FALLOUT EQUESTRIA: RISING DAWN

Chapter 3

Dust and Echoes

Tomorrow it will be over

For the world will soon be waking

To a summer day.

I've never been afraid of the dark. I've never been afraid of ghosts either. Well, I've never seen a ghost, for that matter. The most frightening thing that had happened to me before the doors opened was described as a "sauna treatment and a paper cut" by my best friend.

Everpony has nightmares. But we always wake up from them. Always …

Whenever I had nightmares, I always woke up in my room, relieved to see that the white washed walls of my stable were still standing around me. I'd tell myself that the horrors I'd seen weren't real and that I was still home safe.

As a foal, whenever I'd wake up kicking and screaming, my mother would cradle me under her angel wings. The softness of her feathers and her soothing lullabies always brought me back from the brink of hysteria. I'd lay there beneath her feathers and look up into tender eyes that promised me unconditional love and comfort.

When I was awake, the fears of unscrewing the wrong pipe or tampering with the wrong console had always been chased away by Dew Drops' helping hoof.

Together, it seemed, there was nothing we couldn't fix. She told me that with our friends, anything was possible. She promised me that we'd save our stable … together.

Looking back now, I remember that the textbooks told us of the mantras of our ancestors. 'Friendship is magic', was one of many.

Together, my friends would drive away the fears and insecurities of stable life with their warm laughter and unwavering loyalty. But then, there was not much to fear within Stable 29's secure, hardened walls.

My day to day life in the stable had been a mundane one. I fixed things that ponies broke, I inspected the pipes, systems, and terminals at engineering, and I made my usual rounds between the living quarters, cafeteria, and my toilet.
My two greatest fears were getting locked inside of engineering past curfew, and swimming in poop water. Whooptie fucking doo. The worse that could happen was either a reduction in rations or a visit to Dr. Stitch's clinic so he could make morbid jokes about your injuries.

I think of them and I laugh, for they were petty and insignificant in comparison to the things I'd truly learn to fear in the world above.

I suppose I expected too much from the wasteland. Perhaps, I thought, that when we emerged, we'd trot out into a world reborn.

Then reality hit me. I realized that there were worse things than nightmares.

My entire life, I'd taken the safety and relative luxury of my home for granted. The simple act of being alive in a stable was a gift that nopony ever seemed thankful for. We simply lived, and lived, and lived as the world above us, a world of magic and magnificence, disintegrated into nothing but the dust and echoes of a shameful age.

We'd been told that we'd only leave the stable when it was safe. We'd leave when we were ready.

Well when we did, we weren't ready at all. Not even by a longshot. We weren't ready for the degenerate monsters that everypony had devolved into on the surface.

We forewent the safety of our homes. We threw it all away for the comfort of purified water. We trampled upon the graves of the ponies we left behind to die.

And we paid the price.

Everpony has nightmares. But some nightmares never end.

---

I woke up screaming. Forelegs pinned me to the cold metal frame of a hospital gurney. I thrashed against their limbs, swatting them away and kicking my legs at the silhouettes that blurred around me.

"Get away you, psychos! GET THE FUCK AWAY!" I howled, batting their invading limbs.

They found me, and now they were going to torture me like they did to Amber Fields.

"FUCK! YOU!" I roared, kicking one of the equine shapes in the face. It fell over, moaning, and disappeared from my hazy eyes.

"I'LL TAKE YOU ALL WITH ME!" Somepony grabbed my forehooves, pulling them away from me. Surely they'd rip me limb from limb. I was going to die.

"NO!" I writhed, yanking whoever was holding my right foreleg on top of me. I rolled over and I heard a mare with pink eyes scream, but I didn't care. I brought my forehooves to her throat and squeezed. She kicked under me, suffocating.

"I'll kill you! I'll fucking kill you!"

I felt something metal crack against my skull and I fell over, blacking out for a second.

"Hold him still!" somepony shouted.

I waited for the touch of a cold blade to slice through my bare flesh. I waited for the ripping, the tearing – but they never came.

With my limbs pinned to the ground, I could do nothing as I felt the familiar taste of health potion dribble down my lips and wash down my throat. My head was spinning too much to care who was administering it.

I held out my limbs weakly in feeble resistance. And for good measure, they cracked me across the skull again.

My consciousness left the building before I could scream.

---

My mummified body lay shivering on an itchy cot with a mildew-stained blanket pulled up to my neck. My limbs were splayed out underneath the blanket, and one of my legs hung limply from the edge of the bed.

I was alive. But I sure as hell didn't feel like it. The flesh under my coat was bruised black and blue. My head throbbed as if I'd been beat with a metal bar. Wait. If I remember correctly, I was.

I groaned, tucking in my battered legs to my chest. My weary, bloodshot eyes looked around the room. A gas lamp glowed dimly on a shabby bedside table to my right, its faint light hardly illuminating the cabin end to end. Around me was a patchwork structure of corrugated scrap metal bolted together to build the walls that held the makeshift ceiling aloft. Outside, I could hear the wind moan, running its freezing tendrils across the walls in poor attempts to reach the inside of this metal hovel.

"Welcome back." A voice said as a mare walked out of the veil of darkness at the furthest corner of the room.

"Dew Drops?" I murmured, hopefully.

My ears drooped when a pony with a midnight blue coat and a black mane stepped into the light. Shadows played across her hard complexion. The mare looked like she'd seen better days.

"Night Sky." She trotted up to my cot and held up a small photograph in one of her hooves and a blue scarf slung over her back. She placed both at the edge of the bed between my legs. "You got a name?"

I closed my weary eyes and replied, "Red. Dawn."
She nodded thoughtfully, glancing at my pipbuck. "You're one of those stable folk, aren't you." Night Sky said, not asking.

The blue scarf levitated to my chest and I ran a hoof across its blood specked fabric as gently as I would with Dew Drops' mane. I found that I'd been holding my breath, and I exhaled shakily, holding my head in my hooves.

I swirled a faint magical field around the picture and floated it to my eyes in silence. Dew Drops. Box Cutter. Amber Fields. Lightning Twirl. Star Glint. I turned my eyes pleadingly to the rime encrusted window to look out into the unforgiving winter.

"We found you in the drifts, half dead. You looked like you've been through hell."

I looked over the picture of my friends and eyed her painfully.

"If this is hell …" I whispered, my voice trembling.

"This ain't hell. It's worse." The mare said with a cold smile, "Welcome to the wasteland, Red Dawn."

I stared at her wide eyed. Welcome back to life. I gulped a lump down my throat, grinding my teeth together. My lower lip trembled in denial. This was a nightmare, and I was going to wake up from it… I set the photo down on the blanket and my shoulders began to rock with sobs.

Wake up … please. I closed my eyes, listening to the chilling gale howl away outside the patchwork walls. I opened them and I was still lying on the same scratchy cot, in the same bleak hovel. I stared longingly at Dew Drops' striped scarf, tears welling in my eyes.

I swung my legs out of the blankets and stood on rickety hooves.

"And where the hell do you think you're going?" the mare started towards me.

"They're still out there." I croaked, pointing out a rime encrusted window. I made for what looked to be the door, but Night Sky stepped into my path. "My friends –"

"Are dead."

"No!" I stumbled to get past her but she pushed me back with a foreleg. "You didn't see them … you don't know!"

The look she gave me insisted that she'd beg to differ. My heart sunk. "You go out there and I'm not gonna drag your sorry flank back." She said, severely. I started towards her only to cry out in agony as pain jolted through my chest. With blurry eyes, I fell to the wooden floor in a heap. Blood seeped out of the gray bandages, and I could feel my heat dissipating into the freezing cabin.

I felt Night Sky clamp her jaws on my mane, but I twisted away, curling up on the floor.

"Now you opened up that cut of yours again." She muttered, rolling me over and tugging at the bandages.

I shook her off and tucked my legs into my chest. She stood over me, regarding me with her steely blue eyes. I sobbed and blinked away fresh tears. "Why am I alive …" I whimpered, burying my head in my hooves.

"You're lucky. Not everypony gets to die in the wasteland." Night Sky replied grimly, sitting on her bottom. "My crew patched you up. Though I nearly beat your brains out …" She turned her head low, glaring at me. "You kicked one of my ponies in the face and choked another one of 'em out. Look at you now, walking all over the place wrapped up like that. You ain't so soft for a stable pony, are you?" The mare chuckled. "No wonder you survived."

"What the fuck … did you just say?" I breathed, rising to trembling hooves.

"What?"

"No wonder I survived … I watched my friends die … and I ran." I chuckled, darkly, baring my teeth as I looked the mare in the eye. "Maybe I didn't want to come back. Did you think for once that maybe I didn't want to survive?" I snapped, tears streaming down my face.

She stayed my glare and stared back, unflinching.

"You ain't got a choice to just die, Red Dawn."

"Bullshit!" I hissed. "I walked out into that blizzard thinking I wouldn't be coming back. You think I want to be here?" I cried, choking on my own tears. "Do you fucking think I want to be alive in this shithole?!" I shouted hoarsely into her face. Night Sky's gaze did not relent.

Night Sky clenched her jaw and gave me a ghastly look. "This place may be a shit hole … but it's all we've got left." She said, softly. I looked down her chest and saw flecks of blood all over her barding.

It changed nothing.

"I'm leaving, and you're not going to stop me," I stated, close enough to her muzzle to feel her shallow breaths.

I wiped away my tears and pushed past the mare, zipping up my barding and throwing on my saddle bags. She just stared after me as I limped out the door and started down a flight of stairs. Two ponies sat at a bar below. I trotted past them to the door, and they looked up from their shot glasses, eyeing at me irritably.

"The hell are you doing?" One of them grated, getting off his stool.

Night Sky poked her head over the railing. "Let him go." She said, simply.

The stallion snorted and returned to the bar, not even pausing once to glance over his shoulder. The mare sitting next to him followed me with her pink eyes as I limped to the door.

As soon as I stepped out, the unforgiving storm hit me. Engulfed in frozen powder, I made my way blindly through the snow, the drifts threatening to swallow me whole. I could faintly make out lonely lights and other ramshackle buildings across the street as I plodded across the shifting, snowy dunes.

I kept walking, my eyes only opening once to see if the lights were several desolate yards behind me. I whimpered, sobbing with tears that hurt to shed as I gazed longingly at the picture I held in my hoof.

My head was spinning and the gash on my chest had either clotted or froze. I took a shuddering breath and slumped into the pale.

Days ago I had been afraid to let go of the life I'd been living in the stable. I could have died. Back at the stable, I could have died a scalding death. I was afraid that I'd leave them all behind, but instead, they left me to fend for myself in this frozen hell. Night Sky and her ponies had given me a second chance I never wanted.

Now, even surrounded by those surface dwellers, I was still alone. So alone.

All I wanted to do now was join them. I couldn't finish what we started without them. We were supposed to find the talisman together. Together!

"Anywhere but here …" I wept, "Goddesses … anywhere but here." My weakened body was wracked with quaking shivers, my frayed barding exposed to the wind and snow that swirled around me. I didn't care.

I should have died.

I moaned feverishly, reaching into my bags to pull out the same shovel I'd used to dig Spring Fresh's grave, and started digging. Tears welled out of my bloodshot eyes as I stabbed at the frozen earth again and again, only to freeze along my cheeks with every chilling, agonizing minute that slaved by.

My limbs were numb and my consciousness was pervaded by a tunneling, skull splitting headache that threatened to send me sprawling into the powder. My heart labored weakly and my body pleaded with me to stop. Every fiber of my being wanted to give up.

But I toiled onward, not caring even as my ears and limbs swelled and blistered with throbbing chilblains. I collapsed into the snow, writhing with every laborious breath.

Give up. Just give up.

I pulled myself to my hooves with a grim resolve and speared the shovel through the frozen earth once more. I wouldn't stop digging until I'd hollowed out a grave for each of my friends. I thought of them as I dug, their memories – the burden of surviving while they did not, weighed down heavily upon my shoulders.

With every grave I finished, I buried my burdens. One by one, I'd bury them all.

I dredged out another grave and moved on, tearing into the earth without pause. Every heave of unearthed soil was in their memory. I plunged the shovel into the earth and struggled to break the soil, my magic failing me as my horn flickered and died. An agonizing jolt of pain surged through my skull and I howled into the night, my brain threatening to split asunder.

I moaned, slaving through the torment and bit down on the shovel's handle and continued. I broke the earth, this one for Dew Drops. I wailed her name into the darkness, screaming for the storm to take me to her until my throat went raw.

"Goddesses – anywhere but here!" I howled beseechingly. "TAKE ME AWAY!" I cried out in desperation before I crumpled to the snow in a tangle of writhing, blistering limbs.

I took a shuddering breath and stared grievously into the sky. My pallid flesh was covered in sores that throbbed dully in my fading consciousness. I listened to my slowing heartbeat as the wind blew a frigid requiem fit for a funeral.

A black figure clad in thick barding entered the blurry, veiny tunnel that was my field of vision. The pony helped me to my hooves, and I leaned on its shoulder.

"What've you done …" I heard Night Sky murmur as she stared with wide eyes at the six graves I'd hollowed out of the earth.

I managed a few painful steps towards the final grave I'd dug. The one I'd dug for myself.

"I need to finish this …" I wheezed, clamping my jaws around my shovel's handle and starting towards the half-dredged hole.

Night Sky ripped the shovel out of my mouth and swung it hard into my skull. I tumbled to the snow, blood trickling down my forehead.

"That's enough." She said, tucking the spade into her bags. "I don't know you or your friends, but I'll tell you this much: dying isn't gonna help nopony. Everypony that's alive has lost somepony."

I hacked out scarlet ichor, glaring at her.

"What do you know about losing shit …" I asked, darkly, my voice trembling.

Night Sky's eyes narrowed with icy malice. She unzipped the lower half of her barding and it fell away before me.

My heart almost stopped.

"Too much, I'm afraid." She replied softly, shivering through clenched teeth, wiggling the stubs that used to be her wings. I eyed the scarred flesh over what was supposed to be her cutie mark, a symbol of a lightning bolt branded her mottled flesh. She zipped on her barding and bit my mane, yanking me to my hooves.

"I'm … sorry …" I rasped weakly.

Night Sky gave me a cold stare. "You might think you got a choice to die, but out here, you ain't got any other choice but to live. Because there ain't anything out here that'll just let you curl up and die – that'd be too easy. There's never an easy way out. There's no mercy for the weak, and there's never no rest for the weary ... you live, and while you're alive, you do everything you can to stay alive."

My eyes fluttered closed as she pushed me onto her back and hauled me back to civilization.

---

The sky .. I never thought I'd ever see it…. this can't be the same sky my ancestors soared…

"Sky … can't … see…" Darkness. I saw only darkness.

Let's just find the damn thing and go…

Phantasms billowed around me, murmuring into my limp ears.

"Can't … won't …."

You're fine, Red. Just catch your breath; we can make it.

Their ghosts whispered to me, coaxing me onward through the night.

"Try … I'll …"

We have ponies waiting for us, waiting for you to come back home. If you give up, if I give up – If any of us gives up, the game's over.

I was tired. I just wanted to rest.

"No! I can't … dead … gone."

The haunting specters encircled me like predatory birds, turning against me in anger. Their lifeless, frozen coats brushed against my own, chilling my very soul. I was letting go and they were holding on.

Goddesses, Red, you got Amber killed and then you let Star trot out there on his own….

I sobbed, feeling the warmness of my blood seeping away from me to dissipate into glacial nothingness.

… knew it was going to happen! Now we're … you're …

"I'm sorry … I'm sorry!" I tried moving my limbs, but they wouldn't budge.

I can't go on like this, Red …

Shadows surged over my still body. A corpse. A corpse to join the rest.

Mommy, no! Don't go!

"Don't let go … don't …!"

It's too late now … I tried to die … I'm so sorry …

A cloudy mist surrounded me, engulfing me in its chilling touch.

"Too late for everypony … too late for the stable …"

We're not done yet… don't give up on our Stable.

"Dew Drops …" I rasped, losing my voice with every exertion.

Promise me.

My mouth struggled to open through the rime that sealed my lips.

As long as there's still one of us going, as long as there's one pony still moving, there's still hope…

My chest trembled and convulsed, my lungs fighting for air that would never come. I could feel the darkness closing in; I could feel the frozen gales taking me away.

Spring Fresh's voice crooned in my thoughts.

Sompony's sleeping … through a bad dream …

The quaking intensified. Balefire bombs fell from the sky, wrenching the once verdant garden apart, burning away the darkness. The ground opened up beneath my hooves and fires licked at my green coat. I could feel it now, the pain, the agony of bruised, freezing flesh.

I thrashed my hooves as the aftershock rattled my bones, threatening to shatter me into thousands of emerald shards.

I need to get you someplace safe … A mare whispered, my lips moving in time with her words.

My hooves reached out in front of me, and I met Dew Drops' eyes for the last time. The stable's alabaster walls crumbled around me.

In a bloodied heap, I lay pinned beneath the rubble, the 299 ponies of Stable 29 looking up at me through the basement door.

We'll find a way, I promise… Dew Drops' haunting voice whispered to me.

"No … it's over…" I whimpered, gazing wearily at my crushed limbs. My life blood pooled around me, seeping through the debris that crushed my trembling body into the balefire-scorched floor. Fire light danced equine shadows across my contorted expression, the murmurings of 299 stable ponies begging me to get up. I moaned, unable to move, my spine shattered and my legs buried beneath the rubble.

The voices of my friends, family, and everypony from Stable 29 coalesced into a single, pleading sound. My ears perked weakly as Peach Petals' words reached out to my limp, dying form.

I believe in you ponies. You'll come back … you have to…

I reached out with a foreleg, the balefire parting before me. I reached out with another, my hoof running against the fabric of Dew Drops' blue scarf. I can't ... give up. She never wanted this. I promised her I wouldn't.

Please … I can't lose you too. I don't know what I'll do … my mother begged.

"You won't …" I sobbed.

We're not done yet. Don't give up on our Stable.

"I … won't."

Promise me.

"... I promise."

The rubble gave way to my writhing limbs as I dragged my foreleg across the blackened floor.

"I won't give up!" Blood trickled out of my mouth. The bullet holes on my leg and above my collar bone seeped with fresh blood. It was nothing.

Tomorrow it will be over…

I roared with renewed vigor, fighting against the darkness that threatened to claim me. I kicked and thrashed, bucking my legs through the rubble.

A white light shone upon my face as I rose from the detritus, my coat covered in dried blood and bruised black and blue. I felt its warmth grace my cheek, driving away the shadows and balefire.

For the world will soon be waking … to a summer day…

I reached out with a hoof, and Dew Drops' hoof met mine.

In that instant, the world fell away beneath my hooves and I tumbled into lucidity.

---

I woke up in the same cot. This time, the gas lamp was shut off, and the window shuttered closed. I didn't want to look outside anyways. Not anymore, at least.

I shivered under my now completely bandaged coat. Every part of me, even my ears, were wrapped in wool. I rolled over, wincing at the sharp pain that skittered across my flesh. I shifted my left hind leg and heard the clinking of empty health potion bottles.

Even now, I could feel my blisters and frostbite healing. But without a super regeneration potion from the stable's clinic, my time spent bandaged up was to be a relatively lengthy one. My scabbing flesh itched under the wraps, and I fought the urge to scratch at them.

I sighed, tucking in my legs in search for warmth. I found none. Next to me was Dew Drops' scarf. It was one of the only things I had left to remember her by. I reached out with my magic, but my horn flared once and died. A dull pain throbbed in my skull.

With a shivering foreleg, I pushed it close to me. I ran a hoof across Dew Drops' scarf, my eyes glazing over the flecks of dried blood that peppered its soft fabric. I closed my eyes and hugged it close, nuzzling it with a tenderness that made my heart ache.

Nothing I can do will bring her back.

I laid there thinking about them. My mom, most of all. I wonder what she would think if she learned I'd given up. That I'd let the wasteland win.

No. My mother's expectations were not the only thing that mattered now. 294 stable ponies were still counting on our return. Every hour, every day I wasted away was one day closer to the end of their rations.

How foalish was I. I was being selfish; what I wanted didn't matter. I knew then that the lives of 294 other ponies balanced on my hooves. It didn't make me feel any better knowing that I was the last hope for my stable. Every other pony that had stepped out that door had perished.

I was all they had left.

I, the unfledged engineer pony who, when was younger, didn't know what end to screw in a lightbulb, was all they had left. I mean, there was only one way you could screw it in! I heaved a bitter, self-deprecating laugh and stared up darkly at the ceiling.

I chuckled, "You're all fucked." I snorted, laying my head on the unfluffed pillow. I never worked alone. Even afterhours at engineering, Dew Drops usually waited for me to finish whatever I was doing before we both left. Sometimes I'd find her sleeping under some piping or lying on the floor next to my busy body.

Never. Work. Alone.

I wrapped Dew Drops' scarf around my neck. Even with them gone, I knew then that I'd never be alone. Like my mother had told me, my father had been there with us this whole time, watching me from the Everafter. So were my friends, and I knew even now, they were still counting on me to finish what they started.

Not by lying in a grave I'd dug for myself. Not by laying here on this bed either.

I limped over to my bags and bit down on the lip of my last health potion. I tipped my head and downed it in seconds, whistling as its magic stacked with my previous doses to speed up my regeneration. I didn't feel good enough, but it'd have to do.

I pulled out my security barding and laid it out on the dusty wooden floor. I fixated upon the numbers that were stenciled onto the back of its collar: 29. I zipped it on and trotted over to the door, fumbling with the doorknob. I really wasn't going to get used to walking around without my magic. I pushed the door open, and peeked outside.

Down the hall were three more rooms. Their doors were open, so I assumed everypony was downstairs. I slowly made my way downstairs, the wooden boards beneath my hooves creaking with every step. The smell of alcohol and bitter cigar smoke made my nose crinkle as I poked my head over the railing. Sitting around a table, sharing drinks, were Night Sky and two other ponies.

She blinked and caught me in her peripherals.

"Well look who it is." The mare said, the other ponies turning to see me.

"You better not be thinking 'bout running again, you lil shit." A gruff sounding pony with an eye patch growled, levitating a shot glass to his lips. The ash coloured unicorn downed it and took a puff from a cigar he held in his teeth.

I frowned. There was a distinct bruise on his muzzle. He must be the one I bucked in the face. Good, from the looks of him I'd bet he deserved it.

"Well come on down, we were just talking about you." Night Sky said with a smile.

"I bet you were." I muttered, leaning against the railing the entire way down.

I settled down on an empty barstool amongst the three other surface dwellers. A mare slid to me a shot glass across the table. I looked at her nervously. I remembered her pink eyes distinctly. She was the mare I tried to strangle to death in my pain driven hysteria a day ago.

"No hard feelings, I hope?" I said, with a wry grin.

She snorted, nodding her head once.

"We've all had the urge to choke a bitch." She said, "Can't say I haven't done that to anypony else sitting here. Well, cept you, o'course." The lavender mare scoffed, staring at me with what I hoped wasn't a promise. "I'm Sprinkles, by the way."

"Red Dawn." I said. I looked around the narrow rectangular room and saw that it too was made of a mixture of wooden planks and corrugated metal. A few round tables stood here and there, but most didn't have enough chairs around them to sit the number of ponies that were drinking at our table. Inside the fireplace at the far end of the room, a stack of blackening wood glowed warmly, making the room somewhat more pleasant than upstairs. This might have been a tavern at some point, but given its emptiness, I figured that they must've appropriated the place for themselves.

Stenciled on the wall above the bar's counter were the words 'Rough Riders', reinforcing my previous thought. I wondered for a moment who these ponies were and what this place was. Ever since I woke here, I didn't even bother to ask where the hell I was.

"This some kind of town?"

"Guess you can say that. Dusktown's a caravan stop for travelers heading down South to New Applooza. Total population of forty three ponies and one griffon." The town sounded rather quaint for a post-apocalyptic safe haven. "Every now and then we go out to escort caravans heading up to the Frozen North."

I cocked an eyebrow. To me, the thought of there being more survivors living in this winter wasteland was shocking. "You mean … there're others?"

They looked at me like I'd said something stupid. The gruff unicorn sniggered, chewing on his cigar.

"Forgot you were a stable pony for a sec. Sure there is. Though not everypony's as welcoming as us here in Dusktown." Night Sky chuckled bitterly. It sounded like there was more than what she felt comfortable to talk about.

I looked out a window by the door and saw that the storm had calmed. The silhouettes of thickly barded equine shapes milling about made being alive in this shithole a little less disheartening. If there were ponies still alive out here, then there was still hope for finding what my stable needed.

"What with all the Red Eye and Unity horseshit, we haven't seen too many caravans coming up here lately. The North's got its own problems; we don't need any of those crazy southern folk coming up here and making things worse." Night Sky added, pouring herself a glass of whiskey.

"Red and Unity what?"

"Slavers and alicorns. You don't want to be traveling by yourself. You might get chained up and put to work up north at East Eden or south by Fillydelphia. And if you're a unicorn … well, like I told you earlier, there are worse things than death if you come across somepony chortling about Unity."

"A-alicorns? Like … like the Goddesses?" I asked hopefully.

The unicorn stallion laughed at me in his harsh, gravelly voice.

"There ain't no goddesses out here, boy. Celestia and Luna've been dead for a looong time."

I clenched my jaw, glaring at the stallion. The Goddesses were all I had left out here. I wouldn't let the wasteland take them from me. Or me from them.

"I don't fucking care … they're Goddesses and they always will be."

He sighed, giving me a crass chuckle before puffing on his cigar. I wanted to take that thing and shove it down his throat.

I needed something to calm my frayed nerves. I focused my horn, clenching my jaw as I tried to levitate the shot glass. I groaned, my head only hurting even more, and hung my head dejectedly.

"Damnit."

"It's called magical burnout." Night Sky said, pulling my attention from the shot glass that refused to budge. "You work yourself too hard, and you… well, you burn out. Can't use your magic till you rest up."

Son of a ... "How long till I'm better?" I demanded, hoarsely.

The mare shrugged.

"Maybe a few days? It all depends on you." Night Sky leaned over the table. "Don't do anything fuck-stupid and you should be fine in a few days, I'd imagine." She narrowed her eyes at me and added, with a tinge of irritation, "Considering that shit you pulled off last night, you probably shouldn't even be down here trotting around."

"I don't have time to just sit around." I muttered.

"Huh? What are you doing outside of your stable anyhow?" Sprinkles asked.

"Come to say hello to the ponies you fucks left behind?" The unicorn stallion growled, baring his teeth.

I glared at the bastard. "Better down there than up here." I snorted. I shook my head, still keeping my stare, "I don't feel sorry for any of you at all."

"Pipe down, Bone Charm." Night Sky intoned, knocking the stallion with a hoof. "He had it rough when he was just a colt." He snorted, giving me a look that promised a bucking. Bone Charm, huh? He sure does have a charming personality. That bastard.

I stayed my glare as I craned my neck, biting the glass and tipping it back. The whiskey burned down my throat, and I let out a shivering snort as my insides warmed a little.

"What does it matter to you ponies?"

"We didn't save your ass for nothing, stable colt. Nopony's stupid enough to walk out into a storm like that. It'd be dandy if I knew why I had to waste 12 of our healing potions on you." The gruff unicorn stallion said, blowing a ring of smoke to dissipate over my muzzle. I stifled the urge to cough, and choked it down, scowling at him. "Then you had to walk out into the snow and try to get killed, again."

I snapped, leaning over the table to look him in the eye. "If it were up to me I'd go back, sit behind that door, and forget about everything outside." I folded my forearms over my chest. "Anywhere is better than here ..." Even if it meant I had to die to get away from this place. This place would never be my home. It would be my grave if I never returned.

He sneered, "Go down south, hell, go anywhere on this planet and it's all the same." Bone Charm began, "And if you don't know, stables all across Equestria've been opening up and nopony's been coming out alive. Soon, I bet your cozy little hole won't be so different.

I fought to keep my composure. "I don't care about this place … I don't care what you think about me, and most of all, I don't care about you. I'd close those doors and leave you behind! I stepped out that door and I knew why we never opened our doors to let anypony in – because nothing outside those doors was worth saving!"

He wore a challenging smirk, saying, "Then why don't you? Scurry back into your hole and lock us out again. I lived forty years of my life here washing my hands in blood just to survive, and you waltz out of that warm stable and bitch and whine, and threaten to kill yourself just because life just got a little harder for your manicured hooves. I've lost too much to have a single sliver of pity for you, boy.

"The last thing we need is another mouth to feed. So dream your sweet dreams in those underground halls of yours while we scrape on by up here!"

I stood up from my stool, knocking it over. "Listen here, you surface dwelling vermin –"

Night Sky intervened, slamming a high caliber revolver on the table.

"Quiet, ladies. You two get into a fight and I'll mop one of you across the floor." She said rather indelicately. "So what's your story, Red?" Night Sky asked – no, she demanded. The mare cocked her head and leaned across the table.

I tapped my forehooves together apprehensively. I barely knew these ponies. Sure, they saved my life, but Bone Charm didn't like stable ponies too much. What if they tried going back to my stable now that they know it's been opened? Can it even be opened again?

"Our Water Talisman broke," I said, quietly with a hint of bitterness. "So myself and five other ponies set out to find another."

The gruff unicorn whistled, "Damn was I right about that." He drawled, puffing another ring of smoke my way, "It's only a matter of time ..." He chuckled grimly.

Sprinkles poured me another glass and slid it across the table to my hoof.

"We found you by yourself, so I suppose the others that came with you are …"

She caught my grim stare and fell silent. I downed the whiskey in silence as the others fidgeted with their hooves. Awkward.

"Well if it makes you feel better, we cleaned up those furies afterward." Night Sky said, folding her forelegs across her chest. "Us and another group teamed up and wiped em out."

"It doesn't." I muttered.

"Wasn't supposed to. What matters to me is that we get paid." The gruff unicorn said, knocking his hooves together. I was starting to hate that pony.

"What are you ponies? Mercenaries?"

They nodded in unison.

"Yeah. We picked up a contract to put a dent in the snow fury population around these parts. I say we fucked em up pretty good." Sprinkles replied. "Maybe now we'll have more visitors around here."

I thought for a moment, shivering at the memories of the psycho ponies erupting out of the snow. "Snow Furies." I sneered. "That what they're called?" Memories of psycho ponies frothing from the mouth flashed before my eyes.

Night Sky nodded. "Yeah. Though you might hear southerners call 'em 'raiders'. Round these parts, we call 'em furies. They like burying themselves in the snow to surprise anypony that comes they're way. They're just a bunch of sick fucks that ambush caravans or traders down by the Crystal Highway and all the way down to Poneva and the Crystal Border Lands –"

"Poneva?" I blurted out suddenly, interrupting her.

Night Sky arched a brow.

"What about it?"

I looked down at my shot glass, both my forelegs supporting me over the table. "Word is, in my stable, an old StableTec facility was built there." I began, and looked up. "We were heading that way to find one."

The midnight coated pegasus snorted, "Well good luck, I mean, I don't think there're any Water Talisman's anypony's willing to give up."

"It's worth a try." I muttered, my voice trembling. "It's our only hope."

"If you say so." Night Sky said skeptically, getting up from her chair.

"What do you know about Poneva?"

Bone Charm put out his cigar and folded his legs across his chest. "Well I'll say that there ain't no Ponevan that done me good in my lifetime." The unicorn stallion snorted. "Cept pay me caps."

"I wouldn't do you any good if I were a Ponevan." I muttered.

"Fuck you just say?" he growled.

Sprinkles leaned over the table. "Listen, kid, Charm isn't kidding. That city is no good. They've got all sorts of bad ponies you don't even want to know about."

"You make it sound like I'll get eaten by a dragon or something." I scoffed, tapping my forehooves together.

They looked at me with hard eyes. Not even a chuckle. Okay, that didn't sound too good. Night Sky returned with a few flat slices of bread from a loaf that didn't rise.

"What's this talk about dragons?"

"Red Dawn here wants to go up to Poneva." Sprinkles said, gnawing on a slice.

My face lit up as I asked, "Can you take me there?"

She thought for a moment, and shrugged. "If you're planning on staying there, you're on your own, bud. But we're heading up that way to turn in a few contracts."

I smiled, something I haven't done genuinely in what seemed like forever.

"That's great –"

"But we're not going there any time soon. If you want to come, you're going to have to roll with us to finish whatever contracts we have left before we turn in."

I frowned, pursing my lips. I had nowhere else to be, and I didn't know anypony else.

"Whatever gets me to Poneva in one piece." I said, finally with a drawn out sigh.

Bone Charm barely suppressed a chuckle, "Wait till he sees the Bloodletters and Snow Devils. You'll be regretting coming up here soon enough, stable colt."

My expression darkened.

---

"I already am."

I followed Night Sky outside into the soft, cold breeze. My hooves sunk deep into the snow that had piled up overnight. The blizzard had buried everything but the buildings outside, and ponies with shovels were laboring to clear the snow off their porches.

The town was shockingly rife with pony life., albeit, a life I could never have related to. Back in Stable 29, young ponies were never assigned occupations until they received their cutie marks. Here, blank flanks labored with their parents, pulling plows that cleared the immense mounds of snow off the single, main road that ran along the town's midsection. But here, there was a mutual goal both our worlds strived forward to: surviving. Just as we survived through the participation of every able bodied pony, these surface dwellers did the same, and more. It was, what I assumed, a major contribution to their survival in this frozen wasteland.

All around us, ponies worked together to push away the result of last night's snow storm, and within minutes, a wide path of flattened snow stretched from one end of the town to the next as wagons began pulling out of scrap metal garages and rolling down its length.

Next to the Rough Riders' tavern were several other shops with a variety of items for sale. We walked past each, stopping for a moment to look inside a gun store that sold boxes of ammunition that I both could and couldn't recognize. Night Sky window shopped for a bit, taking count of what supplies she needed for tomorrow's merc contracts.

We returned outside into the relative cold, and I panned my vision across the sky. Damn. I need to stop doing that. But in my sickness, I did see something up there that was rather unusual.

I did notice that there was a lack of pegasi amongst these ponies. All I saw were earth ponies and unicorns hauling around more than their weight or levitating shovels and other small tools, respectively. There was not a single sound of flapping wings in the chilling breeze. No sign of the feather winged ponies I'd lived with back at Stable 29. It was odd, but not inherently disturbing.

It seemed as if the surface had been settled by unicorns and earth ponies and only unicorns and earth ponies since time immemorial. Was 200 years enough to forget the existence of our cloudborne brethren? Were they blasted into extinction when the balefire bombs decimated their cloud cities? There was not a single pegasus in the air as Night Sky and I trotted throughout town.

In a clearing walled off by lines of deplorable metal stakes was a field of headstones. We walked past it, and I stopped for a moment to watch a pony mare kneel in the ashen drifts next to three freshly dug graves. She sobbed and murmured incoherently, cradling her head in her hooves.

Night Sky turned to glance over her shoulder, eyeing me curiously. I turned back to the mare, and back at Night Sky; she shook her head and gestured me to follow her.

"What happened to them?" I whispered, trotting beside her.

Night Sky gazed on forward, her face stone cold.

"Zebras." She said simply, and nothing more.

I gave her a puzzled stare, unsure of what she had meant. Zebras? Did zebras do that? I supposed it was none of my business, and I left the pony to grieve for whomever she had lost. The mare's sobs faded into wind as we made our way through the town's only road.

A few yards down the street from the Rough Riders' tavern was a boot shaped structure that puffed out smoke from its chimney. From inside glowed a warmth that beckoned me to enter. Above its door hung a neon sign that glowed with the words 'diner'. The smell of bread and … what was that? It smelled like a steam accident at engineering. Meat? Both entered my nostrils and filled me with mixed feelings of hunger and revulsion. Did these ponies actually eat meat? We walked inside, the warmness of a furnace and a hearth loosening my tense muscles as we took seats next to other wastelanders who eyed my pipbuck curiously.

I waved to them nervously and they looked away, chatting among themselves.

"Not too many ponies've seen a stable dweller before." Night Sky said, resting her forelegs on the counter in front of us. A lightbulb flickered dimly above us, and a pony mare with stained overalls unscrewed it with her magic and replaced it.

It shined brighter than the other hanging, barewired bulbs around the room and bathed Night Sky and I with a white glow. The spotlight was on the stable dweller, and ponies were giving me a variety of looks, ranging from curiosity to the same vehemence Bone Charm displayed to me at the tavern.

"Maybe they're more interested in the bandages that are wrapped around my muzzle." I looked like a corpse! The mare that had replaced the bulb above us trotted behind the counter, a stick of what looked like charcoal and a slip of paper floating in her magical grip.

Night Sky offered to buy me a bowl of … stew. Floating inside of it were a variety of vegetables – which I was entirely okay with, until I saw, floating visibly underneath the soup, dark chunks of what looked like meat.

I gulped and shook my head. She shrugged and pushed a few bottle caps across a warm counter to the pony behind it. That must've been their currency.

"Why are you doing this for me?" I asked her quietly as the unicorn mare slid to me a slice of bread and water and Night Sky a bowl of soup. "I don't want to sound ungrateful …" I trailed off, biting into the surprisingly soft, yet crusty bread. "… but … why? Why didn't you just leave me in that blizzard?"

Night Sky lapped at her bowl and paused for a moment.

"Ponies gotta stick together out here. If we don't, well, we die." She answered, before returning to her soup. I watched her chew on one of the chunks of red meat and swallow, much to my suppressed disgust.

"That's reasonable." I brought the water to my mouth, but my pipbuck's radmeter crackled audibly. I hesitated, and placed it back down on the counter. "But how do you ponies live like this? I was expecting less of an actual town and more of a …"

"Shithole." She said, taking the words from my mouth.

"That's not what I –"

"It's fine. I expected as much from a stable dweller." Night Sky said with a terse chuckle. "This town has established trade routes with Poneva and a few towns down south."

I nodded, taking another bite from my bread.

"You said you're a mercenary. What kind of work do you do?"

She licked at her empty soup bowel and wiped her mouth with a forehoof.

"Any work we can." She replied with some resignation. "Anything worth caps is worth doing."

I blinked. "Anything?"

"Anything."

My throat was parched and I eyed the radioactive water longingly.

"You can drink that, you know? Just pop a rad-away if you start feeling dizzy."

I sighed, shaking my head as I downed its contents.

"So you'd kill a pony if that's what you were being paid to do?" I asked with a hint of distaste. "You'd kill somepony if that's what it took?"
"If that's what it took, why not? You said you were looking for a Water Talisman. Wouldn't you do anything to bring one back so everypony in your stable would live?"

I thought for a moment. Would I really do … anything? Anything to get my hooves on a water talisman? How many ponies would I have kill for it? I tensed, frowning at my hooves in a whirling seesaw of self-doubt as they rested on the counter.

"Why? Is that what Equestria's come to?"

"This ain't Equestria anymore, Red Dawn." She said, bitterly. "And I'm no trader. I'm no gangster either. I'm a mercenary because I have a choice to live or die on my terms. I don't have no need for protection along the roads, I got my rifle and my crew for that. I don't have no need to take orders from some pony because I take orders from me and myself."

The unicorn mare behind the counter levitated a pitcher of water to me, and I nodded thankfully as she poured me another glass. "It's a choice to survive, then." I said, simply, with some understanding. "To be free."

"Exactly. I have a choice to do what I want to do, and I do it all for caps." She sighed, resting her cheek on a hoof, "I get to choose. And not everypony gets that choice. You and me? We're lucky. We're lucky we're not slaves. We still got a choice – we can choose to live or keep on living. It's why I hit you with that shovel. You were wasting that choice on something stupid." I bit my lower lip at that, my expression visibly hurt. "Being alive is all that matters. You can't save your stable dead, Red Dawn." She said softly, resting a hoof on my shoulder. "I'm a mercenary and I choose to live and continue doing what I need to do to continue living."

I didn't know what to say to that. It sounded perfectly reasonable in my head.

"You have a choice to live, and that means you gotta do what you need to do, Red Dawn. Maybe even if that means you live and somepony else doesn't." She ordered for herself a cup of water, and took a swig. "Personally, I don't just go around taking any contract. I take ones I know matter to us ponies in Dusktown. If it means I gotta kill some poor pony, I make sure she deserves it."

"That's … commendable?" I said, unsure.

"There's no escaping it, Red Dawn." Night Sky took another sip. "Out here, killing is just part of living." She said with a disturbing smirk.

I frowned at her, bothered by that statement. But I shook away the doubt from my mind. I pushed away my fears, because a darker part of me felt that I was just being naïve. If I was going to survive this, I needed to be strong. I needed to do what needed to be done. "Whatever it takes." I said finally.

"That's the spirit." She balanced her glass of water on the surface of her hoof and held it out to me. "To life."

I almost tried levitating my glass, but, in exasperation I did the same, and our glasses clanked.

"To life."

---

After accompanying her back to the stores and helping her carry back their supplies to the tavern, she sent me below the floorboards to the basement to peruse their armory to arm myself for tomorrow's contracts. Well, I guess it was an armory. It was mostly just a bunch of tables set with disassembled guns, random parts, tattered barding in need of repair, and boxes full of ammo and magazines. I wrinkled my nose at the scent of cordite and oil as I came down the stairs.

Whoa! What the hell is that thing!? I almost said that out loud.

The youngest member of the Rough Riders, a griffin, meandered about through the tables, sifting through boxes of gun parts. The gray feathered griffin saw me come down the dim stairwell and gave me a sideways glance.

"You're the pony Night Sky picked up, aren't you?" she asked.

I fidgeted on my hooves, taking a deep breath, grinning crookedly. "The one and only."

The half-bird-lion thing - I mean, the griffin, walked up to me, her claws tapping loudly against the wooden floor. "What are you doing here?" She kept her distance. So did if a bandaged up, half lucid pony was going to do anything remotely dangerous. Besides... she was a griffon! A griffon! From the story books... the feathered beasts from the west! And I was talking to one.

Trying not to stare at her lithe, alien form, and dangerously sharp talons, I said, "I'll be tagging along with your ... uh… your crew for a contract or two." Her brow furrowed at that. "Night Sky said you could help me pick out a gun?"

She tapped her beak with a claw and nodded.

"Uh, sure. I guess." The griffon gestured me to follow her and we waded through the junk to the far end of the basement. We came to room lined with lockers. A dim light bulb flickered over a table at the center of the room. "Anything not in a locker is up for grabs."

I blinked. Everything was in a locker though. Oh look. I walked over to a table and found a 10mm pistol. Well I was making progress. I pulled up my pipbuck and sifted through my inventory. I found that I had 53 10mm rounds stocked up.

I levitated the pistol – ugh. I bit down on its mouth grip and tested its weight. I wasn't used to well … anything without my magic. It was a few pounds heavy, not too much for me to handle, I hoped. I've never shot a gun from my mouth before.

"Well I should be good –" I turned around and the griffon wasn't there anymore. I waded through the detritus and saw her leaning over a table in the main room, poking a black box. "What's that for?"

She looked up from her claws, "Oh this? Well, it was a radio at some point."

A radio you say? My smile beamed as she continued, "It broke last week, and I've been trying to figure out why it stopped working."

"Did you check if your device was plugged in?" I droned, with a wry grin.

She caught my lame sense of humor and chuckled. "I'm no expert at electronics. All I do is clean the crew's hardware," she said, jutting a claw at the disassembled rifles lying about.

"Mind if I take a look?" I asked, trotting up to the table. She shrugged, and stepped away from the radio.

I gave it a look over, and opened it up with a screwdriver I picked out from my bags. I eyed the contents of the radio and saw that there was not a piece out of place. Did she really forget the on/off button?

I pulled the power cord taut and fount a thin indentation over a section along its length.

"Heh, well, I've seen this before." I said, standing on my hind legs, one foreleg on the table to hold me upright.

"Hm?"

"Looks like your radio's going to make it." I said, trying to sound like Dr. Stitches. "But the AC cord's going to need a wire transplant … stat." I looked at her, wrinkling my brow.
She ran a paw through her dark brown head plume and flattened a rogue feather, giving me a weird smile.

"That's … great news, doctor …?"

"Red Dawn." I replied, fishing through my bags.

"My name's Gail." She clenched a paw into a fist and reached out with it. I looked at it for a second, hesitating. My eyes moved to meet the griffon's, and I cracked a nervous smile.

I bumped her fist with a hoof.

"You're a lot less intimidating than the others, you know that?" I said, with a snort, splitting the cord.

"Yeah, I get that a lot. I kinda stand out, ya know, with me hanging around a bunch of hardass mercs all the time." Gail confessed, rubbing her neck. I glanced over at her thin frame and thought she looked kind of cute – ahem, I mean, for a griffon. Everypony else upstairs had that calloused look about them; she seemed sort of fresh.

"Oh … but they're not so bad. They picked me up too when I was just learning how to fly. Bone Charm raised me like I was his own."

I cocked a brow at that. That coarse-hided pony raised a sweet griffon like her? "No way."

"He's kind of a dick sometimes …" Sometimes? "But he has a soft side. My parents were never around as much as he was. But then again they're not around anymore … so …"

My eyes softened. "What happened to them?" I asked gently, pausing.

"My parents were Talon mercs. Wasn't really the best line of work to raise a kid, I guess. They died on a contract and orphaned me."

"Sorry to hear that." Night Sky was right about everypony losing somepony. If I lost my mom … I don't know what I'd do. "And now you're a merc too?"

"Yeah, yeah, 'why follow in your parents' footsteps when it got them killed'." The young griffon sighed, "There's not much to do here but merc work. Unless you want to join one of the gangs up in Poneva or be a slaver, you're just a victim." She shook her head, "And I'm not going to be a victim." Gail stated with conviction.

I gave her a long, curious look. Gail eyed the floor scathingly.

"I had a few run ins with furies and slavers before the Rough Riders picked me up." She murmured. "They had me towing wagons around for them like some kind of pack animal."

"Met a few furies myself." I muttered. I wasn't a merc, gangster, or slaver. I was a stable pony. But out here, it meant nothing to these mercs, especially Bone Charm. I was a victim. I looked back down at my work and returned to it in silence. I realized then that there were two kinds of wastelanders: survivors and victims. And I was a victim.

I bit my lower lip and almost drew blood. A few seconds passed by us in awkward quietude.

"Hmm…" Gail uttered, trying to break the ice. "I like your scarf."

"Thanks. It's … ah … a friend gave it to me." I said sadly. "She isn't around anymore."

Gail seemed disheartened as she leaned on the table next to me. "We've all lost someone."

I nodded, quietly. I saw her eyeing the pipbuck on my foreleg and she pointed at it with a talon.

"What's that thing?"

"It's a pipbuck." I answered, my tongue poking out of my lips as I focused on my work. "It's like a terminal, but on your leg."

"You look like you know a thing or two about arcane contraptions." Gail said.

I chuckled, "Eh, I know my way around a wrench and a screw driver. I was an engineer back at my stable." I thought for a moment, "Still am."

The smell of singed metal made my nose twitch as I soldered in a spare wire I had at the bottom of my bags. It never hurts to bring a handful of spares. Or two. Okay, I was just ready for these kinds of things. Who wouldn't walk out into the unknown without preparing for a few repairs?

I finished with the cord and reassembled the radio.

"There she is, good as new." I said, switching it on only for the radio to flood the room with static.

Gail's face lit up as she fiddled with the contraption.

"Thanks! Now we can have some music playing around here."

The radio burped and snorted random snippets of chatter in between its bouts of noise vomiting, and picked up a channel that garnered our attention.

"- brrrfftt - now, my little ponies, it's time for the news! Now you ponies remember when I told you 'bout those two ponies who crawled themselves out of Stable Two – brrrrffffffffttttttt …."

And the signal died.

"Who was that?" I asked. My brow furrowed as I realized that Bone Charm was right about other stables opening too.

Gail groaned, twisting the tuner back and forth, trying to find the signal. "Sounded like DJ Pon3. It's really hard to get his signal around here."

DJ Pon3 … that name was familiar. The last I heard of that name, it was from a mare, and it was from a memory orb recorded 200 years ago.

" brrrrffttttttt - took out the raider nest in the heart of Ponyville, and saved several pony captives - including the beloved – brrffttttttt - Ditzy Doo! – brrrfffffffftttttt –" and the signal broke out into static once more.

"Damn. Must be the clouds."

"Eh? There's always clouds out though." I remarked with a snigger.

"Yeah, but around these parts, the clouds from beyond the Frozen Wastes blow in from the north and mix with the pegasi's cloud cover. Makes it worse."

Pegasi? "The hell's a cloud cover?"

"Well ever since the pegasi flew up and left everyone down on the surface for dead, they poofed up a layer of clouds to protect themselves." She replied, bitterly. "From us. The half dead survivors. Those feather brained bastards. They always say they're going to swoop down to the surface and save everyone. It's been 200 years since the bombs fell and the cloud cover's never opened up once." She leaned her back against the table and folded her forelegs across her chest. "Never trust a pegasus if you see one."

I sort of felt ashamed; if I was a pegasus, I wouldn't come down here either. "Isn't Night Sky a pegasus, though?"

Gail wore a surprised look on her face.

"H-how'd you … never mind. Well, she's a Dashite. She's the kind of pegasus that got kicked out by her own kind."

I remembered the stubs that used to be her wings. Dear Celestia, that was cruel. I heard from my mother that a pegasus without wings was like a unicorn without a horn. Or anypony without legs.

"Why … why'd they do that to her?"

The griffin shook her head, shrugging.

"She doesn't like to talk about it. Never once did she tell us what happened. I don't think I want to know – it takes a lot to get kicked out like that, I heard." Gail replied empathetically. "Makes me mad how anypony could do that to her. Wow … if I lost my wings, I'd rather be dead."

Gail played with the radio's tuner again, trying to pick up a signal. She sighed and gave up.

"So you said you're tagging along with us for a bit?"

I found a holster lying around on the floor and gestured to her if I could use it. Gail nodded, and I strapped it across my chest, holstering my pistol.

"Not too long, I hope." I replied, dryly. "I have a few things to do on my to-do list and I'm running out of time." I added, with a hint of urgency. I was beginning to wonder when they were going to start their next contract.

"And what's that?"

I sighed, I hoped I didn't have to explain this to everypony I met. I eyed her for a moment; she looked like someone I could trust.

"My stable's Water Talisman broke, so I was planning on hitching a ride up to Poneva to find a replacement when your crew's done with their contracts." I said in a low voice. "Six of us went out of those doors, and I'm the only one who's still alive. I'm all they have left."

Gail nodded, thinking for a moment. "Well you're in luck, because we've only got two contracts left unfinished. They're pretty easy, I guess, so it won't be too much of a hassle for you."

"What kind of contracts? I mean, what are we going to do?"

The griffin went to another table and began reassembling a rifle she'd oiled up earlier.

"Tomorrow we're going to meet a caravan over by the old railroad station about 10 miles out from here and escort them back to Dusktown. Then we're going to lay down some good ol' wasteland justice on some pony murderin' zebra scum."

My ears perked at that last part. Were they responsible for the graves I'd seen earlier today? I touched my chin with a forehoof, my brow furrowing. The first time I heard about zebras, it was in a history book detailing their rampaging war that tore across Equestria. Images of a grisly looking pony with stripes, red eyes, and a menacing mouthful of serrated teeth came to mind when I heard that word.

I gulped. They couldn't possibly … actually look like that, right?

We went upstairs and found that everypony else was asleep. I pointed a foreleg out the window. "Well when's tomorrow, because it's always night time to me."

---

So this was morning, huh?

I sat in the back of a wagon being pulled by some grotesque looking two headed cow thing, chewing my pistol's mouth bit. Morning, apparently, was noticeably lighter than the afternoon or the evening. Gail said something about DJ Pon3's channel being more coherent in the mornings when the skies cleared up somewhat.

I looked up to the clouds and winced, swallowing bile down my throat. Yep, they were still there. I guess what made mornings in the Frozen North different was that you could see the clouds. When complete, total darkness fell upon the land, then it was night. It was still rather gloomy outside, and likewise, equally as depressing.

My breath fogged up in front of my face as I stared out into the distance. A light snowfall sprinkled us with bits of powder, and for once, I felt like I might survive out here. There hadn't been a whiteout in 12 hours. That was good sign.

Behind us were two other wagons full of supplies and a hooffull of trader ponies that seemed about as apprehensive as traveling through the snow as I was.

A winged shape hovered above us ahead of the caravan. Gail flew back and forth to call out reports to Night Sky as she scouted out the path ahead. The others kept an eye out for anything coming in from the sides or behind.

Sprinkles nudged me with a hoof and motioned for me to look outside the wagon.

"You see that?" She said, pointing her hoof out in the distance.

I could barely make out what looked to be a dozen small shapes prowling through the snow.

"What are those things?" I asked, squinting.

"Those're wolves." Sprinkles replied, unpleasantly. "Well, they used to be. Now they're Bloodletters. Nasty little critters that hunt in packs and attack anything that moves."

I narrowed my eyes at the creatures as they disappeared behind an exceptionally large snow drift.

"Well why aren't they attacking us?"

"Because they're not stupid." She gestured to her rifle. "There's too many of us and too few of them, anyways. Thankfully their packs don't get bigger than that." Sprinkles added as the creatures faded into view once more.

"Eh, they're just wolves. Can't get any worse than that right?" I said with a chuckle.

She looked at me sternly.

"There's also Snow Devils. Pray to your Goddesses you never see one, because they're tough, and they don't go down too easily. Used to be bears, I think. They've got claws that can rip through the armor of this wagon." I remembered seeing odd looking skeletons at the bottom of the den Amber Fields had fallen into. Then I remembered the extra pair of jaws that poked out of their mouths. I shivered.

"Okay … so, we got mutant wolves and bears. Anything else I should know about?"

She gave me that stern look again.

The sound of gunfire in the distance grabbed my attention, and my head whirled to its origin. Seconds later, somepony whistled ahead of the caravan before Sprinkles could continue. Gail's winged silhouette landed in front of us as the wagons pulled to a stop.

"Furies ahead, they were in the middle of burying themselves in the snow when they saw me."

Night Sky trotted out of a wagon behind us to meet her.

"How many?"

"I counted about a dozen, maybe more. They're heading here as we speak." Gail replied, clawing at her battle saddle's safety. She took to the skies once more, her sniper rifle scanning the perimeter.

"Alright everypony, form up! Get those wagons in formation!" Night Sky called out to the others who were coaxing the two headed bovines to their places. Within a span of 20 seconds, the three wagons had formed up into a triangle, with each of the mercs including myself, and three trader ponies ducked under their metal frames.

I was crouched next to a trader unicorn that had a shabby looking shotgun held in his magical grip.

"Hey." I said, leaning against the wagon.

"Howdy, pardner."

My ears perked at his accent. I looked over the wagon and didn't see any furies. I guess I could wait for the others to call them out.

"You're not from around here are you?"

"Enope." I regarded him expectantly until he continued.

"Ah stopped by New Applooza for a few sales and a couple bargains. Headin' back up t'Poneva t'stock up on some agristuff." By agristuff he probably meant food. Real food, I was hoping. I thought about the vat grown vegetables and g-modded apples I used to eat at the stable, cringing.

"Poneva, huh? Have you been there before?"

He nodded, "Eeyep." Well this pony seemed to be a stallion of simplicity.

My brow furrowed. Maybe when I get there, if I have the time, I'll try a few.

"Well I'm not from here, either. Came out of a stable not too long ago," I said, waving my pipbuck. "What's it like?"

His eyes widened at that. "You're one'a them stable fellers! Ah don't suppose you're one o'them ponies from Stable 2, huh?" he exclaimed.

"What? Er, no. I'm not." I said, awkwardly, remembering DJ Pon3's fragmented broadcast.

"Oh." He coughed disgruntledly.

I snorted, "Hope I didn't disappoint you too much. I'm from Stable 29."

"Neh, there's just all this excitement down south 'bout somepony clearing the routes of raiders over by Ponyville. Sorry, heard 'stable' and ah got ahead o'muhself." He said, tipping his hat at me. "Well anyways, ah've been to Poneva a few times. It's a purty nice city – if you ignore all the gangs and rampaging hooligans an' such."

Well then. How am I not surprised? Can't there just be one normal thing out here? Wait, I'm ducked under a wagon defending against psychotic murderers, a few minutes after I was looking at a pack of mutant wolves. I'm in the wasteland. Nothing's normal here.

"That's good to know, I guess. I was planning on heading up there too."

The unicorn nodded, "Well fer a first timer, pay the toll at the gates and ya probably won't have no problems." He added, still nodding.

Probably. "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." I picked up my pistol awkwardly in my mouth, and the stallion frowned at me.

"Why're ya holdin' it like that?"

"My 'orn ishn't erking right." I struggled, talking through my mouth bit.

He did that distracting nodding thing again.

"Talk ta me after we tussle with these raiders. Ah might have somethin' that can help ya."

Before I could reply, a bullet whizzed past us and kicked up a small plume of snow. The sounds of hysterical laughter sounded off in the distance.

Night Sky yanked her rifle's charging handle with an audible click.

"They're here! Everypony, on your hooves!"

I chewed on my mouth bit and peeked over the wagon. My eyes forward sparkle, a friend or foe identifier built into my pipbuck, blinked red. I saw them. The ponies – no, the furies, were poking their heads over snow drifts and out of black boulders that jutted out of the earth.

These were the monsters that slaughtered my friends. They may not have been the same ones, but it was too easy to condemn them all. I won't be a victim. Not again.

Crack!

A shot pinged against the wagon's hull a few inches away from my head and I ducked back down reflexively. Then all hell broke loose. The furies screamed, promising, among many eloquently stated things, a horrible ass raping, ocular penetration, flaying, and many others with meanings I didn't want to put too much thought into.

Gunfire erupted between both sides as Bone Charm levitated a light machine gun over the wagon he ducked under and let loose a torrent of lead that sent the furies diving for cover. Gail swooped overhead, lancing the furies with her sniper rifle.

I looked over the wagon and saw one of the furies' head explode.

"Dear Celestia." I murmured. As soon as Bone Charm's fire died down to reload, a handful of the furies brandishing axes and machetes, bounded across the snow towards us, screaming. Those that stayed behind had the sense to cover them with gunfire, forcing me under the wagon once more as a stray bullet pinged against the wagon's frame a few inches from my face. But I didn't duck. Something caught my eye.

I narrowed them at a fury who simply watched the ensuing firefight. Without even a maniacal cackle or an eloquently stated expletive, it just stood there. Observing. A bullet clipped my collar and I dove back under cover.

"Here they come!" I heard Sprinkles shout.

I poked my head over again and entered SATS. I wasn't about to try shooting anything without an aim assist. Time slowed to a halt and I flicked through the targets, my pipbuck gauging my range and effectiveness.

I tagged the closest fury's torso and legs, and tongued the trigger. Bounding recklessly through the snow, the fury took the first few bullets into the chest, staggering momentarily. Then my shots blew out his knees.

Even crippled, the stallion clambered his way to me, picking up small showers of powder in his screaming wake.

"Celestia, do they know when to stop?" Choosing not to waste the rest of my charges on SATS guided rounds on farther targets, I tongued the trigger once more.

Damn it all, I missed every single one. It just wasn't the same without magic!

"C'mon pardner, ante up!" The trader shouted, blasting apart a fury that came too close with his shotgun.

Somepony levitated a sub machine gun around the corner and sunk the trigger back. I dove into the trader, throwing him to the snow as the bullets shrieked over us. My chest stung where some had pancaked over my vest.

"SHIT!" I hissed, the two of us scrambling away from the gunfire. The fury poked her head out and got it sheared off by a blast of buckshot. I swallowed the bile in my throat and stood out of cover.

I took aim once more and came face to face with the frothing mouth of a fury. She was in the middle of heaving herself over the wagon by the time I entered SATS. I didn't even need it this close.

I speared her head like a kabob with a single shot, and she landed on me with a crunch. I cried out, struggling to get the limp corpse off of me when another fury rounded the corner. My tongue twitched and my shots went wide. The fury whooped, coughing blood as he took a few to the chest.

I shut my eyes and flinched, waiting to feel the touch of steel kiss my flesh. There was a loud crack and I opened my eyes to see a large caliber bullet punch out a gaping hole in the fury's throat. He choked and sputtered, mouthing soundlessly through bloody lips.

Gail's shadow passed over me and I lunged at the dying fury and jammed the pistol in his mouth.

A second later, and the fury's head painted my face with dots of scarlet. I shook my head vigorously, snarling as the blood flicked off my muzzle but stained my barding black. The fury I'd crippled earlier crawled into view, brandishing a cleaver, threatening to take my knee caps off.

Without wasting a single breath, SATS aimed a favorable shot through the fury's skull for me. At this range, the bullet lost its velocity and tumbled end over end as it penetrated, blowing his brains out the back of his skull. I exhaled sharply, swallowing the bile that rose up my throat.

Hooves plodded behind me. I whirled around just in time to get nicked by a unicorn mare's glowing switchblade. It painted my cheek red with my blood at its icy edge. I groaned and side stepped, the mare charging through the air I'd been in half a second earlier. She ran her head into the wagon, jostling its contents.

"You cunt!" She snarled, snapping her teeth at me as she lunged once more.

I spun around and bucked her in the throat, slamming her into the wagon again. She coughed and sputtered, gasping for air through the indentation that was her windpipe. I leveled my pistol and yanked the trigger back – and it clicked empty.

"Goddesses damnit!" I screamed, patting down my vest for another magazine. But she was up on her hooves before I could ram it home. The fury charged. I threw my forelegs in front of me and caught her head between them. We fell into the snow, and I drove her face through the powder with her own momentum. I stumbled away, slamming my back into the wagon's frame, hoofing in a fresh magazine.

The mare pulled her head out of the drift, and came at me again, threatening to tear out my nethers with her teeth. I entered SATS, and she halted mid gallop. I tagged her head, and somehow found myself staring into the blues of her eyes as the world froze. These were supposed to be the windows to her soul. But gnarled tendrils of black clawed across the whites of her eyes, boarding up any glimpse of the sentience that made a pony ... a pony.

She might have been beautiful once; the loveliness of her delicate face was marred by grisly blood splatters that I knew were not hers.

Down the length of her coat, I saw that her cutiemark was that of a colourful songbird. I wondered, for a moment – who was she? What she was before she became … this. Was she a birdkeeper? Perhaps she had a marvelous singing voice?

I gulped, struggling to queue my shots. Was there still a pony beneath this madness? Was there any sense, any reason for – for this!? I looked around me and I saw Sprinkles thrusting the barrel of her assault rifle into the gaping mouth of a snow fury. Night Sky was in the process of punching a mare's face in with her forehooves, the blood splatters frozen in midair in the zen silence of SATS.

Behind me, the trader's shotgun bloomed outward a roiling cloud of buckshot into the chest of a rampaging stallion.

These maniacs, these degenerates – these were the creatures that skinned Star Glint alive. They raped, abused, and made a martyr out of Amber. They blew her up in our faces when they could have just killed her and been done with it. I could hear Dew Drops screaming through the squelching tear of meat.

I tagged her legs. The bullets ripped through her knee caps, and she plunged into the snow at my hooves. The pale mare let out a tortured moan, thrashing her bleeding limbs through the drifts, unable to get to her hooves.

"Stop!" I shouted, hoarsely. But she wouldn't listen. I threw myself over her, pinning her bloodied legs to the snow. Tears were streaming down the pony's grimy cheeks. "Why are you doing this!?" I demanded through my teeth.

She murmured something incomprehensible, the black veins in her sclera receding.

"Answer me!"

"I … I …" She whimpered, her right eye twitching uncontrollably. The pony grinded her teeth and clenched her eyes shut, her face contorting into an agonizing grimace as if something was ripping her apart from the inside out.

Her eyelids flew open. "I'LL KILL YOU!" She shrieked, a web of throbbing, black tendrils bulging around her retinas. I felt her switch blade stab into my chest, and I screamed through my mouth bit.

The muzzle flare flashed in her eyes and her head flopped back into the snow. Blood and brains pooled out the neat hole in the back of her skull, her cold blues gazing blankly at me. I watched, ripping the switchblade out of me as the veins receded once more.

"What the fuck are these things…" I murmured, touching the mare's pale face.

I heard a mare scream behind me and turned just in time to see Sprinkles get gutted by a rusty machete. She screamed as the fury wrenched it out of her before falling to the bloodied snow.

I entered SATS and queued a shot at her head. And I missed.

"Shit!" I cried out, eyeing now depleted SATS charges. I clenched my jaw, watching the fury raise the machete to cleave Sprinkles' head off. It fell, and in the time it took for me to scream, the fury's chest cavity blew apart in a rattling barrage of machine gun fire.

She danced against the tirade of bullets before crumbling to the snow like a ragdoll. Bone Charm, his machine gun smoking, screamed for me to duck, and I heard the stomach-churning sound of bullets tearing through meat squelch behind me.

I turned and a fury fell forward on her face, nicking me with a hatchet in her writhing death rattle. I winced, stumbling back to fall next to a squirming, bleeding Sprinkles.

"Red!" She said through a mouthful of blood, clutching her chest with both her forehooves in an attempt to make the bleeding abate. "My bags … health … potion …"

I bit my lower lip, hoofing through her belongings and pulled out the most colourful looking potion I could find. I tipped it into her open mouth and she gulped it down without a word. Being injured like this seemed like second nature to her.

Her flesh stitched together before my very eyes and I sighed, relieved. "It's not over yet." Sprinkles grunted, pushing herself back to her hooves. She mouthed her assault rifle and fired a burst over the wagon behind her. I frowned as a rewarding scream brought a cold smile to her lips.

I hurried back to the trader who jammed the barrel of his shotgun into the mouth of a fury. I shut my eyes and looked away, trying not to look at the gory mess he made all over the snow.

"They're feisty lil critters ain't they?" He shouted over gunfire, racking his shotgun's slider.

I peeked over the wagon and saw a plume of gore fountain into the air – the result of Gail's exceptional aim. The only downside was that she had to pause to hover so she can aim. It was only a matter of time before she –

Gail plummeted from the sky and crunched painfully in the snow, one of her wings trailing scarlet across the powder. The furies screamed, bursting out from behind rocks to a full on gallop. In my mind I saw Lightning Twirl land in the midst of a psychotic mob.

My jaw clenched, and I broke from cover.

"Gail!" I cried out, galloping towards her. She clutched her bleeding chest, wheezing through wet exhales as she scrambled away from the murderous ponies. For a second I wondered what the hell was I doing as I pounded through the snow dodging each lucky bullet at a time.

I barely knew these mercs. I shouldn't care about whether they lived or died, for all that mattered was that Stable 29 lived. I'd sacrifice all these poor, surface dwelling vermin if it meant that everypony in my stable survived.

If I died, all the hope my stable had for survival would die with me. But I galloped on.

I wasn't going to let Gail become a victim. Not like my friends. Bounding straight for me, a fury brandished her spiked club, salivating through the barbaric weapon. In the silence of SATS, I created entry wounds that erupted all over the fury's chest. She collapsed past me, my pulse hammering in my ear drums.

But I wasn't bullet proof. I felt white hot pains spear through me. At this range, I was glad that their bullets didn't lose velocity as I felt one exit out my shoulder. Another one struck one of the bullet proof plates on my chest, and I stumbled, the wind knocked out of me.

Gail screamed, one of the ponies trying to drag her away. I entered SATS, gasping for air, and placed guided rounds through the pony's foreleg. The fury hesitated for a moment, opening his mouth to scream when I spun around and bucked him in the jaw.

I overextended and felt bones break against my hooves, driving his head back to hear a disgusting snap as his neck broke at a disturbing angle.

"Holy shit!" I heard Gail squawk.

That's exactly what I thought when I fell on my ass wide eyed and gawking.

"Red Dawn! Head. Down!" I heard Bone Charm roar, leaping out of cover. Another bullet struck me in the back, pancaking against my vest and driving me face first into the powder. That was painfully convenient because the unicorn stallion laid down a wide arc of machine gun fire over my mane that sent the furies ducking.

Those that did not were perforated with a stream of lead, laughing through gurgling death rattles. I forced myself to my hooves, sputtering through a mouthful of snow and clamped my jaws shut on one of Gail's wings. I proceeded to drag her away from the carnage, my head bent low, bullets shrieking over me.

Night Sky and Sprinkles leaned out of the wagons and kept the furys' heads down when Bone Charm's machine gun ran dry. They fought like a well-oiled machine, taking turns to slam new magazines home.

Halfway back to safety, somepony smashed into me, knocking both of us into the ground.

A fury guffawed manically into my face spraying my muzzle with fetid ropes of spittle. I tried pushing her away, but she had me pinned down as she levitated a metal apple before my eyes. She cackled, biting on its stem and pulling it off with a metallic ping.

It began to puff smoke.

Bullets slammed into her, but she did not relent. The crazed mare stabbed her hooves into my throat, squeezing the life out of me, even as blood trickled out of her grinning mouth and her nose. I choked, my eyes rolling to the back of my head, holding my forelegs out trying in desperation to push her off of me.

Black veins began rooting their tendrils in my field of vision.

"I. Won't. Be. A victim!" I grated, and swung a foreleg into her glowing horn. My hoof connected and her focus dropped. The apple fell and I rolled her over it.

The world around me exploded in a roiling plume of shrapnel and gore. The blast jarred my insides and rattled my bones, launching me a foot off the ground to land in the remains of the fury mare's chest cavity. I stood up on wobbly hooves, and stumbled away in a hazy daze, trailing gore and viscera beneath my legs. I fell to my knees, panting to fill my lungs with air. I forced myself to wobbly hooves and slipped on a trail of gory snow. With a grunt, I fell on one of Gail's wings, and she screeched in agony.

In my dull, disorientated state, I bit Gail's wing once more and dragged her back to the wagon. The adrenaline was abating and I could feel my jaw slackening, my legs tiring, my lungs struggling to fill with air through Gail's feathers and my teeth. I dragged her through the blurriness of my eyes, refusing to give in, to die so easily. These snow furies had made myself and my friends victims before – and I wasn't about to let them make me one again.

I pulled her behind the wagon formation and spat out a mouthful of her feathers before collapsing in the snow, gasping for air. My head was spinning and I blinked away the shock of being blown up for the second time in the last few days. My insides felt like they'd been rearranged by the shock of simply being so close to it. I rolled over and finally let myself go, heaving the contents of my stomach underneath Night Sky's wagon.

The gunfire had died down by the time I got to my hooves as the furies retreated back to whatever icy hole they came from. I teetered on my hooves, and fell against a wagon's frame, gasping for my breath.

"Yeah, run you panzy tailed sons of bitches!" Sprinkles screamed at the fleeing snow furies.

The scrambling was far from over, however, as Gail had a punctured lung and a hole in her wing. She hacked up splotches of scarlet that melted through the snow, clutching her ribs in a vain attempt to quell the bleeding.

"How bad is it?" I sputtered in between breaths, the dizziness fading to a dull headache.

Sprinkles trotted next to me, leaning on her assault rifle. "As long as it went through her, she should be fine."

"Look for an exit wound." Night Sky said to Bone Charm, jostling the wheezing griffon.

A patch of contour feathers, once gray, trickled blood down her back as they rolled her over. Was an exit wound supposed to be a good thing?

Flippingn her unceremoniously onto her back, Bone Charm wrenched her mouth open and levitated a potion to her beak. Gail clenched the potion in her talons and gulped it down before curling up into a ball and heaving her chest violently to fill her regenerating lungs.

Right. Can't regenerate around a bullet.

The eye patched stallion stared at me steel faced. I met his gaze and pursed my lips as we looked at each other for too many seconds. I expected him to berate me; I probably would have too, risking my life like that.

But he nodded once, and attended to his adopted daughter. It was worth it after all.

"You ain't so bad, for a stable dweller." He muttered, not meeting me eye to eye. A suppressed smile stretched across my lips.

I knelt next to the convulsing griffon, whose wheezing has lessened somewhat. Gail tipped her head to see me and smiled painfully through a bloody beak.

"Thanks –" she heaved for a breath of air, "- Red… can I call you that?"

A narrow smile reached across the corners of my lips, my heart warming.

"That's my name."

She looked overjoyed. "I owe you one, Red." Gail gasped, laying down flat on her back, her breathing stabilizing.

"You don't owe me anything." I murmured. I don't think I would 've been able to survive that had the other mercs not jumped in. A darker corner of my mind told me I shouldn't have taken that risk for that griffon, let alone for a bastard like Bone Charm. But the gratefulness that widened across her beak and the relief in the grizzled unicorn's eyes trickled white paint down the narrow black walls of my conscience. I stuck out my tongue and hoofed a rogue feather out of my mouth. "You still got a few feathers on your back, that's all that matters." I said, forcing a crooked smirk.

Gail struggled to contain a chuckle to let out a few wet coughs.

"You sticking around for some more?" she rasped, clutching her feathered chest.

I looked out into the snow and around us. The cooling remains of ponies were laid out to freeze among the drifts, possibly doomed to rot where they'd fallen. Not too far from our wagon formation, I spied a crater with half a pony laying in it.

"I ah …" I didn't have enough in my stomach to hurl again. I've had the urge to do that too many times today. Why was it so easy for these mercs? I shivered. It shouldn't have been that easy for me. My frown turned to a glare as my eyes panned over the pale coat of the mare I'd crippled earlier. These weren't ponies. These were monsters. And I wasn't going to be another one of their victims.

Hesitation was going to get me killed. I was afraid to say that I'd go to any length to return to my stable alive and not empty hoofed. I rubbed them together in the powder, trying to clean the blood off my lower legs. "Whatever gets me to Poneva." I continued, grimly.

The sound of hooves sloshing through the snow behind me made me jump. I popped in my mouth bit and almost shot the trader in the face as he approached.

"Whoa nelly, you're a jumpy one, aren't'chu?" He said with a wry grin.

I exhaled heavily. "Shorry, thought you were one of thoesh …" I glanced at their mangled corpses, spitting out the bit, "… those psychos."

He nodded rapidly before levitating out a strange blue bottle out of his satchel bag.

"Listen 'ere, you saved my ass earlier. And I ain't the ungrateful bastard."

I shook my head, waving it off with a forehoof.

"I'm sure you paying Night Sky off will cover it –"

"I never said that Night Sky mare did –" He tipped his hat, "I said you, ya git."

I frowned.

"Well, I supposed it'd be rude." I muttered, pursing my lips. I barely knew this unicorn and he was already giving me handouts. The blue solution swirled gently inside the shot glass sized bottle. "What is it?"
He pointed a forehoof at my horn, "It's called Sparkle. Makes yer magic stronger. Should boost you up good; might even bring your magic back for a bit. It ain't as helpful as a week o'rest, but it might do you good if ya need it in a pinch." The unicorn floated it to me, balancing it on my nose. "But ah said, use it in a pinch. This ain't no potion you just drink 'n forget."

My nose crinkled and I tossed my head back, catching it in my mouth. Well that was cool. I wonder if I could live as a glorified earth pony with a horn. I squinted at the bottle in between my teeth, curiously sloshing around its contents. Though I wish I still had my magic.

"Like … like what?" I asked, with a hint of apprehension.

He leaned against a wagon, regarding me sternly. "I just told ya. It might bring your magic back. For a bit. And not much longer."

"Sure." I said, rather skeptically, nodding my head slowly. Craning my neck to my side, I dropped it in my open bag. "Thanks!" I said with a nervous smile.

"No problemo." He drawled, starting back to his wagon. "Ah'll leave it to ya mercs, then. See ya 'round, uh. I didn't even getchur name, boy?"

I zipped my bag closed, and turned to trot back to the caravan's lead wagon.

"Red Dawn." I said, glancing over my shoulder.

"Name's Duster, and nice to meet'cha, Red Dawn. Ah might see you again one day." Duster said, plodding through the powder. "Might not."

I paused for a moment. Huh? I turned and waved him goodbye, trying to suppress the curious look on my face.

---

We dropped off Duster at Dusktown and immediately headed further north on our wagon, this time, with Bone Charm pulling it. Gosh was that stallion strong. We weren't even following a path. I couldn't see the usual wagon lines in the snow – but the path was heavily trodden with hoof prints.

The skies had darkened significantly since the last I saw it. I had slept for most of the way, and so had Gail. I'd woken up to the rumble of the wagon during its offroad course. The griffon, however, was still napping.

I yawned, rubbing my eyes with my forehooves. Looking around, I noticed everypony was still armed. I wondered why we were packing so much heat, given the contract we were pursuing.

Sitting in an indentation on the wagon's frame was a metal tube. Several rocket propelled grenades rested against it.

"What the hell is that for?"

Night Sky, who was laid out on the wagon bed, sat up and replied, "It's just for diplomacy."

"Diplomacy?" I snorted, "I guess. Your kevlar plated barding really screams for compromise."

She chuckled, letting out a long drawn out sigh. "I know you're new to this wasteland stuff, but zebras aren't exactly the kind of folk to just listen to us ponies."

"I'd imagine. We fought a war with 'em." I sat on my hind legs, eyeing the labels stenciled on the rockets. 'HE-I', I read along the crimson munitions.

"Not we. We never fought them. They're the ones still fighting us." She muttered, closing her eyes.

"Could've sworn the war ended 200 years ago," I sneered. A widening mass of crumbling black trees crept closer and closer as the wagon made its way through the snow. "What exactly are we doing out here?"

"They killed L.J. and his colts from two weeks ago while they were out looking for firewood." He muttered in his gravelly voice, "killed 'em … even the colts." He shook his head and continued, "One of the colts made it back to town, barely alive. Said that the three of them walked in on zebra loggers and got executed on the spot for trespassing." He shook his head. Bone Charm's tone chilled to a cold rasp. "We're going to pay them a visit and find the pony murderin' son'bitch who did it."

I wrapped my forearms around my chest.

"So the five of us are going back into zebra territory with the possibility of provoking more of them ourselves?" I cocked an eyebrow, "That's smart." I added, wryly. "There's bound to be more of them than us. And you make it sound like they won't just hand the zebra over."

"That's why diplomacy's on our side." Night Sky chuckled grimly.

I wondered what HE-I meant.

Sprinkles loaded a magazine into her assault rifle and panned it across the path in front of us. "They come to our land, our Equestria, hallowed by our dead, plant their flag down, and settle it when everypony's dead. Then, on top of that, they go around killing everypony else that so much as breathes their air."

My expression darkened at that. Just what I needed to hear: more pony killing monsters. They had no shame in killing foals. This alone made them monsters in my book. I looked out into the distance; is this what Equestria's come to?

Maybe their depictions in the textbooks were really no different than what they actually looked like: striped, red eyed, shark toothed killing machines. The last part, at least, seemed to match Sprinkles' description.

"They sound no better than the snow furies." I intoned bitterly.

She turned to face me. "I'd say it's about time we taught those tribals a lesson."

Night Sky leaned against the wagon's frame. "We ponies just want to survive out here without causing any problems. The zebras've raided Dusktown's stores in the past, and I'm not about to let those scum make our lives harder than they already are."

A plume of smoke drifted lazily into the sky above the gnarled canopy in the distance. We were near.

"Let's find this bastard."

The others were silent after that, loading their weapons with a conviction that hinted that they wanted more than just diplomacy. I poked Gail with a forehoof and she shook herself into lucidity.

"We there yet?" she yawned, putting on her battle saddle.

Night Sky got to her hooves and looked over Bone Charm's mane. I frowned, an incredulous look stretching across my face. I had expected the same weather beaten corrugated masses that made up Dusktown's buildings.

But before us was a small circle of gnarled, wooden cabins surrounding a smoldering bonfire. Inside the cabins there was not a single mote of light. I would have thought the zebra village had been dead if there weren't equine shapes milling about outside in tattered, inadequate barding.

The ramshackle village was shadowed by an icy cliff face that stretched its wind swept boulders over the squalid, balefire blackened shacks.

Zebras noticed our final approach. I was surprised at how they didn't start shooting at us. Instead, they scurried inside their cabins, slamming their doors shut. A zebra mare herded her foals inside her cabin, meeting my baffled stare for the briefest of moments before shutting the door behind her.

"Everypony out." Night Sky ordered as the wagon came to a stop several yards away from the village. "Let's get this over with and get paid." The mercs dismounted, Bone Charm shaking off the wagon's harness before levitating his machine gun close.

I kept my eyes on the desolate village, chills running down my spine at how empty and dilapidated the shoddy buildings looked. Not too far from the village, underneath the shadow of the cliff face, were several rows of lonely gravestones.

While everypony else was floating guns to themselves or clamping down on mouth bits, I just stood there, unsure what to do with myself. I turned to look at Gail, her eyes were devoid of … of anything in particular.

Everypony had this grim, glazed over look that made me shiver.

"Charm, I want you on that cliff face with the RPG. Gail, circle the village from the air. Both of you know what to do." Night Sky intoned chillingly. She turned to face me. "Red Dawn, you and Sprinkles are with me." She glanced over her shoulder as a group of zebra stallions came out of the cabins, regarding us expectantly. "Charm, Gail, take your positions. You two," She nodded at Sprinkles and I, "Follow me."

I gulped as we slogged through the knee-deep snow. I hoped I wasn't wrong. I hoped these zebras were feral beasts, just waiting to murder us when we turned our backs on them or looked away. They just stood there, shivering, with dark looks in their eyes as they watched us with half-lucid stares.

"Evening, zebras." Night Sky said, trotting up to the mob.

A middle aged zebra stepped forward. "Not too close, pony!" He ordered firmly, the other zebras brandishing underappreciated handguns and warped blades.

"Whoa there, boy, we're just here to find somepony we're looking for." Night Sky's foreleg twitched visibly as her hoof almost reached for her assault rifle.

The zebra in charge, I assumed, narrowed his distrustful eyes at the heavily armed mercs.

"There were 5 of you when you came."

Sprinkles gave him a shady grin. "Oh they're still here, don't you worry about that."

The zebras shifted uncomfortably in their hooves. A younger stallion who looked about my age eyed me in fear. I wasn't even visibly armed.

"I think you zebras know why we're here," Night Sky began, taking a few steps towards the group. They glared at her menacingly. A few of them actually took a step back. "One of you zebras killed a few ponies back at Dusktown. Murdered a stallion and his two colts. I was hoping you'd tell me where I could find him?"

Zebra leader's jaw clenched. "He's among us."

Night Sky looked relieved, as if she'd taken a difficult job only to have the workload halved.

"We're here to take him into custody." Her expression blackened. "He's coming with us." She stated, sternly.

The zebras looked at each other grimly as their leader shook his head.

"He did no crime, and he most certainly is not going with you ponies."

My eyes caught a black shape at the top of the cliff, a long tube like weapon hovering in the air beside it. A winged silhouette circled above us like a carrion bird.

"I don't think you understand." Night Sky said, "We didn't ask."

The aged stallion stamped his hoof in the snow, the stallions behind him jeering at us in their alien tongues. "And I said no! It was not he who attacked them." His expression hardened, and he narrowed his eyes at us, eyes that have been aged with decades of prejudice, "He was carrying home firewood when they threatened to take from him the fruits of his labor."

"That isn't the story I heard." I said out loud, the zebras looking at me with distant hopefulness. Night Sky and Sprinkles just glared at me.

"Remember that these aren't your trees, zebra." Sprinkles wore a baleful expression that spelled out murder. "That firewood didn't belong to him."

"Fuck you ponies!" A stallion shouted, stamping his hooves in the snow. "Leave us alone!"

Another jutted a foreleg at us accusingly. "You take, and take - you leave nothing for us!"

"These trees, this land – it belongs to neither of us. We cannot survive this winter without fire, and these trees keep us alive, and you cannot deprive of us that which is not yours." He declared, taking an assertive hoof step towards us.

Night Sky grew impatient. "I don't give a shit about your trees, I want that zebra, and I want him now!" she demanded.

"No! We will not relinquish him for he has done no wrong! Go back to your Dusktown and be content that nopony else was slain." He ordered, raising his voice. "Leave us be, and do not come back."

"Night Sky …" I murmured, noticing the zebra foals staring at me through the windows.

She shook her head, smirking. "I'm no sheriff, zebra. I'm a mercenary, and I'm getting my caps either way." Night Sky snorted, shifting on her hooves. "Don't make us take him by force."

The zebra stallion did not take that kindly.

"You … you would kill us?" He began, his voice trembling. The zebras crowded around him, baring their teeth. "Do not be foalish, pony!" The zebras behind him clamped their jaws around their mouth bits, brandishing their weapons.

"You ponies wouldn't dare!" A stallion snarled, brandishing a rusty axe.

"They are outnumbered – we kill them, now!"

"Ndio! Sisi hufanya!" Said another agreeably, glaring at us.

Zebra leader held out his forehooves and held his kin back. "Hapana! Nopony else needs to die. Do not do this, ponies, it is not worth it! Think of our foals!"

"I'm going to ask one more time." Night Sky said, non chalantly, hoofing her assault rifle. Sprinkles did the same. "Give us the zebra, and we'll be on our way.

I was taking shallow breaths as they stared gravely at one another and murmuring in their exotic tongues. Just when I thought this was going to end in a shower of lead, a young stallion pushed past the zebras.

"It was me." He murmured, trembling. His zebra kin shouted at him, trying to pull him back.

"You do not need to do this!"

He shrugged them off. "Just take me with you and don't hurt anypony else … please. Let's stop this madness."

The zebra leader gawked. "No, you are not going anywhere!" He shouted, stepping in front of the zebra. "And you most certainly are not going with them!"

"Hand him over, now, and we'll be out of your mane." Night Sky ordered. Sprinkles looked like she was fighting the urge to pull the trigger.

"Look around you, you ponies! See our village, see our poverty! Have you no shame, living in your Dusktown while we freeze in the snow?" He snapped, "Too many of us perished during this winter, and if we lose any more, our village will surely die off! We have too many tools and not enough zebras to use them." He wrenched the young stallion away with a forehoof. "You are taking from beggars, can you not see?"

Night Sky and Sprinkles looked at each other in exasperation. They didn't care.

"Leave our meager village, leave, and don't come back! I will tolerate your presence here no longer, ponies!" The zebra pleaded.

The mercs brandished their rifles.

One of the zebra stallions racked his shotgun's slider. "Hapana!" The zebra said alarmingly to the others as they started forward. "Wanataka hiyo!" But his words did nothing to calm them. "This is what they want! Do not give it to them!"

The zebra with the shotgun took aim.

Zebra leader flung his forehooves in front of him. "Hapana –"

Night Sky tipped her head to the side.

Crack! My heart nearly stopped. The zebra's head exploded in a shower of bone and gore, splattering my barding with bits of scarlet. I screamed in horror, scrambling away as the night turned to day.

The hut behind them erupted in flames, blinding me in a terrifying flash of light that threatened to consume us all. A jarring shockwave blasted apart its walls and toppled its ceiling, Night Sky and Sprinkles sunk their triggers back, writhing shadows dancing across their faces in the hellish firelight. I ducked low, plugged my ringing ears with my hooves and screamed, bullets and dying zebras shrieking around me.

I watched with wide eyes as the zebra with the shotgun convulsed, ragged, bloody holes ripping open across his entire body. He took a bleeding step forward before his chest blew out in a splash of gore, Gail's black form casting a shadow over me as she soared over us.

"Stop!" I screamed, blood streaming down my face over the gunfire as the zebras collapsed into the melting, crimson snow. But Night Sky and Sprinkles did not relent.

Zebras, engulfed in flames, galloped out of the burning shack in fiery agony as the inferno consumed them. Sprinkles swung her rifle wide to meet the screaming zebras. I watched helplessly while she mowed them down, their burning, bullet ridden corpses falling into the snow to smoke and smoulder.

The smell of burning meat filled my nostrils, summoning vile bile to my throat. Whoosh! A trailing rocket-propelled grenade blew apart a cabin to my left, igniting it in a plume of fire and debris and showering my trembling coat with tingling heat waves.

"No... no! What are you doing!?" I screamed as Sprinkles' assault rifle flared at the small shapes that fled the collapsing cabin. "They're foals! Dear Celestia, Sprinkles, they're just foals!"

"They're zebras, Red Dawn." She growled.

I cried out as one of the small shapes tumbled into the snow, blood spurting. Shrieking hoarsely, I tackled the mare to the ground her assault rifle's bullets kicking up the snow at our hooves. "STOP!"

"Get off me, Red Dawn!" She screamed, bucking me off her.

"What have you done!?" I demanded, galloping towards her with the intent of spearing her with my horn. She sidestepped and held out a foreleg. I tripped and planted my face into the snow, watching in denial as a flaming zebra mare stumbled out of the cabin after her foals. She reached out with a charred, trembling foreleg, only for her smoldering body to collapse into the crimson drifts.

"This is our bonus, ponies! If it's striped, it gets wiped!" Night Sky shouted, arcing her gunfire at a group of fleeing zebras. One of them crashed in a thrashing splash of dark scarlet. Another whirled around to bite down on his mane and drag him away. I reached out with a foreleg and watched them both get perforated in a hail of unforgiving tracers, my jaw trembling in horror.

The cabin they'd burst from erupted in flames. Bone Charm sent another rocket-propelled grenade into the village, and another, and another. I watched as the zebras fueled the fire.

"Night Sky … please … NO!" I begged, gaping at a herd foals that crumpled into the snow in a tirade of scarlet splashes.

All around me, a roiling conflagration devoured the town in a pyre of destruction, enshrouding me with a hellish glow. I stared into the inferno with watery eyes and it stared back, the dying shrieks of zebra foals echoing distantly in my ears. The flames told me that I'd been wrong.

This wasn't wasteland justice. This was a massacre. Night Sky told me that I should be willing to do anything I could to survive … but not like this! Goddesses, not like this! These zebras - they had sons and daughters and husbands and wives – we were no better than the snow furies that slaughtered my friends!

How could I have just stood there and watched!? I watched while they butchered everypony, and even then, my hooves were wet with their blood. I could have done something! They'd made a monster out of me.

… you gotta do what you need to do … even if that means you live and somepony else doesn't … I heard Night Sky say in my thoughts.

Whatever it takes… I heard myself say.

No … no! This can't … can't be right! I clamped down on my pistol's mouth bit and aimed it at Night Sky, entering SATS. I won't be like her! I won't let the wasteland turn me into a monster!

The muzzle flashes of her assault rifle froze in time, and so did the zebra on the other end. Tracers speared through her body and she tipped forward, threatening to topple into the drifts. I mashed all my charges to tag her head until they were spent, my fiery tears glistening in the infernal glow.

My accuracy was favorable. But my conscience was not. My body tensed, and I hesitated. I simply couldn't do it. It was no use. I'd join the zebras if I did. I canceled out and watched the zebra tumble end over end into the snow in a heap, leaving a trail of blood behind her in her wake.

It was over. We were done. And so were the zebras.

The gunfire died down, and only the moaning of crumbling wood remained. I stood there, unable to move, unable to rationalize what these ponies had done. Gail crunched her paws into the snow behind me.

I fell to my knees, my crooked shadow billowing across the crimson snow drifts. Bathed in the cruel pyre light, my conscience agonized in purgatory. I heard Gail's footsteps crunch into the snow to stop next to me. Her winged form overshadowed mine in a sinister cloak of darkness.

"Ready for Poneva, Red?" She asked, cheerily, unfazed by the destruction left in her wake.

Have you no shame? I crawled across the snow to the zebra mare that Night Sky had butchered. She was still breathing, taking ragged, shallow breaths as she teetered on the edge of life and death. I knelt over her, cradling the zebra's head in my hooves.

"I'm sorry." I whispered, "I didn't know. I didn't know they'd do this… I'm not a monster … please …"

The mare gurgled through a mouth full of blood, her fluttering eyes meeting mine before they blinked for the last time. She stared at me blankly as I held her limp corpse. I tipped my head low, trembling uncontrollably.

"What've you done, Gail? What've you ponies done …"

She didn't answer me, her gray feathers glowing a fiery orange. "Was it worth it? Was it worth the fucking caps?" I demanded. She looked at her feet.

"You're right … you're no victim, Gail." I said to her, my voice faltering. The griffon came to me, resting a foot on my shoulder. I shook her off, standing to my hooves. Glaring into her eyes, I asked, "But do you know what you are?"

She turned her head away from me, gazing into the flames. "I …"

"You're a monster." I intoned.

I left her, trotting away from the funeral pyre. I had believed in them, I believed that they were right, that anything was worth doing to survive ... even if it meant that ponies died and I lived. Was this what it took? Was this going to be my life? I didn't know anymore.

Night Sky was right about one thing: I couldn't escape this. This wasn't the end. I realized that if the wasteland did not kill me, it'd kill my soul.

I followed them this far. And this was as far as I was going to go.

Anywhere but here. Goddesses … anywhere but here.

Footnote: Level up.

New Perk: Rapid Reload - All of your weapon reloads are 25% faster than normal.