"There are days I hate my life, then I remember that I have missiles and it is right again." Applebits

"Bits." Lightning said as I stared at Skull who had just killed her brother with nothing but her bare hooves.

"Dark, see to it that the young mare is stowed someplace safe." I replied, not taking my gaze off of Skull as she cried.

"He is the reason my life has been a living Hell." Skull sniffed, not meeting my eyes.

"I can't leave you out here alone Skull." I said softly as I gave her a hug, my voice synthesizer buzzing lightly, "Will you come with us?"

"Y... yes, I will." she replied, hugging me back.

I gave a single nod as I pulled her away from her dead brother, never removing my eyes from her pained expression. I walked her up to the top of the stairs before the old wooden door slammed inwards and a Steel Ranger plowed clean into me.

"Halt!" a masculine voice shouted as two more rangers ran in behind him as I fell, ensuring that Skull would land atop me.

"By who's command?" my synthesized voice shouted back as I observed their armor, the two in back were solid grey, but the one in the front had golden trim on his shining armor.

"Paladin Steel Fire." the lead ranger replied as I got back up to my hooves.

"Look I'm having a bad enough day as is, I don't need any over confident rangers thinking that they out rank me." I calmly said as I took a momentary look for Lightning who had practically vanished into thin air.

"Heh, I don't recognize you so I don't think you are worth anything at all!" he shouted as I heard mini-guns spin up.

"Applebits... don't... fight them!" Skull coughed as she picked herself up.

Then before anyone could fire a round the lead rangers head detonated and sprayed me with gore as the two behind him were simultaneously decapitated by cackling wings.

"Sorry for the wait, my stealth buck was glitching out a bit." Lighting said without a hint of emotion as Skull and I shook off the pony remains.

Skull remained silent as we walked up the stairs, Lighting in the lead, "So where are we again?" I asked before stopping next to him in the downpour of rain.

"Welcome to Hoofington Applebits, the last damn place I want to be." He replied gesturing his wing.

I gave him a nod before checking my EFS, and seeing absolutely nothing whatsoever. I looked over to Lighting but he seemed to be actively looking elsewhere, "Why isn't my EFS showing anything?"

"We are being jammed." he replied as he took to the skies, the pure black skies.

"Well shit." I muttered, my synthetic voice crackling.

"What did you say?" Skull asked as she checked her pistol for ammo.

"Ne-zzzt-mi-tzzz-d" I replied as my voice gave out and I face hoofed.

She just frowned and began walking towards a small group of lights in the distance. I mentally sighed and pursued her, Lighting flying ahead of us as we walked along the cracked road and into ruins of a former city.

"First time here?" Skull asked, to which I shook my head, "Okay, when were you here last?"

"Zzzt" I tried to say about two hundred years ago but my synthesizer just crackled.

She raised an eyebrow and walked up to me tapping my helmet, "Can't you talk anymore?"

I shook my head as my voice cackled in electronic laughter.

"Okay then, so have you been here recently?" she asked as we continued after Lighting who was now sitting on a roof watching our surroundings.

"Its been two hundred years for her, now lock and load, we've got trouble!" he called as he took a combat stance.

Then the ground exploded and Skull ran for cover while I took an unscheduled flight, Lighting flying in the sky above, or wait that's below, me as storm clouds trailed him. Several high caliber shots rang out as I saw pegasi shoot at him, ignoring the massive armored pony just sailing through the air, and into a building, great.

"Applebits!" Skull yelled as I heard several explosions.

Getting to my hooves I gave my mini-guns a test spin before rushing over to the hole I made in the buildings wall. Below me I could see Skull dodging back and forth in the street, her eyes wide as a pegasus clad in black armor darted for her, a scorpion tail poised to strike. I cut loose a stream of fire and tore the attacker in two, unfortunately that gained the attention of his or her friends. "Zzzt!!!" I cried out in urgency, missing my EFS even more.

"Enclaves come out to play!" Lighting said calmly as he walked up behind me.

"Zzzt?" I replied, wishing I knew what he was talking about and how he got inside without me noticing.

"Don't ask me why, just shoot back." he replied calmly.

I did as he said as he shot past me into the sky and started chasing down another pegasus attacker. I focused my fire on the pegasi harassing Skull. "ZZZZTTTZT" I tried to yell retreat as a finished sky tank flew towards us, Skull noticed what was coming and ran into a collapsed section of road but Lighting hadn't noticed. I timed myself and jumped on Lightnings back causing him to drop altitude just as an energy shell hit where we had been.

"Don't know if I should be happy or mad?" he grunted as he struggled to maintain flight.

"Zzt!" I shouted pointing a hoof at the tunnel.

"Right!" he replied.

And together the three of us fled down the tunnel away from the Enclave above.

Author's Notes:

I should note that I am not using Project Horizons Template, no Security, nor the events that transpired in it ever came to be... For simplicity EC-1101 never existed, so think of this as normal FoE. I read PH before continuing this to see if I could link it when I heard of it, alas I started the whole Hoofington arch just by looking at a map of FoE that was prior to PH, in fact it had Little Pip's rout and such, so yeah, sorry if I am disappointing you by conflicting with the awesomeness of PH!

See Map below, as I found a non marked variant!

We are south of Hoofington right now.