“You seriously hadn’t noticed this?” Jack asked, his eyebrow raised in mild bewilderment.

My cheeks slightly reddened hearing the tone of his voice. “Sweetie, it’s not as if it happens often that I drop something that could land specifically at this spot,” I defended myself. “Admittedly, I could have taken that rug out to clean it, but as you have probably figured out, I’ve been busy,” I added, pointing at the cells holding three ponies.

The griffin continued to stare at me with a lifted eyebrow, but before he could reply Aite spoke up. “You sure are using a lot of words instead of simply saying that you’ve never cleaned this place; aren’t laboratories supposed to be sterile?”

I frowned at the bat pony, annoyed at both her insinuations - which were partially true, a laboratory should be sterile, especially since I operated on my test subjects, but I simply had no means to sterilize it; instead I relied on an excessive use of Disinfection Spell - and at her disinterested tone. Aite wasn’t even looking at me or Jack, instead she was peering down the pony hole, sniffing the air as her ears twitched.

“So this backwater town’s clinic had a secret escape tunnel?” Aite said before I could answer her question. “I mean, in that wartime economy?”

“I believe it was a small hospital,” I replied quickly before she could completely change the subject again. My frown deepened as I saw her wrinkled her nose before backing away from the hole. “And as for-”

“Smell that?” she cut me off, turning to Jack and ignoring me again.

Do you think she’s doing this on purpose? I asked Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, starting to feel frustrated.

While the two apparitions shrugged, I watched Jack bend down the pony hole and take a whiff of the air too, only to retreat with slightly wrinkled beak too. Forgetting about Aite’s attitude, I also leaned closer.

Whatever was down this passage, there was some light source in it; I could see a very faint green glow emanating from somewhere outside the tunnel’s exit. It was a little confusing that neither of them seemed alarmed or even intrigued by it, but instead focused on the smell. And speaking of…

I took a sniff at the air, then blinked and took a deeper one. Now I had a better understanding as to why the scent was coming from the passage, and it was more noteworthy than some strange lightsource. It was faint, but unmistakable for somepony of my profession (or Jack and Aite’s too, I’d imagine): the smell of decay.

“Black Widow mentioned one of her slavers disappearing,” Jack spoke up as I pulled my head out of the pony hole. “Guess we found him.”

Aite frowned. “You think somepony killed him and dragged him there through some other entrance?”

“More likely that some animal killed him and right below us is its nest, given how his disappearance was described to me.”

My ears perked up at that; it was exactly what I had hoped had happened to Collar! Now, if only I could examine this animal...

“I didn’t know there were predators big enough to drag an adult pony into their nest in this part of the Wasteland,” Aite replied, her frown deepening. She then glanced at me thoughtfully, “If Crazy was lying, she could have just used this pony hole as a means of disposing corpses. Seems a more likely option.”

“Excuse me, sweetie, but I didn’t lie,” I told her, my frustration returning. “And could you two please stop talking as if I wasn’t here-”

“Maybe it’s a radigator that had to leave its territory or something?” Jack replied to Aite, interrupting me. I turned my frustrated gaze at him, but he utterly ignored it as he scratched the side of his beak. “Although there isn’t as much as a pond anywhere for about a hundred miles… even the slavers aren’t dumb enough to miss a radigator crawling through their entire neighborhood. Besides, they usually eat the whole pony right away and not store it for later.”

Radigator. I read about this species in Ditzy’s Wasteland Survival Guide. It was a very dangerous reptile that apparently mutated from alligators, and who’s meat was apparently quite tasty. If I wasn’t currently busy being frustrated at my guests for ignoring me, I would most likely be very excited about the prospect (even if it was apparently improbable) of such animal living directly underneath me.

“Hellhound? A small dragon?” Aite tried.

… Well, even frustrated as I was, the prospect of meeting a dragon was enough to excite me. I gasped as I turned to Aite, but Jack’s next words poured cold water on that flame that stirred my inner scientist. “Doubt it, they would definitely notice any flying critter big enough to kill a pony. And hellhounds live in packs. Well, usually,” he amended, finally glancing at me. “If there was a pack underneath us they would have already slaughtered the town. Does your E.F.S. shows you any red bars?”

I stared at Jack a few seconds before replying to him. “I’m sorry, sweetie, are you speaking to me?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow. I raised my hoof to my chest and exclaimed “Forgive me for not realizing it; I was beginning to think that I might be invisible.”

Grandmother might have taught me the importance of always being polite, even to ponies I dislike, but she had also told me that if they were being impolite they deserve a little snarkiness in return.

Jack scowled at me. “Do you want me to lean over this hole and grab your muzzle shut again?”

“Pray tell, however shall I answer your question then?” I countered, narrowing my eyes at him.

Jack looked as if he was about to make good on his threat, but a short snort of laughter from Aite caused him to scowl at her. As the bat pony smirked and covered her mouth, he sighed and looked up into the ceiling.

“I think I’m starting to like you,” Aite told me, winking.

“Oh, um, thank you sweetie,” I stammered in slight surprise, taken aback by the bat pony’s changing attitude.

The griffin muttered something to himself before he looked back at me. “Don’t be snarky, Doctor, we were just assessing a potential threat between two professionals; if we were to let you join in, you would keep getting us sidetrackted - like now - with questions like ‘what’s a radigator?’ and stuff.”

While I would have preferred an apology, I couldn’t fault him for being foremost concerned about our safety. Especially since I had been known to add a lot of inquiries into a conversation in the past. And that I had currently sidetracked us.

“Well, in the future, please keep in mind that mares don’t like to be ignored, sweetie, even during a discussion between ‘professionals’,” I told him, then, before I could stop myself, I added “And I happened to read about radigators in the Wasteland Survival Guide.”

“Actually,” Aite spoke up, causing my attention to turn from deadpanning Jack to her, “I don’t deal with wildlife, so technically Jack is the only ‘professional’ here.”

“You never had to deal with mutated animals in the line of work of a mercenary?” I asked her, a little surprised; even I had seen one hostile animal in the Wasteland, and I’ve been informed about how unusually scarce wildlife was in this area currently.

“Oh, I’m not a mercenary, I’m a bounty hunter,” she replied calmly, now ignoring Jack as he stared at her with annoyance.

“Are you seriously-” he began, but Aite cut him off.

“Well,” she said, raising a forehoof to her mouth and looking up thoughtfully, “I suppose a retired bounty hunter, but still-”

“Aite!” Jack hissed, glaring at her.

As satisfying as it was to watch Jack being frustrated in turn, I decided to dispel his worries. “Sweetie, relax, do you really think I would be this carefree if I could see any hostile lifeform on my Eyes Forward Sparkle? All I can see are your two green bars and three more from my test subjects… well, two green and one red bar, to be precise. And besides,” I added, shrugging, “if there was any animal within the range of my E.F.S., I would have noticed an unaccounted bar, especially a red one, a long time ago; it doesn’t matter if this hatch is open or not.”

“Seriously, it’s like PipBuck 101,” Aite added, shaking her head at Jack disapprovingly.

Jack continued to glare at her silently for several seconds. For a moment I was sure he’d start arguing with her; after all, I couldn’t imagine that PipBucks were common in the zebras’ homeland, where he had spent the majority of his life, and as such it was more than understandable that he wouldn’t know the specifics of PipBucks’ features. Especially considering that even ponies in the Wasteland didn’t seem all that familiar with them.

However, the griffin mercenary had a much better control over himself than I gave him credit for. “Very well then,” he started instead, turning to me as he acknowledged my reply, “Aite and I will scout whatever is below us and deal with it; you get dressed and either begin preparing to swap your test subject’s organs or for the continuation of our talk; we still need to decide about our course of action. Or do whatever, I don’t care right now,” Jack groaned, rubbing the bridge above his beak.

Before I could as much as frown at him and voice my objections to this plan - as I wanted to see this animal before they’d kill it, preferably prevent it - Aite asked, “Why exactly are we going down there? It’s not like whatever it is could come up here.”

“It would make a good escape route if things go south.”

“We can fly?” Aite pointed out, stretching out her wings to emphasize her point.

Jack sighed. “She can’t?” he countered, pointing at me.

“Softie,” Aite said, rolling her eyes. Her comment surprised me enough to not feel offended at once again being talked about as if I wasn’t next to them. Before I could question her about it, though, she jumped right into the pony hole, pulling up her hood at the same time and disappearing from sight. So this cloak turns her invisible, and it’s activated by- was all about I managed to think before her head poked out of the hole, her hood down as she looked right at me. “Out of curiosity, aren’t those E.F.S. bar thingies for friendlies supposed to be yellow?”

“Oh, um,” I began to stammer, a little shaken after the bat pony’s sudden reappearance. Quickly getting a hold of myself, I replied calmly, “I believe this is something that usually depends on the model of a PipBuck, sweetie. Although yes, the default setting for my PipBuck had been to mark friendly lifeforms as yellow; however, I had it custom set to mark them and the entire display on my E.F.S. as emerald green.”

“Oh, cool, it’s a nice color,” Aite said, nodding and giving me a brief smile before putting her hood back on, disappearing again.

Turning to Jack as we were left alone - at least, I assumed such; for all I knew Aite could still be standing with her head poking out of the passage’s entrance - I felt a need to comment on the bat pony. “Your… associate, was it? She seems interesting.”

A tired groan escaped Jack’s beak. “Do me a favor and don’t call her ‘my associate’, okay?” he said, much to my confusion. “I’ll already won’t hear the end of it for calling her that.”

“Well, sweetie, if it’s a reason for a strife, why would you call her that?”

“Because I didn’t know how else to describe her, it’s complicated, and none of your business,” he told me crossly while moving closer to the pony hole. From one of the pockets on his combat armor he took our a small flashlight which he turned on as he began walking down the ladder. “Oh, and Doctor? I might have mentioned this before, but I am really quite patient with your.. antics,” he said, clearly letting me know that he would like to use a different world, probably much harsher one. “With Aite - and everypony else of similar profession, for that matter - you’re risking getting stabbed in the side, so you might want to tone down those annoying things you do.”

I blinked, momentarily at a loss for words; did he really bring somebody to my house who could stab me for annoying them?!

“She’d really stab me?” I asked after a second, recalling that she had just said a minute ago that she was starting to like me.

To my irritation, the griffin shrugged. “Dunno, don’t really know her all that well. But it’s something to keep in mind,” he added, descending further down into the darkness.

“Oh sweetie, that’s very reassuring,” I commented, frowning, then blinked and leaned over the pony hole to added after him “And what did you mean by ‘those annoying things you do’?”

I nickered and swished my tail in annoyance as Jack ignored my question, instead turning away and going deeper into the underground passage. The light from his flashlight quickly disappeared, and soon all I could see was this strange, faint green glow.

That alone is enough of a reason for me to go down there, I remarked, staring at the glow, before turning around and trotting over to where I had dropped my stable barding and lab coat. So, what do you think? I asked Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie as I began to dress.

Well, Pinkie began, she seemed fun! Those comments she had made to you and Jack were really funny! she added, giggling.

And she… Aite seems nice to me. I-I mean, Fluttershy added quickly, looking at me with worry, I know that she had some irritable remarks, but even if she had been trying to poke fun at you, she hadn’t, um… dwelled on them? the tiny pegasus offered, smiling sheepishly. I mean, she didn’t seem to be trying to be mean, I think.

I hummed, neither agreeing or disagreeing of their assessment of Aite. They were both correct (though I would argue about Pinkie’s), but I was less concerned about her attitude than about the fact that I knew nothing about her and I had just revealed before her my dreams and goals. And secrets, though I assumed Jack had already briefed her about my basement.

How many other people do you think he has told? If he told this ‘associate’ he apparently barely knows…

Fluttershy stepped in front of my muzzle. Angel, aren’t you being unfair to Jack? It’s… not like he didn’t have a reason to be worried, she pointed out, glancing at the cells.

I sighed. She was right, of course; didn’t mean this breach of trust bothered me any less.

It’s not just that, I said, shaking my head. I was prepared to share my dream, my goal, finally with somepo- somebody. And now I learn that he had invited another pony, one that I don’t know at all.

The apparitions exchanged a glance. I’m sure Jack hadn’t meant to hurt your feelings, Fluttershy said lamely.

It’s not like until ten minutes ago he knew you wanted to be friends, Pinkie pointed out.

But if you feel hurt, maybe you should talk with Jack about it? Fluttershy suggested.

I fought off the urge to snort. As if I would be able to have a private conversation with Jack while this invisible bat pony prowled around…

I blinked, only now realizing what else it would mean. Oh no, we’ll certainly have a talk about that! I thought, almost angrily, as I trotted towards the secret pony hole, fully dressed.

Um… yay? Fluttershy exclaimed with uncertainty, following me with worry as I stormed after them.

I don’t think she means to talk with Jack about her feelings, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie correctly observed, also watching me with worry. Hey, if we’re in her head, how is it that she can have her own thoughts that we don’t hear?

Ignoring the two apparitions, I climbed down the ladder. Very quickly I realized that the faint green light I saw from upstairs wasn’t even nearly enough to illuminate the space below, so I turned on the light in my PipBuck, then lit up my horn for good measure. As I neared the bottom, I looked around with mild interest around the cavern, my mind too occupied by the additional problems that would stem from Aite’s presence. Reaching the end of the ladder and jumping down on the coarse, rocky surface, I could see that while this place wasn’t big it was big enough for a few ponies to walk shoulder to shoulder and not touch the stone walls. The ceiling of the cave was about three yards above me; I briefly wondered if my flying companions were hovering in the air. The thought of them though made me more focused on the reason why I came down and followed towards the light from Jack’s flashlight some distance away.

The source of the faint green glow though was enough though to stop me in my tracks.

I could see it as I draw closer to Jack, the glow growing closer and slightly brighter, and soon I realized what it was. To my surprise, it was… mushrooms. A small cluster of them grew from a crevice in the rocky wall, and another sprouted further down the passage. I stopped by the luminescent organism, momentarily awed.

The Wasteland is certainly full of wonders, I noted to Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie, leaning closer to the mushroom; they even smelled nice. I began to plan to reach for something in my pockets to take a sample for studying its properties, when Pinkie Pie pointed something to me urgently.

A red bar had just appeared within my field of vision.

Forgetting about the luminescent mushrooms, I turned my thoughts back to Jack and Aite. “It’s here!” I hissed quietly while I carefully trotted closer to them.

Jack, who had no doubt had noticed the light from my PipBuck and horn earlier, stopped examining a branch in the tunnel and turned to me calmly, arching his eyebrow questioningly. I pointed with my glowing PipBuck in the direction where I saw the red bar. The griffin slowly floated towards it, his small firearm in one forepaw, flashlight in the other, scanning the area I pointed at.

In the meantime, I focused on the cadaver.

Whatever had killed Collar had certainly not stopped on just killing him. In fact, it was difficult to recognize the half-eater remains as Collar; his body was missing very large chunks of meat. I doubted that even I could pinpoint the cause of death with his body in such a state. Well, not in this environment, with the only light source being my PipBuck and magic, and with the hostile animal prowling just around the corner.

Then maybe I could at least make a quick guess as to what kind of animal had done it? I thought to two apparitions; Pinkie was looking at the corpse with her face taking on a slightly green color, while Fluttershy had her eyes covered. I brought my PipBuck closer to the marks on its flesh. Hm… what kind of animal could have left marks like those? I pondered; even if I was unfamiliar with the majority of Wasteland’s wildlife, I believed that I could make an educated guess.

And as a matter of fact…

Curious, I commented, leaning closer. Those bitemarks… don’t they bear a resemblance to the marks Snuggles and Wigglebutt left on that radhog bacon?

As Fluttershy took a peak from between her hooves, first a timid, brief one, then a longer, more studious one, I tried to think about what little I knew regarding the animals living in the Wasteland. Could it be some… bigger radroach? Given the size of the bitemarks, it would have to be almost the same size as a pony… but then again, there were small differences in the cuts on the body...

Hmm… Fluttershy hummed, surprising me and pulling me out of my musing. I glanced at her curiously, noticing that, while she appeared to be… upset by the state Collar was in (bordering on distressed even maybe), she was staring at the marks the animal had left on his body thoughtfully. They… um, they sorta remind me of-

“There’s nothing here Doctor.”

Jack’s quiet remark made me look up from the corpse and turn back to the griffin. He was floating slowly back towards me, still facing the direction where I could see the red back on my E.F.S.

We’ll continue this discussion in a moment, darling, I quickly told Fluttershy as I trotted to meet Jack. The tiny pegasus just nodded and looked away while rubbing her forehooves absentmindedly.

“You’re sure it shows you that it’s that way?” Jack asked as he landed next to me, his eyes and flashlight still scanning the opposite side of the cavern.

“Yes, sweetie, I’m quite sure,” I replied, looking around. Like Jack said, there didn’t seem to be anything before us besides the cavern’s walls. However, the underground passage seemed to have two more additional branching tunnels (aside from the one we had come from and the one behind us were Collar’s body was). “Perhaps one of those tunnels goes around behind that wall, or further down into a lower level of the cave? My PipBuck would still detect the lifeform if it was close enough, regardless of the obstacles.”

“Great,” Jack sighed, then turned his flashlight from one side of the cavern to the other. “Aite?”

“Yep?” the bat pony asked as she seemingly materialized out of thin air beside us, her hood falling behind her head.

There she is, I mused, her reappearance - especially in this fashion - reminding me why I had come down to them.

Before I could speak though Jack began to ask her less important, though admittedly more immediate questions; I decided to politely wait my turn: “Did you scout those tunnels? Does one of them goes around the wall? Or better yet, did you find whatever it is?” he added with an eye roll.

“No, but that one leads into a wide open Stable,” Aite said, pointing with her hoof over her shoulder.

My eyes went wide as I tried looking deeper into the tunnel Aite was pointing at; however, even with the few clusters of those glowing mushrooms growing out from the walls, the cavern was still too dark to see much outside of the light my magic, PipBuck, and Jack’s flashlight provided.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Jack groaned as he turned his flashlight towards the tunnel; still, we couldn’t see any entrance to a Stable.

“You can see for yourself; the tunnel does turn to the right a few yards from here, which is why you can’t see it. The entrance is right around that corner; I’m guessing one of the Stable’s corridors is behind this wall and the critter is inside,” Aite added, nodding at the wall. “Want me to look for it?”

Jack’s didn’t reply immediately, instead groaning again and rubbing his temples; taking advantage of that, I cleared my throat. “Before you’ll do that, sweetie,” I began, “there is a certain matter I wish to discuss with you.” I could see Jack scowling at me, but Aite glanced at me with mild curiosity. “Earlier, Jack had said that you’ve been observing me the whole day; is that true?”

“Yeah, Jack wanted me to check if you were preparing some trap for him,” Aite replied, shrugging, then blinked. “Oh wait, is this about that guy trying to rape you? Because I would have done something about it if you hadn’t scared him off by yourself.”

“Wait what?!” Jack interjected before I could retort. His brow furrowed as he looked from Aite to me. “Somepony was trying to rape you?”

“Yeah, about ten minutes before you came,” Aite answered for him. Smirking, she added “You should have seen it, she just told him he would wake up castrated and the guy immediately looked like he was about to piss himself.”

The griffin shook his head, scowling. “Slavers… alright, glad you’re okay,” he told me; I couldn’t help but smile a little hearing the sincerity in his voice, “but whatever this is about, we have a more important issue to deal with right now.”

“Relax,” Aite said, rolling her eyes. “If that thing was coming I’d hear it.”

“And I would see its bar move,” I added before turning to the bat pony. “I’m happy to hear you’d have acted in my defense, sweetie, but that is not what I’ve been meaning to talk with you. I’m concerned that you were in my clinic at all, while I was seeing my patients,” I told her, frowning and stomping the ground in frustration. “This basically threws doctor-patients’ confidentiality out the window!”

“Wow, seriously?” Aite deadpanned at me. “Didn’t you already do that by telling Jack about that Frank Fellow buck and how you’re blackmailing him?”

“That is a completely unrelated matter,” I told her, my frown deepening. “First off, the fact that he sells out brahmin’s meat and cheated on his marefriend makes him unfit to be considered a sapient being, which is why I would make him my test subject if I had the opportunity. And second of all, sweetie, I’ve been trying to convince Jack to join me; if we are to work together, we should be honest with each other. Especially since you can understandably have some doubts regarding integrity. This does not, however, give you the right to spy on my patients when I am treating them!”

Aite’s deadpan turned into confusion and then into annoyance. “You know what? This right here is why I’m going to keep calling you Crazy. Not because you’re keeping ponies locked up in your basement and cutting them open and doing ungoddessly things to” she said as she pointed in the tunnel where the ladder leading into my laboratory was. “For that I at least have a template I can refer to for comparison. I do not have one for this! Like, who the fuck would I even tell about your patients?! Nopony knows I’m here aside from you two!”

“You could tell Jack,” I told her, not fazed by her increasing anger; well, for now. “And that’s not the-”

“Like Jack is gonna care that your slaver friend had gotten herself knocked up,” Aite snorted dismissively.

My eyes widened in shock as the bat pony had just blurted that out, but it quickly gave way to dismay that could easily gave way into an outrage. Before I could as much as frown at her, though, Jack had once again joined the conversation.

“Wait, what?!” I closed my eyes and sighed deeply; not only I had allowed - albeit unknowingly - a third party to observe the medical consultation I gave to my patient, but also caused her to tell another person! “Is she talking about Apple Core?”

I turned to Jack. “Sweetie, forgive me, but that’s none of your concern. And you,” I said as I frowned at Aite, “everypony has a right to expect that what she or he talks with their doctor stays between-”

“Is the foal Blast's?”

I stopped mid-sentence. Aite in turn stopped scowling at me; instead she turned to look at Jack. “Oh, shit,” she uttered; clearly, she knew that name well enough.

Turning to Jack as well, I tried to gather my thoughts; when Apple Core had told me that she thought she might be pregnant, I hadn’t considered who could be the father. Only now that Jack had brought it up I realized that there could be a chance that it was Blast’s. Of course, knowing her promiscuity, I had some reservations, but to the griffin mercenary he naturally was the first stallion who came to mind. I should have anticipated that before approaching Aite; this was exactly why I disliked getting angry!

Speaking of the bat pony, she had apparently decided that she did not wish to be a part of this conversation; she quickly put back her hood on her head, disappearing from sight. Considering the way Jack was staring at me, eyes narrowed with a dangerous gleam in them as he awaited an answer, I could not blame her.

I cleared my throat repeated what I’ve said before, except far more calmly now that I realized what he was feeling. “Sweetie, I can understand your worries, but as I’ve already told you, this does not concern you.” Even though now Jack was approaching me, I continued to speak calmly; I knew him well enough to know he was about to grab my muzzle again to say his peace. I would simply address that and then resume where I had left off. “Apple Core is my patient, and as such-”

The strong talons gripped my throat and lifted me into the air before I could react. Shocked and unable to gasp for air, I grabbed the paw that was holding me with my forehooves, trying to escape.

Jack pulled me closer to his face; since my kicking hind legs weren’t connecting with the ground, a part of my mind noted that this meant the griffin must have risen into the air; he wasn’t that much taller than me. “Either you tell me,” he told me, his voice calm and yet seething with anger, “or I get it out of Aite, or I get it out of Apple Core.”

And with those words he released me. I fell down, taking deep, greedy breaths in the breaks between coughs. My throat hurt me so badly right now that I barely noticed the pain of landing on the rocky ground.

“And besides,” I heard Jack speak from above me as I recovered, “I know enough that you might as well tell me, for fuck sake…”

I gave the griffin a side glance while massaging my throat. He was rubbing the side of his head around his temple, his eyes closed. His anger turned into the annoyance I was so familiar with.

It was difficult for me to not snort at that. He and I were going to have words about that… eventually. Right now my main concern was Apple Core; though I doubted that he would treat her in this manner considering the possibility of her being pregnant with his friend’s foal, I couldn’t just let him cause my patient distress. My oath did allow me to reveal information about my patients if they were in danger.

… and besides, he had a point, considering what he knew already I could as well tell him.

“You-” I began, only to pause as another cough shook my throat. I closed my eyes and swallowed, then resumed, “You will not bother Apple Core about this.”

Jack’s expression briefly turned into a deadpan, then he rolled his eyes. “Because this is a negotiation… sure, fine. For now,” he added with a hint of a growl at the end of that sentence.

Frowning, I decided that this was the best I would get from him for now. “Apple Core came to me earlier saying that she thinks she might be pregnant; she asked if I could make sure if she is or isn’t. I told her to come back tomorrow so we can schedule an appointment at an earliest convenience. And as for the identity of a possible father, I didn’t ask as it is none of my business unless-”

“But since you’re so smart - supposedly - you can figure out what are the chances of Blast being the father, can’t you?” Jack interrupted me, the tip of his tail flickering in irritation.

Trying to not get offended by that ‘supposedly’, I frowned and hummed thoughtfully. “Considering Apple Core’s promiscuity and, ugh, her contraception method - if it can even be called such - I would say…” I trailed off, trying to come up with a way to sound as if I wasn’t judgemental; certainly saying that most of the stallions of Appleloosa and some of New Appleloosa could be the father would be too harsh. “That his chances are as good as anypony who had had coitus with Apple Core within the last few weeks. Although…”

I crossed my forelegs on my chest; something was bothering me while I contemplated this matter. I thought back to how I walked in on Apple Core and Blast having sex.

“Back then… soon after Burst and I saw them having intercourse, I walked into a bear trap, and both Burst and Blast came to help me get out of it. When I later tried apologizing to Apple Core about interrupting them…” I blinked in surprise as a realization hit me. “She had said that I had ‘startled’ him... um, if by that she had meant that I startled him just as he was about to pull his penis out of her vagina before ejaculation, then… then his chances of being the father are much bigger than I initially assumed,” I admitted.

Jack stared at me for a few seconds before groaning. “You really are the dumbest genius in the Wasteland, you know that?” I pouted at him, but wasn’t given a chance to reply. “Do you know what she intends to do if she is pregnant?”

“No, I’d prefer to wait until I confirm if she is or not before I’d ask her. Why do you ask?”

“Apple Core doesn’t exactly strike me as somepony who would keep the baby,” Jack replies in a tone that suggested he thought it to be obvious.

“Oh…” I replied, a little confused; I wasn’t sure what exactly he was suggesting. “Well, I’d certainly talk with her about her plans… I’ve noticed that there aren’t adoptions agencies in Equestria anymore, obviously, but I’d imagine her brother or some of her other kin would-”

“Are you…” Jack interrupted me, staring at me agape, then facepawed and hissed “For fuck sake, I meant that she’d ask you for an abortion!”

Fluttershy covered her mouth. A cold shiver went through my spine.

Would she?

I worked my mouth as I slowly recovered and calmed down; fortunately, I had my medical training to draw upon. “If the developing fetus would pose a threat to her life or would be born with impossible to cure defects that would hamper its growth, then I would suggest abortion myself. If she would request an abortion from other reasons, I would attempt to talk with her and suggest other options if necessary and possible. If she’d still want to abort the fetus, I would comply with my patient’s request.” I realized that I wasn’t looking at Jack; immediately I locked eyes with him. “And I fail to see why this is of concern to you.”

The griffin blinked, clearly taken aback. He quickly shrugged it off and hissed, “Her being pregnant with my dead best friend's foal is not enough of a reason to be concerned?! Or that my best friends’ parents had lost both of their children and would lose a grandfoal before it would be even born?!”

“If she is pregnant and if it is Blast’s foal, and its not even a foal right now, it’s just an embryo comprised of few hundred cells that had barely implanted itself into a uterus.”

“So you would just kill it?!” Jack asked, staring at me with disbelief. “Or let Apple Core kill it?! After that whole thing about experimenting on ponies who aren’t sapient beings anymore?!”

“Apple Core is my patient, it would be against my moral compass to decline her a medical procedure.”

Jack stared at me, agape. “Your moral- YOUR FUCKING MORAL COMPASS IS A ROULETTE WHEEL!”

I winced as the griffin shrieked right in my face. For a moment I was sure he was about to choke me again. A part of me knew that now, since I was prepared for that, I could defend myself with magic, and yet…

Angel! I blinked, startled by the even louder shout, then turned to its source; Pinkie Pie was looking at me in alarm, pointing at the red bar on my E.F.S.

It was moving.

“It’s moving,” I told Jack quietly, nodding towards it.

I half expected that the griffin wouldn’t believe me, that he would think that I was looking for an excuse to end the argument. But no, Jack immediately turned around, grabbing his sidearm and flashlight and directing both towards the tunnel Aite had told us led to a Stable.

“This isn’t over,” he growled softly to me before turning his full attention to the tunnel. Moving to stand between myself and the passage, he added, “Is it going this way?”

I frowned. “No, it’s…” I said and trailed off.

What exactly was this animal doing? The red bar was moving, yes, but not in any direction. Rather, it was moving erratically from left to right by a few inches; considering the distance between us, this must have meant that the animal was jumping back and forth, apparently. By why would it-

Pinkie’s widening expression gave me a pause. When she abruptly looked down just as the ground beneath both me and Jack began to shake, I already knew what this meant.

Without thinking, I lunged at Jack, pushing him away. At the same time, the ground under us exploded; a massive, multiple-limbed creature emerged. Looking at it over my shoulder as we fell I managed to see 2 bright points above six smaller ones (assumably, its eyes that reflected the light) over a small pair of pincers (if one could call the size of a hoof as “small”) between a pair of bigger pincers (which were about the size of my head), and a long abdomen that from which an even longer tail rose above… and shot right at me.

I cried out in pain as I felt something pierce my shoulder, almost right in the spot where Jack’s head had been a heartbeat before. I fell on the ground, curling up as I heard the animal hiss, while a warning from my PipBuck flashed before my eyes. Apparently, whatever exactly it did to me it also injected me with venom of some kind. Before I could do as much as worry about how potent the animal’s venom was, my attention was drawn almost immediately to another sound that resonated through the cavern; unlike me, Jack had rolled in the air as he fell, landing on his back and clutching his rifle in his paws, which he now fired at the predator.

BAM-BAM-BAM!!!

Of course, considering that I was laying right next to him, the shooting had nearly deafened me. Trying to ignore the pain in my ears and shoulder, I looked at the creature and activated S.A.T.S.

Everything froze, and I was finally able to get a proper look at the creature attacking us, as well as what exactly was happening. The animal, which at first I had taken for an insect, turned out ot be an arachnid, a scorpion to be specific, if the biology books from Stable Eight were to be believed (though they stated that the biggest species of scorpion was roughly the size of a hoof, so they were clearly outdated to say the least); it moved on four pairs of legs. It was about as big as I was, minus the huge tail that was about as long as the rest of its body and ended with a stinger. Like I observed earlier, aside from eight legs it possessed two additional pairs of limbs, the first smaller one by its mouth, and another, much bigger and ending with massive pincers, which the creature now had raised to cover its cephalothorax from Jack’s shots. I was impressed by the level of intelligence it expressed by doing so. Above its cephalothorax was Aite; in the brief moment between the arachnid’s attack and me activating S.A.T.S. she had landed on top of the creature. In her mouth was the handle of a knife; I could only imagine that the rest of it was plunged through one of the animal’s eyes.

Oh, the poor thing, Fluttershy said, looking at the animal with sorrow.

I would have nodded in agreement if I could. Instead, without giving it much thought, I used S.A.T.S. to line up two Anesthetic Spells, aiming for the head. I was unsure how effective the spell would be, considering the animal’s invertebrate biology combined with its size and the exoskeleton capable of withstanding bullets to some degree. On top of that I had a very low chance of hitting its head, as the PipBuck’s targeting spell informed me, but considering that it was most likely due to the arachnid using its pincers to shield itself, I knew that at the very least I would still hit it (I was right next to it after all, about the only way I could see myself missing such a big target would be if I’d only do it on purpose).

(And on that note, the S.A.T.S. showed me that the chance of me hitting the pincers would be only ninety-five percent; just how in the Goddesses names could there be five percent chance of me missing a target the size of my head that was less than half a yard away?!)

I was actually more worried about hitting Aite, but as I looked at her carefully I noticed how her wings were curved and how she appeared to be crouching on the creature. The bat pony was about to jump away from it, most likely being worried about Jack hitting her accidentally.

Well, here it goes, I mused as I let S.A.T.S. perform its function.

Two spells fired from my horn, one after the other. The first hit the arachnid’s pincers, as I expected. Afterwards, though, it began to lower them; either the Anesthetic Spell had an immediate effect on him, or Jack’s bullets had caused it greater damage than I had anticipated. Or perhaps it was a mixture of both, or merely a stroke of luck. Regardless, though, the second spell passed right above the descending pincer, striking right across the animal's many eyes.

The creature was hit by my spell, but it didn’t just drop down unconscious; as I expected, it would take more than just one direct hit from an Anesthetic Spell on an animal such as it; the spell was invented with ponies in mind, after all. Of course, it would work on mammals and other vertebrates and even small invertebrates like radroaches, but this animal was as big as me, and that’s not counting its tail. My spells did however cause it to hobble backwards, as if it was very confused. Not wanting Jack to scare it into hiding behind its pincers again, I focused, and fired another Anesthetic Spell, hoping to knock it out.

One would say that the Goddesses’ providence had smiled upon us. The spell connected with the arachnid, and it dropped to the ground, motionless. All three of us looked on at it for a few seconds, making sure it wouldn’t attack again, then we collectively let out breaths each of us were holding.

Mine though had quickly turned into a pained squeak as my injury reminded me of itself, along with the poison that was coursing through my body. It felt as if somebody had injected melted wax into my bloodstream!

I grasped my shoulder, sucking the air through my teeth from the pain. A muffled murmur from my right side made me glance at Jack, who was looking at me questioningly, with a mildly worried frown. Realizing he must have asked me something, I pointed at my ear which eardrum he had damaged with his shooting, then tilted the other one.

“Can you heal yourself?” he repeated slowly. “Or do we have to make you antivenom?”

I shook my head, trying to speak through the pain. “No I… I’ll be fine in a moment,” I hissed, then bit my lip.

My answer apparently satisfied Jack, as he nodded, then fell on his back, pressing his paws to his face as he let out a loud groan. “What the hell was a radscorpion doing over here?” he asked, nopony in particular. “We’re thousands of miles from where they can be found.”

So it is a scorpion, I mused briefly, glancing at the animal, before another pulse of pain made me refocus on that. Alright, I can either cure myself with magic, or I can see if my immune system can deal with on its own…

Um, Pinkie began, looking at me questioningly, I’m pretty sure that’s a bad idea. Like, VERY bad idea, she added, giving a meaningful glance in the direction of Collar’s corpse.

Every pony in Stable Eight receives inoculation that improves our immune systems when we are foals, and upon becoming a doctor I had further improved its formula, I informed the apparition. My body should be able to deal with this poison on its own- I trailed off as another spasm of pain took over.

Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy exchanged a glance. Um, well… that would be nice, Fluttershy said hesitantly. But, um, if you don’t mind me saying, Angel, if you are wrong, well…

Trying to not take offense at the suggestion, I considered her words. If I was wrong, then I would die. And while I was very confident in my body’s defense system against diseases and toxins, I had enough respect for radiation-induced evolution that created such animal to conclude that very possibly its venom was more adapted to killing ponies than my immune system to preventing being that.

I suppose I’ll test this on my test subjects first, I relented, focusing my magic.

Oh, Fluttershy exclaimed, her ears dropping, yay…

I let my spell wash over me, and slowly the pain disappeared. Finally able to pay attention to what was happening outside of my body, I turned my good ear to listen to the conversation between Jack and Aite.

“Why would it walk all the way here?” Jack asked the bat pony, seemingly in reply to what a part of the discussion I had missed, with a mixture of disinterest and irritation.

“Well, it’s either that, or Crazy or one of the slavers flushed it down the toilet when it was little,” the bat pony remarked calmly, nudging the radscorpion with her hoof. I rolled my eyes while healing my shoulder and eardrum, deciding to wait until I was fully healed before joining the discussion. “Besides, what does it matter? Are you writing a book about Wasteland’s wildlife?”

“It matters in case there are more of them around, which would mean we’d have to be careful of the ground moving underneath us.”

“Oh, fair point,” Aite admitted, then shrugged. “I’m pretty sure if there were more of them somepony would have already noticed them.”

“So they’re not endemic to this region?” I asked, stretching out my healed leg.

“No, the closest concentration of them I can think of is in Hoofington. Ironically,” Jack added oddly, with a glance at Aite.

I hummed thoughtfully as I approached the radscorpion. “A presence of an invasive species would explain why there has been so little wildlife around recently. Even if it’s just one animal, it would alter the ecosystem it's introduced to enough to be noticable, especially with the decrease of the wildlife population due to excessive hunting caused by increased pony population. As for how it could get here, though...” I paused, thinking back to what I’ve read in books. “The most notable invasive species throughout the history had been caused by pony’s intervention.”

Jack snorted. “I sincerely doubt this tribe keeps radscorpions as pets, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, sweetie, of course I don’t think that,” I told him, a touch irritated. “Why would they let their pet wander off like that and not look for it? No, I think there’s a different explanation,” I added, returning my gaze to the radscorpion (and ignoring the bemused gazes of Jack and Aite). Now that it wasn’t attacking us, I could appreciate how magnificent this animal was. My hoof brushed the tough carapace, admiring its eight (well, seven now, thanks to Aite) eyes and its chelicerae. And those pincers! And tail! “I assume there are some people in the Wasteland who would find radscorpion’s meat tasty?”

“Not just some, it is tasty,” Aite shrugged. “Though omelette from their eggs is even better.”

I nodded… then paused in mid-nod. “Eggs? But… scorpions are viviparous,” I said, confused.

The two stared at me back at me for a second, then Jack looked to the side as if recalling something. “You mean that they’re born alive instead of hatching from the eggs?”

“Yes,” I confirmed, then looked at the radscorpion. “Or at least, they were. Are saying that they are now oviparous?”

“No, we’re saying that they now lay eggs,” Aite replied with an even stare. “Well, either that or the omelettes I ate were wrongly advertised…”

“Yeah, they are oviparous,” Jack interrupted the bat pony, frowning at both of us. “You had a point, Doctor?”

“Huh, what an interesting mutation,” I mused, looking again at the radscorpion. “I can understand the advantages of pony mares becoming fertile every month rather than once a year, but why exactly did this species-”

“Doctor, focus,” Jack growled, interrupting me.

Frowning, I glanced back at him and resumed the earlier subject. “Well, as I was about to say, sweetie, it is possible that some merchants decided to transport a young radscorpion to areas where they don’t live in order to sell them for meat. Now that I know that they are oviparous, though, I would say that they are transported as eggs, and so it happened that one egg hatched and the radscorpion ran away,” I said, looking over the wounds on the animal in question.

The griffin frowned thoughtfully, while Aite shrugged. “They had some radscorpion omelettes in one of the restaurants in Tenpony’s, so I guess it is possible.”

“Yeah… how did you come up with this?” Jack asked.

“Oh, one of the many biology books I’ve read in Stable Eight was this really old one that had described a few cases of invasive species spreading to new areas from a few hundred years before the war.” Satisfied with my examination, I began to channel Healing Spell, mending the radscorpion’s wounds as I continued: “This was the exact same way a species of-”

“The fuck are you doing?”

I blinked, surprised - and a little annoyed - at the interruption. “What do you mean, sweetie?” I asked, looking back at the griffin as the holes left on the radscorpion’s body by bullets and Aite’s knife mended.

My two companions were staring at me, Aite with mild surprise and Jack with growing irritation. “For fuck sake, that thing is still alive isn’t it?” he groaned after a few seconds, deadpanning.

“Well, of course sweetie…” I began, but trailed off as I realized that he was reaching for his gun. As Fluttershy gasped I immediately jumped between him and the radscorpion. “Sweetie, no,” I told him plainly, stomping the ground.

Jack’s face quickly formed the same angered expression as before the radscorpion’s attack. “Get out of the way, idiot, I’m about to lose my patience with you.”

I narrowed my gaze at him. I don’t know if what he had said had irritated me so, or was I just that appalled by his intention to kill the radscorpion, or maybe I was still upset with him for our earlier discussion. Regardless, I felt as if something snapped inside of me. “Funny you should say that, sweetie,” I told him coldly, my horn lighting up, “because my patience is also- augh!” I yelped as a hoof struck me across the horn with enough force to make me lose focus.

At the same moment, Aite’s other hoof struck Jack’s gun, throwing it out of its talons. “Oh would you two quit it already?!” the bat pony asked, for the first time sounding irritated. “If I wanted to deal with stupid drama I would have stayed back home!”

Jack scowled at her, clenching his talons into a fist and unclenching them, while I massaged my horn. “You got the stupid part right,” he told her. “Didn’t you just see her defend and heal a radscorpion?!”

“Look,” she told him, holding up her forelegs in a calming manner, “despite the pile of evidence against her, I think we can agree that she’s not an idiot.”

I frowned at Aite, unsure if I should treat that as a compliment or an insult.

“So maybe before we kill the radscorpion we can ask her why exactly would she want to keep it alive? Who knows, maybe she has a good reason,” the bat pony told Jack, then turned around to face me, motioning for me to speak.

“Um, thank you sweetie,” I began, slightly taken aback. “Well, I was healing it because I intend to study this species, and I can learn more from a living specimen than a dead one. Of course, I intend to take precautions to ensure it wouldn’t harm myself or others by binding it with ropes and leather belts I have in the clinic’s storeroom; I believe it would be enough to tie up its tail, pincers and legs to its body so it couldn’t move them. I have the means to keep it fed and hydrated.” I glanced at Fluttershy’s apparition; she was looking at radscorpion with worry. As if sensing my gaze (or maybe actually just sensing it), the tiny pegasus turned to me and gave me a hopeful smile. “It shouldn’t have to die just because we invaded its nest,” I continued, focusing on Aite and Jack again. “It has the same right to live as we do. And perhaps… perhaps I could tame it and make friends with it?” I added; Fluttershy was almost furiously nodding. “I’ve been getting along with my radroaches, Snuggles and Wigglebutt rather well, they’ve stopped trying to bite me just a few days ago.”

The beaming expression Fluttershy’s apparition had was not shared by my companions… or even Pinkie’s apparition. The tiny pink pony was covering her mouth, clearly holding back a giggle. Jack in turn had facepawed, and was slowly sliding his paw down his beak.

Aite’s expression was the most unique; for the first time she had completely dropped this neutral mask she seemed to constantly wear. Now she was staring at me, mouth agape, one eyebrow raised ludicrously. Her mouth slowly moved mutely, forming a silent comment for my eyes only, which I believe was: “What the fuck…”

She shook her head, then within a split second she adopted that same calm expression as she turned back around to Jack. “See? She has a plan.”

The griffin took off his paw from his face to glare at her. “Are you on Moon Dust right now?” he asked her after a second. “Or are you just fucking with me?”

“No, but you on the other hoof are being emotional right now,” Aite said, pointing at him. Judging by Jack’s scowl, that wasn’t a very diplomatic thing to say to him right now, but the bat pony ignored it and continued, “So I figure I better stop you from doing something you’ll end up regretting later. Especially if there is a chance that I’ll also end up regretting it later, too,” she added; even though I could only see the back of her head, I had the feeling that she had rolled her eyes.

Jack snorted. “I’m not being emotional, and I really can’t think why would I ever regret not killing a radscorpion.”

“If you weren’t, you would realize a couple things. The first being that if we’d tie up the radscorpion like she says it wouldn’t be able to move, so it would be harmless. Meaning there is literally no point in this argument. Another is that you yourself had agreed to work together with her to uncover who was Scope working for; how long do you think she’ll want to work with you if you continue to choke her, threaten her, and kill her pets on top of that?” Aite asked. She glanced at me over her shoulder. “He was kind of an asshole for the last couple of minutes, wasn’t he?”

“Oh, um, I wouldn’t have phrased it quite like that, sweetie,” I replied, then turned my gaze to Jack and frowned. “Though I would say that he had been acting like a brute. There are nicer ways to conduct a conversation sweetie,” I told Jack, the sensation of having his talons grasp my throat still fresh in my memory.

I could have sworn that Jack’s eyelid just twitched.

Aite, seemingly satisfied with my reply, turned back to Jack. “See? The crazy pony who experiments on other ponies is unhappy with you. Maybe we can indulge her more sensible requests so she won’t steal our organs in our sleep?”

Alright, that was enough. “Sweetie, as much as I appreciate your support, I feel that I must stress out that I wouldn’t do something like that to you,” I told Aite, frowning at her.

The bat pony didn’t even turn around to reply. “A, nobody believes you, and B, if you want to keep that oversized insect as a pet that ‘you’ had better been singular and referring to me.”

“It was plural,” I assured Jack before turning back to Aite, “and scorpions aren’t insects, they’re arachnids.”

“Gesundheit.”

Taken aback by Aite’s response, I barely noticed Jack’s sigh as he picked up his gun from the ground and put it back in its hoister. “You realize you just said that keeping a radscorpion as a pet is sensible, right?” he told Aite.

The bat pony pointed at me. “She said she wants to turn everypony immortal about ten minutes ago, this is normal by comparison. Now chop-chop,” she added, clapping her forehooves. “Go get the stuff to tie the radscorpion up before it wakes up.”

Jack’s eyes rolled upwards as he shook his head in resignation, then turned toward the ladder leading to my laboratory.

“And get your act together,” Aite collect back after him. “I’m not foalsitting both of you. You’re welcome,” she added in a normal voice, turning back.

“Oh, yes, thank you very much for your help sweetie,” I immediately thanked her, relieved that the argument (and radscorpion’s death) had been averted. I was about to further express my gratitude - and question why exactly did she help me, as she had been clearly astonished by my ‘plan’ - when what she had said had registered with me. “Excuse me though, what exactly did you mean by ‘foalsitting both of you’?”

“Hm? Oh, well, when Jack and I planned what we’ll do in case he’ll decide we’ll work with you, we decided that I’ll be staying at your side, making sure you’re safe and not going to kill us all. So, you know, foalsit,” she added with a shrug.

My ears pressed backwards flat against my head in mild irritation. “I’m touched that Jack is so worried about my safety, but I can handle myself just fine,” I told her, then added, “And I do not plan to kill either of you.”

“Actually, that jibe was meant to suggest that one of your experiments would go spectacularly bad and you would kill us all by accident.”

That did not improve my mood. “Oh sweetie, now you are just offending my abilities as a scientist.”

Aite just shrugged. “Well it’s only an offense if you prove me wrong. Is that thing going to wake up anytime soon?” she changed the subject, pointing at the radscorpion while she kneeled down.

“Sweetie, that’s not a thing,” I told her; the bat pony didn’t even flicker her ears towards me as she picked up her radscorpion-blood-stained dagger with her mouth and sat down, grasping a piece of cloth and proceeded to wipe it clean. “It’s a living creature, and a marvelous wonder of both natural and radiation-induced evolution at that,” I said, giving the radscorpion a glance; it was a really impressive animal to behold. “And as for your question, I must say that I’m not entirely sure-”

“That’s promising.”

“-how long will my Anesthetic Spell last,” I continued, ignoring the interruption. “It is the first time that I’ve cast it on an animal with such a body structure. However, if the spell was about to wear off, the radscorpion’s body wouldn’t regain full mobility immediately, giving us plenty of warning by attempting to move.” Aite hummed in reply, too busy finished cleaning her dagger to speak. I looked at the weapon with curiosity, then with a surprise when I noticed the silver lining on the handle and that the blade was narrowed in the first third of its length. Before I could comment on it, though, the bat pony hid her dagger away, so instead I decided to return to our earlier topic. “Could you possibly enlighten me as to what did you mean by my experiments going ‘spectacularly bad’?”

Aite rolled her eyes at me. “Literally anything you do with that radscorpion resulting in it breaking free and going on a rampage through your clinic? Possibly after you make it bigger, smarter, more venomous?”

“Please, sweetie, I’ll make sure it won’t be able to break free,” I assured her, confident in what I was saying. “At least, not until I’d befriend it. Though I’ll admit, sweetie, that your suggestions about making it bigger and smarter are interesting…” I hummed thoughtfully as Aite sighed. Ignoring her, I let my gaze wander back to the radscorpion. “I’m not sure that I would be able to induce growth more impressive than the one radiation had caused in this species… It really had an interesting effect on evolution, I must say. Not just on the animals,” I added, nodding to Aite in the direction of the luminescent mushrooms.

“You mean the glowing fungi?” the bat pony asked, letting me know their name. “I suppose they are pretty neat. Some ponies figured out a way to make RadAway and some other medicines using them.”

“Wha- really?!” I exclaimed, amazed.

Aite nodded. “Yeah, don’t ask me how exactly though, I don’t know.”

“Oh that’s alright, sweetie, I’ll figure out how to use them after properly examining them. Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention. Do they have any other properties by chance?”

“Other that they make not bad soup? Not really,” Aite replied, much to my disappointment; although it would be a nice diversity to have soup to eat. “There is another species of mushroom that grows in caves like this, called brain fungus - the name comes from them looking like a brain so you’ll know it when you see it- I think they can be used to make Mintals. Oh, and soup too.”

I nodded, making a mental note of the information. And then made another to make an actual note about what I’ve just learned. I could make a quick recording, but between the radscorpion (who needed an audio recording of its own), the Stable right around the corner, Apple Core’s possible pregnancy and our yet-to-be-planned collaboration, I was fairly certain that I had more important things to focus on.

“Sorry about earlier.”

Surprised, I turned back at the bat pony. Aite was looking with a troubled frown in the direction where Jack had gone.

“If I knew his friend and that slaver mare had banged, I would have kept quiet about her being pregnant,” she elaborated. “Figures he would get emotional over it…”

Sighing, I nodded. “To be fair, sweetie, his reaction was only natural and perfectly understandable, given the circumstances.”

“Not saying it wasn’t,” Aite shrugged, “but it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a stupid ass reaction. Really rich coming from the guy who takes such pride in being a ‘professional’...” she added with a snort. “But anyway, as I was saying, sorry for blurting it out like that.”

“Well, to be perfectly honest, I too bear responsibility for this little ‘blurt’, as you have said,” I confessed. “I… honestly hadn’t considered the possibility that if Apple Core is pregnant then the father could have been Blast. If I had, I would have tried to approach this topic with you later in private… though to be fair,” I added, pouting a little, “I also hadn’t expected that you would just blurt it out like that.” Aite glanced at me, the corned of her lips curving into a smirk. I rolled my eyes, resisting the urge to comment on her amusement. “So I suppose the blame is on both of us for making mistakes.”

“Talk about a stroke of bad luck, huh?” Aite asked, snorting and shaking her head. “First both of us making such mistakes, then the radscorpion attacking.”

“Quite,” I agreed, then looked at her curiously. “Did you know Blast, sweetie?”

The bat pony shook her head. “I’ve just moved to Tenpony Tower a few weeks ago, I’ve never been to this part of the Wasteland before.”

“Really? Where did you live before then?” I asked, now even more curious. “If I may ask, of course.”

Aite shrugged. “Hoofington. Lived there my whole life.”

“Hoofington?” I repeated, slightly surprised. “That’s quite a long way to travel, isn’t it sweetie? How come you and Jack know each other, then?” I asked as Aite nodded. “I was under the impression that after coming to Equestria from the Zebra Empire a year before Jack had operated mostly in the Manehattan area.”

“He stopped at Hoofington first,” Aite replied, shrugging again. “Stayed there for about a month, then moved here.”

“Oh, I see. That would make sense, considering Hoofington is closer to the zebra lands than central Equestria,” I said, nodding thoughtfully. “So that’s when the two of you met and got to know each other?”

The bat pony smirked. “Yeah, you could say that. I walked into the bar at Flank one night, and there he was, drowning his sorrows. Griffins had never been really common around the Hoof, only recently that Red Eye buck had started sending some to Paradise - and before you ask,” she paused as she began to explain, “it’s just one of the towns there, like Flank for that matter, not any actual Paradise; hate that place, by the way - so I joined him out of curiosity. About half an hour or so later we were in my room.”

“Your room?” I repeated, confused, then a realization came to me as Aite glanced at me, still with a smirk and now also with a raised eyebrow. “Oh! So you two are…” I began, searching for the right word, as I pointed from her to the direction of the ladder - from which stepping sounds emanated, signaling Jack’s return - and back.

“Preeetty sure we’re not whatever you were about to say,” Aite cut in, amused. “Or that we weren’t, rather. But I’ll admit, that month was about as close as I get to normal relationships. Probably which is why I have enough of a soft spot for Jack to do him a solid and come help him with this rather than enjoying my retirement,” she added, her gaze moving from me to the approaching griffin.

“Huh, I see…” I said slowly; Aite’s explanation of the nature of their relationship didn’t really explain too much to me. However, I had more important matters to ask about rather than try to pry into their relationship. “Are cases of interspecies sexual intercourses common in the Wasteland then?”

“Can I walk in on you having a conversation just once today without you asking stupid questions?” Jack exclaimed loudly as he returned, a duffle bag over his shoulder. He was giving me a deadpan as he said that, but he quickly turned to Aite with exasperation and added, “And don’t give me that bullshit, you were getting bored to death at Tenpony.”

His remark made Aite even more amused. “Oh, you wanna talk bullshit? How about we circle back to that ‘old associate’ then?” As Jack groaned and began to rub his temples, she added “I mean, you were pretty quick to jump on the bones of somepony who’s just your ‘old associate’ when we run into each other at Tenpony.”

Jack lifted his paw and glared at her with annoyance. “And you were pretty quick to ambush a younger male in a bar while he’s clearly depressed,” he bit back, a smirk of amusement twisting his beak.

“First time I heard anybody complain,” Aite countered, her tone of voice sounding almost innocently.

“Whatever you say,” Jack replied, shaking his head and putting the duffle bag on the ground. As he started to rummage through it, he uttered under his breath, loudly enough for both of us to hear, “You cougar.”

“Oh please, you’re what, ten years younger than me?” Aite snorted, rolling her eyes.

I listened to this exchange, at first with genuine interest in observing and learning more about their relationship, then with growing concern as their argument became more… heated. “Um,” I spoke up, looking from one to the other, “do you want me to leave the two of you alone, sweeties?”

“No,” Jack replied (while turning to look sternly at Aite who at the same moment said “Yes,” then smirked at him) before returning his attention to the duffle bag. “What I do want you to do is to help put your pet on a muzzle and a leash.”

He threw some of the contents from the bag to my hooves; as I suggested earlier, he had gathered some ropes and leather belts from my storeroom (why there were ropes in there was a bit of a mystery to me; I could understand leather belts, they could be used to subduing hyperactive patients for instance), but also several rolls of duct tape.

“Start with its pincers,” Jack told me, “I’ll try to figure out what to do about its tail, since I figure you won’t let us just cut it off. Aite, you- oh for crying out loud.”

I looked over from above the radscorpion, curious what Aite could have done to annoy Jack… only to see that she was gone.

“Figures,” Jack sighed, shaking his head; he appeared more tired than angry. Turning back to the radscorpion, he grabbed some ropes and walked over around the radscorpion. “Let’s get to it, if we’re really not killing it then I want it bound before whatever your spell did to him wears off.”

“I casted an Anesthesia Spell on it, sweetie, it causes temporary analgesie and paralysis,” I informed him (ignoring the eyeroll he did in reply), then glanced behind at the spot where Aite had been just a moment ago. “How exactly is she doing that? She’s even disappeared from my E.F.S. It’s thanks to that clock, correct?”

“Yeah, it’s called an Invisibility Cloak, or more simply a Stealth Cloak,” Jack replied as he started to work on tying the radscorpion’s tail down to its body so it wouldn’t be able to attack us with it. Hastily I picked up a roll of duct tape and did as he had instructed, not wanting to upset him while he provided me with such interesting information. “They were developed by the zebras and, as you can imagine, used a lot during the war. Unlike those StealthBuck things you ponies came up during that time, they can work pretty much endlessly, and not only make you invisible but also erase your smell and the sounds you make.”

“Really?” I exclaimed, impressed. “How interesting… but how exactly can they work ‘pretty much endlessly’, as you had phrased it, sweetie?”

“I dunno, how can that thing on your leg work endlessly too?” Jack countered with a shrug.

I blinked. “Huh, interesting point,” I agreed, musing the idea. “Of course, this is different, since PipBuck is an arcane device, while that Invisibility Cloak… that gemstone clasp must be the source of its properties, the zebras must have placed enhancements on them to make whoever is wearing the cloaks disappear from sight. Do you think Aite would be willing to allow me to examine it?” I asked Jack, finishing taping one of the radscorpion’s pincers and moving to the next one. “Magical analysis isn’t exactly my field of expertise, but I might be able to learn something.”

“Doubt it, about the only time I saw her without that cloak was when we were having sex,” Jack replied, moving slightly away from the mutated animal to assert his work on the tail, then grabbed it and tried to move it. Apparently he wasn’t quite satisfied, as he grabbed another rope and started to tie it around the radscorpion, lifting the arachnid a bit to move the line underneath it. “Or you know, morning after and stuff.”

“I see…” I said slowly; I very much wanted to ask him - respectfully, of course - about his experience with interspecies sexual intercourse and how it was viewed in the Wasteland, but learning more about those Invisibility Cloaks took priority. For now. “Pity. Do you happen to know where she had gotten that cloak then, sweetie?” I asked, hoping that if Aite wouldn’t allow me to examine hers then maybe I could get my hooves on another Invisibility Cloak.

Unfortunately, Jack shook his head. “No idea. I assumed that she had gotten it from one of the Remnants, but as I learned later their cloaks cease to work after their owner gets killed. Probably one of her early bounties had one and she just took it,” he added with a shrug, tying up the ropes together.

“Remnants?” I repeated quizzically as I used my magic to put a leather belt around the radscorpion’s pincers and tried to buckle it.

Jack leaned over to help me. “A bunch of striped yahoos who didn’t get the memo that the war was over,” he said as he pulled by the end of the belt and fastened the buckle. I looked at him in surprise as he added: “They operate around Hoofington.”

“Really?” I exclaimed, surprised, then hummed thoughtfully. “Well, I suppose that from a technical point of view they are right, if there was never any signed peace agreement of any kind then strictly legally speaking we are still in a state of war. Although I honestly don’t see the point in continuing fighting… who are they exactly fighting?”

“Honestly, about everybody who isn’t them I think,” Jack said, looking at me oddly. Before I could question it, he sighed, rolled his eyes upwards and asked: “I’m probably going to regret asking that, but, considering what you’ve said about the war still technically going on, what exactly would you do about the zebras if you’d rebuild Equestria and become its Princess?”

Ah, that explained his exasperation. “Well, first of all, sweetie, it’s when I rebuild Equestria and become its Princess,” I corrected him, causing him to sigh again. “But regarding your question… hm, I must admit, that’s a delicate matter to consider,” I told him, rubbing my chin as I pondered it. “Obviously, this would be some long term planning, as reconstruction of Equestria would take priority, but nevertheless it is a certain… chapter, shall we say, that should be properly closed. Ideally, after becoming the Princess of Equestria I would hold a peace summit with a leader of the Zebra Empire… Considering what you’ve briefly mentioned, though, I doubt they have any sort of government at the present time?” I asked Jack, turning to him.

The griffin - who actually appeared to regret his question already, judging by his expression - gave a reluctant nod. “No, they never elected a new Caesar after the last one two hundred years ago. Don’t even get me started on that one,” he added, rolling his eyes. “They’ve basically split up into different Legions and have been fighting each other ever since. There are also a few towns that are more or less neutral in all of this.”

I frowned hearing his very brief explanation of the political state of affairs in the Zebra Empire. “I think you’re omitting a lot of details, sweetie.”

“Yes, I am,” Jack admitted, deadpanning, and pointed a talon at me. “Because I would like to get an answer today.”

I pouted, but decided to relent for now. “Very well, but please do tell me about those Remnants then. Do they represent Zebra Empire’s authority in any form? Because if that’s the case, then after rebuilding Equestria I could work through them to establish peace and repair relationships between our two nations.”

Once again, the griffin rolled his eyes. “Well, they are supposedly led by a Legate - basically Caesar’s second-in-command - but considering that they were appointed by the zebras’ Caesar himself, it seems unlikely their leader really is one. I did hear some rumors about him while I was still in the zebralands, almost every zebra there considers him to be a phony using a self-styled empty title.”

“I see…” I mused, feeling slightly disappointed. “Well, it would be easier to make peace and help the zebras if they’d rebuild their nation as well, but I suppose if in the zebralands those Legions are busy fighting themselves, they’d pose no threat to Equestria… though I’d still want to help them,” I added, frowning a little. “As for those Remnants, though, they would have to be dealt with. If they truly believe the war isn’t over and act based on that belief, then they’d pose threat to my subjects. Hopefully my diplomatic skills would be enough to solve this problem.”

“And if they’re not?” Jack asked, an eyebrow raised.

I shrugged. “Then they’d be dealt with another way until they’d be open to negotiations.”

Jack snorted. “Yeah, because that worked wonders for Equestria the first time.”

His remark made me slightly bristle. “I would make it work, then,” I told him, narrowing my gaze. “You asked me what I would do about the zebras, and I gave you my reply. I would seek peace, but I would not stand by and allow harm come to my subjects.”

The griffin grunted, then asked “Okay, so assuming you’d have dealt with those Remnants, what would you do with the other zebras?”

“As I said, as long as they fight among themselves they’d pose no threat to Equestria. I suppose I would try to help them and mend our relations… possibly I could seek those of the Legions that could be convinced that we needed to put the war behind us and work for a better future and offer them aid so that they could choose a Caesar from amongst themselves, and then we’d have peace.”

“I sincerely doubt this could work out that easily,” Jack replied. “Or that a zebra who accepted help from a pony ‘princess’ would be chosen as a Caesar. Hell, you becoming the Princess of Equestria seems possible in comparison,” he added with a snort, resuming
resumed tying up the radscorpion, but not before glancing at me and saying sarcastically, “Just make sure to not blow up the world a second time afterwards, okay?”

“Sweetie, that suggestion, even if said as a joke, is so unrealistic that I won’t even dignify it with a response,” I told pointedly, helping him tie the arachnid’s legs together.

Jack just snorted, but otherwise he didn’t reply. He appeared to be quite happy to be able to work in silence for a few moments. We were soon done with the legs, and Jack returned his attention to the tail again; understandable, considering that the stinger it ended with was possibly the most dangerous part of the animal. I instead looked it over, the beautiful creature bound so tightly it wouldn’t be able to move an inch.

Poor thing, Fluttershy said sadly, on the verge of tears as she looked at it along with me.

“Poor thing,” I agreed, nodding, and leaned over the radscorpion. I pressed my hoof next to its eyes, very gently petting it. “But this is for its own good. If it will not be tamed, then it would continue to hunt ponies, eventually getting itself killed.”

“Or right now,” Jack cut in; I almost staggered in alarm, realizing that I just spoke to Fluttershy out loud. Fortunately, judging by the griffin’s expression, he assumed I had been speaking to him, or just to myself. “Since I was about to kill it if Aite didn’t convince me to let you have this pet. But if this thing breaks out, I will kill it, got it?”

“Oh believe me, sweetie, you have made your stance on the matter quite clear,” I replied, frowning at him.

Jack held my gaze for a few seconds, then he sighed and his expression softened a bit. “Look, sorry, but I consider our lives more important than some oversized insect’s. Yeah, arachnid, shut up,” he added with annoyance as I opened my mouth to correct him. “So if this little experiments of yours doesn’t work out, I’ll have to end it before you get yourself or somebody else killed.”

Sighing, I relented. “I suppose I can respect that,” I told him, turning back to the radscorpion. “Although honestly, I don’t understand why your - or anyone’s in the Wasteland, as it seems - first answer to solving a problem is through murder.”

I was slightly surprised when Jack didn’t reply immediately; rather, as I petted the radscorpion again, a complete silence fell upon us for a few seconds. Just as I noticed Pinkie’s apparition looking in his direction with worry, he finally said, “You really shouldn’t pick up that argument right now considering what we were arguing about before this thing attacked us.”

I let out a “Hm?” as I turned back to him, confused… then I remembered. The anger on his face had helped with that. “That’s not murder,” I told him, a chill spreading down my spine.

Judging by the way his brow furrowed, he misinterpreted my words, but before I could explain, he raised his paw, closing his eyes. “I don’t want to argue about this again now. I… need to think about this calmly. But if Apple Core is pregnant we will get back to it,” he added with a hint of a warning as he sat down, rubbing his temples and leaning against the wall of the cavern.

One discussion I was not looking forward to. Oh well, at least he realized he needs to calm down, I thought, my hoof going to my throat and massaging it idly. I’ll have to learn how to do what Aite had done… and speaking of…

“Where do you think Aite is?” I asked as I turned back to Jack.

The griffin sighed and dropped his forelegs. “Probably scouting the Stable or looking for the exit from this damn cavern, the radscorpion must have dragged that slaver in here through some entrance. Despite the… attitude she displayed by disappearing instead of helping with your pet, she is a veteran bounty hunter; you don’t live too long in this line of work if you don’t learn how to be careful. That, and…” he paused to grimace and cover his eyes with his paw again. “And I honestly doubt anyone would want to listen to our idiotic banter.”

“I wouldn’t call our conversation an ‘idiotic banter’, sweetie,” I told him, frowning.

“Yeah, well, we better wait a bit for her to get back, she’s going to try and spook us by appearing out of nowhere wherever we are so we might as well be sitting down for it.”

“A fair assessment,” I agreed, sitting down beside him. “If you don’t mind me asking, sweetie” I began, ignoring the soft groan the griffin had uttered, “I was wondering, what exactly is the difference between a mercenary like yourself and a bounty hunter like Aite?”

“Basically,” Jack began, shrugging, “a mercenary gets hired to do a job, while a bounty hunter just picks a bounty and collects a reward. Some people place rewards for doing certain things, often killing or capturing certain people, make a notice or something that they place in their town. A bounty hunter then sees it and decides to do it. So you could say that it's a more independant kind of profession, and more competitive one since you wouldn’t be the only one who saw that notice about a reward.”

“Hm, I see… but wait, couldn’t a mercenary also go after such ‘bounties’?” I asked, frowning.

The griffin rolled his eyes. “Yep, did so myself. And a ‘bounty hunter’ could always get hired by somebody, so they’d be doing a ‘mercenary job’. Honestly, there’s not really that big of a difference between the two.”

I had to agree, there really wasn’t… though there was some difference. Just as Jack had said, bounty hunters sounded as more ‘independant’. They could just wait until somebody posted a notice about a bounty that they’d want to collect… assuming, of course, there was a big enough of a selection.

“Are bounties common in the Wasteland?” I asked Jack. “I don’t recall seeing any notices of such kind anywhere in Appleloosa or Old Appleloosa.”

“You’d have to look those up in bigger towns. The closest one you’d be able to find bounty notices relatively easy would be Friendship City in Manehattan. But at some point somepony in a smaller town would need something done and would post notices too, it’s just more rare since less ponies live there. And of course,” he added, “there’s always Hoofington.”

“Hoofington?” I repeated, recalling that this was where Aite had come from. “What do you mean?”

Instead of replying, Jack raised an eyebrow and asked, “What would you say are the biggest, most important groups in the Wasteland? You’ve been out here a few weeks now, you should be able to make a guess.”

Slightly put off by the sudden change of subject, I hesitated. “Well… slavers are a group of some importance.” The snort Jack let out had let me know his opinion of their ‘importance’; still, he waved for me to continue, “Obviously, this Red Eye’s group would be one of the biggest.” It had to be; looking through Cutter’s records, I was able to learn that almost all of the slaves through the last couple of years had been sent to Fillydelphia, sold to Red Eye. It was quite an impressive number on its own, and considering he had to have enough ponies to keep an eye on those slaves… “Steel Rangers, too… the Enclave, although they technically don’t live in the Wasteland… and I suppose those alicorns you’ve told me about that work together with Red Eye.”

To think that one so close in form to the Goddesses would stoop to work with such a misguided pony.... let alone multiples of them!

“Sounds about right,” Jack nodded. “We could add to that raiders; even though they aren’t exactly organized, and bigger settlements, like Tenpony or Friendship City, although they don’t pay much attention to anything happening outside their borders. But yeah, that’s around five factions. Now, take that number,” he told me, gesticulating with his paw to emphasize his words, “add a few more, and put them all around a single pre-war city. You’d pretty much get Hoofington. All those different groups, crammed into such small area. A powder keg waiting to explode…” he commented, shaking his head. “But, anyway, with all those different factions living together, there are naturally far more jobs that need to be taken care of, which means more bounties. One of the factions there, called Finders, is neutral between all of their squabbles, so their towns are sort of ‘neutral grounds’, and those other factions conduct their bounties through them. And of course, since the other groups don’t exactly like each other, there is quite a number of jobs that are either about hindering other groups in some way, or straight out assassinating somepony.” The griffin shook his head, then gave me a long, judging look in utter silence before adding: “I think you’d like it there. I could easily see you loving two of those factions, just off the top of my head, and you’d probably be able to get along with most of the others. Heck, considering fricking Gorgon…” he said as he trailed off, shaking his head again.

As I wondered what was that last one supposed to mean, I found myself agreeing with Jack’s assessment; the prospect of living in a place with so many different groups sounded interesting, to say the least, even though I knew next to nothing about them right now. I could just see myself interacting with them, allying with some and using or undermining others, all for the purpose of amassing support for my goal of becoming the Princess of Equestria as well as continuing my experiments! I was curious what those two factions Jack said I’d “love” were like, but as fun as learning about potential future allies and making more long-term political plans, I prefered on focusing on more pressing matters. Like learning more about my current allies.

“Why didn’t you?” I asked Jack curiously. “Aite told me you’ve stayed in Hoofington for only about a month.”

“Too crowded,” Jack replied simply, then, noticing my raised eyebrow, he elaborated “With so many groups already there, starting your own mercenary company would be more difficult than it was worth the effort. There weren’t even any Talon companies there last year, and the one or two that are there now are working for Red Eye. Being on my own would be even harder, since I wanted to make a name for myself.” Jack grimaced and added, “Hell, it would have been harder because of my name; I wasn’t there for a week when I got an invitation to meet with Big Daddy Reaper.”

“Big Daddy Reaper?” I repeated, slightly baffled by the name.

Jack chuckled. “Yeah... believe it or not, that’s not the weirdest name I’ve heard in Hoofington. Anyway, he was curious if Bloodtalons are as good as they say and if so he wanted to offer me to join the Reapers. So I went to Hoofington Dome, met the guy, beat up one of his Reapers in a fight as a demonstration, then politely declined. He was disappointed, but accepted it, so nothing really changed for me. But afterwards, the other factions also became interested in me, and eventually I came to a conclusion that they would continue bothering me - or, try to bother me,” he amended, waving his paw dismissively, “after Big Daddy’s emissary I’d tended to avoid whoever came looking for me - or they would eventually just try to kill me unless I would finally join somebody. So, I left,” he finished, shrugging.

“How come you didn’t want to join any of them?” I asked, tilting my head in confusion. “All those different factions, and none of them-”

“I didn’t leave the Bloodtalons just to chain myself to some other group so easily,” he interrupted me, answering the question before I could properly finish it. He shrugged and added, “And besides, there was also something about Hoofington itself that didn’t really sit well with me.”

“‘Didn’t sit well’?” I repeated, confused. “What do you mean, sweetie?”

“Dunno, maybe all that crap I heard about it in the zebralands had rubbed off on me,” he replied with a snort. Before I could ask him what he meant by that, he added, “Although when I told Aite that I didn’t like it and I would be leaving, she laughed and called me smart, so it can’t be just that nonsense… and speaking of, are you going to be out long?!” he suddenly raised his voice as he turned towards the Stable, addressing - obviously - the bat pony in question. He then fell silent, listening for a reply, then when he didn’t receive one for a few heartbeats he leaned back against the wall and murmured: “Fucking annoying…”

Being abruptly reminded of Aite’s prolonged absence, I felt a pang of worry. “You don’t think she run into any trouble in the Stable, sweetie?” I asked, recalling how I got my leg caught in a bear trap in Stable Eleven.

But Jack snorted dismissively. “For the first few years after she started working as a bounty hunter, the only ponies who know about her existence were the one or two Finders that she would see about her rewards. She’s that stealthy. Trust me, if there is anything down there, they have no idea she’s there too.”

My eyes widened slightly in surprise. “Oh… I was more concerned about traps actually-”

“She can fly,” Jack reminded me.

“Oh, right,” I exclaimed, feeling my cheeks slightly heating up from embarrassment. I hoped Jack couldn’t see it; while it indeed seemed like an embarrassing oversight, I had spent a far longer part of my life surrounded by ponies who couldn’t fly, so I felt that I had been justified in my worries. Still, I was eager to change the subject, and I had many important things I wanted to ask him, so I cleared my throat and began, “Since we’re talking about Aite, sweetie... I don’t mean to pry-”

“I sincerely doubt that,” Jack remarked, turning to me with a deadpan.

As I didn’t hear him tell me to stay quiet, I continued “Do you mind explaining to me the exact nature of your and Aite’s relationship?”

“Yes,” Jack replied, his expression not changing.

“I’m just confused, she had told me that you weren’t exactly in a relationship - the use of past tense was especially intriguing, if I might say - but it seemed to me that she had expressed to still have interest in you.”

Jack let a loud, drawn out sigh, and covered his eyes with his paw again while shaking his head. After a few seconds, he lifted it and glanced at me. “Not that this is any of your business, but it’s not that she still has an interest in me… well, not exactly. Ugh, look, Aite and I weren’t really a couple back in the Hoof,” Jack began to explain, grimacing a little. “Neither one of us wanted a relationship, we just had sex for a couple of weeks and she had let me crash at her place.”

So they were living together for a few weeks and weren’t in a relationship? Pinkie Pie asked, blinking in surprise. Wow, I had no idea the definition of a relationship had changed in two hundred years!

It was hard for me to tell if she had said that sarcastically or not; whatever the case, her remark gave me an idea how to respond to Jack.

“So the two of you were living together for a few weeks, engaging in sexual intercourse and weren’t in a relationship?” I asked Jack, raising an eyebrow sceptically. “I had no idea that the definition of a relationship is different in the Wasteland than in my Stable.”

Jack turned to me with a deadpan. “Sarcasm is unbecoming of you, Doctor. As I said, neither of us wanted a relationship, so we both agreed that our… arrangement was temporary. We did like each other and stuff, so I suppose that, since you apparently are determined to put a label on it,” he added, glancing at me, “you could say we were bang-buddies.”

Well, this did give me some idea as to what was their relationship. “But you aren’t now?” I asked to specify.

Jack rolled his eyes up into the cavern’s ceiling and groaned. “When I got back into Tenpony and run into her, we banged. After we caught up over drinks and stuff, of course. But then after we talked some more about what I’ll do when I get here and Aite offered to come with, well... I have a few rules I try to live by, and one of them is to not have sex with people I work with,” Jack explained. “I also don’t have sex while on a job for that matter, something that I was never able to convince Blast to try too…” he muttered, his gaze losing his focus as he no doubt reminisced about his friend. “Would you believe that guy once screwed our client’s daughter instead of keeping watch? Idiot…” the griffin added, in a warmer tone than his words would suggest he’d use.

I gave him a few more seconds to reminisce as I tried to wrap my head around what he just said. “You don’t have sexual intercourse with people you work with? May I ask why?” Frowning, I elaborated, “I can understand why, in your line of work, you wouldn’t have sex while ‘on duty’, so to speak, but-”

“It affects the group’s dynamic, usually negatively, and if the relationship ends badly it would mean I’d lose a valuable team member,” Jack replied before I could finish. “Or I would be stuck with a team member who resents me. Either way, bad.”

I blinked, surprised. “But… that’s just assuming the relationship would end badly,” I couldn’t help but point out the flaw. “And besides, considering that you and Aite already had a relationship, as non committed as it was, doesn’t it make it a moot point?”

Jack frowned at me with annoyance before replying, “Possibly. Either way, I don’t have sex while working, so even overlooking my past relationship with Aite we would still not do anything while we’re here. Which amuses her,” he added a snort. “Maybe even annoys her a little. So she’s probably going to tease the shit out of me through this entire experience. Especially after that ‘old associate’ crap I said,” Jack groaned as he pressed both of his paws to his face.

“Um…” I began, finding his behaviour a touch odd. “Sweetie, I’m afraid I’m a bit confused.”

Jack shot me an annoyed glare. “Wasteland’s dumbest genius,” he said, earning a glare from me in return, which he ignored. “Even though we weren’t ‘in love’, or any of that stuff, she’s obviously closer to me than just ‘old associate’. She’s my friend, best one now actually, but because of our past and our current… work-oriented relationship, I felt a bit awkward, and sorta panicked a little, so I said-”

“Aww, how cute.”

“Oh for the love of-!” Jack hissed as he turned to the bat pony that appeared beside him (startling me a little in the process).

“The big bad soldier boy, getting all flustered because little old me,” Aite continued to mock him, faking innocence and speaking sweetly while clearly being highly amused. “Oh, and would you look at that, I’m his best friend; that’s just precious!”

“Fuck you,” Jack told her, his gaze turning into a deadpan.

The bat pony just smirked. “Bring it!” she told him playfully, spreading her forelegs and puffing her chest out.

Jack’s deadpan turned into a frown, then he looked at me. “See? This shit right here is a whole other reason why sleeping with somebody you work with is a very bad idea,” he said, pointing at Aite.

His remark got a chuckle out of the bat pony. “Oh, lighten up already, would you?” she said, rolling her eyes at him. She then glanced to the side, at the tied up radscorpion. “Oh neat, you’ve finished tying it up.”

“Yeah, thanks for all your help,” Jack retorted with a snort.

“You are welcome.”

I could hardly blame Jack for letting out a soft growl after Aite’s reply. The griffin took a moment to compose himself before saying, “What did you find out?”

The bat pony shrugged. “Nothing interesting. There’s an exit out of the cavern that way,” she said, pointing further down one of the tunnels. “It has a big dead tree toppled right over it, probably makes it impossible to spot the entrance from the outside. Didn’t check, there’s still a storm outside,” she added, then began pointing around us. “Those tunnels branch off into a few small corridors, each leading to a ladder with a hatch over it, similar to Crazy’s. And as for the Stable, everything in it is dead. Well, except for some radroaches, but I somehow doubt that they are responsible…”

My ears perked up with interest. Do you think this is where Snuggles, Wigglebutt and their friend came from? I asked Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. They could have come out looking for food…

“‘Everything in it is dead’, as in ‘there is nothing there’, or ‘there’s a bunch of dead bodies and/or skeletons’?” Jack asked Aite.

“The latter.”

“Ugh, any idea what killed them all?”

“That’s not really among my skills,” the bat pony replied, shrugging. “But I noticed that practically all of the skeletons had fractured or broken bones. Maybe a big fight had broken out or something?”

“Great, just like Stable Eleven,” Jack commented, snorting.

I also found myself disappointed. To hear that Stable had apparently succumbed to the very same fate, that ponies had descended into madness that compelled them to kill each other… it was saddening, to say the least.

Despite his dismissive words, Jack glanced in the direction of the Stable with uncertainty in his eyes. “So no bullet holes in skulls or anything like that?” he asked, turning to Aite.

“Not that I noticed, but I didn’t really look that closely. Admittedly, it is a little weird that they all just beaten each other up to the death,” Aite said, waving with her hoof, “since at the very least the security had to have some guns, but maybe they were used deeper in the Stable or something and I didn’t look that far.”

“How come?”

“Remember how I said that everything is dead down there? I also meant the lights.” As I blinked in surprise, Aite continued, “Since I can only assume that means the Stable is out of power, I’m guessing that their ventilation system must be offline too, and I didn’t want to risk passing out and suffocating.”

“But that’s impossible,” I began, frowning. “According to what I read in Stable Eight’s Stable-Tec’s notes, each Stable’s spark generator could provide power for the Stable for hundreds of years, and even in the event that something would damage it, the auxiliary spark generator would still keep critical life-support installations and emergency lights working.”

“They probably got both blown up, then,” Aite replied, shrugging. “Everything of value on the level I checked out had been trashed; I even found two utterly destroyed terminals in there.”

Again, I blinked. “Utterly destroyed terminals? But… they’re extremely durable. Stable-Tec had been known to build everything to last for a reason. And you yourself had just said that this Stable’s citizens had all apparently beaten each other to death, sweetie; it’s impossible that they had been able to destroy terminals with their bare hooves.”

“Well, they did, apparently,” Jack said. “I agree that’s a little weird, but a ‘little weird’ is pretty much a standard when dealing with Stables,” he added, making quotation marks with his talons. “But that’s none of our business.”

“None of- excuse me, sweetie?” I asked, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“That we’re not going down there and try to figure it out,” the griffon replied, to my utter bafflement. I opened my mouth to object, but the look he gave me gave me pause. “I don’t know how you forgot, but we still have to discuss how exactly we’ll get about getting information from Black Widow about Scope, you have to replace organs and limbs of those… test subjects of yours,” he added with a slight grimace as he counted on his talons. “Oh, and I assume before we get around doing either of that, you’ll want us to move that radscorpion of yours up into your basement?”

“Well, of course, sweetie, I’ll want to observe him as much as possible, and-” I began, only two be abruptly stopped by Jack as he grabbed my muzzle.

“Yeah, so we really don’t have the time to start exploring this Stable. Yes, we have all night,” he added with an eye roll as Aite opened her mouth, her eyebrow raised, “but considering that there seems to be nothing of value inside and like you’ve said we could suffocate down there, I don’t feel like satisfying my curiosity. You can always check it at a later date - preferably after our business if concluded - since I doubt the Stable will go anywhere. Now,” he said, releasing my muzzle, “before we come up with a way to move this ridiculous pet project of yours, there’s one more thing to discuss. You’ve said that there are other ladders and hatches around in the tunnels?” he asked, turning to Aite.

Although I couldn’t disagree with Jack’s logic, I felt a little disappointed that I wouldn’t get to find out what happened to this Stable right away. Well, maybe “disappointed” wasn’t the right word. Annoyed, rather. Still, I knew Jack had a point, so I begrudgingly made a mental note to explore it at the earliest convenience. Which, admittedly, would be after examining the radscorpion, at the very least.

“Yeah, I figure they must have been built for some more important ponies, like the town’s doctor, so that they could make it to the Stable,” Aite replied to Jack’s question. “I think I heard somewhere that the president of Stable-Tec had a lot of relatives here, too, so-”

“Nepotism,” Jack murmured, casting his gaze up into the cavern’s ceiling and shaking his head.

His comment seemed to amuse Aite. “Doesn’t your family run a big mercenary company? But yeah, seems like it,” she resumed, utterly ignoring the look Jack gave her. “Anyway, I know what you’re thinking, but I can’t tell if one of them leads to Black Widow’s house, I’m too turned around down here.”

Jack looked upwards again, then turned his head in the direction where the ladder leading to my clinic was. “Should be somewhere over there,” he finally said, pointing in another direction.

“Then yes, I think there is one leading to Black Widow’s house. Want me to check it out?”

But the griffin shook his head. “No, I don’t want to walk into this blindly. For all we know she also uses her basement for some unspeakable things,” he added, glancing at me in a manner that, quite honestly, I found a bit offensive. “But it would make our lives easier if we could just use this underground passage to get to her house… something we’ll have to discuss, I guess.” He turned his attention back to the radscorpion as he slowly scratched the side of his beak, then frowned and sighed. “Okay, let’s get this stupid shit over with. Do either of you have any idea how to move the radscorpion back up the ladder?”

Pleased to hear that he still intended to help me with this fascinating creature, I cleared my throat. “Well, sweetie, I’ve been thinking that we should try tying another rope around it and carefully pull it upstairs into my laboratory.”

“I somehow doubt that the three of us will be enough to pull a radscorpion up that ladder, even assuming it will fit through the hatch. Especially considering your… lets say meager strength,” he decided, raising an eyebrow at me as if expecting I would argue. Which didn’t make sense, seeing how he was right. “And considering that Aite will be probably gone again the moment we turn our attention back to her. See?” Jack groaned, as he pointed to the spot where Aite had been sitting a moment ago.

I decided not to say out loud that I had noticed her putting on her hood a second before.

The griffin just shook his head and turned his attention back to the radscorpion. “Alright, let's start attaching longer ropes to it, then I’ll pull while you try to lift it up with your magic, it should help a little. Unless of course you changed your mind and decided that you can do whatever it was you want to do to it down here,” he added, glancing at me with annoyance.

Shaking my head, I replied: “No sweetie, I’m sorry but I’ll need to keep it in a controlled environment to properly study it.”

“Of course,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Without another word, he reached down to the duffle bag he had brought, pulling out a longer piece of rope, and began tying it to the restraints of the radscorpion. I helped him out as best as I could, eager to see the radscorpion safely placed in my laboratory.

I’ll have to move one of the test subjects from his cell, I decided. After acquiring Thorny Locust as my newest test subject I had placed her in my last free cell. True, I still had the room in the clinic that I used as a storage room, but it was too risky to hide the radscorpion there. Hm, I think it would be best if Cutter and Manacles were to share a cell… I will be moving them in order to conduct the surgery, after all, so I might as well move them. I’d better chain them to the opposite ends of the cell once it is done, just to be safe.

I’m sure you know best, Fluttershy’s apparition commented, her voice devoid of emotion as she looked away.

Pinkie frowned, troubled. Well, I’m sure they’d be glad for some company at the very least.

I hoped they couldn’t pick up on the mild annoyance I felt. If I had to have two apparitions in my head - a curious and not at all bad experience - couldn’t they be apparitions of ponies a little more enthusiastic about my research?

“There, all done,” Jack’s words pulled me out of my musing. The griffin was giving the ropes we tied a last checking pull, then nodded satisfied. “Help me pull.”

I eyed the rocky terrain underneath us. “Sweetie, are you sure-”

“The bullets from my rifle barely gotten through this things carapace, I’m sure it can survive being pulled through some rocks,” Jack snorting impatiently. “Can you-”

“Open wide!” Aite exclaimed, suddenly appearing right before Jack.

My eyes opened wide as I watched, bewildered. Aite didn’t just appear before the griffin and shout some nonsense; no, as if to make the situation more surreal, she had pressed her face against his, maneuvering with her lips to kiss him. Jack at first was pushed back, out of sheer surprise I imagine, then his eyes snapped and he pushed her away, coughing.

“The fuck?” he asked, grimacing at Aite, clearly annoyed. “What was that?”

“Buck.” Aite was sitting down, disturbingly calm considering she had just been pushed away after forcibly kissing a very dangerous griffin. Well, disturbingly calm if not for the note of amusement I detected in her rather confusing reply. “I snatched it up from Crazy’s evil lair.”

“It’s not- wait, did you give him Buck, sweetie?” I exclaimed, forgetting about correcting her in light of my realization.

“Yeah, she did,” Jack confirmed for me, still looking at Aite. “Couldn’t you just hand it to me?”

“I know how fussy you can get when it comes to using chems, especially outside of a fight, I figure I would spare us arguing how easier moving the radscorpion would be with you on Buck,” the bat pony replied, rolling her eyes. She then smirked and added, “Also, it was more fun that way.”

“Of course it was. But I’m not fussy, as you said, I just prefer to only use combat drugs when I need to, and this hardly meets my criteria.” His frown deepened and he added, “And mind explaining to me why the fuck did you just pick a pill up from her laboratory and make me swallow it? Who knows what she could have done with it!”

“She had it labeled.”

“I had it labeled,” I interrupted them in a raised voice before either of them could add anything, tired of being ignored again, “because those are the chems I’ll give Apple Core to sell around Appleloosa.”

“You’re really going to be sore about a few pills? You still want to get that thing up that ladder right?”

“While I am thankful for your help and that is indeed a good idea, sweetie, it’s not just that you took them, now I’ll have to adjust my records to account for the missing- wait, did you just say ‘a few’?” I asked, blinking in surprise as her words registered in my brain.

“Well, you never know when you’ll need chems. Or, want them, one or the other,” the bat pony said with nonchalance that made me stomp the ground in irritation.

“You can’t just take my products without even notifying me! Do you know just how much that would mess with my records? And that’s beside the fact how this will affect my income-”

“Oh for the-” Aite exclaimed, shaking her head. “If you’re going to be THAT sore about it I’ll just fucking pay you for them.”

“That’s not the point, sweetie. If you had asked me for them first, I would happily give them to you, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, then. Are we done?” Aite asked, uttering a tired sigh.

Not satisfied at all, I opened my mouth to retort. Before I could, however, a very annoyed griffin spoke up, “Okay, I’m done. I’m gonna go haul that thing up to your laboratory,” he said, pointing at the radscorpion, then without another word he grabbed the ropes and began to drag the arachnid towards the ladder without looking back at us.

Letting out a groan, Jack hauled up the radscorpion through the hatch and placed it on the floor of my laboratory, then slumped down beside the desk, breathing heavily as he rested against it.

I rested beside him, I found myself marveling at his physical strength. True, it might have been augmented with the Buck he had taken, but I still hadn’t expected him to be able to pull the radscorpion up the ladder into my laboratory without almost any help. I of course used my Telekinesis Spell and tried my best to at least alleviate some of the animal’s weight, but I wasn’t accustomed to lifting something so heavy, and putting more strain on my horn risked the spell breaking, so I probably hadn’t been of much help.

And as of Aite, she had again disappeared before we started lifting the radscorpion.

“I must say, sweetie, that was quite impressive,” I complimented him.

Unfortunately, my words had seemed to annoy him; probably the physical ordeal - coupled with another of Aite’s disappearances - had left him in irritable mood. “It would have been even easier if you had let me cut off its limbs,” he snorted.

I frowned hearing him bring this up again. Although the radscorpion was roughly the same size as an adult pony, its limbs had caused us some difficulty getting it up through the hatch itself, even after we had tied them tightly to its body. This had caused Jack, after a few frustrating pulls, to suggest that we cut them off. Which of course I had immediately protested, explaining to the griffin that being so unfamiliar with this animal’s anatomy, I wouldn’t be able to reattach its limbs. Jack hadn’t seemed concerned about it, but he did relent, muttering something that he hadn’t wanted to hear me whine about it.

Mindful of how easily irritable the griffin was, and with a little bit of some self-control, I didn’t snap at him but instead politely replied with “Indeed it would have been, sweetie, which is why I am thankful that you had agreed to not do that.”

Jack just snorted again, in a manner that suggested that he knew that wasn’t the response that first came to my mind. Paying him no mind, I got up from the floor, and trotted over to Cutter’s cell. I had decided to use it to hold the radscorpion in; after all, this test subject was already free of his restraints and the most cooperative out of the three, meaning he would just walk over to the other cell when I told him to.

Opening the door, I found him backing away against the wall. “Hello again, sweetie,” I greeted him with a smile. Nodding at his leg, I said “I’m about to start getting ready for your surgery; however, before that, I’m going to need you to move to another cell. Would you be so kind as to walk over to it?” I asked him, moving slightly to the side of the door.

Cutter nodded, shaking a little, and began to trot away from the little corner he had backpedaled into. However, when he got to the door, and saw the bound radscorpion lying on the floor beside the desk, he had almost jumped back into it.

“W-w-what is this?!” he asked in a hoarse voice, his eyes widening in fear as he stared at it.

I placed a hoof his shoulder. Immediately, he cringed under my touch, and looked away from the radscorpion; now it was me he was staring at in panic.

“Sweetie?” I said calmly, then gestured with a nod of my head. “The other cell.”

Cutter’s eyes darted to my hoof, then back to me. “Y-yes, Mistress.”

“So, I’ve got a question.”

I’m beginning to get used to this, I think, I remarked as I calmly turned to regard Aite, who had just now appeared by the stairs leading out of my laboratory. Cutter, in contrast, all but jumped away, nudging against a cabinet in the back of the room and knocking over some of the test tubes and beakers I used when making chems.

The bat pony forgotten, he cast a terrified glance at the shattering glass, then back at me. I just smiled at him reassuringly; though I was understandably irritated, it wasn’t his fault. “It’s alright, sweetie. What is it you want to ask?” I asked as I turned back to Aite.

“And are you gonna keep disappearing every time we could use your help?” Jack added, frowning at her from beside the desk.

“I already helped,” Aite replied dismissively, probably referring to the pill of my Buck she had given him, then turned back to me. “Why does he call you ‘Mistress’?”

“Because I told him to,” I replied, a little confused why she wanted to know that.

Aite blinked, then raised an eyebrow. “You know that makes it sound as if you were doing some S/M stuff down here, right?”

I balked hearing that. “No it doesn’t,” I began to protest, but then hesitated. Considering that I kept them chained up and caused them pain… “Does it?” I asked, glancing at Jack.

The griffin shrugged reluctantly. “A bit,” he said, grimacing.

In the corner of my eye I saw Cutter jerk. When I glanced at him questioningly, he gave a tiny nod.

Yeah, kinda, Pinkie apparition told me, her eyes not meeting mine.

Fluttershy looked away, blushing.

From inside the cell where Thorny Locust was came a short laughter.

“Huh,” I exclaimed slowly, trying to process this. “Well, I guess at the very least this would explain why Crystal had kept laughing until I cut out her vocal cords,” I mused out loud, conflicted about what should I do with this revelation. Blankly, I noted that the laughter had stopped, and that Jack and Aite were looking at me with eyebrows raised in surprise. “Although the title they refer to me has nothing to do with anything of that sort, I wouldn’t want to make a wrong impression…”

“She captures ponies for experiments but cares about what they think about what she makes them call her,” Jack said, groaning as he raised his paw to his temple.

“Did you seriously cut out a pony’s vocal cords?” Aite asked instead, sounding carefully curious.

“She was my first test subject, I wasn’t yet experienced in inspiring obedience in them. I sewed them back in once she had learned some manners,” I replied, a touch defensively.

As both Jack and Aite (and Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie) looked at me, appalled, I remembered that Cutter was still waiting. Turning around, I trotted over to Manacles' cell and opened it, motioning for the unicorn to enter it. The earth pony who was chained to a pipe at the end of the small room looked up with empty eyes.

“Manacles, sweetie, you’re going to have a cellmate,” I told him pleasantly as Cutter entered the cell. “You’ll get to enjoy each other’s company as a reward for good behaviour. Cutter, sweetie, please stay over here,” I told the unicorn, pointing at the spot near the door. At the same time, I grabbed a hold of a pair of hoofcuffs from my desk with my magic. As I began to cuff him to the pipe, I added, “I’m going to switch your legs and livers back in a few moments, I just need to take care of one tiny thing first.”

As Cutter nodded meekly, I smiled and turned away, closing the door to their cell behind me. “I thought you were dead?” I heard Manacles ask Cutter in a weak voice before the door closed.

In the short time I had been busy, Aite had moved to stand closer to Jack. Both had been watching me, and when they had my attention again, the bat pony commented “Well, this creepy display had certainly moved you up on my list of mad scientists.”

Uttering a tired sigh, I began - futilely, as I feared - to correct her again. “Sweetie, I am not a mad scientist. I am very calm and collected pony, and contrary to what you seem to think, I am not insane.”

“Yeah, I don’t think either of us buys that,” Aite commented, pointing at herself and Jack. The griffin in question had merely sighed, rolled his eyes, and proceeded to drag the radscorpion into the open cell that Cutter had previously occupied. Aite, in the meantime, had smirked at me and added, “And besides, wouldn’t you agree that an opinion of somepony with more experience on the matter would be the more correct one?”

“Um… well, usually that would be the case, sweetie,” I replied carefully, unsure what she could mean by that. “Why do you ask that?”

Aite chuckled briefly. “Told you I have a ‘list’, didn’t I? You’re about the fourth mad scientist I know. Well, maybe fourth,” she amended as I blinked at her in surprise. “I’m unsure about one… she seems sane, but you have to be pretty fucked up to turn most of your body into a machine.”

Machine? “I… beg your pardon?” I asked, trying to process what her words suggested. Which, given how confusing her words were, wasn’t easy.

“Wait,” Jack spoke up, turning his head to look at her over his withers as he pushed the radscorpion into the cell, “who’s the other two then? I assume one is that ghoul freak that hangs around the Reapers, but I can’t think of anypony else back in the Hoofington.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t have known him, I’ve killed him years ago,” Aite said dismissively. “Some crazy buck was capturing ghouls, when Meatlocker put a bounty on him I found his lair and sneaked in, it turned out that he was trying to turn them into his private army that would obey his every command. Probably would have liked that talisman that is apparently stapled into that zebra’s brain,” she commented, glancing briefly at the cell where Cutter was in, then shrugged. “Anyway, thought I’d be creative so instead of slitting his throat like usual I unlocked the feral ghoul’s cells. Wish I had recorded what happened next, Meatlocker might have paid extra,” she added with an amused snort. Noticing my questioning gaze, she explained before I could ask, “They ate him alive.”

I lifted my eyebrows with interest. “Really? I knew that feral ghouls attack ponies on sight, but I had no idea they do so in order to feed… especially since ghouls don’t need to eat in the first place…”

“As fun as this conversation is,” Jack spoke up, turning away from his task; the radscorpion was safely lying bound within the cell, ready to be examined and observed. The griffin pointed with his talon at the other cell and continued, “you have some job to do, I believe, and you don’t need us for it. Meet us upstairs once you’re done, we’ll discuss how we get what we need from Black Widow. Let’s go Aite,” he added to the bat pony as he trotted over to the stairs.

A little upset that I couldn’t finish my conversation, I nodded reluctantly. “Very well, sweetie. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

“Don’t work too fast,” Aite told me as she passed by me, smirking and winking. “I’m gonna try and get a quickie out of him.”

“Not gonna happen!” Jack called from up the stairs while I tried to think of a better way to reply.

Aite rolled her eyes and followed after him. “You’re no fun when you’re working, you know that? No wonder we never worked together before…”

… They’re certainly an interesting pair, I commented as the two left my laboratory.

As Fluttershy and Pinkie nodded, I turned my attention to the radscorpion. I couldn’t wait to begin examining it! And trying to tame him, so that it would be friendly enough to release him from all those bindings.

I hope we’ll be able to convince it that we mean no harm, Fluttershy said, looking at the arachnid with pity. Maybe it’ll warm up to you sooner if you give it some food?

It had spent the last few days devouring a pony, I think if I’d try to feed it now it wouldn’t eat, I noted, but my mind was already working on an idea. My gaze traveled from the radscorpion to some of the canned food I had stored down here. I had been working on a special feed for Snuggles and Wigglebut… I remarked, frowning. The special feed had Buck and Mint-als grounded into it at the proportions that I calculated would be ideal for the radroaches. Adjusting the formula for a radscorpion wouldn’t be too hard… I was curious how it would affect the radroaches, but watching how it would affect a radscorpion made me beyond curious. Will have to start working on that after the operation, I said, smiling.

That’s… good? Fluttershy said, frowning. As long as it's safe for the radscorpion.

Of course it will be, I replied, rolling my eyes and I walked over the the arachnid to pet it gently. I wouldn’t want an animal to suffer… did you give some thought to what I had said before? I asked, changing the subject. I had realized that they’ve hadn’t yet told me what they think, and their opinion mattered to me as much as Jack’s, if not more. I needed to know what they thought. About my goal and dream, I mean. To achieve immortality and share it with everybody, ensuring that nobody ever will die?

The two apparitions gave an Oh, of realization, then shared a look. I didn’t really like the troubled expressions on their muzzles.

Well… Pinkie began, it certainly seems like your heart is in the right place?

We can understand why you want to do that, Fluttershy said in turn. You just want to protect ponies. But, um… she began timidly, looking away briefly. Angel… are you sure it would… actually be possible?

Why wouldn’t it be? I asked, smiling. Everything is possible, darlings. You just need to find the right spell, the right method, the right course of action. Weren’t there ponies who thought it would be impossible to heal an entire army when you came up with the idea of megaspells, Fluttershy? I chuckled warmly and looked at her with admiration. But you proved them wrong-

The words died in my… mind, I guess, when I saw Fluttershy. She was staring at me, wide eyed with tears forming in the corners, and mouth hanging open, then promptly closed them and looked down, shaking.

As I watched Pinkie Pie trot over to her and offer her a hug, I began to mentally curse at myself. Being a doctor of medicine, I of course knew about the Ministry of Peace creation, the Mass Healing Megaspell, the first megaspell ever invented. I knew that it had been Ministry Mare Fluttershy who had effectively invented it, and by extension, all the other megaspells.

Just as I knew what the megaspells had done to Equestria.

Fluttershy? I tried speaking to her. The tiny pegasus looked up from Pinkie’s embrace with one blue eye. I’m sorry. I should have known this wouldn’t be a pleasant thing for you to remember. It’s just… that when I think of your creation, I think of the positives. I think about how you tried to protect life, just like me. It’s not your fault that your creation had been so perverted, just like it’s not your fault that the zebras had gotten a hold of it and then used it on Equestria, in such… cowardly, murderous, genocidal manner, no less! I finished, stomping angrily as I thought about all the ponies who had died in the balefire. Fluttershy, too, must have been reminded of it, because now an actual tear appeared in her eye, and she shook again. My anger immediately left me, and I leaned closer, brushing against the apparition’s side gently with my muzzle. What I am trying to say, darling, is that you did what your heart had believed to be right. Nopony can blame you for that, I added, offering her a sad smile as I said those words. Least of all you.

Fluttershy looked up again, and finally gave me a tiny smile and a nod. Happy to see that she had started to recover, I petted the radscorpion one last time, left and closed its cell, and turned to the other one.

Alright, now to switch those organs back…

When I had asked about Aite’s stealth cloak, Jack had said that the only times he had seen her without it was when or after they had sex. So when after finishing the operation I entered my room and saw her laying on my bed completely naked, save for a round topaz talisman around her neck that I had noticed earlier - in a smouldering manner no less, with her head propped up on one foreleg while the other brushed the mattress delicately, hind legs slightly bent, a leathery wing partially spread and exposing her underbelly while giving Jack, who sat on the other side of the room reading some book, a half-lidded stare - I found myself a little… conflicted.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, but may I ask what are you doing?” I asked as I trotted closer, my eyes trailing along the bat pony’s pale gray body.

Aite didn’t acknowledge me with as much as a glance, her eyes continuing to stare alluringly at Jack. “Trying to tempt him with my feminine wiles,” she replied, her voice seductively dragging the syllables of the last two words.

“Sweetie, I can see that,” I remarked, to busy to roll eyes at her reply. “Let me rephrase the question, then: why are you trying to tempt Jack with your feminine wiles on my bed?”

“Because we’d have to do it somewhere and all the other beds, by the looks and smell of them, you use for your patients?”

I hardly heard her reply, too absorbed by the sight of her cutie mark. It was very pretty, a dark cat depicted in a graceful mid-step. I recalled how effortlessly she had jumped down the passage in my laboratory while at the same time pulling on her hood, then almost the next second reappeared leaning up from the pony hole. Now it made sense, with a cutie mark like that being so agile must have come easy for her.

A soft giggle interrupted my musing. “Well, glad to know I still got it, even if I hit the wrong target,” Aite said with, as I realized when I took my eyes off her cutie mark to look at her face, an amused smirk. “Sorry Cray-Cray, but I’m not into mares; well, unless I’m drunk,” the bat pony amended as I slowly realized what she had thought me staring at her flank had meant; she then glanced at Jack and added, “or if it’s a threesome, I don’t mind extra company then…”

Jack didn’t even look up from his book. “Definitely not gonna happen,” he said, turning over a page.

Aite rolled her yellow eyes and turned back to me, eyebrow raised as she smirked. “Besides, I’m old enough to be your mother, even if you were a buck that would be weird to me.”

Though I should be mostly concerned about correcting this misunderstanding, that remark was so… incorrect, that it irked me. “Sweetie, I’m twenty two,” I informed her, frowning. As Aite’s eyebrows rose slightly in surprise, I added “And as for my mom, she’s-”

“Then I’m old enough to be your cool hot aunt, whatever,” the bat pony interrupted me with an even more incorrect remark. One that was also… more confusing in regards to what we were talking about, actually. The amusement I detected in her tone suggested that she had meant it as a joke. “The point is, I’m not into mares.”

Swishing my tail in irritation, I gave up on correcting the mare, and instead decided to focus on, admittedly, more important matter. “I understood it, sweetie, but it appears I have to correct your mistake. I hadn’t been staring at your flank, though it is quite pleasing to the eye, of course,” I added politely, with a pleasing smile and softer gaze. “I had been admiring your cutie mark, actually. Oh, and just so you know, sweetie;” I added as a thought occurred to me. I leaned closer to her, squinting my eyes seductively, “the last mare I made love to said the same thing.”

Aite’s eyes widened in surprise… and then she grinned. “Damn, that’s impressive! Think your charms could convince this guy to change his mind about having sex at work?” she asked as she sat up and pointed at Jack.

Following her hoof, I saw that the griffin looked up from his book and deadpanned at Aite. “Hm, probably.” Ignoring that Jack turned his deadpan at me, I asked the bat pony, “But as his friend, sweetie, shouldn’t you respect his decision to not engage in sexual intercourse with you? Even if it is a little confusing considering your relation prior to coming here,” I couldn’t help but add.

Now Aite also stared at me with expression almost matching Jack’s, but after a second she broke into a grin again. “Maybe, but it’s fun to annoy him like this.”

Jack let out a groan in response, closing his book and setting it aside. “Okay,” he began, “if the two of you are done talking about stupid shit-”

“Oh, this reminded me,” I quickly interrupted Jack, seizing my chance.

“I guess not,” Jack sighed as I turned to Aite.

“You’ve never answered my question about interspecies sexual relationships,” I reminded her. “Are they common in the Wasteland? And how are they viewed by the general populace?”

Aite, who was clearly taking great pleasure in Jack’s frustration, uttered a short giggle before replying; quickly, I turned on my PipBuck’s recorder, “Well, I wouldn’t say that it’s common, though it’s mostly because there are far more ponies living in the Wasteland than griffins or other species. I don’t think there is any real prejudice in those matters… except for zebras of course,” she amended with an eye roll, “but it’s hard to blame ponies with tons of those wartime posters still hanging around. You know, ‘better wiped than striped’ and such? Plus those zebras in Hoofington don’t really help with the opinion ponies have of them.” Shrugging, she continued, “Of course, most stallions would happily rut anything with a pussy, which is why Blue Destiny is making tons of caps as of late, but if a mare had sex with zebra’s stallion then she would probably be called whore.”

“Blue Destiny?” I asked, confused. “Who’s that?”

“Not who, what,” Aite corrected me. “It’s a brothel town, a few hours of trotting away from Tenpony Tower.”

“A brothel town?” Now I was even more confused. “How can… I mean, is it just courtesans living there, or is it-”

The bat pony seemed amused by my slight bemusement; I could have sworn that I even saw Jack smirking, too. “Nah, from what I’ve been told, it was just a brothel that some prostitutes founded after they banned prostitution in Tenpony’s some decades ago. After a while it gained frequent visits from towns around Manehattan ruins, so eventually traveling merchants would put a little market around it and display their goods, so it’s now sort of a town. But of course,” she added with an almost vicious smirk, glancing at Jack, “if you want to know more about it, you should ask Jack. After all, he had been quite a frequent visitor there.”

“I was there twice, and both times I was there because of work,” Jack countered in neutral tone while I looked at him in surprise; he hadn’t occurred to me as a sort of a person that would engage in such… transactions.

Though if he had been there because of a job he had taken, then it’s not that surprising…

“So you’re saying while you were there you didn't…” Aite trailed off suggestively.

To my returning surprise, Jack rolled his eyes and replied, “I didn’t say that. It’s a nice place with nice mares, if you must know. And how did you know I was there anyway?” he asked, sounding more surprised than annoyed or embarrassed.

“I asked around,” Aite replied with a smirk.

“Of course you did,” Jack remarked with a tired sigh.

“Um, excuse me, sweeties,” I began carefully as they exchange had seemingly ended, “but what exactly does this Blue Destiny town have to do with interspecies sexual relationships?”

It was Jack who replied, “Blue Destiny’s brothelmama has an adopted zebra daughter that she has recently let work at the brothel, and since she’s crazy hot they charge a lot of bottle caps for her services.”

I blinked in surprise. I wasn’t sure what shocked me more, that an owner of a brothel - at least, that’s what I assumed Jack meant by “brothelmama” - of all ponies had adopted a zebra, or that she had allowed her to work in such establishment. Considering what the griffin mercenary had said about her appearance, an immediate suspicion formed in my mind regarding the brothel’s owner motives. I opened my mouth, about to voice it, but then I hesitated; so far, I had only seen how one zebra was being treated by ponies - said zebra being mind controlled and said ponies being slavers - and hadn’t met any prostitutes. Was it right for me to form an opinion regarding the situation that was described? Perhaps that “brothelmama” was just a nice mare that took care of a young zebra, and when said zebra grew up she just… wanted to follow in her adopted mother’s hoofsteps?

Before I could decide whether or not I wanted to comment on it, though, the decision had been made for me; Jack reached out to my muzzle and grabbed it shut. “Okay,” he said to Aite, ignoring me as I tried to pull out of his grasp, “here’s a ‘talking with Wasteland’s dumbest genius 101’ for you; keep your answers simple, don’t add any additional… trivia. Because she then keeps asking more and more questions and we waste an entire night getting offtopic,” he added with a dismayed look at me before releasing my muzzle.

Pouting as I massaged my muzzle, I was even further annoyed as Aite hummed thoughtfully and said, “Yeah, I get what you’re saying. Even annoying you isn’t fun enough to keep this up for too long.”

“I am happy that you can bond over your incomprehensible reluctance to satisfying my curiosity, sweeties,” I told them, a little crossly, deciding to drop the subject of Blue Destiny. Turning to Aite, I asked, “So you were saying that generally speaking interspecies sex is… what’s the word, accepted in the Wasteland?”

“Mostly,” Aite replied, shrugging. “Even if ponies themselves don’t fancy giving it a try, they wouldn’t persecute people for doing it… or at the very least, wouldn’t go out of their way to do that. Of course, there are some who would, places and communities who consider themselves ‘civilized’ and therefore have some… higher standards. But that applies to everything, not just interspecies banging. A doctor at Tenpony’s told me that he had been kicked out of his village for being gay, for example.”

I gasped. “They-”

Talons grasped my muzzle again, before I could give voice to my outrage. “What did I just say?” Jack told Aite, sighing.

“Right, sorry,” Aite replied, waving her hoof apologetically. Frowning at Jack as he released me, I noticed that she smirked at him and turned to me. “You know, Jack here should really be the one answering your question. After all, he had much wider experience in the area of interspecies sex.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised, as Jack deadpanned at the bat pony. “I mean, considering what you’ve said about… the time you’ve spent at this Blue Destiny place, I realized you probably had engaged in intercourse with more members of other species than Aite had, but it hadn’t occurred to me that you could have a... ‘much wider experience’, as she puts it.”

“Great, now she’s gonna talk about my sex life, thanks,” he told Aite, almost pouting at her, before he blinked at looked at me. “Wait, are you recording our conversation?” he asked, pointing at my PipBuck.

“Why, yes I am sweetie. But of course, since we’re about to talk about a little more private subject…” I trailed off as I stopped recording.

“Good,” Jack said, still frowning at me. Sighing, he began, “Look Doctor, as I’m sure you know, having sex is fun, healthy, and helps to relieve stress, so it really shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that I have a ‘wide experience’ when you consider that since coming to Equestrian Wasteland I had seen maybe four female griffins.”

I nodded, of course understanding what he meant about sex being healthy and relieving stress (and being fun). And considering his line of work, it was probably better that he wasn’t stressed out.

Aite, on the other hoof, seemed amused. “Oh, so your ‘wider experience’ starts only after coming to Equestria? Why don’t you tell Cray-Cray about Rice-”

“I thought we’ve agreed not to give her any additional trivia,” Jack interrupted her.

Frowning and looking from one to the other, I began: “What’s a Rice- actually, sweeties, I can ask some other time,” I finished instead as Jack gave me a threatening glare. As he relaxed, I turned to Aite and resumed recording. “Now, you’ve talked about griffins and zebras; what about brahmins?”

“Brahmins?” Aite asked, surprised. “Why would you ask about those- oh wait, I just remembered you talking earlier how you want to grant them ‘full citizens rights’ and shit, nevermind.”

Ignoring her remark, I replied to her unfinished question: “I asked because they are sapient, too, and while I was in New Appleloosa I had walked in on a young colt kissing with one of the heifer’s heads from his parent’s trade caravan, so-”

“Wait, seriously?!” Aire exclaimed, surprised… then snorted in amusement. “Oh wow, and I thought that the old joke about traders and brahmins was completely made up.”

“Old joke?” I repeated, confused.

“That on a longer trade trails lone traders fuck their brahmin.” As I stared in shock, Aite shrugged and continued, “Like I said, I considered it to be made up. Never really heard about a pony and a brahmin having sex, let alone kissing. Colt was probably going through puberty and didn’t quite know how to use his dick yet, so instead went for ‘first base’. I wouldn’t put too much thought into it, since most people view brahmin as animals, even if it does happen then it would count less an interspecies sex but as zoophilia I think.”

Having recovered, I frowned and replied, “It doesn’t matter if they view them as animals, the fact of the matter is that they are sapient.”

“Some of them are,” Jack commented; I glared at him in annoyance, and saw that he had pulled out a small Sparkle-Cola bottle from pocket along his barding.

Ignoring him, I turned back to the bat pony. “Based on how you said you’ve never heard about it and it is viewed as a joke, I assume this means zoophilia and beastiality aren’t as acceptable in the Wasteland’s societies, sweetie?”

“Yeah, you could say that… wait, what’s the difference between the two?” Aite asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“Oh, zoophile is a person who cares for the animal he makes love to; when a person engages in beastiality, they have coitus just for sex, which sadly usually means that they force themselves on the animal.”

Fluttershy’s apparition shooked and looked as if she was ill. Pinkie Pie too had grimaced with dismay. I thought back to Anne and Caps Wrangler; he couldn’t have considered her an animal… couldn’t he?

Aite, though, was looking at me with an even stare. “How the hell do you know stuff like that?” she finally asked after a few seconds had passed.

“I read it in a book of course,” I replied, my surprise at the question taking my thoughts away from the heifer and the colt.

“Who the fuck wrote a book explaining those?!” Aite exclaimed, eyes wide in bewilderment.

“You are getting off-topic again,” Jack remarked in calm annoyance, taking a sip from the Sparkle-Cola.

“Give me a break, that’s a valid question,” Aite replied, frowning, and gestured for him to pass him the bottle, which he reluctantly did. “But yeah, let’s change the subject to something less disgusting please.”

Nodding with understanding, I thought quickly what else could we talk about before Jack would stir the conversation away. There was one more thing that I was curious about…

“Just one more inquiry, please sweetie,” I said just as the griffin opened his beak, earning an annoyed glare in return. “I don’t expect us to have such a conversation in the foreseeable future, which is why I would like to have this question answered now.”

“Why do I doubt that we won’t have such conversation in the foreseeable future?” Jack asked, his tone half-mocking and half-exasperated. As Aite snorted in amusement before taking a sip of Sparkle-Cola, the griffin replied, “Fine, but it’s the last question.”

“How is incest viewed?”

Aite spit out her drink as the question left my lips, then began to cough as she had clearly choked on the liquid. “What kind of…” she tried to ask, only to stop as she coughed again. “Messed up - cough - question is that?!” the bat pony was finally able to ask, her face having taken a slightly reddish hue, most likely a result of all this coughing.

“I believe this to be quite legitimate question to ask, sweetie,” I replied, slightly put off by her reaction; Jack, in contrast, had seemed only dismayed and remained silent. “If I don't know how such controversial topics are viewed I might commit a faux pas, so to speak, while conversing with ponies-”

“Ugh, just stop!” Aite interrupted me, facehoofing. “It’s considered gross! End of subject.”

Raising an eyebrow at her quick dismissal of the subject, I glanced at Jack. The griffin rolled his eyes and added, “Pretty much. I’m sure there are some pathological people who do this but they keep quiet about it to not be persecuted.” Jack paused for a moment, as if hesitating to add anything else, then grimaced and added: "I did hear about some among the zebras' Legions and mercenary companies who believe that they should 'keep their bloodlines pure' and crap like that, but nothing really certain, mostly rumors and very possibly slander. Satisfied?" he asked, his expression almost pleading.

“Hm, yes, I believe I am sweetie, thank you for sharing this information with me,” I replied as I turned off recording, finding myself a little intrigued. I wondered if it was true, or if those rumors were indeed just slander. If incest was viewed so negatively on the outside, then it wouldn’t surprise me if some would try to besmirch others by spreading such lies…

Despite my reply, Jack continued to stare at me, though now with a different expression. Instead of pleading, I saw now a cautious - and somewhat reluctant - curiosity. “Wait… I’m probably going to regret asking this, but how is incest viewed in Stable Eight?”

“Why are we still talking about incest?” Aite mused out loud, looking up into the ceiling and taking another sip of Sparkle-Cola.

Ignoring Aite’s comment, I replied calmly, “It is accepted and tolerated, although the relationship between first- and second-degree relatives would cause some concerns…” I trailed off as I noticed both Jack and Aite staring at me with a mixture of surprise, disbelief, dimsay… and almost alarm. And the apparitions of Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie mirrored their expressions perfectly. “What is it, sweeties?”

They exchanged glances before Jack spoke up, “We’re just… processing that you come from a place where they think incest is okay. Although it would sure explain a lot,” the griffin muttered under his breath, causing me to frown.

“Yeah, how exactly did you come up with that?” Aite asked, clearly bothered.

I shrugged before replying simply, “In Stable Eight we believe love to be sacred and that it should not be judged. Only when it’s first- and second-degree relatives there would be concerns about the possible offspring; they would be legally required to consult doctors if they would decide to have a foal and be under constant medical supervision. That being said,” I added as I noticed that I was still receiving weird stares, “such cases didn’t happen often. Within the last two hundred years, there had only been about fourteen relationships between cousins, three between siblings, and none between a parent and a foal, or an aunt or uncle and a nephew or niece.”

“And you know all those numbers because…?” Aite asked, eyebrow raised.

“Because I was Stable Eight’s chief of medicine, we have all those relationships recorded,” I told her.

Aite rolled her eyes, then glanced at me and asked, “So, is your genealogical tree a straight line, or…”

Finding myself confused if I should be flattered or worried by the sudden interest, I shrugged and replied, “No sweetie, none of my ancestors were related, at least as prior to sealing the Stable, I have very little information about family medical history further than that.”

“Well, there goes that theory,” Aite remarked with a snort. “So out of unhealthy curiosity, what about you?”

“I’m assuming that you are asking if I had been in a relationship with a relative of mine? Well, sweetie, it is a fair question to ask as, while you might not realize it, I am related to two hundred and forty-nine ponies in Stable Eight. However, I do not possess any closely related relatives other than my mother. If you are curious about the further relatives, though,” I added, shrugging, “then my last lover had been my half-first cousin thrice removed.”

Aite grimaced a little, though she quickly relaxed. Jack, on the other hoof, blinked in surprise, then slightly raised his paw and moved his talon around as if he was counting. “Okay, I guess that’s not really a close relative…” Aite commented, taking another sip from her drink and relaxing completely. “Sorry about the question, you just… took me a little by surprise there,” she added with a little laugh. “Incest is weird.”

“I suppose I can understand that, sweetie, no harm done,” I replied with a smile, then looked at Jack, who was once again looking at me oddly.

Whatever the griffin had been thinking, though, he had quickly brushed it off as soon as I turned to him. “Okay, I think we had enough of this… sex-related creepy topics session,” he surmised, snorting in clear annoyance. “Can we please, for the love of all things dear in this world, finally talk about what we’re going to do about Black Widow?”

“Why, I thought it’s obvious what we’re going to do, sweetie,” I replied, smiling innocently as Jack glanced at me with annoyance. “We’ll stay the course, so to speak.”

Jack’s eyebrow very slowly lifted, then he turned to Aite, who shrugged. Finally, he gave out a long sight and said: “Fine, go on, what do you mean?”

“Well, obviously, mean that we’ll continue to do what we are supposed to do: I’ll heal patients, and you’ll hunt down the tribe that has attacked slavers. We need to get information out of Black Widow,” I started to explain; a part of me wanted to trot around while doing so, but there wasn’t that much free space in my room, so I settled for jumping unto my bed and sitting down beside Aite. “Information that she won’t give up very easily. I can’t imagine that she would be pleased if her past as a Steel Ranger Scribe became public knowledge. Now, of course,” I added with a little smirk, “I’m sure that I would be able to convince her to tell us all we want to know about Scope, who he really was and what was his connection to the Steel Rangers, but that would require time and, shall we say, special circumstances,” I said, casting meaningful glance downwards, where my laboratory was. “But alas, arranging Black Widow’s disappearance would be more difficult than a regular slaver or a raider slave. There would be all those slavers on guard duty, and her zebra slave that follows her like a shadow. As skilled as the two of you are in the art murder, I doubt that two people would be able to take on the entirety of Appleloosa.”

“You’re not counting yourself?” Aite asked, smirking.

Shaking my head, I told her, “I am not a combatant, I’m afraid. While I can defend myself just fine, I fear that I would be more of a hindrance in an actual fight than help. Which is why I came up with this plan so that we can accomplish our goal.” Turning to Jack, I said: “You’ll continue to look for this tribe, but whenever you find them, you approach them, and convince them to help us. After all, I can’t imagine slavers make for very good neighbours,” I added with a brief giggle. When neither Jack or Aite appeared to be amused by my joke - unlike Pinkie, who gave out an amused snort, while Fluttershy nervously giggled - I resumed: “If they were to attack Appleloosa, everypony’s attention would be on them; well, everypony who would be able and willing to fight, of course. Since I have access to the biggest source of food supply, I could quite easily arrange that most of the slavers wouldn’t be able to take part in the fight,” I said, a smirk appearing on my muzzle on its own as I imagined all the slavers suffering the effects of… whatever I would use on their food, I hadn’t decided yet what it would be. “Of course, there are some slavers that could be persuaded to, shall we say, fight for the right side in this conflict. A lot of them are reasonable, and I’m sure they could be convinced that they would be better off without Black Widow and some of the others. Once the fight would start, we could easily incapacite both Black Widow and Khan - let me stress out that I’ll insist on him being incapacitated and not killed,” I added in a stern tone, “I will not stand for him being harmed while being forced to obey her orders - I’ll remove this talisman from the latter’s head and begin interrogation of the former. In the meantime, Apple Core will take over Appleloosa, I’ll convince her to quit enslaving ponies and the tribe will move in as I’m sure a pre-war town has better conditions than whatever shelter they had arranged for themselves in the Wasteland. This way we’ll not only gain the information we need, but we’ll also free a mind controlled zebra, stop Appleloosa’s slaving operations and turn it into a normal town, and provide an entire tribe of ponies with a safe home. So, what do you think?” I finally asked, beaming at the two.

Jack continued to stare at me with neutral expression, but Aite in turn had her eyebrows raised in quiet surprise. However, it was still the griffin who spoke first, “Okay,” he began, lifting his paw to his head to rub his eyes, “I’ve got to admit, that first part, up to incapacitating Black Widow, is quite good. I mean, am I crazy, or does that sound like a legitimately good plan?” he asked as he turned to Aite.

The bat pony closed her eyes and shrugged. “Don’t look at me, you’re the soldier boy. I’m just an opportunistic assassin,” she proclaimed, almost theatrically, as she straightened up and brought her hoof up to her chest. She then opened her eyes narrowly and said, “I still say you should just let me go in, kill her, and grab her stuff to search for clues. We could be done and gone by breakfast.”

The way Jack sighed told me that they’ve been discussing this for a while when I was down in my laboratory. “Again, as tempting as that is, we can’t risk it killing the only source of information before we know if she wrote or recorded anything useful somewhere. Besides, I’ve already signed a contract with her, now I’ve got to find this tribe for her,” he added, grimacing.

“She hired you to only find the tribe, sweetie?” I asked, surprised. “Not to help her deal with it?”

“No, I told her that first I’d need to know how many of them are and how well armed they are,” the griffin replied with a shrug. “Would need to know the right price. We’re supposed to negotiate a second deal after I find them. Of course, I’d like to get what I really came here for instead. I had been contemplating that after I find them, I would convince her to discuss this with me in private, Aite would knock out that zebra of hers and we would capture her, then waterboard her for information in her house, and lastly kill her and fly away before anybody noticed. I’m not quite sure what we would do about you in that scenario, to be honest,” he admitted. “I’d expect that with Black Widow’s death chaos would erupt here, and I’m not sure if you’d make through it before things would calm down… and you’ve said that you want to help bring Scope’s people to justice, too.” I did not like how close his tone of voice was to mocking. “So we would have to take you with us somehow. Your plan, however, would solve that problem… of course, the second part of it, where you put your slaver friend in charge of Appleloosa and make her stop capturing slaves, is a little bit unrealistic,” he remarked, deadpanning.

“Oh?” I exclaimed, pretending to be surprised. “Why is that, sweetie?”

“Gee, I don’t know…” he snorted, now clearly mocking me. “Maybe because I find it hard to accept that you would be able to convince those slavers to find a different way of living, but let’s gloss over that one for a moment. You’ve heard about Red Eye, right?” It might have been a rhetorical question, but I nodded nonetheless. “And since you have been living here for a while, you must have realized that Appleloosa supplies him with slaves, right?” I nodded again. “So what do you think will happen if his closest and probably the biggest source of slaves ceases to do so?” He didn’t give me a chance to reply. “He will send his army here.”

I wonder if he expects me to be embarrassed about not foreseeing that, or scared at the prospect, I thought idly to the two apparitions.

Staring back into Jack’s eyes, I smiled calmly, and with great satisfaction I said quietly, “Let him.”

Jack blinked in surprise. “Pardon?” he asked after a few seconds, as if thinking he misheard me.

I allowed myself to utter a short giggle. “Do you have any idea, sweetie, how many chemicals I have down in my lab? Or how many I’ve purchased from Ditzy in New Appleloosa, or what they are? Or,” I added, leaning close to him, “do you know that Burst had found for me breathing oxygen talismans in Stable Eleven? I kept them, of course. It will be a little tricky, but with a little magic, I would be able to… modify them. Let Red Eye send his army,” I said calmly, taking great satisfaction in the sight of Jack’s eyes widening in apprehension. “They won’t find themselves a fight. All they’ll find is an empty town, with all of us hiding down in the Stable, while they all die. No word will get back to Red Eye. We’ll instil fear in him and his followers, and this fear will keep them out.” Shrugging, I added, “He might try sending another army until he would succeed, of course, but I don’t expect that he would try more than twice to take over. If not because of fear, then out of practically; losing so many soldiers would have to deplete his forces a bit.”

Again, Jack and Aite stared at me, the griffin with an odd look about him, but it was the bat pony this time who broke the silence. “Holy shit, you’re scary,” she said, though she sounded more impressed than scared to me.

“Yeah, you said it,” Jack agreed, then leaned back and rubbed the side of his beak. Whatever bothered him before was gone, apparently. “Assuming you could actually make this gas bomb or whatever, which I doubt, that could actually work… and even if not, that is still an impressive plan, I’ll give you that. Appleloosa would have some peace from Red Eye for a while after that… and I assume it would ‘flourish under your leadership’?” he asked, eyebrow raised. “Well, under Apple Core’s leadership I suppose, but you would control her from the shadows, I take?”

“I would advise her, sweetie,” I corrected him politely. “I have no desire to lead Appleloosa myself, whether officially or through Apple Core. Let her keep it, I have my eyes set on the throne of Equestria; once I accomplish that, she would be required to swear fealty to me, and I would officially grant her Appleloosa as her ladyship.”

It did not escape my notice that as I spoke, both Jack and Aite rolled their eyes slowly.

“Yeah, so anyway, back to reality,” Jack began, earning a pout for me in return, “as I said, this is a good plan. Before we decide if we’ll go with it or mine, we’ll need more information. And that means recon. Aite,” he said as he turned to the bat pony, “I want you to sneak into her house in the morning. Preferably after she leaves it, but I’m sure you know best. I want to learn about everything she has in there, weapons, terminals, safes. And find out if she has a hatch like our Good Doctor’s in her basement. And if she has a basement,” he added in an afterthought.

“No problem.”

“And above all,” Jack added, raising a single talon warningly, “do not alert her in any way.”

His words amused the bat pony. “Dude, who are you talking to?”

“I know,” he replied with an eyeroll, “but our greatest advantage is that nobody knows about you, other than us. I’m sure Black Widow distrusts me a little, and would definitely not like to see me talking with Angel. The longer this drags out, the more suspicious she will become. So if things go south, you might be our only chance of getting alive out of here. Plus, Angel and I should be able to stay in touch even if I’ll keep my distance, we’ll just need you to pass messages between us.”

Aite raised an eyebrow at that. “World class assassin bounty hunter, reduced to playing dead line? Eh, fine,” she agreed, sighing. “I’ll take a look at her house, then return to Crazy I take?”

“Yes, it’s better if you’d watch her back. As for you, Doctor,” he said, turning to me, “you will try to gauge whether Apple Core would be interested in going against Black Widow and taking over. Just gauge; I don’t trust her, and I don’t want her blabbing about it by accident. Or on purpose,” he added under his breath, eyes darting to the side. Looking back to me, he pointed a talon at me and continued, “And if you want us to consider going with that crazy second part of your plan, you’ll start working on that talisman. Unless you have it ready before we move against Black Widow, we won’t be staying long afterwards.”

I nicked, unhappy with his choice of words. “Just ‘consider’, sweetie?”

The griffin frowned. “Yes, just. Just because I said it’s an impressive plan and it might work, it doesn’t mean we’ll do it. I still like my plan better. But I am keeping an open mind,” he added, crossing his forelegs on his chest. “I have more experience with these sort of things. I suggest you trust that I know what I’m doing.”

Trust him that he knows what he’s doing… I was certainly doubtful of that, after how he had openly doubted that I could modify those talismans. And after he had said he would just consider my idea, one which would free this part of the Wasteland from slavery! But he had a point; he had more experience in those sorts of things… although I wasn’t sure if ‘taking over a town’ was among those things, actually.

Taking a deep, calming breath, I looked into Jack’s eyes and smiled. “Very well, sweetie, I shall defer to your wisdom.”

For whatever reason, my reply had seemed to annoy Jack further instead of calming him down, judging how he deadpanned at me. As Aite leaned over, putting her hoof up to her mouth as if to whisper something - though she had kept the volume of her voice perfectly hearable - I suspected I knew what it meant:

“Mad scientists code for: ‘I’ll go behind your back and do it anyway’.”

I frowned at the bat pony, who smirked in return. “May I remind you, sweetie, that I am not a mad scientist?”

“May I remind you that I have a bigger experience in dealing with mad scientists? You should ‘defer to my wisdom’, as such,” the bat pony declared mockingly, irritating me further.

“I’m afraid your somewhat dubious experience doesn’t apply when you are not dealing with the subject that would meet the criteria of whatever you have experience with, in this case, of mad scientists.”

“Enough!” Jack sighed loudly, stopping Aite just as she was about to reply. “You can continue this stupid argument when I’m not here… and for goodness sake, she’s just trying to mess with you,” he added, flashing me an annoyed glare before clearing his throat and turning to Aite. “Oh, and that reminds me, Aite, do stay out of her basement when she’s working on that talisman, on the very probable chance something goes wrong and she gets herself killed.”

Now I frowned at Jack. “Honestly, sweetie, I find your lack of faith in my abilities disturbing. I’ll have you know that I they teach us in Stable Eight about talisman maintenance and modifications in school.”

I decided that it would probably be best not to add that the precise name of the course was “the basic talisman maintenance and modifications”. After all, how hard could it be to modify an oxygen talisman into producing lethal poison across a wide area? (Admittedly, a little hard, but nothing I couldn’t handle.)

“That’s good to know,” Jack simply replied, dismissively. “Where was I… ah, right. When the two of you stay here, I’ll be searching for this tribe. That shouldn’t take long, but I don’t expect that earning their trust and convincing them to work with us will be that easy, so I might have to pretend to slavers that I’m still looking for them if I decide we go with your plan. Everybody is okay with this?”

“Do we actually get a vote?” Aite immediately asked, earning a deadpan from Jack in return. “Yeah, sure, whatever, I’m okay with this.”

“As I’ve said before, I shall defer to your wisdom, sweetie,” I immediately added, then, as the griffin nodded with satisfaction, “May I ask something?”

Jack groaned and covered his face in his paws. “I swear, if you ask about another perverted sex thing…”

“Oh don’t be silly, sweetie, I realize that your tolerance level for that subject had been already reached,” I told him, finding his reaction a touch annoying. “No, I merely wanted to ask if that, since we’ve entered a partnership with set goals, the ultimate goal bringing Scope’s superiors to justice, perhaps we should also discuss some other matters. Like, say, for instance, agreeing for a physical examination in order to-”

“No thank you,” Jack immediately replied, frowning at me.

Pouting, I asked, “Why not, sweetie? After all, you would be the one benefitting the most if I’d become more familiar with griffin’s anatomy, as I would be able to better treat you should you become injured in the future.”

My perfectly reasonable argument for some reason didn’t convince him. The griffin continued to stare down at me with the same expression and said, “Yeah, no, I’m sure there would be some benefits if I’d agree to that, but I’m gonna say no. Mainly because after hearing how your examination of Ditzy went, I am almost convinced that you’d use it as an excuse to get a hold of my dick.”

I gasped hearing such an outrageous assumption! “Wha- I beg your pardon, sweetie, but I would never take such an advantage of my patient! What happened with Ditzy was… an accident,” I quickly added, the embarrassment of that moment when I had lost focus returning. “One that would not repeat itself. And besides,” I said, adding some cold into my voice as I frowned at Jack, “I’m afraid that after the way you’ve acted down in the tunnels I've lost most of the attraction I might have had towards you. Or to put it simply, I am not physically interested in you in this way at the moment.”

“Oh no, what have I done,” Jack said in a voice devoid of emotion, deadpanning at me, “I so regret it now.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Aite unexpectedly chimed in as I pouted at the griffin, smirking at me. “His dick is great.”

I blinked, her statement baffling me. “It is?” I said, my brain conjuring about a hundred of different possible meanings. Almost on its own, my head moved back towards Jack, looking downwards…

Talons pressed underside of my muzzle and lifted my head up, so that I once again looked into Jack’s eyes. “My eyes are up here,” he said in a flat voice, much to Aite’s amusement.

As I realized just what I had been caught on doing, I pointed at Aite while a blush of embarrassment covered my cheeks. “I only looked down because of what Aite said!” I exclaimed as I pushed his talons away, ignoring the bat pony’s laughter.

“Yeah, whatever,” Jack replied, glancing at the other mare with disapproval, then uttered a long sigh. “Are there any other matters related to our partnership that confuse you, or can we go to sleep already?”

Grateful for the change of topic, I nodded: “Yes sweetie, I- wait, go to sleep?” I asked, confused.

“It’s getting late, there’s nothing to do to pass the time, and I’ll need to get up early to leave and go look for the tribe,” Jack replied, shrugging.

“Meh, I could think of something to do to pass the time,” Aite commented, having calmed down from her bout of laughter. “But yeah, flying over here and then stalking you through the rest of the day was a tad tiresome, I could use a rest.”

“Very well then, I shall hurry up and ask what I want to know, then lead you to your beds. I’m afraid I’ll stay up a few more hours, as I’ll need to monitor Cutter and Manacles, and I wanted to start examining the radscorpion, but I promise I’ll be quiet while walking back to my bed. Now, back to our partnership;” I said, frowning, “what about my patients’ privacy?”

Both of them groaned. “You mean the patients you plan to have either killed in your coup, captured for experiments or bow down to you?” Aite asked as she covered her face with her hoof.

“That doesn’t change the fact that when they come to see me for medical services they are entitled to their privacy,” I replied, then turned to Jack. “You’ve signed a contract with Black Widow saying that you have to only find the tribe because you know you won’t help her capture them and you don’t want to break a contract. Surely, you must understand my insistence on the matter?”

Jack lifted a paw to his head and rubbed his temple with his talons. “I wanted Aite to stick around you in case you’d need protection… but I suppose you can handle yourself if one patient gets violent,” he added with a sigh, then turned to Aite. “I know it would be a pain, but think you could clear out when ponies come over here for medical attention? Maybe hide yourself in that storeroom?” he added, pointing with his talon in the direction where the other room was.

The bat pony rolled her eyes. “I suppose, otherwise she won’t shut up.”

I exhaled deeply, relaxed: “Thank you both, sweeties.”

“Is that all?” Jack asked.

“Hm…” I hummed, thinking what else would I would like to know. I recalled there was something that I wanted to ask Jack about… actually, there was a lot I wanted to ask him, starting with various subjects regarding griffins’ biology and ending on the Bloodtalons, but I could easily tell by now that those weren’t topics he wanted to discuss. However, there was another matter… “Actually, sweetie, there was one thing that I’ve been curious about ever since you’ve brought it up, though I’m afraid it’s not exactly related to our partnership.”

“If this get me a few hours of peace, then fine, ask.”

“Back in Stable Eleven, as you were about to fly to New Appleloosa to ask Ditzy for help, you told me how the Bloodtalons where the first ones to ever see alicorns that exist in this Wasteland” I reminded him. As apprehension dawned on the griffin, I continued. “Of how you were chasing some target and she had gotten away because of them, making it the only job Bloodtalons had never really completed. I asked you for more details, but you’ve told me you’d tell me some other time.” And that it’s a tale that you like. “Since it looks like we won’t be able to spend too much time together in the coming days, I was hoping you could tell it to me now?”

It was interesting to see a pleasantly surprised expression appear on his face, after all the… less than pleasant expressions he had made through this night. “Heh, I suppose I can tell it to you,” he replied, rubbing the side of his face; I could swear he seemed a bit bashful. He leaned back against the wall of my room, crossing his forelegs on his chest. “Get yourself comfortable, it’s going to take a while.”

“Oh wow,” Aite exclaimed, looking from him to me; like myself, she lied down on the bed more comfortably, like Jack had suggested, “he must really like you, he almost never talks about Bloodtalons stuff. So come on,” she added, turning back to him, “tell us how those ‘super mercenaries that never fail’ actually failed once.”

“We didn’t fail,” Jack replied, frowning a little. “We just didn’t get to kill her. But anyway,” he said and paused to clear his throat, “let me begin with… a little background, I suppose. Doctor, you’ve met raiders. What is your opinion of them?”

“Um…” I stammered, taken by surprise by the sudden question. Fidgeting with my PipBuck to turn on recording and to buy myself a little time, I hummed and slowly began, “Well, they are violent, murderous, enjoy causing pain, care only for their pleasure, most aren’t very intelligent, and generally would say that their only useful purpose would be to become my test subjects.”

“Figured as much,” Jack remarked, while Aite snorted.

“Meh, if you think those raiders around here are bad, you should see what those around Hoofington are like. They’re more like rabid animals.”

“But yeah, you pretty much nailed it,” Jack continued, only briefly acknowledging the bat pony’s remark. “They’re violent, and most of them aren’t very intelligent. They’re dangerous, yes, but bigger cities are safe from them as they don’t usually live in big groups. They often fight with each other, so the more of them there are, the harder for them it is to stand together. Most common are groups of five to ten riders, it is very rare for them to form a group bigger than the one you encountered at the Rock Farms. However,” he added, his voice losing it’s dismissive tone and becoming serious, “around eighty years ago, the raiders pretty much held the entire Wasteland under their control, when all of their various gangs had fallen under the rule of one pony: Misery, the Raider Queen.”

“Misery?” I repeated, surprised by such a name, but then her apparent title drew my attention. “The Raider Queen?”

“Yep. She even wore a crown made of barb wire a few times as a joke. Those weren’t the only names under which she had been known, though. The Bloody Queen,” Jack said as he began counting on his talons, “Terror Incarnate, Laughing Carnage, and so on. She became a leader of one of the raiders gangs, then over the years she gradually conquered and assimilated others, and used them to terrorize everybody, every settlement and town in the Wasteland.”

“Wait,” Aite spoke up, raising up on the bed a little, “I think I heard about her. Didn’t she have like a huge harem of stallions?”

Jack deadpanned at her. “Figures that’s the one thing you’d know about her. Misery’s raiders had enslaved many ponies,” he began to explain, turning to me, “and when some of the stallions there had caught her eye, she took them to her palace to please her sexually. The palace no longer exists, Steel Rangers shelled it to the ground after her defeat,” the griffin quickly added as he noticed my ears perk at the word ‘palace’. “Before that though they released everybody that was held there. Apparently, Misery’s harem had counted about a hundred males, and they weren’t just ponies, there were quite a few griffin males from some lesser Talon Companies.”

“Well, can’t blame her for that one,” Aite muttered, then when Jack raised an eyebrow at her, she added, “Oh, you know what I meant. But damn, a hundred males…”

I was also trying to grasp my mind around that number… I mean, how exactly… would she pick one or a few more for one day and then pick again? It seemed a little unrealistic that they would all please her together… Actually, physically impossible, unless they were taking turns, but even then...

“A hundred males held against their will and being forced to please a mare that was likely responsible for the deaths of their friends and families,” Jack pointed out, his comment immediately stopping my musings - and mathematical equations - regarding a hundred and one pony orgy.

“Wanna bet that at least… eighty percent of them were quite happy with the arrangement?” Aite said after a brief pause to decide upon the number.

“Anyway,” Jack resumed his tale, ignoring the bat pony’s question, “Misery’s dark reign lasted somewhere around fifteen years, until finally she had decided to attack one of the last remaining free settlements, Tenpony Tower. All the others were either enslaved or forced to pay tributes. Misery had gathered all her armies, and directed them at Tenpony’s, with the raiders from Manehattan Ruins laying siege while the gangs from across the Wasteland marched to join them. Some people who still remember those times talk about her army counting over ten thousand ponies, but that’s obviously an exaggeration; I doubt there were even that many ponies alive in the Wasteland back then. Bloodtalon elders that told me this story say that there were somewhere between a thousand and two thousand ponies in her army though.”

“Two thousand?” I repeated, becoming engrossed in the tale, even though I more or less knew how it was going to end. “What happened next? Tenpony Tower didn’t fall, obviously, right sweetie?”

Jack shook his head. “No, it did not. The ponies living in Tenpony’s are rich, you see, and when the word got out that raiders were amassing a great army, they all pulled together to hire every single Talon Company in the Wasteland, including Bloodtalons. Actually, had they not hired us, the other griffins probably wouldn't have had the guts to defend them,” he added, snorting. “Even Bloodtalons… our elders would say that in the years before, when a job posed a threat that we would come in direct contact with the Raider Queen herself, we wouldn’t accept it. Steel Rangers had gone even further, though; apparently, they had standing orders to immediately retreat on sight when faced with Misery.”

“Steel Rangers were ordered to run away from her?” I thought back to those posters I had seen, of bulky, armored and heavily armed figures. “Just her?”

“What kind of pony do you think would be able to hold control over so many raiders?” Jack replied with a question. “Misery was the worst of them, most vicious, strongest, and most cunning. She brought fear into the Wasteland for a reason. She was a monster.”

“I would have thought that she controlled the raiders through sex,” Aite chimed in, shrugging.

Jack rolled his eyes. “She probably did. Or at the very least the gang leaders, though since she was quick to kill raiders who displeased her in any way, I would imagine that was… risky. Anyway, where was I… ah yes, they hired all of the Talons, and although we would likely come into direct confrontation with the Raider Queen herself, the Bloodtalon leader at the time, my great-great-grandfather had agreed, after a long conversation between him and the Stable Guardian.”

“Stable Guardian?” I asked, frowning in confusion at the strange name.

“It was a nickname DJ Pon3 gave to a goody four-shoes that came to the Wasteland about a year or so before this shit went down,” Jack replied, shrugging. “His Stable had sent him out to search for a water talisman as theirs began to fail. The Stable Guardian had found it and delivered it back, but afterwards stayed around the Wasteland, playing hero and fighting raiders. Probably figured out they would eventually pose a threat to his Stable, or maybe he was really a good guy and wanted to help everybody.”

So a Stable pony like myself had once tried to help the entire Wasteland? I thought, excited at the revelation. Pity it had been so long ago, he’s probably dead after eighty years-

“Wait, DJ Pon3 had given the Stable Guardian his name?” I exclaimed, confused. “But you’ve said it has been eighty years ago…”

I was distracted by a snicker from Aite. “There is always a DJ Pon3,” she said, smirking. “Has been around for as long as anybody can remember. It’s probably a succession of ponies taking the role one after another.”

“Oh, I see,” I replied, my curiosity sated on the subject. For now. I was a little curious as to why they would take on this name instead of making announcements with their real ones, but I was too captivated by Jack’s tale to worry about that now. “Forgive me for the interruption, sweetie, please continue.”

“The Stable Guardian helped to not only convince Bloodtalons to accept the job - therefore ensuring all the other Talons joined too - but did one better; he flew over - forgot to mention, he was a pegasus,” Jack added quickly, causing me to blink in surprise; I had no idea pegasi had also been accepted into Stables, “- to the Steel Rangers and convinced them to join in the fight, too, pointing out that the Raider Queen and her army would conquer everybody if they all didn’t stand together. The Rangers agreed, and their Manehattan contingent joined forces together with Bloodtalons and came to break the siege around Tenpony, while their other contingents, the biggest one being the one from Stalliongrad, together with other Talons attacked the other raider army before they could join with Misery. It was a battle the likes of which Equestria, if not the entire world, hadn’t seen since the war,” Jack said, his voice becoming almost reminiscent. “Raiders had numbers, but Bloodtalons and Steel Rangers had training and weapons. Sure, some of the raiders had Power Armor they had gotten off of Steel Rangers they had killed over the years, but there were only a few of them. Eventually, the siege was broken, and the raiders had to retreat back to their palace. The Bloodtalons and Steel Rangers had prepared ahead, though; they planted a ton of explosives at the structural points of a few buildings the raiders would have to pass on their way, and caused them to collapse on them. Most of the Raider Queen’s army had been buried by rubble, but she had survived; supposedly, she held the building that would have fallen on her and her private guard with her magic, letting them escape.”

A part of me wanted to interrupt for clarification there, because that seemed highly improbable feat for any unicorn, to hold an entire building with their magic. Fortunately for Jack’s patience, I was too curious to learn what would happen next.

“With her army shattered, the road to her palace cut off - and the palace already being under occupation - Misery led her remaining forces to rendezvous with the rest of the raiders, not knowing they’ve been defeated, too. Stalliongrad's contingent of Steel Rangers had brought tanks and cannons and broke the other raider army.

“Still, that had left Misery alive, so Bloodtalons, along with the Stable Guardian, chased after her. She kept eluding us, though, and with how dangerous she was they were being careful, even in her defeated state. My ancestors and that Stable pegasus eventually chased her into Splendid Valley, and just as we were about to corner her, out of nowhere they were attacked by alicorns. The attack was so unexpected, and the foe so unknown, that they forced them to retreat, and the Raider Queen had escaped. My great-great-grandfather and Stable Guardian tried circling around Splendid Valley to cut Misery off, but she never reappeared, and nobody ever saw her alive. So, they’ve just figured that either those alicorns turned on her, or something else in that Taint riddled place killed her. And that was the end of the Raider Queen,” Jack finished, shrugging.

There was only one word that came to my mind after hearing such a tale. “Amazing,” I simply stated. “It’s truly heartening to know that so many people had united against such a vile foe… even if some of them were paid,” I noted, making both Jack and Aite snort in amusement. “What happened next?”

Jack again shrugged. “There were a few raiders holdouts that the Bloodtalons cleared out, in order to make sure that the Raider Queen wasn’t hiding in any of them. But overall, things began to return to how they were before her. Abandoned settlements were being rebuilt, ponies once enslaved by the raiders returned to what remained of their homes, Talons got paid, and Steel Rangers returned to hoarding technology.”

“So… everybody just… parted ways?” I couldn’t hide disappointment from my voice. “They’d all united against a common enemy, why couldn’t they stay united and start rebuilding Equestria?”

To my surprise, Jack gave out a tired, almost sad sigh. “Because once the fear of the Raider Queen was gone, there was nothing that would hold them together. Well, there could have been,” he amended unexpectedly. “The Stable Guardian. My elders would say how he had preached about unity, about making Wasteland a better place for everybody. It was thanks to him that all of them had come together, and if he had continued to do so, then maybe they would stay united.”

“What happened to him?”

But the griffin shrugged. “Nobody knows. He just… disappeared soon after the raiders’ defeat. Most people just assumed that he had returned to his Stable, or even that he flew above the cloud barrier and joined the Enclave, and a few even said that he was determined to make sure that the Raider Queen was dead and flew into Splendid Valley and died there. Honestly, though, considering the chaos of the years that followed, he could have chosen to live in one of those rebuilding settlements, put on a cloak to hide his wings, and nopony would even notice.”

“It’s amazing how well a good cloak helps with hiding these,” Aite said in confirmation, flexing her leathery wings; as her right wing had almost brushed against me, I had to fight the urge to touch the membrane between the wing’s fingers. “Without seeing them, the few ponies I interacted with in Hoofington would think that my eyes and ears are some form of mutation.”

“Exactly,” Jack said, then turned back to me. “So, there you have it, that’s the entire tale.”

“I can see why you like it,” I replied, smiling as I pressed a button on my PipBuck to stop recording. “Your great-great-grandfather and the rest of Bloodtalons had helped to save Equestria from a tyrant. Even if they got paid to do it,” I added, this time with a little smirk, which the griffin replied in kind.

“Yeah… we might be mercenaries, but getting paid for something like that… it must have felt nice.” He smiled and looked away, then snorted and turned back to me. “Alright, I’ve done my part of the deal, now show us to some beds. Preferably clean ones.”

“But of course, sweetie,” I quickly replied as I got up, stretched a little, and jumped down from a bed. “Follow me.”

As I led Jack and Aite out of my bedroom and into the room that had been converted into a storeroom (listening to the two banter as Aite again made lewd suggestions to the griffin that he quickly dismissed), I thought about his tale, recalling everything he had said. It was truly interesting, and I made a mental note to, at some point, possible after becoming the Princess of Equestria, have a book written detailing the Raider Queen’s reign and the war to stop her. I would love to hear how the Wastelanders had gotten together under a pony from a Stable to vanquish such evil!

One thing, though, bothered me. A thought, one that I had at the beginning of the tale but wasn’t given enough time to properly consider, and now it returned to the forefront of my mind.

Misery, I thought, looking at Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie’s apparitions. What a sad name.

Footnote: 50% to next level!

Author's Notes:

Whew! Finally done. Wow, I did NOT expect this chapter to turn out this long. Sorry for the wait. Anyway, thanks to TimePrincess, Zaleros and Sage Probo for their great work on proofreading/editing^^ And special thanks to Kkat for creating Fallout: Equestria of course, to Somber for Project Horizons and Homelands, and to Heartshine for Speak, which are as canon as the original story here^^ Especially Somber, as there were quite a lot of references to Project Horizons and Homelands in this particular chapter^^

Hope you had fun reading this newest chapter^^