Chapter 18: Strangers – Part II
“…down came the rain and washed the spider out…”

“Thank you for your business,” Starry Night recited to yet another customer with a smile. Her bag of caps slapped back into the cart she stood beside, jingling loudly after how much it had swollen in just the short time she had been receiving business from the ponies of Bunker. A few times I wondered if it was common to make so much money in the trade business, and if so then why didn’t more ponies do it? I knew that some of the ponies in her caravan claimed it was a very dangerous life, but she seemed perfectly fine with protecting herself against anything that might threaten her group.

Not that I was interested in picking up the business, I wouldn’t even know where to begin or how to decide how much something was worth when I sold it. On top of that, I didn’t even know where she got half of the stuff she was selling. The guns seemed straight forward enough, they weren’t exactly hard to come across in the Wasteland, but I would never know where she managed to find actual books. Back when we lived in Zeza, Felix had a hard time finding new ones that weren’t at least torn or missing a few pages, so where she found nearly perfect looking tomes was a complete mystery.

Suddenly a light flicked on in my head, and I spun my head to check through my bags for any caps I might have lying around at the bottom. Unfortunately, all I had was a bunch of loose shotgun shells, a few little snacks from our final visit to Caesar’s Stand, and some trash that I really needed to get rid of. I grumbled softly and wished that the others hadn’t been so keen on Felix holding all the caps, and decided that if I couldn’t buy some for him, I would at least let my brother know that Starry had some books he might like.

“Hey, how much for this?” a voice suddenly snapped my attention out of my bag. A rather large mare, at least compared to me, stood a few feet away, pointing to a rusty old pot that dangled from the side of the nearest cart.

“Uh,” I quickly remembered I was supposed to be helping Starry, but couldn’t even begin to guess at the price for a pot. “You’ll have to ask Starry Night, I’m just a guard,” I quickly explained and pointed her to the tall unicorn who walked around her carts intently watching each customer. Someone was apparently paranoid.

“Yeah, shoulda guessed,” the mare commented and trotted off to speak with the actual salespony. I mumbled something profane I once heard Father say, and ignored the shocked stare that it earned from Sandy.

It only took a few more minutes of waiting around before the guards started wandering about and speaking with the residents of Bunker, apparently starting to usher them all inside before dark; which honestly surprised me a bit. I had never heard of a town having any sort of curfew put on the ponies or zebras living there, even in a Remnant run place like Caesar’s Stand. Part of me wondered if it was because I was outside, but that didn’t seem very likely. If they didn’t want to be around zebras after dark, they probably wouldn’t have let Felix inside in the first place.

The last few ponies outside finished their purchases and were assured that if they needed anything else, Starry and I would still be outside in the morning before they went back inside. My branded companion waved to them until they were all out of sight, then quickly turned and pulled out the ammo can where she had been putting the night’s earnings.

Before she could start counting it out, the guards walked up to her and explained that if she needed anything in the night they would have ponies in the entrance. She thanked them for the offer and started counting out her new caps intently, separating them into several stacks. By the time the door to Bunker was shut and locked, she seemed like the world didn’t even exist around her anymore. I doubted that was the case for her, after all, she didn’t seem like a pony to let her guard down for even a moment, but her concentration was a little intense.

No longer needing to be on constant alert for shoplifters, I pulled off my bags and leaned the shotgun against them before laying down myself. Thankfully, my head didn’t pound or ache anymore, instead only giving me a brief wash of dizziness with the sudden change of position before settling back to normal. Vulpe looked around for a moment before lying down against my side and looking around as a child does when they’re bored. I wished that I had something for him to do, something that would make him happy like he was the first time I saw him; jumping around in the rain with a smile on his face and mud covering his hooves. Sadly, I didn’t.

I’m not sure how, or why, but apparently Sandy was thinking the same thing about the colt, because before I could even come up with the idea, she pushed a toy cart with only one wheel through the dirt in front of him. I could only assume she got it from one of Starry’s carts, and hoped that the pony wouldn’t mind us borrowing it for a little bit. I glanced over to her to see if she was glaring at us, but the mare still rhythmically separated out caps that floated from the can one at a time.

The warmth of Vulpe’s body lifted away from my side and prompted me to look over where he used to be, and I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him and Sandy pushing the cart around and bouncing a battered pony doll around it. I doubted he enjoyed it as much as he did the rain, but at least he was getting to play like a foal should.

My attention drifted away from them and to the slowly darkening hills around us. Suddenly I felt a growing worry that someone or something was waiting just out of view, waiting for the chance to jump out at the four of us before we could do anything about it. I tried to push the thought away, but it kept coming back until I finally had to find something to distract myself. Even having Starry Night around didn’t make me feel any more comfortable with the sense of dread hanging over me, but she did manage to provide me with a distraction. Not on purpose, but it still worked.

A small lamp glowed beside the quiet mare while she sorted out her caps, neatly placing them one on top of the other in neat stacks for some reason. I was sure she had a method behind it, I just couldn’t figure out what exactly it could be; mostly because I was distracted by the designs that marked her body from her neck down to her hooves. Only one was on her head, the tulip just behind her ear, so I started looking through the other patterns, trying to see what they may be. Some of them were just too small to recognize in the flickering light of the lantern, and others seemed to wind into those beside them, making them almost impossible to tell apart. Luckily, many of them were big enough and clear enough for me to make them out, even though I didn’t know what a few were.

What I could pick out was what looked like a star on her left shoulder, and a cluster of clouds just beside that. When she readjusted her left leg, I caught a glimpse of a gun of some kind on part of her chest, and a few inches behind that she had a pair of crossed spears on her belly. They seemed to be very well done, and I wondered how, or where, she got them done. I had never met a pony, or zebra for that matter, with artistic burns like hers. And if I had, they were well hidden, not like the pony tuned canvas I couldn’t seem to look away from. But the strangest part was that I couldn’t see her glyph, or mark, or whatever ponies called them. It wasn’t burned off or covered by a brand either, it just seemed like it wasn’t there. One moment I would swear I saw a bolt of lightning surrounded by chains, and the next it would just be blank purple coat.

“See something you like?”

My eyes tore away from her flank and up to her dim eyes, surprised that she had stopped counting her money without me noticing. I tried to think of something to say, but my mouth just opened and closed a few times before I gave up and looked away.

“You’re a shy one, aren’t you?” the mare asked and pulled my gaze back to her. “That’s fine; I’ve swung with shy mares before.”

My eyes went wide and I quickly shook my head after realizing what she was implying. “No,” I stammered. “I was just looking at your markings.”

“You mean the brands?” she asked and looked over herself for a moment. “And you were just naturally drawn to the ones on my ass?” she slyly probed.

My ears were starting to burn up while an uncomfortable feeling brewed in my gut as I tried to think of how to explain away what I was doing. “It wasn’t that,” I quipped and glanced over to see Sandy and Vulpe staring at me quizzically. “I had already seen the ones on your neck and chest, so I was looking at the other ones.”

“So you were checking me out?”

“No!”

“It’s okay to admit it you know,” she continued with a smirk. “I won’t bi-”

“I just like the designs,” I snapped and hoped my face wasn’t as red as it felt. Why didn’t she believe that I just wanted to look at the brands, not… that!

“Alright, alright,” she conceded. “No need to get so hot headed.”

Behind me, Sandy snickered violently before returning to the toys with Vulpe.

I huffed and looked around awkwardly before realizing that Starry was still staring at me expectantly. “What?”

“You aren’t going to ask about them?” She tilted her head and almost looked confused. “Most ponies tend to do that.”

Well, it looked like that was my chance. “Okay, what do they mean?”

“Most of them are cutiemarks from ponies I worked with or knew well,” she told me plainly. “Some are zebra marks, whatever you call them.”

Since she mentioned it, I did notice a few designs that looked similar to zebra glyphs. “Why did you get cutiemarks and glyphs?”

“To remember them.” She shrugged. “Same reason ponies carry around things that remind them of the ones they love.”

“But you didn’t love all of them?”

“No, but I knew them and watched most of them die. Didn’t feel right to forget about them,” she explained fondly.

That kept the discomfort in my gut brewing. I would have expected mementos of the dead to bring more sadness than anything else. Not a smile. “Doesn’t it hurt to have constant memories of them with you all day?”

“Not really. In the caravan business you get used to losing those you work with.” She still didn’t seem very upset, but she didn’t look happy either. “I just remember the good times I had with them before they died.”

My churning stomach calmed at that. It made sense I guess, but it was still a little odd to think that she was able to filter out the good memories from the bad. I was never able to do that, even though I suddenly found myself wishing I could.

“Hey,” she suddenly spoke up again and rose to her hooves. “If you stick around a little longer, maybe I’ll get one to remember you too,” she told me with a grin.

It was an odd thing to say, but I didn’t think too much of it. Instead I just smiled and nodded, glad that I had apparently made a good impression since meeting her the night before. Especially since I thought she would kill me in my sleep with the way she glared at me and my brother.

Casually, Starry walked over to the door leading down to Bunker and rapped on it sharply. A dimly lit face appeared in the barred window at the center of the door and looked over the mare uncertainly, but didn’t say a word. “Do you mind if I go downstairs to check on my crew for a minute?” she asked the guards politely, which was more than a little odd after how she had been talking to them earlier. Come to think of it, our whole conversation seemed a bit too nice and laidback from how I’d seen her behave during the day.

“Sure, just make it quick,” the stallion behind the door agreed and pulled it wide open for her.

Before I knew what was happening, Starry’s horn lit up violently and blasted two streams of what looked like yellow lightning into the guards’ chests, toppling them instantly. Their bodies limply slumped to the ground of the entrance, one of them cracking his head on the corner of the stairwell.

Vulpe, Sandy and I were on our hooves in an instant, but other than that I didn’t even know what to do. Luckily, the others seemed to figure it out before I did. Sandy pulled her screwdriver from somewhere on her jacket and took up an aggressive stance while Vulpe pinned himself against my legs before I could even tell him to get behind me. Another jolt of magic whipped past my head and coursed through Sandy, sending her into some kind of seizure before I watched her limply fall to the dirt.

I crouched and reached out for my shotgun, but only met the back end of it swinging into my face with a yellow glow. For the second time that day, everything went white and I felt myself fall to the ground while Vulpe squealed and presumably tried to run. The snap of Starry’s magic bit into the air again, but I didn’t feel it hit me. When my vision finally cleared up into splotchy blurriness, I looked over to see the colt squirming violently while spit dribbled from his cheek and into the dirt.

My chest tightened and heaved at the sight before urging me to get up and help him however I could. I wasn’t even sure how, but I had to do something. At the very least I could get him down to Felix; he would know what to do. All I had to do was get up and grab him before our attacker hit me with whatever magic she was using.

I never got that chance.

With another snap of brutal energy, my body felt like it had just burst into flames. My teeth snapped against each other so hard I thought they would crack, my legs went numb and twitched uselessly in the dirt, and my vision flashed more colors than I could ever imagine. And through it all, the only thing I could think about was the convulsing colt only feet away from me and how I couldn’t help him.

Until finally it all went black.

“Just let us go down and get him ourselves then,” Charmer argued and pushed her face as close as she could to the guard captain’s without actually touching her.

The mare who had brought us to Bunker looked a lot different without all her gear on, especially now that her violently green mane hung down almost to her hooves. I’d never seen anyone with such long hair before, and it was a little odd to get used to. I almost wanted to ask why she didn’t get it cut, but decided against it.

“Why would I do that?” she asked and backed up to get away from Charmer. “He’s down there for a reason you know?”

“I get that, but we’ll take him out of town entirely. You’ll never see him again,” Charmer continued. “Isn’t that the point of him being in Death Row in the first place?”

“No, the point is for him to die, if he hasn’t already that is.” The guard pony trotted around to a desk and sat down. “Which I’m almost certain he has. Nobody lasts long down there.”

Charmer growled and stepped up to the desk, continuing her argument on the lines that if he’s presumed dead, then they shouldn’t care if they went down to get him, but I didn’t pay much attention. Instead, my attention was drawn to Tinker walking into the next room with curiosity written across her face.

I quickly turned and followed her, intending to make sure she didn’t wander and get us in trouble like Shayle almost did upstairs. “Where are you going?” I whispered just loud enough for her to hear me.

The filly stopped and turned back to me, only offering a little nod in the direction of the next room before taking a seat and perking her ear up to the barely-open door. I sighed and went to her side, wondering what could possibly have caught her attention.

“… approaching the compound now. Solus, keep an eye on that outhouse.”

Wait, was that Xion? Why was Xion on the radio?

“Why do we care enough to listen to this?” one of the ponies inside the room asked with boredom.

“Quiet,” a high-pitched, feminine voice replied. “This is the good part.”

“He’s coming out now. Minx, do you see him?” an unfamiliar voice asked, someone I could only guess was one of the Scorpions I hadn’t talked to yet.

“Yes, I see him now,” Minx gently replied, seeming to be completely calm wherever they were.

“Take the shot then.”

Everything went silent for a moment, and I barely caught a bit of the conversation behind us going south. Those two really didn’t seem to be getting along. But I didn’t really catch much of it once the radio in the next room crackled to life again.

“He’s down, but they heard it,” Minx announced. “Shit, Rangers in the bar!” She didn’t sound calm anymore.

“Everyone open fire!” Xion ordered through the din of crackling gunfire that had already started up. “Tetrarch, where the fuck are you?”

“No fucking way,” one of the ponies inside declared. “They didn’t actually pick a fight with Rangers, right?”

“Hey, you heard them. They’re just as stupid as -”

“Get away from there!” an angry voice snapped behind us, whipping both of our attentions back to the desk. The guard captain was glaring at us from behind Charmer, who looked just about as mad as the other mare. Only thing was that she looked a bit more threatening since half of her face was gone.

We both stood up and walked back toward the desk before hearing the door behind us get kicked shut. I looked over to Tinker with distaste and got a mouthed apology in return, which I suppose helped a little. Besides, it wasn’t like we were doing anything really bad.

“Now then,” the pony with the long mane turned away from us and glared at Charmer. “What exactly do you need him for? I’m sure plenty of ponies here could help you better than that brute.”

“I doubt that,” my burned friend replied. “Name me one pony here who knows a safe way through the city.”

“Safe way? That’s hilarious,” the other pony snorted. “Have you tried Tailspin? I heard he used to go out there a lot.”

“He already said no,” Charmer explained. “And that leaves Goober.”

“So you’d rather take a psychopath than just risk it yourself?”

“Psychopaths generally know how to survive, so yes.”

Wait, so he was a psycho? Why did she want him with us if she already knew that?

The guard pony grumbled and looked around for a moment before her eyes fell on a pair of old keys that hung from a little hook on her wall. “And you promise he’ll never come back?”

“I can make sure of that,” Charmer agreed, even if it did seem like she was just saying what the other pony wanted to hear.

“Fine, but keep your kids on a leash,” she demanded and looked to Tinker and me with fire in her eyes.

“Don’t worry, I will.”

“Good.” The mare walked around the table and pulled the keys down from the wall. “Follow me.”

We all obeyed and followed her out of the office, my eyes flicking briefly over to the radio room where those guards were listening in on whatever was happening, or had happened, with Minx and the other Scorpions. I wasn’t planning on sneaking over again, that could only end with us being thrown out of town without Goober, but I was still curious about what happened. Maybe I could find out some other time.

The Captain led us down into the main town from her office, where the ponies who had gone outside to shop with Starry Night seemed to have returned. The town wasn’t necessarily bustling anymore, as most of the residents seemed to be creeping off to their shacks, but some still gathered around burning barrels and small meals to chat. It seemed like a friendly enough place right then, but the way the guard upstairs had treated Shayle still kept a bitter taste for it all in my mouth.

“So, do you have a name, or should I just keep calling you ‘guard’?” Charmer suddenly asked the captain who escorted us through town. I pretended to stay interested with the ponies shuffling about around us, but perked my ears to the conversation in hopes of catching the name as well.

“Reverb Blues,” she replied simply. I supposed it made sense considering her little magic show when we first met. And of course it made me wonder how pony’s parents seemed to know exactly what their foals would be good at later in life. Maybe they were just really lucky at guessing, or they changed their names when they figured it out. Either way, it was a little odd.

“Well that explains your attitude,” Charmer poked with a sly grin that showed off the deformed teeth under her scarred cheek.

“Funny.” Reverb held up her hoof to us and stopped walking at a guard who seemed to be standing in no important place; just a random open space somewhere in the town. “These three are going down to get Goober,” she announced and passed the key over to the new guard.

“What?” He seemed surprised.

“Just open it,” she ordered before turning back to us. “Alright, here’s the deal. I’ll give you all until dawn to find him and get back here, that’s about 10 hours from now. If you aren’t back by then, I’m going to assume you died and lock this thing back up. Understood?”

“Perfectly,” Charmer grumbled. “How big is it down there?”

“That depends on how far the Diggers have gotten. I wouldn’t imagine it being too big, but you never know with those damn things.”

“You idiots never killed those off?” She knew what they were?

“And waste a perfectly good execution method? No.” Reverb almost sounded proud of that decision, and I had a feeling she may have been the one to make that call in the first place.

“Of course, how silly of me.” Charmer stepped up to a large gate in the floor and waited for the guard to finish unlocking it, a task he seemed to be having problems with. “Wanna hurry up?” she asked angrily. “You’re wasting my time here.”

The lock finally clicked open, and the guard swung up the gate which covered a somewhat deep, very poorly lit hole in the ground. And of course it looked like it split off in two directions, which made me wonder how we could possibly figure out where Goober was, if he was even alive. I just hoped it didn’t mean us splitting up.

One at a time, we all jumped into the hole, starting with Charmer. I was glad she went first, because if she hadn’t caught me and Tinker I doubted we would have had a very comfortable landing. The hole smelled like rotten meat and something else, but I couldn’t put my hoof on whatever it was. It was familiar though.

“Remember, 10 hours,” Reverb called down to us before swinging the gate shut with a loud clang that echoed through the tunnels.

Something deeper in answered it with a long, chittering screech that sent a shiver up my legs.

“What was that?” Tinker asked in a high pitched stutter and took a step closer to me.

“A Digger,” Charmer replied calmly. “Don’t worry about them, they’re harmless as long as you stay away from the nests and their food.”

“What are they exactly?” I asked with a cocked brow that I doubted she could see very well.

“I don’t know what they used to be, but now they’re very big and look like something from Tartarus.” She started walking and continued. “They’re also very annoying if they get chatty while you’re trying to sleep.”

“So, they’ve been here a while then?” Tinker quickly asked and followed along behind her, staying at my side while her head darted back and forth nervously.

“Ever since me and Mamma moved in way back when I was a filly,” she explained. “I thought they would be gone by now though.”

“And, you’re sure they’re harmless?” the frightened filly beside me squeaked after a quick clicking from a small hole in the wall.

“They were when I was here, but things change.” That was comforting. So comforting that I took a step closer to Tinker and sped us up to stay closer behind Charmer. “Don’t worry, I doubt they’ve gotten aggressive. Just stay away from anywhere you see a big group of them.”

As if one of them knew we were talking about it, a bundle of chitin and legs scuttled from a hole that filled most of the hallway ahead of us. I couldn’t even begin to describe what it was, or what it might have been at one point, but Charmer’s description of where it may be from was dead on. Along with a pair of legs on either side of its body, the monster boasted a pair of massive, shielded forearms and a head that was covered in more jaws than I cared to count. No matter what the green pony ahead of me said, it did not look harmless at all.

Tinker squealed and pressed hard into my side, which would have knocked me over if my legs weren’t locked into the ground from the sight of the me-sized thing. But it never charged like I thought it would, instead it just stared at us, tilting its head from side to side while a long pair of antennae folded forward and probed the air around us. Even Charmer didn’t move at all; not to look back at us, or reach for the rifle that…

Wasn’t there. Because the guards upstairs didn’t think to give us our guns back. How did they expect us to defend ourselves from these things if we didn’t even have weapons? What were they thinking?

What was I supposed to do if Charmer was wrong about them?

Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about it just yet. The creature stopped probing toward us with the whip-like antenna on its head and lowered itself back into the hole it came from; apparently deciding we weren’t food, or intruders, or whatever it thought we were at first.

“See?” Charmer proudly stated and looked back at us. “Harmless.”

Quivering, Tinker didn’t seem convinced yet.

I don’t know how much time had passed since we jumped down into Death Row, it seemed even harder to tell underground than it usually was on the surface, not that it was easy there either. I didn’t even know how far we had gone since everything seemed to meld together in the stone tunnel that was only scarcely lit by a few magical lamps hung every so often. Most of it was constantly bathed in darkness, with small bubbles of light that only served to keep us on the main track.

We passed countless side tunnels, most of which were bored straight down or off in strange angles through the walls. All of them clicked with the chatter of Diggers who were just out of sight, and each time it sent my heart racing from the fear of one jumping out at us after deciding we were food. Thankfully, that never happened, and we continued onward un-assaulted by the insects.

None of us had said a word since our first encounter with one of the bugs, which was something I had gotten used to after spending countless silent hours trotting around the Wasteland ever since my sister had dragged us away from home. The question of whether we would ever go back niggled at the back of my mind suddenly, and I found myself worrying about Dad, wherever he was. I didn’t know where the Remnant took prisoners or why they would have taken him, but I started thinking of how to bring it up to Shayle. I had tried not to think about it since we left, which wasn’t too hard with everything that happened since then, but in the monotonous tunnels of Death Row my mind ran free and trekked back to the day we left.

It had been so sudden, and didn’t make a lot of sense then, and made even less sense now. Dad was only a trader, a shop owner back home who didn’t have much chance to do anything illegal with a business to run and two kids to care for, so what could he have done? And how did I not get woken up by the soldiers showing up to take him away? My father wouldn’t have gone without making some kind of noise, or at least wanting to say goodbye to us, but he hadn’t even tried. Or maybe he had and just didn’t want to wake me. I wasn’t completely sure, and that filled me with the sudden need to know why it had happened.

I was whipped back out of my thoughts when my nose squished into Charmer’s hip, eliciting a surprised squeal from the mare and a swift, instinctive kick into my ribs. I stumbled back into Tinker, who screamed in surprise. I spun around to look at her, and saw the filly curling onto the ground and shaking like a leaf.

“Sorry,” I whispered to her softly and bent down to help her up.

“Please don’t do that again, I thought you were one of those things,” she squeaked and accepted my hoof to get up, her voice cracking more than once. I almost wanted to ask why she thought I was a Digger, but decided not to press it when Charmer cleared her throat behind me with annoyance.

“We’ve got company,” she hissed and looked forward.

I followed her gaze down the tunnel to the next ball of light cast from a lantern, and my heart started racing at the sight of a twitching pony laying on the stone. “Is that him?” I asked softly and stepped up to Charmer’s side. I really hoped it was, because I was tired of that tunnel.

“No, wrong colors,” she explained and started creeping forward. “We should still check on them.”

I nodded in agreement and followed the pony’s lead, walking forward as quietly as I could until we were within a few feet of the spasming body. Despite what I thought before, the pony didn’t seem to be having a seizure or be in pain at all, instead it looked more like she was being shaken by some unseen force. Her eyes were shut and seemed to have been leaking blood recently, which made me think she must have been dead. That and the fact that her lower jaw was unhinged and a pool of crusty blood under her head.

“Well, let’s keep going then,” Charmer announced and stepped over the body to continue onward. I nodded and walked around the body that still shook violently, partly curious about what was causing it, but mostly intent on not finding out. Tinker seemed to share that sentiment, and gave the body a wide berth while still trying to stay close to me and Charmer.

Suddenly, a gory crack echoed from the body and froze me and Charmer in our tracks, while Tinker sprinted off to get behind us. I put my tail over her withers and stared at the body, hoping it had just been all of our imaginations. It wasn’t.

The belly caved in and tore violently, spilling a mix of liquefied guts and the most rotten smell I’d ever experienced before a wriggling form slid out into the mess of gore. It looked like a hoof-sized maggot, but had the beginnings of legs hanging limply on either side of its body. But I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. All three of us spun on our hooves and trotted further into the tunnel with new purpose; to get far away from whatever just happened as fast as we could.

Sadly, we didn’t get far before all three of us stopped in front of a wall of…something, that blocked the tunnel. If I didn’t know any better, I would swear it was made of bones and slimy dirt. Beyond it, I could hear a lot of chittering and crunching sounds, and really didn’t want to think about what it probably was.

“Well, we have to go through it,” Charmer declared and looked it over for a few minutes, poking at random spots and sometimes kicking it.

I really didn’t agree with her. Was finding Goober worth going through whatever congregation of monsters waited on the otherside? Apparently it was to her, but I definitely just wanted to turn around and find another way. She said she had a few friends around the city, and trying to break one out of that place hardly seemed as simple as just finding another one.

With a swift kick on a particularly slimy bit of wall, the bones and dirt crunched inward and revealed a hole with faint light glowing on the other side. “Let’s get this over with,” Charmer said unsurely and crawled into the passage she made.

I grumbled about how bad an idea that was, but still followed, deciding it was better to just get it done and leave as quick as we could. With any luck, Goober was in the barricaded area so we could just turn around.

The wall was blocking off a rather large chamber that split off in almost every direction with Digger tunnels ranging from the size of my head, to almost being Charmer’s height. The center of the room was dominated by a mass of what I could easily call rotting meat from the smell, and more bones than I could count. The clattery sounds of Diggers filled the entire room, though I couldn’t see a single one of them actually in the chamber with us. There was one light on a wall, but it was almost entirely covered up with the nasty gunk we had just crawled through.

And on the ground near it was a large pony covered in cuts and bleeding profusely from his mouth. But even with that, I could see his chest rising steadily with each labored breath he took. He was actually alive. We all ran over to him once Charmer started, her face contorted into a mask of worry. It had to be Goober.

Charmer skid to a stop and started shaking the stallion roughly, her voice flat and strained. “Goober, get up.”

Surprisingly, the stallion actually did awake, and instantly slammed his hoof into Charmer’s ear. The mare reeled and fell to the ground, clamping her hoof over the boxed ear while she grumbled and squeaked in pain. Meanwhile, Goober jumped up and looked around frantically before spitting a wad of bloody spittle at his hooves. His eyes narrowed at me and Tinker, and the large pony started toward us brutally.

“Goober, stop you idiot!” Charmer kicked out her hoof and tripped the other pony while still gnashing her teeth in pain.

Goober rolled back to his hooves and looked down to Charmer with fire in his eyes, but it almost instantly extinguished. “Charm?” His voice gurgled with the sound of blood still coating his throat, and the stallion quickly hacked to spit up another glob of red gunk. But I was stuck on wondering how he could recognize her so quickly, especially since I could only assume they hadn’t seen each other since she was a filly.

“Yes, you idiot,” she growled and finally stood up, though her ear did twitch every few seconds.

“Holy shit, you’ve grown,” the stallion coughed and stepped toward her. “How’s Ma?”

“She’s dead,” Charmer explained flatly. “But we can catch up later, it’s time to go.”

“Go where?” he asked, seeming to be a little put off by the snappiness of Charmer’s command. “Nobody leaves this place, you know that.”

“We have an arrangement with Captain Reverb…”

“Bitch,” Goober interjected without hesitation.

Charmer grumbled and continued. “We have an arrangement to take you with us. So let’s go.”

“Not the same shy little girl I see,” the stallion joked and shook his head. “Whatever, let’s go then.”

“Are you sure, I can take a look at him first,” I suggested and pointed at the blood. “Just to make sure.”

“Do it when we get out of this fucking town,” Goober demanded. “It’s just a little blood.”

I sighed, but agreed with a shrug. Hopefully he wasn’t as bad as he looked and could make it that far.

Before we could even turn around to leave, Tinker squealed and back peddled into me. I spun and looked at the wall we came through, only to see a trio of Diggers crawling over it and trying to repair the hole with some kind of slime they spat out. And now the wall was even more disgusting than it originally seemed.

“Damnit, shoot them,” Goober shouted and turned to Charmer, who just shrugged.

“Reverb didn’t give our guns back,” she explained and grabbed a bone from the pile of decomposing bodies. Gross.

The mare charged forward, and Goober followed suit, holding a large rock in a shroud of orange magic. I grumbled and swept up a rock in my tail before running after the two, and not really surprised that Tinker didn’t join in.

Before any of us made it to the wall, Goober launched the rock from his magic, smashing the head of one bug into the wall and instantly earning the attention of the other two. The massive insects screamed toward us, each one folding their antennae and opening a wicked pair of jaws that almost stopped me in my tracks. Instead, I flung my tail forward and watched the rock smack into the armored hide of one bug, not even slowing it down. I looked around for another and hoped the next time I would have better aim.

Charmer slammed headlong into the first, largest bug and jammed the bone deep into its mouth. Even then, the monster bowled over her and slammed the pony on her back before snapping the bone in its jaws and started at her face.

Goober tackled the other, adding the power of his magic to his own brute strength to tear off each of the monster’s legs. I didn’t see what happened after that because I charged at the bug pinning Charmer. It had already cut her pretty good with a few bites, but so far hadn’t done any major damage by the time I reached them. I put all of my weight into one of the legs, and shivered at the feeling of the appendage snapping off against my side before I rammed into the Digger’s abdomen. Instantly, it stopped and spun to me, and slapped me in the face with one of its massive forelegs. I fell back and kicked out just to be sure it wasn’t trying to mount me, and was glad I did when my hoof plunged into one of its clusters of eyes with a gooey squish.

The thing backed up before charging again, this time right at me. Before it could get to me, another bug’s shielded foreleg swatted it to the side and sent its head rolling, much to my relief. And horror, because now another one was right behind me. At least I thought that until I tilted my head back and saw Goober throwing the leg across the room with his magic.

“Nice kick, kid,” the stallion complimented and lifted me up in a tingly orange glow. “But next time don’t get knocked down.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I commented and brushed a glob of bug guts from my chest.

Charmer walked up to us with Tinker close behind and looked around. “How about we leave before more come?” she suggested and started for the wall before anyone protested, not that any of us were going to.

Now we just had to stomach the sight of that blood coated maggot again, and hope we didn’t run into anther bug before getting out of that nightmare of a tunnel.

It wasn’t hard to know when we were almost back to Bunker, even with the tunnels all looking alike, because the look of the tunnel had nothing to do with us figuring it out. After walking for what felt like too long, we started to hear a soft ringing sound that came and went every few seconds. At first, I thought it was just my imagination, that I was just hearing things after going so long not hearing anything while we silently walked through Death Row, but soon enough, I saw Tinker looking around for the source of some sound.

“What is that?” I finally asked once it was almost as loud as my voice.

“Sounds like alarms,” Charmer suggested. “But I don’t know why they would be blasting alarms unless something was happening.”

“It’s the attack alarm,” Goober added in. “It means someone is either trying to get into Bunker, or they already are.”

“What?” I almost shouted and took off running, ignoring Tinker’s calls behind me. If they were trying to get into town, then Shayle was in trouble, or worse. They were right outside the gatehouse, there was no way they would have gotten away from whatever happened unless the guards let them in. That didn’t seem very likely after how Shayle was treated earlier.

“Felix!” I heard Charmer shout behind me right before I was lifted off the ground in a mist of magic. “Slow down, we don’t know what we’ll run in to.”

“I just need to check on Shayle,” I told her and thrashed to get out of the magic field, but it was useless. I just floated there, lashing out at nothing.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Charmer tried to assure me, “Starry probably got her and the others away before anything happened.”

“Starry?” Goober suddenly asked. I found it odd that he’d ask about her and not Shayle, but oh well.

“Yeah, a trader we ran into the other day,” Charmer explained. “Please put him down.”

Goober seemed to hesitate, but put me down soon enough and looked down the tunnel. “So do we wait for them to stop, or go check on it?” he asked, putting more inflection on waiting than going to see what was happening.

“Might as well.” Charmer looked over to me and gave me a strange look. “Besides, I doubt we would be able to keep him here for too long.”

“Oh, I bet I could,” Goober pointed out. “But if you say so.”

To my relief, we all continued toward Bunker while worry and fear built up in my chest, putting my heart in a vice that only made it pump faster. Every worst case flashed through my head. Maybe Shayle got kidnapped by slavers. Maybe they were already killed by the attackers. Maybe the guards decided to kill her and said she attacked the town. Every one of them seemed just as likely as the last, no matter how hard I tried to argue that none of them were true. One of them had to be, because Shayle wasn’t lucky enough to escape some kind of injury if a fight broke out.

“You okay?” Tinker asked me quietly while we walked, trying to keep it only between the two of us.

“No,” I told her quietly and looked over at the two grown ponies a few feet away. I doubted they could hear our whispers with how loud the alarms were getting, but I didn’t want them to listen in on us regardless.

“She’ll be okay,” Tinker tried to assure me. “You’ll see, it was probably just a scare with some Raiders.”

“I don’t know,” I disagreed. “Why are the alarms still going off if it was just a scare?”

She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again and looked down at her hooves. “I don’t know. Just, try to hope for it, okay?”

I already was, but it was still a good thing to remember. Especially with the bad thoughts of everything that could have happened starting to take over every bit of my thoughts. I still had some hope that Goober was wrong, or that it was a test, but those thoughts weren’t even close to winning out over the bad.

Finally, I just said, “I’ll try,” and fell silent again. The filly nudged my neck with her nose, trying to calm me down, but it didn’t work. I appreciated the effort, but it was my sister. It wasn’t just a random townspony, it was my sister that might be in trouble.

Or worse.

When we finally reached the gated passage up to Bunker, I didn’t quite feel the relief I hoped to when we first left to find Goober. I originally thought it would be an amazing sight, and even thought that after we heard the alarms and I started my minor freak out about Shayle, but it wasn’t. Despite knowing that I would be able to find out what happened soon, I just got more worried. I almost didn’t want to know, I just wanted them to say if Shayle was okay or not. I didn’t want details, but at the same time I did. I wanted to know everything, but part of me screamed not to ask about anything.

“Hey, open up!” Charmer shouted over the alarms overhead once she was under the light from town.

Nobody came to the gate.

“Open the fucking gate, you twats,” Goober shouted up after her. His voice was much more demanding, and louder.

Finally, a rather cute mare looked over the edge and down at us with a shotgun floating beside her. “Oh, it’s you,” she shouted down, trying to be heard over the still-blaring alarms. “You’re gonna have to wait. We’ve got a problem.” My chest tightened.

“What kind of problem?” Goober asked roughly, apparently deciding to be the new spokesman until the alarms turned off.

“The possible intruder kind,” the petite mare replied. “That trader and the others with her outside disappeared, and the guards were knocked out,” she explained. “So you have to stay here until-”

I stopped listening around that point. Not on purpose, I actually wanted to know everything I could about the situation, but my curiosity lost the fight in an instant. Instead, my fears and worries took over and flooded out everything, only leaving me with the muffled sound of sirens and the same phrase repeated over and over.

She disappeared.

My heart raced, my teeth clenched, and I could hardly feel it when Tinker leaned into me and tried to embrace me. But I didn’t want a hug, I didn’t want her to try and make me feel better. I didn’t care about that. I just wanted my sister to be okay.

She disappeared.

I didn’t even think about the others. I didn’t know them like I knew my sister. I mean, two of the three others were complete strangers I had only met a day ago, and Vulpe was just a kid we took with us after Caesar’s Stand. She was closer to him than I was, and the same went for Sandy. But her… she was family. She took care of me when I was sick, she charged into battle when I cowered, and she got hurt for it more than I ever had been. Yes, she was a bit of a mule when it came to me and fillies, but that was just one thing.

She did so much more good for me than bad.

But suddenly…

She disappeared.

My body burned when I finally woke up again. I didn’t remember what I dreamed about, or if I had at all, all I could remember was how much everything burned while I slept. My teeth ached, my ears rang, and above everything else my heart felt like it was about to explode. I hadn’t even opened my eyes yet, and I didn’t want to. The light would only make them burn even more than they already did.

“M-mom,” I heard a soft voice moan, and for a moment almost didn’t recognize it.

When I realized it was Vulpe, my eyes shot open, and of course burned even more when the dim light of a fire bit into them. I blinked again and again while looking around for Vulpe, knowing that he didn’t call for me, but still worried about what happened to him. When I finally saw him, my panic subsided a little bit, but not nearly all the way. The colt seemed to be just waking up, along with the Stable pony who was lying a few feet to his side. She seemed the least bothered by whatever had happened to us, but…

What did happen to us? All I remembered was a flash of light, searing pain, and Vulpe’s squeals as lightning coursed over his body. Why was lightning on him?

“Good, you’re all up,” a wicked voice stated from somewhere behind me. “I was starting to worry that the sun would come up before you did.”

It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Was it Minx? No, it was a little too high pitched for her. Seer? No, she was dead. I put a hoof on my head and rubbed it like it would somehow knock the memories back into place, but of course it didn’t. I could hardly remember anything, and I had a feeling that I really needed to remember what happened.

“Well, since you’re all being so quiet, I’ll start,” the voice said again, finally making me turn around to see who it was.

Starry Night.

The name came back to me as soon as I saw the brands covering her body, which were glowing violently in the firelight. It looked like her body was covered in ancient burning script, and only leant to the horrifying image of everything she did racing back to me just from looking upon her.

She had shocked the guards. Then she shocked us without warning. She had seemed so happy, so nice, and suddenly she was electrocuting everyone in sight with a smile still firmly on her lips. Now, her horn glowed a venomous yellow, and her eyes flickered with the flames dancing between the two of us.

“We’re all going to play a game of Hide and Seek,” she started explaining while a strange rage built in my chest. “You three have ten minutes to go hide wherever you want, then I’m going to try and find you.” The unicorn levitated the blocky rifle from behind her. “I suggest the town down that hill behind me. It has a lot of places to hide, and no ponies to ruin our game.”

She was insane, absolutely insane.

“Sandy?” I looked back over to Sandy and saw her wobbling a little with some bits of vomit stuck in the coat of her chin.

Starry sighed angrily. “I’m not explaining it again, so if you’re asking what I’m talking about, ask your zebra friend,” she told the Stable pony with an irritated glare. “So, any questions Shayle?”

I didn’t expect her to ask me anything, so I froze. It took a few seconds to decipher what she had asked me due to my still buzzing head, but once I figured it out I quickly started thinking of something, anything to ask that might help.

“Uh, what happens if you find us?” I quickly asked even though I was certain I already knew.

“Well, that depends on my mood when I find you, but it won’t be good for you at all,” she told me with a sick grin. “Anything else?”

“Do we get weapons?”

“Yes. Your guns are all hidden in the town down there,” she told me and pointed down the hill. “If you can find them, you can use them. I can’t make it too easy.” She chuckled and spun her rifle around like a baton in her magic, obviously enjoying her little game much more than anyone should. “One more question, then we start.” Something seemed different about her, like she had completely changed into a different pony from the mare I spent the night selling goods to. Everything she said sounded like a laugh, and I don’t think she had stopped smiling once, even when she was scolding Sandy.

I thought hard, trying to think of something to ask that would maybe stop her or give us extra time. I didn’t bother to ask why she was doing that to us, because I doubted the answer would make me feel any better or help me at all. She was still going to hunt us like animals in that town. So, I just asked her something random.

“How long do you have to find us?”

“Until one of us wins, of course,” she answered enthusiastically. “But I have to warn you, I’m the Wasteland Grand Champion of Hide and Seek.” She giggled frantically and spun the rifle around one more time before jumping on top of the fire and putting it out with her magic after getting a few burns on her hooves. “Ready?”

No, I wasn’t.

“Go!”

Footnote:
Felix leveled up! (Melee 30, Unarmed 20)

Author’s Note:
Like with every chapter, I would like to thank Kkat for creating the Fallout: Equestria universe that so many of us love so much, and is just way too fun to play around in. I’d also like to thank and offer my support to anyone out there who is writing or has written a story in this wonderful universe that gets bigger and bigger every day, and for continuing to provide nearly endless reading for me and many others. Keep up the good work.
And I would like to thank everyone who reads this story, even through the way too long breaks between chapters and me constantly promising to get them out sooner, even though I never do. I can’t thank you all enough for sticking with me through it all, and only hope that I can keep this story up to a readable standard for all of you wonderful people.
So thank you all, and as tradition mandates, I’m going to say yet again that I’m going to try my best not to have a huge gap between now and the next chapter.