Chapter 3

Haunting Pasts

Some ponies will say that dreams don’t last long.

Ditzy Doo had told me, well, written, that my reinforced leather barding should be done by noon tomorrow, possibly earlier. I was 183 caps richer, and had one hell of a suit of barding waiting for me. I still needed to finish what I came here to do and-

Gggrrrrrrrrp...

And apparently my stomach was telling me to eat. It was nearly noon and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before. So yes, I was hungry.

After wandering around the town for half an hour, I finally found what I was looking for: a place to eat. The eatery was conveniently named ‘The Diner’.

“Welcome to The Diner, the best, cheapest, and only diner in New Appleoosa,” said a pale green earth pony mare as I entered. It was a little surprising that there was no hesitation in her greeting. Since I’d decided to leave my cloak’s hood down, ponies didn’t seem to be so uneasy. Maybe I’d been wrong to hide away from the world. Maybe I wasn’t as much of a ‘freak’ as I thought myself to be.

Inside, The Diner was surprisingly roomy, even with the eight or so ponies already in their seats. It was welded together from a ‘kitchen’ car and two dining cars, side by side. The kitchen car was in the back and the other two were in front with their connecting wall torn out, making The Diner feel like one of it’s pre-war counterparts. Above the counter was a menu consisting of daisy sandwiches, vegetable stew, a dozen different kinds of salads, and many other edibles.

“Radigator meat, bacon, and brahmin steak?” I read off the menu. I thought ponies were vegetarians.

“I’m going to guess you’re not ordering those... We sometimes get Griffon mercs in here who like extra protein in their diet,” the green pony said. “I would suggest our Wastelander’s Salad. It’s on special today.”

"I’ll have that, then," I told her. On special? I wasn’t completely sure what that meant, but I didn’t really care. I was hungry.

"Dontchya knock off bacon or hot dogs 'til ya tried 'em. They're tastier than ya think" a stone grey colored pegasus with a brown duster said as he passed by. He was already out the door when I looked back to say something. I turned back to the yellow mare, a curious look on my face.

“Slate is weird. Some ponies, like him, enjoy the taste of meat,” she said, shaking her head. “I personally have never tried it. It’s just... not right. It’s meat. We’re meat. But if you want bacon or whatever on your salad, it’s an extra three caps."

“Sure. I’ll try some bacon.” I’d never tasted it before; I was feeling adventurous.

“Really?! I mean... uh, okay. What would you like to drink with that? We have Sparkle Cola and clean water.”

“Water, please.” The carroty taste of Sparkle Cola was a little disgusting. I wasn’t a big fan of carrots in general, either.

“Alright. That’ll be 28 caps. It should be ready in just a few minutes,” the waitress said with a smile.

I gave her the caps and the mare stowed them away in an old cash register. After writing something down on a piece of paper, she trotted off to the kitchen in the back. One of the cloudy windows near the front of The Diner looked as good of a place as any to sit. A few uneventful minutes later, my salad and water appeared.

“Enjoy.” A different mare than before said happily. She gently set the plate and water bottle down in front of me with her magic and trotted away. I looked down at my salad... with bacon slices. One of the wavy reddish brown pieces of meat floated before me as I examined it, unsure what to think of it. I'd actually never even seen bacon before. I popped it in my mouth and chewed. Hm, crunchy.

Then it hit me like a falling boxcar.

The taste was AMAZING! It was indescribable. How could you put it in words? You couldn’t. It’s flavor was that of ‘bacon’, and anything short of pure deliciousness was blasphemy. Bacon was now on my list of things to find anywhere and everywhere, right after healing potions, but just above mutfruit.

I ate the rest of my salad between the moments of bacon-induced ecstasy. After stowing my unopened water bottle, I realized I hadn't filled my canteens when I was at Absolutely Everything.

The dirt roads around New Appleoosa were a little busier than before. Everypony was still giving me plenty of room, though. It was kind of nice, since nopony was constantly bumping into me.

Ditzy’s shop was much easier to find than before. Just as I stepped up to the door, an orange earth pony stallion in a prewar business suit came flying out, spinning through the air once and face-planting on the dirt road. He did not look happy as he got up and dusted himself off. A second later, an empty box flew out and hit him in the back of the head. He took the box in his mouth and trotted off, grumbling something under his breath. The whole street seemed to be watching. The stallion turned the corner at the end and everypony continued on with their daily business.

I entered Absolutely Everything and, again, did not expect to see what I did: an extremely pissed off looking Ditzy Doo. She was standing behind the counter, breathing heavily, and looking out of sorts.

“Should I come back later?” I asked. She didn't look like she was in a good mood as she picked up a pencil and wrote on her note-block again.

‘Oh, no. It's okay. Just a bad business proposition. That pony's been trying to buy me out for years. But I've ran only two businesses in the past two centuries, this one being nearly 70 years.’ She tore off another piece of paper. ‘AE is one of the only things I have. Other than more caps than I can shake a stick at.’

Wow, two centuries. But that would mean...

“You’re from before the war?” I asked, a bit astonished. She nodded happily as a flood of questions filled my mind, mostly about what it was like before everything went to shit. They would have to wait, though; I was here for something specific.

‘So, what can I get for you? Your barding isn't done yet, but I'm sure you knew that.’

I chuckled. Of course it wasn’t. “I need water. About 12 bottles.” She nodded once and ran to the back room. There was some rummaging, another crash, and a couple seconds later, she emerged with a small wooden crate with rope handle, in her mouth.

‘20 caps/bottle. 240 caps, please.’

I fished out the caps in a small bag. It was a fair and average price for clean water.

“Pardon me, Ditzy, but would you happen to know where I could find Lily? I have a package for her." It was the main reason I came all the way out here.

‘You could look around town. She doesn't usually stay in one place very long. Or you could drop it off at the town hall. Daffodil will make sure it gets to her by this evening.’

“Thanks.” I took the bottles and left for the town hall.

The town hall was, along with most of the important or popular buildings, quite easy to find. It was built up from train cars like the rest of the buildings and homes, but was also largely constructed out of wood and metal siding. I couldn't really explain what it looked like, because I had no idea 'what' it looked like. It had a more house-ish architecture. Not like the popular pony houses I’d seen in books and Starward, which were usually built into trees for some reason, but more squarish, with four definitive walls and a roof. A large wooden sign hanging off the front was the only indicator of its purpose.

I entered the building expecting to be amazed by it's interior, but I wasn’t. The room was smaller than I expected. Wooden planks made up the floor and walls. Along the back wall were a simple desk and a wooden door. A couple of benches lined the left side of the relatively square room. On the right side there was small square table with a floor cushion on either side. The table was a strange thing. It was just over half a hoof thick, with little drawers on either side. Alternating black and white squares made up the top surface, with little stone statuettes littering the aged piece. They were either completely black or completely white. I stared at it awhile, wondering what it could be.

“It's a chess table,” a familiar mare's voice said beside me.

“A what?” I asked, turning and raising a brow. What was ‘chess’? The pony talking was Lily, the one that was in Ditzy’s shop earlier.

“A chess table. It's an old game from long before the war. Not many ponies now how to play these days.”

“Oh,” was all I could say. It seemed like a confusing game.

“You're that... customer... that Ditzy was giving a demonstration for, right?” She asked, looking me up and down.

“Yes, I am. My name's Xero. You must be Lily.” Of course she was Lily; Ditzy had told me.

“Yep. Mayor and hold-togetherer of New Appleoosa. We don't get many of your kind around here. In fact, I don't think we ever have. What are you, exactly?” Lily asked, seeming more curious than anything else.

"What does it look like?" I coyly answered her question with another.

"Well, you have stripes like a zebra. But you’re blue. And you have a horn like a unicorn. So, really, I have no idea," she said with tilt of her head as she looked me over.

“You and me both... ” That was another thing I tried not to think. There was a second of awkward silence before I spoke again. “I have a package for you.”

“Oh, you're the courier?” Lily asked in surprise.

“When the time calls for it,” I replied, fishing a slightly larger than hoof size box out of my saddlebag. It was wrapped in brown paper and twine, standard for this line of work.

“Thank you.” She gave me a bag of caps as she took the package. My Pipbuck chimed and in the top left corner of my vision, a little note appeared.

>>1200 bottle caps added.

That was 200 more caps than the agreed payment. Awesome.

“No prob-” I was cut off by an explosion from outside.

“Dammit,” Lily growled under her breath.

“What?”

“Raiders...”

New Appleoosa was under raider attack. Lily told me that they were having raider problems from their 'nest' in Ponyville. She had hired a group of mercenaries (not griffon mercs, just hired guns) to clear them out. Apparently, they were not as good as they said they were.

Lily asked if I could help guard the South entrance, seeing as I could handle myself out in the wastes. In return, any injuries would be healed for free and ammo used would be reimbursed. I would also receive a discount at The Diner and Absolutely Everything, if the shops’ owners were willing.

I was on my way there when I noticed I had ran by Absolutely Everything. I stepped inside and tapped the little silver bell thing repeatedly. Ditzy came of the back room holding her 10mm pistol in her mouth, only this time it had an extended clip with an orange stripe on it. Before I could say anything, she smiled and shook her head. Great... I was going to do this without ANY barding. At least I still had my cloak. It was better than nothing, I guess.

Continuing toward the south gate, I could hear orders being shouted, both inside the town's walls and from beyond. Some of the guards were up on the boxcars that made up the wall around the town, while others were on the ground, huddled in small groups and talking about completely unrelated things... “The oatmeal this morning was pretty good.” “I heard Ditzy Doo kicked out that sales pony again. Ha, will he ever learn?” “Did you hear of that freaky unicorn with the stripes? He came in sometime in the night.” “I’ve never seen this many raiders before. Think they're the same ones from Ponyville?” Yeah, they were talking about fairly mundane topics, although, that last one sounded interesting. We were under a raider attack. Weren't they suppose to be defending the town or killing these raiders or something?

I peeked around the edge of the gate to see what we were dealing with. The raiders were outside my PipBuck's EFS range, so I counted them manually. Only six? I peeked out a little further. Oh, nope. There they were. There had to be at least twenty. That was quite a bit, considering they were raiders.

“Who's in charge here?” I asked a mare who I knew was standing behind me. I didn't think New Appleoosa had a chance against this many raiders, as many of them had battle saddles and heavy weapons and a few even had rocket launchers. I couldn’t think of where they would have gotten those, and who was dumb enough to give such weapons to them.

“That would be Six Star, our other sheriff,” the mare said, putting a strange emphasis on the word. Her voice was strong and firm with authority.

“Where could I find him?” I asked. We needed a plan. The raiders were moving closer.

“Her. And if you would turn around, you’d see.” I turned around to face the reddish brown unicorn mare.

She was covered head to hoof in black combat barding. On the side of her armored flank and on the front of her helmet was a sheriff's badge. She had a large, 12.7mm pistol on a hip holster, a combat knife on her foreleg, and an assault carbine strung across her back. In her mouth, an almost finished cigarette burned idly. The familiar smell of the smoke instantly reminded me of my father, and I wondered what he would think if he ever saw me like this.

“You're Sheriff Six Star, aren’t you?” I said with forced, nervous grin. She glared at me with the intensity of a hundred balefire eggs.

“Yes I am. And civilians, locals or not, are to stay indoors until I give the okay.” Six Star gave a slight scowl. Looking around, I noticed that the streets were completely empty, and all buildings had their doors and windows shut tightly.

“Lily asked me to assist at the south gate. So I'm here.” If she didn't want me here, she was going to have to force me to leave. There were twenty-some raiders and a few even had friggin' rocket launchers! They needed all the help they could get.

“Very well, then,” she said with an aggravated sigh. She looked me over as she took a long drag off the little grey-white stick, starting at my horn, then my head and stripes, then my hooves, since they were the only other thing sticking out from my cloak. Ever since I’d decided to not wear my cloak's hood, everypony that didn't run in terror seemed to be checking me out. Seriously, I wasn't all that good looking. I wasn’t even ‘average looking’. Ugly? No, but definitely nothing to gawk at. “What are you, anyways?”

And there it was, that one small question. Damn ponies and their curiosity. Now was not the time for small talk! We had a mini raider army on our hooves.

“I’m a secret zebra experiment from the past here to steal your mares and foals. What does it look like I am‽” I may have overreacted to the question, but it'd been asked at least a dozen times since the morning before. I was getting tired of it.

“A pile of worthless crap that's going to get shot and is better off to be used as a meat shield than a gun, you little shit” she replied with smirk, letting the cigarette smoke curl out of her nostrils. “Now, if we're done swapping stories, we can sort this whole thing out without losing anypony.”

“Alright,” I said, unsure of what we were going to do. “There looks to be about twenty of them-”

"Twenty-three." Six Star corrected me.

"Fine. Twenty-three. They are either expert barterers or really good raiders, because some of them have rockets and battle saddles. The others look like they just have small arms. Hunting rifles, SMG’s, pistols...” Except for the rockets, the others were fairly short range weapons.

“What are you suggesting? I have my little ponies run and jump out there, guns blazing? ‘Cause that's not going to happen. Those rocket launchers will blow us to pieces. No pun intended." The sheriff said as she spat the butt of the cigarette out and squashed it under hoof.

“How many rocket launchers are there?” Maybe if there weren't too many...

“Sparkles, how many RL's we got out there?” She shouted at one of the guards on the wall.

“I told you not to call me that,” a pink stallion called out. “It’s Flash.”

“Whatever, Sir Pinksalot. How many?” Six Star asked again.

Flash groaned. “Five, ma'am, and their getting closer.” Only five? This might work after all.

“How many snipers do you have?” The range on those was greater than that of the rockets. “That will hit their target,” I added.

“Are you suggesting we take out those rocket launchers first with our snipers?” She knew where this was going.

“Yeah, then you have the others gun down the rest with everything you have.” That was my master plan. It wasn’t anything amazing, but it seemed pretty obvious that the rocketeers should be taken out before they got closer. The others could be dealt with easily enough.

“In theory, that would be flawless. Unfortunately, we only have four snipers that might be able to do that. So, somepony's going to have to draw the short straw and be the last sniper,” the sheriff replied.

“I’ll be the last sniper.” If this was going to work, we’d need another pony, erm... zebra... thing. Not only that, and I don’t mean to brag, but I was pretty good shot.

“Do you even have a sniper rifle?” Six Star asked, shifting around in her combat armor. She facehoofed when I pulled out Tweety with my magic.

“No, but I have this zebra revolver.” The large revolver spun around idly in my magic .

“Is this a game to you?” She asked in annoyance. Nopony knew Tweety like I did.

I levitated out a mahogany box from my saddlebag. It was a bit larger than Tweety. I opened it to reveal a red velvet lined gun box... Tweety's original home. Inside were six rounds of each ammo type: copper hollow points, black for armor piercing, blue for shock rounds, green for anti-magic, orange for incendiary, red for explosive, and finally, twelve black and white striped shells, which were Special Zebra Long-Range assassin bullets. Each of the enchanted rounds had a tiny zebra glyph on the shell, which gave them their special attributes. Also inside was a much, much longer barrel and a metal framed stock.

I took out two assassin rounds, the barrel mod, and the stock with my magic. I closed and locked the case and put it back in my saddlebags. While screwing the barrel mod together, I reloaded Tweety with the special rounds and made sure they were the next to fire. Once reloaded, I took the stock and snapped it to the back of the heavy revolver. By now the barrel mod was screwed together and I started attaching it onto Tweety's barrel. There was a click and the black and gold glyphs crawled to the barrel extension and stock in a yellow-gold aura, seamlessly fusing the mods to the revolver.

Tweety was now a .44 caliber sniper rifle.

I had managed to attract tiny crowd of about four ponies. They stared at me with mouths agape, except for Six Star, who just nodded in amusement.

“No, I do not think this is a game.” A small smile crept onto my muzzle.

The raiders stopped about a hundred and fifty yards outside of New Appleoosa. The leader of the raiding party was a large, purple, earth pony mare, with a passionate, yet powerful voice.

“We are your only salvation! The wasteland takes, and takes. But does it give? Nay, it does not. It only seeks to destroy! With our help, you can create! With us, you have protection from the gangs and ‘raiders’ of the wastes. Without us, you are lost to the wilds and heathens that surround you. Join us, children, or you shall fall like so many before,” the mare preached. There was a minute of silence as she let her speech sink in. “Some may call us raiders, but we are not. Raiders are unorganized thugs, scum of the wastes, pathetic sub-equines that feed off the weak. We can offer so much more than you can achieve by yourselves. I ask again: join us, or suffer the might of the Wasteland Contingency!”

She knew this was New Appleoosa, right? One of the most well established towns I’d ever seen? It was stupid to think that this place needed to be under the protection of somepony like her.

“Yeah. That's not going to happen.” Six Star countered loudly, another cigarette in her mouth. Whether the raiders heard her or not, I didn’t know.

“Then you shall fall!” Okay, I guess they could. The ponies with the rocket launchers stepped forward.

“Sparkles, Cross Hair, Potshot, Xero... Ready?” Six Star pulled the bolt back on her rifle, letting it slide back with a clack.

“It’s Flash, ma’am.” Flash replied.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Everypony knows the plan, right? We peek over the wall’s cover, line up our shots with the raiders corresponding to our position. I get the one furthest to the left, while Xero get the one furthest right. I'm sure you other three can figure out which targets are yours." The four of us nodded. "Okay, on three... and... three!"

The five of us shot up from behind the wall's walkway cover, some holding sniper rifles in their magic, others with battle saddles.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

The first four rocket raiders were dead, with one missing his head completely.

I was holding Tweety with my forehooves and standing on my rear hooves. I looked through the scope and slipped into SATS. A little-known trick for ponies with PipBucks is to look through the scope of a weapon and then enter the aim-assist spell; it greatly increases the spell’s effective range. Scanning across the many targets to choose from, I found the pony I was looking for and queued up a single shot into the blue stallion’s head. He just so happened to have twin rocket launchers.

The hit percentage was 83%. Not great, but still okay. I scanned over toward their leader's head. 79%. I just hoped for the best.

I activated the spell and went along for the slow-motion ride as the weapon fired twice.

Pewt. Pewt.

The leader's head exploded in an eyeball-strewn splatter. The rocket raider, on the other hoof, was hit in the neck and collapsed on one knee. His head hit the battle saddle's bit, causing it to fire. The rocket on the side he went down on hit the ground right in front of him, killing him and the ponies directly next to him. Yay!

The other rocket blasted straight for us. Well, me, anyways. The others had immediately jumped off the wall when they confirmed their target’s death, which was pretty easy, since they were all hit in the head. The rocket blasted into the wall right below me, sending me flying off the wall in a fiery explosion and covering me in shrapnel and debris.

Landing on my back knocked the wind out of me and put me in a world-spinning daze. The deafening ringing in my ears wasn’t helping any, either. Something hit my right eye, and I couldn’t see out of it. What I could see with my left eye was obscured by a dirty dust cloud. An agonizing pain jumped all across my chest as tried to move. I clumsily looked down to investigate.

Well, fuck...

Sticking out of the left side of my chest was a rod of rusty, blood soaked, iron rebar. The coldness that began to set in as I went into shock contradicted the warmth of the red puddle that was quickly spreading out beneath me.

“A little... help... here!” I rasped with a wet, almost watery, feeling in my throat. I was losing blood fast. I had already lost a bit when I fought the Toll Gang, and hadn't regained it all back yet. My head swam even more as I heard a slightly familiar voice.

“Ah, shit... Um... ah- ah’ll go get ya some help. Just hang in there,” The last thing I remember seeing was a grey pegasus hovering over me.

Breathing hurt. There was a gurgle with every breath. There wasn’t much time.

"Hurry... punctured... lung..." I gurgled each word. With that, Slate flew off. The coppery flavor of blood flooded my mouth. I felt short of breath and my raspy breathing quickened, becoming more shaky as my vision faded to black.

I remember short frames of consciousness: being carried on a stretcher, a red doctor pony asking “what the hell is this,” a fuzzy memory of an operating room. Somepony was yelling at some other pony to “Get that lung ready!” and then “Redheart, give him more Med-X, he's waking up... again!” Again? I had woken up before? I guess I was tough to put out.

I remember a rhythmic beeping suddenly becoming a single, long tone and a bunch of ponies rushing in.

I remember, again, being in an operating room, and seeing myself splayed open. So that's what I looked like inside. “Celestia dammit! This guy just won't stay knocked out! Red, more Med-X,” the doctor from before, I think, yelled. A mare spoke up. “Doctor, wouldn't it be better to use the gas?” “We don't have the time, every second we wait, HE gets more conscious!” The doctor pointed a hoof at me, then looked. Our eyes met. “Oh, for fucks sake... Give me that, Redheart!” I passed out again, which was good, because that was getting scary, seeing myself cut open and seeing my organs.

I came back once again, only this time I couldn't see. A medical bandage had been wrapped around my head and eyes. I felt... better. Not great, but I could tell that I was no longer cut open and had organs strewn about. I could hear voices nearby. They were strange; they were right next to me, yet they felt distant. Fuzzy. Incoherent. I blacked out again, with no idea how long I had been out or what had really happened.

I finally awoke from my surgery sometime later, wondering why my head hurt so much. I was on my left side, which was felt weird; I always slept on my stomach (which I guess is weird for anypony, but I was an exception). I tried to roll over, only to find that my hooves were bound by leather straps. Huh. Was I dangerous? Oh, no... I hoped nothing happened during one of my 'awake' moments in surgery. Another ‘incident’ would completely wreck me.

I tried to unbuckle the straps with my magic. Before I could even muster my teal aura, my horn made a fizzling sound, like one of those party sparklers. I tried again. Fizzle. Once again, I tried, only this time I worked through and past the barrier. There was another fizzle, and another, and another, each one becoming harder to work through and louder. There was another fizzle, and another, and...

Bang!

"Ow! Dammit..." I hissed, wishing I could rub my throbbing noggin. Something small exploded from around my horn. It sounded like a very small caliber pistol firing, like BB gun small.

"Oh, looks like Sleeping Beauty's finally awake," somepony said. I couldn't see her since she was behind me. As much I tried to twist my head toward the voice, I couldn’t see past my blind spot.

"Who's there?" I could feel my heart rate increase. Very few things freak me out more than doctors or being tied up. And here I was with an angry sounding mare, in a clinic, and bound. What made the whole thing worse was that her voice sounded familiar. I couldn’t place my hoof on it; I knew I’d heard that voice before, but whose was it?

"Turn your head and look," she demanded. That voice... it was driving me crazy. Why couldn't I figure out who it was?!

"I... can't... see you," I replied, trying to turn my head further without detaching it from my shoulders. "Could you unbuckle me?" They were still in my blind spot. Damn it, getting use to this was going to suck...

"I could, but I won't. Try using your magic. You already broke the magic restraint, you should be able to use telekinesis."

Magic restraint... what? I tried to get my magic working again. There was no fizzle, no bang, no pop. Nothing. I wrapped my aura around the leather restraints and unbuckled them all simultaneously.

"Don't get out of bed. You'll hurt yourself." The mysterious mare said. I thought... maybe? No. That would be one in a million. It wasn't her. Who was I kidding? She couldn't be her. "I have some questions for you. And you're going to answer them."

Somepony's going to make me do what they want? That never really worked out for them. Remember the Toll Gang and The Wasteland Contingency? I rolled over, and finally looked at the... zebra?! She sounded like a pony! Like... an Equestrian! What?! I quickly looked her up and down. Her face was full of rage and some other feeling I couldn't put my hoof on. I glanced at her glyph mark and my blood turned to ice. A zebra sun glyph. It could NOT be her. It just couldn't. COULDN'T!

"L- Lumens?" I whispered. I felt tears welling up in my left eye. I felt anxiety flood over me and the uncomfortable hotness that came with it.

"How... how do you know my name?" she took a step back. Her look changed a little. The unknown feeling was gone. It was replaced with curiosity, more rage, and possibly even a little fear.

I rolled onto my back and let the emotions flood over me. I couldn't hold them back. My left eye was now a tiny stream of tears of joy. My right eye... not so much. I didn't care. It was her. Lumens. My colthood friend. My best friend.

"Who are you?" Lumens asked again.

"You don't recognize me, do you?" Of course she didn't. I was an idiot. And blue.

"No. Now answer my question. WHO. ARE. YOU?"

“It's been awhile, hasn’t it?" I said quietly, counting the years it had been since I left. I hadn't seen her since before 'that' night, the night everything changed. I rolled off the bed and-

CRACK! Thud.

I had gotten one hoof on the floor before she roundhouse kicked me against the wall, cracking it and leaving a gaping hole. Whoa...Okay. Why were there little pegasi flying around my head? This was going to be harder than I expected, not that I had ever, in a million years, expected to see her again.

The doctor from my surgery, the other pony that was with him, and a smart looking, black unicorn, all came to the doorway a second later.

"YOU!" the doctor yelled, pointing hoof at me. Me? He was practically seething with rage. What happened during my surgery that everypony (and zebra) was mad at me? Lumens gave them a look that absolutely horrified me. Without another word, the three ponies closed the door and left.

"I want answers," she said, dropping down to all fours, "and you're going to give them to me." She trotted to where I was laying dazed, put one forehoof on my shoulder and the other on my horn, and slowly began to shift her weight onto it.

With tears (still from joy, some from pain) in my eyes, I looked up at her. She stared back with her stone cold, blue eyes. Lumens bent her head down and narrowed her eyes. "Why do you have that cloak and gun? Where did you get them?" She increased the pressure on my horn. Oh, fuck... it was going to snap off.

CRK.

Please, feel free to insert as many, rude, disgusting, and vulgar obscenities as possible here; you might come close to what I thought.

Tears of pain and blood started to roll down my face and forehead. My horn didn't break off, but there was definitely a fracture somewhere.

"Lumens!" I cried out. "Please!" I tried to get up, but she shifted her weight just right and sent me back to the ground. Her small body didn't weigh much, but she knew how to keep a pony-zebra down.

Lumens bent down again and whispered in my ear "Who. Are. You?" Her words were full of anger and malice. She was going to kill me if she didn't get what she wanted. Before I could answer, she got up and stepped harder harder.

CRKT.

My horn cracked a little more and chipped one of the ceramic floor tiles.

"Stop! please!" by this point, I was bawling. Getting stabbed, shot, and having a spike impale you was nothing compared to having your horn broken off... slowly.

CREE...

My horn sounded like a tree branch beginning to crack apart.

Ohfuckohfuckohfuck! This hurt. A LOT. This was it... I could feel my horn start to bend. Good bye horn, it was nice knowing you while it lasted.

I closed my teary eye. "It's me... Xero..." I managed to whisper through the pain, preparing for the inevitable snap! The pressure suddenly stopped. It was still on my horn, just not increasing. A couple moments later and I felt something hit my face, something tiny and wet. Then another. And another. I opened my eye. Lumens was looking at me, mouth trembling, and absolute horror spread across her body. She, too, was crying.

"Hi, Lumens. Long time no see." I said quietly, forcing a smile. "Can you get off my horn now? I think it might be broken. It... kinda hurts." I was still crying, only a little though...

"I was scared; I didn't know what else to do, so I ran. I couldn't bear what had happened. To me. To my brother. We were so close to each other. We watched each other's backs and he was always there for me. He was all I had left, and in an instant, he was gone..." A single tear ran down my face. I missed him so damned much. Time heals wounds, but bittersweet memories tore them right back open.

"We might have been able to help you. And even if we couldn't..." Lumens sighed, "Why didn't you come back? We were all worried. Maze sent others out to look for the two of you. They brought back your brother, but you were nowhere to be found."

She was laying on her back at the foot of the old hospital bed, staring at the ceiling. I was sitting on the bed too, with my back against its pillow and headboard. The past hour had been spent telling her about what happened that night my brother and I didn't come back. It was the night that forever changed my life.

The zebra mare was probably in her late twenties, early thirties. Still, she was just as cute as the day I first saw her. Her coat was quite ‘polar’, as my brother had put it: pristine white with almost pitch black stripes. Her eyes were a cold, slate blue that could freeze even the hottest of fires. Yet, there was a warmth in them that would melt the heart of a manticore. She still kept her long mane braided off to the side, the end held in the little, green beaded scrunchie I’d given her years ago. Only,now there were little zebra runes and glyphs etched into them.

"I wouldn't have been accepted back..." I said in a quiet, sad tone.

"What? Why?" Lumens rolled over and looked at me. I didn't think she would understand.

"The magic my brother used to save me. It's shunned greatly among all zebra tribes, except one."

"What kind of magic? I thought thought we were kind of like earth ponies. We don't really have any ‘magic,’" she said. Lumens' curiosity was her what made her special. It was also a bit of a downfall.

"Starkerrei magic." I looked down at my hooves. "Necromancy..." I whispered under my breath. Her look changed to more concern and intrigue. "Zebras don't have any inherent magic, such as unicorn magic or a pegasus' ability to walk on clouds and fly. We do, however, know of ways to tap into the natural magics; alchemy, potions... runes and glyphs, that sort of thing. It's why my pistol is the way it is, and why so many zebra made items have markings, glyphs, and runes on them. We can also use... darker... magics; necromancy, soul tampering, and 'star magic'. These dark magics are considered unjust, immoral... evil..." I was at a loss for words. They were more than that. "They're more than 'evil'. There are zebra legends that tell of these dark magics destroying entire civilizations. There's even one that tells of the destruction of the Starkerrei tribe's capital city... by calling down a star. Some legends say that the use of these dark magics hurt the world. All zebra tribes know of the 'star touched' tribes and their magic. My brother secretly knew of these darker magics, though he only used them for good. Most don’t or can’t see the good they can do."

"Oh. I had no idea. I... I'm sorry." Lumens said, rolling back onto her back, eyes fixated on the ceiling again.

"It's okay. You couldn't have known. You were mostly raised by ponies, after all. The elders were hesitant of letting you stay when Gibs found you, so they didn't tell you the stories of the so called 'star touched' tribes. They thought that hiding them from you would be for the better. I don't know why." I let out a sigh. The elders wouldn't have anything to do with anyone, zebra or pony, that was touched with Starkerrei magic. "If they knew of my brother's magic, they would have killed him. I too, would be killed if they found out about me and what had happened. I still would be."

"That... that's messed up." Lumens said as she shook her head. "But that doesn't really tell me why you have a horn. And are blue. I mean, even your glyph mark is different." She waved a hoof at my phoenix. Half glyph mark, half cutie mark. I still had no idea what it was suppose to mean, even after all these years.

"I don't know. I fell into that rainbow tinted water, my brother sacrificed himself to save me, and when I woke up..." I motioned my forehooves over my body. Was the strange water to blame? Was it my brother? We both sat there for what seemed like an eternity, in silence, taking in what had happened.

"You know, you look a lot younger than you should be," she said, breaking the silence. “That’s part of the reason I didn’t recognize you.”

She had a point. For being almost thirty, I did look really young. Much younger than I should.

"Strange magic, indeed," she agreed. There was another long pause.

"Why are you here, anyways?" Lumens and I said at nearly the same time, ending it with a short laugh. It was silly. We were like little kids again.

"You first," Lumens suggested.

"I was here to give the mayor a package. I accepted a courier job in Gem Hollow back home. The pay was good, and I hadn't been here yet, so I thought, 'Why not?' After giving Lily her package, some raiders attacked. I got some metal through my chest and lost my eye. The doctors here fixed me up and I awoke to find myself bound to the bed, and you know the rest." I looked cross-eyed up at my still fractured horn. I fluffed my pillow, not looking at it. My horn hurt a little bit. I was happy I could still use magic. I didn't know how much my magic was impaired, but that constant throbbing pain and that burn when I used it couldn't have been good.

"I'm sorry for that." Lumens said, rolling onto her side, away from me.

"And I said that it's okay. You've apologized a hundred times already. There was no way you could have known it was me. Honestly,” I said for probably the tenth time. “At least you didn't break it off.”

"I was surprised that it didn't break right away," Lumens said matter-of-factly. She showed me the bottom of her forehooves.

“What are those?" I asked. Drawn on the sole of her hoof was a type of rune or glyph or something.

"Force glyphs. I can't kick that hard." She said it so... simply. As if it wasn’t a big deal.

"Like hell, you can't. You kicked me into a wall and broke it!" I exclaimed, shaking a hoof at the hole in the wall from earlier.

"That," she pointed at the same wall, "was the force rune. It makes certain kicks much, much, stronger. That's why I gave you a healing potion after I picked you back up. I might have broken a few of your ribs and tore your lung a little. The potion should have taken care of that though, seeing as you're not coughing up blood or passed out." Lumens licked the bottom of her forehoof. "Blech..." and rubbed it on the bed's age-stained sheet.

"Luckily it's not permanent. Hoofshakes would be a little difficult. See?" She raised her hoof, free of any markings

"Huh..." Interesting. I was going to have to learn that. It seemed useful. "So, what are you doing here?"

"Oh, I work here," Lumens said as she rolled off the bed's end and landed on her hooves.

"You... work here?” I asked in slight disbelief. She was the only zebra I've seen in the town, so she must have done something to let the town keep her here. “What do you do?"

"As you know, us zebras can't use magic the same way ponies can, so I worked on devising non-magic and non-spark battery powered equipment, whether that be special ammo rounds or auto-reloading battle saddles or augmentations and prosthetics,” she said, smiling proudly.

"And I suppose this is why you're here, correct?" I asked as I pointed to my bandaged eye... socket. I would have just said 'eye', but from what I could tell and feel, it had been completely removed.

"Yes. I have designed... a runed powered eye." She gave me the smuggest and proudest smile I have ever seen. "The first of its kind. That I know of, anyway. It's taken years of research and testing. Most of the time, it doesn't work. Actually, I've never gotten it to work." Her smugness disappeared. "But I'm fairly certain this one will!”

"Really? Let's see it, then." I wasn't sure about it. It sounded, um, far fetched.

"Sure thing! One second," Lumens said excitedly. She quickly trotted over to the small table in the corner of the room.

My Pipbuck, saddlebags, and Tweety, still in rifle form, were sitting on the old metal table. Also on it were my leather barding from Ditzy, folded up nice and neatly, and bound together with twine, and my cloak. It’s brown material was in very poor condition, having been torn to shreds by the rocket and what Hatchets had done days before.

Lumens rummaged around in her saddle bag. It wasn't made out of canvas, but rather one of those yellow medical boxes, with the pink butterflies. From inside, she pulled out a black box, its small handle gripped firmly her mouth. It was about six inches in height and width, and just short of two hooves long. She brought it up to me and dropped it on my lap. The box wasn't at all heavy, but it looked like it weighed a ton.

"Open it." She smiled, showing her pearly white teeth. I could see pride and even joy in her cold, blue eyes.

It hurt my horn far more to open the box than I anticipated, the throbbing, burning, headache making it difficult to form even the simplest of auras. Hopefully it would heal quickly, but I didn't know how fast a broken horn healed, if ever. The aura that did form around the small, wooden box wasn’t my own. The normally teal magic was an illustrious... dull... sickly, blue-grey. By the time I did get it open, I could have just used my hoof to flick the little latch over and pop the lid up.

I only half expected what was inside. Sure, Lumens had told me it was an artificial eye, but what she didn’t tell me was how real it looked. If I didn’t know it was fake, I would have thrown it aside. The ocular implant was, like most eyes, round and ball shaped. A white glass-like material made up most of it’s sclera. At first, I thought it’d been cracked or dropped. A closer inspection revealed that the fine lines in it were actually the markings and matrices of runes and glyphs. The pupil was was a strange black color. It seemed empty. Hollow, even. It too, was round. The iris, however, was not. It was in the form of an eight pointed star that took away from the realness of the prosthetic. Swirling glyphs and runes broke up the amber star with their metallic coppery color.

At the back of the eye were four, silvery, spikes about the thickness of a pencil. Three of them were about two inches long and were evenly spaced around the fourth, longer one. Dark, scrolling symbols curled around the slightly blued metal like archaic vines.

"It’s going to hurt putting it in, isn’t it?" I asked. It was. I could just tell it was.

"Yeah, a lot," Lumens said with a sigh. "The sharp projections on the back of the eye have ‘fusion runes’. They fuse to the end of the optic nerve, which we left in during surgery for this procedure. It’ll feel like we lit your head on fire."

"Ow," I stated, staring down at the spikes. I didn’t like the sound of that. I’d been lit on fire once before, and it was one of the most painful experiences of my life.

"I'll get Dr. Neuro. He wants to meet with you, anyways; he's curious of your... condition. He might be able to fix your horn, too." Lumens said as she looked for the right words. She left the room and I was alone.

The clinic room was very basic, only containing the bare minimums of a bed, some old medical equipment, a couple of chairs and a table in the far corner, and a small side table. I got up from my bed slowly, and made my way to the sink and mirror that were also in the room, nearly falling flat on my face due to my weak and wobbly legs. How long had I been out? Eventually though, I made it to my destination. One hoof in front of the other.

Wow...

My head and right eye were heavily wrapped in healing bandages. There was a large blood spot where my eye would have been. 'That’s why your eye hurts,' I thought to myself. A large chunk of my left ear had been blown off. Nearly a third of it was missing from the top. My chest had a deep purplish-blue colored scar in the shape of a 'Y', where I had been cut open. Off to the side was a scar about the size of a bottle cap. I turned around and looked at my back. There was another scar the same size, where I’d been skewered with a piece of rebar. These scars weren't going away anytime soon, if ever. They were much larger and deeper than the one from Hatchets, which was almost invisible if you didn't know where to look.

I looked at my horn. It was cracked and splintered, with a missing chip at the tip. Perhaps there was something that the doctor could do to help heal it. I hoped so... I kind of liked being able to use magic. It made things more convenient. I signed and dropped my head a little.

I was a mess.

There was an unexpected knock at the door. Why would anypony knock on the door of a hospital room?

"Um, come in?" I said, not really knowing what else to say.

Lumens, the doctor from my surgery-nightmare, his assistant (Redheart, I believe her name was), and a doctor unicorn I didn't recognize, all trotted into the room. How the five of us managed to fit in the room and still have room to move around was beyond me.

The doctor from my surgery looked curious, confused and a little angry. He was a bright red pegasus with a short, orangey mane and a syringe and scalpel cutie mark. He had on a stained doctor's coat, through which his wings stuck out.

Redheart, or at least a mare that looked exactly like the Redheart from my surgery, was wearing yellow nurse's attire with pink stripes. She was a white earth pony with a pink mane; she was actually kind of pretty.

The last was an older black unicorn with an almost metallic silver mane. His cutie mark, I noticed, was a brain inside of a series of oblong rings that seemed to encircle it. He looked at me with pure intrigue and wonder through his large, black, framed glasses.

"Introductions," Lumens started. "Xero, this is Dr. Cutter." She pointed to the pegasus, who gave a nod, but did not shake his angry look. "His assistant, Redheart." The earth pony smiled and waved a hoof. "And finally, Dr. Neuro, our head doctor and healer in New Appleoosa." The unicorn gave a small nod. "Everypony, this is Xerophyte. Most just call him Xero."

"Um, hello." I smiled weakly. What else was I say?

"First things first, what the hell are you?" Dr. Cutter was not happy. "You're not a zebra, and you're not a unicorn. Your internal anatomy is different from either. Do you have any idea how much Med-X and resources this hospital put into saving your sorry ass? We had to do everything from scratch. We even had to cut corners on your blood transfusion. How are you even alive right now?!”

Oh, that's why he was angry. He didn't know what I was and I had used up a large amount of the hospital's resources, which probably meant chems and healing potions. He was a pony of science and medicine, and I wasn't anything he was familiar with, so I guess he had reason to be mad. That still didn’t make it right, though.

I sighed. I really hated that question. "I don't know. I woke up one morning and this is what I was." It was the truth. After my brother saved me and I passed out, I woke up blue and had a horn.

Dr. Cutter's look softened a bit. "Well, whatever you are, you were one hell of a patient to work on. Truly a test of medical knowledge and skill." He smiled, but it quickly disappeared. "Still, though, you used way more blood packs and chems than most ponies use in half a lifetime."

"Sorry about that." I said, scratching the back of my neck with a forehoof. Awkward.

"Don't worry about it. I've spoken with Lily already and she said that the procedure was covered. She mentioned something about an agreement," Lumens spoke up. "Now, about putting that eye in... Dr. Neuro?"

"Ah, yes." Dr. Neuro turned toward Redheart. "Ms. Heart, we're going to need two vials of Med-X, a healing potion, a pair of forceps, and a bottle of your apple schnapps." He spoke with such sophistication that he seemed almost... snooty. Yet, the way he spoke made him seem very content. It seemed he knew a lot, and he knew that others knew it, but he didn't let it all go to his head. He appeared to want to genuinely help others, no matter how unfortunate they were.

"Yes, sir," Redheart said as she dropped her medkits-turned-saddle-bags and started to dig through them.

"Xerophyte," Dr. Neuro started. "I want you to know, that if this procedure does work, then you will be the first to receive a functioning non-magic-powered prosthetic in the wasteland. Possibly the first ever, in recorded history."

I didn’t know how to feel about that. Honored? Terrified? Because I felt a little of both.

"Alright," Redheart said as she closed one of the boxes. The other box had four vials of Med-X, one healing potion and forceps, two unmarked bottles of amber colored liquid, and five shot glasses on top of it.

"Red, what are the shot glasses for?" Dr. Cutter asked with a sigh.

"For celebrating. Why else would Dr. Neuro need my special apple schnapps?" Redheart replied. Dr. Cutter facehoofed while Dr. Neuro just shook his head.

"It's for Xerophyte. He's going to need it after this." Dr. Neuro explained to Redheart. He stared at me for a second, then back at Redheart. "And probably during."

"So, where are we going to do this?" the red pegasus asked, giving his wings a short flutter and resting them along his sides.

"We can do it here, actually. There shouldn't be that much blood." Lumens said as she trotted over to the medical bed. "Xero, you're going to want to be strapped down. For your own safety and ours. We've had some... unexpected reactions to some of the tests."

"Um, okay..." I said uneasily. Visions of horrible, cliche, mad scientist laboratories filled my mind at 'unexpected reactions'. I didn’t want to go through with it. Every hair on my body was telling me to jump out the window and run. Again, if there was one thing I feared, it was doctors and hospitals.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. They weren’t here to hurt me; they were good ponies. Lumens was even with them, and she’d never let anything bad happen to me. I got up onto the bed and laid on my back... Such an uncomfortable position. As soon as Neuro and Cutter strapped the leather bindings back on, I could feel my heart rate jump.

“You’re alright. You’re in good hooves,” I kept telling myself.

"Xerophyte, I need you to look up for me." I did as Dr. Neuro told me. "Okay, now look left... now down... and... right.”

I tried to look right, but it felt weird, like something other than my eye was missing.

"Hmm, interesting." He paused. "I'm going to give you two shots of Med-X: one in th-"

"Better make it three. I woke up seven times during surgery." I told the unicorn. I wanted to feel as little as possible, especially if it felt like being lit on fire.

"Seven?" Dr. Neuro asked, a little shocked. "I guess three it is. But, if anything happens, it's not my fault."

A moment later I felt two small pricks in my neck. Their effects made themselves known as the world around me started to sway. The third one was dripped into my eye socket and a strange tingling sensation spread over my body.

"I theel thunny. Ith that thuppothe ta happen?" I slurred, my tongue catching on every word.

"That's the effect of Med-X directly to the brain, numbskull." Dr. Cutter informed me, laughing. I glanced over toward him.

"No, Xerophyte, I need you to looked straight up at the ceiling." Dr. Neuro told me. He said it in a way that seemed to also say 'If you don't hold still and do as I say, you're going to get hurt', so quickly I did as he told, which made the room seem like it was going to topple over. "Lumens, I have his optic nerve. Do you have the eye ready?"

"Yes, here." She dropped the box with the eye on the edge of the bed.

"Thank you." Dr. Neuro grabbed the eye in his yellow magic. "Okay, I'm not going to lie. This is going to hurt. A lot." Even with so much Med-X in me that the room was spinning? Dr. Neuro brought the eye near my eye socket. "Everypony and zebra ready?"

"Yeth?" I slurred around my tongue.

"Wait! Xero, here." Lumens stuck a rolled cloth in my mouth.

There was another tugging at my socket. This was suppose to hurt? I didn't feel anyth-

Oh, there it was. There was a small burning sensation that started around my eye. And then it began to spread. I tried to scream out in pain, but I had something in my mouth. I tried to bring up my forehooves to rip the eye out, to take the cloth bit out, to kick the doctor, to... something... anything! But my legs were securely strapped down. I just had to endure. The room was spinning more and more. The pain was excruciating. My vision eventually just became a blur, and then dark. The pain faded, the screaming stopped, and I drifted off into a comfortable unconsciousness.

I leaned farther over the edge, looking at the swirling rainbow-pink water.

"What is that?" I said to myself. I leaned a out a little further, investigating something that appeared to be swimming around in the toxic slurry.

CRRCCKK.

The floor below me cracked and shuddered, dropping a couple inches.

Uh-oh.

"Xero?" My brother called to me, in slight alarm.

I turned to run towards the door. I took two steps and...

CRCKBL.

"Xero!" My brother shot out of the storage room and lunged toward me, jumping over the tables and landing a pony's length away.

The floor had given out. Luckily, the floor below had caught me. My leg had gotten caught under some rubble, and I think I had some broken ribs.

"Star Gazer! I'm-" I tired to move out from under the rubble. "I'm stuck," I cried out. This was not the way our looting runs usually went. They were usually pretty boring. But right now, I was regretting this idea. This placed sucked; there was nothing but the usual garbage and almost useless scraps.

From above the floor above, I could hear my brother. The dust that had been kicked up blocked most everything nearby from view.

"Just wait, I'll be there in moment, I just have to find a way to get down th-" My brother was cut off.

"FREEZE ZEBRA SCUM! PREPARE TO BE INCINERATED!" A deep, metallic voice declared. I turned toward the voice. A bright orange light shone through the dust, along with a large, dark shadow. It had a large barrel on one side and a multi-barreled tube on the other. It was a Heavy Protectipony. There was a click, and the minigun whirred to life.

"Yavla Faen!" my brother yelled.

WHOOOOSH.

The telltale flare of rocket exhaust glowed in the darkness of the dimly lit room. I was helpless to escape; there was nothing I could do as it exploded only a few feet in front of me, sending me flying over the edge in a fireball.

I fell in slow motion. Everything seemed to move at a crawling pace. I could hear the Heavy Protectipony fire its minigun at my brother.

Tat...tat...tat...tat...

My brother returned fire, using Dad’s old revolver.

Pewt. Pewt. Pewt.

I hit the rainbow-tainted water, with more rubble landing on top of me. It burned. Everything burned...

When I woke up again, I couldn't tell where I was. The smell was familiar. The bed I was laying on was also familiar. My senses told me this was the medical room. The only thing not familiar was the fact that I couldn't see. I tried to bring up my forehoof, only to find myself strapped down. Why couldn't I see? If the glyph-eye didn't work, then I should be able to at least still see out of my good eye.

Right?

What if the glyph-eye caused my other eye to be blind too? I couldn’t survive in the wasteland being blind! I was a wastelander, practically a drifter. I had no 'home' to speak of, no place I could settle down and make a steady, safe-er-ish living. I didn't want to either. I liked the unpredictable and dangerous wastes. I was my own stallion, free to do what he please.

After a minute of quietly freaking out, I heard a voice, a voice I remembered distinctly.

"Hey, you're awake," Lumens said quietly. "Calm down, I know you’re probably scared right now. But-"

"I'M BLIND! Of course I'm scared!" I yelled back. I couldn't be blind. I just... couldn't! Nopony survived long in the wastes by being blind.

"Okay, first of all, you're not blind." She said simply.

"What." I didn't ask as much of just said it.

"It's 10:37 at night, according to your Pipbuck, and your head is wrapped in healing bandages," Lumens said, sounding annoyed. She elaborated a little more: "Dr. Neuro did some magic healing stuff on your horn and it needs to be bound in healing bandages for a day."

"Oh," I replied, dropping my head down. "Sorry." My heart was still racing and my breathing only slowed slightly.

Lumens sighed, tiredly. "It's okay. We don't know if the eye was a success or not, but at least you're not comatose like some of the other volunteers." She said it such that I could feel the anxiety leave quickly. "And don't worry, your good eye won't be affected by the rune-eye. Now, get some sleep. We'll run tests in the morning."

"Okay..." That was a little scary.

"Yep." She yawned. Apparently, it had been a busy day. "Good night, Xero." Lumens closed the door to the room.

"Good night, Lumens." I said quietly to myself. I still couldn't believe we had found each other. After nearly seventeen years on my own, I found my best and only friend.

There was nothing to do but wait until morning. I knew it would come quicker if I slept, except I didn't want to sleep. I wasn't tired. I closed my eyes under the healing bandage. At least, I think I did. I wasn't sure. It felt like I did, but for some reason I just couldn't tell. Sleep eventually took over, because I quickly lost all sense of time.

I didn't dream when I fell back asleep. I don't know why I was having dreams of that one fateful day and night. It didn't make any sense. I would occasionally have those... nightmares, but having them nearly every time I slept was unnerving, to say the least.

I awoke to find myself still blindfolded, only this time I could see a faint glow though the healing bandage. In my good eye, anyways.

"He's awake," Redheart's voice called out. "At least, I think he is."

"Yeah. I'm awake." I grumbled. I kind of enjoyed a day's length of rest. Sleep felt good.

"How are you feeling?" Lumens asked.

"Like I've slept for the better part of a week and got applebucked in the head." I assumed it was from all the trauma it'd been through the past few days, from the rocket to losing an eye.

"That’s better than we’ve had before." Dr. Neuro spoke. A faint yellow glow surrounded the bandage as it was unwound.

"Hmm... The fractures closed up nicely, and the chip off the top came back uniformly..." Dr. Neuro paused, probably examining my horn some more. "Well, Xerophyte, it looks like your horn will make a full recovery. You're lucky Lumens here didn't break it off completely. Healing a fractured horn in much easier and less painful than attaching one that has been broken off. Or, worse yet, having to regrow a whole new one. The magical therapy you would need to go though for that would be quite extensive."

"It's possible to regrow a horn?" I thought aloud.

"Yes, quite so. Most of the time you need an Auto-Doc or a healing chamber, but I’ve heard of unicorns in Tenpony Tower that can do it with magic. They might not be as good, but they work in a pinch." Dr. Neuro said as he finished pulling the healing bandages off. "Can you see all right?"

I squinted at the bright light, feeling the uncomfortable sting of my eye readjusting. I saw Lumens turn the blinds down a bit, causing the room to darken slightly.

Much better.

"Fine, all things considered." I said as I raised my left foreleg and rubbed my eye. Wait, was I actually untied? I lifted my other legs. Nope. Just my left foreleg was unbound.

"Careful. You don't want to touch your other eye." Lumens said quickly. I gently brought my forehoof down from my eye. "This is going to feel extremely weird, but please, just bear with us and don't freak out."

"Why? What's going on?" Nopony or zebra told me not to freak out. It made me more anxious whenever someone did that.

There was a soft click from somewhere to my right, near where my right eye should have been.

"Just hold still." Dr. Cutter said in an annoyed tone. Was he ever a happy pony? He always seemed agitated by something, probably me.

I felt a sense of complete and utter wrongness in my right socket. It felt as if something was being pulled out of it. It didn't hurt, but it left a throbbing, squirming feeling.

"Okay, now that this is out, we can activate your eye." Dr. Neuro informed me.

"What was that?" I asked in a rush, turning toward him. In his magic was a strange piece of medical equipment I had never seen before. It was a black, round, concave disk, with a long, needle-thin, spike in the center of it. It was attached to a thin tube that was in turn attached to some sort of pump mechanism with a dark, sickly green slime in it.

"What is that?" I asked in disgust. I was a little freaked out by this. What the hell did they do to me?!

"Just hold still and we'll answer your questions in a minute." Dr. Neuro said as he grabbed some sort of black needle-like spike that looked almost like the one he removed, only this one didn’t have a disk or hose attached. "This might sting a little. Don't move your eyes."

He used his magic and jammed the spike into my right eye. There was a split second of unimaginable pain, much like the pain from the initial eye being put in, only shorter. I let out a short “Ah!” in pain.

"Oh, quit being such a foal," Dr. Cutter snorted at me.

"Xerophyte, when you look at the ceiling, can you see me without turning your head?" Dr. Neuro asked. I looked straight up at the ceiling and turned my eyes over to him.

"Um, no." I answered. Something twisted in my socket, clicking quietly. I winced a little at the short, powerful burn.

"How about now?" he asked.

"No." There was another twist, this one slightly longer and more painful, causing me to actually hiss in pain.

"Now?" Dr. Neuro now sounded almost hopeful.

"No..." I said with a sigh. I wasn't going see out of this eye again. Just then, I saw a slight flicker in the darkness on that side of my vision. "Wait..." I told him, as he was about to turn the spike again. The flickering increased. "It's... flickering?" There was a faint twist and a single click. "The flickering stopped..."

In less than half a second, my vision exploded into various colors. At first, everything was cloudy and fuzzy. Then, shapes began to form from the haze, becoming sharper and more defined.

The surrounding world abruptly snapped to a sharp focus. Everything was so clear, even more so than before I lost my eye. I could make out the small details and imperfections in the ceiling tiles, the frayed stitching on my saddlebags, and even the tiny print on the clipboard near the door. It was as if I’d just eaten an entire tin of Party Time Mint-Als, except I could see even the tiniest of details.

"Hey, Neuro?" I asked.

"Yes?" He turned to me with a slightly sad gaze.

Without turning to look at him, I asked, "Why is my name spelled with a 'Z' on the clipboard by the door? It's spelled with an 'X'."

His frown disappeared, and was replaced with a satisfactory smile.

"So, I take it the eye operates correctly?" Dr. Neuro asked, still holding his smile.

"You could say that." I looked around the room, in unbelievable clarity. I was astonished at how many small details I was missing. There were tiny, hairline fractures all along the walls. You wouldn't be able to see them, or at least notice, unless you were staring right at them with your muzzle pressed up against the wall. A faint water stain that nearly engulfed the entire ceiling. I could almost make out the tiny, individual fibers in the sheet on the bed. My hooves contained near invisible cracks from injuries and fights. I never noticed how hard I’d been on them before.

"This calls for a celebratory drink," Redheart called out, dropping her saddlebags and fishing around in them. In just a couple moments, she had five shot glasses filled with an amber liquid set on the small bedside table.

"Sure, why not..." Dr. Cutter drawled with a half smile.

I unbuckled myself from the bed with my once-again-teal magic. It still ached as it always had, but not as badly.

"Cheers," Lumens said, clearly questioning the origins of the malted drink. Everypony drank at once.

The red pegasus scrunched his muzzle, closed his eyes tight and shook his head. "Damn, Redheart. You make your schnapps strong." The pretty nurse just giggled.

Dr. Neuro looked like he was about to spit it back up, and Lumens looked at her empty shot and rubbed her tongue on the roof of her mouth. I didn't think she knew what to think of the taste.

"Definitely not my choice of drink." Dr. Neuro said, giving his head a small shake. "I think I'll stick to my Sparkle Cola and water."

"Yeah, same here," the zebra mare finally spoke up.

"I didn't mind it." It wasn't that bad. It had a strong cinnamony taste that burned going down. The aftertaste wasn't too terrible, either: a kind of green apple flavor.

I decided that being in bed for so long probably wasn't healthy, so I got up and to my hooves. My legs wobbled beneath me as I almost fell on face.

"Careful there," Dr. Cutter said, flying to my side. "You've been off your hooves for nearly three days."

"I was out for three days?" I asked, finally managing to take a step without stumbling.

"Today would make it three," he replied. "You should regain your strength over the next few days."

"That reminds me," Dr. Neuro said as he pushed up his glasses. "Your horn... it's not as strong as it used to be, magically speaking, and might never. It will take a few weeks, possibly a month or two, for it to be back to its former strength. It is, however, stronger physically, so it'll take more than a hoof stomp to break it off. Just take it easy for the next few of days."

"I can't promise anything, but I'll try." It was all I could say while trying to walk to the mirror.

Standing in front of the mirror, I looked at my horn. There were still some very tiny fractures in it and was slightly discolored at the end where it had chipped. Then, I looked at my new eye.

"What was that thing that you stuck in it?" I asked. The question wasn't directed at anypony in particular. I turned and tilted my head, examining myself. My mane was starting to grow a little longer than I liked it, but it wasn’t too much of a concern at the moment.

"That was part of its design," Lumens answered. "The piece of equipment that Neuro pulled out is used to make sure the eye isn't rejected and helps prevent postoperative infections. Come to think of it...” She tapped her chin in thought. “...I forgot to mention the eye would have an increased infection resistance. It has a rune that helps fight disease so that the socket is much less likely to get infected, since it isn't made of natural tissue. It should actually help with most illnesses, though. But if you do get sick, I'm sure it'll be pretty bad." She paused for a moment. "I would like run the tests now, though. The sooner, the better. We don't want the eye to work now and then in ten minutes have it break, seeing as we now have one that actually works."

"Right. I'll open the blinds." Dr. Neuro said as he trotted over to the window and pulled the draw strings.

The room brightened to its previous level. I looked in the mirror again, just in time to see the iris spin clockwise about a quarter of the way around and the pupil shrink. It moved almost as fast as my other pupil. What struck me as odd was that it was just the iris and pupil that turned. They appeared to have turned under the eyeball itself, like there was a clear shell around it.

"I don't know what to say." I was happy that I wasn't blind, but it was one more thing that wasn’t truly me.

I was happy that I had found Lumens. None of this would have been possible without her. I was also thankful that Dr. Neuro and Dr. Cutter were able to heal me, obviously.

The past week had been unbelievably eventful, especially the last few days. I nearly died... twice! I may have saved a town from being overrun by raiders, I got some super-reinforced barding, lost my eye and then got a new one that was actually kind of cool looking, and best of all, I found my best friend.

"Well, you could say 'thank you'. That's always a good place to start," Dr. Cutter said, interrupting my thoughts.

I just gave an honest smile. "Thank you, everyone. For everything."

"Well, don't thank us yet." Dr. Neuro said from next to the blinds, his creepy white smile standing out against his black coat. "We still have other tests to run."

===

I didn't think that 'other tests' meant that they would be sticking things in my eye and turning them, which caused my vision to flicker on and off, change brightness, and switch between blue, green, and red color saturations, spraying it with irradiated water and seeing if radaway worked on it, and observing how it reacted to being poked with other objects, namely rocks and sticks. Dr. Neuro was having fun with flashing a light in my eye until I smacked it out of his magic with a hoof; it was starting to give me a headache.

The leg braces I was given weren’t comfortable. At all. Without them, I was tripping every three steps and falling on my face. The only way they’d get better was by walking around. I’d just have to wear them for a couple of days, then I’d be free from their clickity-clackity grasps of doom and awkwardness. They didn’t bend correctly at my own leg joints like they should have, making them bend at odd angles. “Just a couple days,” I told myself.

It was late afternoon when we finally finished the tests. The rest of the day was spent at a patio table at The Diner with Lumens, Neuro, Cutter, and Candi. I hadn't eaten in four days, but they claimed that they were able to keep me alive with an I.V. drip, whatever that was. I got a few weird looks from everyone, except Dr. Cutter, when I ordered a wasteland salad with bacon and water. Dr. Cutter had tried bacon before and was used to the flavor. He did warn me that eating too much meat, though, was not healthy. I didn't bother asking why.

It was an interesting evening. Everyone swapped all sorts of stories; why we're here in New Appleoosa, where we got our training, whether it be medical, combat, or... whatever Lumens did. Science? Alchemy, perhaps? We talked about what we did when we were young, except me, of course. I wasn't too keen on telling everypony I came across about myself. I possibly had enemies, after all.

An interesting conversation was of our name origins. Cutter was born in a linen factory, near the machine that cut fabric to size. Dr. Neuro changed his name from Bookworm when he got his cutie mark. Lumens couldn’t remember where her name came from, unfortunately. Mine was a shrub. Yay. And finally, Redheart... who was named after her many-times-great grandmother who was a nurse and semi-famous clopstar. We also talked about adventures we've been on. Mine and Lumens' grabbed the other three's attention the most. We had a good time. We laughed, some might have cried, and just for the moment, the fears of the wastes were forgotten.

"Closing time, everypony," the yellow pony from my first Diner visit called out. "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. If you need a place to stay, Turnpike Tavern's got some rooms to rent for a decent price." We were outside, so we were able to stay, though there were no more servers.

"Well, I should head home then." Cutter said, as he stretched. We said our goodbyes and he flew off towards the center of the town.

"Yes. I think it is about time to hit the hay." Dr. Neuro said. He trotted off towards the makeshift hospital, where he had his own private room connected with his office.

"I'm off to bed too, I guess. Little Candi’s probably wondering where her mommy is..." Redheart got up and happily trotted off toward the north gate of the town.

That left just me and Lumens. I figured I would go stay the night at Turnpike, but Lumens had other plans...

"Do you have a place to stay?" She asked me.

"Yeah. I'll just get a room at Turnpike Tavern." I told her as I waved a hoof in the general direction of the establishment. I looked at my Pipbuck. 2035 caps. Yeah, I was good on money.

"Oh, you don't have to do that. Why not come to my place for the night? It's actually just a few cars down from here." She said with a smile.

"Um... Okay..." I guess. It would save me from Vodka Shots challenging me to a drinking contest or something.

We got up and headed toward one of the nearby double stacked boxcars. After unlocking the door, she turned on the lights. They were the most bizarre lights I had ever seen. As Lumens tapped a blue gemstone on the table near the door, four overhead crystals began to glow a soft white.

"It's not much, but it's home." Lumens said with a smile. "How about the grand tour? Pretty much everything is self-explanatory."

"Sure." Her home was not what I was expecting. It was... much more.

The walls were rusted metal along the long walls, while the opposite short walls were covered with horizontal wooden planks. To the far right, was a workbench of sorts. It had a blowtorch, anvil, vise-grip, many assorted small tools, and a variety of different kinds of wires.

"That's where I research the glyphs and runes for the eye and other limbs," the zebra said as I looked at the workbench and the wall behind it. We passed through what was obviously the kitchen on our way over to the workbench, Lumens leading the way.

Pinned to the wall above the workbench were pictures. Many, many, pictures and drawings. Some of glyphs and runes. Others were drawings of wasteland flowers. There were even a few photographs. The photographs mostly consisted of ponies I'd seen before. Ditzy was in one. Flash, Sheriff Six Star, and a few other security ponies in another. One of a zebra filly, smiling ear to ear, with a sun glyph mark sitting on top of a zebra colt... without a glyph mark.

"Remember that day?" Lumens asked me, staring at the picture with a smile

"How could I forget it," I let out a small chuckle. "It was the day you got your glyph mark." I was the one being sat on. She was so happy that day, it gave her unnatural strength. She was also a year older than me.

I looked at the others. There were a few others of zebras. One had the tribe's elders, all five of them. Another had a couple of others from our tribe.

Then I saw one. One that made my body shiver with an uneasy coldness and a heart wrenching, warm, fuzziness. I could never forget the two zebras in that picture. The zebra with a ten-pointed shooting star glyph mark, and a much younger colt marked with a strange bird. Star Gazer and me. My big brother. He was smiling. I smiled back at it, trying to blink away a tear. Even after all these years, she kept a picture of me and my brother.

"Are you okay?" Lumens asked, sounding a little concerned.

"Yeah," I was fine, just... happy. I wanted to go on with the tour. "What's with the terminal?" To our right, was a desk with a terminal on it.

"Oh, That old thing? Nothing. It was here when I bought this place." She said matter-of-factly. "I've never been able to get it to work."

Opposite of the terminal and door, were two book cases. They were completely filled with texts on zebra glyphs and runes and medical books. I could easily guess what they were for. There were other books, too. But I didn't catch what any were about.

At the far end of the train car was a staircase that lead up the second floor. There was an 'L' shaped couch that hugged the corner made by the staircase and wall, with a small coffee table in the center.

"There really isn't all that much here. The upstairs has my bedroom and a small study that I don't use much." Lumens asked as I looked around the ground floor room. I gave her a curious look. "I usually sleep at the clinic. If anypony needs me, it’s easier and quicker to be found there than here."

There was a short chime and Lumens looked at a clock that was hung on the wall near the bookcases.

"Eleven o'clock already?" she said with a yawn. "Well, I guess that means bedtime." We were both tired from the past few days.

She trotted over to the couch and pressed a lever on the side. The front popped outward and swung up, while the back slid down and backward, with an almost whooshing sound. It kind of looked like a bed. "This is where I usually sleep if I'm home." Well, alrighty then. "The other end of the couch does the same thing. But, seeing as how you sleep in weird positions, I think you'll be more comfortable sleeping on the couch the way it is. I'll be back in a sec; gonna to get some blankets and pillows from upstairs." Lumens said as she disappeared up the stairs.

My leg braces came off with a noisy clatter. Everything else came off and I set my small bundle of gear on the coffee table. I thought about taking my PipBuck off, but I felt a little naked without it.

I laid down on the couch. It was nearly as comfortable as the bed in Turnpike Tavern. I must have fallen asleep, because I didn't remember Lumens coming back down with blankets and pillows. It was probably the most pleasant sleep I've had in a very, very, long time.

Footnote: Level up!

New Perk: Omnivore - AndBaconStrips;AndBaconStrips;AndBaconStrips; You can eat foods with higher protein levels (meat) along with the usual vegetarian dishes that most ponies eat. You also gain a 20% bonus to health restored and hunger reduction from eating meat. Just don't eat too much...

Quest Perk: Eagle Eye - Your ruined eye has become a 'runed eye'. Your unfortunate accident has given you one of the wasteland's strangest pieces of technology: the rune powered cybereye. Though you can't see in pitch blackness or shoot lasers out of it, you can see farther and clearer than almost anypony else. You gain a +2 super bonus to Perception, a bonus to your SATS maximum accuracy, and a 50% resistance to disease, infection, and other illnesses, but not to poisons, toxins, or manufactured substances (alcohol, chems, tranquilizers, etc.).