Well, she hasn't shot me yet; guess that’s a good sign. She did have two rather powerful looking plasma rifles pointed at me tho, but meetings in the wasteland were often done with one party under the gun anyway. Might as well properly introduce myself to the grouchy pegasus I just woke up from a rather uncomfortable looking nap.

“Good to finally meet you face to face Miss Cloud Swimmer.” No reason to be rude, there is enough tension in the air without me getting a bit pissy about being in the business end of her weapons.

“You are...not what I expected.” She said in apprehensive tone.

Midnight blue coat, royal purple mane, sky blue eyes, and about as skinny as stallions come; I’m not the most intimidating buck in equestria. Doesn't help my clothing is more patches than cloth, or that my hat is about one good rainstorm away from falling apart around my ears. My saddlebags are a sewn together amalgamation of leather and canvas held together with more hope than thread. Add to the image the comically large rifle barrel on my left side threatening to topple me over at any moment and I was a sad sight indeed.

Cloud Swimmer on the other hoof was about as intimidating as mares come. Tall, strong lean muscle, and that Enclave armor with those wicked looking plasma rifles and that deadly scorpion tail would have had me peeing myself if I was on her bad side. The dirty white coloring of the armor did take a fraction of point off her intimidating presence, but it really is hard to beat black. Under her armor she looks to have a light gray coat, her mane hidden underneath the helmet and her eyes behind dark amber lenses.

“Well, you fallin’ out of the sky wasn't exactly what I thought was going to happen today, but here you are.” I say, giving her a friendly smirk. “Speaking of fallin’, how you holdin’ up?”

It’s hard to read her expression behind the helmet, but I imagine it’s one of intense scrutiny. “I can walk.” Is all she said. The words came out stiff and flat. So, she's probably in a great deal of pain. I just hope she don't keel over on me because of some sense of pride or stubbornness.

“Well, if you want, you can tag along while I loot these poor bastards.” I say as I move to Top to exchange hats with the dead buck, his being in much better shape than my own. It's a billed hat that has a bit of cloth that hangs down to my neck, I like that, goes with the rest of my of my dirty wastelander motif. The rifle he carried was junk, lugs sheared off and probably only fired when magic was holding it together; but I could use the ammo to barter with. I relieve him of the last of his useful things, a healing potion and a few bobby pins, and start dragging his carcass to the camp.

"What are you doing?" Cloud asks, cocking her head to the side like a confused dog.

"Gunna make an example out of them so any other raiders come across here don't feel safe." I say dragging the dead buck along. Dear sweet Celestia did he smell, and I'm certain that very little of that was due to him being dead.

We reach the camp, Cloud Swimmer silently followed me, observing everything I was doing.Likely trying to figure out what this odd dirt pony was going to do.

I check on Hole to make sure she was dead before I start to raid this little nest; she was. The earth pony mare managed to drag herself across to the other side of the diner with the shotgun before expiring; likely she was waiting to shoot the next pony who came in. But one doesn't last long when a good portion of your liver lay scattered across the floor. I take the shotgun, it's in really good shape and likely to fetch more than a few shiny caps. I searched the rest of the camp and find little of value outside bullets and some drugs. Cowboy's pistols were in about as a bad a shape as Top's rifle. I gathered the bodies and piled them in front of the shop, I strung up Small Fry above them by the neck with a sign that read:

Murderers

Rapists

Raiders

The pegasus didn't say much of anything while I did all this. I don't know if it was of shock, or contempt, or if she was planning to kill me in my sleep. If she felt anything for what I did she kept it to herself.

With the job done I set off down an old world highway, north, towards town. Cloud Swimmer silently keeping pace with me. Her silence was bugging me, so after about a half hour of it I decide to pry a conversation out of the pegasus.

"So, where you from?" I ask trying to act as friendly as possible.

"Up there." She said as she pointed her muzzle up towards the ever cloudy sky.

Yay she's snarky. This was going to be fun.

"That right? I'd have you figured for a Manehatten girl." I could give it right back "How's that injury of yours, you're not going to drop dead on me anytime soon are you?" I look at the area where she had been shot, the armor had already repaired itself leaving only scorch marks. That’s handy.

"I'll endure." She responds in the in same flat tone as before.

"Oh I have no doubt about that, you made it this far. But, if you want to stop and take proper care of it, I'm in no hurry." Being injured out here is no laughing matter. One infected cut a few days away from anything close to proper medical care makes for one damned long trip. Septicemia sucks.

She sighs. "Look, I just want to make it some sort of civilization before something eats us."

I laugh at that and she gave me a stern look. "Is that what has your tail in a knot? Worst critters you got to worry about in these parts are bloatsprites and radhogs. And to tell you the truth I wouldn't mind if a radhog did roll up on us, damn good eatin'."

The pegasus just stopped and stared at me, jaw dropped. "You...eat meat?"

"Food's food honey, we don't get to be picky too often down here." And sometimes it's damn good, like that radgator stew I had in manehatten.

"But...ponies don't..."

I cut her off there. "We can, we do. Welcome to Equestria." I didn't want to get into another discussion on the morally or biology of ponies eating meat. Doing it with green stable ponies is bad enough.

"I knew that those below were backwards, but this is beyond the pale." She muttered as we continued on our way.

"Oh we're not backwards, just don't have much in the way of options." I let her ponder that for a few minutes before I hit her with my next question. "So, why were those folks in black so keen on ending you?"

"Enclave business, it's none of you concern." She in a rather dismissive tone. Well that’s interesting.

"Planning on going back?" Her silence was answer enough. Enclave’s not likely to take her back. "So what does it matter?"

She glared at me. That look was getting old.

"It's none of your concern." She repeated.

I let it drop there. If she doesn't want to tell me that's fine; I'd just like to know if any of her friends were going to come down and check on her.

Cloud Swimmer opened up a little after that, tho she was not much of a conversationalist. She would occasionally ask a question or two about some thing or another about life down here, I talked at length about whatever she brought up, mostly things about how we dirt ponies survive down here. I added a few personal stories to mix things up. I don’t think she cared for the one about the time I got haybugs from a whore in Manehatten.

By the afternoon she was slowing down with a bit of a limp in one of her forelegs the wound has probably been bothering her. I steer us towards a burnt out prewar building, hidden enough from the road to avoid the curious. It used to be some small store or something, but now it was our camp for tonight. I gather some wood, and whatever else might burn, and start us a small fire. She just watches me, stoic as ever, as I tap a spark gem over some kindling to ignite a flame.

I look over to the pegasus, she's standing, but leaning to one side. "Alright, let's get you out of that armor..." Her E.F.S. tag went from dull yellow to bright red as I was cut off by the sound of her plasma rifles charging up. Well apparently getting eaten wasn't the only worry she had about being down here.

"Not a chance." She growled menacingly.

"Oh for the love of Luna's sweet flank! I just want to get a look at that injury before sundown. I know the damn thing's been bothering you all day. I want to get it cleaned and dressed before you pass out and I have to drag your heavily armored ass all the way to town." I say in a more than slightly irritated voice. "I swear to everything tainted and unholy if I have to do that I'll make sure to hit every pothole on the way." OK, a lot more than slightly irritated.

She sat down, hard, and just nodded in defeat. Maybe a bit embarrassed that she misread my intentions or maybe she wasn't expecting the outburst? Her tag on my E.F.S. went from red back to yellow, so that was all that really mattered.

I put my saddlebags down and rummage through them to find my first aid kit, a small leather pouch that holds my odds and ends for healing all manner of wounds. I also take out a few bottles of water.

I turn back to her and find that she has already removed her helmet. Her short, dark gray, mane is matted to her head, and her eyes, a bright yellow, glaring at me. Again with the glares.

"Don't you dare try anything...funny."

"You have my word. If I want funny, I'll pay for it." Honestly she isn't my type. She gives me an odd look, but nods.

The rifles drop off the sides of her armor with soft clunks. The armor on each of her legs loosened as she took them off one at a time. The breastplate falls open from the front and gently rests on the ground, propping up the rest of the armor making it look bit like a white clam shell. She steps out of the shell, left wing was drooping slightly, and there was a limp in the foreleg on the same side. Her cutie mark looks like magitech circuit. I wonder what that means.

"That looks like it hurts" I comment as I notice the soiled bandages on her withers.

"Just do what you got to do."

She lays in front of me and I clean her up the best I can. The magic blasts struck deep just over her wing joint, scorching muscles and tendons that I imagine are important for flight. Nice thing about magical energy damage is that the wounds cauterize, so little risk of bleeding out; but it does make the healing a pain in the rear. If you just leave it the wound it will scar permanently. Those scars tend to be nasty due to energy weapons burning holes through you or blasting chunks out of you.

I pull out a bottle of yellow liquid from my kit, I bought it off a mare in Tenpony for just such an occasion. I don't know what it's called, 'damn yellow shit' usually suffices, but it works wonders getting dead tissue out of the way for healing potions to work their magic. It saved me once from looking like a ghoul after I got a bit too close to an angry robot with a flamer. It's a concentrate, so I mix it with a bit of water in a cleaned out Sparkle-Cola bottle.

I pull out my knife and present the handle to the mare. "You might want to bite down on this. I'm going clean out the burned flesh with this..." I show her the Sparkle-Cola bottle. "...It will allow everything to heal up normally. But I'm not going to lie, it's gonna' hurt...a lot."

She bites down on the handle, blade away from me, and shuts her eyes, prepared for the bad feelings to come. I pour the liquid slowly into her wound, it immediately begins to sizzle and foam giving off a strong ammonia smell. Cloud crys, whimpers and shakes as the chemical does its work. It feels like somepony poured kerosene into your wound and lit it on fire. I pour a bottle of water into the wound to clean out a majority of the yellow liquid after it has done its work, leaving behind shiny pink flesh and more than a little fresh blood. It looks worse then it started, and to be honest it kinda is.

"Drink this." I give her a half dosage of a healing potion. A full one would heal too fast, bad for setting bones and healing connective tissue, but the half would seal the wound and help the body to heal itself. She spits out the knife and downs the potion as fast as she can. The injury starts to knit itself back together, looking as if it was never there. But I bet she could feel it. The pegasus just laid on the ground panting.

"I wouldn't try flying for a few days, those shots got you deep and you need proper time to heal" I warn her

She looks over at me with her tired yellow eyes, tears welling up from them. This mare has been through a lot, and I guess the pain was just a catalyst for her emotions to spill over. I pet her head and she cries harder. There are times when a pony goes through too much, too fast, and just has their emotions well out of them. Celestia know I've done it my fair share of times.

"It's alright girl, let it out." I keep close by her until she falls asleep, curled up by the campfire. I set some booby traps around the small store and lie down near her, just out of reach. Sleep comes easy to me.

I'm up first and I heat up a couple of cans of baked beans on the remnants of the campfire for breakfast. I hear her stur behind me and give and very nasty groan as she awkwardly gets up and stretches.

"I'll never complain about sleeping on storm clouds again." She mumbles and walks over to my side and grabs one of the cans. That's a good way to lose a hoof.

"Your welcome."

"What?" She gives me a funny look.

"You're suppose to ask politely if you can take something that belongs to somepony else before you go and take it. What you did there is a good way to get shot, stabbed, or beaten." I point out. I'd once seen a pony get stabbed with a rusty screwdriver for taking someone else's empty tin can. "We're a little sensitive about that down here."

She nods and continues to down the beans in a manner more akin to shoveling than eating. Enclave must not be big on manners in general.

"Supplies are always shared, supplies are always divided. Our drill instructors pounded that into us in basic. Down here I assume it is different?" She goes back to seeking out and consuming every last bean in the can.

"If you're smart, you help yourself first and second, your friends third, and the helpless if it's not too inconvenient." I say as I start to dig into my own can of beans. I'd give my left nut to come across another bottle of hot sauce to add some spice to this."You lean fairly quick that ain't nopony gonna be looking out for your best interests."

"So why are you helping me?" She asks before she buries her muzzle into the can to lap up any of the last remnants of bean juice she could find.

"Maybe helping you is helping myself, it's easier to survive out here if you're with someone else. Or maybe I'm just not a smart pony." I give her a grin as I continue to chow down, a bit more gracefully than the pegasus, on my breakfast. Needs bacon, just a bit for flavoring.

Cloud Swimmer gives the smoldering campfire a long contemplative look and then turns to me. "I apologize for losing control last night, yesterday was ... difficult."

"Don't worry about it, I'd rather it happen here than in the middle of raider ambush. It happens to all of us at one point or another." I scoop another spoonfull of beans into my muzzle. "So, yesterday still Enclave business?"

"Yes"

"So, where exactly are we heading?" The pegasus asks and we trot down the highway.

"A little trading post called Crossroads. It's a watering hole for all the traders goin' to and from Manehatten, Fillydelphia, Appleoosa and the scattered towns and villages bordering the Everfree. Nice enough place, but the guards don't take no shit."

"How will they react to me?"

I shrug my shoulders "I don't rightly know, just keep you wings tucked up beside you and say you're an earth pony that scavenged that armor off a dead pegasus." I hope they buy that, but I know they're not that dumb.

Cloud stops, and I hear the whine of the capacitors in her rifles charge.

"Contacts on the horizon." She calls out. I look over to where she was looking and notice a wagon hitched to one pony and another escorting it. I rummage in my bags to grab a spare rifle scope I had to get a better look, but the pegasus called them out before I could even find it.

"Earth ponies, mare is pulling the cart, buck is armed with a self-loading rifle in a shooting saddle." She sounds like a Steel Ranger with a stick up her ass.

"Assault rifle, nopony calls the damn things 'self-loading rifles.'" I corrected her. "And they're probably just traders."

The buck lets out a loud whoop and I return the same as we approached each other. I recognized the pair.The mare, Close Stitch, ran a small shop in Crossroads that made and sold leather goods; she made the cases for my scopes, a holster for my pistol and many other odds and ends I had hidden on me. The buck is her son, Needlepoint. A decent young stallion that never gave anypony any trouble; he got none in return due to his size.

"Long Shot is that you? I didn't recognize you with your new hat." Close says as we got close.

"Got it off a raider, if I recall he was reluctant to part with it."

"So, the highway is safe then?" Needlepoint asks. The buck's never been one to beat around the bush.

"Up until the hospital at least. They got another caravan coming up from Filly before I got to em. I didn't recognize the wagon."

Close Stitch and Needlepoint's faces both drop.

"That might have been Snap Cap's wagon, we were expecting a shipment of tools from him around yesterday." The mare turns her attention to the pegasus. "And who's this, you picking up strays now?"

I cut Cloud Swimmer off before she could answer "Her name's Sleet, she's a Dashite" I lied. I just hope Cloud's smart enough to follow.

"Yes, Long Shot offered me assistance after I was shot down." Every lie needs about eighty present truth, I love it.

Close Stitch studied the pegasus for a moment with a skeptical look. "Right. I got a cloak that will hide her armor, also got a set of fresh saddle bags I made this morning for a client in Filly, but I can always make another on the way." Odd that she's heading to Filly, but getting that armored covered up would go a long way to making sure we ain't too bothered in town.

I pull out Small Fry's shotgun from my saddlebags and held it out to the mare. "Two healing potions, your best cloak, the saddlebags you were talking about and your discretion about my Dashite friend here." I nod towards Cloud. "Also, why are y'all leaving Crossroads?" The gun was worth much more than that, but something felt off about an established shopkeep and her only family skipping town down a road that may have still had heavy raider activity. And she's done well by me in the past, I don't mind paying a bit more for honest dealing.

Close Stitch takes the shotgun and looks it over, working the action and trying to see if there was anything obviously wrong with it. She looks at me and raises an eyebrow, then hoofs the weapon over to her son.

“Get him what he wants.” She tells him and then turns back to me. “I would have told you why free of charge, you know that.” She grins knowing she got a hell of a deal. “About a dozen folks came into town last afternoon, all of them well armed, but peaceful enough. Half of them looked fresh out of stable, looking around studying things like they ain't never seen them before, and far too clean. The other half looked just the opposite, like someone cleaned up a bunch of raiders and put them on a leash, the stable ponies look to be holdin’ the other end of it. Add to that the towns up north going quite; I packed up and left, heading to Filly. My gut said to move, and I’m moving.”

“Thanks. Celestia light your path." I say to her not wanting to hold her up anymore.

“And Luna protect you and yours.” She nods to the pegasus who was receiving my purchase from Needlepoint. “Come on boy, we're burning daylight.”

With that we part ways.

Cloud wastes no time donning the cloak. The scorpion like tail of her armor folded up to become more compact under the cloth. The faceplate of the hemet lifts and was well hidden under the hood. You could still tell she had a battle saddle or something under there, but it wasn't painfully obvious anymore. Once she got here saddlebags on she turned to me.

“Towns going silent in the north?” She asks as we start walking again.

“Started happening a few months ago, towns around the Everfree Forest just start disappearing, burned with nothing of value left behind. Few folk went up there to investigate, fewer came back. All of them said they found tracks in, out and around of the towns, a lot of ponies.” Too many ponies if I believe the reports. “Not many bodies though, not enough to account for all that are missing. Even raiders up there are spooked, moving south. That group you landed in was likely from up there.”

“What do you think it is?” She asks.

“Too many to be Steel Rangers, and their work is less clean, same with raiders. Ghouls from Canterlot finally coming down? Starbeasts? Hellhounds? Last bastion of the Zebra Empire? I haven’t a clue.” But my gut tell me these dozen ponies that wandered into town might know something. I’d very much like to meet them. Crossroads should be only a couple of more hours of walking from here, so I’ll get to ask soon enough. "I'm going to try and find out a bit more when we get to town. Come on , Close Stitch is right, we're burnin' daylight."

“Long Shot.” Cloud Swimmer said after a few minutes.

I glance at the pegasus.

“I am not a fucking Dashite.”

Author's Notes:

My revised chapter 2!

I'm used this this map of Equestria as a reference.

Comments and critiques are welcome!