Dear Diary,

We waited for about half an hour until we started getting hungry. We decided not to exploit our captors’ goodwill and eat food from our packs instead. We had a couple of Salisbury steak TV dinners, the kind you usually put in the microwave, and Grapevine heated them up a little by holding a lighter below a sheet of metal and using it as a makeshift frying pan. While we were eating, a couple of Testudos came in on their lunchbreak, sniffed the air, and asked us what we were eating and if we could share. We had a few more left, so we did.

“This is awesome!” one of them told us as they were eating. “We haven’t had steak in a long time!”

“Really?” Dmitry asked. “You can find these all over the place.”

“We don’t usually raid grocery stores,” the soldier replied. “Far too dangerous, they’re usually gang strongholds. And even if we do find something good in our scavenging, it gets eaten really quickly, usually by the pony who found it. So aside from Pork and Beans, which there’s plenty of, we don’t get much in the way of protein.”

“And yet you do all these operations all over the city?” I asked. “There’s no way that can be healthy for you.”

“It isn’t,” added another, who had a medic’s patch on his shoulder. “When I see ponies with thinning manes and flaky skin, I can hardly tell whether it’s from radiation or protein deficiency.”

“Probably both,” I said before stuffing another bite into my mouth.

“Heh, that describes every pony we’ve seen this past week,” Dmitry said. “Even the ones who live miles away from the city.”

“True,” said the medic, “but the ponies outside the city look a lot less pale than the ones in it. Maybe they’ve got better huntin’.”

“Actually, I’ve seen a lot more wild animals in the city than outside it,” said Grapevine. “Plenty of rottin’ corpses fer the carrion, and plenty of prey too.”

“Speaking of corpses,” I said, “Are you allowed to tell us what exactly you were doing at the airport the other day?”

“Sure we can tell you,” said a third, “And I’d be happy to answer your questions.”

He was a lieutenant, whose voice I recognized from over the radio that day (and later learned was Lieutenant Larynx, the leader of the ‘Tortoise’ group). “We had some intel that those pegasi, the so-called ‘Enclave,’ had an important piece of technology called the SPP Override Chip. The Major has been hunting it for months, sort of obsessively, because he’s convinced that it’s the only way he can bring order to this wasteland. We can’t do it by simply protecting people, because raiders can strike from literally anywhere. And we can’t do it by going after the raiders because there’s way too many of them. And even if you could get a large enough army, there’s no guarantee you could hold it together long enough to make a difference. Even in our unit, small as it is, we’ve had problems with cohesion. Much of our original regiment deserted, and even within our group we’ve had problems with insubordination. Well, have, because after the Major ordered a few executions we stopped having problems.”

“But what does this chip do?” asked Grapevine.

“And what does the filly have to do with it?” asked Dmitry.

“Good questions, both,” replied the Lieutenant. “Normally this would be classified information too secret even for us in the CPG, but nopony’s gonna come after us so I’m just going to spill it: During the war, the SPP, or ‘Single Pegasus Project,’ was a scheme by the Ministry of Awesome to automate all of Equestria’s weather control so it could all be controlled by a single pony. No more winter wrap-ups. No more rainbow factories. The time-honored pegasus tradition of weather-culture, all replaced by machines, in order to free up pegasi for combat duty. That’s what that tall tower on top of Mount Hoof is for: fully automated weather control, all overseen from a room in Canterlot or Hoofington or wherever.

But when the plan was submitted to our otherwise useless Parliament for rubber-stamping, there was an uproar. Some of the MP’s thought that granting total control over the weather to a single crown-appointed agent was giving the executive too much power, so they invoked an obscure law (from the reign of Queen Tiffany, no less,) to force the MoA to create thirteen ‘override chips,’ devices which, when inserted into a special port, could seize control of the system and allow the user to wrest control of all or part of Equestria’s weather away. One chip was given to each of Equestria’s provincial governors, to be used in the event that the pony controlling the SPP failed in their duties as a ‘weather czar’ or something like that.”

“Now, you’ve been in the wasteland for what, a little over a week now?” the lieutenant asked.

“Twelve days, to be exact,” Grapevine said.
“Okay, so a week and a half,” the lieutenant continued. “And in this week and a half, what have you seen? Chaos, looting, murder, and above all, lots and lots of snow. All of this was present before the war, but never to this extent. Between the weather and the anarchy, society has completely collapsed! Everypony is bunkered up in their homes, if they have them, or wandering aimlessly among the ruins. What kind of a life is that?”

“So… you want to use the override chip to take control of the weather and rebuild society?” I asked.

“Exactly,” he said. “Major Whiplash was never one to sit idly by when there’s a problem. Our hope is that if we can clear those clouds and make the weather great again, everypony will come out of hiding and rebuild. Maybe we could even convince some of the stables to open, giving us access to more ponies and supplies, though based on what you’ve told me about 76 we’ll have to cross it off our list.”

“Well, that was just ours,” said Grapevine. “And we had some rather… unusual circumstances… 75 and 74 should still be fine.”

“Probably,” said the lieutenant. “After all, what Stable-Tec makes is built to last. We’ve been meaning to send a scouting party to investigate whether those stables are still inhabited, but lately all of our time has been wrapped up with scavenging supplies and locating the override chip, which-- in answer to your original question-- is why we were at the airport.”

“But why are you looking for it here?” I asked. “If it belonged to the governor, shouldn’t you go down to the capital to look for it?”

“We did,” he replied. “I led a small team down there at the beginning, while the rest were busy fortifying this building, and I got it from the governor herself that it was up here. Apparently it had been sent here for repairs and was due to be returned, but due to extenuating circumstances it was lost. Our operation at the airport was a raid on a group of kooky ex-air force guys who call themselves ‘The Enclave’, in part because we feared they might have it, partly because we needed supplies, and partly in revenge for them harassing our scouting parties. Apparently they’re looking for it too because they want to keep the sky cloudy and stormy. Those partypoopers.”

We talked for a little while longer after that, finishing our meals and making jokes about the ‘Enclave’ guys and their previous incarnation, the chair force, until all of a sudden a mare came bursting into the room, panting heavily.

“Lieutenant, we’re under attack!” she said. “Major wants all hooves on deck. They’re mounting an assault from the roof.”

“From the roof?” he asked, stunned. “But if it’s an attack on the roof, and it’s that serious, then, this could only mean...”

The soldiers quickly got up and ran out of the room. The mare stayed at the doorway for a few seconds with a look of mild disgust and said, “You too, civilians. Major’s orders. If any of them get through the perimeter, they won’t hesitate to kill you.”

When we got up to the roof, the Enclave’s counter-raid was just about to start in earnest. Earlier there had been a small skirmish between the Enclave’s scouts and the Testudos’ sentries, but several pegasi were visible in the distance and estimated to arrive in one or two minutes. Expecting attacks from all directions, the Testudos were spread out along the edges of the roof to attack them as they flew towards us, with a few stationed in the center to protect the door. We were instructed to use whatever weapons we had on us for the time being, until they could bring up the sniper rifles and rocket launchers from their armory in the basement.

This pretty much just left me with a hunting rifle and some grenades.

Well, this is going to be fun.

I looked out at the afternoon sky. The clouds still hung ominously over the air, and at this height it felt like they loomed low overhead. A dense fog had rolled in during our absence, obscuring most of our surroundings from view. I could just barely see the mall, which wasn’t really that far away.

“Pegasi incoming at 9 o’clock!” yelled a sergeant (who was ironically a pegasus himself).

On cue, a squad of about a baker’s dozen pegasi in lightweight olive-green armor flew in a V-shape overhead, raining a hail of bullets down from light machine gun battlesaddles mounted to their sides. They were only above us for a quick second, and I only had enough time to get out two shots (both of which probably missed) before they were out of range. Then, just before they disappeared into the fog on the other side of the building, they split into three smaller groups of roughly equal size, and turned around for another flyby. One group flying toward the north end of the tower, another toward the south, and the third flew in a rounded arc going upwards, aiming to slice back through the center.

Being on the west side of the building and close to the southwest corner, I chose to focus my aim on the south group. I aimed my rifle well and got off three more shots, one of which I think grazed a lavender mare’s wing. Despite being rather similar in form to the standard issue infantry armor, this Enclave’s armor was somewhat more intimidating, especially their helmets, which gave them a more insect-like feel. The scariest part, in my opinion, is the eyes, or rather lack of, because the helmets’ orange lenses completely obscured the pupils. Because of this, you couldn’t tell exactly what these soldiers were thinking, and so they appeared completely indifferent as they zoomed past machine-gunning ponies who not too long ago would have been their allies.

After my third shot, I had to reload my rifle, and in the process completely missed the next flyby. In my defense, I’m not used to using hunting rifles, and probably only used it in a single training session back in the stable before now. However, even if I did know what I was doing, the reloading process seemed needlessly complicated for a gun that can only fire five rounds.

Just then, a few ponies came up to the roof with the first of the guns; however, they had only brought missile launchers, and only enough to equip half of the ponies in the center.

“No relief for us yet,” said the pegasus Sergeant. “Keep going with what you’ve got.”

Another wave. This time, they had broken up into four groups of three and attacked from the corners, then swerved left to spray a bank of fire on us ponies at the edges. Just as my trio of targets flew overhead, I remembered that my pipbuck, that handy little stable-issued hoof-mounted personal computing device, had a feature called the ‘Stabletec Assisted Targeting Spell,’ or ‘SATS.’ Something I had actually used several times before in the past several days, but very sparingly before then or even during this battle. I activated it immediately, and instantly time slowed around me… or rather, the neurons in my brain simply sped up relative to my surroundings, so that it merely seemed as though everything else had slowed down. Never before had SATS been so useful, as I could now focus my shots on the pegasi’s individual body parts with, according to my pipbuck’s calculations, 50-60% accuracy. Those odds would be terrible in regular combat, but against something zooming past you at rapid speed, that’s pretty good. Perhaps with a little more experience doing this, I could bump it up to 70.

BAM! Right in the wing. I shot her again in the same place for good measure.

It was super effective. The mare lost control of herself and careened towards the roof, hitting it with a loud Thud! And possibly a faint Crack! Too, but I could barely hear it. With such blunt trauma to the head and neck, she’s pretty much done for unless somepony hauls her off to an ER with a trauma surgeon right now.

One of the other ponies in her group looked back nervously, but then his stone-faced squad leader said something that made him jerk his head forward again. It looked like the casualties were starting to pile up for them, and after this maneuver they would have to regroup.

When each of the four groups got to the end of its side of the building, each made a hard right turn and began converging on the center of the building. Our gun runners, who had brought out miniguns this time, had to drop them and duck for cover behind some rooftop air conditioners as the pegasi flew in with a hail of bullets. When they all got to the center, the pegasi flew around in a circle a little bit while I got off two more SATS-assisted shots which both missed the wings but managed to graze their legs.

Then the pegasi all began to fly upward in what I assume was some sort of high-altitude tactical retreat. However, congregating in the center was a grave mistake, because one of the Testudos with the missile launchers fired off a rocket that took two of them out.

While I waited for SATS to recharge, I reloaded my rifle, taking care to memorize each of the steps so I could do it faster the next time. Except… there was no next time, because the pegasi flew off and didn’t come back. We waited for a few minutes to see if they would return, or if they were just trying to lull us into a false sense of security, but we couldn’t see them anywhere on the horizon.

Some of the Testudos began chatting amongst themselves, and Grapevine let out a loud “Wooooo!” I simply wiped my brow with a quiet “phew” and set down my gun.

“Don’t get comfy yet guys,” hollered Lieutenant Larynx. “Those were just the skirmishers.”

“Wait--” I gasped in shock. “...skirmishers?”

As if on cue, a large airship burst out of the fog on the western horizon.

“Ho--leee shit,” Grapevine muttered under her breath. “That’s one hell of a doozy.”

Three large doozies, in fact. Three of them. ‘Vertibucks,’ as they were called, were an all-purpose cross between a helicopter, a jet fighter, and a small passenger plane. Capable of quickly dropping in and landing on small surfaces, they were designed to quickly airdrop soldiers into a battle without the need for any pesky parachutes. They also had turrets and missile launchers, which were very unwelcome additions to this fight.

“Hit the deck!!!”

We all hit the ground just as the vertibucks fired their missiles, which flew past us and landed near the center of the building, exploding on impact. A few of the Testudos poked their heads up, but quickly retracted them as the vertibucks drew near with their miniguns spewing beams of lead. The vertibucks flew over us too quickly for anypony to react, except for Grapevine, who moved with lightning fast (and likely drug-assisted) speed to lob a grenade using SATS with enough speed that it broke through a glass panel on the cockpit of the closest vertibuck. It produced a big explosion inside just as the aircraft landed, killing the pilots and disabling the controls.

We all faced towards the vertibucks, which had landed in a triangle around the center of the roof. We expected the cabin doors to open and greet us with a rain of minigun fire, but only the doors on the interior of the triangle opened, as if they had no intention of dealing with the rest of us. After a moment’s hesitation, everypony switched to small arms and began charging towards the center. I swapped my hunting rifle for my 10mm and a combat knife, and considered bringing out some grenades to lob at the invaders, but decided against it, figuring the risk of friendly fire was too high.

A huge mass of ponies gathered in the center, with several more trying to get in through the gaps between the vertibucks. I was left on the outside with no way to get in or contribute to the battle. I could only assume it was a bloodbath in there.

After a few minutes of waiting around for an opening, one of the Testudos came up to me and asked, “Can you help me climb over that thing?,” pointing to the nearest vertibuck. Eager to do my part, I happily obliged him. However, carrying another pony is a lot harder than it looks on TV, and I swear I almost broke my back trying to help him climb up to the top of the cabin. Maybe if I was a bit stronger this wouldn’t hurt as much?

Just as I finished helping the Testudo climb the vertibuck, a crimson stallion enveloped entirely in sleek black armor popped out from behind the vertibuck and started shooting red lightning every which way. He appeared to be wearing a battlesaddle with some kind of energy weapon. His armor was heavier and looked even more buglike than the strike force we dealt with earlier, complete with metal plates to protect his wings and some kind of scorpion tail-like appendage in the back that effectively turned his tail into a whip. I found that out the hard way, because he smacked me right in the ass, and the shock made me fall to the ground with a thud. I looked behind me quickly enough to see him prepare to zap me with his gun before one of the Testudos tackled him to the ground. I needed a few minutes to recover from the stinging pain in my buttocks, but I was able to levitate my pistol behind me and shoot him in the wing, on the bottom where the wing plates didn’t cover. His wings reflexively shot up in searing pain, allowing me to get a few more shots in.

“I might not be able to get you in the butt,” I thought, “but I can still return the favor.”

By the time I was ready to get up again, the battle was almost over. Despite lacking the thick metal armor of the Enclave, the Testudos managed to beat back the Enclave with fewer casualties. What little remained of the Enclave’s strike force scrambled back into a vertibuck and took off hurriedly with the grace and precision of a drunk pegasus with a concussion. Lieutenant Larynx calmly ordered his troops to hold their fire for a minute, then ordered all the rocket launchers to concentrate their fire on the vertibuck’s left rotor. The rotor exploded, causing the aircraft to wildly spin as it fell to the ground, then landed with a magnificent explosion squarely on top of the mall which totaled the craft and ensured there would be no survivors. Then the mall’s shoddy construction manifested itself as the impact caused widespread structural failure and most of the building collapsed in an enormous cloud of dust.

A crowd gathered on the northern edge of the building to observe the scene. The Lieutenant calmly walked to the ledge, gave one glance at his handiwork and scoffed, “Heh, always knew those tin cans were garbage,” then walked back towards the stairs.

Fighting a battle is one thing, but cleaning up after a fight is an ordeal all to itself. First, all of the casualties had to be taken down to the clinic for treatment, or in some cases, a last-ditch effort to save their lives. Then there were the Enclave casualties, most of whom still retained some degree of consciousness but were unable to do anything but writhe in pain. Seeing as they were already low on food and medical supplies, the Testudos certainly weren’t going to treat them, but they still had to do something about all the soon-to-be corpses strewn across their rooftop. The pegasus sergeant from earlier, a certain Sergeant Stratus, suggested they just throw the bodies off the roof, an idea which became popular among the privates once somepony suggested they make a contest out of it. However, Lieutenant Larynx shot the idea down after Sergeant Subglottis pointed out that they might be able to salvage the armor and guns from the corpses. He also suggested, in hushed tones that I happened to be close enough to hear, that they could harvest some meat off the bodies so they’d have something to feed the troops if push came to shove. Larynx seemed to agree with this, and ordered Subglottis’ squad to stay behind afterward for a “very special mission” after the armor, weapons, and ammo had all been salvaged. There were also the massive puddles of blood, which they normally would have left alone, but were now deemed a suitable task for a couple of ponies who Major Whiplash had wanted to discipline.

After all the ammo had been scavenged, I took a look at the corpses myself to see if there was anything of value left to take. Strangely enough, these soldiers had been carrying around all kinds of useless junk in their pockets, from tin cans and screwdrivers to baby rattles and rodent teeth. Since none of it was worth anything, I just left and went downstairs.

After the battle and treating three officers to lunch, I felt like the Testudos trusted us more. Not a lot-- just a little, but enough that they no longer felt we needed to be kept in a room and baby-sat like toddlers. The three of us passed the time exploring the vast office building which we had zipped through before. Most of it was abandoned and disused, but we managed to scrounge a few bullets, healing potions, and even a few bottlecaps from various containers.

Our exploration ultimately led us down to the basement. We stopped by the armory where Dmitry managed to convince the quartermaster to trade some bullets that we needed in exchange for some that we didn’t. Then we went down a long corridor past several storerooms and maintenance areas until we reached an unassuming door near the end of the hallway leading to an unlabeled room. What made this door different from all the others was that it was propped open.

“Sergeant Sinus here told me you’re almost finished,” said Major Whiplash from within. “Is this true?”

“Almost done, sir,” said a familiar filly’s voice in an uncharacteristically nervous and subdued tone. “I think this is the last layer.”

The three of us quietly entered the room and observed from a distance. In a dimly lit room filled with computer servers, Major Whiplash and a few other Testudos stood around a mainframe computer terminal, and seated in a chair was none other than Tandy, the filly I met back at Sandy Shades. I was too far away to read any of the text on the screen, but I could tell there was a popup window with a nearly filled loading bar in the middle of the screen.

“Okay, I’m through,” said Tandy with a sigh of relief. “Will there be anything else, Major?”

“We just need to know if this will work,” Whiplash said. “Enter the password and hit ‘confirm.’”

After at least forty carefully pressed keyboard clacks, the computer gave off a ‘beep’ and another loading bar appeared, but filled itself within five seconds. Then an error message appeared, accompanied with a soft ‘dun’ sound.

“Y:\Users\Admin\AppData\Roaming\EC-1776 not found,” Whiplash read. “Please insert SPP Override Chip to continue...”

He pulled himself away from the computer and then thrust his forehooves against the wall.

“RAAAHHHHH!!!!! Is there ANY other way to do this?!?”

“We’ve tried everything we can think of,” said Sergeant Sinus, a green stallion with a very large nose. “But they all keep leading back to this. It seems as though we just can’t hack the towers remotely. Now, maybe we could actually go to the tower and hack it directly...”

“No, it’s supposed to be controllable from here,” said the Major. “We ran the network diagnostics on at least six separate occasions and everything was perfect.”

“What about...” Sergeant Sinus trailed off in thought, then swiftly turned around. “You there, Changeling!” he shouted. “Can you help us?”

Dmitry was skimming through a stack of notes on a table.

“Nope, sorry,” he said. “Half of these operations I don’t even understand. Regular terminals and low-level corporate stuff I can do, but high level ministry terminals… that’s beyond me. I mean, some of this stuff I’m pretty sure is illegal to do without at least a gamma level ministry security clearance.”

“Wha-- how do you…?” asked one of the privates.

As if by habit, Dmitry whipped out his wallet and removed an ID card. With a tinge of annoyance, he said dryly, “Dmitry Belka, Ministry of Awesome, Loyalty Inspection Division, Cascadia Region: ‘Filling in the MoM’s incompetence since… whenever.’ Notice the white triangle inside the red box. That’s a delta, as in, one level below gamma.”

Most of the other ponies looked at each other in astonishment.

“Wow,” said Sergeant Sinus. “I’d heard about Dash’s Loyalty Police, but I didn’t think they actually existed!”

Major Whiplash was merely bemused, but not surprised.

“MoA agent, huh?” he said. “That might explain how you got in here...” He then cleared his throat. “It’s a lost cause, anyway. I don’t think anypony short of Rainbow Dash herself could break into this thing. And even then, it would probably just tell her to piss off, too.”

He turned towards Tandy, then said, “Alright, you’ve been at this for long enough. Seeing as it’s virtually impossible to get in, you held up your end of the bargain so you’re free to go.”

A look of surprise overcame Tandy’s face.

“R-really?” she asked. “B-but, I don’t know my way around the city. I might get lost, a-and--”

“Luckily for you, you have some friends who came to rescue you,” said Whiplash, gesturing towards myself and my companions. Tandy’s eyes lit up upon seeing me.

“Silver!” she cried. “You came all the way here… for me?” Then her joy faded, and she added, “My dad didn’t put you up to this, did he?”

“Actually, we heard about a foalnapping from a merchant,” I said. “We had no idea it was you.”

“We would’ve come here anyway,” Grapevine added. “We needed ta get some info off’a Stable-Tec’s computers. Would you mind helpin’ us do it?”

“Oh, certainly!” Tandy said, before turning towards Whiplash. “If it’s okay with you, that is.”

“Fine by me,” Whiplash said. “Nothing on those old things concerns me. As long as you’re all outta here by sundown.”

“Great!” said Tandy. “I’m sure we’ll be outta here by then.”

“Good,” said Grapevine. “‘Cause I’d rather not stay for dinner.”

We spent the next hour or so scouring through the Stable-Tec records, trying to find something-- anything-- that could be of use to us: the whereabouts of the Stable-Tec employees? The location of a secret supply cache? A secret army of robots? The only thing of use to us were the locations of other stables within the region, but from the reports written about them, it didn’t seem as though any of the nearby ones would be of much use.

Then we came across a program which contained estimates of the populations of every stable in the region, based on the number of pings their central computers received from the ‘active’ pipbucks (meaning they sensed they were connected to a hoof with living flesh) within the stable or nearby. The data was collected in intervals of five minutes each, and could be displayed in tables or graphs, scaleable over any period of time. Stable 76, for instance, had a minimal caretaker population of three or four ponies though most of last October, then experienced a surge during the morning hours of October 23rd. After that, it remained mostly stable through the winter months with a few new additions from fillies and colts coming of age to receive their pipbucks. Then there were a few drops during the late spring and early summer. Through July and August there was an enormous slump, leaving only a tenth of the initial population by the first of September, and since then that number had declined by half. Keep in mind that the data does not differentiate between ponies who have died and ponies whose pipbucks have stopped working or have gone beyond the signal’s range (In our case, our departure correlated with three pipbucks going off the radar shortly after noon on September 2nd). However, most of those who departed 76 did so involuntarily, and in a spiritual sense.

To be honest, this kind of just left me stunned. I mean, I knew ponies had been dying back in 76 since late spring, but seeing it visualized left a far deeper impression. My companions must have felt the same thing too, since a grim silence hung over the room for far longer than I would have liked.

It took a while before anypony was able to say anything. Tandy, being the outsider of our group, was the first to break the silence by suggesting, “Why don’t we look at something else?”

So we looked at records for other stables instead. About half of them had sustained damage to their mainframes or broadcasting equipment, leaving them unable to broadcast any recent data. Stable 74 seemed to be having problems with either its computer or its power supply, as its connection would go down for days at a time before restarting again, and presently retained about half of its initial population. Most stables weren’t so lucky, having suffered enormous dips that careened into the bottom of the graph. Even though our stable appeared to be heading towards the same fate, it had held out a lot longer and had a far less precipitous decline. Out of the dozens of stables in the database, only a few reported populations consistent with their initial intake.

Tandy recognized that none of this was cheering us up, so she switched to viewing files about the company itself, and its various facilities, business contracts, payrolls, and the like. These files were mostly walls of text filled with legalese and corporate jargon, which changed the mood from grim to dull, and instead of huddling around the computer screen like we’re watching the series finale of our favorite TV show, we now pulled back and looked on as if we were doing research for a school assignment. At one point, Grapevine just went to the other side of the room and stared at the flickering of the server’s indicator lights, seemingly deriving more entertainment from that than what we were doing. Dmitry was much more intrigued, especially since he had a penchant for looking through other ponies’ stuff which I observed firsthoof during our time living together in the stable. We skimmed through pages upon pages of land surveys, minutes from corporate board meetings, shipping manifests, fraudulent accounting sheets, and the like until we had had enough.

“Well, I hope you guys found what you were looking for, whatever it is,” said Tandy.

“Meh, not really,” I replied. “There didn’t seem to be much on there of use to us.”

“At least we know our stable’s still alive,” Grapevine said.

“Yeah, but just barely,” said Dmitry. “At this rate, there won’t be anypony left by the end of the month...”

“We still have some hope,” I said. “Stable-Tec has a large warehouse down in Deer Creek. If the records are correct, they have a large army of construction and security robots down there.”

“Deer Creek?” Grapevine asked. “That’s like, two hundred miles south of here. Can we even make it in time?”

“We’ve traveled fifty miles in two weeks,” I said. “If we don’t distract ourselves with any more sidequests, we can probably make it there and back before winter sets in.”

“We’re kind of already in winter,” Grapevine said.

“Hey, an army of robots actually sounds kinda nice,” Dmitry said. “Maybe they can pull a carriage for us so we don’t have to walk back.”

“C’mon, let’s get outta here,” Tandy said. “If we’re gonna go anywhere before sunset, we’ve gotta leave now.”

By the time we got back on the road, the sky and clouds were beginning to develop the distinctive orange tint we had begun to recognize as a wasteland sunset. Without an actual sun visible in the sky, we had to learn how to use the color of the sky and the shadows on the ground to tell time. Of course, we also had clocks on our pipbucks, but learning how to tell time using the natural surroundings remained a useful skill to have, especially while traveling.

As we traveled south, we had noticed a large plume of thick black smoke rising over the skyline and into the clouds from a small shopping center we had passed by earlier but took no notice of. We were in such a hurry to get to the tower that we didn’t notice there was a settlement here… well, the remains of one, at least. We decided to leave the highway and investigate. As we got closer, the little specks of ash wafting up in the smoke, gentle crackling of flames, and the trail of bloody hoofprints on the road indicated the worst.

The shopping center was an L-shaped building centered around a large fabric store. A makeshift palisade built from vehicle parts and store shelves connected the center to a few adjacent buildings. The main gate was wide open, and as peered in the first thing I noticed was the large parking lot, upon which the residents had spread a hoof-deep layer of dirt and attempted to grow various grains and vegetables. Much of their crop had been trampled, but what little remained was meager and pitiful-- even by wasteland standards, but a noble effort nevertheless. As I looked around I saw several overturned baskets and the occasional corpse, mutilated almost beyond recognition. The worst irony was the walls, which had been painted with murals in bright colors depicting idyllic scenes of ponies working the land and celebrating bountiful harvests under grey skies; the settlement’s dream of itself, shattered by numerous bullet holes, scratches, and splotches of blood. Worst of all was the fire consuming the main building: not only did it prevent entry into the building, but it was powerful enough to significantly raise the temperature of the surrounding area and choke the air with smoke.

I considered trying to scavenge the place, but I felt too guilty about what had happened here, as if doing so would just needlessly twist the knife in an already stabbed corpse. Besides, anything of value had probably been looted already, so the best course of action was to just leave. As I left, I noticed a few ponies emerging from the shadows across the street, judging that we were not a threat and it was safe to come out. They came from under bushes and trees, from under wrecked cars, and one even from under a manhole. They stared humbly at the ruins, with the fear and trepidation of one who has lost his home. One snow-white stallion fell to his knees and broke down in tears.

“I can’t believe it...” he said softly. “It’s gone. It’s all gone.”

“Well, you can’t just keep staring at it all day,” I said.

“This was everything I had...”

“You should get going,” I said. “It’s getting darker… and colder. Find some shelter, preferably far away from here in case they come back.”

He didn’t listen. I stared at him for a moment. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the fire. I moved my body in front of his and looked him straight in the eyes.

“You have to move on,” I said. “Stop living in the past.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” he said with annoyance as he turned away from me, got up, moved a few paces, then sat back down closer to the fire.

“This is all that’s left of the community,” he said, staring blankly into the flames. “A community I’ve been a part of since long before the war. They took me in when I needed it most, accepted me without question, and gave me everything I could ever want in life. I belonged there. You can’t just abandon something like that just because you don’t like a few of the people or some of the rules....”

He briefly paused before later adding,

“...It wasn’t always like that. It wasn’t always that bad. But after the war, there weren’t much of us left… except for those… ponies. And they were the only ones who seemed to know where to go or what to do, so I couldn’t help but follow...”

He continued to stare silently into the flames.

Now, I may not be very empathetic, but even I could understand that this was a pony who desperately needed some love. So I gently put my hoof on his back and said,

“I know a place where you can go. It may not be the same, but it’s a community, and they can provide you with a home. And a job. And company. And as far as I know, it seems like a very accepting place. I’m sure you’ll like it there.”

We found about two dozen survivors from both this and another settlement the raiders had sacked earlier in the day. Sixteen decided to follow us out of the city. I was somewhat disappointed by the other eight’s rejection of my offer, but it was their loss.

“Follow me,” I said as I began moving. I was followed by my companions, and then by the group of survivors, who all moved as a single mass as if driven by a collective consciousness. I decided to try using the city streets this time instead of the freeways, betting on my navigational skills to guide us through the suburban maze. My reasoning was that it was nearing dusk, and if there were any raiders out there looking for a quick ambush just before bedtime, they were probably going to do it on the more well-traveled routes that everypony knew, and there would be fewer places to hide during an ambush. Nopony questioned my logic, so the question was settled.

However, this may not have been the best idea. We were able to navigate okay and avoid any time-wasting wrong turns by sticking to the arterial roads and asking around whenever we got to an intersection and didn’t know which way to turn. However, I began to wonder if the trip was even worth it at all as the shadows got longer and the sky’s orange glow grew fainter. To the annoyance of the others, I kept a brisk pace and encouraged everypony else to keep up. Many of them struggled with large sacks of scavenged belongings or injuries from the raids. I too was recovering from an injury from the earlier battle, but I struggled through the pain and kept going, since only a brisk pace could get us out of the city before it became too dark to see. I considered slowing down, for my sake and for the others, but kept deciding against it for the simple reason that navigating by flashlight would merely be giving a beacon for anything malevolent out there to attack us. I wouldn’t risk anything that would get our party of war-torn refugees and walking-wounded attacked again.

The sluggish pace of the group was both a blessing and a curse to me. Although it severely hampered our speed, it at least gave me an excuse to rest a little on several occasions as I waited for the others to catch up. My admittedly brisk pace was kind of exhausting, and I likely would have just called it quits much earlier if it weren’t for our escort mission.

I was taking one of these short rest breaks shortly after entering the suburb of Gallopbreath. I sat down on a bench at a bus stop and opened a bottle of Sparkle Cola to quench my thirst, remembering to save the bottle cap in case I ran into Gaggleskein again. I looked down the road and saw the others crossing a bridge about 300 yards away. After about a minute, Dmitry arrived and sat down next to me, looking kind of exhausted.

“Silver, you need to slow down,” he said. “You’re going way too fast.”

“We have to keep moving,” I replied tersely. “If we’re going to leave the city by nightfall, we can’t stop to rest.”

This irked him.

“Like you’re doing right now?” he asked. Before I could respond, he continued, “Look, the others are tired and need to rest. Maybe we should stop for the night in that building over there.” He pointed to a “Leaving the city might be too lofty a goal for tonight.”

“No,” I said. “We have to get them out of the city as soon as we can. It’s too dangerous for them here. Besides, that building is too big and has too many unsecured windows.”

“We don’t have to secure all the windows,” Dmitry replied. “We could find a room or two on the inside and lock ourselves in. If we start preparing it now, we’ll have a secure place for everypony to sleep before it gets dark.”

“No,” I said. “We have to get going. Once we’re out of the city, we won’t need to worry about raiders at all.”

“What you’re asking is completely unreasonable!” he exclaimed. “We can’t make it to the city limit in time.”

“Only because you think you can’t,” I shot back. “You’ll never know what you’re capable of if you don’t push youself. Why, I once walked all the way from Beavertown to Mt. Hoof in a single night.”

“That’s only because you walk fast!” he said. “A lot faster than most ponies. And I highly doubt you did that during a forced march, with no breaks, a sprained fetlock, and a 50 pound sack on your back!”

I got up in a huff.

“Fine,” I said. “If you want to hole up in this dump, then go ahead. I’ll meet you on the south side of the Whinnyamette, outside of the city. At your pace, it’ll probably take you all morning tomorrow to get there.”

I looked around to see where the others were. They were about thirty minutes away, in between the library and a bank on the other side of the street. Suddenly, gunshots rang out from the windows of bank and the refugees fled in all directions. Some beefy bear-like raiders brandishing machetes and butcher’s knives shot out from the first floor of the bank and tackled the ponies fleeing in their direction.

“We’ve gotta help them!” I exclaimed, then ran towards them.

“No shit!” Dmitry said, coming after me.

I stopped in front of a grizzly looking green stallion who had the white pony from the mall pinned down underneath him and was about to chop him to pieces with a butcher’s cleaver. I got out my .32 and aimed with SATS at his head, knocking the knife’s blade out of his mouth and landing a few shots around his ear. The raider fell down on his side like a sack of potatoes. His victim looked at me, half-grateful and half-horrified.

I gave him a quick smile, then went in for another target. This raider was also about to mutilate a pony, but he heard me coming and spun around to contend with me. SATS had only recharged enough for two more shots, so I aimed two right into his face. He recoiled at this, giving me time to fire off another two rounds right into his stomach. He fell backwards, landing in a heap right on top of the pony he was going to slice. I shot him twice more in the head to make sure he was dead, and his red mark disappeared from my targeting system. However, his victim was still trapped underneath his lardy corpse, so with much effort I had to roll it off her like a massive boulder so she wouldn’t lay there like a sitting duck. Once I had the body off of everything except her hoof, she yanked it out and quickly thanked me, then scurried off into a shrub to hide.

I then turned around to see how many more raiders we had to deal with. There were only two more of the knife wielders, one of them currently engaged in hoof-to-hoof combat with Grapevine, and another being held down by three of the survivors as a fourth fumbled around trying to reload a pistol he didn’t really know how to use. Then there were four snipers on the second floor of the bank, firing their weapons into the bushes. I realized that the bushes, where several of the survivors had hid in, provided very poor cover since they had all lost their leaves. However, trying to flee to better cover would only expose them more, so they just stayed huddled in the bushes and tried to cover themselves as best they could. I realized that I would have to take out the snipers next. My hunting rifle was running low on ammo, but I had enough shots to take the sniper ponies out. I aimed my rifle at them and targeted their heads in SATS, but they quickly noticed me and ducked their heads just below the bullets could hit. I waited for them to pop back out again, quickly aimed, but again they ducked and my bullets only hit the wall behind them. I thought about throwing a grenade at them, but Grapevine was the only one of us who could aim that high and she was busy. I decided that instead of playing whack-a-mole, I would have to go into the bank and take them out directly.

Inside the bank, I found the door to the upstairs was locked. I looked outside but couldn’t find Dmitry, meaning that I had to pick the lock myself. It took three bobby pins and a lot longer than I would have liked, but I managed to pick the lock on my own and open the door. As the door opened, I heard a soft beeping noise and looked down. The raiders had affixed a makeshift explosive device to the inside of the door frame, set to go off whenever one opened the door. I ducked for cover behind some chairs, escaping the explosion just in the nick of time.

When it was safe to come out, I went through the door and began climbing the stairs. I heard some hoofsteps up above, indicating that they must have detected my presence when their door bomb went off. The staircase took the form of an L, and as I rounded the corner, I came face-to-face with one of the snipers descending the stairs. Both of us were frightened by each other’s presence and screamed, but my reflexes were quicker, allowing me to get over my shock a split second earlier and fire my pistol straight into her chest. The raider heaved, which was my chance to shoot her again, this time in the throat. She collapsed onto the ground just barely alive, but I had to take care of her fellow snipers before I could finish her off. I climbed over her body and up the rest of the stairs, then went down a short hallway and burst into a conference room along the wall facing the library.

The other three snipers were caught off guard by my arrival, allowing me to take the initiative and fire a few shots into the first one’s face. She fell like a stone, shocking one but only emboldening the other, who began to fire back. I ducked below the conference table and reloaded my pistol while SATS recharged. While I reloaded, the emboldened sniper walked around the table and appeared in front of me and fired. I dodged, then shot her four times in the back, felling her to the ground. I turned to face the third sniper, but she merely bolted into another room. I followed her in, but she merely jumped out a window along the north wall and bolted westward down the street.

When I came out of the bank, the last sniper had already vanished. The last two knife wielders had been dealt with, and we were finally safe. However, only five of the surviving survivors crept out of hiding. I was about to call out to the others, but as I surveyed the corpses, I realized that these were the only ones left. Six lay motionless in the bushes, four flayed out on the street. The one that stood out the most to me was a small teal filly, filleted and hacked by knife beyond recognition, with entrails spilled out on the ground. A few flies, bloated to the size of baseballs, had begun gorging themselves on her corpse. I fired a shot at the pavement beside her, which was enough to scare the flies away. I approached the corpse solemnly, noting two tiny wings on her back. She was a teal pegasus, and probably hadn’t even learned how to fly yet. In the fading flow of the cloud-veiled sun, the filly’s face took on somewhat of an orange hue.

We looted what we could from the bodies and the raider base for ammo and supplies. We didn’t find much, but it offered a slight recompense for what we had just been through. One of the survivors suggested we bury the bodies, while another pointed out it was getting dark and that we should get going before the raider that got away could come back with friends. We reached a compromise where we dumped the bodies of the other survivors in a nearby river, with one of the living ones created a miniature funeral pyre, lit it with a flip lighter, and gently set it down in the water. We watched it until it went out of sight (in our case, when it went past the bridge), then continued on down the road.

We left the raiders’ bodies out to rot, as fresh pickings for the other wasteland carrion to feed on in our absence.

We also decided to take the freeway the rest of the way. Despite it lacking places for us to hide in the event of a raid, it also deprived any potential raiders cover to ambush us from. If anypony wanted to attack us, they would have to run out to the middle of the road, where we would be ready for them.

Having a smaller group should have made me feel safer, since there are fewer ponies we needed to keep track of. But instead, I felt lonely and vulnerable, as if somepony had cut off my tail-- a thing that should be part of your body, but you never notice until you’ve lost it. The fact that two thirds of our group had left us-- and not voluntarily-- really scared me. What if we were attacked again? Then the raiders could outnumber us. And seeing how it took four of these ponies to take down one raider, and there being only three semi-experienced fighters in our group… that did not bode well for us. My fear for the group’s safety made me really slow down and keep pace with the rest of them. I wondered if walking slightly ahead of them could provide some valuable scouting knowledge, but I had to balance this against any potential morale gain I could get from sticking with the pack-- not for me, but for their sake.

Eventually, Dmitry approached me and again asked me about stopping to rest.

“Not to bother you with this again,...” he began, “But I really think we should find a place to stop and rest for the night. It’s getting really dark.”

I looked up at the sky. The orange glow was now getting faint, and the shadows of the buildings and trees loomed over the highway as staunchly and solidly as the overpasses did. I admitted to myself that yes, it was getting pretty dark and that I might soon have to break out a flashlight to see ahead of me, but I didn’t want to admit this.

“No,” I said. “We have to keep going. The last time we stopped for a break, we got attacked.”

“The last time you stopped for a break,” Dmitry retorted, rather harshly. “Nopony else got a rest. And besides, the only reason why we got attacked right then and there was because somepony decided we should keep on going, instead of… oh, I don’t know… stopping at that hotel ten blocks earlier. Or the one twenty blocks before that. Or--”

“You suggested we stop at that library,” I said. “You know, the one right across the street from a frickin’ raider camp! Maybe you should let me pick the rest stops from now on, since you don’t seem to be very good at it.”

“Oh, look who’s talking!” he responded. “You’re the one who picked that raider-filled route. You’re also the one who walked five hundred yards ahead of us. You were the scout, but you utterly failed at spotting those raiders before it was too late!”

“First, I asked if anypony objected, and there was silence,” I replied. “Tacit consent, all around. And second, maybe if anypony else cared about logistics, you would have been up front, with me, then we could have had enough guns in our group to deter them from attacking us!”

“Oh, so you’re blaming a pack of exhausted and injured ponies for not keeping up with your death march?” Dmitry asked mockingly. “Well, maybe if you actually cared about these ponies, you’d stick close to them instead of just running ahead and smelling the fucking roses!”

“Running ahead? Smelling roses!?!” I gasped. “Well, maybe to you that’s what I’m doing, but I’m fucking LEADING! If I didn’t propose we get out of the city, you’d all still be standing in a heap of rubble, waiting for that raider gang to circle back for seconds!”

“I’m this fucking close to just taking the others over there and turning in for the night,” Dmitry said, starting to boil over. “Honestly, I’m surprised any of them are still following you after you got most of them killed! Remember, we followed you because we chose to follow you, because we trusted you, not because the Princesses appointed you to be our leader. And you’d better respect that or we’ll kick you out. You just got eleven ponies killed by your negligence. You should be the last pony to be acting cocky, because YOU just got two thirds of our group KILLED! Why, if this was the military and you got two thirds of your squad killed, you would be relieved of command and fucking COURT MARTIALED!”

I had never seen him get this irate. Ever. Not at anything we’d seen in the wasteland, not at any of the fucked up shit that went on in our stable, and I’d never heard of him acting like this before the war. I didn’t even know he had it in him. But now here he was, chewing me out. I don’t know if he had mind reading powers or if he just knew me that well, but the part about leadership and getting court martialed really hit home for me. I shut up after that, looked away, and generally stared at my surroundings while sulking over my failings as a leader.

Ever since I was a little filly, I had always walked at the front of the group. I don’t know why, it just always came naturally to me. As naturally as how some ponies swish their tails from side to side as they walk, or tilt their ears down when they’re sad, even though neither seem to fulfil any functional purpose. Was it because that’s where the adults were, and so I could ask the guides questions on tours? Partly, but that didn’t explain everything. Did I just like being first at everything? Not exactly that either. I had once read an evolutionary psychology book stating that in prehistoric pony herds, alpha ponies would try to place themselves at the front of the pack to assert their dominance. This same behavior can also be found in other social animals, such as wolves, and that even though that behavior is generally discouraged today, it’s still deeply ingrained in our psychology. However, I read a different book that said alpha status was usually given to the largest pony. So, did that mean that ponies followed me because I’m assertive, or did they follow me because they thought I was fat?

Anyway, being in front was always something I just did, mainly because most of my peers didn’t really care about being at the front of the group. But in effect, I was leading, wasn’t I? I’ve often thought I might make a good leader, if not a decent one, and I’m far from the worst pony to do it. But Dmitry’s statement about me being a failure because I didn’t protect the ponies I had said I would protect, about leaving me because I had failed, well… it really got to me. Under my skin, on a deep and emotional level, powerful enough that it just shut my argumentative mouth down right then and there. It really made me think. Was I really that bad of a leader?

Even though everypony for the past week or two seems to have been treating me as one, I have never felt like a natural born leader. Quite the contrary-- despite my proclivity for walking at the front of the herd, thinking of things in a big picture perspective, and an intense interest in all things political, for most of my life I have been more of a follower. Before all this, before the Stable, before the war, during my childhood-- I rarely ever took the initiative. There would always be somepony else who was willing to take charge of things and call the shots. Somepony like… like Pumpkin Spice, who was always in the spotlight and being seen by others. Even during group projects at school, which everypony hates, somepony would always take charge and start telling everypony else what to do. That pony was never me- I was merely content to follow instructions and get it done with as little effort as possible.

But then that all changed. Perhaps it was that night back in the stable, a desperate situation where I was first asked to protect other ponies’ lives. I accepted the challenge, and thought I would rise to it… and yet here I am, with the blood of eleven ponies resting on my hooves, including a filly who could never have made it alone. I had failed her. I have failed them. How could I possibly make it up when what was lost is completely irreplaceable? And I should know. I have lost all the family I have ever had, never to be returned, forever forcing me to live on my own. Being on your own is fine when you know in the back of your mind that you have family to fall back on, but when that is lost, it becomes truly terrifying.

But wait-- why should a sixteen year old be put in charge of escorting adults to safety? Shouldn’t they be escorting me? Maybe they think I’m older than I really am (I kind of act like it), but that still doesn’t excuse anything. And yet everything has transformed into this topsy-turvy world where children must guide adults, asphalt sticks to the sky instead of the floor, and inmates are now literally running the asylum. If the authorities actually went out of their way to help people instead of holing up inside their little forts, then none of this would have ever happened. I wouldn’t have had to defend these ponies, the raiders would have been dealt with by trained professionals, and maybe eleven ponies would not have died today. But instead, the police are nowhere to be seen, the military stays in their little bunkers and has petty squabbles over technology that doesn’t even work, and semi-competent vigilantes have to step in to do the jobs of both! It’s ridiculous! And yet, this is the world we live in now, where ponies who swore oaths now freely break them without consequence, authority figures abuse their power for selfish gain, ponies are dropping dead all around like falling leaves, and nopony even gives a damn about it!

And then, just as my frustration was about to burst, right in front of me they appeared: the very ponies responsible for our unfortunate situation. On a bridge crossing a great river sat the soldiers, who took an oath to protect our country, its people, and the principles it was founded upon, just sitting there and helping neither. Sitting, relaxing, just waiting there for some hapless victim to walk along that they can extort for ammo and food. They’re called ‘The Gatekeepers,’ but the gates they protect are made of salt and sand and protect no one but themselves. Because being part of the solution was too much effort, they had chosen to become part of the problem instead. They had given up, not only of their duty, but all morality they may have once held. Like Whiplash had said, they were no better than raiders.

But what of Whiplash and his crew, the Testudos? A group of lazy do-nothings who hide in their tower all day, only leaving to chase after a fantasy and kidnap fillies? They’re no better than that Grubby Pegasus Enclave, and both make themselves even more useless by wasting their firepower fighting over some stupid gadget that doesn’t even work! Useless, the whole lot of them! And yet they get away with it all, because they have more firepower than anypony else and have forsaken all principles guiding the application of it…

The others had seen the Gatekeepers and began to hide in the bushes on the side of the road. But I stepped out into the middle of the road, seething with rage.

“Silver, what are you doing?” Dmitry whispered.

I pretended not to hear him. Instead, I brought out my trusty Changeling assault rifle and popped in a fresh cartridge.

“Silver, get down here!” Grapevine whisper-shouted.

I took a careful yet firm step onto the bridge. Then another, then another…

“Silver!”

I didn’t care. I kept making careful, prodding steps towards the encampment at the middle of the bridge. I don’t know how long it lasted, but the ex-soldiers were too busy drinking and cavorting to notice me until I was well within shooting range.

I must have looked absolutely ridiculous: a lone teenager almost frothing at the mouth with rage wielding a rifle-- a one mare army looking to exact revenge against trained professionals. But I didn’t care. I was angry-- furious-- and I wanted revenge.

As I approached, their heads slowly turned one by one. They fell silent and just stared. One of them discreetly switched off the boombox they had been using to play garish pop music on for their little gathering. They kept staring, unsure what to make of me, until one raised his voice and spoke. Until then, I had their complete and undivided (albeit inebriated) attention.

“You...” I began, in a voice more deep and menacing than anything I could ever pull off with a clear head.

“I... respected you...” I continued, glaring over them one by one.

“Hey, isn’t that--” one stallion whispered.

“I RESPECTED you!” I shouted at him, my voice bordering on hoarseness and my anger exacerbated by his interruption.

“And this… THIS is how you repay me? THIS is your GRATITUDE?!?”

“Yeah, that’s her,” a mare whispered back.

“HIYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!”

I let loose a hail of gunfire, spraying them all as if I was cutting their heads off with a blade. Before they could draw their weapons, I reloaded my weapon and flung my empty cartridge right at the stallion’s head. It hit him in the face, knocking him backwards into their campfire, where his whole body caught fire and he began thrashing about in unbearable pain.

The mare recoiled in horror, giving me enough time to slip into SATS and send a burst of bullets straight into her face. But then a stallion came charging at me from my left, and I only jumped out of the way just in the nick of time. Once he had passed, I went straight into SATS again and aimed a kick square in his nuts. This incapacitated him long enough for me to yank the bayonet off his rifle and affix it to mine, then stab him in the back of the knee. As I pulled the bayonet out, its tip was covered in blood. I brought it up to my face and sniffed it. There must have been some good game across the river, because his blood was rich in iron... and it smelled delicious.

But I couldn’t stop and smell the roses for long. I sensed one of his comrades running up behind me, so I spun around to meet him. He stopped just short of crashing into me, paralyzed with fear as if he was face-to-face wtih the toothy grin of Nightmare Moon herself.

Was I grinning? I didn’t think so, but I can’t be sure. Whatever the case, it doesn’t matter because he didn’t live to tell the tale. I thrust my bayonet into his neck, and his forehooves shot up reflexively to clutch his neck and stop the bleeding. I tried to wriggle my gun out of his grasp, but his grasp was too strong. I tried pulling the trigger, which only lodged a bullet into his neck and made the bleeding worse. Unable to wrest my gun from his grasp, I just had to drop it and switch to my pistol. As soon as I let go, there was nothing holding the front of the stallion’s body up, so he fell face-first onto the ground.

There were still two more of the bastards left, and they were panicking. By now SATS had fully recharged, so I singled out one who was standing in the open for multiple headshots. He tried to run across the bridge and flee, but I was too quick and felled him with six quick shots to the noggin. Once he was down, I reloaded my gun as I walked towards him, and was about to aim a point blank at his heart to finish him off when I heard galloping behind me. I turned and saw the other unwounded one, who was still scared but had resolved to attempt to avenge the deaths of her companions. She leapt, I ducked, and she flew over me and over the rail. I went into SATS and clumsily aimed a shot at her head. It missed but hit her groin instead. I wanted to shoot her again, but she had fallen too far for my shots to be effective, so I just had to watch her fall until she landed in the river below with a splash. Considering the small plates of ice built up around the edges of the bridge’s pillars, she would probably die of hypothermia if she didn’t get to shore quickly, a feat made doubtful by her injured leg.

I surveyed the damage I had done and felt satisfied. “These charlatans had been vanquished,” I thought, “and will never extort anypony ever again.” I decided it was best that I leave the bodies where they lay, to send a message to their counterparts throughout the city that their behavior will not be tolerated. The only change I made was to empty their pockets just a bit (hey, if I didn’t then somepony else will) and to retrieve my gun from the the clutches of that one pony who had it jammed in his neck. By then he was dead, so I could retrieve it with ease…

“Aaaaaahhhhhhhh...”

I turned around and saw that one stallion I had stabbed in the groin. He was still sitting there, softly crying in pain as if he had a chronic toothache. I almost felt bad for him, but I couldn’t let myself feel any sympathy for the bastard. Besides, after all that he’d been through, the best thing I could do for him was just to put him out of his misery.

Bang!

He fell flat on the ground. I watched the blood spill out of his brain and into a puddle on the ground. I was surprised at how quickly the puddle grew. Then, as if it had filled an invisible vessel, it began spilling out into fat rivulets reaching toward the edges of the road. When the blood reached the gutters, it spread out in search of a drain to crawl into.

Sometimes I could use a drain to crawl into.

I stood up and looked around. The last of the sunset, a few salmon-colored streaks, clung to the underbelly of the clouds like the scratch of a tiger’s claw. The rest of the world was shrouded in darkness, save for the vicinity of the Gatekeepers’ campfire and the charred corpse inside it.

I cautiously walked back to where the rest of the group was. I began to regret my rage-filled outburst. Had they been watching? What would they think if they saw it? It didn’t matter, since the sight itself was enough to scare anypony away. I used my flashlight spell, illuminating my horn like a torch to get a better view of my surroundings. I saw two dim figures of Dmitry and Grapevine standing there in stunned silence, but none of the others. Had they been scared away?

“Were you watching me this whole time?” I asked quietly when I was close enough for them to hear.

“Oh, yes, we saw every second,” Dmitry said.

“Was that too much?” I asked.

“It was a bit… overkill,” he replied, “...but it was all within your right to do. We won’t abandon you over that.”

I breathed a sigh of massive relief.

“It also taught me to keep my distance when you’re angry,” he added.

I looked around, but saw and heard nothing.

“What about the others?” I asked. “Did they see it too? Did they leave?”

“We told ‘em to hide in the bushes while we took care of the guys on the bridge,” Grapevine said. “Ah don’t think any of ‘em saw what happened, though they certainly heard.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” I said. “But we should probably go back to them and make sure they’re okay.”

Level up!

Level 7: Wasteland Neophyte

Next Perk at Level 8

Stats:
Ponies Led: 8
Puzzle Pieces Collected: 3
Price of Silver: 31 bits per Troy Ounce

Status Ailments:

Mild Food Poisoning: -1 Endurance. Could resolve itself but based on your actions so far, likely to get worse. Curable with antibiotics.

Butthurt: Getting tazed in the butt is never fun. -1 Agility.

*Because ponies are much heavier than humans, their diets cannot be judged by human standards. I did some research and calculated that an average adult pony would require around 14,000 Calories for an average workload, and around 10,000 to simply sustain their body. For a group of soldier ponies living in a post-apocalyptic ice age, 11,000 Calories would be starvation rations, especially if they lived in a society where food was plentiful before the war.

“Did you miss me, Celestia? I’ve missed you.” -Discord
“I can’t picture anything. It’s too dark.” -Twilight
“Bravo ponies, bravo! Harmony in Equestria is officially dead.” -Discord

Dr. Zeitgeist speaks like the G-Man from Half-Life, minus the awkward inflection.
Major Whiplash: Somewhat like Elder Maxson from Fallout 4?

Author's Notes:

*Because ponies are much heavier than humans, their diets cannot be judged by human standards. I did some research and calculated that an average adult pony would require around 14,000 Calories for an average workload, and around 10,000 to simply sustain their body. For a group of soldier ponies living in a post-apocalyptic ice age, 11,000 Calories would be starvation rations, especially if they lived in a society where food was plentiful before the war.