Indeed, only after Tes had packed and secured her belongings were we out of the protection of post-war Starward and in the surrounding ruins.

The residential section of the city gave way to a more commercialized zone. Toppled buildings littered entire blocks while others stood tall and firm. Cracked and up-heaved tarmac disrupted the streets in places, with some spots suddenly dropping into large sinkholes. More than one hole opened up to some kind of subway or sewer system. No mega spells had gone off in the city, evident by the lack of radiation, but who was to say that the destruction wasn’t from some century old battle or even just time itself?

In any case, the ruins were quiet, but still very full of life and danger. Radroaches weren’t uncommon and would scurry away as we approached. A pack of feral dogs had followed us for a couple blocks before gaining interest in a giant rat. There was even a lonely ‘prospector’ scrounging around the blasted remains of a gas station.

“Keep an eye out,” I said to not only break the silence, but to also inform Foxtrot and Tes of the danger my EFS was picking up. Numerous unfriendly red ticks were starting to appear. There were too many to be simple rad-roaches, nor did they jitter about like most pests.

We passed under a walkway connecting two unremarkable buildings. The windows were all gone along the glass corridor, leaving only the skeletal remains of concrete and support beams. Many of the structures ahead were missing windows and doors, leaving open, dark hideaways for anything that could fit within them.

Foxtrot rushed past my lead by a few paces and seemed to... sniff the air?

“Raid-” she started before a maniacal laugh echoed throughout the concrete jungle.

They were everywhere. All around, the marks on my EFS began to scatter as the laugh was joined in by other whoops and hollers. Then they showed their faces.

Raiders. And more than just a few of them.

There were few things more dangerous than a crazed, chem addled pony with weapons. One of those things was a whole herd of said crazy ponies.

There were too many ticks count, but the little red number beside the compass was able to do so. Sixteen of the murderous fiends managed to hide out in the ruins before converging on us at once.

“Well, well, well... looky what we have here, fillies and colts,” one of the raiders said with a jovial flare.

The voice’s owner showed himself as he climbed atop the roof of a half-destroyed carriage. He was a young, spring green stallion with an mangey, orange-yellow mane. Like his other raider comrades, his armor was made of anything and everything someone could have found in the city ruins. From scavenged street signs and scrap metal to pilfered clothing and barding, nothing was safe from their jury-rigging hooves.

“My little ponies, it appears we have some guests,” he said as he turned his red baseball cap back and allowed his horn to stick out of a crudely cut hole. Hardened, yellow eyes stared back from behind a lock of his mane, and was only matched by his toothy snarl. “Now, if you hand over your things, I’ll consider letting you live.”

My magic tightened around my saddlebags’ clips, with the intent to submit. We were outnumbered and outgunned and if there was anything certain about these ponies, it was that they were definitely not traveling actors.

Rather than backing down however, Tes pulled out her laser pistol. Foxtrot seemed to smirk at the situation, dropping into a more aggressive stance.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” the raider stallion said as he quickly pulled out an assault carbine from off his back and chambered a fresh round, as if to prove a point.

I readied myself to make a quick dodge, if needed, behind a crushed Cantervega to my left or a concrete slab that stood on-end to my right.

My companions played smart and backed down, even if it was only a little. It may have been cowardly, but it was better than being dead.

“Better,” he said before turning to his side. “Skippy, get their shit.”

“But... I got them last time...” a ruddy red mare complained. She was small, petite even.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know we were taking turns now. But I’m in charge here and I say do it or it’ll be your turn to be the gang’s fucktoy for a month!” he yelled, pointing the gun at her. “So get the fuck over there and grab their fucking shit before I fucking change my fucking mind!”

Skippy rolled her eyes dismissively as she muttered a slew of curses and slurs under her breath. Lazily, she made her way over to us, passing around the upright concrete slab that had fallen from the nearby architecture.

“C’mon... give ‘em up,” she sighed, clearly bored, but also annoyed at the situation.

“Nah, I kinda like my armor,” Foxtrot said dismissively.

“The fuck you just say, bitch?” Skippy snapped as she stomped over to my newest companion, which wasn’t far seeing as how she was the closest. The raider poked her in chest hard enough to push her around slightly. “I don’t recall asking what you like or don’t like. I told you to cough it up.”

“Poke me again, I dare you...” Foxtrot hissed back with her unfaltering grin and narrowed eyes.

“Uh... maybe you should listen to her, Foxtrot,” Tes interjected.

“I have to agree with her on this one,” I said. Whatever was going through her mind, in a situation like this, it couldn’t have been too keen.

“Yeah, listen to your stupid friends,” the mare said with another hurtful-looking poke.

Foxtrot sighed and shook her head, but kept her smirk.

“Alright, fair enough...” The fox colored pony moved in a blur, her head colliding with the raider’s.

The mare recoiled, slurring another line of curses and holding a hoof to her now-profusely-bleeding nose. Before I could do anything to hold my friend back, she threw herself at the raider. As she collided, Foxtrot hooked her foreleg around Skippy’s raised leg, rolled across her back, and used her momentum to throw the dazed earth pony head first into the slab of concrete. Her head head hit with a wet, sloppy, plop and left a long crimson smear as she fell limp.

I expected the inevitable ring of automatic gunfire... the burning sting of getting peppered with hot lead... anything to signal the end of a journey that hadn’t even begun.

I did not expect to hear the amused laughter of a stallion and from the look of it, neither did Foxtrot and Tes.

“Oh, wow! That was- that was something,” the leader said between his outbursts as he wiped away a tear. “Anypony else see that shit? She was like ‘Waaaaah! Splat!’ Fucking goddesses. Where’d you learn to fight like that?”

Foxtrot opened her mouth, but was cut off.

“Actually, you know what? Nevermind. You can tell me later,” he said as he raised his carbine. “You’ll be mine after I deal with your little friends here.”

It didn’t take another second to know what was going to happen. I gave Tes a forceful push with my magic and sent her tumbling behind a rusty Cantervega autocarriage while I darted the opposite way toward the concrete slab and Foxtrot.

I was barely halfway to relative safety before the gun sang out. Loud pings and pangs echoed off the steel body of the autocarriage and cracked across the concrete and road. Tes was curled into a little ball, fiddling with her laser pistol and jumping at every little shot.

“Kill ‘em, but keep the orange one alive,” the stallion said after he paused from a few short seconds of firing. “She’s mine.”

A symphony of whoops and hollers filled the air as the other raiders began closing in. I wasted no time pulling out Tweety and the old Azapa hunting rifle I barely used. One raider snuck around the back side of the Cantervega behind Tes but quickly found a lucky bullet to the head from the rifle.

Another burst of automatic fire from the leader filled the air. They weren’t a danger to us while we were behind cover, but that was where it kept us. Foxtrot busied herself by fitting some spiked clip-on horse shoes from Skippy and currently had a switchblade clenched between her teeth.

The gunfire abruptly stopped, most likely to reload. I used the pause to my advantage. I wouldn’t have time to aim any particular weapon, and even with SATS, the lag as the spell ended would give him just enough time to fire again. So I had to hit him without having to aim too much. I settled for one of the sawed off shotguns from the Starward house and levitated it out of a side pocket on my saddlebag. A quick check to be sure it was loaded and I was ready. I peeked over the edge of the rubble wall, aimed in his general direction as quickly as I could, and fired.

BOOOOMMM!!

The shotgun thundered off the sides of the the urban wasteland, roaring like an ancient beast waking from a long slumber. It kicked harder than any shotgun I’d used before, nearly flying out of my teal aura.

Though I didn’t look to see if I actually hit the raider, his pained cries were enough tell that he didn’t go unscathed. The other tick marks on my EFS scattered about. They were likely running to hide or getting a better vantage point.

“We can’t stay here,” I told my friends as I put in two fresh buckshot shells. “We need to move or else we’ll be sitting ducks.”

“You’re right,” Foxtrot agreed around the switchblade. “They’ll figure out a way to overu-”

She paused mid sentence, ears twitching as if trying to pick up something silent. A second later, a green, metal apple dropped between us.

A grenade. A grenade.

With reflexes even I was impressed by, she scooped it up in a hoof and lobbed it back to the other side of the concrete wall. The surprised shouts of a few raiders were cut short by a sharp explosion.

My ears were ringing and I couldn’t hear, but Foxtrot obviously yelled the word ‘Now!’ Just before bolting toward a different pile of rubble. Three-quarters of the way there, she was tackled by a raider. He swiftly got underhoof as she relentlessly pummeled him with her spiked shoes. Where she learned to fight like that, I didn’t know. What I did know though, was that she was more than capable of handling herself.

We needed to get past these raiders somehow, either by fighting through them or going around. Tes poked her head out from cover and let off a few short, rainbow blasts from her pistol. Two of the beams hit a raider stallion square in the chest and turned him into a searing pile of ash. Nothing was left, except the half-melted remains of a battlesaddle and rifle, and a few metal buckles from his armor.

I dashed across the gap between Tes’ autocarriage and my concrete slab and was able to steal a glance at the road ahead. There was very little, if any, room to move around the vicious ponies. Fighting through them seemed to be the only, but not the best, option. To top it all off... there were now eleven of them left according to my EFS counter.

I shifted around Tes to the other side of the autocarriage. Everyone seemed to be taking cover, either behind rubble, makeshift barricades, or the destroyed carriages that littered the street.

“Heads up!” Foxtrot yelled as something slammed into my back, forcing me to hit the pavement.

The maniacal laughter of the assailant rang in my ears as she kicked at me with clawed shoes. The thick armor plates along my back and sides were able to repel the attacks, but they wouldn’t last for long.

Instinct took over and I rolled out from under the raider and threw her to the side. She managed to right herself mid air with the help of a pair of bladed wings, landing deftly on her hooves. The pegasus flared her wings open. Razor sharp blades glinted in what light poked through the clouds as she lunged at me. Again, I whipped out my shotgun and pulled the trigger.

I was more prepared for the kick of the mule this time. The red sawed off roared to life again, throwing its hot leaded payload at the fiend. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of tiny holes peppered the raider as she crashed to the ground. Her clawed hooves clutched at her oozing face, barely muffling her cries.

“Gonna!” she screamed as she leapt up and blinding struck out a hoof, widely missing both Tes and I. Her eyes were clenched shut, where only bloodied tears streaked down. Their trails were lost amongst the many others that covered her face and chest.

“FUCKING!” She launched herself forward as she spastically flapped her wings in a flurry of feathers and blades, with hope of connecting with something fleshy. She hit her mark with a sharp, stinging lash across the side of my cheek. I recoiled, leveling Tweety between us.

“KILL!” she sputtered one last time before the .44 magnum buried itself deep in her chest. The pegasus tumbled to the ground as she choked on her own bodily fluids. Whatever wasn’t spilled across the cracked asphalt, she spat up at my hooves, speckling them with drops of red. Shortly afterwards, her tick disappeared from my EFS.

I turned to my laser-toting companion. “Thanks,” I said with a roll of my eyes, the stinging in my cheek only growing as it started to bleed.

“Hey, I didn’t want to accidentally hit you!” she said defensively as she jumped to her hooves and shook her laser pistol at me. “Have you seen what this th-!?”

She was cut off by a loud crack from a little farther down the street and was promptly thrown off her hooves. I, too, dropped down below the cover of the autocarriage, but by reflex.

“Son of a motherfucking, goddess-damned bitch!” she cried out as she clutched her shoulder. More blood ran from her own injury, where it was quickly drunk up by the thirsty ground.

“Foxtrot!” I called out as I magically pulled my blue friend close, behind the safety of the Cantervega. “Tes is down!”

“Got it!” she yelled as she reared up and slammed both forehooves into the head of another raider. It caved in against the yellow curb and he stopped thrashing about. Foxtrot dashed onward up the street, staying behind the cover of rotten wagons, rusty autocarriages, and crumbling concrete rubble.

I turned my attention back to the crying pony in my lap. Another loud rifle round echoed through the street. Unlike the others, this one didn’t ping off the roof or hood, or embed itself into the ground or surrounding rubble. No...

The sharp crack of the high powered rifle was followed by a crunching pop and a bottle-cap-sized hole mere inches from my muzzle. The bullet continued its trajectory and bit into her lower rear leg, earning another pained cry from the mare. It continued through to splatter the broken asphalt with more red gore.

“Hold still!” I urged Tes as I held her in my teal magic. I could no longer hold the hunting rifle, Tweety, the shotgun, and Tes all at once. The guns all clattered to the ground as I concentrated more on my friend’s well-being.

I worked quickly to pull out a roll of bandages, or any that could be used in their place. Stuffed in the bottom of the messy pack were a few, plain, squashed rolls of somewhat-white gauze. They weren’t the magically imbued kind that promoted healing, but they would work.

“FFFUUAAHH!-” the mare started before her curse was lost in a hiss of pain as I wound the bandage around the bloodied limb. As I did, another round punched through the rusty carcass just behind my head. Tes let out a sharp grunt when I jumped and accidentally pulled the bandage too tight.

“Sorry,” I said quickly as I neared the end of the small roll. It was already staining red.

The sniper was searching for us, slowly eating away at our cover. It was only a matter of time before he hit something neither Tes nor I could fix. I hastened my pace and tied off the last of the gauze. Just a flick of a strap and a pull of a buckle later and her crushed shoulder piece came off. The shredded stable barding beneath was turning a dark maroon and I had to tear the shreds off to get a better look. The wound underneath wasn’t pretty, but not as bad as it could have been. It looked like it was just a graze, but the round had torn through the hardened armor plate and ripped chunks of it across the her flesh, resulting in a half dozen smaller lacerations.

“Bright side, we don’t have to dig out the bullet,” I said with a fake chuckle to lighten the mood. Her shoulder flowed like a small faucet, dripping into growing puddle beneath the two of us.

“Just... fix it...” Tes growled with shallow breaths. “...fast.”

I hadn’t wasted another moment and was already on my fourth or fifth wrap around before she finished.

Another round whizzed overhead from the sniper, but was much too high and hit a stop-sign. A couple more shots rang out; one hit a nearby window and shattered it to a million pieces, and another went flying out into the wastes.

I had no idea where she’d gone, but I hoped Foxtrot was alright.

“Can you walk?” I asked Tes. “We need to get out of here.”

We both looked at her hind leg, where the gauze had done little to stop the bleeding and it was now mostly red and wet.

“I’ll try.” She grunted, winced, and then cried out as she barely made it to her hooves, leaning against the Cantervega to support her weight.

I quickly searched through my pack, found a little vial of med-x, and promptly jabbed it into her lower leg before injecting the chem.

“Hey! Owwwooohhh,” she sighed once the chem took effect and her stance softened.

I tossed my pack over my back again and quickly holstered any weapons lying on the ground, including the clawed boots from the pegasus. My EFS still said there were ten enemies hiding out in the ruins. The only explanation was that more had shown up and we were far from getting out. Scanning ahead from the backside of the autocarriage, I tried to pick out where they were hiding.

Instead, I found Foxtrot. She was on top of a damaged ‘City-Trotter’ bus, going hoof-to-hoof with a pony disguised as roof luggage. The orange pony swiftly pivoted on a forehoof and kicked the raider off the roof, where it landed on the edge of another crushed autocarriage with a painful shout. Foxtrot followed close by, landing on the raider’s chest to break both its back and her fall.

“Ready?” I asked Tes as my other companion dropped into the traffic jam.

“I can try,” she grunted again.

The blue mare wobbled before finding a suitable stance that minimized weight on her injured limbs.

“Let’s go,” I said.

I slipped behind the concrete slab where Skippy was lying. Her tick still showed up on my EFS, but she was barely breathing. I thought nothing of it; we’d be out of here before she came to and I wasn’t going to waste a bullet to make sure otherwise. Tes limped right behind me with the occasional wince. The two of us made our way down the street behind as much cover as we could. The less attention we attracted, the better.

In just a couple minutes, we neared the end of the traffic jam, which seemed to be caused by two, tipped over, military trucks.

“Surprise, fuckers!” a raider cackled when he jumped out the back door of the trailer. He floated two rusty SMG’s out and sprayed them into the air as he laughed maniacally.

A burst of rainbow laser shot over my shoulder and hit him square in the chest, where it melted a hole through the remains of a tire and the metal plating beneath.

“Hey!” I shouted as I jumped away from where the laser had flashed by. I could feel the heat radiate off the beam of magical light. Tes... she almost hit me! “Careful!”

The raider screamed out another high pitched laugh, unphased by the attack. In an inequine flash he had the guns leveled at Tes and I. Getting out of the way in time was no problem for myself, but with her injuries, Tes could not.

I shoved her behind a taxi carriage with my magic, putting her out of the line of fire and harm’s way.

His first few round missed as I bolted under a carriage myself, but some were able to catch up and either mushroomed against the armor plates, or sink into my flank. I tumbled as I neared the end of my dive. The impacts of the bullets hurt like a hundred bee stings. I didn’t didn’t have the room to examine the wounds, nor was the carriage a very good place to do so.

There was an odd thumping of what sounded like hoofsteps galloping along a hollow, metal tunnel. Looking back to the raider’s legs, I saw them collapse to the ground along with his guns. Quickly, a set of dark orange hooves appeared from atop the raider, ran past my carriage, and to Tes’ taxi.

“Something’s coming! It’s really big and really heavy!” Foxtrot panted.

Just as she said it, I could hear it. It was a very heavy ‘thud-thunk’, as if a pony made of steel was galloping across the concrete. I wasn’t familiar with the area, but I was sure that this was far outside the area of Steel Rangers, and most certainly too far for an Outland Ranger. Most robots hovered or roved about on wheels, and those that had legs were much slower than the rapidly growing ‘thud-thunks’. After a couple moments, they just stopped.

Then came the scream. It sent an icy chill down my spine, one I would never forget. It was that of a pony, but one that had lost its equinity and all that remained was a cold, unfeeling monster left to roam the wastes.

The raider Foxtrot had tackled turned over and looked up, going from pissed and angry to more afraid than I had ever seen a pony, let alone a raider.

“No... no! Please!” the raider begged. He squirmed about in an attempt to right himself, but panic got the better of him and he just flailed about.

A thunderous crash of steel on steel reverberated through the streets and ground, shaking what remained of the carriage I was hiding under and raining dust, dirt, and flakes of rust onto me. The raider had stopped all together, now just frozen and... was he crying?

He was. The murderous, chem-pumped creature was laying on his back sobbing and babbling some kind of apology.

“Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor...” a heavy voice started. It was being played on some kind of loudspeaker, broken by heavy, labored breathing. “My blade will punish all without distinction.”

The bawling raider picked up his rusty SMG’s and fired them both at something above him. I couldn’t see what, lying where I was. He yelled and shouted and cried until both guns clicked on spent magazines. Upon realizing his guns weren’t firing, he jumped to his hooves and dashed down the street.

He only made it a few short feet before tumbling to the ground, a wicked, homemade knife sticking out his back. The long, black blade glowed with a bright, pink magic that bled off its rusty surface in long and lazy wisps, like a candle that had just been extinguished.

He wasn’t dead, however. The mortally wounded raider stuck a hoof out, trying his damnedest to pull himself along the road as if his tears would help. He looked at me. His eyes begged for something to put an end to the misery and fear... a bullet, maybe med-x... anything.

The screech of bending metal groaned out, followed by an earth shaking thud. The raider’s life came to a quick end once a power-armored hoof found its way through his skull and back. It was unlike any power armor I’d seen before; too many chains, repairs, and other raider-esque accessories. One forehoof ended in a collection of rusty meat hooks, while its counterpart sported sharpened claws. The hind hooves each ended in some kind of power hoof. Whether or not they were functional with all the other repairs made to them was a mystery.

The wearer stepped forward and off of its messy kill, trailing chunky, red gore and grey matter where the hooves released the body. A pink aura formed around the still glowing knife and ripped it free as well. The monster didn’t waste any time searching for its next victim and blasted with the force of a rocket into my carriage-cover.

The pony hit the rotten carriage with enough force to roll the damned thing over, where it crumpled and snapped apart as it landed on its side. Without it obscuring my view, I was able to see who the new arrival was, though I wished I hadn’t...

The beast beneath the armor towered over me like an immovable statue and blocked out most of the faint sun. It wasn’t the size of the alicorn Tes and I had fought before, but it certainly gave her a run for her caps. Nothing hinted at its gender, not even its voice. The creature, even hiding behind the power armor, could only have been made of pure muscle; it acted like it didn’t need to use the strength-augmenting abilities of the power armor.

Raider origins had to be the only answer for the husk of a pony. No normal and sane pony would be covered in so much dry, crusted blood, rusty chains, and sharp spikes and blades. The pony was a unicorn, if the long, orange horn coming through the helmet was any indicator. The helmet was, like the rest of the armor, not of ‘normal’ build. An air filter or canister sat off to one side, with a hose going in one end from the muzzle to the back of the helmet and then to a second canister along the backside of the body armor. Two bull horns had been bolted to the forehead, one of them having been broken about half way down. Steel rebar intertwined with barbed wire to create a makeshift frame around the head and other parts like a foreleg, shoulder, and rear leg. Graffiti littered nearly every surface of the armor, ranging from curses, swears, and obscene body parts, to other odd pieces like a green mushroom cloud and a bumper sticker that said “Make War, Not Love.”

Apart from the usual raider apparel, the unicorn had numerous tools for hacking, stabbing, slicing, chopping, and otherwise dismembering prey on its form. I recognized the moonsteel knife strapped to its chest, but the others looked to be as hoof-made as the rest of the armor. Most prominent of all, however, was the massive, rusted slab of steel strapped to its side. The blade had a lazy curve to it, but it was nearly as long as its user, not including the long handle made from an old pipe. It, too, was covered in graffiti.

Faster than a large pony should be able to, the unicorn kicked at me with a foreleg. I didn’t have enough time to dodge the bloody, rusty meat hooks, but I did manage to push myself away enough that they only hooked into my chest armor rather than my rib cage. That didn’t stop the pony from rearing up, with me still stuck to the hooks, and slamming me against the bottom of the overturned carriage I’d been hiding under.

Something popped in my chest and I was sure I’d broken a rib from the one kick alone. I gasped for air as the wind was knocked out of me and tried to kick back. Even resorting to my brother’s training, the power-armored raider didn’t bother to flinch as it raised me above its head.

It let out another primal scream and brandished its moonsteel blade in a fiery, pink aura. I had nothing to block the ever-sharp blade except the useless sword I’d bought in New Appleoosa all those days ago. It sat on my back, more out of mind than anything. I pulled it out of the sheath with my magic and swung it at the moonsteel knife. Whatever the sword was made out of, be it some kind of unknown, alien metal or an enchanted steel, it collided with the edge of the knife and cut through it like butter.

The raider pulled back and slammed me into the carriage even harder than before, definitely breaking something besides the wooden planks behind me. My sword twanged off the ground as my last breaths squeaked out in painful rasps. I couldn’t go so soon, not like this...

Even as the spots started to appear in my vision, I still had enough in me to levitate Tweety between us. The raider didn’t seem to mind bringing guns to a knife fight. Actually, it didn’t even look like the raider noticed the gun pointing straight at its head. The barrel of the revolver flashed, sending a round straight into the forehead of the helmet, above the left eye.

The two of us stood there for what seemed like eternity. Well, it stood, I just sort of hung with my hooves dangling off the ground and wheezing like an asthmatic athlete. Everything from my neck to my haunches hurt like hell, and I was sure that the only thing keeping me going was adrenaline.

Blood began to drip from the base of the helmet and dribbled onto the rest of the armor and the ground. Though the raider still breathed.

“Not your time,” it leaned in and rasped quietly. “Not yet...”

In one fell swoop, it threw me aside. I hit one of the busted, wooden wheels before finally hitting the ground with a painful thud. Tweety clattered against the broken road somewhere and my sword was out of reach. Everything else I had didn’t pack much more of a punch than my favorite revolver.

None of that mattered though, as the wasteland monster stomped off into the ruin of autocarriages, wagons, and trucks. From where I was lying, I had a clear view of the rest of the pony. Its tail was unarmored, just a dirty blond mess of hair splattered with blood and dirt. The flank of the armor looked to have been scrubbed clean of any kind of graffiti, leaving an oddly empty spot filled only with a large heart that had been stitched together across the middle. Two knives stabbed the heart and crossed over each other in an ‘x’ and dripped blood off the tips.

A cutie mark? Gang sign? I didn’t dwell on the thought too much, or at least I couldn’t.

“Holy shit!” Tes exclaimed as she sprint-limped up to me. “Are you alright?”

The power armor raider had disappeared, crumpling the roof of another Cantervega. Whoever, or whatever, it was, I did not want to meet it again. When was my time? What did it mean? Did it plan on coming back? Hunting me down? Or was it just crazed out of its mind on chems?

A hoof clapped me in the side of the face. Not hard, but enough to get my attention.

“I said: ‘Can you hear me?’” Tes asked. “Can you walk?”

I wiggled my hooves. They all worked, so walking was a possibility.

“Yeah,” I grunted through a wheezing breath. It was quickly returning to normal, and I thanked whatever higher power decided a punctured lung was too much. “Just... give me a second.”

After a few more heavy breaths to get my lungs working again, I rolled to my hooves. The ache in my chest exploded ten-fold and I fell to my haunches. Holding my chest seemed to dull the pain, even if it was awkward.

“Here, take this,” Tes said.

At some point, I had closed my eyes. When I opened them back up, the blue mare was holding a small purple bottle. A healing potion.

“You’re not screaming in agony,” she said simply, “I’m pretty sure you just cracked a few ribs. But we’re not going to get very far if you can’t even stand.”

I nodded my agreement and took the bottle from her hoof.

“What about you?” I asked as I looked down at her leg. The bandage was completely soaked through now, as well as the one on her shoulder. It wouldn’t be long before they got infected, assuming she didn’t bleed out before then. I gave the potion back. Ribs would heal, I just needed a moment to bring myself back together.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “I can fix myself up once we get out of here. But we can’t do that if you can’t. So... drink up.”

Tes shoved the potion at me again. It wasn’t a very convincing argument, but she did have a point. If needed, I could carry her. I knew where we needed to go, but they did not. If I was out of commission, then they’d be left to fend for themselves.

Reluctantly, I took the healing potion in my magic and brought it to my mouth. They always smelled like bad cold medicine...

I drank it down quickly, not enjoying the flavor either... like bad grapes. Only good thing about them was the relief they gave. A comforting warmth spread throughout my body as the potion worked its magic. A few moments later and all that remained was a dull throbbing ache.

“Thanks,” I said. There was a twinge of guilt in my gut. Tes was in need of it more than I was, but she wasn’t going to take ‘no’ as an answer. In the end, there was probably some hidden, logical foresight that I just wasn’t seeing. She was, after all, a smarter pony than myself. I had more wasteland experience, but in the short time I’d known her, she more than proved she had the book smarts.

“Good, now let’s get-” Tes started before getting cut off by another bone-chilling war cry.

“Hear me now!” the raider called out. It stood on its rear hooves atop a bus similar to the one where Foxtrot had taken care of the sniper.

It was not alone, however. The hoof with the meat hooks clung to a familiar spring green stallion. The leader from the ambush bawled in agony as the meat hooks dug into the flesh of his shoulder. His horn had been smashed off and his face had already been beaten to a shattered, pulpy mess.

“The Heartbreakers run these streets! I... run these streets!” it bellowed. “Join me... or you will die.”

It threw the beaten pony across a steel trunk strapped to the roof. I couldn’t hear what exactly was being said, but the stallion was clearly begging for his life to be spared.

The one in power armor wasn’t having it though, and brought out the massive slab of steel. The stallion screamed in inequine terror.

It was obvious what was going to happen; I didn’t need to see to know.

“Let’s go,” I said as I picked up my sword, Tweety, and anything else I dropped or deemed worthy of looting.

The others followed suite and trotted close behind me as started to make our way through the downtown streets as quickly as our hooves would let us. I looked back to make sure they were coming and that we weren’t being followed.

On top of the old bus, the power armor raider stepped on the stallion’s chest. A fiery pink field of magic blazed around the handle as it sailed overhead and collided with the bested raider’s neck, abruptly ending his scream and removing his head from his neck in a single, smooth motion.

Day was swiftly turning into night by the time we finally arrived at the mountain pass. We all were tired, not just from the short, fast-paced skirmish, but from the miles and miles of walking as well. Our injuries didn’t help, either. Foxtrot had taken a few blows from a baseball bat, suffering a small concussion Tes had diagnosed. The blue earth pony herself had to change her bandages a couple times. Every time I offered to help in some way, she declined, saying she’d ‘be fine’. I really hoped so. Infections were all too common out in the wasteland and it didn’t take long at all before they turned septic or even gangrenous. I told her as much, and she replied simply with ‘I know’.

It was in mutual agreement to make camp in an old shack a short distance off the main trail. From what I could gather from the old books and journals within, it belonged to an old griffon hunter. Luckily, there was no angry griffon, or even a skeleton for that matter.

It wasn’t much, the old shack. It smelled like old wood and decay, but wasn’t unbearable, especially since it was mostly dry and out of the cool mountain air. The kitchen and main room blended together, with a single bedroom off to the side, and a bathroom next to that. Old, petrified pelts from all different kinds of forest critters hung on the walls. The floor was buckled in some places and the ceiling sagged in others. Half the windows were cracked or altogether missing and the other half were too dirty to see out of. There was a broken rocking chair sitting in the corner, and a homemade couch dividing the kitchen and living room. Pictures hung along the walls of the old griffon and his trophies; a big cockatrice in one, a timberwolf in another, what looked to be a small hydra in a third. Back in the day, before the war, it may have been a very strange situation for the griffon, hunting animals as he did. Now though, it looked like a another wastelander trying to survive.

The interior of the shack was slowly warming up, thanks to a fire I’d managed to create. Even by wasteland standards, the cast iron stove-heater was ancient. It still worked though; a pleasant orange glow leaked from the front slats and radiated heat out.

Tes was half asleep and curled up in front of the oven, resting her head on a bundle of straw wrapped in cloth. Stripped of armor, but still wearing her barding, she was patiently waiting for Foxtrot to return from the outside. The orange mare was slinking around in search of certain plants, which Tes planned to use to make some kind of medicine for her own injuries.

I sat silently on the couch, reading the book Lumens had given me. There were a lot of details to remember when using runes and glyphs, as well as certain supplies. Many of them required particular gemstones or even rarer materials to supply power. Some tapped into the power of the land itself. Others fed off the energy of the user or target; such was the case with the ‘magic binding’, which held a target in place and didn’t allow them to use magic past the edges of the glyph.

I took in as much as I could in the dim lighting the little indoor lantern gave off. It was mostly quiet, except for the occasional soft snore that broke through the crackling and popping of the fire. It wasn’t terribly long before Foxtrot showed up. In a moment, Tes was awake.

“So uh... I think I got what ya were looking for...” Foxtrot said uneasily as she brought out a small pouch from her saddlebag. Her hooves were caked in dirt and remains of leaves. “Wasn’t much to go off of, but they’re white, they got five, heart-shaped petals, and they look like they got pointed leaves with serrated edges. Roots and bark were a bit harder to find but I managed to sniff them out.”

Tes looked inside the pouch before dumping it out on the old rug in front of her. A few distorted radish-shaped roots fell out along with some bunches of white flowers and strips of some kind of fresh bark.

“These will work excellently,” she said with a hint of relief before she put all the ingredients into a pot of water she had set on the stove earlier.

“So... what exactly are you making?” Foxtrot asked as she sniffed the boiling stew-like mixture. Even from my spot on the couch I could smell it. It was sharp with a sweetness like maple, and an earthy aroma hidden in the backdrop. The concoction was... odd, to say the least. I watched in silence, more out of curiosity than anything.

“It’s something Medical used to work with back in 59,” Tes answered. She picked up a nearby wooden spoon and mashed the ingredients together. “They would make this stuff all the time to save the hassle of imbuing bandages and manufacturing healing potions. These things grew like weeds in the orchards, so the workers there were more than happy to get rid of them.”

“Injuries were common in your Stable?” Foxtrot asked. “I thought they were suppose to be safe.”

“Well... it is,” Tes said with obvious mixed feelings. “It’s not that it was dangerous, it really wasn’t, but the sheer volume of ponies inside was the issue. Try keeping three and a half thousand ponies accident free. It’s a taxing job to keep everypony on their hooves. This stuff has a pretty long shelf life and a lot of it can be made at once, plus it doesn’t use up any important resources.”

She continued to mix and mash the pot, eventually turning the flower, roots, and bark into a smooth, whitish-grey-green paste.

“Normally, it’d be layered into a pan, cooked until dried out, then crushed into a fine powder,” the blue mare continued, “but that’s just for storage and moderation purposes. Works just as well in paste form. The ponies in Medical call it Healing Powder, or in this case, Healing Paste.”

She took out the spoon, leaving a clump of the stuff cling to its surface. It looked like bad mashed potatoes, but she seemed happy with the result. Taking the spoon’s handle in her mouth, she plopped her bottom down on the ground and stretched out her injured leg. The bandage was mostly white now, with only a little blot of red in the middle. Carefully, she untied and unwound the roll.

The hole in her leg was matted with her blue and white coat and thick chunks of clotted blood. Tes wrinkled her muzzled in disgust at the sight before switching the spoon from her mouth to her hoof, where she grabbed it in her fetlock.

With the care of an expert surgeon and the deftness only a non-unicorn could possess, she smeared the thick goop into the topside of the wound. The mare hissed in pain for a moment before getting used to the substance. She did the same for the exit wound before rolling the last clean bandage around the leg.

Her shoulder was cared for much the same way, except she wrapped it with a long piece of clean, dark blue cloth from her saddlebag. The next place we stopped at, I needed to get more bandages and healing potions.

“There,” Foxtrot said as she finished helping Tes tie off the cloth. “All set.”

“Thanks,” Tes replied with a satisfied grin. “It’ll take some time to work, but it should clean out the wounds and hasten the healing process, while also keeping dirt from getting in it.”

“So lasers and medicine... odd combination,” I said, finally breaking my silence. “I’m glad you’re alright.”

“Told you I’d fine,” she smirked. “But yeah, I guess I have a bit of a knack for fixing ponies, too.”

“Huh... so what did you do back in your Stable?” Foxtrot asked curiously. “Doctor? Farmer? Toaster repair pony?”

“Eh...” Tes looked around nervously for a moment. “Energy Production and Power Protocols, or just Energy Production. In short, I kept the reactor from melting down and optimized outputs. Every day, I’d walk to my own little desk with five terminals and direct power where it needed to go, either rerouting it back into the machine or sending it throughout the Stable. It was a pretty easy job, but somepony needed to do it and I tested high enough on our schooling assessment to qualify. I could tell you more about it, but I’d bore both of you to death on Arcane Revolutionary Centrifuge mumbojumbo.” She finished with a yawn.

“Arcane what?” Foxtrot asked, sharing my bewilderment.

“Well, you asked...” Tes smirked before taking a deep breath. “The Arcane Revolutionary Centrifugal Reactor, or ARC Reactor, for short, works by inducing type B standard magical aether through Arcanixite quasi-plasma at near light speeds by way of rare Equis arcano-accelerators. The high rotational speeds cause the aether to break down into purer wavelengths and filters out arcane impurities like Manatite and Sparkazine. Sets of inverted versions of the accelerators pick up on the type B prime energy and force it back into its type B standard form. This constant break-apart and reform process pushes and draws sets of rare Equis ‘oscillo-magnets’, which transform the aether phase from arcane-energy to more useful arcano-electrical energy. This energy can be bled off into the grid and used up or fed back into the accelerators to further increase power. Liquid helium is used to cool the whole system. Max machine efficiency is 100.00001% theoretical. The highest achieved I’ve achieved is 99.99989% before the cooling reservoir sprang a leak.”

I stared in utter confusion, lost in the dizzying display of egghead vocabulary. I figured the blue earth pony was smart, but this was a whole different level that I’d never seen or imagined.

“You lost me after ‘boring us to death’,” Foxtrot replied after a few moments.

Tes simply shrugged. “I didn’t even explain the Retrosymbiosis Feedthrough System or Maneheim Capacitor Bank Booster.”

“What?” I finally asked. All I earned for my struggle in understanding was another smirk and a playful ‘never mind’.

Despite the confusion, our chatter was a good, peaceful way to end a rather long and harsh day. Dinner was plain, but something different. Having a decent source to cook from, I took some mixed vegetables, braised carrots and hay, and a can of corn, threw them all together, and made a veggie stew of sorts.

It wasn’t long before the two mares passed out, each in their own sleeping bag. I unrolled my own, laid it on the hard couch, crawled inside, and drifted away to some much needed rest.

The morning was cool; the fire from the night before had burned to nothing more than smouldering coals. Outside, light shone through the clouds in the dull blue of dawn. I wanted to get going before it was late in the day. Rockton was the next stop, but we still had to traverse this mountain side, go through a valley, then walk up a second peak before arriving at the little town.

After the events of yesterday though, I decided to let the two earth ponies have a little bit more rest. They earned it. In the meantime, I busied myself with my usual morning routine of a Sugar Apple Bomb breakfast and teeth brushing. Afterwords, I grabbed my saddlebags and quietly dumped them onto the table. I didn’t take much inventory of what I’d grabbed or used up during the raider ambush and needed to figure out what exactly I had left or gained.

A couple nearly broken guns being held together with duct tape, wire, and nails. The 9mm pistol was nearly broken and the slide was jammed halfway open with a bottlecap. The rifle I picked up sometime wasn’t as bad, but had a bayonet made from a bent kitchen knife. It was attached with string and wonderglue. I put them aside, they’d be worth something to someone, if only for scrap.

Luckily I didn’t pick up any of the raiders’ armor. It was too heavy to be carrying around and wasn’t worth its weight unless it was sold in bulk. I was out of bandages and hadn’t picked up any healing potions, unfortunately. Hopefully it wasn’t too rough of a trip to Rockton. I did, however, manage to snag a couple Dash inhalers and a bottle of Buck tablets. They instantly went into my saddlebag for later sale, along with the other two raider guns and a bright red straight razor I had found at some point.

The rest of the stuff on the table was my usual crud; my odd assortment of guns from Tweety to the Azapa hunting rifle, to the red and blue sawed off shotguns. My sword was off to the side, however useful or useless it was. Maybe that was the ‘curse’ that stallion in New Appleoosa was talking about. Buy it, and it’ll never be used.

As for food, we were still good and probably wouldn’t need to buy any until we were past Rockton. The foodstuffs found their way into one of my bags as well, along with my weapons, minus the blade.

There was a rustle behind me as one of the mares woke up. Tes let out a few small coughs, waking up Foxtrot in the process.

I finished packing my things back in my bag. Once my two companions were up, moving around, and eating breakfast, I filled them in on the plan for the day. We gathered up the rest of our things, extinguish the hot coals, looted anything of value in the shack, which only meant a dozen rounds for the my hunting rifle, a few shotgun shells, and some dirty pre-war bits.

Outside, a fog was just starting to lift. It was damp, but not soaking wet. Tes had donned what armor she could. Her strange concoction from the night before had made her wounds tender, but they were closed up and no longer risked bleeding or infections. We had forgotten the shoulder piece back at the streets of downtown Starward, but it was almost beyond repair anyways.

Foxtrot was clad in her lightweight leather armor and wore her new spiked horseshoes. She kept busy by investigating the trail ahead and anything else that made a noise in the half-dead forest. Her silenced pistol remained holstered the entire time. The mare seemed quite content with the spiked shoes and switchblade she had looted from Skippy.

I was in my usual attire, taking point in front of Tes, but behind Foxtrot. I didn’t have any of my weapons out, for the simple fact that there was nothing on my EFS. Only Tes and Foxtrot showed up, with the occasional crow or pest passing by in the barren trees.

It was a very boring trot through the woods compared to the previous days. Boring, but safe. We passed the time by simply talking, or rather Tes passed the time by asking questions.

“So let me get this straight...” the blue mare started. “on the last day, the pegasi closed up the sky. And that’s why it’s always cloudy.”

“Yes,” I confirmed.

“And they did that because they felt they were pulling more than their fair weight of the war,” she continued.

“Or so I’ve heard.” I wasn’t completely sure of my knowledge of Equestrian history, but from the rumors I’d came across of the years, that seemed to be the case.

“And there’s a mountain so ungoddessly tall in these Outlands, that it shoots through this cloud cover,” she said as the three of us rounded a bend in the rocky path.

“Almost,” I corrected. “As far as I know, the only major Enclave city is Cirrostratus, which isn’t even near Mount Ponlympus. They don’t have a very strong presence in the region, and the sun does poke through. There have always been clouds around the mountain peak, but I don’t think they’re Enclave.”

“Alright, so then because of that, a lot of ponies think there’s some kind of treasure or something like that up there?” She didn’t sound very convinced.

“Yeah,” I said. I believed it, though.

“Sounds silly,” she said dismissively. “In almost two-hundred years, nopony has gone up there?”

“You’ll have to see it, there is nothing natural about the way it looks,” I countered. “And they have, but none have ever returned. It’s dangerous. The snow and weather alone make it too treacherous to climb for three quarters of the year. Horrible creatures roam the mountains, and legends speak of Windigos and even more mysterious beasts. Avalanches and rock slides aren’t uncommon, either.”

We rounded back around another bend, ending the S-curve in the path. Ahead was a small, walled complex. Four silos suck out of the middle and the peaks of a half dozen buildings were visible above the surrounding concrete walls. The silos were all interconnected with old conveyor belts and walkways, on which a few ponies sat in chairs with long rifles.

One of them glanced at us and raised her weapon, but didn’t fire as she peered through the scope.

“Speaking of rocks... This is Rockton,” I told my friends. “Stay sharp though, we’re being watched.” I pointed a hoof at the sniper ponies.

“Hm,” Foxtrot let out an impressed huff as we trotted through the gates. “Not a bad place... walls look stable enough.”

Though I caught the sarcasm, she was right. The walls were made from two-foot thick slabs of concrete topped with sharpened bits of metal: barbed wire, sharpened pipes and rebar, or even whole steel beams that had been cut and ground to points. The spikes all pointed outward, away from the town’s innards and out into the wastes.

Inside the metal paneled gate, it wasn’t very busy. Only about a dozen or so other ponies were trotting about the small enclosure. Most of the buildings looked to be post-war and were made from the usual wasteland materials. Some, however, were made purely from the same concrete as the walls.

Bang!

“Tes!” Foxtrot cried out.

I looked back to see the blue mare lying on the ground.

Footnote: Level Up!

New Perk: Sneak Thief of Friendship (Friendship Lvl 2) - Congrats again, wastelander. You’ve made another friend, and with it, a new companion! Your max companion limit has increased by 1, for a new maximum of 2 total companions. Additionally, A 10% bonus to Rad resistance has been given, and, as long as you travel with Foxtrot, you gain a +10 bonus to your sneak and melee weapons skills.