in glue. Skin was pulled taut, which wasn’t good, but I needed to get it closed.   I held it for a count of two hundred, then pulled away.  Well, tried. Some fur got stuck to the glue.  A tug later and I was free, minus some annoyingly sensitive hair follicles.  And the wound stayed closed, more importantly.  

A tightly wrapped bandage, hastily tied sling, and a few hesitant steps later, I was pretty sure that the wound wouldn’t kill me.  Still, I decided to keep the tourniquet on, at least until the glue dried completely and the magic had some time to work.  

It took longer than I expected to hobble down the hill, back towards the service station and wagon.  The Zebra twins probably never intended for their creations to work on three legs.  I was straining muscles that really weren’t meant to work that hard.  

It was solidly night by the time I was in sight of the station, still lit up.  I couldn’t exactly see Melody, but her pacing shadow was pretty apparent.  Looked like she was hiding behind the wagon.  My brow furrowed in confusion.  Why would she not be hiding somewhere safer?

Oh well, don’t look a gift brahmin in the mouth.  I pulled out my rifle, and racked another round.  The click echoed through the night.  I sighted on her head, or at least where it would be.  Wasn’t as if the wood would stand up to the round.  Then I thought for a second.  

I sighed.  Aside from not wanting to kill somepony who probably couldn’t kill me, I probably needed Melody.  It would solve a lot of potential problems if I just took the shot, but I was nearly 100 kilometers away from home, with a hostile army in between, I needed Melody to make sure I got back. Especially with a mostly useless leg.  

I stowed the rifle away, and moved to the side, making sure that I was visible.  “Melody?”

She peaked out from behind the wagon, rifle wobbling wildly.  “Do- don’t move.”  She stammered, trying to draw a bead on me.  “I I’ll detonate the collar.”  She gulped audibly as she saw the tourniquet, bandage, and missing explosive.  She opened and closed her mouth a few times, not sure exactly what to do.  I heard regular thumping from the side, and turned slightly to look.  

“Hi!”  Judgment shouted, jumping out of the dark.  Melody spun wildly and shot.  It went wide, and I lunged forward, knocking the rifle out of her magic field.  I pressed the magazine release, and stood on top of it, hoping she wouldn’t be able to levitate both the rifle and me.  

“Judgment, please don’t appear behind somepony when they’re jumpy and carrying a gun.”  I said, much more calmly than I felt.  

“Sorry, she didn’t look like she was hostile, so I thought it would be fine.”

“You can tell when ponies are hostile?”

“And when they’re angry, happy, and calm!”  

“Interesting.  ponies can still shoot when they don’t mean to, so try to be more careful in the future.”

“Will do!”

“Now, Melody.  I’m going to let go of the rifle, and put down mine.  We’re going to act like rational adults and talk about what happened.  Please nod if you’re ok with that.”  I turned my head to look at her.  

Melody, still frozen to my rear, nodded and swallowed.  I dropped my rifle, and started heading inside.  The other two followed.  


***


About 30 minutes later, the three of us were sitting in the bay, around a hotplate.  One of the raiders had been something of a joker and arranged rocks around it.  I felt a little bad about using their bedding, but well, I killed most of them.  Not hypocritical per se, but… social conventions.  You don’t sleep in someone else’s bed.

Judgment had picked up our weapons, wrapped them in tape, and shoved them in a bag, as an accepted neutral party.  At least after we realized that leaving the weapons outside was a bad idea.  

Melody had scavenged food from the raider’s stores, so we had a pretty excessive dinner in front of us. I was snacking on a mixture of ration bars and brahmin steaks, idly hoping that they’d bothered to check if the previous owner was sapient or not, Melody was content with a can of corn, and Judgment was absolutely pigging out on Sugar Bombs.  

“Not much sweet food down there?”

“Nope, mostly recycled food chips.  They’re alright, but don’t taste like much.”

An awkward silence fell.  I decided to deepen it by releasing the tourniquet by a half rotation.  I nuzzled my leg again and felt a weak pulse, without blood gushing out of my leg.  Huh, guess the bandage fixed the artery.  Hooray for magic!  I smiled slightly, was half expecting to need amputation. And I returned to my food.  

A few minutes later, tapping the empty corn can back and forth, Melody asked “Why did you kill them?”

I swallowed the rest of the ration bar and replied, “I’m not killing an entire Stable.”

She froze.  “I see.” She said frostily.  “Makes sense, if you don’t want to kill.  I’m not a threat, am I?  At least without that collar.”  She paused, running down that line of thought.  “Now what are you going to do?  Start a rebellion against the Colonel?”

“I guess the obvious thing is to try to get Judgment back inside.”  I muttered.  

“How?  She doesn’t know the passcode.”  She paused. “Do you?”  She asked Judgment.  

Judgment looked up for a moment. “No idea.”  She said happily, before attempting to fit an entire box inside her mouth.  

Melody and I shared an irritated look.  

“We might be able to get something off the Stable Dwellers’ Pip Bucks tomorrow.  If not, well, I’ll figure out something.”  I said after a few seconds thought.  

Melody looked into the mid distance for a minute.  Eventually she asked “What are you planning on doing with me?”

“As soon as I get past the 3rd Experimental, you’re free to go.  Just don’t think I can do it on my own.”  

“That’s reasonable...”  She trailed off.  “You paying me or am I slave?”  

Her tone was half joking, but I still frowned.  I rummaged through my pack for the last snack-cake and threw it over to her.  She jumped a bit, but still caught the sweetened dough.  “You’ll get a share of the profits.”  I smirked a bit.  Didn’t expect much from wandering around the wasteland.  

Melody had a ghost of a smile about her lips, but she yawned after a few seconds.  

“Judgment probably should take the first shift, considering how much sugar she ate.”  Judgment, still cramming her face full of sweets, nodded enthusiastically.  “I’ll take second, you take third?  4 hours each?”

“Sounds fine.  Everypony up by dawn?”

“Nobody should be in the area.  I’m fine with 8 o’ clock.”

“Works for me.  If anyone sees blood coming out of my leg, wake me up.”  

I loosened the tourniquet entirely, and my leg filled with pins and needles.  I stumbled over to one of the beds, and collapsed into it, falling asleep almost immediately.  





Footnote: Level Up.

New Perk: Sniper:  You’ve learned how to control your breathing and aim more effectively.  25% increased chance to hit when aiming at a target’s head.
> Chapter 5
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

8 hours later, around 4 am, Melody woke me up to begin my guard shift.  Grumbling, I walked outside, blinking in the predawn darkness.  I hate guard duty. I grumbled, looking for something to do that would let me listen for anyone coming. 

I headed outside, and glanced at the wagon, and its radio antenna.  That’s a thought.  I chewed on my tongue for a minute, then nodded.  Still limping with my sling, I headed out into the night.  


*** 


A few hours later, Judgment woke up and started making breakfast.  She sort of just piled everything she liked into the raider’s meal pot and set it to boil.  I dropped off the last body in the lubrication dump and followed the overpowering smell of sugar.  

The pot was a dank sludgy grey, with darker bits that slowly floated to the surface before sinking again. 

I tilted my head, as Judgment stood by the pot, frantically stirring.  “Did you mix Sugar Bombs,  sugar flavoring, milk, and set it to boil?”

She nodded, looking like she was going to cry.  

“Ok, let’s take it off the stove, and see what we can do.”  

Melody came in an hour later to us laughing on the ground playing with the rubbery cereal.  She looked tired and irritated. 

“Nice job standing watch.”  She snarled, her mane disarrayed and bags under her eyes.  

“Come on, it’s broad daylight.  Anybody who attacks me after I see them is either blind or an awful shot.”  

She looked aghast, and opened her mouth to argue, before sighing and shaking her head.  “Just… can I have some coffee?”  

“I found a Nuka Cola machine in the back.  There might be some freeze dried stuff in the break room, but it looks pretty wrecked back there.  Somepony used it as a latrine area.”

She looked queasy, but nodded.  “Would you mind getting me one of the sodas, in that case?  I don’t have any bits on me.”
 
I nodded, got up and trotted around the back.  I bucked it once, and the door fell right off.  Admittedly I overbalanced, and fell on my face, but still, that was pretty cool.  I grabbed one of the sodas, scooped up the bits in the storage unit, and walked back inside.  I sighed.  

“What are you two doing?”

“Erm...” Melody groaned, trying to point her rifle at Judgment.  Judgment had a knife held against Melody’s neck, and was vibrating slightly, her face strangely intent.  

“Ok, give me a moment.”  I said, crossing over to where my rifle was stored.  I reloaded it, and walked behind Melody.  

“Now, both of you drop your weapons, or I fire.”  Judgment complied instantly and trotted off.  Melody held onto her rifle for a little longer before groaning again and dropping it.  She was bleeding from several knife cuts.

“So, why did you attack her?”

Her eyes budged. “How can you accuse me of attacking her?  I’m the one who was attacked!”  

“You’re injured from knife cuts, have a rifle which should’ve been secured in a bag, and didn’t scream.  If you didn’t attack first, you were expecting it at the least, and I don’t think Judgment would attack on her own.”  She tried to meet my eye, but couldn’t.  She tried to reply a few more times, and couldn’t get more than a few words out each time.  

“I thought that if I got rid of the Stable Dweller, you would let me go.”  She admitted.  

Well, shit…

I stepped forward until I towered over Melody, “Look, I owe getting her back inside the Stable.  If you try to kill her again, I will kill you. Or abandon you, depending on what I think is worse.  You need to say why you did it, and ask her forgiveness.  I’m not going to deal with this again.”  Shaking, Melody nodded and slunk off.  I took her rifle in my mouth and carried it over to a duffel bag, which I threw into the wagon.  Food, water containers, medical supplies, some of the bedding, and a couple plates of scrap metal around key locations.  Not useful against anything above a hunting rifle, but didn’t add too much weight, and might keep ponies alive. 

I was pretty satisfied that there was enough food for a week.  Water was a little harder, but we could always rig up a filter out of sand and then boil it.  

“Are we going for a ride?”  Judgment asked, bouncing.  

“Yes, but not sure when. Do you mind coming with me?”

“Sure!”  She continued bouncing behind me.  Note to self: don’t bring sugar bombs.

We headed outside, picking up Melody, who was sulking near the Nuka Cola wreckage.  We then walked over to the lubrication station.  

“Aside from being a really awful rhyming innuendo, the lubrication station is filled with really flammable goo.  Normally, I would be tempted to bring as much as possible, but I’m only going to bring a can for the axles.  Does anyone want to guess why?”  I asked in a sing song voice.  

“You're going burn something?”  Melody asked sarcastically, looking suspiciously at the droplets of blood leading to the door.    

“Precisely. Now what is there to burn?”

“Birthday candles?”  Judgment asked.

“Not exactly.”  I opened the door.  The raiders and most of the pieces of the Stable Dwellers were inside the room.  The raiders were heaped into a pile, stripped of anything useful.  I’d put some effort into separating out the Stable Dwellers, but there’s only so much you can do when somepony lets an anti-tank grenade detonate less than a meter away from their head.  I still can’t believe that Stable Security issued 120 mm grenades for anti-personnel use.  

“Is there anything you want to say?” I asked Judgment.

“Nope.”

“Do you mind if I take some of their equipment?”

“Sure.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“I mean, two ponies from your Stable are dead...”

“Oh, they’re only from Production.  Not that big of a deal.”  

“Alright...”  I walked forward and retrieved the Pip-Bucks, ammo, weapons, and a couple stimpacks that I had separated out earlier.  I’d placed the last two 120mm grenades underneath the raider’s pile.  Judgment got the slightly pitted pistols, while Melody would have gotten the shotgun.  But suddenly I really didn’t want to give her a weapon.  

I took the chainsaw, more as a tool than a weapon. Maybe I could mount it as a bayonet on another bigger gun.  That’s not that detached from reality.  Right?.  

A few strikes with the firestarter and a readied can with an oil soaked rag was burning merrily.  At least until I tossed it inside and the burning grease sprayed everywhere.  It went up like a, well, a gas station.  

After a few seconds of watching, the fire grew, fed by the numerous holes in the station’s walls, we retreated as the heat got intolerable.

  “Ok, Judgment, how do you work these? I’m trying to find where the Joy and Glee went.”

“Joy and Cheer.”  Melody hissed.  

“Yes.  Them.  Sorry.”

“Go to the map screen and look for visited locations.  Or marked locations.  Something like that.”

“Map, err.”  My hooves were a little big for the buttons, but I got it eventually. “Ok, so they went to MWT North East, and it looks like they got a marker for err… ‘Stable-Tek Regional Administration.’”  I looked up.  “Do you think they would have the override code for the door?”

“I dunno.”  Judgment said, looking around, presumably for a snack.  

“Melody?”  

“Probably.  At the very least we might learn more about their security systems.” 

“Seems like a plan.”  I looked at the Pip-Buck screen again.  Something looked wrong.  It was so hard to see the geography on this thing.  “Melody, do you mind getting me the map?  I want to check something.”  Melody floated it out and over.  I lined up the grids and- “Crap…  It’s in Fillydalphia.”  

“What’s wrong about Fillydalphia?” Judgment asked.

“It got hit with a particularly nasty megaspell.  At first it seemed normal, blast and firestorm like any other, but afterwards it caused ponies to slowly go insane.  It was a major food and weapon distribution center for the Equestrian military, so ponies looking for safety, ponies who thought they could deal with it, have been flocking there ever since, but it is probably the most violent place in Equestria.  Hoofington is probably the most deadly.  Canterlot is probably the most hostile to life.  But for sheer murderers, raiders, and rapists, nothing comes close.”

“What’s the difference between hostile to life and deadly?”

“One is surrounded by a necromantic cloud that eats your soul, the other has automated defenses that can destroy anything that gets too close.”  Melody chimed in.

“Well, I don’t know exactly what the Pink Cloud is, but it causes ponies to melt into solid objects, and ghoulifies ponies into immortal nearly unkillable monsters.  The defenses thing is probably right.  I’ve heard less realistic stories about underground chambers filled with ghosts, ponies eviscerated and their brains put into robots, body liquefying magic.  It just seems more impersonal, like it would do it to anyone.  The Cloud seems like it does it because it hates you.”  

“That doesn’t make sense.”  Judgment said slowly.  “They both kill you.”

“Its better when you’re killed because you’re you, rather than just because you showed up.”  Melody said, looking downcast.   

I coughed, and nodded. 

“Well, if we’re going to Fillydalphia, what stops ponies from coming back here and trying to break in again?”

I frowned.  I’d been thinking about it, but nothing really seemed to work.  Monsters, armed Dwellers, stuff like that meant send in more troops.  Collapsed wouldn’t explain why all the raiders were dead.  I turned to Melody.  “Radiation?”

She thought for a few moments.  “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea.  You are extremely sensitive to radiation, after all.  But doesn’t explain why I wouldn’t show up.”  Wait what?

“What was that about radiation?”

“Oh, idea!” Melody sang out as she ran over to the wagon and hopped on the radio.  She coughed a few times and croaked out. “Control, this is MG.  Oh, god is that blood?”  She waited a few moments, and repeated the call, minus the question.  

“MG, this is Control.  Status report.”

“We got into the Stable.  It was filled with yellow smoke.  The soldiers charged in and collapsed.  I tried to help them, but I nearly passed out.  I’ve been coughing up blood ever since. Its getting worse.”

“Understood MG.  We do not have any units in the area.  You will be remembered on the Administrative Memorial Plaque.  Out.”

Melody shut off the radio.  “Well, that’s sorted.”  She said in her normal voice.  

“That’s a little callous.” I said slowly.  What type of a pony counts somepony out like that?

“I’ve had to make that call before.  You get used to it.”

“You administrator ponies have functional bodyguards two times normal size and four times normal mass, and you need to deal with other administrators dying en mass relatively often?”

“It's the military, you expect it.”

“Shouldn’t be that often, especially before you’re actually involved in a major conflict.”

“We anticipate it.  The Colonel’s worked out expected attrition rates.  We’re well inside his estimates.”

“Well, that’s kind of horrific.  Still, I suppose that’s taken care of.  They should move the breaching team somewhere else, assuming that they don’t want to deal with poison gas.” 

“Probably.  That should push the Stable to the bottom of the priority list.  Anything else you can think of?”

“Not really.  Judgment?”

“More Sugar Bombs?”

“We’ll pick some up on the way.  Once we’re past the mountain pass, supplies shouldn’t be as much of an issue.”  I said.
Melody piped in “I just need to grab some stuff, then we can head out.”

We finished packing, and I ran down a mental checklist.  27 rounds .50 cal, rifle, chainsaw, multitool, firestarter, compass, canteen, medical kit, armor, neckerchief, and the stuff I didn’t take out of my saddlebags.  Melody, shotgun, ammo, canteen.  Judgment, two pistols, ammo, canteen, Pip-Buck.  That’s the essentials.  

Still we spent a little more time making sure that there was enough food and water on the wagon, along with the radio and medical supplies.  We were practically overloaded with combat drugs, since the raiders had only taken a single dose each.  Plenty of potions.  My stomach churned a bit at the sealed case with a zebra glyph on the front.  It made a fun tinkily noise when I bucked it into and through a brick wall.  Judgment looked confused for a second, before turning back to arranging some extra harnesses on her armor.  Melody looked worried, but nodded hurriedly when I raised an eyebrow. 

And with that, I hooked myself in, ignoring a twinge in my leg, and we headed west, out into the wasteland, towards Fillydalphia.  

Well, that was the plan at least. Barely an hour later, Melody called us to a halt.  She looked concerned, and screamed 

“Red, why is your leg spraying blood?”  Well, less concerned and more horrified.  

I looked down at the bandages, which had slipped off during the easy canter, and blearily agreed.   Yes, that is blood and it is spurting out of my leg.  I stared for a few seconds. The thought Well, that explains the dizziness, eventually crawled across my brain.  

Slowly, I brought the wagon to a halt, as Melody hopped down with the tourniquet.  She rapidly forced it around my leg, tightening until the blood stopped, then undid the harness and dragged me towards the side of the road, dumping me behind a concrete barrier.  She darted back to the wagon, digging for a medical kit.  

Judgment hopped down, looking curiously as Melody pulled out several healing potions.  

“I thought you fixed this!”  Melody said, examining the wound carefully.  “What did you do?”

“Tourniquet, wonderglue, and an infused bandage.  Oh and a sling.”  I slurred.  I feel weee!

Melody’s mouth opened and she gaped at me aghast.  “You have healing potions!  Why didn’t you use them?”  She demanded, uncorking one of the potions and shoving it in my mouth. 

“I wasn’t sure if potions could help if there wasn’t blood flow to a body part.” 

“So, you decided to cut off all blood flow and hope that a bandage would fix it?  These are for simple cuts!  Not for serious injuries.  It’s a wonder that you’re alive at all!”

“I made sure to seal the wound with wonderglue.  I wasn’t going to bleed out.”

“You decided to seal metal fragments under your skin.  That’s all.  Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“You tried to blow my leg off?”

“And now you’re probably crippled, so same end result.  Good choice.” I shrugged, not much you can say to that.  She sighed.  “Look, magic doesn’t really undo magic, at least not without a lot of effort by a skilled doctor.  So, whatever damage you’ve caused will likely stay there.  Doesn’t look like much healed, so drinking a couple healing potions now would probably restore the muscle mass so you could walk, even if you probably won’t ever go faster than a canter again.”  

I nodded.  Melody looked pensive for a few seconds, then continued.  “Judgment, can you grab a ration bar?  After that much bloodloss, the potion is going to use up a lot of his reserves.”

Judgment jumped to it, and I slowly ate yet another ration bar.  I felt like I should be getting bored of them.  They didn’t taste particularly good, but they were satisfying.  

The potions didn’t take long, and when Melody removed the tourniquet, all that you could see was a scar.  I tested my weight, and it felt fine, though it was definitely harder to lift my leg.  The forehoof just didn’t respond properly. Makes sense, the tendon was severed.  I thought glumly, and resumed pulling.  


*** 


Melody suffered the most during the journey.  Judgment couldn’t get enough of the wasteland.  Found everything interesting.  Which is pretty impressive on an open road surrounded by gently rolling hills, still scorched earth, and mounds of radioactive dust.  And she kept asking questions about it.   

The southwest of Mane was less inhabited than the rest of the area.  It was the least safe, since it was a day’s trot from the mountain passes, meaning that raiders and wildlife could reach it relatively easily.  Little food and nearly no safe water; living off the land wasn’t feasible.  And nobody had bothered to clear the couple inches of radioactive dust that killed off plant life, so most ponies didn’t stick around for long.  

Still, the road was relatively safe.  Clear directions and guaranteed hard ground under the thin layer of dust meant that we could keep up a pretty descent pace despite my injury.  

I tuned out most of the conversations, trying to figure out how we could cross Phillydalphia, but occasionally, keywords would catch my attention.

“Why did Red kill Joy and Glee?”  Wait, what?

“Yes, Red.  Why did you kill the other Stable Dwellers?”  Melody asked sweetly.  I was getting really annoyed at her bouncing between helpful and passive aggressive.  

“I didn’t.  They did that weird robot thing and primed a grenade before going back to normal.  The spoon flew off, and it exploded.”

“Why did they prime the grenade?”  Judgment asked, after digesting the news for a few seconds.  

“Umm, because they thought I was attacking them?”

“So, you did kill them.”  Melody prompted.  

“No, inexperience killed them.  If they knew how to use grenades, they wouldn’t have died.”

“The Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell allows the untrained operator to be as effective in combat as a trained soldier.”  Judgment said, as if reciting something.  

“Maybe on the range, but from a tactics standpoint or when something goes wrong, no way.”  I mused for a few seconds.  “When we stop for the night, you’re getting a crash course on how to use weapons.  I’m not an expert or anything, but I don’t want you to die because of something stupid.”

The other two nodded, and Melody giggled.  A little psychopathic, but I suppose that’s par for the course. 

The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful.  Melody kept watch and dealt with Judgment as necessary.  Judgment alternated between questions and, from the muted cheers and moans, playing a game on her Pip-Buck.  I kept walking and kept watch.  Mostly kept watch.  Kept getting distracted by the minimum number of flips to get pancakes in the proper order.  Did I mention I don’t like guard duty?

Either way, eventually we made it to the Mountain Pass.  It was tall, steep, manned by paranoid ponies with high power rifles, and the only in and out of Mane.  Also not much to say, other than we gave them a toll, consisting of Melody’s old rifle and its ammo.  Didn’t like the idea of her having a longer range weapon that could punch through my skull.  Buckshot’s not much less deadly, but, considering that Caravan took a .22 to the eye and shrugged it off, it might make a difference.  

The first thing that happened once we were through the pass was Judgment jerked up, looked at her Pip-Buck for a moment, and tapped it a few times.  Suddenly, music filled the air.  

“Ooh, Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow, I think this is Sweetie Belle’s cover.” Melody said, perking up and inching closer to the Pip-Buck.  I looked at here, remembering something about not liking music, then shrugged.  Not my business.

Singing along softly, Melody led Judgment through the song, adding embellishments to as the slow sad song wound its way over the rocks.  I mostly kept the wagon steady down the steep cliffside trail.  

All too soon, the song was over, and a rich deep voice came over the radio.  “And that was Sweetie Belle -,” “I knew it!”  Melody exclaimed, hoofpumping in the air. “- Tomorrow.  And now for some news.”  I cocked an ear, and Judgment shushed Melody quickly.  

“Looks like the mutant raiders have left Equestria for good.  I’ve gotten reports that their last barge has pushed off from Hoofboken and looks like its traveling north.  Not too much out that way, so be on the lookout for half frozen chem addicted giants.  Now, for the rest of Equestria.  Manehattan, many mutants with the munchies.  Fillydalphia, filled with fix-seeking fuckers.  Canterlot, cloaked in caustic Cloud.  Hoof, heaps of hellish headhunters.  Las Pegasus, currently going through a very harsh drought.  Local scientists are attempting to restore the pumping system.”

The three of us exchanged a series of worried glances.  

“Good news from the rebuilt towns.  Ponyville’s new sheriff stated confidently that the new walls would keep raiders out for 100 years.  Paradise Falls” The chocolaty voice became nasally and mocking, “issued a statement formally ending their relationship with the 3rd Experimental Division.” He chuckled, “So, it looks like you unicorns can come out from under the bed.  Now they’ll hunt you just like everypony else.  Guess pony experimentation was a little too far for those slavers, even if it took the 3rd leaving entirely to admit it.  Now for your five day forecast.  Cloudy with a chance of dismemberment.  And with that, here’s a few commercials.”  

Unicorn slaves?  I looked at Melody, but decided not to press.  Her business, not mine.


***


What’s the worst way to deal with a dangerous situation?  Not by overreacting, or by being scared, it’s getting used to it and not paying attention anymore.  

Fillydalphia was originally built around a river, but over time the city had shifted towards the rail lines, designed to bring masses of ponies and supplies right to the front.  Massive warehouses, barracks, repair yards, everything you would need to keep a war going for years ringed a series of fortified rail lines, gracefully arching out towards the west, heading towards the Hoof and the front lines proper.  More east, the city gradually became more civilian oriented, though the war effort made itself known.  From individual dwellings in the Old Town, the size and complexity of the buildings gradually grew, until block spanning identical tenements crowded against the factories and steel yards fueling the war effort.  A more poetic turn of mind would have commented about how it reflected Equestria’s growth, from a community to a faceless monolith, turning ponies into work, work into weapons, and sending everything to the front. 

Instead, I looked at the crater firmly in the middle of the city, nearer a large… carnival?  Funhouse?  How’d that survive?  Well, the crater glowed, its ghoulish maleficence shifting and changing, the skies above it looking sickly and unhealthy.  It was unnaturally hot, I was tempted to take off my armor, but the occasional gun shot made me think twice.  

“Ok, Judgment, where are we trying to go?”  I asked, trying to figure out a way through the killzones also known as graceful, wide avenues.  

“That direction, about 12582 meters.”  She said, hopping down from the wagon, onto the highway cresting a hill overlooking part of the city.  I walked behind her and followed her hoof.  She was pointing towards the carnival.  We would avoid the crater proper, but there was still the issue of the 13 or so blocks of dense apartments.  

“Melody, about 6 kilometers to where the apartments start?”

“Those are apartments?”

“I think so?  If you look carefully, you can see balconies all along them, which means residential.  Offices wouldn’t bother with that, and factories usually go with hanger style.”

Melody looked incredulously at the city, and pulled out a pair of binoculars.  “… five, six, seven, eight, nine stories tall?  And that’s got to be a hundred balconies on a side.  Square, so...”   She trailed off thinking.

“With those numbers, assuming that they maximize space not bothering with windows inside, each building contains 90,000 apartments.  I think it’s closer to a third of that, since it looks like the balconies are more spaced out on the corners, so the apartments are rectangular.  They probably added shafts for natural light, and some recreational space inside.”

“By Celestia, that’s…”  She was left speechless.  We both thought of the stadium, designed for maybe 2 of these apartment complexes. Probably the second largest city in Mane, and this place would eat it without even trying.

“Yeah. It’s big.  And we need to get through that.  And a lot of them are probably inhabited by at least a couple raiding bands.”  

Judgment pointed towards the rail lines. “Could we follow those?”  

Melody and I grimaced in unison.  Aside from being a defensive dream, tunnels tended to be inherently dangerous.  Bury a megaspell, detonate it, and a lot of energy is going into the ground. Prewar Equestrian engineering was pretty good, but they didn’t usually plan on it standing up to that.   If it wasn’t reinforced, a firefight could bring down the entire section.  If it was, then whoever reinforced it could bring down the entire section.  

“Those will be a last resort.”  I said as Melody said “No.”  

“They’re doing to be really dangerous.”  I followed up, by way of explanation.

“I thought you said something about killzones on the way over here.”

“Well, the issue is that there really isn’t a good way to force your way through a city, except by leveling it.  Most windows work as good sniper posts, plenty of open ground with minimal cover that can be seen from really far away.  Good chance we’ll be using this chainsaw to dig our way through the walls rather than use the hallways.  The underground is at least as dangerous, but digging through that is even harder.”  I said, nudging the looted ponyripper.  

“Ok, scary death city, we need to go through.  What else?”

“Umm, that’s about it.  Just need to pick our way through the suburbs and, well, yeah, the city.”  

Judgment look at the burnt out ruins, stretching for kilometers around the city proper.

“What about the suburbs?  How deadly are they?”

“Too burnt out for serious scavenging, most ghoul herds would have been turned further out.” Melody said slowly.  

“So, pretty safe?”

“Somewhere between maybe and yes.”  We set off.

The six kilometer walk was pretty easy, though I kept scanning the apartments for glints, really didn’t like the idea of a sniper following us. Still, we made it near the edge, two or three blocks away from the monoliths of the city, wen Judgment jerked to the right and drew her guns.  

“There’s somepony over there!” She whispered loudly, somehow combining the white noise to make it hard to understand with enough volume for anyone to hear.  I am seriously going to need to teach her how whisper properly.  What the actual hell?

“Are they hostile?”  I asked, awkwardly reaching for my rifle, still strapped into the wagon.  

“No, but they’re easily intimidated.”  

“You think your pistols will be scarier than Red?”  Melody asked.

“Wait, how do you know that?”  I asked, trying to turn to look at her.  The harness was getting really annoying.  

“Ugh, my S.T.A.T.S. gives a basic profile of everypony.  Which is why I’m out here in the first place.  Didn’t I tell you?”

“What? No… I don’t think so. Also, stats?” I said.  

“I just tune you out most of the time.”  Melody replied airily.  

Judgment glared at Melody, before turning to me.  “We were sent to get the advanced profiler.  Which was undergoing final checks at the Regional Stable-Tech Facility.  At least that’s what Joy had in her notes.  And, what was the other thing?  Oh, Special Training And Tactics Spell.  S.T.A.T.S.  Works with the Eyes Forward Sparkle spell to help users navigate life.”  Judgment turned back to Melody.  “And Red’s base intimidation stat is stupidly low.”

“That monster is bad at intimidation?!”  Melody yelped, as my eyes narrowed and I cocked the .50 cal rifle.

“He’s a big softie.  His aggression, sadism, and confidence scores are all in the bottom quartile, and that’s based off the vault baseline.”

“He killed five soldiers!”

“His morality stat is in the upper qunitile.  Probably thought there was a good reason.”

“Oh, so he’s perfect? Low evil, high morality?”  Melody asked sarcastically.  

“Oh, definitely not.  Education is low, social grace is low, perception is low, willpower is low, and his emotional intelligence score is nearly zero, which probably means he chronically suppresses his emotions.”  Judgment said, the last part sounding stilted and read.  

“While I appreciate the discussion, can we please deal with the person probably cowering behind that wall?”  I broke in, having given up unhooking the bloody harness.

“Oh, sorry about that.” Judgment apologized, and magically undid the straps.  We walked over to where her S.T.A.T.S. said the person was and peaked around the corner.  Behind the wall, through a mostly intact door frame, was a fairly elderly unicorn and a brahmin, weighed down with a significant amount of scavenge.  

“Hello.”  Melody said, followed by Judgment, who was gritting her teeth at not being allowed to pull out her weapons.  I stayed back.  We had decided that I probably shouldn’t be the first person ponies see.  

“Hello gentlemares, how are you doing this fine afternoon?”  The scavenger said, either not having heard our discussion, or spent the time we were arguing to set up a few mines just in case.  I looked around for traps.  Low perception, my ass.   I thought to myself.  While I didn’t find anything, that didn’t prove that I missed some in the first place.  

“We just happened to be in the area and wanted to talk.”  Melody continued.  

“I heard, and my laser pistol isn’t exactly happy about what I heard.”  His voice dropped the false jollity, and I saw the glow off the far ruined wall.  “Now, let’s have your third friend come in.  I know that he won’t hurt me, so let’s make this nice and easy.”

“Red?  Would you mind coming over here?”  Judgment said, her voice tight from fear.  I sighed, not surprised, but a little annoyed.  I unhooked my chainsaw, and strapped it into place.  The absurdly large rifle, by normal pony standards, went on the other side.  One good jerk, it would twist around out of the way, and the ponyripper would be ready to be revved up.  Leather armor, in place.  Metal plates, large and obvious.  Blue and yellow neckerchief?  Completely out of place compared to everything else.  Oh well, nothing else to really do. 

I stepped forward, but the doorframe was too small.  I could squeeze through or…

Turning around, I bucked the door, shattering brick and sending rubble flying.  I turned, and lumbered through the door, stomping heavily enough to make imprints in the ground.  Nearby rocks jumped.  I stepped under the doorframe and stood up to my full height, looking over the scene.  

Melody and Judgment were against a wall, with a laser pistol aimed in their general direction.  The scavenger was twitching, and looking at me in horror.  I wasn’t sure how much one was related to the other.  A different gun was pointed at my leg, about head height on a normal pony, the glow flickering as he took in my massive… well everything.  

“You were saying?” I asked, my eyes narrowing, an evil sneer spreading across my mouth.  “I don’t take kindly to threats.”

“Umm… yes.  As I was saying, I’m a humble merchant, and these are my wares.”  The scavenger said, dropping his weapons and backing into the corner.  Melody’s eyes lit up, and she leaped for the gun.  I walked forward, put my hoof over the gun, pushing it out of her telekinesis field, then crossed over to the opportunistic scavenger.  I sat down, my head still level with his.  

“We’re going to have a talk.  I expect your full cooperation.”  I boomed, purposely much deeper than normal.  The scavenger nodded wildly, and sat down, eyes wide.   

Our little discussion was fairly productive, though he tried to “take advantage” of what he had overheard a few times.  This stopped after he decided to ram his head against my hooves.  Nursing a few loose teeth and a bloody nose, he became marvelously forthcoming.   Apparently, a block over was mostly depopulated, a small war had broken out a month or two back that ripped apart one of the larger raider clans.  Beyond that was mostly small families and maybe a few remnants, up until “The Colts” who controlled an entire apartment, and were fairly vicious about defending their turf.  Still, they were less insane than most of their neighbors.  After those four kilometers, he didn’t know much.  Monsters or some such roamed the area closer to the crater, killing anything that got close.  Still, enough planning could deal with anything non-sapient.  And sapient just took more firepower.  

The bigger issue was getting there in the first place.  4 apartments wasn’t optimal.  Still, not much gain from putting it off.  
The trader bolted the moment I let him, his brahmin in hot pursuit.

“You two didn’t need anything from him, right?” I asked belatedly.  After being freed, they pulled lookout duty, Melody sniggering when the trader challenged me.  

She shook her head now, while Judgment tilted her head hopefully and asked “Sugar bombs?”  I rolled my eyes.  

Only thing left to do was camouflage the wagon, after taking a few days worth of supplies off it.  Guns, ammo, food, water, medical supplies, and sleeping gear went into the saddle bags, and Melody scrounged up some iron sheeting from the rubble.  We pulled the wagon into an alleyway, wedged almost on its side, before covering it with the sheeting, and rearranging the rubble to make it look like it fell there naturally.  Or at least from when the wall collapsed.  Most of an hour later, after clearing our hoofprints with telekinesis, we stepped back and checked out handiwork.  Couldn’t do much about the hoofprints on the sheet metal, since it disturbed the rust and our chemistry knowledge was marginal at best, but if anyone got close enough to notice, they’d probably notice the full intact wagon as well.  

“Mines might be helpful here.”  Judgment said after a bit.

“Probably but there are enough scavengers that that they might raise the wrong type of attention.  And we’d need to unicorn proof them anyway.”  Melody replied, looking at the prospective minefield.  

“We could hang up a sign saying ‘Warning!  Mines!’”  Judgment replied.  

“Not a bad idea.  Melody?”

“Fine, I’ll get it.”  She used a small knife to cut off a bit of her mane, and dipped it in the small puddle of blood the trader left behind.  A few quick strokes, and we had an effective, if ghoulish, sign.  





Footnote: Level up.

New Perk: Toughness – Keeping a stiff upper lip has paid off, you actually take less damage.  You receive an additional -20% to incoming damage, added onto your armor resistance.
> Chapter 6
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

We left the wagon and headed over to the edge of the largely devastated single family houses, stopping behind a ruined wall, looking out into the 4 lane avenues running between the massive apartments.   The big change was that behind us was six kilometers of cover and relatively sane ponies.  In front of us, we had massive open areas, metal wagons that had been crushed by sledgehammers into cover-less piles, and young angry nutjobs.  We were dealing with a proper city, abet empty and fortified.  Even at the apartment level, set a few guards at the stairwells and entrances, and a competent commander could hold off an army.  Especially if these buildings were strong enough to shrug off a balefire blast’s pressure wave. 

Last piece of cover, a small brick wall.  

“Melody, you scan to the right, Judgment scan to the left.  If you don’t see anything after 5- no 10 minutes, I’m going to go across and scan right.  Melody, after I am set, you will follow me and scan left.  Judgment, when she is set, you will come across and scan above us.”  I took a breath, and replayed the words in my head.  Yeah, makes sense.

“We’re going to move like that to the door, constantly scanning for enemies.  When we get to the door, regroup and breach.” 
I paused again, then turned to Melody.  “What are you going to do?”  

“Cover right, you go across, follow, cover left.  Move to door.”  I nodded.

“Judgment?”

“Left, over, up!”  She said, gleefully.  Reminds her of security training?

“Good.” I looked over the road.  It had been mostly cleared or the wagons had been crushed.  Almost no cover, but not much that could trip ponies up.  somepony didn’t like the idea of other ponies having cover.  

“The street should be clear, anyone hanging out on it is an easy target from above. When we reach the door, I will be closest to it.  My job is to breach, either by opening it and moving or bucking it off its hinges.  Melody, you’re next.”  I hesitated and rethought. “No, Judgment you’re next.  Go inside and figure out if anyone’s non-hostile.  S.T.A.T.S. would know that, right?”

“Yep, it can find and discriminate between friendlies and enemies out to a distance of 30 meters!” 

“Even through walls?”

“Walls reduce distance based on the thickness of the wall.  Stable-Tech’s Rough and Ready Guide, tee em, says that if you can hear through it, distance is reduced by the same reduction of volume.”

“How does that work?”

“I don’t know.  Something about being linked to your nervous system.”

“So, if you can hear it, then it can detect it?”

“Something like that.”

“Probably uses magic to isolate heartbeats and breathing, then feeds the left and right ears into the spell matrix.  Would give you direction, but not distance or elevation.”  Melody chimed in.  

“Sounds right.  I think.  Might have fallen asleep for that lesson.”  

 “Ok, in that case, your job is to try to find ponies and yell out who is non-hostile.  If you can do it before I break down the door, good.  If not, shoot first and ask questions later.  When you go in, you will go forward two steps, then turn to the left and follow the wall until you’ve seen all the hidden places on your side of the room.  Melody, do the same, but for the right side.  I’m going to come in, and check the ceiling, before helping with anyone behind cover.  When you clear your part of the room, yell ‘Clear.’”  I turned towards Melody.

“Third in line, second through the door, two steps forward, right, along wall, clear.”  She said, bored.  

Judgment chimed in with “S.T.A.T.S., door, step, step, left, clear!”  I felt a little uncomfortable with how relaxed they were being, but I wanted to see if they got it wrong before going Staff Sergeant Tree on them.    

I paused for a few seconds, thinking over what grandfather had taught me.  

“I think that’s everything… Ready?”

The other two nodded, and we started scanning.  The street was dead silent, Judgment couldn’t see anything on S.T.A.T.S., and, aside from a gunshot off in the far distance, it seemed safe.  

After 10 minute, I nodded and hurried across the street, trying to hurry and be quiet at the same time.  I weaved around some scrap, but it was surprisingly solid underfoot.  Guess they had a higher construction budget. I thought glumly, compared to the broken and tilting streets back in Mane.  Still, I made it to the other side without any obvious clangs, crashes, or booms.  I clung to the wall, not directly touching it, and scanned the left.  Seconds later, I heard Melody take up position behind me, and Judgment followed.  We paused for a few seconds, searching, and I tapped Judgment to get her to follow me towards the door.  We inched along the building until we reached the stairs towards the entrance and lined up.  I glanced back; both Melody and Judgment looked scared but determined.   

“Ready?”  They nodded. 

I quietly moved in front and to the side of the door, giving Judgment room to get through when the door opened.  The door was unlocked, and pulled out.  I hooked a hoof in the handle and pulled, pivoting out of the way.  Judgment shouted and charged, spooking Melody who needed a second to recover.  

As soon as Judgment cleared the door frame, she started shooting.  Melody darted after her, unloading both barrels almost immediately.  I followed, freaking out.  Shitfuckshitfuck!

Clearing the door, both Melody and Judgment were on the ground, there was blood.  I looked wildly around the room for cover, and dove towards the receptionist’s desk, causing the room to shake.  I looked for vantage points where the shooters could be.  All exits still had their doors, no real cover besides the desk, no hole in the ceiling.  Shit they need to be behind the desk.

I rolled to my feet and tensed, before jumping over the desk, coming down with as much force as possible on whoever was on the other side, kicking out.  The tile floor shattered, practically cratering, but nobody was there.  I stood up, confused, and looked around the room again.  

Melody and Judgment were still tangled up, and, after looking more closely, there wasn’t nearly enough blood for a serious injury.  In fact, it looked like…

“Did you ram into each other?”  I asked, looking at the bullet holes scattered around the room.  All opposite of the entrance and scattered.  Panic fire.  

They finally sorted themselves out, Melody looking livid, Judgment looking sheepish.  Neither said anything.
 
“Well?”

“She stopped to reload.”

“Well, she didn’t turn.”

“She didn’t give me room!”

“I took two steps, then turned.  I did exactly what I was supposed to.”

“I still didn’t have room.”

The argument gradually grew in volume, and pettiness. Finally I cleared my throat, shaking dust from the lights.  They stopped.

“Both of you, follow me.  Don’t argue.”  I walked over to the door marked ‘Stairs’ and pushed it open, keeping my rifle trained up the shaft. Didn’t see anyone, but I kept that position, checking blindspots the entire way up to the seventh floor.  Both Melody and Judgment were panting a bit when we reached the exit I wanted.  I peaked my head out the door, looking down both kilometer long hallways, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.  Looked like somepony had cleaned it at one point, because there wasn’t even anything to show a hasty evacuation.  

The apartments were differentiated from the maintenance rooms by having alcoves, trying to give visitors a feeling of privacy.  I darted for one and tested the door.  Locked and opens outward.  I inspected the area around the doorknob.  Larger gap than normal, different color between the lockface and the door’s anti-breach plate.  Probably wouldn’t stand up to a good buck, but, well, there’s quieter ways of dealing.  I pulled out my multitool, and pulled out another replaced tool, switched the bottle opener for a thin metal rod with a 90 degree bend at the end.  

Insert between door and plate, push on the catch, plunger is not engaged, and the door popped right open.  

“How did you pick that without telekinesis?”  Melody demanded.

“How did you pick it so fast?”  Judgment wanted to know.  

“I didn’t pick anything.  They didn’t install the right lock for the frame, so the anti-shim part of the lock didn’t engage.  Now, please get inside.” 

The two walked in, and I closed the door.  It automatically locked, with a very final sounding click.  

“Alright, we’re going to learn how to clear rooms.”  I looked around the apartment.  Looked like a bedroom, a kitchen/living room, and a bathroom.  Some aged pictures, not much mess.  Looked like nobody had been back.  

Grabbing two pillows, red and blue, I held them up, before dropping them on the ground.  Couldn’t talk with them in my mouth.  

“These are your targets.  Red is bad.  Blue is good.  Shoot the bad, don’t shoot the good.”  

“Erm, I can’t really lock onto those with S.T.A.T.S....”

“You’re going to learn.  I don’t trust it after that grenade.”  

“I don’t need to do this, Judgment was the one that messed up.”

“I don’t care.  We’re going to be doing a lot of this, so we need to get it down.”  Melody looked annoyed, but sighed and nodded.  I pointed towards the bedroom, and they both went inside, as I began setting up the room.  

Furniture against the walls, pillows on the opposite side of the room.  I went through the cabinets and fished out a set of non-dried out markers (“Hermetically sealed markers!  Will stay working through the end of the world and beyond!”)  and a roll of duct tape.  A minute of careful tugging with the needle nose pliers on my multitool, and everything was ready for final touches.  

Smiley face on the blue pillow, angry teeth face on the red.  Then about thirty seconds of carefully holding the cap between two hooves and trying to get it on.  I will admit that I made a hoofpump when it finally resealed.  Fortunately, there wasn’t anyone there at the time to see.  

The duct tape was for the door.  I expected to be doing this for a while, and I wanted to get in reps as if I was breaking it down.  So, I taped the bolt back and squeezed into the tiny mostly undecorated bedroom. 

“Alright, we’re going to walk through this.  Shoot any enemies twice, then move onto the next one.  We are literally walking through this one.  I will tell you what you are doing wrong, so we can do it better on the next one.  If we do it well enough, we’ll iterate.  Got it?”

Melody and Judgment nodded, cautiously and energetically; we lined up on the wall.  “No, move off the wall, somepony can pop out and shoot along it.”  We lined up off the wall, I kicked the door open, and Judgment walked through, concentrating on keeping her pistols steady.  She quickly spotted the angry pillow, pulled the trigger twice, then turned and continued on her route.  Melody followed her through the door and ignored the “killed” target.  She turned and did the same in the opposite direction.  I walked through and scanned the ceiling.  

“Ok, better, but you need to call out hostiles, friendlies, when the room is clear, and move to a non-hostile after the room is clear to make sure they don’t have a weapon.  Let’s reset and do it again.”  


***


Crunch, crash, “Clear!” Crunch, crash, “Clear!” Crunch, crash, “Clear!”

It went on and on.  And that was after four hours and more than 200 repetitions before I was comfortable.  A quick snack, and we started the practical exercise.  

“You see this wall?”  I asked rhetorically, pointing to the bare cinder blocks.  Judgment nodded anyway.   A line of liquefied plaster on the ground showed that a water leak had sprung up sometime in the last 50 years, but the more relevant thing was a clear crack in the wall, making the outline of a door.    “I’m guessing that there’s a penthouse or suite apartment version, and they just made all the rooms the same.  Easier to build, and just brick up the holes.  Why is this good for us?”

“Umm, it means we know how the rooms are laid out?”  Judgment offered.  

“No.”  I paused.  “Well, yes, but that’s not what I was thinking of.  It means we can do this.  Line up.”  Melody and Judgment jumped to it, the action ingrained to reflex. I stood in front of the cinder block door and bucked.  With a crack, the cinder blocks on the bottom of the door shattered, and the door fell outward with a crunch.  I jumped to the side, Judgment darted through the door, followed a second later by Melody and I.  We moved smoothly, the shattered cinder blocks not offering much to make us trip.  It was done in a couple seconds. 

“Clear!” “clear.” “Clear.” The room was pretty much the same as the one we had come through, aside from an awful faded flower aesthetic and being mirrored.  Melody and Judgment looked surprised for a moment, then Melody nodded in an understanding way.  

“What would you have done if there wasn’t a bricked up door?”  Judgment asked. 

“This.  Line up.”  This time, I kicked right through the wall.  The crunch was more of a controlled explosion and sent shards flying.  Melody and Judgment darted through the two overlapping meter and a half holes, and I managed to squeeze through a second later.  

“Clear!” “clear.” “Clear.” Lots of family photos, pegasus and unicorn, with a few foals.  Toys were still scattered around the room.  The cinderblock shards were embedded inside the plaster, and had cracked the cinder blocks beneath.  

“That could be lethal.”  Melody said, looking under my shoulder.  “How are your hooves?”  I held them out for inspection.  “Looks like the shoes take most of the contact.  We’ll need to check them every so often to make sure that there isn’t too much metal fatigue.”  

“Sounds good.  Let’s keep going.”

And we continued.  


***


Crunch, crash, “Clear!” Crunch, crash, “Clear!” Crunch, crash, “Clear!”

The issue with competence is that it implies you’re used to it.  You let what’s drilled in take over, rather than thinking.  
“Red, hostile behind us!”  Judgment shouted, looking up from a quick perusal of the cabinets.  I spun around, and saw a pony with a shotgun peeking his head, and the muzzle, around the broken down frame.  He screamed, and frantically pulled the trigger, jerking it wide.  Melody and Judgment returned fire, as I dove for cover.  .50 caliber rifle rounds aren’t exactly the most reasonable in close combat, and I wasn’t about to charge when my allies were shooting.  

They stopped firing, and I slowly got up.  The pony was a ruin of buckshot and pistol rounds.  

“Ok… I’ll cover the rear.” Melody said, panting from the aftereffects of the adrenaline high.  


*** 


“Line up.”  

“Red, there’s hostiles on the other side.”  Judgment warned, pointing through the wall.

“Got it.  Ready?”  The other two nodded.  

I bucked and moved.  The wall fell in, and the two darted through, and started shooting.  Turning after them, I followed and scanned.  

Two adults, both with guns, dead.  Elderly buck, gun, dead.  Two screaming, behind sofa.  

“Dead space behind couch!”  Melody shouted, moving along the wall to get into a position to shoot.  

“Mine!”  I shouted, and charged forward, revving the chainsaw.  Double barrel shotgun wasn’t the best for multiples.  

I jumped over the couch, and shoved the saw into- a crying filly and young mare.  I jerked off, and landed heavily on my side.  The mare, frantically trying to pull out a knife, jerked away from me, shielding the filly.  

“Cease fire!”  I called out, not taking my eyes off the two.  I slowly got up and backed away.  

“They’re still hostile!”  Judgment shouted, her pistols aimed squarely at them.

“They’re not threats.  We’re letting them go.  Line up.”  Melody and Judgment warily headed towards the bricked up door, and I got in place.  I mouthed “Sorry.” to the two ponies, surrounded by the ruins of their world, and bucked, continuing clearing.  


***
 

A couple dozen rooms later, and a very jumpy Melody staring at the wreckage of the previous doors, Judgment said “Red, we’ve got a friendly.”

“Next room?” 

“Yep.”

“Alright, line up.”  Buck, quick clear, and we disarmed the friendly.  

“Sorry about that, sir.”  Melody apologized, nominated as our friendly face, since she was the least threatening waster we had.  “We live in dangerous times, and didn’t want anything hasty to happen.”

“Not a problem, my dear.” The elderly buck, red, yellow mane, with an orange flame cutie mark, chuckled, getting back up as I got off him.  “I was half a second from burning the lot of you alive.”  He said, patting the bulbous hunk of metal fondly.  

“That was some skill.  Haven’t seen something like that from my army days.”  I looked a little closer.  The rags, more accurately well worn battle fatigues, he was wearing were reinforced with ceramic plating, I could see the straps and sharp breaks of the armor,  and it had that weird lined look of fire resistant gear.  

Judgment perked up at that.  “I know!  We spent forever working to get that right!”

“Oh, so you’re trained?”

“Umm, not really.  I’ve done the basic Security training, but that’s more about like bringing ponies in and stuff.”

“What about you, my dear?” 

Melody snorted. “I’m an administrative pony.  This is the most time I’ve spent with a gun in years.  Main reason why I’m carrying a shotgun.  Point and shoot, you know.”

He glanced at me, and snorted.  Apparently, I rated as dumb muscle.  Which, considering the fact that I was nearly a hundred kilometers from home, helping a Stable pony find an ancient password that might or might not exist, while keeping a member of an enemy organization armed, wasn’t that far off the mark.  

The three continued chatting, so I decided to look around the room.  Pretty standard, though this one had something approaching military clean.  He’d obviously been here for a while.  Makeshift still in the corner of the room.  Something rotting into alcohol.  I sniffed a bit deeper.  Aside from the underlying rot from the still, presumably for both pleasure and work, there was something a bit sharper.    More burned…

I sniffed a bit more, and followed it to the refrigerator.  

“He’s a hungry one, isn’t he?”  The old buck called out, a chuckle in his voice.  Though there might be a hint of an edge…
Inside was charred meat.  Not properly cooked, charred on one side, barely touched on the other.  Weird cuts too.  Too small for brahmin, manticore, or rad-gator.  Too large for molerat, dog, or blowfly.  

“Now, don’t you go through my food.”  I shrugged and closed the fridge.  He calmed down.  

Ok, old man, military experience, much better armor than it appears, flamethrower, charred weird size game.  Off feeling, interested in combat experience, alcohol. Where is he getting the raw plant matter?

I kept nosing around, something didn’t feel right.  Inside a closet was a few packs of emergency rations, Fillydalphia standard issue, serial number 158,940,286.  Explains the plant matter, and why ponies can live in the city.  Millions of meals stored underground would support the entire wasteland for centuries, without needing many farmers, but would probably only support the normal population for a year or two.  That made the meat weirder, though. Why an entire refrigerator filled with meat?  Why not bother to properly cook or preserve it?   

I REALLY wasn’t comfortable with this guy. 

I lumbered over to where the three were talking and joined in.  

“- and I’ve been wearing the uniform ever since.”  The old buck finished, showing off the remnants of a pair of Equestrian battle fatigues.  

“Have you had to upgrade it much?”  Melody asked. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get pre-war equipment wasteland functional.”

“Nope, not even for fire resistance.  Even the standard issue infantry gear was well armored and lovingly assembled.” 

 But… I know for a fact that armor was separate, that shit melted to your hide when it caught on fire, and it was made by war prisoners.  

“What type of weapon is that?”

“This is my flame tosser.  I trained on it for months.  Shoots a stream of flammable liquid, and we used it to incinerate entire platoons of zebras as they charged our trenches.”  

Ok, flame tosser, might be an inside joke, months maybe, depending on what he considered training.  They shot flammable gel, though.  And it was mostly used for clearing trenches and bunkers, not shooting out of trenches.  Works by burning up oxygen, so open spaces aren’t great.    
So, liar, probably doesn’t have military experience either… I didn’t trust him, but I didn’t really have anything solid.  There was a lot of strangeness, but nothing that could justify more aggressive actions.  If I was a murderous flamer psychopath, how would I hide it?

Well, he’d kept everything neat.  The main room was very clear.  The food was in the refrigerator and cabinets.  He didn’t like ponies looking at his meat collection, but that’s sort of reasonable.  What was left?  Bathroom and bedroom.  Well, might as well take advantage of his prejudice. 

“I wanna see my mane.  It feels like it’s ugly.” I said thickly.  Melody and Judgment looked confused, but the buck smiled tightly and said “It looks fine, my boy.  Don’t bother yourself.”

“I wanna.”  I repeated and loomed.  I was starting to get really good at looming.  A couple different expressions passed across his face, worry, debate, certainty, and “Well, hurry along.  I just cleaned it, so it might smell a little sharp.”  

I walked over to the indicated door, locked.  The buck danced over and opened it. I nodded my thanks, and walked inside.  Looked expensive.  Large cast iron bathtub, standing on legs.  Ornate toilet.  Large mirror, which I studiously ignored.  Something that looked like it sprayed water, not sure what it was for.  My eyes watered as the smell of bleach assaulted my nostrils.  Wish I had a blacklight.  I thought glumly.  Even if I found something in here, what are the odds that it will be identifiably wrong?  Guy would be weird for butchering something in the bathroom, but it wouldn’t be something to bring up.  And it only makes sense to clean obsessively if you plan on living in the same place for any amount of time.   

Still, I looked around the room for anything interesting.  Grout was stained reddish-brown, a couple cracks in the bathtub were the same.  Assuming that it was blood, it must have splattered everywhere.  Same issue applied.  Might as well check the hard to reach places.  Older, so hip issues are a possibility?  Definitely willing to scrub for hours, but maybe underneath?  Laying down on my side, I squinted under the tub.  More bloody residue, but nothing big.  Maybe a rag that got shoved against one of the feet.  

Well, its something, I suppose. I tugged it out and glanced it over.  Burnt cloth on one side, and charred leather on the other.  Weird, I didn’t think that leather stuck to cloth.  Something felt off, even more than the rest of this place.  The leather didn’t feel right.  Slippery, rather than leathery.  And rough?  Not rough, uneven.  I sniffed, and gagged.  Charred flesh.

Ok, so weirdly friendly fire obsessed pony who lies a lot has a refrigerator filled with charred meat, and a bathroom where most of the floor was covered in blood.  The walls didn’t have much blood splatter, and there isn’t anywhere to hold ponies, so he did something after death.  Dismemberment of many ponies is probably the only way to get that much blood everywhere.  If hide is sticking to cloth, that implies serious burns.  And we have a pyro. No identifiable bones, so probably not a burial thing.  

So, the old buck burnt somepony or, I looked around at the cleaned pool of blood and lack of blood splatter on the walls, many someponies, and dismembered them after death.  Ripped off their clothes, pulling hide with it.  The refrigerator was probably filled with their meat.  I didn’t know why he was doing it, and I didn’t really care.  

I prepared to barge out and confront the buck when I caught sight of myself in the mirror.  Ugh… yeah, still not used to that face.  Or the crew cut.  Or needing to shove the impulse to start crying and screaming into a deep dark hole every time I saw it.  I opened the door, my rifle and chainsaw readied.

“Everything alright, Red?” Judgment asked.  I shook my head.

“No, I believe our new friend here is a liar, a murderer, has butchered dozens of ponies, and has tried to strenuously hide his actions.”  The conversation died immediately, and the old buck swallowed audibly.

“Why- why- why are you claiming that?”  He stammered, reaching for his flamethrower.  I moved the oversized rifle from its vaguely non-threatening direction and aimed it squarely at the buck. 

“Don’t move.  First, you have a large amount of charred meat in the refrigerator.  It is unevenly cooked and carbonized, with some parts still uncooked.  That is evidence of a very hot flame applied quickly, like would be seen from a flamer.”  The buck opened his mouth to argue, I boomed over him.  “The size of the cuts are too small for large game and too large for small game.  There are still bones in them, so they are medium game.”  

“Medium game exists, and I hunt with my flame tosser.”  He said hotly.  

“There’s no reason for you to hunt, there’s millions of survival rations, and they’re common enough that you’re turning them into alcohol.  Then were your lies.  If you can get close enough to game with a flamer to kill them, you’re one of the sneakiest or fastest ponies I have heard of.  Every single thing you said about the military was flat out wrong.  From your uniform being unimproved to what fuel the flamer uses.”  He looked less comfortable.  “Then I looked inside the bathroom.  You needed somewhere to cut up the meat, and I didn’t notice nearly enough blood by the door if you dragged all that in.  Mostly cleaned up drops in the grout,  had to be the bathroom.  You were pretty good about cleaning it up, but there was a pool of blood that covered most of the ground, judging by the stains.  Had to be dead, since no restraints and blood spray, so that was a lot of ponies.  Burial process unlikely, since you disposed of the skulls and trunk, so what the hell were you doing with those bodies?”  

He looked me in the eye for a split second, then bolted, running for the door.  Judgment started and robotically raised her pistols, both aimed at his head.  She hesitated for a moment, and fired, the pistols wavering slightly from the recoil.  
I cursed, and leveled my rifle.  Definitely not designed for this range, but an arthritic buck fumbling with a door wasn’t exactly a difficult target.  

He exploded, the high caliber round shredding his torso.  The corpse fell to the ground with a sodden thump.  

I looked at it for a couple seconds, then moved on.  Just a bloody mess.

“Alright.  Line up.”  I took a few deep breaths, then moved to my position against the wall.  

“Shouldn’t we try to find out more about what he was doing?”  Judgment asked, looking around the room.

“Why?  He’s already dead.”  I looked at the corpse again, and made a decision.  “Though I will take that flamer.  Might be useful.”  My chainsaw, anti-material rifle combination was a little excessive for most situations.  Not that the flamer would be any less excessive, but it would be useful against fortified strong points.  Maybe I could pick up a grenade launcher…
I had to wait for Melody to lash it to my harness.  The Lieutenant Colonel’s decision to not issue me a battle saddle was getting increasingly irritating, though I was starting to see why he did it.  A harness with a couple hard points to attach specially modified weapons is a lot less dangerous than something that can attach multiple anti-armor cannons anypony happens to find.  

Still, it was only a couple minutes from use, which should work well enough.  

And we continued.  


***
 

After what felt like forever later, we hit something different and froze.  The room was absurdly large, the right side faded off into the distance.  

It took a minute, but I finally realized that we had cleared through the entire building, and, fuck, I was exhausted.  Melody and Judgment weren’t much better, both were swaying on their feet.  

“Alright, follow me.”  I said, walking quietly down the hallway, looking for a door where the jam looked different from the knob.  Well, they all looked different, they were different things, but I was looking for one which had been switched out, a different style or color.  Like that one.  With the gap between the door and the frame.  Plunger, hook, twist, open, in, scan, drop bags.  

“We’re done?” Melody asked, swaying on her hooves.  

“Yeah.  Can’t go much longer.”  High summer, light until maybe 2145, twilight, you’ve got another hour or two.  We were in the tail end of that, traveling, training, and clearing for far too long.    And we hadn’t rested since the cannibal.  I felt a little guilty about that.  “Alright, you two eat.  I’ll pull guard.”

Five minutes of tugging and pushing later, I had the flamer braced against the counter, a couple meters away from the weak points on the walls aimed at the door.  Definitely not secure, but I trusted that a shot with a flamer would catch anything from the door, and a reflex blast to the sides would cover any breach pretty easily.  

Still, I tried to make things a little safer.  Furniture was shoved against the bricked up doors, and I duct taped the deadbolt.  Even if somepony knew the hook trick, they’d need to pick the bolt.  And if they picked the bolt, they’d need something like 40 kilos of force to twist the tape off, and not many torsion wrenches could do that much.  And whatever could probably couldn’t do it quietly.  

The front door was the most likely direction of attack, so I kept my flamer braced on it.  Honestly, I wasn’t completely confident about using a flamer in an enclosed area.  They mostly killed by using up all the oxygen, and that would kill us as dead as anyone it was aimed at.  Still, we could use Judgment to detect an enemy, then back up until we could close a door or something, burn up the air, and walk through a few minutes later.  If I kicked a hole in a wall, same effect.  But trying to coordinate shoving the flamer into a hole after kicking it seemed like it might not work out too well.  

Reflex fire was a thing, and a half second between kicking and fire on might give them enough time to get accurate fire on target.  But what if I strapped the flamer to the chainsaw, so it automatically engaged?  Put a plunger on the top of the flamer, when it reaches flush, starts spraying through the cut.  Definitely would eventually destroy the blade cutting through cinder block and rebar, but it might be worth it for enough targets, or when there’s enough danger.  Wasn’t like I was using the chainsaw much now.  Plus, if you’re planning on using a saw to cut through ponies and armor, you’re probably using a heavier gauge chain.  

Wonder if that would be remotely useful in a fight?  I didn’t really like the idea of fighting something that needed to be sawed in half and set on fire to kill, but maybe Hellhounds?  The stories I’d heard about those monsters varied from terrifying to unbelievable, but I guess that stuff that durable existed in the Wasteland.  

“Red?  Hey, Red!”  I jerked up, looking around wildly. I hadn’t exactly dozed off, but I definitely wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have.  Judgment stood there, looking a little concerned.  “I finished eating.  You want me to take over?”

“Yeah, sure.”  I stood up, joints cracking, and lumbered over to where Melody had dragged the saddlebags.  Judgment stood behind the flamer.  Heh, I could sit down.  I shook my head and grabbed five or six ration bars and started chowing down.  

“I don’t know why, but these are so satisfying.”  I said idly to Melody.  

“Well, yeah.  They’re designed to sustain a pony through a full day of combat. “

“But I eat like 5 a day.”  

“Yep.”  

“… that’s kind of horrifying.”

“Yep.”

“… wait, so the entire 3rd Experimental eats this much?”

“Yep.”

“How the hell do you feed everypony?”

“Why do you think the Colonel has been so aggressive?”

“Why the hell did he invade a place with no farms and no ruins?”

“He probably thought it would be like everywhere else.  We’re mostly living off the emergency stores at the Lobsters’ Pot.” 
 
“Huh…”  The 3rd Experimental was definitely a lit crate of TNT.  I just wasn’t sure what direction it would explode.  

Still, not really something I can do much about now. I pushed it to the back of my mind and started bedding down to sleep.  Either Melody or Judgment had dumped out all the clothes on the ground, which I was pretty grateful for.  I’ve slept on concrete before, but I don’t like it night after night.  

It was a nice sleep.





Footnote: Level Up.

New Perk: Bloody Mess – Be it the .50 caliber rifle, the chainsaw, or your absurd weight, enemies explode into pieces more often when you kill them.  +5% to damage, and enemies will occasionally flee in terror when you eviscerate their friends.
> Chapter 7
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

We got up, grabbed a little more food, and prepared to cross the street.   Occasional gunfire throughout the night pretty vividly underlined how lucky we were that this route was nearly empty, and we’d had to kill four ponies just to make it a kilometer.  I wasn’t looking forward to today.  

Still, up and at ‘em.  

I groaned, and rolled out of the clothes nest, then grabbed a ration bar from the saddle bags.  Melody and Judgment were both up, getting ready to head out.  Flamer braced, gun ready, armor on, saddlebags tied down, earplugs back in, and we headed out.  

Getting down to the street level was uneventful, I took the front, and the other two covered the rear.  The emergency exit was nice enough to have a glass window looking out onto the street.  

“Ok, we’ve got a rubble pile, looks like a cleared pileup.  Should give some cover, not sure how much.  Everypony remember where they’re covering?”  Melody and Judgment nodded, and Judgment started jumping a bit.  “Keep it calm, we don’t want anything to go wrong.  We’re going to look for enemies for a few minutes, then I’ll cross the street.  We’re a couple hundred meters from the next lobby, so we’ll need to move once we get to the other side.  Any questions?”  They shook their heads, I looked out at the street one more time, and we moved.  

The rubble was up to my chest, laying down.  Not exactly that comforting, prefer something to peak over, but Melody and Judgment had a good amount of cover.  We started scanning.  Didn’t look like much.  Anyone spending their time staring out of a window was asking for counter-sniper fire.  Stay back in the shadows and let other ponies walk into a trap.  Main reason why the streets terrified the hell out of me.  Still, unless we wanted to go through the sewer, not much of an option.  And I wasn’t sure if I could fit.  

“Red… is there a glint over there?”  Melody asked after another minute, gesturing with her shotgun to the building to our 10 o’clock.  Most of the windows were blasted out from the overpressure from the megaspell blast, so there were glints of broken glass up and down the face.  

“I don’t see anything...” I muttered back, scanning.  I was getting increasingly annoyed at how much my rifle squeaked when it was used, aside from the fact that indicated how wobbly it actually was.  Even in a city, this wasn’t an ideal ranged weapon.

“About half way up, thirt-, fourt-, fifteen rows in.”  

I blinked, and a beam of reflected light blinded me for a moment.  “Fuck” I snarled, and jerked the rifle over to him.  
Ping a shot bounced off my shoulder pauldron, crack, sounded like a smaller caliber rifle, more snap than pop, and I exhaled.  Couldn’t get a good sight picture on the target, and he was probably in a bunker, but- I pulled the trigger and the much louder boom echoed off the buildings.  Melody and Judgment were staring at me, terrified, and I reacted.
“MOVE!”  I shouted, and reloaded.  Judgment darted across the rubble piles and took up her position, followed shortly by Melody.  Thank the goddesses that they followed the plan.  I thought as I lined up the sight picture again.  Glint, glint, glint… I waited for the target to reveal himself, and I thought I saw movement.  Eh, close enough.  I fired again, then shrugged the rifle out of the way.  I tried to sprint for the other building, but my leg wouldn’t respond fast enough.  Fuck me with a rusty shovel, I thought as I tried to plow through on three legs.  

I crashed headfirst into the cinderblock wall, leaving a clear indent, and shook my head back to semi-functionality.  

“Ok, let’s move,” I said, swaying a bit.  We hurried along the exposed sidewalk, hoping that nobody would shoot us from the building opposite.  Melody and Judgment covered us, I was still focusing on staying upright.  Door door, what do I do at a door? Fortunately, my body knew what to do with doors.  Break them down.  

“Line up,” I said indistinctly, and pivoted in front of the door, bucking it hard enough to break it off the hinges.  

Judgment and Melody reacted perfectly, running into the lobby and clearing it.  I charged in afterwards, then realized that I hadn’t reloaded the bolt action rifle.  I scanned the ceiling, and desperately tried to work the action. 

“Shit, balcony!” I shouted, and heaved myself behind a pillar.  I caught Judgment looking wildly for the targets, then looking up at my shout.  Her pistols started firing rapidly, and Melody followed.  I tried to get the rifle back into place, fumbled for a few seconds, and got it right.  Bolt cycled, and… the firing stopped.  

Melody and Judgment were both panting,  There were four dead bodies on the balcony, mostly caught by surprise.  Empty bottles and used syringes on the ground helped show why.  “Reloading.” I said.  Melody jerked and called out the same.  After we were up, Judgment reloaded.  

“Everypony ready?  Looks like raiders.”  I said, inspecting the blood patterns on the walls and what I could see of the ponies.  

They nodded, and we headed up the stairs.  No reason to engage somepony on the most obvious floor.  


***


Hours later, we paused for a breather.  Melody and Judgment both were using different weapons.  I was trying to get the tendons out of my chainsaw.  We were all injured in some way, but thankfully, I had taken most of the fire.  

So many… I thought, feeling sick to my stomach.  I was usually pretty good at dealing with shit, but this… this was something else.  They threw themselves at targets, practically gleeful when I crushed them underfoot or sawed through something vital.  I couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth, and I was dripping blood and gore.  Most of it, fortunately, not mine.   

Melody had switched out her two shot sawnoff for a pair of pump actions, her telekinesis barely able to make them function.  Still, at the ranges we were fighting, point, pull, and pump were enough to get the job done.  And 12 rounds were definitely useful when they tried to ambush us from behind.  Hadn’t tried it since.  She’d taken a bullet across the neck, not deep, but enough to need a magic bandage.  

We’d decided to save the potions until later.  Only had a couple normal and one super, after diving to the away from fire and crushing most if the supply, so if we took a shot somewhere vital, we’d need it for then, not for these painful, non-lethal, injuries.  

Judgment had found a semi-automatic hunting rifle, and was switching between that and the pistols depending on how much ammo we found.  Her smaller frame, and skill at darting to cover was keeping her safer, at least until she hit a trapped room they set up ahead of us.  She cleared most of the blast, but was definitely favoring one of her rear hooves.  Melody had bound up some of the shrapnel holes, and we were hoping that was the only thing wrong.  

I was sticking with the chainsaw and sheer mass.  And had been shot more times than I cared to count.  Fortunately, most wild shots tended to go, well, wild, and almost all of the rest had bounced off the armor plating.  Still, I had a few holes in my legs, which Melody came over to bind.  

“You doing OK, Queen Chrysalis?”  I winced at the tugging and nodded my head, still pulling at the gore wrapping up the saw.  Why am I putting this in my mouth?  I’m going to get so many diseases… A few seconds later, a ghost of a smile danced around my lips.  I was a little happy that was what I defaulted to, rather than enjoying the free protein.  Still got some of me in here.  “Doesn’t look like any arteries got hit, so you should be good enough for now.”

I cocked my head, part of somepony’s leg dangling from my mouth, as I heard something… different.  Maybe a few rooms away, a loud, fast, shotgun?  It didn’t have the crack of a rifle.  Not a pistol.  Heavy weapons?  Not that familiar.  But it shot too fast for a normal shotgun.  

The familiar crash of falling cinderblock jarred me back to reality.  The raiders were trying to clear against us. Fuck, why did we leave some of them alive?  Because shooting pregnant, defenseless raiders isn’t going to happen.  A small piece of me stated with certainty.   Anyway, I supposed that literal hours of doing this would eventually clue the enemies onto it.  At least Judgment meant that trying to come from the rear or the door was flat out suicidal.  Just wish they would realize they could simply move out of the way and we’d leave them alone.  

“Melody, undo the flamer, then get behind cover.  Judgment, cover the door and behind us.”  I said, getting up and pushing the couch to a 45 degree angle off the sealed up door.  Window was blasted open, so that’s good.  More air coming in.  
Less than a minute later, another crash of falling cinderblock, and the flamer slotted into place.  I checked the pressure and fuel, both full.  Thank the goddesses that strapping it to my rear had kept it safe.  Still not looking forward to testing an emergency venting system 50 years overdue for maintenance.  

Seconds later, Judgment called out “Five!” looking towards the sealed off door before returning to her sector.  They began firing.  Shot after shot chewed through the concrete and cinderblock wall, blasting a hole that started eating through the wall to my right.  Finally, I started seeing the blast, and I gave a quick prayer.

Fucking hell, this better work..  Half plea, half threat, I opened up with the flamer, hoping that most of it would go through the hole before it sucked up all our air.  It splashed, some of it ending up in the corner of our room, but a lot went right through.

The screams were horrible.  From “Get it off! Get it off!” to inarticulate cries wrenched from something reduced to less than a pony, we sat through it.  I didn’t want to try enough to cut off their air supply, since that would probably hit us too, and even from the little pool of burning alcohol in our room, it was painfully hot.  I couldn’t imagine what they were going through on the other side. 

“Four.”  Judgment called out almost as soon as the screaming started.  

A single shotgun blast “Three.”

“Two.”  A minute later.  

We waited.  But nothing.  

“They’re not hostile… and not moving.”  Judgment finally said, and I nodded.  I got out from behind cover, chainsaw at the ready, and crossed over to the normal section of the wall, without the structural weakness.  

“Line up.”  I bucked, sending shards of cinderblock and concrete flying at lethal speeds.  Melody and Judgment cleared the room and I followed. 

“Zero.” Judgment called out, after manually confirming.  

Five charred corpses were laying on the ground.  Two were curled up by the breach, a thin layer of alcohol still burning sullenly.  One, slightly further away, was missing her head, a discarded shotgun nearby.  I couldn’t tell if the injury was from her own weapon.  

The remaining two missed the blast of flame. They weren’t charred to a cinder, just covered in third degree burns; their armor slowly melting into their coats.  They would have died, just in agonizing torment after hours of suffering.  Definitely in no position to fight.  

It looked like the wall’s explosion had killed them.  Both were peppered with decimeter long shards, and the pool of blood wasn’t from the flamer.  

Judgment vomited, and I swallowed hard.  Melody picked up one of their shotguns.  It looked like it was a riot gun, designed to fire a dozen shells in as many seconds.  

They would have turned us into confetti.  The sick feeling did not go away.  

“I think they were an elite group or something.”  Melody said, looking at the charred corpses closely. “Ceramic inserts on their armor, customized weapons, notches, decorations, the works.”  

I nodded glumly.  Somehow knowing that I had burnt a bunch of experienced raiders alive didn’t make it any better.  Still, equipment is equipment, and by the looks of it, a fair amount was the better form of milspec, paranoid and overbuilt, rather than cheap and just good enough, so it had survived the fire.  

We managed to upgrade most of our weapons again.  This time with a riot shotgun for Melody, along with a few bandoleers of shotgun shells, color coded for different types, an assault carbine for Judgment, customized with a floating barrel, a variable magnification scope, and an under-barrel grenade launcher, no ammo though, and I stuck with my chainsaw.  Hard to improve on a magic powered engine with nearly infinite torque and tungsten carbide blades that will eat right through steel and concrete.  Still, I grabbed one of their battle saddles. Hopefully, with a few hours of work, I could actually use my weapons properly.  

Damn, I wish one of them had a helmet that actually would fit me.  

Then we hit a treasure trove.  One of them, presumably the medic, had a few restoration potions in her bags, fortunately away from the flying cement shards.  We all drank at least one, luxuriating as the pain dwindled and vanished.  

“Red, we’ve got a group of friendlies and neutrals.”  Judgment warned as we finished up looting, staring at the door.  

Melody readied her shotgun, I unslung my chainsaw, and Judgment aimed her rifle.  There was a tentative knock. 

We glanced at each other, and Melody called out “Come in?”

A furtive little buck opened the door and slowly walked in.  He was unarmed and naked.  We could see raiders clustered around the door frame, looking with bated interest. 

Stopping a few meters away, the buck bowed.  “Oh great ones, we prostrate ourselves before you!”  

“Umm… strictly speaking, what you’re doing right now is bowing.  Prostrating is when you lay flat on the ground.”  It slipped out of my mouth.  In moments of confusion and stress, when there isn’t something to shoot, I fixate on the little details.  I hate myself.   

The little buck practically threw himself on the ground.  

“Woah, relax.  I’m not going to kill you for getting that wrong.  I get that it’s mostly an expression.”

“Red, shut up.”  Melody said.  “What?  We killed your leaders, so now we’re in charge, or something?”

“Yes, your greatness.  Your mind is as impressive as your beauty.”

  Melody looked at me, almost pleading.  “No.” 

“But-” She complained.  

“No.  We have a job to do. We’re not becoming raider bosses in Fillydalphia of all places.”

“Dammit... fine.”

“You are leaving us?”  The buck raised his head for a moment, then jerked back down as he saw me looming over him.

“Quick huddle.”  I said looking at Melody and Judgment.  

“My policy with raiders is kill on contact and don’t leave survivors.”  I said.  Mostly... I thought after a moment, thinking about the kids and expectant mothers.  

“Come on, we have a fucking raider band in our hands.”  Melody said.  

“We just killed like half of them.  Probably won’t be too happy about that.”  Judgment pointed out. 

“That just shows how powerful we are.  Trust me, it’ll keep them all in line.”  Melody said. 

“We’re not becoming raider bosses.  We’re getting Judgment the code to get her back home.” I said.

“So, what?  We’re deciding kill them all or not?  That’s a little harsh.” Melody said. 

“They’re raiders.  I’m fine with being a little harsh.” I said.  

“Can we leave one of them in charge?”  Judgment asked.  

“What?  Spend enough time with them to find the least insane one?  No, we need to keep moving. And no reason for them to follow whoever we choose if we’re not around.  Fuck it, let’s just get to the next building.  They shouldn’t try to shoot us for at least that long.” I decided.  

“You’re giving up that much power on a whim?”  Melody asked, aghast. 

“What would I do with it?  Being a raider boss is just asking for somepony to kill you for a shot at getting killed themselves.”

“Caps, sex, and power.  That’s got to be reason enough.”

I glowered.  Getting into an argument after I made a decision was bad enough.  Getting into why I was really uncomfortable with hedonism as a lifestyle was a moral discussion that I didn’t have the time or inclination for.  

“If you want to have an argument about the merits of power for power’s sake, we can have it.  While we’re on the wagon out of here.”

“Fine.” 

“Can we grab a box of Sugar Bombs at least?”  Judgment asked, completely unperturbed by the discussion about abandoning her Stable and joining a group of nomadic psychopathic rapists.  

“Sure, whatever, just say if any of them turn red.”  I started walking out the door, and felt a little worried at the somewhat packed hallway.  There had to be more than a hundred ponies, most of them craning to see.  I ignored the instinctive urge to cower and started pushing through the crowd, heading to the end of the hallway.  At least they’re too close to shoot accurately. I thought glumly.  Any fire here would be completely unpredictable, but I was pretty confident that I could make them pay if they decided to make it a melee.

We pushed through the mass of ponies and made it to the end of the hallway, before heading down to street level.  We paused next to a wall of crates to reload and make sure that everything worked.  The naked buck pounded down the stairs and stopped behind us, panting.  

“You don’t want to lead us?”  He asked, plaintively.  “Are we unworthy?”

“All I want is to get to the Stable-Tec building.” I replied, revving the saw and making sure it spun freely.

“Is there anything we can do, Great Ones?”  

“Do you have a box of Sugar Bombs?”  I asked after thinking for a few seconds.  

“Right here.” He darted to one of the crates, levered the top, marked with a burnt in “Colts Property” sign, open, and pulled out a box from the ones stored within.  

“Wait… how did you get that box?”  I asked.  The Colts were still a kilometer away, and reaching their food stores would presumably be much deeper.  And trying to haul an entire shipping crate of food through the streets would be suicidal. 

Presumably, they had a safer route if they’re moving stuff in any quantity.  

“We traded for it with the Colts.”  He said, looking at me as if I was stupid, hoof pointing to the sign for emphasis.  

“So, how did you get it here?  Because you didn’t carry it through the streets.”

“There’s utility tunnels that go between the different buildings.  somepony gets tasked with clearing it for the main party.”  

I looked at the small buck.  Probably him.  

“Alright, let’s use those.  I don’t feel like getting shot at by a sniper again.”

The buck blanched, but nodded and pointed towards a door marked “Employees only.”

A few cluttered offices and maintenance rooms later, we stopped at a sealed metal door.  “Here it is.” The buck said, drooping.  

“Alright. Thanks.” I opened the door and walked through, shocking the buck. “Also, dark and gloomy the entire way?”  I asked looking down the unlit stairs.    

“Umm, yes, Great One.  There is almost no light.  But, Great One, do you not wish me to clear the way?”  He asked, confused, but with a glimmer of hope. 

“Wasn’t planning on it, we’ve got a scope.  Melody, do we have any Cateye?  Judgment, can you set your scope to 8x?”

“Cateye?  Yes.”

“Yepper.”  

“Alright, Judgment, you’ll take point, keep looking for enemies through your scope and S.T.A.T.S.  Cateye should make it so you spot the enemies before they see you.  Mint-als as well?”  I asked Melody.  

“It would help boost perception, and might make it so that her S.T.A.T.S. reaches further.”  She agreed.  

“You up to take a somewhat addictive chemical to avoid possibly getting shot?”  I asked.

“Umm, I guess?  There’s ways to cure addictions, right?”

“Addictol does temporarily stop the effects of addictions.  If we went to one of the major settlements, there’s doctors that know how to remove physical dependency.”    Melody replied. 

“Then, why not?”  She asked, levitating her rifle in front of her eyes.  Melody nodded and pulled out the drug bottles.  One Cateye, one Mint-al, washed down with water and Sugar Bombs.  

“Wonder if we can sell the blend?  Call it Night Warrior or something.”  I asked, as we waited for the drugs to take effect.  

Melody shook her head in mild disgust.  Apparently drug dealing was where she hit her limit.  

A few minutes later, we descended into the gloom.  

Apparently, ponies around here didn’t spend their days on a Cateye and Mint-al induced bender.   

I suppose that being able to see in the dark probably didn’t have much appeal to Mint-al users, who probably feel like they can already do that, and the inability to be in the light would hinder them if anything went wrong.  One flashlight, and they’d be blind.  

Fortunately, the utility tunnel was almost entirely dark, aside from nearly dead spark battery powered lights every so often.  More than enough light for Judgment, but only served to highlight the tunnel’s slow curve under the city for us.  
Rather than hours of breaching, the path was nearly an easy walk, once you got used to feeling before putting your hoof down.  That’s not to say that we didn’t find enemies, but Judgment shot them long before they could pose a threat.  Mostly raiders and the like who decided to hide out down here to attack trading caravans, living in the rooms off the main hallway.  

Eventually, we came to another staircase.  

“I think we’ve gone about a kilometer.  Should be more than halfway there.”  I murmured to Judgment. “Mind checking your Pip-Buck?”

She squinted against the faint light and nodded.  “Yep, just passed building 3, heading to building 4.”

More walking, more shooting, and we made it to a second staircase.  “Any reason we shouldn’t just keep going?”  Melody asked.  

Judgment replied, “I think those signs are a pretty good reason.  And steel plate wielded to the walls.” Presumably, she pointed, but well, pretty dark.  

“Judgment, mind turning on your flashlight?”  I asked.  A few seconds later, it turned on.  I glanced over at her, and saw she had clamped her forehood over her face.  The light was undirected, but the large signs, and massive wall, were visible enough.  “Death, dismemberment, big scary things with pointy teeth.”  I read off the signs, or at least the most pertinent details.  “Looks like this might get interesting.”  

“Probably just underground.  Not like somepony could build a steel wall around an entire city.”  Melody chimed in.  

“Anything that dangerous in the open would make the place uninhabitable.”

“Alright, I guess we’re going up and meeting with the Colts.  Judgment, tell us when you stop being able to see in the dark.  Don’t want you going in blind.”  

She pulled off her arm to nod reflexively and squeaked at the light through her eyelids.  We moved off the main hallway towards a supply room, where I sat against the steel, probably bullet-proof door, and we took a short break.  

Melody fiddled with her shotgun, oiling it and making sure that it ran cleanly.  

I tried to figure out how to get the battle saddle to work properly for me.  The ammo change function was probably too much to hope for, without a major rebuild, but I was pretty sure that I could work the connection points into my existing harness without too much difficulty.  

Well, it was a little harder in the dark, but I got somewhere eventually.


***


When Judgment finally came down off her drug induced high, evidenced by turning on the flashlight and finally stopping obsessively trying to fine tune our weapons, we headed back out and up the stairs.  I knocked loudly against the reinforced metal door into the apartment, waited a few seconds, then did it again.  A minute or two eventually got a few yellow blobs crowding around the entrance, according to Judgment.  

Finally, “Who’s there?” 

“Umm… three scavengers who want to barter our way through?”  I replied, glancing at Melody.  She shrugged back.  Probably should have come up with something a little more in depth, but I suppose caps are the universal language.  

“What do you have?”  

“I mean, what do you want?  Ammo, medical stuff, guns, some armor.  I can also sort papers really quickly...”  

“What was that last one?”  

“I’m good at sorting papers?”  

“Why would you be selling that?”

“I don’t know, maybe you have an issue with your inventory system and need to figure out what you should have in case somepony’s secretly robbing you blind.” 

“That’s… weirdly specific.”

“Look, can you open the door?  Then we can barter without shouting?”

“Erm… I’m sort of not supposed to open the door without permission.”

“Would a murderous raider offer forensic accounting as a potential bartering good?”  

“Maybe if they thought that other ponies wouldn’t expect it, so they could get inside and then start murdering.”  

“So, if I started talking about murdering, raping, and excessive drug use, would I be more trustworthy?  Because, by your logic, the expected from a raider should be unexpected, so that would indicate I am safer.”

“Well… no, but…”

“Then can you let us in?  Then we can discuss our possible inclination towards blood orgies in a more civilized setting where I am not possibly going to blow out my ear drums by shouting in an enclosed steel room?”

 “… I’m confused…”  A different voice said on the other side. 

“Erm… can you wait a few minutes?  I need to ask somepony something.”  The first voice said, then the sound of running hooves faded out of earshot.

“Red, I get that your charisma isn’t that high, but you can’t just replace it with intelligence.”  

“Melody, unless you’re willing to chime in more often, shut up or I’m going to roll intimidation followed by unarmed.”  

“Why didn’t you try intimidation?  Socket Wrench’s resistance to it is extremely low.”

“Judgment, as strange as it may sound, nobody here except you has the magical ability to see other ponies’s stats.  It would be nice if you shared information like that more often.”  

“Oh, right.  Keep forgetting.”

“You keep forgetting that Red and I don’t have a magical friend or foe targeting machine plugged into our brains that tells us what to do?”

“… sorry, it’s normal for me.”

“Melody, please stop picking on Judgment.”

“Red, please stop coddling the magic box that controls the meat puppet named Judgment.  If it wasn’t for her, I would be relaxing back at the Lobsters’ Pot.”

“Didn’t you bloody call in your own death?  This is, at least, equally your fault.”

“It seemed exciting at the time.  Going out into the world and all that.  I didn’t realize I would be babysitting a machine and an overgrown colt scout.”

“Ok, that’s good enough for me.  No group of raiders could stay together if they end up talking like that after 3 minutes alone.”  

We stopped shouting at each other, feeling sheepish.  At least, I felt sheepish.  Melody looked annoyed.  Judgment looked like she was waiting for the next order from her instead-of-brain-bot.   

The door opened and an older mare stood there, surrounded by a few twitchy looking guards.  They were shaking slightly, their guns jittering all over the place.  

“Hi, I’m Crescent Wrench.  Oh, wow you’re big.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Red Tree.  I know.”

“Melody Grey.”

“… Erm, sorry, I’m Judgment.  Dozed off.”    

“That’s alright. So, what do you need?”

“Well, we’re trying to reach the Stable-Tech building a couple kilometers down the road, and we were hoping to barter a way through your building.”

“As long as you don’t make trouble, you’re free to walk through.  But you won’t make it to the Stable-Tech building.  That’s Specter territory.”

“Does that have something to do with the giant metal wall and signs downstairs?”

“Yep.  Took 13 slaves to build it.  Mostly from the proximity mines attached to their chests.” 
 
“What are they?”

“We don’t know.  They’re hard to see, except when they pause to tear a pony apart.  All you normally get is the smell of rotting mint.”  

“Umm… what does mint smell like?”  Judgment asked.  

“Stable dweller?”  

“With that question and the stable dweller outfit?” Melody asked.  

“Fair enough.”  

“We’ll tell you when we smell it.”  I said.  

Few minutes of pleasantries later, we set off, a comfortable safe walk down a hallway, right to the edge of the “safe” area. 
 
“Umm, Red.  I’m getting weird vibes from the pony following us.”  Judgment piped in after less than 100 meters.  

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, she’s flashing in S.T.A.T.S., and her data is… changing.”  I looked behind at the giggling pony occasionally arguing with air.  And since I’d seen them for a couple seconds, occasionally probably meant near constantly.  

“Ok, let's go upstairs.  Maybe she’ll stop following?”

“Fine by me.”  We headed upstairs, and got out after a few levels.  There were fewer ponies here, and the ones we saw were much better armed.  The giggling mare followed us, stopped for a moment, and shrieked.

“RAIDERS IN THE SANCTUARY!”  and she pulled out her pistol.  Oh, shit.  





Footnote: Level up.  

New Perk:  Ferocious Loyalty – Taking hits for your friends has inspired them to fight harder and better.  When health goes below 50%, your friends deal 25% more damage and take 25% less.
> Chapter 8
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I looked around wildly, spotted an incorrectly installed door, and darted towards it.  Moments later, it was open and I was inside, trying to get the chainsaw ready.  Behind me, I heard the deep roar of the shotgun, and pounding hooves as Judgment followed me.  

“Dammit,” I spat.  “Judgment, get behind cover.  Melody, get in here!”

Ponies started firing back, and I heard Melody scream as she went down under a barrage of fire.  I darted out, took advantage of the shocked screams, and tugged her through the door.  

Didn’t notice much other than blood, but I wasn’t looking hard.  Fuck, what can I do? Can I defuse this?  “Judgment, get the bleeding stopped, probably a super restoration potion, and pressure where its gushing.”  Darting back out into the alcove, I glanced down the hallway.  Yep, headless pony.  Probably insane, but that doesn’t really count in our favor now.  
“Hey, it was an accident!  We’ll pay or sit in jail for however long you want us to.  Let’s just try to avoid a bloodbath.”

“Fucking raider, there won’t be a bloodbath!”

“Shut the hell up and come out where I can see you!”

“Heh, heh, heh, we got ourselves a bleeder!  What? Don’t think you can take us?”

Well, this is productive.  Maybe we can defend here?  “Judgment, keep track of where ponies are.  How’s Melody?”

“I gave her the potion, and it looks like she’s healing up.  I don’t see any more blood at least.”  

“Good, cover the door, I’ll push some cover together.”  I ran around the room and grabbed everything solid looking and heavy.  It was easy enough to make a hasty breastworks, and it got even better when I turned the chainsaw on the cinderblock half wall around the kitchen.  

The angry shouting died down a bit when they heard the chainsaw, but apparently a “raider’s weapon” was just what they needed to whip themselves into a frenzy.  Aww, fuck.

Well, shit.  .50 bolt action rifle, not good.  Chainsaw, not good, at least in front of a couple dozen pieces of supersonic lead.  Flamethrower?  Bad bad idea at the moment.  And can’t really use it moving, tied down was a fucking bad idea.  

Fuck.

“They’re coming!”  Judgment shouted, following dozens of hostiles rushing for our position.  

Clearing a room works because you decide when to charge.  You can put the enemy off balance by coming in in unexpected ways, or throw them off balance with a flash grenade or spell.  You minimize the kill zone of the door by moving quickly enough that they can’t react.  The goal is to move faster than the enemy can respond and put more bullets on target than the enemy can throw back.  It takes hours of repetition to do it properly, and doing it wrong just means you charged a fortified enemy with only a general idea of where they actually are.  

As a team, we managed to kill dozens of raiders and the like in a couple days, with only a few flesh wounds in return.  

The Colts charging at us?  They didn’t have that same skill.  

We knew exactly where they were, thanks to Judgment.  We had a fortified position, thanks to me.  Melody?  Well, her shotgun was excellent for tearing through targets, with more than two dozen rounds of low gauge shells.  It was going to be a bloodbath.  

They came as a group, charging down the hallway from both sides.  They were stopped momentarily by the door, and Judgment started firing.  Screams as the small caliber ball ammunition punched through the wood.  “Reloading!”  She shouted, and Melody took up the slack, blasting at the door every few seconds, trying to keep the enemy suppressed.

The Colts started firing back, but they couldn’t get in front of the door, so the bullets went wide.  Easy enough to see where they were from the blocked light through the holes; Melody barely had to aim.  Couple seconds later, Judgment shouted “Up!” and Melody started loading more shells.  They backed off.  Not even through the door and multiple deaths will push any unit back.  

“Up.” Melody stated.  

“Melody, cover the door.  Judgment, help me with this battle saddle.”  I ordered, pulling off the slings covering up the important bits.  I’d threaded the saddle’s straps through parts of my armor’s bandoleer, and used parts of my harness to keep it tight, but it felt off, and I didn’t think I could get it working on my own.  

“Ooh, this looks fun.  That pole is too short.  That wire should be over here. Looks like this is twisted.  You really shouldn’t have put it through here...”  Judgment threw herself into the rebuild, completely ignoring the door.  Makes sense, she obeyed that damn S.T.A.T.S. system almost entirely, while it was up.  Definitely a good idea to make her not use it in training.

As she fiddled with the saddle, Melody took a few shots as shadows ran across the holes she had blasted in the door.  No screams, and no thuds.  They weren’t that stupid, at least they had to be somewhat intelligent to establish control over the building.  What were they planning?  Exhausting our ammo?

I resisted the need to pace or do something as Judgment started having increasing amounts of fun with my saddle, sticking on my weapons in different arrangements.  After she tried to attach the saw on my back (“ooh, if you do a flip over cover and this is here...”), I interjected.  

“Could you attach it bayonet like to my flamethrower?”

“That’s completely insane!”  Judgment exclaimed, “I love it!”  Thank god for universal connection points.  Suppose that something this heavy was designed to attach to a counterweight or something. Would be pretty uncomfortable to use normally, otherwise. Still, sort of worried about the designer who decided that a flamer needed a heavily reinforced bayonet mounting point.  

“Ok, done!”  

“Good, now what the hell are they doing in the hallway?”

“Looks like they’re in two groups.  Not sure why.”  

“Begin clearing through?”  Melody piped up.  

“Not yet.  They’re going to try something, then we’ll move.”  If I was trying to smoke out a fortified enemy, what would I do?  Can’t be certain of where they would be, but I have control in all directions.  They might hear me getting ponies into position on the sides, but… Shit, the window!

“Judgment!  Behind us!”  I shouted, lunging to replace her on the front.  She turned around and darted towards the window.  Wildly looking around, she saw a pony with a fucking minigun being slowly levitated down.  A three round burst later, that pony dropped the several stories into the street.  

Then hell was unleashed.  

The two groups of Colts charged, attempting to make up for the lost surprise through sheer numbers, ramming into the weakened door and slamming through.  The pony in front was covered in some absurdly thick armor.  Looked like layered ceramic plates.  Completely useless for anything other than charging through an initial fusillade of fire.  Melody’s shots bounced right off, cracking the ceramic but not stopping them.  

My rifle was an entirely different story, one shot and the pony was shredded, falling to the ground in a sodden thump.  But it had just one shot.  

Fuck, just one shot!  Melody took up the slack, pumping the rest of her magazine into the charging ponies.  They couldn’t stop to aim, they were firing wildly and randomly, and my breastwork was taking most of the shot.  Still, biggest thing in the room, biggest target; I felt bullets bouncing off my armor, and the occasional tug as they tore through flesh.  
Really regretting that lack of a helmet.  Not much pain, zebra induced mutations were pretty damn good at handling that.  
Suddenly, I felt disoriented, and off.  Not sure why, all I felt was the second trigger in my mouth.  The one attached to the flamethrower.  It called to me.  Burn motherfuckers BURN.

Ponies died.  Ponies died in agonizing pain, set on fire and shredded by pellets.  Behind me, ponies fell out of the air, their assistants not bothering to try to save them to get more ponies to the battle.  It was futile.  Nobody could stand before us, and as the door got clogged by burning ponies, some screaming and rolling, others slowly going still; the new attackers started tripping over the lucky ones, and the slaughter just continued.  You fuckers will all pay.  This didn’t need to happen!

“CLEAR!” Judgment screamed, pulling against me.  I blinked.  What the hell? I stopped burning the pile of corpses.  Maybe one or two alive stuck at the bottom.  What the HELL? I blinked again.  It didn’t work right.  Was something missing?  No time now, keep moving.

“Line up!”  I said, and the other two jumped, startled but still reloading.  I glanced over them quickly, didn’t see anything obviously wrong, but they were both cowering.  That was intense, but can’t stop now. “Ready?”

They gulped and nodded.  I bucked, and it started again.  


*** 


They learned to stay the fuck away.  They learned that trying to stop us was a bad idea.  

That didn’t stop them from trying, but they left the rooms in our path, and they stopped ambushing us.  From behind was death.  From the sides was death.  Only the front, with some defenses, might mean success.

Slow us down, that was their plan.  Make something that could beat us.  It wasn’t working.  My legs were drenched in blood.  I only could smell gore.  I felt nothing.  Only the need to keep going and win.  

We stopped for a moment, the other two were exhausted, and guzzling water.  I shoved a ration bar into my mouth, and it fell out again.  Momentarily confused, I shoved it in the other direction.  That worked.  I never knew how the muscles in a jaw worked before now.  I was aware that everything was deeply wrong, but stopping wasn’t a choice now.  

The other two stared at me in worry. 

“Ready?”  I asked, noticing that my speech was broken and slurred.  Everything was wrong.  Everything was failing.  Melody looked away and nodded.  Judgment, nodded, looking scared.  

“Line up.”  


*** 


That last room was the worst one yet.  Eight ponies shoved in a small space, hidden behind whatever fortifications they could find.  My legs were covered in bandages, losing too much blood otherwise.  Face and mouth were open, needed to use the saddle.  

I had to burn them.  Too much.  Too many.  We couldn’t keep doing this.  Too many enemies.  Too many bullets.  

Those feelings stopped as Judgment called out “Ten.”  This was easy.  Pull the trigger, do the next one.  Clear the room, do the next one.  You don’t even need to think.  I wanted that combat potion.  I wanted it so badly.  But… 

“Judgment, can you add a bit to my flamer?  I have an idea.”


***


You don’t get used to the screaming.  Even the modifications couldn’t change that.  We weren’t fighting anymore, this was pure slaughter. 

Rev the saw…

It was mechanical, dull, and horrifying.  Hearing Judgment count down their lives.  Hearing their screams snuff out one by one.  

Turn on the flow…

Their corpses lay where they fled.  No air, they collapsed trying to get to the door.  Nothing could save them.  Their own armor and desperation to flee trapped them.  Burning alive.  

Press to the wall…

No mercy.  We tried that.  And they just turned on us a moment later.  Judgment got shot.  Melody got stabbed.  

Cut right through…

Everything hurt.  Nothing felt right.  It was all in shambles.  I was falling apart.  Screams just kept going and going.

Depress the trigger…

All I heard was the number, the slow count. All I felt was the fire as I was the first one through,  waiting for the other two to be able to tolerate it.  

BURN…

Burn. Let them all burn. Let them all suffer like I have.  Let them see their bodies fall apart before their eyes.  Let everything they have known collapse.  LET THEM ALL FUCKING BURN.  


***


“Red?”  Melody asked, eyes wide and terrified.  I shook my head, and groaned at the feeling.  I felt heavy, my skin… my whatever felt stiff, it didn’t want to move.  Didn’t matter much.  

“What?” I rasped.  My tongue didn’t want to move right either.  This entire plan, trying to not fight, wasn’t right.  They wouldn’t let it happen otherwise.  

“How- how-”  What would make sense here?  How are we going to get out of here?  That was obvious.  How did I feel?  Ditto.  How was I still alive?  Now that was an interesting one.  I looked around.  Half looked around.  Even the corpses looked weak, scrawny.  

“How many?”  I asked, then frowned.  Half frowned.  Should have already asked that.  

“Too many to count.  Red and yellow.  They’re not moving.”  Judgment looked sick, and exhausted.

“Any others?”  I asked.  

“Not that I can see.”  

“Alright, line up.”  They did. It was the only thing they could do.  The only thing I could do.  

Rev the saw, turn on the flow, press to the wall, cut right through, depress the trigger, and BUR-   the screams were worse than anything I had heard, enough to cut through the protection my damaged brain could do.  

Higher, more desperate, pleading, begging for their parents.  I was killing foals. 

I jerked away from the wall, cutting off the flow of flames, but the damage was done.  Plenty of air, at least more than the meager amount of fuel I had dumped could cut off, but a couple seconds long jet of burning alcohol is more than lethal in these small rooms.  

Meager, but more than enough to kill everything in that room.  Alcohol burns hotter than oil.  It soaks and demands as much oxygen as possible.  The doors open inward, anti-theft, few inhabitants intended.  They’re not getting out.  

We’re not getting in in time.  We don’t have enough healing potions. We can’t do anything, except stand here and listen to them die.  

Judgment sat against the wall, counting as each one died.  I wanted to scream.  I wanted a do over.  I wanted anything except what I had created.  

But I couldn’t.  I messed up so hard.  I ignored everything.  I wanted to finish this, and that’s the only thing I could do. 

I pressed the flamer back against the hole the chainsaw made, depressing the plunger, and held it there.  

The screams rose then cut off, Judgment blinking at the sudden change.  There I couldn’t think of any curse, anything that would be worthy of what I had done.  There was no justification for what I was doing other than minimizing suffering, in the most horrible and painful way possible.  

I looked around the room, crying, begging.  The piles of ashes and bones I had seen earlier, small weak, barely older than foals, and the already injured.  Their last stand to protect, and I had laughed at it.  I felt numb, the realization of how much I had ignored, had focused on what was in front of me, rather than what was obvious.  I made a decision, many many times, to kill, when it wasn’t even necessary.  

That family back in Mane, pointless. 

Trying to save Hope and Grace, meaningless.  

Not killing the trader, hollow.

Letting the yellow bars live, empty.  

All of that was nothing compared to the crimes I was committing.  

I was burning foals alive, because I didn’t think, because I found it easier than actually paying attention to reality, because I used the rage the Lieutenant Colonel gifted me.  The power to destroy, it has always been mine, but he offered me the gift of not caring.  

The flamer hissed as it ran out of fuel and propellant, and I collapsed to the ground.  

The aftershocks of whatever my mutant endocrine system had dumped into my bloodstream ripped away the protective shell, and I felt… nothing.  I lay on the ground, looking at the angry, raw, red flesh underneath my burnt and destroyed armor.  

I slowly got to my hooves, and looked around.  Melody and Judgment stared in open horror, as I shambled to the bathroom, the mirror hopefully still there.  

… I’d seen ghouls who looked far better.  A shotgun blast had ripped off most of my face, exposing the skull underneath.  My empty eye socket twitched and blobbed.  Some of the bones were pulped, and twitching snakes of muscle pulsated.  I couldn’t see where my coat, what wasn’t burnt off, ended and my armor began, the two fusing together by the extreme heat.  On my legs, bone was clearly visible, the muscle fibers torn away by something.  I was burnt, tortured, and dying.  If not from blood loss, then from infection.  

I was a dead pony walking, killed by the very thing I had used to eradicate an entire clan.  I collapsed, and tried to curl up in a ball, but nothing would listen to me.  

And if I wouldn’t listen to me, how could I expect anyone else to?





Footnote: Level up.

New Perk: Toughness 2 – You’ve learned how to deal with injuries and cope with pain even better.  Minus an additional 20% to incoming damage

Footnote: Level up.

New Perk: Commando – You’re getting the hang of your new body.  Rifles and other larger two handed weapons are as light as a feather, and you get a 25% boost to hit when using them.  

Footnote: Level up.

New Perk: Stonewall – Being on the front lines had hardened you.  It might be a mindset, it might be luck, or it might be the number of bullets embedded in your chest, but you take 10% less damage from all sources while blocking.

Level up.
New Perk: Unstoppable Force – Nothing stops your punches, or swings, once they start.  75% of damage goes through enemy defenses.
Level up.
New Perk: Nerd Rage! - You’ve put up with enough.  Now when you’re at less than 20% health, you deal 25% more damage, are 25% more accurate, and take 20% less.  
Level up.
New Perk: Life Giver – Taking that bullet for a friend fills you with a glow.  For some reason, you feel healthier than ever, and can take more punishment.  
Level up.
New Perk: Slayer – It is a good day for somepony else to die.  You hack, slash, and stab faster and harder.  30% faster attacks with all melee weapons.   
Level up.
New Perk: Grunt - Long hours with standard issue, abet uncommon, Equestrian military equipment and tactics have finally sunk in.  You deal 50% more damage with prewar military equipment and gain 20% damage resistance while following what your grandfather showed you.
Level up.
New Perk: Sneering Imperialist – Don’t suffer the raider (or tribal) to live.  Those backwards savages have what’s coming to them.  +20% damage to all raiders, and unique dialogue options are unlocked.   
Level up.
New Perk: Nerves of Steel – You’re starting to approach war differently.  Either you’ve gotten used to combat or this is a side effect of increasingly acute mental illness, but you can process faster and react quicker under pressure.    
Level up.
New Perk: Adamantium Skeleton – Scientists will want to examine your body in detail after you’ve died.  Your limbs seem to be supernaturally resistant to damage, and keep functioning nearly twice as long as before.  
Level up.
New Perk: Better Criticals – When an enemy comes up against you, they’re even more unlucky.  They explode, burn to ash, or liquefy 20% more than before. 
Level up.
New Perk: Grim Reaper’s Spirit – It seems Death has taken an interest in you.  Now whenever you kill, you’re ready to do it again.  And again.  And again.  
Level up.
New Perk: Rapid Reload – Hours of practicing reloading has paid off.  You never stumble when reloading and it happens much quicker.  
Level up.
New Perk: Super Slam! - At nearly 4 times normal body weight, your hits hurt.  Now there’s a 20% chance to knock an enemy to the ground on melee or unarmed attacks, with a 5% chance to knock them unconscious.  
Level up.
New Perk: Purifier – You’re sick of the slaughter, but you know your mission isn’t complete.  Now enemies you consider abominations will die quicker and harder.  
Level up.
New Perk: Spray and Pray – Did… that bullet just go through your companion without hitting them?  Or have your reflexes just gotten that good?  Either way, you can no longer harm allies through friendly fire.  
Level up.
New Perk: Burden to Bear – The weight of your sins are crawling up your back, and you’re learning to shoulder them.  This means that physical pain is less relevant and you can now carry more weight.  
Level up.
New Perk:  Pyromaniac – Burn motherfucker.  BURN!
Level up.
New Perk: Road to Hell -  You tried your best, but it wasn’t good enough.  You will never move past this moment.  Karma is set to Very Evil.  

Maximum level reached.
> Chapter 9
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I woke up eventually, the post-combat crash having kept dreams away.  I was ravenous, thirsty, and still exhausted.  Also, stuck to the floor.  

Chemistry doesn’t care about emotional states, or the inappropriateness of being glued to the floor by congealed bodily fluids after well, going completely insane and killing… Luna knows how many.  

“Umm, can I get some help?”  I called out.  Eventually, Judgment walked in, wary and evidently as tired as I felt.  

“You’re alive?”  She finally asked, looking me over.  “And not a ghoul?”

“Seems that way.  Don’t think I got enough radiation to become a ghoul.”  

“What the fuck happened yesterday?”  She asked after a few seconds.  I frowned.  

“They tried to kill us.”

“They probably would have given up if we had given them a chance.  Why didn’t you notice that they were trying to give up?”  

“They were an organized raider band.  If we broke before they did, then we would die.  So, I didn’t want to stop until they fled or broke, erm... until they changed their minds and laid down to die.  But, I guess I didn’t notice.”  

“You didn’t notice?  That’s your answer?”

“You are unusually… focused... today.”

“I turned off S.T.A.T.S.  I keep seeing red out of the corner of my eye.”  

“Hallucination or… ?”

“We didn’t leave anyone alive within a 500 meter radius.  Most of the Colts fled.  A lot got gunned down in the streets.  They couldn’t clear this floor without moving through the hallway, which means death in urban combat, according to Melody.”  She shrugged. “They were all red, so my S.T.A.T.S. keeps trying to reward me, but… it feels wrong.”  Judgment looked confused, I guess she was so used to S.T.A.T.S. dictating morality, seeing it agree with something like this was… well, a severe shock. 

 “That doesn’t answer the question.”  

“You didn’t answer mine.”

“Yes.  I didn’t notice.  I just wanted to keep going until it was finished one way or another.  To be honest, I expected the another.”  

“You wanted to die?”

“I don’t… didn’t want to die.  But keeping things moving faster meant I needed to do… a lot of really stupid shit.”  

“Never try that again.”  She said, too dead to put much emotion into the words.  

“I don’t think I can, even if I wanted to.”  I said looking at myself.  It didn’t feel as bad as it looked, but I wasn’t sure if that would be possible.  Most of my skin was scorched off, and I could easily see bone in… far too many places.  Joints felt tight and harder to move.  It was hard to connect what I as seeing to me.  

We both stayed there for a few seconds, before Judgment started talking again.  

“Stuck?”

“Yeah...”

“Give me a moment.”  She walked out of the bathroom and returned with food, two pots of water, rags, and Melody, who had a vein popping out of her forehead. 

“Hey, I can do the same trick!”  I said.  The vein in question was one of the few pieces of flesh that still remained on my right side.  Melody’s eyes narrowed.

“I honestly expected you to be dead by now.  You’ve lost most of your blood. You’re burnt over 80% of your body. You fought until your muscles came off your bones for Celestia’s sake.  How the hell are you still alive?”

“No idea.  Literally.  You still haven’t told me the limits of what I’m supposed to be able to do.”  

“That’s your answer?”

“Have you two been planning this question session for a while?”

“Why are you so fucking flippant now?”

“I’m not flippant, this is how I cope.”

“No, you cope by ignoring the problem.  You repress and ignore serious issues as an alternative to actually dealing with them.”  Judgment said. 

“No I don’t.”

“How did you deal with mutating?”  Melody asked.  

“I sucked it up. Wasn’t that big a deal.  I expected cannibalistic rape murder.”

“How did you deal with the injections?” I twitched, reflexively, pushing down bad thoughts.  

“I’ve dealt with worse.”

“How did you deal with killing 5 soldiers?”

“I killed three, and they were raiders.”

“How did you deal with the two stable dwellers dying?”  

“I followed Judgment’s lead.”

“Which was to ignore it.  Despite betraying everything for them.”

“Well, not everything.  I’d been part of the 3rd Experimental for like a day.”  

“How did you deal with being insulted by a trader?”

“I let him go.”

“After beating him, for no reason.”

“He was an asshole who was threatening you two!  And he might have known something useful.”

“And would have been willing to say it without being roughed up.”

“You don’t know that.”  

“You outweighed him by a factor of 4.  He was terrified of you.  What about that cannibal?”

“I found evidence and acted on it.”

“You had suspicions and you didn’t bother finding out if you fucked up.” 

“You can’t prove that.”

“Neither can you.  And you know there was a chance that he wasn’t guilty and you scared him into running.”  

“Why are you bringing this up now?”

“Because trying to push something like what happened yesterday off will probably drive you insane.”  

“Fuck it, I’m already insane.”  

“Every single time you’ve met somepony, you’ve gotten more aggressive about it.  I’m not saying they were all undeserved, but it's been less than a week, and you’ve destroyed a minor power in Fillydalphia!”  

“What?  Isn’t this what I was supposed to do?” 
 
“Yes, if you were a melee soldier.  You were supposed to have more brains!”  

“You idiots are literally starving yourselves!”  

“Stop diverting the questions.”

“Look. Let’s finish this before we get into more psychological stuff.  Alright, yeah, I have a problem.  At the same time, I’m probably going to die before it gets worse.  So, let’s get to the Stable-Tech building and get out.  Then you can try to reprogram me.”  

Melody nodded, obviously unhappy, but started to perform some medical aid.  One of the problems with small teams, everypony’s in combat, so everypony hits the wall around the same time.  Or intentionally pushes themselves past the wall.  

Melody was obviously exhausted and Judgment was hallucinating.  I guess I was the only pony who had gotten something approaching rest.  Though, I suppose that we were probably in the safest place in Fillydalphia.  Nobody would be insane enough to try to scavenge when whatever had driven out the Colts was still around.  And we needed to hole up and recuperate for at least a little bit.  

“Ok, try to stand up.”  Melody said, holding up a damp rag.  I lumbered to my feet, wincing as parts of my flesh tore off.  

Melody grimaced, and pulled out a bottle of something gelatinous and petroleum based.  “I’m not sure what enough restoration potions to heal that would do to you.  Probably scavenge the energy your heart needs to keep beating, or give you magical cancer or some shit like that.  There’s just so much damage...”  She trailed off thinking, then shook her head.  “We can try some potions now, but our best bet is to try to keep out infection.  I put a layer on earlier, but couldn’t get to your other side.”  I nodded, looking at the viscous liquid.  Ugh, slimy.  

Still, that’s the least of my worries at the moment, so I stood still while Melody covered me ear to hoof, and drank a couple restoration potions.  Not much visible change, but I didn’t feel as shaky afterwards.  

“If you’re willing, we could give you an injection…”  Melody said quietly, pulling out a disgustingly familiar packet of syringes.  

“No.  Flat out, fucking no.”  I hissed under my breath, trying not to move.   “Why do you have them anyway?”  

“We were bringing them out for the Stable, remember?  That case you broke was one of three.  I probably have enough to regenerate you from a skeleton.”

“Never bring them up again.”  I commanded, resisting the urge to stomp to emphasize my point.  

“Fine, your funeral.  Now what?”  

“How much sleep have you two gotten?”

“Haven’t. Couldn’t.”  Judgment said.

“Been guarding, and it didn’t seem… right.”  Melody said.

“Ok, we need to get some actual rest, then find out what the hell those Specters are.  We’re probably safe if we find another room and lock the door.  I’ll go on guard first, so you two can recover a bit.”  They nodded, obviously uncomfortable but willing to go along nevertheless.  

We grabbed our shit, I stamped down a scream as my battle saddle started rubbing against my injured... everything, and we found a room to bed down in.


*** 


The next day wasn’t… good.  None of us were talking.  We were eating, but Melody was picking at her food, Judgment was mainlining sugar, and I was gorging myself.  Our guard rotation didn’t go well, being alone with our thoughts… not good at the moment.  The only thing that sort of helped me was reminding myself that they could have stopped it at any time, they decided to keep the foals there, it was all their fault.  I repeated it like a mantra, trying to get the screams out of my head.  It didn’t make it quieter, but it gave me something to focus on.  Trying to find prime numbers wasn’t helping.  

Melody and Judgment were almost as bad.  Judgment decided to go on a mint-als induced maintenance spree, while Melody started banging her hoof against a pile of pots and pans spasmodically, staring at the wall.   The fuel tank of my flamer was looking more and more inviting.  

Now that we had a moment, a lot of underlying issues reared their ugly heads.  

Still, time moved on, and we got enough rest to be functional.  


***


“Ok, everypony ready?”  I asked at the exit from the apartment.  The road outside looked relatively untouched, except for the corpses, fresh and old, littering the killzone.  Not many bullet wounds, these looked like they had been torn limb from limb.  Or eaten alive.  Or even just hamstrung and left to bleedout.  Fucking hell, what are we going up against?  

The other two nodded, and readied their weapons.  We dashed out and found cover.  Standard crossing method, and we were on the other side.  Scanning rapidly, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary…

“Hey, Red, I’m not getting any radiation here.”  Judgment said, tapping her Pip-Buck and looking at it closely.

“You were getting radiation before?”

“Some, anywhere I’ve been has had at least some, but here, yeah, none here.”

“That’s strange...”  I trailed off, looking at the bodies on the ground.  “Ok, we need to keep moving.  If anything changes, tell me about it.”  Judgment nodded, and we crept along the building, until we came to the entrance.  I tried it, open, and we lined up. 

I pulled, and Judgment rushed for the… jammed door?  What the hell?  She skidded to a halt and I set my hooves to force it open, hearing snapping and crunching all the while.  Judgment confirmed that nothing was alive behind the door, and we walked through.  Into a massive bone pile.  

“What happened here?”  Melody whispered, looking at the horde of hundreds of ponies jammed up against the door, desperately trying to get out.  Massive streaks of brown on the walls said something slashed them as they fled.  The doors had been forced closed, looked like the metal was bent to stop it from moving, meant strong as hell and faster than a horde of terrified ponies, or strong as hell and intelligent enough to set a trap.  Hopefully the former, but that was fucking fast.  

“Specters?”  I hissed back as an answer.  “Hellhounds?”  I offered, uncertainly.   

“There’s more than one thing that can do that?”  Judgment asked, horrified.  

“Maybe?  I’ve only really heard about Hellhounds, and I have no idea on Specters.  Just heard the name two days ago.”

“So, we have no idea, and we’re going to keep going forward?”  

“Well, we know that, whatever they are, they can be stopped with a meter or two of concrete and steel.”  

“Can you carry that much?”  

“Haven’t tried.”  

Our nervous, barely audible, conversation carried us down the hallway, where the carnage was largely repeated.  Doors that weren’t flung open had been ripped into, shredded into kindling.  Lighting was weak and mostly confined to emergency systems.  

“Shouldn’t we be room clearing?”  Judgment asked, after we passed four skeletons cowering together, blood spray covering most of the wall.  

I shook my head.  “Whatever these things are, they can tear right through the doors and probably the walls.  We need to move quickly and quietly.  Linear open areas are most dangerous when somepony has a gun, and it doesn't look like they use them anyway.”  She looked terrified at the answer, and checked her gun again, but nodded.

We kept moving, and nothing.  Judgment was obsessively checking her S.T.A.T.S., I was looking around corners, and Melody was covering the rear.  One misplaced noise, and we would death-blossom, firing absolutely everywhere.  
We found a fresh, well freshish, body a couple hundred meters down the corridor.  It had a Pip-Buck, and was wearing some sort of robe.  

“Judgment can...”

“Got it.”  Judgment sat by the corpse, and connected to the Pip-Buck, attempting to scavenge anything useful.  Wasn’t expecting much, apparently they secure fairly well, but maybe the pony was lazy and didn’t set an encryption key.  

“Found an audio file, was the last thing open, and didn’t get encrypted.”  Judgment reported after a couple minutes.  

“Alright, let’s move off the main corridor and see what’s up.”


*** 


Hiding in a nearby bathroom, we crowded around Judgment’s Pip-Buck.  

“Field Scribe Pencil Sharpener, F-13-1, erm… Log 1.  Ugh… forgot the date, whatever, needs to be filed later anyway.” A bored, tired voice came from the speakers, barely above hearing.  “Mission: Exploration Team 1-12 Heavy Reconnoiters the Stable-Tech building located at… ugh… 17 Tango Nike 80210 80137 no later than 28 0100 9th Moon 1126.  Key Tasks: Positively identify enemies known as ‘Specters,’ prevent enemy discovery of access hatch and tunnel to FOB Archives, determine safe route for follow on forces.”  She paused for a few seconds, as somepony shouted in the background.  “Dammit Daisy Sandwich, how did you forget the access code again?  I know it changes every month, but the pattern is pretty damn simple, you passed weapon ID right?  That month as the most common caliber.  Normal capitalization and spacing.  Where was I?  Oh, right.  Mission.  Expected enemy are raiders armed with… Daisy, stop interrupting me, we still have an hour before step off.  Ugh, seriously!?  Fine… whatever, I’ll finish this later.  Need to rerecord it anyway.  Something about a damaged recorder, need to do everything from scratch.  Where’s the off switch?”  

The recording ended with a click.

“Well, that wasn’t helpful...”  Melody sighed.  I frowned.  

“I’m not so sure about that.  We know that, about a year ago, there was a Brotherhood of Steel recon unit in the area.  We know that the Specters are a thing.  We know that they used a set method of changing their access password.  We know that they had a tunnel relatively nearby, to an archive.”  

“And it was probably to this building!”  Judgment piped in.  

“Why do you say that?”

“The lights all work outside, so sneaking around doesn’t really make sense.  They said they were the 1-12 Heavy, which means power armor, and I bet that we’d see a lot more anti-tank mines if power armored ponies were around.  So, they need to be hidden, which means in this building.”

Melody and I shared a look.  “Does your Stable have like power armor riot squads or something?”  I asked after a few seconds.  

“Yep, will be taking that test next month!”  

“Anti-tank mines?”  Melody mouthed to me.  I shrugged.  Whatever the hell happened in that Stable, I wanted nothing to do with it.

“Alright, I’m guessing any access hatches will be in the basement, probably in those utility tunnels.”  

“Let’s go!”  

A dozen meters past Pencil Sharpener’s corpse, the detritus of slaughtered ponies changed to a pitched battle, leading down a side corridor.  Well, as pitched as you can get when there’s at most three laser rifles going off at once.  Looked like Pencil Sharpener went ahead for some reason, and they got ambushed by the Specters.  She got cut off and died, the rest tried to get the hell out. Wild burn marks, crushed and scattered bones, and shredded carpet.  Judging by the gap between shred marks, they had galloped into a tactical withdraw, which meant we should be able to follow that all the way back to the tunnel.

Only worrying thing was that they should have had S.A.T.S. and the training to use it properly.  If they didn’t notice the Specters until an ambush, this could get interesting.  


***


Following the trail of destruction, we found a shredded suit of power armor.  Those things let their pilot kick through walls, fight for hours on end, heal from nearly anything, and shoot just about any weapon.  So, me, but with 5 centimeters of properly forged magically reinforced steel rather than this scrap metal and inability to go into shock.  And something cut through that… a couple dozen times.  I was not looking forward to meeting a Specter. 

“Can you carry this?”  Melody asked me.  

“Probably, why?”

“Bringing back a fallen comrade is probably a decent show of respect for a militant organization.”  

“Said the person who’s leadership abandoned her after a radio call.”  She opened her mouth to argue, but I held up a hoof.  “Sorry, that was uncalled for.  Give me a moment.”   Oh, Celestia, it’s sloshing.  And it stank.  “Ugh… should we grab Pencil Sharpener as well?” 

“Probably, but that’s pretty far back.  We should keep moving.”  

Swallowing, I followed the other two through a shredded door and down a flight of stairs to a maintenance closet.  Normal fair, some tools, a wonderglue, duct tape.  Only thing that wasn’t normal was a hinged steel hatch on the wall, with a still functional terminal nearby.  

It was unlocked, and only displayed an empty text box.  

“What should we try?”  

“Well, if they all died, nobody would have been able to update it from the 9th Moon… .90 caliber isn’t a thing.  9 kilo shells are uncommon.  9 mm?  That’s probably the most likely.”  Judgement typed it in.  

“Why the hell did they program an error buzzer?”  I said a few moments later, head ringing a bit.  “Sorry, don’t answer.  Erm, 5th Moon now, .50 caliber is common, 5 kilo doesn’t exist.  5.45, 5.56.  Ok, think military.  5.45 wasn’t phased in before lasers, maybe a gun nerd would choose that first?  .50 cal, military but… 5.56 is so common…  Alright, try 5.56 mm, then we’ll try .50 caliber.  Then possibly caliber 50.  Heavy unit, so I think it would be caliber 50.  So switch that order-”

The hatch swung up, the motor making a loud grinding noise.  “Got it.  Want to lead the way?”  Judgment asked, peering into the dark tunnel.  I stuck my head inside, taking up most of the small converted sewer pipe.  Barely enough room for a pony crawling in power armor.

“I think I’ll need to stay here and pull guard.”  

“By yourself?”  Melody asked, seemingly concerned.  

“Yeah… I’ll be fine.”  

“Alright…”  the other two climbed into the tunnel and headed off.  I looked at the terminal and tabbed the close option, then sat there in the dark, as the motor clicked back.  

Guard duty, right… I thought, and looked around.  The terminal gave off enough light to see outlines, and the door opened into a red tinged hallway.  Get off to the side, behind some cover, and all I would need to do is wait for the door to open, then fire.  

There were a few storage cabinets, metal construction and sturdy, filled with scrap metal and junk.  Not exactly armor plating and sand bags, but better than a lot of cover I’d been using recently.  I pushed and tipped them into a pile, making a hasty bunker.  

Crouching behind it, flamer at the ready, I waited.  It was weird how easy it was to do all this crap.  Dragging the wagon, moving hundreds of kilos of metal, kicking through concrete.  I really needed to spend some time testing my limits.  And improving them, I supposed.  Though it would be nice to learn how to run to any degree.  Definitely a handicap trying to get through the city, though being twice as tall as anyone else made up for it a bit.  Still long term probably shouldn’t be a word in my vocabulary.  I wasn’t going to bleed out, but infection was nearly guaranteed.  Judging by the mild euphoria I was feeling, I was still in the 3rd Experimental’s version of shock, completely unaware of injury in order to keep fighting.  Being able to see bone was disconcerting, but I couldn’t feel it, per se.  It just didn’t seem as important. 

A small noise from above made me glance around.  Sounded like it was coming from the vent system.  Radroaches?  

Probably nothing dangerous.  Would be suicidal to trap yourself in a small metal tube like that…  Looking around the small metal room, I shook my head and tried to refocus on the door.  A weird smell, like rotting mint was wafting through the room.  I ignored it.  Anything was better than corrupting corpse.  

This body certainly wasn’t designed for guard duty.  It needed constant stimulation, in one form or another.  Really a shitty design for a soldier.  Hurry Up and Wait ought to have been the military’s official motto.  And I was supposed to be one of the more in control ones.  Can’t imagine what it would be like for one of the foot soldiers.  I shifted uneasily, suddenly empathetic for why those two foot soldiers had been distracted enough to let the two Stable dwellers right through their screen.  I disliked guard duty before, but now it was downright unbearable.  Sleep, eating, shooting, working, fighting, anything would be preferable to waiting and staring at a closed door. 

Another clink from above, like right above.  I shook my head, trying to get back into the present, looked up.  Didn’t that vent used to be locked closed?

A line of sharp fire ran down my spine, ear to tail in a fraction of a second, slicing right through my harness and saddlebags, dropping them to the floor.  I bucked reflexively, crushing the concrete behind me into dust, but I didn’t feel anything.  Fuck, burnt nerves.  

Aside from the bands of flesh protected by my harness, most of the skin on my back had been burnt off from dripping flamer fuel.  I couldn’t feel anything aside from a base level of pain.  And an unexpected weight. Fuck, it’s on my back!

I rolled, trying to crush whatever it was, but I just heard a controlled thud, while I crashed into the cabinets.  Shaking my head and getting to my feet, I looked around wildly.  I caught the outline of something bipedal, but the head looked a pony’s… though the claws were like nothing I’d seen before.  It tensed and jumped, vanishing with speed.  This time, I felt the extra weight, and my legs buckled to the ground.  

It reached into the cut it made and pulled.  I heard more than felt my muscles tearing under its grasp, warm blood coating my back, and dripping down my forehead into my good eye.  I tried rolling again, but it easily jumped off, playing with me.  Fire at this range would coat me as well.  Gun, out of the question.  Chainsaw?  Fuck, it would have to do.  

Grabbing the flamer in my teeth, pulling the battle saddle with it, I revved the chainsaw, and tried to face the Specter, trying to blink the blood out of my eye.  Didn't work.  Just outlines.  I could see that it tilted its head to one side, as if confused, but its claws were up and ready.  I advanced slowly, keeping the flamer tilted up to make a lunge easier.  Really regretting the bayonet idea right now.  The chainsaw was unweildly enough on its own.  As a bayonet, I wasn’t sure how well it would work against even a normal pony, too easy to dodge and too large to use in close quarters.  The Specter froze, then twitched.  It vanished.  I jumped back, but it slammed against my flank, and I skid under the terminal, completely disoriented.  It didn’t press its advantage, but stood looking at me, apparently trying to make up its mind.  

Fuck this.  I thought.  My flamer was pointed in vaguely the right direction.  I pulled the trigger.     This really got its attention.  It screamed, and my eye cleared enough that I got my first good glimpse of the Specter.  

It was tall, nearly my height, with claws that hung down to its knees.  Covered in… I don’t know if it was fur or mist, looked magical to my untrained eye, it moved erratically, twitching from place to place.  The mist made it hard to see deeper, but there was a hint of corded muscle, on par with my alchemically enhanced crap.  The face though…

It was skull-like, the skin pulled tight and thin against a pony or zebra’s muzzle.  The eyes were dark and slitted, a bastardized mix between a predator and prey’s.

Those eyes were looking at me angrily, and it darted forward again.  This time it wrenched a scream from me.  

The Specter paused, dangling something in the light, a hint of enraged insane intelligence dancing in its eyes.  I tried to get to my feet, then realized that what it had.  My leg.  

Tamping down the need to scream, to cry, to clutch at my spurting stump, I flailed for my medical bag, and pulled out the tourniquet, quickly threading it around and pulling it tight.  It took me three attempts to realize I was using the missing leg to try to hold the end of the strap, but eventually I got it closed, with only a smallish puddle of blood on the ground.  

The Specter opened its mouth, fuck those were big fangs, and took a bite out of my leg.  It recoiled and looked at me angrily, before throwing my mutilated limb back at me.  I flew through the air and heard something crack.  It wasn’t the concrete walls.  By the time I got my eyes open again, it had disappeared, the smell of rotting mint fading with it.  

I lay there shaking, cold and terrified, for I don’t know how long.  





Footnote: Maximum Level Reached.
> Chapter 10
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eventually, the hatch reopened.  

“Oh, Goddesses, what happened?”  Judgment said under her breath, coughing.  The fight had left blood everywhere, and the vent system had barely been able to stay ahead of the smoke.  

“Well, he didn’t die in the fight.  Managed to put on a tourniquet before he died.  Probably bled out from his torn out trapezius.”  Melody replied, pushing past her and jumping down.  

“He might still be alive...”

“He’s in a small enclosed room where he used a flamer.  He just went through major trauma that magic can’t heal without killing him.  He lost a limb, most of his skin, and a major muscle group.  He’s literally laying in a pool of his blood.  He’s fucking dead.”  

“Are you sure?  Can you do a diagnosis spell or something?”

“Fine, but it’s… fucking hell, goddesses dammit.”  She hopped down and started examining me more closely.  “Breathing is good, vents stopped smoke inhalation.  Somehow his blood clotted on his back, guess the healing potions restored his clotting factors.  Tourniquet was able to stop the bleeding from his leg.”  She fumbled inside her bag for a moment, and pulled out a super restoration potion.  “No idea if this will work, shock might kill him, but moving him will if we don’t.”

“Do it!”  Judgment demanded.    

Melody glared at Judgment, and said “You don’t get to give orders to me.”  But opened my mouth and poured the potion down anyway.  

A few minutes later, the screaming inside my head quieted down a bit and I was able to open my eyes.  Two shadowy figures stood over me, heads tilted in a too familiar look.   I tried to dart away but fell, cracking the scab that was my back and starting to bleed.  

“Goddesses, he’s gone nuts.  Help me hold him in the air until he calms down.”  Melody said, annoyed.

A field of magic picked me up and put me out of range of the walls or the floor, pressing me up near the ceiling.  I tried to push off with my neck, but… it wouldn’t move right.  Didn’t take long for me to realize that I was trapped.  I slumped against the magic, and listened to my blood drip into the puddle.  

“Ok, lower him, I’ll bind his back, and we’ll try to figure out what to do.”  I was gently lowered to the floor, and tight cloth was tied across my chest, back, stomach, hindquarters, and flanks.  I was practically mummified.  After that was finished, a ration bar was shoved under my nose.  

Stuffing it down my muzzle, I slowly became aware of my surroundings.  

“Well, he seems healthy enough, at least when it comes to food.”

“Eating is basic enough that’s not helpful, especially after getting a super restoration potion.  Red?  How are you feeling?”  I held up a hoof since I was still eating, bar held in my other hoof, then realized the obvious.  I didn’t take it well.  

Suffice it to say, eventually I got myself under control.  At least to the point that I wasn’t hugging my stump in the fetal position and inhaling ration bars.  

“Ok, so what did you find?”  I eventually asked.  

Melody and Judgment exchanged glances.  “The tunnel goes to a library.  Looks like it was designed to be a shelter, but ran out of supplies.  Didn’t see any corpses, so they must have gotten out.  Nobody’s there, just books.  We found what looked like a Brotherhood of Steel outpost, ammo cans, rations wrappers, stuff like that, but no Paladins.”  Melody offered.  

“I mean, that group was here a year ago.  Makes sense they would have moved on.”  

“Yeah, that’s what we decided.”  Judgment replied.  “What happened with you?”  

“Ran into a Specter.  Attracted by noise.  Tried to eat me.  Tasted bad.”  I said, trying not to think about it.  “Let’s get to the library, and regroup there.”

“How are you going to reach it?  You can’t fit down the tunnel.”  

“What direction is it?  And how far?”

“South East, towards the crater.  About 2500 meters.”

“Alright, I’m going to walk.”  

“You’re going to walk through the streets?  In broad daylight?  With more of whatever did that to you?”  Judgment asked, horrified.  

“Yes.  I’ll be quiet.  They don’t want to eat me.”  I cut off the beginnings of a lengthy, terror fueled, babble.  

“Excuse me for a moment.”  Melody said, grabbing Judgment.  They had a frantic whispered conversation, punctuated with angry hoof pointing at me.    Eventually, Judgment nodded sadly, and clambered back into the tunnel.  She levitated my gear after her, leaving only the compass.  

“When you make it to the library, knock on the main door three times, wait 3 seconds, then knock twice again.  Keep doing that until we open it.”  Melody said, then clambered into the hole, firmly not looking at me.  I nodded, then closed the hatch.  

Then headed outside.  Naked and alone.  


***


Several hours later, I banged on the door.  I hadn’t exactly expected to make it to the door, so I hadn’t exactly been paying attention to Melody’s code.  Still, enough consistent banging attracted some attention.

“Red?”  An incredulous voice asked from behind the steel shuttered door.  

“Are you expecting somepony else?”  I tried for jaunty, it came out weary.  Several panic attacks and false alarms hadn’t exactly improved my mental state much.  

“Give me a moment, I’ll open the door.”  The shutter rose, barely high enough to let a normal pony through, and the door beyond opened slightly.  Crawling through, Melody had her riot shotgun pointed at my, well presumably anything that crawled through’s, head.  

“Red, are you immortal or something?”  She asked, apparently completely seriously.  

“Dunno.  Probably not.  You lot issue .50 cal rifles for a reason.”  She stared for a moment, then asked.  “Red, are you alright?”

“In the last two weeks, I’ve been forcibly mutated into a monster, injected with mind altering drugs, raped, burnt alive, lost a leg, beaten several ponies to near death, chainsawed far too many in half, shot a dozen more, incinerated another hundred or so, screamed myself into hysterics on multiple occasions, and was nearly eaten by a monster.  Oh, and spent two and a half hours thinking I was committing seppku so you two might make it.  No.  Emphatically, I am not alright.  Will I see this through to the end?  Fuck it, it's all I have left.”  

Melody seemed more worried at my tone than the words themselves.  I couldn’t even muster the willpower to sounds like I was cursing.  It came out like I was talking about a grocery list.  I really wanted a drink, med-x, buffout, something.  

Eventually I coughed and continued.  “So, what have you found?”  

“Not much.  There’s a terminal still up that controls the password system.  Not locked itself, funnily enough.  Been reading through that.  It looked like some of the Brotherhood made it back here and were trying to figure out how to get rid of the Specters.  We’ve been reading a lot from somepony called Knife Sharpener.”

“Anything interesting?”

“Looks like she thought that it was the lack of radiation around here that lets them live.  Even a small amount of radioactive dirt on power armor made it so the Specters stayed away.  Well, at least until they ripped the armor off with their claws.”

“Might explain why that one tried to skin me. Reduce the amount of radiation they need to digest.  Where did they come from?”

“A couple hours before the bombs fell, they came out of the subway tunnels, and started killing everything they could see.  At least according to a holotape the Brotherhood unit found.”  

“Subway tunnels?  Some sort of research faculty?  Bioweapons?  Zebra or Pony?  Why didn’t the bombing wipe them all out if they’re affected by radiation?”  I reflexively gather information, though I didn’t particularly care.  Easier to go with what popped into my head than actually think about it.  

“Knife Sharpener wasn’t sure about that.  There was a project by one of the Ministries to build a research lab down there, next to a high security mental facility, but there wasn’t anything on what they were doing.  So, probably pony.  I guess some took longer to get through the tunnels.”

“But why is there a radiation free area?”

“I wasn’t really sure about that.  The terminal said something about a firestorm.  You have any ideas?”  

Firestorm, first documented in incineration of the Zebra city of Coalton.  Occurs when a fire gets large enough to produce its own wind patterns, creating hurricane forces that drag anything towards the center of the blaze.  I thought idly, dragging it up out of grandpa’s public issue Analysis of Military Strategy, really need to get the classified version. 

“So, how does that mean?”  Melody said.  Huh, didn’t mean to say that out loud.  

“Well, when a balefire bomb goes off, it doesn’t produce much radiation itself.  Long lasting, at least.  But it makes dirt and stuff radioactive.”

“So, everything that was in the crater is spread out over the city?”

“Think so.  But a firestorm would drag all that dirt into the fire and concentrate it.  So, further in would be more radioactive, and stuff outside the winds would be radioactive.  There might be a band that isn’t.”  

“Which is where we are.”

“I guess?  They could have used less irradiating gems or a different design or something.  There’s a dozen possible explanations.  What matters is that the Specters are here now.”

“Why didn’t the dust blow around?”  

“Same reason the sky’s orange.”  Melody looked confused.  I sighed.  “Look, we’re in a depression, surrounded on all sides by mountains.  There’s nowhere for wind to flow.”  

“How do you know that?”  

“Book from my grandfather.  This was a great place to train Pegasus recruits, since it meant they could work on formations and crap without needing to worry about clouds and winds.  Main reason why they targeted similar depressions in Zebra lands.  Stopped dragons from getting the same training, and killed off trainees early.”  

“So, no winds, and a firestorm meant that there’s a band of radiation to keep the Specters trapped?”  

“Pretty much.  Still, radiation weakens over time. They’re going to get out eventually.”

“Fuck, those Specters would go everywhere.”  

“Pretty likely.”  

“Can ponies deal with them?”

I thought for a moment.  “Probably not.  I couldn’t at least.”  

“I guess that’s not the biggest problem.  Not like they’re going to get out tomorrow.  We just need to figure out how to get past them today. Oh, and you should probably talk to Judgment, she’s spent the last 30 minutes crying in the bathroom.”

“And you didn’t deal with that?”

“Crying ponies isn’t my thing.  I was trying to scout the place.”

I bit my tongue on “Scouting by yourself?” and “Great leadership choices.” and walked past Melody, looking for a crying pony.  

Half caught between marveling at the number of books and concern for Judgment, I alternated between rubbernecking and a three legged trot, but eventually I heard quiet sobbing.

“Judgment?”  I called out.  The subbing choked off for a moment, then started again, redoubled.  “Hey, Judgment, I’m alive.”

“Red!”  An orange colored blur wizzed across the room, nimbly darting around bookshelves.  She rammed into me, legs outstretched.  “Owww…” She moaned, rubbing her head.  

“You alright?” I asked, picking her up off the ground.  

“Yeah, yeah.  I didn’t think you’d be that hard.”  She finished rubbing her head, then clamped her legs around my remaining foreleg.  “How did you survive?”  She asked, drawing out the last word.  

“Erm… not totally sure.  I guess the Specters are attracted by noise, but I was definitely making some.”  Yep, panic attacks and desperately stumbling through piles of scrap metal aren’t exactly quiet.  “So, I guess it has to do with my Zebra Alchemy augmentations.” 

“Oh, that’s why you’re so big?”  

“Wait, you never asked?” 

“Didn’t seem that important.  I don’t really care about fashion, I just want the stats.”  

I stared bemused for a few seconds then shook my head.  “Well, I guess they don’t see me as a pony... or smell more likely,”  I said, thinking back to how the Specter had stopped trying to eat me alive when my blood covered most of the rotting pony goo from the Brotherhood of Steel corpse.  

“So, you’re safe here?”  Judgment asked, wide eyed.  

“I’m not so sure about that.  The Specter might have been confused by me but it was fine with fighting, and I think they’ll notice if I’m escorting two ponies.  And I’m not sure if I can get through the Stable-Tech building by myself.  I don’t think I can survive being turned into a goo pile.”

“I guess that makes sense.”  Judgment said, looking downcast, then brightened.  “But at least we’re better off than before.”
Ignoring my missing leg, I mussed up her mane with my muzzle.  “Sure, kid.”  I turned around and, Judgment still hugging my leg, headed off to find Melody.  


*** 


Eventually, we found Melody at what looked like the abandoned Brotherhood of Steel outpost.  Doors barred, two deactivated sentry turrets, tables pushed together with maps of Fillydalphia tacked down.  One, looked like the immediate area, had a number of pins and markers on top, as well as a confusing layering of transparencies.  Melody was off in a corner, examining a terminal.  

“You could have shouted back.”  Judgment said grumpily, still holding to my leg.  She had gotten off for the stairs, but otherwise… yeah, it had been a bit more of a workout than I expected.  

“Sorry, was reading these reports.”  She said, not sounding sorry at all.  

“Find anything useful?”  

“Looks like the Brotherhood of Steel was looking for a way to clear the area of Specters to go further in.  Some way of irradiating the entire area to drive them underground.”  I waited for her to continue.  

“Ok, what was it?”  I asked after a few seconds.  

“I don’t know.”  

“Why not?”  

“They’re not very clear…  Can you look?”  I stepped behind her and started reading the pages of technobabble.  

“I think they’re very clear.”  I said finally, “Just geared for somepony who has spent a decade learning about this stuff.  Well, it includes a list of references, might as well grab them and see if they’re a little simpler.”  

“Who includes a list of references in personal notes?”  Melody asked, face wrinkling in disgust.  

“Somepony who isn’t sure whether it will work and needs to cover their ass?”  Melody shrugged and turned back to the terminal, trying to tease out meaning.  

“Hey, Judgment?”  She looked up at me.  “Mind copying down those references into your Pip-Buck?  We have a number of books to track down.”  

Some copy paste later, we were ready to set out into the stacks.  But first…

“Melody!  If you turn on the turrets, make sure that you add us to the friendly list.”  She idly nodded, frowning in concentration.  


***


“Let’s split up, cover ground more quickly.  I’d imagine that there’d be a Pip-Buck to hardcopy printer around here somewhere.”  I looked around, more out of reflex than expecting to see anything useful.  “Probably on the ground floor.  Makes sense to put printing stuff there, where there’s more ponies than up in a corner office.  Let’s see if we can find a directory, too.”  

The lobby’s terminals were still in mostly functional condition.  They turned on, and allowed access to the locally stored directory, but getting data to and from the mainframe was a little shoddy.  Probably a break somewhere in the line and the checksum wasn’t always enough to repair the data.  

“Probably won’t be able to download the search function to your Pip-Buck, fortunately, the references have their Bookworm Reference Number next to them.  Do you know how those work?”

“No….” 

“Me either.  But I think the library is generally set out so that numbers increase from bottom to top, clockwise, and out.  At least from what I’ve seen as we’ve been going through.”

“Umm, so it starts at zero at the bottom, over there, and the higher and more to the right you go, the larger it gets?”

“Sort of?  You can also come back here and get the room and shelf number from the directory.”  Judgment’s face cleared up.

“I think I’ll do that.”  She said firmly.  

“Alright, your choice.”  I looked at the directory.  “Ok, printing is in room 1028, which is… over there.”  I said, sitting down then pointing.  We headed down the hallway, and found the room in question.  Looked like it hadn’t been opened in decades.  Guess survivors don’t generally need printing services.  

We split up the pile of papers in roughly half, and I started sorting them, as Judgment walked through the door.  

“Erm, Judgment, it’s probably going to be faster to sort them then just go in order.  Going back and forth to the directory will probably take a while.”

“I think I’ll try my way first.”  She said over her shoulder, before heading out. Alright, her choice.  


*** 


Bigger, smaller, split the difference.  Bigger, smaller, split the difference.  I thought idly as I tracked down the last of my assigned books.  The newspaper archives had been a bit of a hiccup, but the rest had worked pretty well so far.  Just keep reducing the search by half.  

“Hey, Judgment!  How’s the search going?”

“Pretty well.  Just a big library.  How is it for you?”

“Got a little lost in the newspapers, but I’m making good time.  On my last one.”  

“What?! How? Did you have a smaller pile or something?”  Judgment demanded.  

“Erm, I just need to go from bottom to top.  Then I just look for the general place the number should be.  I’ve gotten pretty good at that.  What have you been doing?”  

“Going back to the directory for each one.”  

“Why not just get all the locations first?”

“That’ll take so long though.”

“You’ll do it eventually.  Saves the walking.”

“I guess.”  She trailed off and sighed.  “Do you mind showing me how you’re doing it?”

“Sure.  First sort all the papers in order… no, that way’s slow.  What you should do is sort them into smaller piles then just compare the top two.  Makes it a lot quicker.  Like this.”  I quickly restacked the papers and got them in order.  “Then you look for the BRN and keep cutting it in half.”

“What?”  

“Oh, sorry.  Look for BRN that’s bigger and one that’s smaller, and go to the middle.  And do it again.  That gives you the direction, and you keep doing it.  Its really easy if you stick to the main staircase.”

“But couldn’t that mean that I’m walking past the book a few times?”

“You can keep looking on the way, but this stops you from wasting time on looking at each shelf or something.”  

“That doesn’t seem like it would be very fast...”

“Well, that’s your book.”  I sat down and pointed.  “And there’s mine,”  pointing at another.  

“Ugh.  What’s your cutie mark again?”

“No idea.”  I said, ignoring a long time hurt.  I grabbed my book and headed out.  Judgment stared at the weird pattern of lines, squares, and triangles on my flank, peaking through the slowly dirtying bandages.


*** 


I was trying to figure out how the pins and marks on the map related to the references when Judgment finally made it back, straining with a saddlebag stuffed with books.  I watched her try to force it over a pile of rubble for a few seconds, before crossing over and picking it up for her.  

“Thanks, telekinesis gave out after I got it up the stairs.”  She gasped, before laying on her back panting.  “Moving all your gear and this all day…. Not fun.”

I carried the bag over to the table, and started pulling out the books.  Then I started pulling out ones that seemed relevant.  

I didn’t really care how the Brotherhood of Steel’s mass irradiation method worked, just how to do it, so any book where the last third was citations was out.  Any newspaper clipping without the words “radiation,” “magic,” “mysterious sickness,” or “industrial accident.”  was out.  Any military manual not dealing with explosives, sabotage, or low level technical skills was out.  

Which didn’t cut out that much at all, unfortunately.  A couple books on magical radiation studies, a few newspaper clippings on the subway system, a reference book for military map symbols, which I put next to the densely layered map.  
I decided to start with the newspaper clippings, since they were the shortest. 

Improperly filtered battery exposes workers to high dosages of radiation.  Steel mills ordered to overhaul magic recapture system.  Magic smog chokes our fair city.  That appeared to be general trend.  Issues with how the steel mills turned magic power into heat, and how radiation tended to follow the burning impurities up the smokestacks.  Didn’t seem too useful for us.  

Guessing from the heavily simplified articles, it looked like the batteries were used up quickly and spewed a high, but short lasting, dose.  Unless we had somepony to actually keep replacing batteries, not too helpful.  

I decided to go through the places referenced in the books and see what was there.  Mostly expansions on what the newspaper clippings had.  One was a report on the overhaul, noting that a mostly phased out, but still certified, filter system appeared to be deteriorating faster than normal.  Another was an archived sales report from a filtering company.  Huh, looked like Equestrian Steel purchased a few of those rapidly deteriorating filters.  Urban planning report on steel mills, discussing moving specific mills to allow for more housing to be built.  I looked from the planning report to the map, and started cross referencing who owned what.  

And so on.  It seemed that the Brotherhood of Steel paladin had figured out how a way of using the idling, but still polluting, steel mills cover the entire city in a low level field of radiation.  Probably would make ponies go insane quicker, but… well, at least there wouldn’t be monsters trying to kill everypony.  Well, non-pony monsters at least.  That’s a positive.  

And the military manual that was left was titled “The Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” with a reference to removing the regulator on a spark battery, allowing a soldier to create a terrain denial system for a couple days.  With the note that the same process worked on larger spark breeder batteries, though with less consistent effects.  

Certain phrases I don’t particularly like.  “Less consistent effects” in a book on how to build bombs is one of them.

“Hey Melody, did you find a reference to a spark breeder battery?”  I asked, starting to arrange the books and articles in a pattern I could brief off of. 

“Yeah, there’s one right here.”  She said, struggling to pull it out from beneath the computer and dropping it heavily on the desk.  I cringed, but it looked like the regulator was still intact.  I let a breath out.  

“Ok, I think I know what their plan was.”  Melody and Judgment both perked up, surprised.  “It’s not that complex, but I’m not sure how much you’ll like it.”





Footnote: Maximum Level Reached.
> Chapter 11
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“This is so… so… stupid.”  Judgment complained, sitting on the back of an abandoned wagon we found in the rear of the library, trying to avoid touching the spark breeder battery.  

“I don’t disagree.”  Melody said, checking her riot shotgun.  

“Yeah, I’m not a fan either, but its probably our best bet.” I said, back in my armor, crudely repaired.  

“Wait, if all of us don’t like it, why are we doing it?” Judgment asked.

“Because I probably have a few days before infection sets in and I’m bedridden, we’re running low on food and water since the library was eaten clean by whoever hid there from the bombs, and I don’t think any of us are smart enough to figure out how to make it past all the Specters and back out.  And we don’t know how effective whatever the alchemy did is at keeping Specters away from you.”  I said.  “We’re hitting the deadline quickly.”  

Judgment nodded slowly, and screwed her face up in forced resolve.  

Melody used her magic to flick a switch and open up the delivery entrance, letting light onto the  weapons cache the Brotherhood of Steel had abandoned there.  Few laser rifles, a few mines, plasma pistol, and a fucking balefire egg launcher, with a half dozen eggs.  

None of us had felt comfortable enough with energy weapons to replace our main arsenal, and I really really didn’t feel comfortable with the mildly radioactive balefire egg launcher.  Didn’t feel like knocking down buildings.  I idly wondered what somepony would think about the eggs just being left out, rather than packed away in their protective foam.  

Well, no time like the present. I thought, and started hauling the wagon forward, along the route Melody was double checking against the map, towards Equestrian Steel.  Thankfully, it was heading generally towards the Stable-Tech building, even if the library had taken us in the wrong direction.  Guess being in the middle of a bunch of steel mills meant that negotiations for the Stables was easier.  

The streets were... dirty.  Everywhere else, the streets had been cleaned, cleared of rubble that could be used as cover.  Here, the streets were littered with rusted wagon wrecks, concrete barriers, piles of skeletons.  All left alone except by rain.  

Occasionally, I could spot the occasional streak of smeared red, where somepony had been dragged through their own blood.  

“Keep a lookout.”  I said nervously, and probably unnecessarily.  Judgment was on edge, trying to take everything in at once, aided by a pack of Mint-als, Melody was trying to do close range, and I was supposed to be the secret weapon.  Though, not sure if the Specters were sapient, so keeping something secret wasn’t necessarily necessary.   But still better to be paranoid.  

I kept pulling the wagon, trying to get a feel for the strange half step I needed to do to keep my balance on three legs.  The tourniquet seemed to be holding, and Judgement had rigged the battle saddle to work properly, but it was still taking a lot of attention to not trip and fall.  

"You ok, Red?"  Judgement asked from the wagon.  

I took a deep breath, and tried to blink the dirt out of my eyes.  "Yeah."  OK, you can still move, you're still functional.  Keep going.  Deal with this later.

It was harder than I expected, pushing through the rubble.  Stuff kept getting caught in the spokes.  Still, as long as it wasn't from the other wagons, it wasn't too hard to force.  Though the snap of breaking bone echoed ominously throughout the urban canyon.  

It was strangely hushed, aside from that.  The sound of gunfire had died down from after we had pushed the Colts out.  

I kept walking, and a familiar smell wafted by.  I wanted to panic, to run away, just like I had all those times getting to the library.  I looked back, and Judgement and Melody were looking around frantically.  

Swallowing, I controlled myself, and focused on keeping moving.  After two kilometers of walking past the Specters and being fine, we were hoping that we wouldn't be bothered now.  

...still one had nearly killed me before, and I'd barely been able to do anything back.  And it had only stopped after I'd bled everywhere.  I shook my head, took another deep breath, and kept moving.  

The smell of rotting mint was going from a hint to a presence, definitely there and getting stronger.  

A few minutes later, Judgment hissed “Ok on the right.  It's… flickering?  In my E.F.S.  It can’t get a solid lock.”

“Ok, ignore it as long as it doesn’t attack.”  I replied, trying to figure out how to go faster than my slow three-legged walk.  

“It’s gone.”  Judgment said a few seconds later.  “Vanished back up the street.  This might be working.”  

“Melody, you have the Jet ready?”  I asked, taking a left.  She muttered something that sounded like an affirmative.  The journey continued.  Rotting mint thickening into a presence, then Judgment would find one of them on her EFS.  It would linger for a few seconds then vanish.  Once we made it to the steel mill, we’d have to split up.

Eventually, we reached the steel mill in question.  The doors were locked, and they were properly installed for once.  Damnit.  There was a large rolling door nearby, would be more than big enough for all of us and the wagon.

"Any idea how we can get through here?"  Melody asked, looking at the featureless metal sheeting.  

"Chainsaw?"  I offered.  She shook her head.  

"Could we levitate it up?  Could Red lift it?"  Judgement asked.  

I grimaced.  It was hard enough standing up on three legs.  Wasn't sure if I could actually grip the metal and push.  Still no use in not trying.  Getting onto my haunches, I tried to worm my way underneath...

"Red!"  Melody said.  "I smell mint."

"Alright, working."  I replied, my hoof fumbling at the crack.  

"Goddesses, what the fuck is that thing?!"  Melody screamed, firing behind us.  Uncontrolled panic fire.  Not going to hit anything, but might keep something away.  Judgement wheeled around, and started firing too.  Controlled, good.  "Get the door open!  Use your fucking chainsaw!" 

Ears ringing, it took me a few seconds to realize realize what she meant, but I got it soon enough.  

“Steel sheet metal, meet tungsten carbide.”  I said, revving the chainsaw.  A few swings later, and a fuck ton of sparks, I'd cut a triangle into the grate.  Judgement and Melody hopped out and darted through, while I started pulling the wagon along as quickly as I could.    

"Contact!"  One of them shouted, as I ducked my head through.  More panic fire.  

"Take a fucking Steady if you can't stay calm!"  I shouted at Melody, though I didn't immediately see her. I looked around wildly.  

Melody and Judgment were in the corner of the room, Judgment firing with Mint-al improved accuracy, while Melody moving with that crispness of a Jet induced high, still huffing from a Steady dispenser.  Both were blasting at a Specter as it tried to dart in and kill them.  
It paused, hiding behind cover, as Melody and Judgment reloaded in turn.  30 meters from me, full view.  Time to try it out. I aimed my flamethrower and triggered it, shooting a good three second spurt.  

I couldn’t see through the spray but Judgment yelled “Specter down!”  I stopped spraying.  

What remained of the Specter was thrashing on the ground, it's lean form becoming distorted as tumors grew inside its body.  Thank the goddesses that guess was right.

  so I kept pulling the wagon towards a ramp heading down into the maintenance spaces.  Melody and Judgment ran together, heading up a flight of stairs towards a series of gantries, towards the overmare’s booth.  Thank you architecture plans. 

Planning to get to the mill hadn’t exactly been smooth, we were really hoping that the Specters would just ignore us thanks to whatever mutation made me taste bad, but I definitely felt more comfortable about actions inside.  Melody and Judgment would get to the controls.  I would sabotage the fast-breeder battery and get it ready to switch in the generator below.  They turn off the mill, I switch them, then they restart.  Radiation levels tick upwards until the breeder battery dies, which should be in a couple centuries.  Still not sure if one factory is enough for the entire city, but should be enough to be able to get us to the Stable-Tech building.  

So, wait until the Specters leave, or die, or whatever, go to the building, grab the AI, and get the hell out.  Should be easy.  

I kept moving, bringing the wagon with me into the maze of pipes underneath the mill.  At the center was the powerplant for the entire building.  I wasn’t really sure of a good maze solving algorithm, so I stuck with trying to go up and right in about even amounts.  

Dead end.  Loop.  Dead end.  I hate mazes.  I thought, trying to drag a wagon through what was clearly designed for much  smaller pony traffic.  Which gave me an idea.  

I dropped down and tried to get a clear view through the pipes.

Jackpot. At normal pony height, little signs pointing through the maze.  Obviously designed to make it easier for maintenance ponies to get to what they needed.  Left, right, left, left, right.  I followed the signs, and rapidly headed towards the center.  

Going around two pillars, the actual forges sticking through to above, I ended up at a complex looking mass of wires and terminals, with a large battery in the middle.  Looks like it. I pulled on a few knots within mouth range, quick releases we rigged up since I couldn’t undo the buckles on my own.  

I tugged out “The Simple Sabotage Field Manual” and flipped it to the bookmarked page.  Ok… this shouldn’t be too hard.  

A few minutes of fumbling later, I was wishing for telekinesis or hands.  Or even another leg.  Still not as if- Ok, the mill turned off, so I was the one slowing stuff down now.  And I started smelling a lot of mint.  

“RED!”  Judgment, I think, shouted.  I took a deep breath, trying not to fumble or fuck up.  Gunshots weren’t helping me stay calm.  Fuck, they’re being attacked. I thought, than banished it.  Me freaking out wouldn’t help anything.  

Pop this off, break off this connector, pull out this gem, and should be done.  I finished disabling the filter, thankful for the practice on the Brotherhood of Steel’s weapon cache.  Somepony would be really happy when they found that cache of field overcharged battery packs.  Unlatching the old battery, it popped out, and I shoved the new one in, locking it into place.  

“IT’S IN!” I shouted, and turned tail, abandoning the wagon in the maze. Less than a minute later, several  I got back upstairs and gagged on the smell of rotting mint.  Whatever it was, the mill shutting down, the gunfire, or the smell of ponies, a near army of Specters had shown up.  Looked like Judgment was keeping them at bay, they seemed to be wary of well aimed automatic fire, but that wouldn’t last forever.  

If you took styrofoam, and put it into alcohol or gasoline, the styrofoam would dissolve, making the fuel into a jelly.  If you took something and put it near a radioactive source for long enough, elements inside that material would eventually become radioactive.  If you took styrofoam that had been holding radioactive balefire eggs for 50 or so years and used that to jellify alcohol, what did you get?  A flamethrower fuel that burns hotter, shoots further, and is radioactive.  

Fuck you Specters!

I started shooting, spraying radioactive flames across the entirety of the entrance, reaching a good 65 meters, most of the way to the other wall.  Didn’t want to let the Specters just tear their way through.  One full tank down, and there was a solid wall of flame that was probably making Judgment’s Pip-Buck tick.

It certainly wasn’t agreeing with my lungs.  

Coughing, I walked towards the flames, trying to pop in a new tank.  I heard something from the control room, but couldn’t make it out.  Still, the growing roar of air being forced through the forges meant that the system was back online and drawing from the damaged spark breeder cell.  Probably.  Fuck, I wish I had a radio or something.  

Beyond the flames, the Specters were darting to and fro, probing the radioactive fire.  I let off a few short blasts, keeping them back and recovering a few parts that were starting to burn down.  Alcohol, good for incineration, not good for area denial, burns far too quickly.  Seeing the wall sputter and die, I started spraying at specific Specters, just covering wherever they were near.  Not very smart, are they? I thought as I trapped one against a wall.  Then it started climbing, its claws easily sinking through the concrete.  Fuck…

I looked up, and saw a number of broken windows, fallen masonry, and a sagging roof.  

Not sure how to deal with that.  The flamer wouldn’t shoot that far, and hitting them with a bolt action rifle wasn’t going to be easy.  Unpredictable targets and a slow rate of fire wasn’t ideal.  And it wasn’t as if I had that much ammo.  Only…. fifteen shots.  Great.   Fan-fucking-tastic.  

The plan was for Melody and Judgment to finish restarting the mill and remove the filters, just in case they hadn’t deteriorated entirely, then all three of us would retreat until the radiation level was high enough that we would be safe.  But we’d sort of counted on a clear place to hide out.  They’d need to find it and get me.  In the meantime, I had a horde of Specters to deal with.  

The fire had burnt down enough that I could see through the smoke.  A few Specters were darting around, but mist had vanished.  I kept flicking between the metal cargo door and the damaged roof.

  Please don’t just tear through.  I thought, as nervous leg twitches kept flicking my battle saddle between flamer and rifle, roughly in time with my darting eye.  

“TARGET!” I shouted, a Specter appeared in one of the windows.  Flicked to the rifle, took a breath and shot.  It roared and disappeared back through the window.  Didn’t see blood, and I was hoping that a .50 caliber round would tear them in two, but, well, take what you’ll get.  At least it made them retreat.  I automatically worked the action.  

Something made me turn around, and I saw a Specter practically flying towards the Overmare’s room.  I shot again, and it froze, lips curling back from the too pony face, fangs practically glowing from the flames.  Don’t move. I thought, flicking over to flamer.  It bunched up, preparing to launch itself at me, when I got the flamer online.  It leaped, and met a spray of radioactive flame going in the other direction.  Screaming, it started beating at itself, seeming to dissolve where the jellied alcohol stuck.  I belatedly realized that I should have moved to the side and tried to jump. Partial success, rather than hitting me full on, the Specter crashed into me like a freight train, and sent me spinning.

“Yep, that’s a broken bone.”  I said to myself, one of my rear legs wasn’t responding, and I really didn’t want to look.  Ok, if do this, I can spin.  If I kick like that, I can change, and I can still shoot.  Mobility kill doesn’t mean out of the fight.  

I nodded to myself, and rotated to face the door.  Oh, that’s where it clawed through. I thought idly, looking at a hunk of concrete torn out of the wall.  I sprayed a burst at it, hoping the lingering radioactivity would dissuade any other Specters from that specific direction.  

Wait…  I realized that I hadn’t made sure that Specter was dead.  I hurriedly spun in place and saw the Specter, eyes narrowed and angry.  It was slowly rising, its flesh cratered by the fire.  It looked off balance and wrong, so I finished the job.  Ash piles only can look off balance, not wrong.  My brain shoved the image of too small ash piles to the forefront of my brain, and I gagged.  Would have vomited if there was more in my stomach.  Yeah, shouldn’t joke about that.  

Leaving the burning corpse behind me, trying to ignore the smoke and persistent cough,  I turned to the door, just in time to see a Specter pause by the guttering flames.  It darted across just in time to get a full blast in the face.  This one started screaming in pain and batting at itself.  I held down the trigger until it stopped moving.  

Running out of fuel quickly.  I thought, changing to another canister, pressing the canister between my leg and my body, twisting uncomfortably to make it work.  Really regretting that initial flame blast.  Need more fuel.  

And it continued.  

It wasn’t so much that I was keeping the Specters back, I just made it so that going inside wasn’t something they were willing to do.  Bursts of fire drove them back, except for the few stupid enough to hang around.  Rifle fire kept them off the roof.  Still, I was exchanging ammo for seconds.  The flamer ran dry.  The rifle followed shortly after.  All the while, the radiation level kept ticking up.  Definitely enough to make the Specters feel off, but they weren’t dissolving like the ones I hit with the radioactive napalm.  

Tugging with my teeth against the the straps, I dropped the battle saddle on the ground.  Only weapon that still worked was the chainsaw, which I hooked onto my armor.  

Alright, maybe a hundred meters.  You can do this.  You've dealt with worse.  I reassured myself, looking at the distance, littered with scrap metal, broken glass, and other debris.  

No use putting it off.  I gritted my teeth, and lifted myself with my forelimb, scrabbling with my rear limb to make it slightly easier.  I heaved, and landed, suppressing a scream.  Leg and burnt flesh.  Not a good combination.  And I'd moved maybe 20 centimeters.  

Fuck this.  Heave, scrabble, land.  

I shouldn't be here. Heave, scrabble, land.  Jagged scrap metal tore through my bandages, and I started bleeding on the floor.  

Fuck me with Celestia's forehooves. Heave, scrabble, land. 

I Heave, scrabble, land. Glass crunched underneath me, and I could feel the pressure against my ribs.  I refused to look at it.  

SHOULDN'T Heave, scrabble, land. Slid out on a pile of spent brass Judgement left behind.  The glass shards shattered again.  I could hear whistling, and breathing started getting harder.  

BE Heave, scrabble, land. 

HERE  Heave, scrabble, land. 

Panting, I looked at the stairs, blinking tears of pain and frustration out of my eyes.  

Fuck it.  I'm already dead.  My body just refuses to admit it. I gritted my teeth and pushed.  Heave, scrabble, land. Heave, scrabble, land. Heave, scrabble, land. FUCK

I snarled and planted one leg up, heaving myself into a nearly standing position, leaning against the banister, looking up at the three flights of stairs.

"I HATE STAIRS!"  I screamed into the uncaring air.  Alright, front leg. Rear leg.  lean.  Just keep doing it.  Can't be worse than that.

I dragged myself up into the catwalks, placing myself between the outside and the other two, chainsaw at the ready.  Like that would make a fucking difference.    

I waited, seemed like Specters were gathering around the door.  Several darted trough as a group, making a beeline towards the stairs.  They shied away from the foundries, guess the radiation was high enough there, and flowed up the gantries towards me.  As they climbed through the cloud of radioactive smoke filling the upper half of the room, their jerkiness changed.  Rather than being intimidating and a byproduct of speed and control, it seemed like something was hurting them.  

Good, I’ve been coughing up blood here for the last five minutes, something else ought to suffer.  Spots of bright red covered the wall and my muzzle.  Lungs really didn’t like radioactivity.  

Still, they kept coming, and I revved my chainsaw to meet the first one.  It raised its claws to swipe, and I tried to catch it on the chainsaw’s body.  Which worked.  What didn’t work was that they cut right through the casing, breaching the industrial strength spark battery, which exploded. 

I landed against a guard rail, and heard something crack.  Ears ringing, head musty, I couldn't focus.  My ears and nose felt wet, and I tried to figure out what was still working.  

These combat chemicals are good stuff, I thought, as I lay in a crumpled heap.  Can’t even feel my leg anymore.  

I looked behind me, every vertebrae aching like it had been pounded with a ball-peen hammer.  

Oh…  that’s not good.  

My back was twisted around the rail.  Serious spinal injury.  And the blast caved in my chestplate.  I couldn't cough, only gasp.  The blast had shredded other parts of my armor.  

Oh, that’s what a spleen looks like.

I tried moving my legs.  

Nope.  

My foreleg.   

Ok, that’s broken too.  

The radiation seemed to be really ramping up.  My eye made out the Specter shambling and falling apart as it tried to flee.  I tried to blink the blood out of my eye, but it was running faster than I could fix.  I gave up and kept my eye closed.  

My face feels mushy.

I thought after a few minutes of waiting to see what would kill me first, radiation, blood loss, or shock.  The shock seemed less likely as time went on, and it looked like the super restoration potion had regenerated my clotting factors, so, death by radiation.  Great.  This seemed more likely when my face fell off.  Guess it was already weakened by being torn half off to the bone, and the radiation weakened the rest of the connective tissues.  Just slid off, held on by a couple tendons in my neck.  

Now I couldn't keep my eyes closed.  

I buried my face in my foreleg, trying to ignore the spreading mushy feeling.  Trying to fall asleep. Trying to let it end.  
It felt pretty peaceful, except for the gasping.  And the dripping blood.  And the roar of the mill.  

I’ve been meaning to learn inner peace anyway I thought, before falling into a shock.
  
An eternity later, I heard something, couldn’t make out what, even the mill was muffled.  A telekinetic field surrounded me and lifted me off the ground, causing most of my remaining exposed skin to slide to the ground with a wet thump.  I couldn’t see where they were taking me.  Eye stopped working properly.  

Eventually, I came to a stop on something more forgiving than a metal gantry.  I felt more than heard an argument,  Well, I felt the screaming, the back and forth, then several pinpricks into my neck.  

Lines of fire radiated from those pinpricks, filling my entire body with an unholy, cold rage.  I snorted, flinging clotted blood everywhere, and smelt food in front of my face. Lots of food.  Suddenly, I was starving, I needed to gorge myself until I burst.  I started eating.  I didn’t stop.  


*** 


An eon later, I became aware of a breeze.  It felt nice, going over my entire coat, soothing.  

Wait, a breeze?  I jerked up from where I was laying and looked around wildly. Open ground, all around.  GET TO COVER!

My brain felt like it was packed with cotton, it was hard to process. Wait, my coat?  

“Red!”  somepony hugged me hard, I blinked trying to refocus my eyes.  Wait…

“Judgment?  Why am…. What hap… The fuck?”  I stammered out trying to process too much.  Wagon, Melody, Judgment, two someponys in power armor, missing my battle saddle, heading towards a line of mountains.  I was… fuck.  “MELODY!”  I shouted.  

“Red… try to calm down.”

“Melody, there is one thing I’ve been telling you not to do since we met.  I should be dead.  Something doesn’t add up.”

“Well, erm… I sort of told Judgment that, and she said that… well, she decided that since this quest was helping her, and you weren’t in a position to say no… well…”

I fell back onto the pile of supplies and muttered “I don’t even get to choose my own death...”  Melody and Judgment exchanged a glance, both confused and worried.  “Alright, thanks for saving me.  I guess.  If we’re not in Fillydalphia, I’m guessing Stable-Tech was good?”

“Yeah, that’s how we met these two, actually.”  

“Paladin Celery Salt, at your service.”  The pony pulling the wagon said,  “That’s Paladin Pot Shot.”  She nodded at the pony to our flank, apparently acting as a guard.  

“Why are they helping us?”

“Well, they came to investigate the sudden rise in radiation.  After we gave them the recon team’s research, they called for reinforcements and helped us clear Stable-Tech.  Sounds like the Brotherhood of Steel is making big moves into Fillydalphia.”  Melody replied.  

Judgment piped in, “DJ Pon3 has been talking all about us on the radio.  We’re heroes for getting rid of the Colts and saving Equestria from the Specters.  Sounds like a few other groups are doing the same with other steel mills, so the Specters will only be able to live in the subways.  Shouldn't be hard to clear those!  Just spray rad goop down there or something.  ”  

“Huh, sounds like I missed a lot.”  

“You were… distracted.  Not surprising, considering how many injections you needed to heal up.”  Melody said.  “I used up everything I had in my medical kit, and most of what I hid in the wagon.”

“Please don’t talk about that.  How long was I out?”  

“About four days.  And out isn’t right.  You were very energetic.”  Judgment giggled.  

I reflexively grimaced and felt my stomach turn.  I didn’t want to think about the implications.  


*** 


The rest of the trip was pretty boring.  Judgment was trying out version 2.0 of S.T.A.T.S.  Melody and Celery Salt chatted about the 3rd Experimental.  I guessed that Celery Salt had training as an intelligence officer.  She asked me a few questions, but I stopped being a reliable source after talking about the type of punishment that alchemy enhanced ponies could stomach.  

I mostly hung around with Pot Shot, getting used to actually having a functional body.  Bi-ocular vision was particularly strange.  Quiet was nice.  

We didn't talk about so many things.  

We didn't talk about how many ponies I killed. 

We didn't talk about how how many ponies I burnt alive.  

We didn't talk about how I beat the shit out of somepony because I could.  

We didn't talk about how I killed someone on suspicion for being a cannibal.  

We didn't talk about how I left a band of raiders alive.  

We didn't talk about how I lost control again.  How I used the 3rd brain damaging drugs again.  How I should have died there.  

We didn't talk.   
It was great.  

We just walked.  And walked.  And walked.  And tried not to think.  


***


The night before we reached the Pass, an eyebot snuck up on me while I was relieving myself.  

For once, it wasn’t playing patriotic music, but hung around until I finished.  

“Excuse me, but you’re Red Tree, right?”  A metallic voice asked, coming from the bot.  

“What do you want?”  I was getting pretty good at not thinking.  The eyebot barely penetrated the fog I built.  

It paused, thoughtful for a few seconds, “Aren’t you surprised that somepony can talk through one of these?”

I shrugged.  “One bug every hundred lines.  One exploit every 100 bugs.  Not as if they’re getting patched anymore.”

“Oh, that’s fair.  Well, I’m Watcher.”  The awkward silence lengthened  until the robotic voice coughed and continued.  “I’m trying to find ponies that are trying to save the wasteland.  And, well I heard about you three on the radio, and I was hoping that -”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“No.  Whatever you were going to say.  No.  I’m never working with those two again,  I’m not a good pony.  The rest of the world can burn for all I care.  You putting faith in us is putting faith in a foal-killer, a slaver, and a brainwashed kid.  If we never meet again, it would still be too soon.”  

“That’s a little harsh.  You helped save Equestria from the Specters.”

“If I turn into an alicorn, I’ll accept that I saved Equestria.  Right now, I’m just a mutated pony not willing to take the easy way out.”  

“I see… well, I hope you reconsider.  You three could do great things in the Wasteland.”

I shook my head.  We were done.  The eyebot beeped, then started playing music again.  It eventually wandered off.


***  


That morning, the Brotherhood of Steel paladins left, and I took over the wagon.


***  


A day later, the door code worked, and Judgment got back inside her Stable.  


***


A day after that, Melody walked through the Lobster’s Pot’s front doors, certain that she had a good enough excuse to be welcomed with open arms.  


***


One more day, and I ended up back at the farm.  My dad was out there, aiming the .308 at my head.  

I swallowed.  “Hey Dad.”

“Red?  What happen-, how did-” 

“We should be clearing the southern field today, right?”

“Erm… well, we don’t have the ponypower, I mean, erm…. Yes.”

“Alright.  Mind unpacking the wagon?”  I pulled the quick releases and headed off into the fields.  The yoke was in the barn, a little small, but I knew I could make it work.  

And that’s exactly what I did.  Not the easy way out.