Crossroads started off as a little shanty town underneath the interchange of the highways coming in from Manehatten, Fillydelphia and Canterlot. It was a place for folks to get out of the rain and seek higher ground from those that preyed on the weak. Not much in the way of pre-war buildings, a few convenience stores and the like, but with each passing year more and more ponies passed through the town, bringing building materials to set up shop in this new hub of trade. Before long it was a full fledged town with an inn, a bar, even a whore house. A wall went up when raiders became a problem, and a town guard always kept watch and made sure everything was going as peacefully as possible.

“State your business.” A guard, brown unicorn buck, calls out from atop the wall.

“Collectin’ a bounty, and getin’ something to drink.” I reply. I’ve done this song and dance with this guard for over a year, one would think the bastard would remember my by now.

“What about him.” He flicks his muzzle over to Cloud Swimmer.

“She’s with me.”

He studies me for a moment. “Alright.” He looks down at somepony behind the gate. “Open it up.”

A loud clank was heard a moment later and a small door opened into the town, just large enough for one pony at a time to enter. The guard working the gate, a pink mare in a comically over-sized helmet goes over the rules, like she has with me dozens of times before. Don’t attack anyone within sight of the town, defend yourself if you must, and don’t cause any trouble. If you don’t know what trouble is, the guard is more than happy to tell you. We both acknowledge the laws and head into town.

“Where are we going first?” Cloud asks me as she takes in all the sights, sounds and horrible smells of a wasteland town.

“The Bar. I’m hungry and I’m thirsty.”

The Bar is only two story building in town. First floor is the bar, and the second is the inn. It spaciest enough to hold damn near the whole town if you threw a party big enough, and often has to because there was little to do, other than the whores, after dark. It’s early afternoon, so the crowd is likely to be light.

I walk in and immediately notice unfamiliar faces, four of them at a table to the left of the door. Three of them are clean, well armed stable ponies; two laser rifles and a pump shotgun. The last one is a heavily scarred earth pony buck with a powder blue coat and shit brown eyes, armed with a straight-bolt rifle. Sky. I've had him in my sights before, when I was over watch during a ransom delivery near Ponyville. Strange of him to be showing up in civilization.

There are five others in the bar. Two locals, unarmed, at the bar being served by the bartender, sawed-off shotgun under the counter, and owner of The Bar, the unicorn ghoul Tumbler. The last two sat at a poorly lit table in far corner of the bar. Both figures, one pony, a buck, and a female griffon both are out of sight enough that I can't tell exactly who they are. But if they are who I think they are, then that means the four at my left are also who I think they are. Fuck me sideways.

“Hey Tumbler, can you get us a couple bowls of stew and some drinks.” I say as I walk up the bar and unhook the damned heavy barrel for my gun from my saddle pack and lean it against the counter. Cloud and I both take a seat.

"Cozy" She comments.

“You take care of them raiders out past the hospital?” The ghoul asks, his voice sounds like he’s gargling hot tar.

“Eyep”

“On the house then.” He heads to the back to fetch our dinner.

Cloud turns to me and leans in to whisper. “Those ponies by the door are here to scout the town."

"What makes you say that?" I say in a much more casual tone of voice. The din of the radio is more than enough to drown out a casual conversation. Whispering tends to look like whispering and draws attention.

"Stable barding." Cloud says as she leans back to a more relaxed posture.

We pause our conversation when Tumbler returns two big cans of hearty stew and two bottle of apple cider. The current batch of cider wasn't great, guess the 170 or so year vintage doesn't help the flavor; but it's better than swamp water.

"That style of barding is not exactly rare out here, quite a few stable ponies and their kids are running around causin' trouble. And from how squeaky clean they are I'd imagine they are from one. " She knows something, I can feel it. I would say the serious look on her face had me worried, but honestly I don't think I've seen her without it.

"Look, trust me on this. We need to leave town as soon as possible." Well I can add worried to her list of expressions. It looks like serious, only her eyes go a bit wider. Now I was more than reasonably sure we should take her advice, towns disappearing and fair share of ponies going missing is enough to make anyone a mite skittish. However, there was still the question of who they were and why they have the interest of my two acquaintances in the back of the bar. I'm not the type of pony to just run and hide from a threat, I need to observe it, understand it, then run for the fucking hills if it's something bigger than I can handle.

I spoon some stew into my muzzle, too much bloat sprite meat for my taste and needs more salt. But what do you expect from somepony who hasn't been able to taste anything the Great War.

"I don't disagree." I I say after swallowing another spoonful. "But I still want to know who they are and dangerous they can be."

"They are beyond dangerous, that is all I know."

"You know more than that."

She swallowed another mouthful of the stew; I wonder if she knows it has meat in it. "What I know is that they could connected to the disappearing towns near the Everfree, and if they are here it does not bode well for anypony here."

"But, you never say how you know."

We ate in silence after that, listening in on the jovial conversation being had behind us.

In the next half-hour the two locals at the bar were joined by a third and another pony joined the group at the table, I didn't get good look at him. Cloud Swimmer put her head down in her forehooves, face-plate down, hidden by the hood of her cloak. I was about the finish off my second cider when somepony sat down right next to me, automatic pistol in a shoulder holster.

"Mind if I buy the next round?" The red earth pony offers. His voice is as smooth as glass; so smooth I almost miss the black cloth that covers his right eye. His mane is jet black, and well groomed; if he had both eyes would be the spitting image of what I though some sleazy salespony would look like from the Old World. His body language just screams friendly, from the genuine smile to the gentle look in his remaining blue eye. I was immediately on edge. If somepony is this friendly it means they want something, and they rarely ask politely more than a few times. I really should have been shooting up red flags anyway, given that he was wearing the same stable barding as those at the table. Stable 101, not a stable I'm familiar with. That raises more red flags.

I don't let any of this worry show; appearances, or lack there of, are everything. "Sure, but, before you get ahead of yourself, my barn door don't swing that way."

He chuckles. "I'm actually more interested in this rifle of yours." He nudges my rifle barrel with a hind hoof. "I'm Eveready by the way." holding out a hoof.

I shake it "Long Shot."

"And your well cloaked friend?"

"Stew Can. She's had a long day, and I rather not wake her." She's awake. She snores quietly when she sleeps.

"I understand. So, any good with that?" Eveready nods to the barrel.

"I hit what I'm aiming at most of time."

Tumbler trots up to check on us. Eveready orders us a round and turns back to me.

"The way I hear it is that you have quite a reputation around town as a scout and sharpshooter; and I am in desperate needs of both. You will be compensated handsomely for you work."

"And what would I be scouting or shooting? You folks are well armed enough to roam just about anywhere you please."

"Does it matter?" Asks the red buck as Tumber returns with the drinks, then heads down the bar to check out the locals.

"Well, if you're beating around the bush about it, then I'd say it does." I don't like this stallion. He's too slick and too clean for his own good. The fact one of his cronies got up from the table and was not standing behind Cloud did little to improve my opinion of him.

"Get the fuck out of my seat." Sky said as he tried to push the pegasus off her stool by yanking her around the middle with one hoof. He tried anyway, but this particular pegasus is in Enclave power armor. She slammed his head into the edge of the bar, hard. I think I heard something crack. He weakly rolled around on the floor, clutching his head. Cloud relieved him of his rifle, placed it on the bar, pointing at at Eveready, and sat down back down. At some point she also managed to get her face-plate back up so no one else become any wiser to my companions armor save for the broken buck on the floor.

I heard the remain three ponies get up and ready their weapons. The locals ran out of the bar as fast as their hooves could take them. Tumbler just continued to polish a glass clean.

"I told you I didn't want to wake her." I say to no one in particular and take a swig of the cider the red Stallion just bought me. I look over to Eveready . "I imagine he was the bad cop to your good?"

"Something like that." His tone went from friendly to neutral. There is the bastard that I knew was hiding under that welcoming exterior.

One of the three stable ponies behind up trots up and shoves a potion down Sky's throat. He coughs and gets up, small bit of blood trickled from a healing cut on his brow and from his ear.

"That bitch is wearing armor!" He says as he stumbles back, I imagine he can hardly see straight after a blow like that, healing potion or no.

"Thank you Bluebelle, that will be all." Eveready said, dismissing the sky blue buck. "I'll make this quick since the local guard will be interrupting our conversation soon. I want you and those you work for, you siblings in arms. I can make it worth your time." He drops a good sized sack of caps on the bar in front of me "Travel the road north before sunset if you accept." He got off the stool back to his companions. Then they left, escorted out of town by the guard.

"What did he mean you siblings in arms?" Cloud asked after Eveready and his ponies left.

So, he know about Stable 78. That's not good.

I get and grab my rifle barrel march over to the two that were still sitting in the back of the bar. Cloud follows me with a rather confused look on her face. The Gryphon spoke before I could.

"Do you even know how to say out of trouble?" Her voice is motherly and calm. She's covered head to tail in dull brown cloth, some areas it's tightly wrapped around her, like on her claws, on others more loose and flowing. A loose hood covered her head, leaving only the dark brown feathers of her face and purple eye shadow exposed.

"Fuck you Grin! What do they know?" I yell at her. I'm in no mood for pleasantries, I want to know how they know about 78.

"We were hoping you would tell us." The buck says. He's older, in his fifties, with a midnight blue coat like mine, but with short cut blood red mane.

"At the very least he knows about the Dragoons, so he likely knows about the Stable as well." I say.

"Stable? Number 78?" Cloud asks.

The shotgun across the bucks back flew into action as his magic manipulates the weapon, it came to rest right under the pegasus' chin. "And how do you know that?" The red maned buck asks low and dangerously.

"Scatter Shot, ease off." The Grin says as she puts a claw on his shoulder. "How do you know of Stable 78?" She asks Cloud. "Be honest, because he will shoot you."

Cloud Swimmer to her credit looks more annoyed than frightened. She takes a deep breath and lets it out. "I am First Lieutenant Cloud Swimmer of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. Service Number: 7768V-57AS. I'm a part of a unit called The Hunters. We are the last resort in maintaining the sky quarantine. Our last mission ended in disaster, a captain in the Everfree patrol was making regular trips to the deck. We were charged with taking him out, didn't count on the whole platoon to defend him. We tried to flee,but as far as I know I'm the only one to escape."

"Any of this coming to a point?" Scatter Shot growled out.

"I'm a communications specialist, I remotely hacked the information systems built into their armor, and I've had the past few days to go over the information I jacked. Stable 78 came up more than once, it said it's a military stable."

"You tell them about all that five minutes after meeting them, but you didn't tell me any of it after the better part of two days?" I'm more than a little annoyed with her.

"You didn't have a gun to my head when you asked."

"I'll try that next time." I let out a deep sigh. "Do you know what they were planning to do with this intelligence?"

"Or how they got it?" Grin adds.

"No, but it also had details on two other Stables as well; 93 and 101. 93 is near the Ironshod Firearms factory, it was designed to fail, and was abandoned almost fifty years ago according to somepony's report. 101 is alive and well, advanced medical tech and a social experiment based around something called 'The Earth Pony Way.'"

Scatter Shot holsters his shotgun. "And damn near half of those ponies with that slick one eyed son of a bitch were wearing 101's barding."

"Save for Sky, or rather Bluebelle, he's just some two bit raider from up north.”

“And a few other of his ilk were around town as well.” Grin says.

I nod and a short silence fell over us. I was soon broken by an inquiry from Cloud Swimmer.

“If I may, who are you all?”

I guess I better make introductions. “This…” gesturing to the gryphon “... is Gimila Bloodfeathers, or Grin; and this is my father, Scatter Shot.”

"Howdy." My father says with a grin.

"Stable 78 houses the remnants of the Dragoons, a Mystery of Awesome black operations unit." Grin explained. "I'm the only original member. Scatter and Long are descendants. We maintained a small unit down there. We trained and drilled. It passed the time."

"Original member? That would make you nearly two hundred years old!" Cloud exclaimed.

"One hundred and ninety three to be exact. But..." She lifted her arm and used the other to remove some fabric revealing rainbow hued metal underneath. "...there is not much of me that is original. That was a problem I had before the balefire however."

"Yep, she's a killin' machine and toaster oven all in one." Scatter Shot jokes, not one I think Grin appreciates.

“We need to get back to Shard and head to 78.” Grin declares. Then she turns to Cloud. “And if it’s not too much trouble, I would like you to come as well.”

Cloud nods, face stoic as ever.

My expression however was wide eyed shock.“Grin, I’m not sure I heard you correctly. Did you just say ‘get back to Shard’?”

“I did” she says calmly.

“As in my psychotic ex-marefriend Shard?”

“The same.”

Fuck me with land mine.

“Long, you got a way out of this town that doesn't involve the front door?” Scatter Shot asks.

I sigh. I really do not want to meet up with my crazy, knife wielding, overpowered unicorn of an ex-marefriend. But, duty calls. I turn around and yell out at Tumbler. “Yo Tumbler, that back door of yours still open?”

I swear I heard Cloud snicker a bit.

Author's Notes:

Yay! A new chapter! I hope it doesn't suck!

Comments and criticisms are always welcome!