I had gathered more distance from the Stable before I realized my complete absence of anything related to food or proper weaponry. Beyond my security barding, pistol with three clips of ammo, and the nearly empty combat bags that was acting as a saddle containing not much more than a screwdriver. I was suddenly very aware of the pitiful amount I actually owned. No food, no water, not even an Canteen. It was unsurprising that when I noted a mark on my map labeled, 'Greenhooves General store' I had headed directly towards it, the need for actual supplies outweighing caution. All the caution in the world wouldn't save me if I didn't have at least a canteen and a few preserved pieces of food to eat.

Of course there was another option, meat, it was rumored that a Changeling was omnivorous though all I ever had in the Stable had been the various fruits and vegetables that the stables robots had made from the stables inbuilt orchard. No one worked there but the bots and the occasional checkup by technicians higher up. But unlike in the stables, I realized as I headed towards the ruined building, the front entrance having been long since demolished by the aftereffects of war. I'd try to avoid eating meat though, the mere thought of eating something that had once lived, be it a pony or an animal, was revolting to say the least.

The place had been long since looted, though that wasn't to say it was completely empty. With a keen eye I had found a few bent, but still sealed cans of food and a few canteens, while nowhere near clean, they would still be able to hold water the next time I ran into any. Then I found a few locked ammo boxes and a locked medical crate on the second floor. While I had no skill with pick locking I had learned at least the theory from the Stable I had stayed in as something scavengers would do. I was actually surprised that several of these hadn't been opened already in the past two hundred years.

The ammo boxes proved too difficult to solve though with some luck I managed to open one of the three boxes and the medical crate, netting me a small amount of an ammo type I had barely recognized as shotgun shells and a few more clips for my pistol as well as a small supply of healing potions and rad away. Putting my new supplies away into my bag, I searched around some more, but it seemed that besides bent empty cans and other long since useless products were all that had been left in this post-apocalyptic store. Of course now that I was feeling safer, things couldn't have gone more wrong.

With a yell something had snuck up behind me during my inexpert lock picking and had brandished something resembling a pool cue as it charged. I barely managed to turn around in time as a blood soaked raider in crude armor tried jamming the wooden weapon into my security barding. With shock I looked up from the jab, it hadn't pierced the jacket, but it still hurt with the force of being rammed. Unwilling to take a life I backed away, only egging the raider onwards as he charged again, this time I dodged him, leaving the raider to smash his pool cue against the wall I had been previously near, causing it to break. I tried to reason with him only for him to continue attacking me with his hooves while he screamed about peanut butter and rather inappropriate things he was going to do to my corpse.

Well it was either kill him or be killed, as he relentlessly went after me in this wasteland after all. The four months of training with the last of said months in the arena came back to me, and instinctively I pulled the pistol out and fired, leaving the raider crippled in his right leg. He was severely slowed down and yowling now as well as screaming. The colorful string of profanity actually making me blush with both embarrassment and anger as he still limped on. Just what was wrong with this pony? Well besides having gotten shot anyway.

Other yells joined, not far away, alerting me to the fact that this... pony. Had friends nearby. Most of which would probably be well armed and judging from the first ones blood splattered armor, well armed and experienced. I highly doubted that the only thing these raiders had were pool cues. My eyes scanned the room for a second exit, nothing was to be found, the only other door in the store was locked, and with the increasing yells of the raiders coming, I wouldn't have time to mess with it. Instead, I took cover checking my pistol's ammunition and preparing my pipbucks S.A.T.S. system.

It was a marvel how it slipped you into the quiet Zenn of S.A.T.S., the world seemed to slow down to a crawl when the raiders came around the corner, and I took aim then fired, two rounds at the first, a unicorn who had been wielding a rifle in his magic, and a third shot at the raider that was an earth pony holding a large and bloody baseball bat.

The first shot went wide, barely grazing the unicorn pony raider's front left hoof as it veered by, I was unsurprised. It was after all the first time I had used the system since originally checking it out in the Stable. Luck however seemed to be on my side while the second and third shot hit their intended targets. The unicorn pony going down with a bullet lodged into her horrid smelling blood encrusted fur, the third however wasn't so easy to go down as the bullet lodged itself in a metal plate on his own chest.

In my shock he had kept going until he was well on top of me, ramming me over with his momentum and bringing the bat down on my stomach, knocking the wind out of me and breaking my concentration over the gun. He started to grinned, having pinned me down and confident that he could break whatever magic I tried to conjure with another blow from his bat. I was pinned down as he looked over me noting the holes in my hooves, "I dun' kno' wah yer ar'," he spoke through a mouthful of bat, "Bu' aye goin' ta have lot'sa fun with ur'."

While I hardly understood his words, lust, anger, as well as other emotions were easily identifying his intentions. Wiggling a hoof free, the one with the pipbuck, I slammed the screen to my side, activating the S.E.C. as he rose his fore legs to crush my head, intending to do rather unspeakable acts to my corpse once I was dead.

His hooves never made impact, as I jabbed him in an exposed section of his stomach with the pipbuck's extending electrical shock system, expending it's recently replenished charge and electrocuting the metal clad pony into the spasms and jolts far too similar to the guard back in the stable. I felt a tingle from where his hind hooves were standing on my own. Well more than a tingle, my backlegs went numb from the electric current that was coursing through him and as a result, partially through me. Though I was only taking the backwash from the current. He however, was taking all of it. I saw his right eye twitch before he collapsed over me once it had fully expended the charge. Getting more than I ever wanted of his foul stench and being nearly crushed by his body weight. With a groan, I managed to roll him off me and get up. Aware that the Unicorn raider was far from dead. With some concentration I wrested the bat from the earth ponie's jaw, levitating it in front of the Unicorn. He tried to make his horn glow and grip the rifle he had brought in earlier, though he was interrupted as I brought it directly down on his unmoving head, knocking him into unconscious. All the while the first raider, the one who had originally attacked me was still screaming. Another whack. He was unconscious as well.

I discarded the bat and began looting the unconscious ponies. I held no qualms about looting the unconscious raiders, it was the least they could do, considering that they had tried to kill me. The first thing I grabbed however was the rifle, which my pipbuck identified as a 'Varmint Rifle' as well as the spare rounds that the raider had been carrying. It was far from good condition, which if my instructor was correct, meant that it would be prone to jamming, but it was better than my pistol, and it would be the second weapon to join my small inventory.

After looting the raider of the supplies they had been carrying, I noticed the pony I had stunned was starting to recover. Noting the duration of the S.E.C. I took his bat up again and brought it back down on his owner's unprotected head. With a crack the bat broke and he went unconscious like his fellows before him. Now assured that I had probably an hour or two before they woke up, and no other raiders were coming through the hole in the store's front. I decided to investigate the locked door.

The door lock itself was beyond my level of skill, and I busted two bobby pins before jamming it. Not wanting to give it up I examined the door further. It was made of a sturdy yet still decaying wood, but it wasn't weak enough to simply beat down. Like most doors, the hinges were on the same side as the other option to unlocking the door. An option that I couldn't get to. Seeing the way through this side useless I decided to look outside the store for another entrance.

Luckily for me, a Broken window pointed the way to the next floor's entrance. Unable to be accessed without the use of wings. Luck seemed to be in my favor as I reached in and undid the latch, raising the window before entering. I had no desire to try going through a pane of shattered glass, and time to spare. Wearily I entered the small bedroom that made up most of the store's second floor.

The Skeleton of the owner was draped over the ruined springs of what must of once been a mattress. He had been an Earth Pony, and most likely died in his sleep, seeing as his body was in a position of rest, even now. This gave me a new level of guilt to add to my subconscious. This wasn't looting, but rather grave robbing from long dead ponies. I had to push the qualm aside knowing that I couldn't be picky if I wanted to survive out here in the wastes. Though it didn't stop me from paying respect to the dead pony who had once lived here. With a nod, I noticed that the small kitchen in the room had contained several weeks worth of food, though most of it was perishable and hadn't survived. Luckily however, there had been several more cans of food that had not perished almost a hundred and ninety years of sitting there on a shelf. As well as several canteens filled with surprisingly clean, if very metallic tasting, water.

Prying some more through the dead pones belongings I discovered an worn audiotape in his dresser as well as a few prewar books. With the setting sun, which was still hidden heavily by the clouds, I realized night time had been falling, and that this was, if anything, a good a place to camp for the night as any other. With the reinforced door, now visible on the side I was, and their members lacking any form of flying themselves, I doubted that they would stick around when they woke up. But just to be sure, I pushed the nearby rotting couch into the door to prevent it from opening, even should it come unlocked before playing the Audio recording with my pipbuck, figuring I owed it to the pony whose room I was taking shelter in for the night.

Instead of a diary, or a log about grocers I was met with the surprisingly soothing voice of a mare, as she began to speak I could hear a definite sadness in her tone that drew my full attention to the device, pausing me in my look through the small books that the pony had kept in his drawers, "Hello, if you are the pony who received this, you have been denied from Stable 103's enrollment program. Stable Tec would like to remind you that unless you are a qualified Scientist or have served-" a robotic monotone interrupted her, "FIVE," it stated, speaking for her.

She continued as though it hadn't interrupted her, "-years of service or more in the Equestrian Military. Please remember that Stable 103, 101, 107, isn't accepting store keepers or gardeners at this time." The voice turned sarcastic, "And no, bribing the Stable guards won't get you in. So stop trying Miss Sunny Orchid so stop trying." the voice returned to normal, "Thank you for applying to Stable Tec. If you really wish to join a Stable in these dangerous times, please apply to..."

I shut it off, not needing to hear anymore to know that the audio recording held. It had been a rejection notice from before the fallout. I felt distaste in my mouth as I remembered the name Stable Tec. I now knew that they had something to do with this. Were they responsible for this? I let the question simmer through my mind, going through the possibilities, while also noting that my pipbuck 2500 also had a Stable Tec manufacturer logo on it's underside, near where the clamp that kept it in place was located.

I settled myself in for the night, hiding in the cover of a kitchen cabinet for some well deserved sleep. Thoughts churning through my head about the events of the day, the constant cover of clouds above, and then worry over the Raiders. I was lucky only one of them had been armed with a gun, the sore feeling in my gut reminded me that If that raider in metal armor had been wielding a gun as well, I'd probably of been dead or dying from a gunshot. As tough as Security barding was, it wasn't bullet proof. Weight would also be an issue. It would be easy to carry my stuff for now, seeing as the ammo and food themselves were light weight. Though I began to worry for the future. Just where was there to go on this apocalyptic waste? I fell into an uneasy sleep while reading a book labeled 'Conversations and You!' that I had taken from the same nightstand which had also contained the depressing Audio log.

Footnote: Level up: New perk: Horse Sense: You are a swift learner. You gain an additional +10% whenever experience points are earned.

Next Chapter: Chapter 4: Monsters Among Monsters Estimated time remaining: 15 Hours, 40 Minutes