Fallout: Equestria - Change

by MetalGearSamus

First published 4th of March, 2013

A single Changeling has awoken to a Wasteland full of horrors. Now, unprepared and unaided except for an unknown voice in his head, he must survive the Wasteland and find love in a land filled with hate.

In an isolated region near the southeastern coast of post-apocalyptic Equestria, a single Changeling has awoken. Unprepared and unaided except for an unknown voice in his head, he must survive the Wasteland’s horrors and find love in a land filled with hate.

This fanfiction is based on the fanfiction "Fallout Equestria," by Kkat, which can be found on Equestria Daily.

Prologue

War. War changes everything. It affects everyone. Those who are not soldiers fight to supply them. Those who remember peace kill to find it again. Those who lead the charge die in the crossfire. Moral or physical, the sacrifice is the same, and everyone must make it. In war, every foe vanquished is a friend lost; a lover taken; a family torn. Every nation that falls is a people destroyed, and at the end of the war between Ponies and Zebras the people of Equestria were nearly annihilated. The survivors retreated into their Stables, condemned to eke out an existence in twisted societies, while outside a nuclear winter dragged on throughout decades. Not all people were so lucky.

For the Changeling Empire, the war spelled out a more certain death and doom than for any of the ponies caught in the balefire. All love had been drained from the world, and so, faced with extinction, they vanished to places unknown. Now, a lone worker has awoken, confused and alone, to try and find love in a land filled with hate...

Chapter 1: Rebirth

I sat at the mouth of a cave, and looked out at the land before me. The mountain slope below was nothing but cracked red rock. A line of water trickled down from the mountain’s top miles above me to curve past the opening I had just emerged from. Far below me was a swamp, and to the east I saw nothing but empty fields. On the horizon, past some hills, I could make out the hint of a shore and water, perhaps the sea. The sky was a billowing mass of sickly grey clouds.

I put a shaky hoof forward, and began my journey down the mountain.

I had become aware of myself only a short time ago. Minutes? Hours? Seconds? I did not know. The first thing I had noticed was the heat. Warmth enveloped me, and a pressure drove into my ears. I sweat until my sides began to itch, and the sensation was what jolted me from the verge of sleep into consciousness. I pushed outward with my legs, meeting resistance I couldn’t see. I realized I was trapped here, wherever “here” was, and I panicked. I pushed out harder. I felt an oozy liquid all around me, and my lungs suddenly burned. Air. I needed air. I pushed out with all my might, and felt it give. I heard a dull, squishy pop and the wetness around me melted away. I tumbled out onto hard rock and crawled blindly forward, and then lay on the ground gasping as the cold air of the world hit me.

Wake! You must feed.

I opened my eyes, and saw vague shapes around me. I dragged myself to my feet, and noticed a rough circle of light in front of me. I stumbled toward it, still acting on instinct, until my hoof knocked into something. I looked down.

It was a creature. A pegasus pony. A dead pegasus pony. I blinked at it. Then I poked it experimentally with a hoof. It was cold and stiff. I looked around the small cave, and saw that it wasn’t the only one. Four forms total, all silent and unmoving, lay scattered about. One at my feet, another against the wall, and two on either side of the thing that had held me. A cocoon. The dark green sphere was split open, and the emerald-colored yolk that had surrounded me was drying slowly where it had splattered. All the pegasi wore some sort of armor on their bodies, but it was too dark to make out any other details. I turned back to the light before me, and climbed out.

I could do nothing but boggle at my situation as I hiked toward the ground. What had happened there? Who were those ponies? How did I get there? I hadn’t an inkling. I knew the names of everything I saw. Rock. Sky. Clouds. Trees. But I had no memories of what had come before my awakening.

War.

As I walked I placed a hoof on a rock that turned out to be unstable. It slid out from under me and I almost fell down with it, but I was able to react fast enough to save myself. I flapped my wings to slow my fall, and set myself down on a much more stable boulder several feet below. I heard a hiss from above me and glanced back up.

A thin, pink snake flew down at me. Apparently the rock I had dislodged had been part of its home, but I had little time to worry about that as I dodged to the right and narrowly avoided getting my flank bitten. I hovered in the air beside it, and it hissed at me. I hissed back, but my attempt at intimidation failed and it launched itself at me again. I stopped fluttering my wings, and then slapped a foreleg through the air as it passed above me. I hit it and it flew away, taking a small avalanche of pebbles with it as it bounced across the rocky slope. I landed awkwardly on a rock below me, panting. I was very weak, and using my wings for even that brief moment had exhausted me. Food. I needed food. Or, better yet, love. Wait, love?

Yes, love.

That is how we Changelings grow and live. Off the love of others. We trick them and leech their love away. We bleed their hearts dry and then slink off to the next prey, leaving their true lovers weeping and alone.

Wha—?

I stepped off the rocky mountain onto the ground and immediately felt lightheaded. The feeling quickly became dizziness, and I didn’t even have the capacity to wonder what was happening as everything suddenly went dark.

We watch. We wait. In this darkness we stand as still as statues. We must wait. This must work. We must have love. The Queen must have love. There is so little left. The Empire has grown so hungry, the Queen so weak...

WEAK!

How we hate them. We hate these ponies and we hate these zebras and we hate these griffons who all hate each other and so recklessly threw away paradise to kill and die and foster their hatred so they may keep killing and dying. They leave us with almost nothing. There is no love in war, no trust in conspiracy, no forgiveness in death...

We watch. We wait. Here they come. The last happy ones. We have snuck so far from our empire to reach theirs. The Queen starves. These ponies are her last hope. Here they are, below us. They shimmer. We glow for a moment, and then we shimmer as well. We have become them. We drop down and strike. They have no time to scream. They are encased and imprisoned. Two of us drag them to obscurity.

Two others walked back out into the light. We smile and act their part. We are good at this. The best. There is no suspicion.

Days.

Already we are feeding. Feeding from the Empress’s love. Hers is the greatest love in the world, and she showers her citizens with it. We gorge ourselves on it. Already the Queen grows stronger, even off the mere scraps she can syphon.

Months.

We are slowly regaining strength. The Queen would move closer, but it is far too dangerous. Equestria is a deathtrap for us. We go in, but always they catch us with their magic. Magic and technology which we cannot hope to compete with. We have no love, so we have no power. We have no place in this warring world.

A year.

A year we lasted. A year before the Empress’s love faded and is now gone. We have not been discovered, but there is no point in staying. We have fed, but there is nowhere else to go. It is cold here, and the world below has been ravaged by fire. The Queen is still hungry, and she despairs for the future. We despair for the future.

We have no future. We must sleep.

I gasped as I came to. I understood. This was Equestria, a sprawling paradise turned into the desolate miles of dirt and ruins before me by a war, and I was a Changeling, of the Changeling Empire. We fed off of love, but had been unable to find enough in Equestria, or anywhere else in the world, and so had been slowly dying off until... something. Well, it certainly helped to have some mental context for my life, but I could not recall experiencing any of that, and I still did not know how I had gotten here, or what had happened to the Empire since the war had ended—

Odd, I was sure it had ended, but how could I know? I tried to remember something else, anything else, but nothing came. I had notions and certainties, but no memories. I let out a hiss, frustrated. Thinking was getting me no further.

I picked myself up from where I had fainted and kept walking forward, in the direction of the distant sea.

Hunger gnawed at me, however I had no choice but to continue on. There was no sound except the wind and my hoofsteps, until I heard a sniffle. It came from my right, behind a patch of bramble next to a dried creek bed. I crept cautiously toward it, and as I approached the sniffling turned into a muted sob. A teal filly was curled up in the weeds, and she hugged herself tightly as she cried red tears. Her face was peppered with bits of metal, and her eyes had been torn to shreds by whatever had caused the injury. A thick black collar was strapped around her neck.

I gasped, recoiling from the sight, and the filly yelped and tried to scrambled away from me. She only succeeded in getting herself more caught in the bramble.

“No! Please,” she wailed, “don’t hurt m-me. Please, I...” The small unicorn shielded her face weakly with a hoof, and continued to blubber incoherently.

“N-no. Hurt.” I said. My voice sounded strange to me, but I was too stunned to care. “I no hurt.” She continued to whimper and struggled against the dusty vines.

I looked around the area, wondering what could have caused this, but a second shriek from the filly and another pang of hunger urged me to do something. This filly was potential prey, I supposed, but the sight of her pain gave me a horrible feeling in my gut. I leaned forward and began untangling her. I pulled and snapped the vines from her limbs, and she staggered onto her hooves. She took a few shaky steps forward, and her breathing steadied. “I no hurt.” I repeated.

She turned back to me, trying to look in my direction though her eyes were mutilated.

“Y-you don’t want t’ hurt me?” The ghost of a smile crept onto her face. Blood oozed from her eye sockets.

“No. I don’t want to hurt you.” My voice was raspy and held the undertone of a buzz, but I as I spoke I felt an echo of her gratitude in my mind. That feeling fed me, and though it was a drop of water on a raging inferno I breathed a sigh of relief. This was a start. If I continued to help her, she would feed me more.

“How—how you hurt?” I asked. It was hard to speak correctly. I had only foggy memories and this foal to learn from, and my mind was still racing with shock.

“I was... runnin’ away. We were runnin’ away. Me and momma.” She gasped and stood up, whirling around, still trying to see. “Where’s momma? Momma?” She stumbled toward the creek bed, panicking. As she moved bits of eye were tossed from her sockets and splattered onto the ground. “Momma where are you?” she cried, “Momma!?” I opened my mouth to try and calm her.

Then she exploded.

I flinched away from the bright flash and roaring noise, and screamed as little claws of pain sunk into my side. I twisted to see what was hurting, and saw that my hide had been pierced by shrapnel, just like the filly’s face. I quickly picked out the pieces and then looked back to where she had been. Her torso was slumped on the ground near a blackened patch of ground, and the front half of her head had flown back into the bramble. Bits of gore spilled out onto the ground. The rest of her had been incinerated. I gagged at the smell of cooked pony, and tore myself away from the sight.

I had no time to wonder or be shocked. An angry shout emanated from behind me, and I dove down into the creek bed, hoping it was enough cover to keep me concealed.

“Where the hell is she?” the voice shouted. I heard hoofsteps approach.

“Boss, I told you, she’s probably still hidin’ back in the swamp,” said a second voice, “We’re wastin’ ti—” He gasped, and the hoofsteps stopped. “Ah fuckin’ shit...”

I dared to peek up from my feeble hiding spot. There were three ponies around the filly’s remains. The one closest to me seemed to be the one who had spoken last. He turned green and looked away as the unicorn in the middle wheeled around to the one on his right.

“Why the fuck did you push her button?” he bellowed.

“Mah hoof slipped. But she weren’t good no more anyway,” the stallion spat back, “you saw how fucked up her face was.”

“That was nothing a few heals couldn’t cure, you dumbass!” He levitated a thick metal implement out of a saddlebag and pointed it at his companion. The buck’s eyes widened.

“B-boss, what’re you doin’?” He took a shaky step back, but ‘Boss’ shoved the thing—it looked like two fat sticks stuck together on top of a handle—closer to him. I squinted. I knew there a word for what Boss was wielding, but I couldn’t think of it.

“I’m showing you how fucked up a face can get when you don’t listen to your superiors.” His horn flashed, and a loud bang sounded. I flinched down, but kept watching. The buck slunk to the ground behind Boss, his face now a gory red hole, and the unicorn put his weapon back in his saddle. Gun. That was the word I had been looking for. I shuddered.

“Holster. Grab his shit and let’s go,” Boss said to the remaining stallion before turning back toward the swamp. He wore tattered robes that hid his body, and they fluttered in breeze as he walked. Holster, now recovered from his nausea, nodded and trotted over to the dead buck. He rummaged through his bags, taking most of his stuff, and then followed Boss, muttering something about a ‘freaking idiot.’ I waited until they were out of sight before I crept out of the creek.

I stood on the blackened ground for a few moments, looking between the dead filly and stallion. I was stunned. Some part of me knew that such brutality had never existed between ponies, even during the pinnacle of their war effort.

I felt numb, so when a growl from my stomach reminded me that I still needed to find sustenance—love or food, I would take anything right now—I marched off to follow Boss and Holster without a second thought. I let the horror slip to the back of my mind as I tried to think of a way to manipulate either of them.

I could not come up with anything, though. I had no idea what was going on here.

I caught up to the two as they came to the beginning of the swamp. The ground was damp here, and there were enough trees still growing around pools of muddy water to block out the horizon. As we continued farther into the swamp tree growth became more consistent, and the pools got bigger and less mud-filled. Reeds grew in some, but they were colored a sickly looking mix of red and yellow, rather than their natural dark green. The water they grew in glowed vomit yellow. Boss and Holster made a point to give those pools a wide berth. I did too.

Finally, we came upon what must have been their convoy. Four earth ponies sat on the side of a worn road near a beat up looking carriage. Each had a gun either in their mouths or, in one case, mounted on the sides of a saddle. They watched over a circle of a dozen more ponies, all of whom had those black collars around their necks, just like the filly. There was a scorch mark near the carriage, along with traces of drying blood. I glanced again at the ponies with the collars, and saw that some were injured—black eyes and bruised limbs—most were grimy, and all looked very afraid of the ponies with guns. I had a bad feeling about this.

I hid behind a large tree stump, being careful not to crack any dead branches, as the mare with the saddle guns—gun saddle?—trotted over to greet Boss.

“Where’s Biscuit?” she asked.

“That idiot pushed the filly’s button right before we caught up with her,” he replied, “so I shot him in the face.” The mare cackled, and Holster flinched.

“About time we got rid a’ that suckbag. I told you he was no good, Boss.” She grinned at him, but the burgundy stallion just huffed and trotted over to the charred patch of ground. The collared ponies watched him with wide eyes. He stood there for a moment before turning to his crew, seeming to have made his mind up about something.

“Get these slaves back into line and let’s keep going,” he commanded, “Tumbleweed and Hairpins, you two guard the back, Holster, pull the carriage, and everyone else spread yourselves out. I’ll take top guard. We got a lotta ground to cover, and I don’t want to deal with anymore bullshit today.”

He trotted up to the carriage as his band moved to carry out his orders and jumped onto its top. I pressed myself closer to the stump as he scanned the area from his vantage point. My eyes widened as he squinted in my direction anyway. I started to panic. Had he seen me? What would I do? I did not have anywhere to run to. Would he enslave me? An even more terrifying thought struck me. Would he kill me? I was their natural enemy, after all.

They killed us where they found us.

“We’re all good here, Boss!” I was saved by the shout from his right. It was the mare he had spoken to earlier: Hairpins.

“Good,” he replied. He broke his stare and looked down at something on his foreleg. I could not tell what it was, but he frowned at it and levitated his gun to his side.

“See anything, Boss?” one of the ponies below him asked.

“No,” he replied. “Let’s get going, Holster.”

“Sure thing, Boss.” The dark blue buck began pulling the carriage, and the caravan rolled on down the road. I slunk after them, keeping myself low and close to the trees as I thought over what I had heard.

Slaves? Exploding collars? Ponies killing ponies without a second thought? What had happened to Equestria?

I found myself falling behind as I tried to stay hidden. The trees were already starting to thin out again and Boss, as far as I could tell, was keeping a watchful eye on everything. If I moved at the wrong moment he would spot me easily from where he sat. They were now far enough away that couldn’t make out their chatter. I growled in frustration. If I couldn’t keep up with them I wouldn’t be able to—to...

To what? Feed.

I stopped as I realized I did not have a plan. I had not even been trying to form one, really. I had been acting on instinct: stalk your prey. Observe them. Then strike. But I did not have time for that. I needed food now. My body was weak and achy. I had enough magic in me to disguise myself, but I knew no other spells. I contemplated taking the place of one of the slave-holding ponies—Slave masters? Enslavers?—but there was no way to separate one from the rest of the group. Besides, I hadn’t had enough time to watch them.

Some ponies believe it is our magic that allows Changelings to so perfectly mimic them, but a disguise only does so much. It is our power of observation that makes us such pristine infiltrators. Give us a minute, and we know their speech; give us an hour, and we know their every twitch and tick; give us a day, and we know their habits and moods; and by the end of a week we have ensnared their lover!

The words of the Queen swept into my mind. Unfortunately, I knew, they were a bit of an exaggeration, especially now that I was alone and starving.

I dashed from my cover to a particularly gnarled tree when Boss’s head was turned, and made up for some of the distance I had lost to the slave convoy. I was close enough to hear some of the non-slave ponies talking again.

“...’s been gettin’ real paranoid lately. I don’t like it,” the grey buck said to his companion. Tumbleweed. That’s what Boss had called him. He sounded nervous.

“C’n ya’ blame him?” Hairpins asked in reply. She walked with a much more relaxed gait then her companion. The guns at her sides made the one that Tumbleweed had holstered look puny. “Raiders... those damn NCs are crawlin’ all over th’ place nowadays, what with that whole weddin’ thing... and heck, half th’ bay hates his guts!” She laughed. “Besides, Biscuit was a lazy good fer nothin’. Like I said, Boss shoulda got rid a’ him a long time ago. He’s actin’ like anypony would under these circumstances.”

“I know, but, killin’ him? Just like that? That’s brutal.” He stole a glance at the unicorn up on the carriage top. “And I feel like he’s gettin’ us into some sorta raider shit.” Hairpins balked at the comment.

“Tumble!” she scolded, “A few dirty jobs is nothin’ close to what those crazy fuckers do. I don’t know how you could say somethin’ like that after all we been through t’gether.”

“Right. Sorry,” he grumbled, “I just never expected I’d end up as a slaver.”

Ah. Slaver. I’d been close.

“Well if ya’ don’t like it, ya’ c’n leave,” the dusty orange mare said in a huff, “Nopony’s forcin’ you t’ participate. Unlike these poor bastards.” She motioned to the pair of slaves in front of her and chuckled. One of them glared back at her, but she just laughed harder. “Oh don’t you be blamin’ yer bad luck on me, boy. Red Eye pays top dollar fer folks like you. Nothin’ personal. Besides, I hear he’s got a pretty swanky place up there anyhow.” He looked away from her, his head drooping in resignation.

“I’ve heard the stories,” he said, “that fucker work ponies to death.”

“Oh, er...” Hairpins sounded lost for a moment. “Well, at least it’s better than gettin’ caught by raiders. Or sacrificed by stripes. Or dyin’ a’ radiation. Or taint. Or bein’ eaten by a manticore. Or a Taintigator—”

A roar sounded from the other side of the road, and everypony’s head swung toward it. I stood as still as I could behind the tree and watched them nervously. What had—?

Dear Chrysalis what is that thing?

I gaped in horror as a huge beast leaped out from a pool of shimmering water. It looked like an alligator, but it was massive and bloated. Its scales were the color of rust and dead skin. It’s eyes—all three of them—were yellow and watery. It also had an extra two pairs of feet.

I flattened myself to the ground and quivered in fear as it lashed out at Hairpins.

“Aw curse my tongue—Taintigator!” she shouted. The mare ducked its jagged claws while Tumbleweed jumped back and immediately opened fire on the creature. Most of his bullets ricocheted harmlessly off its hide, and the monster batted him aside with another swipe that sent him flying. There was a sickening crunch as he hit the tree I hid behind and slid to the ground, unmoving. He was only three feet in front of me.

“Dammit! Keep an eye on those slaves!” Boss shouted. I heard the sound of more gunshots, but my vision was locked on the still form of Tumbleweed. Here was my chance. I glanced up. Hairpins strafed the Taintigator while Boss and a cherry colored mare focused their fire into its face. The others were busy keeping the slaves in order. Nopony was looking this way.

I smiled, grabbed Tumbleweed’s tail with my mouth, and dragged him out of sight. A thrill rushed through me, and I shook with excitement as I stripped him. As quickly as I could, I put on his armor—it was not nearly as covering as what those pegasi had worn—and his saddlebags and strapped his gun holster around my foreleg. I was about half his size, so the clothes felt loose on my body. That would not be a problem for very long.

I worked on instinct. I took a deep breath to steady myself, thought of what Tumbleweed and his Cutie Mark looked like, and then focused what little magical power I had through my horn and out over my body. There was a flash of green, and just like that I was Tumbleweed. I was taller; stockier; I had hooves instead of holey feet; a dirty golden mane instead of black leathery spines; tired round eyes instead of blue crescents. I had also lost my wings and horn, but they had not been of much use in the first place. I glanced back at my flank and smiled when I saw a picture of a potato there. I was a perfect copy of the unconscious stallion next to me. Now came the hard part.

I stepped out from the treeline, and picked up ‘my’ gun from where it had fallen. I held it in my mouth, and glanced at one of the other fighting earth ponies to see how it worked. Clench it in your jaws. Pull the trigger with your tongue. Simple enough and... oddly familiar. Had I used one before?

Only when—

There was no time to wonder. I pointed it at one of the Taintigator’s eyes, and fired. I flinched from the kickback, but I got lucky with the... thing I shot. Bullet. It lodged itself deep into one of the monster’s eyeballs, and it howled in pain. I smiled triumphantly, but then the Taintigator turned to see who had maimed it. I pulled the trigger in panic as it lumbered toward me.

Click!

What? I frowned in confusion, and pulled the trigger again.

Click!

I looked down my snout at the gun, and my eyes widened as I realized I was out of bullets. A shadow passed over me. I looked up. The Taintigator’s maw opened above me, full of jagged yellow teeth and dripping with white froth. I dropped my gun in terror, and scrambled backwards, but the beast was too close already. Not five seconds after my first disguise and I was about to be eaten alive.

How pathetic.

Suddenly, Boss darted in front of the creature’s gaping mouth and did... something. I blinked in confusion as his gun moved faster than I could keep track of, and then the roof of the Taintigator’s mouth exploded as four shots slammed into it in rapid succession. The beast recoiled and gave a dying wail as more fire was poured into its bloodied head. It collapsed on the roadside, and a final gurgle escaped its throat along with some bloody brains.

I panted in the silence that followed, and Boss gave me an odd look as I picked up my gun and fumbled around with it, trying to reload.

“Well,” said Hairpins, once again providing a much needed distraction, “at least nopony died that time.” Boss rolled his eyes—they were bloodshot and baggy—at her, and hopped back onto the carriage top.

“Let’s go. I hate this place,” he said. He didn’t suspect a thing. Excellent.

I trotted up to Hairpins’ side, and we set off at a quicker pace than before. I looked back over my shoulder to check on the real Tumbleweed, and smiled to myself.

“What is it Tumble?” Hairpins asked me, “Ya’ see somethin’?”

“Nope,” I replied. “I don’t see a thing.”

Success.

Footnote: Level up.
New Perk: You Look Familiar... - All modifications to Speech skill are doubled when Disguised.

Chapter 2: Slavers

Feed.

As we exited the swamp I rummaged through Tumble’s saddlebags to see what he’d had. There were more bullets. Ammunition. Three vials of purple fluid. Healing potions. Packets of ‘Rad-Away.’ Protection from the bad air. There were also two bottles of ‘Sparkle-Cola,’ a sack full of bottle caps, hunks of dried meat—ponies eat meat now?—and one small burgundy apple. I scarfed down the apple and some of the meat before taking a swig from the Sparkle-Cola. Carroty. I downed the rest of it and tossed the bottle aside. That felt good.

I wasn’t full, but at least I was no longer running on empty. I breathed a sigh of relief and Fishhooks, the red mare, gave me an odd look, but none of the others seemed to care about my sudden binge, least of all the slaves. Most of them marched with their heads bowed to the ground, and one had been crying since the taintigator attack. I pitied them, but there wasn’t much I could have done.

The path we traveled on might once have been a road, but now it was nothing more than a dry indent worn into the ground over the years by hundreds of hooffalls. Around us were the remains of farmland. Empty acres of flat dirt with a few buildings and defunct machines scattered throughout. Where orchards had once been there remained only decayed stumps and a few burnt skeletons. Pipes that had irrigated crops were corroded away or rusted over. I had overheard Fishhooks call this place the Wasteland. I could see why.

“...an’ then he tried to grope me, that drunk fucker, so I shot ‘im in the gut,” Hairpins concluded. She hadn’t stopped talking since the fight with the taintigator. This seemed to be her normal shtick, and her friends ignored her for the most part. “Though fer some reason they ran me outta town after that.”

“That’s because he was their mayor, Pins," Fishhooks said.

“Yeah, well, a pervert like that don’t deserve t’ be mayor.” She snorted. “He should be glad I was in a good mood an’ didn’t kill him flat out. Now, if he’d a tried to pull that shit on me a day earlier, I wouldda blasted him back t' Celestial. Ya’ see, I’d just gotten outta a tight spot way up near the Crystal Caves...”

I tuned her out as best I could. I hadn’t learned much from her ramblings—mostly gossip and anecdotes—but it had given me time to think. Right now I needed to find someplace with love, or at the very least a good feeling or two. I doubted I would find much positive emotion in this slave caravan. There must be somewhere else I could go. Hairpins had mentioned many places so far: Manehattan, Hoofington, Baltimare; but names helped me little when I had no idea where they were or how to get to them. I couldn’t risk just asking about them, though. For all I knew Tumbleweed was just as traveled as she was.

“...nothin’ but rocks! C’n ya’ believe that? I wasted seventeen clips a' ammunition fer two dead bucks an’ some useless dumb rocks!” Hairpins nickered angrily. “Nearly froze t’ death on th’ way back, too. Whoa nelly!”

In front of us one of the slaves collapsed, and our caravan stopped as Fishooks trotted over to him. The rest of the slavers kept their guns trained on their captives as the mare looked him over. I took out my gun as well, but my attention was more on the injured slave. He was short of breath and frailer than any of the others. Thinking back, I remembered seeing him stumble a few times before, but I had not thought much of it.

“Exhaustion,” Fishhooks stated, looking up at Boss, “Got any more of that Booster?”

“Yeah.” Above her, Boss shuffled through his saddlebags and levitated out a faded pink tube with a hole in the bottom and a button on top. “Only one puff left, though.” He dropped it down and Fishhooks snatched it out of the air with a hoof, pressing the open end to the collapsed buck’s snout. He tried to move his head away, but she forced him to hold still as she pressed the inhaler to his mouth. There was a small hiss of air and, before I could wonder what ‘Booster’ was, the buck jerked sharply and he jumped back up. He glanced at me, blinking rapidly, and I saw that his eyes were watery and unfocused. Fishhooks shoved him back in line and we continued on.

I was left confused as to what just happened, so I watched the stallion carefully. He shook as he walked, and once or twice it looked like he might trip, but it seemed that the Booster had restored his strength somehow. That seemed quite useful, but... the way that stallion had looked at me, or rather, NOT looked at me—a blank stare, like his mind was in a different place or gone entirely—was unnerving.

Hairpins continued her ramblings, but an uncomfortable silence had fallen over the slaves, and it seemed almost like they were avoiding stepping too close to that stallion. That bad feeling I’d had when I first saw this convoy grew stronger. I was beginning to question whether ‘joining’ them had been a good idea.

There was a town in the distance. Not a town of buildings, but the remains of a massive food processing plant that had been turned into a shelter. The facility looked like it had been hit with the sun. Its roof had melted, caving inward and splitting the building down the middle like a ribcage pried open. What was left of the top floor was nothing more than a few rooms filled with heaps of rusted slag. The remaining half of a pockmarked sign was propped up against the right side of the building, shouting “CHARD” to the world with the words ‘Welcome to’ spraypainted above it.

I smiled, but no one else seemed happy to see the place. Hairpins tensed, growing quiet, and the other ponies drew their weapons as we drew close. I gripped my pistol in my mouth, wondering what was wrong. Then I saw it. A stampeding group of ponies kicked up a cloud of dust as they rounded the corner of Chard. The armor they wore was covered in spikes, and their coats were stained with dried blood. They circled the town like a group of sharks, cackling and hooting as they fired potshots into the city. Several ponies tried to return fire, but their assailants had them pinned.

“Raiders,” Boss cursed. The name seemed appropriate.

Our little convoy had halted as soon as we saw the raiders, but by now they had seen us. One let out a squeal of glee as they charged us, firing their weapons haphazardly. They missed all of us by a wide margin, and we returned fire. I missed all but one of my shots, while the others managed to take down almost half of them. Damn. I would have to get better at this aiming thing if I wanted to blend in out here. Unfortunately, that still left seven angry ponies two seconds from slamming into us, and judging by the look in the eyes of the slave pony closest to me, we could only get more outnumbered.

I got ready to flee, but Boss leaped down in front of the oncoming pack, his horn surrounded by a purple aura, building magical energy. The raiders took aim, but he unleashed his spell before they could fire. They were engulfed in a purple flash, and I watched in relief and confusion as every last one of them somehow flipped over and began falling upwards. I gawked at them as they tumbled through the air, kicking and screaming and cursing until they disappeared into the clouds above. What kind of spell was that?

Hairpins whistled in the stunned silence that followed. “Still blows my mind everytime I see it.”

“Er, thanks,” the unicorn replied. His voice was strained. I looked back down and saw that he was leaning against the carriage, breathing hard with sweat on his brow. Fishhooks trotted to his side with a concerned look and whispered something to him, but he shook his head in response. That spell might have been powerful, but it had taken its toll on him.

“Now everypony get ready t’ dodge...” I heard Hairpins say.

Dodge what? I glanced at her, and then looked back up to see what she was staring at. Oh. Right.

The raiders were on their way back down.

I had only a second to scurry away from where I was standing before the caravan was hit by a rain of pony bodies. They smacked into the ground with sickening CRUNCH sounds, and everypony in our caravan scrambled to get out of the way. One of the slaves tried to take advantage of the commotion and made a break for it. It was the one who had needed the Booster. I tried to stop him, but I was too slow and he raced by me, his eyes full of fear and desperation. A second followed, but I tackled her to the ground.

“No! Get off me you fucker!” She kicked and squirmed, and it took all my less-than-abundant strength to keep her pinned. She bashed her head into my jaw, and I hissed in pain between clenched teeth. I tasted blood. Enraged, I bit her mane and forced her head back down into the ground. Now Hairpins was at my side, yelling something I couldn’t hear because I was too focused on keeping this mare from getting back up. Then—

Boom!

—the sound of another collar exploding made me freeze. The mare underneath me stopped struggling. I looked up to see the decapitated body of the slave who had slipped past me sprawled in the distance with his entrails hanging out. The mare broke down into a fit of sobbing, and I lifted myself off of her. Hairpins and a stallion whose name I hadn’t caught forced her up and shoved her back in line with the rest of the slaves. My heart pounded in my ears as my adrenaline rush subsided.

“We probably couldda gotten him back... Boss,” Fishhooks muttered.

“Not worth the trouble,” he replied. And that was all that was said.

I felt a sinking sensation as I took in what had just happened, like I was stuck in mud. So much death in so little time, and I seemed to be the only once shocked by it. Was this the norm for Equestria now? Could love still exist in a place like this? I looked over at Boss. He had already gotten to looting the raider bodies, just like a few others were doing. One raider had fallen near me, so I stooped down to check his saddlebags; even though I was on the verge of a panic attack I had act like this was normal. I frowned as I got a better look at the dead raider. His hide had been burnt off in several places, and he reeked of cooked meat.

“H-how did that happen?” I wondered aloud.

“How’d what happen?” asked Hairpins.

“The, um, burn marks. How’d they get there?”

“Oh, that’s just ‘cause a’ th’ lightning rods th’ pegasi got up there. T’ keep anything from gettin’ in.” She motioned to the clouds above. “Terrible way t’ die, gettin’ electrocuted... at least these fuckers deserved it. Haha!”

Smiling, she trotted off to loot another corpse, and I was left with more questions. Lightning rods? Pegasi again? And were raiders really that bad? Sure, they’d attacked at town, but at least they weren’t enslaving ponies and strapping bombs to their necks. What could be worse than that?

I shook my head in exasperation and rifled through the raider’s bag. He had a health potion, more packets of Rad-Away, a pair of cruel-looking knives, another gun—this one long and heavy—ammunition, and lots more bottle caps. Why so many bottle caps? I didn't know why ponies would horde what was basically garbage, but I stuffed them into my pouch with the rest of them. When in Roam. I sorted the rest of the loot into my saddlebags, and strapped the long gun to my back like the raider had worn it. I had no idea how I was supposed to use the thing without magic but I kept it anyway. I could give it to Boss if we ever go into a tight spot or something.

The knives, on the other hoof, I would definitely be keeping. They were identical in make—a jagged semi-circular blade with a wide mouth-grip—but one looked more worn in that it was covered in dried blood. I put them near the top of all my things so I could reach them easily. I couldn’t aim for all the love in a mother’s kiss, but I knew how to stab things.

Holster, Fishhooks, and I stepped through the gates of Chard and were met by the smell of rusting metal and mildew. The slanted space between the town’s entrance and where its buildings started had turned into a stagnant pool, and water sloshed around our feet as we made our way forward. This place had had no windows, so what dull light was able to penetrate the cloud cover died long before hitting the town’s back walls. The machines that had once run here had been dismantled and, with the addition of lots of scrap metal, turned into makeshift buildings for the ponies who now lived here. The sound of dripping echoed through the air.

“Why do ponies even live in this place?” Fishhooks muttered as we made our way past a freezer-turned-outhouse. I was surprised the reek wasn’t stronger.

“Any shelter’s better than none, I guess,” Holster replied. As he spoke a turquoise buck trotted out of the walk-in refrigerator and gave us a dirty look. “Though it’d be best if we get what we need and skedaddle.” Boss had sent us in to get supplies while the rest of the caravan waited outside. Apparently the ponies of Chard did not take kindly to slavers.

There is hope yet.

We stopped in front of the largest of the metal structures. A sign was bolted to its top: Hop’s Trough. The building faced the town’s entrance with sad-eyed holes for windows and a door that had been welded together from so many different scraps it looked like a quilted spider’s web. I saw why it needed so much repairing when a drunken purple mare with a turnip Cutie Mark slammed it open and staggered out onto the muddy street. A tall silver stallion with a copper mustache emerged after, glaring at her. A rag hung around his neck, and as the mare wandered away he turned to our group. He took us in, his glare intensifing, and then slammed the door shut again before any of us could react. I frowned at that. Why had he—? I glanced at the wall by the door and got my answer. A faded poster hung there.

I suddenly felt very cold. We were wanted? I’m not sure what else I expected to happen to ponies doing such horrible things, but it hadn’t occurred to me that we might be actively hunted—and we’d just waltzed right into the middle of a town! My eyes widened, and I looked around frantically. However, no pony around seemed particularly interested in us aside from that one dirty look. Beside me Holster scoffed.

“Another of these posters?” he asked, “Heh! As if anypony would want to drag anypony else that far for just that much. I swear, damn NCs put these out just to make themselves feel important. ‘Rock of the Wasteland’ my ass...” Fishhooks giggled, and I calmed a little at his words. He knew more than I did about this. If he wasn’t worried about a bounty on his head, I shouldn’t be either. At least now I knew who the ‘NCs’ were.

“We should probably split up,” Fishhooks suddenly declared.

“What?” I blinked and cleaned my ear with a hooftip to make sure I’d heard her right.

“I’ll see if anypony’s selling food,” she continued. Apparently I hadn’t spoken loud enough. “You two get gun parts and whatever else we need, and we’ll meet up back here.” She pointed to the ground we stood on. “Oh, and we need to re-stock on Buck and Dash.”

“I’ll get the weapons,” Holster said before I could interrupt to point out how bad of an idea this was, “you get the drugs.” He nodded in my direction, smiling at a joke I didn’t get.

“But, um, uh...” I wanted to stay in a group. I wanted to say how much safer that would make us, but I found myself at a loss for words. They were giving me confused looks. “I’ll... go do that,” I said hurriedly. I gave them an awkward smile and trotted off down a side-street, hoping I was going the right way and that Holster’s confidence was well founded. But most of all I hoped that I hadn’t given them any reason to suspect me. Apparently I was supposed to know how and where to get these ‘drugs.’ Bad medicine. Maybe that’s what the ‘Booster’ had been? Yes. For some reason I had an urge to roll my eyes.

I wandered around the town, trying to look like I knew what I was doing. This place was a maze. The streets snaked around clumps of metal shacks, and walls rose randomly to block my path. A few times I had to duck through pitch-black hallways just to get by piles of debris nopony had bothered to clear away. I got a few odd looks from ponies I passed, though I wasn’t sure why. Did slavers have a look about them? I picked up my pace a bit. I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. I needed to find some other pony to impersonate. Someone... better. Not from here, though; not now. I still needed to get an understanding of this Wasteland I had found myself in.

Finally, I stumbled upon what looked like a marketplace; ponies sat in several stalls on either side of a large clearing, hawking their wares. Now... what was it I needed again? Oh, right. Dash and Buck. I had no idea what those were, exactly, but at least I knew what to ask for.

“Dash? Nope, ain’t never had none o’ that. I got some damn fine helmets, though. Just got ‘em straight from Bulb! Got a top armorist up there, they do. You want one? Only a hundred caps!”

“Buck? Only buck I’ve got is one t’ feed, so unless yer interested in magic tomes ah’d kindly ask ya’ t’ stop wasting mah precious time.”

“Drugs? Hell no. I only deal in healing potions and protection talismans. Feed your habit elsewhere.”

I was almost at the back of the facility when I found what I was looking for.

The sign was painted white, with a winking purple mare leaning over the word ‘Wares.’ She clasped a bottle in her left hoof, and was holding it out suggestively toward the viewer. The sign hung over a stall, painted with the same shade of purple, but pink Xs criss-crossed the whole of it. The design was faded but still managed to stand out from the drab colors around it. It also helped that it was the only ‘building’ I’d seen so far with any sort of lighting. A single bulb hung from the ceiling—which was also the underside of a half-melted second floor—powered by a small generator on the ground. A bored-looking buck with yellow hair sat in the spotlight, and he glanced up at me as I trotted over.

I noticed a small sign propped up on the table. “Wasteland Survival Guides sold here!” it read. My eyebrows shot up at that, and the vendor noticed. He immediately perked up, grinning at me.

“Howdy, stranger. Y’all interested in a Survival Guide?” he asked.

“Oh yes. How much?” I replied a bit too earnestly, but I was lost and confused in this new world, how could I refuse an entire book full of information about it? This would get me much farther ahead in life.

“Three hundred caps.” He said with finality.

“Three hundred?” Of course, right now I was still pretty far behind everyone else. By now I’d figured out what ponies used all these bottle caps for, but I had no idea if that was a fair price. “I don’t think I have that much on me.” Plus, I still needed to get those drugs.

“Hmm...” The vendor tapped a hoof against his chin, still smiling. “Well, I s’ppose I could take that there rifle off yer hands instead.” He motioned to the gun on my back. “If you don’t mind tradin’ firepower fer a bit o’ knowledge, that is.”

“Deal.” I didn’t hesitate. The ‘rifle’ wasn’t much use to me now anyway. I unstrapped the gun from my back and gave it to him. He took it eagerly, and handed me a grey tome with a black skull below the title. That seemed like a pretty misleading cover for something designed to help you. I resisted the urge to sit down and read through it right then and there, and put it in my saddlebags.

“Pleasure doin’ business with ya’,” the vendor drawled, “anything else ah c’n help ya’ with?” He seemed a little too happy now, and I realized I had probably gotten ripped off. Oh well. Losing one gun wasn’t that big of a deal. I could always get more if I needed them.

“Yes," I replied, “I need some drugs.”

“Drugs? Well, ya’ come to the right place fer that, mah friend, medicine’s our specialty. Whaddaya need?”

“Buck and Dash,” I said.

“30 caps a pop. How many?”

“Uh, as much as this will get me.” I took out the sack of bottle caps and plopped it down in front of him, carefully watching his expression. He didn’t seem particularly impressed as he counted out all the caps and sorted them into small stacks. I stopped him when he got to twelve piles; apparently I was richer than I had supposed. The brown buck scooped up the caps and ducked back into the depths of the small shop, emerging with a small clear bag in his mouth. On it I saw the same mare from the sign, only this time she had been printed over a stylised “BW,” instead of the full name. It looked worn and dirtied, but inside I could see what was, presumably, the Buck and Dash: bright orange pills and faded blue inhalers, similar to the Booster Fishhooks had used.

I packed the baggy away, and then turned to leave.

“Oh, by the by,” the vender added, “them bags’s worth a five cap discount if ya’ bring ‘em back here or t’ any o’ our other locations.”

“Locations?” I looked back to him, curious. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that.

“Sure, we got Berry Wears all over th’ Fields. I hear we’re settin’ up along th’ coast, even.”

“The... Fields?” He gave me an amused look.

“Shoot, you really ain’t from around here, are ya’? What’d ya’ just get out of a Stable er somethin’?”

“Uh, no I, um... uh—” Again I found myself tongue tied.

The buck just laughed at me before disappearing back into his store. I turned back around, feeling mocked and a bit put off, and trotted in the general direction of Hop’s Trough. What the heck did he mean by ‘Stable’? Too many questions. I felt the Survival Guide calling from my saddlebags, and wondered if I had time to read it before we set off again.

My thoughts were interrupted, however, when I noticed a stallion who had been staring at me from the edge of the marketplace. He wore an oversized hat on his head, with a pair of badly taped-up glasses sitting on his nose. Their frames were empty, and he averted his eyes the moment mine met them, but that only made him more suspicious. I glanced at his cutie mark—a firefly—as I turned down the street I’d come from, and recognized him. He was that pony who’d glared at us when we’d first entered the town. Or maybe he’d glared just at me? I realized now that he had been trying to mask his appearance with those clothes. Emphasis on trying. That’s just cute, hee, hee. I laughed, but then I grew worried. If he was trying to disguise himself that meant that Tumbleweed should have recognized him... but of course I did not. Why would he follow me? Did I have something he wanted? What would you stalk a slaver for?

The WANTED sign flashed through my mind, and I ducked into another dark hallway that looked like it might be a shortcut. The ceiling was fully intact here, and when I was halfway through it was pitch black except for a small crack of light ahead. The dark did not bother me, but the strobe that suddenly blazed to life in front of my face was another matter entirely. I stumbled back, blinded, and shielded my eyes with a hoof. What was making that light?

“Finally gotcha.” I heard a voice. Then something hit me in the chest, hard, and knocked me to the ground. I gasped for breath as my vision finally faded from red to the sight of metal. “You finally ready to pay up, Tumbleweed?”

I looked up at what—no, who—had pushed me down. It was the same stallion, his disguise discarded. The ball of light that had blinded me sat atop his head, pulsing like a beating heart. It obscured all his features, and made the hallway look eerily bleached. A gun like the one Boss had floated at his side. It was aimed at me.

“W-what are you talking about?” I tried to get back up, but he pressed a hoof into my chest and forced me against the ground.

“Don’t play dumb with me, dumbfuck,” he snapped. Now the gun was pressed to my forehead. I felt my heart pound in my ears as he continued on. “You don’t steal from Garlic and get away with it. Now, are you gunna pay us back or are we gunna have to chain you up and work you half to death? Or maybe I should drag your ass up to those bastards in New Canterlot? You know I’d love to see another Celestia-dammed slaver at the end of a noose.”

“I don—” I gasped for air as he pressed down harder.

“‘Course, I could just kill you now and save us all that trouble, but then we’d lose all that time and effort, and that’s just bad business. So what’s it gunna be, Tumblefuck?” He pressed the gun into my skull. It was so hard to breath. I tried to struggle with all my might but he was too strong. “You gunna pay up?” I tried to hit him, but I couldn’t reach anything sensitive. “Or am I gunna have to splatter your brains all over the ground?” I felt the cold metal of his gun push my head back, and I caught a devilish smile on his face. He was enjoying this. I choked out a sob as I realized that he had no intention of letting me ‘pay up.’ He wanted to kill me. He was going to kill me. I was going to die.

No!

I was going to die.

Fight!

Green magic flared over me and my pain was washed away along with the features of Tumbleweed. I shrunk back to my original size, causing the stallion above me to lose his balance and giving me enough room to roll onto my feet. A gunshot roared in my ear, and the world become a single sharp tone, but I felt no other pain. I was on all fours now. My attacker was still hidden behind his light, but I didn’t need to see details. I lunged at him, hurt and fear driving me forward

Run...

I saw his mouth move, but I could hear nothing. Then I was on him, knocking him over and wrapping my forelegs around his neck. Without a thought or pause I opened my mouth and sunk my fangs into his hide. I heard a muted cry of pain as my jaw closed around his neck. I felt skin split and vertebrae part between my teeth as I sunk them in. He had only a second to struggle before falling limp. The light on his horn flickered. I squeezed his neck tighter, and heard something crunch. The light began to fade, and I held him down until it died.

I let go, the foul taste of blood and hair in my mouth, and recoiled from his body. I was alone in utter darkness, all my tasks and plans forgotten. What had just happened? I had— I had...

Murder.

I had killed a pony. I had done it without a second thought. I shuddered. I hadn’t wanted to kill him, really, I had just wanted him to stop. I—

“I heard it come from other there!” The voice came from behind me. I re-disguised myself without thinking, and turned to see who had shouted. Two ponies, their features shrouded in the darkness, were coming this way.

“Di’ja see that? Who’s there!?”

Dammit. They had seen that burst of magic. I scampered away, down to the hallway’s other exit, but I had made too much noise.

“Hey! Get back here!” I broke into a gallop. Only a few more yards.

“Oh shit—Bright Lights? Oh shit oh shit—”

“You mother fucker!” I heard one gallop after me, and I emerged from the hallway into a neighborhood of metal huts. I recognized this place. I knew how to get back from here, but first—

I stepped behind one of the bigger shacks a moment before I heard my pursuer break into the open. He called out for me again, and I heard a few others tell him where I had gone. I fell to the ground just as he jumped into view.

“I’ll kill you fu—Boysenberry?” he came to a sudden halt.

I looked slowly up at him from where I lay, now disguised as the mare I had seen stumbling out of Hop’s Trough. “What?” I tried to slur the word, but wasn’t successful.

“Fucking—Boysen, did you see somepony run through here?”

“Uh, yeah.” I lifted a hoof and pointed to the only other way out from behind the hut. “He went that way.”

That doesn’t sound drunk at all.

He took off without another word, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I waited until I could no longer hear his hooffalls, and then trotted out from where I was hidden, re-donning my disguise as Tumbleweed. The few ponies milling about didn’t react to my presence, but as I walked anxiously toward the meeting place, I thought I could hear the echoes of somepony shouting.

By the time I slipped into the open space in front of the Trough that echo had grown into a reverberating chorus, and a mob was forming in front of the building. Holster and Fishhooks were already backing toward the exit, and as soon as they saw me making a break for the it they joined me in a sprint. It was only sheer luck that stayed the guard’s aims as we dashed out of the facility-turned-town. Boss had the caravan moving the moment he saw us, and Hairpins laid down covering fire as we sped away in an odd mirror to the earlier raider attack.

“What the hell happened back there?” Boss demanded. He glared down at me. I could feel the stares of everypony else around me, silently asking the same question.

“I...” I had killed a pony. I had almost been killed. My mind was reeling, but I couldn't allow myself to break down. I had to act the part. I had to be Tumbleweed. I couldn’t get caught now. I had nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. “I was attacked.”

“That all?” I blinked in surprise. That all? Were violent assaults in dark alleys that common?

“I-I killed him...” I hung my head.

“Well no shit,” he said, his voice full of sarcasm, “I mean is that all you did or did you also kill their mayor too? Because normally ponies don't form lynch mobs over one jackass getting what for when he picks a fight he can't handle."

"Well, I, um—"

"Ugh, nevermind.” He muttered in frustration, “You save an entire damn town from raiders and then they shoot at you ‘cuz of one fucking idiot. Bunch of fucking ingrates..." He sighed deeply, as if venting his frustration into the air, and we started off again. I slunk back to my spot beside Hairpins, feeling tense. I was still waiting for some sort of repercussion for my actions. None came, and Hairpins quickly resumed recounting her endless anecdotes.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t focus on her voice; the scene in that alley keep repeating in my mind. I could still feel Bright Light’s neck snapping between my jaws. I could still taste the blood in my mouth.

The dreary greyness that was the sky slowly grew dark, and now night was clawing its way into the horizon. Already it was impossible to make out anything in the distance but a single shadow off to the side of the road that turned out to be a house. It was constructed from wood held together with strips of metal that had been nailed all over it, giving it the appearance of having stripes. We approached the place cautiously, and, after Boss, his horn glowing softly, and a few others “checked it out,” we herded the exhausted slaves in, barricading them into a side room with the bottom half of a broken table and two chairs.

“I’ll take the first guard shift. I’ll wake you up in two or so,” Boss said to me. He set himself near the room holding the slaves, and I wandered off with the others to find a place to sleep.

The house was two stories, with the bottom floor consisting of three rooms: a central area that would have been divided in half had the wall in the middle not been knocked down, a bathroom that smelt of fermenting urine, and the bedroom we had stuffed the slaves into. I didn't bother to investigate the top floor, I was too tired. Instead, I curled up in a dark corner away from the rest of the ponies. They had sat down in a small circle, and though they probably thought my separation from them odd, I wanted to sleep alone.

By now it was almost completely dark, and a faint pitter-patter began to sound over the house. It grew into a steady muted chorus, and I was frightened by the sudden noise until I realized what it was. Rain.

As I drifted off, I started thinking about everything that had happened to me. I’d I’d had a rough first day of being alive. I’d watched three ponies die gruesomely. I’d seen a dozen more mowed down in seconds, and then I’d helped loot their bodies. I’d participated in slavery. I’d killed a pony. I shuddered, a black feeling twisting in my gut.

But worst of all I hadn’t found love, and I still had no idea where I could.

Outside, the rain picked up, turning from a distant murmur into a dull roar. The quiet darkness around me suddenly felt very comfortable. It reminded me of my egg: closed and warm, untouched by the world. I didn’t want to step outside and face the light of day anymore. I was scared of the ponies laying a few feet from me. I feared that when I next awoke a thousand terrible things would be at my side, waiting to engulf me. I hoped, no, prayed, that today’s travesties had been a fluke. Things couldn’t be this bad all the time, right? There was no way the Wasteland could sustain itself on such horror.

It was not weariness but another bout of dizziness that finally pushed me from silent panic into unconsciousness.

I was running. Running as fast as I could move my legs, yet my feet made no sound on the pure white ground. The only sound I heard was my panting as I ran. I was running from someone, but I could not remember who. A shadow passed over me, and I looked up. The sun blinded me—

I sat on a cold steel floor. Bars in front of me. I couldn’t get past them, why did they bother with these chains? One of the guards swooped down in front of me. His eyes glowed bright; brighter, until—

I was falling. Down and down, careening toward the earth. Dodge. Dodge. Something whizzed by my ear. Something else cut through me, and me hind leg erupted into pain. I steered myself up, toward the mountain range in the distance. It grew closer. The wind scrapped at my wounds, and my vision blurred with tears. I squeezed my eyes shut—

Three bullets struck my left wing, shredding it, and I fell. I tried to slow myself, but I was in too much pain and too injured. I hit the side of the mountain hard, bouncing down and flailing my arms. I caught hold of something and slowed myself. Everything hurt. I lifted my head. Salvation greeted me; there was a cave only a few flaps away. Another bullet pinged off a boulder nearby. I tried to stand, but my hind legs did not respond. I dragged myself forward. Closer. Closer. Another bullet struck my shoulder, splintering with bone. The agony blinded me—

I had to sleep now.

Feed.

I had to die.

Feed.

I had to live.

Feed.

I had to—

“—get up.”

My eyes snapped open at the touch of a hoof to my side. My heart thumped rapidly in my chest. I saw Boss above me, the glow from his horn replaced with a lamp at his side. It shone a faint yellow, powered by a collection of tiny nodes that reminded me of the lightning bugs on Bright Light’s flank. How comforting.

“It’s your turn.” Boss said, mouthing me the lamp. He was unsteady on his feet, and the limited lighting made the shadows under his eyes somehow darker.

“O-okay.” I took the lamp from him and walked over to sit in front of the slave room on unsteady legs. What had that dream been? Another vision? The first one had been, if not very clear, at least useful. This one had been... different. A volley of images and sensations that I had no context for. Already I was having trouble remembering all of it. Feed. Those last desperate shouts I remembered clearly, though. They sent a chill down my spine.

I peered over the makeshift barricade into the room of sleeping slaves. Most were curled up together, presumably for warmth, and, although it had stopped raining by now, I noticed that a small pool of water had formed in one of the room’s corners. I also noticed the one slave who wasn’t asleep.

“You!” he whispered fiercely and hobbled over to me. I took an automatic step back. His coat was made a sickly yellow by the light of the lamp, and he gazed at me with a crazed, triumphant look. I met him with a glare, but he ignored it.

“I saw,” he rasped.

“W-what?” Did he mean—!?

“I saw what you did with Tumbleweed. I saw you drag him away. I don’t know what you are, but you’re not a pony, and you’re not Tumbleweed, and unless you bust us out right now, I’ll tell every one of your ‘friends’ about what you did to that fucker.”

Oh no. Oh no no no. This was bad. Terrible! This was the worst thing that could have happened! This—is the perfect opportunity, you dolt.

—what? Opportunity?

I couldn’t hide my panic from him, and he became more insistent. “Move the table,” he demanded, “let us out of here now, or else.”

“I—”

“Do it you idiot!” he hissed. I didn’t have much choice. If I was discovered now, Boss and company would tear me to shreds. Or just Boss, really.

As quietly as I could, I removed the table and chairs from the doorway, though they hadn’t been much of a barrier to begin with. Just something to make noise in case the slaves had decided to try and rush us. I finished, and both the buck and I glanced nervously back at the central room. The light from my lamp did not extend far, but none of the slavers looked like they had been awoken.

By now, a slave mare who must also have been awake had noticed what I was doing and was quietly rousing the others. A few made questioning noises, but she and the stallion, who was now standing threateningly next to me, shushed them before they could give us away. As the last few were being nudged awake, another pair of mares stepped toward us.

“A-are we really gettin’ out? I-is this for real?” I saw the hope in their eyes, and felt the edge of the gratitude they were directing toward the stallion who had coerced me. Then I got it.

This was the opportunity. I really was an idiot for not thinking of this earlier.

“Yes,” I said, sliding in front of the haggard buck before he could say anything more, “I’m busting all of you out.” I smiled as confidently as I could, and their faces lit up. I felt their hope bubble up into profound relief and happiness, and their gratitude washed over me. My smile grew genuine as I drank deeply from their emotions. I felt strength I didn’t know I’d lost slowly return to me. The rest quickly joined them from behind, and as I lead them forward their outpouring grew greater. We tip-toed around the rough circle of sleeping slavers—an easy feat, considering how much space this place had—and I held the door open as the small group swept past me. Oh, this was magnificent. Their excitement sent electricity through my veins.

However, I then noticed the yellow buck was not among us. Where had—? My eyes went wide when I saw what he was doing. He was leaning over the snoring form of Holster, his muzzle ruffling through the slaver’s saddlebag. What was he doing? He was going to get caught! I watched, tense, as he pulled something out and slowly crept back to us. Holster didn’t stir.

“What were you doing?” I hissed after I’d eased the door shut behind him.

“In case you didn’t notice, we’ve got these here bombs strapped t’our necks.” He hefted what he’d stolen in front of my face. Even with the lamp right next to it I could barely make it out. It was a metallic cylinder with a large rectangle of... plastic? Glass? I couldn’t tell. Screen. Oh yes, that was the word for it. A rectangular screen. I couldn’t make out any other details before he swept it back down and latched it around his foreleg. “Seein’ as they’re not carryin’ any obvious trigger, I figured the control for our collars are on their PipBucks.”

He pressed something on its side, and the device—or PipBuck, I guess it was called—shone with light. The buck smiled, and after a few more taps on the screen all the former slaves’ collars fell of with a collective hiss-THUNK.

Ever since we had exited the door, our small mob had been moving steadily away from the striped house, but the moment the collars were off the reality of the ponies’ freedom hit them hard, and they bolted—in small groups and pairs—off, either back toward Chard or in the direction we had been heading before nightfall. All except the yellow buck.

He, having kicked his collar away, now examined me in the near-complete darkness. By the glow of his PipBuck I could tell he wasn’t smiling anymore, and his eyes held an ominous glint.

“Y’know,” he began. His voice was low, very different from the desperate whisper it had been a moment ago. “There’s a neat little feature on all these PipBucks called an EFS. You know what that stands for you... whatever you are?”

“No.” I suddenly felt the weight of the knives in my saddlebag. He had seen me copy Tumbleweed. He may not know what a Changeling was, but he knew what I could do, and I didn’t imagine that set him at ease.

“Eyes-Forward Sparkle. It’s a nifty little thing that tells me what everypony thinks of me—that is, whether they want to kill me or not. It does this by marking them with color. Usually there’s two basic colors, one for hostile, red, and one for... what’s the word? Oh yeah, docile. That one’s color varies depending on the model. Some show blue, some show yellow, and some show green—like this one here. And, heh, that’s pretty convenient for me, ‘cuz when I first heard of PipBucks, I learned a cute little saying that goes along with that color. You wanna know what it is?”

While he talked he had started circling me slowly, his disheveled and dirty hair made somehow ominous by the poor lighting from his leg. He had stopped now, having walked half way around, and stood facing me. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Sure...”

“Green: They’re clean. Red: They’re dead. Guess what color you are.” He didn’t give me time to.

Before I could react, he lunged at me, bringing his PipBuck-wearing foreleg down upon my head. I ducked as he moved, and the blow missed, but in the next instant I felt the air knocked from my lungs as both his hind legs slammed into me. I didn’t have time to wonder how an exhausted slave could possibly move that fast as his buck sent me sprawling back onto a chunk of asphalt that had decided to weather the post-apocalypse just long enough to make me howl in pain as my flank I landed on it. I rolled back up, shaky on my feet, and took the opportunity to draw one of the blades from my saddlebag, expecting him to be on me.

But he hadn't followed up on his attack. He stood where he had been, grinning triumphantly. His hoof hovered over the PipBuck’s shining screen.

DOWN!

I looked down. There, at my feet, was one of the explosive collars.

I kicked it away a moment before it—along with every other one the slaves had been wearing—exploded. Their combined shockwave sent me stumbling back, forward, and then sprawling onto the ground. I struggled quickly back up, but a throbbing pain in my right foreleg meant I could only stand on three feet. Luckily my armor seemed to have absorbed most of the shrapnel from behind.

I didn’t wait for the buck to attack again. I threw myself blindly at where I thought he would come from, and was rewarded with an “oof!” sound as I rammed my shoulder into his torso. I managed to keep my balance, and, forgetting I still had the teeth of an herbivor, I lunged downward and chomped ineffectively on his neck.

“Ack! Get off you fuckin’ freaky body snatchin’—”

We struggled awkwardly for a second before I had the brilliant idea of slamming his head against the ground. I couldn’t lift him very far up, so the blow didn’t knock him out, but it was enough to stun him. I limped away from our now-charred battleground into the safety of darkness just as one of the slavers emerged to investigate the explosion.

“What th’ hell’s goin’ on? Tumble? Ya’ out here? Tumble?” Hairpin’s voice. It was filled with concern.

I stopped when the pain in my hoof grew too great to ignore anymore. I checked over my shoulder to make sure I hadn't been followed. Nothing but darkness. Hairpin’s confused shouts had died away a long time ago. I would have smiled, but my hoof was still on fire. I couldn’t see how hurt I was, but I didn’t dare try and walk on it. I groaned in pain and frustration. Now what?

Medicine.

Oh right. I had those healing potions. I took one out and popped the top off. Now... I guess I had to put it on the wound? I carefully took it into my mouth and tilted my head. The liquid stung when it hit, but I could feel my hoof quickly growing. It was uncomfortable, like worms wriggling up from my bone and flattening themselves out to become surface flesh. I shuddered after the sensation faded and then felt around where the wound had been. It seemed whole again, and I lowered it to the ground. No pain. Good.

Now... well, now there wasn’t much else to do but find more love. And avoid slavers. Definitely avoid slavers.

You’re an idiot.

Well, at least avoid slavers who were also unicorns with gravity magic. Too much risk for too little gain. The gratitude of freed slaves was energizing, but I doubted I could live off it. Unless slave caravans were abundant around here I’d need to find a more reliable source of food in order to survive, like a safe town, or a stable relationship. Those shouldn’t be too hard to find.

Right?

Footnote: Level up.
New Perk: Biter - Unarmed critical hits are 10% more likely. +5 to Unarmed.

Chapter 3: Bulbs and The Fields

I wandered blindly forward until dawn came, too afraid to risk sleep. There wasn’t much cover out here, so if I overslept and the slavers happened to come across me... I didn’t want to think about it. At best they now saw “Tumbleweed” as a traitor, and at worst they’d caught the buck I’d fought and knew about what I actually was. I was going to assume the worst.

My head ached from not sleeping (love energy, apparently, does not negate my need for rest) and I was forced to squint in the dull morning light. I had walked far in the night, and I found that I had come across the remnants of a small town—an actual town, not another facility—located just off to the right of the road. Curious, I hopped off the road and trotted closer.

There were many buildings, but at least half had either collapsed or been eroded away, as they had been made of wood. The ones that remained looked to have been constructed of sturdier material, but, as I neared them, I saw that even they were worn and vacant. A rusted tiller sat at the edge of the building closest to me, the bar ponies had once pulled it with broken. It was a sad monument to the farmland that must once have been here.

As I approached, my eye was caught by something glinting in the dirt in front of what had probably been a saloon. It was... well, I wasn’t sure what it was, but when I dug it out of the mud I saw that it looked like a shiny white sphere. Pretty, but useless as far as I could tell. Maybe I could sell it to someone? I shrugged to myself and put it into my saddlebag, right next to the Survival Guide.

Huh. I had completely forgotten about that book.

I debated whether I should sit down and read it immediately, or find someplace more secure than out in the open in the middle of an abandoned town. I decided on the former, and turned back to the town. Three guns greeted me.

“Welp, Grimey, looks like you owe me twenty caps, eh-he-he-he!”

A unicorn, flanked by two earth ponies, all clad in spiked, bloody armor. Three raiders. The leftmost earth pony was the one who had spoken.

“Thuck thoo, Thlail,” the other replied, slobbering around the butt of the gun in her mouth. The unicorn, obviously their leader, grinned at me. A rifle with a serrated blade tied onto the end hovered by his head.

“I’ll admit,” he said, “I didn’t expect this stupid idea of yours t’ work, but it looks like we found somepony even more fucking stupid than you are, Flail. ‘Throw a shiny object in the dirt and hope somepony gets curious?’ I thought nopony’d be that dumb.” His weapon bobbed menacingly in front of my head.

“W-what do you want?” I croaked. My mouth had suddenly gone dry. “Don’t hurt me.”

“Hurt you? Oh, we only want to play a bit.” He laughed, and jabbed the tip of his bayonet into my shoulder without any warning. I yelped in pain, and jerked back. I tried to turn around and flee, but one of them tackled me.

“Where d’ya think you’re going, fuckbrain? Eh-he-he-he.” I kicked out against him, and my hoof connected with his jaw. “Fuck!” He pressed down on my injured shoulder. I screamed, but the pain gave me enough strength to squirmed out from under him. But then the unicorn was on me. I tasted mud as he pressed a hoof down onto my neck.

“Oh calm down, potato-butt. We just wanna have a little fun.” I could hear all three snickering sadistically. One of them ripped off my armor, and I felt a blade press down against my neck. “Now Flail, show this nice young buck what gettin’ a Cutie Mark in skin-strippin’ feels like.”

I had wondered how Raiders could be worse than Slavers. I guess I was getting my answer. What was that expression Hairpins used? ‘Curse my tongue?’

The knife cut my skin, and pain like I’d never felt ripped through my shoulder as it was dragged downward. I tried to scream, but the sound was muted by the dirt. The knife was gone now, and something plopped down into the dirt next to me. The raiders laughed again, but it cut short, and the unicorn removed his hoof from my neck.

“Wait... what the fuck?”

“Whoa, hold up. What the fuck is that green shit?”

There was pain. Too much pain. I strained my neck, fighting the pain just to move and see past my tears. The slab of exposed flesh on my side was trickling not red blood but a green ooze. I saw it and the disgusted expressions on the raiders’ faces, but didn’t care. I just wanted the pain to stop.

“Oh, fuck. Is that some sorta disease? Are you fucking infected?”

“Fuck, are we gunna get infected too?” I heard the mare take a step back.

“Fuck this. Let’s just kill him and take his shit before we catch whatever the hell this is.”

As they panicked, I reached for a healing potion in my saddlebag. I moved my forelegs to help remove the stopper from the vial, but that only caused the agony in my shoulder to redouble. I jerked back into a more tolerable position, hissing under my breath.

“Answer the question!” The unicorn was shouting now. He kicked my side with a foreleg. “Is that green shit contagious?”

“I—” I couldn’t speak. It hurt too much. So much it made me feel sick. And what could I say? ‘Yes’ and they’d kill me. ‘No’ and they’d keep torturing me. I saw the unicorn raise his gun above his head, aiming it down at me like a spear.

—es, say yes, say ye—

“Y-yes!” I cried.

“It is!?” His eyes went wild, and he jerked the gun upwards.

“Wait!” I cried before he could bring it down. “You don’t want to kill me!”

“Wha—why the fuck not?” He stopped, breathing heavily. His companions had backed away now, weary of my ‘infection.’

“You don’t want to kill me because, uh, because—” I needed to think. I needed to fight past the pain. “—because I, urgh, I still need to get the, uh, cure for it, and it’s r-really uh, contagious, so you all probably have it now and I—I can’t get the cure if you k-kill me.”

“R-really contagious?” The unicorn’s eyes grew wide. He looked almost as scared as I was. “What—what the fuck does it do to you?”

“It does, um—” As if on queue, there was a sizzling sound to my right, and all our heads turned toward it. Before our eyes, the chunk of my flesh they had cut off was briefly engulfed in a green flame that transformed it into a leathery black chitin that oozed the same green as my shoulder. I knew that what I’d seen was just that section of skin undisguising, but to my attackers it must have look like some sort of magical spontaneous combustion.

“—that.”

“WHAT THE FUCK!?” All three of them jumped away from me, and I took the opportunity to pick up the healing potion. I grimaced, but I managed to pop the top off and pour it on my wound. It stung as I applied it, made me squirm as it healed, and left me queasy when it was done, but at least I wasn’t about to die anymore. In fact, the three raiders were resolving the situation nicely on their own.

“Ge’ away thom me!” Grimey, who I now noticed had a dirty rag for a Cutie Mark, screamed at the unicorn. In his panic, he had backed toward her, and she was now pointing her gun at his head. “Don’ you thucking inthecth me, thoo!”

“N-no, Grimey, I-I’m not infected! Flail, he-he’s the one! He was doing the cutting, he got that green shit on himself. I-I can’t be infected! I can’t be...”

“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck—” was all Flail could say as he spun around in a circle, looking at himself with wide-eyes for any signs of my ‘infection.’ I would have found it comical if I hadn't just been on the verge of being grotesquely murdered.

“Ah thaid geh away.”

“Look, Grimey, I—” The unicorn took another step forward and his plea turned into a gurgle as the crazed mare shot her weapon. His body slumped to the ground. I gasped, and Flail stopped in his tracks. A look passed between the three of us, and I realized I’d done too good a job of convincing them I was infected. I leaped aside only a moment before the mare shot at me.

“Fuck, Grimey, don’t shoot him!”

I made a beeline for the saloon, and a second bullet whizzed over my head. The noise sent me into a full on panic, and I sprang sideways, crashing through the building’s window without even thinking.

I scrambled back onto my feet. Near the back of the building were some stairs leading to a second story. I ran over to them and kept going, not pausing until I had reached the top. Up here were many old bedrooms, most of which were either half-destroyed and filled with rubble from whatever explosion had gotten rid of the roof. I ran into one of the more intact ones and was looking for a place to hide when I heard another pair of gunshots. Then silence.

Before I could guess what had happened I heard hoofsteps from the floor below. I crouched down behind a metal table that gave me enough cover not to be seen from the doorway, but that was small enough so I could still leap out from behind it and take somepony by surprise. The hoofsteps grew louder.

“H-hey!” The voice that emanated from the stairway was Flail’s. It was nervous. “Hey, guy, you up there? L-look, I’m, eh-heh, sorry about the whole tryin’ t’ kill you thing, honest. Bloodcurdle’s the one who encouraged us, r-really. It’s all his fault. S-so what do ya’ say we put this little, uh, misunderstandin’ behind us and go get that cure to whatever this freaky disease is you got, huh? H-how about that?” His voice grew desperate, and I could hear him pacing around the hall, searching for me. “P-please?” he begged. I kept quiet. “Please? I-I don’t want to die like that. Fuck, I don’t wanna burn up. I swear I won’t hurt you, I really, really don’t wanna die like that.”

I narrowed my eyes as his words turned my fear into rage. Only a moment ago he had been gleefully skinning me alive, and now he thought some half-mumbled begging was going to save him?

It was then I realized I wanted to kill him. He had hurt me. Badly. He and his gang would have tortured me to death and taken pleasure in it, and so I was enraged. Slavers, Raiders... these ponies were monstrous. These must be the types of ponies who had caused Equestria to fall from paradise. Only something so twisted could have brought down something so good. If this was the type of pointless pain and hatred that had robbed us Changelings of our feast, then I had no qualms with ending it.

Anger fueled my adrenaline rush this time, and the moment I saw Flail peek into the room I charged, drawing my remaining blade—I had lost the first one in the fight with that slave. Flail recoiled, but I was faster than him and the element of surprise was on my side. Before he could draw his gun—he had actually believe his begging would pacify me?—I slashed at his face. He howled in pain, and I moved to slit his throat. He managed to move away from my attack, but I still cut his shoulder, and he howled again.

I didn’t let up. I kept slashing at him, forcing him to back up until he tripped over a pile of rubble. Then I was on him. He struck out at me with his hooves, but I was already too close to be pushed off. I stabbed down, finally managing to hit his neck. He cried out in pain, and I pushed the knife farther down. His cry turned into a gurgle, then nothing.

I removed the blade from his corpse, and panted in the silence. It was odd. My attackers were dead, I was safe, but I didn’t feel relieved. When I had killed Bright Lights I had regretted it—I had felt bad. Now, though... Now I just felt numb.

Feed.

But the Raiders were dead. I was alive. That was all that mattered.

There was a wetness around my hoof. Flail’s blood was already pooling around him. I stepped away from him, and put my knife away. As I did my eyes were drawn to his Cutie Mark. It was made to look like a patch of skin had been removed from his flank, the muscles underneath clearly visible. ‘Skin stripping,’ his special talent. My stomach twisted at the image, and I quickly trotted away.

As I descended the stairs I had time to look around the decrepit saloon. I now noticed the raiders’ trophies—the rotting heads of previous victims—mounted in a line above the bar. Several brightly colored rugs, made from equally rotten pony hide, had been laid at one corner atop even older hay mattresses. Several more decorated the walls. I definitely did not regret killing these ponies.

I didn’t want to linger in this ghost town. I put my armor back on, picked up the gun Bloodcurdle had used—I liked the knife it had—and galloped back to the road as fast as I could. I didn’t bother with any extensive looting. I just wanted to leave. I needed to find someplace safe to rest and recover.

More walking. I’d gotten quite the adrenaline rush from my near-death experience, but that quickly wore off and left me even more tired than I had been before. I plodded along without encountering any more trouble except for a pair of giant cockroaches—Radroaches—and another of those pink snakes. I squashed it with a hoof when it got near me. Ugh. The mess it left was gross. At another point I thought I saw another building to my left in the distance, but I didn’t investigate. It was far away from the road, and I didn’t want to risk running into more raiders.

Ah. That place looked much more inviting.

It was a facility-turned-town just like Chard, but, unlike the front of that dying place, there was no gaping wound to expose its insides. Only a steel face with a mishmash of happy neon letters that spelled out the city’s name: “Bulbs.” Some distance behind it were the first hills I’d seen since the mountains, but from where I was I couldn’t make out any of their details.

I smiled and started forward, but then I realized something—I was filthy! My coat was covered in dirt, blood, and my own green ooze. I also smelled terrible, and that was just no good. If I wanted to make a good impression on anypony I met, I’d have to get cleaned up a bit first.

I ducked into a ditch off to one side of the road, quickly undisguising and redisguising. Much better.

Now that I was presentable, I trotted forward toward Bulbs. I didn’t see any way to get in right away, but as I trotted closer I noticed a series of holes that had been cut (or drilled maybe? It was solid steel) into the lower front of the building. The biggest one—about three ponies wide—was obviously a doorway, and it had a pair of openings directly above it where I could see ponies pointing guns down at whoever approached. In this case it was me.

“Hey you! Stop right there!” one of them shouted. I stopped where I was, not wanting to provoke the guards. There was a clunk from behind the doorway, and the steel sheet rattled upward, lifted by an unseen force. A purple mare with a periwinkle mane emerged. A gun hovered by her side, and the armor she wore—which looked much more protective than mine—covered her Cutie Mark.

“Stay still, mister,” she said with a voice that sounded much younger than she looked, “I don’t want any trouble.”

“I don’t either,” I replied. I didn’t move, and when she got within a leg’s reach she started to circle me slowly. She was probably checking for some... dangerous thing. She could already see my guns, I’m not sure what else she thought I could be hiding. Besides myself.

“So, what’s yer name, stranger?”

“Tu—uh, I mean, Spud. My name is Spud.” Probably best if I didn’t give the name of a slaver. Actually, it probably would have been better if I hadn’t stayed disguised as a slaver in the first place.

By Tartarus, when did you become such an amature?

“Spud, huh? Well, mister Spud, may I ask you what your business in Bulbs is? It’s not often I see somepony I don’t know around these parts that isn’t of raider ilk.” She completed her circle and sat down in front of me. Her gun was pointed upward non-threateningly. “What’s a little pony like you doin’ out in the Fields all on his lonesome?”

Little pony? I was her height!

“I’m just looking for... a place to stay.” Which was true, I still hadn’t slept since that hour or so last night. “I don’t have a home right now and I heard Bulbs was, uh, nice.”

“Well shoot, mister, then where’d you live before now?”

Where did I live before? Did that matter? “I lived in, uh—” Think of a name, think of a name... Ah-ha! “—Cave Town. I lived in Cave Town.” Hey, that one was actually kind of clever.

No. No it wasn’t.

“Cave... Town?” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Where the hay is that?”

“It’s, uh, back that way.” I waved a hoof in the direction of the mountains I’d come from. “You, uh, probably don’t know about it because it’s hidden. In a cave. That’s why we call it Cave Town.” I hoped she was satisfied, otherwise—

“So why the hay did you leave?”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “Does that really matter? I just want a place to sleep that’s... safe.”

“Ha!” She actually laughed at that. “We all do, mister. That’s why I’m askin’ you so many questions. The last pony who walked up to a city alone had a Balefire egg stashed in his gut and is the reason Chard’s blown half to smithereens.”

“Really?” I didn’t know what a Balefire was, but I made a mental note not to eat its eggs if I ever ran across them. Nothing good could come from something that explosive.

“Wow, mister, you must really not be from around here to not have heard about that. Hey, Foolproof!” she called back to one of the ponies behind the guard windows, “You got a reading yet?”

“Yep,” came the response, “he’s clean. You can let him in, Cathy.” She turned back to me, smiling.

“Well, mister Spud, looks like you’re safe. That being the case, let me apologize for all the questioning—I gotta make sure we don’t let any hooligans in. My name’s Cathode, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to Bulbs.” She extended a hoof, and, after staring awkwardly at it for a moment, I realized what I was supposed to do and shook it. She gave me an odd expression, and then turned back to the city.

“Now follow me, mister, and I’ll give you the full tour. Not every day I meet somepony new.”

The first thing I noticed as Cathode lead me through Bulbs’s makeshift gate was that this city’s defence was much more impressive than Chard’s. A scaffolding had been set up so that three or four ponies could easily look out of the windows that had been carved (drilled? burned?) into the walls. From there, I imagined, they would be able to see anyone who approached long before that person could see them. One of the guards held a small black device in his mouth that clicked slowly and softly. He was pointing it at me, and I assumed that, whatever it was, it was the thing that told him whether I was ‘clean’ or not.

Also on the ground floor was a gun twice the size of a pony set up to fire out of the entranceway. It was flanked by two other ponies clad in the same sort of body armor as the dead pegasi in the cave, and each had a gun mounted on their sides that looked like a miniature version of the one they were standing beside. I gulped at the sight.

“Well, mister, as you may have noticed,” Cathode began, forcing me to tear my gaze from all that firepower, “you can actually see in here. We take pride in being the only city in the Fields with a reliable source of lighting.” Indeed, as we walked further in I could see that most walls were lined with cords and wires that lead up toward the ceiling where a plethora of light bulbs of all shapes and sizes shone steadily. I looked back down and noticed Cathode had trotted ahead.

I caught up with her quickly, nearly tripping on a stray wire as I did so, and asked her a question that had been on my mind, “Who were those ponies back there, the ones with all that armor?”

“You mean the ones by that ol’ tank canon?” I nodded. “Those are Steel Rangers. You tellin’ me you never heard of Steel Rangers before, mister?”

I shook my head. “Who are they?”

“Well, mister, there are only two things you gotta know about them. One: they always got bigger guns than you do—always. Two: they got a collective hard-on for technology. Especially pre-war tech, so if you ever find anything good don’t let them know, otherwise it’s not yours anymore. Not even Garlic could stand up to ‘em—they’d just blow him away like the rest of us if we tried.”

“Uh, but why are they helping guard Bulbs?” Her response had generated a whole slew of other questions, but that one was the first that I managed to spit out.

“Ha! About that: the Steel Rangers got a fort up by the coast, near where the mountain range ends, and until a year ago they mostly kept to themselves up there. Then, for some reason, they decided to start being more active, and they started wandering down into the Fields. At first they weren’t too bad—they’d splatter any raiders they caught a whiff of, but if they caught you with a PipBuck or whatnot they would ‘confiscate’ it—but then they started getting... hungry.”

“One day, they stomped up to Tubers and got them to ‘agree’ to a defensive pact. They offered to stick around and ‘protect’ the city from whatever threats the Wasteland might throw at them if the townsponies paid them a heap of caps each month. ‘Course, if they refused then the Rangers worried that the local raiders might suddenly ‘stumble’ upon some high caliber artillery—basically, it was a roundabout way of saying ‘pay us, and we won’t kill you.’ Soon after, the same thing happened to us... we had no choice but to accept. Then they did it to Maize and finally Chard; though they haven’t been asking for much from them after they got hit with that bomb. Only place they haven’t started ‘protecting’ is Seeds, and only because, well, heh, I imagine those bastards would lose more caps than they’d gain if they spent too much time over there.”

“Why’s that?” I interrupted.

“Oh, mister, I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.” She giggled and gave me a wink. “Anyway, that’s not the worst bit. When they started coercin’ a tax out of us they also started charging a toll on anypony who wanted to cross through their ‘borders,’ which means that anypony who wants to even get near us has to pay out the nose just for walking. Needless to say, trade with the rest of the Wasteland has dried up since that happened. I swear, it’s like they’re trying to put us under siege. If it weren’t for the Plantations, we’d of been in a real bad way a long time ago.”

And now I had even more questions. Good thing we didn’t seem to be in a hurry. We were just standing a ways away from the gate and talking. “Plantations?”

“Oh right, I keep forgetting you’re not from around here, mister. Plantations... let’s see, where do I start...” She tapped a hoof against her chin. “Ah! I know: Back before the world ended, during the war, this whole area—from the edge of the swamp all the way up to a little before the Steel Ranger’s base—was farmland dedicated to churning out food for the whole of Equestria. Ponies need a lot of food, and war only makes them hungrier, and this was the perfect place to put a mass of farms; mountains to the south that run east, and a sea that runs west up from beyond the swamp and then turns into a bay in the north. It required minimal ground defenses and was suicide to attack directly—it’s hard to get a hoofhold in near-endless farmland when you got an armada of pegasi ready to bomb you back to Celestia.”

“Anyway, when the bombs finally fell most of this place was irradiated and everything that grew was either burned up by the balefire or withered the following winter. Well, almost everything—that’s where the Plantations come in. Somehow, a few patches of crop managed to survive and grew wild around these facilities until the first ponies emerged from the Stables or wherever else they’d hid and turned these facilities into towns. Whoever managed to gain control of the local crop supply immediately became the most powerful pony for a mile around because they were the only reliable source of food for twice that distance. Plantations are what we call the places they grow those crops, and all of them are nearby these facility-cities. Garlic, who I believe I mentioned earlier, is the stallion currently in charge of Bulbs’s Plantation.”

He was also, I now realized, the pony Tumbleweed had stolen from. And whose lackee I’d killed. My decision to not disguise as anypony else was looking dumber by the minute.

“Whew!” Cathode breathed deeply. “You sure got me talking, mister. Anything else you wanna know?”

“Erm...” I still had questions, but she’d already told me a lot. I’d need a while to take it all in. “Oh, yes: are there any pegasi in the Steel Rangers?”

Enclave.

“In the Steel Rangers? Heck no! They hate those sky-stealing bastards more than anypony. If pegasi ever did anything but hide up on their clouds the Steel Rangers would probably shoot them on sight. Why’d you ask, mister?”

“Oh, uh, no reason...” She raised an eyebrow at me, and I quickly thought of another question to distract her. “Which other cities are around here? You said there was Chard, Seeds, Maize, and...”

“And Tubers, yeah. Just those. Most everywhere else in the Fields is either a ghost town or full of raiders. There used to be a few other facilities before the war, but they were the big ones. That’s why they got hit. There’s nothing left but radioactive rubble, now.”

“And what about New Canterlot?” To me, a city claiming to be the new capital of Equestria sounded like it would be significant enough to mention, but she hadn’t said a word about it.

“Oh. Oh them.” She thought for a moment before continuing. “Well, mister, New Canterlot’s a city way up northwest, right by the coast. It was founded by the ponies who came out of Stable 111 a long time ago—before I was born, actually. Nopony down here particularly cared about it until... well, I can’t really remember exactly how long it’s been. Three? Four years? Anyway, that’s when a zebra tribe came up from the swamp and started making trouble. Something about continuing their ‘Glorious Crusade’ or something. They would attack any pony settlements they could and kill anypony they caught. They’re part of the reason these facilities are the only places we live now—everywhere else was nearly impossible to defend.”

Zebras. At the mention of the word an image of a strange being flashed through my mind. Like a pony, but striped white and black, with exotic eyes. I filed it away and kept listening, intrigued.

“Nopony could do anything against the zebras terrorizing the Fields. We tried fighting them directly, but every time they got the upper hoof the zebras would just run off, regroup, and attack somewhere else. Things were getting pretty bad until New Canterlot got themselves involved. The day the zebras finally made a serious attempt to overrun Chard, the NCs show up with their freakin’ unicorn army and wiped the floor with them. Everypony was really thankful, and Chard’s plantation even gave them a share of their crop for free, but then they declared the Fields under their ‘domain’ and demanded that we all ‘submit to their rule’ or we’d be kicked out.”

“Kicked out to where?”

“That’s exactly what we said to them!” Cathode laughed. “As soon as they realized nopony would be ‘submitting’ to anything they left as quickly as they’d come. They didn’t have any way to enforce their rule anyway. They send ponies down occasionally to tell us about some new law or something but we mostly ignore them. If they really wanted to get us to listen to them, then they’d do something about the Steel Rangers’s tax. If anypony could possibly stand up to them it would be the NCs, but they’ve done diddly squat. I mean sure, they send down 'patrols' to take out slavers and raiders sometimes, but those aren't the biggest problems in the Fields to begin with. I guess they don’t give two shits about us unless we’re already grovelin’ and ‘submitting.’” Her voice had become progressively angrier, and she rolled her eyes as she spoke the last word.

I yawned despite myself. My weariness was catching up with me. All this was... interesting, but it got me nowhere closer to a good love meal.

You think much too small. Extrapolate.

Although... Cathode had said New Canterlot had an army. To afford that, they would need... food, some place to train, and ponies to be soldiers. To have all those they would need... stability. And where there was stability, there was more likely to be love.

“Do the NCs they let others join them?” I asked.

“Only unicorns.” She gave me a sympathetic look.

“Oh...” That wasn’t actually a problem for me, but she didn’t know that.

“Sorry to burst your bubble if you were plannin’ to go there, mister. It’s not really even worth getting to anyway. There’s no road like there is between these facilities, so you’d have to trek through a few miles of pure, unleaded Wasteland: Taint, raiders, monsters, all that good stuff.”

“Monsters?”

To ponies, us.

“Oh sure, there’s Manticores, Radroaches, Bloatsprites... I’m sure you get the idea, mister.”

“Thanks for the warning. And all the information.” I said.

“No problem,” Cathode replied, “So, you want me to show you around the place, or should I let you be? Some ponies get lost their first time in these facilities. Especially in Maize.”

“Yes. Is there somewhere I can sleep?” I really needed a good rest. Absorbing all this information, as helpful as it might be, had only made the ache in my head worse, and I could already feel my eyelids growing heavier.

“Alright, just follow me mister. You’ll probably find a spare room on the upper floor.”

After following Cathode through several hallways, I found myself walking into a large room that must have once been the facility’s main production floor. We emerged near its back half, and I could see that this section of the room had been converted into a marketplace. As in Chard, the vendors had fashioned small booths out of whatever metals they could, but now they were all lined up in a row down an old conveyor belt. The belt formed the ‘table’ upon which they displayed their goods, while the scrap metal formed the walls that separated one stall from the next. Toward the back I saw that, instead of more steel wall, there was a huge door that looked like it could roll up into the ceiling. I noticed another pair of steel rangers were standing guard near it, as well as a similar defensive setup attended by ponies who were presumably more of Bulbs’ normal guards. The whole place reeked of ripe onions.

“Hey!” Cathode’s shout drew my attention away from the expansiveness of the room. I saw her run forward into the crowd of ponies moving throughout the market, chasing something I hadn’t noticed. I followed immediately, dodging though the ponies who had already parted to make way for my guide, and came to an abrupt halt when I saw what she was after.

Two bucks—one a brown unicorn, the other a grey earth pony—were engaged in a tug-of-war over a particularly long rifle. The unicorn gripped one end in his telekinesis, while the other had his jaw firmly clasped around the butt of the gun and was trying to pull it free.

“Stop it you two!” Cathode shouted at them. She was waving her own gun at them like it was a baton, but neither seemed to notice or care. They were too involved in their dispute.

“Let go you fuckin’ theif,” the earth pony cursed through clenched teeth, “Let go!”

“I said stop it you two!” Cathode moved to strike the unicorn with her weapon, but before the blow fell he managed to get the upper hoof. I blinked in surprise as he suddenly twisted the top piece of the rifle—a greasy silver cylinder—off. The moment the piece detached two things happened. First, the earth pony who had been pulling with all his might now found nothing resisting him, and consequently stumbled backward into the few other ponies who had been watching his ordeal. Secondly, the unicorn, now apparently satisfied with just that piece, stowed it in his saddle bag and jumped away from Cathode’s incoming attack in one smooth motion.

Cathode made a noise that sounded like she was halfway between startled at his sudden movement and angry that she had missed, but before the mare could say another word, an indigo aura enveloped the thieving stallion and he vanished in a quick flash, reappearing only a few feet away with his hair singed and smoking. He was out of reach of anypony who had been watching, and he vanished down another of the facility’s hallways before Cathode could catch up to him. She huffed in aggravation and trotted back to the robbed buck.

“Well don’t just stand there!” he shouted at her, “Go after him!”

“Uh, sorry mister Sparks,” Cathode said as she holstered her weapon, “I didn’t see which way he went after he ducked into the hall.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “I’d need t’ get together a whole heap of ponies to comb through everywhere and, uh, I don’t think everypony would be up for that right now...” She looked at the other ponies who had been gawking at the event, and a few gave her embarrassed murmurs of agreement. Others just trotted off with half-hearted looks of guilt. “A-at least you still got your gun, right?”

“Well fuck! That silencer was the only reason I bought the damn thing in the first place.” He trudged toward where the unicorn had disappeared into. “If none of you are gunna help then I’ll find that fucker and kill him myself!”

“Er, hold on a minute mister—” I didn’t register the rest of what Cathode said. I felt a sudden burst of emotion from behind me, and turned around just as it resolved into a steady stream of gratitude. A very familiar tasting gratitude.

“Hey, it’s you!” The outpouring came from a mare—a mare who I now saw was one from the slave caravan. She was dark pink with an even darker purple mane, and her Cutie Mark was that of a cartoonish gun over a red cross. She ran up to me with thankful expression, but stopped short as our eyes met, possibly taken aback by how quickly I’d reacted. “Hi. I, uh, n-never got to thank you for saving us back there. So... thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, smiling. Her gratitude had wavered with that first look, blocked by a wave of nervousness, and I needed to cultivate it back to full force. “I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner, but I was... waiting for the right moment.” I felt her hesitance vanish and I stretched out a with a mental tendril, latching onto the good emotions that remained. Her energy started to slowly seep into my veins, and I felt somewhat restored; it was like a long sip of cool water after a day of being parched. Unfortunately, it did little for my headache.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked, taking a half-step closer, “I don’t have much, but if you need anything I’ll try to help... I-it’s the least I could do.” Her words were genuine, but I now noticed something odd beneath her thankfulness. It wasn’t exactly malicious, but it was definitely not... love-ish. I could identify all variety of good feelings so long as they were directed at me, but I still needed to rely on normal means of communication to identify anything else.

“Actually,” I replied, glancing back at Cathode. She was still talking with the buck, who now looked as impatient as he was angry. “I need a place to sleep. I haven’t slept since I—well since we escaped.”

Good. Suggest companionship. Form a bond.

“A-a place to sleep? I... I can do that. I know somepony who might have a spare room, if you’re interested.”

“I am. Thank you, Miss...”

“Spare Parts, and, uh, you’re welcome. Now just f-follow me then.” She smiled, but as she lead me away from the marketplace I felt that odd lump of emotion grow a bit stronger, and it worried me. That pony, Garlic, whom Tumbleweed had supposedly stolen from, what if she was leading me to him? No, that seemed... It didn’t seem right somehow. I hadn’t been recognized so far, even though I’d passed over a dozen other ponies. Maybe Tumbleweed hadn’t lived here when he’d stolen from Garlic? But then why had Bright Lights been so personal when he’d tried to kill me? Maybe Tumbleweed had only lived on the Plantation? But surely he’d have to have come into the city at some point. This market was (relatively) full of food—I had seen onions, dry tulips, some shallots—and if the only way to get more was from Plantations, then there must have been some interaction. So why hadn’t at least one pony recognized me?

Pain pulsed through my head in a dull throb, making me grimace. Too much thinking on too little sleep.

While I had been attempting to unravel the workings of this world I had found myself in, the pink mare had lead me to an old elevator shaft. Its doors had been removed, but I could see that half of it was blocked off by a metal wall. In the other half there had been placed a ramp that tilted slightly upward and ended at the back wall of the shaft. As Spare Parts started walking upward I saw that another ramp had been placed at the end of the first, tilted up at the same angle in the opposite direction. I followed her up both and saw that the pattern continued, creating a series of ramps that doubled back on themselves and moved us slightly higher each time.

It was a clever design, but the ramps had a shallow angle, and a wall had been welded in the middle of each ‘level,’ which meant that as soon as we passed onto the third ramp the sounds from the marketplace vanished. There was also only enough room for us to walk single file, and even then it was so cramped I had to duck my head down slightly. I started to feel short of breath as the claws of claustrophobia began working their way into my mind. The walls were closing in, pressing down on me like Bloodcurdle’s hoof into my back, and Bright Light’s into my chest.

I would have broken down right then and there if it had been pitch black, but luckily the ponies who had constructed this creaking stairwell had put small bulbs in the corner of the ceilings on each ‘floor,’ and they illuminated everything in a steady pale light. As it was, I still barely managed to hold myself together through what seemed like an endless series of turns up an endless series of ramps. At least the smell of onions was starting to fade.

I breathed a sigh of relief when we finally reached the top. We emerged from the cramped stairwell into a wide hallway. As I followed Spare Parts I realized that this upper level was what passed for this city’s living quarters. We walked by many openings; some were doors that lead to rooms, others branched off into more hallways. In some of the rooms we passed I could see tattered beds, piles of trash, and the occasional cracked mirror hanging on a wall. Others were empty, and a few had ponies occupying them. Most of the rooms that still had doors had them closed, and presumably locked. I felt a light draft sweep around me, but I could not see its source.

“What were all these rooms for?” I asked. It seemed a bit odd to have all this in a food processing plant.

“Oh, uh, I-I dunno,” Spare Parts answered, obviously startled at my sudden question, “I guess they were where the, uh, workers lived. M-must have been easier than commuting every day.”

“Hm.” Now she was stuttering a bit, and that made me even more wary of her. By now her initial burst of feeling toward me had died down, and I no longer had a glimpse into her emotions. Why was she acting so nervous? She had no reason to—well, no, that wasn’t true. Tumbleweed had helped enslave her at one point, so if anything it was odd that she was willing to help me at all. Yes I had freed her, but even then...

Again my head throbbed. By Tartarus I needed to sleep.

Finally, we stopped in front of a set of double doors. Spare Parts pushed them open with a hoof and I followed her inside into what must have once been this facility’s common room. It was large enough to hold a small gathering of ponies, and I saw that it had several side-doors that lead to bathrooms and a few other facilities. The sawed-off bottom of a rusty circular tank sat in the middle of the room, turned into a table, and around it sat two stallions and a mare playing cards, all of whom gave us apathetic glances as we stepped through the doorway. A pair of defunct vending machines sat in the room’s corner, their insides long since ripped out and reused. Against the back wall I saw that another conveyor belt was being used as the table for a bar, while several stools had been fashioned from old machine cogs. More ponies sat at the bar, and they were attended by a tan stallion who looked over at us the moment we entered.

“Hey Parts,” he said as we walked up to her, “who’s your friend?”

“Hey Ray,” she replied, “This is T-Tumbleweed. He’s the pony who saved me, actually.”

“Tumbleweed?” His eyes narrowed at me. “So he’s th’ pony who enslaved you.” I balked at the venom in his voice.

“Ray!” Spare Parts whined, “W-we’ve been over this. He saved us—he didn’t have too. B-besides, he was reluctant from the start. It was only those others who were real vicious.”

“Oh yeah?” Ray retorted, “Well why was he gettin’ involved with them in the first place, huh?” Though his question was directed at his friend his glare was aimed at me.

“I, uh—” Think. What did I know about Tumbleweed? He had angered Garlic. Disliked slavery but had taken it up anyway. That meant— “I didn’t really have a choice, uh, I was in a pretty bad situation and I needed the money—er, caps. It was Boss who got us into that sorta raider shit. I would have busted her out of there sooner if I could have.” I was about the add that I swore to Celestia, but that seemed a bit overdramatic.

Good. You’re improving.

“See, Ray? He ain’t so bad,” Spare Parts added.

Our words seemed to work, and the stallion’s stare, though it was still not friendly, softened. “Well... why’d you bring him here, though?” he asked.

“He s-said he needed a place to stay for the night. I thought you might have a spare room.”

“Oh, is that all?” He turned around and pulled a copper colored key from one of the boxes behind the bar, then set it in front of me. “Here, this is for the room that’s six doors down to the left as you walk out. Since you saved Spare Parts and all I won’t be chargin’ you triple for being a slaver—” At those words, Spare Parts opened her mouth to protest, but he shot her down with a harsh look. “—so that’ll be fifty caps.”

As it turned out, that was all I had on me. I dumped out my wallet and thanked them both before taking the room key and turning to leave. I might have been a bit too abrupt, but I didn’t see much point in sticking around. As I walked away I heard Spare Parts renew her earlier protesting.

“Light Ray, for the last time, he’s not a slaver if he’s saving ponies! Stop being so distrusting.”

“Look, Parts, I know you like to think the best of ponies, but be realistic for once. Nopony just up and decides to be heroic after putting up with and participatin’ in so much Celestia-dammed brutality for so long. That just don’t add up.”

“S-so what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that something’s off about him. I’m saying he’s up to somethin’...”

I wasn’t worried about that odd lump of emotion I’d felt in Spare Parts anymore. She obviously hadn’t been leading me to a trap—she was probably just nervous about me and how Light Ray would react. I settled on that as the explenation. I was too tired to keep worrying about it, anyway.

The room, as promised, was six doors down. It wasn’t particularly spacious, but it had a vanity with a cracked mirror and, more importantly, a bed, so I was happy. As soon as I locked the door behind me I toss all my stuff into the corner and flopped onto the bed. The mattress was nothing but a sheet wrapped over hay, but it was enough. Immediately, my eyelids felt leaded, and my body relaxed into the stiff surface. The only thing that prevented me from falling asleep right then and there was the realization that I was still Tumbleweed, but a brief burst of magic fixed that problem—I slept undisguised, because that way felt better somehow. More natural, I guess.

I didn’t have long to wonder about my preferences before my mind drifted off into a well-deserved slumber.

Footnote: Level up.
New Perk: Leech - Whenever experience is earned by anyone close to you, you receive 1% of what they earn, down to a minimum of 1 point of exp. You cannot level up with experience earned this way.

Author's Notes:

This chapter took a bit longer to get out than I anticipated, mostly because I had to make sure I was getting all that exposition exactly right. Anyways, thank you all for reading, please leave any and all comments and/or criticism you have below.

Also, thank you to Kkat for creating this universe in the first place, and all the others who have worked so hard to help expand and enrich it. You're all really awesome. /)^3^(\