The four of us proceeded to the Exterior Marketplace from the Atrium, meeting up with Enamel at his trading station. Dashie had his shotgun in a battle saddle mount. His backup weapon was an IF-21 10mm pistol, holstered on his chest. An axe and a shovel lay slung between his right flank and his saddlebags.

"Well shit, Firefly. I wasn't expecting you to personally escort me to Haven!" Enamel was surprised to see me while waiting for his caravan to leave.

"I'm afraid I have an ulterior motive, Enamel." Dashie clicked over to me on his power hooves.

"Of course you do, Stable." He smiled at me slyly. "Nopony ever does anything for free in the wasteland." Ouch.

"We're coming along to Haven. If you don't mind..."

His smile grew. "You're asking me if I'd like to have two Stable Security ponies to come along."

I nodded, and was shocked as he suddenly lunged at me, wrapped his fore hooves around my neck and... kissed me, stepping back with a bright grin. Um. While I dealt with just how to respond to that, I saw Dashie take a step back from Enamel and politely requesting he didn't kiss him, ears folded back. Fuck. Enamel grinned at him and burst out laughing. Think unsexy thoughts, Firefly. After a minute I recovered enough to speak and introduced our companions. "Well... actually, there's four of us." I stepped aside, glancing to Team Two standing behind us and introducing them. "Nimble Shine, Platinum Starlight, this is Broken Enamel, leader of the caravan." I glanced to the two mares standing behind us.

"Leader, founder, manager, barterer. I basically do everything here! Except haulin' and guardin' the cart, of course. That's what I pay these folks for." He gestured towards his ponies, then grinned and bowed grandly to the two mares.

Platinum Starlight gave Enamel a friendly smile and bowed politely, speaking in her quiet but clear voice, her tone tinged with respectful jest. "Please don't kiss me, sir." She was a silvery, almost fragile-looking earth pony with a cropped pale lavender mane she kept tied back with a bandanna, dressed in light Stable barding and a boonie cap, with a light marksman rifle in a battle saddle resting along her left flank. On her right side, to balance the weight, were her saddlebags. A pair of sunglasses sat on her muzzle over her eyes. Her backup weapon, an IF-21 pistol, sat holstered on her chest alongside a pair of binoculars. A complex-looking rig mounted a scope for her rifle within her eye sight, currently folded to the side for transport.

Her partner, Nimble Shine, was almost her exact opposite; a short, stout unicorn mare with a peachy yellow coat and a pretty, twin hued blue mane that her horn emerged from, a single dark lock curled around the other side. She always had a nervous, dour expression on her face, the edges of her mouth curled down, her dark purple eyes slightly squinted. She, too, wore unarmored Stable barding and a boonie cap, with an IF-21 pistol holstered on her chest; a pair of binoculars hung beside her IF-21. She spent a long moment studying the caravaner with a standoffish look, before softening into an expression that somepony, in an accidental fit of optimism, mistake for a smile and she spoke. "Pleasure." She had a cool, clipped voice that stated what she felt needed to be said and little else.

"Au contraire, mon jument, le plaisir est pour moi!" Enamel leaned forwards and and grabbed her hoof, pulling up to kiss it. Somehow, Nimble managed to avoid falling over and she scrambled back with a displeased look. "In my defense, you didn't ask me to not kiss you."

Nimble took another pace back, glaring at him - I had an unfortunate feeling she was considering shooting him - before she burst out laughing. ... Unexpected. "That's true!" She fell back on her haunches, still laughing.

I gave her a minute, before loudly clearing my throat and turning to Enamel. "So, is your caravan ready, Enamel?" In the background I watched Dashie and Plat helping the still giggling Nimble to her hooves.

"Aye, that we are." He nodded and turned to his caravan, yelling. "Off we go!" He trotted off towards them. "Lucky us, folks, we got some pretty Stable mares to protect us!"

Dashie groaned. "Boss, I protest. I'm not a pretty Stable mare." I grinned at his deadpan tone.

"You're a clever colt, Dashie." I bumped his shoulder with my flank as I stepped past him after the caravan. In the background of the caravan setting off, I heard Nimble and Plat discussing Enamel knowing how to speak Fancee.

Stable 30 had been built under a rest stop on the road between Baltimare and Dodge Junction. When the Stable had opened, the rest stop had been repurposed, cleaned up and fortified to act as a gatehouse for the Stable and turned into the Exterior Marketplace. It was a large, U-shaped building, which a series of tarps had been pulled across the center to keep the rain out of the marketplace. Most of the area was paved over so that even while pouring rain, as the Baltimare area was notorious for, it was still very easy to cross. The paved area had, at some point, been partially fenced in with rusty barbed wire. I doubted its ability to stop anything larger than, say, a dirt-bound bloatsprite, but it served as a very visual sign of where the Stable ended and the wasteland began.

I'd never actually been outside of the Stable grounds. I'd been to the surface plenty of times in the past two years, but... beyond the wire... Wow. It was a bit of a thrill to leave for once.

Today had been, comparatively, nice. It was only somewhat gloomy and only a few showers in the morning. It had actually stopped raining pretty much all day, though by the look of things, it was going to make up for it with a hell of a storm in a couple of hours, if we were lucky.

As the caravan moved out, the Stable group took escort position, Team One on the left side, Team Two on the right.

Enamel slowed to let Dashie and I come alongside. "Looks like it's gonna rain."

I glanced up to the sky, ignoring the faint wave of nausea that swept over me at the grey blandness above me. "Yeah..." I quickly glanced back down to the wonderful, muddy ground below me.

Dashie glanced around. "Is that a bad thing? I mean, besides getting wet?"

One of the caravaners, a light reddish brown earth pony with a brownish purple and orange mane, let out a derisive snort. "Wow, you Stable folks sure are stupid. You don't know that the rain is radioactive?" He rolled his eyes. "What next, y'all will learn how feral ghouls ain't friendly?" He snickered. "Or gettin' shot hurts?"

Twitch. You asshole. I glanced to Dashie, and he opened his mouth to respond, but Enamel got there first. "First rule of wasteland survival, Caramel, don't insult ponies better armed than you." Caramel looked around with a volatile look. "It's like you're fresh from a Stable or somethin'. Don't you have somewhere better to be?" Caramel's ears folded back and he responded with a sullen negative. "Well find somewhere else!" He hurried off, glaring at us. "Sorry about that. He's... kind of an idiot?" He shrugged for lack of a better word, then continued. "If we hurry, we should be able to make it to Haven before it starts pouring." I nodded in agreement. He cantered forward, yelling. "Pick it up, colts! Rain's comin', double time it if ya hate radaway! We're three hours from Haven; lets see if we can make it in two!"

Oh Celestia I hate moving quickly. The rest of the caravan apparently hated rain more and moved faster. Rain started coming down, just sprinkling for now, and my Pipbuck's Geiger counter started gently ticking in response. Wonderful. A couple traders atop the caravan opened awnings to give the escorts some protection from the rain. I brought up the radio to listen to something, only to be greeted by what is possibly the sexiest voice I have ever had the fortune to hear.

"Hello, good colts and mares. I'm Moonstone Mustang, Lunar's magic technician, and you are listening to Tech Talk!" He paused. Oh Celestia he sounds hawt. "You may have noticed that it is raining outside, and you may be filled with a wondrous desire to go running around in the rain." He spoke in a fancy-sounding Trottingham accent. Delicious. "THIS IS NOT A GOOD IDEA. Those of you with a Pipbuck will probably hear it ticking; this is called a Geiger counter, and it tells you how frightfully hard the world around you is trying to kill you. If it is ticking quite loudly, the world is trying really hard to kill you, so you should go somewhere where it is not ticking, or, more likely, simply ticking less. This is Baltimare, so if you find somewhere your Pipbuck is not ticking, DO NOT FORGET WHERE IT IS. Of course, none of this is of any use if you do not have a Pipbuck yourself, so... as always, gentlefolks - use your loaf!" ...I have no clue what that means. I wonder what drug he's addicte- no, no, actually I don't want to know. Every time I learn about a new drug I regret it. "Back to Lunar!" With that, Lunar Note resumed her monologue as Dashie and one of the merchant ponies started handing out Rad-X. I glanced at the pouch with a sound of disgust, but uncapped it with my magic and leaned back to drink it.

"EEELLLLO BALTIMARE. IT'S MEEEEEEEEE, LUNAR!" She snickered at something. "Nothin' more to report, honestly, ponies. Sooo, since I'm in a Constables kick, it's time for a song about what to do when the world is runnin' down." Not bad, Lunar.

About an hour after we started moving faster, we came across a road that curved away to the north out of sight. A faded stone sign proclaimed that it lead to "Equestrian Strategic Command". Interesting. I hurried to catch up to Enamel and pointed the sign out. "Where's that?"

LOCATION FOUND: EQUESTRIAN STRATEGIC COMMAND

"Equestrian Strategic Command," he responded flatly. At my look, he elaborated. "Front door to Deathcon." Well, probably a safe bet to say ESC no longer exists. "Buncha beam turrets, still active two hundred years later. Prewar ponies sure had some good engineering. Probably earth pony made." I ignored his 'earth ponies are best' jab. Besides, if earth ponies were best, they'd be able to cast spells.

"Deathcon?" I waved Dashie into the conversation and he cantered over beside us, slowing to a trot alongside us.

"Deathcon Crater. Used to be some big 'ole Equestrian missile base, or something, before it became a radioactive crater. Two of 'em, from what I've heard. It's pretty badly irradiated, in case you were curious."

Dashie rolled his eyes. "Implying there's anywhere in this place that isn't irradiated."

Right. "Soo..." I turned back to Enamel. "You mentioned ferals attacking you on the trip to the Stable? Whereabouts?"

Enamel narrowed his eyes, glancing off in the direction of Deathcon. "You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"

"Ghouls from Deathcon?" Enamel nodded. "Yar." I snickered.

Dashie spoke up. "That might be worth checking out, boss."

I looked to Dashie, considering for a moment as we trotted. "Alright. We'll make a stopover at Haven, spend the night there, then head to Deathcon tomorrow." Enamel gave me a concerned look. "Team Two stays with you until the next time you get to the Stable." He nodded in satisfaction.

The rest of the walk to Haven was uninteresting and involved an awful lot of trotting. My Pipbuck ticking annoyingly as the rain continued to sprinkle. I wondered if there was a way to lower its sensitivity so it doesn't go haywire when it starts sprinkling. I need to talk to the Pipbuck maintenance crew when I get back to the Stable. Dashie broke me out of my distracted thinking. "Hey boss, you hear that?" I shut up and listened to the sounds around me - I thought I heard infrequent cracks in the distance.

"Gunfire?" Dashie nodded in confirmation, and I switched to the squad frequency. "Team Two, go scout ahead." The two mares clicked their comms in reply and cantered forward, reaching the top of the hill and disappearing out of sight.

"So that's Haven."

"Not much to look at." I couldn't tell who said what, but the sporadic crack of gunfire continued.

"Cut the chatter, mares. Gimme a sitrep."

"Oh, right, sorry." Oh right, my flank! "Haven's being attacked by a bunch of ghouls."

That's not good. "Are they inside?"

"No ma'am, it appears the walls have held." I heard another crack, much closer. They opened fire without permission? We'll discuss this later. "Got one!"

"That's a hit. Uhh, that one's still moving, Plat."

"Oh, crap!" Another crack followed her curse.

"How many?"

"Uhh, looks like," Nimble fell silent, "about a dozen."

"Copy," I tuned them out and left them to their own devices as I waved the old trader over. "Enamel!" He came over to me. "There are ghouls attacking Haven. Stop the caravan at the last hill and bunker down while we clear them out." He nodded and cantered off, shouting orders to his crew. Best let the professionals deal with fighting. "Dashie, on me." I set off at a trot up the hill towards Team Two.

Dashie snickered. "Time to earn our hazard pay, eh, boss?"

I rolled my eyes as he mucked along behind me on his power hooves. "This whole expedition is hazard pay, Dashie."

LOCATION FOUND: HAVEN

We crested the hill beside Team Two as they did their work. On actually seeing Haven, I had to agree with Team Two; it wasn't much to look at. It looked like it had been a rest stop like the one S30 was buried under that had been fortified surprisingly well. There were a bunch of ramshackle structures built surrounding the prewar buildings, and tarps... Celestia, there were tarps everywhere. It may well be tent-and-tarp city. Despite the improvised, cobbled together appearance, apparently the walls had been built soundly and still held. A dozen ghouls lay splattered around the walls, and another dozen remained active, trying to get inside the town. One of the ghouls head exploded and the rest of it fell to the ground. I heard Team Two cheering. That brought it down to eleven.

"Hey boss, contact, range about three-twenty to the northwest." Dashie nudged my flank with his shoulder and gestured. I brought my binoculars up and zoomed in on what he was pointing at, finally seeing a pair of suits of power armor standing off on another hill.

"Steel Rangers?" A closer look revealed they were not. Or rather, not any longer. Their armor was in poor condition, and several gaps had remained unrepaired. One of them had a rotary cannon on its flank. The faceplate had torn away, revealing torn flesh and cracked bone. "Not anymore. Poor bastards." Considering they weren't actually fighting, I ignored them for the moment and turned back to the fighting at hoof. One thing at a time, Firefly. "Keep me informed if anything changes, Dashie." He nodded to me.

While I'd been watching the Ghoul Rangers, another ghoul had fallen, bringing the odds only down to just over two-to-one, still in their favor. Fortunately, we had guns and they did not. Unfortunately, they'd realized that there was potential food outside of Haven's walls and were now stumbling in our direction uncomfortably quickly. Crap. Another fell during the rush, but I was unsure if it'd actually been hit, or simply tripped over its own hooves. Haven's defenders had picked up shooting as the mob of undead turned to come at us, downing another.

"Hey boss, those Rangers have noticed us." Shit. I turned to face them, seeing one of them spinning up the rotary cannon on its side.

"Get down!" Everyone ducked and moved, and after a moment of being not shot a whole lot, I rose and looked back to the ghoul, seeing the cannon still spinning and not firing. Uhh... After a moment it cycled through my mind. "They're empty! Ha ha! Okay folks, back to ghoul slaying." Unfortunately, while we'd been ducking, we hadn't been shooting and the ghouls were almost on us. And that's when the other Ranger had remembered it had rockets and one spiraled past us, sending a wave of heat and shrapnel against our armored flanks. Oh, fuck! "Team Two, turn to the northwest and deal with those ghouls now." The two mares clicked their comms in response. "Team One will cover you."

Dashie chipped in as we moved and drew our weapons to deal with the approaching ghouls. "So much for empty, huh, boss?" Can it Dashie. "Here they come!" While we'd been ducking, Haven's defenders had managed to down another two, bringing it down to six ghouls against two troops. Keep your fuckin' distance and nopony gets hurt.

Of course they wanted to get up close & personal. Our fire downed two of them, bringing it down to four ghouls. ...and then they were way too close. Shit! The back of my mind processed someone from Team Two shrieking something but I pushed it aside for the moment.

I stuffed my baton into the first's mouth to redirect its lunge as I entered SATS - Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell - and time slowed to a crawl. SATS allowed me to analyze the situation and fire shots with pinpoint accuracy.

Three of the ghouls came for me, seemingly in slow motion, but I knew they were galloping at me as fast as their rotting hooves could carry them. I levitated over one of my IF-21s and pressed the muzzle against the forehead of the nearest ghoul, sending a 10mm slug through its skull, brain, brain stem and exiting somewhere under its ribcage in a spray of gore. The ghoul collapsed to the muddy ground. Ha ha! The falling body overpowered my magic grip on my baton and taking my baton with it. Fuck.

I let it have it for the moment, as SATS ran out and the second ghoul rushed at me. Shit! I continued backtrotting and firing shots into it. Without SATS, I wasn't as accurate. Dumping both mags eventually downed it and it collapsed at my hooves. Woo! I fired my last round through the forehead, making sure it wasn't going to get up. Two down. Two to go?

While I'd been busy with my attackers, Dashie had dealt with one of them himself and was currently cartwheeling through the air, chased by ghoul number four. I dropped the dry magazines from my guns, tucking them away as I swapped two fresh ones into them. I circled to keep Dashie out of my line of fire as I resumed shooting.

While none of my shots were enough to kill it, one of then snagged one of its fetlocks and it tumbled to the ground next to Dashie as he landed, rolling a few times. Dashie hopped to his hooves and jumped on the last ghoul while I was reloading. The ghoul exploded, sending Dashie cartwheeling through the air again with a squeal of laughter. Damn it Dashie.

Holy shit! I yelped as ghoul gore flew everywhere, deflecting most of it from me with a wave of telekinetic energy. "Report!"

Team Two responded after a moment. "All clear..." Debatable. I turned to face Dashie as he landed on the ground nearby and tumbled.

"Dashie, you okay?" He responded with a muffled groan as I retrieved my baton, wiping it on the uniform of the ghoul that had taken it.

"Yeah, I'm great!" He laughed as he nimbly rolled to his hooves. How does he do that. "Think I might need a shower."

"Yeah, you might... go get the merchants." He clicked his comm in response, grinning widely, and trotted off in the direction of the caravan. I turned to Team Two. "You yelled as the ghouls approached us. What happened?"

Plat spoke up, moving from side to side in a frenzy. "One of the ghouls, uh, exploded. Like, boom! I didn't even get to shoot it!" Her normally calm voice was hurried and frantic.

"Deep breaths, Plat. And stop pacing, you're making me sick..." I glanced away, closing my eyes. I thought a quiet praise to the hidden sun as the sound of her hooves mucking about in the mud stopped.

Nimble spoke up. "It was the ghoul with the rocket launcher. I believe a rocket malfunctioned in the launcher." The sound of the caravan approaching stopped our conversation, and I noticed a unicorn mare talking with Dashie as they approached, wiping his armor off with a cloth. I waved Dashie over, and she gave me a look of pure dislike.

I wondered what her problem was, before remembering I didn't really have time for that as Enamel wandered over, carefully navigating around unidentifiable ghoul bits.

"Wow!" Enamel grinned to me, pushing half a skull into the ground. "Looks like that was a hell of a fight."

I gestured towards Team Two. "Team Two and Haven's defenders did most of the work." Nimble and Plat looked to me curiously, which I ignored as I turned to them. "Team Two, escort the caravan directly to Haven." I turned and pointed off where the Ghoul Rangers had been. "Team One's going to check out that suit of power armor." They nodded and headed for the caravan as I turned to Dashie. "Dashie, on me." Dashie trotted over to me, ignoring (or perhaps not noticing) the look the unicorn mare gave him.

"Where to, boss?" Did I fucking stutter?

"We're gonna check out that armor." I gestured over towards where the ghouls had been, one of them still standing, and set off for them, Dashie loping in my wake. "How are you feeling, Dashie?"

"Excited." He brightly grinned at me, and I tossed him a level glance back. Is my partner a psychopath? At my look, he elaborated. "I've never done anything like that before. Blood is pumping through all of my everywhere in ways it never has before. I feel great!" He spoke excitedly. Oh, no.

"Being covered in ghoul gore notwithstanding."

"Well, yeah, that is a bit disgusting," he drawled. "Other than that though..." He glanced back towards Haven. "Hey, what are the chances Haven has running water?"

I glanced back in Haven's direction, then back to Dashie; as I looked to him, a yelp and a single gunshot rang out. I glanced back to the caravan. "Team Two, Team One. Report."

"Uh, all clear now. I stepped on a ghoul that... wasn't quite dead." Nimble sounded nervous.

"Copy, Team Two, out." I turned back to Dashie. "Not a chance in hell."

"Didn't think so. It'd probably be all irradiated anyways." I nodded in quiet agreement as we got to where the ghouls were. Or, had been, in the case of one of them. "Poor bastards." Dashie prodded one of the boots, which was the only signs a suit of power armor had been there. "Could you imagine, just slowly dying of radiation poisoning, and then, just when you think it's over, you don't die, and you just keep living on, in a state of not quite technically dead, until you finally lose your sanity?"

"I'd rather not, Lieutenant." I'm not sure if it was my sharp tone or my short words, but he stopped talking. I circle around the power armor to the front, studying the kill shot. A nice shot through its right eye in a gap of missing armor. "Good thing there was a hole in its faceplate, or we might not have been able to stop it."

I stepped beside it, interfacing with the computer and copying all the data over to my Pipbuck. Fortunately, the computer software was basically identical to the Pipbuck software, so the Security data override worked. My Pipbuck ticked gently and reminded me how much everything in the wasteland was trying to kill me.

A memory orb was ejected from the side, and I leaned down to look at it, carefully not touching it. “Hey, Dashie. Do me a favor, pick this up and put it in my saddlebags.”

"Oh neat, I wonder what's in it." Dashie neatly tucked it into one of my saddlebags.

"Probably the death of the operator or something equally gruesome." I grumbled.

"Aw, yeah, sounds fun, huh?" Sure. I shook my head and Dashie changed the topic. "I dunno, boss, we mighta been able to cherry tap it with spalling?" He didn't sound too hopeful.

I shook my head. "Probably not with a ghoul inside it, though a live pony..." I decided this wasn't a matter I wanted to go into now. The ghoul that hadn't blown up was standing there in place, held up by its armor. I didn't want to think of what might happen if the operator had been removed from the armor while still undead. Likely not any worse than if they were liquefied. I circled, studying the suit. All things considered, this suit still looked functional. "I wonder if the repair talisman is still working..." I glanced around and levitated one of the boots that remained from the other ghoul, feeding it into the resupply port. With a faint glow, the faceplate and several other spots started to repair themselves slowly. I laughed, prancing in place. "Haha, it still works. It still works!" I grinned to Dashie, leaning down and resting my horn against the flank, eyes closed, letting my magic study the suit. My Pipbuck ticked gently and reminded me how much everything in the irradiated hellhole was trying to kill me.

"You're prancing." Dashie facehooved. "Thats great, boss. Do you know how to use it?" I shook my head. "Of course not. It's glowing... are you going to pick it up and bring it back to the Stable?" I shook my head again. "Pick it up and throw it a klick in the air?"

Aha, ahaha. "No. That would be pretty cool though, wouldn't it?"

"Hornheads." He shook his head. "Sure thing. What are you doing, then, if a simple minded earth pony such as myself might inquire?" I felt Dashie step past me and heard him bite into something.

"Careful, Dashie, you might injure your simple mind if you use too many syllables in a single sentence." I let him consider that for a moment before answering his question. "I'm analyzing the suit so that if we run into more armored ghouls I can disable it from a distance, or at least mess with it." Dashie let out a muffled sound. "Or some uppity Steel Rangers, yes." I opened my eyes and looked up to see him with his teeth clenched around the bit on the rotary cannon attached to the suit's flank. "It's not coming off like that." He grunted in response. "There's something holding it in place, Dashie." He let go of it, and I smirked, closing my eyes and resting my horn against the flank again, following the bar that held it in place to a lever, switching the lever and letting the rotary cannon smoothly slip out; I levitated it and used my magic to cycle it. "Unsurprisingly, it still works." I stopped spinning it and let its mass spin itself back to idle.

"Blegh, irradiated metal." Dashie dug out his canteen and sipped from it, swirling the water around in his mouth before swallowing it. "What was I thinking?"

"You're the one that bit a suit of power armor with an irradiated ghoul inside it." I know, my incredible ability to state the obvious is why some of my troops gave me the nickname Captain Obvious, which they (somewhat cleverly) only used when they thought I wasn't listening.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Still, gross." Dashie glanced to me. "See? That's definitely proof of the unicorn revolution, makin' guns that only unicorns can service."

I sighed. "First of all, Dashie, power armor suits were primarily Wartime Technology designs, not Arcane Sciences. Second of all... the operator can also trigger the button. Thirdly, there are no helmets designed for unicorns, so its not like unicorns can use them." Dashie smirked at me. "What kind of an idiot would design armor that can't be used by some of the best ponies if those very ponies were planning to overthrow the rest of them?"

Dashie shrugged and glanced around us indifferently. "Probably the same folks that lead to this." By 'this', of course, he meant the wasteland in general.

"... Touche." I glanced to the sky and saw the sun was going down. "Time to head back to Haven." I glanced to the rotary cannon. We may as well take it with us. I levitated it beside me, muzzle pointed towards the ground below us.

"Aye, boss." He nodded and we trotted back towards Haven. As we got there, a voice hailed us from the top of the walls.

"That's far enough, you ponies!" I looked up and saw a unicorn mare levitating a lever rifle in our direction. At this range and in this light, I doubted she could hit us, but getting shot at by the guards is really not a good way to get into the town.

"We're part of the escort team from that last caravan, can we come in please?"

The mare's loud, sharp voice suggested she'd probably gone a few too many hours awake with too few hours asleep in the past few days. "Ha, a likely story!"

"Oh shut up, Frosty, and let them in." A colt's voice came out from atop the walls, out of sight.

Finally the sun disappeared behind the walls and I could see what the unicorn mare looked like. She had a cool blue palette with a lavender streak in her mane, with a paranoid expression as she paced from side to side, her lavender magic holding the lever rifle in our general direction. She was dressed in poorly maintained blue barding that I judged was supposed to be armor but I guessed anything larger than 10mm would penetrate easily. A pair of flight goggles sat over her eyes below her horn, which glowed with a lavender aura that matched the streak in her mane and the aura surrounding the lever rifle.

"They could be raiders!" I glanced to Dashie and I, wearing identical armored Stable barding, then glanced up to her with a mildly confused look. What an idiot. Dashie's look implied he was thinking the same thing I was. "And the unicorn has a minigun!" I rolled my eyes. It's a. ROTARY. CANNON. You idiot.

I sighed and called up to her. "Go find a trader named Broken Enamel. He'll know Captain Firefly and Lieutenant Rapid Dash." I glanced around for a spot free of ghoul bits and settled down, slowly setting the rotary cannon beside me.

The mare looked at us for a long moment, before slowly backing away. "You stay right there. You stay right the fuck there!" She yelled at us as she backed off. I rolled my eyes and glanced to Dashie, who was busy looting the bits of ghouls.

"Dashie, you've got sticky hooves, you know that?" He simply snickered. The rain picked up, bigger drops coming down more frequently. Wonderful. The gate suddenly and loudly lurched to life, slowly grinding open, far too soon for Ms. Paranoia to have talked to Enamel and returned. I stayed where I was, expecting a bunch of Haven's defense force to rush us, which is what I would have done in that situation after opening the gate. Of course, I wouldn't have even opened the gate until someone had confirmed my story.

Surprisingly instead, the colt from before waved us in. "C'mon in before Frost gets back." He leaned over the railing and yelled down to us. "She means well but she's sort of an idiot." Unprofessional. "Plus it's aloooot of fun to wind her up!" He grinned. Very unprofessional. "Thanks for helping us, by the way! I was on the south wall when y'all showed up, saw the whole thing."

"It was nothing." I rose to my hooves and headed towards the gate.

"Nothing? HA. I dunno about where you Stable folks come from, but helping other ponies in the wasteland is almost unheard of." I glanced to Dashie, who was already going through the gate.

I nodded. "You're welcome." I smiled to him and headed inside, before realizing I had no clue where we were going and calling back to the colt on the wall. "Hey, do you know where our caravan went to?"

He glanced back to us and leaned on the railing. "'Fraid not, Security." A mild thrill went up my spine as he called me Security, even though I knew he didn't mean it that way. "Check on the north east half of town past the main square, that's where most of the caravans end up." I nodded and set off to the north east. As we headed out of sight of the gate, I heard a mare shrieking furiously. Oops.

On one hoof, I did have to agree with her. Letting a strange pony in around another guard's back is really unprofessional, not to mention talking about them behind their back to complete strangers. On the other hoof? I think I could use that incompetency to everypony's advantage, especially Stable 30's.

"You know..." I smirked at Dashie. "All things considered, I've had worse entrances." All Dashie had to say in response was a disbelieving grunt. How he can communicate so well with just grunts amazes me. Must be some lesser understood form of earth pony magic.

Author's Notes:

And thus we get an insight into Firefly's mind as she defines her combat style as considerably less... enthusiastic... than Blackjack's "sword in one hoof, shotgun in another, bottle of whiskey in another!"

*"On the contrary, my mare, the pleasure is all mine!"

Revised on 01.31.16