“We are the only salvation this tortured planet and its people have. Without us, pony kind is sure to perish.”

Time.

In the wasteland, it was easy to get sidetracked. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to stay on track, one thing will inevitably lead to another, then another, then another. Eventually you will find yourself walking a path you never meant to walk, trying to achieve a goal that you never wanted to achieve.

The journey to the Ponypalooza Hotel felt exactly like that.

Let's try to walk down this street here. Sorry, looks like there are some Radscorpions to fight. Sorry, you just got stuck in this building. Sorry, looks like there are some Enclave pegasi to fight. Sorry, now you gotta fight a glowing ghoul thing now! It was starting to become really damn annoying.

We probably could have made it to the hotel already if we hadn’t gotten sidetracked so much. Which meant we could also have been a step closer to saving Stable 25 from starvation and iminent slaughter.

I groaned as I marched down the road. My hooves hurt and all my wounds kept on opening back up the more I walked. Not to mention that my head was still spinning from teleporting three ponies twice.

I rubbed my forehoof over the gauze that had begun to peel off of the large cut on my side. The scabbed over injuries itched more than they hurt. I was beginning to feel like I had been eaten by hundreds of mosquitoes.

Brisk and Xayah trailed behind me, talking back and forth with each other is some sort of friendly debate. I tired to listen in on their conversation a couple of times, but nothing they said seemed to catch my attention.

Instead I focused on what was ahead. A few hours of walking, followed by a big ol’ fight with a bunch of killer cyber ponies.

The idea of actually being able to take one of those metal monstrosities out was laughable. The three of us had struggled to kill only one alicorn, and even then we had come dangerously close to dying multiple times. While on the other hoof, I had watched the cyber ponies tear through dozens of alicorns and simply laugh it off afterwards.

I had to think of some way to take them out. I could theoretically just steal the A.A.S.S from them, but then what would stop them from stroming Stable 25 and killing everypony inside?

Could I trick them into killing each other somehow? That seemed unlikely. Perhaps I could find some more ponies to help me fight them. Then again, that might take time, and we didn’t have time to get sidetracked anymore than we already had.

I could see the looming structure of the Ponypalooza Hotel slowly rising up in the distance before us. Even two hundred years after the apocalypse it looked stunning. Most of the destroyed walls had been patched together with what looked like bits of marble castle walls and through the grimey stain glass windows I could see dazzling glass chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. How those had managed to survive the holocaust and two hundered years of the post apocalyptic wasteland, I will never know.

“Looks like we are almost at our destination?” Brisk muttered to himself, staring up at the towering hotel in the distance. “Y'all think those cybernetic freaks are inside?”

“I sure hope so,” I grunted, pulling out Boneless. “Boneless and I have a few presents for them in the form of exploding shotgun shells.”

Xayah quickened her pace and caught up to me. “Do we have any actual plan to kill those cyber ponies?” She asked, eyeing my triple barrel shotgun. “I don’t know how much our weapons are going to do against such a formidable opponent.”

Before I could tell her that we had no plan and were most likely all going to get blasted to bits the second the cyber ponies saw us, we heard the sound of a young filly call out. “Help! Raiders took my parents! Help me!”

We looked over to see a small yellow and blue filly cowering against a wall a few feet away from us. She was covered in cuts and bruises and a small trail of blood ran between her back legs.

When she spotted us, her eyes widened in what I could only assume was hope. “Please, help me! They’re in here! Hurry” Then she spun around and darted through the doors of the building beside her.

I began rushing in the direction of the filly, only for Brisk's hooves to pull me back.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He hissed.

“Helping that filly,” I responded quickly. “You heard her, her parents are being held by raiders in there!”

Brisk shook his head and groaned. “What is it with you and wanting to help everypony we run across? It’s going to get you killed. Who would save Stable 25 from destruction then?”

“But I can’t just-” I began, but Brisk cut me off.

“Yes you can! You can just walk away. A filly and her parents are not more important that everypony in Stable 25. I can't believe that I of all ponies need to remind you of that!”

Damn it! Why did Brisk always need to do this! “Oh yeah! Well, Xayah wants to go help her!” I retorted, pointing a hoof at Xayah. The zebra flinched slightly as I flicked my hoof at her. “Right Xayah?”

Both Brisk and I locked our gaze on our striped friend who began slowly shrinking away from us. “I uh…” Xayah stammered, glancing back and forth between us. “I think we should save her family.”

Of course she would want to help a family in danger. I doubted she would want to let anypony go through what she had.

Brisk groaned and slapped his hoof across his face. “We are never going to get anywhere at this rate.”

Together, we turned and approached the door the filly had gone through. I spotted a handful of red bars inside on my EFS. Looking up, I spotted a bunch of twisted corpses hanging from meat hooks above the door. Yup, definitely raiders inside.

I slowly pushed the door open, letting the green glow of my pipbuck light the dark room beyond. We were met with horrors.

The walls that had once been a dull grey were now shiny and red with blood. The floor was sticky and coated in what I only imagined was the liquified remains of ponies. Bloody skeletons sat in strange positions around the room. Some simply sitting in chairs, while others displayed more perverse scenes. What made it all worse however, was how the bones did not appear to be two hundred years old like the rest of the skeletons I had seen, these skeletons were fresh. Somepony had deliberately skinned and cleaned the bones by hoof.

“I do not like this,” Xayah whimpered, keeping her head low as she followed behind Brisk and I. She held her striped hoof over the gem on her stealth cloak so she could turn invisible as soon as trouble reared its head.

Brisk nodded. “I hate raiders. I don’t know how they can live with themselves after doing shit like this.”

The three of us pushed onwards through the building. Each turn led to a horror even worse than the one before. First a wall covered in skinned pony faces, then ten filly heads on pikes. I began keeping my eyes low whenever we turned a corner, I was going to have enough nightmares from the wasteland when this was all done.

As we climbed a flight of stairs to the second floor, Xayah brought up the question that we had all been wondering. “Where did that filly go?”

As we arrived on the second floor we were given our answer.

A unicorn raider stood in the center of the room. His armour was similar to that of most raiders armours, assembled from jagged chunks of metal, spikes, chains and anything else he could get his hooves on. His black hair had been pulled back into two pigtails on the top of his head and his face was covered in a sickening mask of a screaming pony face.

No wait… it wasn’t a mask, at least not in the traditional sense. He had literally pulled a skinned pony head over his own. I had to do everything I could to keep from vomiting up all of the cookies I had eaten this morning.

The raider held a large serrated knife in its magic and had pushed the blade up against the neck of the filly we had followed in. The fillies eyes were wide and her shaking pupils had turned to pinpricks.

“Don’t take another step or I’ll slit this fillies throat!” The raider cackled, grinning at us through his skin mask. Seeing the raiders mouth move below the mask was an awful sight.

I raised Boneless, only to see the edge of the blade dig deeper into the fillies neck. I quickly lowered my gun.

The raider laughed again. It was a horrible laugh. “That's a good girl! Now put your weapons down!”

I looked around, trying to spot a more effective way out than violence or surrender. There were red bars everywhere on my EFS. My eyes darted around the room, trying to spot the other raiders to no avail. My amber eyes landed on the yellow filly the raider held captive. My eyes narrowed. Why didn’t I see any green bars?

I was sitting against the street corner. I didn’t know how the hell I had gotten there or where the raiders had gone. My head felt dizzy as if I had just teleported and I was having trouble focusing on things. There was a booming sound in the distance, but I couldn’t make it out very well.

A green object swam before my vision. I squinted, trying to make out exactly what it was. Was it a pony? It kinda looked like it.

“Amber? You okay?” Brisk said, leaning in a little closer, allowing me to fully make out his features.

I rubbed the back of my head and looked around. “Uh… yeah, I think so. How did we get here, what happened to the raider?”

Brisk glanced around nervously. “We were jumped from behind. The raiders knocked you out. Xayah and I managed to kill them and pull you from the building.”

Something about that didn’t sound right. “What about that filly?” I asked, my voice cracking a little. I already knew the answer, but I forced myself to ask anyway.

Brisk bit his lip. “She, uh… she didn’t make it. Sorry.”

I glanced over at Xayah, who was cowering behind a large pile of rubble, her sniper drawn. She was covered in cuts and gashes, though most of them looked like they had quickly healed over.

“We uh, had to use the last of our Healing potions on Xayah. She got hurt the most,” Brisk said, slowly pulling me to my hooves.

Now a little bit more aware of my surroundings, I began making out the booming sounds I had head. Gunfire. Lots and lots of gunfire.

“What is happening?” I asked, pulling up to Xayah and peeking over the rubble. I saw a group of seven or so ponies clad in heavy steel armour firing at a notably larger group of less equipt ponies. I spotted the large red flag depicting a sinister looking eye looming over the larger group of ponies. “Slavers,” I muttered, pulling out Boneless. Damn it, I hated these guys.

Xayah glanced at me wearily. “Are you alright?” She asked, looking me over.”

“Yeah,” I grumbled, rubbing the back of my head. “I don’t really remember anything from the fight, but I can walk and stuff.”

Funny, I didn’t feel any bump on the back of my head.

“We accidentally stumbled into a crossfire between these two groups here. I recognize a few of the slavers, I think some of them chased us back at the MoM building. No clue who those metal ponies are though,” Brisk said, sliding up next to us and pointing at the ponies in the strange power armour.

“So what should we do?” I questioned, glancing back and forth between the two groups fighting. “Do we fight them both? Just the Slavers? Who's side are those metal ponies on?”

“Those are the Steel Rangers,” Xayah informed, nodding towards the armoured ponies. “They are… well they might be friendly. Really depends on what mood they’re in.”

Brisk eyed the heavy power armour. “I’d recommend sneaking away and continuing to the Hotel. These aren’t ponies needing saving and or even our fight.”

For once I agreed with him.

Xayah tapped me on the shoulder. “Do not look now, but I think this situation we are in is about to become less pleasant than it already is.”

I glanced to where she was gesturing to see three alicorns standing with the slavers. And of course they were looking at us. Because we simply couldn’t get a break.

“YOU!” all three of the alicorns shouted into our heads. Shit! They recognized us?! How the fuck did they do that?! We killed the only alicorn that had seen us!

Beams of energy started flying towards us. We ducked below the rubble to avoid being dusted. A few of the slavers turned and began firing at us, though most of the slavers kept their attention on the armoured ponies that were assaulting them. I assumed the alicorns had telepathically instructed some of them to attack us.

“Okay, take out the alicorns first and foremost,” I instructed, turning to my friends. “Then the slavers. Hopefully we will have figured out if those Steel Ranger are friendlies by then.”

Brisk nodded and quickly reloaded his pistol. “Copy that,” He drawled, once again peeking over the mound of broken bricks and rocks to look at the small armies. A wall of bullets spewed towards us, causing him to duck back down.

Xayah waved her hooves in front of our faces. “Do we have a plan this time!”

“Yes, take out the alicorns then-” I started.

“No, that is a list of things we need to accomplish,” Xayah stated. “Do we have a plan for killing the alicorns? Or did you forget the difficulty we underwent upon our last encounter with one?”

“I don’t suppose we have any more grenades? We could use a similar strategy as last time?” Brisk suggested.

I shook my head. “All out. We only had the one.”

While we had been talking, two slavers had pulled themselves up against the far side of the rubble and had began to inch around it with their weapons drawn.

Xayah spotted them first. Flickering out of view and lunging into one of them. The slaver stumbled back as the invisible zebra slammed into him, a clear look of shock on his face.

Brisk’s machete was out at once, swinging at the second slaver who was in the middle of pulling himself over the rubble. The slaver dodged, rolling onto his side and flopping lamely by my front hooves. I raised my baton and bashed him over the head, a small shower of sparks shooting from the end of my baton as it came in contact with his noggin.

The slaver went still upon impact, though I could still see his chest rising and falling. I pulled my baton up for a second hit, this time to put him down for good.

My eyes landed on Brisk. He was looking at me cautiously, as if waiting to see what I would do. Why the fuck was he looking at me like that?

I glanced down at the unconscious slaver. He wasn’t a threat anymore, why was I attacking him. I slowly lowered my baton.

Brisk rolled his eyes and raised his pistol.

Blam!

The unconscious slavers head burst open, blood splattering across the ground and seeping away from the body.

I stared in horror at the bloody corpse.

“You didn’t need to kill him!” I spat, pushing back up against the rubble and glancing at the advancing slavers.

“Yes, I did,” Brisk monotoned, rummaging through the slavers pockets and passing me two shotgun shells. “I let him live and he just goes and enslaves more innocent ponies. You need to understand that the life of the one doesn’t undermine the lives of the many.”

I pocketed the shotgun shells and huffed. “Fine, we can talk about this later, but we have a bit of an issue at the moment.”

Brisk nodded in agreement and readied himself for the next wave of slavers.

Xayah limped up to us, her coat matted in blood. I could see the broken body of the slaver Xayah had fought a few feet away, though I couldn’t seem to spot any serious injuries on her.

“There are more coming,” She panted, raising her sniper and aiming at the oncoming slavers.

The rushing ponies never reached us, as a large Steel Ranger leapt in front of them and blasted them with what I could only describe as a rapid fire missile launcher. The slavers scattered at the Steel Ranger's attack and began focusing their attacks on the intruder.

Brisk nudged me. “This would be a good opportunity to attack those alicorns,” He suggested, moving along the side of the rubble to where a could see a small stretch of open ground between us and the three alicorns.

I nodded and followed, Xayah trailing a foot or so behind me.

The three of us weaved our way across the war zone. Though the Steel Rangers weren’t attacking us directly, they ended up being a bigger problem than the slavers. Their explosive weaponry made moving from one place to the next near impossible as the area around us was bombarded by explosion after explosion. Bits of shrapnel and debri rained down on us from all sides, forcing us to move as fast as we could through the clearing.

Two of the alicorns had taken to the air and were blasting at the small squad of Steel Rangers with burning lasers. One however, stared at us as we approached it. Its slitted eyes burning into us as we rushed forwards.

“YES! Come to me!” The alicorn screamed in our minds. “We are ready for a rematch!” A rematch? Was this the same alicorn or something? Did they all share the same memories? Alicorns are weird.

“We still don’t have a plan!” Xayah shouted as the looming alicorn continuously drew closer. “Why do we always rush into things without a plan!”

“I have a plan!” I shouted back, reaching into my bag and pulling out a memory orb. I figured if they shared the same memory, then it wouldn’t let us bring a grenade anywhere near it.

I smirked and tossed the memory orb at the alicorn. I saw the alicorns eyes flick up, watch the memory orb fly at her, then drop back down to me. The alicorn gave us a wide smile as the memory orb landed with a small thud by her hooves.

“You really thought you could trick me like that?” It yelling into our heads. “We will not let you kill us the same way twice!”

Seriously! Somepony had already done that trick! And here I thought I was being clever.

“What about this trick?” I heard Brisk grunt. My eyes dropped to where Brisk had pulled up next to the alicorn, his pistol pointed right under her chin. In my futile attempt to trick the alicorn into going into a memory orb I hadn’t seen him sneak up to the alicorn, and by the sudden shock that crossed the alicorns face, I could tell she hadn’t either.

Damn Brisk could be a sneaky pony.

The alicorns shield flaired to life, but not before Brisk managed to fire off a round from his gun. The bullet burst through the alicorns lower and upper jaw and blew off the front half of her face.

The fake goddess stumbled back, her hooves pressed tightly against her ruined face. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted Brisk.

“The goddess will make you pay for your transgression!” The alicorn shreaked. Her shield dropped and a beam of blue light blasted from her horn, striking Brisk across the chest. He flew back, crashing into and through the ruined wall of an old skyscraper.

Xayah fired a round from her sniper, the shot tearing through the alicorns back two legs and making her drop to the ground with a scream. The two other alicorns reacted to her wails, turning from their fights with the Steel Rangers and began swooping towards us.

This was bad. Really, really bad!

A slaver pounced onto me from the side, knocking me off balance. I grappled with him to the ground as he tried to pin me down. I reached for my baton with my magic, only to find my horn still suffering from burnout.

I hated not having magic! I don’t know how earth ponies did it. Hell, I didn’t know how Brisk did it.

I grabbed onto the handle of my baton with my mouth and whacked the slaver across the face. He reared up, accidentally getting in the way of one of the Steel Rangers explosive projectiles. The slavers body burst open, gore and viscera pouring down on me. The force of the explosion sent my flying backwards crashing my head against the ground.

The whole world spun as I tried to pull myself to my hooves. A second explosion detonated close to where I was standing, sending me flying backwards again. I felt my back collide with something solid, only for it to break away and for my to land heavily on my side.

I pulled myself up again and glanced around. I had been thrown into a nearby building, its walls crumbling more and more with each blast of the Steel Rangers weaponry.

Brisk pulled himself up next to me. “Howdy,” he moaned, placing a hoof over the large burnmark on his chest. “Got any more bright ideas?”

I glanced out of the large hole in the wall to where I could see Xayah doing her best to avoid being struck by the three alicorns many lasers. A few slavers had turned their attention to the zebra as well, rushing at her with knives or shooting at her when they could get a shot in.

We had to think of something quickly. Even if the Steel Rangers managed to take out all the slavers and the alicorns, I doubted that they would be able to kill them all before we bit the dust ourselves.

I looked over at the crumbling walls of the building. “Alright, I’ve got a plan.” Brisk raised his eyebrow at me sceptically. “No really, I actually have a plan this time! Do you think you can sneak past the slavers and get to the Steel Rangers?”

Brisk looked out at the chaotic bloodshed. “Its possible, but I might need a few minutes.”

I nodded. “That's fine, I’ll need a few minutes myself. Just find the Steel Ranger with the biggest gun you can find to fire at the bottom floor of this building.”

“Do I even want to ask why?” He asked, continuing to stare out at the ponies fighting.

“We don’t have time to explain,” I ushered, picking up the largest rock that I could with my mouth.

Brisk groaned. “So I still don’t know what the plan is. This is a bad habit that the three of us are getting in,” He grunted, slinking out of the broken wall of the building and into the havoc outside.

I turned my attention from him to the alicorns outside. I aimed, reeled my head back, and threw the rock at the alicorns head as hard as I could. The rock came in contact with a blue alicorns head and bounced off harmlessly, but it definitely took her by surprise. All three alicorns glared up at me, their vision locking with mine.

I mustered up what little courage I had and cleared my throat. “You know, this isn’t the first time I’ve met an alicorn, last time I blew one's head right off it neck!” I shouted down at them in the most condescending voice that I could. “Come over here and I’ll give you the same treatment!”

I don’t know if it was at the mention of their fallen comrade or if it was simply the fact that I was yelling at them, but in an instant all three alicorns were rushing at me.

Good, enter my trap.

I dove to the right as a beam of blue energy bust through the wall and disintegrated the ground where I had just been standing. I rolled back onto my hooves just in time to lerch to the side again as a green laser flew past my head.

The alicorns burst through the wall, rock and debri flying everywhere as half of the wall flew inwards. The whole building seemed to scream and shake as they entered.

“You will pay for mocking the Goddess!” They all screamed in unison. I put my hooves over my ears to try to prevent the pounding in my head from their voices.

These alicorns scream too much. I shook off the ringing in my ears and grinned at all of them. “Oh yeah? How much? Will five bottle caps do?”

The alicorns growled and began blasting lasers in my direction. I jumped and rolled and vaulted around the room as the alicorns shot at me. One of the alicorns teleported into my path and sent of beam of light straight at my face.

I ducked to the ground and rolled under her legs, just narrowly avoiding being turned to a pile of dust. As I rolled beneath her, I saw the alicorn’s startled face as she looked at me between her legs.

I bolted into the next room. It was smaller than I had hoped. In fact, I found myself in the remains of a filthy public washroom, which meant that there was no doorway out except the way I came.

Damn it!

“Do you really think you can run from us?” I heard the alicorns say in my head, their voice had dropped to a more sinister sneer.

I gulped and raised Boneless. “Well if you think you have the balls to take me, then come and get some!”

The alicorns were silent for a moment. No doubt they had not expected me to be quite as ballsy myself. Finally I heard them laughing, not in my head, just laughing out loud. One of the alicorns even had the audacity to seemingly flop onto their back and roll on the floor as they howled with laughter.

“Do you really think you can take us on?” One of the alicorns mocked. I could see the three bars on my EFS moving closer to me. “Do you really think you even have a chance?”

I pushed my back up against the bathroom wall. I glanced around, looking for an exit. Nothing. It was fight in here, or rush out and risk getting being blown to pieces.

I cleared my throat again and tried my best to hide the tremor in my voice. “What’s funny is that you think you had a chance yourself!” I mocked. My voice gave out on the last word and revealed my fear. The alicorns began laughing again.

“Fine,” One of them finally cooed. “Lets see if you’re all your say you are.”

There were three loud popping sounds accompanied by blinding flashes of light as the three alicorns teleported into the room before me. A laser blasted Boneless out of my mouth before I had time to fire, sending the shotgun skidding across the floor.

I swung at the closest alicorn with my hooves, only for another one to bash me across the head with their own hoof. I was sent flying across the room where I crashed into the toilet stall and landed atop the toilet seat with a thud.

I heard the sound of the alicorns horns charging up. I Crawled out from under the stall only seconds before the stalls were blasted to smithereens. The force of the exposition sent me toppling head first across the room where I was slammed into the wall upside down with a heavy smack. I took a second to take in the upside down image of the room before I slowly slid down the wall and landed with a thump on my head.

I felt a telekinetic grip surround my neck and pull me into the air. I grasped at my throat and tried desperately to gasp for breath as I felt the grip tighten.

The alicorn that was missing the front half of her face raised me to eye level and stared at me. Blood had begun spilling over her mangled face and down the front of her coat. Her gaze was murderous.

“You will pay for your transgression interloper!” The alicorn hissed, her slitted eyes narrowing.

I tried to choke out a word, but all I was able to make was pathetic gagging sounds. The bloody face of the alicorn grinned as I struggled. I could see the shattered remains of teeth though her unnaturally wide smile.

Then there was a thunderous boom. The whole building shook as the remaining walls of the building were blasted away by the Steel Rangers explosive fire. The alicorn dropped me in surprise as large chunks of ceiling began crashing down around them.

I kicked off with my legs and began scrambling for the door of the bathroom as fast as I could, snatching Boneless off the ground as I went. I could hear the screams of the alicorns as the roof caved in and buried them under a pile of rubble and cement. One alicorn’s horn lit up as they tried to teleport away, only for a large slab of the ceiling to land atop their head, shattering her erect horn as if it were glass.

I stumbled through the collapsing structure. I could see the exit only a few steps away. Another blast from the Steel Rangers artillery caused the back half of the structure to completely collapse behind me. A large chuck of the wall fell in front of me, blocking me path. I stumbled backwards to avoid being crushed by the falling debris.

I felt one of the alicorns magic wrap itself around my hind legs and begin dragging me back into the building. I twisted around and aimed Boneless at the alicorn, only to find myself on an empty chamber.

The once mighty alicorn look more like a monster from a nightmare than the fake goddess it had once been. The blown off front of her face had peeled away further, revealing bits of her skull and muscle. Her hind legs were broken and she had taken to crawling towards me on flayed forelegs. One wing was bent at a strange angle and her slitted eyes were bloodshot and puffy.

“DIE!” The alicorn screamed into my head. I tried to kick her away with my legs, but she held me in place with her magic. A second aura appeared around her cracked horn and I could feel a tight grip crushing my windpipe again.

Rocks and bits of ceiling fell around us as we struggled. A large slab of cement crashed next to my head, nearly breaking off my horn. I choked out as clouds of dust clogged up what little room I had for air in my throat.

I stumbled with my shotgun shells, trying to reload Boneless. The alicorn wrapped a field of telekinesis around my gun as well and began trying to pull it from my grasp. I clutched onto it as tight as I could with my mouth and managed to pop a single shell into the gun.

The alicorns eyes widened as I lowered the gun to face her. She let go of me with her magic and threw up her shield just in time to deflect the blast from Boneless.

I rushed forwards, rocketing towards the exit of the building as the walls around me gave way. Another blast from the Steel Rangers made me stumble forwards, tripping on my own hooves and half somersaulting half half falling out of the building.

There was a scream from the alicorn behind me as the rest of the structure collapsed in on her, burying her under a mile of stone and concrete.

I rolled to a stop in front of the large Steel Ranger who I had seen fighting earlier. He was clad in a full suit of power armour like the other Steel Rangers except his power armour was a dark purple. On his right was a large gatling laser and on his left was an impressive looking rocket launcher. I blinked up at the large armoured ranger and gave a sheepish smile.

“Thanks?” I said timidly, glancing around the battlefield. The Steel Rangers had managed to take care of the slavers. A handful of unarmoured rangers were going around collecting anything of value from the slavers bodies, while the rest of them gathered around me. I spotted Xayah and Brisk with uncomfortable expressions on their faces.

The Steel Ranger above me simply stared down at me in silence through the visor of his purple metal helmet. Finally he cleared his throat. “You are from Stable 25?”

Not exactly what I had expected him to ask. I nodded. “How did you…”

“It says so on your Stable barding,” He pointed out in his low rumbling voice, pointing to the twenty five on my stable barding. “Where is it?”

I glanced over at Brisk and Xayah. Xayah gave me a small shake of her head, indicating I shouldn't tell him. Having no idea what to think of this Steel Ranger bunch, I decided that was probably a good idea.

“Don’t know,” I said simply, shakely pulling myself to my hooves. “We are hopelessly lost.”

The Steel Ranger grunted. “Can you give us a landmark to go by? Anything?” I shook my head innocently. The Ranger grunted again. “I find this unlikely.”

I chuckled nervously. “Well if I knew I’d tell you. But seeings how I don’t I think the three of us should be on our way,” I turned to Brisk and Xayah, preparing to run if I needed to. I froze as I saw to magical laser weapons pointed at my friends heads.

Well that settled that, I don’t like the Steel Ranger. Yet another wasteland faction I would have to deal with I guess.

I turned back to the large Steel Ranger. “I swear, I don’t know where the Stable is.”

The Steel Ranger stomped his metal clad hoof. “Then I suggest you remember quickly,” He grunted, turning to his fellow Ranger. “Lock them up. Don’t let them go until they give us the location of their Stable.”

Well shit.

In less than a minute, Brisk, Xayah and I were handcuffed and under the intense gaze of four Steel Ranger guards as the Steel Rangers finished collecting all the valuables from the slaver corpses. Small metal rings were placed over both Brisks and my horns to prevent us from using magic. I didn’t bother to tell them that neither of us were able to cast spells at the current moment.

The Steel Rangers made quick work of the locks on our pipbucks, expertly removing them from our forelegs. Shortly afterwards our weapons were removed and Xayah’s stealth cloak was stripped away from her.

Brisk looked back and forth between Xayah and I. “So like… should we just tell them where the Stable is or...? I mean we are kinda on a tight deadline right now.”

Xayah shook her head. “No, that would be unwise. The Steel Rangers are notorious for hoarding pre war technology, and your Stable is packed full of it. If your home is already on the brink of destruction, the last thing you’ll want to worry about is Steel Ranger invasion.”

I had to agree with her. I was already worried about four cyber ponies attacking the Stable. An army of equally armed ponies sounded like my nightmares nightmare.

Finally, one of the Steel Rangers approached the Ranger I had been talking to and gave him a salute. “Senior Paladin Iron Hock. All of the slaver scum’s weaponry has been confiscated.”

Iron Hock nodded in approval. “Let's get moving!” The Senior Paladin ordered to the rest of the Rangers. As if rehearsed for a play, all of the Steel Rangers formed into a tight formation and began marching forwards. We were ushered forwards as the squad advanced deeper into the Manehattan ruins.

I glanced around, trying to spot a way out of our situation. There were heavily armed Rangers on all sides of us, making our escape near impossible. Conveniently though, we seemed to still be moving in the general direction of Fetlock, so hopefully when we did manage to escape we wouldn’t be ridiculously off track.

The squad of Steel Rangers marched forwards for almost half an hour in complete silence. The dark cloudlayer above us began to slowly drip with rain, then it began to pour. Within minutes my coat was soaked all the way through. I groaned as we passed a rusted over street sign reading Fetlock. I was so close, yet still so far away. After a few more minutes of silence, one of my guards bumped me on the shoulder.

“You three should be honored you know,” The guard mumbled. “Y'all are about to gain entrance to the main base of operations for the mighty Steel Rangers. The great Fort Strong!”

I glanced up and took in the massive structure before us. It had once been a large military base, with humongous concrete walls surrounding the entire bunker. Large banners depicting the Steel Rangers emblem hung proudly from the walls and teams of Steel rangers patrolled the outer and inner walls of the base. Protruding from the top of the building was unquestionably the largest gun I had ever seen.

Even through the rain, I could see the large barrel of the gun. The massive weapon was roughly the same size as a small skyscraper. Multiple laser cannons the size of my whole body surrounded the main barrel and slowly swiveled around to face every moving target in the area. Large tubes stretched from the roof of the base and entered the back of the gun, assumably loading the gun with whatever the hell it used for ammunition.

“What the fuck is that thing,” Brisk muttered, staring up at the massive gun with a mix of horror, shock and awe.

“Beauty ain’t she,” Our guard said, once again breaking his silence. “Thing was designed to blast armies of dragons out of the sky back during the war. Did it’s job too. That gun even managed to blast a few balefire bombs out of the sky before they impacted the city. Unfortunately it wasn’t able to save us from the bombs that had been smuggled into the city, but It gave us it’s all.”

“Does it still work?” I asked. Please tell me that thing doesn’t work!

Our Guard shook his head. “Nah. that thing take more power to run than the whole damn city of Manehattan. We got the smaller laser cannons around it to function, but the main gun itself has been dead for almost two hundred years.”

“Shortcake, stop talking to the prisoners,” Another Steel Ranger from somewhere behind us ordered.

“Oh come on now,” Our guard, now known as Shortcake grunted. “These three ain’t done anything actually wrong,” But he did shut up after that. At least not all the Steel Rangers seemed to be pricks.

As we approached the massive doors to Fort Strong an elderly earth pony buck approached us. “Senior Paladin Iron Hock, please report,” The older stallion demanded, scanning the squad.

Iron Hock took a step forward and gave a quick salute. “Elder Cottage Cheese, the slavers have been dealt with, and I have successfully confiscated a large arsenal of pre war weapons and technology,” He declared proudly. He signaled for one of the Steel Rangers behind him who quickly approached and held up Brisk’s and my pipbucks. “I have also managed to obtain two functional pipbucks.”

Elder Cottage Cheese nodded and turned his gaze to us. As I looked closer at his face, I realized he wasn’t an earth pony at all, rather a unicorn who had had his horn sawed off. I didn’t want to know how or why that happened. “And who are those three?” He asked coldly, his gaze shifting back and forth between the three of us.

“Two Stable dwellers,” Iron Hock one again declared. “Almost certainly from Stable 25. I wish to bring them in until they reveal the location of their Stable.”

Elder Cottage Cheese’s eyes narrowed at us and he slowly took a few steps towards us to get a better look, making out the small yellow twenty five on our barding. Finally he nodded. “Very well, take them to holding. I would very much like to see this Stable 25.”

Iron Hock saluted again before motioning for his squad to advance. Like a marching band down a street, the squad surged forwards, bringing us into the guarded concrete walls of Fort Strong.

Elder Cottage Cheese had told Iron Hock to take us to holding. That had been a nice way of saying throw them in the brig. We had been aggressively thrown into a large prison room with three caged off sections, one for each of us. Each cell had a small stone ledge protruding from the wall that I guess was supposed to act as our bed and a metal bucket in the corner that must have been the cells sad excuse of a toilet.

I pushed my back against the back wall of my cell and looked at my friends in the cages across from me. My eyes wandered to the guard fully clad in power armour that stood at attention by the door.

Well this was just great. At least they were nice enough to give each of us a Radaway. We all needed it after the fight with the glowing ghoul. I wished I still had my Pipbuck so that I could have seen my rad levels drop back to zero.

Brisk had quickly taken to pacing in a circle around the outside of his cell, shaking the occasional bar every now and then to see if one might come loose. None of them did. “Well this is just great,” Brisk grunted, echoing my thoughts in words. He smacking the bars of his cage with a hoof in frustration. “We help these bastards out and they throw us in a cell! Really!” he pointed an accusing hoof at the guard. The guard didn’t react, or even flinch. He just stood at attention, almost statue like.

No pipbuck, now weapons, no bobby pins and a guard that seemed to take his job very seriously. Please don't tell me that the only way out of this was to actually give the location of my Stable. I groaned and slapped my hoof across my face.

Well, I might as well see if I could talk my way out of it. Not that I was overly charismatic.

I turned to the guard and gave him the nicest smile I could. “Um, so the three of us are actually going somewhere and we are on a bit of a tight schedule, do you think you could let us out?” The guard just stared at me blankly.

Yeah… I don’t know why I thought that even had a small chance of working.

Brisk gave a short chuckle. “Did you just ask the guard to let you go because you are busy?” I nodded lamely in response. Brisk chuckled again. “That was the worst attempt to convince a trained guard to let you go that I have ever seen.”

I blushed. “Shut up! Besides when we first met, I’ve never had to break out of a cell before!” The guard stomped his hoof in response to my outburst. I winced. That probably wasn’t the best thing to say while the guard was in the room.

Brisk grinned at me. “I noticed.”

I sat down on the stone bed and folded my hooves in front of my chest with a huff. We sat in silence for a long time like that until I shifted my gaze over to Xayah who had taken to lying on her side in her cell, her eyes darting around the room in a desperate attempt to find a way out. My eyes landed on a large silver scar that ran down her soft underbelly from the bottom of her neck to between her hind legs.

“How did you get that?” I asked breathlessly, pointing to the long scar. The skin around it was still pink making it appear fairly recent.

Xayah tucked her legs up against her and rolled onto her stomach. “That isn’t important. I am healed now.”

Both my concern and curiosity had been piqued. Mostly concern. “Xayah, how did that happen?”

“It’s not Important Amber,” Brisk blurted, drawing my attention away from Xayah. He had a strange look in his eyes, I couldn’t explain it.

“But-” I started.

“Amber Aura, do you trust us as your friends?” Brisk asked sternly. I look at him in silence for a few moments. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Do you trust your friends?”

“I… Yes?” I said slowly. I didn’t understand what all the secrecy behind the scar was for. “I trust you.”

“Then forget about that scar,” Brisk demanded, finally stopping his pacing and sitting down on his stone bed. He exchanged a sad nod with Xayah.

I was so far beyond confused by that point, but they seemed to have a reason for me not knowing about it and I did trust them. I decided to drop it and continued looking for a way out.

After a few moments of trying to figure out an escape plan to no success, my face turned a dark shade of red. “Uh, do um… Do you guys think you could look away for a second?” I asked, nervously looking towards me friends.

Instinctively, Xayah rolled towards the wall to face away from me. Brisk raised his eyebrow and gave me a quizzical look?

“Dare I ask why?” He questioned in confusion. I blushed even more and gave the small metal bucket in the corner of my cell a gentle kick. He looked at me in confusion for a few awkward moments before his eyes widened in understanding. “Oh! Yeah, sure,” He too turned his back and stared awkwardly at the wall.

I sat on the bucket and gave the guard an uncomfortable glare. “Um… I don't suppose you would mind looking away for a moment either, would you?” the guard continued to silently stare at me.

I groaned loudly, and under the intense glare of the guard, began to pee.

I was walking down the slightly curved hallways of Stable 25. The hallways were more crowded than normal, it must have been a celebration or something today. Each pony I walked by gave me a warm and genuine smile as I passed them, a few going so far as to greet me or ask me how my day was going.

I calmly marched past them, basking in their affection for me and politely greeting them in return. They all loved me, and I loved all of them in turn. My father approached me for across the hallway. His curly red mane bounced atop his head as he practically bounced towards me and he gave me one of his infamous dorky grins.

“Good afternoon Amber, are you ready?” he asked joyously, calmly placing his hoof on my shoulder.

I rubbed my temple with a hoof. “Am I ready? Ready for what?” I asked, trying to remember if I had forgotten something important.

My father grinned ear to ear. “Why today is the day I step down and you take my place as the Overmare of Stable 25!” He declared with pride.

I glanced back at my flank to see the dazzling image of an Overmare cutie mark staring back at me. Of course I was becoming the Overmare! The cutie mark was hereditary! I don’t know why that slipped my mind.

“Oh, of course I’m ready for that,” I said boldly, standing tall and proud before my father. “I’ve been ready my whole life!”

My father smiled at me proudly. “I know you are. I always knew you would be the greatest Overmare this Stable has ever had.”

Then I was standing before the whole Stable in the large atrium. My father stood next to me, preaching to the crowd how honored he was to have me as his daughter. Everypony in the audience stared up at us with huge smiles across their faces and a twinkle of joy in each of their eyes.

This was the perfect life. This was Utopia.

How much better this utopia was than the horrors of the desolate wasteland outside the Stable door. Out there was cruel and evil, but here we were safe. Within these walls we had utopia.

The Wasteland outside.

The wasteland

It suddenly all came back to me. The cyber ponies, the radscorpions, the Enclave, Brisk and Xayah. Where were they? Why was I hear?

“This is a dream isn’t it,” I muttered, looking out at all the smiling faces.

“Of course it is,” Shade said, approaching the stage and giving me an honorary badge, declaring me the new Overmare. “You are still in the wasteland.”

“Why is everyone so happy?” I asked Shade, looking at all the ponies.

Shade smiled at me. “It’s your dream Amber, what you want is what happens.”

I scanned the crowd. My eyes landed on a green unicorn and zebra standing in the crowd cheering me on. Of course they lived in the Stable with me, there would be no perfect world without them.

My two friends rushed towards me. Now closer, I could see that they were lacking the many scars they had acquired during our journey through the wasteland. I had never seen them so clean before.

Xayah gave me one of her kind smiles, wrapping a striped hoof around my neck in a tight hug. I turned my head to Brisk who was now standing close at my side. He leaned his green head closer and gave me a quick kiss on the lips. I blushed, wishing the kiss had lasted longer.

I could hear the subtle sound of the A.A.S.S pumping vapors into the air. We must have won! We must have killed the cyber ponies and returned the A.A.S.S to its rightful place.

I was wrong. We hadn’t killed the cyber ponies.

A blast of blue energy lanced out and struck Brisk through the chest. He screamed, clutching where he had been shot with a hoof before he slowly faded to dust beside me. He tried to reach out and grab onto me, but the ground below me seemed to pull me away from him as I watched Brisk disintegrate.

The mechanical laugh of the cyber ponies drew my attention to the entrance of the atrium. All four cyber ponies stood in the doorway, the monstrous cyber alicorn in the lead. He laughed again as they advanced upon the helpless Stable ponies.

The ponies didn’t run or scream. They just stared up at me smiling, confident that their Overmare would protect them. But I couldn’t. I was frozen as I watched the cyber ponies blast them all to bits, some being turned into a pile of dust while others burst open in a shower of bloody visera.

Xayah caught fire next to me, screaming in agony as one of the cyber ponies doused her in burning gasoline. She flailed around, trying to put out the flame. But the fire could not be extinguished. The fire spread across her whole body, then to the corpses lying bloody on the atrium floor. Then my whole world was a blur of fire and blood.

My father was next, the cyber alicorns razor sharp wing lashing forwards and severing his head from his neck. No… not sever. His head dangled from the back of his neck by a few tattered muscles and veins.

And still my father was screaming.

There was no logical way he should still be alive, but he was. He howled in agony as his head flopped limply from his neck as he desperately tried to reattach his skull to the top of his exposed spinal cord.

At last the fire overtook him. Slowly burning his body away until he was little more than a blackened skeleton.

The cyber ponies surrounded me, covered in the blood of the ponies I had once shared a life with. Bits of ripped flesh and intestines hung from their metallic coats.

“Thank you for bringing us to your Stable,” The cyber alicorn rumbled in his deep intimidating voice. “These ponies never expected a thing.”

I glanced back to see the makeup hiding my stupid cutie mark dripping off of my flank, reveiling a red screwdriver, now soaked in blood.

A manic laughter broke out beside me. I turned to face Shade, her smile now forced open by metal clips. “Did I say dream?” Shade cackled, flopping onto her back and rolling in a large pool of blood and brain matter. “This is a nightmare!” Her laughing continued until one of the cyber ponies finally stomped her head into paste.

I awoke covered in sweat. The light of the prison had gone out, leaving us in almost complete darkness. The only light that could be seen was a small sliver of golden light at the base of the door on the far side of the room and small silver glints gleaming off of our beady eyes in the dark.

The wasteland was a cruel place, filled with crueler things. One doesn’t simply transverse the deserted streets of Manehattan and not end up scarred by nightmares for the rest of their life. I pulled my legs up close to my body and shivered as the images of my Stable in a bloody ruin flashed through my mind.

I couldn’t let that happen. Not at the hooves of the cyber ponies, not at the hooves of the Steel Rangers, not even at the hooves of the Equestrian wasteland itself.

“...I’m worried about her you know,” I heard Brisk whisper in the dark. My ears perked up as I heard his voice. What was he talking about? “The Wasteland is hurting her. Not just physically. She isn’t built for the kind of things the wasteland makes you do.”

“No pony should need to endure the hardships of the wasteland,” Xayah replied evenly. “Not me, not you, and certainly not Amber,” So they were talking about me. Great, that was just great.

“You saw what happened back with the Enclave right?” Brisk asked. “She had her gun pointed right at that bastards head and then she just let him go. That kind of mindset is going to get her killed. Hell, it did almost get us killed,” He sounded frustrated. I thought back to the fight with the Enclave. If I had pulled the trigger, could we have won? Would we not have needed to run away and fight that glowing ghoul?

“It is her virtue,” Xayah answered simply. “A powerful virtue, one the wasteland needs. Of course it is also the hardest to hold onto, and in many ways, that makes it the most dangerous.”

“Virtue?” Brisk asked. I could hear him sit up a little on his stone bed. “What do you mean by virtue?”

“A Virtue is something that everypony has. It is a piece of themselves that they can hold onto to remain sane in the wasteland,” Xayah explained. “Losing it can be catastrophic to your psyche, as you can see with the raiders. Though if you can hold onto it, then you can beat the wasteland.”

“What is Ambers virtue then?” Brisk pushed. I was very interested to hear that myself.

Xayah gave a small cough. “It is not exactly my place to say. That is up the Amber and Amber alone. But if I had to guess, I would put my caps on morality.”

“Morality?” Brisk continued. “As in knowing right from wrong or whatever?” From the silence that followed his question, I assumed Xayah nodded. “How is that a virtue?”

“It’s perhaps the most important virtue in the wasteland,” Xayah stated bluntly. “It's the virtue that the wasteland lacks the most and it's the corrupted version of this virtue that created the wasteland in the first place.”

Brisk gave a long sigh. “I suppose it was the corrupted version of this virtue that we saw today?” Brisk guessed. Saw that today? What the hell did he mean?

I heard Brisk stand up and begin pacing around his cell again. There was another silence from Xayah, so I assumed she nodded again. “Today we saw morality at its worst, both with the lack of it with the raiders and the overabundance of it with Amber. We now know first hoof what happens when her virtue overtakes her...”

“She completely loses control,” Brisk finished with a grunt. I had no idea what they were talking about at this point. Had I done something back with the raiders? Something so moral my friends needed to hide it from me? And hadn’t I been knocked out at the time? There must be a lot more to the story than they weren’t telling me.

After a few seconds of silence, Brisks voice spoke up again. “What do you think my virtue is?” He asked curiously.

“Hard to say,” Xayah stated. “Perhaps adventure or freedom. I would assume the latter.”

“And yours?”

There was another long pause. “I don’t know what my virtue is,” Xayah finally admitted. “There are many things I am good at, though very few I excel in. It's possible my virtue is resilience, though due to recent events I find that unlikely. Ambers virtue is more clear than most, as it actively affects how she interacts with the wasteland.”

I could hear Brisk fidgeting in his cell. “Uh, hey Xayah?”

“Yes?”

Brisk stumbled for words for a second. “Do… do you think that Amber… Well do you think she likes me?” I froze. Shit! Please tell me I wasn’t that transparent with my crush for Brisk. From the silence, I could tell that Xayah had frozen too.

“Well, uh…” Xayah searched for the right thing to say. Damn it Xayah, don’t you dare tell him my secret. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean… I don’t think she likes me and stuff. I’ve kind messed up a couple times and… I really don’t want her to leave me,” Brisk sputtered. “I don’t think she flat out hates me or anything, but I don’t think she wants to be my friend either.”

I let out a small sigh of relief. He didn’t know yet. Thank Celestia.

Xayah gave him a sad chuckle. “Do not worry Brisk, I can assure you that she does in fact like you.”

Brisk fidgeted in his spot for a bit before returning to his bed. “I don’t know. The first night out of the Stable we were attacked by two bandits. They were fairly inexperienced, lucky us, but we managed to disarm them and could have left them alive.”

“But you killed them,” Xayah said for him. “You told me this story when we first met.”

Brisk nodded. “Yeah, but I didn’t tell you about how Amber felt about that.”

Xayah gave a small laugh. “Knowing her, not very well.”

“If that ain't the understatement of the year,” Brisk agreed with a chuckle. “She told me, and I quote. We are not raiders. I thought she was being stupid at the time, but… I can’t stop thinking about that. Where does the line between us and raiders start and end?”

“That is likely Ambers morality speaking. She has a clear sense of what is right and wrong and knows when and where to draw the line. Unfortunately, as proven today, her morality will allow her to push the line to achieve what she deems as the more moral of two evils,” Xayah speculated. “She is able to see past the blood and vulgar visage of raiders and understand that what makes them immortal is not the gore, but the act.”

Brisk groaned. “I only understood like, half of that,” He sighed. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do when she is gone.”

Xayah cocked her head. “Why does she ever need to be gone?”

“Have you not been listening to her?” Brisk snapped. “Once we get that dumb ass program back from the cyber ponies, Amber plans to march back to Stable 25 and live out the rest of her life there.”

“And you are committed to never returning?” Xayah asked.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Brisk nod slowly. “I can’t go back there. The wasteland is where I belong.”

“Why are you really out here Brisk?” Xayah asked cautiously. I heard her move for the first time that conversation. “I don’t think it's just because you crave adventure. No pony just waltzes into the wasteland because they are bored.”

“Well there is a first for everything, right?” Brisk grinned back at her through the darkness. “Do I really need a better reason?”

Xayah just stared at him, her forehooves crossed. I doubted she believed him. To be honest, I was starting to feel like there was more to it that that as well.

The two of them just sat in silence after that. After I figured they weren’t going to pick the conversation up again, I gave out a big yawn and pretended to wake up.

“Mornin’ sleepy head,” Brisk commented, approaching the edge of his cell and peering at me through the bars in the darkness. “Sleep well?”

I grimaced as I remembered the nightmare. “I’ve had worse sleeps?” I lied casually, propping myself up and rubbing an eye with my forehoof. I glanced around the dark room, noticing for the first time that the guard was gone. “Hey, where did the guard go?”

“He left once the lights went out,” Xayah stated. “Though I suspect there will still be a guard outside the door.”

“Do you think they can hear us in here?” I asked quietly, looking towards the door. I could still see the small sliver of golden light peeking out from underneath. Brisk and Xayah exchanged a glance and a shrug. I dropped my voice to a whisper so that only my friends could hear me. “So, how do we escape?”

Again, my friends exchanged a glance. “We have been trying to figure something out. Unfortunately, anything short of telling them where Stable 25 is seems to be improbable,” Brisk grunted.

I rolled that around inside my head. Tell them the location of the Stable? I couldn’t do that… or could I? A plan suddenly started forming in my mind.

“Alright, here is the plan,” I whispered, leaning as far as I could towards them.

“Alright, you win!” I yelled. “I’ll tell you the location of Stable 25! Just let us out!” We waited in anticipation for something to happen. Nothing did. Darn it. “I said I’ll tell you the location!” I screamed again. This time we heard movement outside the door.

The door slid open and a single guard stomped in. As soon as she entered the room, the door behind her slid closed again and the lights above us flickered to life. I had to cover my eyes as I was temporarily blinded by the light.

“Amber stop!” Brisk yelled. “Don’t tell him!” I was impressed by his acting. He didn’t seem to overplay the part as much as I had anticipated, but he did have a small ear twitch that gave away his performance just a little. Nothing an unsuspecting guard would pick up on.

“You would tell me where it is?” The guard asked, almost in surprise.

I nodded. “I just want to get out of here. If giving the location of my Stable will get me out, then I’ll do it.”

“Perfect. Where is it?” The guard ordered, taking a small step closer.

“Come here and I’ll tell you,” I said calmly, beckoning her over with a hoof. Come on, come on! Take the bait damn it!

The guard gave me a weary look, no doubt suspecting some form of foul play. She placed the keys to the cell on a desk next to the door, far out of our reach. Damn, she seemed somewhat competent. The guard took a few steps closer, but still made sure she was out of hoofs reach of me.

I sighed. “You’ll have to come closer than that,” I said, beckoning her to take a few more steps. The guard stood her ground and didn’t step forward.

“I think you can tell me perfectly fine from there,” She stated bluntly. She definitely wasn’t stupid then, I’ll give her that. Guess it was time for some improv.

I took a step back and drew my hoof in the thick layer of dust on the ground. “Alright, well this here is Fort Strong, where we are right now,” I started, making sure that the fictitious map I was drawing was small enough that she couldn’t see it well. The guard craned her neck forward and squinted at the dust through her helmet, but didn’t take a step forwards. “It’s about a days walk from here to Friendship city, where we came from,” I continued, drawing a small line away from my first point and drawing another circle at the end of it in the dust.

“Amber, don’t do it!” Brisk yelled again, thrusting his hoof through the bars. Now he seemed to be hamming it up a little to much. Xayah simply shook her head at me silently. All in all, our performances seemed to be convincing the guard. She took another small step forwards to get a better look at my map.

Alright, just a few more steps.

“From there, there is a long two day trek west,” I stated, drawing a few different lines in a grid like pattern west of where I had claimed Friendship city was. I was just making stuff up at this point. If my memory serves, Stable 25 was south of Friendship City anyway. “And this is where Stable 25 is,” I said, drawing a big X in the dust.

The guard took two more steps forwards looking down at the X I had drawn at the edge of the cage.

Got ya.

I lunged forwards and wrapped my arms around the guards head. She pulled back in surprise, her guard had clearly been down. Good.

I pulled against her, smashing her head into the bars of my cell. She stumbled, but wasn’t down yet. As she slowly began making sense of the situation, I slammed her head against the bars again. Then again. Then again. Finally, the guard dropped unconscious to the floor.

“Prison break! that’s my girl,” Brisk exclaimed proudly, looking at the unconscious guard. “Clearly I’m a bad influence on you.”

I shrugged casually. “I got us out of prison once right? Break out of one, you’ve practically broken out of them all.”

Xayah shook her head. “You two are weird,” she glanced over at the keys to the cells on the far side of the room. “Though it is good to be rid of our guard, a matter of escaping the cells still poses a conundrum.”

I glanced over at the keys, then down at the lock. “Hey Brisk, do you think you could pick this if you had any bobby pin?” I asked.

“But we don’t have any bobby pins. They took all our stuff, remember?” Brisk monotoned.

“But can you pick them?” I asked again, giving him a flat stare. “That’s all I need to know.”

Brisk gave a small laugh and looked at the lock. “Of course I can pick these. The amount of cell doors I have picked in my life is staggeringly high.”

I nodded and bent down to reach the unconscious guards armour. I reached my hooves out of the cell and began fiddling with the lock on the helmet. Finally it popped off with a metallic clink, revealing the head of the red mare inside.

I began disassembling pieces of the helmet. It was a lot harder than it should have been since my reach was limited by how far my hooves could reach through the cage.

“Damn, I wish I still could use magic,” I grunted, pulling off a small piece that had once been the lock holding the helmet in place.

Brisk grunted. “You’re tellin’ me.”

Xayah looked at me curiously. “Amber, what exactly are you doing?” She asked.

I pulled the rest of the lock on the helmet off and watched as a small metal pin dropped out and landed by my hooves on the floor. “Looking for this!” I declared, quickly reattaching the lock to the helmet and holding up the pin.

“And what is that?” Brisk blurted, eyeing the pin. “And how did you know it was in the helmet in the first place?”

“It's a dowel pin,” I chuckled. “They are usually used to align machine components during assembly. I figured that those power suits probably had at least one. Most likely where the helmet met the neck of the armour. Lucky us, this one is extra thin.”

Brisk put a hoof over his face. “Oh sweet Celestia! You are such a nerd!”

I grinned back at him. “I’m a nerd that is going to get us all out of this cell,” I informed him, Tossing him the small dowel pin. He easily caught it in his mouth and began picking the lock. A few seconds later and we were all out of our cages.

“Now we need to figure out a way to get out of this bunker without being caught again,” Xayah stated. Right, that might be a challenge. “Not to mention we should probably find our stuff first,” She continued, gesturing to our lack of saddlebags.

“We could probably wear the guards armour as a disguise,” Brisk suggested, pointing to the still unconscious guard. “And the rest of us could pretend to be your prisoners or whatever.”

I nodded in agreement. “Alright, who’s gonna wear the power armour?” I realised that both Xayah and Brisk were looking at me. “Wait? Why me?”

“Well the armour is meant for a female, so it wont fit me,” Brisk said casually.

“And if I need to speak, my voice will give us away,” Xayah added. I hadn’t considered her voice being much of an issue, but I guess I hadn’t really seen any zebra Steel Rangers.

We quickly removed the power armour from our guard and clamped it over me. I must admit, I felt pretty damn cool wearing it. Then we ran into our first problem.

It had looked as if Elder Cottage Cheese had had his horn surgically removed. Now faced with the task of adorning my head with a power armour helmet, I realised why he might have done that.

“I can’t get the helmet on,” I groaned, rolling the hornless helmet around in my hooves. That might pose a bit of an issue.

“I thought I saw a unicorn Steel Ranger wearing a helmet back when we were fighting the slavers?” Brisk mentioned thoughtfully. “Are there other helmet variance?”

“Not that I have seen before,” Xayah said. “It is possible it is a newer model or a prototype though. If so, there is possibly another one in Fort Strong somewhere.”

Who’s idea was it to only make it possible for Earth Ponies to wear power armour? I wanted to buck whoever that was across the face so hard at this moment.

I sighed. “Alright, you two wait here. I’ll see if I can get myself a helmet I can use,” I grimace, not liking the idea of sneaking through a bunker full of Steel Rangers in plain view.

I walked out into the hallway. It seemed empty enough. One Steel ranger stood at attention a few feet down the hall, but they didn’t seem to have any interest in me.

I walked onwards, following the signs that hung on the walls. Armoury to the left, one read. Perfect. As I approached the armoury, a squad of five Steel Rangers rounded the corner and began walking towards me.

Just act calm Amber. Make it look like you’re supposed to be here and they won’t think anything of it.

I held my head high and stuck my chest out slightly as I walked, never losing stride. An action I had always done every time I had tried to show my father I was more responsible back in the Stable. The Steel Rangers walked past me, unfazed by my presence.

I slipped into the armoury and took in the rows of power armour; enough to equip a small army with. To my disappointment, it seemed as if they were all damaged in some way. Most likely these were getting ready to be repaired instead of being on standby for use.

I spotted what I needed at once, a single power armour helmet sat on a table on the far side of the room. It looked identical to every other helmet with the exception of the metal horn that protruded from the forehead. The visor had a small crack down the middle, but is wasn’t in bad enough condition that I couldn’t use it.

I picked it up and quickly fastened it to my head. An amber HUD popped up on the visor, showing off the armours condition as well as a small geiger counter and an EFS. A seemingly more effective and sleek take on many of the pipbucks functions.

To the left of the room was a pile of junk that the Steel Rangers had collected. I spotted our saddle bags, pipbucks and weapons and quickly retrieved them as well.

Then I spotted something I didn’t recognize. It appeared to be some sort of large gun, though unlike most firearms, it was a long open metal tube with some sort of catapult like mechanism at the back. Beside it sat three glowing spheres, similar to memory orbs, but seemingly more explosive. Interested as to what exactly it was, I threw the gun over my back and carelessly tossed the glowing spheres into my saddlebag.

Then I had to walk back. I walked as quickly as I could down the hallway without seeming too suspicious. More ponies stopped and glanced at me now, most of them eyeing up the large gun I was carrying. None of them seemed to have any interest in stopping me however.

I marched back into the holding cell area and threw the two saddle bags belonging to my friends onto the floor in front of them. “My new helmet and your old stuff secured,” I said gleefully, tapping a hoof on my newly acquired helmet.

Xayah gasped as she spotted the large gun on my back. She pointed to it dramatically. “Where did you get that?” She blurted, her eyes wide.

I grinned. “In the armoury like everything else!” I said, hauling it off my back and examining it closer.

“What is it?” Brisk asked, leaning closer to get a better look at the massive weapon.

“I have no idea,” I admitted, rolling it over in my hooves.

“It’s a Balefire Egg Launcher,” Xayah stated bluntly. Brisk and I raised our eyebrows at her in confusion, asking her to elaborate. She sighed. “It was a devastating weapon developed close to the end of the war that was designed to catapult Balefire eggs at the enemy,” She explained. When we both still looked confused she tried again in simpler terms. “It shoots mini Balefire bombs.”

I dropped the gun in shock. The heavy Balefire Egg launcher landed heavily on the floor with a thud. I gaped at Xayah. “This thing shoot Balefire Bombs!”

Xayah nodded, slowly draping her stealth cloak over her shoulders. Brisk grinned. “Well I guess we have a way to take out those Cyber Ponies now,” Brisk declared, looking the gun over with more interest than before. “Promise I can shoot it once?”

I just stared at him. “Really? You find out this thing shoot Balefire Bombs and you want to shoot one?” He just nodded eagerly at me in response. I groaned. Of course he did.

After we had locked our old guard up in my old cell we moved into the hallway. Xayah had turned herself invisible to avoid detection and Brisk had kept his magic reduction ring over his horn to make him look more like a prisoner. Not that he really needed magic anyway. I walked a step behind him, my shotgun trained on his back.

“Do you really need to point your gun at me?” He whispered after we had passed a few Steel Rangers. “It’s kinda embarrassing.”

“We gotta make this look authentic,” I muttered, pushing him forwards with my gun. Brisk grumbled but didn’t complain anymore.

We were almost to the exit when a familiar booming voice sounded from behind us. “And where do you think you are going with that prisoner?” Iron Hock demanded, Stepping towards us. His Dark purple armour seemed darker and more intimidating in the harsh light of Fort Strong. “Please report.”

I tried to stand as tall and straight as possible and turned to face him. “Uh… Elder Cottage Cheese has requested to talk to the green one,” I responded in as deep a voice as I could fake.

Iron Hock approached me and looked me over. “Really?” I nodded quickly. “Elder Cottage Cheese’s office is the other direction,” He deadpanned, his eyes flicking back and forth between Brisk and I.

I looked around, hoping for some way out. I didn’t see one. “Oh… sorry. Must have gotten lost,” I said quickly, hoping that would be enough to get the senior paladin to back off. It wasn’t.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you around before, you must be new here,” Iron Hock snarled. “What contingent are you from?”

“I… uh…” Well shit! That wasn’t something I could talk my way out off. What other places were there in the Wasteland? Canterlot? To mainstream. What was that place Watcher had briefly mentioned? “I’m uh… From the hoof.”

Iron Hock cocked his head. “The hoof? Dangerous place. Who is your commanding officer?” Damn it, he really needed to stop asking questions.

My eyes darted around the room. What is a Steel Ranger name… My eyes landed on the metal window looking out into the rainy weather outside. “He was uh… Steel rain…” I said slowly. Please work!

Iron Hock reacted with surprise. “Steel Rain!”

I scratched the back of his head. “Yeah… Uh, you might not have heard of him, I don't know-”

“Steel Rain is pinnacle of what all Steel Rangers should strive to be! He is a true visionary. Once the rest of the Steel Rangers understand what power we have at our hooves, We might be able to finally control the damn wasteland and bring order to it!” Iron Hock Exclaimed, placing a metal clad hoof over his chest. “That pony is an inspiration to us all!”

I chuckled nervously. “Heh, yeah. He is pretty great. And order to the wasteland! It could use some of that.”

Iron Hock gave a stomp of agreement. “The ponies of the wasteland have proven they will not bow willingly to us. We will have to take it by force and bring justice to those who would defy us the right to do so!”

Iron Hock’s ideals were beginning to make me uneasy. Conquest of the Wasteland? That didn’t sound like order to me, it sounded like the beginning of a war.

“I won’t hold you any longer,” Iron Hock soothed, lowering his hoof and stepping past me. “Ad Victoriam!”

I put my hoof to my chest in the same manner I had seen him do only seconds before. “Uh… Ad Victoriam!”

Brisk and I began marching towards the door again. Iron Hock coughed, making us turn. He pointed towards the hallway he had indicated earlier. “Elder Cottage Cheese’s office is that direction. And make sure you fix your helmet, it is cracked.”

I nodded. “Sorry, thank you Paladin. Will do.”

We quickly changed directions and walked down the hallway he was suggesting. As soon as we were sure Iron Hock was gone, we doubled back and continued to the exit.

“Is he crazy?” Brisk whispered to me as we slowly neared the exit of Fort Strong. “Taking over the wasteland to bring order? Bringing justice to those that oppose? He’s mad!”

I hushed him quickly. “You don’t need to tell me. Hopefully he doesn’t get the chance to do any of that.”

As we exited the base we were stopped by another Steel Ranger in full power armour. He extended a hoof to us as we approached. “Hault, please state your name and identification number,” The guard ordered, lowering his hoof back to his side. He glanced over at Brisk. “And please elaborate on why you are removing a prisoner from the premises?”

Before anypony could do anything, a tip of a sniper appeared pressed against the guards head. I could see the small shimmer of light that was Xayah under her stealth cloak standing behind the guard. My zebra friend leaned close and whispered in the guards ear so quietly I had trouble hearing it myself.

“You are going to pretend everything is normal and let us pass,” Xayah whispered. “Or I blow your brains out.”

The guard nodded. He looked around for a second before finally straightening up. “Alright, everything seems to be in order here,” He glanced nervously behind him, but he couldn’t see anything. “You are free to go!”

I gave him a grateful nod and pushed Brisk out of the building and into the barren Manehattan street. Night had fallen and I could see the final cracks of sun peaking through the cloud layer far off on the horizon. Shortly after we had left Fort Strong, I spotted the guard running away from the scene as fast as he could out of the corner of my eye.

“We should probably get out of here,” I said, picking up my pace and finally aiming my gun away from Brisk.

Xayah threw off her hood and came back into view beside me. “Agreed, it is hard to say how long it will be before they send Rangers after us. And I don’t take Iron Hock as one who takes deception well.”

I looked off into the distance where the Ponypalooza hotel lay. It seemed closer than it ever had before. It wouldn’t be long now, we were almost there.

The final stretch to the Ponypalooza hotel was seemingly empty. The only thing on our EFS was the occasional Radroach or bloatfly. We did run across a bunch of blasted appar ghoul corpses, a clear sign we were on the right track and the cyber ponies weren’t far away.

The heavy rain that had accompanied our walk the day before had died down to a slow drizzle. Small droplets of rain rolled down the cracked glass of the visor on my power armour helmet, slightly obscuring my view of the road ahead of us.

The looming hotel in the distance was growing at an alarming rate. The closer I got, the more I wanted to run and hide. I was starting to realize how truly horrified of those cyber ponies I really was.

So when somepony snuck up behind me and pointed the barrel of their gun at my head, I almost jumped right out of my skin.

“Y'all came to the wrong part of Manehattan,” A low voice growled at us. “We don’t take kindly to Steel Rangers round here.”

I slowly turned to face the pony who was talking to me. It wasn’t a pony at all, but rather a family of ponies. Each one of them armed with some sort of makeshift pipe weapon. Closest to me was a brown earth pony buck who had pushed a shotgun up into my face.

I awkwardly raised my hooves over my head in surrender. Brisk and Xayah did the same as guns were pointed at them as well.

“We aren’t Steel Rangers,” I said calmly, slowly lowering my hooves back down.

The pony holding a shotgun to my face snorted. “A likely story!” He spat at the ground in front of me. “You want to explain what you are doing with all that firepower and a suit of power armour with the Steel Ranger logo on it?” He demanded, shaking his shotgun with more vigor.

“We just escaped Fort Strong,” Brisk pitched in. “We were being held prisoners there, used the power armour to escape.”

The ponies glanced around each other, seemingly weighing how good our word was. They seemed to all come to some sort of silent agreement because the brown pony lowered his shotgun a little.

“Alright, I’ll give y’all the benefit of the doubt, long as ya get out of that fancy armour of yours,” He said, taking a small step back. The rest of the ponies kept their weapons drawn and aimed.

“Yeah, no problem,” I said eagerly. I didn’t really enjoy wearing power armour anyway. It felt clunky and slowed me down too much. Then I frowned. “Uh, Could you guys help me out of it?” I asked turning to Brisk and Xayah. “I don’t really know how.”

Brisk groaned, but joined Xayah as she started unlatching the metal suit around me. The group of ponies seemed to relax as they watched my clumsy display of stumbling out of my power armour and landing on my face.

The brown buck laughed. “Ah, these three aint no Steel Rangers!” He turned back to the ponies. “Its alright folks, they’re fine,” The ponies all began putting their guns away with a sigh of relief. I realised that none of them had any desire to fight us.

“Why do you hate the Steel Rangers so much?” Xayah asked, taking a step forward after she had finished pulling me out of the suit of power armour. “They rarely have malicious intentions towards ponies?”

The brown buck scoffed. “They do if you got somethin’ they want! Those metal freaks might act all civilized, but deep down they aint no better than raiders!” I could believe that, especially if Iron Hock was involved. The brown buck’s face split into a small grin. “Well if y’all aint friends with the Rangers, then y’all are friends with us. Come on, lets get ya some grub.”

I couldn’t argue with that idea. My stomach was growling just at the thought of food. When had I eaten last? Was it those cookies Xayah had made? That was what? Twenty four hours ago? I nodded and followed him as he led us towards their camp.

Brisk stopped me. “Shouldn’t we get going? Who knows how long it will be until those cyber ponies head back to Stable 25? Assuming they haven’t started heading back already,” he said in a hushed tone.

I glanced at the ponypalooza hotel in the distance. We were so close, we couldn’t afford to get sidetracked now. I sighed. Food would have to wait. “Alright, lets deal with the cyber ponies first.”

A small grey and black foal beside us looked up at me in surprise. “You three are looking for some cyber ponies!?” the whole crowd of ponies stopped and turned to us in shock.

“Uh… yes?” I stammered not sure how to react.

The foal turned to the Brown Buck. “Do you think it's the cyber ponies we saw daddy?” they had seen the cyber ponies?!

The Brown buck looked as us sceptically? “You three aint lookin’ for four metal freaks round the Fetlock area are ye?”

I exchanged a few nervous glances with my friends. We returned our gaze to the stallion and each gave a timid nod. “Yeah, have you seen them?” I said. “We think they’re heading to the Ponypalooza Hotel.”

The group of ponies looked around at each other. A grey unicorn mare stepped forwards. “We saw them a few hours ago. But they weren’t heading to that old hotel.”

My heart stopped. Please don't tell me they were on their way to Stable 25! I had to force myself to get the next sentence out. “Where were they heading?” my voice cracked as I spoke.

The Brown buck cleared his throat. “Fetlock by the look of it,” Oh thank the goddesses. “Had some strange oblong device with em.”

So they hadn’t given it to whoever had asked them to retrieve it yet. That was… confusing.

“Why do you think they are heading there?” Brisk asked, giving me a concerned look. “A change of plan or something?” I shrugged in response.

“Well I can’t tell you that,” The brown buck stated. “But I think they still can.”

“What do you mean by they still can?” Xayah questioned sceptically.

“Follow me and I’ll so ya,” The buck grinned, turning back and continuing to lead us in the direction he had before. “It’s just past our camp here.”

The group led us through their small camp that was situated in the middle of the street between two somewhat sturdy looking skyscrapers. Compared to settlements like Friendship City or even Fort Strong this camp was small. It consisted of five tents and a large bonfire located in the middle of the camp. A few ponies stood guard around the outskirts of the camp, but it was hardly enough protection to last against most of the threats I had stumbled across in the wasteland.

“So what’s your name?” I asked the brown buck as we walked through the camp.

“Names Dusty,” The buck said with a smirk. “And this here is my son Scrapper,” He said, gesturing to the grey and black foal that had spoken up earlier. Scrapper gave us a polite wave before darting off to join a small group of other foals. “I’m the mayor of this town. It ain't much, but I do what I can to keep these ponies safe from the dangers of the wasteland.”

“Must not be easy,” Xayah chimed in. “Manehattan isn’t the most hospitable place for small groups.”

Dusty grunted. “You got that right. But not all of us are rich enough to get into that fancy smancy Tenpony Tower,” He gritted his teeth at the mentioned the tower. “We don’t usually need to deal with much more than Radroaches and the occasional ghoul, but lately the fuckin’ Steel Rangers have been stompin’ ‘round with a bigger stick up their metal ass than normal.”

“Any idea what’s going on with them?” I asked. “There must be some reason they are acting like that all of a sudden.”

Dusty shrugged. “Who knows. I ain't one to pay attention to politics. Rumor has it their forces are runnin’ a little thinner than usual. Couple of select rangers have been questioning the rangers way of life or some shit, leadin’ to them actin’ lot more rash than usual.”

Dusty lead us to a large multi floor building that looked as if had once been some form of shopping mall. Most of the left side of the structure had collapsed and sunken into a sinkhole, causing the whole building to look warped and crooked. A large sign hung over the door, though due to years of rust and corrosion, it had become near impossible to read.

Dusty stopped as we reached the entrance. “This here is as far as I’ll take you,” Dust grunted. “Thing is damaged and not much of a threat anymore, but I don’t want to risk it. Not with all those ponies back there still needin’ my help.”

I gave him a small smile. “Thanks. We appreciate the help,” I turned to my friends. “You two ready?”

Brisk gave a small gulp. “If I die, I’ma gonna come back and haunt all of you.”

I grinned. “Do me a favor and don’t die. Got it?”

The abandoned mall was eerie to say the least. Dark blood was splattered across the cracked dust covered walls and the floors had been scored with a multitude of scorch marks. Abandoned shops had been trashed or looted, leaving piles of junk scattered across the floor. The whole building was slanted at and awkward angle, making it difficult to move very fast.

There were also skeletons everywhere. In the shops, in the hallways, even a couple hanging from the roof. Most of them were old, no doubt caused by the apocalypse two hundred years ago, though there were a couple of more recent corpses that filled the mall with a pungent stench.

As we trotted deeper into the mall we began to uncover a different kind of corpse as well. There were multiple corpses belonging to large bipedal hound like creatures littering the floor. They had massive sharp claws, clearly indicated by the huge claw marks that had been gouged into the walls. Most of them had been blasted open with some form of powerful energy weapon, while other lay in mutilated piles. A few of the bodies had even been burned to the bone, leaving nothing but a charred black skeleton.

They weren’t ponies, but the scene reminded me an awful lot like my nightmare.

“Hellhounds,” Xayah muttered, making sure she was as far away from the mutant dogs as possible. So these were the hellhounds I had heard ponies mention off. Xayah had been right, they didn’t look like very good singers.

“The cyber ponies did this,” I said bluntly, looking at the scorch marks on the wall. “They were definitely here.”

A dark mechanical chuckle slowly filled the hall around us. All my hairs stood on end as the chuckle morphed into a deep manic laugh. In the darkness of the tunnel we could see something moving just beyond our sight. It was low to the ground and slow, but it was definitely made of metal.

“Oh we were here,” The metallic voice cackled. I shone my pipbuck light in the direction of the voice and took in the cyber pony.

It wasn’t the cyber alicorn, but rather the cyber pony who sported two magical laser weapons on each side. From what little of his old coat remained, I could tell he had once been a dark green. Very similar in colour to Brisk. I didn’t know much about this one, as he never seemed to talk as much as the other three. Granted, I didn’t really know anything about any of them.

The cyber pony wasn’t looking his best either. The back half of his body had been completely removed, laying a few feet away from his front. He was slowly dragging himself across the floor towards us, his backside trailing a mix of wires and intestines mixed with some weird black fluid. The metal plating that covered most of his body had been dented and his face had been burned away, revealing a metal skull with bits of exposed brain.

I could see bits of the cyber pony slowly reforming, fixing and patching many of the smaller injuries. Whatever parts of him had once been organic seemed to have healed the fastest, only a few bleeding wounds on his coat were visible. A few wires were trying to reattach his back half, but they seemed unsuccessful.

The cyber pony laughed again, slowly inching itself closer to us. It was a pained laugh. “Well if it isn’t the Stable dweller that let us in!” The metal monstrosity grinned. “Crank thought you’d be to scared to run after us! Guess he was wrong!”

“What the fuck happened ot you,” I asked, cautiously stepping towards the cyber pony. I noted that while he didn’t have his back half, his laser weapons were still very much intact.

The cyber pony snarled. “Hellhounds! Treason! Take your pick! Doesn’t matter to me!” He barked, a few sparks flying from the top of his head as he did.

“It looks like you freaks took care of the hellhounds fine,” Brisk mocked. “My bet is your buddies left you here for dead,” The cyber pony growled at him as Brisk spoke.

Xayah shrunk back. “I think it foolish to antagonize the thing with big laser weapons,” She squealed, taking a small step behind me and peering around my flank to look at the cyber pony.

I could agree with that sentiment. “Where is the A.A.S.S? I asked, taking another cautious step closer. “And the other cyber ponies?”

The cyber pony grinned again, showing off rows of metal shark like teeth. “Come over here and I’ll tell you?”

I froze. Well didn’t this seem all to familiar. “I’m sure you can tell me from there,” I deadpanned, taking a small step back.

The cyber pony snarled again and pulled itself closer on its broken front legs. “Then I’m not telling you anything,” It growled, its bulb like eyes glowing a flickering red.

Then I spotted it. It was small and had faded over the years, but I had seen it enough times throughout my life that I recognised it the second my eyes landed upon it. Right where the cyber ponies head connected to its neck was a tiny Stable-Tec symbol.

The cyber ponies were Stable-Tec! Or at least built out of parts made by Stable-Tec. I recalled the the call I had gotten from Stable-Tec only seconds before the cyber ponies showed up. That connected a few dots at least, but didn’t even come close to explaining everything.

But if they had Stable-Tec parts in them, then there was a good chance that they worked similar to other Stable-Tec machines. And I knew my Stable-Tec machines.

I grinned ear to ear. “This is your last chance to tell us where they are,” I said confidently. It felt weird being as confident as I was. “I’m finding out whether or not you choose to tell me.”

The cyber ponies face turned into a scowl. “Then you’ll have to figure it out on your own,” He hissed. I could see his tongue through his metal teeth, one of the only parts of him that didn’t seem to be made of metal.

I turned to Brisk. “Can I borrow your machete please?” The cyber ponies eyes widened in both fear and confusion.

Brisk wordlessly passed over his blade, raising his eyebrow slightly at me. I took it in my mouth and slowly approached the broken cyber pony. Xayah and Brisk kept their guns out and pointed at the cyber pony as I drew closer to it.

The cyber pony glared at the machete, his eyes locked onto its serrated edge. My eyes found his laser guns. They were slowly charging up. I wasn’t surprised.

Whether the cyber pony was faking how damaged he was or adrenalin had simply kicked in I can't be sure, but the second I drew within range he lunged at me with a speed comparable only by a bullet. He slammed into me, knocking the machete from my mouth and clattering across the floor.

I really needed to hold onto my weapons better.

I stumbled back as the full force of the cyber pony slammed into me. Xayah and Brisk fired their weapons, but they both missed the speeding target as it lunged on top of me and pinned me down with its two remaining hooves.

I brought Boneless out and aimed up at the cyber ponies head. He was faster, his mechanical laser weapons swiveling at his side and blasting my weapon out of my mouth. I managed to kick up with my back hooves, pushing the cyber pony off of me as I scrambled to retrieve my weapon.

Xayah fired again, but this time her shot landed. Her sniper tore through the cyber ponies side, spraying the wall with blood and that strange black fluid. Almost instantly, the hole in the cyber ponies side healed itself, metal chunks quickly forming overtop of the gaping wound.

I hated enemies that could regenerate. It was even more unfair than enemies that could fly.

The cyber pony blasted at Xayah with his lasers. The black and white zebra dodged and flickered out of view narrowly avoiding being turned to ash.

I pulled myself back to my hooves and watched as the raging cyber pony launched himself at Brisk. Brisk dodged the attack, but failed to evade a second attack as the cyber pony whipped back around and lashed at him with his metal hooves. Brisk fell backwards, crashing to the ground clutching his face.

I raised boneless and fired. The explosive shells burst open and sprayed the cyber pony with shrapnel. It whirled around and blasted at me, the powerful lasers only missing by inches as I dropped to the ground and rolled out of the way.

Brisk popped a buck into his mouth and pulled himself back to his hooves. He raised his pistol and fired at the cyber pony, or at least he would have had he not found himself on an empty chamber.

“Shit,” He muttered, pulling the trigger on his gun a few more times to make sure that it was actually empty.

The cyber pony grinned and rushed towards him, scuttling forward on its two legs. His laser weapons fired again, this time one of the shots blowing off one of Brisks ears.

Brisk screamed as his ear was burned away, leaving a bloody oozing stump where it had once been. He clutched at his ear with his hoof, trying to stop the blood flow. A second shot blasted him in the face, ripping away much of the flesh on his face and making one eye burst open with a shower of yellow fluid.

The cyber pony pounced on him, pinning him to the floor and screaming into his face. The cyber ponies metal hooves pushed down on Brisk chest. I could hear snapping as his ribcage was slowly crushed.

I yelled something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Xayah flickered back into view as she lunged at the cyber pony, but once again they cyber pony proved to be faster than us. Its weapons swiveled to meet her, blasting at her hooves and making her stumble away into the darkness.

Brisk lashed his hooves against the cyber pony in desperation as the metal hooves stomped down on him again. He tried to scream but his voice was obscured by the gurgling of blood. The cyber pony placed a hoof over Brisk’s throat and began pushing down, slowly crushing his windpipe. The cyber pony turned its vile head to look at me, its malicious jagged smile oozing with black sludge.

I charged forwards, swiping Brisk machete up off the ground. I was filled with anger, fear, hatred. My whole body felt cold. I couldn’t lose Brisk. Not now! Please goddesses not now!

The cyber pony blasted at me again with its lasers, the shots burning into my hide and leaving large burn marks across my front, but I didn’t care. I continued charging, ignoring the pain as the cyber pony fired another laser into my chest.

I aimed the machete at the cyber pony as I neared. The serrated blade pierced a gap in the armour plating on the cyber ponies neck that showed off its matted green coat. Blood spewed from the wound in its neck as it thrashed about, trying in vain to dislodge the blade from its throat.

I pushed him off of Brisk as the cyber pony spasmed. He crashed into the walls, clawing at his neck and trying to regain some form of composure. I sure as fucking hell wasn’t going to let this monster do that!

I leapt on top of him and began bashing my hooves against his metal skull. Wherever metal he was made of seemed to hard to damage, so I took a different approach. I ripped the machete out of his neck with my mouth and began jabbing it in every area of his body that wasn’t covered in metal. I didn’t care if my virtue was morality or not. This bastard was going to suffer for hurting Brisk.

The cyber pony flailed his metal hooves against my sides, desperate for an escape. I didn’t budge. I kept stabbing into him, ripping out what little bits of pony were left in the monster. I was soaked in blood, but I couldn’t tell if it was his or my own anymore. It was all the same to me. My life didn’t matter at this moment, only Brisk’s.

I reared the machete up and brought it down as hard as I could against the cyber ponies neck. There was a snap and both the monsters neck and the machete shattered. The cyber ponies head popped off and rolled a few feet away from us. At last the thrashing body of the cyber pony went still.

One down. Three to go.

I turned and looked at Brisk. Half his face was gone and his throat was covered in a dark purple bruise. His chest had been caved in, but he was still breathing slow and pained breaths. Blood was spilling from his body fast. Really damn fast.

Xayah sat next to him, doing her best to stop the bleeding. But she could only attend to one spot at once, she couldn’t stop it all or fix the shattered rib cage and crushed windpipe. She looked up at me, her eyes filled with a horror that I had never seen on her before.

No! We can't lose him! Please!

I turned back to the ruined body of the cyber pony. He had been regenerating most of the damage on his body, but that wasn’t just some high tech machine, he had been healing organic matter as well.

I pulled out my red screwdriver and began pulling apart the metal plating on the body. With each movement I found myself struggling to keep focus. My head was spinning and I was starting to feel the burning sensation in my chest where I had been struck with multiple blasts of the cyber ponies laser weapons. Glancing down I could see fountains of blood spilling from my chest.

I’d have to work fast.

At last I found a metal compartment near the Cyber ponies synthetic heart. Propping it open I saw multiple tubes pumping different chems into the veins and throughout the body. I spotted the one I had been looking for. Hydra!

I hauled the body of the cyber pony over to Brisk. Ripping out the tube pumping hydra and placing it in his mouth, letting the chems flow down Brisk crushed throat. Xayah and I watched in utter amazement as skin began reforming over his face and his ribs painfully popped back into place with a loud snap. His breathing slowly returned to normal as his throat reshaped itself.

Then we ran out of Hydra. Fuck!

Most of the lethal damage had stopped, but much of the bleeding continued. I tried to rise but a shooting pain erupted in my chest and caused me to fall pathetically to the floor.

“Get... healing… potions,” I grunted to Xayah, trying in vain to push myself back up again.

“We are all out,” Xayah said in a panic. “We used them all on me back with the raiders!” I briefly remembered having that conversation.

I shook my head. “Then find some,” Xayah nodded and darted away into the darkness of the mall.

I looked down at my chest. Three large holes had opened up, pumping hot blood out of my body. We were both losing blood fast!

I placed a hoof over my chest in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding and dared to glance over at Brisk. Even after the hydra, he wasn’t doing well. Most of the fur on the left side of his face was burned away, revealing the soft pink skin underneath. His eye hadn’t reformed perfectly, looking more like a goopy blob than an actual eye and his chest was still pumping blood where the cyber ponies hooves had ripped open his flesh.

I took my hoof off of my chest and rolled closer to him. I applied pressure to the gaping hole in his torso with both my hooves, drenching my coat in his blood.

“It’s going to be okay Brisk. We are going to get you out of this, okay?” Brisk just lay there unconscious, a small stream of blood flowing from his lips. I could feel tears swelling up in my eyes and rolling down my face. A few droplets landed on Brisk’s chest, disappearing into a pool of his blood. His breathing was slowing again, sometimes there would be long periods of time where his chest would simply fail to raise again. I coughed, tasting blood swirl into my mouth. “Please don't die Brisk, come on!”

I could feel myself slowly drifting away in oblivion. I had to fight it! I had to stay awake! For him!

I was slipping. My blood soaked hooves were having a harder time applying pressure to his chest. I bit down on my tongue and tried to keep focus, but it was no good. Everything was slipping away too fast. I found myself lying by Brisk’s side, my hooves wrapped around his hooves.

He wasn’t breathing. Damn it! Breath! But I couldn’t do anything about it. I was too weak to even speak, let alone save his life.

I opened my mouth and tried to get out a word, but I only coughed out blood. I tried again, putting all my willpower into saying just these few words. “Please don’t leave me… I don’t want to be alone,” I coughed up more blood. “Please… I love you.”

Then I was swirling away into darkness. I tried to hold onto my life, but it was spilling onto the floor with the rest of my blood. The light around me had gone out and I found myself drifting away from my body. Nothing hurt anymore. Maybe this would be okay.

My mind flashed with the bloody image of my Stable in ruins. If I died, they would die! I couldn’t let that happen. Then I saw Brisk and I lying broken on the floor below me and I screamed.

Footnote: level up.
New perk: Mysterious stranger -- You have gained the attention of a mysterious stranger who will appear from time to time. If your ally is lost in combat, do not expect him or her to be replaced
Quest Perk added: Power Armour training - You can now wear and use power armour.

Author's Notes:

Sorry, not sorry.

As always, thanks to Kkat for creating Fallout Equestria and thanks to Somber for Project horizons.

I just got a new computer as my last one was over 23 years old. hopefully, that will help me get chapters out a little bit faster than normal. (I swear the next chapter won't be so long)

I hope you all enjoyed and have a lovely day!