Let me tell you something. Getting hit by a falling rock in the head and losing consciousness isn’t something fun, nor is it having a bunch of other rocks fall on the rest of your body, leaving your body bruised and several bones broken. And it’s definitely not fun to wake up and feel all that, in addition to having your throat so sore you could swear somepony shoved a piece of sandpaper down it.

But seeing that your only route of escape had been blocked by giant boulders? That’s a real party killer.

Not that I noticed it at first. As I slowly came around, my main concern was the already-mentioned pain. I felt a sharp sting across the lower part of my body and one of my wings. Oh, and my head, did I mention a rock hit me there?

“... Nightkin, come in…”

Hearing somebody saying my name in a monotone voice was the second thing my mind registered. As I was still confused, it didn’t strike me how weird it was, given my situation, so I simply replied… or rather, tried to. My throat was so sore that it what left my mind was a strange gurgle rather than words. However, it seemed satisfying for whoever was calling me.

“Nightkin! Is that you?!”

It suddenly occurred to me that I know that voice. And really, considering that its owner was the most beautiful mare that I ever saw, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it was the first truly clear thought that formed in my aching head. It was Midnight! I tried to say her name, but more splatter emerged from my throat.

“F-fuck!” I blinked in surprise. “It must be some ghoul…” I heard her murmur.

No, wait! It is me! I looked around; where was her voice coming from? My eyes darted around me, taking in everything - including the already mentioned boulders blocking my path, and whoa, did everything spin around - and finally stopped on my PipBuck. Confused, I glanced at the display:

>Connection with an external receiver: active

>Receiving and broadcasting transmission: active

>Connected receiver: PB045ID374

What in the- wait, attempting to convince the pretty pony that she’s not talking with a zombie that stands over my dead body first, figuring out what I just read later. And if somewhere in between those two I could get some painkillers; that would be nice.

I started gurgling into the PipBuck again, trying to get something resembling an equine speech through.

“This is just great,” I heard Midnight rant over her receiver. “The Stable-idiot gets himself killed, I’ll get yelled at by Common, and to top it all, now I have to listen to a zombie having an asthma attack.”

Calling me a Stable-idiot… well, at least now I was certain it was Midnight alright. I needed to get her to know it was me. Sadly, it would be difficult to do something stupid in front of her right now…

I reached out for my PipBuck with my other hoof and began tapping furiously. “Celestia deliver me from-” Midnight began to say, but she quickly trailed off when she realized that a feral ghoul wouldn’t be tapping anything, not to mention the one thing that let her hear it. “Nightkin? You’re alive?” I grudged in reply. Was it me, or did she sound relieved? “Oh, you… that griffon said you began screeching at them. I take it took some toll on your throat.”

And her voice quickly returned to the devoid of emotion voice of a mercenary that I loved so much. Would it hurt her to care for some more?

“Are you badly hurt?” she asked, reminding me that I still laid with half of my body buried under the rubble.

I moved my PipBuck closer and switched it to show me my condition. Unsurprisingly, the small pony on the display had his head, right wing, and both of his hind legs crippled, and the other parts of his body weren’t faring much better. I tapped my PipBuck again, this time to check the inventory; if my memory served me correctly - which was a valid concern, as I was sure at that point that I had a concussion - I had about six healing… potions… left...

My eyes grew wide. Why there was only one?! And, for that matter, what happened to most of my stuff?! I looked back to check on my saddlebag, wondering who the hell could steal from me here, of all places, when I saw what had become of my bags. One of the rocks must have fallen right on it, smashing everything in it to pieces or spreading it across the tunnels floor, letting them be lost under the debris...

Or, well, close to everything. I still had one healing potion left, my knife, a 10mm pistol with thirty two bullets for it, scoped rifle with nine bullets, bandages, one bottle of water, enough food to last a day… and Twilight Sparkle’s figurine. Ugh, I almost forgot I had that thing. And I still had my barding, although its condition had severely worsened. I’d have bet that it was in shreds, but I didn’t have much luck in gambling, so... Oh, and I still had my bottle caps, how about that? Now to find a store here…

It’s really amazing what blood loss can do to you; for example, it can make it unable for you to start panicking, and think rationally. That was why I took my last remaining potion and poured it down my throat. Immediately, I felt better. Not good, but better. My throat no longer ached so badly, and the world had stopped spinning. My breathing had also gotten better. Sadly, while my head got healed up to some degree, I still couldn’t move my legs and wing without a cascade of pain coming down on me.

“Yeah…” I managed to reply to the PipBuck. Speaking still was difficult. And painful, but what was life without pain? “And I’m out of healing potions.”

“Crap… Hold on there, I’ll try to see if I can download your PipBuck’s medical scan to mine…”

“Wait… you have a PipBuck?”

I was shocked. I hadn’t noticed one, but… that could explain how she was able to contact me. But this raised a lot more question; where did she get it? Was she from a Stable? Unlikely, I thought, given her opinion on the stable ponies.

“Well, you might have noticed the bulge on my left foreleg under barding if you weren’t staring at my flank all the time,” Midnight told me coldly.

I felt a sudden heat that had nothing to do with my current state.

“I wasn’t staring at your flank!”

“Yeah, right… Ah, here we go. Press ‘yes’.”

I looked at my PipBuck, still feeling warmth on my cheeks as I wondered how to convince Midnight that I wasn’t staring at her flanks… even if I did. There was a new message on the display:

>Requested access to the PipBuck data from an external receiver; standby

>Receiver: PB045ID374

>Allow the data transfer? Y/N

I pressed “Y” and watched as a bar appeared, showing me the data transfer’s progression.

“Huh, I didn’t even knew PipBuck could do things like this,” I commented. Clearly, Midnight knew more about it, which, since I considered it to be almost useless for all my life, wasn’t really that surprising. But something about what just happened caused me to feel like I missed som- Hey, wait a minute! “How come I didn’t need to press anything to let you contact me?”

“That’s because Common hacked into you PipBuck when you were asleep, entered mine’s serial number, and triggered it to allow me establish a connection any time I want. She didn’t mention that?”

“She mentioned only about removing my Stable’s location, but nothing else,” I replied, feeling a tad annoyed that my employer didn’t inform me. What else did Miss Common did to my PipBuck? “When we get back to Desert Station, remind me to-”

“Doing that is probably going save your life now,” Midnight interrupted me. “You are badly hurt, and your way out is cut off. I’m sending you the map of this maintenance station to you; there’s a medical office near your location. After you patch yourself, follow the mark on your PipBuck, it will lead you back to the Railcross.”

“... tell Miss Common that I love her,” I finished my earlier sentence, feeling really stupid for being angry at the generous ghoul.

“And that’s a thought I didn’t need in my head,” I winced at the barb; it would’ve been easier to take if she didn’t sound so serious. “Getting back to the subject, we might have a small problem,” Oh, for the… what else?! “There’s a huge part of the map missing; I had to hack the terminal to get this version of the map that shows that the tunnels were connected, but I cannot tell you how to get there.”

“I don’t get it,” I said, as I began pulling myself off the rubble. I winced as I tried to stand on my broken hind legs, my head spinning… or everything around it; why hadn’t I packed a Med-X? Then again, knowing my luck, it would end up smashed like most of my supplies… “Why are there blank spots on map?”

“It probably means that there is more to this place than just the railroad. There must be some secret pre-war station down there.”

“Pre-war?” I asked, reaching to what was left of my bags and pulling a bottle of water; I was thirsty. According to my PipBuck’s clock, I was out of it for about… an hour. Well, could be worse… “What could they have done here?”

“A lot of things,” she answered. “The Ministry of Wartime Technology could have tried to develop better means of underground transport or some new type of secret weapon; while the Ministry of Arcane Sciences could have tested here Goddess knows what kind of a spell. This could have been some military base, although most of those ended up being taken over by the Brotherhood of Jerks.”

If I wasn’t in such a bad situation, I might have chuckled at that. “Why such secrecy?”

“Gee, I don’t know, because of spies and traitors?” Midnight snorted, her comment showing me once again how dumb I was. “Heck, Common once told me that even the ministry mares didn’t know everything that was going on in their ministries. Apparently, the Prince Idiot had a few high ranking ponies in each loyal to him, and he preferred to keep some things secret from them.”

I frowned. Wasn’t that a good thing? The ministry mares were traitors… as well as the Supreme Commander… But why it suddenly made me feel like this was wrong? As if…

I shook my head (causing everything to spin once more). Getting out of here firs is more important. As I checked the map on my PipBuck, now reaching further than where I used my echolocation, I began taking shaky steps and half crawl to get myself to the medical. It was agonizing. To try and get my thoughts out of just how the hell my legs and head (and wing, but I wasn’t using it right now) were hurting, I tried to ask Midnight some more questions.

“So… have you ever been in once secret place like this?”

“Shouldn’t you-”

“Legs broken…” I rasped with an effort. “... hurts…”

“Well, It's your own damn fau- give me a minute,” she paused. I glanced at the PipBuck as it said that connection was lost. It was re-established shortly. “Zombies. Anyway, it’s your own fault for staying there and screaming at the horde, while another earthquake happened.”

“Well, excuse me for… wait, an earthquake?”

“You didn’t notice the ground was shaking?”

“I had rocks falling on my head,” I reminded her. Okay, it was one rock, but still…

“Whatever,” Couldn’t admit that for once she was stupid in this conversation? “Yes, there was an earthquake and boulders started crushing down, which was - according to that 303 merc at least - the reason why she didn’t try to drag you away. What in Celestia’s heavenly mane were you trying to do, exactly?”

“Buying time,” I said simply; according to the map she send me, medical was right around the corner.

“For what?”

“You wouldn’t have made it.”

The silence the fell was kinda cute, actually. I suppose it wasn’t an easy thing for a Wasteland badass such as her to say-

“You’re an idiot.”

Bitch. I bit my tongue before I said that out loud. I suppose I should be thankful that there was something to occupy my mind; I really didn’t want to slit something like this. Not only because the mere thought of Midnight could give me a wingboner (even with a broken wing, and that’s something), but also because she already warned me that she could kill me.

Around the corner, exactly next to the doors to the medical, there were two ghouls, snooping around. “Zombies,” I muttered quietly to PipBuck. “Right by the doors.”

“How come you didn’t notice them earlier?”

“Well, surprisingly, having a crippled head makes even a bat pony dull,” I replied, almost too loudly; one of the zombies perked the one ear he had left.

“E.F.S.?”

“I didn’t look at it!” I almost snapped. Shit, he was turning.

“What the- oh right,” she murmured. “Common said you had outdated spells in your PipBuck.”

My jaw dropped. How, by Celestia’s flaming tits, could you have anything outdated in a device which production cased two hundred years ago?!

“What?” I whispered, mindful of the situation.

“In short, the spell matrix in your PipBuck is one of the earliest versions… which is weird, since it’s an Epsilon model; they were practically a prototype made just a few weeks prior to the Last Day. I heard they’d made only a couple of them.”

“R-really?” I asked stupidly.

Of course, trust me to have one of the rarest things in the Wasteland and not know about it. Oh, and have an old spell matrix in it, because while I myself look badass on the outside...

“Yes, I suppose the one shipped to your Stable was blank at the time, and once the Last Day came and the stable closed, they just copied the spell matrix from an older model. Anyway, are you going to kill those zombies today?”

I suppressed a groan. I was in no shape for close combat… and I was an extremely lousy shot. Reluctantly, I took my .308 and aimed; or rather tried to. I sighted with annoyance as I tried to move my right wing, its injury completely forgotten. I moved the rifle to my left side instead, feeling more awkward than ever

“You know how to shoot, right?” Midnight’s jibbering voice from my PipBuck interrupted me.

“Yes!” I replied, stretching the claw from on my left wing.

“I’m asking because you used a knife while fighting that horde earlier.”

“I’m more comfortable with melee weapons,” I admitted.

“Okay, quick tutorial then. What weapon are you using?”

“A modified .308 scoped hunting rifle,” I said, only barely reluctantly. Given what I’ve seen so far, getting a shooting lesson from a professional badass didn’t happen every day.

“Huh, nice. But you don’t have a battle saddle. How do you hold it?”

“With my wings.”

“And you pull the trigger with that claw, huh? Convenient… are you right-sided or left-sided?”

“Right...” I murmured.

I heard her sigh. “Celestia have mercy on me… okay then, since your right wing is useless, you will have to take a better care in your aiming. Do you have any sidearm?”

“Yeah, a 10mm pistol.”

“Put it next to you, then; if they come too close, you will have to switch quickly. Take it in your mouth and pull the trigger with your tongue. Now, back to the rifle: hold it so the gun touches your cheek, and your eye is right next to the scope,” I tried to not roll my eyes; I knew the basics, Goddess damnit! “Stay focused, take your time, and make sure your aim is right.”

Okay, aiming… I targeted the ghoul that was closer to me, and aimed for his head.

“Once you’re sure, shoot. Exhale before you fire. Squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it. And don’t enter S.A.T.S,” she warned. “You’re, what, ten meters away from them? The chance to hit will be too low, it’s better to save it for when they are closer.”

“Okay, got it,” I said. “Hold the gun, focus, aim, exhale, shoot. No S.A.T.S.”

“... Nightkin?”

Suddenly, I forgot about everything she told me, and that I was aiming a gun at two walking corpses. “Y-yeah?” I whispered, surprised at the tone in which she said my name. It was different from her professional, emotionless one. Even if just a little.

“You’re going to do this,” Midnight said, her voice strangely… almost warm. “So don’t worry, and pull the trigger.”

Sometime later it had crossed my mind that blowing off a head of an undead pony while smiling might be a sign that the Wasteland was getting to me. But fuck it, Midnight was being nice! And now there was a horrific sound echoing through the empty tunnel as the other zombie came charging at me…

… Oh shit.

When I had remembered that I was supposed to grab my pistol with my mouth to save time, I had already threw away the rifle and lifted the sidearm with wing. Of course, that meant the zombie was about to bite me. Praise the Goddesses for S.A.T.S! The sight of a stopped in time zombie so close to me was scary, but thanks to that the chance to hit was 95%, something that even I couldn’t screw up. I lined three shots at the head, and released S.A.T.S.

Of course, I screw it up. The first shot missed! How was that even possible?!

Well, since the other two turned the zombie’s head into some slime, I didn’t want to look it at too closely. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, but… eh, screw it, I will look for a bigger knife when I’ll have a free time.

“Are you done?” Midnight asked, once the zombie’s headless corpse collapsed on top of me, of course, because why not. I nodded, and then mentally slapped myself when I remembered that she was talking to me through my PipBuck.

“Yeah, they’re dead… er.”

I started walking towards the door the two ghouls were standing by; while Midnight began telling me to, well, do that. “Good, now go to the medical and patch yourself up…” she instructed me, then trailed off. “You know first aid, right?”

Since my medical knowledge consisted of: pour a healing potion, wrap a bandage, Med-x, Rad-X and RadAway, I replied with: “Well…”

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me…” Midnight groaned. I could almost hear her facehoofing. “You were sent by your Overmare to find a water talisman, and they didn’t give you any training?”

“They did…” I admitted. “A ten minute long…”

“Once this is over, I will fucking shoot Common in the knee…” I heard her barely; she must have thought she was out of device’s earshot. “Okay!” she said louder, pretending to not be pissed off, and actually succeeding; I wondered if this was a valuable skill for a mercenary. “Get in there, take everything that looks medical to you, tell me what you found, and I will tell you what to do. Alright?”

A sigh left my lips as I entered the medical. Did I have to be so useless? “Sorry,” I murmured as I took a look around. “I will start searching.”

I looked around - whoa, bad idea with a crippled head - to check the room. The medical for the ponies that worked here two hundred years ago was in ruin. Surprise surprise. I briefly wondered how it must have looked back then, with ponies staying here, coming to the doctor - who was probably that skeleton behind the desk - to treat injuries. Given how far away a real hospital was, it didn’t come as a surprise that there was an operating table further back. There were various chemicals on the shelves, and a lot of broken glass; which, I suppose explained the odd smell. And then there was a dead ghoul by the entrance…

… wait…

“Err… there a corpse here…” I said to my PipBuck. “Fresh,” I added. Well, kinda…

“Really?” she seemed surprised. “Guess that last worker might be still kicking.”

It took me a while to realise what she was talking about. Considering everything that happened, it really shouldn’t be a surprise it had slipped my mind that there was still one pony unaccounted for. According to my echolocation, when I used it, he was… somewhere here by then.

“I will be on a lookout for him… or her,” I said as I looked at all the shelves, drawers and medical supply box; I cursed as the last one was closed, but with my trusty lockpick, it was a small problem. “Anything I should know about him or-?”

“Him,” she corrected me. “And you will recognize him without a problem, as he will be the only thing with skin down there.”

I rolled my eyes. Midnight had a strange gift to say the things that were obvious even to me, and make me feel really stupid.

“He’s a merc, like me, or a ‘civilian contractor’ as he prefers it,” Midnight continued with a snide. “Met him a few times; good with tech, which is why Capital Station hired him to come here. His name is Scrap Tech.”

I nodded absentmindedly, looking at an IV stand; did it count as a medical item?

“That griffin told me it was him before they all left.”

I stopped my search to wince a little. I hadn't thought about what happened to the rest before now. Looking back at everything I heard about 303 Company, I should have guessed they would do that. They were paid to get those ponies out, and they did. Most of them, at least.

“They left… with the train, huh?” I asked, hoping that Midnight would take the disappointment in my voice to be caused by that. “How are we going to leave?”

“There’s a trolley here. So, you have everything yet?”

“Almost, picking up the last lock,” I replied, and soon the cabinet laid open.. “Okay, I got everything!” I said as I tried to sound cheerful.

I took the cabinet’s contents and put them on a table, next to everything else I found so far. As per Midnight’s instruction, I began telling her what I found. There are eight healing potions, six Med-Xs, a bottle of Rad-x and one RadAway, some medical braces, bandages, and some strange chems: a thing called Hydra (in a broken bottle, so most of it had spilled),, two things called Bucks, and a thing called Dash. I expected this guessed that this Scrap Tech took out most of those, given that I found most of it in the closed cabinets, drawers and kits.

“Okay, perfect,” Midnight said, once I told her about everything I found. “You can drink the Hydra, it restores crippled bones. Sadly, it will probably only heal your head mostly, given how badly you got hit there and there isn’t much of it left. Pour one healing potion on bandages for each hind leg and you wing. Tie up your wing to your body tightly, so it won’t move. Put the braces on your legs, and then use a med-x. Three should be enough to keep you going.”

I followed her instructions as best I could. The Hydra tasted awfully; I made a mental note to ask somepony later how it was made. It did work, however; a strange, somewhat painful feeling went over my body, concentrated especially on head, and when it passed I found that I no longer had those dizzy spells. Putting on the bandages required me taking off my barding, which let me see just how badly damaged it was. Most of the protective plates on it were gone, and there were scratches all along it. I imagined that if it weren't for the Stable’s security barding, I might have not made it.

Once I was all wrapped up - and still shaking from the agony of touching my broken parts - and strapped the braces to my hind legs, I took the Med-X… and just like that, all the pain went away! I was in euphoria; I jumped a few times, the rattling of the braces echoing through the tunnels.

“Oh Goddesses, please tell me he’s not getting high on this…” Midnight muttered over my PipBuck, and just like that I stopped. “Are you done?”

“Yes…” I replied morosely, my happy moment ruined.

“Good. I will start making my way to you from this end, so I’ll break the contact for now. Don’t call me unless you will have a real problem, okay?”

The thought of going through those tunnels utterly alone, without being able to talk to her, wasn’t really on the top of my happy thoughts. But given how much she helped me, I shouldn’t demanded for her to hold by my hoof all the time.

“Yeah sure,” I replied, then. “Oh, and Midnight?”

“Yes?” she asked, and the tone of her voice told me she wanted to add ‘what else?’ there.

“... I wasn’t staring at you flank,” The snort was evident over the connection. “No, really! I was… checking out your cutie mark!”

“And what is it?”

I opened my mouth… and closed it again. What was her cutie mark?! I must have seen it, I’ve been staring at her rump in the tunnels whenever she wasn’t looking and we weren’t fighting for our lives, for Goddesses sake!

“Err…” I mumbled, trying to buy myself some time.

The HUD on the PipBuck said:

> Connection terminated

Did I mention what I love to be? A bat bony. I mean it. Not only because I could see in the darkness, but, even with two legs and one wing broken, I am still more agile than the average non-bat pony. Thanks to that, and the help of the braces and Med-X, I could easily avoid all the ghouls I came about…

By climbing up the ceiling of the tunnel. I was totally ninja!

Did I also mention I read comics books as a colt?

Granted, I still needed to help myself with my good wing to not fall, and it was difficult, but it was a better option than killing all the zombies. Them being dangerous and having a nasty bite (good thing I have a lot of healing potions now) aside, after the first few corridors, I almost ran out of bullets.

The first zombie that I encountered was by himself, at least I thought so. Without putting much thought into it, I took aim and fired… and missed. So I had to shoot it again, but then I realized a certain modification that my .308 was missing and which would be very useful; it didn’t have a silencer. Three next ghouls came running from behind a corridor by the time I had dealt with the first. I managed to kill them all - in the end - but I wasted a lot of bullets.

I sighed (and wondered if I could convince Guntrotter to tinker with this weapon a little bit more) as I took down the last one; blowing up ponies’ heads like this, I… I was beginning to see this as… fun, and it scared me. Those were once ponies, but even if they looked like they were, they aren't now. There were a lot of ghouls that were sane, Miss Common being a prime example of that. I suppose that, in a way, this could be seen as putting down a rabid animal, so I shouldn’t feel guilty, but… screw it, I cried watching the “Old Yeller”.

Well… at least I honed my shooting skills to some degree while doing so. I no longer felt awkward using my left wing to shoot, and my aim got better.

I still wanted a bigger knife, though.

Anyway, sometime after that, I stumbled upon a pile of rocks, probably formed during this earthquake or that previous one the 303s had mentioned. It was high enough for me to climb up all the way to the ceiling, which let me to sneak my way out. I must admit, it was quite fun to pass over several ghouls like this. If I had much ammo left, I might have considered killing them, to grant them peace, but I had to pace myself. I still had to kill those that, for one reason or another, happened to look up, or were just standing in a way that made it impossible for me to sneak past them.

One such zombie stood in a doorway that matched the slim description Hedwig received from her college; a pair of huge doors, with one leaning on hinges. I had to get down to pass there, so I took out the zombie - with my last 10mm bullet, by the way, so I was more or less fucked - and dropped from the ceiling, hoping that that was the last zombie that the team had left out.

By that I mean that they had released every zombie that was inside, and that there was nopony on the other side of the door, which, by the way, led to the part of the tunnel that was missing from the maps. But I had two bigger problems at the moment to ponder about than my imminent doom.

The first one was beginning to be apparent to me for a few minutes now. Namely, the Med-X started to wear off. Of course, I just jammed another into my hip, but I had some issues against this action in my head. I worried about how much longer I would have to trot around in those tunnels and that I could use up all my supply of Med-X before I would get out. What if I ended up facing another horde of zombies and couldn’t run due to pain? Plus, there was another risk. I vaguely remembered the doctor from Stable Thirty-Nine warning me about getting addicted to chems if I used any of them too often. Of course, my memory was sketchy as to what exactly would that do to me, but the word “addicted” was self-explanatory enough even for me.

I glanced at my PipBuck as I heard a sound emitted from it. Sadly, it wasn’t the voice of Midnight that I missed so much that spoke from the device on my hoof. Instead, it was an ominous clicking signaling radiation.

Given what Midnight said my PipBuck being an outdated version, I guessed I was lucky that I still had this function in it. The display informed me that the level of radiation was nowhere close to being lethal, but I still didn’t want to take my chances with that. I quickly took the Rad-X and munched down a pill before I stepped through the doors.

My ears were perked and I constantly checked my PipBuck to see if anything showed on my E.F.S. if something had slipped my attention - and wondering how exactly the newer version of the spell was supposed to work - as I walked quietly, step by step, being extra careful with my hind legs. The tunnel was in a slightly better state than the ones I passed earlier, minus the radiation, and there wasn’t as much rubble hindering my pace… but there were a lot of corpses.

I passed the skeleton of a pony, wondering how come the radiation didn’t turn him into a ghoul, and then glanced at the nearby pile of dead ghouls, most of them missing several limbs. I wasn’t a doctor, so it was difficult to say, but it looked as if they died from explosions.

“So this Scrap Tech likes when things go boom, huh?” I said outloud, turning back to see what was in front of me. “I best be careful if I stumble upon him, wouldn’t want to blow up.”

I stopped as I just finished saying that, my hoof just above a tripwire. Looking up, I trailed the wire all the way to the three grenades hanging from the ceiling. Gulping as the realization of what I had barely avoided came crushing down, I jumped over the wire, and now paid a better attention of where I stepped.

Passing more corpses and the new additions - mines and traps, but also security turrets that were hung from the ceiling (thankfully, without power they couldn’t do anything) - I decided to take a short break. All the way here I followed the main tunnel, and didn’t explore the smaller ones, but now I just passed a sign saying that this way was the toilet.

Inside of it was a med kit, containing another healing potion and Med-X, but there were more important things to focus on than that. The first was an honest-to-Goddesses toilet, which was something that was sorely missing in the Desert Station. I trotted to it happily, did my business, and flushed, like a good colt. Sadly, being a good colt meant that I had to wash my hooves, and the water in the tap was obviously radiated, but given that here everywhere was a radiation field… eh.

And there was this strange corpse by the wall.

It wasn’t as much as a corpse as a skeleton, which in itself wasn’t weird - except for two additional limbs sprouting from its back, marking it as a pegasus - but what took me back was the armor on it. It was a black combat armor. I tapped one of the ceramic plates on the chestpiece, checking if it was still durable, and looking for any military markings. There were none… but there was a holotape between the bony legs of the skeleton, right next to the strangest gun I ever saw.

It seemed like a sawed-off shotgun, except with a few ornaments at the handle and an expanding barrel at the end. Of course, such oddly modified weapons weren’t odd in the Wasteland, given what Miss Common told me. But what I found odd was that inside of the barrel was a metallic cylinder, making the weapon useless, or at least I thought so, until I noticed the ammo for it. The drum just fell out as I touched it, and after a moment I realised it wasn’t a drum at all, but a magic gem.

This wasn’t any kind of a small weapon, but a magical energy weapon!

Who modifies a magical energy weapon to look like that? It had to be custom made… The mysterious pony had a bunch of ammo on him, though, as well as what I was praying for a while now: a bigger knife! I took both the gun and the combat knife, then for the saddlebags; a few more medical supplies aside, there was also a strange looking apple… which was made of metal. Grenade, then, not good for eating, but good for blowing shit up! Except… why it had a blue band?

I shook my head; Miss Common mentioned about something like that, but… I couldn’t remember. I would just have to ask Midnight later.

That left only a holotape… and the armor. Since my own barding was so trashed, I should probably take it, but… I would have to remove it from those bones…

Gulping, I prayed quickly to the Goddesses for forgiveness for desecrating this pony’s remains, and began to gently take off the barding… until the skeleton broke and the bones just scattered from it. I looked at it blankly, feeling sick.

“I’m sorry…” I murmured. A hoof traveled to my eye to wipe out a tear. I kept telling myself that it was just a skeleton, that this pony was long dead, that I didn’t know him… hell, I didn’t even knew if he was “he”, but still I cried a bit there. “I’m sorry, I can’t bury you…”

I was useless; I couldn’t even do something as easy as burying some skeleton. I was willing to bet Miss Common would be able to do something… but I had no idea what I could do. The only thing that came to my mind was, well, flashing them down, but that was completely and utterly out of question.

Sighing, I pulled off the armor, set it aside, and began placing the bones into a pile, putting the skull at the top. “I’m sorry… I… maybe someday I will get back here…”

Would I? That seemed like overkill (har, har) even to me, and I was certain Midnight would invent a whole new word to describe how much of an idiot I was being by just thinking about doing that.

Once I made the burial pyre, I took off my barding, and replaced it with the combat armor. It was slightly heavier, so with those hind legs of mine, it’s going to take awhile longer to get used to it. Of course, I wasn’t going to leave my Stable’s security barding here, I folded it neatly and placed it in my saddlebag. Once I did, and felt ready to tackle the rest of this tunnel (hopefully not literally, as I was still crippled from the last “tackle”), with a last glance at the remains of the pony I took the holotape and exited the toilet. I spared only a moment to connect the holotape to my PipBuck and put an earpiece on my ear before I set out again.

A raspy voice came from the device. “So… the world had come to an end, apparently,” he (I was sure of it) had said. I was struck by the melancholy in his voice. Then again, if everything I ever knew had burned around me… “Fucking… eh, who’s to blame? Our enemies bombed us, we bombed them first, Ministry Mare Twilight Sparkle blew up Canterlot… and they said over the radio that she killed the Princesses all those years ago… A buck has no idea what to believe in, but nopony cares, because everypony’s dead. Or soon will be.”

A horrible harking noised interrupted the pony, and I realized that it was him coughing.

“Blood…” he murmured, then sighed. “Fucking megaspell… must have caused a break in the shielding for the radiation to leak in the last time we tasted it… Bunch of mother- Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, didn’t? I’m not with them… I’m actually an operative send here to spy on what Arcane Science’s fifth top unicorn and Vice Ministry Pony of Wartime Technology were actually doing here… without their superiors knowledge.”

Midnight’s words came back to me, about the Ministry Mares not knowing everything about what was going on in their ministries. Apparently, somebody knew…

“I found out they were performing a secret project here on behalf of the Prince… a megaspell that could be launched by a machine instead of by a group of unicorns… but I suppose that doesn’t matter. I’m sorry, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash… maybe if I could contact you earlier there would still be time…” another coughing break. “Sorry, Auntie, you did so much for me… even gave me this super-duper gun for my birthday, heh... hope you are still out there...maybe you will be able to do something with this mess. I don’t believe you did it, you were the best damned ponies out there… damn… in too much pain from radiation. I’m taking my pills now, we are all going to die here, and I want to still look good…” the buck actually laughed. “Well, here it goes. This is Operative Magic Gun, signing off for the last time.”

I stood there, staring at my PipBuck. This… Magic Gun - I really hoped it was his codename or something, and that there weren’t parents two hundred years ago naming their kids like that - said that he didn’t believe that the Ministry Mares were responsible for the death of the Princesses… and that one, Pinkie Pie, and the Supreme Commander Rainbow Dash had actually sent him here to spy on some sort of secret project that ponies working for the Prince were conducting here… Was he right? Or…

I shook my head. Too much had happened on the Last Day two hundred years ago for me to try and figure this out. But I promised myself, feeling the weight of the Twilight figurine in my saddlebag, which I would never bristle in anger at the thought of the Ministry Mares.

As I jumped over another tripwire, I wondered why Pinkie Pie was involved with this buck’s mission. I was pretty sure that her ministry had dealt with keeping morale among the citizens of Equestria, but... Maybe sleeping on most of my classes in school hasn’t been smart.

“So…” I whispered quietly, glancing at the gun I took from the operative I had in the combat armor’s sling. “Magic Gun, huh?”

Guess who’s got a name for his gun?

Shortly after I had to take Med-X again - don’t give me dirty looks, broken limbs hurt like hell - I noticed a light at the end of the tunnel. No, this isn’t my creative way of saying that I was dying. There was literally a light coming from behind half-closed doors at the end of the tunnel.

I crept closer to it and took a peek. I could hear somepony inside, and for once my E.F.S. marked him as friendly - which led me to believe that this was this Scrap Tech - but it didn’t hurt to be too careful.

Inside was a big room with a lot of computers at the end of it. The light was coming from them. Puzzled, I took a step closer, my eyes stopping briefly on the buck that was taping on the keyboard to see what was on the screens. Was it… security footage from the cameras?

No. If there were any, I would have noticed them in the tunnel behind me. Besides, I could see what one them had, not in a great detail, but the sunlight was a pretty obvious clue that they showed an Outside.

Confused, I took another step… and immediately backed away as something small, metallic and highly explosive started beeping.

At the same time, another sound caught my attention. The pony sitting beside the terminals turned around very swiftly to look at me, a gun - a grenade launcher - in his hooves.

“Don’t shoot!” I screamed, terrified, with my legs like that, the mine, and his gun; if he shot….

Thankfully, he lowered the grenade launcher a bit, enough for me to relax. I guess he figured that a zombie wouldn’t be asking to not shoot… wait, why did his frown turn into an alarm?

… beep beep…

Oh, sun of a- I jumped, trying to fly, forgetting that one of my wings was tied to my body.

BEEP!

“I suppose apologies are in order…” the buck said uncomfortably as he patched up my leg and chest.

“You think?!” I snapped at him. It’s been a long and tiresome day, snapping was also in order.

The brown earth pony rolled his eyes. “Hey, give me a break, how was I supposed to know there would be somepony trotting around other than all those ghouls?” he asked, putting back the unused bandages into his saddlebag that were strapped to his reinforced utility armor. “You’d have to be an idiot to come all this way… um, sorry.”

Now I rolled my eyes. Yep, that’s me, the idiot. I had another limb broken, and there was shrapnel both in it and my chest. I was within a Celestia-forgotten top-secret station inside a mountain, with hordes of feral ghouls everywhere around. All because of my idiocy.

“So, what are you doing here, exactly?” he asked, and then tilted his head. “And, if you don’t mind, what are you, exactly?”

I sighed. Would this ever end?

“I’m a bat pony. Name’s Nightkin. And as for what I am doing here, I was helping out some 303s with rescuing the group of workers and mercs that came down here. You are the last one. Scrap Tech, I presume?”

“Yep, that’s me,” the buck said, extending his hoof. I had to give him my left to shake.

“What are you doing all the way here?” I asked. “Everypony else was found far away from here.”

“Eh, I got separated from the rest, and went here after all the zombies had cleared out,” he said, returning to the terminals. I trotted carefully after him, thanking the Goddesses that the Med-X was still working its magic. I took the opportunity to check what his cutie mark looked like: it was a terminal, with the screen (yellowy golden like his eyes) depicted an explosion. Huh. “Seeing what I found, I’ll say it was worth it. I broke into the record after I managed to restore emergency power. Would you believe-”

“That this was a secret research station?” Seeing his surprised gaze, I grinned. “I found a holotape on my way here. Some operative send here by Ministry Mare Pinkie Pie and the Supreme Commander Rainbow Dash was here to spy on them.”

“Huh, that explains some things…” Scrap Tech murmured, turning back to screens. “They were testing here a new kind of megaspell here, you know. You’ll never guess what it was supposed to do. Create earthquakes; the same one that happened a few days ago? It was caused by this machine. Some ghoul must have activated it somehow.”

A megaspell that creates earthquakes… and they tested it inside of a mountain?! Magic Gun’s words echoed in my head:”must have caused a break in the shielding for the radiation to leak in the last time we tasted it…” Suddenly, I no longer felt bad for all those “poor ponies” that got turned into ghouls here. They had it coming, and the only pony worth pity was the buck that took the suicide pills before radiation could claim him.

“Hey, wait a moment…” I said, becoming aware of something. “What caused the earthquake a few hours ago?”

“Huh? Oh, that was me, when I restored the power. Why? It was a small one.”

I glared at the buck. “Big enough to cripple me, nearly kill, and cut off a safe escape route.”

“Err… sorry?” he tried. I cursed and whipped out Magic Gun. “Hey now, calm down! I will pay for your healing once we get back to Capital Station, I have enough Med-X and healing potions to keep you going, I swear!”

It just hit me that he was actually afraid. He, the experienced merc, was scared of me, a Stable pony… I looked at the gun that I held in my wing. What was wrong with me? This buck didn’t mean to do all that, and even helped me when his mine nearly killed me. And I was now pointing my gun at him? Was the Wasteland already getting into me?

“Sorry…” I said, lowering the Magic Gun. “It’s been a tiresome day.”

“Yeah, I got that,” he chuckled nervously. “Anyway, give me a moment to finish looking at this data, and we can go back to the tunnels.”

I looked at the terminal he was working on, but the stream of data quickly made me lose my interest. So instead, I looked at the screens.

“What are those?”

“Hmm? Oh, the screens… they are showing the footage from cameras inside the sprite-bots within a certain radius.” Seeing my blank expression, he added: “The flying round robots of Ministry of Morale? They served as portable cameras across all of Equestria during the war, spreading uplifting music throughout the land. I guess you must have never seen one, as there aren’t many left in Palamino… Anyway, this station here was also supposed to hack into the sprite-bots, the same way DJ Pon3 does to gather her news… I think.”

So that’s how she knew about me… wait, if they were supposed to spread some music around, wouldn’t I have noticed it?

“I wonder why… wait a minute, what is that?” Scrap Tech suddenly paused as he looked more closely at one of the screens. It showed a small hill, with a huge crack at the side of it. I wasn’t a geologist, but the ground within in seemed fresh. Was it caused by the earthq-

I blinked. From within the crack something just sparkled!

Scrap Tech began tapping at the terminal, and the screen moved faster towards the crack. I figured he must have taken manual control of one of those sprite-bots. The robot flew to the crack, showing us both what was inside. The sparkles were caused by the destroyed electronic wires that were sticking out from a broken wall…

I knew what this could mean. The sprite-bot began the footage of the corridor inside even before I said it.

“It’s a Stable…”

“Yep!” Scrap Tech confirmed. “Guessing by the coordinates it’s just a few hours trot from Capital Station! So, my friend,” he said, grabbing me with his foreleg unexpectedly and hugging. I winced and tried to pull away as much as I could with most of my limbs crippled as he continued, “how about, in return from nearly killing you twice today, you and I will go on a little trip, filled with pre-war tech to loot?”

I opened my mouth to politely decline, to say that I needed to go to Ponyville, but then I closed it. It was a Stable. They were bound to have a water talisman in there!

“You’ve got yourself a deal… my friend,” I replied with a smirk, then grunted in pain as he squeezed me tighter. Why was this buck so friendly? “But I fear that if we won’t get me to a doctor anytime soon you might need to hoof there yourself.”

That finally got Scrap Tech to give me my personal space back. “Yeah, yeah, got it. Give me just one sec…”

As he returned to his terminal, I sighed with relief, and glanced at another one. It showed some useless information about the scan of the megaspell… that its power was staying at 20%. Not interested, I clicked at a button to return to the main screen, wondering if there were any games on it. I only paused to see how red my bandages on the chest and foreleg were. The buck warned me that with the shrapnel in them healing potion would only stop the bleeding for a while, so I would need to take another one at some point.

>Experiment status

>Reports

>Personel

>RC000

I tilted my head in confusion. What was RC000? I turned to ask Scrap Tech, but he wasn’t sitting next to me. He was a few meters away, pulling something from another machine that was in the corner. Not really sure if I wanted to know, I turned back to the terminal and pressed on it.

>Connection with @#$#@#$$^$^#; confirmed

This station is now under the direct control of the Equestria’s Prince.

>Open communication line? Y/N

What. The. Fuck.

I stared at the words Equestria’s Prince. How was this possible? The Prince has been dead for two hundred years, wasn’t he? He didn’t have any sons… well, he had one, a bastard, but he died shortly after the war had started. Although, after the bombs had dropped, the Prince was supposed to be in a secured location; so maybe…

No, this couldn’t be right. RC000… this had to be some sort of code, like PB045ID374… kinda. RC… yeah, it could be a shortcut for “Royal Command”. This was probably some Wastelander that managed to break into some other research facility… but why did they connect to this place?

I was about to get my answer. I pressed “Y” and waited for whoever it was to pick up the phone.

>Connecting…

>Communication denied

“Oh, what an asshole…” I exclaimed.

>Selfdestruct sequence initiated

“What?!”

My screech gained the attention of Scrap Tech, who quickly huddle closer to me as I pressed every button I could see, trying to stop whatever the hell was happening.

>Warning! You have three minutes to leave the facility

>Connection with @#$#@#$$^$^#; terminated

“The fuck did you do?!” Scrap Tech exclaimed as he tried to abort the self-destruct sequence.

“It wasn’t me, I swear! It was this RC-something…” he glanced at me briefly, clearly having no idea what I was talking about. Hasn’t he seen it? “Can you stop it?”

“Um… nope!” he said, bucking the terminal. “C’mon, we need to get out of here, fast! This way!”

I nodded and hurled after him for the doors on the opposite side of the control room, but the pain in my body had awakened at the sudden movement. Cursing, I took out another Med-X. Using another one so soon wasn’t something that a doctor would prescribe, but I couldn't give a damn about that right now. With the pain gone, I raced after Scrap Tech, gulping down a healing potion as we galloped.

That wasn’t the only thing that I had to do. I quickly tapped on my PipBuck to contact Midnight. I cursed as the stupid thing displayed the word ‘connecting’ for a good few precious seconds, but, thankfully, she quickly accepted; I kinda feared she would think this is something unimportant.

“Yeah, what is it-”

“Midnight!” I interrupted her. Scrap Tech looked behind at me curiously, but I didn’t have the time to ask him why. “This place is about to explode!”

“The fuck?! What the hell did you do?!”

“Nothing!” I replied, trying to not to pay attention to the look Scrap Tech gave him just now. “Where are you?”

“According to you PipBuck’s tag, you are coming my way. I’m about one hundred meters ahead in a straight line, just run through the main corridor. I will go back and prep the trolley!”

“Okay!” I shouted to my leg and speeded up. O hundred meters… with three legs crippled… and every deep breath making me bleed…

“Was that Midnight?” Scrap Tech asked as I leveled with him. “The ‘Death Bringer of Wasteland’?”

Wincing, I nodded. I guessed such title fitted a pony with her sniping skills.

We stayed quiet for the remaining run, only occasionally pausing to shoot at ghouls. Most of them were blasted off by the earth pony’s grenade launched, but I managed to get a few with Magic Gun. It shoots green magic blast that hit the ghouls pretty hard, and a few even got turned into a green liquid. I would have vomited, but I was in a rush. It felt strange to fire a weapon without any recoil… then again, thanks to that I didn’t have to worry about the itching in my wing whenever I shoot.

I was afraid that the turrets would come online, but when I voiced my concern to Scrap Tech about that, he assured me that when working on just emergency power they wouldn’t budge. Considering that the one who said it was the same one that got me so trashed back there, I glared at every machine we passed, just waiting for them to give me any reason to shoot them.

I won't pretend that I know how in the hell did I managed to keep up with Scrap Tech almost all the way. When we finally reached the Railcross, I passed out… or just collapsed and fell asleep. I could feel moist; I guessed this meant that my bandages were soaked in blood. I managed to briefly catch that something was pressed against my lips before the darkness claimed me...

The sound of explosion woke me up. I jumped, half-prepared to run and other half for the sensation of the explosion ripping me apart.

“Just how much Med-X have you stuffed him with?”

I whirled around at the sound of that stern voice. Midnight! She was there, pulling down the lever of the trolley, while on the other end Scrap Tech had pulled up his. I would have jumped to her and hugged her, but I already had three legs busted, I didn’t want to risk the last one.

I slumped down, watching as my two companions horse-powered the trolley to move through the tunnel. I had a lot of questions; when would the Med-X wear off again? Was the explosion limited to the research facility, or did we damage a part of the rail line? Who the hell activated the self-destruct sequence? Was everyday in the Wasteland so eventful?

But I was perfectly fine being resigned to just looking at the most beautiful mare…

“How many times will I have to say-”

Anticipating it, I quickly cut her off.

“Nice cutie mark.”

Her scorching gaze softened. The cutie mark that adored her so hot flank was a half closed eye, with a blue bullseye instead of a pupil.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling briefly. “But do take your eyes off my flank, would you please?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know…” I sighed. Since I didn’t trust myself, instead of looking at something else I just closed my eyes. “Aren’t you going to say the same to Scrap Tech?”

For some reason, my question caused the buck behind me to snort with laughter. I glanced at Midnight, wondering if she could explain it. The mare looked back at me with a smirk.

“Considering he’s gay, you’re the one who should worry.”Footnote: Level Up!

Skill note: Stealth: 50/100

New perk added: Saboteur (Rank 1) - +5 [Sneak, Explosives]. Mastery: 5 extra points in each of these skills.

Quest perk added: Ghoul Ecology - Your trip through the tunnels of Folly Mountains let you learn how to deal with ghouls quickly. You gain an additional 5% critical hit chance whenever fighting one. You wonder if your knowledge about ghouls’ sensitive spots could come in handy in some other way...

Author's Notes:

I changed the footnotes in previous chapters a bit, hope it's not a problem.

Oh, and I also wanted to mention that at some point I'm going to tie this story up with Fallout Equestria original one... to some degree.

Anyway, Happy New Year!