All journeys are hard, it is the hardest journey that is satisfying, not to the mind, but to the soul.- Applebits

I woke in a cold sweat, “Fillydelphia, that’s where he is.” I said to myself, as I began putting on my armor, everything but my helmet. Levitating my helmet behind me I opened my door, we were leaving today, nopony knew where we were going, but now, now I knew. I came down the stairs of the hotel, the bottom floor was designed as a diner with a bar, complete with a radio that was tuned to DJ PON3.

-Gooooood morning Wastelanders, this is your pal DJ PON3 coming to you live from 10 Pony Tower in Manehattan. Our stable dweller isn’t the only pony cleaning things up out there in the wastes! I have reports saying that a Shadowbolt and a small army of Steel Rangers duked it out with raiders who had captured the good ponies of Nowhere, then rushed to their aid again when slavers attacked the town! Apparently the Rangers we all know and hate are none to happy about this children, they tried to gun down the White Rangers at the entrance to the little town of Nowhere, our guys put em down hard and fast, even recruited about ten of the rangers for their cause. I guess this just goes to show that a old soldier can always reverse the ill effects of the young. I’ve been told that the pony leading these White Rangers is pre-apocalypse, nothing like the ancients to come pull our flanks out of the fire! Good luck to you out there, you are going to need it! And now the weather-

I had stopped listening, somepony knew about my actions, and was praising them, and since nopony knows where Nowhere is everypony here is safe, thank you DJ PON3 for being obscure in your descriptions.

I sat down at the bar and ordered a little food, the townsfolk were grateful to us for helping them three times in a row, and since the garden was coming along nicely, their supply of pre war food was no longer urgently needed, in short food was on the house. The pony next to me told me that out there in the wasteland they use bottle caps for currency, however obscured it was, it was good to know. By the time I had finished eating and talking about what I used to do before the apocalypse and what Equestria was like before the war an hour in a half had passed me by. I was told that the boys had gotten up before me, to recheck the supplies for the trip, I had two places I wanted to go, Manehattan, and Fillydelphia.

When I got outside I was greeted by the sheriff, now in his Ranger gear, his wife, the ghoul mare who had been nervous about us, and their adopted filly.

“I heard DJ PON3 talking about you this morning, she has been replaying that broadcast for a few hours, now you get out there do us proud and come on home with the old general!” the sheriff said.

“When I had first met you I admit I was rather worried, but you managed to put all those worries aside with all you have done for us, even leaving these admirable ponies behind to defend us, even though the increase for moving as an army would remove you from being a target. Thank you!” the ghoul said.

“I know that you have to go, I don’t want you to go, but I have to…” the filly was holding back tears, “I.. I want you to have this, she floated a locket over to me, don’t forget me, okay?” she said breaking into tears.

I hugged her, I didn’t like seeing her cry and I couldn’t standby and wait for her to stop. I comforted her until she stopped, I may be a Steel Ranger, but my heart isn’t made of steel. “I will never forget you, and I shall honor my Pinkie Promise, no force in or near Equestria will stop me from returning to you!” I said in a hushed comforting tone with a smile as I kissed her cheek.

She smiled back at me, “Good, cause if you break it I will have to hunt you down, and.. And spank you!” she said with a smile. I knew that she would be crying for a long time until I got back, but I had no intent on dieing until I was old and had grandchildren.

I turned around and nearly fell over in shock, my tank was floating in the air on its own power!

“You like it?” I heard Lightning say from the customized sky harness designed to work with his armor.

“I.. I didn’t know we had sky tanks!” I stammered, I knew they existed but I had never seen one let alone known that my own army had one, or in this case five. “How?” I asked .

“Its an early prototype of the Tortoise, the First Army was field testing them, I thought you knew?” he said slightly confused at my reaction.

“No I didn’t, but that makes everything so much easier, we have a flying tank, literally!” I said impressed with Lightning’s ability with machines.

He landed just in front of me, “Will it be able to fire the main cannon without flipping in flight?” I asked grinning.

“Yes, Bull’s-Eye spent about and hour getting the cannon upgraded to do so.” he said, also with a little amazement that our sharpshooter was able to do such a thing.

I looked it over, the underside was well armored, I had originally though it was so to counter mines, but now I saw that it was for protection from weaponry below.

I climbed in as Lightning trotted towards the gate so we could say our goodbyes to the good ponies of Nowhere and the friends we had made. I was sitting in the back of the tank with the hatch open so I could see, Lightning was pulling us in the harness, I guess the crazy pegasus could pull us after all, and Bull’s-Eye was in his favorite spot, the gun control dome, so that he could see everypony too. I could see the doctor standing next to the two ghouls and their adopted filly, and all of my rangers at their positions on the wall, they had built it four ponies high with towers, I was no longer worried about leaving them here. CrossedSwords and BlueSteel were standing at the gate waving farewell, I put my helmet on and gave a salute as choked back my tears.

As soon as we had cleared the trees surrounding the town, Lightning had lifted off. He had also taken the liberty of patching our radios into the Sky Tank so we could talk to each other during the journey and placed a footlocker full of bottle caps inside and another filled with food and water.

“Quite the set up in here.” I said.

“Yea well I figured that we would need the supplies, ammo is in the front compartment if you were wondering, it has the most armor and I fancy not blowing up anytime soon!” he said laughing.

The flight was smooth and for a while we just flew north. After a long while they asked where we were going.

“Well Manehattan is on the way to our ultimate destination.” I said.

“And where would that be ma’am?” Bull’s-Eye retorted.

“Well that would be Fillydelphia.” I said worried that they would argue.

“Fillydelphia eh, always wanted to visit the Ministry of Moral park there, never did get the chance to.” Bull’s-Eye said chuckling.

“Well that’s insane, why are we going their?” Lightning asked.

I sighed and after a long pause siad, “That is where we will find Tempest, last night he managed to contact me again, I know that he is doing it intentionally now, he spoke at me, but never spoke my name, in the vision he showed me their sniper locations, the slave pits, the walls around the city, and a path that we can use to sneak into where they are holding him, getting him out will be much more difficult though.” now I was worried that they would back out and abandon me, To my relief they didn’t.

“Well then lets go get our general back from them hoodlums!” Bull’s-Eye said with a whoopee.

“So why we stopping at Manehattan?” Lightning asked.

“Well that DJ PON3 guy, however abstract he was, practically asked us to, I figured that we should drop by 10 Pony tower if we get the chance to talk, I want to tell him who we are, and that the ancients haven’t abandoned Equestria!” I stated proudly.

“Then lets not wait to long to get there!” Lightning replied.

No pony had spoke in a long time, but the silence was okay, I levitated out the locket. I hadn't stopped thinking about the filly and I realized that I had never gotten her name, how stupid was I, I just knew her as that filly. I opened the locket, inside their was a picture of her with her name in cursive under it, Fire Bloom, on the other side was a message.

I know that you will return, you are the best pony I have ever met, and you have change our town for the better! Thank you, see you soon Paladin Applebits! Love, Fire Bloom.

I was crying, this filly, Fire Bloom, was absolutely adorable and she was the first friendly face I had seen in a long time, putting aside my teammates.

I must have cried for hours, and at some point we had landed, thank Celestia my friends didn't come down into this part of the tank, I don’t think I could take them seeing me break like this. I quickly found my bearing again and put on my helmet, I had laced the locket to my neck under my armor to keep it safe.

I popped out of the Sky Tank to a camp that was being made by my friends, happy there was no trouble I strolled up to them, finally able to stretch my legs. “So where are we” I asked.

“Just south of Sweet Apple Acres, not far from Ponyville.” Lightning said, I nodded to him he must have been exhausted.

“Why don’t you rest a bit, I think that me and Bull’s-Eye can manage the work, all that we have been doing is riding in the tank, you pulled it through the sky.” I said, and at those words Lightning collapsed next to the fire.

“So what else needs to be done?” I asked Bull’s-Eye.

“Nothing much aside from food, I got the fire going, while Lightning secured the area.” he said, I looked around.

“I’ll go ahead and set the deployable auto turrets up.” I said and trotted off leaving him to his tasks. We were in the shadow of a very large barn, and I could tell that light was slipping away.

I need to come up with a system for pulling the Sky Tank so that we don’t leave Lightning exhausted every time we land or get into a fight. When I get back to camp I will talk to Lightning about switching with me in the morning, in short, rotating so that Blade wouldstay in the gun since he was our best shot, and Lightning and I could switch back and forth between puller and the troop carrier area of the tank.

I finished setting down the last turret, when my EFS marked a stable, it was stable two. Now I new that we were bound to find other stables out there, but so early in our journey? I decided to investigate, following my EFS I found the stable door in the Sweet Apple Acres barn cellar. I looked around, it looked like it had been opened recently, I knew the override code and could get in, but if the stable was still in operation I didn’t want to intervene. I looked around with my headlamp on, there were skeletons everywhere, and the door of the stable was damaged with what looked like hoof marks, they had died trying to get in. It was sad to see so many dead but the Overmare had done her job, she had protected those inside the stable.

When I returned to the camp that my friends had set up I was amazed at the aroma coming off of the cooking pot in the fire, not only did Bull’s-Eye know how to hit a target but he was an amazing chef.

“What are you cooking?” I asked realizing that all of our prewar food was ready to eat out of the can.

“Just a stew made from some of the food I bought from the town garden, I don’t know how she grew these so fast, but they cut and cook just right.” he said obviously in love with her ability to grow plants in the terrible condition that Equestria is in.

“Where did the water come from?" I asked

“The tank has a restock able supply, that is why it has its own water stone, so that it can purify the water that we put in its tanks leaking any of the waste materials out the side under the water tank. That’s one of the few places on it where the armor thins out a little.” Lightning said, happy to have a bowl of fresh made soup in front of him.

Blade passed me a bowl filled with the heavenly aroma that filled my nose, “It smells great, where did you learn to cook?” I asked.

“Well my parents wanted me to grow up and be something other than a soldier, so when I was young, before I ever got my mark, they put me in culinary school, eight years or so and I graduated, still wanted to serve in the military, but I got a job in Manehattan as a personal chef to some big celebrity.” he said, “She liked me quite a bit and we ended up married, had two fillies, but when the war started, well she new how I felt and told me to go off to battle and do them proud, that when the war was over they would still be there.” he added as he looked down, a tear crossed his face.

I never thought he was older than me, but after looking at him and studying his features he had to at least be in his late forties. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” I was at a loss for words when the thought hit me, “If you don’t mind me asking, when did you get your mark?” I asked pausing for him to tell me to shut it.

“My mark, well you see I spent a lot of time cooking, came to enjoy it, but my mark never came, so when I enlisted, I joined as the armies cook. It was during my first term in battle, as a cook I was a non-combatant, but the stripes had us out numbered, my outfits officer threw me a weapon, I picked it up and he instructed me how to use it. I dropped eight-teen zebras that day in the total of two hours. When the fighting stopped and we could all breath again, I had been shot and the medics took me to fix me up, one of them asked me about my mark, I told her that I had never gotten mine, that I was a blank. She told me to check my flank. To this day I never figured out if it was because I was shot eighty times or that I took out eight-teen zebras, but I had a big old bull’s-eye on my flank and it has been there ever since.” he said with a smile, past our earlier discussion.

We ate in silence for the rest of the meal, as soon as he finished eating Lightning had gone to sleep, I didn’t blame him, pulling the tank must have been hard work. I stood and levitated the earthenware bowls over to a pot of boiling water and began cleaning up while Bull’s-Eye put away the leftovers in our refrigerator, that we apparently had in the tank, was the tank missing anything, I swear is more like a heavily armed RV than a tank.

I walked over to him when I was done with the dishes, for two reasons, one I needed to put them away, two I wanted to tell him about the stable I had found. As I was putting away the dishes he started staring at me, “What’s wrong?” I asked him, worried that it was about earlier.

“Nothin, I just, I just wish I knew more, like why we somehow survived when none of our loved ones did, my fillies didn’t deserve to die?” he said, it hadn’t been a question, he was just mourning the loss of his family. It had been two hundred years for everypony, except us, for us it had only been a month since it all happened.

“I wish that there was something I could do for you, I really do.” I said noticing that he was crying.

“Sniff, you don’t need to do nothin, I just want to visit my old home, if it is still there and write somewhere like a grave marking, so they know that I didn’t forget them, they had just gotten their cutiemarks, and my wife had sent me pictures of them a week before the fallout, sniff.”

He was sobbing, I did the only thing I could, I gave him a hug and tried to calm him down, “We can visit your home, and I will be honored to leave a marking. They would be happy that you are making a difference in this wasteland, chin up, you will see them when this is all over, when we have finished our mission.” I said, thinking to myself that it was easy for me, I never had children, never even married, but I did have nieces and nephews, thinking about that made me want to curl up and cry to, but that wouldn’t help anypony.

I took first and second watch, but when BrokenBlade woke up the second time for his watch and I told him to go lie down he hit me with his hoof and ordered me to sleep, I decided that just this once I would let a knight give me an order. I drifted off into sleep on the other side of the fire from Lightning, who was snoring happily, completely content.

I was in the room with Tempest again, and I could feel his power radiating from the shield, the air felt like ice had taken up permanent residence.

“AAAAARRRGGGG, Hahaha is that the best you.. AARRRGGG!” He was screaming in pain, “Hahahaha, you need to do better than that if you want to skim my mind for my secrets Trixy, You will have t… AAARRGGG!” he screamed again.

This was blood curdling, he was in pain and the only thing I could do was watch, why was he showing me this? Then the image before me changed, I was in Ponyville before the apocalypse, long before the war, the ministry mares were so young, at the age when they had first met. A blue unicorn was dueling Twilight Sparkle.

“Give it up Trixy, everypony knows that you can’t beat me.” Twilight said, Trixy just backed up and ran away.

The image faded to black and a new one replaced it, I saw large vats of chemicals, Trixy, much older than before, was standing on a catwalk next to a small cup. I could hear Twilight say something to her, then a large explosion and emergency alarms went off the safe room that Twilight was in sealed off and Trixy fell into one of the vats filled with chemicals.

Author's Notes:

I know that they cried a lot in this chapter and that it won't be the last time they do so, but aside from that it was also a rather slow chapter. Just wanted to do a little character development and story improvement.