“Restoring the greatest country in the world to its former glory, well, heh heh... Well, that takes time...”

This first excursion was just going to be to track down whatever lair those strange unicorns operated out of. After all, they'd managed to overrun a whole Stable with very little effort; going up against that sort of of an opponent with just myself and a wrench wench was only going to end one way: quickly. Once we knew where they were coming from, we could start recruiting the necessary help to wipe them out for good. That was certainly a prospect that I wasn’t looking forward to. Finding the funds to hire that many mercenaries…it'd be a wonder if we could pull it off before they wiped out the whole valley.

All of that was Future Windfall’s problem though. Right now, Present Windfall just needed to get herself to the markets to gather enough supplies for the trip and make sure that Foxglove understood why I was changing our plans. Present Windfall was also faced with a minor dilemma in the form of selecting the barding that she was going to wear for the trip. I frowned as I surveyed the two options laid out before me on the bed.

There was my relatively recently acquired leather barding that I’d been wearing for really about a week after having to hock my old armor to pay for Jackboot’s medicine. It was light, but allowed for a lot of maneuverability while in the air, which was a fair trade in my opinion. There was a lot to recommend it in that regard. It was also the barding that I’d been wearing when Cestus…

A shudder rippled down my spine. I wasn’t going to even be able to look at this stuff without feeling that bastard’s lips and hooves all over me. So, I guess that meant I was going to have to get rid of it; and it sure wasn’t going to net me a huge return at the market stalls.

Which sort of left me with the one other option unless I came across something more suitable today while shopping. That was unlikely. There wasn’t exactly a huge market for barding cut to fit a young Pegasus mare in the valley. What I usually picked up in the past often had to be modified, and I didn’t want to take the time going through that process right now. Of course, there were a couple of drawbacks to the Wonderbolt barding that was lying on the bed. It was flashy, it was lacking in basically any worthwhile protection, and it was very recognizable. Perhaps not an ideal quality once those stallions from last night spread the word around the Lancers about the little filly that showed them up and robbed them.

It did have enough of those loose straps and metal D-rings that hooking my battlesaddle up to it wouldn’t be an issue though. The portions around the legs even already accommodated a pipbuck. That wasn’t a lot to recommend it, but at least my skin didn’t crawl when I so much as looked at it. Some heads were certainly going to turn though.

As I drifted through the air about the crowded streets of New Reino, I found that I was able to deal quite fine with the turning heads. The snickering got on my nerves a little bit though. I was very seriously considering slathering the barding with a color scheme that didn’t make it look like I was some sort of street performer by the time I finally landed in the market.

“W-Windfall?”

My head turned at the familiar voice, and I spotted a violet mare walking towards me. Her rifle and lance were slung across her back in their respective sheaths and her own utilitarian barding was bristling with a few new tools and trinkets that I didn’t recall noticing before. It seemed that the unicorn had already been quite busy with some shopping.

Her emerald eyes were looking me up and down, ending with a questioning look, “laundry day?”

I rolled my eyes, “yeah, yeah…change of plans: you know those ponies that wiped out that Stable? I think I found where they’re coming from. We’re going to go check it out.”

Foxglove was already having some pretty obvious reservations even without hearing any of the details, “what? I thought you lost their trail back when you tried to follow it a few days ago; what changed?”

“I met a couple of ponies last night,” I decided that it was probably best to omit the details about how this meeting had involved my beating up three members of the mercenary gang that nominally ‘guarded’ the city and stealing all of their stuff, “they told me how they recently survived an attack on their caravan by a bunch of big unicorns with advanced tech,” I flashed her a knowing look, “sound familiar?” I took out my pipbuck and showed the map to her, along with the markers that I’d placed on it, “when I compared that attack with the other two we already knew about, I got a better idea of where they might be coming from.”

Foxglove studied the map with a frown, “I can see where you were going with it…” I heard a ‘but’ in there, “but…” yep, “you’re making a lot of assumptions. We don’t know that these attacks were at any sort of extreme range for them.”

“But if we assume it is, it actually lines up with the tracks I was able to follow last time,” I pointed out to the violet mare, “maybe I’m wrong,” I conceded, “but if I am then all we’ve done is lost a few days wandering around the Wasteland. No big deal. We can just go on our way to Shady Saddles or something,” my lips curled into a wicked little smile at the thought, “but if I’m right…”

“If you’re right, then we’ll be walking into a lot of trouble,” the unicorn pointed out sternly.

“This is just to see if they’re even there,” I said, “if they are, we pull back quick and come up with a plan. If they aren’t, no big deal either. In and out either way. We’ll be fine.”

Foxglove clearly still maintained some minor reservations, but she eventually nodded her head in acquiescence, “alright. In and out,” then she sighed, “I guess that means that we’ll need to pick up some provisions. I was looking forward to a few more nights in a real bed…”

I could certainly empathize with that sentiment. I wasn’t completely recovered from the trials of the last few days; and a week or so of rest would have done me no end of good in that regard. However, I doubted that I was going to get a peaceful night’s rest until I knew one way or the other if those unicorns were really out there. Ponies were in danger as long as they were allowed to roam the valley, and I wasn’t willing to let myself rest until they’d been taken care of. After all, Jackboot hadn’t ever rested when I was in trouble, had he? Come to think of it, I thought with a glance at my barding, it was my understanding that another group that had never rested when threats loomed were the—

“Wonderbolt! Mommy, look! It’s the Wonderbolt!”

Both Foxglove and I whipped out heads around in the direction of the outburst. I immediately spotted a familiar pair of ponies across the market. The smaller of the two was galloping our way, while a mildly exasperated mare trotted after her wayward foal. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught my unicorn companion looking at me with a questioning gaze.

The little pony clamped onto my leg, looking up at me with big round eyes, “hi, Miss Wonderbolt!”

“Hey there…um, Dewdrop, right?” I said as I subtly tried to pry the equine limpet from my leg. Her mother was along in a few more seconds and seemed quite adept at removing her foal, fortunately.

“Sorry about that,” she apologized. The mare looked at me for a second, and then started rummaging through her saddlebags. She emerged with a pouch that jingled with the familiar sound of caps, “I know you said you didn’t want anything; but please take this,” she held the bag out to me.

I didn’t want to take it. Last night hadn’t been about rewards or anything like that. Three assholes were abusing a pair of good ponies, and I wasn’t going to let that happen—I couldn’t let it happen. Taking the caps would just feel wrong to me…

…but I could sense where the mare was coming from. She was—or had been—part of a merchant family. Their types probably didn’t particularly like the feeling of being in somepony else’s debt without making an effort to cover it. She needed me to take those caps in the same way that I’d needed to help her last night. So, as much as I might not have liked the notion, I reached out with a wing and politely took the offered pouch. My eyes widened slightly when I felt the actual heft of the bag.

A message flashed across the upper left corner of my vision, and I gaped when I saw the number. I looked back immediately at the mare, “whoa, that’s way too much!”

The mare smiled, “compared to how much I’d like to be able to give you for what you did, it’s not nearly enough,” she shrugged, “but there’re only so many caps that somepony can safely carry around in a place like this.”

“You lost everything last night,” I pointed out, “I’m sure you need this money more than I do…”

“We’ll be fine,” she insisted, “my husband was a smart stallion when it came to investing,” her eyes grew sadder at the mention of her late spouse, who doubtlessly was lost in the attack on their caravan, “he…well, he knew something like this could always happen. He made sure we’d be looked after if it did,” she nodded at the pouch, “that’s most of what I got for the barding and weapons you gave me last night. The rest will get us back to Seaddle safe and sound.”

She wasn’t going to take no for an answer, that much was clear at this point. Fine then. I wasn’t going to waste these caps though. They wouldn’t be used to buy booze or anything like that. As far as I was concerned, this pile of caps was seed money for when we’d inevitably need to hire those mercs to take on the ponies that had slaughtered this mare’s friends and family. This money would help her whether she liked it or not.

“Alright,” I slipped the pouch into my own bags, “I wish you well.”

“Will we see you again Miss Wonderbolt?” the foal piped up once more.

I bent down and patted the little pony on her head, “it’s a small Wasteland out there, squirt,” I beamed kindly at her, “I’m sure we’ll meet again. Keep your ma safe until then, okay?”

The little filly straightened up and snapped an awkward salute, “yes, ma’am, Miss Wonderbolt, ma’am!”

The mother bid their fairwells and the pair walked off, disappearing into the crowd, leaving me alone once more with a violet unicorn mare that was eyeing me rather curiously, “I take it they were the ponies you ‘met’ last night?”

“Yup.”

“…are you going to tell me what exactly happened during that ‘meeting’?”

“I’d really rather not.”

The unicorn closed her violet eyes and took a deep breath, “Windfall…”

“I was only outnumbered three-to-one,” I defended quickly, “and it was dark out, so they couldn’t even see me!”

“That’s not the point!” she hissed, “you can’t just keep charging into trouble like that—”

“And, what? I was just supposed to let those two get grabbed up and taken who-knows-where to have Celestia-knows-what happen to them?” I snapped back at the mare.

“That’s not fair,” Foxglove replied in a reproachful tone.

“Neither was what was about to happen to those two,” I pointed out, “you’re just going to have to accept that I’m not the type to sit on my wings and let shit happen to good ponies.

“If I was, you’d still be locked up in a cage somewhere.”

Maybe that was a low blow, as the unicorn’s dour expression suggested, but it was the truth. When I’d first spied her running through the valley with a host of stallions in hot pursuit, I hadn’t hesitated to swoop in and save her. Jackboot would have urged caution, or even that we not get involved at all. It wasn’t that he was a bad pony who didn’t care; he was just very leery of getting in too deep when he didn’t know what he might be going up against. That wasn’t the sort that I was though, and I doubted I ever would be.

“So, let’s get some food and Sparkle Colas. We’re going to have a long trip ahead of us.”

Two day later, it was the pipbuck that alerted me to something peculiar before I actually saw anything. A notification—which was something I was slowly starting to get used to—popped up before my eyes that alerted me to a local broadcast of some sort. I very nearly ignored it at first, since I was seeing such alerts quite often as I drifted in and out of range of various radio signals from a myriad of Old World sources. This one caught my attention though, since the label that my pipbuck assigned to it was, ‘encrypted broadcast’.

I tuned my pipbuck’s radio to the prescribed frequency, and was immediately assailed by a torrent of whistles, wails, and static that hurt my ears. I very quickly turned down the volume and descend down to Foxglove so that she could help me to make sense of the noise. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything that the unicorn could do as far as decoding the broadcast, but she did tweak my pipbuck’s settings enough to allow me to hone in on the source of the signal.

An hour later, I found myself perched low on a rocky outcropping as I looked out at a rather grim scene. I’d found them. Well, some of them, at any rate. This couldn’t possibly be anywhere near all of them, since I could only make out about a half dozen individual ponies walking around outside; and the structure that they patrolled couldn’t have held many more than the same number comfortably. What really set my blood boiling was the pile of black pony-sized sacs piled into a neat stack about a hundred yards away from the structure. There must have been hundreds of bodies in them.

Even without the sight of the body bags, there was little doubt that these ponies were part of the group that was terrorizing the valley. They weren’t any sort of rag-tag group either, though that much I had learned from their raid on Stable 137. These ponies were very organized. Each of the ones that I could see was wearing a set of heavy black barding that was emblazoned with the number ‘128’, and was armed with some sort of magical energy rifle. They were also, rather eerily, nearly the same color as well: a steel gray or shade thereof; and their manes were all bleach white. That was quite odd, actually. About as odd as the two horns on each of their foreheads.

I’d glimpsed the video feed from Stable 137. It was different seeing it in real life than it had been on the fuzzy screens. The second horn was significantly smaller than the primary one, lying just below it on the bridge of the nose of those ponies. It had to be some sort of mutation or something from exposure to radiation; but it was strange that all of them would have that exact same deformity in exactly the same way…

Although…it did occur to me now that I was seeing them with my own eyes: maybe these weren’t actually ponies after all. It was entirely possible that we had been wrong and that these weren’t ponies, but that they were actually robots. That would explain the freaky nearly identical colors, and how all of them were so large with their weird horns. Maybe that other little horn was actually an antenna of some sort?

That broadcast I was picking up could be a control frequency…

If that was the case, and there was a lot of evidence to suggest that it was, then maybe I could shut down this little operation with some sort of surgical strike. If I took out the source of the signal that was controlling them, then I wouldn’t need to fight anything, and I could get all the answers I wanted by looking around.

The radio transmitter wasn’t exactly hard to spot, since it was sitting in plain view on one corner of the structure that the six unicorns were patrolling. The building itself was very clearly something that these ponies—er, roboponies—had set up, and not a pre-war building that they were occupying. There was a single small door in the front of it, but no sign of any windows. A generator of some sort was humming along outside near the radio tower.

Maybe if I could take it out, I’d shut everything down…

I looked over my shoulder at the violet unicorn who was currently making her way towards me. She could at least spy the tip of the transmission tower from where she was, and clearly didn’t like the idea that we were so close to these ponies. In fact, she was quite clear on what she wanted to do right now when she got up next to me, “great, they’re here. Can we go now?”

“Not yet,” I whispered back, not that I thought any of those things would really hear us from this distance even if we spoke in our normal voices. It seemed to at least make the unicorn feel better though, “I think we can take them out.”

“Windfall!” the mare hissed, “you promised me ‘in and out’! That isn’t ‘in and out’.”

True, but, “I think they might actually be robots,” I told her, “look at them,” I nodded my head over the outcropping of rocks and Foxglove reluctantly took a peek, “regular ponies don’t act like that, or look that identical.”

“No,” she conceded reluctantly, “they usually don’t. How does that change anything?”

“What if they’re controlled by that radio tower?”

“What if they’re not?”

That was also a fair point. However, I did have a rebuttal as I pointed a pinion at my submachine guns, “then I’ll just hammer them with pulse rounds. Too easy.”

“Windfall, please. In and out; you said that was all we’d do,” the mare pleaded with me, looking more concerned as she took a second look at the ponies below, “there’s too many of them down there; and we don’t know how many more are inside!”

I craned my head and squinted at the lower bar hovering in front of my eyes, “…three. There are just three more red blips and,” my eyes went wide. Something had moved inside the building and revealed that crimson blips weren’t the only markers that existed in the area, “yellow blip!” I hissed at the mare, “there’s a yellow blip! Somepony’s still alive in there.”

Foxglove bit her lip, taking a third look at the building; but it was clear that she recognized how any further protest she could think to give would be a wasted effort on me. She’d be right, of course. I couldn’t just stand by and let that yellow blip turn into another black bag in that distant pile. There wasn’t any telling what sort of time there was left to act either. The unicorn sighed and her horn started glowing green as she unslung her rifle, “I’ll cover you from here if things get out of hoof.”

I grinned and patted the mare on the shoulder, “thanks, Foxy. I’ll nip in, blow up the generator, and that should take care of everything. You just sit tight and I’ll…” I poked my head back over the edge of the rocky protrusion and my voice trailed off. At least for of the large ponies weren’t walking around the building anymore. They were looking at us. Not merely in our general direction, but exactly where the two of us were crouched out of sight. That was impossible, wasn’t it? How could they possibly have known where we were?! They couldn’t see us through solid rock!

…a pipbuck could though, I realized with a sinking feeling in my gut. All of these things were from a stable, weren’t they? That would mean…

My eyes darted to the leg of a couple of the visible unicorns. They did, in fact, have pipbucks strapped to their legs. If they were showing up as blips for me, then it only stood to reason that Foxglove and I were showing up for them.

Well…horseapples.

“Foxy,” I whispered, “it’s about to get very, very, loud.”

The violet mare quirked her brow, “what are you—” then the outcropping began exploding in an ongoing torrent of dust and gravel as brilliant lances of piercing green light struck our cover, “—holy fuck!”

I didn’t waste any time and bolted upward. As soon as I was off the ground, I arced my wings and started corkscrewing off at an oblique angle to the unicorns firing at us. One or two kept the violet mare pinned down, but the other four followed me through the air. Viridian beams of crackling energy danced around me as I maintained my dizzying ballet in an effort to keep them from scoring a hit. With this Wonderbolt barding, even a glancing strike would be enough to put me on the ground.

Leveling out in an effort to execute a strafing run on these ponies was going to be hard with all of them shooting at me like this. I did have other options though, and to that end I ripped away a grenade from where it had been held in the pouch on the barding’s exterior that had been designed to retain the little apple-shaped orbs. With a flick of my head, I whipped the now armed explosive at a group of three of the unicorns. Unfortunately, one of them saw it coming and briefly shifted their aim to track the incoming grenade. It detonated harmlessly in the air, leaving behind a cloud of gray smoke that started to dissipate quickly.

Okay…Plan B.

I tucked my wings into my sides and allowed myself to begin falling back towards the ground in what looked to be an uncontrolled descent. This was essentially because it was an uncontrolled descent. I fell through the air as quickly as gravity would accelerate my body, watching streams of emerald energy pass above me as four of the ponies tried unsuccessfully to track me. With a few careful flicks of my wings I was able to orient myself until I was facing the ponies shooting at me.

Once this was done, I grit me teeth and issued my opening commands, “load pulse rounds,” I felt the servos engage, “continuous cycle. Both barrels. Fire!” I rolled out of my dive at the same moment that they began to spit sapphire pellets at the unicorns arrayed before me. My wings splayed out to either side as I streaked along the ground, swerving from side to side at random intervals while throwing in the occasional aileron spin. All the while, a constant stream of blue darts sprayed over the trio of unicorns. Most of the shots went wide, but I did notice that at least a few hits were scored, sending thin tendrils of crackling magical energy rippling over their bodies.

Two of them dropped their energy rifles as a result of the strikes, while the other retained control of theirs; though the weapon itself in that case suffered at least one direct hit and ceased functioning. The hits didn’t seem to actually take out any of the ponies though. I couldn’t say that I was necessarily surprised by that. It normally took quite a few solid hits to disable a robopony with these rounds, and these things were wearing some pretty substantial barding that was probably mitigating the energy a bit. That was fine. I had something to deal with that now that they couldn’t shoot.

I detached a pulse grenade from my barding, hearing the spoon spring off as I yanked it from its carrier. My wings flared out as I stalled and gained a little altitude. My armed grenade continued on though and landed in the midst of the trio of unicorns. All three peered at the little blue-banded device the seconds before it burst and enveloped them in a curtain of magically imbued electricity.

That should take care of those three. Foxglove was still keeping two of them ‘occupied’ for the time being, which just left one other pony focused on me. I was confident that I could avoid the shots from a single attacker long enough to take out the generator. With a powerful sweep of my wings, I lifted quickly back upwards in order to gain some altitude and room to maneuver. I also needed to take care of something else.

“Load explosive,” my submachine guns shifted away from the now dry magazines that had held the pulse ammunition and chambered the emerald rounds Foxglove manufactured for me. Time to hit their power source.

Emerald beams zipped around me from the unicorn that continued to fire at me, but I was able to keep them from getting any hits with the occasional juke one way of the other. When I was close enough, I rolled up and over, issuing the order that set my guns blasting away at the little generator. The minute explosions from the impacts tore divots into the steel casing until a couple of them got lucky enough to strike whatever it was that had been passing for its power source. A rainbow-colored explosion erupted out of the device, and took a corner of the building out along with it.

I zipped away, my eyes watching the twisted remains of the radio tower fall away in the wake of the explosion. Well, that should take care of—horseapples!

A green bolt of energy passed by my face so close I actually felt the heat on my cheek.

Frantically, I beat my wings and started dashing about once more in order to make myself a harder target. How could they still be shooting at me if their control signal was gone?! Taking out that generator should have solved this problem!

Obviously that was not the case though. Fine, whatever. If they wanted to do this the hard way, we could to it the hard way!

It wasn’t just that one unicorn either. As if to add to my consternation, two of the targets that I had enveloped with that pulse grenade had resumed shooting at me too. The only reason that the third wasn’t seemed to be because something had gone wrong with their weapon. They were addressing the problem though, and I couldn’t count on it being out of action forever. Honestly, I should have been able to count on those three having been disabled by a grenade hit like that. This just wasn’t fair!

If I was back to numerous tough things shooting at me, I couldn’t keep dancing around up here in the sky. I needed to get in close where they’d have to be careful lest they risk hitting each other with a reckless shot. That meant that I was going to have to close with them all over again.

…Horseapples.

I groaned and looped back towards the trio that I had faced earlier. It was probably best that I use a new trick this time, since I didn’t want to have to rely on them falling prey to the same tactics twice in five minutes. To that end, I curled up into a tight ball, ripping away two more standard grenades with the pinions of my wings. I flipped myself over in a midair somersault, flinging out the pair of grenades at the conclusion of the roll. As was expected by those able to use telekinetic fields, both explosives were caught in golden fields of magic. Almost immediately, the armed unicorns each took aim and shot the threats out of the air.

This left a duo of gray clouds of smoke between myself and them.

With a vicious sneer, I righted myself and dove for the cloud on the right, “Armorpiercingfiveroundsbothbarrelsfire!” I got the words out a little quick, but the weapon system seemed to understand me. Steel slugs flew through the air and into the dissipating haze only a second before I followed them in. While I might not be able to see the unicorn itself, I could see the red blip. I emerged out the other side on the trail of my volley in time to see my target crumple to the ground.

I ducked low as the other unicorn tried to track me with deadly green beams. A roll and a flip placed me safely on the back of the third unicorn that was still trying to get their own weapon to work. As expected, the incoming fire abated as neither of the attackers shooting at me desired to strike one of their own. I, on the other hoof, felt no such restraint.

A fierce salvo ripped through the second unicorn’s barding. They jerked several times as the rounds passed through them before crumpling into a heap on the ground.

My eyes caught sight of the still as yet disabled weapon being wielded by my impromptu mount as it hurled towards me in an effort to club me over the head with it. I wrapped my right wing around the remaining unicorn’s neck and deftly slipped off their back and down the front of their chest. Being this close to them certainly gave me an appreciation for exactly how much bigger they were than any pony else I’d ever met. For Celestia’s sake, this thing was three times my size!

I ducked between the unicorn’s forelegs as a second swing of the rifle barely missed me. They were dancing around now, trying to get away from me and leave me in the open. I wasn’t going to have any of it, of course. The shooting had stopped, and I intended to make it last as long as possible. Well—more accurately—the shooting at me had stopped. Those other two unicorns were still busy eroding Foxglove’s cover.

A cringe creased my features as I beheld the pile of rubble that had once been several large boulders. I hooked my wings into the unicorn’s barding and issued a quick order to my weapons. A short burst cut down a third unicorn, and drew the other’s attention. It seemed that they had all realized that the mare who was actively shooting and killing them was more of a threat than the one cowering behind what remained of her cover. It was adorable to see them learning.

It looked like my current strategy had run its course though. There were only so many of them that I was going to be allowed to kill before they decided that it was better to cut their losses, it seemed. Emerald bolts began to fly towards me once more. With a surprised ‘eep’, I swept around to the far side of the unicorn that I’d commandeered just as several of those shots struck my unfortunate cover. The air around me was suddenly filled with the overwhelming stench of melting nylon and burning fur.

…wait, fur? Robots didn’t have fur.

The body that I had been hiding behind collapsed, and I crouched beside it. There wasn’t much of it left to provide cover, but what there was of it finished shredding all of my previous theories about what I was going up against. This had indeed once been a genuine living pony. That certainly posed quite a few other tantalizing questions, but they would have to wait until much later. Right now there were still a couple of armed ponies shooting at me.

The thunderclap of a gunshot range across the field. It certainly stood out crystal clear among the sizzling sounds of magical energy crackling through the air. One of the two unicorns staggered immediately after the sound of the gunshot. I seized upon the opportunity and darted out from behind the remains of the carcass that was all that was left of the unfortunate pony and once more focused on not getting shot. Another gunshot sounded, and again the same unicorn reeled. Their barding seemed to be up to the task though.

I knew that the steel-cored rounds I had could defeat it though. Redirecting my path, I arced around and sent out another short burst. This time the unicorn went to the ground. Their partner was now the last remaining pony I could see, and they seemed to realize that too. Instead of standing their ground, now that it was they who were outnumbered, they started hastily making their way for the building. All the while they were putting down a sporadic stream of suppressing fire to keep me from getting too adventurous.

Things would get a good deal more difficult if I let them get to the cover that the building provided. Nor did I envy trying to fight them in such cramped quarters where I would find myself deprived of the option of flying away if things took a turn. Fortunately, Foxglove seemed to be of a similar notion, and she wasn’t letting up with her own fire. She landed another solid hit on the unicorn’s barding, and he stumbled. Seizing upon the chance to catch up, I winged it over at my top speed, closing the distant between us in a couple heartbeats.

My compact forty-five was in my mouth as I arrived, and the nose of the pistol was resting against the side of his neck by the time he’d regained his footing. The grip bucked twice in my mouth. I flinched as a bloody mist sprayed over my face, but the stallion went down in a heap.

This was only phase one, of course. My eyes immediately went to the structure and the four blips inside. Though my thoughts were of the single yellow dot, my gaze rested on the three remaining crimson dashes that I would be removing very soon.

I leaped into the air and made my course directly for the door. A well-timed flip coupled with a double-buck to the latch sent the barricade flying inward, even though I was fairly certain that it had been designed to swing outward.

The sight inside stopped my heart. I wasn’t certain what I had been expecting to find, but it would never have been this. Four steel-framed examination tables stood in the room. Upon each of them was the flayed and mutilated corpse of a pony. Their flesh had been peeled back from their torsos, exposing their organs. It was…horror. Pure, unadulterated, horror!

A blur of movement to my left caught my eye and I fired reflexively at the red hash mark. The pistol in my mouth bucked three times. Each round found its mark on the unicorn mare wearing a white jumpsuit. The magical energy pistol floating in front of her fell to the ground, no longer held by the magical telekinetic field she had been holding it with.

My eyes then went to the remaining two unicorns. One of them was standing in front of a computer terminal, not even looking in my direction. However, the other was drawing a pistol of their own. An arcing leap sent me up and over the tables and their grisly contents to land on their back. I placed the muzzle of my pistol at the back of their head and pulled the trigger. Brains and fragments of bone burst over the nearest disected pony corpse.

Before the body of that unicorn hit the floor, I was already back in the air and heading for the last remaining unicorn. No, they weren’t unicorns. That gave them too much credit. They were butchers—monsters! At my approach, the last monster alive spun away from the terminal that he had been at and backed away. There wasn’t anywhere for him to go though, and he almost immediately found himself backed into a wall. Meanwhile, I was standing in front of him, my forty-five held in my trembling jaw as I glared at this abomination of a pony.

Come on, you bastard, draw a weapon. Make me kill you, you piece of shit!

He wasn’t going for a weapon though. He was just standing there, glaring at me. Wasn’t that rich, I thought, this creature glaring at me like I was the bad pony here! I tightened the grip on my pistol and raised it up, taking aim at the stallion’s head. Still he didn’t flinch away or make an effort to arm himself. My sharp gaze took him in as he stood there, facing off against me. He stood head and shoulders above me, looking back with brilliant golden eyes. His slate gray coat paired well with his platinum mane and ivory coveralls. He looked just as strong and well-muscled as all of the other unicorns that I had just finished fighting outside. In fact, he looked like her could have been their brother or something. Even the other two dead ponies could have been relations.

Then my expression formed into a derisive sneer as I watched his blip slowly shift from a hostile red color to an non-threatening yellow. He wasn’t going to fight me. This stallion was surrendering! That wasn’t fucking fair! He wasn’t allowed to surrender like this; I had to be allowed to kill him!

Realistically, nothing was stopping me from putting the remaining rounds in the pistol into his face; I knew that. I just…I…

“Arrgh!” I growled, sheathing the pistol. I glared fiercely at the stallion. If he tried anything—and I really hoped he would—I could still gun him down with SATS and my submachine guns with a mere thought. Still, there was at least the one other matter that needed to be attended to, “where are they?” I snarled at the stallion, “where are they?”

The stallion continued to keep me fixed with his dismissive golden eyes, but he responded to my question, “whom are you looking for?”

“The survivor!” I yelled at the unicorn. His tone had been remarkably calm and controlled, despite his having watched me just gun down his two companions; and he had to know that the rest of his friends outside were dead too. He had a pipbuck, he knew what blips were left around him, “where’s the survivor?!” even as I spoke, I was looking around.

Then I froze when I beheld the source of the yellow dot. No…that wasn’t possible…

I moved my head slightly and even took a few steps to be sure. The yellow blip followed what I was looking at, confirming that I was indeed looking directly at the source of the blip. Only, that couldn’t possibly be true. They were…they had to be…dead.

In point of fact, they had to be more than dead, since ‘they’ were little more than a pair of lungs, a heart, and some blood vessels. There just wasn’t anything else left of whoever—or whatever—they had been a part of. A machine was quietly beeping off to the side, pumping rhythmic breaths into the lung while a set of diodes shocked the heart into beating.

“Ah, I see,” the stallion remarked, “if I may?” he carefully gestured at the machine. Still stunned from what I was looking at, I merely nodded and watched the unicorn approach. He reached out and pushed a button. The machine chirped and then slowed to a stop. A moment later, the blip vanished, “pipbucks have unfortunately specific requirements when it comes to identifying entities,” the unicorn explained, “for most organic targets, it merely seeks confirmation of cardiopulmonary activity.

“I’m afraid there are no living subjects here for you to rescue,” he went on, still speaking in his clinically impassive tone, “which, I assume, was the purpose of this intrusion?”

Oh, Celestia, I so very much wanted to kill him. If for no other reason than because he just wasn’t allowed to talk like nothing at all about this whole operation wasn’t an abomination that should be burned to the fucking ground with him inside. What the fuck was this place anyway? What could possibly be the reason for something like this?

“Why?” I asked, feeling the word crack in my throat as I bit back my rage. I tried not to look at the tables and their contents, “why?”

“I was conducting an assessment of the efficiency of the gas exchange in the alveoli,” the stallion began simply, “we detected several genetic markers that suggested these samples were better capable of—”

“Tests,” I said quietly, feeling my teeth grinding over the word, “you killed these ponies to run tests?”

“Of course,” he wasn’t even the least bit sorry, “it would be unethical to do it while they were ali—”

Before the word was completely out of his mouth, I had launched myself the couple yards between us and drove my elbow up into his throat, cutting him off. My wings continued to beat furiously, driving the two of us back until I had him pinned up against the wall. He was a lot larger than I was, so it took more than a little effort on my part, and I actually doubted that I would have been this successful if the unicorn had been resisting. For whatever reason though, he was not. His blip remained yellow, despite my assault. It wasn’t fair! I needed to be able to kill this fuck!

“Ethical?! There is nothing ethical about murdering innocent ponies!” I screamed in the stallion’s face. He sealed his lips and refrained from responding as I continued my tirade, “these ponies had families! They didn’t deserve this,” I jabbed my hoof at the tables, “nopony deserves this!

“You went out and slaughtered hundreds of good, decent, ponies just to run some fucking tests?!” I grit my teeth, pausing as I tried to get over my seething rage. It was so hard, “how would you like it if I cut you up like them?” I growled. Would I do that? Could I do that?

Of course I could. I was Windfall; and my talent was killing. I could murder this unicorn like nopony had ever murdered anypony in the history of the Wasteland!

The amount of booze I’d need afterwards would probably kill me too though…

“I do regret the need for this,” the stallion said quietly, “but it is for the good of Equestria.”

I gaped at the slate gray unicorn with dismayed eyes, “the good…? How is murdering everypony you come across going to help anything?!”

“Because it is allowing us to become better ponies.”

My expression blanked at the response, and the patent absurdity of it. I couldn't even for a coherent response to the stallion as my brain worked its way through how that answer could have even been an answer to the question that I had asked. Then the terminal that the large unicorn had been working at issued a harsh tone, drawing our attention. I glanced at the screen for a brief moment and saw the flashing message: ‘DELETING FILES…’ but before I good fully grasp what was happening, they shifted slightly, ‘FILES DELETED.’ Then the computer’s screen blanked out completely and the whole system shut down.

That was what he had been so intent on doing when I'd busted in here; he’d wiped away every electronic trace of what had been going on.

“Foxglove!” I called over my shoulder, backing off from the stallion and once more lining up the barrel of my pistol. A moment later, the violet mare was inside with me, and I heard her sharp intake of breath as she beheld the macabre scene that surrounded us. She’d have to be sickened by in later though, “the computer,” I flicked a wing at the terminal, “see if you can rover anything. He just deleted some stuff,” I used the gun and several sharp jerks of my head to encourage the larger gray pony to give my companion room to operate, taking him to the other side of the room while she worked.

The stallion cooperated, though his expression still remained impassive. His blip was also stubbornly retaining its yellow color. I felt my teeth grinding on my pistol’s grip as I regarded the overlay of my pipbuck. A small part of me would have preferred that the stallion follow the example set by his comrades and try to kill me so that I could put him down as well. I was also aggravated to find that a much larger part of me was grateful that he hadn’t, and that I wasn’t going to need to kill any more ponies than I already had.

How much I agreed with that little mote of sentiment actually surprised me. Killers weren’t supposed to be glad that they didn’t need to kill.

While Foxglove plied the computer for information, I decided that I would seek answers of my own from the alternate source which had presented itself, “what is this place?” I flipped a wing at the surrounding tables and the bodies that they contained, “why are you killing ponies?” exactly no effort was made to conceal the fact that there was likely to be no answer that I could have found acceptable. Frankly, depending on precisely how unacceptable the response was, it might very well be the strange unicorn’s last words anyway. There had to be limits to mercy, right?

Those golden eyes retained their steely gaze through several seconds of silence, to the point where I was almost certain that he was going to say nothing at all. Then, “I have my doubts that you would be capable of understanding what is trying to be accomplished here,” he said, sounding far more condescending than I cared for, “I will not waste the effort trying.”

I felt my teeth grinding on the grip of my .45 as his condescending tone rolled over me. That’s how he wanted to do things, huh? Alright. I squeezed the trigger.

The stallion screamed in pain as his left leg buckled out from beneath him. He recovered rather quickly, clamping down on his groaning and straightening up his posture in only a few seconds. It was all I could do to keep the abject surprise off my face lest he see precisely how startled I was by the swift bounce-back. The stallion was clearly in a lot of pain, and his shin was oozing a steady stream of dark blood, but other than some slightly heavier breathing and an intense glare, there wasn’t much of an outward sign that I’d just maimed him. His initial outburst seemed to have been born more out of surprise than anything.

“Feeling more talkative yet?” I quipped, concealing my own growing concern. He really should have been hurting more than he was for that sort of wound, “or do I have to shoot you again?” I could feel Foxglove’s look of concern from behind me, but I ignored it. She didn’t approve of torture and, as a rule, neither did I. These were extenuating circumstances though.

“If you goal is to apply physical torture for information, you will be unsuccessful,” he insisted, “perhaps you should just kill me and be done with it.”

Stubborn asshole, wasn’t he? Well, two could play the ‘bravado’ game, “nah, I think I’ll just keep shooting appendages until you run out. That’ll give me a total of five before I have to get creative,” I noticed his confused little quirk of his brow at the number and grinned sinisterly around the pistol, “which is more than the four I get with mares…”

That seemed to get the message across and earned me a some widened eyes from the unicorn—as well as another worried glance from Foxglove.

“But, if you tell me what I want to know, then I’ll finish you off clean. So what’ll it be?”

“Windfall, you can’t be serious!” the violet mare hadn’t been able to contain her surprise this time from her place in front of the terminal, “we can’t just kill him,” she protested.

“I’m sure as shit not going to let him go,” I snarled back at the unicorn mare, “just keep working on that terminal and let me take care of this piece of shit.”

“I can’t do anything here,” Foxglove glanced at the console, “he wiped out everything. Even the OS is gone,” she stepped up beside me, casting wary eyes at the bodies on the exam tables. The mare leaned in close while gazing at the stallion and whispered, “maybe we can work out a dialogue…”

“Talk?” I snorted, “we are talking. We’re talking about how many times he’s going to get shot if he doesn’t start answering my questions,” my attention was once more focused fully on the stallion, “so?”

The gray pony winced slightly as he flexed his bleeding limb, and then, “very well: this is a field facility where we sift through promising subjects in order to carry out our directive. Satisfied?”

Hardly. That didn’t tell me a damn thing, “what ‘directive’? And that still doesn’t explain why you’re killing so many ponies.”

He was a little more forthcoming this time, “our Stable has been tasked with rebuilding Equestria and ensuring that another Great War cannot happen.”

I felt my level of frustration starting to grow. He was avoiding the question again, “what does that have to do with killing ponies?”

The stallion snorted derisively, “because it was your kind that started the war in the first place! Only by removing the lingering weakness before resettlement can it be assured that the past will not repeat itself.”

I blinked, astonished by the admission, “you’re killing innocent ponies because you think there might be another war someday? That’s insane!”

“It is prudence,” the stallion argued sternly, “only by the grace of the Princesses did our ancestors survive the last war. Another could be the end of everything on Equus.

“It cannot be expected that a simple mind like yours could hope to recognize what is truly at stake,” I didn’t much care for that appraisal, and briefly entertained the notion of shooting him in another leg on principal, “you have your answer,” the stallion sneered as he composed himself a little straighter, “now let us be done with this.”

His gaze was unflinching as he invited me to execute him, but I wasn’t quite satisfied yet. I accepted that his comrades were killing off ‘inferior’ ponies—there were groups out here with much more petty reasons to kill, after all—but that didn’t explain everything, “so why all of this,” I gestured at the room, “if you just want to kill ponies. What’s the point of bringing any of them back here?” they had left behind enough bodies at that Stable we’d found.

“…we are preserving desirable material,” he replied after a brief pause, as though he was reluctant to answer at all. Odd, since he couldn’t possibly be concerned about repercussions. He expected me to kill him no matter what he said. Could he actually be embarrassed about the reason?

‘Material’? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? They certainly weren’t keeping any of these ponies alive as slaves…though I suddenly had a very grisly thought where certain portions of the ponies on these tables was concerned. Searching for confirmation of my fears, I turned to Foxglove, only to find her mulling over the implications as well.

However, she came to a slightly different conclusion, “genes,” she said quietly at first before looking up at the larger stallion and increasing the volume of her voice as she sought confirmation, “you’re talking about their genes,” she held the other pony’s gaze until he issued a hesitant nod and averted his eyes. He was actually embarrassed about that. Hell if I understood why though. I barely understood what Foxglove was even talking about.

Fortunately, the unicorn mare began to elaborate without needing to be prompted, “that’s why they wanted the medical records from the stable,” she explained, “they were after the genetic profiles of the ponies there.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“They’re using them,” the violet mare explained, “altering themselves somehow,” upon seeing what was undoubtedly a very dubious expression on my face, she sought confirmation from the stallion, “that’s it, isn’t it?” the stallion didn’t nod this time, but he certainly wasn’t denying anything, and Foxglove looked back at me, “that’s why they’re all so big and have almost the same coloring and shape,” she went on, “they’re designing themselves!”

My eyes widened now with sudden comprehension. That was really something that ponies could do? What a silly question, of course it was—or had once been in the Old World. If even half of the rumors I’d ever heard about what went on in Equestria during the Great War were true—and I’d seen enough weird shit to believe they were—the idea that ponies could be ‘designed’ was pretty tame.

I wheeled back on the stallion, “you’re using pieces of these ponies to build more of you?” that was horrifying!

I became suddenly aware that both the gray unicorn and my violet companion were regarding me with mirrored expressions of confusion and exasperation. Apparently, I had misconstrued a few things. Foxglove beat the stallion to the explanation though.

“That’s not how it works,” she said, managing not to sound quite as patronizing as she could have, “they wouldn’t need actual pieces. A little bit of blood, spit, or even some mane clippings would be enough to give them what they needed.”

“They’re clearly taking more than some ‘clippings’ from these ponies!” I snapped, waving a wing at the mutilated corpses around us.

Foxglove chewed her lip as she too once more looked over the sight before returning her gaze to the stallion, “…just because it looks good on paper…” she sighed and looked back at me, “it’s like when I’m designing a new piece of machinery: the plans might look good, but I can’t know for sure how well it’ll work until I build a prototype.”

She waved at the stallion, “they won’t know how good a those genes really are until they see them in action. A stronger heart, better liver, you’d need a close look to be sure it’s what you were after. Isn’t that right?” she looked once more to the stallion.

“This is where promising material is evaluated, yes,” he confirmed, “you have all of your answers now. End this.”

I was still reeling from what I’d just learned. These ponies had all been butchered…just so that this stallion and his friends could see how they worked on the inside? And that was just so they could make themselves a little stronger? The scale of the carnage that was going on in this place, coupled with the idea that it may even just be one of many such places, turned my stomach. How many thousands were dead because of these ponies?

…It was probably nothing when compared to how many more would die if nothing was done to stop them. Not that I had any delusions of grandeur where that was concerned. I’d gotten lucky here. The ponies that could raid a whole stable, and set up facilities like this, had the resources that a pair of ponies like Foxglove and I couldn’t hope to overcome. Not on our own, at any rate.

We would need a lot of ponies and material for something like this. There was no way that we’d be able to come up with the capital needed to get it on our own either. That would take us years, maybe even a decade or more. The whole Wasteland might be wiped out by then.

What we needed was the backing of a group that already had a lot of weapons and combatants. The trouble there was that any of the ones that had what we needed weren’t going to just lend it all to us on our word alone. They’d need proof of the threat.

Proof like a stallion who was incontrovertible evidence of the existence of the threat and what they were capable of. I fished a wing into my saddlebag and withdrew a rather recently acquired treasure, passing it to the violet unicorn, “collar him,” Foxglove glanced down at the explosive accessory for a blank moment until comprehension dawned on her face and she took it in the emerald glow of her telekinetic field.

I watched as it floated over and affixed itself to the stallion’s throat. The gray unicorn balked, glancing down at the device as it chirped to warn of its activation and the slowly pulsing red light became solid, “what are you doing?”

“You’re coming with us,” I informed the stallion, finally holstering my pistol, “you’re going to tell the NLR exactly what you’ve told us. Maybe the Steel Rangers too,” I added after a moment’s thought.

“And if I refuse?”

I shrugged, “I mean, I guess I don’t really need you to say anything. They have doctors and stuff. Once they’ve sliced you open like you did to them,” I nodded at the exam tables, “they’ll know what’s going on. Talking’ll keep you alive though.”

“Perhaps I would prefer death,” the stallion quipped.

“Then take off the collar.”

Both unicorns blinked at me again. I simply shrugged, “no, seriously. Now’s your chance. Try to take it off, set off the collar, and blow off your own head. You’ll be dead, just like you want. We’ll just haul your carcass back to Seaddle or wherever and let somepony look over your corpse,” I rolled my eyes, “it’ll be a hassle, but if that’s what you want…”

The stallion said nothing, and nor did he make any effort to remove the collar. He simply stood there and glared at me.

“S’what I thought,” I smirked at the stallion, “you don’t really want to die. If you did, you would have charged me like the others.”

“Do you think that I fear the likes of a pathetic nothing like you?” he snorted.

“No,” I admitted. He was a lot bigger than I was, and he had the benefit of magic. In a straight fight, he might very well be able to beat me, even if his comrades had been less fortunate, “but I do believe that you’re the only pony from your stable who knows what happened here,” I nodded to where the radio tower had once been, “and that you might want to warn them that their existence is about to be revealed to the whole Wasteland. Both of us know that the only way that’s going to happen is if you can escape from us. You can’t do that if you’re a corpse.

“That means that you’re going to do what I say, when I say it, so that you stay alive as long as you can,” I smiled thinly at the stallion, “all the while hoping that I fuck up bad enough to give you a chance kill us and make your escape.”

Foxglove was looking very nervous right now as her gaze drifted between me and the unicorn stallion that towered over the both of us. It wasn’t like I was really giving the stallion any new ideas. Indeed, if his own vaguely surprised expression was any indication, it was exactly the train of thought that he’d already been following. All that I had done was to let him know that I was well aware of what he was going to be up to, and that I’d be ready for anything that was half-assed. Hopefully that meant that he wasn’t going to even try and escape if he had any doubts about it succeeding.

The downside was that when he did finally try to get away…well, I’d just have to make sure he never saw a decent enough opportunity to make to attempt.

“So,” I went on, “I’m not sure exactly what the range on these collars is, but Foxglove and I are going to start heading for Seaddle. I suggest you keep up,” I jabbed a hoof at his leg, which had stopped bleeding on its own without the need of either a healing potion or bandage. It was actually rather impressive, given the nature of the wound. He clearly was not a normal pony, if I needed more than his dual horns to tell that much, “it looks like that shouldn’t be much or a problem.”

I turned and started heading for the exit without another word to the stallion. Foxglove quickly scampered to fall into step beside me, casting nervous looks in the direction of our newly acquired prisoner. She leaned in close, “Windy, I don’t know if this is such a good idea…”

“You can go back there and shoot him if you want,” I nodded at the rifle slung across the mare’s back. The mare’s expression made her distaste for that idea rather clear, and I rolled my eyes, “so then what?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but what if he tries something?”

“Then he dies, and we’ll have to drag his carcass to Seaddle. Hopefully we can get it there before it rots too much,” I wasn’t being nearly as candid or quiet with my comments as Foxglove was. I very much wanted the stallion to know where I stood on the matter. In fact, “tonight I want you wire the detonator into my pipbuck,” I was making no secret of this plan either, “if it comes off, or if I die,” I glanced back to ensure the stallion heard that particular qualifier, “I want the collar to go off. Got it?”

The stallion glared at me as he trudged along behind. He was still slightly favoring the injured leg. Foxglove looked over my pipbuck, considering if my plan was workable, and then nodded, “it shouldn’t be too hard,” she informed me, “it’ll cost you the slot where a Stealthbuck would normally go though,” the unicorn cautioned.

“Do I look like I care about hiding?” I indicated the brilliant blue and gold barding that I was wearing. I cast another glance over my shoulder and fluttered up into the air to keep a look out for threats, “don’t lag too far behind, um…you got a name, or do they number you guys?”

My response was an initial sneer, followed by, “Arginine.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna be hard for a ‘simple mind’ like mine to remember. I’mma just call you ‘RG’. So, come on, RG; we're gonna take a little walk north.”

Footnote:...

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