“I make the shit everybody wants and can't get enough of.”

I didn't like change.

Back when I'd taken Windfall under my care, it took me months to really warm up to the idea of having somepony else around me all the time. It'd been a gamble back then, and it still presented the occasional risk even today. But, at the end of the day, when I weighed everything, I figured it was worth it. The pair of us were able to accomplish a lot more than I ever could have on my own. I'd warmed up to the change.

Now things looked like they were going to change again.

It was different with this new mare than it had been with Windfall though. Foxglove wasn't some lost little filly who didn't know hardly anything about what was what in the Wasteland. She'd lived right in the heart of it, exposed regularly to it's darker side, for years. Brutality, slavery, lies, plotting, and even murder were things that she had experienced first-hoof. She knew what a 'bad pony' truly was.

Would she recognize those qualities in me? Would I say or do something around her that would give away what I was really like, deep down? If so, then keeping her around might not be worth the risk. I was sure that I could come up with some reason convincing enough for Windfall to accept as to why the unicorn mare shouldn't come with us. It would certainly be a lot easier to do that than find myself having to dispose of Foxglove out in the Wastes and make up a story on the spot about why she'd 'wandered off' in the middle of the night without so much as a “see y'all”.

I paused at the door leading to the small room that I rented for us that night.

It was risky letting her come with us. But that didn't mean that it might not be worthwhile. Foxglove was both smart and skilled. Stable educated, technologically savvy, and familiar with the history of the Old World. She was a huge asset if applied properly.

She certainly hadn't seemed to suspect my true nature yet. Windfall was a huge part of that, I imagined. Unlike myself, the pegasus was very much the noble sort. She wore her opinion of bandits and slavers openly. Simultaneously, she obviously respected me a lot. Foxglove had seemed to interpret that to mean that at least some of the younger mare's values were imparted to her from me, and that I shared Windfall's views on murder and banditry.

To a certain extent, that was true, after all. It's not like a lot of professional courtesy existed between bandits. If you weren't a member of their specific gang, then you were a permitted target. They represented a threat to me and what I was trying to do. The more of them we killed, the better off we were.

So I guess I was going to be taking on a second partner. Provisionally.

I opened the door and stepped through it.

“Here you go.”

I dropped the set of worn barding and tattered saddlebags I just bought at the market on the floor beside the bed. Foxglove glanced down at them and her face creased with a frown. Neither was in the greatest of conditions, and the barding smelled of death. A few small round holes surrounded by dark stains testified to the fate of the previous owner. Used barding was cheap, and I wasn't willing to spend a lot more money on this mare than I already had. Between the supplies she'd needed for dealing with Tommyknocker, food for her meals, and this barding, she'd already cost me a good three hundred caps. And, since I hadn't found a buyer for that holographic whatever-it-was we'd found in the bunker while wandering the shops today, it wasn't looking very likely I'd recoup those losses anytime soon.

“That couldn't have been the best they had,” the unicorn complained, lifting up the used armor with a green telekinetic field.

“It was the best I was going to buy you,” I returned, passing her by on my way to the bathroom. It didn't work, of course. Few Old World bathrooms did. That was fine, I didn't need the use of a toilet, just a couple minutes out of sight of our new companion while I shucked my own barding and donned the leather jacket I owned. Stable-pony or not, Foxglove knew what a White Hoof was, and I knew that she'd recognize my brand for what it was.

The pegasus hadn't put two and two together yet: my brand was something she'd seen most of her life. She probably hardly noticed it any more or paid it much attention when she did. This new mare though, she was very observant, and smart besides.

“You want something better,” I said on my way out, “I suggest you make it yourself then.”

Foxglove sighed, but she nodded, “I understand. I didn't exactly deliver on the payment I promised. I'm sorry about that.”

“It wasn't your fault,” Windfall chimed in from where she was still admiring herself in the room's dusty mirror, “you couldn't have known that the White Hooves would be there. If we'd gone after them, then we'd have gotten all those weapons anyway,” I noticed her sideways glance at me as she said that last part. I returned her gaze, but I didn't hold it for long. My eyes began to wander along the shear fabric draped off her flank and I quickly looked back at the unicorn.

“You can make up for it by delivering on those other promises you made,” I didn't try hiding the skepticism in my voice. They'd been pretty grandiose claims made, after all. Words were just air though.

“And I will,” Foxglove assured me vehemently, “as soon as I get my hooves on the tools and materials I need, I'll make you everything I said I would, and more.”

“Well, you have the tools,” I reminded her, “so what sort of materials do you need?” If they were reasonable enough in price, I might be able to go back out and buy them here.

The unicorn mare furrowed her brows, “you mean these?” she levitated out the thin little screwdrivers and soldering irons she'd collected from the MWT bunker, “I can make a few of the alterations with these, but not anything like I promised. I'll need some serious equipment for that: lathes, presses, welders, and that's just for the guns.”

“Where are we supposed to find all that?” I asked, a little irked that this was already sounding like it was going to be a lot a trouble to go through for some simple modifications. It wasn't too late to cut my losses and just kick her to the curb...

“That's a good question. Let me see your pipbuck,” the lavender mare waved me over, “maybe y'all wandered by someplace that'll have what I need.”

My eyes went down to the pipbuck. She was going to check its map. There were a lot of marked locations on it, courtesy of its prior owner and his efforts to find a replacement talisman for his stable. Maybe Foxglove would find someplace suitable at that. I extended my leg to the mare and let her do her work. The unicorn tabbed over to the map and began scrolling around it.

“Somepony had an urge to wander,” Foxglove commented, noting the number of marked locations, “you find all of these yourself or did you get the markers from somepony else?”

“Somepony else,” I replied, while considering how much I was willing to tell her about the origin of this device. For that matter, I was starting to wonder where hers was. She was a stable-pony, wasn't she? That meant that she should have been wearing one of these things. Looking at her fetlocks now, as her hooves manipulated the controls of the device on my leg, I couldn't see any sign that she'd ever worn one. Had her Stable not used them, perhaps? Weren't pipbucks sort of the hallmark of stable-ponies?

Wasn't going to learn anything by remaining silent on the issue though, “where's your pipbuck?”

“Sold it,” the unicorn supplied, her expression growing slightly more dour at the thought as she continued to pan around the map, “long time ago.”

“You sold it? Why?” this device had proven invaluable to somepony as technologically ignorant as myself. An experienced user who had an obvious technical know-how? This mare could have probably made it sing and dance. What could have possessed her to part with it?

“Can't eat a pipbuck,” Foxglove quipped, still not looking up from the screen. After a few more seconds of searching, a smile once more spread across the mare's face and she tapped her hoof on the display, “there. Haywood Industrial Equipment Manufacturing and Repair. It ain't too far away, and its bound to have what I need.”

I glanced down at the screen. That location had been one of the many sites on the pipbuck that Ten Penny had scoured during his expedition's search for the talisman his stable had so desperately needed. However, he hadn't taken the time to mention it in any of the recorded logs he'd made that I could recall. I'd give them another listen later just to be certain. Odd, I thought, that Foxglove would want to go looking for weapon parts at a place that didn't sound like it had anything to do with them.

“Why do you think there're guns there?”

“Ain't looking for weapons, per se,” the unicorn explained, “y'all have the guns. What I'm after is tools. A place like that? It'll have all sorts of fun stuff I can use to make modifications, given enough time.

“Do y'all remember if there was anything left there?”

That I did not know. I had never actually been there, “couldn't say,” I admitted. Foxglove had been right though, it wasn't all that far from New Reino. We could be there in a few days, and then start making our way to Seaddle. I still had a few weapons that I wanted to sell up there. I might even find somepony in the NLR capital that would be interested in that contraption from the MWT bunker.

It wouldn't hurt anything to swing by there on our way to Seaddle and see if what she needed was there and still usable after all this time, “I guess we'll have to go there and find out.”

The mare smiled gratefully at me, “much appreciated. Y'all won't regret this.”

“I'll say!” Windfall chimed in. She'd slipped out of her recently acquired lingerie and was wafting over to us. One of her bottles of Special Reserve clutched in her hooves. How many of those did she have left by now? “you can really make it so my girls shoot by me telling them to?”

Foxglove's brow furrowed for a moment, “...girls? Oh, your guns! I sure can, darlin'” the unicorn beamed, “just need a few talismans and servos and you'll have yourself the fanciest pair of big-irons this side of the valley!”

“Awesome!” Windfall took a swig from her bottle, “where'd you learn how to do that stuff anyway? Make things, I mean?”

“It used to be my job back in the stable,” the lavender mare replied. I noticed her expression becoming slightly more somber as she spoke about her past home. I recognized that look well. It was similar to how I felt whenever I talked about the White Hooves. A past life that is forever out of your reach, “I oversaw the fabrication shop. It was my job to build whatever it was the Stable needed that Stable-Tec hadn't thought to provide us with.”

“That sounds like a pretty important job,” Windfall pointed out, “why'd you leave?”

The unicorn averted her eyes, her expression growing sad, “I, uh...was asked to leave.”

“Why?”

Forward little scamp, wasn't she? I needed to arrange a little talk with Windfall someday about tact when bringing up somepony's past. For whatever reason, instead of telling the young flier to buck-off, Foxglove actually answered, “I betrayed somepony I cared about to get something I wanted. She didn't take it well.”

“They kick you out of a Stable for something like that?”

“They do when the pony you betrayed is the Overmare,” the lavender mare put on a wan smile, “I probably could've stayed if'n I'd really pushed the issue, but...my Stable didn't feel like home anymore. A lot of the ponies that had been my friends wouldn't hardly look me in the eye anymore.”

“I'm sorry,” Windfall said, floating down to her hooves, “I know what it's like to lose your home,” she placed a consoling hoof on the unicorn's leg, offering up a weak smile, “who knows, maybe you can even go back someday?”

“Maybe,” it didn't sound like Foxglove believed that was going to be something that would happen.

I cleared my throat audibly, drawing the attention of the two mares, “that's a tragic story, no doubt,” I said, “but I'd like to hear the rest of it. What brings a mare with talents like yours to New Reino, just to wind up as Tommyknocker's whore?”

“Jackboot!” Windfall exclaimed in surprise.

Really? She was going to act indignant when I asked a blunt question? Foxglove regarded me with narrowed eyes and a sour frown as well, obviously offended at my phrasing. Tough. I wasn't here to suck up to her. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was the unicorn that needed to get onto my good side, and a nice start would be answering my questions.

Either Foxglove was reading my mind, or she had come to that conclusion on her own. At least she answered my question, “it's alright,” she assured Windfall, “I don't mind talking about it.

“Talents I may have, but they didn't much extend to surviving in the Wasteland. I'd never had to find my own food or water in the wilderness before. The ponies in my stable weren't cruel about my leaving, so I had a few things on me in the way of food and water and weapons, but not enough as it turned out.”

“Encountered raiders?”

“Not as such,” the mare corrected, “but close enough.

“I ran out of provisions on my third day out, but I at least found an old road. Followed it for another two days, hoping to find something, anything, to eat or drink. I eventually collapsed. When I woke up, somepony was giving me sips of water. I'd been found by a band of ponies traveling the road. They nursed me back to health, giving me some of their food and water.”

“How is that 'close to raiders'?” Windfall demanded, “they sound like good ponies.”

“I thought so too, at first. I didn't notice that they were all eating different food than I was, and giving me water from a specific canteen.”

“They were getting you hooked on something,” I concluded, recognizing what must have been going on. It hadn't been very common back when the Commonwealth had still engaged in the slave trade, but ever since Luna had outlawed the practice in NLR territories, slavers had gotten...creative. Instead of outright nabbing ponies off the streets and shackling them in chain, they would instead single out ponies down on their luck—especially young mares—and give them gifts of food and drink, acting all friendly. Only, what they were offering was actually laced with some addictive narcotic. Low doses at first, then higher ones. Finally, the slavers switched the pony onto uncontaminated food, which was when the victim finally noticed something was wrong and the trick was revealed. But, by then the unsuspecting pony was in the throes of extremely painful withdrawal symptoms, and was willing to make nearly any sort of deal to get a dose of what they needed to make the agony stop.

“Yeah,” Foxglove confirmed, nodding her head, “I didn't know it then, but when we got to New Reino, I was shaking so bad, and my head felt like it was going to split apart. They told me I must have come down with a case of 'Wasteland Withers', and that the medicine to treat it was very expensive.”

“I've never heard of 'Wasteland Withers',” Windfall furrowed her brows.

“Because there ain't no such thing, but I didn't know that at the time. I genuinely thought I was sick,” Foxglove went on, “I traded my guns for some 'medicine', which helped for a couple days. Then my head started to hurt again, even worse than before. I traded away my pipbuck that time. After that, I didn't have anything else left to trade.

“One of the ponies with me said he'd be willing to buy it for me. I just had to sleep with him. I said no.”

“So then he made you?” Windfall ventured, warily.

“He didn't have to,” the unicorn mare said more quietly, “after two more days, I just couldn't stand the pain anymore. My head hurt so bad. I really thought I was going to die.

“I let him fuck me. He gave me the 'medicine' like he promised, but it was only enough to keep the pain away for a day. I didn't know he was just making it worse by giving me more drugs. I just knew that I didn't want to go more than a day without some of it. So I kept fucking him in exchange for the drug. I'd fuck his buddies too when he asked. Even complete strangers that paid him to have their way with me.

“I was a pathetic little sex toy, and I thought I'd die if I stopped.” Foxglove's voice sounded cold and hollow. Her gaze vacant as she relived those memories of what was undoubtedly the lowest point in her life.

“Tommyknocker was such an asshole,” Windfall snarled, “I'm glad we killed him.”

Foxglove looked up in confusion, blinking at the pegasus, “what? Tommyknocker didn't do any of that.”

“Huh?” even I was a little thrown by that revelation.

“Tommyknocker noticed me outside one of his clubs, where I was being pimped out. He took a liking to me. I don't know if he bought me or what, but I never saw that other pony again. Tommy actually had me cleaned up, and took me to a doctor to get me off the drugs. It wasn't easy, but eventually I was alright.”

“...and for that you killed him?” I blinked. Was there a part of this story I'd missed?

“Don't get me wrong, Tommy may not have used drugs, but he wasn't any better than the others. He was a lot more direct at least: sleep with him or have my legs broken and get raped. I knew where I stood with him, and I hated him for it.

“I guess he grew tired of me and pawned me off. The rest, you know.”

“You're being awfully forthcoming about all of this,” I noted.

“Why shouldn't I be? I've got nothing to hide, and I need y'all to trust me if we're going to work together,” Foxglove pointed out, “in the long run, it never pays to lie to the ponies around you.”

I got the oddest sensation that some part of me agreed with her, but I couldn't put a hoof on it.

“Well, I trust you,” Windfall smiled reassuringly at the unicorn, “and I know Jackboot does too,” the pegasus hopped up onto the bed next to Foxglove and looked at her expectantly, “now, tell me more about those awesome gun you're gonna make me!”

The lavender mare chuckled and obliged the younger flier with details on the modifications that she intended to make, fielding the occasional suggestion from Windfall. I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the exchange myself. What Foxglove had said about being honest shouldn't have struck me the way that it had. I mentally glared at the tiny incarnation of Fluttershy that resided in my head, but her mute expression pleaded innocence. Well, it certainly hadn't been Whiplash or Steel Bit that had evoked that feeling.

An occasional good deed was all that Yellow Bitch was getting out of me. I'd fight her on anything more. This was my head, dammit!

Haywood Industrial Equipment Manufacturing and Repair was far more impressive in size and scope that I would have envisioned. In my mind, it had been little more than some sort of slightly enlarged garage, like so many or the small cart repair shops that littered the Wasteland. However, far more than a simple building, the facility that we stood before now was a massive complex of warehouses surrounded by the rusted hulks of cranes and tractors.

“So, what exactly is it that we're looking for in this place?” my eyes combed the surrounding wasteland. I could see the occasional red blip flickering across my vision, but nothing that remained for very long, and the speed that they moved at suggested that they were lingering in the distance. As big as this complex was, that could still suggest that something was lurking within those large buildings. I didn't notice much in the way of overt signs of pony habitation. No discarded Sparkle Cola or Wild Pegasus bottles, or empty boxes that once held Sugar Apple Bombs. Raiders were unlikely, but that didn't mean it wasn't still dangerous.

“I made a list,” Foxglove's horn shimmered with an emerald glow and a scrap of yellowed paper floated out of her saddlebag. She floated it over to me and my eyes scanned over the writing scrawled on the page.

I frowned after reading the first few items, “I have no idea what any of this stuff is.”

The unicorn withdrew her list and smiled, “s'alright, I do. I'll point it out to you when I see it. Everything I need is pretty portable; and it's all hopefully somewhere in there.”

“Well, alright then,” I sighed, glancing up at Windfall hovering nearby, “keep an eye out. There's...something crawling around in there.”

“Got it,” the pegasus nodded firmly, “I'll scout ahead,” she zipped off, ducking through the open door of one of the large warehouses.

My eyes went to the unicorn mare, “stay close,” Foxglove nodded and fell into step behind me as I lead the way into the nearest building.

Inside were several large pieces of industrial equipment in various stages of disassembly. Or was it assembly? Hard to tell really, since none of them looked to be in good condition anymore anyway. The walls were lined with cabinets and benches. Tools could be seen strewn about table tops as well as the floor in a rather disorderly fashion. Most of the Old World looked as though ponies had run off in the middle of whatever they were doing with no thought to returning later. Idly, I wondered just how much warning the ponies of old had had before their world ended. Not much, I would guess.

My ear twitched. Something was skittering about nearby. A glance in the direction of the sound confirmed a lone red blip. However, I could see nothing but the gutted shell of a dozer. I drew my 9mm and motioned for Foxglove to remain where she was. My eyes were intently focused on the red dot hovering in front of me, waiting for any signs of movement in the room.

The blip periodically shifted from side to side, making that same skittering sound, but I never got a clear look at it. Radscorpion, perhaps? If so, it was best to take care of it now before it became a real problem. Hopefully, it was on the smaller side and something that I could dispatch with a couple well-placed shots. My gaze darting back and forth between the blip provided by the pipbuck and the wreckage before me, I quietly circled around, noting how the little red tick moved. I finally narrowed down its probable location to the dozer's interior.

I took a preparatory breath, and with a firm hold on the grip of my pistol, lunged up onto the engine of the ancient machine, pointing my weapon in through the missing rear window. I was barely able to track the rust-colored blur as the terrified radroach leaped out of the dozer with raucous chattering. I watched as the abnormally large insect ran out of sight, and then breathed a sigh of relief. Just a radroach. Probably what most of the blips were. They could be dangerous, true, but I'd rarely seen them act hostile towards groups of ponies. If there was a few of them and a pony was wandering alone, that was a different matter, but between the three of us there shouldn't be a problem. I climbed down off the rusted hulk and returned to Foxglove.

“Trouble?”

I shook my head, holstering the weapon once more, “just a radroach. Let's keep looking.”

The unicorn mare nodded and proceeded to pick over the scattered tools while I kept watch on the surrounding red blips. I tracked the single yellow one too as it moved across my field of vision at great speed. Windfall making her rounds of the surrounding buildings.

Eventually my eyes wandered back to Foxglove. We'd spoken very little on the way here. Most of the conversations that she'd had had been with Windfall as the pegasus plied her with questions about her past life in her old Stable and the nature of her job there. I'd listened in silence. Foxglove hadn't been much more forthcoming with the details of her exile, as it was clearly a sore topic; but she had been willing to share a lot about her old job in that Stable, as well as how ponies had lived in general. The pegasus found it all quite fascinating. I was less intrigued. It wasn't like I was ever going to live in a place like that, after all.

That wasn't to say that I still didn't have questions of my own though. Questions that I wanted to hear the answers to without Windfall being present. After all, if I didn't like the answers, I wanted the opportunity to...deal with Foxglove. This was a dangerous place, after all. Things could happen over which I had no control. It would be a tragedy to be sure, but a stallion like me could only do so much to protect somepony from the monsters of the Wasteland.

I certainly wasn't about to place my welfare, or Windfall's, in jeopardy; and something about this mare bothered me.

“Why are you with us?”

Foxglove paused in her browsing and peered back at me, “excuse me?”

“You. Traveling with us. Why?” I regarded her coolly, slowly circling around, “I heard your story: lied to, drugged, and made a sex slave by the first ponies you met out here. Most mares would develop a healthy paranoia of strangers. Yet you've been willing to travel with us almost from day one.

“Why?” I glared at her, and the unicorn took a nervous step back “for all you know, we're just as bad as Tommyknocker. A pair of murderers and thieves roaming the Wastes. What do you know about us, really?”

“About you?” the mare swallowed, “nothing. I know your name, and that's about it. You don't talk much, after all,” she attempted a nervous chuckle, but it died quickly under my stare. She took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself, “but I know a good bit about Windfall. She's a good pony. Truest I ever met since leaving the Stable.

“She rushed to my defense with no thought of payment or reward. She has a healthy hate of White Hooves. She put herself at great risk to help me out with Tommyknocker.

“If I can't trust a pony like her...well then, there ain't no point in trusting anypony; and I sure can't survive on my own,” she offered a wan smile.

“And what about me?”

“You?” there was a long pause, “I...I think that there's a reason that your daughter is the way she is,” I kept my expression impassive at her misreading of mine and Windfall's relationship, “and I think that the reason you're acting really scary right now is that you just want to make sure I ain't no kind of threat to her. And I assure you I ain't. I promise.”

She thinks you're just 'acting scary', Whiplash whispered in my head, that means she doesn't believe that you'd actually hurt her. She thinks you're harmless, she chuckled, I think she's right: you wouldn't hurt her. Not ever. You're weak like that.

Steel Bit chimed in as well, if she doesn't fear you, she'll never respect you.

“You'd better not be,” I said, pushing away the pair of taunting voices in my head.

My attention was immediately drawn behind as a chorus of chitinous skittering and the crashing of some tools resounded from across the building. I spied the multi-limbed culprit as it darted across the floor and out of sight. Damn bugs, they were everywhere in this place. Which, I found odd for some reason. I mean, I guess radroaches were about as common as corpses in the wasteland, and you couldn't hardly spit without hitting one of those. It was just...this many radroaches gathered in one place, that only happened in very specific locations. Old markets. The kitchens of hotels. Places where there was plenty of decayed food to scavenge. This place? I mean, maybe there was some sort of cafeteria, but I sure hadn't found it yet; and that didn't explain what they were doing here.

Did they eat rust?

“There you two are,” Windfall's voiced chimed from above. I glanced up to see the armored flier gliding in for a soft landing nearby, “coast is clea-EEEAR!”

I watched as the young pegasus mare performed a mid-air stop that nearly sent her into a back-flip with its suddeness. Her wide blue eyes were glued to one of the nearby benches as she backpedaled away. A frown creased my features as I followed the direction of her gaze. Another radraoch was nestled under the bench, its antennae twitching lazily. It almost looked like it was sleeping...if they even did sleep, I guess. Windfall darted off and alit atop of an old nearby crane, with her attention remaining fixed on the large insect.

I exchange a glance with Foxglove, who was also now clarifying that it was indeed merely a radroach that had caused the pegasus to abort her landing. The unicorn quirked an eyebrow questioningly at me, “she's actually afraid of radroaches?”

“Bugs in general,” I explained, “bad experience with a bloatsprite in her bedroll when she was a filly,” I had found the ordeal rather hysterical at the time. Windfall had never quite come around to see it that way, even all these years later.

“I'm not afraid of them!” the flier insisted irately, “I just...feel more comfortable when I'm up here and they're...not. That's all.”

“Go ahead and keep watch from up there,” I ordered the pegasus, “we'll be done soon, right?” I added with a glance at Foxglove. The unicorn looked around at the benches and nodded.

“Most of what I need seems to be in this here room, yeah,” she moved over to a cabinet and began picking through its contents. Every once in a while she slipped something into her saddlebags.

“Good,” I stayed close to her, my eyes still shifting the stationary radroach under the bench every so often. Was it...wearing a belt? It was hard to tell with it hiding in the shadows like that, and the color of the leather was very similar to it's natural coloration to boot; but I could have sworn that an old belt was wrapped around its midsection.

This place was starting to weird me out.

Blips were everywhere on my EFS. Hardly any of them seemed to really be moving, and those that did only seemed to occasionally jerk and twitch. This place was simply crawling with the oversized insects. Then I noticed one blip that was actually moving quite a bit. I tracked the errant dot, curious about what was setting it apart from the others. I watched it vanish once or twice as it left the range within which the pipbuck on my leg could magically track it. It would reappear soon enough though, and continue to move.

At one point, I was certain that the blip was moving towards us, but I neither saw nor heard anything even as it whizzed by and was suddenly behind me. Something flying around outside maybe? A bloatsprite?

A loud crunching sound from far above drew my gaze upward. Windfall was watching my wandering gaze with passive interest. I'm sure that to her it looked like I was trying to help the unicorn with us find her desired tools. The pegasus mare was noisily munching on a mouthful of whatever it was that she had pulled from a box nestled under her wing. I couldn't make out the wording on the label from down here, but the bright colors and vivid design suggested that they were Sugar Apple Bombs.

I quirked an eyebrow at the flier, “where's you get those?”

“Found them,” Windfall mumbled around a mouthful of the sweets. Then she swallowed and pointed a wing off to the side, “there was a whole locker full of them in the next building over. Like, hundreds of them,” she stuffed another cluster into her mouth and started chewing. Sugar-infused red balls that missed her mouth dribble down to the ground.

As I pondered what might possess a pony to hoard hundreds of boxes of an ancient foal's cereal in the locker of an old industrial equipment complex, I felt something brush under me. I nearly jumped right out of my skin as the radraoch I'd be looking at moments ago, and which I could now clearly see was wearing a belt, skittered towards the crane that Windfall was perched on. It wasn't the only one either. Another half dozen of the enlarged bugs had emerged from their hiding places and were gathered around the base of the thing.

Windfall noticed the activity and sat up, alert, “what are they doing?”

I cautiously stepped closer, “they're eating the crumbs you've been dropping,” I was only half paying attention to the pegaus now. Was there something written on that belt that radroach was wearing?

“Gah!”

The high-pitched scream was followed a second later by a loud crunching sound and the pounding of hooves on metal. Foxglove and I both looked up towards Windfall, who was flailing at the crane. Her box of Sugar Apple Bombs tumbled to the floor, scattering it contents about. Rather than startle the gathered radroaches, it actually seemed to draw more of them. I watched as the younger mare ceased her fit and then look at one of her hooves in disgust.

“Ewe...” she pathetically pawed at the crane in an effort to wipe it off. Then she stopped, her eyes narrowing at something that only she could see, “Misses Boots?”

“What?” I quirked an eyebrow.

“It's written on the pink strap-belt-thing that this radroach is wearing,” the pegasus explained. She took off and started listing downward. All the while flicking her hoof, “who names something like that 'Misses Boots'? How can you even tell if they're a boy of a girl?”

Wait. She'd just killed a radraoch wearing a belt? One that had writing on it? I looked back at the milling insects, which now numbered upwards of a dozen. They all wore belts around their midsections. I leaned in an squinted at the nearest ones. Mister Fuzzy...Daisy...Sox...Edward Archibald Fitzgerald IV.

There was something else too. Looking around, I noticed that all of the red blips on my EFS were now gathered in one location in front of me. All, except for the one that continued to move. Only now it was moving more quickly. Somehow, I didn't still think that it was something that was moving above us.

“We're leaving,” I stated, an edge creeping into my voice. I started for the exit, adding over my shoulder, “now.”

“But I still haven't found-” Foxglove began.

I was ready to cut off the mare, but I never got the chance. Before I could say anything, the ground between us erupted in a shower of dirt and rock. The unicorn and I backpedaled, flinching away from the torrent of debris. Windfall immediately flitted up into the air, ducking into the rafters. Full Stop was in my mouth and pointed in the direction of the eruption. It was the hardest hitting weapon that we had between the three of us, and should be able to tackle most anything. But when I saw what we faced, I was no longer quite so certain about that.

I'd never actually faced a hell hound before. I'd heard of them, of course, and knew enough to recognize what they looked like. However, I had now decided that the stories didn't quite do them the justice that they deserved.

The three of us could have stood upon each others' backs and still not been tall enough to even bop the nose of the hulking behemoth. Arms, longer than a pony from nose to tail, ended in a paw tipped with razor-sharp claws. Piercing yellow eyes glowed down from just above a mouth of gleaming fangs. It's fur was soot-black, and speckled with motes of dirt and clay gathered from its subterranean travels. A red spiked collar and tattered leather vest were the only articles of clothing that I could see.

I froze.

I'd never done that before. I'd been in situations where I'd been afraid, and even one's where I'd panicked and acted without thinking everything through. But I'd always acted, taking the initiative and making a move. For better or worse, I knew that doing something was always better than doing nothing. No matter the odds, I'd always done something.

But not now. At this moment, I did nothing. Every story I'd ever heard about what a hell hound was capable of came flooding into my head all at once. Whole caravans wiped out to the last pony by a single hell hound. Even whole squads of Steel Rangers gave these monstrous canines a wide berth. Stories told by a hundred ponies about meeting them in the wasteland, and surviving only because they took the chance to run while it was busy gutting some other pony that had been with them.

Was that how I was going to get out of this? By leaving one of the other two ponies with me to die?

I vote for the unicorn, Whiplash posed thoughtfully, I don't think she'd look as good wearing that little satin number that Windfall had on the other day...

Not helping.

Neither was my hesitation. All of our hesitating. I didn't know if everypony was waiting for a cue from me, our group's defacto leader, or if they were simply rendered paralyzed by the same fear that gripped me, but neither Foxglove, nor Windfall had so much as blinked since the enormous canine burst into view.

Maybe that was for the best, in hindsight. Had we attacked it, or run, it might have simply murdered us all right there on the spot. Instead, it just sniffed at our still forms, and then turned to look down at the gathered radroaches. All of which, for whatever reason, had chosen not to scatter at the sound of the commotion. Those things would run screaming from a buzzing egg timer, but they were completely oblivious to a fucking hell hound?

Then the thing spoke, which, I honestly didn't know they could do, “how are Mommy's little angels doing today?”

What.

My jaw went slack. I had indeed begun to suspect that the radroaches were being kept as pets, but I would never have guess that their owner would turn out to be a hell hound. I'd actually suspected some crazy wasteland pony that was going to pop out soon and try to kill us all. Naturally, a mere pony that had been touched in the head wouldn't do for Celestia. No, only a fucking hell hound would do for my divine punishment.

And 'punished' was just what we were about to be, once 'Mommy' discovered that one of her pets had been squished by the ponies intruding on her home. Windfall might well survive her ire, being gifted with the power to hover above this towering terror, but I somehow suspected that even though Foxglove and I weren't directly responsible, it wouldn't save us from become the 'next best thing' for the hell hound to vent its frustrations on.

“Ooh, did my babies get hungry and raid the pantry again?” the hell hound continued to coo, “naughty, naughty!”

Great, it was crazy too. Because a sane hell hound wouldn't have been dangerous enough, would it, Celestia?

We needed to leave. Now.

I reached over and nudged Foxglove, who jerked suddenly but managed to clamp her mouth shut before screaming aloud. I nodded vigorously towards the exit until she began to catch on and the two of us started to slowly back away. Windfall would hopefully catch on to the plan without needing to be told directly. It was a very simple plan, after all: run, the fuck. Away.

Indeed, Windfall did notice our slow withdrawal from the warehouse, and she even deigned to come with us. She took off from her perch and started to quietly flutter in the direction of the door.

Which was when the corpse of the radroach she'd stomped on earlier became dislodged from the top of the crane and tumbled to the ground. Right at the feet of the hell hound.

We all froze. Again.

The canine stared at the carcass, and bent down to get a closer look. I saw the hairs on its back bristle as it took in a deep breath. As large as it had been before, the hell hound somehow seemed to grow even larger now as it spun around.

Oh, horseapples.

She fixed the three of us with a deathly glare and demanded in a low grumbling snarl that grew with each word until it was a tooth-rattling howl, “who. Killed. Misses BOOTS?!”

She didn't wait for an answer, which was fine, since none of us intended on providing one, “scatter!”

Everypony responded to my command, which was a good sign, as it meant that the three of us lived a full three seconds longer that we had any right to. Winfall soared up, naturally. I dove to the left. Foxglove took the right. Mommy's opening leap took her right down the middle. The pegasus and I, being of like mind and tactics, turned as we moved and brought our weapons to bear. Full Stop bucked in my mouth, and Windfall's twin submachine guns burped a storm of bullets at the massive dark blur of death that had lunged past us.

It was hard to distinguish any screams of pain from among the roars of rage coming from the hell hound, and when it hit the ground, the canine kept right on going...into the ground. All that was left was a gaping hole in the ground, and an ominous growling that seemed to reverberate through the whole building. We certainly hadn't killed the thing. I hoped that our weapons would make it think twice about a second attack, but I doubted we could possibly be that lucky.

Lucky ponies did not unexpectedly find themselves in hell hound lairs.

Besides, I was still tracking its blip with my pipbuck. The crimson tick mark hovering in my field of view darted to the left and circled around behind us. Now was our chance to make a run for the exit.

“This way, come on!” I charged ahead. Windfall flew above me, and Foxglove came galloping back over. I glanced back over my shoulder to continue tracking the hell hound. Its blip was still directly behind us. Of course, this was the moment that I remembered the pipbuck's EFS tracked direction. Elevation and distance were a mystery left up to the user to discover.

That mean that the hellhound could be anywhere from a hundred yards off to...

The blip suddenly whipped to the side and vanished from view. Which could only mean that the hell hound had just moved past me and was now in front of us. If her initial appearance was any indication, I knew what would come next.

“Look out!” I leaped to the side, tackling the unicorn mare running beside me tot he ground. The pair of us hit hard, neither really expecting the contact. We rolled away in an unceremonious tangle of hooves. At the same moment, the ground where we would have been a second later exploded upward in a shower of dirt and stone. The emergent hell hound snarled and swiped at empty air, which only served to bolster her rage.

Automatic gunfire spackled the canine's backside as Windfall swooped in low for a strafe. The hell hound yowled in annoyance and turned to face her attacker, pawing at the air with her massive claws. The pegasus bobbed deftly out of the way and offered another burst right in the monster's face. This too, she shrugged off effortlessly.

We were in a bad way. Windfall was alright, safe above the threat that loomed over the pair of us. However, it was obvious that we needed weapons with a lot more killing power that the flier's pistol caliber slugs. I readied the revolver in my mouth and lined up a shot with the back of Mommy's head. Two quick pulls of the trigger sent the firearm reeling in my teeth. The impacts sent the beast doubling over.

For a brief moment, I mentally celebrated. Two rounds to the skull from the miniature cannon in my mouth was enough to turn the head of any foe we'd ever faced in the Wasteland into so much pink mist. Surely they could even put down something like...this...

Mommy turned around slowly and deliberately, and glared at me with a look that emphasized her lack of amusement at being shot in the back, even if it had been to no significant effect.

Full Stop, a revolver that fired lead slugs that were larger than any standard rifle I'd ever come across, was hooves-down the most powerful weapon that our little band possessed in the form of pure stopping and killing power. I'd seen it pierce the thick chitin hides of radscorpions bigger than I was, pierce the thick metal skins of roboponies, and rip through even the most heavily armored raiders in the Wasteland. Yet, against this hell hound, I may have been shooting spit wads.

We. Were. Fucked.

Myself especially if I didn't move. Now!

I broke into a run. This time I wasn't heading for the door though. There wasn't any point. The hell hound had already proven that she was capable of moving a lot more quickly under the ground that the three of us were on top of it. We couldn't outrun her, which meant that we had to outfight her...somehow. I hadn't figured that much out quite yet. Nothing we had was going to be enough, and unless the ponies that had once worked here had kept a few rocket launchers handy...

There was an awful lot of large machinery around here though. Maybe if we could use some of it to, I don't know, crush her or something? Not that I though any of it was operational at this precise moment, of course. However, we did have a demonstratively tech-savvy unicorn in our midst, so...it was a plan, at least.

Mommy dove in my direction, but I could see instantly that she was going to fall well short of me. He intent was to burrow through the floor and come up under me later. I guess that was her preferred method of attack or something. Effective, since it made her significantly more difficult to track, even with the aid of the EFS. The only time we could even get any shots off at her was when she surfaced for her attack...which would be imminent.

That didn't leave much time for coordinating with the others. I darted from side to side as I made my way towards the old dozer hulk, “our guns are useless, Windy, save your ammo,” if we survived this, we might need those rounds for more conventional threats later, “Foxglove, can you get this dozer working? Or maybe the crane?”

I glanced towards the unicorn, and saw her utterly flabbergasted expression as she stared at the pieces of equipment that I'd pointed out, “sure, just give me a few weeks to rebuild the engines and put them back together,” she jabbed her hoof at the crane, “that thing doesn't even have ts engine in it at the moment,” the lavender mare shouted incredulously, “what, do you think I can just magic stuff like that back together?!”

I blinked, “can't you?”

“No!”

Well, how the hell was I supposed to know that? Didn't unicorns have a spell for nearly everything? A red blip darted from one side of me gaze to the other nearly instantly. Time to move! I jumped into the cab of the dozer just as a massive set of claws burst up through the floor where I'd been standing and took a swipe at empty air. The rest of the hell hound was quick to follow her paw out of the ground. She must have seen me climb up the side of the derelict machinery, because another sweep of her claws ripped the top right off the thing.

Maybe these things wouldn't be all that effective a weapon against Mommy after all, if she was capable of ripping through them like tissue paper. So, I needed another new plan...and a new hiding place too. I dove out the other side and started running for the crane. Get up high and wait for her to got to sleep or something. Not a spectacular plan, but I was getting pretty desperate right about now.

Behind me, I heard a howl that was interrupted by the sound of shattering concrete. Mommy was underground again.

“Can you at least build a really big gun or something?!” I demanded of the unicorn as I kept running, “isn't that why we're here?”

“What is wrong with you?!” Foxglove demanded, “I can't just through something like that together in a couple minutes. And even if I could, how would I make the ammo, genius? Do you see any jars of gunpowder lying around?”

“Isn't there anything you can do?” that was Windfall, that time.

“Why am I the go-to pony here?!”

I jumped up onto the crane and started climbing as furiously as I could. Hopefully, Mommy would have trouble climbing this thing. She was a digger after all, not a climber. Right?

The pegasus swooped about, keeping her eyes on the ground as she supply an answer to Foxglove's question, “because nothing the two of us have works on this thing, and you said you used to make thing in you stable whenever the ponies there didn't have what they needed. Well, we need a big gun, or a bomb, or something. Soon!”

“I can't make explosives from rusted out husks of-!” the unicorn drew up short, blinked, and then started darting about the edges of the warehouse, scouring the cabinets.

I was halfway up the crane when I realized that it had been a while since the hell hound had shown herself. Shouldn't she have burst out the ground directly beneath me or something by now? I glanced at my EFS, searching for her red blip. The radroaches had long since vanished, not keen on all the gunfire and roaring apparently. So there was only the single blip...and it was in Foxglove's direction.

“Foxglove, look out!” I yelled out, not even sure what I was expecting her to do. She didn't have a pipbuck, so she couldn't see any blips hovering in front of her eyes. That unicorn was no slouch though, she instantly stopped rooting through a drawer that she'd pulled open and sprinted along the wall as fast as her legs would carry her. In her mouth was a small tube and what looked like a massive hoof-file. In her wake, an eruption of chunks of cement and benches as the hell hound came up right where she'd been standing.

This could be my chance, I thought for a moment. I'd heard tales of hell hounds from ponies who'd survived by leaving somepony else behind to die. Foxglove could be that somepony for me. It's not like I hadn't tried to save us all. It's not my fault that canine is tougher than Full Stop. Windfall would even understand, in time. All I had to do was run for the exit.

And so I did. I jumped down off the crane and started running for the open doorway. I kept an eye over my shoulder, watching to see if Mommy changed her mind and decided that it was still me that she wanted to kill first. However, it was looking like lavender unicorns were at the top of menu now. The hell hound dropped back into the hole that she'd just created, and I saw the red blip begin moving after Foxglove once more. I was home free! I'd hopefully be far enough away by the time that thing finished off Foxglove that she wouldn't even bother coming after me. Windfall was safe, of course, being in the air and all.

Then I heard a clatter of gunfire. I looked around once again, and saw that Windfall was shooting a short burst at the floor between Foxglove and the red tick that was the hell hound. Not having any EFS, she couldn't know where the hell hound was precisely, and I could tell that the pegasus had missed her mark by more than a fair margin. Not that 10mm pistol rounds were going to penetrate deep into the cement floor anyway.

What was that crazy pegasus doing? A moment later, I had my answer as Mommy tore up through the floor where those bullets had struck, swiping at empty air. She looked around, confused when she notice how far off her mark she had been. Then another spray of 10mm rounds splattered her in the face. Her furious eyes locked onto Windfall as the flier kept the hell hound's attention with burst of gunfire separated by lewd generalizations about hell hound paternity.

Windfall was buying Foxglove time to escape, not that the unicorn seemed intent on following me out the exit anyway. She was currently charging around from one cabinet to another while the hovering file enveloped in her emerald telekinetic field hurriedly rubbed against the rusted frame of an old dozer door. What was that about?

Whatever. It didn't matter. The unicorn could do whatever she liked in her last moments. I just had to escape while I could and wait for Windfall to meet with me later after she'd failed to save Foxglove. That in mind...

“Leave her alone, you big meanie!”

The hell hound cowered away from the burst of submachine gun rounds that followed those words. At first, I thought that maybe the pegasus had finally struck a blow to the behemoth. Had she found some small vulnerability after all? No, wait...the canine wasn't hurt. She was just reaching for a nearby chunk of concrete that she had shattered when she'd burst up through the floor. What was she going to do with tha-?

“Windfall, look out!”

My warning came too late. I watched in horror as the hell hound whipped the hunk of concrete through the air, directly at the hovering pegasus. Windfall was so surprised, secure in the safety that she enjoyed out of reach of the large beast, that she didn't make any effort to evade the rocky missile. The debris shattered upon impact, exploding into a shower of gravel and dust. Windfall was thrown back by the blow, her stunned body careening into the far wall. A thunderous CRACK issued throughout the building as the feathered mare slammed against a steel support and then feel limply to the ground.

I stood, in stunned silence, staring at the unmoving white mare. Any moment now, she was certain the pull herself back up onto her hooves and take to the air once more. She had to. Right?

Crimson blood began to spread over the left side of her face from a gash in her head. The red stain was growing with alarming speed. That was a good sign though, right? That meant that her heart was still beating, pumping blood through her body. It meant that she wasn't dead. Right?

Pfft. You know she's gone, Whiplash commented idly from the back of my mind, and so what if she is? This is what you were waiting for, wasn't it: somepony to die so that you could make your escape. So, make with the escape already.

It wasn't supposed to be her.

Windfall, Foxglove, what's the difference? A dead mare's a dead mare. Now hoof it, that was Steel Bit, sounding dismissive as always.

And so I hoofed it. I ran. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me.

I ran right at that fucking hell hound bitch.

Full Stop was in my mouth, firing away. Only three rounds remained in the cylinder, and I sent all of them into that beast's head. At this distance and speed, my aim wasn't what it could have been, and only one of the rounds actually struck my target. Like the others before, it failed to penetrate, but the strike certain drew her attention. When the hammer feel with a hollow 'click' on a spent chamber, I holstered the weapon and drew my semi-automatic instead. These slug were half the weight of the rounds that the revolver fired, but I didn't want to waste the time reloading.

The slide bobbed back and forth as I squeezed the trigger as fast as the pistol would allow, sending a steady flow of 9mm bullets at Mommy's head. If she had a soft spot, it would have to be there. I refused to believe that her eyeballs and ear holes were as resistant to bullets as the rest of her was proving to be. The canine snarled at my approach, but she kept her claw-tipped paws in close to her, using them to protect her head from my incessant shots. This reaction only spurred me to press my attack further.

I was only a few yards away when I felt the slide lock back on the spent pistol. I was committed now though, and there wasn't time to swap in a fresh magazine. If I hesitated for even a second, the hell hound would just have to reach out and casually shred me into pieces with one swipe of her razor-sharp claws. I couldn't stop, I couldn't turn away.

And I wasn't going to. This fucking bitch had killed Windfall. She was going to die for that. Even if I was going to have to do it by ripping her apart with my bear hooves.

The gun fell from my mouth, forced out by a cry that I had not uttered in a great many years. A guttural yell that had been honed over countless generations to evoke fear and despair in all who heard it across the Neighvada valley. The war cry of the White Hooves. I don't even think I meant to do it. It just flowed from my subconscious, borne from a raw desire that I'd not had in a long time: I wanted this thing dead.

I'd killed a lot of ponies in my life, but it had never really been anything personal. They had something I wanted, and killing them was the simplest way to get it. Or they were trying to kill me, and their deaths meant that I'd be safe. Neither of those circumstances applied hear. I wanted this hell hound dead, because feeling her bones crushed beneath my hooves was the only thing that would have a chance of easing the pain that was threatening to rip my insides apart.

Windfall was dead. So Mommy had to die too.

I lashed out with hoof and fetlock, striking at the canine's raised arms in an effort to sweep them aside and get at the vulnerabilities of her face. For what seemed like the longest moment, the hell hound simply stood there, cowering away from my strikes without reprisal. It was as though she was so surprised that a pony had charged to engage her in close combat that she was not completely certain how to respond. It didn't last of course. She was far larger than I was, and certainly stronger. It wouldn't take much for the hell hound to overpower me, and she knew it.

My body twisted in mid-air as I landed the last kick in my opening salvo and began my inevitable descent to the ground. I could hear the monster behind me grunting with rage, and the moment I hit the ground I fell to my belly and rolled to the right as forcefully as I could. It wasn't a very graceful roll, and I felt my left ankle slam hard against the concrete as a result, but I had correctly anticipated the hell hound's response. I heard the sound of her massive claws raking the floor where I had landed.

Once more I was on my feet, sprinting around to come at her side. Mommy was still sitting in the burrow that she had created the last time she had burst from the floor, which kept her torso lower to the ground than in might otherwise have been had she been walking around on the surface. Again I flung myself into the air, unleashing a series of jabs at her shoulder and neck. The hell hound recoiled slightly at the hits, but I didn't feel as though I had inflicted any truly serious injuries. It was more akin to the reaction of somepony becoming annoyed by a small insect bumping into their face. I certainly felt that I was accomplishing that little in the way of injury. She was just so much larger than I was, and her hide felt like asphalt against my strikes.

Her arm flew backwards in an effort to bat me aside, but I was ready for that response and deftly pushed myself off of her and away from the blow. The moment I landed, I was in motion again, galloping even further around the larger canine. I launched attacks, felt my hooves connect with her flesh, and then darted out of reach time and again. My fury grew with every blow as I continued to sense that all of my efforts were simply futile little pecks that would never in a thousand years ever take down this behemoth. Yet I continued to press my assault regardless.

Windfall was dead.

I would kick, and punch, and bite this thing for as long as it took. I would use every maneuver that I knew, use every trick and tactic I'd ever learned, and I would find some way to hurt this thing. She. Would. Die.

Something large and firm connected with the side of my body. Every ounce of breath evacuated my lungs as I was swatted aside by a massive sweep of the hell hound's arm that I hadn't seen coming. I bounced several times along the floor, rolling along in a tangle of legs until an errant workbench finally provided a backstop by which to halt my impromptu voyage across the warehouse. The force of the impact sent the contents of my saddlebags sprawling across the floor. No big deal. It wasn't like anything in there was going to help me in this fight anyway.

Somehow, in a fit of coughs, I managed to get back up onto unsteady legs and face the hell hound. The pipbuck's screen confirmed what every nerve in my body was telling me: I was in a bad way. I felt something wet on my chin and wiped at it with the back of my hoof. Looking down, I saw a smear of fresh blood matting my fur. My mouth was one of the few parts of me that didn't hurt though. Given how painful each breath was, and the soreness in the right side of my chest, the likely source was a punctured lung.

Mommy was glaring in my direction, her claws flexing in anticipation of tearing into pony flesh. I returned her stare, my eyes filled with a desire for blood and death that mirrored her own. My entire body was one giant ball of pain, and it was obvious that nothing I could possibly do to the hell hound was going to affect her in any way, but I didn't care.

Windfall was dead.

“Jackboot, are you alright?”

The proximity of the voice caught me off guard. I didn't need to glance back to know that it was Foxglove though; and I certainly wasn't about to take my eyes off of Mommy.

“Get out of here,” I wheezed, still not having fully recovered my breath yet. Talking also hurt about as much as breathing did with the state that my ribs were in.

“But-”

“Leave!” I snarled, which quickly devolved into a fit of agonizing coughs that filled my mouth with the taste of blood. My eyes glanced momentarily at the ground, and I could see a faint spray of red flecks. Whatever. Something told me that it wasn't internal bleeding that was going to kill me in the next few seconds.

Without another word to the lavender mare, I charged the hell hound. My legs protested every moment, and my lungs screamed with every breath I took. The canine looked completely unconcerned with my approach, and why should she be? What was I going to do, bleed on her? Probably.

I saw her paw rising up into the air as I neared, ready to come down and finish off the pathetic little earth pony stallion that was so stupidly charging her head-on. The move left her completely exposed to any attack I could have wanted to inflict on her. Nothing I could do would kill her, but the prospect of leaving the hell hound with a black eye or bloody nose to remember me by tickled my fancy a little. I leaped into the air and willed the world around me to pause.

SATS engaged and the downward swipe of Mommy's claws halted.

I set up a string of as many strikes at the hell hound's head as I could, and then I hesitated. I didn't know if SATS ever eventually disengaged on its own and resumed time at its normal pace without a command from the pipbuck's user, but I knew from experience that I did have at least some time to contemplate my surroundings. So I took the time to simply stare at the hell hound. Her eyes were locked on me, little yellow beads drilling into my soul. I could see now, with time to really take it in, that all of the gunfire up to this point hadn't been completely useless. There were actually a couple of visible grazes that had left thin lines of blood in their wake.

That made me feel a little better, I guess. I certainly wasn't feeling great at the moment. I was going to be dead a couple seconds after leaving SATS after all. My eyes wandered over to where Windfall's body lay in a crumpled heap. You stupid little filly. Why couldn't you have just flown away? That was all you had to do. Just...fly away. We could have escaped, gone back to the way things were with just the two of us. Had that been so bad?

Deep down, I knew why she had done what she did. Windfall wasn't one to leave somepony else in trouble. Nothing would have compelled her to leave while Foxglove was in peril. I glanced back towards the unicorn, expecting to see the mare galloping towards the door. Only she wasn't. That pony was standing a short distant behind me, her eyes focused intently on the hell hound.

You have got to be fucking shitting me. Really? It wasn't enough that Windfall and I died fighting this thing, she felt obligated to die as well? Well, shit. So, none of us were leaving here. Great. What was she even going to fight with? I didn't see a gun in her mouth, or even any sort of weapon hovering nearby.

Her horn was glowing though. So...that meant that she was manipulating something with her magic. Only, I couldn't see anything...oh. My eyes locked onto a small metal cylinder that was floating behind me a short distance away. It was an odd locking contraption. A piece of pipe that had one of my flares duct-tapped to it. The flare had been ignited and its orange flame was mid-sputter over the front end of the tube, which I now noticed had a small hole drilled into it.

Had...had she actually managed to build a bomb? Well...fuck. That, actually changed a few things. I looked back at the hell hound and rescinded the attacks that I had planned. With my own body interposed between the canine and the bomb, there was no way that Mommy knew what was coming her way just behind me. She would be caught off guard entirely. I couldn't know that the explosive would be immediately lethal, but I doubted that Foxglove would have bothered throwing it if she wasn't at least a little confident that it would inflict some injury. All it really had to do was make the hell hound back off long enough for us to get away.

So, instead, I looked to the set of claws descending towards me and focused my attacks on them instead. That paw was massive enough that it could unintentionally swat the bomb aside when it hit me. I paused before confirming my attack with SATS to glance at the hell hound's face. She'd killed Windfall. If Celestia was watching over anything in the Wasteland, I sincerely hoped that it was this moment, and that she would allow justice to be served.

Let this monster die, Celestia. Not for me, you know I don't deserve to ask on my own behalf. Let it be for Windfall.

I mentally confirmed my attack and felt time resume its normal pace. The arm once more started descending towards me. I brought my forehooves together over my head and swung them around, striking the hell hound's wrist with every once of strength that I had left. It didn't do as much as I'd hoped, but I did at least succeed in diverting the path of the canine's blow away from my own body. The momentum of the hit pushed me to the side, and on my way back down to the ground, I offered up a smirk to the snarling beast. I was rewarded with a brief look of confusion as she watched me fall away towards the ground. Then her face was bathed in a bright white light.

The sudden illumination drew my attention as well as the hell hound's. I saw that the tube that Foxglove had thrown was spitting and sputtering, spraying out a shower of brilliant white sparks. What kind of bomb had she thrown exactly that behaved like that? It hadn't misfired, had it? That horrifying thought started to fill my mind, causing panic to creep at my thoughts. This was it, our one chance at surviving this. I certainly didn't have the energy to throw myself into another attack after this.

The hell hound cringed away from the sputtering tube, more due to the brightness of it than any real fear of the damage that it might inflict I imagined. Then I saw the entire cylinder evaporate, becoming a brilliant ball of white that fell upon the canine like a gentle shower. Only, it wasn't actually so gentle, as it turned out. Wherever the sputtering material fell, it began to burn and smolder. The hell hound screamed with an ear-splitting wail as the remnants of Foxglove's bomb splashed against the beast's face and chest. The creature flailed and pawed at the sizzling material, only to pull her paws away with renewed cries of agony. I saw that her paws had managed to become covered with some of the sputtering white material, and it was turning them black as it burned through her fingers and claws.

Mommy writhed and screamed for several long seconds in an effort to shake the substance from her body, but by now it was too late, wherever it had contacted her flesh, it had burned deep into her tissue, meeting organ and bone and continuing on its way even deeper into her body. Finally, the hell hound withdrew into the hole that she was standing it, howls echoing throughout the warehouse from the open end of the tunnel, growing fainter with every passing second.

I stood for a long while, staring in stunned silence at the empty hole. Was...was that it? Had we just won? If that was the case, I'd never encountered a victory that made me feel so hollow inside. What the fuck was I supposed to do now?

From behind me, I heard the sound of hooves clattering on concrete. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Foxglove running in the direction that Windfall had fallen. The sight of the unicorn going to the pegasi's side suddenly filled me with rage. It was that damn unicorn's fault that she was dead. Like fuck I was going to let her anywhere near Windfall. I sprang after her, pushing the pain I was feeling to the back of my mind. I'd deal with all of that later.

I lowered my head and slammed into the side of the unicorn, hurling her roughly to the ground just short of the pegasus. Foxglove screamed in pain and surprise, not expecting my attack. She rolled away, staggering to her feet, looking at me with wide, confused, eyes.

“What was that for?!”

“Stay the fuck away from her,” I growled, moving in between the unicorn and Windfall's body, “it's your fault she's dead,” I spat at the lavender mare, “don't you fucking dare touch her.”

Foxglove opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her eyes darted between me and the pegasus. The unicorn's green eyes teared up and she looked away, no longer able to meet my gaze. She swallowed before finally finding the words that had failed her only moments before, “...she's dead?”

“Of course she's fucking dead! Didn't you see that hit?!” I shrieked at the mare, who cowered away even further. Once again I descended into a fit of frothing coughs. I felt my legs start to give out as well, but I refused to go down quite yet. Silence echoed through the warehouse as neither of us said anything immediately afterward. The unicorn kept her head bowed under my piercing glare. Her horn started to glow though, and a potion levitated over to me from the scatter mess around my saddlebags that lay nearby. My ire started to ebb away slowly as the silence and waning adrenaline gave my mind the time it needed to truly process what was going on.

Still glaring at the unicorn, I took the potion and drank it down. Breathing became a little easier, but my chest continued to ache.

I wanted so much to blame this unicorn for what happened to Windfall. She was the one who brought us here. She was the one who ran off on her own away from the group. She was the one that Windfall had died defending. I needed this to be her fault.

But it wasn't. The hell hound killed Windfall. Foxglove couldn't have known about Mommy any more than I could have. That reality didn't do much to make me feel any better. But it did defuse most of my rage, if not my grief. The hell hound had been dealt with. No red dots remained on my EFS, just the two yellow ticks that repressented the pair of mares with me.

...wait.

I stared at Windfall's body, unable to move as my mind processed what I was seeing. The pipbuck displayed a yellow blip that lined up perfectly with the pegasus. That...that could only mean...

“She's alive?!”

Nothing could have masked the surprise in my voice. I'd seen with my own eyes Windfall get hit with a shard of stone as big as she was and get thrown halfway across the warehouse. She had not moved since. I'd not even thought to consult the pipbuck's EFS to determine whether or not she'd survived the blow. Yet, the magical device on my foreleg insisted that the young mare had indeed lived through the ordeal.

Even Foxglove perked up almost instantly, “she's alive?” she took a hesitant step towards us, but then thought better of it, given my previous reaction, which I considered a wise move on her part. I may not have been as pissed as I was a couple minutes ago, but that unicorn was certainly not my favorite pony right now.

I dug into Windfall's own saddlebags and withdrew a pair of healing potions. I held them to the young flier's lips and slowly poured them into her mouth, encouraged to see that she seemed to swallow them. As close as I was now, I could see her breathing as well. It was shallow and slow, but it was breath.

“Windy? Can you hear me?” my voice trembled as I spoke. I could see no change in her condition, despite the potions I'd given her. She had to be better though, right? Those potions had to have done something for her. She didn't stir though. Her eyes didn't open, her ears didn't twitch at the sound of my voice. Nothing.

“Windy?” I dug around for a third potion and was about to give it to the pegaus when it was suddenly snatched from my hooves by a green glow. I whirled on the unicorn standing nearby and snarled at her, “what the fuck? Give that back!”

I lunged for the potion, but my limbs still ached horribly, and I hissed in pain as the leap that I had intended was reduced to a feeble hop that gained me hardly any distance at all. It seemed that the potion I'd drunk hadn't done all that much for my health either. Foxglove calmly took a couple steps back, keeping the potion close to her. She met my gaze now.

“You're just wasting them.”

“She's hurt!”

“And these won't make her any better,” the mare insisted sternly, “she needs a real doctor.”

I glared at the mare, but I didn't offer up another demand. She was right. Except for minor cuts and shallow wounds, healing potions were little more than stop-gaps when it came to treatment. Sure, they'd stop bleeding well enough, but serious conditions required either skilled medical ponies or special, hard to find, drugs. A shot of Hydra might do something for Windfall, but we didn't have any.

Speaking of more potent drugs, a shot of Med-X would not go amiss right about now...

Not that we even had any of that, I didn't think. Next time we were in Seaddle, I was going to make sure to invest in a hardy supply of meds. Seaddle was actually a good idea for a next destination. The medical facilities there were second-to-none in Neighvada. If anypony could do something for Windfall, they'd be there. I glanced down at the pipbuck on my arm and consulted the map. Four days, maybe five with my injuries and having to carry Windfall.

I wasn't looking forward to the journey. We were pretty far west at this point. That brought us dangerously close to White Hoof territory, and we were in no condition for a fight. We could try taking a safer route, swinging east and then north...but that would nearly double our travel time. My eyes wandered to the young flier nearby. She was alive, but was she stable? Would she survive over a week wandering the Wasteland? The potions proved that she was capable of drinking small amounts of fluids, but eating...there was no way. She'd get weaker every day from hunger, and that wouldn't do much to improve her condition.

A heavy sigh escaped my lips. We had to risk it.

“We're heading for Seaddle,” I informed the unicorn, “help me get Windfall on my back.”

I bent down and nudged one of Windfall's forelegs up onto my neck. The movement elicited a wince and a groan. My limbs ached horribly, and my ribs insisted that there existed far too many fractures to safely support the weight of another pony on my back. Foxglove immediately noticed my obvious limitations and spoke up.

“Wait! I'm not sure that carrying her on your back is such a good idea.”

“I'm fine,” I lied, hissing once more. I had to get Windfall to Seaddle.

“But Windfall isn't,” the lavender mare snipped at me, stepping in front of me and fixing me with a look of concern, “she's hurt, badly. All that jostling might make her injuries worse!”

I glared at the unicorn, “then what do you suggest?”

“Give me a little time,” she pleaded, “I can make something for her to ride on that should keep her comfortable.”

My eyes shifted between Windfall and the other mare. Did we have time to wait? Mommy might not have been the only hell hound around. She may not even be dead. If she came back and we were still here...

Oh, who the fuck was I kidding? It wasn't like I could carry the pegasus anyway. I could barely walk on my own as it was, “fine,” I sighed, allowing myself to collapse to the ground beside Windfall. The relief that I felt was mired by the pain in my ribs as they came into contact with the ground. Overall though, the discomfort was lessened by laying down, “do whatever you want.”

The mare stood over us for a few long seconds, and then trotted off to begin rummaging through the warehouse for whatever it was that she figured she needed for her little project. I paid little attention to the mare's activities. Instead, I just lay my head down and let it rest up against one of Windfall's hooves.

You're so pathetic.

Shut up, Whiplash.

What the hell was that back there? One little filly gets hurt and suddenly you're ready to go out in a blaze of glory?

Shut. Up.

She's got you whipped and you ain't even fucked her yet. Pathetic.

My teeth starting grinding together as the frustration mounted. The voice wouldn't stop, and there didn't seem like there was anything that I could do to make it go away this time. The piss yellow mare from my past wore an ugly smirk as she mocked my actions.

I can't believe that you thought you could rule the White Hooves. I did you a favor by running you off.

I buried my head under my hooves and seethed with rage at the voice. Why wouldn't she stop? Why couldn't I make her stop?

You'd have taken your first brood slave and become her little bitch. That slave would have been ruling the White Hooves then, I bet. Pa. Theh. Tic.

How do I make you shut up?!

Be honest.

A pair of jade eyes flashed through my mind for the briefest of seconds, and then vanished. I blinked. What?

Whiplash's commentary of the sorry state of my character continued, You don't honestly think you deserved the White Hooves, do you? What kind of leader would try to feed himself to a hell hound just because some stupid cunt got herself hurt?

If she's too stupid to see a hopeless situation when one's staring her right in the face, she deserves to die. And so do you.

Pathetic.

My rage at my sibling's incessant berating subsided rather suddenly. She was right. I was pathetic. I'd been ready to let myself die just because I thought Windfall was gone. What could have been more pathetic than that? I lose one traveling companion, and I'm ready to cash in. I'd lost far more than that before and carried on. Windfall wasn't that important.

Be honest.

An orange haze pulled at the corner of my vision for a brief moment, and then was gone. I shook my head. How badly was I hurt? Must have taken a blow to the head or something.

And I was being honest. Whiplash was right. Windfall shouldn't matter to me like I'd let her. I hadn't fucked her, and I probably never would. She was reckless and had almost no foresight. She risked her life for strangers with no regard to either hers or mine own safety. She was a liability, despite all my efforts to raise her otherwise. There was nothing special about her. There was nothing worthwhile about her. The advantage that her flight offered me wasn't worth everything else that I was putting up with.

There was nothing I needed from this mare.

Be honest!

I felt the sudden sensation of being mentally double-bucked upside the head by a blow that almost sent me reeling in the physical world.

My eyes shot open in surprise. Whiplash was gone. I could no longer hear her spewing venomous words eating away at me. Beside me, I could feel Windfall's breath gently brushing up against my cheek. My lips parted as I looked at the young mare resting next to me. Feelings started to well up inside me as I looked at her, ones that threatened to soften my new-found resolve. I pushed them aside and buried them deep.

Windfall was a liability. I didn't need her.

Be. Honest.

No. I can't afford to be.

Footnote: ...

Thank you so much for reading! As always, a thumbs up and comment are always greatly appreciated

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