"You're not from around here. Who're you?"

Our usual pace was slowed rather significantly with Starlight’s inclusion. Most of it, I had to admit, wasn’t her fault. It turned out that two hundred years stuck in an oversized freezer took a pretty big toll on a pony’s body. Plus, she hadn’t exactly been the most athletically-minded of ponies back before the world ended, it seemed. We took quite a few more breaks throughout the day than I was entirely comfortable with, but I kept telling myself that time wasn’t nearly as critical as I felt it was. I couldn’t know that for sure, of course. It was entirely possible that Arginine’s Stable had already mobilized and was marching on the Neighvada Valley even now and I just didn’t know it yet.

If that was the case though, then everypony was doomed and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. On the other hoof, if there was still time enough to get everypony organized, then we still had a chance; so I focussed on keeping that mindset while I nibbled on an alfalfa chip and sipped some Sparkle-Cola.

Starlight was less than enamored with the meal options available to her, but she was quiet about her reservations. She was also very adamant that the package foodstuffs from the Old World did not, in fact, taste anything like they were supposed to. I made a note to ask her about how the fresher produce that was meagerly farmed in the valley compared to what she recalled.

We had already learned quite a few things about how much the Wasteland differed from the Equestria that the pink unicorn remembered. For one thing; she was actually quite shocked by how barren the landscape was. To hear her descriptions, this had once been one of the lusher regions of the ancient pony princedom. ‘Equestria’s Bread Basket’, she had called it. According to her, once upon the majority of the nation’s grain had been grown in this valley. Having lived here all of my life, I found that very hard to believe.

Almost as hard as Starlight had found it to believe that the entirety of the pegasi race had completely abandoned the surface and locked themselves away above their protective layer of clouds and the ancient weapon systems that kept them from being bothered by anypony they didn’t want to deal with. Nopony here was an avid historian, so we couldn’t provide the Old World mare with more than a highly abridged version of the events immediately following the war. What we did know seemed to cause her quite a bit of distress though.

“They...they just abandoned the surface?”

“More or less,” I confirmed, “oh, sure, you see one of their patrols from time to time, and I’m told that sometimes they’ll even trade for high-end salvage. Other than that though? You’d be lucky to get so much as a ‘how’d’you do?’ out of an Enclaver.”

“Enclaver?”

I nodded, “they call themselves the Big Pegasus Enclave, or something like that,” I shrugged, “not every pegasus is part of the Enclave, of course. There are ones like me, who were born on the surface; we’re pretty rare though,” I had never actually met another pegasus like myself personally. I was sure more existed somewhere though, “more likely, you’ll see a Dashite,” I headed off the inevitable question that was hovering on Starlight’s lips, “they’re pegasi that used to be in the Enclave but got kicked out or left for good.”

“Why are they called, ‘Dashites’?” Given what I had heard up to this point regarding her opinion of whom it sounded like she had correctly identified as their namesake, I could understand the dubious tone of her voice.

“The story I heard from one of them was that after the bombs fell, most of the major pegasi cities were still okay. One or two got vaporized, but on the whole they made out a lot better than the surface. However, when the surface asked them to help rebuild, nearly all of the pegasi basically told the unicorns and earth ponies to suck dirt and closed up the sky. I couldn’t tell you why,” I shrugged. I hadn’t been there, of course, and this story was at least fourth of fifth hoof as it was, so I wasn’t even going to try to speculate.

“Supposedly, Rainbow Dash didn’t care for that very much and so she disowned the Enclave, or whatever they were calling themselves back then, and she and some of her closest followers went to the surface to do what they could to help. That’s the story I heard anyway. Since then, any pegasus that left was called a Dashite, because they were ‘betraying’ the Enclave just like Rainbow Dash did.”

Starlight Glimmer was clearly not sure what to make of my story, “that’s...surprising.”

“Did you know Rainbow Dash well?” I inquired, genuinely curious about hearing what could very well be the only first-hoof account of the iconic pegasus I was trying to―perhaps foolishly―model myself after. I wasn’t certain I’d get a particularly flattering opinion from the pink unicorn, but it might do me some good to hear my hero’s faults.

“Not personally,” Starlight admitted, frowning, “not really. I had to deal with enough of her underlings though, and a lot of the bullshit that they kept pulling.”

“Like what?”

She sighed, “her ministry played a lot of things close to the vest,” the unicorn explained, “ironically, the so-called ‘Element of Loyalty’ wasn’t very good about trusting the ponies around her. Even some of her closest subordinates were kept in the dark about other projects that the MoA was involved in. I met more than a few highly placed MoA ponies who knew nothing about Project Egghead; and I got the impression that the SPP was a huge surprise to half her ministry.

“You can just imagine how many ponies who weren’t part of the Ministry of Awesome knew what Rainbow Dash was up to,” she said in a wry tone.

“What might have been worse, though, was that she did not want to hear ‘no’ to anything she wanted to do. If she was told not to do something, it didn’t matter how good the reason was, she’d just do it anyway in secret. By the time anypony found out about it, it would be too late to stop her and the other Ministry Mares would either have to appear divided―which Image would never allow―or act like it had been the plan all along,” Starlight was grimacing now.

“That was how she formed the Shadowbolts, after all. Princess Luna was not happy about them, or the name Dash had settled on. However,” the pink unicorn sighed, shaking her head, “the first time her new flight team made its debut, it turned the tide of a battle and completely saved the day. Dash and the Shadowbolts were instant heroes with both the civilians, and the military. Who was going to punish her or denounce her fliers after that?

“And, of course every time she got away with something, that just encouraged her to try something else even more outrageous; like she had to top herself!

“So….yeah. Hearing that a mare like that wanted to do everything she could to help the rest of Equestria even if that meant abandoning her fellow pegasi? That sounds pretty selfless of her, and it’s not something I would have expected, given what I knew,” she grunted, “but it doesn’t change the fact that she was fucking around with me about Moonbeam.”

“She was really important to you, wasn’t she? Moonbeam, I mean.”

Starlight was silent for a long moment, and then finally nodded, “yeah,” the unicorn took a deep breath and tried to muster up a little ghost of a laugh, “it’s so weird,” I cocked my head, “I mean, I know it’s been two hundred years. She’s dead, no matter what games Dash was playing with her. So, I know, in my head, that trying to find out what really happened doesn’t matter.”

There was a long moment of silence, “I also know that I just said ‘goodnight’ to her a few hours ago…or, at least, to who I thought had been her...”

Another long few seconds of silence as the unicorn closed her eyes, “and there were a lot of ponies...that I never said anything to at all,” ooh...great going, Windfall, “I think…” the mare continued, “I think the worst part is not knowing, you know? I mean, I know they’re dead, but...I’ll never know how they died. Was it painless? Were they alone? It bothers me that I’ll never know for sure.

“Celestia,” the unicorn gasped quietly, her eyes wide with concern, “the town…”

“Hmm? What town?”

“...I guess it doesn’t matter, does it?” she said despondently.

I shook my head this time, “it matters to you,” I said, “and I do really know what it’s like to lose ponies close to you,” I had also had the benefit of knowing what had happened to my family. At least, I’d thought I had. Finding out that my mother had been alive all of that time had reopened those old scars anew with a vicious ferocity. I’d know that my mother had not been killed at the farm along with my father, Jackboot had told me as much. The old stallion had also assured me that she would certainly be dead shortly anyway. As horrific as the knowledge had been to hear, I had eventually accepted it and asserted in my own head that my mother had died. It had allowed me to move on.

Starlight was in a very similar position now, after a fashion. I could see where her sense of turmoil was stemming from them. With my family, I’d been able to ascribe a cause and nature to their deaths. It had been far from quick, or peaceful, but I had at least known what had happened to them, if only conceptually. It allowed me to focus and push recurring thoughts of them aside as I plotted my eventual destruction of the White Hooves and anypony else who might do that sort of thing to other ponies. Unfortunately, the pink unicorn had no definitive knowledge about the deaths of her friends and family, and certainly nothing much to keep her focused as she slowly healed from the stupendous loss she’d suffered.

“Does it get easier?”

I thought for a little bit about my answer, and a wan smile wound its way onto my face, “kind of? It always hurts just as bad. It’s just that you learn to stop thinking about it as much. You get better at distracting yourself by thinking about other things.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard,” Starlight said grimly, looking around the Wasteland. The unicorn frowned for a long while in silence before speaking again, “is there anything left?”

“Like cities and stuff?” I ventured, seeing the pink mare nod, “sort of. Nothing looks like it did, I’m sure, but there are places where you can find ponies living and working together.”

Starlight nodded, “so we’re rebuilding. That’s nice.”

I cringed, “that might be overselling it,” I admitted, “not many ponies are very interested in bringing back the Old World like it was. Except Princess Luna and the Republic, of course,” I inclined my head in Ramparts’ direction and the stallion issued a confirming nod.

That seemed to cheer up the pink unicorn a little, “that’s right, I remember that you mentioned Princess Luna earlier. Did Princess Celestia survive too?”

I shook my head, “honestly, the whole Wasteland was pretty sure both of the goddesses were dead after the war. Princess Luna didn’t show up again until,” I glanced at Ramparts, “what’s it been, twelve or thirteen years?”

“About that,” the stallion agreed.

“Unfortunately, before she could start fixing things, the Steel Rangers showed up and started fighting her.”

That bit of news certainly seemed to shock Starlight, “what?! Why would anypony fight one of the Princesses?”

“Beats us,” I shrugged, thinking back of my conversation with Hoplite the other day. In hindsight, I recalled that the ghoul mare had specifically called out Ebony Song as being the one who had stolen from the Rangers...and had never once mentioned Princess Luna. I’d had a lot on my mind at the time, and hadn’t really thought much of it, but looking back on everything that the Star Paladin had said, I did find it a bit curious, “they think something was stolen from them. You’d think that they’d have just joined up with the Republic and try to talk with Princess Luna about it, but they’re not.”

Starlight sighed, “great. Who are these ‘Rangers’ anyway?”

“Fanatics,” Ramparts took control of the conversation now. I was pretty fine with that, as the brown stallion officer likely knew a lot more about the Steel Rangers than I did with so many years of experience fighting them. I’m sure he wasn’t going to be the most impartial of sources, but he would be knowledgeable, “they’re descended from survivors of the Ministry of Wartime Technology. They think everypony else in the Wasteland can’t be trusted with advanced technology, and so they’ve made it their mission to gather it all up and hoard it for themselves.”

“The Ministry of Wartime Technology is fighting Princess Luna?” she sputtered, aghast, “that’s ridiculous! Why?!”

“I told you: they’re fanatic nutcases now,” the stallion snorted, “they just like wearing the barding and symbol from the MWT. I doubt they really care what it stood for back then.”

I felt myself cringe inwardly, suddenly very much aware of the Wonderbolt barding that I was wearing, as well as the comments made by Star Paladin Hoplite. In a very real way, I was just sort of ‘playing’ at the whole Wonderbolt thing, wasn’t I? I wasn’t a real member of the ancient elite flying team, and I couldn’t say that I honestly knew anything about them other than what I saw hyped on Old World billboards. I had just sort of...appropriated the uniform and created a neat set of ideals to aspire to based upon those billboards. Which only made it more frustrating when I managed to fall short of those made up ‘ideals’ of mine.

“I wonder what else has changed,” Starlight said in a soft, thoughtful, tone, “did any of the other ministries manage to survive?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Ramparts answered, shaking his head, “but I can only speak for the valley. DJ Pon3 hasn’t mentioned anything about other ministry organizations in his broadcasts from Manehattan though.”

“So Manehattan survived too?” she asked, hopefully.

“I couldn’t say as to what ‘survived’,” Ramparts responded cautiously, “I’ve never been there,” Foxglove and I shook our heads as well, “I’d wager it’s not much different than Seaddle though.”

“I see. What about the Empire?”

“The who?” I quirked an eyebrow.

“The Crystal Empire,” the unicorn elaborated, “up north. How badly were they hit?”

Even RG was looking a little confused now as the four of us exchanged looks while trying to figure out exactly where it was that Starlight Glimmer was talking about, “never heard of it.”

The pink mare seemed rather deflated now, “this is getting really depressing. Maybe if you could just tell me what does still exist?”

“Ponies are still here,” I offered helpfully, “you probably shouldn’t get too hung up on places and stuff. I’m sure you’ll cheer up when you finally see a real settlement.

“And on that note; do you think you’re rested enough to go a few more miles?”

Starlight nodded and stood up, “yeah. Sorry to slow you all down. I’m not used to doing a whole lot of walking,” she shrugged sheepishly.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Foxglove said, stretching herself out as well, “if there’s one thing you get a lot of practice at doing in the Wasteland: it’s walking.”

“Speak for yourselves, ground-pounders,” I chuckled as I rose up into the air. I wasn’t going to be breaking any of my personal speed records any time soon, but my wings were at least well enough to allow for slow meandering flights. Which was more than adequate to keep ahead of the dirt-bound ponies following in my wake.

Had we chosen to, we could probably have completely bypassed the Seaddle Ruins on our way south to Old Reino, but there were simply too many reasons to make a quick stop in the Republic’s capital city on our way to the Ministry of Arcane Science hub. I was in serious need of ammunition, the whole group was going to need to top off on food now that we had a fifth member of our group, and if Starlight wasn’t particularly capable with any weapons, she certainly needed some barding to wear.

Not that cost was much of an issue as far as I was concerned these days, but Ramparts did suggest that he could pull what little weight he had and get us the ammunition we’d need, as well as barding for Starlight. It was certainly nice of him to offer, and I gratefully accepted. Food was something that we’d have to cover on our own though, as were the explosives that I needed to replenish.

Foxglove asked if we’d be staying long enough for her to get to work on that list of projects I’d been steadily adding to for the violet mechanic. I really did want her to get to those things, especially the ammunition. It was just a question of finding the time for her to stay in one place long enough to break out her tools and be productive. Seaddle was an ideal place to do that, frankly.

It was also a costly, crowded, and busy place to do that. To say nothing of the fact that we’d be very visible to anypony looking for us. Well, me specifically, I guess. The Lancers were doubtless to have sets of eyes in the Republic capital who would be all too happy to tell their bosses where the pegasus who had been making their lives difficult was staying. Maybe they wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything while we were in the city itself, but the moment we stepped outside…

However, it just so happened that I knew of an out-of-the-way place where Foxglove could get her work done while the rest of us poked around Old Reino in search of the ministry hub: Wind Rider’s Wagons and Freight. It was off the beaten path, was located right outside the city limits of the abandoned metropolis, and even possessed a sort of ‘secret hiding place’ in case we needed to make ourselves even less visible if somepony undesirable got too close.

The idea of using the old shipping company’s warehouse for her work actually went over quite well with the violet unicorn mare. She mentioned the need to acquire some additional tools and equipment to be able to make the most of the facilities, but was otherwise fine with the notion. Ramparts certainly had no objections to setting up a small ‘base of operations’, as he’d called it, while we explored the city’s ruins. The only pony that I was really concerned about was RG.

Wind Rider’s would bring us very close to the area that I knew his stable operated in. If there was ever going to be a time where the stallion tried to make a break for it, that was going to be it. Me and the others were going to need to be on high alert where the large gray stallion was confirmed. I was even strongly entertaining the notion of fully passing him off to the Republic so that they could begin getting information out of him, just so that he wasn’t my problem anymore.

After the Arc Lightning facility though, I couldn’t deny how useful having the stallion around was. While, if Starlight’s magical prowess was really as good as she was making it out to be, the stallion’s spellcasting abilities might very well prove to be redundant now; he was still the closest thing that we had to medical pony―as horrifying as that thought was. Reino was going to be rife with dangers, to include the roaming radiation zones that we could end up stumbling into. Having a pony around who knew anything about physiology would be a good idea; and I very much doubted that we were going to find reliable skilled volunteers once we made mention of our destination.

Putting our health and welfare into the hooves of the very pony who was part of a group that wanted to see all of us dead wasn’t what I would classify as an ‘ideal’ scenario, but beggars didn’t have the luxury of being choosers.

...Nor did it seem that I was going to be afforded the luxury of getting through today without killing a lot of ponies.

My eyes narrowed at the red blips that indicated creatures of ill-intent were moving within the building to either side of our merry band. That had been the risk, of course, of trying to save a little time by cutting through the Seaddle Ruins instead of going around them in order to reach the safety of the settlement.

Vipers, maybe. They must have spotted me long before my Eyes Forward Sparkle had detected them, because it looked like they were very nearly done setting up a kill-zone for us. With as many as they had brought with them, it seemed clear that their intent was to surround us and force a surrender without much of a fight. If I let them get fully into position, they might even manage to accomplish just that too. Foxglove still wasn’t much use with her rifle, and Ramparts was the only other pony besides me and her that had weapons. RG and Starlight were just going to be targets.

I sighed and bowed my head. This was going to suck.

“Hey, Ramps,” I called down. Trying to keep ourselves hidden was a moot point, since these ponies trying to ambush us clearly knew where we were already. It surprised me really, how calm I sounded in the face of what was about to happen. Panicking was hardly going to help anypony, though, was it?

“Yeah?” the brown earth pony said in reply, his tone a lot more gruff than it typically was. He had a pipbuck too, after all. He knew what was happening just as well as I did.

“Do me a favor and make sure the others don’t get hurt, alright?”

I didn’t wait for response. Either the stallion would get the other three to cover, and they’d survive the fight, or he wouldn’t. That was no longer my problem. What I needed to focus on right now was dealing with the threat. I took in a deep breath and engaged SATS. The world around me slowed down to a crawl as I scanned the various ponies closing in around on us. Either because I had made the initial assumption, or because of some facet of the Old World device’s abilities that I didn’t fully understand, the pipbuck did indeed identify the threats as being members of the Viper Gang that prowled the Seaddle Ruins.

There were eleven of them, and they were armed with either medium caliber pistols, or light automatic carbines. Some of them carried bladed melee weapons as a secondary form of armament. They were fanning out through the second and third floors of the tenement houses that flanked the street we were walking down. Six to our right, and five to our left. So, right it was then, and then move to the other side once those had been dealt with. It was going to be a close quarters fight, and in a confined environment. Neither of those conditions were my preferred parameters when it came to an engagement. I tended to favor maneuvering room and distance to let me build up a lot of speed to help myself become a harder to hit target.

This was going to be brutal little tussle.

I directed my attention towards the nearest threat, a unicorn stallion levitating an improvised automatic pistol in front of him as he cantered through a crumbling apartment on his way to a position behind us. Well, sucks to be you, bud; but the point-pony always dies first, don’t you know?

The world resumed moving at a normal pace. I, however, was not. The pain in my joints that had been caused by Star Paladin Hoplite’s mechanical grip had ebbed greatly since our confrontation. It was down to only a dull ache these days, as though I had merely slept on it wrong. So the abrupt sideways shift in my direction of flight caused me hardly any discomfort at all as I angled my wings and hurled myself back-first through the remains of a two century old window.

The sound of the shattering glass and the fragmented shards of the clouded material raining down on the unicorn shocked the stallion into stillness. He instinctively cowered away from the cloud of tiny razors flying at his head, which was all the distraction that I needed to make my move. I oriented myself and drove my hind hooves into the stallion’s head, plowing it directly into the plastered wall of the apartment.

“Suprise, mother-bucker!”

It was unclear what ultimately killed the Viper pony first: his broken neck or his impacted skull, but in either case, I had just reduced the number of armed threats down to ten with a single blow.

Viper number two wasn’t all that far away, visible through a partially collapsed wall leading into another apartment. She was an earth pony mare who was gaping at me with wide, surprised, eyes as she watched me burst out of nowhere and slam her compatriot through a wall. The .38 snub-nose in her mouth nearly fell from her slack jaw. I vaulted from my perch on the dead stallion’s head and started galloping across the floor towards her, attempting the cross the thirty-odd feet between us as quickly as possible.

The mare regained her composure and tightened her hold on the grip of her weapon, lining it up on me. The remnants of the wall created a narrow funnel through which I could advance on the mare. While I could easily had dodge to the side and been well out of her field of fire, that would also have essentially stopped me dead in my tracks, and I couldn’t allow that with so many threats in the area. They had numbers, which meant that staying put for too long in any one place meant giving the Vipers a chance to surround me and end the fight right then and there. As long as I kept moving they wouldn’t be able to coordinate against me as effectively. Especially if I kept taking out more of them as I was going. No, veering to the left or right was out of the question.

So, up it was then.

I leaped into the air as the revolver’s muzzle flashed with brief, brilliant, gouts of fiery black smoke as the improvised cartridges discharged. Those soft lead slugs buried themselves into the rotting floor where I had been only a moment before, and followed me upwards through the air as I ascended. Then they started disheveling the spackled ceiling as my hooves clattered along its white surface, leaving behind dusty hoof-prints in my wake.

The earth pony mare was clearly quite unaccustomed to having to track targets that ran at her along ceilings, and her aim suffered greatly as she craned her head upwards at an uncomfortable angle. The hammer of her weapon finally slammed down on a previously fired chamber, punctuating the thunderous shots with a final deafening ‘click’ that seemed to terrify the earth pony more than the sight of my killing her fellow Viper had. The empty sound of the impotent weapon also served as my cue to return to the floor, which I did with a tight roll that ended with a hard cross to the mare’s face.

“Head’s up!”

She went down with a grunt, the revolver flying uselessly from her mouth. I hovered in the air above her for half a second before delivering a pair of swift bucks to her exposed throat from the air. The red blip that had represented the mare on my Eyes Forward Sparkle vanished.

Nine more to go.

“Die, you bitch!”

I looked up in time to see a rather irate unicorn mare with an automatic carbine hovering by her head glaring in my direction. It was time now to be anywhere but right here, it seemed. A hailstorm of copper-jacketed rounds saturated the air where I had just been hovering as I threw myself out of the way. Forward was not an option while faced with that sort of firepower. At least, not directly forward, at any rate. I cringed as the unicorn mare started walking her shots towards me, her bullets meeting paltry little resistance from the thin plastered walls of the building.

For the second time that minute, I was crashing through a window, this time on my way back out of the building. This was only a temporary condition however, as I was simply electing to take the scenic route on my way through the Viper ponies infesting the buildings. I very quickly rolled through the air, tucking my head into my side and coming up with the lanyard that was connected to my submachine guns trigger mechanism. By the time I had the lanyard in my mouth, I was passing just outside a window looking in at the carbine-armed unicorn. She only just caught sight of me as I tugged on the line and opened fire. Twin streams of superheated lead sliced through the mare, leaving a crimson mist on the wall behind her.

Brickwork started exploding all around me, coinciding with the crackling of gunfire coming from behind me as the Vipers across the street took exception with my conduct towards their fellow gang members. I wasn’t quite ready to place myself in a crossfire just yet, so it was time to get back inside and out of their line of fire. With a deft flick of my wings, I fell over backwards and plummeted towards the ground, and the window below on the building’s second floor. This one was open, at least, saving me the grief of having to further saturate my feathers with even more powdered glass. I was going to itch for the rest of the day after this...badly.

My eyes were tracking the red blip of the next Viper pony before he actually came into view. It was an advantage that the nervous stallion distinctly lacked. As evidenced by his surprise when I came sailing in through the open window and tackled him to the ground. A had to admit that I had been a little taken aback as well though. I hadn’t had any real way to judge how far away from me he was going to be, just his direction. As it turned out, the earth pony stallion must have been on his way over to the window to see if her could get a clear look at what was going on outside and the reason for all of the gunfire.

But, while I may not have been expecting him to be so close, the stallion hadn’t been expecting me at all. So when a little pegasus wearing in a bright blue unitard swooped in and slammed into his chest, he wasn’t exactly prepared to resist the hit. My legs clamped around him and my wings beat furiously as I drove myself forward in an attempt to flip the larger pony. As surprised as he was, all that I really had to overcome was the stallion’s weight, which meant that I soon had him splayed out on his back.

“Hey, there, lover,” I cooed at the stallion I was straddling as I cocked my hoof back in preparation to be begin beating him into submission, “I hope you like it rough!”

Then the chilling sound of a shotgun chambering a round drew my attention away from the pinned pony. I looked over and saw another unicorn stallion with an automatic shotgun trained at my head and distinctively vicious sneer spread across his face, “on second thought, let’s cuddle first...”

I threw myself down on top of the stallion I had pinned and rolled him in between me and the flechet-spewing firearm just as it started going off. His body quivered and spasmed several times as a hurricane of pellets washed over him. By the fourth or fifth shot his screams ceased and he finally died, his further trembling due entirely to the force of the impacting shots that his unsympathetic partner continued to pump into my impromptu shield’s corpse.

Curling up as tightly as I could behind the ravaged carcass, and now quite thankful for my youthfully small size, I carefully craned my head beneath my wing and withdrew my pistol from its concealed holster in anticipation of the moment when the unicorn would inevitably run out of ammunition and be forced to reload. The only question on my mind right now was whether my fleshy bunker would remain intact long enough for me to weather this onslaught.

Then there was the sound of a much crisper clap of gunfire intertwined with the roar of the shotgun. A second shot rang out a second later, and then the unicorn abated. I peered carefully around the bloody remnants of what had been the stallion’s rib cage and looked for the unicorn, only to find him looking out to his left, towards the street. Then I heard that sharper crack again, and a piece of the wall behind the unicorn crumbled. He scowled in the direction of the street and turned his shotgun away from me to deal with this new threat.

“Hey! I’m, not finished with you yet,” I growled around the grip of my pistol. Then I depressed the trigger three times. Two rounds caught the stunned unicorn in his chest, while the third ripped away the right side of his neck. The magical glow holding his weapon fizzled out, and he collapsed to the ground. I pried myself out from beneath the remains of my cover, frowning at the new stains on my Wonderbolt barding. It looked like I was going to need to avail myself to Starlight’s cleaning spell again. Hopefully this wasn’t going to become, like, a thing with us…

As I tried to stand up, I became very acutely aware of a fiery pain in my thigh. Looking down, I saw that several of those hundreds of pellets had not been completely stopped by the body of the stallion I’d been behind. I teased out a healing potion and gulped it down. The half dozen or so bleeding pours closed up almost instantly, and I only hoped that I wasn’t going to jingle when I walked from now on...

I trotted stiffly over to the window and peered out. I followed the collection of yellow dots―even RG was one somehow―on my EFS and spied the rest of the group holed up across the street in a small shop. Foxglove was looking in my direction, her bolt-action rifle hovering in front of her, and a relieved expression on her face.

“Hey, Foxy, were you trying to steal my kill?!” I yelled across the street at the mare, whose expression switched from relieved to shocked upon hearing my question. I was going to have to add, ‘range time with Ramparts’ to the list of things I needed the mare to do. Three shots and no hits on a pretty much stationary target? Come on, Foxy, you’re breaking my heart here...

Then Foxglove looked suddenly horrified, and I saw her emerald eyes and the muzzle of her rifle shift to my right.

Without hesitation, I engaged SATS and looked in that direction. An earth pony mare was looking at me through a wrecked wall, a very hefty looking pistol in her mouth. I queued up three shots aimed at her head and willed the pipbuck to execute the commands. Two of the rounds reduced her head to something that looked disturbingly similar to the consistency of Cram while the third went astray.

I glared at the headless corpse, “exCUSE me! I was having a conversation with my friend,” I slipped the pistol back beneath my wing and looked back at the violet unicorn mare, “rude. Now, as I was saying―”

A nearby pane of glass shattered, showering me with even more powdered fragments of glass. Several bricks on the outer wall of the building also exploded as the ponies across the street opened up on my position. I instinctively ducked out of the line of fire, yelling very loudly, “you guys are being very inconsiderate right now; your mothers would be appalled! Foxglove, we’ll talk about this later.

“RG!” I raised the volume of my voice slightly higher to be sure I was being heard over the sound of the smattering of gunfire, “I’d very much appreciate those metal wings, please!”

Frankly, I was finding myself hard-pressed to come up with a way across the street that didn’t involve me being a helpless target for the massed fire of the five remaining Viper gang members. While I found Lightning Dust’s assurances of the Gale Force whatever’s resilience versus energy weapons to be questionable, it’s ability to deflect projectile rounds had been admirably demonstrated in my opinion. Hopefully their added protection would allow me to cross without having my lead levels raised too significantly.

There was a brief flash of cyan light in front of me. When it faded, I could see the set of alloyed wings lying on the floor. I frowned and glared in the direction of the other members of my group through the crumbling wall that was still being shot at by the Vipers, “you lazy fuck! You and I are going to have some words about this, RG!”

With a preparatory breath, I vaulted from my cover, grabbing up the wings as I went, and sought more substantial protection deeper within the old apartment building in order to slip myself into the contraption. I managed to find a small utility closet that kept me out of any direct lines of fire. I could still hear rounds whistling through the air nearby though on their way to chip away at the walls and floors, “no, it’s fine,” I mumbled to myself as I dropped my battlesaddle and set about securing my wings into the straps and latching the braces around my legs. It was still without an power source, but I was far more interested in its armor qualities at the moment than what it could do for my maneuverability, “I’m just over here all on my own, pinned down by five murderous psychopaths,” when every strap was set, I gave them all one additional tug to make certain they wouldn’t slip off in the middle of the fight. At least those blades were still exposed, “so I obviously don’t need anypony else over here to help me out with any sort of magical shield or anything. You guys just stay over there.

“It’s fine.”

I craned my head out of the closet and peered through the shattered interior of the building to where the other apartment across the street could be seen. Most of the gang members over there seemed to have decided that now was the opportune time to shift their positions. Whether they were trying to get to better cover, or simply hoping to organize a new killzone, I couldn’t tell from here. Flying across the open street to get to them was going to prove interesting though.

They had some keen eyes, those Vipers; credit where it was due. I’d taken no more than two steps out into the relative open of the apartment when the bullets started whizzing around me again. Ignoring them, I bolted for the open window and launched into the air. As light as the alloyed getup was for its strength, it was still a little cumbersome to fly with the added weight on my own wings. This only served to make what was already going to be an awkward maneuver even more so when I flipped myself over and started backwinging my way towards the other side of the street.

I ducked my head in low and did my best to keep all four of my hooves covered by the protection offered by the Gale Force’s superstructure. Rounds impacted my spine and sparked off the alloyed feathers of the wings themselves as I crossed the gulf between the apartment complexes. It was a terrifying experience, I couldn’t deny that. Never had I ever consciously placed so much faith in the ability of something I was wearing to protect me from harm.

In less than a minute, I was also reminded rather abruptly of why I wasn’t all that fond of flying backwards either. I had to commend Lightning Blitz and her design team for their quality craftmareship. The Gale Force took the meeting with that wall like a champ! I could only wish that my back was built that sturdy.

Groaning from the whiplash that had been caused by my sudden stop, I peeled myself out of the crumbling brickwork and glanced around. My eyes were focused on the pipbuck’s Eyes Forward Sparkle as I noted the relative location of the five red blips that identified the locations of the remaining gang members. The closest was just above and to the left of where I was. I rolled up in through the window and landed on the creaking floor with my right wing fanned out protectively in front of me.

I winced reflexively as a slew of rounds skittered off of the alloyed metal shell that protected my feathers. A dozen or more rounds must have been deflected away before there was a lull. It was then that I heard the faint sound of something metal and hollow clattering to the floor. The Viper had dropped their magazine to swap it out! Now was my chance to advance and take them out before they finished reloading.

With a powerful sweep of my wings, I launched myself at my opponent, getting a look at them for the first time. They were a unicorn stallion wearing half rusted metal barding that looked like it was built from whatever scrap they could get their hooves on, slathered with bright green paint. He very nearly had his automatic pistol loaded with fresh rounds by the time I’d closed the distance. A flaring of my pinions stalled me in the air directly in front of the armored stallion. The speed with which I had reached him had clearly surprised the unicorn, but he didn’t falter as he locked the new magazine into place and sent the slide forward with his magical manipulation of the weapon.

My body whirled in midair as I spun around and caught the barrel of the pistol with the edge of my left wing. The force of the blow managed to dislodge the weapon from his telekinetic grip and send it slamming into a nearby wall. I followed through with spin, and added into a backflip that would allow me to make a pass at his throat with the bladed edge of my right wing as it came around. This unicorn was quick though, and it was not the flesh of the stallion’s neck that the keen alloyed razor met but a very intimidating looking machete. The connection stopped me dead in the air, leaving me floating for one terrifying heartbeat on my back in front of the Viper unicorn with my own neck and belly perfectly exposed.

It was not merely the one machete that this unicorn possessed either, I quickly realized as a twin to the one that had arrested my movements started descended down in a hacking slice that was clearly intended to completely bisect my whole body. By the Grace of Celestia, I was able to cross my forelegs in front of me just in time to catch the notched machete with my bracer-enclosed limbs and stop it from cleaving open my unarmored rib cage. My one remaining eye focused on that rusted edge as it hovered close enough to my muzzle that I was half convinced my nose had split open out of sheer anticipation of the hit.

For his part, the armored stallion seemed to be rather disappointed that he had not landed the blow, as he glowered down at me. I rolled in the air and lashed out with my left wing this time. The blade that had been stopped by my hooves shifted over and my wing-strike was once more halted before it could land. I recoiled and twirled again. Each time I lashed out, the stallion was there with one of his floating machetes to turn aside my strikes. However, he was at least too preoccupied with parrying my attacks to make any of his own. If I was going to make any progress of my own though, I was going to need to introduce a third weapon.

My moment came when two of my attempts at crossing slashes were each met with opposing blades, leaving me facing the stallion with my metal-clad wings between him and myself. I ducked my head down and took my compact .45 from its snug little holster at my side. When I snapped my wings open again, the unicorn stallion found me with my head raised and the weapon held firmly in my mouth. My lips curled in a smile when I saw the glimmer of recognition in his eyes.

“Peek-a-boo!” I said around the grip of the weapon just before depressing the trigger.

I had intended to fire off at least four shots at the unicorn, but I had managed to forget how many rounds I had already expended during my fight in the buildings across the street, and the slide locked back on the first round. It was well-placed though, there was an abrupt scream and I saw the stallion’s head whip to the side as a splash of blood spewed from his face. The armored unicorn staggered and feel to the ground in front of me.

Then, rather suddenly, something blunt and very heavy connected with the armored backing of the Gale Force harness and sent me crashing through a cabinet. The pistol in my mouth went skittering across the floor, out of sight. I heard myself groaning rather loudly as I got back up onto my hooves, shaking the splintered wood of the destroyed cabinet off of me. My head turned to get a look at what I’d been hit by just in time to see something big, metal, and fast, moving heading towards my face.

Reflexively, I brought up my left wing to shield me, but whatever it was had a lot more force behind it that I had anticipated. Rarely had I ever been in a position where I was flying through the air when it had not been my intent to do so, but here I was now, careening across the room until I met up with a wall. The vertical surface didn’t do all that much to stop my flight though. I went just about all the way through it, hanging out the other side by a leg and mentally processing all of the ways in which my body was hurting. With a stifled croak, I shifted my hind leg and dropped the rest of the way through the new hole in the wall, landing headfirst on the floor in this new room.

“Oog…anypony get the number of that wagon?” I moaned under my breath as I stood back up on unsteady legs. I winced slightly as I moved my left wing and glanced at it. My gaze widened when I saw that there was a rather noticeable dent where I’d tried to deflect the blow. What in the Wasteland had…

“Oh, horseapples!” I spurted, leaping back from the wall quickly as what was left of it promptly exploded. I ducked away from the shower of wood and plaster, continuing to move about and get some distance between myself and this new threat in the form of an earth pony mare. A mare that was wearing a pair of power hooves on her forelegs. Their hydraulic actuators hissed noisily as they retracted back into their ready position after having demolished the wall that I’d just been pounded through.

Well. This was unfortunate. I had no guns, no grenades, no room to fly, and even my metal wings apparently weren’t going to be up to stopping what this mare was dishing out, “I don’t suppose we can talk this out?”

The mare snarled at me and leaped into the air, diving down with both of her forelegs extended outwards. I managed to dash out of the way at the last moment. I heard the the sound of splintering of wooden planks and felt the reverberations in the floor as the thick support beams below cracked and buckled under the force of the impact. I peered back at the section of caved-in floor and tried not to think too hard about what would end up happening if I got hit with a blow like that…

Woops, time to move again!

My hooves skittered across the floor as I fled to another corner of the room in the face of another fierce charge from the earth pony Viper. This wasn’t going to work out as a long-term strategy, I knew. Going hoof-to-hoof with this mare wasn’t something that I saw working out for me very well though, so I was at a bit of an impasse with regards to how I was going to resolve this. For the moment, all I could think to do was try and talk her down until I worked out something a bit more effective.

“Come on, it’s like, you and a couple other ponies left!” I yelled at the mare as her power hooves cocked back once more, ready to deliver another pair of devastating blows, “just cut your losses and go!”

“Fuck you, you bitch! You killed my brother!” she lurched into the air and dove for me.

I rolled to the side, crying out in pain as I discovered that it had apparently been more than just the Gale Force harness that had been mangled by the Viper’s earlier hit. I felt something inside my left wing moving around that I was fairly sure should not have been. Well, that was unfortunate. At least I had managed to get clear before yet another portion of floor was reduced to a concave divot of splintered wood.

“It was self-defense!” I shot back at the mare as I edged away from her, “it’s not like I made you morons attack me…”

Perhaps antagonizing her wasn’t the best means by which to descalate the situation, I thought as she flung herself at me once more. I used a brief flutter from my remaining good wing to held sidestep the earth pony mare’s next assault. When I landed again, I tensed up, feeling the floor shift ever so slightly beneath my hooves. Looking around briefly, I noted that it was not merely flooring that had been sundered by the Viper’s strikes, but the cross-beam supports beneath it as well. As many of the rooms in old buildings like this one that had seen collapses already, I suspected that it probably wouldn’t take much more to make this particular room follow suit, and the mare’s expression suggested that her attention was so narrowly focused on me that she didn’t even notice the shifting surface and protesting carpentry.

I mentally cringed at the idea that I was going to finish two fights in a week by dropping somepony through the floor of an old building. Not that I was in much of a position to be too choosy right this moment. Either I finished this fight soon, or it was only going to be a matter of time before this mare got lucky and finished me.

Perhaps, then, antagonistic was the way to go with this conversation, “maybe if you all weren’t such incompetent idiots you could have gotten the drop on us,” I said dryly, shrugging my shoulder dismissively at the mare, and hiding the wince of pain that the movement prompted. Was there any part of me that didn’t hurt right about now?

I held my ground a little longer this time when the mare charged me. Now that I had the barest foundation of a ‘plan’ on how to deal with her, I needed to take measures to see it through. I wasn’t going to simply leave it to chance that the Viper would somehow managed to destabilize the floor further, I needed to deliberately help things along. So, this time, when the mare cocked back her hydraulically assisted hoof and threw it at me, I was there to meet it.

Many years ago, out in the Seaddle Ruins that ringed the Neighvada Valley settlement that was the heart of the New Lunar Republic, a grizzled old earth pony with a black mane and a rust-colored coat had invested hundreds of hours over the course of many months instructing a naive little filly in the fundamentals of hoof-to-hoof combat. Much to her initial dismay, a great deal of what she had been taught had not been the sort of hard-hitting punches and kicks that she had expected. There had been those elements sprinkled about in her instruction, yes, but they had not been the core of her tutelage. No, that had been reserved for more ‘passive’ techniques. So much of what Jackboot had utilized had been built upon the concept of deflection and redirection of enemy attacks. As a result, that form a core of what I knew too.

Over the years I had added to my own personal repertoire, and I’d also altered many of those base techniques to make better use of the advantages that my wings and flight offered me. But I still remembered those long months of practice and, more often than not, veritable ‘beatings’ at Jackboot’s hooves when he demonstrated the various openings my early missteps presented. While I might not have had much occasion or need to use those initial techniques since, I still recalled them quite vividly.

With a subtle shift to the side and what could have almost been described as a ‘wave’ of my foreleg, the Viper mare’s driving hoof was detoured away from my body and sent down into the floor. The moment the actuator made contact with the aged wood, it engaged and rocketed forward with devastating force, shattering the flooring beneath it. I continued in the gentle little sidestep, reaching beneath the mare with my other hoof and lifting her by her belly. It wasn’t really all that much force, but it didn’t really have to be. Once her power hoof planted itself into the floor it acted in concert with the mare’s momentum and newly displaced center of gravity to send her flank over fetlock into the wall.

Dry plaster rained down as the earth pony’s backside connected with the ancient surface. Meanwhile, I danced gingerly away, a broad grin on my face. Beneath me, I could feel the floor protesting even my meager weight, and I chose to augment my movement with some well-timed fluttering from my good wing so as not to tempt fate where the room’s structural integrity was concerned. Casually, I guided myself over to the corner across the room that had managed to remain intact up to this point. Perhaps a good hit here would be all that was needed to do that trick.

The Viper staggered back up onto her hooves and shook away her surprise. While I doubted that she had suffered anything serious in the way of physical injury, it was clear from her baleful expression that her pride had taken a rather sturdy blow in that exchange, and that the earth pony desired very much to exact vengeance for it, “you’re going to pay for that…” she growled as she advanced again. She did so much more cautiously this time than she had previously. Apparently my little display a moment ago had prompted the mare to rethink her ‘reckless abandon’ style of fighting from earlier and take me more seriously as an opponent.

That was going to complicate things, I thought with a slight frown. I was going to need to motivate her to become more aggressive, it seemed, “and who’s going to make me, you?” I scoffed, snorting at the mare contemptuously, “except for that one cheap shot there at the beginning, you haven’t been able to touch me!”

I heard the mare rumbling low in her throat as she paced closer. I stood my ground, remaining over the site of the support that I needed her help to destroy. My eyes remained fixed on her hips, knowing that the first signed of any attack from her would originate there. When she made her move, I needed to be ready for it.

“Just look at you,” I said, grinning at the mare, “acting all nervous about fighting an unarmed little filly like me. I always knew that Vipers were cowards, but wow do you take it to a whole new level!”

That did it. I saw the movement before the mare let out her enraged scream. Then she lunged. The distance between us had closed considerably, and I wasn’t left with a lot of room to react. Fortunately, I had the pipbuck to help me, and its SATS. I engaged the targeting assistance system, and time slowed down. The device allowed me to cue up three attacks as the mare arced through the air towards me. Once they had been imputed, I confirmed the selection and let the pipbuck take over.

First was a sharp jab to the mare’s face. It didn’t do a whole lot of damage, but that hadn’t been the point. The quick strike had been intended to disorient, and it had. This meant that the earth pony was only vaguely aware of me wrapping a leg around one of her outstretched power hooves and spinning into her as I guided the hard-hitting gauntlet into the floor. The pistons engaged and drove into the floor, shattering the beams beneath. At this point, I was positioned beneath the mare, and so I bucked up hard, snapping my head back to catch her in the jaw. The mare was thrown back, landing rather unceremoniously on her flank in the middle of the room.

I idly rubbed the back of my head as I turned to look at my opponent. She was getting back up onto her hooves again, shaking her head to clear her senses. She set her stance and looked as though she were about to make another charge…

...Then the floor shifted. The movement was sudden and significant, nearly causing me to lose my balance. The mare had been less fortunate and went down. She looked about with very wide eyes. The floor began to creak rather loudly, and some scattered crackling could be heard as the remaining supports started to rend under the strain of supporting the entire upper level. Realization finally dawned on the mare, but it was too late.

Having been the one that planned for this whole event, I was already well in motion by the time the beams relented and fell away. It would have been a lot simpler if I could have simply hovered and let the floor fall away beneath me, but my broken wing precluded that possibility, meaning that I was going to have to do this the ‘ground pounder’ way: by running really quickly for safety.

In the air I was pretty quick. I couldn’t say how fast I was when compared to other pegasi, as I hadn’t been given any chances to test my skills against them in that regard; but I was certainly faster than any earth pony or unicorn that I had ever met. That was while using my wings though. On my hooves, running along the ground, I suppose that I was ‘passably average’ at best. This proved to be a marginally acceptable speed at the moment. The floor vanished from beneath me as I was just a couple steps away from the adjacent room. My momentum only just managed to carry me to the jagged edge of what remained of the room’s flooring, where my forelegs clambered desperately for purchase to keep me from falling along with the earth pony.

It was not an ideal position to be in, that was for certain. I couldn’t get much leverage with my forelegs to pull myself all of the way up―it was honestly all that I could do to keep from slipping off―and it seemed that the remainder of the floor’s edge protruded out just enough that my flailing hind quarters couldn’t find anything to plant against either. My right wing’s awkward fluttering wasn’t doing much to give me any lift either, and the pain in my left one was steadily growing in intensity as I struggled.

This wasn’t good.

“Well look what we have here…”

Oh, horseapples. I winced, looking up in the direction of the unfamiliar voice. Another earth pony mare was standing over me, her left cheek baring several streaks of bright green paint. She was looking down at me with an amused smile twisting her features, “having trouble getting up? Would you like some help?”

I cringed, “...you’re not actually going to help.”

“Nope,” her expression soured instantly and her hoof slammed down on my left leg. I wasn’t able to contain the pained scream that escaped my lips as I reflexively withdrew the limb from beneath her. It wasn’t a smart move, I know. All that it did was leave me dangling by only a single hoof above what I could clearly see was a less than ideal landing platform below me. All of those jagged splinters of wood would impale me in a dozen different ways if I fell.

The mare raised her hoof back into the air again, preparing to bring it down on my other leg. I winced as
I saw it fall…

...And then I cocked my head when it froze in mid-air. I stared at the stationary hoof for several long seconds before I I realized that it wasn’t merely frozen, it was glowing with a light blue aura. The mare’s whole body was glowing with that same bright color, in fact. Then, a second later, so was I.

“Woop!” I exclaimed in surprise as I felt myself floating up into the air. I didn’t travel very far before being deposited gently on the floor. I looked around, and only then noticed that I wasn’t alone up here. It seemed that everypony else had finally made their way up as well.

My eyes went to the pink unicorn mare standing on the far side of the room. Her horn glowed with brilliant cyan light, matching the aura that was shimmering around not just the mare who had been about to kick me off the ledge, but the armored unicorn Viper as well. Blood dripped freely from a hole in his cheek where my compact pistol had struck him earlier, but had apparently failed to actually kill him after all. His features were contorted in furious rage as he growled and snarled, his body frozen though it was obvious he was expending every effort to break free from Starlight’s magical grip. The earth pony mare was grunting as well, but her expression was more akin to terror than anger.

“Hurry up and get some cuffs on them or something,” Starlight said in a tone that sounded slightly strained, “I can’t hold them forever!”

That was fair enough. Not much point in delaying. However, it wasn’t restraints that I was going to use to deal with these two. I reached over and drew the small-caliber pistol from a holster on the earth pony mare’s withers and leveled the barrel at the stallion’s head. I pulled the trigger, and this time it was no grazing shot that struck the stallion’s face. The bullet passed through his right eye and blew out the back of his head in a gory spray that painted the wall behind him.

Starlight gaped at me in shock, losing control of her spell. The earth pony mare that had been held fast by her magic nearly collapsed to the floor as she found herself no longer subject the petrifying effects of the magic that had bound her. She was trapped though, between myself and the cavern that was the room where the floor had collapsed. She spun around, her face a mask of terror, and began to plead.

“No, wait, plea―!”

Her words were cut off suddenly by a second deafening crack of the pistol.

I lowered the weapon and looked around the room. That made three Vipers that had been dealt with on this side of the street. There had been five over here at the beginning of the fight. I looked around, my eyes focused on the pipbuck’s EFS overlaid across my field of view. No red blips were visible. I glanced up briefly at the large gray stallion, noting the amber hash mark beneath him, before I looked to Ramparts, “the other two?”

“Took care of them, one floor down,” the Republic courser confirmed with a nod of his head, “this area’s clear.”

“You killed them,” Starlight Glimmer said softly, still staring at me in stark surprise, “I had them paralyzed! You could have just tied them up and arrested them!”

I blinked at the mare, my brain taking a few moments to catch up to the absurdity of what the pink unicorn was saying, “they were Vipers,” I stated simply.

“They were helpless!”

I looked to Ramparts and Foxglove to see if they were having as much trouble grasping what the unicorn was saying as I was. The brown earth pony stallion helped me to explain, “this is the Wasteland,” he began, speaking in an empathetic tone, “things out here are different than they are in a city―mostly. Those were gangers,” he nodded his head in the direction of the dead ponies, “they attack anypony that isn’t a part of their little group. If you’re lucky, they kill and rob you. If you’re unlucky...well, it gets worse.

“If we’d tied them up and brought them with us to Seaddle, they would have just been shot at the gate anyway,” he shrugged, “saves us a lot of time and effort just killing them here.”

“What about jail?” Starlight sputtered, still aghast at what she’d seen, “there are still jails in the future, right?”

Ramparts frowned, “if they’d been petty criminals, and in the city, then yeah, they’d have been locked up for a little while―some community service maybe,” I felt myself tense up slightly, recalling the sorts of things that I’d heard about the nature of the ‘service’ that some of the ponies who fell into that system were subjected to, “but not ponies like this. Feeding and housing them would just take resources that nopony would be willing to waste. Maybe it seems harsh to you, but it’s how things are out here.”

Starlight went silent for a long moment, her gaze drifting back to the pair of dead ponies laying nearby, “...this is horrible.”

“It’s the world that you created for us,” Arginine sad softly from behind her.

The pink unicorn mare shook her head slowly, “I...I can’t,” she turned away and cantered out of the room, “I need a minute.”

I sighed and rubbed my temple. Foxglove had grown up in a Stable, but even she hadn’t been this bad when I’d met her. Granted, she’d been subjected to her own flavor of ‘education’ on how things worked in the Wasteland by the time our paths had crossed, so I suspected that any ‘culture shock’ moments had long since been dealt with by then. Starlight, in contrast, was clearly still adjusting to the vastly different way things were done today compared with what her world must have been like 200 years ago. It had only been, what, a few days? I couldn’t really expect her to understand things this quickly, I guess. I could hope that she learned to accept them quickly though.

“Ramparts, go with her please,” I told the courser. My EFS was clear, as was that of the Republic soldier, but it was best that the pink unicorn not be left out of sight for too long in places like this. Ruins were dangerous by their very nature, and not just because of things like raiders and monsters. The earth pony stallion nodded and trotted off after Starlight.

Next my attention went to Arginine, “my saddlebags are still across the street. Go get them,” the large grey stallion frowned, but said nothing as he turned away and headed downstairs, leaving me alone with Foxglove. The violet unicorn’s gaze was fixed on the Gale Force rig strapped to me, specifically the concave divot on the left wing segment. I nodded, “it took a pretty solid hit from a power hoof. I think the wing’s broken too.”

The mare’s frown deepened further at the revelation, “you shouldn’t have tried to take them all on by yourself,” she admonished as she bent closer to get a better look at the physical damage to the rig.

“It’s not like I had a lot of options,” I pointed out, “Starlight doesn’t even know how to fight. I’m not about to give RG a weapon. No offense, but your aim sucks,” Foxglove shot me a reproving look but didn’t argue the point, “Ramparts is the only other competent fighting we have with us, and somepony has to look after the rest of you while the fight’s going on.”

“I don’t need him to protect me,” the mare stated this time, sounding reproachful.

“You do until you can learn to shoot straight,” I countered, “I’m not saying you’re not useful,” I offered in an attempt to sooth the mare, who was looking at me with an expression that was growing steadily more critical, “but you’re not a fighter like me and Ramparts are. Really, that’s kinda my fault; and Jackboot’s. We should have spent more time teaching you that sort of thing.

“While we’re in Seaddle, I’d actually like you to work with Ramparts on your marksmareship,” I went on, “and not just you. We’re going to get Starlight a weapon and she’s going to learn to shoot too; because you’re right,” I admitted with a pained sigh, looking at my wing, “doing this on my own isn’t easy. Vipers weren’t nearly this much trouble to deal with when Jackboot was here.”

“This is going to need some work to fix,” Foxglove said finally, indicating the dent, “but it’s probably best that we leave it on for now. It’s probably helping keep your bones in place.”

“You’re probably right,” I agreed. I glanced around the room and trotted over to where my pistol had skittered to during the fight. I swapped in a fresh magazine and then slipped the weapon into its holster at my side, “I am not looking forward to the lecture Lancet’s going to give me…” between the broken wing and the eye, I was pretty sure that the black unicorn was going to have quite an earful to say about what I’d been up to since my last visit with him.

“Is your leg okay?”

I glanced down, having nearly forgotten about the wound I’d sustained earlier in the fight. Now that I was concentrating on it, I could feel the dull ache radiating throughout my flank where several pellets had managed to find their mark around the sides of the pony that I had been using as cover. The bleeding had long since been taken care of by the healing potion I’d drunk, the crimson stain in my barding remained, “it’s fine. Just a graze,” after a fashion.

“If you say so,” Foxglove didn’t sound very convinced. It wasn’t like this was the worst I’d been hurt, even in the short time that the unicorn had known me. Frankly, the injuries that I’d sustained during this fight were moderate, at worst.

Somehow that had sounded like something to be thankful for when the thought had first crossed my mind...

Maybe lingering in Seaddle for a short while wasn’t such a bad idea. If nothing else, I really should try to recover so I was on top of my game when we got to Old Reino. That place was supposed to be one of the most dangerous locations in the whole valley, and I wasn’t going to be much help in my current state. Besides, both Foxglove and Starlight were going to need time to get more familiar with their weapons. I also needed some more of that custom ammunition that the violet unicorn made for me.

Maybe a short break wasn’t such a bad idea. What harm could it do?

Arginine soon returned with my saddlebags. The first article that I removed from them was a bottle of Wild Pegasus, which earned me another disapproving look from Foxglove, but she remained silent. I twisted off the stopper and took a long, refreshing pull from the bottle. As I swallowed it down, I looked over at the pair of nearby corpses.

Why didn’t Vipers ever feel like running away when they saw things going sideways like that? I wiped out a half dozen of them in, like, a minute, and the rest of them just kept right on coming. I mean, I guess that one mare I put down there at the end was ready to run away and all, but she’d just have gone after somepony else later. Like Ramparts had explained to Starlight: ganger ponies just cause problems.

They’d live in a for-real settlement if they wanted to behave like rational ponies.

“Let’s get going,” I said to both ponies, corking the bottle again, but tucking it under my good wing as opposed to stuffing it back into my bag. I was going to be taking a few more drinks along the way.

Starlight had not gone very far, and we found both her and Ramparts in the street. It seemed that the pink mare had recovered somewhat from her earlier shock at witnessing the executions earlier and was ready to resume traveling with us. At our approach, the mare looked over, her eyes ending up lingering on my left wing, which was hanging rather awkwardly at my side.

“...are you going to be okay?”

“This?” I nodded at the dented metal cover that was encasing my wing, “that’s nothing new. Anypony that stays out in the Wasteland for a week’ll end up getting shot or something eventually,” the pink unicorn didn’t seem to like that notion too much, “welcome to the future, and thanks for making it what it is,” I held up the bottle of whiskey in mock salute before taking another drink. The unicorn winced and looked away.

I swallowed down the mouthful and sighed, “sorry, that was...mean,” I apologized, tucking away the alcohol once more, “I know you didn’t have anything to do with it, personally,” I thought for a moment, “did you?”

Starlight shook herself, “I wasn’t part of the Megaspell projects. That was Twilight Sparkle’s department,” she explained, “my focus was on...social issues.”

“Huh?”

“The war was hard on a lot of ponies,” Starlight explained, as the five of us formed up and resumed traveling through the ruins. Ramparts, now the most combat capable of us, took point. One of his ears was cocked back the whole while though, listening to the conversation, “families were losing loved ones like never before. Everypony was losing friends. Some days, it felt like the fighting would just go on forever. When Princess Celestia died…” she shook her head, “traditional therapy wasn’t enough in a lot of cases. So, the Ministry of Peace turned to magical support to help ponies deal with the stress.

“I had a lot of experience with emotional turmoil and dealing with serious loss before the war as part of a, um…side project, we’ll say,” she offered up a wry smile, “it wasn’t something that had exactly been ‘sanctioned’, you understand, but the value was seen by the Ministry of Peace early on, and Ministry Mare Fluttershy argued strongly for a lot of the techniques that I’d developed to help ponies deal with loss related to the war.

“I used my research to help develop the first memory extraction spells so that troubling and traumatic thoughts could be removed from ponies that simply couldn’t deal with them. I even oversaw a few of conditioning camps for the more troublesome zebra prisoners of war,” she sounded a bit more pleased with herself about that, “we managed to recruit more than a few agents out of those programs over the years that helped us learn valuable intelligence about the zebras.”

“You talked zebras into helping ponies? How?”

“It’s all a matter of showing them the error of their ways,” Starlight Glimmer explained, “all you had to do was give them enough time to think about how much they were hurting those around them, and give them a chance to make amends. Eventually they come around. Everypony does.”

“Really? That’s pretty unbelievable,” I couldn’t imagine a Viper or a White Hoof ever changing like that. Well, actually, I guess that wasn’t entirely accurate, was it? I did know,er, knew a White hoof that had changed. Jackboot admitted that, early in his life, he’d been a killer just like the rest of his tribe, but then I’d seen him become a very different pony from the rest of the White Hooves. Maybe there was something to what the pink unicorn mare was saying after all.

“We did a lot of good work,” she nodded, “and we helped a lot of ponies and zebras make the right decisions.

“So, maybe you can understand why I was so upset about what you did to those prisoners earlier,” she added in a more subdued tone.

“Yeah...I can kind of see it now,” I admitted, my own voice getting quieter, “if it makes any difference, it’s not like I enjoy doing that sort of thing,” and that was indeed the truth, “honestly? I hate killing ponies if I don’t have to,” I wasn’t a particular fan of doing it when I knew that I did have to, if I was being really honest, “but, when you’ve got a cutie mark like mine, there really isn’t all that much else you can do, is there?”

The unicorn mare glanced at me in mild surprise, her gaze shifting briefly to my flank, though the Wonderbolt uniform obscured my actual mark, “so...you’re saying it’s a cutie mark issue?”

“Of course it is,” I snorted, “you want to know how I got it? I killed a farmer, in his own house,” Foxglove whipped her head around this time and gaped at me with wide eyes. Ramparts noticeably tensed as well. Understandable, as this would be the first time that either of them heard about the events surrounding the appearance of my cutie mark, “he was attacking a friend of mine. He was going to kill him. I picked up a gun that was nearby and fired. I wasn’t trying to kill anypony, I really wasn’t. I just wanted to fire near the farmer and scare him, get him to stop hurting my friend.

“I didn’t miss though,” I said somberly, “I hit him in the head. I killed him. My friend lived though.

“I’d been so scared that I’d be too late to help, but he made it. I was so relieved. It was the best I’d ever felt in my life, really,” I was silent for several long moments, “and then my mark appeared. A sword piercing a heart. The mark of a pony meant to kill.

“I was devastated. I didn’t want to be a killer. What choice do I have though? It’s my destiny. I did promise myself that I’d try to only kill bad ponies though. Maybe then, at least, I could do some good. It doesn’t make the killing any easier though.”

“That’s really fascinating,” Starlight mused, looking back towards my flank with a slightly more pensive expression, “I have to admit, I’ve never heard of a pony who genuinely resented their talent before...but I have known cutie marks to cause problems for ponies,” her own voice took on a slight edge, briefly, “and I’ve studied cutie marks extensively.

“I may be able to help you,” she offered.

“Really?” my ears perked up, surprised, “how?”

“I’ll need to prepare a few things, but I should be able to cure you of your impulse to kill.”

I wouldn’t have necessarily described it as an ‘impulse’, I thought to myself. I mean, it was just something that I was supposed to do, because it was my destiny, right? Still, if this unicorn could help me out, I was all for it, “you really can?”

“Sure thing,” Starlight smiled more genuinely now, “I’ve done it loads of times! Trust me, when the procedure’s done, you’ll feel so much better. Too bad I couldn’t have met you two hundred years ago,” she cokced a wan smile, “you have no idea what a pony like you could have done for my research. A pony who genuinely resents their talent because it drives them to do things that are repugnant? I’d have been able to get nearly unlimited government funding for my old research with that! My techniques weren’t very well received when I presented them to the MAS, honestly.”

“They weren’t? Why not?”

“Ponies called them ‘extreme’,” Starlight scoffed, “but that was just because they didn’t understand what I was trying to accomplish. I had dozens of patients who attested to the treatment, and they all loved what I’d done for them. But, without Ministry approval, I couldn’t make the treatment more widely available.

“I don’t need that now though!” she brightened, “I will need to get ahold of some material to conduct the procedure,” she mused, studying the mark, “hopefully I can find what I need in this ‘Seaddle’ place when we get there, and then your cutie mark troubles will be over!”

“I’d really appreciate that,” I said, surprising myself with how relieved I sounded. It was as though some great weight had been removed from my shoulders. Starlight could really help me with my cutie mark woes? That sounded almost too good to be true! A part of me didn’t want to let myself get too excited in case it didn’t pan out, but the notion that I’d soon be freed from my obligation to kill ponies wasn’t something that I found easy to ignore.

I wouldn’t be a killer anymore!

It was like a dream come true…

Footnote:...

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