Dandelion levitated another folded piece of paper out of the bag before her. Around us everypony watched as we were randomly sorted into teams.

“Clef.” The pale brown buck took his place next to Smoking, Seafire and Tungsten. Ripsaw and I had already been drawn together onto their team. Helix was still waiting nervously to be placed in a team. I metaphorically had my fore hooves crossed.

Dandelion levitated a second page “Blue Shell” The rich blue unicorn joined Aramid’s team.

“Jewel”. “Foxglove.” Dandelion watched anxiously as her eldest daughter joined my group.

“Solitaire.” “Bishop” “Stave.” He grinned as he moved to join his best friend.

“Pastel.” “Arkose.” “Helix.” I accidentally let out a little ‘squee’ of delight as she moved to my side.

“Talus” “Umbra.” “That’s it everypony.” Dandelion finished.

“Thank you.” Smoking turned to address the other two teams. “Now I know that you wouldn’t have volunteered to join unless you wanted to go outside, but one team has to stay behind to safeguard everyone else. So Dandelion, if you would please.”

Dandelion presented the bag again to Smoking. He reached in and pulled out another piece of paper. I held it up for us all to see. It read ‘North’. We were going out.

Next Aramid levitated out a scrap. He held it up to reveal the word ‘South’.

“And to prove it wasn’t rigged...’ Smoking commented as Monel reached in. She drew out the final sheet which read ‘Safeguard’.

While Smoking, Tungsten and Seafire were all checking their weapons and pulling on their security barding, I was reorganising my saddle bags, taking out all of the random items I had brought with me and repacking it with the extra medical supplies and food. I dropped one of the items on my hoof. Cursing I looked down at what had impacted my now throbbing hoof. It was the box that Arc had sent to me. I picked it up curiously yet also feeling heartbroken that the poor old buck had been left to die in the stable.

Well I was definitely outside the stable now. I opened it and gasped. Inside, nestled in a soft foam lining, was another memory orb and what looked not entirely unlike a pistol. It had the same kind of pistol like shape, a mouth grip, a trigger and a slot where I assumed the ammo went. But everything else about it was alien to me. The barrel was split into two tall rectangles with a small gap between them which was filled with angular blue gems. The trigger was just a button and the slot for the ammunition had three small metal contacts on the edges. Where on earth did Arc get something like this?

“Ummm, Fran. What in Equestria is that?” Helix asked, peering over my shoulder. Then she spotted the box. “Is that what Arc gave you?”

“Yeah. And another memory orb too.” I said, floating the box to her. She carefully removed the memory orb and set it aside.

“There is more in here.” She lifted the layer of foam and pulled out three small metal boxes. I spotted the same three contacts along the edge as on the gun and gentle blue glow emanating from three slots in the side of each box that matched the colour of the gems in the barrel. I smiled slightly; ammo.

“What you got there?” Seafire trotted over as she levitated her gun back into her holster.

The main reason I knew Seafire was because every buck wanted to get her as their breeding partner. Big, soft blue eyes, a perfectly white coat and a fiery orange and red mane with a perfectly proportioned horn, she was hot; yeah that is the only word to describe her. My little pony drooled after her everytime she walked past, but she was one of the few mares who didn’t want to take a female partner. As a result she had never been bedded by anyone, so far as I knew. In a way I was kind of glad, I didn’t want to imagine her being taken by some pony, it was like she would be tainted if it ever happened. I liked to imagine her as this perfect being that everyone should look up to, like the princesses in a way. She was kind, caring but she wasn’t afraid to make difficult calls or put her hoof down hard if some pony stepped out of line. Her cutie mark was the head of a white eagle breathing blue fire; beautiful, caring, powerful and dangerous.

Somewhere in that thought pattern I must have stepped out of line as I received a rather hard hit to the head snapping me back to reality. “Hey, my face is over here.” I flushed red as Seafire looked half amused and half resigned to the fact that another pony had joined her very long list of admirers, and flank gazers “Now that we’re back to the present, what’ve you got there?” She looked quizzically at the object in my telekinetic grasp.

“A gun, I think.” I let her take it from me with her own horn. “There are these as well. I think they’re the ammunition. Or power for it; they look more like batteries than bullets.” I passed her one of the three glowing metal cartridges. She examined the whole of the pistol minutely with the occasional ‘hmmm’ or ‘ahhh’.

“Do you mind?” She made to load one of the cartridges into the back of the gun.

I nodded at her. “Go ahead. You know more about this kind of thing than I do.” Seafire slipped home the glowing box and the gun hummed into life. The gems along the barrel area lit up with the same blue glow as the cartridge and some kind of gauge lit up along the top of the gun. The white mare raised her eyebrow and gave an approving ‘hmmm’.

”Do you want to fire it first?” she asked, holding the gun out to me.

“Ummm, no. For one, you’re the arms expert, not me, and two, I’d probably do something wrong.” I didn’t quite know what to make of this ‘gift’.

Seafire aimed into the closest empty corner of the warehouse and sighted up a shot. “Firing in three…” I took a step back. “Two…” I put my hoofs over my ears. “One…” I gulped.

The gun let off a flash of blue light and made a kind of ‘zouch’ noise. A bolt of blue energy shot out from between the two rectangular barrels so quickly I could barely see it. The point on the wall where it impacted glowed electric blue for a fraction of a second before exploding outwards, showering us with tiny pieces of concrete and leaving a good hoof sized hole in the wall. My little pony gave an identical approving ‘Hmmm’ to Seafire

“What was that!” Smoking and Tungsten rushed over. “Seafire, where’d you get that.” Smoking barked.

“It’s mine.” I held up a tentative hoof. Smoking rounded on me.

“And just where did it come from?” He glared at me. The whole room was looking at me now.

“Arc gave it to me.” I floated up the black box.

“Arc?” Smoking suddenly looked confused. “The old buck in maintenance. The one that used to do all the welding and metal repair work?”

“Yes. He had Tungsten bring it over while the curfew was in effect.”

Smoking looked round at him. “What do you know about this?” he asked. Tungsten just shrugged. He turned back to Seafire who, though worried about the fact she had gotten herself and me into trouble, was definitely impressed my new pistol… laser gun… thing. “What made you think it was a good idea to fire it inside.” He asked her shaking his head. “It could have done anything.”

“I took stock of where I was shooting, don’t worry.” Seafire replied waving a hoof. “And it’s only powered by spark batteries.” She hoofed him one. “They are designed for low power pistols and rifles so it wasn’t exactly going to blow a hole through the wall.”

“But it made a good go at it.” Tungsten said, examining the hole. “I can get my whole hoof in here.” He put his eye right up to it. “I think I can see daylight,” he said sarcastically. His mood had picked up dramatically now that he had something to do, I just hoped that he wasn’t bottling up all the worry and shock he had been showing up until this point.

Smoking looked a little put out, but seemed to accept the fact that this was probably going to be the least of his worries once we set off into the wastelands. “Just make sure she knows what she’s doing with it. Give her some basic training and pointers before we go.” He waved his hoof and wandered over to where Heather was helping Lavender pack her saddle bags.

I was still curious to know what was in the memory orb. Why would a gun come with one in the first place? It was definitely meant to go in the box, it all was, almost like it had been gift wrapped or a special edition box set or something.

“Nice little piece.” Seafire hoofed the pistol back to me and I took it as carefully as I could; Smoking was right, I really didn’t want to shoot some pony by accident. “The gauge on the top says that one of those energy cells will give you about fifty shots before you have to replace it which is good, our pistols only have twenty round magazines. By the looks of it, that’s the safety there.” She indicated a small push button on the side. “When it’s green it’s safe. When it’s red...” She pushed the little button making it change colour. “… be careful where you point it.” But I was more concerned with the cross that had just appeared in my vision.

“Did you get a cross like thing in your vision when you held it?” I asked her, carefully eyeing the lines and making myself go cross eyed. I tried to wave them away with a hoof but they seemed to be in my vision, not just in front of it.

“What, you’ve never used SATS before?” She asked surprised. “Well I guess you wouldn’t have needed to in maintenance.”

“No there was never a need to shoot anything whilst welding.” I replied. Hang on, “How do you know I was in maintenance?”

“It’s a bit hard to ignore the young mare in maintenance overalls that used to eye me everytime I walked by.” She whispered, smiling and batting her eyelids, making me blush again. “Don’t worry, it was just you and everypony else. I got used to it after I got my cutie mark. Anyway… SATS.”

She sat down next to me and leaned in to show me her PipBuck.

“SATS stands for Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell. It’s built into every three thousand series PipBuck, as well as some of the later two thousand series models. When you trigger it, time slows to a crawl, well from your perspective anyway, allowing you to aim your gun more accurately.” She triggered her own SATS. I barely noticed it but it was like she was thinking ten times faster than normal. Her eyes shuddered as she rapidly looked around the room. She dropped out of it and continued, “You can lock onto targets and line up a series of shots and the spell will help you make each one. It even gives you a percentage of how likely the shot is to hit, based on your position, gun quality and the target you are shooting.”

My mind was reeling. This realisation that the thing I had locked to my leg was more than just a glorified radio and alarm clock was both a shock and annoying. Why hadn't anyone ever told me.

“There are some limits though.” Seafire continued. “The spell only lasts for a limited time and locking onto targets uses it up faster so make sure you use it wisely. It’ll recharge over time and you’ll get better at minimising the amount you need to make each shot, but just make sure you don’t run out at a critical moment in a fight.”

Okay, so not perfect, but still incredibly useful.

“Anything else this thing can do?” I asked, staring at my PipBuck. I knew about the massive quantity of internal storage, the Rad-metre, the alarm clock, the radio, the voice recorder, the message sender, the calendar, the inbuilt light and now SATS. There couldn’t be that much more in there; it wasn’t like it was that big.

“There’s your EFS, or Eyes Forward Sparkle. It tracks creatures within its scanning radius and tells you if they’re hostile to you or not. It’s also got a transmitter so that if you know someone's PipBuck ID number you can track them wherever they go.” Seafire scratched her head. “And I think that’s about it unless you go onto the attachments.”

“Attachments?” I was now scrolling through my PipBucks inbuilt manual in case there was anything she had missed.

“Yeah, the only ones I know of are the StealthBuck, which turns you invisible for a short while, and the SLR Transmitter. Super-Long-Range.” She added, seeing my bemused expression. “It allows you to transmit signals and messages over hundreds of kilometres without the need for relay towers.”

Wow, and to think all I had on here were a few dozen songs and a small collection of books and manuals. But something else was bugging me.

“Seafire. Just one more question.” I asked slowly.

“Yes?”

“Out of all your admirers how come you remembered one sweaty and grubby unicorn in maintenance overalls that you knew, most likely, only liked you for how you looked and not your personality?” I had expected her to look surprised or cross, but instead she gave a very suggestive look, right into my eyes.

“Because that one sweaty and grubby unicorn in maintenance overalls happened to be rather cute with a good pair of flanks. I may never intend to go to bed with another mare, but that doesn’t mean I can’t admire perfection when I see it.”

Gah… but… I…per-what!

I couldn’t think of anything to say as she sauntered away, flicking my flank with her tail as she went, and looking very pleased at the result.

We waited until the next morning before setting out from the warehouse. Dandelion said a teary goodbye to her eldest daughter and then proceeded to give the rest of us a hug as well. Heather said goodbye to Smoking with a simple hug but when I looked back ten seconds later they were engaged in a very passionate kiss. When they finally broke apart, Smoking looked shocked, but Heather looked both impossibly happy and inconsolably sad at the same time; she had mastered ambivalence perfectly.

Lillypad trotted up to Helix and I. She looked happy enough, glad that we were going to get help, but she still looked like she wanted to cry. She looked at us both for a moment before throwing her forelegs around us in a tight hug.

“I want my BSBFF’s to come back in one piece, do you hear me?” She said tearfully into Helix’s mane. “Oh and Fran, you owe me a dance.”

I felt perplexed despite the tenderness of the moment. “Dance?”

“Yeah, you got to my cutecinera after we turned the dance music off. Oh, and you owe Helix a turn behind you in a conga line.”

I laughed. “You’ll get your dance and Helix will get her chance to stare at my flanks, don’t you worry.” We broke apart. The little unicorn looked at us both with teary eyes, smiling from ear to ear.

“Let’s get moving everyone.” I heard Smoking call. “I would ideally like to find civilisation before nightfall.”

Helix and I gave Lillypad one last hug and then, waving at the other remaining residents of stable seventeen, made our way out the door. We turned right fanning out into a ‘V’ formation, Smoking at the front, Seafire and Tungsten on either side with the rest of us trotting along behind. Every pony looked nervous but it seemed there was also a determination radiating from every member of our little group; to do better, to make the most of a bad situation, and to help what little remained of our old home.

The road wound along the side of the lake, trapped between the vast expanse of water and the huge wall of rock to our left. There was almost nothing left of the concrete and tarmac in places; sometimes it had been broken apart by lots of stubby plants or been buried entirely under rock that had slipped from the cliff. Smoking had been right; there were quite a few signs of... not civilisation per se, but certainly recent activity. Hoof prints in the mud, wheel and track marks from wagons and; rather disturbingly, bullet casings. Lots of bullet casings. There were no bodies, at least not yet anyway, but just the sight of so many spent shells sent shivers down my spine.

“Check this one out.” Tungsten lifted up the biggest spent casing we had found yet. “I think it’s a shotgun shell.” He inspected it. “Yeah, a twelve gauge.”

“Why would anyone need that much firepower.” Ambrosia asked. She seemed to be handling herself fine but she always had a look of worry on her face. “That would take a ponies head clean off.”

“Getting shot by a shotgun isn’t clean.” Smoking said gravely. “It’s not like a normal bullet. Rather than a single lump it usually contains lots of smaller balls that spread out, called shot. You get chewed up rather than blown apart.”

“Ewww…” Ambrosia shivered. “Why would ponies do that to one another.”

“They wouldn’t, they would do it to Zebra’s” Seafire said knowledgeably. “Twenty years before the balefire bombs fell there were no guns or weapons as such. But with the threat from the Zebra, companies like Ironshod started to produce some small guns and they grew from there. I think the biggest guns ever made were for the Luna, a massive battleship. And most people thought that they would stop after the ones they put on the Celestia.”

“How big were they.” Ripsaw asked, as she kicked a lump of rock sending it splashing into the water..

“The ones on the Celestia were 180mm I think, and then the Luna beat that with 250mm.”

“Is that the length of the bullet or length of the whole thing including the casing?” Clef looked at his fellow musician with bemusement. Stave just shrugged. “What?”

“The measurement defines the diameter of the shell, the total length varies depending on the size of the charge. So yes, they were 250mm across, like the size of your head” Helix and Ambrosia’s jaws dropped. “And are called shells when they get that big. They weighed as much as a pony, probably more, were filled with high explosive and normally enchanted with some kind of spell to make the more effective against certain targets.”

“How accurate were they?” I asked. Now that I had a pistol of my own I was interest to learn as much about them as I could. I could see myself having to get some of my own weapons given the number of ponies in the waste land that seemed to have them.

“The Celestia was capable of precision strikes that could hit a target up to two miles away. The luna was more like three miles. But they could both fire the shells maybe fifty miles if necessary. But that was for like bombardment rather than direct strikes. Levelling an entire town, that kind of thing.”

“Fifty miles! That’s, that’s…” Ambrosia spluttered.

“Excessive?” Foxglove offered.

“Yes… that’ll do, excessive.” Ambrosia seemed to want to say more but couldn’t find the right words.

“Can we pick up the pace, please.” Smoking said, tapping his hoof impatiently.

“Hang on a moment.” Ambrosia trotted down to the water’s edge peering into the shallows. “Hmmm.” She scratched her chin. “I could swear I saw some fish. Hey that would be great if we could get some to cook!”

“What do you mean, fish.” Ripsaw went over to peer to. “The water up here is irradiated, nothing could live in there.”

“Yeah, I guess you are right.” Ambrosia kicked another stone into the water shrugging.

The water jumped. Ambrosia and Ripsaw were tossed high into the air as a massive green jaw lashed out of the shallows. Smoking, Tungsten and Seafire immediately pulled out their pistols and began to fire at the huge monster. The bullets barely seemed to hurt the creature. Ambrosia and Ripsaw landed hard in the shallow water and I heard a definite crack. Ripsaw let out a scream. I could just make out white bone sticking out of her hind leg. The monster snapped round, flicking mud and water everywhere, and with lightning speed lunged for Ambrosia. She scrambled backwards trying desperately to avoid the mass of razor sharp teeth attempting to turn her into minced pony. Ripsaw was trying to drag herself back to land with her broken leg. Helix rushed forward to help her. The monster obviously thought that two ponies were better than one and snapped back to try and munch on Helix and Ripsaw.

My mind was suddenly filled with a horrific vision of Helix being swallowed whole by that vicious monster. ‘No!’ my little pony shouted, ‘You will not hurt my Helix!’.

I whipped out my own gun, took off the safety and slipped into SATS. The whole terrifying scene slowed to a crawl. The monsters jaw was open trying to clamp around Helix’s head. I could see Ambrosia behind the monster, frozen mid-step, running through the shallows away from the creature. I could just make out the stream of bullets being fired by the trio to my left. I locked on three shots right into the creatures open mouth, using up all of my SATs, and hit execute.

Three streaks of blue struck the inside of the monsters mouth. It let out an angry roar, twisting violently to try and get away from the magical onslaught. I kept firing. The skin of the monster boiled and warped under each impact, though I was only hitting with half my shots. The thing was retreating back into the water. The four of us pressed forward driving the thing away before it slunk under the surface and disappeared.

I dropped my gun, shaking. Clef and Stave rushed forward to help Ripsaw with her broken leg. Helix help them lay her on her side before pulling out three metal rods out of her bag.

“This is going to...” Helix started then sharply straightened Ripsaws leg with her magic, causing her to scream with pain. “...hurt.”

Helix then used a magical bandage to bind the metal rods to Ripsaw’s leg, splining it. When she was certain her leg wouldn’t move Helix pulled out two healing potions and helped the poor mare drink both. Ambrosia had picked herself up and was standing in the shallows shaking.

“Ambrosia.” Foxglove rushed to help her. “Are you alright.”

“I’m alright. A bit bruised but…”

The monster lunged out of the water and snapped its jaw around Ambrosia’s head. Her body spasmed and jerked as the monster shook her violently. I heard another horrible crack. ‘No… NO!’. I picked up my gun again and emptied the rest of the cell into the monster as fast as my telekinesis would allow. It let go of Ambrosia sending her flying through the air and landing hard twenty feet away on the road. The monster retreated once more, but the damage was done.

“Ambrosia!” Helix cried pulling out healing potions as she ran. “Ambrosia! Hold on.”

“Stop.” Smoking shouted. “She’s gone.”

“No, she’s not she’s…” But Helix stopped when she reached her body.

Ambrosias neck had been snapped, her head dangling at a very creepy angle. Blood all the way round her throat showed where the teeth of the monster and sliced easily into her skin. Her back leg had also broken when she had landed.

“She was probably dead the moment it whipped around and snapped her neck. Thankfully, she would barely have felt a thing.” Seafire said sadly.

We stood there in silence for a moment before Smoking spoke up, “We need to keep moving. Tungsten can you go through her saddlebags and pull out anything of value. Seafire. Helix. Can you see to Ripsaw and get her ready to move out.”

“What about Ambrosia?” Foxglove was staring at her body. “We can’t just leave her here.”

“I don’t mean to be callous but we don’t have a recycler.” Smoking said simply.

“Well what did we do before we had a recycler? Before the war. We didn’t just leave them where they died.” Foxglove snapped back. “We need to do something.”

“They used to bury them.” Stave said. “With a stone on top with the pony’s name carved into it.”

“Do you have anything to dig a hole with?” Tungsten pointed out. “I know it’s disrespectful, but that thing might be back or something worse.”

“We could burn her?” Clef suggested quietly.

“Burn her!” Seafire shouted outraged. She was still trying to get a third healing potion down Ripsaw’s throat which was hard given that the mare was suddenly shaking like crazy. “Like a diseased animal or contaminated food.”

“I know it’s not how we would like to do it but it’s better than leaving her to rot or get ripped apart by animals.” Helix replied. “And its contaminated food that ultimately put us in this mess. She was trying to help nearly one hundred ponies when she died. We need to do the best we can for her.” Seafire had tears running silently down her white coat. Helix put a hoof over her shoulder and she leaned in to cry into her mane.

When Ripsaw was able to walk once more the nine of us set about trying to find as much flammable material as we could. The scraggly bushes were all there was but Seafire, who seemed more determined than any of us to make the biggest fire possible, disappeared off and returned dragging a small tree. We broke it up and layered it up near the water’s edge. Once we were done Helix and I carefully raised Ambrosia’s body onto the top of the pyre. We stood there in silence as the fire took sending smoke and flames into the darkening sky.

“Night time?” Stave asked.

“Thunderstorm,” replied Smoking.

It seemed that the rain we had experienced was an exception rather than the rule in the waste land. But this wasn’t a good thing because the rule was even harder and more ferocious than the exception. My little pony was feeling sad that the pyre that we had lit for Ambrosia had probably been drowned out and blown into the lake, but unfortunately that was the least of my worries.

The rain; which was the understatement of the century from Foxglove, was coming down at what looked like sixty degrees off vertical, smashing into me and almost lifting me off the ground. I had tried casting a repulsion spell around myself to keep the rain off but, after half an hour of constant assault from the rain and occasional hail stones, I could sustain it no longer and resigned myself to being miserable and wet. I considered getting out my EVA suit at one point but it would get wet inside as I put it on leaving me like a pickle in a jar; my hoofs were getting positively pruney as it was without adding to the problem. I settled with my maintenance overalls sticking to my skin. At least I had something unlike Clef, Stave and Helix.

Smoking, Tungsten and Seafire were the driest of us in their security barding but the rest of us had no such luxury. Clef and Stave had started to take it in turns to hide behind each other from the rain. When one got fed up of being battered they would swap sides putting the other in the firing line. Ripsaw, Helix and I formed our own moving rain break and Foxglove joined the two musicians’. We were three mini-conga lines in the driving rain. ‘Not quite what you had in mind when Lillypad said you owed Helix a dance’ my little pony poked at me. I threatened it with sticking my hoof somewhere tender and it shut up. And if having arguments with your own subconscious wasn’t enough, the rain was so thick that you could only see about twenty feet before it just turned to grey. After nearly five hours of this I was really getting fed up; and I am a pony who really likes showers.

Thank Celestia for the pony who invented EFS.

“We have got to get out of this.” I heard Seafire shout over the howling wind. “We can’t stay out in this much longer. We will end up with hypothermia.”

“Hydrophobia! You are either scared of water or you aren’t.” Stave yelled back. “You can’t catch it.”

“No. Hy-po-therm-ia.” She turned back to shout at him again but got a face full of water for her trouble. “Where your body temperature drops so low that your organs begin to shut down.”

“Celestia screw hypothermia. I have developed hydrophobia.” I barely heard Ripsaw mutter to herself, head bowed against the onslaught from above.

“Wait.” Smoking held up a hoof to stop up. “Multiple blue bars on my EFS. Can someone confirm?”

“Yep. Same here.” Tungsten called back. “I would say six, maybe eight targets.”

“There blue, they aren’t targets. Just bars.” Seafire pointed out. “It’s only dead if it’s red. Remember?”

“Shut it you two.” Smoking pulled out his pistol. “And give me a five metre spread. The rest of you, stay close.”

The nine of us advanced cautiously. I drew out my own pistol and loaded the second energy cell. I really hoped I wasn’t going to need it, not only because I really didn’t want to have to kill anything but because I only had two cells left. If I was too trigger happy it would very quickly become nothing but an elaborate club. Through the rain we began to see some kind of steel structure, a bridge, a wide bridge, a bridge with a gate in the middle, a bridge with a gate in the middle and six ponies on top of it behind cobbled together barricades. Two had pistols, two had rifles and the other two were behind some massive gun with some kind of belt feed.

“A belt fed shotgun? Wow…” I heard Seafire mutter under her breath. Then I remembered the shell that Tungsten had picked up earlier. Ok, a lot of firepower. Far too much for my maintenance overalls. I’d look like the floor grates back in stable seventeen if I got shot by that thing. One of the guards on the roof suddenly snapped round as he spotted us.

“Stop right there.” He shouted pointing his rifle at us. The others brought their weapons to bare to. But my EFS still indicated that they were non hostile; for now anyway. “What’s your business in Viewpoint.”

“Trade.” Smoking replied simply. I really hoped he knew what he was doing.

“With whom.” Smoking paused a little too long. “I knew it!” The guard cried and cocked his rifle.

“Please.” Seafire rushed forward. “You know what a stable is right?” The guard looked like her like she had asked if you walked on your hooves. “We’ve just escaped our stable, along with nearly one hundred other ponies. We are looking for water, food and shelter. We do have items to trade.”

“Like what?” she had the guards attention now.

“How about eight hundred bottles of sparkle cola?”

The guard’s eyes went wide. He looked at his companions then replied. “You may enter.” The gate began to open slowly, drawn up on gears built into the walkway above. “Oh and since you’re new out here, I’ll give you a piece of advice: if you start trouble here by the time we’re done with you there won’t be enough left to feed a radigator. If someone else starts on you, you may defend yourself, but try to use non-lethal force; we like to deal with troublemakers in our own unique way.” I really hoped I didn’t find out what that unique way was.

We made our way over the bridge, staring into the gloom. Slowly buildings began to emerge through the rain, battered single story houses with gardens filled with junk and scrap, then two story stores and town houses with blown out windows and missing roofs. We could see thick layers of algae and moss growing all over the inner walls of the houses. The road was in atrocious condition, just like the one along the edge of the lake.

The first three story building appeared. This one had clearly been tended to. The walls were a patchwork of the original grey stone and mortar construction and newer red bricks. Sheets of painted metal sealed up any broken windows and fresh concrete plugged any other holes. The roof was made of corrugated metal, probably lifted from some other building. There was a balcony on the second floor with a roof over it. I could see several ponies sitting outside breathing smoke. There was another trio playing a card game, one was in a wheelchair and was missing both his left legs. On the ground floor I could see ponies inside at crowded tables. Some were gambling like the others upstairs, some were just drinking but a few had mares standing in the middle in lurid clothing, posing in very unusual positions to the delight of the bucks that sat around the edge. A small sign over the door read ‘Tabitha’s Treats’ beneath a picture of mare with a deck of cards in one hoof, a bottle of whisky in the other and her back legs spread.

“I think we should stay away from there.” Muttered Seafire. Helix and I nodded in agreement. Annoyingly my little pony seemed interested. I gave it a kick and it gave up reluctantly.

There were various other stores and buildings running other businesses. A store selling clothes and footwear; I spotted a rather interesting tight fitting, black number and had to give my little pony another kick. A small stall with a small pony selling tiny handmade trinkets and another with two bucks offering personal protection packages for expeditions out across the wasteland. We finally spotted what must be the town’s store, a single story structure with random objects filling its windows, from sparkle cola bottles to boxes and boxes of pre-war food. A sign in the window read ‘For display only, No food or drink inside’; well obviously I thought, but then again perhaps some ponies were that desperate in the wasteland. There was a small canvas covered wagon parked outside displaying a silvery earth pony with a geode cutie mark with the name underneath ‘Knick Knack’s’ in big happy letters. The original sign for the store had been reduced to a broken shards sticking off the side of the building and had been replaced by a hand painted sign reading ‘Waterfront Wares’, it was nowhere near as happy as the words on the waggon.

“How should we do this?” Foxglove looked worried. “We don’t know how stuff works round here, they could be ripping us off and we wouldn’t even know it.”

“Do we have much of a choice.” Ripsaw mutter dejectedly. “With one hundred ponies to feed we can’t be picky.”

“But what’s the point if we get food for a hundred ponies if we could have got food for a thousand?” Foxglove argued back. “We need to know what everything is worth.”

“And how do you suggest we find out.” Ripsaw snapped back. “Any pony we ask is just going to rip us off. Its pretty obvious we don’t know what we are doing.”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t fake it.” Tungsten said slyly, “How’re they to know we’re clueless unless we let them know.”

“You mean lie?” Foxglove glowered at Tungsten, “Yes a great way to make a first impression.”

“We’re screwed either way round with you. Don’t lie and get screwed over or lie and make a bad impression.” He rolled his eyes sarcastically. “Oh what’re we to do.”

“Cut it out you two.” Helix cut in. “I hate to say it, but I think Tungsten is right, as much as I don’t want to lie. I doubt that this is a place where being honest gets you what you want.”

“Right. I’ll handle this then.” Tungsten shook himself and adopted a pose of power and authority and began to walk purposefully towards the door.

But before he could reach it, two bucks in black armour smashed their way out of the door. They sprawled on the floor briefly with their saddlebags bulging and then scrambled to their feet and started to run off down the street into the pouring rain.

“In the name of unpopped Bubblewrap!” A red coloured blur piled out of the door after them and then did a carbon copy as she too went face first into the mud. She pulled herself out of the brown sludge, saw where they were heading and tried to chase after them once more but she barely got five feet before tripping over in the myre.

But Tungsten had his pistol out in a flash and took aim.

“Don’t…” Seafire started.

Tungsten fired twice into the mist and the running shadows. There were two distinct grunts and the sound of some pony face planting into the mud; again.

“Oh for the love of Celestia…” Seafire rushed into the mist. We all followed rapidly.

Tungsten’s shots had been perfect. Both bucks had taken a round to the back leg sending them both sprawling. Their stolen good were now spilled out all over the ground. A mixture of sparkle cola, boxes of ammunition, Radaway and healing potions. The red pony stopped at our side as we looked down on the would-be thieves. Tungsten was still covering them with his gun.

“Thank you shooty pony” The red mare said to Tungsten, then patted me on the shoulder with a squish “I just don’t know why ponies insist on being mean.” She harrumphed.

Wait… squish? Ponies don’t go squish.

I turned to look and jumped. “Whoa. You’re a.. wait…no, hang on... you’re not...”

“Oh…” The other pony seemed to deflate before me. “I’ll just leave.”

“Wait, what, no…” I spluttered back. “Why?”

“No need to explain.” She said sadly. “Just another ghoul hater.” She bowed her head and began to walk away.

“No… wait…” I started to say but she didn’t turn. “I was just going to say, different.” I said to myself.

Suddenly the red pony stopped and turned. “So you’re not a ghoul hater?” She asked hopefully.

“It would help if I knew what a ghoul was.” I replied.

“Where have you been all your life?” She asked. It seemed like a genuine question.

“In a stable as a matter of fact.” Smoking was dragging the two bucks back to the shop by their mane’s as neither of them could stand.

The red ponies eyes went wide and then she started bouncing up and down in glee. “Squee!” She bounced around in circle’s, splashing me with mud. “Actual stable dwellers! Big case of… Squeeeeee!”

Fifteen minutes later we were all sitting in the back of Knick Knack’s wagon. The rain was still hammering down outside but we were happy for the shelter; well most of us. After we had handed over the two bucks to the gate guards who had come to investigate; the one that had informed me about unique way looked surprisingly happy, the very red and muddy earth pony had run off into the rain to clean herself off. When she got back, however, she had given us all the fright of our lives. I had thought that she was red underneath all that mud but she wasn’t, well not strictly speaking anyway. Her coat, or what was left of it, was a rich silvery, almost metallic colour; cadmium would be the closest I could think of, but the other half of her skin was simply missing revealing the muscles and reddened raw skin underneath. You could even see bone in some places. Here magenta mane was tattered, grubby and streaked with grey but still held its shape well.

Smoking and Tungsten had managed to limit their reaction to wide eyes. Helix had actually gone ‘Oooo’ with interest and curiosity. Clef and Stave looked pointedly anywhere but at Knick Knack. Ripsaw just stated with a mixture of fear and bemusement; perhaps she was wondering like me how the poor pony was even alive. Foxglove had jumped out of the wagon and into the pouring rain before coming cautiously back five minutes or so later. I personally felt a whole raft of emotions. Shock at just her bizarre and scary appearance, then curiosity as to how she had gotten like she was and why she was still alive. But now I just felt sad. I couldn’t entirely explain why but I guessed it had to do with how she had thought we had reacted back when she had first caught up with us.

When Foxglove had climbed back in, though she was still hiding behind Seafire, Knick Knack had bombarded us with questions about life in the stable. They started reasonably sensible, but got progressively more random, and then some.

“Do you have night time?”

“Do you have grass?”

“How about Daisies?”

“Do you know what cheese is?”

“Do you have bubblewrap?”

“Have you ever made scones?”

“No wait! Do you know what muffins are?”

With each of our answers she scribbled enthusiastically into a notepad that was bulging with extra pieces of paper, newspaper cuttings and battered photographs, getting more and more excited as time passed. When we had said that we knew what muffins were but most of us had never eaten them she had jumped to her hooves, hitting her head on the top of the waggon, insisting that she would run ‘Over to Sugar-cube corner’ to get us some, but then her smile slid from her face before sitting back down making a slightly sad sounding ‘Oh’.

“Do you mind if we ask you some questions Knick Knack?” Seafire asked carefully. The mare looked up.

“Nope, don’t mind.” She said brightly.

Seafire thought for a moment then asked, “Why’re you like you are. You said the word ghoul earlier. Is that what you are? A ghoul?”

Knick Knack scratched her mane momentarily before she said “Yes I am. I’m a ghoul. There are many, many ghouls in the equestrian wastelands.”

“What’s a ghoul?” Foxglove asked tentatively.

Knick Knack thought for a moment. “You know about the bombs, don’t you?” We nodded. “A ghoul is a pony who was close enough to a balefire explosion to be hit by the magical radiation, but far enough away not to be killed by it. The radiation mutated us, and changed us, from ponies into this.” She prodded her own chest and it gave a very creepy squishing sound. “Ghouls can’t die, not like normal ponies anyway. We don’t need to eat or drink very much. If we get injured we can be healed by radiation. Like in the lake.”

“So what’re you here for at the moment?” Foxglove glanced around inside the back off the wagon which had a few wooden crates and cardboard boxes littered around inside it. “What were you doing in the shop.”

“Selling my wares.” The ghoul said proudly. “I sell lots of different things. That’s why I called it ‘Knick Knack’s.”

“You don’t happen to be selling any guns do you?” Smoking leaned in. “How about armour?”

Knick Knack looked slightly shocked. “Oh no, no guns but I do have some lovely pieces of barding. Two fifty each and there is another that I should sell for five hundred but because I am feeling generous today, four-fifty.” She waggled a hoof like she was jangling change.

“Uh, Knick Knack.” Helix said slowly. “We don’t have anything. We had arcane credits back in our stable but no coins or notes. It meant no pony could steal any from anyone else.”

“Coins? Notes? That pre-war stuff?” She cocked her head and smiled. “We have moved to Caps now. Much better.” She grinned happily.

“Caps?” I asked. “What are they.”

“You know…” She said brightly. “Bottle caps.”

“Bottle caps…” Ripsaw said flatly glancing around at us. “Like off the top of a bottle of sparkle cola bottle caps?” She leant back crossing her legs. “She is just messing with us.” She looked suspiciously at the cadmium pony.

“I would never do that.” Knick Knack said with a wounded tone.

“Yeah, I bet.” Ripsaw muttered sarcastically. Seafire gave her a dark look.

Then it hit me. “Knick Knack, how much is a bottle of mint condition sparkle cola worth in caps?”

“Hmmm…” Her eyes crossed again. “Well to me you are looking at twenty five to thirty depending on the mood I am in with you. With others anything from ten to forty.”

“So if we said we had say, two hundred bottles to sell, would you have six thousand caps?” Knick Knack hit the roof again but she had the biggest smile on her face. “I’ll take that as a yes.” I replied smiling back.

Finally it seemed we were getting somewhere.

After an hour or so more the rain began to stop. In that time we had explained exactly what had happened in stable seventeen as well as everything up to the point of meeting Knick Knack. The ghoul ‘Oooo’d and ‘Ahhh’d as we all talked, filling in details and remembering key points. She looked like she was going to cry when we told her how we thought we had saved Ambrosia. I almost did too.

When the storm had turned more to a drizzle we headed out again into Viewpoint. We were going to divide and conquer. We did have some things on us that we intended to sell, mainly the sparkle cola that was now spare as we had successfully found civilisation; even if it wasn’t quite what we had expected.

Viewpoint was positioned at one end of a vast lake, the same one in which stable seventeen resided. A large map of the local area in the centre of the town, which had been repeatedly repaired and modified over the years, revealed that it was fed by two rivers which ran either side of Viewpoint. One was called the Cantalonian, which I guessed was the one that started above Canterlot, and the other had been renamed ‘The Hoof’. Its original name was lost to the degrading information board. Also marked on the map were numerous ‘areas of interest’. There were several viewpoints dotted around on the surrounding hills, which is how I supposed Viewpoint got its name. A mining museum was at one end of the town located next to Big Gem’s Inc., the once red letters now a watery pink, with a public swimming pool and cinema at the other. All the key buildings at the south west of the town were painted over; they had probably been the delapodated buildings we had glimpsed through the mist as we walked in.

There were also the other locations that we knew of like Tabitha’s Treats and Waterfront Wares; which was actually nowhere near the waterfront. The building on the waterfront had been newly labelled Viewpoint Security and Weapon Sales but it had originally read Arcano Weapons Technologies. Now that I wanted a look at; perhaps they could tell me what my weird gun was.

We split. Knick Knack took Helix, Foxglove and Ripsaw into Waterfront wares to sell the spare Sparkle Cola we had on us in exchange for as much food as possible. Knick Knack had chosen Helix over the rest of us as she thought we would get a better deal if a nice young mare asked rather than some random buck. Tungsten took Clef and Stave with him to Tabitha’s Treats. Apparently Tungsten thought that he might be able to find someone with more information about the surrounding area and what was going on in the wastelands in general. Personally I thought he was horny and wanted to get some release but as long as he came back with something I really didn’t care; he was just oozing bad vibes and if that helped him get over them, all the better. This left Smoking, Seafire and I to go over to Arcano Weapons to check out what they had in the way of guns and ammunition. I was hoping that I’d be able to trade some of the things I had brought with me for some more spark batteries for my gun; and find out how it actually worked.

Arcano Weapons Technologies was very similar in build to the warehouse at the entrance of stable seventeen. An imposing two story structure of grey concrete with thick glass windows, a corrugated aluminium roof and eight foot security fencing around the outside. The entrance gate was guarded by two earth bucks with belt fed shot guns mounted on either side of them. Attached to the front wall of the building were two turrets fitted with high calibre rifles. They snapped to track us as we got within range.

“Nice battle saddles.” Seafire whistled admiring the shotguns. “I would love to get my hooves on one of those.”

“Hmmm.” Smoking didn’t seem too impressed. “They don’t look like genuine Ironshod weapons. They’re probably cheap knock offs that jam like a bitch.”

“Why don’t you keep insulting them and find out?” One of the bucks approached us but kept enough distance so that the spread of the shotguns would cover all three of us. “If you’re here to just browse then you can get lost. Serious buyers only.” He eyed us warily taking in Smoking and Seafire’s security barding and my rather odd looking pistol. “So are you serious or are you just gawkers?”

“Depends.” Smoking replied casually. “Are those genuine Ironshods or will we be looking at just a load of highly polished junk?” The buck scowled, but Smoking held his poker face.

“Give over Buck Shot.” The other buck replied, stepping forward. “Just look at their barding. That stuff doesn’t look cheap and that lasses pistol.” He eyed my holster. “That looks like a serious piece of kit. Might even be from Flash Industries.”

Buck rolled his eyes. “Yeah, way to undermine my position Fletch.” He glowered at us again for a moment. “You can go in. You have to hand over all ammunition at the door. You’ll get it back, along with anything you have bought when you leave.”

“Come on.” Fletch gestured and we passed through the gate.

When we reached the main entrance we removed all the ammunition from our saddle bags and pushed it through a tiny hole to a surly looking mare behind a thick glass screen. After passing through some kind of magical field, which I guessed did a final check to see if we’d handed over all our ammo, we were lead through the door by Fletch into the building.

The inside of the building reminded me of the apple orchard back in stable seventeen. I got a really odd shiver down my spine that spread right down to my hooves; slightly disturbing. The vast warehouse was mainly taken up with machinery and lit with banks of strip lights dangling from the high ceiling. My mood changed as I recognised a lathe, band-saw, pillar drill, arcane controlled miller; everything we had back in stable seventeen only much bigger. The lathe looked like it could take a piece of metal a good two metres long and thirty centimetres in diameter and the miller was about three metres cubed. I was in familiar territory and I really wanted to try hooves on with those machines. My little pony had dropped onto its rump and gone ‘Oooo’. A few ponies were working at the machines. One was on the lathe, spinning a metre long lump of scrap metal, reducing it down to get to the undamaged metal in the middle. So it wasn’t all brand new.

Seafire had immediately gravitated to the opposite wall where some serious looking weapons sat on individual racks like religious artefacts. There were various pistols, rifles, carbines and what looked like a sniper rifle, but the one that drew my attention the most was the massive black weapon on the end. I trotted over to it. Six barrels arranged in a ring, belt fed from a box on the side with what looked like 10mm rounds, an arcane motor on the inside that spun the six barrels and on the far side a chute for the spent shells. The plaque underneath read,

Six hundred rounds per minute… ten rounds a second…. one round every tenth of a second… I gawped at the massive weapon. Who needed that kind of firepower? Well, clearly some buck called Soarin’ needed that much firepower. I then spotted a small label underneath the plaque,

Phew.

“Good day to you.” An earth buck was coming down some steps from a set of offices above the warehouse floor. His dark green coat and perfectly maintained black mane shone but most of it was covered by a full business suit and shiny black shoes; both of which were looking a little worse for wear but it still got the point across: I’m the boss. “Welcome to Arcano Weapons Technologies.” He looked around at us looking comforted by the clean and undamaged security barding on my friends and then raised his eyebrows at my pistol. “And my oh my, what do we have here?” He quickly manoeuvred over to me and pointed at my pistol. “May I?” I nodded my head and he picked it out and placed it on a nearby workbench.

“I say.” He checked out the firearm from every angle, examining the crystals in the barrel and matching up the slot on the back to some inert cells. “Oooo.” His eyes suddenly widened as he spotted a serial number printed on the underside of the left and barrel. Smoking moved up behind him and gave a polite cough. The buck snapped round still holding my gun. “My apologies Sir. I just had to inspect your friend’s pistol here.” He held it up for Smoking to see then placed it down carefully on the workbench. “How can I help you today?”

“We are interested in buying some replacement pistols for my team.” Smoking replied taking a business like tone. “We will also be in need of ammunition for them as well as more cells for my friends energy weapon.”

The buck jovially put a foreleg around Smoking neck and began leading him over to the racks of weapons. “Certainly. May I ask what your budget is?” He stopped in front a rack of revolvers.

“Our budget is irrelevant at the moment.” Smoking glared at the sales buck making his grin falter slightly. “What matters is the quality of the goods.”

“Ah, yes, of course.” He replied carefully pulling his grin back into place and turning back to the revolvers. “Ironshod’s finest.” He declared picking up a eight round revolver and showing it to Smoking. Seafire stopped drooling over the twin barrelled anti-machine rifle and drifted over to listen. “Eight round, .44 calibre revolver. Extended and rifled barrel for greater accuracy. If you can cock it fast enough it will fire all eight rounds in less than two seconds. Effective range one hundred and fifty metres if you are accurate enough” He glanced at Smoking who didn’t move. “Right, bigger…” He said to himself.

He moved over to the next rack and picked up a black handgun with a leather mouth bit. “The Blackhawk semi-automatic pistol. Sixteen round magazine of 5.56mm rounds which are usually used in assault rifles. Extra thick leather padding on the mouth grip for earth ponies. Can empty a whole clip in four seconds at an effective range of two hundred metres but will decapitate at less than fifty.” Smoking still didn’t look impressed. The buck put the gun back with a slight huff and moved over again. I caught Smoking’s eye for a moment and he grinned at me happily. What? He didn’t care about buying anything, he just wanted to see all the best weapons.

I rolled my eyes and walked over to one of the lathes. I had used machines like these back in seventeen when we had to make replacement parts. This was maybe three times larger than the one I had used, but it showed its age. There were lots of patches and repairs to the support structure. The chuck had cracked and been fused back together with magic and the heat sink for the arcane motor was made up of random fins of metal.

“She’s seen better days.” A earth buck wandered up behind me wearing a white technicians overall. “But she still works as we need her to. Swarf.” He said as he patted the lathe.

I looked at him curiously. “You named the lathe Swarf?”

“No.” He laughed. “That’s my name.”

“Ooops, sorry.” I smile back at him sheepishly. He was rather handsome with his grey eyes and smooth jaw line. His light brown coat and his black hair were just as shiny as the sale bucks but littered with metal chippings and smudged with oil in places. I found myself staring and jogged myself back. “Francium.” I held out a hoof.

“Nice to meet you.” He replied shaking it gently. He glanced round at Smoking and Seafire. “I see your friend is playing hard to please.”

I stuttered slightly. “Is he… I…”

Swarf laughed again; he seemed a happy buck. “Dad’s good at selling to people who know as much as he does or less. Merc’ corporations and slavers but when faced with someone who knows more or can play hard to get he’s completely stumped. Doesn’t know how to read them.”

“Dad?” I asked. “He’s your dad?”

“That’s what I said isn’t it.” He smiled again. “His real name’s Forstner, but most call him Cheque. He’s the odd one out in the family. We have always been engineers, designers, technicians. Anything design orientated, but then he comes along and is all ‘investment’ and ‘profit margins’ and stuff.” Swarf shook his head. “Clever pony but he’s living in the wrong time. No pony does investment, it’s all about profit just without the margins. Any profit will do.”

Wait. Backpedal. “Did you just say slaver’s?” I looked at him cautiously. “As in slavery?”

He looked at me, confused. “Yes.”

“As in force you to work for nothing and keep you chained up until you die.”

“In some cases yes.” Swarf suddenly looked worried.

“And your dad sells weapons to these ponies?” I asked in disbelief.

“We had to in order to keep our business running.” Swarf looked at me sadly. “We’ve almost gone out of business twice in the last year. We can produce the guns, but if no pony’s buying then it’s all for nothing. None of us like it, but dad insisted that it was necessary in order to keep us going.” He shuffled again. “So are you actually buying today or just doing some serious browsing?”

“In an ideal world we’d be buying, but given the quality of the weapons, I doubt it.” I looked longingly at Blackhawk. I may not know much about weapons or like using them but there was something about all that perfectly machined steel that made me giddy. “We just got out of our stable but there are nearly a hundred of us to look after. Limited food, water and almost no weapons.

Swarf eyed me carefully “But you still managed to get your hoofs on an Arcano prototype.” Part of him didn’t believe me. “And you have two suits of perfectly intact security barding.” He indicated Smoking and Seafire who were now being shown their sixth pistol by Cheque.

“All the security ponies in the stable had that barding. Same goes for the pistols, but we only had rubber bullets. Well we did have several boxes of live ammo but we’re almost out.”

“What you been shooting at?”

“Something lunged out of the lake and snapped one of our companion’s neck. A big green thing. Bullets didn’t hurt it but this thing did.” I picked up my pistol. “What is this thing.”

“Big green thing would have been a radigator, vicious creatures. As for your weapon, I believe it is one of the Arcano prototypes. Somewhere between a solid round weapon and an energy weapon.” Swarf went over and started digging in cabinet filled with papers and documents. “One of the very last things they developed. I actually think that they finished it a few months after the balefire bombs were dropped.”

“So you know all about that hu…” I said sadly.

“Yeah.” He tossed a pile of magazines onto the floor. “We have a more complete history of our area than most people do. The nearest attack to us was technically Canterlot but the nearest balefire explosion was all the way over in Fillydelphia. That nearly one hundred miles. Ah here we go.” He pulled out a folder and dropped it on the workbench. “That should answer all your questions.”

The folder was filled with technical schematics and manufacturing process information, but the key information was on a sheet at the front. The Arcano Weapons symbol, three blue crystals set in a triangle with white sparks and electrical arc’s running between them, was at the top of the document which was entitled,

The rest of the document outlined the goals, targets and deadlines of the project. Some of the statistic I was unfamiliar with; Critical Hit statistics and SATS point tally, but some I knew; expected rate of fire, range, capacity, reload time, impact force.

“So this is my gun?” I asked looking carefully through the schematics. I looked back at Swarf. “What’s so special about it.”

“Unfortunately I don’t know.” Swarf scratched his mane thinking. “There’s nothing in the file to explain how it works or fires. That’s why we’ve never been able to reproduce it. Unless we know how all the parts function together then we have no way of replicating it. We have tried simply making all the parts and assembling them but no luck. It doesn’t work like a normal gun. Of either type”

“Could you reverse engineer it?” I asked. “From this?”

“Probably.” His eyes lit up. “It might take us awhile, but given enough time almost anything is possible.”

“Chatting up clients Swarf?” Cheque shook his head as he walked over with Smoking and Seafire behind him. “Get back to it.”

“Did you two reach an agreement?” I asked.

“No.” Smoking replied simply, but he looked at me and then mouthed ‘Not enough Caps’ behind Cheques back.

“Well I have an offer.” I said smiling at Cheque. And holing up Jury for them to see; well I couldn’t call it gun forever. “Swarf here tells me that you’ve been having no luck in building this weapon from the schematics.” I Lifted up the folder to show them all. “But he believes that if he had a working one to study that he could figure out where you have been going wrong.”

“Here’s what I want. I’ll loan you the working prototype until such time that you can make your own prototype. From that you’ll be able to produce as many as you like.” Cheque was clearly intrigued. “In exchange I want ten of the Blackhawk pistols, five thousand rounds of ammunition for them and one of your… “I read Seafire’s lips. “…combat shotguns with five hundred rounds to go with that.”

Cheque looked stunned, Smoking surprised, Seafire nervous and Swarf amazed. I raised an eyebrow at Cheque. “Well, what do you say?”

“Five Blackhawks and three thousand rounds. Pump action shotgun and two hundred rounds.” He replied.

“Eight Blackhawks and four thousand rounds. Combat shotgun with four hundred rounds.” I countered.

“Six and three thousand. Pump action and four hundred.” He was beginning to sweat.

“Eight and three thousand, combat and three hundred.” I returned again.

“Six and three thousand. Pump action and four hundred. Final offer.” Cheque straightened himself up to his full height.

I started to reply when Swarf cut across “Dad.” He looked into his eyes. “This could save the business. Our livelihood. They deserve more than that.” He stared right at Cheque. Finally the green buck relaxed.

“Eight Blackhawks with four thousand rounds and one Combat shotgun with four hundred rounds.” He turned to me and held out a hoof.

“Deal.” I shook it happily.

Cheque stood there for a moment, perhaps he was regretting what he had just done, but he replied calmly enough. “I’ll go and get the paperwork.” He scurried off back up stairs. I let out a sigh of relief.

“I didn’t know you could be so persuasive.” Seafire looked down at me grinning. “I am going to have to watch out.”

“That was… impressive.” Smoking couldn’t seem to lose the look of surprise locked onto his face. “Eight Blackhawks…” He muttered to himself then looked down at me curiously. “Why the shotgun?”

“That would be me.” Seafire raised her hoof. “What.” Smoking looked her with an expression somewhere between bemusement and worry. “It’s an amazing weapon.”

“I think you’re forgetting Swarf here.” I turned round to the young stallion and gave him a hug. “Thanks for that.”

“Hey helping a beautiful mare like yourself and getting my hooves on a rare piece of Arcano weapons technology.” He grinned back at me. “What’ve I got to lose.”

I let go of him and smiled again. Perhaps the wasteland wasn’t so bad after all.

“You managed to get how much!” Helix gawped at us as we gathered under the veranda outside Tabitha’s treats. I hadn’t liked the idea much, but it had started raining just as hard as before but without the heavy, low hanging fog. I looked out into the down pour, the water bouncing a good metre back up off the ground. “You should have been with us. We could only wrangle enough food out of the wares shop keeper to keep us going for another week or so.”

“It’s better than nothing. Gives us another week to track down more food and stuff to sell.” Ripsaw plonked herself down and dropped a glass bottle on the table. “Who’s for a celebratory shot?” She looked around at us.

“What?” Clef and Stave said in unison.

“Shot.” Ripsaw waggled the bottle under their noses. “Whisky shot.”

“Where in equestrian did you get that?” Foxglove stared into the bottle.

“Made it myself.” She replied proudly unscrewing the bottle. She filled the cap three times then emptied each one into her glass in turn.

“Only three.” Tungsten smirked. “Wuss.”

“Fine then if you think you are tougher.” Ripsaw handed him over the bottle and he measured out six into his own glass. “Ready? On three.”

She counted and they both downed their shots simultaneously. Ripsaw screwed her face up making a ‘blaugh’ sound. Tungsten did the same but without a sound. For a moment I thought that was it, but suddenly Tungsten jumped to his hooves and snatched up the jug of water in the middle of the table and downed it in one. He coughed and spluttered as he finished with his tongue hanging out.

“Oh, yeah.” Ripsaw leant back in her chair. “Much tougher.”

I leant in and smelt the bottle and quickly regretted it. It felt like my nose hair had been burnt off.

“What’s in that stuff.” Tungsten gasped. He was now sticking his head out into the downpour to cool off his tongue.

“It’s just normal whisky. Well its brewed in the same way but ‘cos its home made it varies each time. This one happens to be a very potent batch.” She measured out another three and downed it with the same expression and sound. “Got to be about sixty per cent alcohol this one.”

“Nice.” Seafire said flatly, sipping on her sparkle cola. “Take this.” She passed Tungsten a Rad-away. “You will need it after all that water.”

“So do we have a new plan?” Foxglove tapped her hooves together expectantly.

“Well, we got our weapon’s and we got our food. We have things to drink so unless anyone can think of anything else we might need in the meantime…” Smoking glanced around at everypony. “No?”

“I was wanting to go up to the main viewpoint.” Helix replied. “You know; see the reason they named the town like they did.”

“They named it that cos that was probably the most legible sign left when somepony found the place.” Ripsaw cut in. She suddenly slipped and fell on the floor. “Woah, that stuff is waaaaay more potent than usual.” She hiccupped.

“Oh great. Now she’s drunk.” Clef folded his arms staring down at her.

“Noooo, I’m nooot.” She tried to get back on her chair and simply fell off the other side. Tungsten slipped to the floor with a crash.

“You okay?” Helix asked warily.

“No.” Tungsten said before his head dropped onto the table with a loud thunk. He suddenly started snoring.

“Brilliant. Just brilliant.” Clef huffed.

“Will they be alright?’ I asked Helix, as she lifted up Tungsten’s eyelid.

“Yeah. Just the combination of sudden consumption of alcohol and not eating much means it’s gone straight to their heads.” She shook her head. “Powerful stuff.”

“So now what?”

“Well we’re not going anywhere fast, so how about we do that walk to the view point?”

“In this?” I gestured at the downpour. “I’ve been soaked to the skin once today, I don’t fancy it again.”

“Got that covered.” Helix grinned pulling four raincoats from her saddle bags.

“But, what about these two?” Ripsaw still hadn’t gotten up off the floor and Tungsten was still snoring, if a little quieter.

“I’ll stay with them.” Foxglove shifted and sat between them. “You two can go up to the point.”

“I’ll stay to.” Smoking leaned back in his chair, stretching. “I want some time to relax; we haven’t had any time since we left the stable.”

Helix looked at Clef and Stave but they both just shrugged in a ‘not interested’ kind of way. Typical violinists.

“Seafire? Do you want to come with us?” I looked up at the white unicorn.

“I was actually thinking of going in here…” She looked quizzically though the window. Thankfully there were no dancing mares on tables and more bucks playing card games, but still not exactly inviting. “Something different. You know.”

“Ummm, no I don’t.” I looked at her incredulously. “It looks so… uncouth. And that’s the bare minimum. Dangerous would be another word I would use.”

“Well with the barding and a brand new Blackhawk I think I can handle myself.”

I scowled at her. “Just be careful won’t you. We’ve already lost one pony today.”

“Don’t worry.” She smiled at me. “I’ll be back to finish what we started.” She flicked my nose with her tail as she went inside. Clef and Stave followed and went straight over to the band who were playing in the corner. I was still trying to wrap my head round why Seafire kept hitting on me when she knew I was with Helix. And heck, I was virtually certain that her stable door didn’t swing that way.

“Is there something you want to tell me?” Helix asked playfully, but I could detect a serious undertone.

“She thinks I am cute and I am pretty sure she likes to use that to wind me up since I used to fancy her.” I rubbed my cheeks, trying to get them to go back to blue instead of red, and then yanked one of the raincoats over my head. “Come on. Let’s get up to that point.” I very much wanted something to distract me from the images that my little pony was now running through my head, desperately wishing I could banish that little git to some far flung corner of my mind forever.

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk - Gun Nut-Level 1: You are beginning to to understand the appeal of the firearm. You gain an additional five points to Small Guns and Repair skills for each Gun Nut rank.