The world was awash in white, biting cold cutting to my core. My hooves crunched through the deepening snow, each step slower than the last. I squinted against the endless white but I could only see a wall of snowflakes. I tried to reach out with my talent, maybe I could stop this before I froze to death. I flapped my wings, trying to halt the snow, but the wind only blew harder, and the storm blinded me. I held my wings over my face, my breath sounding weak and labored against the howling wind. Just keep walking, step, step, step, st-

My hoof caught something, a rock, a piece of ice I couldn’t be sure, and I tumbled. On Instinct I flung my wings out to try and lift off the ground, but the storm drove me down into the snow. The cold was painful, spiking at my exposed skin like a thousand frozen needles. I tried to lift myself up, but the cold sapped all power from my limbs. I lay there, my wings resting on the drift into which I had fallen, my muzzle barely in the air as the snow piled higher and higher…

With a violent shudder I awoke, freezing my tail off. Scrunching into a ball, I hissed against the chill. “W-wh-what the fuck?” I whispered. “Wh-wh-why is it s-s-s-so c-cold?” Not only was it cold, it was dark. I looked around for some indication of the freezing conditions, and spotted two figures lying still. “Scout? Clarity?” I asked, my voice rising with worry.

My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. I could make out my friends more clearly, and I could see the steady rise and fall of their breathing. Okay, sleeping, not dead, good. That scare over, I continued to search for why it was so freaking cold. My mane was still wet with melted snow from my time in the miniature weather factory observatory. I pushed strands of gray out of my eyes, spotting the blanket I had been sleeping under. It was bunched up several feet away from me. I must have kicked it off in my sleep.

Grabbing the blanket, I wrapped myself up tightly and lay back down on the uncomfortable stone floor. Closing my eyes I tried to fall asleep again, but was beset by images of my frozen body buried in a snow drift. No sleep for me then. Hugging myself with my wings, I tried to ignore the biting cold. I wouldn’t go wandering off, not after what happened last time. Instead I laid there, huddled and alone in the dark, scared to death of sleep. “Goddesses it’s cold in here…” I muttered.

Meager glints of sunlight were peeking through the dirty windows when my companions stirred. Scout was the first one up, waking almost simultaneously with the sun. I wondered faintly how such a light sleeper managed to not wake up during my nightmare-induced thrashings. “Sleet?” He said in a tone that suggested he had called my name a few times already.

Jolting slightly, I looked up from what I was working on. “Huh, what?”

“I asked what you were doing.” The earth pony repeated, trotting over to me and the scattered arcano-tech pieces on the floor.

“Oh, just uh….” I looked dully down at the pieces, what was I doing again? Oh yeah! “Just some maintenance, on uh” I dipped my head down and picked up a partially disassembled Black Powder. “zish.” The word ‘this’ being scrambled by the handle in my teeth. I wasn’t holding the gun at all properly in this state, which caused the orange focusing gem to slip from the casing. “Oh shht shht shht!” I slurred, scrambling to catch the gem.

Scout reached out a hoof and deftly caught the gem before it could smash on the floor. He handed it back to me and I mumbled a vague thank you while I slotted the gem back in its place. “Are you okay? You’re really out of it.”

Gently laying the gun down, I shook my head to clear a few cobwebs sticking to my brain. “Yeah, I’m okay, just a bit tired.”

“How long were you up in that observatory?”

“Not long, but I couldn’t sleep very well after I left.” My eyelids felt like they had dried to the point of sticking to my eyeballs. I blinked and it took far longer than it should have to open my eyes again. “Nightmares again…”

“Do you ever actually get a full night’s sleep?” Scout asked, his voice laced with concern.

“Um, I think the last time I did was when a bloodwing nearly drained me dry and I passed out…”

Scout was silent for a second before saying “Okay, come with me.”

“Huh, wait, why?”

“We are going to be going into incredibly dangerous territory soon and the last thing we need is you being dead on your hooves.” He trotted off, motioning to follow. “I found a Sparkle-Cola machine last night but didn’t loot it at the time.”

“What’s Sparkle-Cola got to do with keeping me awake?” I asked, scrambling to reconstruct Black Powder while following Scout. This involved me skipping on three or even two hooves while I fumbled with the pieces. Only when I was nearly finished with the reassembly did it occur to me that flying would free up my hooves to work while I moved. Flapping into the air, I completed my gun and flew after Scout.

“Sparkle-Cola is caffeinated.” He answered, not paying attention to my fumbling. “It’s not as good as actual sleep, but it’ll keep you from dropping out cold in the middle of a fight.” We came up to the vending machine, still somehow illuminated despite years of neglect. The glow was barely visible through the thick layer of dirt, but I could faintly make out a pegasus mare looking unreasonably happy about having this soda.

“I guess it’s still working.” I said, leaning in to examine the machine. There was a coin slot, requesting a single bit for the soda inside. “I wonder if there are any bits around here…” I muttered idly, looking about the room. I flapped over to a nearby desk and began rummaging through it, hoping some worker from long ago had left spare change in the desk drawer. My search was interrupted by a grunt of effort and a loud cracking sound. Jumping at the noise, I whirled around to find Scout standing before the pried open machine, a crowbar in his mouth. I stared blankly for a second before exclaiming “What the Hell!?”

Scout put the crowbar back in his saddlebags and gave me an incredulous look. “What?”

“You just…just… broke into it!” I sputtered, gesturing wildly at the compromised machine with my hooves.

“Well, yeah.” Scout said, as if talking to a filly. “It’s not like anypony is going to care about a two hundred year old vending machine being broken into.”

The dissonance of having a pseudo-society on the surface where things were bought and sold, and thusly things could be stolen as well and such acts would be punished, and then casually breaking into a vending machine like it was the most natural thing in the world was baffling my sleep-deprived brain. “You surface ponies make no sense…” I muttered weakly, rubbing my head.

Scout just rolled his eyes and pillaged the machine for the sodas within. He handed me one of the bottles, saying. “Drink this, you’ll feel more awake in no time.”

I took the bottle and popped off the cap. I went to toss the cap away before remembering that it was actually money down here, so instead I pocketed it. One cap to my name, Las Pegasus here I come. I thought as I took the first swig. The soda was as flat as the paved roads in Stalliongrad, but had a delicious carroty taste all the same. Tasty as it may have been, I wasn’t feeling any more awake as Scout had advertised. “I don’t feel any different.”

“Give it a minute, once it hits your system you’ll be nice and bright-eyed.” The survivalist trotted away, saddlebags clinking with glass bottles. “Now let’s get back before Clarity wakes up and thinks we left without her.” I flew behind him, drinking my soda along the way.

An hour later we were all up, had a plan ready to go, and I was on my third Sparkle-Cola. Scout hadn’t been kidding! My brain felt like it was buzzing in a thunderstorm and the whole world was a few notches brighter. It wasn’t perfect though, I could still feel the effects of my sleep-deprivation. I was bone tired physically and sleep nibbling was at my focus like shadows at the corners of my vision. Still, it was a lot better than how I had been, and in my hyped up state I was eager to start the next phase of our plan.

Since we were going to the Crystal Empire, which according to Clarity was putting out radiation like a balefire bomb, we would need copious amounts of anti-rad supplies. I was extremely nervous about going into such an irradiated zone, we had been taught from foalhood in the Enclave that the surface is a cesspit of radiation and disease and we were conditioned to fear those things. But much as I didn’t want to have any part in anything radioactive we would need to go into the Empire eventually or we’d never be able to restore the Heart.

To that end, Scout suggested we scavenge as much as possible from any nearby ruins. If we were lucky, we’d find enough Rad-X and Rad-Away to keep us from melting without having to break the bank with some merchant. “There’s another thing we are going to have to do before we hit the Empire though.” I said after draining the last drops from my current bottle. “We will need to find the other crystal ponies before we even have a chance of charging the restoration spell.” Clarity took a breath to protest, but I held up a placating hoof, continuing. “I know they won’t want outsiders like Scout and I around. If it’ll help ease tensions you can go on your own, which will give Scout and I more time to scavenge for supplies anyway. We’d just need a way to stay in contact in the meanwhile.”

The crystal mare shook her head. “No, it’s not just that.” She said. “The problem will be finding the other crystal ponies, I don’t know if I’ll be able to.”

“Why not?” Scout asked. “Even if Cat O’ Nine Tails had you blindfolded the whole way, surely you must know the general area.”

“That’s not the issue, I could find where I had lived easily. The thing is they aren’t going to stay there after being attacked. We regularly moved to different hiding places once a generation. If anything went wrong the moving would happen immediately.” She shook her head. “The problem is even though I know where most of the different hiding places are, the one they would choose is random. We could spend days running around the Frozen North and not find them before we died of exposure.”

Well that certainly threw a wrench in the plan. “There has to be some sort of pattern to it.” I said, my caffeinated brain searching for an answer. “What are the hiding places like?”

“They’re, well, hidden.” Clarity said vaguely, clearly uncomfortable with this line of conversation. “Usually some kind of cave.”

Helpful. “Well, at least we are all dressed warmly.” Clarity had put her walking-pile-of-cloth disguise back on and Scout had wrapped one of the spare blankets over his Stable barding. My coat, especially with the extra layer of armor, was more than suitable. “We can afford some trial and error, besides Sombra didn’t give us a timetable.”

“Are you sure working with him is the best idea?” Scout asked, furrowing his brow. “I mean, I know we weren’t given much choice, and you have your plan to…” I held a hoof up to his lips and pointed at his PipBuck with the other. Huffing in irritation, he turned on the radio and light. “betray him.” He finished, giving me an irritated look. “And why do you have me keep turning this thing on when we discuss that? I don’t like the attention it draws.”

“I’m not sure how, but Sombra is keeping tabs on us, or at least me.” Checking over my shoulder, I half expected to see glowing green eyes behind me. “Considering how he introduced himself I think it has something to do with shadows. Dispelling as many of them as possible and keeping up a sound buffer is the best bet for avoiding him listening in.”

“But it’s just a guess.” Scout said flatly, clearly feeling no better about it than I did.

“It’s the best guess.” I said defensively. “We don’t know a lot about him, we need to work with what we have.” I turned to Clarity, who had growing noticeably darker when Sombra was brought up. “Unless there is anything else you can tell us?”

“I’m afraid I told you everything I know. Stories about Som…” She froze, her face twisting as if the name left a disgusting taste in her mouth. After a few seconds she continued. “Stories about him usually focus on how he was defeated, triumphant legends to help little fillies and colts sleep at night.” I envied those foals, my head was pounding in a weak but persistent way. “Anything else is a cautionary tale about letting dark emotions take you over, never anything about who he is or what he is really capable of. I don’t think even Celestia and Luna knew everything about him when they defeated him the first time.”

“So the only real measuring stick we have of his abilities is ‘capable of conquering the Crystal Empire single-hoofedly’?” I asked. Clarity nodded sadly, prompting a sigh from Scout and I. “Great, so my answer for why I have you turn on your PipBuck hasn’t changed, Scout.”

Scout nickered in irritation before speaking. “Then like I was saying, did you really have to agree to Sombra’s terms? I’ve seen your smooth-talking, couldn’t you have found a way out of actually fixing the Empire and tying yourself to him?”

I rubbed my head with one hoof, the same thought had been nagging at me. During my time lying awake I had run through my encounter with Sombra a thousand different ways. Each different hypothetical came to the same conclusion. “Agreeing to the terms was the only way out of there alive. He played his cards right, between having Coming Storm be the one to escort us and having the meeting be smack in the center of Stalliongrad. We’d never have gotten out of there without his protection, which he wouldn’t have given without my compliance.” I spotted a ruin ahead and dropped to my hooves, sheathing my wings as I did.

“But didn’t Coming Storm say he had been sent to Scrap River after somepony else?” Clarity asked.

“I don’t believe him.” But that wasn’t quite right, after a beat I corrected myself. “Well, I believe that he believed that. If Sombra is tracking me somehow then that means he could have sent Coming Storm on the pretense of looking for another knowing that he’d find me.” I groaned, trying to untangle the enigmatic shadow pony’s plans was making my head pound worse.

“This is why I don’t like getting involved in politics, too many ulterior motives.” Scout muttered. “It seems to be a regular thing with you though.”

I grinned wryly, my hooves crunching in the snow. “The joys of growing up in a democracy.”

Scout’s PipBuck labeled the ruined town “Heaven’s Point” and I could understand why. While it wasn’t quite a mountain, the hill that the town was built up around was definitely big enough to qualify as a landmark. The crumbling remains of homes and businesses rose in terraced rings around the hill, culminating with a castle at the top.

“Heaven’s Point…” Scout muttered, furrowing his brow. “I’ve heard of this place before. Ponies say it’s haunted.”

“Haunted?” I said incredulously. “Like, haunted by ghosts?”

“Yeah, but nopony can agree on what kind of ghosts. Depending on who you ask it’s either the ghosts of ponies from ages before the war angry that their ancestral home was bombed, or the vengeful spirits of ponies who died on the Last Day.” He looked up to the castle. It felt like the looming old building was watching us. “Guess I can understand why, this place is creepy.”

“What’s the matter Scout? Don’t tell me you’re scared of ghosts?” I had meant it as a joke to ease the tension, but the creepy town was getting to me as well, making my voice quaver. The old ruin was very clearly abandoned, but I got the sensation that it didn’t want us there. But that’s silly, a town can’t “want” things. I didn’t believe myself.

Silently, we entered the town, the sense of foreboding growing stronger. “Let’s get this done quickly.” Scout said, glancing about nervously. “Poke around the ruins, look for any indicators of good places to salvage and grab what you can from the rubble.” He bit his lip, mulling over the best way to go about it. “Bad as our luck has been with it so far, we should split up. My E.F.S. is coming up clean and it’ll make search go much faster.”

I was all for speed, for me the creepiest thing was that damn castle. I wanted to be out from under its gaze quickly. “Sounds like a plan, but try and stay close enough to call for help if you need it.”

With that we each set out to scavenge the ruins. Scout and Clarity searched the lower tier while I flew up to the ruins higher on the hill. Most of the roads had been destroyed, making climbing treacherous for my ground bound friends, so it was up to me to scout the higher terraces. Flying low over the rubble, I scanned for anything that stood out, but other than the occasional intact desk or trunk there wasn’t much.

The creepiness of the town did not fade with time spent in it. Several times I heard rubble shifting, but found no cause. The wind whistled mournfully through collapsed walls sounding like a chorus of the town’s former residents lamenting the destruction of their home. To top it all off the damned castle was omnipresent no matter where you were. Even when ducked behind a collapsed wall to shift through to debris I felt like I was hiding from a dragon.

Wanting to get out of the blasted town as quickly as possible, I redoubled my efforts. There had been the occasional lockbox or medicine cabinet with Rad-X or Rad-Away, but hardly the amount we needed. Rummaging through a desk, I found some bottle caps and little else.

I was about to take off again when something caught my eye. Clipboards were not an uncommon sight as I was beginning to learn. When Sister had said things before the War were made to last, she hadn’t been kidding. Usually I ignored them, but the paper on this one was actual readable. “Well, Scout did say look for any clues.” I muttered, scanning the page.

It proved to be worthwhile, the paper was a prescription written for whomever had lived in the house before the war, and the prescription had come from a hospital. The fact that the town had its spooky reputation meant it was relatively untouched, and if the hospital was equally pristine then that meant it was likely to be packed with supplies. “Jackpot.” I said, grinning fiercely. I checked the paper for the hospital’s location, and when I found it my grin faded. “Oh you’re kidding me…” I looked up to the creepy castle which, according to this paper, was the hospital. “Thunder and lightning, why there?”

I received no answer, except to feel a sudden, intense pressure around my neck. My hooves flew to my throat, but there was nothing there. Except something HAD to be there because I was being strangled! The pressure tightened and lifted me slightly off my hooves. Desperately, I flapped my wings, and the pressure lessened as I flew straight up.

It became a race, my wings against the invisible noose. I flew against whatever was pulling it tight, sucking in air whenever I gained a bit of an advantage. Slowly, painfully slowly, I started to win out. I had been barely keeping ahead of the noose’s tightening, but now it was beginning to waver. The town was getting smaller and smaller below me, and I could faintly make out a glowing light behind a wall where I had been standing.

Finally I go out of range of whatever spell was causing this. And a spell it had to be, I could see a pony shaped shadow under the glowing light and as it sputtered out the figure galloped haltingly over the uneven terrain. My vision flashed red. “Oh Hell no!” I growled, diving towards my assailant. The approach was rapid, the little unicorn growing larger with each passing second. I beat my wings, creating a coating of frost on the rocks ahead of my attacker.

Screaming in shock, the off-white unicorn slipped on the frost and went down heavily. I landed, my legs spread over her with my wings flared and a cold wind blowing. Desperately, the mare lit up her horn. “What the FUCK,” I yelled, bringing my hoof down on the horn “is it with ponies trying to STRANGLE me!?” The unicorn screamed and tried to thrash out from under me. I increased the pressure on her horn and felt it bend dangerously. “Well? Answer me!”

“Get off me you brute!” The mare wailed, tears of pain leaking from her eyes.

“I want to know why you attacked me.” I growled, low and dangerous. “And if you try again…” I tensed my leg.

Her voice hiccupped out through broken sobs, hardly making her seem the deadly assassin. “Fine! Fine, I’ll tell you and I won’t attack! Just please stop, you’re gonna break it!”

I raised my hoof and took a step back. The unicorn sat up, rubbing her horn and whimpering pathetically. When she looked up she was met with the barrel of Black Powder, I wasn’t about to take any chances. “Shtart talkin’” I said around the grip, trying very hard not to slur.

“Not my fault you are a pegasus, too stupid to stay away from the haunted town…” An orange bolt of super-heated magic shot by, close enough to singe her brown mane. She screamed, tucking into a ball. “We just want to be left alone! We spread rumors the town is haunted so you ponies will stay away! But some of you outsiders are just too dense to get the message and come here anyway, so we have to take action!”

So enraged was I that I dropped Black Powder to scream at her. “And that action is to,” My eyes widened as something hit me “kill ponies?” Shit, Scout and Clarity! Picking up Black Powder I left the mare, whom I just realized was wearing a suit of ornate Stable barding. No time to mull that over, blasting off as fast as I could, I scanned the rubble for signs of my friends.

A blur of green stood out, Scout was rushing over the uneven terrain as fast as he could. Dropping altitude I pulled up next to him. “Good, you’re alive.” He gasped, eyes shifting between the rubble in front of him and something in the bottom left corner of his vision. I could only guess it was his E.F.S. “Have you seen Clarity?”

“No.” I spat around the handle of my gun. “What happened to you?”

“Unicorn tried to trip me up and break my neck, shot him, grazed his leg, he ran.” I was consistently impressed with Scout’s ability to stay alive. I supposed it really shouldn’t be a surprise, given all that’s happened. Rapidly shifting direction, Scout began skidding down the hill. “This way! One hostile one friendly!”

Even with gravity on his side, Scout had to be careful on his descent, and we couldn’t afford the delay. Well it worked once. I thought as an idea hit me. Flapping above Scout, I wrapped my legs around his belly and lifted him off the ground. We couldn’t get any real altitude, so it was more a repeat performance of my skipping-flight escape from Talon Mountain except with two ponies. With Scout’s directions we quickly found the contacts. Rounding a corner, we spotted the two figures, one on their knees. Scout skidded to a stop as I leapt off him. We both fell into firing stances, but before we could release a volley, we froze at the strange scene.

Another unicorn in fancied up Stable barding, this one a silver-coated stallion with a midnight blue mane, was kneeling before Clarity (who had lost the hood of her disguise), muttering “I’m so sorry! I had no idea!” Clarity looked at us, appearing as dumbfounded as Scout and I.

“Okay, what the fuck is going on?” Scout asked. The baffled mare shrugged.

The prostrating unicorn looked up at Scout’s question and became instantly incensed. “You fools, on your knees! Don’t you know to show deference to your betters?”

“Betters?” I said, tilting my head. Clarity wasn’t my better, Hell if I hadn’t freed her she’d technically be my slave. “Who are you?”

“I,” the stallion declared, putting a hoof to his chest “am Comet Strike of Stable 126. I’d ask who you are, but frankly I don’t care.” He turned again to Clarity and his imperious nature melted away to awe. “I care much more for you! A representation of a wondrous age, perhaps a sign! Tell me, what is your name?”

“Um,” Clarity said, looking flattered, annoyed, and uncomfortable all at once. “My name is Clarity, and…”

“A beautiful name! Most appropriate! Come m’lady, you must see the Stable for yourself and all the wonders it has to offer!” Magically, he grabbed Clarity’s hoof and began to drag her away.

“Hold on a second!” I protested, stepping forward. “You send assassins after Scout and I and now that you find Clarity you just leave?” A weird part of me felt cheated, if you were going to threaten the lives of two of us, then you threaten all of us damnit!

“Quiet, brute!” Comet Strike snapped, glaring at me. “Your meager lives will be spared, you must have some merit after all or Lady Clarity wouldn’t deign to have you in her entourage.” Wait, what? He thought Clarity was the leader of our group? “But know that if you reveal the true nature of this town then you shall suffer wrath unending! Be gone!”

The unicorn dragged the protesting Clarity away while Scout and I stood stunned for a solid ten seconds. Just as they were about to round a corner, Clarity looked back at us. “Uh, guys? Help?” I shook myself back to wakefulness and galloped after them, Scout close behind.

“Hey! Let her go!” I cried as we caught up.

“I said leave, brute!” Comet Strike called over his shoulder.

Taking to the air, I soared over the upstart unicorn and landed in front of him, my nose practically touching his. “And why do you keep calling me that?”

Comet Strike looked ready to hit me, but another voice spoke up. “It’s because you’re a pegasus, and pegasi are brutes.” I turned to see the mare that had tried to strangle me walking up to us.

“That’s ridiculous! What would make you say that?”

She shrugged. “It’s what we were taught. Pegasi are warlike brutes and earth ponies are lower class peasants.” She spotted Clarity and her eyes widened. “Oh Goddesses…”

Okay, we weren’t getting into this again. I purposefully stepped between the mare and Clarity. “What do you mean you were taught this?” I asked loud enough to not be ignored.

She looked irritated that I had blocked her sight, but I matched her glare with one of my own and she relented. “It’s how everypony in our Stable was raised. We are the unicorns, the aristocracy, the rightful rulers by birth. That is the way it was during the era of the three tribes and that is what it must be now.” She snorted, looking over the town walls to the Wasteland outside. “Still, the world is very dangerous. We have to be careful, take things slow or else we run the risk of biting off more than we can chew.” She turned her glare back on me. “Which is WHY we like keeping our town abandoned!”

“And why I told you to leave.” Comet Strike said. “Leave and never speak of this place!”

“We aren’t going anywhere without Clarity.” I declared, matching their glares.

The Stable pony sighed, rolling his eyes. “Listen, I’m sure you have some antiquated sense of ‘warrior honor’ or what have you, but your services are no longer needed. You probably made a fine bodyguard, but she will be perfectly safe in the Stable.”

“I don’t want to go to your Stable!” Clarity said, finally yanking her hoof free of Comet Strike’s telekinetic grip. “And they aren’t my bodyguards, they’re my friends!”

My heart soared at the same time Comet Strike’s sank. “But…but why would you befriend these barbarians?” He asked, his voice aching with confusion.

Clarity magically pulled off the rest of her disguise, revealing the scars along her back. The two Stable unicorns recoiled in horror at the sight. “Because they saved my life, and freed me from slavery.”

“Who would dare…?” The mare who attacked me whispered, eyes fixed on the scars.

“Out there, race doesn’t mean much.” Clarity continued. “After all, it was another unicorn that gave me these.”

“N-no.” Comet Strike stuttered, his eyes unblinking. “No, that can’t be true. We would never…”

“YOU would never.” Clarity said, cutting him off. “But YOU do not represent all unicorns.” She looked back at Scout and I and smiled. “But not everypony out there is bad, these two are testament to that.” I smiled back at the same time that my gut was clenching guiltily. The way I saved her hadn’t been completely virtuous after all.

The 126 unicorns looked at each other, their faces a mixture of confusion and horror. “Still,” Comet Strike began hesitantly “we would like for you to come see our Stable. At least so you can see what we have to offer.”

Clarity asked for a minute so we could decide. We huddled together away from the two unicorns. “Well? What do you think?” Clarity asked.

“I say we leave, they already tried to kill us once.” Scout muttered. “I don’t trust them not to try it again.”

“I don’t think they’ll attack if I tell them not to.” Clarity said, glancing back at the unicorns who were shuffling uncomfortably.

“They managed to make this place into a literal ghost town! They’re good at killing ponies silently, all they’d need a half a minute without you around. And since we just majorly challenged their world view, they’ll want us gone.” Scout said. Turning to me he asked. “Sleet, what do you think?”

I looked up at the creepy castle, er, hospital and came to an unpleasant decision. “We still need supplies.” I said, pursing my lips. “I learned that that castle is an old hospital, it may have what we need. I say we ask them about it, go loot it if we can, and get the Hell out of here.” The others looked as apprehensive as I felt about the place, but nodded. Turning back to the unicorns, I pointed to the castle with my wing. “I found something indicating that that old place is a hospital. The only reason we came here was to scavenge medical supplies, do you know if it’s still stocked? We’ll take what we need, get out of your manes, and you’ll never hear from us again.”

If they had been taken aback by Clarity’s scars, they were downright terrified when I mentioned the castle. “You want to go where!?!” The mare asked, eyes wide. “You can’t go to the castle! It’s haunted!”

My friends and I traded confused looks. “I thought you were the ghosts.” I said slowly. Damn it felt good to use that “talking to a naïve filly” tone on somepony else!

“No, no, no, we pretend to be ghosts to scare ponies away.” She said, shaking her head. “But up there…” She shot a worried glance up to the castle. “Up there are these…creatures. Guardians created by magic long ago. They didn’t die when megaspells came, and they still perform their duty. They protect the castle by killing anypony that enters. You can’t see or hear them coming until their claws are at your throat…”

“And has anypony actually gone up there?” I asked, cutting off her fearful rambling.

“Once, long ago.” Comet Strike said. “There is a tunnel directly connecting our Stable to the castle, it was a bastion of the ancient unicorns in ages past so it was only right that we would reclaim it. But when a scouting party went up there only one returned with stories of the geister and how they killed the others.”

“So do you know what these ‘geister’ look like or how to kill them?”

“Nopony has dared to go up there since the first scouting party went, and that was a hundred years ago after the Stable unsealed. But from what was said, they are unkillable. You destroy them and they just keep coming back.”

So all we had to go on was the word of a survivor of some mysterious attack one hundred years ago, great. These unicorns were sounding less like “chosen people saviors” and more like “xenophobic, superstitious cowards” the more I heard. “Listen, we need large amounts of Rad-Away and Rad-X, so unless your Stable would like to donate to the cause,” my asking for charity received the amount of haughty indignation I expected, “then we need to go up there.”

The two shuffled uncomfortably. Finally, the mare said. “Fine, we can show you the way up there, but we won’t be going in.”

“Fine by me.” I said, and with that we set off. The two unicorns knew the winding, uneven pathways up and down the hill well and were able to guide us effectively. The trip was mostly silent, which was starting to get to me. The castle (hospital, whatever) was still incredibly creepy. I’d almost believe it was haunted with the way it felt like it was watching us. Much as I disliked the unicorns of Stable 126, I needed something to take my mind off the castle and furthermore I was curious about them. “So why haven’t you connected to the outside world?” I asked.

“Like I said, it’s too dangerous.” The mare reiterated. “And we…aren’t as strong as we should be.”

“Opal!” Comet Strike admonished. “What are you doing?”

“They already know we’re hiding! What does it matter now?” Opal countered. Addressing me again, she continued. “There was a schism in the Stable about ten years ago. For ages we had been telling ourselves we would go out and restore the world and be welcomed as saviors.” That rhetoric sounded familiar. I looked to the clouds, unsurprised when I saw nothing but a gray sheet. “Well there was one pony, a popular noble named Guiding Light, who was tired of waiting. He built a huge following and took them out into the world against the wishes of the Overmare. Now we barely have enough ponies to run the Stable, and with more thinking of leaving every day.”

“I think I’ve heard of them.” Scout said, furrowing his brow. “Run around the Wasteland picking fights with ponies who don’t meet their ‘standards’? Walk into towns like they own them and try and ‘fix’ them? Call themselves the Seraphim?”

Opal nodded. “That sounds like them. Guiding Light was always zealous in whatever he did, but he was also impatient.” She sighed and hung her head. “He could have done real good in 126 if he’d stayed.”

That was also familiar, it was what a lot of pegasi thought of Rainbow Dash. It was one of the reasons becoming a Dashite was such a great dishonor for the defector and their family. By following in Rainbow Dash’s hoofsteps, they were not only proving their disloyalty, but also denying the Enclave their skills.

The conversation fell off as we neared the castle. Rounding the corner of a broken building, we came to the beginning of a remarkably well preserved pathway. The knee high stone walls were still intact and the paving stones looked like they could have been placed yesterday. The only sign of age was the skeletal remains of shrubs lining the winding path. In another time it would have been idyllic, now with the creepy castle and the dead plants it was just foreboding. The creepy factor was ramped up when I noticed there were gargoyles perched on ledges all over the castle. The grotesque bat-winged demons carved from stone held their vigil, watching over the dead town with empty grey eyes. “This is as far as we go.” Comet Strike said. “Go in, get what you need, and leave quickly. Never come back here.”

“That won’t be a problem.” I said, glaring at the stallion as he and Opal turned tail and fled. “Cowards.” I muttered. Turning back to the castle, I began trotting up the pathway with my friends close behind. The trip was deathly silent, save the clopping of our hooves. None of us dared talk, even though we had yet to see a sign of these geister. But fear is irrational, and so lost was I in its grip that when another sound broke the silence I practically leapt from my skin. I looked rapidly about for the source of the noise before realizing I had heard it before. This realization brought no comfort, the sound was the distinct click-click-click of Scout’s radiation meter. “Goddesses, this place is radioactive too?!” I groaned.

Scout checked his PipBuck, frowning. “It’s stronger than the trace amount from St. Ponysburg, but still weak. We should be fine if we move quickly.”

“But isn’t this counterintuitive?” I asked, feeling my skin crawl. “Going into a radioactive place to get supplies meant to survive radiation?”

The earth pony sighed in frustration. Reaching into his saddlebags he pulled out a bag with color coded tablets in it. Passing the tablets out he said, “Here, Rad-X, take it.” Popping the tablet into my mouth and chewing, I nearly coughed up the chalky substance. Taking a swift pull from a canteen, I swallowed the radiation-dampening medicine. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but my body felt cooler. “Now let’s hurry, I don’t want to burn through this stuff.”

We set off at a quick trot to the hospital doors. As we approached the ornate wooden portals, the radiation meter began to click faster. “Um, Scout?” I asked nervously.

“With the Rad-X we’re still only getting one rad a second.” He assured me. Nevertheless we all increased our pace. The clicking became louder. “Two a second…” We were almost to the doors, now galloping. “Three…” I glanced up and swear I saw a pair of glowing green eyes watching me from a window.

Scout blasted through the front door at full tilt, but scrambled to a stop just as quickly. Clarity and I barely stopped from running into him. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “We should keep going!”

Scout was silent for a second, alternatively checking his PipBuck and the foyer around us. “It stopped.” He said, baffled.

“What did?” Clarity asked, her horn glowing as she tensed for something to attack.

“The radiation. We’re completely cool right here.” He looked around the foyer, other than sparse furnishings it was empty. There was a reception desk with a number of terminals on it, which he nodded to. “Sleet, see if you can find anything out.”

I had been trying to puzzle out the sudden lack of radiation, so it took me a second to react. “Huh?” I spotted the terminals. “Oh, okay.” Goddesses, but I felt slow. I needed sleep, or another Sparkle-Cola. Fluttering my wings, I leapt over the desk and examined the terminals. All but one of them was dead, so I set on the still-glowing one with vigor. The encryption was disappointingly weak, I suppose even in Stalliongrad a secretary didn’t have much need for digital security.

The contents of the terminal were expectedly dull. Appointments, bills, meetings and the like cluttered the folders. I was about to declare the information useless to our search when I spotted something, a shipping invoice. “Bingo.” I said, grinning widely. The invoice reported a large shipment of anti-radiation supplies including hazardous environmental suits! The best part was the order had come in mere days before the end, meaning that it should still all be there!

I informed my friends of the discovery. “Great, now we just have to find it. Does it say where the shipment is?” Scout asked.

I scanned the invoice again before finding the answer. “Says here it’s in the basement. Should be enough to last us a lifetime.”

“Then let’s not waste time.” Scout said, already trotting for the door leading deeper into the facility. As soon as he opened the door, his PipBuck started clicking again. “Wait, what the Hell?” He retracted his leg back into the foyer and the clicking stopped. “I’ve never seen radiation so localized.”

“Is that even possible? Is the door made of lead?” Clarity asked, tilting her head.

“I don’t know, but it means I’m not going through there.” I declared, going for another door. I flung it open while Scout berated me for being so picky. At least I think that’s what he was saying, the cold fear gripping my heart made it difficult to pay attention.

At the end of the hall was a ghoul. Memories of my first night in the Wasteland hit me like a load of bricks. The poor lost buck screaming, shooting, wailing as he was eaten. The hordes of shambling dead chasing me down. Though the wound was long since healed, my flank burned just above my Cutie Mark with the memory of the zombie’s teeth. Slowly it tilted its head toward me and I screamed.

The monster screamed back, the horrible, soul-chilling screech that had haunted my nightmares. It charged me, slavering like a starved hound. I couldn’t move, why couldn’t I move!? Damnit Sleet get out of the way! Get your gun, blast it with ice do SOMETHING!

Something shoved me to the side, breaking the trance as I fell. Scout slid into place, taking quick aim and firing his battle saddle. The shot tore into the ghouls head, spraying blood and ichor behind it. The zombie pony dropped, truly dead. I stared at the corpse, my breathing quick and panicked. I felt Scout grab my shoulders and turn me away. Looking at my friend instead of the zombie brought me out of the fearful haze, at least somewhat. “Sleet! Are you okay?” Scout asked, shaking me gently.

I closed my eyes, swallowed, took a deep breath and opened them again. “Well, I think we found the geister.” I said weakly. My gaze shifted back to the body, expecting it to get up.

“Probably.” Scout said, following my gaze. After a second he looked back to me. “You gonna be okay?”

No, I’m not, I’m terrified. “Yeah, I’m okay.” I lied.

Scout didn’t look at all convinced. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Tearing my eyes away from the body, I pushed myself up onto my hooves. “Let’s get going, and keep an eye out for more of those…things.” My heart was still going a thousand miles an hour, but I managed to control my breathing and start moving.

We set down the hallway, carefully stepping over the dead ghoul. Scout took point, both to watch for more ghouls and to more quickly detect these strange pockets of radiation. I wasn’t paying much attention to anything. I simply kept my eyes locked on the back of Scout’s head and put one hoof in front of the other. I needed control, I needed calm. I couldn’t afford to break down like that every time I saw a ghoul. If Scout hadn’t been there waves of ghouls chomping at my hooves, broken teeth scraping my flesh as I’m slowly lowered…

“Sleet!” Clarity said, breaking me from the daydream.

“What?!” I said harshly, jumping. Damnit my head hurt, damnit my eyes felt heavy, and why was everything all blurry? Had I fallen asleep while walking?

“Sleet, what’s wrong?” The crystal mare asked as I swiped at my eyes with a wing.

I wiped away the film of sleep, blinking rapidly. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just tired.”

“It’s not just that, I can see it. When you saw that ghoul something changed, everything around you got darker.”

“Well of course seeing the ghoul unsettled me!” I growled. “I haven’t been down in this hellhole long enough to be used to the zombies!” And as if the Wasteland heard me and wanted to throw salt on the wound, Scout’s PipBuck started to click. “Or that.”

“But that’s more than just being unsettled.” Clarity said while we stopped to let the survivalist check the area with his radiation meter. “You were completely paralyzed, and you still haven’t…”

“Clarity, please.” I interrupted, trying to keep the harsh tone out of my voice and just sounding weary instead. “I know you’re concerned, but I was startled and I’m tired. I’ll be fine.” The crystal mare did not like how I was brushing her concerns aside, but frankly I didn’t care. I wanted out of this damned castle, and getting head checked by the mare with the magic eyes wasn’t going to make that happen any faster.

The rads originated from a T-intersection the hall we were in connected too. Scout checked the other branches and the collection of offices lining the hall’s left wall for a safe way to go. While Scout poked around I opened a nearby window and stuck my head outside. At some point we must have climbed a flight of stairs, because the ground was at least a story below. Had that happened while I was nodding off? My body had been moving mechanically, was it possible that I could climb stairs while so out of it?

The cool air was refreshing, the bite of the wind helping to keep me awake. The experience was somewhat ruined by the ugly gargoyle perched not five feet away from me. The statue had a weird body shape, like some kind of lanky primate though the arms and claws were hugely disproportional. The worst part was the face, it had a thin, leering visage with a pronounced pointed chin and equally long ears. The beady eyes looked like they were waiting for something to walk by down below so it could pounce.

Shuddering, I retreated into the castle. “Well, bad news, there is no path other than though the rads.” Scout informed us.

“I think we should search these rooms.” I said, gesturing to the doors lining the hall. “See if we can get anything good out of them.”

“But we already have the location of the shipment.” Scout argued. “From what you said there is more than enough in it to purge us of any rads we build up along the way.”

“True, but it doesn’t hurt to be thorough. I know I certainly don’t want to make a second trip here.” I said as evenly as I could. Even though I had spoken ill of the Stable unicorns’ bravery, my conditioning from the Enclave still had me fearful of the radiation. Any plausible excuse to delay going in it I would take.

Scout sighed, it was obvious he could see my fear, but he also couldn’t argue my logic. “Fine, but we split up and make it quick. This place is creeping me out.”

I was all for quick. Opening the door to the nearest office I trotted inside, delighted to find a working terminal inside. My excitement waned considerably when I noticed the skeleton of who I assumed had been the office’s owner huddled under the desk with the terminal still logged on. Shuddering, I decided to leave the terminal for last and I scoured the room. There wasn’t much, some pre-war bits in the drawer, some preserved food on the desk, and little else.

Even though we had been told to be quick, curiosity tugged at me. Being careful not to jostle the skeleton, I settled at the terminal. A large menu of personal diaries was displayed, at least one entry a day until the end of the world and one after. I selected a random date about two months before the end and started reading.

>I’m not sure what’s gotten into the director lately. He seems to think that we are a priority target for the zebras, imagine that! I know the Stripes are vile, but I doubt they’d care about some local hospital on the far side of Stalliongrad. How would they even get here?

A scratching sound from the direction of the hallway broke my concentration. Thinking it was a ghoul, I pulled out Black Powder and edged towards the door. Nothing, the hallway was deserted. “Shcout?” I called out, my voice slurred by the pistol grip. No response.

Cautiously, I retreated back into the room. Settling back at the terminal, I checked the door one last time before selecting a new entry.

>Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for more security, especially after that incident down in maintenance. I just don’t think it’s a good use of the hospital’s resources to install all these anti-radiation measures. The Ministry of Peace’s funds are stretched enough as it is, they can’t give aid to some little hospital way out in the north. If many more of these dampeners are put I the walls we aren’t going to have the bits to take care of ponies!

Dampeners? Maybe that explained the pockets of radiation. Maybe some of the dampeners had fallen out of repair over the years and that was what was causing it. Still, we didn’t know the actual source…

Another noise, like footsteps. They weren’t hooves, they were too heavy. Galloping for the door, I rapidly scanned the halls. Still nothing. Was I going crazy, or was this place really haunted?

>This is getting out of hoof. The director held a meeting today, revealed something about the hospital. We all knew this place was an old Unicorn Tribe stronghold, but apparently when it was being renovated they found a bunch of old magic tomes in the basement. The M.A.S. took them and apparently discovered an old technique to animate stone! They recreated it to make these guardian creatures, and the director went and offered to use this place as a test site! He wants to bring experimental magical constructs HERE! We have children, injured soldiers, we can’t have this!

Animated stone? Was such magic even possible. There was another noise, I looked out the doorway. There was a window on the opposite wall, it must have been a great view in the past. Slowly, my heart hammering, I turned back to the monitor, selecting the penultimate entry.

>This can’t be happening, this isn’t happening! It’s gotta be a trick, some sick fucking joke! But I can see it, bright lights, brighter than bright, everywhere! Alarms are going off, the dampeners are overloading! Were we hit dire-

The message skipped several line before continuing.

>Oh Goddesses what happened? Outside is, it’s gone! Just gone! Those damned gargoyles are dust! How is this place still standing?

There was a louder scratching, like claws on glass. I didn’t look away, I couldn’t stop reading, the last entry was two sentences long.

>They didn’t die. They won’t let us out.

A cold breeze ruffled my mane. Slowly, I turned my head to look out the opposite window. The grotesque creature moved with deliberate slowness through the open window, dust falling from its stony form. As its clawed talons clacked onto the floor, it looked up with its glowing green eyes staring right at me and in that moment I realized I had been mistaken about the identity of the geister.

We held each other’s gaze for a second that felt like an hour. My chest clenched as my heart froze under the piercing eyes. All at once the tension broke, my heart beat, I took a step back, and with an ear-rending screech the gargoyle, the true giest, charged me.

I backpedaled rapidly, but I quickly bumped into the wall. The office was tiny, and as the horrible monster rushed through the doorway it looked like it took up the whole room. With no way back, I threw myself forward, diving under the creature’s bowed legs. The claws raked at my back, but the armor plates protected me from the worst of the blow. The physical force still nearly knocked me off my hooves, but my flesh was spared.

My instincts screamed at me, fly fly fly! Without stopping I, scrambled from under the giest’s legs, ran across the hall, and leapt out the open window, pumping my wings to soar away from the haunted hospital. For a short, glorious second, I thought I was free, but my momentum was arrested abruptly when stony claws dug into my tail. I screamed as inequine strength pulled me back through the window, easily fighting my wings. I scrambled at the sill with my hooves, desperately trying to anchor myself.

More claws gripped my mane, yanking my head back. Pain surged in my scalp and back as I was bent the wrong way. My mind was already a dark whirlwind of panic, seeing the wicked green eyes and too-thin face upside down leering at me nearly sent me over the edge. My muscles burned as I strained against it. Terror filled my throat like cement, choking out my screams. I could only whimper, feeling my hooves slip an inch at a time as the patient monster dragged me inexorably to my doom by gray tail and mane.

There came a crack of thunder and the lanky arm trying to fold me in half backwards suddenly lost all strength. I had only a second to watch the monster’s shoulder explode into dust before my straining against its grip shot my head forward. I looked down at the ground below, feeling the claws untangle from my mane, grains of dust coming down like rain around my head.

The giest gave a warbling screech of pain and I felt it let go of my tail. Some part of me must have known what was going on, because it fought the rest of me that was screaming to jump out the window and fly away. That other part pulled me back into the hallway and made me scramble to the source of the thunder, which proved to be Scout and his battle saddle. Clarity stood next to him, firing her pistol. Her weapon, being of a lower caliber, did less damage but kept the creature back while Scout aimed his more devastating rifles.

He fired again. I felt a round whizz past my ear and dropped onto my stomach instinctively. As I did, I heard the giest scream again. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a good portion of its chest blown away from the left shoulder inward. The wound bled dust, and from it protruded a pulsating green something. Scout fired a third time and the giest let out the loudest, most agonized scream yet as the glowing protrusion was struck.

The creature staggered into the irradiated hallway. The protrusion glowed a solid sickly green and the bleeding stopped. Dust from the hallway floor, even some from my hair, glowed with the same light and whirled towards the giest, filling in the wound. The damage to the arm must have been too great to repair for whatever was repairing it, as the limb did not regrow. With a final, hateful screech the giest rounded the corner and vanished.

The hall fell eerily silent. Scout and Clarity trotted over to me, not taking their eyes off of the hallway. With only quick glances down at me, the two helped me to my hooves. We all stood, staring at the point where the giest had fled. My heart hammered and would not stop. The back of my mane itched like it could feel claws reaching for it. My shoulders wouldn’t release the tension they held. I felt for certain that my friends were in the same condition. After a small forever, paralyzed in that fear filled silence, Clarity spoke in a small voice. “We need to leave.”

But they wouldn’t let us leave.

For the umpteenth time I tried to freeze the lock on the main doors, and for the umpteenth time Scout bucked at the lock and failed to shatter it. The weight of the doors and the fact that they opened inward meant they would not bend enough to break the brittle metal. Clarity tried to break the lock by applying force with her telekinesis, and when the two worked together they nearly did it. But when it looked like the lock would break the sound of the geister screeching and clawing at the doors sent us scurrying away.

“Okay, now what?” Clarity asked, looking about worriedly.

“Now we need to find another way out of here.” Scout said, consulting his PipBuck. “If we rush through the irradiated hallway we should be able to make it too the basement.”

“But we can’t go into the radiation.” I said, shaking my head firmly.

Scout’s eye twitched. “Look, Sleet, I know radiation makes you uncomfortable but we don’t have a lot of options here!”

“It’s not the radiation I’m worried about!” I snapped back. Okay, that was a lie, but I was tired and scared and not thinking terribly clearly, or in a whole lot of emotional control. “You saw that thing! It went into the radiation on purpose, they like it!” I felt like I was in Sister’s infirmary again after I just woke up, my head spinning with options that wouldn’t stick, making me feel sick to my stomach.

“We can’t just sit here though!” Scout said. “If we stay we’ll just waste away.”

“Maybe that’s what they want.” I said, recalling the skeleton huddled under the desk. “Maybe they just want to herd us like fucking brahmin!” I had started pacing, my agitation and fear translating into nervous energy. “This is just great, penned INSIDE a Goddesses-damned castle, aren’t these things supposed to keep ponies OUT?” I giggled as something occurred to me. “Hey, you guys think this place’ll withstand Cauterize? After all, it took the apocalypse pretty well! Sure everypony else in the whole fucking world will be dead but hey, we would’ve made it!”

Scout and Clarity traded glances. “Sleet, calm down.” Scout said, approached slowly.

“No, I will not calm down!” I yelled, lashing at him with a wing. I resumed my frantic pacing, gaining speed as my mind spun faster and faster. “We dead! Fucking dead! Our choices are sit here and starve or try to leave and get torn to shreds! Hell, maybe the dampener here will fail and we’ll just die of radiation poisoning!”

“Wait,” Clarity said, furrowing her brow “what will fail?”

“The dampener!” I said, stopping my pacing. “The director here was just as fucking crazy as the one at the StableTec factory! He installed rad dampeners in the walls, some of them busted, that’s why we aren’t getting cooked here, this one works.”

“Sleet, I want you to listen to me.” Clarity said forcibly. “Tell me about these dampeners, how’d you learn about them?”

My scrambled brain slowly focused on the information she wanted. “Um, the doctor’s terminal, from the office I was searching. He wrote a log saying the director had these things installed. Some incident in the maintenance department.” The more I talked the more I focused, and the more I focused the less I panicked. “The terminal also told me about the geister. Apparently there were these old tomes here that some Ministry took. They learned how to animate stone and made these things as guardians.”

“That doesn’t makes sense though.” Clarity said, shaking her head. “Why would they make these things feed on radiation?”

“Huh?” Scout and I said simultaneously.

“It’s like Sleet said, they like the radiation.” She said. “And once it was in the rads it started to regenerate. Why would a Ministry trying to stop the war make a guardian that ran off of a byproduct of the war?”

That final, chilling message came back to me. They didn’t die. They won’t let us out. “I don’t think they were always like this.” I said. “The log entries I was reading mentioned that the gargoyles had been pulverized, but they are obviously still here. I think some part of them survived, and the radiation changed them.”

“What could survive a balefire bomb?” Clarity asked incredulously.

“Apparently this place did.” I said, gesturing to the room around us. “And rather well too. This is the single most intact building I’ve seen that hasn’t shown signs of repair.”

“How they survived doesn’t really matter.” Scout said. “I just want to know how to kill them.”

“Well we know that they regenerate in radiation. If we can isolate them in a dampened room…” I was cut off by the sound of growling coming from the halls. The three of us froze, watching the doors. “They wouldn’t come at us on purpose would they?” I whispered. I had the sneaking suspicion that the geister were smarter then they looked. The one that attacked me probably did so because it thought I was alone, attacking all three of us in a room where they were vulnerable was suicidaly stupid. It was impossible to pinpoint where the growls were coming from.

There were three doors in the room, the main set of doors that we had entered through, the door leading to the hall where we encountered the giest, and the hall that had been irradiated. Clarity and I were watching the door we had explored while Scout watched the main doors, but nopony was watching the other. I heard under the growls a rough shuffling, a disturbingly familiar noise. Looking over my shoulder, I saw a rotted ghoul making its shambling way into the room from the unwatched door.

“S-S-S-Scout.” I managed to choke out, unable to tear my eyes from the walking horror. Scout followed my gaze and dropped into a firing stance.

That was when the ghoul struck. Howling like a demon it charged, gnashing at Scout with broken teeth. Despite the nerve-freezing fear the thing instilled in me, a small, coldly rational part of me wasn’t worried. It was just one ghoul, and Scout had seen it with plenty of time to react and shoot. There should be no…

Another ghoul rushed from the hallway. And another behind it. And another. The sounds of screeching zombies grew stronger. There was a horde of them. One of the ghoul’s heads exploded as Scout took it down with careful efficiency. Another took its place before losing a leg at the knee. A pink light radiated from beside me, and the sharp barks of Clarity’s pistol cut through my fearful stupor.

“Wake up Sleet!” She screamed, shoving me with her hooves while she reloaded her gun. “Focus!”

I closed my eyes for a few seconds, took a shaky breath, pulled out Black Powder, and opened them again. The sight of the ghouls still terrified me, but I erected a mental wall of ice and shoved the fear behind it. No time for that.

Taking careful aim, I pulled the trigger. With a sizzling sound the bolt of bright orange cut through the air and struck a ghoul pony square in the side. The zombie tried to continue its attack, but the point of impact had burned away a good chunk of desiccated muscle and had caught on fire. The beast overbalanced and fell heavily, smoke leaking from under it.

I took another shot, lighting the zombie’s scraggly mane on fire. The best reacted wildly, flinging its head and fanning the fire. It proved an excellent distraction, allowing Scout to take down the thrashing monster.

The fight lasted a short thirty seconds, but felt like so much longer. Each shot I lined up seemed to take forever, with the rotting flesh of the ghouls growing larger with each second. No time to panic though, aim, shoot, aim, shoot, aim…

There was nothing to shoot. Blinking as if from a trance, I looked around. Scattered at our hooves were about twenty dead, really dead, ghouls. Nowhere near the massive horde I had thought, but had I really thought that or had my panic been talking? I hadn’t really much cared for their numbers when I focused on killing them instead.

Scout sighed in relief, checking the condition of his guns. “That was hectic.” He muttered. “I guess we really can’t just sit around, not with ghoul packs wandering the place.”

“So what should we do?” I asked. There was a slight tremble in my voice as the mental wall started to melt, but I kept it under control.

“If we can find a maintenance terminal, then maybe you can get those dampeners online again, Sleet.” He suggested. “It would probably be on the way to the basement anyway. And if we can get the dampeners running then we stand a fighting chance against the geister.”

Much as I hated the idea of running around irradiated hallway haunted by super-gargoyles with no indication of where the safe spot would be, I saw little choice. I took a deep breath, held it for a second, and spoke on the exhalation. “Alright, let’s do it.”

After mapping out the best course with Scout’s PipBuck (the auto-map feature really was a marvel, like most everything the PipBuck did), we entered the irradiated hallway the ghouls had swarmed from. Having no real estimation of the amount of ghouls in the castle, we couldn’t be sure we wouldn’t hit another rush of them. But this was the shortest path, and what we needed above all else was expedience.

Galloping down the halls with Scout in the lead, Clarity and I held out weapons constantly at the ready. We ran into almost no resistance, just one or two more ghouls. But despite how smoothly this was going, I couldn’t shake the terrible feeling of being watched. I was sure the geister were watching our every move. The radiation pervading the area was not helping my anxiety, the incessant click-click-clicking of the PipBuck beat a tattoo on my nerves.

Scout had made a habit of swerving near doors, checking each for lower radiation levels that might indicate a safe spot. Finding one such spot, we rushed inside. Black Powder fell from my mouth as I stopped, gasping. A stitch burned horribly in my side and my legs felt wobbly. Physical fitness, like many other things, was something I lacked.

Scout hardly seemed phased; his breathing was only slightly heavier than the norm. He passed out tablets of Rad-X, pouches of Rad-Away, and canteens of water. I took the Rad-X and drank the water, but was unsure how to administer the Rad-Away, since it was in an intravenous pouch with no needle.

That was when I noticed that Scout and Clarity had simply torn open the pouch and downed the orange contents. “Um, I don’t think that’s how these pouches work…” I said.

Clarity sucked down the last of the radiation purging medicine with a sour expression. “You’re right, but we don’t have time to use them properly. Besides, this works just as well, tastes horrible though.”

Gritting my teeth at that, I tore open the pouch and timidly drank the contents. I nearly collapsed in on myself, so hard did my face pucker when the first drop hit my tongue. Ugh, sweet Celestia that’s tart! I thought, quickly finishing the vile stuff and taking a palette cleansing pull from the canteen.

Once I’d regained control of my facial muscles, I asked Clarity something that had been nagging me. “Hey Clarity, how did you know what to say to make me stop being scared?”

The crystal mare was washing her own mouth out when I asked. Swallowing, she responded. “It’s something we’re taught to help control our emotions.” When she next spoke, it was as if she was reciting a lecture she had heard many times. “Fear is the result of facing a threat, and most often you do not know much about the threat. But if you can learn the threat’s weakness and focus on it, then fear had no hold on you. Remember, the enemy of fear is understanding.” She smiled, her skin glittering. “My old teacher taught me that.”

“It’s good advice.” I said, smiling back.

“I’m just glad it kept your head in the game.” Scout said, finishing up packing away his supplies. “But we need to keep moving. We can’t risk staying here too long.” He trotted out the doorway, checking his PipBuck as he did. “We’re almost to the basement. Just a few more-“

In those few seconds, many things happened. Scout was half-way out the doorway and his PipBuck started clicking again. Clarity and I were partly to our hooves, ready to follow him. Then, Scout was gone. A gray blur rushed past the door, whipping our friend from sight.

It took a precious second for my brain to realize what had happened. Another for me to rush forward, with Clarity screaming after me. Scout’s name was on my lips as I stumbled into the hallway. I turned to watch gray, dusty wings disappearing around the corner and felt a very sharp pain in the back of my head.

As darkness closed in on my vision I could faintly hear Clarity screaming in abject terror. I felt a dull thump, and suddenly I was on the floor, which was strange because I couldn’t recall falling. In the last few instants before darkness enclosed me, I saw a pair of angry green eyes and a single gray arm reaching for me.
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Footnote: Level up!
New Perk, Gunslinger: You’ve grown more proficient at using small firearms. Your accuracy with Small Guns and Energy pistols has increased by 20%. Additionally, you now slur less when talking with a gun in your mouth.

Author's Notes:

IT always seems like I come back from vacations LESS rested than when I left. Oh well, after much editing and more last minute scrambling than I like, Chapter 8 is complete! I hope everypony enjoys, make sure to drop a comment telling me what you think!