After some… Minor difficulties, we managed to get back down to the lobby. My mind was currently wondering what kind of cool pre-war material I could find in here. They said whatever I found I could keep, so I was wondering what kind of stuff might still somehow be useable. Willow Wisp seemed more settled being back down here, guess she had a fear of heights. Zoey on the other hand was more concerned about getting this over with.

Not that I blamed her, if these Hellhounds were even more deadly than the ones in the raid, I wouldn’t want to be near them. Of course, we also had those Living Fossils to deal with, and that scared me. I didn’t see any from the top of the building, but that was probably because they blended in so naturally to everything else. I had Remembrance held up at the ready, preparing for anything and everything that could come at me. This was a clear hostile environment, but that was already pretty clear if you ask me.

I looked around at all the broken down carriages at the sides of the road. Some had skeletons on them of ponies, others were just broken down, and others were somewhat disintegrated. That being said, the damaged seemed more recent than most other places. It seemed to still be slightly radiated and there was still some rotting corpses in the streets. I was to curious, I had to ask Zoey about this.

“Hey Zoey,” I drop back to her side as we continue walking through the rubble. “Was this place hit by a mega spells more recently or-”

“This was the last place hit,” She said interrupting me. “It wasn’t my home country that did this though, pony kind launched one on itself,” My eyes widen in surprise at this. “Fifty-three years some pony in this country launched the mega spell Nebula one, it was never fired during the war due to faulty design. It was one of five different Nebula mega spells, and all of them had the same problem. Nebulas two, four, and five were all deactivated, however Nebula one and three weren’t, and three is still yet to have been fired.”

I managed to keep myself from saying “Do you know where Nebula three is? I want to give the Zebra’s a taste of their own medicine,” but managed to keep myself shut in order to keep myself from offending Zoey and her kind. Instead I asked, “What created the mega spells?”

“Mostly the Ministry of Arcane Science which was run by Minister of Magic Twilight Sparkle, but Nebula was actually made by the princesses themselves,” Zoey explained before looking ahead. “Oh shit.”

I looked where she had, at a small intersections in front of us. The building we were heading towards was only two blocks away and I looked to see what was troubling her. I looked to see three Hellhounds standing there in front of a carriage full of a pile of bones. What were they growling at? I didn’t see anything. Zoey got us all behind a nearby carriage as we looked at the situation. I was all for avoiding the fight, but then Zoey pointed something out to me.

“You see that metallic thing right there,” I follow her gaze to see what looked like metallic shaped figure beside them. “It’s a robotic pony, most likely pre-war. If we could grab that imagine what we could do with it. If it still works we could power it on and possibly use it, if not we could always scrape it,” She turned to me as she said the next one. “Or you can have that pre-war trophy Sharpshot was telling me you wanted so badly.”

“Was it made in the ministries?” I asked her.

“I don’t think so,” She says to me. “I’ve seen pre-war ministry stuff before and that looks nothing like what I've seen. It’s definitely pre-war though, the rust shows it loud and clear,” She moved behind me and made her way around the carriage as she tried to get a better look at it. I followed her, telling Willow Wisp to stay hidden while we inspected the situation. “Looks like there's some kind of metal door on the back, maybe used for storage or something? No, there wouldn’t be enough room to put in the hard drive and mainframe. Must serve some other purpose…” She looked at me. “I want to see what it is but I don’t think we could deal with all four of those creatures.”

I look at the Hellhounds wondering what she meant by four. “I only see three,” I tell her. “What do you mean by four?”

“Look really closely at that pile of bones,” She said, and I did what she said. I looked to see a glowing circle in the middle of it. “The thing is sleeping,” Zoey tells me. “But as soon as we start firing that thing is going to wake up. That influx can only be broken by overloading magic into it.”

“I don’t know any magic,” I tell her.

“But the Novasurge fires magic,” She explains further. “Unload a few shots into that thing and it should fall. I can’t do anything to it because this carbine isn’t magic, in that case I'll leave the Living Fossil to you. I’ll deal with the Hellhounds and draw them away while you take care of it.”

She started moving away from me and across the streets, motioning Willow Wisp over while doing it. She whispered something to Willow, my guess was that it was our plan for taking it down. She nodded to whatever it was Zoey had said to her and she looked to me and nodded. They dissapeared around the corner of the nearby carriage and I waited to see them move away.

I heard gunfire fly in direction of the Hellhounds and watched as one fell to the ground, looking as if it took a entire cartridge to take it down. It watched as they dissapeared and the light in the center of the piles of bones got brighter and they started rising. When it had fully risen, it looked like a bone giant, indestructible.

I looked down the scope of the Novasurge rifle as I saw it start moving in the direction I assumed Willow and Zoey were in. I pressed the trigger as soon as possible and heared the sound of the magic inside the rifle come to life. It was slow, but it took a few seconds for the Novasurge to fully charge putting me on a bit of a clock. I could feel the magic in the weapon as it reached it’s max charge and I let it loose.

“NOVASEURGE!”

I was shot backwards a good few inches by the recoil of the blast. Even with the power armor it was powerful. I don’t think it was that the shot was to much for me a pony to handle, it was more like I wasn’t strong enough to handle and I probably would have flown through the air if it wasn’t for the power armor. Note to self, don’t ever fully charge it.

The good news was that I heard the sounds of bones coming towards me instead of away from me. That being said I was still busy finding my footing after the blast by the time I saw it. It wasn’t really describable, it was a mix of bone from no single kind of creature. It was as if the thing wasn’t so much a fossil as it was an influx of magic… Which I kinda just realized is exactly what Soarin and Zoey said they were.

I watched as a bone from the thing (I wasn’t even sure what to call it anymore) comes flying towards me and I slowly shuffle to the side as it does. I realize I won’t be able to defend myself against this thing in power armor. It was to slow and I wouldn’t have enough time to dodge even if I wanted to. Knowing this I got out of the power armor, grabbed the Novasurge rifle, and crawled under the cartridge next to me.

If I was correct, it couldn’t see or hear me, but considering it is basically an influx of magic it could probably sense magic in the area. It was to close to me for me to get away, so I would have to cause a magical diversion to get away from. I had never done magic before, so this would be a very hit or miss situation. If I just left it here, I could escape, but I didn’t want to know what trouble it could cause if it stumbled into the Angel Hunter camp.

I focused on a small pile of trash off to the side and focused my mind on it. If this went off right, my plan was to fling the pile of trash away from me and down the road. That way I could fire the Novasurge rifle again and hopefully end this. I watched as I slowly found myself succeeding, watching as a glow started enveloping the piece of paper off the ground and suddenly went into full on rage mode and flung it into a building to the right of me.

It seemed to have worked, the Living Fossil moved away from me and I crawled out from underneath and watched as the giant stepped on into the building. It had thankfully not detected me and focus on the place that was being effected by magic instead. Thank Celestia for undead stupidity.

I slowly got on up and climbed on into the carriage behind me before taking the chance to look down the Novasurge’s scopes and calm my breathing. I found it a little easier to fire the weapon doing it, but considering I had to hold my breath still as it charged up as well was a pretty hard thing to do. Luckily, I had the patience and the breath to take care of this and waited for the Living Fossil to give me an opening to it’s influx.

When my gun was fifty percent charged, I finally got an opening, and fired directly at the beast, tumbling backwards out of the carriage before I had a chance to shout my battle cry. I heard an explosion come from inside the building and lifted my head through the carriage to see the Living Fossil gone. That could have honestly been a lot hard then it had if I didn’t realize it can only track magic, thankfully I had figured it out by that time.

I walked over to my power armor, which was still thankfully in one piece. I looked to see Zoey and Willow Wisp walk over to me, and I look behind them to see the Hellhounds they had fought dead on the ground. I look in terror at one of them, seeing the corpse of a Hellhound ripped apart by something. Then I looked at Willow Wisp to see on her smiling while covered in blood. Not knowing what the hell Zoey had told her, I looked at the zebra in hopes of a response.

“I can explain,” She said reading my mind. “I told her we were going to rip the Hellhounds to shreds and well… I guess she took it kind of literally.”

“I think kind of is a bit of an understatement,” I reply not completely agreeing with the use of words. “But it looks like you don’t mind at all,” Willow Wisp nodded, which honestly scared me seeing what she had done to the Hellhound.

“This mare here definitely knows a thing or two about fighting hand to hand combat,” Zoey told me. “This probably isn’t the first time she has been in a situation like this, which is weird considering most slavers don’t usually have a problem with things like ponies taking their “property” if you know what I mean,” I didn’t really think too much of it, I was just surprised how gruesome that Hellhound killed. “Ready to see what that robot was about?”

I nodded my head and we walk over to the robot. Despite the bit of rust it had, I was surprised at how it must have withstood the test of time. Like Zoey had said, there seemed to be some sort of hatch on the back of the pony, but I couldn’t open it because there was no handle. Hey, just because I could now use magic to fling a piece of paper doesn’t mean I could open a robot up.

I watched as Zoey searched around the things body before finally finding something. “I think this much be a switch or something here,” She said, and I heard a flick sound as the spot where eyes usually were on a pony lit up red.

Zoey jumped back a few centimeters as this happened. It was actually still working! I honestly didn’t expect it to, but it would have been a win win either way, this was honestly though much then what it would have been other wise. It got up and stared at me blankly, and I stared right back, not entirely sure what was going on. I saw Willow slowly step back as I continued staring at it.

“So uh…” I felt completely confused on what to say right now. What would a robot say? “Hello there? I’m Dead Hooves and…” My sentence trailed off as I looked at it, not knowing what was going to happen. It was just staring at me, blankly.

Did it even speak?

“So do you wanna talk first or should I?”

“What is the core value of friendship?”

My eyes went wide as it spoke those words. WHAT! Out of all the things I was being ask by a robot, it was a question about friendship? I looked to Zoey for help on this but she shrugged her shoulders. I was obviously not the right pony to ask this question to. I had no idea what friendship really was, so I just had to take a guess.

“Being nice, kind, generous, loyal, honest,” I stop to think about it for a second before speaking again. “In Sharpshot’s case sometimes being an insufferable bitch.”

“Wow, he’s that bad.”

I looked at Zoey disappointed. “Really?” I say to her. “You haven't noticed at all?”

“You seem to show knowledge of the friendship,” I look back to see the robot talk. “I am Silver Gunner, a robotic pony created during the war.”

I hugged him and he simply stared at me, probably wondering what the hell I was doing. “Can I keep him,” I asked, finding Silver Gunner kind of cute… Which I think is kind of weird not that I say it. “Pleeeease.”

“Guess you got more than just a trophy,” Zoey said happy, smiling at me. “You know what Soarin said, you can keep it.”

I hugged it for a few more seconds, not really caring that it’s red eyes were glaring at me. I guess I should have been slightly terrified of Silver Gunner, but something about him just said differently. I don’t know why, but he seemed like a metallic teddy bear, standing there motionless at me. I suddenly found myself being pulled away by something and looked to see multiple arms come out of Silver Gunners back. Guess I maybe hugged him for too long.

“What can I do to be of assistance to you fine soldiers,” Silver Gunner said in the same monotone voice as before. It must of thought we were soldiers from the war due to the Angel Hunter uniforms we were wearing (of course mine didn’t show under my power armor).

“The war ended seventy-five years ago,” Zoey said in a deadpan voice. “We aren’t soldiers from the war. We lost, we all Celestia damn loss. No pony or species won because of the megaspells.”

Silver Gunner didn’t seem affected by this at all. “What could I do to be of assistance?” Silver Gunner asked again. “A uniform means an army, and if there is an army there is a war.”

I looked at Zoey, who looked at me with the same face. In a way this entire search was starting feel like a gigantic one versus a thousand war. I never really thought about it that way before. Silver Gunner was right. The uniform meant we were part of an army, one fighting a war to stop a gruesome killer in the wasteland.

“We’re on a training mission of sorts to take down a raider,” I explain to Silver Gunner. “We spotted it in the building right here,” I point at a building a block down the street. You could actually see the cardboard raider from the streets, but it seemed almost impossible to hit from where I currently was. “It’s not a real raider, it’s just painted onto a piece of cardboard.”

Silver Gunner looked at me still seeming completely unfazed by the world around him. It was kind of like he didn’t even see it. “I shall assist you on your mission then,” He said looking at me. “I require a weapon to help. I suggest handing me the Novasurge rifle you currently hold.”

I look down at it and then back at him, wondering if I should give it to him. Sure, he would need a weapon if he was to help us (not that I think we needed much help at the moment) but the Novasurge rifle was so cool I didn’t want to give it to him. Of course the only other weapon I had was Remembrance, which I wasn’t really sure I wanted to be parted from, even if it was for only a few seconds.

“Here,” I said holding the Novasurge rifle in front of me. “But I expect it back by the end of this okay.”

He took it in one of his hands or whatever those thing were on his back and I swung Remembrance around. Zoey motioned us with her head over to the building that our so called target was in. At least it wasn’t that far, or on the roof. I was still angry about the amount of stairs I had to climb in order to even see it.

I do have to say that it was nice that this wasn’t overly challenging. If I wasn’t a unicorn or didn’t have a weapon in my hand like the Novasurge I wouldn’t probably have to worry about that Living Fossil thing earlier. I wonder if Zoey was even the thing that set it off, she was a Zebra and had no weapons like the Novasurge. Was something else nearby causing it to wake up?

The building that the cardboard raider was in seemed to have been under construction by the time Nebula One hit. It didn’t seem that stable, you could tell that age wasn’t being kind (then again, was age kind to anything here?) and the rusty steel beams that held it standing up would probably soon collapse. No way we were stepping onto that thing.

“Guess will have to hit it from another building,” I said.

“Or,” I look to see Zoey dash off behind I me with her carbine and take a look up at the building.

I watch as she takes aim and starts firing shots off onto the building, each time the bullet seemed to get higher and higher as she did. She was barely even holding the trigger down to do this as she continued to shot, each time getting closer and closer to the target. We stepped up next to Zoey in case she fired a low shot and accidentally hit one of us, Silver Gunner simply standing there not seeming to worry about it.

After what must have been a complete magazine worth of ammunition I heard the faint sound of a bell in the distance and watched as the target fell forward. “You can tell you were never meant to climb up that building,” Zoey said. “This was made for Enclave soldiers, which make up most of the Angel Hunters group besides from us, Sharpshot, Stitch, and your Dashite friend Feather.”

I looked at her confused. “And the point you are trying to prove is?”

“That thing is meant to be shot down from the air,” Zoey explained. “We all know that so much as a hoof on that building would have caused it to fall. Since most Enclave soldiers are taught to fight from the air — don’t ask how I know — you are suppose to find another way to shot it from. In our case it was from a better position on the ground down the street. You learn a thing or two about shooting when you are forced to work with a crazy pony for the past couple months of your life.”

I felt something strange behind me and I turn around, expecting to see a Hellhound. Instead I saw nothing, at least not at first. In the distance I see what I can only think is a pony in the distance staring at us. I narrow my eyes and look at it to try and get a better look at it, only for what I assumed was a pegasus to suddenly disappears without trace.

“Dead Hooves,” I look behind me ready to speak before Zoey put a hoof on my shoulder. “I’ll explain later, for now let's just get on back to the base okay.”

I look quickly up at the direction to see if it was there again only to see nothing. Whatever it was, it knew I spotted it and fled when it did. Still, for a pegasus to disappear from sight, I wondered what exactly happened. Zoey was right, though, it was time to head on back to base.

“Okay,” I said slowly nodding my head. “Lead the way Zoey.”

Author's Notes:

I would quickly like to thank Megaskullmon for letting me use Silver Gunner in this story. He has been incredibly nice since I have started the story and it's great for him to let me us this character in the story. With that, Like, comment, and follow to keep up to date on everything and show your support. With that, I will see you all in the next chapter.