The more things change, the more they stay the same.- Applebits

I woke up, they had let me sleep the rest of the night and had already packed up camp before waking me up.

“You ready to pull this thing?” Lightning asked me with a grin on his face, obviously happy that I didn’t want him to pull it by himself.

“As ready as I’ll ever be, I will just stick to the road and we will be on our way.” I said grinning, I had decided not to mention the stable, didn’t see any reason to, I knew that civilian stables were completely different than military stables. They had been designed to allow civilians to continue life, instead of putting them on cryo-genetic pause.

Lightning hooked me up to the tank and showed me how to release myself if I needed to, I was thankful for this since he had modified it by an extreme from its original design, he even included a better quick release switch. Once everypony had climbed in I started to pull, the tank had no complaints and pulled much easier than I thought that it would have, before I knew it we were at the Ponyville bridge, and wow, there were dead raiders everywhere, like somepony had taken a commando squad and wiped them all out. As we traveled through Ponyville I saw more and more bodies, even places where mines had detonated, I made a mental note to listen for mines.

I was so very happy when we exited Ponyville that I almost didn’t hear the gun fire, I broke into a gallop, taking the tank with me, it didn’t resist, and I found my target not too far away from the old town. There where about nine raiders attacking three ponies one was hurt real bad, another just had flesh wounds, and the third was a small filly. Their attackers were definitely raiders, I could tell by not only their cutimarks, but by their poorly repaired armor. The filly was crying for her papa who was badly hurt nearby. I couldn't just watch this, I needed to act.

“We got a problem, I’m going to try and stop this peacefully, but if things go side ways cover the family!” I spoke through my radio as I kicked of my harness and charged into the line of fire.

I placed myself between the family and the raiders as I threw up a shield using my horn.

“I’m a medical pony!” I reassured the family, as I looked over my shoulder.

As I did so, a rocket flew into my side, shattering my shield and knocking me to the ground. Upon landing I could feel several bones in my body break, though to be honest I just didn't care, my needs come after the civilians.

“Diplomacy isn't going to work here boys, let them have it!” I said over my radio as I got back up, I could feel a few of my ribs in all the wrong places.

To my sheer gratitude, the tanks missiles cut loose and the raiders fortifications were blown apart. I gave the order not to pursue them and focused my attention on the bleeding family.

“Stay back", the unicorn mother drew a pistol from next to her using her magic.

I had told the others to stay put so that I could handle this without frightening them more so than they already were.

“I need to treat the Stallion or he will die from blood loss.” I said not making any sudden moves, the last thing that we needed was for them to run off wounded.

Behind her mother I could see the filly shaking from fear that I would kill her family.

“Who are you, why would you want to help us, what is in it for you?” The unicorn threw questions at me that I didn’t care for at the moment.

“I’m a soldier doing her duties, protecting the citizens of Equestria from harm, what rangers are supposed to do.” I said quickly and urgently.

She lowered her pistol and I removed my helmet, letting my red mane fall out of it. When I had awoken from cryo I had it cropped so that I had little to no mane, I decided to grow it out a little to appear more friendly toward others, only later realizing that I had adopted Rainbow Dashes hair style.

“I will fix him up as fast and as well I can.” I told them to calm their nerves as I got to work. I had knelt down and began administering my healing magic when the filly approached me, she was also hurt badly, missing her left fore leg and a ear, I smiled at her in an attempt to comfort her but while casting my magic was unable to talk. I finished healing the stallion and moved next to the filly.

“Hold still young one, this may tickle a little, but you are about to re-grow your leg and ear.” I said, she cringed when my horn touched her. She was on edge, but who in their right mind wouldn't be, I had just promised to do something, most ponies would need a new artificial limb for. When I was done the fillies eyes were wide, as was her mothers.

“How did you do that?” the unicorn mare asked me.

“Its very old magic I learned it from an old friend of mine who got it from his family, now its time to remove your wounds.” I stated to her, she looked shocked that I was able to do this, like she had never seen a regeneration spell before. Though come to mind, being that we are in a desolate and hostile wasteland, that may just be the case.

A horn glow later and the family was healed.

“Are you heading to New Appaloosa too?” The father asked me.

“Never heard of the place, me and my team are just moving through the area on our way to Manehattan. Why?” I asked.

“We were wondering if you could escort us, we left Freedom City because things are going downhill, and we were scarred, New Appaloosa, seems safe enough so we figured that we would go there.” the mother said, as the filly race around our hooves.

So after a rather hushed discussion with the boys we had loaded them into the tank within no time at all. Lightning had gotten them food and water and we were on our way before latching me in and getting inside of the tank himself.

After a few hours more of traveling, we arrived at a town that looked like it was built out of multiple trains. The town wall was made of box cars, I suspected that they had armor inside them, and there was a crane, I assumed that they used that to build this place, smart ponies. Looking around further, I noticed a caboose coming down the rails, riding its brake, and a ghoul pegasus with a filly at the front gate, then I saw the sheriff. He had a very worried expression on his face, as though a whole heap of trouble was coming his way.

“Ditzy, I just need to know that you can take care of a filly!” He said with a slightly annoyed tone to the ghoul. I watched as the ghoul wrote something on a chalk board and pushed it his way, unfortunately I was at the wrong angle to read it.

Just then the sheriff turned around and a few ponies came out of the town holding rifles and pointed them at us.

“Stop right there, who are you?” the sheriff asked.

I stopped the tank a little abruptly and unlatched. Unfortunately the tank kept moving.

“HORSE APPLES” I yelled as I chased the tank, it was rolling strait for the gate.

As I was chasing the tank I think I heard the sheriff say something to the ghoul about the filly, not realizing that the pegasus had already moved the filly someplace safe. I grabbed the tank with my telekinesis, wrapping it in a white field as I skidded trying to not let it drag me with it, then I saw a orange glow envelop it over my white and the tank stopped.

Lightning came out of the rear hatch with a look of pure terror on his face.

“What just happened?” he asked, a little disoriented from the crazy stop, behind him I could see the family that was traveling with us, they to were a little dizzy.

“The tank didn’t set brake when I unlatched.” I said looking at him.

“I will have to take a look at it when possible, at least as soon as the world stops spinning.” he said as he stumbled out of the tank.

The dome opened and BrokenBlade got up and out, also dizzy, but he didn’t ask any questions.

I turned to greet the sheriff, hoping that he didn’t see us as hostiles.

“Well howdy there.” he said in a sarcastic tone.

“Hello, sorry about the tank, we are still working on it.” I said pointing a hoof at the tank.

He looked me and my team over, “You look like you want trouble.” he said.

I could see ten ponies behind him with guns, there were more on top of the wall.

“No we are just passing through, on our way to Ten Pony.” I said as I removed my helmet, realizing that my armor was probably putting them on edge and I didn’t want to give them the impression that we were here to kill them, it was bad enough that the tank had almost run down their wall.

He looked the three of us over, then saw the family that was getting out of the tank with the help of BrokenBlade.

“Who are they?” he asked.

“Civilians who were traveling from Freedom city to New Apploosa, they are looking for a new place to live.” I said, giving him as much information as I could without encroaching on their privacy.

“Freedom eh, well you don’t seem like bad folks, your welcome to stay for a while if ya want.” he said.

“Thank you very much sir, we will park the tank out here and turn it off, no pony will move it unless there are at least ten and they were all built like good old Big Mac,” I said, remembering my old army friend. The sheriff, looked at me and nodded, then moved to his posse, I think I could call them that. A few moments later we all went inside the towns walls.

The town was different, creative and well built, but very different. As I looked around I saw many homes built out of the towns apparent theme, trains, train cars, and various parts of trains. It was nothing like Nowhere, but it had its perks, while I was looking around I saw many young colts and fillies, apparently that caboose that came down the tracks when we had first gotten here had a bunch of freed slaves in it. That made me happy, somepony else was doing their part in making this crazy wasteland better.

I stopped in front of a shop that looked like it had been built out of an entire train and fused together with magic, the sign said, Absolutely Everything Ditzy Doo, I deliver. I decided to go in and take a look, but before I could enter the building Lightning came up to me.

“I want to check this place out too.” he said, he had removed his Shadowbolt armor and actually looked excited, so I nodded and we walked to the door together.

When he opened it the ghoul mare I had seen with the filly was on the other side of the room comforting the very same filly as she removed flakes of pink paint from her coat. Then she heard the shop bell, the ghoul turned her head, and to my surprise her right eye rolled up into her skull like it was still watching the filly. She charged Lightning and they hugged, wait, they were hugging each other, had my friend forgotten to tell me something.

When they had finished their very squishy sounding embrace they turned and looked at me, I had also removed my armor, to look more friendly to the towns folk, now I was wishing I still had it on. The hug she gave me was rather squishy and it hurt my broken ribs, though I didn't show any discomfort, she then backed away and wrote something on her chalkboard.

“Any friend of Lightning’s is a friend of mine!” she had wrote, I looked at my friend who was laughing at my reaction to Ditzy Doo with a face of, 'what the hay are you not telling me?'.

“We grew up together in Cloudsdale, she was always traveling with her father, helping him with his deliveries, so we didn’t see each other very often.” he said between chuckles, all I could do was look at him like he was nuts.

“So you brought me in here knowing that one of your old friends was here?” I asked after a long period of time, in which Ditzy, the wonderful pony she was, had given us, free of charge, a book called The Wasteland Survival Guide, Rad Away, and the occasional ghoul hug.

“Well I figured that it would be a descendant of hers, or maybe a fan, I in no way was expecting her to be here.” he said, still laughing.

After looking around in Absolutely Everything, I realized this place was named rather well, it had, without the larger impractical things like boats and tanks, the like, absolutely everything you could want or need, even a large collection of fine looking heavy weapons. I made a mental checklist of things that I may come back to buy if the ones I had already had broke, gatling guns, tank tracks, chains for a necklace, which I did buy a few just in case, and healing potions, we could never have too many of those, but we had a full stock so I didn’t have any room for them. As I was looking around Ditzy had taken Lightning to talk to the filly, I had come back to the front of the store and was now looking at them, the filly was still crying and hugging the ghoul, Lightning was trying to calm her down, but his voice went unheard. I approached slowly.

“Dear,” I said, as the filly looked at me, “please don’t cry, I don’t like it when I here others cry.” I said in a soothing tone with a small smile.

She had stopped crying and was staring at me and Lightning who she hadn’t noticed were trying to calm her down with the ghoul. Ditzy looked at me with one eye, her other rolling around like it couldn’t decide what to look at, then Ditzy wrote on her chalkboard and showed it to the filly.

“I will take care of you, if you will have me.” is what she had written to the filly, the filly in turn, just stared at what the ghoul mare had wrote.

“Like a mommy?” she said finally, Ditzy cleaned the chalkboard.

“Yes Silver Bell.” Ditzy wrote, the filly, Silver Bell looked at her and smiled, hugging her, and thankfully no longer crying.

By the time we left the little filly had tried to sell us half the store, I admit, the fact that she was adorable made it hard to say no, but I did drop a few bottle caps when she pulled out a cake, I hadn’t seen it when I looked around, but then again I hadn’t looked through the stock of prewar food that Ditzy had, needless to say I bought, one piece of paper, an envelope, and a box of prewar cake. I talked to Ditzy about making a delivery to Nowhere, when I told her the name of the town she pulled out a map and cocked her head, she hadn’t heard of it, must have been the first time in a long time she pulled out that map, it was prewar and was being held together with tape. I found the spot in the mountains and marked it for her, told her a few things about the town, including how she should approach it. In no time at all she had loaded up my letter which was attached to the cake box and was ready to go, Silver Bell also with her on the wagon, where I suspected that Ditzy when she was young had rode. She waved to me and I waved back, then they left, off to my would be home as soon as I finished my mission.

We found BrokenBlade and the family we had helped next to the sheriffs office, with the sheriff, the family was taking up residency, the mother was a nurse and the father was a good shot, they fit right in with the rest of the town I thought to myself.

"Its always nice to have folks with good skill sets join our community!” the sheriff said smiling, I wasn’t sure if he meant it, but I don’t think he would turn down another gun to defend the town.

I looked over at their filly, she was definitely shy, she wouldn’t even approach the other children in the town without her mother next to her. Part of me wanted to talk to her, despite the urge I held myself in check. She had been through enough today, and nothing I could say or do would help her further.

I walked up to Blade, he had is armor on still, probably didn’t want them to use his flank as a target since it was after all a target.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

“Well these folks here just finished gaining residence here in this town.” he said not sounding very happy. I took a look around again and saw several dead bodies of train ponies, “Recently the mare who DJ PON3 called the heroine of the wasteland came here and did them a favor, then she sent them these slaves she rescued from Old Appaloosa, most of the train ponies were killed in the fight, one of them lived though, he worked the brakes coming back.” he said.

As I was listening I was watching the ponies that were former slaves, their eyes were darting around, they were clearly frightened.

“What is the sheriff going to do with them?” I asked my fellow ranger.

“I dunno, I don’t think he has figured that out himself.” he said, I could sense the worry in his voice, those train ponies had died to save those slaves and their sheriff could just kick them out without a second thought.

“Did you offer our help, Nowhere has a lot of room, and I’m sure Ditzy will help them.” I asked my partner.

“Was going to see what he was going to do first, if he wants to kick em out, then I was going to offer to help out with his so called problem.” Blade said, I felt proud the moment he explained his thoughts, it was nice to have another who valued life as much as I did.

When the sheriff finished talking to the family, and they left for what was, I was sure, their new house, we walked over to him. He didn’t recognize me without my armor , but Blade was still in his.

“What do you want?” he asked us, I didn’t even flinch but Blade cocked his head.

“Somethin wrong sheriff?” He asked.

“Nah, nothins wrong, of course there is something wrong, I just got a few dozen ponies and a lot of fouls. I don’t got nowhere to put em, and they don’t have skills I’m looking for, looks like most of them were taken from their homes as they were burnt down, and others are from stables!” the sheriff said sounding quite angry, I could sense that he wanted to help them, but there was definitely something else in play here.

“Well if you could house them until Ditzy gets back from a delivery, I could send them off to a safe place, far from danger and well protected.” I said glancing a look at my teammate hoping that he wouldn’t speak of Nowhere.

“Eyup, we can send them there and out of your mane!” he exclaimed, to my thankfulness he got my hint to keep quiet about our home town.

“Well okay, I can hold them here for a bit, then send em your way, Ditzy knows how to get there?” sheriff asked.

“I marked it on her map, she is on a delivery run there now.” I said, I knew I could trust Ditzy, but I didn’t feel the same way about this sheriff.

He nodded, “Then it’s a done deal, how long a flight is it?” the sheriff inquired.

"About one and a half days flight.” I said, this was obscure information, only Ditzy knew its exact location, the sheriff nodded and walked over to share the good new.

We spent the night in a spare box car for the trains they had, even with the bedding it was still the worst sleeping arrangements I had ever had. as a safety precaution we unanimously decided to take watches. Not a single one of us trusted anypony in this town, except for the family we helped, Ditzy Doo, Silver Bell, and the freed slaves, the latter only because they kept to each other like glue and we felt bad for them. I smiled to myself as I lay my head down. I had made a new friend, even if she was a ghoul, she was probably the nicest most trusting pony around, she was the only pony I knew who would hug first and talk later. I drifted off into sleep, not comfortable, but I had just finished my shift and was unable to do anything else.

I could hear the crack of lightning and the rolling thunder behind it, below me I saw the burning flames of the metropolises below.

“What are you showing me?” Tempest growled.

“What became of Equestria after the mega spells hit, the great death of our country, the ponies never had warning, not a single pony survived anywhere.” Trixy said.

Tempest looked around the image, I could feel his muscles tensing.

“There is nothing left of Equestria for you to protect, now all that is left are ghosts.” Trixy added after Tempest didn’t reply.

Then Tempest laughed, a cold laugh, “If there was nothing left Hades would have kept me by his side, but he released me, show me the truth!” Tempest bellowed, I could feel the fire that flew out of his nostrils as he snorted trying not go into a rage.

The scene shifted, “You want the truth! I shall give you the truth!” Trixy’s voice seem to come from everywhere at once, Tempest didn’t seem fazed.

Our surrounding changed to Luna and Celestia dying, Luna had just passed in Celestia’s hooves, and she was crying, then it showed every city that was hit burning from balefire bombs that had gone off, stables killing their inhabitants, it was in all aspects a nightmare. Tempest didn’t cry, he just watched, I knew that he had hardened himself to death so that he could fight without mercy, but when I thought about it, I had never seen him cry before.

He closed his eyes unable to continue watching this, at first I thought he had severed our link. But to my relief he opened his eyes again to reveal Trixy, well her head with many unidentifiable faces moving across it.

“The truth hurts doesn’t it?” she asked.

“Yes, but it has proven to me that I still have purpose, that there are still those outside. Ultimately that means that my duty has yet to end, that I am still bound to Equestria, and that fate isn’t denying me peace.” he said, her face looked shocked, I think she was hoping to break him by showing him the devastation, instead it just made him stronger.

Author's Notes:

Okay, bit of an interesting chapter, got a bit more into the personalities of the characters and their interactions with others, definitely touched base with Tempests persona a bit more as he showed Trixy that she cannot break him.

Hope you like the newest chapter, sorry for the wait. I am going to start working on it a bit more frequently so that I can get you all the chapters faster.