Chapter One: New Beginnings
“Can you ever forgive me?”

War. Some say it never changes, and, for the most part, they would be right. The act of war has remained the same for over two centuries, ever since the bombs fell that wiped out all of civilization as we once knew it. Some few lucky souls escaped into the Stables, and survived below the surface as the apocalypse scoured it clean, but most were left to the horrors it left in its wake as it destroyed everything we had ever created. No, war never changes, but it isn’t the endurance of war that is its most horrifying aspect. What is far more terrifying is the way it changes those it touches, how it siphons off everything that once made them great, and leaves nothing but a husk capable of nothing but killing and death.

I sighed and dropped my pencil next to the ragged notebook that I kept my journal in. I couldn’t say what had prompted me to write those words, but it seemed right. I turned my gaze to the old, blasted-out window of the RV which held both my office and my bed and surveyed the small encampment that had been my home for the last three years.

It was little more than a pile of pre-war vehicles stacked on top of and around each other to form simple structures and a basic barricade. Most of its inhabitants didn’t have an enclosed room to live in, just a simple overhang protected on three sides and with a roof. The only actual high-tech part of the camp was a pre-war gate that one of the gang had managed to jury-rig to the surrounding wreckage.

As I watched, the gate to the wasteland slowly slid to the side and three ponies walked through the opening, two bucks and a mare, all with saddlebags absolutely brimming with loot.

Finally, I thought to myself, the search party has finally returned.

I pushed myself to my hooves and stepped out of my home. “Took you three damn long enough!” I shouted as I descended the ramp to meet them in the courtyard. The leader of the group, a ragged yellow earth pony buck with an orange mane and crossed rifles for a cutie mark, stepped forward.

“Sorry, boss,” he drawled, “Took us a while to find anything worth grabbing. Finally happened on a caravan with only one guard. We made short work of them and stripped it bare; left the corpses for the radhogs.”

I snorted in annoyance. “Don’t care. You know the rules: one day out, no more. Any longer than that and I have to consider your either dead or compromised. It’s been twenty-six hours since I sent you out.”

The buck flinched back from the unspoken threat, but managed to stand his ground, anger flashing in his eyes. He shook off his saddle bags and dropped them at my hooves. “But look at all the great loot we found!” he protested, shaking a hoof at the bags, “Spark batteries, ammo, some barding that’s actually in good condition, and this!” He revealed a crystal that was roughly the size of one of my hooves.

I had seen a lot of crystals in my time. Some few hardy ponies still worked some of the old crystal mines, either voluntarily or, shall we say, compelled to at another’s wish, trying to remove what few gems were left in the ground to buy themselves some more time at life, no matter how bad it was, but this crystal was different. It seemed to glow with some inner magical light that flitted around as I watched. I carefully took it in one of my hooves and held it up to my eyes for a closer inspection, but all I got was a better look at the mysterious glow inside. It was shapeless and didn’t fill the crystal entirely. Instead, it seemed to flow from place to place, much as water would inside a canteen, but it didn’t follow the normal laws of physics, often flowing against the pull of gravity, or swirling in patterns that directly contradicted the way I moved it. Pretty as it was, it seemed useless, and, even worse, worthless.

Once again, I snorted in annoyance and dropped the crystal on the ground. I shifted my gaze back to the buck in front of me. “Pretty, but it doesn’t help us. Sorry, Crackshot, none of this is anything special, and you broke the rules to get it. I need to keep discipline. We don’t want anyone here getting any ideas, you know.” I reached down to the holster on my right forehoof and pulled out my .45 caliber pistol. I gripped it tightly in my mouth as I took aim, watching the fear spread across the yellow buck’s face. Just as I was sure he was about to wet himself, I pulled the trigger, sending a bullet straight through his leg.

He collapsed, screaming and clutching at his shattered knee as I spat the pistol back into its holster. “Doc, clean and dress the wound; he’s learned his lesson. Crosswire, go through the bags and organize the loot. Start using what you can and store the rest in the safe boxes,” I ordered as I lifted the crystal and deposited it in one of the pockets on my barding. I wanted a closer look at it, in private, where others wouldn’t be bothering me and I could be alone with my thoughts.

“Sure thing, Ever,” the gray unicorn buck with a screwdriver and wrench for a cutie mark answered. He started shouting orders at the others in the gang to start going through the loot as I returned to my RV.

Ever. That was the name the raiders I led knew me by, but they had no idea what it meant. To them, it was just a word that I answered to. Some tried to take guesses at what the second half of my name was. After all, no pony had name that vague, and even though they weren’t even close to being intelligent, they weren’t stupid either. I had heard guesses covering everything from the ridiculous Everdead to the marginally cleverer Everthere, since I seemed to always know what was going on inside my gang. The only reason none of them had figured the truth out, and killed me as a result, was because I was careful to always dress in a fashion that covered my cutie mark. None of them would understand what it was, and even less would approve of it.

Raiders are a dangerous bunch, especially if you’re the one in charge. To the average wasteland pony, the best you can hope for from a band of raiders is a quick death. Raiders in a gang had to be careful, though. One slip, one moment of weakness, and the others would tear you apart. But a leader’s position was even more precarious; you had to be hard, much harder than anypony else in the gang, and you couldn’t show mercy or compassion. That kind of behavior would get you killed just as though you were a wastelander, but the death would not be quick, especially if the leader happened to be a mare, like myself.

I slid the slab of sheet metal that served as my door closed and set the crystal down on my desk as I removed my barding and the utility suit beneath it, revealing, for the first time in days, my dirty brown hide. It was pockmarked with numerous scars, both of the bullet and knife variety. My life had not been easy.

I stepped towards the corner of the RV where I kept a washbasin and a bit of dirty water to clean off the worst of the wasteland that stuck to me. As I washed, I couldn’t pull my mind from the words I had written earlier. There was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that kept telling me that they were much truer than I cared to admit.

Almost none of the raiders in my gang knew I could read, much less write, and seeing as most of them couldn’t, either, they also didn’t care. As far as I knew, Crosswire was the only other literate pony in the whole bunch, and he was the only one who knew I was as well. If I had to be honest, I would say that Crosswire was the only friend I had in the entire gang, and I used the word loosely. He was still a raider, after all.

Sadness gripped me as a realization struck me. As well as I knew Crosswire, and as well as he knew me, he still knew next to nothing about me. Not even he knew my full name or had seen my cutie mark. There was simply too much risk involved. One word in the wrong place, and I would be dead.

I turned my head to regretfully glance at the symbol on my flank. None in the gang would be able to say what it was, for none of them had seen anything like it. I doubted anypony alive had, since even I had only seen it once before, in a book I had scavenged from an old library in downtown Seaddle when I was much younger. It was a pinecone nestled next to two pine sprigs. The picture had appeared as I had read a passage in the old book that talked about the great forests that used to cover Equestria. The section that had most captured my attention was the one on the great pine trees that stayed green and lively throughout the year. I had been so enraptured because those trees shared a name with me: Evergreen.

Sighing, I tore myself from the memory. It was one of the few happy things I had left in my life. I stepped away from the wash basin and dried my green and brown mane on an old towel that probably added more dirt than it removed and organized it in my usual fashion. Most of my mane was swept behind my head, to keep it out of my eyes, but I left a single strand hanging before me, as a reminder that I had once not needed to hide my name and cutie mark.

As I returned to my desk, I couldn’t help but to think on the irony of both my name and my cutie mark. In a world wrought with atrocities happening every day, a world where the only life left was the animals that had evolved to fight and kill, and ponies bred to do the same, I was stuck with a cutie mark of something that hadn’t existed for two centuries, and probably never would again. Sure, there were still forests in the wasteland, like the Everfree forest across Eternity’s Crossing, the ocean that separated Seaddle from the rest of Equestria, and there were even a few small ones around here, but they were all filled with life that the radiation and taint had twisted into unrecognizable forms, almost all of them deadly. In a world defined by death, I seemed to represent life, and that annoyed me, given that a day rarely passed where I wasn’t either being shot at by, or consequently shooting, other ponies.

Finally ‘clean’ for the first time in days, I sat down at my desk and examined the enigmatic crystal once again. As before, the closer inspection revealed nothing new. I turned on the light of my salvaged Pipbuck and held it up to the crystal, hoping the more concentrated light would reveal something I had missed before. My efforts were in vain. I growled in frustration and dropped the crystal into one of my pockets, just to see what the hardy computer would do with it. Surprisingly, it labeled the crystal as a ‘Messaging Crystal’ and gave it a value of more than two thousand caps!

I started in surprise and smacked the screen of the computer with a hoof, just to be sure, but the image remained. I shook my head in disbelief; even I could be wrong in assessing something’s value, I guess. I left the crystal in my pocket and stepped outside for some fresh air, looking out towards the horizon. Yup, it looked like rain again. It always rained in Seaddle.

I wandered down the ramp and joined Crosswire at the gate where he was overseeing the replacement of the spark battery that ran the mechanism that opened and closed our gate. We may have been raiders, but that didn’t mean that some of us couldn’t be smart. It was how we had managed to survive this long without one of the larger gang completely taking us over. I had put a lot of effort into making sure this camp would be near-unassailable. So far, it had been.

“What have you got for me, Crosswire?” I asked as I came up beside the stoic unicorn.

He barely spared me a glance as he answered, “The battery we had in there is almost entirely burnt out, and most of the ones that Crackshot brought back were only half full, if that. I’m doing what I can, but it looks like we’ll be switching them out every other week. What I would give for a fully charged spark battery…”

“At least it’s better than pulling it open ourselves every time,” I pointed out, “I’ll take what I can get. What’s your take on Crackshot, though? Stupid bastard broke the rules, but I’m worried he was out long enough to get seen and lead someone out here. We haven’t been faced with any real problems yet ‘cause nopony knows where we’re holed up, and I’d like to keep it that way. We’re the raiders out here. I don’t want us to get raided.”

The unicorn buck actually turned to look at me as I confessed my worry. It was a dangerous gamble to take. He could easily start talking to the others and use it as an argument for kicking me out, or doing other, less savory, things to me. “Doesn’t much matter anymore what I think. They came back, so if somepony followed them, there’s nothing much we can do about it. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep our eyes open for a few days, just to be sure,” he answered, then turned back to the gate, “Now if you don’t mind, boss, I got actual work to do.”

I nodded imperiously and made my way over to the shack that Heart Attack used as his doctor’s shop. I pushed my way inside and saw Crackshot lying asleep on a cot, with Heart Attack sitting at his small table in the corner, nursing a glass of Celestia-only-knew what.

The unicorn doctor looked up as I entered and sighed. He knew what was coming next. I trotted over to Crackshot and roughly kicked him over. He woke instantly, sputtering in surprise and pain as I knocked him over onto his back and stood over him, one hoof on his chest. I leaned in close and whispered, “So, Crackshot, tell me how many other ponies you saw while you were out there.”

The color drained from his face as he stared into my eyes, seeing all the pain I would inflict on him if he didn’t answer honestly. Have I mentioned that I am not a nice pony?

“Uh… there were only two, the caravaneer and her bodyguard, I’m sure of it! I was real careful!” he cried out.

It wasn’t hard to see the lie in his eyes. “Wrong answer,” I said, and started applying pressure with my hoof. His breathing became strained as I pressed down on his ribcage, “You’ve got two more tries to get it right.”

He wheezed something unintelligible, so I let up a little bit, just enough for him to get the words out. “I swear, there were only two! I was real careful! Just ask Clipper!”

Clipper was the earth pony mare who had been a part of the group. “I’m sure she’d back you up, Crackshot, since you’ve never given her much of a choice in the matter of your ‘relationship’, and I’m sure she wouldn’t want to get caught in the backlash of actually telling me the truth. You’ve got one more try before I give you an injury that even the good doctor can’t fix,” I said, pushing until I heard a quiet crack that meant one of his ribs had finally given way. It was a serious injury, but not fatal, and not even close to what I would do if he didn’t answer me.

He moaned in pain and tried to squirm out from under me, but I held him fast. “Well, are you going to answer me?” I demanded, starting to press down again.

“No, please! I’ll talk!” He wheezed, his voice thick with pain, “We may have seen one other pony, up on one of the hills. She disappeared as soon as I looked at her. It could have just been a trick of the light, you know, the sun making a radhog look bigger than it actually is!”

I snorted in disbelief. “Doubtful. Heart Attack, get this waste of space taken care of. Much as I loathe admitting it, he’s a good shot and we need him up.”

“Would have been easier if you hadn’t gone and used him as a doormat, boss,” the pale unicorn complained as he stood up from his table. He was slightly shaky on his hooves, but that was no surprise. I couldn’t remember ever seeing the buck sober.

I stepped out of the shack just as Crackshot started yelling in pain as the doctor re-set his ribs. Now I had a mystery on my hooves: I had to find out if this mystery pony might have followed Crackshot and his group back here. I walked across the courtyard towards the awning that served as Crackshot’s quarters. Clipper was lying on the ground by his bed, cleaning her gun. She was a small, blue earth pony with a bright pink mane. True to her name, her cutie mark showed a pair of hedge clippers, not that any of us had ever seen a hedge before. Unlike most hedge clippers, however, the ones on her flank were dripping with blood. Her skill wasn’t in tidying up gardens.

“Clipper, I need to talk to you,” I announced as I entered. She started in surprise, but didn’t argue. She had once been one of the most hot-headed ponies in my gang, but Crackshot’s arrival, and eventual ‘taming’ of her, to use kind words, had made her quiescent and subservient. When pushed, she was still a vicious fighter, but nopony ever noticed her in camp anymore.

“Oh, of course, Ever. Whatever you need,” she muttered, getting to her hooves. She couldn’t bring her gaze up to look me in the eye.

“My eyes are up here, Clipper, not on the ground,” I snapped. She looked up obediently, resignation in her eyes where once pride had been, with only the barest hint of defiance at being spoken to that way. “Crackshot just told me that he saw a pony on top of a hill while you all attacked the caravan. Is he telling the truth?”

She almost shied away at the mention of the buck’s name, but my stare held her in place. “I… uh…” she trailed off, not sure what to say.

“Be honest with me, Clipper. It will be better for your health,” I said menacingly.

She swallowed loudly and glanced around before looking back at me. “Yeah, we saw somepony on that hill. I couldn’t make out much detail, but I think she was an earth pony. Took one look at us and ran. Crackshot said to ignore her, that we had been gone too long already, and that we had to get back.”

I felt the rage at the buck’s idiocy welling up inside me, but at this point there wasn’t anything I could do. I had already punished him, anything more and I would be crossing the line into unnecessary cruelty, and not even a gang of raiders would stand for that. “Is there anything else I should know?” I asked pointedly.

Clipper stared into my eyes for a few moments, absorbing the promise of pain at a dishonest answer, then finally answered, “He left a small stash of the best loot just outside the walls. I don’t know what he’s planning with it.”

“You sure about that?” I demanded, looking to the knife in its sheath on my shoulder.

Clipper followed my gaze to the knife and shuddered. “I… I…” she fell silent and slumped down in defeat. “He thinks he can run this gang better than you. He was going to gather up some supplies during his next few raids and, once he had enough, kill you in your sleep and take over.”

I nodded slowly. Now this, I could act on. I wasn’t surprised, though. I would have been more surprised had somepony not been trying to get rid of me. Crackshot was just the best possibility. Despite his idiocy, he was skilled with his rifle and had an easy time getting the others to listen to him. “Hmmm, can’t say I’m surprised. Damned idiot has been a pain in my rump since he showed up last year,” I mused, “Where’s the loot stashed?”

“A short way down the trail, nestled between a couple boulders, just out of sight of the walls,” she said, her voice wavering, “I can show you.”

“Good. We’ll take care of that now. Come with me. I’ll grab Crosswire, and we’ll take a look at just what Crackshot has been keeping to himself. Bastard is going to have hell to pay if it’s anything valuable.” I stomped out of the room and trotted to the gate, Clipper keeping pace beside me.

Crosswire was just finishing his repairs of the gate as we came up behind him. “Grab your gun, we’ve got to head out for a bit,” I told him as I approached the button that would open the gate and hit it. The machinery groaned to life and slid the slab of sheet metal to the side, revealing the narrow mountain path that led out of our camp.

“Wait, what?” the buck asked in surprise, “But Crackshot just got back! What could we possibly need already? We haven’t even finished going through the loot he brought with him!”

“And it’s because of him we have to head out. Bastard has been keeping the best pieces to himself. Clipper here knows where they are. Now grab your gun and let’s go!” I snapped. My anger was starting to get the best of me. While the buck wandered away to get his weapon and tools, I fought my anger into submission and locked it up in a closet in the back of my mind. I would still need it later, after all.

Once Crosswire rejoined us, we headed out into the wasteland proper. I had always mentally separated the place where I lived from the unprotected expanse of the open world, even if that home was little more than a pile of salvaged carts and carriages that could easily be considered part of the wasteland. It gave me a sense of security in this mad world we all inhabited.

Clipper led the way down the trail, eyes flitting from place to place, as if she expected something to jump out and attack her at any moment. I left her to her paranoia and gazed up at the sky. The rain hadn’t yet arrived, but the clouds were getting darker. It wouldn’t be long now.

Five minutes later, Clipper came to a stop and pointed at a small cluster of rocks just off the trail. I walked over and found the small stack of ammo boxes and sacks that Crackshot had left out here as his own personal stash. A quick glance behind me revealed that it was, in fact, out of sight of the camp. For all his idiocy, the bastard had planned this spot well.

I focused back on the stash on opened one of the sacks. Inside was a treasure trove of guns and grenades. I couldn’t even begin to imagine where he could have even begun to gather all of this. I opened the other sack to find it full to the brim with medical supplies and chems, with some varieties that even I had never seen before. I shook my head in disbelief. “Crosswire, what’s in the ammo boxes?”

“’Bout what you’d expect. Ammo,” he announced in an annoyed tone, “Most of it is fairly standard pistol or rifle rounds, but there are some here that I’ve never seen before.” He floated up a large round that looks like it was shaped for a pistol, but it must have been half again as wide around as the barrel of my .45.

Despite the implication of the planned mutiny I was seeing, I couldn’t help but grin. I reached into the sack containing all the weapons and pulled out a wicked looking black revolver and set it down on the ground at my hooves. “I think they’ll fit that,” I said, still grinning as I walked over to the ammo boxes and pulled out every round of that size I could find. By the time I was done, I had a respectable pile of bullets. I carefully loaded the revolver and placed the spare bullets in one of my pockets. “I’ve needed a new gun for a while now,” I laughed as I replaced my .45 with the revolver and put the smaller gun in my saddle bags, letting the Pipbuck’s inventory spell take care of sorting it out.

I returned to the sack containing the weapons and started to fill my pockets and bags with grenades. There were a lot of different kinds, ranging from standard explosive and spark grenades, to even a couple of energy and plasma grenades. Just as I was finishing loading myself up, and the rain began to fall, I noticed a new bar appear on my Eyes Forward Sparkle, or E.F.S. It was blue, so whoever it was wasn’t actively hostile, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

“Crosswire, Clipper, somepony has just decided to pay us a visit,” I said, shaking my head in the general direction of the approaching pony, “Why don’t you go and greet her? I think I’d like to have a talk with her.”

The other two ponies grinned and nodded as they started making their way quietly to where the stranger was advancing up the trail. “Oh, and don’t hurt her,” I called after them, “Having a pony writhing in pain is not a good way to start a conversation.”

Crosswire spared me a quick glance and nodded, then disappeared over a rock, Clipper right on his tail. There was a shocked cry, then the sound of running hooves as whoever it was tried to flee. She should have realized that a pony wandering the wasteland wouldn’t have the endurance or fitness of a pony living in a settlement, not matter how dirty the settlement was. Before long, the two raiders reappeared, dragging a sobbing earth pony mare between them.

Her hide was a dull red in color, and her blue mane was held back from her face by a black headband. Her eyes were a deep purple, but what caught my eye most was her cutie mark. It was a single, detailed butterfly. Everypony knew what it meant when you saw a butterfly on a building, or bag, or case: there were healing supplies either in it or nearby. This pony had to have some knowledge or talent in medicine.

“Please, don’t hurt me. I’ll leave and won’t tell anyone about you! Please, just let me go!” she whimpered as Crosswire and Clipper dropped her at my hooves.

“I don’t hurt anypony unless they really deserve it,” I said, not quite able to keep my voice even. It must have sounded like a sneer to her. I wasn’t being strictly honest, but it was close enough. Besides, this pony wouldn’t know the difference. She looked up at me in disbelief. Her face showed that she had no intention of believing what I had said, no matter what I tried to do to prove otherwise. I couldn’t blame her. To her eyes, I was just another raider.

“What do you want with me?” she asked fearfully. I could tell from the look in her eyes what she feared the most. As a mare, that same fear was hidden away in my heart as well, especially since more than half of the raiders in my gang were bucks. Only reason it was still simply a fear rather than a reality, was because I was stronger than all of them.

“Information,” I said simply, “But it is hardly courteous of me to question you out here in the rain. Please, join us. Crosswire, make sure she’s taken care of. I wouldn’t want an accident to happen.”

“Sure thing, boss,” he said and lifted the mare to her hooves. “Come on now, you’ve just been personally invited to partake in our hospitality by the boss herself. You wouldn’t want to say no to that, would you?”

I grinned at him as I turned back to the trail. I heard the mare mutter some sort of negative as I stepped back onto the path. “Clipper, grab whatever you can. We’ll need these supplies, especially the healing potions and chems,” I ordered.

I heard motion behind me as the raider mare started to fill her bags and heave the medical sack onto her back. As we started to walk, I heard the stranger call out to me. “So, what do I call you?”

I turned back and fixed her in my gaze. She was frightened, that was plainly obvious, but she had enough courage to question me while surrounded by three raiders. That took guts. “Call me Ever. Everypony else does.” I turned back around and started to walk.

The raiders at the camp were surprised to see all the loot we brought back, and several ponies, mainly the ones who had been around longest, knew what it meant. They dashed back to their beds to make sure their own gear was in good condition. There was no way something this big could come up without there being some kind of violence. Some of them even looked excited at the prospect.

“Clipper, bring the medical supplies to Heart Attack. She’s going to need them. Much as I’m pissed at him right now, we need Crackshot on his hooves,” I ordered, then turned to Crosswire, “I’ll take our guest from here. I need to know what she’s found out about us, and we’ll go from there. Finish up with the loot that Crackshot brought back. I want to know what we’ve got by tomorrow morning.”

“Sure thing, boss,” the gray unicorn answered and wandered off, leaving me with the maroon mare.

“Follow me, and don’t try anything,” I stated simply and started up the ramp to my RV, trusting to the intimidation of the camp to get the mare to comply. The sound of her hooves on the ramp confirmed my assumption. I stepped into the RV and motioned for her to enter. She hesitated for a split second, then did as I bid. I pulled the sheet metal door closed behind her, then went and sat at my desk.

I ignored the mare’s frightened look as I picked the pencil up in my mouth and started to write down the events of the day, letting the sound of the rain coming down on the roof relax me. The sun was starting to descend, which was when I always recorded everything that had happened that day. It was an admittedly odd habit, but was something I had done since I was just a filly.

“You can write!” the mare announced in a shocked voice as she finally brought herself to look at me. The sudden silence after the outburst led me to believe that she thought the outburst would get her hurt. I grinned around the pencil in my mouth as I continued to ignore her.

When I was finally finished, I placed the pencil on the desk and turned to look at her. She was looking at the ground, trembling slightly. It was the same look of pure terror I had seen in too many ponies to begin to even try and remember. She thought she was going to die. “Why shouldn’t I be able to?” I asked, “Just ‘cause I’m a raider I shouldn’t be able to read or write?”

She remained silent and closed her eyes. A single tear emerged from her closed eyelid and slid down her cheek.

I sighed and took a step towards her. “I’m going to tell you something now, out of courtesy. You want to answer me when I ask you something. For now, that’s what will keep the pain at bay. Stay silent, and you’ll see just how bad things could be.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Sure you did,” I argued, “I used to think the same thing, till I met Crosswire. Now there’s a clever bastard.”

She looked up at me in surprise. “You mean he can read to?”

“I sure hope so,” I laughed. It struck me how hollow the sound was, as though there was no real mirth behind it. “He is our best hacker after all.”

“Oh… I didn’t think about that,” she admitted.

“Wastelanders like you rarely do,” I said, “You think we’re all mindless psychopaths who want nothing more than to steal, rape, and kill anything we can get our hooves on, and not necessarily in that order, either. You’re going to want to do away with that mindset quickly. It’ll only get you hurt or killed here.”

The mare sat silently as she absorbed the information. She hung her head again and started to cry. “I don’t want to get hurt,” she whimpered, “I can’t stand seeing others in pain, much less being in pain myself.”

“That how you got your cutie mark?” I asked, gesturing to the butterfly on her flank.

“Yeah, I guess so. I’ve never really thought about it. I just want to help ponies,” she muttered, “It just seems natural.”

I found myself being jealous of this mare. Nothing I had ever done felt natural to me. Things had become familiar, even comfortable, but never natural. The closest feeling I had ever had had been… The thought trailed off in my mind as I realized the only time I had ever felt natural doing anything was that night I had read about the evergreens and my cutie mark had appeared. I remembered wanting to see a forest that wasn’t trying to kill me and living under the sweeping canopies of the trees. It was a fantasy I had used to help me get through the worst nights of my past, but those days were long gone.

“You’re lucky,” I admitted, “I don’t know a lot of ponies who felt at ease doing what they did.”

The mare lifted her head up and gave me an odd look. “You weren’t always a raider, were you?” she asked.

“Can’t think of many ponies that were,” I snapped, anger rising in my chest, “and what I was before really isn’t any of your business.” I was angry because it had taken this mare simply speaking about her cutie mark to make me realize how unhappy I was. I felt the urge to lash out and hurt her for that, but held myself in check. She wasn’t to blame for my unhappiness.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to anger you!” she said as she backed away from me, “Please!”

“Just go clean yourself up!” I snapped, gesturing to the small wash basin in the corner, “You’re covered in filth.” The distraction would let me calm down and gather my thoughts. I needed a clear head while I dealt with his pony. Hurting her would get me nowhere, yet.

She slunk away to the corner. “This… this water is irradiated!” she called out a moment later.

“Well, of course it is,” I snapped, “I’m not going to waste clean water on washing! We’ve got enough of a supply of Rad-Away that using a bit of irradiated water to clean up isn’t going to kill you!”

“Oh, of course,” she said gloomily as she slowly and gingerly scrubbed away the grime of the wasteland, as though the water itself were more dirty than her hide.

It took the mare a whole ten minutes to wash herself: a ridiculous amount of time in the wasteland. She had to be from one of the towns that dotted the landscape; maybe Metro or Grovedale. I tore my attention from the lists of supplies I was studying as I heard her settle down in the corner farthest away from me. “I’m not going to be able to leave, am I?” she asked quietly.

“No, not for a while,” I said honestly, “That’s what you get for trying to sneak up on a raider camp. You should count yourself lucky. I could have just shot you dead, or given you to them.” I shook my head at the window that opened on the camp.

“And I suppose I should thank you for that, but what are you going to do with me?” she asked fearfully.

I forced myself back to my hooves and turned to face her. “I don’t know. You have a valuable and rare skill set, which isn’t something that I’m inclined to waste, but I also know that you aren’t going to agree to help us. Add on to that the fact that the second I leave you to your own devices in the camp, they’ll descend on you like a pack of rabid hellhounds, and I can’t think of anything to do with you.”

“If it kept me alive, I would help you,” she muttered. The lie was easy to see through.

“Don’t lie to me,” I snapped, “Even now, you see us as nothing better than mindless killers, even if you know that we actually can be intelligent. I didn’t keep you alive to hear what I want to hear. I need to hear what you know. Were you connected to that caravan?”

“Which one?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly.

I rolled my eyes at her. “You know exactly which one. The one that Crackshot raided earlier.”

“Oh… that one,” she muttered, “I know… I knew Bliss rather well. I’ve stitched up several of the injuries she’s gotten over the years. She was the pony who owned the caravan.”

“Did you travel with them?” I asked, “Because Crackshot said he saw you on a hillside nearby, and I don’t imagine a medical pony would just be randomly wandering the wasteland on her own, especially if she isn’t armed.”

“I… no, I wasn’t traveling with them. I was following them. It was stupid and ill-planned, but I had to,” she admitted.

“Why were you following them?” I asked pointedly, “Especially if you know it was stupid. They must have been paid for whatever job it was, and if even only half of what I know of those caravaneers is true, then they wouldn’t even think about going back on a contract. What made this one so special that you had to follow along?”

“Please believe me, but I can’t tell you that. I made a promise!” she pleaded, terror making her tremble, “I’ll do anything you ask, anything, but I just can’t talk about that!”

I gave her a hard stare and glanced at my knife. “Suit yourself.” I pulled the knife out and advanced towards her.

“Please! Don’t hurt me! Ask me anything else, and I’ll talk. I promised I wouldn’t tell. I promised, I promised, I promised.” She kept repeating that as I walked towards her, steadily becoming quieter and quieter. She closed her eyes as I came close, still repeating the mantra under her breath.

I paused as I came within reach of her. She was still whispering ‘I promised’ under her breath, as if the words would grant her some kind of magical protection from harm. Somehow, I think they may have. I sighed to myself and spat the knife out, leaving it quivering in the floor between her hooves. She looked up at me in surprise and fear, not knowing what to make of the gesture.

“Tell me honestly that nothing I say or do will get you to talk about that,” I demanded harshly, staring daggers into her eyes.

She hesitated under my stare. “N… Nothing,” she finally whispered, hardly daring herself to speak. “I promised.”

Sighing loudly, I retrieved my knife, sliding it back in its place on my shoulder. I could easily read a lie in a pony’s face, so I could also tell when they were telling the absolute truth. “I think I figured that out, so there’s no sense in me hurting you if it won’t get me any answers. Let’s try something else. I gave you my name. What’s yours?”

The mare hesitated as she considered me carefully. She was still terrified, but it looked like she knew she was safe, for now. “Suture,” she finally said, and lowered her gaze. I saw her eyes focus on something on my leg, then her head snapped back up and looked me square in the eye. “You’re from a Stable!” she announced.

Once again, I was sighing at this innocent and clueless mare. I was surprised it had taken her this long to notice the computer. “No, I’m not,” I said, truthfully.

“But… the Pipbuck! Only Stable ponies have those!” she protested, gesturing at the device on my left foreleg.

“Take a moment and think about what I am, Suture. I think that will explain it,” I said. Now, instead of anger, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time: shame. This pony; this small, terrified pony was actually making me feel ashamed about what I was doing to survive.

“Oh.” She whispered, “I should have realized.”

“Yes, you should have,” I snapped, “I pulled this piece of junk off some poor Stable 52 pony who had gotten out and was wandering around the wasteland. When I found her, I could tell that the thing wasn’t working near as well as it was supposed to be, since she didn’t see me coming. Poor girl didn’t know what hit her. At least her end was quick, unlike some. I was still on my own at that point. I still haven’t gotten it to full working condition, even with Crosswire’s help.”

She looked up at me with a look of horror on her face. Looking in her eyes, I actually saw a spark of anger. “How could you!” she shouted, “She was probably disoriented! It was probably the first time she had seen the sky! She was defenseless, and you just… just…”

“Murdered her?” I snapped, finishing the accusation for her. Suture looked away in fear, remembering where she was. “Yes, I did murder her! I had to! I had no water left, and it had been three days since I had eaten! Her saddlebags were full, while mine were empty. She was healthy and well-fed while I was sick and starving! If it makes you feel any better, it was the first time I had killed! I did what I had to to survive! The wasteland would have eaten her up and spat her back out within a few days anyway. Everypony knows that Stable ponies can’t survive out here.”

The comment only served to reignite Suture’s anger. “And just how do you know that, Ever? I’ll have you know that I’ve met several ponies that have come out of a Stable and done just fine for themselves! You murdered a defenseless pony for her food and water instead of asking! She would have helped you!”

“And how do you know she would have helped me?” I shot back, “Because she’s more civilized than us? Because the Stables make ponies better than the wasteland does? Because I’m a raider and she wasn’t? I’ve seen plenty of ponies out there who couldn’t be considered raiders who would shoot a stranger for their water or food. It’s nothing new. It’s the world we live in!”

“And they are vile creatures, just like you! How could you so easily order ponies to go out and kill others just for some loot! They weren’t even trying to hurt you, and you just, just… killed them!”

I snorted in frustration. “Don’t give me that crap. Had that caravan seen Crackshot before he pulled the trigger then you can bet your cutie mark they would have shot first. It’s how the wasteland works. I chose the path of the pony that is willing to do what is necessary to survive. You hate me now, but you’ll thank me later for keeping you alive, trust me.”

Suture remained silent. I guessed she decided that she had overstepped the boundary of what was safe. “Believe it or not, I don’t care what you think of me. If I had to start life over, nothing would change,” I snapped, “This world isn’t forgiving. This world isn’t nice. The old days of peace are gone. They have been for over two centuries, ever since that damned war that got us here started! Now get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.” I was going to have to deal with Crackshot tomorrow. The appearance of this medical pony had gotten in the way of those plans.

I stepped away from her towards the pallet I used as a bed. As I lay down I decided to mention one last thing. “Oh, I should probably let you know that I am a very light sleeper.”

I was woken the next morning by the sound of gunshots. I was instantly on my hooves, revolver in my mouth. A quick glance to the corner revealed that Suture had been just as suddenly woken as she struggled to shake the sleep from her head. I pushed her fate out of my mind as I crept to the window and looked out. My survival had to come first. As tempting as it was to learn what had been so special about that caravan, it wouldn’t do me any good if I was dead.

The camp had become a battleground, except the attack wasn’t coming from without. I saw a group of ponies gathered around the medical shack, firing at anything that moved. In the center of the formation was Crackshot. Heart Attack must have taken the easy way out and given him a couple of healing potions to get him on his hooves. He had his rifle balanced on a foreleg as he sighted up his targets and shot. Every round found its target. There was a reason for his name. Already, most of what little opposition there had been was dead.

I dropped back into the relative safety of the RV and crept towards the door. I could feel my heart start to race at the prospect of combat. I may not have been as crazy as most of the other raiders, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy a good fight.

Carefully, I slid the door open, and was caught by surprise when a buck charged in and flattened me to the ground, jamming a rusty knife against my throat, scratching my hide just enough to draw blood. The sudden attack sent my revolver tumbling from my mouth and towards my desk, out of my reach.

“Bet you didn’t see this coming, eh, Everthere?” the buck mouthed around the hilt of the dagger in his mouth.

“That’s where your wrong, Rusty,” I wheezed as I finally got a lungful of air back, “I figured it all out yesterday, and I’m always prepared.” I wasn’t going to tell him that the attack had taken me by surprise, even if I had known that it had been planned. I had been sure that I had a few days to play with.

While he tried to work out what I meant, I shifted my body slightly, angling so that a kick of my rear legs would do some damage. Once I was in place, I struck, bringing a hoof up into the area between his legs.

He automatically groaned in response, dropping the knife and freeing my throat as he curled into a fetal position. I pushed him off of me and retrieved the knife he had dropped. While he was still struggling to recover, I buried it up to the hilt in the base of his skull. His moaning and trembling stopped almost immediately.

I dashed over to my desk to retrieve my revolver and was shocked to see Suture standing over the body with a sad look on her face. “He’s dead,” she whispered.

I spat the pistol into its holster on my leg and stared at her. “Well, that was pretty much the plan,” I said, “He was trying to kill me, after all.”

She looked up at me, a distant look on her face. It didn’t look like she had even registered what I had said. “I couldn’t save him, and now he’s dead.”

“He was dead before he even hit the ground,” I snapped, “and if you want to keep from joining him, you should shut up and follow me.”

I picked up the revolver again and slid out of the RV, keeping a careful eye out for any other surprise attacks. As I crept down the ramp, I saw the body of a mare lying on the ground in a pool of blood, killed by Crackshot and his followers. Her name had been Razor, and she had been one of my closest allies. Seeing her dead probably meant that the few ponies that had been loyal to me had shared her fate.

I saw a shadow of movement come from one of the buildings as I reached the ground. It was Crosswire’s workshop. I truly hoped the buck was still alive. He was one of the few I could really count as being truly loyal, in every sense of the word.

I still hadn’t seen any hostile ponies as I approached the corner that would lead to the main courtyard of the camp. My E.F.S. showed a mass of red bars off to my left, where the medical shack was, as well as a single blue bar coming from the direction of Crosswire’s shack to the right. I was so focused on the bars that I forgot to look behind me.

Two bucks tackled me to the ground and tried to hold me there as a mare stepped out in front of me. “Who would have thought that the Great and Powerful Everthere would be so easily overcome?” she mused. The voice sounded oddly like Clipper had used to when she had first joined the gang, before Crackshot had broken her.

I rolled my eyes up to see and sure enough, Clipper was standing over me, a look of defiance and anger in her eyes that I hadn’t seen ever since Crackshot had shown up. “Yeah, that’s right, bitch. You thought I was weak and helpless, and let me tell you, it was hell acting like that in front of everypony all the time, but now, it’s my time to shine!”

“Oh yeah?” I mumbled around my revolver, “Well you forgot that I still have a gun!” I twisted my head around and pulled the trigger. The recoil shook my teeth and made my jaw hurt, but in a good way, the way that let you know you were still alive. The round smashed through Clipper’s chest, opening a wide hole and sending a spatter of blood out her back. She cried out in pain and collapsed, bleeding heavily.

The sudden gunshot caused the two bucks holding me to flinch. The movement gave me just enough room to work with. I started squirming and struggling against them, loosening their grip. They fought against me, but it was a battle they were fated to lose. As soon as I had enough space I twisted around, bringing the revolver to bear. Two more quick shots and both bucks were dead with a bullet through their heads. I wriggled out from under them and regained my hooves. Suture was bent over Clipper, trying to save her life, despite the horrific wound in her chest.

“Give it up,” I snapped, “She’s not worth it.”

“Everypony is worth it,” Suture argued angrily, “The minute we stop believing that is the minute that ponykind is doomed.”

I rolled my eyes and leveled the revolver at Clipper’s head. One more bullet and it was finished. I really liked this gun. “Well she isn’t. Now come on, we’re not out of this yet.”

“You shot her! She was defenseless, no, worse than that! She was completely helpless!” Suture yelled at me, getting to her hooves and taking a step towards me. There was a hard look in her eyes, as though she were considering attacking. As I watched, the bar on my E.F.S. that represented her flashed from blue to red and back again as the mare struggled to make up her mind.

Before she could act, I jumped forward, landing two solid blows with my forehooves and knocking her to the ground. I spat my revolver into its holster and glared at her. “Clipper was a mean bitch who wouldn’t have thought twice about shooting you in the head, if she didn’t give you to Crackshot as a gift first! That bullet wound I gave her was going to kill her, no matter what you did, unless you have a whole jug of healing potion hidden somewhere that I can’t see! And finally, do you really think you could take me? I saw you thinking about attacking me. I don’t think you’ve ever attacked a single pony over the course of your entire pathetic life! I have made a living dealing out death!” I growled, leaning in close to her and dropping my voice to a bare whisper.

Suture whimpered in both pain and fear as I stood over her. “It’s just not right,” she whispered back, “Everypony deserves a chance, no matter how bad they seem. Even you, Everthere.”

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, “It’s not my name, just what the others came up with for me. Now get up. You said your bit, and I made my point. I don’t intend on letting you die just yet; you could still prove useful.”

I turned away from her and crept up to the edge of the wagon my RV was wedged on top of. I stuck my head around the corner, not trusting my E.F.S. to tell me exactly where everypony was. It was quite terrible at determining elevation, not to mention distance.

I saw Crackshot standing in front of the door to the medical shack, surrounded by the ponies that had decided to risk joining him against me. A quick glance around revealed that he had finished his bloody work of killing the raiders that had remained loyal to me, or at least almost finished killing them all. There was still that one last blue bar, and I was praying with all of my heart to Celestia that it was Crosswire.

“Clipper, you got her yet? I want to get this whole farce over with! We have a lot of work to do!” Crackshot called out in my direction, “And those gunshots had better not have been fatal! I want her to look up at me and know who it was that beat her!”
I felt a familiar rage igniting in my chest. That this idiot of a buck thought he had outsmarted me was unthinkable. That he thought he could use me as a trophy was unacceptable!

I turned to Suture. “Stay here. I’ll take care of this,” I growled and stepped out into the open, opening up the closet in my mind that I had sealed the day before, letting all of my anger at the buck flow through me. He would need a bloody miracle to survive this.

“Did you really think you had beaten me so easily, Crackshot?” I drawled, playing for time. From the corner of my eye, I saw that last blue bar start to move, shifting around behind me to come up on Crackshot’s formation’s flank. “And if you’re wondering about Clipper and the others you sent with her, they all got to meet Hammer.” I didn’t know why I decided to name the revolver, it just seemed proper.

“Hammer?” Crackshot asked, his eyes so full of shock and confusion at seeing me that I doubted his brain had even registered that Clipper had to be dead.

“Eeyup,” I answered as I pulled out the revolver, “Hammer.” I slipped my tongue into the trigger guard and started shooting. There were only three bullets left in the cylinder, but I only needed one. The first bullet flew high, making the yellow buck drop to the ground in reaction. The second bullet was a little wide, but instead of being a clean miss, it buried itself in the chest of one of the mares standing near him. As she went down, the third and final bullet finally found its target, hitting Crackshot where his right foreleg connected to his shoulder.

He cried out in agony as he hit the ground, blood gushing from the wound. The ponies around him gaped in surprise, the earth ponies dropping their weapons as their jaws dropped. I casually reloaded Hammer, keeping an eye on the rest of them as they struggled to come to a decision.

“Don’t just stand there! Kill her!” Crackshot shouted, his voice thick with pain. The ponies glanced quickly at him, then back at me. Having an order given to them spurred their minds to action and they readied there weapons for the attack.

I pushed the last round into Hammer as the ponies wielding melee weapons charged, crazed looks on their faces. Instead of standing my ground, however, I dove to the side, dropping the revolver into its holster as I did. My roll brought me up next to a small shack. I dove inside, trying to buy myself some time. At least now the ponies with guns wouldn’t know where to shoot.

I only had a few seconds before the shack would have a few more guests. I had to use those seconds well. I reached into my barding and pulled out one of the grenades that I had looted the day before. It looked just like an apple, except for the fact that it was silver and had an orange band circling it, denoting it as a standard explosive. I pulled the stem out and rolled it towards the door, then dove to the other side of the single room, taking cover behind the bed. A second later I heard the door open. It had been a while since I had seen a grenade go off, and my memory was a little rusty on exactly how large the explosions were.

“Come on, Everthere, don’t make this difficult,” a unicorn mare said, sliding her combat knife against the sheet metal wall of the shack, making a grating sound that made my head hurt.

“Hey, Edge, what’s that?” another buck asked.

“What’s wh…” was all Edge got out before the grenade exploded, spraying the group of ponies with shrapnel.

The shockwave hit me a split second later, making my ears ring as it reverberated around the walls of the small shack. Luckily, that was the worst of the damage I received, since the bed had kept the shrapnel from hitting me. I pushed myself shakily to my hooves and shook my head, trying to clear out the ringing in my head. As my hearing finally started to return, I began to hear pained groans coming from the doorway.

I approached it to find five ponies lying on the ground, three of them dead, and a fourth, unconscious, well on his way to joining them. The fifth pony lay in a rapidly expanding pool of blood, several shards of shrapnel embedded in her chest and legs. One of the shards had clipped an artery in her leg, which was the source of all the blood. “Please… Please help me,” she whimpered, some sanity returning to her face, “I don’t want to die.”

“You don’t get that luxury anymore,” I growled. I reached down and pulled out Hammer. “Just pray that whatever you find in the Beyond is better than what you’ve got here.” I leveled the revolver and pulled the trigger, ending her misery.

A quick check to my E.F.S. revealed that about half of the bars that had been red were gone, and that even a couple of the ones that remained had become blue. It looked like Crackshot’s lackeys were losing their will to fight. I grinned widely as I stepped out of the doorway and turned to face the medical shack. To my surprise, Crackshot was missing, but there was a streak of blood leading into the medical shack.

“Celestia’s spirit, she’s still alive!” A buck called out in surprise as I emerged.

“What the fuck does it take to kill this bitch!” a unicorn mare asked as she chambered a round in her rifle.

“A lot more than you’ve got,” I growled, but before I could fire, somepony jumped me from behind. I was really getting sick of that. We rolled in the dust, kicking and fighting against each other for the advantage. My aggressor obviously had no idea what they were doing as they beat against my raised legs, rather than going for my exposed flanks. A quick twist and I was on top, shoving the pony under me into the dirt. A spot of blue mane in my vision, however, shocked me into hesitating, and I felt a bullet pierce my barding just behind my left shoulder and bury itself in my hide.

I cried out in pain as I collapsed on top of the mare under me, my leg no longer capable of supporting my weight. The mare under me grunted in pain as she took my weight and the air was forced from her lungs.

“Yeah, we got her now!” the buck called out as he galloped towards me, “And boy are we going to have fun!”

I felt him walk up behind me and prepared myself for the worst, praying only that I was covering up the mare under me well enough to keep the buck from noticing her, but my worst fear never came to reality. A burst of gunfire echoed through the camp, and I heard the buck’s body hit the ground heavily. Another burst, and I heard a shriek of pain from the direction of the medical shack. That was the last I heard before falling into the deep black of unconsciousness.

“We’ve gone far enough, we have to help her now!” I heard a mare’s voice saying as I came to. My side felt like it was on fire, and I could feel a warm trail along my shoulder and down my leg. I cracked an eye open and saw a line of blood flowing down my left foreleg, tracing a line over the screen of my Pipbuck and leaving a thin trail behind us. The little pony on the computer’s screen had an unhappy look on her face as a symbol flashed, saying that I had lost a lot of blood and that my torso was crippled. Well, that explained the weakness.

“I doubt that even the moon is far enough away from there. We barely got out as it is,” a buck’s voice answered. This voice I knew well: Crosswire. “And I’m surprised that you want to help her at all, since you’re that one that got her into this state!”

“She kept hurting ponies! I had to do something!” the mare retorted. It had to be that medical pony, Suture.

“She’s a raider! It’s what we do! And now you want to help her, after you attacked her?” Crosswire snapped, “I’ll never understand you medical ponies. Fine, if you want to help her so much, we can make a stop here. It should be safe enough.”

I heard Crosswire grunt as he lowered me to the ground. “What do we need to do first? I could tell you how to get a two hundred year old gate mechanism running, but I don’t know the damndest thing about fixing ponies.”

“We need to get her barding off and get a look at that wound,” Suture said, “Do you at least have some healing potions in your bags? That would go a long way to helping.”

“Nope, sorry. Just electrical components, scrap metal, and my tools,” Crosswire answered. I heard him rummage through his saddle bags and pull something out. “This should get that barding off right quick.”

I felt something slip into my barding at the seam and start to tear through. A few seconds later and it was done. He lifted the barding free of my body as Suture started to poke at the wound.

“She’s damned lucky that bullet didn’t hit any of these grenades,” Crosswire muttered as he dropped the barding on the ground nearby, “or there’d be nothing left to save. How’s she looking?”

“Not good,” Suture announced, “She’s lost a lot of blood.” I felt her hoof press on the wound and I groaned involuntarily.

“Oh, you’re awake! That’s good! Can you tell me how much it hurts?” Suture asked. Her voice was completely calm and composed, but I could hear the undertones of her anger at me in it.

“Like Luna herself fucked me with her horn,” I groaned. Crosswire laughed at that.

“That is disgusting,” Suture admonished me, her face scrunching up at the image, “Well, the bullet is still in there, and I have to get it out, so this is going to hurt, not that you deserve anything less.”

“Pain I can deal with. Just don’t kill me. I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life if you do,” I snapped, though the pain in my side made it hard to make the words have the sharpness I wanted them to.

“Fine by me,” Suture retorted. I felt something dig into my side and had to bite my lip to keep from crying out. Blood filled my mouth as I bit my lip, trying to drown out the intensifying pain of whatever it was the damned medical pony was doing to me. The thing, whatever it was, dug around in my side for what seemed like forever before finally starting to retreat. The pain was unbelievable, and my mind completely whited out and I felt myself slipping back into unconsciousness. Just as I was about to black out, the pain was gone and something dropped onto the ground in front of my face.

I shifted around to look and saw a flattened bullet lying in the dirt a couple of inches in front of me. “Now you know what it feels like to suffer,” Suture said angrily as she pressed a pad of gauze to the bullet wound.

“You think I haven’t suffered before? I’m the fucking boss of a fucking raider gang. You don’t know the first thing about what that means. Trust me, I know suffering,” I ground out under her not-so-careful ministrations.

“You mean you were the boss of a raider gang, Ever,” Crosswire spoke up. His voice was oddly quiet. “Pretty much everypony is dead, with the exception of a couple of psychos, and they were the reason we had to run out of there.”

I felt something sink inside of me. Once again, I had lost everything and felt as out of place in the world as a pile of rocks at a birthday party. “At least tell me Crackshot is dead. If anypony deserves it, it’s that bastard.”

“Judging from the amount of blood, I’d say he is. Didn’t see a body though,” Crosswire said, “And at least I know now why you always wore that utility barding. You wouldn’t have been able to hold on to anypony’s loyalty with a mark like that one on your ass.”

Fear gripped my heart like a block of ice. I twisted around, ignoring Suture’s cries of protest, and stared at my flank. Sure enough, my pinecone and pine needles were bare to the wasteland sky. I lifted my gaze to see Crosswire looking at them with a bemused look on his face. I even felt Suture pause in her work to take a look.

“I have to admit, it isn’t what I expected from you,” the medical pony said, ‘Even if I don’t recognize what it is, I was expecting something more like a bloody bullet or a knife covered in gore. You know, something more raider-ish.”

“So exactly what is your name, Ever?” Crosswire asked wistfully, “You owe me that much for saving your hide.”

I sighed and looked the hardened buck in the eye. “It’s Evergreen. I got my cutie mark while reading a book on the forests that used to cover Equestria. An evergreen is a tree that never loses its leaves, or needles, in this case, in winter, like most trees do.”

Crosswire snorted in amusement. “I always figured you were softer than you acted. I’m surprised it took this long for them to turn on you.”

“Oh, then why are you still here?” I asked pointedly, “For all your talk, I don’t see you thinking of turning on me!”

“’Cause you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Unlike most raiders, you actually have half a brain, and, unlike even less of them, you even put it to use. If anyone can survive in the wasteland, I figure it would be you. Why leave and get myself killed? It’s why I joined in the first place.”

“There we go. Bleeding has pretty much stopped and that bandage should keep it from getting infected,” Suture announced before I could answer. I had never figured Crosswire as that loyal of a pony, or even as a pony that could be more than a raider. I guess even the hardest killer could surprise. “Just try not to strain yourself for the next few days, or try to find a healing potion, and you’ll be right as rain in no time.”

I struggled to my hooves and turned to look at the medical pony. “Thanks for your help, Suture. I guess I owe you one.” Even I could be grateful, when the situation called for it, and I had no illusions to the fact that I would be dead if it weren’t for this naïve pony’s help.

“Nope, I was just paying you back for keeping me alive back there, excepting the fact that it’s because you were there at all that I was in danger,” the maroon mare answered, “ I wouldn’t have helped otherwise. Now, since I imagine I’m no longer in any real danger from your raiders, I’m free to go?”

“You sure you don’t want to stick around in case we get shot up again? Maybe let us get you somewhere safe?” I asked, trying to talk her into sticking around. A medical pony of her skill was a rare find indeed, and I was still very curious about why she had been following that caravan.

She turned and fixed me in an angry glare. “Not if the entire wasteland was after me. You may have kept me alive, but you aren’t a nice pony, Evergreen. I can’t travel with somepony who enjoys violence as much as you do.” With that, the mare turned and trotted away from us, quickly disappearing into the wasteland.

I shifted to look at Crosswire. “Now what?” I asked lamely. For the first time in three years, I no longer had a direction and my only lead at something to do had just run off down the trail, refusing to have anything to do with me.

The gray buck looked up from where he was repairing my barding. “You’re the boss, Evergreen,” he said with a grin, “Even if you do have a pansy name.” He handed me my fully repaired barding and I slipped it on, quickly checking to make sure all of my things were where I had left them, especially that Messaging Crystal. Something abnormal was going on, I just had to find out what.

My thought’s turned to some of the things that Suture had said. She was right: I wasn’t a nice pony. I had known that for a long time, but my life didn’t allow for anything else. It had been be tough or die for as long as I could remember. I had killed a lot of ponies, and many of them in ways that had let them linger, suffering as the injuries slowly consumed them. I was also very skilled at getting information others wanted kept hidden from me, as many of my former gang members could attest to, if any of them had still been alive. I shook my head, feeling the feeling of shame welling up in my chest again.

Maybe, just maybe, this betrayal, and this injury, could be the start of something new. Perhaps there was a chance at becoming a good pony again, even for somepony as broken and twisted as I was. I knew this, hoped this, because of something I had witnessed in the last day: there was still at least one pony in the wasteland that cared more about others than she did about herself.

“All right,” I breathed, looking down at my Pipbuck and checking the regional map. Seaddle was to the north, out of the mountains and on the coast. To the west were the remains of a once-great forest, so there probably wasn’t a whole lot to find out there. I lowered my leg and checked to make sure Hammer was in its holster. I felt a bit of comfort return to me as I saw the revolver nestled on my foreleg. “How about north? I haven’t been that way in a while.”

Level Up!
New Perk Added: Sharp Eye – You can detect (most of the time) when other ponies are lying to you if you can look them in the eye.

{As a first attempt at a pony fic in general, I think this chapter went rather well. The entire idea came from the idea of Evergreen's character: a raider boss with a hidden secret and a painful past. Hope it was as much fun to read this first chapter as it was to write! Thanks to Kkat for the original Fallout Equestria! Thanks also to Cody (still think it’s awesome my non-brony friends are willing to help me with this) and Green Leaf editing and helping this thing whip itself into shape!}