….pulling the trigger of Luna’s Ruse as quickly as I could, I charged across the open roadway towards the cluster of three raiders with the sole intention of killing every last fucking one of them. As I ran, the sound of my hooves pounding across the pavement caught the nearest raider’s attention and he turned his head towards me. I could see his yellowed eyes widen with surprise as he spotted a pony running towards them with a manic grin. He’d just opened his mouth to shout a warning to the two others with him when the first of my shotgun rounds struck him in his face.

The 12-gauge round burst through his head just below his right eye and exploded it from within. A spray of blood, bone, and brains splattered messily across the nearby raiders, causing them to shout in alarm. Seconds later, the second round struck the already dead body that was still standing upright. The slug punched through the crude rusted raider armor as if it was paper. Hunks of metal blew out from the broken plate, followed by blood. The force of the hit sent the body ragdolling into the surviving two raiders, throwing them further into confusion and buying me more time to close the distance.

The unicorn stallion with Turf’s head swore loudly and stumbled away from the headless body and me as he tried to wipe his eyes clean of the gore with which I’d just painted him. His assault rifle floated lower to the ground beside him as he attempted to figure out what had just happened and where he needed to point it, eyes blinking in confusion. Another gunshot pierced the air of the ruined town as a round grazed his flank, though it had not come from me. The round had come from the garage. So there were still ponies alive in there, perhaps even Stonehoof with his rifle. I pushed that thought aside and focused back on the raiders. After being struck, he hurriedly ran towards the nearest cover, an overturned wall that was across from where he had been.

His companion, one of the few mare raiders I had seen thus far, was quicker to recover. The pale olive raider turned and spotted me as she brushed the gore from her muzzle and eyes. She immediately ducked behind a section of ruined wall as I fired again. Both shots sent up a spray of splinters and sawdust, but missed her entirely. She fumbled with a pistol that had dropped from her mouth as she dove into cover, managing to pull it back up to her and quickly aimed it towards me. Her yellowed eyes narrowed as she began squeezing the trigger as quickly as she could. With the first round screaming from the weapon’s barrel and coming straight towards me, I did the only thing I could think of to avoid a face full of small caliber rounds and close the distance between us.

Dropping to the pavement on my side, my forward momentum carried me, rolling, across the open space towards the panicked mare and under her fire. She barely had enough time to realize that not a single round had struck her target before I slid to a halt on the other side of the broken-down wall she was hiding behind, my hooves bringing me to a stop. I aimed my shotgun up where her chest should be and fired through the wall. The round ripped through broken, rotting boards and sheets (which offered little to no protection at this range) and struck the raider in her chest. Like her companion’s armor before, it did nothing to stop the round from blowing out bits of meat and blood as it punched her off her hooves and onto her back. Gurgling, she brought a hoof up to the hole blown into her body to try and stem the flow of blood that was staining the already splattered floor.

Picking myself up from the ground, I checked myself for any injuries. Beyond a fresh coat of filth covering my repaired and once-clean riot armor, I seemed to be in one piece, unlike the wounded mare. She looked up at me with a wide, sickly, yellow-eyed stare, attempting to crawl towards her dropped weapon. I watched her calmly as her bloody lips fumbled with the firing bit of the 9mm pistol. With a snort, I walked over where she lay and placed a black hoof atop the weapon, and she finally gave up her attempt. Her breathing was becoming labored and she attempted to say something to me, but I couldn’t make out what it was. I doubt I would have heard a word she tried to say. When I looked down at the pony below me, all I could see was Turf’s head, swinging from a chain with a hook through his eyes. Pip flung through the air by a rocket, ripped to pieces by metal shards. Ebony. Raped. Beaten. Starved. Left for dead.

The wounded raider gurgled and I pressed the barrel of my shotgun against her face, narrowing my eyes as I pulled the trigger. Luna’s Ruse bucked in my mouth once and a single slug struck the mare in the face at point blank, blowing it off along with most of her skull. I stared down at the dead body for a moment, the spent shell casing rolling around between my fore hooves finally coming to a halt in a pool of the mare’s blood. Another one down, Celestia alone knew how many more.

As I lifted my gaze from the dead mare to the raider across the open ground, I saw him leveling his assault rifle at me with a predatory grin on his muzzle.

The battered but still deadly assault rifle’s muzzle lit up like a strobe light, pulsing with every round fired. The unicorn held the trigger down with the glow of his magic and hosed the ruined home I stood in with automatic fire. High speed rounds struck the ruined walls all around me, sending up clouds of dirt and wood in every direction. A few rounds fell short, impacting the ground between us, but just as many hit me. Every one felt as if a small hoof had struck me in the chest, leg, or side. My armor soaked up a world of hurt, stopping nearly every round from penetrating into my flesh. I dropped into cover within a second of hearing the gun firing. A shot grazed my unprotected flank and I grunted in pain. A minor injury warning flashed in my E.F.S., but I ignored it and the pain. I’d survive it, so long as I remained focused. Gritting my teeth, I rose just enough to lay the barrel of my shotgun on the edge of the ruined wall and snapped off two rapid shots towards the raider, causing him to back off a bit and ease up on the incoming fire as he took shelter.

Taking the opening the decrease of fire gave me, I rose to my hooves and began running towards a more intact section of the wall in the ruined building. The raider’s aim followed me as I went, bullets whizzing past my flanks and head as he tried to hit me, but thankfully, like most raiders, he couldn’t hit a moving target. Bullets followed me the entire way, a few whizzing past my flanks and shoulders as I disappeared from his sight behind a still mostly intact section of walls. I could hear the raider firing wildly where I’d been and all across the walls of the ruins, wasting ammo for nothing. However, he was no longer my problem.

The two raiders coming towards me from across the street were. No doubt alerted by the assault rifle-wielding raider, they must have come to flank me. I narrowed my eyes on them, seeing the same symbol on their armor as the two raiders I had already killed. The grenade shaped like a pony skull, painted in red. The larger of the two was a massive earth pony, his crude armor made nearly worthless by the simple fact that it didn’t fit him. He was easily larger than Bright or Stone. Muscled and covered in a riot of scars, he carried a rusted but still sharp-looking fire axe in his yellowed teeth. Beside him trotted a unicorn, a shovel floating along with him. Unlike his large companion, he wore armor that fitted, plates of metal covered in dents and nicks, held together by cords and chains. Spikes and hooks swung from the crudely-made barding. Both were heading straight towards me, while behind me, the raider that had survived my rush had begun to toss grenades randomly into the ruins, showering areas in deadly shrapnel. Staying put was no longer an option.

Snorting, and with only one option open to me, I charged them, snapping off three rapid shots as my hooves brought me closer to the pair. The first shot caught the unicorn in the shoulder, shooting off sparks from the armor as well as bits of metal and blood. The other two rounds ripped chunks of flesh from the earth pony along his own shoulder and chest. Both ignored their wounds and simply gave me mad grins. It was then that I saw their yellowed eyes, and the pinpricks of their pupils. They were loaded on drugs. Like the guards Wild and I had fought in the hospital basement, it would take a lot to kill these two.

Despite this fact, I ran onwards into them, snapping off another quick round that staggered the unicorn back a bit, giving me room to work. My hooves slammed into the pavement as I neared the two. The earth pony swung his axe at my head, the sharp edge slicing through the air as it descended towards me. I rolled under the swing and into the path of the smaller unicorn who had managed to recover from the second shot, blood running from the new wound on his chest.

I was almost caught off guard when he swung his makeshift weapon at my face, the rusty shovel striking Luna’s Ruse as I lifted it up to block the attack. Unlike the drugged raiders I’d fought before, these seemed able to move more naturally. The battered shovel head bounced off the black metal of the shotgun with a solid metallic clang that echoed off the nearby ruin walls and sent a shiver down my jaws and neck. Before he could pull the weapon away I dropped the shotgun from my lips and clamped my teeth around the worn wooden haft of the shovel and yanked hard.

He’d not expected that, and it broke free of his magical grip. I could hear the heavy hoof falls of the earth pony turning behind me, bringing that ax to bear on my unprotected flanks. Teeth gripping the shovel, I prepared to make my next move.

Spinning around on my front hooves, I jerked my head up. and with it the shovel. While it wasn’t in the best shape, somepony had sharpened the edges of the metal head. At the same time I brought the shovel up, I lifted my hind legs out towards the unicorn and stood on my front hooves. Time almost stood still as I spun about wildly.

With a crack, my rear hooves connected with the head of the unicorn behind me, shattering his jaw with the force and sending him stumbling backwards onto his flank as blood flew from his mouth, along with several teeth. Almost at the same instant as my hooves struck, the shovel slashed across the earth pony’s exposed throat as he was raising the axe up high to bring it crashing down atop my head. Blood at once spurted from the fresh wound and the force of the blow threw off his aim. The axe slammed down into the ruined pavement of the street to my left. Shards of blacktop flew into the air from the force of the strike.

With my momentum, I pressed the attack, not giving either of the drug powered raiders time to recover. The swing from the shovel swept back around in a wide arc and I followed through with it, trailing the blood of the earth pony as it sliced through the air and, with a thunk, struck the unicorn in the head just below the horn. The sharpened edge cut deeply into his forehead, jerking his head sideways from the blow. His glowing horn flickered as he was struck and I felt the slide of a knife along my flank. The earth pony behind me yanked the axe out from the pavement and once more started towards me. My tail twitched suddenly, warning me that something was about to fall. I grinned around the shovel wooden shaft as I locked eyes with the unicorn.

Releasing the shovel, I rolled away to the right of the unicorn as the axe came smashing down where I’d been, and where the hapless unicorn raider stumbled as he attempted to yank the shovel free. With a far more meaty slap, the axe head buried itself in the brain of the unicorn. He was dead before the force of the blow slammed him into the pavement. My victory was short lived, as bullets began to strike my exposed flanks and hind legs.

Crying out in pain, I nearly crumpled to the ground from the shock. My adrenalin, however, was thundering through my veins, and I managed to half run, half stumble into the cover of a ruined wall as the raider with the assault rifle poured fire towards me and over the massive earth pony raider. I could see him moving towards me slowly, the red glow from my E.F.S. marking his progress along the ruined roadway. I looked ahead, to the fallen unicorn, the axe still embedded in his head. Of the earth pony, there was no sign. No time to worry about him; he’d likely bleed to death soon enough. I reached for my shotgun and limped away from the wall, making sure to keep it between the raider and myself as I attempted to move behind him through another ruined home.

I’d barely gone a dozen steps when another red dot appeared. Shit. Raising my head barely over the edge of the wall, I saw another raider mare walking along the roadway, a battlesaddle strapped across her scarred back and her eyes scanning the ruins for something, most likely me. The saddle had twin rifles and judging by the size of the barrels, it’d likely rip through my armor if it struck. She spotted me and opened fire. Sure enough, the high powered rounds ripped through the wall, blowing splinters into my face and neck. Now I knew how it felt to be under fire from Wild’s guns.

Swearing, I ducked back down and moved away several steps as more rounds tore into the spot I’d been. Rubbing my eyes with a hoof, I tried to clear them of dust and debris. A moment later, I heard something strike the ground beside me from over the wall. Looking over, I spotted the round orb of a grenade rolling to a stop inches from my flank.

Fucking hell...

Scrambling to my hooves, I dashed towards the nearest piece of cover I could find, one of the ruined home’s inner walls, or rather, a still-standing piece of one. I’d barely turned the corner and dove for safety when the grenade exploded behind me, sending shards of razor sharp metal flying everywhere. I heard a number of pieces impact the weakened wall and saw it start to wobble, but I was far too slow to pick myself up. All I could do was roll over onto my back and lift my forehooves up to try and soften the blow. Despite the fact it was half rotted away and filled with holes, it was still surprisingly heavy and I growled out in pain as it struck my wounded flanks, pressing the bullet tips deeper into my flesh. I could already hear somepony moving through the rubble towards me, hoof steps treading heavily over the fallen walls.

I couldn’t reach my shotgun, as Luna’s Ruse was pinned between me and the wall. Working my forelegs up, I began to desperately push the wall up off me, and it rose quickly, at least until a hoof slammed down atop it, followed by another. I winced as I attempted to hold up the wall with my own forehooves, as the battlesaddle-armed mare climbed atop it and me. A wicked grin on her lips as she stared down at me with one orange eye and a dark pit where the other should be.

“Well, well well...look at what we got ourselves here...a wanna be hero about to get himself killed,” she chuckled, and lowered her head down to look more closely at me. Her grin grew wider and, with alarm, I noticed her teeth had been filed to a sharp point, “Well, since I caught you, maybe Big Daddy will let me keep ya for myself.” Not to mention her breath smelled like she’d eaten raw garbage left out in the heat.

The wall dropped an inch back atop me as she moved about, inspecting her prize. My eyes dropped to my shotgun, wedged between my armored chest and the wooden wall. She’d kill me before I could yank it out. My forelegs burned as I held them up, causing my Pipbuck and holstered revolver to rattle against the bottom of the boards under the mare. I looked back up at the crazed feral mare; was she licking her lips hungrily or suggestively? Which was worse? Or was there even a difference for raiders? Rising back upright, she reached back for something attached to her armor and I heard the distinct sound of metal sliding against metal. As she turned back to face me, I saw she’d pulled out a wickedly serrated blade.

“Now... this will only hurt a tiny bit if you hold still... so... don’t hold still. I like it when ya fucks scream loudly, gets me all excited,” she said around the knife, lowering it towards my face. I grinned back, eyes narrowed on her.

“This, however... is only going to hurt for a moment.” She blinked, confused at what I’d said. I seized upon that moment and closed my mouth around the firing bit for the Raging Buck. As I did, I yanked my left hoof up under the wall, scraping away splinters and faded paint, the weight of the fallen wall pressed once more down upon me, but I ignored it. Within seconds the holstered weapon was positioned under her head and I pulled the trigger once.

The high powered pistol roared to life, the round bursting through the holster like it wasn’t even there. The spinning brass round passed through the ruined wall as if it was paper, blowing away large chunks of wood in a shower of splinters. The round finally caught the surprised mare in the middle of her neck, encountering little resistance from the thin rusted armor plating she had strapped there. Finally, the round exited the raider just behind her ears, sending out a spray of blood. The force jerked her backwards off her hooves and she toppled to the ground just at the base of the wall.

Kicking my hind legs under me, I managed to scramble to push myself out from under the wall and up onto my hooves. I allowed the wall to drop down fully to the ground, the dead raider draped across the bottom of it, blood running from the wound in her head to pool into the holes and scars of the wooden planks. I reached for my saddlebags, intent on getting one of the two health potions I had left. I’d just closed my teeth around the top of the red glass potion when I saw movement from the other end of the ruined home I was in and a red dot lit up on my E.F.S.

The raider turned the corner seconds later, spraying the room with buckshot from his pump action shotgun that glowed a soft green in his magic. The small balls of lead buried themselves in the ruined walls and fallen sections of the ceiling; thudding into the dead flesh of the mare as she sat up against a section of collapsed wall. He lowered the weapon when he saw nopony else in the room other than his dead companion, peppered with his own gunfire. Giving the room another uneasy look, he took a step inside and approached the dead mare.

He was halfway across the room before I rose up from behind the body, shotgun held between my teeth, and narrowed my eyes on the surprised buck as I fired. Unlike his, my shotgun was loaded with solid shot, perfect for ripping through flimsy armor and flesh. The large metal round slammed into his chest, staggering him back. The next struck him in the neck where he had no armor to halt the round. With a gurgled cry of pain, he dropped to the floor, hooves kicking uselessly at the cracked wooden flooring.

I lowered my forelegs that had been holding the dead mare upright, the body slumping to the floor. Stepping around from behind it, I looked to the wounded raider as he struggled along the floor, bleeding out quickly, his eyes filled with panic. For a moment, I felt some sympathy for the pony the raider had been, until I reminded myself of just what he and others of his type had done across the wasteland to ponies just like my sister.

Once more, I reached for my saddlebag. I was down to two rounds in my shotgun and four in my revolver. I needed to reload and heal before I faced the remaining raiders, of which I could see seven more moving around nearby. Unfortunately for me, somepony had other ideas. I’d just opened my pack when two of those red dots appeared moving towards me, one quite rapidly. I had only seconds to look up before the large earth pony I’d slashed across the throat and left with his unicorn friend charged into the room with a roar. I reached for the firing bit of my shotgun, but had just closed my mouth around it when he struck.

My hooves left the ground as his rock hard skull impacted my armored toros and knocked the air from my lungs, the shotgun dropping from my lips. The crazed raider’s momentum carried us into another room of the ruined home, via way of the wall. I grunted as my back slammed into the wall and through it, my ears ringing with the sound of cracking lumber. Bits of drywall and splinters of wood struck my unprotected flanks and face, drawing blood wherever they struck my coat. I heard and felt something snap away as we burst into the next room, and felt my saddlebags slip from my flanks to drop to the floor.

I slammed my right front hoof into the side of his face, hoping to daze him, but it had little effect, his drug crazed eyes wide with battle lust. He skidded to a halt along the wooden flooring and dropped me in a heap before him. I winced as my injured body struck the ground heavily, and rolled slowly onto my side with a groan. Warnings of injuries filled my vision as my E.F.S. updated itself, the red dots around me beginning to swarm in from all sides. I turned and looked up at the massive pony above me, rearing back on his hind legs with a snort of triumph. My eyes widened as I saw his hooves coming down towards my head, which would be turned to into paste by the force of the impact.

I rolled onto my right side and under him just as his hooves struck the ground with a splintering crack. I scrambled out from under the raider when I heard more cracking from under me, my hooves sinking into the flooring and with it my hopes of escape. The cracking was soon followed by the groan of something holding up a weight it could not hope to. I’d barely gotten a inch out from under the raider when the floor simply gave up any attempt to stay up and dropped out from under us. Once more, I found myself falling, before my face struck the hard concrete of the basement floor. I heard the raider drop down nearby before I felt part of him land atop me. Again the air was pushed from my lungs, and I was left dazed.

I groaned and pulled myself out from under the raider, while he too began to recover from the fall. Shaking my spinning head to clear it of stars, I looked behind me as the raider stood up and blinked in shock. The large, battered earth pony had been impaled through the chest by the remains of a shattered two by four, blood dripping down along the shaft of wood to drop to the floor under him. There was a number of other wooden chucks sticking into his body, all ignored as he turned his yellowed eyes to me. The wounded raider began moving towards me, a act made difficult by a piece of wood jutting out from his left foreleg. Blood trickled from his chin and nose and he flashed his red stained teeth at me.

Fucking hell... what's it going to take?!

Pushing aside the pain that raced through my body, I climbed unsteadily to my hooves and reached back for my saddlebag, intent on reloading my shotgun, although I doubted two rounds would finish this brute off. However, I was soon reminded of the fact my packs had been ripped off me when my teeth clamped on empty air. Well, fuck. I turned back just as the raider reached me and slammed his front hoof into the side of my face. Luckily for me, I’d already been turning, and the blow glanced off my cheek instead of caving in my skull as had been the intent. I rolled with the punch and gained a few paces to work with, but already the lumbering giant was making his way towards me, and I dodged another swing. I grabbed for my shotgun and brought the weapon up, only to have the raider slam his hoof down on the barrel. The firing bit jerked upwards in my mouth and I felt a tooth snap free. My head followed the barrel down to the floor as the neck strap tightened around my throat, and I gasped for breath.

The fight nearly ended right there, as he brought his other hoof down towards my skull, with me struggling to break his grip. Suddenly, the strap around my neck broke in two and I managed to jerk my head out from under his right hoof just as it slammed into the concrete, cracking it. I reached for my revolver, but another back hoof to my face sent the pistol skidding across the floor into a dark corner. I had no time to try and grab my baton, as the earth pony simply grabbed me up in his forelegs and began to squeeze me. My joints popped and my lungs quickly deflated as he began crushing me. I had my own forelegs free and began beating at his face, trying to get him to release me. But as before, he simply ignored the blows and squeezed all the more, sending a jolt of pain up my back.

My hind legs left the ground once more as he reared up on his own, intent on slamming me into the ground. If he did, I’d be as good as dead. He shifted his legs around my neck, and as he did so, the chunk of wood impaling his left leg sliced into my cheek. My vision was darkening and I was gasping for breath. I placed both hooves over the jagged end of the splinter of wood in his limb and shoved it with all my might. It didn’t budge. I screamed in pain as I felt a rib snap, eyes screwed shut as the pressure threatened to break the rest. With a last desperate bid to survive and pulling on the reserves of my strength I slammed both hooves on the end of the piece of wood. With the sickening sound of tearing flesh, the sliver of wood slide free of the limb and struck the raider in the eye, burying itself several inches into his brain. His body stiffened.

“Felt... that... didn’t ya...” I gasped as his legs loosened and I slipped free, landing heavily upon the floor with a groan of pain. The raider dropped back onto his side with a clatter of hooves and metal armor. He gave one last whimper and went still, blood pooling under his brown matted fur.

My vision was still cloudy, and I couldn’t focus on E.F.S. as it attempted to update my list of injuries and the raiders gathering nearby. Off to the side of the room, I saw my shotgun laying on the floor, and began dragging myself towards it. The raiders would be on me in moments, so I had to arm myself quickly. Reaching out with my hooves, I dragged Luna’s Ruse over towards me. As I closed my lips around the firing bit, a hail of assault rifle rounds struck all around me. With my failing strength, I half stumbled, half rolled into the cover of the remaining ceiling. I could hear a frustrated snarl as the shooter lost sight of me and I attempted to figure out just where he was and how I was going to kill him before he killed me. The floor above me groaned and showered dust down upon my head as somepony walked around over me.

I had only two shots, if I spent them blindly shooting at my unseen attacker I’d need a stroke of luck to hit the raider. My eyes dropped to the room I was in, dimly lit by light filtering in through small holes in the flooring overhead. There, just a few steps from me was a badly rotted support beam holding up the floor. I leveled the shotgun at the support and fired off both shots. The first shot struck the edge of the beam, blowing off chunks of wood but it remained standing. The second struck dead center and blew apart the middle of the beam. The basement was soon filled with the sounds of groaning twisted wood as the section of the ceiling gave way and dropped into the dark room.

Coughing, I dropped the shotgun and reached for my batton, intent on cracking the raiders skull as he picked himself out from the debris. As the dust cleared, it became clear I wouldn’t need to do this, as the body of a raider hung inches off the floor, impaled through the blown-apart support beam. His hooves dangled lifelessly beside him, blood running down the grooves and cracks of the beam. Turf’s head lay on the floor beside the beam on its side, having fallen free from the raider’s belt in the fall.

As I lay on the cold concrete floor, the air clearing of dust and filled with the scent of death, I heard the sound of gunfire slowly peter off above me as one side or the other took control of the ruins. Not much I could do about it, every part of my body screamed in pain from the frenzied close combat I’d been in. Not to mention all the walls and floors I’d burst through. The red dots that had begun to surround me were quickly replaced by green, and a familiar red-maned head poked over the ruined edges of the ceiling.

“Never in all my life have I seen a pony more damned lucky than you, Shadow.” Wild’s voice broke the silence of the room and I could not help but smile. Beside her, other heads began appearing, but my vision was still a bit foggy, “I’m going to have to come down there and get you, aren’t I?” she asked after several seconds more of silence.

I could only lay my head back on the ground and close my eyes before I answered.

“Take your time... I’m not going anywhere...”

Wild had managed to lift me out from the basement, after a bit of struggling. The mare spent the whole time swearing at me for letting her think I’d died when I’d fallen down that hole, and at muck ponies for being so damned heavy. Once back on the surface, and with the help of Tassles and Spirit, the three females had gotten me back to the garage in one piece, passing by the bodies of dead raiders as we went. Spirit sat me down beside the black armored hull of the chariot, and began removing bandages and potions.

A full hour later, I groaned as Spirit finished wrapping the last of her bandages to my injuries, those that the three empty health potion bottles laying nearby had failed to seal completely. A small group of ponies watched from beside the sky chariot, Tassles standing with them. At least one pony from my Stable had survived all this. I sighed softly and lowered my right hoof as Spirit finished wrapping a deep cut I’d earned when I’d fallen. Wild, meanwhile, was sitting next to me. The bright orange pegasus looked rough, but then, after what we’d all been through, I suppose we all looked like hell. She’d finally stop swearing at me, and had instead turned a bit motherly, fussing with the bandages the buffalo worked so hard to fix upon my right leg, muttering about how I’d end up dead without her. I smiled a bit at that, thankful to have found one of my missing friends. That, however, reminded me I was still missing one. I asked the fiery mare what had happened after we’d been forced to part ways, and she began filling in the blanks of what she knew.

“Chaos. The survivors were crying and screaming, the tunnels echoed with the sounds of gunfire. It reminded me of my first mission as a soldier with the Enclave, fighting griffins in their lairs. After the bridge was destroyed and you disappeared, Stone yelled for us to get the hell out of there. But, I couldn’t just leave him to the raiders...” She paused for a moment, no doubt knowing what had awaited Stone if he had been captured. I had some idea what had happened to the winged mare during her stay in the city the first time, despite her never talking about it. She reached up to her chest and withdrew the pack of cigarettes she kept there. After pulling one out and lighting it, she continued her tale.

“Carrion tried covering me as I flew over to lift Stone out, but I couldn’t lift him and dodge the fire. He told me to get away. I told him where to go shove his suggestion and began laying down fire with him. We were running low on ammo, and Carrion had taken the others back down the tunnel to safety. The raiders just kept coming; there didn’t seem to be any end to them.

“Damn that muck pony, he picked me up and tossed me over the edge of the cliff before the raiders reached us. I managed to open my wings and slow my descent. By the time I got back to the surface, the raiders and Stone were gone.” She sighed and shook her head, the pegasus’ wings drooping. “I went after Carrion and the others, trying to figure out what to do next.”

As I sat and listened, Spirit had finally finished with me and turned her focus on the gathered prisoners. Most looked exhausted and afraid... but also, hopeful. Already they were eating the last of our food, but they needed it far more than we did. I could see ribs and hip bones through their mangy coats. For some, it was the first time in several years they were outside the confines of Kanter City and not being abused by the raiders. Still, the cost to save them had been high. Pip, Turf and those other brave souls who had stayed behind, and now Stone. A pony who should be back home in Crossroads with his newborn nephew. A pony who had risked everything to help a stranger.

For a time we sat in silence as Spirit worked. The buffalo at first was received with some unease from the ponies, but the young filly Stone had carried out approached her and threw her hooves around Spirit, declaring she was ‘soft’. Spirit had simply smiled and given the filly a piece of candy from her saddlebag which she at once went over to show her mom. The ponies relaxed and began accepting the buffalo’s aid. It was then I noticed somepony missing from the group, and turned back to Wild to ask.

“Where’s Carrion?”

“After we killed the last of the raiders, he went off to keep watch for other groups patrolling the area. In the past few hours there’s been a large number of them out searching the desert for us. I guess the train from the tunnel returned last night. He’s at the subway station,” Wild answered, nodding her head towards the north and the same path the three of us had taken over twenty four hours earlier. “He’s been rather quiet since we reached the surface.”

“You think he wants to go back?” I asked, looking off to where the station would be. I couldn’t see it, for the fallen and broken remains of homes lay between us and it. Outside the garage, darkness was setting in as the hidden sun dropped down behind the horizon to the west.

“I don’t know... for the past hundred and fifty years, it’s all he’s known.” The winded mare reached a hoof up to her chest and opened the pouch with her smokes in it. After lighting it, she took a long pull from the cigarette and blew the smoke out through her nose, “What are we going to do now, Shadow? About Stone.”

I glanced from the darkening sky to the mare beside me and sighed softly, “I honestly don’t know... the bridge is a lost cause, I take it?” she nodded her head, and I looked back out to the ruined town of Sticks. “There’s no way we can sneak past the front gates, I suppose we could try flying over the walls.” She snorted and drew my attention back to her.

“The griffin mercs would be crawling up our asses before I could set it down. While I can move quickly on my own, hauling a ton or two of armored chariot with ponies inside it slows me down. While the entire city is not encased inside the wall, and we could very easily find a sewer entrance in another part of the ruins, we’d still have to find a way across the plains to enter the city. Under the watchful eye of griffons, whose eyesight is far better than a pony’s,” Wild finished, looking from me back to the cloud covered sky outside. She sighed and took another puff of her cigarette, the smoke rising up to hang just above her head like storm clouds.

“We’re also nearly out of supplies.” Spirit added as she approached us, the buffalo shutting her saddlebags as she sat across from us. “I just checked, and with what little we have left we can feed ourselves only two or three more days before we are out of food. However, we will be out of water in less. Also, two of the mares are in need of more medical care than I can give with what I currently have.”

“Then we need to return to friendly territory, drop off the injured ponies, and resupply.” Wild spoke up again, lifting her head up, “We can try and make it to Crossroads; should be quicker than reaching Steeldome. Then we can return for Stone.”

Could I really be thinking of returning to Kanter City so soon? After having just barely escaped it alive the first time? Yes. I would never be able to live with myself if I didn’t try and find out my large grey friend's fate. Come hell or high water, Wild was going after the pony regardless, and Spirit had her own reasons for wanting to get inside. I imagined she held out hope that some of her friends from Wastefall were being held captive.

For the next hour we simply sat in silence and ate what food we had. Spirit left once to check on one of the wounded mares and only returned once she had given the broken unicorn some water. Finally, after another hour of just sitting there on the hard, warm floor, I stood up. My legs were aching from sitting for so long and from the injuries I had suffered, and I needed to move them and get the blood flowing again (now that it wasn’t flowing OUT of me). I started towards the garage door when Wild stopped me.

“Where are you going?”

“Just out to stretch my legs. Figured I’d also check up on Carrion,” I replied to my friend.

“Well... if you fall down another damn hole, don’t expect me to haul your ass out again.” She calmly pulled the cigarette from her lips and flicked it to me. The spent smoke struck my armor and dropped to the floor.

I chuckled despite it all; same old Wildfire, even if she seemed a bit off. While she’d always had an odd sense of humor, she seemed far more grim, and her eyes seemed duller. I pushed that away for the time; there would be plenty of time to figure out what was wrong with her later. I began walking through the ruined, tumbled-down homes of Sticks.

The ruined collection of half finished homes and piles of rotting lumber had not changed since I’d last seen it a day before. At least now I had some idea of where I was going and it did not take me long to trot to the demolished subway station. The wide, flat parking lot surrounded the pile of rubble, making it easy to see among the numerous other ruined buildings. As my hooves began carrying me across that flat, open space, I spotted the stairs leading down into the subway. Had it really just been yesterday? It seemed like it’d be far longer.

Looking away from the stairs, I scanned the ruins and noticed something my early glance had missed. Originally the look of the ruins had given me the impression that the entire building had been destroyed in the fighting between the Steel Rangers and the Super Mutants, but actually a section had managed to survive.

Turning away from the steps, I trotted along to the left of the ruins and around the pile of bricks, rusting steel beams, and bits of wood to a corner that still stood. Standing where I was, I could see inside the rooms of the building. Desks and chairs lay scattered about along with the always-present filing cabinets. Somepony had made a killing off of those; the wasteland seemed littered with them. I also spotted the remains of the building’s stairway. Parts of it had been destroyed by the collapsing roof and walls, but much of it still remained. Enough so for a pony to climb to the top. And it was there that I spotted a single figure sitting with his back to the town, staring off to the north.

Climbing carefully along the still-unstable pile of debris, I made my way into the standing section of the station and into the stairwell. The steps looked unhealthy, and as I placed my weight upon them, they groaned and sank down a bit, but held. Climbing quickly, I emerged back out onto what had been the fifth floor of the building, not the roof, just another floor. The roof was mixed in with the rest of the floors on the ground below me. Once I was sure I wasn’t going to plunge through the sagging floor to my death or at least more broken bones, I worked my way across the floor towards Carrion.

The ghoul said nothing; he’d likely seen me approaching long before I’d seen him. The pony had his back to Sticks and was staring out across the flat landscape of the Povoni Desert. His orange glowing eyes fixed upon the twisted towers of Kanter City, which I could just barely see from here.

I stepped up beside him and looked out across the wasteland, the late evening breeze ruffling my mane. The worn Marshall’s hat kept most of it in place, however. For as far as I could see was flat, dry ground. The odd rock rose up here or there, along with hardy pale-green cacti. Above it all, the low-hanging grey clouds covered the sky. Judging by the darkening of those clouds, the sun was nearly down, and the moon would likely be rising soon.

I looked up into the sky, scanning the thick bank of cloud cover for any sign of those two heavenly bodies beyond the darkening clouds, the symbol of our beloved goddess, Celestia and Luna. After several moments, I lowered my head from the sky to the pony beside me.

“Do you miss it?” I asked, seeking to break the silence between us. The ghoul did not answer right away, his eyes remaining locked on those distant towers.

“I suppose in some sick ass way I do.” He sighed, which sounded rather odd seeing as how air went through his nose and a hole in his throat. He looked away from the horizon and over to me. “It was my home since the day I was born, and when the bombs began falling I thought it would be where I died too.”

“So, why’d you stay?” I asked, cocking my head to the side and perking my ears towards the ghoul, “You must have had a number of chances to leave since then.”

“I could have left. I started to on a number of occasions. But every time I found myself returning, until finally the day the raiders showed up and began setting up shop. I wasn’t about to let some sick fucks like that take over my home.” He frowned and looked away from the horizon and over to me. There was something else as well he wasn’t telling me, so I decided to press a bit.

“There’s more to it then just a desire to defend your home though, some other reason you stayed.” I thought back to the feral ghoul he’d killed in the sewers, of him removing something from the body, “Was it to look for your friends? Family?”

His glowing orange orbs blinked at that and he hurriedly turned away. After several more seconds of silence, he turned his head back to the saddlebags he wore and opened the right pack up. After a moment, his horn began to glow and a pile of rusted dirty tags floated out from inside the bag. They drifted around to hover in front of his face, before they lay down before my hooves.

Reaching down, I lifted the ball of metal tags and thin chains up with a hoof and eyed them.

Roseheart. Private First Class. 105th Equestrian Calvary. Serial Number 2389761.

Junebug. Sergeant. 105th Equestrian Calvary. Serial Number 2367890.

Blueflower. Corporal. 105th Equestrian Calvary. Serial Number 2387012

As the little ball of tags slowly swung around in my hoof, I could see other names, some clear as the day they’d been made, others covered with rust or dirt. All from the 105th. His unit. I looked from the collection of dog tags from the dead to the ghoul beside me.

“I couldn’t leave my ponies behind.” he said softly, and looked back out to the distant ruined city, “I found nearly all of them ‘cept for two. Twins. Youngest ponies in my unit; I think they lied to get into the army.”

I arched a brow and remembered the two ponies we’d found forgotten in the subway crossover room. Holding one another close, and the recording of their final moments alive. I turned away from the ghoul and to my saddlebags, opening the flap gently and searching around inside. Moving over the spare rounds for my weapons, and a small bundle of papers, I found what I was looking for. I pulled out two lone tags from within and turned to gently attach them to their comrades.

Watching me, Carrion arched a brow wondering what I was doing, when I offered it back, his horn once more began glowing and he brought the collection of tags back to him. The ghoul looked closely at two new tags sitting upon the rest.

Pound Cake. Flight Sergeant. 59th Air Wing. Serial Number 239100

Pumpkin Cake. Sergeant. 105th Equestrian Calvary. Serial Number 239101

For a moment, in the dim light of the evening, I could have swore I saw tears in the ghouls glowing orange eyes, but he quickly turned his head away to place the tags back inside his pack. Again, we sat in silence and watched as the shadows grow deeper across the flat plains and around the ruins of the few buildings near us. Finally, he asked.

“You're going back for him aren’t you? Even after everything that's happened to you, to your sister, you're still going back in there.” His thick raspy voice broke the silence. and I nodded my head. He turned his orange gaze away from the north to look me over.

“After everything Stone’s done for me, I can’t just leave him in there knowing what they’ll do to him. What kind of friend would I be?”

“You remind me of how ponies used to talk, before the bombs, before the war. How we use to be.” He looked away again and his shoulders slumped a bit. The loud-mouthed, rude ghoul seeming to shrivel up before my eyes. In his place was a pony. A very tired pony. Tired of war. Of death. Of being forced to stay alive when he should have died so long ago. Just. Tired. “You still sound so damned hopeful.”

“I lost hope.” I thought back to waking up alone after being separated from everypony else. Of the dreams I’d had, and the memory of my sister. I closed my eyes as tears formed once more. “I lost it for awhile, but somepony helped me find it,” I said, and despite the tears I smiled. After all that had happened to me, after all the horror, I’d managed to save the lives of ponies I’d just met, and would likely never see again. I’d done the very thing my sister had wanted to do for so long. To leave our safe warm hole in the ground, rejoin our fellow ponies. Help them rebuild their lives. It's why the Stables had been built. Why we’d been hidden away from the horrors of the end of the world.

“Hope will not get you a way into the city. The only way inside was destroyed when we escaped. The gates in are heavily guarded, even while the train is gone. I suppose you could try sneaking in while the trains leaving or arriving but it’d be risky.” He frowned. “I’m not sure if its a good thing or a bad thing you arrived when you did. A few days earlier and there’d been a lot more ponies in that cell.”

As he mentioned the train, I remembered Tassles saying most of the others had been taken to work on the collapsed tunnel. Dozens of other ponies we’d been unable to help due to them being taken daily out to work on the tunnel... outside the walls... by train...

I sat up suddenly and felt something click inside my head. THE TRAIN!

“Carrion, you said the train was due back tonight...?”

“Yeah, it arrived a few hours before you showed back up in a hail of lead, which by the way was a nice entrance.”

“When’s it due to leave again?” I asked, already getting an idea of how this would work.

“In the morning, I guess, they’ve been working almost nonstop to clear that tunnel those ponies blew up a couple years back.” I saw a confused look on the ghouls face as he watched me.

“Would they take every prisoner they have with them? Even recently captured ones?”

“Yeah, sure. They burn through them in a matter of days at the rate their working them to death. It’s one reason they began taking more prisoners than normal. I imagine that’s to be your friend’s fate. They’ll put him on the next train out. Have him work hauling carts of rocks out of the tunnel...” He blinked and jerked his head back, ears standing straight up. “Son of a bitch...!” He’d finally realized what he was saying and what it could mean for Stone.

“Saddle up, partner, it’s time for a good old-fashioned train robbery!” I exclaimed as I leaped to my feet, grinning like a mad pony. Before Carrion could even think of saying anything, I trotted back across the floor to the stairs, this time not bothering to worry about how much it sagged or groaned at my weight. Now I had a very real chance of saving my friend.

As we returned to the garage and the others, I began asking Carrion about the rail line the train would take from Kanter City. For this to work, we would need to catch it either as it was slowing down or just starting. Since it would be leaving from within the walled section of the city, we’d have to find a spot where it was slowest. A sharp turn, a hill. Something. However, Carrion told me it was pretty much a straight shot from Kanter City to the mountains to the east and finally to Appleloosa, a recently settled (well, 150 years ago recent) town, with only a single bridge crossing a small river that would possibly cause the train to slow.

I frowned at the news, and wondered how we’d catch it. Going at full speed, the train could easily outpace a pony on hoof. True, I was basing most of my judgements on half-remembered history lessons and old movies, but it was all I had. Carrion wasn’t sure how fast the train would be going, since the ghoul’s memory wasn’t what it once was, as he claimed. The only time the train would be slow would be when it was just getting underway or coming to a stop. It’d take us far too long to reach the tunnel by hoof, and from what Carrion could tell me, it was defended by a host of raiders. Seemed they weren’t taking any chances in somepony blowing up all their prisoners’ hard work.

That left it leaving Kanter City. It would have to pass through gates built over the tracks, before it could build up speed. According to Carrion, there was a low hill overlooking the east gate and the tracks. It would be risky, getting that close to the city. Still, this was Stone’s only hope. While it would be possible for us to catch it with the chariot, I had other plans for it and its pilot. Plans the fiery mare would not like, but ones she would have to do none the less.

Soon, the garage came into sight. Spirit stood beside the door, keeping watch out into the ruined town. The buffalo perked up as she saw us approaching, though she seemed a bit uneasy at Carrion’s appearance about as much as the ghoul looked to the buffalo. Problems? I shook my head and would figure it out later, along with everything else I was saving for later to figure out.

“Where’s Wild?” I asked Spirit as we neared her, she motioned a hoof over towards the chariot where the pegasus was curled up asleep near the flight harness. The prisoners were similarly tucked up inside the chariots passenger compartment, pressed tightly together. It had been an hour since I’d left, and it’d been a hell of a past few days so I decided to let the orange mare sleep.

I told Spirit to get some sleep as well, and took over her post. I doubt I’d be able to get much sleep until this was finally over.

The following morning began much as I had expected, with a large amount of swearing. The prisoners we’d rescued had just sat down to eat a small meal as the swearing picked up. Tassles arched a brow towards the potty-mouthed pegasus as she flapped her wings and stomped her hooves before me. Spirit Walker sat calmly nearby, looking from the winged pony to me as we spoke. She’d not said much, but I think she understand my reasonings. Both the one I had said openly, and the one I had kept to myself.

“You musta hit your head hard when you fell down that fucking hole, Shadow, if you think I’m going to just sit on my ass while you go and risk yours,” Wild said, as well-mannered and tactful as always. The pegasus fixed her stormy blue eyes on me as she paced. I sighed and shook my head. In truth, Wild was being a bit more stubborn than I had originally thought. Carrion had said as much to me the night before.

“Wild, for the last time, this is how it has to be. If we keep arguing about it, the small chance we have of getting Stone back will be gone.” I narrowed my eyes on the mare and grunted; we should have left a few minutes ago already.

“Shadow, you're talking about climbing aboard a speeding train, full of raiders, headed towards a raider outpost. Just the two of you.”

Carrion looked up from where he’d been standing. The ghoul had slept little, if at all, the night before (did they even need sleep?). I was still surprised he’d agreed to come with me on this mission, given his earlier statements about risking his hide for no pony. Still, I was thankful he was. It allowed me to ask Wildfire and Spirit Walker to take the prisoners back to Crossroads, removing the two females from being taken captive by sex-crazed cannibal raiders.

“I know, but how else are we going to get these ponies back to Crossroads and the medical attention Spirit said they need? They can barely walk on their own, let alone cross the desert to town, and let’s not mention the radscorpions and patrolling groups of raiders they could stumble upon. They can’t stay here, either; it could be hours before we got back, and Carrion said he’d seen a number of patrols crossing the plains. The best way to get them to safety is over most of the hazards, and that means the chariot. Which also means it has to have a pegasi to fly it,” I explained for the fifth time that morning. Hopefully Wild would get the idea that saving those ponies lives was more important than risking her own. It was also the truth. The prisoners needed more medical care then Spirit could give, and the buffalo had made it clear that we’d be out of water in a day or less. We couldn’t stay here. Nor could I leave here without Stone.

“Alright, fuck it... but why is Spirit coming with us?”

“She has to go for the simple fact that you can’t care for them while you're flying them across the wasteland, and Doc McCoy is going to need some help with them.” Of the two, I believe Spirit knew I had other reasons for sending them both away, but the buffalo remained quiet as we spoke, instead focusing on the young filly we’d rescued.

I could see that she wanted to argue with me, her blue eyes shifting to side to side as she tried to come up with some flaw in my plan. Some reason to stay. Finally, I saw her wings slump and she nodded her head slowly.

“Alright...but as soon as I get them back to Crossroads, I’m coming back for you three, so make sure you’re all in one piece.”

“I believe I can manage that,” I said with a nod from my head. I offered the winged pony a smile which in turn earned me a scowl and snort.

“Fuck if you can’t find your own way out of a tunnel system, kid. But you better damn well find your way back from this.” She turned and walked away to the front of the chariot, checking over the harness and the attached instruments.

I watched her for a moment as she went over the lines connecting her to the chariot, perhaps some preflight check or something. I had a feeling it was more to take her mind off things. I looked away from the mare and over to Carrion, who had stood up and was strapping on his armor.

The ghoul looked odd without the armor and uniform. Below it, he almost looked like a normal pony, save for how skinny he appeared. I suppose the cover had protected his body when the radiation leaked into the sewers. But then, I wasn’t really sure if that’s how the unicorn had been turned. Beyond a few odd hints, he’d not said much about it, and I did not press. It was likely a sore subject, what with dying and coming back as the undead. I caught sight of Tassles slowly approaching me from the other prisoners.

Her coat and mane were still a mess of dirt and filth, but she was looking far better than she had when I’d first seen her. The mare had fresh bandages across much of her hind quarters and neck. I was glad to see none were yet stained red, so her wounds were likely healing well. It was the internal and mental wounds that worried me the most. It appeared she wished to ask me something, but was unsure how.

“You're really going after your friend?” she asked softly. Luckily, the garage was already silent or else I might have missed the question. I nodded my head slowly and she pressed on. “If- if you happen to find Silverglow...” she trailed off, as tears formed in her wide eyes. She sniffed and looked away.

I stood up from where I’d been sitting and walked over to the distraught mare. She’d managed to hold up well while we’d been chased. And from what Wild had told me, she’d even taken charge of the others while Carrion and the winged mare led them to safety. I laid a hoof gently upon her shoulder and she turned her face back towards me, sniffing a little. “If I find him, Tas, I’ll bring him back to you. I promise.” She nodded and wrapped her forelegs around my neck and brought me into a hug.

“Thank you, Shadow... Celestia and Luna bless you.” After several more seconds, she released me and went back to rejoin the others. Spirit walked over to me and watched Tassles for a moment, then looked over to me.

“It would seem your friends think very highly of you,” the buffalo said in her normal soft tone.

“No more than normal,” I responded, and turned to regard the buffalo as she stepped up beside me. She watched as Tassles settled in with the other prisoners. “I’m surprised you didn’t say much.”

“I believe the winged mare said more than enough for both of us. I do not approve of being sent away from a chance of saving those from my former home, but I also know you spoke mostly the truth.” she looked away from the others and down to me, “I know there was another reason why you did not wish us to come.”

“I can’t ask either of you to take that sort of risk. Wild’s already been through it once, I can’t let her go through it a second time.” I glanced to the pegasus as she began strapping herself into the flight harness.

“I believe she knows that's part of the reason you do not wish her to come,” Spirit said as she stood up. “She also knows what you said was true, that we need to see these ponies somewhere safe.” She nodded her horned head towards the mares as they tiredly climbed to their hooves and began boarding the chariot. As she trotted away, Spirit turned back to me and offered me a slight smile. “I would also like it if you returned from this venture. You are a most unusual pony.” She bowed her head and went to see to her charges.

I smiled and shook my head. Me? Unusual? Maybe. Or maybe I still held out some hope that ponies could learn once more what was right and wrong.

Since the flight could prove bumpy if Wild needed to evade any griffons or any other threat, it was decided that most of the sick mares would be buckled into the seats inside the chariot to keep them from falling down and injuring themselves anymore. Spirit and Tassles would remain free, to help the others if the need arose. It took us only a few minutes to see to them, and I hurriedly climbed out and onto the warm pavement of the roadway. We’d pulled the chariot out of the garage only a few minutes before.

Walking around to the front, I found Wild slipping the helmet over her mane and strapping it into place. Adjusting the mic, she glanced over to me, her eyes hidden behind the visor that she’d pulled down to block out any glare (from what I had no idea).

“Remember, I’ll be back tomorrow, with or without help. Don’t get yourselves killed.” She pawed at the ground, wings flexing. “And find Stone.”

“I will, Wild, trust me.”

“I do trust you, Shadow. Odd as it sounds... I think I trust you more then I have any other pony in years.” I had no time to respond, as she flared out her feathered wings and began to flap them up and down quickly. She began kicking up small amounts of dust as she rose into the air.

For the second time this week, I watched as friends departed and headed out west, to safety. While I’d be going in another direction, towards danger. Despite getting no sleep the night before, I couldn’t remember feeling so... alive. I inhaled the warm morning air, and at once regretted it as the scent of decay, rot, and dust entered my nose. At least I managed to keep from sneezing my head off.

Beside me, Carrion stood watching as the sky chariot began to shrink to a smaller black dot on the lightning horizon. The ghoul had not said much since I’d found him atop the subway station, except to tell me he was going to come with me. He’d kept largely to himself while I spoke to the others, and had sat outside while Spirit and I saw to the mares.

“You’re sure you really want to go through with this, Shadow?” he asked, breaking his silence at last.

“Yes, I am.” I answered, looking away from the sky to the ghoul. “Are you? I mean, you owe neither Stone nor myself anything. You don’t have to risk your neck for us.” As I spoke, I stood up and readied myself for the long trip northward.

“Actually, I do.” Carrion rose as well, checking his saddlebags and his assault rifle, which he wore around his neck as I did my shotgun. We began to walk slowly, working our way through the ruins of Sticks.

“Oh?”

“Before you arrived I was simply going through the motions. After I ‘died’ in the bombing, something more then my body changed,” he said in his raspy low voice, keeping his orange eyes fixed upon the path ahead as he spoke. “After a couple of decades, I just stopped caring about everything. All I was living for was to find the tags of my missing soldiers. Nothing else mattered to me. It seemed nothing much else mattered to anypony else in this fucked-up world.”

I listened as we trotted through the spot where I had fought the raiders the night before; their bodies still lay where they’d fallen. There’d been no time to dispose of them, nor had anypony had the energy to deal with them. Flies and other insects buzzed about the bloated corpses as we went past, and the smell was... well, I’d gotten use to it.

“You reminded me of what I’d lost.” I looked at the pony confusedly, and he smirked a bit, his yellowed teeth exposed both by rotting lips and the hole in his cheek (yeah, I still stared). “I joined the army to do more than kill zebras and defend Equestria. I joined it to protect the ponies that could not do so for themselves. I suppose in a few ways, we’re a bit alike.”

“I suppose so,” I said with a nod, looking away from Carrion to the Steel Ranger helmet still marking the spot of a fallen pony. He’d been buried there by ponies who must have cared enough about him to do so.

“So, now, I need to make up for lost time.” He smirked a bit. “Plus, it helps that we’re going to kill some fucking raiders, too.”

I chuckled and nodded my head once more, as the subway station came into sight. Instead of going through the parking lot, however, we stuck to the roadway and went around it completely. On the other side, I could more easily see the surviving section of the building; the torn and tattered edges, toppled walls and broken windows. It was covered in bullet holes and the edges were blackened from a long-ago fire.

Turning away from the building, I stared off to the north, and to the distant towers of Kanter City. We’d travel for a few miles towards those twisted landmarks before turning eastward and make our way up into the low hills overlooking the east side of the city. After that, we’d wait until the train departed for the tunnel, and see just how much luck I had.

Our thundering hooves charged across the open plains, kicking up a rising cloud of dust behind us as Carrion and I followed the railroad tracks leading out of Kanter City. My heart raced in my chest as I ran, nostrils flaring to take in the humid air, strands of my long white mane flowing behind me from beneath the Marshall’s hat. Nothing would stop me. Nothing. Dry soil was soon replaced by loose gravel as we ran across the tracks. Just ahead, the speeding train drew nearer as we galloped after it. Wouldn’t fail. Not this time. My hooves kicked up loose rocks as I flew down the tracks, nearing the battered red caboose and the steps leading onto the train.

When I was at last close enough, I did not hesitate; to do so would have meant death under those rapidly spinning metal wheels. With one smooth motion I leapt upon the swaying steps, my metal shoes ringing out as they struck solidly. I wasted no time, and moved up onto the platform with Carrion close behind, his assault rifle floating up beside him as I brought Luna’s Ruse up. My eyes narrowed on the doorway as a loud cry from beyond caught my ears attention. A cry of fear.

Never. Again.

Rearing back on my hind legs, I brought my front slamming down onto the closed wooden door. Over a dozen frightened faces jerked up as that door burst open and I stepped inside the car. Shackles bound their feet and hooves, and collars around their necks held them chained to the walls or their seats. All beaten. All resigned to their fates.

Two raiders also looked up in surprise at my entrance, their weapons lowered, spiked armor and soiled clothing half on and half on the floor. Both bucks seemed intent on a young zebra mare that lay on the floor between them, one holding her head down with a hoof between her laid back ears.

Neither raiders nor prisoners were given time to recover their wits as I activated S.A.T.S. Four shots, two raiders that needed to die. I narrowed my eyes and without a second thought lined up each shot with a target and released the spell. Luna’s Ruse roared to life and from her muzzle four solid shells flew to their targets. The raider closest to me stumbled back as his head and neck blew apart in a mist of red, his legs flailing as he dropped. His friend who stood over the zebra mare barely had time to realize his fellow raider was dead when he was struck too. One round struck him in the side of the neck, narrowly missing his spine and windpipe, while the second was aimed lower, much lower. The 10-gauge shot removed the smaller of his two heads, sending the stallion dropping to the floor beside the zebra, screaming in agony as he clutched at his wounds with his hooves.

The spent shell casings clattering to the floor, and nopony moved for several seconds after, eyes all fixed upon me in fear. Still standing beside me, Carrion looked over the dropped raiders, lowering his assault rifle and instead moving over to the bodies.

“Show off,” he said in his harsh voice.

From among the prisoners, a large gray earth pony stallion rose up. He’d looked better: his mane was disheveled and filthy, his lip had been split and was bloody, one green eye was swollen shut, and the other was blackened. But still he somehow managed to flash me a big smile and started to approach, only to be stopped by the shackles around his hooves, jerking him to a halt.

“Nice hat,” Stonehoof said, pointing a hoof up to my new headgear. “Liked mine so much ya decided ta get yerself one, eh?”

I trotted over towards him, pulling out a healing potion as I did, and offered it to him. Carrion had retrieved the keys to the shackles from one of the dead raiders and was unlocking Stone’s hooves as the other prisoners watched us silently.

“Pony up, Stone, we’re taking the train.” He swallowed the red drink before looking over the occupants of the train car as it continued to rocket down the tracks. The rest of the raiders were as yet unaware of what had just happened, but it would not take them long to realize something was indeed wrong.

“We’re takin’ everypony with us?” he asked, rising to his hooves, rubbing them a bit as the shackles dropped away onto the floor. From among the car, Carrion produced Stone’s worn old cowpony hat, which the stallion happily returned to its place atop his head.

“No,” I said as I took the keys from Carrion’s magical grip and looked over the hushed prisoners, then to the white and black striped equine. The zebra had clearly been heavily abused, and her wide blue eyes stared up at me in fear for what I might do to her. As I approached, she gave a fearful sound and closed her sapphire blue eyes tightly. Kneeling beside her, I pushed the key into her lock and twisted it. Her ears perked up at the click and from the heavy iron weight around her throat dropping to the floor. I stood back up and looked over the gathered ponies, zebras, a diamond dog, and a griffon stuffed inside the train car. Then I looked back to Stone and Carrion, tossing the keys to the ghoul. I smiled and said, “We’re taking everybody with us. No one gets left behind this time.”

I turned towards the still-closed door at the front of the car, and as I did I saw tears running down the bruised cheeks of the zebra as she realized she was being freed. I did not bother to see if anypony was following me as I gripped the bit of my shotgun tightly. The way I felt right now, I could take on every raider in this train. And then some. I passed by the frightened yet hopeful faces as I neared the door, and with my forehooves, I forced my way into the next car. Nothing was going to stop me now.

A raider stumbled back as the door slammed into his face; he’d likely been coming to see what the noise had been about. Behind him, four others lay about the car, either eating or sleeping. Another five prisoners stood chained to the right wall, all stallions. The nearest, a green unicorn, looked up in surprise as I entered. He looked as battered as the others, but I could see he’d yet to be broken as his red eyes locked with mine.

My tail twitched, and I snapped back to the fight at hoof. I jerked forward into the car and away from the raider who slammed into the floor behind me, with crackling metal hooves. He must have been sleeping on a bunk beside the door when I’d entered. His yellowed eyes widened in shock as his intended victim seemed to know he was there. His shocked look turned to one of pain as I reared back and slammed my hooves into his face. The crack of bone signaled a busted nose and cheek and he stumbled back into the doorway, giving me some room.

My ears twitched, followed by a sudden pain in my right fore leg. Somehow, I knew to duck and a rifle round flew through my trailing white mane to impact the raider behind me. The already wounded stallion dropped to the floor, as his fellow raider began working the bolt of Stone’s rifle. He never got the chance to reload, as the green unicorn prisoner wrapped his chained forehooves around his neck and yanked the raider towards himself with the length of metal. The raider dropped the rifle to the floor as he struggled to loosen the choking grip the unicorn had on him.

Another raider, a red earth pony, was just picking himself up off the floor. He was surrounded by drug inhalers and I could see that his pupils had shrunk. He had just begun reaching for a knife at his waist when I shoved the barrel of my shotgun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. Even a drugged-up raider had to feel their head being blown off and painting the walls of the car red. The body slumped to the floor and I stepped forward into the next raider who was fumbling with a pistol. I slammed the stock of the shotgun into his face; he yelped and went down in front of the other chained ponies who looked down upon their tormentor with rising anger. His end was slow and painful as they only had their bare hooves, chains, and months or years of anger. There was still one raider left, and, gripping my shotgun back in my mouth, I turned to dispatch him.

With a crack of bone, the green unicorn finished him off, letting the limp body roll to the floor before his hooves and unwrapped his chain from around the dead body’s neck. The injured stallion panted as he looked up from the dead body and opened his mouth to say something to me, when the door to the next car slammed open.

I jerked my head towards the sound, and saw the dim light of the wasteland flooding through the doorway. The next car appeared to have no roof over it and was crawling with raiders, at least a dozen or more. One of them stepped into the car, a machine gun battle saddle strapped across his scarred, armored back with belts of ammo running into either side of his saddlebags.

“By the pit, what the hell’s going on in here?! Fleshripper, if you’re fucking the bucks again I’ll have your heads on a...” His snarling voice was silenced as a single gunshot echoed throughout the narrow train car. The large stallion dropped dead to the floor, a single bullet through his chest and into his heart. As he did, one of the prisoners kicked the door shut in his face.

I blinked in surprise and looked behind me, a smile breaking out across my face as I watched Stonehoof lower the still-smoking barrel of his rifle. He stood in the doorway over the powerhoof armed raider and worked the bolt of his weapon, sending the spent shell casing tumbling to the floor. He tilted his hat back with a hoof and looked over towards me with a smile on his lips.

“Takin’ th’ whole train, are ya?” I nodded and he grinned more. “Ya don’t think small, do ya?”

My smile grew into a big grin and I started to respond when the raiders still outside the car began firing blindly. Assault rifle, hunting rifle, pistols rounds all ripped into the wooden walls and roof of the passenger car with ease. I dropped to the floor, as did everypony else within. One pony near the door was not so lucky, and he took several rounds in the chest and neck, letting out a cry of pain as he fell onto his side, bleeding badly.

NO! I wouldn’t let another pony die because I couldn’t help them! Gripping Luna’s Ruse tightly in my teeth I began to rise and rush the door. I had to stop those bastards from firing into the car! I had to save these ponies! A grey hoof grabbed me and kept me down.

“Ya’lls gonna get yerself killed, Shadow!” Stone yelled into my ear. I struggled to rise, but his grip was firm and I couldn’t free myself.

“Dammit, they’ll kill everypony in here if I don’t stop them!” I yelled back, looking away from my friend to the door as it all but disappeared in the hail of bullets. Carrion snapped off a few shots behind us in the doorway, but was forced back as more rounds ripped through the wooden train car.

The doorway to our car was slammed open, turning it into little more then splinters as another raider stood ready to gun us all down where we lay. His assault rifle held in his teeth, yellow eyes narrowing on the prone forms before him. I could see him pulling the tigger as he prepared to kill us all. He never got the chance.

A raider behind him pointed skyward and let out a yell, but it was too late. High caliber rounds ripped into the roof of the passenger car above the doorway and into the body of the raider. He was shredding before our eyes, and what was left dropped lifeless to the floor. A second later, a dark shadow passed over the raiders standing outside, and assault rifle rounds danced over them. They stumbled for cover they couldn’t find, for their attacker was above them, and within the armored crew compartment of a sky chariot. I craned my neck up to better see through the doorway.

Wildfire soared above the train cars, dipping her right wing towards the speeding cars. Trailing behind her, the black-armored transport leaned over slightly as well, allowing the gunners standing in the open side door better firing angles on the raiders below. Spirit Walker and Tassles raked them with fire, Spirit’s rifle knocking bucks to their knees as she hit them in their unarmored flanks or necks. Or simply in their chests, where their armor stopped the round, but not the force. Meanwhile, the battered assault rifle held tightly in Tassles’ jaws found few real targets, for she’d never fired a weapon in her life, but she kept them pinned down and easy prey for the buffalo standing beside her.

Carrion came back around from the doorway he’d taken shelter in and fired off a clip into the confused raiders, every round sending puffs of blood up into the air as they dropped to the floor. The ghoul snarled and began walking towards us, rounds flying past his battered combat helmet to scatter across the floor.

Beside me, Stone rose up and kneeled to fire off a round, striking a raider in the head and sending him down atop the dead. After several seconds, there was nopony left alive in the roofless passenger car; the bodies of the dead raiders filled with holes of all shapes and sizes.

Carrion began seeing to the captive prisoners with the young zebra mare who held the keys to their locks. The green buck rubbed his legs as the shackles dropped off and glanced my way, a grin on his face.

“That... was fucking awesome.”

Overhead, Wild lowered herself and the chariot down near the windows of the car we were in and slowly drifted back towards where we stood. The windows had long since been blown out by the raiders’ wild firing. The orange pegasus grinned at me from beyond the window, giving me a wave with a hoof as she yelled in.

“Figured you two muck ponies would need some help from me; I suppose this is gonna become a habit of mine, saving your asses!” Stone rose up fully and dusted himself off, looking out to the flying mare and smirking. She winked to the earth pony before looking back to me. “Now, what’d ya say we kill the rest of these fucking bastards and go home?”

I looked over to my friends and grinned. I stood up and reloaded my shotgun, as Carrion slid a fresh clip into his and Stone adjusted his hat. Something my father used to say came back to me then. I dunno why, but it just seemed like the right thing to say.

“I’d say, it’s party time.” I snapped the drum feed of Luna’s Ruse shut and started towards the blood-soaked car. Carrion and Stone followed.

For the next hour, we fought. Car by car, inch by inch we pushed our way forward towards the engine, determined to bring the train to a halt. If it reached its destination, we’d been overrun by the raiders stationed at this tunnel base. We had a little over two hours to make this happen. I’d never been more proud of my new friends or myself than at that moment. Not a single pony wavered, as we faced off against the wasteland’s worst.

Stonehoof worked the bolt action of his rifle with skilled hooves, every shot striking a raider someplace vital. Not a round was wasted. Heads jerked back as new holes were punched through them. Lungs or hearts turned to bits of meat as pointed bullets found them. When they got close, the sharp edge of his hunting knife sliced throats and limbs just as skillfully. Living within the wasteland his whole life had taught the earth pony the skill of killing.

Carrion fought like professional. He had years of military training alongside some of Equestria’s finest soldiers, practicing the art of war, the art of killing his homeland’s foes. He moved swiftly from cover to cover, setting down withering fire to keep the raiders’ heads down as the rest of us moved up. He could almost read the minds of our foes, knowing when they were going to push forward, and when we should. If not for the zebras having balefire bombs, I found it hard to believe we would have lost the war.

The green unicorn buck, Balefire, followed us, and he found this all a ‘fucking blast.’ The young buck had gotten his hooves on a pair of beautiful revolvers from somewhere. The ivory grips were carved into reliefs of the Princesses Celestia and Luna. I couldn’t see them too clearly, as he whipped both around quickly to fire at targets near him. While he was not as skilled as Carrion or Stone with his aim, he more than made up for it with guts, taking risks that my two friends would not. His brash nature almost cost him his life a couple times, but he seemed to have a bit of luck, and always found some way out, either by covering fire from one of us, or just brute force.

Overhead, Wildfire kept pace with the speeding train easily. The pegasus’s red mane and tail flowing behind her like a trail of fire. Her wings pumped furiously as she propelled both herself and the chariot forward. She moved over the train from left to right, and then back again, strafing the cars where there was no threat of injuring a prisoner with her deadly rifles. The large rounds ripping holes in the roofs of the cars as they annihilated the raiders within.

Behind the winged mare, Spirit Walker and Tassles fought as one, laying down fire to keep the raiders pinned as we moved up. As it turned out, the rifle Spirit wore was not just for show or defense. The buffalo was actually a skilled shot. It also helped that these raiders were likely the same ones who had taken her family, plus it was very likely that in this new Equestria, you either learned to use a weapon or died by one.

Tassles was also driven by anger at the twisted ponies below her. The mare had never once fired a gun in the Stable. She’d actually rather been afraid of them, as I recalled. Ebony and I had decided it might be a good idea to train more of the Stable on how to use the weapons should the need ever arise. The mare had dropped her shotgun more than once after firing it in training. Now, however, she worked to load a fresh clip into the assault rifle with the skill born of necessity; the necessity of continuing to fire a hail of bullets upon the raiders that had for a week tormented her and her friends.

I fought on beside them all, losing count of the number of times I reloaded my new shotgun, spent shells littering the passenger cars beside the dead raiders’ bodies. Unlike my old Stable-issued combat shotgun, Luna’s Ruse seemed to pack a bit more punch and range. It’s lightness allowing me to fire it more easily, but it still left an imprint on the raiders who got too close. The wooden butt of the weapon broke more than a few teeth, horns, and noses as I battled my way forward. Still, I would always miss my old one, which had belonged to my father.

Cowering prisoners looked up in awe as their captors fell before their wide eyes. Some dragged injured raiders down so we could quickly move up to dispatch them. Others stayed far away from the fighting, shielding foals or loved ones from the firefight. All seemed shocked at what was happening. Some were confused. Were they really being rescued? More than a few looked on with tears in their eyes.

For them, the zebra mare I’d saved brought their freedom. The keys we’d found in the caboose seemed to work for all the shackles on the train. The injured striped equine helped her fellow prisoners back towards the rear of the car, risking her life more than once to reach those trapped in the battle, bullets zipping past her slender frame. But she moved swiftly between cover, always seeming a step ahead of the bullets meant for her.

Thankfully for her, all the prisoners seemed to welcome her help, despite the fact she had been Equestria’s most hated foe. I suppose it really didn’t matter to these ponies; she was a prisoner just like them and it had been so long ago.

Rocky hills and flat dry desert landscape flew past us as we fought, flashing by in the broken windows of the cars. Distant mountains began rising up as we sped down the tracks towards the east. I only caught glimpses of these sights as we fought: cacti and dead trees, ruined, long-deserted settlements, and long forgotten graveyards of the war.

Covered in sweat, wounds, and blood, we at last reached the final passenger car and the last of the raiders aboard the train: over a dozen near-frenzied, twisted ponies fighting to hold us off, or kill us all. They’d set up a crude defense across the car, using overturned seats and tables to take cover behind. They made sure to stay out of sight of the windows, lest Wild or her gunners target them. But the pegasus and those in her chariot had to hold their fire.

Just behind the raiders cowered foals of the captive ponies we’d saved, holding one another tightly as they watched the carnage from the other end of the car with wide, frightened eyes. A single raider mare stood guard over them, ears twitching wildly about as she watched her fellows fight to hold us off. The raiders had separated most of them to better keep their parents in line. Now, they held them as hostages so that Wild and her gunners would be unable to fire blindly into the car.

Beyond them, a row of flatbed cars loaded down with wooden support beams and digging tools lay, giving us a straight shot to the engine and stopping this ride. I could just see the top of the engine’s smoke stack, billowing out black clouds of smoke into the air from the open doorway. Like everything else the raiders had, the once-smooth metal tube was covered in rusty spikes and bits of bone. I thought I saw a skull or two, but it was still too far away and covered in smoke.

“Damn them, somepony in there’s actually got half a mind,” Carrion hissed as he reloaded his assault rifle. Ammo was beginning to run low. One of the freed prisoners, a young unicorn mare by the name of Red Velvet, had gone back to collect what ammo she could from the dead raiders we’d left behind. For once, not even Stone had stopped to loot the bodies as we’d pushed our way along the train.

“Ah reckon we’re in a might bit of a pickle here,” my gray friend said, nursing a fresh wound along his foreleg. The pony had stayed up too long to line up a shot and had taken a round through the limb. Unfortunately for his target, he didn’t let it stop him from firing, and a raider went down with a hole through his throat.

“We can’t stay here all day! We’ll be at the dig site in another hour or so. I say we just charge ’em, bastards won’t know what hit ’em!” Balefire said with a gleam in his red eyes. He’d been quite reckless in the fight, but I didn’t doubt his bravery. Just his sense.

“And that’s why you're not in charge,” Carrion responded to the youth’s ‘plan,’ and glanced over to me. “Kid’s got a point, though; we can’t stay here.”

“Suggestions?” I asked, reloading Luna’s Ruse for the... goddesses alone knew how many times now. Rounds thudded loudly into my crude cover, an overturned table. The grizzly meal that had been set out upon it lay on the floor.

“Ah reckon we outta’ get ‘round them somehow.” Stone said beside me, as the zebra mare finished patching him up. The striped equine had followed us since the beginning. “Wild had ta drop back a while ago due ta a wound, otherwise Ah’d suggest havin’ th’ firey mare drop down behind ’em”

Wild had taken more risks than was smart for a pony pulling a few tons of metal behind her through the air. A raider had managed to catch her as she turned, grazing her right wing with several rounds and almost causing her to crash into the ground. Luckily, she’d pulled up and away before he could fire again. Stone had made sure he’d never get another chance and had placed two rapid shots square in the raider’s brains. He’d worried a bit over Wild afterwards, but I told him Spirit would see to our winged friend. Still, he had a good idea...

“What if somepony went along the roof and dropped down behind them? I doubt they'd notice one of us slipping out and if we moved quietly, I imagine they’d not even notice somepony above them,” I said, looking from Stone to Carrion.

“And who’s going to be stupid enough to risk their neck on a rickety rooftop while traveling down the tracks at asinine speeds?” Balefire chimed in with a grin, clearly thinking himself for the job.

Sometimes, even I hated my ideas.

To say the going was difficult was like saying that radioactive geckos were ugly as sin (yes, I am still going on about those). The poorly maintained tracks caused the entire train to shake and shudder, making moving across a slightly slanted surface all but impossible. The wind howled over top of me, wiping my mane and tail almost painfully about. My hat was nearly being yanked off my head by the force, but remained in place. Twice I almost slid completely off the roof to go plummeting to my death on the speeding desert floor. But against all odds, I not only managed to cross the length of the passenger car, but to do so quickly.

I dropped down from the roof and onto the edge of the first flatbed as quietly as I could, my hooves striking the piled lumber and thankfully dulling the sound. I jerked my head back towards the open door to the passenger car behind me (as it turns out the door was not open, just simply gone, ripped free some time ago).

There was no sign the raiders had heard me, or expected anything. Not surprising from the sound of fighting come from beyond the door. I doubted the raiders would have heard me if I’d set off a balefire bomb. The raiders yelled and cursed out my friends as they fired wildly towards them from within the train car. The only thing I really noticed that seemed odd was a shimmering in the air near the doorway. But then, I’d seen that often enough across the dry landscape as heat distorted the air and quickly pushed it from my mind.

Climbing down the wooden beams, I once more scanned the flatbed car for any signs of danger. My E.F.S. was filled with red and green dots, most concentrated together in the passenger car ahead. But there were also two red dots behind me, towards the engine. I started forwards when the swaying car below my hooves suddenly jerked violently and nearly sent me sprawling on my face. Quickly, I righted myself and glanced back towards the front of the train.

We were taking a sharp curve in the tracks and beginning to rise up a hill. Not far off, I could just see the badly-rusted iron bridge that crossed one of the few rivers on this side of Equestria: the Coltorado River. Beyond that bridge, it was only a few more miles to the tunnel, and the raiders’ base they had set up nearby.

Turning back to the passenger car, and despite the rattling of the car below my hooves, I hurriedly made my way towards the door, trusting on them being too busy with my friends to see me coming up from behind them. The raiders poured rounds into my friends as they took cover behind whatever they could find. I began lining up my first few shots to drop four of the most heavily armed targets in the car. With them down, there’d be less risk for Carrion and Stone to charge forward and take the others. With luck, they’d even be distracted enough to lessen their fire.

I reached down for the firing bit of my shotgun, something I had done countless times throughout my journey across the wasteland. It saved my life. A shotgun blast grazed me just between my shoulders and along my neck, most of the buckshot flying harmlessly over my head to pepper the door frame and wall of the passenger car. The force was still enough to send me stumping to the ground with a grunt, not to mention the pain of small lead balls digging into my flesh where they found weak spots in my armor. Still, it could have been worse. I could have had my head blown off.

“Lucky son of a bitch...” I heard a voice growl out from behind me, and without thinking I lashed out with my hooves at the source. I heard somepony jump back from the attack and quickly managed to pick myself up and face my attacker... or rather, empty air. No, not quite empty... that shimmering distortion was there before me where it hadn’t been moments before. It was pony-shaped...

I leapt to the side as another shot ripped from the distortion, sending buck shot flying past me. Once more, I was only just lucky enough to keep from dying, but not enough to keep the pellets from striking my unarmored flanks. Harsh, cruel laughter filled the air around me as blood ran down my flanks and hindquarters. The laughter was odd, creepy, and gut-wrenchingly familiar.

From the shimmering field, a pony appeared before my eyes. He appeared much like any other raider I’d seen, dressed in crude spiked armor plating and adorned with trophies from the unfortunate ponies he’d gotten his hooves on. He was a unicorn, with dirty brown mane and dark purple coat, and a half-hidden pony outline as a cutie mark. However, the two things that marked him out as different from the other wack jobs I’d seen was the odd horseshoes he wore. The metal came up and over his hooves, almost like armor, but each was lined with wickedly sharp claws. Getting hit by them would likely rip a pony to shreds. The other thing was the blue and yellow patches crudely sewn into a saddlebag across his flanks. Each patch bore a number upon it and one was far cleaner than the rest: a small tattered piece of cloth with the number 45 in yellow numbers. Stable jumpsuits.

He laughed again as he saw me realize what he possessed. It was laughter I now knew I’d heard the morning we'd been attacked. Laughter as somepony had begun carving up Wendy’s body with blades.

“I see you’ve noticed my trophies! Like them? I’ve earned quite a few since I started working for that old bitch Mad Eyes. Seems she’s got something against you Stable ponies. Wants you all dead.” As he spoke, his glowing red horn floated up a sawed-off, double barrel shotgun. The trigger looked rather odd, not meant for an earth pony, but for use with hooves. With a click, the weapon snapped open and two shells floated out from his saddlebags, “Tell me, how’s your sister?”

I froze at that. He chuckled and slipped the shells into the weapon.

“She had a very nice ass... well, least until after the fifth stallion got a turn...” He never had a chance to finish, as my hoof connected with his mouth. Blood flew into the air along with several of his teeth as I struck him, sending him staggering from the sudden attack. I followed up the strike by slamming my Pipbuck into the side of his head. The magic grip that held his shotgun in the air faltered, and the weapon clattered to the rusted steel between our hooves.

I didn’t give him a chance to recover. As the unicorn raider began to turn back towards me, I slammed the stock of Luna’s Ruse into the side of his face, once, twice. I yelled madly as I did so. He grunted and attempted to bring his forelegs up to block my frenzied attacks. I only brought the weapon down on them instead. He stumbled into the stacked timber and managed to get ahold of something with his horn.

An iron bar slammed into the side of my face, nearly causing me to black out. I dropped my weapon on the ground and shook my head, attempting to see clearly once more. When at last I could, I saw his hooves coming towards my face, wicked steel claws gleaming in the dim afternoon light. Metal claws dug into the unprotected flesh and ripped muscle. I bit back a cry of pain and turned my head with the blow as the claws came free, trailing my blood with them. His remaining forehoof struck me in the chest, leaving deep scars down the armor and knocking the breath from me. I stumbled back a step and he moved in with a savage, red-stained grin.

I growled and grabbed hold of his grinning face with both hooves, slamming my head into his. Perhaps not a smart move what with the horn and all, but it only grazed my scalp and sent my hat flying from my head. It stunned the unicorn, however, and I went back on the offensive, striking him twice in the face and pushing him back from me, giving me room to move. I twisted around and sent my hindquarters out to buck him hard in the face or chest, but he saw the move and dodged it.

His clawed hooves once more struck me, cutting deeply into my flanks and lower hindquarters. Gritting my teeth, I attempted to turn, only to have him lunge up and onto my back, sending us both crashing to the floor of the flatbed. I grunted as the heavy weight of the raider pinned me to the ground, and felt him trying to rip away my neck armor so he could slide his hoof claws over my throat.

With a yell, I managed to push both myself and him up off the ground. Legs burning, I gave a mighty buck and sent the surprised unicorn over my head and onto his back. He’d managed to slice a red line through my black coat, but luckily it just missed my throat. Picking myself up fully, I looked up just in time to see him already coming back towards me. I was worn down from the constant fighting, the heat, and earlier injuries. He was fresh, and a professional killer. This was never going to end well.

I managed to strike him again in the face, but the blow lacked any real force behind it. His, however, packed quite a bit. He slammed his hoof into my throat, nearly crushing my windpipe despite the protection of my armor (which was meant more for bullets then hooves and bladed weapons). He followed this up by returning the favor. Spinning around on his forelegs, he bucked me hard in the chest with his hind legs, sending me sprawling to the floor and gasping for air.

“Ready to die, kid?” His blood-stained teeth flashed once more (well, most of them) as he trotted over to me. He laid a hoof on my throat and pressed down. I attempted to speak, but all that came out was a gurgle. He laughed and leaned down close. “Stable ponies... can’t even talk right.” He eased up on the pressure to my throat and perked his ears to hear what I had to say.

“What was that?”

“I said... I got your gun.” Double barrels pressed into his jaw, and his eyes widened in shock as he realized what was about to happen. I pulled back with my right hoof on both triggers as my left held the weapon steady. He attempted to jerk his head back, but he was too late. With a roar that nearly matched Luna’s Ruse for fury, the front of his face disappeared, or rather, splattered across my own. Somehow, with most of the front of his muzzle missing, he still managed to scream in pain. Rearing away from me, the near-faceless unicorn stumbled back towards the edge of the car and dropped out of sight over the edge. Seconds later, the bridge I’d seen earlier was suddenly there, and beams of rusted steel flew past me as we sped across it.

I tossed the spent weapon aside, smoke still rising from the blood-soaked barrels, and slowly rolled over onto my hooves. There beside me lay my hat, caught on the corner of one of the wooden beams. The wind attempted to rip it free as it whipped across the open flatbed. I picked the hat up and placed it back atop my head calmly. Then I collected Luna’s Ruse where it had fallen against the pile of timber and slipped the strap back around my neck.

I glanced back towards the sounds of fighting coming from the passenger car. There were still more raiders that needed killing.

As it turned out, my friends had managed to kill most of the raiders barring their path with lucky shots or the raiders’ own stupidity. The bodies of the dead littered the once-carpeted floor of the passenger car, among spent shell casings, broken health potion bottles, and pools of blood. Only four remained alive, fighting among the dead. Their backs were turned to the doorway behind them, their tiny black eyes fixed upon the four ponies beyond their cover. Assault rifles rattled off a steady stream of bullets; it didn’t seem like they were even aiming. The noise and their carelessness allowed me to move half way into the car before I opened fire.

Of the four remaining, two went down within seconds of my first shots. New holes opening in their flanks and sides as shotgun shells struck them. The wounded pair dropped their weapons in shock and pain, taking them out of the fight completely. The remaining pair jerked their heads back towards the door and me. The unicorn of the pair jerked up and started to turn to fire on me when a round from Stone’s rifle shattered his concentration by blowing out his head from a new hole. The body toppled to the floor upon one of the wounded.

The earth pony snarled and grabbed for a clutch of grenades he had sitting beside him, but whatever he planned was soon ended as I fired off another round and sent the buck tumbling back over the barricade they’d erected. The raider had hardly gotten his hooves back under him when a hail of bullets struck him from behind and dropped him once more.

Carrion stood among the bullet-filled tables and chairs of the passenger car, the barrel of his assault rifle smoking as he lowered it and looked across to me.

“Took ya damn long enough,” the ghoul hissed.

I snorted and glanced over the dead raiders, then back up to Stone and Carrion as the pair made their way across the open space between the ends of the car.

“Sorry, had to help a pony who missed his stop.” A single yellow dot remained in my E.F.S. It belonged to a fifth surviving raider; the mare left guarding the prisoners’ children.

The shaking red-brown earth pony stood near the foals, a pistol held between her lips and pointed shakily towards me. Her wide purple eyes lay fixed upon me, red with tears but oddly normal looking. Something had stopped me from simply placing a round through her head as I had to dozens of raiders on the train. Her eyes were not the same sickly yellow that the others’ had been, and while she wore the rusty, gore-soaked armor of the raiders, she did not have any body parts hanging from it. In fact, the closer I looked, the more she appeared to be just a frightened young mare. In the wrong place, at the wrong time.

As I stood checking the frightened pony over, my companions finally forced their way over the twisted remains of the raiders and their cover to stand beside me, giving the mare a careful look. Carrion seemed ready to empty a clip into her, Stone looked unsure, and Balefire, well, I hadn’t known the rash unicorn long to really know what he was thinking. The zebra mare had once more followed them, and she simply looked to the raider with pity.

I slowly approached the frightened pony and lowered my shotgun from my lips, keeping my movements smooth and simple. Her bar color in my vision remained yellow (for neutral). The foals behind her huddled close to one another and simply watched.

“Just lower the weapon, and nopony will hurt you. We’re just here to free the children and return them to their parents.” And to stop the train, which we realllly needed to be doing right about now. And resting. Goddesses above, I think everything hurt. All at once.

The uneasy mare jerked her head between the armed ponies behind me. Eyes wide with fear, she stomped her forehoof once and swiveled her ears. She looked ready to run or start shooting. While I doubted the small caliber of her pistol would penetrate my armor and I also found it unlikely she’d manage to hit my face with her aim being so shaky, I was really tired of being shot today.

“Please, we just need to get them home.” As if she’d been shot, the mare opened her mouth in a wail and the pistol dropped to the floor with a clatter of metal parts. I half expected it to go off, but upon looking more closely at it, I saw it was nothing more than a piece of rust. I doubted it’d been fired in over a hundred years. The mare dropped to her knees and began sobbing.

“Please- please don’t kill me... don’t kill me. They made me come after they killed my dad. Please don’t kill me!!” the poor thing wailed and cried openly, the sight beginning to upset the foals behind her that had managed to remain silent for most of the fight. The flood gates opened, and soon over half the children were crying for their parents.

Thankfully, we’d not need to worry long. Some of the freed ponies had followed close behind our rampage up the train, hoping to find their captive foals. As the fighting died down, and the sound of gunfire was replaced with the cry of foals, the parents rushed in. Beside them came the zebra mare, gently wrapping the former earth pony raider into a warm embrace.

“Ah reckon we might wanna see ta th’ engine now, Shadow, less yer wantin’ more raiders ta join us in this right touchin’ scene,” Stone spoke beside me, the earth pony looking from the gathering prisoners to me.

“Right... let’s finish this.” I gripped my shotgun and tiredly turned back to the doorway, leaving the prisoners to see to themselves.

The final two raiders gave us little trouble once we reached the front of the train. Both were unarmed, but still attempted to put up a fight with their shovels used for tossing coal into the fire. The fight was over before they’d taken a step, each knocked back by the quick firing of Balefire. The cocky buck grinning as he floated his twin revolvers beside him.

I was at a loss as to how to stop the train. There were simply so many levers to pull or push within the engine that I didn’t know where to start. I’d heard that these old steam engines could be prone to exploding if it was not run correctly. That’d be a bit of irony for you, I survive everything else, but die in a explosion for pressing the wrong button.

Luckily the problem was taken out of my hoof as Stone simply reached up his own hoof and pulled back on a lever that read ‘throttle.’ The roar of the engine began to noticeably lessen, and our speed decreased slowly. Then he reached for a larger one near the boiler and pulled hard on it. With a jerk that nearly sent me head first into the metal controls of the train, we began to grind to a halt, the engine’s spinning wheels screeching loudly over the rusted tracks. Finally, after fighting our way aboard, rescuing my friend and the other prisoners, slugging our way up from the rear of the train to the head, and killing dozens of crazed raiders, we at last slowed to a complete stop. Thick clouds of steam hissed out of either side of the engine, rising up into the humid desert air. Black smoke lazily rose from the stack in the front of the cab, trailing over top of us as we sat upon the tracks.

We did it. We actually did it.

I sank to my flanks and let out a sigh of relief, while beside me Stone and Carrion did likewise. Balefire placed his forehooves upon the windowsill of the engine and rose up to look outside. He wore a wide grin on his muzzle as he turned back to us.

“Woooooowhee, that was something else!” the unicorn yelled, dropping back down to all four hooves as he turned to look my friends and I over with his bright red eyes. “I was starting to think my number was finally up, but you sure did show those raiders a thing or two. What’re your names? Are you guys members of the C.S.E. Rangers?”

I arched a brow to that, and glanced from the green buck to Stone; he knew more about the surface then I. The earth pony shook his head and answered for me.

“Ah don’t rightly think we are. While Ah’m occasionally a guard at Crossroads, Ah never joined up with th’ C.S.E.” He reached up a hoof and removed his hat, the edges dark from his sweat and his mane matted across his forehead and neck. “What makes ya think we’re Rangers?”

“Not many have a pegasus and sky chariot as backup, ‘cept the Rangers and a few special units of the Confederate Army.” He motioned his black-maned head towards the window. “I saw her land and thought she was...”

“Land? Wild’s alright?” Stone at once stood up and slipped his hat back atop his head, the grey pony turning and trotting back out of the engine and onto the coal car.

I turned my head and looked across his shoulder to the train stretched out behind us along a bend in the tracks. I spotted the black armored hull of the sky chariot sitting on the ground beside the passenger cars with ponies milling around it. Stone was already making his way back along the flatbed cars as I picked myself up, Carrion and Balefire following me.

As we went, I saw only the dead raiders and half-destroyed train cars; the prisoners, it seemed, had all gotten off the train near Wild and the others. We worked our way back several cars until we reached one that still had a few ponies sitting inside it: a couple with their young foals beside them. They looked up as we entered, perhaps still afraid raiders might destroy their happiness. They seemed to relax, however, when they saw me.

Stone climbed out of the car via an open door that had been chained shut earlier. The earth pony’s tail disappeared out into the dim light of the wasteland day and I followed it.

As I set hoof outside the train, I was thankful for the steady and very still ground beneath it. I stepped away from the doorway, allowing the others to follow, and looked over the gathered ponies before me. There were dozens of them, sitting outside around the train and chariot. Moving between them, I easily saw the large form of Spirit as she tended to the wounded and sick with whatever medical supplies she had left. Beside her was the striped zebra, helping the buffalo silently.

I was truly shocked by just how many ponies there were out here. Over four dozen, from mares and stallions to young and old. A rainbow of colors and types. I saw that most were unicorns and earth ponies, but a few pegasi sat among the others. There also sat the two griffons I’d seen in the caboose, along with a canine diamond dog and four more zebras. I heard Carrion mutter something to himself at the sight of the striped equines, Equestria’s former enemies. I suppose it would be hard for him, since he was actually one of the few ponies to still remember the war as if it was yesterday.

I took a few steps away from the train and over towards Stone as he searched for an orange mare among the colorful ponies. Standing beside my friend, I began spotting familiar faces among those ponies. Ponies wearing torn and stained blue-and-yellow jumpsuits, Pipbucks around their lower forehooves, the faded number 45 on their collars and shoulders. I smiled as I counted eleven in total. Among them was a sight that brought fresh tears to my eyes.

Tassles was holding tightly onto a skinny and filthy silver unicorn with both her hooves. It was her husband-to-be, Silverglow. Like every other prisoner we’d saved, he was a mass of bruises and scars, but his bright blue eyes shone with tears and happiness at holding his mare once more. He was alive and I smiled for the couple's joy. At least one pony from home had a happy ending.

I took a few steps further away from the train and towards the crowd when the griffons noticed me. The half-feline, half-bird hybrids had been sitting off to themselves mostly, the diamond dog and one or two rough-looking ponies beside them. The pair locked me with their predatory golden eyes and seemed to be taking stock of me, sizing me up for some reason. I paused and arched a brow to the two. After a moment, their harsh glare eased and I noticed a look of respect coming from the natural warriors. It surprised me; however, what happened next surprised me even more.

One of the ponies sitting between the griffons and myself seemed to be looking at something on the ground between her fore hooves. As she turned and glanced back towards me over the crowd, her ears perked up at once. She slowly, tiredly rose to her hooves and back onto her flanks, and began clapping her forehooves. Behind her, the griffons joined in, clapping their clawed hands together. Soon, even the diamond dog was doing the same, and like a wave on the ocean, others began joining in.

I gingerly took a few steps back towards the train in surprise. I hadn’t expected this; I’d just done what anypony would have done, hadn’t I? Spirit and the zebra mare who had been treating the ponies stopped to watch, and the buffalo slowly began smiling as she looked over the ponies around her.

Soon they were cheering or yelling their thanks to me. When that didn’t seem to do, they began rising up to surround me. Hooves reached out to shake my own, many of their owners with tears of joy in their colorful eyes. Thanking me for their lives, for saving their wives or fillies. The stallions gave way to the mares who hugged me, whispering thanks and prayers to the goddesses for my arrival. Colts and fillies seemed fascinated by my borrowed Marshall's badge and hat. The griffons simply gave me a salute, which I managed to return after being hugged by two young fillies.

Behind me, I heard Carrion and Balefire walk up to stand beside me, both looking over the gathered prisoners. The ghoul said nothing, and simply watched with his glowing orange eyes. A few ponies slapped him on the back and a brave mare hugged and kissed the ghoul on the cheek. It was hard to say, but I think he actually blushed. Balefire simply grinned and stepped aside, letting the prisoners gather near me.

I looked around helplessly. I had no idea what to do; I’d just followed Stone out to check on Wild and the others. I wasn’t expecting to be hailed as some sort of hero. Speaking of my large grey friend, he’d looked away from his search for Wild as the sound of clapping grew louder. He stood and watched the ponies gather around me and whistled softly. He reached up to tilt his hat back from his face, and smiled over towards me.

“Well, Ah’ll be...” anything else he was about to say was drowned out as they began to cheer once more. I felt my cheeks flush as I looked over the faces of everyone we’d saved. I hadn’t done it alone, after all. But it seemed that didn’t matter to them.

A black and white striped mare slipped through the crowds around me, walking quickly up to me. Blushing, she stood up on the edges of her hooves and kissed me on the cheek, before hurriedly trotting over to Spirit and a wounded buck. A light laugh caused my ears to swivel towards the source and a second later my eyes followed them

Wildfire landed beside us in a flutter of feathery wings, dust flowing out from around her orange hooves. Folding her wings against her side, she gave me a wicked grin and winked. She had a fresh bandage on her shoulder where the raider had managed a lucky strike, and I also saw a few of her feathers stained with dried blood from the round. Still, she was in one piece.

“What’s a matter, Shadow.. .don’t wanna go count her stripes with your tongue?”

I doubt a balefire bomb could match the shade of red my face turned at that. Beside me, Stone laughed loudly at my darkening cheeks, and even Carrion snorted to himself before he hurriedly looking away.

With my friends around me, and the cheers of the rescued prisoners ringing in my ears, I smiled. It had been a pretty good day.

Welcome to Level 11!

Perk Added: Ferocious Loyalty: The power of your personality inspires die-hard loyalty from your friends and followers. When you drop below 50% health, your companions temporarily gain a much greater resistance to damage.

Author's Notes:

Editor and Chief: TheGamefilmGuruman

Editor: Avi

Pre- Reader: MagicLlama

Pre- Reader: Bronyken

Original Cover Art: TimeForSP

Current Cover Art: MisterMech Go. Worship his work.