Chapter One - Hexed

"It's a curse I tells ya."

The click a lock gives when it's tickled open with the proper application of a bobby pin is my favorite sound. Sure, the lock I opened was on my hooflocker and I have the key – but a mare has to keep in practice. Besides, right now it's safer to stick to breaking into my own things even if it isn't nearly as much fun. I checked the clock on my PipBuck again; still plenty of time to waste before the first round of punitive duties. At least the Overmare had finally let me out of the security cell. After a week of nothing to do and no pony to talk to I'd been ready to tear my own mane out. After a while it felt like the walls would start talking back to me and it just isn't possible to sleep for a week straight. I tried.

Of course, being let out was just exchanging one kind of cell for another, but at least this cell had my meager collection of stuff. I could go anywhere I pleased that wasn't off-limits, but I had a shadow with even less of a sense of humor than the Overmare.

So I might have gone a little too far. I like to think it would have taken a few days for her to notice that all the pictures on the walls of her quarters were upside down. The notes I left in anything with a lock on it were probably a bit too much; but honestly – a week in a tiny room barely big enough to lie down in for one little prank? Overreaction much?

Okay – maybe the latest in a long history of pranks. Fritter is still convinced her filly's griffin doll is possessed and stalking her – priceless. What's the point of having special talents if you don't get to use them?

And that there, is the crux of my problem.

The stable is, well, everything. The only thing waiting outside the door is a radioactive nightmare and slow, horrifying death. Most ponies' talents are related in some way to the health and upkeep of the stable and the ponies inside it. Socket Wrench is a genius with machines and will be head of maintenance someday. Blueberry Strudel, my shadow, is good at glaring and keeping the peace – and has the humor of a bent tin can. The Overmare is good at locking ponies in tiny rooms for a week, and running the stable I suppose. I'm good at not being noticed and sticking my hooves where they don't belong; some ponies deem those to be useless talents.

Sometimes I'm inclined to agree. I could steal everything not nailed down, but what would be the point? Everypony has more or less the same Stable-Tec approved belongings and they would know who had taken their stuff. So I try to amuse myself instead, and once in a while I manage to amuse other ponies too. Or at least one pony. Socket loves my exploits. Making her giggle is worth being locked up and almost worth having to scrub the recyclers.

I can honestly say Socket is the closest thing I have to an actual friend in the stable. She's the only one who doesn't see me as a horrible insult to unicorns everywhere, stable fifteen, and the goddesses themselves. It's my magic, or more specifically, my telekinesis. Even if a unicorn doesn't have a lot of magic, at least they still have their telekinesis. Mine is horribly, pathetically weak and the only spells I know suit my talents – which is to say, are useless to the stable.

My PipBuck chirped at the same time a hoof pounded on my door. Time to go. I put on my rattiest, dirtiest utility barding. At the end of the day it would be going into an incinerator and I would be scrubbing unspeakable muck out of my coat. Nastiness aside, it was still worth it for the look on the Overmare's face when she found my notes.

"Mornin' Strudel," I gave the blue stallion a bright grin after opening my door. It was time for the midnight shift, not that time of day really matters when the halls are always lit in the same off-yellow that is supposed to mimic sunlight.

He scowled at me in return and nodded down the hall; he hates his name. Everypony calls him Tack. Nothing gets past him, not even me – he's that sharp. I still call him by his name because he's my foster brother and he will always be Strudel to me.

I nodded hello to Berry Sparkle as I ambled my way toward maintenance. She looked away and hurried past. That hurt, even my favorite foster mother was snubbing me now.

I don't know my mother or father, no pony in stable fifteen does except maybe the Overmare, who has access to all the stable records. The stable is mother and father. It provides for us, it protects us from the horrors of outside; its maneframe teaches us everything we need to know and tracks the bloodlines to keep us from breeding too closely. Foals are raised in pairs by foster parents who change every few years – the whole stable is our family.

Down, down and more down from the living quarters to the maintenance levels. I glanced longingly at the air vents we passed, but that was not to be anymore. Not only did I have a shadow that would pounce on me if I so much as looked over long at one of the grates, but the Overmare had had the ducts trapped with flashbangs and foam grenades just for me. No more hide-and-seek in the air system with security, and next to rearranging furniture while ponies were out of their rooms, it was my favorite game. Security always won in the end, I can't hide from my own PipBuck and its locator tag.

The maintenance levels were a tangled mess of exposed pipes, grated floors and locked storerooms full of crates. I had been through them all, except the ones with terminals or electronic locks. There were quite a few of those frustrating doors that would not be tickled open by a screwdriver and bobby pin. No lock left unpicked! Someday, someday I'd get a look inside those rooms.

"Whisper!" A yellow unicorn mare fairly bounced to see me. "I'm so glad the Overmare finally let you out. How did you get into her rooms? You have to tell me."

Strudel stomped impatiently. So it was going to be like that, huh?

I sighed. "I'll tell you later, have to work now."

"Oh, right," all of Socket's bounciness evaporated. "Recycler four is clogged again – I think the last shift left it that way just for you. I'll get the tools and you can meet me there."

I tried not to think about what the muck I was chipping at consisted of, it was just a black slimy mass in the bluish glow of my PipBuck's light. At least the mask cut down on the smell. My horn was starting to throb from the effort of wielding the little pick hammer against the clog above me. I would probably have to just dig at it with my hooves before much longer. What were ponies putting through the system anyway – scrap metal?

Usually I considered my small stature to be an advantage. It made crawling through the air system and hiding in nooks much easier, but it also meant I could fit in these pipes. If I were a little larger this job would have been passed on to somepony else, a foal probably. Oh well, might as well wish for wings and a bigger horn.

The mass gave slightly and I felt a splatter of warm slime on my foreleg accompanied by a sucking gurgle. Oh – oh no.

Those – those fuckers! They were supposed to purge both sides of a blockage from the shut-offs!

I started to shimmy back down the pipe toward the access hatch. The patter quickly became a stream. My picking at the mass had given the pressure of the liquid behind it a weak spot to work on. If I was lucky I'd get out before the whole thing broke loose.

Have I mentioned how my luck usually goes?

My ears twitched at the gurgling rumble coming down the pipe. I took a deep breath and shut my eyes tight as a deluge of partially reprocessed… stuff washed over me.

Strudel danced away from the spreading pool around the access hatch, looking decidedly green. I slopped forward a few steps, ripped the mask off and retched until I couldn't see straight. At least I hadn't bothered with breakfast.

"What was that sound?" I heard Socket gag.

"Got the clog," I spat on the floor. Bile and recycler sludge don't mix well.

Okay, heaving again.

The slime coating I could deal with, it would wash out eventually, but the taste – sweet goddesses the taste.

"Cold!" I sputtered as Socket sprayed me with a fire hose.

Strudel just looked on as Socket finished hosing me down and went to scrubbing me with Abronco detergent and a harsh brush. My barding was a lost cause, but that had been the plan from the start anyway.

"I can clean myself, y'know," the yellow mare seemed determined to scrub the gray out of me. I was fairly sure I'd already returned to my normal color.

"It's all my fault," she scrubbed my mane into a sudsy, tangled mess. "I should have checked to make sure the pipe was empty before letting you in there. You could have been killed!"

The prospect and near reality of drowning in bilge muck was not something I wanted to contemplate over much. Like nearly being chopped into little unicorn bits by a duct fan or – well, there were places in a stable that ponies were never meant to go skulking through and I'd found a few of them. Mostly I just tried to ignore those near disasters.

I grinned at her. "Nah, I'm too pretty for Celestia to let me die."

Strudel snorted and rolled his eyes and Socket looked at me skeptically. I grinned even wider. Nope, I was definitely not thinking about drowning in a pipe full of horrible sludge. As if that could even actually happen – I was way too good at escaping for that to happen.

The maintenance mare sprayed me with the fire hose again to rinse off the soap.

I shivered – from the water.

Yes, just the water.

"Cold!"

The rest of the shift was sedate – boring even. It might even have been nice, if Strudel hadn't seemed determined to kill every opportunity to make things fun. Still, it was a chance to pal around and chatter with Socket while I helped her look for leaking pipes and make sure nothing was trying to explode or break down. I was just happy to have somepony to talk to.

"I can't believe the Overmare let me work under you for my punishment."

Socket coughed and looked at the floor. "I was the only one willing to take you."

"Only one in maintenance?" I could see that; my wimpy telekinesis meant I wasn't very good with tools.

"The stable."

"Oh," I fell back on my haunches. I didn't mean to stop – I wanted to just keep walking like it didn't bother me, but my legs gave out on their own. Was I that disliked? I never did anything malicious – everything I did was harmless fun.

"The Overmare made a broadcast about you. Didn't you listen to the radio when you were locked up?"

Radio, on my PipBuck, right; I forgot it could do that. I mostly used mine for an alarm clock and not much else. That might have been nice instead of the endless silence and talking to the walls.

"No. I had other things on my mind." Like forgetting basic PipBuck functions and going crazy.

"It wasn't very nice, so it's probably for the best."

I glanced at Strudel who was watching me with a stony expression. Whatever the Overmare said had managed to sour even my foster brother against me. I guess I had really stepped in it this time – but wasn’t this a bit much for a little mischief?

Sure, the Overmare and I didn't get along. I might even have made a habit of going out of my way to tweak her tail at every opportunity. I certainly failed to show her the proper respect due her position but it had never gotten personal before. This felt personal and I had a hard time imagining that after everything else I'd done, messing with some pictures and leaving cheeky notes behind was what it took to make her actually hate me; and where the Overmare lead, the stable followed.

If that was the case, life was going to get much less pleasant, at least until everyone forgot about this. That might be in the next week, or never. It was hard to say. Some ponies still gossiped over things that happened years ago because so little changed in the stable.

"Don't worry about it," Socket smiled, trying to be reassuring. If I was getting snubbed at every turn, what were they going to do to her for being nice to me? Worse, if that pipe being left full had meant to do more than just cover me in filth – if they had meant to hurt me or, or…

Accidents happened, and I was known to get into dicey places.

A chill ran through me. I really didn't want to consider that. I was just being paranoid. Just because everyone was giving me a cold shoulder didn't mean anypony was out to actually hurt me. The stable is family, after all.

Still. "You shouldn't be so nice to me."

"I don't care what the others think," Socket said, staring at Strudel. "Or what the Overmare says about you, you're my friend. I spend most of my time down here anyway, so their snobbery doesn't make any difference."

The intercom crackled. "Shift three, turn in your status briefs; shift one report to your work sections."

I glanced at my PipBuck. Amazing how time flies when you're not locked in a cell.

"I have reports to file, but you're off now – see you around." Socket waved a hoof before trotting down the hall.

"You can talk to me – I promise I won't tell the Overmare."

My shadow sighed, "Overmare's orders okay? She only let you out 'cause I said I'd watch you, but I'm not supposed to talk to you. Sorry sis."

"Why all this for one little prank? It's like she's trying to turn the stable against me."

Strudel just shook his head.

"Fine."

I felt better, in an odd way. If Strudel hadn't volunteered to watch me, and Socket hadn't taken me for work duties I would probably still be in that cell. There had to be something else I'd done to bring down the Overmare's wrath, I just couldn't imagine what it was.

Figuring out what else I had done was important, but trying to think with an empty stomach is nearly impossible, so I headed toward the cafeteria. It would also be a chance to wash the unspeakable taste out of my mouth.

The cafeteria was crowded with ponies between shifts. I could hear them long before walking through the door, with that many I could slip in and get something to eat without being noticed. Well, the big blue pony in security barding made actually sneaking through the room impossible – maybe they would be more interested in their bowls of oatmeal and clover smoothies than me. They could snub me by pretending I didn't exist. I could handle that.

The overlapping conversations in the cafeteria died the moment I stepped through the door. A hushed mutter passed between the tables as every eye turned on me. I balked as I looked into too many faces that wore expressions ranging from disapproving to angry.

No, no, no – why couldn't they just ignore me? My heart was pounding under the scrutiny. I shut my eyes and started to back away; I just wanted to disappear. Magic tingled through my horn, I'd fade away and get out of here – maybe Socket would bring me something to eat if I asked.

The impact of Strudel slamming me into the wall shattered the spell and drove the breath from my lungs. I slumped to the floor and wheezed for air.

"No spells; that was one of the rules."

Strudel's telekinesis pulled me to my hooves while I blinked away tears and tried to catch my breath. I looked at the hoof cuffs on my forelegs; he'd knocked me down and cuffed me in an instant.

"You're going back to your room," he said. I nodded and hobbled ahead of him back into the hallway.

My side ached as I walked back to my room as fast as the hoof cuffs would allow. How could he do that to his sister? The spell had just come, I hadn't cast it on purpose – I'd just needed to get all those eyes off of me. I wanted to yell at him, but every time I opened my mouth a sob tried to work itself free instead of the angry words I intended.

He dissolved the magical cuffs and let me back into my room. I glanced at him, hoping for some kind of apology, something in his eyes that said he was sorry – anything. All he returned was the same stony expression he had been wearing all day.

When the door slid shut I curled up on my bed and let the tears flow, not that I could stop them, but I refused to give in and bawl like a foal.

At some point while wallowing in misery I fell asleep. I awoke feeling drained and empty to a light tapping on my door. I checked my PipBuck but it wasn't time for work yet. The tapping repeated, more insistent this time. I considered ignoring it – maybe whoever it was would give up.

Tapping turned into pounding. "Fine, fine! I'm up!"

I rolled out of bed, staggered to the door and opened it mid-knock. Socket blinked in surprise and gave a little smile.

"Brought you something to eat – can I come in?"

My eyes fixed on the tray floating next to her. "Sure."

"I heard what happened in the cafeteria."

"Oh." Could we talk about something else – anything else? "It's fine. I just – panicked a little."

I looked over the tray; oat cakes and an alfalfa salad with – celery and radishes? Socket had friends in hydroponics and always seemed to get ahold of choice bits of the scarcer crops before they made it to the kitchens.

"I hope the guard didn't get a look at that tray."

"Cobalt's too busy fiddling with his PipBuck to notice anything."

Strudel was my shadow during the day, but other security ponies were assigned to make sure I didn't wander out of my quarters during off-hours. That apparently didn't stop me from having visitors, for which I was grateful.

Socket set the tray down and I pounced on it. Emotional misery took poor second place to a ravenous stomach. I could be sad later.

I paused in my onslaught of the tray when I noticed Socket watching me with a little smile. I mentally smacked myself for being rude and offered her one of the oat cakes, but she just shook her head.

"My name came up on the breeding roster from medical. I got paired with Fern," Socket rolled her eyes. "He's such a bore – all he talks about is plants. There isn't any room for new foals yet, but it was suggested that we, er – get friendly before they take the sterility implant out anyway."

I shrugged. It wasn't new news to me.

Wait. How did I already know who Socket was going to be paired with? Something I had read, somewhere – something that said they were projected to produce gifted offspring. Where had I read that?

Sweet goddesses I am an idiot. I smacked the side of my head with a hoof. The Overmare's terminal with the password written on a note under the screen – something silly that should have been easy to remember. I had peeked because, well, it was what I did – stick my muzzle where it doesn't belong. There had been breeding records, maintenance reports, too much to read in a short time so I had downloaded it all into my PipBuck.

"What's wrong?" Socket was staring at me.

"I'm an idiot."

I brought up the files on my PipBuck after a few moments of trying to remember how to find them and showed them to Socket.

The mare looked at me in horror. "You shouldn't have those – they're restricted to the Overmare!"

"The password was honeydew."

"You really are a menace to the stable," Socket shook her head. "Let me look at those reports."

When she got tired of trying to read off of my PipBuck, Socket plugged a cable from hers into mine and copied the files for herself and set to reading them. She took over my bed while I finished off the tray.

"Shouldn't you be getting friendly with Fern instead of spending time with the stable reject?"

Socket looked up from her reading. "I'd rather spend time with you. Besides, I don't want to learn more about the various breeds of clover being grown in the hydroponic fields."

"So what's in the files?" I tried to read a little of it, but it was mostly techno-speak that made no sense to me.

"Nothing good, just things I'd been guessing at recently," Socket grimaced. "The stable is breaking down – the repair talismans are wearing out and we're almost out of spare parts."

"The Overmare must have known that I'd copied them. She didn't want me telling anypony what was in them; but why turn the stable against me – why not just erase them after I was caught?"

"You copied them to a hidden folder – she probably couldn't find it. Pretty good, really – I didn't know you had that much skill with files and such."

"I did what?"

Socket laughed. "Or just dumb luck."

"More like terrible luck. If she'd found them I probably wouldn't be shadowed everywhere I go with every pony in the stable hating me," I muttered.

"If it hadn't been this, it would have been something else sooner or later."

"Thanks." I pushed a piece of celery around the plate.

I should have been happier to have Socket keeping me company. She was even sitting on my bed; a place I had daydreamed of having her in – something more than friendly circumstances a time or two. I gave myself a good mental buck. Now was not the time – never was probably the time.

"Thank you for the breakfast… dinner… food." I wasn't sure exactly which it was anymore. Did I go off the clock – or off my shifts? I suppose it didn't really matter.

"I came here to hide from Fern," Socket looked up from her reading. "I was hoping that you'd let me stay until our shift starts."

I stared at her. "Somepony could get the wrong idea, spending your off-shift here."

"I don't care."

"I do!" I sputtered. "I don't want them treating you badly because you're my friend."

"It'll be like a slumber party," Socket tapped her hooves together. "We can tell ghost stories and pillow fight –"

"You're not even listening, are you?"

"Please Whisper?" her voice was soft.

She looked at me with wide, pleading green eyes. Not fair. Not fair at all.

For once I actually woke up before my alarm went off. Somehow Socket had taken over most of my bed and was using my shoulder as a pillow. I was pushed up against the headboard where the pillows should have been; I wasn't quite sure where they had gone. Socket thrashed a lot in her sleep. It was a miracle I didn't have bruises.

"Hey," I shook my shoulder. "Wake up."

"Don' wanna," Socket snuggled closer. "Five minutes?"

My PipBuck emitted a grating metallic buzz. The volume and pitch changed every few seconds. It was the most annoying alarm sound it was capable of making. I didn't like mornings either.

"Make it stop!" Socket flailed and rolled out of bed.

"Morning," I toggled the alarm off.

I cleaned up my room while Sockets went to get us both breakfast. My pillows had found refuge from Socket's assault under the table. Cleaning kept my mind off of other things, at least until I was finished.

Could I appease the Overmare somehow? Just delete the files? I already knew I wouldn't delete them, though. Everypony in the stable deserved to know what was going on. Now there was no way they would believe me, even if they may have before all this; the Overmare had succeeded on that point. There still had to be something I could do to fix this mess.

When Socket returned with breakfast, Strudel had already taken up guarding my door. I ate quickly while Socket toyed with her portion.

"What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "Don't worry about it."

My PipBuck chirped. It was time for shift three to start.

Ponies in the stable belonged to work sections their talents fit in to. Socket was in Maintenance, she was a genius when it came to fixing and building things. Strudel was in Security and kept peace and order; Socket's assigned mate, Fern, worked in Sciences which – among other things – produced food for the stable. Others ended up in Morale, to keep ponies happy and occupied in their off-hours. I didn't belong to any of those sections. Technically I was "unassigned," the status given to foals that are old enough to work but haven't earned their cutie marks yet. Unassigned ponies did whatever little jobs needed to be done around the stable for other sections.

I had my cutie mark, for all the good it did me, and I was still stuck doing the work of foals. My "punishment duties" really weren't anything other than what I would normally be doing. The difference now being that the only pony in the stable willing to work with me was Socket.

So it was another day spent in the maintenance levels checking for leaking pipes. My shadow was even more disapproving today, if that were possible. That disapproval seemed to be extended to Socket as well. I wanted to yell at him, but Strudel wouldn't listen; not if his ungentle treatment yesterday was any sign. There was dull ache in my chest at that. This nonsense had cost me a brother.

"Hydroponics has been complaining about the water pressure, so that's the next thing to check," Socket looked at a list on her PipBuck screen.

We checked the pumps and found nothing wrong, but Socket wanted to be thorough – which meant checking the water talisman. The talisman was central to the stable's water system; an enormous blue gem that purified the water after it filtered through the recycling system. I tried not to think about the stable water supply too much. The idea of drinking two-hundred year old recycled fluids just did not sit well.

Socket was busy checking consoles and gauges while I stood off to the side and felt useless. All I was good for were menial things, really. The second she needed a button pressed or a lever pulled though, I was her mare.

The yellow mare growled at the gauges. "That doesn't make sense."

She smacked the gauge with a hoof and glared at it. One of the consoles started beeping franticly. Socket rushed to it, fiddling with dials and switches.

"No, no, no. Why couldn't it do this on Spanner's watch instead?" Socket kicked the console.

"What can I do?" I didn't like various sounds coming out of the consoles now.

"Just pull that switch over there when I tell you," Socket pointed at a switch marked 'emergency shut off' on the wall.

Socket finally seemed to give up after more a few more seconds of frantic button pressing.

"Pull it."

I flicked the switch with my telekinesis. It toggled easily, which surprised me, though nothing seemed the change. The alarms were more insistent, if anything.

"Turn it off!"

"I did!"

I flipped the switch again. On off, on off. Nothing happened.

A high pitch whine filled the room, drowning out the alarms. Searing blue-white light poured out of the little window that looked in at the water talisman. That couldn't possibly be good.

"It's getting too much power from the spark reactor, if we don't cut the power it's going to –" Socket was interrupted by a horrid metallic screeching.

One of the overhead pipes split open, dousing the room in scalding water. The consoles sparked and went dead.

"I have to stop this," Socket stared at the smoking consoles.

I tried to push her toward the door. "You can't, and if you don't move right now it's going to take both of us with it when it blows."

Socket took one last look at the water talisman and the consoles before running through the door. The whine from the gem rose to ear-splitting levels. I thought I could hear a sound like glass slowly cracking as I jumped through the door.

Strudel slammed the pressure door shut behind me. I stared at it, wondering how long it would take for the talisman to actually –

It was quieter than I expected, only a dull roar. The floor and walls shook from the concussion; the whole stable likely felt the rumble. The lights flickered off and were replaced by red emergency lighting. Something was being shouted over the intercom.

"That's it," Socket said. "The stable's dead – we can't repair a water talisman."

To say there was chaos would be an understatement, and I found myself caught in the middle of it. It seemed that every maintenance and science pony in the stable took a turn interrogating me about what happened. By the time they ran out of questions I doubted that I knew anything at all.

After what seemed like hours I was lead into the Overmare's office along with the heads of the sections, Strudel and a very miserable looking Socket. For once I wasn't the focus of the Overmare's attention. It was a nice change. She was pacing, her green striped mane disheveled; I'd never seen her any way other than perfectly groomed and composed.

"If both your estimates are correct," the Overmare looked at the heads of Maintenance and Sciences in turn. "We have at least two months of water left if we ration carefully."

Spanner, the head of Maintenance and Wildfire, head of Sciences both nodded.

"Thanks to Socket's quick thinking, the shut-off valves around the water talisman were all closed when it overloaded, otherwise the lower levels would be flooded right now." Spanner smiled at Socket.

"Is there any chance of repairing the system?"

"The control room and the pipes can be repaired, but there's nothing left of the talisman," Spanner shook his head.

"And we don't have the materials or schematics to make a new water talisman," Wildfire said.

"Then we'll have to find one," the Overmare stopped pacing. "Somepony will have to go outside and bring one back."

My blood froze as she stared right at me.

"That's suicide, the radiation –" Wildfire started.

"Is low enough for a pony to have a fighting chance," the Overmare interrupted.

"Whisper," I jumped at hearing her address me. "Your… talents could keep you safe out there so you can find a talisman and bring it back. There are old maps in the maneframe of Stable-Tech facilities in the area that should help you find one."

I took a step back. Didn't I have a say in this? Anypony other than me had to be a better choice – somepony from Security or Sciences.

"You do want to help your stable, don't you?" The section heads were all looking at me now.

Not. Fair.

"O-of course I do."

"Then it's settled," the Overmare said primly. "Be at the stable door in an hour."

An hour to say goodbye to everything I knew. I stumbled numbly out of the Overmare's office and simply stood outside the door for a while. There wasn't any reason to go back to my room; there was nothing I wanted to take with me. Worse, the only pony I wanted to say goodbye to was still in the Overmare's office.

I had never actually been in the stable airlock before. The giant steel door that separated the stable from Outside was not offering me any comfort. My legs were shaking no matter what I did to try and stop them. At least Socket was here to see me off. It was a small comfort, but it was the best I was going to get.

"I'm not sending you out there without help," the Overmare said as Strudel attached saddlebags to my barding. "You have a few days' worth of food, anti-radiation meds and ammunition."

Strudel belted a holster with a pistol to my foreleg opposite my PipBuck. The weight of it was disconcerting. Socket plugged a cable into my PipBuck and suddenly my vision was full of flashing words and symbols. I blinked and shook my head out of reflex.

"All of your PipBuck functions have been switched on," Socket said. "S.A.T.S. inventory spell, auto mapping, medical spells, everything."

I couldn't quite look directly at the overlay in my vision, it was odd. I was facing west, apparently; S.A.T.S. was fully charged and my pistol had twelve rounds in its magazine with another thirty-six ready to go.

Socket hugged me tightly. "Please be careful and come back. If you don't find anything, don't worry – maybe we'll figure something out."

When Socket finally let go of me Strudel hugged me as well. "Be safe, sis."

The Overmare coughed.

"It's time to go. The hope of your stable goes with you, Whisper."

The Overmare shooed Socket and Strudel out of the airlock, closing the pressure door behind her. A moment later lights near the giant stable door began to flash. Locks popped open and motors whined. The stable door rolled open, letting in a rush of cool, damp air.

---

Footnote: Approximately sixty days of water remain.
You haven't done anything to level yet.
Traits:
Jinxed: Maybe you were born under an ill star, or perhaps you offended one or more goddesses in a past life – either way things around you tend to go horribly, horribly wrong. Enemies are much more likely to suffer critical failures - then again, so are you and your friends.

Telekinetic Lightweight: Lifting things with magic is not your special talent. In fact, it might be better to just stop trying. Your telekinesis is limited to light weight weaponry: pistols, SMGs and melee weapons with a strength requirement of 4 and lower, but you gain a chance to ignore target's DT.

(A/N: Props to Kkat for devising such a wonderful playground.)

Chapter Two - First Steps

View Online

Chapter Two – First Steps

"I don't wanna talk about it."

It didn't feel real when the stable door rolled shut, locking away everything I had known until now. How long I just stared at it in the semi-darkness, I can't say. I wanted to pound on the console at the door and beg to be let back in, but I knew it wouldn't happen.

My whole life I'd known the breadth of width of where I lived, what corridors went where, how to get from one area to the next. This cave was completely unknown. I knew nothing about it, or what lay beyond it. I wanted my gray walls back and I hadn't been out of the stable for more than a few minutes. Outside the cave… outside there was sky, just a word and a thing in old pictures, and grass and hills and trees. They were all just things that existed as words and photographs alongside radiation, balefire and ruin.

I turned away from the stable door feeling more than a little nauseous. The cave didn't seem to be terribly deep, if the faint amount of light reaching me was any sign. I took a cautious step forward and froze. Something moved. It shuffled and sniffed in the dirt and squeaked.

A rat but the vague shape I saw was enormous. Rats weren't meant to be that big! Maybe it wasn't aggressive, but I was not going to count on it. I levitated my pistol free of its holster. The gun shook in my telekinetic grasp. It was almost too heavy for me. Oh, and I was terrified.

The stable had two firing ranges, one for magic and one for bullets. Why the stable had the ranges was a question only the designers could answer. Security used them to train. Morale encouraged their use as a distraction and stress relief. I'd been banned from the magic range by Wildfire after an incident, but I was a fair shot with the little .22 pistols on the gun range.

I'd never shot anything living, or had any desire to do so. I wasn't entirely sure I could. The range targets were just circles, not living, breathing creatures. Even if I wanted to shoot it, I could barely see the thing.

I toggled the light on my PipBuck. Big mistake.

A screech echoed through the cave and was immediately answered by a chorus of others. The thing that turned on me was much larger than it seemed in the semi-darkness. It was all fangs and patchy, diseased fur. I scrambled back as it lunged at me. My first shot ricocheted off the cave wall.

The rat-thing kept coming and I kept backing away until I hit the stable door. I dove to the side as it jumped at me. The rat hit the door with a meaty thump and slid to the ground, but it recovered far more quickly than I expected. My next two shots missed. Targets on the range did not charge and try to rip a pony's face off! At least three more red dots were moving toward me.

Stupid, stupid pony. PipBuck, Eyes-Forward Sparkle, S.A.T.S.!

The rat seemed to freeze mid-leap as I slipped into the congealed time of S.A.T.S. I emptied the rest of the pistol's magazine into the mutant horror. The spell-guided shots tore apart its head and body in a spray of blood and bits of meat as the carcass crashed into me.

I managed to reload the pistol before another giant rat threw itself at me. It knocked me on my back and I immediately regretted using the full charge of the targeting spell on one rat. The rat snapped at my throat, but it got a mouthful of PipBuck instead. I screamed as it slashed at my belly with its claws and worked its jaws on my foreleg. My barding did nothing to keep the things claws from digging into my hide.

I could feel my magical grip on the pistol wavering, the wispy un-glow of my telekinesis sputtering. Was that it? Was I going to die just a few steps from the door without ever making it out of the cave? Would somepony else sent to save the stable find my gnawed bones just outside the door? They'd shake their head and laugh, thinking that at least the reject unicorn had been taken out of the gene pool.

Goddesses damnit, no! I grit my teeth and pressed the muzzle of my pistol against the rat's head. It was breaking its fangs on my PipBuck's casing and tearing at me with wicked little claws in frenzy. I splattered the top of its skull against the cave wall. Even I can't miss something that close.

I shoved the twitching corpse off of me and steeled myself for the next two. S.A.T.S. recharged enough to put three bullets in the head of one. The last rat was smarter than the others and circled to attack my flank while I was occupied with the other. I kicked out of instinct, putting all the force I could muster behind it. All I hoped for was to stun it enough for me to bring my pistol to bear, but something popped when my hooves connected and the rat flopped motionless to the cave floor.

There were still red bars in my vision, but nothing else seemed to be moving toward me. They moved about in my EFS, hostile but – what? Not interested? How did the PipBuck know what was an enemy what wasn't anyway? I turned off my PipBuck light. I'd rather trip over something than invite more creatures to attack me.

If I'd been better at magic I could have sent a little ball of light out ahead of me, far enough away that it wouldn't draw anything else to me. I tried to learn, I really did, but the results when I tried terrified the other foals in my class and the teacher too, I think. After that little incident, I hadn't been allowed to practice light magic any more.

I watched the red bars as I moved through the cave and managed to sneak up on one, only to discover a cockroach bigger than my hoof. It skittered about as I snuck up on it and with a quick stomp the red bar went out. I scraped the roach goo off on a rock and ignored the others. The rest of the way through the cave looked to be clear. Or at least nothing red popped up in my EFS.

###

I finally managed to control my breathing as I stood at the cave opening, but my heart refused to slow. It was so, so big, endless even. In the rare times I'd thought about what outside might be like I hadn't imagined anything like this. I'd expected something like the atrium maybe, but bigger and with dirt and grass and maybe trees, but still with walls in the distance. The outside world was big. Words failed me. My eyes drifted upward and I forced them back down. The gray above wasn't like a ceiling at all.

The sky, the sky was a terrifying openness that threatened to swallow me whole. The mouth of the cave was safe. I could see its ceiling. Yet, I had a job to do and ponies counting on me. I didn't care so much about them as a whole, but Socket was stuck in there too. Maybe between the two of us we could convince the Overmare it was time to leave the stable when I returned with the talisman. With that in mind I stepped out into the wider world and carefully kept my eyes on the ground. Looking up made me dizzy.

I was so intent on not looking up that I almost ran into the buck standing in front of me. When I looked at him I took an involuntary step back. He was covered head to hoof in scars and had a splotchy light gray and blood red coat and black mane. He had no horn.

I didn't know what to make of that. Of course I knew there were other types of ponies besides unicorns, but earth and pegasus ponies were just another thing that only existed in history recordings and old photographs. I had figured that they, like everything else, had been wiped away by the balefire. Seems I was wrong.

He was also huge. Strudel was one of the biggest stallions in the stable, and this pony looked like he could break my foster brother in half without any effort.

The buck was looking at me with a calculating look in his blue eyes.

"Hate to do this, but give over everything you got."

I backed up another step. That was hardly a proper greeting.

"Now." His eyes narrowed.

The moment I started to levitate my pistol from its holster he was on me. A tap from his hoof shattered my telekinesis and the pistol dropped in the dirt. I fell back on my rump, horn stinging.

"We can do this simple, or hard, but I'm in a hurry and I don't have time to deal with stable pissants who think they can fight back. So, saddlebags, holster and barding, now."

"B-barding? Why?"

Wrong answer.

###

My head hurt, but only my head, my internal organs still seemed to be internal. I hadn't seen the blow that knocked me out. A pony that big should not be able to move that fast, it wasn't fair.

I opened my eyes, startling the crow looking at me into taking flight. At least it was still day time and I still had my PipBuck. He'd even taken the cord I used to keep my mane neatly braided. I sat up carefully and winced, the buck had ripped the cuts on my belly open getting my barding off. I hoped it served him as poorly as it had me. My PipBuck cheerfully informed me that I had suffered a head injury. At least he hadn't taken a kidney.

I knew I should get moving toward the closest Stable-Tech marker on my map, but what was the point? I'd lost everything. Most importantly I'd lost my gun which, if the cave was any indication, was more precious than the food or radiation meds. To think, I'd once felt life in the stable could be difficult.

"Wow, robbed right out of the stable? That's tough," The tinny voice nearly sent me jumping out of my skin. I looked about frantically for the source. "But you're still alive and at least you don't have an angry cyber-pony chasing you."

I spotted a metallic insect-looking thing hovering a few feet away.

"What, ah, who are you?"

"Call me Watcher. What's in front of you is a spritebot, you'll see them wandering all over. I just took one over when I saw you being… looted."

"You saw that and didn't help me?" I wasn't sure what I expected from a metal bug or anypony really. I just hadn't expected the first pony I met on the outside to knock me unconscious and take everything that wasn't firmly attached to my body.

"Hey, I kept the scavengers from nibbling on you while you were out. A spritebot isn't much match for stallion like that," the metallic voice sounded hurt.

I scratched the back of my neck, mussing my slowly unraveling braid. "Sorry. Thanks for keeping me from being nibbled to death, or dragged off by something."

"The wasteland is no place for a lone pony, let alone one from a stable. Why are you out here?"

There didn't seem to be any harm in telling him, her, or whatever was in control of the spritebot. Maybe they could even help.

"My stable's water talisman blew up, so the Overmare sent me to find a new one because," I started laughing, it wasn't funny but I laughed anyway. "Because my talents could be useful to keep me safe and bring one back."

I kept laughing, only somehow the laughter sounded like sobs. My eyes were watering, I was laughing so hard.

"The best part is, I almost got eaten by giant rats right out of the door. Rats!" definitely not laughter anymore. "Then, the first pony I meet outside bucks me in the head and leaves me to die."

The spritebot was silent. My pathetic crying probably made him decide I wasn't worth bothering with. I managed to get control of myself after a moment, sobbing my head off to someone on the other end of a floating metal bug wouldn't get me anywhere.

"So you're going to let one little setback stop you from saving your home?"

"One little setback?" I stared at the bot, incredulous. "Little? I've got nothing, no food, no weapons..."

"You have your life, and a PipBuck, which is a lot more than most ponies have." I had the feeling I was being glared at. "Now you can sit here feeling sorry for yourself until something comes along to make a meal out of you. Or you can pick yourself up and move forward."

I stood up stiffly. "What do you suggest, then?"

"There's a shack south of here that might have something useful in it and there's a town where you can get supplies to the west."

My PipBuck chirped, showing two new markers on my map. How did, oh never mind. Trying to figure out how the thing on my foreleg worked would probably drive me insane. There was magic smoke and possibly glowing lights involved, I'm sure. I may have slept through most of the classes on PipBucks.

"And what about more creatures on the way? Or other ponies?" Or worse, I just assumed there had to be something worse.

"I suppose that depends on the talents that were supposed to keep you safe, but you have hooves and magic, I think you can figure it out. In any case, find some guns, get some armor and make some friends."

The bot made a crackling noise and started playing some kind of tuba music as it wandered off.

"Friends? With the crazy ponies out here?"

Friends. Sure, I'd get right on that. It went on the list of things to do alongside tripping over a convenient water talisman to save the stable.

###

It was harder to be sneaky when there were random noisy things to step on instead of the nice smooth floors of a stable. My compass was full of red dots but EFS didn't give any clue as to how far away they actually were. At any rate, I couldn't see whatever was hostile toward me. I really hoped it was just more roaches.

I had already seen something I hoped never to get into a hoof-to-hoof fight with. Some kind of giant lizard with far, far too many teeth and scales. And claws, of course. With my luck, the things could probably breathe fire too. Fortunately, they seemed rather dim and I crept by them without any trouble. Being a sneaky mare was paying off for once.

I spotted something that seemed out of place and moved toward it. It turned out to be a refrigerator of all things, rusted where it wasn't scorched black. I looked around but didn't see anything like a building, or ruins of one, nearby. Inside was an earth pony skeleton wearing a ripped up jacket and a hat. A bullwhip was coiled underneath it as well. Why would somepony get inside a refrigerator like that, ever? Seemed like a good way to suffocate to me.

The hat and the whip both looked to be in good condition so I took them. If I hadn't been robbed I probably wouldn't have bothered, but at this point anything was fair game if it had even a chance of helping me. I put on the hat and felt cooler. Like I could outrun huge boulders, swing across chasms, nimbly dodge traps, and grave rob with the best of them. I gave myself a good shake and continued on toward to the shack marked on my map.

The sign was badly faded, but I could still make out "Thunderlane Sky Diving" on it. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what 'sky diving' was. Another little sign in the window read "Out sick." I crossed the road to the shack quickly. I didn't like moving out of cover with all those little red blips on my compass, not at all.

Nothing attacked me when I went into the open. Things were going my way for a change.

The door wasn't locked, but the place was almost completely empty except a few lockers along the wall, a table with a broken terminal and few burlap sacks. All of the lockers turned out to be empty except for one. Or I assumed it wasn't empty, since it was locked. I would have been annoyed by that if there hadn't been a small pile of bobby pins on the floor near it. Most of them were broken, but I found a couple that weren't.

I didn't have a screwdriver, but that was fine, turning locks was one of the few things my wimpy telekinesis happened to be good for.

I broke all the usable pins I had found.

Stupid lock.

The locker got a good hard kick to make sure it knew it was a bad, bad locker before I started nosing around the rest of the shack. I found the key in one of the sacks in the corner. A sack of all things! It wasn't right, not at all. It also felt so very wrong to be opening a lock with its proper key. I mean, where was the fun in that? It seemed more than a little ridiculous that no one had managed to find the key before me.

Then again, maybe somepony had. The locker was full of junk.

The bottom was littered with bottle caps and empty food wrappers. I ignored them and in rummaging through the garbage found a box of Sugar Apple Bombs, some sealed tin cans with the labels torn off, a rusty pair of spikey horseshoe things, a healing potion, and vials of... something labeled with crosshairs. Two-hundred year old food couldn't be good for you, but it was better than nothing. The only problem being that I had no way to carry any of it.

I drank the potion and started to feel a little better. My head stopped aching so much and the cuts on my belly went from stinging to itching. The food, I wasn't hungry enough to chance dodgy, two century old food.

Socket probably could have made something clever with the duct tape and wonderglue I'd found in one of the sacks. I stared at the sacks for a while. I wouldn't be able to carry it all with my telekinesis and I had no intention of trying to drag a bag full of junk through the wasteland with my teeth.

Half a roll of duct tape and several shredded sacks later I had… well, it was something. I managed to make a vaguely harness-like thing with burlap strips and duct tape, with the one remaining sack tied to it. All the, hopefully, useful stuff went in the sack, except the spikey things. Those I figured out how to put on. It was better than just having bare hooves to hit with, since I had no idea how to use a bullwhip and doubted it would be a very effective weapon anyway.

The sack made me feel awfully lopsided. Also, the whole mess I'd made itched horribly. When I looked at my PipBuck it listed everything in the sack along with its value. I bit my tongue. I wasn't going to ask, I wasn't going to wonder or question. Questions would just drive me nuts. Better to just accept it.

Something caught my eye. Steady.

I selected that and pulled one of the mysterious vials from my bag. OK then, good to know what it was called at least. Not asking how the thing on my leg knew what it was called. Too bad my PipBuck couldn't tell me what it did or was used for.

Enough wasting time, I had a water talisman to find.

###

The Stable-Tech marker on my map was closer than the town marker and in the same direction, so I would look there first. Maybe Celestia would smile on me for once and I'd find a talisman right inside the door. That would be nice.

Nothing red showed up in my EFS in any direction so instead of slinking through the dead grass and bushes I trotted along the road. The warehouse was hard to miss, being the only standing building nearby. I stopped at the top of a little rise and took a good long look at it. The building itself was ridiculously over-engineered, huge and blocky and mostly concrete, which was probably why it was still standing as opposed to the piles of rubble out beyond it. The parking lot surrounding the warehouse was full of charred and rusted carts and something that moved. Something that was almost the same color as the carts. I couldn't make out what they were from where I was, so I crouched down and snuck my way to the copse of burned trees along one edge of the parking lot.

Stealth mare powers activate! Heh.

I gave myself a mental bucking, this was serious. I just had to get in that building and maybe this nightmare would be over. As I got closer red dots popped up on my EFS. I waited for one to pass where I could see it.

Robot ponies. Well, sort of. They were vaguely pony-shaped anyway. The one I saw was rusted, dented and seemed to sport of few bullet holes. They moved slowly and didn't seem able to see very well. Being outside and exposed to the elements since the end of the world probably hadn't helped with that. I slipped past them without any trouble. They only looked where they were going, a foal probably could have snuck past them. And here I thought this would be hard.

Just enough light filtered through the dirty windows to illuminate the room I found myself in. The room was a disaster. Part of the ceiling had collapsed and the floor was covered in ruble, half-burned papers and charred skeletons.

I did my best not to step on any of the bones as I slinked through what seemed to be offices. There were file cabinets, desks and burned out terminals and so many skeletons. No point in looking in the cabinets or desks, I rather doubted anypony had stashed a precious bit of pre-war arcano-tech in their drawer. Or a gun, for that matter. I just needed to find a way into the actual warehouse.

The first likely door I found was locked. I growled at it, vowing to find something, anything to pick it with before moving on. The second door was blocked on the other side and I couldn't open it. The third opened easily. That was promising.

I had a few seconds to look at the rows upon rows of untouched crates before I noticed the sound of grinding metal and looked up into the barrels of a turret.

Celestia's sweet something something – fuck!

I scrambled backward through the door as the turret started firing. The hail of lead tore into everything around me, shredding the doors, grazing my neck and flanks, thudding into something inside my makeshift saddlebag, and leaving holes in my hat. Either I was very lucky or –

My EFS lit up with red bars.

"Surrender and be disintegrated!" the command was echoed by a dozen robotic voices.

Flashes of red light shot from the warehouse floor through the door. They sparked and left scorch marks where they hit. At least the robot ponies were terrible shots. The turret adjusted and fired another barrage, following me as I dove behind a desk. Clanking hoofsteps drew closer as I tried to catch my breath. I did the only thing I could think of. I bolted for the exit and hoped they wouldn't follow me outside. If I'd had a moment to think, I might have remembered the robo-ponies patrolling outside.

Instead I barreled straight through the door, remembering enough to shove it open with a little burst of telekinesis, right into one of the rusty outdoor robots. It turned to look at me, its eyes glowing red.

"Intruder detected."

It was too late to swerve or dive out of the way so I jumped and smashed my hooves into its torso. I am not a very large pony. In fact, I'm rather small, undersized even. I just hoped that the spikey horseshoes and physics would help me.

Even with the momentum of a full gallop I bounced off the robot and landed hard on my side. The robot teetered for a moment before regaining its balance. I think I may have added a new dent or two, but I might have imagined that just to soothe my wounded pride. Stupid physics.

A bolt of red light blackened the pavement where my head had been as I rolled and got my hooves back under me. Running seemed to be my only choice today, so running it was. Shots sizzled all around me as I wove through the ruined carts and into the trees. When I looked back the robots were gathered at the edge of the parking lot but didn't go any further.

When I was absolutely sure the robots were done trying to fry me I stopped running and collapsed in the dirt. I wanted water, but didn't have any. I also noticed that not all of those shots had missed. There was a scorched spot on my right flank right in the middle of my cutie mark, which would have been funny if it hadn't hurt.

"Finally filled it in," I nickered and then slid into hysterical giggling.

This wasn't funny, I needed to stop. I needed to –

I hiccupped and then lost what little was in my stomach. It was like the duct fans, or the recycler pipe. Only this time, something had been out to kill me. A lot of somethings. A lot of horrible, magic shooting robot somethings.

Spitting the taste of vomit out of my mouth, I tried to regain some semblance of control over myself. Sitting out in the open was probably an open invitation to any and everything looking to do harm on a pony. My legs wouldn't stop shaking, so I stumbled along the road. The sky diving shack was nice and close, if in the wrong direction.

When I got back inside the shack I took stock of myself and my bag. A bullet had gone right through one of the cans, soaking everything else in something sticky and sweet. My poor hat had several new holes in it with matching grazes on me. I put it in my bag for safe keeping. There were more grazes along my flanks and sides.

That turret should have riddled me with holes. I gave a little prayer to the goddesses for small favors.

My body refused to stop shaking. I could still feel the heat of those magical bolts passing close over my hide. What I needed could be in one of those crates for all I knew, there was just a small army of robotic death ponies to get through.

I curled into a ball and tried not to cry. I was going to fail at this too, like everything else I tried. How could the Overmare send me out here instead of anypony else? Strudel wouldn't have let some earth pony brute knock him senseless, a pony from Sciences could have fried those robots with magical lightning. I watched the magic firing ranges despite not being allowed to use them and some of the Sciences ponies were terrifying. None of them would have had trouble with rats. Me, I botched everything except hiding and getting into trouble. Hiding wasn't going to find a replacement water talisman and finding trouble was going to get me killed.

Maybe I'd been sent out to fail, to die in this nightmare. When I didn't come back the Overmare could just shrug and pick somepony better suited. But the stable was family and the Overmare's job was to keep us all safe. Yet here I was. The magical reject and stable trouble maker who happened to have access to inconvenient data about the condition of the stable.

Just an acceptable loss.

For that alone I had to succeed, and for the chance to see Socket again. Nothing had managed to kill me yet. Not duct fans, sludge pipes, giant rats or killer robots. I could do this. There wasn't any other choice. I would have to be more careful is all, and not get cocky when things went my way.

I was still shaking.

Fine, I would just wobble onward instead of trotting with confidence.

The shack seemed to be getting darker and I was hungry. I hadn't eaten since… I couldn't actually remember. The cans weren't an option, lacking any sort of can opener, so that left the Sugar Apple Bombs. The dried apple bits turned out to be quite tasty despite my trepidation over pre-war food. I just wish I'd had more.

###

"We could stop here, rest a bit afore pushin' for town," a buck's voice.

I froze, ready to do what, I don't know. Probably run some more. More insane wasteland ponies were the last thing I needed to deal with.

"No, we're still too close to where we got hit, can't risk stopping even for a few minutes," said a mare.

I crept to the window and peeked out. Every one of the four I could see looked blood soaked and wounded. Three earth ponies and a unicorn. The unicorn had so many bandages on his legs I couldn't imagine how he managed to stay standing. All of the earth ponies were armed with some kind of barding mounted guns. The unicorn didn't seem to have anything and he was the only one in the group not carrying packs that looked ready to burst open.

"Can't believe you had us leave 'em behind like that, Spark."

The others seemed too exhausted or concerned with their injuries to bother talking.

"Nothin' we could do. They knew the risks. That featherbrain shoulda been able to fly off, rest were dead or too busted up," the mare hung her head. "Not like I wanted to, but ya can't help the dead."

Despite the mare's assertion that they couldn't stop and rest the four seemed to be doing just that. My EFS showed them as non-hostile blue bars but the pony who'd robbed me hadn't shown up as red either. At least, I don't think he had. They were all injured, but I was still outnumbered and they had guns to my spiked horseshoes. I would be better off waiting for them to leave than chancing them being hostile.

Spark shook herself and sighed. "We need to get as close to Bridleton as we can before dark."

The others nodded and started walking. The unicorn swayed where he was a moment before taking a syringe out of a pocket in his barding and jamming it into his shoulder.

I waited for them to get well down the road before leaving the shack to follow. We were going to the same place it seemed. Maybe I would try talking to them if I was sure they wouldn't attack me.

The group could only move as fast as the injured unicorn and had to keep stopping so he could change his bandages with the mare's help. The other two stood guard when the group stopped and seemed more resigned than watchful. It wasn't hard to stay undetected.

Spark kept feeding the unicorn healing potions and swapping out his bandages but the bleeding refused to stop. He left bloody hoofprints with each step until he collapsed.

The mare was by his side in an instant.

"Come on Nail, it's just a lil bit further."

The unicorn shook his head, "I'm done. Somethin' on those knives…"

"Damn it, get up. I'll just keep pouring healing potions in you 'till we get to a doc."

"It was nice, I –" the buck coughed and went limp.

Spark nuzzled his cheek and sobbed.

It didn't feel right watching them anymore, like I was intruding on something private, so I snuck ahead while they dug a shallow grave. I tried to ignore the way my eyes stung and the fact that I'd just watched a pony die.

###

I kept ahead of them in the growing dark, using EFS to spot anything hostile and kill it before it realized I was there. Mostly it was rats, thankfully smaller than the ones in the cave, and some kind of spine covered monstrosities. S.A.T.S. and my spiked horseshoes seemed more than up to the challenge, even when they attacked me before I could get the drop on them.

The next two red bars on my compass turned out to be ponies.

I smelled them before I could see them and almost gagged.

"Sure you seen traders?"

"Yeah, all shot up and movin' slow," the buck chuckled darkly. "Pretty lil mare wit 'em too. Shouldn't be trouble."

My heart started pounding as I realized that they planned to attack the group I'd been clearing the way for. They had more of those saddle-rigged guns and barding that looked armored. I couldn't let them ambush the others, but I didn't want to hurt ponies.

"Jus' cripple the mare a bit this time, don't kill her. Dead ain't half as fun as one that tries to fight back."

Scratch the part about not hurting ponies. I would have to do this carefully though. All I had was my hooves.

And magic.

I wanted to kick myself. But in my defense, it's not my fault I tend to forget the spells I can do when I almost never had a chance to use them in the stable.

A few moments of concentration and magic tingled from my horn over the rest of my hide. My one good spell, the one that earned me my cutie mark, didn't make me invisible. But it did make me very blurry and blend into my surroundings. I didn't have to worry about the overglow of my horn giving me away either, I didn't have one. Or rather, what my horn produced wasn't a glow like every other unicorn I had ever seen, but a shadowy un-light that seemed more prone to eat brightness than produce it. The Medical and Sciences ponies eventually gave up trying to figure it out and just labeled me deficient because of my weak telekinesis and… issues with other unicorn magics.

The fact that for once it would be an asset left me almost giddy. I would have been happier if the circumstances hadn't included ambushing ambushers.

I slowly stalked up to the two bandit ponies, mindful of making any noise.

"Wuzzat?" One of the bandits turned and looked right at me.

Too late for him. I slipped into S.A.T.S. and hit him with spell guided forehoof strikes.

The first hit raked across his face in slow motion, forcing me to watch his eye rupture as my spiked horseshoes tore him open. The second attack slashed across his neck, opening furrows across his throat.

"Fuck." The bandit fell back, the wounds on his face and neck gushing.

The other bandit spun and bit down on his saddle's trigger, but I had already scrambled out of the way and the wounded bandit's chest exploded as buckshot tore into him.

"Fucking slippery bitch!"

I tried to circle and charge him from the side, but he turned to follow me.

Crap.

I'd let go of the spell when I came out of S.A.T.S.

The bandit sneered at me and bit down on the trigger. This was going to hurt.

Nothing happened. The bandit's shotgun made a metallic ping and nothing else.

I lowered my head and charged right at him. He reared up to smash me with his forehooves as I closed my eyes and drove my horn into the base of his throat. I felt hot wetness flowing over my face as the bandit slowly collapsed on top of me.

It took me a bit to work my horn free and push the corpse off of me. It must be an earth pony thing to be big and heavy. Or I was just a runt, or both.

The smell of blood turned my stomach and the feel of it drying on my face and slicking my forequarters made my skin crawl. I could taste it on my lips.

I preferred the stable bilge sludge.

The shaking stared again. I'd just killed two ponies, even if they'd been planning to kill others and worse, they were still ponies and not stupid mutant animals. Did they have families? Loved ones?

I tried not to think about it as I went through their packs. The saddle-mounted guns were too heavy for me to use, even if I could get them off the saddles, but they had proper bags and a fair assortment of other things. I replaced my burlap sack with the cleanest of the saddlebags and added a few healing potions, shotgun shells, and what looked like rifle ammunition as well as a little revolver and plenty of bullets for it to my collection of stuff. In the end I gave up trying to get the guns off their saddles, I was more likely to break something important in the process than recover the weapons.

No matter how much I tried to calm myself, my body refused to stop trembling. It was done, I was alive and things were looking good. I even had proper bags and things to trade in town.

Every time I blinked I saw a buck's eye splitting open in slow motion. I couldn't ignore the taste of another pony's blood in my mouth, or the feeling of it on my coat, in my mane, drying to my horn.

Not even a day out of the stable and I was a killer. I could have just gone past them and made it to town. Instead I ambushed a couple ponies to protect a group who didn't even know I was helping them. They probably would have fended off the two bandits easily, considering how quickly I had managed to kill them. Moreover, who was to say the three coming up the road weren't just as bad as the two I killed?

I needed to keep moving, I had a task to do. I just needed to stop shaking so much so I could walk without tripping over everything. Steady myself a bit.

The inventory spell in my PipBuck brought one of the vials to the top of my bag and I plucked it out. I just hoped the name had something to do with what it actually did. The auto-injector needle stung as I jammed it in my shoulder, but the shaking stopped within moments.

I felt calmer. At least my body did, even if a part of me was still screaming and crying over what I'd done.

As I made my way down to the road I realized just how good of an ambush spot the bandits had been in. The traders would have passed them without knowing they were there and gotten hit from behind. Or at least that's what I would have done in the bandits' position.

I'd forgotten that the group would be moving much faster without the injured unicorn and came out of the bushes almost on top of them.

"Oh, um, hi." I waved a hoof at them.

There was a sharp crack and the feeling of being kicked in the foreleg just above my PipBuck. A second crack followed the first and something tore into my chest. My leg buckled and I slammed face-first into the road. Someone was bawling in pain.

Oh, right. That was me.

###

I think I passed out for a bit after I hit the ground.

"Idiots! How many raiders do ya see wearin' PipBucks?"

When I opened my eyes Spark was looking down at me. She was rather pretty, close up. The mare looked worried though, which was silly. She didn't even know me.

"She came right outta the bushes covered in blood, wasn't gonna take a chance."

"Hurts," I whimpered.

"I know hon." Spark took a syringe out of her pack and stuck me with it. The pain ebbed somewhat. I looked at the hole in my leg, but I couldn't be sure how much of the blood was mine and how much was the bandit's. I assumed there was a similar hole in my chest. The edge of my vision was full of flashing warnings from my PipBuck but none of them made sense.

"You used all the bandages and most of the potions on Nail."

"I know. It's a good thing you didn't hit anythin' vital, Scatter. Help me get her on my back."

"Why're we helpin' her, again?" Scatter said. The other stallion hadn't yet said a word.

"We broke her we get her fixed, simple as that. Now help me before she bleeds out."

The next thing I knew I was looking down at the road. I wasn't walking, but I was still moving. Spark kept talking to me, telling me to stay awake, but it was hard. Sleep seemed like a better idea anyway. I had a pretty good view of her flank from where I was draped across her packs. Her cutie mark was a red lightning bolt. I just stared at how it moved with each step she took.

She smacked me in the face with her tail, again.

"Huh, wha?"

"Stay awake," the mare admonished. "What were ya doin' out there anyhow?"

"Clearing the road for you. Ambushed some bandits."

"Why?" the mare sounded genuinely surprised.

It was a good question, and I didn't have any real answer. I could have just slipped past them. What did I owe some strangers? Especially when those strangers ended up shooting me like I'd been afraid they would.

"Don't know. Saw you at the shack, seemed to need help."

"You saw us at the sky diving shack? Why didn't you talk to us?"

"Shot me," I mumbled.

"I guess we did a bit," her tail lashed across my face again. "What's your name?"

"Whisper," I slurred my name. Everything felt fuzzy and muddled.

"That's a nice name," Spark said. She kept talking but I couldn't make sense of the words. I felt warm though, light headed and giddy. It was nice.

Something kept swatting my face and Spark was yelling at me, but I was so tired I let myself drift off.

###

Pain.

Something was digging in my chest.

A charcoal coated unicorn was looking down at me with intense concentration in her red eyes.

"Ah hah!" I felt something rip loose and screamed. Straps held me down, or I would have thrashed and flailed at the unicorn.

"Quit squirming you foal, I have to get these shards out before I can close you up." There was another wrenching movement in my chest. "Stop bleeding too, while you're at it. Wait, don't stop. That means you're still alive."

There was one last tug and the charcoal unicorn grinned. A pair of bloody tweezers floated in front of my face holding a twisted chunk of bullet.

"That's much better," the tweezers whisked out of my sight and the unicorn poured the purple liquid of a healing potion into my wound. "You're actually lucky those traders used such cheap bullets and they broke up instead of going right through you and hitting something important. You might want to invest in some armored barding if you plan on getting shot again. Or not, I could use the caps."

A moment later my chest was being wrapped up in bandages. I was strapped down lying on my right side, my left foreleg already bandaged up.

"You should take it easy for a day or two. You lost a lot of blood, and while healing potions are amazing, you still need rest." The unicorn did not undo the straps that held me down. "By which I mean – you are going to rest until morning at least."

I pulled at the straps.

"Oh no. I've fixed enough stable ponies that came wandering through here to know better than to let you go, 'rest' I say , 'of course' they say and what do they do? Wander off and get themselves shot again, or blown up, or some other idiot thing," she tapped my forehead with her hoof. "PipBucks do not make you immortal and I don't care if your fancy medical spells tell you that you're good to go, 'cause you aren't."

I flattened my ears back. I didn't think the arcano-tech thing on my leg made me immortal.

"How am I supposed to sleep tied to a table?"

"You weren't supposed to wake up yet, actually," the unicorn scratched her purple and white striped mane. "Sorry about digging bullets out of you while you were awake."

The straps glowed pink and unbuckled themselves, allowing me to sit up and look around. My wounds didn't hurt, but I didn't feel numbness from Med-X either. The unicorn's horn kept glowing for a moment after the straps were undone.

"There. That should keep the pain off so you can sleep."

The room was not the clinic I expected. Dingy walls were lined with shelves crammed full of bits of machinery, scrap metal and broken down weapons. The sheer amount of grease and grime on everything made my skin crawl when I thought about being operated on. The table seemed to be the only clean spot in the room.

"You're the town doctor?" I could almost hear the cries of outrage from ponies in Medical.

"Nope!" the unicorn shook her head. "I'm the mechanic. Doc died a while ago, I'm just good at fixin' all sorts of things; guns, generators, ponies. We can't get a new doctor to settle here, not with what Maneford is paying for experts. But I did learn a few medical spells from Doc before he kicked it so I'm almost like having a real medic."

I stared at her as she grinned at me for a moment before deciding it was better not to think about it. She turned just enough that I could see her rather odd mark, a wrench with a syringe a stuck into the handle.

"Since you're awake, you'll probably want to sleep in a bed instead of on a table. That merchant pony said she rented a room for you. She also paid for you to get fixed up, so you don't have to worry about that," the mare paused, blinked and then pointed at a small table off to the side. "I almost forgot. You can keep those if you want."

The table was littered with bloody gauze, similarly bloody surgical instruments, empty potion bottles and twisted shards of bullet. I could only assume she meant the bullet fragments.

"Why would I want those?"

"Some ponies keep souvenirs," she shrugged. "Your leg should be good enough to walk on, but I'll carry your bags for you. That is, if you want the room. Table is still an option though."

My leg didn't hurt when I tested it, but it did feel weak and more than a little wobbly. That meant walking absurdly slow even though the hotel and bar was just down the street from the "clinic."

The charcoal unicorn would not stop talking. As much I liked pleasant chatter, I had to concentrate on not face-planting every other step. Her name was Night Star, but I could just call her Star or Night if I wanted, and she was really pleased that I hadn't died on her operating table. I learned more about the town of Bridleton than I really needed to know as I hobbled along. She was also levitating my bags beside her as she chattered and caught me more than once with telekinesis when I stumbled without missing a beat in her talking.

Show off.

I was sweating by the time I staggered into the bar portion of the Bit and Bridle Inn. Star's cold metal table almost seemed like the better option after all that effort. Even having to limp the entire way I shouldn’t have been so tired. Then I remembered the blood loss. Right.

The room was full of tables, most of which were empty except a corner where Spark was staring at an empty glass.

"I told you I'd save this one," Star said brightly to the barpony.

"Didn't doubt ya for a second," the barpony dropped a small stack of bottle caps on the counter which Star immediately grabbed up in her telekinesis.

Were they betting pieces of garbage on my survival? That wasn't – oh never mind. I felt far too tired to even bother being outraged, offended or whatever.

"About that room," I really did want sleep, more so with every passing minute.

Spark looked up, her eyes going wide. She shot from the table and nearly bowled me over, crushing me in a hug.

"I'm so glad Scatter didn't kill you," she let go after a moment. "If you need anything just ask, it's the least I can do."

"You don't happen to have a water talisman, do you?" It couldn't hurt to ask.

"N-no. That's a rare piece of pre-war magic. Maneford might though, that's where we're going when we finish here. You're welcome to come with us when we do."

"I'll think about it, right now I just want sleep."

The barpony cleared her throat. "You aren't sleeping on one of my beds in that condition, you'll ruin it."

I had almost forgotten that I'd taken a bath in bandit blood with more of my own thrown into the mix than I wanted to think about. The barpony lead me to a room with a tub of water and gave me a brush and soap. I had to change the water twice before I stopped dying it red. I also had to ignore the ticking from my PipBuck telling me I was being exposed to radiation in the water.

The bandages Star had put on me seemed pointless. I couldn't find any sign of the gunshots other than round patches of slightly darker gray on my chest and above my PipBuck. Scars, I realized, but they were barely noticeable. Next time I wouldn't startle a bunch of armed ponies after helping them. I also scrubbed the scorch spot out of my cutie mark, returning it to its normal empty self.

It was just an outline of a unicorn, like a doodle on my flank in black marker. I'd gotten it after the first time I cast my blurring, faux invisibility spell on accident. Somepony had startled me and a burst of magic left me almost invisible. At the time I was just thrilled to finally have my mark. It wasn't until later that I figured out it was the thing that ensured I would never be assigned to a section. Not that it mattered at this point.

Cleaning my mane took its own refill of the tub, but I managed to wash the gore out and return it to its normal light blue and blue-gray. Since I had nothing to tie it back with I let it fall loose. I'd have to trim it down later. I kept my tail short to keep it from getting tangled or caught on anything while skulking through the stable, I'd just cut my mane to match now.

"So there was a pony under all of that," the barpony said when I went back to the bar. "You clean up nice sugar."

"That room?" I tried to ignore the heat rising in my cheeks.

The barpony waved at the stairs across the room. "First door on the right, Star left your bags in there and Spark wants to talk to you when you wake up."

"Thanks." I didn't look back as I went up the stairs, but I had the feeling she was still watching me.

I found my room, my bags and my bed and promptly dove into the mattress. It wasn't Stable-Tech spongy-ness, but it was good enough.

###

I wish I could say that I was haunted by dreams of vague and dire prophesy or nightmare replays of what I'd been through, as that would make a good tale. Alas, I slept soundly until the room grew brighter. The first time I woke just long enough to turn away from the window before falling back to sleep.

Knocking at the door finally convinced me to drag myself out of bed.

It was the barpony from last night with a tray in her mouth. She set it down and smiled at me.

"Courtesy of Miss Spark, she hasn't spared any expense so I guess she likes you," she winked at me, making me blush.

I tried to cover my reaction by examining the tray. There was canned vegetables, canned fruit, Sugar Apple Bombs and a bottle of something orange-ish. It seemed like a lot for one pony.

"Night Star wants to see you to make sure everything healed right and Spark wants to talk to you when you're up and about. Night's probably in her workshop and Spark'll be around somewhere, probably haggling with Umbrage in the general store."

"Thank you," I realized I had no idea what her name was.

"Apple Gin and you're welcome. How do you like my little establishment?"

"It's – nice." Not that I had much to compare it to other than the stable and some ruins. Though I couldn't imagine how she managed to have clean sheets and mattresses when everything else I had seen so far was dingy and decrepit at best.

"Just nice?" the mare pouted.

I looked away from her, not sure if she actually felt put-out or not.

"Do you bring all your customers food in the morning?"

"It's almost noon, and no. I do, however, make exceptions for cute mares," her poutiness evaporated instantly and she grinned. "I'll leave you to your breakfast."

She turned and left with a swish of immaculately groomed green tail. I definitely did not watch her tail and white flanks saunter down the hall until disappearing down the stairs. Now if I could just stop blushing like a school filly every time she looked at me.

###

When I left my room I had a new favorite drink. Sparkle Cola was just pure carroty awesomeness. What were another few ticks on my PipBuck compared to the flavor? I owed Spark a lot now. Getting me healed, a place to stay and food. It couldn't compare to killing a few a nasty critters and – and other things. I didn't want to think about the other things, didn't want to think about driving my horn into another pony's throat and feeling him die on top of me, or punching another in the face with spiked horseshoes and watching –

Damnit.

There wasn't time to think about it. I couldn't let myself dwell on what was past, I had things to do. First I wanted another try at that warehouse. Somepony had to have guns or something I could trade the stuff in my packs for that would help me deal with the horde of robo-ponies. If not, I would figure something out. I had to be absolutely sure what I was looking for wasn't in that warehouse before I moved on. That meant finding the general store and probably Spark as well.

The big sign with 'General Store' painted on it above one of the buildings was a good hint that it was the one I was looking for. I took a good look at the town in the daylight. Bridleton wasn't very large, just a dozen or so patched and rebuilt buildings clustered along the road. The town was surrounded by a piecemeal wall of rubble and sheets of metal. Ponies with hunting rifles were patrolling atop the wall. Besides the Bit and Bridle and general store there was another shop that looked like a restaurant and Night's clinic, though the sign was for Blue Falcon Cart Repair and "clinic" was painted in red on a board next to the door.

There were ponies in the street as well. Some were at the tables in front of the restaurant while others ambled down the road. I got looks from them as I walked to the store, but they were curious rather than wary. Bridleton was a safe place, Night had said, its citizens worked hard to keep it that way so caravans would stop and rest before pushing west toward Vanhoover or east into the Equestrian Heartland. The town sat in the middle of the only real pass through the mountains between the coast and the rest of Equestria, which would have made it a trade hub if not for Maneford.

I really hoped I could get back into the warehouse and, if it didn't have a water talisman, back to Spark in time to go with her to Maneford, since it was on the list of Stable-Tech facilities in my PipBuck.

"That's highway robbery!" Spark cried as I entered the general store. "It's worth at least twice that in Maneford."

"I don' give a hoot if they'd pay enough caps to swim in, there ain't enough demand fer fancy gizmos like that. I'd have to sell it to another traveler," the old stallion behind the counter scowled.

"It's a MAUR-17, state-of-the-art. Look, it has a built-in spark recycler, uses half the energy, has an intensity selector and a targeting module," Spark was pointing to some kind of box with a mouth grip and various other protrusions on it.

"An' who am I s'posed to sell it to? Steel Rangers, those Hoofologist nuts? No, now that I think about it, I don't even want it in my shop. Damn Rangers will probably smell it and burn down the whole town."

Spark took the box-thing and put it back in her saddlebag and sighed.

"Take the caps for the rest of it and be happy," the stallion said.

"Fine," Spark nodded.

I watched Spark scrape bottle caps off the counter into a small sack while the stallion put the various boxes of ammunition and other things on the shelves behind him. Sometimes I can be a little slow, so it took me a while to connect talk of caps with bottle caps and to realize that ponies were using them for money.

Then I wanted to kick myself for leaving that locker full of them. There should be a book or something to explain things like that to stable dunces like me.

"Hey Spark, you wanted to talk to me?"

Spark dropped the sack of caps in her saddlebag. "I wanted to give you something, but I was going to give you a choice since I don't know what you'd want."

"You've already done enough," I shook my head. "I was going to ask if there's anything I can do to repay you for – everything."

"Scatter went back to look at those bandits you took out and believe me, you saved our lives so don't go thinking you owe me anything. Payin' for you get patched up doesn't even figure into it."

"But the room, the food," I didn't even know how much simple things cost out here. It just wasn't a consideration in the stable.

"Gin and me are old friends, so I get a discount," Spark dismissed it with a wave of the hoof. "So just tell me what you need."

"If you have anything that will help me take out a small army of robots, that would be helpful."

The mare's eye lit up as she grinned and nodded.

"I have just what you need. Or I will, it'll take me a bit to get it together. Not too long though, maybe an hour?" Spark paused. "What do you need anti-robot things for?"

"There's a warehouse off the road just a little way from that shack. It might have what I'm looking for in it but I couldn't get past the robots inside." Or the turret, but this time I would be prepared and not walking blindly into a deathtrap.

"You mean the old Stable-Tech warehouse east of here?" the stallion said.

I nodded.

"I'll pay your two-hundred caps to make it safe enough for other ponies to pick through." He pointed at a board on the wall. "I've had that posting up there for months and not one merc or drifter has taken the job. Since you're goin' there anyway, might as well get a few caps out of it and if you can shut down some of the bots instead of destroying them I'll double it."

"You can't get any anypony to take the job because you won't pay them enough to risk their hide in that deathtrap," Spark glowered at the stallion.

"I could have said nothin' and just waited for her to open it up and save myself the caps," the stallion pointed out.

"I'll get to work on what you need," Spark said as she left the shop.

"So," I eyed the shelves of supplies. "Got anything good for fighting robots?"

"I might, but it depends on what you've got to barter with."

###

Bartering is hard. That or Umbrage was just a cheapskate and a jerk. Possibly both.

"Won't you make a lot more if I survive all those robots? I mean, from other ponies looting the place and selling it here, or whatever."

The old stallion grumbled but added two more healing potions to the pile.

"I'll swap the shotgun and rifle rounds for an equal number of jacketed flat points for that little pistol of yours, too but that's all the charity you're getting from me and you'd better not die."

That seemed fair enough. I added the shells and rifle bullets to my growing pile of barter material.

"How about that pistol?" It didn't look all the much bigger than the pistols for the firing range.

"Look kid, pistols aren't gonna be worth much with what you're puttin' yourself up against. Why not try a rifle? I have some good ones," he gestured to the ones mounted on the wall next to the shelves. They looked heavy, and unwieldy. "Or a shotgun. Spark shells are good for robots and I happen to have a few."

I tried levitating each the rifles but they were all too heavy for me to use for very long, the shotguns looked even heavier. Except for one, but it looked to be in the worst shape of the lot.

"How much for this one and some of those spark shells?" I picked up a little sawed-off double barrel shotgun and aimed down the barrels. It felt comfortable, about as good as the revolver. Even if the barrels were a bit rusted and the stock was beat up.

###

My bags were much lighter when I left the general store. I couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't the one who made out on the deal. The bandits' packs had been full of little bottles of meds with names like Rage, Buck and Hydra. I hadn't even wanted to find out what those did, but Umbrage had been more than happy to take them off my hooves.

Well, I had my pistol and my new shotgun, ammunition for both and I still had whatever Spark was cooking up to look forward to. I just hadn't had enough junk to trade for some kind of armored barding. The old stallion refused to budge even a little on his prices for any of it. I would just have to avoid getting hit, I suppose.

Spark was waiting for me in the Bit and Bridle, with grenades. Well, that's what she called them so I took her word for it. They looked like tin cans with wires and spark batteries to me.

"They're spark grenades," she explained. "They damage spell matrices and force them to shut down or outright fry the talismans."

"What about ponies, and PipBucks?"

"You might get a mild shock if you're too close and I don't think they'll do anything to your PipBuck, those things are almost indestructible. Just try not to be in the blast radius if you can help it."

I put the three grenades in my bag. "Thanks, for everything."

"They're hoof-made, so the timing and power might be a bit dodgy between them. I didn't really have all the parts I would have liked."

"They're amazing. As long as I can get a few of those robo-ponies with each one I'll be happy. That boxy thing Umbrage wouldn't buy, did you make that too?"

Spark laughed. "No, no. I just bought or scrounged the parts for it. I was going to sell it, but no pony seems to want to buy it. You don't want it, do you?"

I shook my head. "I have no idea how to use that thing."

"It's not hard," she ventured.

"You've already given me enough, really. When I get back, if that warehouse doesn't have a talisman, I'd like to go to Maneford with you."

Spark just nodded. It was past time to go. The day was quickly slipping away.

###

The way back to the warehouse was still clear. I suppose I had a little to do with that. I trotted along the road, I didn't want to tire myself out, but I also didn't want to waste time getting there.

The warehouse was still there with its roaming outdoor robots. This time, however, I wasn't going to sneak past them. I didn't need more enemies at my back if I had to run again. My little revolver would just have to be up to the task.

The rusted casings of the robots were no match for my pistol's jacketed bullets. I took my time to aim carefully between dodging bolts of fiery magic. One or two shots to the head were enough to take them down. It was nice to have the right tool for the job, or at least one I could use more effectively than my hooves and lack of body mass. I made sure all the robots in the parking lot were smoking doorstops before venturing back inside.

The lobby and offices were empty of robots or any sign of them other than the pock and scorch marked walls. Nothing red showed up on my EFS. They had gone back to waiting for something to trip whatever alarm I had stumbled into. As I crept to the door with the turret, I swapped my pistol for the shotgun and its spark rounds. I'd only gotten a dozen of the shells out of the stubborn shop pony, enough for six shots if I loaded both barrels and I wasn't going to chance one shell not being enough.

Magic tingled over my hide after a moment of concentration and I took a long, calming breath. I didn't know what the turret used to target things, I just hoped blurriness and S.A.T.S. would give me enough of an advantage.

I jumped out into the middle of the open doorway, slipping into S.A.T.S. as the turret came to life. This time I wasn't caught flat hoofed. This time I had the drop on it.

My shotgun roared as time resumed its normal flow. I almost lost my grip on it from the recoil. The turret sparked and made a satisfying pop as the little red talisman it had for an "eye" shattered.

Then all hell broke loose.

My EFS lit up with red and the small army of robo-ponies issued their cacophony of idiotic demands for me to surrender so they could kill me. I dashed up a set of rusted metal stairs as blasts of magic peppered the wall behind me. I shoved my shotgun back into my saddlebag and pulled out one of Spark's grenades.

I stopped at the top of the stairs and waited for them cluster at the bottom, flinching as erratic bursts of magic flew past me or splashed near my hooves.

I pushed the little button on the grenade and rolled it down the stairs.

It made a flash and sizzle. Several of the robots jerked and went still, others ground to a halt after a series of little internal explosions. One's head exploded completely. The robots behind them didn't seem affected at all and pushed the broken down husks out of the way and started climbing the stairs.

I tried not to think about how stupid a place a catwalk was for fighting as I pulled out my revolver. The shotgun and its specialty rounds were a better choice, but I'd have to get close to hit anything and I really didn't want to do that if I could help it.

The catwalk shifted as the mass of robots crowded up the stairs. I fired into the crowd, but the bullets just bounced off their bodies. These robots hadn't been ravaged by outside weather for two hundred years. That complicated things somewhat.

I raced down the catwalk, looking for a way down. There was only one stairway and it was clogged with robots intent on incinerating me.

Not good. I had to jump. A stack of crates looked promising, if I could jump that far.

A bolt of pain scoring across my croup decided me.

I backed up to the opposite edge of the catwalk and tried not to think about how far above the warehouse floor I was. Or how far the gap was.

Just a hop. I lurched forward to gain some momentum. Red flashed past the end of my muzzle.

A skip. I brought my rear hooves to my front.

And a jump. I shoved up and forward with as much force as my back legs could muster.

I may have closed my eyes for a second or two as I stretched out over nothingness. The ancient wooden crate groaned as I landed atop it. If only somepony had been around to see that. Ah well.

At least it worked.

I hopped down crates stacked like an over-sized set of stairs to the warehouse floor. The robots seemed confused by my disappearance. I could probably have left them up there while they wandered around looking for their vanished target and started searching the crates.

On the other hoof, if one of them came back down or just looked down while I was busy nosing through things I'd lose my advantage.

I reloaded my shotgun and recast my blurring spell. There was a little warning twinge in my horn and pressure that warned of a coming headache if I kept pushing myself. Not that I had much choice at the moment.

The robo-pony I snuck up on never had a chance. I put the double blast of spark shells in the back of its head. This time I held on to the spell as I stayed low and moved out onto the catwalk once again. The robots fired wildly toward the sound of my gunshot before stopping and going back to aimless searching.

My horn was starting to ache from keeping the spell up. I wanted to get one more of them and try to get them back into a group where the grenades could do some damage. A sharp stab of pain through my horn forced me to let go of the magic before I was ready.

"Halt!" The robot got a pair of electrical slugs in the face before its weapon could go off.

Fire splashed my neck and shoulder as I tried to dive out of the barrage. So much for not getting hit.

I scrambled for the stairs as soon as I was sure they were following me again. They did exactly what I hoped they would. They bunched up on the stairs. There might be a lot of them and they had magical energy weapons, but they were really, really stupid. I traded my shotgun for another spark grenade and waited for them to line up just so.

A press of a button. A flash.

Flash?

I tried to scream as my whole body locked up. Every muscle went taut as lightning shot through me. My EFS flickered and random symbols flashed in my sight. The sensation went on and on until it was suddenly gone and my legs gave out under me.

My vision was clear. No compass, no S.A.T.S. charge, nothing. The screen on my foreleg was dark.

Not good.

I struggled to stand up and groped for the last grenade in my bag. Random muscles kept twitching every few seconds as I finally found the last grenade.

I pushed the button and tossed it at the lead robot. It smacked against its body and crackled. Three more of the robo-ponies went down. That left far too many.

Three more shotgun blasts turned another three into sparking statues and I was out of shotgun shells. That left my revolver and only a hit in the robot's faceplate did anything to them.

The muscle spasms kept throwing off my aim as I drew the robots into the maze of stacked crates. As long as they didn't somehow get the bright idea to flank me I could pick them off one at a time. One of the broken robots clogged the way just long enough for me to dig in my bag for a vial of Steady. The wonderful, wonderful chemicals finally stopped the damnable twitching so I could actually hit consistently.

I came to a corner and started to back around it when I felt heat skim under my belly. They'd flanked me.

Fuck.

The hammer clicked on an empty chamber.

Fuck fuck fuck!

I should have traded for something that was less of a pain to reload. The cylinder didn't pop out. Each chamber had to be reloaded one at a time. I tried to ignore the splashes of magic fire around me. The only thing keeping me from getting cooked was their terrible, terrible aim.

There were only two robots flanking me so I turned on them. The next three shots missed their mark and dinged off the robot's head.

This wasn't fair, things had been going well. Why did Celestia hate me?

The robot staggered from the next shot but started moving again. The weapon port in its head started to glow for a second before something internal exploded and it collapsed. That left one in my way. So I charged straight at it.

Stupid, stupid idea.

I tried to dodge its shot, but I felt the bolt sear into my chest right where Scatter had shot me. That shot wouldn't just be another black spot on my hide. I snarled in pain and anger and put the muzzle of my pistol right in the robot's face. It shuddered and went still with two bullets planted into its brain or whatever it had.

A quick duck into another aisle of crates gave me just enough time to reload again. Bullets were getting scarce and I really needed a healing potion or ten, but there just wasn't time. I glanced at my PipBuck but its screen was still black. It would be really nice if it decided to turn back on.

Any time now.

Still nothing. That figured.

I waited for the next robot to come around the corner and shot it point-blank.

Only two or three left.

It hurt to breathe, but I couldn't stop to think about it. I ran down the aisle to try and flank the remaining robots. A running jump put me on the back of one and I jammed the pistol against its head and fired twice.

I was getting sick of goddess damned robots. The next bot turned as I ran toward it. The robo-pony kept shooting where I had been as I wove my way up to it.

Another shot and another dead robot. Just one left, finally.

I emptied the remaining chambers of my pistol into its face and stomped its head until the casing cracked open, spilling wires and bits of broken gems onto the floor.

Then I collapsed as the adrenaline wore off. My chest was in agony, my hide felt like one giant burn. I struggled to get to my healing potions, drank down two of them, poured one over the blistering and charred hide of my chest and sprinkled what was left over my other burns.

The burns began to soothe a little and I injected a Med-X for good measure. After a few minutes of rest to catch my breath I got back up and started to look around.

I wanted to find some kind of inventory. Opening every crate to look for a water talisman just wasn't practical. There had to be a ledger or a working terminal or something that said what was in the crates. At least, I hoped so.

All of the terminals in the office area were burned out and I couldn't find anything like a ledger. At least none that were intact enough to read. I did find a gun though, a .44 magnum and bullets for it, and an assortment of other things like snack cakes, tins of Mint-Als, and more ammunition than seemed right for an office to have. Most of it was in sizes I couldn't use but I did find some for my pistol and even a few shotgun shells. Then I came to the locked door.

I glared at it.

"We meet again." This time I had plenty of pins.

It took a few tries and a couple broken pins but I finally tickled the lock open. The little office had a working terminal. It was even still logged in so I didn't have to try and guess the password.

Most of the files were corrupted, but it did have a few memos and a shipping manifest. I looked at the memos first.

To Slate, Stable-Tech regional manager:

I'm sorry, things are hectic enough around here trying to get the stables outfitted and ready without having the Ministries, or whomever, trying to redirect our shipments. We just do not have the extra stock on hand – not in the quantities these officials are demanding – and I still haven’t heard anything from the main office authorizing these requests.

Betty

Well, that told me almost nothing. I opened the next one.

To Slate, Stable-Tech regional manager:

One of those O.I.A ponies came in here waving papers signed by Princess Luna and demanding that I reroute the spare water talisman shipment for Stable 15 to Stable 19, said there would be hell to pay if I didn't do it right now. What could I do? You were out of town and he had signed documents; I even checked the royal seal. So it's done. Hopefully we can get Stable 15 properly supplied after the next lot arrives.

Betty

That explained the lack of a spare at least. I guess the shipment didn't arrive before the end of the world. The shipping manifest reflected the memo. There weren't any water talismans in the warehouse. It was, however, full of machine components for all sorts of other things. They would probably be valuable to somepony at least.

I switched off the terminal and sighed. All of that for nothing but a couple saddlebags full of salvage to sell. At least I knew now, even if it was futile.

I rifled through the desks and cabinets one more time to make sure I didn't miss any stray caps before leaving the warehouse behind me and heading back to Bridleton. Some other pony could pick over the robots I'd scrapped. I didn't even want to look at them.

Footnote: Approximately fifty-eight days of water remain.
Level up!
New perk: Travel Light - You like to keep it light and agile. You gain increased run speed when wearing light or no armor. All the better for quick escapes. Armor is for chumps anyway.

Skill Note: Unarmed 25, Sneak 35

(A/N: Thanks to Kkat, Somber and the others making such a fun sandbox to play in. Also, thanks to Koneko for brutalizing my semicolon and hyphen abuse, and for general editing.)

Chapter Three - Strays

View Online

Chapter Three – Strays

"Hell I'll kill a buck in a fair fight… or if I think he's gonna start a fair fight, or if there's a mare, or if I'm gettin' paid - mostly when I'm gettin' paid. These raiders though. Eating ponies alive? Where's that get fun?"

The rain started after I stepped onto the main road. I put on my abused second-hoof hat to keep it out of my eyes. It felt nice and soothing on the burns so I didn't mind being soaked at all. Even with Med-X dulling the pain it felt like my hide was a size too small.

Rain. I suppose I should have felt awe at the water cascading from the vast vault of clouds above me. It was another one of those vague things that had only existed in books. The film it lent to the air softened the harshness of the wastes around me at least.

The walls of the Stable were a monotonous gray that my coat almost matched. Some parts of the Stable were painted with murals to break the dullness, but even unadorned I wouldn't call them ugly.

The wasteland was ugly.

I hadn't let myself look at it. I mean really look at it, since I left the cave. There had been a certainty somewhere inside me that my mission would be quick. A jaunt Outside to grab what was needed followed by a mad dash back to what was safe and familiar. Everything that had happened would just be a few bad memories washed away by a good hot shower and work shifts spent getting Socket to smile more.

Instead I was empty hoofed. No talisman, my PipBuck a dead weight on my leg and there was nothing but death to look at. Dead grass, dead bushes, and the blackened trunks of dead trees. Not to mention the dead ruins of buildings dotting the landscape. The two dead stallions I saw when I closed my eyes. The only things living were twisted nightmares of what they should have been. I had to wonder if that extended to ponykind as well. How could it not when surrounded by so much ruin?

I stopped in the middle of the road and blinked furiously to clear my eyes. It was just rainwater getting in my eyes from the bullet holes in my hat. All that work risking my life and nothing to show for it but odds and ends of scrap. I tried to choke down the disappointment and ignore the growing horror. Ignore the useless anger at those long-dead ponies who'd let it come to this.

The rain had gone from soothing to simply cold and I shivered. There were better things to focus on. I'd met a few good ponies, found an actual community despite the ruin. Soon I'd have a little pile of caps and be back on my way to saving the Stable.

I just hoped that Spark's affinity for technical things extended to PipBucks. If not, at least I knew Maneford was on my list of places to search. Even if I recovered the list of possible locations for a water talisman and exhausted it I would just find other likely places. I wouldn't quit until I turned the whole goddess forsaken wasteland upside down twice if I had to.

A positive attitude was what I needed. It was the only thing that really made living in the Stable bearable and the same was likely true for the wasteland. Positive, but still wary.

Not quite wary enough.

Stabbing pain erupted in my flank but quickly dulled thanks to the Med-X circulating through me. I looked to see a chitinous spine sticking out from the center of my mark.

A grotesque insect looking creature was struggling to stay airborne some distance away. I danced sideways as it puffed itself up and fired a volley of needle-like spines in my general direction.

"My cutie mark is not a target!" I screamed at the dimwitted bug, giving vent to my mounting frustration. Was it too much to ask for just a little while of nothing trying to kill me for no reason?

My burns hurt, in a dull and removed sense, as I dodged another volley of spines. I pulled out my revolver, sighted and pulled the trigger.

Click.

I swore something inarticulate and dropped the pistol in the mud. Of course I'd forgotten to reload the thing. The magnum shook in my telekinetic hold as I dragged it out of my bag. I focused on steadying it just for a second. My horn started to throb in protest as I pulled the trigger.

The recoil shattered my grip on the pistol, sending it whizzing past my face and into my shoulder. The bug exploded into a mist of carapace and insect goo.

Boom. Heh.

I laughed, I couldn't help it. Something about watching it explode was immensely satisfying.

My shoulder was already bruising. It was going to be a doozy later, but it didn't hurt at the moment. I picked up my pistols and put them back in my bags after reloading both. Checking the corpse would be a waste of time since I doubted giant bugs carried anything valuable. That and I'd vaporized it.

I wrenched the spine out of my flank and tossed it aside. The hole didn't even bleed much. That was good. I was beginning to see why Morale considered the shooting ranges therapeutic.

The rest of the way back to Bridleton was spent being doubly cautious. I had a new appreciation for how much of an advantage my PipBuck gave just with the EFS alone.

The painkiller wore off before I reached town. What wasn't burned was bruised, and I could not remember being hit with anything that would leave bruises other than the magnum. It hurt to move, to stand still, and just to breathe. The only blessing was the cold, cold rain that numbed me somewhat. I tried not to look at the burns. None of them were pretty, but the worst was the one on my chest. I couldn't be sure the healing potion I'd poured on it had done anything at all.

I had to move slow and try not to breathe too deeply. It was that or scream and cry the whole way back to town and attract every nasty in hearing range. I would have given a hoof for just one more dose of Med-X. The Steady kept me from collapsing into a quivering heap, but it did nothing for the pain, and I'd used the last of that too.

My whole world narrowed to simply putting one hoof in front of the other and moving forward. How long it took me to reach the gate I can't say, there was only pain and breathing and moving.

"Who goes there? State your business." I looked up to the top of the gate and the hunting rifle aimed at my face.

I meant to tell the guard my name but the world suddenly skewed sideways and went fuzzy.

~*~

"Children," Sapphire's voice cut through the excited tittering of the foals, silencing them almost instantly. "Now I know you've been studying very hard, so it's time to put that study to the test."

Tests. I hated tests. Why couldn't we just do this in the normal classroom? The room teacher had herded us into was completely bare save for the ornate circles etched in the floor. None of the class set hoof in the circles, instead sticking to the walls while Sapphire stood in the center of the room.

"Line up now children, and come stand where I am one at a time," the mare's gaze swept over us and with some jostling and shoving we all fell into line. "Good, now just cast the spell we've been practicing."

I slid to the back of the line. I didn't want to do this – I hadn't gotten so much as a spark out of my horn with all the practice we'd been doing. Trying would just give the others another thing to make fun of me for.

Cinder jostled her way to the front as she always did and stepped into the middle of the circle with Sapphire. Without a moment of hesitation a ball of light popped into existence at the tip of her horn, growing brighter and brighter until I had to look away.

"That will do," Sapphire said.

The light went out instantly and the blood-red filly gave the others in line a smug smile before trotting out of the circle. She snapped the tip of her fiery orange and red tail in front of my nose as she passed.

"I can't wait to see what you can do, blank flank," she tittered.

My ears drooped as others took their turn. They all conjured their own little glowing orbs with varying amounts of effort. None of them cast the spell with quite the speed or lack of effort Cinder showed, some like Shale Gust even struggled before completing the task, but they all passed.

I gulped as I stepped into the circle, wrinkling my nose at the smell of ozone. Splash's orb exploded with a static sizzle rather than simply going out, earning him a frown from the teacher.

I just needed to concentrate, everything would be fine. I could do this – it was just a silly test after all.

All the steps ran through my head. I closed my eyes, took a steadying breath, and focused on what I wanted to happen. A tingle ran through my horn and I could feel pressure building in my skull behind my eyes. I just had to will it into being.

I could hear the other foals in my class starting to whisper to each other. My horn almost hurt with how hard I was focusing.

Something gave way. It hit with a shock, icy water running through my veins. Finally, finally I'd done it. But there was no brightness pressing on my eyelids. I could feel something at the tip of my horn, an extension of my energy. At least, that's what the book said it would feel like.

"What – what is that?" Cinder almost sounded frightened.

I opened my eyes and looked up. There was no ball of light to greet me, instead a sphere of perfect black danced at the tip of my horn. That wasn't what I had tried to conjure at all! I backed away from the thing, just hoping it would go away. The orb trailed after my horn.

"Whisper, just keep calm – just let go so it can dissipate," Sapphire's voice was soft and calm.

I backed away further. I wasn't holding on to it – I wanted it to go away! It was cold, I realized, freezing cold as it kept moving with my horn. I shook my head, trying to get the thing away from me.

My horn grazed the orb. The pearl of black stuck and stretched, and started to tear.

A blast of icy wind tore through the room as the orb broke. Smoky black something poured out of the thing, splashing on the floor and flowing through the air like ink in water. It splattered over my legs, cold and slippery and tickling my belly with cold wisps as it flowed.

My classmates screamed as Sapphire ushered them out the door into the hallway. I could only stare at where the orb had been, a point of nothing spewing liquid blackness into the room between me and the door. A faint glow filled my vision and I felt myself lifted from the floor as the teacher's levitation took hold of me, dragging me to safety.

~*~

I awoke with a start, a chill slithering over me. I hated that dream, hated remembering that first magical fuck-up. It took me a moment to realize that the chill rolling over me was actually the tingling of the healing bandages covering me from horn to hoof. This time I felt mattress under me rather than Night's operating table. That was a good change.

When I opened my eyes the room looked to be one of Gin's. Even better. A certain charcoal unicorn was pacing back and forth through the room, a piece of machinery floating in front of her as she paced. She turned it over and over, scowling.

"No no no," she growled.

The machine exploded into a cloud of smaller parts that swirled around and began sticking back together. The parts stopped moving when she glanced at me.

"You're awake." She managed to sound both relieved and angry. "You know I was kidding about needing the caps, right?"

She glared at me. I laid my ears back and tried to look apologetic.

"I just put you back together and you come back even worse! Do all you Stable ponies have a death wish? The last one to come through was just like you. Crawled into town all shot up – went chasing after something or other as soon as he could walk again. Probably got himself blown to pieces half way to Maneford."

The parts began swirling around again. She didn't even seem to be focusing on them or paying attention. Show off.

"Doc's the one that always saved the others, though. You – you're the pony I saved. The first one." She stared at the parts floating in her levitation magic. "I thought you weren't going to make it when Spark first brought you in. Others died on me hurt less than you. Cuts and scratches and things are easy enough – but ponies are harder to fix than broken motors when it's something big."

The last few pieces clicked into place. Night scrutinized the piece of machinery a moment before slipping it into her saddlebag. I just watched the charcoal unicorn. I didn't know what she wanted. Trying to apologize to a pony I barely knew for her having to do her job felt stupid.

"I had to cut off the dead tissue in the burns, but you should be fine by tomorrow with the bandages and all the potions I put in you. Pick up the bill after you settle with Umbrage. You should rest for now."

"How long was I out?" I said, interrupting the mare as she turned to leave.

"Two days."

Two days? Two days!

I jumped to my hooves, or rather, I tried to. Pain shot through every inch of my hide as I started to move. My breath hissed through my teeth as I bit down on a scream.

"Can you do that spell and numb me a bit?" I said through clenched teeth as my eyes welled with tears.

"No. Pain exists to tell you when you're hurt and doing something stupid." With that rebuke she left, shutting the door hard behind her.

~*~

The bandages were soothing, so long as I didn't move. The moment I tried to move they shifted, rubbing and scratching my poor, raw hide. I left my bag in the room since the mere thought of trying to put it on made me hurt. So long as I moved very slowly I could walk without too much pain.

Night meant for me to stay in the room and rest but I couldn't afford to do that. Couldn't afford to waste another day not getting what the Stable needed. Getting down the stairs to the bar was pure agony. Sweat made my burns sting and soaked into the bandages, wrapping me in a tingly, scratching and stinging hell.

The few ponies at the bar didn't pay any attention to me as I stood at the bottom of the stairs, gritting my teeth fit to crack them and fighting tears.

"You okay, hon?" the barpony said. "Night asked me to bring you up somethin' later, said you'd be resting."

My jaw was starting to ache from clenching it so hard. I tried to blink away the stinging in the corners of my eyes and force another step forward. Just a couple steps to the bar and then I could rest a moment, I promised my body. Just a few steps, that was all.

I made it to the bar somehow and leaned against it with my bruised shoulder, waiting for the pain to become tolerable again.

"I'm fine," I lied. "Just – fine."

Apple Gin didn't buy it either. "You really should rest. You're going to hurt yourself."

"So I keep hearing," I grinned. At least I hoped it was a grin.

I flinched as one of the bandages shifted, which only made it move more. My vision started to get watery so I pushed myself away from the bar before Gin could notice.

"Well, I have things to do, ponies to see. My things are still in the room if that's okay," I didn't hear her reply above the roar of blood in my ears as I forced myself to walk as normally as I could manage out of the bar.

The walk to Umbrage's shop dissolved into a haze of pain. As long as I kept going, momentum and force of will were enough to keep me from collapsing into a whimpering pile. As much as I wanted to lie down until everything stopped hurting, I couldn't. There was a job to get paid for and a merchant pony to talk to about fixing my PipBuck. After two days, I wasn't sure she was still in town. It would be just my luck to have missed her leaving for Maneford.

"That's two hundred for the job," Umbrage said, dropping a bag of caps on the counter. "Find what you were looking for?"

"It didn't have what I needed, but it had a lot of other things in it," I said, surprising myself by how bitter I sounded.

"What sorts of things?"

I rattled off the names of some of the machine components I remembered from the shipping manifest. As I did the earth pony's expression turned thoughtful, then his eyes narrowed. He ducked under the counter for a moment and came back up with another bag, dumping out caps and quickly gathering them into a small pile.

"That's another hundred to keep your mouth shut about what's in that warehouse," he added them to the bag with the two hundred for the warehouse job.

I shrugged, doubting anypony would bother asking me about it, but I wasn't going to turn down more caps. The shrug made the bandages grate against my burns and I hissed softly.

This pain wouldn't do at all. My eyes lit on the Med-X nestled amongst the assortment of other drugs on one of the shop pony's shelves. I snapped up the syringes in my magic and dropped them on the counter.

"How much?"

The old stallion named a price and I didn't bother trying to haggle with him. I'd had enough agony for one day.

The moment he took my caps I jammed one of the needles into my shoulder through the bandage. Sweet numbing relief swept through me and I couldn't help but sigh at being able to relax muscles held taught against the pain. I took the syringes and what was left of Umbrage's payment and walked without wincing or cringing to the door. The shopkeeper was watching me with an odd expression, but I didn't care. For the first time since waking up I didn't hurt.

I tucked the collection of needles and was left of my reward under one of my bandages for lack of anywhere else to put them and left Umbrage's shop.

~*~

Spark didn't seem to be anywhere. She wasn't in the tavern, the restaurant or at Night's clinic. At least, she wasn't in the clinic from what I saw. I didn't want to chance another lecture about proper rest and healing from the resident medical pony.

After walking up and down the street looking for her, and another Med-X, I was starting to think she had left town without me. I couldn't blame her if she had. She probably had better things to do than wait on someone who got themselves shot up doing a simple job.

"You don't think it's a problem? My caravan got hit comin' up the pass. Highfort is just one big raider nest now, and you don't think it's a problem?" I knew that voice!

I looked up at the wall to see Spark arguing with what I assumed to be one of the guards. He had fancier barding than the others on the wall with a star that looked like it had been cut out of a tin can pinned to the shoulder piece.

"Even if I wanted ta, an' I don't, there ain't enough competent fighters here to clean them out and make sure the town stays safe while we're gone. If some mercs wander through, we'll send 'em Highfort's way – till then we just sit nice and safe behind the walls."

Spark shook her head and snorted. "How 'bout I hire some of your guards?"

The stallion stamped and scowled, "Damn it filly, no."

"Fine, I'm tellin' every group I meet on the way to Maneford that this town refuses to protect them," Spark huffed. "When the raiders get glutted enough to be confident, bored, or hungry enough to come and knock down your little walls to nibble on your citizens, you'll wish you'd been a little preemptive."

"Now wait here, it ain't like that," the stallion held up a hoof to stop her, but Spark spun on her hooves and trotted down the ramp back to street level.

The mare stopped at the bottom of the ramp and stared at me a moment, blinking. "Whisper! Shouldn't you be –"

"Resting – I know," I interrupted, holding up my PipBuck. "One of your grenades fried it, can you fix it?"

"That shouldn't have been possible," Spark frowned. "PipBucks are very sturdy; the grenades I made weren't supposed to be powerful enough to do anything to it."

I shrugged. "I pushed the button and it went off before I could toss it."

She grabbed my PipBuck with her hooves and sat on her haunches before I could put my leg down and started fiddling with it – poking at the buttons and little dials. The mare kept pulling and twisting on the PipBuck, forcing me to hop closer.

"Spark batteries shouldn't have had enough juice to get through all the shielding," Spark muttered to herself as she tapped on it. "Unless – unless I put an overcharged cell in by accident. Did I have any?"

The mare sighed and let go of my leg. "I think it just needs a restart. I could do it in a jiff but I don't have the tools."

"Let me guess, Umbrage," I didn't even want to think about his price for specials tools considering what the buck wanted for some simple barding.

Spark just shook her head. "He doesn't have them."

"Maneford's a larger town, isn't it? Maybe somepony has those tools there," I said. I could deal with not having my PipBuck for as long as it took to get there and get it fixed.

"It's likely. There are more than a few stable ponies in Maneford, there's probably even a mechanic who can reset it for you."

I shuffled a bit as she stood back up and shook herself off. It sounded like she wasn't planning on going with me.

"I thought you were going to Maneford?" I said.

"Can't, not yet," she bit her lip and threw a glance up at the ponies on the wall. "I know it's been a few days, but I have to see if anypony we left behind when we got attacked is still alive. I thought I'd get some help from here sooner – but you heard the sheriff. He won't help, and he won't let me take any of his guards with me."

"What about the stallions who were with you?" They had seemed capable enough, considering one of them shot me dead in the chest, in the dark, on reflex.

Spark shook her head. "They had delivery schedules to keep."

I needed to keep searching for a talisman, helping Spark would be moving in the wrong direction. On the other hoof, she'd paid for my room and meals at the Bit and Bridle, not to mention making weapons that made clearing the warehouse possible. Even with the faulty one trying to fry me, I had no illusions about my chances of getting out of there alive if I'd only had the pistol and shotgun.

"I could help you," I said. "You just need to look, right? I can get in and look around without anypony catching me."

Well, I probably wouldn't be caught, so long as I was lucky and didn't do anything stupid. On the bright side, it was unlikely there would be any ducts with running fans to crawl through, or pipes full of muck. Or working trash compactors, or any of the half dozen or so things I vowed not to get stuck in again back in the Stable.

"But you're still hurt. I couldn't ask you to do that."

"It'll take time to get ready, won't it? Night said I'd be fine tomorrow," I tried to give her a reassuring smile. I was actually starting to feel more than a little woozy. The numbing of the Med-X was fading and taking all my energy with it.

The mare's eyes lit up with something that could only be hope and she started to smile. "I'll make sure we have everything we need, just – get some rest."

I nodded and started to amble my way back to the bar. My burns were starting to hurt again, getting worse with each step. No more shots though, no matter how much I wanted to slip one of the little syringes out of where I'd tucked them. I knew they were bad for me – I'd actually paid attention in health class and the ponies in medical made sure to keep a tight rein on any meds they gave out if a pony got hurt.

Gin waved at me when I came into the bar. I gave her a smile in return, I wasn't sure I wanted to try waving back with how much my burns were hurting. The place was busy and the barmare's attention was quickly diverted as I made my way up the stairs.

The mattress in my room was a welcome relief from standing and moving.

~*~

"I hope this will be enough." Spark said as she dumped the contents of her saddlebags across my bed.

I washed the last of a can of peaches down with a swig of Sparkle Cola and tried to take stock of what the mare dumped on the mattress. Most of it was ammunition, .44 and .357 shells for my pistols, a few shot shells and more than a few spark batteries. Spark busied herself with sorting the mess into piles, shoving the ammunition for my weapons into one, the batteries into another. A last pile was devoted to healing bandages, potions and… other things, vials of Med-X, Steady and a bottle with a bucking pony on it.

"I noticed you didn't have any holsters," Spark said, tossing a tangle of belts and holsters my way.

It took me a moment to untangle it all, leaving me with two pistol holsters and their straight-forward leg straps and a scabbard for my shotgun.

"That belt goes around your barrel, the other goes over the shoulder and across your chest," the mare helpfully pointed each out as I held the arrangement in my magic. "I wanted to get you proper barding too, but this was the best I could do."

She held up a bit of cloth for me to see.

"Socks?" I stared at her, a little incredulous. Sure, she wasn't asking me to pay for any of this – but what good were a set of socks going to do me?

"Not just socks," Spark said, bristling a bit. "These are infiltrator leggings, tear resistant with Kevlar reinforced impact plates – the hoof caps are ballistic steel with shock absorbent padding, so they don't make noise. Some armor is better than none at all."

She added the socks to my pile of ammunition and started putting everything else back in her bag. I started to follow suit, putting the bullets and shells into my bag.

"Sorry," I said. "You got all of this for me and I should be more grateful."

Spark just shook her head. "Think of it as part of your payment if you want. We didn't even agree on a price for your help. It's nice that you volunteered to help me – but some ponies might take advantage of that out here. You should be more mercenary."

I didn't know what to say to that, so instead I fiddled with the socks – er, infiltrator leggings, and tried to sort out which one went on which leg. There was only one problem.

"These aren't going to fit over my PipBuck."

Spark nosed into her bag for a moment before pulling out an odd looking screw driver. "Gib me yer hoof."

I held up my foreleg for her and the mare jammed the tool into one of slots on my PipBuck. With a quick twist and pop the cuff unlocked and fell off my leg. A convulsive shudder ran through me as I looked at the PipBuck on the floor. It might just be dead weight on my leg as it was, but I hadn't taken it off since – well since I'd gotten it and started working in the Stable.

"I thought you didn't have PipBuck tools," I said.

"There's a different one I need to reset it."

Spark locked my PipBuck back in place after I pulled the sock on. I walked around the room and gave myself a good shake after getting everything buckled and strapped. The shotgun at my shoulder felt strange, the pistols on my right foreleg and left hind leg only added to it; I'd become a walking armory.

I watched Spark wrestle with her own armor. It was a bulky affair that looked like it had taken quite a beating in the past. Scratched and scuffed plates went over a material that looked a lot like what my "leggings" were made of, only thicker. There were chest, shoulder and side plates, as well as ones the mare strapped over cannon and fetlock. She didn't seem to have anything for her haunches or flanks, leaving a conspicuous amount of the mare unarmored. More than anything it was interesting to watch the earth pony manipulate everything into place, to get it synched and strapped and settled without the help of magic.

There were patches of her armor, the shoulders and top right of the chest that looked like something had been scrubbed off with a wire brush. The mare gave me a long look when she caught me squinting at them.

"We'll have to move quick if we want to get there before dark," she said.

~*~

Keeping up with Spark made me realize one important thing; living in a Stable does not prepare one for overland travel. The mare's pace wasn't quite a trot or a canter but more of a lope. My sides burned as I struggled to keep from falling behind.

She didn't look at all winded, or seem to be sweating from the exertion. Worse, she was the one wearing heavier armor and carrying the lion's share of the supplies. Maybe it was another earth pony thing, being tireless. Or it came with having large open spaces between one place and another. I pondered that for a while, probably much longer than necessary, but it distracted me from thinking about how much my sides hurt or how chafing my equipment was as I slicked it all with sweat.

I was so preoccupied with distracting myself that I almost didn't notice Spark stopping and barely stopped from crashing into her hindquarters.

I didn't question the sudden stop, just fell back on my haunches and tried to catch my breath. When the burning in my chest eased a bit I took a moment to look around.

She was just sitting in the middle of the road facing a little pile of rocks and a bit of disturbed dirt. It nagged in the back of my mind, this bit of road, as I looked around. Without my EFS I couldn't be entirely sure nothing had noticed us stopping. There could be a swarm of something spiny and unpleasant in the bushes and I'd never know.

The back of my neck started to prickle as I kept looking around. I didn't like sitting in the middle of a bloodstained road like this. I blinked.

I bopped the side of my head with a hoof. Of course she would stop here. It hadn't been all that long since – since I'd watched a pony bleed out with his friends being helpless to stop it.

The silence started to drag on and I scratched at my mane as I kept a lookout. I wanted to say something, but nothing seemed right when I ran it through my head. Finally I stood up and started to pace to keep my legs from stiffening up too much, making sure to give Spark her space.

Sorry for your loss? That sounded trite even in my head.

I decide to investigate some of the bushes by the roadside. They were very interesting. Like most of everything I had seen since coming out of the Stable they were dead – or mostly dead. At best they were sickly with a few dried up leaves clinging to branches, but there were some rusted out cans under them. One of the cans even had a few empty bullet casings in them.

Spark finally stood up and shook herself, rubbing at her eyes with a fetlock and taking a deep breath.

"Sorry I took so long, just had to say good-bye properly," Spark started walking again, thankfully at a much slower pace.

I abandoned the can I'd been toying with and fell into step with the mare.

"Were you close?" I cringed a bit at asking something so obvious.

"We kept each other warm," Spark sniffed and shook her head. "We were going to settle in Maneford for a while, maybe even – well it doesn't matter now. You got anypony waiting back at your Stable?"

"Maybe," I folded my ears back and focused on the road. "I hope so."

The mare gave me a sidelong look after I stopped talking.

"Well?"

"I don't know," heat started to rise in my cheeks as I tried to dissemble. "Sometimes Socket acts like she – but she's nice to everypony."

A grin spread across Spark's muzzle. "A marefriend eh? Tell me about her."

"S-she's not my marefriend," I sputtered, the heat in my face becoming a full blush. "Besides, she's on the breeding roster so she'll have to spend most of her spare time with her mate."

Spark gave me a quizzical look. "Breeding roster?"

I nodded. "The Stable maneframe picks out mates to make sure nopony has foals with anyone too closely related."

"Wouldn't ponies just know if they were?" Spark said.

"How? The whole Stable is family. I have three foster mothers and fathers and a foster brother. No pony knows their birth parents or siblings."

The mare looked thoughtful. "Huh, I guess that's not so different from what my Chap- ah, home town did. Everyone looked after the foals, treated 'em like their own."

Something exploded out of the roadside bushes in front of us. A stampede of tiny bodies moving too fast for me to get a good look at them followed by a larger one that stopped in the middle of the road and screeched at us before hopping to the other side. The thing's hopping movement and long ears brought to mind a rabbit, but it was hairless and emaciated with beady red eyes. I was also fairly sure that rabbits didn't have fangs and claws.

Spark watched the thing hop away without concern. "It won't attack if we leave the babies alone. You were tellin' me about your friend."

The sudden interruption gave me a chance to regain my composure and cool my blushes.

"She's a maintenance pony and she'll probably be the next head of Maintenance when Spanner retires. I think she can make or fix just about anything if you give her some parts and scrap metal. Socket's also the only one in the whole Stable who didn't shun me after I got in trouble."

I looked up at the mountainside as we passed the sky diving shack. Somewhere up there was the cave leading to a Stable full of ponies counting on me.

"What sort of trouble?" Spark said.

"Same thing as always with me, sticking my nose where it doesn't belong. It's my special talent," I kicked a bit of broken asphalt, sending it tumbling into the brush with a metallic plink. "I snuck my way into the Overmare's quarters because I was bored and had a look through her files. I also might have left a note or two in a locked footlocker and cabinet."

I thought I had been so clever, I might have gotten away with it all if I hadn't left behind the notes or messed with the pictures on the walls, but getting caught had been part of the point too. What was the use in being good at something if nopony knew about it to appreciate the skill, after all?

Spark nickered and shook her head. "I suppose your Overmare wasn't too happy."

"That would be an understatement. Now I'm out here because," I puffed myself up and did my best impression of the Overmare. "My talents could keep me safe so I can find a replacement water talisman."

"That seems like a big burden to put on one pony."

I wanted to shrug the comment off, make some witty retort, but she was right. Even sending just one of the other Stable ponies with me would probably have saved me a lot of pain, somepony from Sciences or Security, or really anyone.

~*~

We continued on for a long while in silence toward what Spark said was the crest of the pass. The road was disturbingly clear. I could tell it was making Spark nervous. Her ears would cock to catch every rustle of grass and brush even though it was only the wind in every case. We hadn't seen so much as a bloatsprite bumbling in the distance.

"This isn't right," the mare muttered. "Something's scared everything off, or killed everything."

We stopped for a break at the top of the pass. Spark offered me a Fancy Buck snack cake and a bottle of water while I rested my aching legs.

I expected the snack cake to be stale or soggy, but I should have known better. It could only have been a feat of dark magic to keep food so perfectly preserved for so long.

"Highfort is there," Spark said. I followed where her hoof was pointing but all I could make out through the scrub and husks of trees was a vague ruin like any of the others that littered the landscape. "It is, was, a watering hole for caravans coming up the pass. A couple families lived there, giving travelers a place to rest if they needed. It's just raiders now, we need to be careful."

I nodded and finished off the bottle of water, standing up slowly to stretch my legs.

The air grew thick with a cloying, foul scent as we crept closer to Highfort. Spark slowed the pace to a crawl and insisted we get off the road. Something about the smell made my mane prickle, everything about it was wrong – something every instinct screamed at me to avoid.

The mare stopped at the edge of a particularly dense copse of dead trees.

"This is it," she said.

It was not, as I expected, just a smaller version of Bridleton. Highfort was a single building not too different from the Stable-tech warehouse, just taller with more windows – some of which were intact.

I found the source of the smell.

I wanted to look away, to be sick, to do anything other than just stare at the horror in front of my eyes.

The stench was rotting pony flesh.

Corpses were laid out, impaled or strung up like obscene party decorations. Some were horrifyingly fresh, blood clotting to what was left of their hides, others looked they had been picked over by birds and bloatsprites. Some were flayed open, viscera heaped below while others were little more than parts and pieces mangled beyond recognition.

I fell back on my haunches, trembling and fighting the bile rising in my throat, feeling the taint of the place soaking into my fur and seeping into my lungs with every breath.

"How," I managed to choke out. "How could ponies do this?"

"Raiders ain't ponies," Spark's voice was flat. "They forgot how to be. They let the Wasteland grind 'em down to nothin' and that's what they became."

I tried to ignore the grisly décor and look for a way in. There were several to choose from, broken windows on the second floor and a few holes in the outer wall that looked more recent than the end of the world. One was more than large enough to walk through and the most likely to be guarded, the other was a bit too small for a normal sized pony and would be a tight fit for me – and might make more noise than it was worth getting through that way. There didn't seem to be any gaps in the barricades of the first-floor windows and I certainly didn't want to scale my way through the second floor. The front door was probably a bad choice as well.

"I'll go in through there," I pointed at the larger of the charred holes in the wall. "Any idea where you friend might be?"

Spark simply shook her head.

I would just have a look … everywhere, and hope anypony inside wasn't paying too much attention. Hopefully the inside was a cluttered mess with plenty of places to hide if needed.

It took a few deep breaths to curb most of my trembling. I really didn't want to see what the inside of a raider nest looked like. Still, I was a bit giddy despite the fear. It was another chance to put my useless talents and magic to work.

"I'll try to be quick, but I don't know how long it'll take to look around in there," I said.

The faint tingle of magic spread from my horn and crawled down across the rest of my body after a few moments of concentration. I figured it would be best to leave the trees with my blurring spell working. Hopefully nopony watching from that hole in the wall would notice me coming out of the trees or slipping inside.

Spark stared at me, her mouth agape.

"I've never seen anythin' like that, least not from a unicorn."

I shrugged, the mare's eyes darted back and forth as the distortion in the air my magic made moved.

"It's nothing special – just my only good spell," I said before starting to pick my way toward Highfort.

~*~

I tried to move along the edges of the larger clumps of dead grass. If the probable guards watching saw anything at all they might dismiss it as the grass moving with the wind.

My horn was starting to hurt as I finally pressed myself up against the wall next to the burned out opening. I tried not to think of the foul scent coming from the raider's decorations, or the even thicker fumes coming from that hole. Did raiders lose their sense of smell when they went crazy?

It was too dark inside to see anything from outside, even compared to the growing gloom. Slowly, as slowly as I could stand, I crept up on the corner of the breach and just barely poked my head around.

There was a loud, cavernous yawn.

I froze in place, heart pounding.

"Hey Split, wanna ditch this crap and see if they left any Porona?"

"Nah, Cook took it all, said it would make the turkey nice and tender when 'e cooks her up."

They… they were bantering? That wasn't what I expected at all. From Spark's reaction and what was decorating the outside walls I'd expected something far less sane.

I crept around through the gap, carefully stepping over a trip wire. The guards weren't even paying attention. They must have expected anypony coming this way to trip whatever trap they'd set to alert them.

Sweat prickled all over my coat and not just from the effort of keeping up my magic. My heart was pounding so hard I was surprised they couldn't hear it. Sneaking through the Stable had never been like this – but then, sneaking in the Stable never had the consequence of catching a face full of bullet if I messed up.

One of the raiders was sitting on a stool, rocking from side to side idly, shotgun propped against a wall in reaching distance. The other was twirling a knife in the air, the pale yellow haze around it and his horn casting odd shadows on the wall and ceiling as it danced about.

Neither of them paid any attention to the wall I crept along. A warning twinge shot through my horn as I moved, belly almost touching the floor, toward the closest door.

I found myself in a hallway and was tempted for a moment to just drop my spell to give my horn a rest. A heartbeat before I relaxed another raider limped into the hall almost on top of me. She turned her head and looked straight at me.

It took every ounce of will I had to keep from bolting. I held my breath, every nerve screaming that she could see me. The mare was close enough I could smell her, and suddenly I knew why they didn't care about the stench of the place. Her mane was matted against her neck and I couldn't tell what was coat and what was dirt and soot. In blinding contrast the bandage wrapped around her foreleg from fetlock to shoulder was almost immaculate other than a few patches of dark red.

She stared at me for far too long before finally shaking her head and turning down the hallway.

"Damn Med-X is makin' me see things," she snorted and shook her head again.

I peeked into the room the mare had come from but it held nothing beyond a filthy mattress, a pile of what I guessed was armor and used bandages. The sound of ponies talking drew me down the hallway, though I stopped to look in every room along the hall. They all seemed to be offices turned bedrooms. The only "doors" in my way being cloth strung across the doorways of rooms that held sleeping raiders.

So far all the raiders I'd seen other than the guards were injured. Were all the others off somewhere else?

If that was the case maybe there was a chance of rescuing Spark's friend. Assuming she was still alive, and I didn't get caught before finding her – and that I could figure out how to get her out of this place without both of us getting killed.

My head was starting to throb with my pulse and my horn was nothing but a ball of ache. I'd never held my fading spell this long. Just moving was starting to get tiring as keeping the spell going sapped my energy. I needed to find somewhere safe to hide and take a rest.

Somewhere safe ended up being the first room I'd found with an actual door. Shoved up against a corner was a desk with just enough room for me to squeeze behind and hide under. The small space wasn't very comfortable but I let go of my spell with a sigh. It wasn't really any worse than curling up in a ventilation duct and with the way the desk was facing a raider looking inside the room wouldn't be able to see me.

I just needed a few minutes to rest and let the ache in my horn ease a bit before I started again. Sneaking around this place without magic was probably a death sentence so I didn't have any choice but to rest. Just for a bit. My eyes felt a bit heavy so I closed them, just for a second.

~*~

The roar of a shotgun combined with an equine scream jolted me awake. I slammed the back of my head against the underside of the desk as I thrashed, squirmed and kicked my way out of the hiding spot.

I shook my head as I tried to gather my wits.

Stupid, stupid pony – I'd fallen asleep.

That scream. I just prayed to whoever might be listening that it hadn't been Spark, both it and the gunshot had definitely come from the same way I'd come in.

I threw open the door with a little burst of magic and charged into the hallway. The crowd of raiders I expected to be in the hall wasn't there. Either nopony cared, or they expected the guards to be able handle it.

The hall seemed much shorter going through it at a gallop.

"Looks like we caught a new toy, hope she doesn't bleed out before we can have some fun," the unicorn buck with the knife said.

I slid to a stop just barely through the door of the guarded room.

Spark was on the floor, hindquarters covered in blood.

So much blood.

The mare groped at the holster on her foreleg and drew the fancy gun she'd been trying to sell in Bridleton. Her shots went wide of the raiders, searing yellow bolts splashing harmlessly against the wall and ceiling before she dropped the weapon.

The raiders looked at each other and laughed like foals that'd just had their favorite treat dropped in front of them.

Spark's ruined leg kicked out and she howled in pain. My mane stood on end as she started to roll and thrash.

"Spark!" Both of the raiders turned in surprise.

I hadn't even thought about drawing my pistol, but it was there as the raiders turned to look at me. They were between me and Spark, and they certainly had no intention of helping her. I aimed at the unicorn first and fired two quick shots. The second opened a hoof-sized hole in his throat.

He staggered and fell, forehooves groping at the wound as the glow from his horn flickered and went out, knife clattering to the ground. I dove forward and to the side as the other, an earth pony, turned his gun on me and fired.

The shot tore a chunk out of the floor where I'd been standing.

He followed me as I scrambled to my hooves, grinning around the bit in his mouth. The raider didn't see the pistol floating next to his head.

I winced away from the mess and ran to Spark.

She'd stopped moving, stopped screaming.

Goddesses, I didn't know anything about treating wounds. I barely knew how to open a healing potion.

She was still breathing, that was a good sign. There was just the bleeding to stanch. I dumped her saddlebags on the floor, grabbing up the healing potions and bandages as they fell out.

Most of her hind leg was a mass of shredded meat that looked terrifyingly close to some of the corpses staked to the walls outside. I poured a healing potion into the wound and waited to see if it did anything.

The bleeding slowed and finally stopped but nothing else seemed to happen. I unstopped another vial and poured the faintly glowing purple liquid into the open wound. It started, slowly, to close – bits of flesh twisting back together and squirming in a way that made my stomach turn. I tore my eyes away from the sight and poured a third healing potion down Spark's throat.

She groaned, her eyes opening slightly.

"Med-X – bandages," she coughed. "Don't let it close up – fletchettes."

I gave the mare a shot of Med-X and tried to bandage the partially healed wound as best I could. The result was a mess that took a combination of hooves, teeth and magic to get tied but it didn't look like it would just fall off.

"Did you find anyone?" Spark said.

I shook my head. "I didn't get that far in before…"

The mare grimaced and pointed at her pistol.

"Then take it with you and keep looking."

I shook my head emphatically. "I don't know how to use that –"

"Just point and shoot," she said.

"And," I continued. "You'll need it if any of them come back this way."

With my luck Spark's arcane pistol would just explode or catch fire if I tried to use it anyway. I checked both my pistols and shotgun, making sure to reload the .357, and made sure my ammunition was at the top of my pack. All the gunfire had to be drawing the rest of the raiders to us.

It would be better to run into them when they weren't ready, I decided, and without having to worry about Spark. There was still the rest of the nest to search as well.

As I made my way down the hall a second time nopony came running. It didn't make sense. Even if gunfire and screams were normal occurrences the commotion should have at least brought the curious to see what was going on.

Unless, unless most of them really were gone and the only ones left were a few guards and others too hurt to be useful in a fight, like the mare I'd almost run into.

I drew my shotgun and started trotting down the hall, stopping to poke my nose into the curtained off rooms. The raiders that had been in them were gone.

What was going on?

The hall made a turn at the end. I rounded the corner expecting more halls and skidded to a stop.

Guns. All of them pointed straight at me.

A chunk of the door frame the size of my head exploded next to me with a single roaring gunshot.

"That's the bitch tha' killed Split Lip an' Hoofrot – who ever kills 'er gets her hide!" one of the raiders yelled from the pack.

I scrambled back into the hall as the wall behind where I had been was pelted with a hail of bullets and buckshot.

Stupid over-confident, reckless pony! Running through a hallway with all the subtlety of a minotaur.

Something bounced off the wall and rolled toward me. It was metal and vaguely apple-shaped.

I only had time to stare at the thing rolling along the wall.

The explosion knocked me off my hooves and sent me tumbling away from the blast. My hold on the shotgun was broken, flinging it down the hall ahead of me. Pinpricks of vicious heat peppered my right side from neck to haunch.

I struggled to get my hooves back under me, my vision swimming and ears ringing with a high pitch whine.

Hide – I needed to hide and try to gain the advantage on them. I staggered down the hall, blinking and shaking my head to clear the fog.

My shotgun was just a bit further down the hall; I picked it up with my mouth and shoved it into its holster. Streaks of red were running down my side, but I looked more or less intact. At least nothing hurt so much that I wanted to take the time to dig out a healing potion or shot of Med-X.

The ringing in my ears slowly faded until I could hear the raiders yelling at each other.

"How we gonna skin her if she's blown to bits?"

"Bits are good. Bits can go in Cook's stew." A shudder ran through me. Murder, mutilation and cannibalism to round it out? I revised my opinion on the seeming sanity of raiders.

"Did that get her?" said another.

I had to get around them somehow, draw them away from the hall and Spark.

"Go and check," said a mare's voice. She sounded like the one that I'd almost run in to.

As I strained to listen the shuffling and clamor sounded as though a number of them were moving closer to the doorway.

"Why me?" complained a new voice.

I backed into one of the side rooms and focused on my magic.

"You threw the popper, you go see if she's pony bits or not," the mare said.

The tingling of my blurring spell slithered over my hide and I crept back into the hall. One of the raiders poked his head through the doorway and slowly came around the corner. I slipped past him as the buck looked about nervously. Like many of the others he sported fresh bandages, one on his hind leg and another around his barrel.

The gloom of the nest seemed to be helping more than a little. He didn't so much as glance my way as I slid past. A stab of pain through my horn that immediately became a throbbing ache told me a little nap was not nearly enough rest to keep using my magic like this.

"Well? She itty bits or what?" the mare yelled after the buck.

"N-nothin," the buck yelled back. "No bits or blood – just nothing."

I moved excruciatingly slowly against the wall, creeping into view of the doorway. Four of them were sitting a mere pace from the door frame, guns trained on the wall. My heart started to pound painfully. They were staring straight at me and it took everything I had to keep still and breathe slowly.

They couldn't see me. They couldn't see me! I was fine. It was okay.

Slowly, oh so slowly, I moved a hoof and carefully put it down to inch forward just a bit. I could do this. There was just enough haze and dust in the air and enough rubble around that I could just be dirt shifting about.

My head was starting to pound with the effort of holding on to my blurring magic. The raiders needed to move or give up or something, anything that let me get past them and somewhere I could let go of the spell.

I was so focused on moving slowly and holding onto the spell that I didn't notice the buck coming back up the hall.

"I checked all the rooms, there's nothin'" he said.

"Maybe she ran off – maybe she's hidin' somewhere else," the mare that seemed to be in charge growled. "The lot of you go through the rest of this place, she mighta gotten upstairs."

The raiders started to disperse, a pair of them walking past where I'd pressed up against the wall.

Finally I was alone. A stab of pain shot through my horn, a searing hot spike driving through my forehead to the base of my skull. I fell back on my haunches, grabbing my head in my forehooves.

The tingle of magic faded from my hide as my spell fell apart. I felt naked without it. I was completely visible.

I just hoped none of the raiders doubled back this way.

Everything was blurry when I forced my eyes open. It hurt to look around even in the relative darkness.

Needlepoints of pain dug into my horn and behind my eyes when I tried to open my saddlebag with just a touch of magic. I opened it by mouth and rummaged around for the hooffull of syringes that should be near the top.

I wasn't even sure Med-X could do anything for my horn. At the very least it would ease the pain in my head – I hoped.

I found one of the little auto-injectors and jammed it home in my shoulder. There was a flash of pain as the spring-loaded needle shot into the muscle followed by sweet numbness.

The stinging along my right side faded away, the ache in my head and horn eased to being bearable.

I tried to pull the pistol holstered on my right foreleg. The shadowy unglow of my magic wrapped around it, but the pistol refused to move. There was no stab of pain through my horn in response, only the sense of trying to push against something too heavy to move.

Not good.

I would either have to fight them hoof-to-hoof, and I had no illusions about how well that would go, or try to use the mouth grips of my guns. I knew how, in theory, to use them that way but it wasn't something I'd ever done. There was never a reason to before now. Even my wimpy levitation had been enough for the training range pistols.

Reloading would be problematic.

I grabbed the pistol in my mouth, grimacing at the awful taste of the bit, and cautiously slinked into the next room.

It was wide open, more or less. The room looked like the floors above had collapsed into it, exposing the hallways into the floors above and pancaking whatever had originally been that part of the ground level.

Some of the rubble had been used to build ramps to the higher floors, and a few tables and ruined desks littered the periphery of the room. The arrangement reminded me of the little street-side stalls in Bridleton. This place had probably been the market square before the raiders.

Now it was littered with trash, spent bullet casings and marred with fresh scorch marks and bloodstains. The ponies living at Highfort had tried to fight and lost.

I kept to the wall, slipping from a beat-up desk to a table knocked on its side. Most of the raiders seemed to have gone up the ramps. They weren't quiet as they searched for me, stopping to yell questions and insults at each other as they hunted.

Two were still on this floor, that left three or so that I'd seen. It sounded like they'd split up. That would make things easier.

As long as I could catch one by surprise.

As long as I didn't miss.

This whole thing was not going how I'd hoped. Gun fights had not been in my plan. Killing ponies, nasty as they were, had not been in the plan either. I didn't want that blood on my hooves.

I didn't want it, but it was them or me. Worse, it was them or Spark.

Spark.

Fuck.

I paused at the foot of the ramp to the second floor. The two on the ground floor were still searching. If they found Spark…

I turned around and started back down that damned hallway. There was still nopony in the little side rooms, and no sign of the two raiders.

The room with the hole in the outer wall was empty except for the two corpses and a pool congealing blood where Spark had been.

I looked around frantically. Had they found her? If they had, they'd been quiet about it.

A smear lead out of the pool toward one of the other doorways I hadn't checked yet.

The blood smear dwindled quickly, replaced by hoofprints that were almost impossible to spot in the faint light on broken and rubble littered floor.

I kept an ear cocked for any sounds of the two raiders left on the ground floor. The others above were not being quiet about their search. Their muffled taunts and cursing were just loud enough to be indistinct.

The other two were being distressingly quiet. Either they'd joined the others upstairs or they were stalking me as much as I was them.

The hoofprints stopped at a closed door. I tried to reach out with my magic to open it but nothing happened. I couldn't even produce an aura from my horn anymore. Rather than think about the headache that awaited me after the painkiller wore off I made sure my grip on the pistol bit was firm and shoved the door open with my hooves.

The business ends of a shotgun, knife and energy pistol greeted me along with three sets of narrowed eyes.

Spark blinked and let out a sigh of relief, the muzzle of her arcane weapon lowering. The other two glared at me until I spat my pistol back into its holster. The knife and shotgun were slowly, almost reluctantly, withdrawn and I realized the ones wielding them were foals.

I closed the door behind me, crowding the four of us into a room that was hardly larger than a closet.

"Is that her?" said a unicorn filly. She was willowy and nearly as tall as me, with a cyan coat and white mane that would have been striking if not for the dirt and patches of what I hoped wasn't old blood.

Spark simply nodded after slipping her pistol into its holster.

The filly gave me a long, scathing look. "Are you sure?"

"I was expectin' somepony bigger," said the other, a stocky tan unicorn colt. "With more guns – she's hardly bigger 'n Tumble."

I bristled. "If I were any bigger I'd have been shot full of holes by now."

The colt just shrugged and shifted the shotgun he was holding awkwardly with his forelegs.

"And who are you?" I looked to Spark for an explanation but the mare just shrugged and put her head on her forelegs.

The bandages on her hind leg were soaked through. She needed to be in Night's clinic, not here while I wandered around a wreck of a building.

"I'm Rough House, she's Tumbler Lock," the colt said. "We're Crusaders."

"Crusaders for what?" I said.

The colt stared at me, confusion clear on his face.

"Just Crusaders," he said after a moment. "Don't you know anything?"

"Of course she doesn't know anything," Tumbler said, pointing at my PipBuck. "She's a Stable pony. They don't know nothing."

"I know lots of things," I started, folding my ears back.

I stopped, realizing I was about to argue with foals and this was definitely not the time or place.

"What are you doing here?" I said.

"Same thing as anyone caught by raiders," Rough said, looking at the floor.

"At least until Miss Spark found us," Tumbler said. "We were locked in here 'till the raiders decided to make us join 'em or – or until they got hungry, or bored."

The filly shuddered and scraped at the floor with a hoof.

"Are there any other prisoners?" I changed the subject, mostly because I didn't want to think about what they had been through. There wasn't anything I could do about it other than getting them away from here.

"There was a pegasus," Rough said. "But they took her away a while ago."

"She was nice, for a grown-up," Tumbler said.

"I'll find her one way or another," I said to Spark.

I started to open the door but stopped when I suddenly had two armed foals flanking me.

"We're going with you," Rough said. "You obviously need the help."

"No."

The idea of having them follow me made my mane stand on end. I wasn't sure I could look after myself in a fight, much less a pair of foals.

"Spark needs somepony to stay with her," I said, trying to cut off their protest.

"Three ponies are better than one in a fight," Tumbler said.

"I don't plan on fighting," I said. "I'm going to pick them off one at a time, with as little fight as possible. Please look after Spark."

I didn't wait for a reply before slipping out the door and back into the hall.

~*~

They didn't follow me out. That was a good sign at least. I just hoped that they would stay with Spark.

Most of the rooms I checked were caved in. Others were furnished with piles of rags and bits of broken furniture and the occasional rotting mattress. I took a moment to scrounge in the cabinets, finding a few caps, a couple tins of with no labels and a random assortment of bullets that I couldn't use in my guns.

I had hoped to find another weapon or two, preferably loaded so I wouldn't have to worry about reloading my little arsenal. No such luck, but there was one place left.

The door at the end of the hall only had some scraps of cloth in place of a door. I approached it slowly. There still hadn't been any sign of the two raiders so they had to be in that room. Or they climbed up one of the cave-ins to the next floor, but that didn't seem likely.

I stopped just short of the curtain, cocking my ears and straining to hear anything from inside the room. There was a faint sound of shuffling, a soft grunt. Somepony was definitely in there.

The urge to rush in and start firing overwhelmed me. Take them quick and by surprise. My heart started pounding as I gripped tighter on my pistol, tongue poised to pull the trigger. Carefully, ignoring the impulse to simply rush in, I poked my nose into the room.

My mind froze at what I saw. It was the two raider stallions all right, but they certainly weren't looking for me.

One had his eyes closed, muzzle nearly touching the floor while he made little pleased noises. The other had his forehooves planted on the other's back while he groaned and –

Oh sweet goddesses.

I backpedaled away from the door, my face burning. Some piece of rubble slipped under my hooves as I scrambled away and I fell hard on my rump. The expected reaction to the racket I made didn't come.

Of course not, they were – were busy. With each other. They probably couldn't hear anything over their … busy-ness.

Part of me wanted to laugh. It was absurd. There was a murderous intruder in their nest, namely me, was this really they time for – for that?

It was stupid, maybe even suicidal, to just leave them there but I couldn't just gun them down. At least not while they were… I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Some things were just too cruel, even if they were evil, cannibalistic psychopaths.

So there were two out of the equation, at least temporarily, which left at least three in the upper levels.

~*~

I took the ramp to the second floor cautiously. My plan was simple enough; ambush one of them. The gunfire would bring the rest and I'd hide if I could to catch the rest by surprise. Failing that, I'd be stuck shooting it out with whoever was left. Without my magic that was more likely than being able to ambush more than one.

Finding them was easy. They were trying to flush me out, yelling taunts and tossing the furniture in the rooms they searched.

I followed the unicorn stallion searching the second floor carefully, trying to pick the best time to strike. He was easily twice my size with a light red, no, pink coat and washed out green mane.

"Come out you slippery bitch, I wanna give you a ride before skinning you," he said, almost cooing. "If you're a good enough rut maybe I'll keep you as a pet 'stead of killin' you."

I pressed up against the wall just outside the room he was rummaging in and waited, pistol aimed at head height.

A short barrel rifle wrapped in a yellow-green aura floated out first followed by the pink-coated stallion.

My first shot went wide, hitting the doorframe above him. The raider started in surprise, his rifle quickly pivoting to point at me. I fired again in panic.

The raider screamed, a high pitch, piercing wail. The aura around his rifle sputtered out of existence and it fell heavily to the floor. He fell back, blood coursing down his face from the shattered stump of his horn.

He threw up his forehooves to fend me off.

"No, please!" he said, trying to scramble away.

I fired until he stopped moving and the hammer clicked on an empty chamber.

The others came running far faster than I'd expected. They fired as they ran, not seeming to aim. Chips of plaster pelted me as bullets missed their target. I kicked the dead raider's rifle into the room he'd been searching as I dove for the door. Heat skimmed my flank as I moved. Something heavy slammed into my back leg, sending me tripping to the floor.

I looked quickly in panic but there was no hole, no blood, just a pockmark and some torn fibers on my sock. However there was a furrow across my flank above my mark, a near miss. The graze welled with blood as I looked at it, painting my cutie mark in red.

The raiders were still firing, one with an assault rifle. They didn't seem to care about wasting ammo on the wall they were slowly cutting holes into.

"Red, we need that rifle and your ass down here right now," the raider mare yelled during a pause to reload.

I put my little pistol back in its holster and grabbed my shotgun. Reloading the pistol by hoof wasn't worth the effort. I still had my magnum revolver too.

They didn't seem to be willing to charge in, I just had to wait for the right moment. The assault rifle went silent, probably to reload again. One more salvo and I'd make my move.

A metal apple thumped against the far wall and bounced through the door.

Fuck. Me.

I sprung, diving forward as far as my legs could carry me. Into the hall.

A deafening boom filled the hall and part of the wall above where I crashed into it exploded.

The goddess-damned apple didn't do anything. It was a fake, or a dud.

Three raiders grinned at me behind an assault rifle, an automatic pistol and the biggest damn rifle I'd ever seen.

No thinking, no planning, just move.

I rolled back toward the door. Another ear splitting roar and part of the floor disappeared. The assault rifle fired two shots and jammed. While the raider buck fought with his weapon, the mare started firing. I ducked and wove, scrambling side to side to try and throw off the unicorn mare's aim.

She screamed in frustration as fresh furrows opened across my back, along my belly, across my shoulder and cheek. A hit to my armored foreleg sent me stumbling but I kept moving forward. Her pistol clicked on empty as the stallion cleared the jam. I wanted to be closer, to be absolutely sure I couldn't miss but I had to fire before he did.

The recoil hurt even through the Med-X. The buckshot tore into the raider, shredding his face and neck in an eruption of blood that splattered the wall and the mare next to him.

I came to a stop just short of the stallion's corpse and dropped the shotgun from my aching jaw. The mare slammed a fresh magazine into her pistol and took aim.

I turned and kicked with all the strength I could muster. My hind hooves met flesh, the mare making a strangled grunt as she thumped against the wall. I fell flat on my face, the force of the kick overbalancing me.

The unicorn staggered and shook her head, the cyan glow of her horn flickering on and off as she groped for her dropped pistol. The other raider started giggling as she trained that enormous saddle-mounted rifle on me. Her tittering quickly shifted to a maniacal cackle as I gathered my hooves under me.

I scrambled away from where I'd fallen, running ungracefully into the dazed unicorn.

The roar of the rifle so close was felt more than heard. I felt the impact mere hoof lengths away. The unicorn's eyes locked with mine, filled with a look of profound confusion and disbelief, before she coughed blood in my face. What was left of her spilled from the cavernous hole in her belly as she collapsed.

The last raider had stopped laughing, she kicked frantically at the reloading lever of her saddle-rigging but it only clicked in response.

I bent to grab my magnum, looking back up in time to see the rifle crash heavily to the floor. The mare was fast, and big. Much bigger than me, all scarred hide and muscle. The magnum rounds hit her with meaty thumps but did nothing to slow her charge. I missed some of the shots badly, the pistol's recoil throwing me off.

In a heartbeat she was in front of me, rearing up to smash me into paste with her forehooves. Blood poured down her chest as she reared, mouth twisted into a snarl and the pupils in her too-wide eyes mere pinpricks.

I threw myself forward, sliding through the other raider's blood toward the mare's back legs. Her hooves slammed into the floor with such force the entire building must have rattled. With a wrenching twist I turned and fired my last round into her belly.

The mare whinnied in pure rage, writhing and dancing away from me in a way such a large pony shouldn't have been able to manage. I scrambled to my hooves, wanting to run but almost certain she would charge me down.

She was on me the moment I was upright. One of her forehooves glanced my shoulder as I tried to dodge out of the way. Pain exploded through my shoulder, the Med-X in my system did almost nothing to dull it.

The next strike I managed to evade cratered the wall.

She was slowing down, the wounds in her chest and belly finally starting to take their toll. The mare was slowing, but her strikes didn't carry any less force; she seemed utterly determined to turn me into a smear on the floor.

I danced away from her, trying to wear her down. It wasn't working. She was getting slower but not by much. One of her kicks missed my muzzle by a hair as I balked away.

She'd managed to herd me into one of the side rooms without my realizing.

I was trapped.

She hemmed me into a corner, feinting and forcing me back until my haunches met wall. The raider reared to her full, impressive height. There was nowhere left to go.

I lurched forward and up, tilting my chin down. It had worked once, on accident, why not again?

My horn met the base of the mare's neck squarely, her downward momentum driving it deep and crushing me to the floor. She thrashed atop me, hooves pounding at my flanks and back as her weight and the blood flooding my nostrils smothered me.

The raider finally went still and I started to squirm and push my way out from under her. I'd thought the bandit had been heavy, but that stallion had nothing on the mountain of mare I worked to extract myself from.

When I finally got free my forequarters were matted in the mare's blood, my armor was soaked through and it was in my mouth. I just hoped it hadn't soaked through my pack.

I gathered up my weapons and the raiders', reloading my shotgun and magnum, adding the assault rifle from the earth pony's saddle rig and the unicorn's semi-automatic pistol to my arsenal, as well as the other unicorn's snubbed bolt-action rifle. The mare's rifle I left, it was too big and too heavy; it looked more like a small cannon than something that was meant to be saddle-mounted.

I kept my shotgun out and ready, there were still two raiders on the first floor. They hadn't shown up yet, but that didn't mean they wouldn't.

There was still more of the ground floor left to search for Spark's friend. Or what was left them. The foals hadn't seemed optimistic about her survival and they were in a better position to know.

I felt – numb. Every fiber of my body was exhausted. I wanted to be done with this hellish place. There was just that little bit of searching left to do, and figuring out how to get Spark back to Bridleton. The blood drying into my coat was making my hide crawl, the way it made the fabric of my armor feel stiffer was annoying and my shoulder throbbed with each step, but I forced myself to walk normally and not limp. The Med-X was slowly losing its hold, leaving me to drag my hooves as the pain in my horn and head returned with a vengeance.

The quiet of the place was unnerving. The market area was utterly still and I skulked through it as silently as I could, trying and failing to keep from kicking empty brass and tripping over bits of detritus. Most of the other doors were blocked off with chunks of concrete or lead to rooms no bigger than closets that looked like they'd been the stock room of a stall set up in front of them.

One door lead to, surprise, a hallway. One branch of the hall lead to the building's proper front door. The ponies living in Highfort before the raiders had knocked the walls out of the offices near the door and put in fencing for a guard post or security room. The fencing was shredded, the room ransacked and holding nothing of value – just empty shells and old blood.

The other hall ended at a kitchen.

It was another make-shift room. The walls of adjoining offices had been knocked down to open space while leaving the supports standing. Cooking implements hung from spikes driven into the supports, skewers, pans covered in charred … something and cleavers that looked like they'd never been cleaned. The far wall had been converted into a fireplace large enough for a pony to stand in.

The blood and rot stench overpowered everything. I didn't want to think about what was hanging from the ceiling, some of it char-roasted, some of it not and coated in flies.

The fire was burning low, a large pot hanging over the flickering flames. I stayed away from it.

The fitful light cast odd, squirming shadows across the room. I tried to look for any sign of Spark's pegasus friend.

I found her at the other end of the room.

The massive table was filthy like everything else, encrusted in layers of blood and viscera. Atop it was a purple-blue pegasus mare on her back, hind and forelegs bound and her wings splayed out across the table.

I wondered why she stayed like that until I got close enough to see the rail spikes driven into her wings, nailing the mare to the table.

Only the faint movement of her breathing gave any indication that she was alive. I touched her gently on the shoulder. She didn’t start or balk at the contact; she simply opened her eyes slightly.

The pegasus didn't say a word, only looking at me with resignation. I'd expected some amount of relief at being rescued.

Then I realized I looked like one of them, matted in dirt and blood.

"I'm going to get you out of here," I said.

She just closed her eyes in response.

First I needed to get her wings free. Cutting the binding on her legs would be simple. There were plenty of knives to choose from.

I found a crowbar hanging from one of the hooks on the wall and set it in place while trying to not think about what I was doing.

"This is going to hurt," I said softly to the mare.

The pegasus didn't respond. I set my forehooves on the far end of the bar and leveraged my pitiful weight against it.

The spike made a hideous screech as I pried it from the wood. The mare didn't make a sound as I pulled it out. The hole in her wing started to ooze sluggishly and I quickly moved to the next rail spike.

She watched as I wrenched the second spike out of her left wing. I could feel her gaze boring into me. She still didn't so much as whimper as I pried her right wing free.

I grabbed the closest knife, patently not thinking about what was on the handle as I took it up in my mouth, and sawed through the ropes on her legs.

Spitting the knife away turned into a dry heave and I took a few breaths before nosing into my pack. It was not full of raider blood like I'd feared.

The last of my bandages went to crudely wrapping the mare's wings. The wounds and the blood didn't seem quite right. Another thing for Night to see to. At least I was good at bringing business to the medic pony's door.

"What're ya doin' with my turkey?"

I spun to face the voice, my head swimming a bit at the sudden movement. A unicorn in a cooking apron glared at me, a swarm of cutlery wrapped in a dull red haze floating to either side of him.

My weapons were holstered and there were blades, far, far too many blades pointing at me.

"Ah, boss wanted 'er fer –" I started to lie, trying to sound like one of them and bluff my way out being turned into mincemeat.

A tan streak shot through the door. The colt barreling through the door leapt onto the unicorn's back, planting a shotgun between his shoulders.

The blast was wet and muffled, excavating the raider's chest and painting the floor under him as he collapsed.

"That's two for me, Tumble!" the colt yelled toward the door.

"Looks like she needed us after all," the filly said as she came through the doorway.

"Thanks, you saved my hide" I said. "I don't think he was going to buy my act."

Rough looked at me and grinned before busying himself with wiping the blood on the shotgun on the raider's hide. I stared at him as he carried on with all the bounce of a colt that'd just aced a test or managed to nick an extra treat off the meal line without anypony noticing.

A rush of dizziness made my head swim. I turned to look at the pegasus as she slid off the table, wobbling a bit after her hooves touched the floor. The colt went from cleaning his gun to hoofing at the raider's body and looking disgruntled at the apron's lack of pockets.

"You should see what we found," Tumbler said from the doorway.

The knife floating next to the filly glistened wetly in the firelight. She looked as unconcerned as the colt. Maybe it helped that that had been the last raider. Maybe this kind of thing was normal.

Normal.

I tried to shake off the dizziness and disorientation, earning a throb of protest from my shoulder and a stab of pain in my head.

"Miss Spark is already upstairs going through it all," she said.

The pegasus perked up at Spark's name and started limping toward the filly.

"Through what?" I said.

"Just come see," the filly said, backing out the door.

I followed behind the pegasus back toward the main room with the ramps. Rough followed behind me, all bounce and energy. He darted from one pile of trash or rubble to another, hoofing through them and making little exclamations upon finding some bit of shiny scrap. Both he and the filly had gotten saddle bags from somewhere, the colt's were fairly bulging already. I couldn't remember seeing much worth taking. Then again I hadn't been looking for loot.

Before I even realized it our little procession was on the third floor. There didn't seem to be much that was actually accessible, just a bit of hallway off the ramp.

"Spark's in the next room up the hall," Tumbler said before darting through a door.

I looked in the room the filly had gone into and stopped.

Guns. Piles of them.

At a glance it looked like they'd been piled based on size, nestled amongst them were boxes of bullets. The filly was digging through the stacks, shoving most aside after a glance and stuffing a chosen few into her saddlebags.

The pegsus froze for a heartbeat mid-step at glancing into the room but continued on to the next.

"That's," I stared, but I had no words.

I'd seen the Stable armory once, with its prim racks of meticulously maintained firearms but it didn't hold a candle to the sheer amount shoved into the small room.

"It's mostly trash," Tumbler said with a disgruntled huff. "The real good stuff is in the next room."

She made a shooing motion with her hoof.

The next room was full of bombs. At least that's what I had to guess most of it was. One of the open crates was full of those metal apples. As for the rest, I'd never seen anything like it and I couldn't guess as to what it all was.

Ruby Spark was sitting in front of one of the crates just staring at it. When I got close I could see a faint greenish glow emanating from egg-shaped things inside it.

She looked up as we entered the room, her eyes going wide at seeing the pegasus.

"You're alive, thank goodness," Spark blinked and rubbed at her eyes with a fetlock. "Did any of the others make it?"

The pegasus just shook her head and pointed at Spark's bandaged leg.

"My own stupid fault," Spark took a look at me, ears lying back even flatter than they already were. "You look horrible."

"Thanks," I said, trying not squirm at how disgusting I felt. "What are those?"

"Balefire eggs. This room has just about every kind of explosive in it. Most of it is worth a pretty cap too," She sighed. "Snap, can you find me a detonator?"

The pegasus ducked her head in response and started looking around through the boxes.

"The raiders are all dead," I said.

Spark shook her head. "The ones here weren't even most of 'em, rest'll be coming back – they must have gone further down the pass or we'd have run into them."

Snap returned holding a little olive green box with a toggle switch and an antenna. Spark took it with a tired smile, unclipped a bit from the box and stuck it in a wad of something that looked vaguely like clay.

"This should do the trick," the mare said, placing the hunk of whatever it was in the box of balefire eggs. "We should be gone before the rest of the raiders get back."

Spark heaved herself to her hooves and started to limp out of the room.

~*~

The foals rushed down the ramps ahead of us. For all their exuberance they didn't let their guard down, stopping at corners to peak around before dashing forward. The three of us were a sorry lot in comparison.

Spark favored her injured leg badly, my slapdash bandaging was soaked completely through and needed to be changed but I was out of bandages and potions as well. The pegasus' head drooped, she looked as spent as I felt and the bandages on her wings were just as ruddy as Spark's. I did my best not to limp, trying to ignore the pain in my shoulder and back as well as the throbbing ache in my horn and behind my eyes.

The earth pony faltered, her injured leg giving out under her. I lurched forward, catching the mare before she fell on her side. My legs trembled as I strained to hold her up.

I was sure now, earth ponies were needlessly heavy and I was weak.

"Thanks," Spark said as she sank to the floor. "I don't think I'm going to be able to walk out of here."

"It's not that much further," I said, trying to cajole her. "I'm not strong enough to carry you, and your friend isn't in any state to try either."

The mare struggled to get up for a moment before giving up. The pegasus nosed at her side but the mare just shook her head.

"I'm done," she said. "There's a bottle in my left pack, take a few of the pills – should help you."

"What are they?" I nudged her when she didn't reply. "Spark?"

Her eyes were closed and she'd gone limp, but she was still breathing.

Great.

I rifled through her saddlebag and found the bottle. It had a faded picture of a bucking pony on it and was full of chalky-looking pills. Night was probably going to be full of lectures when I got back to Bridleton.

The pills were just as unpleasant as they looked and I washed them down with a bottle of water. For a while nothing seemed to change, I wondered if maybe they were expired or something and useless.

It hit with a rush.

My heart started pounding double time. I could buck the whole goddess forsaken building apart with my bare hooves. Every muscle twitched with energy ready to be put to use. I felt stronger, was stronger. I knew I was.

The pegasus stared at me until I met her gaze, then nodded at Spark. I looked at the unconscious mare.

Right. Things to do.

There was a bomb anyway, and that would be much faster than tearing the place down with my hooves. Though maybe less fun.

After some wiggling and help from the silent pegasus I managed to get Spark on my back. She was still heavy, part of me still knew that, but I also didn't care. Whatever was in those pills made her light at the moment and put more than enough bounce in my hooves.

I caught up to and passed the foals. There wasn't anyone left to be worried about and even if there were I'd pound them into paste like that mountainous raider had tried to do to me.

We finally reached the breach in the outer wall where all this started. I pranced in place, waiting for the other to catch up, I couldn't help it. My hooves were light, light and strong and bouncy even with a heavy pony across my back.

The raiders I'd killed in this room had been stripped of their equipment; probably the two unfoal like foals. Spark's blood was still a congealing mess across the floor.

Seeing this place reduced to rubble would make me happy.

I ducked out through the hole as soon as the others entered the room and started up the hill. Spark started to come around as I trotted up to the copse of trees we'd stopped at earlier.

"Take the detonator and flip the switch," her voice wasn't much more than a harsh whisper. "Further up the road though, it's going to be – big."

The little green box thumped on the ground next to me and I turned to pick it up with my mouth but not before trying grab it with magic and earning a stab of pain in my head.

I retraced our path back up the pass to where we left the road. The others were lagging behind and even the foals had slowed quite a bit. Highfort was easy to see now that I knew what I was looking for. Further down the pass an indistinct mass was moving up the road.

"Looks like someone's on the road," I said.

Spark shook her head and shifted on my back, craning to see.

"It's them," she said. "Wait until they go in."

Rough, Tumbler and Snap finally caught up as I pulled the detonator from where I'd wedged it between my holster strap and my side. The mass stopped in front of Highfort and milled around for a bit before filling inside.

"So, explosions?" Rough said enthusiastically.

"They might have prisoners," I said, hesitating.

"You've seen what they do to people Whisper, you'll be doing any captives a favor," Spark said. "Quick and clean."

I looked at the others. The foals were staring intently down the pass, Snap nodded in agreement with Spark. There wasn't any way I could do anything for them if there were captives. It was a town's worth of raiders, likely healthier than the few I'd fought.

Spark was right – and yet the feeling in the pit of my stomach said this was wrong.

The switch toggled with a click. For once a switch or button didn't just break when I tried to use it.

Highfort disappeared in a ball of roiling green and orange. The ball of flame crawled upward spreading as it went, fiery orange and red snaked through with leprous yellow and pallid green. Flames clawed upward after the fireball, the malformed talons of some horrid beast grasping skyward. The shock flattened the trees an instant before they burst into flames.

The balefire moved slower, flooding away from the explosion in gouts in every hue of yellow and green, sliding across the ground like a living thing before sputtering out.

A blast of hot, foul wind accompanied the roar, echoing and reverberating off the mountainside. A piercing wail undercut the thunder, setting my mane on end. It was the scream of something insane and I hoped I only imagined it, but a glance at the others only confirmed they heard it too.

Then it was gone, the fires guttered into columns of smoke. The rising ball of flame cooled into an oily plume. Chunks of Highfort blasted into the air started to rain down.

The raiders were gone; their tomb was a smoking crater.

Spark slumped with a sigh as I turned back toward Bridleton.

Footnote: Approximately fifty-five days of water remain.

Level up!

New Perk: Gallop n' Gun – You are adept at shooting on the move and suffer less of an accuracy penalty when moving.

Quest Perk: No Kill Like Overkill – When you murder something you make sure it's atomized. You gain 15% increased damage with all types of explosives. Boom baby.

Skill Note: Firearms 40, Sneak 40

(A/N: Wow, this was a long time coming. Thanks to my editor Koneko and to Moonlight, DoctorHam, and everyone else who prodded and poked me into finally getting this finished. Onward – but I make no promise of how long it'll take.)

Fallout Equestria: Oasis

by InkSplash

Chapter One - Hexed

Chapter Two - First Steps

Chapter Three - Strays