Chapter 1

I checked the clock on my PipBuck while Helper's polite synthetic voice went on and on with yes or no questions, only bothering to nod or shake my head in response. This was the fourth visit since Token and I had been in an accident 2 months ago and suffered some memory loss. Supposedly Recall wanted to make sure we were alright, but the questions this fucking thing was asking me were just stupid.

How did I feel about Token, how do I feel about the Overmare, lots of stuff about me, and if I was remembering strange occurrences, or having lucid sexual fantasies in my sleep.

I checked the time again after another horrendously long string of questions, our two hours was up. I stood up and left, not even bothering to tell the rambling machine I was leaving.

Helper called something as I trotted out of its office but I didn’t catch it. I wanted to be out of there as soon as possible, robots in general give me the creeps, but the floating spider looking freaks were high up on my robotic shit list, too many arms. Token was waiting outside in full security barding, she smiled when she saw me.

“How’d the therapy session go?” she asked.

“It was stupid, just a bunch of idiotic questions about myself, and you.”

"Yeah, he pulls that same crap on me during my sessions."

“What are you all dressed up for?”

She rolled her eyes, “You don’t listen to any of the updates over the stable comm, do you?”

“Nope, why what’s going on?”

She beamed with that award winning smile of hers, “It’s pretty exciting actually,it looks like some sort of caravan has set up outside the stable door, the Overmare wants some select personnel to head out and establish trade.”

Exciting didn’t begin to describe it, protocol dictated that when the cameras picked up pony life on the outside, Stable 80 would be opened, permanently, and we could actually start living life in some semblance of how it was before the bombs fell, instead of just staying shut in a bunker all our lives. We'd still stay in the stable of course, you don't just abandon a huge shelter like 80, but trade would be kickstarted, the gene pool would receive some welcome additions, and anyone with some wander lust, i.e Token and myself, would be able to go out and explore.

“Amazing! Who all's going out first?"

“You, Cookie, Riot and some Security officers including yours truly.”

I blinked a bit and looked at her quizzically, “Why me?”

“Someone needs to trade medical supplies,” she said with a sly grin, “and I might have pulled some strings to get you on the first trip outside in 200 years.”

I nearly tackled her with a hug, “You’re the best Token!”

She chuckled and patted me on the back, “I know, you’re supposed to go see Syringe and get some supplies to trade, go see your mum too, tell her the good news, I’ll meet you at the door in an hour or so yeah?”

I tousled her blue mane with a hoof and broke off the hug, “See ya.”

I went to the stairs again and galloped down the flights to residential deck 1, skipping about 5 steps in between and bolting through the door, only slowing down and collecting myself when I reached the clinic.

I love my job, I really do, medicine is my special talent, and using it to help ponies gives me a sense of satisfaction I can't easily describe. The one and only thing I hate about my job is my boss, Syringe, he’s a complete ass. He’s supposed to be some sort of top notch surgeon, but he was lazy, his eyes were going bad, and recently he'd developed a drinking habit

He was sitting at his desk, reading one of the 200 year old medical magazines we had lying around. As I trotted in he momentarily glanced in my direction, then flipped the page with this magic.

“You’re late,” he mumbled.

I sighed, “Whatever, where are the supplies?”

He nodded his head to a small crate in the corner, “Thanks,” I muttered, levitating the crate onto my back.

He grunted a reply and waved me out, “Oh, and don’t let any of those outsiders cough on you, we don’t know what diseases they have that we’re not immune to.”

“Whatever, want me to tell you what fresh air smells like?”

He just chuckled, “Sure, why not.”

Halfway through the hallway to the stairs I was stopped by my ‘significant other,’ Cookie. We glared daggers at each other for a solid 30 seconds before he broke the silence, “Hey bitch.”

“Hey prick,” I spat back at him.

“I hear your cunt friend got you a pass outside.”

That word, cunt, I hate that word, I mean I really, really hate that word. Trottingham invented that word, and as one of the few stables in Trottingham I suppose it was inevitable that it got passed down through the generations. Given the bloody nose, I’m guessing he easily figured out my disdain for that particular use of vocabulary.

He pressed his hoof against his nose and just glared, “Fucking bitch.”

I just trotted past him into the stairwell, swaying the ass he knew he'd never get to tap a little more than usual as I went. I don’t know why I hated Cookie, maybe it’s because I’m forced to like him. Not really big on authority. It could also be because he’s the biggest ass in the stable.

I went down to deck 2 and made my way to my apartment, which I shared with Token and my mom. She was inside, eating her lunch while she drew up pipe schematics for individual plumbing for the lower deck apartments, poor bastards had all been sharing a large public bathroom for the last 200 years.

"Hello dearest," she said absently, not looking away from her work, "I had a feeling you'd mess your mane again but I had a small glimmer of hope that you'd be considerate of your poor mother's wishes and look respectable for once."

"Hey Mum." I said dryly, trotting over to the table and sitting across from her, "Soo... I'll be going outside today."

"I know, heard it over Stable Comm this morning."

"Oh."

"You've really got to tune that in more often."

"Yeah..."

She stopped her work and looked at me, her sharp eyes softening with worry, "You be careful okay? We don't know what's out there."

"It's just a caravan Mum, they go around trading shit is all."

"Language." she scolded, that unfamiliar worried look instantly fading into the disciplinary scowl I was infinitely more comfortable with.

I chuckled and got up from my seat, throwing the crate of supplies onto my back and trotting out the door, "See you tonight Mum."

***

Token and some Security officers were waiting around the entrance chamber while a technician worked on the door console. I trotted up to her and brushed against her side, she bumped flanks with me and grinned. Cookie trotted in after me, tissue stuffed up both nostrils, “What happened to him?” Token whispered.

“He said the c word,” I whispered back.

She chuckled and bumped my flank again.

The Overmare stepped in, Security Chief Riot at her side, the Security officers fell in an orderly line. She just beamed at them.

“Today, my little ponies, you break the seclusion we have endured for 2 centuries. Cookie, Bandage, you’re there to trade supplies and establish good will with the outsiders. Security, you’re there obviously to protect, we aren’t anticipating any trouble of course, but it helps to be safe. I have the utmost confidence in you all, good luck.”

Riot rolled her eyes as the Overmare left us and went back to Administrative, getting a barely stifled snicker out of Token and I.

She turned to the technician, “Are we ready?”

He nodded, “Yes ma’am.”

“Open it.”

He typed in a combination on the door controls and pushed forward a switch, there was a deafening grinding as the 200 year old gears and mechanisms jarred back to life. The massive stable door shifted out of place, and we were hit with a rush of cold, wet air. My head swam as new, unfamiliar smells filled my nostrils.

I hesitated for a moment, but Token nudged me, “Let’s go mate,” she said with a reassuring smile.

I smiled back and nodded, the stable door grinding shut behind us as we followed Riot.

It was bright outside, not as bright as I expected, as the sky was overcast with a thick layer of clouds. But still, far brighter than the dim lights of Stable 80. Token looked up and suddenly went green in the face.

“Vertigo?” I asked, patting her on the back.

“Where’s the bloody ceiling?” she asked, almost frightened.

I just chuckled at this, “There isn’t one stupid.”

She shook her head a bit and that cocky smile came back to her face, “Right, forgot about that.”

As we trotted closer to the encampment, ponies with odd saddle mounted weaponry approached us. A haggard looking unicorn levitating a rifle at her side came up first and gave us a rather sick smile. Riot motioned for us to stop, Cookie didn't seem to notice and kept walking.

Their leader looked us over, her twisted grin widening, “Look what we’ve got here colts n’ fillies, fresh meat, they ain’t even got any guns, ain’t that cute?” The ponies behind her cackled in response.

Cookie trotted up to her, “Hello, miss?”

“Shackles,” she said politely, "name's Shackles.”

“Ah, yes, Shackles, a pleasure to meet you miss, my name is Cook-”

She promptly interrupted him with a rifle butt to the face, the blood flow from his nostrils starting up again. I realized how bad this situation was about to get, but honestly, seeing Cookie get his nose broken like that for being an asshole was just satisfying as can be.

She turned her rifle on the rest of us, the rest all arming their weapons, “All right folks, standard set up, mares in the cages, bucks collared up.”

An earth pony buck wearing very thick eyeglasses approached us with odd looking mechanical collars, then put one around Cookie’s neck.

“What are those?” one of the male Security officers asked.

“Oh, you don’t know?” Shackles said with that same sick grin, “Detonate collar 3.”

The earth pony nodded and pressed a button on something taped to his foreleg. In an instant, Cookie’s head was gone, and fine red and pink mist was floating in the air around Shackles, and I shuddered when I felt the hot wetness of brain sliding down my cheek.

“If you couldn’t tell from that little... Demonstration. They’re bomb collars, you run to far from camp, you die, you piss me off, you die, you try and remove the collar, you die. Savvy?”

The three stallions with us gulped and nodded, I was choking back tears, Cookie was an ass but he didn’t deserve to die, choking back vomit too, some of him was on me.

The stallions were collared and sent into a large cage, Token, Riot and I were placed in a separate smaller one. I looked on, horrified, as two of Shackles’ thugs went up to Cookie’s body and started taking bites out of the gaping hole where his head used to be.

***

We’d been caged for a few hours, most of Cookie’s torso had been eaten away by the two cannibal ponies and Shackles was talking with another of her thugs about what to do with our PipBucks.

“Couldn’t we just saw their forelegs off?”

She shook her head, “No stupid, they still wouldn’t be opened even if we did take the leg off, and plus, 3 legged ponies don’t exactly make good slaves.”

The buck snorted, “Maybe not for the bucks, but the mares don’t need all their legs.”

“How do you figure?”

“You don’t need 4 legs to be a fuck puppet!” They both started cackling wildly but stopped when somepony yelled something.

“Boss! Somepony on the road!” they called out.

“Hell, shoot ‘em!” Shackles yelled back, “Maybe we can take there shit!”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea bo-” the pony was cut short as something exploded, and my eyes widened when a mangled orange foreleg landed near me.

“Oh shit,” Shackles muttered, “EVERYPONY! GET YOUR FUCKING GUNS! WE GOT BAD NEWS!!!” she shrieked.

I heard the strange winding of some sort of engine and then massive amounts of gunfire, ponies left and right were literally being mulched by an incoming barrage of led. Heads popping, legs falling off, torsos getting to riddled with holes they were basically just minced meat.

Bright red explosive projectiles were slamming into the slavers with larger weaponry, turning them into nothing but mutilated hunks of charred pony flying through the air and showering others around them with white hot shrapnel.

Through the madness and screams of agony I could hear somepony cackling with glee, and the gunfire was getting closer and closer to camp. What I thought would be an entire army of heavily armed ponies was something completely different. A suit of magically powered assault armor, like what I’d seen on some of the stable’s wartime posters but much more battered, armed with some sort of multi-barrelled automatic weapon and an odd looking explosive launcher was cutting a gory swath through Shackles’ camp.

The pony inside was shrieking through his armor’s speakers, “FUCKERS! MOTHER-FUCKERS! YOU LIKE THAT BITCHES?! YOU FUCKING LIKE THAT!?”

Ponies that were trying to advance were shredded before they got within 10 metres of him, and the ponies hiding in cover were annihilated by explosions. What shots that were hitting barely did more than scuff his armor, and those weren’t very many. As bulky as his gear was, this pony was fast, he easily dodged left and right, avoiding oncoming gunfire.

Finally, most of the ponies lay dead, the lucky ones, survivors were rolling on the ground, clutching bloody stumps and crying silently as steam rolled out of fresh wounds. I was almost relieved, that was, until Shackles walked out with the collared Security stallions in tow.

“Stay back Ranger!” she called out, “I’ve got hostages!”

The pony just snorted as his weapons automatically reloaded themselves. “Two things!” he called, his accent was unfamiliar, not the smooth Trottingham accent but something a little more... rough, “One, I ain’t a Ranger, and two, why the fuck does you having hostages change a fucking thing?”

He started advancing on her, the engines of his gun whirring and the barrels spinning slowly.

“Y-you stop right there!” she stammered, stepping back until she bumped into her captives.

“What?” he said, the tone in his voice made me feel like he was smiling under that helmet, “Right here?” He drew a line in the dirt with an armored hoof.

Shackles gulped and nodded.

“Okay,” he said with a soft chuckle, “I think I can manage that...”

A high pitched beeping filled the air, after a few seconds it morphed into a solid tone.

“You guys might wanna step away from queen bitch there,” he called out.

The stallions scattered, and before Shackles could detonate their collars one of those bright red explosives screamed through the air and evenly coated her in a perfect red circle 3 metres across where she'd been standing a split second before.

The armored pony chuckled and trotted up to our cage. “Need a hoof?”

“Yes,” I replied, nodding eagerly, “please.”

His armored hooves had pneumatic pistons attached, which he used to slam in the cage’s door, he then jerked backwards and tore the door off it’s hinges.

I hadn’t taken a solid look at his armor, it was... strange. The legs were painted with zebra stripes, and on his armored flank there was a decal of a pony skull with crossed bones. He was tall too, a good head taller than Token and I.

“Hey prick!” a pony called from behind him.

“Yessir!” he replied brightly, turning to face the opponent.

Standing with the captives was the scrawny earth pony.

“I’m taking these slaves and leaving, try to stop me and I’ll turn their heads into paint!”

“Go ahead,” the armored pony grunted in reply, “shit I don’t care, I don’t know ‘em.”

“P-please,” Token begged, “Don’t let him kill our friends, please.”

He snorted, and glanced back at her, “Not my problem blue, sorry. And he probably won’t kill ‘em, they’re worth more as slaves than corpses.”

I felt something bump into my hooves, I looked down and saw a scoped rifle in front of me. He’d used his back leg to scoot the rifle of a dead thug closer to me, and he happened to be blocking the slaver pony’s view of me. Riot poked me in the ribs, “Slip into S.A.T.S and take him out.” she whispered.

I enveloped the rifle in my magic and lifted the scope to eye level, then activated my PipBuck’s S.A.T.S program. S.A.T.S slowed the time around me as I targeted the slaver and put all three charges into his head. Then I was struck with the realization that I had no idea how to use this weapon. Stable 80 didn’t have firearms, at all, Security was only armed with batons, and that was more of a deterrent than a weapon.

Luckily, time was slowed down, which not only gave me time to pick targets, but to think. The trigger definitely seemed to be the way to fire the rifle, and I’d seen the previous owner pulling back the bolt to chamber another round, that wasn’t really the problem though, figuring out how to manipulate the bolt with my magic was.

Fuck it, just make the first shot a bloody good one.

I selected fire in the S.A.T.S menu and sent the first round careening into the slaver’s skull. I saw the bastard’s head come apart through my scope in slow motion. It was oddly satisfying, disgusting, but still satisfying. His lifeless corpse fell on the ground in a heap as time returned to it’s normal pace.

“Good shot mate."

My stomach heaved and I wretched up my lunch as the weight of what I’d just done set in. I’d just killed, taken the life of another pony.

The armored pony chuckled, “First time eh? Don’t worry, you get used to it. Hell, it gets fun after awhile.”

I vomited again, my friends moved to comfort me but I raised a hoof to stop her, “I’m fine, just, give me a minute.”

“How do we get out of these bloody collars?” one of the Stallions asked frantically.

“Search that one, he’s probably got the release key on him somewhere,” the armored pony ordered then he turned around to face us, “you two okay?”

“Yeah,” I lied, the image of the slaver’s head exploding in my scope still fresh in my mind and the taste of bile was still fresh in my mouth.

“Suppose you guys’ll be goin’ back in that stable then?”

“Yes,” Token answered, “thank you for saving us.”

The stallion just snorted, “I killed ‘em to kill ‘em, I couldn’t give half a shit about you lot.”

I poked my friend in the ribs and motioned her to follow, the Security stallions were making their way back to the stable. Getting to my hooves after evacuating my stomach was a bit more difficult than I thought.

“Thanks anyway,” Riot muttered as we moved to follow them.

The Overmare was greeting all of them at the door, her sad smile faded completely when she saw me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to return to the stable Bandage, we saw what you did on the monitors.”

Riot moved up beside me, “Ma’am, she did that to save these stallions, you can’t honestly be persecuting her for that!”

“Watch your tone. I don’t want to do this, believe me, but the codex dictates that murder, in self defense or no, must be punished with death. I don’t want to kill you, so I’m exiling you.”

My eyes were teary, I was fighting to choke back sobs, “B-but, where am I supposed to go?”

She placed a hoof on my shoulder, “I don’t know, that’s something you’ll have to figure out on your own, I’m so sorry.”

“If she goes, I go,” Token said beside me, the three of us turned to her with shocked expressions.

“Token, don’t," I begged, "please, not for me.”

She just glared at me, “I’m not leaving you alone out here, if you have to face exile, I’m facing it with you.”

"You're positive?" the Overmare asked.

Token stood firm and nodded.

“So be it,” the Overmare said, a deep tone of sadness in her voice, “please be careful, and take care of yourselves, I’m so sorry it has to be like this.”

She wrapped us both in a short, half-hearted embrace, and then trotted back into Stable 80, the stallions following her.

Riot paused, glaring at her, then turned to us and pulled us both tight, "I'll fix this guys, I promise."

"Don't worry about it Riot," Token said quietly, "we'll be fine."

She patted us both on the back and pulled away, blinking back tears of her own, "Take care of yourselves."

I nodded, "We will."

She gave us one last quick hug before breaking away completely and following the Overmare.

When the stable door finally sealed shut, I broke down into the worst sobbing fit I’ve had since my grandma died. Token laid down next to me and held me tight as we both cried like foals.

I was an emotional wreck, not just crying for myself, but for Token and the life I'd taken for granted. I cried for Cookie, and for the bucks that would have the visage of this violence embedded in their brains forever, just as I would.

Hell, I even cried for Shackles, and her slavers, didn't know why, maybe I just needed something to cry about.

Once our pity party was over, Token looked to me, desperation in her eyes, “What do we do?”

I shook my head, “I don’t know,” I turned to the armored pony that saved us gathering the weapons and ammo of the dead slavers into a pile at the center of camp, “maybe we should ask him, he seems to know what he’s doing.”

“Him?" she asked, her eyes wide with disbelief, "You’re kidding right? He’s a bloody maniac!”

“I know, but he’s the only one we’ve met out here, and he knows a lot more than we do.”

She looked flustered, “But, but.” She was too frustrated to think of a solid argument, so she just nodded her head sullenly.

As we approached he turned round to face us, “Thought you guys were going back to the stable?”

“We can’t,” Token said sadly, “we’re exiled.”

The pony just shrugged, the scratched and dented plates of his pauldrons clanging together, “So, what do ya want?”

“We need help, we don’t really know how to survive out here,” I said.

He cocked his head a bit and nodded, “I think I can sort you out.”

He took several steps from his loot pile, laid down and disconnected the massive weapons on his armor, which fell to the ground with a gentle thud. He took off his battered helmet, revealing a sweat-matted, zebra striped mane. His coat was the same steel shade of his armor, and his eyes were a bold emerald green. The rest of his armor was shed a lot faster than seemed possible considering the bulk of it, but then, it was incredibly advanced equipment, very scuffed and dented, riddled with old bullet holes, but still advanced.

This pony looked... exotic, to say the least. The first thing to stand out was the fact he had no cutie mark, even though he was at least my age. He had two small scars over his right eye, several small piercings in his left ear, and his forelegs sported the same stripes as his mane.

He stretched his long legs and let out a satisfied sigh, “That’s better, I love that armor but it’s damned cramped.”

Token gasped, “Are you a-”

“Zony?” he interrupted, “Yeah, that a problem?”

“N-no!” she stammered, “It’s just odd, we've never seen a zebra before, let alone a hybrid, how exactly did-”

“Momma fucked a zebra,” he said matter-of-factly, “figured that was obvious.”

He sorted through some of his loot and pulled out a small, metallic bottle cap, “First lesson, caps are your best friends.”

I wrapped the cap in my magic and examined it, “Why?”

“It’s money out here,” he said, like it was common knowledge, which it probably was.

“Uh, why?” Token asked.

“Pre-war bits are hard to come by, bottle caps ain’t, the only real worth a bit has today is using it to get a soda out of an old Sparkle-Cola machine, which in turn provides some caps.”

We both just nodded, it was odd but it wouldn’t be difficult to get used to.

“Okay, next, you need weapons, you’re both unicorns so you won’t need battle-saddles.”

“Battle-saddles?” I asked.

“Those side mounted weapons some of the slavers were using. Now, weapon of choice depends on preference,” he looked at me, “you seem to have death at a distance figured out so why don’t you stick with that rifle for now.”

I nodded, “What about me?” Token asked.

“Dunno,” he replied, “ain’t seen ya fight.”

“I guess I’d like to keep it somewhere from medium to short range then, don't want to rely too much on aiming.”

He nodded and sorted through the pile again, this time dragging out a rifle “This here's a standard assault rifle, 5.56 millimeter rounds, pretty common stuff.”

He nodded at the rifle and she enveloped it with magic, he spent the next five minutes discussing with her how to operate and reload it properly. The way she swapped the magazine was apparently the same with most conventional rifles.

Afterwards he dragged out two sets of saddle-bags, both had a loop for our rifles and multiple compartments sewn in to help sort caps and ammo.

“You know how to turn on your E.F.S right?” he asked us.

We both nodded.

“I recommend keeping it on at all times, it’s damn useful to know when an ambush is coming.”

I tapped on my PipBuck a few times and brought up my E.F.S, it brought up a short list of status updates that flashed out until only my compass and the two white bars inhabiting it were visible.

I have to say, Stable-Tec really outdid themselves in the arcane-science department with the PipBuck, how this leg-mounted device could tell me all these things, I would never know.

“Alright, next we should probably deal with armor, that security barding should be fine for now, but you’re definitely going to want to swap out that jumpsuit when you get the chance.”

Once again, we both nodded.

“Okay, that about covers it, you can have whatever you can find here, none of it’s of any use to me. Feel free to tag along with me until the next town, after that you’re on your own.”

He trotted back to his armor and went through the apparently difficult process of putting it back on and reattaching his weapons. We offered to help but he just waved us off and told us to dig through the pile.

All in all, we collected 127 caps, several clips of ammunition for my hunting rifle, .308 caliber from what our friend told me, 12 clips of 5.56mm rounds for Token’s assault rifle and a few healing potions.

An idea struck me when I found those potions, I went back to where the slavers had killed Cookie and found the two supply crates. We salvaged two weeks worth of food, 10 healing potions, several roles of magical bandages and a few syringes of Med-X from them.

After seeing Cookie’s mostly eaten corpse again, I had to have another long cry, Token joined me. Our armored companion said something about getting his things, and that we should meet him on the road when we were ready.

***

We met the zony on the road after 20 minutes or so and followed him silently north, occasionally wiping our eyes or our noses. There wasn't much around us, an old settlement so decrepit nopony would be able to even salvage from it, let alone cut out a living.

Every now and again Token would ask a question, met with a silent, visor covered stare. He didn't bother answering until I asked him something, "So, what do you do?"

"Mercenary work mostly, sometimes a bit of raiding if I'm in the Blasted Lands."

"Blasted Lands?"

"Island far up north, some real fucked up assholes livin' up there, like to enslave the local zebras, occasionally I'll make a run up there and hit some of their military encampments, generally some good loot."

"So, mercenary work, what's that like?"

"Messy." he grunted.

"Like 'I just spilled a soda' messy or-"

"No," he spat, "more like stumblin' on a mare who just got gang raped by a pack of raiders and had her throat slit, then leavin' the poor bitch to rot so you can kill the fuckers that did it, and not for justice, for greed, it's that kind of fuckin' messy. Now shut the fuck up before I lose my temper and get uncivilized on your ass."

I squeaked quietly in response, falling back a few steps alongside Token and keeping my mouth shut until nightfall.

Footnote: Level up

New perk: Scavenger Senses(1) You’re better at finding and organizing supplies!

Dear Bronies,

All praises to Kkat for creating Fallout Equestria and to Somber for expanding the FoE universe. Mad props to AwesomeJacket for proofreading and editing this hunk a shit for me so it’s at least partially coherent.