“A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.”

Even with my lack of experience with anything medical related, Short Staff had assured me I’d done a good job, though I think in truth he just wanted to say something optimistic. I don’t know why, or how this pegasus was still alive with his wounds. The sneer Predious had across his muzzle from the sight, was something I might pry into later, but as Short Staff cleaned up he had my attention.

“He’s lucky we still had that set of towels in the wagon.” He spoke with a sigh, levitating a rusty pair of shears into his medical bag. “Wetting them with a potion is a handy trick if you don’t have much in the way of healing supplies, but it’s only helping on the surface.” He glanced over to me with a sad look. “Wounds like his are probably still bleeding on the inside. He needs a doctor.”

“Can’t Pallet just fly him?” I asked. She used to fly me around town all the time when I was young, and pegasi are supposed to be fairly light ponies. Even if he was too heavy for her, we have another solution. “Or maybe Iron Will could carry him.”

Short Staff shook his head. “The trip would be too rough on him. He needs to lay flat and not be jostled or his internal injuries could only get worse.” His magic lifted his medical bag onto his back as the straps snaked around him and clasped together. “It’s going to be tough, but if we push through the night, we might make it to Dodge by just after sunrise.”

Pallet swooped down from the air, her flared wings pushing away some of the black smoke trailing above us. “You really think Stim Pack is the best choice to work on an Enclave soldier?” She cringed, having every right to. Stim Pack used to be a Steel Ranger, and I say used to because he has a bit of a booze problem. Turns out that when he’s drunk, which is now every moment he’s conscious, he turns into a bit of an earth pony supremacist. Granted I’m fine without wings and a horn, I think the only thing anypony should care about out here is if another pony has got a gun in their hoof or caps to their name.

“I know he’s not ideal, but I only knew enough to prevent him from dying at this moment. One, two hours from now who knows.” He pressed a forehoof to his temple. “Just, get him over to the wagon, and gently. I have to dump some things to make room.” He quickly ducked away, leaving me to look to Predious, who didn’t seem too thrilled with this idea either.

His horn lit up and he gave a soft grunt as his magic enveloped the Stallion’s body in a dim aura and slowly lifted him up. The injured pegasus was swung over onto my back, and gently laid down, the bloody bandages pressing into my jacket feeling oddly warm through the old leather. I could feel the rise and fall of his chest, the weak, shallow breathes the only sign of any life to him. Yet again, the thought ran through my mind to question why we had bothered to save him at all.

Small, soft steps were all I wanted to take as I slowly turned and started forward, being careful not to let his body move to much. Predious kept his head down, his horn at the ready incase the stallion started to slip. In only a matter of what the pipbuck said was five minutes, I had managed to get him the hundred feet or so to the wagon, and I only let him slip twice! From there, both Predious and Short Staff lifted him from me and set him in along the now cleared side of the wagon. I could finally breathe a sigh of relief as his weight was off my shoulders.

“Storm, give me your jacket.” Short Staff extended his hoof expectantly.

“Fuck that!” I can’t just give over the one thing that’s kept me alive for as long as I’ve had the thing. It’s one thing I won’t give up to anypony, not without a damn good reason. “I'm not giving my jacket to some random pony who's just going to die in it. I need it incase we start getting shot at.”

“I don't care! He'll die of hypothermia without it and I don't plan on letting some 'random pony' die if it can be helped.” He closed his eyes and sat down, taking a deep breath. “I understand your concern, but he will make it if you just hoof over the damned coat! It will be too dark soon to see and as you have the darkest coat of all of us, you’re the least at risk for being spotted regardless.”

“Fine.” I grumbled, taking it off and glancing over to the pony who would just bloody it up. I blinked in confusion as a pair of half lidded, deep blue eyes stared back at me. The look the stallion gave I’d seen before many times in bars, and came with just the ghost of a smile before he flopped his head back down. I let out a grunt as Short Staff lifted the jacket away from me and wrapped it as best he could around the pegasus.

“Alright!” Short Staff cleared his throat and spoke up. “Now, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so make sure you’ve got everything you’re going to need for this journey on hoof. Once we get started, we’re not stopping until dodge, got that?”

I’ll admit I’d wanted nothing more than to leave that cramped, confined facility and just run my legs off in the openness of outside, but this was not what I had in mind. The sun had fallen, and the darkness around us was only parted by the cone of light given off by Short Staff as he lead us along the old highway system. My vest and light shirt I was wearing didn’t do much to stave off the cold winter air, and the resentment I had for giving away my coat only grew as I slowly froze.

We’d taken a turn along the highway which lead up toward a small prewar highway patrol building I knew from my travels. It sat perched on top of the only hill for miles around, and I had always wondered why the ponies back then didn’t just build it to run around instead of directly over it. The blessing of this was that on the incline, the weight of the cart ment the Brahman had to slow down, so we all used it as a quick chance to catch our breath. All but Predious though, who seemed too lost in thought to care about taking deep breaths.

“Hey, can… I ask you… something?” I had something on my mind since the crash and I need to get it out to stay focused. “What were you... looking for... in that wreck?”

“Why do you care?” He snapped at me, seeming to take a moment before his gaze softened slightly.

“You asked me all... kinds of questions earlier… why can't I... ask a few?” I could feel my lungs starting to burn less and my heart ceased thumping against my ribs in trying to escape. I just want to go back to walking in the empty wastes again, no more running or enclosed spaces.

“If you must know, I was looking for the flight recorder.” He looked at me and scoffed when I obviously didn’t know why the hell he would do that. “It would tell us why the Vertibuck crashed.”

Ignoring the fact that he didn’t even sound winded, “Back up one second. You know what that thing was?” I must have sounded extra stupid to him this time, seeing as he banged his hoof angrily on his head. “Let me guess, you read about them.” It’s not my damn fault I don’t sit inside libraries all day, reading books and getting bounties placed on me.

“Sometimes I wonder how you can know so little.” He grumbled out. Oh yeah, he was pissed, but it’s his own damn fault for expecting more of me. “Moving on, the odd thing was that it didn't have one. It lay no where among the wreckage.”

“Well yeah, you saw the state of that wreck.” I could finally speak normally again, which was something I could tell Predious didn’t appreciate. “I wouldn't be surprised if it were nothing but metal ribbons now.”

My vision flicked from green to pink as Pai popped up. “Ooo! I know something!” She changed everything to purple and pulled out her bubble pipe. “It is highly unlikely to have been destroyed, as they were built out of a special alloy and that happened to make them near indestructable. It is more likely that you simply missed it when you were looking, or that it was buried in another piece of the wreckage you didn’t check.”

“No, I found the mounting rack for it completely intact.” Predious looked to me and shook his head. “It wasn't broken or somewhere else in the wreck, but just... well, gone.” A high pitched whine came through the air just loud enough we both perked our ears, and it sounded similar enough that I wanted to get a head start toward the wagon in the case we needed to hide under it again. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

We looked back and could see quite a few lights traveling quickly crossing the sky perpendicular to us, a bright spotlight ran along the desert floor from the one in the center of them. The quick flutter of wings startled me as Pallet dropped down, her white mane the only part of her standing out against the darkness.

“We got company. Enclave patrol, so just act cool and let Short Staff and I handle it.” She trot past us towards Short Staff, hanging back next to the Brahman as a faint light swept over us all. I have only caught glimpses of their armor before, but seeing the three bug eyed, carapaced, and scorpion tailed ponies land in front of Short Staff, it was almost otherworldly.

“Hold it there.” A white coated mare’s muzzle was the only part of her we could see, but it didn’t sound like she was happy to be here. “Don’t see many of you muck rakers traveling at night time. Why would that be? You wouldn't happen to be sheltering any pegasi, would you?” A bright light flicked on from the side of her helmet, and she stared down Short Staff.

“What do you care?” Short Staff pointed his hoof at them. “Our friend is sick and he needs a doctor, so would you kindly move and let us by?” He waved his hoof at them, slowing down when they didn’t seem to be buying it. “He’s got… the feather flu!” He shouted his bluff loud enough that I had to resist facehoofing, feeling it hard not to emote from that level of stupidity. Surprisingly, the two other pegasi with the mare took a step back and looked at each other.

“Feather flu huh?” The mare didn’t sound convinced. “Only pegasi can catch that from other pegasi, so tell me again how that helps your case?”

“He caught it from me.” Pallet stepped forward, being lit up as the mare turned her attention to her. “He’s my husband, and I won’t let you hold us back.” I watched her lift her wings slowly, uncovering the high power guns on her saddle for them to see.

“Well well, Unbranded Pegasus. Tell me your name.” The armored mare held her hoof out, an odd terminal like screen sat with a line across it.

The thin line wavered as Pallet spoke in a raised voice. “My name is Pallet Jack. Raised in Manehatten, never been above.” She cleared her throat. “That should be enough of a sample for you.”

The mare in charge pulled her hoof back and stared at the screen, only looking up when there was a small beep. “Alright, you check out.”

“Yeah, she may.” A stallion with a blue coat spoke up, nudging the mare in charge. “But come on Hail, where would she get tech like that then?”

“Cloud Streaker’s right sarge, even if she hasn’t, it’s something only a deserter would take with them.” He scoffed at Pallet. “Cunt probably did us a favor and killed them for it too. Fucking dirtbirds, you’re all the same.” As he spoke, my hoof strained as I felt the need to facehoof again, but I resisted and bit my lip waiting for Pallet’s response.

“Fine, don't believe me. It’s interesting you’ve seen this design before, when what you should know is that they are custom built to run off of balefire egg energy.” Pallet sounded colder than the night was, and it was scary. Scary enough that the third pegasus took a step back. “Now that I have your attention, you better hope you dust me with a shot, cause if you don't I can overload them and we can all find out what it feels like to be cooked alive.” She leaned herself closer to her bit, only stopping when the second pegasus stepped back as well. “We don't care whatever you're looking for, so just let us save my husband, and nopony has to get vaporized tonight.”

“Forget them Hail, you said they checked out.” Cloud Streaker spoke up, tapping her with an armored wing to bring out a grunt from her. “Let’s just go.”

There was a moment of silence as we all just stood there. “I don't get paid enough for this shit. Let's wrap it up and get back, there's nothing on this dirtball land worth dying for.” The mare spoke up and flared her wings. “If I find out you lied, I’m going to hunt each of you down like nothing you’ve ever seen.” She spat out and flapped hard, swiftly taking to the air with the others and disappearing into the dark night skies.

Short Staff let out a breath big enough for all of us as we hesitantly started forward again. “Thanks for covering for me Pallet, I kind of panicked there if you couldn’t tell.” He gave a nervous chuckle as I looked back to Predious, finding that he didn’t seem to be paying attention to anything again. Short Staff swung his spell over to Pallet. “I didn't know that's how they worked, you’ll have to explain it better some time, as I didn’t think things like that were possible!”

“They aren’t” Pallet smiled and pat her wings against the guns. “I just made that shit up, only Harmony was ever smart enough to figure these things out.”

That was it, I couldn’t hold back any further. I facehoofed hard enough I saw stars, but it was worth it, as that painful expression was now a valid explanation for my life. It was apparently enough that Predious wore a small smile when I shook my head clear.

He whispered to me as his grin grew. “Now you know how I feel around you.”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?” I grumbled and pressed on again, focusing myself on the fact that we were almost at the top of the hill.

“Hey Storm, you got a minute?” Pallet called from up front. The old cart creaked heavily as it started to roll again, and in the dim light from Short Staff’s horn, I could see that our pegasus patient hadn’t moved since he looked at me before.

I trot up the hill and alongside her with a smile. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“You get around, so you might know.” She scrunched up her muzzle as she spoke. “Have you ever seen a patrol like that before?” What she asked struck me as odd. I shook my head and watched as she looked back nervously to the cart. “Cause we’ve obviously got somepony important back there. I’ve seen Enclave accidents before, and they never send out a search party.”

“I too found it odd.” Predious spoke as he came up from behind. “That crash didn’t make any sense.” He nodded to the cart as well. “I’m thinking we’ve got our hooves on a pony that somepony needs. He could be a VIP or a Criminal, who knows, but they want him bad.”

We reached the top of the hill, slowly leveling out as Short Staff killed his light spell. “Everypony quiet!” He snapped at a whisper.

We all shut our muzzles tightly, turning our gazes towards the front of us as just the shadow of the ruins of the old police building outlined the slightly lighter skies. From inside the interior windows, there was a faint glowing that shifted and moved. None of us moved as the glowing face of a raggedy looking ghoul stopped slackjaw in front of the window, looking out with dead, unfocused eyes.

“No. Pony. Move.” Predious whispered.

The glowing one turned and shambled slowly from the window, his glowing body revealing a mass of other half rotten faces and shredded corpses. As I remembered to look down at my E.F.S. a thought jumped into the back of my mind that I really needed to keep tabs on it more often, seeing as it was flooded with red bars. Short Staff clicked his tongue to get our attention, and ever so slowly, we crept forward.

All eyes were on the station as we moved at a snails pace, trying our best to put one hoof in front of the other as quietly as possible. We were doing well so far, but after only a minute, we had only moved maybe twenty feet. I was starting to think that if one of us ran back down the hill, maybe we could get those pegasi to come back and lend us a hoof in exchange for their friend. More than likely, they would just take him and leave us to die.

My ears perked as I heard a mechanical pounding sound growing closer, the thought that Iron Will had been following us slipped my mind as he’d fallen behind when we were running. I prayed to the goddesses that he would still be quiet enough that the ghouls wouldn’t notice, but the closer he got, the more his hydraulics started to sound like artillery shells going off.

“Storm, open your satchel.” Predious stepped up and whispered into my ear.

“No, fuck you.” I snapped back as low as I could. What I did end up doing was hoofing my rifle out, frowning when the pipbuck told me that it was empty. I was sure I had a few rounds laying around in my bag, but I couldn’t see a thing in the dark and I didn’t want to risk having Short Staff use his light spell.

The stomping continued as Iron Will crested the top of the hill. Between his stomps I could hear the various yips and growls of the ghouls in the station, the glowing face of the one we had seen before appeared again before letting out a piercing shriek. It was no use sneaking now.

“Storm, you wanted me to be useful, and I can be.” Predious spoke at a normal volume now, knowing just how screwed we were. “Just open your damn satchel!”

There was a loud banging against the front door of the station, a thick chain was the only thing keeping it shut as the ghouls inside piled themselves against it.

“FINE!” I screamed out and hoofed it open. “But I swear, if you don’t fucking…” I had to cut myself off as he drew out the minigun I had taken from him in ponyville. If I’d remembered I had that thing back in the facility, maybe I wouldn’t have used so much of my rifle ammo! As he checked the minigun, I stuck my hoof back into my satchel and wiggled it around, feeling as a pair of brass objects met my hoof. I pulled them out, feeling the two rounds for my gun and gave a frown.

The sharp sound of shattering glass drew our attention as the glowing ghoul rammed itself through the window, spilling onto the dirt with a howl. Several more windows followed as the dark shape of ghouls pushed through them as well.

“Better than nothing.” Predious commented smartly as his magic levitated the gun up, his horn casting out a light spell identical to Short Staff’s. The door to the station went down as Predious’s gun spun up, the deafening drone it gave off made me cringe. As it fired at its blistering speed, what looked like a sharp yellow line connected him to the ghouls who were systematically cut to shreds as they poured out. Just seconds after he started firing, the gun gave a ratcheting click as it spun down. He dumped the slightly glowing weapon on the ground and shrugged. He had to yell to get over the ringing in my ears. “Out of ammo.”

The high pitched reports of Pallet’s rifles were followed by gory explosions of meat with each hit. The heavy blasts from the boxy shotgun Short Staff had in his levitation quickly took down any of the ghouls who got close to us. I looked down as I fumbled trying to get the rounds into the my gun, finally slipping them in and working the action as the sound of Iron Will next to me preceeded the sick snapping and crunching bones. The twisted body of a ghoul dropped into the dirt before me, and it got quiet. I pulled my rifle up, and for a long minute there was nothing.

“E… everypony alright?” Short Staff called out, swinging his light spell around towards me.

“”Yeah, we are.” Predious said as he leaned close to me. “So, how many did you get? None? That’s a shame.” His smug muzzle was begging to be hit. “Seems like I’m not the useless one anymore.” Picking up the minigun in his magic, he set it inside of Short Staff’s cart. “Oh, and before you say anything about how you would have been useful, I thought you learned that rubber bullets aren’t effective against them.

I glanced at the display in my vision, indeed reading the ammo type as RBR. I grit my teeth and hoisted my gun at him, quickly firing off a shot that hit him in the chest and knocked the wind out of him.

“I thought you would know it’s not smart to point this sort of thing out after antagonizing a mare like me.” I reslung my rifle as he gasped for breath.

I felt a hoof pull me around, spinning me face to face with Pallet. “Storm, what are you doing?” Her eyes darted to Predious, then back to me. “What good does hurting him do?”

I shrugged her hoof off me and pushed past her. “I need him alive for the contract, nothing more. Now let’s go, we’re wasting time.” I’m ready to be done with this fucking contract.

It was getting colder the more we ran, and more than a few times we had to stop because somepony slipped on a patch of ice. I had my fair share of bruises, alongside everypony else, but they all seemed to have no real problem with the cold. Short Staff seemed naturally insulated, but it might be something family related from the stories I’ve heard. Pegasi are more resistant to the elements than any other type of pony, so Pallet was fine. Predious had to be a cold as I was, but I’m pretty sure that he just didn’t feel like showing that to me as he ran silently beside me.

Everything was going smoothly though, that is up until I slipped again.

“Ah!” I yelped the moment before I smashed my muzzle into the ground. I found my rear legs lift into the air with the added drag on the ground my chest provided, flipping over me and flopping me onto the dirt. I groaned and let out a few coughs as my scraped up chest ebbed. “Fuck that stung.”

As if sensing I was vulnerable, the cold attacked, biting at my skin hard all over as I dissolved into heavy shivvers on the ground. The cart slowly pulled to a stop and the others came over to me, the light spell Short Staff was casting swung to me. The sharp cold air took no prisoners, and in moments they were shivering as much as I was.

“F… fuck it’s c… cold!” Pallet stuttered as she spoke, but I couldn’t blame her. She looked towards Short Staff pleadingly. “Ma… maybe we s… should build a f… f… fire?”

Short Staff turned to look at our passenger, finding that he wasn’t shivering as badly as us. He nodded as his horn lit up. “Y… yes. Ho...hold on.” His horn flared and put out a small layer of overglow, bathing nearly everything in the back of the cart in his aura. He lifted the supplies out and set them into the dirt, leaving a large rolled up object in the back. “P...pallet, see if y… you c… can set up the c… cover.”

Short Staff headed to the front of the cart when she nodded, his horn working to undo the bindings on Murial and Martha. Pallet took off into the air, taking the large roll from the bed of the wagon and lifting it higher up. Only when she was a few feet above the side of the cart, she moved her grip to one end of it and the object sprang to life with a metallic clang. A boxy cloth tent opened itself, the stately looking, warn purple of the fabric expanding out to the shape of a larger than expected tent, and though it was hard to spot in the dark, it looked like it had a balcony to it. Without waiting for an invitation, both Predious and I darted inside in the misguided hope that it was the light breeze slowly chilling us to death.

Disappointed that it didn’t work, I was happy to see the glow of Short Staff’s horn grow brighter as he came around the tent slowly. The flap lifted and the injured stallion was levitated in and set down next to me as Murial and Martha came in with them. Pallet entered, dumping a small bundle of wood in the center of all of us and backing away as Short Staff tipped his horn to it. A soft glow emanated from the wood as he whined and focused on his spell, the flame flaring up suddenly startled us, and a sharp zap emanated from his horn. He rubbed the blackened tip of his horn with a frown, scooting himself forward with the rest of us to get warm.

Predious glared at me across from the flames angrily, unnerving me to the point of breaking. “W… what!?” I snapped at him sharply. I swear to Celestia, I if could just rip his head off right now with my hooves, I would.

“Y… you okay, S… Storm?” Pallet shivered herself closer to me. The warmth her body should have given off wasn’t there, and I felt numb all over. “Why d… do you h… hate h… him?” She wrapped her wing around me, useing the ends of the feathers to turn my gaze away from Predious and toward her. “You n… never used to b… be s… so angry all the t... time. I w… want that S… Storm b… back.” Her words dropped into silence with a sad smile.

My heart ached as what she said sunk in. Yeah, I tended to be an asshole sometimes, but she was right that I’m not normally this hostile. How much he helped me when we were trapped in that facility was more than anypony else would have, yet he stayed. And since we left, I’ve been nothing but frustrated with him. I looked back to Predious, who had shifted his own sad gaze toward the fire.

As I sat thinking, the feeling of warmth slowly spread across my coat as the fire started to do its job. I cleared my voice. “Pred… ious?” I watched as he looked up slowly, his face shifting towards anger the more he gazed at me. Even if he was just the job, I had to fix this. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

His anger fell away, and he turned his gaze back toward the fire. “I’m s… sorry as well.” For a moment he just sat there, but then I noticed a smile creep across his muzzle. He caught my now puzzled look and shook his head with a shuddering laugh. “N… nopony’s c… called me Pred i…. in years.” He shrugged. “Nop…. pony I liked a…anyway.”

“See?” Pallet leaned into me, the warmth quickly returning to our bodies. “I knew y… you were a good p… pony.” She gave me a smile that felt warm itself, and as she look at me, I thought she might kiss me.

“I f… fucking knew you w… were into mares.” I gave her a smile of my own and a rough nudge.

“What? No.” Pallet scrunched up her muzzle and blushed brighter than the fire. The great thing was that among my laughs, I could tell she wasn’t shivering anymore. She stammered and looked about nervously. “Like I told you before, I was just… in the moment, that’s all.”

“Like how you w… were ‘in the moment’ last t… tuesday?” Short Staff rolled his eyes, holding his hooves out over the crackling fire.

“Back to what you said, about good ponies that is.” Predious spoke up, pulling our attentions to him. “At heart we are all good ponies.” He looked up to me, as if to deliver this one message over anything else he said. “However, this is only true until the moment when we realize that we only have to be good enough.” He blinked and looked to the others. “I’m grateful for the generosity you’ve shown to not only me, but the pegasus you saved. Not many ponies in our age would have done as you have, and I consider it a rare trait to have.”

For once something he said made sense, and for the first time in my life, I almost thought about canceling a contract. Almost.

Author's Notes:

1/10/2014 An edited version of this chapter has been posted. Please leave comments on what you think! =D