“Okay, so even though I managed to free up a lot by firing the entirety of the nobility and taking their titles, we still don’t have enough to give the changeling’s PR a good chunk,” I said, looking over Equestria’s budget. Chrysalis was sitting with me in this meeting, a few changelings acting as gofers for the both of us.

“I could start-” The rest of what Chrysalis said was drown out by someone saying, “HEY! WHOEVER YOU ARE, HELP US!”

I jolted up and looked around before turning back to the queen. “I’m sorry Chrysalis, but it looks like I’m needed in.... Actually, why don’t you come along?”

“If it gets me away from this mess and into somewhere I can pound my frustrations out,” She said, coming around the table to my side.

“All aboard the handbasket to hell!” I said before opening my portal right beneath us both. Chrysalis yelped in shock when she started to fall, but landed beside me on her hooves.

We arrived in what could only ever be called a dive in the middle of a bar fight next to a woman wearing an outfit with dark browns and blacks with a dragon tail coming out of the back of the loose pants. On her head was a sort of chinese looking hat with a feather sticking out of the middle of it.

There was no doubt that she was winning the fight but Chrysalis charged into the woman’s enemies, knocking them in every direction, pulling even more of the bar into the fight. I sat down at a table near the woman and said, “So what started this?”

“One of the ponies called me a mutant monkey then threw a bottle at my head,” she said, punching one of the remaining ponies away.

“Yeah, that’d make most humans fight back. Sorry I’m not helping out, I’m supposed to be taking it easy for the next few months.” A mug was tossed in my direction, only for me to catch it and hand it to the woman.

“Heads up Littlepip!” The woman said as she threw the mug I gave her at the pony that was sneaking up on the other pony wearing some kind of suit and on her hind legs.

“You see this is why we can’t stay in bars, you end up getting into fights with other ponies,” The pony - Littlepip I assume - said.

“Not my fault they act like assholes whenever they see my face.”

“Well, you-” I ducked, letting a pony thrown by Chrysalis sail harmlessly over my head and continued, “You have the right idea, but might want to work on your rep a bit more.”

“Lady this is the wastelands, we can pretty much do whatever we want. Then again I don’t kill ponies unless they draw a weapon on me or Littlepip, or if a monster is attacking a town or something.”

Just then, the pony Chrysalis threw stood up holding a revolver and tried to charge past me. As he did so, I slid my chair back and knocked him over, pulling my shotgun and pistol from my bag. I stepped on the pony’s back, pushing him back to the floor and leveling my pistol at his head as I fired my shotgun into the ceiling. “BREAK IT UP!”

That caused everyone to look my way and instantly decide to go back to what they had been doing before. Heh, no one ever messes with a pregnant woman holding a shotgun.

“Well that was a mood killer, and just when I was winning.” The woman said as she punched the pony she was holding into unconsciousness. “So care to tell me who you two are?”

Chrysalis trotted over with a big grin and stuck out her hoof to the woman and said, “Queen Chrysalis.”

“Vanessa Roberts,” She said while shaking Chrysalis’s hoof. “And the pony over there is my partner Littlepip.”

“Nice to meet you, Vanessa, I’m Maxine Caulfield. Everyone just calls me Max, though,” I said as I kicked the gun away from the pony under my foot. “Why don’t we go somewhere we didn’t cause a scene?”

“Yeah let’s go, I don’t wanna get nagged at by the bar’s manager again. Pip gather whatever caps and weapons these guys have and let’s roll out.”

“Way ahead of yeah Van.” Littlepip said as her horn started to glow levitating some of the knocked out ponies weapons and old style soda bottle caps into her stale bag.

Chrysalis and I followed them out of the bar and into what looked like a rundown city. “So where we goin?”

“To New Appaloosa’s Science and Health Department.” Vanessa said pointing to a somewhat broken, but stable white building with a sign on it. “That’s pretty much where we live from time to time.”

“Now I wish I brought Mun along. He’d try to fix the building back to new because of his almost Twilight-level OCD,” I joked, putting my guns back in my bag.

“Why do I get the feeling he would possible get into a fight with Sunny Day if they were to meet each other.”

“I’m pretty sure she would fight him from touching her stuff,” Littlepip said as she opened the door to the building.

“She’d probably lose. Mun knows every kind of fighting style in my universe and isn’t a slouch when it comes to defending himself,” I said, walking in behind Vanessa.

“That maybe true, but I bet he never fought against a pony from the wasteland.”

“Well, he is an AI that has a tank and a pony as bodies. I’m pretty sure he can analyze her fighting style and counter it before she pounds his head in.”

“Yeah sure he can. Tell me, how far is the technology level in your world?”

“I actually bought Mun and his sister, Sol, from the one who Displaced me.” I stretched and sat on a nearby empty chair. “That was after I bought my camera from her and was cast in stone for about a thousand years.”

“So it’s still in a somewhat medieval kind of state of technology then huh?”

I looked around the lab, seeing quite a few monster parts in jars, as well as a few filled with blood. “Not really- Chrysalis, you don’t know what’s in that,” I warned her.

She pulled her face away from a cloudy jar and wandered around, looking through all the jars as she said, “These are quite fascinating.”

“They should be fascinating seeing how you’re looking at Vanessa’s blood.” Said a red pony with blue mane and tail appeared from underneath her desk. “I take it you are human right?”

“No, a changeling.”

“I’m the human,” I said waving to the new pony.

“Ah, my mistake, it’s rare to find a changeling out here in this part of town. Then again it’s hard to find anything that used be part of Equestria’s past.”

That got Chrysalis’ attention and she turned to the mare saying, “Oh? Is there any mention of Queen Chrysalis in what you’ve found?”

“Not that much only saying that you died when the mega spells hit Equestria 200 years ago along with Celestia, Luna, and faust knows how many other ponies died as well.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“So what’s there to do here? Aside from starting fights and you three?” I asked.

“Normally I would have Vanessa and Littlepip hunt down the rest of the elements of harmony for my machine, but for now seeing how they already found the elements of honesty and generosity they’re pretty much getting some R&R. That and I’m monitoring the two for any body changes.”

I chuckled and gave Littlepip a saucy look. “I could help you with that...”

“Not that kind of body change, mutation body change due to the frenzy virus these two knuckleheads have.”

“HEY!” Littlepip and Vanessa said at the same time.

“You don’t think I could make note of those while...” I used a bit of magic to teleport over between them and put my arms around their shoulders. “Having some one on one fun?”

“I know Vanessa wouldn’t mind seeing how she had a fun time with Kat’s sister. Littlepip on the other hoof….I don’t know about her she hasn’t showed much of a sex drive,” The still unknown pony said.

“Hey! I’m not your fucking lab rat Sunny Day,” Vanessa said.

“Said the amazon human with four arms underneath her shirt and have gore magala horns on her head.”

I leaned on Vanessa and said, “You know, If I wasn’t pregnant I’d show you an even better time than Raven. But I’m more in the mood to shoot something other than a ceiling.”

“Oh...um...l-like what?”

“Well, I know we can’t just go on the roof and start shooting at anyone that’s passing by...”

“No killing, this is a refuge town and the only time we do kill is if raiders, slavers, or monsters are attacking the town.” Sunny said as she walked over to Vanessa and pulled out a syringe. “Now Vanessa I need to see your other arms please.”

“I’m not doing it.”

I rolled my eyes and said, “You do I’ll come back once my son is born to give you a good time.”

“It isn’t me you have to ask, ‘Essa.”

“I know that-Ow! Son of a bitch!”

“Yep, just as I thought.” Sunny said as she placed the syringe inside a machine. “It appears that you blood is finally changing.”

“Oh? What’s she turning into?” I asked.

“Think of an anthropomorphic pony with certain features of a gore magala.” Sunny said as she levitated a picture of what the monster looked like. “She’ll only have the horns, the extra two arms, the tail, and her hair & eyes will turn purple.”

“Huh, no wonder she has a tail.”

“Yeah hence the reason why she needs to be more careful and stay under Red Eyes radar.”

I felt something squeeze my ass and gave Vanessaa small glare. “I said I’d come back once my son was born.”

“Hey, do you know how hard it is to control a second set of arms? Not to mention that I just got these yesterday so they pretty much have a mind of their own until I can get accustomed to them.”

I gave her own ass a squeeze and flicked one of the spines on her tail making her shudder. “I don’t know that feeling, but I know what it’s like to not be in control of your own actions.”

“Vanessa should have full control of her arms in about a day or two depending, during that time how about you two will be hunting down the other elements for the machine I’m 25% done with?” Sunny said as she took a blood sample from Littlepip and placed it into the same machine that Vanessa’s blood was in.

“Well, I’m gonna need to go back before too much longer. I have foals to take care of and a country to run.”

“Good luck with that, just make sure it doesn’t turn out like this place did. Faust knows you’ll be bucked if it did.”

“Before you leave you’re gonna need Vanessa’s token.” said Littlepip as she motioned Vanessa to hand me a very long sword that seemed to resemble the night sky.

“That’s only a copy of the original sword.” Vanessa said show me the original one. “Can’t let you have it.”

“Kinda guessed it wouldn’t be the original,” I said as I took it, setting it in my bag.

“Nothing against you or anything, but this was a parting gift from a friend of mine before she died.”

I smiled and gave her a hug. “Thanks for letting me have a copy, then. If I ever need your help, I’ll call.”

“If you need a monster to kill or some kind of assassin attacks you or your family. Give us a call and we’ll help you out.”

“If I can’t handle it myself, I will.”

“We’ll see, till then see ya next time.”

“See ya!” I said as I sank into my portal, Chrysalis flying over in panic and just barely managing to make it.

“That was... interesting,” Chrysalis said once we landed back in our universe.

“Tell me about it. Wanna go grab some lunch before we get back to this?”

The changeling shook her head and sighed, “I’m seriously considering just handing the hive over to you and being a general or something.”

Author's Notes:

This is a crossover with ElementBrigade's story Hunters of the Wasteland.