“It’s time to get up, Ratchet. I’ve found us some work,” a voice calls out to me. It starts off fuzzy but steadily becomes clearer. I open my eyes slowly and look at the inside of my pod. “Ratchet, it’s time to get up,” Cora says again.

I stretch groggily as the pod opens up. I look around the room that looks the same as always. Well, at least nothing horrible happened while I was asleep. “You know the drill Cora, how long’s it been?” I ask her, and then climb out of the pod.

“One hundred and nine years since the war, Ratchet,” She tells me. I nod and go over to my PipBuck, then put it back on. My vision flickers then returns to normal.

“Gotcha. So, what’s going on this time, Cora? Some crazy pony mad with power? Two opposing sides threatening to tear the wasteland apart as they fight things out? Another pod, perhaps?” I ask her while checking out my systems.

“It’s a pod, this time, or at least I think it is. I found some records indicating a MoWT facility in the north. Way, way up there too. It is apparently in the middle of nowhere in the Frozen North. I’ve already taken the liberty of procuring you some winter clothing,” Cora replies.

“Way to go Cora, nice work,” I tell her. “Any idea what we’ll be dealing with? Either the facility or inside the pod?” I ask while I walk to the armory.

“Typical MoWT defences, more than likely. Sentry bots, turrets, probably some laser death traps, all the good stuff,” She says. “As for the pod...the only references I found all mention the word ‘Abominable’. No details on what it is or does,” Cora explains.

“Abominable? Like, Abominable Snowpony? Well, I suppose it is in the Frozen North,” I mutter. “Anyhow…” I say as I enter the armory. “Where is everyone else?” I ask. Cora’s AI friends don’t seem to be here at the moment.

“They are investigating a possible lead on another pod. It is down in the Badlands,” She tells me. “I thought it best if we split up instead of all going to one. If they get back with good news, we can go there as well.”

“I see. Any reason we are going to the Frozen North then? I mean, it isn’t like they can feel the cold…” I mutter.

“I just flipped a bit. It came up tails, so we are going north, they went south,” She tells me.

I let out a sigh. “Let’s gear up and head out,” I say as I start putting my barding on.

===~+~===

        Days later and many, many miles north, Cora and I have crossed into the snowy Frozen North. Right in the middle of a blizzard, I might add. I can barely see a foot in front of my face, and Cora is the only reason that we stay on track. “Cora, do you see anywhere we can rest?” I yell over the winds. “My legs are going numb!”

        “My sensors aren’t doing much better than your eyes are, trust me, Ratchet,” Cora calls back. “I can’t see anything nearby.” This is going bad quickly. Cora will be fine as long as she keeps moving. But with me being a flesh and blood pony...The chances of me dying here are quite high.

        As if to make matters worse the ground begins to shake. “Oh great, now what?” I say as I fall over. My numbing legs no longer able to support me. Luckily I fall on my side, keeping my exposed muzzle out of the chilling snow. “Cora! See anything?” I shout.

        “The snow is rising!” She shouts in response. As if waiting for her words, I suddenly see a great mound of snow rise up higher and higher. It explodes, sending even more snow scattering into the winds. From the snow rises a worm-like figure, only infinitely larger. Larger even than a manticore.

        Its mouth itself is larger than Cora and I combined and it is filled with razor sharp teeth. Half of it is scaley while the other is covered in fur. The head of the creature is crested with spines, more than likely used to dig through the ground. It turns towards us and unleashes a blast of fire from its gaping maw. The flames don’t reach us, but they melt the snow in their reach and it creates a temporary tunnel void of snow.

        But as rapidly as the snow melted, the blizzard covers the ground in snow once more. The words of Madam Saber, a mare that I met long ago who said she was from the Frozen North, ring in my mind. “I ran into a few wyrms on the way as well. For whatever reason, they are swarming up there,” She had said. She later told me about them, and her descriptions match this creature perfectly.

        “A wyrm,” I mutter as my eyes go wide. It is bigger than I imagined. Cora begins shooting at it, but it just seems annoyed. I shake my head to gather my wits and pull out Forgiveness. Despite our best efforts we only seem to be pissing it off. The wyrm keeps breathing fire at us, which both aids Cora and I in having less snow to deal with and causes us to run for our lives from it. Their flames can apparently melt steel, and I didn’t want to take any chances.

        After one particular blast of flame, Cora and I run into each other. We manage to stay on our hooves, but the wyrm uses our momentary pause in movement to strike its mouth towards us. A shout rings out from somewhere in the blizzard and a moment later, something smacks into the Wyrm, causing it to veer off course and slamming its maw into the snow feet to our left.

        “What are you waiting for comrades! Sink the harpoons! This wyrm is ours!” A voice shouts. Moments later, more objects fly through the air and hit the wyrm. It makes a beastial scream as the figure on it jumps from one harpoon to the next, slashing wide gashes in the wyrm and making its way to the front. Once there, the figure lifts their spear and pierces the wyrm’s eye. It screams and thrashes, but as the figure holds on to it, the wyrm progressively thrashes less and less until it is still more.

        The figure jumps from the head of the wyrm and lands in front of us, spear grasped in their mouth. They stab the spear into the snow and smiles at us. “Well, hello there comrades! They call me Sickle,” The buck says, holding out a hoof towards us.

        “Uh...thank you for saving us?” I reply and shake his hoof.

        “Ha, think nothing of it. We were hunting the beast anyway,” Sickle tells us.

        “I see. So, uh, Sickle? Was it? Do you live around here?” I ask.

        “Indeed comrade,” Sickle says. I raise an eyebrow. He seem overly friendly considering this is, you know, the Wasteland.

        “Uh, hu. Where about do you live?” I ask him.

        Sickle smiles widely at me and replies, “About a mile to the east. We have a small settlement there. If you’d like, you’re free to accompany us back there.”

        “That close? Cora, have you heard anything about a settlement near here?” I ask her.

        Cora shakes her head. “No. Not many ponies travel up here though, so it isn’t surprising to discover a settlement no one knows about,” She tells me.

        Sickle nods his head. “Indeed. Not even we know of every other settlement up here. But, our settlement is new. About one year ago is when we first formed it, I believe,” He tells us.

        “That new? Where did you all come from before?” I ask.

        “Oh, you know. All over. Some of us had a small group together and fell in with some others who were looking to survive. Together we just kind of decided to set up shop. Together we survive, alone we die. That’s our take on things,” He explains.

        I look over the buck skeptically. He is wearing light barding and a simple jacket. Not exactly the kind of attire I would expect someone who lives in the snow and ice of the Frozen North to wear. He seems more geared towards a warmer climate. Despite his light clothing, he doesn’t seem cold at all.

        Looking past him at the fallen wyrm and I see other ponies, some dressed in heavy clothing others dressed like Sickle. The others are attaching ropes to the wyrm and pulling out the large harpoons.

        “Ok, Sickle. We’ll accompany you. I’m freezing and it will be nice to get out of the cold for a while,” I say. He smiles broadly at me.

        “Very good! It is always nice to have company. If you don’t mind waiting for a few minutes while we prepare to transport the wyrm, we’ll start home then,” He tells me. Sickle turns to walk over to the wyrm, but then looks back at us. “I got the armored miss’s name, but what is yours?” He asks.

        “Ratchet,” I tell him. “It is nice to meet you.”

        Sickle chuckles as he replies, “The feeling is mutual, Ratchet, Cora.” He then turns back to the fallen wyrm and shouts, “Alright comrades! Get the beast ready to move! We will eat well tonight!”

        With some distance between us and Sickle, I turn to Cora. “Let’s be careful. He seems a little bit too friendly. Maybe he is up to something. Don’t let your guard down,” I whisper. Cora nods.

        Faster than I thought possible, Sickle and the other ponies finish tying the wyrm in ropes and we start towards their settlement. Sickle and the others are dragging the wyrm across the snow. There is probably twelve of them, counting Sickle. Cora and I offer to help, but they refuse and say it wouldn’t be right to have guests do manual labor.

        Slowly but surely, we traverse the snowy landscape and enter into a valley. Nestled in the middle of this valley is our destination. It is a small village, and due to the blizzard, I don’t see it until we are already within. In the center of the village, is a large fire and surrounding the fire in a circular fashion are domed structures made out of snow.

        The ponies drag the wyrm near the fire and then start taking the ropes off of it. “Start preparing the beasts, comrades! I will tend to our guests and then join you in a moment,” Sickle declares and walks over to Cora and I. “Follow me, I’ll take you to my home,” He says, and then starts walking to one of the domes of snow.

        “Say Sickle, these are igloos, aren’t they?” I ask as we walk.

        “Indeed! We don’t have much in the way of proper building materials here, but we made due. The insides are also lined with hide from the wyrms and our beds, furniture, and clothing are made from the fur of the beasts,” Sickle explains as he leads us into his igloo. It isn’t too large, probably only big enough for five ponies at the most, but given the properties of snow, any bigger and it might collapse.

        Inside is also an earth pony mare, who I assume is his wife, judging by her age. She is wearing light clothing, similar to Sickle’s. Her fur is a cool red while her mane is a deep crimson. “Ah, grandmother! We have guests!” Sickle says with a smile. Wait...Grandmother? Her? She looks my age! Well, the age my body appears. Did the cold stop her from aging or what?

        “Oh? I’m sure they are cold. Come dears, warm yourself in our home. My name is Marrow,” She says. I have to admit, I was already feeling warmer. If it wasn’t for the snow, I wouldn’t think we were in the Frozen North at all.

        “Thank you for having us, ma’am,” I reply. “My name is Ratchet and my friend here is Cora.” She smiles warmly at us and gestures to a couch made of bone and wyrm fur.

        “Oh please, we don’t get many visitors out here. Make yourselves at home, you can hang your coat on that wire there, Ratchet. And if you want to take your armor off, feel free Cora,” She tells us.

        I do as she says, and hang my snow covered coat on the wire. I unwrinkle my lab coat and readjust my barding. As I do so, Cora says, “I’ll stay in my armor, if that is alright. I quite like it.”

        Marrow smiles and nods. “Of course, dear. Now, Sickle, how did your hunt go?” She asks.

        Sickle smiles and replies, “Excellent, grandmother. We killed a large wyrm today and judging by some of the old scars, it is the one that got away last month.”

        Marrow laughs. “I knew you would get it eventually. Are the others taking care of it?” She asks him.

        Sickle nods. “I had them go on ahead without me while I got our guests situated. But, I think I will go help them out now. If, that is, you think you can handle entertainment, grandmother?” He asks with a sly smile.

        Marrow chuckles and shoos Sickle with a hoof. “Go on, I’ll make sure they are taken care of,” She tells him. Sickle bids us farewell and takes his leave. All this talk of taking care of us is sending chills up my spine. She then turns her attention to us. “Settle down, we aren’t going to rob or kill you,” She tells us. “You’ve looked anxious since you stepped hoof inside, Ratchet.”

        “Forgive me if you saying so doesn’t help ease my anxiety,” I reply. “Usually ponies who are going to pull one over on you tend not to tell you they are.”

        Marrow nods. “That is true. But, think of it this way. You were out in the blizzard when Sickle and the others found you, yes?” She asks. I nod. “If we wanted to rob or kill you, we could have just done so out there, when you weren’t aware of us,” She says.

        I purse my lips and furrow my brow. “I suppose that’s true,” I mutter. Sickle did come out of nowhere and could have just let the wyrm kill us before killing it.

        “Now then, I suspect you might have questions about us and our settlement?” Marrow suggests. “Most who wander across us do. I’m something of the village leader, being the oldest here,” She says.

        I nod. “You’re right about. This is an odd place for a settlement, considering the harsh climate. Why not settle further south?” I ask.

        “You came from down there, right?” Marrow asks, and receives a nod from us. “Then you know what it is like. Settlements rise and fall down there. You have raiders, monsters, all sorts of nasty things. But here, the worst is wyrms and the snow. The wyrms mostly stay away from this valley, and the snow is something we’ve grown used to,” She explains.

        “I guess that makes sense. There are a few of you who seem to not mind the cold as much. Well, what do you do for resources? The wyrms give you food and some supplies, but what about water? And how do you make fire? I’ve not seen a single tree for a while. Do you have to travel far to find wood?” I ask.

        Marrow nods rhythmically to my questions. “The wyrms give us our food, most of our building supplies, and is actually the source of our fire as well. Water we get from simply melting snow. Everything else we can’t get up here, we make a trade expedition for every few months and go south,” She tells me.

        I raise an eyebrow. “Wait, the wyrms are your source of fire as well? How does that work?” I ask.

        “Well, you’ve seen them breath fire, correct?” She asks, I nod. “Then, you know they produce fire. Inside their body is two, crystal like stones that when struck together creates fire. In addition to these, we burn the fat. The crystals, when separated from the wyrm last for around six months. And the unicorns here have learned they can use their magic to manipulate the crystals to control the intensity of the flames,” Marrow explains.

        “I see, that’s actually quite interesting,” I mutter, putting a hoof to my chin.

        We spend a while talking about their settlement and slowly my anxiety about them goes away. After a while, Sickle comes back from dealing with the wyrm. The four of us talk for a bit longer before the inevitable question is asked by Marrow. “So, what are you two doing up here in the Frozen North?” She asks.

        “We are actually looking for a MWT facility up here,” I tell them.

        Cora nods in agreement. “It should actually be around here, actually. But the blizzard has made finding it a bit difficult. Snow could be covering the entire entrance for all we know,” She says.

        The smiles that were on Marrow’s and Sickle’s faces disappear. “Why are you looking for it?” Sickle asks, his voice is filled with concern.

        “There might be something in it that I need,” I reply. They are both acting a bit suspicious. “Do you...know where it is at?” I ask them.

        “Maybe,” Marrow says, narrowing her eyes. “Who are you two, really? You aren’t normal travelers. One of you is wearing power armor and the other is wearing a rather pristine lab coat. And you both seem rather intelligent for normal wastelanders. Are you Steel Rangers?” She asks. We went from me being suspicious, to them being suspicious.

        “We aren’t Rangers,” I tell her. “Though we aren’t simple travelers either. I’m not sure a single word can explain what we are. But, before I go into that, the two of you are hiding something as well. You seem like good ponies and I don’t want to pry. So I will ask you one question before I explain. Do you know what is inside the MWT facility that the word abominable is used to describe?” I ask them.

        Sickle and Marrow exchange a glance and then Sickle replies, “We do.” Simply that, nothing else.

        I nod and explain to them our situation, including having Cora open up the armor to expose the hollowness within. When I explain the part about cryogenic pods knowing expressions come over their faces. Once I conclude my explanation, I ask them, “Can you tell us where it is?”

        The two exchange a glance again and Marrow says, “Yes. But first, let me tell you about us. Like you, I was born before the war. I was a member of the MWT facility you wish to investigate. It is called the Snowfall Facility, and the purpose of it was to find a way to better combat the zebra threat here in the Frozen North. As you know, zebras attacked us from everywhere, nowhere was spared. Much of our equipment was hard to use in the harsh climates of the Frozen North.

        “And so, a project was created by the name of Abominable. This project sought to use the snow to our advantage. You would think that would be a more MAS project, correct? MA, with their pegasi. But, MWT had a plan. It wasn’t magic, wasn’t controlling the weather, it was earth pony engineering.

        “Robots were our plan. Robots that could use the snow as a weapon, condense it into ice and freeze our enemies despite their armor. We had a prototype for the freezing mechanisms, but had yet to put them into a robot when the plan was changed. Instead of a robot, we would build a machine that resembled a pony, that would house our freezing mechanism as well as the mind of a pony.

        “I don’t know who it was whose brain we put into the machine, but things seemed to be going well. Tests were proceeding as planned. That is, until the megaspells fell. Our facility was far enough away to not be affected by the blasts or the fallout. And luckily, due to our remote location, we had our own garden in the facility to meet our small demand for food.

        “Cut off from the rest of the world, we kept to ourselves. There were only around six of us to begin with, but as time went by relationships started and we had children. Then, grandchildren. I was an old mare, probably only a few years from death when one of us suggested we put our minds in the spare prototypes we made for Project Abominable.

        “We had five prototypes, each resembled a pony, none of the freezing mechanisms in them. They were our attempts to get the pony form down. At that time, there were fourteen of us. Some of us refused to put our minds in machines. Only seven of us wanted to. With only five prototypes, we held a lottery.

        “My grandson, Sickle, and myself are two of those who won that lottery. The others you’ve seen dressed lightly are the others. A few of the actual ponies here are also from Snowfall. Others found us and joined us. But you might be wondering why we are here now and not inside the facility.

        “One year ago, Abominable, the weaponized pony we made went berzerk. He destroyed the heating systems and without those, we would freeze to death. Abominable wouldn’t let that happen though, he was set on killing us. A few of us fell as we escaped the facility, including my daughter, Sickle’s mother. When we got out of the facility, we sealed it behind us so Abominable could not escape,” Marrow explains.

        It was a lot to take in. No mention of Abominable being sealed in a cryo pod, either. I guess this facility isn’t connected to my pods. But, with Abominable still in the facility, I don’t think we can just walk away, either. “Well, it isn’t what we are looking for, but I think we should take a look,” I tell them. “I don’t think we should leave Abominable alone in the facility for someone to stumble upon later, if he is still berzerk.”

        Marrow shakes her head. “It is sealed. No one will get into it. The facility is lost,” She says.

        “I think you might be underestimating just how much determination ponies have to loot places,” I tell her. “Eventually, someone we get into it. We should stop it before that happens. If we beat it, you could all take back the facility, too.”

        Sickle raises an eyebrow. “Why do you want to help?” He asks.

        “I don’t know, it is just kind of what I do. I want Equestria to get back to what it once was. Having deadly pre-war thing lurking in the darkness isn’t going to help that,” I explain.

        Marrow furrows her brow, deep in thought. “I will open the facility for you and lock the door behind you. I will wait for you for two hours and if you aren’t back by then, I’ll leave you for dead,” She tells me.

        I nod. “That sounds fine, assuming we don’t waste too much time looking for Abominable,” I tell her.

        Sickle stands up and grabs his spear. “Let me help you then,” He says with a smile around the spear.

        “Sickle!” Marrow says crossly.

        “Grandmother, it is fine. I’m our best hunter, and mostly machine. I can help guide them around the facility,” He tells her. “Besides, one of us should be present if they are going to fight Abominable.”

        Marrow frowns, but agrees. “Fine. But, we will set out to the facility once this cursed blizzard is over. For now, let’s go over Abominable’s abilities and his weak points. The three of you will have a tough time,” She tells us.

        “Thank you,” I tell her and Sickle. We then begin our briefing on Abominable and the Snowfall facility.