Chapter 9: ...to the Rhythm of the War Drums.

Gunshots

Loud and sonorous, gunshots rang in her ears and stole her hearing with a reverberating buzzing sound, and gut wrenching screams of ponies burned into her thoughts as they tore through the thunder storm of battle. For her, it felt like an eternity as concussive blasts rattled her to her bones, and her entire body recoiled from hoof to horn curling tighter and tighter as best as she could with small shouts of wordless mercy pleas. It wasn’t until to gunfire all but receded, leaving naught but a deafened droning, that the shouts of raiders pierced her overloaded senses.

“We got ‘im! We fuckin’ got ‘im!”

“Bastards gonna get it now!”

She looked up, despite her desire to remain curled up forever, and saw with her tear trailing bloodshot eyes that Eagle was beneath the strong hooves of a large, heavy set earth pony who seemed to embody the viciousness of the entire raider gang. He brandished his barbed wire wrapped club in his teeth, his armor, the epitome of their scrap metal bindings with jagged saws and barbed wire jutting from broad plates, his drab scar crossed coat the dirtiest of all she had seen before.

Her eyes went wide from the sight, as the raider held Eagle in a vice grip with his face to the floor and a talon behind his back, his rear hooves standing bloodily on his wings. The revolver that Eagle used was open, the empty cylinder hanging in the air as bullet casings surrounded him on the ground next to his hat. His knife, buried in one of the dozen corpses surrounding him, was blood soaked and all but in reach of Eagle as he squirmed violently trying to get back up.

His eyes burned like flames as he stared at Sparks, damning her for getting him into this mess, for getting killed for her sensibilities, even his own. They locked eyes for what felt like entire minutes for her, as her mind spoke his insults and chastisements for him, and she wept again.

But suddenly, like a wave of guilt had surged through her body, she stood on her fours with a newfound strength. She began to approach the group numbering two dozen easily and as her eyes watered, her nose sniffled back the snot that oozed from her sinuses and she saw Eagle’s struggling gestures to stop and run.

She didn’t. She couldn’t, not after getting Eagle into this mess. It was her own doing, and she thought that maybe she could do something, at least try something to help, or that it might be a fitting punishment to die with him if she couldn’t.

‘What the fuck are you doing?!’ was what Eagle mouthed out with his scarred beak as best he could beneath the raider’s hoof, who laughed maniacally as he struggled. “F-fighting... for what I think is right.”

The raiders around Eagle heard her, clear as day as she all but shouted the declaration, and all were held aghast short of laughter at the sight of the small, slate coated unicorn mare as her blonde mane crowned face bore two expressions at once. Terror and determination; her tear streaked face and her grit teeth betrayed the return of all but blinding rage within her.

They laughed at her.

The raider pinning Eagle had to stifle a chuckle himself as his appraising eyes saw her in full form, a combat armor and stable suit clad unicorn that eyed him with a vengeance. Tilting his head he spat out his weapon and watched it clatter to the floor a short distance away, and he spoke in a dark, deeply coarse voice; one that emanated over the rest of his deranged and shabby crew, bearing a clarity of words that betrayed his senses were clear and devoid of chem use.

“So... our friend’s blue clad ace up his sleeve, I suppose.” He twisted Eagle’s talon further behind his back, getting a short growling grunt of pain from his prisoner. “So tell me, little blue... what do you plan... to do to us?”

He motioned around them with his head, looking in either direction as he started to chuckle slowly with a deep resonance, completely different in tones when compared to the hyena-like laughter of the rest of the raiders. With a subtle grin crossing his scar crossed face Sparks spoke in a cracking light tone that the raiders simply cackled at even harder as she gestured with her entire body, violently and shakily as her limbs trembled below her in adrenaline powered terror. “I’m going to t-tell you... to let him -and your prisoners- let them go!”

The raider boss seemed to be the only one among his crew who could contain his laughter. He looked at her down the length of his snout, and his grin grew on his lips, revealing rotten and shattered rows of teeth between his cracked and dry lips. “Hmm... will you now? Sorry to disappoint you but ah... you see, this little rascal...” he twisted Eagle’s foreleg even more as he spoke, getting a pained grunt as bones popped and muscles were pulled beyond what they could reach, with further unsuccessful attempts to free himself “...cost me a few good stallions earlier this week, I remember him as he cut down some of my bucks as we attacked those... those stubborn bastards, the Stingers.”

Eagle piped up, his strained voice barely audible but plain in his desire to rip the raider boss limb from limb. “No one asked you to get in my w-”

The Raider boss cut him off by twisting a hoof on one of Eagle’s wings, and left him with naught but an agonized growl. “Speak when spoken to, vulture.” His eyes lingered on Eagle for further rebellion, but he just squirmed beneath his impressive weight. He peered over to Sparks again, and smirked. “As I was saying, this one is mine. Those prisoners over there? Also mine. You will be too, here soon. Such a... lovely morsel of a Stable mare; small and pretty as you are. I could use some... fresh flesh all to myself...”

The dire comment shocked Sparks’ system into an emotion she had felt before all this began, but now at such a level of abhorrence that she never had. Uncontrollable rage flew through her as her fight or flight instincts shot into life, and her horn glowed that almost serene cyan color as her laser pistol whipped around her. It shook subtly in her magical grip. “I’ll only say it once more... Let. Them. Go!!”

Her voice cracked and flashed into a full voiced embodiment of her anger, and despite her near blinding fury those around her didn’t feel threatened in the slightest as tears trickled down to her quivering jaw. “Or what, little blue? Will you cry me to death? Somepony grab her, I’m tired of her bullshit!”

And with that, Sparks used the one thing she never thought she would in a fight. She activated a spell in her PipBuck with a flash of her horn that slowed time down around her as several of the raider ponies lunged to grab her, and as time slowed down all came into a frightful scrutiny of detail as particles stopped midair and the fast grabbing hooves crawled to a snail’s pace. Sections of their bodies were highlighted in her vision, like green beacons with interfaces near them showing percentages in double digits.

S.A.T.S., is what she used, the Stable-Tec-Assisted-Targeting-Spell, a standard issue security spell built into the software of their PipBuck’s that slowed time around the user, and allowed for them to target specific spots on their marks displaying the chances to strike them. She detested using violence, but she knew she had no choice if she wanted to live, if she wanted Eagle or the prisoners to live to see another day; free of raider oppression. Free of violence in what relative safety they could find for them.

Despite her own disgusted feeling like her coat was soaked in ichor and pitch she targeted the big raider’s head, at a grim chance of seventy two percent, and at three others who charged her at eighties each. Four targets, four shots, and at close range she sent brightly glowing red beams of magic flying as tears streaked her cheeks. She hated it with a passion.

It all happened in terrifying detail, as the S.A.T.S. spell continued to slow her perception of time around her, and she saw when her first shot of the laser pistol hit the big one’s head. The subtle ozone smell from puffs of searing smoke from the pistol and the impact alongside the terrible report of the laser’s sound resonated in her ears. The user interface of her PipBuck declared a critical hit on the target, and she saw his eyes shoot wide with panic for the last moments his form was whole before being disintegrated into a fine red glowing ash from her laser pistol’s built in spell.

The ashes slowly but surely swept over Eagle as they hung in the air like menacing glowing dust, and the second shot bored a hole through the closest raider’s armor like a hot knife through butter, leaving a glowing scalded hole nearly a hoof deep in his chest. His expression went from giddy, chem crazed glee as the foam of his mouth leaked in droplets slowly, to wracked with pain over the next few seconds as the weapon’s spell did its work.

As the raider curled on the wound and fell to the ground, Sparks saw Eagle wasted no time and sprung to action. Free of the raider’s control he pounced, and even in S.A.T.S. he moved faster than all the other ponies around her as realization slowly inched across their faces. He had already freed his knife from the raider corpse it protruded from and tumbled slowly through the air as the glowing red ashes twirled around him with his mighty wing beats, murder in his eyes before she fired her third shot.

The third raider she targeted was in the middle of turning, mouth agape to scream, what about she could only guess was their companions being killed, but she spared no waste of her spell’s active time and fired the shot. The laser beam impacted with a gut wrenching response from Sparks as the shot merely grazed the raider’s body, leaving a burnt and smoking line across his coat as his face contorted in severe agonizing pain.

His movements were dull and slow when he threw himself backwards and held the wound, screaming. It was then that Eagle had lunged for the final target she had marked, and as Eagle dove in for the kill, his blade skillfully twirled in his talon, Sparks canceled the last shot.

As the spell ended, time slowly flowed back into speed. She saw Eagle as he hung midair, blade extended over the raider with a single swipe from behind prepared. All the others, numbering maybe nine at the most hung back from the spectacle that began scant seconds ago in reality, and despite that very fact Sparks had all but memorized every detail. With a single tear leaping from her bloodshot eyes barely moving at all time reasserted itself, and her tear flew rapidly to the ground, and blood from the raider’s throat before her splattered in small ribbons across her face.

It was then that, with time continuing at a regular pace, the true utter chaos of battle was made apparent. Her eyes, despite being held raptly in attention, couldn’t follow the twisting turns and movements of Eagle or the raiders as a grand melee played out before her. One after another in hectic and terrible motions raider after raider dropped before Eagle as he shouted with punches of his talons, kicks with clawed paws, and lethal swipes of his blade. Each and every strike found purchase as blood splattered across him, the ground, and the raiders all.

He didn’t stop as Sparks watched the fighting, not until all nine bodies lay on the floor, leaking blood as they ebbed out their last gasps. Eagle twisted about looking for more, with wide eyes and quick motions he found none, but he saw Sparks as she stood there shaking uncontrollably. He shouted fiercely at her with a terrifying voice of authority.

“Come on, we need to move!! More will be on their way from the outside!!” Eagle darted his eyes around quickly as he searched for some way they could survive the next wave of death sure to descend on them. His body locked as he tilted his head, his eyes locked on the massive armored chariot that sat on the road nearby, and a wicked grin crossed his beak. “You wouldn’t happen to know how to use a turret, would you!?”

She didn’t answer as her limbs trembled with her eyes locked on the destruction before her. The bleeding bodies of the raiders with still glowing ashes laying about contorted in pained visages. She couldn’t break her eyes from it, and it wasn’t until Eagle yelled at her loudly that she managed. “Sparks!?” She couldn’t speak as she looked at him with a snapping motion, her bloodshot eyes still streaming tears. “Don’t break on me now girl, you’re doing great! Now tell me, can you work a turret!? Even the basics!?”

“Y-y-you t-think I could!? I c-can barely u-use t-...this thing!” She shook her laser pistol in her shaky magic grasp.

Eagle only shook his head abruptly and spoke quickly as he looked around for defensive constructs they could use. “With that spell in your PipBuck you can! A turret’s even easier, just point and push the button. I don’t want you in melee range of these fuckers and that chariot is the best bet you have at staying out of range!” She was held aghast once more as she was torn with indecision, but Eagle gave her no time for ruminations as he planed out battle lines. “Come on Sparks!! We don’t have the time!!”

She threw her head into a violent shake with a muffled scream that betrayed her pleas for mercy as she chose to mount the gun atop the truck. She trotted over to it as adrenaline coursed her veins, her limbs barely capable of supporting her. She closed up to the truck which was crisscrossed with barbed wire and jagged plate steel, and at first she eyed it over and wondered how to even get up to the top, but her question was answered when Eagle came up from behind her and tossed her forcefully up to the gun.

She landed precariously on top of the turret of the armored chariot and looked behind her with surprise as he continued to shout and make defensive barriers from whatever he could find; tables, walls, junk, and more. “The chariot’s spark batteries should still be attached! Rev it up and flip the headlamps and spotlight on! Might help blind whatever’s coming our way!”

Sparks reluctantly delved into the truck’s cramped bowels, as that was the best description she could give to its filthy, torn apart state. Small slivers of light penetrated the windows from beyond the windshield’s armor plating like visors and gave clarity to the threadbare seats and rusted naked flooring.

After a short search she found a driver’s side steering bit and center console of the old world vehicle, with half the buttons and switches that belonged on it missing, leaving empty holes in the dark confines as she searched for the choice button that would bring the beast to life. After fidgeting with one after another she began to panic, and shouted to Eagle outside, her voice cracking. “Which button is it!?”

“Steering dashboard on the right! Should be a key!!”

She searched where he said, and found a slot with just such a key protruding from it. She fidgeted with the key with magic to work the near rusted tumblers, and eventually managed to get some noise from the engine of the truck. A loud and stuttering cacophony of an indescribable noise to her, but no other signs of life came from the monster as she released the ignition switch as soon as it began.

“What’s wrong with it!?” She shouted, and Eagle returned with an even louder shout that showed the pressing time.

“You need to hold the key down until it starts!! You’ll know it when the entire truck feels like it’s rattling!!”

She fidgeted with the key again until she got it to twist, and as several beads of sweat trickled down her face she heard that same ungodly stuttering noise again. A few seconds later she felt the entire machine roar to life as the frame entire began to shake and rattle like Eagle had said, and for a second more she held the key down in surprise the stuttering noise went from terrible to downright atrocious as an ear grinding metallic screech sounded, making her recoil from the ignition.

“What was that!?” She screamed, but Eagle wasn’t going to allow another bout of twenty questions.

“Not now!! Flip the lights on and get on the gun! Headlamp switch should be left, opposite the key was!” she searched for a moment and found said switches, and with a panicked hoof flipped them. She watched from the slivers of windows that massive beaming lights peeled away the darkness that the tunnel seemed to bear in comparison, and as she tumbled and wormed her way out of the cabin she began to hear a now all too familiar sound. Gunfire.

“Get on the gun girl!!” Was all she heard from Eagle, and she scrambled in a panic to reach the top of the vehicle. Her eyes and body flinched with every firearm report, but she finally managed to reach the turret on top, which looked like a massive rectangular box with a long barrel protruding from the opposite end and two wide set handles facing her. A spotlight beamed forward from the gun, and it cut all it touched in harsh contrasts with the small slivers of shadows she could see it facing, and the large bin on its side had a belt of bullets that connected to the gun’s main body.

She reluctantly grasped the handles with her hooves and felt small paddle buttons on the insides of them, and with it accidentally firing off burst of shots into some distance garbage with casings and seemingly random metallic pieces flying off the side of the machine gun. The overpressure startled her beyond belief, and the gunshots themselves were louder than any she had ever heard before.

She grabbed the handles again delicately and peered over to where Eagle was fighting, his battle saddle was rapidly firing off shot after shot into the mess of raiders, maybe two dozen if Sparks had the luxury of time to count, with few of them dropping from the wounds they received. She would have kept staring had it not been for a few sudden showers of sparks that splattered against the turret’s armor. She flinched, ducked down instinctively, but pulled herself up and brought the turret to bear on several of the raiders ahead; the spotlight basking them in promised death.

With a moment’s pause of grief, activated her S.A.T.S. again as she dropped into the magically crawling time.

Hanging onto the machine gun she saw the slow and cumbersome movements of the raiders as they neared Eagle’s, and her, position, and the bright headlamp of the turret sent several diving for what cover was available, but they couldn’t outpace the advantage that S.A.T.S. gave her. She targeted the closest raiders, and with chances all above seventy she let loose bursts at three of them as they dove for their lives.

The overpressure hammered her in terrible detail as each sensation was like every inch of her was suddenly squeezed by a massive hoof lasting for what felt like two or three seconds each. The sensations were followed by bright, indescribably loud, and terrifying fireballs that blasted from the barrel of the gun, with the heat of each warming Sparks’ exposed body as it sent the large bullets plummeting into their marks. Each sensation ebbed off slowly until the machine racked another round in the burst and sent another bullet flying in a terrible dance of dance. It was only a small mercy though between the sudden bursts of pressure and flame that she could barely see the raiders as they were killed instantly by the massive rounds tearing apart their bodies.

One target after another did this routine repeat, and with every hammering of her senses her eyes trickled more and more tears as she tore herself apart for what she was doing. With most of her marks dead on the ground like shredded meat the spell’s effect wore off slowly as time returned to normal, and the long yet delayed terrible effects of the machine gun fire became a rapidly roaring beat on her body and mind as it now screamed bloody death so fast she had no time to lose the sensations it gave between the seconds.

She hung onto the machine gun as it continued to fire, and burst after burst it shredded apart anything her panicked limbs aimed it at, be it raider or refuse or rubble as she shut her eyes tightly as it roared. It was only luck that she kept the barrel downrange at the raiders, albeit with absolutely no thought for aim. She trailed the barrel back and forth and forced her flinching eyes open and swayed it across the tunnel’s length as she tried to regain control of the monster, and only just barely managed to force the gun to the general area of targets where she remembered they were.

After a long winded deafening cacophony of machine gun fire the belt inside the bin on the machine’s side ran dry with no more ammunition to be had, and with that the final report of the terror ebbed away sharply into the background noises of the tunnel, all masked by the all consuming ringing in Sparks’ ears.

The only thing she could hear was her own heart beat as a pressure thudded in her ears, and beyond that was nothing but that dull droning noise that she couldn’t shake. Not that she tried though, as she clung to the empty machine gun before her with a death grip and trembled across every inch of her body. Her eyes shot wide from the carnage beyond that the machine gun had wrought.

It was terrifying to her, in a sense deeper than she could imagine. The small hovels and miscellaneous tidbits the raiders had about were all shredded into splinters or shavings, and the small splatters and inching puddles of blood betrayed the still and torn apart forms of raiders behind their ineffective covers were visible.

She was locked on the scene, and couldn’t take her eyes off of it, but Eagle however, as he emerged from beneath his own improvised cover with his talons over his sensitive ears he cursed under his breath and walked out to the middle of the tunnel. “Damn, girl...”

He shook his head, and slowly went over to where his black hat and revolver laid serenely on the ground and picked them up with a talon. Giving both a quick dust off from the red, still glowing ash of the big raider -the boss he presumed. He reloaded the revolver and holstered it, and donned the hat again with a voiceless expression of defiance; his beak curled in a grimace and squinted eyes.

He turned from the scene and saw Sparks frozen in place, and her expression told him all he needed to know. Shock had set in, and the realization that she had just taken not only her first life as a survivor, but in such a glorious -or terrible- display of many. Most Stable dwellers get such rattles on their first as Eagle knew, and he sighed deeply feeling a bit of sympathy as his eyes wandered over the shredded remains of the raider camp.

He walked over to her, slowly and steadily, and began to call out her name in a low, but warm gravelly voice as tenderly as he could manage. “Sparks, hey? Sparks? You hear me?”

He had to carefully scale up the side of the chariot avoiding its traps built to hinder and harm those that tried to climb it, and sidling up beside her he carefully put a talon on one of her sweat matted hooves, still clenching the trigger of the machine gun with a death grip. She showed no reaction, her hooves numb from the machine gun. “Sparks, can you hear me?”

The droning in her ears subsided just barely, and she heard his gravelly voice pierce her deafened senses. She turned abruptly and met her wide trembling eyes with his, calm and steady, and she traced the scar laden expression of sympathy across his face. She broke into a slow and building sob again, and the breakdown that had been growing began in earnest. She couldn’t speak coherently as she whimpered and choked on her own saliva with rapid, panic attack laden breaths. “I-I-I.... I d-don’t k-k-k-know what I-I-I’ve...”

“You saved us, is what you did. And you stopped those raider fiends from ever... ever, hurting someone again. That’s what you did Sparks.” He interrupted, and looked out over the carnage before them with a lingering gaze. He turned back to her, with almost empty eyes and a low emotionless voice. “Come on. Let’s get you out of there.”

Sparks tried to speak again, but no words came from her trembling lips. She wiped her eyes with an exposed sleeve, only for the tears to return harder than before. She looked around with distant eyes, and she tried to get out of the turret with her weakened limp limbs. Eagle offered a helping talon, which she took with a lethargic pace as she all but tumbled out of the chariot. He helped to her to ground, but her legs betrayed the true weakness in her as she immediately buckled without much effort given to stand. She groveled on the ground for a time before Eagle tried to help her up, but she couldn’t get much past sitting up.

Eagle merely bit his tongue, as he knew the only remedy for what she felt was time for it to settle. She was in shock, and he knew the pain well that she felt. As he sat beside her, Eagle fished around his packs searching for something that could help her, but the only things he found remotely helpful were his moonshine and a spare bottle of the all too popular soft drink of the wasteland, of Old Equestria before the war.

Sparkle~Cola. He sighed for a moment, popped the cap off and sequestered it away, and watched the drink fizz ever so slightly as these drinks remarkably still held carbonation after all these years. He held the bottle to her. “Here, drink this.”

She looked up with a sudden burst of energy that was a rotten mixture of fluster, anger, mourning, betrayal, and terror in one large clump of emotions. The baseness of the command did something to her mind she had not expected. It angered her. They -she- had just slaughtered several dozen raiders like insects, and a rage built around the idea that Eagle wanted to have a drink like some afternoon tea.

She summoned a surge of strength that drove her to try and smack the bottle away from her face. She only succeeded in toppling herself over as Eagle deftly dodged her attempts to waste the drink. She caught herself with one feeble hoof and rebalanced, and the rage in her channeled to her weeping chocked voice.

“A-a-a-after all t-t-that... a-a-a-after all we just d-d-did... Y-you want t-to pop a s-s-s-soda!?” the accusation in her words merely bounced off of him like pebbles as he kept a straight face, and this enraged her further. “W-w-we... I-I-I... j-j-j-just k...k-k-killed... what, thirty? F-f-forty p-p-ponies? J-j-just like t-t-that!” she threw her hooves together with a clop, throwing them back down to support herself as she trembled. “I-I-I.... I d-d-didn’t even... I didn’t t-t-t-think this would... I... I...”

Her rage broke like a cracked dam that held back all the internalized feelings and she exploded, thrown into a full bodied breakdown wracked with wrenching sobs and wordless pleas. Eagle closed his eyes as he slowly as he hung his head shaking it. ‘It has to run its course...’ he thought, and after a few minutes of nonstop havoc as Eagle kept an eye out for other trouble her breath slowed and she reestablished some of her shattered focus and wiped her clenched eyes on her filthy sweat laden sleeves; the brilliant blue hues faded slightly from the dust and tears.

She desperately tried to dry her face, but failed as the tears replaced themselves as fast as she wiped them, leaving waterlogged dust and the sting of salty sweat in her eyes. Eagle pulled a scrap piece of rag from his open packs and offered it to her. “Here.”

His level voice, quiet and surprisingly easy, missing most of its typical harshness brought some small comfort of sympathy to her, and she took the rag greedily and did her best to wipe her bloodshot eyes clean and dry. Once she was somewhat satisfied the rag was damp with her tears and snot, and she looked up to Eagle with a gaze he was all too familiar with.

“Why...?” She sniffled with quivering sensations between her words as she looked around at the now newly dedicated graveyard, and at the pen of ponies behind them. “Why would they... do this...?”

His calm and matter of fact voice answered her in the same voice. “Because they were desperate. Many creatures are; ponies and yaks and griffons and all others alike.” She stared into his empty and dry eyes. She sensed some small amount of long felt sorrow long since having lost its edge. “Desperation can drive any creature into doing almost anything. From needs and demands of one’s own survival, or the survival of... of loved ones, almost any creature would stoop to things most decent folk would balk at.”

He looked about the scene with lingering eyes on the destruction, and an instinctual motion of a forelimb brought his talon to the silver locket beneath his coat. He merely held his talon there longingly as he stared with lingering eyes about him, sighing as he did with his eyes stopped on the cage of prisoners. “Unfortunately... that line of ‘anything’ these days is too often crossed. Here.”

Sparks looked up to her blood matted guardian as he held the Sparkle~Cola bottle to her. Fighting between her intellectual mind and her youthful, ignorant view of the world; she knew he was right no matter how much she hated to agree. The Wasteland seemed to be a land that bred violence and difference with all the right tools to break a creature in mind and body, and ‘violence...’ she thought, ‘breeds violence...’

She began to heave subtly, but her body hadn’t the power or contents with which to retch. She groaned and wiped her lips with the dampened cloth as saliva almost dry burned her lips, and she reluctantly took the offered drink in her hooves and took a sip. The carroty, carbonated taste cut through her deadened senses like a beacon of sudden life in the vat of death she inhabited, and she smacked her lips. “This is... pretty g...good... actually...”

“Save some for the others, I’m sure they’re parched worse than you.”

With that Sparks remembered the entire reason why this fight began in the first place, and with extreme embarrassment forced herself to her shaky hoofs holding the bottle in her magic. She meandered over to the cage, one hoof in front of the other with her entire body wracked by weakness, and upon seeing the inequinity within she retched acidic, faintly carrot flavored pasty liquid in a full bodied heave now that her stomach had something to force.

Within the cage was what she saw before, bloated corpses mingling with three living, breathing ponies inside all wide eyed and panicked with the battle that just played out, but the stench and depravity was now apparent. The way they were posed, cadaver and living alike, betrayed that they were the carnal playthings of the demented raiders.

Several of the bodies even had chunks of flesh missing, which she couldn’t tell were the extent of how low they had been caged, mutilated by rot, or if the raiders intentionally cut off sections of meat for meals. All these thoughts churned her stomach fiercely, and she exclaimed with disbelieving eyes after wiping her lips. “Dearest G-Goddesses... oh c...crap.”

She looked back and saw the gate itself was locked with a thin chain and padlock which she struggled against fruitlessly. She looked over to Eagle with a wordless plea in her eyes, and he approached shaking his head. With no more than a yank the small rusted padlock snapped open, and after unraveling the links from the gate they both pulled hard on the chain link fence until it begrudgingly gave way to their efforts with a squeal of rusted hinges. Eagle made a move to enter, but Sparks stopped him with a hoof. “No...this is my fault... I’ll... I’ll do this.”

Eagle looked at her with lingering eyes, and a small frown curled his beak as he hoped for the best. “Alright.”

She entered slowly, making steps past refuse and rotten flesh, and her guts churned with no purchase. She looked at the awake and terrified prisoners of the raiders, all three earth ponies with two mares and one stallion, each a hodgepodge of colors muted by the dirt and grime on their coats, blood caked and gaunt to the last. With as gentle a voice as she could muster, despite her immense and uncontrollable shaking, spoke softly to them as she tried to comfort them. “I’m... I’m here to help you get out of here.”

The first of the three sat almost still, and if it wasn’t to the subtle trembling one could have assumed the mare was dead with eyes empty of all emotion but terror of their last moments. Her mane was short cropped and ragged, and if it weren’t for the filth covering her one could almost eye an almost dark brown color, and her coat was a sort of eggshell hue equally indistinct from her dirtiness.

As Sparks neared her the mare began to shake, giving wordless and muffled cries as Sparks saw the gag fastened tightly around her head cinching the flesh of her cheeks and neck, and with it Sparks shushed her like a mother would a crying child, all with a shaky smile as her desire to help overcame that of wanting to hide herself away. “Hey, hey... it’s alright miss, I’m not going to hurt you, alright? You’re going to have to trust me...”

With her comforting words, the mare stilled, only testing her bonds in apparent discomfort. Her eyes closed and her expression betrayed her desire to weep, but all her tears were cried out long ago from the lines that broke the dirt and filth on her cheeks. Sparks first undid her fore hooves’ bonds and eased her limbs down to rest, then she removed the gag around her head and the mare’s jaw hung in the air from the inability to close from soreness and weakness. She groaned from the terrible mix of aching pains and pleasure that came from relaxation as she hung there for days without count.

Sparks went to the next mare, her mane long and bizarrely wild and her coat raw and naked in spots, both laden with filth with colors almost greenish, and undid her binds and gag as she gave no fight to the release. Finally free after untold horrors were inflicted on her she mouthed airless words, but Sparks understood the phrase, ‘thank you’. The third however, the stallion, was immediately startled by Sparks’ advances to free him, and despite her calming words he continued to thrash on his bonds and screamed ineffectually through his gag.

Eagle spoke up in a grave, but sympathetic voice. “Leave him for now, he’s going to be trouble if you release him. Raiders hurt him bad.”

Sparks peered down at the stallion as he thrashed about against his bindings, and with a sickening realization found these raiders used him just like the rest. The blood caking his nethers betrayed details her eyes didn’t have any desire to linger on, and she closed her eyes trying to think of some way to help him. “We can’t leave him here.”

“Of course not, but I’ve seen prisoners attack their... rescuers before. This one’s got the same look.” The idea hung in Sparks’ mind like a terrible haze, the idea that somepony could hurt the ponies that help them, but she could understand somewhat given the evidence she had seen of the raider’s abuses.

She thought long and hard about how she could help him and with a sudden thought she dug through her packs fishing out her doctor’s bag. Opening the zipper and flaps with her magic she withdrew the syringe of subtly glowing magenta hued medicine. “PainAway could act as an anesthetic for him for a while, keep him from hurting himself or... us.”

Eagle groaned lowly, and after a few seconds time he shook his head. “Alright, do it.”

The stallion began to thrash even harder about as he fought against his rescuers, and after Sparks removed the cap on the needle he began full bodied screams that were barely understandable, but sounded like ‘no’. Sparks looked at him with an easing face and held the syringe up next to her head in her cyan magic aura. “Look, I want to help you, I really do. But I can’t have you hurting yourself or... us in the process. So either calm down and let me help you, or I’ll put your under and then get you out of here, alright?”

Sparks heard the shuffling noises beside her of one of the freed mares, and she looked over to her as the second mare used what little strength she had to turn to her. Her eyes were dried out and distant beneath her frazzled, filthy ebon green mane, but she spoke clearly enough to understand behind cracked and dry lips in a raspy voice with sighs between words. “They... used chems on... on us... when they weren’t getting... what they wanted... Dash... Buck... even Rage... at times...”

She smacked her cracked dry lips and stared longly at the Sparkle~Cola bottle thatSparks had set down. She eyed the bottle and, with a flash of embarrassment, offered the bottle to the two mares to drink, and they both drank greedily despite their drained and weak limbs as blood began to flow properly again. “Th...thank you...”

“It’s not a p-problem miss!” Sparks said with a cracking voice, fraught with desire to be a face of joy but failing in the face of what these raiders had done.

The mare who spoke before piped up again deliriously. “He... he took it the... the worst though... pumped his... his ass with... PainAway and... and Rage back to back... as they...” she chuckled hollowly, bringing an empty cough to her lips. “as they... pumped his... his ass...”

Sparks’ guts twisted again under the weight of such a sudden and dark joke she found no humor in, but she hung her head lowly and put the cap back onto the needle and put it away; much to the relief of the stallion. She looked back up to him, tracing her eyes across his nearly bare coatless skin and saw the cuts and bruises next to needle marks that dotted his raised haunches as he hung there weakly, drained and wide eyed, and she pleaded with him with a subconscious begging for forgiveness. “I want to help you... let me help you... okay?”

For a moment the stallion merely hung there trembling, but after a few moments time he slowly nodded his head. Sparks nodded back, and with a few deft motions eased his raised hind legs down to the ground to rest as she undid his bonds on his fore hooves. Lying on the ground he tried to fidget with his gag unsuccessfully with useless hooves, but Sparks with a subtle tug of magic released the gag around his mouth; his jaw hanging slack. He flexed and stretched around weakly trying to waken his body from imprisonment about him.

With his mouth free, he held a hoof up as he lapped his dry tongue about his mouth, and the other two mares gave him what was left of the bottle, about half empty now. He drank deeply of it and his expression showed the long desire for drink that was denied him. Breathing deeply he closed his eyes, and slumped against the ground as strength suddenly left him. “T-thank... you...”

Almost without warning, his body slackened and his head hung down expressionless.Sparks put a hoof to him trying to nudge him awake, but her fears were confirmed when she felt his neck for his pulse and didn’t find one. She hung her head, sighing deeply with tearless sobs shuddering in her breath.

She looked over to the mares and shook her head slowly as tears began to form in her eyes again, and they merely sat there with distant, sorrowful faces. Eagle shook his own head as he kept watch, silently cursing the raiders to whatever hells they would find most terrifying.

The green mare sighed deeply, and spoke with weakness lacing her venomous words. “Fuckin’... Goddesses damned bastards...”

Sparks wiped her eyes and looked to her, speaking in near whispers. “Did... did you k-know him?”

“No... we... we couldn’t even speak to each... each other with those... those fuckin’ gags...”

They both hung their heads again in remorse, and Eagle broke the silence after a time with a low and warm, but gravelly voice. “We can’t stay here much longer, we need to get what we can from these raiders. Supplies, ammo, guns if they have anything worth taking.”

Sparks looked up to him as he stood there with an empty expression, no emotion at all gracing his scar crossed face save for squinting eyes with a distant stare. She nodded slowly and stood up onto her fours and turned to the mares. “What are your names?”

The short cropped mare spoke first, eager to speak to someone friendly but hobbled by her weakened condition. “I’m... Tato Sundae.”

“Name’s... Green...” Sparks looked at the second mare with a quizzical look, as from what she could see her name was more of a description of her appearance, to which she merely groaned with an embarrassed expression of her own. “Mom wasn’t the... best at names...”

Sparks nodded her head and put on a façade of a smile. She tried to comfort them with a giggle at Green’s name. “Well, my name’s Sparks... Are you two going to be okay or...?”

It was then that Sparks realized the major hole in her plans of helping ponies. Would she just... leave them here? Or could she and Eagle take the two of them along to Crystal Cityor... anywhere nearby that was safe? She had no idea of what places around that could, or would, harbor two ponies freshly escaped from the clutches of raider fiends. They would need food, shelter, and definitely medical care considering what untold horrors had been inflicted on them.

She looked over to Eagle with these very questions summarized into a wordless plea in her eyes, and Eagle sighed looking about for that answer himself. ‘Can we afford to drag them with us?’ he thought, and after a time he almost denied the request, but when he looked back to the armored chariot nearby he chuckled. “You know... if we clean out that chariot, rip some of that extra weight off of it too, we should be able to fit them inside, along with our supplies. Would make the journey back to Crystal City easier even...”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.” Sparks turned around and approached the vehicle, which was merely ten or twelve minutes ago something she detested, but now a promise of hope for not only herself and her conscious, but the lives of ponies in need. She smiled for the first time in earnest that day for a reason worth the expression. “We’ll clean out the chariot, get whatever supplies we can around here and get outta dodge, or... whatever this place is called.”

Eagle looked back to the two mares as they bore hopeful half smiles on their faces, and despite the urge to smile back he could only sigh with a nod, a small indiscernible grin grew on the edges of his beak regardless. “Better than what we had an hour ago. Come on.”

*** *** ***

It had been three hours since the motley group had huddled into the relatively cramped confines of the armored chariot; its interior leagues better than when they first opened up the doors and cleaned the refuse and greasy muck from within, but still managing to be filthier than Sparks was comfortable with. Despite it though she bore a subtle smile as she listened to the odd mixture of the blaring wind outside the moving vehicle on the open road, with the sounds and feelings of the spark-cell powered engine lowly roaring just below unbearable. Even the subtle sounds of the tattered solid rubber tires as they beat on the cracked and all but destroyed roadways and open wasteland they crossed, all of it mixed strangely to the radio on her PipBuck as they all subconsciously listened to its hopeful tunes of love and life.

She looked over to the two mares, curled up they slept as soundly as their confined seats allowed; the most comfort being from the meager scrub down ‘bath’ they took to clean themselves off. They were far from clean, but considering the lack of certain disturbing residues and muck on their coats it must have been heaven in comparison for an ounce of cleanliness. Green even had a cute snore that Sparks could hear below the cacophony of other noises as she slept like a sack of rocks, heavily and soundly.

As she stared at them her thoughts wandered back to the tunnel they had left, and with a solemn but tearless expression she recalled how they had given the nameless stallion a funeral of sorts. They had no shovels or tools to bury him as Tato had suggested, but Eagle had an idea that served as best as they could think. They piled up a good deal of whatever material could burn, and after setting him down on top the pile -with their respects paid- in the center of the cage Eagle had used a spare flare of his and set the pile ablaze, along with all the other assorted corpses and bloated forms of nameless ponies.

She hoped that it would be enough, maybe give him some small comforts in the beyond of some burial service as her own stable gave cremations for their beloved’s passing. Although she wasn’t sure that they would be grateful, not truly, but the thought that they would be comforted her with the terrors she had witnessed... and perpetrated, that day. With that she gave a solemn sigh as she stared at her PipBuck’s radio screen, the radio frequency line jittered and bounced along to the jazzy music that played out of rhythm.

Eagle sat uncomfortably in the driver’s seat, sized altogether too small for him with the mouth bit practically in his chest with a talon on it to steer. Since none of the rest of them knew how to drive a chariot he had to, but as he looked over to Sparks he knew a little of what she might have been thinking.

Turning his eyes back to the road he began to speak to her, and she could barely hear him above the noise of the chariot. “You might want to try and get some sleep Sparks, it’s going to be a while until we hit Crystal City. Even in this.”

She shook her head as she agreed with him, but no matter how much she tried her thoughts kept her awake. “I... I’m not sure I can, not after today...”

“Look Sparks, you did good today. Towns all over would be toasting you for what you did today. Fresh out of a stable and you already cleared out a nasty raider camp and saved the damsels. No mean feat you managed.”

Sparks screwed her face up with a subtle disgust as she looked at her hooves. Despite being somewhat clean she saw the metaphorical blood on them. She had butchered nearly twenty six raiders, by Eagle’s count of the corpses, like animals. The images and sensations of flame and percussion the machine gun -still mounted on the vehicle- persisted in her thoughts, and her imagination filled in the blanks.

She looked at Eagle and spoke morosely with the words hanging in her throat like stones. “I... I k-killed three dozen p-ponies today, I can’t see that as a... good thing no matter what light you put it in...”

“You think that anyone around here in The Wasteland is clean? We all have some dirt on us, somewhere. Take those two in the back for example...” he pointed a talon back towards them over his shoulder as they slept and Sparks looked at them as they slept. “You think for a moment that they’ve never killed some creature to live another day? Green I’m certain wasn’t captured without a fight. Probably took a few down in the process.”

Sparks’ eyes lingered over her in disbelief, and she eyed Eagle with that very question written in her expression. “How can you be sure of it?”

“When she cleaned herself off she had several decently sized scars across her body, calluses on her fetlocks and sterner shoulders might mean either long term heavy labor or a more... exciting life than most get. Her builds more like a raider to be honest; a lot of focus of muscles used by Earth ponies to fight.

“She’s also snoring like a chainsaw. Probably broke her snout once. Barely see the scars though. The fact she’s sleeping so soundly is another hint. After what they went through, a pony who hasn’t seen or done some shit wouldn’t be able to sleep so well.”

Sparks looked back at Green and her eyes traced the details he had said. She was a rather muscular mare, even for an earth pony, and the subtle crisscrossed scars revealed wounds suffered long ago that she couldn’t logically place into day to day contexts. One especially large scar on her crossed her side from her left shoulder up and on top of her back; a small ridge of coat hair bordering the ravine of flesh. With the realization she dove into ruminations that she might have just saved a raider from other raiders, and it wreaked a small havoc in her mind that such an arguably well mannered mare, as she had discovered she was after they had spoken a bit, could be a raider at all.

“So... she’s a raider...”

“Maybe, maybe not. Might just be an incredibly lucky... or unlucky scavver type. All I know is she’s a fighter, wouldn’t let herself get caught like that without a fight.” He sighed as he stared at the road ahead watching for dangers or hold ups in their way. It had been a long time since he ever was behind the bit of any vehicle, nevermind like this one, and he was trying to clean the rust off of his old driving skills, to little avail. “My point is that no one out here is clean if they’re still breathing. Only chance of that is... maybe some city buck or filly living with his parents in a big town. Which is rare.”

Sparks’ eyes lingered on Green’s sleeping form in wonder. How much had she gone through? What all has she done? If she had been a raider, would it still be right to help her the way she had? Among other unspoken questions her eyes went to Tato Sundae as she slept, silently curled up in her seat save for groans of agitation of the bumpy ride, and she looked for such signs Eagle had pointed out.

She was strong, but slim and lean in build with few of the large scars on her body, and finding little to make any judgment she turned to Eagle again. “What about her then?”

“Nothing much really. Looks like a farmer type. Calluses on the fetlocks and decent muscles for the work, but a farmer’s life is often malnourished so they’re thinner than most. With a name like ‘Tato’ though it’s a dead giveaway since tatos are a popular crop. Farmers work day to day keeping their crop to survive, and raiders frequently target them for an easy grab. Probably fended off a few in her time too with that bullet scar in her left flank.”

Sparks looked back at her, but couldn’t see the scar as she lay. She shook her head in slight bafflement at Eagle’s seemingly accurate measurement of stranger’s lives, and turned back to him. “How can you just... do that? Look at somepony and know what they’ve done their lives?”

Eagle had to stifle a scoff, as he wasn’t in the mood for a laundry list of questions, one after the next, but he figured he didn’t have anything better to do given the free time. He subconsciously enjoyed the diversion though. “It comes with living out here; you pick it up after a while. Needing to gauge creatures at a glance helps dealing with them. The simplest part is what they’re wearing. An extremely ragged looking suit of ‘barding’ splattered with blood and such is a dead giveaway for a raider. Well dressed characters with surprisingly clean clothes can tell you they’re city types, meaning they could be pushover cowards used to hiding behind guards.” Eagle shrugged as he spoke, and sniffled. “Every little bit can help push them in the right direction to get what you need out of them. Or to avoid them in some cases.”

Sparks looked at Eagle as he spoke, and with the information he gave her she tried to gauge him in the same way. She traced the scars across his face, his chipped beak, gash across his eye and their squinted expression told her he had been involved in a litany of violence over his years, and his clothes and barding were tattered, patched, and scuffed in spots of discoloration from heavy use.

From his clothes beneath the barding, which were once a flat olive drab color as far as she could tell, she could see spots of red and dusty brown colors like rust forming a sort of unintended camouflage of the colors. She thought that perhaps the red spots were old dried blood that had stained the fabric, with such a thought discomforting her, and the rest of his form bore these slight hints to his lifetime occupation. “So... you’re a-”

“A mercenary. Gun for hire. Been that way for going on... nineteen years now; maybe twenty.”

She watched his flat expression as he spoke, and despite his focus a slight melancholy edged his words. “Well... why not change it then? Settle down and... I don’t know, farm like Tato?”

“For starters you saw for yourself what could happen to farmers, but... I don’t know. This is all I know. Going from town to town; job after job. Walking your Wastelands with dust and mud on my paws. Nothing else... nothing else for me really.”

The melancholy was blatantly apparent to Sparks now as Eagle spoke, almost nostalgic as if he was speaking to himself more than her. Her lips pursed in an attempt to find a subject change, but found none to be had off the top of her head.

She merely sat in the relative silence pierced by road noise and the engine’s grumble, and she delved once again into ruminations about what was ahead of them in their respective paths as she listened subconsciously to her PipBuck’s radio. Thought after thought entered and left her mind without nary a few seconds to ponder, distracted and thoroughly absorbed by Wastelandic life.

She shuddered to think about how she could possibly acclimate to it, and she hoped beyond hope that she wouldn’t be needed to do things that tore bloody holes into her conscious again, like how Tato or Green probably had in their lives, even Eagle as rough hewn as he seemed.

She looked at her own hooves longly, and once again at the metaphorical blood that stained them in her judgment; perhaps only a little less though as she drifted in thought. Diving headlong into the self disappointed notions she did her best to get comfortable in her seat; a near impossibility given its awkward nature to her and the filth that remained on it. Once she managed however, her eyelids drooped and she fell into a half sleep listening to the jazzy music emitted by her radio.

According to the Dee-Jay the group was called The ‘Pony Tones’; a quartet with a suave and deep voiced stallion and three mares sung backed by bass chellos, brass horns, and piano. They orchestrated the very music she found such pleasure in previously, but somehow lost into melancholy for her as the lyrics brought images and feeling of her home. ‘One time home...’ she thought sorrowfully, as her Stable was all but lost to her now. With a deep sigh she curled up as best she could, and drifted off into dreamless sleep.

“Don’t know why I left my homestead...”

“I surely must confess...”

“I’m a drowsy exile, singin’ my song of loneliness...”

“The hay is the tastiest, the cider is the fruitiest”

“The bucks are the readiest, the mares are the steadiest”

“The life the loveliest... the love the liveliest”

“Far back... Far back...”

“Far... back home...”

“There’s no place like home... dearest home...”

Footnote: Red Eagle level 21! +17 skill points!

Sparks level 3! +21 skill points!

HO, LE, and SHIT...

Allow me first to say this, thank you all, those of you who have gone this far with me into my first real attempt at writing, and thank you for giving the work of a fledging and budding artist’s attempt to please his muse a chance. As I look back now, one hundred and twenty eight THOUSAND words already in the relatively short time it feels since I first launched into Chapter One at full tilt back during April 1st 2019, I have to admit some giddy pleasure how fast this all exploded.

Five months, for five months now I’ve been having this love affair with this strange story that’s buried into my head ever since I finished reading the original Fallout Equestria after going back to read it, years past its due in my shame of reading habits (having started it long, long ago when it first was completed if memory serves, but never finished it) and then in a hungry frenzy destroyed FE: Project Horizons in record time for myself in reading (with me reading Murky Number Seven on top the pile recommended to me).

It was November 16th of 2018 then as my artistic passion flared and a story buried itself into my skull and, like a bird taking flight for the first time from its mother’s nest, I tried my hand at writing for the first time. It has been a ball from the beginning, and hopefully the fun I’m having persists all they way to the end.

And I hope you, all of you who are reading this, will stick along for the finale still churning in my head as I write.

First and foremost, I’ve learned a great about how... difficult, it is to actually write a story. In the past five months alone -and the rest sure to come- I’ve learned a lot; about things as simple as actual grammatical correctness (at least... I hope I have) and more complicated things like story structure and how to develop the flustercluck in my head into legible, coherent words on paper that can be made sense of. I hope my ‘gift for words’ as my father tells me has been put to good use, and moreover I hope that the story itself is one that pleases when read. To tell a tale that is fresh and enjoyed is my hope, and I hope I’m doing it justice as you ‘flip the pages’.

Even more, I hope, that the story I’m writing actually fits the genre, and the canvas of which I paint, the marble of which I chisel; the post-apocalyptic world of Equestria and all its... bewildering glory. I hope the hours that I spend in my immense amount of free time, typing away at this infernal keyboard and its clackity-clacking, working out the kinks and bugs when I see them, and the hours I have spent with my digital art tablet drawing ideas and characters as I improve both my writing and drawing, are not wasted.

Moreover, I hope that you, dear reader, are actually enjoying this as much as I am, and I hope that the tale I’m telling touches you the same way that I was when I first finished reading Fallout Equestria in earnest.

Now... I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, or otherwise negative about it, but with the boilerplate gratitude out of the way I would like to say a few things.

Firstly, and I know this will probably suck, but by the time you’ve read this I have gone through the entire novel and have reworked some of the details; corrections like blasted apostrophes or how to set up the paragraphs in order to better convey the message and such, or re-chiseled scenes to better fit the style I’ve grown since I’ve finished Chapter 9, as well as tried to murder my huge paragraphs that a friendly user pointed out to me (thanks nyx0s!).

At this point, I’m considering Chapter 9 as my ‘End of Book One’, and I will be continuing this absolutely, however unless I get an editor to properly give my work a once over I’m making the latest updates to the story going from Chapters 1 to 9 the 1.0 edition so to speak.

You won’t have to necessarily go back and trudge through it all again, unless you want to that is, in order to get the full picture. This is merely me letting you guys know that I’ve polished up what I’ve done so far up a bit as I’ve learned more about how this works, getting into the jive of things. I shall also try NOT to chase my work with a brush and chisel continuing to change things around like a raving lunatic like I’ve been doing, making people want to continue going back and reread sections (small things like apostrophes sure, but not major chunks unless people look at me sideways with confusion as to what I meant).

Secondly, an explanation or apology I believe is in order for as to why it may seem sporadic or too long between updates, and it can be summarized in two things.

Without going into terrifying detail about my personal life, I don’t have internet at home, and I need to go to town in order to do anything update wise as I am currently so far into the sticks that I BARELY have a roaming signal on my phone to post anything, be it a comment response or chapter.

Even then, my roaming signal is me with a broom handle and my phone duct taped to it, waving it wildly in the air signing blood pacts with Lovecraftian Gods...

The second reason, which is far simpler, is that I am a chronic gamer... as you’d expect with the entire ‘Fallout’ part of ‘Fallout Equestria’, so me picking up a new game or playing the shite-gob out of games I already love to pieces eats up my attention span (damn you Monster Hunter: World, Adventures of grindy McGrindypants).

Or Fallout, Dark Souls, TES, Metro, The Witcher, et cetera...

I felt that that was necessary to say, as I’ve had moments where I’m clinging to a monster’s face shanking it to death and an errant thought tears me back to Storms of The Divide, and I go ‘Aww shit I want to write some more’, looking back at the last time I did anything for it.

ANYWAYS... This is pretty much it that I want to be said, at least so far. I’ll say this again, that I hope you’re enjoying this as much as I am, and I would ask that if you have anything to say, to tell me or to share your thoughts, please do not hesitate to drop a comment.

Your feedback helps me to better understand how this whole dance works and all that jazz, and I appreciate every drop of input, be it positive or negative critique, I get as I scratch my head writing like I’m demented going ‘is this good or not?’.

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, the curtains close on Book One of ‘Fallout Equestria: Storms of the Divide’, soon to open again with the debut of Book Two’s beginning.

Thank you, once again.

~Canagán