Author's Notes:

Hey there! I've decided to slowly start updating this thing again. I hope you all don't hate me for not updating it in like, a year. Sorry about that. Anyways, here's the next chapter. I'm still looking for someone to help edit/proofread, preferably someone with experience.

Also, what's with this 'indent paragraph' function!? When did we get that!? How have I not seen it before!??!

Chapter 6

Weekend at Starward’s

It’s not over yet.

It’d been a fairly boring morning for the two of us. I had convinced the stable pony that some sort of armor was better than none, and she managed to slip into the suit of red and black leather armor I’d bought off Can’t Cover Clips’ caravan. It was a size and a half too big--even with the straps adjusted all the way--clattering noisily whenever she moved about. After sharing some breakfast, we were on our way toward the small trade town of Starward. It wasn’t very far, but Tes had decided to use what free-time we had to ask about everything there was to know.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?” I replied. There was an odd feeling of somepony following us, though my Pipbuck said otherwise. The streets were utterly abandoned.

“That, over there,” she stopped to point. I turned to see what had grabbed her attention. She was pointing far to the north, to the horizon at the edge of the mountains.

“Oh, that?” Nestled along one of the tallest mountain faces was the remains of a city... a majestic city that seemed to be carved out of the very stone. “That’s Canterlot.”

Cracked and dilapidated towers leaned at precarious angles against each other. The city’s once-gold spires were now a mustard brown, having been decayed by foul magic over the centuries. Toxic, pink waterfalls cascaded down from their perch higher up in the mountains, dissolving in an ever-present mist that hung over the great capitol like a cloak of choking, pink death.

“...at least, it used to be,” I added.

“That’s Canterlot?” she asked in disbelief. “What happened to it?”

“Let’s walk and talk. I think some... thing... is stalking us.” The feeling of something following us hadn’t faded since the night before, keeping only myself on edge. I concentrated on listening for hoofsteps, other than Tes’. Or anything, really. But there was nothing. Only the sound of a very distant firefight to the east, ahead of us.

“So, what happened to Canterlot?” Tes asked again.

“Pink Cloud happened,” I replied simply.

“What’s 'Pink Cloud'?”

“It’s... hard to explain. It’s like a poisonous fog. I’m not sure how it’s made, but prewar zebras used it against the city when everything went to hell. Whatever it touches usually rots away or dies. Although, longer exposure can sometimes melt and fuse its victims into whatever they’re touching.” I said. I couldn’t remember ever going there, but the stories were enough to deter any sort of expedition.

“It melts ponies?” Tes asked, shocked. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her whip her head toward me.

“Sometimes. It can fuse things like clothing, armor, and Pipbucks to flesh or even stick them to the ground.” There was a distant rumble like thunder. I knew it to be an explosive, though, and the quieting of the firefight confirmed that thought. “Or, even worse, to other ponies.”

“That’s... kinda disturbing,” she said in disgust.

“That’s not all. It’s necromantic, too.”

“It’s neckowhatic?” Some rubble in a building we were passing shifted, causing the blue mare to take a few quick sidesteps.

“Necromantic,” I said a little slower. “Necromancy. With enough radiation, it can turn ponies into ghouls. A Canterlot ghoul is the worse kind of ghoul.”

I looked around in search of anything that might have been following. But again, there was only Tes, myself, and another firefight to the southeast. We continued down the street quietly. The gunfire was quickly approaching on our left, one block over. My EFS started to climb, adding an additional friendly marker and a few hostiles to the mix.

“Shouldn’t we help them?” Tesla asked in concern as the counter jumped to six hostiles and four friendlies.

“Do you?” I answered. There wasn’t much ‘help’ to be offered. “We don’t even know who they are yet. Or if they’re hostile towards us.” The counter changed to three blues and then to four, as the red tick marks peaked at 9.

“We can’t just leave them,” she countered. I looked back to see her tapping her hoof against the broken sidewalk.

“Let’s go, then,” I sighed. I didn’t really want to, but... whatever. They were kind of in our path to Starward, anyways. We would've came across whoever was left and it’d be better if they were friendly.

We quickly trotted across several yards that were in our way; going down the street and then cutting across would have taken too long and left us far too exposed. We turned at one of the tree-houses toward the firefight when we were shot at, causing both us to duck back behind the house.

“What was that?!” Tes exclaimed.

“Sniper.” I searched my saddlebag and quickly found Tweety’s gun case, along with a small shard that had broken off mirror. “And he is right...” I tilted the tiny mirror about in my magic, looking around the corner of the house for our assailant. The only thing that stood out was a sea-foam green, unicorn mare holding a sniper rifle. “Sorry, she... is... on the right side of the street, three houses down, sec-”

The shard exploded as another high caliber round whizzed by and tore through it.

“Aaallright, then...” I jumped back a little, startled by the sniper’s accuracy. “Stay close, stay behind me, and stay low.”

I opened Tweety’s case and assembled the contents together with my magic. I double checked the revolver’s cylinder and emptied the spent shells, refilling the chambers with standard .44 rounds. The filled cylinder snapped close with a buzz. Finally, I picked up the biggest of the remaining mirror shards and spotted the sniper. She fired again, but missed this time, hitting the tree-house near my muzzle instead. Who ever she was, she had quite the aim.

I brushed the wooden splinters off my face and looked back into the mirror. Just as she was slamming a new magazine in, I stepped out from behind my cover, Tweety in my forehooves. Time slowed to a standstill as I activated SATS. With one round targeting her head and another on her rifle, the arcane targeting spell still had half a charge. Two more rounds were queued up on her head and the spell was spent.

The first shot, even with an 87% hit chance, just managed to graze her cheek. She re-armed herself quickly and managed to fire before I could get my next shot off. The high velocity, .308 round passed through the soft leather under-armor of my leg-pit and into the tissue itself. Though I couldn’t feel it, I knew what kind of pain it would bring when the sequence ended.

The next round hit home and sent the sniper rifle flying back and out of her magical grip. A third round exploded part of the window sill and sprayed the decaying wood in her face, much like the side of the tree-house had done to me just a few moments before. The last round hit just below her horn, exploding her brain matter across wall and ceiling.

A stinging, burning, agonizing pain erupted from my shoulder as I fell to the ground.

“Holy shit!” Tes yelped as I tried to gasp for air. “Uh- uh... H-hold still!”

The blue mare dropped her single saddlebag and began to dig through it, bringing out a purple healing potion and some kind of surgical tongs and setting them beside me

“I- I’m fine,” I lied. “Just give me a minute...”

My teal aura wrapped itself around the bullet wound in attempts to slow the bleeding. I grabbed at one of my own saddlebags for some sort of healing item.

“No, stop moving!” she demanded. As she moved the armored plates around, pain lanced through my leg and shoulder. “There’s no exit wound. Keep moving and you’ll cause more damage.”

She grabbed the fine-pointed tongs in her mouth and quickly stepped to my side. “Desh iz gonna hurd a widdew...”

I’d been shot before, with everything ranging from a toy BB gun to the rocket launcher back in New Appleoosa. Armor usually stopped the smaller rounds, which only left bruises or welts. The few bullets that did find their way in usually passed on through. Those wounds were quickly alleviated with healing potions or bandages. Cuts and scrapes were cleaned up a little and then covered with a non-magic bandage if needed, or were otherwise left alone. Those were just mild inconveniences and annoying, but could be ignored.

However, having somepony dig around inside your shoulder to pull out a bullet out... that pain could not be ignored.

I bit down on my cloak’s collar as she wiggled the pointed tongs around, trying my best to avoiding yelling out.

“Gahd id,” she said after an agonizing four seconds. There was one final, painful tug and the bullet came out with a wet squelching noise. My operator poured the cold healing potion into the wound, which began to close up immediately as the flesh knit itself back together. It hurt like hell, still.

“Thanks...” I groaned as I rolled nauseously to my hooves. Blood soaked the ground, my cloak and armor, and myself.

“No problem,” she replied, tossing the tongs back into her saddlebag.

“Where did you learn that from?” I asked. I limped over to where Tweety had fallen and started taking the rifle-revolver apart, stowing the parts in its case.

“Just one of the things I learned in back in the Stable,” she said once she finished tightening her pack.

Why she had learned to dress a bullet wound in a Stable raised more than one question, but they were quickly tossed away by an alert on my EFS.. A gunshot from a couple houses down the street echoed out at the same time the enemy counter dropped to zero. The silence was broken up by distant voices and hoof steps.

“Hey! We got ourselves a couple of live ones!” a younger stallion called out.

Tes gasp and brought her laser pistol to arms... er, mouth.

“It’s okay.” I winced as I tried to step. The burning had subsided, but now my entire shoulder throbbed and ached with each step. “I’m sure they’re friendly.”

A moment later, two unicorns appeared from around the house’s corner. One was a slate grey mare a cropped, black mane. The other was a dark red stallion with a darker red, buzz-cut mane.

“Uh, what happened to you?” he asked, looking from me to the red smear on the ground and back again.

“I got shot,” I answered. I found my sword nearby and magically placed it back in it’s sheath.

“Looks like you took quite the hit there,” he said “If you need medical attention, our medic might be able to help.”

“I think I’ll be fine.” I flexed my leg, trying my best not to wince. Looking back at the two, I noticed they wore the same exact kind of armor: dark, reinforced leather with blue trimmings along some of the edges.

“You’re not with Azapa, are you?” the mare asked, her voice having that same, authoritative tone as Six Star. She also seemed kind of... mean.

“Who?” Tes answered.

“You know, Alpine’s Zebra and Pony Allegiance?” the stallion explained. “A- Z- A- P- A-? What, have you been living under a rock your entire life?” He chuckled, looking at Tes’ Stable barding under the baggy black and red armor. “Anyways, over the last few weeks, there have been these ponies and such that’ve banded together and started saying that they willfully act under Alpine’s command. It’s all a bunch of hooey if you ask me, but nonetheless, we do what we can to keep them in check.”

“Whose ‘we’?” I asked, curious as to why they were wearing the same armor as each other.

“We are the Remnants of the Resistance Resisters; destroyers of any and all oppressive and repressive organizations, agencies, allegiances, and regimes!” he exclaimed proudly. “I’m Splatter Spree, and this is my sister, Killjoy.”

“Resistance Resisters?” I repeated.

“Yes. We are the descendants of those who followed Firestorm and Ocean Mist all those years ago,” Splatter Spree said.

Tes choked on the mouthful of water she was drinking and ended up going into a coughing fit.

“Who!?” she yelled in surprise between coughs.

“Firestorm and Ocean Mist?” Spree responded nervously.

As shock spread across her face, Tes fell to her rump on the dead grass.

“You alright, Tes?” I asked.

“Yeah... It’s just that... they were from my Stable,” she said shaking her mane from her eyes. “Everypony was certain the wasteland ate them up. They’re the reason 59 is open...”

“They’re the reason the Outlands are still free,” Spree said. “Defeated Cinder and put an end to her tyranny. Before they came, it was chaos here; the cities and towns fought each other, ponies couldn’t go more than a few days without being harassed into Cinder’s regime. It was very noble of th-”

“No!” Tes shouted, causing the three of us to give her an odd look. “Once they opened the door, they compromised everything! Do you have any idea how many problems they caused and what their actions did to us? The Overmare cracked down hard; strict curfews and work shifts, zero tolerance policies, and even fucking interrogations! No, they weren’t noble. They ruined 59.”

“Hey, watch your mouth!” Spree with a poke to her chest. “That’s my idol and best pony you’re talking about!”

“Whoa, hey! Knock it off, you two!” Killjoy demanded as she stepped between the them. “No use getting hot-headed over a couple of dead Stable mares. Neither of you have any right or excuse to fight over Firestorm and Ocean Mist. Besides, everypony knows Applejack was best pony.”

Tesla and Splatter Spree stared each other down a few seconds before easing off, the latter turning to sit by the edge of the tree-house.

“Anyways...” I said after a minute. “Who’s this Azapa pony?”

“Azapa isn’t a pony, it’s the group. Somepony named Alpine supposedly runs it, but he’d be over a hundred years old if he was the same one Ocean Mist and Firestorm had run into. I think it’s somepony else posing as him, to sound more intimidating,” explained Killjoy. “Really though, nopony knows who he is.Ponies wearing red-trimmed, black armor have only been showing up here and there in the last couple years and they don’t talk much or cause much trouble. And it’s only now in the last couple of weeks that they’ve actually been truly showing themselves. We’ve tried to get ponies farther east, but we never hear back from them..”

“And while the RRR’s main objective is to keep the Outlands and surrounding areas liberated from ponies such as Alpine...” Spree started, “...we mostly just do general peacekeeping in some towns like Rockton and Fortitude. We’re spread really thin, so you don’t see many of us around. Nopony wants to be part of a liberation group if there’s nothing to liberate. Plus the pay isn’t that great, the injury risk is high, and you have to get these dorky-ass manecuts.”

“Spree! We need to get going and report this!” an older buck called out from farther down street.

“We’re coming!” Spree yelled back before turning to Tes and I. “Look, I’m not sure if there’s anything you can do to help, if that’s what you’re looking for, maybe you can find something in Fortitude or possibly... I dunno,” he shrugged. “Just between you and I, we’re fighting a losing battle that nopony really cares about. Half the ponies in the wasteland haven’t even heard of us and the other half see us as a wannabe gang and couldn’t care any less about what happens. Your best bet would be to go to Fortitude and see if anypony there needs some errands done. But until next time...”

He gave a curt nod and left with Killjoy, the two of them disappearing around the corner of the house.

“What was all that about?” Tes asked.

“I’m not really sure,” I replied. Something was going on, but I couldn’t seem to place my hoof on it. It all seemed vaguely familiar, the Resisters and Azapa. “We need to get going, though; we’re burning daylight.”

The town was just as I remember it: a walled community built out of a few old office buildings, a large 'Bank of Equestria' that served as the center for security, and a donut shop that still served donuts (200 year old donuts, but they were still donuts). Among the prewar buildings were small shanties, shacks, and stalls, selling everything imaginable. Weapons and ammo, barding and armor, food and drink, sex and chems. If you wanted it, there was probably a vender somewhere selling it. There were ponies, Steel Rangers, griffons, and just about any other being you could find out in the wastes, barring alicorns themselves, of course. I even caught sight of a couple of zebras, but they quickly made themselves scarce and disappeared into to the crowds.

"Wow, it's... um." Tes stumbled on her words as we walked through the entrance. "Busy."

"It's a town built on trade, mostly from the east." I informed her. My EFS was pointless; over 50 friendlies and about 10 or so that didn't have good intentions toward us. As we trotted through the street, the numbers climbed and fell.

"We’re getting a lot of looks, aren’t we?" Tes practically whispered, stepping up close behind me

The ponies and other wastelanders in the street seemed to be giving us quite a few looks. Some were friendly, other weren’t. Most were just curious glances, but we were obviously drawing attention to ourselves, somehow.

“It might have something to do with the fact that I’m a blue zebra with a unicorn horn,” I said quietly back. It was starting to get stressful... so many eyes were looking at us. The urge to run away or hide under my cloak was an ever-present matter I had to fight. “Or maybe it’s clothes you’re wearing.” Anything to distract me from the eyes. There probably weren’t as many as I thought, but they didn’t help any. “Lets find the clinic. They should have a few healing potions we can buy, along with a few bandages and some Med-X. They might be able to look at that cough, too.”

She sighed at my suggestion. “I guess...”

“Then we can get something to eat. I think I’m almost out of canned food and snack cakes,” I added.

“Fine,” the blue mare groaned.

The clinic was easy to find. It was on the ground floor of one of the four small office buildings. The building itself was made of concrete and rose above the city street three stories. The pale yellow paint on it’s surface was old, but newer than the wasteland norm, and clashed badly with the gloomy grey of everything else. Given the location of the Starward Clinic, at the back of the town, it sort of made sense that the color was bright. If anypony needed to find it quickly, just head to the yellow building.

“Welcome to the Starward Clinic,” a dark grey, earth pony buck said as I limped through the doorway, Tes following right behind me. “What’ll-” he paused, giving us a funny look, “-it be... today?”

The room was nothing special. An old, musty scent permeated from within, as with almost all pre-war buildings. Faded and slightly peeling wallpaper clung to plain walls, chipped and stained vinyl tiles covered the floor, some sticking at a skewed angle after coming unglued, other completely missing. It was an average wasteland relic. There was even a missing ceiling panel and a burnt-out light.

Beside the old secretary’s desk, an old sign listed off available treatments...

Radiation Purge.......................75 c

Detox........................................75 c

General Healing.......................100 c

Advanced Healing....................250 c

Amputations.............................150 c Under 1 minute, or 50% off!

Dentistry (tooth pulls).........5 c per tooth.

Cybernetics....................Varies on availability

Autodoc Treatment..................750 c.

Other.......................................Varies

I quickly glanced over my Pipbuck. I felt fine, other than my shoulder aching, and I didn’t feel like I had radiation sickness. The device on my foreleg confirmed my thoughts, giving me a ‘clean’ bill of health. Tes, on the other hoof, was a mystery.

“What’s ‘Other’?” I asked.

“Whatever the Doc wants it to be. It’s usually cheaper, but I’m not suppose to tell you that,” the buck said with a chuckle. "Mostly, it's diagnoses and checkups.”

I looked over at Tes as she entered another deep coughing fit, probably caused by the clinic’s aged interior. She looked up nervously at the two of us as she wiped her foreleg on her Stable barding’s exposed sleeve,

“What does that fall under?” I asked.

“Definitely ‘Other’,” he said back, “One minute.”

He pressed a button on the desk and spoke into a nearby microphone. “Hey, Doc, we got a couple ponies up here who look like they could use some help. One of them needs a chest exam. Could be whooping cough, might be bronchitis or just a bad chest cold. Your guess will probably be better than mine,” he explained casually.

“And some medical supplies,” I added, not wanting to waste their time.

“And the other one wants some stock.”

The was a grunt and the sound of something metal hitting the floor, followed by a painful shout and choice some curse words.

“Iwill be there in just a moment,” odd, gravelly, accented voice chimed happily through the speaker by the microphone.

“He’ll be here in few minutes,” the young stallion said. “If you’d like, you can take a seat over there, in the waiting room.” He pointed off to the side of the main entrance.

Tes and I sat near in the corner of the furnished room. It wasn’t the most spectacular clinic in the wasteland, but it did have a few end tables with some magazines, a dozen-or-so seat cushions, a couple of faded, dusty, fake plants.

In the opposite corner, near a set of double doors, a vivid blue unicorn filly with a darker blue mane waited anxiously. She wasn’t even old enough to have her cutie mark, and every time she looked at us her eyes went wide and she scooted further into the corner.

I didn’t think we were that scary.

After a very short wait, a dark green unicorn stallion with an onyx black mane and tail stepped through the door. A ghoulish zebra in a doctor’s coat followed him. In a little blue blur, the filly was at the stallion’s cybernetic foreleg.

“I was only got for a few minutes, Lapis,” the young stallion said with a chuckle, lifting his foreleg and giving it a shake. The filly, Lapis, hung on for dear life.

“ButIStillMissedYouSoMuchAndYou’reMyBBBFF!” Lapis said almost inaudibly fast.

“Take care of those legs, Augite,” the gravelly voiced zebra said in a familiar, old-world accent. “Theyare a rare model around here.”

“Yup. Will do, Doc,” Augite replied. He raised the leg Lapis was not clamped to and stomped it on the floor, sending an invisible shockwave that I could actually feel as it passed through. Their enamel paint was a green color, similar to his hide, but were chipped, scratched, and scraped down to bare metal in some spots. While battered and abused, they still looked very functional.

The siblings trotted out, leaving the zebra ghoul, Tes, and I alone in the waiting room. The ghoul looked like any other zebra, from the characteristic tail and mohawk-like mane, to the stripes and eyes, except he was a little more... decomposed. Unlike most zebras though, his thinning mane was cropped shorter and the remaining hair on his tail was braided. Dull, lifeless, green eyes replaced ones that were probably once full of life and energy.

“You two must be my next victims,” he said with a light hearted laugh. Tes shrank down behind me, clearly intimidated by the average sized stallion.

“It’s okay. There’s nothing to worry about,” I whispered to her as I got to my hooves. “Come on.”

The blue and white earth pony got to her hooves and followed, shying away being me.

“I havenot seen you two here before,” the ghoul stated. Rather than using contractions, he seemed to mash the two words into one. “My name is Zelkoff. Welcome to my clinic.”

“Xerophyte,” I said, before looking over to the blue mare. “This is my friend, Tes.”

“Hello,” he said to Tesla. “I hear you have a cough, no?”

She looked back and forth between the two striped stallions before her, giving a tiny little head shake.

“She has a really bad cough,” I said to Zelkoff. I didn’t want to act like a parent taking their foal to the ‘scary doctor’, but at the same time I didn’t want the small mare to feel so miserable anymore.

“I do not!” Tes wheeze defensively, causing her to enter another coughing fit. She quickly covered her muzzle with her hoof to catch the specks of red, instead forcing it out her nose like a can of Sparkle-Cola “Okay, so maybe I do. But so what?” she said, adding it to the darkening smear on her barding.

“Hmm,” Zelkoff hummed. “Hemoptysis can be very serious.”

“Any idea what it could be?” I asked. I just wanted to help.

“Could be any number of things,” he replied. “Do you know whatis wrong, Tes?”

The blue mare lowered her gaze as she looked away, giving a tiny nod as she did so. Still though, she refused to say what the ailment was.

“See? She won’t even tell me,” I explained. “And for a fresh-out-of-the-Stable pony, we’ve been through a lot already.”

“Youare from a Stable?” Zelkoff asked, to which Tes nodded again. “Iwill make you a deal. If you tell me whatis wrong, let me run some harmless tests, and... if youare right... I willnot charge you for my services.”

She kept quiet before finally giving in. “Alright... let’s go,” she said in a deflated tone.

The two of them disappeared behind the large double doors at the front of the room. There wasn’t much to do besides wait. On one of the side tables had a stack of magazines. Most of the widely distributed magazines I’d already read at one point or another, so I didn’t bother with them. Of the three remaining, I decided on Horn Headed, a short mag centered around magic. ‘Magic Home Decorator’ and ‘General Practice’ were going to have to wait for another day.

I was three-fourths of the way through it by the time Tes and Zelkoff returned. Tes didn’t look well; her normally bright blue coat didn’t have it’s luster, her near-white mane and tail were messier and more... limp than usual and dull, tired eyes replaced the chromey silver ones. On the side opposite of her saddlebag, she had a pale yellow medical kit, the kind with the pink butterflies. Bordering all the edges and seams were hundreds of rivets holding what appeared to be armored plates of some kind.

“Take it easy, Tesla,” Zelkoff said with a light pat on her shoulders.

“Yeah...” she moped. “Where can I get a hard drink?”

“Thereis a casino next door,” the doctor mentioned.

Without another word, Tes walked past me and out the door. After a moment, the ghoulish zebra looked back to me. He didn’t say anything; he just stood there, staring.

“What?” I asked. His expressionless gaze was starting to creep me out.

“Donot take her friendship for granted. You mean more to her than you might think,” Zelkoff said cryptically.

“Uh, right...” I said, scratching my foreleg. Friendship? I felt a small bit of joy. She considered me a friend! It’d been ages since anyone thought of me as a friend.

“Iam serious. Do not. Youwill eventually need help and when you do, she willnot be there.”

“I... I won’t.” I would never take friendship for granted! Especially one like this. We barely knew each other and yet we’ve stayed by each other’s sides, even when we fought the alicorn and almost gave into a mock-raider ambush. Maybe she was scared of being alone, or maybe she actually thought of me as a friend, the same way I thought of her. Perhaps... I was grabbing at straws.

“Good. The last thing the wasteland needs is more broken hearts,” he said. He turned to his own saddlebag and took out a small burlap sack. “Now, here are the supplies you asked for. Three healing potions, five rolls of bandages, three rolls of magic bandages, a hydra, and some disinfectants. Your total comes to four-hundred fifteen caps.”

I nodded and handed over the caps, taking the bag in my magic as I did so.

“So... what’s wrong with her?” I asked. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Doctor-patient confidentiality,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Just donot let her overexert herself. She tires out easily enough.”

Of course. I was going to have to find out whenever Tes decided to tell me.

“Alright, well, I should get going. I have a blue friend that could use a hug.” I put my new goods in my saddlebag and started heading out the door.

“Cavé, salvus erit,” Zelkoff said behind me.

“Lorem ipsum,” I replied with a smile before heading to the casino.

The casino, like the clinic, was easy to find; right across the street. Also like the clinic, it too was repurposed from an office building. The red and white lighted sign declared the establishment as Roulette’s Resort. The casino was taller than the clinic, being four stories tall instead of three, and was unpainted, except for the fancy graffiti near the entrance depicting a suit of very large playing cards.

Inside, it was largely devoid of ponies, which was a relief from the crowded streets outside. Tes’ electric blue coat was easy to spot in the dimmed lighting. There were other ponies at the bar, too, but they seemed to keep their distance.

“Hey,” I said in a slightly cheery tone, hoping to bring her spirits up. “You come here often?”

The mare was sitting with her face down on one foreleg and a bottle of Wild Pegasus clutched in the other, a quarter of it already gone.

“Are you feeling alright?” I asked as I sat down on the barstool next to her. The pony near me shot a nasty glare before scooting down a couple more seats, pulling his drink with him.

Tes shook her head, but still didn’t look up.

“It’s unhealthy to drink alone,” I said, tugging at the bottle until she let go. I pulled up a glass and filled it with some of the hard whiskey. “Luckily, you’re not alone.” I quickly slammed the glass back and gulped it down, feeling the burning in my throat.

She pulled her face off her leg and looked over at me, with red, puffy eyes. “Thanks,” she said, cracking the tiniest of smiles as I poured us each another glass.

I must have poured many, many, more drinks, because the next thing I remembered was an old private-office-turned-motel-room, with peeling wallpaper, dirty carpets, a flickering ceiling light that made my head want to explode, and a side table with an obviously broken lamp. At first, I thought I was alone, but once the throbbing in my head came down, I could hear a soft snoring.

Slowly, I rolled over to see who was cuddled up against my back.

“AAHH!” What in the hell was she doing in the same bed as me?!

“AAHH!” Tes screamed too after her eyes shot open. “WHATTHEFUCK?!”

She tried to jump as quickly as equinely possible out of the bed, but got her legs tangled in the bedcovers and she ended up landing face first onto the floor.

“AAHH! IDONTKNOW!” I yelled back as I rubbed my face with my hooves. “What happened last night?” Ugh, my head hurt. I hated hangovers.

“Aaahhhggg!” Tes growled into a pillow that fallen off during her escape attempt. “What’s that banging?” she asked, burying her head in the same pillow. “It’s like I can feel my pulse in my ears...”

“It’s called a hangover,” I groaned in response. I rolled over and reached into my- “Where are our saddlebags?”

Tes and I shot up and tore the room apart looking for our packs. Hers were in the bathroom; one was sitting on the back of the toilet (which she vomited into shortly afterwards), and the other was hanging from the shower head for whatever reason.

One of mine were in a closet, and the one with all our caps and medical gear was under the bed. I rummaged through it hoping I had just a couple of the small tablets left. Stuffed at the bottom of the bag, in a beat up, dented tin, was the relief I was looking for. It’d been a long time since I’d used them. They caused nothing but trouble. At the same time, though, I couldn’t bear this damned hangover.

“What are those?” Tes asked as I popped one of the little pink squares into my mouth.

“Mint-als. Party time variety.” I chewed and swallowed the prewar chem. After a second, I felt better. The unruly headache was gone, the foggy haze disappeared and was replaced with more pleasing tones and shades, the nauseous pounding in my ears subsided, even the sluggish state of mind had lifted. All with just a small, minty pill.

“What?” my blue, hungover friend asked in confused annoyance.

“Here,” I replied as I floated a tablet over and stuck it in her mouth. “Chew and swallow.”

“Hm,” she hummed as she pondered the chem. “Kinda minty... a bit chalky, but-” She cut herself off and just stared blanking for a moment with slightly widened eyes.

“Better?” I asked. Now that the pounding in my own head had subsided, I was actually able to think clearly. And so was she, apparently.

“Huh, yeah... I do actually,” she tapped her chin in thought. “I still have no idea what happened last night.” She took out her canteen and took a swig.

“Neither do I.” The night was just a hazy blur of binge drinking and... dancing? I could vaguely remember dancing, or at least trying to. “Lets find out...”

I gathered our remaining junk around the room; my reinforced armor and cloak, nearly two-hundred bottlecaps, Tweety, the rune and glyph book, and some other miscellaneous things, and put them in their place. My Pipbuck took care of organizing things further, putting like ammo together and slipping the caps into their own spot.

After that, the two of us left the room, but not before giving it a quick and thorough once over to ensure we had everything.

Back on the main floor--but not before getting turned around twice--we made our way to the bar. The room was just as I had sort of remembered it: dimly lit, smooth jazz, the thick smell of cigar smoke, and the sound of a one-armed bandit landing on big winnings.

“Mornin’,” the bartender greeted with a smile. The pale green unicorn was wiping out a glass mug with a rag that was, almost surprisingly, clean.

I looked at Tesla. “I got this...”

I did. I could feel it. It may have been the Mint-Als talking, but I didn’t care. Putting on a smug smile, I trotted up to the bar. “Same to you.” I looked around the serving area. The floor and tables were neatly clean and polished nearly to a shine, the bar was clear of all the peanut shells and snack cake wrappers that littered it the night before. To sum it up, the main floor looked to be the cleanest it’d been since the war. And probably even before then.

“By any chance, could you, uh...” I let out a meek, nervous chuckle. The Mint-Als were wearing of quickly. Maybe I didn’t have this. The world started to dim back down to it’s dreary, gloominess. I thought of taking another one, but resisted the urge. Too many well-to-do wastelanders risked everything they had and even the lives of others, just to get a ‘fix’. “Well, my friend and I...”

The words fell from my mind. Stupid Mint-Als... Never lasted as long as they were needed.

“We don’t really remember what happened last night and were wondering if you could be kind enough to fill us in,” Tes said with a smooth smile. My own had faded, the reason being that I felt... sluggish.

“Oh, certainly,” the young mare chimed. “About an hour after your friend came in and started drinking with you, all hell broke loose.”

I knew it... who did I accidentally kill or unintentionally blow up this time?

“Don’t worry, nopony important died or anything,” the bartender said. “Actually, you kind of helped us out...”

“You said ‘nopony important’ died. What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Well, you did shoot somepony, who did die, but nopony liked him. He was kind of a dick, honestly,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. It didn’t give me the right to kill him, though. “Well, that, and he stabbed you with a dinner knife.” She stared at me for a second. “Remarkable, you can’t even tell...”

“Tell what?” Looking myself over, I couldn’t see any wounds, nor did I feel anything.

“You really don’t remember do you?” the bartender laughed. “He stabbed you in the neck with a dinner knife and before anypony had time to do anything, you shot him in head three times, without even looking! Truly, it was quite a show. Nopony was sure you were going to survive, though, with the amount of blood you lost... Your marefriend is quite the wizard with healing potions.”

“Oh, we’re not... together... like that,” I said nervously.

“Not from what I heard last night...” the bartender chimed with a smirk as she continued with her cleaning.

I wished I didn’t know what she meant by that, but I could feel myself turn red. I could feel a pair of silvery eyes drilling into the side of my head.

Tes was still calm and composed, but the look in her eyes told me otherwise, like she was ready to start splitting skulls.

“Xero... I’m going to get you for this,” she said, keeping her calm demeanor. Tes’ thought was cut short, though, her stomach protesting its hunger. “Heh, um... lets get some breakfast first though. I’m starving.”

“I'm messing with ya. I'm surprised you two even made it to a room at all," the bartender laughed again. "You do realize what time it is though, right?”

Simultaneously, Tes and I looked at our Pipbucks

3:24 PM

“Late lunch, then,” the blue mare corrected herself.

“Personally, I prefer Dunky’s Donuts,” the bartender said. “Their prices may be a little steeper, but you won’t be disappointed.”

She left without another word, heading to a back room area with a small box of empty glass bottles.

“Dunky’s Donuts?” Tes asked.

“Dunky’s Donuts.”

We left Roulette’s Resort in search for sustenance. Overhead, the mid-afternoon sun filtered its way through the thick blanket of clouds. The scent of rain from the day before had all but vanished, leaving just the smell of crowded, dirty streets. They were busy as they’d been before, with ponies and other creatures peddling wares, bargaining with customers, and conducting business. Over the heads of the multitude of civilians and shacks, laid our assumed destination. A giant wooden cutout of a donut atop a small diner-like building with the letters ‘DD’ in front of the large circle. It couldn’t have been anything other than Dunky’s Donuts.

“Excuse me, Sir,” somepony rasped in a gravelly tone from behind. It was very... exquisite, to put it nicely, classy and well educated.

To put is truthfully, though... snobbish and condescending.

“Huh?” I replied. I had a feeling that it was directed, and turned to see the voice’s body.

A light, golden yellow stallion stood not more than a ten feet away. He was what one would expect from a ‘higher class pony’. What remained of his pale yellow mane was slicked back and neatly combed, and a well-fitted and pressed, blue-grey business suit hung on his cooked and ghoulified flesh. His milky blue eyes had seen many years in the wastes, but still burned with a lively fire.

“Z-z-zombie!” Tes cried out, fumbling with her gear as she tried to grab her laser pistol.

“Excuse me, I take offence to such disgusting terms,” he said in that snobbish way. The worn horn on his forehead sparked to life with a lime aura. Tes’ pistol popped up and the magic spark cell was ejected and tossed to the other side of the street, while the weapon tumbled to her hooves.

“Thanks,” I replied dryly. The cell bounced off the asphalt and bounced down the storm drain, much to Tes’ displeasure and frustration. She had a point through, compared to Zelkoff the day before, this pony was very much passed his prime. There were parts of his flesh that had fallen off or disintegrated down to the deeper meat and even bones. The hole in his cheek revealing his teeth and rotting tongue didn’t help, either.

“Oh no,” the stallion laughed with a creepy sense of joy. “Thank you. You’ve save me the trouble of trotting all over the wastes to find you’re striped coat.”

“Uh, okay?” Something didn’t feel right about this. Nopony, no one, ever came up looking for me.

“Oh, my apologies,” he said, smiling. Surprisingly, his teeth were fairly white. “My name is Golden Bit, entrepreneur and business pony. And I believe you owe me some caps, my striped friend.”

“I think you have me confused with somepony else,” I answered, turning away before this got worse. I wasn’t in debt to anyone, pony or otherwise.

“I highly doubt that,” Golden countered with a hint of anger rising in his voice. “Do you remember anything from about a week ago? You were on your way to central Equestria and you passed through a checkpoint requesting caps as payment for using a cleared and safe road.”

“Oh... that,” I laughed nervously. The Toll Gang. I had almost forgotten about them.

“You completely destroyed my business foothold out there!” he yelled. “Do you have any idea how expensive BEL’s are!? Not to mention how difficult it is to transport them without getting shook down by those Steel Dingbats!? I had that post outfitted with two of them! And you just... blew it up!”

The more Golden Bits yelled, the more ponies started to look our way, some gathering to see what was happening, and others backing away to avoid getting caught up in our disagreement.

“H-how much do I owe you?” I asked. Maybe there was the possibility of paying him off with what little caps I had. I hadn’t wanted to destroy the post, but it wasn’t exactly fair to put a price on road that had been there for well over two-hundred years.

“Not including the loss of my employees, the pony-hours needed for the rebuild and radiation purging?” Golden growled. “18,653 caps. Plus thirty caps for the toll. And stop looking so surprised. I know it was you because Beatdown radioed the attack in before you blew her all to hell. Blue unicorn, black stripes, yellow eyes, wearing a brown cloak with swirls on it. Now, unless you have a twin, there probably isn’t anypony else like you. So pay up, or I’ll make you pay!”

“I don’t have-” I started, but was interrupted with a gun to the face.

“Then I guess you’ll die,” he drawled as he steadied his obscenely large hunting revolver in my face.

“Wait!” Tes yelled as she stepped between the two of us. “Can’t you two deal with this more civilly? We’re all mature ponies around here, lets settle this like adults.”

“Hmm... You’re right,” he said to the blue mare before turning back to me. “I’m sorry, but your friend has a point. And despite the barbaric way you like to handle your business, I believe that you’re well educated enough to understand a... small wager, if you will... settled by gentlecolts’ duel.”

“A duel?” I asked. It was... the most unlikely thing I would have expected.

“A gentlecolts’ duel,” he corrected with that white, smug, smile of his. “It’s simple; we take twelve paces, turn, and have at each other. If you win, you can have my possessions and assets I keep here in Starward.”

“And if you win?” I asked. I still could not believe the ridiculousness of this whole thing.

“What do you mean, ‘if’?” Golden laughed loudly. “I have over two-hundred years of experience on my side. When I win, which I will, well... I’ll have the satisfaction of besting you. And victory is so, so sweet.”

“That’s it?” Tes asked as the ghoul began to circle around us. Ponies had cleared out a ring around us, enough to walk apart and ‘duel’.

“And your marefriend here will work for me, to pay off your debt,” he said as he checked his own revolver for ammunition. “And when she’d done, she’ll be taken off to the market. Stable ponies bring a pretty cap these days.”

The ghoul trotted to the center of the ring of ponies. Granted, this was quite the spectacle, but most of them didn’t know that they could very well get hurt or worse with two ponies shooting at each other in a crowded area.

“What market is he talking about?” my blue friend asked, as if she were afraid of the answer. She should have been, too.

“Slave market,” I answered as I checked my own rounds for Tweety, emptying the standard ones out for some hollow points. “You’ll get sold as a slave and then probably abused, tortured, and raped for the enjoyment of others for the rest of your life. Luckily, though, the lifespan of a slave is generally much shorter than that of a free pony, so you wouldn’t suffer long.”

“Xero,” she gulped nervously. “Please don’t lose...”

“I’ve been around the wastes once or twice, Tes,” I told her, trying to calm her down a little with a smile of my own. “Plus, I have a few things he doesn’t.”

“This is a gentlecolts’ duel,” Golden Bit called from the street center. “No Pipbucks, no barding, pistols only.”

I sighed heavily under my breath. Everything was going so smoothly, too.

The clips on my Pipbuck glowed teal before coming undone and instantly my EFS and HUD flickered out of my vision. Straps and buckles loosened themselves along the heavy leather armor with the magical assistance as well. The exposure made me feel rather naked.

“Twelve paces, turn, fire?” I reiterated.

“Correct,” he grinned maliciously as his hunting revolver levitated beside him.

Without the armor to slow or stop them, the .45-70 rounds would tear right through flesh, and probably hit something vital in the process. Even though the armor was quite well made, it wouldn’t stand up to that much abuse at this close of a range. I made a mental note not to get hit by the heavy slug. And without the aid of SATS, I had to rely on manually aiming my own weapon. It was easier to do by mouth than horn, and I levitated Tweety’s bit to my teeth.

“And... begin!” Golden said aloud.

Him and I started to slowly step in opposite directions. Listening closely to his hoofsteps, I matched his pace. At six steps, a loud clack rang out, and it definitely wasn’t a pistol.

“Xero!” Tes yelled as soon as the plans changed.

Quickly, I whipped around to see Golden Bit holding not only his revolver, but two sawed off shotguns as well. I tried to slip into SATS, but-

BOOOMMBOOOMM!

The shotguns roared to life and echoed through the trade-town like the sound distant thunder mixed with a rockslide. Everything exploded in pain as one heavy slug slammed square into my chest while the other entered and blew through the side of my unarmored neck. Everywhere else was peppered with small, pencil sized holes, at least a hundred of them, from shells loaded with birdshot. The force alone had knocked me off my hooves and to the ground.

“No!” Tes screamed. “Xero!”

Shock began to set in almost instantly and the pain started to fade, replaced by a wave of heavy-lidded tiredness. Blood seeped out onto the asphalt and soaked into the dry, thirsty ground. It took everything I had to stay aware, if only for a few more seconds until help came.

“Oh please... You didn’t think I survived this long by playing fairly by the rules, did you?” Golden said, lowering his weapons and facehoofing. “Dear Celestia... I can’t believe you were stupid enough to-”

He was cut off on the count of gaining a new hole in his forehead, just below his horn. A smoking Tweety fell from my toothed grip.

“You talk too much,” I rasped at the still-standing ghoul. He managed to look up at the whole as it began to drip into his eye.

“Oh...” he managed to wheeze before he too, fell.

“Tes... Get h-”

She was already gone before I had finished. Darkness had started to creep in, slowly engulfing my vision. I felt so tired; a short nap couldn’t hurt, right?

The light brown, wooden door slowly swung open, squeaking quietly as it cracked wide enough for myself to slip through. The air outside was nice, not chilly or cool, nor uncomfortably hot, but just right, with a soft breeze rustling a few still-living ironwood trees that were scattered throughout the village.

Even in the darkness of the night, I could see Star Gazer looking through some kind of brassy gold... looking glass? It was similar to the ones Gibs had around his home, but longer and wider, and this one was attached to a set of spindly legs.

Star Gazer looked at over at the sound of the door squeak, letting out a small sigh of relief when he realized it was just me.

“Hey,” he said gently with a smile. He always had great smiles... “What are you still doing up?”

“I couldn’t sleep...” I said though a noisy yawn. It was well past my bedtime, but after waking up for some unknown reason, I couldn’t get back to sleep. “What are you doing up?”

The tall zebra smirked and looked back at the clouded over sky.

At least, most of it was covered with clouds. A spot slightly larger than my hoof was completely void of the gloomy overcast, perfectly round in shape. But it wasn’t the cleared sky that made me gasp, or the sight of the full, brilliant white moon. It was the ghostely, bluish white orb next to it.

“Star Gazer” I hissed quietly at my brother as I scampered next to him. “You know you’re not suppose to be doing this!”

Zebra legends told tales of the dreaded power of the stars. It wasn’t something I was really into, and neither were most of the other zebras in our little village. But the last time Star Gazer messed around with his magicky stuff and the clouds, these scary winged ponies came the next morning and were really mean and rude.

Before I could do anything though, he scooped me up and threw me onto his back.

“Hey!” I said, probably louder than I should have. After finally finding my balance, I asked “what was that for?”

“Quiet down. You’ll wake the whole village and then we’ll both get in trouble,” Star Gazer whispered back before turning to his strange red book. “You were wondering what I was doing?”

The pages in the book were as blank as they’d always been, but he ‘hmmed’ as he flipped through them, as if they actually contained words or something. “Look through the telescope, but don’t touch it.”

Telescope... so that was what it was. I did as he said as he continued to look through the tome.

Suddenly, the moon, the stars, and the bluish white orb with a tail were much, much closer. It almost looked as if I could just reach out and touch them; so close, yet they still seemed so far away. The blue light slowly approached the moon and collided with it, or so I thought. It soon reappeared on the other side of the luminescent grey circle.

“What is it?” I asked, curious about the never-before-seen ball of light thing.

“A comet,” he answered. There was another book on the ground next to his blank red one. It was opened up to a page with a picture that looked exactly like the cloudless spot, except the entire sky was clear and starry. “This one is apparently called the ‘Sphinx Hyperbola.’” He took a look at his crappy Pipbuck 1500. “And right on schedule... It only comes once every six hundred, fifty-three years, seventy-two days, fourteen hours and three-and-a-half minutes. What do you think?”

“Kinda scary,” I replied. Somehow, the blue light comet thingy ran into the moon, but they didn’t crash into each other. They did, but they didn’t. I even saw it with my own eyes.

“That's it?” he said with a smirk. I knew anything I said would be between just the two of us. If anything, we’d just put it behind us and forget about it by morning.

By time I looked back into the ‘telescope’, the comet had already vanished, leaving just the moon in all its glory. There was a soft click and the moon got almost a hundred times bigger, or so it seemed. I shot a quick look at my brother, who had his hoof on a small dial on the side of the long, brassy tube. Dismissing his joking chuckle, I looked back into the little eye-piece.

The moon was really something. There weren’t any trees or plants or anything like that. Just... rocks. There were also hills though. And mountains, valleys, cliffs, ravines... deep, round pits. It was odd that there wasn’t anything alive, though, or even buildings or anything. Surely, there’d be something up there.

I could have sworn that I saw a large pile of boulders and rocks arranged in a pattern that said ‘CELESTIA SUX’, but I figured it was just my tiredness returning.

The moon, stars, and comet as a whole though...

“It's...” I thought for a second, trying to come up with the right word. “...pretty...” Close enough, I thought with another yawn. My brother did the same.

“I think it’s bed time,” Star Gazer said as I jumped from his back.

“Yeah...” I agreed.

He took a piece of chalk from a large, low topped, wooden box. Hastily, yet carefully, he drew some kind of confusing picture on the ground. It wasn’t actually the ground, but the second level deck of our house, which used to belong to our parents. The drawing looked like a circled with a seven pointed star inside. There was also an assortment of swirlly symbols and runic letters interconnected by lines and curves. When he was finished, which wasn’t more than fifteen seconds, my brother reared up over the equine-sized circle and slammed both of his forehooves into the center. There was a blue flash along the lines and runes and the sound of rolling thunder, followed by the closing of the sky-hole

“How did you...” I pointed a hoof where the drawing had once been, where where the moon had been, not four seconds before.

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Star Gazer told me with that smug grin of his as he walked past me and into the house.

I looked at the sky again, saddened by the clouds that hid the strange comet, the pretty moon, and the dangerously beautiful stars...

The first thing to hit my senses was the smell: too clean and practically sterile. I could only guess that Tes had gotten help and I was now in a recovery room in Starward’s clinic. The uncomfortable bed I was laying in confirmed my suspicions.

The urge to vomit was at the base of my stomach, but I could tell that nothing was going to come up, even if I tried. My head ached too, probably from whatever I’d been drugged with. When my eyes finally adjusted to the annoyingly bright light, I noticed that there were three other ponies in the room with me.

The room itself was nothing of note; whitish floor, pale and faded walls, water stained ceiling... the usual. Monitoring equipment sat on a small side table to my left with a machine that was slowly pumping some sort of bright red fluid in, and taking some dark red stuff out. On the other side of the room, towards the door at the foot of the bed was a small table were two of the three ponies sat.

Technically, only one pony was there. The other was a ghoulified zebra that’d seen many years in the wasteland.

“Oh, look whois awake,” Zelkoff mused, looking up from his clipboard.

“Thanks, Tes...” I croaked. My throat was drier than the Dust Flats back home. Tes was sitting across from Zelkoff and reading a magazine on the table, while munching on an apple between her forehooves. “You saved me again.”

“It was nothing, really,” she blushed a little after finishing her mouthful. “But, you’re welcome.”

I rubbed my head with a hoof, trying to nudge the headache away. I wasn’t wearing anything, not even my Pipbuck. “What day is it?”

Tes looked at her Pipbuck. “Don't worry, you’ve only been out for about a day now.”

“I’ve had worse...” I mumbled. Wiggling my rear hooves was good enough for me to note that I didn’t have jelly legs.

“A couple weeks ago I got impaled on some rebar, lost my eye, and had my horn fractured,” I told her. The nameless mare sat in the corner of the room, opposite of Tes and Zelkoff, silently staring at the ground with a blank gaze.

“Ouch,” Tes winced as she ate another piece of apple. “I was wondering how you got that thing.”

“Itis a runic-matrix prosthetic oculus,” Zelkoff chimed in. “There were some pre-war and war-time companies attempting to make such devices, but they were subjected to public outcry and unfair criticism for using ‘zebra tech’ on ponies. If they were put to wartime field tests though, then users wouldhave found that they were not affected by magical and anti-magical fields like standard synthetic eyes.”

“You seem to know a lot on them,” Tes said.

“I know enough to get by,” the ghoulish zebra shrugged. “They also lack mechanical moving parts, and they willnot freeze up or lock in place.”

“That’s... good to know, I guess,” I mentioned. It was a rather interesting thought.

There were a few more moments of silence, only broken by Tes flipping a page in her magazine or Zelkoff looking through some clipboard notes and marking things down in them. My mind told me to get out of bed and get moving about, but my body kept itself firmly anchored to the mattress. It was still quite sore from the shotgun blasts.

Upon closer inspection, I found that my chest and forelegs were covered in tiny, pencil-wide scars, at least a few dozen of them. They could only have been the remains of Golden Bit’s shotgun. Why he’d been using birdshot instead of buckshot or slugs was beyond me, and probably everyone else, too. Buckshot was so much more effective at both short and medium ranges, while birdshot was only good for messing targets up at point blank range and pissing radscorpions off.

“I have a question,” I stated to nopony--or ghoul-zebra--in particular. “Who’s she?” I pointed a hoof at the mare in the corner. Her gaze never once lifted from the floor, and she was so quiet, it was almost like she wasn’t there at all.

“Oh! Right, almost forgot she was here, heh...” Tes exclaimed. She got up and walked over to the mare’s side. “It’s okay, come on,” she whispered quietly to the nameless pony.

She was quite the strange looking mare. Her coat was a rusty, burnt, orange-brown color, with an off-white underbelly that creeped forward and halfway up her chest in a point. Her legs were a dark brownish-black color, which ended just above her knees. For a pony, her ears were fairly pointier, but the oddness didn’t end there. Her main was messier, like it hadn’t been combed in a few days, though it was still more kempt than my bristly mane that stood on its own. It was a darker brown than her coat and ended in off-white tips like her chest. Her tail was similar, only it looked too... fluffy to be that of a pony. When she looked up for the first time and her gaze met mine, she peered back with two deep, crystal clear emeralds.

She also sported an explosive slave collar, tightly bound to her neck.

“You have a slave?” I asked Zelkoff. Why he needed a slave confused me... why anypony would, did.

“What? Why would I have a slave? I am a near immortal doctor,” he said, almost offended. “I have no use for a slave; they usually just get in the way.”

“Um, Xero?” Tes started, “you know when that ghoul dueled you, he said you could have all his stuff? Well...” She looked down at her hoof and slowly twisted it back and forth into the floor awkwardly.

“Yeah...?” I didn’t like where this was going.

“Well, uh... yyeeeaaah...” she said with a nervous laugh.

“Hello, Master Xerophyte,” the nameless earth pony said sadly, her eyes going back down to the floor. “My name is Foxtrot. How can I be of service?”

Footnote: Level Up!

New Perk: 20% Cooler - You’re not dead yet! When your health drops below 20%, and all hope seems lost, you gain 20% to your accuracy and 20% to your damage resistance. In short, you feel 20% cooler in the face of danger.