(( In case Gdocs is easier for anypony; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pO7U2sdniVi5qC5B-15-vq9hCirUfRj2vkkjXbBpWUI/edit?hl=en_US ))

Everypony gasped. Even I looked down at her oddly.

“Again; please do not stare.” She said, turning quietly, her horn alighting and the door’s handle lighting similarly, swinging open without further discussion.

The door opened to reveal a kind of sandy dirt area, with a fairly wide swath of sickly colored water cutting through the middle of the chamber. The river flowed rather slowly, making a relaxing sound. It didn’t stink like anything particularly nasty inside; though it definitely smelled different. Of course when you’ve lived in a Stable your entire life you are obligated to think pretty much everything else is different, including smells. Directly in front of the door was a large ramp constructed of ragtag scraps of wood, metal, and rope. Held aloft by what looked like a fairly sturdy, (if unorthodox) looking construction of metal and wood. I suspected that the water was more than likely radioactive, and thus the walkways being so far from the water. I briefly imagined what it would be like to fall in.

There were ponies, (and zebras, I noted) milling about on the walkways; though they weren’t crowded. Most of the ponies wore clothing, and several zebras where wearing cloaks identical, (or pretty close) to what Kahu was wearing. I could see cube-shaped wooden rooms constructed and held aloft by more junk towers, which I assumed were ponies’ homes, as I was looking up a mare’s skirt currently. I peeled my eyes away from the, uh, ‘sights’ and paid attention to Kahu instead, who was leading the way up the ramp, instructing everypony to stay with her, and talking to a few of the bystanders,- whom apparently lived here- in her gibberish language. Instructing them to move out of the way I guessed, because most did.

I followed behind Kahu, being especially careful not to trip and fall off of this thing. We walked without incident halfway across the large chamber until my minimal luck ran out. I’d been marveling at the size of the chamber itself; it was huge! I looked down just in time to notice a board partly jutting upward, carefully avoiding tripping over it, I stepped over with my front hooves, and promptly returned to marveling at the chamber’s size, when I tripped forward face-first after a rear hoof caught on the board.

I was not a clever pony; though I most certainly was a clumsy pony.

“Oh Fu-“The rest of my cry was cut out by bashing my face through the floorboards. I came down close enough to Kahu’s rear end that her tail brushed my nose immediately before my fat flank smashed through a trio of what must’ve been particularly thin boards, (Or maybe I really was as fat as I used to get teased about…) and plummeted straight down into the water I’d imagined falling in earlier. Or, would’ve, except I flailed around and ended up laying flat in midair, which conveniently gave my neck just enough reach to bash my head on the shore before sliding into the water; unconscious.

Today was just not going my way.

~

I woke up I don’t know how much later with the most agonizing headache I had ever had in my life. My vision was blurry, and I was still fairly wet. Though I’d been pulled out of the river by somepony and there were several raggedy old towels wrapped around me and laid underneath me, which were also pretty soaked through. The room itself was located on the ground level; I could tell because the ground didn’t fall away from me when I looked over the edge of the bed-slash-mattress. I could vaguely hear someone snoring; which meant it was night, and I didn’t really observe much else as my horrendous headache drove me to lay my head back down on my hooves. The last thing I thought about, - or noticed, rather- before I drifted off to sleep again was that somepony had wrapped my head in bandages. Well, that and the fact that my PipBuck was horribly uncomfortable.

~

The first thing I noticed when I woke up was that my cranium splitting headache had subsided, and was now a slight residual throbbing that only managed to slightly annoy me. The next thing I noticed was that I was dry and warm, which was awesome. Somepony had either moved me to another bed, or this one had simply dried out, and the towels had been replaced with a pair of heavy blankets that looked a tad worse for wear but definitely did their jobs nonetheless. I didn’t really want to move; at all. A sense of horrid crippling depression had completely overtaken me, though it wasn’t until I wondered why for a few moments that I realized. I lay there with blankets over my head curled up into a little fat ball on the mattress thinking for a measure of time I didn’t bother to keep track of thinking about it. I surmised that I was grieving. The more I thought about it, the more that conjecture made sense. Hundreds of ponies I’d known and grown up with died yesterday, and I had very nearly been among them. I thought about all of them, remembering their faces and their voices and their laughter and their quirks and personalities. Well, the ones I could remember anyway.

My thoughts soon fell on Olive. I lie there, wrapped in blankets and fairly cozy, as a shiver ran down my spine. I remembered him the best; would remember him the best. I remembered the first time we’d met. The first time we’d laughed together, the first time we’d cried together. The first time we’d gotten into trouble together. The first time we’d played a prank on somepony. The first time we’d gotten punished together. The first time we’d been alone together. The first time we’d kissed-

My depression riddled train of thought was interrupted by the sound of hoofsteps and voices.

“Is she awake yet?” I heard a voice I recognized ask. It was The Overmare; what the fuck did she want? I was clearly busy being depressed, or sleeping, as far as she knew.

“No, ma’am. She still be sleepin’ methinks.” An unfamiliar male voice answered; I guessed this was probably the same individual whom I’d heard snoring that night when I’d woken up.

The Overmare sighed, “Where did the Doctor go?” She asked the stranger.

“I b’lieve ‘e said somet’ing about lunch. I was not payin’ attention; my apologies.” The foreign individual responded. Though it vaguely occurred to me that he probably lived here and we where the foreigners; I didn’t much care at the moment. I wanted to go back to wallowing in…. whatever it is ponies wallow in; pity? I think its pity.

“Not a problem, I need to speak with her immediately; did the Doctor say anything about that?” The Overmare asked, sounding rather impatiently annoyed but maintaining her polite demeanor. She was better at talking than me.

“Jess ma’am ‘e did. ‘E said ‘dat I should not let ‘er leave if she woke up.” The unfamiliar individual replied.

The Overmare sighed, and I could hear the tiniest of clicks as she facehoofed, “Well, tell him I took her.” She said, and there were more hoofsteps as she stepped over to the bed, and then she poked me lightly in the side.

“Tumble? Tumble, wake up.” She said, and I pretended to stir from being asleep, rather convincingly, I thought, but it was in vain.

I shifted a bit and lifted my head, the covers falling away and I looked at her. She was smiling at me softly, but her expression quickly changed to one of concern, and I frowned at her change of feature. We sat there looking at each other funny a moment or two before I gave up.

“What?” I asked, a bit irritated.

“Tumble, honey, is…. Are you alright?” she asked, her tone soft and motherly, to go with her look of concern. Not that I knew what that was like, I’d just heard her talk to her daughter like that before.

I’d thought I was fine. I creased my brow at her and then lifted a hoof up to my face, wiping and pulling away, looking at a bit of moisture on it; when the hell had I been crying? I looked back at her, confused. She didn’t say anything though; she just stood up on her hind legs and gave me a hug.

It was the nicest thing she’d ever done for me, by far, and at first I’d thought she was going to hurt me. When she didn’t bite me or snap my neck or anything else violent, I hesitantly returned the gesture, feeling more like crying now than I had earlier when I’d (apparently) been actually crying.

We held each other for a few moments, and for a little while, I felt like everything was going to be okay. For a little while, I felt like maybe she hadn’t really hated me, and I’d been the one in the wrong all of these years. It was an odd feeling.

She broke the embrace and wiped my other cheek gently, “Tumble, we need to talk.” She said mysteriously, stepping back onto all fours on the floor. It just then occurred to me that she’d really had to stretch to get her hooves around my neck to hug me.

I telekinetically pushed the blankets off of myself and gingerly stepped off of the bed. The random stranger, whom I now noticed, was a Zebra dressed in raggedy clothing and armed with an assault rifle, and he seemed to be standing guard. Guarding what I didn’t know, but he seemed to be respectfully ignoring our tender little display nonetheless. I was thankful for that.

The Overmare nodded toward the door (or door area) of the place we were in, which I assumed was some kind of medical ward because of the large amount of surgical equipment in one corner, sinks, numerous beds, and lots and lots of medical boxes marked with a trio of butterflies.

I followed her out, and we came into the large chamber from the day before, and then she led me down along a beaten path in the dirt leading toward another passageway that I could see immediately opened up into another chamber. I pulled off another miracle and managed to not fall into the river again while we were walking, (it was probably fifteen feet away, but I knew I could pull it off) but I hit my head on the entrance to the other chamber, which sent a lovely flare of pain through my head which had received what was more than likely major trauma the day before.

The chamber we’d walked in to was full of beds separated by large squares of metal, wood, and assorted junk, making living cubicles, and was populated with the remainder of the Stable 33 ponies. Everypony seemed to be extremely…. Quiet. They hardly moved, most just sat in their beds. This was the first time I’d seen any evidence of emotion out of the others; maybe I just hadn’t been paying attention, or maybe they’d managed their emotions better than I had. I wasn’t entirely sure.

I followed The Overmare down the aisle between all of the beds and down a bunch of logs pressed into the dirt as makeshift stairs into a smaller area, with only two rooms. I thought it odd that whoever these ponies were who’d let us stay here, they’d made preparations for our arrival, which seemed a tad creepy, almost as creepy as the comment Chief Strong Step had made yesterday regarding that very thing.

“I know who ya’ are ponies. ‘Da Oracle foretold of yer arrival years ago.” I remembered him saying mysteriously. Who or what was the Oracle? How had he-slash-it known about our arrival? My mental list of questions was interrupted by falling down the last two log steps. I caught myself but stumbled and thumped my flank audibly into the stone wall.

The Overmare didn’t laugh, thankfully; instead she stood still in front of the two rooms. I vaguely wondered why there were two down here and why they looked to be constructed better than the ones everypony else had gotten.

“Tumble, we’ve learned a lot of things from these ponies while you were out.” She said. I stepped over to her side and sat down, prompting her to continue.

“These ponies’ central worship has formed around the teachings of an Oracle.” She went on, “A pony that has, according to their local legends, been alive since the Megaspells went off. His longevity blamed on a condition they refer to as ‘The Radiation’s Blessing.’ Essentially he has been mutated to the point that he is horribly disfigured, and somehow that has resulted in an exceptionally long life.” She explained. I didn’t really see how any of this was relevant to us, or what was going on, but I nodded anyway.

“The central worship has been focused around a prophecy…. A prophecy foretelling a ‘Master of Pages’ who will come from beyond Stable 33’s door to bring prosperity to the Equestrian Islands; which is the area we are currently in, off the coast of mainland Equestria.” I nodded, slowly this time, the first part about a ‘Master of Pages’ made me nervous, but the second part about our location I’d already known.

“That is what Chief Strong Step was referring to yesterday when he mentioned the Oracle’s foretelling of our arrival.” I nodded, “And…” She looked down at her hooves and shifted on them oddly, looking nervous. I raised an eyebrow at her curiously as she continued, “The ponies here…. They’ve seen your Cutie Mark. And they believe that you are their prophesized hero….” She looked up at me, an expression on her face looking something akin to pleading; though pleading for what I don’t know.

I looked at her in disbelief, and almost laughed, “Wh-what?” I asked, and then begged, “Pl-please t-t-t-tell me th-that you’re k-kidding…”

She shook her head, “No, Tumble, these ponies are absolutely convinced that our coming from the Stable had been prophesized and that you are their savior. I’ve tried explaining to them that you’re a klutz, and horribly unfortunate. I even tried insulting you to make them see reason, but they are saying your Cutie Mark defies my ‘slander’ and that you will lead them and the rest of the Equestrian Islands to prosperity.”

I looked at her, and then at the pair of rooms, realizing what they were; living quarters for the Overmare…. and the prophesized savior….

Me.

~

I stared up at the ceiling, lying on my back on a very, very nice bed. (Nicer than the one I’d had in the Stable even) These ponies had made the most exquisite preparations possible for their alleged savior. I had this fantastic bed, two dressers, (one stocked with mare’s clothing, the other with colt’s) a vanity with a mirror that had a large crack down the middle, but was otherwise unharmed. There were three mannequins in the room too. One of them had my security barding on it, with the magazines taken out of the little pockets, this one had a hind leg snapped off and a bullet hole in the head that somepony had covered up with a pink band-aid adorned with a red heart shape. The second had my saddlebags, (I’d checked inside, all of my stuff was there, including the missing magazines.) and had all of the legs missing, and one ear off of its head. The third had nothing on it. I’d been snooping the in the dressers and found very, very expensive looking formal wear, but only one outfit per gender’s wardrobe, so I assumed this unharmed mannequin was meant to hold one of them, (I surmised that there was probably a ceremony of some sort for the supposed savior, and you’d think that they’d want to display that) but I didn’t fit into the dress and never would, and the tux’ was a Colt’s Small, so I wouldn’t fit into it either. It was very depressing to know you couldn’t wear almost all of the clothes that somepony had gifted you and had probably taken a lot of effort to pick out, gather, and probably clean.

Somepony had even taken the time to rig up a spark battery to a lamp on the bedside stand so I had my own light in the room, and had draped a black cloth over the wall between The Overmare and my room. (It didn’t reach the ceiling) so the light didn’t leak through any cracks. I looked around the room, and then lay my head back down on the pillow, sighing and returned to the internal debate I’d been waging. To go with the flow and accept this ‘savior’ thing, and make everypony here happy, or deny any involvement, piss them off and probably either get killed or get myself and all of the other Stable ponies thrown out into the cold. I knew what I needed to do, and what I should do, but when you’ve been a failure your entire life, accepting a major responsibility doesn’t really come easy. Or maybe it did. I didn’t have the slightest fucking clue, and that irritated me to no end, because I liked to understand things of relevancy. Not to mention the fact that anything having to do with psychology as far as myself was concerned was completely guesswork at the moment because no ‘Self Help’ book had ever been written about what you’re supposed to do when you’re faced with the choice of being the prophesized savior of hundreds of ponies or being the fat slightly-depressed wreck you’d always been. I was extremely frustrated at the moment.

I turned my head and looked at my pistol in its holster lain on the bedside stand, vaguely wondering if it was still loaded; anything for a distraction from my current train of thought. I floated it out of the holster and over to me, holding it in front of my face, now was the first time I’d noticed, but it looked a lot different than The Overmare’s. For one thing, it wasn’t near as fat, and the holster had had to be adjusted to accommodate the skinny slide and mouthpiece. I recalled hearing somewhere before everything went to hell, maybe a book, that the pistol that she had was a standard issue security and police firearm and had been chambered in a… ten, something. Millimeter I think. I snapped on the safety and slid the magazine out of my pistol, and with a bit of fumbling, managed to get a round out of it to look at. I read the inscription at the bottom, .45 Colt. I didn’t know much about firearms, but I knew that the decimal number was the caliber, but I was fuzzy on what caliber was what size and what was big and what was small, so I couldn’t really make anything of that number. I laid the magazine down on the table and look at the pistol itself. The mouthpiece was white, and the slide was glossy chrome. It was an interesting piece of art, and etched into the mouthpiece I saw an inscription in calligraphy, and briefly wondered how old this gun was, because there hadn’t been laser engraving since pre-war, which is what this clearly was I decided, making the assumption based on the quality and detail. I also briefly wondered why it was that The Overmare had let me have this item, which was surely passed down through generations in her family while we were in the Stable. It was replaced in thoughts as I read the inscription.

“Rise and rise again until lambs become lions.” I grinned at the flowing lettering, untouched by time due to the chrome coating on the steel. I understood the wisdom, and I found it strikingly appropriate when placed on a firearm, to the point of a slight bit of humor. Made even more appropriate was that it was encouraging wording to see given the internal debate I was waging moments ago.

My depression and internal debate forgotten for the moment, I picked up the clip telekinetically and slid it back in, the slide snapping forward with a slap, but it made me jump and I squeezed my magical hold on the weapon, accidently squeezing the trigger.

BLAZZAP!

The sound scared the living fuck out of me and I damn near wet myself all over that really nice bed. The sound echoed through the chamber and I was sure everypony knew that’d been a gunshot. Though, regardless of the fact that I was clearly no firearms expert, I was pretty damn sure that guns weren’t supposed to sound like that. They go bang. That’s it, not the electrically charged crackling smack that the firearm had made when I’d accidently pulled the trigger just now. Not only had I just fired a gun indoors, (or, in-cave, rather) It had also kicked back so hard against my telekinetic grip that I’d dropped it, but I’d gotten lucky for once and it’d landed on the bed safely. The Overmare screamed and I forgot my own bit of pain and I jumped off of the bed and threw open my door, turning and barging into The Overmare’s room.

“Eh-Everypony Oh-“I was cut off in my attempt to assure that everypony was alright by The Overmare yelling at me; again.

“Tumble, what in Equestria just fucking happened? What did you do this time? You could’ve killed somepony!” She yelled at the top of her lungs; she was clearly (and unfortunately) fine. I looked over her and didn’t see Sparkle Swirl in the room, so I assumed she was hanging around the other foals in the rest of the chamber, which meant she was fine too. Then I noticed the wall.

Completely ignoring The Overmare now, I pushed right past her and my jaw dropped. The wall itself was sparking. Literally, blue electrical sparks where zapping across the surface of the rock. The bullet had imbedded itself in the wall rather than ricocheting off to cause further distress, and the hole around it seemed to be steaming slightly. A moment later, the steam stopped, and the sparks died away almost immediately after. I walked over to the wall, it seemed to be a tad moist, from condensation I guessed, and that explained why the electricity had been so…. Active. Though why a firearm that shot magically enhanced rounds of electrical enchantment, (or something like that) even existed was beyond me. Let alone why it had fallen into my hooves.

The Overmare had stopped yelling, grumbling instead, and pushed me out of her room, I didn’t think she’d seen the wall, being so busy screaming and all.

~

I’d gone back to my room and I’d immediately flipped the safety on the pistol to ‘On’ and returned it to my holster, and had had just enough time to get bored and go rifling through the drawers in the vanity, running a brush through my short mane for the first time in a decent while, brushing all of the knots out, before somepony knocked on my door. I knew somepony would come, I’d just shot a gun inside of a place that echoed, a lot. Everypony was probably wondering who was dead. Regardless of my prediction that somepony would come, I still jumped when the knock came, and I dropped the brush back into the drawer it’d been in, and closed it shut. I half-galloped for the door, not wanting to make anypony wait.

I opened it to find… nopony.

“The fuck?” I wondered, even going so far as to step out of the room and look around, spinning in a circle to see if they’d snuck in behind me. I frowned, had somepony really been so immature as to knock and then run away? I sighed, turning and walking back into my room, walking right back to the vanity to continue playing with my mane. I’d never been very girly, but it was still fun to play with, so fuck you. I pulled numerous random things out of the drawers to play with; brushes and combs and a little 200 year old makeup and several barrettes and headbands.

I must’ve played around looking at myself in the cracked mirror for an hour before I found something I genuinely liked; it was a pink, (I like pink, fuck you) headband that somehow managed to match my eyes as close to perfectly as I was going to find, and it was relatively unharmed, no bloodstains or anything and it wasn’t broken, as some of the others had been. I brushed my hair out nice and flat and put it into place, the tips of either side coming to rest just where my ears started. I looked at myself in the upper portion of the cracked vanity, smiling at myself. I thought I looked pretty… from the neck down, of course. I sighed at the depressing thought, putting everything back into the drawers I found them in. I looked up to see myself in the mirror one more time before taking the headband out. My horn glowed and so did it, and then I heard a voice.

“No, leave it; it looks nice.” It said.

I could’ve jumped ten feet in the air; it scared the living fuck out of me. I yelled all manner of unrepeatable and colorful curses and spun around faster than I thought I could move; to find Kahu sitting on my bed, grinning at me, (the first time I’d ever seen her smile) mischievously. She was still wearing her dark cloak, which in more stable light I noted went with her coat pretty nicely. I’d thought it was the light, but she was an orange coated unicorn, and it was a fairly bright color; her cloth thingy was a fitting contrast. She also had a patch of white down her neck and leading down her chest to what I assumed continued to her abdomen, but I couldn’t see under the dark cloak. It was an interesting color combination. As I noticed this in the span of a few seconds she gave up holding a straight face and chuckled at me; I’d been scowling at her fuming for the past few seconds as I absorbed in colors of all things. Yay randomness.

She didn’t laugh, she chuckled. I actually found it kind of creepy. She started talking though, and that took my thoughts away from what I’d been thinking about.

“I scared you, huh?” she said, smiling at me again. She had a cute little smile, she reminded me a lot of a colt I had a year or two ago (who was now deceased I presumed) and had moved on to the class where they teach all of the older kids, which was on Level C, the same level I’d lived on, only I’d been in the Living Quarters area. Kahu had the same smile; genuine. I sighed and nodded, responding with that and a muddled ‘Mhmm.’

“Good.” She giggled again.

“How’d y-you get in h-h-here?” I stammered.
Instead of responding aloud, she grinned, and her horn glowed, as did a flap of cloth on her draped clothing, which I now realized was a cloak and she was lifting a hood, as it fell over her face, and her very being shimmered, and then just… disappeared.

My jaw dropped like a sack of hammers, if it could’ve it would’ve hit the floor I’m sure. I looked around the room, spun around and around. She’d completely vanished into thin air. I wracked my brain for an explanation, and the only one that came to mind was that she’d somehow managed to convert the stealth spell from a StealthBuck into a castable spell and used that, but I’d only read about StealthBucks before and had never seen one used, or seen one at all for that matter, before. I heard her giggle, and I whipped around from my current position of looking at the bed again, to find her sitting on the floor next to me with her hood down again.

“Boo.” She said; which didn’t scare me at all as I was still too dumbfounded at her magical disappearance and reappearance. I stared at her gob smacked, and she just smiled at me, and then asked the question I’d expected whoever knocked on my door in the first place to ask.

“So, who got shot?” she asked, changing the subject. I closed my jaw and frowned at her, which only got me a raised eyebrow.

“Nopony.” I finally said with a sigh after trying to win a staring contest. I could tell she just thought my slight frustration was extremely funny, even if she wasn’t laughing.

“Lovely. Then tell me; do any of the clothes in the dressers fit? Or have you tried any on yet?” She stepped back over to the bed and hopped up on it, sitting down, making her more-or-less eye level with me.

I looked at the floor, “None of the clothes for my sex fit, at least.” It was utterly humiliating to have to say that aloud, and I prayed The Overmare was doing something or had wandered off and couldn’t hear me say it.

Kahu nodded thoughtfully, and then walked over to the dresser with all of the colt’s clothing in it, looking in the door. I hadn’t noticed it earlier when I’d briefly peeked inside, but the insides of the doors had numerous neckties hung on them, arranged in a rainbow on one side, and the other in a dull assortment of whites, grays, blacks, and dark blues.

Kahu’s horn lit up and she pulled a trio of pink ties out of the dresser. She fanned them out a bit and held them up to my face, I frowned at her; did she intend for me to wear a tie? Like a Colt? As I pondered this she put two of them away and quickly fastened one around my neck in what I assumed was the proper fashion to tie a necktie.

I attempted to protest, but she pushed, (or tried to push anyway) me toward the mirror again. I walked over and looked in, frowning at my reflection; I just knew I’d look stupid.

Unsurprisingly, I was wrong again. It actually looked decent, aside from the fact that it was crooked. I straightened it out and smiled at myself in the mirror; I looked okay; I guess.

I turned to look at Kahu, who was digging through the colt’s dresser again, and produced a stack of white shirts. She flipped through them, looking at the sizes printed on the collars, she stacked almost all of them back inside neatly, and then walked over to the security barding adorned mannequin with the only two that had apparently been large enough to fit me. As I watched she pulled the shirt out from under the armored part of the security barding without effort. It didn’t tear, so I assumed it wasn’t attached at all, which was something I honestly hadn’t known in all my years as a Stable pony. She slid in one of the white shirts, and then frowned at her creation, pulled it out, and then put the security barding and the Stable 33 blue garment back together and put them back on the mannequin. She floated a shirt over to me, and told me to try it on, and at this point I wasn’t going to question her; I might as well have been a filly again playing dress-up in Olive’s mom’s closet. (Though there wasn’t much to play dress-up with inside of a Stable mare’s closet) I was having fun.

I unbuttoned the shirt, and slid my hooves in, and buttoned it up without effort; something I’d not expected. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I tucked the tie under the collar of the shirt and folded it down the way it was supposed to be. Grey fur, white shirt, and a bright pink tie. I smiled at myself; I looked pretty nice, and just because I could, I tapped into my PipBuck’s options, setting the screen to a soft black-and-white color scheme rather than the typical green on green most ponies wore theirs as.

The PipBuck 1000 wasn’t the same kind of technology that a PipBuck 3000 was; the 1000 was meant for business and military officials; society’s upper class rather than the working class that the 3000 had been designed for. The 1000 sported a calculator, clock, and note taking capabilities, as well as quite a bit more storage for information files; almost double that of the 3000. However the 3000 had a better Radmeter and Geiger Counter; it was more accurate; up to single digits, whereas the 1000 was numbered by tens, and did not click at you when near radiation. Another flaw with the 1000 was that the Stable Assisted Targeting System on the 1000 was literally half as effective as the 3000’s much newer version; this meant that a pony could only use it half as long before it needed to recharge for double the amount of time that a pony with a model 3000 would. The PipBuck 1000 was also lighter and much more compact, the surface not jutting out near as far as that of the later 3000 model. Other than that, the medical evaluations and the inventory sorting spells where completely identical.

I sighed, remembering all of those days with Olive, (who had a model 3000 PipBuck) pouring over our (at the time) brand new PipBucks and comparing with one another to look at the differences and similarities. Back in reality, Kahu had decided a simple look was befitting me, without my input apparently, and was currently fastening on my pistol for me. I looked down at her, a bit confused as I hadn’t been paying enough attention to wonder when she’d started that.

“You weren’t paying attention, so I did it myself.” She responded when I asked her about it.

I shrugged. I guessed that was fair; I would’ve done it anyway, this was, if anything, only more convenient. Kahu pushed me in front of the mirror again, and I looked at myself. The pink tie and headband matching my eyes, the shirt looking surprisingly clean considering the condition of most of what I’d seen in the one dresser I’d actually inspected. It hung loosely, and the bright color made a lovely contrast with the grey and black of my fur and mane, respectively. This combined with my strikingly pretty chrome pistol sticking out of the black holster made for a pretty snazzy simple look, if I do say so myself. I reminded myself of a character from the cover of a book I’d read once about a super spy from before the war who traveled to all kinds of countries everywhere and saved the world from all kinds of bad guys. He’d been handsome and daring; I wondered if I looked half as handsome and daring.

Kahu stepped back and looked at me, and walked a couple circles around me, looking me over.

“Looks good to me; what do you think?” she asked, stepping back and looking up at me.

“I thi-think you’re h-hiding a c-c-cutie mark for fa-shion uh-under that c-cloak.” I said, grinning at her and at my own joke.

“Lovely,” she said, but didn’t seem like she thought my little joke was funny, “You like the look then?” she asked.

When I nodded she nodded in turn, “Great. Come with me.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, following her out the door and closing it behind me.

“Somepony wants to meet you.” She said vaguely, and I flicked the safety switch on my pistol to ‘On’ as a precaution; wouldn’t want another accident.

~

Footnote;
Level Up!
Guns skill has increased to 35. (From 20)
New Perk – Analytical (2 of 2): You’ve got quite the eye and notice all the tiny details. From a small facial scar to the direction somepony’s mane falls; nothing slips by you. You’ve gained a bonus to your critical chance. (Level/5)