Daylight.

It was something I was still not used to. After years of living in the dull synthetic lighting of Stable 7, my eyes have yet to adjust completely. My companions tried to explain that the permanent overcast actually made the wasteland rather dim most of the time, but I still think it was too bright. I remedied this problem with the purchase of a pair of welding goggles from one of the shops back at Circus. They would shield my eyes from both harmful brightness and harmful shrapnel.

We had been traveling for a few hours, making good time. Whisper had told us, or rather, told me and then I relayed to the others that the caravan was supposed to be passing through our destined location in a few days, so we didn’t have time to waste.

Strangely, we encountered very few raiders. I assumed it was because we were fairly close to Circus, and a few of the Laughingstocks cleared them out. Either that, or we were just lucky. Though I doubted we could really be this lucky.

“-and then he smashed the raider’s skull in with the barrel of his rifle,” said Pin as she finished some long story about a mercenary she worked with. I wasn’t really paying attention to all of her tales. She seemed to have one for just about any scenario.

“Speaking of raiders, where are they?” I asked. The other three in the back of the wagon just looked at me confused. “I mean, on our way here, we couldn’t go two steps without one of them attacking us. Now, it has been almost an hour since the last one, and he was just a loner with a combat knife in his mouth.”

“Yeah, it is strange,” agreed Razor. “Surely the wasteland couldn’t have run out of raiders already.”

“They are plotting,” said the small voice in my head. “There is a small group of them following us, just outside the detection range of E.F.S., but I can still occasionally hear them. They likely won’t attack until they think out guard is down.”

“Whisper says there is a small group of them following us.” Razor just rolled her eyes, likely thinking something along the lines or ‘freaky Laughingstock powers’, while Pin looked at the empty horizon that was behind us.

“That’s odd,” said Razor. “Raiders aren’t normally the type for planning. They mostly just run straight at you with their weapons out, some are even smart enough to seek cover.”

“I will do a flyby and see how many we are dealing with,” began Pin. She stood up and extended her wings out, but they retracted in pain as she tried to lift herself up. “Gah, still not healed enough to be in the air.”

“Likely for the best,” said Needles, breaking his usual silence as he pulled the cart. “The last time you tried to scout the enemy, you winded up with a hole through one wing and broken bones in the other.”

“I hate being grounded. A pegasus that can’t fly is like a unicorn without their magic,” she grumbled as she sat back down.

“Hear anything that might explain what they are up to?” asked Razor. She looked at the small colt for a second, then shifted her gaze to me, expecting an answer.

“Not much. I can tell that they aren’t just random raiders. They are Iron Hoof. Other than that, I can’t tell.”

“He says that all he can tell is that they are Iron Hoof,” I relayed.

“Good. That means that I can enjoy putting needles in their eyes,” said the dark mare in a grim tone with a disturbing smile. She could really scare me sometimes.

“No. We are not going to take unnecessary risks,” said the unicorn pulling the cart. “Not any more...”

Pin just harshly sighed in return. I could tell that they still had yet to resolve their differences brought about by this journey. I felt a little bad for causing this, though I expected that it was something that wasn’t entirely my fault. Pin would become angry over her brother’s overprotectiveness, and he would become irritated at her as well. Fights between siblings were a common thing, I had first hand experience with them thanks to Volt’s constant scheming.

“So what are we going to do? Just sit here and wait for them to overrun us?” retorted the small mare.

“We don’t even know how many there are. Attacking them would just get us killed.”

“I think I might have a solution,” interjected the unicorn mare as she levitated a rocket into the launcher. She bought more ammo for it I guess.

“Why do we let her come up with ideas?” I yelled at nopony in particular.

“Shut up! It took out almost a third of their squad!” yelled back the voice of Razor from behind the rubble that had once been our cart. “How was I supposed to know they had rockets as well?” She popped her head over the cart and fired a round from the floating rifle into the head of one of the raiders.

Razor had fired a volley of rockets at the locations where Whisper had told me the raiders were hiding. What we did not expect was there to be almost twenty raiders and two steel rangers, one of which wore a launcher on his armor. They fired at the cart, and had turned it into rubble. Luckily, the only injuries we sustained were minor, although Needles had been battered heavily by the shrapnel of the cart he had been pulling. Judging from the raider that laid on the ground with a crushed skull, Needles was feeling better.

The rangers that had attacked us wore the standard issue power armor, and were thankfully not Deltas. Regardless, they were still tough enemies. The constant explosions that hit the area around us verified their continued aggression towards us. If the Iron Hoof was sending out hit squads, we obviously did something right.

The soft sound of the syringe pistol was playing beside me as Pin took down three...four...five raiders with it. I had managed to purchase a fair amount of ammo for the revolver, and it seemed to be the most useful. Razor had tried to use Can Opener (Goddesses, was I referring to it by name now?) but the raiders quickly opened fire on her as she tried to take aim on one of the rangers. We would have to thin the ranks of the raiders before we would have an opening.

I peeked my head out from behind the rock I took cover behind. I entered S.A.T.S. to survey the enemy ranks. Roughly ten raiders and the two rangers. I fired a shot into one of the raiders that was trying to snipe Razor, taking out the majority of his chest cavity in doing so. I also attempted to fire on the shotgun wielding raider, but the shot missed completely. I lamented the waste of an expensive bullet, but quickly resumed firing on the enemy.

A shot from one of the raiders hit me square in the chest. Thankfully, I was right about my new barding being able to stop a bullet. That didn’t stop it from hurting though. I turned to the raider, a lavender earth pony mare wielding a pistol in her mouth. A shot from the revolver dealt with her. I popped fresh bullets into the chamber, and resumed firing on the other raiders.

Another raider fell to the ground, blood spewing from her throat after the surgical tool had made short work of it. Then another fell when the poison that a syringe in his leg had provided had finally caught up with him. One had their head receive a new opening thanks to Razor, while a fourth simply had theirs burst due to a revolver round.

I saw an opportunity as the amount of raiders was quickly diminishing. “Razor, see if you can take out the ranger with the launcher, I will get the rifle one!” I shouted in the direction of the demolished wagon. She raised above the rubble with the large rifle in tow, took aim, and fired on one of the rangers. I think she tried to compensate for the knockback of the shot with her telekinesis, but it still was pushed out of her magical grip by the force of the shot. The shot’s force was felt on the receiving end as well, as the bullet pierced the helmet of the ranger that had menaced us with his launcher, and he crumpled to the ground with a metallic clatter.

A rifle shot ricocheted off the rock I ducked behind, almost hitting my skull. I looked over at the other ranger that had grown angry at the loss of his comrade. I galloped to another rock, closer to the enemy. He opened fire on me several times as I clambered to get closer, but the majority of his shots went to Razor, as he tried to keep her from adding a few air holes to his helmet. What he didn’t know was that I had something much more threatening.

I was close to the ranger. My horn came alive with crackling energy as I charged the lightning spell. The ranger took notice of this and quickly swung around to try to fire at me, but the spell was complete before he got a shot. The bolt arced to the ranger, electrifying the armor and crashing the spell matrix. The metal armor fell to the ground dead with the living ranger trapped inside.

The remaining raiders went down with little effort, as they had lost their morale the minute the bolt connected with the ranger. All that remained of the enemy was the lone steel ranger in the powered down power armour.

“Well, isn’t this an oh so familiar situation,” hummed Pin as she walked over to the encased pony.

“You bitch!” shouted the ranger from inside his shell.

“You know, I don’t particularly like Steel Rangers. They killed my home and my mother, and the last time I met one, he tried to rape and murder me. The one before that? I stabbed him in the eye with a syringe full of poison. So go ahead, be uncooperative. I have a loooot of pent up anger I need to let out.” The ranger fell silent. “Good. Now, tell us why you were sent after us!”

The ranger hesitated to respond, but the smile that was growing on her face caused him to change his mind very quickly. “Bronze sent us! As revenge for Jackhammer! Please don’t kill me!” he pleaded in the most pathetic voice he could manage.

Her golden eyes met with the visor of the fallen ranger. “You rangers think that you can do whatever it is that you want just because you have powerful weapons and armor. You were like this even before Silver Star formed the Iron Hoof. Take away your technology and what are you? A bunch of cowards.” She turned back to the direction of the destroyed cart. Needles was walking toward her. “Crack his visor,” she commanded her sibling. He just stood there, unresponsive to her request.

“Pin...” I mumbled.

She looked at me with her emotionless eyes. Slowly, a frown formed on her face. I just stared at her for a few seconds. “Damnit, fine!” she shouted. She walked away from the ranger, turning her back to me.

“You’re...letting me go?” asked the ranger, still attempting a pitiful voice.

I sighed. “No, but this is kinder than anything she would have done to you.” I pressed the barrel of the gun to the glass of the helmet. The revolver fired twice into the visor of the ranger, cracking, and then shattering it, killing the pony behind it.

It took about almost an hour, but somehow we had managed to repair the cart. During the fighting, I had lost track of Whisper. Now, he sat in the back of the cart across from me, wearing his usual scowl, but it was mixed with a slight look of pain.

‘What’s up?’ I asked mentally.

“One of your companions is thinking...unpleasant thoughts. But it is one of the burdens I must deal with regularly,” his mental voice said with a hint of sadness to it.

‘Who?’ I asked.

“The one that like syringes,” he replied with annoyance.

I looked over at Pin. She had a scowl that could rival Whisper’s. “Are you okay?” I asked her.

She looked up at me. “You should have let me kill him,” she replied in a harsh tone. “After all they have done to me...You should have let me kill him!”

“What you would have done would have been worse than simply killing him. You’re not a monster, Pin.” I stared at her a second. “Don’t try to do what your brother did,” I added with a whisper, ensuring that the large unicorn didn’t hear us. She simply look at me for a moment, then her scowl disappeared. With it, the look of pain on Whisper’s face diminished as well, replacing it was a look of annoyance.

“Great, now I have to listen to this as well.” I wasn’t sure what he meant.

“Now, what ya need to be doing is not be worrying about the rangers,” slurred Razor. She was already halfway through a bottle of whiskey, though what number bottle I was unsure of. “What ya need to be doing is worrying about the wingy bitey things.” She gestured towards the clouds. “They get hungry at night, drink the blood from ya in seconds. Don’t know why though, whisky is much better.” Even though she was just drunkenly mumbling, she did have a point, it was getting dark.

“We have to find someplace to make camp,” declared Needles, having apparently deciphered the drunken babbling. There were no large buildings, only rubble and more rubble. We settled on the rubble that had once been a building. It had two and a half walls and part of a roof. Provided it didn’t collapse on us, it would make good shelter. I think...

Needles opted to take first watch, which was likely for the best. He seemed to not need sleep as badly as the rest of us. I was mentally and physically exhausted, Razor was drunk, Pin looked like she was worn out as well, and I don’t even think that Whisper knows how to wield a gun, so Needles was the only actual option for keeping guard. At least for now.

I lied down on a patch of cleared ground and went to sleep.

My dreams were not disturbed by the memories of another pony, followed by the voice’s cryptic messages. No, my dreams were normal, regular dreams. This was the first night I had fallen asleep in the wasteland that was like this. Except the time I was drunk, but I don’t even know if I dreamed that night. Unfortunately, my restful sleep was interrupted by shouting, and...screeching?

My eyes shot open at the sound of gunfire. I rose my head to look around. Needlepoint had a pistol in his mouth, which was odd for him. The soft firing sound of Pin’s custom pistol was occasionally heard as she fired it into the sky. I followed her aim.

I saw the ‘wingy bitey things’ as Razor had called them. Bloodwings, and a whole swarm of them from the looks of it. The swarm itself stayed in the air, appearing to hover in place while the bloodwings that it was made of circled and flew around it, some of them released themselves from the conglomeration and descended on us to feed.

Next to me came the familiar sound of a rocket propelling itself through the air. Razor had actually managed to wake up, and from the looks of it, was likely still drunk. Unfortunately, the swarm was happy to make room for the rocket as it passed through the blob of flying wings and gnashing teeth. Rockets weren’t going to work.

I levitated the revolver out of my pack. I hopped into S.A.T.S. and put one of the bullets into a swooping bloodwing, another into the swarm, hoping it would hit one. From the two bloody corpses that fell to the ground, it seems I had managed to hit my marks.

“Damnit, how are these things so coordinated?” shouted Pin as she fired another burst of syringes into the swarm. Although the poison she had loaded them with was fast acting, it still didn’t function well against attackers that were nearby. Poison takes time to work, a bullet is instant.

“Don’t know! Better question, how are we going to survive?” I shouted back, taking down another bloodwing as it attempted to latch onto me. These things were relentless.

“We need some form of bright light, that usually scares them off!” shouted Needles, hitting one of the bat creatures with his metal hoof as it swooped down.

Another gun entered the orchestra of cacophony. I glanced over to see if Razor had picked up her pistol, but she still was trying to fire another rocket at the swarm. Instead, I saw the blue colt wielding a revolver in between his teeth, firing at a few bloodwings as they separated from the swarm.

“I live in a tower full of mercenaries and I am forced to read their minds constantly. Knowing how to fire a gun is one of the pleasanter bits of information I gathered,” he replied to my unasked question.

With a screech, one of the Bloodwings flew into Pin, knocking her down. I quickly brought my revolver over to face the beast. I fired a round into its skull as it bit into the mare’s side, her yelping in pain as it did so. I ran over to her, levitating a healing potion out of my pack. She quickly drank the contents, the puncture marks in her side slowly stopped bleeding and sealed.

“Thank you,” she mumbled after drinking the concoction.

I stood guard over her as she rose back to her hooves. I took down another two bloodwings before my revolver ran out of ammo. Not wanting to waste time reloading, I dropped the revolver and levitated out the shotgun. The buckshot was hardly accurate, but it packed enough of a punch to take out a swooping bloodwing.

Razor had fired another rocket into the swarm, hoping for it to connect with at least one of the creatures so that it would explode, but the swarm moved apart again. The rocket would have to hit something solid in order to detonate...or be hit by something solid!

“Razor, fire another one!” I shouted at the still drunken mare as I took out my rifle. She just nodded her head and levitated another rocket into the launcher.

She took aim at the mass of bloodwings and fired. The rocket started sailing towards the swarm at a fast speed. The flying enemies took notice and began to move apart as it pierced the heart of the swarm.

I dove into S.A.T.S.. The swarm registered as hundreds of targets, but I only focused on the one I needed; the rocket at the heart of them. The rifle fired. In the slowed time flow, I watched the bullet fly straight at the rocket, guided by the targeting spell. It hit the rocket, and then the explosive projectile engulfed in a ball of fire and sent shrapnel in every direction. The swarm of bat like creatures had little time to react. Most that were near the center were either blown to pieces or were ignited and fell to the ground. Others were hit by the shrapnel and died as well. The rest of them scattered in the chaos created by the bright explosion at the heart of the swarm.

The bloodwings fled, leaving behind a mass of bloody, dismembered, and flaming corpses. I let out a sigh of relief. I looked over at my companions. Pin sat on the ground next to me, staring at the devastation the explosion had created. Needles was tending to her wounds. Razor had popped open another bottle of alcohol and had begun to work her way through it. Whisper just put the revolver back in its holster and stared at me with a scowl on his face, with a familiar look of annoyance mixed in.

“You just had to be the one to save her, didn’t you?”

‘What do you mean?’ I asked mentally.

“Wow, you are oblivious.” He then proceeded to start chuckling in my head. I just ignored the mental intrusion.

“Now...you see why we don’t travel at night,” babbled Razor in her drunken stupor. “Lotsa the bitey things.” Even though she was drunk, I had to agree with her. I did not want to be out at night without adequate shelter ever again.

“Well, we were lucky it was only a small swarm,” said Needles. What? There must have at least been a hundred of them! That was small?

“I guess we won’t be getting much more sleep tonight,” yawned the dark colored pegasus. She looked at Razor who had just passed out. “Well, she might.”

We decided to continue traveling. Our shelter didn’t provide much shelter, and we had killed the majority of the swarm, so they wouldn’t be returning anytime soon. I decided to sleep through the night on the back of the cart.

I was shocked again to find that my dreams were not memories, and that I did not hear the enigmatic voice again. I was beginning to think that it was shunning me for some reason. I was just glad I didn’t have to deal with all the riddles and confusion it brought each time it spoke.

I woke up a few hours later as the cart hit a major bump. One that I feel could have been avoided if Needles had chosen to. I opened my eyes to the wasteland, then immediately shut them as daylight flooded into them. I lowered my goggles, which had been resting neatly on my horn throughout the night, then I again opened my eyes to the now dimmer wasteland.

We were on the long destroyed road that we had been traveling on since yesterday. Our hours of traveling seemed to provide no actual progression towards our goal. Even the ruins along the sides of the road looked similar. If it were not for the lack of bloodwing corpses, I would have assumed that we had been traveling in circles.

I looked to my side to see Pin asleep next to me. Weird. I looked to the opposite side of the cart and saw that Razor was actually awake. Even weirder. She glanced over at me as she noticed I had woken up.

“Mornin, stable pony,” she chuckled. “Sleep well?”

This was getting even weirder. She had no obvious signs of being drunk, and she lacked her usual hangover. “I slept fine. How is it that you don’t have a hangover?” I asked.

She laughed in return. “I had your marefriend whip me up a cure for it. Little bit of radsnake venom, a Sparkle-Cola, and some other ingredients I was too drunk to remember.”

“Marefriend? You mean Pin?” I looked at the small mare that was asleep next to me. “She isn’t my marefriend. For all I know, she would sooner inject me with some strange venom.” Razor just laughed some more. From the front of the cart, I heard Needles grumble something, though I didn’t know, nor did I want to know, what it was.

My thoughts were interrupted when a single red dot on E.F.S. appeared. Another lone raider likely. I glanced in the direction that the dot was, but I didn’t see anything. Suddenly, the dot swooped to the side, and then back around. It was above us.

“Something is flying around us, something hostile!” I shouted to my traveling companions. This caused Pin to stir from her slumber.

From above the cloud cover came an orb of glowing energy, heading straight for us. Needles pulled the cart to the side, managing to avoid the purplish blast. Razor and I dismounted the cart with our rifles levitating in our respective magical glow.

“Are we going to be hunted this entire trip?” shouted Pin as she managed to pick herself up with her wings. It seems the rest had done her well, as she was finally off the ground, though I doubted she would be able to deal with the aerial menace.

“We likely will be. I am a Laughingstock, and you four took out a Delta. I’m just surprised they brought out Lead Wing so soon. They must really not like us.” Whisper stood next to the cart, his revolver in his mouth. The colt was really good at going unnoticed for long periods of time.

“Lead Wing?” I asked out loud.

“Oh shit...The griffin?” asked Razor with a look of both shock and horror on her face. I had heard of griffins before. Apparently, they were bird lion things. They could fly, and they were pretty tough. “We are dead if he is hunting us.”

“Who is he?” I asked.

“He used to be a Laughingstock, but he betrayed Smile and joined the Hoof. His skin is made of a tough metal, and his wings can cut through a pony very easily. Not to mention how deadly he is with an energy cannon.” Well, I could tell this would be a fun experience.

The red dot did another turn. Another orb of deadly energy propelled itself from the cloud cover. I couldn’t see him, and E.F.S. only told me his general direction. The projectile missed the cart, but it was dangerously close. I guessed that he couldn’t see us very well while he was in the clouds.

I started firing at the general area that the energy blast had come from. I didn’t know what I had hoped to accomplish. My chances of hitting him were almost nonexistent, and even if I did hit him, the shot would do very little damage, if any, to his metal skin. Razor did the same thing, though she opted to have Can Opener on standby in case she could actually get one to hit.

“We need to leave. We have no chance of fighting him in this situation,” said the colt’s voice in my head.

“How can we escape him? He can fly!” I shouted in response, though it was unnecessary.

“I have heard memories about Lead Wing. He can barely fly due to his metal body weighing him down. If we can just avoid his energy cannon for a while, we will be able to outrun him.”

I doubted the plan, but it was better than what we were currently doing. “Needles, get us out of here! Whisper said we can outrun this guy!”

I jumped into the cart, I picked up Whisper in my magic and set him down next to me. Razor hopped in as well, firing another round off into the sky, although it did nothing but waste a bullet. Pin landed next to me, wielding her custom pistol in her mouth. Of all of our weapons, syringes would likely be the worst option against the metal enemy.

We were off as fast as the cyber pony could pull us, which was really fast. We passed the red dot in a second, and I could almost see the shape in the clouds scramble to follow after us. Another orb of energy emerged from the clouds. Big mistake.

By flying after us, we knew he was traveling this direction. By firing at us, he gave away his relative position. The increasing distance between the shots gave us an estimate as to his speed, which was slower than ours. Razor may not be the smartest pony, but she knew a lot about shooting. Her yellow magic enveloped the oversized rifle she had affectionately named Can Opener, the weapon hovered in front of her as she appeared to calculate the position of where the griffin would be.

KRAKOW!

The bullet from the cannon like rifle flew ahead. A metallic screech was heard as the griffin descended from the sky and landed with a clatter a distance away. She may have been drunk ninety percent of the time, but she was always deadly accurate.

“Don’t start celebrating. Lead Wing is a tough bastard, it will take a lot more than an anti-machine rifle to the chest to kill him. That did, however, stop him from pursuing us. He will be back though, likely with allies.”

‘But for now are we safe?’ I asked.

“As safe as a pony could be while traveling in the wasteland with a group that is being hunted by the Iron Hoof.”

“Ha! That’ll teach that metal bastard!” shouted Razor in victory.

“He isn’t dead, but we should be safe for a while,” I relayed Whisper’s message.

“Well, I still say that is cause for celebration. We put one of the Hoof’s toughest members out of commission for a while,” declared Razor. Out of her pack she levitated three bottles of whiskey and a Sparkle-Cola. She gave each of us a bottle, thankfully she gave Whisper the cola.

I eyed the bottle warily. I looked over at Pin, who was also looking a bit concerned. Neither of us were like Razor, I doubted we would be able to fight while we were drunk. I knew for a fact I couldn’t. I opted to simply place the bottle in my pack. Pin decided to save hers as well.

“Lightweights,” mumbled Razor as she continued drinking from her bottle. Whisper just sat there drinking the cola. I watched as the red dot on E.F.S. blinked out due to being out of detection range.

“You think they finally gave up?” asked Pin. It had been a few hours since the last attack.

“Doubt it. They are probably just waiting to attack us when we least expect it,” I replied. ‘How much longer are we going to be traveling?’ I asked the young earth pony.

“We should reach our destination tomorrow. Then it will be a few more days of traveling before we return to Circus.”

‘Why does Smile want to know if this caravan is with or against him so badly?’

“Because if they are with us, that means that Circus can have another trade caravan, which will provide us with more supplies that we need. If they are against us, then he will have to find a way to deal with them, or else the Iron Hoof will be able to spread their influence. This is one of the larger trade caravans, about a dozen or so ponies, so they could either be a powerful ally or dangerous enemy. Believe me, he wouldn’t want me going out here unless it was necessary.”

“Hey, there is a house up ahead,” interrupted Needles. “I think we should just go ahead and stop for today. I don’t want to risk being caught by the bloodwings without shelter again.” It didn’t appear to be that late, but he was right. I doubted we would survive another encounter with the bloodwings.

Needles pulled the cart to the building. E.F.S. showed the building was clear of enemies, clear of any life to be exact. Probably for the best, as either we would have had to kill raiders or we would have been conned out of our hard earned caps. We entered the building. Razor had fallen asleep a long time ago and was now being levitated into the building by Needles.

The interior of the building was in ruins, but it was shelter at least. The house had a second floor, but the staircase had been destroyed. The bottom floor had been picked through thoroughly, but I managed to find a few spare bullets in a locked desk drawer. Revolver rounds, just what I was in need of.

The upper level beckoned for me to investigate it. Surely there was some undisturbed treasures or something up there. Maybe it was just my habit of taking things nagging me, but I felt that I needed to find a way to get up there.

“Hmm...” I hmm-ed aloud. Near the ruins of the staircase was a bunch of small bits of rubble. Maybe...

My horn started to glow grey as I picked up various pieces of the rubble in my magic. I hovered them in front of me, and I stepped on the first piece, an old board by the looks of it. It was difficult to hold the board while I was on it, but it stayed afloat. I stepped up to the next piece, and then the next, until I had reached the top of the destroyed staircase.

“Clever,” said a voice behind me. I turned to see Pin hovering next to me. Right, pegasi got to fly around wherever they wanted while I had to work in order to get up here.

“What are you doing up here?” I asked.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I thought that it would be worth checking this place out. With the stairs destroyed, I doubt very many scavengers would be able to get up here. There is probably a ton of valuable things ripe for the taking.” She simply chuckled in return.

As it turns out, I was right. I managed to find an assortment of ammo, a pistol in fairly good condition, and a few Sparkle-Colas. Nothing too valuable, but worth searching.

“So, anything good?” asked Pin, who was standing right next to me.

“Eh, mainly just ammo. I did find these however,” I said as I levitated one of the bottles of the cola over to her.

“Thank you.” She opened the bottle and started drinking from it. I took out one of my own and did the same. She looked at me with her golden eyes. “I...I wanted to thank you.”

“For what?” I asked.

“For saving me all those times.” She blushed a little. “You saved me from the Delta.”

“That was mostly Needles. I was just the one who put the bullet in his skull.”

“Yes, but you were the one who stopped him from...repeating himself...” Her eyes turned to the ground. “And...you saved me again today.”

“From the bloodwing?”

“That, and you saved me from myself.” What? “I...wasn’t sure what I would have done to the ranger today, but I knew it wouldn’t have been something I could have lived with. The Iron Hoof took everything from me, and...I wanted revenge. I wanted somepony to take it out on.” She was trembling a little. She looked back up at me with tears starting to form in her eyes. “And you saved me.”

Then she kissed me. My brain short circuited, I didn’t know how to respond to this. I just stood there, shocked. She opened her eyes and saw my reaction. She frowned.

“Damnit, I am such an idiot!” she shouted as she turned away. “How could I delude myself into thinking you liked me?”

I fought to regain the ability to speak. “I...I am just surprised.” She turned her head to face me, tears streaming down her face. “I didn’t know that you felt that way.”

“Razor was right, you are oblivious,” she attempted a laugh, but it was more of a sob. Wait, she had talked to Razor about this? “You didn’t notice me? All those times...” I shook my head.

“Nopony has ever been interested in me before,” I admitted.

“That’s a shock,” she remarked with an actual chuckle. Her tears had slowed their rate, and she was attempting a smile. Then she stared at me, her eyes piercing me with their stare. “So...do you maybe feel the same way about me?”

Truthfully, I was terrified of her. But I couldn’t tell her that. It would have crushed her. Instead, I settled on being undecided. “I am not sure.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. While I was terrified of her, I did see a nicer side to her as well. That didn’t seem to help her though. She just frowned at me, looking broken. “But this gives me a lot to think about,” I quickly added, hoping it would alleviate any grief I might have just caused.

She just sat there for a minute, letting herself run out of tears. Then she looked back at me. “Lets just get back downstairs before Needles has a heart attack and takes down the whole building looking for me,” she said as she lifted herself into the air.

I jumped down to the first floor, landing neatly in an area clear of debris. I discovered that Razor was still asleep where Needles had left her. Needles was speaking with Pin, occasionally shooting a scowl in my direction. I really didn’t want to know what they were discussing. I had no idea where Whisper was, but he was nearby, his voice in my head made that clear.

“You are an idiot.”

‘What?’ I asked him mentally.

“You honestly didn’t realize that she liked you?”

‘It isn’t easy knowing how another pony feels when you aren’t a mind reading weirdo!’ I shouted in my head.

“That was cold.” I did feel a little bad, but I was tired and I was getting annoyed by everypony apparently knowing about this but me.

I went into one of the long abandoned rooms and lied down. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, hoping that I would wake up without having my chest flayed open or having my skull crushed by a mechanical hoof.

I awoke from my dreamless sleep due to a sudden pain occurring in my head. I opened my eyes to find Razor standing over me with a scowl on her face. My head was throbbing.

“Dumbass,” she grumbled. “Get up, it’s time to leave.” She mumbled something under her breath as she turned to leave. I take it she had learned of last night’s events.

I rose to my hooves and grabbed my packs. The main room of the house was alive with the ponies that had traveled with me here, all of them angry at me for one reason or another. Today was going to be a long day.

We set off without a word. Pin had a frown on her face, Needles had a scowl, and Razor wasn’t drinking, instead, she glared at me with murder in her eyes. Even Whisper had a scowl that was grumpier than his usual one. I pitied any raider that crossed their path, as they needed an outlet for their anger.

Of course, we were still having the same strange luck that he have had for the past few days. No large bands of raiders, even the lone raiders had become more scarce. This allowed us to proceed to our destination unhindered.

We were in sight of the location we were supposed to meet the caravan at. Whisper had left out something. He neglected to tell us what place we were actually going to. I recognized the ruins, although now it was colored. I knew the destroyed settlement.

Armistice.
=====================================================================

Footnote: Level Up.
New perk: Bloody Mess- Some ponies like a clean fight, but not you! Enemies have a tendency to explode into a shower of gore whenever they are killed by you. Also, have a 5% damage increase, because hey, why not?
Quest Perk- Lightning Bolt (Level 2)- You have been practicing, and perfecting your spell casting. Lightning bolt now deals more damage against organic enemies, and has a higher chance of stunning them. The number of times you can cast it in a day has increased by 100%, so...The lightning bolts have been doubled!

(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, such as the description of Bloody Mess.)