Fallout Equestria: Sola Gratia
Chapter 3: Road to Damascus
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the End.”

I walked over the threshold of metal into the course passageway of rock, the ground was dirty and rough and I immediately felt as if I was in another world. The Stable had been smooth and cold with artificial detail in eternally familiar patterns, now this simple, blasted tunnel seemed like the most complicated thing that I had ever seen. I stepped completely into the tunnel, turning to watch the Stable door’s mechanism slowly engage, wondering if I would ever see this kind of technology at work again in the ruins of the old world, or if I would even survive long enough to have the opportunity to. The cog-shaped door rolled shut and, as steam was released from its compressed pistons and the door clicked closed, I had an overwhelming sense of loss. I would never see anypony I had ever known again, every relationship developed and every memory made was gone. I didn’t feel as If they may as well have been dead to me but rather that I was to them. I was the one removed from it all, not them, everything in the Stable would be the same, I just wouldn’t be a part of it. I stared at the door, trying to keep myself from breaking down, submitting to the welling, indiscriminate emotion of drastic, irreversible change.

I slowly started to re-attach with reality then, pulling myself out of my own mind and surveying the area around the door. There wasn’t any evidence that anypony had been here before, apart from the dried blood on the floor. I had seen blood before; in my service as initiate to the stable’s medical mare, Doctor Cross. I had dealt with a number of injuries during this time, picking up on a couple of medical spells by banal repetition. Over the years I had grown passably proficient in some of the more basic ones. I boasted a record of fifteen patients and no fatalities, although the worst of the cases I had handled on my own had been a buck with a fractured hoof, a case that anypony would have had a hard time messing up enough to kill him. Still I could hopefully use my medical experience to survive whatever was out there, although I doubted it would be any less than exponentially more dangerous than the Stable had been.

I was stalling; there was no point in reminiscing and pining over my lost home now, but a part of me needed to stay close to it. I felt that if the Stable was the safest place in Equestria, then just outside the Stable would rank at second safest at least. As plans went, cowering at the door until I starved or froze to death was awfully short-term in its simplicity, though a whole lot more predictable than braving whatever was beyond the tunnel. At least I knew how I would die if I stayed here; slowly and alone, although looking back down at the dried blood, it seemed as if there may be more tangible possibilities for death. Maybe the yielder of this ancient blood had decided to go through with his own version of my mock plan, only to face the next pony sent out, likely an actual murderer as the damned were supposed to be, enthusiastic to enter a world of anarchy and lawlessness with lots of killing for all… or at least to all.

That thought got me moving, I rose off of my dusted haunches, realizing I had probably been sitting in some poor sinners blood, and turned to face my new life, however short and unpleasant it would be. I started walking towards the darkness and wondered whether this passage actually led directly to the outside. For all I knew the Stable could have been built at the bottom of one of the gem mines that sparked this war. I forgot whether it was a lack of gems or an abundance of them that had got Equestria into this mess; I knew it had something to do with the mix of a lack of resources and a lot of patriotism.

I started to feel it then, on my face and hide and even in my lungs, the air seemed…lighter, like the Stable and the dank underground hadn’t given it enough room to breathe and now, as I approached the surface, the air was getting freer and clearer. It was cold, but thanks to my father’s old coat I didn’t really feel it. In the Stable the coat had felt like an unnecessary burden, warming me to a state of muggy unpleasantness, but now I felt as if it was protecting me from the bite of the dropping temperature. Looking at what I had with me I realized I had probably gotten off lucky. On my way out of the Stable, despite how unexpected the exit was, I had gotten everything I would have thought to bring with me If I had been given the choice; A coat and barding as well as a gun, saddlebags and some advice from the old security chief. I appreciated the advice the most… well, maybe after the gun.

Finally a sure sign that I was making progress, light, it shone down the tunnel in the shape of a thin, rectangular perimeter ahead of me. I quickened my pace in anticipation. Despite my fears and confusion I was incredibly curious on what the world that I had only seen in books and heard of in stories had become. The door stood before me, the rectangle of light emanating from the shoddy gap at which the aperture met its frame. Compared to the Stable door this looked like it had been built in an arts and craft class for kindergarteners who ate more of the glue than they used. It still took me a couple of seconds to figure out how to use it though, now I was glad that I was completely alone as I struggled to understand this primitive portal; in the Stable all the doors just slid open by their own automation, or at the press of a button, but It seemed I would have to operate this one manually. I pushed a handle down with one hoof and waited… nothing happened. The door didn’t seem able to slide up, down, left or right. Noticing the hinges I realized it swung outwards like those in a bathroom stall. I forcefully pushed against the wood with my other hoof while still holding down the handle, forcing the inadvertent blockade to yield. I had very little time to celebrate my victory over the door as I was blinded by the light it had been shielding me from.

The Sun was directly ahead of me, staring me down through the gap between the mountains and the clouds. If I had come out an hour earlier or later I wouldn’t have been directly exposed to its rays, assuming it still moved the way that it had before the war. After my eyes adjusted to the contrast of the blazing sun with the dark and dreary tunnel from just a few seconds ago and the dull fluorescent lighting of my entire life, I took in my surroundings. The tunnel opened out at a higher altitude than I had expected. I hadn’t taken into account the gradual incline of my walk out of it and was surprised to find myself looking out over a valley made by the mountain range I was standing embedded within and the range, jutting out of the earth, directly across from me to form the opposite border of this valley beneath the sun. I had turned my head downwards at first to shield my eyes from the intense white light and seen that, directly ahead of me, there was a path heading down through the rocky terrain into the valley below. I couldn’t see much of it as it curved behind a ridge to my right, but I knew that I would have to head that way if I wanted to get anywhere…unless I felt like rock-climbing my way backwards over the mountains.

My eyes had fully adjusted now so I lifted my gaze to the horizon. In the distance, beyond this valley and another, the most prominent feature of the landscape was a towering mountain, in the left field of my vision, whose summit almost broke through the cloud cover that filled most of the sky. It was dark and ominous, looming over the entire area as if as a reminder that nuclear apocalypse meant little to these timeless monoliths of earth, these immortal beings that dated back millions of years, having survived multiple ‘world-ending’ apocalypses.

Despite the mountains imposing appearance my attention was quickly drawn away to something even larger, even more terrifying and beyond any measure of age. The sky seemed to stretch on for an eternity like a giant ceiling of black and dark shades of gray, constantly shifting and rearranging, unpredictable and impossibly stable in its instability. In the distance, over the mountains, where I thought I had seen the sun was a contrasting band of brilliant white where the cloud cover had faded away, leaving only the infinite light of the sun. I thought I would be able to see it, a sphere or a source-point for all that light, but the celestial body was impossible to identify amidst the white expanse. The band of light was only broken by the mountains, who seemed like cracks in its purity, splitting it vertically from the similarly dark and menacing clouds to the bleak ground below. The surface was dead, trees stood naked and every color I had seen in pictures had been reduced to a morbid, bleaker version of itself. It was all dead, we had killed it. And yet it was beautiful to me. My life had been nothing but fluorescent lights and a monotonous gray stretching on and on through every room and every memory, and without even realizing my disposition, I had become sick of it. This was beauty, this was real, this was the land that our ancestors had doomed us to inhabit and that they had doomed trying to defend, this was Equestria. A shadow of its former glory, it was a dying world that refused to die. And now I was a part of it.

Being introduced to this new place so suddenly tore the previous thoughts and emotions from my mind, I now had much more to think about than what had happened in the Stable. Replacing the already fading anger and sadness were curiosity and fear; I was fascinated by what I saw but also afraid of how little I knew about it all. I felt a strange urge to find out more, to explore and discover, despite my caution, not only did I want to know what lay within the valley but what could be found beyond it. The mountain and the horizon appealed to my sense of wonder and I regarded them for quite some time before deciding what I would do next. I had become acclimated to the suns light and decided that I would head towards it, along the mountain path. The escarpment behind me curved in such a way that it was almost concave, its slope got gradually steeper and steeper until it almost turned in on itself. I certainly wasn’t going that way.

Just as I was about to set off I noticed something near the tunnel’s door that I had overlooked. What was once a skeleton had now broken down into a fraction of a full body’s frame, collapsed limply upon itself. The skull is what drew my attention most starkly, it was almost fully intact and its dark eyes contrasted with the aged, ivory bone and gray strata. It was lying in what must have once been a pool of blood that had persisted as a dark stain on the pale earth; this skeleton must have belonged to the source of the blood in the cave. Any clothes or belongings it had once held had already been taken, torn away by time. After my initial shock I turned to move on. I had to wonder if the pony that had once supported these bones was dying when he left the stable or if he had been injured just outside of it. The former seemed unsettlingly more likely.

I began to make my way along the path, taking the first turn around the mountainside. I enjoyed the cold breeze and the feeling of natural light; it was new, almost exhilarating. The path was wide and wound downward; it was surrounded on either side by broken stone or dead grass, prompting me to stick to it. This was the path ponies had once travelled up in panic to escape the coming fire, but now it seemed worn and decrepit. The pass wasn’t paved but beaten and if vegetation had been able to then it would have overgrown it long ago. My hooves had become dirty, dirtier than they had ever been, and they were now covered in a powder of gray and brown dust.

In the process of observing everything I passed, I had distracted myself and, turning to look back, I saw that I had already travelled quite a ways. I could see the mountains tapering off to my right and continuing on to my left. I was almost at the base of the range and the wind was dying down, leaving my descent in the meeker chill of static air. Reaching flat ground I turned to survey my path of descent; the way was wound upon itself, broken up by rock and dead trees. The mountain seemed to lord over me as it bent slightly off from vertical. It wasn’t nearly as tall as the black mountain to the north, however. I had decided that the direction I had been facing when I exited the door, and the direction that I similarly headed towards as I descended the mountain, was north. Meaning the range continued far to the east but died off a few miles to the west, its middle blocking the view of my proclaimed south.

Turning back along my path, I froze up at the subtle noises nearby. The crunch of dead grass being crushed and the rolling sound of rock against rock as pebbles bounced and moved. It sounded just like the noises I had been making during my walk, meaning that it was the sound of hoofsteps against the dead ground. I was alarmed and looked frantically to my sides as I backed up slowly. I wanted any first encounters to be on my terms, I wanted to know what was coming before the fact.
But they had already seen me and as I attempted to slink away they quickened their pace in response. I caught them dashing through my peripherals, closing into the middle of my vision until they were directly in front of me. Two had come from my left and one had come from my right. They had planned to confront me; an organized affront enacted on a bumbling newborn as she abrasively stumbled along her way.

They looked similar but distinct, as if they shared the same style but not the same existence; studded brown leather, spikes and scrap metal covered their dirty bodies. Their manes were all roughly cut and filthy, whatever color they had been was now obscured by dust or dye. What stood out the most of their similarly different appearances were their faces. They were the faces of three different ponies, one mare and two bucks, but they shared cuts, scars and an unnaturally tortured appearance. Their eyes were dark and bloodshot while their teeth were yellow at best and missing at worst. Most unsettling of all was their one shared expression; a leering grin that melded anger with greed, violence with excitement and madness with malice. I was afraid of them but didn’t draw my gun, their weapons were but sharpened sticks and rusted knives and I still didn’t want to escalate the situation, I watched them carefully though. They retained their distance, their chance to use the advantage of surprise had gone and I hoped that meant that they intended me no harm, unfortunately it could also mean that they didn’t consider me a threat. One of the bucks stepped forward, his mane was green, greasily held up in a line of spikes, his torn up muzzle stretched in a sneer that displayed his impressively full set of rotted teeth.

“You armed?” His voice was jeering: disturbingly chipper. He didn’t seem to blink.

“No” I lied, if that was the first question somepony asked then I was going to maintain the illusion that I was harmless, until they revealed their true intent. I wasn’t going to judge the strangers by their dirty hides and scrappy clothing, I had nothing to relate them to, but I would remain cautious.

“Good…” He began to step forward, and one of the other ponies followed with a wild precision. Before I could act the mare spoke out, stopping the bucks in their tracks.

“Wait!” she barked. “Don’t hurt her.” I didn’t detect a sliver of genuine concern on her face or in her tone.

“Why not? It’s been days since we got to have any fun, we’ve been picking over ruins and corpses. Let us have a chance to play with something that breathes…and bleeds…for once.” The other buck nodded eagerly, I noticed he was missing half of his tongue. The severed stub danced unpleasantly in his mouth.

“If we kill her then she’s worthless to us, step back!” I didn’t know what I was going to do here; I had never fired a gun before, I had never even been in a fight before. But here I was: outnumbered and afraid. I was armed better… if it came to a fight then I would have to shoot them before they could get to me.

“Don’t worry,” the buck with the intact tongue chuckled. “We’ll leave her breathing, maybe not standing, but breathing.” The mare was clearly the one in charge as despite his compromise the bucks remained in place, waiting for her response.

“You won’t touch her, every cut or bruise you leave on her decreases her value. She looks like a Stable pony, she’s so clean and…unused.” The buck opened his mouth to speak.
“And if you try any of the things he tried with me then I’ll cut off something worse than your tongue.” She gestured to the silenced buck as evidence of her mutilating ability. If she meant what I thought she meant then this mare had just saved me from a horrible fate. I would have thanked her but the way she was taking about me didn’t indicate that she had my best intentions in mind.

“What do you want from me? Why stop them?” I asked the bedraggled commander.

“You’re a Stable pony, aren’t you sweetheart?” She spoke almost as if I was a child.

“Yes,” If being a stable pony had saved me from being raped then I certainly wasn’t going to lie about it.

“I intend to sell you.” She stated. “I don’t care what happens to you after that but for now you’re worth a lot more to me unscarred and untouched. You’re fresh, strong even, we’ll get more caps and enjoyment from selling you than we would from your corpse.” Now she stepped ahead of the bucks, taking dominance.

“You’re right, I am strong, and I’m not about to let myself be treated like an object,” I levitated my pistol out and pointed it at the buck who had drawn his knife. “Leave me alone.” I didn’t know what I was doing, I wasn’t strong and if we fought I would probably lose. I had to try and dissuade them from attacking me.

“Good to see you’re smart enough to lie,” she said looking at my gun. “Don’t try and pull any tricks like that in front of the buyers, they prefer the submissive and stupid type. Disarm her.” She stepped aside to allow the bucks a clear path to me.

The tongueless buck charged me, a short rusty knife clutched in his mouth. His battle cry was almost pathetic, muffled as well as mumbled and I couldn’t help hesitating as I pointed the gun at him. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t kill a pony like this. But before I could finish my internal conflict the pony charging me made a final lunge… that was decidedly interrupted as his head exploded.

I was showered in warm gore, sparingly as I clenched my eyes shut. I hadn’t pulled the trigger and yet the remains of this bucks head were now smeared across my own. I desperately pawed at the gore with my hooves and my magic, wanting to reveal the pictures that matched the sounds of shouts and gunfire. The shots exploded in singularity, I heard two go off, echoing in my ears, and the yells stopped, first the other buck then the mare. I couldn’t look up as I gagged and spluttered with my head to the ground, the warm blood and brains removed from my face but now splattered around me. If the shooter had wanted to, he could have killed me then and there. But, still alive, I had time to regain my composure and looked up to thank my savior… only to behold a glaring corpse.

What stood before me could barely be described as a buck, it had the structure of a pony but looked like it had been both burned and melted until its dirty green skin was nothing but crimson ribbons and rags. Large expanses of muscle and veins were bare, exposed, pumping and twitching for any and all to see. The pony-thing wore what looked like leather armor that thankfully covered most of the thing’s chest, but its demonic face was fully exposed. One side of his muzzle was entirely skinless, its teeth were as clear as those on the skeleton at the mountain door and the tendons holding its upper and lower jaw together glistened bloody red. What remained of its copper colored hair did little to hide the patches of exposed skull and meat on the creature’s head. One of its ears was missing. The worst part was its eyes, there was no distinction between pupil and iris, the black solidity of the center had been clouded over by the muddy green of the surrounding ring, it almost looked as if the iris had burst and flooded the pupil with color, which now swashed and spread. They were murky and lifeless.

I didn’t scream or run, I stayed rooted on the spot despite the pool of gore at my feet and the decayed pony in front of me. My gun still hovered at my side but I was in no state to use it as my mind struggled to comprehend what I was seeing. What stood before me should logically be dead, it was as if a rotten corpse had woken up and could somehow still function as if it were alive. I had heard the Faith talk of the demons of their Damnation and what I had imagined from their description was the closest thing to a comparison I could formulate. The walking corpse in front of me was no demon however, it had saved me, and all I could do to show my gratitude was slide my gun back into my saddlebags and stare.

“Come with me.” His voice was as flayed as his skin. It almost seemed to echo over itself.

“What are you?” I asked abrasively, immediately felt guilty for it, this thing… this pony had saved me and yet I couldn’t get over his appearance.

“Charon, I have been sent to escort you.” He did not look happy, from what I could tell.

“Escort me where?” Charon, like Sorbet before him, had been sent by another’s volition, which explained his lack of enthusiasm.

“To Hell,” he replied curtly, like it was an answer that would actually explain anything to me.

“Charon… I appreciate your help but I can’t quite wrap my head around all this. It’s a lot to take in. All the blood and… you just showed up out of nowhere and… I’m sorry but I’m a little confused.” I had a lot of questions, some that I was too afraid to ask.

“Talk to Damascus.” He replied bluntly.

“Where is Damascus?”

“I have been sent to escort you to him.” His tone was almost monotonous, his lines seemed rehashed. This whole experience, while mind-blowing to me… and my first attacker… didn’t seem to interest him.

“How did you know I was here?” He had come for me almost as soon as I had left the Stable and I was admittedly a little suspicious of his timing.

“I am obligated to escort you to Damascus.” I guess he was serious about that.

“All right,” This wasn’t exactly an easy conversation, if it counted as one at all. “I respect that you just want to do your job and I do owe you for saving me just then. But at least tell me how I know that I can trust you?” That was the only line of questioning I dared to pursue.

“No choice.” He turned and started walking at a brisk pace along the path. I wasn’t entirely okay with following him, but it was obvious that my doubts didn’t matter, as I didn’t want to find out what would happen if I refused. My most pressing question would remain unanswered and un-ask able, I wanted to know what had made Charon the way he was, and how he was even alive. But only an idiot would ask that sort of question to a buck with his disposition… and shotgun.

Technically I was now in the valley, the terrain was rocky and the ground was anything but flat but I could still see much more than I could on the mountain pass. The rocky outcroppings from the mountains continued out from the ranges and in some places large formations blocked my view to either the west or east. The land sloped in rolling hills with rock often undercutting the earth, dead trees scattered the landscape looking more like burnt bones than the vibrant green plants I had been promised in books. Any vegetation that remained i.e. the bushes and grass, had no traces of the color green, they were as gray and charred as the trees and they didn’t even yield to sway in the gentle wind. From the looks of them they were more likely to crack or crumble under pressure, statues. Still I found the crunch of the earth underneath my hooves to be very satisfying and I enjoyed the clean clarity of the air, no matter how dead this place was it still served as a welcome change from the Stable.

The mountains became less imposing as we moved further away and even seemed small when compared to the consistently gargantuan one to the north. The white band of light was no longer visible at this lower elevation and all I could see of the sky were the dark clouds that obstructed it. Walking along the same makeshift path northwards we eventually reached what must have once been a town. Though all that remained of the small settlement were broken husks and burnt buildings, I had never seen a house but I couldn’t imagine anypony living in any of these. The walls had mostly collapsed inwards and the most intact building was a tall hall that must have been reinforced with concrete as it sat firm at the end of the cracked street veering to my left. This street was the end of one of two splits, the root of it continued north, consolidated with its brother, and connected with a highway that I could barely see through the remains of the town. We had entered onto the other split that ended at a mostly intact, large building labeled ‘Acheron SUPERMARKET’. The street felt far more familiar in its flat solidity than the raw, unstable earth had under my hooves.

“This is Acheron?” I asked Charon who had been silent for the entirety of our walk.

“Yes. Wait here, I’ll be back to take you the rest of the way.”

“Where are you going?” I was honestly a little worried to be left on my own after my encounter with the rapists/murderers turned salesponies. I would have to become a more confident marksman if I wanted to feel safe. I could’ve shot the charging buck’s leg at least instead of just freezing up; I worried that if Charon hadn’t shown up I would have just let myself be captured.

“There are more raiders somewhere back there. Never only three. Best to deter whole group now and prevent future incidents. Find a cellar and wait in it.” He gave orders in the same plain, harsh tone that he said everything and I no longer felt offended by his bluntness.

“I’ll hold up in that solid looking building while you do whatever you need to.” I compromised, the town hall looked a lot sturdier than the ruins around me.

“No, solid doesn’t mean safe. Opposite In fact, building might have rats or even ferals. Find a cellar and I’ll contact you on your Pip-buck.” He gestured to a radio strapped to his armor.

“This thing has a radio? Like a broadcast function?” I asked looking at my Pip-buck.

“No, it has a receiver, you’ll pick up a new frequency when I get close enough, you won’t be able to talk back but I’ll tell you when and where to come find me.

I nodded, I would figure out how to use the receiver on my own, it seemed like he had something important to do and I didn’t want to keep him. He sprinted back the way we had come at my nod leaving me alone in the middle of the gray street. I stepped into the closest building that wasn’t the supermarket and began to pick through the ruins. I hoped to find a cellar door or passage of some sort, but also kept an eye out for anything interesting or useful. The entirety of the house’s upper floor had collapsed onto the lower and it was apparent that rooms of distinct purpose had folded into each other. The fridge lay crushed under a steel bed frame and barred access, while the rest of the ‘kitchen’ had the remains of a porcelain bathroom set crushed on and around it. The ceiling was gone but some of the wooden bars than had held it in place still remained, they didn’t look stable.

Finding nothing but burnt books and crushed furniture I moved on to the most intact house I could find. I didn’t bother using the door as there were several perfectly accessible holes in the walls and I stepped into the house by way of one of them. The lower floor held no indication of a cellar and I headed up the rotting stairs out of curiosity. I found an irreparably damaged terminal in what must have been an office once, then, searching through some drawers, I found a bunch of what I assumed were ‘bits’. I had read that it took multiple thousands of theses to afford a place in the Stable. What were the Stable’s constructors planning to do with money if the world ended? Searching the bedrooms I found another pair of carcasses that looked even older than the one I had seen at the mountain door.

The skeletons were blackened but intact and both lay on a large mattress, dimly lit by the subtle gray of the cloudy sky as it cut through the room’s decrepit walls. They were wrapped, bound together, holding each other in a mortified embrace that had been preserved forever in time. The pair of ponies had died in each other’s grasp as they burned in the fires of the war, they had been together in their last moments, only letting go as death took them. Their bones were a painful reminder of the sadness encapsulating what had happened so long ago and to me served as an eternal memorial to the dead and dying. I didn’t disturb the dead lovers and backed out of the room quietly, as if I had intruded on their unity. I hurried to exit the building, feeling like an invader in their home… their tomb.

Back out on the street I caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of my eye and turned to investigate. Something had moved towards the town hall so I turned down the other street, warily approaching. I kept quiet and stayed behind any cover I could find so as not to draw attention to myself. As I crouched behind the broken wall of a home’s ashy garden, I saw the source of the activity. Another figure that had the shape of a pony, though somehow vastly different, was standing in front of the town hall; the day had become dark enough to allow a visual flicker of intact street lights, illuminating the dark figure.

The first thing I noticed was that the pony was a Pegasus; it clearly had wings, occasionally hovering a few feet above the ground as it surveyed the building. Its entire body was covered in dark armor that reflected tints of blue in the fluorescent light. I couldn’t see its face beneath the insectoid visor and was intent on keeping my distance. Curiosity held me, as I had never seen a Pegasus before and had always wondered why none of them had made it into the Stable. I was also fascinated with its ability to fly, gracing the streets for the briefest intervals between elegant bounds into the air.

I stepped a little bit closer, maintaining my cover, and a red line appeared on my E.F.S identifying the armored Pegasus as a hostile threat. I backpedaled into cover, but before I could run the pony swung around in the air to face me, gripping a bit in its mouth, connected to the sleek contraption it was wearing. I hadn’t made a sound so it must have also had some form of E.F.S, the radar registering my presence as I entered its range. I realized the contraption must be some sort of weapon with the bit acting as a trigger to make up for the lack of telekinetic ability. I drew my pistol and checked to make sure it was loaded while I slowly backed away behind the wall. The Pegasus then swooped rapidly above me and looked down; my eyes met the yellow visor occluding its own. I activated SATS. Time froze as everything became still. The world took on a gray tint and subtle movements, seemingly automatic before, ceased, making the barren ruins look even less alive. It was surreal in its simplicity and daunting in its potential.

Lining up two shots with the pegasusesese- other pony’s guns I let loose my chokehold on time. The 45 caliber bullets fired one after the other. The first missed, but the second compensated by hitting something that looked important on the armament. The weapon began to groan and stall as the Pegasus attempted to fire it, fruitlessly. The machine seemed to have a repair mechanism and the chugs and stutters it was making began to become sparser as the hole covered itself. I took the opportunity to sprint away, desperately searching for a place to hide. This opponent was better armored and armed. It looked like a military unit. Once its guns were firing it would mow me down from above before I landed another shot. I wasn’t going to win this fight, and I had a feeling that even Charon couldn’t save me this time.

I ducked to and from the cover of brick and shadow as I weaved my way back to the supermarket. Eventually it was clear that my pursuer had lost the trail. The Pegasus circled desperately in the air scanning the area. I crawled underneath a collapsed wall to avoid detection, the lasers firing from the repaired weapon lit up the dim sky as they landed sporadically around the area. I continued my retreat, slowly and carefully crawling from fallen walls to torn foundations, towards the supermarket. I timed my final dash for the entrance so that the hostile was as far away as his scrupulous circuit would take him. If the Pegasus had been able to fly lower and avoid the jagged ruins then its E.F.S would have likely picked up my movement. Luckily for me I managed to slip through the one functional set of doors undetected.

I could only hope that the airborne soldier wasn’t determined enough to pick over every ruin in his search.

The interior of the supermarket was much darker than the town outside; most of the windows had been barred up and blocked the fading, late afternoon light. The door had apparently been barricaded once, indicated by the splintered planks and broken nails lying around it. To my right was a flickering red vending machine labeled ‘Sparkle Cola!’ which was as wavering in its illumination as the street lights outside had been. I could make out rows of shelves and a line of tills in the dim gray through the doorway ahead of me; everything seemed empty, ravaged, as the desperate ponies of the Equestrian wasteland had scavenged and scrounged through it, leaving it bare and forgotten.

I had no luck tinkering with the vending machine, though I suspected that whatever had been inside would have already been taken I tried fiddling with it anyway. I found a screwdriver lodged into a panel on the machine’s side, somepony had tried to pry the metal covering off to access its raw insides. I floated the screwdriver into my saddlebags. My mechanical skills had never been great but considering how hollow the building seemed I figured I should take as much of what could potentially be useful as I could.

I hugged the wall through the doorway as I scanned the supermarket with my E.F.S; I wanted to make sure it was empty before lighting up to search the place. I had put a number of empty sparkle cola bottles and tin cans at the door so that if it swung open the noise of the glass and garbage rolling and breaking would alert me. I hoped the Pegasus would not feel inclined to search the building at all, but if it did I wanted to be warned. It had certainly been aggressive, the first Pegasus I had ever seen, assuming it was as I speculated under that armor: truly a pony and not some sort of monstrous imitation of one.

After my scan along the internal perimeter of the supermarket I felt confident that I was alone and that I could risk a little light. My horn glowed gold as the magic spread, dispersing the arcane shine in a small area around me. I could produce something much brighter than a candle or a flashlight, but restrained myself to a dim glow. My magic flickered and danced like a flame and was akin to a natural oil lantern balanced on my forehead. Somehow the light stayed out of my eyes creating, seemingly to me, an aura rather than a specific bright source right above my eyes. The spell had been designed for personal use and instead of turning me into a shiny, but blinded, pony; it enlightened the area around me, allowing me to scour the grim shelves and aisles of the store.

While the accessible supplies were long gone I saw a group of ammunition boxes on one side of the large room and a terminal-locked door on the other. Coming full circuit towards the entrance, I headed to the boxes. They stood behind a division that required me to walk through a doorway for access to the slightly separated area. Unbeknownst to me this design had translated to an ideal set-up for a trap to somepony. As I walked through the frame I head a sound come from beneath my hoof.

A quick succession of beeps that drew my attention to the subtle yellow disk.
I leapt back around the door frame reflexively as the mine went off. Shrapnel and debris from the concentrated explosion flew through the doorway prompting me to hug myself…’evasively’.

As the dust settled I peaked over the division back into the room: there were two other mines placed just far enough away to detonate by their own trigger rather than as a byproduct of the nearby explosion. The mines had two noticeable features on their faces: A dim red light and a small gear in its center. I lifted the closest with my telekinesis and began to fiddle with the gear, keeping it at range; I found that twisting the gear counter-clockwise resulted in the red light going out. Hopefully this meant it was disarmed. I applied pressure to every point on the mine with my magic, assuring that it was inactive before hovering it closer

I repeated the process with the other mine to less success. Though my magic was adequate in its strength, my accuracy and precision left something to be desired. As I lifted the second mine, telekinetic pressure triggered its shining button and it went off in the air. I wasn’t fast enough to duck but luckily I was far enough to avoid serious injury. A piece of the mine grazed my face leaving a shallow scar underneath my left eye. It stung, and the heat from the detonation washed over me. But considering the potential damage, I got off easy. The proximity mine was almost ineffective when it lacked any proximity to its target. I packed the deactivated mine into my saddlebags and cautiously entered the segregated area.

Somepony had gone to great lengths to protect these boxes and for a moment I felt disinclined to tamper with them. These were potentially somepony’s property, a claim that they had gone dangerous lengths to insure against the interference of others. But anypony willing to kill the unwary over a few bullets that they had left behind as bait wasn’t worth my sympathetic forfeit. A couple of the cases were unlocked and inside I found two different kinds of ammunition, neither of which I had a compatible weapon for. Energy Cells and 556 mm rounds. The clip of 556 ammunition was almost half as big as my only gun but I decided to hold onto it anyway. If bullets were precious enough to guard explosively then I wasn’t leaving any behind. I recognized the energy cells as the fodder for laser pistols and the like; I hoped to find energy weapons, so I stored those too. The last case was locked and apart from digging around in the lock with my screwdriver, hoping to get lucky, I had no means to open it. I had never picked a lock before and I had no idea if it could even be done consistently, so I opted for a more straightforward solution.

---------------------

I aimed my pistol over the division back into the segregated half-room. I had left the mine, armed and sensitive, beside the locked case. Hopefully the explosion triggered by my shot would be enough to open the case while preserving its contents. I preferred the idea of using the mine this way instead of what it had been originally designed for. The thought of accidentally blowing up another pony, initiating their last moments in a fountain of meat and blood disturbed me. The thought of doing so intentionally was somehow even worse.

I lined up the barrel of the pistol and the mine, firing a single round when I had adequately fussed over the course of trajectory. It hit the mine dead-on, resulting in another compact explosion that sent the box sailing over the division, landing somewhere to my right near the tills. I had avoided all incoming debris successfully this time and, picking myself off the ground, headed towards the case’s landing zone. The lid was hanging on by the fraction of a hinge and the 45. bullets inside were already rolling out of their boxes. I gathered them up along with two frag grenades which, thankfully, hadn’t been set off in the blast.

After picking up some food that was potentially still edible, canned and heavily packaged, I headed to the terminal across the supermarket. There were some skeletons scattered here and there that quickened my pace through the dark, empty aisles. Guided by the glow of my horn I avoided several sharp and rusty metal jaws that looked very much like traps set up on the floor. Somepony had turned this place into a death-trap. I hoped they hadn’t stuck around in the danger zone of their creation, if they had then, considering that I was a blatant, audibly intrusive thief; I needed to be ready for a confrontation.

I stopped casting my light spell as I entered the green glow of the terminal. It had presumably been a means to open the nearby door, although it had already been hacked. The machine flashed on a screen that displayed the correct password: ‘Super-Duper’. Somepony had had the technological know-how to bypass a terminal lock, surprising considering the circumstances out here.

I didn’t expect to find much in the room but I entered to investigate anyway. It was small but cluttered, seemingly overburdened by thin metal shelves and stacks of junk and salvage. The debris ranged from pieces of vacuum cleaner to leaf blowers and I found little that seemed useful apart from a hammer, a leather belt and two medical braces that I packed into my saddlebags. The most distinct aspect of the room was another terminal linked to an open, tubular casket. On the floor in front of the case lay something that, for a moment, looked like another, if unusually solid, dead pony.

The machine was shaped like an equine and was similar in appearance to a mannequin, with metal plating and a visor. It had sustained a bullet ‘wound’ to the head, a grim recall, which had put it out of commission. I salvaged the body for a few pieces of scrap metal, sensor modules and electronics, doing one last scan of the room once I had picked the robot clean.

Finding little else, I settled down in a corner to await Charon’s call, hoping that he wasn’t in any danger from the, hopefully absent, Pegasus. The scum that Charon had saved me from were a paltry threat when compared to the heavily ordained flying soldier. Though I had survived it, and I doubted he could possibly fare worse than I had.

I found the radio section on my Pip-Buck and noticed a new distinct frequency replacing the Stable PA system: Galaxy News Radio. I tuned in to pass the time; maybe I could get insight on what was going on in Equestria. Seeing as this claimed to be a news station. Though it also claimed that this information pertained to the whole Galaxy…

Static emanated from my Pip-Buck but distinguishable over it was a tinny yet charismatic voice.

“Hell-llloooo Capital Wasteland! This is D…J…Pon3! Coming to you loud and proud from the middle of downtown Manehattan! What’s left of it anyway…” I looked at the map on my Pip-buck, the topography of the land was vaguely displayed but only three markers were visible. Two solid ones labeled, Scenic Overlook and Acheron, as well as a singular hollow one labeled ‘Railway Station’. No sign of Manehattan.

“It’s time for another special Public Service Announcement, so listen up children ‘coz this shit’s important! Now we all know what a raider is, and we know from experience that there are a hell of a lot of those bastards out there pillaging the wastes. But if you haven’t encountered one before, let me give you some advice. Leave your pride out of it, your life is worth a lot more. These psychopaths aren’t looking for surrender either, best deal you’ll get is being sold to the Slavers, and that’s after a couple of hours of rigorous rape and torture. So don’t feel ashamed if you hide, run or even shoot if you have to, because these ponies don’t know what mercy is… and they certainly don’t deserve it.”

Helpful advice, it would have made shooting that charging raider a lot easier if I had known that they were definitively cruel and sadistic to boot.

“If you see those distinctive bloody spikes or decorative body parts and you haven’t already realized you’re not dealing with somebody you want to make friends with… then I hope you’ll know to keep your distance now. My advice is to stay quiet, but it wouldn’t hurt to have another raider with a bullet through their head, if you can handle yourself in a firefight.”
The deep voice of the enthusiastic buck continued, over the indefinite expanse of airwaves between me and Manehattan.

“Thanks for liste-ning chil-dren!” He sang, then carrying on in his regular tone. “This is DJ Pon3 bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts!” I switched the radio off as he concluded.

Hearing the DJ made me feel a little more hopeful that there was some form of civilization out there, this pony had an audience and he was helping them survive. Somewhere in Manehattan there was enough surviving technology and security to support a whole radio station and that brightened my expectations of the world. However the news that raiders were a common enough occurrence to warrant a PSA dampened that hope. It sounded as if there were a lot of ponies out there like the ones I had encountered at the base of the mountains, and they were definitely not making Equestria an easier place to survive. But the DJ was… and that was enough to improve my mood. I reminded myself to listen as often as possible so I could learn all that I could about this place; maybe he would explain the armored Pegasus or if there was anywhere that was still safe. I hoped the signal got better wherever I was headed.

Another frequency popped up on the Pip-Buck’s radio screen. It wasn’t named, apart from a sequence of seemingly meaningless numbers and dots, but I assumed it was Charon’s radio broadcast.

“Coast is clear; I’m on the intersection in the middle of town. I will wait here until you arrive for me.” The gravelly voice of the decaying pony came through much clearer than the DJ’s had, I could understand him completely. I headed out of the supermarket, taking the time to examine my findings: Junk and Ammunition. I guess that’s really all there is left of Equestria, or at least of Acheron. Scavengers and Scraps. Seeing the bottles and tins I had set as an alarm reassuringly undisturbed by the doorway, I exited into the street.

It was dusk; a term that now applied to the light as well as the time, and the evening was dim. The gray and white clouds were the brightest things in the sky, oddly visible when compared to the surface. I had never seen this kind of darkness, it wasn’t pure like when the lights were switched off and it wasn’t non-existent like when the lights were switched on. I could still see and yet it still felt…dark. It was like the lower atrium during a service, but instead of warm candlelight it was the cold grey light of a sun setting far away, dispersed through clouds and dust.

As promised Charon was waiting at Acheron’s centre, just a block away from the supermarket. He looked a little more torn up than before and his usually consistently stony expression occasionally gave way to a wince. His armor was patched and bloody on one side, whatever had happened, he had tried to suppress the bleeding with torn material, to little success.

“Are you all right? What happened?” I asked examining the buck’s side from a distance.

“I’m fine, more raiders than I expected. Weren’t armed with anything worse than knives and sticks, I was careless for a moment, got surprised. They are always careless, got killed.”

“Let me help you, I can make it hurt less.” I tentatively approached. The buck stayed silent, no protests. If he wanted help he certainly wasn’t going to admit it. I knew a few basic medical spells but I couldn’t do much without any supplies. A potion or some surgical supplies would have been nice, the medical braces I had were useless for this kind of wound. I was able to cast a mild anesthetic spell that wouldn’t eliminate the pain entirely, but also wouldn’t sedate the target. I placed my glowing horn gently against the now exposed wound, it was jagged and red, the only difference between it and the rest of Charon’s hide was that it was wetter, so the fresh blood shone in the street lights. I could see the relief on his face for a brief moment, and then it was replaced with the usual stalwart indifference. I patched the torn material back on to his armor, hoping that the blood on it was all his own, and didn’t belong to some disease ridden raider.

“Thanks.” He muttered as he began to walk down the street out of town.

“I hope wherever you’re headed after this has a real doctor, I wouldn’t walk around with an unattended wound for too long if I were you.” What he really needed was something to prevent infection.

“The radiation is all I need.” He said as he took in a deep breath, savoring some unknowable intake, giving the unsettling implication that the cold winter air was not as fresh as I had assumed.

“Not sure if that’s how it works,” I wasn’t going to presume anything but from what I knew radiation was something to be avoided. It didn’t exactly have a reputation for an effective form of medication.
“Just don’t let it fester, alright?”

He nodded and prompted me to continue following him. We set off again towards the North, through Acheron. The town was small and soon enough we were no longer surrounded by sparse buildings or debris, up ahead I saw what looked like a highway, running perpendicular to the street we were on. The land seemed to flatten out to the east until it reached the curving mountain range, but to the west the road was bordered by gentle hills and rocks. Dead trees dotted the land sporadically in either direction, along the highway streetlights flickered and buffers lay broken or askew along its middle. The road itself was cracked and split; it looked more like a scar than a transport route. Charon slowed down as we crossed the highway, looking both ways before proceeding.

It was almost dark now and I couldn’t help but stare down the road to the east. My line of sight was cut off by darkness but there were a few blinking white lights that seemed to continue beyond it. The last mountain of the northern mountain range loomed blacker than black in the impossibly distant distance. It was like looking into infinity, there were no walls or boundaries, if I wanted to I could walk east and never stop. I could walk the length of the world and end up back where I started, on the intersection of the road from Acheron and the highway. Though it was entirely hypothetical, the possibility amazed me, Freedom.

I snapped back into reality and realized that Charon had stopped too, his gaze was to the west and it looked like he was straining to hear something. In the distance I heard a long deep whistle, it was unlike any I had heard before and much too loud to have come from a pony. As if in response to the sound he quickened his pace and began up the road on the other side of the highway, the intersection formed a cross. After a while we had put the highway behind us and again all I could see was the dim white light of the streetlamps that still functioned. Charon veered off to the left and climbed a steep, rocky ridge. When we reached the top he stopped and stared into the night, something had got his attention and he seemed thoroughly determined to investigate it. His eyes were intent; gleaming uncharacteristically.

I could now see that the highway rose up along its stretching path, lifted off the ground by support pillars as it curved upwards and onwards over the rocky terrain. Though my attention was then drawn to the north, where I could make out a small, bristling hub of light. It glimmered down the road that we had been on, and was what appeared to be another town. It was hard to make out any features at this distance through the dark, but the lights were indication enough that life existed there. Charon was more interested in what lay between the highway and the town, in the large expanse of black to the North-West.

I heard it then; a sort of rhythmic chugging that rapidly flowed over itself, beneath the screaming whistle that sounded out every few seconds. In the distance I saw a rapidly moving mist that was heading towards the town, it looked like a serpentine line of steam was encroaching on the small collection of lights. The steam was lit up here and there by gray and red lights, otherwise it would have been invisible.

As the trail approached I could make out the source of the lights, at the head of the steam was the brightest one, a sphere of white that seemed to be leading a series of smaller ones behind it. Red lights filled the gaps between the broken up sections of the rectangular machine implying that it was made up of a series of connected links, like a chain. The howl of the whistle and the metallic chugging grew louder as the machine drew closer; a shiver ran down my spine in the cold night air as a feeling of dread grew inside me. I didn’t know what the thing was, but to me it seemed monstrous.

“The Coltilde.” Charon said as we stared down at the moving shadow. If it weren’t for the lights and the steam then the monster would’ve been invisible in the darkness, only giving itself away with screams and stutters. Some of the lights implying the town in the beast’s path switched off. As the Coltilde approached, the settlement seemed to become a lot smaller, as more and more of its lights went out. As if it was trying to hide from the nocturnal monster that was rapidly bearing down on it.

Footnote: Level Up!
Perk Added: Wasteland Medic: You are capable at performing triage and with the right supplies you can tend to broken limbs or moderate wounds. Anesthetic magical ability allows you to dull pain. Also knowledge of pony anatomy means you are more deadly in combat, a bullet in the heart is worth two in the spleen.

Next Chapter: Chapter 4: Night Train Estimated time remaining: 15 Hours, 27 Minutes