I fell, far and fast, nothing to keep me company save for the rush of wind around me, and the rapidly closing ground. It was possibly the most serene I'd ever felt in my entire life, to date.

Well, until I remembered that hitting the ground at terminal velocity is usually pretty fatal, and panicked. I hadn't come this far to just die hitting the ground like some sort of wingless ra-

I slapped my face with a hoof, and winced as I hit a bruise. Of course, I had wings. Falling to one's death was for unicorns and earth ponies. I snapped my wings out, and put my emergency fall recovery training from flight school to work... and screamed in pain as my right wing flared up in pain, and I snapped it back in reflexively.

Right, it's still damaged, I mused as I went into a spiral. I looked down, and saw a small, tin-roofed shack sitting not far from the edge of the forest, directly below me.

I did my best to slow down, but... well, with only one wing, the graceful and painless landing that I'd envisioned at first vanished, replaced with an increasingly accurate vision of me plowing through the ceiling of some wastelander's home.

I tucked myself into the emergency crash-landing ball I’d been taught way back when, and braced myself for the worst.

I came to, and groaned. Knocked senseless twice in less than a day – that was an uncomfortable first.

Dust spiralled in the muted light that penetrated the cloud layer to shine through the hole in the roof, and I sighed. I wasn't dead... which was a miracle in itself. I felt myself, and relaxed. Nothing new broken, either. Just tenderized more.

Above, outside the shack, I could see a few black dots retreating back above the clouds - my escape had not gone unmarked, but they either presumed I was dead thanks to my fall, or simply couldn't risk getting spotted in the search. Either way, they were leaving me alone.

With a clatter of metal, I uncurled, got up and staggered a little as I looked around the somewhat darkened shack, feeling my bruises. The small one-room shack, currently roofless thanks to my reckless passage, was otherwise a small, sturdy affair.

For some reason, which may or may not have been my fault, the ground was littered with hammers of all sizes and shapes; I picked one up and examined it. Just a rusty old hammer, one amongst the dozens of similar tools. Some claw hammers, a few mallets, even a sledgehammer resided here.

Nothing of use to me, though. Not to mention, a worn mattress in the corner implied someone... or something... lived here and presumably owned all this stuff. Oops.

Speaking of, where was everypony? My impromptu descent should have gotten somepony's attention, at least. I looked around and made my way to the door, poking my head out cautiously, scanning the horizon. Unless the world was as dead as the Enclave said it was, and I was the victim of a long-running, radio-based trap.

Nothing but a ruined town in the distance, smoke from fresh fires rising into the air and indicating there was something alive out there. Did my fortune really extend to arriving completely unremarked? I shrugged, and left the shack, silently apologizing to the owner, wherever they were; and set out in search of the life in the Wasteland that I'd heard so much about from DJ Pon3.

I slunk around the outskirts of the derelict town, keeping low like the DJ had advised – it was Raider Season, after all. My head brushed against something wooden, and I looked up.

Welcome to Ponyville!

Well, no questions about where I was, then. The famous Ponyville, home to the Ministry Mares, and, as reported by Enclave Propaganda, the six mares who killed Equestria. Even the two pegasi ministry mares weren't without fault; one reportedly committed suicide after helping the others ruin the war effort, and the other had the nerve to abandon the Enclave in our time of need, after the Princesses were killed in Canterlot.

I slunk around the sign, and over a small knoll; the once lush, green town was now dirt, concrete and abused buildings. A leafless, warped wooden structure towered over much of the town, an ancient thing I recognized from my school textbooks as a ‘tree’ - but it had no leaves. I wasn’t sure what to believe any more. Had the Enclave told us the truth at all? Or were we drinking from the water trough of what they wanted us to think for our entire lives? Hell, at that point if you told me ponies turned into trees, I’d probably consider it strongly.

The odd can rattled, and dust shifted as I crept alongside a large building; a playground sat awaiting users, not a hundred metres away. I looked at the building - a school? I shuddered. This place was long since abandoned, but I could still hear voices on the wind, what little there was. Eerie.

Wait, what? My ears twitched, and I listened harder.

“Psst. You, down below.”

My ears weren’t playing tricks on me. A lifetime of listening to energy rifles and radios for even the slightest clue for errors had served me well, it seemed.

I looked up, and saw the bell tower. Protruding from the lip was a long barrel shape - it looked like a gauss rifle, only without much of the things needed to regulate the magnetic field. Which would make it... a regular rifle?

“Hello?” I asked out loud, keeping my voice to a harsh whisper. “Are you talking to me?”

“No,” the voice rasped. “I’m talking to the other guy who’s slinking around the schoolhouse. Of course I’m talkin’ to you!”

"Uh..." I considered the situation. This was definitely one of the weirder conversations I'd had. "What... do you want?"

"First off, get up here so we can talk, and so you don't blow my cover!" A pitted, grey hoof waved itself over the edge of the tower. "Go inside, use the ladder. Mind the mantises."

I looked around, and shrugged. It probably wasn't the best idea, but then, if the guy wanted me dead, he could have done it a lot sooner and more efficiently by simply staying silent and letting me wander away so he could shoot me with whatever that rifle he had was.

Either that, or he did want me dead and just wanted to save a bullet by stabbing me. I banked on the bet that nopony was that mad, and followed the mysterious voice's instructions to enter the dilapidated schoolhouse.

Rows of mouldering, old desks greeted me; to be expected, really, this was a schoolhouse after all. Although it differed from the schoolhouses I was used to - where we used clouds, they used hard materials. I tapped a desk with a hoof, and made a small noise of approval as it didn't crumble to dust like I'd expected it to. The schoolhouse as a whole seemed to have stood the test of balefire and time rather well, with only a few cracks and missing sections of roof to show for the neglect.

That said, there was something else wrong with the classroom. A distinct lack of... life. Not the fact that there wasn't anything alive in here, but more like the fact that there didn't seem to be any evidence anything had ever been alive here in the first place. No pictures drawn by ponies. No paperwork left unmarked on the desk for two hundred years. No books left on the shelves. Nothing to say that this schoolhouse had ever seen a single student.

In a more literal sense, though, there was definite evidence that there had been things living in here recently, as testified by the giant mantis corpses everywhere. One or two splattered by heavy impact, another six or seven smashed to a gooey pulp and smeared across the floor, and a hoofful of mantises cut cleanly in two with something that left clean, charred cuts.

I let out a breath in exasperation, dust-motes swirling. Nothing met my eye. It was like the place had been cleaned out for the holidays, and simply never saw a student again.

I shook my head, and looked around for the ladder that I'd been bidden to find. Held in place by a desk, the ladder stood, reaching up beyond the ceiling to the roof above through a convenient hole. I climbed up, wary of the edges of the hole; the splintered edges of the hole looked sharp, but some of them had been cut short by whoever had gone ahead of me.

I stood on the roof, and got a good view of the town. It didn't so much sprawl as it sagged over a wide area. The tree looked a little better from up here, my new vantage point revealing that it was only partially as dead-looking. The other side seemed a little healthier, even if it was just as dead.

I crept along the spine of the roof, and poked my head into the bell area. Inside, the rifle I'd seen earlier rested on the lip, poking out over the town, pointed towards the library. I looked around for somepony else; the only other thing in there was a small saddlebag of ammo, and a dead earth pony corpse wearing a thick black vest and bandolier, holding the rifle to it's shoulder as if forever frozen in the act of lining up a shot.

Great, I was hearing dead voices, now. I looked around, and sighed; perhaps I was meant to take the bag? I reached a hoof out for the it, and almost jumped a mile when a decayed hoof shot out and grabbed mine, stopping it scarce inches from the flap.

"It's not polite to just take without asking," the same raspy voice I'd heard earlier admonished me, even as I squeaked in terror and tried to get my hoof away.

"A z-z- zombie!" I breathed, redoubling my efforts as the head of the 'corpse' lifted, and turned to face me; sightless white orbs in a decaying, once-grey-coated face, topped with a few half-hearted wisps of dark blue mane.

"Hey, relax!" The mouth of the corpse moved, reaffirming that it was, in fact, talking. "You'll give us away! Shush!"

"Y- y- you're d-"

"Dead?" The corpse snorted. "I wish. Dead ponies don't gotta worry about a thing. I still got problems to deal with and ponies to help."

The hoof let mine go, and I pulled it back, cradling it. "Who are you?" I asked, after a moment of thought.

"Who I am, is a mercenary looking for a little help," the corpse said. "If you don't mind walking into a raider's nest and getting a kid out, then there could be some caps in it for you. You like caps, right? Everypony likes caps."

"I... uh," I shook my head. "What's a cap?"

"Bottlecaps!" the mercenary snorted. "You grow up in a stable or something?"

"Uh..." I coughed. "I... guess?"

The mercenary frowned, but nodded nonetheless. "Well, okay. Caps is currency. You got caps, you got a chance for food in your belly. You got caps, you got ponies lining up to take it from you one way or the other. Now, you wanna earn some caps or not? You'll be saving a life while you're at it, maybe more."

"I'm in," I said, slowly. "What do I have to do? Will I die doing it?"

"Hum," the corpse said, nodding. "Good questions, but perhaps you should have asked 'em before agreeing." The corpse turned, pointing out towards the tree. "All you have to do is walk into that library, free a small colt, and get out again. Don't worry about raiders on your way there, but once you're inside, you'll want to move as quick as possible and probably stay close to windows. Whether you die inside that library or not depends on what you bring to the table."

"I... I think I can use a laser gun," I nodded.

"Lasers, huh?" The corpse turned around. "Got one on you, do you?"

I shook my head. "No, I don't have any weapons."

The corpse nodded. "Well, to make sure we all walk away happy and alive, in lieu of paying you caps, I'll give you a spare laser pistol. What's your armour like?"

"I... don't have any?"

"Your lucky day, then," the corpse sighed. "You get extra pay. You're lucky I run into so many ponies with nice torso armour and no helmet to speak of. The hardest part of my job is carrying all the armor."

With a soft rasp of leather, the mercenary's hoof dove into the saddlebags, and pulled out a beaten pistol-like weapon, throwing it to me. I caught the weapon and looked it over - a standard laser pistol, I'd seen a few in the Enclave before; mostly used as sidearms or defensive weapons by less-armoured soldiers, and completely foregone by power-armoured enclave, due to the helmets.

This particular gun looked like I wasn't even the second or third owner, evidence of prior ownership and possibly over-ambitious habits all over it. Small clusters of two or three notches in places, burn marks, a little crusted blood, and casing that had been replaced by so many different pieces of metal  it looked like a mosaic.

A suit of armour hit me in the face as I examined my new weapon, and I put the gun down briefly to shrug  it on; a lightweight arrangement of thick and thin material, it managed to fit me just right, apart from a total lack of space for me to spread my wings. While I was wearing this, I wasn't going to be doing any flying... that is, if my wings worked, anyway.

"You sorted?" the mercenary asked.

I looked at myself, and felt my heartbeat kick into overdrive. I'd just volunteered to go and help a kid at the drop of a hat, with virtually no combat experience.

"So, run that plan by me, again?" I asked, throwing in a winning smile for effect.

I trotted along, my new gun tasting like rust in my mouth and my new barding chafing against me just enough to irritate as I repeated the plan to myself like a mantra.

Walk in. Free kid. Walk out. Try not to die. Don't panic. Walk in. Free kid. Walk out. Simple.

I wished I wasn't such a skeptic sometimes. Every fibre of my body screamed that this was not the case, and things would not be 'simple'.

There must have been something wrong with me. I ignored these protestations all the same, and kept walking. As I drew nearer to the tree, details became visible to me.

For one, it was, indeed, a library. Who put a library in a tree? Ponyville did, apparently - Ponyville Public Library, although past generations had done their best to remove this evidence with graffiti and vandalism; windows glistened in their panes, broken and jagged. The front door was still on, although it didn't look like it would close properly due to simple wear and tear. I nosed the door open and carried on.

The interior was not much better. The walls were covered in even more graffiti and stains which I had no desire to examine beyond determining that they'd come from a pony at some point. The smell of... garbage, to be short - it pervaded the air, and turned my stomach. I felt like adding to things by hurling what lunch might have been in my gut at the time.

I couldn't imagine what the small, yellow colt dangling by a hoof from the ceiling was feeling. A thick cable held him above me, and I looked around for anypony who might object to me untying him.

Fortunately, nopony was around - a fortunate occurrence, since I wasn't sure how good a shot I really was. I returned my attention to the bound earth pony colt, who was slowly beginning to come around.

"Psst!" I whispered, trying to get his attention.

The colt stirred, and twisted his head to look at me, eyes widening as he saw me. "Hey! What are you doing? Are you a raider?"

"I'm here to help you get out!" I whispered. "Do you have a way to get down?"

"What do you think?" the colt shot back, gesturing with his free forehooves. "Really."

"Uh, good point," I nodded, eyeing up the top of the rope; lashed firmly to a rafter above in a nice, thick knot was the not-pony end of the rope. I lined up my pistol.

"Whoa," the colt waved his hoof, "not in the face!"

I squeezed the trigger, one eye shut to get a good bead on the knot. With a snap and crackle of ozone, a weak, red laser shot forth, and... missed the knot completely, hitting the rafters and making a slightly singed spot about two inches wide.

"Sweet Luna," I muttered, spitting out the gun into my hoof. "What the hay is wrong with this thing?"

I tucked the gun under myself and carried it over to a nearby flat surface; the tools and clamp resting nearby suggested it was the designated repairs table.

"Hey!" The colt swung his hooves. "What are you doing? Get me down!"

"Gotta fix the gun," I muttered, taking a nearby screwdriver to the weapon and popping it open. "Focus array's out, I won't be able to hit shit."

"You don't gotta hit shit," the colt protested. "Just keep firing until you hit that knot, and I'm free!"

I tapped a module inside the gun with mild surprise; it didn't even look like the right focus array for a gun this small, a previous owner had jury-rigged this replacement. It was a wonder it even worked, to be honest.

A second, more vigorous tap with the screwdriver, and the array snapped back into place with a soft click; I nodded and resealed the housing. The inside wiring was so much duct tape and solder, I honestly doubted the gun would go for much more than a dozen shots. If I ever survived, I'd need to strip it apart and basically rebuild the damned thing if I wanted to keep using it.

"I hear somepony coming!" the colt whispered as I did up the last bolt; I tucked the screwdriver into my barding, and readied my laser pistol, once more squinting down what little sights the weapon had at the knot, and firing.

A red beam, the picture of photonic health, shot forth and flew true, power cells of my weapon thrumming in my mouth as the laser burned a neat path through the knot, and destroying it outright.

With a twang, what was left of the rope snapped, sending the colt down as fast as gravity could pull him. Thinking fast, I dived under him and he landed squarely on my back - right on top of my concealed wings, particularly the injured one.

"Sweet mother of Luna!" I grunted, doing my best to restrain a scream of agony. "That hurt!"

"Go!" the colt urged, "I see them!"

I spared a glance over my shoulder; behind me, on the steps was a very surprised unicorn raider; grubby coat, unruly mane and a jacket that looked like it had never been washed. He didn't even have a gun out, and might have been just as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

The impasse came and went very quickly, the raider shouting in alarm. I reared up and turned tail, running hard for the door.

"Aren't you gonna stop and shoot them?" the colt asked, astonished.

"Not part... of... the job... description!" I puffed, struggling under the colt's weight. "What the heck do you eat, kid?"

"Job description?!" the colt exclaimed. "They want to shoot, kill and maybe eat you! How is defending yourself not part of the job description?!"

I plowed through the door with a crash, leaving it swinging in the wind as I raced out into the derelict town and down the main road, hooves rattling on ancient cobblestones. The raider who'd spotted me wasn't far behind, the glow of magic about his horn as a rusty shotgun was brought to bear.

I looked forward once more, and saw the schoolhouse bell-tower. So close... I shut my eyes and prayed that getting shot didn't hurt as much as I feared.

A shot echoed around the buildings, and I felt my mane move in the wake of a heavy bullet zipping past my head to hit something with a sound not unlike throwing a damp sponge at the wall; with a strangled gurgle, the raider behind me fell over with a thump, and I turned around to see a headless corpse tumbling forward and sliding to a halt; I did the same, and was rewarded when the unicorn's shotgun bounced and skittered over the flagstones of the road to come to a rest at my hooves.

I picked it up, and my EFS clicked happily as the inventory management spell on my pipbuck tucked the weapon into the side of my barding. I spared it just enough time for a look of surprise before I started running again. Just as well, because another three raiders emerged from the library, guns ready.

Bullets zipped and zinged around me, and I ducked my own head instinctively as I bobbed and weaved as best as I was able; once again, the sky rumbled and pieces of lead fell like lightning to find the raiders' heads.

I kept running around the corner, and ran along the side of the schoolhouse, heading back out of town the way I'd come in. With a rattle of tiles, and a thump of hooves on dirt, the mercenary joined us; the colt didn't seem surprised to see a dead pony running about, which suggested there was something I didn't know about going on.

Saddlebags rattling, the mercenary galloped harder and took the lead, leading myself and the colt towards our destination.

I cantered to a halt, breathing hard, and the colt got off my back. The merc set his saddlebags down, and pulled out his rifle; sitting back on his haunches, he held his rifle in a way I'd never seen any soldier hold his rifle before, sighting back towards ponyville.

"We've lost 'em," he grunted with satisfaction. "Good running there, sparky."

"Sparky?" I asked. "Also, how the hell did we lose them? Anypony with half an eye should have been able to see us running across that flat ground." The merc shrugged.

"Sparky's a slang term for an electrician. Pre-war, you probably wouldn't get it." He set his rifle down on his bags, and sat down, catching his own breath. "And we got away so easy because those buggers is junkies, scum. Can't concentrate long enough to give proper chase, I'd say. Or they're in the market for softer targets."

I frowned, and missed most of the explanation. I escape the Enclave, I arrive in the wasteland, and people are still calling me Sparky. Unbelievable.

"Uh, thanks awfully, misters," the colt said, tugging what was left of the rope off his hindleg. "Woulda been dead if you hadn't helped me."

"Was my pleasure," the merc grunted. "Always got time for a kid."

"No problem," I nodded. "I came out ahead, so I'm happy." I tapped the shotgun at my side with a hoof, resting it on the stock. "Actually, Mister Zombie, I don't suppose you've got some medicine on you?” I nodded to the shotgun in my side. “I'll swap you this shotgun for some bandages or healing potion, or something."

"Ah," the merc shook his head regretfully. "I've been around the block, and I only really carry what I need these days... potions aren't one of those things." A decaying hoof was held out, milky white eyes staring into space just to the left of me. "And the name's Iron. Most folks call me Blind Iron, but just 'Iron' will do me fine. I'm not a zombie, I'm a ghoul."

"Uh," I tentatively shook the hoof. "Magnetic Screw, repairpony. What's the difference between a zombie and a ghoul, anyhow?"

"One's an undead, mindless flesh-eating machine, and an insult to the differently alive. The other's a thinking, irradiated equine."

"Oh." I turned to the colt. "You got a name? You seem awfully young to be out here on your own."

"I'm Claw Hammer," the colt nodded, and I finally got a good look at him. Yellow coat, purple mane. No clothing, and no cutie mark. As I noticed that, my eyes flicked to Iron's out of reflexive curiosity, only to find it was gone, decayed flesh remaining. "And I'm not too young," Claw continued, "I'm a whole twelve years old, I am - old enough to scavenge for the tribe."

"You're looking in the wrong places if you're going to ponyville, kid," Iron grunted, fishing spare bullets out of his saddlebags and reloading his rifle's magazines. "Nothing there but trouble, place got cleaned out long ago."

"Yeah, I guessed," Claw nodded. "Oh well. Gonna have to be radroach again for dinner tonight."

"Radroach?" I asked, horrified. "Those same things DJ-Pon3 talks about on the radio?"

"Well, duh," Claw snorted. "Them's good eatin'... if you're a foal, I guess. But they do get a little tiresome after a while, and I am a growing pony. Need a more substantial diet, y'know? Hence the scavenging."

"Y- you've been eating radroaches your entire life?" I asked, struggling to deal with the idea of a pony eating... "But that's meat! Ponies can't eat meat!"

"Well, it's not really meat," Iron countered, thoughtfully. "Not like, say, a good brahmin steak. Ponies aren't built to handle meat, I'll give you that. But let's face it - this is the wasteland, most ponies don't have a lot of access to good, green veg. At least, not the healthy kind of green vegetables."

"But... meat!"

"You're not from around here, are you?" Hammer guessed.

"No," I confessed. "I'm not. I'm more used to eating fruit and vegetables."

"Oh, we still get those," Iron nodded. "Mutfruit and what not. I hear some groups actually grow regular produce, out Hoofington way."

"Where do we go now?" I asked, and Iron shrugged.

"Well, I was gonna head for Appleoosa," Iron said, "make my usual stop at Absolutely Everything to unload my spare gear, and see if I can't pick up a bounty or a contract somewhere. You're welcome to come along, if you've got nowhere else better to be."

"Sure." I nodded my assent. "I need to get some healing potions."

"I'll pass," Claw shook his head. "Gotta get back to my family, give Sledge an earful for sending me out here in the first place. Moron, he's got a brick for a head, I swear."

"Alright, kid," Iron nodded. "See you around, maybe."

The ghoul mercenary got up, and put his saddlebags back on, stowing his rifle on his back within easy reach. Thus prepared, he started to trot off on a path that would take him along Ponyville's outskirts, and beyond. Hammer got up and after dusting his flank off and shaking his leg, picked up the rope that had once held him up, and trotted back off in the direction I'd originally come from. I looked between the two, and decided fast, running to catch up with Iron.

"So that's that, is it?" I asked, slowing to Iron's measured trot.

"What's it?"

"You're just gonna leave a colt to fend for himself in the wasteland, just like that?"

"I don't see what the problem is."

"We just rescued him from raiders!" I exclaimed. "What if he gets caught again?"

"Then he hasn't learned his lesson," Iron said, "And someone else can save him. Besides, he's got family. 'm sure they're out searchin' for him."

"That's awfully cold, Iron."

"It's the wasteland. Most folks won't  give you so much as the time of day, let alone a helping hoof out of a sticky situation. The kid's just lucky we happened to be in the area."

I nodded, and we lapsed into silence for a bit, until-

"Wait a minute," I said, "You said 'Blind Iron'. Why do they call you that?"

"'Because I'm blind as a bat," Iron replied. "Well, mostly blind. Can’t see much further away than you are. I happened to be looking at a balefire bomb when it went off. Didn't die, but I certainly went blind."

"That means..." I frowned, and my eyes went wide as I realized the implications. "You were shooting around me! While blind! Are you mad?"

"Sparky," Iron said, turning to look at me. "This is the Wasteland. We're all a little mad, here."

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