Darkness.

I awoke and was greeted by darkness. I felt some sort of cloth across my eyes, blocking my sight. I tried to move my legs but found them restrained. The pain in my chest was bleeding through the numbness spell. I could feel my right leg was injured too, although not so severely.

“Uh oh, looks like he is waking up again.” The voice of a mare, sounding somewhat harsh. I imagined it was the pegasus filly that had found me, though I can’t say why. “Hit him with another blast of that spell.”

A second voice answered her. “You know I can’t do that. Too much anesthesia and he might not wake up.” This voice was calm and wise. The unicorn who knocked me out? “Give him a little bit of Med-X, I’m almost finished.”

I felt a pressure on my leg, followed by the loss of the pain in my chest. More comfortable, I tried to speak but found that my numbed mouth filled with a rag. What were these two doing to me?

A few minutes passed. Each time I tried to struggle against my bindings, I was met with a hoof pressed against my legs, keeping them in place.

“Damnit, hold still,” the buck said, his voice sounding agitated. “You don’t want me to nick an artery, do you?” At that, I stopped trying to free myself. I realized why my chest felt so strange. It was cut open.

Was this some form of raider torture? No, they gave me drugs to numb the pain. Raiders wouldn’t care about how much pain I was in, and they certainly wouldn’t give me any drugs. Beside, the two that had found me didn’t look like raiders. Not that I’d have known. Just what were these two up to?

I tried to speak through the rag again. “What are you doing to me?” was what I wanted to say, but what came out was incoherent babble. Regardless, it seemed to convey my distress.

“Calm down, we are medics.” said the filly’s voice. I didn’t have much experience with wasteland healing methods, but in the Stable they would give you a dose of Med-X and some healing potion and would send you back to work. Cutting a pony open didn’t really sound like a way to heal a pony.

“We found you at the doorstep of our clinic,” said the calmer voice. “It was really a miracle you are alive. Broken ribs, bits of shrapnel in you, inexpertly removed buckshot which tore through a minor vein and some of which were still in your chest, and a rifle round that ripped a massive hole in your leg. Admittedly, you were better off with them still inside, but still.”

First day in the wasteland, and I had almost died. That said great things about my future.

“Sorry about all the restraints. Most ponies that find their way onto my operating table struggle, or worse. After that one griffin tried to attack us halfway through a procedure, I always take the cautionary step.”

I felt a tingling in my chest, similar to that of a healing potion but subtly different. I felt my chest close again, my body warming. My leg had begun to feel better as well. Whatever they were using, it worked like magic. The restraints on my legs loosened, the rag in my mouth was taken out, and the blindfold was removed. I blinked a bit before opening my eyes and looking at my surroundings.

I lay in a clinic, much like the Stables but decayed. The table I lay on was covered in a thin film, but beneath and all around was a thickened layer of blood. Two ponies stood nearby. As I’d guessed, they were the two that I saw before being knocked out. I rose off the table and set my hooves on the ground. My back leg still ached and my chest was sore but I was undoubtedly in better condition than I was on arrival.

The unicorn towered over me, a stallion of high stature for a unicorn. His coat was white, stained in a few places by bloodstains from the recent operation. His mane was a deep red, though a few streaks of dark grey indicated his age. I saw that his right foreleg wasn’t covered in metal, it was metal. He was levitating a scalpel, lowering it to his metal leg and I was surprised to see a little hatch open, storing the knife within. His cutie mark was a medical cross, with a stitch running across it diagonally.

The pegasus wore a surgical mask over her face, but I could see her golden eyes easily standing out against her black coat. Her mane was dark grey, barely a few shades lighter than her coat, but held a red streak. She was of surprisingly small stature, but while her size might suggest it, her shape was that of a pony fully grown. Her mark was a pair of syringes forming an X.

“My name is Needlepoint,” said the buck. “This is my little sister, Pinprick.” Ok, sibling doctors. Unexpected. Sibling doctors that were a pegasus and a unicorn, very unexpected.

“I’m Live Wire,” I managed to say past the chest pain.

“Yes, your companion already told us,” said Needlepoint. “Now if you'll excuse me, I must tend to her as well. You were the more dire case, but I can not let myself leave a pony wounded.” He walked out the doors of the room.

“You a Stable pony?” Even if she looked like a filly, Pinprick had the scalding tone of an adult doctor.

“Yeah...”

“Why did you leave?”

“What?”

“Why would you leave a Stable to go to a place like this? No sane pony would ever want to live in the wasteland without a reason. So why?” She had a hint of aggressiveness in her tone.

“Our stable ran on unicorn magic. Without the magic, the Stable would die. My brother decided to steal parts to the device we used to power the Stable, and then he fled to the wasteland. Now I am out here looking for him.”

She looked at me for a second, seemingly lost in thought. “Was he a unicorn buck with a dark grey coat? Black mane? Crossed wires for a cutie mark?” I nodded at each of the questions. “Yeah, I think I saw him pass by a few hours ago. I was flying outside the clinic, trying to see if I could pick off any of the raiders. He and a group of other ponies were traveling through, just outside the ruins.”

We trotted out of the operating room and into a series of hallways. The mare took lead, showing me through the winding path of the clinic. She regaled me with stories of her time in the wasteland. One thing I learned was that she had a fondness for poisons. Another thing I learned, she was somewhat psychotic. Luckily for me, that insanity was primarily directed at raiders and those she deemed ‘bad ponies.’

“-and that was how I learned to hide syringes among my feathers,” she said as she dug into her wing with her teeth and produced a syringe, it was full of a greenish fluid. “Radsnake venom. Potent stuff. Wouldn’t want this getting in your bloodstream.” Her cheer as she said this was a bit disturbing.

“Isn’t it dangerous to be carrying syringes around like that? What if they fall out when you fly? Or if you accidentally inject some into yourself?”

“Years of practicing, I learned how to keep them from falling out. As for the poisons, I am mostly immune to them. Really interesting story, dates back to my days as a filly in the wasteland. Short version: I was an adventurous filly, always accidentally wandering into a nest of radscorpions or radsnakes. My mother was a medical pony, and she would always cure me. When I became a medical pony, I would always inject small doses of poisons and venoms into myself, building up an immunity to most of them. For the more dangerous ones, I always keep antivenom on me as well. Years of poison use did stunt my growth some.” She blushed a little when she talked about her height, her eyes looking at the ground as she walked.

“What is it that you and your brother actually do?”

“We are traveling medics, just like our mother was before she passed. We help as many ponies as we can, healing the sick and injured. But my brother is a bleeding heart, insisting that we help even the scum that live around here. ‘They are ponies too’ he always says. Most of the time, they try to attack us as soon as we are finished, or end up stealing medical supplies from us. We usually end up just having to deal with them anyway. Serves them right though. Bastards like them killed our mother and who knows how many other good ponies. I have no idea how Needles is able to trust them so easily, really. Doesn’t mean he won’t kill them if they try to hurt somepony.”

We entered through a doorway that lead to what was likely the main lobby. Razor lay on the floor. Needles stood over her, his horn glowing, closing her wounds as it passed near. It must be nice to have more than two spells...

“Hey, look who still walks among us,” said the scarred mare. I had never seen her without her barding on before. I hadn’t realized the extent of her scars. Her cutie mark was indistinguishable, both sides were covered with scars that hid whatever it once was. How a pony could become that injured and survive is beyond me.

“Normally, I would suggest a few days of bed rest after going through surgery, but the wasteland rarely allows for such niceties.” said the buck. “Just try not to reopen your wounds. And please don’t make me regret saving you. You have no idea how many patients do.”

Pinprick interrupted that train of thought. “So where are you two headed? Going to chase down your brother and throttle him for the machine pieces?”

“South, likely Circus.” Said Razor. Volt’s PipBuck signal was still very far South, so Circus was as good a place as any to head for.

“Huh, we were going to head there ourselves,” Needlepoint said.

“Really? I thought you two had a base here or something,” said Razor.

“No, we’re just passing through. Decided to stay at the clinic one night, woke up the next with a group of raiders milling about outside it. Each time we tried to leave, they would force us back in,” said Needles in his calm tone. “That is until you two cleared them out. Wouldn’t mind having some protection from bandits along the way.” I saw Razor wince at the word bandit, but the medics didn’t notice.

“You two likely saved my life, least we can do to repay you,” I said giving Razor a meaningful look. I wasn’t sure how good I was at being a bodyguard, but certainly it would be better than letting these ponies brave the wasteland themselves. Besides, having trained doctors by your side when you get shot wouldn’t be a bad idea.

As it turns out, Needles was just as strong as he looked. He pulled the three of us, along with many boxes full of fresh medical supplies, on a cart. Whether due to his mechanical leg or high earth pony-like strength, he never seemed to tire out.

The path was mostly clear. A few wandering raiders thought they might take a stab at us, but we were armed with the ‘new’ rifles claimed from raider corpses. I was hardly skilled with the long-arm, but then again the raiders didn’t really try to dodge. S.A.T.S. took care of most of them and well aimed shots from Razor took out what I missed.

We were both well armed, maybe a bit too well armed. I had a shotgun, a few pistols, and a new rifle. I also had the Overmare’s revolver, but I had little ammo for it. Razor had a shotgun and a rifle she took from the raiders, along with the pistol she’d had when I met her. She also had a fair weight of explosive in her pack. And yet, over-armed as we seemed, it wasn’t a surprising amount for the wasteland.

Pinprick would occasionally take to the sky to scout ahead, while Needlepoint would just keep pulling us along. We had been traveling for hours, I thought. My sense of time was off however; it always had been. I’d never had to judge time without a clock in the Stable. The changing light in the sky was my only reference, and even then I didn’t know the exact time that had passed.

The pegasus swooped down and landed on the wagon. “It is starting to get late,” she said to her brother. “There is a building a little while away, looked empty.”

The unicorn turned his head slightly to respond. “Alright. I wouldn’t mind taking a break for the night.” I had no idea how he had enough energy to even pull the cart this far.

“Not like we have a choice really. Bloodwings around here get really bad at night,” said Razor.

The building looked like it had once been a store of some variety. A small stream ran by it, my PipBuck clicked when we drew close to it. The lower floor was saturated with irradiated water. I didn’t think that staying here would be a wise choice, but the three wastelanders had no qualms with entering.

“Radiation ain’t so bad when it’s just water. Just make sure you stay dry and stay a bit away from it and you should be fine. Besides, the docs have plenty of RadAway,” said Razor, catching me looking worriedly at the meter on my PipBuck.

“Well, yes. We do have supplies, but we would like to not waste them. Please refrain from taking in too much unnecessary radiation,” said Needles.

I cautiously checked E.F.S. Hopefully we wouldn’t be ambushed by raiders for the hundredth time today. Aside from the yellow of my companions, it was all clear. Needles entered the building first. If the floor could hold him, we were good.

The building had been picked through very thoroughly; only a few miscellaneous items, likely skipped over in favor of more valuable ones, lay in the wreckage. What appeared to be an office was in the back of the building. “This will do,” said Razor as she trotted into the room and began clearing a spot for herself.

“I’ll take first watch,” said the partially mechanical unicorn.

I followed the two into the room. “Does he ever sleep?” I asked Pinprick.

“Every few days. Needle’s had quite a few augmentations over the years,” she responded in her naturally aggressive tone. Ok, cyber-unicorn doctor. “I think the reason why he tries to help everypony is because he doesn’t want to lose himself. Like, if he cares for other ponies, it means he isn’t a machine.” That was fairly insightful. “That, or his robo-heart doesn’t pump enough oxygen to his brain.” And there was normality.

I lay down on a cleared spot. I doubted I would be able to sleep after all the things I had experienced today. They began to replay in my head.

I reported to my shift as usual. Dead Volt worked the next shift. The power in the Stable began to go out. Volt showing up at my room, telling me that he was the one who had sabotaged the generator, then knocking me out. Waking up to find the Stable in panic mode. Killing a pony for the first time in my life, then killing another two shortly after. Leaving the Stable. Getting attacked by bloatsprites. Saving Razor and Sugar Cakes from that hellhound. Killing Sugar Cakes. Razor joining me on my quest to find Volt. Killing all those raiders. Waking up on an operating table. Joining Pinprick and Needlepoint on their journey to Circus. What a day.

These thoughts circled through my mind as I began to drift off to sleep.

Everything around me was grey. There was no sound.

The sight before me was one of pure terror. Megaspells were raining down from the sky, balefire was scorching the land. Ponies were fleeing a city, it was now almost entirely obliterated.

Another blast hit the city, this time closer to the waves of fleeing ponies. Many were swept up in the explosion while others were killed instantly. I turned my head and began to run ahead, not daring to look back at the city.

I was knocked down by one of the ponies behind me; they had bumped into me in their panic. I was nearly trampled by the rushing herd, but managed to return to my hooves. I continued forward, not stopping despite my pain.

Suddenly, another explosion hit ahead of us. The blast quickly reached me, then everything went white.

I heard a voice from somewhere in the white abyss, faint, but understandable. “It is time to wake up, Live Wire. You have so much to do in so little time.” I tried to respond but the void was flooded with darkness.

“Hey, get up you lazy bum,” said a familiarly agitated voice accompanied by a hoof prodding my side.

“Pin, leave him alone,” said the other doctor. “I am pretty sure this is just his first day in the wasteland.”

“Yeah, well he is going to make us wait for another hour I bet.” She gave me another jab in the ribs.

“Patience, little sister.”

I opened my eyes with a grumble. I had been used to having bad dreams in the Stable, but mainly they involved things that pertained to the Stable. This dream was different. The little pegasus was standing over me, still poking me. “Grah...” I mumbled trying to rise to my hooves, only to find them aching painfully. I slumped back to the floor.

“You ok?” said Razor from somewhere off to the side.

“My legs are killing me, my whole body is hurting,” I groaned.

“Ugh, we don’t have time for this,” grumbled Pinprick. She raised her left wing and snatched a syringe in her teeth. She plunged the needle into my side,and the medicine began to work quickly. The pain I felt in my legs subsided, my chest relaxed.

“Probably post-operation pain. Give your body time to heal fully, and you will be fine,” said Needles.

“Bluh, couldn’t you just cast a spell or give me something stronger?” I moaned.

“Even magic has its limits. We can heal the wound, but it needs time to fix some of the pain. We can numb you, but then you would just be deadweight most of the trip,” the little mare said as she spit the empty syringe into a wastebasket near the desk.

“Circus is still a few days travel away,” chimed in Razor. She was standing outside the office strapping on her saddlebags. She picked up the rifle in her magic, slinging it across her back for easy access. “And we don’t want to be traveling at night.”

I checked my PipBuck for Volt’s signal as I climbed into the wagon. It was even further south. I wondered how long the Stable could run on reserve power. A few days, maybe a week? Then how long would it be before they either died in the Stable or were forced into the wasteland, only to be killed by a wandering hellhound, or to be enslaved by a group of Slavers. I had been lucky when I left the Stable, I had weapons and supplies to last a few days. The Stable’s resources would not adequately cover the entire Stable trying to journey into the wasteland.

I had to hurry and find Volt. He’d gotten what he wanted; the Overmare was dead and he was free of the Stable. There was no reason to keep the gems though, especially when everypony might die...

My thoughts were interrupted by a gunshot, accompanied by the bloom of red dots appearing on my E.F.S.

* * *

“This was a terrible idea!” I shouted, ducking behind a wall to avoid the gunfire. I levitated a pistol around the corner and fired down the single street of the town we had been caught in. Two buildings ahead, a raider popped his head out a broken window on the second floor. I activated S.A.T.S., but my shots missed the pony, instead tearing into the drapery which had hid his presence only seconds previous.

Razor was mirroring me on the other side of the street. She fired twice, then spun back as small bursts appeared in the ground at her hooves. She noticed me and yelled across, “Stay there and stay alive!” I waved a hoof in affirmative, to which Razor rolled her eyes. She turned to fire at some enemy outside my line of vision.

Between use, in the shelter of the hastily upturned cart, were Needles and Pinprick. Needles was doing his best to keep low enough to stay safe, but the raiders on the second roof had an angle to deep to block entirely. A bullet ricocheted off his leg, alerting him to the continued target his size presented. Pinprick gave him a look and said sarcastically, “Fine, you can have my spot.” With that, she was off to the sky.

A nearby wizz brought me back to my own feeble cover. I turned out again and triggered my now recharged S.A.T.S., looking for a suitable target. A raider exiting into the road had his side to me, and a lucky pair of bullets dropped him in the doorway. Now if the others would just do the same...

“Grenade!” Somewhere high above, Pinprick was flying as air support. Her yell, coming of seemingly nowhere, gave Razor the heads up she needed to grab the metal apples and return it through the window. The fire holding me down ended abruptly as the gun and hoof holding it fell down the side of the house, minus the pony from earlier.

Freed from immediate danger, I checked on Needlepoint again. The stallion seemed to had had enough with the small arms fire that constantly zipped hoof-lengths from his hide. With an annoyed snort, he got to his feet and ran around the wagon, heading for the house from earlier. A shot chopped his tail, and another passed just under his belly, but the Stallion made it into the doorway, stomping his metal hoof into the head of my target. I put all doubts aside as to whether that pony would be a recurring threat.

A dark blur alerted me to the continued presence of Pinprick. The dark pegasus was quick, moving like a blur. She dropped low to dispatch a raider with a small weapon of sorts. It looked like a pistol that had been customized to fire syringes. She was deadly accurate with it, taking down a raider with a precise shot to the neck. It was scary how effective of an assassin she was.

Razor waved to get my attention. “We’re going to have to move up to support Needle! I dunno what he’s thinking, running in there alone, but the pegasus won’t be able to help him if he stays inside that building. I’m going to run up, give me some covering fire!”

I reloaded before nodding. I popped up, checking for any obvious targets, when I noticed the moving statue. A metal pony, robot? “Razor?” I turned to see her already scampering. The metal pony turned toward her and the box at its side lit up. Rockets powered across the street, hitting Razor and the wall she ran past. “RAZOR!”

* * *

“Why did you insist on taking the route closest to this raider camp?” said Needles as he slammed his mechanical hoof down on one of the raiders. “We might have been able to avoid them!” A pistol round pinged off his metal leg as he spoke.

“Grenade!” she shouted as one of the metal orbs flew at us. She managed to catch it in her magic and send it flying back. It exploded behind the wall a small group of raiders had clustered behind, killing them easily.

I had lost track of Pinprick.

Needlepoint disdained the use of guns. Instead, he would simply kick the raiders, or crush their bones with a quick stomp. I saw how devastating an anesthetic spell could be. It knocked out the raiders that got close to him, and he would then use a well placed kick to kill them.

The cyber pony was very durable. He had shaken off a point blank shotgun blast like it was nothing. Blood trickled down the side he was hit from, but the wounds seemed to close by themselves, slower than a healing potion, but faster than natural healing should allow. The raider that had shot him was much more squishy, taking a powerful kick from the mechanical leg. Blood poured onto the ground from what had once been a face.

“There have to be at least a dozen of them!” I shouted again. “Still hating this plan!” Originally, there had only been about three or four dots on E.F.S., but as soon as we attacked the small group of raiders, more dots appeared. Maybe they were out of range? Or worse, they had some way of hiding from the detection spell.

“I count at least fifteen,” said the doctor.

“That is not very reassuring!” Another raider went down, this time because of my shotgun. The pistol was useful for long range, and I was more well trained with it than the rifle, but neither was as powerful as the shotgun at close range.

I heard a soft ‘pft’ and turned to see a raider fall down dead only a few feet from me, a syringe sticking out of his neck. I caught a glance of the pegasus as she darted from a rooftop. She glided behind the enemy, still wielding the weapon in her mouth. I had no idea how earth ponies and pegasi were able to use mouth-held weapons so effectively.

Only a few raiders remained. A good number had been taken out by the grenade. A few more were killed by the gunfire, some by the medics’ unorthodox methods of attack.

One of the raiders emerged from a building, wearing what looked like full metal barding, along with some sort of device on his back. Attached to the device was a metal tube that-oh crap.

“Look out!” I shouted as the rocket launcher fired. The rocket flew across the battlefield, directly towards us. Luckily, it missed hitting us directly, but some of the shrapnel the explosion created hit us. Minor wounds, they could wait.

I levitated the rifle, aimed at the armour clad raider and fired a few shots. They pinged off his armour without much more than a dent. Well, this sucked.

Another raider levitated a rocket into the launcher, reloading it for his ally. It fired again and this time I ducked behind a wall as the rocket hit dangerously close to my previous position. I had to keep moving; those rockets were too slow to hit me if I move. I hoped.

I kicked on S.A.T.S. without the intent of firing at all. The time stopping effect of the spell allowed me a moment to think and study my adversary.

I recognized the type of armour he was using. I had seen it in some of the newspaper clippings that decorated my room in the Stable. Steel Ranger power armour. I had always been interested in the Steel Rangers, since I was a colt. I knew a lot about their armour and weapons. I also knew that they were some of the toughest soldiers in Equestria. If one was firing at us... not good.

His armour was much too powerful for anything we had on us. It had no openings, even at the joints, so Pinprick wouldn’t be very useful. Our small weapons wouldn’t do anything against the armour, as I’d shown, so Razor and I were useless. Needles might be able to punch through with his mechanical hoof, but that was unlikely. He would probably be paste before he even got close.

Think! What do I know about ranger armour?

It is durable, but heavy. It has built-in S.A.T.S. and E.F.S. along with a medicine applying system. Controlling those, and running the suit’s servos and sensors, is a spell matrix like the one found in a Pipbuck.

That gave me an idea.

“Pin! Distract him, I have an idea!” I shouted.

The dark blur flew in front of the ranger, a few syringes pinged off his armour as she flew by. The raider ranger shifted his attention to the mare, but she was too fast to be hit by a rocket. That didn’t stop him from trying, in vain.

I dropped the rifle. I needed my entire focus in order to do this quickly. My horn began to glow, sparks began to crackle. The ranger didn’t seem to notice as he fired another rocket into the air in an attempt to hit the mare. I felt the spell reached sufficient charge, I fired it in the direction of the ranger.

A unicorn next to the ranger gave a shout, but the bolt hit before he could turn. The ranger was hit full force by the spell, knocking him to the ground in a quivering mess. That was a side effect of what I intended, but it worked. His armour locked up.

One thing I knew about a spell matrix was how easily they could crash with enough electrical force. PipBuck repair ponies in the Stable would usually deal with a matrix crash from somepony in maintenance usually once a day. It wasn’t really seen as much of a problem, as the PipBucks were not essential for life in the Stable, and a repair pony could easily fix that.

In the wasteland, repair ponies are scarce. While a PipBuck going offline may leave you with a disadvantage, you can usually survive. When your entire armour’s matrix goes offline, you are stuck in that tin can.

I picked my rifle back up and fired it at the last raider, the one who had kept the Steel Ranger reloaded. She went down with a shot to the chest, likely hitting something vital. The three of us trotted over to the downed ranger, Pinprick landed next to him.

“Well, looks like we have a prisoner,” said Pinprick in a disturbing tone. Right, crazy pony.

“What are we going to do with him?” I asked. I wanted this pony dead. He wasn’t a ranger, he was a raider. He didn’t help ponies, he killed them. But at the same time I didn’t like the idea of killing a defenseless pony.

“I say we just leave him here. Surely a wandering hellhound will enjoy some canned food,” said Razor as she lifted a few tools out of her pack. She began to work on removing the launcher from the ranger’s armour, the pony inside the metal cursing profanities as she stole his armaments.

“No, we can’t risk one of his buddies coming and helping him,” Needles chimed in. I thought he was the kind doctor.

“Maybe we can get some answers from him,” said Pin looking at her brother.

“Just kill me now, I ain’t going to tell you anything, bitch!” shouted the raider from inside the dead armour.

“Crack his visor,” she commanded to the large unicorn. He seemed happy to comply, delivering a kick from the mechanical leg straight to the face of the raider. The visor shattered from the impact, some of the metal crumpled. The raider gave a shout as some of the fragments embedded in his eyes. “Now, if you would be so kind as to tell us a few things. Why did the Steel Rangers attack our settlement?”

The raider gave a moan from inside his armour, “What settlement?”

“Armistice,” she seemed to whisper. Her voice then rose dramatically. “You Steel Ranger bastards attacked us and killed almost everypony in our home! Why? We were no threat to you! We were just doctors and traders! Why would you send your raiders to kill us?” She was shaking with anger.

I heard a soft chuckle from within the armour. “You had an auto-doc. We wanted it. Simple as that.” He began to laugh a little louder. He was a monster, he had no remorse for killing the home of Pinprick and Needlepoint.

“You bastards killed my mother,” she said as she bit down on a syringe from her wing. She walked closer to the laughing ranger.

“GAH!” he shouted. “YOU BITCH!”

She had plunged the syringe into his eye. “You don’t deserve this swift a death.” She pressed down on the plunger, sending the green liquid into the raider’s eye, and into his bloodstream as well.

The raider continued screaming profanities, but eventually just degraded into screaming in pain. The armour gave a few slight movements as the buck inside tried to twitch and spasm, but the constricting and heavy armour hindered these movements. He was dead in seconds.

Razor and I just stared at the little mare. Razor had removed the launcher before the ‘interrogation’ and had it on her back. We were both shocked by the display.

The black mare simply turned to us, her golden eyes conveyed no emotion. “Coming?”

* * *

We rode silently in the back of the cart. I dared not speak to Pinprick, and Razor was just as silent. I don’t know why we stayed with the two medical ponies. Maybe it was out of fear. Maybe it was because some part of us agreed with what she did.

“Sorry you two had to see that,” Pinprick said, breaking the silence. “I just lost it. He began laughing at killing my home. At killing my mother.” A tear trickled down her dark coat.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Razor, regaining her will to speak.

“Needles is my only family because of what happened,” she said as she rubbed her eye with a hoof. “We lost our home, our friends, and all other family. We had nothing left but our medical training, some medicines and other supplies, and a grudge.”

“That is why we are heading to Circus,” Needles called back to us. “It is the last big settlement that openly opposes the Iron Hoof. They can protect us from the Steel Rangers, and maybe we can help them in their fight.”

Pinprick turned back to us. “Ok, I know he is going to Circus to look for his brother, but what about you?” She pointed her hoof at Razor. “What is your story?”

The scarred mare just sighed. “Let me tell you how I got these scars. I was traveling with a small group of traders when a band of raiders decided to attack us. They killed the rest of the group, leaving only me.” Her eyes blue eyes became cold, emotionless. “They took me captive for a week. When they got bored of me, one of the bastards had the bright idea to see how badly they could cut up a pony before they died.”

“Oh Goddesses,” interjected the small mare.

“Yes, it was torture. They started with just a few cuts along my sides. Deep ones.” She turned to show a set of scars. “They were sure to make it slow and painful. Then they moved on to my cutie mark, replacing it with more cuts.” She pointed her hoof at the bundle of scars where her cutie mark would have been. “I was bleeding pretty bad by this point. Luckily, that was when somepony started shooting up the raiders. The ones that were carving me left me there, slowly bleeding out. Then I was rescued by some ponies who took sympathy on me. They gave me some healing potions, but the wounds left scars. They took me in, kept me safe. It wasn’t till later that I found out they were bandits.”

“Did you join them?” asked Pin.

“Didn’t really have a choice. They took me in, they saved me from the raiders. Some of them might have shot me if I tried to stop them or tried to leave. I didn’t like it, but you have to do what you can to survive.” She concealed her self hatred well. “Anyway, one fine day known as yesterday, a manticore popped out of the sky, right in the middle of where we were camped. I took off running, but I was one of the luckier ones. The beast either killed everypony, or scared them off. Then out of nowhere, this guy comes charging in, firing lightning bolt after lightning bolt into the creature. Eventually, it went up in flames, killing it. Then he trotted over to me and cast a healing spell, closing my wounds easily. When Sugar Cakes, a raider wannabe from my group, leapt at him, he caught her with his telekinesis and killed her with a shotgun blast.”

“Has anypony ever told you that your memory isn’t very accurate?” I said.

“Well that’s how I remember it,” she argued. “Anyway, with the bandits dead, I didn’t really have any obligations. Plus, I owe him my life. So I just decided to follow him around.”

“Really, that’s it?” asked Pin.

“Yep.”

“Sure it isn’t because you have a secret crush on him or something?” teased the dark mare.

WHAP. The side of Razor’s hoof came down on the little mare’s head, not enough to cause any real injury, but enough to hurt.

“Ow!” she yelped, rubbing a hoof over the top of her head.

The two of them then began to chuckle. I was frankly disturbed by the fact that they could go from exchanging stories about the terrible things that happened to them, to joking with each other. Ponies in the wasteland sure are weird.

* * *

A few uneventful hours passed. I was grateful for not having to walk to Circus, but Needles walked at a pretty slow pace. The two mares spent time exchanging their stories about the wasteland.

“-and that was where I found the blueprints for this little wonder,” said Pinprick holding the syringe pistol device in her hooves. “Put a little bit of manticore poison in it, and it can paralyze most creatures in a single hit. Or I could use something a little stronger and outright kill them.”

“Ah, I once heard about a griffin using wing blades laced with manticore poison. He was a pretty famous mercenary. He was head of the Talons in this area,” said Razor. Talons, she had told me, were a group of griffin mercenaries. It was a fairly large group, each chapter of Talons had their own leader and rules varied somewhat. “He sort of just dropped off the radar a year or two ago. Wonder what happened to him.”

“He probably got killed. That’s what happens to heroes in the wasteland. Either they become corrupt, or somepony finally takes them down,” said the little mare.

I took a drink from the bottle of Sparkle-Cola. It had a flavor that I was unfamiliar with, likely the ‘carrot’ that the label said. Either way, it was good.

E.F.S. came to life with a lot of red dots. I looked ahead to see where they were coming from. The ruins of a small town greeted my sight. “Hey Needles, slow down. Looks like there might be an ambush up ahead.”

He slowed the cart to a stop. “How are we going to go about this?” he asked nopony in particular.

“Well, this is the quickest way to our destination. Going around is going to take forever, and it would risk running into more raiders,” mused Pinprick. “Of course, if the ambush is bad enough, we might just have to go around.” She sat there a second. “How about I fly over there, scout it out, and then report what I find?”

“I don’t know, sounds kind of dangerous,” said Needles as he removed himself from the harnesses.

“They won’t even see me coming,” she said as she took to the sky.

“Damnit, Pin. She was always an impatient filly.”

She ascended in the sky for a few seconds, reaching an ideal altitude. Then she glided over the city, lowering slightly to view the area better.

KRAKOW!

A gunshot that sounded like a cannon roared through the wasteland, originating from the city. The black form in the sky jerked suddenly, then dived down at an angle, heading straight for the city.

“PIN!” shouted the buck as he took off for the city as fast as his legs would take him. We followed behind him, but he was much faster than us.

=====================================================================
Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk: Egghead- You will add +2 skill points each time you gain a new experience level.
(I would like to thank Kkat for writing Fallout Equestria, one of the best stories I have read, and I would like to thank Fillyosopher, Melon Hunter, and Tonto the Trotter for all assisting me in the rewrite.)