This place was a dump.

Piles of rotting trash littered the pothole filled highway that ran through the center of the small settlement. Dozens of ramshackle buildings made out of nothing but scraps and junk that looked to be about ten minutes from a major structural failure lined the road. Muddy troughs of stagnant water ran between the buildings, creating makeshift paths that ran further back toward even more filthy shack housing.

“Ugh.” I grunted and tried to focus on anything but the vile stench that permeated every ounce of air around me. Stepping out from Solomon’s halftrack motorwagon thing, something squashed softly under my forehoof. Looking down, I was in no way surprised to find that I’d literally just stepped in somepony’s shit. “Are you fucking kidding me…”

“Hah! Would ya’ look at that?” The brazen laugh that came from a colt that looked half my age pulled my attention to one of the closer trash heaps. “The rich bitch gets her first taste of real living!” The sickly green coated colt wore a smile that had less teeth in it than I had legs. “I’d say maybe you came all the way up from Applewood, but you’re too ugly a mare to be an actress!”

Grumbling, I pulled the sling for Galina’s shotgun tighter around me and rolled my eyes. Really? Maybe I wasn’t cursed to have bad things happen to me, just simply to attract every asshole and troublemaker in the wastes to me. Though to be honest, I was surprised a little shit like him even knew about Applewood at all. And to that end… maybe being an actress wasn’t such a bad idea. I mean, I was already putting on an act for Solomon. Why not see how far I could sell it while I’m at it?

“Before you get back to eating your garbage like a good little foal,” I spoke at the colt as I imagined smothering the little bastard in the heap of trash he was on. In doing so, I felt a wide grin plastered itself across my muzzle. “Do you know where I can find the doctor around here?”

“What’cha gonna give for it?” The colt turned his muzzle up at me, squinting as if to size me up. Pointing at me, I could see as his greedy little thoughts turned to the gun on my back. “How about your shity looking gun, gimpy?”

Gimpy?

“Come on, Paper. You know better than to harass newcomers.” A stallion spoke up as he walked onto the road from one of the offshooting muddy paths. Clad in a patchwork trench coat, the bent metallic silver star that he wore pinned to his chest gave me a small amount of relief.

Fantastic, at least there was some sort of law enforcement in this place. His muted yellow fur had rough patches that were matted with dirt and mud, and his short yellow mane and tail were likewise coated in filth. Did this whole town just somehow forget the idea of washing oneself off!?

“Awwww, come on, dad! I didn’t mean nothin’ by it!” The colt pouted and quivered his lip at the stallion. Yeah right you little shit. If I wasn’t buying it, nopony else would.

“Paper Sludge, you best get out of here before I get your mother to drown you in the mud herself.” His tone was not unlike that of Delilah’s, but at the very least I could tell his threat was more for show than a promise of action. If Delilah told me she was going to drown me, I’d probably start holding my breath right then and there… “Sorry about that, stranger.” The stallion smiled as the small colt scampered away into one of the nearby alleys. “Welcome to Leachate, biggest dump this far north of Cantercross. What brings you around, little lady?”

“Thanks, I was looking for the doctor.” With a sigh, I looked over my own scarred body again. “He patched me up, so I’m here to pay the bill.”

“That’s quite upstanding of you, miss. Most ponies would have just cut and run given the chance.” He gave me a smile and pointed to a two story shack just up the road. “You’ll find Doc Forceps up in his office. Though, I’d be careful if I were you.” Me, be careful? Gee, I would have never thought to be. “He had a break in last night, so he’s been in a bit of a foul mood.”

“Ah, I see.” Alright, that’s at least one step out of the way. Now, I just needed to figure out how I was going to actually pay for my treatment. Just because I was going to have to kill him didn’t mean I couldn’t hope there would be another way. I’d been forced into this shit right alongside the poor guy, so at the very least, maybe I can find a way to end things easily. “Thank you for your help, mister…?”

“Sheriff Daily Cover. But you can just call me Daily.” The stallion gave a wink at me as he stood up straight. “My office is the last building on the road headed west. Feel free to stop by and talk to my wife if you need to reach me for anything.” Giving a wave, the pleasant but filthy stallion turned and started to trot away. Huh, at least not everypony I attracted seemed to be a terrible monster. At least on the surface, anyway.

“Right.” I sighed and turned myself up the road to where I’d been directed. “To the doctor.”

Getting used to hobbling around on three legs again wasn’t as easy as I’d assumed it would be. In fact, while I’d only had my prosthetic for a short time, the muscle memory of walking with four legs had already kicked in fairly hard. So, my progress down the road was slow, and it unfortunately allowed me a closer than I’d wanted look at most of this shanty town.

Filthy looking ponies sifted through countless heaps of old trash. Some coughed and nursed what looked like festering wounds as they pulled out small bits and bobs from the piles. As their discolored eyes and toothless muzzles watched me hobble past them, I got the distinct impression that I might actually be one of the healthiest looking ponies in town right about now. And that was saying something, what with me missing an eye, a leg, and half an ear…

The rust red paint that coated the crappily constructed shack was probably the nicest thing about the doctor’s place. The corroded sheet metal door was held on to the scrap wood door frame by bungie cords and rusty couch springs. To be honest, I was almost hesitant to reach out and touch it in fear of contracting any number of diseases that rusted metal could give a pony.

“It ain’t gonna bite ya’.” The annoyed gravelly voice I remembered hearing in my earlier semi-lucid moments drifted through a sheet covered broken window frame. “I can hear you standin’ around out there, just come inside already.”

Reaching out, I grabbed onto the large, bent nail that had been set up to act as a door handle. Pulling the door open, the springs gave a squeal of protest. I slipped through the door with just enough room to spare before the groaning metal snapped shut behind me with a slam. The dark interior was highly contrasted to the dullness outside, and I had to blink a few times to get my one eye to even adjust.

Oh boy… if I’d thought the junk outside was bad, I obviously hadn’t thought about how bad it could even get.

Piles of old and dirty medical supplies lay strewn about in pony high heaps. Bloodied bandages, half filled IV bags, potions that were anywhere from half filled with black sludge to bottles with bright rainbow liquids inside. There was a whole pile that looked dedicated to every rusted needle, razorblade, and syringe left in Equestria, and some even still had unidentifiable liquids in them as well. If this was the doc who’d saved my life, then how the fuck was I not dead?

Note to self; have Buck test me for every disease ever when I get back. That is of course, if I make it back at all, and if he’ll even accept me at all looking this way…

“You going to speak up or just stand there in silence all day?” Doc Forceps spoke up as he trotted down a rickety looking set of stairs in the rear of his office. As he did, his horn sparked and shot a small flame across the room. It struck the inside of an old cast iron stove that sat in the corner, which gave a soft whump as the logs inside it started to burn.

“Solomon sent me to settle the bill.” I spoke up. As the unicorn approached the small burning stove, the crackling that it gave off reminded me of when I’d heard his voice before.

“Of course he did.” The stallion grumbled as the fire gave me a chance to get a look at him. His grey coat and mane were almost matching in color, but remarkably well kept considering the state of this place. An old worn lab coat hung loosely around him, and the small round glasses at the end of his muzzle had golden rims that were so polished that they nearly glowed with the light of the small fire. “Given that you don’t seem to have a pouch full of caps on you…” The doc spoke up as he lifted a small stick up to his muzzle. With another flare from his horn, the end of the small cigarette lit up, and he took in a deep draw from it. Well, that explains the roughness in his voice at least. “I’m going to guess that you’re here to trade that gear of yours as compensation?”

Well, seeing as I didn’t plan on ever using Galina’s shit, that was actually a pretty good idea for what to do with it. Still, I wish that Violet had taught me anything about how to barter like she could. I had exactly zero idea what any of this shit was worth, and I was pretty sure I’d be getting the raw end of the deal for it.

“How much will it get me?” I asked, trying not to give away the fact that I had no idea what I was doing.

“Nothing in this town, I’m afraid.” Doc Forceps forced out a stiff, uncomfortable laugh. “A shotgun like that wouldn’t do me any good in this fucking hellhole anyway.” Letting out a long sigh, he blew a ring of smoke that rolled through the air slowly ahead of him. “Besides, I’m a doctor. Hippocratic oath or whatever. I’m supposed to save lives, not take them.”

Huh, now isn’t that something! I guess that appearances were deceiving, which should already be plainly obvious to me over anypony else. I mean, he did save my life, even if this place didn’t look like somewhere clean enough to even sit in safely for more than five minutes. Still, as much as that simple outlook elevated him to one of the better ponies I’d met, that didn’t solve the issue of why I’d come here in the first place.

“So then,” I spoke up hesitantly. “I have nothing else to trade, and no caps to pay.” I didn’t want to have to do what Solomon wanted. This stallion didn’t need to die just so that I could live. “How else can I pay you back?”

“Normally, I’d consider seeing you hang for skipping out on a payment like this. I used up a lot of good supplies to save you that could have helped plenty of others here.” Doc Forceps grumbled as he turned to me. The vibrant pink eyes that shot me an angry glare caught me off guard as he took another long drag of his cigarette. “But you’re lucky that I happen to have another job that you can do as payment.”

Wow. He was willing to see me killed over not being able to pay? I get the fact that it might have been a waste in his eyes to use those meds on me, but I’m alive because of them. Killing me only actually makes it a complete waste. And from what I’ve seen so far, it didn’t so much look like half these ponies were getting help from him as is in this place. Still, a deal’s a deal, and if it meant that I didn’t have to kill him, then I’d have to give it a shot.

“Alright, I’m interested.” I sat down on the floor, watching as the Doc studied over me for a moment. “What’s the job?”

“A small family of mutie ex-raiders were kicked out of town a few months ago after harassing me to give them free medical care. They didn’t go far though, and moved into one of the old power stations to the northeast.” He began as he trotted over to a small desk that sat beside the old stove. On top of it sat various pill bottles that lay scattered haphazardly across it, as well as a large jug absolutely filled to the brim with caps. “Sheriff Daily had the father hanged after he came back into town and tried to beat me into providing them with the meds,” pointing to the sheet covered window beside me, he sat down at the desk and kicked his hooves up, “and recently his son has taken it upon himself to just try to steal my supplies. He succeeded when he snatched up the fairly pricey bottle of hard to come by meds they wanted last night, so I’m left with no other choice.”

“I… first off, what are ‘Mutie’ raiders?” I fumbled over my own words. The Sky Raiders were the only ‘different’ kind of raider that I’d known or been informed about. Though, Violet and Hardcase had mentioned before that we’d yet to run into what was supposedly ‘normal’ raiders.

“Dunno if you’ve missed it, kid, but this place isn’t exactly healthy for you.” The Doc gave out a raspy laugh. “The wartime ponies that ran this old landfill stuck all sorts of industrial waste in with the trash. If you live here long enough and plan to have a foal, good luck. Most are just stillborn, but sometimes a mare ends up bearing a mutie. Even then they don’t normally live long.”

Oh, so this town was literally a dump from the old world. That… explained a whole lot about the general health of the ponies here, really. But still, mutant ponies? Did that mean they were like the alicorns around here? Or did that make them more like the ghouls? Oh, where was literally anyone else on Delilah’s crew right about now to explain this shit to me? Hell, Hispano would probably even know about this, seeing as she’s a veritable font of odd wasteland information.

“So, what do you want me to do?” I asked, not looking forward to the answer I was pretty sure I was going to get.

“Do I need to spell it out for you? I need the remaining two of them dead.” He snorted as he pulled the glowing nubbin from his muzzle. Giving it a shake, he shook the ash off the cigarette before crumpling it against the surface of his desk. “Trust me when I say you’d be doing this town a favor anyway. The last thing we needed here was a bunch of ex-raider gun runners distributing their guns to the townsfolk. Hardly anypony knows we exist out here, and we’re a lot better off if the Sheriff is the only one with a gun.”

“Alright.” Well, this wasn’t so bad I guess. They are just raiders, and it does sound like I’d be helping the town out. Plus, this meant I didn’t have to kill the doctor, but that didn’t mean that it wouldn’t come without it’s share of problems. For example, I still had to kill ponies on my own, and I still had to get this done by noon. “Just one question, how far is this power station? I have a tight timetable and can’t afford to head a few days out for this shit.”

“Ugh, you pegasi and your incessant need to do things quickly.” He simply rolled his eyes and groaned. “It’s a half hour’s trot to the northeast, and less if you use those wings I fixed of yours. It’s relatively easy to find if you follow the dirt road that leads out that way, and stick to the old power towers that lead right up to it.”

“Good. I’ll return when I’m done.” Turning around, I hooved at the door again. Might as well get this shit done then.

Stepping outside, again the change in lighting threw my vision off. As I stepped down into the filthy road, I almost missed the flash and pop of magic that went off at my side. Stopping, I turned to find Rook’s plain gaze staring at me.

“I assume you’re choosing the difficult way in dealing with this problem?” He spoke flatly as he looked to Galina’s shotgun across my back. With a sigh, his horn flashed and a single oversized shotshell appeared in the air next to him. “Very well then, I shall relinquish this one round to you.”

“Gee, how generous of you.” I grumbled as his magic worked at loading the shell into Galina’s gun. “I look forward to the day in which Solomon trusts me with a full magazine.”

“You know,” Rook spoke sternly, putting his heavy brass cybernetic on my shoulder. “You would be wise to reign in that tendency to speak your mind. Solomon doesn’t take kindly to poorly thought out insults.”

“Then I’ll make sure to put greater thought into my insults next time before speaking them right at his face, rather than to the likes of you.” I gave Rook a wide grin that surprisingly didn’t even seem to make an impact on him. However, I could feel as the mechanical hoof of his grew heavier as he pressed it harder against me. “Now, are you going to let me do the job he sent me on, or are you going to stay here and foalsit me until noon?”

While my harsh words didn’t seem to make a single impact against the impenetrable expression that Rook wore, they came back and hit me hard. What the fuck was I doing!? He could very well just kill me now and take a few hours of the morning off for the shit that just came out of my muzzle. Seriously Night, are you trying to get yourself killed?

“Well,” Rook smirked, shifting his prosthetic hoof off of me before taking a step back. “At the very least, Mrs. Violet taught you how to act tough. If you make it back from this little ‘job’ in one piece, you may have to color me genuinely impressed.” His smile faltered, dropping back into a scowl. “You have two hours remaining to get it done.” With another flash and pop, he was gone.

Letting out a deep sigh, I felt myself give out a laugh. My heart thumped against my chest as a tingle went down my spine. Oh goddesses, that was amazing! It felt so good to just fucking do that… and as crazy as it sounds, I kind of wanted to do it again! I know I was just pretending to be a badass, but oh Celestia if it didn’t make me feel the part! If this is what Lilac Lace and the others in old Applewood felt when they acted, then no wonder they loved doing it!

Turning in roughly the right direction, I hobbled myself off toward the outskirts of town. Despite being on a time limit, and having to go fight some raiders, I couldn’t wipe the smile across my muzzle. As odd as it was, I was glad I was on my own. Having no safety net, and no backup was scary as hell, but goddesses was it a stupid kind of exhilaration that coursed through me because of it!

Now, here’s hoping that I lived long enough to even be able to try doing something like that again at all...

I shivered as the mud that I’d squished up to my fetlocks through had now frozen to me. What had started as soft ground, had gradually turned into nearly belly high snow that slowed my pace down to a near crawl. The weather here on the ground was a lot more unpredictable than I could have thought possible. It seems that be it every ten minutes or ten meters, the temperature and consistency of the air on the ground changed entirely. It was something I’m sure I hadn’t quite entirely noticed before because somepony was usually here to keep my mind off it.

Still, I followed the towering old world power line structures to the north east. While some of them had tilted or even totally collapsed over the years, most of them still stood defiantly in the frigid air. The thick black power cables sat slackened between the surviving towers, weighed down with pony sized icicles that I kept a close eye on. One stiff wind could be all that stood between walking one minute, and being split in half the next.

Sighing, I stopped just long enough to facehoof myself with my nearly frozen foreleg.

Why did you have to use that specific wording, Night? Even as I questioned that, the sight of Violet’s lifeless eyes stung at my mind. While most of the pains from the fight and torture session with Galina were numb due to the snow, my mind was the one thing that would never have that luxury.

Almost immediately as I’d thought that, that sharp pain from my eye socket drummed up again. I tensed up, fighting back a whimper as it’s throbbing reached a peak before dipping off again. Damnit… maybe I should have asked the doctor for something. Of course, he wouldn’t have given it to me anyway, but at the very least, I could blame him even more for the shit I’m having to endure.

A low groan of steel from ahead drifted through the air and caught my attention. Pushing myself to hobble a bit faster, I climbed up the next steep hill along the trail. As I crested it, a boxy grey concrete building met my eye, nestled at the bottom of one of the enormous power towers. Rusted transformers and other electrical machines sat sprouting out of the squat building, unmistakably marking it as where I was supposed to be heading.

However, as I looked at it, the wide open doorway only presented darkness past it. More than that, there was a long crimson line melted into the snow around the entrance. Pushing myself to move forward, I decided to get a bit of a closer look before readying Galina’s shotgun. It was a risk considering I still wasn’t even sure how to use the griffon gun properly, but if I’d hobble faster without holding it.

I spotted a snow covered bush that was about halfway between the building and where I stood, making a break for it. My three numb legs forced me to proink my way over through the snow more than hobble, but in no time at all, I quickly flopped myself down behind the safety of the bush. Pulling my head around the corner of the bush a bit, I gazed up at the small structure and perked my ears.

Nothing.

Not only was there no wind, there wasn’t any sound coming from anywhere really. No animals in the surrounding treelines, no more groans of metal from the old structures. Most worrying overall, there was no sounds of ponies from inside.

Wiggling myself, I dragged Galina’s shotgun around on it’s sling and dumped it into the snow beside me. I got the Auto-talon unhooked from the sling, and took a look at the oddly designed shotgun overall. It was a bullpup design, with the cylindrical magazine toward the rear and the trigger assembly toward the front.

As I inspected it’s grip, I was annoyed to find that it wasn’t at all built to be fired from a pony’s mouth. The grip was enclosed as part of the bullpup magazine’s guide tracks, and didn’t have room for me to get my muzzle around it. The trigger itself was also covered by a small sheet metal guard, but it actually was designed to fold itself to the side. I couldn’t for the life of me figure why you’d need to move the guard itself out of the way, but it did happen to barely let me get my fetlock around the trigger.

Pulling it close against my shoulder, I found that if I braced it between my forehoof and my body, I could probably use both hooves fire this thing with some sort of accuracy. However… that was only because I was prone in the snow. I’m pretty sure this thing was going to be quite useless to me if it required both rear hooves on the ground if it was to be fired by a non-unicorn.

Fucking cheater unicorns…

Pushing myself onto my hooves, I tucked the all but useless shotgun under my wing and hobbled out toward the building. The crunching snow under my hooves sounded like gunshots of their own, and I knew there was no turning back now. Okay, worst case scenario, I throw the gun at them and get the hell out of here until I find another way to do this. Best case, I kill one of them and use whatever weapon they had to kill the other.

Yeah… there was no way this was going to end well, was there?

Hobbling up to the side of the concrete structure, I pressed myself against the cold outer wall. Perking my ear again, I listened for any sign of movement inside. With as loud as my approach was, they had to know I was outside, right?

Again, there was nothing.

Scooting myself closer, I looked at the red trail that sat near the entrance to the building. I couldn’t see from where I’d been at before, but it actually turned from the doorway and headed around the other side of the building. From where I stood, it was fairly easy to see the trail itself was someone’s blood, but the question was who’s. Taking a deep breath, I scooted myself along the building again until I was right next to the doorway.

From here, I could see the soft flickering of a lantern’s light inside. As I peeked around the corner, the stench of rot and gore hit my nose. I bit my tongue to keep myself from throwing up at the smell, but I couldn’t risk it. Turning my head away, I took a couple of deep breaths before holding one in. It’s now or never!

Turning the corner, I threw myself against the doorway. Using it to prop myself up, I fumbled Galina’s shotgun up into my hooves. However, due to the blood on the doorway floor, my lone rear hoof lost traction and I slipped. As only I could have fucked up, I threw Galina’s shotgun from my grasp, lobbing it across the room. It landed on it’s buttstock, firing off my one round into the ceiling with a loud bang and a flash that nearly blinded me.

Collapsing onto the floor, my ringing hearing quickly drained back to normal. I braced myself, waiting for the inevitable repercussion that was to come from the raiders. However, as the seconds passed on, only the same lonely silence that was here before met my ears. Blinking a few times, I looked around the small, sparsely furnished room.

A half dozen crates of various stripped down weapons sat propped against the back wall, while an overturned refrigerator with a mattress draped over it sat to my right. Several empty tin cans, water bottles, and medical containers sat open and empty near the bed, as well as a pair of thick wool blankets. Turning my gaze across the room, I froze as the misshapen sight of something caught my eye.

The pony who was slumped back in a desk chair sat motionless, staring up at the ceiling. Well, pony was not really the best word for them, because they didn’t look like any pony I’d ever seen before. Their white and red coat was speckled and mottled in odd swirling patterns. Their shoulders were mis-sized, with the left being far bulkier and lumpy than the right. Another odd feature was almost the entire lack of a neck on them, with only an inch or so of space before the broad flat head of an earth pony started where their shoulders ended.

Their lifeless brown eyes sat unmoving and unfocused, and the pencil that hung loosely in their muzzle sat as still as their chest was. It was about then that I noticed that the pony’s right forehoof that hung down alongside the chair, was flayed into nearly three different strips, each part of it also peppered with small bloody holes. A dirty rag had been tied up higher on his leg, probably to slow the bleeding of the wound, but it obviously hadn’t been enough.

“What the hell happened here?” I asked myself as I got back up to my hooves.

Looking past the oddly misshapen stallion, I saw the small desk that the chair he was in was matched to. On it, was a few various books and tools, as well as an old radio that that still softly glowed with power, and held an audiolog tape ready to play in it. However, in the center of all these things, was a single yellowed sheet of paper with writing scrawled onto it.

Not able to fight my own curiosity, and ignoring the question as to where the other raider was, I hobbled my way over to read the note. It was definitely mouth written by how hard it was to make out what it said, and the author of it clearly didn’t know how to properly write. Multiple entries seemed to be scrawled over the paper, only separated and listed by descending numbers.

one -

can speak fine, but not rite wel. dad was hung tooday, need too keep log from now on. mums still sick. got the fever pretty bad. looked for last of meds dad bought but we ran out. need too go too town too find more four her. hope mum lasts the night.

too -

mum lasted the night. went too town but turned me away bcuse of my mutaytons. called me naymes. threw rocks an bottles at me. mayor stuck the sherif on me now banned from town for good. put out call on radio four help. I hope somepony can help.

three -

mum is worse tooday. She is sweeting more than before an cand keep any food down. well water helped but we need meds. will try town again toomarrow if she lasts the night. I am despirite.

four -

woke too mum having bad shakes. paniked an nearly let her drown in her own spit up. went too town after she sleeped again. desperately pleeded for meds, offered all our caps. doc took the hole jug an then went inside. locked himself in. sherif chased me out of town after I would not leave doctors house. going too break into clinic tonight. mum needs meds, won't last another night without.

fife -

mums gone. she passed sometime when I was breaking in too the clinic too grab the meds. clinic robbery was all four nothing. even the bottle was empty anyway. kicking myself for not being here. letting her pass without me at her side makes me a horrible sun. does not matter. doc clipped my leg with a shotgun shot. got home. buried mum. tried too rest but wounded leg hurts an is useless now. tied wound off but nopony left too help heal it. have a few hours before bloodloss kills me an I join mum an dad. recorded last request on too radio set. hope somepony listens ore finds this. did all I could and hope to rest with Mum an dad soon.

So… this hadn’t been about raiders at all? I huffed as I caught my breath, feeling as a wave of lightheadedness swept over me. Of course it had to be this way, Night. Nopony you’ve met in any settlement has ever told the fucking truth to you!

There’s been no ‘honest mistake’ in these requests, not here, not on Pink Mountain, not anywhere so far! They’ve always been greedy assholes who want you to go kill fucking innocent ponies! Of course the doctor didn’t need Galina’s shotgun, he already had one! He stole their caps, he shot at them...

Reaching forward, I flicked at the play button on the audiolog set into the radio. A soft pop of static came through the small speaker. The pained whine of a stallion came through shortly after, soft at first, but it grew closer.

“Hello,” The stallion began. “If you’ve found this, well… then you’ve found my remains. The town nearby refused to help us, an’ my fate was caused by them. They don’t like ponies who are different, an’ if you are listenin’ to this, then maybe you’re different too. I… I won’t last much longer, but I won’t leave the radio just in case. However, if help didn’t end up comin’, I need whoever you are to do somethin’ for me.” He let out a groaning moan as it sounded like he sat down in the desk chair, giving off a soft panting before continuing. “I know I don’t have any right to ask this, but I would be very much grateful to you if you could be so kind as to bury me next to my mom. I prepared a grave next to hers ‘round the back of this place, an’ in return, you can take anythin’ you want from our home. We had a few complete guns, some rockets, grenades an’ mines. You can have it all, we don’t need anythin’ anymore.”

So, he lost his father and his mother. He was refused the help he needed, only to die alone in this goddess forsaken place out in the middle of nowhere. I sat down hard as I listened to him, finding it fairly easy in my mind to imagine just what this poor stallion must have been going through. Had Delilah not been there to help, I’d be dead out in the northern wastes right now as well. This could have been my fate had I not been saved.

“Please,” The stallion whined on the recording before giving out a hacking cough. “I know I can’t make you do this, but if you ever see the doc back in town… tell him that I forgive him. At the very least, he made sure I wouldn’t suffer alone for long.”

With a sharp click, the audiolog stopped, and the world around me was plunged back into silence. Taking a deep breath, I shivered again. Not because my body was numb, but because as much as I wanted to cry over everything that I’d been through, I couldn’t. I was still alive, which was more than could be said for this stallion.

Picking myself up, I closed my eye and let a soft sigh out of my quivering muzzle. I was wrong before. This is what it felt like to finally be mentally numb.

It had taken me about a half hour to bury the stallion in the grave he’d dug himself. It took me another few minutes to take the one rocket launcher and load it with the single rocket they’d had stuffed in one of the crates. The rest I left. I couldn’t take it if I wanted to, and this was all I’d need anyway. Though, every fiber of my being wanted to use this rocket against Solomon himself. The only reason I fought back that urge is that it would be certain suicide, and with my curse, I’d only fuck it up and die a pointless death. With Galina’s gear strapped around me, the audiolog held firmly in my muzzle, and the rocket launcher stowed across my back, I began the trek back toward town.

Each hobbling step was fueled by an anger that replaced that mental numbness, and carried me that much further. The snows again gave way to mud as the shadows of the morning grew ever shorter in the skies. The only picture I held in my mind was the beautiful bright fireball that would plume up from the good doctor’s shack when it exploded.

No forgiveness, no way out, only justice.

From there, with the doctor dead, I’d surrender to the sheriff. Once he heard this audiolog, he’d have no choice but to understand why I killed the doc. Sure, the sheriff was part of the problem, but the doctor stole that family’s caps, and killed one of them. He killed both of them if we’re considering he could have saved the mother. If he was any sort of honest lawpony, then he’d have to see the justice in this.

But who was I kidding? Nopony was honest down here.

Speaking of honesty, before I’d left, I’d looked at that ‘expensive’ medication the doc had refused to sell them more of. It was fucking aspirin. Generic, bit a dozen painkiller. It wasn’t worth five hundred caps for a bottle, and even Buck gave them to the crew fairly liberally! Then there’s the whole ‘doctor’s oath’ or whatever that asshole tried to pass off. Ugh! This douchebag was so dead when I got back there.

The shanty shacks of this dump of a settlement peeked their way through the trees. As I hobbled my way into the muddy trough-like sidestreets of this terrible place, I nearly ran into a monolithic armored cart door and beefy hooves as they stepped out from one of the crossing alleys. Looking up, I found the annoyed expression of Jess staring down at me.

“Where the fuck have you been?” She snapped at me as she hoisted her dual barreled submachine gun at my head. Spitting the audiolog into my hoof, I gave her a glare of my own. “Cutting it damn close, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been working on a job for the doctor.” I shot back at her through a growl. Hopping to the side of her, she didn’t move to stop me. “I still have time, so stay the fuck out of my way.” Quickly, I hoofed the audiolog into my muzzle and stabilized myself on my hooves again.

Pushing myself to move, I splashed through the disgusting murky fetlock deep water that separated the shacks on this alley. Reaching the main road, I hobbled around one of the pony high junk heaps. As I did, part of it rustled and dropped away, revealing the sickly green colt I’d met before. As he opened his muzzle to most likely throw some insult at me, I swung my head around and smacked him clear in the face with the audiolog.

“Take that to the Sheriff. He’s going to want to hear it.” I spat at him before hobbling along the road toward the doctor’s shack. To his credit, the small colt didn’t say anything I didn’t expect.

“What’ll you pay me to do it?” His voice was slightly muffled as he rubbed his sore nose.

“I’ll give you this rocket launcher.” I grunted, pulling a wide eyed look from him. “But only if you go and give it to him right now.”

“No way, really!?” The colt wore a smile only a mother could love across his muzzle as he all but threw himself from the heap of trash. “Sure thing, lady!” He burst down the road away from me, heading toward where the Sheriff said his office was. Hell, he almost barreled into Jess as she stepped around the corner, but swerved out of her way just in time.

Turning again, I locked my eyes on the rust red shack just ahead down the road. As I hobbled, I used my wings to slide the rocket launcher around, pulling it up under my left wing as I approached. Each step made me more angry, every panting breath from my straining lungs made me see just a little bit less around me. Right up until I was sitting on the road in front of the Doctor’s shack with the launcher in my hooves.

“Hey, Doc!” I called out, watching the fluttering white sheet that covered the broken window. “You still in?” Resting on my haunches, I hoisted the long tube up and pointed it toward the rickety scrap built shack. My left forehoof steaded the tube while my right fetlock sat curled around the hoof activated trigger assembly.

“Yeah!” He called out. I could hear his hoofsteps as they moved about inside. “You kill those damn raiders yet?” I listened as his creaking steps grew closer, waiting for just the right moment. With a groan, I heard him reach for the rusty door to his place. “Well, answer me goddess damn…”

The door had peeked open only slightly when I squeezed my hoof and connected the firing circuit. The air around me swirled as the rocket motor blasted to life and evicted the old world high explosive warhead from its short stay in the launcher. The blast of the rocket’s exhaust, along with the recoil of it, knocked me flat onto my back hard enough that I smacked my head against the old pavement. About the same time as I hit the ground, the shack in front of me disintegrated in a bright fireball.

Alright, justice was great and all, but it turns out it had a minimum safe distance that I should’ve kept in mind! Splinters of blasted wood pierced my body as the air was forced from my lungs. Along with the many splinters, my hearing was once again gone, which I knew was coming. As I let out a shuddering gasp, my smiling muzzle broke out into hysterical laughter that I had so much wished to hear myself make over the ringing in my ears. Fucking Celestia, what had I done?

Opening my eye as I laid on the ground, I was met with both Rook and Jess standing over me. Jess seemed to be in complete shock at what had just gone down, and still held her armored cart door closely braced against herself. Rook on the other hoof? Well, the smile plastered across his muzzle spoke volumes as he softly nodded to me. With a flash of magic, a health potion appeared in his horn’s grasp. After a moment, his magic had ripped most of the splintered wood stuck in my body, and shoved the drink into my muzzle. As I drank, the sounds of the world around me came back into focus as the potion did it’s best to knit me up.

At least the potion had finally dimmed the pain that had started to drum up in my missing eye again...

“Holy shit!” Jess laughed as she put her hand across her broad muzzle. “You totally just blew that guy to bits! I thought you were just taking your time or running away or something, but oh was that worth the wait!” Without asking my permission, she reached down and grabbed my forehoof. With one tug, she pulled me right back onto my haunches.

“I will admit,” Rook nodded as he gave me a wink and a shrug. “With a show like that, you can color me impressed. If I may ask, where did you even acquire a rocket launcher?”

To be honest, as he said that, everything became real in that moment. I’d just murdered somepony. Not like the ‘murder’ I’d been afraid I had committed back on the Empirica with Hispano, but actual murder.

Seeing Rook smirk like that, having earned him being impressed? That wasn’t a good thing. This had all been done so I could save my own life, and get back to the convoy. Even if the doctor had been a greedy lowlife douchebag, he hadn’t realized he’d killed that stallion with his shotgun. I however, had knowingly killed him, and that was a choice I’d have to live with now.

“Color you impressed!? Well I’m ‘coloring’ you all under arrest! So drop your weapons!” Daily Cover called out from behind the three of us. “What the fuck were you thinking!?” He snapped as I looked over at him. “You said you were going to pay him back, not blow up half the town!”

He stood there resting on his own haunches with an old combat rifle braced in his hooves and aimed right at us. A little further behind him was his colt, Paper Sludge, still with the audiolog in his muzzle. Seriously? The little brat couldn’t even do that one…

My thoughts were cut off as Jess twisted herself and let off a fantastically quick rattling burst from her twin barreled gun. A line of impacts shot up along the road, tracing straight up along Daily as well. Six or seven wounds punched into him, and the side of his head blasted out as Jess’s gun emptied completely. With a grumble, she flicked a button on the side of her gun, and the empty twin magazines dropped onto the road beside her.

Daily Cover dropped to the road as well, as dead as Violet and Galina were. But as the sight of that hit me, my vision drifted from his corpse, to the crumpled green form on the road behind him. My lungs seized up as a pair of bloody holes had punched their way through Paper Sludge’s head as well. Jess… she’d killed them both.

“They should have just walked away and let us go.” Jess sighed as she lowered her arm down, wincing as a line of blood streamed down it. “At the very least, he could have had worse accuracy and hit my shield. Useless asshole tagged me in the arm.”

“Well, you’ll get over it.” Rook sighed. “Now that our job here is finished, I would think it is a good time to leave.” With another magical flash, the empty magazines at her hooves disappeared, and another potion appeared in front of Jess, which she took and guzzled down. “After all, we now have to deliver Mr. Bombay here back to Delilah.” Turning to me, he gave me a pat on the side with his cyberhoof. “Don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t be long before Solomon calls on you to do something for him.”

I kept sitting there, running through things again and again in my head. From the moment Galina fired the cannon at the pass, to when we’d piled back into Solomon’s motorwagon and hit the road again. Everything I’d been through, every action I took… I couldn’t see how things could have gone any other way.

I wasn’t the scared, confused orphaned pegasus anymore. Diving after Galina, negotiating for my life with Solomon, and outright murdering somepony. Those were the actions of some crazy wastelander, not somepony who had just been doing his best to try to make a life for himself. Or maybe it was, I didn’t know. All I did know, was that the pains and aches of my body had come back once we were on the road, and I was just more than ready to collapse in bed with Buck and Hispano.

“Hey, pull over up here.” Jess grunted as she gave a heavy bang on the dividing wall between Rook and us. “I need to use that rest stop.”

“I suppose you can’t just wait?” Rook sighed, eyeing back at her in annoyance. She gave him a flat look before snorting at him. “Very well.”

The car swerved, and the clinking tracks squealed a bit in protest as they pushed us over a bit of the overgrown offramp we’d come across. Thick, leaf covered vines clawed their way across the road, hanging down off of every tree and shrub around here. A few of them sported bright blue and yellow flowers that made me wonder if any of these vines were Bramble Wolves just waiting for a meal to stop by. Yeah, that would be just my luck, wouldn’t it? Murder somepony to earn my freedom from Solomon, only to be killed by a bramble wolf miles outside of Mare’s Lake.

A pair of squat old brick buildings sat ahead of us as Rook slowed us down. The two buildings were just as overgrown as everything else, but seemed clear of any obvious dangers. In fact, they looked completely untouched by anypony at all, with vines even covering the rusted old restroom doors. Jess popped open one of the motorwagon’s doors before we’d even stopped moving, prompting Rook to nearly skid us to a stop. As soon as we’d stopped completely, he shut the engine off and dropped us into a temporary awkward silence.

“I won’t be long.” She grunted as she pulled herself out of the car and onto the vines. She shut the door with a slam that made both Rook and I wince as the whole motorwagon shook. Still, I kept my eyes scanning the numerous vines she stepped on as she walked.

“You needn’t worry.” Rook spoke up. “Bramble Wolves are known for their distinctive purple flowers, and thorn covered vines. These are simple ivy vines. A persistent and stubborn plant, but mostly harmless, I assure you.”

A frustrated yell came from Jess as she hammered her fist at the door. Grabbing at the handle, she yanked on the metal, but it surprisingly didn’t budge more than a few inches. The vines across it seemed strong enough to resist even her angry tugs at it, which seemed both odd and funny to me. She was this imposing frame of a minotaur, but was easily foiled by simple ‘harmless’ plants. The sight of it brought out an exasperated sigh from Rook.

“I can tell my expertise is needed.” He gave a cursory flat glance at me before using his hoof to fix an errant hair that had popped up in his swept back mane. “If you will excuse me for just one moment...” Before he even finished speaking, a bright flash enveloped where he’d been sitting as he teleported away. With a huff, I looked over toward where the two of them were. The vines seemed more resilient than Rook had also anticipated, and he was using his magic to snip them apart one at a time.

I slumped back in my seat and folded my hooves. Well great. First I’m required to be foalsat everywhere I went, and now they can just leave me all on my own!

Wait…

I’m on my own!

Gasping, I sprung to my hooves. With a squirming wiggle, I pushed myself up and over the center divider and into the driver’s bench. Flopping in with a grunt, I quickly righted myself and put my hooves up onto the ivory ringed steering wheel.

“What the fuck are you doing, Night?” I mumbled to myself. “You've only seen Lucky and Gearbox drive…” Alright, so I honestly had no idea what I was doing here. I’d only seen Lucky drive the runner for a while, and some of the controls in this thing seemed to be completely different. Reaching my right hoof out, there was no stick with which to shift the gears. “Great, must be an automatic like he said Bertha was.” Shifting myself, I stuck my right leg down to what should have been the accelerator pedal…

...only to remember my right leg ended in a stump that was more than a bit shorter than everypony else’s rear leg.

“Well alright…” I grumbled as I bounced myself across the cushy drivers bench to the side, placing my left hoof on the pedal instead. It made the way my hooves sat on the steering wheel slightly off, but I figured it was do-able. Looking at the dashboard, I saw all manners of fancy wooden paneling around the numerous dials and indicators on it. However, the shiny key that was still crammed in the ignition was what made me smile. “Here goes nothing!” Reaching forward, I twisted the small silver key with my hoof.

There was an enormous roar as the arcano engine spooled up. The whole vehicle vibrated under me in a way I hadn’t quite been able to feel from the passenger section. Just from that moment, I could tell this thing had a lot of power behind it, and I slammed my hoof down on the accelerator.

I was thrust back sharply as the tracks bit down on the vines below and kicked the vehicle forward. The steering wheel jarred to the side as I did my best to straighten myself up, sharply pulling the vehicle around. This was not as easy as Lucky or Gearbox made it look, and having only one eye made it incredibly hard to judge the distances of every oncoming tree out there!

“Oh goddesses, just drive straight!” I whined as I braced both forehooves tightly around the steering wheel. The force of acceleration drained off as the motorwagon got itself up to speed, and I did my best to keep it on course to get back onto the main highway. As I felt the wind whipping in from the open driver side window, I couldn’t fight the smile that I wore across my muzzle. I… I did it! I’m driving!

“Now why did you go and do that.” Rook’s disheartened voice met my ear about the same time as I felt the barrel of a very large rifle press against the back of my head. “Solomon was willing to let you go, and this is how you repay him?” His words were followed by a pause as I did my best to keep us from careening off the side of the highway. “I will give you one chance to stop the vehicle now, or I will do it for you by ending your life.”

Fuck. Come on, Night! You didn’t just go through all that shit to die now, did you? Come on, think your way out of this. Whatever he needs to hear so you can get back to the convoy, that’s what you say. Don’t think about it, just... it needs to be convincing.

“It needs to be convincing.” The words slipped from my muzzle as I thought them. Oh, fucking real smooth, Night. Way to fuck everything up! Why don’t you just tell him you weren’t planning on working for Solomon at all either? Yeah, might as well just come clean altogether, right?

“Hmmm.” Rook pulled the barrel of the rifle away from my head slightly as he mulled over my words. “Yes, that is a good point. They would never believe you weren’t compromised if we’d simply delivered you to them.” With a brilliant flash, Rook teleported into the bench seat next to me. “While I wish you’d informed me of this ‘plan’ of yours before, I must admit that your logic is at least sound. Again I’m impressed.”

“Figured I might as well make it as authentic as possible.” I grumbled. While I had dodged a bullet there, my heart seemed like it wasn’t ready to calm down just yet. Still, the longer I sold this to him, the longer I’d hoped it would take for them to realize that I wasn’t actually going to help Solomon. Like it or not, I had to keep up the act a bit longer I guess. “Once I’m back, I’ll ditch the car somewhere easy to find. You can pick it up once I’m gone and drive it back.”

“And if your friends want to simply destroy the car?” Rook cocked his eyebrow at me and gave me a look that definitely said he trusted me about as far as he could throw me.

“I’ll convince them it would be better not to?” I offered, hoping that would at least sate him. I mean, I have no way to stop Howitzer from blasting this thing to smithereens the moment he saw it anyway, but I’m betting I could come up with something by the time I arrived. “And if I can’t stop them, just think of it as a way to cement my loyalty to them.”

“Very well, though, it will of course come out of your share of the ARK.” Rook sighed before a bright flash from his horn blinded my eye. The world felt like it twisted around on me, and the smell of burnt hair filled my nostrils. As I blinked away the blindness, the world around me resolved to show that both he and I had switched places in the vehicle. “One of our contacts last reported Delilah’s convoy as having parked in the downtown industrial district, a terrible little settlement called ‘Roundhouse’. I will take over until we get into the city, as I know the way.” As he gripped the steering wheel with his hooves, his horn glowed and pulled a small lever under the steering wheel downwards. The whole motorwagon lurched forward as we picked up speed again. “Just so you know, it helps to be on the all terrain gear setting if you’re looking to escape somewhere quickly. Helps to quickly get you out of range of most ponies with teleportation capabilities.” The smirk that pulled across his muzzle made me want to gag.

“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes and folded my hooves across my chest.

I didn’t have to care about his snarky remarks or anything anymore. For better or worse, I was going home. And as much as I wanted to get there, the pit that hung in my stomach couldn’t decide if it was a bad idea to even show up again. The uncharacteristic thoughts of my friends and new family filtered through my mind again, making me sigh and close my eye.

For as wrong as those thoughts would prove to be, one thing would never be the same. Violet was still dead while I had nothing to show for it but one less eye, and countless more scars. Not to mention, Daily Cover and Paper Sludge’s names weighing on my conscience. Reaching my hoof up, I pressed it against the cold metal of my mothers dog tags.

“You’re just like me, Night.” Violet’s voice resonated in my mind. “We’re survivors. I did what I had to in order to survive down here.”

I’d done what I had to in order to survive, sure. Now? I had to make it worth the price that was paid.

Author's Notes:

As always, I really do have to thank TheFurryRailFan for helping to go over these chapters. Seriously man, you always go that extra mile to help out, and it means a lot to me!

Many thanks to Kkat as well, for creating and letting us all blow up this fantastical wasteland setting ourselves!