Crumbling buildings laid all around us, silent graves for untold thousands. We’d long since left the old bar we’d used for a temporary safe haven, pushing onwards deeper into Vanhoover as the buildings around us got increasingly larger as well as more densely packed together. Much like in Manehatten, many streets were blocked off with the rubble of collapsed buildings and ruined vehicles. More than once we had to make slight detours in order to get around then worst of it, but we were making slow progress through the shattered city.

And so far, not since we’d left our friends in the park behind, we had yet to encounter anything major that wanted to see us dead. My E.F.S. would pick up the usual vermin and mongrel dogs picking through the remains of Vanhoover for food, but most seemed eager to avoid us. Those desperate enough to make a go at the heavily armed group of five, well… Their desperation did little to help save them from bullets or Moon Blossom’s combat knife.

The pegasus had stopped to collect some meat from one such dog. Aside from her, none of us were particularly keen on trying that stuff. Not while we still had some food that was friendlier to our herbivore-inclined stomachs. Still, a bit of meat wouldn’t do Altrix any harm at least.

I was just glad I still had some canned apples to munch on.

By the time midday came and went, we were getting close to the city centre. There were a multitude of still legible signs pointing us towards it, and even a few for the local Ministry of Arcane Sciences hub as well.

But seeing as this city had been blown to hell, of course yet another collapse would mar the way.

“Yeah, we’re not getting through that,” Moon Blossom remarked as she looked at the remains of the top of a collapsed skyscraper. The rest of it was still standing, but it was like the top was knocked right off in one of the balefire blasts. “I mean, I could. But you lot are kinda screwed.”

“As you always love to point out,” Xena deadpanned, looking up to another still standing skyscraper to our left. “Look up there. That building has a walkway connecting it to another skyscraper beyond the wreckage. That is out way through.”

“It beats backtracking several blocks,” Cobalt concurred. “Hmm, looks like an old apartment building. I’d guess the one its connected to is as well, certainly owned by the same pre-war company.”

“Well, I think they have plenty of vacancies,” I remarked, heading up towards the door while drawing my pistol just in case it wasn’t as empty as we thought. “It’s… what? Five floors up?”

“Seems about right,” Cobalt confirmed. “Should be a stairwell upwards.”

We trotted a couple steps up to the main entrance, stepping through a shattered glass door and into the reception area. The first room was a complete mess, despite looking like it’d be ornately decorated. Several decorative pillars had collapsed in on themselves, several parts of the ceiling had caved in and revealed frayed wiring inside and old pots that once contained plants were now empty jars of dirt.

I walked over to the reception desk, which was covered in dust and grime from two hundred years of neglect. A skeletal pony sat in a chair on the other side, slumped over a desk and a picture frame. I dared not look at it, I’d rather not know which family members the poor pony had been wishing they were with when they died.

Rounding the desk and moving behind the deceased receptionist, I had a quick glance over for anything useful. There wasn’t too much to be seen, however; the terminal was busted, and the only other thing of note was a couple of old pens and a shattered vase.

I let it all be, leaving the desk behind and heading with the others towards the closest stairwell. Heading inside and walking up the first flight of stairs showed it all to be in slightly better condition than the reception area, but it was still covered in the usual grime that covered pretty much all pre-war structures in the apocalypse. Still, it was safe enough for us to climb up five floors without any issues. There weren’t even any pings on my Eyes Forward Sparkle to worry about.

We emerged from the staircase into a long corridor that was lined with numbered apartments all the way through. The corridor’s oak panelling was all cracked and crumbling, and the carpet that used to line the floors was mostly chewed up by whatever bugs had crawled through here in the past two centuries. We took a small turn a short ways from the stairway and delved deeper into the building, trying to find out way past all the old pre-war homes and to that bridge we’d seen to the building across the way.

Most of the apartments were shut up tight and probably hadn’t been picked over that much. I could imagine a lot of salvage still existed in this place, but we hardly had the time to go shopping for parts. Some of the doors were open, however, though I wasn’t sure which ones had simply been left open when their occupants had tried to flee the end of the world or by ponies passing through the looting what was left.

Another turn, and a step over some old empty suitcases, brought us to the edge of the building. The very outer corridor was lined with windows that overlooked the shattered street below, and otherwise only seemed to hold some doors facing inwards for some supply closets or other such places.

But slap bang in the middle of it all was the access to the bridge we needed.

We trotted over and wasted no time in beginning our crossing. Stepping into the bridge proved it to be mostly intact, the floor and roof seemed sturdy enough. Though most of the windows either side had been smashed long ago. Looking out to our right revealed the huge rubble pile that had blocked our way, though when I glanced out left, I saw a relatively clear street that held nothing but a couple of rusted car frames and overturned mailboxes.

There was also a camping stool set up by one of the smashed windows looking out over the clear street, an ammo box sitting idly next to it with a sniper rifle resting against the wall between two smashed window panes.

Xena took interest in the sniper rifle, trotting over to it and looking the weapon over.

“Hmm, rusted. I doubt it would fire,” she noted, tossing the inoperable weapon aside before turning to the ammo box. “But I won’t say no to the ammo.”

“Guess somepony made this their little sniper nest,” Moon Blossom noted. “It probably didn’t end well.”

I didn’t see a skeleton, but it was odd they’d leave all of this here.

Though that red bar that was suddenly on my E.F.S. was a lot more interesting!

I instinctively ducked at the whooshing sound and hit the deck as something flew right over my head and exploded behind us.

“Lucky basted!” a male voice cackled, and I looked up to see a very raider-ish looking pony reload the missile launcher they had on their battle saddle.

“Dibs!” Moon Blossom shouted as she struck forward with a boost from her wings with her knife aimed at his neck.

We all bolted after her, and the raider gave a strangled gurgle as Moon Blossom hit her mark. And yet my heart nearly stopped as another missile was let loose and again barely missed us! It did, however, hit the dead centre of the bridge, and in a fiery explosion and the crumbling sound of a concrete cascade did the entire thing collapsed behind us!

“I guess we’re not going back that way!” I shouted, watching as more bars appeared all around us. “There’s a lot more where he came from!”

“We need to get out of here,” Cobalt stated.

“Find the closest stairwell, go!”

We hurried down the next corridor as the raiders quickly rushed over towards the commotion if my HUD was anything to go by. When we reached the closest set of stairs the door burst open just before we arrived as a raider came on through, but he didn’t get much chance to do anything as I fired two shots from my pistol and dropped the pony. We all galloped down the steps as quickly as we could, though had to back up a little as gunfire came up from the bottom floor.

Sparks pinged off the final stairs ahead as well as the wall as the raiders fired up in some attempt to hit us. Judging from the rate of the gunfire, there had to be three of four of them waiting for us.

“We’re pinned, alright…” I looked towards Cobalt. “Think you can give us a shield long enough to charge through them?”

“I can get us close,” he confirmed.

“Then we kick them to death!” Moon Blossom enthusiastically remarked. “Let’s go, Boss!”

“Altrix, you can help,” Cobalt said to the changeling. “I make the construct, but you can stream some of your magic into it. It’ll help me maintain the shield under the gunfire.”

“A-alright. I can do that,” she agreed, lighting her horn with a green aura.

“Want my help?” I asked him, gesturing towards my own horn.

“Just focus on the raiders. We’ll handle this part.”

“We’re right behind you,” Xena said to them with a nod.

Well, it’s a good a plan as any. “Alright, let’s go!”

Cobalt lit his horn and constructed a shield ahead of us. When Altrix’s horn brightened further, the shield took on a weird pulsating mix of blue and green as their magics intermingled. When the shield was sufficiently charged, he gave us a nod and immediately began to move back down the stairs. We followed behind him, and I swapped my pistol out for my larger assault rifle as we turned the corner and bullets began to pepper the barrier. The gunfire caused both Cobalt and Altrix to flinch, but it held as we ran down the final few steps and charged right into the group!

Our impromptu battering ram worked, and we crashed right through the group and into the hallway beyond.

Of course, there were several more raiders out there that all turned towards us as soon as we arrived in our suitably dramatic fashion. They all brought up their cobbled together pipe weaponry and unleased into the shield, the constant onslaught visibly causing more strain on our two casters as the shield’s strength weakened.

Too bad they’d all made the mistake of unloading each of their clips into it at once.

The moment there was a lull in the gunfire, Cobalt took the opportunity to let the shield drop and let us do our work. I turned to face the raiders down the left of the corridor, hopping quickly into S.A.T.S. and targeting a burst into as many as I could. I engaged the spell, and my rifle came up and let loose into each raider in quick succession.

One unicorn raider was left standing and uninjured and, while I’d been busy, he’d finished reloading a small revolver and quickly raised it and fired a panicked shot.

I heard a shout from behind me, and I instantly aimed towards the raider and finished the rest of my clip off. With the last raider on my end finished off, I turned back to the others to see what the hell was going on. The raiders at the other side of the corridor were retreating back down that way, firing the odd shot as Cobalt raised smaller barriers to stop their passage. Several of their buddies were scatted dead along the floor, probably killed by Xena’s sniper rifle. The raiders we’d stumbled over in our charge had been finished off by Moon Blossom, but now she…

Oh fuck.

Moon Blossom was on the ground, Altrix at her side with a look of panic on her face as she cradled a limp but lightly groaning Moon Blossom. Where her left ear used to be was now a large gash across her head where the raider’s bullet had made its mark.

“Keep an eye out!” I shouted at Cobalt and Xena as I rushed over to the others and crouched down beside my hurt friend. Fuck, that was a lot of blood pouring down the side of her face!

And that was an even bigger hole. Was… was that her skull!?

“This is bad!” Altrix whimpered, taking hold of one of her medical boxes and flinging it open. “Her ear is severed, and the bullet took away a lot of flesh and even grazed her skull. A healing potion won’t heal this level of trauma.”

“What do you mean? It’d heal her flesh!”

“And leave a dent in her head where the bullet trailed along, that risks brain damage,” Altrix said, levitating out a strange bottle with several tubes sticking out of it. “Not to mention her ear. I was hoping not to use this, given the inherent risk and our limited supply. But I have no choice.”

Altrix took one of the tubes and injected it into Moon Blossom. The contents began to funnel from the bottle and into the pegasus, and… What. Just… what. I could hardly contain my disbelief as right there, before my eyes, Moon Blossom’s skull and flesh began to form back into place before an entirely new ear began to grow from the side of her head! It was like Altrix had just reversed time or something!

“Ugh…” Moon Blossom groaned as she began to regain consciousness. “Shit. No fair…”

“How…?” I looked at Altrix for some kind of explanation. Did we have this stuff the whole time?

“Hyrda,” she explained. “We had a small stock in the stable, that was one of two bottles I have. It was rare before the end of the war, I doubt we’ll find more anytime soon.”

“But… what is it?”

“Pretty much a hyper healing potion,” Cobalt spoke up. “Very few exist nowadays, though it’s not impossible to produce if you happen to have a hydra on hoof.”

A hydra… It’s made from something from an actual hydra…?

I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know the process of that.

“But it also comes with certain risks,” Altrix added. “Moon Blossom?”

“Uh, yeah…?” she replied as she slowly sat up, experimentally twitching her new ear. Which was pretty weird, seeing as her old one was still on the floor.

“I want you to come with me if you feel any major discomfort around the injected area. And especially if you feel any unusual lumps, hydra use comes with a risk of tumour growth due to accelerated cell reproduction rates.”

“Oh, great…” she murmured. “But, uh… Thanks, Doc. That was a bit close.”

She blushed. “I… had to help. But please be careful, I only have one more of those.”

“I’m still seeing some red bars,” I told the others, breathing a sigh of relief as to Moon Blossom’s practically miracle recovery and standing up. “Let’s go before the few who got away return with more bloodthirsty psychopaths waiting to defile our corpses.”

“No arguments from me,” Cobalt said, looking quite exhausted. “I’m not doing another shield like that for a while.”

We helped Moon Blossom get back to her hooves, though she was quickly insisting that she was fine and ready to kick the ass of whatever raider next crossed our path. And she… actually looked it. Aside from some drying blood clinging to her mane, she looked as if she never been wounded at all.

We moved back through the corridor, and I made sure to warily watch my E.F.S. the whole time. There were still plenty more around, but even if we could probably take out yet another group of poorly equipped raiders, I was not keen on doing so after the near miss we’d just had.

We moved past the corridor and into some kind of lounge area filled with tables and chairs. The room had several windows to the outside, but for once all of them seemed to be relatively intact.

Time to change that.

I levitated up the nearest chair and propelled it into one of the windows. It smashed outwards instantly, and with the new hole we were able to hop out of the room and into the street beyond.

“Well, we’re on the other side,” Cobalt stated, glancing towards the rubble pile that had been blocking our way. “No more shortcuts, please.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Tell that to the city, Cobalt.”

“You know what? Fuck this city.”

“We have barely begun,” Xena pointed out. “Come, we are close to the centre.”

After leaving the apartment building, we had proceeded down another few blocks towards the centre. We had no more trouble from the raiders we’d encountered, or any other trouble of any kind thankfully. It wasn’t a complete straight shot, as to Cobalt’s indignation we ended up facing yet another blockage shortly after the last. This time it was a collapsed overpassed that stopped us in our tracks.

Fortunately, a side street through a couple of buildings put as back on track and allowed us to continue.

It also led us to something else…

“Crossroads ahead,” I read aloud the makeshift wooden sign that had been placed in the middle of the street. “What the hell is that?”

“It might be a local town,” Cobalt suggested. “Look, there’s another sign just up ahead.”

We moved past the first sign and trotted up to the second. It was set up much like the first, though this time had an arrow pointing us down another side street.

“Traders welcome. Raiders fuck off,” I recited. “Well, seems that way to me. We wanting to stop there?”

“I think a bed to sleep on tonight would not go amiss,” Xena said. “And some trade will not hurt.”

I guess it wouldn’t. It’d also be a good time to do up our barding and weaponry, they’d been through the mill since the last time they’d been patched up.

“What would we buy? We’re good for ammunition, healing supplies and food,” Cobalt stated. “And it would mean staying in this city.”

“They could have more hydra?” Moon Blossom suggested.

“I doubt they’d part with it if they do.”

“Come on, Cobalt. A top off could never hurt, they might even have some goodies you’d find interesting,” I said to the stallion. “And your combat armour still has a few dents in it.”

“I see your point,” he responded, glancing down at the damage from that griffon’s minigun back at Buckingham. “Yes, I suppose it could use a bit of repair work. Alright, fine.”

“Any more objections to going to this place?” I asked around, and I got none. “Alright, to Crossroads it is.”

We diverted form our original course and headed off down the side street the arrow pointed to. The road led us out onto another large street that, on looking down it, seemed to lead to a large four-way intersection. A large tramline sat idly over our heads, and there were signs for the local station just up ahead and past the intersection.

But there on the intersection, nestled protectively between several buildings, looked to be some kind of community surrounded by a scrap wall. Another sign for Crossroads lay a little ways in front of it, an arrow pointing directly to the settlement. Ahead of us was also a large gate in the wall in front of which sat a wooden guard post with a pony standing at it. Glancing up at the buildings either side, I also saw wooden platforms built out of blown out windows into makeshift sniper towers. Several automated turrets were also dotted around, probably cobbled together from scavenged security systems in and around the city.

Fortunately, all their bars on my E.F.S. remained green for the time being.

“Well, I think we found it,” I idly remarked as all the guards around the place saw us arrive. They all turned, weapons raised but their bars still green.

I couldn’t really blame them for being cautious.

“Weapons holstered,” I told the others. “Let’s head up, nice and slow.”

We started to move up towards the gate, trying to act as nonthreatening as we could. The snipers seemed to relax a little when they saw we weren’t here to start a fight, at least as far as they were aware. But the gate guard seemed to remain on alert as we walked all the way up to his post.

“Hold it there,” he said, and we did as we were told. He was a unicorn, a hunting rifle held in his aura with his hide being protected by leather barding that looked a little lighter than my own. “What’s your business in Crossroads? You don’t seem to have a brahmin caravan with ya.”

“Just passing through,” I said to the guard. “And maybe hoping for a bed for the night. You do have an inn, right?”

“Aye, ol’ Rosie will see you if that’s what you require,” he remarked, looking over us one by one. “Whew, you all look like you’ve been through the wringer.”

“We ran into some raiders back a ways. Decent sized group.”

“In some old apartment buildings?” Oh, so he was aware of them. “You take them out?”

“A good few,” Cobalt answered.

He lowered his gun. “Well, that’s good to hear. A dent in their numbers means less of our traders get hit in and out of the city. Bad folk, those raiders.”

He hummed, his eyes resting on Xena. That got me to narrow my eyes a little, I was all too aware of certain prejudices around Equestria.

“The zebra with you?” he asked, and I felt my coat bristle as my teeth gritted. Xena didn’t seem overly bothered though, but I was!

“Yes. She’s ‘with’ me,” I said warningly back to the pony.

“Now now, no need to get all riled. Just a group of zebra moved into Vanhoover recently and been tangling with the Steel Rangers,” he explained. “So long as ya’ll cause no trouble you’ll see none from me.”

"I'm surprised you're not bothered about the changeling," Moon Blossom joked, ignoring the glare from Xena as a result.

"Changeling, huh? Well, that’s not my concern," the guard dismissed with only a quick glance at Altrix. "Besides, she ain't the only weird unicorn thing in town. You should talk to the sheriff."

I frowned. "What's with the sheriff?"

"He's a kirin, that's what."

A what?

“Kirin?” Cobalt reacted in surprise. “I… didn’t know they still existed.”

Trust Cobalt to know about the elusive race the rest of us appeared to be drawing blanks on.

“I heard about them, I think,” Moon Blossom said, and I guess I stand corrected. “We hit a… uh, what I mean to say is that we met some nice caravan ponies a while back who spoke about kirin like they were mythical beasts that would deliver them salvation. Half-dragon and half pony or something.”

“Yes, to the latter at least. A big no to the former,” Cobalt replied. “I don’t know much, just that they were a species from before the war. No idea what was with them beyond that, aside from the fact that they’re not around anymore.”

I suppose some ponies just like to worship what they can’t see. Like those nuts who worship radiation you occasionally run into.

“Well, this one is,” the guard pointed out. “I never asked him about any of that business, but that’s where you go if you wanna ask questions. Just don’t blame me if you manage to piss him off.”

“Pissing off the sheriff, because that’s what we want to do…” I deadpanned. “So, we can go in?”

“Just keep your weapons holstered and your manners friendly. Then yeah, knock yourselves out.”

I gave the guard a nod, then shared a glance with my friends before we walked around the guard post and headed on inside the gate. The first thing I noted when inside was that the whole intersection was actually a roundabout, and right in the centre was a statue of three soldiers in various poses. The entire town circled around that statue, and the circular patch of dead grass it was bordered by held several stands that had ponies behind them. The local shops I would imagine. The buildings all lined the outer wall, circling around the roundabout all with their front entrances facing it. The cracked road between the scrap metal buildings and the central market was littered with ponies going about their days, intermingling among metal bins containing warming fires.

To the right of the gate was a building with a sign that marked it as the inn, the ‘Three Soldiers Inn’ to be precise. To the left was a hollow structure that had a couple of brahmin feeding and idling about. I wasn’t sure what the rest of the buildings were, but several of them were probably used as simple housing for the residents. At the other end of town, however, I could see a building flanked by a few more turrets that was marked as the sheriffs office. I guess this kirin guy would be found in there.

Actually, on thinking about it… Yeah, if anyone was going to know the ins and outs of the local area it would probably be the sheriff. Perhaps we would be paying him a visit after all…

But if I was going to be completely honest, at that moment it was just nice to be back in a friendly town again. It may be far from civilised, but at least these parts of Equestria had more than slavers and raiders in it.

“So, game plan?” Moon Blossom asked.

Hm, there was a couple things to do… “Moon Blossom, take Altrix and give the place a scout. Check prices at the inn, what’s for sale, all that stuff. The rest of us will pay the sheriff a visit, and we'll all meet at the inn’s entrance when we're done.”

“And then we can frequent the bar inside!” Moon Blossom declared, before nodding for Altrix to follow her. “Come on, let’s check out the beds first.”

As they diverted towards the inn, the rest of us started to walk through town towards the sheriff’s office. As we passed by the various ponies of the town, I made sure to get a glancing look at the stalls around the statue. I noticed one mare selling food and drink, another seemed to be selling purely bats and balls for some reason… And one stallion had a stand filled with several guns, and a griffon stood at it testing out the grip on a 10mm pistol. I guess it’d been modified by the shopkeeper to be more suited for griffon talons than the mouth of a pony.

Still, we bypassed all of that. I heard the subtle clanking of the insides of the turrets as we approached the sheriff’s office. Stepping inside, we were in a large room that held three cells in one corner, a rack of locked up weapons in another and the third being home to an old office desk behind which sat the craziest looking unicorn I’d ever seen!

The pony was leaning back in his chair and wearing a duster that looked like it had leather barding beneath it, though it was hard to tell beneath the long garments on top. His coat was a deep blue, and he had a pale brown mane that wrapped around his head almost akin to a manticore’s. And from his head sprouted a long red and interestingly branched horn that honestly made me feel a little self-conscious about my own.

And yes, judging from the scales on the top of his snout leading up to his horn, he was indeed part dragon.

That’s more than a little terrifying.

The kirin glanced up on our entrance, and his blue eyes pieced directly into my own.

“So, uh…” I began dumbly. Thanks, brain. “You’re the sheriff, right?”

He remained silent, his head tilting almost questioningly.

“Uh…” Was this getting awkward, or was it just me? “I’m Scrap Heap. This is Stripe and Cobalt. Hi…”

Silence.

“…Is this a bad time? I mean, we can just go.”

He just stared at us, and I was ready to back of the door. But then…

“…Three heavily armed strangers walk in through my door, I gotta get a feel for them. I take it you’re not here to start any trouble in my town?” he asked in a low, warning voice. “It’d be a right shame to have to fuckin’ end ya’ll.”

“We are not here to cause trouble, that I can promise,” Xena piped in. “We are simply resupplying and resting, and then we shall depart further into the city.”

“Is that so…?” he asked, glancing us over once again. “Well, in that case…”

In that case what? What was he- Annnnd now he’s suddenly not in his chair but fucking muzzle to muzzle with me! What the hay!?

“It’s a pleasure to meet with ya’ll, it’s always so great to have new ponies to speak to!” he said, taking hold of my hoof and shaking it like there was an earthquake! He then continued to introduce himself as we moved onto the others. “I’m Spring Haze, Sheriff of Crossroads. Howdy!”

“Uh, a pleasure…” Cobalt replied with a small frown.

“Now, what can I do you for?” he asked finally releasing from his frantic hoofshakes and returning to his desk. “You don’t look like folks who are here for bounty work, and the cells are thankfully empty right now. You here to chat? Sing? Do poetry? Whatever you need, I’m happy to comply!”

“Ah, so you enjoy social activity,” Xena noted.

“Enjoy? Why, what’s the point of anything if you don’t have other ponies to do it with?”

He’s a… bubbly one. Not what I expected. At all.

“We actually came in to ask you a few questions about Vanhoover itself,” Cobalt asked. “And… a few other things I personally might be interested in knowing, if not my friends here.”

“Well, ask away,” the Sheriff urged, leaning back in his chair again. “I’m an open book. Or a page of lyrics! Feel free to make this as longwinded as you like, singing included!”

“Yeah. No,” he deadpanned back.

“We just wanted to ask about the local MAS hub, and what we might expect,” I informed him.

He frowned, sitting forwards in his chair again. “The hub? Now, why do you want to go there?”

“We need an access code from Twilight Sparkle’s office to get inside a slaver hideout and prevent them from taking some friends of ours,” Xena replied honestly before any of us could even utter a word.

“Oh, I see,” he muttered with a blink. “Well then… Getting in isn’t exactly gonna be easy for ya’ll.”

“Why not?” I asked, wondering why I as even surprised that this guy accepted the explanation so readily.

“Try a small militia of military robots killing anything that steps in close.” Oh, yeah. That’ll be an issue. “Steel Rangers have been trying to get in as of late, but they’ve been having a hell of a time doing it.”

“Right, thanks for the information…” I muttered, suddenly a lot more concerned than I had been. Maybe it was a good thing we hadn’t landed the Sky Bandit on the building after all.

“My pleasure. Anything else?”

“Just a small issue…” Cobalt said as he stepped forward. “No offence, but how do you exist?”

“Well, isn’t that a philosophical question. Why do we exist? Is it a cosmic coincidence, are we trailing across the cosmos like a leaf on the wi-”

“I mean you,” Cobalt interrupted with a facehoof. “Kirin. Word is that your kind are extinct.”

“Oh…” He chuckled sheepishly. “To be honest, I don’t rightfully know myself.”

Cobalt narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”

“You are mighty curious about kirin, ain’t ya?”

“It’s his job,” I supplemented. “He’s into information and such.”

“Ah, I see… Well…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know any other kirin besides myself, and I’ve got more than a little pony blood in me. My mother was kirin, my father was an earth pony. Been like that for generations.”

I guess kirin features were just a dominant gene or something…

“Still, Ma did tell stories,” he continued. She said that all kirin above ground died when the bombs hit, the rest of us survived in Stable 76. She said the shelter was placed in our old home forest bordering the Applossian Desert.”

“Stable 76… that one isn’t in Tenpony’s database,” Cobalt mused.

“Well, I can tell you a bit. It opened twenty-five years after the bombs, all the kirin and ponies inside were released and wandered off into the forest, Equestria or to other countries. I come from ones who made it to Vanhoover.”

“And you haven't had contact with your people since?” Xena enquired, seemingly interested by his tale.

“Well, word goes that all kirin around our original home and Appleoosa died out since back then. No idea if others are still kicking, maybe a couple wander the wastes. I mean, I hope we have something going elsewhere in the world. But I can’t tell you any of that, I’m all there is here.”

“Interesting…” Cobalt muttered. “Well, this is something to add to our historical records when we get back. I’ll have to see about getting an entry for this ‘Stable 76’.”

“You’re from Tenpony then?” he asked Cobalt, getting a nod. “Well, if ya’ll ever meet another kirin out there, feel free to give me a call.”

“Sheriff Spring Haze!” a pony suddenly shouted as he barged into the building. “Another sighting, Sheriff.”

“Of all the…” Spring Haze muttered beneath his breath, before hopping up from his chair and walking past us to the pony. “Sorry to cut this short, ever since the Rangers and these zebra starting fighting, we’ve had a couple of skirmishes getting awfully close to town. I gotta make sure they know this area is not for their little wargame.”

“Need any help?” I asked without really even thinking.

“Thank you kindly for the offer, but I can handle it for the time being,” he replied, his horn lighting with a cyan aura and drawing a .44 magnum pistol from beneath his trench coat. “I hope you find what you’re looking for, you seem like good folks. See you around!”

And with that, Sheriff Spring Haze and the town guard galloped out of the building and from our view.

“Well,” I started. “He was… interesting.”

“And informative,” Cobalt added. “If there’s one good thing about all of this business, I have a lot of data to fill in when I eventually return to Tenpony Tower.”

“Well, we should-”

“WAIT!” Spring Haze shouted as he suddenly popped back through the door. What was with this pony!? “Are you the Scavenger? The one from the radio?”

Uh… So, he heard those, huh? “I mean… yes?”

“Oh! Nice job with those raiders and such. Anyway, I gotta go!”

And then he was gone again.

Brilliant.

Footnote: Max Level