The town of New Appleloosa was just as I had left it, well, apart from the seemingly contagious case of hangover that everypony had contracted from Caliber. Even from our view outside of the town's fence, we could see ponies running from building to building, all of which showing in stark contrast to the previous vision that I remember seeing when Cal and I had left nearly a week before. The flight back from Tenpony seemed to drag on and on despite it only taking one day, and by one day I mean, one full day. We had been in the air for nearly 19 hours before setting down outside the gates of New Appleloosa, but it was not for lack of trying to get here in a timely manner.

Soon after leaving the safe confines of the Tower, Cal had decided to take a shot at a few bandits that looked to have been shooting it out with one of the many caravans working the trade route for Tenpony. Normally I would detest his behaving like a young colt with his first rifle, but coming from a caravan myself, I let my own anger towards the small gang of robbers get the better of me. No sooner had Cal fired his second round, we were already receiving return fire from two of the four ponies that had been accosting the small caravan. Their aim may not have been the greatest, especially given the altitude we were at, but nevertheless, a few bullets somehow found their way to my right hind leg and my left side, grazing me slightly.

Becoming more angered by their retaliation, I let that part of my brain that makes all the rash decisions take control of me for far longer than I should have. In hindsight, it would have been far better to pick up our pace and leave the wasteland to sort things out. That would have been the smart thing to do, but I decided to instead drop altitude, and rush towards them at full speed, breaking wide about 200 meters above them and angling myself into a banking turn around them. Cal, taking note of what I was doing, all the while trying to maintain his grip on my back, dug deep in the sack of weapons that he had stolen, producing in his hooves an automatic rifle.

I remember at the time becoming almost entranced by it's gleaming appearance, seeming to call to me like a siren's song of dark black reflective finish and feminine-like form. I had gotten so taken in by it that I had begun to turn tighter and tighter to the point where we were right above our enemies. This fact became apparent when one of their rounds bit deep into my chest barding, right between the steel armored plates. The round landed just beneath the skin after being slowed by the thick leather armor of my chest rig, but nonetheless, it still hurt like hell. The sharp pain of being shot was just what I needed for my brain to start evaluating the reasons why I had become part of a aerial fight with 4 dumbasses on the ground! Had I just flown away, I wouldnt be twitching with pain with every step, but no! I had to indulge in a fight that Cal picked with some random ponies, who on the equinity scale, were just above rad-roaches.

Snapping back to my senses, I re-positioned us in the sky to once more be circling them, giving a wide 100 meters vertical stand off, dropping my left wing down towards them and circling. At the time I had told Cal it was to both allow for him to have a clear shot and to help us turn tighter, but truth be told, I was doing it to use Caliber as a pony meat-shield for their bullets. Getting shot sucked and I had exactly zero plans on catching anymore lead haphazardly from all of this mess. With far more precision than I had thought to be possible, Cal held the beautiful rifle in his magic and proceeded to rain down deadly accurate fire to the hiding ponies below. I almost once more lost focus on keeping us aloft when I heard the sweet, sweet sound of fully automatic fire come from the rifle-wielding pony on my back.

As quickly as it had all began, it was over. Taking a few low passes over the area revealed the caravaners to be from a group I had known in the past. Bit Scales group had been a competing group of traders that Boss had know for years prior to my coming to join him on his adventures. I knew them well from the years of traveling the trade routes. Bit Scales had to be one of the strictest traders in all of Equestria to work for in the past, often driving her team for days at a time with little to no rations to preserve her "trade stock". I had heard that at times she would even refuse sleep to her team to make an important deadline with one of the many towns along the path that we shared with her. This of course led to her earning the nickname "Bitch Tail" among trade hooves like myself. Boss would often threaten us with working for a week under her when we would get "out of line" and need an adjustment to our attitudes.

In fact, Boss would seemingly seek her out at times when work would get too overloaded for any of us to bare at one time. Personally, I think Boss had a thing for her at the time, I mean, they did disappear from time to time together, leaving us to tend to the stockpile of goods on our lonesome. Who knows what those two were up to behind our backs, but then again, the life of a caravaner is the only one where you will meet ponies everyday and still be completely alone. So to say they may have had a few flings from time to time was almost a given.

Sure as my mane is blue, looking down revealed a very shocked Bit Scales, with a fresh new crop of traders in her midst. We locked eyes only briefly before I set myself to de-flanking the area and getting us back on course. If nothing else good could come from Caliber's reckless nature, maybe helping out a familiar face from my past could help take the sting out of these fresh bullet wounds I was now sporting. Nevertheless, the flight back to New Appleloosa had taken it's toll on me and continued to do so all the way to the
gates I was now standing in front of.

Trotting into town, Caliber and I were both met with looks of "great, it's these two again..." No doubt from our previous escapades that lead to the whole town being quite hungover. Caliber was doing his best to look nonchalant, all the while looking for the farmer that had given him a surprise tail trimming with 00 buckshot. I on the other hoof, was doing my very best to not show how badly my chest was aching or that I was completely exhausted.

"Heh, look at them. They all still look sick from the other night." Cal said, poking my shoulder.

"Ouch! Watch it ass, that hurts." I said, shying away from his hoof.

"Hey, don't you think we should get these Balefire muffins to Ditzy before you become some freaky alicorn-zebra-thing?"

"I suppose that would be a good idea. You run back to your house, I'll drop them off and meet you there." I said, breaking formation with him.

"Shoot! Just one second before you go." Cal said, digging in his saddle bags for a marker. I looked on in bewilderment as he took the marker in his magic and began to scribble words across the top of the box.

"....From Caliber and Joey, with love...

"Wow, seriously? I don't even get to have my name first?" I said raising an eyebrow.

"Oh you... Just drop off the muffins of death and meet me back at the house." Cal said, trotting right past his house and into the bar.

"I guess some things never change..." I said to myself.

Despite needing to sleep, to get a move on to White Saddle Shores and being very hungry, I had to admit, It was nice to be back in this town. After leaving this area for Tenpony, something I had done many times in the past, it felt great to be back in New Appleloosa. Gone was the feeling of being a fish out of water, no more being the stranger that everypony avoided for having stripes and having an unfamiliar face. This place, despite the drawbacks, always felt like home to me, even with the occasional slavers doing business here. In fact, that just made it easier to keep tabs on them.

I had never actually stayed for more than a few days in New Appleloosa at a time, In fact I had not been here in quite sometime given the nature of my work and all. But, seeing as it was as close to any home I have ever had, It still had that feeling of comfort and safety that comes with knowing you are someplace with support. Call me crazy but, just knowing that Ditzy was in this small town was enough for me to seek it out from time to time in the past. Now with the addition of Caliber being here, It was starting to feel more and more like a place that I could set up shop one day. That is if they don't drum me out of town for being half zebra or sell me off to slavers in my sleep.

I don't think that anypony here would actually do that, but then again, it wouldn't be the first time that I had made such a grave misjudgment of character. I had told Caliber to buck-up and talk to Lavender, thinking the whole time that she would at least take him up on what little help he could offer her. Had I known that she was going to be such a colossal bitch at the time, I would have told him to seek Fetch out on his own rather than ask permission. I had forced him into a situation that he was not only ill-prepared to handle, but also unable to even have the smallest chance of making any headway at. Part of me felt guilty for doing so, but a larger part of me felt a sense of accomplishment having gotten him to actually take responsibility for something he had done. At the very least he was trying now, and after all, wasn't that what I wanted from him all the while? Nevermind, these are thoughts for a pony with far more sleep under his belt than I have had in days now.

I trotted up to the rundown shack that Ditzy conducted her business in, pressing my only good shoulder into the double doors of the old shop. The very second that I had began to enter the store, a tall, orange buck had picked that exact moment to leave, causing me to crash my full body weight into the doors. Pain poured from my injuries as I crashed to the battered wood of the stores front porch, causing me to roll onto my side, clutching my chest. Caliber had dug the bullet out from under my hide only a few hours ago, but the wound was still healing from his impromptu healing spell. He had insisted on using painkillers and a healing potion at the time, but after my last stent with narcotics and our ever dwindling supplies, I had declined both. Oh how I wish I had not done that now.

I looked up to see the offending orange buck who was hastily gathering up the pile of wares he had purchased. He was wearing a battered old hat and a well worn leather barding that was almost unmistakable, even if he wasn't wearing his battle saddle.

"What the hell Calamity." I said painfully as I rolled to my side. He paid me nearly no mind as he finished gathering his things and set off in the direction of the train yard, pausing only to tip his hat and say "Pardon" and continue his mission. Were those PTM's in his hooves? I have always known that he was nuts but a drugy? That doesn't seem like him.

Granted, I had only met him the one time years back, but seeing as pegasi are a bit of a rare thing to see, and being one myself, it's kind of hard not to remember the few you have met. Go figure that of the hoof-full of pegasi I had managed to come across were either now all dead, or too feather headed to hold a conversation with. Calamity on the other hoof, let's just say that he has always been the type to shoot first, shoot some more and forget what he is doing and fly off. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he would one day accidentally shoot somepony who didn't deserve it.

I slowly rose to my hooves and came eye to eye with Ditzy herself. Seeing as I had not slept in over 24 hours, the event of seeing a ghoul up close and personal took a few seconds to register. When it did, I'm ashamed to say that it took even longer to shake the fear from my hooves and reassure myself that I wasn't about to be eaten. Even after countless years it was seemingly impossible for me to shut off that primal part of my brain that sent me into shock when I would see Ditzy from time to time. Don't get me wrong, I love her to death, but she has this habit of sneaking up on you when you least expect it.

"Celestia! Ditzy! You scared the hell out of me!" I said, trotting out from behind the bench I had hid behind.

Ditzy held up her chalkboard for me to see.

"Joey! You're back! Muffins?" Ditzy had wrote, I'm sure praying that I had not forgotten her muffins.

"Oh yeah... I knew that I had forgotten something..." I said trailing off and tapping my muzzle with a hoof.

Even though the large metal box that was clearly labeled "DANGER Radioactive Confectioneries" was resting right between us, Ditzy took the kind hearted joke far more seriously than I thought she would. The look that she gave was one of pure disappointment, almost like a young foal that had woken up for Heart's Warming to no presents under the tree. Dropping her head, she slowly turned and raised a hoof to open the doors to her shop. Well shit, I hadn't planned on that happening.

"Whoa now! Calm down, D. I got the muffins you asked for, I was just kidding." I said, using a cautious hoof tap on the box to guide her attention to them.

"I even took Cream up on the suggestion to add the ingredients that you like, something about Balefire craters or whatever."

Ditzy froze in her tracks, spun and began to examine the box as if she was conducting a trade and wanted to be sure that the odds were in her favor. Her roaming hoof on the lid of the box froze and tapped the word "Radioactive", followed by an unsure look in my direction.

"They are... Rad-Muffins? Cream, the baker in Tenpony, said you would love them. Something about ghouls plus radiation equals a happy Ditzy." I said doing my best to keep myself clear of any guilt if Ditzy was to take offence to me bringing her what I could only presume to be a healthy snack by ghoul standards. Ditzy, who was still eyeing the latch on the box quizzically, dropped her chalk board to the decking and began to scribble away.

"How are you not dead?"

"WHAT!? Why would I be dead?" I said in shock. Ditzy paused, seeming to try to find the best way to sum everything she was wanting to say up in the small space of the chalk board.

"Balefire craters are bad for ponies. You can only get the ingredients from a crater. How not dead?"

"Oh! I didn't go to the crater, Cream said she had ponies for that. I did help make them though!" I said with a bit of pride, puffing out my chest.

Ditzy didn't look amused, in fact, she looked almost upset with me for some reason. Once again, she gave a long pause, this time eyeing me with a look that just screamed disappointment. But for what? Was she mad that I had to have spent too much on them? Maybe she hates Cream too and giving her muffins from her was an insult. Was giving a ghoul a box of muffins laced with radiation considered rude? It seemed like a great idea at the time, but could I have offended her somehow with them? My head began to swim with thoughts of what I had done wrong to earn such treatment from her, all the while my mood and I'm sure my facial expression becoming more and more nervous. I genuinely like Ditzy and the last thing I would ever want to do offend her in some way, Celestia knows that she gets her fair share of that already.

"Please! What did I do wrong!? Tell me!" I said in a near pleading voice. Ditzy regarded me for a long moment and again began to write. After nearly a minute of me squirming, Ditzy finally held her board up for my examination.

"Thank you for the muffins. Please don't play with radiation anymore. I don't want you to get sick. Not many pegasi left, don't be a fool."

I gave a swift nod and a hard swallow to acknowledge what she had wrote and watched her scoot the metal box back into the shop. What was that all about? Ditzy had always been protective of me in the past when I was young but she was acting down right like a mother scolding her foal. I'm in my twenties now, I'm an adult, I can play with Balefire eggs if I want too! Dear Luna, if she ever found out about my stripes, she would have my flank on a platter the way she is acting. Nevermind the stripes, If she knew how I came by getting them... best not to think about it. I started off the porch and set myself to Cal's home, trying to take in the town as I went. Yup same old town, same old ponies, same, same, same! No matter how I tried, I couldn't get the altercation with Ditzy out of my head as I made my way past the bar.

Was it a kinship? Maybe me being a pegasus, just like her, meant that she felt a bond between us as a dying breed. Could it be that? Outside of Calamity, I had never actually met another pegasus in over 5 years now, even then they were few and far between. Hell, what few I had met, I had killed 2 of them, was still looking for one and the other 3 were dead by raiders and slavers. To this day, I still have no clue how a healthy pegasus could get caught by raiders, I mean, it's not like they can't just fly the hell away.

The more I thought about it, the more upset it made me that there were so few of us left down here and angry that there are so many above the clouds, safe. Call me petty, but sometimes I wish that they could have just a small taste of what everypony down here is going through. Granted, the only thing I know about the ponies up there has all come from stories I have heard from the few pegasi I have met. What are the chances that their perception had been skewed by resentment and lack of actual knowledge of what goes on up there. The only pony who would know about it, never talks about it, despite my prying desperately for any information on where I might have come from. Well, at least half of me anyway. How does that work anyhow?

My hoof worked the rusty, half broken knob of the door to Caliber's shack, gritting it's way open and finally granting me access. I was exhausted, dehydrated, I needed to eat but all that I could think of was sleep. Stepping through the doorway, I was assaulted by the most vile smell that has ever been smelled by any living creature. All of the mess that we had forgotten about here had been fermenting since we had left for Tenpony. I didn't have time to clean it before I left that morning and thinking back, Caliber had not come back here either after his run in with the farmer. Oh Celestia! From the smell, I think Cal might have left a floater in the toilet before he left. This is just revolting, there is still sick on the arm of the couch for Celestia's sake!

I took a long moment to evaluate my situation and the filthy room that I was standing in. Caliber wasn't going to be coming back anytime soon judging by his previous escapades and I'm far too tired to deal with whatever pile of gross that I'm currently standing in. I could go to the town's inn and rent a room, but to be honest, It would only smell better, but be just as dirty. If I went there, I would be sleeping in somepony else's bodily fluids, at least here I know where they came from. Disgustingly enough, I'm strangely ok with sleeping in my own filth, rather than a room that might have had a light dusting done to it.

"Welp, that settles it. Watch out puke couch, Joey needs sleep!" I said as I dropped my saddlebags behind the couch and carefully positioned myself on the one clean end of what was about to be my bed.

"Sweet Celestia's sugar coated crotch! Joey, why are you in here!?" Caliber said.

Coming back to the world of the waking, brought with it two of my senses. One, the sense of sound delivered by Caliber's voice said through his own gagging words and two, smell. How is it possible that it smells worse in here now than when I first went to sleep? It's as if the aroma of grossness had taken on an almost sour, chemical-like note to it's already pungent hatred.

"Cal, what time is it? How long have I been out?"

"Oh holy, horny Goddesses! It's like a dead fish banged a toxic waste container in here!"

"Cal! Focus you halfwit!" I shouted, looking up at him with only one eye open.

"Oh Luna... about 15 hours I would guess. I passed out at the bar at about half past 12 in the morning. Then when I woke up, that bastard of a bartender made me do the dishes because I didn't have any caps to pay! Can you believe that asshole?"

"How dare he require money for goods, what kind of sick bastard..." I said, pausing. There is definitely a different smell in here now, and whatever it was keeps tricking my brain into trying to figure it out.

"I know right!? So I had to spend all frickin' morning washing up after all those filthy bastards at the bar, all because I left my caps with you. Luna's passionate, purple pussy, what in the fuck is that smell!?" Cal said looking about the small room as if the smell was actually a thing.

"Cal, why in the hell are you talking like that? Luna's passionate, purple pussy? The fuck?"

"Oh yeah, do you remember that crazy stable pony we saw outside of Hope? The one talking to that spritebot that tried to murder you?"

"Yeah? What about her?" I said, try removing my right leg that had become both asleep and welded to one of the couch cushions with sick. Ew...

"Well, looks like she found her way to this humble little town to continue her craziness. She was in the bar last night and I overheard her talking to Calamity for a good while. The mouth on that mare! I guess it's just addictive when you listen to it for a few hours." Cal said. I can't tell if he's trying to be sarcastic, or if the smell is making him make that face.

I stood up, now freed from the couch, and started towards the area of the shack that held his toilet, before I could make it more than a few steps however, I found myself standing still. I was getting light headed and I felt sick to my stomach, but for whatever reason, the foul smell had been replaced by something much more... Industrial?

"What is that? I've smelt it before..." Cal said, now standing beside me.

"Smelled." I said, correcting him.

"What? That's what I said."

"No... You said smelt. It's smelled you moron."

"Joey, I'm hungover, I might even still be drunk. Cut me some slack here, ok?"

"I'm just sayin'?" I said, wobbling a bit. What the hell is wrong with me, I can't focus on anything for more than a second before my head starts pounding.

"Joey, are you ok? Do you need to go to the clinic?" Caliber said, putting a hoof to my side to help steady me.

"I feel weird, it's like I'm getting high, but it's making me sick at the same time. I think my ears are ringing too, it's like a faint hissing noise."

"Wait, I think I hear it too." Cal said, moving closer to the back wall.

"And it gets louder back here." Cal said, walking away from me.

Cal and I made our way to the back wall of his shack, both of us stepping gingerly and listening closely as we tried to zero in on the source of the hissing sound. Soon, we came to the bedroom area where Cal, after moving all of the countless articles of barding, whiskey bottles and old wrappers from long since devoured food, uncovered his back wall.

"Joey, you hear that?" Cal said, leaning in close to the wall with his ear. With both of us silent, the noise filled the room around us. The smell of filth from the rest of the hut had been almost completely muted by the odor that I could not for the life of me place.

"What do you think it is?"

"I don't know... It reminds me of something... A few years back , I smelled something like this in an old robotics factory."

"You don't perhaps remember where it was coming from, do you?"

"I never figured it out, the whole place blew up the next day when I was camped out just outside."

"What exactly do you mean by, blew up?" I said, pausing to think.

The sudden realization hit me like a brick to the head, this wasn't the usual nasty smell that Caliber's place would exude from time to time and I wasn't getting sick either. We were being poisoned.

"CAL! RUN! IT'S GAS!!" I said, springing back from the wall and running towards the nearest exit.

"Wait... What?"

By the time Cal had finished his sentence, I had already grabbed him by the straps of his barding and was making a hasty retreat. We had made it to the front door of his house when we both became trapped by the door frame.

"Cal, move your fatass out of the way!"

"I can't, your stupid fucking wings are in the way!"

"Damnit! I can't budge!"

Outside, a few of the town's inhabitants had stopped their day to day activities and began to gather to watch the spectacle unfold before them. It was at that moment, somewhere deep within the confines of the shack, we both heard the loud rigging of an alarm clock going off, followed by another loud, clicking, snapping noise. Cal and I both looked to one another, still stuck, both knowing what was about to happen.

*BOOM*

The house filled with a vivid blue fireball that culminated from his bedroom, pushing it's warm air around us, followed by the concussive blast from the fireball's shock wave. The walls of the shack gave way sending both Cal and I, bound together, flying across the town's main roadway and over the heads of the onlooking town ponies. Bits of wood and burning debris shot past us as mid flight, hitting Cal and I both in the hind quarters a we went.

"AHHHHHH!" We both screamed, hurtling through the air like yesterday's garbage in a rad-storm. The raining shrapnel, from what was once Caliber's house, cleared the streets below of any bystanders as it fell from the heavens, still burning. Up ahead of us, the inn was rapidly approaching, scratch that, we were rapidly approaching the inn's wooden walls. I could feel Caliber wiggling his way towards freedom with his every move, but it was no use. Looking to where we were about to crash, both of us shared a look together and almost in unison screamed a long, drawn out "SHIT".

*CRASH!*

We impacted the wall with so much force that it gave way, sending both Cal and I into one of the rooms of the old hotel, crushing the door-frame that had once trapped us. Freed, but now tumbling across the room, we were surrounded by broken slabs of wood and furniture, finally coming to rest in a pile of rubble in the middle of the room. Cal had landed on top of me, followed by chunks of wood, followed by most of a dresser, followed by more bits of house.

"What in the sweet fuck was that!" Cal yelled, shifting his weight to free himself from the rubble.

"GAS EXPLOSION, I THINK. ARE YOU OK?"

"Yeah, yeah. Why are you screaming?"

"WHAT?"

"I said, why are you screaming?"

"NO I'M NOT DREAMING! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU ON ABOUT?'

"Nevermind, we better get out of here before the inn keeper comes up."

The ringing in my ears was slowly starting to fade just as Cal finished liberating me from the overburden that had me pinned. Standing to my hooves, I took stock of yet another hotel room that Cal and I had managed to destroy in the last two days. Through the large hole in the wall, I could see the brittle remains of Caliber's house. All that was left was the foundation, a few structural beams and what looked to be a few scrap appliances that had been thrown into the street. The shock wave from the blast had carried most of the house in every direction, It also managed to knock a far sized hole in the one of the walls of the building right next door. The ponies that had been watching Cal and I fighting our way out of the now completely destroyed structure, were just poking their heads out from behind the cover they had taken.

"Well, that's two hotel rooms in the last 48 hours. This has to be some sort of wasteland record or something." I said as I turned away from the hole in the wall to see not only Caliber standing quietly, but two ponies whose moment of ecstasy we had just interrupted, staring right back at us in shock from beneath the sheets of their bed. Oh Celestia, from the looks of it they were both right in the middle of something really fun too.

"Oops... C'mon Cal, lets leave these two alone." I said, locking eyes with the poor buck who had clearly not planned on this sort of a climax when he rented his room. I started for the door, passing Caliber by along the way. Caliber followed shortly after, only to pause at the doorway, turning to the two ponies who were still mid sex.

"I don't suppose that this could be taken as a sign that today is the day you try a three way is it?" Cal said, backing his flank out of the doorway.

"GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE, YOU PERVERTED WRECKING BALL!" Said the mare lying atop the awe struck stallion.

"Damnit Cal, Come the fuck on already!" I yelled from down the hallway.

"Ok,ok. I know when I'm not welcome." Cal said, Trying to catch me up.

"Well... at least I won't have to clean up that mess you made now." Caliber said, standing in remains of his old home. The blast had shaken the town from one end to the other, yet few ponies seemed to pay it any mind. It had even blown a good sized hole in the bar next door, through which I could see the bartender performing his daily routine. Luckily, my saddlebags were left almost untouched by the explosion, with the exception being that the blast might have blown some dirt off of them.

"I don't get it, natural gas lines should have lost their pressure a hundred years back." I said, kicking away a small chunk of what used to be the couch to retrieve my saddlebags.

"Then how do you explain all of this?" Cal said throwing his hooves wide.

"I have no clue other than somepony pipping it in here while I was sleeping."

"Oh c'mon with that now, this was an accident I'm sure."

"Houses don't just blow up for no reason with ponies sleeping in them, Cal."

"Maybe you were farting..."

"Cal, What the hell. Did you hit your head when we landed?" I interrupted.

"Just hear me out. Maybe you were cutting massive farts all night long and it somehow exploded the house."

"CALIBER! There is no way in all that is good and holy that could happen! Farts aren't even explosive for Celestia's sake!"

"Then this was obviously a gas leak! You always jump to conclusions when it comes to this kinda thing, why not just accept the fact that this was an freak accident and move on?"

"Ok, so a gas-line from two centuries ago suddenly decided to start leaking after already having lost pressure?" I ask rhetorically.

"Yeah, what's wrong with that being what happened here?"

"How did the house blow up then? Gas doesn't just spontaneously explode for no reason, it needs a spark."

"I don't know, maybe the alarm clock shorted out. Look, all I'm saying is that not everything bad that happens is a plot to kill you."

"I know that, but something had to have caused this to happen and I don't think it was an accident. The chances of what you said happening are astronomical at best. Don't you want to get to the bottom of this? Your house is destroyed after all."

"Meh, I should be so lucky. I mean, just look at this! Now I have a backdoor into the bar!" Cal said, looking to the hole in the bar's wall.

I made my way to what was left of the wall where Cal and I had been investigating the hissing sound just an hour earlier. Caliber begrudgingly followed and watched on as I did my best to sift through the wreckage for clues.

"Find anything good yet?"

"Broken bottles... scorched linens... Oh! Found a cap! Condom wrappers... Cal why would you even use these? There is no chance these are any good now."

"Hey! Have you seen some of the mares I date? They have to do something."

"Fetch!" I coughed out under my breath.

"Shut up!" Cal growled back at me.

I shifted a few broken boards out of the way and exposed what was left of the flooring beneath. Searching the wall I saw that one of the metal corrugated panels had been shoved loose from the wall with a small, green pipe lying just behind it.

"Well, It IS a gas line." I said in defeat.

"Told ya!" Cal said, walking away.

"This is just unbelievable."

"Funny, I don't remember seeing any piping when I built this place."

"Well, if you didn't put it here, was it already here and you built your place on top of it?"

Caliber took a moment to think.

"Hmmm... Nope!"

"Well, then who put this here then?" I asked, looking up at him

"Wait, you don't think somepony actually wanted to blow up my house, do you? I was just foolin' before." Cal said looking decidedly more concerned.

"I don't know, but one thing is for sure. Somepony did put this here and I doubt by mistake." I said standing up.

"Who in all of Equis would want you dead... Well besides raiders. And slavers. Oh, or that creepy guy with a bear trap for a mouth... no wait, he's dead." Cal said, pausing to think.

"Ok Cal, you made your point."

"Bandits, Lavender I'm sure after the way you talked to her, probably that ass of a brother of her's..."

"Ok Cal, I get the point..." I said rounding the corner of what was left of the back wall.

"Pretty much all of Filly after you killed those fuckers over tricking you, the wasteland..."

"CAL!" I shouted. Sure I had made enemies, but who hasn't out here. But hearing it all laid out like that puts things in much more perspective than I would like.

"I'm just sayin', if you are looking for a place to start, there isn't a lack of ponies to start with."

"Yeah and if you lined up all of the mares you snuck out on in the middle of the night, the last one would be standing in a crater, on the moon." I said in frustration.

"No need to throw stones here!" Cal, said with a sardonic look across his muzzle. Damnit, he's messing with me and the worst part is I know it and I'm still getting pissed off!

"Throwing stones? THROWING STONES!? YOU STARTED THIS!" I said kicking away a large chunk of roof. My hoof smacked into something solid beneath the rubble, sending a twinge of pain through my leg.

"Ow! What the hell?" I said looking down to the whatever I had just managed to hurt myself on this time. Beneath the broken bits of house lay a container with the same green looking pipe attached to it, I had seen on the other side of the wall. I shifted more of the scrap away and was greeted with a rusty cylinder with the words "methyl-acetylene/propadiene 45/55 mix" on the front of it.

"HEY! That looks like the containers I saw in the robotics place!" Cal said, leaning in close to inspect the label more thoroughly.

"Mapp gas torch fuel. Uses: welding, torching, heating and brazing. Warning: Extremely flammable. Contents under pressure."

"Well that settles that, somepony filled the house with explosive gas and must have set a timer to go off at some point." I said shifting my weight back to my haunches.

"Ok, in light of these new findings... who do you think wants you dead then?"

"How do we know they were just after me and not both of us?"

"True, but that just leaves more questions than answers."

This was a tough pill to swallow, I'm used to being the pony that hunts down ponies, not the pony that gets hunted. Who would do something like this, especially something this reckless? Whoever it was had no regard for anypony else in this whole town, everything here is made of wood and with a blast like that, it could have easily set fire to the surrounding structures. It was just dumb luck that it had not done that very thing, judging by the size of this container, it had to have been nearly empty or it had not caught fire in the explosion. No, no, no. I'm getting off track here.

This just screams personal, something that somepony who has a vendetta does when they truly dislike another pony. You don't just blow a place up over a threat that you want rid of! Had that container been full, I would have died from the fumes alone. The explosion would have done a great job of destroying any evidence and left me undoubtedly, extra dead. There is also the chance they know about Caliber's relationship with the town if they were willing to take a risk like this on an attack of this magnitude, but I can't be sure. Working things out in my head kept resulting in the same conclusion, it was at best, a wild guess, but it just felt... right.

"I know who did this."

"Ok feather head, I'll fly with you. Who then?"

"I don't know."

"But you just..." Cal paused, burying his face in his hooves.

"Whoever did this, knows me, you, us... This is way too personal for it to be a random attack from slavers. Who, I don't know. But I have this part of me that keeps pulling me towards it being somepony I, or we, have crossed paths with at some point."

"But, who!?" Caliber said, clearly not picking up on what I was trying to convey.

"I have no clue. But like I said, whoever this is, is not a fan of our work and chances are, they are somepony we have supremely fucked over at some point."

"Ok, well mister tracker... Go on! Find the ass who did this! C'mon boy! Fetch!" Cal said, shooing me away with his hooves.

"Seriously Cal? That touches on a very sore subject with me."

"Ok, ok. I know better than poke fun at your work like that. So does this mean we have to question everypony in the town, again?" Cal asked looking defeated.

True, we had already done that. But nopony gave up any information that was even slightly useful to us. This could have been planned the day we left for all we know, the only thing that they would have had to do was set the timer and turn on the gas when we came back. If that was the case, we were all hungover the day Cal and I left town, and you are not going to leave an impression on somepony who's barfing their brains out. Hell, whoever it was could have gone completely unnoticed for days afterwards.

"There's no use, a second pass almost never turns anything up of value."

"You're not just saying that so you can get to that marefriend of yours, are you?"

"I don't know anymore. I'm tired, hungry and just got blown up. This is the most action I have seen in the last 3 years, rolled into one week at this point. Yes, I'm worried about the fact that there is more than likely somepony out there that is trying to kill us, but I can't see anything here that would point me in even the vaguest direction to start in. I don't know what to do..." I said slouching to the ground.

"Ugh... all this thinking is making my head hurt... I need some meds." Cal said rubbing his temples.

"Oh, I think I have some aspirin in my...."

"HEY! APPLE WHISKEY! CAN I GET THREE WHISKIES ON THE ROCKS... Joey, you want anything?" Cal said, yelling into the hole in the wall.

"Seriously Cal?"

"THREE WHISKIES, NOTHIN' GOOD IN EM', COMIN' UP" Yelled Apple Whiskey from deep inside the bombed out bar. In less time than it took for me to stand up, three glasses of whiskey came floating out of the hole in the bar's wall that was now functioning as a trot up window.

"THAT'S 20 CAPS CALIBER."

"I'LL GET YOU BACK TOMORROW, PROMISE!" Cal said, taking all three glasses in his magic and trotting his way to my side, passing me one of amber filled cups.

"We are leaving soon, right?" Cal whispered to me.

"Yes..." I said eyeing Caliber closely

"Now what?" Cal asked, swirling the contents of his glass with his magic.

"I guess we keep moving towards Hoofington. If we are lucky, whoever did this will pop their heads out sooner or later. We just have to hope that we are quicker than they are."

"Right. Well If that's the case, I need to borrow about 400 caps from you. I need to settle up a debt before we head out of town."

"400 caps!? Geeze Caliber."

"If we are leaving, I might as well get my things out of hock, especially seeing as I'm now homeless. Never know, I might find a new place to make camp."

"Ok, but please make it quick. Chances are, whoever did this could still be watching us. I don't want to give them any more opportunities to take a shot at us" I said passing the caps over to Caliber.

"I will just be a few minutes, after that, we book it out of this place." Cal said, trotting off into town.

"AND I BETTER GET MY CAPS BACK CALIBER!" I screamed after him.

"FAT CHANCE!" Came the voice of the Apple Whiskey.

"But why!" I droned out as we trotted our way from New Appleloosa and deeper into the wasteland's terrain.

"Because Ditzy will have my flank if I let you fly another mile without eating first. You saw her face! She's already pissed that you didn't listen to her and stay a few more days to heal up." Caliber said.

"She's just being overprotective. And who gave you two the right to lord over me anyhow? I'm an adult for Celestia sake!"

"Physically maybe..."

"Hey! I AM AN ADULT!"

"That's not how Ditzy sees it. She even gave you that new scope as a present as if you were one of her foals! She even sighted it in for you! I haven't ever seen her give anypony anything before. Look, she told me to look after you, make sure you eat better and for you to stay out of the air until you gain your weight back."

"True, but this wouldn't be an issue had you not said anything to her in the first place. Also, I like sighting my rifle! That's MY job!"

"What was I gonna do? Lie to her? Hell, even I can see that you look malnourished!"

"I hate walking, flying is just so much easier! Safer! Faster!" I said pleading.

"Quit your bellyaching! Just enjoy the walk and try to eat something. "

Cal was right, I didn't want to admit it, but in the end, the pace we were setting in the air was really starting to take it's toll on me. My back hurt almost all of the time now, my wings would ache so bad at night that I had to resort to sleeping on my stomach and the physical exertion was burning off everything I ate before my body could process it. Sure there were upsides as well, I feel stronger than I ever have before and when I do eat I feel amazingly good considering the diet of two century old snacks. But being isolated to the ground was a new form of torture to me.

Before, when I would resort to flying, there was always a reason behind it, some place I had to get to or to catch somepony that was running from me. But since Caliber and I had started this journey together, I had spent more time in the air in the last few days than I had in the last five years. At first it felt uncomfortable flying as high as we were, but now however, I felt like I was being cheated out of something that was inherently mine. It was as if the sky itself has it's own special calling for me and being trapped on the ground was my punishment from the universe for getting off so easy. Sometimes I honestly feel like pegasi are born unlucky because they were blessed with the natural ability to fly away from everything the wasteland can throw at them.

Wings are a gift and that gift can be both a blessing and a curse depending on how you look at things. They are a blessing in that you may never have to fire a single shot in the wasteland if you have them, but they are cursed in the way of their value to the bearer. They are almost always taken for granted and they are often looked past on a daily basis, but the moment that you can't use them, is the very moment you become the most vulnerable. Because I was born with the gift of flight, I had used more false bravado than needed at times, knowing if the chips were down that I could just fly away.

"Oh come on now, stop pouting!" Came the voice of Caliber.

"You try going a day without your horn and see how that works for you."

"Oh I have, and it sucks, but I didn't act like I had just had to shoot my own puppy over it. Besides, look how far we have made it from town! I wager that we are at least 5 miles away by now."

"4.35 actually." I said, looking down at my pipbuck.

"Why do you have to do that? 4.35 miles is as near as 5 miles." Caliber said in frustration.

"I like aggravating you." I said with a smirk.

"That's the spirit! Now, where do you want to make camp for the night? There's the creepy looking cave over there, or we can take our chances in that old town just west of here."

"Silver Sheen? That old silver mining town? You know they say it's... haunted." I said switching on the light of my pipbuck to illuminate my face.

"I have heard that... I bet that Boogybuck is just waiting to foalnap anypony who dares go near!" Cal said meeting my sardonic look with his.

Caliber and I stood staring each other down for a long moment, freezing in our tracks as we did so.

"LAST ONE THERE CLEANS THE RAIDER SHIT OUT OF THE BEDS!" Caliber said as he broke out into a full gallop.

"NOT ON YOUR LIFE HORN HEAD!" I screamed after him.

Cal had always loved going to creepy places and doing his best to try and scare the hell out of me. Granted he rarely managed more than the odd jump-scare, but at this point if it would take my mind off of not being able to fly, the long trip to White Saddle Shores and having to go to Hoofington before hoof, then I was game to give it a try. Even if it was just a place to sleep for the night, it was in fact a place I had never been to before. I had always figured that anything of value had been well picked clean long ago and that there was no reason to even head that way.

The small town, if you could call it that, was little more than a few collapsed or falling-in houses and buildings with a large tower jutting out of the earth. The tower was just barely visible from where we were now due to the town being built in a depression in the earth, just a few miles from the nearby mountains. Now in a full gallop, Caliber was kicking up dust in his wake as he forged his path to what I'm sure he thinks is a ghost town in need of exploring. I however, was doing my best to catch him up, without my wings it was all that I could do just to close the gap between us.

"WHAT'S A MATER FEATHERS? CAN'T KEEP UP?" Cal said through labored breaths.

"YOU TELL ME I CAN'T FLY AND NOW YOU ARE RUNNING ME ACROSS THE DESERT!"

"OH COME ON, WHERE'S ALL THAT MUSCLE YOU HAD IN THE AIR?"

Overhead came the faint, but quickly growing sound of lightning cracking through the sky in the distance. Even though I couldn't see it yet, the sound meant that not only were we running, for no reason, towards a ghost town, but we were also running head on into a thunderstorm. Cal's best efforts to make our short trip into a game was quickly turning into a race to beat getting soaking wet right before going to bed. Sleeping in a bed that I'm sure raiders have done things in that I never want to imagine is one thing, but doing all that while wet... Let's just say that I am in no way excited about my wet hide soaking up raider love juices throughout the night! Yuck!

"YOU WANT MUSCLE!?" I said as I unfolded my wings and began to flap.

"THAT'S CHEATING!" Cal yelled back to me as I rose from the ground and began to fly overhead.

"EAT MY FARTS!" I screamed childishly as I started to pass him overhead.

Now airborne, the amount of work to match Cal's speed was minuscule in comparison to running. Despite Cal's continued yelling at me that Ditzy would have my head for flying, I paid none of it any mind as I soared above him. The sharp cracks of lightning were beginning to grow louder the closer we came to the outskirts of the mines outlying structures. Looking to the sky's above me gave little to no indication of flashes of light or rain beginning to fall, but with the failing light, it was hard to make out much at all of the cloud layer. The unsettling thought of being in the air during a thunderstorm began to sink in as Cal and I began the descent down the hillside towards Silver Sheen. I looked down at Cal who was now right below me, he was digging deep into his stamina to match the pace that I was now setting. If we both keep this up, neither one of us is going to make it to the town be for the skies decided to let loose with the waterworks.

Just as I was about to drop out of the sky and tell Cal to jump on my back, my world was filled with a loud popping sound, followed by a even louder crack that deafened the hearing to my right side. Pain erupted from my right ear that seemed to flow down the right side of my face, sending me clutching my head and tumbling out of the sky. What the hell just happened to me? Did I get struck by lightning? My thoughts were cut short by my sudden impact to the ground, followed by Caliber running directly into my side, sending him rolling down the hill. The pain coming from my ear forced me to bury my head into the ground and press it tighter into my clutched legs as I waited for the first wave of pain to begin to subside. Something warm and wet began to cover my right leg and right cheek as I rolled across the ground, writhing in this new world of pain that I was now in, coming to rest on my back.

Through my left ear I could hear Caliber groaning his way to his hooves and making his way to me from where he had finally stopped rolling down the hill. My right ear however, only gave me a dull ringing sound that was growing increasingly more high pitched as the pain began to subside. As it faded, Cal's words began to come more into focus, all four letters of them.

"WHAT THE FUCK JOEY! JUST BECAUSE YOU WERE WINNING DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN JUST CRASH LAND INTO ME FOR GOOD MEASURE!"

"My ear! I think I got struck by lightning!" I said, still gripping my head tightly.

"Oh sure you did. And I'm sure you landing on me was just a coincidence. I didn't see any flash of lightning." Caliber said trotting to my side.

"Ow! My ear is killing me!" I managed to meek out as I rolled onto my belly and forced myself to pull my legs away from my head.

"What did you expect! You hit the ground like it owed you caps or something! You're lucky you didn't break your damn back!" Caliber said leaning down to take a look at the damage.

"No, it happened in the air! One second I'm passing you, the next I'm getting run over by you."

"What the hell? That's a bullet hole!" Caliber said, now pulling my head closer for examination.

"What? Who the fuck shot me!?" I said tilting my head.

"I don't know but that's defiantly a bullet wou-" Caliber's words were cut short by the multiple impacts of rounds landing all around us, cracking and popping in the air as they shot past.

"RUN! TO THOSE ROCKS!" Cal screamed as he half helped, pulled me across the desert.

The faint cracks of what I though was lightning, had turned out the be rounds passing over our heads as we ran straight towards them. Of course it was gunfire, how could I not have noticed! I had gotten so wrapped up in having fun that I let a very important detail like not getting shot completely slip from my mind! My last few steps towards the small mound of rocks fell into a slide as another burst of rounds dug into the earth right behind me. Cal had taken cover just in front of me, but was quickly knocked to the ground as I slammed into him in my desperate attempt to not get shot in the ass.

"What the hell is going on!" Cal shouted at me.

"I don't know but whoever is shooting at us really sucks at it!"

Another burst landed far off near the location we had just come from in a shower, followed by another hitting to our left. Sporadic and random in where they would land, the gunfire continued to rain down intermittently as I worked my way to the edge of our cover. I pulled my rifle from my back, looked down the new scope that Ditzy had given me not even 5 hours ago and sighted in towards the town. Another spray of fire forced my head down as I was positioning my rifle between two rocks for a steady shooting platform.

"Who the hell did we piss of this time!" I shouted as I ducked out of the way.

"I don't know, but holy Luna are they pissed!" Caliber shouted as he found purchase on the far side of the boulder pile.

Slowly I rose to once more set my scope to the old town, when I did I was met with the view of my new radical and it's crisp, clear view of the world below. My old scope had been one that I had found back when I was still a young colt, and it had served me well over the years, but this new one was so much better. The radical had hash marks to denote both windage and elevation and the clarity of the glass was akin to my actual sight! If Ditzy was mad at me for whatever reasons she had, giving me such a nice toy to play with was certainly not showing it. I reached up to the gnarled ring for the zoom movement, rolled it up to as high as it would go and looked directly down the main street of the the town.

Below I could make out four young looking ponies taking cover under an overturned mining cart. Directly in front of them I could make out four raiders scattered along the roadway, each taking cover behind anything that they could hide behind. Two on the right, two on the left with one of them making their way closer to the young ponies on their right side. They had nowhere to run. With the open plains to their back, and raiders closing in to the front, there was no safe direction that they could retreat to. Without hesitation, I flipped off the safety with a wing tip and took aim at the mare closing in on their right side.

"Should I open up on them?" Cal asked, now readying his carbine.

"Hold up, I think there are kids down there. Looks like they are pinned down by raiders."

"Shit! Can you get a shot on them?"

"Yeah! Get the bino's out, take aim at the back side of the town and get ready to shoot anypony who tries to circle around."

Ok! Easy as breathing. I steadied myself and took aim on the lavender mare's head who was now working her way around the mining cart, let out a breath and squeezed the trigger. The rifle let out a loud explosion as the round left the barrel, flying head long into the raiders chest, sending her sprawled out on the ground clutching her breast. Through the scope I could see that the spray of blood hit the white filly with the blue mane that was hiding nearby. The orange colt who was wearing a crimson looking cape took aim at the convulsing mare and sent a spray of bullets into her, finishing her off.

Damn it, this is why I'm the only one that touches my rifle! I trust Ditzy with more than I do most, but when it comes to my equipment, I like to be the one who sets things up! The round hit low from where I was aiming and had the mare been any closer, I could have hit one of the kids down there. 'Thanks MOM...' I thought sarcastically as I worked the elevation torrent to adjust for the foul shot. I hate raiders as much as the next pony and they may be low on the equity scale, but they were ponies before they were raiders and making anything, or anypony for that matter, suffer is just wrong.

"Did you get them!?" Caliber shouted.

"Yes Caliber, I killed the whole town with one shot! I'm just that damn good!" I said, mocking him.

"Just... hurry up already! It's getting dark and I can't see shit!"

I shifted in my spot and aimed for the blue buck in the back of the street who was hiding behind what looked like the mine shaft, took aim for his head and fired. With another loud bang, the buck's head jerked back and his body went ridged, falling back to his side twitching. Right where I aimed, that's more like it! Two down and just a grey buck and a light green mare to go! Moving quickly, I moved the cross-hairs to a buck who was doing his best to hide behind one of the railings on a store front porch and centered them between his eyes. Right as I pulled the trigger for the third time in the fight, I saw a light green flash in the background as the round left the barrel, flying straight and true into the buck's head. Three down.

I moved once more, this time to take aim at the last remaining mare, but to my horror, she wasn't there anymore. I scanned the area, searching frantically for last raider on my mental 'to kill' list but kept coming up empty hooved. Everything had fallen silent so much so that even the kids that were hiding behind the cart were braving a look over the top of it to see if the coast was clear.

"Shit! I can't find her!"

"Wait! Joey, she's by the mine shaft! Next to the dead buck! Looks like shes going through his bags!" Caliber said, dropping the binoculars.

"No honor among thieves I guess." I said as I worked the bolt back on my rifle and sent a hot piece of spent brass flying behind me.

I looked back to the town and sure enough, just behind the shaft, I could see that she was in fact rifling through his bags for something. No matter, I hope whatever she wanted in them was worth dying for. I held the center of the cross-hairs where I though her head would pop out and waited. Come on bitch, just poke your head out, just give me the shot! I watched as her flank disappeared behind the tower and waited for my target to come back into view. Several long moments passed as I waited patiently for her to trot out from behind her cover, the whole time what little light I had left fading away.

"SHE'S MAKING A RUN FOR IT!" Caliber said and he readied his rifle once more and sent a wave of full-auto fire in the direction of the town. I raised my rifle to meet the location of where he was firing to see that one of Caliber's rounds had found it's mark, sending the mare tumbling down a far hillside and out of view.

"Nice shot!"

"Did I get her?" Caliber asked.

"Yup, that was a hit alright."

"Well, then I declare this area secure." Caliber said, holstering his rifle away with a proud look on his face.

"So, who want's to TROT down and talk to the kids who will probably shoot at us out of fear first?" I asked as I put my rifle away and switched on the light to my pipbuck.

"Ok, maybe we can bend that 'no flying' rule a bit. Just this one time." Caliber said as he climbed onto my back and we both took flight.

Even in the now almost none existent light, I could still make out the four fillies and colts working their way from cover to cover, proceeding slowly to see if the coast was clear. As we approached the town, the white filly spotted us and bolted for the door of what looked like the old town's store. Soon after, the other three followed suit, the last little bucks flank clearing the door right as we touched down behind where they had been hiding. Caliber climbed from my back and made his way to the dead mare that I had killed just moments ago and began searching her bags for loot. I decided to take my chances with the kids inside the store and began to trot my way towards the broken down porch of the "Platinum's Assay Services".

No sooner than I had touched my hoof to the worn wood decking of the stores porch, from deep inside came a high pitch, and very nervous, voice of a young colt.

"Who is it! Whose there!? We don't want any trouble! Just go away and nopony will get hurt!"

"Calm down kid, we're the ones that shot the raiders."

"Yeah? How do I know that you're not going to shoot us too then?"

"Hey, Joey..." Cal said from behind me.

"Not now Cal, I'm negotiating... Why in the hell would I shoot a kid?" I said dumbfounded."

"The raiders didn't seem to mind, why should we trust you?"

"Look, me and my partner were just looking for a place to sleep. We saw that you were in trouble and tried to help out. Nothing more, nothing less."

"Joey, I need to talk to you." Cal said, tying to butt in again.

"In a minute, Cal." I said shooing him away with an hoof.

"You sure got a funny way of showing it! That was Sashay's mom you shot!"

The calm, heroic demeanor I had been wearing across my face melted away, leaving behind it a look of complete horror. No! She was a raider! She was wearing leather armor! I swear I even saw her shooting back at them when I first looked through the scope! It couldn't be! Had I just killed the mother of one of the kids that I was trying to save? No, no, no, no! Please, for the love of everything that is good and sacred, make it go away! Please, universe. Please?

"She was... her mom?" I managed to squeak out from beneath my horrified shame.

"YES SHE WAS! AND YOU SHOT HER! THIS IS WHY I DON'T TRUST ADULTS! SHOOT FIRST, ASK NEVER! YOU ARE ALL THE SAME!"

"But, she was shooting at you! She had a gun! I didn't know!" I said, trying to ignore the pounding in my chest.

"She was a raider! But she used to be my mom!" Came the broken voice of a young filly as she poked her head out of the doorway. Sashay's purple eyes were almost as piercing as the blood stains that now covered both her brilliant white coat and sea blue mane.

"I-I..." I was lost for words. Moments ago I was doing my best to save four kids, now I'm looking into the blood stained face of a filly whose mother I just executed right in front of her. There are no words in a time like this to sooth the pain that I had to have caused for her. I wanted to crawl into the mine shaft and just disappear, die, anything but be right here, right now.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HER! GET AWAY FROM THERE!" Sashay screamed beyond me. I turned to see Caliber rolling the now lifeless body of the purple mare on to her back.

"Cal! What are you doing!?" I growled under my breath.

"We need to talk Joey. Now." Cal Said as I approached him.

"What! What in the fuck is so damn important!" I said with all the ill intent from the pain I was feeling.

"I know this mare. Knew... her." Caliber said refusing to break eye contact with the lifeless mare.

"You know every mare in the wasteland! What's your point!?"

"She's Snow Dancer. We used to date."

"Oh big surprise! Let me guess, You fucked her, ran out in the middle of the night and she ha..."

Caliber looked up at me with a pitiful look that could only mean one thing. I looked back to Sashay. Purple eyes, deep blue mane, white coat. Oh for the love of Luna! This can not be happening! This is by way and afar the most unlikely set of coincidences that could have happened to me today. Then again, given Calibers past, I am not shocked in the slightest.

"Goddess. Fucking. Dammit, Caliber!" I said through my teeth.

"She left me."

"Come again?" I said, now broken from my anger. This was new.

"We dated for a few months back in Baltimare. She was a dancer, I thought she was cute. So I tired to get her into bed, but she kept insisting that we just talk. I don't know what it was, but there was something different about her, something that I actually liked about her. Maybe it was her personality, I don't know. I thought she was, you know, like the one?"

"What happened? I mean, why did she leave?" I said now curious to know more about the mare that left the buck who leaves all the mares in equestria.

"No clue. We were making our way towards flank and she disappeared. One minute, we are falling asleep together, the next I wake up and she's gone." Caliber said, now looking her over with a sad expression. I could tell that he was covering up real pain by trying to look like he was just examining her features.

"Hey, I'm sorry. I had no clue."

"It's ok. It was a long time ago."

"So... do you think she's your's?"

"Yeah, this is defiantly Snowy alright." Cal said, brushing her blood matted mane out of her eyes.

"Moron!" I said, turning his head to see Sashay who was still standing in the doorway.

Caliber stared at the white filly for several moments before slowly turning to meet my gaze once more.

"Oop-"

"Shut up! Don't You even say it! What are you trying to do? Repopulate the whole fucking wasteland single hooved?"

"What! I didn't know she was pregnant! Besides, she left me. Remember?"

"Ok... Fine. What the hell are we going to do here? I don't think this situation is salvageable. Should we just leave?" I said, still wanting to be anywhere but here at this very moment.

"Hmmm... leave. That's something Caliber WOULD do..." Caliber said tapping a hoof to his muzzle.

"Ok so.. do we just fly off?"

"Hold on. That's something Caliber would do. But Joey? No way. He would face this head on and make things right! The Joey I know wouldn't run from responsibility like that." Caliber said with a clear look of revenge written across his muzzle.

Oh. So that's what that feels like. As much as I wanted to buck Caliber in the face for using my own words against me, he was right. If I flew away now, what are the chances that I would make a habit of it later on? Oh goddesses, this is going to suck!

"Fine... But I don't think they want us here." I said trotting back to the porch.

"Sashay. Nothing I say will undo what I did and I know you wont forgive me for it. But you have to understand, I was 200 meters way, there is no way I could have known. I thought she was a raider who was attacking you all and I took the shot. Not out of hate, but because I was trying my best to save you all."

Sashay stood almost stoic while I was begging for her to understand why I had just shot her mom. A long silence grew between us, all the while with the tension growing on whether or not she was going to freak out or not. If she did, I wouldn't blame her. Finally, after what felt like a year of waiting, and me growing more and more nervous, Sashay spoke.

"I understand. I just... I need to be alone right now." She said as she turned and trotted back into the depths of the store front.

"Go away! You caused enough problems!" Came the voice of the colt once more.

"Look, we just need a place to sleep for the night and after that we will be gone. This store is the only building left in town with a roof and a door, I promise, there wont be any trouble." I said, really hopping that we wouldn't be staying in that creepy cave for the night. From inside, I could hear that they were talking among themselves.

"Who are you!"

"Jo... Coyote Joe. I'm a tracker." I said, hoping that maybe they had heard of me and that I wasn't somepony who wanted to hurt them.

"COYOTE JOE!?" Came another voice from the darkness, followed by a yellow colt with a rust colored mane running out of the store and latching himself to my front leg.

"Joe! It's me! Sunny!"

"Sunny? Do I know you?" I said taking a few steps back from the excited yellow ball of energy.

"You saved me from the slavers! Brought me home to my daddy! It was in Hoofington. Remember!?" Sunny said in a hyper, broken sentence.

"Wow! That was five years ago! You were just a foal back then, how can you remember something from that far back?" I said, now trying to place the young colt in my memory.

Sunny was the first job that I had taken to bring back a foal that had been taken by slavers in Hoofington. That was so long ago but standing here now in front of the very colt I had saved so long ago, the memories came back to me like a flash. Sunny had been taken right outside of Mega Mart while his father was trading, I found him ten days later, twenty miles north near the mountains. I was still young back then and had no idea how to care for a foal. So having to take care of one for the 3 day journey back to Hoofington was a crash coarse in parenting for me to say the least. When he would get hungry, I gave him Sparkle Cola and Buckcakes, but had I known that it would lead to him being a yellow ball of hyper, I would have tried water.

"Yeah! I know! Daddy used to talk about you all the time! The buck who brought his colt back to him he called you!" Sunny said sprinting around my hoofs.

"Wait, where is your dad now? You're pretty far from home, aren't you?"

"Oh! He's dead! But it's ok! I'm a Crusader now!" Sunny said without breaking stride or even pausing at the thought of his dead father.

"IN TRAINING!" Said the orange colt who was now standing on the porch.

"And you are?" I asked

"Ugh... I'm Wheels, that's Sunny, the filly whose mom you killed Is Sashay and this is Pop. Say hi Pop." Wheels said rather indignantly to the pink filly with light purple mane.

"Hi.." Pop said, sinking back into the shadows of the store.

"Shut up pop!" Wheels belted back to her. What was this kids deal? Fearful, resentful at our presence and rude!

"Uh hi. I'm Joey, and this is Caliber." I said, taken off guard by the colts attitude.

"If you two are going to crash here for the night, there are rules you must obey!"

"Ok... Let's hear them..." I said rolling my eyes.

"First! I'm the one in charge here! I'm the only crusader here and these ponies are my recruits in training. They only answer to me and me alone. Got that!?" Wheels said with more authority than was warranted.

"Ok, if you say so." Caliber said, now standing beside me.

"Good!" The colts said, now trotting back into the store.

"And?"

"And what!?" Wheels said freezing in his tracks.

"You said rules, that's just one rule." I said, prompting him to continue.

"Well... It's the only rule that matters! Stupid adults." Wheels said trotting back into the store front.

"Get a load of this little shit..." Caliber said starting for the store.

"Yeah, no kidding. Hey! Do you think Wheels is Sashays brother? Seem's like somepony you would father."

"Shut it!" Cal said as he walked inside.

Inside, the four ponies had made a small encampment out of stray boxes, books, old bed sheets and what looked to be what was left of some broken bar stools. Despite Wheels child like attitude towards Caliber and myself, he did seem to be doing a far job of helping the others take care of themselves. The large room that was once a store had since been cleared of anything of real value, the old shelving had even been taken long ago and deposed of, maybe even before the war. The soon to be crusaders had made quite the little campsite in the center of the shopping area, they even had set up tents with the remains of the stores wares.

Pop had hidden herself beneath the confides of her sheet and bar stool tent that she had erected, leaving only her muzzle poking out of the front and her tail out of the back. Around her tent lay a half dozen or so Ministry of Peace medical boxes that looked to have been opened and gone through. In front of her was quite the sizable stash of medical supplies, enough to get anypony from here to Baltimare safely. If nothing else, the group would be in good hoofs if anyone of them had even the slightest knowledge in dealing with wounds.

Wheels had placed himself facing the doorway, he also had claimed the best supplies for his own to make himself a large fort, guarding himself from intruders. Sunny was to his immediate right and looked had cobbled together something that resembled a tent, gotten sidetracked by something and stopped building it halfway through. One side of the structure was being supported by various bottles of Sparkle Cola and food, stacked haphazardly into a tower that was holding up half of his structure.

Looking around, My eyes landed on the yellow colt who was now doing a excellent job of annoying Wheels with tales he had undoubtedly heard about me. I wasn't famous, I wasn't even all that popular, but the majority of the vendors at Mega Mart knew me and what all I had done in the past. From what I was gathering from the conversation, Sunny was giving Wheels the same sales pitch my sister would give when she would try and sell my services to somepony. Looking around still, I found Sashay sitting by herself in a corner of the store.

I'm sure she was still trying to process everything that had just happened moments ago. My heart went out to her, your mother becoming a raider, then your raider mother trying to kill you, then somepony from far off kills her right in front of you. There wasn't anytime to process what had happened, it just... happened. I hope I never have to know what that kind of thing feels like, but if it's worse than when I lost Boss, the only pony I knew as a father, then she is in for a long night. I know better than to talk to her, but at some point i'm going to have to make an effort to do so.

"So, this is your place huh?" I asked, trying to break the ice.

"Uh... no! This is our camp! What do we look like? Stupid?" Wheels shouted to me.

"Ok, ok. Campsite then. So, do you mind telling me how you all almost ended up as raider meat?"

"Same idea as you! We were looking for a place to sleep and they started shooting at us! BANG BANG BANG! It was intense!" Sunny said, holding an imaginary gun and making shooting noises.

"We would have been fine if Pop hadn't started screaming like she did." Wheels said

"So-sorry, I didn't mean to-" Pop tried to say

"Shut up Pop! Go get the wood for the fire!"

"A real charmer, isn't he?" Caliber whispered to me.

I watched as the pink fillies nose disappeared into the tint she had made, then watched her crawl her way out of the backside and trot off to the edge of the room. She started to gather together some old bits of broken shelving and chairs and placed them on a flattened out box that she then proceeded to drag to the center of the tents.

"Is this enough?" Pop meeked out.

"Yeah, sure. Now go outside and get some rocks. Sashay! Giver her a hoof, don't just sit there. You know she hates being alone."

Sashay slowly trotted her way to Pop's side and the two passed us by as they made their way to the door.

"I don't like this place, It brings back bad memories..." Pop said at almost a whispers volume to Sashay.

"Cal, Would you mind giving them a hoof? I don't want those two out there alone this time of night."

"Why do I have to go? I hate hard labor!"

"Just do it for me, please? I need to have a word with captain dickhead over there."

"Fine..." Caliber said as he turned and trotted away.

"Be sure you keep your eyes peeled! Watch for raiders!" I yelled after him

"Yes MOOOM..." Cal shouted back to me as he walked outside.

Now alone with the little ass, I felt that it might be good if he and I had a little chat about how he treated his friends. Well almost alone, Sunny was making a game all by his self with a few caps he had found and was play fighting with the them as if they were other ponies. Given the amount of enthusiasm he was putting into the game, we might as well be alone. Wheels was working on his overly elaborate structure of a fort that he had made, making it even more massive.

"Wheels, can I talk to you for a moment."

"Make it fast..." Wheels said from behind his wall of books he had constructed.

"Look, you don't like me and I don't know you, but I have met a lot of crusaders in my time and I have never seen one treat their friends the way you do. Don't you think they would appreciate it if you were to treat them as equals rather than servants?" I said, trotting up to them.

"You adults are all the same! Don't say this, don't do that, play nice with your friends! Well nice don't cut it out here! A tracker like yourself should know that! If you were half the pony Sunny says your are then you wouldn't have started shooting first and killed Sashays mom!"

"Look, all I'm saying is that teams work better when you treat all the members with respect and dignity. They listen better, they work better and make fewer mistakes."

"Mistakes like killing someponies mother?" Wheels grinned back at me.

"Ok, let it go, you know that couldn't have been avoided. She went full raider and was about to kill all of ya'll, I did what I thought was right and now I'm paying for my mistakes."

"You wouldn't have to pay for them if you had not made them in the first place! I'm the boss of this group and nopony is going to come in here and change that! Especially half hoofed, tracker who looks like he hasn't seen a bath in 2 years! Look at you, your so dirty that you look like you have stripes or something! What are you, half zebra!?" Wheels said laughing.

I can take a lot of things being said to me, I was used to it in fact. I can take even more from a little colt, even if he thinks he is god of all the foals in equestria. I have been called dirty, useless, a bad tracker and even smelly, but him picking on me for having stripes just pisses me off! All the cool I had been keeping about myself evaporated when he said that, and that was something I wasn't going to take. I grabbed the colt by his shoulders, picking him up off the floor and pulled him within an inch of my face.

"Look here you little shit, you may think you are this untouchable god but I have news for you! I have been on my own for far longer than you ever have, and judging by the way you are acting, you wont see half the years on this earth as me if you keep it up. And if you keep busting me for having stripes those years are going to be drastically reduced to zero." I growled at him.

"Stripes!? Wait you are a zebra!? Zebras don't have wings!" Wheels said as I dropped him on the ground.

"No, I'm half zebra, half pony. Bring it up again and I will use these wings to fly you to the top of that mining tower and leave you there, sure as Luna hung the stars! Got it?" I said as I started backing him into his fort.

"Fine! J-Just stay away from me you lunatic!" Wheels said, now showing a flicker of fear.

I turned just in time to see Caliber trotting through the door. Going off of what his expression was telling me, he must have caught part of mine and Wheels little heart to heart chat we were having, and approved. They had only been gone minutes but you would have never have guessed it by the change in demeanor in Sashay's attitude. What had Cal done to them out there? Sashay, who was once in the throws of depression, now looked neutral to everything as she trotted past me and dropped a small load of rock to the floor.

"Thanks for the help girls... I... I got it! Nopony rush to help me..." Caliber said, now loaded down with rocks so much so that he was being bent in half. He managed to stagger to the center of the encampment and drop them in a pile next to Sashays before collapsing to the floor beside them. Pop was right behind him, trotting to his side and dropping the one and only rock she had retreated and began looking Caliber over for injuries.

"Oh... I told you not to carry so many rocks..." Pop said as she started looking him over.

"Pop! You only got one rock?!" Wheels started.

I shot the most treating look that I could manage his way before he could continue.

"G-good job, go ahead and make them into a circle, It's getting cold." Wheels said, trying to reel in his resentment.

"Wait, You all are going to start a fire... Inside?" I said, my ears drooping at the mere thought of something so stupid.

"Ugh... how else are we going to stay warm, idiot?" Wheels barked at me. Looks like that little talk about treating your friends with respect, didn't extend to me.

"You do know that this place is made of wood right? And that fire burns wood?"

"I know what I'm doing, I have done this loads of times!" Wheels said as he began arranging the wood into a v shape.

"I highly doubt he has." Caliber whispered to me as he took his place next to me on the floor and layed down.

"Oh shut up, you helped them get the rocks." I mumbled back at him.

"You told me too... Just saying. Besides, the rocks will keep the fire from spreading."

"Fire doesn't work like that, Cal..."

Before long, Wheels had managed to build a fire that was somehow managing to stay within the confides of the rocks the others had placed in a circle. I have no idea how in the world it had not managed to set the wooden floor on fire yet, this had to be some form of magic that I had not heard of. Caliber and I had finally managed to break our way into small talk with the group and started prying more into how they had found themselves in the midst's of becoming Crusaders. We had both figured that the best way to get them to loosen up would be to share stories around the firelight together.

Wheels had always been a Crusader as far as he was concerned. Born into a life of survival of the fittest in the outskirts of Flank to a mother who didn't want him, a father who he had never met and three brothers that used to pick on him for being the youngest. He had ran away and found a new home with the Crusaders just outside of Hoofington in a little town called Chapel. I almost felt sorry for him when he told his story, but the layer of seething hatred he had displayed earlier was making it hard to feel anything for him.

Sunny's dad had died about two years after I had rescued him from raiders, dying from an infection he had gotten while he was out salvaging In the outlying areas of Hoofington. He said that the infection kept spreading, despite there best efforts to try and contain it, it would just come back stronger and more aggressive. From what Sunny was saying, him and his father would always get sick and stay that way for weeks at a time before finally getting better. If I had to guess, the two of them may have some sort of auto immune disease that runs in their family, I had heard that ponies around Hoofington had similar problems.

Pop didn't say anything when it came her turn to share her tale, instead sinking back into her tent, leaving Wheels to explain that he had found her not far from where we were now on a small farm. According to him, Pop's parents had just disappeared one night, leaving her to fend for herself in the wasteland. More surprising was the fact that he actually knew her from long before she joined up with the group, saying that her parents were the overly protective type and wouldn't let him come near. So If I had to make my own guess it would be that they slipped off in the night for some alone time and ended up getting taken by slavers. But judging by the way she would keep to herself, it's also possible that she had seen something that forced her into silence, shutting out the world and by way, the thing that scares her.

Sashay's story lined up with what Caliber had told me earlier, It had always been her and her mother since before she could remember. She said that they had been on their way to New Appleloosa looking for somepony from her mothers passed. Her mother ordered her to stay at the campsite while she went out for water, but she never came back, leaving Sashay alone and ten miles from N.A. She somehow managed to work her way to the town where she met Wheels who took her in. When I asked who they were trying to find, she said that the only thing her mother told her was that they were looking for somepony who her mother cared for and wanted to see if he was ok. Sashay then excused herself back to the corner that she had been held up in when I first came in the store and layed down.

I looked to Caliber who had been hanging on the fillies every word, expecting him to be nonchalant about everything he had just been hit with. He had always been the cool and collected type when it came to things like this, call it being tempered to something that happens repeatedly in your life. But I wasn't ready for him to be fighting back tears with a stone cold gaze into what looked like nothing. This had hit him harder than when Lavender told him that he could not see Fetch back in Tenpony. The thought of loosing Zuri came fresh in my mind, and what it would feel like to loose somepony important to you, not once, but twice.

Snow Dancer obviously had meant a great deal to Cal at one time, and now hearing that not only had she left when she found out she was pregnant, but was then looking for him to possibly make amends, had to hurt. Add to that the fact that I had just shot her after she turned raider, right in front of his daughter, I could imagine that he would be upset with me. I couldn't help myself, I stretched out a wing and wrapped it around the poor buck to show that I was sorry for what had happened. Given the situation, I could understand if he didn't want me anywhere near him. So when he returned the kind gesture with a smile, I felt a knot untie itself deep in my gut.

The moment was short lived when a scraping sound came from outside, somewhere out in the streets. The sound seemed to echo a almost metallic, shrieking sound that machinery would make if it were suddenly come to life after years outside. It's pricing noise set my teach on edge and my coat to stand on end. I tucked my wings in tight almost reflexively and stood up on all four to turn to the door to see what had just happened.

"What was that?" Cal said, springing to his hoofs.

"I don't know, but whatever it is isn't far off."

"Oh please, I'm sure it was just the wind." Wheels said, crawling his way out of the book wall he had made.

"You know this place is haunted, right?" Cal said with a half cocky grin towards Wheels.

"That's just an old mares-tale! You two are just trying to scare us!" Wheels said, now working his way back to his cover.

"Cal, quit it." I said, covering my face with an hoof.

"No, no! It's true! I'm telling you, Ditzy even even say's it's too dangerous to stay here in her book." Cal said.

"Even if it was and I believed you too, I wouldn't be half as scared as you too are now."

"Well then mister brave, why don't we go check it out? I mean, after all, you don't want to go to sleep not knowing if someponies out there, do you?" Cal said, almost sadistically.

"He's right! Don't want to go to sleep if more raiders are out there close by! Might get munched!" Sunny said bouncing out of his tent.

"Fine, you all can go look and see, I'm not wasting my time on some ghost hunt!" Wheels said, now returning to his tent.

"Good! I don't want any scardy ponies with me anyways!" Cal said trotting out the door.

"Dammit Cal... Why do you have to do shit like this so late at night." I said as I stated after him.

"I'm coming too! Wait for me!" Sunny said as he bounced to my side.

"Well, I think that... I might... Should go with them too. I feel saver with them." Pop said as she pulled the blanket from her tent, wrapped herself up in it like a coat of armor and started outside.

"Sashay, want to come with us? It might be fun." I said in my best 'please come with us and forgive me for shooting your raider mom' voice.

"Might as well..." Sashay said and she trotted past me.

"AH! A GHOST!" Caliber screamed from outside.

"It's just Pop! She's no ghosty! Quite as one though!" I heard Sunny say followed by laughter from the group.

"Well Wheels? How about it? You coming?" I asked feeling a little cocky that his group preferred to stay with me and Caliber rather than him.

"Ugh! Adults..." Wheels said as I walked out the door, into the night air.

Clouds muted the light of the moon that was casting shadows around us, causing them to dance across the walls of the dimly lit buildings of the old town. The faint smell of sulfur hung in the air as we slowly made our way down the appropriately named 'Sheen Avenue' towards the large tower in the middle of the town. With every step, the images around us would shift and change as if they had a mind of their own, moving, ever so slightly, across the wooden walls of the buildings as we passed them by. Everything was quiet, still even, only disturbed by our presence as the five of us did our best to keep our movements silent and our eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary.

"I don't like this, Cal." I whispered to Caliber between the group of fillies and colts we were guarding.

"What's not to like? It's quiet, no wind, perfect weather for hunting!" Cal whispered back to me.

"We are wide out in the open, if somepony is out there, they will see us coming a mile away."

"Oh please, I can't see a hoof in front of my face. Just keep your eyes peeled."

To my left came the sound of trash cans crashing to the ground, their impact echoing off of the walls around us. Almost on reflex, my wings extended and pulled one of the pistols from my back and placed it in my mouth with a swiftness I had not drawn on in years. Slowly, I advanced on the alleyway where we had all heard the sound come from, leaving the group behind me. The closer I came, the louder the rustling of something moving just ahead of me became. There was something there, but to what it was, I had no clue.

Soon, images and silhouettes of pilled up refuse came into view just in front of me. Readying my pistol, I switched on the light of my pipbuck and... nothing. Old broken mining carts, overturned trash cans and mounds of overburden were all that cluttered the back of the alleyway. Not a sound stirred. Anything that had been here, was gone now. Shit! If only I had something that would let me see threats at a moment's notice...

Without a second thought I looked down to switch on my pipbuck's E.F.S. I had completely forgotten about it until just now! Looking back up sent me flying backwards at the sight of something inches from my face. I fell flat on my haunches, scrambling to regain my composure, pointing my gun into the darkness, ready for whatever was about to leap out at me. On my screen I could make out a red marker to my left, just in front of me, not moving, but waiting. Slowly, I rose to my hooves and proceeded forward slowly. The light of my pipbuck began to illuminate a long slender staff sticking out of the ground in front of me, right where I had been standing.

Shaking with every step I made, slowly, a long slender shaft came into view, followed by a coat, followed by a hat. It was a coat rack. Feeling stupid, I re-holstered my pistol just in time to notice the red marker that was now standing right beside me, fade away as if it were never there. I spun, looking in every direction for anypony nearby, but all I saw was the wall of a building and more trash cans. Was my pipbuck malfunctioning again? I had not tried the E.F.S. since Life Bloom had repaired it back in Tenpony. Was the weight loss messing with the calibration again? Who put this coat rack here? It had not been here moments ago when I turned on the light of my pipbuck.

Not wanting to take the chance, I slowly backed out of the alleyway, all the while my skin crawling with anticipation. I had become so nervous that I had reversed right into the middle of the group without knowing it. Something cold touched my flank, sending me two feet off the ground, screaming.

"What the hell Joey! Your ass stinks!" Caliber said.

"Fuck Caliber! Sorry, I'm just on edge."

"It's ok, but next time try not to back your ass right into my face, ok?"

"Somethin- Somepony is out there. And they are close-by." I said, turning to look behind me.

"Well, just watch your that E.F... thing and stay alert. If they are out there, we will find them."

"That's just it... I saw a red marker right next to me, but it just... disappeared! It was like-"

"A GHOST!" Caliber said, positively beaming with excitement.

"I don't know. But one thing's for sure. We are not alone out here."

"B-bad things here... Bad, bad things..." Pop mumbled between us.

"What bad things?" Caliber asked.

Pop stood still, looking off towards the tower in the distance, not saying a word, shaking in her hooves. Together, we worked our way up the old road bed, Caliber to my left with the kids between us. With every step we took, that acrid stench of sulfur grew more and more, almost as if it were permeating from the mine shaft itself. Even without any wind tonight, the broken doors of the old buildings would howl and creek as we trotted by. I guess that's why they call this place a ghost town, even without nature's help, the structures were seeming to come alive, all on their own. The sounds around us set my skin to crawl, giving me that all too familiar feeling that somepony was not only out there, but very close-by.

Looking to my E.F.S. for assurance, the screen gave no impression of any signs of life, except when I would turn my attention away from it for more than a moment. It was like whatever it was that was out there knew when I would be at my weakest and took that moment to make it's move. It made it's presence known in the form of little red flashes on my display, showing up and fading just as fast as my eyes would train themselves on it. Ghosts are not real, they can't be real. But what was so clever that it was eluding my E.F.S.?

Soon we came to a crossroad in the middle of town. The road to our right had been blocked by a fallen building, the one ahead lead to the mine shaft and the one to the left seemed to circle around the town's outskirts before leading it's way back to the tower. Off in the distance, I could make out what I thought was hoofsteps on creaking hardwood flooring of one of the buildings. Deciding that it would be too dangerous for the kids to come along, I decided to go it alone.

"Cal, you take the kids the long way around. It looks like that road circles the town and will drop you out by the mine."

"You sure you want to go alone? If there is anything out there, you don't want to be outgunned, do you?"

"They will be safer with you, if something happens, get them out of here and don't come back until you know they are safe."

"You sure are taking this serious, what's got you so spooked anyhow?"

"I don't even want to know. But if it's what I think it is, it's no place for kids."

"Ok, if you say so. Lend me one of your pistols, I'm unarmed."

"Cal..."

"I know, I know... Should have brought one of my own. But I didn't know that something was going to have you this jumpy."

"Ok, but..."

"I know, if it gets scratched, you will kill me."

I said nothing. Instead I unholstered Righty and passed it to Cal with my wing.

"Fucking pegasi and their wing tricks..." Cal said, taking the .44 pistol in his magic and starting head down the road.

"I want to go with Joey!" Sunny said, running to my side.

"Look Sunny, I don't think it's safe for you to come this way with me. Wouldn't you rather stay with Caliber and the rest of the group?"

"Nope!"

"Aww. Let the kid go, I'm sure you can manage one little colt on your own."

"Ok, look. If you come with me, it's not going to be like when I brought you home. This is different. You have to do everything I say, when I say it, deal?"

"Can do!" Sunny said, bouncing beside me as we trotted away from the group.

"First, no bouncing. Second, stay quiet. I don't want somepony getting the drop on us. Third, no wondering off. The last thing I need is to have to try and find you out here, got it?"

"Oh yeah! I'm getting tracking advice from Coyote Joe!"

"Shhh! It's not tracking advice, it's... nevermind." I said as we worked our way closer to the tower.

Our pace was broken by the sound of hoofsteps in a building to our left. I froze in my tracks, sending Sunny toppling over my hooves to the ground.

"What is it?" Sunny said, whispering.

"No clue... but we need to check it out." I said as I flipped the clasp on my holster with a wingtip to have my pistol at easy reach.

"Let's do this!" Sunny said, eager to take on whatever was out there.

"Wait, you said something about tracking lessons, right?"

"Yeah!"

"Ok, well here is your first one." I said, clicking the light of my pipbuck back on. "Crouch down, try your best to keep one eye on the dirt and the other looking around you for threats. That way you can look for tracks and not get shot in the process."

Sunny, to his credit, did his best to crouch to the ground. I had not thought about the fact that when I was slouched down that I was actually at eye level with him. Sunny tried for several moments to do as I said in a very literal sense, he even tried cocking his head to one side which resulted in him face down in the dirt.

"Ok, nevermind what I said. Watch the ground but keep alert. Look for any tracks that look like they are fresh or out of place."

"Ok!" Sunny said, snorting out a chunk of gravel from one nostril.

The two of us approached the building where I had heard the sound come from just moments earlier, scanning the ground as we went along. The closer we came, the more the building seemed to almost sway under it's own weight, creaking and moaning with each movement. Maybe the sound I had heard was just the building's way of saying "Hey! Don't come any closer, I'm about to collapse!" Sunny was trying his hardest to find anything that would resemble something that would lead us to somepony, pointing out various abnormalities in the ground that ultimately resulting in being nothing. But credit where it is due, he was at least trying and that's all I ever ask out of anypony.

"What about that?"

"Wind drift in the sand."

"Oh! This?"

"Dried up puddle."

"Shoot! Ok, I know that's a track, right?"

"Sunny?"

"Yeah!?"

"That's your track..."

"Oh... Oops!"

"Wait. What's that?" I said pointing at a black mass right in front of us. I was just about to shut the light on my pipbuck off before we started up the steps of the half collapsed building when I saw it. Off to the right of the stairs lay a pile of something, and that pile was still steaming.

"EW! It's poop!" Sunny said, covering his face with a hoof.

"Shhh! Whatever dropped this can't be far off, and judging by the size of it, I think it could be something big."

"Wait! There is actually something out here!?"

"Well why do you think we are out here in the first place?"

"Oh Luna! Oh Celestia!" Sunny said, backing away from me. "I thought this was a spooky ghost hunt! Caliber said it was just for fun! I didn't know something was actually out here."

I shined the light of my pipbuck on the ground around the 'sign' searching for tracks, fur, anything that would give me the slightest hint as to what could have done this. The only thing that stood out was the pungent smell of sulfur that seemed to be radiating off of the mound. Behind me, I could here Sunny hyperventilating at the sudden realization that this was no 'meet your hero stroll through an old town in the middle of the night' kind of trip. The dirt had been kicked up by something, but these tracks are something entirely new to me, no matter how I tried, I could not place them. The ground had been clawed up, and just shoved away around it like whatever did this was trying to bury it? Cover it up maybe? My thought was derailed by the sound of hoofsteps once more, this time, above me.

"Sunny, you hear that?" I said, turning to see where he was, but he was gone.

"Damnit kid..." I said through my teeth. Tell a colt to stay close and what's the first thing they do? Right, hope he doesn't get eaten.

Again, right above me, I could hear something moving about. Slowly, I unfolded my wings and pushed off the ground. With any luck, I would see Sunny from the air and the two of us could get out of here. After seeing the markings on the ground, I don't think it's safe for any of us to be out here, walking around in the pitch black. But before I could do that, I need to see if whatever is making all that noise is something that needs to be dealt with, sooner, rather than later. I began to hover just below the awning of the front porch, turning my head sideways to peak over the edge.

Across the corrugated roofing lay before me three windows, all but one of them closed. The one nearest to me had been broken off of it's hinges long ago by the looks of it. Deep in the dark room that lay beyond, my eyes kept telling me that something was there, some shadowy figure that would move quickly in and out of my vision. Just then, I became aware of a red marker that placed something in the room, right where I was looking. With a cold chill racking my body, I brought my hooves level with the roofing, readying myself to land and make ready to fire on whoever... whatever it was.

No sooner than my hoof had made contact with the roof, I felt it shift from beneath me. All at once, the building let out a groan of protest and began to sway towards me. The sound of boards breaking and furniture slamming into walls and breaking the two remaining windows as it began to fall over. I backflapped in the air to try and avoid the broken shards of glass that were now flying through the air towards me. Giving a large birth of the now collapsing structure, I circled around the area to try and find Sunny.

In a zigzag motion, I crossed the streets from where we had just come from in hopes that the kid had found a hiding place among the other store fronts. Looking desperately, I came up with nothing. Did something take him? Did he run back to the store? Where the hell is he!?

"JOEY!" I heard Sunny cry out from where I had just flown from. I turned to look back to the building that was slowly falling apart around him. He had hidden under the steps of the front porch and was just poking his head out of the wreckage. The building gave a great crushing sound that resembled a thousand toothpicks snapping one by one.

"RUN SUNNY! RUN!" I screamed as I took flight towards him.

Please don't fall on this kid! For once universe, in all your assholish humor, don't kill this kid! My wings beat as hard as they could to try and beat the structure's inevitable date with the ground that Sunny was standing on, frozen in fear. Nothing I managed felt like it was enough, no matter how hard I pushed, I didn't feel like I was flying fast enough to get there in time. I was still weak from the flight back from Tenpony and now, of all times, it was starting to show. My head cleared the sight-line of the falling building, Sunny was just a few meters away from me now. Desperate, I closed my eyes, opened my hooves wide to catch him and dug deep for every last bit of energy I had left in reserve, if there was any left to call on.

"Come on! COME ON!" I screamed and I gave it everything I had left. I felt the colt impact my legs as I wrapped him tight and braced myself to be crushed.

With one last push, I force us both higher into the air. I could feel chunks of wood raining across my back, each one sending a chill up my spine as I waited for the massive hit from something to finish us off for good. Mercifully, the hits thinned out and soon we had both found our way out of the wreckage. I finally opened my eyes to look back at the destruction that Sunny and I had both narrowly avoided when I felt the colt start pounding his hoof on my leg.

"Ta-ta-ta-ta-" Sunny stuttered.

"Huh?" I managed to get out as I turned my head to see what he was trying to get my attention for.

As soon as I saw what was in front of us, it was too late to pull up. Seconds before impact, I turned my body and wrapped my wings around us both, turning my back to the tower that we were now crashing into. The shock from the collision took my breath away, pain shot out from the base of both of my wings, and the two of us fell five meters to the ground below.

I landed on my already hurt back, Sunny was soon to follow, landing in the center of my chest, sending even more pain through my body. The young colt seemed to have survived the crash with little more than a bad case of the shakes, me on the other hoof... Let's just say that it is going to be a long time before I can manage getting airborne again. Any hopes of me and Cal making it to Hoofington in anything short of a month were long gone. I looked to Sunny who was now at my side looking me over.

"Oh no, no, no! Joey! You're ok? Right?"

"Never... better." I somehow managed to say through the pain.

"Oh no! Your wings!"

"I'm fine kid... Are you ok?" I said trough gasps as I tried to get my breath back.

"I-I'm fine! b-b-b-but your wings!"

"They are ok, I'm sure they can be saved."

Oh but they were not ok. Judging by the pain, I don't know if I even have wings left to save. The hit had taken it's toll on my body, leaving me broken and in immense pain. I didn't want to look, if they were broken beyond repair... No! I refuse to think about that! They have to be fixable, there has to be some potion, some spell, something! Oh Luna, what will mo... Ditzy say when she finds out that I just broke my wings, in a town that even she says is too dangerous to go to, right after lecturing me about not being stupid...

As if hitting the mining tower and breaking my wings wasn't enough payback for making a deal with the cosmos to save a kid's life, now I had to deal with the consequences of my actions with a ghoul pegasus that thinks she's my mother... I looked back to Sunny through the pain and my now darkening vision and could see that he was in fact, ok.

"Ok. Fair enough." I said as I closed my eyes and passed out.

"Will he fly again doctor!?"

Sunny's voice felt hollow, echoing off the walls of my brain as I slowly began to regain consciousness. The pain that had sent me on a one way trip to blackout paradise was all but gone, dimmed by something euphoric and numbing that was sending my world spinning. What was this stuff? Med-X? Oh Celestia, don't let it be med-x! I just got off the stuff! Great... I save a colt, crash into the tower of the scary town and now I'm going to hooked on drugs again... I take it back, Ditzy isn't going to be mad at me, she's going to kill me for this one.

"How should I know! I'm just a filly! And stop calling me doctor!" Came the voice of Pop in a far more authoritative tone than I was used to hearing come from the young filly.

"Ok, but will he fly again!?"

"For the last time! Stop asking me that! You know that pegasi are few and far between to start with, let alone medical knowledge about their wings! Just... Go over there, my anesthetic spell won't last long and when he comes too... Let's just say he is not going to be in a friendly mood!"

Goodnight! Did Pop and Wheels changes places while I was out? When did she get so bossy? Ow! What the hell is she pulling on! It feels like she is trying to amputate my wings with a damn shovel! And just like that, the spell wore off and the world of pain and suffering reared it's ugly head, sending me into convulsions. With every twitch and jerk my body did reflexively, the pain would compound and get worse. There wasn't a spot that I could lay on without the pain getting worse, nothing I did seemed to have any effect towards easing my discomfort.

"Joey! You're awake!" Sunny screamed from his spot far to my left.

"Oh calm down you big baby. It's just a broken wing... at least, I think that's all that's broken..." Pop said, shying away from me.

"Oh shit! Oh Luna! Get me on my hooves!" I screamed, hoping that standing would at least do something to ease the pain.

Pop and Sunny both picked a side to my left and right, and with their help, I was able to stand, but my head felt like it was about to explode. Pop reassured me that it would pass with time and that it was a lingering effect of her spell she had cast to help keep me out of pain, but with her being so young, the effects were... Lets just say that it equated to the worst hangover I had ever had. Well... at least it wasn't Med-X.

"Better?" Pop asked politely. I guess when she is working on somepony, she doesn't have time to be the scared, meek filly that she had been earlier.

"So much better!" I said letting out a breath I had been holding.

"Now, I'm no medical pony, but even I can see that wing needs looked at by somepony who know something about pegasi... You best head back to town to see Candy."

"No way, no how! I can't go back there."

"Why not?" Pop said, but her words might as well have hit the dirt in front of me. Not because of my stubborn pride, but because my ears were picking up the words of Caliber on the war path, and they were coming from the collapsed house.

"What did you think would happen!? Are you fucking stupid!?" Caliber screamed. The once seemingly dead town had become alive with the words of hate, anger and idle threats.

"I didn't know! I swear it!" Wheels said, now being backed towards me by Caliber. I have never seen him so mad before, and holy fuck was it scary looking.

"WELL NOW YOU FUCKING DO! YOU COULD HAVE KILLED THE TWO OF THEM!"

"Them? What about me? I was in that house too!" Wheels said, now backing away faster.

"You!? YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN THAT HOUSE! BECAUSE OF YOU MY BEST FRIEND MIGHT NOT FLY AGAIN!"

"I'm telling you! I didn- OOF!" Wheels let out as his rump collided with my chest. The young colt looked up at me with fear in his eyes, shaking with anticipation.

"Ok, I give... What the hell is going on here?" I said between the two of them.

"This little smear of shit decided it would be fun to play a prank on you by bringing a building down on your head, that's what!"

"I just wanted to scare you! I swear it! I didn't know the house would fall in like that!" Wheels said, now backing away from the two of us. Caliber and I followed after him as we all approached the pit by the tower.

"If you were trying to scare me, why not just jump out in front me. Why did you feel the need to bring a house down and nearly kill both me AND Sunny? Isn't there something in the Crusader code that says you can't kill your fellow Crusaders?" I asked in a cold level tone.

"I just wanted to make the house creak! Scare you! Make you both go away and leave us alone!" Wheels said now pacing by the pit.

"But why? We didn't do anything to you. We just wanted to go to sleep for the night." I asked.

"Because he is a little, sawed off asshole who needs validation through being in control! Care to know what his next trick was? Look at his hooves! He poured out a whole container of oil out over by the pit!" Caliber said beside me.

"Caliber, let him finish. Please. Enlighten me..." I said taking a step closer to him.

"All you adults are the same! You come in and take over everything! You ruin everything you touch! You kidnap fillies and colts, sell us into slavery and take our things! If we get in your way, you just shoot us and move on! If we cause you a problem, you just cast us aside like we are trash! None of you can be trusted!" Wheels said, now skirting around the edge of the pit as Cal and I followed.

"I have never done any of those things, neither of us have! I get that your mother was a massive bitch for what she did, but that's no reason to mark all adults as bad."

"HORSE APPLES! You come here and try to undermine me and take these soon to be Crusaders away from me! And now you say you can be trusted!?" Wheels laughed as he now began to close the gap between us.

"I don't want to take anypony for fuck sake! I wanted a safe place to sleep! What do I have to do to prove this to you!?"

"Go away! I thought me scaring you away would work, but you adults never take the hint!"

"How did you get around without my E.F.S. picking you up anyhow?"

"Oh! The little fucker was using these." Caliber said as he kicked a pallet out of the way and lifted a hatch that lead straight down.

"I caught him poking his head up from here. Turns out the damn things are all over the town! They go up and down to the main part of the mine. I went down this one after him, but had to come back up because of the sulfur gas!"

"Air-shafts..." I said aloud. Of course! He could have popped up anywhere he wanted to and dropped back down before I could get a solid read on him with my E.F.S.

"Darn right! Never saw that coming did you! HA!" Wheels belted back to the two of us.

"I'll give you that one. But it was stupid for you to go down there! Who knows what's down there anyhow, the gases alone could kill a pony."

"Oh please. Spare me your lecture! I have done it hundreds of times!" Wheels said as if he knew better than me.

"Look, I can forgive you almost killing me. I can't say anything for Sunny, that's between you and him. But you acting the way you are is going to get the rest of the group killed!" I said in the same tone that Boss had used on me when I did something so stupid that it warranted it.

"Shut up!" Wheels shouted as he stomped at the ground.

The ground beneath his hind legs gave way, sending him splayed out on the ground, grasping for something to hang onto. I tried to run to catch him, but the sudden movement sent pain down my spine, sending me straight to the ground, right in front of him. Using my front legs, I scrambled to get to his hooves as they pawed at the dirt, trying to find anything that would stop his fall. The inches felt like miles as I made my way to his side. I looked back to Caliber who I expected to have passed by me to rush to the young colts aid, but he was just sitting there, looking on at the show. Even the fillies and colts seemed hesitant to rush in to help, instead pretending that nothing was out of the ordinary.

"Caliber! Get your ass over here!"

"Fine... But I'm not forgiving him for what he did." Caliber groaned out.

My hooves found Wheels, but at the slightest movement towards pulling him out of the pit was met with a sharp pain that nearly made me lose my grip on his hoof, and for Wheels to slide a few inches closer towards his death. Caliber reached in to take the young colt's hoof, but hesitated.

"Say you are sorry." Caliber let out, now standing just inches from the stricken colt.

"What!?" Wheels and I both said together.

"I said... SAY YOU ARE FUCKING SORRY YOU LITTLE SHIT!"

"Fine! I'm sorry! I'll never do it again! I'll trust adults! I'll do anything! Just don't let me fall!"

"Grab his fucking hoof Caliber! I can't hold on any longer!" I said, tears of pain now streaming down my face.

Somewhere from below us in the mine shaft came a deep guttural roar, followed by that metallic scraping sound we had all heard earlier. Right as Caliber had taken Wheels's hoof in his to pull him up, a large clawed, wooden arm extended out of the darkness and dug deep into the wall of the pit I was looking down. The roar, the sound of metal scraping, the pile of scat, all passed through my mind and came together to come up to one conclusion.

"TIMBERWOLF!" Caliber screamed as he rushed to grab the flailing hoof of the young colt.

"OH NO! NOT AGAIN!" Pop said behind us.

"Hold on kid!" I said, feeling my grip slip more and more through his oily hooves.

"I can't get a grip on him! He's covered in fucking oil!" Caliber said, trying to use both hooves to find purchase.

"Oh Celestia! I don't want to die!" Wheels screamed as the timberwolf took out a large rock just below the colt's hindhooves.

"It's getting closer Cal! Use your magic!" But my words hung in the air. In that moment the timberwolf's clawed paw reached up out of the pit and came down right on top of the kid. It's middle claw fell right in the center of his back, penetrating straight through him and into the dirt below him. Blood sprayed out of the giant wound that the claw had just made, spraying across my face and forcing Wheels to let out a loud, gargled scream of pain.

"Joey! We have to get out of here!"

"No Cal! Don't let go!"

"P-please! Heelp!" Wheels mumbled out.

"Oh hell!" Caliber yelled out as he wrapped his hooves around Wheels neck.

All at once the weight on my hooves began to grow with every passing second, the timberwolf was starting to pull straight down. A look of complete horror began to come across Wheels's face. The claw began to pull at the center of his body, filling the air with loud pops and cracks as his bones began to break and the sinew began to tear.

"Ah! No! No! No!" Wheels words faded into a scream that was only dampened by the blood that was now forcing its way out of his muzzle. I looked up to where the claw had stabbed him and was horrified by the sight. The skin around the wound was tearing, exposing the muscle that lay beneath. With a great pull, I felt pain shoot out from my back as the kid's weight suddenly went slack, sending the three of us flying backwards. Wheels landed right between Caliber and I.

"Wheels! Oh no..." I heard Pop scream out as she hid her face from what she was seeing.

I pushed through the pain to see how bad the damage to the poor kids back was, but when I looked between Caliber and I, I wasn't prepared to see him like this. The claw had ripped him completely in half, leaving him with only his front legs and half of his stomach. Behind us lay a long bloody trail that started at the edge of the pit and led right to where we lay now.

"P-please... get... Pop somewhere... safe... please?" Wheels whispered out as he lay shaking from blood loss.

"Ok kid... POP! MED-X! NOW!" I shouted over my shoulder. But Pop was frozen in shock.

"For fuck sake's! Hurry!" Caliber screamed, now running up to the shaking filly.

"I-I'm... C-c-cold... Ever... everything hurts..." Wheels said, now shivering so hard that his words came out broken.

"It's ok kid, just... look at me, soon it won't hurt anymore. I promise." I said, taking his hoof in mine.

"Just give me all of them!" Caliber shouted, running to my side with five syringes of Med-X held in his magic.

"You can't! That much will-" Pop was silenced by a stern glare from Caliber.

"Will it... hurt?" Wheels asked as Caliber levitated the needles above him.

"Only for a second..." I tried to say, but my words were being over come by the sobs that I was fighting back.

"Just lie still kid, it will all be over soon." Caliber said and he sunk all five needles in to the shoulder of the colt. Wheels let out a screech of protest that was quickly silenced by the drugs numbing effects. Pop looked on in horror as Caliber depressed the plungers, sending the cocktail of drugs into his system.

"You can't use that much Med-X! You will kill him! It's a very powerful pain reliever!" Pop screamed out to us both.

It wasn't to relieve the pain, it was mercy. Nopony, not anypony on this planet deserves to suffer through this pain, no matter what they did. Pop was too young to understand that sometimes, when a pony's injuries are too severe to save them, you can administer an overdose of Med-X. The drug's effects will numb the pain almost completely if used correctly. But when used in an overdose, it will still kill the pain but it will systematically start shutting down your organs as you slowly slip into a coma.

"It's ok kid. Just lay back and relax." Caliber said, taking his other hoof.

"I-I wa-want my momma..." Wheels said through his tears as he closed his eyes and passed away from us both. I felt his little hoof go limp and slide out of mine, falling to the ground beside me. And just like that, Wheels died. At the edge of the pit, the timber wolf was clawing at the dirt where we had just fell back from, howling.

"Fuck... this..." Caliber said, standing to his hooves. His horn glowed as a large mass of shiny apples that had been taped together appeared out of his bag.

"Caliber, what are you doing!? Get away from there!" But he said nothing, instead, he moved towards the snarling maw of the beast.

"CAL! GET AWAY FROM THERE! ARE YOU INSANE!?" I shouted.

"FUCK THIS! FUCK YOU! YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!" Cal shouted as he pulled every pin in the cluster of grenades and held them in his magic five meters down inside the shaft, right inline with the timberwolf's back.

"BON-APPE-FUCK YOU!" Cal shouted. Just then the world around us erupted, the explosion sending rocks flying in every direction around us. Cal stood firm against the blast, letting the debris fly past him as the concussive force worked it's magic, collapsing the walls of the pit in on itself. All the anger that Cal had towards Wheels had shifted to the timberwolf that was now being buried in the mine shaft. This was a new side of Caliber I had never see before. Pure. Fucking. Rage.

Not anger, not pain. Rage. I had heard that he had a very dangerous self-destructive attitude towards his own life, I had also heard that he had a side to him that was terrifying if you pushed him far enough. If that was a glimpse of what he was like when he was like that then... I'm just happy he is on my side.

The five of us buried Wheels in a shallow grave by the town's well. Pop worked her magic to carve a simple grave marker, ironically, out of the same wood that came from the house he tried to drop on me. The shock of what Caliber and I had just seen up close and personal was still working it's way through our systems as we all made our way out of town. Not because none of us wanted to stay in a town that had a timberwolf living under it, but because the fucking store had burned down.

Turns out that building a fire inside a house is a very bad idea, just like I had said before. No matter how this night would have ended, it would seem that somepony was predestined to suffer a horrific death, either by fire, or by timberwolf. As horrible as it is to say, Wheels's death may have been to worst I had ever seen, but the alternative would have left us all dead by morning had I trusted his logic. Caliber had calmed down from his moment of insanity and was now being his old self again, walking further ahead of the rest of the group with Sashay.

If I had to venture a guess, he was having the 'Oops' talk as I was now calling it with yet another one of his illegitimate children, my only hope being that it would go well. I have no clue what he would say in a situation like this, or anypony for that matter, especially after everything that had happened tonight. Rather than try and listen in on their conversation, we all kept silent as we made our way across the desert towards the cave.

Pop and Sunny were the only ones to break the silence throughout the whole trip, explaining that her parents had been killed while scavenging Silver Sheen, not taken by raiders. She had been with them at the time of the attack, and ever since, buried the fear under her quiet demeanor. Had she came out and said this when we were back in the store, I would have insisted to leave right then and there, but I suspect her loyalty to Wheels kept her quiet. Had she known that we would has forced them to leave, that would have pushed a boundary with Wheels that he was not willing to give up, putting her in the wrong. It was stupid, but for some beyond stupid reason, I understood it.

The cave turned out to be nothing more than a small depression in the mountain's cliff wall. My mind brought up the memory of Zuri and I sharing a cave much like this one in the past, hell, it was even the same mountain, just the other side of it. That thought was now made painful by the fact that I had hurt my wings too badly to flight for quite some time now, and by extension, delayed me making it to White Saddle Shores. No matter how I tried to be mad at the fact that I was now being set back a month or more, I couldn't hold on to the anger. I broke them saving Sunny, for the second time, and if that was the price to be paid, I would do it again.

That night, the three of us huddled by the campfire for warmth, all the while Pop lamenting the loss of all of their provisions in the fire. She had gone back to the store to gather her medical supplies when Caliber and the rest of them found Sunny standing over my unconscious body. Where she had the good sense to gather all of her belongings in fear that they may be needed, everything else the small group had worked so hard to gather had burned.

Sunny was taking everything in stride, retelling Pop the story about how I "swooped down from the sky and saved him from certain death, or worse!" It was cute, but I think what I saw and what Sunny had seen, were two completely different things. Still, I hate to admit that I did swell with pride a bit too much when he retold it. Admiration wasn't something that I was used to, neither was being praised for that matter, but all the same, it felt good for somepony to appreciate me in the way he did.

Caliber and Sashay were still outside talking when everypony else had finally been overcome by tiredness and fallen fast asleep, I on the other hoof was still trying to keep my eyes open. After everything that had happened, I didn't want to take any chances on another attack happening, leaving Caliber alone to deal with any threats that may happen their way. Then again, after what he had done back at the mine, maybe I could afford to try and get a few hours of sleep. Just close my eyes for a moment.

Daylight. The pounding in my head from the night before felt almost too real. I had to wake Pop up in the middle of the night to preform her anesthetic spell, just so I could manage more than a few moments of sleep. But even after the effects wore off and I had slept for I'm sure hours past it's numbing properties, the pounding was still there. I could almost hear it, it was so loud! I cracked my eyes open and the world around me struggled to come into focus, even with every image in my vision blurry, I could still notice that everything would shake in time with the pounding in my head.

Scratch that, I can hear the thumping in my head, I can feel it too, on the outside of my head, no the inside. I squinted hard trying to bring the rest of the world into focus around me. In front of me appeared four hooves, the hide saggy and grey with some of the flesh coming off of the one nearest to me. The smell of rotting meat hit me like a sack of manure to the face. It was Ditzy, the pounding in my head was coming from her clip board smacking into my skull, repeatedly.

"OW! D! What are you- OW!" I tried to say through the constant blows to the head. Through my one open eye I could see that she had written something on her chalkboard. I was having a hard time trying to comprehend what it said while being bludgeoned with it, but I managed to make out the words one by one.

"STOP!"...ow. "BEING!"...ow. "STUPID"...ow.

Satisfied that she had beaten the moron out of me, she dropped the chalkboard and set herself to poking at my wings. Surprisingly, she was being very gentle in contrast to her pounding me in the head. I could feel her hooves undoing the bandages on both of my wings, soon she had a pile of them around her hooves beside me. Was that... blood? Celestia! How bad did I hurt myself this time!?

"Ouch! That has to hurt like hell! I knew they were bad off but... damn!" Caliber said, leaning in for a closer look.

"How... how bad is it?"

"The one wing is broken and the bone is showing. The other might be broken but it's hard to tell?" Caliber said, trying to convey Ditzy's hoofsigns into words.

"Please, just tell me I'm not going to loose them..."

"Nope! You are not going to loose them!" Caliber said gleefully. I looked up to them both.

"Really!?" I said, a glimmer of hope coming across my face. Ditzy just held up her hooves and shrugged. Great...

Ditzy took the next few moments to flip through an old medical text book that was so worn that I could not even make out the cover. The only images that had not been ravaged by time were the ones of a set of wings with a cross in the center of them embossed into it's blue and yellow striped leather. Please be a magical book of pegasi wing repair! I would give anything for a miracle right about now. Both Ditzy and Cal poured over the book for what felt like an eternity before both of them nodding to one another. Ditzy then dropped the book and began writing on her chalkboard.

"Going to hurt. Don't move. Have to set the bones." Was written in white chalk right in front of me.

She then erased it and began writing again.

"Hold him down. This is not going to be pleasant. Give him healing potion fast once done."

I could already feel her hooves cradling my broken wing, the anticipation of what was surely to come sent a shiver through my body as I felt her position herself.

"Hey guys, maybe we should go back to town and let Can-"

With a loud snap, Ditzy twisted my wing back into position. Oh I thought breaking them hurt, this was a whole new cosmos of pain that I was in. It was all I could do to hold in crying at the sharp jolt of pain that made my legs go completely numb and my hearing go fuzzy. Before I could even process what just happened to me, I felt her hooves grasp my other wing, pull it out and shove it back into it's socket. With a loud pop, it fell into place, sending another wave of agony over my body. That did it. I howled in pain and broke in to sobbing tears as I tried my best to not blackout. My stomach lurched and my body clinched as nausea overcame me, forcing to dry heave in response to the agony.

With my eyes still clinched shut and tears streaming down my face, I felt the cool touch of a glass vial touch my lips, I began to drink reflexively doing my best to hold it down. The healing potion worked it's magic almost instantly, dulling the sharp pain to a dull ache that felt more like a bruise than two broken wings. Before I finished the first, I felt a second touch my lips, this one accompanied by the foul odor of rotting flesh. Ditzy and Caliber were both force feeding me healing potions as fast as they both could. Even though the pain had completely left me now, the phantom feeling of having my bones snapped back into place refused to loosen it's grip.

"Joey, are they working?" Cal said over my crying.

"Yes! They worked! Stop giving me potions and just... I need a moment." I said, trying to stem the tide of tears. But it was no use, the trauma of what just happened broke something deep inside of me. I had come close to losing my wings, watched a colt get ripped in half, held him while he died and now underwent something that should have been done with me unconscious, but couldn't be because of my addictive nature. I had earned the right to break down, even if it was just for the moment, I needed this, I needed to let it out. So I did, I balled like a new born foal into my hooves.

I felt the cool embrace of Ditzy around my shoulders as she wrapped her hooves around me, followed by Caliber lifting my head and resting it on his shoulders as he followed suit. If nothing else, at the very least, I know that I have two ponies out there that I can lean on in times like this. Emotions never come easy to me, so when they do, they have a tenancy to overwhelm me.

Once I had pulled myself back together, I took notice that Sashay, Pop and Sunny were gone. Caliber explained to me that they left early this morning for town to get help for me once they saw how much blood I was losing from my right wing. Sunny had been thoughtful enough to pick up my pistol that I didn't even know that I had dropped and return it with Ditzy when she headed out of town. They had decided to forgo the path of being Crusaders and instead taken to the town for a new home, all except Sashay. She had taken it upon herself to join up with some Crusaders just north of Ponyville. Caliber had set himself to gathering our things while Ditzy and I had a... mother-son talk?

"Thank you for coming to my rescue. I would hate to lose my wings... Speaking of... how long unti-" The mere mention of flying was met with a smack upside my head with her chalkboard.

"Ow! Ok, ok! I won't fly anymore." Ditzy glared at me.

"Or go back to the stupid dangerous town." She narrowed her eyes at me.

"Or try and sleep in an old building with a campfire lit in it?" Again her chalkboard rose and fell into my skull repeatedly.

"OK! I WON'T FLY FOR A DAY, BE STUPID OR HURT MYSELF AGAIN! I SWEAR IT! PLEASE STOP HITTING ME MOM!" Did I just say that?

Ditzy froze in her tracks, her board of punishment hovering inches from my snout. She fell back on her haunches and regarded me for a long moment before writing on her board and holding it up for me to see.

"Do you mean it?"

"Mean what?" I asked, rubbing my cheek.

"You think of me as your mom?"

No avoiding this I guess. I mean I have always looked at her as something like a parent, but my mom?

"Yeah. You have always been so nice to me, you even flew out here to fix my wings."

"Yeah... Mothers let their babies get hurt." Ditzy hung her head and stared into the sand.

"They also fix them up when they get hurt." I said fluttering my new healed wings.

"I'm a ghoul Joey. Ghouls are not moms."

"Who was there the day Shale and I came into town after Boss died? Who let me spend the whole night in her bedroom crying while she comforted me? Who was there holding a cake every year when I came into town for my B-day? That was you wasn't it?" I said sitting down beside the tired form of the old ghoul pony who had been there for it all.

Ditzy shown a shadow of a smile and began to write again.

"Can't be my son. You're too stupid."

It took me several moments to process what she had wrote, but when it did, we both fell back laughing. Well, I laughed, she made some strange noise that resembled laughing.

"What are you two carrying on about?" Caliber said from inside the cave.

"Nothin'" I managed through my laughter.

Ditzy packed her things and started off towards New Appleloosa, pausing only briefly to hold up her board with the words "Be safe, son" on it, complemented by a smile. Caliber had finished packing our things and the two of us were making our way down the hillside towards the plains below. I was taking the time out of the air to replenish my fat stores by consuming one of the twenty some odd buck snack cakes Ditzy had given us.

"So, how far to Hoofington?" Caliber asked.

"About 3 days now that we have to walk for another 24 hours." I said through a mouth full of two century old cake.

"Do you think we can stop off in Flank? I have somepony I need to talk to there."

"I just had my wings put back in place and my leg just stopped hurting from the last time we got drunk... I don't think that's a good idea."

"No, no. Not for that. I just need to check on somepony."

"Oh Luna, don't tell me it's an ex-mare of yours..."

"Yeah well... leave it to getting to spend time with one of my kids who I'm not allowed to see and another that wants nothing to do with me to get you to start thinking if there is at least one of them I can have a life with."

"What happened with Sashay?"

"Don't get me wrong, she was thankful that I wanted to be a part of her life, but she seemed to have her heart set on being a Crusader, and Crusaders don't have parents."

"Ok... I guess a night in Flank can't be that bad... What could go wrong anyways." I said as I finished off the cake I had been eating and opened the package of another. Who knows maybe I can get some rest before we head out to Hoofington proper, Flank has always been a quiet town, well until Caliber shows up drunk. Sounds nice.

Author's Notes:

There is always more than what meets the eye... Pay attention.