“...Cut the Ghoulies a break. If they’ve got the caps and you’ve got the space, it’s a win-win, right? So what do you say?”

Society.

Not once through my whole time in the wasteland, did I ever imagine that there would be a place as civilized looking as Tenpony Tower. I had seen it before, far off in the distance, but up close I was able to make out just how grand it actually was.

The tower was tall, easily towering over every other structure in Manehattan. I’m sure that at one point some of the surrounding ruins had rivaled it in height, but now only Tenpony had miraculously survived the bombs. The looming marbled walls were topped with four large dome-like shapes in each corner and a large broadcasting tower was built atop it. The entrance to the tower, which appeared to be a rather lavish looking train station, was sealed by a set of reinforced ornate double doors. A message in red adorned the large doors simply reading ‘No Zombies’.

Under better circumstances, I would have sat back and marveled at the beautiful majesty of the tower. Unfortunately, these were not ‘better circumstances’.

As Tales had informed us, the tower was surrounded by Red Eye’s troops. None of them seemed to have gotten particularly close to the large tower entrance, but there were still quite a few among the large monorail that lead there. Far below me, I could make out the forms of multiple caravans surrounding the tower and upon looking up, I could make out alicorns dotting the roofs of many of the abandoned ruins. Even a couple squadrons of griffons flew through the air above us.

Getting onto the large monorail that led to the tower was easier than we had expected, though still not without obstacles. Our first issue was getting onto the monorail unspotted, which proved easy enough. We just followed the monorail from the ground until we found a spot that wasn’t guarded. Clearly Red Eye’s troops were not nearly as intelligent as Red Eye himself.

Of course then there was the issue of actually walking all the way across the monorail undetected. It didn’t exactly have many hiding spots and there were far more slavers then there were of us. There were a couple ramshackled structures that had been erected upon its otherwise empty surface, but they did little to cover us the closer we got.

I pulled my friends in behind a small fortification on the monorail that looked like it was used by Tenpony security before Red Eye’s troops showed up. Not a second after we had ducked below the patchwork structure, three slavers started slowly approaching, chatting to themselves about something I couldn’t really hear.

Pyre cast me a sideways glance. “Do you want me to jump out and take them?” She spoke in a hushed whisper. “We could take their clothes and try and sneak our way to the tower?”

I glanced over the fortification at the three approaching slavers. I shook my head. “To noisy. Besides, there are only three of them, and we need to disguise four of us.”

The slavers were getting closer, I was beginning to make out what they were saying. “I’m telling you, Stern’s just lucky Red Eye didn’t have her shot for getting caught like that.”

The other slaver scoffed. “Red Eye values that griffon a lot. a lot more than the rest of us, anyway. I don’t think he’s going to have her executed any time soon.”

“Still, she’s got a long way to go till she has any of our respect again.”

Brisk glanced around at our group. “We could disguise Amber, Xayah and myself, then give the stealth cloak to Pyre to keep her hidden?” He suggested, gesturing to each of us as he spoke. “That might get us through.”

“What about me?” Mirra piped up, looking up at Brisk with her big, blue changeling eyes.

Brisk scratched his head for a second. “I don’t suppose you can shapeshift into a slaver pony?”

There was a small flash of green and Mirra became an identical copy of one of the three approaching slavers. Well, identical in all but one regard. She was still just a foal.

“Any chance of turning into a pony older than ten?” Brisk asked, slightly annoyed. Mirra shook her head, switching to a brown pegasus filly. Brisk facehoofed and groaned. “Alright, we could pretend you’re our slave or something.”

“Wouldn’t they get suspicious when they realize that we are heading into the tower?” Xayah asked, her eyes nervously darting towards the approaching slavers. “None of them have gotten overly close to the doors.”

“We’ll lie and say Red Eye told us to bring the filly into the tower,” Brisk added. He glanced at Pyre. “You did say Red Eye treats foals well, right?”

Pyre nodded. “Yeah, but he doesn’t let them go. There’s no way he would let them get anywhere near Tenpony.”

“So what? Do we stay hidden?” I asked, trying to keep up with the rapid fire planning we were doing. “I guess we could silently kill them and just keep sneaking forwards.”

“Anyway, you hear ‘bout that balefire bomb that went off in the Hollow Shades?” One of the three slavers grunted. They sounded a lot closer than I had expected. They must only be a few feet away at this point. “What was up with that?”

“Fuck if I know. I’m just hoping Bomb Collar was at the center of it. That ass hole deserved to die,” The slaver that hadn’t spoken yet chimed in. “Now I’m for given slaves a good beating now and again, but that shitface went through more slaves than we could supply him with.”

The slaver beside him laughed. “Wait, you haven't heard? Apparently one of his own slaves popped a few rounds straight into his face. Blew his head clean off!”

“Okay, well they’re about to find us, and we don’t have a plan. So can we at least all agree that we need to kill them?” Pyre snorted, making sure her voice was low enough that the slavers couldn’t hear her.

I grimace. “But shouldn’t we at least try to resolve this peacefully? I don’t want to fight them if we don’t have to.”

Pyre gave me a quizzical look. “Is that a fucking joke? What happened to the Amber Aura that would do anything to get her revenge?”

“I got my revenge I suppose,” I grunted back, narrowing my eyes a little. I tried to look intimidating, but I don’t think I did a very good job.

The slavers moved past us. We all froze as they marched past, not seeing us at all as they continued on with their conversation.

We were silent for a second, before Xayah motioned for us to start creeping forwards. As a unit we all began moving around the fortification, hoping to get to the other side as cover. We didn’t get very far.

One of the slaver glanced back, his eye catching our movement as we scuttled forwards. “What the fuck! Hold it right there!” The slaver spun around and aimed his shotgun at as.

Damn it. Pyre cast me a look. “Can I kill them now?” I was about to give her the green light to attack when...

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?!” The slaver beside him growled, pushing his shotgun to face away from us. “You can’t just shoot them! We have a direct order from Red Eye to let them into the tower!”

My jaw dropped. They had a what!

The slaver that had pointed his shotgun at us snarled at the intervening slaver. “Are you talking about that bullshit you said earlier! Even if what you said was true, this isn’t even the Stable dweller.”

“You’re trying to tell me that that there isn’t the stable dweller?” The slaver growled back. He glanced over at us as we stood in tense anticipation for the fight that was supposed to have just broken out. “Have you listened to nothing? The stable dweller is a small unicorn traveling with another stable dwelling unicorn, a steel ranger, a zebra and a pegasus!”

I raised my eyebrows and glanced over at Mirra who was still in the form of a brown pegasus filly. I looked back towards the arguing slavers, not sure how to react. Were they mistaking us for that other stable dweller I kept hearing about over the radio? I mean Pyre Blaze certainly wasn’t a steel ranger, but I could understand the confusion.

“That’s not the stable dweller you idiot!” The shotgun wielding slaver shot back. “I saw the Stable dweller back when she was in Filly. She looks nothing like-”

“Nothing like that? You must be blind!” The intervening slaver retorted, pointing a hoof towards us lamely. “She matches what I’ve heard to a T. Small, cute, unicorn, wearing stable barding. That’s the fucking Stable dweller!”

Brisk leaned towards me. “Do you have any idea what is going on?” He asked, his eyes fixed on the squabbling slavers. I just shrugged.

The slaver with the shotgun snarled again. “Besides, our orders are to keep the Stable Dweller out you halfwit! That’s the whole point of surrounding Tenpony in the fucking first place!”

“I know that jackass! And Red Eye just ordered us to let her in!” The other slaver shot back. “You need to pay attention to your radio more you arrogant fuck!”

“What, like that time you thought Red Eye ordered us to attack those rangers? Face it, you're notorious for hearing orders wrong!”

“Am not!”

“Are too! Besides, she isn’t the Stable dweller, so we should just kill her anyway!”

“But she is the fucking stable dweller you numbskull!”

“Why don’t we ask her?” The slaver yet to have voiced his opinion said lamely, looking over to me. “Well? Are you or are you not the Stable Dweller?”

I folded my ears back slightly, not sure what exactly to say. “Uh… yes?”

The slaver turned back to his arguing friends. “She says she’s the stable dweller.”

They both just gave him a blank expression. “And you just believed her!?”

The three launched into an even more explosive debate than before. I turned to my friends and gave them all a confused look. “So like… I guess we’ll just be going now…”

Pyre and Mirra both broke into a hysterical fit of laughter as we quickly walked away from the arguing slavers and towards the tower.

As we quickly approached the ornate doors of Tenpony tower, we found a lone ghoul standing at the gates. She was small, around the same size as me and had a rack of clothes on wheels beside her. My eyes widened as I recognized who I was looking at.

“Sorry, we don’t allow zombies in Tenpony tower,” A stallions voice said over a speaker positioned to the left of the large door. “I don’t know how you got past all those slavers out there, but it would probably be best if you just left the way you came.”

“Coco pommel?” I asked in surprise as we pulled up beside the ghoul. It had been a long while since I had last seen the fashion forward ghoul. Or maybe it hadn’t and it only felt like forever… It was hard to gauge time in the wasteland.

Coco turned to look at me, her eyes taking me in with an equal amount of surprise. A bit of her light cyan main fell from her head at the movement. “Amber? What are you doing here?”

“Hoping to get at least one decent night of rest,” I grumbled, suddenly realizing how tired I actually was. I looked over at the rack of clothes at Coco’s side. “Still trying to expand Rarity’s boutique?”

The light opal ghoul gave a small nod. “From what I hear, ponies still try and maintain high society here at Tenpony. I figured this would be the best place to expand to next,” Coco cast a grumpy look at the large door. “That is if they would let me in.”

“I’ll see if I can do something about that,” I said with a small smile. I walked over and knocked on the door. “Hey, can you let us in please?”

There was silence from the other side of a second. “Not if that ghoul is with you. Make her go away, then I’ll open it up.”

I snarled at that. “No, you open up this door right now. What did Coco ever do to you!?”

There was another pause from the pony on the far side. “Nothing, those are just the rules. No zombie ponies allowed inside of Tenpony tower.”

Coco Pommel slowly walked up behind me and placed a rotting hoof on my shoulder. “It’s alright Amber, thanks for trying though.”

I gave her a stern shake of my head. “No, no it’s not okay. These ponies are going to let you in or I swear to celestia that I’ll-”

“Look, we have caps,” Pyre soothed, cutting me off before I could get violent. “A lot of caps actually, thanks to Toffee’s payment,” The power armour clad raider walked up to the speaker and tapped it with a hoof. “Hear that, lots of caps. We’ll pay you to let this ghouly in.”

I could hear the pony on the far side hesitating. Finally he gave a small cough to clear his throat. “One hundred caps and I’ll let the ghoul in.”

I was about object when I heard another voice over the speaker. “Well this just isn’t something I wanted to see,” A female ponies voice said. “Come on Ricochet, that rule isn't even in effect anymore. Not after what happened to Grim Star. I don’t even know why we still have that damn sign on the door.”

I backed up a bit, letting the argument on the far side of the door play out. I cast a glance over at my friends, only for them to give me a shrug in return.

“But… We can’t let some rotting pony just walk around! We have a reputation at Tenpony to uphold!” The Stallion was insisting, his voice now sounding a little nervous.

“Oh come now. Let the poor ghoul in,” I heard her snicker a little through the crackle of the speaker. “Don’t make me tell DJ Pon3 on you. Last thing you want is a shoutout about this sort of thing,” She sounded more mocking and sarcastic than actually threatening, but the threat had its intended effect anyway.

“Damn it, Fine, but if we get in trouble for this, I’m blaming you,” The stallion grumbled. I could hear somepony shuffling around on the speaker and a loud clunk as the large lock on the door fell away.

A few seconds later, the large door swung open to let us all into the station inside. Standing in the doorway were two ponies, clearly the two that had been talking over the speakers. One was an earth pony stallion with a dark grey coat and green mane. The mare that had stepped in had a steel grey coat with a wild Blue mane that reminded me of a picture of an old pre war DJ I had once seen in a book.

The mare stepped forwards and gave us all a warm smile. “I’m sorry about him, we’re all getting used to some of the new changes that have been going on around here as of late,” She looked over the group, seemingly finding a great amount of interest in all of us. Her eyes lingered on me for a second, her smile faltering slightly as her gaze passed over my rather ragged looking stable barding. Quickly she put her warm smile back on. “My name is Homage, welcome to Tenpony tower.”

The grouchy grey and green stallion behind her gave us a less than enthusiastic grunt, his eyes burning holes into Coco Pommel through the doorway. His gaze shifted slightly, his eyes landing on the bloody visage of Pyre Blaze. “Is that a fucking raider! We can’t let a fucking raider in here!”

“She’s with us, she won’t hurt anypony,” Brisk said bravely, stepping forwards. I was surprised to see Brisk come to Pyre’s rescue with how much he clearly didn’t like her.

“She better not,” The stallion grumbled, turning away and returning to his post not far from the door. This must be our lucky day, two conflicts that both ended without a single shot being fired. I almost felt like I was dreaming.

After paying the proper amount of caps to get in, that being around twenty caps, Homage led the six of us into the large train station that was used as the entrance to Tenpony tower. I had thought that Tenpony had been gorgeous from the outside, but that had been nothing compared to what awaited us inside. Large marble pillars rose from the ground to support the hanging chandelier covered roof. Ponies dressed in clothes far nicer than I had ever seen before walked along, minding their own business as they went about their day to day life.

I could see Coco pommel’s eyes widen as she took in the lavish architecture and fashionable ponies. How long it must have been since she had seen anypony dressed in more than rags.

“I’m afraid this is where I must leave you,” Homage said politely as we reached the base of a large set of stairs that went further up into the tower. “I’d love to get to know you all, but I’m awaiting some very important guest. It’s the only reason I’m down here. Normally I’ll be up with the DJ at the top of Tenpony.”

My eyes widened a little. “Wait, DJ Pon3 lives here at Tenpony?” I had never really thought about where that strange and mysterious DJ might or might not live. Though now that I thought about it, I did remember him saying something about being at Tenpony on the radio.

Homage gave a small laugh. “I can see you’re fairly new to the wasteland. Yes, DJ Pon3 works and lives here at Tenpony tower. I’m his assistant. If you want to talk to him and tell him your story he’s alway itching for more news. I'm sure he'd be more than interested in what you all had to say,” She looked out across the station to the large doors where a sky wagon being pulled by brown and orange pegasus was slowly being pulled inside. Homage turned back to us, grinning much wider than she had been before. “You’ll find the main marketplace just up those stairs. Enjoy your time here,” Then she was moving away from us and towards the parked sky wagon.

“Thank you!” I called out to her as she quickly skipped away. I wonder what has her in a rush.

Coco turned to me and gave me a quick hug. The hug was squishy… I hate to say I enjoyed it a lot less than I was willing to admit. “Thanks for standing up for me back there,” Coco said, pulling away from me. She eyed my tattered looking stable barding which she had patched up not that long ago. “I’m going to go see if I can start setting up my clothing stand. Feel free to drop by. I’ll fix up your stuff, free of charge.”

I gave her a grin. “That sounds wonderful, thank you. I’ll definitely take you up on that offer,” As the ghoul started walking away I turned back to my friends, taking on a more serious tone. “Alright, so we need to get some more supplies, get some rest, then head back out to take on those slavers that stole the A.A.S.S.”

Pyre gave me a playful bump on the leg. “Calm down there Amber, we’ve got quite a few hours of daylight before we go hitting the hay. Relax a little.”

Brisk nodded in agreement. “As much as I hate to say it, I agree with Pyre,” We all cast him a surprised look. He just shrugged. “What, y’all convinced me yesterday. Besides, we really could use some down time after the last couple days we’ve had.”

“And I want to try this Cheese Pyre keeps telling me about,” Mirra squealed gleefully, hoping up onto Pyre’s back. I could see Pyre grinning underneath her helmet.

Xayah rest a hoof over my back. “We could all use a break, you most of all Amber,” Those words finally made me relaxe a little.

“Alright, one day of no bloodshed,” I smirked, starting up the stairs to the main marketplace Homage had told us about. That wasn’t that hard, right? We could go a day without killing somepony. “Besides, I’m rather interested in this cheese shop as well. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Pyre so excited about something.”

“What do you mean the shop is closed down!” Pyre growled, stomping her hoof down heavily on the tiled floor.

“I mean it's closed,” the pony working beside the now boarded up cheese shop said, wiping his table down with a wet cloth. “The pony that ran the shop was executed for crimes about ten days ago or so.”

Had Pyre not been wearing a helmet, I’m sure I would have seen her jaw drop. “But that was the best fucking cheese in the wasteland! Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to have some again! A long fucking time!”

The pony just shrugged. “Eh, don’t yell at me. It was that stable dweller everypony keeps talkin’ about that got him killed. If you’ve got a problem, take it up with her.”

Pyre grumbled and turned away from the closed down cheese shop, mumbling something under her breath about, “Stupid fucking wasteland heros.”

The main area of Tenpony was just about as lavish and grandiose as the rest of the tower. It resembled a large mall area with a plethora of different shops and restaurants. The floor was filled with a collection of round tables, many of which seated groups of ponies eating or talking amongst themselves. To my right was the entrance to what appeared to be some sort of guest room area with the sign above it reading ‘Goldentail’s Luxury Suites’. Farther down the mall area I could make out a hallway that led to both a small hospital and what Xayah and I had been talking about earlier… a Spa. Whatever the heck that was.

It was fairly busy, being the middle of the day, though not nearly as busy as I had seen Friendship city. Tenpony Tower was clearly much more exclusive. Most of the ponies were all dressed in expensive looking clothing and had their noses raised high enough in the air that I had trouble figuring out exactly how they saw where they were going. If Pureblood had somehow survived the bombs and lived over two hundred years, I knew he would have felt right at home.

But snooty, upper class ponies were not the only ponies to inhabit the marble walls of Tenpony tower. Amongst them I could see a couple of wasteland travelers like us, their ragged and mud caked clothing making them stand out amongst the strange cleanliness of the residence.

I saw one group of particularly interesting looking wastelanders running alongside a stretcher pushed by numerous doctors that worked over the dying unicorn that rested on it. The unicorn, or at least what was left of her, had a white coat and red and black mane. Along with her missing horn and bleeding, empty eye sockets, she was missing all four of her legs and seemed to be hooked up to the circulatory system of one of her friends beside her. Hell if I know how her friend was even still alive with half of her body opened up like that.

I shivered just looking at the bloody mess of the unicorn as she was wheeled around the corner and into the hospital. The sight made me realize with a sickening horror that no matter how bad things got for me, they could always be worse. At least I wasn’t that mare, whoever she was.

Mirra had once again hid under Xayah’s stealth cloak to stay hidden. I hoped that her horn started working properly soon and Xayah could go back to keeping her hood on in populated areas. I knew Xayah wasn’t a big fan of crowds, and from the constant dirty looks ponies kept shooting her, I could tell her discomfort wasn’t unfounded. Ponies really did not like zebras.

I put my hoof around her and pulled her a little closer to me, making one stallion that was glaring at her look away. Xayah gave me a warm smile, clearly glad to have my presence to fend off the unwelcome stares.

My eye caught a gun vendor amongst the many shops in Tenpony tower. Perfect, I was in desperate need of one since the unfortunate loss of Boneless in the MAS tower. I grinned and began trotting over, pulling the rest of my friends along with me. As I got closer I began to overhear the conversation the weapons vendor was having with a yellow and rust brown stallion that stood in front of his stall.

“Look, I’m not going to tell you again. You need caps to buy a gun. No caps, no guns,” The weapons vendor said, rolling his eyes a little and trying to shoo the stallion away.

The yellow stallion placed his hooves on the table. “But I need one! They’re after me and if I don’t have a weapon they’re going to-”

“Look buddy, everypony has problems. Somepony always wants somepony dead,” The weapons vendor cut in, shutting the yellow buck up. “It’s a hard world, and your problems aint mine. So either you pull out some caps and buy something or you buck off!”

I finally trotted up to the vendor, my friends following in toe. “Perhaps I could help, is there a weapon you want?” I asked, looking over to the yellow buck. He seemed to have some sort of misshapen circle as a cutie mark. The yellow buck almost jumped out of his skin in fright at my sudden intrusion in the conversation, clearly having not noticed me approaching.

Pyre gave me a nudge from behind. “Amber, we have caps, but we can’t just go around-” I cut her off with an angry glare. She quickly quieted. “Fine, fine. Go spend our hard earned caps on some random pony. That’s cool. No problem.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the yellow stallion. “Well, is there something you want?”

I could see the surprise on both the weapon vendor and yellow stallions face. “You’re just going to buy me something? Just because?” The yellow buck said, his mouth agape. “I-Is that some kind of cruel joke or…”

“Nope, what do you want?” I said with a shrug. I didn’t understand everypony's disbelief. Was it really that hard to be nice to other ponies out here. I thought back to everything I had seen in the wasteland so far. Yes, yes it was.

“Well, uh… If you’re offering, a hunting rifle would be nice,” the buck said, shuffling his hooves a little. “And maybe some ammo, if you wouldn’t mind.”

I gave him the nicest smile I could and turned to the weapon vendor. “I’d like a hunting rifle and some ammo please,” I saw Xayah almost beaming proudly at my actions. Brisk and Pyre just rolled their eyes. Who knows what Mirra did under the stealth cloak.

The vendor gave me a quizzical look. “You sure you want to do that missy?” I gave him a determined nod. He grunted and went to fetch something from behind him. “Is there anything else you’d like?”

“Yeah, what do you have in the way of shotguns? I’ve been looking to get a new one,” I said, letting my eyes wander to the shelves of weapons behind the vendor. There were quite a decent amount of weapons that he had stocked up on over the years.

The weapons vendor cast me a weird look. “You want a shotgun?” He asked flarly, one eyebrow raising. “You sure you don’t want something a little more your size? You’re pretty small.”

I gave him a grumpy look. “I’m not that small! And why does everypony think it’s weird I use a shotgun!?”

The weapons vendor just looked at me for a second before shrugging and placing a hunting rifle and some ammo on the table. “We have a couple of shotguns, yeah. I’ve got a combat shotgun in nice clean condition if you’re planning to be seeing some action with it.”

“Any chance at a triple barrel shotgun?” I asked hopefully, not wanting to give up the comfort I had grown accustomed to with Boneless.

The weapons vendor just shook his head. “Them triple barrels are pretty damn rare, you’d be lucky to ever get your hooves on one these days. Not as rare as a quad maybe, but rare all the same.”

My heart skipped a beat. “There’s such a thing as a quadruple barrel shotgun!” I gasped, my ears shooting upwards.

The vendor gave a small nod, pulling out a combat shotgun and placing it next to the rifle with a hoof full of ten of shotgun slugs. “Yeah, Ironshod Firearms made a few before the war. Had the power of a normal shotgun mixed with the speed of a combat shotgun. Never seen one myself, but damn do they sound like a fine weapon.”

I turned to the yellow Stallion as Brisk and Xayah went about buying ammo for their own weapons. The buck gave me a grateful look. “T-thank you, I really was in trouble there. I’ve been staying here at Tenpony for protection, but I don’t have any caps left and I’m going to need to start searching for a new place out in the wasteland.”

“No problem, I’m always glad to help out,: I said, offering him my hoof. He gave it a quick and nervios bump. Jeez this pony seems jumpy. “My name’s Amber Aura, what’s yours?”

The stallion's eyes darted around, as if looking for anypony that might be listening in. “It’s uh… R-rubber band.” I froze, eyes locking with his. I glanced down at his cutie mark, realizing for the first time that what I had mistaken for a misshaped circle was in fact a rubber band. Rubber Band noticed my reaction and quickly started back peddling.

Pyre looked over her shoulder back at us. “Oh, is this the Rubber Band pony y’all said you were looking for? Are we here to kill him or…?” Rubber Band’s face grew pale at her words, his eyes darted for the hunting rifle on the table I had just bought him.

I shot Pyre another grumpy look. “No, we aren’t here to kill him!” I turned back the Rubber Band. “Have you heard of the Friendship Express?” It had been a long while since I had thought about that group, so I hoped I remembered the name correctly.

Rubber Band seemed to calm down at that. “You ponies are with the Friendship Express?” He asked, sounding almost hopeful. “I thought you would never find me!”

I nodded, thought for a second, then shook my head. “We are… well… we aren’t exactly part of the Friendship Express, but they did send us to find you,” Brisk and Xayah had joined us now, hauling over their new bought ammo as well as the two purchased guns.

Rubber Band glanced around again, taking in the ponies around us. “I think the Institute has agents in Tenpony, we can't talk here,” He said, his voice lowering. “Meet me in my room in three hours. I have a place in Goldentail’s. We’ll talk more there,” He looked around again, thankfully taking the hunting rifle before ducking away into the crowd.

Brisk blinked a couple times, trying to connect the dots of what he had missed from the conversation while buying ammo. “Wait, did we just stumble into the synth Rubber Bands that Flask told us to find?” I gave him a nod. Brisk was silent for a few seconds before shrugging. “Eh, not the weirdest coincidence ever.”

“Emissary said he was heading to Tenpony when we met him, perhaps he is still here,” Xayah said, recalling the rather brief exchange we had had with the Friendship Express operative on our first visit to Friendship City. “If so, we can inform him of Rubber Band’s whereabouts.”

I thought about that for a second before giving my head a small shake. “We should talk to Rubber Band first, see what is what before we get any other ponies involved,” I said, not feeling particularly trusting of a faction like the Friendship Express that was nearly as secretive as the so called Institute I kept hearing about.

Brisk gently kicked the ground with his hoof. “Alright, so we have three hours before we meet this uh… what is he? A robot?” I shrugged. Rubber Band sure didn’t look or act like a robot. But then again, wasn’t that the point of synths? “So what do we do until then?”

I smirked and gestured down the hallway at the end of the marketplace. “Well, we did come here to relax, didn’t we?” I said, my grin growing. “We could always go to the spa for a bit.”

Pyre Blaze’s eyes widened with what appeared to be fear behind her visor. She raised her hooves frantically and started backpedaling. “Oh no, you aren’t getting me all pampered up. Not today!”

“The fucks a spa?” Brisk snorted, glancing wearily from Pyre to me.

Xayah and I exchanged a funny look and smiled. I turned back to Brisk, giving him a shrug. “We have no idea, but apparently it’s nice. Might as well give it a shot right?”

Brisk mouth twisted to match our grin. “Well I never turn down an adventure, and doing new things you’ve never heard of is about as adventurous as it gets. Count me in.”

“I’d like to come too!” Mirra squeaked, peeking her head out from under the stealth cloak. I jumped a little at finding the tiny changeling beside my leg. I had forgotten she was standing so close.

We all shifted our gaze to Pyre who was slowly backing away from us. Our raider friend just scowled. “Oh no you don’t. I’m a badass renegade from the las pegasus Raiders! I’m one of the founders of the ruthless Manehattan Scourge! I burn ponies alive just for the fun of it! I don’t do that spa! There is nothing you could possibly say that would get me to go into that hellhole!”

“How the fuck did I get talked into this?” Pyre grumbled, pulling herself into the white, tiled room behind us, her tail tucked tightly between her hind legs as she sulked. She had been forced to remove her battered Power Armour upon entering the spa, giving us all a good look at her burned and scarred body underneath. She looked a mess.

The spa had looked even cleaner than the rest of Tenpony Tower, which was saying quite a lot. A thick cloud of near white steam wafted around the entirety of the spa, simultaneously making it hard to breath and relaxing my tensed up muscles.

The ponies at the spa had taken one look at us and gasped, before practically stripping us from our barding and shoving us towards a room appropriately labeled as ‘Showers’. Brisk had quickly been pulled away from the group and was dragged towards a different shower room, a confused look sprawled across his green face. Clearly the showers were split by gender.

I stumbled over to one of the showers on the wall, my hooves practically giving out below me as I neared it. The warm, steamy air that seemed to be relaxing my whole body was beginning to make me realise just how hurting and tired my body had truly been. I reached for the shower valve, then froze.

Below the shower head hung a mirror, giving me a good look at my body. I was a ruin. The mud and grime that covered my body made me look as if I were a dirty brown in colour instead of a bright pink. My mane was matted and far longer than I had ever seen it before, clearly I was in good need of a mane cut. But worst of all were the scars. Unlike the mud and messy mane, those couldn’t simply be washed away. They were a part of me now, thin silvery and pink lines raced across my form, twisting into strange patterns. I might as well have been a zebra with the amount of damage that covered me. There was a small clip in my left ear that seemed to be suffering from some sort of infection. When had I even gotten that?

I shook a little as I stared at myself. It wasn’t the first time I had seen the devastation the wasteland had done to my body, but that didn’t make it any less shocking. If I had seen what I would become before I left the Stable I probably wouldn’t have believed it. I looked nothing like the Amber Aura I knew.

Xayah walked up beside me and turned on her own shower. A stream of warm water began cascading around her, sinking into her matted coat and washing out much of the muck that had accumulated on her. She glanced over at me, noticing my pause as I glared in horror at my own reflection. “Amber?”

I just kept staring at the mirror. I could feel something trickling down my face, but I couldn’t tell if it was my tears or the condensation of the thick steam of the spa. I bit my lip, watching as the hideous pony that was my reflection mimic my movement.

“Amber, is everything alright?” I heard Xayah ask again, but her voice was beginning to sound distant.

A sudden stream of water poured down atop me, jolting me from my thoughts. I flinched back, having not expected the shower to burst to life. “Gah! What the fuck!” I glanced down and saw Xayah’s striped hoof on the shower valve. I looked up at her unamused and took in her smug expression. “What was that for?”

Xayah just batted her eyes at me innocently. “You needed a shower,” was all she said in response.

I looked back at the mirror, taking in my reflection again quickly as the surface began to fog up. I was still a mess of course, though with admittedly less mud caking my coat and my mane now plastered to the side of my face. I could see mucky brown water rolling off of me and pooling around my hooves before getting sucked down a small drain. Who knew so much filth could reside on one pony.

“Amber, are you feeling quite alright? You seem lost?” Xayah said, moving over from her shower to stand next to me, her hooves reaching up and beginning to rub the grime out of my mane.

I continued to stare at the fogged up mirror, my eyes squinting as I tried to make out my visage in the foggy surface. “Just thinking I guess. I can’t remember the last time I had a shower.”

The last shower I had had was before I left the Stable for the first time, I knew that much. But how long ago was that? It had to have at least been a month, right? I tried to think back, counting the moons since I had stepped hoof in Manehattan. No, not a month, but two weeks. It had only been fourteen days! It felt like so much longer.

Xayah gave a quick nod and continued brushing out my mane. “Such things are less than common in the wasteland. Few get to enjoy such luxury.”

That only made me feel worse. Why was I allowed to have such a thing when there were other, more worthy ponies out there. Why should I be able to relax after all the blood I had spilt. After the foals I had slaughtered…

I suddenly had the pressing urge to scream and run as far from the spa as I could. This felt wrong, like I didn’t deserve it. Where was Shade? My father? Where was Crank, he should have gotten to be here with me. I could feel my bottom lip begin trembling. This time there was no denying the water racing down my cheeks were tears.

Xayah seemed to notice my distress, which I suppose wasn't overly hard, and wrapped her hooves around me, holding me tight as I balled my eyes out in the shower. Through my tear filled eyes I could see Pyre cast us a look and open her mouth to make a snide remark before apparently thinking better of it.

I didn’t even know why I was crying. Had it been my reflection? The thought that I was getting rewarded when there were others more deserving? Was Shade and Crank’s death finally breaking me? I felt my body get wracked by painful sobs. It wasn’t fair, none of it. How could the wasteland have been so horrible that something as basic as a warm shower could push me over the edge like this.

I leaned into Xayah’s tight embrace more, trying to wish away the tears. They refused to leave.

Xayah ran her hoof through my mane again, whispering soothing words. I was in no state to comprehend what she was saying, but her methodical tone seemed to be calming me down somewhat. Xayah pulled a bar of soap out from somewhere; I never did see where she picked it up. “Come now you foolish pony, let’s get you clean,” She said, helping to pull me back to my hooves once my crying had subsided somewhat. I just gave her a stiff nod and clambered back up as she began rubbing the bar of soap behind my ears.

“You know I can clean myself, right?” I said, wiping a hoof across my face to flick away some of the remaining tears. “I am a unicorn, my magic is more than capable of cleaning me.”

“Mm-hmm,” Xayah replied quickly, not slowing down as she continued to rub out the filth. “But I’m not, so I expect you to clean me just as much once I am done with you.”

I made a noise that was half way between a groan and a laugh. “I should have known there was a catch,” I gave her a smirk and kissed the top of her muzzle. “Sorry, I’m a bit of an emotional mess. Love you.”

Xayah stopped for a second, looking up at me and returning my smile. “Love you too.”

This time Pyre failed to hold back the snark. She made a gagging sound and stuck out her tongue. “Ugh, you two need to get a room!” she growled, flipping her red mane out of her face, sending a spray of water across the room.

I glanced over Xayah’s back to look at Pyre. “You’re just jealous,” I shot back, wiggling my eyebrows a little bit. I saw Mirra suppress a snicker.

To my surprise, Pyre Blaze’s face went bright red. I had actually managed to make the tough, heartless raider blush. “Wha-what! I am not! Your PDA is just disgusting!” She shot back, turning away and facing the shower nozzle as the hot water rained down on her. From the amount of steam coming off of the water, I could tell she had set the water temperature to a heat that most ponies should have found uncomfortable.

“I think they’re cute,” Mirra giggled, her black shell practically gleaming from the wetness of the shower. She had been a lot cleaner than the rest of us and the grime had washed off of her slick body much faster.

Pyre cast her the stink eye. “Don’t side with them,” She grumbled, stomping her hoof on the floor for emphasis. The motion almost made her slip. She cast me an angry look. “I liked you two more when you weren’t all lovey dovey.”

I gave my head a small shake to disguise my laugh and turned back to Xayah as she moved her hooves down to my back and continued cleaning my sides. I let a soft sigh escape my lips. This was nice.

Brisk was waiting for us in a large pool when we finally emerged from the showers. Clearly he had taken a lot less time to clean up than the rest of us. He sat with most of his head and body submerged under the warm water with only his ears and lone eye above the surface. He was blowing a stream of bubbles out of his mouth and had what appeared to be a rubber duck balanced atop his head.

I slapped a hoof over my mouth as I tried not to laugh. He looked ridiculous.

Brisk straightened up as he saw us walk in, the rubber duck flopping off of his head and into the water and a large blush colouring his cheeks red.

I lowered myself into the water next to him, letting the warm water flow around me. My whole body seemed to relax and loosen within seconds of touching the water. How long had the muscles in my shoulders been like that? That couldn’t have been healthy.

“So this is a spa?” Xayah observed, leaning down and sniffing the water. “The water smells different,” she looked a lot cleaner after I had scrubbed her down. I had forgotten how dazzling her black and white stripes really were. Though granted, I doubt I had ever seen her fully clean before.

“Yeah, the ponies at the front said something about it being mineral water or whatever. I didn’t really pay attention,” Brisk said, lowering himself back down and resting his head on the edge of the pool. “They apparently have something called a sauna as well. Plus they do massages! I can’t remember the last time I had a massage.”

Xayah crawled into the water beside us and let her chin rest on my shoulder. I could feel all the muscles in her neck releasing as the warm water washed over her.

“They make the water too cold,” Pyre grunted, dipping her hoof into the warm pool before shaking her head and simply sitting on the ledge beside us.

“Come on, it’s not that bad,” I said, casting Pyre a look. She just scowled back at me. “What’s your problem with going to the spa anyway?”

“I’m a raider, I don’t do pampering,” She grunted back, flicking her red mane out of her face with a hoof. “If word got back to the Las Pegasus raiders that I was lounging around in a spa and getting my hooves painted I’d be a fucking laughing stock.”

“I don’t think those raiders could hate you any worse than they do already,” Brisk pointed out, stretching his legs out. “I mean, they already want to kill you, so who cares what they think?”

Pyre just growled. “I have a reputation to uphold here! I’m a wasteland badass, not some prissy princess.”

“Well we’re the only ones here, and we won’t think anything less of you,” I reassured her, gesturing for her to join us with a hoof.

Pyre just stuck her muzzle in the air with a humph. “Absolutely not!”

A field of green magic wrapped around Pyre and lifted her into the air. Her eyes shot wide as her whole body was lifted off of the ground and levitated overtop of the pool. Pyre glared down at a snickering Mirra as the small changeling stepped out from the showers.

“What are you doing!” Pyre balked, waving her hooves around in the air frantically as if trying to run away from the magical grip. “Put me down this instant!”

Mirra just put a hoof to her mouth and simpered. “If you say so,” The magical green field around Pyre popped out of existence. The raider sat suspended in the air for a second, glaring at all of us in anger before plopping down into the water with a splash.

I ducked my head a little as the large wave that accompanied Pyre hitting the water splashed over me. Chuckling, I looked up to see Pyre sitting up in the center of the pool, her wet mane plastered down over her face and obscuring her eyes. She turned to look at all of us, a grim expression on her face. “I’ll get all of you for this. Just you wait!”

Mirra giggled as she fluttered over and perched atop Pyre’s soaked head. She leaned over and looked into Pyre’s eyes upside down. “Doubt it,” She chuckled, brushing a bit of Pyre’s mane away.

The glumb looking raider tried to shake the tiny changeling off, but Mirra just fluttered her wings and glided down into the pool with a much smaller splash.

“You’re the one that told me I needed to relax a little,” I scoffed, tilting my head to the side and letting it rest atop Xayah’s. Pyre grumbled, but stayed quiet.

Brisk pushed his hoof gently against the floating rubber duck in the water and watched as it bobbed up and down. “Can’t say I was overly excited to come here and all, but I’m glad we did,” He said thoughtfully, not taking his eyes off the bath toy. “We really did need a little down time, especially after the last week.”

I just stared at the rubber duck, not quite sure what to say to that. On one hoof, I agreed. It had been a rough week and I knew full well that we needed this break for both our physical and mental health. On the other hoof however, I hated the idea of just sitting around while those Slavers got further and further away with the A.A.S.S. “Do we have a game plan for tomorrow?” I finally ask, lifting my head a little off of Xayah’s. “For getting the A.A.S.S. back and all.”

Both Brisk and Xayah shook their heads. “We could try stealing it?” Xayah suggested, sitting up a bit. “Try a similar strategy to when we attempted to take it from Tripwire back in Fetlock.”

"That resulted in us almost dying," I pointed out, remembering the numerous near death experiences I had gone through while battling the cyber pony.

"All of your plans result in you almost dying," Pyre pointed out, her expression still grumpy from being dumped into the pool.

“Or we could… I don’t know… leave it,” Brisk said, trying his best to sound casual. “It’s not like we need it anymore or anything.”

I cast him a sour look. “It’s not about us needing it Brisk. I’m not going to let Red Eye get his hooves on it. Not after everything he's done.”

Pyre raised a hoof out of the water. “I’ve got an idea that might work, though it’s not our usual style of doing things?”

I sent her a skeptical look. “If this plan involves anything even remotely raidery, then no,” I said flatly.

Pyre raised an eyebrow. “Says the pony that has been doing borderline raidery shit since their Stable died,” She scowled back. “And no, it’s not raidery. Quite the opposite in fact.”

“Well, let’s hear it?” Xayah said, moving a little closer to Pyre.

“Well, you’ve all heard about that new Steel Ranger splinter group, yes?” Pyre said, pulling herself up to her hooves. The water reached up to the bottom of her barrel when she stood at full height. We all gave a few nods. “Well they are located out by some Stable in Fetlock apparently, and if what the DJ has been saying is true, then they’re friendly.”

“So what? We join up with the Steel Rangers?” Mirra asked, her body flickering to that of a green filly with an orange mane.

“The Applejack Rangers specifically,” Pyre corrected. “They’d gladly help us take out a group of slavers, especially if those slavers are taking prisoners. And if my memory serves me correctly, they had a whole lot of cages with them when they attacked us on the train.”

I gave a thoughtful nod at her idea. “That might actually work. If my last encounter with the Steel Rangers was any indication, they’d make quick work of those slavers.”

“Course we’d need to find these Applejack Rangers first,” Brisk interjected, splashing at the water a little with a hoof. “Fetlock isn’t a small suburb by any means. We’d need to know where we were going if we want any hope of finding them.”

“Ya’ll don’t listen to the radio much, do you?” Pyre snorted, once again flicking aside a strand of dripping hair. “They’re in Stable 29.”

“We’re looking for a pony named Rubber Band. Do you know where his room is?” I asked the clerk at the front of the Goldentail’s Luxury Suites. “He’s expecting us soon.”

The clerk peered down at us in disgust through the lenses of his glasses that rested so far down his muzzle I was surprised they didn’t just fall off. After a thorough cleaning and long soak in the spa, we were all looking a lot cleaner and undoubtedly more approachable than we had been. That said, we still didn’t look like a particularly friendly bunch. Our bodies were still covered in cuts, bruises and scars and no amount of washing can remove the fatigue that must have been prevalent in our eyes.

The clerk turned their gaze to look down at some sort of ledger that rested on their desk for a second before looking back up at us. “Four doors down the hall to your right,” He said in a snooty tone that made my skin crawl.

I thought for a second before speaking again. “There isn’t another pony here by the name of Emissary staying here as well, is there?” I asked, my hopes slightly higher than they ought to have been.

The clerk flipped through his ledger a few more times before finally giving a small nod. “Indeed, seven doors down to the right,” He said, his voice never loosing its snooty tone. I gave him a small smile and nod before turning and starting to walk down the hallway. Before I could get far, the clerk raised a hoof to stop us. “And don’t cause any trouble, do you hear?”

Pyre gave her a grin through her power armour helmet. “Oh, we never cause trouble,” Said the power armour wearing raider with two massive flamers attached to her side. I noticed she had at some point replaced the flamer that Crank had destroyed in the MAS tower.

The clerk looked sceptical, but dropped their hoof and let us pass. We quickly marched past and to the door that the clerk indicated. I reached out and rapped on the wooden surface of the door a couple of times in quick succession.

We heard some frantic shuffling from the far side of the door followed by the muffled sound of a gun cocking. “Who is it!” The frightened voice of Rubber Band called out from behind the door. “Be w-warned, I h-have a hunting rifle, and I’m not afraid to use it!”

I cast a nervous look at my companions. “Uh- It’s us… the ponies with the friendship Express. Remember,” I said, reminding the supposed synth of our meeting three hours prior.

There was more shuffling and a small yelp from the other side of the door. Suddenly, the door burst open, letting the five of us into the dimly lit room. Rubber Band stood on the other side, an embarrassed expression across his face. “S-sorry about that. Please, d-do come in,” He stumbled, gesturing for us to enter his abode.

I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile and walked in, taking in the room beyond. The room wasn’t very large, though notably bigger than our living space back at Friendship City. A single double bed rest against one side and a boarded up window was set into the far wall. Through the small cracks in the boarding, I could make out the broken down skyscrapers of Manehattan down below us.

I tried to peek out one of the cracks in the window, but it was hard to get any real good view. From what I could see however, the view should have been stunning. “Why would you board up such a nice view?” I asked, turning from the window and addressing Rubber Band as he ushered the rest of my friends in hastily before slamming the door and bolting it shut.

“Because the Institute is everywhere,” Rubber Band hissed back, casting a worried glance at the window. “Who knows how they might be spying on me.”

“We’re like… really high up,” Birsk said flatly, trying to look out the window himself. “I don’t think they would be able to get up here and look through your window.”

Rubber Band shook his head as he sat down on the large bed. “If you think that then you clearly underestimate the Institute. They can be anywhere and be anyone. All they’d need to do is get a bird or pegasus synth to fly up and look in.”

“A bird synth?” I asked, sitting down on the floor in front of him. They have robot birds?”

Rubber band winced at the term robot, but didn’t seem to make a big deal out of it. “No idea, but they might. They can make synths of anything. If they can do ponies, why not birds? You haven’t been in the Institute like I have. You have no idea what they are capable of.”

“Wait! Slow down! You’re trying to tell us you’ve been inside of the Institute!” Pyre gasped, jumping to her hooves. “As in the most secretive and well kept secret in the entire fucking wasteland Institute!?”

Rubber Band gave a timid nod and rapped a hoof atop his head. “I was made in there. Soon as I went rogue though, most of my memories of the place were removed. I have no idea how to get back inside, even if I wanted to,” He turned and took us all in. “You five certainly don’t look like what I expected Friendship Express operatives to look like.”

“We don’t work directly with the friendship Express,” I said, reminding him of what I had told him earlier. “We’re just helping them with a couple of errands.”

“Do you know how to get in touch with them? I need to leave Tenpony soon, and I don’t know how long I can last in the Wasteland with the Institute tailing me,” Rubber band asked, fidgeting with his forehooves a little.

“Well that’s why we’re here,” I told him. “There is a Friendship Express operative that goes by the name of Emissary a few doors down. If you want we can inform him you’re here.”

Rubber Band’s brown knitted together. “You didn’t tell him already?” He asked, seeming genuinely confused.

“We wanted to get all the facts straight before we told anypony about your location,” I stated matter of factly. “As I said, we aren’t from the Friendship Express ourselves, so we wanted to make sure everything was in order before getting Emissary involved.”

The synth nodded, seeming to understand the train of thought. “Well if he truly is with the Friendship Express then I need him. You ponies couldn’t have found me at a more desperate time.”

Xayah’s face crossed with worry. “Why? What has happened?”

Rubber Band glanced around nervously, as if expecting some vile monster to emerge from the shadows. “I don’t remember much from my time in the Institute, but there is one thing that the Institute didn’t remove,” He paused again, looking this way and that. “The Institute has these special ops called Coursers. They’re killing machines. If operations go wrong or a synth goes missing, a Courser is dispatched to deal with it… T-they are very good at what they do.”

Brisk sat a little straighter at the mention of a killing machine. I suppose talk of things like that could put anypony on edge. I know I was. “What does that have to do with us finding you at this time,” His voice shuddered a little. We all already knew the answer.

“B-because I th-think I saw one,” Rubber Band said, his voice soaked with fear. “Here... in Tenpony Tower!”

That was bad. Really, really bad. I quickly turned to Brisk. “Do you remember what room that clerk pony said Emissary was staying in?”

Brisk gave me a quick nod. “Yeah, seventh door on the right,” He replied quickly.

“Good, go get him. We need to get Rubber Band out of here now,” I ordered sternly. Brisk didn’t wait, he simply stood up and rushed from the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

“How do you know it was a Courser you saw?” Mirra asked, flipping the hood of the stealth cloak off of her head and popping into view. She was currently disguised as a mint green filly with a bright blue mane.

Rubber Band shot to his hooves in an instant, reaching for his hunting rifle on the pillow beside him. I raised a hoof defensively to try and calm the startled synth. “It’s okay, she’s with us. Sorry, we should have told you she was here,” The thought of informing him of Mirra’s presence had completely slipped my mind. Mirra was so quiet that I often forgot she was there myself.

Rubber Band eyed up the disguised changeling for a second, not sure what to think of the small filly. “I-I don’t know how I knew. Some inset fear of them I suppose,” He leaned in to get a closer look at Mirra, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Have we met, you feel familiar?”

Mirra just shrugged. “I travel a lot. You probably saw me then or something.”

That didn’t sit right with me. Mirra was always changing shape. I found it unlikely that somepony would recognize her. I pushed the confusion from my head and turned my thoughts back to the problem at large. Mysteries for another day I suppose. “Is there anything that you do remember about the Institute?”

Rubber Band thought about that for a second. “Not much. I just remember a lot of white lights. And... “ he rubbed the bottom of his chin with a hoof thoughtfully for a second. “I-I think I remember some s-sort of symbol, b-but it’s kind of blurry. Like some dream I had a long time ago.”

“What do you remember of this symbol?” Xayah asked curiously, curingling her tail around herself as she sat next to me.

The synth thought for a few more seconds before his eyes landed on the collar of my Stable barding. He gestured towards it. “Well it kind of looked like that there. Though a little bit different I think…”

I suddenly felt my heartbeat quicken, a sickening feeling washing over me. I slowly turned to Mirra, not knowing how to say what I was going to say next. “Mirra, do you have that piece of metal your mother gave you on you?”

Mirra’s ears shot straight up as she realised what I was suggesting. She quickly pulled out the chunk of white metal and passed it to me. “Y-you don’t think that…?”

I shrugged as I rolled the smooth metal shard around in my hooves. “I don’t know, but it’s worth a shot,” I turned the metal to face Rubber Band and showed off the symbol of the Stable-Tec logo with the mare in the moon in the middle. “Is this the symbol you remember?”

At once, Rubber Band was on his hooves, his hunting rifle in his mouth as he inched away from the metal shard. “Where did you get that!?” He shrieked, his eyes locked on the hideous visage of nightmare moon in the center of the symbol.

Mirra’s eyes widened. “You’ve seen this before!” she flung herself forwards landing near the base of the large bed. “Where? The Institute?”

Rubber Band was slowly inching away, his eyes never leaving the symbol. “I-I don’t know… Goddesses! I don’t even know!” There was a loud knock on the door, making all of us jump. Rubber Band twisted the hunting rifle around in his mouth to aim at the door, his lower lip trembling. “I-I-I have a gun! Tell me w-who you are or I-I’ll shoot!”

There was a stunned silence from behind the door for a second. “Um… Hi. It’s me, Brisk again,” I heard Brisk’s muffled voice call out. “I’ve got Emissary here with me too. Say hi Emissary.”

There was another two seconds of uneasy silence. “Uh, yes. I am here also,” It had been a long time since I had heard Emissary’s voice, he sounded a lot older. I could see Rubber Band visibly relax at the voice of the Friendship Express operative.

I quickly stalked over to the door and creaked it open and let Brisk and Emissary into the room. Emissary was much as I remembered him. A tall grey buck, dressed in a dark black suit, shades and wide brimmed fedora. An unlit cigarette hung from his mouth and this time around, I spotted a Talisman in the shape of a lantern hanging around his neck.

Emissary’s eyes landed on Rubber Band at once. He took a few small steps forwards and extended his grey hoof out to the quivering synth. “You must be Rubber Band. We have been searching for you for quite some time.”

“Not very well,” Pyre scoffed, hiding most of her words behind a forced cough. I cast her a warning glance that only made her grin.

Rubber Band nodded slowly and and lowered his hunting rifle somewhat. “Ye-es-s… You're with the Friendship Express?”

Emissary gave a polite bow. “I am. It is a pleasure to finally meet you,” He glanced away for a second and gestured towards Brisk. “Our friend here tells me you spotted a courser?”

“Yes. Just yesterday. I think h-he's looking for me,” Rubber Band stuttered, his whole body shaking.

The Friendship Express operative gave a thoughtful nod. “We’ll need to try and get you out of this tower as quietly as possible. You can stay in my room for today, hopefully that will throw the Courser off your trail if we keep moving you around,” He thought for a few more seconds, rolling the situation around in his head. “We’ll leave tonight under the cover of darkness and head for the Manehattan Metro tunnels. We can meet up with the rest of the Friendship Express there and get you to safety.”

“Is there anything we can do to help you?” Xayah asked, pulling herself back up to her hooves.

Emissary just gave a small shake of his head as he looked around at all of us. “You five are a rather… unique looking group. The most you can do is try and stay clear of us and draw the Courser’s attention away from Rubber Band,” he turned to me and gave me a thin smile and a tip of his hat. “I got word from Flask not long ago that you delivered that package I gave to you. You’ve already done more for the Friendship Express than was ever expected. You five will always be friends with the Friendship Express.”

I gave him a smug smile and salute in return. “It’s our pleasure. We’re always happy to help.”

“I am aware that Flask offered you some form of payment to find Rubber Band, but I’m afraid I don’t have anything to give you. You must excuse me, but I’m afraid I was not expecting you five to meet me here in Tenpony,” Emissary quickly eyed Pyre Blaze and Mirra. “Or that there were going to be five of you for that matter.”

Mirra pointed towards the white chunk of metal I still held in my hoof. “Mr Emissary? Do you recognise this symbol?” she tapped gently on the image of the Stable-Tec logo with the horned pony head in the middle.

Emissary quickly looked the symbol over before shaking his head. “No, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it before. Why? Should I have?”

“We think it might be connected to the Institute,” I replied, returning the piece of metal to Mirra. “Rubber Band seemed to have some memory of it, but he isn’t sure where the memory is from.”

Rubber Band gave a nod of confirmation. “P-probably something I saw inside t-the Institute. Most of my missing memories are from there,” He shivered as a horrifying thought passed through him. “A-at least I hope those are most of the memories…”

Emissary tapped his chin for a moment. “It is possible I suppose. But it isn’t the Institutes insignia, I know that much,” He reached into his coat and pulled out a small folder. As he flipped it open I saw a bunch of papers and pictures that I could only assume was all the Friendship Expresses information on the Institute. There was shockingly little. Paperclipped to one of the top papers was the image of a pony silhouette, surrounded by a thin circle. The ponies hooves stretched out from its body to the inner edges of the circle along with a stretched out pair of wings and a horn that just protruded past the outer edge of the ring. Emissary pointed to it quickly. “From everything we have be able to gather, this is the symbol that the Institute uses to identify themselves.”

Mirra seemed to deflate at that. “So this symbol has nothing to do with the Institute?”

Pyre gave a shrug. “It still might. I mean, we know next to jack shit about this Institute place. Maybe they have more than one insignia.”

I gave Mirra a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry kid, we’ll find your mom yet.”

The main marketplace of Tenpony Tower was bigger than I had initially released. Even on my second pass through it, I was finding more and more shops and places to get food. It really was a testament to just how powerful pony kinds will to survive was. Even after two hundred years and total annihilation, we were still kicking.

Shortly after our meeting with Rubber Band and Emissary, I had dropped by Coco Pommels newly set up clothing stand and dropped off my Stable Barding to be fixed up. Despite her earlier offer, I had tried to give her some caps as payment, but she had been adamant to do it for me for free. Perhaps not the best marketing strategy on her part, but a generous offer all the same.

A small memory tugged at the back of my brain as I turned to leave. I dug around in my saddlebags and pulled out the small statuette of Rarity I had found below Rarity’s boutique so very long ago. Attached to the bottom was still the small note that read, ‘If we never meet again Coco, Thank you’. I quickly hoofed the small statuette over to the ghoul. It felt weird to be apart from it, but I knew it was the right thing to do.

“Here, I found this back when we first met. I think Rarity wanted you to have it,” I said, blushing slightly that it had taken me so long to actually get it to her. In truth, despite my attachment to it, I had forgotten that it had been in my saddlebag.

Coco took the statuette and rolled it around in her hooves. Her lower lip trembled slightly and I could see the smallest of tears form in her eyes. She turned away from me a little to hide her tears. “Th-thank you. I don’t know what to say…”

I just gave her a smile. “No need to say anything. It was supposed to be yours all along anyway,” I turned and left the ghoul to her thoughts. As I walked away, I saw the biggest of smiles across her face.

Pyre had gone off to who knows where with Mirra to go and get her armour fixed up, Brisk had gone to get us a room and Xayah had mentioned something about getting cooking supplies for dinner. That left me with… well, me. I looked around the shops, trying to figure out what I should do next. I spied a small vendor selling more of that Radigator meat from Arbu, but I figured I had better hold off on food until Xayah could cook up her magic. No amount of irradiated alligator was ever going to compare to the wonders that zebra could cook up.

As I walked through the semi crowded market I heard an almost silent groan from one of the nearby tables followed by a rather creative profanity. “Celestia use the sun and moon as anal beads!”

My ears shot up and I swung around. There was only one pony I knew that could come up with swears that colourful! I scanned the area, expecting to spot the lavender and mint green form of the enclave scientist Star Breeze at any second. Instead, my eyes landed on a small, steel grey unicorn mare with a brown mane sitting with her face between her hooves at one of the tables. She was dressed in classic stable barding that had been reinforced with pieces of leather and even metal barding and she had what looked to be a pipbuck as a cutie mark.

She looked almost as down and out as I had after watching my Stable get massacred. Welp, there was only one true remedy for that...

I turned and dropped six caps on the top of a food vendor beside me. “Can I have two Sparkle-cola’s please?” The vendor gave a small nod and passed me two chilled glass bottles of Sparkle-cola. That is, not before he pocketed the bottle caps off the top of each of course.

Grabbing both bottles in my magic I swung myself over and plopped myself down in the chair across from the small grey stable dweller. I took a loud slurp of the top of my bottle before levitating the other bottle over to her. “Sparkle-cola?”

The gray mare bolted upright with surprise and looked at the levitating bottle in front of her. She gave me a weary look before taking the bottle in her own field of green magic. “Thank you?”

“You’re welcome,” I said smugly, taking another sip of the beverage. “Now let me guess, you’re that Stable Dweller I keep hearing about?”

The Stable Dweller didn’t even look all that surprised by the question. No doubt she got asked stuff like that a lot. I guess that’s what happens when the DJ seemed to have taken a liking towards you. “Yup… names Littlepip. Uh… sorry, who are you?”

“Amber Aura,” I said, reaching my hoof out to her. Littlepip extended her hoof hesitantly and gave mine a little bump. She had to actually stand up to reach the full distance; and I thought I was small. “You were looking a little down there, what’s on your mind?”

Littlepip blinked a couple times, still clearly confused as to what was going on. “I-um… wait, have we met?”

"Nope," I said quickly, giving the small mare a grin. I went to gesture at my stable barding, only to remember I had left it with Coco Pommel to be fixed up. “I'm another Stable Dweller. You might have heard of me. I’ve been cleaning up a lot of the problems around Manehattan.”

Littlepip just continued to look at me with confusion. “Um… I haven’t, but it’s nice to meet you anyway.”

I gave her a flat look. “Really, has nopony heard about all the stuff I’ve done!? Seriously?” I shook my head and groaned a little. “Look, the point is that you looked down, so I figured I’d get you a drink.”

“Well… thanks,” Littlepip took another swig of the sparkle-cola. “I just have this plan. I don’t like it all that much.”

I gave a grim nod of agreement. “I never seem to like any plan, mostly because they usually involve me getting shot at. Though, usually mine are all spur of the moment, so the fact that you are planning one ahead of time is impressive,” I took another sip of my drink and waited for a second. “Well, don’t leave me hanging? What’s this plan of yours?”

“You won’t believe me even if I told you. I’m doing it and even I think it’s crazy!” Littlepip replied, her eyes fixing on her bottle as she floated it a few inches in front of her. she waited a few second, but when it was clear I was still listening she continued. “Have you ever heard of the goddess?”

I thought for a second before giving a quick nod. “I’m assuming you’re talking about whatever all those crazy alicorns are talking about and not Celestia, Luna and Cadence?”

Littlepip nodded. “I have a plan to take her out. But I’ll need to erase my memory of the plan to do it.”

I grimaced, thinking back to the memory orb of my slaughtering the raider children. “Losing memories to memory orbs is alway confusing, but yeah, a plan that you don’t remember is pretty crazy,” I let out a small snort like laugh. “And I’ve had my fair share of crazy. Just yesterday I blew up a bunch of balefire bombs underneath this crazy zebra cult leader. Any plan is probably more sound than that one.”

Littlepip’s ears shot up. “Wait, what?”

I gave a smug nod. “Yeah, I was lucky to walk out of that one alive actua-”

“No wait, what was that you said!” Littlepip asked, standing up a little. She seemed suddenly very interested in what I had to say. There was a strange glint in her eye. I saw a calculating expression cross her face as she started putting something together in her mind.

“Uh… I blew up a balefire bomb on-”

“No, no. The other parts!”

I raised an eyebrow and tried to think about what she might be referring to. How was the balefire bomb part not what interested her. “Uh… let's see… I blew them up underneath… crazy zebra cult…”

“Blew up balefire bombs underneath… zebra…” Littlepip whispered thoughtfully in a hushed tone. The amount of thoughts that seemed to be flashing through Littlepip's mind seemed to be going far faster than I could have imagined. “Xenith could plant the Balefire bomb underneath of them instead of me carrying it in in my saddlebags!” She finally grasped, pushing herself up fully.

“Uhhhh… What do you mean by that?!” I was suddenly getting a really bad feeling. “W-what are you talking about?!”

Littlepip reached forwards and gave my hoof a quick shake. “Thanks! You’re a genius!”

“I-I am?” I had no idea what was going on at this point.

Littlepip gave an enthusiastic nod and started rushing away, her half empty bottle of Sparkle-cola trailing in her magic behind her. “Good talk! Thanks for the drink!” She yelled back, before darting away and out of sight.

I sat there for a second, trying to figure out what had just happened. Suddenly I bolted upright. “Wait! Balefire Bomb!” I turned the way Littlepip had run off. “Don’t you go dropping Balefire bombs on anypony! You hear!” A couple of ponies walking past me cast me a confused and rather worried look as I shouted at seemingly nothing about Balefire bombs.

I groaned. I don’t know what I just did, but hopefully it doesn’t come back to bite me in the flank later. I turned back and took a slow gulp of my Sparkle-cola. My eyes landed on a dark black, unicorn stallion that was now standing just behind where Littlepip had been sitting. He wore a large black leather overcoat and a pair of shades over his eyes.

I cocked my head at him. “Uh, hi. Can I help you?”

“I was informed that you were spotted with a pony that identifies as Rubber Band,” The dark stallion said, his voice stoic and calculating. His words made shivers race down my spine.

Alarms started going off in my head. My eyes darted over the stallion, taking in all his details. He didn’t seem right. Not in the sense that there was something visually wrong, but he just didn’t seem to fit. As if he wasn’t fully pony. I had the sinking suspicion that I knew who this pony really was.

I gulped. “Nope, I’ve never met a Rubber Band in my life.”

I could see the dark ponies brows knit together as he stared at me from behind his tinted shades. He gave a small grunt and turned away. “Thank you for your time, Amber Aura…” Then he marched away, disappearing from my line of sight before I had the chance to ask him how he knew my name.

The second he was gone I bolted upright. I had to find Emissary and tell him to get Rubber Band out of Tenpony Tower now! I didn’t know how I knew, but I did. That had been a Courser!

Rubber Band was right. The Institute was already here.

In my panic I stumbled forwards, accidentally slamming into Xayah as she started walking away from one of the food stalls, her saddlebags full of a bunch of different ingredients. Xayah fell backwards landing on her rump.

“Oof. Amber? What’s going on?” She asked, rubbing her forehead with a hoof where I had accidentally headbutted her.

I glanced around, making sure that the courser was nowhere in sight. I leaned forward and helped Xayah up, placing my mouth against her ear so that I could whisper to her without others overhearing. “I just ran into the Courser looking for Rubber Band. We need to warn them.”

Xayah’s eyes widened with alarm. She too glanced around, hoping to catch sight of the dangerous synth. “What! When did this come to pass?”

“Just now… He knew my name Xayah…” I felt my whole body going cold at the thought. “I don’t know how, but he knows who we are and that we had talked to Rubber Band!”

Xayah’s eyes widened even farther. “Amber, you understand what that means, yes?” I shook my head in response. I was in no mindset to think too deeply on anything right now. I had to find Emissary and warn him before it was too late. “It means we can’t warn them…”

Her words hit me like a half ton of bricks. “Wh-what do you mean? We have to or else-”

Xayah put a striped hoof to my mouth to quiet me. “If he knows who we are then chances are he, or the Institute is keeping an eye on us. Warning them would only lead the Courser right to them…” I felt my heart sink.

“But we can’t just…”

“Emissary said the most we can do for them right now is stay as far away from them as possible,” Xayah said quietly, her melodus tone for once filling my mind with dread. She reached forward and put a hoof around me. “Come on, lets see if Brisk was able to get us a room. We could all use some sleep.”

Brisk had, indeed gotten us a room. A really, really nice room. I suppose two hundred caps can get you a long way in the wasteland. Brisk had quickly showed us around the room before ducking out, saying something about needing to find Pyre and Mirra.

The room was split into three parts. The first room was a master bedroom. A large double bed almost identical to the one in Rubber Band’s room was pressed against one side with a small bedside table on each side. To the left was a slightly larger room with three smaller single beds. Not enough beds for all of us, but I suppose Xayah and I could just share the large bed like we had in Friendship City. The final room was some sort of lounge area with a small kitchen attached to it. The room made our sleeping area in Friendship City look like a doghouse.

I threw myself down onto the large bed and let myself sink into the surprisingly comfy blankets. Not even the beds in Stable 25 had been this comfy, not that that was really saying very much. I pulled the straps on my saddlebags and let them flop off of my back and onto the floor. Rolling onto my back I stared up at the ceiling, trying to push away the growing discomfort of not being able to warn Emissary.

I hated not being able to do anything to help.

Xayah dropped her own saddlebags off in the kitchen before trotting over and joining me on the bed, sitting on the edge and glancing out at a large window set into the wall beside us.

I groaned and rolled over onto my side to face her. “Do you think Emissary and Rubber Band will be okay?” I asked, knowing full well that Xayah wouldn’t have any sort of real answer.

Xayah gave a quick shrug. “Emissary seems to have been doing this for a long time, I’m sure he knows what he is doing. If this Courser hasn’t been able to find Rubber Band yet, why should he tonight?”

I supposed that made sense, but I still felt terrible about not doing anything.

Xayah scooted a little closer to me and gave me a small nuzzle. “Worry not, we have faced worse than this before, why should we fail now?”

I gave her a small smile. “I suppose so. I guess stuff like this should be nothing to me after walking out of a balefire explosion unscathed.”

Xayah’s face faltered at that comment, but she kept trying to smile. “Yes, after that…”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “You alright?”

Xayah nodded. “Yes. It’s nothing you don’t already know. I was just thinking about when I thought you were dead…”

Oof, way to be blunt about that. I leaned in and surprised her by nuzzling the tip of her muzzle. Xayah’s face flushed a bright red at the touch. “I’ll make sure something like that doesn’t happen again. Don’t worry. No more blowing up in Balefire bombs for me,” I said jokingly, though I suppose I was only half joking.

Xayah smiled and wrapped her hooves around me, hugging me close. “I’ll hold you to that, you foolish pony,” she gave me a small peck on the cheek. The kiss wasn’t much, smaller than others we had shared certainly, but it felt different. We had never kissed alone before. I could feel a very large blush growing on my face

I gave a small, warm laugh and wrapped my own hooves around her. “I had promised you a proper hug once we got out of those stuffy hazmat suits, didn’t I?”

Before Xayah could respond, I pounced on her, the two of us rolling across the blankets as I cuddled into her coat as closely as I could. We rolled to a stop, lying side by side on the bed, our faces muzzle to muzzle. I leaned in, my lips pressing passionately against hers. Xayah practically purred with pleasure as we kissed… and kept kissing. Were we supposed to kiss for this long?

Wait, was I supposed to stop and get air at some point!? I had never done this before, what do I do! I suddenly had a bolt of panic shoot through me as I realised I had no clue what I was doing.

Goddesses, please don’t let me fuck this up!

Just when I thought I was about to run out of breath, Xayah pulled away. Our lips parted, and despite the momentary panic only seconds before, I desperately wanted to go back to kissing. Was that weird of me to want? I don’t know… Damn it, there should be a book on this sort of thing for me to read!

Xayah’s eyes drifted upon a little, staring back at me with a dreamy sort of look I hadn’t seen on her face before. “That was… nice,” she chuckled, a small smile spreading across her face.

I blushed and rubbed the back of my head awkwardly. “Well, you know… we could... keep doing it… y-you know, if you wanted to…” I stumbled, my composure completely lost by the sudden sensation I had just undergone.

Xayah grinned and rolled up on top of me, her scared underside pressing down upon mine. She took my head in her hooves and planted another film kiss on my lips. She pulled away sooner than I would have liked and started moving away.

I was about to protest for her to keep going when Xayah shifted downwards and placed a kiss on my neck. Then my chest. Then my stomach.

My heart started pounding at a hundred miles and hour. Holy shit, this was happening! My whole body felt like it was wiggling with excitement.

Xayah reached the bottom of my barrel. She put a hoof on my stomach to steady herself as she tried to position herself in the right spot. Her hoof was shaking. It was always shaking, but this… this was different. For the first time, I could see how badly it was trembling.

I sighed and put a hoof out to stop her. “Xayah? Are- are you okay?”

Xayah’s left ear twitched and she looked up at me, confused. But there was another look there, very prevalent in her eye. Fear. Fear like I had never seen in her before.

“I- yes… of course. Why would I not be you foolish pony?” Xayah stumbled, clearly trying to hide the look she no doubt knew I could see in her.

I shook my head and sat up a little. “Xayah, I think we need to talk… about what I saw in your head back in the Hollow Shades.”

Xayah tried to smile, only for her thin smile to falter. “I do not know… I do not know of what you are talking about?” But she did. I knew she did.

I took a deep breath. “About what happened to you in New Appleloosa… I know it’s probably not easy for you to talk about, but if we are going to do this, I need to know what you’re comfortable with.”

The zebra nodded slowly and sat up a little, crossing her fore hooves in front of her. “Y-yes. I suppose that is correct…”

We both sat there for a second, not fully knowing what or how to say what needed to be said. “Brisk went through something similar back in Stable 25,” I started, keeping my voice low. “It- it really hurt him… I think it hurt him a lot more than he is willing to let on. If there is anything I can do to make all this easier for you, just tell me and I’ll do it.”

Xayah nodded, keeping her head and gaze facing downward. “I am not sure how I feel. For most of my life I pushed all of my emotions deep down. It left me very confused about many things…” she rightened herself and looked up at me. Most, though not all of the fear that had plagued her eyes was gone. “But knowing that you are willing to do what you can to make me comfortable is all I need. The pony who violated me would not have undergone such lengths. He did not care for my well being. If anything, he set out to destroy it.”

I gave her a small smile, though it was somewhat pained. “Of course. I’m here for you. All of us are. You don’t need to hide what you feel from us. If you are hurting or need something, just say it and any of us will do our best to help you.”

Xayah let her warm smile from before creep back onto her face, this time for real. “And what of you?”

“What of me?” I thought for a second. “I mean, I have tons of emotional baggage, if that’s what you're asking about?”

“But you would be fine if I continued?” Xayah said, her smile widening somewhat.

I nodded slightly. “Yeah, I think I should be fine…” Why was she smiling like that? She looked like she was- Holy Celestia!

My thoughts exploded in my head as Xayah’s tongue found its way into my clit.

And then the door to the room burst open. Brisk marched into the room first, his mouth moving and making words that I couldn’t hear through my sudden unexpected ecstasy. Pyre Blaze followed, Mirra riding atop her back in her natural changeling form.

“I have no idea. What does a fish say when they swim into a wall…” Pyre grunted, clearly tired of the endless stream of bad jokes that Brisk had no doubt been pestering her with for the last little bit.

“Dam!” Brisk chuckled, looking far more proud of himself for the joke than he should have. Pyre just stared at him with the single most unamused expression I had ever seen across her face. Mirra giggled helplessly at the punch line, rolling off of Pyre’s back and flopping to the floor. I was glad to see somepony was able to enjoy Brisk's rather bad sense of humour. Brisk chuckled again. “Hehe, I’ma gonna tell Amber that one. Hey sis!”

He turned to the bed to look at me and froze as he took in the rather intimate moment he had walked in on. His face very quickly went bright red, though I doubt he was blushing even remotely as much as Xayah and I right now.

Xayah peeked over the top of my stomach to look at me. “Um… do you wish for me to stop now or…” My face grew even redder.

I pushed myself up and closed my legs, suddenly feeling very exposed. “NO! I mean… Y-yes... Damn it Brisk…”

Brisk glanced away awkwardly. “Sorry! Clearly this is a bad time! I’ll come back!”

I grumbled. “No, don’t bother… I think the mood has been ruined enough to keep going with that at the moment…” I pulled myself off the bed and tucked my tail between my legs, hoping to hide my currently still wet and winking nether regions.

Both Pyre and Mirra were once again on the ground laughing as they watched the painful awkwardness unfold. Clearly Pyre thought this situation was funnier than any of Brisk’s jokes. Both Xayah and I cast them grumpy stares.

Pyre managed to pull herself back up, wiping a few tears away from her eyes as she chuckled. “Well, now that catastrophe of a moment is over, do you mind if we come in?”

I just grumbled more and as Xayah dragged me into the kitchen with her so we could start getting dinner ready and have at least some privacy.

I was less than talented in the way of making any form of food, so when I say, ‘Xayah and I made dinner,’ what I really mean is, ‘Xayah made dinner while I fumbled around the kitchen awkwardly and made a big mess.’ That said, Xayah more than made up for my lack of cooking ability and once again managed to make one of the best meals any of us had ever had. Not that that was a particularly high bar to meet, there aren't very many good things to eat in the wasteland and I hadn’t even eaten in Stable 25 at all.

We all gathered in the largest room to eat. Pyre, Mirra and Xayah sat atop the three beds while they ate, while Brisk and I sat in the center. Dinner itself was relatively quiet, both from a lack of things to talk about to crimping fatigue to the still lingering awkwardness of what my friends had walked in on Xayah and I doing.

After a few minutes of awkwardness, Brisk cleared his throat. “So like… I think we should set some boundaries or something in the way of PDA or whatever. I don’t want to need to walk in on that again…”

We all very quickly and eagerly agreed.

“I already made a deal with Mirra here that we’ll keep it to a minimum around her,” I said, gesturing to the small changeling beside me who was noisily gnawing on one of Xayah’s famous cookies.

“As much as I tease the two of you for it, I don’t really give much of a damn,” Pyre said flatly, taking a bite of her food. “I’ve been a raider long enough to have see things far worse than you two kissing. But I’m with Brisk. Walking in on you two like that will only be funny so many times.”

“We will make sure we have our own room next time,” I said quickly, my face flushing a bright red. Xayah quickly nodded in agreement as she fiddled with her food.

Brisk seemed to be happy by those very quick and short term. “Great. Glad that the serious stuff is settled…”

I got a bad feeling in my gut. “Uh… what do you mean by the serious stuff?”

Brisk, Pyre and Mirra’s grins were so wide that the sides of their lips practically touched their ears. “He means that now we get to mock you mercilessly about the whole thing!” the changeling filly smirked, fluttering her translucent wings a little.

Both Xayah and I sank deeper into our seats, wishing we could be anywhere but where we currently were.

“I don’t think that will be necessary.”

Brisk grinned more. “Oh, but I think it is sis! I think it very much is.”

I tossed my saddlebag at him playfully. I hadn’t thrown it hard, just hard enough to catch him off guard as it smacked into his face. The saddlebag slumped to the ground with a thunk, the small jar of Buck I had been keeping falling out of the bag and rolling across the ground to rest at Brisk’s hooves.

Brisk glanced down, his eyes locking on the container of Buck. his eyes narrowed.

I gulped and moved forwards to pick it up. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have thrown th-”

“What the fuck is this!” Brisk suddenly spat, bolting to his hooves and clutching the jar of Buck close to his chest. His words were filled with an unexpected venom. “How long have you had these!”

“Brisk I-”

“How long!”

Xayah stood up protectively. “Brisk, I think you need to-”

Brisk growled, cutting Xayah off. “You knew I ran out of Buck Amber! What the fuck! Why didn’t you give these to me!” He stomped his hoof angrily, his eyes burning into me. “Do you have any idea how fucking shit it’s been not having any!”

“Brisk, come on,” I started, reaching a hoof forwards to calm him down. “Give me the Buck.”

Brisk just growled. “I asked how fucking long have you had these Amber!”

I paused. Do I tell him the truth? It didn’t feel right to lie. I dropped my gaze. “Since our first visit to the Four Star Apartments. But you were getting addicted, those things are hurting you!”

Brisk’s expression mixed anger with sheer awe. “You’ve been… since then!” He stomped his hoof again, this time wincing in pain due to the force in which he slammed it. “What the fuck! I thought we were friends!”

Mirra finally joined us on our hooves. “Brisk, are you okay?”

“Am I okay!?” Brisk looked like he was going into hysterics. “I haven't had a single tablet of Buck in three days, only to find out my friend has been hiding them from me!”

“Brisk, you’re overreacting. This is exactly why I didn’t give them to you,” I said, reaching for the jar held aloft in his hoof. “Those things are killing you. Please just give them back.”

Brisk attacked me. His full force ploughed into me before I could even think to defend myself. I was flung backwards, my head crashing into the side of the wall beside the bed. Brisk stood over me, seething with a hate I would never have expected him to direct towards me. His hoof raised, preparing to slam down onto my head.

Xayah pounced, her hooves lashing out and knocking Brisk aside. Brisk stumbled, but managed to stay upright. He swung his hooves, just nearly missing Xayah as she ducked away from his powerful, yet unsteady swing.

Mirra leapt forwards, her curved horn sparking bits of green magic as she charged Brisk. Brisk easily knocked her aside, his lip twisting into a scowl. “Stay out of this kid!”

Xayah lashed out again, this time to be met with a little more resistance as Brisk spun on his fore hooves and bucked backwards, his hind hooves crashing into Xayah’s chin. Xayah fell back, fumbling against the wall beside me as I pulled myself back up.

Brisk charged me again. I readied myself for his attack, only for Pyre to get in the way. The pyromaniac raider stuck her hoof out lazily, sending Brisk off balance and stumbling into the bedpost.

“Alright Brisk, I think that’s enough,” Pyre said, almost bored. Brisk growled and spun around, striking Pyre across the face with a hoof. Pyre blinked at him in shock, surprised he had dared to even lay a blow on her. A foul sneer crossed her face.

Before Brisk could do any more damage, Pyre’s hoof shot out and flipped him onto his back. Brisk struggled, trying to get back onto his hooves like an upside down beetle. Pyre knocked his swinging hooves away and placed a hoof on his chest, pinning him down. “I said that’s enough!” Pyre roared, the walls of the room trembling slightly from her volume.

Brisk glowered up at her before turning his angry and hurt expression over to me. “Why…” He hissed between gritted teeth.

I pulled myself forwards and dared to approach him. “Bro, look at yourself. Those chems are fucking with your head.”

“Don’t call me you’re bro!” Brisk snapped, trying once again to push Pyre off of him to no avail.

I recoiled at that. That hurt, far more than I ever thought it would. I could feel tears start to sting at the corners of my eyes. “B-Brisk… I…”

At the sight of my tear, Brisk seemed to come to his senses. He looked around at all the shocked faces that were looking at him. All eyes were on him now. He trembled a little, a few tears starting to form in his own eyes. “Amber, I didn’t mean that… I- I don’t know what came over me…” he glanced down at the jar of Buck still clutched tightly against his chest. His eyes shifted to the growing bruise on Xayah’s chin before returning to me. “I- I didn’t mean to hurt any pony… I- goddesses…”

I shook my head and looked away from him, unable to maintain eye contact. “I’m going to bed… Pyre, take that Buck from him,” With that I turned and started walking from the room to the main bed. “Come on Xayah.”

As I stalked out of the room, I saw Pyre finally climb off of Brisk, the jar of Buck tight in her mouth. Brisk didn’t move, he just lay there, his eyes shiny from tears as he sobbed on the floor. Mirra gave him a few awkward pats on the shoulder in a childish attempt to sooth him, but it seemed to have very little effect.

Brisk's chest slowly rose and fell as he breathed pain filled breaths, his head curling up into his hooves. His eyes locked with mine just for a moment as I moved away from him. “I’ll fix this… Damn me I’ll fix this…”

As I climbed into bed, I felt the heavy weight of the wasteland fall upon my shoulders once more. We had failed in our mission here. We were supposed to have had one day of relaxation, one day without fighting, but we couldn’t even stop ourselves from fighting each other.

I awoke in the middle of the night to a noise.

Rubbing my eyes awake, I sat up and looked around. Everything seemed in place. Xayah rest beside me, her striped hooves wrapped loosely around my midsection. To my right I could hear the quiet snores of my other friends as they slept.

So why did something feel off?

My eyes landed on the ajar door inset into the wall across from me. Were it not for a thin sliver of pale light that glinted from the opened crack and across the floor, I would have assumed it was still closed. The door swung slightly back and forth on its hinges, creating a small creaking sound. No doubt the sound that had awoken me.

I pulled myself up and gently moved Xayah’s hooves aside, careful to not wake her. I slinked over to the door and peered outside, my eyes darting back and forth across the empty hall as I tried to spot something out of place.

Nothing. Everything seemed just as it should be.

Closing the door, I moved over to the larger bedroom where Brisk, Pyre and Mirra slept. Three lumps rest under the blankets, each one rising and falling slowly as they breathed in and out.

Or at least, that was what it looked like at first glance. I narrowed my eyes, moving a few steps closer to the bed Brisk slept in. The lump beneath the sheets wasn’t moving. I pushed the blanket aside.

Nothing! Brisk was gone!

He wasn’t the only thing gone either. I quickly darted around the room looking for the jar of Buck Pyre had taken from him. It wasn’t there! Brisk must have taken it!

My eyes shot back to the door, now closed and blocking off the hallway beyond. Where the fuck did he go! And why! Did it have to do with our fight! Or the Courser!

I pushed myself towards the door and reefed it open. I had to find him! Before something bad happened to him or he did something bad to himself!

I rushed down the hallway, stopping briefly as I passed the clerk of the Goldentail’s Luxury Suites, who was fast asleep at their desk. I quickly shook them awake.

The clerk bolted upright, his mane falling into their face and temporarily blinding him. “Wha-?! I’m up! I’m up!” He glanced down at me, and gave a slightly annoyed expression. “Oh… What do you want at this goddess damned hour?”

“I’m looking for a Green pony named Brisk, I think he just came down here a few minutes ago? Did you see him?”

“What? The Stable pony with a party hat or something for a cutie mark?” I gave the clerk a nod of affirmation. “Yeah, but that wasn’t a few minutes ago missy, that was almost two hours back.”

“Two hours…” I breathed, still very much in shock. “Where was he going?!”

The clerk knitted his brows together as if trying to remember the events of a rapidly fading dream. “I think he asked me where medical was…”

I sent off bolting down the hallway, ignoring the grumble like yells of the clerk pony as they demanded an explanation for what was going on. I didn’t have one to give him.

I rounded the corner and charged head first into the marketplace. It was mostly empty at this time of the night. A few ponies lingered at some of the vendors, just packing up their wears for the night. For a second I could have sworn that I saw Littlepip and a now cybernetic version of the red, black and white mare I had seen when I first arrived darting away and down a hall.

I turned my attention to the signs hanging over the different areas of the marketplace. If memory serves correctly then… Yes! There! Right beside the sign for the spa was what I was looking for.

The hospital!

I lowered my head and charged towards it again, bursting open the doors and running head first into a grey pony with a bright pink mane and white lab coat just as they went to exit the building. The doctor fell back, landing hard on his rump and rubbing his forehead with a hoof. It was never any fun to get headbutted by a unicorn, even one as small and weak as me.

“Oh, sorry about that,” I said, reaching down to help the doctor back up to his hooves.

The doctor shook his head and let me help him up. “No, my apologies, I should have been looking where I was going. My name is Nurse Heartbeat. I’m afraid both Doctor Helpinghoof and Life Bloom are out at the moment. Now, is there anything that I can do for you?”

I glanced around the room. “Did a green pony come in here? His name’s Brisk. He just ran out and I’m really worried about him,” I quickly shut myself up as I realized I was both rambling and hyperventilating at the same time.

Nurse Heartbeat nodded and gestured for me to follow him as he started moving back into the hospital. “Of course, he is just down here. Quite the nasty addiction he had.”

I blinked. “He… had?” I quickened my pace to keep up with the doctor. “What do you mean by, ‘he had’?”

Heartbeat looked down at me with a sad look. “Brisk dragged himself into the hospital about two hours ago clutching an empty package of Buck, looking for help. That pony is lucky that he didn’t overdose.”

“He came… to get help?” I stuttered, slowly putting everything that happened together. “About the Buck addiction?”

Heartbeat hesitated for a second. “That, and his mental state. He confessed to the Buck he took being an attempt at suicide.”

My heart dropped into my stomach. My whole body suddenly felt heavy and I had the sudden urge to fall over. “Is he… is he okay?”

‘He is better,” Heartbeat said, his face and expression grim. “We managed to flush most of the Buck out of his system. The addiction should be gone, though I am sure that he will be waking up with a terrible hangover in the morning.”

“C-can I see him?”

Heartbeat nodded and pointed towards a door at the end of the hall that we were fast approaching. “He’s just in there. Be gentle with him. This has been a long night.”

I gulped and gave an uncertain nod before pushing open the door and walking in. Nurse Heartbeat hung back for a few seconds before slowly walking in after me.

Brisk lay on a bed in the center of a dark room, his slumbering body shivering underneath the covers as if he were standing in the snow. His hooves clutched and fidgeted at the stained sheets and his eyes seemed to be darting around beneath his eyelids.

I cautiously walked over and placed a hoof on his forehead. It was ice cold, almost death like. I let loose a stifled sigh. “Damn it Brisk. What have you done to yourself?”

“While the addiction is gone, it is unlikely that many of the phycological parts of the addiction will be going anywhere any time soon. He will likely still struggle with coping with certain things without the effect of the chems in his system,” The nurse said from behind me as he took a few careful steps forwards. “It is important that you keep him away from Buck as much as you can. Only use it on him if you have no other choice.”

My tight throat made my forced laugh sound more like a croak. “The only reason he got addicted in the first place was because I had no other choice.”

The nurse just gave an understanding nod. “May I ask, what is your relationship with my patient? You are his marefriend, yes?”

“I’m his sister,” I said flatly, my eyes never leaving Brisk’s frail form. He looked so incredibly weak.

Nurse Heartbeat gave a sad dip of his head. “I am sorry about all of this. These sort of things are never easy.”

I felt Brisk shift a little under my hoof. I looked up to find myself looking into his now open, yet hazy looking eyes. “A-Amber? Sis...?” he croaked out, clearly not fully aware if what he was seeing was real or just a dream.

I clutched his hoof a little tighter. “Yes, Brisk. I’m here. Your sister. How are you feeling?”

Brisk just ignored my question and glazed up at the ceiling above him, his expression distant. “I never meant to hurt anypony… I’m… I’m not a raider. Don’t leave me alone out here…”

I shook my head, a small tear forming in the corner of my eye. “I never said you were a raider Brisk. I’m not going anywhere. Don’t you worry.”

Brisk’s eyes started drifting closed again “I never m-ment to… to hurt anypony sis. I swear… I… I’ll fix this… I told you I'd fix this…” then he fell back against the bed, his body stilling slightly as he drifted into a slightly more peaceful sleep.

“I know it looks bad, but he will be much better by the morning, trust me,” Heartbeat said, pushing a strand of his pink mane out of his face. “That said, I’d recommend that he stay here in the hospital for a few more days. How long will you two be staying here in Tenpony?”

I grimaced. “We were planning to leave tomorrow morning…”

Nurse Heartbeat’s grimace matched my own. “I suppose like most wastelanders, you are leaving to do something important and don’t have time to wait around?” I gave a sad smirk to confirm his guess. The nurse gave a small sigh. “Very well. In that case I would like to request permission to accompany you two on your journey across the wasteland. At least until Brisk is fully recovered.”

My mouth dropped open. “You want to join us…? While crossing the wasteland…? What about your job here at Tenpony?” I didn’t even know who this pony was, let alone except for him to be coming with us. Granted, I hadn’t really known any of my companions until after they had started traveling with me.

Heartbeat gave a quick nod and sat down in front of me. “I took an oath to protect and help every pony that I can. I would wish to not leave Brisk’s side until he is back to full health. Besides, Helpinghoof and Life Bloom have got Tenpony tower covered. I spend most of my days just watching over their shoulders anyway,” The nurse looked over Brisk before letting his eyes wander over my own body. “Not to mention that it looks as if you get a fair amount of combat outside the safety of Tenpony. I am sure you could both us a medic.”

I thought that over for a second. It made sense, and he was right. A medic would be nice to have in a pinch. Finally I gave him a small smile. “Alright, your in. Just be warned that we have a tendency to get into situations well over our heads.”

Heartbeat gave a smug grin. “I spent a few years in the wasteland myself before coming to Tenpony. I doubt you will be able to find anything out there I haven’t seen already.”

Bang!

Something crashed into the hallway outside. Both Heartbeat and I jumped, our heads swiveling to face the doorway.

Heartbeat knitted his brows together again. “Well now who would be up and making noise at this hour?”

I pushed open the door and started moving from the hospital, Heartbeat trailing swiftly behind. Reaching the end of the hallway, I moved out into the Marketplace. At once my eyes landed on a trail of blood splattered across the floor.

I didn’t wait a single second. I bounded forwards, my head low as I followed the gory trail. Up ahead I heard a muffled yelp, followed shortly by a strange zap of some sort of electricity. I saw a flash of blue light illuminate the crack at the bottom of a door to my left and bolted towards it.

I swung the door open and burst into what appeared to be a small closet. Emissary lay on the floor, five large, bleeding holes that looked like they were caused by a powerful energy weapon had been ripped open in his chest. He looked up at me, his whole body shivering from the effort.

“Th-they to-took him…” The Friendship Express operative stammered, his voice weak and fading. “They took Rubber Band!”

I knelt down and quickly applied pressure to the bleeding wounds, but there were just to many. “Heartbeat! He’s hurt! Get in here!”

Heartbeat was by my side in a second, his hooves working quickly as he began to simultaneously apply pressure and pull out a medic kit.

Despite the clear pain sprawled across his face, Emissary reached forwards and grabbed my hoof. I felt him place something cold and flat in it. Looking down, I saw he had pressed a talisman into my hoof bearing the image of a lantern on it. The same one I had seen around his neck and in Flask’s possession back in Fetlock. “Something is h-happening Amber… something big…” He coughed, blood drizzling from the side of his mouth, thick and black in the darkness. “Follow th-the Friendship Trail… Find the Friendship Express… Tell them… Tell them th-that they have it…”

“Have what!” I asked, my hooves fumbling through my saddlebags as I tried to find a healing potion. I didn’t have any.

“Th-th-the…” He started to trail off, only for a fit of coughing to bring him back to consciousness. “The Institute has it! It is coming! Goddesses, I can’t stop it! The Utopia Program!”

I felt his hoof tense up, only to go limp. His body seemed to sink, as if a balloon deflating. His eyes rolled back into his head as he stilled. with a final exhale of breath, Emissary lay dead.

Heartbeat sat back, his blood soaked hooves still pressed over Emissary’s bleeding barrel. He glanced over at me with growing intrigue. “The Institute? I take what I said back. This is something new…”

Footnote: Half way to next level.

Author's Notes:

Due to covid-19, my classes are being cut short. As unfortunate as this situation is, hopefully I will be able to use this to my advantage and get a few more chapters out before my schedule gets busy again.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and have a good day.

Fallout: Equestria belongs to Kkat.
Fallout: Equestria - Project Horizons belongs to Somber