My first day in the Wasteland consisted mostly of walking and chatting with the rest of the group. However, on the way I couldn't help but notice a few very weird things happening: first we found seven little garden gnomes set up together in a little hole with pickaxes, then we found a dead guy sitting at a table with some playing cards and four red balls, and finally we came across a skeleton in a refrigerator that was wearing a Daring Do getup. For each occurrence, I got a strange little icon in the upper left of my EFS that showed a walleyed pony (much like a non-ghoul Ditzy Doo) and an ellipsis. It looked a little like this (6_9) …

However, other than that… it was very boring. I got to chat with my traveling companions a little bit though, and got to know them a little bit better, with the exception of Calamity, who kept to the air. First off, there was Chess, the group’s leader. We didn't interact much, but we did swap PipBuck tags in case we got separated for whatever reason. Better safe than sorry right?

Chess spent most of his time with Chisel, a unicorn from Tenpony Tower who carved the statue we were carrying and was accompanying us to fix the statue with his magic in case something caused it to break along the way. His coat was sky blue (at least if the pictures of the sky in books I’d read were accurate) and his mane was light purple. He had a very ornate looking cutie mark of a block of marble with a hammer and chisel crossed over it. From the way he complained about the commonplace filth in the Wasteland, I’m guessing this was his first time out of Tenpony.

Calamity, as our pegasus, spent most of his time keeping a lookout in the air. It was too bad, I’d wanted to talk with him a bit, but I guess with raiders potentially running about it was best to have an eye in the sky. Especially an eye with two high powered rifles attached to it.

The other two permanent members of the Checkmate Company were Knight and Bishop. Knight was a dirty-looking green earth pony mare with a white crew cut mane. She was dressed in heavy combat armor that covered her cutie mark and was armed with a dual assault rifle battle saddle.

Bishop, on the other hoof, was a white unicorn with a dark green mane dressed in recon armor that covered his whole body. He always seemed to have a pleasant look of contentment on his face, as if he could see peace and beauty even in the stark Wasteland around him.

Then there was Tricky, a cream colored unicorn with a brown mane and glasses. He walked with a confidant gait and wore leather armor that was a lot like mine, but heavier. His cutie mark was a trio of grey colored apples.

We also had Stellar, a cute periwinkle earth pony mare with a dark purple mane and a cutie mark of a silver sheriff badge. She was dressed in light police barding with the letters "S.P.D” written on it.

And finally me, the blue guy chugging Sparkle Cola... Sparkle Cola which I very nearly choked on when I was startled by the thunder that shook the Wasteland. Seconds later, we were drenched in rain.

“UGH! I hate this place! I swear after this I’m never leaving the Tower again!” whined Chisel.

“I know. I got water in places it shouldn’t be,” griped Knight.

“Wait, shouldn’t it get everywhere when you bathe?” Bishop said, raising an eyebrow at her and magically creating a ceilinglike shield above us.

“'Bathe?' What the Hell is a 'bathe?'” she asked. Somehow I sensed she was serious.

“Relax, I know a place we can stay near here, just follow me,” said Chess casually, tapping a few buttons on his PipBuck. He then adjusted our path just slightly to the east, and in a few minutes led us to a small cave in the ground. My Pipbuck told me that I had found Stable 97.

“Wait… is this a Stable? Aren’t those kinda dangerous?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, 97 is harmless,” Bishop explained. “Its inhabitants were all wiped out by some kind of accident, and since then it’s been completely picked clean by scavengers. Now, however, it’s a perfect place for travelers to get out of the rain, if they know where it is. There’s not much else out here, and a lack of people to steal from makes it so there’s no reason for raiders to be here. Not only that, but it’s so well hidden that ninety-nine percent of the time we get the place to ourselves, and even then the locks on the doors still all work, so we’ll have privacy. The only thing we’d need to worry about is the geckos that get in sometimes, but they’re rarely a real threat.”

“Wow, that’s actually pretty sweet,” I said.

“As long as the place is dry I’ll be happy, or at least less miserable” groaned Chisel.

The cave to the Stable sloped down about ten feet, causing the rain to pool up to our ankles, much to Chisel’s disdain. Chess approached a control panel to the Stable door and pressed a few buttons, making the door slide back into the Stable, emitting the earsplitting screech of dozens of rusty gears, all screaming in protest over being forced to move… not unlike the way Chisel was screaming in protest over being forced to come in contact with anything remotely unclean.

As the Stable door swung open, we all rushed inside, Chess closing the door again immediately after we were all inside, lest the room become more flooded than it already was from the deluge escaping in through the door with us. The floor around the door was stained brown with rust, and the whole thing had an overpowering smell of mildew, most likely the result of previous flooding. Even worse than the smell was the sight of several ancient pony skeletons strewn about the room, their bones crushed and trampled by careless treasure hunters and scavengers over the years. That, combined with the dim, flickering lights, gave the entire place a foreboding aura of death and danger, despite Bishop’s previous insistence that the place was safe.

“Well, this is it, Stable 97,” said Chess as he led our pack brahmin to one of the walls where he hitched them to a pipe on the wall and gave them some food. “If we're lucky, the rain will have let up by morning, and we'll leave then.”

“Ah, Stables. I haven’t been in one of these since Stable 135,” said Tricky. “Stable-Tec had a really fucked up experiment for that one. Every major decision was made with a magic 8 ball, and it ended up telling them to pour toxic gas in all their air vents. By the time I got there, a brutal gang of raiders had taken over, and I had to clear them all out.”

I winced, reminded again of how lucky I was that my ancestors got out of their little death trap… although the ponies of Stable 135 must have been extraordinarily stupid to gas their whole Stable on the request of a children's toy.

“Any good loot in here, ya think?” asked Calamity.

“Funny you should ask, every time we come back here, there’s a bunch of bottlecaps and ammo and stuff in all the old lockers and crates that we thought were empty the last time,” Bishop said.

“Yeah, not like I’m complainin’ about it though. If some retard wants to leave his stuff for us to take, I won’t stop him,” said Knight, taking off her soaked armor and revealing the three speeding bullets on her thigh. She then started shaking the water off her coat… and onto everyone else.

“Hey! Watch it! But the free ammo and caps sounds good,” Calamity said.

“Alright, I’ll show you around if you want. I know this Stable from top to bottom. The only place I haven’t been in before is a locked room near the bottom, but it’s not like that's going to be even remotely relevant to us.”

“Mind if I tag along?” asked Stellar. “I hate having nothing to do, and I heard that you can find some pretty interesting things in these places. Even if there's nothing to scavenge, it's certainly an interesting piece of history.”

“I guess I’ll come too,” I said. I figured I had nothing better to do, and it’d be a good opportunity to get to know my companions better.

“Well, I know how dangerous some of these stables can be, so I’d better follow you guys too, to make sure you all stay out of danger,” said Tricky.

“Well, I don’t think there’s anything to be afraid of in this one. Just geckos,” said Bishop.

“What kind? Just the little ones?”

“Yup. No fire breathers in here, fortunately.”

“Heh, you should see the acid spewing ones they got up in the mountains. Fuckers were as big as a pony and could melt your flesh right off. Maybe I’ll tell you about ‘em while we’re down here.”

“Lookin' forward to it! Knight, Chisel, Chess, you guys wanna come with us?” Bishop asked.

“No, I’m just going to find someplace to lie down and pretend I’m not here...” whined Chisel.

“And I think I’ll just find some place to lie down and pretend he’s not here,” said Knight. “Besides, I’ve seen this place like a bajillion times, and it’s boring as Hell. Plus I got a date with a Playmare magazine and a couple bottles of Applejack Daniels!”

“Ugh, you vulgar mare!” Chisel said, scowling accusingly.

“Um, Knight, can I have a word with you for a moment?” asked Chess, who led Knight down a hallway and into a nearby room where I guess he thought we couldn’t hear him and proceeded to give her the verbal equivalent of a chainsaw to the face. “Listen! Chisel is very respected back at Tenpony Tower, and his words carry a lot of weight which could be great or terrible for business from ponies in the Tower, so I want to make a good impression on him. The problem is that it’s hard enough keeping him happy out here in the Wasteland where he’s out of his element, and you and your… youness isn’t helping. Now stop fucking this up for me!”

“What? How do you weigh a word?" asked Knight, genuinely confused.

What we heard next was a strange, dull noise. My first thought was that Chess bopped her on the head, but then I realized that the sound was far too hollow and echoey for that, like he hit an empty coconut.

“OW!” Knight groaned. “Fine, I won’t talk about drunken clopping while the rich guy’s around… prude.”

As Chess and Knight came back out, I looked back at Chisel, who was chuckling to himself, in the best humor that I’d seen him in all day. Huh… I would have expected dropping an F-Bomb and hitting a mare to have a less positive effect on someone from high society, but something told me that Chess had just earned a few brownie points with him.

“I’m sorry about my associate, Chisel. I assure you, she’ll be watching her tongue far more closely from now on,” said Chess.

“Ha ha… It… haha… It’s quite alright,” the aristocratic sculptor said, still trying to suppress chuckles. “Perhaps you can tell me a bit more about your other enterprises a bit. I suddenly find myself in a rather good mood, and certainly an ambitious pony like yourself has more than a few interesting stories to tell about your escapades in the Wasteland. I may not be much of an outdoorsman myself, but I’ve always had a weakness for tales of ponies who are a little more inclined towards adventure.”

“Oh of course. As hard rough as a life in the Wasteland can be, as you’ve seen, it often makes for a great story afterwards. I remember once a year or so back when I was hired to rescue a group of ponies that had been kidnapped by a gang of Red Eye’s slavers…” Chess said as he led Chisel down the hallway and around a corner, grinning from ear to ear at the chance for more face time with an influential pony.

“Ha. If that guy wanted stories about badassery, he should have come to me,” said Tricky dryly. “I once wiped out an entire slaver camp and saved at least five dozen slaves, all alone and with only a silenced 11 millimeter.”

“And I once wiped out a raider camp while sloshed out of my mind, but ya don’t see me braggin’ about it,” said Knight. “Anyway, like I said, I’m gonna get drunk and clop. Later, assholes!” She picked up her discarded gear and walked off down the hallway as well, but took a deliberate turn in the opposite direction from the one Chess and Chisel took.

I gotta say, Chisel had the right idea about her. "Is she always like that?" I asked Bishop.

"Pretty much," said Bishop. "Still, what she lacks in manners, brains, common decency, and moral fiber, she more than makes up for in combat skills. Believe it or not, putting up with her is more than worth it when the chips are down."

I was gonna have to see that to believe it.

Still, now wasn't the time for being annoyed by a mare that wasn't even with us at the moment. Now was the time for pointless and probably unrewarding adventure!

The first place Bishop showed us was the residential areas, which was probably also the most important, as the former homes of the Stable's previous residents would probably be where we slept tonight. We also left our barding there to let it dry off, taking only our saddlebags and other light gear. Bishop said we wouldn't really even need the protection, since the geckos were hardly a threat, and anything they did would be nothing that a sip of healing potion couldn't fix. I gotta be honest, I was kinda glad to get out of my barding; after going basically naked for twenty-one years, it was really odd to have its weight on me. I couldn't imagine how Bishop could put up with barding on his whole body, let alone Knight, who had the same thing with METAL.

When picking out my room for the night, I didn't have very much criteria, mostly just that there wasn't a skeleton in the bed, like there was in the first room I checked. Funny story; I actually didn't notice until I decided to rest my legs as the rest of the group got their own rooms ready. I just plopped down on the bed, when I felt something poking me in the ribs. I got up, took the covers off, and... well, let's just say there are few things more capable of making me scream than realizing that I just laid down in a dead guy, most of their bones crushed or missing to the point where it was able to lay unnoticeably flat.

The second room on the other hoof was just right: nice and corpse free. It did, however, have an active terminal. I expected my teammates to take a little more time before Bishop showed us the rest of the Stable, so I decided to take a look at it.

The opening screen was divided into three different folders: My Info, Status Updates, Messages, and Games. I decided to pick "My Info." It led to a screen showing numerous different bits of info about the pony who owned the terminal, including a picture with a surprisingly high resolution compared to what I normally thought these terminals were capable of, depicting a rather old mare, perhaps in her fifties or so. Beneath the picture was a list of basic biographical statistics about the mare and a short, self written description.

Name: Bon Bon

Sex: Female

Special Talent: Candy making

Relationship: Single

Interested in: Mares

About me: Before the bombs fell I worked for the Ministry of Morale, and before that I was a candy maker in Ponyville. It's been really hard for me ever since the bombs fell, not just because of the transition to Stable life, but because my wife, Lyra, was in Canterlot at the time and didn't make it in here. I know that I can never replace her, but I've been trying to move on. I think that's what she would have wanted, but I just don't know if I can. I really hope there's someone in here for me though.

Below Bon Bon's bio, there was a button that said "Edit." Out of curiosity I clicked it, only for a message to pop up saying that there had been too many failed password entries, and that I should contact one of the Stable's long dead admins.

I backed out to the first page again, this time choosing "Status Updates."

BON BON

I'm leaving. The radiation outside can't be any worse out there than in here. If anyone's still alive to read this, goodbye.

Like. Comment. Share. 198 years ago.

BON BON

I just managed to force my door open and all I could find in the hallways were corpses. Everyone else's doors are locked, and I couldn't hear anything inside most of them, except weird animal growing noises from a couple... I think that scares me more than the silence. Please, if anypony can read this, answer me!

Like. Comment. Share. 198 years ago.

BON BON

It's been two days since the first explosion and nopony's posted anything...

Like. Comment. Share. 198 years ago.

BON BON

There was another explosion just now. I'm so afraid... I don't wanna die yet.

Like. Comment. Share. 198 years ago.

BON BON

I haven't got any updates from my friends, so I'm sending Friend Requests to everypony else that I can get to, hoping to find someone.

Like. Comment. Share. 198 years ago.

BON BON

Help! Something's wrong with me! Something's wrong with my skin and I can't get my door open!

Like. Comment. Share. 198 years ago.

BON BON

Is everyone all right? I'm not getting any updates from anyone and my PipBuck's Geiger counter is clicking like crazy! I'm too scared to leave my room, what's going on?

Like. Comment. Share. 198 years ago.

WATERDROPS

i feel sick

Like. Comment. Share. 198 years ago.

OVERMARE GLITTERDUST

Everypony please remain calm. The sound and shaking was the result of... something that you need not worry about. Nonetheless, please CALMLY report to your rooms immediately, where it is safe. Not that anything unsafe is going on, just that you will be even more safe than normal in there.

Like. Comment. Share. 198 years ago.

GINGERBREAD

Bullshit.

198 years ago. Like.

PERIWINKLE

We're all going to die, aren't we?

198 years ago. Like.

See all comments...

BABY'S BREATH

What was that sound?

Like. Comment. Share. 198 years ago.

WATERDROPS

Did anyone else feel that?

Like. Comment. Share. 198 years ago.

Before I could read anything else, I heard Bishop calling. "Hey, Click, you okay? We're waiting on you!"

I realized that I'd lost track of time looking through the terminal, and immediately ran out to greet my companions."Sorry, I found a terminal in there and kinda lost track of time reading through it."

"Oh yeah, you got Bon Bon's room, one of the only ones that still has an active terminal. I read some of that before, pretty interesting stuff," he began to explain the whole history of the Stable, like he was some kind of overenthusiastic tour guide. "Like most of the Stables, Stable 97 had a creepy experiment performed on its inhabitants. This one was meant to test a theory that ponies would get along with each other better if everypony was exceedingly open about their lives. To do this, all of the Stable's inhabitants were given use of a Social Networking program called MyStable, which allowed them to tell everypony else about what they were doing every minute of every day and were encouraged to use it as much as possible. Of course, nopony knows what kind of effect this had on the ponies, since after two years there was a catastrophic accident with the Stable's nuclear reactor, causing it to leak radiation into the place and killed all of its inhabitants, the only exception being Bon Bon, who was turned into a ghoul and managed to leave for the Wasteland. Fortunately, since then the reactor has died out or something, preventing any further radioactivity, and the Stable has switched to a slightly less effective backup energy talisman to power the place."

Bishop led us further into the Stable to the elevator. From what Bishop said, every Stable was different, but elevators were very rare. It looked kinda old, but Bishop insisted that it was safe and could support all of us, which it did just fine.

Each floor was specialized for a different function, but when Calamity got there, the only purpose any of them was able to serve was "scavenger hunting ground". The floor we came in on was mostly residential, but, as Bishop explained, also designed for defense in case of attackers from the outside. The next floor down had even more space for Stable dwelling ponies, and the floor below that had a cafeteria and some kind of rec room. Below that, an empty field of dirt which Bishop said used to be an apple orchard that was supposed to feed the whole Stable. The last two levels were meant to have higher security than the upper ones, but fortunately the locks in the elevator rooms there had been long broken into so we had no problem getting in. Even the armory, the first of the two lower floors, was left wide open to us. Below that, there was a single floor for storage rooms, maintenance rooms, and the Overmares office, but only the storage rooms were accessible. The rest were down a hallway behind a door that didn't work. As we went through the Stable, we came across several containers that by all logic should have been empty, yet still contained a bounty of ammo, caps, scrap metal, even cigarettes and clipboards. We all shared the caps and took whatever kinds of ammo our respective guns could use, but only Calamity had any desire for the rest of the stuff, which he indiscriminately shoved into his saddlebags.

When we entered the main storage room, we saw that it was filled to the brim with several crates and lockers just waiting to be scavenged. I think I saw Calamity start drooling before he darted into the stacks of boxes, finding cap after cap and bullet after bullet.

I rolled my eyes at the scene. Sure, I couldn't complain about the free caps and bullets I was getting out of this, but in the big scheme of things, what Calamity found wasn't very much, only about a dozen caps apiece when we divided it all. It was about that time however that I noticed Bishop's cutie mark, a group of green stars. I thought for a second that maybe it was about literal stars or something, but given the Enclave covering the sky up, that would be a real lousy talent. "Hey, Bishop, what's that cutie mark mean?" I asked.

"My cutie mark? It symbolizes my skill with magic," he said.

"Magic? You're lucky, that's gotta be so useful," said Stellar. "I thought for a second that maybe it was about literal stars or something, but given the Enclave covering the sky up, that would be a really lousy talent."

"So, what kind of spells do you have?" I asked. My own spells were typically the kind used for communication. In addition to basic levitation, I could throw my voice, make sounds louder, even play sounds I've heard like a holotape, and several other things of that nature, but I'd always wondered what it must be like to have such a diverse pool of abilities at your disposal.

"Oh, lots of them. I can make shields, shoot lightning out of my horn, heal wounds, all sorts of things. Maybe I can teach you and Tricky some since we're down here," offered Bishop.

"Wait... teach us? Can we do that? I thought we could only have spells related to our special talents," I asked, hoping that I was wrong. I wanted to shoot some lightning!

"Well, not all of my spells of course, and without a talent for magic you'll probably never be able to do it as well as me, but not everything is black and white regarding special talents. You know Applejack, the Minsistry Mare of the M.W.T., right? Her special talent was farming apples, but she was also allegedly a great athlete and the best baker in Po-"

"Yeah, I know all about her," interrupted Tricky, "I got friends in the Steel Rangers. They let me look at some memory orbs of Applejack's. You didn't hear it from me, but apparently she had a lesbian affair with Rainbow Dash in the early years of the war."

"Wait," said Stellar, "you're friends with Steel Rangers? And they let you look at their stuff? They're complete xenophobes, how'd you get that much on their good side?"

"Oh, believe me, it wasn't easy. They were trying to get into a Stable that had been overrun with Hulkhounds, and I volunteered to help them out if I could have a bit of the loot."

"Hulkhounds?"

"You know, those big, digging monsters that can cut through anything with their claws."

"Don't you mean Hellhounds?"

"Oh, uh yeah, I do. They called 'em Hulkhounds where I'm from. It's a regional thing."

"Yeah, and you wiped out a Stable full of them? On your own?" Her incredulousness was almost tangible.

"Yes! I used stealth!" insisted Tricky. "I just used one of those StealthBuck thingies and with a lot of patience and waiting, I cleared the place out. Afterwards, the Steel Rangers were so grateful for it that they made me an honorary member. They taught me to use power armor and everything."

"Power armor... but you're a unicor-"

"Hey, Bishop, what were you saying about Applejack before Stellar so rudely interrupted you?" Tricky said, rapidly changing the subject.

"But you were the one who interrupted hi-" Stellar was about to object before Tricky shushed her.

"Nonononono," Tricky said, waving a hoof at her. "Let Bishop tell his story. If you wanna talk, wait your turn."

"Tricky, shut up," I said, unable to stand by and watch as such shameless jerkitude took place. "You were the one who interrupted Bishop; she interrupted you, and even then only to point out that your story has more holes than a target board made of Swiss cheese after visiting an acupuncturist."

Tricky could only stammer a bit while Stellar chuckled. Click 1, Tricky 0.

"Well... uh..." Bishop resumed, losing his place after the argument. "Oh! Anyway, as I was saying, Applejack's special talent was farming apples, but she was multitalented far beyond what a single cutie mark could show. Athleticism, baking, even sharpshooting once guns were invented. Who knows, maybe her cutie mark just took the form of whichever one she discovered first. That's my theory anyway, but it's beside the point. Basically, just because you have a talent for one type of magic doesn't mean that you can't do any magic related to some secondary talent or something. Even then, I've seen a few ponies who had a limited magic skillset but for some reason also knew a weird miscellaneous spell that doesn't fit anything else they do, like a mustache growing spell on an otherwise magicless caravan guard. So I figure that you may as well try to learn something new. Even if it doesn't work, there's no harm in an attempt, right?"

"Sounds good to me!" I said. Bishop's theory on multiple talents kind of made sense when I thought about it. I'd always loved the thought of helping ponies talk to each other, even if it was just fixing radios so ponies could hear the DJ, but I was also just good with repair and tinkering in general. I didn't have any spells for that (I wasn't even sure what kind of spells there were that were meant for repairponies) but if I had more than one talent, then maybe, just maybe I had more spells than just communication.

"Yes!" Tricky said enthusiastically, willing to completely forget the massive amounts of scorn we had just piled on him if it meant a shot at learning a few new spells. "Teach me something! I can't be stuck with just stupid levitation for my whole life!" I had a small pang of sympathy hearing that (VERY small, like premature baby midget pygmy amoeba levels of small, but it was there). Nearly every unicorn I had ever met had at least some magic beyond levitation. It was useful, but I can't imagine getting too much done with just that. It was like being only half a unicorn.

Bishop nodded, "Alright then. The first spell we should try is probably one of the most useful spells there is for a pony in the Wasteland, and one of the easiest to learn for unicorns in general: shields." His horn glowed green, and a matching bubble of solid magic appeared around him. "If you can stay focused, these things will block bullets for you even better than most armor can. The only downside is that it's very hard to shield and use other spells at the same time. Still, this thing is a real lifesaver if you can do it." The shield disappeared, but then Bishop's horn glowed again and created another one, this one a flat wall instead of a bubble. "Bubbles provide 360 degree cover, so they're the better ones to use, but flat shapes are good if you want to conserve magic, or if you're blocking a hallway. To do either one, you simply need to use the same type of magic that you use for levitation, but focus a whole lot of it in a specific area in the shape that you want."

Both me and Tricky gave it a shot. A few yellow sparks fell limply out of Tricky's horn, his magical ability apparently insufficient to perform the spell. Hoping I had more of a talent for it, I focused my power into a into the shape of a wall in front of me, like Bishop had done. At first, I thought it wasn't working, but then I noticed that my snow white magic was beginning to congeal into a solid shape. It started off small, around the size of a tack, but then it began to expand outward until it was as big as my hoof, my eye, my head... and then it just kinda got stuck there. It had still been more than I expected though. Experimentally, I moved the little buckler of a shield around a bit and found that I could make it sort of dance around me. I briefly entertained the notion that I could move it around really fast and achieve the same effect as a whole shield, but I knew that realistically that was just impossible. In a moment of whimsy, I tried molding it into a bubble shape, and it almost looked like a little parasprite. Sure at that size it was useless, but at least it was cute.

"Wow, even if at that size it's useless, at least it's cute," commented Stellar. Hey, that's what I said... or thought, whatever.

"Yeah, plus its more than most ponies can do, maybe there's some other spells that you can use at their full power," said Bishop.

"Yeah, yeah, he made a little ball. Now can we try something else? How about that lightning spell? I wanna have a spell that can kill stuff!" Tricky said.

"Alright then. This one is obviously dangerous, so make sure you do exactly as I say," Bishop said as he levitated a bunch of empty boxes and arranged them into two stacks against the wall. "Click, you take the one on the left, Tricky, you got the right. Now, this time, instead of using the same type of magic that you use for levitation, you need to make this magic feel more electric and focus it in the tip of your horn. Once you've charged it enough, release it in a certain direction. Sometimes, though, ponies can't give their magic that electric quality, so if you can't do that, you could try a laser attack, which basically works the same way but without electricity. The only problem with that is that it's more concussive in nature and you have to put a LOT of force into it for it to be useful in combat, otherwise it'll just kind of tap the target harmlessly.”

I couldn’t get the ‘electric’ feeling in my magic that bishop was talking about, so instead I opted for the laser spell. I let it charge up in my horn, and unleashed it at the boxes.

Plink!

I think I moved one of the boxes by at least half a centimeter. So much for me shooting lasers…

I looked sideways at Tricky, electricity arcing around his horn, and a determined look in his eye. It looked like he could actually do it!

ZAP!

Lightning burst from his horn, but it wasn’t a direct bolt directed at the stack of boxes. The spell went wild, bursting from his horn in all directions. Still damp from the rain, everypony there got a good shock, but fortunately nothing we couldn’t just walk off. However, the lightning also struck at the walls of the room and traveled into the electrical system, which had the much more profound effect of knocking out the light in the entire Stable and sending us into complete darkness.

Bishop illuminated the place with his horn, as did me and Tricky. We may not have known many spells, but light was even easier than levitation.

“What just happened?” Calamity asked, carefully hovering towards us.

“I think Tricky just shorted out the Stable’s energy talisman. Didn’t I tell you to focus it toward a specific spot?” said Bishop.

“I thought all I had to do was point my horn,” said Tricky sheepishly.

“Oh no…” Stellar said, her face growing pale. She turned and ran back toward the elevator, where she began to frantically press the ‘UP’ button to no avail. “Guys? How are we going to get back up?”

“Don’t worry,” said Bishop. "This is going to be really inconvenient, but we’re not trapped forever. Worst case scenario we’re stuck here until Chess finds a way to bring us back up. It may take a day or two, but he has the resources get us out and there’s no way he’d just abandon us. Trust me, in all my time working for him, I’ve found that Chess can always be counted on for two things: being greedy with caps, and being good to his employees. Plus he knows exactly where we are since he’s got Click’s PipBuck tag.”

“Oh… Alright, so at least we’re not totally screwed. Still, is there any other way out of here? I’d rather not have to wait two whole days for Chess to rescue us.”

“Well… there is one other possibility… If Tricky just blew a fuse or something, then all we’d need to do is replace it. The only issue is that both the electrical room and everything else we’d need are all stuck behind that broken door. The only through is if we fixed it.”

“Just fixing a door? I've been a repairpony for the past seven years, maybe I can take a crack at it?” I suggested.

“That’s good. Ah’d do it, but Ah cain’t see a dang thing without a horn,” admitted Calamity.

Bishop showed me to the door. Like all of the Stable doors I’d seen here, it was the type that slid upward into the wall above rather than swinging in or out, and it was controlled by a panel next to it.

My first thought was that there was something wrong with the electronics that prevented the panel from working, and maybe without the electricity it could just be forced open. Unfortunately, even with all of our combined strength, it wouldn't budge. There was one other way though: if I opened up one of the walls I could probably remove whatever mechanism was keeping the door in place. Fortunately, there was a metal plate above the door that was easily removable for easy access by maintenance workers. One I removed that, I could see a system of gears that allowed the door to move up or down. I figured that maybe I could just remove one of the gears and loosen the door that way, but unfortunately they seemed to be attached using a type of heavy bolt that would need some kind of power tool or other device that was much stronger than anything I had. However, after looking closely at the gears one more time, I saw something: a tiny metal washer stuck between two of the gears. It must have fallen in there back during whatever disaster killed the Stable’s original inhabitants. With a bit of force, I was able to pull the little thing out. Once the gear was free, I tried moving the door manually again. It was sort of heavy, but nothing we couldn’t move with enough force.

“That’s it?” I asked. “I had to remove a washer? This Stable’s been exposed to all sorts of prospectors and scavengers for nearly two hundred years, and I’m the first pony with enough repair skill to do that? I’ve literally been out in the Wasteland for a day!”

“That’s nothing,” said Tricky, “on my first day in the Wasteland, I disarmed an unexploded balefire bomb!”

Y'know, my BS senses had been tingling every time Tricky opened his mouth, but this one really took the cake.

"Y'know, my BS senses have been tingling every time you've opened your mouth, but this one really takes the cake," accused Stellar (really, again?.) "You disarmed a freaking balefire bomb? That's not the kind of thing anypony besides a trained expert from the war times should be capable of, let alone some random kid on his first time in the Wasteland! You've been bragging about supposedly awesome stuff you've done all day, but you haven't made one claim that I don't doubt."

"Oh really?" Tricky said, staring her down. "Well, I may not look it, but I'm the best damn Wastelander out there, and I've done more badass stuff this past year than you'll ever do in your lifetime!"

"I was a sheriff in Stalliongrad and I helped bring down a gang that was selling chems to foals," she deadpanned.

Tricky glared at her, then turned and took a few steps away. As he did so, I noticed that a little picture of a musical note popped up in my EFS... Oh tell me he's not...

Slow, melancholy music began to play...

He is...

{{Tricky is Best Pony, set to the tune of Crystal Fair Song}}

"You think that I'm full of it?

That every time I spoke I have lied,

If you lived in my shoes

Let me tell you, you would have died

I'm telling you the truth

and I'm gonna make you see

Fact of the matter is Tricky is the best pony."

From that point on the song sped up a bit and Tricky's voice filled with the same confidence we'd come to expect from him.

"I've killed whole gangs of raiders,

Stables are a walk in the park,

I've scrapped four giant robots,

I have a third nut that glows in the dark!

"I am telling you the truth! I am gonna make you see!

Fact of the matter is Tricky is the best pony!

"I once found a peacefull village

but their defense was weak as glass

Once day slavers tried to take them,

So I kicked some slaver ass!

"I am telling you the truth! I am gonna make you see!

Fact of the matter is Tricky... Is the best pony!"

As Tricky ended the song and the music from nowhere disappeared, my PipBuck gave me another notification saying "Tricky is Best Pony MP3 now saved." What? No! I didn't want that!

Stellar, distracted by a PipBuck recording unwanted songs for her, immediately pointed out an obvious inconsistency in his song. "Tricky, we're naked and in nearly complete darkness, so I can plainly see that neither of your nuts are glowing."

"Well, I had it removed, obviously. I kept it in a jar for a while, until I used it to kill a power armored alicorn. POW! One hit right in the head took the bitch down!" Tricky gloated some more.

Stellar just stared at him for a moment and said "Y'know what? I'm not even mad at you. You stick to your principles. Now let's go replace that fuse. Bishop, lead the way."

Bishop did not know anything about the Stable's layout from beyond the door, but it seemed fairly straightforward. There was a hallway with several highly specialized rooms (which Calamity swore to loot once we had enough light.) There was a PipBuck technician's room, a room full of repair parts for terminals, even a room dedicated entirely to plungers. Finally, we did find a room with electrical equipment in it, including spare fuses. The fuse box, however, must have been in another room. We continued on, taking a few fuses with us.

At the end of the hall was a staircase leading one floor down (I guess Stable-Tec foresaw the disaster of having the fuses and fuse box separated by an elevator) but next to the staircase was the Overmare's office; I couldn't resist taking a peek. Stellar stayed with me while the rest of the group continued on. Like me, she was the curious type.

Lighting the place with my magic, I could see that the Overmare had a small bookcase with several Pre-War books (score! I loved reading!), a clock, some picture frames, and a few other knick-knacks lying around which I didn't find worth a second glance. Slumped over the desk was the Overmare herself, or at least her skeleton, slumped over in front of her terminal which was still glowing with the aid of its internal battery.

I walked over and saw that she had died in the middle of writing something, another update to MyStable I guessed. Carefully, I levitated her bones out of the way and into a corner so Stellar and I could read her last message.

OVERMARE GLITTERDUST

In regards to the loud noise and shaking you all must have felt recently, it appears that there has been a VERY MINOR incident involving the Stable's highly volatile deadly nuclear reactor. I assure you, this is NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. Our engineer, Farm Freak, has been specifically trained to handle this type of situation. The fact that he should have easily been able to prevent this SHOULD NOT make you worry about his ability to fix it, I assure you, he can. By tomorrow we will all be able to look back on this and laugh :) On a COMPLETELY UNRELATED note, if any of you have any secrets or confessions that you need to get off your chests, any good books you've wanted to finish, or have yet to have your first kiss, et cetera, there is no time like the present, I always say! NOT THAT THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE, I'm just saying we should all live every day like it's our last, you know what I'm sayfr bvgfctd ec

I noticed that the gibberish at the end corresponded roughly to the keys where the Overmare's skull had been.

"Emphasis does not equal credibility, Glitterdust..." Stellar chided the long dead pony.

I stared at the skeleton sympathetically. The whole thing was just sad. "She'd been trying to keep everyone calm even while radiation was leaking throughout the Stable," I sighed. "But there was no way she could have hid that kind of thing. If her own message didn't clue them in, their PipBucks would have."

Stellar's gaze fell on the corpse as well. "She was trying to protect hope. Even if there was no chance for success, she had to try. Even if the end result was just one pony showing that message to their foal and saying 'see, the Overmare says everything is going to be fine,' her attempt would have been worth it..." I turned to look at her and saw a tear in her eye.

"Hey... Are you okay?" I asked.

"I... I guess I'll get over it in a second. I was just thinking about all those ponies who died here. And Glitterdust there used her last moments alive to try and give them hope. To try and make everything better..." She choked on her words. "And now she's... look at her!" She turned away from the skeleton.

No.

From Glitterdust.

I suddenly realized that that wasn't just a skeleton, that used to be a living, breathing pony, no different than me. Then I remembered the skeletons at the entrance of the Stable, and the bones in that one bed I'd laid in. Up until now, they were just bones, leftover bits of ponies that died... Now, they were from ponies that had once lived. The one in this room was Glitterdust, the Overmare of a failed Stable who did everything that she possibly could have to bring even the smallest bit of hope into the dying moments of her citizens. There was also Waterdrops, a poor pony that lived just long enough to tell her friends what she thought was happening to her. All those skeletons in the entryway weren't just bones, they were a bunch of ponies swarming to the door, desperate for a chance to escape their imminent deaths only to fail and have their remains casually kicked aside by scavengers wanting to loot what had once been their home. And what kind of panic must have filled those last minutes of the Stable dwellers' lives?

I shuddered and placed my foreleg around Stellar, who had started to cry. "It's okay," I said. "They're in a better place now."

"Heh. I'll say... Sorry I'm kinda freaking out like this. I've just never seen this many corpses in one spot before. Y'know, there used to be a time when this kind of thing didn't happen, back before the war. All this senseless death in the Stables, the gangs and raiders, heck, practically every last bit of suffering we go through in the Wasteland, it all used to be completely unthinkable," she said, wiping a tear out of her eye.

"It will be again someday, I think."

"Maybe... But it won't be for a good while." She paused a moment, as if absorbing the meaning of her own words. "That's kinda why I'm out here you know? I was hoping that maybe I could do some good for the world, make it just a little bit more like the way it used to be. Me and my family have been keeping the peace in Stalliongrad for a while; Police work is sort of like a family business I guess. But one day I decided that the rest of my family could take care of the place and I've been out here trying to spread the same peace and justice we have in Stalliongrad to the rest of the Wasteland. I haven't really had that deep of an effect obviously, but let me tell you there has never been a town that's been worse off from me being there. Whether it's helping to fight off raiders or just tossing a few caps to a beggar, I try to leave things better than how I found them. That's my way of bringing justice to this unjust world. In fact, a long time ago, I decided that was my Virtue; Justice, that is." She had stopped crying now and was starting to smile at her memories of the good she'd help bring about.

"That's a good way to live," I said. "If more ponies did that, then maybe things would be as good as they are in Stalliongrad."

"Thanks Click Click. Not just for the compliment either, I needed someone to vent to about the Stable ponies and all."

"Anytime," I said. "And I need to thank you too: I've heard about Virtues before, but I never thought of mine... I should probably get one, shouldn't I?"

"Yeah, that is pretty important," she said, nodding. "But don't worry, you'll figure it out soon enough. Some say it comes as naturally as a Cutie Mark Talent. In the meantime, unless you want to do more in this room, let's go catch up with the others."

BANG!

A gunshot rang out from down the staircase, followed by even more.

"Yeah, they're probably gonna need us down there..." she added as we drew our weapons and rushed down.

Since we were running and they hadn't been, we caught up pretty quickly. They were toward the far end of the hallway, fighting off a small horde of geckos. Fortunately, by the time we reached them, the last Gecko had been taken down. Just as Bishop told us, they were barely a threat.

"Yeah, we sure wiped the floor with those suckers, didn't we, guys?" said Tricky, blowing smoke from the barrel of his gun.

Calamity nickered in annoyance "Tricky, the first thing you did when them geckos jumped out was drop yer gun. Ah saw you lookin' fer it the whole time me and Bishop were wipin' 'em out. Then when you actually found it again, you fired one shot and it missed, and then Ah killed the last gecko and the fight was over."

"N-No, I hit a different one than the one you were thinking of, that's all. And even the best of heroes drop their guns sometimes, right?"

"No. Nopony with the title of 'best anything' drops their gun."

As they were arguing, I noticed a red line on the compass at the bottom of my EFS. I immediately turned toward it, just in time to see a single Gecko jump out directly at me.

I brought my shotgun about, aiming it directly at the creature's chest and pulled the trigger. It hit it right in the middle of the ribcage, blasting the creature backwards onto it's back. The red line on my EFS disappeared. The whole thing happened over the course of about one second.

"Wow, that was a nice one! Good reflexes there!" Stellar said.

"Not bad for beginner's luck..." Tricky said, his voice betraying obvious jealousy.

"Yeah, it was mostly my PipBuck helping me see it coming," I admitted, although my mind wasn't really in the conversation. I was busy staring at the Gecko. All it took was one shot, one quick motion on my part, and it was dead. I didn't feel guilty about it, I knew I would have to kill something sooner or later and this was just a Gecko anyway. Still, I was almost taken aback by how easy it was to kill it. If somepony, like a raider, wanted to kill me, all they'd need is one good shot...

I guess I'd just have to see them first. Too bad raiders don't have EFS, heh heh.

It didn't take long for me to snap out of my little mini-trance. We were on our way again after just a moment or two. This floor had a wide hallway that lay directly at the floor's left side. It had only one door, one that led to a single massive room that held a giant supercomputer, undoubtedly the thing that allowed MyStable to keep working. There was another staircase to another floor, but first we decided to check out the computer room, just in case. It turned up empty, with only giant CPUs, but as were about to leave, we got another surprise...

"Hey! What are you punks doing down here?" called a unicorn from the room's entrance. He was using his horn for light, and it was so bright that I couldn't see his face under it, but the gruff, rocky voice told me enough about his appearance: he was a ghoul.

Bishop was the first to step forward. Despite being taken aback by the ghoul's sudden appearance, he quickly and plainly explained the situation. "The power went out through the whole Stable, and the elevator isn't working. We were trying to find the fuse box to fix it so we can get back up again."

"Hmph. I guess that would explain why MyStable isn't responding... Still, it's not your job to take care of the electricity in this place, it's mine. I didn't go through all that training to learn how to maintain a nuclear reactor just so a bunch of hooligans can try and do my job for me. Also, where's your barding? And what's with the guns, those are for security personnel only!"

"Wait..." said Stellar, "Nuclear reactor? Then... Are you Farm Freak?"

"Well duh! Of course I am! Even if you didn't know that I'm the electrician, surely you'd recognize the best Farmville player in the whole damn Stable! Level 417,859 and counting."

"What? Ha! He actually thinks we're from the Stable! What, does he not even know what happened?" Tricky said.

"Tricky..." Bishop warned.

"News flash, dummy. We aren't wearing Stable-Tec barding because we aren't from the Stable. We're from outside. Your Stable was wiped out by radiation almost two hundred years ago. You're only alive now because the radiation turned you into a ghoul, which is basically a zombie," Tricky said, ignoring Bishop.

"What? What kinda stupid, ridiculous story is that?" Farm Freak accused.

Wouldn't you know it, the one time Tricky tells the truth and it's still too far-fetched for the guy to believe.

"Wouldn't you know it, the one time Tricky tells the truth and it's still too far-fetched for the guy to believe," Stellar whispered to me.

"Y'know, that's the third time so far that you've said exactly what I was thinking. The first time could have been a coincidence, but now it's getting to where it's just creepy," I joked. I mean, obviously I didn't think she was really reading my mind or anything, but it was pretty weird.

"Wow, that is creepy. I mean, obviously I'm not reading your mind or anything, but that is pretty weird."

... Dang that's unnerving...

Meanwhile, Tricky was still trying to tell Farm Freak about his condition, "Don't believe me, just look at your reflection."

"You idiot!" Bishop seethed at Tricky, "Don't you know that that kind of trauma can make a ghoul go feral?"

It was too late to do anything. Farm Freak had already dimmed his light enough to where he could use the metal surfaces of the MyStable computers as mirrors. I was able to see him too, but I didn't enjoy looking. I know that ghouls are just normal ponies on the inside; heck, everyone in my family loved Derpy back home, but, well... their faces took a bit of getting used to.

Farm Freak's eyes grew wide as he saw his scarred face, all traces of fur gone and his flesh in shambles. "Oh shit!" he screamed in terror from seeing his ruined visage. "Oh shit..." he repeated in awe, realizing that Tricky was telling the truth. "Oh shit!" He said again, shocked at how much time had passed. "Oh shit..." his voice grew sad with the knowledge that everyone he knew was dead. "Oh shit... Glitterdust was always saying I was neglecting that reactor... Part of it must have burst, that would explain the radiation leak... Dammit, Glitterdust's gonna kill me!"

"Um, dude, Glitterdust is dead, haven't you been paying attention?" Tricky said.

"Oh... so I'm off the hook then?"

"'You're off the hook?' Is that all you have to say!?" Stellar stepped forward angrily, his last comment rubbing her the wrongest way possible. "Your whole Stable is dead because you didn't take care of that reactor right!"

"Hey, I had a good reason! I had to take care of my farm. Farmville is a demanding game!"

Stellar looked about ready to buck his head off, and Calamity looked ready to hold him down so she could. I wanted to
help too, but really holding someone and kicking them was just a two pony job.

"Guys, from the looks of things this guy's been playing that game for the past two centuries, he's clearly not right in the head," said Bishop.

"Who cares how crazy he is now? Even when he was a normal pony he was neglecting his job and got everypony killed," Calamity said coldly.

"Yeah, yeah, I know I screwed up," said Farm Freak, as casually as if his accidental mass homocide was a mere faux pas, "but what do you want me to do about it now? Go back in time and take care of the reactor? Let's worry about getting that fuse fixed so I can get back to my game. Come on, I'll show you where the fuse box is." He turned around and led us back out of the room.

That little... I clenched my teeth, holding back anger. I didn't know what I wanted to do to Farm Freak, but I didn't want to just let him go on contently with all that blood on his hooves. He wasn't outright malicious, but his sheer apathy toward what happened was just unforgivable!

"Let it go guys..." Bishop said to me, Calamity, and Stellar, "getting angry won't fix anything, and his mind is clearly warped. He just realized that he's been ghoulified for two centuries but two seconds later all he could think about was that game. No sane pony could get over that so fast. Even if he was bad in his mortal life, he isn't worth your time now."

Wordlessly, we agreed, but I was still angry. Glitterdust and the others deserved better.

Farm Freak led us to the bottom floor, which finally held what we were looking for. In the center of the room was a giant, defunct nuclear reactor, a huge hole blown out of its side which also looked to have taken out one of the walls, revealing dirt and a tunnel on the other side, explaining how the geckos had been getting in. On the far side of the room was where Farm Freak claimed the fuse box was held. We briskly ran to it, eager to get some better light than our horns alone could provide. We were so relieved that our job was done, we didn't even notice the strange sound behind us as we passed the reactor...

"*BZZT* INTRUD*BZZT*ERS DETEC-EC-EC-ECTED!"

Oh no...

We looked back, seeing a trio of robots floating around from behind the reactor, blocking the way back.

Robots... why did it have to be robots?

Each one was about one and a half times size of a pony, with three long, spindly arms apiece which each ended in a different interchangeable tip. On each robot's chassis, somepony had stenciled names for them: Nuts, Bolts, and Irving.

... Wait, 'Irving?'

"You three..." Farm Freak said, turning and approaching the robots. "You're the Stable's utility robots. What are you guys doing down here?"

Nuts, the robot in the middle, floated forward and spoke for the group, albeit with several speech impediments, the results of zero maintenance for nearly two hundred years. "WE WERE WERE WERE *BZZT* WERE SENT IN A LAST DITCH EFFORT TO REPAIR THE *BZZT* REEEEEEEACTOR THAT [Farm Freak] RUINED WITH HIS NE-NE-NE-NEGLIGENCE. SADLY-LY, OUR MISSION FAILED. WE NOW AWAIT FURTHER ORRRRRRRR*BZZT*-DERS. IDENTIFY YOURSSSSSSELF OR BE DESTROYED."

"What? I am Farm Freak, ya stupid robots!"

"NEGAT-T-T-T-T-TIVE. [Farm Freak] WAS MUCH UGLIER THAN YOU ARE. *BZZT*! COMMENCING VIOLENT DISMEMBERMENT!"

The three robots rocketed toward us, each brandishing one of their arm weapons. Nuts had a pair of buzz saws, Bolts opted for a flamethrower, and the Irving used a mop despite another one of his arms having a freaking plasma gun on the end of it. Thankfully, their speech systems weren't the only thing that had been damaged by the ravages of time.

Bishop took out the extra fuse we had grabbed and gave it to Farm Freak. "Here, we'll stay and fight, you get the lights back on. Our horns should be enough for now, but I'd really rather have better light when my life's on the line." The ghoul didn't have to be told twice.

Bolts went for Calamity instantly, setting the pegasus aflame. While Calamity immediately darted away to a safe distance to try and put the flames out, Bolts turned his attention to Bishop.

Nuts decided to go for me, rapidly whirling his arms around three hundred and sixty degrees and charging straight toward me. I fired my gun at him, but only got off one glancing shot before I realized I had to reload, and I was NOT going to just stand there reloading while I had a whirling death-bot coming at me, so I turned and ran.

Irving, the mop bot, decided to go for Tricky.

"HA!" Tricky laughed, "What are you going to do, clean me to death?"

The robot then punched him in the face with the mop, causing Tricky's nose to spew blood.

"OW! Damn robot! Take this!" Tricky drew his gun and opened fire, getting three direct hits before Irving smacked the weapon aside. As Irving hit the gun with the mop, he pulled another one of his arms forward to attack with: the plasma gun.

Irving looked at the weapon confusedly and said, "OH, I FORGOT I *BZZT* *BZZT* HAD THIS. I SUPPOSE I SHOULD HAVE USSSSSED IT FIR-FIR-FIRST. HAHA, ISN'T THAT FFFFFUUUUNNNNNYYY? NOW YOU WILL BECOME GOO AND DIE. IT HAS BEEN A PLEASURE KILLING YOU."

Irving placed the gun right on Tricky's forehead and... nothing.

"IT SEEMS MY WEAPON HAS JAM-JAM-JAM-JAM-JAMMED. PLEASE WAIT WHILE I RESOLVE THIS ISSSSSSSUE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR *BZZT* PATIENCE."

Regardless of how politely Irving asked, Tricky was far too scared to stay and wait... or control his bladder for that matter.

"HEY, YOU STUPID MEATBAG!" Irving yelled as Tricky took off, "YOU KNOW *BZZT* I AM THE ONE WHO HAS TO HAS TO HAS TO HAS TO CLEAN THAT UP, RIGHT?"

Irving immediately forgot about the battle all around him and immediately put his mop to use, a fatal mistake, as Calamity had managed to put his flames out by now, but had most certainly not forgot about the battle. With one more shot from his battle saddle, Irving went down once and for all.

Meanwhile, Bishop was facing off with Bolts. The robot was spewing a constant stream of fire, forcing Bishop to either dodge or shield himself the whole time. While the robot was distracted by Bishop, however, it left itself open to a few gunshots by Stellar.

"IT SEEMS THE EAAAAAARTH PONY IS THE GREAT*BZZT*TER THREAT. NOW CHANGING TARGETSSSSSS," the robot decided.

Big mistake. The second Bolts gave Bishop an opening, he received a few million volts of magical electricity courtesy of Bishop's horn.

"*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT*! WARNING! WARNING! FLAMER FUEL CELLS IGNITED! EXPLOSION IMMINENT!" Bolts yelled even as his optic sensors popped from the supercharge.

Bishop immediately cast a shield around the robot, which expanded with a loud BOOM. Thankfully, however, he was able to hold it, the explosion somewhat contained already by Bolts' chassis.

At about that point, Farm Freak must have gotten the lights on, because the whole room was lit with light... revealing me running like heck with Tricky tier cowardice from Nuts.

Stellar opened fire on the robot, hitting it near the bottom, right in its levitation talisman, dropping Nuts right to the ground.

"UMM... UNICORN, PLEASE STOP RUNNNNNNNING. MY LEVIT*BZZT*ATION TALISMAN IS BROKEN, SO I MUST *BZZT* ASK YOU TO STEP CLOSER SO THAT I MAY SLICE OPEN YOUR TRACHEA," Nuts said, flailing his buzzsaws about.

I turned and looked at the crippled machine. He was hardly scary when he could only attack things within a range of four feet, especially when his opponent has a gun. I took my time reloading, he looked kinda funny stuck on his side like that.

"NOW, INTRUDDDDDDER, DON'T BE A PO-O-O-O-O-O-OR SPORT. PLEASE *BZZT* ENTER MY KILL ZONE SO THAT I MAY PROPERLY MURDER YYYYYOU."

I finished loading the gun and cocked it.

"COME ON, ARE YOU AFFFF*BZZT*RAID TO DIE? WHAT ARE YOU CCCCCHICKEN? BAWK BAWK BAWK." He folded his arms like chicken wings and flapped them around, accidentally cutting them off with his buzzsaws as he did so. "*BZZT* UH... I MEANT TO DO THAT *BZZT*. I STILL STILL STILL STILL HAVE A LITTLE PINCCCCCER ON THIS LAST *BZZT* ARM. PLEASE COME WITHIN RANGE SO THAT I MAY PINCH YOU TO DEA-"

I cut him off. "If you think I'm gonna do any of that..."

BANG!

"You're Nuts."

Tricky walked up to me, his eyebrow raised, "'You're Nuts?' As in his name? Did you really just say that? That has got to be the worst joke ever!"

"Well at least bad jokes aren't as embarrassing as if I had wet myself."

"I-I didn't wet myself! I was sweating!"

"You were sweating solely from between your legs?"

"Yes, it's a rare medical condition called... uh..."

"Oh, wait, I think I've read about that actually. I think it was called 'incontinence' or something."

He looked surprised, but quickly started nodding in agreement "Yeah, that's right. I have incontinence. Whatever makes you believe me."

I chuckled to myself. What an idiot!

"Is that it? Was that the last one?" Farm Freak called, peeking out of the fuse box room.

"Yeah, that was all of them," said Bishop. "You can come out now!"

"Alright! Now I can get back to my game! My poor crops need me!"

"Is that really all you care about?" Stellar said, confronting him again. "Your entire Stable, all of your friends, died because you couldn't get off that game long enough to do your damn job! And now you yourself are a ghoul, and in case you haven't noticed from living two hundred years, you're basically immortal. Yet still all you want to do is play that game?"

"It's fun watching myself level up," he said, shrugging. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm on the verge of hitting level 417,860."

As he walked by, he got knocked out cold by a cheap-shot buck to the head, courtesy of Stellar.

"I hope that level is worth the hundreds of lives it cost, asshole. Come on guys, let's get out of here and leave him to his precious game."

After Calamity looted what he could from the scrapped robots (what a pack rat!) we began our trek back up to the elevator. As we did so, I approached Stellar.

"Hey, thanks for saving me back there," I said.

"It was nothing. I'm sure you would have done the same."

"Well let's hope so, because I definitely owe you one."

"Yeah... It's too bad I couldn't have done that for the Stable though..."

"You're still hung up on that?"

"I know, there's nothing I could have done, but... I mean, everypony's dead except for the guy responsible, and the guy doesn't even care. Where's the justice in that?"

"Well, you kicking him in the head was some pretty decent payback."

"Yeah, that was fun... but what did it fix? All the punishment in the world isn't going to bring Glitterdust and the others back, and it's not like I'm gonna kill him just for being a negligent moron. Heck, even me kicking him was probably wrong in some way. One thing I learned in Stalliongrad that the Wasteland is only reinforcing is that once injustice happens, it's written in stone, and there's nothing you can do except sweep it under the rug and try to stop it next time..."

I felt her pain. The Wasteland was a cruel place; that's part of the reason I hadn't left New Appleloosa in years. After I lost my mother, my family just wanted to avoid all of the evil it brought with it. That's why we settled in New Appleloosa; after traveling a while, we just decided to settle in the place that seemed the nicest. We didn't learn about their connections with slavers until later, but we found that the rest of the place made up for it. Besides, even if other people in town traded with Old Appleloosa, you sure as heck won't find anything that my family ever built or repaired in that cesspool.

Then an idea came into my mind. Thinking about my home reminded me of the Uberclock schematics on my PipBuck... There was a clock back in the Overmare's Office, and I'm sure Calamity had salvaged some scrap metal and at least one microfusion cell from those robots... If I just put one in the MyStable room and set it to go off in a couple hours...

The thought made me tingle. How fitting would it be for that jerk Farm Freak to have his game, the thing that he valued more than the safety everyone else in the Stable, destroyed by a well placed bomb? He would have nothing left, and maybe without that little distraction, he'd see just how much of a monster he is for his carelessness. The despair might even drive him feral...

NO! Where the heck did that come from? I wanted the guy to get what he had coming to him, but that was going too far! He was bad, but he was just stupid. Death or feralness should be reserved only for the real monsters, those raiders and slavers out there.

Soon enough, we reached the elevator again, our saddlebags filled with loot from the lower floors, (namely books in my case) and rode back up to the top floor.

When we got back up, we had quite the story for the other members of our group. Chess had been a little irked at us when he found out that we were the ones who had taken out the electricity, but he quickly got over it when we told him about the valuable loot on the lower floors, which he decided to go back and collect. Knight, on the other hand, was less forgiving since, as she put it, 'what was the point of having a bunch of pictures of hot stallions if it was too dark to see them?' She had ended up just falling asleep early, though she still managed to get wasted first. Chisel was particularly disgusted when he heard about Farm Freak... infuriatingly, however, he was more concerned with the fact that Farm Freak was a ghoul than anything else. We didn't even need to mention how he had wiped out the Stable.

We assembled at the front door the next day, Chess' pack brahmin and cart loaded with a bounty of loot from the lower floors. My own saddlebags now held the weight of a couple of the Glitterdust's Harry Trotter novels. Much to my excitement, she had had the whole set! My joy at being able to read the whole series from start to finish was almost enough to distract me from the fact that my barding was now stiff as a board from being soaked and then dried out again... I wish somepony had told me leather did that... Ah well, I was still learning.

Chess opened the Stable door once more. Despite the huge puddles and ankle deep mud in the Stable's entrance tunnel, it looked like the rain had stopped last night.

"Come on then," said Chess, "we still have quite a ways to go."

"Don't remind me..." muttered Chisel as he looked at the mud.

Unlike the hesitant Chisel, I just casually popped open a Sparkle Cola and trotted through the muck. After being chased by an insane robot last night, getting a little dirty was nothing. Surely our adventure didn't have too much more to throw at me than that, right?

Right?

Footnote: Level up! ... NOT! What did you expect? You only killed two things!

Next time on Fallout Equestria: Wild Wasteland, Chisel has a confession to make about the statue, Tricky has another lie to make himself look good, and the ground below Golden Harvest Acres has a bunch of sinkholes under it ready to swallow up the entire Checkmate Company! Can Click Click and his new friends survive? Of course they can! I'm not gonna kill everyone only two chapters in!

Author's Notes:

Those poor, poor Stable ponies... There's a moral in this somewhere about the evils of video game addiction. I mean, seriously, if you're going to put video games before real life, there's something wrong with you, now let's wrap this Author's Note up because I almost have Braeburn's fifth star and I really want to get it ASAP.

What? I'm totally in control!

Anyway, one of the things I felt like mentioning was the three robots at the end. My first thought for their names was Grunt, Blunt, and then the third one would have only a C and the rest of it rusted over or something as a reference to the Tarboy animation by Hania and James Lee. The same people also made a MLP video too recently, so check them out :3

And of course, another thank you to the fans, Tutis, Trivial, the Fallout and MLP teams, and Kkat. Plus I would like to apologize to the people behind Farmville. This fic's portrayal of Farmville was simply a parody of video game addiction in general, and was not in any way intended to dissuade people from playing it. After all, it's not ENTIRELY Farmville's fault nearly a thousand innocent adorable ponies including mares and foals are now dead.

One last very important thing: Blueberry Twist is unfortunately too swamped right now to preread very much, so he had to drop out, meaning we'll have to find a replacement. If anypony out there wants on the team, feel free to leave a comment :3