“I’m talking real trees. Brown bark, green leaves, photosynthesis, all that good stuff.”

Foliage.

I had seen greenery in memory orbs, but that didn’t really count. Those plants and trees had been from a long gone age, now nothing more than withered husks and ash in the breeze. I had seen plants in the Institute as well, and they had been one of the single most beautiful things I had ever seen.

But in the wasteland? Noting. I had seen a single blade of dead grass, and that had been eaten up by Brisk seconds later.

The Manehattan gardens changed all of that. Every direction I looked, I was nothing but towering trees and twisting vines covered in jagged thrones and blossoming, bulbus-like flowers.

The plants in the Manehattan garden were not unaffected by the balefire bombs however. They had mutated. Transformed into twisted versions of their past selves. the farther into the gardens we walked the, the more out of place and alien the whole area seemed to feel.

To distract myself from the eerie atmosphere of the radioactive forest, I had turned my attentions to Mirra as she went about explaining what she knew about our mysterious saviour.

"-That was the first time he showed up. He just appeared out of nowhere and saved me from the Hellhound,"Mirra said, trotting along beside me. I noticed she wasn’t traveling atop Pyre’s back like she normally did. I had no doubt there was still some awkwardness between them over their earlier conversation at the Bank. "I didn't know what to make of it at first, but then he showed up again. Then again. Always saving me and the disappearing before I could ask who he was."

"And this mysterious stranger friend of yours was the one that helped you pull me out of the MAS tower?" I asked sceptically. "Why?"

Mirra gave a small smile. "After a few years, he began to show up even when I didn't need saving. He'd just sit for a few moments, listening to me before he would disappear again. I was always really lonely and... and I think he was lonely too. He never talked much, but when he did, he always seemed sad. I think... I think he always wished he could help me, but just didn't know how," She glanced down at her hooves again. "When I started following you after I saw you kill those... uh... raider fillies..." I winced at that. That was not something I needed or wanted to remember. "He told me that he'd help protect you too. So that you could help me in a way he never could."

"But you don't know who he was? Where he came from?" I pushed. "Its not every day you see and earth pony that can teleport."

Mirra gave a quick shrug. "I asked him a few times, but he never really said anything. Maybe he was scared to tell me... Maybe he didn't even know," Mirra thought for a second. "He told me not to tell you that I knew him, but he didn't tell me why for that either. I think he was shy."

I bit my lip for a second, rolling all of that over in my mind. "Mirra... can I ask you something?"

Mirra gave a small nod. "Yeah? What is it?"

"I wanted to know if..." I hesitated, unsure if I should pursue this train of thought. "Did I help you? I mean like... with your mom and stuff. I know things didn't turn out the way you hoped."

Mirra's face fell. "I... um.. of course... You had no way of knowing what would happen."

"Are you sure... it's just that... I thought you might..." I hesitated again. Something in Mirra's face told me that she really didn't want me asking these questions. Finally I sighed. "Never mind. I just thought you might be angry at me or something."

"Of course not... Amber, you've done more for me than any pony I've ever met," Mirra said, though her words felt weighted, like she was trying to force herself to believe them. "Just... don't worry about it. I'll be fine..."

It's the thought that counts I guess... I guess....

“I feel like I’m always being watched in this place,” Brisk grunted to Xayah from a few paces in front of me, nervously glancing around at the underbrush around us. “I don’t like it…”

“You probably are,” Xayah whispered back, pointing up above us with one of her metallic hooves. pulling my gaze from Mirra, I let my eyes drift up to the branches above me. It almost looked like the tree's leaves were glowing a brilliant green, but the longer you looked, the more you began to make out the shapes of hundreds of Balefire phoenixes perched in the canopy, staring down at us with watchful eyes.

“Think they’re dangerous?” Brisk said, worry creeping into his voice.

I checked my EFS. There was so much life and activity being displayed on my EFS that it was hard to make out anything, but the glowing birds didn’t seem to want to cause us any harm.

“Oh, they’re plenty dangerous,” Pyre cooed back at us as she led the way through the brushes. “But they shouldn’t attack you unless you provoke them...” She paused and thought for a second before continuing to walk forward. “And trust me, those birds ain’t the only things watching you. Just look at the vines… though try not to scream.”

Confused, I glanced over at one of the large vines that we were walking past. At first I didn’t see what Pyre was talking about, but then…

The bulbus-like silver flowers blinked at me. I clamped my hoof over my mouth to keep myself from screaming as I realized the vines were covered in hundreds of blinking eyes that slowly followed us as we moved along.

“What kind of dangers are we expecting to run across in here?” I asked cautiously, my eye catching on a couple of red bars darting amongst the hundreds of greens on my EFS.

“Manticores, hellhounds, the occasional Maulwurf. Pretty much anything you might expect to run into, and definitely everything that you don’t want to run into,” Pyre shot back, not slowing down her pace as she spoke. “It’s safer on the path, so long as you don’t decide to go bushwhacking you should be fine.”

I gulped. “So… um... Why are we not on the path then?”

Pyre gave a rye chuckle. “This is the path. Doesn’t matter how hard ponies try to maintain it, the plants always seem to grow faster than they can cut it down.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “There are ponies that try to maintain the path out here? Why?”

“If my memory serves, I believe there is a town located in the middle of the garden somewhere,” Xayah spoke up, wrinkling her muzzle as she tried to recall the details of a fact she had been told a long time ago.

Pyre nodded. “Yup. Oasis. Smallest settlement in Manehattan.”

“Why would anypony start a settlement out here if this place is so dangerous?” Brisk asked, cocking his head to the side slightly. “Seems like a dumb idea or whatever.”

Pyre shook her head. “You get a few more Manticores than normal, but it's not enough to consider the place all that much worse than anywhere else in Manehattan. And while the plant life needs constant working to keep under control, most of it is harmless. Ponies just saw a large area that is mostly free of raiders and has a large water source and lots of food. Place is probably the only settlement in all of Equestria that is still vegan,” Pyre sighed and pushed aside a bush with her hoof. “Course they didn’t expect the place to be full of Killing Joke. That's the real killer out here.”

Both Mirra and Xayah winced at the mention of killing Joke. Brisk and I just exchanged a confused look.

“What exactly is Killing Joke?” Brisk asked, stumbling slightly as his hoof caught on a large, gnarled root that stuck out of the ground.

“Mutated version of a plant called Poison Joke,” Mirra explained. “They take something you’ve done or said at one point in your life and twist it against you, usually in a rather lethal way.”

“If you see blue flowers attached to vines, run,” Xayah stated bluntly. “They may have a sense of humour, but you will not find them funny.”

“Hey, maybe they’ll finally make you as dumb as you sound, bro,” I quipped playfully, giving Brisk a childish nudge.

Brisk rolled his eyes. “Maybe they’ll replace your cutie mark with something more adorable. Something fit for the cuteness on the outside”

“Killing Joke killed an old friend of mine,” Pyre blurted bluntly, whacking at some more vines that got in their way. “They made it so that my touch would rip the flesh from his bone.”

Both Brisk and I fell completely silent at that. Clearly Killing Joke was not something to laugh about.

“Good evening! This is DJ Pon3, and have I got news for you!” The voice of DJ Pon3 said as I clicked on my pipbuck to distract myself from the watchful eyes and the awkwardness of making fun of Killing Joke. “Major update on the situation at Arbu and Bucklyn Cross. My associate spent the last few hours talkin’ with a merchant who was at Arbu and saw much of what went down.”

I glanced up at my friends as I listened to the DJ speak. “What happened out at Arbu?” I asked, feeling somewhat out of the loop in regards to what was going on in the wasteland these days. I suppose that’s what I get for not paying close enough attention to the radio.

“Oh, shit. You haven’t heard yet?” Pyre said, finally slowing her march forwards and tuning to look at me. I quickly shook my head. Mirra looked just as confused. “When you two were inside the Institute, the Stable Dweller went berserk and shot up some towns. No pony really knows why.”

Mirra and I exchanged a look. I remembered seeing surveillance footage in the Institute of Littlepip and her friends shooting up some Steel Rangers. But I hadn’t put much thought into that since then. Curious, I returned my attention to the radio.

“-ounds like our Wasteland Savior hasn’t fallen to the darkness after all. Maybe stumbled a bit, but listen t’ this:

“The ponies of Arbu were cannibals, folks. That’s right. They ate ponies! And as if that wasn’t sick enough, they’ve been sellin’ pony meat, claimin’ it was radigator meat. Eaten a radigator kabob lately? You sure about that? Great Goddesses, and I thought I’d seen all the fucked-up shit this wasteland had to serve up.

My gut clenched and my blood ran cold. I suddenly had the irresistible urge to vomit. I could tell that all my friends had a similar reaction as they all froze around me.

“We had radigator meat in Friendship city…” Brisk said softly, his face convulsing somewhat as the truth behind what he had eaten sunk in.

The DJ continued talking on the radio about the details of the situation, but my mind simply zoned it out. The idea that I had been given pony flesh back in Friendship city was gnawing away at me like I hadn’t expected. It really shouldn’t have either. Viscera had forced me to eat pony flesh as well, and that had been a far more traumatic of an experience.

I suppose it was the idea that somepony would trick me into eating it that just felt wrong. What kind of monster would do that…

“Well, least we know that crazy Stable Dweller didn’t go completely bat shit crazy,” Pyre said casually, clearly feeling less disgusted about the whole situation than the rest of us. “Honestly, this broadcast is kind of a relief. Last thing the wasteland needs is a pony like that wiping out towns,” she turned and surveyed the plants for a few seconds. “Oh shit, here we are!”

Pushing past a few plants, Pyre led us towards an area of path that hadn’t been completely obscured by foliage.

“Here we go. Probably aren’t far from Oasis now…” Pyre said, her confident tone quivering with a small flicker of nervousness.

“And that’s where we’re heading? This Oasis town?” I asked, trotting up beside her and getting out of earshot of the rest of our friends. “That’s where your father is?”

Pyre shrugged. “Oasis is where I grew up, so there’s a good chance that's where he’ll be,” she said, glancing around at the bushes. Her eyes seemed to catch on something in the distance for a second before she returned her gaze to me. “We’re about to get some company.”

I opened my mouth to ask what she meant, but just as I was about to do so, I spotted what she had seen. Three ponies were fast approaching us, each one wielding a weapon of their own.

Mirra gave a small yip and transformed into a green unicorn filly before quickly diving behind Brisk’s leg. Pyre pulled herself to a stop as they all drew near.

“You’re in Treeminder territory,” The pony that seemed to be leading the group called out as the group reached shouting distance from us. “Are you raider or trader!?” I could tell that last question was directed mostly at Pyre, but it still applied to the rest of us.

“Neither, we’re just here looking for somepony,” I called back, raising one of my hooves in a peaceful gesture.

The ponies all exchanged glances before turning back to us, all their weapons lowered ever so slightly. “Oh, so you’re slavers?”

I winced. “No no, nothing like that. I promise. We’re just looking for a pony named… uh…” I paused and glanced over to Pyre for assistance.

“Plaga Blaze,” Pyre stated bluntly, her voice only barely loud enough to hear over the distance between us.

The ponies all cast each other another look, this time a little more knowing. One of the ponies that hadn’t spoken yet stepped forwards. “Yeah, we know of Plaga. Not sure exactly where he is though. Haven't seen him in a few months. If you want to know more, you’ll need to talk to Birch.”

“Sorry if we seem offensive,” the lead pony said, lowering his shotgun a little. “We here in Oasis have very strict rules ‘bout raiders. That and we’ve been having raider problems more than usual as of late.”

Cautiously, the ponies moved to the side and gestured for us to follow them, but they didn’t take their guns off of us fully.

I leaned in towards Pyre as the ponies slowly led us towards what I could only assume was Oasis. “Treeminders?”

Pyre shrugged. “That’s what they call themselves. Name came from the town's founder, an old ghoul by the name of Tree Hugger. Or so I’ve been told.”

“What happened to Tree Hugger?”

Pyre cast me a look that I couldn’t read through her helmet. “Same thing that eventually happens to everypony in the wasteland. From what I heard and remember, she lost almost everything after the bombs fell. I suppose all ghouls did. She managed to keep herself sane for over a hundred years through meditation or some bullshit like that.”

“She went feral?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

Brisk walked forwards so that he was in pace with the ponies escorting us. “You said you were having raider troubles? What’s been going on?”

The lead pony shrugged at his question. “We don’t normally have raiders out this far. We get one or two small groups, but most figure the Manehattan Gardens are more trouble than they're worth. They wouldn’t be incorrect,” He sighed. “Couple weeks ago, two gangs decided to move in. Nasty gangs they are too. Probably would have wiped us all out by now, if they weren’t so busy fighting off each other.”

The ponies led us up to a large gate made of vines, branches and rusting metal slabs. A lone guard stood in front of it, his armour a strange mix of scavenged power armour and twisted branches. At our approach, the guard quickly moved to pull the gate open for us and give me my first good look at the town of Oasis.

As Pyre had suggested, it was a small town. It had been built into a large clearing in the middle of the Manehattan Gardens, surrounded on all sides by a moderately high wall of rusting iron and vines. A few wooden shackles had been erected in seemingly random locations around the clearing and a large river of rushing water flowed through the centre of the area.

“Welcome to Oasis,” the guard pony said, ushering us inside. “Don’t you go about causing any funny business.”

“Do you know where we can find a pony named Birch?” I asked the guard, as I moved past the gate and into the town. “I’ve been told that he might know where we can find somepony that we’re looking for.”

The guard thought about that for a second. “Yeah, Mayor Birch can usually be found in the town hall. That large building just over there,” He pointed over to the only building in the whole town that seemed to have more than one room. “But you’ll probably have to wait a bit if you want to talk to him. He’s always busy before the monthly auction, but you can probably get a few words in with him when he comes out.”

“Monthly auction?” Xayah asked, falling in step beside me. “What is that?”

The guard shrugged. “Same as it sounds I suppose. We hold an auction every month. It's the town's biggest source of income. Y'all came at the right time. It should be starting in about a few hours or so out by the gazebo,” He pointed over to a small wood gazebo that lay close to the middle of the clearing.

I gave him a small smile. “Thank you for your help,” Turning, I followed my friends as they made their way over to the gazebo.

As we walked, Pyre glanced down at the near empty canister of flamer fuel attached to her flamers. “Say, I’m going to see if I can get some more fuel. They should have weapons vender around here somewhere.”

“Mind if I join you or whatever?” Brisk asked, checking his own ammo reserves. “I could use some ammo myself.”

Pyre gave him a nonchalant shrug. “The more the merrier, I suppose.”

Mirra perked up. "I can come too if you want?"

Pyre gave a quick shake of her head. "Nah, No need. You got plenty of ammo for that little revolver of yours. Just stick with Amber, we'll be back in a bit."

Brisk gave Pyre a quick tap on her armoured shoulder. "Race you to the weapons vendor?"

I felt myself grinning like an idiot as I watched the two of them quickly speed off in the direction of one of the vendors.

“It’s good to see Brisk finally getting along with Pyre,” I said to Xayah, as we moved over to an old park bench that looked like it had been around since before the war. “I thought she would never grow on him.”

“Pyre is not always easy to deal with,” Xayah agreed, casting a small glance in the direction of our two friends as they walked off together. “But when one goes through as much as we all have together, bonds are bound to be made. And I feel Pyre has proven herself as more than just a raider by this point,” She gave both Mirra and I a gentle smile. “I for one never expected to live amongst ponies or changelings. Not ones that could look past my stripes, I mean.”

“I think your stripes are pretty,” I said, blushing slightly.

Xayah didn’t seem to hear the compliment. Instead, her focus had been pulled to Mirra who seemed to have zoned out our conversation and was staring glumly at two fillies playing catch together with a ball.

“Mirra, are you alright?” Xayah asked, her voice conveying her worry.

Mirra’s head jerked up at the mention of her name. “What? Oh… uh, yeah. I’m okay. Just thinking, that’s all.”

My eyebrows furrowed together. “You sure? You seem a little down. Is something up?”

Mirra sighed. “I think I might have messed things up with Pyre. That’s all…”

“Because of your conversation at the bank?” I asked, one eyebrow raising.

“Yeah, because of…” Mirra abruptly stopped and glared up at me. “Wait a second… were you eavesdropping on us?”

I felt my face flush. “Uuuh… Who can really say who did or did not do what… I know I can’t…” Both Mirra and Xayah gave me an unamused look. I let my head drop. “Okay, maybe I was eavesdropping just a little bit.”

Mirra sighed and shuffled her hooves together. “Well… yeah. Because of that. She won't even look at me anymore. She just stares forwards whenever I get close to her and responds to me with grunts.”

“Perhaps whatever she came to do here in the Manehattan Garden is getting to her,” Xayah suggested in an attempt to comfort the small changeling. “It seems important.”

I nodded. “It is. Pyre’s been through a lot and I think she's going to finally be confronting something she's been running from her whole life here,” I looked over to Mirra. “I can’t speak for Pyre, but she’s had some really bad experiences with parents. Probably worse than any of us. She's probably scared of the idea of becoming one herself.”

“But you and Brisk refer to each other as siblings because of both of your bad experiences with family,” Mirra pointed out. “What went wrong with Pyre and I?”

I gave her a sympathetic look. “It really depends on the pony I suppose. It worked for Brisk and I because we were both comfortable calling each other that. But Pyre isn’t me or Brisk. I think she's hurting on a whole other level. And since she's Pyre, she probably isn’t dealing with a lot of that built up pain in a healthy way.”

“Pyre does care about you,” Xayah added, placing one of her metal hooves gently atop one of Mirra’s. “You would need to be a fool not to see that. But what that relationship is and how you move on from this is something that you and Pyre need to talk about.”

“Knowing Pyre, there’s a very good chance that the only reason she seems distant is because she thinks she’ll hurt you if you get too close to her,” I said, my expression grim. “She’s had bad experiences with those she cares about dying as well. We all saw what happened in the MWT hub.”

We all shivered as we remembered the horrors that Viscera and her hellhound raiders had done to us… and the good ponies that had been lost in the process.

Not knowing what else to say, we all sat in silence after that until we saw Brisk and Pyre walking back towards us. Brisk tossed me five shotgun shells as he drew close. “Saw some ammo for that fancy shotgun of yours. Figured I’d grab it or whatever.”

I tossed the shots into my saddlebag and gave Brisk a quick hug. “Thank you,” Over Brisk’s shoulder, I spotted a pony with a white coat and charcoal brown mane trott out of the town hall and start moving towards the gazebo a few feet away from us. I quickly pointed him out to everypony else. “And it looks like you guys got back at the perfect time. It looks like Mayor Birch just came out.”

Pyre glanced over, her eyes landing on the pony. “Yup, that looks like him. Come on. Sooner we get all this done the better.”

We quickly pulled ourselves away from the park bench and made our way over to the Mayor. Birch had come to a stop next to the gazebo by the time we arrived and cast Pyre a dirty look as we approached. His eyes quickly drifted over the rest of us.

“Hey, do you mind if we talk to you for a second?” I asked as I came to a stop in front of him, my friends pulling up behind me.

Birch continued to look over us for a second before taking a deep breath. “I suppose I can spare a minute, but please try to make it quick. I Have a lot to do.”

Pyre took a quick step forward. “I’m looking for a pony named Plaga Blaze. Do you know where I can find him?”

Birch gave us all a worried look at that. “Now you look here. I don’t know where he is now, or even if that monster is still alive. We don't associate with raiders around here. If you have business with ponies like that, I suggest you go elsewhere.”

I could see Pyres eyes narrow through the visor of her helmet. “I was told you might know where he is… Why would that be?”

Birch sighed. “Look. Plaga was a part of this community for a long time. He was pretty well respected ‘round here too. Ponies liked him… A few months ago, word got out that he was doing terrible things to fillies in his basement,” He explained, taking a few steps back from us. “Now this town has very strict rules about raiders, and those rules would have had us punish him like we would any other raider. But as I said, he's been with us a long time, we simply didn’t have it in us to do that to him.”

Pyre took a step towards the mayor, closing the small gap between them. “Then what happened to him? Where is he now?”

“We told him he couldn’t stay here,” Birch said quickly, trying to back away again, only for Pyre to once more close the gap. “We kicked him out of the town a few months ago. Told him he wasn’t never allowed back here. Haven't seen him since.”

Xayah stepped up beside me, her face stricken with worry. “What happened to the fillies?”

Birch gave her a confused look, before an expression of understanding crossed his face. “You ponies knew one of those fillies, didn’t you… That’s why you’re after him. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Pyre gave a small snort like sound. “You could say that.”

“Most of the fillies are still alive,” Birch said, his voice dropping to a sadder tone. “Plaga didn’t usually kill them. But they’re probably going to be emotionally scared for the rest of their lives… goddesses, the things that monster did to them…”

I could feel a strange anger radiating off of Pyre. She gave a low, almost animalistic snarl. “What. did. he. do…” the ends of her flamers flickered to life, making the mayor once more take a nervous step back. I put a hoof on her shoulder to try and calm her, but she shrugged me off.

“What didn’t he do. Cut them, raped them, branded and burned them. Most of the fillies refuse to talk about what happened, but a few of them said that he forced them to call him their daddy while referring to them as somepony named Pyre.”

Pyre took a big step back, her whole body suddenly going rigid. I could hear her breath catch in her throat. She fell silent, unable to say anymore.

Brisk, Xayah and Mirra all cast Pyre a startled look. Cautiously, Mirra took a step forward. “Pyre?” She asked, her voice quivering slightly. “Plaga was your father, wasn’t he? That’s why we’re here,” Pyre failed to hear Mirra as she continued to stare in horror at the mayor. Mirra glanced up at me for confirmation. I only gave her a small nod in return.

Birch gave Pyre a suddenly more interested look. “Wait… your name is Pyre?” Pyre was unable to respond with anything more than a small bob of her head. Birch let out a long, deep sigh. “Fuck… And I thought you were looking for him ‘cause you knew one of the fillies… but you were one of the fillies, weren’t you?”

Pyre took another step back, her legs trembling as she tried to keep herself from collapsing. “He was pretending they were me…” She uttered, her voice coming out so low that I hardly even heard it. “He hurt them because he wanted to do it to me…”

Birch looked us all over a few more times before giving us a forced smile that looked more sympathetic than anything else. “Well, I suppose I will leave you five to it. I have a lot to do to prepare for the auction. I'm sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance.”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. Thanks for your help,” I turned to face Pyre as he quickly trotted away. “Hey, Pyre? Are you alright?”

Pyre slowly turned her head to face me. “I… Fuck… I never thought he would have missed me… I mean… he sold me to slavers… I never thought he might have actually cared…”

I felt my stomach clench at her words. Pyre sounded almost happy about what she had just learned. In what fucked up world did finding out your father rapped fillies and pretended they were you made somepony feel happy?

“If you ever need to back out of this, you can. Just say the words,” I said, my whole body feeling a sickening sense of unease.

Pyre shook her head. “No. I need to do this. I need to stop running from him,” Turning away from us, Pyre sulked off towards the river in the centre of the area. “You guys enjoy yourselves here. I need a few moments to think…”

Mirra took a step forward to follow after Pyre, but I quickly put my hoof out to hold her back. “I think it’s best if we just leave her for a second. She probably has a lot on her mind.”

Brisk gave me a grim look. “So we’re here to meet Pyre’s dad? That’s what she meant when she said unfinished business?”

I returned his grim expression. “Pyre told me she’s trying to be better. She said this would help her do that.”

Brisk glanced over to where Pyre was glaring at the river in the distance. “I can’t say I blame her. Family is a difficult thing.”

We all looked around at each other. The moment was over in a second, but for just that one moment, we all had a silent connection over the messed up families we had lost. We were all a walking mess of family issues. Brisk and Xayah’s parents had both been Murdered, Mirra's mother had gone insane and tried to mind control the entirety of Manehattan before Mirra had wiped her from her own mind, and my father had failed as a parent and been killed in my hooves and my mother had been dissected and thrown in a trash heap.

Saying family is a difficult thing was the understatement of the century.

“Alright, bring them out!” I heard Birch call out, gesturing over to a group of ponies. The ponies ducked into a small shed beside them to go fetch what I could only assume were the items for the auction.

There were a few angry shouts from within the shed, followed by one particularly angry sounding mare. “Get your hooves off of me you cunts! When the Enclave hears about this, they’re going to tear you a new asshole!”

Brisk, Xayah and I all froze.

“Wait… is that…?” Xayah said, her head turning to look over at the shed as the ponies began to drag a bunch of things out with chains.

Brisk gave her a flat look. “It is… do you know any other pony that swears like that?”

I felt my jaw drop as the ponies finished dragging the goods for the auction out into the open.

They were ponies! They were selling ponies at the auction!

Most of the ponies were battered and covered in a thick layer of muck and blood. Their coats were covered in scars and almost every one had some sort of weapon or graphic image as a cutie mark. I suddenly had a very good idea of how this town punished raiders.

Amongst the chained raiders that were being marched towards the gazebo however was a single pegasus. She was a fairly small mare, only a little larger than me, and had a lavender coat and mint green mane that had been pulled back into a ponytail. Her wrench and a syringe cutie mark had been almost completely covered by a layer of mud and her black lab coat and white turtleneck were practically brown with dirt.

“Let me go this instant or I’ll fuck you so hard that you’ll want to crawl right back up your mothers cunts!” Star Breeze growled, trying to pull against the chains that were dragging her towards the gazebo.

I took a step towards her, my eyes wide. “Star Breeze? What are you doing here?”

The Enclave scientist turned at the sound of my voice and gave me an angry glare. “Oh fucking shit! Just my fucking luck! Here I am, about to get sold into a lifetime of fucking slavery, and in walks to ponies that put me here…” She gave me a small snarl. “Wheres your fuckin’ power armoured freak? I could use a balefire egg to the face right now.”

I blinked at her dumbly. “You’re here because of us?”

The pegasus scowled again. “You think I wasn’t going to be punished for letting you ponies walk away with a hellhound mind control device? I used to be one of the Enclaves top fucking scientist! Now I’ve been reduced to field work. You know what happens in field work?”

I opened my mouth to respond. “Uh… you study stuff outside of…”

“It means I end up running into fucking slaver ponies that dont like the Enclave because they’re butt hurt they cant fly!” Star Breeze stomped the ground and snorted at me. “So thanks a fucking lot you bitch! You ruined my life and got me enslaved. Thanks a fucking lot!”

I winced and turned to face Birch, who was currently looking over the chained raiders that had been tied to the gazebo. “Do you want to explain what the fuck is going on right now?”

Birch gave me a confused look. “Um… We are preparing for the auction?”

I gave him a menacing growl that was probably more adorable than anything else. “By selling ponies?! This is a slaver town?!”

A bunch of ponies glanced up at me as I shouted at the mayor. Birch himself took a small step back. “I beg your pardon, but we do what we must to survive. Friendship City and Tenpony don't trade with us because they don't want to risk the dangers of the Manehattan Gardens. So we made a trade arrangement with the only settlement that would.”

My ears shot up and I felt my anger growing. “Wait! You’re trading with Red Eye! But… He’s evil!”

Birch narrowed his eyes at me. “Red Eye gives us caps and water talismans so long as we supply him with ponies. Especially unicorns. And we never sell him any good folk. All are slaves here are raider ponies. Most ponies would just have them shot anyhow.”

“And what about the pegasus?” Xayah pointed out, pointing towards Star Breeze as a couple of ponies clamped her into a wooden Pillory. “She isn’t a raider.”

Birch scoffed. “Maybe if she were one of them Dashites. But those are rare and even if they weren’t, she aint one of them. Those damn pegasi are the reason we don’t have Celestia’s sun anymore.”

I scowled. “You can't just go around enslaving ponies. That’s just wrong!”

“The alternative is having them shot. I feel that our solution is more forgiving and puts them to good use,” Birch shot back, taking a step to try and move around me.

I pushed myself to the side and got in his way so that he couldn’t pass. I understood where he was coming from. I had learned from my time in the wasteland to simply shoot raiders on sight. But to enslave them still felt gross and wrong. Especially since it helped out Red Eye. Anything involving that pony was bad news.

I could feel myself reaching for my shotgun, my anger growing. I had the sudden urge to shoot up the entire town.

Brisk placed his hoof on my shoulder, cooling my rage. I glanced over at him for a second before once more holstering my shotgun. We had just learned that Littlepip had lost control in Arbu. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake as her, even if I really wanted to give these ponies what they deserved.

I glanced over at Star breeze who was beginning to tremble with fear as a bunch of ponies began looking her body over. Many of them simply stood back and stared at her angrily, while a few tossed foul remarks and berating insults her way. A few even got physically aggressive with her, taking advantage of her helpless and immobilized body.

I sighed, my eyes dropping. “How much for the pegasus?”

Birch gave me a surprised look. “You want the Enclave rat?”

“I got her into this mess. A few messes actually. I suppose I owe her enough to get her out of this,” I said, daring myself to glance over at the bound pegasus as the ponies around her continued to humiliate her.

Birch thought about that for a second. “Well, I doubt too many ponies are going to want to spend caps on her. Only reason any pony would is to put her in her place, but even she isn’t exempt from our rules here. So no pony is going to be allowed to torture or rape her.”

I looked back to the pegasus and the ponies around her. Was he sure about that? They seemed to already be getting rather rough and frisky.

Birch though for a few more seconds. “Tell you what. Two Hundred caps and you can have her. I doubt I’d be able to get any more than that at the auction.”

I grimaced, both at the idea of selling a pony and at the fact I only had one hundred and twenty three caps total.”

I gave him a sheepish smile. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in lowering the price? I’m not nearly that rich.”

Birch shook his head. “You can try and buy her in the auction, but if you lose, you lose. No getting her.”

“What if we earned her?” Brisk suggested, his expression lighting up as an idea crossed his mind. Birch gave him a sceptical raise of his eyebrow. “I heard you’ve been having raider problems. What if we dealt with some of those raiders for you?”

Birch tapped his chin for a second thoughtfully. “Those raider gangs have been posing a fair bit of trouble. Havin’ them out of the way would be offley beneficial,” He nodded, coming to a decision. “Tell you what. If you ponies can deal with one of the gangs that have been bothering us, then you can pick any slave you damn well want. Have the pegasus. I’d make more caps off of those raiders being gone than selling that flying rat anyway.”

I gave him a fake smile, despite my stomach doing loops at the injustice of everything. “Thanks, we’ll deal with those raiders for you,” I held up my false smile until Birch finally managed to push past me. The second he couldn’t see me, I let my smile drop and I trotted over to where Star had been bound. “Hey, Star. We’re going to get you out of here. Got it?”

Star just grumbled and rolled her eyes.”I’d sure fucking hope so,” She winced as one of the ponies prodded at her aggressively. Her face switched to a more pleading expression, her hostility suddenly gone. “Please get me out of here quick…”

“So wait, we’re trying to free that annoying pegasus bitch that tried to kill you guys?” Pyre asked as we walked along the pathway.

One of the town's guards had directed us towards the closest raider camp. It was only a general direction, but the trail of blood and mutilated corpses had made it pretty clear what way we were supposed to be going.

Pyre seemed to be a little less emotional at the moment, but something about the tension that still lingered in her voice told me she was simply pushing all those messed up feelings down. I couldn’t see her face through her helmet, but I got the impression that her eyes were puffy from crying.

I nodded, stopping for a second to inspect a mangled body before moving forwards. “It's kinda our fault she's there in the first place. I figure we owe her.”

Pyre scoffed. “You don’t owe the Grand fucking Pegasus Enclave anything. Besides, she tried to kill you when you first met. Isn’t that enough to make you not want to help her?”

I gave Pyre a flat stare. “I believe we met by you ordering a group of raiders to skin us alive.”

Pyre winced at that. “Oh yeah… right…” she quickly shut up at that.

“And you’re just okay with helping out this town of slavers?” Brisk asked, looking back at the gate to Oasis that was slowly fading into the distance behind us.

I shook my head grumpily. “No, but what other choice do we have? We can’t just leave her there, nor can we just shoot up the town,” I snarled and stomped my hoof. “It’s not fair, but we have to do something, and taking out a nest of raiders is never a bad thing, no matter who it benefits.”

“But… are the ponies of Oasis actually bad ponies?” Xayah asked, her tone distant and reflective.

I cast her a surprised and slightly angry glare. “What? Of course they are! They’re slavers!”

Xayah took a nervous step back. “I… um… I didn’t say what they were doing is right… but... is it really worse than just killing the raiders outright?”

I growled at her, but the truth of the matter was that I didn’t really know the answer myself. My face fell. “Sorry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten angry like that. I don’t even know. It’s just all so confusing.”

Xayah gave me a small smile and wrapped me in a quick, but tight hug. “It is alright you foolish pony. I understand this is confusing. I myself do not fully know where I stand on the ordeal.”

Mirra ducked out from behind Brisk’s hoof and peeked over a large bush. “You might want to figure out your stance on raiders quickly. I think we’re here.”

Moving away from Xayah, I looked over the top of the bush with Mirra. Only a short distance away, a group of raiders had made a small camp on top of what looked to be a large stone bridge that crossed over the pathway. I tried to count how many were there, but it was hard to tell from this distance. I approximated around twenty.

“Alright, let's get them dealt with before the auction,” I said, starting to pull myself up to move across the distance between us and the raiders.

Before I could move far, Mirras magic wrapped around my hind hoof and yanked me back down beside her. “Hold up just a second,” The small changeling said, giving me an annoyed expression. “Those raiders built their base there for a reason. Look,” She pointed to the area of ground between us and them. following her hoof, my eyes landed on what seemed like a sea of blue petals. I gulped. great, those were probably-

“Let me guess,” Brisk groaned, looking over the vines and blue flowers that lay between us. “That's the Killing Joke plant that y’all were talking about?”

Xayah nodded with a small shiver. “Those are them. I had hoped to never need to cross them.”

I looked over at the path that led around the large patch of Killing Joke and towards the bridge. It seemed to be clear of the deadly plant, but it left us constantly in the open. I quickly pointed to it. “We could always go that way, but we’ll have to worry about the raiders shooting at us.”

Pyre gave me a pitiful look. “Oh you poor naive little thing,” She said, patting my head condescending. “Killing Joke isn’t just a flower. Damn things have a mind of their own. The path looks safe, but Killing Joke is perfectly capable of moving around. Stay in the same place for too long and it’ll come out of the ground and strike you.”

I turned to look at Xayah. “I don’t suppose you’d be able to snipe them from here?”

Xayah raised her sniper and looked down the scope for a few seconds. “I suppose I could, but it wouldn’t be an easy shot, and the second the first raider goes down, they’ll be alerted to our presence.”

Damn. These raiders sure knew how to pick a fucking spot to set up camp.

“If Killing Joke can move, how are the raiders staying safe?” I asked, trying to find another way up to the bridge.

“Killing Joke probably can't get up on top of the bridge,” Pyre replied flatly. “Needs soil to grow. Chances are there's a way up on the far side that's relatively free of Killing Joke, but if we need to get this done before the auction, then we don’t have time to go all the way around.”

I grit my teeth. “Great. I guess that means we're just going to have to charge them from the path and pray they don't get a lucky shot or that the Killing Joke doesn't’ decide to come up from under our hooves.”

Pyres eyes drifted up to the canopy of balefire phoenixes that had perched in the branches above us. “Maybe we could use them as a distraction…”

I cast her a sideways look. “And how are we supposed to do that?”

Ignoring my question, Pyre turned to face Xayah. “Do you think you can shoot one of the branches the birds are perched on above the raiders with your sniper?”

Once again, Xayah looked down the scope of her gun towards the raiders, though this time her sights were focused on the canopy above them. She gave a thoughtful nod. “I believe that would be possible, yes.”

“Then do that. Should keep the raiders off of us for a few seconds,” Pyre said, crouching slightly as if she were preparing to lunge over the bush.

“Wait, we’re just going to charge at them down the path? What about the Killing Joke?” Brisk asked, eyeing the pretty blue flowers nervously. “What if they hit us?”

“Prey they don’t and never stop moving until you reach the bridge,” Pyre replied quickly. “Even if it means jumping in the way of a raiders bullet. A shot to the head is probably better than whatever those plants want to do to you.”

I gave Xayah a nod. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Xayah returned to looking down her scope for a second. Her metal hooves steadied as she aimed at something far above the raiders heads. Then there was a near silent pop as her sniper cracked off a shot, the bullet flashing across the clearing and lashing through one of the branches holding up the balefire phoenixes.

The air was suddenly filled with a cacophony of flapping green wings and ear piercing shrieks. The raiders panicked as they were suddenly thrown into a maelstrom of angry radioactive birds.

“Now! Go!” Pyre shouted, bounding around the bush and heading for the path that led through the field of Killing Joke.

I pushed off with my hooves and bounded after her, Braeburn’s Liberator swinging up into the air with my magic as I readied myself for the approaching attack. The crack on my horn stung at the sudden use of magic, but otherwise didn’t affect me.

On the bridge, the raiders continued to howl and fire aimlessly at the air as the swirling tornado of birds darted through the air around them and lashed at them with their sharp beaks. They didn’t seem to notice us as we quickly charged towards them.

“Watch out! Mines!” I heard Pyre shout from ahead of me. I saw her jump over a mound of dirt that had been dug into the pathway. I quickly relayed her message to my friends behind me as I leapt over the buried mine myself.

Of course the raiders had made the path a minefield. Just our fucking luck.

“We’re about to get trouble!” I heard Brisk shout as he bounded up behind me, his pistol tight in his mouth. I glanced back to see what he was talking about. I instantly regretted it as fear washed over me.

The Killing Joke vines were beginning to writhe and twist. Sharp, flower covered tendrils were beginning to shoot towards us, slithering across the pathway we had previously walked on like snakes darting after a rodent.

I shrieked, jumping to the side as one of the vines lashed at the air beside me. The vine seemed to twist in mid-air and slice at me again, only for me to roll low to the ground and keep running at full speeds.

Mirra was panting beside me, sweat dripping down her brow as she exerted herself and tried to keep up with the rest of us with her short legs. One of the vines lashed at her, forcing her to take to the air and fly above us with her buzzing wings.

As it turned out, the balefire Phoenixes were a perfect distraction to get the raiders off of us, but it meant that we were going to need to start dealing with them as well. The glowing birds began to dive bomb at us, their talons and snapping beaks extended to rip into us.

Mirra let her wings stop and dropped down heavily atop Brisk’s back to evade their vicious onslaught. Brisk gave a low grunt as her weight was added to his, but he did his best to not slow down as we powered forwards.

“Mother fuckers! We got company!” I heard one of the raiders shout. I looked up just in time to see one of the raiders start firing down at us with a poorly maintained hunting rifle.

One of the raiders' shots collided with a landmine behind us, sending an explosion of fire, shrapnel and kicked up earth into the air. I stumbled, my balance thrown off by the sudden explosion and shockwave that slammed into me.

I tripped on my own hooves, falling forwards and slamming face first into the pathway, getting a foul mouthful of dirt and ash.

The slithering Killing Joke vines continued darting forwards. I could see them rapidly approaching me at alarming speeds. I kicked up with my legs, trying to move myself forwards before they could reach me.

Xayah swept past me, her metal hooves reaching down and quickly hauling me up to my hooves. I felt her push me forwards, urging me not to stop moving. I had no intention of not obliging.

“Don’t stop! We’re almost there!” Pyre shouted, ducking down as one of the balefire phoenixes slashed at her with their talons.

Xayah fired a shot from her sniper beside me. The shot blasted out, the large bullet piercing one of the raiders between the eyes and sending them falling from the bridge to the field of vines below.

More of the raiders had started to fire down at us now as well, their attention finally turned to us as the glowing birds assault began to lessen. In front of me, I saw Brisk duck to the side to avoid a shot from one of the raiders assault rifles. His hoof skidded across the loose dirt pathway as he dodged, one of the Killing Joke vines nearly managing to wrap around his hoof before he could push himself away again.

Pyre reached the bridge first. She leapt over the final landmine, her metal clad hooves thumping loudly against the walkway of the bridge as she landed. Her flamers burst to life at once, drowning the bridge in a wave of fire.

The raiders scattered, ducking behind the small, makeshift structures they had erected atop the bridge to shield themselves from Pyre’s wrath. A few sent shots her way, most of their attacks doing little more than ricocheting off of Pyre’s heavy armour.

Brisk and I made our way up next, both of our weapons drawn and aimed as we started assaulting the raiders with fire of our own. Mirra fluttered up after us, her revolver cracking off a few shots in the raider general direction.

I looked back and reached out my hoof, quickly pulling Xayah up atop the structure with us. The Killing Joke vines lashed against the side of the stone bridge, recoiling as they collided with the solid surface. Then, to my dismay, they began to slowly slither up the side.

“Vines are still coming!” I shouted, helping to haul Xayah the last little bit onto the bridge.

One of the raiders fired a shot off inches above my head, making me duck to avoid having my brains splattered across the stone bridge. My shotgun spun around in my magic and fired at the raider, the explosive buckshot ripping through his throat and dropping him to the ground in a twitching mess.

“You’re going to pay for the bitch!” I heard a raider yell. There was a loud whoosh of air, followed by a large rocket flashing past me. The rocket detonated against the ground, knocking Xayah and I onto our front as the large shockwave rammed into us from behind.

“Damn it, they’ve got a fucking rocket launcher!” Brisk shouted, dancing out of the way as another projectile darted towards him.

Pyre pushed forwards, her flamers continuing to spew flame towards the raiders. Her flamers stopped just long enough for her to drop and roll out of the way of another blast from the rocket launcher before she once more pulled herself back up and continued her barrage.

A raider leapt out from cover and rushed at me, a rusting knife clamped tightly in their mouth. I hopped back, the blade slicing through the air a few inches in front of my face.

Xayah swung her hooves at the raider, her metal appendages cracking against the side of his head and sending him stumbling towards the edge of the bridge. I raised Braeburn’s Liberator to finish him off when the raider suddenly burst open, his stomach exploding outwards in a mix of blood, bile and, to my surprise, butterflies.

I blinked, watching as the butterflies poured from the raiders body and fluttering up into the swirling storm of balefire phoenixes. My eyes looked down, making out the shape of the Killing Joke vine that had wrapped itself around his hoof.

I stumbled backwards, quickly pulling Xayah with me. I had a sudden newfound fear for those vile plants.

“Everypony! Get away from the edges!” I yelled, panic rising in my voice as I saw the vines begin to creep across the surface of the bridge.

One of the raiders was struck across the throat by the vines, his whole body suddenly shifting into a chicken that squealed fearfully before darting away.

Pyre wrapped her hooves around Mirra and pulled her away from the approaching vines. The small changeling protested and fluttered her wings, but Pyre had no intention of letting go of her.

Brisk clambered away from the edge, his pistol firing off a shot into the vines. One of the vines recoiled, only for another to quickly take its place.

A raider bolted out from behind their cover, their hooves grappling around Brisk’s throat and making him stumble back towards the vines. Brisk growled, his head twisting and firing a shot from his gun point blank into the raiders head. But the damage had already been done.

I watched in horror as one of the Killing Joke vines slithered forwards and wrapped around Brisks hoof. I lunged forwards, my hoof reaching out to try and pull him away before the plant could enact its horrific sense of humour.

Brisk’s horn exploded, gore and bone fragments shooting from it in all directions as it was spontaneously torn apart atop his head. Brisk’s head was whiplashed back, knocking him over and sending toppling against the floor of the bridge, blood oozing from the large hole where his horn used to be.

I grabbed onto Brisk and pulled him away from the edge of the bridge, dragging him behind one of the raiders ramshackle huts. Brisk’s eyes were closed and he seemed to have been thrown into unconsciousness. Hopefully that meant he wasn’t feeling the pain his body was currently in. He was losing blood fast, the hole in his head showing the bone of his skull beneath.

“Damn it, no…” I growled, pulling out a healing potion and pushing it up against his lips. The magical fluid drizzled down his throat and began to magically patch his wounds back together, but the bleeding didn’t stop.

One of the raiders tossed an apple grande towards us. It bounced across the ground, rolling to a stop a few feet away from us. Knowing I didn’t have the time to throw it back, I let my horn flare to life and conjured up a magical shield between the explosive and us. I threw my own body over Brisk’s, trying to cover him from the impeding shrapnel.

The apple grenade exploded, the blast slamming into my shield and sending both of us slamming against the side of the wooden hut. I felt the shrapnel dig into the back of my coat, ripping open small gashing all along my back.

Xayah ducked down beside us, the raiders fire peppering the side of the wall beside her as she tried to take cover. I turned to her, my expression grim. “Xayah! I need you to get Brisk back to Oasis! He needs medical help!” Xayah just gave me a quick nod before scooping Brisk onto her back and darting off. She struggled under his weight, but managed to keep moving. I looked over to Mirra. “Mirra! Go with her! They need you!”

“But I can help!” The small changeling called back. She squeaked and ducked low as one of the raiders fired at her with a shotgun.

I shook my head. “Pyre and I can handle the raiders. I need you to make sure Brisk stays safe. Please,” Mirra nodded in response, firing off one more shot from her revolver before fluttering after Xayah.

Pyre pulled up next to me, her flamers dying down as she moved into cover. “Where the fuck is everypony going!?” She scowled, her legs bending as she prepared to continue her attack. “Are we retreating?”

I shook my head. “Brisk is hurt. You think we can handle the raiders just the two of us?”

I’m not sure how, but somehow I could tell that Pyre gave me a smug grin from behind her helmet. “Who do you think you’re talking to Amber? Yeah we can deal with them,” A rocket flashed past us and detonated against the roof of the hut, blowing splinters of wood in every direction. Pyre grimaced. “Though that rocket launcher raider is going to be an issue. He’s barricaded himself inside the farthest structure. Good vantage point, lots of cover. Easy place for him to defend.”

I nodded.”Think you can distract him while I try and sneak in and take him out?” I spared a glance over at the Killing Joke vines, but they seemed to only be able to reach so far across the bridge before needing to recoil.

Pyre gave me a rough pat on the back, making me wince as she aggressively hit my shrapnel wounds. “I can always distract ponies!”

A raider charged and rounded the side of the hut, a tire iron waving wildly in their magic as they tried to attack us with it. Pyre slapped the tire iron out of the air with her hoof, the metal tube clanking harmlessly off her armour.

“Go. Kill the raider,” Pyre scowled, her flamers bursting back to life and burning the raider alive. The second the raider stopped squirming, Pyre pushed herself around the edge of the structure and back into the open, her weapons spewing flame towards the raiders.

I crept forwards, my head low as I tried to keep out of sight of the other raiders. On the far side of the bridge, I could see the structure that Pyre was talking about. A fairly large, ramshackle fortress of broken wood and scraps of metal. Two turrets sat on top, keeping a constant stream of fire on Pyre as my power armoured friend did their best to keep the raiders attention off of me.

I spotted the raider inside for only a moment as he popped over his cover and sent a missile streaking towards Pyre. the projectile collided only an inch in front of Pyre’s hooves, throwing her backwards and slamming her into a crushing one of the smaller structures.

Damn it.

I crawled under a ripped tent the raiders had set up and fired a shot from my shotgun into one of the raiders that tried to rush Pyre while she was down. The bukshot blasted into their leg and made them buckle at the knee. A second shot put them out of their misery.

The two turrets swiveled to point at me, allerted by my gunshots. I cursed myself for thinking blowing my cover was even a remotely good idea.

The rapid fire of the turrets ripped through the tent, blasting holes in the canvas and letting the diffused sunlight above streak down at me in thin beams of light. I rolled to my left, a few of the shots grazing my sides and making me scream out in pain.

Pyre hauled herself back up and continued charging, a loud scream of rage escaping her mouth as she did. The turrets swivelled back to her, focusing in on the only clear shot in the area.

With an opening given, I darted out from the collapsing tent and rushed the last few feet to the makeshift structure. A few raiders turned to shoot at me, but they were forced to keep their focus on Pyre as her twin flamers bathed them in flame.

The air made a loud whooshing sound as another rocket was launched from the raiders missile launcher. The rocket sailed through the air towards Pyre, this time hitting her square in the chest. Her power armour took a majority of the hit, but it still sent her flying back, the front of her armour now torn apart and a large part of her breast bleeding profusely.

I wrapped my hooves around the structure and hauled myself into it with the rocket launcher raider. The raider looked over at me in surprise as I pulled up next to him, his eyes huge as Braeburn’s Liberator swivelled in the air to press against the side of his skull.

The raiders head exploded, bits of gore and brain matter splattering against my face as I pulled the trigger. His body dropped to the ground unceremoniously, his rocket launcher clattering next to him at my hooves.

The turrets spun around to face me, both of their barrels aiming at my face. I was faster.

The second the raider had fallen, I had moved up behind one of the turrets and began using the technique of hacking robots that Salt Water had shown me back in the Hollow Shades. The turret I hacked into swung away from me and pointed towards the other, unleashing a round of bullets into the opposing turret.

Both turrets fired upon each other, peppering the other with lead. They simultaneously exploded, bits of fire and metal shooting everywhere as they blasted each other apart.

The pink one is in the bosses hut!” One of the raiders shouted. I poked my head out from behind cover to see the remaining five raiders. Two of them were quickly approaching me, while the other three had begun to stalk towards where Pyre had fallen. “I’ll kill the filly. You kill the power armoured cunt.”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

Wrapping the rocket launcher in my magic, I lifted it up to aim at the raiders. I squeezed the trigger, feeling the powerful whoosh of air as the rocket shot out. I was thrown back, the powerful kickback of the weapon throwing me off my hooves.

There was an explosion and a few yells of pain as the rocket launcher detonated point blank with one of the raiders.

Crawling back up to the cover, I peaked over to see the damage. One of the raiders approaching me had become little more than a stain of red on the stone floor of the bridge, while the other was still slowly limping towards me, one of their legs broken and a murderous look in their eyes.

“Fuck! The bitch took the rocket launcher!” One of the raiders shouted as they all turned and began charging towards me. A few more bullets were sent in my direction, forcing me to duck back down. “I’m goin’ to make her bleed for that! Come here cunt, I’m going to put you in your fucking place.”

Ignoring their curses, I quickly loaded another rocket into the weapon. Propping the large weapon up against a slab of metal the raider had used for cover, I readied myself for the kickback and fired. Even after having prepared myself, I staggered back slightly as the rocket launcher fired.

The raiders scattered, the wounded one not being fast enough and getting blasted to bits like the raider before him. The remaining three began rushing towards the building, each one making sure to stay spread out to keep me from firing at them all at once again.

Knowing I wasn’t going to have time to reload and fire before they reached me, I dropped the rocket launcher and readied my shotgun. There was a second of strange silence as I waited for them to reach the makeshift structure, the only audible sound being my own heartbeat and the squawking of balefire phoenixes as they soared around the surrounding area.

Then the first raider pushed their way into the structure, their hunting rifle already aimed and ready to fire at me. I ducked down, their shot flying over my head and ripping out a little of my mane before embedding itself in the far wall.

I clambered to my hooves, my shogun raising to take a shot at the raider when the second raider jumped into the structure behind me, their baseball bat slamming me across the back of the head and sending me toppling to the ground.

The third raider never made it into the building. Pyre’s hooves slammed into them as she charged into the structure herself, crushing the raiders spine almost instantly. The last two raiders spun as she entered, only to be met with a burst of fire straight into their face.

The raiders reeled back, their bodies blazing with light as the inferno raced up their bodies and cooked their hides. The structure was filled with smoke and the smell of burning flesh filled my nostrils as the last raiders fell to the ground and went limp.

I felt Pyre grab onto the scruff of my neck and reef me out of the ramshackle structure as the wood comprising it caught fire. The roof crumbled down behind me as I was tossed out and onto the stone bridge.

Rubbing the side of my head where the baseball bat had hit me, I stumbled up to my hooves and looked around. “Did we get them all?”

Pyre swayed on her hooves for a second, looking over the devastation we had wrought on atop the bridge. “Looks like it. Oasis ain’t going to be having trouble with those raiders again,” She glanced down at her chest which was still pouring with blood from the rocket. “Mind if I have a healing potion?”

I quickly passed one over to her, gulping as I noticed I was once more down to my last one. “Shit. I’m going to need to restock on medical supplies when we get back to Oasis,” I looked over the wound on Pyre’s chest as the healing potion slowly patched it back together. “Are you going to be okay? That was a nasty hit you took.”

Pyre shrugged. “I told you, Viscera forced me to augment my body. My bones are practically Stubbornite.”

I blinked at her. “Stubbornite? Don’t tell me thats an actual fucking metal?”

Pyre chuckled slightly at that. “Yeah, believe it or not, it is. It was used mostly by a clipboard company way back in the day. Fuck if I know why they needed to make those damn things out of material so strong.”

I glanced across the field of Killing Joke and in the general direction of Oasis. “We should probably head back. I hope Brisk is alright.”

Pyre gave me a grim nod. “If any pony will be alright, it's that asshole. That buck's one of the most stubborn ponies I know,” she tapped her metal clad hoof against her chin for a second. “Save for maybe you I suppose.”

Brisk was not doing fine.

Oasis’ hospital was as small as one might have expected, looking more like a tiny outlet with a medical bed than an actual hospital. Brisk lay on the table unconscious, his head wrapped in a blood soaked gauze as two doctors frantically worked over him. I had hoped that the effects of Killing Joke were not permanent, but from everyponies else's reactions, I was beginning to realize that they very much were.

“I’m terribly sorry that this happened to your friend,” Birch said, watching as the doctors began to administer what looked to me like hydra. “But I am glad that you dealt with those raiders. They were putting us in a rather unfortunate situation.”

“Yeah, whatever,” I grunted, not being in the mood to talk much to the slaving pony that had sent us out to kill the raiders in the first place. “Just give us the pegasus and we’ll call it even.”

Birch gave me a sad smile and raised his hoof as if to pat me on the back. He quickly thought better of it and quickly spun on his hooves to fetch Star Breeze.

Mirra looked Pyre over from afar as our raider friend stood beside me stoically, staring down at Brisk’s limp form. Her eyes lingered on the bloody wound on Pyres chest. Mirra opened her mouth to say something about it, but like the mayor, thought better of it.

Pyre had removed herself from her power armour to get it fixed, giving us all a view of her scarred and burned body. She had always had tons of scars, but I could tell that the damage being done to her body was getting worse. The burn marks, the slashes and shrapnel wounds, the massive gouges Viscera had inflicted in the Hollow Shades. She wasn’t taking care of her body, not the way that she should be. Pyre had become a walking map of all the horrors she had been through.

“You sure you don’t want to take a bit of a rest first? Heal that chest wound?” I asked, bringing up my previous concerns from the bridge. “Last thing we need is for you to not be at your best when we head back out into the gardens.”

Pyre gave me a scowl. “We don't have time. Every second we wait gives Plaga another opportunity to hurt more fillies,” Pyre stomped her hoof to finalize her statement. “I’ll heal when this is all over. If you want to stay behind, that's up to you. I can do this alone if I need to.”

I shook my head. "Not a chance. I'll go where you go. We do this together."

“And what about the other raider gang?” Xayah asked, budding into the conversation for the first time since we had arrived back. “There were two right? Now that we took out one, the other is probably going to make a move on Oasis.”

I nodded. “We don’t really know where Plaga is, so going out in the direction of those raiders would probably be as good a spot to start as any. We can clear them all out then,” I cast a grumpy glance out towards the gazebo where more ponies had begun to gather for the auction. I had even noticed a few ponies sporting Red Eyes insignia on their armour amongst the crowd. I had very quickly made the decision to stay as far away from the auction as possible. “Assuming we even want to help this fucking slaver town out with their problems.”

A few seconds later, Birch walked back up to us, a chain held tightly in his mouth which he used to drag a bound Star breeze along behind him with. He spat the chain out at my hooves. “Here's the pegasus. Consider your debt to her paid in full,” he tossed down a saddlebag by my hooves that I guessed were Star's belongings. Save for a laser pistol that stuck out of the top of the bag, I couldn’t see what was inside.

“I’ll chose when her fucking debt to me is payed off you son of a hellhound whore,” Star snapped, tugging at the chain around her neck.

I gave her a low growl. “I just freed you from a life of slavery and almost lost one of my friends in the process. My debt is paid,” Star Breeze quickly shut up at that.

Birch looked up from Star and back towards me. “Those raiders you wiped out weren’t the only ones. There were two gangs. This other one is just as nasty. Not quite sure where they are though, they've managed to stay under our radar better than the others. If you ever wanted to hunt down and wipe out some more raiders around here, there might be some caps in it for you.”

I nodded. “We were planning on going after them next anyway. Till we find out where Plaga is of course.”

Birch gave me a grateful look. “I know you don’t fully approved of our trading habits out here, hell, there are nights when I question if its the right thing to do myself, but I’m glad you’re helpin’ us out.”

I sighed. “Do you really need to sell slaves to Red Eye to get by? You ponies really can't think of any other way to survive?”

Birch shook his head. “It’s complicated, but Friendship city and Tenpony won't trade with us and most folk around here view this as a more moral and efficient solution to raiders than just shootin’ ‘em dead. Red Eye may not be the most savory character, but he gives us a real foundation to work off of out here in the wastes. Protection, supplies, cap flow, you name it.”

“What if we could convince friendship city or Tenpony to trade with you?” Mirra chirped up hopefully. “Would that change things around here?”

“Unlikely,” Birch chuckled, though his tone was distant and remorseful. “I doubt there is much of a trading deal that either of those settlements could give us that could top what Red Eye has arranged. Though I’m sure that’s his design. The most Friendship city has to offer us is fish from the harbour, but we got more than enough of that out here in the garden. Besides, the last thing we need is Red Eye as out enemy,” He gave us one last smile before turning away. “Anyhow, I’ll get out of your manes. It sounds like you have a lot of work ahead of you.”

I gave him a grim nod and turned back to the rest of my friends. “So, go kill the other raider gang then?”

“We will still need to figure out where they are,” Xayah pointed out. “They could be anywhere in the garden by now.”

“I think I know where they are actually,” Star Breeze said as she pulled herself up from the ground and back onto her hooves. “And I think I might also know where this Plaga pony you’re looking for is too.”

Pyre spun around to face her and growled. “What? Do you know him?”

Star took a timid step back under Pyre’s intense gaze. “Yeah, I met him when I first arrived in the gardens,” She elaborated quickly. “He’s taking shelter with that other raider gang. Has himself set up in some cabin out in the woods with them. He’s the only reason those raiders didn’t tear me apart. Managed to convince them I was no good dead.”

I cast Pyre a strange look. Protecting ponies from raiders was not the kind of behaviour I had expected from this notorious Plaga I had heard so many evil things about. Then again, the truth of the matter was I really didn't know what kind of pony Plaga was at all. If my time in Inferno and Crank's minds had taught me anything, it was that even the worst of ponies have more to them than one would expect. There are no good ponies... but there aren't exactly bad ponies either...

Pyre ignored my look and continued to stare at Star. “Where are they? Tell me,” She rumbled. There was a strange fiery glint in her eye that I couldn’t quite place. Was it rage? Fear? Both?

Star took a second step back, her ears folding flat against the side of her head nervously. She took a deep breath and puffed out her chest. “No.”

Pyre’s eyes went wide with anger. She lunged forwards, tackling Star to the ground before I had a chance to hold her back. “What do you mean, no!” Pyre snarled, her lips curling back and baring her teeth.

“I-I s-said no…” Star said again, though this time her voice came out as a little more than frightened whimper. “You want something from me, well I want something from you in return.”

Pyre snarled again, the tips of her flamers flickering to life as she leaned down to Stare Star in the eye. “Wrong answer…”

I quickly moved between them and pushed Pyre back. “Hey, let's all calm down,” I turned and gave Star a grumpy glare. “Whatever you want had better be important. We just risked a lot to get you out of a life of Slavery, and despite what you seem to think, we didn’t actually owe you anything.”

Star quickly pushed herself back up and shuffled her hooves together. “Fair… okay, lets try this again…” She took another deep breath. “I need help with something, and if you help me out, I’ll assist you in getting to Plaga. You’ll need all the help you can get taking out those raiders. I don’t know what those raiders you just took out to save me were like, but these raiders are the real deal.”

“And why would you be any help to us fighting them,” Pyre scowled, still clearly angry at the small pegasus.

Star rolled her eyes. “I just told you. These raiders are no joke. They’ve turned the canopy of the garden into a fortress. The whole area around their camp is a giant fucking kill box. You’re going to want a pony with wings to take out some of their snipers.”

I exchanged looks with all my friends. Xayah and Mirra gave quick nods, while Pyre simply rolled her eyes and groaned. I turned back to Star. “Alright, we'll help you out. What do you need done.”

Star Breeze grinned. “As you know, since you assholes got me demoted to field work, the Enclave had me positioned in the Manehattan Gardens. I’m here to study a very specific creature that lives here.”

“Hellhounds, right?” Xayah said, thinking back to our last hoofful of meetings with Star.

Star scowled. “No, I got kicked the fuck off of that project for giving you a Hellhound control device, remember. You’re welcome for that by the fucking way,” She growled for a second before continuing to explain. “No, the Manehattan Gardens are the only place in all of the Equestrian wasteland we know of where there is a confirmed Ursa Major.”

My mouth dropped open. “An Ursa major? We saw one of those in the metro system below the city.”

Pyre shook her head. “We saw a Ursa minor. Big difference. And I mean that in a literal sense. You think the Star Spawn that you saw was big. That thing was nothing compared to what they are when they’re fully grown.”

Xayah gave Star an accusing stare. “What does the Enclave want with a Star Spawn? Those are not to be messed with.”

“That’s Enclave business. The point is, I need help keeping myself from being ripped the fuck apart while I plant a monitoring device in its cave. That's all I need. A quick little distraction. Five minutes tops.”

“You want us to distract a fully grown Star Spawn?” Pyre said, her voice slowly losing the hostility it had previously been consumed by.

Star nodded. “Yes, then I’ll help you with this Plaga and raider business.”

“Seems reasonable enough,” I grumbled, looking back to Brisk. The doctors had slowed down and looked less panicked, but they still clearly had a lot of work to do.

“Let's get going then,” Mirra said, hoping up to me.

I caught Pyre’s eye, sad and pleading. I sighed. “Mirra, can you stay here and look after Brisk? I want somepony we know to keep an eye on him while we’re gone.”

Mirra looked up at me sceptically. “Are you sure? I can help and…”

I put a hoof on her shoulder. “We’ll be fine. Brisk needs somepony to help him right now more than we do. Besides, it sounds like we’re in for a fight, and I can't spare Pyre or Xayah for that.”

One of Mirra’s eyebrows raised. Her eyes darted to look at Pyre. “Pyre told you not to let me come, didn’t she?” It was more of a statement than a question.

I grimaced. I didn’t have it in me to lie to her. “She did, but I really do need you to watch over Brisk,” I removed my hoof from her shoulder and knelt so that I was eye level with her. “Can you do this for me?”

Mirra gave me a suspicious look before nodding and turning her head to Pyre. “I wish you wouldn’t push me away Pyre… I don’t want you to protect me, I want us to protect each other…”

Pyre remained silent until long after we left.

Caves. I hate caves.

Ever since I had seen the horrors that lurked beneath the surface of the Hollow Shades, I had found caves and other subterranean structures to be a rather terrifying concept. My fear had only been increased tenfold when I had been strapped down to a table by an insane alicorn and had rotting wings surgically welded to my sides in the tunnel system below the city.

When Star led us to the mouth of a massive cave, I felt my legs begin trembling slightly in terror. A strange, purple pulsing light seemed to be emanating from the humongous cavern, giving the whole place an eerie and unfriendly look.

“Relax, only I need to go inside,” Star assured me, clearly picking up on my discomfort. “You ponies need to draw the Star Spawn out.”

“So do we just shoot at it?” I asked, daring myself to peek inside of the cave.

“That would definitely get its attention,” Pyre scoffed. “But no, probably not the best idea unless you want it to go on a murderous rampage and tear us and everything else in Manehattan to shreds.”

“Is it really that powerful?” I said, my voice reflecting the fear I was feeling. “Surely somepony would be able to take it out.”

Pyre rolled her eyes. “Maybe. You saw how big they were as babies. When they’re fully grown, they're practically the size of a small skyscraper.”

“Have you run into one before?” Xayah asked, raising one of her eyebrows. “You seem rather knowledgeable on the matter.”

Pyre shrugged. “Never seen one myself, but any respectable wastelander makes sure to keep themselves updated on the dangers of the wasteland, even if it is just to know what to stay clear of.”

“That’s great,” Star drawled, clearly not caring for the conversation. She quickly reverted the conversation back to the matter at hoof. “Look, all I need is for you to lure it out so I can plant a monitoring device without making it go completely berserk. Do you think you can do that?”

Pyre nodded. “We can set off a small explosive out here to lure it out. Then get it to chase us for a few seconds.”

Star nodded. “That would do perfectly,” She took a step back and flapped her wings a little to pick herself up from the ground. She gestured down to us with a hoof. “I’m ready when you’re ready.”

I gulped as Xayah pulled a few apple grenades out of her saddlebags and passed them to Pyre. “You all might want to stand clear,” Pyre said, her voice sounding a little more excited that it probably should for somepony about to be confronted by a fully grown Star Spawn.

We all took a few big steps back as Pyre approached the front of the cave. She quickly pulled the pins one the grenades and tossed them towards the cave's mouth, letting the small explosives roll across the ground and come to a rest in front of the entrance.

BOOM!

The apple grenades exploded, sending fire and shrapnel shooting across the caves front. The cavern shook slightly as the blast slammed into the walls and a few stones from the top of the entrance crashed down towards the ground. But Pyre wasn’t done. Her flamers shot out, filling the mouth with a raging inferno that drowned out the pulsing purple glow of whatever lay beyond.

Even at the distance from the explosion that I was, my ears rang from the loud boom of the blast. But another noise quickly began to overtake my senses, bellowing clearly audible even above the booming explosion.

A roar.

The ground shook as the massive steps of the Star Spawn thundered around us. The pulsing purple light began to shift and quicken as the massive creature within the cave began to stalk its way out of the cave.

Star took to the air immediately, shooting upwards with a strong flap of her wings and getting lost from my sight immediately. Pyre began backpedaling, the ends of her flamers still spitting bits of fire at the entrance to keep the approaching beasts attention.

“Now would probably be a good time to run,” Pyre called back, casting Xayah and I a sideways glance from over her shoulder.

I saw the air shimmer around the front of the caves entrance, the area suddenly seeming to gleam with the small glimmers of hundreds of tiny stars. I felt my mouth drop as I tried to take in just how huge what I was looking at was. It was hard to see on account of it being completely invisible, but the shifting mass of stars looked almost a hundred times bigger than a normal pony.

Then the huge star bear pulled itself even farther from the cave and my heart stopped. I wasn’t looking at a giant star bear. I was only looking at a single leg.

“Run… now!” I heard Xayah shout, her voice filled with fear as another cluster of stars pulled themselves from the huge cave. She didn’t need to tell me twice.

I spun on my hooves and darted off the path, making sure to make as much noise as possible both to draw the creature away from the cave and to help keep it off of my friends. Not far behind me, I saw Pyre and Xayah start rushing away from the cave entrance as well, splitting off into two different directions in an attempt to lure the beast out.

There was another ear piercing roar as the Star Spawn fully pulled itself from the cave. I glanced behind me for only a second, just making out a huge formation of stars that seemed to tower over the garden canopy.

I gulped. That creature was really really fucking big!

Somewhere off to my left I saw a burst of flames somewhere in the foliage. No doubt Pyre attempting to attract the beast towards her. Something massive lumbered past me, moving at frightening speeds as its huge legs propelled it forwards.

Thinking quickly, I raised Braeburn’s Liberator into the air and fired off a shot, making sure that the shot didn’t actually hit the huge bear. There was a loud crack as the buckshot ripped through the branches above me. I saw something shifting overtop of the hole in the canopy I had just burst open. It took me a second to recognize it, but after a moment it began to take shape.

It was an eye. The giant, near invisible eye of a humongous bear.

I gulped. I had blasted off a shot right next to its head.

The stars that made up the huge Star Spawn froze. Slowly, I saw the mass of stars begin to shift as the massive creature turned and faced towards me.

There we go, attention diverted from my friends. Mission accomplished. Time to run.

I spun on my hooves and darted as fast as I could in the other direction. There was a thunderous roar as the giant, unseen beast behind me lunged forwards and gave chase. I was fairly fast, my small frame allowing me to dart quickly between the foliage faster than other ponies could. But I quickly realized that didn’t mean anything against this fully grown Star Spawn.

The Star Spawn was ripping through the trees behind me like they were nothing, most of the trees snapping in half as its huge body barreled into them. The star bears massive steps boomed around me as it thundered forwards, its giant legs carrying it faster than I had any hope to outrun.

My hoof caught on a gnarled root and I fell forwards, my face smashing up against the ground. I rolled onto my back with just enough time to see a cluster of stars hanging above my head. I felt a sharp fear race through me as I realized the Star Spawn was standing right over top of me.

Something raised into the air. Even with the beast being almost entirely invisible, I was still clearly able to make out the glinting light reflecting off of a set of massive, razor sharp claws.

Shit!

I scrambled to my side, only narrowly avoiding the huge claws that raked into the ground where I had been standing. The impact of the bear's paw sent dirt and rock bursting into the air, temporarily blinding me.

I stumbled backwards, my hooves batting as my face as I tried to clear the grime from my eyes. I managed to blink it all away just quick enough to see the sharp claws flashing towards me again. I was not fast enough to evade them.

The back of the Star Spawns paw slammed into my front, sending me flying a few feet back before I crashed into a large tree stump. My head was whiplashed back, cracking roughly against the hard oak.

There was another ear deafening roar, causing a jolt of terror to pass through me. I hopped to my hooves, my head still in a daze from the hit. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something swinging towards me.

Thinking fast, I ducked low to the ground, my chin slamming against the rough terrain. The invisible bear's paw swung over my head, missing by less than an inch and slicing the huge tree in half. The tree teetered for less than a second before it began toppling downwards towards me.

I yelped, rushing to the side as the massive truck slammed into the ground where I had been laying. I darted forwards, trying to get to a safer spot. My hoof caught on something again, this time a large, jagged rock that ripped a large gash across my fetlock.

I stumbled, my face once more falling towards the ground. I shut my eyes and shielded my face with my fore hooves, expecting to slam into the solid ground.

The Manehattan Gardens had other plans for me.

The ground beneath me gave way, sending me plummeting downwards into a deep cave system below me. I screamed, my forehooves flailing around me as I attempted to stop my fall. I landed on one of my hind legs, a sharp pain shooting up through my whole body. I winced, daring myself to look down at my leg.

It was bent in the wrong direction, clearly broken. Somehow it had gotten stuck under a large rock that now pinned me to the cavern floor.

I looked back up, making out the glowing light of the balefire phoenix filled forest above. The cave was more of a chasm than anything else, with the deep rock walls being close enough together that only two or three ponies would have been able to fit in with me before the space started to feel really cramped.

Far above me I saw the large eye of the Star Spawn once more glaring down at me through the small crack. It growled and began reaching down at me, its large paw scratching at the edges of the chasm as if trying to dig me out.

I gulped as it started to reach farther down. The razor sharp claws came within inches of my face before it stopped. I was too deep, and the chasm was too narrow for the Star Spawn to reach.

I felt myself sigh with relief as the paw slowly pulled itself away from me. There was a loud roar from far above me, followed by the stomping of steps that shook the chasm walls. After a few seconds, everything went dead silent.

Returning my gaze to my hoof, I tried to pry it out from under the rock. I shifted my forehooves above me to try and get a good grip on the rock pinning me down. Getting a strong grip on it, I pulled, only for the action to cause a sharp pain to shoot up my body.

I yelped, letting go of the rock and letting my body go back to a slightly more comfortable position. I scowled at my leg and tried to yank on it again, only for my body to be wracked by pain once more.

I considered using teleportation, but I was exhausted, and teleportation required a lot of effort. Furthermore, I didn’t want to know what would happen if I failed to teleport with my leg currency being crushed by a rock.

Had Star placed the monitoring device yet? She must have, she said it wouldn't take her long. With any luck, the Star Spawn would be heading back to its cave at this very second.

I waited a few seconds, listening for any signs of the huge star bear. I couldn't hear anything to suggest it was still around. in fact, I didn't hear signs of anything moving up there.

Gulping and biting back another scream of pain, I looked back up at the fissure in the ground above me. “Hello! Anypony out there! I need some help down here!”

Nothing. All I heard were a few squawks of some balefire phoenixes far above in the garden’s canopy.

I shifted my position, trying to ignore the pain that burst through my body. “Is there anypony that can hear me!”

This time there was a small rustling sound of bushes somewhere out of sight. A second later I saw Xayah and Pyre poke their heads over the edge of the cliff.

“Amber? What happened?” Xayah asked, her voice sounded more worried than I was comfortable with. I suppose I would have sounded worried too though, had it been me that found her stuck at the bottom of a pit.

I gave her a sheepish grin that I hoped would help settle some of her concerns. “Kinda fell in a hole. My hoof is broken. I don’t think I’ll be able to climb out.”

Xayah and Pyre exchanged a worried look. “I won't fit down there,” Pyre grunted, surveying the size of the pit. “Think you can climb down there?”

Xayah cast me a scared expression. “Probably, but I will not be strong enough to pull both of us back out, the walls are far too steep.”

I winced as I tried to once again pull my hoof out, this time with magic. The rock refused to budge under my weak attempt. “Where’s Star? Maybe she could fly down?” I asked hopefully.

Pyre gave me a snide look. “Where do you think she went? Away from the garden entirely most likely. She got what she wanted. I watched the dumb pegasus fly out of the cave a few moments after the Star Spawn left. Bitch probably saw her chance to get out of the garden while she could.”

“I’m going to pretend not to be offended by that,” I heard Star scowl. I saw the pegasus drop down from somewhere above the trees.

Pyre gave her a small grin. “Oh… heh… Thought you left.”

Star rolled her eyes. “Clearly. It’s good to know you trust me to keep good on my deals,” Star poked her head over the edge of the chasm and looked down at me. “Do I even want to ask how you got stuck down there?”

“Fell,” I said bluntly, not bothering to elaborate any further on the topic.

Star rolled her eyes again. “Yeah yeah, no shit. Gimme a sec. I’ll get you out of there.”

A few seconds later, Star was fluttering down the tight chasm, her small body allowing her to fully extend her wings while descending the pit. She winced as she saw the state of my hind leg. “Yikes. That looks like it fucking hurts,” Star gave my broken leg an aggressive poke with one of her hooves, making me yelp. “Yup, it's broken.”

I gave her an angry scowl. “Yeah, no shit it's broken. Just pass me a healing potion and I’ll be fine,” I grumbled, pulling at the rock again to little success.

Star shook her head. “Only if you want your leg to be like that forever. A healing potion wont fix a broken bone, in fact it’ll only make the damage worse.”

I gave her a confused look. “Really? But I’ve used them to fix breaks before? I’ve done that a lot actually.”

Star Breeze scowled. “Then you’re an idiot and lucky that none of those breaks were overly serious. If you’ve been doing that then there's a good chance your bones are all permanently fucked up.”

I shrugged, wincing as I felt Star lift the large rock off my leg. “I’ll keep that in mind, but I really seem to usually be okay afterwards.”

Star groaned as she looked over my leg. “You’ve probably been working off of the adrenaline healing potions give. I’m honestly surprised you can still function.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “How do you know so much about this?”

“Because its common fucking knowledge,” Star sighed. “If you must know, I was one of the top scientists for the Grand Pegasus Enclave. We were all trained in the basics of first aid. Something not many ponies down here get to learn,” She pointed to her cutie mark of a wrench and syringe. “I’m no doctor, but I’m knowledgeable enough to deal with broken bones.”

“Think you can fix mine?” I asked hopefully, trying to wiggle my hoof a little. The movement caused more pain than I would have liked and I quickly stopped.

“Fix it? probably not without any medical supplies... I’ll have to set it before I move you. I don’t want to damage it any more,” Star grumbled, resting her hooves on either side of my broken leg. “You ready?”

I blinked. “Wait, like right-”

Stars hooves twisted and popped the leg back into position. I screamed, the sound not in the least bit dignifying. Star gave me a smug look. “Yes, right now,” she looked down at my leg and frowned. “I don’t really have any medical supplies on me, but I could probably make a brace or something out of branches and vines until we get back to Oasis.”

I nodded as she wrapped her fore hooves around my body and started pulling me upwards towards the surface. I wrapped myself in a field of magic to help carry my weight. I wasn’t nearly strong enough with magic to do something crazy like levitate myself, but I could reduce how much I weighed at the very least.

Star struggled to carry me for a second before finally managing to pull us both out of the pit and back onto solid ground. Xayah quickly moved up beside me and wrapped me in a tight hug, careful not to touch my injured leg.

“Okay, give the filly some fucking space,” Star drawled, giving Xayah a slight nudge on the shoulder with one of her hooves. Xayah warrily let me go. “I’m going to go gather a few things to make a brace. Stay right here.”

Without saying another word, Star spun around in the air and darted off into the foliage.

I turned to look at Xayah and Pyre. “What happened with the Star Spawn?”

“Went back into its cave,” Pyre replied flatly. “It figured we were more trouble than we were worth and just headed back. Since we didn’t shoot the thing, it didn’t get angry.”

I tried to stand up, only for my hind leg to send me stumbling back to the ground. Xayah quickly moved up to me again and caught me before I could hurt myself. “Try not to move you foolish pony. Save your energy.”

Pyre gave a nod of agreement and turned to Xayah. “Once Star makes that brace, can you get Amber back to Oasis for medical treatment? I’ll go with Star to take out those raiders.”

Xayah gave a quick nod in return. “I will get Amber to safety.”

I felt my mouth drop open. Were they… sending me away?

“Hold up, I’m going with you,” I objected, once again trying to get to my hooves. I was more successful this time around, but I had to keep my hind hoof lifted off the ground. “I’m not letting you face this alone.”

Pyre gave me an annoyed look. “I won’t be alone. I have Star Breeze with me, remember?” She gestured down to my leg. “Besides, you are in no condition to fight raiders right now. I’m sure that whatever these raiders have planned, I’ll be more than a match for them.”

I scowled. “It’s not the raiders I’m worried about Pyre and you know it. I promised you that I’d be right there next to you when you face your father and I intend to keep that promise.”

Pyre growled. “Maybe I need to face him alone! Did you ever think about that?” She stomped her hoof down on the ground in front of me hard. “These are my demons. I need to be the one to face them!”

“You’re scared Pyre,” I shot back. “You’ve been acting differently ever since we got close to the gardens. You’ve been pushing Mirra away and you keep flipflopping between angry, depressed and normal. Plaga scares you. I won’t let you face that by yourself!”

“But you’re hurt!” Pyre shot back, once more gesturing to my leg.

“So what?” I retorted, taking a shaky step forward. It was difficult while only on three legs. “I get hurt all the time. You should have seen me in the MAS tower. I got hurt way worse than this and still kept going. What makes this any different?”

“The difference is that you got hurt because of me!” Pyre snarled. “How many casualties have we had because of me Amber? Heartbeat is dead because of me. Xayah lost her legs because of me. Brisk lost his horn because of me. You all scream in your sleep about the things Viscera did to you because of me. I’m not going to let any more of you get hurt because of my past.”

I stared at her, stunned. “None of that was your fault Pyre.”

“Wasn’t it?” Pyre snarled. “I killed Heartbeat. Viscera only attacked you to get to me? Brisk was touched by Killing Joke to help find my father,” She pointed down at my broken leg. “Hell, even your damn leg is broken because you’re trying to help me. What's going to be the next big tragedy Amber? Another death like Heartbeat? When is something bad going to happen to Mirra because of me?”

I took a step towards her, one of my hooves wrapping around Xayah to help keep me upright. “It doesn’t matter if we get hurt. This the the goddess damned fucking wasteland. We’re going to get hurt anyway. But we aren’t going to let that get in the way of us helping those that we care about!”

Pyre took a slow, deep breath and took a small step away from me. She glanced down at her hooves, her expression distant. “I’ve lost so many of my friends Amber. Most of them I killed myself… I grew so afraid that I would lose another that I shut everypony out. I refused to care about others, and so no pony cared about me. I became a raider. I lived like that for so long, simply pretending that I was happy and okay. The truth was that I was just a scared little filly that lashed out at the world to hide the fact I had forced myself into loneliness,” She looked up at me. For just a moment, our eyes locked and I felt like I could see straight through her. I saw the real Pyre, not the rough and tough raider she always pretended to be. The moment was over in a flash as she looked away. “You were the one that showed me I could still make friends. Traveling with all of you has made me feel happy for perhaps the first time in my entire life. If another one of you were to die… I don’t think I could take it…”

I let go of Xayah and moved up beside Pyre, wrapping her in a tight hug. “I have no intention of going anywhere, Pyre. None of us do. I cant promise we won't get hurt. I can't even promise we won't die. But I can promise that we will stick with you until the very end. It doesn't matter what happens or what gets in our way. We will face this together.”

I could feel Pyre tremble in my embrace for a moment before quickly pushing me away and putting a stern expression onto her face. “Alright. Fine. You can come along. But you better not die on me and we’re getting you back to Oasis for proper medical treatment immediately afterwards.”

I nodded. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Xayah stepped up beside me and put one of her striped hooves on Pyres shoulder. “We are both here for you. No matter your past or the challenges ahead.”

After a few moments of silence, Star Breeze returned with a large collection of sticks and vines in her hooves. She dropped them down by my hooves and quickly got to work. She was fairly quick, but it still took her a good ten minutes to put the brace all together.

“Alright, so we’ve helped you with your Star Spawn project. Where are these raiders?” I asked as Star pulled tightly on one of the vines that was keeping the brace together.

Star nodded towards our right. “Should be just down that way. I’ll escort you all there,” She looked the brace over for a few seconds before pulling on another vine to tighten it. “They’ve got a camp set up in the middle of a fairly large clearing and built sniper towers in the canopy. It's a nasty set up. Practically nowhere for us to take cover and they can see us from pretty much every angle.”

“And Plaga?” Pyre pushed, her tone dropping somewhat.

Star glanced up nervously at her. “He’s got a small cabin on the far side of the camp against a cliff face. You’ll have to fight your way through the whole camp to get to him. No doubt why he chose to stay there.”

“How many raiders are we talking about?” Xayah asked, pulling out her sniper and loading a few more shots into it.

Star shrugged. “Didn’t count. I was more worried about getting out alive when I was there, and I hadn’t really intended on going back,” She thought for a few seconds. “My best guess is that there's around thirty or so.”

“Large for a small gang, but I’ve seen worse,” Pyre said, her voice somewhat confident. She looked back at Star. “They’ve got snipers. Any other big dangers we should look for?”

Star thought about that for a moment. “Not that I can think of. Pretty standard raider arsonal. Lots of machetes and pipe weapons.”

I looked up at the sky above us. Through the cloudlayer, I could see the last bits of Celestia’s sun fading below the horizon. “We should get moving. We might be able to avoid the snipers better under the cover of night.”

The raiders camp was in no way subtle. I could see it in the distance long before we got there. Unlike the rest of Manehattan, nightfall didn’t send the Gardens into complete darkness. The constant glow of the Balefire Phoenixes cast the whole area into an eerie green glow that made the gardens lighting feel artificial. Like a forest that had been grown inside of a cave.

A long time ago I had heard that Manhattan was called the city that never sleeps. How ironic that it had become the garden that never saw true nighttime.

The raiders camp had been built behind a large wall of junk. Ladders had been built into the sides of the trees on the inside of the wall, leading to rickety looking rope bridges that stretched from one tree to another. I could see raiders walking along the bridges, snipers sweeping across the area for anything that might pose a threat to them. Behind the wall, I could see the flickering glow of firelight, most likely the raiders had built some sort of fire pit in the centre of their camp.

Walking to the raiders camp had been hard. I felt like I needed to collapse after almost every step. The brace Star had made for me kept my hind leg from being damaged more and reduced some of the pain I was feeling, but walking was still far from comfortable. After a few minutes of struggling, Pyre had simply scooped me up and tossed me onto her back. I protested, but she didn’t seem to care as she proceeded to carry me the rest of the way.

Star rummaged through her saddlebag and offered me a med-x, but I quickly turned it down. The last thing I wanted right now was to have my mind fogged up by chems.

Both Star and Xayah pulled out their weapons as we got closer. “I’ll fly up and start taking them out from above,” Star said, flapping her wings and lifting up from the ground. She looked down at Xayah. “Do you think you can take out more of the snipers from here?”

Xayah turned her gaze from Star to look up at the bridges and platforms the raiders had built into the trees. “I can definitely get a few from down here… Once some are out, I might be able to get up there myself and give you cover fire.”

Star nodded. “I’ll let you take the first shot. Soon as you fire, I’ll start giving them hell.”

Pyre turned her head to look at me. “Stay close to me inside. Cover my flank, and I’ll keep you out of harm while you have your injury.”

I gave her a flat look. “I can hold my own in a fight,” I said bluntly, pulling out Braeburn’s liberator and making sure that it was fully loaded.

Pyre snorted and gave a small buck, sending me toppling off her back and hitting the ground hard. I stifled a yelp as I landed roughly on my injured leg. “If you say so Amber. Just try not to get shot,” Pyre soothed, though her voice suggested that she was still sceptical. She pointed to a large junk gate that wasn’t too far away. “We can get into the camp through there. Chances are it will be the most defended area, so we wont start our attack until you both have pulled their attention to the skies.”

Star nodded and moved up a little higher in the air. “Everypony ready?”

“Ready,” I replied, finally managing to successfully pull myself to my hooves. My leg wobbled under me for a second, but I seemed to be able to stand fine on my own.

“Then let's do this,” Star said, flapping her wings again and shooting herself upwards until she disappeared above the canopy.

Xayah turned to me and gave me a quick hug. “Try not to die in there you foolish pony.”

I gave her a smug expression that was quickly interrupted by a grimace as pain shot up my leg. “Haven’t died yet, have I.”

Xayah just gave a small nicker that might have been a laugh before scampering off to our right and getting into position under the cover of some foliage.

“I can carry you in,” Pyre offered, gesturing to her back. “Might help with your leg.”

I shook my head. “I’ll be more useful if I can move around. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

Bang!

The sound of a sniper going off echoed across the area, the sound of the gunshot rebounding off of the trees, making it sound like the shot was coming from every direction. One of the raiders on the treetop bridges gave a quick shout of pain, before toppling over and dropping from the bridge.

Yells of alarm echoed out across the raider camp as they readied themselves for attack. From above, I saw a volley of red lasers blast down at the raider snipers as Star Breeze began her assault.

“Welp, time to move,” Pyre drawled, letting the tips of her flamers burst to life. She let her stern expression falter for a second as she took a deep breath. “I'm coming dad...”

She pushed herself forwards, her muscular legs sending her charging across the distance between us and the junk gate faster than I could have moved, even without a broken leg. I had forgotten how fast she could move when not in her heavy power armour. I stumbled after her, my shotgun raised and ready for any raiders that might try and attack us.

The two raiders guarding the gate spotted us first. They spun to face us, their makeshift weapons aiming to shoot us down. “We got company over here!” One of them shouted out, I was unable to see which one it was through the gloom.

Pyre’s flamers whirred to life before they could get a chance to fire. The flames washed over them, burning straight through their armor and charring their flesh. The two raiders fell, batting at their coats in a futile attempt to put out the flames.

A shot from Braeburn’s Liberator ripped through the skull of one of the burning raiders, making his head burst open in a bloody explosion of viscera and skull fragments. The raiders headless body slumped against the wall, lifeless.

The second raider managed to bat out the flames from Pyre’s weaponry, only for Pyre to crush their neck with a powerful stamp from her hooves. Without losing stride, Pyre rammed herself into the junk gate, slamming it open and powering into the camp beyond.

I staggered, trying my best to keep up with my friends immense speed. Pushing my way through the front gate, I dropped and rolled across the ground, avoiding a few shots as the raiders within whirled around and opened fire on us.

Though these raiders had a more impressive camp than the raiders on the bridge, behind the wall was nothing special. The camp consisted mostly of patched together tents that looked like they were on the verge of collapsing and a small hoofful of ramshackle structures that were more akin to barricades than actual buildings. As I had suspected, the centre of the camp held a large bonfire.

On the far side of the camp, I saw what I assumed was our destination. A small cabin sat against a large clifface that acted as a back wall for the camp. From how it looked, I assumed the cabin had been around since before the war. A warm firelight flickered from within the cabin windows, giving the structure a strangely cozy feeling despite the surrounding area.

“I’m going to make you bleed, bitch!” A raider yelled, rushing towards me with a nail filled baseball bat in their mouth, tearing my gaze away from the small cabin.

I hopped to the side, only narrowly avoiding the swing from the deadly bat as the raider lashed out at me. My magic rammed my shotgun forwards, slamming into the side of the raiders head and sending him stumbling backwards.

The raider snarled, bearing his rotting teeth before charging at me again. I backstepped, the edge of the bat flashing past my face. My shotgun rose, levelling with the raiders eyes and sending a round of buckshot into his face point blank.

The front of the raider’s face was ripped apart by the blast, tearing away the skin and hide and revealing the bone beneath. He slumped over, blood rushing from his body and pooling around my hooves.

Pyre barreled past me, her flamers spilling a stream of fire into one of the tents as a couple of raiders tried to take cover behind it. One of the raiders leapt to safety, landing hard on their rump as they scrambled to avoid being burned alive. The other raiders were less fortunate as the inferno swept over them and burnt them to a crisp.

A shot rang out. I felt a sharp pain shoot through my body as one of the snipers from the bridges above blasted a shot straight into my side. I staggered, trying to keep my balance as I felt the bullet lodge between my ribs.

From somewhere unseen, Xayah’s sniper cracked off a shot, the bullet lashing through the air and piercing the raider who had shot me between the eyes. The raiders eyes went wide before they fell forwards off the bridge and dropped to the ground. There was a sickening crack as the raiders neck hit the ground.

Xayah was getting scary good with her aim.

I stumbled, my back leg giving out from under me as a wave of agony washed over my whole body. I collapsed against the ground, my chest heaving as I tried to take slow pained breaths.

Pyre shot a blast off fire towards an approaching raider before racing over to me and standing over my fallen body protectively. “Amber, you alright?!” I heard her call out, though I was having trouble hearing properly over the ringing in my ears.

I nodded, forcing myself to stand. My vision was spinning and I was starting to see double of everything. “I’m fine,” I said, spitting a wad of blood out of my mouth. Pain flared across my side, forcing me to resist reaching for a healing potion. I quickly reminded myself not to take a healing potion until after my leg was fixed.

Thinking quickly, I ripped a strip of canvas off of one of the raider tents and hastily wrapped it around my side. In the heat of battle, the makeshift bandage was sloppy and did less to stop the flow of blood than I had hoped, but it would do until I could get back to Oasis.

A saw Star duck out from under the canopy above us and fire off a few shots at some of the remaining raiders on the bridge. Another raider fell, their chest smoking from a direct blast from Stars magical energy pistol.

Pyre glanced across the camp to the cabin, her expression determined. “Only a few raiders left, you think you can hold out till then?” Instead of responding, I spun my shotgun around in the air and blasted the leg off an approaching raider. The raider tumbled into the ground screaming, their right foreleg rendered useless. Pyre smirked. “I don’t know why I suspected otherwise.”

A raider with a shotgun stuck their head out from behind one of the makeshift barricades. Their weapon fired, the explosive buckshot blasting towards Pyre and I. We moved to the side, the blast doing little more than rip some hide off of Pyre’s leg.

Pyre scowled and pounced at him, her strong fore hooves slamming into his front and knocking him off his hooves. A second bashing from her hooves cracked the raiders head against the ground hard, breaking open the back of his skull and killing him.

I ducked behind one of the raiders tents, bullets whizzing past me as the remaining raiders fired towards me. A few of the raiders shots ripped through the canvas, forcing me to flinch away to avoid being shot.

There was another bang from Xayah’s sniper, the shot ringing out and slamming into the chest of the last raider sniper. The raider stumbled back, bleeding profusely from the gun wound, before his legs gave out from under him and he fell to the ground below. His corpse landed next to me, spraying me with bits of blood as his hooves snapped on impact.

Star flashed down from the canopy, her magical energy weapon blasting towards the raiders. Two more raiders fell to her attacks, one of them fizzling away into glowing ash as her magical energy weapon made its mark.

One of the raiders spun to face her, their combat rifle firing up towards her. Their shot blasted through her left wing, ripping a huge, bloody hole in its surface and sending Star spiralling out of control towards the ground.

Star screamed, flapping her wings manically as she tried to regain control of her flight, but the constant flapping seemed to do little more than send her spinning towards the ground faster.

Groaning in pain, I pushed off with my hind hooves and charged towards where she was falling. Braeburn’s Liberator swivelled in the air, a blast of its explosive buckshot ripping open the front of the raider that had fired upon Star Breeze.

I leapt forwards, my uninjured hooves wrapping around Star and cushioning her landing as she thudded against the ground. Her weight slammed into me, knocking the air out of my lungs and sending me flopping against the ground.

I groaned, rolling her relatively light body off of me to try and get a clear breath of air. I was surprised to find the air cleaner tasting than the rest of the wasteland. The miracle of trees I suppose.

Star rolled back up to her hooves, wincing as she tried to fold her wounded wing back against her side. She gave me a grateful look. “T-thanks.”

I shrugged, pulling myself back up. “Don’t mention it.”

“You cunts are going to pay for this!” I heard a raider shriek. I looked up to see the five remaining raiders cautiously trotting towards us, their weapons drawn. “You think you can just waltz in here and take whatever you fuckin’ want? Well you’re dead fuckin’ wrong.”

I pulled Braeburn’s Liberator up and aimed it towards them, making all three of them pause. One of the raiders standing to the right growled at me through the shotgun held tightly in their mouth.

The central raider fired first, their hunting rifle sending a bullet spreading towards us. Star and I scattered, jumping out of the way of the shot and taking cover behind the raiders makeshift structures. There was a familiar crack of a shotgun going off, followed by my cover being blasted to splinters by the buckshot.

I reeled back, my own shotgun firing and ripping out the throat of the central raider. The raider fell, their hooves clutching at their throat in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. Their attempts were in vain as the life drained from their eyes and they went limp on the uneven terrain.

Pyre thundered towards them from behind, her flamers sending jets of fire blasting into two of the raiders. The raiders screamed, the fire racing across their body and cooking their flesh. They dropped to the ground, now little more than smouldering bones and charred flesh.

“Fuckin’ bitch!” A raider shouted, jumping back as Pyre’s flamers turned to face towards him. He pulled something from his saddlebags and tossed it towards Pyre. At once Pyre’s flamers spew to life, burning him alive.

I watched as the metal object the raider had thrown bounced across the ground and rolled to a stop by Pyre’s hooves. My eyes went wide as I made out the shape of the apple grenade.

“Pyre! Move! Now!” I shouted, trying to wave her away from the explosive.

Pyre glanced up at me, her face slightly confused. I was too late with my warning. The grenade exploded, dirt and rock being kicked up into the air as the small explosive burst apart at Pyre’s hooves. Pyre was sent flying back, the hide on the front of her coat ripped apart by the deadly shrapnel. She skidded across the ground, coming to a stop in a bloody heap next to one of the makeshift structures.

The last raider rounded on us, their assault rifle firing off a stream of bullets in our direction. I ducked back behind cover, the raiders shots blasting at the wooden barricade that I dove behind.

“I’m going to rape your fucking corpse!” I raider howled, slowly moving towards me. One of the shots blasted through the wood, grazing my shoulder and drawing blood.

There was a loud bang, followed by a spurt of blood erupting from the raiders neck as one of Xayah’s shots pierced his throat.

I poked my head up over my cover and glanced around, taking in the field of raider corpses that now littered the area as the final raider dropped dead. I cast a thankful smile towards Xayah as she slowly trotted the rest of the way into the camp.

“Is everypony alright?” Xayah asked, surveying all the damage.

Pyre grumbled and pulled herself up to her hooves. “I’ve had better days, but I’m fine. I miss my power armour though.”

Star attempted to flutter over to Pyre to look over her injuries, only for her damaged wing to cause her to skid in the air and land roughly back on her hooves. Grimacing and awkwardly tucking her wings against her side, she quickly trotted over to Pyre.

“Here, let me look at that,” She offered, gesturing for Pyre to show her her wounds. “Blast like that from an apple grenade probably broke a few bones.”

Pyre shook her head. “I’m fine. Really.”

Star scowled. “What is it with all of you and refusing medical treatment or not knowing when you are and are not fine,” She gave Pyre a grumpy glare. “You are clearly not fine.”

“Just give me a healing potion,” Pyre snarled, clearly done with the small pegasus’ antics. “I’ve gone through worse than a grenade.”

Star rolled her eyes. “I just went through this with that dumb unicorn over there,” She pointed over to me. “You can't take a healing potion while your bones are broken. It might give you an adrenaline boost to keep going, but it’s going to fuck up your bones in the long term.”

"She isn't dumb," Pyre snarled, her expression suddenly looking incredible defensive for me. He scowled twisted into a smug grin. “And I’ve got augmented bones. They’re like titanium. They don’t break. Just pass me a healing potion.”

Looking slightly embarrassed, Star quickly passed her a healing potion and fluttered over to me. Once again, her wings made her sag in the air. She landed back on the ground with an annoyed huff and walked the rest of the distance.

“Does she really have unbreakable bones?” Star whispered as she pulled up next to me and started fussing over the bullet wound on my side.

I nodded. “Pony named Viscera forced her to augment her body. We haven’t talked about it much.”

Star snorted. “You should consider getting that yourself. I’ve hardly met you and I’ve already had to patch you up one to many times for comfort.”

I glanced up from her and towards the cabin at the far side of the camp. I pointed towards it. “That cabin. Plaga is inside of there?”

Star nodded. “He was two days ago. Whether he still is or not I couldn’t tell you. If I were him, I would have started running the second the gunfire started.”

Xayah slowly trotted up to us as Star continued to wrap up my gun wound. I looked over to her as she approached. “You alright?”

She nodded as she finally came to a stop beside me. She tapped her left ear with one of her hooves. “Raider nicked my ear in the fight. Nothing serious.”

I gave her a quick smile and peck on the cheek. Star groaned. “Goddesses, at least save the PDA until after I’m gone. Fucking couples…”

Pyre limped over to us, the flesh on her chest and forehooves still patching itself together from the healing potion. She glanced quickly at the cabin before returning her gaze to us. She looked at Star and Xayah, her face distant and calculating. “Can you two stay out here and keep guard whileI head into the cabin? I don’t want to be interrupted.”

Star gave a quick salute in response. Xayah took a small step forward. “I will stand by you with this if you need it.”

Pyre shook her head. “I can deal with Plaga. He… he shouldn’t be much of a threat. I doubt he has been for a long time...” Pyre turned her gaze to face me. “I already know your answer Amber, but I’m going to ask this of you anyway. Will you…” She glanced down at her hooves, as if embarrassed. “...Will you come with me for this. I don’t want to be completely alone in there.”

I let a soft smile form on my lips. “Of course. I’m with you in this till the end.”

Pyre gave me a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

Slowly, she turned and faced the cabin. Through the windows I could still see the flicker of firelight. The whole structure was beginning to look more and more decrepit the longer I looked at it. A strange sense of loss and sadness seemed to emanate from the cabin. It made me feel sad.

Pyre's father was in there, there was no denying that now.

Wearily, Pyre began to limp towards the cabin. She staggered slightly, the pain inflicted by the grenade clearly effecting her more than she had suggested. I followed after her, my breath heavy as I tried to fight through my own pain.

Pyre placed a hoof on the face of the cabin door. From beside her, I could hear her breath catch. She lowered her hoof and took a step back, her eyes wide and her hooves trembling.

“You alright?” I asked, my eyebrows knitting together.

Pyre shook her head. “No… I’m not. I’m scared Amber. I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared in my life…” I reached out and gently laid a hoof on her side. She stiffened at the touch for a second, before she slowly let her body relax. She returned her gaze to the door, her expression hard. “It's time to face the music….”

Her hoof raised and pushed the door open with a creak, giving us a clear view of the room beyond.

The cabin was only a single room. A fold-out couch lay against one wall, rips and tears in the furniture showing off the stained stuffing beneath. Against the farthest wall was an old, stone fireplace that slowly burned and crackled away, causing dancing firelight to bounce across the wooden walls. In front of the fireplace was a single, lone rocking chair.

The pony that sat on the rocking chair was old and frail. His dark red coat was wrinkled and sagging and was covered in a collection of splotches and scars. His orange and grey mane was a disheveled mess, many strands of hair falling into his face and hiding parts of his face. But it was his eyes that caught my attention the most. They were old and sad and seemed to have sunken deep into his face. He had dark bags under them as well, a clear sign he hadn’t been sleeping well.

I felt Pyre lock up beside me as her eyes landed on the elderly pony. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words seemed to come out.

The elder pony looked me over for a second before letting his gaze trail over to Pyre. His eyes narrowed for a moment, as if he was trying to recognise Pyres face from a dream he had a long time ago. A sudden look of recognition crossed over his features and the old pony seemed to grow even older. He sunk deeper into his chair, his expression unreadable.

“I heard the gunfire and assumed those Treeminders had finally come to kill me. I figure I deserved that after all this time,” Plaga Blaze said softly, his voice distant. He sounded as old and frail as he looked, as if a strong wind could knock him over. “But I’m glad it was you who came. I’ve missed you Pyre…”

Pyre's shock was suddenly melted away by rage. She slammed her hooves down on the cracked wooden floor, making the whole cabin shake. “Don’t lie to me father! You sold me! You tossed me away like I was nothing! You don’t care about me! You never missed me! I was just a nice way to get caps for you. So don't sit there and act like you’ve been missing me all this time!”

Plaga sighed and leaned back in his rocking chair. “What is it they say? You never know what you had till it's gone?” he lowered his head and put his face in his hooves. After a second of quite, he raised his head and looked back up at Pyre. “You know, I always dreamed of this day. The day you would walk back through my door. I never thought it would happen, but I hoped it would. I always tried to figure out what I would say to you if you ever did. Funny thing is, now you’re here and I don’t know what to say…”

Pyre's whole body was trembling, but I couldn’t tell if it was from rage, fear, or hurt. She straightened herself up and glared across the room at Plaga. “I’ve been free for a while. Always kept running away from you though… I felt it was finally the right time.”

“And why did you finally decide to come face me?” his voice dropped to a lower octave. “Are you here to kill me Pyre? I won't try to stop you if you are. Not that I could it would seem.”

Pyre took a step towards him. “I…” her voice caught in her throat. “I don’t know what I hope to do here. I just knew I had to stop running. Get closure or some shit I guess.”

Sighing, Plaga turned and looked back into the flickering flames of the fireplace. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if that was why you came. I did terrible things to you… you and your mother. I see that now… I’ve been trying to get-”

“Bullshit!” Pyre roared, baring her teeth and glaring down at the old pony. “You haven’t learned fucking shit! I’ve been to Oasis! I heard what you did to all those fillies! That you beat them. That you raped them. That you forced them to call you father all while referring to them by my name!” She slammed her hooves down on the ground again and snarled. “You’re still the monster that ruined me! Still the same slaving son of a bitch that sold me! The same fucking pedophile that has hurt countles pony lives. Here you are, living amongst raiders because not even slavers would dare to live with the likes of you!”

Plaga bent his head and stared down at his hooves, unable to meet Pyre’s eye. “You’re right. I am a monster. All those fillies in Oasis… I hurt them trying to be better. I hurt them trying to get it right… But it didn’t matter what I did. I always ended up doing the same damn thing… I always got it wrong...” He looked back up at us, this time his eyes were brimmed with tears. “I don’t know how much you found out in Oasis, but I was never caught. I was too good for that. A lifetime of cruelty will do that I suppose… I let word of what I was doing get out myself. I hoped that the ponies in Oasis would sell me to slavers like they do to most raiders. Hoped they would treat me the way I treated you… I think deep down I wanted them to kill me… As you can see, that’s not what happened.”

Pyre took a shaky step back at his words. “You were trying to get it right…” She scoffed, rolling the words around in her mouth as if they had a bad taste. “A normal pony would get it right the first time around. How many tries does it take to not rape a fucking foal!”

“I know!” Plaga blurted, raising his voice for the first time since we had entered the cabin. Pyre went eerily silent at his outburst. Sighing, Plaga rubbed his forehead with a hoof. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled… I know I’m a fuck up. I just always hoped that one day I could be something other than a monster. Get it right for once in my life.”

“You can't,” Pyre shot back, her voice low and scathing. “You’ll never amount to anything more than what you are.”

Plaga’s head dropped and he returned his gaze to the ground. “I know… Damn me I know,” he stared at the ground for a moment before daring to return Pyre’s gaze. “I think I figured out what I wanted to say to you.”

Pyre stiffened. “And what's that?”

“It’s more of a question, I suppose,” Plaga continued, his voice dropping as if he were embarrassed to utter the next few words. “I suppose that I just wanted to know… what kind of pony you became?”

“I’m a raider dad,” Pyre replied flatly. “It's pretty damn hard to become anything else after the childhood you gave me. But I’m trying to do better. I’m trying to pull myself out of that pit. And I think I’m succeeding. I think I have a genuine shot at being something more for the first time in my life.”

Plaga’s face seemed to sag at her words. He took a deep, ragged breath. “I had hoped that somehow you had found happiness after you left me. I always thought that the only way you could be happy was if you were as far away from me as possible. I should have known my influence was too tainted for that…” he took another breath, this time it was paired with a single tear dripping down one side of his face. “I hope you claw your way through that darkness Pyre. That you overcome what I never could…”

There was a moment of silence between them. Then, to my surprise, I saw a few tears race down Pyre’s cheeks as well. Her forehooves trembled as she tried to hold herself upright. “I will… I have... hell, I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to save ponies.”

Plaga gave a shaky smile. “Good…” he bit his lip as he tried to figure out what he had to say next. “I… I’m proud of you Pyre. I don’t know how much that actually means, all the things I’ve done considered, but for what it's worth, I’m proud that you are my daughter,” His tear filled eyes slowly drifted over to me and once more looked me over, as if he had forgotten I had been standing there the whole time. “And… who are you?”

I took a small step back, not sure how to properly react in this situation. “I’m… uh… a friend of Pyres.”

Plaga nodded, his expression grim. “Take care of my daughter for me. She deserves to have somepony looking out for her. Had I been a better pony, perhaps that would have been me… It should have been me.”

I nodded, still not sure how to react. I was here to support Pyre, not to follow the wishes of an elderly filly rapist. But I suppose that changed nothing in the long run. I had no intention of stopping looking out for Pyre.

Slowly, Plaga turned his head to face Pyre once more. “Well? What now? You didn’t come here to kill me like I thought you would, but it would seem that I’m a dead pony walking now anyway. Are you going to be the one to do me in? I don't think any pony deserves to finally put a bullet in me more than you.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “What are you talking about? You aren’t dying?”

Plaga gave me an amused look. “Those raiders you just killed might have been monsters, but they were the only thing supplying me food and keeping me protected from the beast of the Manehattan Gardens. Now that they're dead, I reckon I only have a few days left at most,” He said, his voice somber. “I’m old and my body is failing me. I don't have the strength to hunt for food and the ponies of Oasis will never take me back. Not to mention I’d never manage to make it out of the garden alive even if I tried to make it to another settlement. I will either remain in this cabin and slowly starve, or I will dare the dangers of the wastes and get torn apart. Regardless, I’m not making it through the next couple days.”

Pyre shook her head. “I didn’t come here to kill you and I have no intention of doing so now. Not after everything. I already killed one of my parents, and that alone is more guilt than any pony should ever need to bear,” Her eyes trailed up and landed on an old, rusty revolver that rested on the fireplace mantle. The flickering light of the fire seemed to dance across Pyres features with increasing intensity as she looked at the weapon. “Is that my old gun? The one you gave me after I got my cutie mark?”

Plaga glanced up at the old revolver before picking it up off the mantle and looking it over. “Yeah. This damn gun is the only thing I bothered to bring with me from Oasis. Couldn’t bring myself to part with it. Felt like as long as it was with me, I wasn't completely alone.”

“Does it have any shots left?”

Plaga shook his head. “Nah, used the last shots on a ghoul after I got exiled from Oasis.”

Pyre reached into her saddlebags and pulled out a single bullet. She looked it over for a second before tossing it at Plaga’s hooves. Plaga stared at the bullet laying at his hooves for a moment, then his body began to tremble, a pained look of sad recognition and resignation washing over him.

“You’re wrong you know. That I’m the one that deserves to finally put you down…” Pyre started, her eyes fixated on the bullet. “You hurt me dad. You hurt me bad enough that no matter what happens after today, I’ll probably never be completely okay. But all that pain doesn’t even compare to what you’ve done to yourself,” Pyre took a step back, taking in Plaga in all his decrepit and sorrowful glory. “You’re broken dad. Broken on the outside, and broken on the inside. You did this to yourself. No one else is to blame for that.”

Slowly, Pyre turned and began to walk towards the door. I felt my heart thumping heavily in my chest as I stepped away myself and went to follow her out.

“Pyre, wait…” Pyre froze at the sound of Plaga’s sad and weary voice. His voice was so quiet that I hardly even heard it. Pyre turned to look at him, her expression stoic and unreadable. Plaga raised his head from the bullet and locked eyes with her, his face a flurry of sorrow and loneliness. “I have to know… Did I finally get it right? After all this time... Did I get it right with you?”

His eyes were searching for an answer. Despite everything Plaga had done, both to my friend and the countless foals I would never know, I felt bad for him.

Pyre was quiet for a long time, simply staring at him with a hollow expression. Finally she turned her back and looked out into the gardens beyond the door. “No. I did.”

With that, she trotted out of the cabin, leaving Plaga alone in his rocking chair with nothing but his regrets and an old revolver. The last thing I saw of him as I moved back out into the Manehattan gardens was him slumped against his chair, his matted mane slipping into his face as his whole body sagged to one side. It was a terrible fate. To be left forgotten, alone and unforgiven.

As we began walking back towards Oasis, the near silent crack of a gunshot rang out in the night. Not a single one of us bothered to look back.

“You sure you’re fine?” I asked again, looking up from my pipbuck and at Brisk. Ever since I had gotten back to Oasis I had been looking through the Institute files. Freedom had said they had found something on there that was of importance to me, but so far I still had only found a seemingly endless list of names I didn't know.

Xayah had quickly forced me into the hospital to get my leg looked at. Thankfully the doctors in Oasis seemed to be just as good at fixing broken bones as Heartbeat had been, and my leg was back to normal in no time. They had even helped patch Star Breeze's wing back together, thought it took a lot of convincing before they were willing to help her.

Brisk gave me a smug grin. “Hey, which one of us is on the hospital bed right now?” He snarked, prodding me gently in the side. His face faltered for a second and he touched the spot where his horn used to be. “Besides, it’s not like I could do magic anyway. I’ll be okay.”

I gave him a worried look, which probably would have been more effective had I not been strapped to a medical table. “If you say so, but if you need to talk about it, I’m always here.”

Brisk glanced nervously up at our friends that were all standing only a few feet away. Mirra was attempting to make smalltalk with Star to minimal success. Brisk bit his lip nervously. “There… well there is something I want to talk to you about, but I think it can wait till tomorrow. You need some rest.”

“We all need some rest,” I countered. “Today was tough on all of us. I think we’ve all earned a break. Maybe we'll stop by Friendship City after this. We deserve a good long rest where we don't need to worry about getting shot.”

Brisk gave a small nod and smile before trotting away. I watched him walk away for a second before returning my attention to the Institute files. Just like before, there still seemed to be nothing of interest to me on them. Slightly annoyed, I scrolled down on the list of names, hoping something would pop out at me. Still nothing.

“Amber, can I talk to you for a moment?” Pyre said from beside me.

I jumped slightly, having not heard her approach. I looked up from my pipbuck and looked at her. “Course, what is it?”

Pyre shrugged. “I just wanted to thank you… for being there with me today. I don’t know how I ended up with you as a friend, or how I became worthy of your support, but I really appreciate it.”

I gave her a warm smile. “Don’t mention it, that’s what friends are for,” I reached out my hoof and gave her a small pat on the shoulder. As my hoof raised, my eyes caught on something in the Institute files. Something I hadn’t spotted before. But… that couldn’t have been right…

“My past has haunted me for a long time, but it’s over now,” Pyre said, her voice becoming sad and reflective. “I think… I think I can start finally being a good pony. After all this time.”

But I wasn’t paying attention anymore. All of my thoughts were focusing in on the lone line of text that had appeared on my pipbuck screen. That was it… The thing Freedom had wanted me to see. It had to be.

“It’s all been burned away. All that's left of Pyre the raider is the flesh and hide on my bones,” Pyre moved forwards and gave me a quick hug, but I was already too lost in thought to fully grasp the gravity of what she had just done. She released the hug and began to move away from me. “I’ll see you tomorrow Amber. Make sure you get some rest.”

I nodded, though her words didn’t quite reach my ears. “Uh… yeah, yeah. Will do. Sleep well…”

As Pyre trotted out of the hospital booth, I felt a huge breath I didn’t know I had been holding get released. I blinked, hoping that the words being displayed on my pipbuck would go away. Wishing I could dream them away or that I had simply read them wrong.

It didn’t matter how many times I read the line over, it always remained the same.

It read:

Synth #2316 - Current Location: Manehattan - Full Name: Pyre Blaze

Footnote: Two thirds to next level.

Author's Notes:

Fallout: Equestrian belongs to Kkat

Have a great day.