Prologue: Subject 42

Prologue – Subject 42

Clouds… Clouds of thoughts… No… Not thoughts… Consciousness? Yes, I could feel myself actually waking up!

“Subject 42… Can you hear me? No need to talk, just simply nod or shake your head.” I did as I was asked and nodded my head sleepily. I tried to move my hooves to no avail, seeing as they were all strapped into some sort of machine.

“Good… Don’t try and move, you’ll find that to be quite a painful experience.” I looked down as far as I could to see various wires sticking out of my body. Needless to say I began to panic. I began to try and open my mouth to plead with my captors, but found that I was for some reason unable to speak.

“Do calm down. We promise not to hurt you as long as you co-operate. We’ll enable your ability to speak in a moment, we just need to ensure your vitals are up to standard first.” I began to twist my head in hopes that I might be able to catch a glimpse of my captor. Unfortunately I had no such luck. I had no choice but to hope he kept his promise not to hurt me and do what he says.

“Sir?” I turned my head once again hoping to at least spot a sight of the second voice. It –like the doctors' voice- came from behind me. So obviously my head jerking was to no prevail.

“Yes? Can’t you see I’m trying to get Subject 42 stabilized?” I heard a couple beeps behind me, followed by a small feeling that pressure had just been relieved from my throat. “There, you should be able to talk now. Please don’t be rude and interrupt me though. They’ll be plenty of time for talk in a moment.” I heard hoof steps walking away, until they faded into a room somewhere behind me. With the sound of a shutting door, I was left to myself and my questions about where I was.

First of all… I couldn’t seem to remember anything prior to losing consciousness. All I knew was that long ago the world had been devastated by something called a Mega-Spell… More specifically a lot of them. The last thing I remember was that I was in the mountains to the north for some reason… For what reason, I cannot recall. Other than that, I couldn’t even recall my own name… Or even what I looked like. I stopped racking my brain trying to remember what had happened as I heard the door behind me open once more. My eyes went wide as the pony that had been speaking to me earlier entered my sight. A vision of him standing over me in a snowy field flashed through my mind. I was sure that the vision was what had happened right before I had lost consciousness.

“Good morning… Or evening. I can never tell anymore. Anyways, hello Subject 42.” I opened my mouth and tried remembering how to speak. Within seconds I was pleased to realize that I had not forgotten how to speak.

“Where am I? What did you do to me?”

“I realize you have many questions, but frankly that doesn’t matter. I’m going to be the one asking you the questions. Tell you what, I’ll answer one question for you. If you remain calm and do as I ask, then I’ll answer more.” I began to think of a question, and asked the one that made the most sense.

“Why can’t I remember anything?”

“A minor side effect I assure you. Can’t promise you that you’ll ever recover them, since our other subjects still haven’t. Not that your past matters now!” He began to laugh. Somehow I was unable to find the humor of me not being able to even remember what I look like. After he finished laughing, he turned away from me and turned on a projector, which brought up a image of a large landmass titled “Equestria”.

“As you can see from the name, this is Equestria. All you need to know is that is the continent we are on, and that we are here.” He pointed to a remote looking area in the northern mountains. “Now that you know all you need to know, I’m going to ask you some questions.” As if sensing that I was about to remind him of my amnesia, he continued. “It’s just a small quiz to see if you have lost all your memory. If you show signs of having retained some memories, then you’ll be moved onto the next stage. But if you haven’t retained any memories at all… Well let’s just say you won’t be needing to remember anything ever again.” My heart skipped a beat as he said that. Was he seriously going to kill me if I couldn’t remember anything?

“You can’t do th-“

“First question: What’s the name of the old pre-war research city near here?” I begged my brain to remember, but it kept pulling up blanks.

“I don’t kno-“I stopped mid sentence as another vision washed over my mind. This one was of a large city that was split into multiple sections; a large tower in the middle. As soon as the vision appeared, I remembered where I had been before I had been captured. I had been heading to this city to do… Something… On the way there I was ambushed by a group of armed ponies with the pony in front of me heading the attack.

“It’s called… Dammit…” I squinted my eyes as hard as possible hoping to force a better image of the city to the front of my mind. After a moment of doing so, I prevailed just long enough to see a billboard near the outskirts of the city with the name of the city on it.

“Shattered Gleam.” He smiled as I answered, then began to write something down on a clipboard with his mouth. How did he manage to even do that?!

“Excellent. Question two: What are the six ministries?” I blinked once at him, then shook my head.

“No idea. Never heard of them.” He frowned and began to write something down again.

“Third Question: Do you remember anything of how you got here?” I allowed the vision of my attack to play in my head once again. I had been walking to the Shattered Gleam for some reason, and was attacked just as I got to an overlook. Despite my anger at him attacking me, I miraculously remained calm as I replied.

“Yes, you attacked me. I don’t remember anything before that.” His eyes lit up as another smile took over his face. Once more he jotted something down and then turned back to me.

“That’s amazing! Nopony has remembered that part yet! I usually have about ten questions, but that alone shows that you are not a failure. Of course I have to make sure, so I’m going to jump to the final question. Do you want to leave?” I looked at him with disbelief. If I said yes, would he just let me go? What if yes was the wrong answer? But then again… If I said no, then he would be able to keep me here.

“Yes.” He looked at me with a blank expression, and then placed the clipboard on the table next to him.

“You still have some free will it seems. That’s exactly what I was wanting. Unfortunately I can’t allow you to leave, but rest assured you’ll be well taken care of.” He reached his right hoof up and pressed a small button on the device I was attached to. Immediately the machine began to whir and buzz as I felt the straps around my hooves began to loosen. I hadn’t realized how tight the straps had been until they began to release. Once they had loosened enough for me to get a little wiggle room, I noticed that I had no feeling in them.

“Are my hooves supposed to be numb?”

“Don’t worry. We probably just attached them too tightly. You haven’t been up there long enough to cause permanent damage, so just relax and they will respond.” I slowed my breathing despite how scared I was. I still had no idea what these ponies wanted with me, and frankly, I was afraid to find out.

“Just in case you are exhibiting anger that you’re not showing, you’ll be released once I’m out of the room. My safety is insured, but if you were to attack me… Let’s just say I’d be dealing with Subject 43 sooner than later.” He picked up the clipboard with his mouth and exited the room. A couple seconds after he left, the braces around my hooves unlocked sending me to the ground. A rush of pain overtook my body as the wires I was connected to ripped themselves away from my body.

For about two minutes I laid on the ground resting with blood flowing freely from my wounds. The wires had to have been pretty deep to be bleeding like that, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t bleed enough for me to die. Surely they wouldn’t allow me to simply lie in here bleeding? I nearly jumped off the floor as a loud burst of static from the intercom overtook the silence of the room, followed immediately by the voice of the pony that had just been in here.

“Can you move? Try to stand up. After that, simply walk around for a few moments to get used to moving. Do that, and we’ll bring you a potion to treat those wounds.” With a grunt, I pushed upwards until I was standing with shaky hooves in a pool of my own blood. Still shaky, I began to place one hood in front of the other until I was slowly making progress into moving forward. After a moment of doing this, I was used to moving again. The feeling in my hooves was even beginning to come back.

“Good. Don’t make any sudden movements. I’ll be there in just a moment with a healing potion.” I continued to stand in spot awaiting the cure to my pain. As the feeling to my hooves returned, the pain from where the wires disconnected out of them grew. And honestly, I wish my whole body would be numb just so the pain would go away.

I looked over my body to the best of the abilities to examine the damage. Pain grew to fear as I saw that I had holes from the wires in every possible location on my central body. From the pain I could feel, I suspected that the wires had started being connected around my collar bone area. And from what I could see, they went from there to just before my flank. The blood flow was bad enough that the light blue of my coat was now darkened to a near blackish color. I stopped examining myself as the pony walked into the room holding a bottle of a pinkish liquid.

“Here, drink this. It will speed up your body’s natural healing to make the wounds close.” He walked over to me and placed the small glass vial on the ground in front of me. I began to reach down with my mouth to pick it up, before he stopped me.

“Did you forget that you’re a Unicorn? Do you remember how to levitate items?” I shook my head right before another image flashed into my mind’s eye. This one was of a note – the writing unreadable- floating in front of me with an aura of purple around it. I assumed that it was floating because of me.

I focused on the potion and began trying to make it levitate. I was amazed to see that it was immediately surrounded in an aura of purple just like that from the flashback as it began to float in front of me.

“Ahh excellent! Now we don’t have to go through the rigorous process of re-teaching you magic. Do you know anything else besides just levitation?” I closed my eyes and began to search the deepest recesses of my brain trying to see if I did indeed know more magic than that. Sure enough, I did know a couple more spells.

“Yes.”

“Like what? No, don’t tell me. Go ahead and drink the potion and I’ll show you to a training room so you can practice your spells.” I gratefully chugged the entire potion, leaving not a single drop. After I finished it I placed the bottle on the table. I began to feel a sense of being warm, which caused me to look back over my body once more. My eyes went wide as I saw the holes in my body closing up slowly; the blood flowing from the slowing until the wounds were fully healed. There wasn’t even a scar left over, and even my coat had replaced itself, leaving no sign that I had ever had multiple holes in my torso.

“Amazing isn’t it? The pre-war ponies truly were geniuses. Too bad they had to go get themselves blown up.” The pony turned around and began to look for something in a cupboard. When he did, I purposely knocked the bottle on the ground, shattering it into a bunch of tiny pieces.

“Sorry! I was trying to levitate it again and accidentally lost focus. I’ll clean it up.” He gave me a look of disapproval, and then with a shake of his head he turned back around and began to search the cupboard again.

“No, I’ll take care of it. Save your magic for the testing area.” I smiled and picked up the largest shard and hid it behind my ear, concealing it with my mane. A couple seconds later, he turned back around holding a vial of an odd colored liquid.

“Take this. It’s a special blend of potion that only we make. Drink it and you’ll find that you’ll be able to focus on your magic longer. Obviously you need it if you drop a simple glass vial.” He handed it to me and gestured for me to drink it. Honestly, I was reluctant to. Upon smelling it I was greeted with a foul smell that actually made me cringe. After a few seconds of trying to coerce myself into drinking it, I managed to force myself to drink the foul liquid. Honestly, it tasted a thousand times worse than it smelt. Almost bad enough to make me throw up, all though I did gag.

“That bad? I told them to add some apple juice to it to make it better, but did they listen? Nope. They complained that apples were rare! Bullcrap, they can grow more!” I continued scraping my hooves on my tongue trying to get the taste out of my mouth. Even though the taste was worse than anything imaginable, it did seem to work. I felt as if I could levitate the machine I was hooked to by just glimpsing at it. It was if I had been given a brand new brain only for the use of using magic.

“Is it working?” I nodded to him. “Excellent! Sure you could eat mentals to gain the same feeling and effect, but why risk addiction? I hear getting addicted to those things is just horrible. Plus these potions have a longer lasting effect, even though they have the taste of a dead ghoul. Anyways, our business here is done. Shall we go to the training room?”

“What for?”

“We need to make sure you are good enough to last in a combat situation.”

“Combat situation?! What for?”

“Just a formality. In the case that you are good enough to last, you’ll find the lands surrounding the Shattered Gleam are dangerous. We may still be in the Equestrian wasteland, but the Shattered Gleam has its own creatures to fear. Those Hellhounds cower before the horror that is the Stare.”

“Stare?”

“Mutated Cockatrices. At one time they may have just turned you to stone and left it at that. Not these things. These will immobilize you with a stare that seems to freeze your very soul. After that you’ll pretty much be their toy until you either die or break out of the spell. Either way, you’ll most likely be ripped to shreds by that damned thing before you have time to get away. And from what I’ve seen, you most likely won’t be dead until all your legs are gone.” I simply stood there looking at him. I tried imagining a pony screaming bloody murder as its legs were ripped of it, with horrifying results. I just hope I never ran into one.

“Anyways, you need not worry about that. Just follow me to the training room and we can test the extent of your magic.” He pointed a hoof towards the door and began to walk towards it. I was surprised to see the door slide into the floor below it as he neared it. I couldn’t recall if doors normally did that or not.

I followed him down the hallway to a large door that four ponies could fit through side by side. As we neared it, this one went not into the ground, but split in half and slid into the walls. Once inside, he pointed to a nearby door with his left hoof as if telling me where to go. Obviously, I did as asked and neared the door. Sadly, this one did not slide into the ground or the walls.

“Go ahead and wait there. I’m going to go to the command room. Once I’m there, the door will open and you may begin the test.” I nodded halfheartedly to the pony. It had just now occurred to me that I had not gotten his name. He probably wouldn’t tell me anyways. My thoughts went from those of my captor, to the room in front of me as I heard a buzzing noise followed by the door opening. I was slightly disappointed when this one opened on a hinge rather than sliding into the ground.

Cautiously, I stepped into the room and began to examine it. To my right was a wall with targets consisting of various materials. Some I recognized from my shattered memories; some were completely foreign to me. Each one had something in common however; none seemed to be of any value.

“Start at the right, and go to the left. You’ll notice the objects get larger, which is good. Start with simple levitation, and then move steadily onto any stronger spells you know. Once all targets are of their respective pressure plates, the door to the next room will open. You may start.” I looked up at the glass room to my left. I could tell that more than just the one pony was in there, but I was unable to see any of their faces. Just silhouettes.

I walked over to the marker on the ground that I assumed indicated where I was to stand. After taking my position, I did as he asked and levitated the first two objects off their pressure pads and threw them at the ground. The third one, I decided to unleash a spell that might have some use later.

For the third object, I focused all my energy into my horn and aimed my head down so my horn was pointing at it. Once I was sure I had enough magical energy gathered and I was on aim, I let loose a blast of magical energy the size of my horn. It wasn’t much, but would get the job done. I quickly counted the remaining objects. Three down, four to go.

“Do you know anything that might knock down two objects at once? Out in the wastes you’ll need to at least immobilize a group of enemies for a moment.” I once again searched my mind. Somehow I had managed to make a mental spell book of spells I knew, so gaining access to what I knew was quickly becoming easier. I just wish I had a spell that made somepony regain their memories, because not even knowing my name was getting pretty old.

I returned my focus to the fourth and fifth target, and placed my hooves firmly on the ground in prep of my next spell. Once I was prepped, I focused energy into my horn once more and began to charge it until I had a slight headache. Quickly I took aim and released the energy towards the target. Unlike my previous spell, this one was akin to a form of force push; knocking the two objects hard into the wall behind them. I felt a slight sense of pride as I heard hushed talk from the glass room behind me.

“That’s amazing! Of all the subjects so far, you’re the only one with this much experience in magic! Normally we would simply have you knock the other two down then move on… But we are going to test the full extent of your magic. Put the objects you knocked down back on their respective pressure plates.” With a slight grunt that I hoped they didn’t hear I did as asked. Once they were back up on, I once more heard the crackle of the speaker from behind me.

“Good. Now see if you can knock all seven items off at the same time. If you can’t, then just knock the rest down by any means necessary then move onto the next room.” I opened my mental spell book and searched for something that could knock all seven objects down. Once I found a suitable object, I braced myself and began to focus all of my magic into my horn a final time. This time I did get a headache, but it would most likely go away soon. I opened one eye from its squinted position to see if the force-field was forming. Sure enough, I could see a faint outline of where it was supposed to be.

The outline surrounded all the objects in a large ball that went all the way to the back wall. Once I was sure the force-field was fully formed, I pushed the force-field against the back wall with enough force that the objects all went flying. Gratefully I released the burden of magic from my horn and dropped to the ground in exhaustion.

“Using a force-field as a weapon? That’s definitely creative. If you have a headache from that, you’ll find another focus potion on a table to the right in the next room.” I sat up and with heavy breaths, began to make my way to the next room. Obviously I had pushed myself to a level I wasn’t ready for yet.

Sure enough, when I entered the room I noticed another one of those potions that tasted terrible. This time I didn’t complain though, since I was willing to do anything to rid myself of this horrid headache. I was too tired to even levitate the bottle, so I simply bit the cork off and began to drink it. As soon as I did, the headache began to fade and I once more felt full mentally healed.

“Feeling better? Good. Because you don’t want to be hearing the blast of guns with a headache. Tried that once… Learned my lesson about getting into a gunfight with a hangover! Anyways, you’ll see an array of weapons on the wall ahead of you. Pick one and enter the training course. Oh, and don’t get any bright ideas. All the weapons are filled with dummy rounds that are only used for knocking the targets over.” I felt slightly disappointed that I didn’t have live ammunition. I was starting to get a bit tired of being here, but I suppose that I shouldn’t escape just yet.

I stepped forward and began to survey the weapons that hung on the wall. I feel I had seen them before, but couldn’t recall them from my shattered memories.

“To your right is a simply handgun that you could levitate and use with your magic. Far to the right we have a battle harness armed with a combat shotgun. Everything in between ranges from handguns to a normal shotgun. Oh, and you don’t need to use the battle harness if you don’t need it. It just depends on your preference and magical ability to be able aim and pull the trigger.” I stepped closer to the guns on the wall and began to choose one. After a moment of thinking, I decided to use a strange looking weapon one from the far left. Instead of a clip or cylinder like the others, this one seemed to load the bullets from a device attached to the bottom of the barrel.

“Ahh… That’s definitely an interesting choice. You see, that’s a prototype that we put together. Instead of using a clip or cylinder, this simply uses a permanently attached auto loader on the bottom of the barrel. It loads the ammo from the back end directly into the barrel, which we purposely did to reduce jamming. Normally it uses ammo you’ll find in the most common of small guns. But we have fitted it to use some revolver ammo, although it’s highly un-recommended. Of course right now it’s only fitted with dummy rounds.” I levitated the weapon close to me to examine it.

Like most of the rest of the weapons, it had a way for an earth pony to use it by shooting with their mouth. But besides that, it appeared to be highly customized in the way that aiming with it one’s mouth would be incredibly easy. It also seemed to be in a better condition than the other weapons, almost as if it was brand new. Other than that though, it seemed to be just a normal weapon with customizations.

“Well what are you waiting for? Move onto the target course.” I levitated the gun in front of me and began to aim down the sights. Once I had the hang of levitating it without even having to concentrate that too hard, I advanced into the concourse ahead of me.

Upon entering I immediately noticed that I was in a maze like room. The walls all seemed to be destroyed and composed of old materials unlike those in the facility I was currently in. Cautiously I began to advance; all the while expecting something to pop out at me. Surely enough, a cardboard cutout of a unicorn levitating a gun aimed at me popped out of a window above me. My reaction time must have been good before I lost my memory, because within just a couple seconds the cutout had a small hole in its forehead. Immediately a flash of another image from my memory appeared in my head. This one was actually horrifying. Instead of being a image like memory, it was a full scene from my memory.

I was standing in a small field that was covered in a layer of snow. This snow however was not white. All around me was littered with dead ponies; their blood making the once white snow a dark red. All I knew was that I was not the one that did it, but a lone survivor of the massacre. The only thing was I wasn’t standing as tall as now, so it must have been a memory from my fillyhood. The last thing that I recalled from the memory was of me picking up a gun with my magic and heading the direction of hoof tracks.

“Subject 42? Are you alright?” I shook my head as the voice pushed me out of the memory. “Are you having any headaches? Loss of focus?” I looked towards the glass observation room above me and shook my head.

“No, I’m fine. Just had a slight headache from using magic.”

“Hmm… Perhaps we need to adjust some ingredients in the potions. Anyways, continue onward. You still have one last room after this, and then you’ll be allowed a physical exam and rest.” With a sigh, I moved further into the training room. The whole time I walked, I kept an eye on the windows and corners as I neared them. If what the pony had said was true, then I was going to need as much practice defending myself when I escaped that I could get. Hell, I may need practice for my escape. Something told me they weren’t just going to let me walk out.

Another pony popped out, but this one didn’t look like any pony I had ever seen before. Instead of standing on the ground, it was flying in the air. And it had wings! Even though I had little memory of my life, I knew for sure I had never seen a pony like that. Oh well, I guess it didn’t matter. Like the unicorn before, I shot this one. But instead of hitting it in the head, I missed and hit it in its ribs. At least it didn’t seem to matter where I hit them, because it still retracted back to the place it popped out of.

I continued onward until a group of ponies popped out. In total there were three unicorns and two earth ponies. As I shot them one after the other, I felt happy they weren’t returning the favor. I’m pretty sure if they were, I’d have more holes in me than I had when the wires ripped out of my body. That was definitely a pain I wouldn’t want to go through again.

It took me about three minutes to clear through the rest of the obstacle course/target range. Once at the end I began to open the door, before I was interrupted by the intercom.

“Good… Your aiming and reaction times are not bad, but could use improvement. Now… Now that you’ve shown us that you can use your abilities against stationary objects, it’s time for you to show us you can last in live combat! You’ll find live ammunition for your weapon next to the door. Take it as well as the armor next to it and enter the next room.” My heart dropped. Was I really expected to fight in a actual combat situation? No… This had to be a test to see if I was afraid of anything.

I walked forward to the table and collected the ammo on the table. After that, I levitated the armor onto my body and began to strap it on. The armor consisted of a leather base, with plates of metal on key vital parts. Other than that, it at least covered my body.

“Oh, almost forgot. There’s a saddlebag in the dresser to your right. Put it on and use that to store your items. You’ll be able to carry most of your weapons in holsters on your body, but you need something for ammo and other items.” I opened the dresser with my magic and pulled out the saddlebags. There were two of them; one for each side of my body. Even better, they were armored, so the contents wouldn’t get damaged in combat.

“Now, you probably want to know who you’re going to have to fight. By now you probably know that you’re not the first subject, and probably won’t be the last. You’re here because the previous subject failed one of the tests. Think about that for a moment… You wouldn’t be here if not for Subject 41 failing, now would you? Subject 41 knows too much to be able to live, and we have to test your combat skills… If you survive, then you’ll be released to do jobs for us in the Frozen Wasteland. If he wins, then he’ll be allowed to try the tests again. Either way, we’ll eventually end up with a unicorn capable of doing jobs for us. Now, waste no more time. Kill subject 41.” Did… Did I just hear that right? I don’t know if I could kill somepony! Especially not a pony that was in the same situation as me!

“I’m not killing anypony.”

“You don’t have a choice Subject 42. You either go in there and kill subject 41, or die.”

“You can’t make me.”

“Oh can’t we?” I looked up at the glass observation room as the glass rose into the ceiling. Behind the glass was about thirty earth ponies; 20 of them with battle harnesses equipped with some sort of rifles. I looked with anger in my eyes as the pony that had been talking to me the whole time stepped in front of all the armed ponies.

“We own you subject 42. Do as we say, or you’re as disposable as the rest of the failed subjects.” I stared without fear at the ponies aiming guns at me. Truth is, I was more scared than ever as far as I could remember. But I had to make a stand if possible.

“You wouldn’t shoot me. I’ve shown too much promise already, haven’t I?” I waited with bated breath to see if my bluff would be accepted. Fortunately for me, the leader lifted his hoof in the air so as to stay their weapons.

“Fine. Obviously you have a little bit of self doubt. You’ll still need to do this, but we’ll go ahead and do the final physical exam before. Give you time to think over the decision you’re making. Wait there while a guard comes and gets you.” I simply stared at the ponies above me as I waited for the guard to come escort me away from this place. After I was sure I wasn’t being looked at, I slipped the gun into my saddlebag as well as the glass shard and hoped they wouldn’t search me. A moment later, a pony wearing a battle harness neared me.

“Follow me. And don’t get any bright ideas.” I did as told and began to follow him as he walked back through to the main hall. Once in the main hall he led me to a door at the end and down a smaller hallway.

“The doctor is inside. Don’t keep him waiting.” I pulled the door open with my magic and proceeded to enter it. Inside was the doctor pony that had let me out of my containment chamber and had been talking to me over the intercom.

“So you got out of eliminating Subject 41 for now… No matter, you’ll have to do it eventually or be eliminated. Now, remove your clothing and get on the examination table.” Reluctantly, I took off my armor and got onto the table.

“How long do I have to stay here?” He began to take readings of my vitals via very complicated looking machinery that was in questionable condition.

“Long enough for us to ensure you won’t just run when we release you. But of course, we also have a little insurance should we decide you are a capable subject.” I winced as he placed a freezing cold object on my back. It felt like a saddle, but it was colder than an ice crystal. “Oh… Might want to brace yourself… This might hurt.” I screamed out as a large metal needle pierced into my spine and began to extract marrow. The pain was so bad that I nearly blacked out, but managed to hold out despite my body wanting to give in.

“You… Could have warned me… You little-“

“Shut up and take this.” He injected me with a small needle that immediately began to numb my pain. “That was filled with one of the most powerful numbing potions known to ponies and zebra alike. You’ll soon be unable to feel anything.”

“Uhuh…” Honestly… I felt good. Better than I had felt all day in fact! It was as if I was unable to feel pain whatsoever! It did affect my thoughts for a moment there however.

“Now, we have one last test to run. And as always, I wish I didn’t have to do this part, so I’m just going to break protocol and not examine… Down there.” He shuddered and turned away and began to mumble to himself. “Get the one male pony that’s interested in stallions to do this crap…” He turned back to me holding a clipboard in his mouth. He gestured for me to take it. Unfortunately, the potion seemed to have numbed my ability to focus. After a minute of trying, I did manage to get it though.

“Usually I’d fill that out upon examining that reproduction death trap you have. No way are they making me examine another one! Just fill it out, and I’ll turn it in. Oh, and answer truthfully would you?” I slowly nodded and began to go over the paper that went into great detail about my reproduction ability. None of it was particularly easy to lie on, mostly involving my ability to reproduce. As far as I knew, I was quite capable of it… Although I couldn’t quite remember if I ever had interest in such an action. Oh well.

“I’m done… Now take this before I drop it. I feel so good!”

“Seems like I gave you a larger dose than anticipated.” He began to go over the clipboard. “Ugh… Finally that part is done! Now, go ahead and get some rest. Once that potion wears off, you’ll be escorted to the chamber in which Subject 41 is waiting.” He picked up the clipboards he had been using to do the medical exam in his mouth and exited through an automatic door on the right of the room.

Perhaps I should be worried about having to kill Subject 41… But my judgment seemed to have been clouded, and I couldn’t care less about anything. All I wanted to do was sleep since my body seems to have already fallen asleep.

So I did just that.

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“Wake up! Useless subject… WAKE THE HELL UP!” I jumped up and nearly hit my head on the female pony standing above me.

“I’m awake, I’m awake!”

“Good… I’m afraid the pony that has been handling you is not here at the moment, but he’ll be here soon. I was told to wake you and tell you to get into your armor. Subject 41 is awaiting termination.” The last couple hours came back to me almost immediately.

“How long have I been out?”

“Only an hour. You’d think spending a couple days sleeping in a tube would get you well rested… Apparently not. Now, get your armor on before I make you wish you had it on.” I had no idea what that meant, but I wasn’t about to find out.

I quickly got up and began to place the armor on once more. After I was sure it was on correctly and sure it would protect my body, I began to put the saddlebags on. I quickly checked to see if my weapons were still in the bags, and sure enough they were.

“Good, you’re dressed. I’m sure the doctor will be here in just a moment.” She looked towards to door and began to wait impatiently. I eventually found myself staring at her armor, kinda wishing I had it instead of this ramshackle excuse for armor. Hers was made completely of some sort of metal material which looked capable of stopping some of the most powerful weapons. My gaze on her armor was broken when I noticed she was staring at me.

“Oh, sorry… I…”

“I’m not interested in mares just so you know.”

“What! No, I was just-“

“Save your breath. I saw you undressing me with your eyes.”

“I swear I wasn’t!”

“Yeah sure… Don’t be so ashamed. I think Blossom is interested in mares, but she’ll take some impressing to get into her chambers.” I felt my face blushing as the heat of embarrassment took my head over.

“But… But…” I stumbled for words to explain that I didn’t want her. After a moment I just sighed and gave up. Last time I ever examined another mare’s armor, that’s for sure.

“I trust you didn’t rile the subject up?” I quickly attempted to hide my red face as the doctor walked in.

“No sir. If you don’t mind, I’ll leave you to the subject.”

“No, I want you to escort her to the battle chamber. I have to go the viewing room and begin to take combat readings.”

“Fine… Come on, and refrain from looking at my flank as we walk.” I immediately began to feel the heat behind my ears as I blushed once more. Was she doing that on purpose?

“Oh, interested in mares? You’re probably happy we skipped that part of the examination earlier too.” I fell to the ground and covered my face in hopes that I would disappear.

“I’M NOT INTERESTED IN MARES!” Well… That wasn’t entirely truth. Truth is, I wasn’t interested in anything... Couldn’t remember what I was interested in. So why make a choice until I was absolutely sure? Plus I don’t really want my captors knowing more about me than they already know.

“Well no matter you’re sexual preference, it won’t do you any good in combat. Just get going.” I lifted myself off the ground and stood beside the female pony.

“Follow me.” I began to follow her, although I did my best to avert my gaze from her when possible. No way was I going to give her the satisfaction of embarrassing me once more.

“I hope you have some good combat abilities. This subject is one bloodthirsty colt. He would have been the Unicorn we need, had he known a single spell. I guess we did something, because he couldn’t even remember how to levitate a pencil. Too bad, he’s an excellent combatant.”

“Do I really have to… Kill him? Can’t I just knock him out or something? What about loading our guns with tranquilizers or-“

“Can it. You’re going to either kill him, or die trying.” We stopped outside of a door. “Here we are. Oh, and I was told to give you this.” She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a potion. “Use it wisely.”

“Healing potion?”

“Yep. Now get in there before I save Subject 41 the chance to fight you.”

“All right, no need to get all pissy.” I opened the door and stepped inside. Immediately the intercom crackled as the voice of the pony I knew and loathed burst out over the static.

“You’ll find weapons to use on a table in the center of the room. I’m expecting both of you to fight to your best abilities. Both of you have something to gain from winning. Subject 42, if you win you get to go free. If you win Subject 41, you’ll be allowed a chance to redeem yourself. Go.” Even though I didn’t want to, I began to dash for the center of the room. I didn’t want to kill anypony, but the fear of killing was easily overshadowed by a bigger fear of death.

I probably could have used my gun that was hidden in my saddlebag, but I still wanted to keep me having that on the down low. Luckily I managed to reach the table before Subject 41, but not by much. By the time I had picked up and loaded a handgun he had grabbed another one of the guns and hid behind cover.

“Subject 42?” I ducked behind a wall and prepared myself to shoot if need be. I couldn’t help but notice that 41 was using his mouth instead of levitating the gun like normal.

“I don’t normally talk to ponies that I’m in battle with!”

“I have a proposition that will benefit us both.” I looked up to the observation room to see the doctor looking towards me with impatience on his face.

“I’ll hear you out, but make it look like we are actually fighting.” Immediately as I said that a bullet brushed by me; nearly missing me by mere inches. I decided to return the favor, and also missed by a couple inches.

“I’ve been studying this place for the two weeks I’ve been here and I believe that I’ve found an exit we can use. But I need help from another pony.” I reached out and shot again. With a crackle of static the intercom burst to life once more.

“Use your magic Subject 42. You have an advantage over Subject 41!” Not wanting to draw attention I began to levitate a box nearby Subject 41 and threw it at him. Unfortunately I accidentally hit him harder than anticipated.

“Sorry! I’m still getting the hang of controlling this magic.” A shot broke through the wall I was hiding by; grazing my left hoof and drawing a small trickle of blood.

“It’s fine, sorry if that hit you. Now, are you in or not?”

“Since one of us has to die if I say no, the answer is yes. Can they hear us?”

“No, they soundproofed that damned booth up there so they won’t hurt their precious ears by our gunfire.” We both dived out from out cover and shot at each other. Luckily both of us were aiming at the cover we just jumped from, so neither of us was hit.

“Good. So, how we gonna get out of here?”

“They hand you a potion?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Sorry about this… Just lie down and act dead!” I didn’t realize what he meant until the sound of the gun had went off. Immediately after that I felt a searing pain in my stomach as I collapsed into a pool of my own blood. He had managed to hit a part of my armor that was weak, which meant he obviously had some knowledge of it.

I began to panic as I felt my vision fading. Before it could, I levitated the potion out of my bag and began to drink it discreetly. Afterwards I continued to lie in my blood pretending to be dead.

“Hmm… Good job Subject 41. I must say, I’m actually pretty disappointed. But a deal’s a deal, and you’ll be given another chance to take the magical test. Remain there until a guard comes and gets you.” I laid in wait for the noise of a door opening. Once I heard one I jumped up as Subject 41 fired a shot clear through the guards' head.

“NO! Guards, get down there and eliminate the subjects now!”

“42, it’s time to go!”

“Sure, just allow me to run after getting SHOT IN THE GUT!”

“I said I was sorry!” I began to limp quickly after 41. Even though the potion had healed my wound to a small puncture, the pain was still fresh on my mind. I was most definitely never going to get shot again if I could help it.

We dashed through the door into a hallway I had not been to before. He led me down a hallway until we reached large double doors. Unfortunately they seemed to be automatic. Even worse, they were locked.

“Son of a slut raping donkey!” 41 began to look around frantically. “There! See that vent? You’re small enough to fit through! Go through and unlock to door from the other side.” He laid on the ground and gestured for me to stand on his back. Even though I was still in pain, I did as indicated and stood on his back. Once I was on, he stood up tall enough for me to open the vent and crawl inside.

Time was of the essence. If I took a wrong turn in the vents then 41 would be killed. No way was I going to allow that to happen on my watch. Fortunately the vault seemed to be straight forwards, and within seconds I was dropping down to the ground on the other side of the door. I quickly opened the door, allowing 41 to enter.

“Thanks. We’re nearly out. Just have to make one last mad dash to the exit.”

“Lead the way.” We began to run for a large metal door at the end of the hall. Arrows down the hallways pointed towards it marked ‘Exit’, so obviously we would be running that way. But before we reached it, I came to a skidding halt as I saw something on a large monitor to my right.

It showed me on it.

“42? Come on, we gotta go!”

“Hold on. This might be my only chance to find out who I am.” I began to observe the screen frantically. The only thing that was shown on it was some shots of me from each angle. All of them were of my current state, and there was no info on my name or past. I sighed and began to run after 41 before I saw one last thing.

“Can you please hurry? I don’t want to get shot!”

“Yeah, one more second.” I quickly made note of the details on my capture. Apparently I was making a delivery to the Shattered Gleam for some unknown reason. Obviously that was my first destination. Well right after I got the hell out this place.

“You done? Oh, we got company!” We looked back down the hall to see about fifty earth ponies all armed with battle harnesses. Oh, and they didn’t look like they were about to give us a farewell party.

“Think they want to give us a going away present?”

“The big guns make me doubt it!” We made a mad dash towards the exit. Fortunately for us, the earth ponies' battle harnesses seemed to slow them down quite a bit. Didn’t stop them from shooting at us unfortunately.

“Do we have a plan for when we get out of here?!”

“Um… Does running count?” I opened the door with my magic ahead of us in preparation of making it through.

“Sure, as long as these idiots keep going at that speed!”

“Subject 42! 41!” We both ran through the doorway with the voice of the doctor echoing behind us.

“There is nowhere to hide! Even the blizzards won’t cover you from our watchful eyes!” I slammed the door shut behind us and placed some crates against it. They would eventually get through, but it would give us enough time to get away.

“Good one 42. We should have a bit of time to get away.” We both turned around to be greeted with a freezing breeze of air coming from some open area in the tunnel before us.

“Do you know what time it is?”

“I think I glimpsed the time on a terminal. It’s around the break of dawn. The sun’s probably just now rising. It’s probably freezing out there, so we need to find shelter soon.” I shivered a little as a gust of wind pierced my coat and chilled me right to my bones.

“We better find some fast…” We both jumped back as a crate fell from the top onto where we had just been standing.

“Time to go?”

“Yep.” We turned around and began to sprint full speed into the wind. After a brief moment of running we had began to spot the unmistakable glow of sunlight coming from the exit of the cave. Unfortunately for us, the opening also meant the cold was now hitting us full blast.

“This armor was not made with warmth in mind!”

“Just keep moving. It’ll keep you warm.” I did as instructed and began to sprint once more to the mouth of the cave. Upon exiting I saw an awe inspiring sight.

We were standing on a hill that overlooked a vast majority of the land. The snow on the ground looked brand new and trackless; the sun rose brilliantly over the clear skies, which made the snow glow a blinding white. All I could do was stand there with my mouth agape. The cold wasn’t even affecting me anymore.

“Welcome to the Frozen Wasteland.”

I continued to survey the wasteland before me, until my eyes met a landmark in the otherwise white wasteland. It stood to the east, right under the rising sun. The sheer size of it from where we were indicated it was at least a couple hours worth of walking. Considering it was the only landmark I could see within my viewing radius, I guessed it was the Shattered Gleam.

“There. That’s our destination… The Shattered Gleam.”

“You mean your destination. All I needed was to escape. If it’s all the same to you, I don’t want to be anywhere near these crazy earth ponies… So I’m going to the Equestrian Wasteland.” He pointed south of us to a mountain range that was barely noticeable in the distance. From what I could tell it was at least three days worth of walking. “It lies right over that mountain range. As far as I know, these ponies have no connections out there.”

“So this is goodbye?”

“Sorry 42, but you’re on your own.”

“Good luck then.”

“Same to you. Oh, if you do… When you make it to Shattered Gleam you might want to check out the residential district first. I remember I had a house there… House 1193 if I remember correctly. For helping me you can have anything in there that you want.”

“Thanks.”

“Equestria, here I come…” I watched as he walked away towards the mountain range in the distance. Honestly I wished he would stay and help me make it to the Shattered Gleam, but I couldn’t stop him. Maybe our paths would cross again, but I had serious doubt we would.

I turned back east and began to walk towards the large city in the distance. I didn’t know what was waiting for me there, but I knew that it was the best chance for me to find out about my past; about who I was; about why I was captured.

I probably should have been scared that I was now alone in a post apocalyptic world filled with Celestia knows what. But… All I felt was happy. I was happy to be free from that underground lab; happy to be outside in the chilling air…

Happy to be alive and free.

But that didn’t mean I was safe… No, I was nowhere near safe… The wasteland around me had creatures that I could remember from deep inside my brain. They were dangerous and I knew it.

But none of that mattered. I had a destination and I was going to make it there no matter what. So hooftsep after hooftsep I made my way through the snow towards the Shattered Gleam. And even though it was cold which made me wish I was next to a fire, I continued to force my way through the ever deepening snow.

Eventually I ended up in a snow blanket that was actually tall as my hooves. So unfortunately I had to march through a field of snow that was not exactly a walk through the park to get through. But even though I was facing the hardships of the Frozen Wasteland, I couldn’t help but smile.

So there I was, a Subject of a failed experiment that had no memory of her past life, her name, or even her own cutie mark… Yet I was smiling as I forced my way through a snow field that was unpleasant and cold to a destination that might not even serve me any answers.

And the only reason I was smiling was because I was beginning to remember why I had been going to the Shattered Gleam… I was going there because I had an important message for the leaders of the Shattered Gleam. And in that message was a conspiracy to overthrow the Shattered Gleam.

And of course, the message also meant a war that I would declare… A war on the Shattered ones.

A war that would start soon.

A war… That I would be leading against those that had killed my family all those years ago.

Footnote: Level Up!

Perk Taken: Magical Studies – You are an apprentice in magic. Because of this, you take studies in magic seriously. You’ll advance in magic must faster than others, and are unable to resist the chance to learn new magic. Oh, and +5 to magic!

Quest Perk Added: Amnesia – You can’t remember your past, save for bits and pieces. This however can be fixed by finding fragments of your memory by visiting places you’ve been to and talking to people who held significance in your life.

Author's Notes:

I would like to thank Kkat for creating the epic tale that is Fallout: Equestria, which actually inspired me to start writing not only this, but just writing in general. I would also like to thank my Pre-readers and editors. And most of all, thank you for reading this story! It means more than you know, and I look forward to getting feedback from you all!

When I started this story, I had not wanted to participate in an F: Eq side story. But as I know too well, I can’t resist a chance to join in on something great. But making a side-story of a story that already has too many side-stories to count is not an easy thing. That’s why I set the story in the arctic north of Equestria, so that I may create a world that exists within the Fallout: Equestria universe, but doesn’t actually interfere with it. Oh, and no; this story does not and most likely will not have any references to the Crystal Empire, even though the locations are similar.

I already have a great story planned that has a larger focus on magic (I have a whole magic skill tree planned) as well as a greater spin on the normal Fallout: Equestria world by adding snow that will play a large part in the story. Rest assured that I have thought of every possible solution to keep from any adding anything that will cause an error in the canon. If you do see anything that collides with the canon, please let me know and I will correct it ASAP. Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

Chapter 1 - The Wall of Memory

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Note: Google Docs link at the bottom. Currently having issues with the formatting... I recommend that you read on Google docs.

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Chapter 1 – The Wall of Memory

“Once upon a time, in the lands of Equestria…”

Snow.

Snow everywhere as far as the eye can see. A snowfall had started about ten minutes ago. And honestly… I was cold enough to wish I was back in that facility. Whatever they were going to do had to better than freezing to death.

No matter, I had been walking for about two hours and probably needed to find shelter to warm up before I went and got myself frostbite. Unfortunately for me there didn’t seem to be anything within sight. Well… As far as I could tell. The snowfall had reduced my vision to a less than comfortable viewing distance. Which in turn made me also lose sight of the Shattered Gleam.

I guess my only option was to march on through. But did my body have the strength to do so? I was already shivering enough to make my teeth chatter almost enough to break them. And I was pretty sure losing feeling in my hooves was not normal. But I couldn’t give up… Not while the Shattered Ones still lived.

I’m not exactly sure what had caused my memory to fill the void as to why I was delivering the message… But I believe it had something to do with seeing the Shattered Gleam. Still… Even though I remember why I was heading to the Shattered Gleam, I was still unsure of my life before that. So far all I knew was that the Shattered Ones had killed my entire family in search of me when I was a filly. As for why they had, I still have no idea. After that, my memory skips to when I was delivering the message.

There was also one slighter problem… I had no idea who the Shattered Ones were… All I knew was that they were an organization that operated in the Frozen Wasteland. Besides that, I had no details on what they were; who was in it; their goals; and most importantly… Why I was a target to them. Did it have something to do with my extraordinary knowledge of magic?

Speaking of which… How was I able to remember my magic when I was unable to remember anything else? As far as I knew, I wasn’t any more special than the other unicorns of the Frozen Wastes. Yet… I still remembered most of the spells I had learned since I was a filly.

Also… I couldn’t help but wonder who I was; what personality I had; what kind of person I was. Could I ever regain those memories? A large part of me doubted it, but yet again, the rest of me hoped that I could. It’s not exactly fun not being able to remember anything about yourself… Not even your own name.

My mind was forced away from my thoughts as a loud bang resonated out near me. Someone had shot a gun, and more than likely it had been aimed at me. Quickly as one that was near frozen could, I levitate the gun I stole from the facility from its holster and aimed it in the direction the gunshot had come from.

I was now standing face to face with an earth pony that too was aiming a gun at me. Fortunately when he saw me he put the gun down.

“Oh, you’re just a unicorn.”

“Were you expecting something else?”

“Oh no, just thought you might be one of those psychos that have been capturing ponies. Near as I can tell they only consist of Earth ponies.”

“You’re looking for them? I just managed to get away from them.”

“WHAT?! Quick, tell me where they are hiding at!”

“Sure, but what’s it to you anyways?”

“I’m with the Warmth-makers.”

“The what?”

“You been living in a stable or something? The Warmth-makers. We’re the peacekeepers of this frozen hellhole. Not sure where the name came from, but once ponies started calling us that we didn’t stop them. Now, if you don’t mind…”

“Of course, the place was west of here. I don’t remember exactly where, but it was on a hill with a cave in the side.”

“Damn… Ain’t much to go off of, but at least it means we can concentrate our search to that area.”

“Sorry I couldn’t be much more help.”

“It’s fine unicorn. You’ve helped more than anyone else. Guess those bastards work under the cover of blizzards, because nopony has ever seen them taking anypony.”

“Glad to help.”

“You should probably get indoors… There is an abandoned hospital nearby that you can take shelter in. Just head south to the hill. From there you’ll spot it in the fields to the east.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem citizen. If you find yourself in the Shattered Gleam, stop by our office. The leader of our small force will want to hear a report of what happened after you were captured. You can find him in Sector 2.” I nodded and with a shiver began to make my way east to the hill

Luckily it was only about two minutes away, so I reached it quite quickly. Once there I looked south and sure enough it was there. The building itself was about three stories tall and was eroded heavily from the snow and looked as if an explosion had happened nearby that was large enough to wipe out an entire wing. Fortunately someone had boarded the wing up, so wind wouldn’t be blowing through as easily. Still, it was better than standing out here waiting to turn into a living soon to be dead Popsicle.

With the last of my energy I made a dash to the building. Once inside I shut the door and began to survey over the room before me. Surely enough it did seem to be a hospital, and I seemed to be in the waiting room. The benches lining the walls were knocked over as if the ponies that had been on them had stood tried to bring them with them when they left them. Magazines were scattered all over the floor; none of which having any interesting info. Other than that the hospital was seemingly normal albeit very eerie.

“Hello?” My voice echoed into the hallway. “Anypony home?” Once again there was complete silence. I was completely alone in this building, which actually made me quite terrified.

At least the building was… Warmer than outside. It was still colder than I hoped though. Wanting to be warm I began to search the building for an old furnace or something of the like. I’m pretty sure these lands were as frozen as they are now before the war, so a furnace couldn’t be too big a fantasy.

I began to cautiously make my way down the dark hall. As my hooves hit the ground dust began to come off the ground and settle back down; the building creaking as it got used to a moving figured inside of it. It was a wonder that the place didn’t just collapse on my head. My head snapped to the right as I heard the faint sound of somepony speaking. As I cautiously neared I began to realize with relief that it was just a radio that was picking up a signal from somewhere. Once I was close enough I began to hear the beautiful voice of a mare accompanied by amazing an orchestra.

{/\]---------[{}]--------[/\}

“That’s why I know you’ll forgive me…

The reason I know you’ll always be there for me granted all my mistakes; all my lies.

Because those lies…

They were meant to protect you.”

Welcome back to The Frozen Eye! That was “My lies” by Octavia. Hope you enjoyed it, because I sure did.

Now it’s time for the news! We all know that the Shattered Hooves run the Shattered Gleam right? Well we may all be wrong… Rumors are going around that the Shattered Hooves have nothing to do with the well-being of our grand city, and instead just stand to serve as a form of government for us. But do we have the strength to say no to them? Only time will tell…

Also there have been reports of more Unicorn disappearances around the wastes. Nopony knows who or what is causing the disappearances, but the Warmth-bringers have assured us they are searching non-stop for the culprits. If you ask me, they’re probably just wondering into a Hellhound lair or something. But I’ve been proven wrong before!

Oh and before I forget… Radiation levels have been rising. Nopony knows why, but they suspect it has something to do with the snow growing heavier and happening more often. Some even suspect that it has something to do with that cloud cover that never goes away near the border of the Equestria Wasteland. Either way, you should probably bring some extra rad-away if you decide to make a trip into the Frozen Wastes.

And finally it’s time for the public service announcement: Many Stares – or Deathtrices if you prefer – have been spotted just west of Shattered Gleam. If you value your life, then you’ll stay in the city borders until they have been dealt with. The issue is suspected to be dealt with within a day or two.

Hmm… What’s this? I just got news that someone has uncovered a new record and brought it to us! Stallions, colts and mares… I present to you a never before heard song!

This is “Within the darkness of night” by a pony named Vinyl Scratch!

“The darkness takes me over.

The darkness closes us together.

We reach for a light, but find nothing.

We grasp for hope but receive nothing.

The darkness holds control of us.

But still we yearn. We reach for light to bring us hope!”

{/\]---------[{}]--------[/\}

I actually felt saddened when the signal became lost in the ever-growing blizzard outside. Somehow the music helped to calm me down and make me forget about the cold I was in. And the mare that manned the radio actually had a comforting voice… Oh well, I still had to find a furnace. Perhaps I could bring the radio next to it once I found one and try and regain the signal.

I clicked the radio off so the static would go away. Afterwards I began to search carefully through the hallways until I came to a door marked ‘basement’. Obviously that was the obvious choice, but then again… Oh what the hell, it was worth a look. I opened the doors and unfortunately missed the first step; sending me down the flight of stairs.

After landing quite painfully on my face I slowly stood up and shook the pain off my head. At first it looked like nothing was down there, but then I spotted a large metal object on the far wall. Once I spotted it my eyes lit up and –despite the pain I was in- I rushed over to it and hugged it gratefully.

And just like that I felt like an idiot. Here I was in an abandoned hospital hugging a furnace that was probably older than the building itself. But I was just so happy to be near something that gave warmth! A feeling of dread washed over me as I realized that the furnace had no fuel in order to work.

So what was I to do now? The answer to my question remained unanswered for about five minutes until I discovered some small barely legible writing on the side of the furnace. According to the furnace I would be able to substitute a regular fire with a magical fire in case of emergency. And luckily for me, I just so happened to know how to ignite a magical fire!

I placed my horn into the furnace and began to light the fire. Once I was sure the fire was lit and able to stay lit I pulled my horn away and looked at the glowing green and blue fire. The warmth of a magical fire is usually only about half as good as a normal fire, but it should be enough to warm the building up to a reasonable temperature.

Now that I was slowly beginning warm up, I couldn’t help but feel slightly tired. Within a few moments I found that I had lain on the ground at some point. Honestly I didn’t want to get up, so I just simply lied in front of the furnace and let the sandpony take me into the world of dreams.

=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=

“Good morning sweet flank.” My eyes snapped open to see a colt standing in the corner looking over me. He had a very boring brown coat with an orange mane and yellow eyes.

“Excuse me?” I stood up and prepared to pull my gun out if he tried anything. “Who are you?”

“Calm yourself! I mean you no harm. I just wondered down here a couple moments ago and found you sleeping down here. Thought I’d stick around and wait for you to wake up.” Did… Did he just imply something on that last sentence? I think he did! The main hint was his eyebrow rising as he said it.

“Yeah, not interested in whatever you’re offering.”

“Oh, too bad… You sure you don’t want to at least think about it?”

“Yes… I’m sure. Now if you don’t mind I’m trying to sleep here!”

“Sheesh… Sorry I even bothered you! I’m just going to go upstairs and wait out the blizzard.”

“You do that… Oh and don’t think of trying to come down here while I’m sleeping.”

“Don’t worry, I can take a hint.” He walked back up the stairs and closed the door behind him. And just lie that I was awake. Didn’t quite like the idea of having a strange pony above me that’s interested in aiding me in finding my sexual preference. Just the thought of it made me shudder.

Even through the awkwardness I managed to stand up and re-light the furnace. That magical fire was supposed to last about… Six hours, so I’ve been asleep for at least that long. At least the basement was still warm. After relighting the furnace I lay on the ground once more and simply stared at the door at the top of the stairs.

Just… Something about him didn’t sit right with me. If he really wanted to he could have done something while I was sleeping. But yet he didn’t and that smelled pretty fishy to me. I guess I should just be happy that I avoided that unpleasantness, but no… I had to get curious!

Within seconds I found myself at the top of the stairs as I questioned myself as to why I was about to do this. Unfortunately when I set my mind on something I usually got it done.

“Err… Whoever you are… Hello?” I stepped out into the slightly warm hallway.

“Hello darling, change your mind?” A plan snapped itself into my mind. I needed to make sure he had no weapons before I would be able to find out anything.

“Uhm… Sure.”

“Really?! Oh damn, this is my lucky day!”

“Yeah…”

“Go ahead and go get ready in the basement. I’ll be there in just a moment!” Yep, that was definitely suspicious… That or I was just being a bit paranoid.

“Sure.” I walked back down the stairs and back to where I had been lying. Reluctantly I took my armor off and faced towards the exit to the basement. But little did he know I had my gun behind my back loaded and ready to use.

“Okay! Let’s get this show on th- WHOA! Already ready and here I am with my armor still on… Let me just head back up and undress real qui-“

“No, you can do that here.” I tried to make my voice as seductive as possible. And honestly, it sickened me to be using my body to get answers.

“I’m a little… Err… Self-conscious. I’m going to go upstairs and undress.”

“No, don’t worry about it! I won’t stare, I promise.”

“I really got to-“

“What’s the matter? Scared of a little mare?” I think that set him off.

“Now that ain’t fair! Fine, you win. But after that I have to get going immediately I have to… Be somewhere.”

“Oh I’ll make sure you won’t be going anywhere soon. Now get those clothes off.” I quickly averted my gaze as he began to bite the straps on his clothing. After a moment I heard the unmistakable sound of clothing hitting the floor followed by hoofsteps on the floor coming in my direction. I reluctantly looked back over to him to see he was standing above me wearing nothing. With a quick glimpse I noticed that his weapons were in the clothes pile as well.

“Alright, so what’s your preferred-“I jumped up and levitated the gun at him.

“Okay, who are you?”

“Oh you little cunt!” I added a tiny bit of pressure to the trigger.

“Now name calling isn’t quite nice. How about you answer my question?”

“You’re not even worthwhile!”

“What?”

“Just give up and I’ll forget this little incident.”

“Yeah… Not gonna happen. Now, one last time; who are you working for? The Shattered Ones?”

“The who? No… I wouldn’t even think about pulling that trigger. The second you do Slavers will storm the building and take you down faster than you can blink.”

“Slavers?” A memory in my mind began to piece together. There was a small band of ponies that enslaved ponies for profit that wandered the Frozen Wastes. From what I could remember they were only small time.

“Yeah, so just give up.”

“Nope. I’m the one with the strategic defenses here. Think about it… I’m down here in the basement in a position that would allow me to pick them off as they entered. Do you really want to be responsible for getting your team killed because you were blinded by your own sexual interest?” I smiled as I saw the anger in his eyes grow. He knew I was right, but still held to his ego.

“You. Little. Fucking. CUNT!”

“You’re just not cut out for this line of work are you? Think back to when I was sleeping… You could have easily got me while I was sleeping, but instead you stood by and waited for me to wake up. Way I see it that was either caused by lust… Or Guilt.” He simply stared at me. Slowly I was beginning to see the anger in his eyes begin to wane and begin to be replaced with a look of sadness.

“You don’t think I know that… There’s no getting out of the Slavers once you join… When I joined they told me they were going to be giving homeless ponies a place to live. They did as they promised… But not in the way I thought they would. They… They would ship slaves off to the highest bidder just to line their own pockets with gold! And when a pony didn’t pass as sellable… They would use them as sex slaves…” Tears began to slide down his cheek. “I’ve seen fillies… Fillies not even old enough to know what sex is get… Get…” I lowered my gun. Somehow I didn’t think I’d need it anymore.

“Dear Celestia… I knew they were bad, but not that bad… Do you want out?”

“Yes… But there’s no way they’ll ever let me just walk out. If I even tried I’d be enslaved faster than I could say pickle berry kumquat.”

“If you’re really serious about leaving; really serious about changing… I’ll help you. They’ll be expecting one unicorn that is unaware of the threat around her… But throw one Earth pony with vengeance on his mind in the equestrian… That’s a recipe for disaster on their side!”

“You’d really help me? After I tried to enslave you after-“

“DON’T… Remind me.”

“What? You asexual or something?” He smiled coyly. “Or… Are you a mare person yourself?”

“What is up with ponies and wanting to know my sexual story?!”

“Hey, you’ll find that out here sex is perhaps the most interesting thing that will happen to you besides the occasional creature. Things out here are much more boring than down south in the Equestrian Wasteland. In matter a fact, I think that a time of peace will soon be overcoming out here. Even the slavers have talked about just moving their base of operations to the Equestrian Wasteland.”

“Just… Don’t mention that anymore okay?”

“Hey, get me out of here and I’ll forget you even took your clothes off.” I felt myself blushing as I quickly levitate my armor back over to myself. With haste I placed it back over myself and ensured it was on correctly.

“Mind if I ask what happened to your cutie mark?”

“My what?”

“Cutie mark...”

“Never heard of it.”

“Never heard of a cutie mark?! The image that appears on your flank at a young age that tells you what your best ability is?” An image of a cutie mark flashed before my eyes. I still wasn’t sure what mine was, but at least I remembered what one was.

“Oh yeah. Sorry, I have some slight amnesia… Anyways, what was wrong with it?”

“It’s kind of… Branded over.”

“WHAT?! With what?”

“42.”

“Oh… Damn. I was hoping that my cutie mark may give me a hint to who I was.” We both looked up as we heard hoofsteps accompanied by muffled speech above us.

“We can see about fixing your amnesia after this… You do know how to handle that gun don’t you?”

“Sure.” We both aimed out guns at the door as we heard somepony speak right on the other side of it. I found myself wondering how annoying it is to hold a gun in your mouth once more as I looked over at my companion.

“Hey! I found something.”

“Well go down there then you idiot! You don’t need us holding your hoof the whole time!” I prepared to shoot as soon as the door opened. Shooting a pony that was being held against his will was on my list of no no’s, but shooting a pony that enslaved others was not. Still… A part of me didn’t want to harm him at all.

The door slowly opened to reveal a brown earth pony standing at the doorway. My aim was on his head as I began to squeeze the trigger. Unfortunately for me I chickened out at the last second and ended up shooting him in the chest. The poor pony didn’t even have time to scream out as he tumbled down the stairs and landed on his neck with a sickening crunch.

There it was. I had just killed somepony… And my stomach was beginning to feel the realization of it as bile began to fill in my throat. By some miracle I managed to hold it in despite wanting to throw up more than I had when I drank that horrible potion back in that facility.

“They’re down there!” I reluctantly aimed my gun up at the door and awaited my next victim. But would I be able to pull the trigger a second time? If I did I would have to make sure to save the next pony the pain of being shot then breaking its neck.

The next pony appeared with a gun in its mouth. Unfortunately for me she knew how to handle it and fired a shot that barely skinned my cheek. I could feel the warm trickle of blood as it slid down my cheek. My shot unfortunately for her was not so inaccurate. The bullet hit her in the head; killing her instantly. Once again the feeling of wanting to throw up hit me like a brick wall, but it wasn’t as bad as the first time.

“Why aren’t you shooting?!”

“obly ot e est-“He dropped the gun from his mouth and began speaking again. “Probably not the best time to tell you this… But… I’m kind of a horrible shot.”

“Well at least draw their fire from me as I take mine!” He nodded and picked the gun back up then resumed aiming at the doorway.

“We’ll never get them if we go one at a time!”

“Fine, we rush them then!” Crap… That didn’t sound good.

“CHARGE!” My eyes opened wide in fear as about six ponies all charged into the room. I sighed as I realized we would never take them all… The odds were just against us. I let the levitation spell drop, which sent my gun clattering to the floor.

“Ut are oo oing??!”

“We can’t take them all on… Drop your weapon.”

“Ut…” He pleaded to me with his eyes. After all the ponies aimed their guns at him he dropped it.

“Humph. Smarter than you look. Guess I couldn’t expect less from a unicorn.” The leader of the small band of slavers looked away from me and at my companion. “And you. We warned you never to try anything against us… We’ll be sure to sell you to that stallion that fancies males at a discount.” He turned back to me. “As for you, I’ve been feeling a little lonely lately.”

“Before you do that… Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Nope. Got everything I need right under this armor!” I smiled which made him raise an eyebrow.

“I think you forgot that I kind of have a horn… A horn that can do this!” I released a blast of magic in their direction that sent them all flying against the wall behind them. Before they could recover I picked up my gun and began to shoot at them. I had taken about four of them out cleanly before the other two got up.

I still didn’t like those odds so I released a spell that I hadn’t had a chance to test yet. The leader didn’t even have time to react as it hit and paralyzed him. He fell to the ground unable to move as I aimed at his still mobile partner.

“I think the odds are fair… Two, on two?” The last standing pony dropped his gun and dashed up the stairs screaming for his life. The leader still lay on the ground with an expression of anger on his face. Of course I could tell he was actually scared from his eyes. The paralysis had just frozen the look of anger on him.

“Don’t worry… I have a conscious so I won’t be killing you while you can’t move.” The use of magic finally hit me and I slumped to the ground drained of my energy. I should probably learn to moderate my use so I don’t strain myself.

I slowly stood up and levitated the gun from the slavers mouth. Luckily levitation didn’t seem to even require me to focus anymore, so I was able to just pick the gun up without any trouble.

“Got em.”

“What about him? We can’t just let him live! He’ll hunt us down.” I looked down at the leader as the spell began to slowly wear off. Maybe I should practice my magic the next chance I got. Couldn’t hurt I suppose.

“I’m not killing a pony that can’t even defend himself. And I’m also not going to give him a gun just so I could sleep at night after killing him.” The leader began to move his hooves as he tried to stand up again.

“Quick! Hit him with another of those spells!”

“No, that will just serve to prolong out situation we’re in.” I began to think what we should do with him. Maybe we could just lock the door to the basement and leave? No, that would just be a slower and more miserable death. And I was pretty sure we wouldn’t be able to convince him to just leave and never mention us again.

“For fuck sake! Just quit squabbling and either kill me or let me go! Just please, shut the fuck up!”

“You know what? I’d rather have slavers mad at us then us be murderers.” I walked stepped back and allowed the leader some room to leave. “You’re free to go and do whatever you want. But rest assured.” I put my hoof in front of him. “If I see you again… You won’t be so lucky as to have mercy from me.” I lowered my hoof and allowed him to exit.

He obviously expected trickery so he was cautious upon his exit. The whole time he ascended the stairs he was looking down at us like we were about to maim him. After he exited the basement my new companion looked to me and began questioning me. Can’t say I didn’t see that coming.

“Why’d you let him go?! Oh sweet Celestia… I’m dead! I’m… I’m just dead! I knew I should have killed him! I knew it!”

“Would you calm down? We’re going to be fine. He’ll probably either freeze to death or get killed by one of the creatures out there anyways.”

“Yeah, you’re right… You have to be right.” He took a deep breath then sighed. “Thanks for helping me.”

“No problem. I’m… I’m… Just call me 42.”

“What type of name is that? Oh, it has something to do with your amnesia and that branding on your cutie mark doesn’t it?” I nodded slowly. “Since you helped me get out of that situation I’ll help you find out who you are. I’m Daring Dash by the way.”

“Daring Dash?!” I couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. “What type of name is that?”

“Yeah yeah… My dad gave me that name after some character from a book… I think the character’s name was Daring Doo. He was obsessed with that series. He actually had a whole collection of books that were actually eligible. The entire series. I guess he liked them because it was a chance to escape from this world. Can’t say I blame him I guess… But I do wish that he would have spent less time on those books and more time with me. Maybe if he had I would have avoided the Slavers all together.”

“Sorry I laughed.”

“No, it’s fine. I probably deserved it for calling you a cunt earlier… Even I laugh at it from time to time. But that’s enough of my life story… I think I may have a solution to your cutie mark problem.”

“Really?! What is it?”

“There is a doctor in the Shattered Gleam that specializes in burns. He has even been known to do cosmetic surgery. I’m sure if anybody knows how to see what’s under that branding, he will. Hell, he might even be able remove the branding all together for the right price.”

“Then we have a destination. Let’s get going. “

“I know you’re in a rush to fix your cutie mark. I would freak out if it was my cutie mark. They’re the only thing that allows you to stand out in this place. But we need to search this place. I only have about 200 bottlecaps and about 100 pre-war bits.”

“Why… Why in the irradiated hell would you be carrying bottlecaps?”

“Bottlecaps are the currency in the Equestrian Wasteland. Since we are technically part of Equestria, we decided to just take their currency as our own.”

“Wait, the Frozen Wasteland is part of Equestria?”

“Equestria? Yeah, we’re a part if it… Not an important part though. The leaders of the Shattered Gleam are trying to make the Frozen Wasteland independent though. It’s not like it matters anyways. We never trade with the Equestrian Wasteland partly due to those damned Crystal Mountains. Ever try climbing a mountain? It’s not exactly a piece of rat pie.” I cringed at the thought of a rat pie. But the idea of pie did make me hungry… Come to think of it, I hadn’t eaten in a while.

“Well that explains the bottlecaps, but what about the bits?”

“They are a sort of outdated currency. Since they weight more than a bottlecap most people leave them behind, but if you’re willing to carry them then you can buy stuff from the vending machines there. And the vending machines in the Shattered Gleam… Let’s just say those don’t sell just food. Need potions? You’re covered. Ammo? They’ll hook you up. Weapons? Better believe it. Other than that most ponies will buy them from you for two bottlecaps on the bit. Not worth it if you ask me, since you can get stuff from the vending machines you can’t get anywhere else.”

“Where can we find bottlecaps?”

“Pretty much anywhere and everywhere. Pre-War ponies were really obsessed with their cola… I’ve found bottlecaps in some strange places. Nothing like looking in a safe expecting to find a nice weapon or something like that… And finding bottlecaps. I’ve even found them in cash registers! Honestly, what were those ponies thinking?”

“What about the bits?”

“Mostly either in houses or businesses. But they are quite a bit rarer than bottlecaps. If you can’t find any don’t worry too much. The Shattered Gleam has a store that makes them for three caps on the bit.”

“Aren’t you worried that you’ll eventually run out of bottlecaps?”

“Oh now that ain’t gonna happen for a long time! Over the time since the war ponies have probably searched about… 25 percent of the total Frozen Wastes. And even then some ponies aren’t exactly the best scavengers. They’ll miss more bottlecaps than you could shake a carrot at. And of course there is the Shattered Gleam bottlecap press.”

“So, has this building been searched before?”

“Nope. Some ponies this place is haunted. Same way for most hospitals… And schools.”

“Well in that case we should probably get started looting.”

“Truer words have never been spoken.”

“I’m pretty sure they have…”

“Figure of speech 42… Figure of speech.”

“Oh…”

“Go ahead and get the first floor. I’ll see what I can find down here.”

“Got it.” I ascended the stairs back into the dark hallway.

“Use that horn of yours to light the halls. This place was pretty much run off magic back in the day. There is usually a magical generator somewhere on the first floor.” I nodded and began my search for a generator. Of course that was easier said than done. Even though the place was missing half of its building it was still large.

I stopped walking down the hall when I spotted a map hanging on the wall. According to the map there were about 40 rooms on each floor. With the building missing a wing that meant each floor was down to at least 25 ½ rooms each floor. (One of the rooms is halfway a part of the wing that is gone.) Luckily for us the generator room was not in the destroyed wing.

I made my way to the generator room and opened the door. Inside was a… unpleasant sight. The floor was littered with skeletons of ponies. I had no idea why they had been in here, but I guess it had something to do with the walls being made of a hard look metal. Perhaps they that it would help stop the mega-spells?

Their bones snapped under my hooves as I made my way through them. It saddened me that they were having their eternal rest interrupted by me, but what was I to do? Make a grave for every one of them? There had to be at least 30 of them. It was best that I just activated the generator and then left them to their endless sleep.

The generator was a large contraption that indeed looked like it ran on magic. On the front was a terminal that was probably for controlling the power flow. On the left side was instruction on proper use. And finally on the right side was a small indentation about the size of a horn. I walked over to it and placed my horn in it. As soon as I did I felt a small surge go through my horn followed immediately by a sense of being drained of my energy.

I pulled away from the oversized machine and fell on my back. The machine began to whir and click as it activated. Within seconds I could hear machinery all around me as it began to power the various machines.

Even though my body protested, I stood and walked once more over to the generator. This time to the terminal on the front and activated it. After a moment of warming up and going through the initial power up it glowed as a screen pulled up.

I banged my hoof against it as it asked for the password. The chances of finding the password in the place were very slim. What were we supposed to do now?

“Hey, I heard the machine power up, but we still don’t have any lights. What’s wrong?”

“I hate computers… The useless thing is asking for a password. We’d have better luck finding a living pony in this pile of bones than we have finding the password.”

“Allow me.” He walked up to the terminal and did… Something. After he did whatever it was a screen popped up with a bunch of meaningless characters. No… Hidden in those characters were a couple of words.

“What’d you just do?”

“Activated the storage area for possible override passwords. Each time you do that a menu of override passwords will appear. After that it’s just a game of guess the password.” I watched as he scrolled through the words and began to pick them out. After three tries he closed the terminal and re-activated it.

“Did you get it?”

“No… After four tries you get locked out and told to report to an administrator. There’s a trick though. If you shut down the terminal and turn it back on the override password will reset.” He pulled up the override screen once more and did the same thing as before. This time however, he managed to get it right. With a beep the terminal pulled up its main screen.

“Good job!”

“No problem. I’m going to go back to the basement. Go ahead and give this place some power. If you want to you can also see if there is any information on the terminal for us to use”

“I’ll do that.” He left me with the terminal. I walked over to it and looked at the list of options. The first was to give to building power. The second was something called A.F.F.G. And the last option appeared to be a journal from someone that lived in something called Stable 32.

I selected the first option and like clockwork the lights began to power on. I started to select the second option, but stopped myself just in case it was something bad. Instead I selected the last option and began to read the journals.

([])-0-I-0-I-0-I-0-I-0-([])

Virus detected on terminal! To ensure the virus does not spread; all previous entries have been temporarily deleted. Please see an administrator to solve the issue.

Entry #56 – Construction on that stable finished today. Honestly, does anypony really believe the Zebra’s would have anything powerful enough to wipe out an entire country? It’s all pretty much bullcrap. Oh well. It’s not like a simple maintenance pony like me could have any say in it. Just wish they wouldn’t have taken half my basement to build the damned thing…

Entry #57 – Confound it! Not only did they take my basement and remove my access from it, but now they go and do this! They demanded access to this terminal to add something called an A.F.F.G, which apparently means Automated Force Field Generator. Apparently they didn’t think the steel walls would be tough enough to stop the zebra’s so they decided to add a magic-proof force field to protect the hospital as well! They messed with the wrong pony…

Entry #58 – 75 - Error! These files do not exist.

Entry #76 – Those damned people from the stable told me that I have to move my journals to another terminal… Apparently they’re afraid of me hacking their precious force-field and messing with it. Now why would I do that? Oh! I know! Because they took my damned basement from me! That place was like a second home to me… Besides, it’s the principle of it! Let’s see how their little force-field works when I de-activate the automatic part of it! Now the only way to activate it is manually.

Entry #77 – Error! This file has been corrupted.

Entry #78 – Damn… Looks like those damned ministry ponies were right… Those fucking zebra’s launched something called Mega-spells at us… This hospital would have survived if I hadn’t disabled the force-field. Sure, I’m alive because I slept in the basement… But that doesn’t excuse these poor ponies before me. They look like they died trying to reach the terminal and it’s my fault… There’s no way I can live with the guilt of this… I’ve decided to take my own life rather than live with the guilt of killing hundreds of ponies. If you’re reading this; I’m sorry…

([])-0-I-0-I-0-I-0-I-0-([])

I didn’t know what to make of that… So the force-field was meant to protect the hospital, but never got a chance to. But what and where was this Stable 32? He said it was in the basement, but there wasn’t anything down there. Had he somehow hidden it? Or… Maybe it had something to do with the A.F.F.G? Only one way to find out…

I selected the A.F.F.G. As soon as I did I felt a loud vibration from all around me. After a moment the vibrations stopped. The force-field should be up, but did it do anything else? I went back to the main screen of the terminal and noticed there was a new option.

Open access hall to Stable 32.

I immediately selected it and backed away from the terminal. A moment after selecting it I heard a loud screeching noise from downstairs followed by daring screaming. I made my way downstairs with haste and noticed that the entire left wall was gone. Near it Daring was standing there staring at the wall.

“What the hell did you do? I nearly pissed myself…” I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Whoops…” I walked over to where he was and stared at the gaping hole on the wall. Inside was a large staircase that lead down for about thirty feet then exited into a hallway.

“Sure, it’s funny when I get scared half to death! I thought the ceiling was collapsing on me.”

“Sorry. Should we go down?”

“It’s worth a shot… You lead. I’m too shaky to do anything correctly right now.”

“Don’t trip down the stairs okay?”

“Yeah, I don’t want to get hurt.”

“No, because if you do you’ll hit me on the way down!” I laughed as he gave me a look of anger.

“Oh ha ha.” I made my way to the edge of the staircase and looked down it. All the lights on the way down seemed to have been destroyed by something, so the whole way down was dark as night. Upon stepping of the last step I looked down the hallways. At the end was a large steel door in the shape of a gear with a 32 painted in the middle of it.

“So this is one of the stables… I thought they only built those south of the Crystal Mountains.” Daring walked forward and put a hoof on the large steel door. “My grandparents came from a stable… It’s one of the main reasons they moved out here; so they could get away from all the stables. They told stories of horrible things that happened in them.”

“I’d understand if you don’t want to go in.”

“No… it’s best if I go in. I need to see with my own eyes why they hated them so much.”

“You can have the honor of opening it.” He nodded and walked over to the control panel.

With the simple press of a button the door began to creak. I watched as a light above the door lit up as a siren accompanied it. Within moments the door was squealing as the large door slid backwards. Dust fell off of it as the door that hadn’t been activated since before the war once more came to life.

“An old world door to Celestia knows what… And I’m the one that opened it. It just feels weird.”

“Think there’s anything living inside?” Daring looked at me and shrugged. Obviously we were only getting the answer one way. I stepped onto the platform in which the large steel door had just been. I started to step into the stable, but decided that maybe daring wanted to first.

“You want to go in first?” Okay, so I was a little scared… But who knows what’s living in this thing.

“I’m good. It’s all yours.” I gulped and placed my hoof in the stable. A part of me half expected the floor to just cave in and drop me into an endless pit. Of course that was just plain silliness. Once I was sure that I wasn’t going to die horribly by forces unknown I stepped fully into the Stable.

“It’s safe. Well at least the entrance hall is.” I began to walk around the room. The walls were beginning to rust from years of neglect; the floors covered in dust. All around I could smell what I hoped wasn’t death. Whatever it was it wasn’t pleasant.

“This place could use a good cleaning.” I walked into a small room that was beside the only door. Inside looked like a small maintenance office complete with a terminal.

“Hey, found a terminal.”

“Why don’t you try unlocking this one? I won’t be there every time you find a locked terminal.”

“I’m on it.”

“While you do that I’m going to see what’s in that door over there.” He walked to the door and walked through.

“All right terminal… Let’s see what old world secrets you hold.” I turned on the terminal and brought up the override menu. I wasn’t the best at it, but I eventually got it after nearly being locked out twice. As it would turn out the password was ‘Overseer’, whatever that was.

I opened the main menu. Unfortunately there seemed to be only one option. Whatever the cryogenics lab was it was now unlocked. I stepped away from the terminal and walked through the door Daring had just gone through.

“Daring?” I waited for a reply.

“Yeah?” I looked down the hall that Daring had just called back from.

“Is there anything down that way?”

“Yeah, it seems to be some living quarters.”

“Go ahead and search around there. I’m going down the other way.”

“Be careful!”

“Same to you.” I turned away from the hall and began to walk down it. Luckily the lights were still on which made my job much easier. I began to slow down as I started to feel a cold draft. It was as if there was something frozen nearby, but everything seemed normal.

I kept going down the hall until I reached a door in the right. Strangely it seemed to be the only door on this side of the Stable. I put my hoof on it and immediately regretted it. The door was colder than anything I had ever felt before! I looked up at the vent above it. There was smoke coming out of the vent, but it felt strangely cold…

I rubbed my front hooves together. With a quick pull the door flew open releasing a blast of cold air that actually nearly froze my eyes open. Whatever was in there, it was at least below -20 degrees. If I went in then I wouldn’t last very long. But… I also wanted to know what was in there.

I focused my magic into a force field just long enough to surround me and walked in. Amazing! It was actually working! I didn’t expect it to and was just going of hopes. Good to see my hopes actually turn out to serve my purposes sometimes.

I looked around through the blue force-field trying to find something that could clear the freezing cold cloud out of the room. My hopes began to diminish until I saw a terminal. Unfortunately… I would have to drop the force-field to activate it. If I worked quickly then I would be able to see what was on the terminal then raise my force-field once more. It would work.

It had to.

I prepared to activate the terminal then dropped the force-field. Immediately the cloud of freezing air hit me like with enough cold air to make me stop breathing. I began to panic as my focus on the terminal in front of me began to diminish. It was all I could to be able to just raise my hoof to the terminal.

Even though I was freezing I began to guess the passwords. My panic continued to grow as the first lockout became imminent. I restarted the terminal and began to shiver trying to warm myself. Fear took over me as I realized I couldn’t move my back hooves. Upon looking back at them I discovered that they had frozen solid.

And the freezing was slowly going up my legs to my body.

I tried to guess the password again. My panic overflowed once I failed again. If I messed up again then I would become a frozen Popsicle in the shape of a unicorn. And that just didn’t sound very fun. The terminal finally activated again and I brought up the override menu. Two tries down… One more failure and it was over. I guessed one last time.

It wasn’t right.

I felt the ice at the top of my hind hooves. The moment it reached my body it would all my over. My heart wouldn’t be able to handle the loss of half of my body’s blood flow. A glimpse of hope was still left though… I could use the last guess and risk a lockout. It’s not like getting locked out would matter.

I hovered over the word ‘Ministry’ and activated it. My eyes glowed with hope as the main menu popped up. With haste I activated the menu entry labeled ‘Ventilate cryogenics lab’. The moment I did I heard a fan activate somewhere. Immediately the cloud around me began to dissipate away. I could feel the temperature returning to normal around me and my hooves begin to crack as the ice around them broke away.

With a shake the ice began to break away although my hooves were still number than they had been after getting that shot back in the lab. Still, at least I wasn’t a pony Popsicle.

With the frozen cloud gone I was free to search the lab. It was actually much larger than I thought; spanning about the size of ten of the entrance halls combined. Most of the room was taken up by test tubes that were occupied by frozen ponies… And other things I couldn’t identify.

I slowly walked down the corridor between the tubes and looked into them. Each was occupied by a pony or some other strange creature. Each tube had a name on it which I assume belonged to the pony in it. But what I wanted to know was what those creatures were.

Each creature was about half the size of a pony. They had the normal features of a pony, but with the slight difference of having spear like appendages. What in the actual hell happened in this place? I walked back to the terminal to see if I could get any answers.

Upon further examination I realized that I missed an option in the main menu. It was another journal sub-menu which seemed to be relevant to a researcher that worked in the cryogenics lab. This one was different from the last though, since it seemed to write the journal from speech.

([])-0-I-0-I-0-I-0-I-0-([])

Research Journal #1 (Day 3) – The cryogenics lab is finally up and running! It’s been about three days since this stable sealed; three days since the zebra’s launched their Mega-spells at us. We had a slight power issue for about two days since the force-field that was supposed to activate above us didn’t work as planned. But we finally got everything running, and the overseer has given me the go ahead for starting the experiment. But first I need to make some preparations.

Research Journal #2 (Day 4) – Finally! I received my first specimen today! The overseer sent me a Unicorn by the name of Dawn. Guess names don’t really matter once the overseer signs your life over to me. I was disappointed to learn that my first subject was only sent to me to see if our Cryogenic tubes actually work. I know for a fact they work! But I guess you can’t be too safe… I’m going to freeze dawn then see if she is able to be un-frozen tomorrow.

Research Journal #3 (Day 5) – Interesting… I un-froze Dawn just moments ago, and my findings were much more interesting than I originally thought, if not more worrying. She managed to live for about three minutes before she collapsed to the ground. I’m guessing that her heart was able to hold out for a few moments before it realized most of her other organs had failed upon freezing. I’m going to have to run some more tests at different freezing rates on the ponies that are sent to me. I will eventually find a freezing time that will allow the pony to be un-frozen years later none the worse for wear.

Research Journal #4 (Day 30) – I’m a genius! I finally managed to find a temperature and exposure time that won’t cause the organs of the specimen to fail! He awoke thinking that not a single moment had passed, and said it was like he had simply blinked and awoke somewhere else. Sure, forty ponies had died in the process of finding this, but such is the journey of science! Sacrifices must be made, and now thanks to their sacrifices we may live for much longer than thought! The overseer has volunteered to be the first to be frozen into the new age. I will start the freezing tomorrow.

Research Journal #5 (Day 143) – I’ve been alone in this stable for about… 100 days now. I actually don’t mind, since all my time is now dedicated to my experiments. As per the Overseers final requests I have been splicing pony DNA with various samples they have given me. Of course the DNA I am taking does not compromise the safety of the frozen ponies… I would never hurt my research!

Research Journal #6 (Day 230) – YES! I finally did it! HA! They said I would never succeed, but I did! Yes, I did! I have spliced pony DNA with specimen sample 145 which is the DNA of… Hmm… I seem to have forgotten what the DNA came from. Oh well, what it came from doesn’t matter. I have named the resulting experiment the Cryospear, seeing as their appendages end at a spear like formation. The only problem is the creature tends to be hostile. To combat the situation I’m going to freeze my new creation much like the ponies long ago. After I’ve found a way to train them then I will release them and train them to run this facility after I pass. Until then I’m going to create more and freeze them as well in case of emergency.

Research Journal #7 (Day 754) – HAHAHA! I’ve created another creature! I call it the pencilpaper! It’s created by splicing pencil DNA with paper DNA! They even know how to have a normal conversation! Isn’t that right pencil paper? <Silence> Yes, yes I do believe that I’m the best researcher to ever exist! Oh? What’s that? <Silence> Yes! Yes I should combine my DNA with you! Imagine it! Doctor Pencilpaper! <Splashing noise> what… No, no! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to spill the coffee on you! No, get away from me! No! <Screaming accompanied by splashing noises, followed by a thud.> <Silence> <Silence>

ERROR! Sound and voice recognition software has encountered an error and needs to restart. Error report 2423a: bad driver software.

([])-0-I-0-I-0-I-0-I-0-([])

I looked around myself trying to find the scientist. After searching for a moment I found him under the desk. The skeleton was lying curled in a ball with a pencil wrapped in paper in the eye socket of it; the paper stained in dried blood. The pony had obviously gone crazy and stabbed himself believing the pencil to be a living creature. What a way to go…

At least I now knew what those creatures were. And now that I did I knew I didn’t want them being released into the Stable. I opened the main menu once more and began to search for a way to possibly kill the abominations without releasing them. My eye lit up upon seeing an option… But it wasn’t the option that I wanted to use.

Terminate all subjects.

That was the closest option to killing the experiments available. But… Wouldn’t that kill all the ponies in the tubes as well? I wasn’t willing to risk it, but I also couldn’t risk allowing those abominations to live. What was I to do? Might I be able to unlock the tubes for all the ponies? Or do they need to stay in for a set amount of time to live.

All the capsules were to be opened at the same time. No doubt the ponies would be slaughtered by the creatures before they even had time to figure out what happened. Then what? The creatures escape and terrorize the wasteland. How do I manage to get myself into these situations?

I was faced with three options… I could either release the ponies one by one and risk them dying from shock; I could kill every specimen which would result in the death of all the ponies; or I could just leave them be, which would more than likely end up with the ponies being slaughtered by the abominations. None of those options looked good for the ponies…

I had finally come to a conclusion… I was going to release the ponies one by one since that held the highest chance of them living. I guess it was time to start.

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It had taken us about half an hour to free all of the ponies save for one. Daring had joined me about five minutes after I started since the living area wasn’t anything special. The most interesting thing he had found was a potion of healing. After he finished I filled him in and we started releasing the ponies.

All of them had questions upon being released, but we simply told them to wait for us to finish releasing the other. And now we were down to one last pony… The overseer. I pressed the button on the side of the capsule. Within seconds the capsule began to hiss as the inhabitant was thawed. He fell forward onto his stomach then pulled himself up.

“Ugh… Who are you two? Has the world been rebuilt? Is it safe to leave?”

“Not exactly…”

“How long has it been since the war?” Daring and I looked at each other. He shrugged to me and I myself had no idea.

“Sorry, no idea.”

“Well then why the hell did you release me?”

“That.” I pointed to the Cryospear in the capsule. He walked over to it and put his hoof on the viewing glass. Afterwards he turned around swiftly and looked at both of us.

“What the hell is this thing?”

“A creature that the scientist in charge created. He believed that it was his duty to splice pony DNA with other samples.”

“What? You mean doctor Genic?”

“I guess. Whoever was in charge of this lab.”

“Yes, that was him… But I never told him to experiment on DNA. I told him to freeze us all then set the timer for 200 years. After that he was supposed to see if the strain of pony DNA from outside the stable was mutated.”

“I guess he heard you wrong because he created those things and thought of them as his babies. So much that he froze them and set them to be released later for training. Unfortunately he killed himself so he was never able to train them.”

“How do you know all this? Are you from Stable-tek?”

“Stable what now? No, we found this place. I got all this from his journals on the terminal. You could ask him yourself… But he’s kind of taking an eternal nap with Pencilpaper under his desk”

“Oh… Well how’s the situation top-side?”

“It’s… Not bad. Not good, but not bad.” I stopped talking as Daring stepped in.

“The Shattered Hooves –Leaders of the Shattered Gleam- are about to sign a declaration of peace with the Warmth-bringers. Once it is signed they promised that all the hostile creatures will be wiped out and a new age of peace will take over the Frozen Wasteland.”

“So the world has rebuilt?”

“Yes… And no. The Frozen Wasteland may be seeing peace soon, but the Equestrian Wasteland is another story. It’s still run by slavers and still suffers assaults by raiders. And if that’s not enough the place is still radiated pretty badly. Oh and there is a cloud cover over it that never seems to go away.”

“So they actually did it… Damned chickenshit pegasi...”

“What was that?” I chimed back in.

“Err, nothing to worry about.”

“Daring, go explain what is going on to all the other ponies. I’m going to help the overseer settle back in.”

“Right on it captain!”

“Don’t ever call me that again.”

“You got it boss!”

“Don’t call me that either.”

“All right sport.” I grunted in frustration which prompted Daring to nearly fall over laughing.

“Just go do it before I shove you in one of these capsules.” He walked off still laughing his head off. I turned back to the overseer to see he too was stifling a laugh.

“Sorry, sorry!” He exploded into laughter before pulling himself back together. “Sorry, it wasn’t really that funny… It’s just I haven’t been able to laugh about much considering my job and all.” I simply stared at the overseer before I myself began to smile.

“Maybe I could use a laugh. Anyways… We should probably do something about these abominations.”

“You’re absolutely right.” I lead the overseer to the terminal.

“If you want you can read the journal entries.”

“It’d be best if I did.” I stepped aside and allowed him access to the terminal. After about three minutes he backed away and looked down below the desk. “You… Bastard.”

“What?” He turned to me with anger in his eyes. Anger that wasn’t directed to me, but towards the dead pony under the table.

“He told me those forty ponies were already placed into capsules! I told him the correct freeze temperatures and times! He knew from the start, but he still started off with his own… The blood of those ponies is on my hands… I’m the one that sent them to him because he said he wanted to make sure the capsules were working correctly. When I investigated into their disappearances he told me that they were in the capsules he kept in the back room… And like an idiot I believed him.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“You’re right… But I should have. The safety of the ponies in this stable was my responsibility… The sole job of this vault –and mine in retrospect- was to make sure all the ponies lived long enough to see a new age of the world. I guess the stable’s social experiment failed…”

“But now’s your time for redemption. End those creatures’ lives and lead the citizens of the stable into the new world. There is a whole wasteland out there that will soon be in an era of peace.”

“You’re right… I had a moment of weakness.” The overseer stepped back up to the terminal. With a single hit of a button it was done. We both turned to watch as the capsules all began to flash red from within. After just a moment the lights faded away and the job was done. None of the capsules were occupied anymore; their residents nothing but a bunch of shattered glass.

“It’s done… For what it’s worth… Thank you. We would have been killed by those things when the time released all of us. If it wasn’t for you we would have died. Come, I have something I want to give you.” I nodded to him and began to follow him down the hall to the living quarters. We stopped at the doorway, but instead of going in her turned to the wall.

“Where exactly are we going?”

“You’ll see… If you would, please?”

“If I- Oh.” I turned away from him. Clicking noises could soon be heard behind me followed soon by the noise of metal scraping against metal. I turned back around to the once existent wall to see it was now a hole that revealed a staircase that lead up.

The overseer walked up them until we reached yet another door, which he promptly opened. Behind it was a large room with a circular window on the left side that had a view of what I guessed was the living quarters. The rest of the room consisted of terminals and lockers all surrounding a semi-hexagonal desk in the middle.

“Here we are… My office.”

“Oh you’re giving me an office? How lovely!” He laughed once more.

“No, no… This is mine. I have something else for you. Are you familiar with stable technology?”

“No, not that I’m aware of.”

“Hmm… Well, allow me to introduce you to…” He reached into a cabinet near him and pulled out a rather large, rather expensive looking bracelet. The thing even had knobs and a screen. “To the Pip-Buck 300.” He handed it out to me. “Go ahead, take it.”

I levitated it away from him and began to examine it. The thing looked like a highly technological hoof mounted computer. The screen was the same as the terminals, but was smaller and seemed to be able to display more than just text.

“What is it exactly?” I looked away from it and to him.

“One of the most useful things to ever be created. Go ahead, put it on.” I levitated the thing to my right hoof and began to place it on. As soon as it detected it was around my wrist it locked on tight enough to lock it in place, but not tight enough to restrict blood flow.

I watched as a screen appeared that had the image of a pony on it. Around it was a bunch of lines with percentages that pointed to various limbs. Each percentage was at 100 and the face of the pony was smiling quite brightly.

“That’s the status screen. You can access current effects on your body from there as well as see the condition of your limbs. If any of your bones break or if you take a large amount of damage to that limb it will inform you. You can also see a representation of your body’s pain threshold at the top. Once that meter drops all the way, you can pretty much assure yourself you won’t be getting up.”

“Wow…” I used my magic to turn the knob on the left. Another screen popped up in response; this one of a list of things I was carrying. “How… How does it do that?!”

“That’s a mystery we never solved. Not only does it do that, it also somehow calculates the value of each item. It’ll tell you what armor you’re wearing; what weapon you have equipped; what’s in your bag; and even the condition of weapons and armor using some sort of highly complicated scientific equation.”

I turned to the last screen which promptly opened a map. There were three options on this screen; one was a map of the entire Frozen Wasteland; one a map of the area around me; and the last a note section that was somehow connected to the map.

“That is your map screen. You’ll be able to check your map that is updated constantly. You can also set markers to appear on your map. Oh, speaking of your map… Press that button on the left.” I did as asked. Immediately a small compass appeared on the screen that also had little blips on it. Every one of them was yellow as opposed to the normal green of the screen.

“That is the Eyes Forward Sparkle or E.F.S if you will. It acts as a compass. But the best part is that it will tell you if a living creature is hostile or not. I’m not sure how exactly it does it, but it’s usually always accurate.”

“How…”

“Don’t question it.” I looked up to see him smiling. “Just accept it.”

“Thanks.”

“There is one last thing you might find useful…”

“And what would that be?”

“Press that button right there.” He pointed a hood towards a small button that was on the right side of the Pip-Buck. I pressed it and the world was reduced to a slow crawl. I was able to target the same limbs that were marked on the status screen… But on the overseer with a percentage around each one. This percentage did not seem to be the damage value of each, but instead it appeared to be a chance to do something.

I dropped out of the strange feeling and looked towards the overseer. “What was that? It was like the world was slowed extremely.”

“It was only slowing time down? Hmm… The S.A.T.S onboard program must be an older version of it… Sorry, but I don’t have any more Pip-Bucks.”

“It’s fine… What was that?”

“That was S.A.T.S or Stable-Tec Assisted Targeting System if you will. It’s a magical spell built into the device that is supposed to stop time and allow you to make well aimed shots. You may have noticed a percentage?”

“Yes.”

“That percentage is your chance to hit that specific part of the body. Of course it needs recharging to work, so you’ll find you need to wait between shots to use it again. In normal circumstance it would actually stop time in your eyes and allow you to think strategies. Unfortunately for you that one only seems to slow time down to a crawl. You should still be able to make great use of it though.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Saving the entire stable was plenty. A simple Pip-Buck won’t be enough to suffice the great service you did for us.”

“Your gratitude is enough. Anything else I should know about this thing?” The overseer put his hoof to his chin as he thought. Moments later the hoof went from his chin and into the air.

“Yes! I almost forgot one of the most useful features of the inventory section! It has a built in organizer. It will work in conjunction with your saddlebags to move the contents in alphabetical order. What luck that your saddlebags support the option! It will also automatically reload the weapons in your bag that you’re not currently using. Oh, and it also has an onboard repair screen that will show you how to put two sets of armor together to make a better quality version of it. Same with weapons. You’ll also find you’ll have more room due to the superior organization.”

I chuckled as I realized how genius the pre-war ponies were. “Technology…”

“Oh, and if you find yourself needing to hear some tunes you can turn on the radio too. It will show you a list of available signals. Before the war there were a lot of them… Now days, I doubt it. Still nice nonetheless.”

“You have no idea how much you just helped me.”

“No prob-“His eyes lit up like a light bulb. I watched in confusion as he began to rip the contents of multiple drawers out. He eventually came up with a small square technological object. “This will be of great use to a unicorn such as you! I assume you know magic am I right?”

“I’ve been known to use magic from time to time, yes.”

“Excellent! Install this driver data to the Pip-Buck.” I took the small object and plugged it into the Pip-Buck. Installing…

“That is a driver that will enable an onboard spell book. You’ll be able to see all your available spells that you know. Not only that, it will also tell you you’re progress in mastering your spell as well as a description on what that spell will do.”

“Why doesn’t every Pip-Buck already have this?”

“That was a side project that was being worked on by the arctic north branch of the Ministry of Technology. They scrapped it after they realized they could be working on more important things. Not wanting to see it go to waste, I took the prototype and had it finished. That’s the only driver that exists.”

“And you’re sure you don’t mind me having it?”

“Completely sure.” He closed his eyes and smiled from ear to ear. “You’re a friend here.”

“What are you going to do?”

“This vault is in need of a good cleaning. I’m going to get it cleaned up and back to running at full efficiency. We may have failed out social experiment, but we still live on. Our only goal now is to make sure that we survive this new era.”

“Good luck… But I have to go now.”

“I understand. Good luck out there and may your life have meaning.”

“Back at ya.” The door closed quietly behind me; my hooves the only sound besides the low hum as I descended the stairs. Trotting down the hall I couldn’t help but examine the steel walls around me. They were so similar to something I’d seen before, but I couldn’t place my horn on what. The sound of hooves walking behind me became audible as well as the sound of Daring.

“Hey! You weren’t about to leave me down here were you?”

“What? Oh, sorry. I guess I was caught up in thought. Ready to go… Friend?”

“Friend? But we’ve only known each other for about an hour…”

“Don’t question it. I know I have you there to get my backs so you’re a friend in my book.”

“Thanks… Feels good to actually have a friend that isn’t just a friend because you have to be.” Steel grinding against steel woke me from my still deep in thought bubble of distraction. We had somehow already made it back to the stable door, which was closing behind us. I could still feel the Pip-Buck pressed tightly against the coat on my hoof. And… It felt good to have something that useful so close.

“Something on your mind 42?”

“Hmm? Oh it’s nothing… I just can’t help but feel trapped in my own mind... I know little about myself besides why I was going to the Shattered Gleam. You don’t know what it’s like to wonder what you are like; what your own personality was… What your actual name is.”

“Don’t worry! We’ll find out who you were before the amnesia. It’s the least I could do after you helped me get out of being a slaver…”

“Heh… What a pair. A unicorn with no name and amnesia and a former slaver earth pony with the name of a character from a book.”

“Yep. Can’t say it’s the most normal pair up ever. So… What do we do now 42?”

“Now… Now we go to the Shattered Gleam. It’s time I found out who I was.”

“That’s quite a bit away. But we can make it.” He nudged me as we exited into the hallway of the hospital. Our hoofsteps rang out in inharmoniously as I looked once more at the ruined hospital around us. For just a moment there I swore I saw the place as it had been in old times, but it was probably just my mind playing tricks on me.

“Good to know.” The doors swung open allowing a blast of cold air to blow through our manes. The force-field around the hospital stood brightly doing its job… To preserve the hospital from mega-spells and magic alike. Too bad it was still in the old days; believing that the bombs were to fall soon… This hospital would now stand as a monument to the power of the old world that was felled by the anger of ponies before.

And as a monument to a friendship between me and Daring that would never end. Maybe that’s why I was sad to go, but my destiny was in the shattered city miles away from here. And Daring would be by my side through it all.

“Mind if I ask you something?”

“Sure Daring, what is it?”

“How did you know I wasn’t happy as a slaver? I mean… I was careful to make sure to be a complete asshole.”

“I just knew you weren’t bad… I could see the fear in your eyes; the sadness as you looked me over knowing that soon I’d probably be a sex slave. I don’t know… I guess I’m just able to see the best in ponies.”

“Is that why you let Ashton go?”

“Who?”

“The leader of my group… You know, he was always like a brother to me. Even though he was brother that wanted to see me sold as a slave. He was still the one that took me in after my father died.”

“I don’t know… He chose his life; much like I’ve chosen mine. Sure it was a bad life choice, but I can’t hate him for that. I can however hate him for what he does to other ponies. Maybe I should have killed him, but he was unarmed. Wouldn’t I just be the same as him if I killed him while he was defenseless?”

“I see… Good to see some ponies still have a sense of good in them. Even the Warmth-bringer would have just killed him and celebrated about it afterwards.” The snowfall around us continued to grow as our conversation carried on; the cold beating down upon both of us with enough force to cause both of our teeth to begin chattering. But still we carried on… Because nothing was going to stop me from stopping the Shattered Ones even if I knew nothing about them.

“We should save our energy for the walk. Save your breath.”

“Sure.”

We trotted silently through the snow as it fell gently upon us. The only sounds around us in the peace of the afternoon was the whistling of the wind and the sounds of out hooves crunching the weak snow beneath us. Wondering freely through the snow gave me plenty of time to think… Think about my past. I knew it was there; it was right in my grasps. But it was like there was a mental wall that was stopping me from accessing the memories. And that wall would have to be bypassed brick by brick. And with each brick that fell I knew that I would uncover my past bit by bit until it was all revealed to me.

Snowflake upon snowflake fell around us growing ever heavier until a full scale blizzard was upon us. The cold wind blew out manes carelessly and violently through the bitter cold air. The tears began to fall from my eyes as the cold assaulted my eyes. As these tears fell I began to think back to that night when I was a filly. As I thought the full memory began to come clear and I knew then… I knew that the first brick of the wall had finally fallen.

=O=0=O=0=O=

“Mom…” The snow fell gently as my mother’s smile as we tracked carefully through the snow to a destination unknown.

“Yes my little pony?”

“Why didn’t papa come with us?” Mothers smile turned to a frown as her eyes saw a truth I was not yet aware of.

“Daddy… He… He had to go away for a while, okay honey?”

“Where did he go?” Eyes fell upon me. Eyes filled with sadness due to circumstances I could never understand. But… Those same sad eyes also contained love for me.

“He went far away. But…” My mother stopped walking and lied down next to me. Tears began to fall from her eyes as she placed a hoof in my hair. With gentleness akin to that of the soft blowing wind she began to brush through my mane. “He’ll always be with you; with us. In your heart. He loves you so much… That’s why he had to leave. Had to stop the ponies that wanted you.”

“Will we see daddy again?”

She sniffled before standing up. “One day… But for now we have to be strong for him. Okay honey?” She wiped the slowly crystallizing tears away from her eyes.

“Okay mommy.”

“Here… You’re hooves must be tired. Go ahead and hop on my back. I’ll carry you.” She squatted down and allowed me onto her back. The gracefulness of her trotting began to rock my mind into peace. Within minutes I could feel the peace of sleep coming over me. We would soon be in the Shattered Gleam and all would be fine in our lives.

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The coldness was unbearable. I began to attempt to curl into my mother’s warm back, but was greeted with only the cold of the snow and the black of the night.

My eyes opened to see I was not moving nor even on the high perch of my mother’s back, but on the ground beneath the cover of a small alcove made of snow. Panic began to set over me as I shook the snow off my body. With haste and panic I exited the alcove to see a small fire to the immediate west of my position.

“Mom?!” Wind blew steadily though my mane as I dashed towards the fire. Had she placed me in the alcove to protect me from the wind? But if she did that then why didn’t she make the fire right next to the alcove?

“Mommy?!” My screams were drowned out by the heavy howl of the blizzard wind. Within moments the fire had blown out… But I didn’t need light to see what was around me. The once beautiful white snow was now stained with the red of blood. All around me laid the bodies of slaughtered ponies near a campsite.

Tears began to flow freely and quickly from my eyes as full blown panic set in. “MOM?! Anypony?! Somepony please help!”

“My… Little pony… Over here.” My ears perked up at the sounds of my mother’s beautiful voice. With immediate haste I began to dash over to her. My heart dropped once I saw her lying on the ground… In a pool of blood; a large gash going down the length of her stomach.

“No…” I dashed over to her and lied next to her. She weakly raised her only clean hoof and placed it gently on my head.

“Please… Listen to me. I… Don’t have much time.” Her voice was slowly going to nothing more than a raspy gasp. “They came… Looking for you. I hid you so they would never take you.”

“Please, you’re going to be fine!”

“It’s alright my daughter. I know you’ll be fine. The Shattered Ones… They’ll stop at nothing to find you…” Blood began to trickle steadily from her mouth. “They took your father… And now they want you. You have the bloodline of a very powerful magic family. They’ll stop at nothing to get access to that magic.” Her hoof fell limply from my head as she took a deep breath.

“Go… Hide… You’ll be fine… My beautiful… daughter.” Her eyes closed for a final time as she fell limply forward. And just like that I was completely alone in this world… Before realizing it I had crawled under my mother’s still barely warm arm. All I could do was cry in fear of what was before me. I had nopony; nothing to aid me in my life.

I was completely alone.

My mother’s arm fell once more to the ground as I crawled out from under it. I had lied there for about an hour just wishing she would pick me and place me on her back once more. I knew it would never happen, but it felt good to have a little hope.

I stood in the middle of the massacred; my mother’s dried blood on my light blue coat. The starlight fell over me as I picked up a gun from a nearby pony and began to walk into the blizzard. The cold had no effect on me as I walked towards the tall tower in the distance. Because on that day all sadness left me.

And was replaced with anger and vengeance.

=O=0=O=0=O=

“42?! Are you alright?” The frozen tears stung my face as I snapped out of my memory.

“How long have we been walking.” I asked it not as a question, but as a demand.

“About two hours, why? Are you alright?” I looked down at the ground around me. Snow had fallen so much since that day, but the blood stains were forever stained into my memory. Most would see the area around us as a normal part of a field… I saw it as the place where my life was ripped in two.

In front of me I could see myself as a filly standing in the field with vengeance in her eyes. The filly and I met eye contact… And just like that she was gone just like my mother all those years ago. Wind blew steadily around us as thoughts forced themselves into my mind. Just like the wind however, the thought blew away before I could grasp them.

“I’m fine. Just thinking is all.” Shadows began to grow over us as snowflakes began to fall upon us. A blizzard would soon be upon us and it looked like a doozy.

“Don’t get too distracted. It may not look like it, but there are creatures that wonder around. The chances of running into them are low at least.” Tracks being left behind us, we continued onward at a slightly faster pace towards the now barely visible tower before us.

“Does anypony know what’s in that tower?” My memories served to remind me that everypony avoided that building that stood in the center of the Shattered Gleam. Matter of fact I don’t think anypony has ever even entered the sector it stood in.

“No… Everypony fears that old building. Mostly because of the rumors.”

“Rumors?” The snowfall began to grow heavier until we were barely able to see a silhouette of the tower in front of us.

“Oh yeah. Too many of them to count. One of the most common is that the tower is liable to fall if even a section of its disturbed. And one of the most ridiculous –but not impossible- is that it is haunted.”

“What is it anyways?”

“I assume you’ve heard of the ministries that headed Equestria during the war?” Images of the six ministry mares flashed before my eyes. I never was one interested in history, but I did know that these six ponies had their own ministry.

“I’m familiar with them, yes.”

“Well since we’re part of Equestria they thought it would be smart to at least put one branch of each ministry out here. So they did just that. Those old buildings all still stand, well except for one, but that another story. Anyways this one was built under the order of the Ministry of Magic.”

“And what’s so bad about that to make all the ponies afraid of it?”

“No idea. All I know is that it’s off limits unless you have permission by the leaders anyways. I think the leaders of the Shattered Gleam fear what’s hidden in there.”

“What about the other buildings?”

“They’re all still standing undisturbed. I guess that fear of the one in the Shattered Gleam carried over to all the others. It’s all you can do to make a pony even get near one of those things. I personally don’t see what the big deal is.” The blizzard began to wane slightly. At least enough for us to catch glimpse of the Shattered Gleam again.

“You mentioned one was no longer standing?”

“Oh yeah… The Ministry of Peace. The area around the Shattered Gleam was ripped to pieces by earthquakes as you know. As luck would have it, that building was in the middle of one of the small towns surrounding the Shattered Gleam. And an earthquake ripped right through the middle of the town.”

“So it’s gone?”

“Not quite. They obviously built those buildings to last, because it’s still standing, if you can call it that.”

“Quit with the riddles… What happened to it?”

“The whole thing managed to somehow slide down the side of the ravine caused by the earthquake. It now sits halfway down mostly intact. If you stand at the edge you can see it being barely held up by the west wing of the building, which somehow had its girders hook into the side of the ravine. It’s quite the sight to see.”

“Interesting… We’ll have to stop by there sometime. Imagine what secrets lay in that building…”

“Are you FUCKING INSANE? Not only would getting down that ravine be nearly impossible, there would be no way back up! And even if we did get down there, how in the world would we be sure that thing wouldn’t fall the rest of the way once we sat hoof in it?”

“Oh come on… That’s not very daring of you!” His eyes glared angrily at me as a smirk engulfed my face. But just as the blizzard, his anger didn’t last long.

“Knew you weren’t over my name just yet…”

“You got nothing on my name. Might as well enjoy messing with you until I find out my real name… Hope mine isn’t anything embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry…”

“Yeah, I’m sure we’ll find out what my name is.”

“No, don’t worry… I’ll think of something to embarrass you with!” Our laughter was muffled out by the howling of the wind around us. The blizzard had died down as quickly as it had come, but snow did continue to fall.

“How long do you think it’ll take us to get to the Shattered Gleam?”

“From here? I’d say about…” His eyes closed as he began to mutter something to himself. “Five more hours. We should arrive around midnight.”

“What time does dusk usually hit?”

“Around seven.” I stopped and looked at my Pip-Buck screen. If the clock was to be trusted, it was 6:26 PM. Nightfall would soon be upon us.

“We better hurry. Night is… Not quite as peaceful as day.”

“And by that you mean…?”

“Marauders.”

“I take it they aren’t cupcake makers.”

“Far from it… Well, they might make cupcakes from your intestines. Other than that, no. They are essentially raiders, just without the craziness. Unlike raiders, they’re coordinated and know how to make plans. Fighting with them is definitely not fun.”

“So getting into a scuffle with them is a no-no.”

“Exactly. We’d probably survive a fight with a small group of them, but a bigger group… Anyways, they’re still drugged out raiders nonetheless. We should be fine as long as we just keep moving and keep an eye on our surrounding area.” Darkness began to slowly envelop the land around us; the moon beginning to reflect brilliantly off the snow giving a white gold glow off around us.

“It’s beautiful…”

“Yeah… Quite possibly the last beautiful thing in Equestria. Celestia knows you won’t see anything like this in the mainland.” As the sun set and the moon rose I couldn’t help but stare in awe as the snow drifted across the ground; moon reflecting off of it. Just the sight of something that beautiful was enough to make you forget the world had been devastated with mega-spells.

Our hooves continued to plow through the snow. Each new track granted us a slighter gleam of hope that we would reach our destination without freezing. And the whole walk, all I could think was... Who was I? I mean, I knew so far that I was not evil, and I knew magic. Yippee. So what was I supposed to do with that info?

I continued to ponder on myself as we neared ever closer to the behemoth tower before us. Before long I found myself reliving the haunting memory of my mother’s death. Why had it happened? More importantly, did I know why it happened? Maybe that was why I was heading to Shattered Gleam? No, a personal vendetta wouldn’t be enough… What was it then?

I continued to think until I found myself a mindless zombie. The cold of the blizzard that was growing around us didn’t even register on my numb mind. Hoof after numb hoof we arched forward to the truth before us. The Shattered Gleam likely didn’t have anything for Daring, but for me… It held possible answers. We’d soon be there, and that was ever closer to me finding out who I was.

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My eyes slowly began to scan over the town before us. We were now about a mile away after walking for what seemed to be an entire day. According to the Pip-Buck, it was actually only 4 hours, at a time of 10:21 P.M.

“Before we get there, tell me a bit about Shattered Gleam.”

“Sure. What do you want to know?” My mind immediately forced multiple questions forward. Stupid brain... Always overworking.

“How big is the place?”

“Too big to say. There are about 18 sectors, each serving a different purpose. The sectors are determined by the crevices that were formed from the earthquakes. Oh, and of course the ministry building has its own sector, which is never entered.”

“And about how big is each sector?’”

“Big enough to hold... Umm... Around 1,000 ponies on rationing. Fortunately there is only about a total of 1,000 ponies in the whole city.” 1,000 ponies? Sweet Celestia that’s a lot of ponies...

“Don’t the cracks and crevices pose a problem?”

“The leaders of the Shattered Gleam put very sturdy bridges between the sectors. As long as you don’t look down while you are crossing the bridge you’ll be fine.” I felt myself gulp as I realized that I most likely would look down. To be honest… I was terrified of heights. Just something about looking down from a high place just made me envision falling down to my death.

“You sure they’re sturdy…?”

“Oh yeah. I’ve crossed them too many times to count. Not even a wiggle or creak. Apparently they used a large supply of metal they found in a factory nearby.”

“Are slaver’s allowed in the town?” The question had been bugging me for a while. He spoke as if he had been there many times, but…

“Yes… And no. I was an undercover slaver. They don’t bother with checking up on anypony’s backgrounds. I was in charge of going into the town and buying the necessary supplies we needed. One of the reason I’m not good at aiming…”

“Not going’ to force you to learn to aim… But at least try? I’d rather not have a repeat of the basement.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll learn it eventually.” We shared a laugh. Can’t wait to get into a nice warm place… Wait! That’s right! Subject 41 left his house to me! Thank Celestia…

“Do we just walk in?”

“What time is it?”

“10:32.”

“We’ll have to talk to a guard to get in. The city goes under lock down after 10:00.”

“As long as I don’t have to sign anything.” I passed it off as a joke. Of course I knew how serious my situation was, but just worrying about it won’t do me any good.

“Just let me handle it. They know me.” We neared the large gate. The thing stood around twenty feet tall with a large gate made out of what appeared to be a very thick metal. Like very well maintained clockwork, a guard poked his head over the ledge above us upon stopping.

“Citizens or newcomers?” Daring stepped closer to the gate and began yelling back up to him.

“One merchant, one newcomer.”

“Name of merchant?”

“Daring Dash.” Would you two hurry up? I’m freezing my horn off here…

“Ahh yes, you are on record. And the newcomer?”

“Just a traveler. Can we just please come in?”

“Fine. Please stand away from the gate.” Daring Dash backed from the gate to my side. Within seconds the silence of the night was destroyed by the sounds of metal scraping against metal as the gate slid quickly into the ground.

“Enjoy your stay. I would advise that you check the map so as to find the nearest motel to stay in.”

We entered through to gate into a large plaza like area that was made of cobblestone with a dead tree in the center. All around the edge of the plaza were carts and small kiosks that were locked up tight. The only other sounds around us were the faint sounds of hooves beating against the walls above us.

“So… Should we find a motel?”

“No need. I have a place we can stay.”

“Were you ever going to mention that?”

“I just did didn’t I?”

“Yeah, well… But… I meant before!”

“You didn’t ask… Now where is the residential sector at?”

“Over here.” He showed me to a large map that displayed the Shattered Gleam from above.

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“Look closer.” He pointed to a sector that was three sectors to the right of our current one. That would make that sector 15… Oh… They’re numbered.

“And you said that doctor that could fix my cutie mark is in sector 2?”

“Yes, but he is probably asleep. What house number is it that we are heading to?”

“House 1193.”

“Oh, I know where that is. That’s on the main road. How’d you score a house like that? Most of those houses are expensive.”

“A… Friend gave it to me.” Why in the world didn’t I just say Subject 41? Stupid brain…

“Nice… All right, come with me.” We trotted down the amazingly well lit street into sector 15. The whole time I found myself staring at the ministry building. My heart skipped a beat when I saw something in the top window… It may have just been my eyes playing tricks on me, but… I saw a pony staring at me from the top window!

“Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“There! In the top window of the ministry building.” We both stopped on the bridge connecting Sector 16 to Sector 15 and looked up. Whatever I had seen was gone now; replaced instead by an empty window that has years of dust and ash on it.

“You’re probably just tired. Like I said, they have that building locked up tight twenty four seven.”

“Yeah…” I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but I knew what I saw. I don’t know… Maybe I am just tired. We started our trip to Sector 15 once more when my eye caught onto something standing in the window again. This time I knew I wasn’t hallucinating… Because there was a pony up there with a purple coat, dark hair, and dark purple eyes staring down at me with sadness in her eyes.

I wanted to believe that I was just tired. I mean what would a pony be doing up there anyways? Even though I knew very well what I saw, I ignored it and chalked it up to a bunch of things. Namely how tired I was; how far of a distance it was from here to the top floor; (the building was at least 30 stories tall) and of course how dark it was.

“Here we are! Home sweet home.” The building before us was two stories tall, but strangely didn’t seem to be in the best condition compared to all the other houses that lined the streets.

“Thought you said all these houses were nice?”

“Hey, I live in a shack made from rusted metal. A cave would be nice to me!”

“Fair enough I suppose… Guess I shouldn’t be complaining.” I levitated the doormat up and began to shake it violently. Not surprisingly a key fell out of it which I promptly picked up and put into the door.

“Mares first.”

“Oh, then be my guest!” His upper eyelids lowered into a look of disapproval.

“I’m too cold for this… I’ll get you back later.”

“I’ll be waiting for waiting with bated breath!” We both entered into the (Thankfully) heated room. But… It wasn’t what I expected.

“Holy sweet molestation!” I gave my companion one of the strangest stares. I mean honestly? Molestation? Seriously? Wait! SWEET MOLESTATION?! How is that even sweet…? My mind forced me to worry about Daring’s obvious love of molesting as the smell of the room hit me full force.

“UGH! What is making that horrid smell?!”

“My guess is… Whatever the hell that is.” He pointed to the floor where a dead… Something was lying on the ground. That thing didn’t even look natural!

“That is disgusting…”

“Use your magic and get it outside of here!” I willingly levitated the creature up as daring held to door open. With a toss it flew out the door where it landed with a squish. The smell still lingered in the house though. Also… EW…

“Good… It’s gone. You wouldn’t happen to have anything to get rid of that smell would you?”

“Nope.” Great… Maybe the upstairs smelt better.

“Let’s just go get some sleep and put this day behind us.” I began to ascend up the stairs. My hopes upped themselves a little bit as I noticed that the upstairs was better decorated and cleaned unlike the first. Even the smell was gone! Yay!

Daring whistled from behind me. “Check out the bed!” My eyes caught contact with a bed in the corner that was well made with a large red comforter that covered the entire princess sized mattress. This was definitely going to be a good night’s sleep… “I call the wall side!” I quickly found myself glaring angrily at him. “What? I have a habit of falling out of the bed…”

“You. Are not sleeping with me.”

“Ahh… What if I take you out to dinner first?”

“Maybe… I’ll be expecting some high class apple wine with dinner though.”

“Can I do an I owe you?” A chuckled managed to escape my throat. Don’t think I’ll ever get over joking about his VERY close encounter with me.

“Yes…”

“So I can sleep in the bed?” He sat down and began to give me puppy dog eyes. With a sigh I nodded to him.

“Yeah. One condition though. Keep your armor on…”

“But… It’s so uncomfortable…”

“No buts! Keep it on or else I’m bucking you off the bed. Might even paralyze you…”

“Fine… I’d have no objections to you taking yours off though!” I rolled my eyes as he began to laugh. “I still call the wall side.”

I levitated the blanket up and allowed Daring to climb onto his side. After I was sure he was comfortable I climbed onto my side and dropped the blanket onto us. This thing was definitely more comfortable than sleeping on that hard floor back in the hospital’s basement. But I did find myself wishing I had the voice of the radio mare to aid me in my journey to sleep.

“Sweet dreams Daring… May I be out of them.”

“Sweet dreams 42… Please let me be in yours!” Another grunt of frustration escaped from my throat. To be honest, I was actually starting to find it kind of funny. I don’t think he actually wanted to do anything with me… “Oh, can you get the lights?”

“Sure…” I focused on the light switch across the room and flicked it down. Immediately we were left in the dark silence with nothing but the moonlight coming through the window to illuminate the room. Somehow I found myself wishing I was even warmer than I currently was… Something inside of me wanted contact with another pony… Unfortunately I only seemed to have one option. But was it really that bad of an option?

“Something wrong? You keep moving around over there. Having bad memories?”

“No… I just…” I sighed and swallowed my pride. “Want to be cuddling with somepony…” I closed my eyes tightly and began to hope that he would decline. But another part of me that lied deep within my mind wanted him to agree so that I would not feel so alone. That was something I had been for so long… Ever since my mother’s death. No, somewhere in the large brick wall in my memory was a small crack. I had met somepony before my capture… An intimate special somepony, but I couldn’t remember who…

“You sure?”

I sighed once more. “Yes. Just promise me you won’t try anything. Okay?”

“We’re friends… Nothing more. Besides! I get plenty of mares.” We both shared a laugh as he rolled over and made eye contact with me. As I stared into his eyes I couldn’t help but feel that I had been with somepony before I lost my memory… I remember looking into light blue eyes and knowing that true love lied within them. But was it a mare or not? Oh well… Probably doesn’t matter anyways.

His hooves wrapped gently around my body as I returned the favor. Immediately I began to feel comfort that made me forget there was unending cold and danger outside. Even though he had made jokes about advances on me, I knew very well that he wouldn’t dream of making a move. Honestly I think I was the first pony he saw as a friend.

“This is… Nice.”

“Yeah… Now get some sleep. Oh, and if I roll onto in my sleep… Please just levitate me back into position would you? I hate being woken up…”

“Can do.” Now everything felt like it was right... A warm bed; a comfortable sense of safety... And another pony that reminded me that I never was alone. No matter what happened... There would always be ponies there for me. That was a lesson I learned long ago... And one that no amnesia would ever make me forget; I would always be safe from myself.

Pretty soon I found myself falling into the grasps of a deep dreamless sleep; a smile plastered on my face as I accepted the warm embrace of it.

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My eyes slowly opened to the pleasant sight of bright sunlight coming in through the window near the bed. It took me a moment to remember where I was, but as soon as I did I smiled once more and yawned as I stood up. The slow sound of snoring caused me to turn around and look at Daring who was still sound asleep wrapped up in the blanket.

Careful not to wake him, I levitated the blanket off of him so that he wouldn’t be so tied up. The only problem? His armor was... Off. Mine was still on, which was good... But he still promised he wouldn’t take it off. A part of me wanted to be mad, but all I could do was laugh at his inability to follow a simple promise. I don’t know... For some reason I was just happy.

Knowing that my armor was probably not the best thing to be wearing around the town I decided to change. My magic pulled the door of the nearest closet open and I began to search for something appropriate to wear. After searching for a very short second I immediately spotted something that caught my eye... It was a dress. But not a normal dress.

This dress seemed to be made for someone of high class and was obviously made in pre-war times. It was made of a royal purple around the edges with an elegant red forming a pattern on the back of it. The rest was made of a very clean looking white color. The best part was that it didn’t even seem to have the slightest bit of wear and tear... Even the diamonds that outlined the dresses midsection were shiny.

I levitated the dress away from the mannequin it sat upon and put it next to me to see if it was my size. Sure enough, it was! Even though I wasn’t a big fan of clothing (as far as I knew) I squee’d in excitement. After making sure that Daring was still asleep, I took of my armor and placed the dress over my body. Within moments I had the dress on and was in front of a mirror.

This was actually the first time I was able to see myself... Strange how you can actually forget what you look like. Heh… Can’t say I looked bad. Didn’t imagine that my eyes would be pink… Already knew my coat was light blue. But where did I manage to get highlights for my hair? The dark purple went well with my lavender hair… It’s obvious what my favorite color is.

All in all the dress went well with me… Then again anything looked better than that ugly armor. I pulled up the clock on my Pip-Buck and checked the time. Hmm… Only 8:34 A.M… Oh well, maybe I was a morning person. But now what was I going to do about Daring? Maybe I should just wake him up…?

“Daring?” I walked over to the bed and began to contemplate waking him up. He did say he didn’t like being woke up, but I also couldn’t just leave him here alone… I didn’t even know where that doctor pony was! “Daring?” Still no response… Sleepy little bastard isn’t he?

“DARING?!” That got him! He immediately jumped up like a cat that had water poured all over it.

“The hell is wrong with you! Having a nice dream…” Even though he was mad, all I could do was hold back a laugh.

“I’d say.” The laugh grew harder to hold back.

“What’s so funny?” He stood up which made me finally burst out laughing. After calming myself I averted my gaze from him and spoke up.

“Must have been a really good dream!”

“What is so damn funny?” I gestured my eyes down to between his legs. “GAH! Look away!” I erupted in laughter again as he frantically tried to cover himself up. This was the most I had laughed in a while! But I did feel bad for the poor guy… I did warn him to keep his armor on! “Stop laughing!”

“Can’t… Help…” I busted out into an even bigger fit of laughing. I guess the reason I found it so funny was because of his reaction. But the truth was that I didn’t know why I was laughing. Something inside of me had been building up and that just set it off.

“It’s not my fault! Stop that!” Tears were beginning to fill my eyes as I continued laughing. It wasn’t even that anymore… Something was just making me extremely happy. It was something in this city… I felt something I cared deeply for was nearby. But what was it?

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I finally composed myself enough to stand up as he slipped on an outfit that came from of the dressers nearby. “I’m fine now.”

“You could have just said something! That was embarrassing…”

“Hey, I thought you said you could get mares easily?”

“Yeah, but… It’s different with you. You’re like a sister… If that makes sense.” A sister? Hmm… Never thought of that. We just met yesterday but he already considered me a sister… Maybe I considered him a brother? Can’t see why not… He was the closest thing to family I have.

“This is what happens when you don’t listen to me! I said keep your armor on.”

“It was so uncomfortable! Didn’t see this coming…” I smiled and walked near him and began to mess with his hair.

“It’s alright. I have amnesia! I’ll probably forget it anyways.” That managed to get a laugh out of him. It was like a happy family moment… But something still seemed like it was wrong.

“If anypony asks… I slept on the couch.”

“Anypony asks and I tell them you cuddled with that dead thing outside.” I laughed as I started my way downstairs.

“H- Hey! No you won’t!”

“And what are you going to do about it?” He stared at me blankly from the top of the stairs as I descended them.

“Good point.” He dashed down the stairs and stood near the door. “Shall we go get that cutie mark of yours looked at?”

“Sure. Lead the way… And I’m still expecting that bottle of apple wine!”

“I don’t… I don’t even think that exists! You can’t ferment an apple… Can you?”

“Sure, ask the one with amnesia!” We shared another laugh as we walked out into the frigid cold air. At least it wasn’t snowing for the first time. The day was beautiful… Nothing seemed like it could go wrong. Oh crap… Why did I think that?

“This doctor is good… And he kind of owes me a favor. That should at least get your cutie mark examined. Probably have to pay to get it fixed if he can do so.”

“Is it always this peaceful around here?” I looked around expecting to see ponies bustling around the streets heading to destinations unknown. But instead there was nothing but silence around us…

“Starts getting busy around here around 10:00. Most places don’t even open until 9:30 anyways.” I looked up to the clear sky above us. The sky was a blue much like the color of my coat… Strange to think about how the ponies in the Equestrian wasteland must feel. Do they ever feel the warmth of the sun? I couldn’t possibly imagine looking up and seeing those clouds above you 24/7…

I looked back down in front of me to see the sight of two ponies sitting on a bench simply staring into each other’s eyes. Both seemed so happy… Then again, they did live in a peaceful place like this. If there was any place to be happy… This was definitely the place. Maybe I should just give up my vendetta against the Shattered Ones? Settle down here… Make a family; live happily in peace... As much as I hated to think about it, that life wasn’t for me. Even though I enjoyed the peace, I’d never forget what the Shattered Ones did to me.

And I wouldn’t be able to ever rest until I took them out.

“42? I said we’re here!” I snapped back into reality to find we were standing outside a rather shady looking building.

“Oh sorry… Thinking about something. Are we good to go in?”

“Eeyup.” He pushed his hoof against the door and allowed me access. The entire place smelled of anesthetics and alcohol… Hated that smell.

“Hold on! Ah’m comin” My attention was diverted to behind the counter where the voice had come from. The voice had a very strange accent…

“Does… Does he have a speech impediment?”

“What?”

“His accent… It’s strange.”

“It’s just a southern accent. He came from mainland Equestria. Lots of ponies down there have southern accents. Don’t hear that accent so much up here.” We shushed ourselves as the pony walked around the corner into the lobby.

“Ah, Daring! Didn’t expect t’ see ya so soon.”

“Oh I couldn’t stay away from you and that accent.”

“And who’s this lovely number you brought?”

“A friend. That’s actually why I came in.”

“What can good ole’ Doc Thetic do for ya?”

“Go ahead and show him 42.” I showed him my cutie mark which prompted the pony to raise glasses onto his eyes and begin to examine it.

“Oh dear… That’s a terrible brandin’ job! What’d they use on you? A coat hanger? ‘Tis terrible…”

“Well that part I know… I’m the one with the branding. Can you do anything?”

“You kidding? She kidding? Darlin’… I’ve fixed worse than this with three hooves tied ‘hind my back. Ah’ll have you up and buckin’ again in no time.” I couldn’t help but smile a bit. Something inside me was incredibly happy that my cutie mark could be fixed. Don’t know what it was… But it was just important to me for some reason.

“I’ll be using that favor you owe me to pay for it.”

“Alright… Sugarcube, why don’t y’all just go back to room three and get comfortable? Ah’ll be there in just a moment.” I nodded to him and made my way back into room three. Once inside I found a hospital gown awaiting me on the gurney. Even though I was reluctant to take off my dress, (I’d grown quite attached) I took it off and replaced it with the gown. As soon as I finished I got onto the gurney and sat down.

“Alrighty then missy… Let’s get that cutie mark nice and shiny. This might be a bit painful… So you have the choice to have a small dosage of anesthetics or not.”

“How big of a dosage?”

“Enough t’ put ya’ll out lickety split for at least an hour. Ah can have the process done by then.”

“Guess I’ll take the anesthetics then.”

“Potion or needle?” My mind reminded me of the painful needle in my spine back at that facility…

“Potion.” He nodded and walked over to a nearby medicine cabinet and pulled out a purple potion.

“Here ya go. Make sure to drink it quick… ‘Taint the best taste ever.” I touched the rim of the potion to my lips and levitated it up quickly so that the contents passed over my tongue and just went down my throat. Despite my best efforts my tongue still managed to absorb some of it… Damn disgusting…

Immediately I began to feel sleepy. Obviously it was a strong anesthetic… Within sheer seconds I found myself lying down on the gurney with my eyes slowly closing.

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“That is one strange cutie mark…”

“Ya’ll can say that again… You should have seen me trying to figure it out as I was getting rid of the brandin’.”

“Would you two quit staring at my flank?” I smiled as I sat up. Still drowsy as hell though…

“You’ll be happy t’ know the removal went swimmingly. Bathroom’s ‘cross the hall. Go ahead and go take a big ole’ gander at my handiwork.” I nodded and hopped off the gurney and made my way into the mare’s bathroom. Once inside I took a place in front of the large mirror inside and began to examine my cutie mark.

It wasn’t what I was expecting…

Actually, I’m not sure what I was expecting… Just not that! On my flank was the image of a light blue book surrounded by magical aura much like my own… Dark purple. But it didn’t seem to tell me anything about who I was; what my special talent was... I guess I was expecting it to get me some answers, but instead all I got was a sore flank. Guess it wasn’t so bad… At least I had an identity of sorts.

I quickly took the hospital gown off and replaced it once more with my newly acquired dress. The bathroom door swung ajar as I exited the room to find myself being stared at by two eager ponies; their eyes asking what I thought.

“I… Love it?” What? I didn’t know how to respond… I was happy, but disappointed at the same time.

“That’s good. Thanks doc.”

“Don’t mention it. Now ya’ll come back if you need any more burns taken care of. Oh and darlin’?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t let anypony else brand that nice flank with no coat hanger, ya hear?”

“Don’t plan on it.”

“Good. Now scoot. I have appointments to take care of.” He walked to the front door of the building and held it open to allow us exit from the building.

“You alright 42? You seem a bit upset.” I sighed.

“Guess I was just hoping that my cutie mark would have told me a bit about myself. But now al it gave me is more questions than answers…”

“Hey.” Daring stopped and placed his hoof on my back and pulled my into a hug. “We’ll find out who you are.”

“It’s a big wall to knock down…” Whoops… Didn’t mean to think that out loud!

“What was that?”

“Uhh… Nothing. Just thinking out loud.”

“Want to get some breakfast? I know a place that makes a mean salad…” My stomach growled to remind me that I hadn’t eaten for Celestia knows how long…

“That sounds like paradise.” Our hooves began to lead us down the street in a half trot, half gallop. We would have made it to our destination had it not been for one little thing…

“Violet?” I looked around to see who was yelling. Within seconds I spotted a pink mare with a light purple mane yelling in my general direction. I turned around to see if there was a pony behind us. Nope.

“Violet?” The pony began to walk towards me. Maybe she was mistaking me for someone else?

“Oh sweet Celestia! It is you!” My eyes widened as the mare burst into a full blown sprint towards me. I didn’t even have time to yell as she tackled me to the ground and placed her mouth against mine in a passionate kiss.

“Holy right hoof of Celestia!” The mare pulled her mouth away from mine as Daring yelled out. Taking my chance, I spoke up to the pony that still had me pinned tightly to the ground.

“Can I help you?!” The pony raised one eye and turned back to me.

“You’ve been missing for over two weeks! I was getting worried…”

“Once again… Can I help you? Also… You’re kind of in my personal space. Really in my personal space!” The pony finally got off of me and looked at me with pain in her eyes.

“Don’t you recognize me?” I began to search my shattered memory for her… Nope, nothing.

“I’m sorry… But no.”

“Violet…”

“Is that my name? How do you know me?” She continued to have the same confused and shocked expression on her face. Does she really know who I am? And what the actual hell was up with the kiss…?

“What’s wrong with you?”

“She’s got amnesia…” She looked at Daring with horror plastered on her face as he chimed in.

“Amnesia… Oh dear royal Princess Sisters… You… Really don’t recognize me?”

“I’m sorry… But no.”

“I’m you’re Special Somepony…”

I and Daring’s jaws both dropped as she said that. Daring’s more than mine, but still… Well at least I now knew two things…

Violet Glowingsnow was my name... And I was into mares!

Footnote: Level Up!

Perk Taken: Aura of hope - You stand out amongst ponies because of your unique access to magic. Because of this you are expected much more of. These expectation grant you +10 your magic, but -5 to small guns.

Chapter 2 - Beginning of the End

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Chapter 2 – Beginning of the End
“It’s the end of the world… All over again.”

Placidity...

Placidity Heartstone. My special somepony... How could I ever have forgotten her? We had met about a year ago...

=O=0=O=0=O=

Holy shining horn of Celestia its cold out here... I really have to learn to dress warmer! The snow fell like a blanket lain upon the lands from the loving embrace of Mother Nature around me as I trekked my way through towards a destination unknown.

To be honest? I had no idea why I was walking around the wastes with no destination. That usually spells out immediate death for ponies out here… But like always, I didn’t care for myself. Hell… Didn’t even fear death anymore. What was there to fear? Besides… Nopony would miss me.

So I walked. The time to clear my head of the anger was during these walks… If I didn’t control the anger… I feared I might hurt somepony. My anger at the death of my mother had boiled up in me for so long… Never venting it was a bad idea, because it eventually turned into a bubbling cauldron that gave me thoughts of harm to innocent ponies. If I did that then I’d be no better than the Shattered Ones…

Anger slowly waning, I looked up from the ground to gaze upon the wasteland before me. Even though it was summer the snow still fell occasionally, but it was nowhere near as bad as the rest of the seasons. There were even places that I was able to see the ruined earth below the snow, but they were few and far between.

I came to a halt upon hearing snow crunching somewhere behind me. Knowing that it wasn’t a pony looking for direction, I levitated my gun out from its holster and turned around. Well… Shit. Deathtrices… Mutates Cockatrice assholes! I didn’t fear death, but I did fear being ripped apart by angry mutated beasts…

“Celestia fuck me with her horn!” Vulgar as that may be, that would probably be more pleasant than dealing with a Deathtrice… They were mean little bastards! And here I was… Face to face with one; the paralysis from its stare slowly freezing every muscle in my body. Pretty soon my mind would lose all ability to focus… I had to work fast. The sights lined up over the Deathtrice’s head, I prepared to take the shot.

*BANG*

The gunshot cracked against the silent of the wasteland around me, shattering the peace in the air. The whole world went in slow motion to me as I realized that my one shot had missed… And as the gun fell to the ground; my magic no longer surrounding it.

I was completely paralyzed…

A low growl echoed out from the Deathtrice’s throat as it neared me with hunger in its eyes. But no… It knew it had me trapped and it was going to rub it in. Death was near for me… And I suppose I was alright with that. Somewhere I could swear I heard my mom and dad both calling out for me to join them… Somehow I felt my mouth curl into a gentle smile as I realized that soon I would be where I was happy…

I started back at the Deathtrice with the smile still on my face. No way in hell I’d give it the satisfaction of making me scared… It was doing me a favor so why wouldn’t I be smiling? The only part I didn’t look forward to was the ripping of my flesh and the pain… Oh well, wouldn’t last too long.

The slightest twinge of fear arose in me as the Deathtrice raised its sharp claw into the air with intent to take a limb from me. This was it… Mom… Dad… I’m coming home.

“Oh no you don’t!” The voice sounded out from somewhere behind me, taking the Deathtrice –and me- by surprise. What in the world was another pony doing out here? Just another needless death to save my sorry hide… Only very few ponies have walked away to tell the tale of fighting a Deathtrice…

Sadness changed to anticipation then to confusion as I felt movement return to my body… The Deathtrice had somehow lost focus… But how? It was still staring right at me! Or at least it had been. Now… It was slowly backing away from me? Was that… Fear in its eyes? What the hell was it scared of?!

The Deathtrice continued to back away until it was at least five ponies away from me. That was about the time it simply turned around and flew away like it had just seen a dragon. I was actually a little afraid to turn around…

“Are you alright?” Hesitantly, I turned around to see what held the kind voice behind me. Whoa! Didn’t expect that! Not a dragon… A mare?! With no weapon?! And she made a Deathtrice run away?! How could anything that… Beautifully cute make something run away in fear?

“Y- Yeah… Thanks.” Her eyes were the most beautiful shade of light blue I had ever seen… Everything around me reflected off them perfectly as if they were made of glass. It took her giggling to make me realize that my jaw was practically on the ground.

“Glad to hear it! You should be more careful out here…” Her voice was sweet and gentle… Just hearing it made me feel warm inside. Strange… I felt as if I had butterflies flying around in my stomach…

The howling of the wind was all that was audible as I stared her in her eyes. The only movement was her lavender mane flowing gently in the wind. It seemed like hours that I stared into her eyes when in fact it had only been a few seconds.

“You’re beautiful…” Well crap… Way to scare her off Violet! Real good job! Just blurt out to the beautiful mare that you like her. She probably thought I was a freak…

“I was about to say the same thing.” She’s probably going to run away- Wait wah? Did… Did she just call me beautiful? I mean, I’m not the worst looking mare ever… But beautiful? I could feel heat beginning to grow behind my ears… No doubt I was redder than a ripe apple. Quick Violet! Change the topic! Change it!

“How did you…”

“Make the Deathtrice run? Simple! I used the stare!”

“The what?”

“It’s a trick that’s been passed down in my family for a few generations… I’m able to strike fear into any animal once I do it. The only problem? Can’t control it… Come to think of it, it’s pretty lucky that I was able to do it just now.”

“Uh… I’m Violet… Violet Glowingsnow.” GAH! Stupid! Think before you speak Violet… Wait, did she just giggle?

“Placidity Heartstone.” Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh! Okay, calm down Violet… She just told you her name. Don’t freak out. Quick, think of something witty!

“I really like your mane.” Really… THAT was the best I could come up with? No wonder I’m alone…

“Matches your eyes…” She slowly neared me; our eyes never losing connection with each other. Within seconds she was practically hugging me. “Those beautiful eyes.” Before I even had time to respond she placed her mouth against mine in a kiss.

All I could do was stare wide eyed at her now closed eyes as my mind tried to put together what was happening. Hey stupid! You’re being kissed… Don’t just stand there like a filly that just saw its first ghoul!

The feeling in my stomach slowly faded away as I closed my eyes and embraced in the kiss that was so graciously given to me. To think that just a few moments ago I was ready to die… Now I just wanted to live on so this could happen every day. Never thought it would happen to me… But I was in love!

I finally had a reason to live.

=O=0=O=0=O=

“Placidity?” I stared into her eyes and saw the very scene that had just played in my head… Of course that was just a figment of my imagination, but… I just wanted a reason to look into those eyes that I loved so.

“You remember me? Oh thank Celestia!”

“Can you… Can you two please kiss again?” I knew Daring was kidding… Well actually, he might not be kidding. Either way, the only thing I did was give him a playful smack upside the head with my hoof.

“Calm yourself before you have another incident.” His face reddened as he turned away from us.

“You said you wouldn’t mention that! I’m going to go get a table reserved for three…” He galloped off to the restaurant, leaving me with Placidity.

“I’m so happy you’re okay… When I heard that you never made it here…” Tears began to form in her eyes. Immediately I began to feel a sense of guilt…

“I’m sorry…” Before I could react, she jumped onto my and hugged me as if I was the last pony alive on the earth. Tears began trickle down my back as she cried on me.

“I waited each and every day hoping that you walk through that gate… I never gave up hope that you would come. But when I heard about all the unicorns being abducted… I’m just so glad you’re here!” I did nothing but allow her to just hug me for what seemed like hours… I never meant to make her worry.

“I’ll always be there for you. No crazy unicorn abducting earth ponies are going to stop me.” With a sniffle she released herself from the hug and looked down at the ground.

“So… It’s true? You were right… They were looking for you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That was the whole reason you left… You told me that the ponies that killed your parents were still looking for you. You left to go get evidence that they were going to take drastic measures to get hold of you… The last I heard was that you were on your way back to meet with the head of Shattered Gleam.”

“They… They were the ones who killed my parents?” Sadness turned to uncontrollable anger as I realized that I had been right in their base of operations… I could have gotten revenge right then and there! Dammit!

“Uhm… Violet?” Placidity slowly began to back away from me with fear in her eyes. But all I could see was that damned earth pony standing over me with a needle… I knew I wouldn’t hurt her. I had enough control to not do so. “Your eyes…” What was she talking about?

“WHAT?!” Did I just scream? That didn’t even seem like my voice… It was full of anger that I had never directed towards Placidity. Even though she seemed to be terrified out of her mind, she still had enough about her to reach into her pocket and pull out a small portable mirror. When she raised it up at me… Oh Celestia…

My eyes were black as the night and my horn was exhibiting a pitch black aura around it. It didn’t take memory to know what was happening… That was dark magic. Only a very select number of unicorns are able to use black magic… Even fewer are able to use it without having their hearts turned evil as well.

I began to try with all my might to calm myself… If I didn’t… No, I didn’t want to think about what I might do. I wasn’t myself right now! It was as if I was in a trance… Then in just a instant all I could feel was my hooves hitting the ground. I had somehow managed to levitate myself into the air…

“Violet? What… Just happened?” I couldn’t bring myself to look at her… I had just nearly let my anger at the Shattered Ones hurt her… I knew she’d forgive me. But I couldn’t forgive myself.

“I… Don’t know.” That… Was only half the truth. There had always been a reason that I was good with magic… It was in my blood. The amnesia could never wipe my magical knowledge. But as to why I was so good with magic, I wasn’t entirely sure yet. That part of my memory was still shrouded over by the wall of memory.

“Are you alright?” Actually… I don’t know how I felt.

“I’m fine… Are you alright? I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s alright Violet… Come on, your friend is probably waiting for us.” I looked up from the ground to see she was smiling with that very smile I fell in love with. And just like that the whole ordeal seemed like nothing.

“Can you tell me anything about me...”

“I really wish I could... All I know is very basic stuff. You were always kind of mysterious about your past... And I always loved that about you.”

“Well what can you tell me?”

“Not much I’m afraid... You only told me one thing about your parents, and that was about how they were murdered by a mysterious organization you won’t stop chasing... Other than that, I think you know everything else.”

“What... What type of pony am I? By that I mean what personality have I always had?”

“Well besides your craziness behind closed doors...” My eyes immediately widened and my face began to burn despite the frigid air. Pretty sure my face was smoking... “You always were mysterious... You seemed kind hearted and always helped those in need... But you never really seemed to care for yourself... And that organization.”

“Damn...”

“Oh, and you have a foul mouth! Can’t count how many times you’ve said ‘fuck’ since we met...”

“Sorry. Don’t mean to be a foul mouth... The words just come out.”

“It’s fine... Most of the times you’ve said it were always in... Good ways.” I felt myself blushing once more as she opened the door to the restaurant. Am I really that much of a... Lover?

“Good evening. Do you have reservations?” Wait... Places have reservations in this town? This town truly was pretty much the perfect place... Wouldn’t be long until this place was pretty much the perfect example of pre-war life.

“We’re here with... What was your friends name?”

“Daring Dash.”

“Ahh yes... You are seated at table 3.” As we made our way to the table, a question popped into my mind.

“Is the whole town this peaceful? It just seems so out of place compared to the wastes...”

“Yeah, it takes some getting used to... But the head honchos made sure that this place was a shining beacon amongst the wastes.” We took our seat next to Daring, who was still looking at the two of us as as if in a daze.

“Hello? Equestria to Daring!” The brown pony shook his head and looked forward.

“Sorry. Just thinking...” I grinned and turned to Placidity.

“I’m going to have so much fun torturing him with this...” We both giggled like school girls as Daring gave us a unamused look.

“Maybe we could invite him into my house later and let him watch...” Wait... Watch what? AH! What do I do? What do I say?! Quick 42- er, Violet!

“Yeah I’m not feeling so good... I recently got shot, so... Yeah...” The only thing that made the situation worthwhile was the look on Daring's face... Priceless. It was as if he had seen a ghost, but at the same time saw thirty mares lined up and ready for him. Actually, I’m pretty sure he was in a fantasy right about now...

“Don’t worry... Considering the circumstances we can hold off for awhile... Even though I haven’t seen you for three weeks.” I was fine with the kissing and whatnot... But just the thought of actually doing anything beyond that... Something about it just didn’t sit right. Unfortunately, I knew I would eventually have to face up to it.

“Can... We just order? I haven’t eaten in... Well actually I haven’t eaten since before I was captured.”

“Yeah... As soon as the waiter comes to the table!” I jumped up a little as I felt Placidity’s hoof land between my legs. Was she... She was playing hoofsie! Was she always this eagar? Maybe it was just the fact that we’d not seen each other for so long... More importantly, was I ever that eagar?

“Uh... Placidity?” I leaned into her side of the table and lowered my voice to a mere whisper. “Maybe not the best place to be doing that?” She looked at me with a hurt expression.

“Really? Usually you’d want to do much more than that right here on the table...” My eyes widened as my jaw dropped. Was I really like that? We both looked towards Daring as we heard a groan come from him.

“Please... Stop... Can’t take the... Sexiness.” He looked as if he was about to pass out from pleasure. For his sake, I hoped we didn’t have to change tables...

“Ehem... Can I take your order?” We all turned and looked at the rather impatient looking waiter standing at the edge of the table.

“I’ll take a salad with a Sparkle-Cola please.” Placidity smiled at the uncaring waiter as she made her order. Guess I was ordering the same...

“The same, thanks.”

“Whatever your special is... And an Apple Whiskey.”

“Very good then. Anything else for you?”

“No thank you.” The waiter gave us a nod before making his way back to the rather unclean looking kitchen. Guess I didn’t have room to complain...

“So, is the food here any good?” Both turned to me and tried to speak. Daring was kind enough to allow Placidity to speak.

“Better than a lot of places. The Shattered Gleam as largely been able to preserve the vegetarian aspect that ponies lived by in pre-war days. I hear that some ponies eat other ponies down in the mainland...” I cringed at the thought of biting into the flesh of a fellow equine... Just the thought of it made me want to puke what little my stomach had out.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Placidity turned and directed her attention to Daring.

“Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. Placidity Heartstone.” She reached her hoof up to Daring who gratefully placed his hoof against hers and shook it.

“Daring Dash, adventure extraordinaire.” I couldn’t help but facehoof at that comment.

“So, how’d you two meet? I was actually quite surprised to see you were with her.” She turned to me. “You never were one to make friends.”

“Well it’s a long story of bravery and-”

“She saved you didn’t she?” He raised his hoof in protest, then opened his mouth in a sigh.

“Yeah.” I couldn’t help but laugh a bit much to his displeasure.

“He had a slight run in with some slavers. And by run in, I mean he tried to get me.” Placidity’s expression turned to anger as I revealed his past career. “Don’t worry. I helped him get away from that life. Turns out he was just doing it in fear of being enslaved himself.”

“I see... Well good to know that the amnesia hasn’t lowered your combat prowess.” We all turned to the waiter as he cleared his throat, indicating that our meal was there.

“Two salads for the mares, and one apple pie for the gentleman. You’re drinks will be by momentarily.”

“Apple pie? Really? Isn’t that a desert?”

“Nothing is a desert anymore! Food is food. Even if it is strange apple substitution... Hasn’t been an actual apple seen around these parts for years. Can’t complain though! From what I’ve had in the mainland, this is pretty close.”

“You’ve been to the mainland?” Placidity’s anger at him dissolved into something less. Something that showed she was intrigued.

“Yeah, about... Ten times.” I looked down at the green...Ish leaves before me. I was honestly hungry enough to eat one of those dead trees outside, but I couldn’t help but stare at the food.

“What is this anyways?”

“A indigenous plant that thrives in the snow. Apparently the owners of this place found seeds for the plant after it went extinct. Been making salads out of it for as long as anyone can remember.” I continued to eyeball it with suspicion. Oh well, who was I to complain about food? Not wanting to waste another second, I bit into it. Oh sweet luscious mane of Luna, that is delicious! I happily continued to scarf down the food as Daring and Placidity continued their conversation.

“So, what’s it like down there? I’ve always heard that everything is radiated and anything that attempts to live there turns into a mutated beast.”

“Not quite, but not far off either.” I chewed one of the scrumptious leaves as I eavesdropped on their chat. “Radiation is a problem down there, but not as big of a one as most ponies assume.”

“So ponies don’t turn into horribly mutated creatures?”

“Well... Some do turn into Ghouls. But no, nothing terrible and monstrous.”

“And a Ghoul is...?”

“Oh yeah... Pretty much all it is, is a pony without skin due to radiation. Well it has skin, but most is rotted off. They also gain incredibly life expectancies. I even met one once that was alive during the Great War. Unfortunately...”

“What?”

“That poor ghoul... It’s been haunting me that I wasn’t able to do anything... It was that day that I realized how evil slavers were.”

“What happened?”

“It was about a year ago... Me and Ashton as well as a couple of others were making a important slaver delivery to the mainland HQ; a place called Old Appleloosa. Well we had to rest, so Ashton sent me to find a suitable place. Luckily I knew of an old town nearby our location called Ponyville. Most of the time it was a raider hub, so I was prepared to have to make a deal with them.

“I entered the town hoping to find a suitable place to rest in. Eventually I found a nice enough placed called the Carousel Boutique. Unfortunately, it was basically a raider nesting ground like I had expected. Rather than have to deal with a fight, I decided to use my slaver credentials to gain their trust. you see, they didn’t have many brains. But they knew very well that attacking slavers was a good way to get killed...

“I neared the building and bribed them to let us stay the night. Knowing that I was a slaver, they did as asked. Once the building was secured I went back and told Ashton that we had a place to rest. All the slavers quickly made their ways to the now abandoned building... Except me. I hated my life as a slaver... But I wasn’t able to get out. Ashton would hunt me down the second he found out that I skipped. So I was in for life. But that didn’t stop me from leaving every once in awhile and forgetting about that life. And that’s what I did that night...

“I had been walking around the outskirts of the small town for about thirty minutes when I saw something I hadn’t expected to. On a hill nearby was a ghoul looking over the town of Ponyville. I instantly knew that this ghoul wasn’t a raider, because raiders saw them as freaks. I assumed that she was spying on the raiders for the town that was nearby.

“Anyways, I walked up the hill in hopes of starting a conversation... Yes, I know that’s stupid, but... Do you know how horrible it is to always be around ponies that only talk about their days worth of gathering merchandise? Sorry, ponies... Now what was I saying... Oh yeah, I neared her and opened my mouth to introduce myself. Obviously I scared her, but not enough to make her attack me. After telling her that I wasn’t there to attack her, she told me about how she had managed to somehow survive the Mega-spells when they launched... At the cost of her appearance and life as she knew it.”

“Ehem... Sorry to interrupt your story, but here are your drinks.” The waiter served us our drinks. “Can I get you anything else?”

“Actually, could I get seconds?”

“Certainly madam. Anything else?”

“No thank you.”

“Very good.” The waiter grabbed my plate and returned to the kitchen to grab more of the amazing salad.

“As I was saying...” He stopped and took a giant chug of his apple whiskey. “We talked about the war and other stuff like that. She told me how being a ghoul was, but through the whole time I couldn’t bring myself to tell her I was a slaver... Not in fear of her attacking me, but in fear of scaring off the one friend I had made. And it’s my fault that she...”

“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.” I grabbed my second plate of food as I chimed in.

“No, it’s best that I get this off my chest...” He chugged another large section of his drink. Obviously this story was hard on him. “It hadn’t even occurred to me that I had been gone for two hours... And that made Ashton come looking.”

“No...” Placidity seemed to be taking the story as hard as Daring was.

“Yeah... He found us on the hill talking. Before she even knew what was happening, he already had her in his sights. I still remember her off focus eyes as she realized that I was a slaver... They were filled with both anger and betrayal... That’s when I knew I had to make a stand against Ashton, even if it meant that I would be enslaved or killed.

“But... I just didn’t have the guts to do it. I simply stood by and watched as she screamed for help... Until Ashton got tired of the screaming. I still... Still remember him pulling out his knife as he held her tongue... And with a single swipe it fell to the ground. That was when I finally snapped. Despite my fear, that single act was enough to draw enough anger for me to knock Ashton out of the way long enough for that poor ghoul to get away. Never saw or heard from her again after that...”

“I’m sorry... I don’t know what to say.”

“You know... In my dreams... I still see those gold off focus eyes staring at me with betrayal; I still see her running down that hill with Ashton near me on the ground. And each time I remember that I was too weak to save her...” He quickly downed the rest of the apple whiskey and looked down at the table that still held his uneaten pie. “It feels good to finally say something to somepony though. Thanks for listening.”

“Hey, what are friends for? Now, you gonna eat that pie, or...”

“Yeah, keep your grubby hooves of my pie!” We all three laughed. I quickly realized that I was thirsty, so I popped the cap off my drink and chugged its carroty goodness. How in the world did they make that taste like carrots? How?! Ah the wonders of the pre-war world...

“So, who is this Ashton anyways? That’s a rather strange name...”

“It’s not his real name... That’s a nickname he earned when he razed an entire town to ashes in search of an escaped slave. It’s derived from ash town, which is the name of the town nowadays. His real name is Flak. Nopony knows his last name though.”

“Think he’d come here looking for us?”

“No, he may be evil, but that doesn’t make him an idiot. He know more than anyone that he’d be shot down before he even had time to eyeball us. No, he’ll most likely send some new slavers looking to make a name for themselves... And once that fails, he’ll wait for us to leave and them come get us his self. Oh, and don’t think that your threat scared him. I’ve seen him go against a platoon of gryphon mercenaries and walk out none the worse for wear.”

“So I take it that I got a lucky shot?”

“Very lucky. Next time we meet, he won’t hesitate for even a second.”

“Neither will I.”

“I love it when you talk like that!” We both looked at Placidity. “What? So I have a weak spot for tough mares...”

“Anyways... We should be on the lookout for him... And anypony that is eyeing us suspiciously.”

“Can do...” I finished off my bottle of Sparkle-Cola as Daring took his last bite of pie. “Everypony finished?”

“Stuffed. Don’t you two worry ‘bout the bill. This one’s on me.” Placidity pulled a large bag filled to the brim with caps from her jacket and placed it on the table. Within seconds the waiter appeared with a small slip of paper.

“Here’s your bill.” Placidity took the bill and looked at it, then dropped out around 50 caps on the table and scooted them to the waiter. “Thank you madam. Enjoy your afternoon.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Well I know what I have to do... I came here for a reason, and even though I don’t have that reason anymore, I need to see the heads of this place.”

“They probably won’t take kindly to you showing up without info... Do you remember at all what you found out when you left?” Daring stood from the table as Placidity asked the question.

“I’m going to go find some company if you know what I mean... Where should we meet up?”

“Violet and I are going to stop by my place to see if I can help her remember anything. Go ahead and just drop in anytime. It’s house number 21 in sector 16.”

“Wait... Sector 16? As in mansion and upper class sector?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Sweet Luna you and 42- er, Violet are marefriends and you’re rich? I am so happy I met Violet!”

“Just go before I paralyze you.”

“Okay, okay... No need to pull the paralyze card.” Daring turned away and exited the restaurant following my threat. Now it was just me and Placidity, who no doubt would try and make a move...

“So, do you remember anything about what you found out?”

“I... No. I do vaguely remember a facility somewhere... I think on the edge of the Crystal Mountains maybe?”

“Good, do you remember anything about what was in that facility?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“Hmm... Oh, I know! Come on... I’m going to draw you a hot bath. You need one anyways...” Well I guess I can’t complain about a bath... My coat had definitely seen better days.

“That sounds nice. Lead the way.” Placidity and I stood up and exited the restaurant into the frigid air. At least it wasn’t snowing...

“So, how’d you manage to get into the rich residential sector?”

“Remember? You bought the house for me using all the caps you collected traveling around. Costed about... 30,000 caps if I recall? It was the best gift anypony had ever gotten me.” 30,000 caps?! How in the world did I ever manage to get that much money? No way I got it by just exploring...

“I ever say where I got all those caps?”

“No, just that you saved up while exploring. Why?”

“Nothing.” We stopped in front a large house that was three stories tall and appeared to have at least 4 rooms on each floor. “How big is this place?”

“Three bedrooms... Two bathrooms, and a kitchen complete with dining room on the first and third floor. Oh, and the third floor is the master bedroom that we converted to our entertainment room.” Well, that worries me. What exactly did we consider entertainment? Guess I was going to find out...

“Do I live here?”

“Well of course! I didn't take the house from you then say sayonara.”

“And I suppose we share a room.”

“You guessed it! The master bedroom is both our bedroom and out entertainment room.”

“I’m going to regret this... But what entertainment?”

“It’s nothing like that... Just a library and a large bay window so that we can watch outside. And of course you have that magical study of yours.”

“I have a magical study?”

“Oh yeah, biggest one I’ve ever seen. Takes up half the bedroom... It’s got more books than our library has and it has that creepy collection of orbs in it... I think you called them memory orbs?”

“What’s a memory orb?”

“I have no idea... Some strange Unicorn thing. All I know is that you’ve constantly placed your horn against it and simply zoned out of everything.”

“Hmm... I think I might have a look at these... After the bath. I probably haven’t bathed in a month...”

“You’ll need more than one bath then...” She opened the door and allowed me entrance to the well lit room. The windows were all open allowing brilliant sunlight in.

“This place is nice!”

“Yep... These houses are actually pre-war. Since the Frozen Wastes mostly didn’t suffer any bombs, the city stayed mostly intact. Of course the houses weren’t in the best of condition, but the leaders fixed them up to pre-war standards. And this was the result.”

“I could stay here and never leave!”

“That can be arranged... But I know you’re place it out there, in the wastes... And I’m okay with that. I know you won’t be able to rest until you get revenge.”

“I just wish I knew who exactly I wanted revenge against... At least now I have a lead. As soon as I get a chance, I’m going back to that facility I escaped from to get some answers.”

“Just be careful... For me?”

“For us.” We embraced in another hug before she gestured up the stairs.

“Alright, no more hugs until you take a bath... You smell like something dead.” We both laughed as she led me up the stairs and into a small bathroom complete with a shower.

“Forget the bath... Does that shower work?”

“Yeah.”

“And you didn’t mention that why?”

“You have a fear of showers.”

“Well not anymore!” I happily stripped off the dress and hopped into the shower. “No peeking!” I closed the curtain and happily wrapped my magic around the faucet and turned it on. After adjusting it to a suitable temperature, I sighed and allowed the warm water to wash the day away from my body. It seemed like I just stood there for about thirty minutes just letting the water wash over me. Eventually I stepped out of the shower and levitate a towel and began to dry myself off.

Once I was nice and dry I levitated the dress up and began to put it back on before deciding against it. I guess I could go without clothes for a tiny bit... What harm could it do? I continued to levitate the dress by my side as I exited the bathroom.

“Placidity?”

“Yeah?” Placidity descended the stairs. My eyes widened as I noticed she neither was wearing anything. Without the clothing on, she looked even more beautiful. Guess it was because her brilliant pink coat was fully viewable. I quickly found myself staring at her cutie mark. It was an image of three flowers, one blue, two yellow.

“What do I do with this?” I shook the dress to show what I was talking about.

“I usually wash stuff in the tub every night. Just do what you always did and leave it anywhere.” I shrugged and tossed the dress onto the back of a chair nearby.

“Hope you don’t mind me going without clothing for a tiny bit.”

“You kidding? If it wasn’t for the snow you’d probably never wear anything... I was surprised to see you in a dress. Normally you wouldn’t be caught in anything prettier than your armor. I must say it’s a pleasant surprise.”

“So, where is this magic study of mine?” She sighed. I could tell that she wanted me to spend some time with her. “I’m sorry, but maybe those orbs have something about my past on them.”

“It’s fine. Just don’t be too long, okay?” She led me up a second flight of stairs and into a large open room. My mouth agape, I walked around the room that had a large double bed and a giant bookshelf filled to the brim with literature.

“How did we get all this stuff?!”

“You found it in your travels. Well the bed I had custom made, but you found everything else. All the small stuff I mean.”

“And my study is where?” She pointed to a makeshift wall across from the stairs. “I don’t like going in there... You just don’t seem yourself when you are busy doing stuff in there.”

“Do you want me to worry about it later?”

“No, go ahead. I’m going to take a bath myself.”

“Okay.” As she walked down the stairs, I placed my hoof against the makeshift door and pushed. It opened to reveal a large office like room, each and every wall holding a filled bookshelf. Strangely I immediately recognized all of them... Then I saw the viewing table. It was just a simple chair, but it had a large filing cabinet near it that was labeled with a bunch of different strange labels.

I quickly read through all the labels and decided on the one labeled ‘The beginning’. I started to levitate the orb out with my magic before stopping. Something told me to not even touch it with magic until I was sitting down. Taking a seat, I held the orb carefully in my hooves. It didn’t seem special at all, just a normal orb. But I knew it wasn’t... Once I was sure that I would be fine, I took a deep breath and wrapped my magic around the orb.

Immediately I felt the sense of being drug out of the world and into... Something else. I couldn’t describe the feeling, but I began to see the world around me disappear and another world slowly appear in front of me.

o-0-O-0-o-0-O-0-o

My vision slowly focused into view to reveal that I was in a small hut somewhere. I immediately noticed that I had no control over my hooves. It also felt as if I was viewing this as an outside source. But yet I felt everything as if I was there… All thought’s came to a close as I heard a voice I’d not heard in a long time...

“Violet?”

“Yeah mom?” I turned around from the makeshift stove and looked into the living room.

“Your father will be here in a moment.”

“He’s finally coming back?!” Excitement unlike any I had felt before entered my body as I darted happily into the living room to see my mother standing by a wall trying to put books on a shelf.

“Calm down Violet. He’s probably going to want to rest after traveling such a large distance.”

“Sorry mom.”

“It’s fine.” My head snapped to the right as the sound of a door opening registered into my mind.

“DAD!” The excitement continued to boil like the water of a cauldron until it was ready to overflow. Before my father could even react, I had already jumped on him.

“Whoa! Happy to see you to Vi.” I hopped off of him after a prolonged hug. “You’ve grown quite a bit since the last time I saw you.”

“I’ve also gotten better in magic! I can even shoot a bolt of magic now.”

“Good, you’ll need that magic to make a good life for yourself. The unicorn population is at an all-time low... Probably saw about thirty of them total during my tour.”

“Violet, why don’t you go to your room for a moment?”

“Okay Mom.” I turned 180 degrees and cantered happily into my room. Inside was a large shelf filled completely with books all on the subject of magic, half of which I hadn’t even had a chance to read. Besides the bookshelf, my room was annoyingly empty. The only other notable thing was a Ministry of Magic poster. One of which I had loved, since Twilight Sparkle was my biggest idle.

My aura enveloped around a nearby book and brought it close to me. After insuring it was the correct one, I plopped down on my favorite chair and began reading up on the subject of a new spell. This particular one was about paralysis, a forbidden spell that was only used by the Royal Guard to take control of crazed ponies back in the Pre-War days. During the war it had also been used to capture Zebra’s alive to gain information.

A yawn I was halfway through was immediately interrupted by an explosion from the living room accompanied by searing heat that singed a few hairs on my coat, as well as my mane… Quickly, I stood and shook myself off before checking myself for injuries. Luckily I seemed to be fine. My eyes widened as I realized that my parents were in the living room!

“Mom?! Dad?!” I cautiously peeked around the corner to see my father helping my mother up. Fortunately neither seemed to be injured. But what had just happened?

“Violet? Are you alright?”

“Yeah. What happened?”

“I don’t know… Stay here, I’m going to check it out.”

“Be careful…” Me and my mom stood side by side as my dad pulled his favorite handgun out and neared the door. He turned to me, which prompted a nod from me. Slowly I levitated the door (Or rather what remained of the door) open enough for him to peek out.

“Do you see anything?”

“Quick, get the medical supplies!”

“Why? What is it?”

“A destroyed carriage. Looks like one of the Warmth-Bringers.”

“On it!” I dashed into the medical room and grabbed what supplies we had. It wasn’t much, but should be enough to help anypony that was injured. “Here.” I levitated the small box to my father, who promptly grabbed it and opened the door. Being the curious filly that I was, I neared the now nonexistent window and peered outside.

Sure enough, there was a carriage which had most likely seen better days. The whole thing looked as if it had been mauled by a Radigator then blown up by angry Marauders. All in all, it didn’t look like it would be moving again anytime soon.

“Is everything all right?”

“Yeah… But there isn’t any sign of anything living anywhere. It looks like this thing fell from the sky or something. And where are the wheels?” He gestured for us to come outside. Luckily it was summer time, so the cold wasn’t as bad. There were even patches around that had brown earth showing. But my focus was on the carriage.

“Is this one of yours?” My father turned to my mother and shrugged.

“Maybe, but this one doesn’t have any wheels. Carting around supplies on a carriage without wheels… That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“I know this sounds silly, but could someone have taken them?”

“Well normally yes… But not on this one. It doesn’t look like this carriage was even designed with them…”

“Hey dad, check this out.” I was levitating the ‘hood’ of the carriage open. Inside was a motor of sorts that looked to be fried beyond repair.

“Well, that’s definitely different. All of our carriages are just pony powered… I didn’t even know that these types of carriages even existed. But that still doesn’t explain the lack of wheels.” We all continued to stare at the strange carriage before us.

“Wait, if you said there is no driver, then could this thing be automated transport of some kind? Maybe it’s run on magic?” He turned to me and shrugged once more.

“If it is, I never heard of anything like it.”

“Was it carrying anything?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. There are some chests in the back, but they’re all locked.”

“I got it dad! I’ve wanted to try this spell for a while anyways…” I trotted to the back of the carriage and looked at the various lockboxes. Knowing that I was a novice in this spell, I started with the smallest box which most likely had a cheap lock. Luckily this spell didn’t require focus as much as other spells, but instead just needed time. A mental image of the inside of the lock appeared in my mind as I closed my eyes.

That image of the lock slowly began to get surrounded by my magic. I began to apply pressure to the mechanism that held the chest shut. I began to feel it succumbing to the magic, and with a crack, the mechanism broke off and turned to dust.

“I think that did it…” I levitated the chest opened to reveal a bunch of strange looking weapons.

“Energy weapons?! You two, get in the house.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“A cart full of Energy weapons with no ponies anywhere near it? Something is going on here… Get in the house. If you hear anything, run.”

“What about you?”

“I can’t allow weapons to fall into the hands of anypony dangerous. I’m going to guard this…”

“Ahh… There’s the cart…” We all turned to see about twenty Earth ponies standing before us. The one in the front was wearing some sort of metal armor that emitted a low humming noise.

“Identify yourselves.” My father held his hoof in front of me and my mother in an attempt to tell us to leave.

“Names are for friends… So I don’t need one. You can just call us the Shattered Ones… But I do know that you have something we want.”

“I’m not giving you anything. Now what is up with this cart, and why do you need it?”

“I suppose there is no harm in telling you… You won’t be able to stop us anyways. That cart is property of the Enclave. They usually stay away from the ground, and even more away from the Frozen Wastes. But when we hacked a terminal and sent a distress signal to a known base far above us… Well they couldn’t refuse. It was a brilliant plan really…”

“Enclave? Stay away from the ground? Obviously you’re quite mad.”

“Typical Wastelander… Know nothing of the Enclave and Pegasi.”

“I don’t care about your strange organizations or… Pegasi, whatever the buck that is. Tell me why this cart is on my front lawn and what you want.”

“Humph… Anyways, we managed to crash land an Enclave Carriage for our purposes. Those damn cloud huggers can live without one carriage… After crashing the Carriage, we fixed it up and attached a special device to it… You see, Unicorns each have different levels of magic in them. Some –like your daughter- have extreme levels in them. That device was powering the magical makeshift engine on this carriage… When it detected your daughters extreme levels of magic, it failed and crashed. Which also set off our tracking beacon. So in short, we are here for you daughter and her magic… Turn her over and you and yours will be ensured a safe place in the new world.”

“You really expect me to just give my daughter to you? I may be outnumbered, but there is no way I’d ever do that. Now I will allow you to take the cart, but nothing else.”

“You are not in a position to make orders here. You have two options… Option one, we take your daughter. Option 2, we take your daughter and club you like a baby fucking seal.”

“I’m not letting you even touch her.”

“Have it your way… Stone, the anesthetic.” Without any warning, I immediately felt a slight sting of pain in my neck as a dart hit me. Within seconds my vision blackened and I passed out.

=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=_-_=

My eyes slowly opened to find I was on my mother’s back. How did I get there? The whole day before now seemed to be just completely blocked from my memory… Almost as if my brain had just blocked access to the memory. Oh well, at least mom was with me. Wait, where was dad at? He was supposed to come home today. I jumped off my mother’s back and started walking next to her. Wait… I was starting to remember a little bit of the day. Dad had just come home and that explosion happened… Is that why we were walking? But where was dad at?

“Mom…” The snow fell gently as my mother’s smile as we tracked carefully through the snow to a destination unknown.

o-0-O-0-o-0-O-0-o

The world slowly phased back into the current time. I gladly took the chance to regain control of my body and jumped off the chair. That whole experience was strange… But it did answer quite a few questions.

I sort of wanted to view another one of the orbs, but I wanted to do something first… There was no doubt that my father’s remains were still in front of my old home… And I now remembered where that was. Before I would be able to end this war against the Shattered Ones, I would have to go back to where it all started… Plus I wanted to grab something.

“Placidity?” I exited my study and began to look around for her.

“Yes?”

“I have to go somewhere… But I’ll be back soon.” She walked up the stairs and revealed herself to be wearing a dress much like the one I was wearing earlier.

“As long as you take care of yourself. You taking Daring with you?”

“No… Make sure he gets settled in.”

“How long are you going to be gone?”

“Not long.” Since I knew exactly where my house was, I would be able to teleport there immediately at the cost of some extreme magical energy. I’d be strong enough to teleport there and back, but then I’d probably be out for the night. Teleporting is an easy enough spell as long as you know where you are going. Even easier if you are using it to just move a short distance. Either way, I’d most likely be fine.

“Be careful.” I nodded and closed my eyes. After ensuring that I knew exactly where I was teleporting to, I started to begin the spell. I started to grit my teeth as my mind began to expend energy in hopes of teleporting correctly. After what seemed like hours of pain and brain racking, I felt cold take over my body as wind hit it. My eyes opened to reveal I was outside.

In front of a destroyed cart with a small house near it.

The house was in an extreme state of disrepair. It was all I could do to keep from crying. I looked to my left where the Shattered Ones had been standing in the memory orb. Strangely, there was no sign of my father’s corpse anywhere. Was there a chance that he might have escaped? No, that was almost impossible… One pony versus about twenty is not survivable odds. I looked around in hopes of seeing something.

After seeing nothing, I decided he must have taken cover in the house. Standing at the entrance, I looked inside of the sad excuse for a once nice home… The living room was coated in snow since the snow had been going in through the window. Not only that, but the walls were pockmarked in bullet holes. There was no doubt that my father brought the fight into the house.

I began to take a trip through memory lane… The house- despite the snow and bullet holes- was exactly as it was in the memory orb. Even though I was there for a purpose other than the nostalgia, I decided a quick visit to my old room wouldn’t hurt…

It looked almost exactly how I’d left it… Well except for one thing. There was a line of blood from the living to my bed… Where a skeleton now lay on my bed. I recognized it as my father immediately… Because his favorite gun was lying on the ground near him. And a picture of me as a filly was lying on the bed.

“Dad…” I neared the skeleton and stared down at it. From what I could tell, he had crawled from somewhere else in the house where he then passed away here… I decided to have a moment of silence for him. No tears were shed, instead anger grew within me again. But this time, I grabbed the anger and placed it on a mental anvil; hammered it into a weapon that I could use. Anger would be my weapon, but it was anger that I would be in control of.

Concluding my moment of silence, I carefully levitated my father’s remains and began to make my way outside once more. After… Well not exactly sure how long… He could finally be at peace. Now I’m not a superstitious pony, but I couldn’t help but somehow feel… Somehow feel that he is watching me somewhere, somehow. Either that is a spirit, or from some otherworld…

Having no words to say for the skeleton that was my father, I simply began to dig a hole nearby. As I dug, I found myself wishing there was a way I could bury him with my mother, but I knew very well that was near impossible. The makeshift grave finally done, I carefully lifted the skeleton up once more and began to lower him semi-ceremoniously into the grave. Wish I had a coffin or something of the sort to put him in, but anything nearby would already be quite rotted.

After recovering the hole in the ground with soil, I made my way back to my room and sat on the small bed. Hard to believe that this room was the last place I was truly happy. And by happy I mean not as hollow shell of my former happy self. Sure, I was happy around Placidity. But… That was for her. I probably sat around the room for about ten minutes just staring at that same wall I stared at as a filly. So much of my time was spent staring at that same spot, just trying to ponder what type of pony Twilight Sparkle was; what type of life she lead prior to the war. Guess I was just trying to do it again with the hope that I’d look away to find my mother poking her head around the doorway, trying to get my attention without startling. But when I looked over, all I saw were the pockmarked walls of the living room.

Whether I like it or not, that life was gone.

I began to slowly make my way out of the house, before I remember that I wanted to grab my father’s gun. No doubt it would still be in my room, next to my bed. When I re-entered the room, sure enough, it was there. My father was careful with guns around me. But there was the occasion that he would take me out back and teach me how to aim the gun. Not exactly sure how I remembered that, but perhaps it had to do with the memory orb. That, or whatever the Shattered Ones gave me is actually wearing off.

I levitated the strangely familiar gun to me and began to examine it. Let’s see here… Revolver with eight chambers for bullets. The barrel was well maintained, and would be able to deliver the shot accurately. I wasn’t exactly an expert on guns myself, but I knew a good one when I saw it. Now, what type of ammo does it hold? According to the size, and the shell casings of course, it was a .45. Despite the reload time, this thing seemed like it would be rather capable of handling most creature or ponies that was staring down its barrel.

My only problem was that I had no .45 ammo, but I could probably trade this… thing… that I took from the Shattered Ones facility. Almost forgot I still had that, but now that I remembered… Just wanted to get rid of it. Could probably get a fair deal for this thing. Well, I now saw no reason to stay here anymore. This once happy home had fallen to the Wastes. Unfortunately, everything… Everypony would be reclaimed by the lands. It was Equestria’s way of revenge I suppose.

Luckily, my magic seemed to have recovered enough for me to teleport back to the Shattered Gleam. Once there, I was going to need one buck of a nap… Magic began to slowly wrap around me like a blanket, until I began to feel my brain starting to hurt. I took one last pained look at my house, and with a bright flash, I was back in the Shattered Gleam. Well, near it anyways. I seem to have offset myself to outside the walls. Oh well, not like walking a bit will hurt me. Kind of wish I would have put something on before leaving. Not because I didn’t mind going around without anything on, but rather because I was about to freeze my hooves off.

“Are you mad?” I looked up at the guard staring down at me.

“Excuse me?”

“Get inside the city!”

“What, why?”

“You haven’t heard?!”

“No.”

“Radiation spikes have been spotted all over the wasteland! Near deadly levels to be exact. The whole city is under alert. Hurry inside the city and get to your living area.” Not knowing what else to do, I made a dash into the gates, all the way to Placidity’s house. The moment I opened the door, I was greeted with her tackling me.

“Oh thank Luna you’re okay!”

“Yeah, I’m completely fine. Did you expect any less of me?” She laughed and let go of me.

“Of course not. But still, they say that most areas outside of the city are uninhabitable.”

“Any idea what caused it?”

“No. Bu-“The door behind us fell to the ground as a group of ponies decked out completely in pure black armor, all of which had strange masks that covered their entire faces.

“Unicorn.”

“What?” I turned to face the rather creepy pony.

“Come.” He spoke with a raspy heavy breathed voice and seemed to be completely out of breath.

“With you? Why?”

“Explain… Later.” Another one entered as the first made his way into the house.

“Who do you work with? I’m not going anywhere until I at least know I’ll be safe.”

“Completely.”

“Safe.” Both spoke as if they ran on the same brain.

“Okay…”

“Follow.” The ponies both backed out of the room with co-ordination that of which I’d never seen. Neither even got close enough to each other to touch armor. Once outside, they stood side by side nearly perfectly to make them seem like mirror images of each other. All in all, it was pretty creepy.

“Sector.”

“One”

“So… We’re going to sector 1? No complaints I suppose.” My comment ushered in no response, so we were left to an awkward walk to Sector 1. Once in Sector 1, we continued on to the gate, where they then made a hard right to a rather nice looking –albeit very small- building. Upon entrance, I noticed that it was indeed small. In fact, it only had a reception desk (which was closed) and a bench to wait on. Other than that, there wasn’t even another door. Well, save for the one that enters the reception area.

“Sit.”

“Here?” I pointed to the bench, which granted me two synchronized nods. With some reluctance, I did so. After I was seated, the two creepy ponies joined in on either side of me.

“Brace.”

“Yourself.”

“For wh-“the final part of the word trailed off to a scream of fear as the floor dropped out below us. Fear turned to relief when I realized that the bench somehow served as an elevator of sorts. How it did it, I have no idea.

Eventually the elevator came to a complete stop. It was around that time that I realized that my hooves had locked around anything that I would be able to cling to. I hopped off the bench and began to follow the two ponies, who were once again on the move. Seriously, it was like clockwork the way they moved.

“Ja, zhank you for bringing her in. Return to your duties.” The two ponies saluted the earth pony in the lab coat before walking past me as if I didn’t even exist. “Ah, wunderbar! You’re here. I’ve heard quite ze tale of you, my little Unicorn.”

“And you are…?”

“Zoktor Ethos. Head researcher of ze Ministry of Restoration!”

“The ministry of what now? I thought there was only six.”

“Ja, you are quite right… Sorry, didn’t quite catch your name.”

“Violet Glowingsnow.”

“Ah, so you are the one hunted by the Shattered Ones! I knew zer was something special about you, but zhat takes ze cake!”

“Wait, you know about the Shattered Ones?”

“Of course we do, you silly filly! Zey have been a thorn in our side for about… Three years? Yes, zat sounds right.”

“Please tell me you are close to getting them.”

“Oh got no. Zey are ze most evasive bastards we’ve ever vent against. Every time we find a base, POOF! Zey disappear like thin air.”

“Damnit… Oh well, they’ll get theirs. What’d you call me down here for?”

“Just getting to that. Ze leader of the Ministry would like to talk to you. You see, unicorns aren’t very common, as I’m sure you know. Even more uncommon is ze Unicorn that actually knows how to use ze magic!”

“Let me guess… You want my help.”

“Precisely!”

“Say no more. I’ll help, but under one condition.”

“Go ahead and state ze condition.”

“I refuse to be part of the warmth-bringers. I will be solely dedicated to helping you in the efforts to stop the Shattered Ones.”

“Consider it done. Anything else?”

“I work in my own team. Me and a friend are more than enough to take them on.”

“Is that cockiness I sense? I love it! Can get you killed though, so be careful.”

“Nothing else I’d like.”

“Good. Now, follow me to ze big man.” He began to walk down the enclosed hallways. The whole place seemed to be… Sanitary, in the sense that everything was so grey.

“How’d you know who I was when I said my name anyways?”

“The Shattered Ones mention you quite a lot. Zey always say ‘Violet Glowingsnow’ this, ‘Violet Glowingsnow’ that. Zey sound like a broken record!”

“Do they know what I look like?”

“Alas, no. Probably why zey started just abducting Unicorns left and right. Had to be you at some point!” We stopped in front of a door.

“Here we are! Ze head honcho is inside.”

“Thanks.” I placed my hoof against the door and pushed inwards. Inside of the door was a brilliant office composed of nice pre-war furniture that probably cost a lot to get.

“Ahh, glad you’re finally here.” The pony spoke with a very commanding deep voice. When he turned, he revealed himself to have a slightly worn blue pinstripe suit. Behind him was a large tapestry that depicted the entire world with Equestria emitting what appeared to be a magical green aura.

“Hello.”

“Glad to meet you. The name is Shining Horizon.”

“Is that your real name?” I actually don't know why I asked. It just seemed... Cliche for someone that is fighting to protect the wasteland for a brighter future.

“No, not even close. But I got rid of my previous name… For what reason, that doesn’t concern you.” The way he spoke seemed so… Familiar. Almost like I had heard it before, but I just chalked it up to not actually having a memory. Maybe we ran into each other sometime.

“The past is the past I suppose.” He sat down in a rather large black chair and looked at me. But somehow, it felt as if he was looking at me not as a new acquaintance… But rather someone who had known me for quite a while.

“Yes… Anyways, we have urgent matters to discuss. I’m told that you have excellent skills in magic.”

“I don’t like to brag, but I am pretty good in it.”

“Good. Because those damned Shattered Ones have more of everything than us. More people, more guns, more ammo. You name it, and they have more. But there is one thing that they don’t have. Magic!”

“And that’s where I come in. Alright, I’m all for it.”

“You’re going t-really? Not even going to ask what you’ll have to do?”

“Doesn’t matter what I’ll have to do… Either I fight them, or I continue to run away.” I turned away from him and began to survey some of the pictures he had on the wall. “They’ll still be coming after me no matter what I do. Better I take some down before they get ahold of me.” Some of the pictures were Pre-war, but there were a couple that looked to have been taken somehow. Were there even working cameras anymore?

“Well, welcome aboard then. Now, we can get you a uniform…”

“I have demands.”

“Oh, of course. What are they?”

“I already told that researcher with the German accent. He said he would take care of it.”

“Ahh, Doctor Ethos. Alright, but go ahead and tell me.”

“I refuse to be part of the Warmth-bringers, and I work alone. Just me and my friends.”

“You don’t want any assistance at all? I can’t force you to take some of my men, but…”

“No, I don’t want people I can’t trust with me.” I continued to survey the pictures, looking back to him as I talked. Something about them intrigued me. Each one of the newer ones depicted Shining in some feat, such as winning a battle or something like that. “I can do fine with just… My…” I slowed my speech as I came upon an image of my father. “Friends… Where did you get this picture?” I turned around and looked at Shining, who had what appeared to be a hint of sadness on his face.

“I apologize, I should have told you before. Your father and I were close friends; he was the best soldier we had… When he went home after his tour of duty 11 years ago…”

“You mean…?”

“Yes, the day that you and your family were attacked…”

“What could you ever possibly know about that day?” I spoke calmly, as it was what my father would want. There was no reason for me to be angry… His reaction was that of sadness. Strangely, he seemed as if it affected him more than I would imagine.

“Your father loved you. He told me that if anything ever happened, I was to tell you that. You meant the world to him.” I stared in disbelief as the pony before me began to cry. “He never wanted any of this for you. If he would have had the chance… You know he… He died for you, right?” I wanted to be angry… He had no right to interfere in my personal business. But… He was only doing what my father wished.

“Yes, I know.”

“Maybe one day… There will be a way for him to apologize. Apologize for putting you through all this…”

“Wasn’t his fault. Wasn’t my fault… It was the Shattered Ones. Which, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to talking about.” He wiped his eyes and put his front hooves in a tented position on the desk as he looked at me.

“You’re right. So, do you want to know our plan? Because, honestly… We don’t have one. Their latest base, the one you escaped from, was completely evacuated when we got there. They move faster than we thought.”

“Did they cause that Radiation spike outside?”

“Yes. We don’t know how, but… We believe they have access to very dangerous pre-war weapons.”

“How bad?”

"Intel shows… They might have access to Mega-spells.”

“Luna and Celestia help us…” I turned and stared at my father in the picture. If he were alive to see this… No, don’t think about it… Just… Don’t think about him.

“It’s quite the bad situation.”

“Do you have any idea about their next plan? Do you really think they could launch one of those things?”

“I honestly have no idea. That’s why we need you… Wasn’t just your magic. You are what they want…”

“Use me as bait I assume? I’m all for it, so long as you make sure to get there fast.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“You should be more worried about them. If I get even the slightest chance to hurt them…” We sat in an awkward silence for a moment. We both knew what needed to be done, and we both knew how angry I was at them… When the time came, would I let my anger control me though?

“Whenever you are ready, we will begin th-“

“Captain?” We both turned to the Warmth-bringer who had just barged in. He was completely out of breath and panicked.

“Yes?”

“Shattered Ones… They, they…”

“Calm down son. What happened?” Shining stood from the chair and walked over to his soldier. “What did the Shattered Ones do?”

“They released… I don’t know how…”

“Jeez boy, what happened?”

“The wasteland is no longer safe. They crossed the mountain… Led battalions of Slavers and Raiders over… Brought some creatures too. Captain, it’s like it was 50 years ago…”

“No… They… How could they possibly manage that? We worked so hard to rid the wasteland of Raiders and the like. Violet, we need you now more than ever. Our situation just got dire, and you may be the only one that can help.”

“I understand. What do we do?”

“I… Don’t know.” He turned and stared at the banister that was probably the logo of the Ministry of Restoration. “I just don’t know. They may have just won the war… And started another Great War. If they do have access to Mega-spells…”

“Don’t worry, chances are that they either don’t know how to use them, or they don’t work at all.” I wasn’t sure if I was re-assuring him… Or myself. Luna knows what would happen if they actually used one… Celestia knows they wouldn’t hesitate too.

“I know now is not the best time, but what is really in that Ministry of Magic building?”

“Ministry of Magic? Oh, you mean Ministry of Arcane Science! To be truthful, I don’t actually know.”

“Never went in?”

“Once. Nothing really inside. Plus, the tops levels and bottom levels are blocked off with some strange security mechanism.”

“Okay, just wanted to know… So what are we gonna do?” He started to pace around the room. Eventually, he stopped and looked at me.

“Violet, we’re going to all-out war…” I sighed as I saw the look of sadness in his eyes. “And the Warmth-bringers can’t be in it. With those creatures and other things stalking around the waste now, we have to focus all of our power on keeping them away from this city. We’re stretched thin enough as it is…”

“It’s alright. I’m strong.”

“Your father would be proud… But he would also want you to be careful. Do it for- for him…”

“I will. Anything else before I leave?”

“No… Go on.” I nodded to him and exited into the grey hallway. Walking down the hall, I couldn’t help but think back to how Shining had broken down when he started telling me about my father. It was quite obvious that he cared for my father… No, I sensed something else. But I couldn’t quite put my hoof on what that was… Guess that didn’t matter. The world above had just gone to hell, and I’m dwelling on somepony that just got a bit emotional.

I exited out into the fresh air following another terrifying trip up the bench elevator. And holy Tartarus, everything did not look good. The once blue sky was now tinted slightly green by the radiation that had been released. Slowly, my Geiger counter clocked to indicate I was receiving minor dosages of radiation. Wouldn’t be enough to even get me sick, unless of course I stuck around.

I continued down the abandoned road towards Placidity’s house… She had to know what was truly going on by somepony she trusted. Plus, I needed to find Daring. It was time we got back out there…

“Placidity? Daring?” I called into the home as I opened the door. I knew she was here, but it still felt right to make doubly sure.

“Violet… Is it bad?” I looked over to the living room chair that my dress had been on a while ago. Placidity was sitting on it, looked down at the floor. Daring was on the couch nearby, same sad look.

“Do you want the good news or bad first?” Both looked at each other, then back at me.

“Bad.” I sighed. How could I possibly tell them that the world has practically ended again? Damnit, how could the Shattered Ones do this?!

“I’m afraid that… The Shattered Ones, they... Celestia, how do I say this? They brought the Raiders and Slavers from the Mainland. More creatures than imaginable as well. And they are responsible for the radiation.”

“Aren't the Warmth-bringers going to do anything?!”

“Placidity, Daring… They can’t do anything. They have to divert all their troops to protecting the city.”

“So, the Shattered Ones won…”

“No, they just managed to hold off their inevitable loss. They will not get away with this.”

“If that’s the bad news…”

“The good news is… Well, not really good news. But we aren’t completely screwed… I’m going to be leading the battle against them. Alone.”

“WHAT?! No, Violet…”

“I’m sorry Placidity, but this is something that has to be done…” I looked down to the ground. “If I don’t do something, they will be free to attack the wasteland more.”

“You can’t…” She had begun to cry, which hurt me more than anything.

“It’s going to be fine. This had been a long time coming… My parents died because of them, and now they have probably just killed thousands more… I don’t expect you to just wish me luck and help me out the door. I just expect you to understand… This is something I have to do.”

“I knew this day was coming… I just refused to believe it. I know I can’t stop you… So the only thing I can do, is say be careful.”

“I will. Daring, I don’t expect you to come with me.”

“You believed in me during my hardest time… Saved me from a life that would eventually end with me dead, or worse.”

“I don’t want you coming because you think you owe me something.”

“I don’t… I’m coming, because… You’re the only one that ever cared.”

“It won’t be easy…”

“I know. But neither will living under the rule of the Shattered Ones.”

“So you’re with me?”

“Always.” I walked over to the window and looked out into the tinted green air. All around outside, gunfire could be heard… There was barely a full minute of silence without a shot being fired. The Shattered Ones had single-handedly brought this peaceful land to ruin… They brought upon the second end of the world.

“It’s the end of the world… All over again.”

Footnote: Level Up!

Perk Taken: Alertness – You have the eyes and ears of an experience wastelander. Marks on your E.F.S will appear earlier than usual, and sneaking is easier due to you being able to sense the presence of others.

Chapter 3 - A Filly Named Sanguine

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Chapter 3 – The Final Day
“That kid is going to end up dead if you keep going like this.”

“Placidity… I don’t want you to come with us.” I was in the middle of packing my stuff, as was Daring. It had been about twenty minutes since I had given the bad news and since then, we had been packing up everything we needed. From medicine to food; ammo to rocks to throw at stuff. Okay, maybe not rocks. The point is that we grabbed anything that could be useful.

“But…”

“Listen.” I stopped packing and looked her in her eyes. “This is going to be dangerous… I don’t want to put you in that. I’d rather you be safe here.”

“I know… I just don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t there if… Something bad was to happen.” I looked down as I realized that me getting hurt, or worse, was a quite real possibility. Which was all the more reason to make her stay.

“I know, but don’t worry. I’m not going down until this is all over, I promise.”

“Okay… But when you are nearby, please check in?”

“Of course. You do know that it may be weeks before I get a chance to come back? I promise to hurry back as soon as possible, but who knows what might happen.”

“Yes… And I suppose I can live with that.”

“Hey, if anything comes up… Find the nearest guard and tell them you want to speak to Shining Horizon. If they ask why, or how you know him, tell them I sent you. Let him know who you are, and he’ll arrange anything you need… I hope.” The last part I kept to myself. He better make sure those I care about are well protected…

“Okay… Don’t forget to stock up before you leave.”

“Already got it covered. Daring, you got the caps?”

“Yeah, about 200. Not very much, but should get us some ammo for that revolver of yours.”

“And we should probably get me some new armor… Don’t know if this thing could even protect against a nail, let alone anything else. Plus, I’d rather not have anything that the Shattered Ones gave me.”

“We could probably sell it at a shop somewhere. Trade it for something better perhaps? My armor isn’t the best either, but it was sort of a dress code thing for the slavers.” I finished packing my things and looked to Daring to see if he was done.

“They had a dress code? They seem more like the type that wouldn’t care about whom they were shooting at, much less their clothing style.”

“Well, they did. Mainly Ashton’s group. Guess he liked to make the others below him know that he was in charge.”

“Think we’ll run into him?”

“Oh no doubt. He isn’t exactly one to welcome someone who nearly killed him with open arms. No, he’ll most likely have every slaver and their mother looking for us. Wouldn’t be surprised if he helped the new slavers from the mainland set up shop… Knowing him, he probably took over everything and named himself lead slaver.”

“Come on, he doesn’t have that much power.”

“The slavers in the mainland know him… And fear him. This one time, he stomped this new guys head in because he scuffed his shoes. None of the people in the camp down there even looked in that direction in fear of suffering the same fate. I still think you should have killed him when you had the chance in that basement…”

“All things considered, I am still no murderer. Had he not been on the ground paralyzed, I’d probably had not thought twice. We’ll just have to deal with him when and if the time comes.”

“Yeah, guess so… Alright, guess I’m set.”

“Did you put the metal plating on the inside?”

“Yep. Saddlebags are all nice and armored. Can probably carry quite a few things in these. Still got to pack light though, nothing worse than carrying an overloaded saddlebag. It’s hell on the back.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t think I was- am a hoarder.”

“Please… You two be careful.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll be as careful as you can be when you are about to take on an evil organization that just brought and entire land to ruin! Well, seems bad when you put it that way…”

“Daring, shut up.” Placidity and I shared a laugh at Daring’s expense. Luckily, he seemed to be a good sport about it.

“All right, we need to get going. Be back… Well can’t say soon. But we’ll be back. Remember, if you start to worry, go see Shining. If you are that worried about us, see if he can send one of his men out to track us down. I’d rather you didn’t, but if it would make you feel better…”

“I’ll remember.” She and I embraced in a goodbye kiss, causing Daring to blush and look away. Was that from embarrassment, or… Pleasure. Still couldn’t tell, and frankly, I did NOT want to know. I gave Daring a playful shove and gestured that it was time to leave. As he exited the house, I turned back to Placidity and said what I was loathing…

“If… If anything does happen to me… Please, don’t mourn me. Find somepony else and live your life.”

“Please, don’t say that…”

“I know it hurts to think about it, but I need you to do it. If not for you, then for me. Please, promise me you won’t cling to me if anything happens.”

“I… Can’t make that promise. I’ll try, but I could never make that promise.”

“I understand… I’m sorry I brought it up, but it had to be said. I promise that I will return to you though.” She nodded to me as I slowly closed the door behind me. Daring looked at me and gave me a slight nod.

“You sure you want to do this? I’m with you one hundred percent no matter what you do, but is this what you want to do?”

“Can’t say it’s what I want to do… Rather, it’s what I need to do.” We started walking towards sector 2, where most small businesses operated out of. So many sectors… Yet somehow they managed to find a type of operation for each. Still didn’t know what each sector did, but I suppose I don’t really need to know at the moment… As long as Daring is with me anyways. “This isn’t even personal anymore… No, that’s a lie. It still is, but I can’t let revenge cloud my judgment.”

“Don’t worry. I know you’ll do the right thing when the time comes.” We walked in silence until we reached sector 2. Around the time of our arrival, snow began to fall again. This time the snow wasn’t a blizzard, but rather a very light flurry of snow that actually felt peaceful. Cold, but peaceful. We stepped into a nearby weapon shop. Immediately we were greeted by a rather happy mare that seemed glad to see customers.

“Well howdy there! Ya’ll look like your fixin’ to travel off yonder into the wastes. What can I do for ya’ll?”

“We’re looking for ammo to this gun.” I levitated my father’s out of the holster and placed it on the counter. “Got any?”

“Hmm… 45 caliber I reckon. Sure, got plenty of that.”

“How much?”

“Depends. How much ya’ll got.”

“Around 200.”

“That’s not bad. How’s… 75 round sound?”

“That all? That’s around 3 caps a bullet!”

“Sorry, but that’s the best I can do. Gotta look out for my shop!”

“Guess you do…” It was times like this that I wished I was better at bartering, but I could never do it for the life of me. Well, as far as I remember… Who knows, I may have had a silver tongue. Really doubt it though.

“Guess we got no choice. What’s the grand total?”

“225 caps. But since ya’ll are first timers in my shop, I suppose I can give you a welcome discount. 200 even sound fair?” Well, wouldn’t say fair… But I suppose it was the best deal I was gonna get. Wait! We still had that strange thing I got from the Shattered Ones to trade.

“Almost forgot. What can I get for this…? Thing.” I levitated the gun out of the bag and placed it next to my father’s gun.

“The criminy is that? Looks like a 10mm, but looks poorly modified.”

“It’s actually not bad. From what I was told, it can support a variety of ammo. The loader… Clip, whatever you call it, is also designed to prevent jamming.”

“I’ve honestly never seen anything like that.” I looked back to Daring who was browsing the rifles and harnesses. If his aiming with a mouthgun was bad… Don’t want to think about being anywhere near him with a harness.

“So, can you take it?”

“I don’t normally buy weapons, but I suppose I can’t pass up the chance to take that thing apart and see how it works. Who knows, if it’s good, I might be able to mass produce them.”

“So you’ll take it?”

“Shoot, I’ll take it. How much you wanting for it?”

“Does 300 sound fair?”

“300? Not on my grandmothers life. But I can see you two are struggling for caps, so I’ll take it for no more than 225.” Great… What do I say? Can’t quite make her pay 300, since I’d rather make some caps off of it… Shit, looks like I’m taking the deal. Yeah, one hundred percent sure I never had a silver tongue. With a sigh, I decided to accept.

“You got a deal.” She smiled and swiped the gun from the counter, replacing it moments later with a bag of bottlecaps. Strange… I imagined that 225 bottlecaps in a bag would be bigger, but apparently not.

“Thank ya’ll kindly. You still looking to get those bullets?”

“Yeah.” She nodded and grabbed the bag of bottlecaps and shook 25 of them out. Afterwards, she pushed the remaining 25 caps towards me and entered the back room. Probably going to get the ammo.

“Here’s your ammo. Be careful not to miss! That gun there looks like it would pack quit a punch. Probably has hell of recoil as well.”

“My father didn’t call it Thunderclap for nothing.” I remembered back to the time he would take me out back to shoot the gun… Each time I would pull the trigger, the sound would make me drop it and hightail it back into the house. Of course, that was back then… Wasn’t used to guns. Now it probably won’t faze me. Strange how I am able to remember small stuff like that… Guess the amnesia wasn’t permanent after all.

“Named his gun did he? Not very common nowadays, since ponies usually just sell their gun for a better one as soon as possible. Probably a damn good gun then.”

“I hope so.” I levitated the gun into its holster and the ammo into the custom compartment in my pack. But not before ensuring that the gun was fully loaded. After counting it, I came up with around 80 something bullets for it. Plenty enough to drop anything wanting to mess with us.

“So, is that all?”

“Daring, your gun have ammo?”

“Yep. Ashton never let us leave anywhere without at least 50 bullets.”

“Need anything else? We still got around 200 caps to spend.”

“Nope. We could probably get a couple potions with that, or we could chance it and hope to find some. Keep in mind that we don’t have any with us though. Probably don’t want to have to travel around with any injuries.”

“Yeah, I suppose your right.” I turned back to the cashier. “You wouldn’t happen to have any potions would you?”

“Nope, only guns and ammo. Try two shops down. Granite usually has various odds and ends. If you’d rather though, you could check the hospital over in sector 4.”

“We’ll try Granite. Thanks for the ammo.”

“No problem. Now ya’ll be safe, and remember to point any friends in my direction!” She waved her hoof as we exited into the fresh air. The snowfall had stopped once more, and the skies were mostly clear, indicating that the day was pretty much clear. Hopefully the radiation in the air didn’t affect the snow at all… But my Pip-Bucks Geiger counter wasn’t picking up on anything, so I guess it was safe.

“Did you see all those weapons in there?”

“Yeah, you seemed interested in them. You know, even though you shoot like a blind, crippled and mentally unstable pony.”

“Hey, it’s not that bad! Okay you’re right… It is.”

“I’d teach you how to shoot, but I never learned how to shoot with my mouth. Grow a horn and learn how to use magic though, and then I can teach you!”

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that. Just as soon as the mainland grows grass and global peace is declared forever.” We entered the shop, which was very tastelessly named Granite’s Trinkets. As soon as we entered, a tall stallion of tremendous stature walked up to us. Honestly, I was a bit scared.

“Welcome! I’m Granite!” He spoke with a booming voice, which actually seemed to shake the walls around us. Of course, that was just my imagination.

“H-hello there. We’re looking for potions. Healing potions to be exact.”

“Of course! Step up to the counter and take a gander.” As she walked behind the counter, I couldn’t help but look him over. I wasn’t… Interested in him or anything. Least I didn’t think so… Rather, I was wondering how it felt to be that buff. He barely looked like he could fit out the door! He had to be taking some sort of drug or something…

“Holy hell, you explore the wastes or something? You’re a freaking behemoth!” I snapped my head towards Daring. Please do NOT piss of the pony that could probably smash out heads in by just hitting us with his tail!

“Oh my no. I used to be a caravan guard, but that was just far too dangerous. To be honest, I actually couldn’t hurt a fly. Never even killed another pony.” We are so going to- wait what? How could something that big and… Monstrous looking never hurt anything?!

“You on drugs or something?” I immediately placed my hoof over my mouth in an attempt to hopefully catch the words before they escaped. Too late… To my surprise, he simply laughed.

“No, no. My family is just normally tall.” Tell me about it… He was at least a head taller than me! “I took that as an advantage and began to work out. Even though I could never hurt anypony, I like to instill a tiny bit of fear into would be attackers of the caravans. Even now it makes would be shoplifters think twice.”

“I apologize. We shouldn’t have gotten so personal.”

“It’s quite fine. It’s a welcome change from ponies just coming in, buying what they want, and hightailing it out. Anyways, I have plenty of potions to help you out!”

“Daring, you know more about potions that me… You handle this one.” I began to survey over the various odds and ends he had around. Most of the stuff looked completely useless, but also seemed collectable. I even began to think of a couple uses for some of the stuff… Could probably fashion a makeshift custom weapons from some of this!

“What types of potions you got? We’re thinking something small for now, but if you got the more effective stuff, then we’ll take that.”

“Sure, I got some small one shot potions that should heal anything from a small scrape to a knife wound. Or if you’re looking to go get yourself filled with bullets, I have some potions that will close that bullet hole right quick. Also got anything in between.”

“How much for each?”

“The cheapest I’ve got is 25 caps a vial. That of course is the one that should heal a cut. The ones that can fix a bullet hole go for around 100 caps. Also, for a very short time only, I’m giving one radaway per 200 caps you spend. That coming from the fact that radiation is suddenly a problem again, and I have plenty of it left over from my caravan days.”

“Give us one of the potent potions, and four of the cheap ones.” I continued to browse the miscellaneous trinkets. I now had a pretty good idea of something to fashion out of some of it… I love my brain and its ability to adapt and think of stuff like this.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt, but do you mind if I try and do something with a couple of these items?”

“Like what?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but I think I can make a weapon from a couple of these things.”

“Go right on ahead, but if you break it, you buy it. Granted none of that stuff is worth much, but still.” I nodded and began to grab some things as they continued the transaction. More specifically, I grabbed a switch, lead pipe, electric tape, battery, and a bit of electrical wire. I wasn’t sure how well this was going to work… But it would bug the hell out of me if I didn’t try.

“All right, here are your potions. Complete with a complementary pack of radaway.” I neared a nearby workbench and placed all the stuff onto it. Immediately I put the lead pipe in the middle and taped the bottom with electrical tape, making a makeshift handle. Not like I needed one, but seemed necessary in case Daring needed to use it. I actually felt a little safer knowing he might not need to be handling a gun…

“Thanks, Granite. Violet, you ready to go?”

“Just a sec… Almost done.” I attached to batter to the side of the lead pipe, near the bottom right above the handle. Next, I grabbed the electrical wiring and attached the ends carefully the battery. It took a bit of luck and scientific know how, but I eventually got the battery to start charging the wiring. Finally, I took the other ends of the wiring and connected them to the switch, which was taped carefully to the bottom of the handle.

“She always like that?”

“I really hope not.” Ignoring the two behind me, I grabbed the last two pieces of wiring. These two went from the switch to the lead pipe. A simple flick of the switch did as I hopes, and sent a violent spark of electricity to the lead pipe. The wiring in place, I taped a couple more layers over the wiring on the handle, so it won’t get bitten into. With a sigh of relief, I picked up the makeshift stun baton and turned towards my two onlookers.

“Not sure how exactly I got that to work, but it does. The battery supplies the power to the lead pipe, which is regulated by the switch. The handle is made by electrical tape so it won’t conduct through to the one holding it. The wiring is a bit unstable, which means it might need to be repaired quite a bit, but hey. It works doesn’t it?” I switched it back on, sending a spark of electricity through the pipe. The sounds of electrical humming were being emitted from it. Even though you couldn’t see the electricity, you knew it was flowing throughout the pipe.

“Well ain’t that something… I never thought to try and make weapons from all this stuff.”

“I’m still surprised that even worked…”

“Hey, tell you what. If you think you can draw up some blueprints for that thing, then I’ll let you take it. No need to pay for the supplies used to make it.”

“I’m no artist… But I suppose I could do my best.”

“Great! I’ve got some drawing utensils back here somewhere, and some blueprint paper lying around.” Despite his size, he moved rather lightly into the back room and returned a couple moments later holding a quill with ink, and a large piece of paper. “Here you go. Take your time.”

“Alright, guess I can try it out… How hard can it be?” I levitated the paper over to the workbench and grabbed the quill and ink. After about ten minutes of extreme focus, I managed to make a rough blueprint design of the makeshift stun baton. It wasn’t a hundred percent accurate, but if followed correctly, would produce a near exact replica of it. “Drawing is hard… But here you go.” I laid the plans flat out on the counter in front of him, which immediately prompted a smile from him.

“That is amazing! Forget the supplies that you used, I want to pay you for this. If you don’t mind, I want to make some of these and sell them.”

“I don’t mind, long as you don’t let them fall into the wrong hooves… Mouths or whatever.”

“Of course. Does… 500 caps sound good for these blueprints?”

“500 caps? Definitely. Who knew that a bit of curiosity could net a profit…”

“Hey, anything nets a profit nowadays.” He exited into the back room, and returned a moment later with a somewhat large bag full of bottlecaps. Weight wasn’t a problem, since that bag probably didn’t even weight a pound. I just worried about where we were going to store them. Daring could probably use one of his saddlebags.

“Well, this was a rather productive trip to the store. Excellent job Violet!” I couldn’t help but smile a bit. I did do pretty good… But can’t let that go to my head. “Anyways, we probably need to get going. We’ve spent an entire hour just going to two shops.” Daring grabbed the bag of caps and placed it into his saddlebag.

“Yeah, we have stuff to do anyways. See you around Granite.”

“Goodbye! Oh, hey. If you think of any other strange contraption like that, pay me a visit. I’ve got plenty of caps to spend on ideas like that.”

“I’ll make a note of it.” Daring opened the door and allowed me to exit. Once outside, I immediately looked up to see if the sky had lost some of its green tint. Unfortunately, there was no such luck. How does radiation have a color anyways? Maybe it was just a chemical reaction to the radiation meeting with fresh air. Either way, the greenness looked as if it was already going away from the sky. Unfortunately, that probably meant it was just settling onto the ground.

“So, where are we headed?”

“I have no idea. You’re the one who knows the wastes, where do you think we should check first?”

“I have a couple ideas, but we need a plan first. I’m all for helping you take the Shattered Ones out, as well as the Raiders and Slavers. But walking blindly around the wasteland in hopes of running into their leaders by chance is… Well, idiotic.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess I was just hoping that we would just be able to walk out into the wastes and just start fighting them.”

“Well for now, we should set a destination. We’re hunting the Shattered Ones, who are in turn hunting you. Same goes for the Slavers. And the Raiders and creatures need to be dealt with as they come up as well, but should be avoided if possible.”

“Do you have a destination in mind?”

“I’m not the best at planning stuff, but I think we should head to Ash Town.”

“Didn’t you say Ashton burned that place down?”

“He did. But some of the survivors rebuilt part of it and made it a small town. We should be able to talk to some of the people there; see if they saw anything. Even if they didn’t see or know anything, we are still doing something. It also wouldn’t hurt to scour some ruins as we come across them. We’re going to need everything that we can get.”

“What about those ministry buildings? There should be some good loot in those. Where is the nearest one?”

“Look up. Other than the Ministry of Magic-“

“Ministry of Arcane Science you mean.”

“-… Ministry of Arcane Science, the closest one is about twenty miles north of here. Unless you want to walk that, we probably aren’t going near one.”

“Damn… Probably would have been some good loot in there.”

“If we get near one, we can of course check it out. But don’t get your hopes up.”

“I’ll try not to. What about any weapon manufacturing factories? Are there any nearby?”

“Any of those have mostly been ransacked. The ones that haven’t are protected by those damned robots.”

“Hey, Granite mentioned something about Caravans. Any of them running nearby?”

“Yeah, there are always some by the north gate trying to trade their supplies. They’re in and out almost 24/7. Why?”

“I say we try and find one that is going to Ash Town. It’ll be much safer to go with a caravan rather than by ourselves. They know shortcuts and whatnot don’t they?”

“That’s… Actually a damned good idea. Groups attract more attention, but they are also safer. And you’re right; they do know all the shortcuts and ways to avoid the hills around here. They might also pay us to guard their caravan.”

“So it’s settled. We head to Ash Town by means of Caravan. We can break away to search any ruins we pass. Do you know of anything along the way?” We began to make our way to the north gate.

“Nothing majorly interesting. The only big thing of note is the ruins of the pre-war town of Ataraxy.”

“That’s a strange name for a town…”

“It was just a small village about the size of Ponyville, the town I mentioned in the restaurant. I would have been fine, but there was a reactor in the center of the town powering the place. As you probably guessed, the magic in it overloaded and the whole place went up like fireworks.”

“Anything worth salvageable?” I looked around the city as we walked through it. For the first time since I got here, the city was bustling with ponies’ walking about and talking on the streets. Despite the circumstances, they all continued as if the world had never ended. While we walked, I actually felt as if we were in the old world. Well, save for the earthquakes splitting the sectors.

“I have no idea. Never been there myself. Even though I talk as if I know a lot of the ruins, it’s mostly been from maps I’ve seen. Ashton only allowed us to go to them if he expected a future slave to be in them. But from what I’ve heard, it’s still got some stuff around it. Probably a couple shops with cash registers we could probably check.”

“Oh, speaking of that… You still got those bits?”

“Yep.”

“Can we make a quick stop at one of those vending machines?”

“Sure. Definitely don’t want to carry these things anymore.” We stopped out progress to the north, and instead walked to a nearby building. “They are mostly on the main streets, but they can also be found in any pre-war buildings around here.”

“Aren’t they mostly all empty by now?”

“No, the leaders of the-“

“The Ministry of Restoration.”

“Wait, there is a seventh ministry?” He gave me a puzzled look. For the first time, I was going to be able to educate him!

“Yep. Shining Horizon, the leader of the Warmth-Bringers, is also the leader of a new Ministry. Supposedly, this new ministry is supposed to be dedicated to cleaning up Equestria. Seems like it’s mostly focused on the Frozen Wastes though.”

“Well they were doing a rather good job of it until now… Anyways, the MR –Ministry of Restoration- usually fills these things back up.”

“Well that’s nice of them.” We stopped in front of a rather large blue, rusted box that had a slot for bits in the side of it. On the front was a large list of items, most of which were potions, food, or weapons. Overall, there seemed to be a little bit of everything in the thing.

“Take your pick. The price is to the left of each item, and the quantity to the right. Don’t ask how it knows the quantity, probably magic or something. Wouldn’t surprise me… Everything up here is run by magic.” I looked over the list. The prices were fair, but also expensive at the same time. The economy before the war must have been terrible… Potions were 10 bits, weapons going around 100. Somehow, I figured that the machine was modified by the MR to support weapons. If not, then the Pre-War world must have been dangerous as well.

“Get us five potions, and spend the rest on food.”

“You got it.” As he started to spend the bits on the supplies, I began to ask myself… Does he consider me the leader? I’ve never been the leader of anything… And would hate for him to think he has no control over anything. And the last thing I would ever want to do is lead him into danger because he thinks he has no say.

“Hey Daring…”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t think of me as the leader, do you?”

“Well, kinda. Yeah. I’ve always been a follower, and have no problem doing that.”

“I just don’t want you thinking you have to do everything I say; have to always be in my shadow. If you think I’m making a bad decision, or if I start to act strangely, I want you to take over for yourself and make sure I stay on the right track. We’re an equal team.”

“Guess I never thought of it that way.” He grabbed the final piece of food from the machine and placed it in his bag, and then turned back to me. “Ashton would always yell at anybody that dared to question him. Guess I’m still thinking like that. But I’ll get used to it, just give me a bit. Okay?”

“Sure. Now, what do you say we get going?”

“Yep. Let’s do it.” We continued north to the gate. Upon reaching it, I immediately saw tons of ponies gathered around bartering with each other. Some were yelling at each other, prompting the guards to run up and keep the piece; some were laughing and telling jokes as they traded. But no matter where you looked, there was a cart filled with supplies, each with about three armed ponies standing nearby.

“You weren’t kidding… This place is packed.”

“Yeah, the Caravans are important an important part of the Wasteland. Without them, the other towns probably wouldn’t get what they need to survive. And some even make occasional trips to the mainland to trade with some of the towns there. Of course, those Caravans rarely make it back… It’s a risky business. But if done right, you should be swimming in caps.”

“How do we know which one is going where?”

“Route color. It’s a new system that just went into place about a month ago. I still don’t know it very well, but I do know that the green route goes clockwise around the nearby towns. The first stop after Shattered Gleam is Ash Town.”

“How many routes are there?!”

“Too many to count. There are about five Caravans for each route. But they are incredibly organized, so you’ll never see more than one in the same place. There are also the freelance Caravans, which are owned by a single person. Those generally have more guards, and don’t have a set path. You may even see one camped out by ruins to trade with the scavengers as they find stuff.”

“Do you see a green route Caravan anywhere?”

“No, keep looking.” We began to look over the crowd of Caravans. Each cart had a color strip going down the side from wheel to wheel indicating which route they were on. But I still didn’t see a green one…

“Excuse me. I couldn’t help but hear you two were looking for the green caravan.” I turned to see a rather chubby looking colt. He had a baseball cap on, and had a bit of a beard growing. He also looked as if he had not even thought of bathing in about a month.

“Yes, we were.” I stepped aside and allowed Daring to do the talking. He seemed to know what he was talking about anyways.

“Then you’re looking for me! What can I do for you two?”

“We’re looking to travel with you to Ash Town.”

“Oh? As guards or you just looking to tag along?”

“Mainly just looking to tag along. We’re probably going to stop off at the town of Ataraxy.”

“I suppose you can tag along. Lucky you caught me. Was just about to leave, and the next Caravan won’t be ‘round for about twenty more minutes. You ready to leave?”

“Yep. We’re all set.”

“Good! Now, I can’t pay you if you do decided to help, but if we are attacked it would be nice if you two would help. But don’t worry ‘bout that. The green route is the safest of them all, due to the proximity to Shattered Gleam.”

“We got no problem with that, right Violet?”

“Nope.”

“Good. We’ll be in Ash Town by the time the sun starts setting.” I quickly glanced at my PipBuck. It was only 5:30?! This whole day seemed as if it had been dragging on for so long... So much had happened.

Before I knew it the caravan started moving out into the wastes. One of the guards pulled the cart, and the other three stood on the right, left, and behind it. The chubby guy, who I assumed was the leader, was continuously walking around the caravan, checking the wheels and merchandise. Every once in a while, I spotted him grabbing a food item and eating it vigorously. No wonder he was chubby…

“Hey, Violet.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you thought about what we’re going to do if we do find Ashton?”

“Not really. He’s not really that high on my list.”

“He should be. Look, I know that you’re hunting the Shattered Ones and I’m alright with that. But you can’t just ignore the fact that you have a seriously pissed off sociopathic slaver after you. As long as he is after us, we’re going to have a problem focusing on the Shattered Ones.”

“So what are you saying? We forget about the ponies that just basically destroyed an entire land to focus on a Slaver?”

“I know it sounds bad that way, but yes. We don’t have to just stop looking for them all the way, but we need to take care of this right now. Besides, the SO’s are probably in hiding after pulling a stunt like this.”

“Fine. We’ll focus on Ashton. But if it becomes too big of a distraction, I’m going to put it off for a bit.”

“That’s fine. Hey, I just had an idea… How big of a hell raiser can you be?”

“Pretty sure I can cause quite a stir. Why?”

“If we start a war with the Slavers, which we will if we find Ashton, we will be drawing quite a bit of attention to ourselves. And if the SO’s know it’s you causing the Slavers their problem…”

“They’ll come after me. Daring, I might kiss you for that idea.” He went wide eyed, much as I expected him to. That is NEVER going to get old.

“R-really?”

“Eh, prove yourself a bit more, and maybe.”

“You know, you are a major tease.” I laughed as we continued on. We were currently on a pre-war street that had the occasional billboard on the side. I couldn’t help but examine the ads for the various pre-war devices and food and such. But no matter where I looked, there was always some hint of war propaganda. It was actually rather depressing if you think about it.

“Daring, how old are you anyway?”

“Well that’s random. Why?”

“Just trying to make small talk. Walking in silence feels a bit awkward.”

“You’re right, it is. Fine, if you must know, I recently turned 21. I would ask you the same thing, but you know.”

“I don’t know my exact age, but I do remember getting a glance of it back in the SO facility I escaped from… It was 20 something. I don’t know. I have a feeling I’ll remember or find out soon enough.”

“Hey, we’re nearly to Ataraxy. You still wanting to stop off and check it out, or do you want to go to Ash Town and come back?”

“I don’t want to go to Ash Town and then have to circle back around. We’ll stop there now.”

“Sounds good. Hey, Mr. Caravan.” The chubby pony turned and looked at Daring. Of course, he had a half-eaten snack cake in his mouth.

“What?” Ew, he talked with his mouth open. Sure, we’re in the wasteland, but seriously? Even Slavers probably have more manners than that.

“We’re gonna split. Gonna search the nearby ruins of Ataraxy.”

“Have fun.” He turned back to the cart and began searching for another food item. How does he ever turn a profit if he just eats everything? Oh well, not my problem. We split away from the group and headed down the cracked side road. Some of the cobblestone from the road remained, but most of it had sunk below the dirt. And the stone that did remain was mostly coated by snow. It quickly became apparent that this side road was never traveled, since the road was eventually nothing but a field of snow.

“It’s fine. I think I know the way from here. Never liked those pre-war roads anyways. They have a sense of sadness to them, if that makes sense.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s sad to think that ponies use to travel them happily in the old world.” I stopped as my Geiger counter started clicking.

“What the hell is that?”

“My Geiger counter. We’re getting a tiny bit of radiation around here.”

“I’ve never run into radiation up here… Damned SO’s. Is it bad?”

“No, looks like it’s just about a rad per second.”

“That’s not bad. I think I read somewhere that it takes quite a bit of radiation to even get sick.”

“You ever have radiation sickness?” I looked down at the Pipbuck as the Geiger counter stopped clicking. Thank Luna…

“Once. But it was only minor.”

“I remember one time, about three years ago, I got some bad radiation poisoning…” Daring stopped as I spoke. It took me a moment to realize what I had just said.

“Did you just say you remembered that?”

“Yeah, I have no idea how. It just came to me…”

“Maybe you’re already getting better. Anyways, how bad was it?”

“Horrible. I was in some pre-war military base. Little did I know one of the bombs fell in the center of the base. The whole place was pocketed in radiation. Of course, I didn’t have a Geiger counter with me at the time. Didn’t even know I was irradiated until I started throwing up without any reason to. It started feeling like my insides were on fire, and it was all I could do to keep from passing out. Somehow, I managed to make it to a nearby town, where I passed out. I don’t remember anything after that, but I assume that they helped nurse me back to health.”

“Damn. All that happened to me was a bit of nausea. Keep a close eye on that Geiger counter. I’d rather not go through that.”

“Don’t worry. I’d rather not go through it again either.” We stopped talking as we walked over a final hill; on the other side, the small town of Ataraxy. Daring hadn’t been kidding… The whole place seemed like a ghost town. And sure enough, there was a medium sized crater in the center of the town. It had to have been a rather big generator to cause that big of a crater…

“Here we are. It’s not much, but we should find something useful. Can you see anypony moving down there?”

“Uhm… No. Looks deader than those caravan guards’s sense of humor.”

“I know right? How are you not going to laugh at the big guy tripping and getting a face full of food? They didn’t even budge. But we digress… Should we go ahead and go down, or wait and see if anything is down there?”

“We’ll go ahead and go down. If anything is down there, we can take it. Well, unless it’s radiation. But it looks clear from up here.”

“I don’t think you can see radiation.”

“You can’t.” I slide down the side of the hill into the town below. The whole town was a sad sight. Buildings barely stood on their foundations. Some had even begun to collapse, some of their walls fallen to the ground. And the snow lay upon everything, which made it look even more abandoned. Worst of all, when we took a step, it echoed throughout the entire town. Of course, the fat that it was enclosed all around by hills on all sides helped to amplify the echo.

“Alright, this place is giving me the creeps. I knew it was a ghost town, but damn. This is just depressing.”

“Tell me about it… I’m afraid to even try and levitate anything. This whole place could fall down at any moment.” We slowly made our way to the town center. I stopped as my right front hoof crushed something under it. I felt as pang of sadness as I looked down and saw a picture of a family. There was both a mother and a father, both smiling happily. On the father’s head was a small filly, who was smiling wide from ear to ear.

“Don’t think about them, Violet.”

“It’s hard not to… I wonder what that poor filly was thinking as the bombs fell. We go by every day worried about ourselves, but never really realize the pain the Great War caused. We never really think about small children like this, whose lives were immediately ended… Until it happens to us.” I felt my thoughts drifting back to that day when the Shattered Ones attacked my home. The only difference is that I was alive. This poor filly probably didn’t last through the night.

“I know you feel bad, and what I’m about to say may sound heartless, but she’s dead. She is in a much better place than this hellhole. It’s no use beating ourselves up, or feeling sorry for those before us.”

“You’re right.” I dropped the photo to the ground and continued down the road. It wasn’t easy to do, but I somehow managed to stop thinking about the small filly hiding somewhere in her house as mushroom clouds exploded all around her.

We continued walking down the street, stopping every couple of feet to listen for any sounds around us. After about five minutes of walking, we eventually made it to the center of town.

“Damn, that must have been a big explosion.” The town center was laid out to where the fronts of all the buildings were facing the center of the town. This was probably once a plaza where ponies met up with each other. But it looked like the moment the center exploded; it took half of all the buildings facing it off as well. None of the buildings had a front anymore, and a couple were halfway gone. One had collapsed entirely.

“Must have been a big magic overload. You better be careful if you go to charge something with magic from now on.”

“Obviously. So, what do we do now? We don’t have all night to search this entire town. Even if we do split up, we would still be searching by sunrise.”

“Most scavengers try the more intact buildings first. Higher chance to find something not ruined by the elements I guess.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do. We can try the shops first, but search a house if it’s in good condition. We’re bound to find something good that way.”

“Are we splitting up?”

“No, I still don’t like the looks of this place. It’s just far too quiet…”

“You can say that again.”

“Okay, it’s far too quiet.” I smiled as he gave me a blank stare that told me he was unamused.

“Alright, you lead. Oh, can I get that stun baton? I’m not a good shot, but I think I can swing a baton.”

“Sure.” I levitate it from my saddlebag and tossed it to him. Somehow, he managed to catch it perfectly in his mouth. Probably just good luck. “Good catch. Oh, and remember to turn it on.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“Hey, just making sure.” We made our way into a nearby store, which appeared to have once been a general good store.

“I’ll get the register. See if there is anything in the back room.” I nodded to him and made my way into the back office. At first glance, the place seemed barren. I began to turn around, but stopped as I saw a painting on the wall. Strangely, it was slightly protruded off the wall.

“Hey Daring, I think I found something.”

“What is it?” I heard the sound of a cash register opening, followed by a thud.

“Not sure yet. Anything on your end?” I neared the painting and levitated off the wall. Jackpot! A safe and it didn’t look to have been raided.

“No, register is empty.” He entered the back room with me and looked at the safe. “Is it locked?”

“Yep.”

“Damn, that’s unfortunate.”

“Not entirely. I happen to know a nice little spell to take care of that…” I touched the lock of the safe with my horn and began to focus all my magic into the lock mechanism. After about two minutes, I heard the faint sound of metal breaking and backed away from it. “Ta da!” I levitated the door open to reveal a family photo with a bag of bits next to it. There was also a small .32 revolver next to it. Probably there in case of a break in.

“How did you do that?”

“Magic. A little spell that breaks the lock mechanism. Very useful if you need to get into something and don’t need to lock it back. The only problem is that it takes a bit of time, and isn’t exactly easy to do.”

“I wish I knew some magic.” I levitated the bag of bits out and placed them into my saddlebag. They were noticeably heavier than the bottlecaps, but indubitably more valuable.

“Looks like that’s all there is.”

“I say we split up. Search the place for about thirty minutes, then meet in the town hall and search there.”

“I still don’t like it, but you’re probably right. We’ll get so much more done split up. If you run into anymore locked safes, just make note of them and tell me when we meet up.”

“Can do. I’ll get the east side, you get the west.”

“See? Doesn’t it feel good to take charge once in a while?” I started to walk out of the building as I asked.

“Yeah, it does.” He followed me out and started to make his way to the east side of the town. After ensuring that he wasn’t being followed by anything, I made my own way to the west side. The first thing I noticed was all the windows on this side were boarded up, almost as if ponies had been barricading themselves inside. What were they hiding from? Eh, maybe I was just thinking too much into it.

I searched about four buildings, each time coming up with nothing. It looked like this entire side was ransacked and looted all the way. I was about to give up and make my way to the east side to find Daring when I saw a building that was all the way boarded up. By all the way, I mean it didn’t even look like there was a way in, which probably means that nothing had been in there. Perfect opportunity to find anything if you ask me.

Pulling the board off the front door, I couldn’t help but wonder if somepony… Or something was in there. Oh well, they’re probably dead anyways. But just to be sure, I levitated the door open from the side, and then yelled in.

“Anything in here? I don’t mean you any harm.” Silence. Looks like I was good to go in. Still cautious, I stepped inside and looked around the dark room. Not feeling like using my magic, I clicked the light of my Pipbuck on and held my front right leg out in an attempt to illuminate the room.

From the looks of it, this had been a small house. But it also looked like it had been left mostly intact. Well, given the circumstances anyways. Sensing that nothing was in deed in here, I began to search freely throughout the house. Each step I took shook old dust into the air, which was immediately illuminated by the light from my Pipbuck.

“Holy fuck, that’s a lot of dust…” I don’t know why I spoke out loud. Perhaps I was just getting uneasy by the silence. Nowhere in Equestria should ever be this quiet… I continued to search the house until I found myself in the kitchen. What the hell…? The refrigerator was actually working?! I looked over to a generator that was humming lowly. Somepony had supplied it with only enough power to make the fridge work. Doing so also made it make less noise. Pretty smart… But where was the genius behind it?

I quickly levitated my gun out of its holster in case the inhabitant was hostile. A quick check of my E.F.S revealed that there were not any life forms nearby. With a relieved sigh, I holstered the weapon and began to look around. This time not for supplies, but for a way that somepony could get in and out of the building. No doubt that somepony had been living in here, but how were they getting out retrieving supplies?

Another five minutes of searching revealed what I was looking for… The pony had cleverly fashioned a false wall, which could only be opened by sliding it into the wall. Whoever I was dealing with, they were clever. I’ll give them that. My heart skipped a beat as a green blip appeared on my E.F.S. that was either Daring looking for me or the inhabitant whose house I was intruding in.

Without any hesitation I darted behind a nearby sofa. Careful not to make myself easily detectable, I poked my head out and looked at the fake wall. Sure enough, I saw the wall start moving. Even though the E.F.S said he or she wasn’t hostile, I still drew Thunderclap just to be sure. The pony entered… And sweet Celestia… I felt my eyebrows lower in sadness and my mouth fall open. It was just a small filly… She was holding a small knife, and was trembling from the cold. Or fear, probably both for all I knew. I had to be careful not to scare her… I stood up and stepped away from the couch. When she saw me, her eyes went wide and she looked as if she was about to have a heart attack.

“It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. You’ve probably heard that from others before, but I promise you.” I carefully holstered my gun. I didn’t want to make any sudden movement, so as not to scare the poor filly away. “See? Me and my friend are just here looking for supplies. We’re the good guys.” My words loosened her up a tiny bit, but I could tell she was still terrified. Shit, what do I do? I can’t just leave her here… And I don’t think I could get her to be less afraid of me.

“W-Wh-Who are you?” She stuttered as she spoke. Didn’t sound like a speech impediment, most likely she was just terrified out of her mind. Honestly, I would be too.

“My name is Violet Glowingsnow. My friend’s name is Daring Dash. I’m sorry that I came in here. We didn’t think anypony lived here.”

“I-I’m the only one here.”

“Where are your parents?”

“They left with the people in black clothing.” People in black clothing? Did she mean the Shattered Ones?

“Was it metal armor?”

“N-no. Leather.” Leather… Oh merciful Celestia, she couldn’t mean…

“When did this happen?”

“Yesterday.”

“Did they call themselves Slavers?”

“No, but the one that was giving order called himself… As… Ash…”

“Ashton?”

“Yes, that’s it.” Oh sweet royal pony sisters…

“How old are you?”

“Eight… Are my parents going to come back?” Oh fucking shit… How do I answer that? I can’t just flat out say no, and I can’t lie to the poor girl…

“I… I don’t think so. That man they left with is bad.”

“Oh…” She didn’t look like she was about to cry. Rather, she looked like she was used to bad news. What was I supposed to do? I mean, maybe Daring and I could track down Ashton, but even then, then chances of finding her parents were very slim. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t just leave her here… This place had little to no supplies, and it wasn’t exactly safe.

“Did you set up that generator?”

“No, my dad did. He also made this fake door. They told me to not leave, no matter what. But I ran out of food, and I…”

“It’s alright. I know your dad probably told you to never talk to strangers and that is good advice. But I need you to listen to me. Staying here isn’t safe, and there doesn’t look like there is any food left.”

“I know…”

“If you want, I can protect you. Daring and I were hunting Ashton down. If you want, you can come with us and we can look for your parents.”

“I don’t know… I know I can’t stay here. I’m so hungry…”

“We have food if you want some. I know you don’t trust me, and that’s normal.”

“I trust you.”

“Okay, good. How long have you and your parents lived here?”

“About a year. There used to be more ponies living here.”

“What happened to them?”

“The bad ponies took them too. They would have got me too, if I hadn’t been hiding in the house.”

“So you had a whole town here? How many ponies lived in the town?”

“About thirty.”

“I see…” Holy hell, what do I do?! I need to take her away from this place, but I can’t keep her with me… And there is nopony I could trust to take care of her besides Placidity. And that would be bad; considering she has said multiple times that she is terrible with children.

“Are you going to find my parents?” I squatted down in front of her and looked her in her eyes.

“I will try. But you know, there is a chance that…” Celestia help me… How do I say this to her? “That they will never be coming back.”

“Oh…” Fuck, I felt terrible. Nopony should ever have to tell a filly that she might never see her parents again… I myself wanted to start crying, but I had to be strong.

“Come on. You can come with my friend and I, okay? We’ll keep you safe.”

“Okay…”

“I need you to listen to me carefully from now on though, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. If my friend and I run into any trouble, I want you to run and hide. Can you do that?”

“Yes. I’m good at hiding.”

“Good, good… Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you. What’s your name by the way?”

“Sanguine. My dad always called me Sami for short though.”

“That’s a nice name.” I stood up and looked down at the filly. “Come on, Sanguine. We can’t stay here any longer. Ashton will probably send some people back to comb over for others.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Yes, I probably am.” I led her away from the false wall and out the actual front door. Not because I couldn’t fit, but rather because it seemed unnecessary to crawl through when a door was available. Sanguine and I continued down the dark streets until another green blip appeared on my E.F.S.

“There you are Violet. Sorry, didn’t turn up anything. What about… you…” He looked down at Sanguine, who was staring at the ground. “Please tell me that she’s just trying to sell you some cookies or something.” I shook my head and looked down at Sanguine.

“Her name’s Sanguine.”

“What happened?”

“It looks like you were right…” He gave me a puzzled look. “Ashton is a bigger threat than I thought. And it looks like he is now at the top of our priorities.”

“Please don’t tell me…”

“He came here yesterday, probably right after we got done with him. He took everypony, including her parents.” He looked at Sanguine and sighed.

“I knew he was evil, but Celestia… This is just going too far.”

“How fast does he usually get rid of…” I stopped myself from saying slaves. I didn’t want her to worry more than she already was. “You know.”

“He doesn’t actually do the… Uhm, transfer… That’s usually done at the nearest base of operations. But the newest… recruits are usually held for a minimum of a week to see if they are healthy and strong enough to… You know.”

“So we have about a week then?”

“Yes. Don’t worry, Sanguine was it? We’ll get your parents back.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s no problem, Sanguine. We had to find him anyways… I wish it was under better circumstances than this, but… Yeah.” Daring turned away from the filly. I could tell that he partly blamed himself for this… He was probably still dwelling on the fact that we didn’t kill him in that basement when we got the chance. Honestly, I felt responsible as well. Maybe that was why I decided to take her in until we found her parents? But I still kept thinking… what was I supposed to do if we couldn’t find them? I couldn’t bring her with me knowing who and what I was going up against… It’d be far too dangerous for her.

“Daring, give her some food.”

“Sure. Here you go, Sanguine.”

“Thank you.” She happily took the food and opened it.

“I’m sorry to ask, but can you eat over there for a moment? Daring and I need to talk.” She nodded and walked to the front of a nearby house and sat down.

“What is it?”

“I got to thinking… What the hell do we do if her parents are dead? Or worse? We can’t just drag her around the wastes.”

“I know… But this is partly our fault. If we had just killed-“

“I know that…! I know. She said she knows how to hide, which is good. But it’s still not good enough.”

“Is there anywhere we could take her?”

“No.”

“What about Placidity?”

“She is terribly with children. She told me a story once about how she had to watch a friend’s filly for a bit. Ended with her having to spend a night in the clinic for stress.”

“Damnit… What about that guy you said is leading the Ministry of Restoration?”

“He’d be too busy with having to protect the city. A filly would just get in the way.”

“Fucking shit. Guess we better hope we find her parents…”

“Yeah… We do.” We both looked over at Sanguine, who had finished eating and was now looking at the ground, tears dropping steadily from her eyes.

Footnote: Level Up!

Perk Taken: Filly at Heart – You have the heart of a child, which means you’ll be able to instill calmness in fillies near you; fillies will trust you much more than before.

Fallout Equestria: Shattered Gleam

by GhostofSandwich

Introduction

Prologue: Subject 42

Chapter 1 - The Wall of Memory

Chapter 2 - Beginning of the End

Chapter 3 - A Filly Named Sanguine