My hooves pounded across the floor tiles of the hallway, the walls passing by in a blur as I galloped towards the generator room. The steady impact of my combat shotgun against my chest armor barely registered as I focused on finding the pony I’d seen on the video feed. He or she did not have long before those robots reached them, and I’d seen how well that had ended for the others. Ahead, the hallway suddenly turned sharply to the left. Snorting, I skidded around the corner before digging my front hooves into the cracked tiles and pushing myself down the hall. Behind me, I heard my two friends giving chase; I had a head start on both of them, but they were catching up quickly.

“Shadow! We need a plan!” Stone shouted as he rounded the corner with a loud thud, impacting with the wall and grinding to a halt. The larger earth pony was not nearly as agile as Wild or myself, it seemed, though he was far stronger. Within seconds I heard him falling in behind us once more.

As I focused on the passageway ahead, I saw a set of double doors with a sign declaring the room beyond was the one I’d been trying to reach. The broken sign laying across the floor, the chains it had been hanging by still dangled from the ceiling, swaying gently in a breeze that had found its way inside. Narrowing my eyes upon the generator doors, I glanced back to my friends. Wildfire was inches from my tail, her wings poised to snap open at a moments notice. Behind her, storming down the hallway like a gray stone wall, came Stonehoof; the pony’s hooves kicking up a cloud of dust from the floors.

“Focus on one of the robots until it goes down, I’ll distract them as best I can and buy you two time to take them out!” They had the longer ranged weapons so it was the best plan I could come up. While I could no doubt hang back with the assault rifle and allow Wildfire to move between them, I doubted the rounds would do much damage to the robots. After all, the bodies of the search team Rivets had sent here had been carrying the same weapons, and they had only managed to destroy one at the cost of three lives; and by the looks of the spent shell casings, a lot of ammo.

Turning back around, the double doors drew closer and with a low growl I lowered my head and grabbed for the bit of my weapon. Closing my teeth around it, I charged towards the closed doors, locks be damned. A pony was in trouble and I wasn’t about to stand by while they died.

Impacting the doors at a dead run, I slammed them open with enough force to shatter their already cracked windows, sending shards of glass onto the floor. I’d exited the hall on a catwalk above the generator room, two floors down. Maybe charging in hadn’t been the best idea. A rusting railing ahead of me was hardly going to halt my forward momentum, and the catwalk itself shuttered as my weight slammed onto it suddenly, but as luck would have it just past the railing I saw one of the generators just below, and it was tall enough to break my fall. With a thrust of my hind legs I launched myself into the air, tucking my front legs up tightly as I cleared the railing and went flying out across the open space. I lowered my hooves as the generator began to rise up to greet me. As soon as my hooves slammed down atop the long silent power plant, I began to slow myself down, the drop having bled off a bit of speed. Within a second of stopping, I caught sight of an orange blur as somepony launched herself into the air and over my head. Wildfire’s wings flapping rapidly as she gained height above me.

The harsh red glow and sharp crack of laser weapons fire drew my attention towards the right of the generator on which I stood. Between it and the next generator lay an open walkway at the ground level, where the three robots steadily rolled forward. They looked far larger than they had in the video feed, and far more deadly. The tracked machines had closed the distance between themselves and the far end of the room, where I could see a very frightened young filly trying in vain to fire a weapon that was far too large for her, the soft white glow around the weapon indicating she was a unicorn. She ducked back down quickly, as another sharp crack echoed around the large room. A beam of red energy shot towards where she had been, impacting the wooden box she had taken shelter behind and blowing a sizable hole in its side.

She was just a kid, what the hell was a kid doing here?

Both of the remaining robots opened fire and scorched the crates and floor around the filly, causing her to yelp in fear.

Oh...it...was...on...

Neither the robots, nor the pony I had come to save had noticed us yet. Moving quickly across the generator, I reached the sloping edges and slid down the side, my armor leaving scratches in the paint. As my hooves touched the ground, I found myself behind the three robots, two of which began to turn towards me, no doubt alerted to my presence by the sound of my hooves striking the hard concrete. Gritting the bit of the shotgun tightly, I narrowed my eyes at the three large battle bots ahead of me and realized this was going to get very ugly.

Each stood twice as tall as a pony, and unlike the robot at the entrance, they bore little resemblance to a pony: their bodies were fat blocky things covered in armor plating to protect the vital inner workings. Where the one at the entrance had legs, each of these machines had a thick metal cylinder ending with tracks like a tank. Most alarming of all was their heads: they almost looked like fish bowls turned upside down atop the metal bodies; fish bowls with what looked like brains floating in some blue liquid. Rubber tubing ran along the insides of the bowl, and down into the torso. Though scratched, and in one’s case cracked, the bowls all looked to be in fine shape, reinforced glass perhaps? As the two turned towards me, I could have swore I saw one of the brains twitch.

Sweet Celestia...were those pony brains inside them?!

Aiming my weapon, I looked to theirs. These were also far more heavily armed then the robot we’d seen before, twin rifles attached to their sides by wires and metal braces, on their opposite side each bore a different weapon giving each a role. One had what looked like a short barreled cannon, with a ammo feed working its way inside the machine wielding it, the weapon looked capable of punching a hole through a tank, but luckily the ammo belt was empty. The second was equipped with a claw like arm that opened and closed as it moved forward, I had no doubt it could easily crush a ponies skull between its pincers; as if that was not bad enough, an arch of electricity shot from between the grasping claws. The last one bore a short stubby looking gun with a large barrel and a drum feed under it. I’d seen the weapon listed in the stables data base, a grenade launcher, deadly at short range. It was a good thing we were not tightly bunched, or a lucky hit from it would end us all.

As the two finished turning towards me, the ends of their rifles began to glow a deep red as they powered up. My armor might stop a glancing blow from their laser weapons, but if I was hit directly...I was as good as dead. I had only one option open to me, and so I took it.

I charged forwards closing the gap between them and me, eyes fixed on the nearest threat, as both opened fire. Red bolts of energy slashed past my body within inches, impacting the metal casing of the generator behind me. The sudden move had saved my life, the robots seemed unable to cope with the change. I could feel the heat from the near misses, and remembered the burned wounds of the dead ponies. Squeezing the trigger, I opened fire on the robot to my left, the one with the cannon. My rounds seemed to be doing little real damage to the things armor, at most it appeared I’d dented its casing and damaged the cannon which was of no threat. Yay me. But I wasn’t trying to destroy them.

With a powerful flap of feathery wings, Wildfire shot into the fight. The pegasus arrival harlied a fury of shots as she sank her teeth into the battle saddles firing bit. Twin rifles roaring to life below her wings as rounds screamed from the barrels. Chunks of concrete blowing out around the tracks of the power claw wielding machine to my right as it tracked me with it’s rifles. As she adjusted her aim, rounds began slamming into its heavily armored torso and several penetrated into the torso, sending out sparks and smoke as she damaged it.

I had no time to check on Stone, as I dodged another pair of shots aimed at my head from the machine I was fighting, but there were still four green dots around me. There must have been another survivor with the filly. Dodging quickly to the side, I fired off another round into my target, causing it to turn to try and attempt to line up another shot. A round struck its glass fish bowl head, causing a spider web of cracks to form. The shot came from just behind me, fired by a hunting rifle. Seemed Stone was fine and had managed to find the best weakness these things had.

“Aim for the heads!!!” I shouted around the bit in my mouth, hooves scrambling to bring myself out of Stone’s line of fire. The deep roar of Wildfire’s rifles filled the room, rattling the remaining glass in the buildings shattered windows. Her target was knocked nearly off its tracks by the force of the bullets impacting all across its armored casing. One of its weapons, the nasty looking claw arm, was ripped completely free as a round tore through the joint were arm met the body. The jagged hole that remained in its armored side began to leak with oil rapidly. Its movements became more slow as it attempted to track the fast moving pegasus with its remaining weapon, but I wasn’t about to give it time.

Skidding to a halt before the crippled robot I leveled my shotgun and opened up with the use of S.A.T.S. I had to make sure each shot counted for the small target I was attempting to hit. Three rounds was all it took before the machine crumpled over into a heap of smoking sparks and twisted metal. Each shot pounded into the gaping hole Wild had opened up in its side, getting to the vulnerable innards.

One down...

Twin beams of energy struck the downed robot before me and ignited its power source. The resulting explosion ripped the machine into burning pieces of scrap and sent me tumbling wildly across the floor, landing in a heap nearly back where I’d started. I groaned.

...two to go.

I rolled back to my hooves once the world had stopped spinning and shook my head attempting to clear it. I could feel bits of hot metal and oil coating my armor and body, smoke rising from much of it and from me. Blinking the after image of the explosion away from my eyes, I noticed the warnings of minor injuries from my E.F.S. Quickly I looked for the remaining two robots, and much to my surprise neither seemed to be paying much attention to me. Both had rolled off away from me and seemed far more intent on the orange pegasus flying over head and her high powered rifles. It seemed they’d identified her as the highest threat, as her rifles made a mockery of their thick armor plating once she had a clear line of fire. I felt slightly insulted, time to get noticed and draw the heat from the mare.

“Stone, covering fire for Wild!” I yelled out, picking myself up off the ground and firing off a round towards the nearest machine to get its focus off Wild, she was running out of room to dodge in the tight space. Behind me, the report of Stone’s rifle reached my laid back ears as he fired off round after round into the large robots. Their thick armor was proving just as difficult for his weapon to penetrate as mine. Even their glass bowl heads seemed able to shrug off most of the rounds striking them. Stone was not a dumb pony, and he quickly adjusted his aim to exposed bits, joints in the weapon arms, and anything he could do to slow or throw off the machines aim. It was buying Wild time, and the hot tempered pegasus seized an opening in the incoming fire to dart down.

Wild flipped gracefully in the air and angled herself down towards the robot directly below her, snapping hard on the firing bit and throwing out a lethal hail of rounds. The rifles thundered at her sides, sending spent casings raining down to the ground below as she plowed ahead. Her shots struck hard, pounding the machine back on its treads and even shattering one of its tracks, blowing it’s laser rifles off its side as she closed the distance.

The mare’s victory was short lived however, as the second robot I’d been firing at lined up a shot on her and opened fire. She dodged the red glowing line quickly, but not quickly enough and the bolts of energy struck her right wing. With a cry of pain, the pegasus wing crumpled and she plummeted towards the floor impacting the ground hard and lay still. Orange smoking feathers drifted slowly down from the air to land around her.

“Wild!!” With its back still to me, I ran towards the machine as it slowly began to turn looking for a new target. I waited until I was nearly point blank, before with a roar, my shotgun opened up, spraying out solid slugs. The rounds rang loudly off the robots metal skin, and at first, I though all I had managed to do was dent the damned thing. But as the third and fourth round hit, I saw they had punched clean through the armor somehow and struck something vital inside.

With a jolt, the robot stopped its forward movement completely, smoke rising from the holes I had made. Whatever I had hit didn’t halt its torso from turning to face me, nor shut the thing down, its energy weapon tracking me as it prepared to fire. Ducking the shot, I felt the beam slice over my mane and flanks, burning my coat and leaving a nasty burn down my back where it passed.

“Fucking die!” Snarling from the pain, I moved in close and shoved the barrel of my shotgun up to the glass bowl the thing had for a head and squeezed the trigger as quickly as I could. With a burst of sparks, the head blew free of the machine and landed with a clatter of broken glass and metal a few feet away. My E.F.S. flashing a warning to reload.

That left us with the robot Wild had damaged, the machine was already turning towards me. Smoke rose from the holes punched through its armor by Wild’s rifles, and the ruined barrels of its primary weapon sparked once as it hung uselessly from several wires. Its second arm leveled its grenade launcher towards me and I heard a loud ‘thoom’ and saw a puff of smoke. I’d ducked behind the metal body of the machine I had just beheaded when the round struck ahead of me.

BOOM!!

The grenade exploded in a blast of hundreds of razor sharp chunks of metal. I heard and felt the body of the robot I had ducked behind peppered with smoking bits of shrapnel and watched deep grooves scraped in the floor beside me. I had to move, this robot wasn’t going to take much more punishment like that before something important inside it exploded; already my nose was filled with the scent of burning wiring and oil. I’d been lucky when the other had exploded, but then I’d hardly been humping the damn thing to keep from being sliced apart. I could hear the grenade launcher slide home another round, preparing to fire, and began to hurriedly reload my own weapon, the dram sliding to the side to allow me to slot fresh slugs into the empty spaces. I easily reloaded the weapon, and slapped the ammo drum shut with a flick of my hoof.

Taking several breaths I narrowed my eyes and quickly scanned around me, trying to find a safe place to seek shelter. I was largely out in the open with no real cover to speak of, beyond my robotic friend here. On either side stood the massive generators, behind me was the open floor that allowed access to them. Only one way left to go; forwards. It had confused them once before, hopefully the trick would work a second time. I just had to wait for the next round, and while it was reloading cross the distance to it. As I readied myself to move, my ears twitched once more straining to listen for the next shot, it was with some shock I heard the steady hum of a engine running nearby. Was something else coming to attack us? But there was only a single red dot remaining. Could one of these generators actually still be running?

THOOM!

My cover rocked as the grenade exploded barely a few hooves away from it, a sharp slashing pain running through me as a piece of metal slashed across my flank. Close. The robot shielding me began to burn, as something caught fire.

Time to go!

Gripping my weapon, I pushed myself away from the burning machine and charged around it out into the open. Fixing my eyes upon the crippled robot ahead of me, I ran as quickly as my hooves would carry me across the cracked and pitted floor. The robots only working weapon attempting to track me as I closed with it.

THOOM!

A white puff of smoke flashed from the barrel of the launcher as it fired off another round. The grenade sped towards me at a angle and I prayed to Celestia and Luna I had timed this right. Despite knowing it was pointless, I still found myself ducking my head and hunkering down as I ran. The shot whistled harmlessly over my head, to explode somewhere behind me. By the sound of shattering metal and falling parts it had struck one of the generators.

With a grin, I nearly barreled into the robot, skidding to a halt before it and entered S.A.T.S. wasting little time, I locked onto the targets head and released the spell.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!

Three spent shell casing flew past my cheek as the combat shotgun roared angrily. The solid metal slugs slammed into the glass casing of my target’s head, shattering it with the first round and splattering the blue water across the floor along with shards of glass. The second and third were pointless really, but I still fired them anyway simply because I was pissed. Waste of ammo, but it made me feel better to watch as the second round pulped the pinkish orb of flesh the bowl had protected. The third round completely obliterated the remaining wiring, metal cradle and hoses that had led to the brain. With sparks shooting out, the robot simply toppled over onto its back, oil running from the rips in its armor.

My hooves splashed through the brackish water from the shattered bowl and thick black oil that spilled from the torsos of the destroyed robots. The smoke from the barrel of my shotgun mingling with that rising from the sparking metal bodies as I worked my way towards the crumpled form of my fallen friend.

“Wild?” I called out. Reaching the mare my nose wrinkled as the scent of burnt flesh reached it. She was still alive, as I kneeled beside her I could easily see the rise and fall of her sides as she drew breath. I sighed, and reached for my saddle bag and the healing potions inside. As my head turned, I saw Stone climbing down from the catwalk, the stairs having collapsed sometime ago to the floor and forcing him to carefully work his way down along the generators.

Turning back, I uncorked the red bottle and opened Wild’s lips to pour it slowly into her mouth, she swallowed and groaned as the magic of the potion to effect. Stone galloped up beside me and looked to the mare’s burnt wing, it looked far worse then it was, the shot having simply grazed the limb. If it had been any lower, it could have sliced it off completely. The gray stallion reached back to his own pack and pulled out a worn yellow satchel with pale pink butterflies on its surface. A medical bag, and once he had it open he began pulling out salvaged bandages to wrap the wounded wing.

A slight noise from my right drew my gaze from my friends towards the stack of crates and barrels. Smoke still rising from the scorch marks left by the robots laser weapon impacts. A small horned head poked up from behind one of the smoking barrels, the soft white glow surrounding a assault rifle as it rose into sight. The weapon shook as it floated beside her, her eyes wide with fear.

I smiled to the filly and made sure to turn slowly towards her keeping my mouth away from the shotgun around my neck, she was scared to death, and understandable so after what she’d been through. Since she didn’t fire at me, I assumed it was safe to approach and began to slowly move towards her. As I drew near, I saw that the rifle she held had jammed when a round had stuck in the ejection port while she’d fired it.

Stepping up beside her cover, I saw spent shell casings and empty magazines around her hooves, along with empty health potion bottles and stained bandages. She was not alone, beside her lay a young stallion. A unicorn like her, his armor matched that of the bodies downstairs, however his appeared to have been fused to his flesh, and I swore softly at the sight. He’d survived several near misses from lasers, only to have the heat from the beams melt the armor to his coat. He was still alive at least, his chest rising and falling slowly.

“Anypony else alive?” Stone called out from behind me, as he tended to Wild’s injuries.

“More or less...”

It was well past midnight by the time Stone finished tending to our wounded. The earth pony was no Doctor Kindheart, but years of wandering the Wasteland had taught him a thing or two about first aid. We decided to remain in the generator room for the night rather than blindly stumble through the facility with two wounded ponies and a filly. The others sat before a fire Stone had built from the remains of the wooden crates the survivors of the search team had taken cover behind. The warm fire crackled merrily within the space the earth pony had cleared out on the floor, lighting the room with a soft orange glow. I paced at the edge of the light, looking to the darkness beyond its reach.

We’d swept the room, and checked the remaining entrances into it before setting up camp for the night: there did not seem to be any other robots on this floor or within range of my E.F.S. There were three entrances into the room, the catwalk entrance we had come in and two ground floor doors. Of the two, one had been buried years ago when the floor above collapsed and the other was barred from the inside by myself. Still, I wasn’t taking any chances after everything that had happened.

My wandering eyes paused upon the gaping hole in the side of one of the generators, caused by the grenade round that had passed harmlessly over my head. As I walked between the now silent cylinders, a few sparks came from the hole. Had it really been active? I’d hardly had the time during the fight to give it much thought, but it had sounded to me to be running. A groan from the camp caught my ears and I looked back towards the circle of bodies.

Wildfire sat before the fire, nursing her bandaged wing. Luckily the shot had only glanced off the limb and burned away mostly feathers doing little real damage to the wing itself. The healing potion we’d given her had managed to repair most of the damage and even speed up the regrowth of a couple of those missing feathers. Stone sat beside the wounded mare, offering her his canteen, she pushed the offered drink away. Shrugging, the gray earth pony took a drink and looked back over to the fire.

Beside them sat the survivors from Steeldome. The young filly lay beside the badly burned stallion, his flanks and sides bearing multiple burn marks across his tan coat. Stone had pulled out a health potion from his own bag and helped the unicorn to drink it, he’d then wrapped the remaining wounds as best he could. He’d been lucky as well, he’d only been grazed by the robots’ laser weapons. At the moment, he lay sleeping with the young unicorn sitting beside him. Beyond a few cuts and scrapes, she appeared to have made it through the ordeal in one piece. She looked up, her jade green eyes locking with mine. Smiling shyly she looked away and back to her friend. I glanced once more to the shadows around the camp and took a few steps forwards, only to wince.

We’d all been lucky tonight. The glancing shot I had taken itched like hell, as the fur along my coat had started to grow back from the health potion I had drank earlier after helping Stone with the others. Still, it was better then what could have been, my armor melted to my flank or a hole burned through it. With a sigh I shook my head, there was little point in dwelling on the maybes. It would simply drive me mad if I let it, and it seemed there was far more than enough in the wasteland to drive a pony mad. That thought drew my eyes to the fallen robots as my route through the room took me within sight of them.

All three machines lay where they had fallen, pools of dark oil pooled around their frames along with shards of twisted blackened metal. Stepping closer, I glanced to their ruined heads, the glass bowls had all been shattered in the fight, and whatever had been inside them littered the ground. Again I wondered, had those really been brains in them? They had looked like it, what pony in their right mind would let...No. Don’t think about it.

Turning away from the twisted remains of the robots, I began trotting back towards my friends. Outside, I could hear the steady rhythm of the rain as it fell upon the roof and the few windows in the room. It had not stopped yet, and showed little signs of ending anytime soon. A few leaks allowed water to pool across the floor of the large room, but we’d found a dry spot to make our camp.

At the sound of my hoofsteps, Stone looked up from the fire quickly, his hoof going towards the rifle that lay within easy reach but stopping as he saw me. Entering the circle of light, I grabbed a few pieces of wood and tossed them atop the fire before sitting down beside my friends. Pulling my shotgun over my head, I set the weapon against my packs; the assault rifle already there. I sat there for a time, listening to the steady sound of the rain and the crack of the fire. You might even call it peaceful.

“How’s your patient, doc?” I asked Stone, as I looked over my weapon in the light. It had taken a beating, both on the trip here and in the fight. Numerous nicks and dings covered much of the weapon, water had gotten in from the rain and a piece of metal was lodged in the stock from a near miss by a grenade. Any higher and it would have sliced through my throat and not the weapon. Shit, that had been close one.

“Bein’ bitchy as always,” the earth pony answered with a grin directed towards the pegasus beside him. Stone chuckled playfully as he placed the cap back atop his canteen and snapped it back in place upon his packs. The sour looking Wild snorted to the grin, and rolled her eyes as she sat on her stomach, her wounded wing tucked against her body. She’d given us both quite the scare when she’d hit the ground at the angle she did, it was a miracle she hadn’t snapped her neck.

“It’ll take a lot more than a rusted bucket of bolts built by some long dead asshole to knock me down for good,” she said looking between us, before turning to focus a smirk towards Stone. The orange mare spoke slyly, “By the way, I was hit in the wing and not my ass. So do tell, why did you feel the need to put your hooves all over my fun stuff, hmmmm?”

I fumbled with my shotgun as it nearly slipped from my hooves listening to Wild speak and had to fight the urge to roll over and laugh my sorry plot off.

“Ah wasn’t - Ah was removin’ yer saddle bags...” Stone muttered, a blush coming to his cheeks, “...we had ta make sure ya hadn’t gone and broke anythin’ when ya fell.” He tried to explain and I chuckled aloud. Yeah, she was going to be fine. Stone on the other hoof might not survive the night if anymore blood rushed to his face.

“Oh really? Hmmm...so does that mean I get to grope your ‘short rifle’ if you get shot in the hoof?” she asked sweetly, batting her lashes at the earth pony. Oh look, I can’t seem to hold my shotgun today, it just keeps slipping out of my hooves. I snorted loudly as Wild began laughing at the sight of poor Stone, the gray stallion just staring at the mare in shock with his mouth hanging open.

I snickered and quickly looked away from my friends and found myself looking to the filly and the stallion we had saved. It seemed my companions’ banter had woken the wounded unicorn and he was looking over at the two beside me, a smile on his face. After all that had happened to him and the filly, I was surprised he could still smile. Noticing I was watching them, the filly reached up and nudged her older friend towards me and I smiled to the pair, nodding my head.

“They always fight like this?” he asked me as he attempted to roll over from where he was laying. I saw him wince as he managed to get his legs under him and tucked below his body. He opened his pale orange eyes once the pain had passed and looked back towards me. Like the others members of his team we had come across, he was a unicorn. His tan coat was criss crossed with black scorch marks and wrapped in bandages, his black mane was mess and hung wildly about his face and neck. We’d managed to remove most of his ruined armor, all but the few pieces that had been fused to his flesh. They would need to be removed surgically once we got him back to Steeldome. His cutie mark was oddly enough a rose, but then mine was a plant so I suppose it wasn’t that odd.

“Normally,” I replied to the wounded pony, before looking to the filly sitting beside and behind him. She was looking over his back at the three of us, jade green eyes moving from me to the pegasus and her wounded wing, staring in awe at the feathered limb. While she was hardly a mare, she still bore her cutie mark; a set of silver gears with tiny red hearts in the center of each. She was also unicorn (I was detecting a theme here), her small horn hidden beneath a mass of wild red curls that reminded me of Sugar’s mane. Her coat was white, though it was difficult to tell with it covered in grime and soot from the recent fight. She wore barding as well, similar to that worn by the maintenance ponies back home. It was a bit large for her. The filly looked back over to me, before ducking her head down a bit behind the tan stallion.

“Thank y-you for saving us. I don’t think I could have keep those robots at bay for much longer.” Tears began to form at the edges of her jade eyes as she spoke and her ears drooped to the side.

“You did good, if you hadn’t done what you had, your friend wouldn’t have made it,” I answered with a soft smile. Somehow, she had managed to drag the larger pony behind the crates when he’d been wounded, and fired off nearly all the rounds of ammo he had remaining before the weapon had finally jammed. She’d managed to prop it up on the edge of a crate to help aim it, and though it had done little damage to the machines, she had bought them time.

“I’m just sorry we didn’t get here sooner,” I added, thinking on the three dead ponies left scattered around the facility where they had died, “My name’s Shadow by the way, and my friends are Stonehoof and Wildfire.”

“Gearhearts...,” the filly said softly.

“Ash, I take it you’re our rescue team?” he asked as he looked from the others to me, I nodded my answer to him and he sighed softly. Running a hoof through his wild mane he added, “I didn’t think she’d send anypony else...”

I was about to say she hadn’t, she’d seemed more worried with us finding this power talisman then the search team she had sent. But I kept that to myself to the time being, the two had been through a lot over the last few hours. I looked between them before focusing on the stallion and asked.

“What can you tell us about what happened here?” Gearhearts looked up at the question, but it was Ash who answered.

“When we arrived, we couldn’t believe how much of the place had survived. We’d heard traders tell stories about how little remained of most buildings outside major cities as nature or rather whatever twisted version of nature we have now, takes over places like this. I suppose it should have been a warning sign, how little looting the place appeared to have suffered over the years.”

“We entered by the front door, nopony was expecting the defense systems to still be activated after so long.” As he spoke, I noticed the bickering of my friends had stopped beside me, the two listening to the unicorn, “Captain Saber went in first, always the type of mare to lead by example. She went down almost the second her hooves crossed the doorway and was dead long before she hit the floor. Hatch was right behind her, and was trying to drag her into cover when he was struck. He managed to stumble a few steps in before being hit three or four more times. Jolt and I grabbed him and managed to drag him into cover before we started returning fire, most of our bullets seemed to bounce off the armored body.”

“Hatch told us to flank it, try and get behind it, he’d draw its fire for us. We didn’t see when he got hit the second time, not until after we managed to disable the robot. He was dead by the time we returned to him.” He shut his eyes and looked down at the floor under him, I gave him the time he needed. I knew what it was like to lose friends in a fight. All too well. I glanced to my new friends beside me, and looked back to Ash. Beside him, Gearhearts nuzzled his cheek sadly, a tear running down her cheek leaving a white trail in her coat through the grime.

“We all knew how important it was to find the power talisman, so we decided to press on, try and find it. No sense in letting them die in vain, right?” he asked, looking up to me for the answer. I nodded my head, and it seemed enough for him, “We searched the offices near the entrance room and discovered a letter written by the manager of this place. In it, he mentioned were the talisman was suppose to be taken once it was delivered.” He looked to Gearhearts then and smiled slightly, “That is...until Gear hacked her way into a terminal and found a few notes about the delivery being made earlier then expected and a memo about the talisman being taken straight to the generator room.”

Gearhearts blushed and ducked back down behind Ash, looking over at us with a shy smile. I had wondered why she had been sent along with the others? She couldn’t have been much older than fourteen, far too young to be dealing with murdering robots.

“Jolt decided we should split up, we’d head down to the generator room and search for the talisman while he’d head up to the control room and see about shutting down any other defences in the facility. If either of us got into trouble we’d radio for help and try and fall back to the front door. We didn’t make it halfway down the hall before another robot found us. A combat model no less, meant for front line fighting, all for a simple power station.” He sighed and shook his head, “We tried to radio Jolt for help, but he didn’t answer and we were cut off by another one of those damned machine behind us. I have no clue where Jolt might be, he’s a smart fellow I’m hoping he made it out alright.”

I looked to Stone and Wild, we all knew the answer to that question, after all he’d been through I wondered if I shouldn’t wait to tell him until later. But, I saw no sense in lying to him. He had a right to know what had become of his friend.

“We found the body of a unicorn in the control room - he’d been shot in the back of the head by one of those energy weapons. There were tracks outside the highway, one of them must have found him and gotten the drop on him.” Ash looked up to me as I spoke, and he nodded his head slowly.

“He was a good pony.” Looking off towards the fire, he finished his tale quickly, “We spent the rest of the day playing cat and mouse with the robots through the facility, but anytime we tried to reach the first floor they stopped us. When we finally managed to get to the generator room we thought we’d be able to climb out a window or find a door out, but those things had led us into a trap. I’m afraid I don’t remember much after getting hit.”

“It’s alright, I think it was soon after that when we arrived in the building. Luckily we found the same letter you had in the office, and we made our way up to the control room. Most of the displays still worked and we saw you on the cameras pinned down.” The stallion nodded his head and smiled back towards me.

“I’m still surprised the old witch bothered sending anypony else out here.” Seemed he was a member of the We Hate Rivets fan club. How many more disliked the mare? Enough to divide the ponies inside the Dome?

“Truthfully, I think she’s more worried about the talisman then anything else.” I looked from him to the room, beyond the light of our fire it was nearly impossible to see anything, “Did you ever find out what happened to it?”

“No, but I think its still here somewhere. We found evidence of others attempting to loot the place but they all seemed to run into the same problem we had. While we were running through the halls and rooms, we came across the loading docks near the back of the building,” he motioned off behind him where I’d barred the only door leading in from the first floor, “There was still a transport chariot parked near the doors and packing materials scattered about. I think the chariot was the one due to deliver the talisman.”

“Alright, then first thing in the morning we’ll search this room, and if we have to, we’ll backtrack to the loading docks. With luck we’ll find it boxed up nice and pretty somewhere between here and there. If we haven’t found it by the end of the afternoon, we’ll have to start back to Steeldome.” I could already see the looks from Ash and Gearhearts and held up a hoof quickly to stall any arguments, “You need more medical treatment then we can give you here, Ash. We can always come back later with others to speed up the search.” That seemed to stop the protests and the unicorn nodded his head.

“After all that's happened tonight, Ah reckon we could all use a bit of relaxin’.” Stone’s voice was muffled as he spoke, the earth pony’s head buried in his saddle bag. When he reemerged he had one of the soda bottles he’d found downstairs in his mouth, offering it to Wild first, the mare shook her head and went to look through her own pack. With a snort, he turned and tossed it my way. Catching it in my hooves, I turned the glass around to look at the label. ‘Sparkle-Cola,’ seemed simple enough, though I did wonder why a soda had been made by a company called Hippocratic Research. As I looked over the bottle, Stone had withdrawn the remaining drinks and tossed one to Ash and Gearhearts, keeping one for himself.

My ears twitched from the sudden sound of popped bottles and the fizzing liquid within bubbling from around me. Glancing up, I saw the others looking my way and waiting. With a shrug I opened the bottle with a hoof and was about to toss the cap away into the dark when I paused. Wait a tic. Looking closely, I noticed it had a similar design on its top like those sitting in my pack. Snorting, I tossed it in with the others, and was now one cap richer. Hooray me.

“Ta new friends, and fallen comrades,” Stone said, lifting his bottle up before us, something we could all toast. Ash nodded his head to the words and the glow from his horn surrounded the bottle to float it up near Stone’s. Gearhearts’ bottle soon joined it, the filly’s eyes free of tears for the first time that evening.

“And to the wasteland failing to kill me another day,” Wildfire lifted her bottle with that grin of hers, “It’s really going to have to start trying harder, the lazy fucker.” I chuckled to that and saw the filly smile up to the orange pegasus. Stone simply rolled his eyes to the toast.

“And to new friends, and a hope for a better tomorrow,” I added, our glasses lightly ringing off each other as we pressed the together. The others lowered their bottles and began to drink, I paused before I took a sip. Sniffing the open top, I was surprised to smell a strong scent of carrots and sugar. The drink was still fizzing inside the glass, surprising after sitting out for over a century and a half. I also heard the soft click of my Pipbuck’s as it detected low levels of radiation. Looking back to my friends, I noticed they hardly seemed worried about it, and sighed. Well, I always had some Rad Away if I needed it, and I brought the bottle to my lips and took a sip. I blinked in surprise at the bubbly carrot flavor that assaulted my tongue. Before I knew it, I had finished the entire bottle in two gulps and was licking my lips at the taste.

Why didn’t we have these in the stable, damn.

“Well, now that's settled, should get some shut eye, we got a busy day tomorrow,” Stone spoke up as he tossed his empty bottle into his pack and stood up, “Ah’ll take th’ first watch.”

Wildfire yawned and tossed her empty bottle away into the darkness behind her, I heard the glass shatter and the mare simply looked over to me and grinned. Laying her head down upon her saddle bag, she shut her eyes and began to drift off to sleep.

Ash and Gearhearts had already settled in for the night across from me, the filly laying beside the stallion. Who was he to her? Brother? Father? She didn’t seem to get to far away from the older pony, and he always kept a watchful eye on her.

I yawned myself, it had been a rather eventful day, and I could use the rest. Rolling over onto my side, I watched as Stone walked past the fire and went to check the doors around the room. The steady drone of the rain and the warmth of the crackling fire helped put my mind at ease, though a few questions remained, and I found myself staying awake for another hour before sleep finally claimed me.

The night passed uneventfully, either we had managed to destroy all of the robots in the building, or they had simply not bothered with looking for us. Either way, I had no plans on sticking around very long to find out which was true. As soon as we found the talisman, we would head back to Steeldome, I wanted to get Ash to a doctor before his wounds became infected. The room was near silent, the only sounds reaching my ears was from the light snores of the ponies resting beside the dying fire, and the steady drip of water as it worked its way down from cracks in the roof. The rain had finally stopped sometime in the middle of the night during Stone’s shift. We’d not bothered to wake Ash or Wild for turns, as both needed the rest if they were to make it back.

As I walked through the room, my hoofsteps echoed from the large open space above me and I found myself standing once more before the ruined bodies of the combat robots. Stone had already done his work on the three while on his watch, taking anything we could trade for ammo, food or other supplies back at the Dome. The earth pony had managed to nearly disassemble one of the robots almost completely. Given enough time, I’m sure he would have dismantled the ruined generators for anything useful. Smirking, I carefully stepped around the pools of oil, unwanted parts and looked at at the twisted cannon one had been armed with.

Why was a power station guarded by three combat robots?

That had been troubling me the whole night, and in truth it had caused me to lose a bit of sleep until my body told my mind where to go buck itself. Lightly I pressed a hoof against the metal torso of the nearest machine and felt it shift slightly on its broken tracks. The slight movement unsettling one of its laser rifles and causing the weapon to rattle against its mount before dropping off completely. It was a bit lopsided, since Stone had stripped it of its other weapon. He’d managed to get the grenade launcher off its mount and discovered it could be manually operated still. He’d also found the drum a little under half full, with three remaining 40mm grenades sitting inside. Like my pistol, I imagined finding ammo for it would prove difficult if not impossible, but it could prove useful. My thoughts went back to the matter at hoof however.

The security robot had made sense, from what little I could remember, a lot of companies had invested in robots while so many ponies were away fighting the Zebras. From cheap labor to butlers and cooks. Even police departments in several cities had been forced to replace drafted ponies with security robots. But the only time I ever read of the heavier combat models was in the war, guarding government facilities and bases. I believe there was even a few sent to Canterlot to help guard the Princesses. So...why were there three here? For that matter, why had something as powerful as a power talisman designed to generator energy been sent here? They were rare and powerful devices, very hard to make and harder to maintain. While I did not understand all the magic or science that went into making them, I knew enough. One could run a city like Kanter City or Fillydelphia for a year on its own. So, why here? A power plant in the middle of nowhere with no nearby city? True, there could have been power lines running all the way to Kanter City but wouldn’t it have made more sense to build it closer? Was this where Crossroads and Lonesome Hoof got their power from before the war? But if that was so, why a power talisman for two small towns? No, there was some large dam up river that provided power to all the towns in the area, along with Las Pegasus further north.

As I thought, my eyes wandered over to the three massive generators in the room and I cocked my head slightly to one. Or rather the large gaping hole a stray grenade had ripped into its side, smoke still rising from the jagged edges. It had been the one that had been running, or at least I think it had been. I approached it quickly and stood up on my hind legs to look inside the tear. The light from my Pipbuck shining inside, lighting up broken wiring and gears. After so long, had it really still been running when we arrived? Last night I hadn’t believed it possible, but now - now I wasn’t so sure.

Moving around the massive engine I walked along the open space between them and reached their ends, looking between the three long rusting hulks. All looked in poor shape, but the other two had a number of holes in their metal sides. There were also signs that the two others had caught fire in the past, scorch marks around vents and access hatches. I imagined over the years after the war they had continued to run, but with nopony to maintain them, they had failed over time. My eyes went back to the one I stood before, all of them had failed - but this one.

Shaking my head I frowned, this was not getting us any closer to finding the talisman, I started to turn away when the beam from my light passed over the end of the generator and something caught my eye. Stopping, I turned back and lifted my right hoof up to shine the light back on that area and stopped. It couldn’t be. I pulled up the memory from my mind and smirked.

“Well...I’ll be.” The beam of pale white light from my Pipbuck lay upon the power talisman, the large brass looking orb sitting upon a dolly that had been pushed beside the end of the generator. Cables and wiring ran from the talisman to an open access panel on the side of the generator. A few tools lay scattered about nearby, somepony must have just finished with the job when the first bombs started falling outside.

I turned and began trotting back to camp, it looked like things were finally going our way. Once somepony figured out how to unhook the talisman, we could be on our way. As I came around from the generators, I saw Stone had already gotten up and seemed busy fixing a pot of coffee atop the dieing fire. With a nod to my fellow earth pony, I walked between the sleeping forms and nudged them awake gently with my hoof. I was turning away from Wild to tell Stone the good news when the mare’s front legs wrapped around one of mine and she tackled me to the ground. I grunted in surprise and the agile pegasus rolled over and started to lash out at my face with a hoof. Stopping just an inch from my nose, she blinked a few times before standing up.

“Sorry...not use to somepony waking me up...,” I nodded and decided to simply yell at her to wake up next time, it would be less risky.

“You alright?” I asked her, rolling over onto my hooves, as Stone began passing out dented metal cups of coffee to Ash and Gearhearts. Before sitting out two cups for us. Beside me, the mare snorted softly and snatched up one of the cups before nodding her head to me. I reached over for my own and took a drink.

Holy shit that was strong.

“Ah don’t reckon we should split up if we can avoid it,” Stone said as we all settled down to finish our coffee, “If there’s more of those there machines roaming around, Ah don’t much like our chances of tanglin’ with’em on our own.”

“I found the talisman.” The statement was met with surprised looks from all around me, and I pointed a hoof off towards the middle generator, “It’s hooked up over there. I think its been powering that thing since the day the place was abandoned.”

“I thought I was just hearing things when we stumbled in here yesterday. If that's true, and it has been running all this time...does it still have enough power to help Steeldome?” Ash asked turning to Gearhearts, the cup of coffee floating beside him down to the floor. Seem he wasn’t a coffee pony, or at least not that strong of coffee.

“It should. They built them to run for a very long time, and I think the only thing it has been powering has been these buildings.” The filly waved a hoof to the room around us, “I doubt very much if there’s enough things left here still running to drain it.” Gearhearts pushed the cup of coffee away from her with a hoof. A shame, since it was nearly as good as the old battered coffee maker we had back in security. Seeing my look, the filly smiled and floated it over to me.

“What makes you say that?” Wild asked, looking recovered from her waking assault on myself, “There was an entire control room still running, not to mention the lighting and other two buildings nearby.” She sat beside Stone and worked her bandaged wing carefully, getting the blood flowing back into the limb after having slept with it held to her side most of the night. Stone collected her empty cup and began putting it away after rinsing a bit of water in it.

“Well, most of the power lines connecting this station to any of the nearby towns have been destroyed either by the weather or time, so I doubt the power would have been used by them. As for the control room, you’d be surprised how little power it takes to keep them going when talking about a power talisman. It can run a city for a year, a couple of consoles and lighting isn’t going to affect it,” the filly responded digging into her packs for something. Finally, a set of tools floated out and she started towards the generator. I looked back to Stone as something Gearhearts said struck me suddenly.

“What about Crossroads? They had power.” Most of the buildings I had seen had lighting of some kind, and even a few of the street lamps had still worked. I had wondered how before, but been to busy to dwell on it. Stone turned and nodded his head, and running a hoof through his mane as he answered.

“Right enough, but we’re gettin’ that power from th’ dam up river. Couple years ago, Rose sent out a team ta see if power could be restored. They managed ta fix most of th’ lines, given us a bit of power for th’ town. Like th’ filly said, there’s not’a lot left workin’ in Crossroads so we don’t use a lota power.”

For a moment I was worried we might be depriving someone of power if we took the talisman, but what Gearhearts said made sense. With so much damage to the power lines, it didn’t seem likely anypony was using the generator and it had just been running the station. At any rate there was no time to worry about that right now, we had to get it back to Steeldome. Finishing the second cup of coffee I pushed it over to Stone before standing up and flicking my tail a bit to get the dirt from it.

“Alright, I want to get going as soon as Gearhearts finishes removing the talisman.” The filly had already trotted off towards the generator while I spoke, several tools floating out from her saddle bags as she walked, “I’ll keep an eye on her while the rest of you break camp

As I began to follow the white filly, I noticed Ash from the corner of my eye, the pony was holding his side a look of pain screwing up his face. Looking over, I saw Gearhearts had already set to work, so I turned to the tan stallion and walked up to him. Behind me, Stone was helping Wild get her packs on, the mare telling him she could do it herself, but letting him help her anyway.

Noticing me approaching him, the unicorn dropped his hoof and looked up at me with a smile, however the look in my eyes must have been enough for him to know I wasn’t buying it. With a sigh, the pony looked towards where Gearhearts was working then back to me, pain and worry in his eyes.

“It’s getting infected-I can feel the flesh around the wounds burning up. Please, don’t say anything to Gear, she’ll worry and she has enough to worry about at the moment beside her brothers friend.” he looked to me, orange eyes pleading with me and I simply nodded my head. There wasn’t anything we could do about it anyway, but get him back to Steeldome before it became any worse than it already was. That however ruled out Harvest’s request of us searching for any radscorpions in the area. It could take hours to find one, and the longer we waited to head back the more of a risk Ash had of his wounds becoming infected. Healing potions could do a lot, but we’d need more then we had now to do him any good.

“Just take it easy until we’re ready to leave,” I told him helping him to sit back down, the pony nodding his horned head and tried to finish the cup of coffee he had. I glanced to my two friends and smiled a bit. Wildfire was standing with narrowed eyes as Stone tightened the straps of her saddle bags with a hoof. She caught me looking and stomped a hoof, before wincing suddenly. Turning her head, she snapped her teeth at Stone’s flank and growled.

“Sweet Celestia’s wings, not so fucking tight! I’m not into bondage ya know!”

Leaving the two to kill one another, I walked over towards Gearhearts as she worked on the talisman. A half dozen tools floated around the young filly's head as she worked on disconnecting the talisman from the generator. Already she had removed many of the wires connecting it, and was running a device over the orb. It looked almost like my Pipbuck but a bit larger with a number of dials and buttons across it. As she looked over the screen, she frowned and tilted her head slightly, looking back up to the talisman then over to me as she heard me approach.

“Problem?”

“Um, yeah. More than half its power has been drained...as if its been powering something big for the past hundred years,” she answered, tapping one of the buttons on her device with a hoof, ears flicking in annoyance at whatever was displayed on the screen. Muttering she shook the device in her magic field before looking back up to the talisman in annoyance, as if the device was keeping its secrets from her.

“Hmmm, I thought there wasn’t anything left for it to power?” Stepping up beside her, I glanced down to the screen on her scanner and tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Like my Pipbuck’s screen, it was all green in color, with numbers and information scrolling across it. After awhile, I shook my head and looked away.

It was meant for smart ponies, of which I was not one.

“There shouldn’t be anything left for it to power. To be this drained it would have had to be powering something larger then this power station, like a small town or something.”

“I’m not overly familiar with the area, Crossroads isn’t getting any of its power, and Lonesome Hoof was a ghost town. Are there any other towns nearby?” She shook her head to my question and I glanced back up to the ruined generator again. Then again, maybe I should be asking Stone or Wild that, I doubted anypony from Steeldome knew much beyond the walls of their home. Something caught my eye above the generator and I pointed it out to the filly beside me, “Where’s the power lines running to the towers outside?” I asked.

“What?” Gearhearts looked up from her scanner, and looked to where I was pointing. Sure enough, were the other two had thick cords of power lines running from the tops of their casings to the roof, the third one did not. I’d missed the towers outside the station when we’d arrived due to the dark and heavy rains. Now, in the dim light of day and through the busted windows of the generator room I could make out the bent and sagging towers outside the fence. They had once carried the power of this station to the towns that needed it, now they were little more than rusting pillars of metal and wires.

“That doesn't make any sense. Where’d all the power go then?” she asked, standing up and floating her tools away to her bag.

Walking around the generator once more, I traced my steps early back around it, looking over the rusted metal casing and jagged hole in its side as I moved. Reaching the other end, I turned and was about to walk between it and the wall when I saw the power line. It was running from the top of the generator alright, however it turned sharply and angled down into the floor.

“Over here.” I stepped back around just as Gearhearts was trotting over looking for me. At my call, the filly increased her pace and joined me near the power line. A confused look on her face as she lightly tapped her hoof against the cable and looked to wear it disappeared into the floor.

“I wonder where it goes...” she trailed off, looking back up to the generator beside us.

“Well, we’ll probably never know, and we don’t have time to try and figure it out,” I said, though part of me was as curious to try and find out as her, this place was one large mystery, “How much longer do you need to finish unhooking the talisman?”

“Just two more cables to unhook.” she said, before turning away from the mysteries power line and trotting back towards the front. I looked back to the cable and wondered what secrets this place had. A entire generator for what? And when it had been damaged they had been sent a power talisman to replace it rather then wait to repair it or have another sent in. Had they also been sent the robots to guard it? I glanced back to where Gearhearts disappeared around the end of the generator as she went to finish unhooking the talisman. Had it been for Steeldome? It was the only other thing out here, and it had been a government run facility.

Turning away from the dark corner, I began trotting back towards the front. It all made sense with one glaring fact. If this generator had been running and sending power to Steeldome, why did they need the talisman to keep the place running? Maybe the cable had been damaged sometime ago, but it appeared to be running underground. Earthquake maybe? The voice of the filly snapped me out of my thoughts and I stepped around the end to look for her.

“All done,” she said proudly, rearing up on her hind legs and wrapping her front ones around the orb. Shutting her eyes, the filly tried her best to pull the talisman down, but could hardly move it. It was nearly as large as her head, and far heavier than the filly, yet she seemed intent on carrying it with her. I smiled and stepped up to gently nudge her away, she dropped back on all fours and looked at me questioningly.

“You’ll wear yourself out trying to carry that thing all the way back home, why don’t you let me take it so you can help Ash.” She frowned for a moment before nodding her head and sighing softly, muttering about being a big pony and began floating her tools away. I smiled; she reminded me of Sugar. Reaching over, I pulled the orb off the edge and onto the floor with a slight bang. Well, it had survived the end of the world, I doubted a short drop would damage it much. It was heavy, but not enough to trouble a earth pony. Gripping the edge of one of the rings in my teeth I turned and walked back towards camp.

Returning to the others, we found they had finished breaking camp, and put out the fire, sending a cloud of smoke into the air. I glanced to the roof and quietly thanked Celestia that the fire sprinklers seemed to have rusted shut long ago. Looking back to the ponies around me I dropped the talisman between my hooves, gently this time.

“Alright, we should be able to make it back to Steeldome by noon if we stick to the road and the rain doesn’t start up again.” I looked over the four faces around me, “Stone, you know the country better than anypony else, take the lead and keep an eye out for any threats.” With two wounded ponies and a young filly I didn’t want to take the risk of stumbling into anything.

“Sure enough, Shadow,” the earth pony said with a nod, his hat pushed back to better see me. He reached over and picked up his rifle that lay against a crate and slipped the strap back around his neck. I turned to Wild and was about to ask her to watch out behind us when Gearhearts stepped up to me and pressed a small white hoof into my side, frowning up at me.

“Wait...before we go back we have to find a cure for my mother.” the unicorn filly said looking between the adults around her, “Didn’t Rivets ask you guys to try and find the radscorpions? Harvest said we needed one of their venom sacks to find a antidote for the poison.”

“It was mentioned,” I said, but not by Rivets. I looked over to the others then back down to Gearhearts, “We need to get this power talisman back to Steeldome as soon as possible.” I tapped a hoof against the brass orb between my front legs, “Ash really needs to have those wounds of his looked over by a doctor, and it could take us hours to find a radscorpion -”

“I know where we can find them,” she said cutting me off, looking up at me with bright green eyes full of determination, “There’s a nest of them not far from this building, in fact, in the rocks around the river.”

I blinked, a nest of the things? I didn’t fancy our chances against more then one of the them, and she was asking us to go up against a whole nest? And how could she know that? I asked and she answered quickly.

“We stumbled upon it while trying to find our way here. We got a bit lost and traveled to far north, Captain Sabber said we should just follow the river down since the power station had been built near it. We came across the nest while they were busy.” She got a sick look on her face when she said that last part, “We counted four of the larger ones and a few small ones. Luckily none of them spotted us, I wanted to get the cure then, but Captain Saber said we’d come back for them after we had the talisman,” she explained and looked up at me.

“I doubt we could handle one of those things, let alone four. We need to get Ash and the talisman back, after that we can maybe come back. With a few more ponies we could maybe overpower them.”

“But mom might not have that much time...,” she began, tears beginning to form in her wide green eyes as she sat herself down in front of me, bottom lip quivering, ears dropping, “...please, won’t you at least try?”

Oh hell...

How the hell did I get talked into this? I was laying on my stomach, the warming mud of the hillside coating my lower half in thick wet earth. I shifted slightly, as a sharp rock dug into my stomach, while trying to keep from rustling the brown scrub brush and surprisingly sharp blades of grass that grew among the rocks. Beside me, Stone lay in a similar position, the earth pony looking down at the scene below us and looking about as happy as me. Long dead trees clung to the hillside below us, their roots clawing into the soil between large stones and brush. Further down the hill lay the river bank, the source of our displeasure, and my E.F.S.’ bunch of glowing red dots.

Even if it wasn’t alive with the warning of hostile targets nearby, I’d know there were a large number of the things below us just by the sound alone. The one I’d fought in Lonesome Hoof had made a unsettling skittering sound as its legs carried it across the pavement. Its body had a similar sound, as its armored plates rubbed against themselves, and the snapping of its claws. Now, multiply those sounds by four or more and it was nerve wracking.

I glanced back down the hill and narrowed my eyes as I watched three fully grown radscorpions move about the river bank, their legs moving them easily across the rocky and muddy ground. Each was about the same size as the one I’d killed, a fourth was slightly smaller, perhaps not yet fully grown. All bore the same thick looking plates across the majority of their bodies and the same jet black color. Between them moved around a dozen or so smaller ones, between the size of the coyotes and my head. These ranged in colors from dull brown to a light tan with bits of black showing in spots. The smaller ones moved about more quickly than the larger ones, darting in and out of a small set of caves near the hillside, likely the nests, or dens, maybe lairs...whatever it was they called them! The entire area they moved within was covered in bits of shed carapace and piles of broken bones, a few looked familiar. There were also rusting bits of armor and weapons scattered about. A helmet still had half a pony skull inside it. Yeah...familiar indeed.

“That’s a lot of bugs,” I said as I scooted back away from the edge of the hill to sit up and wipe mud off my armor and legs, looking from the hillside to the pony beside me.

“There’s enough of ’em.” Looking from his weapon over to me and motioning with his head to my new weapon I had carried with us here, “Sure ya can handle that thing?” Stone asked eyebrow raised.

I glanced back across my shoulder to my saddle bags and the weapon that lay between them and over my flanks. My eyes lingered on the grenade launcher as I pondered his words. True, I’d never fired one before, thought it did not appear much different from a shotgun in principle. Just a lot larger, and it fired shells that exploded. I just needed to take into account the arc of the round, and in truth it did not seem to be a very precise weapon. So long as your round hit near the target, it would be covered in sharp bits of burning steel, sharp enough to pierce the radscorpions thick natural armor I hoped.

I looked back up to Stone and nodded my head, after all I had been trained by one of the best shots I had ever known, and I vowed not to let Twist down. Also, I had the aid of S.A.T.S. to help me with the first two shots, the size and power of the weapon making anymore impossible with the targeting spell, so I would need to use my own skill to land the third round. I was fairly sure I could do this. Fairly.

“Yeah, I think so. Do you think just three rounds will take them down?” My shotgun had barely scratched the one I had fought in Lonesome Hoof, only by hitting small areas had my shells done any real harm. One had been hard to hit, four, well that was pushing it. If it hadn’t been for my revolver I would have been killed then and there. And even it had taken four rounds to drive the thing off. I reached back, and closed my teeth around the mouth grip of the weapon, pulling it back around to sit it near me on the ground. Beside me, the gray earth pony wiped some mud off the lever of his weapon and looked back to me, then down the hillside. Pale green eyes scanning the thick armor plates on the enemies below us.

“Ah reckon it should, so long as we get’em while they’re all bunched up.”

Bunched up. It all depended on that, and my eyes looked over to what we were counting on to do that. We’d rolled the empty barrel all the way from the power station to the hillside, after emptying it of trash and muddy rain water. It was now sitting on its side, filled with a number of dented tin cans we’d salvaged from the trash inside the building, these in turn were filled with a number of small stones spent shell casings and screws. Anything that would make a sound when the cans were kicked or thrown. This part of the insane plan had been Stone’s idea, we’d push the barrel down towards the nest, the cans and junk inside rattling loudly as it rolled. Alerted by the noise and sudden movement, the scorpions would go into a frenzy and rush out to attack whatever was approaching their nest, regardless of size or whether it was alive or a barrel. Seems the bugs have a anger management issue or something, good for them. Anyway, once the larger ones had gathered around the barrel, I’d fire off all three rounds into the mass of claws and armored plates and finish off whatever was left with my shotgun and Stone’s rifle. Easy Peasy.

“This seems like a really bad idea,” I said with a frown before sighing softly, it was also the only idea we had. I knew this was also the only real chance Shortfuse had of living, and Harvest and Gearhearts had nearly pleaded with me to try and save their mother. I also knew she was the only pony likely to live up to the deal I’d made. I was under no illusion that Rivets would back out of her part of the deal if it suited her. It was really starting to look like she had set the entire series of events up, so why would she honor a deal with a couple of outsiders? A Steeldome without Rivets in charge seemed to be the only place we might actually get that chariot of Wild’s fixed and the only way I’d get to Kanter City to save my sister.

“Ah reckon that’s cause it is,” Stone said from beside me, lifting his hat off his head and wiping the sweat from his brown mane and forehead with a grunt, “But, Ah also reckon yer not th’ type of pony ta say no if somepony asks ya for help.” He smiled over at me as he replaced his hat back atop his head.

“I suppose not, Blaze always said I was a sucker for a sob story and it would get me killed one of these days,” I grunted. Hopefully not today. I felt beads of sweat rolling down my neck and under my armor. My jumpsuit was soaked once more from a mix of sweat, mud and water. Since it had stopped raining, the temperature had begun to rise quickly, despite the clouds it felt like I was roasting in the mud.

Working my way to the edge of the hillside, I brought the grenade launcher up to bear on the nest below. Resting the large weapon upon a pair of rocks, I flipped the metal targeting sight up, despite the rust of time, the weapon was in fair shape. Looking through the metal bars, I gazed down at the scorpions beside the river bank, the snipping of their claws reaching my ears as I adjusted the sight a bit. Well, it was now or never.

“Send it down.” I whispered to Stone, a moment later I heard him move over behind the barrel. My eyes remained fixed on my targets as I waited for all hell to break lose.

With a crack of hooves on metal, the barrel was shoved out over the edge of the hill and began rolling madly down the muddy embankment. The second it started moving, it sounded as if a hundred ponies were all beating on metal with their bare hooves as the rocks and tin cans rattled around inside the hollow barrel. The effect on the scorpions below was nearly instant.

Within seconds of the first noise, the nest became a fury of activity as the fully grown creatures turned their bodies towards the source of the sound and began scurrying to intercept the intruder. I had to admit, the sight of four large armored scorpions charging up the hill was a intimidating sight to witness. I was unsure whether it was the radioactive soda I had drank the night before or the sight below me that gave me a sudden urge to pee.

The smaller ones remained largely near the caves, seeming unsure what to do, a few followed the larger ones up the hillside, their smaller legs forcing them to trail behind. The largest of the adults reached the barrel as it began to slow, its metal surface coated with mud and causing it to stick to the ground more. With a snap of razor sharp claws, the scorpion latched onto the barrel with its pincers and began ripping into it, spilling tin cans out across the ground. Its tail lashed out to strike the threat with its sharp tip, punching holes through the barrel as if it was made of paper. Behind it, the remaining scorpions caught up and attempted to get a piece of the first one’s prey.

I closed one eye and squinted down the sights of the grenade launcher and hit S.A.T.S. as soon as the last target gathered near the barrel. My heart nearly sank as I saw the chance to hit was so low, but reminded myself even a near hit would cause damage. I locked onto the largest target I could, and sweep to the right towards the second largest depleting the targeting spell with those two shots. I targeted their legs, reasoning that the blast should come back up and strike their underbellies, were hopefully, they would have thinner armor plating. I released the targeting spell and squeezed the trigger.

THOOM!

The first grenade sailed out from the end of the barrel, arching slightly over the hillside before dropping down towards the mass of armor plating and snapping claws. As the smoke from the barrel was blown away in the wind I thought I saw the tip of the round impact the earth before a second later exploding in a flash of fire and metal shards. The target of my first shot reared up in pain as it’s softer under belly was peppered with shrapnel, ripping its way up inside its body and doing massive amounts of damage, no doubt. The remaining shards struck the nearest creatures, damaging legs, claws and eyes. The few smaller scorpions that had managed to reach the barrel simply disappeared in bits of carapace and blood. Bucking hell...

THOOM!!

The second round launched from the weapon, drawing my eyes away from the sight below to watch as it flew through the air to land slightly off target, striking a piece of the barrel that had been ripped off and lay in the mud between the scorpions. With another loud blast, the round sent out shards of metal in every direction. With a cry of surprise and pain, the nearest scorpion went down as pieces of metal sliced neatly through its segmented legs, cutting them off as if they were made of cloth. Another lashed out blindly as its face was reduced to a mass of metal shards and gore, tail striking its fellow creatures and causing them to lash out in a frenzy.

I blinked and stared in shock, at the carnage just two rounds had done, yet more shocking was the fact the scorpions all remained alive. Despite massive damage to their bodies, three of the four adult radscorpions remained moving in some form or another and only one of them still had all its limbs. It wouldn’t take them long to figure out where the shots had come from, either by spotting us, smelling us, or hearing us. Either way, they'll not get the chance.

Lining up my last shot, I aimed for the still standing scorpion as it snapped its claws and circled around looking for something to rip into. Luckily, it was in the middle of the others, which is what had likely saved it the fury of the first two rounds. Now it was simply making my job much easier. Gritting my teeth around the handle of the weapon I squeezed the trigger and fired.

THOOM!

The round pushed its way free and slammed hard into the ground beside my target, a little bit further right then I would have liked, and exploded. A shower of mud and metal rained around the milling creature and its wounded nest mates, silencing one with sharp slashes across its side. With a cry, the final scorpion dropped to the ground, leaking its life blood or ooze or whatever it had out across the ground.

Rising up slowly, I picked up the launcher in my teeth and sat in back across my saddle packs and turned back to look down at the twitching bodies below me and was silently thankful I had managed to avoid getting hit by it. The angry red glow on my E.F.S. lessened but a number of dots remained. Surely three grenades had killed them? Stone stood up, and stepped up beside me, his rifle hanging around his neck as he tipped his hat back and whistled.

“Shit...Ah’ve never seen th’ like.” I had to agree with my friend, he began slowly and carefully stepping down the hillside towards the bodies, bringing his rifle up to bear as he moved. Carefully approaching one of the smoking bodies, his hooves sinking down into the soft mud or slipping in bits of carapace and blood. Finally reaching it, he leveled his weapon at its head and fired off a single round. A slight twitch, but it remained laying in the mud. Dead. One of the red dots winked out from my vision, and I realized only two of the things still had life in them, the rest were dead.

Turning my head, I switched the grenade launcher out for my shotgun and followed Stone down the hill, following the other earth ponies example. Better safe than sorry and once we had made sure each of the larger ones had been killed we started looking for what we’d come to get. After a few minutes, Stone called me over to the larger of the dead bugs and I carefully made my way over towards him. The hillside was quite steep, and I didn’t want to stumble and break a leg or something.

“This one looks th’ best,” the gray pony was saying as he dropped his rifle and reached up with a hoof to tap it against the side of the scorpions tail. It was largely undamaged from the blasts, and remained sticking up in the air despite its owner being dead. Turning his head, Stone unsheathed his hunting knife and pulled it free with his teeth.

Moving up beside him, I helped pull the limb down to the ground, placing a hoof in the middle to keep it there. This close up, the thing gave off a nasty smell and I groaned as it assaulted my nose. Stone pushed his one right hoof just under the stinger to keep it still as he began to prod the armor plating on the tail. Finding a spot where a small shard of metal had passed through, he began to peel away the plating to reach the flesh under. I frowned and looked away, it was enough to have to hear it, I hardly wanted to see it.

Luckily, Gearhearts and Stone had some idea where the scorpion's venom sack would be located. It seems the poison was a highly prized item for some ponies across the mountains and Stone had gone with others once or twice to collect them. How the young foal knew I had no idea and I didn’t ask. She’d instructed us on how to remove the carapace over the tail, and where to cut into the limb and exactly what it was we’d be looking for. Since Stone had seen it done before, we agreed he’d be the best one for the task, and so he was busy rooting around inside the dead rad scorpion’s tail.

Well, this was how I expected to be spending my time on the surface, hunting giant ass bugs for their venom sacks.

I scanned the nest below us, at the half dozen scorpions remaining. Most milled around the small caves as if confused on what was happening, two stood at the base of the hill snapping their claws up at us. I kept my eyes on them, lest they catch us by surprise, Gearhearts had made it clear that even the young scorpions sting could be fatal if stung enough times.

With a grunt, and a sickeningly squish of moist flesh, Stonehoof yanked something out from within the tail with his free hoof and tossed it upon the ground between us. It was what I expected really, a fleshy sack swollen with something inside; likely the venom we had come to collect. I glanced up to the pony and blinked. His snout and cheek was coated it gore, blood dripping down the blade of his knife. He looked more like a raider then I cared to think about.

“Not pretty work, Ah reckon, but needed doin’,” he said, snorting and shaking his head side to side trying to get most of the stuff off his face. With a sigh, he gave up and began cleaning his blade off on the carapace of the scorpion before standing back, releasing its tail. I stepped back and glanced back to the still milling scorpion young below us, wondering if we shouldn’t do the wasteland a favor and kill them as well. I was focusing on the smaller scorpions I ignored the body between us, it was a mistake.

Stone’s cutting must have severed nerves or struck a muscle in the things tail, because the second all pressure was released from the limb it flicked upwards in a flash. Stone stumbled backwards dropping his knife into the mud as he yelled out a warning to me, the earth pony falling on his backside with a grunt as he lost his balance. I saw all of this seconds before my vision was filled with a black armored limb rising up from the ground. I barely knew what had hit me as I felt the hard snap of the tails armored surface striking my nose and cried out in pain as I felt something break. Stumbling backwards rising a hoof to my face, my remaining hooves slipped out from under me and I tumbled back down the hillside. As the world spun around me, sharp stones dug into my sides as I went. Ground, sky, ground, sky and finally the ground as I rolled across it and came at last to a halt upon the warm stones of the river bank.

I lay still, despite the rest of the world still spinning around me, aches and pains coursing through my limbs as I tried to figure out what hurt and what didn’t, the list of not hurting was short. Alerts popped up within my still spinning vision, as my Pipbuck took stock of my condition. All minor wounds, with the exception of wounds in my left hind leg and my face. Something had pierced the flesh of my flank, and I could feel it moving as I rolled onto my stomach. Great, I got stabbed by a piece of junk on the way down.

As the world began to refocus I felt a steady stream of something flowing from my nostrils and sniffed, and immediately regretted it as a sharp pain sliced through my face. Oh yeah, my nose was broken. I'd felt it snap the second the armored limb of the radscorpion had struck me. It hurt like hell, but I'd broken it before and it could have easily been far worse, I had managed to come out of this without breaking any limbs.

With a groan, I began to rise to my hooves shakily and tried to get my bearings. It was then I noticed I had company. Like the barrel before me, my rolling down the hillside had attracted the attention of the smaller scorpions. I’m sure it hadn’t helped I’d been directly above them, and the blood running down my snout seemed to be driving them into a frenzy of snapping claws.

With a yelp, I fell back barely avoiding the snapping pincers of one of them, while I doubted they were anywhere near as strong as the larger ones, I imagined they could still do a fair amount of damage and it had been aimed at my face. Lashing out with a hoof, I kicked the attacking creature away and bent down to retrieve my weapon. Luckily the shotgun had only slipped over my head and had not rolled away when I'd tumbled down. Biting down on the bit, I yanked the gun away just as another one of the young scorpions struck out with its tail. Without thinking, I squeezed the trigger and felt the weapon buck as the scorpion blew apart in front of me, seems their armor was not as tough as the adults. With a stomp of my hoof, I killed another by simply breaking its body with my weight when it got too close, pushing the small body into the mud.

Backing up to give myself room, my left rear leg suddenly buckled under me and I crashed to the hard rocky ground. I pushed the pain and surprise aside and fired again, blasting the body of another scorpion away as it rushed towards me. From the corner of my eye I saw another scurrying across the smooth stones and began to spin my neck around to line up a shot. A loud crack echoed across the hillside as a round struck the final threat, falling to the ground legs twitching and jerking as it died.

Looking upward I spotted Stone standing half way up the hill with his rifle smoking in his mouth. With a grin, the gray earth pony lowered his weapon and started down towards me. I smiled back and attempted to stand once again but for some reason my hind quarters refused to work and the flesh around the wound in my leg was itching like mad. The alerts in my vision began to grow more urgent and I glanced back across my shoulder to see what was sticking in my side.

"Oh for crying out loud..." there sticking out of my left flank just below my cutie mark was the twisted remains of a scorpion tail. Its stinger impeded in the flesh of my thigh, and a trail of green ooze dripping down my flank and the limb. Worse still, I counted no less then three other puncture marks in my hide. I must have rolled over a few of the smaller ones when I’d tumbled down the hillside, and in so doing they’d stung the hell out of me for it.

I turned my head back towards Stone as he moved towards me, his smile faltering as he noticed me still sitting. I shook my head and forced myself to stand, my legs felt like rubber under me and I swayed for a moment.

“Shadow? Are ya okay?” the gray pony asked, as he approached his eyes scanned me for wounds and stopped on my hind quarters, light green eyes going wide.

“Good thing we came for something to make anti-venom, eh?” I asked, trying my best to smile as I took a few steps. Pain flashed up my back from the wound in my flank, the sharp point of the stinger digging into muscle and flesh as I moved the limb. Oh, that was going to have to come out, glancing back to the scorpion tail jutting from my flank I asked Stone, “Can you remove it?”

“Ah reckon Ah can, but we might wanna get back ta th’ station first.” he walked around to my flank, giving a slight grunt and looking back to me, “It’s in there deep, can’t just yank it out, nither, them stingers are barbed, and can do a might more damage comin’ out. Only way ta get it out safely is ta cut round th’ wound a might.” he nudged the handle of his knife as he spoke and I swallowed and nodded my head. This couldn’t wait until we got back to the station, for all I knew the stinger was still pumping its poison into my body. No, this had to happen now.

“Do it.”

“Ah’ll try and be careful, but this is gonna hurt. We an’t got anythin’ ta knock ya out, nor would it be a good idea this far out. Be ready with a potion ta seal th’ wound and stop th’ bleedin’. Here, ya might also want this.” he said reaching to a fallen tree branch beside the river and yanking off a limb. He held it out to me and I took it as the earth pony turned and gripped the hilt of his knife in his teeth. As he pulled it free, I saw he had managed to wipe most of the scorpion blood from the silvery metal, with a flick of a hoof, he pushed his cowpony hat back up from his face so he could see better. Reaching back to my saddle bag, I withdrew one of the last potions I had, and sat it down before my fore hooves as Stone’s blade neared my flank. I hurriedly picked up the piece of wood he had given me and closed my mouth around it. Looking away from Stone and the knife, I focused on the rolling waters of the river and tried to put the thought from my mind of what was happening. I focused on my mission, I had to get this thing out of me if I was going to reach Steeldome, had to get this poison gland back if I was going to this out of my system. Had to get Shortfuse to repair the chariot so I could save my sister. Had to...

I felt the sharp tip slide along the stinger in my side, and a second later I felt that same tip begin to cut the flesh of my flank, I could even hear the blade cutting through my body. My teeth clamped down on the piece of wood in my mouth as I screamed...

It was just before noon when we finally reached the collection of buildings that made up the power station, it had taken us longer to return due to my wounded leg. As we came down the roadway towards the gates, Wildfire was there to greet us, the pegasus’ blue eyes narrowing as she watched me limping towards the ruined gates of the compound, and started towards us.

My flank had begun to swell a bit around the puncture wounds, the healing potion had managed to repair the damage from my fall, and from Stone’s field surgery, my nose had also healed, though I still had blood covering much of my snout. It had not been able to affect the poison in my system (which we expected, why else would they need a sample of the poison if it could be healed simply), or the holes the stingers had punched into my side. We’d managed to wrap the wounds in the bandages I’d found in the bathroom the night before and it stopped the bleeding at least, the white cloth standing out against my black coat.

Behind the pegasus stood the two survivors from Steeldome’s search team, Ash was sitting on the ground near the gate while Gearhearts fused over his wounds. Hearing our hooves upon the drying pavement, the two unicorns looked over towards us.

“What happened?” Wild asked as she scanned my bandaged flank, her own wounded wing still wrapped up. She’d fussed with us about going along, but we’d managed to convince her to stay with the others, mostly for their protection and also for her own. Neither Stone or myself wanted to push the injured mare any further then we had to, and there was still the trip back.

“My luck ran out for a bit,” I answered quickly, the pain in my hind leg was starting to bother me again, and I placed my weight upon my remaining three so I could lift the wounded one off the ground. The poison must have been working its way through my body, how long did I have before I was as bad as Shortfuse and unable to move? But then she had been attacked by a adult, perhaps I’d have longer. It was best if we got moving soon, I’d rather not wait and see. A second later Stone voiced my thoughts to the others.

“Ah reckon we need ta hurry a might, Wild.” Stone glanced from me to the pegasus as he spoke, ears flicked in worry, “Shadow here got stung by one of th’ youngins’ and an’t doin’ so hot at th’ moment. He insisted on walking and not bein’ carried.”

As that, both Ash and Gearhearts looked towards me, the filly’s eyes wide with shock and concern and even Ash looked a bit worried. I nodded to them both, and put on a brave face, this was hardly the time to panic.

“We got the poison gland from one of the scorpions, your doctors should be able to make an antidote for this right?” The young filly nodded her head slowly and I looked over to my friends and shifted my weight a bit, “Then if we’re ready, we need to get moving before I collapse.”

Stone moved past me and helped get Ash to his hooves, while Gearhearts checked her saddle bag and the power talisman inside. She’d insisted keeping it with her while we went bug hunting, and I was thankful for that fact down. The added weight would have been murder on my leg. She looked set to carry it with her all the way to Steeldome, and I didn’t argue. It was heavy, but she wasn’t carrying much beyond some food and water along with her tools. If there was a fight on the way back, better she have it then one of the fighters.

Within moments everypony was ready to move, and with a nod to me, Stone trotted out before us to keep an eye on the road ahead. I followed behind him a second later, moving as quickly as I could.

My flank was on fire, and it felt as if somepony had turned up the heat of the wasteland around me. We’d been forced off the road to reach Steeldome, and I had my eyes set on the muddy ground ahead of me. The prints we’d left the day before had all but been washed away by the heavy downpour. I grunted as my hooves sunk into the still damp ground and trudged onwards. Raising my head slowly, I could just make out the distant hill Steeldome lay below. At our current pace we should reach it in just under three hours, it was taking us only a bit longer to return as it had to reach the power station thanks to our injuries but no more so then the rain had slowed us the night before. Still, we’d be inside before nightfall, and perhaps the following morning we could finally be on our way.

Behind me, Ash and Gearhearts walked side by side, the young filly helping the stallion along as best she could, she’d not complained once since we set out. Her legs and body were as mud covered as the rest of us, but she focused on her friend and the talisman she carried. The flesh around Ash’s wounds had darkened and dark red lines began to spider web out from them. Blood poisoning from the fused bits of metal perhaps? I was no doctor, but I doubted they were good signs.

Behind them walked Wildfire, the pegasus acting as a rear guard for our little group. Her wounded wing was tucked against her side and the bandages were soaked in sweat and mud from our trip. The orange mare kept a careful eye behind us as we went, reminding me despite our easy trip the night before, this was a hazardous area. There was no heavy rain to mask our presence, and little to no cover on the flat plains. Her battle saddle sat snug across her flanks, and the twin rifles sat exposed, ready to fire.

Turning back around I looked towards the hillside rising from the ground ahead of us, just had to hang on a bit longer. Then we’d be back inside the Dome and I could collapse into a heap. My gold eyes lowered back to the ground before me and narrowed, the thick mud was forcing me to pull harder on my limbs, as my hooves got sucked into the thick mud. It was causing me no small amount of pain. I was really starting to hate mud.

“Shadow?” The sudden voice caused me to jerk my head up and blink, Stone trotted beside me, looking a bit worried. I didn’t doubt I looked bad.

“Trouble ahead?” I asked, my voice sounding a bit hoarse and I tried to clear it, I’d already drained two of my canteens thanks to the fever, I needed to hold onto the last one just in case. I looked back up to the pony beside me, I’d never even heard him approach, was I that far gone?

“No, path ahead’s clear ta Steeldome Ah think.” He turned his face towards our goal, then back to me, “Ya sure yer gonna make it?”

“I should...” I said between breaths, my body felt soaked in sweat and my limbs ached. “...not gonna lie, this hurts like hell,” I added with a smile to my friend, which was returned. He looked far from convinced however and instead of dropping back to check on the others or heading back out he remained beside him. As we walked side by side, I noticed the ground was getting more firm, the mud drying quickly in the hot air.

“Ah’ve been thinkin’, if Wild’s half as fast pullin’ that chariot with us in it as she is on her own, we should make it ta Kanter City in a couple of hours,” Stone said, perhaps trying to get my mind off the pain.

I focused on his words, I had no doubt Wild could cross the vast distance from Steeldome to Kanter City quickly, once we got ourselves patched up we could make the crossing and start the search for my sister. Just had-had to keep walking. If we were lucky it wouldn’t take us long to find her. Ugh, my stomach was rolling. Just a few hours more-just a bit longer-so dizzy. I shook my head once more and stumbled a bit.

“Shadow?”

Why was the ground coming up to meet me all of a sudden? I barely felt my face impacting with the soggy ground, or of someponies hooves grabbing a hold of me, was somepony shouting? They really needed to shut up. My eyes burned and all I wanted to do was shut them. No, couldn’t rest now, needed to get up-gotta get up. I struggled to rise to my hooves, but only stumbled and dropped back to the ground with a soft groan. So dizzy-had to keep moving.

I only slightly felt a hoof shaking me, a voice calling out my name. Wild? Stone? Ugh-so hot, my mouth felt so dry. Sight and sound had left me, and feeling was following them...at least it was taking the pain with it...

I don’t know how long I lay there on the ground unconscious, but I snapped back to reality as I felt myself being lifted up and gently laid across something. I groaned and felt my hooves hanging down as my stomach lay across somepony’s back. I was being carried. I once more tried to open my eyes, but they refused to move. Again I heard somepony speaking, but despite how hard I tried, I couldn’t make out what was said-the darkness once more began to surround me and I fought to stay awake. Had to...stay...awake...

A sudden jolt brought me back and I groaned, it felt as if I was burning up from the inside and my joints ached so much. Sweet Celestia everything hurt. My eyes weakly opened once and I could just barely make out the ground passing by below me quickly. The up and down movements of my body told me I was still being carried, the gray coat under my face pointed to who it was and I tried to smile.

Had to hang on...

...save my sister...

...have to keep my promise..

As the darkness began to close in on me, I thought for a moment I felt somepony touch my back, a gently hoof pressing lightly against my shoulder before once more I slipped away into unconsciousness.

My eyes opened and I realized I was still among the living as the light from the overhead panels flooded in like a knife in my brain. I groaned softly to myself as life continued to return to my aching body. My ears twitched as I heard the soft steady hum of electricity running throughout the room. It was so familiar sounding, calming me as I began to focus on the ceiling above me. I was laying on my back in a bed, the warm sheets rubbing against my coat as I shifted a bit to try and look around. Antiseptic and other scents filled my nose and I began to figure out I was in a hospital. Or was I in the medical bay? Had something happened to me? I groaned and raised a hoof slowly up to the side of my head. My head felt as if somepony had bucked it hard. Last thing I remember was the party for the retired security ponies we’d thrown, I’d had way too much to drink and Ebony had turned on the coms inside my room, pipping in her damnable music and then...

Ebony.

I tried to look around, had the past three or four days all been a bad dream? Going to the surface, fighting giant bugs, raiders attacking the Stable? Oh please, let it have just been a dream. My eyes squinted as I peered around the room and the cold gray walls around me, my eyesight still a bit blurry. I saw shapes and areas of color. Was I still home?

Reality soon struck me, as my eyesight finally returned fully and I looked across the room from me. There upon the wall beside a doorway was simple white lettering, using the same script that had been used in the stable.

‘Steeldome Medical/3rd Floor/Section B’

I lay my head back down upon the pillow and closed my eyes, a single tear made its way untouched down my cheek as I simply gathered my thoughts. No, I suppose something that horrible couldn’t have been a dream. With a soft sigh, I opened my eyes once more and began to scan the rest of the room I was in, as I was looking off to my right I noticed a unicorn mare sitting nearby in a wheelchair. After looking more closely at her, I had an idea who she was.

Her coat was a light orange in color, far lighter than Wildfire’s own, looked unnaturally pale which likely explained the wheelchair. The mare’s hind legs looked weak laying under her, shriveled and lifeless. Seems the cure may not have gotten to her in time to save all of her. Looking back to her face, her orange horn rose between the banes of her long black mane. Dark blue straps tied it back along her neck to keep it in check. Those same bangs that parted for her horn, framed her thin face and deep purple eyes. Despite the weakness of her body, I recognized the strength in her soul. After several minutes of sizing one another up, she slowly smiled and unlike the pony who was taking her place, it was a genuine smile.

“You saved my daughter, my home and my own life. Not something I would have expected from a stranger, but from what Little Gear told me of you, you are hardly a normal pony.” Her voice was soft, almost quiet but filled with the same strength that lit her eyes. Shortfuse tilted her head as she looked to me, horn glowing as she magically moved the wheels of her chair closer to my bedside, “Harvest told me about what you did to obtain the venom sack from the radscorpions.”

“Well...since neither of us are dead I can safely assume they found a cure for the poison?” I asked as I shifted once more on the bed, rising up to better look at the mare across from me. Her smile remained and she nodded her head before answering.

“Yes, they did and from what I am told, just in time. Much longer and I would never have awoken. You would not have been far behind, after being stung no less than a half dozen times.” Half a dozen? It had seemed less. I glanced to her weakened legs and her smile turned sad, “The damage was done, the scorpion that attacked me stung me in my lower back hitting my spine. The poison destroyed much of my lower spine...still, I am alive and that is all that matters.”

I nodded but said nothing. Alive and never able to move, I don’t know if I’d be so calm in her place, or willing to just accept it. I could barely stand to be sick and bedridden for a few days, let alone my entire life. We’d had a few paralyzed ponies in the Stable over the years, most had learned to accept their disability as Shortfuse had, but a few had ended up taking their own lives rather than be a burden on their friends and family. Suddenly I remembered I was not the only other pony wounded on the mission out to the station.

“How’s Wildfire doing? And Ash?” Now it was her turn to go silent for a moment, a frown replacing the smile that had been upon her lips, I felt a chill of dread run down my back. Had we arrived too late then?

“Ash is resting, the doctors said the pieces of his armor that fused to his flesh had begun to poison the surrounding tissue. A single piece had become lodged deep enough to damage one of his lungs, the doctors say the next few days would tell us whether he’s going to make it or not.” I sighed softly and looked away. To survive all that he did, only to have the very thing you wore to protect you kill you.

“Wildfire as you call her is fine, she’s been resting in the room across the hall from you, the doctors managed to repair the damage to her wing. She’ll be flying again in a few hours.” A bit of good news then, I’d doubted the wound had been very bad, but I was no expert on damage to wings.

“The stallion who carried you here has been sitting outside for the past few hours, I believe he’s sleeping now. Seems he refused to leave until he knew you’d be alright.” She smiled and tilted her head once more to me, “Seems Wildfire has chosen her friends well.”

I smiled to that and nodded my head. I’d only know them both for less then two days, but had oddly found myself thinking of them as I did Brightblade or Twist. I laid my head back down upon the pillow behind me, the pain in my head fading quickly as I relaxed when the door to my room opened.

Speak of the devil. Trotting into my room was the bright orange pegasus herself, her wounded wing flexing a few times as she walked into my room. The orange feathered limb was no longer wrapped in bandages, and the nasty scorch marks that had marred it were gone, all thanks to the medical staff. A wide cocky smile spread across her muzzle as her bright blue eyes went from looking to the chair bound unicorn to me.

“Well, well, look who finally decided to rejoin the land of the living. I can tell you’re going to make a habit of nearly getting yourself killed,” the fiery pegasus quipped as she stepped beside my bed. The door behind her filled with the large gray frame of Stonehoof as the earth pony followed her in, his hat tilted back away from his face as he looked me over and grinned.

“Ya had us a might worried for a spell, Shadow.”

“I can honestly say I was a bit worried myself,” I answered back with a smile to each, glad to see both of them up and about, “How’s the wing?”

“Much better, like I said before, it’ll take a lot more then a rusting bucket of bolts to put me down for good. Fuck if I an’t going down for anything less then a Raptor or entire wing of griffins.” Her grin remained and I wondered what the hell a Raptor was, perhaps it was better if I never found out.

“Good to see you back to your old self Sunsparkles.” At the mention of her name, the pegasus winced and Stone grinned, “You’ll be happy to know I’ve gotten the repair ponies reassigned to working on your sky chariot again, along with my daughter, they should have it finished in a hour or so.”

“Good, then we can get this trip out of the way,” Wild said as she sat down beside my bed, yawning a bit, as I got a closer look, it appeared as if she’d just woken from a nap. Her already wildy unkempt mane was even more so. At the mention of a trip, Fuse looked up from the pair over to me.

“Trip?”

“Shadow here’s needin’ ta get ta Kanter City in a right hurry,” Stone answered the unicorn, as he walked around my room. Seemed his rest in a chair had given the large stallion a bit of a backache.

“I see...why on earth would anypony want to go to that horrible place?” with a grunt, I proceeded to tell Fuse about the attack on my home, of my kidnapped sister and my belief of where she had been taken and our need of the sky chariot. She simply listened and asked a few questions here or there, but let me tell my story largely uninterrupted. She gave me the same look Rose had, but had clearly seen how determined I was about this.

“A few weeks ago, before I was injured, the leader of a trade caravan that passes through here once every few months told me about settlements further up north being attacked by raiders. In almost every case those few who survived the attacks spoke of raiders dragging off only unicorns. One settlement he spoke of had been slaughtered completely, but only the bodies of earth ponies remained.”

Why did raiders need unicorns? And why so many? I’d seen unicorns with the raiders that had attacked my home, was this how they recruited? It now seemed clear that Ebony and the others had been taken for some reason, I just prayed whatever the reason was it required them to be alive and unharmed.

“I’ve no doubt that’s why raiders have begun testing our defenses more frequently of late. There are far more unicorns here then anywhere else in the Wasteland,” Fuse said, and making another question arise.

“Why?” I asked, looking over to the unicorn mare, “I noticed when we first entered there were a lot more unicorns then earth ponies, and that they seemed to hold positions of importance more then anypony else.” The mare smiled sadly to that, but nodded her head and began to explain.

“It's a rather long story I’m afraid. The day the bombs fell, there was only a hoof full of researchers, scientists and doctors working within the Dome. There was also a small number of ponies working on finishing the buildings and putting a few final touches on the tower itself. After cities began to be bombed, they managed to take in a few stragglers from the surrounding area before sealing the Dome. Most of them were unicorns, very few were earth ponies.”

Okay, made since I suppose, if there was more unicorns to start with, then it followed that a larger number of young would be born unicorns. Still, the gene for all three specie of pony was known to exist within each of us. After a few hundred centuries or so of intermarriage between the three, there was always the possibility of getting a earth pony born to unicorns or so forth. Even pegasi could be born to earth pony parents though it seemed to happen more rarely.

“So after a hundred or so years of fucking you end up with more unicorns...hmm who knew,” Wild added to the conversation with a smirk, the mare giving a wink to Stone and I. Fuse simply chuckled, likely used to the pegasus and nodded her head.

“Doctors apparently.” she answered, before pressing on, “At the time the dome was sealed, it was simply a matter of who was best for what jobs. The then director of the facility was placed in charge like a mayor. The unicorns began working on ensuring the walls of the Dome would keep out the radiation that was steadily rising outside. The earth ponies began to finish the buildings so everypony could have a place to stay. They also started caring for the gardens and orchards, a task, as I’m sure you're well aware, earth ponies are far more skilled at that then any other.”

True, after all I had a plant on my ass to remind me what my real special talent was. Though I was beginning to wonder if it shouldn’t have been a shotgun. Still, she was right, earth ponies had always had a knack for all things that grow. Unicorns had horns, pegasi had wings, we had green hooves. Yay us.

“As the years passed, it just became the way things were, once it was clear no pony would be leaving the dome for a very long time, the heads of the departments decided to draft a sort of rule set. It was voted upon and put into place by the director.”

“Nopony questioned it?” I asked, rolling back onto my stomach so I could more easily see each of them as they sat around me.

“A few, but what could anypony do really? There was no leaving the dome, to do so would be paramount to committing suicide. After fifty years it just became accepted as the way it would be,” Fuse answered with a sigh, “I don’t doubt it sounds horrible to you, but try and understand, despite how it may sound, it did help us to survive those early days.”

“And now?” I asked, looking into the unicorns soft purple eyes, I had heard a but in the tone of her voice, and a second later she spoke it aloud.

“But, now it seems many of those rules made to protect us are also dooming us.” With another sigh, the unicorn looked between us, “When the doors were sealed, there were barely over a hundred ponies inside Steeldome, as I said, this was never meant to be a Stable and they never planned on it housing ponies for longer than twenty years. It takes a certain number of the right ponies to produce a stable and healthy community. That’s why Stable-Tec had such a lengthy screening for those ponies going into the Stables. They went to great lengths to ensure few of the same families were placed within the same Stable.”

Ah, I slowly began to get the picture, and nodded my head to Fuse.

“Since nopony knew how long we’d be in a Stable, they didn’t want us getting frisky with a cousin twice removed?” Fuse smirked and nodded her head, damn, I've been hanging around Wild too long. The pegasus in question grinned over at me.

“Couldn’t have put it better myself.” she said with a wink, beside her Stone rolled his eyes and added.

“Ah reckon it would’a been a lot more colorful.”

Like the kick from my shotgun, the missing piece snapped into place. The first day I had entered the dome I had noticed something missing. Children. Fuse must have noticed the look, because she smiled and nodded her head.

“Slowly over time, doctors began to notice fewer and fewer healthy foals were being born. More began being born with life threatening birth defects, and after awhile many simply stopped trying to have children. It was becoming too painful.”

“Ah take it, th’ separation of unicorn and earth pony went more then just by th’ job?” Stone added with a frown, it was clear the earth pony did not much care for separating ponies by species, nor did I. I grew up in a Stable of mixed ponies, it just didn’t seem right.

“I’m afraid so, at the time most of them were busy with trying to stay alive to really understand what they had done. By the time the doctors did realize their mistake, it was already too late and the damage had been done. Some steps were taken to try and reduce the damage, but never enough. Recently, I have begun to make changes to the rules of the past, even going so far as to marry my foal hood friend, Golden Harvest. A very skilled earth pony farmer.” She smiled to that, and I doubted it had less to do with setting a good example as it had more to do with love, “It made some uneasy, but most accepted it and we moved on. A few though, voiced their concerns over the plans I had for the future of the Dome.”

“Taking in outsiders,” Wildfire spoke up, wings tucked against her sides once more as she looked over to the orange unicorn, “I take it I didn’t help matters then...” she trailed off and Fuse simply nodded, the pegasus seemed to slump where she sat, ears dropping. It was odd to see the brash flier looking so distraught.

“No, you didn’t, but as I said then, and I repeat now I do not blame you. You were following orders and did not know what you were doing at the time.” Reaching a hoof out, she gently laid it upon the pegasus’ shoulder and smiled, “You more than made up for it, don’t blame yourself Sparkles.”

I looked to Wild, saw her trying to decide whether or not to tell us the dark secret of her past. Though I had managed to work out enough of it myself, I wasn’t about to push her and we needed to stay on the subject at hoof for the moment, so I brought us back to it.

“I’m guessing Rivets was one of those speaking out?” Fuse nodded her head once more, looking sadly to me.

“A very vocal one, yes. She thought I was pushing things too quickly, that we needed more time to prepare to face the world outside our door. She was also set in her ways, never one to change the rules for anypony. She puts too much faith in our technology and magic and not enough in actual ponies. She never accepted my husband or my family, and our friendship began to break because of it. I tried telling her and the others there was little time left to wait.” She sighed and looked away towards the wall behind my bed, “My children were some of the last born in Steeldome, and they are not likely to have any of their own if they stay here. The last thing we needed was to wait, we needed to act before there was nopony left.”

“So you wanted to take in ponies from the surrounding wasteland to intermix into the dome, fresh blood,” I added, taking a chance. From what Wild had said, and what Fuse was telling me, it made the most sense. But then again, so little about the Wasteland was making sense to me.

“Yes, I knew the only way to insure future generations growing up within the Dome was if we invited ponies to join us. It would be only a matter of time before the populations began to mix and the weakness of our genes would be repaired. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the Dome could support a far larger number of ponies, but we had another problem.”

“The spells hiding the Dome.”

“It has been slowly degrading over time, every generation since the first have noticed the spell failing far more quickly than it had. Perhaps it is a problem with the ponies casting the spell, weaker magic has been noticed in many of our children. Maybe its just due to the same spell being cast upon the same piece of metal for over a century and a half. Whatever the cause, the spell matrix is failing more quickly with each passing year, and within a few more years we will be unable to maintain it for longer than a few hours. Without our defence systems running, the cloaking spell is all that is standing between us and the wasteland.” She looked up to me and added, “And from what you said, I think I can expect a very determined attempt to enter the dome once it is discovered.”

“What does the power talisman have to do with maintaining the spell?” I asked, I was after all not a smart pony when it came to spells or machinery.

“Rivets believed if we could somehow connect the talisman up to the Dome’s systems, we could run a low charge through the surface of the dome, giving the spell a power source to draw from. At the same time it could augment our own failing generators. We started with four, over the many years two of them have failed completely and the remaining two are about to die.” She shook her head and frowned, “Still, we have no way of knowing if the talisman can even do what we need it to. I told her it was too risky and we needed to make sure it would work before we tried anything.”

“Did you know about the combat robots guarding it?” Wild asked beside Stone, the pegasus having finished working the kinks from her wing, folded it back beside her and turned her blue eyes upon the unicorn.

“I had some idea there might have been one or more security robots still guarding it, but I had never imagined there being three combat models watching over the place. In truth, I had only learned about the talisman a few days ago, Rivets and I were looking into why it had been sent to the power station and trying to find a way it could help us.”

“You never planned on sending a team out to recover it, then?” I asked her as she turned the chair to face me, a thoughtful look on her face.

“I was planning on sending a team, but only after researching the information we had in our data banks. There were several reports filed on the station before the end, but those were so old I had doubts if it would be worth the trouble. I would never risk any of my ponies on a long shot like that, I wasn’t even sure if the talisman would have still be there after almost two centuries,” she answered, leaning back in her seat a bit, “I was surprised when Little Gear told me you had found it there, and running a generator no less.”

“From what I remember in school, those things were not easy or cheap to make. Why would the government send a talisman out here anyway? Unless it was for some secret project?” I glanced to my friends beside me, before fixing my golden eyes upon Fuse. For a moment she just blinked, before her smile grew wider and she laughed softly.

“I see you have heard some of the rumors about this place, well let me point out which one of them is the truth. I suppose you’ve heard it was a secret lab to create alicorns, or super soldiers, or even a secret weapons testing facility?” I nodded my head, Stone fidgeted a bit as that came up, and beside him Wild grinned evilly, “What about a lab to try growing food in space?” Again I nodded and she smiled, “That one is actually true, somewhat.” The smug look the winged mare gave to Stone was priceless.

“Steeldome was built long before any of the Stables had been constricted, it was in fact built a few years before the war. Princess Luna wanted ponies to explore beyond our home, travel to the distant stars. Mostly nonsense about colonizing the moon and boldly going where no pony had gone before or some such rubbish,” Fuse chuckled softly, “While they worked on a space center in Hoofington, Princess Luna had others working on the problem of supporting ponies living off world.”

“So, that's where Steeldome comes in?” I asked, receiving a nod from the orange unicorn beside me.

“Yes, up until the beginning of the war, Steeldome was researching ways to grow food in a controlled environment with little to no sunlight and limited water. Although after the invention of the water talisman, that made things easier. Once the war broke out however, and it became clear that the zebras had the means to destroy entire cities with a single bomb things changed. When Stable-Tec began designing their Stables, Princess Luna allowed them to make use of the research that had come from here, even allowing them to send their own scientist to help with the testing.”

“Well, it seems their research ended up saving a lot of ponies, I can’t imagine Stable 45 without an orchard.”

“I like to think so, but listen to me, rambling on about the past and my troubles, I’m sure you and your friends would like to catch up on things.” Her horn glowing softly, her wheelchair began to turn away from me and roll towards the door, “I’ll go make sure my Little Gear and her team are finishing up on your chariot, Wild.”

As the doors closed behind her, I turned to my friends and focused on Stone.

“So, I hear I have you to thank for getting me back here so quickly.”

“Ya woulda done th’ same for either of us, Shadow, besides, Ah owe ya for savin’ me already.” my large gray friend said, as he rubbed the back of his neck with a fore hoof, beside him Wild smirked.

“Should I leave you two alone?”

I snorted softly to that, and began climbing out of bed. A worried look went across both faces as I wobbled a bit once I had my hooves under me, but I managed to stand on my own. With a grunt, I flexed my hind leg, feeling the sore muscles where the wounds had been jabbed into my side. Looking back, I saw scarring across my flank that the health potions or whatever else the doctors had given me had failed to fix. Still, scarring was better then paralysis.

“Don’t ya think ya should take it a bit easy, Shadow?” Stone asked, as he watched me move carefully around the room.

“I’ll be fine, had worse than this before.” Had a gun barrel shoved through my flank before, that counted right? “Besides, as soon as Wild’s wing is healed up, I want to be ready to go.”

“I’m ready as soon as they finish the chariot’s repairs.” was the pegasus’ response, making Stone shift his worried gaze from me to the mare.

“Now hold on a cotton pickin’ minute here, an’t neither one of ya up for a trip like this.”

“Doctor said I was good to go...”

“...ta leave th’ hospital, not ta go crusin’ across th’ wasteland pullin’ a sky chariot ta a raider infested city. Either of ya.”

“Stone, I can’t wait, every second I do, could mean life or death for Ebony, I’m fine.” I hid the sudden flare of pain that shot up my flank as I placed my weight upon my wounded leg. I had to do this, for my sister.

“Stop worrying you old hen,” Wild said, bumping a wing into the earth ponies side as she stepped past him, trotting around to me, “I’ll be good to go soon as they get the chariot ready.”

“Good, because by tonight, we’re going to be in Kanter City.”

After securing my release from the Dome’s Medical Floor, which involved a pretty young unicorn mare telling Wild and myself we were crazy for being out of bed. Wild’s remark to that was...colorful to say the least. After leaving the tower, Harvest arrived to show us where we could wait until the repairs had been finished up.

I expected to spend a bit of time getting my equipment repaired and the salvage we’d brought back from the power station sold, but Stone had seen to that. Which was perhaps just as well, while I had always found it easy to talk to others, bartering seemed to be beyond me. Stone had increased our caps by a sizable amount, even after repairs and resupplying us for the coming trip. I doubted we’d have much use for caps within Kanter City, but they would come in handy when we reached San Ponsico.

Could it really be my new home? Would it ever feel like home? I’d never really thought about it, I’d been so focused on finding my sister and just staying alive that I’d not had the time. But now that I did, I wondered how the city would compare to places like Crossroads and Steeldome. Would the city be rebuilt? Had much of the city been spared the blasts of balefire? As I lay upon the couch in a guest quarter I wondered what I’d do there. I doubted they needed security ponies, but did I really want anything else to do with that? I’d only joined the Stable’s security force to take my father’s place. It had seemed the right choice at the time, and still did, but there had been some truth to what my sister always bugged me about. I would have been far happier in a garden.

I glanced to my friends, somehow, they had managed to go the past two hours without arguing or trying to kill one another. That was a good sign, that or when they were playing blackjack they were too focused on winning to snip at one another. Judging by the lack of armor and weapons on Stone, I figured Wild was winning. Smirking, I looked away, what was the point of strip poker anyway? Ponies went around without clothes most of the time. I went back to finishing the work on patching a hole in my armor, a few too many close calls with those bots back in the power station had left me with a few gaps.

A knock on the door brought my head up from the repair work I was doing, the door opened a second later and Harvest entered. I rose to my hooves to greet him, behind me Stone was trying to get his things back from Wild who seemed unwilling to part with her hard won haul and was ideally stroking the earth ponies beloved rifle.

“Well, it seems you're all doing well.” Harvest said with a bit of a grin towards the pleased looking pegasus.

“The kids are always hyper before a big trip.” I answered with a chuckle before getting hit in the back of the head by a bottle. Ow. Glancing back, I saw Wild looking at me with a grin, before she pointed a accusing hoof to Stone.

“Mother asked me to make sure you were all doing well, and to let you know the repairs on the chariot are nearly finished. My sister has thrown herself into the task with her usual gusto.” Harvest smiled and added, “Mother also asked if you’d like to see your Chariot, Wildfire?”

I looked back to where my friends sat, the ‘spoils of war’ being returned to their owner by a grinning Wild. Hearing those words she looked up to the copper coated earth pony and nodded her red maned head.

“Of course, I’m rather interested in seeing how well this kid did with something like a sky chariot.” rising to her hooves, she flexed her wings before trotting over beside us, “Last time I saw it, it was in a few pieces.”

I blinked at that and glanced to my winged friend, she’d neglected to mention that part when talking about this plan.

“Good, then if you’re ready, we’ll head on over to the workshop and take a look. Mom said she’d likely meet us there, said she had something to talk to you about, Shadow.” Harvest turned and started for the door, leaving me with a confused look. What did she want to talk to me about?

Stone joined us a moment later, having gotten his armor back on, along with his knife, rifle, and a few personal effects. Muttering about cheatin’ mares he followed us out and after Harvest.

Trotting through the near empty streets, the earth pony was leading us towards the Tower. Our hoof steps clopping along across the cobblestone streets, passing a few ponies sitting out on the benches beside the road and even what appeared to be a playground of some type, made from the spare parts of machines. A swing set and slide along with a merry go round sat seemingly unused in a small green field between a row of homes. It oddly brought little joy, as the lack of children playing upon the swings and slides only forced to remind me this was a dying settlement. I grunted and looked away.

As we approached the Tower, I saw two security ponies standing watch outside the entrance atop the stairs. They nodded their heads in greeting to us as we passed, but said not a word. The Tower was not our destination however, and we passed by in favor of circling around it towards a building built up against it. The building appeared to be a garage, tools and half disassembled pieces of machinery lay near two large open doors. I a small number of ponies working inside, more ponies I’d seen since entering the Dome that were not security. However, it was not the ponies my eyes were drawn to, but the reason we had come all this way, and risked so much. Beside me Stone whistled softly and Wild grinned happily. Sitting upon a metal lift was the Sky Chariot.

Firstly, the name chariot may bring to mind those old pony pulled carts you see in photos and movies of the past, while it was true those types of carts were still widely used, this looked little like them. Where most carts were made of wood, this was made of black steel, about thirty hoof lengths long, with enough room inside to seat a half dozen ponies or more. The front was curved, likely to help it pass through the air, along its surface were three viewports with blast shielding lowered. A single sliding door sat on either side of the hull, just near the middle of the chariot, and stood open allowing me to see inside.

The interior of the chariot was as military as the outside, I could make out six padded seats for ponies to sit in, along with over head compartments for storing gear and weapons. There was even small lighting domes along the roof. Turning my attention back to the front of the machine, I saw the harness for the pegasus pilot sat upon the ground empty for the time being, the bracing of the harness was made from solid steel and a kevlar saddle hung between the two bars which protruded further up beside the pilot, offering some protection in the form of small metal plates. Resting upon the end of one such bar was a helmet, wiring and cables running from it to the saddle, likely giving the pilot some connection with the chariot behind them.

Climbing out from the armored compartment came Gearhearts, the filly floating several tools with her as she exited the chariot, returning them to her saddlebag. Looking up she smiled toward us and quickly trotted over.

“Just about finished, do you like it?” she asked, looking hopeful to the three of us.

“I doubt its been in this good a shape for a very long time, kid. You did good,” Wild answered with a grin, reaching a hoof up to ruffle the filly’s mane before stepping past her to inspect the pilot's harness. Beaming happily, Gear trotted after Wild to show her the repairs she had made, leaving Stone and myself to look back to the rest of the chariot.

“Well, Ah’ll say this was worth th’ detour,” he said as he walked up to the door, poking his head inside the compartment and stepping inside. I followed him to the door and lightly tapped a hoof against the thick armor and was forced to agree with my large gray coated friend, this would make getting my sister and the others out of Kanter City a lot easier.

“My daughter does good work, I’m glad you're pleased.” a mare’s voice called out from behind me and I turned to see Shortfuse rolling up the path to stop just outside the garage.

“She does indeed.” I answered, before dropping back out of the chariot to walk towards the unicorn, “Your son mentioned something about wanting to speak to me?” in answer, a folder floated up from her lap surrounded in the soft glow of her magic. I arched a brow and looked from it back to her.

“I did a little digging after we had our talk in the medical wing and I spoke with both my son and my head of security.” as she spoke, Swiftwind and four of his security ponies trotted up behind the wheelchair, offering me a nod, Harvest who had been keeping to himself trotted over to stand beside Swift.

“I take it you found something that displeases you?” Wild said having left inspecting her Chariot to join us. Stone dropped down from within the chariot and was trotting over to join us.

“You could say that...logs of what Rivets has been up to for the past six months.” Fuse grunted, narrowing her eyes. Given what I’d suspected, I imagined she’d found something about her own little accident in those logs.

“What are ya gonna do bout it?” Stone asked from beside Wild.

“I’m going to kick her out of my fucking office.” a slight smile formed on Fuse’s muzzle as she looked up at me, “I thought you may wish to join us, seeing how she nearly got you all killed.”

“I believe we have nothing planned this afternoon.” I smiled back, Rivets had come off as a bit of a crooked pony when we’d first met, and everything I’d been figuring out about her since the Power Station had only driven that home. A pony like that should not be in charge of other’s lives. A pony like her shouldn’t have that sort of power. Stepping up beside Fuse I motioned towards the tower above us, “Shall we?”

As the elevator doors parted, my friends and I trotted out beside Harvest and his mother. Swiftwind and his security detail had gone up first and secured the hallway, not that I expected Rivets to put up much of a fight, she didn’t seem the type to. She seemed more the type to sit back and let others fight for her.

Trotting down the hallway towards the Director’s Office, I found myself checking my shotgun anyway, after all it seemed nothing was ever easy and I wasn’t about to get caught off guard again. Swiftwind and his security team fell into pace with us, the head of security trotting beside the wheelchair bound unicorn.

“Despite everything she’s done, I don’t want her harmed, she likely won’t put up much of a fight,” Fuse said to Swift and the armored unicorn nodded his head. Beside me, Wild snorted and rolled her eyes and Stone as always kept silent unless he had something to add.

The doors to her office came into sight, and with a burst of magic, Shortfuse slammed them open loudly, rolling inside a moment later flanked by the security team and her son. We followed them in a moment later, and found Rivets sitting at the terminal mounted atop the desk. At the sudden noise, the gray unicorn blinked in surprise and hurriedly shut the machine down.

“Why...Fuse...its so good to see you up and about again...,” the unicorn began but was cut off almost at once.

”Yes, no thanks to you, Rivets,” Fuse said with a hiss of anger, the security ponies moving around us and stood to either side of the gray unicorn standing behind the desk. The mare looking around worriedly to the two then to Swiftwind.

“Fuse, what is the meaning of this? What are you doing? Why are these guards here and why are these outsiders armed?” She took a few steps back before she eeped softly and found Swift behind her (suppose that’s why he was called Swift, I hadn’t even seen him move from beside Harvest) and held up a hoof to stop her.

“Tell me Rivets, why were the external sensors shut down the day I was attacked after detecting two hostile life forms near my team?” The two unicorns stared at one another, neither blinking, “Why did the com relays suddenly go into standby when the call went out for medical?” with each word, the orange unicorn’s ears flattened to her skull and her nostrils flared.

“I...”

“Why was my own daughter picked to go and retrieve the talisman when I had been admitted about sending a full security team to sweep the power station for any threats first!” It had started off as a question, but by the end the mare was nearly shouting her words to the gray unicorn across the desk from her.

“I don’t know who’s told you all this...but they are lying...Fuse, please...,” whatever she was about to say was cut off as the folder Fuse had been carrying flew across the room to slam atop the desk, the angry red glow fading from it as it skidded to a halt before Rivets, papers sliding out of it.

“Don’t you dare call my daughter a liar, Rivets. She found your access codes buried in the logs for both the sensors and the com system, where somepony had attempted to hide their tampering from anypony else. She just didn’t have the correct access codes to decrypt them. Access codes only you or I have. Your override code had been entered for both the day I was attacked...we lost four ponies because of those scorpions, Rivets. Three to the attack, and another because they did not get treated in time. FOUR!” Worriedly, Harvest placed a hoof upon his mother's shoulder, but the mare shrugged it away, purple eyes blazing with anger.

I looked from the fiery unicorn to the gray pony across from her, just the day before the smug mare had happily sent us off on a fool's quest to find her talisman, she no doubt expected us to fail and die like the others. For a moment I thought this was going to be the end of it, Swift would cuff the pony and march her off to the detention cells (if they even had them) and we’d go on our merry little way.

As I watched, the mood of the gray unicorn seemed to change before my eyes, gone was the worried expression and fearful glances to the security ponies behind her. Gone was the twitch of her hooves as she sought an escape from whatever fate Fuse had planned for her. Slowly, her face twisted into a sneer and she shoved the desk away from herself with a sudden flash of her horn, the legs of the desk digging into the metal flooring from the force of the push the room echoing with the sound of grinding metal.

“You MADE me do this, Fuse. YOU MADE ME!” the gray unicorn snarled and before I knew what was happening her horn pulsed again and the three security ponies behind her flew backwards to slam hard into the wall length window behind the desk. Their armored barding cracking the thick reinforced glass with a network of lines before slumping to the ground.

Oh fuck, that was not good.

“You actually wanted to allow outsiders into our home. OUTSIDERS!” at the yell the terminal on the desk flew off and shattered across the floor, sending out a shower of sparks, “Filthy muck ponies who have been exposed to goddesses know what! And you expect us to welcome them, take them into our homes...our beds!!”

Beside me, Stone slowly moved his hoof up to the safety of his rifle as Wildfire blocked him from Rivets’ view. I doubted the unicorn would have even noticed the careful movement, as she ranted and raved at Fuse. The orange unicorn sat unsure of herself in the face of the crazed Rivets, even Harvest seemed at a loss as to what was happening.

“You soiled yourself with that mongrel of a earth pony, and ever since then your mind has been poisoned with his lies! I tried to warn you - I tried to stop you, but you wouldn’t listen to me.” Her eyes narrowed upon Harvest, and the earth pony began to gasp.

I swore loudly as I saw the earth pony's hooves rise up from the floor before me, thrashing wildly as a white glow surrounded his neck. This had to end, before she broke his neck. A quick glance from the corner of my eye told me Stone was ready to fire, and Wild had managed to edge closer to Fuse, ready to take the wounded pony out of the line of fire.

“Stone, now!” I shouted and reached down for the bit of my shotgun, the safety clicking off as my right hoof slapped the side of the weapon. At the same instant, Wildfire lunged between us and pushed Fuse away from the line of fire, sending both mares to the ground as the wheelchair topped over and skidded across the floor. As I was bringing my shotgun up to bare, Stone brought his rifle quickly up and fired off a quick shot, the bullet flew straight towards the still raging unicorn and stopped, mushrooming as it struck a glimmering force field the mare had erected around herself. The earth ponies eyes went wide in shock as he was half way through ejecting the spent casing.

Definitely not good...

“This is YOUR fault...our plan would have worked if it wasn’t for you and those meddling friends of yours!!” With another flash of her horn, Rivet’s magic gripped Stone’s rifle and ripped it from his mouth. The glowing weapon then slammed with a crack across the his snout sending him to the floor as the rifle turned its barrel towards me.

Fuck...

I squeezed the trigger of my shotgun and dodged into cover behind a nearby table just as a bullet whizzed past my flank and struck the floor with a metal ping. Swiftwind chose that moment to make his move and lashed out at the unicorn with his hooves. The unicorn’s iron shoes sent sparks flying as they impacted the shield surrounding Rivets. It was enough to cause her to drop the rifle she’d taken and send a flicker through the entire field, turning her now glowing gaze upon the head of security she smirked up at him.

“You want your bed toy so much...have him!” Harvest whipped around and slammed into Swift, knocking both stallions to the floor in a tangled heap of limbs. This had to stop, before somepony got killed.

Lunging across the table I emptied my shotgun as I charged across the office. The shells harmlessly impacting against the shield, but it caused the unicorn within to flinch. With a cry, I crossed the last few paces by jumping up onto the desk and into Rivets. For a moment I was held in midair, eyes fixed on the glowing orbs of the crazed former Director. But only for a moment, as the barrage of rounds I’d fired had overwhelmed the unicorn’s control and with a pop the shield faded. I crashed into Rivets and slammed my empty shotgun against her face, causing her to cry out in pain and shock.

“You think you’ve won!?” the crazed pony yelled into my face, and I snarled around the bit of my shotgun as she shoved her hooves against the barrel, “You're NOTHING compared to what's coming!! You and your little band of would-be heroes...ohh the voice has told me soo much about what you think your going to do.” Lashing out with a hoof she snapped my head back and I spotted Fuse crawling for her wheelchair and Stone laying prone on the floor...there was no sign of Wild.

“Yeah, yeah, tell it to somepony who gives a damn!” I turned back and brought my own hoof back to slam it into Rivets face, hearing bone break, but she hardly seemed to notice.

“You who bring a murderess along with you on your fool's quest!” I raised my hoof for another strike but paused at that, murderess? Who was she - “Oh yes, your dear little friend...she never told you what she did to us did she?” Rivets grinned, blood running down her nose turning her teeth red.

“Rivets! Stop this madness!!” Fuse yelled out, looking as shocked as the rest of us.

“Madness?” the unicorn under me hissed, and started to giggle, oh that wasn’t creepy as shit at all, her horn glowed bright once again and I was pushed away from her, to slam into a wall near the doors. As I dropped to the floor, I groaned and picked myself up again, head spinning.

“You have NO idea what's out there, dear Fuse...NO IDEA!”

“And you do? You’ve never set hoof outside this Dome your entire life Rivets!!” Fuse shot back, climbing up shakingly atop her wheelchair, eyes fixed on the gray unicorn.

“He’s told me all I need to know.”

“Who?” Fuse asked, looking confused, that was the second time Rivets had mentioned somepony else. Were Swift and Harvest correct? Was there more than just a single mad unicorn at work within the Dome?

“He speaks to me in here.” She tapped a hoof against her head and her eyes rolled around slowly, “But...now that’s enough talk, it’s time to finish this and claim what was once mine.”

I grunted and tried to reach for my revolver, it was all I had left on me, my saddlebags and assault rifle I’d left back at our quarters. Rivets began to float slowly towards Shortfuse, hooves never touching the floor. The disabled unicorn shook her head in disbelief and tried to rise to her hooves, only to crash back atop her wheelchair. I looked around, everypony else was only just now coming to, or beginning to pick themselves up, they’d never be able to stop Rivets in time, and neither would I.

Luckily, somepony else would.

With a flash of orange and a flutter of feathered wings, Wildfire tackled Rivets from behind and the two mares went spinning across the office towards the wall. Wrapping her forehooves around Rivet’s neck, the pegasus made sure she took the full force of the blow as the pair slammed into the metal wall.

Picking herself up, my winged friend shook her red mane and shook her head slowly, behind her, Rivets was beginning to stand, horn glowing as she hissed.

“You winged whore...” Rivets hissed but Wild cut her off, rearing up on her front hooves.

“Bitch, please.” her hind legs lashed out and caught the unicorn in the chin, bucking her hard enough into the wall that she actually bounced off and landed in front of the pegasus.

“I don’t think she’ll be going anywhere anytime soon.” Wild stepped past the finally unconscious Rivets, giving the unicorn another kick to the head for good measure. She looked back to me, and it was clear she’d caught what Rivets had said to me. Her blue eyes looked away quickly before she trotted past me to help Fuse back into her wheelchair.

Fuse for her part looked none the worse for the fall she’d taken, the orange unicorn having managed to avoid most of Rivets’ wraith. She did look worriedly over towards her son.

“Harvest?”

“I’m fine *cough* mom, just a sore throat is all,” her son replied, offering a smile to his worried mother. He lay on the ground where he had been dropped, rubbing his throat with a hoof as he got his wits back. Beside him, Swift had climbed back to his hooves and looked as worried as Fuse.

Of the three security ponies, two had picked themselves up already and were checking on their still downed friend. They’d hit the window with a lot of force, and I was surprised to see that they’d come out of it was little more then dented armor.

Swift scanned the room before spotting the still form of Rivets laying in the corner, narrowing his eyes, the unicorn stallion trotted over towards the mare, two pairs of hoof cuffs floating from his armor as well as a smaller lock.

Well, that could have gone so much worse.

“How is Rivets?” Fuse asked, as her horn glowing as she brought her wheelchair over towards Swift. I carefully made my way over to them as well, my head still spinning from that toss.

Swift glanced back down to the mare in question and lightly prodded her with a hoof, she groaned but remained out for the time being. He had already gotten the cuffs around her legs and was slipping the smaller one over her horn. Ah, a magic suppressor, to keep unicorn suspects from using their magic to escape.

“She’s out for the moment, but we should probably do something with her before she wakes up.” I’d never seen a unicorn with that much raw power before, not even Brightblade had been able to do such things, and he had always seemed a power magic user.

“Should kill the bitch,” Wild growled, blue eyes narrowed on the gray mare lying between Swift and I, “After all she’s done it’s what she deserves.”

I couldn’t fault the logic in that, after all she had killed a half dozen ponies in her crazed attempt to seize power of the Dome from Fuse. How many more lives would she have taken if she’d been allowed to remain in control? And all because she was afraid of the outside and following the orders of the voices in her head. I grunted and shook my head.

That was something I could understand; the being afraid of the surface, not the voices. Everypony in Stable 45 had been afraid of what lay on the surface, even me. And what I had learned since coming up here had only made me more afraid. But I had learned to deal with it, just like everypony else in the Stable had, not just hide from it as Rivets had intended.

“No - no I can’t do that...Swift?” At his name, the security chief looked up from his work at securing Rivets.

“Yes, Director?”

“Take her down to the cells please, and see to it a doctor looks at her. Have yourself and your ponies looked over as well,” Fuse ordered, looking down at the prone Rivets and rubbing her head slowly.

Turning back to his security team, the three stepped over and began lifting the slumped gray unicorn off the floor in their combined magical fields and started towards the door. As the doors shut behind them, Fuse wheeled herself over to the desk and looked to the smoking ruin of the computer terminal.

“I had no idea she was such a powerful unicorn,” I said, stepping back to rejoin Wild and Stone. Harvest was helping the third security pony to the door, by the way she was limping I guessed she had broken a leg in the fall.

“She shouldn’t have been,” Fuse spoke up after lightly floating the parts of the terminal up onto the desk, “She could barely lift a thing with her horn for the past few years, she was quite old.”

“Maybe in her crazed state she was able to wield more power?” Wild suggested, it sounded as good an answer as any at the moment, “I still say you should have killed her, Fuse, you can’t keep her locked up forever, the old bat might live to be a hundred.”

“Maybe, but I doubt you’d be able to order the death of your own mother so easily,” the orange pony said as she sat in her wheelchair.

Wild blinked and took a few steps back in shock as it seemed she’d put all four hooves into her mouth with her earlier suggestion. Even I was surprised by this, and shared a look with my friends before turning back to Fuse.

“That’s your - your mother?” Wild asked, her voice losing much of its strength in the face of this news.

“Yes.” With a tired sigh, Shortfuse rolled herself around behind the desk and her horn glowed softly as she pressed a control upon the desk top, “Have a maintenance team sent to my office as soon as possible for cleanup and repair.” The link went dead and she looked sadly over to me.

“Thank you once again, all of you. Harvest, see to it they seen to by medical, and yourself as well, son.”

Harvest nodded and asked us to follow him, as he supported the limping mare, Stone stepped up to help. Wild glanced back once to Fuse before she followed the others to the door. I was about to do the same when Fuse called out for me to stay. I turned away from my friends as they followed the stallion out the doors and looked back to the orange unicorn behind her desk.

“How bad is it beyond these walls?” she asked suddenly and I blinked, “I’ve barely been a mile from the Dome, my daughter and Ash are the only ponies from Steeldome that have been so far away, and not all of them returned. I need to know how bad it really is out there, I’ve listened to the radio, heard the news about raiders and mutants. We’ve seen it first hoof when they attacked us but they never managed to make it past our defences.”

“I’m not sure how much you could rely on my information, I’ve only been on the surface for three or four days, surely it would be better to talk to Wildfire or Stonehoof. Or the traders that pass through?” I asked her, sitting down beside the desk.

“I’ve asked, and I’ve learned much about the outside from them, but they have been dealing with the real world for their whole lives. Ponies like us, we have lived sheltered lives, away from threats like radscorpions and raiders.” Sighing, she lays her head upon the desk and looks up at me, “I want to hear it from a point of view I could relate to.”

Nodding my head, I walked back towards the desk and sat down across from her.

“Where to begin...”

Welcome to Level 7!

Perk Added: Entomologist: Creepy crawlies have troubled you long enough! With this perk, you do an additional +50% damage every time you attack a mutated insect, like the radroach, bloatsprite, giant ant, or radscorpion. And the best part is, you won’t need a grenade launcher to do it with!!

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.