The Equestrian Wasteland: Unknown Location in the Appleloosan Wastes:

Midnight had to hold back a snarl as he saw the very distinctive form of Riptalon march over the hillside alongside an unknown silvery grayish pegasus. Both of them were caked in blood. Midnight had to hold back a chuckle, served Riptalon right. Nearly getting himself killed from the looks of things. Shame the attackers weren’t successful.

“So, I see you’ve been busy…” Henri deadpanned, looking at the flaming hulk that was once a steam engine. “Encountered a bit of trouble?”

“Well, if you call running into one of Winter Breeze’s secret supporters siccing a whole load of feral ghouls on us trouble, then... Yeah,”

“Still doesn’t explain the train that somepony obviously blew to Kingdom Come,” the unknown pegasus commented with a wry chuckle as Henri gave him a Stimpak to inject into his foreleg. He winced in pain slightly as the drug was injected, but shrugged it off. Not like he’d felt worse as of late.

“I assume you’ve heard about those mysterious kidnappers stealin’ away ponies in the middle of the night over Homage’s personal radio station?” Ingen asked and Iron nodded in understanding as a look of dawning realization came over his face. “Well, ran into one of them- A damned Alicorn at that- and had to blow the whole tender car and engine sky high. Stuck a grenade down the guy’s throat and leaped off the train to watch the fireworks,”

“Some fireworks, we could see the entire damn thing from a mile off probably,” Henri dryly remarked. “Where’s the rest of your troop? Surely Regina wouldn’t be stupid enough just to send just the two of you to Mount Pleasant Island,”

“They got slaughtered by the ghouls, we’re all that’s left...” Midnight explained, trailing off as he shook his head. Henri felt something hit her right then, she couldn’t place what it was. Guilt maybe, for not getting to her troops fast enough, or maybe for not telling them the full relationship between her and Winter Breeze?

“Yeah, well unless you want to try Reino the jobs aren't exactly coming through this area. Fine, one more drink, then I'm cutting you off until you can get more caps.”

“I'll take care of that for her,” a new voice spoke up. “Get the hen her drink and a Sparkle-Cola for me.”

“Coming right up,” the bartender had sighed and went off for another round.

“So what do you want, somepony killed? You don't seem the type to just give things out for charitable reasons.”

"You're Henrietta Firebright right?" Winter asked as she looked at Henri with a scrutinizing eye.

“What's it to you blue?” Henri had snapped.

“My name is Winter Breeze, I'm here representing a group of ponies that are interested in your services,” Winter said as the bartender came back and put the drinks down in front of us. "What do you say to saving Equestria?”

“Don't bother, Gawd tried the same sales pitch on me after she saved me from the Talons awhile back, it didn't work for her, it ain't gonna work for you," Henri replied as she took one long drink. “I'm not one to run off and join some new faction that'll probably fold in a few months anyway.”

“I'm not here to get you to join the New Canterlot Republic," Winter said as she popped the cap on her bottle of Sparkle-Cola and took a long drink. "I'm here to make you a different kind of offer, there's a chance you could be able to help Equestria recover with more than just promises.”

“That's a laugh, I'm just a merc, you don't need me for that kind of job. Last time I tried that kind of thing, it got me a broken heart and a dead sister, no thank you.”

"Do you want to talk about it?" Winter asked. “I talked with Watcher, he told me about Puppysmiles and what you two went through together. And what happened to her at the end of the Big 52, you cared about that filly didn't you?”

“I did, and I'm the one who let her die..." Henri said back then as she gripped her mug in her talon. “That, thing had a grip on her, I should've figured out another way to stop it.”

“Henri, you did your best and you gave her what she needed to be able to pass on,” Winter said. “You did your best and you were there for her when she needed you to be. You were the big sister she needed, sure you may have made mistakes, but you did what you could to help her in the end. Maybe there was another way, but you can't keep beating yourself over what ifs. Puppysmiles wouldn't want you to do that, and she'd want you to help Equestria if given the chance. We're giving you that chance, all you have to do is have a little faith.”

“Alright, I'll come along on your crazy mission, what do you need me to do?”

“First, let’s finish these drinks,” Winter said with a smile as she raised her bottle. “To Puppysmiles."

“To Puppysmiles,” Henri smiled.

Anger filled Henri, she’d gone along with Winter’s bullshit about saving Equestria and look at where it had got her. If she had known the tactics that the Enclave was willing to resort to, like paying off other ponies to release feral ghouls on her men, then that made her about as bad as Winter herself. She supposed that was why she was still beating herself up about Puppysmiles ten years on from her death, as a way of defiance against Winter’s philosophy of a twisted sense of altruism.

“Something wrong Henri?” Riptalon asked, putting a talon on her shoulder. “Us fellow griffons, we gotta stick together you know,”

Both Midnight and Henri scoffed at that.

“Now there’s a laugh, talk about sticking together from the NCR’s most infamous backstabber,” Henri drawled. “Nothing’s wrong, just thinking about what we do now. And what we do now is go back to the carriage and see what we can scavenge up. Now march! Hup, get those hooves and paws in line, time’s not our friend here!”

She then turned to Target, gesturing with a paw to Iron. “And could somebody get that idiot something besides an old Colt? I don’t want any more deaths slowing us up!”

Riptalon sniggered to himself, and everybody looked at him.

“What’s so funny?” Midnight asked, resting his semi-auto shotgun on his shoulder.

“Oh, you won’t need to worry about finding weapons for him, he’ll find them himself, regardless of who they might have belonged to…” Riptalon drawled as the group trodded up to the carriages. “Just ask the remnants of what used to be Old Appleloosa,”

Already, Riptalon was recoiling of the scent of the ghouls, or what was left of them anyways. To be fairly honest, Midnight’s shotgun had chewed them up quite well and left them in pieces. It wasn’t a pretty sight, and when you added in the fact that they smelled like they’d been in the hot sun for several days it was enough to make most ponies -Or any other creature for that matter- toss whatever they’d had for dinner in pure disgust.

Henri crossed herself with a Talon and muttered “Damn you, Winter Breeze, damn you…” as she looked at the sight of what had once been her men. They’d been ripped apart, chewed up and blood and gore splattered the train car. As if some cruel joke was being played on her, there from a Pipbuck played this song…

“Tell the rambler,
The gambler,
The back biter
Tell 'em that Celestia's gonna cut 'em down
Tell 'em that Celestia's gonna cut 'em down
You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later She'll cut you down
Sooner or later She'll cut you down…”

“Been hearing that raspy voice a lot lately… Echo’s songs are sure as Hell popular out here in the plains…” Riptalon muttered largely to himself. Even as the song continued, Iron walked over to the dead stallion bearing the Pipbuck and wrenched it off of his arm before attaching it to his own.

Nearby, as Iron searched the cars along with Riptalon and Target, Henri muttered “Bet that back-biter in the song right now would be Winter Breeze…” to herself quietly. She noted Riptalon kept an eye on his friend, with Target keeping an eye on Riptalon.

Then Iron eyed a weapon. It was mainly a standard NCR soldier issued weapon, but that wasn’t going to stop the former Enclave soldier. One, he knew a good weapon when he saw it and two, it wasn’t like its former user was around to argue with him. It was a bullpup style rifle, gas-operated and magazine fed. As if to add to the deadly accuracy, it had been equipped with a small scope perfect for peering through. And perfect for shooting somebody in the head.

However, the styling design of the weapon was far from standard issue. Half of it was dark oaken wood, with gold detailing giving it an almost steampunk style aesthetic.

“You know ponies are going to give you crap about doing that,” Riptalon remarked as Iron hoisted the rifle over his shoulder. “You don’t see many weapons like that, it’s standard issue sure… But the customization will scream that you got it from someplace or somebody special,”

“So? It’s not like he’s going to quibble back and forth with me for nicking his gun,” Iron drawled in a remarkably cold tone of voice, looking towards the dead stallion he’d looted it from.

“Yeah, but still…” Riptalon trailed off. “If it was from a long dead skeleton, and the weapon itself horrendously out of date like Midnight’s, (He ignored the “Hey!” from the stallion in question) things might be different but an NCR trooper’s gun, one recently dead at that, -and ponies will be able to tell thanks to the dried blood- is another story entirely.” the griffon tried to argue but as ever Iron was quick to refute.

“So you’ve gained a sense of morality, what a shock,” Iron deadpanned. “Fine time to gain it. So what if somebody wants to raise a fuss and bitch about me stealing a dead stallion’s weapon. They’ll have to bitch with you as well,”

He then tossed a shotgun to the griffon, one almost pure black with red detailing complementing Riptalon’s feathers perfectly. It was the kind of shotgun that fired 8-gauge magnum shells and had been designed to reduce recoil as much as possible. Like Iron’s “Borrowed” rifle, it was standard issue for the most part but modified. Inscribed on the weapon itself was the words “Dura lex. Sed lex.” meaning “Hard Law, but the Law.” in Latin.

Riptalon sighed to himself as he inspected the weapon. Why’d he even bother arguing with Iron or whatever his real name was at some points? That stallion was as stubborn as Hell. It was a good weapon at least, -that much he could tell from design alone- not that he’d ever let Iron have the smug satisfaction of knowing that. He’d never hear the end of it.

“Well, guess I am now really carrying a big iron on my hip so to speak,” Riptalon muttered to himself, remembering the song that had played during the coyote pack showdown back in that warehouse in Old Appleloosa. He then turned to Henri.

“So, what do we do now, dear leader?” he asked with a sarcastic tone in his voice as he bowed to her, in an equally mocking manner.

“You, for one, just shut up. Don’t need to hear your yap. You’re coming along only for the extra firepower and that’s that,” Henri sneered before she murmured softly. “That extra firepower, which is obvious we need now more than ever,”

She then steeled herself. She couldn’t let her emotions show. She was the commander, and that was that. She didn’t have time for little things like emotions or feelings. They always failed you in the end anyhow… “Now, our next course of action is get moving. Obviously, before anyone with a low brain cell count decides to speak up, we’re not walking across the desert. Especially at night, with coyotes, radscorpions, Yao Gaui and who knows what else about prowling the desert. So if anybody has any suggestions, speak up now,”

“Could find another train to hook up to these carriages and continue on to Mount Pleasant Island as we were,” Target suggested, her sniper rifle now reclaimed. It was equipped with a night vision scope, as per Target’s specifications with all of her rifles and the rounds were specially made for max piercing potential. Again, Target’s idea. “Like you said boss, with all of the creatures roaming the desert walking to our destination, at least the whole way, is obviously out of the question. I say we double back, and find a trainyard and see if there’s any steam engines still working there. Hell, we’ll feed them coal ourselves if we have to,”

“I did see a depot not too far back, we could easily make it there without attracting much attention,” Iron commented. “...If we’re not all complete clots and are careful about things,”

“Yeah, that’ll be hard for some of us…” Riptalon sniped at him.

“Pot calling kettle black, or have you forgotten attracting the attention of a whole band of raiders you bloody rooster?” Iron retorted.

Target leaned over and muttered to Henri “Fifty caps I say they end up dating at some point…” in a low tone.

Henri snorted. “I’m not taking that, that’s a sucker’s bet and you know it!”

“Worth a shot.”

“Any other suggestions?” Henri then asked the group. No one had anything better to offer. “Okay then, stupid as this plan is, we’ll take our new friend here’s suggestion and find this train depot,”

Henri then laughed in embarrassment, realizing she’d never asked Riptalon about his new friend’s/possible lover’s name. “Er… Who are you again?” she asked, turning to You-Know-Who.

“Name’s Iron Skies. ...Well, that’s the name I picked out for myself for the time being. Not like a guy centuries dead is going to argue with me borrowing his moniker.” Iron replied. Midnight stared at him, quirking his head sideways in confusion.

Riptalon leaned over and muttered “He’s an amnesiac, or so he claims…Take that as you will.”

“Lovely…” Midnight muttered to himself. “It sorta figures you’d wind up with somepony who’s not right in the head…”

“WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?” Riptalon snapped and was only greeted with loud, raucous laughter at his outburst. “Some load of friends you are…” he muttered to himself.

“...Who said we were ever friends?” Henri asked wryly. Riptalon sighed and facepawed as the laughter increased, with Iron joining in this time. He supposed he set himself up for that one…

Eventually, as the night wore on getting close to midnight by Henri’s calculations, the troop found an old abandoned train depot, just as Iron had promised. It was near a mine, with old coal cars sitting on a side track laying long abandoned and gathering dust. A windmill, with some blades missing from its structure spun softly in the late night air. Various other buildings dotted the trainyard, and any one of them could hide a nasty surprise.

“Fan out, make sure we’re not about to get ambushed here, that’s the last thing we need,” Henri barked out, before gesturing to Target. “You, get up high with that rifle of yours and set up a vantage point. Going to need a good eye in the darkness to see things we can’t.”

“Right,” Target said before running off towards a building, where she found some old metal stairs leading up to the roof. Near those stairs was a very familiar Stetson hat. “Huh... “ Target muttered as she put it back on her head. “There’s a lucky surprise for you…”

However, what she didn’t see was a black-hatted figure wearing a long black tattered duster vanish into the shadows. If she had, she might not have chalked it up to luck after all. At least, not the good kind…

Elsewhere, Riptalon had wandered into another building along with Iron, flashlights strapped to their guns with duct tape. They searched the building but found no threats. Well, nothing that would be considered a threat aside from the odd Radroach which quickly skittered away into the darkness as soon as it saw them.

“Huh, look at this…” Iron muttered as he stumbled upon, quite literally in fact, on another Audio Log. With a shrug of what could only be approximated of “Oh, what the Hell?” he set the needle to the vinyl record and let it play.

“Braeburn’s Log: Day… Oh, Ah don’t know when. Lost track a long time ago. Celestia and Luna above… Shipping coal out to fuel the war effort for the ironclad trains that house the big guns. It’s an important job, Ah know, but ya sometimes wonder if something remotely interestin’ would happen round these parts,” a male voice with a southern accent pondered. “It’s flat-out dull, simple as that. Nothing for company right now ‘cept the rats, and they’re not much of a talkin’ type. Honestly, at this point, Ah don’t know which way the war’s gonna go with each side gettin’ bigger and better weapons ever since the massacre at Littlehorn, and if Ah live long enough to find out… Ah’m not sure Ah want ta see the results…”

With that, the log ended.

“He doesn’t know how right he was…” Riptalon muttered. “I don’t know what Equestria was like before the war, but anything’s probably better than this nightmare. Sure, they say everything’s getting better but when you have the Enclave back after ten years of peace without them, you start to question if sometimes you should just go to sleep and not wake up at all…”

“Was it really that bad?” Iron asked. Riptalon chuckled at the stallion’s naivete.

“Kid, read a history book sometime… Hell, read Littlepip’s accounts of her adventure. Might learn a thing or two… First things first though, we gotta live through this suicide mission Regina’s put us on… Mount Pleasant Island,” Riptalon muttered with a dark chuckle. “Now there’s an ironic name for you…”

“Let me guess, death awaits as soon as we step foot on that island?” Iron deadpanned.

“Yep, it’s a lost cove on the side of Northern Equestria. Used to be a small fishing village before the war if I remember correctly,” Riptalon began to explain. “Almost constantly surrounded by fog and filled to the brim with the most horrifying creatures imaginable. Mirelurks, basically your bastardized mutated variation of some sort of crab. Then there’s the Anglers, Fog Crawlers, wolves and who knows the Hell what else,” Riptalon remarked with a noticeable shudder, as he listed the creatures off one by one with his talons. “Only one way onto that place, a small bridge that we’ll be taking. ‘’Course, that means there’s only one way out as well,”

“Lovely…” Iron remarked flatly as he sat down on an old workbench, propping his gun up against a crate nearby. “Anybody ever been there before besides us, any information we know about this place from them?

“Aside from what I just told you, not much…” Riptalon said before a thought came to him. “Well, okay, there was this one Enclave Soldier, Lieutenant Bright Feather I think her name was that got sent out, presumably by her bosses up top to investigate what the Hell was going on over there. This was before Winter Breeze you must understand, back during when war between the original version of the Enclave and the scattered pre-NCR forces was waging full force. To be honest, nobody ever really knows what happened to her…”

“And so that’s where we’re going? To a place where an Enclave Lieutenant was sent and she might not have made it out?” Iron gaped. “...I must be completely bloody mental for even considering agreeing to stick with you,”

“Yep, like I’ve been constantly yammering on about to Henri, absolute suicide mission,”

“Guess you’ll need me along to pull your fat arse out of the frier when you do something stupid… And you will, given what I’ve seen,” Iron commented. Riptalon was about to just shoot him dead right then and there with his new “gifted” shotgun when Iron pried open a wooden supply crate marked “Ubisoft” and produced a collection of whiskey bottles. He then tossed one to Riptalon with a gleeful smile as he began drinking down another.

“...You do realize that these things have probably been gathering dust ever since before the bombs fell right?” Riptalon asked with a raised eyebrow. “That’s 200 years worth of dust!”

“So, that just means they’ve aged well. Plus, like you said… Suicide mission. One last drink before we probably die under our own forcibly signed death warrants right?” Iron asked and Riptalon shrugged.

He then grumbled out “Fair point,” before popping the cap off of the bottle and drinking it down as well.

“Huh, not bad,” the griffon muttered to himself. “Good shit, put your feathers on your chest that’s for sure…”

“Hey, you two done making out in there?” Henri’s voice called and both Iron and Riptalon tried to sputter out a response about how they weren’t making out, but eventually gave up. “Midnight finally found us a working train! Took her long enough, but she did.”

Iron grabbed a few more bottles of whiskey and put them in one of his saddlebags. When Riptalon gave him a look, he could only respond “Something for the road… Or rails as the case may be.”

Riptalon found himself facepawing again as they walked back out into the yard where sure enough Midnight was slowly lurching an old steam engine forwards onto the turntable. It was a massive thing, charcoal black mostly, but with a silver boiler with a cowcatcher on the front in a 2-8-2 wheel configuration, meaning eight powered and coupled wheels on four axles. On the front of the boiler, just below the headlight was a painted number 45.

The wheels ground to a halt with a hiss of steam and Riptalon groaned as the turntable slowly reverse the engine and tender car into a reverse direction so that it could later be coupled up to the carriage cars they’d left behind.

“You gotta be kidding me…” Riptalon sighed. “This old relic? This thing’s going to break down on us on the first possible moment, plus considering we’ll probably be meeting up with the Enclave as soon as we even get near Mount Pleasant, we sure as Hell won’t be outrunning them in their Vertibucks particularly fast. We’re just one big target!” he yelled.

“Any port in a storm…” Henri trailed off before gesturing to Iron. “Besides, this was your friend’s idea. Blame him if you’re going to blame anybody.”

“Oh, believe me… I am!” Riptalon snapped.

Henri sighed to herself and shook her head as she saw what was poking out of Iron’s saddlebags.

“Please tell me that’s not whiskey…”

“It is…” Riptalon said flatly, as one of the said whiskey bottles was being drunk by Iron himself at this very moment. Henri facepawed.

“Great… Just what we need, another Blackjack wannabe… First possible chance, I’m taking those away from him.” She muttered to herself.

Eventually, everybody was rounded up and with the steam engine turned the right way round, the train began the long journey back to the carriage cars. It wasn’t long before the so-called “Iron Horse” reached the cars, and was hitched up.

“Just one last thing…” Henri said as the train’s wheels began to turn once more and Target blew the steam whistle as smoke started to rise high into the sky as the now complete train began to leave the Old West behind, destination: Mount Pleasant Island. “Try not to blow this one up okay?”

Author's Notes:

Amazing, I've actually managed to write a chapter where nothing's been killed, or no shooting of any kind happens! (Well, aside from the verbal sniping anyways.) Once again, I have to thank RuinQueen for letting me use the entire conversation between Henri and Winter Breeze from chapter 20 (I swear, one of these days, I'm going to create my own dialogue from Winter, one of these days...) of Survivor's Guilt. Anyways, truly sorry if I went a little bit overboard on the gun descriptions for Riptalon and Iron's new toys. Apologies for that. To be honest, I based them off of these guns from the Halo Series.

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Lawgiver_(weapon)

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/M395_Designated_Marksman_Rifle
(With the Monocle skin)

For extra points, I at one point thought about naming Iron's new weapon "Vox Populi", but I decided against it as I need a good in-universe explanation as to why it would be named that. And before you ask... Yes, I did put in God's Gonna Cut You Down. (Or should that be Gawd's Gonna Cut You Down?) ...Like that song wasn't going to show up eventually at some point, right?