When I woke a few hours later, the sky was in the early stages of brightening up from the rising sun the Pegusi got to enjoy every morning. Meanwhile the rest of us down below were stuck with the drab cloud cover that had remained unchanged for almost as long as I could remember now. It was easy to forget that once-upon-a-time there was such as thing as blue skies or celestial bodies such as the sun and moon hidden away behind them...

I turned my head slowly to look for Cy (as I woke up alive I assumed she was still around) and saw her nearby the edge of the camp, her drill and shotgun laying on the ground beside her while a thick beaten up book lay in her lap. While she certainly seemed learned and literate, I hadn’t exactly thought of her as the reading type what with her bitchy attitude and ‘it’s you or me’ mentality. Of course, I hadn’t expected Black Velvet to be the OCD clean freak she was and had been taken by surprise by her apartment so...it was probably time to stop judging ponies by their actions and attitudes alone. Even Mercs and Hitmares couldn't be expected to be all guts and glory. I certainly was not so cut and dry so why not others?

Looking a little longer, I caught sight of a worn out pen flying across the pages suspended in her violet magic. Was she writing a book now? I couldn’t think of anything she could write that hadn’t been already extensively covered by Pre-War scholars like the Art of War or How to Be a Bitch 101 so...maybe it was a journal? That idea made more sense than anything as though she had been obstinate in being friendly, I could tell there was more behind those blue eyes than she was willing to let show. The more I thought about the idea of her journaling, the more my nosy little brain desired to sneak a peek into her writings to try and understand the mare behind the pen. Mom always said I was too nosy for my own good but...I couldn’t help myself. The informed mare was the one who survived the battle. Or the argument.

I sat up finally after exhausting every possible made-up journal entry I could think of that could be in there and stretched out. Sleeping in full combat armor wasn’t the most comfortable but the sleeping pad and my underbarding did cut the discomfort down significantly enough for me to catch a few hours of decent sleep. At my movement Cy snapped her book shut, pen and all, and set it out of sight. Her shotgun floated into her open lap to fill in the void and she softly glared at me. Obviously someone was self-conscious as shit.

“Good morning.” I said with a yawn, the mask around my muzzle not quite roomy enough to let me yawn satisfyingly.

“Morning. Slept well I take it?” She asked in a dry tone, playing with a cherry red shotshell in her magic making it dance and spin in front of her like a marionette.

“As well as you can while dressed up for war and in the open desert.” I replied, taking off my helmet and letting my mane down to enjoy the cool vestiges of the evening air. “See anything out there?”

“Apart from the endless sea of sand and dust? Not a goddamn thing.” She said, standing up and stretching herself. "Boring is boring but at least it's usually safe so I can't complain too much."

Melody and Gold were still asleep in their bags but with my helmet finally off I could feel the temperature rising with every passing minute. Soon enough, they’d either have to wake up on their own or get roasted to death in the sweltering heat of both their sleeping bag and the desert sun. I hated the sun to be frankly honest. I didn’t like being hot and yet, I had decided to live in the fucking desert because it was the most familiar. Granted everywhere was essentially a desert these days, but the San-Palomino was especially hot being an already preexisting wasteland of sand before the Great War. It wasn't nearly as bad as the Badlands this time of year but definitely made for a close runner up. The only bonus I had was my helmet and underbarding, a luxury nopony else but the Steel Rangers could enjoy as the microfilament crystal wiring used to line them was one of many technological casualties of the Great War. The fact mine worked so well for so long was a testament to the quality put into my gear by the Ministry of War and I couldn't be completely mad at them for everything.

“How do you manage wearing that black Model-4b and that duster in this heat?” I asked her after curiosity forced my mouth to ask and my hoof to go for another swig of lemonade. "I've at least got the benefit of an internal cooling system thanks to ArmsTech but you...you're having to handle this heat the hard way."

“A whole lot of water inside an enchanted canteen, nothing more.” She responded, pulling out said canteen from her saddlebag. I immediately recognized it as the same make as my own canteen except it was the smaller pony sized version that I myself had refused to take when issued one. It was Dragon-sized or none at all for me given how much lemonade I downed on the daily.

“Ayyyy!” I laughed, raising my canteen like a flagon of ale at a bar. “Canteen buddies! You’re either resourceful or smart. These fuckers are pretty rare these days and I hear the SR covet them like jewels. How'd ya come across one?”

“It was part of the reward of one of my biggest contracts, I don’t know where they got it from.” She said taking a long drink and weighing it in her hoof. "Not like it truly matters at all, as long as it works that is all I care about."

“Lucky find then.” I said taking another small sip of my own tart brew before slipping it into its buttoned ‘holster’ in the exterior utility belt of my duster in the small of my back. “That thing uses the same microfilament crystal technology as my underbarding for temperature control. It’s pretty neat stuff but Cogsworth hasn’t yet figured out how it works or what kind of crystal it uses since there’s so few examples left and he doesn’t want to risk destroying anything of mine that has it.”

“I have no idea who this ‘Cogsworth’ is and I’ll just pretend I understood your rambling.” She muttered to herself while standing up and tossing her canteen onto her bags.

“He's my...you know what? Fuck you.” I sighed, standing up as well when the temperature got to the point sweat started to prickle on my forehead around the base of my horn itching something fierce. “Kids! Wake up!”

Melody jolted awake and immediately after started whining miserably; crawling out of her hot and sweaty sleeping bag while trying not to get sand stuck to herself. Gold took a few friendly punches to the ass to fully wake and he crawled out of his bag as well, wincing as the sticky bag yanked out some of his already patchy gold fur.

“What time is it?” Melody asked, spinning in circles trying to dry herself off in the stiff breeze wandering lazily across the desert from the East. “Ewww...I smell like sweaty balls…”

Gold blushed and glanced under himself for a split second before saying, “H-heh...um...y-yeah…”

“It’s 9:36 in the morning.” I replied, sneaking a glance at my PipBuck rather than playing the guessing game with an obscured sun in the sky. “You two have been asleep for about seven hours or so. Eat quick so we can hit that road and get to Shady Sands before the heat really picks up. You don’t want to walk around on asphalt this time of the year past noon if you want to avoid your hooves getting slightly warped from the hot asphalt. Unless you’ve taken Keratin-Klear of course then don’t give a shit and keep on running!”

“K-Keratin-Klear?” Gold asked, putting on his armor and Sequoia while Melody dutifully rolled up their bags for transport.

“It’s a potion from the M.O.A that strengthens the keratin of your hooves with a sort of synthetic protein that makes them super durable and heat resistant. Add a dose of Skele-Grow and you’re capable of denting thin steel plates with just your hooves! Well, if you’ve got the strength of course...that's kinda a must. Only seen a few stallions who were able to do that shit and trust me, you'll probably be too amazed at the sight to know to run like hell.”

“Huh, cool!” Melody hummed, looking at her slender azure hooves as if imagining them strong enough to break steel. "I bet that stuff is pretty rare like anything else cool in this world..."

"Heh, looks like you're catching on. " I winked, tossing them each a couple granola bars from an MRE full of them. "The great bane of anyone wanting cool shit these days is availability. Like my rifle, can't fuckin' tell ya how many people from gunsmiths to NER 1st Recon to random ass bitches have begged to buy it off me. Or just tried to kill me for it. Anywho, ready to head out, Cy?"

“As always. Ready when you are. And stop fucking calling me that, damnit.” She said confidently, her drill back in its modified leg holster and her boomstick tucked away in a Kevyarn gun sleeve on her back.

“Yeah, yeah...whatever. Onwards good freaks!” I laughed, spanking Gold playfully on the rear when he was finishing the last of his granola bar sending the heel flying off into the dunes much to his dismay.

We veered West back towards where we had left the road behind, a trail of several Brahmin visible from our secluded hilltop meandering North with a company of merchants. Halfway to the road though, Gold veered off course back the way we came yelling something about seeing something that he wanted to go check out. The thermometer on my HUD was already well into the 80s so a detour like this would only make their walk worse.

“Gold! Don’t trust your eyes at first glance out here.” I called after him, trotting along slightly behind him. “Mirages fuck with your eyes, especially when you’re thirsty!”

“I-I saw something though!” He called back, climbing up a sand dune despite breathing hard. “L-like a body!”

“So?? There’s bodies all over the damn place! It's the fucking Wasteland, of course there's a dead body in the middle of nowhere for no reason!” I called back, swiftly climbing up behind him feeling ready to whip his ass with my hoof a few times for wasting time on something literally anypony who stepped outside their door saw more than once in their life. “It’s probably vulture food anyway! Get your zombified ass back here and let’s get going damnit!”

He disappeared over the edge of the dune and out of sight without a response. With a huff I mounted the sand and looked over the other side seeing a small flock of emaciated buzzards crowded around what could only be a corpse in the sand up ahead. Nearby the first group of birds was an even larger group of patchy feathered buzzards pecking away at the corpse of a Brahmin wearing the large pack of a traveling merchant’s wares. My annoyance now completely forgotten, I rushed after him in order to investigate as we had a missing merchant to find and we had just found one. Well, what was left of one at least...

“Fuck o-off birds!” Gold yelled out, his gun bellowing even louder as two of the birds were flung off the corpse with gaping holes in their wrinkly, disgusting bodies.

The rest caught on quickly they were no longer the apex predator in the area and flew off screeching their displeasure at our intrusion into their meal, circling high above waiting for us to leave their food alone. The half-eaten body of a pony laid in a coagulated pile of gore below it, the flesh pecked from its bones wherever the birds could find gaps in its Radigator leather armor; the head entirely bone including the ears and horn. Lumps of pink/grey brain sat decaying in the skull out of reach of the beaks of the buzzards and spent brass casings littered the ground around the body half buried in sand. With the animal activity, it was hard to determine a time of death but with the bits of brain I floated out of the empty eye sockets I could only guess it had been within the last two days. The brain matter was only starting to turn to a discolored pink mush and a fair amount of fluids dripped off the sample lending credibility to my educated guess. Melody and Gold both looked away with disgust while Cy looked entirely indifferent to the morbid affair. Battlefield autopsies like this were helpful when on the trail of a killer and after awhile you start to get a feel for these sorta things even with little formal medical training.

“Well, I’m no doctor but I think he’s dead.” I laughed, tossing the mushy brain back into his skull. “But seriously, this guy isn’t our merchant. The armor is Radigator leather, not Dragon and Scaly wouldn't be caught dead in anything less. My guess this guy was just a caravan guard. Question is though...why and how was he killed? This is NER territory and we’re only a bit away from Shady Sands not even a mile from the E-15. The amount of patrols in this area should have prevented this or at least fucking found it first. If Gold could see it, I’m sure others can too. No offense Gold.”

“Well, unless you guys want to spend more time with the wonderful sloppy corpse laying here, let’s get on the move.” Cy said with a bored sigh. “Hold up...there’s more buzzards to the Northeast.”

I looked the direction she was pointing (after finding the body was already long since stripped for bullets) and saw another circling flock of birds further up. Probably just a dead coyote or two but...my curiosity was now piqued as well. Merchants rarely traveled alone with just one guard and even then, where was the merchant him or herself? There were a lot more questions than answers so it was time to follow the birds it seemed.

We moved on quickly towards the next group of buzzards to find a pair of bodies, a guard and a merchant, both stripped for what they were worth but neither looking anything like Scaly. Like the Brahmin and the previous guard they were both shot to death multiple times though by whom was unclear. No body parts were missing or mutilated so Raiders could be ruled out and the kills seemed to be relatively clean so whoever pulled this off had some skill behind a firearm. The decay and animal activity fucked with my forensic skills though so it was impossible to tell the kind of bullets that killed them. Not that it would be very helpful as literally anypony could have any kind of caliber at their disposal but it was kind of an unspoken rule that the bigger the caliber, the better the gang was. Or single pony, hell if I knew. Either way the kills were semi-professional and that’s all we had to go off of leaving oh...a dozen possible known organizations in the Wastes that could have done this and a countless number of smaller ones I probably didn’t know about. But again, I was stumped on the why and the how...no Merc Company in their right mind would be so bold as to attack a caravan near the NER capital and Raider gangs were all but extinct in the region. Something wasn't sitting right with me on it.

“Well at least we can return them to their kin in one piece. Mostly.” Cy commented as she peered at the bodies for herself with the same unconcerned expression. "I will admit, this is very unusual...something went very wrong out here."

“What kin?” I asked, looking around at the empty expanse. “It’s not like we’re gonna find dog tags with names and addresses on these suckers since they're just merchants, not Republic troops. They could be from Manehattan for all we know and I dunno about you but I ain’t walking all the way over there to try and find someone to tell them their loved one died in the middle of the desert to some unknown enemy. Love the sentiment but not a fan of how the idea would be executed.”

“Was a joke lady. Plus, tell some ponies that a caravan died here and the word will spread like wildfire. Somepony somewhere must have answers...”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” I sighed, memorizing their basic descriptions as best I could with what I had for when we reached Shady Sands so I could inform the authorities. “Alright, let’s keep going then. This is really weird though…I don't like it at all.”

“I-it’s getting w-weirder…” Gold called out pointing a hoof further to the northeast where there were a line of circling birds in the air. "T-there's more..."

“What the fuck…?” I asked myself quietly, running through how something like this could have happened. “Did you hear about anything weird when you were searching, Cy?”

“Nope, nothing at all like this. This must have happened even before we, or at least I went on this road.” She said slowly, bending closer to examine the corpses for herself. "Hmm..."

“Who would want to shoot these ponies anyway?” Melody asked, averting her eyes to the spectacle and instead focusing on scratching her neck where beads of sweat were forming under her charcoal grey armor. “They don’t look like they were carrying anything that valuable.”

“Well judging by their armament, I would have to agree it was probably something on the cheaper end of the spectrum like assorted junk and trinkets, maybe a few low quality weapons and healing supplies.” I said poking through their empty pockets and bags. "Hard to tell though without anything left on these bodies...even Raiders tend to leave shit behind that they know they've no use for but there's not a goddamn thing here."

“Looks like canned goods were at least on the manifest…they must have had an agenda against these folks.” Cy said quietly, picking up a few cans of pineapple that had been shot and the delicious juices drained out making it essentially useless.

“Nooo...not the canned fruit..." I whined as she tossed me one of the cans. "Well...there's nothing to find here so let’s keep following the trail then. Follow the birds everypony.”

We followed the trail of buzzards and corpses for another three miles or so, the bodies all lower level traders and basic caravan guards indicating this had at one time been a full blown caravan of over a dozen individuals. As to why they had fled the well known NER road for the open desert, I was at a complete loss. Again, it was a NER controlled road for fuck’s sake, where the hell were they when this caravan was being meticulously picked off one by one as they fled into the wilderness? The NER boys on guard were lazy but they wouldn’t let their source of trade get gunned down like this so close to their capital city. It would be insanely bad for business if word of this got out and as much as I disliked the NER and its practices, they provided safety in the Wasteland for its citizens. These days, safety was a precious commodity in short supply and even the illusion of it can do wonders for a population.

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” I asked Cy as we passed the sixth Brahmin and twentieth pair of rotting bodies. "I mean, I have but never like this...this is something new."

“Nope. Whoever did this is, or are, more than likely seasoned veterans given their efficiency and the number of bodies.” She commented grimly. “Did you notice all these casings are mostly 5.56s? Rather odd wouldn't you say?”

I bent low and examined them for myself and was surprised to find they were indeed mostly 5.56mm casings sparkling in the sand around the bodies. There were also some 10mm and shotshells scattered about as well but the abundance of 5.56 meant more than one of the assailants had an automatic weapon in that caliber. Given the relative finances of the merchants and their guards, the 10mm and 20 gauges belonged most likely to them given their cheaper nature. The NER’s standard rifle for most of its troops was the classic M16 service rifle chambered in 5.56 but...it just didn't make any sense to accuse them as the responsible party. The last thing the NER would do would gun down their main source of income and a major food supply. The most likely reason was some well-equipped Raiders, a rogue band of former Mercs or...maybe even a band of Gunners. They were a decidedly Eastcoast Merc Company that was second only to the Order of Steel Rangers in terms of training and firepower but I had never heard of them operating so far West. Of course though, there was a first time for everything and it was prudent to try and eliminate all possibilities.

“What do you think shot these?” I asked her, tossing one of the spent casings towards her to browse. “Definitely an automatic given the amount of rounds but it's a big old question mark as to what kind. There’s about a dozen options we could choose from and most are rather expensive weapons these days.”

“Hmmm...” She replied, turning over the brass and scrutinizing it. "Not a clue. There's just not enough to go off of to make any kind of assumptions this early in the investigation but I have some probable suspects in mind."

“Such as…?” I asked, staring at a round of my own. “5.56 is a military assault rifle round, most Raiders on this side of the country don’t have access to that sorta thing in any sort of bulk. ARs in the hooves of Raider gangs is an Eastcoast thing, over here it’s .357s, .44s, .45s, 9 and 10mm and .308s with the occasional .50 Big Mac.”

“There’s always the possibility of the NER itself, but there are also the Specialists, Gunners, Talons, and maybe even the Steel Rangers, the latter might just have left the junk behind.” She replied, tossing the casing back into the sand.

“NER is really unlikely...these are their boys. Talons is a strong possibility but who the fuck would put out a hit on an entire caravan in NER territory this close to Shady Sands? Even the Talons don't wander this far North... The Gunners I’ve never seen West of the Gap and the Tin Heads wouldn’t gun down a caravan like this. These guys didn't seem to be packing any Pre-War tech worthy of being utterly annihilated by the Order far as I can tell. And who the hell are the Specialists? Never heard of them, they a new Company in the region?”

“They're a gang out of Baltimare who think they're hot shit because they robbed some SR tech and weapons and can almost use them smartly. If I can make it out here, so can they.”

“Ah, so you’re from the East then...makes sense.” I replied, standing up and continuing on the trail. “And what brought you to this desert paradise on the other side of the Continent?”

“A way out, to get away from the gang I just mentioned. I had a rep among these guys.” She sighed, trotting alongside me with a stiff expression. "And no, I'm not about to start explaining my history with them so don't even fuckin' ask."

We trotted in silence for another few minutes until she stopped me with a hoof and pointed, the feeling of her actions indicating there was something other than a body this time.

“Something’s out there. See these ruins to the Northeast? Whoever or whatever attacked the caravan must be holed up inside...I would if I were them.” She said as her shotgun was drawn and the chamber checked for a round.

I looked past the next set of bodies and squinted at the hazy ruins in the distance. With my visor zooming in I could clearly see there was a small cluster of ruined and collapsed buildings surrounding a twenty story or so apartment complex that looked in incredible shape given the buildings around it. The trail of bodies led in its direction and, since we were already four miles off course from Shady Sands, I felt it wouldn’t be that big of a detour to at least check out the place. It was in NER territory but...I was already getting ideas for a new home just looking at it.

“Maybe...it wouldn’t hurt to check it out though.” I turned to Gold and Melody who were nursing the last of my lemonade and fanning their faces with each other’s tails and said, “Alright, there’s a building up ahead, we can rest in the shade there for as long as you like, k?”

“Ok!” Melody grinned happily with a sweat soaked face. “Let’s get going! This heat is killing me!”

“B-but what if the k-killers are in the b-building?” Gold whimpered, his sweat a milky white color with a hint of blood in it from his exposed muscles and veins.

“Then we kick ass and don’t take any fuckin' names.” I replied with a laugh. “Unless they’re worth our time then we’ll adapt that game plan as necessary. I'll never say no to a good fight.”

“Before you swoop in and murder everypony else inside, let me do some light recon first.” Cy said in a commanding tone, putting on her mask and taking point on our trot forwards.

“No offence but you don't seem to be the recon type, Cy.” I said with a soft chuckle noting that though she was wearing shadowed combat armor, she was prepped for close encounters of the deadly kind with her shotgun, drill and revolver. “Unless you’ve got a StealthBuck, some binoculars or a very good scope on you that I haven't seen yet.”

“I have a spotter's scope I won in a game of poker with a 1st Recon jockey. I’ll go as high as possible and try to find the weak spots and see through the cracks in the windows and walls.” She said, pulling out a pair of high-powered military spotter’s binoculars.

“There’s little elevation in this area Cy, that building is the only one standing and they’ve got the advantage on height. Here…” I said, slinging my AMR from off my back and offering it to her. “Take it if you want. It’s got an 10x60 scope with a built-in rangefinder. You’ll make a much smaller profile with the bipod on the ground.”

“Thank you, but no. I wasn’t going to try to blow up the walls on the highest floors. Their armory is probably near the middle to allow easier access to both troops near the top and the ground, I’ll try to blow that up.”

“I want the building as intact as it is now actually.” I said, returning my AMR to its place on my back. “If it’s in good condition I think I’ll be moving in and making it my new home.”

“Riiight, so the hard way then. We’ll have to go through it floor by floor then...wonderful.

“Cy, I’m a pro. Watch me work and you’ll see why.” I giggled, popping my neck while Melody looked on with a proud grin.

“You show her you’re the best of the best mom!” Melody giggled as we approached the ruins, hugging to the windswept dunes to limit our profile to anyone peeking from the upper floor windows.

We found a nice place to hide that offered a full view of the building using the ruins of a partially built building some distance from the standing one. I plopped my rifle down onto a sturdy portion of crumbling concrete wall and started counting the heads I could see on the ground floor as well as through the windows of the upper floors. It was difficult to count using the E.F.S (as usual) and my vision filters were useless against peeking through the walls. Unlike the thinner walls of Cogsworth’s workshop, these walls were much thicker and blocked my sight and my one vision filter that could spot thermal signatures through walls like this hadn't worked in over a century.

“I’ve got eyes on ten so far but there’s probably more than that inside. Judging from the number I can see, I estimate...thirty or so tangoes. No group in their right mind would set up base in a building this large with less than twenty to defend it. Cy? Your opinion?”

“What can you tell me about their gear? I’m gonna gradually approach and engage them at close range. Throw in maybe a smoke or two.” She said, plucking a pair of black smoke grenades from her belt and peering over the edge of the wall.

“Lower tier…” I mumbled glaring through the scope at the ugly heads I could see. “Welded steel and patchy leather, only the bare minimum covered. Steel looks standard since I can’t see any sign of Celestium and the leather is most likely Brahmin. These guys don’t look rich enough to afford Radigator leather. Armament looks to be mostly 9mm and a few .357s. Might be a riflemare on the upper floors but I can’t be sure; most likely a .308 at the most on that front so nothing your or my armor can’t handle. I’ve got a suppressed 10mm if you wanna try to do this quietly.”

“Yes, please. I’d rather not take all the bullets.” She sighed, extending a hoof for the pistol I was offering her. “Hmm...this isn’t the kind of suppressor I’m used to seeing…”

“That's because I made it myself with some help from a friend. You wouldn’t happen to have a suppressor on your rifle would ya, Mel?” I asked knowing the answer but hoping I was wrong all the same.

“You mean a silencer?” She asked, looking through her bags and shaking her head. “Nope, sorry mom.”

“Darling...for the sake of mommy’s OCD please don’t call it a silencer…” I groaned, taking a deep breath and letting it out along with my annoyance. “Silencers don’t exist...suppressors just muffle the noise somewhat so you’re not as noticeable and so you won’t blow out your little ears when that gun goes off. Now, I guess we’ll have to go akimbo on this. What’s your experience with the Harries Technique Cy? If any.”

“I can stand up on my hindlegs pretty easily, if that’s what you mean.” She said, rearing up in demonstration and showing strong poise in her stance.

“If you were an Earth pony that’d be necessary but I just mean using a pistol and a knife with your magic.” I said, drawing my other pistol and a freshly sharpened combat knife. “Need a knife by the way? I’ve got more than one for obvious reasons.”

“For me, it’s just shoot, drill through someone’s eyeballs, take cover, then repeat...but sure, I'll take one.” She replied, extending a hoof for my other knife.

“Well, I’ve heard that thing of yours and it’s loud as hell. If we have to go loud then by all means switch over. How about a bet?” I asked with a grin, thinking back on the Head Hunts of yesteryear as I drew my other pistol and flipped the safety off.

“At least your enemies run away after seeing you covered in flesh, blood and brains. Depends on the challenge.” She replied, spinning the knife around her hoof.

“Whoever kills the most before the alarm is raised, if ever, gets to keep 70% of the scavenged shit. Sound fun?”

“If that means more caps for a good bottle of wine and a few boxes of Dragons Breath rounds, count me in.” She said with an actual smile for once.

“Perfect, you’re on!” I giggled, taking aim at the first Raider relaxing in a dilapidated lawn chair by the front door. “Skill against skill alone so I won’t use S.A.T.S. On your signal.”

She took aim, knife floating near her head, and fired the first shot followed immediately by my own. The two chumps guarding the door never knew what hit them as they slumped in their blood-soaked chairs; bits of flesh dripping off the backs and onto the patchy dead grass silently as the empty casings clinked on the ground beside us. A perfect headshot at 30 yards with iron sights was enough to impress even me. She was definitely a step above your average Merc.

“That sounded pretty silent to me…” Melody giggled as we stood and got ready to move inside.

“Shut it…” I sighed, knowing my suppressors were as close to silencers as Equinely possible thanks to the enchantments. “Snag those casings please and set yourself up to snipe anypony’s heads you can see through the windows. Don’t take any shots until I give you the sign to go loud.”

“And what sign will that be? When I start hearing a bunch of loud gunfire and ponies shouting ‘Fuck you’?” She asked, getting into a comfortable position on the rubble and bracing her rifle on the crumbling wall.

“Pretty much. Probably won't see too many to shoot if anyone but I still want you to be ready to pull that trigger. Gold? You wanna join or do you wanna hang back and help guard our sniper?” I asked, looking at him as he opened the cylinder on his revolver and spun the shiny brass around with a soft buzz of clicks as they spun around.

“I-I think I’ll guard M-Melody.” He said timidly. “I-I’m not good at fighting m-more than a f-few ponies at once…”

“Heh, yeah that's a decent enough excuse." I laughed, patting him on the back reassuringly. "Plus that Sequoia isn’t exactly a whisper quiet weapon either. Keep an eye on her, k? These ruins may have more of them lurking about so be prepared for a behind-from-back attack. Er...an assault from behind.”

He nodded with hesitant courage but drew himself up to his full height and sat next to Melody who nuzzled him affectionately before returning her eyes to her rifle obediently. I had next to no time to train her in proper sniping and yet she had shown almost a natural proficiency with the weapon on at least three occasions. Granted, those occasions had been with a clear line of sight and limited opponents but it didn’t diminish the fact she had some genuine inborn talent behind a crosshair. Obviously music wasn’t the only thing she was naturally gifted in. Still, even diamonds in the rough needed a professional to help polish them into a gleaming, priceless object and I was looking forward to having the opportunity to train her. The time-honored art of sniping was a worthy heirloom to pass on.

“Let’s get going then, Cy. No time like the present!” I said, jumping out from behind the ruins and galloping towards the door to minimize our time out in the open.

She followed close behind and we stopped as we reached the shoddy front doors to get our bearings. The two guards laid in their gore with looks of surprise and their crappy weapons (a battered .38 revolver and a rusty combat knife) laid on the ground nearby their hooves entirely untouched. Each head had a small hole through the skull in almost the exact same spot despite being on two different bodies; exactly between the eyes as Death intended. The rest of the outside was quiet and devoid of life so our only route forward was inside and up.

“Alright...on the count of three we’ll breach the door and sweep the entrance hall. I’ll take the right, you take the left. Got it?” I said, loading a spare mag into my gun even though I had only used one round of the original twelve-round magazine. You never knew when you needed that extra bullet.

“I’ll try and leave a few kills for ya.” She smirked, accepting the two spare magazines I offered her from my shoulder holster.

“Ditto.” I replied, psyching myself up for the breach.

On the count of three, we each burst through the double doors and into the dimly lit interior of the apartment lobby. There were no enemies in sight despite my helmet indicating multiple enemy ticks on my E.F.S. The lobby itself reminded me of a slightly inferior (and significantly dirtier) version of mom’s apartment in Manehattan. The furniture was filled with holes from years of neglect and pests, the plaster was chipping off the walls and the receptionist booth was missing massive chunks making it hard to believe it was once an actual desk. Despite the obvious Raider presence, it was missing the usual Raider décor as there wasn’t a single mutilated body dangling by chains from the ceiling or nailed to the walls. There were large bloodstains on the floor, some fresher than others but otherwise, it seemed relatively 'normal' for a ruin. While the older blood splatters looked like they came from a wounded pony hobbling along, the fresher ones distinctly looked like something had been dragged across the floor. Nothing a bit of water and Zebroxo detergent couldn’t handle though.

“They must be on the upper floors…” I sighed, hopping over the front desk in search of the ammo canisters I knew had to be there given Raider’s standard M.O. “You use anything that uses 5.56mm or .357?”

“No unfortunately. Leave it there so we can share it later, depending on who gets the most kills.” She replied, looking around the dusty room with her mask hissing softly as she breathed.

“Yeah...I don’t either.” I mumbled as I left the ammo cans on the working portion of the desk. “But, no such thing as too much spare ammo. Alright, let’s move on. We can loot when we’ve cleared this place. Nineteen floors to go.”

She nodded and we quickly swept through the rest of the lobby looking for any potential hiding places for would-be ambushers. After finding another few dead and rotting caravan guards in the supply closets, we mounted the stairs as silently as we could headed for the first floor apartments. With only two of us and a few dozen of them, this was going to be more than tricky but after seeing her precision shot at the front door, I was confident Cy was the right mare for this job. Cogsworth and his energy weapons and combat robots certainly would have made the job easier but he wasn’t at liberty to leave his shop pending a massive order from the NER for robots. The cobalt blue mare would have to do and I was far from mad about that fact. At the end of the day she knew her shit and had yet to actually pull a gun on me so our temporary partnership was a beneficial relationship for both of us.

The first floor looked like any apartment floor I had ever been in with a long corridor leading from the stairwell towards the various rooms scattered along its length. The dust on the ground was disturbed but there weren’t any sounds that I could hear on our floor at least which was both encouraging and disappointing. With the lack of action, I was tempted to move onto the second floor but the possibility of fighting a two, even three-way war with enemies from below, in front and above was undesirable. We needed to check each and every goddamn room just to be sure. If I had Alpha Squad, we would have had at least two groups of two working two floors at a time plus a pair of wings in the air sniping any fools in sight. Sadly...it was just me and the bitch.

“How do you want to proceed? This floor feels empty but we can’t be sure unless we check every room.” I asked her, the muted sunlight streaming through the grimy windows illuminating the floating particles of dust like gracefully falling flecks of gold.

“Melee takedowns only, if possible. There could always be another pony nearby and even with these suppressors I doubt the noise would go unnoticed. Keep an eye out for anything that could make noise if we or they bump into it. Would be a shame if their body lands on something and causes a ruckus too early.“ She replied, floating the combat knife before her ready to stab the shit out of anypony who came too near.

“I agree. Want to split up and take separate rooms or move in tangent?” I asked, holstering my own pistol and drawing Little Fang for the extra blade length and the potent Blood Gem in the pommel still hungry for hemoglobin.

“Split up at least for this floor, we’ll clear it out faster. Might be sacrificing a little bit of security in the process but hey, we'll get this shit over with quicker.” She said confidently, moving forward with her borrowed knife at the ready.

I nodded at her retreating form and followed behind, going for room 101 while she took 102 right across from me. The doors were busted open by brute force and we entered easily into our first rooms. They were rather small and frankly shitty; not because of their decaying state (which didn’t help any) but the size and amenities available were total shit. The room I was in was roughly the same size as my old room back in Little Hoof suburbs but rather than a separate bathroom and room for a queen sized bed, they had stuffed in a pair of twin beds that barely fit in the corner of the room beside a rotting T.V stand with a large blown out television on top. The bathroom was stuffed into the other corner of the room only separated by a thin curtain and no bath or shower to speak of. The kitchen was likewise small and dingy as hell with a minifridge and small hotplate acting as the only cooking appliances worthy of mention on a countertop that was barely larger than a couple of 2x4s. Dozens of empty liquor bottles littered the floor offering both a noise and a tripping hazard to any who dared walk across the floor and curled up on the bed were a pair of skeletons, both bleached white from long term exposure to the desert air and the residual Rads that clung to everything living and dead.

“Y'all two drink yourselves into oblivion or what?” I mumbled as I poked through the fridge and found a few surviving bottles of Badland Bourbon, a rare commodity ever since the Badlands were made into a warzone and bourbon production ceased entirely in their historic distilling centers. “Damn...what are these? 2047 vintage? Hot damn!”

Bourbon was one of the seven drinks mom had made me try with her on that wonderful day. Like it’s wheat-based cousin whiskey, bourbon packed a hell of a corn flavored, smoky punch to the mouth and again like whiskey, I hadn’t been that big of a fan. That being said, I had heard on more than one occasion that whiskey and SparkleCola were a delicious combo. Bourbon though was a rare enough commodity that only the wealthy or the lucky got to imbibe it making it a valuable trade item. Mom had been right though, rum had been my drink of choice that night. As I stashed the bottles away in my bags I thought about potentially giving booze another solid try after many years away from it but couldn't make up my mind on it. I hated what it did to ponies (especially stallions) but getting drunk on my own terms in a safe environment didn't sound too bad... Red Berryl though...that was something I was always down to puff on.

The rest of the apartment was empty and devoid of anything of edible or valuable and so I moved on, Cy emerging soon after with a bottle of wine in her hooves that she showed me with pride. It was another Sauvignon Blanc, this one an even older vintage from 2020. Though I knew little about fine wines, the rule everypony seemed to know was the older it is, the more expensive it became and the more you can charge for it.

“Anything else interesting?” I asked, glancing into the next room and seeing it too was empty and entirely devoid of anything, obviously an apartment nopony had moved into before the Balefire struck. “I snagged a couple of bottles of Badlands Bourbon in my room but nothing else worth anything aside from a couple skeletons.”

“The only thing of value is here in my hooves. The rest was junk or broken beyond repair.” She sighed, putting the bottle away in her bags and batting some of the dust from her mane where it hung in the air like a fine gold powder fit to make one sneeze.

“This floor feels like a bust to be honest…” I said, glancing up and down the hallway. “Nothing we can’t do when we have a lot more time on our hooves. Wanna move up the stairs?”

“Nothing to see here anyway…” She sighed in a bored tone, looking around and shrugging in response.

We proceeded cautiously, stepping on each stair at the point where it met the wall in order to reduce the chance of squeaking wood, and poked our heads and weapons into the hallway. There were still no enemies that I could hear or see and Cy seemed of the same impression. Red ticks milled about on my E.F.S like they were right in front of me but I knew better. More than likely, we would start seeing ponies much closer to the top floor. For now we could skip the empty floors and loot them later when there wasn’t the threat of bullets flying through the walls and breaking things we wanted to salvage. Oh, and sailing through our bodies too but that was honestly less annoying if I was to be honest. My Mrk. V had proven year after year to be the best at keeping bullets from penetrating my ass without my permission.

Floor ten was when we finally came across some people to shoot, the sound of multiple voices heard from the floor below making us change our weapons to match the threat. Cy was proving incredibly talented in room clearing operations and was the perfect wingmare to have the moment a door was opened and we began to open fire. S.A.T.S proved to be unnecessary as we each knew our role in the program and our opponents were completely caught off guard. The door would open and we would partially enter, Cy crouching low under my barrel and gunning down the right side of the room while I remained standing and took down the left side. After every room we would pause to see if the alarm was raised but nary a sound was made aside from the gurgling death rattle of someone with their neck blasted open. Life had become too easy ever since the great warriors of old all but vanished in Balefire. I mean, back in the day clearing a building like this full of guards protecting my target by myself would have been at the very least...like three-times more difficult. Sure, I would still kick everyone’s ass, but the challenge would at least feel more like an actual challenge. This? This was a Radroach shoot on normal difficulty and nopony could tell me any differently.

As the last room was cleared of enemies, this one with a mule and a stallion both sleeping away like nothing was happening, Cy and I both paused to reload and take a quick peek at the contents of the room. Her empty magazine rattled as it hit the floor and a fresh one was fed in and the slide cocked on the first round...but she didn’t pause to snatch up the empty mag. She just left it sitting there. On the floor. As if those things grew on trees. The fucking nerve...

“Pick that up.” I said calmly, doing my utmost to not freak out even though my mind was starting riots in Downtown OCDVille.

“Excuse me?” She asked bluntly, looking around the room from the piles of dirty Raider clothing to the brain splatter on the walls by the beds. “Pick up what?”

“The empty magazine. The one you eh...left on the floor where it doesn’t belong.” I said feeling a slight shrill enter my voice.

“It’s empty, why should I bother?” She retorted, kicking it towards me with a sigh. “You can get these things literally anywhere.”

“Yes. But these are still useful.” I said through gritted teeth as I stooped down to pick up my mag in my mouth just to give my mouth something to do other than chew her out for wasting something that could come in handy later on. After all...an empty magazine was refillable and thus still had value. Unlike other people, I couldn’t just leave my equipment behind just because it wasn’t immediately valuable as an asset. It was hard enough not scooping up every single spent casing we left behind and sticking them into my bag for reloading when I got home but this was too much. I needed to have every magazine used remain in my possession whether or not it was filled. The full ones went in my mag pouches ready for use and the empties got turned into Sigil Stones and stowed away for refill. Everything had its place and every place had its purpose in my arsenal. While I was fully aware my habits were not hers, far as I cared I outranked her.

She rolled her eyes again after I gave her a scathing glare and poked through a closet with a broken door only to pull out an FIM-6 missile launcher that, based on the glowing red lights in the targeting computer housing, was still functional. It was covered in hundreds, if not thousands, of small tally marks scratched into every metal surface provided by the weapon. The number of marks was eerily familiar as were the overlarge optics, grips and buttons. It was definitely a Griffin-sized model from the size alone and there was only one Griffin I knew who could have racked up so many marks…

“What the hell?” Cy grumbled as I kind of shoved her out of the way to examine the weapon closer looking almost desperately for the little singing songbird etched into the arm of the digital recon scope that marked it as the property of Buck Beak.

I spun the launcher around and around and around in a crazed fervor looking for that stupid little songbird. It had to be somewhere! Lady Nightingale's cutie mark, Buck Beak’s celebrity crush for decades, was forever carved into the first missile launcher he had ever been issued before he had gotten Little Big Cannon custom made. Serial number IAEO-0008675309, a number I wasn't likely to forget after he had made a stupid song up about them. Where the fuck was it?!

“Calm the fuck down damnit, you’re making enough noise to wake every single of these fucks up.” Cy hissed, yanking the long cylinder of death out of my hooves with an angry glare. “What’s so important with this thing anyway? It’s just a launcher, go buy your own. This one’s mine bitch, I found it first.”

Maybe I was going temporarily blind. She was a fresh pair of eyes, she could find it!

“I need to know.” I panted breathlessly, hooves still outstretched for the weapon. “Look on it, please. A Nightingale songbird wreathed with a heart carved in by the scope.”

“What? I...fine.” She sighed, glancing at the area I had indicated. “Nothing here, can we go now?”

“No, it must be his…” I whimpered despite myself, my sudden crazed lust for memorabilia reducing me to uncharacteristic tears. “Only Buck could have so many marks…”

“Look, I dunno what you’re looking for or who the fuck 'Buck' is, but it ain't fucking there. Can we get back to cleaning this place up already?” She grumbled, leaning the launcher against the doorframe as she left the room. "Sheesh..."

My world was cracked. Not broken...but the cracks were starting to show themselves again now that I had begun to crawl back out of the shell of isolation I had made to keep me sane. I was alive, standing here today still breathing and kicking ass. Buck, Dancer, Penny...Hucks and mom. Everyone else was dust except for me... It was not a pleasant thought let alone feeling as the icy cold shame of survivor's guilt pricked at my heart. I missed the old world...even all the bullshit that came with it like the War and shady politics.

‘Shut your stupid ass face hole and get back to the action, Crete!’

I could hear Buck’s voice in my head as clear as if he were beside me. His overly masculine, puffed up bravado-filled voice echoed in the confines of my tiny mind loudly enough to make my head spin. Of course I was being stupid. Nostalgia was a sign of weakness, a sign of degrading morale in the face of an unknown future ahead. Then again...was it all that bad...?

‘Just because you burn the photographs of the past doesn’t mean you’ve erased them from existence. There’ll always be a record of things that have happened because somewhere, somehow...there’s someone watching over us.’

Great...now Penny was joining in the chaos trying to appeal to my soft side that enjoyed the...well, the soft things in life including nostalgia. I’m going mad. About time to be honest…

‘Don’t look at me Crete, I don’t wanna get involved in this.’

Typical Dancer. Always the reluctant combatant. Many help. Very counseling.

‘Look...appreciate things that happened, happened. They changed you one way or the other but don’t let them get to you. If they’re bad, do what you do best Crete. Blow a fucking hole in them and move on.’

‘Knowing my girl she’d probably fuck that hole too as an expression of dominance.’

I laughed out loud to myself at her imagined comment. I wasn’t one for necrophilia but then again...establishing dominance like that was more Buck's thing. I preferred a nice, warm body to love up on.

“You got a problem or somethin'? Or should I just leave your ass behind and win this bet of ours? Huh?”

Cy’s face appeared in my field of vision as suddenly as if she had teleported there looking as grim and irritated as always. She was pretty cute but her bitchy attitude killed any chance my libido had at considering her as an avenue of venting its constant tension in my body. Not even good looks could hide a bad attitude.

“Oh I’ve got tons of problems.” I laughed, getting back to my hooves and tightening the suppressor on my weapon just to give myself something to do other than try to explain away my lapse in concentration. (Or should I say sanity?) “But unfortunately for you they’re not enough to keep me from wiping the floor with you. Bring it on.”

“Hmph...not like I’ll need the advantage of you staring into space.” She muttered, pulling on her gasmask as a sign of terminating our conversation.

“That’s the spirit.” I laughed to myself as we left the room behind headed for the stairs.

“We’ve got you outnumbered! Drop your guns and come out slowly!”

I looked at Cy who was busy shoving bright red shotshells into her shotgun and then back at the floor in front of us. We were hiding behind a thick metal locker I had hastily thrown down as improvised cover near the center of a large communal living room on the top floor of the apartment building. Behind us were about twelve or so ponies all hellbent on killing us while before us lay the bodies of sixteen of their brethren; various sized holes peppering their bodies ranging from slim knife wounds to gaping canyons filled with a mixture of gore and buckshot. With stealth no longer being necessary, we had both ditched the 10mms in favor of our bigger weapons. her with her shotgun and myself with my Sequoia and a knife. So far, we seemed tied in our respective body counts and neither of us were really that concerned about being outnumbered. For ponies in our business, this was just another day at the office though instead of skirts and suits we got to wear Kevyarn and Celestium steel plate. Far more enjoyable a lifestyle than an office jockey.

“I’m not going to ask you again! Come out slowly with your hooves in plain sight!” Called out the stallion from before, his eloquence rather refined for an ordinary Raider. "We outnumber you six-to-one, there's no winning this."

“Then it's a fair fight!" I yelled back, flicking up the barrel of my revolver on six fresh .45-70’s and turning to Cypher. "Feel like giving up to this clown?"

“Please, this is foal’s play.” She replied in her usual bored tone. “I’ll take left, you’ve got the right. Let's end this already...”

“Hey, I get left! Why do I have to be on the right?” I complained, completely ignoring the heavy thuds of bullets pounding against the back of the locker I was leaning against.

“Because it makes more tactical sense. Their bigger units are on the left and I’m the one with the shotgun, not you.”

“Have you seen what my Sequoia can do to armor?” I grunted in annoyance as I shoved the huge weapon into her face. "They make AP rounds for this fucker ya know."

“I know, and I still think my shotgun will do better.” She replied, opening the chamber of her gun and hoof loading in a bright neon orange shell.

“That’s a Dragon’s Breath round.” I commented incredulously. "Seriously?"

“And your point is?”

“Uhhh, I asked for minimal structural damage to this place. Last fucking thing I want is for you to set off an inferno damnit. You ever seen an apartment fire?”

Guns continued to fire, ponies kept shouting expletives our way and the poor abused locker continued to thud and clang as their minor calibers slowly chipped away at its structural integrity. And yet still we sat against it, bickering about whose gun was better. Were she not such a cunt, something like this would never have happened while on a job but her attitude really prickled my anger and I was almost more focused on showing her up and putting her ass in its place than killing those out to kill us. All of a sudden my head was ringing and a heavy, painful thud rang out from the side of my head as a bullet shattered against my helmet, the sudden impact sending me flopping forwards and onto my stomach. Without even having to look I knew that the sniper I had eyed earlier had joined the fun and had enough firepower to pierce through the locker but not quite enough to put a hole through me. The M.H.G didn’t change the outline of my head from green to yellow but my headache said otherwise. As usual, the PipBuck 3000 OS had the knack for understatement and vaguery.

“Ugh...that was a .308 if I’ve ever felt one…” I groaned as I got partially up and crawled back towards Cy who was eying me through her mask as if unsure she should be grateful I were alive or not.

“Your armor is better than I thought.” She commented before pulling a smoke grenade from her waist, yanking out the pin and tossing it over our cover into the bullet filled middle ground. "Smoke out!"

There was a loud pop and then an audible hiss over the din of gunfire while the ambient light in the room coming from the broken and grimy windows was quickly dimmed in the wake of the growing plume of ominous black smoke pouring from the little steel canister with a large black stripe on it. The shouting became more confused as visibility went down to nearly zero and my vision automatically went from black smoke to the rainbow of thermal imaging. Cy was already standing up and flipping over the locker as I drew a knife back out of its sheath and followed suit, crossing the distance between us and them to strike before they could get their bearings. Even my anger towards her couldn't do much more than sulk in approval at her ability to navigate and kill with a lot less visibility than I was granted.

The thermal world was always a trip to see as everypony was a moving mass of reds, blues, purples and that odd super pale orange color that you only really see with white-hot gun metal. The bright orange/red objects in their mouths or strapped to their sides flashed white-hot at the tip at regular, chaotic intervals while I felt the occasional thud of a stray bullet stopping an inch and a half from my skin. I was so entranced with PipBuck’s World-of-Color mode that six bodies lay on the ground in my wake dead or dying without me even remembering how they got that way. If anything, I was disappointed in how easy things had been made for us compared to before where these saps had actually stood a chance. A very slim one, but a chance nonetheless.

“Back to back! Don’t let them close in!” The leader called, his multi-colored hoof waving about like a beacon in the muted blue/purple background while the floor was occupied by other similarly orange beacons.

I looked right just in time to see a large flash of white come from Cy’s shotgun while a figure collapsed with a long item in its hooves. The sniper was down finally and by the looks of things, it was 2-on-1 now. Cy moved to take the last stallion out but I stopped her as a sudden stupid (and vain) urge hit me. We would get close to him but not too close and then wait for the smoke to wear off so the first thing he would see is both the room full of his dead underlings as well as the two badass mares who had taken care of them. I did my best to try and communicate this without saying anything as it was quiet enough for him to overhear me explaining my stupid plan to her and I think she understood me. At least enough to not take the shot at that moment.

“Guys? Where are you?” He barked out, his voice hard but tinged with panic as the realization of the situation set in. “Oh fuck…oh fuck, fuck, fuck...”

The smoke finally started to die down and we stood there waiting right in front of him with guns at the ready, the bodies of his minions soaking the threadbare carpets with their blood. With the smoke gone, I switched back to normal vision and was taken aback at who we were really up against. We had not had the pleasure of taking in the sights the moment we mounted the stairs and entered the room so now was the first time I was actually getting to see the asshole who had decided to move into this place. Instead of the scarred and grizzled old Raider that I was expecting, it was a fucking trooper of the NER. There was no mistaking their beige tan uniform, the hard leather breastplate or the giant NER logo painted on his chest and sewn into his shoulder. As soon as he caught sight of us he gave a small yelp of fear and fell back over himself trying to back away.

“Stay away Ranger! Don’t come a step closer!” He cried out from around the grip in his mouth, pointing an empty 9mm at me, the standard sidearm of most lower ranking troopers. “We didn’t fuck with you! Why the fuck are you after us??”

We stood there in silence trying to figure out how the fuck the NER ended up here with a bunch of Raiders giving him enough time to reload from the pouches at his waist and open fire at me. Thirteen times he shot and eleven times my armor thudded and sparked under his pointless assault. I just...couldn't understand what the hell I was seeing.

As he clicked on empty yet again, the gun dropped from his mouth with a clatter to the floor at his side and his expression was filled with the look of a mouse cornered by a Manticore. In the time it took to approach him, I noticed the three black chevrons sewn onto his right shoulder. A Sergeant in the NER leading a band of Raiders holed up in an abandoned apartment complex just outside of Shady Sands. It wasn’t the most bizarre thing I had ever seen but it definitely cracked the top thirty. As for potentially devastating consequences, it was somewhere in the twenties for sure. There would be hell to pay in the Republic once word of this got out.

“What in the hell is a Sergeant like you doing all the way out here with these fuckers?” I asked, standing over him with my gun hovering nearby just in the very unlikely occurrence he had a bomb vest on. "Speak!"

“N-none of your fucking business, Ranger.” He sneered back at me, eying his fallen weapon and the two empty mags laying nearby. “You finally declaring war on the NER? Is that what this is all about? Huh??”

War on the NER? We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of shit including what constituted a fair tax rate on citizens but declaring war on the NER was not just insane, it was stupidly out of character for me. I had no quarrel with the Republic itself nor its citizens, just its politics and how it handled some shit under its jurisdiction. The most conflict that would get out of me is a heated argument but war? I was just one fucking mare. A mare with a big ass rifle and high-tier armor but just a single pony at the end of the day. I had neither the confidence nor the insanity needed to take on such a ludicrous idea...not to mention the necessary headcount of underlings to actually facilitate a real war.

“Dunno what you’ve been smoking ever since you joined up with these guys trooper, but do I look like I’m ready to challenge the NER?” I said incredulously, gesturing to the two of us and the otherwise empty room. “Don’t know what army you’re seeing bolstering our numbers but so far it’s just me, this bitch and a couple of kids outside. That’s a terrific army. Best fuckin' army I've ever heard of! Oh yes, we will most definitely be conquering the North with such an impressive roster of soldiers, won't we Cy?”

“Ugh, just fucking shoot him already damnit. Your kids have been alone too long.” Cy said quietly, cocking her shotgun and pointing it casually at the trooper. "Besides, I'm getting bored. We've got a body count to tally up."

“Hold up a second, I want some answers.” I replied pushing her barrel out of the way of his face before shoving my own barrel in its place. “You’ve got ten seconds to explain and don’t beat around the bush. My attention span is arbitrary but if you keep me interested I’ll keep listening. One...two...eight...”

He sat deathly still for a few moments before I jabbed him in the head with the barrel to rouse him back to the situation. The guy’s uniform was soiled and worn out but not to the point where I would consider it to be the garb of a deserter nor was the stallion’s face the dirty, ‘fuck-all’ appearance most Raiders donned. Either this guy was the real thing or was super conscientious about laundering his pillaged uniform. No...his manner of speech was too refined for a Raider, this guy had to be a trooper.

“I don’t have anything to say to you, Ranger.” He spat, going cross eyed trying to keep my gun in sight against his forehead. “You’ve killed the rest of them so finish the job, damnit.”

“If you had nothing to say, you wouldn’t be here now would ya? An NER soldier boy running gun with a bunch of Wasteland degenerates? You think I'm not gonna wonder about that shit? Whether or not you have anything to say, something’s gotta be said for this whole fucking situation, don’t ya think?” I replied, gesturing to the bodies around us. “What happened to the caravan, bitchnozzle? And don’t tell me you don’t know, there’s more than enough circumstantial evidence to convince this jury.”

“We...um…” He stammered, looking around wildly in a probable attempt to find something to clobber me with.

“Annnnnd you just lost my attention...” I sighed, pointing my gun at his left shoulder and blowing the entire joint out with a tremendous bang, his leg flopping off to the side like a large limp noodle in a spray of blood that was rather fantastic.

His screams made my ears curl in annoyance and I regretted my snap decision to shoot him as he was no good to me as a screaming mess of a stallion. After a few seconds of that I couldn’t bear to listen to it so I dug through my medicine bag looking for Medix to dull his pain long enough to get a coherent statement out of him. Was I feeling particularly benevolent? Hell no. Once he was done speaking, my next shot was going through his skull and into the floor. Or the wall depending on if he was upright or not, either way he was buzzard food just like the merchants he helped slaughter.

“Alright, feeling better? Good. Answer the question or I’ll blow your dick off next.” I said after sticking him with 25cc’s of uber-opioid and waiting a minute. “What’s an NER tan hide like you doing with a bunch of chemheads like these?”

His bleeding had significantly decreased thanks to the vasodilating properties of Medix so he was in no immediate danger of bleeding out on me. Only question was if he would spill the beans before I spilled the rest of his blood supply.

“We...we were fucking bored ok?” He groaned, crawling back a few feet to lean against the back wall. “Patrolling the San-Palomino makes you wish for a Rad Winter...it’s just nothing but fucking sand and cactuses and-”

“Cacti.” I corrected without even thinking.

“What?”

“The plural form of cactus is cacti, not cactuses.”

“Ok, whatever...we’re fucking bored alright? All you do all day every day is stand there in the heat with a gun you’re not allowed to use unless provoked with similarly bored friends. You’re not even allowed to talk much unless it’s official business because they don’t want us distracted from watching the goddamn empty roads! What the hell is there to do out here?! The closest bar is in fucking Shady Sands but even there you have to be off-duty to get a shot of fucking AJ! We already smoked our whole stash of Red Berryl three months ago and none of the fuckwads passing through the checkpoints have been carrying any more! Just a bunch of canned food n’ shit. I mean yeah we get a pack of smokes a day and maybe a few more from ‘redistributing’ them from the yahoos who pass through but still...it’s fucking terrible out here. Give me a fucking break damnit!”

“So you mean to tell me you joined up with a group of Raiders because you were bored?” I asked incredulously, looking at Cy who stood there as motionless and emotionless as ever.

“Yeah, fuck you sister! I bet your life is just so fucking fun packed you’ve never had time to be bored haven’t ya?” He snapped, pulling out an almost empty pack of cigarettes and screwing a slightly bent fagg into his mouth as nonchalantly as I had ever seen. Although having a final smoke wasn't too egregious a thing to allow him to do under the circumstances.

“I’ve had plenty of time being bored, dumbass. Try staring down the same scope for three-days waiting for a single target to enter your line of sight. Or better yet, try watching over the Ponyarny Inlet sometime and let me know how you feel after a few months of that shit during the winter. You’d be begging for this heat again. So...you were bored, joined a gang, shot up a bunch of innocent merchants and took their shit as extra income. As stupidly fucked as that is, I guess I understand at some level. Did you happen to find any Dragon leather in all your pillaging?”

“What’s it to you huh?” He snapped, patting at his chest with his remaining hoof and looking annoyed. “Ah fuck, do one of you have a light?”

“It’s a lot to me actually.” I sighed, pulling out a flip lighter from my belt and lighting his cigarette for him. “Because if you killed the merchant it belonged to then your life is fucked beyond belief at this point and no amount of Medix is gonna protect you from what’s to come.”

After taking a long drag and blowing the plume of gray smoke into my face, he nodded with a bored expression.

“Yeah, he’s over in that other room...might still be alive, might not. Knock yourself out bitch...be doing me a fucking favor...”

I nodded to Cy who approached the door to the indicated room cautiously, kicking it down and disappearing from sight with her shotgun up and ready. While we waited I looked back at my captive who was already halfway through his second cigarette and was looking tired and defeated. I was sickened by his actions. I knew the NER underpaid its troops by a decent margin but...was that really enough to justify this? Shaking down merchants for loose goodies was one thing but murdering them for their shit was entirely another. Not that I was any sort of fucking authority on the morality of killing but even my fucked up moral compass knew that this sort of shit was wayyyyy South of 'good'.

“Anything else you wanna tell me?” I asked as I got back up to my hooves. "Blood loss will kill you in twenty minutes so make the best of your time left, asshole."

“Don’t suppose I’m gonna make it out of this alive, am I?” He sighed, using the smoldering cherry of his second cigarette to light a third. “Well...would it be too much to ask for a bit of whiskey? You seem like a girl who’d pack a bottle everywhere she went.”

“I’m actually a rum or tequila mare but I’ve got a bottle or two of AJ.” I replied, raising my PipBuck to my face to rummage through my inventory to bring one of the bottles I had taken from Camp Macintosh to the top of my bags. "I shouldn't even be doing this for you..."

He took it gingerly, eying me for any sign of foul play but eventually he pulled out the cork with his teeth and downed the entire bottle in one go. It was impressive for sure and I granted him a modicum of respect for being hard. Didn't diminish the fact it was a waste of whiskey on a waste of life...but what was done was done. Maybe it would loosen his tongue a bit more...

“Thanks…” He muttered, tossing the empty bottle across the room. "I ain't got shit left to say to you so why don't yo-"

The roar of my Sequoia blowing his brains across the wall and the grimy window above cut off his last act of defiance leaving the room quiet and heavy with mixed feelings, all of them dour.

“Yeah, yeah...save it for whatever the fuck comes after this world...” I mumbled as I holstered my weapon and trotted across the room to the room Cy had disappeared into.

It was a standard (if extremely filthy) apartment room with a larger kitchen unit connected to a modest sized living room and a hallway leading towards what I assumed was a bedroom. In the corner Cy was kneeling down and talking to a huddled form from which several chains extended and connected to railroad spikes hammered into the floor and walls. Dried tracks of red spiderwebbed outwards from the figure as well. This wasn’t how Scaly deserved to go out… Eaten by one of his Dragons? Sure, was bound to happen eventually but tortured and chained in the corner of a nondescript apartment building in the middle of the desert? That was a Raider’s grave, not Scaly's.

“W-who’s there?” He croaked out, his gruff voice dry and cracking as if he had spent the last few days screaming. “Is that you...A-Athena?”

I approached Cy and sat beside her taken aback at how unrecognizable my friend was. His eyepatch was removed and both his eyes were empty, bloody sockets while his body was riddled with cuts and burns of varying size ranging from a few inches to one cutting him his left shoulder all the way down his chest to his right thigh. His legs were crossed and though he was curled up on himself, it wasn’t hard to see he had also been gelded. And very unprofessionally at that. I liked to threaten to cut stallion’s balls off but I almost never went through on my threat because even a bitter enemy deserved to die with their stallionhood intact. Castrating a guy was a terrible punishment...the ultimate fuck you right above dating the guy for two years and then marrying his sister. (And no, I had never done that myself but it goes without saying that would be almost as big a blow to the balls as gelding.)

“About damn time…” He chuckled. “How the hell did you find me...?”

“Do you want the truth or a vague approximation of it?” I replied, bringing every single medical supply I had to the top of my bags since he needed more than just what your average first aid kit provided. “Truth is...well...things have changed for me a lot in the last two weeks. Enough to make your head spin probably...”

“Really?” He gasped after chugging an Extra-Strength potion and weakly breaking the bottle over his head as he did with everything he drank be it booze or water. “You found my sorry ass in the middle of the fucking desert and killed the assholes who captured me. Far as I can tell ain’t nothing changed about you, Crete.”

“Heh...well, I guess that’s true…” I laughed halfheartedly. “But...would you believe me if I told you I adopted a couple of kids and decided to try a new way of life?”

His empty sockets stared me down and I stared right back at him, ignoring the fact I could see the severed ends of his optic nerves deep inside. In two weeks...less than two weeks actually, my entire outlook on life had changed dramatically. I didn’t even recognize myself some nights but it wasn't something I found myself hating. If anything, the more I pursued this road, the more confident I felt in my heart that this was the right thing to do. My...chance at redemption you could say if I was feeling a bit whimsical.

“You ain't one to fuck around...but goddamnit I wish you were.” He sighed. “Because that...ain’t the kinda thing I’d expect from you. Where’s the hardass Crete I know? Hope she hasn’t retired... If you got kids then you’ll need her watching over ya more than ever in this fucking world.”

“That part of me can’t retire, Scaly. I’m a soldier girl for life and not even motherhood is gonna stop that. Maybe bridle it a bit but not retire it. Not by a long fucking shot.”

“Mom…? You in here…?” Melody’s voice called out from the living room outside. "Holy shit what a mess!"

“In here Mel.” I called back, smiling as Scaly's face went slack-jawed with amazement at hearing the voice of a young mare call me ‘mom’. "Though you might wanna shut your eyes if you haven't already...it's not a pretty sight in here."

We waited a few moments until her adorable little head poked into the room, her face instantly brightening the moment she caught sight of me. Gold followed silently behind her, his Sequoia out and his eyes glancing everywhere for any possible threat to his new sister. Both looked as healthy as ever which was a tremendous relief though the moment Melody caught sight of Scaly she immediately made a move towards him.

I moved quickly to bar her view of my poor friend to spare her more traumatic images but she quickly pushed me out of the way and hurried over to his side, digging in her bags for her own medical supplies including an MTK, a Military Trauma Kit which was something that surprised me immensely. The Kit itself was a small satchel that contained a device that could only be described as a couple Ultra-Strength potions attached to a small computer with a hypodermic needle and breathing mask for delivering the volatile liquid directly into the bloodstream via vein and lung. Even during the War, MTK’s were a rare sight due to the cost of the potions being used apparently containing exceedingly rare plants. Contained inside the pressurized containers was a potent cocktail of super-charged healing elixir, Medix, Dash, RadAway and an experimental drug called Hydra, a potion purportedly capable of regrowing missing limbs. I had only seen six of these in my life and only once have I ever see one be used. The results were...immediate to say the least. And almost violently so...

“Mel sweetie, where in the fresh fuck did you get that?” I asked her cautiously as she opened up the satchel (which was embroidered with the M.O.P insignia as well as the letters MTK in bold red) and started unraveling the long plastic tubing connecting the needle and mask to the computer.

“The medical ponies back in New Appleloosa, why?” She asked sweetly, looking through the instructions sewn onto the inside of the satchel flap. "They gave it to me when you took Chocolate to the toilet since I told them I liked medicine. Might have had to play the baby-eyes routine to get it but I didn't steal it if that's what you're asking."

“Do you know what that is?” I asked again, eying the device with a bit of trepidation as Melody was hardly a trained combat medic.

“A Military Trauma Kit, silly.” She chided me with a smile, pointing to the words written in bold font on the instructions. “What, am I not allowed to have this or something?”

“I wasn’t saying that Mel but…”

“But what? I like medicine! It’s so fascinating! Plus, I get to help ponies. Like...like him.” She replied, looking towards Scaly who had his ear turned to her and was smiling in her direction in silent thanks. "Besides...they said they didn't need it and after hearing a bit about where I came from they insisted I couldn't leave without some kind of gift. It was either a half-dozen free Extra-Strength potions or this and...well, I liked how official and cool this thing looked so I chose it."

“Just…” I began before I cut myself off from telling her flat out no. “Just...why don’t you watch me do it ok? I’ve got combat medic training and a lot more experience in this sorta thing. This isn’t your average health potion hun, this is a goddamn Ministry of Peace Trauma Kit. This thing is like comparing a bomb to a grenade in terms of how potent the shit inside there is. There’s a reason these weren’t standard issue to combat medics save for the truly exceptional because you have to be incredibly precise in your administration of the chems. Otherwise, the patient could go into cardiac arrest, have a Medix overdose, get cancer up the ass, go into a coma, sprout multiple limbs and other nasty malformities... Hucks was very adamant I understood that back in the day...”

Her little hooves trembled slightly as the gravity of my cautionary words sank in and she timidly passed the device over for me to handle keeping very close by watching my every move with rapt attention. First and foremost I checked to see if the damn thing even worked as without the calibrator, I was left with a very expensive cocktail of uselessness on par with the Lovely Lotus cocktail from the Chez-Parez. All show, no bite and about the same amount of mystery juice involved. A blue light came on when I pressed the ON button and I waited ten seconds for it to turn green as it ran a self-diagnostic and cleared itself for duty; a small screen displaying info in the normal StableTec green. Once that was done, I dug into the satchel for the small I.V prep kit that came with alcohol wipes for disinfecting the venipuncture site, a long rubber band for a tourniquet as well as a vial of Lidocaine for numbing the area for those who, like myself, feared the soft prick of the needle more than even a bullet. After disinfecting the site and applying the tourniquet, I had Melody take his leg and feel around for a suitable vein while explaining what she was looking for. Both to teach her how as well as save me the time it would take to get my combat boot off so I could feel with my own hoof. Her face was scrunched up cutely once more in avid concentration as she tapped the tip of her hoof along his leg before squeaking in delight once she found a good strong vein.

“Alright, so since this is an intravenous needle, you’re going to want to pierce the vein at a twenty-five degree angle so the needle only goes into the vein and nowhere else. If you poke through the vein you won’t be able to deliver the medicine properly and trust me, this shit needs to be in the blood, not the muscles. This is a standard issue butterfly needle, about 23 gauge. It shouldn’t be hard to use.” I instructed, wiping the needle down with alcohol just in case the sterile plastic cap had suffered a breach over any of the last two hundred plus years.

“Butterfly?” She cooed softly, floating up the bizarre syringe that roughly looked like a butterfly. “How’d it get that name?”

“Well, because it looks like a butterfly. Sort of.” I laughed, picking up the sterile package it was sealed in hoping there was a cutesy drawing of a Fluttershy butterfly or something because branding rights and all that. What I found was infinitely way better than that.

The small package had understandably small writing so it was difficult to make out the fine print but what had caught my attention was an acronym. Written in the boldest letters a 0.2” font could produce was the acronymed version of B.U.T.T.E.R.-F.L.Y across the top of the torn packaging. After holding the thing a few inches from my eyes so I could read it, it read (and I quote):

I was completely stunned with just how ludicrous the whole fucking thing sounded, not to mention the god-awful amount of cheese tossed on this little needle from hell. They had actually printed, word-for-word, Fluttershy's little rambling tirade about the product instead of some professionally written script like you saw on most things. You know what has needles attached to their fucking faces? Fucking bugs. You know what kind of bugs freak me the fuck out? The ones with fucking needles on their fucking faces. You thought the mosquitoes of the Empire with Malaria were annoying/deadly? You ain’t never seen a Bloodbug then. Mosquitoes the size of fucking fillies with stabby parts as long as your fucking leg. Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck. Nope. Just fucking no.

“Got it! Can I try it? You know, for practice sake?” She asked, looking at me pleadingly with her big, beautifully mismatched eyes.

“Probably should ask the guy you’re poking, not me sweetie.” I laughed, looking towards Scaly who shrugged his shoulders with a pained chuckle.

“After the shit I’ve been through the last week...a couple of needle pokes’ll be like a kiss from Amaris. Go ahead kid.” He said with a chuckle settling more into the queen bed we had laid him on after cleaning it as best we could of cum stains and dust. "Just...do try to be kinda careful would ya?"

With a determined look, her magic enveloped my own and took hold of the needle after I had lined it up at the appropriate angle for her. After a deep breath she eased it forward into his skin, the steely length beginning to vanish under his magenta colored coat. He didn’t even flinch at what would have sent my own heart racing for cover if I were in his place and I pointed her attention to the small glass chamber separating the needle from the plastic tubing that had just been flushed full of blood. She had struck the phlebotomist’s version of gold on her first try and I was frankly impressed.

“Awesome! Remember, if you’re ever doing something intravenously make sure that the syringe, or in this case the chamber, fills with a little blood. That means you’ve gotten the needle into the vein and can then inject the chem. Now...for the really tricky part.” I said, patting her on the back before picking up the device and trying to recall how the damn thing worked.

If memory served me right, I was supposed to enter in the approximate weight of the patient, plus their age and gender into the system using the little dials and buttons set below the computer screen. Scaly was a very well-built stallion after years of domesticating Feral Dragons and had very little body fat to account for so I guessed his weight to be somewhere around a two-hundred-and-fifty pounds, a full thirty pounds heavier than the average stallion. Age I knew was thirty-two and even without his balls, he was still definitely male. If anything, he was more of a stallion now than he had been before seeing as he was maintaining a stoic attitude in the face of his own torture. I doubted my own ability to keep such a straight face if I were in his place but then again that would mean my pussy getting royally fucked the hell up and that...that wasn't something I even wanted to think about...

“Just to ask Scale...how much do you weigh?” I asked, knowing weight was one of the most important factors for administering the MTK. “I put you down at 250, that close enough?”

“I’m 255 actually but close enough for government work.” He chuckled, keeping his legs crossed and his tail tucked tightly against his crotch. “Why? Putting me up for auction when we get back to the Market? Ol' Death Smoke would pay you a pretty cap or two for my ass.”

“Heh...that he would. Don’t worry. We’ll get you back in no time!” I replied, adjusting the weight to the exact number just to be on the extremely safe side. “Alright...just a warning Scale...this is gonna hurt like hell.”

With a snort he flung his legs wide open showing off the sagging, empty flesh under his sheath that had been brutally torn open. Melody covered her eyes while Gold blanched and instantly clenched his hind legs together as if he too would suffer the same fate for just looking. Cy remained behind her mask so there was no telling her visible reaction but I knew for myself that the sight of his poor, ragged ballsack was enough to make even me, a vagina-haver, clench my own legs and cringe at the thought. This guy had seen the gates of hell and lived so my warning was just preaching to the converted.

“What more do I have to fucking lose, Crete…?” He asked with a tired sigh, slowly crossing his legs again and covering his face with a filthy pillow. “Kill the stallion but don’t rob him of his dignity…”

I nodded even though he couldn’t see it and slipped the face mask over his muzzle before flipping a small lever on the side of the canister. The machine hissed softly as its cocktail of Chems flooded into a smaller upper chamber and were properly mixed and proportioned before zipping up the clear plastic tubes as a dark magenta fluid and into his vein while a vaporized version came through the mask. A few seconds after the mystery medical cocktail started dripping into his system he began to convulse slightly, each and every wound and scar glowing a bright blue before the flesh sealed itself up. I almost laughed as the same bright blue light shone like a disco light from his crotch and the image of a male stripper with glowing junk and the stage name of ‘DJ Disco Balls’ popped into my head. A long, pained groan emanated from his mouth as his body was rocked with convulsions and none of us could do much more than watch in fascinated horror at the spectacle taking place before us. After a solid minute he stopped twitching and lay still, breathing heavily and covered in sweat.

“H-holy fuck…” He gasped, sitting up and pulling the pillow from off his face revealing a pair of fully functioning red eyes. “Wait, what the fuck?!”

“What the fuck?!” I exclaimed right after him followed by Melody who squeaked, “What in the hell?!”

“So that thing repairs missing eyeballs.” Cy said nonchalantly. “Neat.”

He felt his face after removing the mask, waving both hooves in front of his new eyes before staring at me in total disbelief. I had seen an MTK regrow a hoof severed at the knee before but repairing both eyes including the one he had lost eighteen years ago? That was more than a little surprising. Only question was if he got his balls back too.

“Hey, Scalyanything else get regrown?” I asked with a slight blush hoping I didn’t come across as too interested.

He clenched and unclenched his legs a few times and sighed in relief.

“The boys are back in town!” He chuckled. “Daddy’s back in business girls!”

“Heh, thanks but no thanks, Scale.” I giggled nervously, standing up and looking away to save myself some face. “Maybe someday...I dunno.”

“What? I gotta know if they still work don’t I?” He asked, getting to his hooves after removing the needle from his leg.

“Mom said no bozo, fuck off.” Melody growled, a familiar dangerous flame smoldering in her eyes as she moved to stand between me and him.

“Whoa there little filly, I’m only joshing around get me? Your mom and I go way back. Without me she wouldn’t have been able to keep that fancy coat of hers in such great shape.”

I blushed again and batted nervously at the collar of my duster before saying, “I was doing fine before I met you Scale...but yes, you’ve come in handy a few times. That explosion in Vanhoover for example.”

“Haha! Yeah! I totally forgot about that shit...goddamn that was something! Whatever happened to that ZapApple you found?”

“Sold it.” I replied, continuing my attempts to avert my gaze to the side of him so my face wouldn’t turn any further shades darker. “To Amaris. She paid ten big ones for it.”

He stared at me in disbelief before shaking his head and laughing a little.

“And she didn't even fucking share?? Well...thanks again Crete. Let’s get the hell outa here now please...dunno ‘bout you guys but I really miss my bed back at the Market. Longer I spend out here the more I age and I wanna keep my good looks as long as I can. I mean, how else am I gonna test the goods to see if they still work?”

“TMI bro, but thanks.” I chuckled as I lead us out of the room and past the murderfest that occupied the communal living area. “Don’t mind the mess. My apartment isn’t usually like this.”

That got a few laughs out of him as we stood in front of the elevator Cy and I had missed earlier but Melody and Gold had both used to get to our floor. Looking back at the large space, I noticed there were more than the one room Scaly had been found in. In fact there seemed to be seven or eight rooms in total that all shared the living room and if each apartment room was the same rough size as the one from earlier…

“What ya doing mom?” Melody asked, looking up at me with a bit of concern. “Does yew needs Nurse Melody too?”

An image of Huckleberry in her nurse uniform popped into my head only to reform into little Melody wearing it instead which...I was afraid to admit looked even sexier on her than it had Hucks. But no, that wasn’t what I was thinking about. Well...if I found a uniform for her though…

“Just thinking about maybe moving in here.” I replied as the doors dinged open and the shabby but still functional elevator car took us on as passengers. “Definitely a TLC job but I think we could pull it off!”

“TLC as in Tender Love and Care or Totally Lost Cause?” Cy mumbled as the doors slid shut.

“Guess we’ll find out won’t we?” I retorted, holding back the urge to deck her bitch face right then and there.

It was going to be a hell of a project but I was in the perfect situation to make it work. Cogsworth’s robots would be more than happy to have a serious cleaning challenge ahead of them and I knew I could turn the building into a veritable fortress worthy of protecting my children. Sure, it was ten miles away from Shady Sands but the NER could suck my ass for all I cared. I’m a mom making a difference. A weird, bloody difference but a difference all the same.

Next Chapter: Chapter Thirty-Two: A (Half) Day on the Town Estimated time remaining: 13 Hours, 31 Minutes