"Are we there yet?"

"Sandy, I doubt the words have existed or ever will exist to properly convey my hate for you right now."

"I feel like you're talking about me, but not to me. Are we there yet?" I sprawled backwards over the heap of the cart.

"I can very easily take those darts right back, you little..."

"Sell, be patient with her." The cart stopped moving, and Sand Dollar leaned in close to Hard Sell. It looked like he was whispering something and touching his mane.

"Gaaaaay." I hurriedly scampered back up the heap as Sell reached for something. He was probably going for me, but he picked up a frying pan instead and was holding it high. He had a look on his face like a rabid badger. Sandy bopped him on the horn, making him drop the pan.

"Sell! Calm. Happy place."

Sell screwed up his face a couple more times. Like, looking halfway normal for a second, before tensing up like he was being zapped in the face with a cattle prod. Then he sighed, and just started pulling again. He levitated the dropped pan up to put it back with the rest of their junk.

Clang. The pan caved as a bullet struck it, and the still smoking lead spun into the air before planting itself in the mud. Sandy shrieked. Sell whipped his head around to get a look at the source. I followed his gaze to see four ponies galloping along the ground towards us, brandishing spiked bats, hammers, and... one of them had a board with a nail in it. They looked like manic hedgehogs with all the spikes on hodge-podge scrap metal plates tied together to form improvised armour, streaked with rust and dried blood. It was actually pretty metal looking. Two similarly barded ponies were a little further out, and I heard a gunshot, but nothing seemed to be hit.

"Shit! Raiders!" Sell untethered himself and Sandy from the cart, and they ducked behind it. Sell started rummaging in the goods. I inched back to get some more cover from the pile, and get better aiming support. There was no way I was going to hit the far away ones with this thing, but I figured I could make short work of the ones charging into melee range. With practiced movements, I pumped the gun and fired three times. Click-pfft, click-pfft, click-pfft. The first shot landed in the top of the bank as the first raider was cresting it. He yelped as the shockwave sent him flying. The second shot hit the same bank just behind him, and his hind legs bore the brunt of the blast. He sounded like Rice Krispies as he landed on the road - snap, crackle and pop. He didn't get up. The third shot sailed a little higher and went off between two of the others harmlessly, sending the rest of them dashing for cover.

Wow, combat description really is the most dense thing, isn't it? I mean that was two paragraphs spent talking about what, five seconds of action? I'm trying to be economical here but prose is just not friendly to that kind of thing. Based on how the rest of this goes, better brace yourselves for an awful lot of bullet time. Shit's gonna be like the Maretrix, just without the cool kung fu and the sharp suits.

While Sandy was cowering behind a wheel of the cart, Sell had fished a pistol out of their wares and was loading it. I scanned some of the trees and inched back for more cover. Seconds passed in silence.

"We're comin' to getcha," came the call from a clump of trees down the road. "I'm gonna make sure you're still breathing when I skin you!" Wow, they sounded just as metal as they looked. Could I join these guys? Sell was aiming at the trees the call came from when the other two raiders jumped out of the nearer cluster of trees. On instinct, I pumped and fired. The dart missed and hit a tree. The raiders had managed to land on the side of the cart and where now climing up it. I was hardly going to hit them with my gun, the plastic would probably break, and where the hell am I going to find another Nerf gun up here? I wasn't going to dig out something hard from the cart before they got to me, nor was I going to be able to wield it effectively. So I took a third option.

I cocked the gun, leaned forward and put the tip of my gun to the nearer one's head. They stopped climbing. "I know what you're thinking," I growled, mustering as much gravel in my voice as I could. "Did I fire six shots, or only five?" Never mind that it was actually four. "To tell the truth, in all this excitement I've forgotten myself. But being as this is a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself one question: 'do I feel lucky?' Well, do you? Punk?" I had a feeling it was a safe bet that raiders didn't see many movies. The two of them just sat there for a couple of seconds, before the one without the gun at her head huffed and rolled her eyes.

"It's a toy you clod, get a grip!" She shoved him. I pushed at his head, and he lost his balance. I fired, and the dart landed in his open mouth. His head burst like a bubble, showering the side of the cart and the other raider in gore, and his body landed in a limp heap on the road. She stared for a moment, then looked back at me. I pulled the pump, pointed it at her and wiggled my eyebrows. She started backing off the cart.

Pew. I looked to the right. Sell had put a bullet in the fourth raider, who was approaching down the road. It must have hit his armour, because he was still coming. I turned my gun to a forty-five degree angle, adjusted for wind, and fired. A second later, he cried out in pain as it landed on his back, and the shockwave shattered his spine.

I rolled the cylinder out. Empty. I slammed it back in and swung my legs over the top of the pile. "Hang on a second, I've gotta pick up the darts." I hopped off the cart and landed with four legs on the raider's head, the only part of her where the spikes would cave rather than skewer me, using her as a stepping stone to get to the ground. She cracked her jaw on the side of the cart and crumpled to the ground in pain.

The nearest dart was the one in the remains of the raider's head. I awkwardly scooped that one up with a hoof and wiped it on my jumpsuit before chambering it. The red stain was going to be a helpful 'don't pick this one up with your teeth' sign. I climbed the bank to retrieve the one that hit the tree, and carried on along crest of the bank to fetch the other three. The craters made them pretty easy to find. Maybe they were designed as darts you couldn't lose, because they made a little bang where they hit. Only they were rejected because the bang was lethally huge.

The crack of a couple of gunshots echoed from where the last two raiders were. A bullet whizzed through my tail, and another one split a stone a few feet away from me. I snorted and shouted back to them. "You can see me from space, how hard is it to hit me?" Another bullet bounced off a rock and spun into a bush on the other side of the road while I went back for the sixth dart.

While I was sliding down the bank to the bloodied remains of the fourth raider, I heard a high-pitched scream and a crunch. The cart was on its side, with an exhausted looking raider standing next to it. I could only guess that the scream was Sandy being crushed. I couldn't see Sell either. I chambered the last dart and pumped the gun. I started running, gun holstered. The raider heard and started running to me, scooping a spiked bat into her mouth as she went. This part I hadn't thought out so well. She'd probably shred me if she got into melee range, but was probably banking on me being in a righteous rage after she'd just crushed Sandy and Sell... the bank!

I took a hard right with her about ten feet away and started up the bank. I kicked off it with wings outstretched and flapped for dear life, eyes closed and forehooves pulled up to brace for a hard landing. A second or two later I heard a squelch. I looked down. I was hovering three or four pony lengths above the ground, with the raider sitting directly under me. "Get down here, I'm gonna scoop out your eyeballs!" She'd dropped her bat and was trying to jump up the bank to get to me. Now I know how a cat up a tree feels. Except I'm a cat with lethal ordinance. I knew I couldn't keep hovering for long, so I pulled out the gun and took aim. My first shot hit the bank just after she'd jumped off, startling her and making her botch her landing. "Shit shit shit shit shit!"

She started running, and I pumped and hit the ground ahead of her, making her skid to a stop. I chuckled. She double-backed and started running up the bank, not to get at me, but to get away. I pumped a third time and prepared for a long arc shot. Why do they always run away in straight lines? It just makes it easier to get gunned down while fleeing. Wouldn't it make more sense to duck from side to side, or dive for cover or something? Still, I took no chances. Pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft. With wind, they scattered a little in flight, and she bounced around like she was going through a minefield. I stopped flapping and landed with a slide down the bank.

After recovering the darts, I came back to the cart. The mud underneath it was streaked crimson. I nudged it, and there was no response. "Guys?" I said. Still nothing. I knew I should probably feel something. Hell, I even knew their names before they died, so they were supposed to be halfway sympathetic too. But I wasn't getting anything. I mean, if we're using 'feel' in its broadest sense, I felt kinda cold and wet from all the playing in the mud, and perhaps a kleptomaniacal urge to tear apart the caravan for anything useful, but not a lot else. The worst feeling that crossed my mind was probably rage at myself for looking at the raider who ate a bomb and coming up with the line 'not a time to lose one's head'. Argh. That made me feel dirtier than all the gore and mud put together.

The caravan was mostly junk. Cooking utensils, industrial equipment, tools. There were a few guns, but they were all unicorn-use only. I recovered a pair of saddlebags, two grenades and a landmine. When I got to the bottom, I found Sell and Sandy's flattened corpses. I'd untied all the crap from the wagon by now, so it fell back upright of its own accord. After a quick search, I found bags full of Sparkle Cola bottlecaps on both of them. Must be what he meant by caps. Ah, good ol' ubiquitous megacorporations, providing semblances of civilisation with their legacies. With that in mind, I looked back through the junk a second time and found a couple of bottles of the stuff. I bagged one, and jumped on the cart to chill for a bit with the other.

I'd been out in the wasteland for about an hour and I'd already gone 4/0/0, 4/0/2 if you count Sell and Sandy as assists. Not a bad start at all. If everywhere was like this, I was gonna have a lot of fun out here. The sky had even stopped making me dizzy by now. I didn't like the look of it though. Apart from being all greeny-grey and miserable, I remembered what Sell said about rain. I couldn't be sure when it would start. I finished the cola and went back for another rummage. Sell had a bag labelled 'RadAway' on him, but it must have burst when he was crushed. It smelled pretty nice though. There were a couple of bottles labelled 'RadSafe' in the rest of the junk, so I pocketed them. The faded labels said something about radiation resistance, so it couldn't hurt to have them.

Before I left the scene, I had a look at a couple of the raiders. I wasn't going to bother taking their bats, they'd just be too bulky. One of them had a knife that I thought would be good for basic utility. After a quick scan, the headless one's armour seemed to be in the best condition, so I pulled it off him and shook off some of the fresh blood. Maybe I was just being prissy, but I ran through the junk one last time to find a plastic bag, took off my muddy jumpsuit and tucked it inside, and stashed it in my saddlebags, with intent to find somewhere to dry it later. The armour might be useful. Hell, if I was crazy enough, I might just pass for a raider.

Finally, after patting down the armour, I felt something on the inside. I reached in and dug out a pair of sunglasses with shutters instead of lenses. I shrugged and slipped them on, tucking the arms into the strap for my goggles. They actually made it hard to see, so I practiced flicking them up and down for visibility before leaving.

When I crested the bank, the two raiders with guns had left where they were hiding and were nearly at the road. They didn't open fire. I flexed my wings to get them ready. They stopped. "Hey, you're not Crossbones!" I heard. They started retrieving their guns and taking awkward mouth aim. I broke into a gallop, and with a couple of wing beats I was in the air. I heard a couple of shots and a scream. When I looked down, one of the raiders had shot the other in the head. I think it was less backstabbing and more TRYING TO FIRE A GUN WITH HIS TEETH. He missed me a few more times before I landed two forehooves on his face with a crunch. He swung a wild kick to nowhere. I stepped off him and kicked him in the head again. He stopped moving. I wiped the nose blood from my foreleg on his face, admired a job well done, and started in the direction they'd come from.

Within five minutes of walking I was starting to think that I maybe should have done a better job of defending the caravan, because I had no idea where I was going. Or maybe I should have taken the road. I took another look at the sky. The clouds were darkening in some places. I didn't know if that was good or bad, but I kept a brisk pace nonetheless. They were also pulling me so I didn't have to walk. I don't think I'd ever walked so far in my life. There's only so far you can walk in a Stable before you're just going in circles, y'know? I looked at the junk on my foreleg and frowned. I could live without most of the bells and whistles in a PipBuck - I hardly need to look at a wristwatch to know my legs are broken - but I would have killed for a radio about now.

Fifteen forevers later, I started seeing more raiders wandering around. These ones didn't bother me, and a couple even quirked a brow or waved in greeting. Not like, friendly greeting, just that really impersonal acknowledgement of existence that people who know each other do when they pass in a crowd, trying to maintain their civil inattention. I just kept a casual pace and followed the raiders into their settlement.

The camp was in a ruined stadium, with one half of the stands either collapsed or torn down for scrap, so I could see through to the other half. It was about now that I started noticing white and blue flags every now and then, with some circular 'CWFC' icon painted in blood on some of them. A group that I passed was kicking a skull about while one pony stood in front of two bones stuck in the ground. Suddenly, one of them kicked it at him, and he dived to catch it. It bounced off his head and past the bones, and the pony that kicked it jumped victoriously. This is what we call thematic foreshadowing, where I string together a bunch of related images in quick succession all like 'NOTICE THIS'.

"Oy!" A gruff voice grabbed my attention away from spectating the footskull game. Two of them had come up next to me, a broken-horned unicorn that looked like he ate for two, and an earth pony that looked like he'd blow away in the wind. "What's the toy?" He went to point at the Nerf gun in its holster, and shoved me in his carelessness. I forced a chuckle while I tried to copy his accent.

"This inn't no toy, mate. Check it." I sat back on my haunches, took it out and pumped it. I could try and blow his head off, but he was so fat that it might take two shots. Instead, I took aim at the skull the goalie had just booted into the air. Pfft, pop. Shards of bone rained. I caught the dart in my teeth as it spun away, and chambered it again. It might have been even more metal if I'd blown my jaw off in the catch, but I was content to maintain my mandibular faculties.

"Nice! Gizza go," the thin one sneered.

I hopped back and holstered it. "Haha! Eat an acre of shit."

The fat one thumped his companion in the shoulder and he fell over. "Yeah, Sticks, don't be a prat!" They started arguing, and I hurried along while they distracted each other.

I hung around the shanties of the Reebuck stadium for an hour, occasionally having completely incomprehensible conversations with the odd raider before starting to get bored. I mean, it was kinda fun just blending right in with a bunch of wackos, but the novelty wore off quickly. Hanging remains of tortured prisoners here, improvised buildings there... There was a spell of rain, and while I was taking shelter I dug an old watch from some junk. It didn't work, but I pocketed it to see if I could get it to later. I think I might have actually been around long enough to start seeing personality in some of the raiders. This was when I decided that if nothing interesting was going to happen in the next five minutes, I was out of here.

"Today is a good day, boys!" I heard from over a corrugated iron wall. With a wing-assisted jump, I hopped over to get a look. A bunch of the raiders were sat around a fire inside a large conical shack, with some shipping containers forming some of the walls. There were more milling around, so I looked busy while I listened to some jovial fat fuck pontificate while he waved a drink around. "There's some right beauties in this catch. I can see the trophy now: Colton Wanderers, FA cup champions!" The ponies around the fire cheered. "Drink up! Tomorrow we smash Balkburn!" They cheered again, and descended into drinking and chatter.

I bumped into someone with spiky armour and grazed my shoulder. I scowled and shoved him with a "Watch it, mate!"

"Oy!" a fat voice called. The toaster was looking right at me, and the chatter died off. "I'd recognise you if I saw you before. Where'd you come from?"

I climbed over one of the ponies sitting at the fire to enter the circle. I could smell this guy from across the room, but right next to him was positively toxic. "The question is, my good man, where did you come from?" I prodded him on the nose, and he went cross-eyed.

"Southie, eh? You want a sunroof in your skull?"

"Mate, the only way you're doing that is if you sat on me."

He blinked at me. I nudged my shades. After a few seconds, he cracked, and let out a laugh at 3.5 on the Richter scale. "I like this wench! She's ballsy. What's your name?"

"Not that it's gonna mean much..." I turned and flicked my tail in his face. I could hear his lewd chuckle, and stepped away before he could touch me. The flick gave me cover to open a saddle bag. "Because you're not gonna remember it for much longer."

"What?"

On the far side of the fire, I dug out the landmine and armed it. "Atom Smasher." I tossed it in the fire, and vaulted over a pony for cover. Boom. Shrapnel burst from the fire, shredding the faces of everyone sitting by it, and lobbing flaming logs at others nearby. My ears were still ringing when I got up, and I immediately reached for the Nerf gun. Stunned raiders were reaching for their weapons. I was slightly quicker on the draw and was able to pick off the ready-looking ones first, click-pfft click-pfft click-pfft.

"What's going on in woah!" 'Sticks' and the fat one from earlier (I can only guess that he was imaginatively named 'Stones' in another horrific pun) were at the door. I swung my back leg at a precariously perched structure. It rattled, and a tree-trunk swung from the roof into the doorway. I must have missed it in the darkness. Maybe there were more traps around here? The trunk clobbered the fourth raider to ready a gun, and his body cushioned the blow that Stones got. Well actually his belly fat probably did more cushioning than the bag of raider bones, but every little helps, eh?

I stashed my gun and dived for some ammunition boxes, with one under each foreleg I swung into cover. One of them was open, and had magazines for guns I didn't have. I popped my head out of cover and threw them into the fire. I had to giggle with satisfaction at the crackle of the rounds going off in all directions. The other box was locked, so I braced it against the other wall and kicked the bottom of the box until it caved. Frag mines galore. Maybe kicking it open wasn't smart, but I still had all six limbs, right? I waited for the crack-ack of gunless gunfire to die down before poking up from cover again.

"Hey!" I called.

"What?" one of them answered. Retard.

"Catch!" I bopped a mine with a hoof and spun it to her like a frisbee. She was a pretty good catch, and I armed another one and threw it past her. Another raider caught it in his mouth. Then I ducked and waited for natural selection to take its course.

Boom, boom. I looked up, and with a third mine almost armed, I scanned the room. Nothing was moving, save for settling dust and parts of the structure starting to creak and buckle. I knew I wouldn't have much time, so I armed the rest of the stack of mines and threw them out the door. I twisted the log trap to form a partial barricade, and started looting.

First priority was picking up my darts. I got another grenade and a couple of health potions in the search, and two more mines to rig the room with. Then there were the shipping containers. I swung open the door of one and poked my head inside. Man, and I thought the raiders smelled bad... there were twelve ponies huddled in the far corner behind some crudely welded bars. They gasped collectively when they saw me, beady eyes quivering with trepidation. I looked down at myself. Duh, raider armour. They probably thought I was there to mince them.

I held up a hoof. "One sec." I ducked out and thought. I could mince them. In fact it might be fun. But it'd be shooting fish in a barrel, wouldn't it? It'd be fun in the same way that cheating at a video game is fun. It's all thrills and spills for about fifteen minutes, and then the novelty wears off and it's just unfulfilling. But rescuing these guys would be an escort mission, and based on the amount of thugs I passed on my way in, a pretty tough one at that.

I dug out the Stable jumpsuit. It was still a bit soggy, but it'd dry off with walking. I broke off a couple of bits of the raider armour and put them on over it. Best of both worlds! I dipped my head back in the stinky prisoner container. "Better?"

"Much," one of them said. I got a piece of scrap metal from around (these places are hideous tetanus hazards) and jammed it in the shitty door. The lock snapped with one buck of the makeshift lever. All these raiders and not a single decent handipony among them. Slowly, the pile of prisoners stirred and began a soulless shuffle out of the container.

I looked back out the door. There were some raiders gathering at the door, trying to delicately step over the pretty dense minefield. I'd need another way out. While the prisoners were grabbing weapons from the remains of the raiders, I examined the ceiling, and the junk the raiders had used to build this shack. "Don't go for the door," I announced. "We're leaving another way."

Level up! Hey, what the hell is this? Why is New perk: Soccer Hooligan

Your critical chance doubles when using footballs and improvised footballs.