Journey.

They say that it isn’t about the destination, but it is about the journey there. I’m not sure who ‘they’ are, but I’m fairly certain they were a dumbass. The journey to the factory was long and boring. We had already been traveling for a few hours, and were making decent progress. Unfortunately, that didn’t stop the travel from being boring.

“Ugh, how much longer?” whined Razor.

“We’ve only be traveling for a few hours, calm down,” replied Pin. The pegasus and the griffin were both following in the air, while Razor and I, unicorns cursed with only our hooves, had to walk the entire way.

“Can we at least take a break? I’m exhausted!” she complained in return.

“No, because I know that you’ll get drunk, so it will be up to us to haul your ass around,” Pin responded sternly. She was probably right.

“Fine,” Razor grumbled in response.

Oh, hello red dots. “Hold up,” I declared.

“What is it?” asked Aurea.

“Not sure, possibly raiders. Something that isn’t very friendly,” I responded as I stared in the direction that the red dots were. I counted about five of them that were in range.

“How the hell does he even know that?” Aurea asked.

“E.F.S., it shows enemy positions and stuff,” I replied, tapping my hoof on my PipBuck.

“Huh, I wonder if they make those for griffins...” she pondered for a second.

“So what are we going to do?” asked Pin. The three of them all looked at me. What the hell, since when was I leader?

“We need to get a closer look.” We crept closer to the building that the dots were located in. They weren’t moving very much, so I doubted that they had noticed our presence. We hid behind a small rocky cliff that granted us a view of the raider camp.

Yep, raiders. A few pikes outside the building were decorated with severed heads. From one of the windows dangled a corpse, suspended by multiple hooks that pierced the flesh. A few of them moved around, visible through the windows and the holes in the building.

“Alright, there don’t appear to be very many of them. Razor, stay back here and pick off any that you are able to.” The unicorn nodded and took out her rifle, popping a fresh clip into it. “Aurea, launch a few explosives in to take out as many as you can.”

“About time,” she said as she took the grenade launcher off her back.

“But wait for my signal.”

“Aw.”

“Pin, when they run out, deal with them. I’ll get close and attack them when they scatter. Aurea, let’s get closer to them.”

It was late in the day, but the sun was still up above the cloud cover. I slowly crept closer to the building, Aurea glided next to me. The raiders didn’t even see us, mostly because they were paying attention to the other directions. That didn’t seem very wise, as it left them horribly exposed. Then again, raiders weren’t the wises-

BEEP.

I looked down to see a small circular metal plate on the ground.

BEEP.

“OH SHIT!” shouted Aurea as she tackled me to the ground a short distance away.

“What the hell, Aur-” I began. The ground that I had just been standing on erupted in a cloud of dust. The explosion’s shock wave hit me hard.

“Frag mines,” declared the griffin, answering the questions that were forming in my mind. “They explode when you get close.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled as I rose to my hooves.

A series of shouts came from the building. I looked over to see a few of the raiders wielding guns. They weren’t stupid enough to wander into their own minefield. Instead, they opted to engage us in long range combat.

One of the earth pony raiders turned toward us. His saddle had an assault rifle on either side. He took aim at us with menace in his eyes. Unfortunately for him, Razor put a bullet between them. Where his head once was became a shower of blood and brain matter.

I scrambled for cover. Standing out in the open would just get me shot again. I went back the exact path I had came in order to avoid more mines. Aurea didn’t fly towards cover. Instead, she circled the building. I made it behind a rock before I heard the explosion. I looked back at the building and saw the griffin loading another grenade into her launcher.

One of the raiders stood on the roof with a rifle levitating in front of her. She appeared to be taking aim at Aurea. I took out the revolver and kicked up S.A.T.S., tagging her head for several shots. Two of the shots missed, which is to be expected with such a low percentage chance of hitting, but one of them struck her head in a bloody blast of gore.

E.F.S. counted about four of them remaining. Two were still inside the building. Another one was positioned on the roof with a rifle. The final one was outside the house but ducked behind a rock.

A black form darted across the sky to the roof. The small pegasus circled the building. The raider on top of it tried to fire at her using the rifle, but Pin proved to be too fast to hit. The raider wasn’t as agile, being hit with several syringes before he finally hit the floor. Pin disappeared from the roof, appearing to descend into the building.

“Aurea, careful with the explosives, Pin is in there!” I shouted at the griffin.

“You’re no fun!” she shouted back before lobbing a grenade at the raider behind the rock. I heard him scream in terror but the scream was cut short by a bloody explosion.

A rifle shot sounded out as one of the raiders ran by the window. Their head burst as the round connected. Razor gave a small cheer from behind me. The final dot on E.F.S. winked out, a green one right next to where they were.

“That should be the last of them,” I called out. “Aurea, think you can do something about the mines?”

“Sure, just give me a few minutes,” she responded. She glided over the minefield for several minutes, occasionally hovering above a spot. The was fast, able to disarm the mines very quickly. Not one of them exploded. She landed next to us, several mines tucked safely away in her pack. “Great thing about mines, if you disarm them, not only are you uninjured, you get a new toy,” she chuckled as she stuffed the last mine in the pack with the others.

I ran across the now cleared strip of land to the building. Looked to be a house of some sort, but was a bit larger. Most of it had simply crumbled away. It was surrounded by various mutilated corpses, courtesy of the occupants that we had just evicted.

The interior didn’t fair much better. Bloody graffiti decorated the walls. Bones were scattered around the place. I can somewhat understand killing for survival, but this desecration of corpses was just insanity.

“Took you long enough,” said a voice from above. I looked up to see Pin standing on the edge of a hole in the floor looking down on us. “I managed to loot some ammo and a few supplies, but this case was locked,” she said as she fluttered down holding a large metal case in between her forelegs.

“Bring it here, I might be able to open it,” I said as I levitated out a screwdriver and a lockpick. I was a decent lockpicker, surely a metal case would prove no trouble opening.

Snap.

“I think that makes twelve,” said Razor as she looked over my shoulder at the still locked case. “Think it’s best time to quit?”

I ignored her and concentrated on the lock. It had proved to be very difficult, and the distractions provided by the other unicorn weren’t helping matters. I had a rough estimate as to the spot I needed to be at, but the lock was so delicate that even the slightest error allowed it to stay sealed.

Click. The lock finally gave in. I popped open the case to look at the spoils.

The case was an ammo box, and it was full. Several rounds for our rifles, a good amount of pistol rounds, even a few shots for my revolver. There were several types of ammo that none of us used, but I took them as well. Ammo is easy to carry, and is very valuable. Yeah, that’s it entirely...

“Looks like it will be getting dark soon,” said Pin, looking through a large hole in the roof of the building. “We have probably a few more hours until the bloodwings are out.”

“Well, we can’t stay here,” argued Razor. “That hole would just let them right in. Even if the hole wasn’t there, I can’t stay in a place like this. Let’s get out of here now,” she said, turning for the exit.

“What’s her deal?” asked Aurea once Razor was outside.

“She doesn’t like raiders,” answered Pin. “They tortured her, gave her those scars, even almost killed her. Staying here would likely remind her of what happened.”

“So it’s best that we try to find some place to stay that doesn’t look like a raider’s playground,” I added. We left the raider camp, our bags a little heavier due to the supplies we found.

“Well, that’s new,” said Razor. I gazed at the object on the horizon from the crest of the hill. “I’ve been here before, but I’ve never seen that before.” It was a settlement, and a large one at that.

“I don’t trust it,” said Pin. “We’re in Iron Hoof territory. That town is likely loyal to them. We should keep moving.”

“We don’t really have much choice. It’s either risk staying in the town or get eaten by bloodwings,” I replied.

“I vote for bloodwings,” replied Pin. The rest of us began to descend the hill without a word while Pin stood at the top. “Ugh, fine,” she sighed as she flew down after us.

We arrived at the entrance to the town a few minutes later. The settlement was nowhere near as large as Circus, but it was still an impressively sized settlement for the wasteland. What was more impressive was how well it was defended. A large wall protected the town, with several ponies standing on the wall, weapons ready to deal with any attackers.

The guard that stood outside the opening to the town look at us with disdain. He was an older looking earth pony, armed with a dual assault rifle battle saddle, and some pretty tough looking barding. “Great, more visitors,” he said snidely. “Few rules here. One, don’t start any shit. That means no fighting, and keep your guns in their holsters. Two, anything we deem a crime can be punished severely. And three, this settlement is loyal to the Iron Hoof, we will not tolerate any anarchists or terrorists such as the Laughingstocks.” I was glad I decided to purchase armor that didn’t bear the signature markings of the Laughingstocks. It was just average combat armor. “Welcome to Platinum Springs,” he said as he waved a hoof at one of the guards on the walls. The gate slid open slowly. “You can trade your crap over at Hilt’s store, and you can stay over at ‘Refined Tastes’ if you got the caps for it. Don’t bother me for directions, I’m not a damn signpost.” With that, the guard returned to his position outside the gate as it slammed shut behind us.

Platinum springs was a fairly large settlement. Large enough for us to get lost at least. The layout of the town was confusing, as all the houses looked just similar enough for me to become confused. We wandered down the streets, looking for either of the buildings the guard had mentioned, all the while being watched by many residents of the town. They all eyed us suspiciously as we passed by.

“This was a bad idea,” whispered Pin as she walked beside me.

“It’s better than Bloodwings,” I replied quietly.

We entered what I believed to be the center of the town. There was a large central building, ‘Town Hall’ was written above the door. A short distance away from it was ‘Blade and Hilt’s’, likely the trading outpost the guard mentioned, and another building with ‘Refined Tastes’ painted above the door in elegant lettering.

As we entered the tavern, I noticed a blue unicorn buck standing behind the counter “Ah, greetings outsiders!” chimed a buck from behind the bar. The inside of the building was surprisingly clean, missing all the clutter and destruction that defined wasteland decor. “My name is Hospitality, and welcome to Refined Tastes. How may I serve you?”

“Well, we are just in town for the night, so could we-” I began.

“Do you serve hard alcohol?” Razor interrupted.

The blue unicorn smiled in response. “For the right price, I serve anything you could possibly want.” The two conversed for a brief moment, and the bartender levitated a few murky bottles off of the shelves and placed them in front of Razor. She eagerly began to drink her way through them. The buck turned back to us. “Now then, what was it that you required?”

“Right, we need rooms for the night,” I replied. “Three of them.”

“Certainly. You know, you are some of the first outsiders that have had the pleasure of staying in my humble little inn,” he began to ramble as he walked from behind the bar with a few keys floating next to him. We, we being Pin, Aurea, and I, followed him, while Razor opted to stay at the bar. “The guards seem to scare off half of the visitors, and most of the other half don’t tend to stay very long. Really, if it weren’t for the bar, I would be out of business.” He stopped outside one of the doors. “Here we are, a room for the lovely griffin,” he said in a tone that was uncomforting.

Aurea snatched the key from his telekinetic grip. “Try anything, and I’ll break your neck,” she growled as she opened the door and disappeared inside.

“Ah, such spirit. I love it!” he remarked in that same creepy tone. “Now then, on to the happy couple.”

“But how did-” I began.

“Oh come now, it’s obvious. Reminds me of my younger days. Well, here is your room regardless,” he said as we reached another door. “I’ll show your other friend to her room when she is done.”

“That’ll be a while,” Pin replied.

“Marvelous! A customer who loves to drink, and a mare at that! Is there anything better?” he declared.

“She’s likely to get a little violent when she’s drunk, and I doubt she would take as kindly to your advances as the griffin did. She will cut your head off,” said Pin as she trotted into the room.

Hospitality gulped at these words, but continued speaking. “Ah...alright, I will keep that in mind. Now, there comes the matter of your bill. I’m assuming you will be taking care of it before you leave? Wouldn’t want to have Mercury getting involved.”

“Don’t worry, I have the caps for it.” I had a few thousand caps on me, so I was confident that I would be able to afford it.

I entered the room to see Pin standing next to the bed with a scowl on her face. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“This town, that’s what’s wrong!” she growled in response. “It appears out of nowhere, and is an Iron Hoof outpost! And here we are, stuck dead center in the middle of it!”

“Just calm down. We will be out of here tomorrow as soon as we can,” I replied. “Look, I didn’t want to come here either, but just don’t act suspicious and we’ll be fine.”

She stared at me with her beautiful golden eyes for a few seconds before finally giving a sigh. “Alright.”

“Okay, now I’m going to look around town for a little bit. I’ll be back soon.”

“What about not drawing attention to ourselves? What if you run into somepony who knows who you are? They’ll come here and attack us! Worse, they could kill you!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. They don’t know who we are, they wouldn’t have let us in if they did.”

I departed the room and walked down the hallway to the entrance. I passed by the bar, where I found a semi-drunk Razor in the middle of some incomprehensible song. She briefly stopped her cacophony to wave a hoof at me in greeting. She stumbled on the stool, but somehow managed to remain upright. She then resumed her drinking.

The sun was setting on the horizon, behind the endless cloud cover. Now that it was becoming dimmer, I removed my goggles. I blinked my eyes a few times to adjust them to the light. Across the dirt road was the trade outpost. Might as well offload the spare crap I looted from those raiders.

“Welcome to... BLADE AND HILT’S WEAPON EMPORIUM!” screamed a young unicorn filly as I entered the building. The filly’s voice pierced my skull quite painfully.

“Edge, what did I tell you about shouting? You’ll scare off all the customers,” grumbled a gruff buck from behind the counter.

“Sorry, Hilt,” she replied dejectedly. She hopped down from the counter and went over to some shelves and began manipulating the objects with her magic, likely sorting them.

The buck turned back to face me. He looked pretty old, but still had that ‘mess with me and I will kick your ass’ attitude. “New in town eh? Come in to trade I hope,” he said in a stern tone.

“Actually my friends and I just stopped in for the night to avoid the bloodwings,” I replied as I looked at a few of the shelves. Some were lined with foods and other needed supplies, while the majority of them held weapons of various types and qualities. “I thought I might see what the local store has to offer, and maybe sell off some things I didn’t need.”

“Well, you came to the right place. Even though the name says Weapon Emporium, we also sell the usual supplies ponies need. But weapons are our specialty. Hardly a day goes by without somepony from the Iron Hoof coming in needing ammo or new weapons.” I winced slightly at the mention of the faction in control of this town.

I opened my pack and levitated out the spare weapons I had received from the raiders along with the unneeded ammo. “How much can I get for this?”

“Hmm,” he mumbled as he looked at the weapons, most of which were in poor shape. “Probably can’t give you more than 300 caps for the lot of em.”

“Fine,” I grumbled. I knew I was being ripped off, but I didn’t want to draw too much attention to myself, and I really didn’t want to carry this crap all the way back to Circus for those few extra caps.

He set a bag of caps on the counter and greedily scooped the weapons into a pile. “Pleasure doing business with you. Hey Edge, got some more parts for you,” he called to the small filly. I looked over to see her taking apart one of the weapons on the shelf, levitating each individual part with her magic.

“Happen to have any ammo for one of these?” I asked as I levitated out my revolver, barrel pointing down. I might be fresh out of the Stable, but I knew how to avoid accidentally robbing a place.

“Ooh, been a while since I saw one of those beauties. Yeah, I got a good stockpile of ammo for it, seeing as so few ponies use one. Tell you what, I’ll sell em to you at 5 caps each. That is practically giving them away, I usually sell them for 10.” Yeah, he was still ripping me off, but I needed ammo and I didn’t have the desire to argue with him for a better price.

I purchased all the revolver ammo he had, which wasn’t much. The door behind me slammed open. I turned and almost had a heart attack. Two Steel Rangers entered the store right behind me. I managed to stop myself from taking my revolver and opening fire on both of them.

We were in Iron Hoof territory, of course there would be Steel Rangers. But they weren’t sent here to search for us. They might not even know about us. It might have only been the rangers sent after us who knew about us. We were going to be fine. I hoped.

“Knife Hilt, good to see you,” said one of the armored soldiers.

“How has Blade been doing?” asked the other one. “Is she still working on that weapon design?”

“Yeah. That and taking care of Edge. She’s quite a handful,” the buck laughed. The filly looked back at us with a frown and stuck her tongue out at him.

“The Hoof really could use a pony like you, Hilt.”

“You know that I have a family. Besides, somepony has got to supply you with ammo and weapons,” he replied. He turned to look at me. “You need anything else?”

“No...I’m fine,” I croaked and started backing out of the building.

“Citizen,” one of the Rangers said as he nodded at me. “Reason we came by was to get my gun repaired, thing keeps getting jammed when I try to reload.” I quickly passed by him and out the door before I heard the rest of the conversation.

I breathed a sigh of relief once I was outside the building. Either they didn’t know who we were, or they were waiting for an opportunity. Too many civilian casualties if they attacked me while I was in the city, so they might shoot us as soon as we try to leave. Best to avoid the Steel Rangers either way.

I wandered along the road for a few minutes. The ponies on the path and standing around the buildings paid little attention to me as I walked through the town. Though I guess the four of us might have been quite a sight earlier; two unicorns, a pegasus, and a griffin all strolling through the town together.

I eventually wandered back to the center of the town. Wasn’t much in this town besides the gun store and the tavern. The Town Hall loomed over the other two notable buildings though. Going into the town hall of a town run by the Iron Hoof was deadly, stupid, and was exactly what I was doing. Damn my curiosity.

The town hall’s entrance room was very large. It was two floors, with large columns rising into the ceiling. Large double doors were in the center of the second floor, with hallways and other doors lining the walls of both floors. A single staircase leading up to the second floor was located on the wall opposite the entrance.There was a large central desk with a few ponies sitting behind it, more interesting in the papers than my presence.

“I’m sorry sir, but Mr. Mercury is unavailable at this time,” said one of the ponies, not even looking up at me.

“Uhm, who?” I asked.

The mare glanced up at me for a second. “A visitor? Alright then. Mercury is the leader of this glorious settlement, appointed by Silver Star herself to lead this city to greatness under the glory of the Iron Hoof.” She began to wave her hoof in the air for emphasis. “For the Iron Hoof shall unite the wasteland under our great and powerful military might, and shall rebuild Equestria!” I managed to fight back a chuckle. The mare sat back down and resumed her paperwork as she spoke. “If you are interested in citizenship, please enter the door on your left. If you wish to join the Iron Hoof’s military, please register for citizenship in one of our many settlements and then contact the local recruitment officer. And if you wish to speak with Mercury, please come back at a time in which he is available.” It sounded like she had been forced to memorize those exact words.

“I’m not really interested in any of those,” I said. These words caused the mare to glance up from her papers. “We’re just passing through.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Most travelers decide to stay. The Iron Hoof provides us with a safe haven from the harsh wasteland. All they ask in return is that you give them your loyalty, and to be ready in case they need soldiers to defend against their enemies.”

“It sounds great,” I lied. “But there are things that I have to do before I can settle down anywhere.” That was partially true. That caused me to start thinking.

I had lost the only home I had ever known, and was stuck in the wasteland. I would have to eventually adjust to life in Circus, I guess. It was either that or spend the rest of my life wandering the wasteland. Perhaps once the Iron Hoof was stopped, I would be able to finally live a simple life. If that was even possible in the wasteland.

“Do you need anything else?” Her words interrupted my thoughts.

“Uh, do you have any information about the Robronco factory to the East?” I asked. Might as well know what I am up against.

“I’m sorry, but that information is classified,” she replied coldly, her eyes still focused on the papers, which by this point I was certain she was just shuffling them around for no reason.

“Oh come on, surely there is something you are allowed to tell a nice traveler like me.”

“Well, okay. The Iron Hoof has attempted to scavenge it a few times, but they rarely came back with much, and sustained many casualties when they did. Normally the Iron Hoof will prevent scavenging of locations with a lot of pre-war technology by outsiders, but the Robronco factory was declared open to any scavengers willing to enter.” She leaned in closer and her voice dropped to a whisper. “It wasn’t in the official records, but many of the ponies that came back acted insane for hours until they were sedated. The effects of whatever happened there lasted a few days, but they returned to full health eventually. If you are planning on scavenging there, I would be careful.”

“Thank you, and I will keep that in mind.” Great, something in there is making ponies crazy AND killing them. This was going to be fun.

I turned to leave the Town Hall when a door slammed open behind me. I looked to see a dark grey buck, much darker than me, standing on the second floor, overlooking the entire room. He wore combat armor that has much higher grade than mine, barely a step down from power armor by the looks of it. He glanced downward, directly at me.

His face was a scowl for a few moments, but then it parted into a grim smile. “Ah, a new face has come to my town seeking the aid that the Iron Hoof provides?” he announced to the whole room. He descended the staircase and trotted closer to me. I shrunk back a little as he glared right into my eyes. “Hmm, something about you is familiar. Tell me, have you been here before?”

“N-no,” I choked out. Damn this guy was intimidating. He appeared to be staring right into my very being. His eyes darted, searching me over for a few seconds.

“Strange, I feel like I know you from somewhere.” Shit. “But I can’t remember where.” I mentally breathed a sigh of relief. “Don’t worry, it will come to me eventually.” Shit. “Tell me, what brings you to my humble town?”

“Just seeking shelter for the night,” I replied hesitantly.

“Well, I doubt there is anyplace safer in the whole wasteland,” he replied, his grim smile becoming a little kinder, though his face was still stern. “Have you considered settling down here?”

“I’ve considered settling down someplace nice, but there are things I have to do first.” That was an honest answer.

“Ah, I remember when I was a young wanderer like you. Had a band of friends and we would go adventuring and solving ponies’ problems. Eventually that life eats away at you, as it costs you friends and loved ones. It even costs you who you once were.” He sounded remorseful, but still remained stoic. “Take it from me, being a wanderer is no way to live.”

“Thank you,” I replied. I’m getting advice on life from an Iron Hoof? What is the wasteland coming to? I hated to admit it, but for the leader of an Iron Hoof settlement, he was actually not a horrible pony. Every Iron Hoof soldier I have met so far had either tried to rape or murder us, or both. But in this town, I had met Iron Hoof ponies that didn’t want me dead. Some of them actually seemed friendly to a degree. True, they had no idea who I was, but they were still being somewhat hospitable...

He turned away from me and towards the mare behind the desk, the one that had spoke with me earlier. “Notepad, when is my next appointment?” he asked her.

“In about 10 minutes. Tin wanted to speak with you over the radio about that stable pony afterwards, Mr. Mercury.”

I didn’t hear the rest of the conversation, as I had fled as nonsuspiciously as I was able to. They might not have been after me at the moment, but I doubted everything would be sunshine and cupcakes when they found out who I really was, so why risk them learning it. I made it out of the Town Hall without drawing much attention to myself, and was now walking the streets of the town. Night had arrived quickly, blanketing the town in almost tangible darkness. The tavern was not very far from the Town Hall, but being in a town full of Iron Hoof at night was still something that made me a little uneasy.

I trotted up to the door to the tavern and heard shouting.

“Smash her face in!” shouted one of the voices.

“You can take him!” shouted another voice, one I recognized as Aurea.

I flung the door open and ran inside, worrying that my friends were being attacked. I was partially right. A small crowd had formed around two ponies that were fighting each other with their bare hooves. I instantly recognized the two of them. One was Razor, heavy inebriated, the other was the guard from the front gate, looking quite drunk as well. The crowd around them were cheering them on. In the crowd was Aurea, shouting cheers at Razor and jeers at the buck. A bit away from the circle was Pin, sitting alone at one of the tables, most of which had been moved to make room for the fight. She drank from a bottle, which was likely whiskey. Odd, she usually mixes Sparkle-Cola in her drink.

I sat down in the seat next to her. “Alright, what the hell is going on?” I asked.

“Razor got drunk, then the guard from the gate came in. She challenged him to a drinking contest, and then it eventually degraded into a fighting contest,” she replied tiredly. “Aurea is taking bets if you want to make some caps.”

“And did you think to stop this?” I asked.

“Didn’t really care to. Better that Razor fights a willing opponent rather than she attacks somepony and gets us in trouble. I have 50 caps on Razor winning. Went with the safe bet.”

“Right...” I looked over to the crowd that had formed. I managed to see bits of the fight.

Razor had taken down the buck and was now stomping on his ribs. The guard managed to kick her back, giving him enough time to get back on his hooves. Both of them were a bit shaky as they stood, though whether it was because of their alcohol consumption or because of their wounds, I wasn’t sure. Razor ran and tackled the buck, but he backhoofed her in the face, causing drops of blood to gush from her mouth. She twisted and knocked him back to the ground, causing one of his legs to make a small cracking sound. He managed to give her a full kick with both back legs, sending her flying into one of the tables. Razor looked up, bleeding from many of the large splinters in her sides. Her horn started to glow.

“Hey Razor, try not to kill him, okay?” I shouted. She responded by grumbling something inaudible, but her horn stopped glowing. The last thing we needed was to be arrested for murder.

“Ha, you think that little bitch can take down Riot Shield? He’s head of Mercury’s security force!” laughed one of the ponies in the crowd.

My answer to this was interrupted by a loud crack, followed by an “Ooh” from the crowd, as Razor brought her hoof down on the poor buck’s face, hard. Hard enough to knock him out. A silence rose from the crowd for a few moments.

“Ha! I told you she’d win!” shouted Aurea, breaking the silence.

The majority of the crowd dispersed, while a few of the ponies remained to collect their winnings from the griffin. From the looks of it, most of the crowd didn’t think that Razor would win. This was a fair call, seeing as the buck was much larger than her. What they didn’t account for was that Razor was incredibly drunk. The pony from the crowd walked by our table with a scowl on his face as he and another pony carried the unconscious guard outside. Hopefully we would be out of town before there were any repercussions to this.

Razor laid on the ground, not moving. A small amount of blood pooled around her. Aurea was sorting out caps and giving them to a few of the ponies who had bet on Razor winning.

I looked at Pin, who was not really paying attention to the events. “Shouldn’t we help her?” I asked.

“Probably,” she replied before taking a drink from her bottle of alcohol.

“Are you going to?” I asked after waiting a moment.

“Ugh, fine,” she sighed as she set down the bottle and rose from the chair. We walked over to the ‘victor’ of the fight. Pin began poking and prodding her, occasionally stopping to ask a question. Eventually she arrived at a conclusion. “Several broken ribs, her jaw might have been fractured, and she is going to have one hell of a hangover when she wakes up,” she said as she plucked a syringe from her wing and injected it into the collapsed Razor. “Med-X will dull the pain as I reset the ribs, but this is still going to hurt a little.” She pressed her hooves down on Razor’s chest and I heard a small crack as the rib was popped back to where it once was. I also heard Razor screaming every profanity I had ever heard, along with a few new ones. “Yeah, lied about it only hurting a little.” She pulled a healing potion out of her pack. “Drink this and you should be fine.”

Razor grumbled something as the bottle became enveloped in her magic. She drank the contents and her wounds began to seal. The cut on her jaw scarred over, a few droplets of blood still fresh on the coat around it. The injured mare looked up at me.

“So much for not drawing attention to ourselves,” I grumbled as I stared down at her. She just gave me a drunken grin, which I noticed was missing a tooth now. I looked over to the counter, where Hospitality was happily serving drinks to the remaining crowd that the fight had brought in. “I’m sorry for my idiot friend.”

“Oh, no problem at all. This is the largest crowd I’ve had since I opened this place,” replied the buck as he took caps from ponies and set drinks down. “Of course, you will have to pay for damages.”

“No problem, just add it to the bill,” I replied. He nodded in response and returned to his work. I turned back to Pin. “I’m turning in for the night.”

“Right. I’ve got winnings to collect,” replied Pin as she trotted over to Aurea.

“Great, I pissed her off somehow,” I mumbled to myself as I walked back to the room.

I woke up and found myself in the same room I had fallen asleep in. Okay, so I wasn’t captured in my sleep. I glanced around the room and found that the only other pony in the room was Pin. No assailants waiting until I woke up to kill me. I turned my eyes to the floor. No land mines or other traps for me to trigger when I walk be. Okay, either they didn’t know who we were, or they were waiting for us outside.

I got to my hooves, careful not to wake Pin as I got out of the bed. I picked up my packs from the floor. I checked the revolver, and indeed it was fully loaded. If they attacked, I would be ready. I checked the bags and confirmed that nothing had been stolen in my sleep.

I crept into the hallway. Nopony was there. The doors to Aurea’s and Razor’s rooms were shut. I had no idea if Razor was actually there, but hopefully Aurea or Pin ensured that she wouldn’t cause further trouble. I continued on to the bar.

“Ah, look who is up early!” called the unicorn behind the bar. Hospitality was the only pony in the whole room other than me. “Now, there is the matter of your bill...” he said as he levitated a scrap piece of paper with writing on it.

“FIVE THOUSAND CAPS?!?” I shouted. This was outrageous! “You can’t be serious!”

“Rooms here are expensive, because you are paying for the very best the wasteland has to offer. And your friend said that you would be willing to pay for her drinks. The rest of it is for damages your friend caused,” he replied sternly.

“Yes, and if I remember correctly, in the act of causing those damages, she also brought in more customers than you have ever had before,” I countered. “Surely we should be entitled to a discount of some sort.”

He paused for a second and seemed to think it over. “Fine,” he grumbled. “I’ll take off five hundred caps from your bill, but I expect you to pay the rest in full.”

I begrudgingly accepted the offer. I had no real choice in the matter. It was either pay, or risk trouble with the guards, and by extension the whole of the Iron Hoof. I counted out four thousand five hundred caps and gave it to the greedy buck. Well, that was pretty much all of my money. I had a few hundred left, but it wasn’t much.

“Damn it!” came a shout from the hallway. “Why is she so impossible to wake up?” grumbled Aurea as she dragged Razor into the bar by her back legs. The unicorn snored quite loudly as she was being pulled, but gave no indication of waking up anytime soon.

“How much for a glass of water? Doesn’t matter if it is clean,” I said to the bartender.

“Heh heh, no charge my friend,” he laughed as he floated a glass of murky water over to me. He set it down on the bar and I picked it up with my magic. It hovered over to the sleeping mare, and then it quickly turned over, dumping the contents on the unsuspecting victim.

“Agh!” sputtered Razor as the blast of questionably consumable water spilled on her face, choking her a little. “Can’t you assholes find any other way to wake me up?” she growled as she shook her head angrily.

“We’ve tried other methods, most of them don’t work and none of them are as funny,” I chuckled. Razor kicked my front leg in response. “Ow,” I yelped. Damn, she could kick hard.

“You three are loud,” complained Pin as she walked into the room. She raised a hoof up to her eye and rubbed it. Then she looked towards me, annoyance apparent in her face. “Are we ready to go yet?”

“I’m ready,” chimed in the griffin.

“Ugh, do we have to leave right now? My head is killing me!” whined Razor. The look the three of us gave her answered her question, so she shakily rose to her hooves and stumbled off in the direction of her room. She emerged a few minute later with her gear on her back. “Alright, I’m ready I guess,” she grumbled.

The four of us departed the bar and began our way to the the gate of the town. Our original trek through the town met us with strange looks from onlookers and whispers from ponies that watched as we passed. Now, a few ponies stopped and waved a hoof at Razor in greeting. One mare even offered to buy us a round of drinks at the bar. Just what the hell happened while I was away?

As we came to the gate, one of the guards begrudgingly opened it to allow us to leave. We exited the town and passed by the security buck, Riot Shield was his name I think. His face was bandaged, and a few of his teeth were chipped and missing. His right eye was almost swollen shut. He mumbled something I couldn’t hear as we passed, but Razor took this opportunity to stick her tongue out at him. She was the epitome of maturity and intelligence.

With the town of Platinum Springs at our backs, we set off towards the Robronco factory. We would be able to reach the factory later that day. As we ventured onwards, I had one burning thought in my mind, one undeniable fact.

Walking sucked.
=====================================================================

Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk: Lunar Blessing- You have come to enjoy the night, especially now that it actually means something since you left the Stable. You feel smarter and more aware when it is night.

(I would like to thank Kkat for writing Fallout Equestria, one of the best stories I have read, and I would like to thank Somber for writing Project Horizons, another great tale. I would also like to thank Melon Hunter for reviewing the chapter and submitting suggestions.)