Radiation is a creeping death. You won't realize it's killed you till long after you've been exposed to too much - US Soldiers Guide to Radiation Poisoning

Last night really did happen didn't it? That sand dog is really going around being a giving of gifts on Hearth's Warming Eve? Alright then, I'm glad he thinks we are good ponies. I slid the contents of the gift into my saddlebags and joined my companions at the campfire. Nyota had been cooking and once again it smelled was delicious. He had also placed my thermos against the fire already so the coffee inside was heated, even if it was three days old.

At least I didn't have another memory rush through my sleeping mind. But I think I'd rather have a memory than feel this ragged and tired. I plopped down and took the vegetable soup he had made. I need to get him a spice rack if we are only going to eat canned veggies every meal.

“At least they talking about you eating meat anymore,” Pink cartwheeled into view along the EFS compass at the bottom of my vision.

Touche Pink, Touche. I ate peacefully in the silence of the early morning with a grateful sigh that we had good non-irradiated food. Alguacil was taking a patrol flight, Corners was cleaning weapons, Quick Stitch worked on making our bandages stretch out, and Chifundo hummed a tune to himself while staring into the sky, at least as far as I could tell.

I was scrolling through the files on my PipBuck, specifically the one I had unlocked last night. It contained a list of 19 ponies, six griffins, two diamond dogs, and five zebras. The list only mentioned them as subject numbers starting with 043- and ending in sequence. It also had their names and ages, all under the age of 13. I was subject number 043-014. I got very little detail was given about them beyond just a name, subject number, and experiment status. All of them except mine were either failed or pending on their status. The rest was a jumbled mess of corruption or still encrypted but I couldn't tell where file corruption started and encryption began.

Out of all of this, what was most alarming was my PipBuck labeling me as 'Subject 043-014 Wandering Sunrise. Experiment Status: Successful'. What experiment? What had they done to me? Why? I looked up to see my friends still working out getting up this morning. We were all moving slow, the events of last night seemed fantastical. Why was my experiment successful?

I chewed over the thoughts while sipping on the veggie soup Nyota had made this morning, a big decision lay before us and we needed to decide where we were going this morning, now. I had to put those files aside for later and a full examination when I had them all decrypted.

“Go on Sunrise, they look to you for direction if you don't say something they will just mill around waiting on you all day.” Pink was being incredibly impatient about this, like time was suddenly of the essence. I clicked the files away before looking up feeling like someone was watching me extra carefully. Nyota was giving me a look with his one eye, like he was sizing me up or expecting me to burst forth with tentacles all of a sudden. When I caught his gaze he blushed a soft pink and looked away.

Did our strong silent zebra just blush? Was there more to him than just angry brooding? I mean he was caroling with the best of them last night. And he does take the time to make our meals very good. I suppose maybe he isn't all bad.

“SUNRISE! Task on hand! You're worse than me!” Pink clopped her hoof with each word then threw up her legs in a T shape of exasperation before falling backwards and I swore the dust on the ground kicked up with her body's impact into the imaginary ground.

“Alright! I'm breaking the silence, are we going to try to get into that secret stable again? Because I have a plan.” Everypony turned their attention in my direction and stopped what they were doing. I locked eyes with each while I waited for Alguacil to land so I could talk in a normal voice. “Or are we going to follow that lead Chifundo has on Hot Cross Buns?” I pushed the still steaming bowl of veggies aside as my brain went full ADD on me. Green beans and tomato soup aren't bad but getting old since I've had them just about every morning for the last two weeks.

“SUNRISE!!!!!” Pink sat up just enough to scream at me and twitch her eyebrow while chewing on her lip.

“Well if I am entirely honest, Hot Cross Buns is the most pressing task promised,” Chifundo piped up first. He approached Nyota and myself to stand near us. They looked at each other, that unspoken zebra body language I would never understand passed between them. Nyota gave a curt nod at Chifundo and turned towards me to speak.

“The spirit speaker is right, Hot Cross Buns is potentially in mortal danger. That stable isn't going anywhere.” Nyota paused and started to reflexively put his hoof towards my mouth but I made no indication of speaking which stopped his hoof mid-air. “So long as you make sure you have the stuff you need to get into it.” Nyota gave an over exaggerated wink at me when he finished as his hoof returned to the ground. What expression on my face is there to make a one-eyed zebra wink at me? Wait, how do I know it was a wink and not just a hard blink?

Alguacil gave a hard clap of his wings to catch our attention while giving Chifundo a hard grimace, “Well you told me you had a clue for the direction we needed to go, where is it Chifundo?” His talons stitch over the ground with the same destructive force his voice had on our ear drums as he walked the rest of the way to us.

“I will consult with the spirits of the land, this way we can go on as planned.” Chifundo turned and stepped carefully to avoid every single leaf, stick, and slight pebble on the ground. One he found his spot he began to speak rapidly and closed his eyes as he sat on his flanks with rear legs crossed. The pink striped shaman placed his two hooves together below his chin as his chant grew louder and less intelligible while the wind around him blew like a small cyclone just in his immediate area.

We gathered around him while this took place and kept our distance. The air rippled before our eyes like a clear lake suspended in the sky. A stone thrown into the waters just to burst forth waves. As those ripples faded, the grassy green and heavy brown shimmering light turned to a solid. It became something both completely unreal but was certainly there enough to touch. An oak tree, healthier than any I’d seen since before we retreated into the stable, stood before us. This was a tree, however, was made four hooves, a leafy green mane, and long, flowering borough of a tail made of the colors of Autumn. Two sweet sky blue eyes without an iris opened through the bark like skin and slowly a mouth formed into a grin made of solid amber gems. What is that?

“Are all of you seeing that?” I asked quite bluntly. Everyone shook their heads in my direction while our pink striped shaman remained in a trace. I stared back at the spirit not removing my eyes from it now.

Despite the appearance, it was nothing like a timber wolf of the Everfree forest. I felt no fear from this creature, it brought a sense of calm and ease. It was so soft, there was intelligence in it's eyes and grace in how it moved. The bark had a finish to it and was much more refined, like it had been hoof smoothed lovingly with a find sandpaper. The mane was made of fresh sweet green leaves attached to neatly pruned vines. While the tail was made of the same vines with all the leaves creating a beautiful rainbow of Autumn. Even the eyes reminded me of liquid molasses colored the sky blue I remembered when the clouds were gone. Her teeth added a gleam of gemstones formed from ages of pressurized wisdom. You're so beautiful and alien all at once, why have I never seen something like you before?

The creature smiled at me and flicked its playfully mane with a swift nod in my direction and quickly turned to Chifundo, “Why have you summoned me shaman?” The creature's voice was truly alien. It sounded like a dozen ponies all speaking at once but even the chorus spoke as a single entity. The voice was overwhelming, it crashed over me like waves of an ocean and pierced the air till it was the only sound any pony could truly hear; drowning out the conversation of my on looking friends.

“We require a direction, oh great nature's adaptation.” Chifundo replied with a low bow, and placing his right forehoof over his chest. He did not leave his cross-hoofed sitting position to make the bow either. How do zebras bend that way? The creature of bark and spirit started to turn and look at the rest of us then back to Chifundo.

“And them? Is this for you or all of them as well? I must know for whom I toil,” the spirit's demand was clear and concise, by far the sweetest and most welcoming call I had ever heard, and it was also the most in-equine echo my ears had ever listen to all at once.

“It is for the group, so please help this noble troupe?” Chifundo replied, still bowed before the tree pony. He didn't look up from the ground to speak or negotiate with this being. The tendrils of blue energy, like a faint unicorn spell, were pulsing between our pink striped zebra and the speaking oaken entity.

“Then I will require a seed, I will not work for those whom cannot perceive us, without a payment for our services.” The spirit turned to me, like she knew me and knew I was to the one to speak to. I unconsciously looked down at my PipBuck to read the inventory screen. Apples have seeds, carrot works, WAIT! That works! Even as I thought it my tail was a step ahead of me, a potato was already held within the prehensile appendage as an offering.

Chifundo stared at me in disbelief as did the spirit. I shrugged at both of them as though nothing were wrong. “Technically it is a seed, if you plant it, the potato will grow.”

Chifundo started to giggle while this tree pony spirit shot a silencing glare at both of us. It took the potato from my hoof and planted it. “I am going to accept this,” the creature paused and looked right at me with an angry glare. “This time, because that thing you have with you is cute. Even if it is deadly.”

Wait? I'm deadly? Since when? What does this thing know that I don't?

While I was lost in thought the creature planted the potato in the ground and swept it covered in dirt. A moment later, in made one smooth motion into the earth and pulled the potato free, except this was solid navy blue now. The same blue as in the color a pony turns when they have the flu. What kind of magic turns a potato blue? The creature passed it to Chifundo as several others sprouted out the ground like some sort of magical harvest.

While we all stood there flabbergasted, Chifundo gathered the potatoes and placed them into his pack. “Thank you spirit, I hope you appreciate our merit.” The zebra shaman took a low bow. The plant creature phased back into the ground without so much as disturbing a bead of dirt.

“Chifundo, I am scared to ask what I just witnessed, or where those potatoes came from, or what they-” I was cut off by Chifundo eating one of the potatoes without a second thought. My jaw was agape as he munched the raw blue potato down with the loudest, crunchiest munching racket I'd ever heard. His eyes glazed over and turned blue themselves. I mean blue as in two giant blue orbs you would expect to see on a bug or a shark not pony eyes anymore. Just like the blue eyes of the tree creature as a matter of fact.

““Let go while we still have day!” Chifundo declared and started to march off West by Northwest. Not quite the same way we had gone last night to get to the ranger station but close to it. The tracks we had made in the darkness slowly diverged from our path till within an hour they were out of sight. I began to wonder if the Hearthfire family were playing with their Hearth's Warming Eve gifts or sleeping off the feast. After fruitless seeming hours, following Chifundo's sickly glowing eyes, we spotted ruined buildings in the distance. Alguacil winged down and pointed towards the horizon while my PipBuck beeped and had labeled our location as “Outskirts of New Las Pegasus.”

This is horrific! Is this all from the megaspells?

The city buildings were blown out and heavily damaged. Once proud skyscrapers were reduced to rubble, or missing several floors. Several had another smaller building leaning against them, threatening to collapse both at once under the weight. Glass shards had been pushed out of the road by travelers or ground into silicon dust. The road itself was cracked, destroyed, and lacked any traffic lines, all long since worn away.

The worst however was the smell. Even over my hadn't bathed in nearly two weeks and barding that had not left my flanks in that time, I could smell it. The scent of decay, not death mind you, but rather what a society long since gone should smell of. Mold, moss, rust, and ash; all permeated the sense of smell in one foul concoction that could only be described as decay.

We saw dark clouds that hung well low of the layer I had gotten used to. They were in the distance with tell the tale haze of rain pouring down in the distance. Alguacil took flight towards them, “I'll see if I can break it up or make it clear out of our way,” he shouted back and head towards them. I looked to Nyota, who smiled and nodded.

“Sunny, I think we should take cover just in case he fails.” Nyota had his head on a swivel looking for somewhere to take cover. “That is one massive storm and I don't think one griffin is gonna make it go away.”

“Nyota, it's just rain, how bad could it be?” I replied with a shrug as we kept following the path Chifundo led us down. Nyota however grabbed Chifundo and stopped us at an intersection.

“Just in case, how about we take cover in here?” the zebra motioned to a shop. Well what used to be one. I could barely make out the faded letting but with effort it read: 'Applewood Saint Street Donuts', in dulled pastel colored letters. The insides had two sitting bars in front of a large frying kitchen. Torn ruby red cushioned stools sat out front along with several damaged tables. The old musty stale stench wafted from the kitchen, not rotting food but something long since decayed. There were two doors on the opposite wall, both had big bold black letters: 'Employees Only' or well that is what their signs would have said if several letters were not missing.

We took a moment to label out a place we could relieve ourselves as well as check for anything moving inside. When ya gotta go, you need to know where! Quick Stitch and Nyota went to watching out of the windows while Corners, Chifundo and I gathered at the counter. Alguacil flew in with a crash and barely managed to stick his landing. His hard one eyed glare gone from an expression of exhaustion and fatigue. The griffin's visage looked sickly and a few of his feathers fell to the floor.

“I'll be back as fast as I can be, I have an idea.” He took to flight and within minutes of the griffin vanishing from our sight, rain started pouring down.

I took a few steps out and my PipBuck started clicking, slowly. Wait? Since when is rain? Radioactive? Oh! I stepped back inside after the first few clicks and stood at the door, looking to the sky for any sign of our griffin. I ignored the occasional radiation tick and kept a vigil for Alguacil. I even flicked on the PipBuck light to make sure he could find us in the rainstorm.

Nyota approached and put a hoof over my shoulder, “I know you're worried about him.” My eyes turned over to the zebra and he looked back at me with care and compassion.

Pink rolled into view and leaned in with a bright eyed, “WHOOOOOOOO.”

Pink what the hell? Is there something I should know about?

“Nope not at all!”

I looked at Nyota again and gave him a tight clingy squeeze as I let out a sigh of worry. He had started opening up and was becoming far less jaded since Buddy had... left us. “I'm just worried. My PipBuck is clicking even from here just outside the rainfall. He already looked like he lost a fight with a chicken pluck-matic. I... will he even be able to get back through all this? What is he doing? Why did he just take off? And why do-” I swear that I'm already familiar enough with this flavor to actually say I might be starting to enjoy hoof in mouth, Nyota brand flavor.

“He'll be fine, just have faith Sunny,” Nyota reassured and removed the offending hoof. With a tight squeeze he guided me to sit next to him on the ground. Without thinking at some point, I found myself laid against his shoulder his foreleg around my shoulder. The silent vigil was nicer with someone staying with me. Even when I would stand up at a hopeful noise or glimmer of something in the sky, Nyota was kind of enough to keep a hoof hooked over my back reassuringly. He kept his vision to immediately around us, like he was a sentry to keep us safe. I just stayed focused on looking up for Alguacil.

Almost two hours passed before our friend returned, to the relief of our worried faces. He was wearing a solid white cloak with pink butterflies over his body. The griffin landed and a few more feathers fell from his body. He wearily smiled like some sort of unseen victory had been achieved at great cost. I approached to hug him, as the clicking on my PipBuck picked up in the rain but he stopped me with a talon to my chest, radioactive rain dripping off of us. Alguacil ushered us all deeper inside, away from the windows and doors where the clicking stopped completely before allowing any explanation to any pony.

“I found several Ministry of Peace hazard cloaks back in all the lockers of the ranger station.” He pulled out a few more of the cloaks like the one he was wearing, four in total.

“These should help with the rain,” Alguacil spoke and I looked at him with quite a lot of disdain. It bothered me, thinking that he had gone back to the Ranger station, and probably stole those cloaks from the kind family that welcomed us so warmly last night. Surely their foals needed the protection from the elements more than we did.

“Alguacil, don't run off again without telling us where you are going okay?” I reprimanded him, staring him down just inside the doorway to the doughnut shop.

“Kid I don't need your permission to go do what I...” The griffin tailed off and was looking past me. Nyota was staring him down with the fiery spite of Caesar himself. Alguacil matched it with the stone cold glare of his justice seeking eye.

“I looked both left and right, my face a mask of childlike confusion and worry, not understanding why they couldn’t just get along. As I turned my head from one to the other, Alguacil blinked when he caught my expression and finally the griffin deflated, “Alright, I'll let you know so you don't worry.”

I growled and put a hoof forward, “And the family we left last night, surely they need these more than we do?”

Alguacil hesitated for the longest moment as his face took this comtemplation in, “Yeah, maybe, but we can make it up to them later when we come back with Hot Cross Buns.”

We all moved further inside towards the warmer air. Corners moved to look at one of the employee only doors. Going off alone again? Hasn't she learned better yet? I'm not helping if she breaks her leg again. I walked into the kitchen turning away from our Box Pone and calling out, “Everypony have a look around, see if there is anything useful and make sure we are alone in here.” I checked the doughnut fryer and saw the gelatinized grease inside. Wait a minute, if I take this and add some wonderglue to it, boil it down into a liquid then put in the right amount of ammonia, I can get-

“Napalm!!!” Pink screamed out with glee. I glared at her bouncing into vision along my EFS compass.

I was going to say ANFO high explosive. But I suppose if you used turpentine instead of wonderglue you could achieve napalm as well. WAIT? Pink how the hell do I know this?

“Oh reasons! Quick get it together so you can carry it with you!” There were three nearby buckets all turned upside down on the floor. I picked up one of the ten gallon buckets and jumped back as five mid-sized rad roaches crawled from under it.

In a flash, Nyota was on them, crushing one in its leap to get to me. Before I could even recoil away, he had planted a hoof squarely onto each of them and crunched them into roach smears. All except the last one that was nearly on top of me, as I skitted back away from it, a pink and white flash moved in the way.

Chifundo slammed forward and pivoted at just the right moment to deliver a full on applebuck that sent the last one flying towards the wall. The poor creature flew out of the last intact window that shattered in a roach shaped hole. In the distance we all heard a splat over the gentle pouring of the rain outside. Wow Chifundo do you always have to go for the comically insane version of everything Nyota does?

I looked at the two of them and felt myself being self-conscious as I blushed bright white. While they stared at me with raised eyebrows, I looked away, my tail automatically cutting out chunks of the solidified grease, until my blush faded and the bucket was full of industrial grade ancient donut fry grease.

“What are you going to use that for Sunny?” Nyota inquired as he walked over to take the heavy bucket from me. I winced a bit at the name, Sunny, but let it slide for now.

“I can use it to make explosives, something much more potent than the dynamite and grenades I have,” I explained and then smiled at him with the cutest expression I could muster. “Thanks for carrying it for me.” Nyota just smirked and attached it to his saddlebags by the heandle. The peaceful moment was shattered by Corners letting out a squeal of dismay combine with a slamming door as she rushed towards us.

“What in the hells?” Nyota called out as Alguacil flew past us carrying a chair that looked like it was made of some hard plastic stone. We approached to see the griffin barring one of the employee only doors. There was an in-equine growling on the other side of the door. The growling shook me to the core as I recognized it from somewhere.

With another roar my PipBuck clicked rapidly and I felt the tingling in my face and chest. A green wave of smoke rushed through the air around us and then dissipated quickly. Radiation!? WHAT!?

“Corners you done went and ticked off a glowing one!” Alguacil shouted as we all looked at the door in shock. The banging was getting louder and faster. The door was shuddering under the creature's relentless assault. I wasn't sure if it was my fear or if I was truly seeing the door splinter in front of my eyes.

“What is a glowing one?” My question made everyone look back and realize this was day number nine out of the stable for me.

“It's a ghoul, kid. One that has absorbed enough radiation to become a generator of it themselves, get cover!” Nyota ordered as there was a stillness in the air of the shop, as it waiting for the next incoming blast of radiation.

I grabbed the environmental cloak that Alguacil had come back with and threw it over myself when Corners approached. She lifted the box and motioned me inside. With no other choice, I slid in and the world got darker as the two of us huddled under the cloak. Then everything got so much brighter when the PipBuck counter crazy as another dose of radiation washed over us. My upper left side of the EFS showed a brief moment where we were still taking ten rads a second for just two or three seconds. I could feel the unnatural tingle in my face, even as my stomach churned with the sensation of a boiling pot.

Okay, enough of this! I got out from under the box and walked up to the door as a pony hoof exploded through it. I could see the decayed green glowing remains of the ghoul on the other side and its frantic efforts to punch through to us. My tail offered up a steel shaped apple grenade as well as a cookie from the present we got last night.

I placed the cookie into it's hoof first and that yanked through, there was a munching greedily of it before the hoof returned covered in radioactive slobber. My PipBuck kept clicking and I started to feel sick like I wanted to puke when I pulled the stem of the apple and put that in it's hand. The ghoul yanked it back through the door, making the hole even larger. I started for a moment before my brain started putting one and one together with the click of my PipBuck.

“EVERYPONY GET TO COVER!” I dashed like mad and dove behind the counter of the shop putting it between the door as Nyota, Chifundo, Quick Stitch, and Alguacil joined me. Morbid curiosity drove me to keep peaking up over the counter as I felt an environment cloak draped over me. I needed to confirm whatever it was, was dead. My eyes watched as the ear ringing blast finally went off.

The door flew into splinters while the chair landed behind us, smoking but intact, as green smoke washed over us. The clicking of my PipBuck amplified to a fever pitch. EFS registered twenty-five rads a second. All of my companions were following Quick Stitch out of the door at a breakneck speed. I stared at the chair for a few moment. The clicking of my PipBuck telling me I needed to flee as the green miasma slowly encroach across the room. Bits of ghoul could be seen inside the gas on the floor and dripping from the ceiling.

He said put them down if they were feral, that was feral. But this chair survived that explosion? Is it, could it be made from-

“Stubbornite!!! Sunrise grab the chair and run! It will come in handy!” Pink shouted at the top of her lungs.

I grabbed the chair and my tail secured it to my flank while I bolted to catch up to my friends. We were in the rain now, even through the ministry environmental cloaks I could feel the tingles rolling over me. The glowing one had washed me in radioactive waste and now I was taking a rad shower. It didn't take long to go from upset stomach to blurry vision, I wasn't sure if it was the rain on the helmet visor or-

Suddenly I hurled up everything that was still left in my stomach from breakfast. My hooves were getting weak. Nyota hooked a hoof under me just so I could keep walking.

“Sunrise stay up, we'll find shelter soon.” He soothed as Alguacil tried another building door and found it barricaded as well. No matter where we turned we couldn’t find shelter from the rains. Each and every building was either buttoned up tight, or a bombed out shell that did nothing to save us from the elements. The chair banged off my barding plate with each step and I could barely stay on my hooves as my packs started to feel twice and then three times their weight.

Nyota took them from me and distributed their weight to everypony else. He wrapped the cloak tight around me and then took his own off as I looked down to find my whole coat had gone from a bright emerald to a sickly sludge color. Even my hooves tipped in white had changed to the color of sewage.

I started to speak back and smile at him only to cough up blood onto the pavement. My eyes watered and I could feel the tingle of radiation wasn't just on my skin anymore, my insides were protesting against it too. The pony on my PipBuck looked sick and the rad counter indicated I had reached advanced poisoning levels. Great... almost getting to the lethal levels as is. I already feel like I could fall on the ground and stop now.

Nyota wiped the blood from my mouth and throat, he looked on me with concern while making sure his eye checked both of mine. Not only was I coughing up my liquefying insides but my blood was significantly thinner. Now I couldn't get the taste out of my mouth. Radiation poisoning tastes distinctly worse then zebra hoof as a side note.

“Quick Stitch, Sunrise isn't looking so good what do we do?” he asked as the medical pony turned around. Quick Stitch's horn glowed and we shared gazes as he touched it to my forehead. He pushed my visor out of the way and forced his hooves to open up my eyes.

The olive color stallion took out a medical bottom marked Rad-X and handed me two pills, “Take this it will slow your radiation intake.”

He shook his head with concern at Nyota, “She is showing signs of going septic and her body is severely poisoned. If I didn't know any better I'd say she doesn't have any natural resistance like the rest of us.”

Corners trotted over to us as the group stopped. “She can get into the box, it's protecting me rather nicely,” The eyes on the other side betrayed a smile back at the rest of us.

“Corners after last night, I don't think that is such a good idea. We should-” Nyota stopped talking as he looked at Alguacil beyond my narrow tunnel vision.“Alguacil are you?” Coming into view, our justice griffin looked almost as pale as I did and his eye had a yellowing to it that made it clear he was sick. He walked past my view and the noise of a talon on another barricaded door echoed around us through the beating rad rainstorm.

Oh buck us! He got exposed to the rain cloud, he may have taken close to as much as I have from sticking around after that ghoul exploded. And the rain is poisoning us. My thoughts couldn't stay coherent as I fells forward, caught by Nyota. The pressure on my stomach was enough to make me void my insides once again, so much bile mixed with blood. Why does puking my guts out make me feel better when I'm dying?

“Who goes there?” a voice shouted at us above the gentle rainstorm.

“Sunrise move, get forward now. Protect them.” Pink shouted in my ears. She sounded so distant. Something inside spurred, like I had to move. I bolted from Nyota's grasp with strength I didn't realize I still had. I got up to the front where a spotlight shined through the rain into my eyes. I couldn't see anything more than four or five shadows in the rain, all armed.

The light was coming from a concrete structure that looked like it had been reinforced all over with scrap metal. It took a minute to realize it but that ramshackle construction was once a parking garage for drawn carriages and sky carousels. These ponies had turned this once open air structure into a mostly environmentally tight scrap castle! Complete with a massive draw bridge like gate and a moat, filled with the radioactive water pouring onto our bodies I am truly amazed a earth pony ingenuity! Oh right, radiation killing me, make this fast!

“Hi!” I found the strength to shout, even if drops of blood sprayed out into the rain. “I'm Wandering Sunrise, these are my friends.”

There was no response forthcoming, so I stepped up close while my friends all walked into the spotlight. “I'm the Angel with a Shotgun.”

Pink please tell me that this is gonna work.

“Oh you poor thing! Open the door, get them in here.” A mare called down with naked concern.

The large ramp dropped down and crossed the distance from the eroding road to the structure over the moat. Inside were two fillies armed with guns and security armor. From the shadows came an earth pony stallion wearing the same riot police barding carrying a sledge hammer, made of rutted pig iron, in his teeth and a pair of heavy rifles mounted into a battle saddle at his flanks. They stood their ground and when I started to approach, the fillies raised their rifles to us.

I looked at my friends rather confused and they were just as confused by the half friendly, half hostile welcome. As the confused standoff threatened to drag on, a unicorn mare stepped between the two groups and stood on the no man's ramp. She had a solid red mane and the lightest shade of gray for a coat. This was oddly matched to burgundy colored eyes and heavy reinforced leather armor. She had a set of knives along her forehooves in a tight wrapped bandoleer on the the left and on the right was another PipBuck just like mine. She stood out among the group and had the full focus of my attention.

“Well, what are you waiting for, let's get them inside. This rain must be doing a number on them!” she ordered. The stallion snorted before lowering the mechanical sledge hammer to the ground, which echoed with an electric hum as it discharged harmlessly into concrete.

What in the name of the Goddesses is- I was interrupted by the adrenaline rush leaving my radiation poisoned body and falling face first into the nearest mud puddle. Okay, that's it, rain officially sucks!

Suddenly my connection to the ground was gone and levitated towards the door. Hey! Whoa, wait a minute! I'm not dead yet am I?

My struggles were weak against the gray telekinetic shroud surrounding me. I looked up to see the unicorn mare's horn glowing and her walking me through the door. “Earth pony! FLYING! NOT OKAY! Stop! Put me down, I can walk!” I protested at the top of my lungs before coughing up another glob of my own insides. Which was held by the telekinetic shroud long enough to splatter back into my own face. Oh come the buck on, can my own blood not taste awful!

“Don't be silly! You little filly need to be taken straight to Doc Hornsaw right now,” she commanded and led us up a ramp into a waiting doctor's office, a ramp that used to be used for carriages and was a dozen ponies wide to accommodate two way traffic. Every inch of this four deck complex had been utilized to build additional smaller houses inside. They were made from the concrete support beams, additional concrete slabs, sky carriage panels, wooden planks, all sorts of additional pieces used to make the inside of the garage into a living breathing city. Even an old carriageway sign had the writing on it replaced with the words, “Town Hall.”

Everypony inside was armed, from the youngest filly or colt to the oldest stallion, had a firearm, melee weapon, or explosives. They all carried them like they knew how to use them. “Is everypony here armed?” I asked while still floating in the unicorn's wake. I was too weak now to break the hold on my body nor did I care at this point as my friends were all around, racing to make sure they kept up with the unicorn.

“Oh that is how we make sure no one does anything hostile or dumb, everypony here is armed and knows how to use their weapon,” the mare replied as we arrived at the door to a building marked with a trio of pink butterflies. She took us inside and put me down onto an examination table.

My body tensed up, somehow being in a hospital bed was triggering something, a memory of some sort that made the tension ramp up inside me. I felt the memory hurling itself to the forefront of my mind, no matter how hard I tried to fight it, till finally all my sensory input was glazed over by something that happened before.

I snapped awake, this was my own body. I recognized that immediately. Then the heavy dull pain echoed through my head. It was like the scorpion's pincer slash on my throat except this shot down my spine. I was lying on a bed, my past self moaning in agony and struggling against leather restraining straps keeping me on my belly. Rainbowrise's half rainbow, half red mane cascaded into view then my father's face. I felt his wing coming around to gently stroke my mane while his hoof caressed my cheek.

“Shhh... It's okay Sunrise. Daddy's here. They made Shadow stay outside because she is a unicorn. They let me in.” He paused for a bit and rubbed a kept rubbing wings over my form, then his hoof lifted my head. “I promise you're going to be fine. The ministry agents let you go into a Stable-Tec hospital.” My host felt like I did when the memory came up, sick, tingling all over, except I could tell the difference in radiation poisoning and being pumped full of drugs.

“Why Sunrise? Why did you have to try to sneak in? You know since the ministries came in what I've been working on was top secret, especially at night!” My dad fretted like a mare over her first newborn. I swear he was certainly the take care of daddy's little girl type. This must have hurt him so much. To see me, his little blank flank being taking from him and he was only allowed to watch while they poked, prodded, and tortured me. OH NO! This is that memory! The ministry is going to-

Suddenly my father was pulled away from my side, the foreleg looked so strange to me now as his hooves slid away from me. His white coat against my white coat, no PipBuck on that leg. It was like a piece of my innocence was being yanked from me unwillingly. Several doctors in lab coats surrounded me and started taking blood pressure, pulse, cut a piece of my mane and tail away. They were placing little bits of me into various sealed containers, mane, tail, coat, even probably a full pint of blood, and all three physicians ran out as fast as they had arrived.

I looked over to my father across the clean medical room. So clean it creeped me out, having spent so much time in the dirt of the wasteland. Dad please no, leave. I don't care if this is a memory, Chifundo, Quick Stitch, even this crazy mare that carried me in here, somepony! PINK! ANYPONY! Please make my father leave, please now!

The pristine lighting in the room suddenly went out and I knew what was coming next. Two unicorns along with a pegasus appeared, masked by shadows. The voice through sent chills into my spine, “Hello, Subject 043-014. Hello Rainbowrise.” Three sets of hooves echoed off the floor just out of my sight. But I knew that voice and it chilled me to the bone. “We thought you should know that even if Stable-Tec is protecting you, we can still touch you if we want to.” My head turned to see the shadow of 9 along with two unicorn shadows against the bright light of the hospital outside the door.

Rainbowrise rose to his hooves up and snapped his wings hard. He slammed down between me and the three pony shadows. “Leave my daughter alone. I agreed to continue work on your project, just leave my family alone!” he snorted hard and then struggled against two magical envelopes wrapped around him. All I could do was watch as the telekinesis slammed my father away from me into a wall without making a single sound. He hit the ground and tried to struggle to his feet.

“For an engineering genius you really are a feather brained pony. You would relegate yourself to working in a mechanic shop! Your expertise is going to win us the war.” The mare paused as I saw a knife come out and gleam in the lights coming from the hallway. “But this little filly's defiance must be punished to ensure that such a transgression against the Ministry of Morale will not go without consequence!”

“71 and 88, you two can make sure that anything I do here won't scare or leave this blank flank with any permanent physical scarring right?” 9 questioned as she took several hoof steps towards my restrained form. My body snapped and thrashed against the leather restraints. They groaned in protest but refused to give as the memory played out, much to my horror. I tried to scream only to find no voice and see a magical field around my nose and mane.

“Oh little fourteen, you would think we would let somepony hear you scream? No I'm sure that 71 has that handled.” 9 turned her head to the still dull magical glowing horn which nodded to the mare to proceed. The knife mercilessly dug into my foreleg and cut from hoof all the way up to my shoulder.

My screams echoed helplessly in my mind, with nowhere else to go as I was trapped with Nine and her sadistic, skilled knife. We were locked away in silence as my father was forced to watch his daughter be tormented. The agony was worse than anything the wasteland had done to me yet. 9 moved the knife in a way that made it strike additional nerves and turned the blade at just the right places to make the jagged cut hurt even more. She struck the bone a few times as well. Her precision found just the right spots for cutting into the hardened calcium. My eyes rolled back into my head only for brief moments, before the pain would come down just enough I wouldn't lose consciousness.

The only sound in the room was the groan of the leather straps, the cutting of the knife, and the creaking of the bed springs. Every time she altered that knife direction, the bed creaked and reminded me, I couldn't scream. Every creak made my father flinch and cringe. Every time a spring protested against the knife or my flinching, it drove the pain home.

My ears associated immediately that sound, the sound of bed springs, with that pain of that knife. It was why I kept the barding on when I slept now, it was why I hadn't stayed in a bed unless someone else moved me to it. This pain, it's too real, please. Dad look away!

Dear Goddesses WHY! This was never suppose to be something I relived! Why! Why was this mare so determined to make me hurt. Please any pony wake me up! I'll even talk to Pink and consider it reasonable just not, not what comes next.

But the memory continued, the agonizing pain was blinding white, my eyes barely held onto any vision at all, except for my father's face. His hooves fanatically beating against the forcefield that separated us. His wings flapping back to make him impact soundlessly with his whole body against the shield. I could make out his voice as a distant echo through the pain, “Sunrise! Hang on! I'll get you out of there! Just hang on little wanderer.”

I could see the tears in his eyes, the remorse in his voice clung to my heart like a dagger. I held back my tears through, I wasn't about to give 9 the satisfaction of seeing me cry. The knife withdrew and I gasped for air. I watched as blood poured from my leg at a pace I knew would kill me without medical attention. So much red life gushed from the wound that even as my vision came back from the pain, it went blurry again as I got light headed.

The stallion figure approached and his horn glowed a soft black, my foreleg healed right before my eyes. The only indication I'd been injured was the pool of blood that soaked the white hospital sheets. I gasped and heard my ragged voice as the tears in my eyes demanded to be let go and I refused. I opened my eyes further to keep the tears in as I looked to my father. He brought his hooves down onto the shield over and over again, the glow of it starting to crack but it still remained up.

“Remember this Rainbowrise,” 9 said and I saw a red tongue pushing out of the edge of the shadows, licking the blood from the knife.

You sick, twisted bitch! You were the first pony I wanted to truly hurt! I swear if I find you're still alive I will make it ten times worse than what I felt here!

“We can get to you or your family anytime. Even if Stable-Tec says we can't remove them anymore, we can always get to them. They may survive with a few additional scars that you won't ever be able to see.” 9 finished what she was saying and the shield dropped. In a flash all three pony figures were gone and the lights came back up.

My farther buried his face into my mane and balled like a wounded colt as he held me tight. “Sunrise I'm so sorry, if I'd known what I was getting into, I wouldn't have! Please, can you ever forgive me, please my little filly?” He begged and begged but all I could do was watch the memory. I felt his wings coming around, acting as living blankets to shield me from the world. But all my past self did was lay there on the bed, unresponsive and unmoving. If anything right then I wanted to hug and hold him, but back then, before we went into the stable, I wasn't ready for anything nearly this painful.

Rather than leave the memory though, I hung onto it. Watching my father care for me. The feeling of his hoof stroking through my mane, the smell of his grease soaked coat against my nose, the softness of his feathers warming my flanks, even the bitter warm tears in his sobbing. I held onto it, stayed there as long as I could. This truly bit of fatherly love was something to cling to in the hopelessness of the wasteland.

Dad, if I ever find you, I forgive you. Please, when I find you, that will be the first thing I say. Just let me find you alive, please, that is all I ask!

That was my last thought before I came crashing back into present world.

Special Announcement! From the game of Prance credit himself! We have a Prance Card! Soon available for sale at and beyond Babscon 2018! Special Thanks to Sky for this one it is a real honor. (Link To Follow Soon)

Level Status - Level 5 Achieved!

New Perk - Hit The Deck! - You take 1/2 damage from explosives, this includes concussion, fire, and shrapnel generated by them. At least you have a sixth sense for ducking at just the right moment.