I finally had what I wanted. I was a raider, but I still felt a bit empty. I wanted more than that. The idea came back where I was the gang leader, controlling all those fuckers life. I would have everything. Good life, might, fame. What else could I wish for? But this won’t be easy.

In order to be one, you need to beat the current one in an arena fight, but that ain’t that easy. First you have to prove that you’re worthy by fighting others. It can be done with swords or rifles. I didn’t have any swords, and I had to get better gear before that, so I’ll have to delay it a bit.

About a month passed since then, and I still didn’t have a proper equipment. I was doing missions and raids on smaller settlements around the camp. It was a lot of fun watching those fuckers dying.

The scavenging part was a bit boring though. Just taking everything back. At first it was fun, because I was curious of what I could find, but after a while it got really repetitive, and there weren’t any special case. Always the same, some potion, small furnitures like lamps for wires and rarely weapons. Not to mention when you have to bring back everything through the wasteland.

I had better armor, and switched my shotgun to an assault carbine, which I upgraded with a scope and just made it more accurate. The only problem is that finding a decent sword in the wasteland is close to impossible. I had a switchblade, but it couldn't do much in a sword fight.

I watched a lot of arena fights - which were a lot of fun - trying to learn from them, and I did some practice with the switchblade. But still, I had to get a sword.

One day Dead Shot sent me to scavenge at the Manehattan Ruins with a team. I had Killstreak and Deathwish with me. Killstreak was an arrogant gray stallion with a hedgehog-like black mane and the number seven as his cutie mark. He told me it means how many ponies did he kill in his life. It sounded weird, because I never saw a mark that changes over time.

Deathwish was a charming dark green unicorn mare with long white mane and a plume cutie mark.

The way there was calm. A radroach here and there, but nothing to be afraid of. Though it was a bit weird. I had to go behind Deathwish and Killstreak, and they just didn’t seem to notice me. They were talking with each other a lot though.

After two hours of walking we’ve finally got to our destination. Manehatten. I’ve never been here before. It had a lot of huge building, and most of them had large holes in it. It was dark and the streets were filled with rubble. I couldn’t see a living creature anywhere near. Not so far away Tenpony Tower was emitting its light. Without it Manehatten would feel like a ghost city.

They told us to scavenge the buildings there, but to not go to Tenpony Tower, since they had more firepower than we had.

We began with the nearest building from us. The door was closed, but Deathwish knew how to lockpick. I watched her closely, learning how to lockpick. I did know how to do it, but I’ve struggled with it always.

With a small click sound the door opened.

“Hah, What would you fuckers do without me, eh?” smirked Deathwish.

“We could open it too, you bitch. Lockpicking is a common skill, right Cold Blood?” said Killstreak with an evil grin. He knew I wasn’t a good lockpicker.

“Fuck you!” I yelled at him.

We went inside. A hall welcomed us with a table on the other side of the room. Behind the table was what I assumed was a keyholder, since this building used to be a hotel. We searched them. There were papers on the floor, a broken vase, but nothing useful so we decided to go upstairs. On the first floor, there was a corridor which led to two different way. Each side had rooms.

“Let’s split up, I go with Killstreak to the left, you go right,” said Deathwish and gave a wink to Killstreak.

“Uhm, okay,” I answered.

And so we did split up. Again, it was strange that they went together, and left me, but it didn’t matter.

On my side there were six rooms. Some still had doors. I opened the first one to the right.

The first room was a small living room merged with a bedroom and a kitchen. On the side it had a toilet. The whole place was ruined. A huge hole in the wall, garbage all over the floor. The bed didn’t have a mattress and the table was upside down.

I searched the kitchen part first. I found some canned food, which I took, but other than that, in there was only what was left of two hundred years old food.

Nearby the bed stood a nightstand, but it was empty, so I went on, in the toilet in I found a small yellow box on the wall with three pink butterflies. It was the common symbol for anything that has something to do with healing: Potions, drugs, bandages and pills.

“Bingo,” I said with a smile.

I opened it. There was a Med-X and three Healing Potions in it. I took them and went outside to the next door.

It was closed, so I had to try and lockpick it. I levitated a screwdriver and a bobby pin and put them in the lock as they should be. I moved the bobby pin a bit and tried to rotate the screwdriver, but nothing. It was still locked. On my next attempt the screwdriver started to move, but it stopped, and my bobby pin broke.

“Fuck,” I said.

I got another bobby pin and put it like last time. I changed its angle a tiny bit. The screwdriver rotated seamlessly. I knew I did it when I heard a click. The door was open.

“Finally.”

The room inside surprised me. It looked as if nothing happened in the past 200 years. There was dust everywhere though, but everything seemed to be in order. The bed was embedded, the lights still worked when I tried to turn them on. The fridge was empty but it still was on. I checked the sink with no luck. There wasn’t any water. The bathroom was tiny but quite fancy. It was pretty much a toilet and a sink with a mirror. There was carpet on the floor, which was in fact pretty soft. Behind the mirror were some pills. I took them, and pretty much everything that was still working and could been moved. The lamps, forks, spoons, I even found some pre war bits.

The next two doors were stuck. I tried everything to unlock them. Magic, lockpicking, even bucking them, but no use. They stayed put, so I went on.

Behind the fifth door was a small storage room. There was some food, towels and bed sheets. I decided to take them, because they could be used as clothes.

Under the bed sheet I found a small wooden box. Inside was a note which I couldn’t read. Not because the writing was bad, but I couldn’t read. At all. Yep, there wasn’t any schools in a raider camp.

There was some grenades and a scoped pistol with some ammo in it.

I took them and went to the next door, but Killstreak interrupted me.

“Cold Blood, we’re done here, let’s get going!” yelled Killstreak.

“Alright, alright,” - I said. - “No need to yell, asshole.”

Nothing interesting happened in the other buildings. Got some loot, ammo here and there, but nothing special.

“Let’s check that house, then we’re going back,” said Deathwish pointing on a house.

The building from the looks used to be a school.

Inside directly to the right was the receptionist. In front of us was a hall with stairs to the next floor.

We went up and did the usual split up. I went right, they went left.

There wasn’t much to scavenge in a classroom, so I finished fast. I got some papers and chalks. I waited them where we splitted up, and when they finished, we went back.

Something felt a bit off. Could it be that, I didn’t notice those dotting holes before? Or did they just come out of nowhere while we were in the schoolhouse?

As we walked out, the ground started to move beneath us. I jumped back, while Deathwish and Killstreak jumped forward. We both knew what was going on.

A hellhound jumped out from the ground just the moment we got away. It was facing Killstreak and Deathwish. I quickly ran behind the first barrier I could find. In this case, it was the receptionist desk. I crouched behind the desk, and stayed quiet. The hellhound attacked the others.

BAM. PEW. BAM. BAM. PEW.

“Fuck, my ears!” yelled Deathwish.

I assumed from the sound of the shots, that the hellhound had a laser weapon.

“Where’s that bitch, Cold Blood?” said Killstreak.

“What?” asked Deathwish.

“Where… Is… Cold… Blood,” yelled Killstreak.

“No, I’m not cold, but we should kill that fucking hellhound.”

“Uhh, NEVERMIND, probably she’s already dead,” yelled back Killstreak.

I heard a small metallic ping and rolling sound nearby me on the floor. I knew what was it.

“Oh, fuck, really?”

I jumped away as the grenade blew up, but I wasn’t fast enough.

The explosion got me, and the next thing I knew was that I was lying on the ground with a huge headache, and pain in my legs.

“Fuck” I moaned with a huge pain coursing through my body.

The explosion made me fly into the wall.

The world started to darken around me, as I kept saying ‘Fuck’.

I was alone in the darkness. I couldn’t move, hear or see anything. I felt lonely first, but then everything was peaceful. I had nothing to worry about. I was just alone in the nothing without future, past. I noticed a small light in the distance. It started to get brighter and brighter until everything was white.

I opened my eyes. There was some light, but mostly dark. I tried to move, but it was really hard. After minutes of struggling I managed to stand up. Turns out the wall collapsed on me and chunks of it were over me.

“Ouch,” I said.

I put my hoof on my forehead. It felt like it was about to explode. My back legs still hurt, but at least I could stand.

I tried to focus on my healing potions, but nothing happend.

“What the fuck? Why can’t I use magic?” I said to myself.

I tried again and again, but nothing. I put my hoof on my horn. The top of it was gone.

I looked at the remainings of the wall, and there was it. The tip of my horn.

I screamed in agony, while the small tip of my horn was on the ground. Plus the fact that I couldn’t use magic just made me almost collapse.

“Fuuuck,” I kept yelling.

Later I realized that, it will grow back with time, but still, it was horrible experience. I heard that you could still use magic, but it was much weaker.

I focused on my backpack. It was really hard, but I managed get a healing potion out from it. I drank it and felt its magic working. My horn didn’t grow back, but I felt much better and stronger. I was sweating, just from that.

“So, where was I,” I asked wondering was I doing.

In the meantime I heard something moving outside the house... It was the hellhound.

“Oh, right, that fucker.”

It had a lot of injuries all over its body, but it managed to move as if nothing happened.

I tried to hide, but then I realized the hellhound already noticed me, and I didn’t have any cover nearby.

“Fuck!”

It began to run towards me as I focused on my weapons. It was really hard, but I managed to get out the scoped pistol.

Holding it was really hard. I couldn’t even breath from holding it, so I had to switch from magic to mouth or I would pass out. I didn’t used my mouth to shoot with a weapon before, so I had to improvise. I took the pistol in my muzzle, aimed and bit the pistol.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

I hit the hellhound, and it stopped for a second, but then continued to charge towards me.

I didn’t have time to shoot more, because it was right before me. I jumped on the right side, but I didn’t got away fast enough. The hellhound scratched my whole left side and I screamed in pain.

“Fuuuck youuu!”

Blood started to flow out from the injury, but I didn’t have time to care for that.

The hellhound couldn’t stop running and hit the wall, which collapsed on it. While it was recovering I ran upstairs hoping to find a safe spot. I entered one of the classrooms and barricaded the door with the desks there, using my hooves. Just as I finished I heard the hellhound came up as well.

I began to search my bag hoping to find a way to kill that bastard. Other than the random stuff I scavenged I had my shotgun and pistol with not much ammo. I also had several healing potions and grenades.

The weapons didn’t seem to do much against it, so all I had was the grenades, but the hellhound would probably get away from it faster.

An idea came into my mind just the moment the hellhound started to break the door.

I took out a wire I found earlier and tied it to a grenade and the other end to a pipe nearby the door on the ceiling. I put the rest of my grenades on the ground, and ran to the other side of the room.

“I’ll have one shot or I’m dead,” I said to myself.

I took aim with my pistol and waited.

The hellhound kept smashing the door and after a minute it smashed the door. I waited until it got close to my trap, then shot the hanging grenade.

BANG. BOOM!

The bullet hit the trap and caused an explosive chainreaction. The explosion blown up the floor under the hellhound. It (at least what’s left of it) fell to the ground floor.

I smirked and started a maniac laugh.

“How you like me now, you little motherfucker?” I said.

Ow. My left side hurted a lot.

“Oh right, I need to take care of this too,” I thought.

I drank another healing potion. It stopped the bleeding and the lowered the pain. It was my last one.

I went downstairs and checked the hellhound corpse. It didn’t have anything, but I realized that I could use its claws as a weapon. I got my switchblade, cut its paws and put them in my bag.

I realized Killstreak and Deathwish probably left me already, so fuck them. I began to walk back to the Raider camp.

Finally home. The same dirty camp, just like when I was born. It didn’t changed at all. I ran to my bed and hid the hellhound’s claws and went to Dead Shot.

“So, you’re alive after all,” said Dead Shot.

“It takes more than a hellhound to kill me,” - I smirked. - “Anyways, here’s everything I found on the mission.”

“Great, put them in our storage,” said Dead Shot.

I did as he told me and went to get some sleep. I wasn’t sleepy, but I felt it would help my injuries and maybe quicken the regeneration of my horn.

Footnote: Level Up! Focus.

You can focus more in combat and can levitate small objects even in magical burnout.

+1 Intelligence