The rain was still pouring down, as Calamity finished his lesson on the creatures that now live in the Equestrian wasteland. Littlepip was using her magic to rip out any exposed wooden planks from the stores. She was also pulling out any exposed planks, from the rubble piles, she found. Once she felt, she had a good amount, she returned to the group. Where they were being used to fuel a small fire. A large pot filled with instant rice, and vegetables hung above the it. Sitting at the edges of the fire were several cans of vegetables. Calamity was pouring them into the pot and mixing them in with the rice.

After a very unpleasant and near vomit inducing rice and vegetable lunch. The rain stopped, the mane 7 put back on their disguise, and they continued on their way. Along the way the mane 7 felt sick, that meal did not agree with them. (The stomachs felt like they were doing summersaults,) suddenly they heard music floating through the silent city. Littlepip knew what that meant, as a lone sprite-bot floated up to them. The music cut out and the bot, just floated there. Making the mane 7 nervous, that this floating device seem to be staring at them. It was dead quietly for several minutes, as the bot floated there. Littlepip knew why watcher was silence and wanted to give him a little help.

Sprite-bot beeped and began to float away, playing it’s music in an endless loop. Littlepip felt some pride, in helping a 200 plus year dragon, see his friends again. After a bit of a walk, they soon reached the marker, Banana Tart set. Now they could see it was a massive supermarket, and it was in decent condition. Although the glass doors were covered in grime, it was still clean enough for them to see inside. Littlepip floated out Little Mac, and peered through its scope. What she saw confused her and excited her, at the same time.

Littlepip floated Little Mac over to him, and he took a look through the scope. He couldn’t believe his eyes, a huge smile quickly spread across his face. The inside of the store seem untouched, and it was still filled with supplies. It remained untouched, since the day the bombs dropped. The smile quickly faded, as he wondered, why hasn’t anyone looted the store yet. He soon got his answer, as a large Bloodwing flew overhead. Littlepip’s group quickly pushed the mane 7 into one of the buildings, to hide. The Bloodwing circled a bit, before hanging itself, on the intertwine metal beams. Calamity and Littlepip took a look around and saw in horror that, there were multiple Bloodwings sleeping all around them. There had to be at least 20 of them, roosting above them.

As, they all began to leave, the wasteland decided to throw another obstacle, their way. A loud explosion of thunder echoed through the air, as it began to rain again. The Bloodwings quickly woke up, and stretched out their huge leathery wings. Without missing a beat, Littlepip, her friends, and the mane 7 ran back into the building. The Bloodwings quickly began to gathered around it and soon had it surrounded. The mane 7, Littlepip, and her friends backed away from the door. As a Bloodwing, stuck their huge head in, and tried to get them. Their horrible breath, filling up the room, and their teeth putting fear into the mane 7. The walls soon began to crack, as other Bloodwings pounded on the building’s walls. Each attack made the mane 7, backed up further, until they literately hit a wall. Each impact shook the whole building, causing plaster to fall from the celling. The doorframe began to bend and break, as the Bloodwing, tried harder to get in. Littlepip, and her friends, loaded their weapons, and got ready to defend themselves. The building continued to shake, and the walls started to fall apart. Allowing them to have a few glimpse of the Bloodwings waiting outside. With one final impact, the walls in front of them collapsed, reveling at least 20 hungry Bloodwings. Littlepip and her friends raised their weapons to begin firing. When the mane 6 got a good look at the Bloodwings, they noticed they slightly resembled the vampire fruit bats.

All the Bloodwings quickly flew off to find other sources of blood. Leaving Littlepip, Calamity, and Velvet in complete shock and amazement. They tried to speak, but were unable to form real words. While Fluttershy calmly walked back to her friends. Who were congratulated her, even Trixie was singing her praises. Which made Fluttershy feel good and embarrassed, at the same time. Once they believed, the Bloodwings were all gone, the mane 7 began to headed out of the building. Then, they notice their companions, weren’t following. “Hey, are you coming,” Rainbow asked.

Velvet rolled her eyes, and followed Calamity, as he worked to pray open the doors. The doors screech open, and inside was a ton of shelves. Filled with canned goods, Calamity began to cry at the magnificent sight. There was more food here, then anyone could ever eat in one lifetime. Calamity rushed over and began packing his bags to the brim, with canned goods. The rest of them quickly, joined him in collecting the food. Even the mane 7 were helping, although they were a bit reluctant, to do so. After they couldn’t fit anymore more into their bags. They began to head back to the Sky Bandit, but they found the bags were really heavy. The rain just made carrying all the food, even more unbearable, for the mane 7. Eventually they made it back to the apartment building, where the Shy Bandit was parked. Despite the weight of his bags, Calamity managed to fly back up onto the roof. After loading his bags into the back, he hitched himself up and flew down to his friends.

The flight back was not pleasant, they were all soaking wet, from the rain. Which made the wind chill, feel a lot colder, than it really was. When they landed on the roof of Tenpony Tower, the rain began to ease up a little. The roof was covered in puddles of all different sizes. After handing over all their ammo and the mane 7 pat down. They all headed downstairs, which was a very nerve-racking experience. The weight of their bags, were constantly threatening to pulled them over. Their backs feel like they were going to break, as they pushed open the door to Banana Tart’s restaurant. He quickly ran up, as they dropped their bags on the floor, with a low thud. He quickly opened the bags, and saw the huge amount of food inside. His workers wasted no time in putting the food into the pantries. Banana, then walked over to the counter and took out two pieces of paper, from a drawer.

When they got to Golden Horseshoe’s shop, he was excited to see them. Littlepip placed the certificate on the counter, and pushed it over to him. He gave it a quick read through, and placed it under the counter.

After a quickly stop at the shops to buy some supplies. Also to sell off, what they found in the old mall, and the raiders’ building. After picking up Xenith, they boarded the Sky Bandit, and headed off. On the way to Fetlock, the rain final stopped for good. When that happened, the mane 7, expected the clouds to start moving away and let the sun shine through. After watching the sky for several minutes, they saw the clouds didn’t budge one bit. They looked at each other in confusion, while Littlepip and her friends felt nervous. They were half way to Fetlock, when they heard gunfire from below. Looking down, they saw the Pegasus, Golden had described, fighting off some raiders. Calamity immediately pulled the Sky Bandit closer to the ground and began to help. Blasting his battle saddles at any raider, who pokes their head out from behind cover. Littlepip fired her Zebra rifle, out the windows to help pick off some the raiders. Rainbow wanted to get into the fight, but with no weapon, and with the air filled with bullets. She decided this was one fight, she would stay out of. It wasn’t long before the last of the raiders was dealt with. When Calamity landed the Sky Bandit, the burned mane Pegasus walked up.

Cloud Seeder lead them to an old shack, that was a few yards behind him. Littlepip checked her map, and saw this shack was maybe five to ten miles north of Steelhooves’ shack. He opened the door, and laid down on an old matt, in the middle of the room. Next to it was an old blanket and pillow. It was clear, he was using the mat for his bed. Velvet went quickly to work mending his wing. The shack was a very decent size, there was a second floor, and two separated rooms. There was a locker in the far end of the shack, and a large shelf to the right of it. A large table and a set of chairs, sat in one of the other rooms. Sitting nearby was a small cooking stove, a small cabinet, and a fridge. The final room seem to be a bathroom, with an old rusty bathtub and a toilet. Up stairs was a single bedroom, and a small workroom. As Velvet worked, there came a loud and repetitive coughing, from upstairs.

Velvet shot Cloud up with some painkillers, before carefully picking out all the foreign bodies from his damaged wing. The wing was badly damaged and the wound was filled with pus.  There was a ton of metal fragments, imbedded into the flesh. Picking them out was a slow and delicate process, with Cloud passing out from time to time. His blood also refused to clotted for very long. Making Velvet’s job harder and a lot more frustrating. She constantly had to work hard to, stop the bleeding. Only to have the wound bleed again a few minutes later. While she was doing that, Rainbow noticed something weird on Cloud’s flanks. A large brand in the shape of her own cutie mark, over where his should be. She stared at it in fascination, throwing theories around in her head for possible explanations for it. Her friends soon notice her staring at his flank and walked over. When they saw it, they were totally confused and horrified. They also began to think off possible explanations for the mark.

Calamity’s blood ran cold, as the realization of who Cloud might be hit him. Calamity walked over, hoping that the mark, they were talking about was an injury. He prayed, that Cloud was born down here in the wasteland and was not from above the cloud cover. When he saw it, his fears were confirmed, as he stared down at the mark of a Dashite.

Calamity sighed and began tell them what a Dashite is. Including telling them about who he was before, he came down here. When Calamity finished, Rainbow was ready to rip someone’s head off, with her bare hooves. She resisted the urge to punch Calamity in the face, for being a part of the Enclave. Fortunately her friends managed to calm her down, but she was still steaming. Then Calamity showed them his mark, which help redirected Rainbow’s hate away from him. Cloud suddenly regained conscience, as Velvet began to bandage his wing up.

The bedroom was bigger, than expected and was starkly furnished. A dresser stood next to the doorway, and a rack of guns lay on the far left side of the room. An old rug lay on the floor, tattered by age. At the far side of the room, Velvelt could see a mare lay on an old mattress. She had a brown coat and a yellow mane, similar to Applejacks. She was half asleep, and was coughing relentlessly. When Velvet approached, she could see Helen’s bed was actually two beds pushed together. Empty medicine bottles lay scattered all over the room. Velvet quickly took out her medical supplies and began to examine her. After about an hour, Velvet came back downstairs, with Cloud, who had a huge smile on his face.

Calamity was flying low to the ground, as the mane 7, and his friends scanned the ground for any sign of the caravan. While scanning the ground Pinkie’s tail began to twitched. The rest of the mane 6, quickly noticed this and prepared themselves for anything. Rainbow and Fluttershy scanned the skies, while the rest of them grabbed hold of the Sky Bandit. Littlepip, her friends, and Trixie was confused by this. Until Calamity felt a horrible pain surge through his right wing, he looks over to find blood dripping from it. Sharp stabs of pain race through him, as he began to fall out of the sky, dragging the Bandit along with him. Rainbow quickly went into action and try to help him land safely. To her surprise the Bandit was a lot lighter, then she expected. The landing wasn’t the smoothest, but it was a safe landing. Once on the ground, bullets began to impacted the Sky Bandit. Calamity quickly unhitched himself and ducked inside. Littlepip and Calamity, then began to shoot out the windows, at their attackers.

A large band of raiders were approaching them, Littlepip and Calamity fought back the best they could. Xenith provided potions, for them to dip their rounds in to make them deadlier. With the constant machine gun fire, Xenith did not dare step out of the protection of the Sky Bandit. They soon spotted a raider with a mini gun, who began to unload on Bandit. Littlepip and Calamity had no choice, but to duck into the Bandit. Twilight threw up her shield to help protect them, but it could only so much. The sounds of machine gun fire continued, then it suddenly halted. When it didn’t continue, they were confused, and carefully poked their heads up. Looking through the windows to see, what happened. The raiders were frozen in fear, at what stood in front of them. Five alicorns stared at them, their shields already up, and murder in their eyes. The raiders soon shook off their fears and began firing on them. Bullets bounced off the shields and the alicorns made short work of the raiders. While three alicorns maintain the shield, the other two used their telekinesis. To either make the raiders turn their weapons on themselves. Or used their telekinesis to literary rip them apart. They pulled some of the raiders’ limbs off, with them screaming all the while. Soon the ground beneath them ran red with blood. The dismembered limbs of the raiders and their weapons laid all over the ground. The alicorns were about to leave, when they felt a familiar presence, nearby. The alicorns turned and began following it, which lead them to the Sky Bandit.

Once out of the Sky Bandit, the mane 7 sense, there was something was familiar about these alicorns. They didn’t appear to be hostile towards them and seem very friendly. If the mane 7 didn’t see, what they did to the raiders. They would assume the alicorns were totally harmless. The mane 7 slowly walked towards them, with Twilight leading the way. She was ready with her own spells, if they turn hostile. Fluttershy was so scared, if it wasn’t for her friends, and their support. She would have either fainted or flew away. The mane 7 stood nervously in front of the alicorns, who then turned their attention towards Littlepip and her friends.

Not having much choice, Littlepip and her friends compiled, “What is this about,” Calamity asked.

They all sailed through the sky, Rainbow was pulling the Sky Bandit, while Calamity was in the back, getting his wing fixed by Velvet. It took a little practice, but she eventually managed to get the Bandit flying smoothly. The mane 7 now felt a lot more comfortable around the alicorns, that surrounded the Sky Bandit. While Littlepip’s friends still felt uneasy, but were relieved they weren’t being attacked. Soon they spotted the caravan, and Rainbow pulled the Bandit in for a landing. It was a rough and violent landing, but it was a landing. They all stepped up out of the Sky Bandit, and carefully headed towards the caravan.

The workers of the caravan took out several foldable table out and placed several items on them. These items were mostly guns, boxes of ammo, medicine, armor, and a few old books. The mane 7 could see their book was among the items and their got really excited. The traders seem to be very shifty and suspicious looking. Just by how they looked, Littlepip and her friends knew, what kind of business ponies, they were.

The five alicorns surrounded the Sky Bandit, as they flew towards Maripony. Twilight and Trixie was sitting in the back, trying to reconstructed the spell. Calamity was once again pulling the Sky Bandit, with Rainbow and Fluttershy flying next to him. The looming shape of the Maripony facility quickly appeared on the horizon. When they landed, they saw that alicorns were everywhere. Some were flying above them, circling the facility, while others were guarding the main entrance.

The mane 7 walked back to the Sky Bandit, and waited next to it. They took this opportunity to get out of their disguises, for a bit, and stretch out. Especially, Twilight who had her wings restrained for the pass few hours. The alicorns laying nearby, noticed her wings, but didn’t seem to show any reaction to them. Unknown to them, an Enclave scouting party was flying over head. Taking some aerial photographs of the wasteland, when they approached, they spotted the mane 7 down below and they especially noticed Rainbow Dash. After taking a few quickly photographs of her, they quickly reported back to base.