I wished the trail had gone cold. At least then the Stable's entrance cave could have been cleaned up before I left. I did my best to get out of the immediate area before I lost it. Almost made it, too. At least I found a bush this time so I didn't have to look at what came out of my stomach.

Once I'd cleared cave, a breath of fresh air pierced the fog still lingering over my thoughts. Leaving aside my lingering nausea, I felt good. No, I felt better than good. I felt great. I was outside of the Stable. I was doing something productive. I was, for the first real time in my life, actually living.

There was a house a hundred yards away, and a trail leading from about where I was standing to the front door. No other structures were visible from where I was standing, and the trail I was on curled lazily toward the Stable cave before vanishing within. I didn't have any landmarks loaded in my Pipbuck, and I wasn't about to go charging aimlessly into the Wastes, so I started toward that lone house. My next move was laid clear before me. I loved it when things were simple.

The house was a two-level affair, surprisingly well cared for considering in was probably upwards of 200 years old. The paint wasn't even peeling, and the windows were all unbroken, which surprised me. In fact, the whole thing seemed a little too good. There was something off about the place, but I just couldn't afford to pass up any lead I could take. Just to be safe, I brought up the help file on my Pipbuck and turned on everything I thought would help. Eyes-Forward Sparkle? I didn't even know what that was, but on it went. Stable-Assisted-Targeting-System? That name was a bit more helpful, and it got turned on, too. Compass, at-a-glance health indicator, weapon status, it all got turned on now, before it came back to bite me in the flank for forgetting it later. I trotted up the front steps, pausing at the door. The map function somehow figured out it was called the “Tourist Trap.” Not sure how it knew that, wasn’t about to complain. Before I walked through I drew my beat up old pistol and made sure it was ready to use. Just in case.

I don't know how it knew, and I doubt I'll ever really figure out how it works, but somehow my E.F.S. lit up with a livid crimson bar as I knocked on the door. Everywhere else it's used, red is typically code for “bad,” and I wasn't about to second guess my gut out here. My horn flashed, pistol coming up, and I dove to the side, out of the door frame. Not a moment too soon, either, as the portal exploded into splinters as half a dozen bullets slammed into it. The crack of gunshots was deafening and terrifying, especially for somepony who's never heard them before. A bullet thudded into the small porch next to me, sending more splinters flying, cutting shallow gashes in my Stable jumpsuit. This thing obviously wasn't going to stop much more than a sharp stick as I was walking along, much less a bullet. My E.F.S. alerted me to another enemy, this one not inside the house, but instead at the top of a nearby hill. They evidently had a rifle of some kind. It flashed, another bullet shattered the window behind me, and the report echoed across the intervening distance.

This was definitely not good. I couldn't move into the building because of the pony in the house, and I couldn't stay here because of the pony with the rifle. I was pushing my luck just by staying here this long. Muttering fervent, panicked, and entirely too profane prayers to whichever of the Goddesses would listen, I rolled to my side and up onto my hooves, ducking frantically over the edge of the stairs and as far out of the way of the rifle as I could. Not quite good enough, and only luck saved me as the bullet deflected off of my still raised pistol. The jolt of the hit shocked me into pushing the trigger, and a much, much louder crack momentarily deafened me.

I dropped the pistol, it was probably useless now anyway, and reached out with my magic toward the door. I was never the best at levitation, and even worse at using my magic to manipulate objects I was already carrying, but I had to do something. The door swung open, twisted, and buckled at the hinges before finally tearing away entirely. I now had a shield, and my desperate prayers were answered as the rifle thudded into the solid wood but failed to penetrate. With cover, I could think out what I was going to do. First things first, make sure this wasn't just a horrible misunderstanding.

“Hey! Just wait a fucking minute! I haven't done anything to you!”

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't the hysterical laughter that followed. Insane laughter. The pony in there was very clearly absolutely out of touch with reality in a big way.

Raiders. I froze in place. The damn butchers were right here! Why couldn't I move? I sat there, frozen, while bullets continued to slam into my makeshift shield. I was going to die here. I could feel it. I ducked as far into the corner as fast as I could, my magic wavering, shield dipping. A few more minutes, and they'd come out after me. It was all but over. There were more red dots now, at least three in the house now. Hysterical laughter echoed out of the house, now coming from not just one voice.

No no No NO NO! This was not happening! I was not going to let these ponies close in an butcher me. This strange, unfamiliar red-hot rage burned through the ice gripping my heart and evaporated my indecision. A guttural scream ripped itself from my throat and I vaulted back onto the porch and dove through the door hopefully fast enough that rifle-raider couldn't get a clear shot at me. I felt a strong tug at my hindquarters and I stumbled and fell, barreling headfirst into the first raider I saw. I couldn't feel anything wrong with me, but I was certain that I'd just been shot. No matter, it wouldn't stop me. These raiders would feel my rage whether they killed me or not.

We went down in a tangle of limbs. Apparently even raiders aren't in the habit of shooting at their own if there's a target on top of them. Good. The raider was wearing some grotesque collection of metal, bone, and what I was dreadfully certain was pony flesh half rotted away. I should have known they'd smell horrible. My gun was gone, my flimsy jumpsuit was full of holes just from falling on top of the collection of pointy bits the raider called armor. I was locked in hoof-to-hoof combat with one raider, there were two more staring at me with greedy, hungry eyes. I couldn't see what weapons they had, but it didn't matter. I had something they didn't.

I had an effective melee weapon.

My magic may not have been the strongest, but that doesn't seem to matter much when the object I was swinging was a solid wooden slab of a door. I rolled to the side and kicked the raider away from me a few inches. It was all I needed. The door, which I had somehow kept grip on during the incredibly brief struggle, hung in the air above the raider's neck.

I dropped it.

I've never broken a bone. I've never seen or heard a pony break a bone before. I watched the door crush the raider's neck under the impact. That hysterical laugh morphed into something grotesque, a wheezing, rasping cough as the utterer tried to draw breath through a shattered windpipe. Insane glee painted on his face morphed before my eyes to horrid realization. He was a dead pony.

Were it not for the other raiders around me, I would have just sat there to watch him die. I wanted to do nothing more in the world than watch this festering pox on the face of ponykind shudder and go still. But there were other raiders around me. I'd get to do it again. That thought kept me moving on to the next raider, moreso than any real sense of self-preservation.

The raider had been a unicorn, his weapon a gun that was bulkier than my pistol, with a magazine separate from the grip. I grasped it with my magic, my Pipbuck helpfully telling me it was a 10 mm Submachine Gun. A wicked grin spread across my face. This was even better than the pistol that was probably still smoking outside. I got to my feet, turning to look at my remaining two opponents in the house. One was an earth pony, the other a unicorn. Fortunately, only the unicorn had a gun, a pistol that looked worse than my old one, and the other raider only having a rusty knife that had definitely seen better days.

I liked my odds. Now I just had to pick which one of them to e--

Pain exploded in my chest, a red-hot spike that dimmed into a constant, heavy stream of the worst pain I had ever felt. An unpleasantly wet, warm feeling spread quickly from the center of the pain, dripping down my sleeves and onto the floor. Every throb of my heart intensified the feeling. I knew what it was, and instantly knew that what I had been so certain was a hit before had been nothing. But I wouldn't die, not yet. I grit my teeth against the pain, and before the smoking pistol could fire again, I depressed the trigger on the submachine gun. I wasn't expecting the stream of bullets to come out, and the muzzle drifted quickly upwards, tracking bullets across the gun-raider's torso and into the ceiling. Red mist blossomed out of the neat little holes that appeared in the raider's chest and neck, and then a bullet took the top of his head off.

Even in the middle of combat, I vomited again. Didn't matter if it was the middle of the fight of my life, didn't matter if I did it or somepony else did, watching cranial tissue decorate the other-wise decently clean walls put me over the edge again. Oh, Goddesses that hurt! The muscles in my chest spasmed, renewing the red-hot pain in my chest as it did so. I just wanted to curl up and die. Anything to make it stop.

NO! There was another one left! Whipping the submachine gun around with my magic, I depressed the trigger again. This burst stayed on target, but this raider had much better armor than the other, and they mostly skipped off barding or buried themselves in bits of leather and metal. The gun clicked empty.

Shit.

I really hate raiders. You know, in case you didn't pick that little bit up. But what I hate most about them isn't their dressing habits, it isn't their propensity for wholesale slaughter. It's their laugh. Their never-to-be-sufficiently-damned laugh. I got to hear it closer than I ever wanted to right then. Apparently my last raider was a mare. My knees buckled, and I found myself staring at the floor, the spasming in my chest not helping at all. The pain burned through my feeble fortitude, and the blood loss was really starting to get to me. I heard but couldn't see the raider approach. My vision was blurry, my hearing tinny and small. Thundering heartbeats threatened to drown out everything else.

Instinct took over. I lashed out with my magic, dropping the empty gun and instead grabbing for the knife in the she-raider's mouth. I got lucky. She was either so startled she dropped it, or I'm a lot stronger than I ever thought I was, or I wrenched it in just the right direction to free it. Whatever the reason, I now had a knife, and she-raider didn't have anything.

Laughing hurt too much, but swinging a knife with my magic didn't use my chest muscles at all. Thank the Goddesses for small favors.

There was no finesse in my technique. There was no grace in my swing. I just swung that knife and kept swinging, punching through armor and flesh and scoring bone. Kept swinging until I heard a thud and saw a pool of blood that wasn't mine spread across the floor. I barely kept from vomiting again. Only the knowledge that throwing up would wrack me with terrible pain kept the bile down.

Staying here would leave me dead in a pool of my own blood. I had to find medical supplies, and fast. The bathroom was the most likely place for that. My luck, such as it was, held out on me; the bathroom was right in front of me, the door not ten feet from my hooves.

Crawling to that door was the single most agonizing thing I had ever done. I wanted to stop. I wanted to die. I wanted to curl up in a ball and wait for that last raider outside to finish the job. Anything to make the pain stop.

Sometime later, I don't know how long, but it couldn't have been too long or I'd have bled out, I made it. There it was. A medicine box hung on the wall next to a mirror over the sink. Goddesses be praised!

Locked.

I wanted to cry. So close. I was going to die withing hoofsreach of the thing that could save me.

There was a bobby pin on the sink. Sometimes the register jammed, or I lost the key, or some other abject terror befell the bar in its worst moments, so I knew my way around a lock. Luck must have just been with me that day. The lock was simple, didn't even have to move the bobby pin from where I jammed it in. The lock clicking open was the most glorious sound I had ever heard.

Inside was a pair of empty bottles, a blood pack, and a healing potion. Luck was truly on my side. I downed it in seconds. Immediately I could feel the bleeding stop and the pain subside. Anatomy isn't my strong suit, and I'm fairly certain that the bullet missed most of my vital organs, but feeling the parts of my insides it did reach rearrange themselves, molding back together to not even leave a scar unsettled me in ways I can't really explain. It was unpleasant, but I wasn't about to complain about being alive. Well, not too loudly, at least.

I got back to my hooves slowly, not wanting to test the quality of my healing overmuch until I was sure I was safe.

The mirror saved my life. I got a glimpse of the last raider charging through the wrecked doorway with a rifle clenched in her jaw. I ducked and dove into the tub in the back as the mirror shattered under the raider’s fire. Fortunately, the tub was one of those metal dealies and could more than shrug off the rifle's bullets. I popped my head up so I could see what to do and almost lost an ear to a near-miss. Fortunately, the raider's gun was a piece of shit and her aim wasn't that great either.

It was just me and her, and I already knew how this would end. The rifle jammed, and a grin split my face from ear to ear. “Looks like luck isn't on your side, but it sure as hell is on mine.” She spat out the rifle and charged at me. I'd been out of the Stable for a grand total of ten minutes, green as green could be. She'd lived in the wastes her whole life, at least some of the time as a bloodthirsty, hardened raider. It shouldn't have been this easy. By all rights, she should have practically eaten me alive in hoof to hoof combat.

I brought the knife up, it flashed twice, hamstringing her hindlegs and sending her tumbling to the floor. It flashed again, cutting a gash down her flank, exposing a graphic representation of a pony being spit roasted over a bonfire.

It pissed me off. How fucked up did a pony have to be to get a cutie mark that told the world their special talent was fucking cannibalism? It sparked a deep, seething rage in me that wouldn't be satisfied by just killing this monster. She wasn't even a pony to me anymore.

The knife would be too quick. I tossed it aside and grasped for the door again. She was helpless, trying to crawl forward at me with just her front legs. There was still that murderous glint in her eyes, that hint of insanity. It was justification enough for me. The door blindsided her and sent her crashing into the wall. I don't know what broke and where, but it was evidently enough to make her stop trying to crawl toward me and instead just collapse in a heap. She was still alive, still breathing, but now pinned against the wall by the heavy door.

I grinned. It was a cruel, evil grin. “You and I are going to have a little talk. I want to know where my friends are. You are going to tell me. And then you're going to die. Any questions?” The knife, rusty as it was, glinted in the light of the sun shining at an angle through a window above the door.

She just spat in my face. That was okay by me. I could work with that.

“Alright, let's get down to business.”

I don't know how far into our little session she died, but I know it wasn't quick. It also wasn't at the end of it. I realized I didn't really care, either. I got what I wanted to know, and I got what I wanted to get, in the end. The sun had already halfway set behind the hills off to my left as I exited the house. The submachine gun and all the former-raider's ammunition found its way to my saddlebags, along with the knife and all of the medical supplies I didn't use while I was in the house, which amounted to one healing potion, a syringe of Med-X, the blood pack, and strangely a trio of bobby pins, which makes four. Still not a collection to write home about, especially since home was all of 200 feet from where I was walking. The rest of the house was barren and looked like it had been looted and left to rot years ago.

Thanks to my favorite raider, I now knew where the largest of the settlements in the area was. Unfortunately, she wasn't a part of the raider group that butchered half of my stable, so I didn't get that information, but now I had a definite starting place in the form of a mid-size town that the locals called Cantilly. At my current pace, I'd get there a few hours before dawn. My bloodthirst had been sated for now, but that still gave me more than a few hours for planning just what I'd do to all that scum when I finally got my hands on them.

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Surgeon – Through careful experimentation, you've discovered a lot about how the pony body works. All strictly academic, of course. Your Medicine and Melee Weapons are both increased by 5.