With a wide grin, I happily trotted into my bedroom, and chucked the bag of random boxes of food onto my bed. I was followed closely by both Ashes and Zeed.

“Wow, I can’t believe we did that!” The excited zebra filly exclaimed. “How did you even get in there, Ashes?”

The gray earth pony smiled and giggled. “I’m sneaky.”

I hopped onto the bed and started sorting out our ill-gotten goods.

“Not that I needed to be. Cake is really bad at hiding his stash.” Ashes continued. “I just had to walk right past the kitchen and-“

“DIAMOND PURITY DARKWATER-KNIVES, COME HERE NOW.”

I winced at the sound of mom’s angry voice. I never understood how she could yell quite like that. I gulped and walked out into the room. I failed to keep my ears from folding against my head..

“Y-yeah mom?” I asked with a sheepish grin.

“Where are Ashes and Zeed?” Her face was a mask of calm, but her hazel eyes were filled with a mix of fury and disappointment.

At the mention of their names, the two other fillies stepped out into the room beside me, each with a sheepish grin of their own.

Mom stared at us for a few more seconds.

“I know.” She said simply.

I blinked in confusion. “Huh?”

“You three are stealing food.”

Ashes winced, and held her head low, Zeed turned away and twiddled her hooves anxiously. I just nodded. “Yup.”

Mom’s mask of calm anger suddenly vanished as her jaw dropped. “Yup? YUP? You’ve been stealing from other ponies for Celestia knows how long and all you have to say is ‘yup’?”

I shook my head. “We haven’t been stealing from other ponies. We’ve been stealing from the Guards.”

“That’s even worse!” She growled. “Diamond, stealing is illegal. What are you thinking? You… Why would you do something like that?”

I frowned. “They don’t need it. They have enough junk food to last a thousand years or something. They won’t even let anypony else have it. They just wanna keep it to keep it.”

“That’s not an excuse for stealing!” Mom said, desperately trying to keep herself from screaming. “Diamond, they’ll exile you for that. How long have you three been doing this?”

Ashes rubbed the back of her head nervously. “We both kinda… started doing this together.”

“I just joined in because it seemed fun…” Zeed continued to twiddle her hooves.

“It was my idea anyway.” I said. “They just keep all the food they can get and sit on their fat flanks while they eat it.”

“Diamond, there’s-“ Mom tried to interrupt.

“Then they give us all the crap they don’t want! Stealing may be wrong, but that’s even worse! I’m only eleven and I’ve gotten food poisoning three times! Hey, you’re cooking it, and some ponies still get food poisoning because the guards give you the worst ingredients possible!” I was yelling now, and mom’s face had gone from anger to shock. “Even when they do give us something good, it’s already expired! Sometimes they keep it that long just to give us bad food! They’re just being greedy jerks ‘cuz they think they’re BETTER THAN EVERYPONY, BUT THEY’RE NOT!”

I stood there, breathing heavily while Mom, Ashes and Zeed stared at me.

“Pretty much that, yeah.” Ashes said with a nervous grin.

We all just stood there while I cooled off.

Eventually, mom let out a sigh. “I know how you feel. I understand, believe me. But you can’t keep doing this. You’re being just as greedy.”

“No we’re not!” Ashes cried out

“Yeah, we’re going to give all this stuff to the other prisoners!” Zeed continued.

“And then the Guards will take it back, probably give out some unnecessary punishment and nopony will be happy.” Mom sighed again, a sad smile appearing on her scarred face as she ran a hoof along her stripy mane. “And how would you even get all of it to anypony anyway?”

All three of our faces fell.

“That’s what I thought.” Mom made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle. “Diamond, you sound just like your father, you know that?”

I smiled weakly. “Really?”

“Yeah. He had that same ‘Robbing Hoof’ attitude.” She looked at all three of us, then turned back to me. “But you need to stop doing this. Please? I don’t…”

She hugged me. “I don’t want you to get thrown out there.”

I sighed and hugged her back. “Alright. I promise.”

“Same here.” Ashes grinned.

“Um…” Zeed bit her lip. “You’re not going to tell my mom, are you?”

Ashes giggled, and mom snorted. “No. I’m not going to tell your mother, Zeed.”

~~~~

“Fillies first, madame.” Raid said, waving his hoof with a dramatic flourish as the door swung open, revealing the spikiest-looking pony I’d ever seen. Spiked clothing, spiked mane, if I could see his teeth, I’d bet they would be spiked as well. And he was a unicorn, so there’s another spike. I couldn’t help but grimace as he drew his shotgun and pointed it right at me.

Raid looked at me for a moment, and peeked through the door. He sighed. “Crap.”

“How the fuck did you get in here?” Mr. Spikes said.

“Uh… you left the back unlocked?” Raid chuckled.

I slowly began to reach for a weapon with my invisible magic. I floated out a small piece of jagged metal from my mane, hoping the slaver wouldn’t notice it.

“Back the fuck up!” The slaver growled as he stepped into the room. I glanced at Raid and saw that he had a very odd smile on his face.

“Oh, there’s no need to be hostile.” Raid said, raising his wings in a complacent manner. As he did that, however, I slowly maneuvered the metal shard behind the slaver’s neck.

“I said back the fuck up!”

I jammed the shard into his neck, and he screamed in pain.

To my surprise, he turned to me and snarled.

Then Raid tackled him.

The two stallions wrestled each other on the floor while I picked up the slaver’s gun. Just as I was about to slam it down into Mr. Spikes’ skill, something hit me in the back of my head, sending me sprawling on the floor.

Out of the corner of my normal eye, I saw a blur in the air. It moved over to the gun, picked it up, and fired several times into the air. Raid called out my name.

I passed out.

~~~~~

Throb-throb. Throb-throb.

I groaned as I slowly regained consciousness. In my brain-addled state, I wondered why my head seemed to hurt so much.

Throb-throb. Throb-throb.

“Oh, look. The pretty little filly’s awake.” A mocking male voice chuckled at me.

Ah, right. Some asshole hit me.

I opened my eyes to see a dirty unicorn stallion with an even dirtier look in his eyes right in my face. We were in a dark room with no windows, just a single lamp hanging from the ceiling.

“Back up, your breath stinks.” I didn’t know if it was true, on account of my lack of that particular sense, but I could assume it was by looking at his teeth.

He snarled and smacked me in the face. “You and your friend sneak in here and think you can be snippy with me?”

“No,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “We were planning on having tea.”

“Heh. You’re snarky now, but once I’m done with you, you’re gonna be beggin’ me for mercy.” He grinned at me. His horn started to glow green, and a small, segmented ring floated up in front of my face. “You know what this is?”

I hmmm-ed and hah-ed for a few moments, watching the slaver’s grin turn into an infuriated frown. “Nope. No idea.”

He grinned. “Shame. ‘Cuz you’re about to get reeeeaaaal intimate with it.”

Then he slapped it against my neck, causing it to wrap all the way around and re-connect with itself with a loud click.

“So, long story short…” He got in my face again. “That’s a bomb collar. It will kill you if you do anything stupid. So, anything else to say smart-ass?”

I stared at him for a moment, and eventually turned away with a defeated sigh. “No.”

“No, what?”

Are you kidding me? “No, sir.”

He chuckled. “That’s what I like to hear. Now what’s your cutie mark for?”

I blinked at him.

“Your mark. What is it, cunt.”

“Uh… making stuff…” I said. Having never been asked about it before, I wasn’t really sure how to put it.

He smiled. “Heh, more useful than your friend’s.”

There was the sound of somepony moving something behind me. I yelped when there was a sudden, sharp pain in my ear.

“Congratulations. You’re in the repair pit,” he said with a smirk. “Of course… that’s only till we can set you up for a couple fights. Heh.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “Fights?”

He punched me in the mouth. “SHUT UP!”

The buck nodded to somepony behind me. “Get her the fuck outa here.”

I was grabbed from behind and dragged out of the room, where I was roughly deposited on the dirt outside. Looking behind me, I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear hoofsteps moving away from me and back into the building I was just in.

I spat out a bit of blood and felt my ear with a hoof, to find that a small metal tab had been stuck in it. I hrm-ed, unsure of how I felt about the new piercing, as the last time I had one, it got ripped out in a fight with Clothesline.

Setting that thought process aside, I began to take stock of what I still had on me. Obviously I no longer had my saddlebags. Raid’s jacket was gone as well, now probably a prize for one of the Bone Eaters who’d taken us. I still had about half of the metal I’d stuck in my mane, mostly the wires I’d tied-

“HEY, SCAB!” A wrench hit me in the side of the head. “Get over here!”

Rubbing my skull, I looked in the direction the offending tool had hit me from. A slaver was waving me over with a gun in her magical grip. As I walked over, I glanced around to see any sign of Raid. Hundreds of very miserable-looking ponies, and a few zebras, were moving around. Most of them were wearing bomb-collars similar to mine and colored earrings, the ones who weren’t were covered in the same spikes as the rest of the Bone Eaters. Many of the slavers had looked… odd… Manic grins on their faces, constantly scanning around with their red-flecked eyes and muttering to themselves. There was, however, no sign of my winged crush.

The most noticeable feature of the area was a giant pit dug into the middle of the street. I couldn’t see inside it, but the pit was surrounded by an extremely large number of cinder block hovels and scrap-metal shacks of varying sizes. The equines and slavers went to and from them and the actual buildings surrounding them, sometimes carrying various tools and objects, sometimes carrying food for themselves or others. There were bridges and catwalks strewn about all over the place in high places, all constructed from scrap metal, apparently allowing the Bone Eaters to keep their eyes on the slaves without actually getting near them.

The orange fog didn’t seem so thick from the inside, though.

“Hurry the fuck up, scab.” The mare screamed. “I don’t have all fuckin’ day.”

I trotted over, trying very hard to not attack her. As I approached, she eyed me in a very predatory way. She stood in front of a hardware store on the corner of the broken street.

“Heh. Nice ass ya got there, scab. I’m sure all the bucks will enjoy it.” She laughed. I didn’t like what she was implying. “Get the fuck in there and get to work. Fuckin’ bitch with the blue mane’ll tell ya where ya need ta go.”

With that, she merrily trotted away. I sincerely wished that I could shoot my namesake out of my eyes, but I trotted into the hardware store. I was met with the sight of multiple workbenches, covered in broken equipment, weapons, and junk, each with slaves fiddling about with the aforementioned objects. All of them had blue earrings on. I assumed, from my presence here, that I had the same color. Slavers armed with shotguns stood on the second floor, which was little more than a catwalk with broken railing. Much to my mild disturbance, several of the slavers were staring at me with a very particular look in their eye.

“Hi. Newbie?” Asked a small, quiet voice.

I continued to examine my surroundings, but grunted in response.

“My name is Meda. Nice to meet you.” I grunted in response. “What’s your name?”

I thought for a moment. “Purity.”

“Oooh, going incognito, are we?”

I restrained myself, with a little difficulty, from groaning out loud. “You know, I was hoping to go for a whole day without having to listen to you.”

“Sucks for you, doesn’t it?”

“And it’s not ‘incognito’ if it’s actually my name.”

“Just Purity?” Meda asked.

“Yeah, ‘Purity’. Is that your whole name?”

“Yeah. Just Purity.” She sniggered when I said that.

“Kind of ironic for a zony, isn’t it?” Meda said cheerfully.

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow, which was immediately joined by the other one as my intended expression of incredulity turned into one of surprise.

Standing in front of me was a zony with a bright blue mane and a greenish-grey striped coat. She had, unsurprisingly, a bomb-collar and the same blue earring as everypony else in the room. A glyph-mark I couldn’t quite identify adorned her flank.

“Oh, look! Another one of your kind. Maybe the two of you can be besties.” She said in a mocking tone.

“Something wrong?”

“Uh… no, sorry. I’ve just… never met another half-breed before.” She snickered.

Meda raised an eyebrow at me. “Not from Canturbury, are you?”

“Uh…” I rubbed the back of my head with a forehoof. “Not really.”

“Well, you should be glad to know you’re not the only one here.” She smiled, and raised her eyebrow again. “Bit tall for a half-breed, aren’t you?”

“GET TO WORK, SCABS!” Shouted one of the slavers on the second floor.

Meda winced. I shot a glare in the direction of the voice.

“Uh… yeah, I guess I should tell you what you’ll be doing.” Meda grinned an obviously forced grin. “Come on, we can talk as we walk.”

I followed the mare through the workshop, walking past miserable-looking slaves who were fiddling with things. Most of them were working on weapons or barding, and these were the ones that the Bone Eaters kept the closest eyes on. A couple unicorn slaves were going around distributing things for the other slaves to fix, taking the things that had already been worked on to some back room.

“So, here’s where you’ll be working.” Meda said, pointing to two empty seats. “I’ll be right here showing you the ropes.”

“Reminds me of my first job.” I replied, eliciting another snicker from her. “What’s first?”

She picked up several sets of leather barding, and hoofed them over to me. “Just see what you can do with these for starters.”

I lifted one of the sets with my hoof and quirked an eyebrow. “How so?”

“Just use the others to patch up the best one. That’s really all you need to do.” She smiled. “Don’t worry Purity. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

I hrrm-ed. I quickly examined several sets of the barding, memorizing where all the pieces were and trying to figure out where the most important parts were. “What’s this stuff made of?”

Yet again, she snickered. It was starting to annoy me.

“Uh… I think it’s a combination of Brahmin and bloodwing leather.” The other zony replied. “Not sure where they get it from.”

“I don’t know what either of those things are.”

“Oh… well… neither do I, really. This is just what I’ve heard.” Meda smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I kind of assumed you were a traveler. Not many people go around with metal in their manes like that.”

I grunted in response, barely paying attention to what she said. “Got something I can cut with?”

She hoofed over a pair of mouth-scissors, and I went to work. I was mildly surprised to find that every single set of armor only had one sleeve. This irked me for some odd reason, but I sighed and just went along with it. I cut apart the roughly-sewn together ‘plates’ of leather on the worst sets and set them aside. Then I took the base and cut that up as well. I was left with two decent sets of barding. Checking every bit of them, I replaced a large number of the leather plates and patched various holes elsewhere. I even had a good bit of extra leather afterwards.

“Alright, that’s done.” I turned to Meda. “What’s next?”

The blue-maned mare jumped and gave me a look of surprise. She peeked around me to look outside the open door. “Already? It hasn’t even been an hour yet.”

I shrugged. “I work quick.”

I growled when she sniggered.

“Sorry…” Meda glanced at the other slaves. “Most people here can’t seem to get themselves to do anything. I mean… it’s understandable and all, I don’t like being a slave either, but… there’s really not much else we can do.”

“What, you can’t rally or anything? Rebel? Nothing at all?” I asked, and for the umpteenth time, she laughed. “Will you shut up?”

“No.”

Meda shook her head solemnly. “What’s the point? About half of us were born into this. Don’t know anything else.”

I blinked. “What? You were born a slave?”

She sighed and nodded. “My father was one of the slavers in New Tartarus.”

I quirked an eyebrow at her. “One of?”

“I don’t know which one. Neither did mom.”

“How could she-“ I suddenly realized what she meant, and my eyes widened. “Oh… oh goddesses. That’s…”

She frowned at me. “You really aren’t from around here, are you?”

“YOU TWO! GET THE FUCK BACK TO WORK!” A chunk of table next to me exploded as a bullet struck it. “I won't fucking say it again.”

Meda quickly pulled more barding out of the junk pile. “Here, you work on this. I’ll deal with these pistols.”

We worked in silence for several minutes. I occasionally glanced around, hoping to see some sign of Raid somewhere in the workshop, but I had no such luck. I let out an irritated sigh.

“Meda, I’m looking for somepony,” I said out of the corner of my mouth. “Think you can help?”

“Uh… I guess? Who?” She replied in kind.

“Blue pegasus stallion. Peach mane.”

“What’s his mark for?”

“Massage.” I said.

She snorted as she tried to hold back a laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

I deadpanned at her.

“Oh… uh… you’re… not… oh…” she winced. “If his mark is massage, they’d probably take him to the… uh… brothel. Not sure about pegasi, though. Probably keep them same place... I guess.”

I stopped what I was doing, and simply stood there, processing what I’d just heard. “The what?”

“It’s where they keep all the people with… uh…” she blushed. “That kind of talent.”

I was silent for a moment as several… thoughts entered my brain. Specific thoughts about a specific blue pegasus. With a shake of my head to clear them away, I asked with an exasperated sigh and a reddened face, “Where is it?”

“At the southern end of the city.”

“Right. Thanks.” With that, I went back to work. I tried very hard not to think of… that…

~~~~~

Hours passed before we were herded out of the workshop to let the next shift of slaves in. The Bone Eaters started shoving us towards a large grocery store, where slaves went in and out, many of them carrying bowls of very unpleasant-looking mush. The slavers left us on the opposite side of the street from the building, though one felt it necessary to give my flank a smack, causing my face to turn bright red in embarrassment.

With my tail now tucked firmly between my legs, I cautiously trotted in. There were three very large and very long tables set up in the room, with slaves sitting all across them. Radios were attached to the ceiling in various places. Unlike the workshop, the earrings here were of various colors. Unsurprisingly, there was no sign of Raid. I winced, knowing that I would now have to go to the brothel, which sounded… fun…

I looked around, and saw that there weren’t any slavers in the room. With a quirked eyebrow, I poked my head out the door. The Bone Eaters outside weren’t even looking in the direction of the mess hall. Now that I apparently had some time, I took the chance to actually look at the city.

The first thing I noticed was that most of the buildings were boarded up. Those that weren’t seemed to be used for public things, like restrooms, the mess hall, the giant pit in the middle of the street.

The second thing I noticed was that none of the slaves seemed… depressed in the manner I’d expect enslaved equines to be. Most of them gave wary or scared looks towards the slavers as they walked around, but none of them seemed to have the smallest interest in fighting back. I figured that it must have been because of all the bomb collars.

I made a mental note: Find a way to remove Raid’s collar and mine.

And Zeed’s dad. I needed to look for him too.

“HEY EVERYONE! NEWS IS ON!” Somepony shouted out.

Suddenly, as if a switch had been flicked, all the slaves and even a few Bone Eaters surged towards the nearest radio, buffeting me about and leaving me very much confused. I heard the familiar, raspy yet bizarrely cheery voice of the radio hostess.

“Avast ye wasteland mateys! It be I, Captain Jolly Rodger of Pirate Radio! Okay… no. Just no. It was a fun idea, but… just no. Anyway, Jolly Rodger here, your hot, stripy-flanked captain of the airwaves. For those of you who just crawled out from under a rock, you’re listening to Pirate Radio!

“We just got some news here about that Amazing quote-unquote ‘murderous psychopath’ as our resident ex-raider douchebag so eloquently put it. Yeah, Buzz. I am talking shit about you on public radio! Suck it up and take it like the stallion you seem to think you are.”

Some of the slaves let out small chuckles. I looked around me to see that there was a clear path to the outside. I took the opportunity to try and sneak out of the mess hall as an idea hatched in my brain.

“Hey, it’s not my fault you have no respect for- oh, that’s nice. Really? That’s the only response you can think- Hey! Don’t make me get Quiche! She’s still got her power armor you-“

“Crap… my mic’s on.”

“Sorry folks! Got a bit distracted there... Heh.”

“Anyway, we got some news on the ‘infamous’ Hearteater!”

There were speakers outside, all broadcasting that same radio station. I smiled. Apparently slavers like their news. That was good, as it would give me the chance I need to see if I could find a key or something for the collar.

“Oooh, ‘Purity’ the secret agent mare! I like it. Maybe you could get yourself caught doing something dumb! I would like that.”

With a frown, I ignored her.

“She’s been seen taking out a few independent slavers around that ever-so-lovely city known as Loss. Well… she wasn’t technically ‘seen’ per-se, as she’s apparently invisible or whatever, but y’all know what I mean.”

“Oh, and I still say that ‘city of Loss’ sounds like a bad attempt at poetry. Just sayin’.”

I rolled my eyes as I realized just how terrible the security here was. I didn’t even need to sneak as I made my way towards the building I woke up in. All of the guards were just staring at the nearest speaker with amused looks on their faces.

”Seriously?” The radio hostess let out a long sigh. “Yes, folks, Hearteater’s bounty is still around ten thousand caps. For those hunters who have a shred of decency in them, I’d like to point out that her bounty comes from slavers. Yes, folks, most of the people who want Hearteater dead are slavers. Go figure.

“Huh? Oh, right. Somepony on the street asked me if I knew why Hearteater only seems to be going after small-timers after she basically liberated the city of Loss. I honestly don’t know. From what I can tell, she’s either preparing for something, or just playing it safe for now. She’s got a lot of ponies after her, ya know.”

“Anyway, Mare-Do-Well is still trapped in that cryo-whatsit facility near Common. So… anyone want to help out there, please do so.”

“Aaaand in far odder news, apparently we have another bit of canned goods wandering around. No, not the edible kind, the equine kind, sheesh. Two mares have allegedly come out of their little hole in the ground. Before anyone gets any ideas I’m not telling you who they are or what they look like. If you want to find them or them or their hole-in-the-ground, you’re on your own.”

I grinned. Well holy crap, we’re on the news. I wonder if Zeed can hear this.

“Okay… Seriously? Buzz, shut up. Yeah, biased doesn’t even begin to cover what it. Unbiased-ness isn’t in my contract so just get the fuck over it. Okay, I swear to Celestia, I will get Quiche in here. Yeah, I let you in here, but that’s only because you won the damn bet, now stop whining or I will kick you out.”

“Now… News, news. Any more news?”

I chuckled as the sound of shuffling papers echoed throughout the slaver city. I’d already made it most of the way there. It was literally just around the corner.

”Nosiree, folks that’s all the news I’ve got for now. This has been Pirate Radio, brought to you by Canturbury’s hottest zebra pirate, Jolly Rodger.”

“Shut up Buzz. Only Quiche gets to talk to me like that.”

“Anyway, why don’t we all have some nice, relaxing music, eh?”

I stopped chuckling as I realized that the news section had ended, which meant that the slavers might start paying attention again, which meant they would find me sneaking around.

Which meant I was so very screwed.

“Fuck.” I whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Purity! Pssst!” said a voice behind me.

I turned to see Meda waving me over to the side of a small hovel.

I trotted over. “What?”

“What?” She said. “What do you mean, what? What do you think you’re doing over here?”

“I’m trying to… uh…”

“Nice cover.” She snorted.

“Find that friend of mine, remember?” I finished.

Meda frowned at me and pointed down the street, back the way I’d come from. “The brothel is that way.”

“Oh…” I chuckled nervously.

“Our shift isn’t supposed to be out here. You’ll get in trouble!”

“Then what are you doing out here?”

“Making sure you don’t get in trouble.” The zony deadpanned at me, as if it was obvious.

“Why do you care?” I snapped back.

“Because- fuck, c’mere, quick!”

She threw me against the wall and stood in a very… suggestive position.

“What the fuck are you-“

She shushed me.

“What is wrong wi-“

Then she kissed me.

And she started laughing her ass off.

My eye twitched.

As she held our lips pressed together, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small group of slavers walking down the street. A couple of the stallions among them sneered at us, while a single mare went ‘d’awww’, which only served to make this even more awkward for me. Another made to come after us, but the slaver mare, who thought it was cute, convinced her to let us be. Honestly, I wished she didn’t.

After a minute, they left.

I pushed Meda away from me with my face turned bright crimson.

The zony glared at me. “Next time somepony says to be quiet, you should probably listen.”

“Y-you-you kissed me… You fucking kissed me… Why did you kiss me?” I spluttered.

“So you’d stop talking.” She smirked. “You have very soft lips for a stallion, by the way.”

“Where did this cocky attitude come-“ I blinked, and then shot her a death glare. “What did you just say?”

“Yeah, most of the buck’s I’ve done it with have dry, cracked lips, but yours are pretty nice.”

My eye twitched again, this time in a more violent way. “You just called me a stallion.”

“Um… yes?” She said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“I’M A MARE YOU FUCKING IDIOT!” I shouted.

She blinked at me. “Oh. Really?”

I punched her in the muzzle.

~~~~

“Green! Green? Can you hear me?” Wretch called out across the desert’s many dunes.

Her ears perked up as she heard the little verdant pegasus groan.

Carefully scanning the her surroundings, Wretch made her way towards the groaning filly.

The gunshot hadn’t actually hit Green, that much Wretch knew for sure, but it startled the pegasus enough that she ended up crashing somewhere outside of Wretch’s line of sight.

“Green? Where are you?”

“Ow, ow, ow…” Green moaned again.

As she made her way to the top of a dune, Wretch finally caught sight of Green. The young pony had crashed into, out of the entire wasteland desert, what was likely the only cactus around for miles, and was now lying on the ground, with multiple large needles sticking out of her face. The plant itself, about the length and thickness of a grown pony’s leg, had been torn partially out of the sand.

“Green, are you okay?” Wretch asked, though she already knew the answer.

The filly whimpered.

“Erm… well then… as soon as I figure out who just tried to kIll you, we can see about trying to get… those… out of you, alright?” Wretch’s expression was somewhere between a smile and a grimace.

Green nodded.

The pink-and-black unicorn calmly stepped out from behind the cover of the dune to see a small cloud of sand swiftly making its way towards the two ponies. Squinting, Wretch could just barely make out a large equine form in the center of the cloud.

She removed her saddlebags and searched through them in a hurried manner. Her horn glowed as she levitated out multiple mines, armed them, and tossed them all over the dune.

She readied her shotgun, and waited, glancing at Green to see that the filly was hiding behind the cactus.

Within a minute, she heard, to her irritation, only one of the mines trigger, and the surprised scream of the stallion who’d been hit by its blast, as he was thrown over the dune and landed on his back in front of Wretch. The mare fired several shots at him, but his armor absorbed the majority of the impact.

He rolled to his hooves and launched himself at her. She could see her reflection in his well-polished metal armor, despite the sand that covered it. He snarled and bared his teeth at her, his green eyes full of malice. “The fucking pegasus is mine, bitch!”

Wretch snarled back at him and attempted to fire a shell into the side of his head, but he smacked her across the face as she was about to magically pull the trigger, causing her magic to implode and fling the gun into the sand. He punched her again and again until she finally managed to get her back legs beneath him and drive both into his stomach, flipping him over and setting him on his back again.

Wretch hopped up and made a dive for her gun just barely reaching it before the stallion tackled her once more.

Green watched this whole fight with a mixture of fear, anger, and excitement. She peeked over the cactus in an attempt to locate her older friend’s weapon, but had no such luck. Biting her lip, she desperately tried to think of a way to help.

Wretch was sure by now that she had lost a few teeth, as the stallion seemed to be obsessed with hitting her in the head. On a whim, she gathered a bunch of sand in her magic and threw it into her attacker’s face. The gambit was effective, but while her attacker stumbled off of her, swearing profusely, she’d managed to get some of the sand in her own eyes as well.

“I swear to Celestia, I will FUCKING KILL YOU!”

Then there was a loud whump sound, and the stallion was quiet.

Then he gasped in immense pain.

Wretch finally managed to clear her vision of sand to see a panting Green in the air just above the stallion.

The stallion himself seemed to have sprouted a large, familiar cactus from his face.

Green dove at him again, grabbed the roots of the plant in her fetlocks, and continued on, ripping the spiky plant out of the stallion’s face, causing him to scream in agony.

Again, the airborne filly dove at him, once more driving the cactus into the buck’s unarmored head.

Wretch took the opportunity to clear her vision and find her gun while Green continued her succulent assault.

A slug ripped through the stallion’s cactus-spine-covered face, and his decapitated body fell to the ground.

Wretch breathed a sigh of relief as she wiped some of the blood off her mouth. Green dropped the cactus and landed next to her friend.

“Are… are you okay?” The filly asked.

Wretch quirked an eyebrow. “Yes. That was… probably one of the oddest things I’ve ever seen. I didn’t even think you could lift that.”

Green looked at her hooves and drew a circle in the sand with a forehoof.

Wretch levitated two healing potions out of her bags downed one, and offered the other to Green, who put it into one of her pockets.

“So… uh… shall we get those needles out of your face?”

Green nodded.

-----
Footnote 1: Diamond Purity Darkwater-Knives

EXP 50%

~~~

Footnote 2: Zeed Kazdri

Exp: ???%

~~~

Footnote 3: Raid (???)

EXP???%
`
To-Do List:

Active Quest:

Where For Art Thou?:

-Find Raid

Other quests:

Layin’ Down The Rails:

Find a way to remove bomb-collars

O’ Father, Where Art Thou?:

Infiltrate or assault the Bone Eaters’ base near Bladesville.

Sifting through the dust:

1) Find information on the location of Ashes.

2) Find information on the location of Obsidian Knives

3)–Find information on the location of Nezan Kazdri

(Author’s notes.)

Too many holidays in too little time, but I should be back on track after this.

Hopefully.

I’ve also been very distracted by MvM. Yes, I know it went up a long time ago, but I haven’t played the game in forever.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a horde of robots to annihilate.

TTFN!

-Delakirus

Thanks to Kkat for Fallout Equestria, and Somber for Project Horizon. Thanks to Matkingos for making sure this doesn’t suck as much as usual. Thanks to whomever reads this, and again, critiques are very much welcome.