Chapter 7: And The Grass Won’t Pay No Mind

The first thing I realize is that someone was jamming a rod into my leg. The next thing that came to mind was that I was rather comfortable for laying in vine strewn dirt, and warm at that. I heard some sort of vague words coming from my surrounding and I figured it was time to open my eyes.

Bright, natural light flooded my eyes, blinding me for just a moment before I adjusted. I found that I was in somewhat of a familiar location. It almost looked like the cave where I’d found Crescent’s body. I turned my head to face two particularly scraggly looking ponies, a mare and a stallion. The stallion was holding a small revolver aloft with a faint magical aura.

“This is impossible,” I said, awestruck.

“Not really,” the mare laughed a little. She had a smile which showed quite a few missing teeth. “Everyone gets robbed by us.”

“No, I killed you,” I said.

“You shut up, you fucker!” the stallion yelled as he jammed the nose of his gun into my thigh. I winced at the pain. Even if this was a dream, you couldn’t argue that the pain felt real. “Now you just sit tight while my bitch gets your valuables.” The mare trotted over to my saddlebags while giving a conceited cackle. Luckily I was in my sleeping bag and neither ponies had thought to shake me down for a gun. I could feel the Luna’s holster heavy on my side. Now if only I could aim it at the stallion so the first shot would count.

“You’ll never get away with this,” I said, wriggling slowly as I spoke.

“We prefer not to kill, but we’ll do it happily if you don’t shut up,” he said.

“Oh yeah? You don’t look like killers to me.”

He eyed me suspiciously. “Is that so?”

I was ready. “Yeah.” A loud bang accompanied with a small jerk as the bullet tore through both my bag and the stallion’s shoulder. As he fell another shot rang out, this time from his revolver. The bullet ricocheted around the small cave before exiting harmlessly. With my magic I quickly turned on the mare, cocked my gun, and fired. I got her right in the chest. As she lay on the rock twitching, I heard hoofsteps behind me. I twisted around and covered the entrance. Another familiar sight struck me. Rimfire.

“Rimfire?” I asked. When she saw the dead bodies she let out a shrill yelp.

“Short, honey, are you okay?” she asked as she ran full tilt at me, knocking me off my hoofs onto my back.

“What?”

“Oh thank Celestia you’re all right!” she exclaimed into my chest. She stuck to me tighter than wonderglue.

“Rimfire, what the fuck is going on? Where are Tin and Ballast?” I demanded. Rimfire pulled back a little.

“What do you mean, honey?” Her eyes showed a little uncertainty. “Who are those ponies?”

“Don’t play dumb!” I screamed at her. I pushed her off me and she tripped over the dead stallion’s body. Blood splattered over her coat and mane. “What the fuck is going on here?”

Rimfire started to whimper. “W-we were taking a vacation,” she said, stumbling over every word. A few tears slid down her cheek and she wiped them away. “You were working too hard and I thought it would be best to go away for awhile.”

“Working too hard?” I asked. No, I stopped myself, that was offtopic. “What about the key? What about the Stable?”

“What do you mean?” She got up on her hooves again. “We haven’t seen a stable in so long, Short. What key are you talking about? I was getting some herbs when I heard gunshots, I came rushing in and I find two dead ponies and you rambling on about nonsense! Was it that book?”

“Book?” I asked.

Rimfire looked

Rimfire pointed to my discarded saddle bags. I looked at them and saw a small, brown notebook. I grabbed a hold of it with my magic and pulled it close to me. The cover was blank, but on the inside it read ‘Crescent’s Journal’.

“You were reading that all last night,” Rimfire said, sniffling. “And now you’re acting so strangely, Short.”

I ignored her and flipped the pages of the journal. None of the passages I saw made any sense. At least they didn’t until I got to the final section.

I killed them all. I didn’t want to, but they left me no choice. Really it was their own damn faults. They knew the risks, they came onto their own deaths willingly. I got what I came for, and now I just need to get out.

“Don’t you remember?” Rimfire asked. “It happened- Looks like we’ve got a live one over here.”

“What?” I asked.

“Short, why can’t you just tell me what’s going on!” Tears began to flow down her dusty coat. “What should we do with him, sir?”

“Who are you talking to?” I asked.

It felt like the butt of a rifle collided with my face, sending me flying onto my side. I wrenched my eyes shut as the floor rose up to meet me. From behind me, I heard the sounds of a battle saddle jostling. Something thudded to the ground. I opened my eyes. The cave was gone, I was back in the Stable Dome.

“What...?” I asked dumbstruck.

“Behind you, genius,” said a gruff, male voice. I grunted and sat up, turning to face the source of the voice.The stallion before me was completely encased in armor. Not typical barding, but thick steel plating that covered every inch of his body. Floodlights straddled his head, right around the eyes, while tubes snaked around his face, burying themselves into his body at various points. Powerful hydraulics seemed to run down his legs, ending at hooves that looked like they could crush a pony's skull as easily as an eggshell.

“Steel Ranger,” I said in awe.

“Damn straight,” he said. “Now what in hell are you doing down here? And don’t give me any shit because it’s been a long day.” He jostled a little, his guns calibrated to shoot wherever he looked, which currently seemed to be my revolver. “Don’t even think about it.”

“I’m here for a thing,” I told him.

He nodded his head. “Keep talking.”

“I came here looking for a thing, I’m not sure what it was but it was wanted badly. It’s a key, I don’t know where to but it’s important.”

“Did you get it?” he asked. I looked down to the golden disk that had fallen next to my leg. “Ah.” He reached for the key with a forehood. “Let me take a peek at that.”

I reached my magic out towards my revolver. “I can’t let you do that,” I said.

His guns pointed towards my face. The black barrels staring into my soul. “Is that so?”

“No, I’m not letting anyone else die for it,” I said.

“Even if it’s you?”

“Hopefully.”

“You got guts, kid,” He said. “Why don’t you get up and we get acquainted.” I stood up and picked up my revolver slowly and holstered it. The male ranger strode back to the mare and stood next to her.

“What the hell are you doing, Starburst?” she asked.

“We’ve got ourselves an asset with valuable technology, Heartfire. I’d think it’d be a great idea if we’re friendly to him.” Starburst turned to me. “Now, my friend, who are you?”

“I’m Short,” I said. “There’s not much else to know.”

“Marvelous,” he said. “I’ll suppose you know who we are.”

“How am I alive? I should have died from that creature...”

“Probably,” he said. “But maybe you’ve got some luck on your side.”

“Where did the creature go? Did you kill it?”

Starburst laughed. “No, we didn’t kill it. It only rests here, we think. Sometimes it brings in good things from its ‘hunts’.”

“So what happens now?” I asked.

“We’re taking you back to base,” he said. Heartfire shifted uncomfortably.

“How?” I asked

“We’ll let you figure it out,” Heartfire said. She dropped a small rag on the ground. “Wrap this around your head.”

“Why?”

“Our base is a secret, Short,” Starburst said. “Can’t let every Tom, Dick, and Harry know where we are.”

“But how will I know where to go?”

“Trust us or get shot,” Heartfire said solemnly. I grimaced, but I tied the rag around my eyes. “Good, let’s move out.” Without my sight I forced to rely only on my ears and nose to know where I was. I felt something tug on my saddlebags and pull me forwards.

“What the hell?” I asked.

“I’ve put a rope through your bag,” Starburst said. “That way it’s easier for you to follow.”

I harrumphed. The rope gave two quick jerks and I started to move forward with the two Steel Rangers. It didn’t seem like they were going back to the stairs that Tin, Ballast, and I had taken not so long ago.

“This wasn’t the way in,” I said.

“If you don’t keep quiet,” Heartfire threatened. Starburst hushed her.

“The rest of my patrol is this way,” he said. The dirt ground gave way to a stone floor underneath my hooves. “You see, we’ve been investigating this... place for a while now.” Metal creaked and groaned overhead as we walked. Hissing filled the air, although it seemed distant. “I must have been down in this place, hell, dozens of times. Careful, the floor’s a bit uneven here.” I felt my hooves hit various cracks and holes on the ground, once I even knocked into something which went rattling off to the side. I didn’t really want to think about what it was.

“Should we really be telling him all this?” Heartfire asked.

“Frankly I don’t see why not. Not like he can get away at this point.” Starburst stopped ahead of me and I felt myself was into the metallic rear of a pony, probably Heartfire. I heard three loud clangs of metal on metal. “It’s me, I have a guest.” Metal squealed on metal as something moved in front of us, just another old door.

“Sir,” a new female voice said ahead.

“Use comms,” Starburst said and then went silent for a few moments. The rope started to tug again and I was led forward through the door. It slammed shut behind us. Starburst spoke up again, his tone slightly tense. “Alright Short, we’re about an hour from base. You can take the blindfold off then.”

I didn’t have much to do except for try to count or estimate the passing time. I listened to the ambience, ponies breathing, the world moving, and hooves on the ground. Even when it felt like and hour has passed we just kept walking. Up and over steep inclines, nearly sliding down declines. Sharp turns and long stretches all folded together to make an untraceable path. Without warning we came to a stop.

“You can take off the blindfold now,” Starburst said. I undid the knot at the back of my head and the dirty cloth fell to the floor. No one made a move to retrieve it. I looked around to see that we had been joined by the rest of Starburst’s patrol, nine more steel rangers. All of them were similarly geared in the traditional, grey power armor. It looked as though we were in a bunker that had never even seen the war. The walls were pristine, practically shining: the floor tiles looked as though they had been placed yesterday. Everything gleamed except for us. The walls and ceiling looked like they were made of a dark, strong metal. The room was a twenty by thirty foot rectangle, the ceiling wasn’t all that much above our heads. It was perhaps just two feet above my head. In front of me was a tall and foreboding door. In general it was a light gray color, but in the center of it was a circle that had spokes of light intersecting in the center. The door looked like it could fit two armored ponies side by side through its threshold. The way behind us wasn’t nearly as glamorous, just a hole in the wall that looked rough-hewn. Besides us, the only things occupying the room was a surplus of boxes that had accumulated fine layers of dust.

“Well this seems like a nice place,” I said.

“It gets the job done,” Starburst said. He turned to Heartfire. “Let them know we’re back.” Heartfire nodded and trotted to the door and pressed a small box that was attached to the wall next to it. Starburst turned back to me. “There are a couple things we say to guests here. First, we never have guests. So that means you’re going to be the odd one out. It would be a wise decision not to piss off any paladins, scribes, or the like. Also, don’t unholster your weapon.” A great hissing noise erupted into the room in front of us. The great door slowly slid up revealing two more Steel Rangers beyond. One of them wore armor that was even ornate than any of the others. The normally armored pony, a mare I guessed, stepped to the side and let Starburst’s patrol in. She stuck her hoof out as I was about to enter.

“Whoa there,” she said. The mare turned to Starburst. “What’s the meaning of this outsider?”

“I’m taking him to see Elder Soap,” Starburst told the mare. He pushed her hoof down. “Come on, Short.” He lead me into the next room. The architecture of the space changed dramatically. Instead of being a stark, wartime bunker, it was as though I was in some sort of ship. The walls were ridged with support beams every ten feet. The floors were a thin, metal grate that clanged with every step. The walls were a much darker grey than the area before. Bright yellow bulbs illuminated the room we were in. Not so much a room as a spacer within a hallway. It was a ten by ten square with a door at each corner. Opposite on two sides was a single hallway. A sign on the wall pointed right and mentioned both an armory and a library. To the left was dining and dormitories.

“Where am I?” I asked, my mouth hanging open. This hall looked nicer than any place I’d seen all my life.

“This is our bunker, Short,” Starburst said. “I’ll take you to the Elder immediately.” Starburst turned to the right hallway and started off. I trotted to the side of the mare. The ornate stallion stood to the side and just watched us walk away.

“What was with the stallion?” I asked.

“Blaze? He’s... special.”

I thought about that for a minute while we walked. After passing a few more expansions like the one we’d left, we emerged into a much wider hallway. A few unarmored ponies wearing a thick barding were walking about the halls. From my perspective I could see turret emplacements. Starburst took another left and started walking again.

“Why is he special?” I asked Starburst. “Did you mean, well, mentally?”

Starburst let out a small cough. “No, Short. He’s seen a lot. Doesn’t talk much.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I told him.

“We all are.” As we moved further we passed more and more menacing turrets. Their targeting talismans glowing, searching for someone to make a wrong move. Starburst turned right down a hall which ended abruptly with another bunker door. Starburst opened the door and led me through. The room was circular and built in similar style to everything else I’d seen in here. In the center of the room was a crescent desk, behind which an older mare was poring over books and maps. She didn’t wear power armor or barding like the other ponies. Instead she wore an impressive button-up jacket. Around the room and posted on the walls were additional maps with pins sticking through at various places with scrawls and scribbles all over. She looked up as Starburst and I walked in.

“Good to see you, Paladin Starburst,” she said. “And I heard you brought a guest.” Elder Soap looked at me with a small frown. “Yes, I see.”

“Elder Soap, I know it’s against the code to bring in an outsider but he’s got something of interest,” Starburst told the mare.

“Is that so?” she asked me.

I nodded. “But it’s not for you. It isn’t for anyone.”

“Is that so?”

I nodded at Soap.

Starburst tapped my shoulder. “Short, think about what you’re doing,” he warned.

“It’s too dangerous. I don’t know what it’s for, and I can’t risk it falling into the wrong hooves.”

Soap cleared her throat and put her forehooves together. “Short, I’m going to be honest here. I’d have no qualms with having you shot right now and merely taking whatever it is from you. However, I don’t want to do that. I’d like it if you could walk from this room with a smile on your face. Now I’m not really sure what you’d like.”

“I’d like if nobody had to die because of me,” I said honestly. In that moment her eyes softened and a smile traced itself on her lips.

“I’d like that too, truly I would,” she said. “As the elder of this group of Steel Rangers, that’s what I want for New Pegasus too, but with The Kid, the NER, and the Casinos all vying for power, it’s hard to make sure no pony gets killed.” I nodded.

“I’ve seen that,” I said.

Soap nodded too. “Even Starburst here has lost to that struggle for power. Just last year his son, a neophyte at the time, was killed by the NER on patrol.” Starburst turned his head down, looking away from both of us. “Do you think the NER asked them to come quietly? No. I heard what the survivors said. It was a slaughter.”

“I know what you’re getting at,” I said. “And I’m sure you’ve got a great speech planned. It’s just...” I stopped.

“Listen, Short, was it?” Her tone less kind than before. “Well you might be right, and I understand where you’re coming from. Just hear me out, no bullshit. You let me look at that key, just let me look at it for a little bit, and we’ll go on from there. Okay?”

I hesitated. I figured letting her look at it wouldn’t hurt anyone so I folded. I used my magic to levitate the small, golden disk out of my bag and placed it in front of her. She smiled.

“Thank you, Short,” she said. Soap picked up the disk and began to inspect it. Her eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips. It took only a little while for her brows to furrow. She put down the disk and began to flip open one of the books. Pausing about halfway through, she let out a small exclamation. “Oh my,” she muttered. She put down the disk and looked at me. “This is the vault key,” she said.

“What vault?” I asked.

“The vault, Short. Before the bombs fell, there was a top secret project, bigger than anything else near Las Pegasus. Every ministry that involved killing the other side had a hoof in it. The strangest thing is even the Ministry of Awesome did, which really makes the contents of interest.”

“I see,” I said. “So this disk will open it?”

“Most likely,” she said. “This key has been lost for nearly 200 years, Short. A lot of ponies thought it was destroyed.” She went silent and looked at the key intently. “This could change everything,” she said barely above a whisper.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, my voice rising a little.

She didn’t say anything for couple seconds. “You think you’re the only one who’s tired of ponies dying?”

I stamped a hoof into the ground. Soap didn’t flinch . “No!” I said, raising my voice in indignation. “You aren’t.” I struggled to keep myself calm. “I’m sure you don’t want to see any pony die either.But I just don’t know if I can just give that key to you.” I enveloped the disk in magic and floated it towards me. She didn’t move to stop me. I placed it in my bag and breathed a small sigh of relief.

“I’m not asking you to make a decision now, Short. But you should know that disk has the chance of changing everything in New Pegasus. I want you to think about that disk and what it could mean. Starburst will show you out. Feel free to come back if you’d like.” Elder Soap turned back to the papers on her desk and Starburst lead me out into the main hallway.

“Hell’s bells,” he muttered after the door shut behind us.

“She’s just letting me go?” I asked.

“Seems to be the shape of it, Short,” he said. Starburst began to pick his way through the Steel Rangers in the hall. Many more of them had populated the hall since we’d left. A few of the ponies gave me glancing looks but quickly turned elsewhere.

“Why?”

He looked at me and gave a little shrug underneath his armor. “Couldn’t quite tell. I wish you hadn’t heard about... you know.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s old news,” he said. I could hear the slight sound of old heartbreak in his voice. We turned into a larger main hall. At the end was a door that had four heavily armed Steel Rangers guarding it. Starburst walked to it. He nodded to one of the guards and the door opened. Surprisingly he stepped through with me. It looked like we were some sort of a mine. Light flickered through a wooden door not twenty feet away. The rough hewn walls were thick with cobweb; bones, and spent casing littered the stone floor.

I turned to Starburst. “Thanks for saving me,” I told him.

He didn’t say anything to me, but he reached up with his hooves and grappled with his helmet for a moment before taking it off. Underneath he had a light brown coat with hazel eyes and a blonde mane. A long scar went from his bottom lip to the top of his right eye. “It was the least I could do, Short.”

I smiled. “Well I guess this is goodbye.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he said. “I could go with you. It’s dangerous to go alone, especially these days.”

“What?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if he was joking. “You can’t just leave the Steel Rangers behind can you?” He dropped his helmet to the side. The thump of the metal on rock echoed through the shaft.

“No, but the Elder knows I need this.”

“Are you sure you even want to be around me? I’ve gotten ponies killed, Starburst.” I tried to explain that it was a bad idea.

“Do you think I’ve never been out of the bunker? The day I can’t protect myself or my squad is the day I should die.”

“I don’t know if i can let another pony die because of my failures,” I said. My voice wavered, almost on the verge of breaking down.

“Then I won’t let you fail,” he said. Starburst’s old eyes softened and he strode closer to me. “I can help you.”

“Okay,” I said. “You can come with me.” Starburst smirked.

“Excellent,” he said. “Now where to?”

“Great question, Star. I’m not really sure what to do right now.”

Starburst grunted. “Well then, why don’t we walk on it?” I nodded for lack of a better idea and we set off up the shaft. As I pushed on the door to the outside the hinges had had enough and snapped in two. The door fell flat onto the dirt. It seemed like an apt start with my new partner.

I took a deep breath of the hot, dry desert air. It was almost intoxicating after having been stuck underground for so long. I let it out with a content sigh. Our surroundings were much different than the forest. This time we were at the base of a large cliff that towered over a hundred feet into the air. I had no idea where I was right now. In front of us the desert stretched out until the sky met the horizon. In the far distance I could make out some hazy shapes. I looked to Starburst.

“Is that a town over there?” I asked as I turned. He hadn’t put his helmet back on and I didn’t see it around him. “No helmet? How will your guns work?”

“Yeah it’s a town, and my guns don’t need my helmet to work. Trust me. Also, it was getting pretty stuffy in that thing.” I nodded and turned back to the town.

“What’s it like?” I asked.

“The town or the helmet?”

“The town.”

Starburst put on a thoughtful expression. “Let’s see. I don’t really know, we didn’t go into towns much. Although, I have heard it’s a haven for gamblers, ones that are too poor to get into the New Pegasus casinos, or too dangerous.”

“Maybe there will be something to do there,” I said. He nodded.

Starburst and I started out way to the gambling town as the sun sat at high noon. By my estimation, I thought it would take at least an hour to get to the town. Starburst stayed silent as we walked, so I left to my thoughts. Letting him come with me left a pit in my stomach. Although he had a lot more combat experience than me, probably even more than Rimfire.

I pushed the idea of Rimfire to the side once again and tried to focus my mind. Why had Elder Soap let me go so easily? Maybe she wasn’t as bad as I thought. She’d been the only pony to let me go easily. Perhaps she was up to something, but she’d been nicer in my brief meeting than most of the NER. The guard post after the canyon had been decent, but Tin had skewed my view of them twice. Once when she took me prisoner, again when she seemed to care for me.

I blinked twice, focusing on the world in front of me. The town was coming into clear focus now. It wasn’t like any town I’d seen before. Instead of being made of old building or scraps, it seemed to have been made of lumber and bricks that had been made recently, stuff that hadn’t sat in decrepit state since the bombs fell. That didn’t mean it was free from the grime and dust that accumulated out here. The town was essentially one long street with buildings on both sides. As far as I could tell it looked to be mostly saloons and a few small hotels. From a hundred yards away we could see the name of the town on a large and foreboding sign.

Balefire Point.

The town looked empty on the street, but we could hear raucous ponies inside every building. Ahead of us and to the right was a saloon called the Loose Mare. It didn’t stand out from any of the others except that as we passed in front of it, a stallion came flying out of the double doors and fell into the dirt in front of us. A strangely familiar voice yelled out, “And stay the fuck out!” I took the lead and led Starburst into the Loose Mare.

The inside was a typical saloon. On one wall was a large selection of whiskeys and liquors, while a majority of the room was taken up with poker tables. Dozens of ponies sat around the tables drinking, smoking, and gambling. Around the room were several well armed mares keeping careful eyes on the patrons. One of them was a little too familiar for me.

“Rimfire?” I asked, my voice carrying over the din. She was leaning next to the bar, taking a shot from the bartender when she whipped her head around towards me. I saw her mutter something under her breath but it was too loud to make it out. Starburst and I strode to the bar where she was leaning. Rimfire drank the shot quickly as we approached.

“Would you just look who it is?” she asked rhetorically. “I thought you’d be dead by now. And where’s our little friend Thirteen?” I looked away from her and stayed silent. “I thought so.”

“What’s your deal?” Starburst asked. “Short, how do you know this mare?”

Rimfire answered before I could. “Short and I came to New Pegasus together, but he was a bit too dangerous to be around so I went on my own. I found Balefire Point and got a job.”

“She’s right,” I admitted. “I was dangerous, reckless too. But I’m better now, at least I’m trying to be.”

She let out a chiding laugh. “Don’t even. A leopard can’t change his spots. What could you even do to help anyone?”

“I don’t know, but I am.”

She scoffed. Rimfire pushed her shot glass further on the bar. A mare wearing next to nothing came by and quickly filled up the glass. Rimfire picked up the glass with magic and took the shot.

“Where’d you meet him?” Rimfire questioned me again.

“Underground stable mixed with a factory I think. He kind of saved my life.”

“Why are you even here?” she asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” I told her. “I guess I’m just here to think about what happens next.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?” I walked over and leaned on the bar, sighing. The barmare came over with a beer, smiled, and trotted off. I picked up the beer with my magic and took a sip. It wasn’t bad.

“I’m just at crossroads right now, Rimfire. I’ve got what Crescent was looking for.” Her eyes widened at my statement. I nursed the beer as we continued to talk. It was pretty refreshing after not having any sort of drink for a few hours.

After she decided she didn’t want to care for the disk, she spoke up.

“So?” she asked.

“So there’s a lot of ponies who’d like it, and it’s pretty much up to me to give it to someone,” I said.

“Do you think you can make the right choice?” Starburst asked. I was slightly taken aback at the question.

“I hope so,” I told him. “I really do Starburst. There’s a lot riding on me right now, and I could make or break this place. I’ve never had this much responsibility. I can’t fuck it up... not this time.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine, Short,” Rimfire said to me. She had a worried expression on her face. I felt a hoof on my back and turned around to see a stallion standing behind me. He was wearing a suit that hadn’t taken the years well, but still looked like work had been put into it. His black mane was greased back and between his lips he was cradling at lit cigarette. He took a long drag before he spoke.

“Did I hear correctly that you’re Short? Short Change, if I may?” he asked, smoke spilling out of his mouth with every word.

“Yeah, why?” I saw the corner of his mouth turn into something halfway between a smirk and a smile.

“Church sends his regards,” the pony said slowly, emphasizing each syllable carefully. I barely had time to register the name before I noticed the glint in his breast pocket. He must have done something because as soon as I saw the barrel a small shot rang out and I felt a sting on my breast. Before even Rimfire could react I’d drawn and cocked my revolver and had it aimed at the stallion. He hit me again with another shot, this time in the leg, and I let him have it. The bullet entered through his skull and sprayed the bar in gore.

The mares working security all began to pick up their weapons and bark orders to the patrons. Ponies at the poker tables scrambled for chips and caps during the clamor. I saw a few ponies in the crowd who were acting a little too calm. One of them reached for a nearly hidden pistol and I knew that stallion hadn’t been alone.

The closest pony was a mare. I was pretty sure she’d be eyeing every pony that walked in. I twisted my gun towards her in what felt like slow motion. She had barely cleared her holster when my shot took her in the gut. She fell back, slumping to the floor. I turned my gaze out to the crowd. Time seemed to slow down even more. Was this S.A.T.S again?

I saw the muzzle flash of pistol in the crowd. The pistol was held by a stallion who eyes looked full of hatred. The bullet embedded itself in the wood to my side, spraying us with splinters. I took aim as quickly as I could and fired my third shot. He shot again while my bullet hit him in one of his back knees. I felt the bite of his bullet at is tore a hole through my right ear. Time went back to normal when one of the mares in security let out a volley of fire into the ceiling and every pony went silent. I saw the eyes of the stallion I shot, they were glazing over and he seemed to be breathing heavy. A few ponies rushed to the sides of fallen shooters. I slumped against the bar, my blood pooling beneath me, my revolver dropped as I let the magic field go. I felt hooves pushing into my saddlebags. I caught Rimfire from the corner of my eye. She was frantically rummaging for something. My breath was getting harder and harder to catch as the wound finally started to get to me. Pain was racing through my body and my nerves were on fire. Rimfire suddenly took up my field of vision. She tilted my head back with her hooves and tipped a healing potion into my mouth. The sweet taste filled my mouth and made my body chill.

“Short, what the fuck?” she screamed at me. I didn’t say anything. Instead I focused on the acute sensation of bullets being pushed out of my flesh through healing tissue. My breathing turned into hollow gasping. Rimfire went back into the bags and pulled out another potion. Again she poured the red contents into my mouth and I felt the familiar effect of pain fading yet not totally disappearing.

Starburst had put himself in some sort of stance and was scanning the room. Two wet splashes accompanied the bullets being pushed out of my body and falling into the stagnating blood. As the potions worked their magic my breathe returned to me. I felt almost as good as new.

“Short...” Rimfire muttered. I pushed off the wall and steadied myself on my legs. I wobbled slightly but I didn’t fall.

“I’m alright,” I said, coughing up dried blood as I spoke.

“You may be an annoying asshole at times, but damn you’re one surprising motherfucker,” she said. She turned away and got another shot. I looked around the bar. Only the last stallion I shot wasn’t covered in a sheet, and he wasn’t in good shape at that. I noticed Rimfire was looking too. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that? Last time I saw you, you barely knew where the bullet came out of.”

“Well, I figured that talk’s cheap sometimes,” I said coolly. In truth I didn’t know how I’d gotten so much better at shooting. Maybe it was just something New Pegasus did to you. “Sometimes everything you need to say can be said with a bang.”

“Hmm.” Something flickered on her face, it might have been worry. I couldn’t say that I wasn’t worried myself. I looked at the where the two bodies lay on the floor. I’d killed them as soon as look at them. A different voice shouted across the saloon.

“Rimfire,” a mare’s voice yelled, “get those troublemakers the fuck out of here!” Rimfire rolled her eyes.

“Fine, but I’m out too!” The three of us left the Loose Mare and found ourselves standing in the middle of Balefire Point.

“You didn’t need to do that,” I said to Rimfire after a small silence.

“I didn’t do it for you,” she told me adamantly.

“Then why?” I asked.

“She obviously cares for you a lot,” Starburst added. Rimfire looked disgusted and shuddered a little.

“Ew, what? No.”

“Relax Rimfire,” I said. “We can still be friends can’t we?”

“Friends... companions... I don’t know.”

“So you going to come with us?” I asked.

“Might as well. Can’t really do anything here.” Rimfire spit on the dirt. “To be honest it was getting a little boring too.”

“I think we’re forgetting something here,” Starburst said. “Who was Church, and why did he want you dead, Short?” I’d forgotten that he wouldn’t know, and even Rimfire would have had fuzzy details.

“Church, well Churchane, is the reason I came to New Pegasus. I thought I was doing a normal trade for him, but as it turns out I was smuggling drugs. Long story short, I took the money he was supposed to get and I never went back to him. He probably sent ponies to get that money back.” Starburst looked mortified.

“You smuggled drugs into New Pegasus?” He looked shocked.

“Yeah, well sort of,” I said, not sure if he’d understood the whole story.

“Do you think you could do it for the Rangers? We’ve been needing to get a transmitting device in and we didn’t have anyone able to do it.”

“I’m not sure, Starburst. It was under really strange circumstances.” He was disappointed.

“That’s unfortunate. If you change your mind, go see the Elder again. I’m sure she’d appreciate the help.”

I nodded along. “I’m sure she would, but I don’t think I should go back just yet. She’ll want the disk.” Starburst frowned but didn’t push the issue. Anyways we needed provisions now that we were in town. There was no telling when we’d be able to get supplies.

“Rimfire, Where can we get guns and ammo?” I asked.

“We don’t have any gun stores,” she said.

“Really?” Starburst asked. “I’d assumed this outlaw town would be nearly full of gun stores.”

“Ah yes, well there are no gun stores themselves, but you can find guns and ammo. You just need to know where to look.” Rimfire trotted ahead. Starburst and I had no choice but to follow her. She ignored all the storefronts and chose instead to lead us down a narrow and shadow ridden alley. At the end she opened a door on the end. I hadn’t even noticed the door before she started pulling it; it blended in with the building nearly perfectly.

The inside looked completely opposite of any gun store I’ve ever been in before. Instead of having the wares displayed for consumer perusal, there was only an old mare sitting on a small, wooden stool next to a safe. The mare looked up at us as we entered, her cloudy eyes looked as big as wagonwheels when seen through her glasses.

“Oh hello dears,” she said, “what can I do for you?”

I raised an eyebrow in confusion. “No guns?”

The old mare didn’t try to hide a sly smile. “Oh no, dearies, no guns here. Just some magazines.” Slowly, bones creaking with age, she turned to the safe and opened it. Inside was a a small stack of magazines, a few caps, and a bottle of Sparkle Cola. She passed the magazines to Rimfire and I. Starburst didn’t ask for one. I assumed he didn’t need the ammo anyways. I flipped open the magazine and looked at it’s contents. It was full of crudely drawn guns and ammo. Every picture had a price next to it.

“Ah,” I said. “Well, I’ll take, uhm, 200 rounds of the .45?” She nodded.

Rimfire spoke up next. “I’ll take 500 5mm’s.” The mare nodded again. Something in the magazine caught my eyes.

“And can I get the Tec 9?” I asked.

Rimfire looked at me bewildered. “Really?” she asked. “I’d never imagine you’d want a gun like that.”

“Guns have grown on me, what can I say?”

The mare coughed. “Will that be all?” she asked.

“I’ll just add that I’d like 500 rounds for the Tec,” I added.

“Okay dearies. Come back in, oh, ten minutes. It will be... let’s see, 2500 caps sounds fair.” The mare took the magazines and placed them back in the safe. Rimfire, Starburst, and I walked out into the alley and headed back to the street.

“Well now what?” I asked the two ponies.

“Let’s get a drink,” Starburst suggested. I’d never have imagined that idea would come from him, but maybe he had a good reason. I could see that Rimfire wasn’t about to disagree with him so we walked into the closest bar. This one went by the name Balefire Crater. It was empty except for a bartender that stood behind the bar cleaning glasses. The room was simple. Tables and chairs took up most of the room. In the far back of the room was the bar. The three of us walked over to the bar and sat down.

“What’ll ya’ have?” The bartender asked. His voice was dry and raspy.

“Bourbon on the rocks,” Starburst ordered. Rimfire got the same. The bartender poured the bourbon into two glasses and put them on the bar. Both of them began to drink as the bartender turned to me.

“How about you?” he asked.

I’d never really been one to drink, and I couldn’t remember anything that I’d really right to drink now.

“What’s your best?” I asked.

“I make a mean mixed drink. I call it the Balefire Bomb.”

“Sure, I’ll take it.” I looked over to see Rimfire still sipping the bourbon. Starburst had finished his almost immediately and was waiting for another glass. “Shouldn’t we not be trying to get drunk?” I asked him.

He nodded. “It’ll take more than two to get me drunk, Short. But you’re right, one and done.” The bartender had finished my drink at this point. I hadn’t paid any attention to what was in it, but I wasn’t sure that it was drinkable. As the drink was placed in front of me I couldn’t help but turn a little shade of green. Fortunately I would have been in good company. The Balefire Bomb was a putrid shade of green with floating globules of red all floating over a sea of grey.

“Here you go, sir,” he said. “It will be 20 caps.” Rimfire put the caps on the bar and I picked up my drink and inspected it further. It had no discernible smell to it, yet that didn’t really make me feel better.

“You sure ponies drink this?” I asked the stallion behind the counter. He nodded. I moved the glass closer to my mouth let out a sigh. I felt the awful drink slide down my throat. “Fuck me,” I gasped. The drink left a burning, acrid taste in my mouth. I could already tell that I’d made a terrible decision.

A hoof creeped across my back. I turned to see Rimfire leaning onto me.

“You alright?” She asked.

“Yeah,” I said, noting the look of sympathy in her eyes. “I’ll be fine. It was just a really shit drink, I think.” The bartender looked offended but I didn’t really mind about that. If he served those drink regularly, he ought to have a thick skin.

“We should probably go pick up what we ordered,” Starburst said.

“Sure thing,” I said. The three of us headed back to the ‘gun store’ and walked in through the hidden door. The old mare was still there, but this time she had two well armed mares next to her, in the middle of the floor was the ammo and my gun.

“The caps, dear?” the old mare asked. Using my pipbuck I selected 2500 caps and opened my saddlebag to find them right on top. I floated them over to her. She caught them in a bag and put them straight into the safe. Rimfire and I began to pick through the ammo and put it into our bags. We’d sort them into magazines later.

I looked fondly at my new gun. It looked almost exactly like the crude drawing I’d seen in the magazine. It looked like it was a pistol, but instead of the magazine sliding into the grip, it had a forward port. The barrel was elongated and had holes in it. Probably to keep the noise down, I thought to myself. I looked down to see something strange in the pile of pullets. While most of them were a mixture of coppery colors, one of them had a silver base with a purple tip. I levitated it to take a closer look.

“What’s this?” I asked. I felt the unfortunate attention of assault rifles being pointed at me.

“Our mistake,” The old mare told me. “That’s a special bullet. It must have fallen in by accident.”

“Oh, it’s fine. I’ll pay for it, it’s really making me curious though. What is it?” I pulled it closer still. The only markings on the round read ‘37/200’.

“You really don’t want it, sonny,” she said, sounding more persistent as we spoke. “It’s a very special bullet. I don’t think your guns could handle it.”

“I don’t think you understand,” I said. “I would really like this bullet, and maybe even 5 more.”

The old mare looked shocked. “You can’t have them,” she said, her voice having lost all sweetness.

There came a knock on the door. Everyone froze. A few seconds passed before another knock started, this time it was much louder. A voice came in from the outside.

“Open up!” it said. “This is the NER. We are seizing all illegal merchandise and profit.” I saw the two security mares flicking the safety on their guns off; Rimfire did the same with her rifle.

“What now?” I asked in a whisper.

“Fight or die,” one of mares in security said. Tingling with anticipation I drew my revolver. The thought struck me that I hadn’t reloaded since The Loose Mare. I popped out the cylinder and pull the three spent casings out. I put in two of the new .45’s and the strange, purple-tipped round. No one called me out on it so I shut the cylinder and gave it a spin.

The knocking on the door continued. “This is your last warning!” The voice screamed through the wall. “Come out now or die!” Everyone worked in unison as we turned out guns to face the wall. Even the old mare had revealed a compact smg from somewhere. One of the mares began mouthing a countdown.

Three. I pulled the hammer on my revolver back.

Two. I steadied myself and made sure my telekinetic grip was tight and strong on the gun’s grip.

One.

I wasn’t quite sure which one of us shot first, but it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t some ordinary blast that came out of the muzzle of my gun. It was something else. A great thundering crack accompanied a shot that punched a hole the size of an eye into the wall.. Even my strongest grip couldn’t hold onto the revolver as it flew back behind me.

Unsure of where my revolver was, I grabbed my Tec9 and leapt to the side. I hoped it was loaded and ready to fire. I hit the ground and pulled the trigger, shots fired randomly, hitting the ceiling, the opposite building, and once or twice, a soldier. The spurting bullets left the gun with a recoil that was hard to control.

One of the soldiers fired a round which buried itself into the floor in front of me and sprayed my face with splinters and wooden fragments. The sound of gunfire was deafening, making it hard to focus on the task at hand. I slipped the magazine out of the Tec and rammed a new one in its place. I pulled back the bolt and started to shoot through the wall blindly again. I shut my eyes tight. It didn’t really matter if I was looking or not, mostly I was just hoping I wouldn’t get shot. Rimfire. That thought ripped itself into the forefront of my mind. There was no way I was going to let her die here.

But it didn’t seem like I was going to get a choice in the matter, because as suddenly as it happened, the gunfire stopped. The air was thick with dust as I peered about the room. It looked like no one had been seriously injured. One of the mares was putting pressure on her flank; she must have been grazed.

“I’ll check,” Starburst said. The armored stallion cautiously creeped to the door and put a hoof against it. He took a deep breathe before he pushed it open. Starburst stuck his head out and took a look at the alley. He pulled back and said, “All clear.” There was a palpable wave of relief that washed over the room.

I turned around and searched the floor. I saw a glint of light behind the safe and a smile found its way onto my face. I used my magic to draw it to me and placed it in it’s holster. The familiar weight felt better every day. I turned back to the rest of the group, the old mare was staring at me.

“You used that bullet,” she said. I nodded. “That was reckless, we’re not even sure what most of them do.”

“What?” Rimfire asked. “What kind of bullet do you have that you don’t know what they’ll do?” The mare didn’t even bother hiding a little flicker of shame.

“They were a special order for a client. He told us how to make them, not what they did. I’m sorry.”

“Can you make me a few?” I asked.

“We sure can,” she said. “They’ll take a few days, but,” she looked at my PipBuck, “we can send a message to that when they’re ready.”

“If you can do that, that’d be great,” I said. She motioned for me to come closer and I did. She then grabbed my leg with the PipBuck and pulled it towards her, she fiddled with the menus and she let me go. “Done. When they’re ready, we’ll let you know.”

I thanked the mare and the three of us left the shop at least. The alleyway outside was in much rougher shape than the store. The walls were riddled with bullet holes and splashes of blood. On the floor were the bodies of five NER soldiers. Rimfire and I were about to walk away when Starburst stopped us. He had bent low over the bodies and was searching through the pockets.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“What, you never looted a body, Short?” he asked incredulously.

“Of course I have, but I never would have guessed that you’d do it too.”

He chuckled. “NER soldiers sometimes have nice stuff, and we could always use more security codes.” Starburst sighed heavily. “Yes I know, it’s bad to do this but we have to.” I saw him take five ID cards from the bodies and that was all. “I just hope I’m forgiven.”

“Forgiven by who? Celestia? Luna? I’d never taken you for such a believer, Starburst,” I chided him.

“Not them, Short. I hope I can forgive myself. I don’t want to loot bodies, I want to kill even less. Yet you and I know that we have to do it to survive.” He turned to Rimfire. “Tell me you understand.”

Rimfire wrinkled her muzzle. “Yeah I agree, Starburst. I don’t know any sensible pony who wants to kill.”

“You think I want to kill?” I asked them.

Rimfire looked at me sideways. “I used to think that you didn’t, now I’m not so sure. In the first couple of minutes we met again you had killed two ponies and nearly a third.”

“Of course I did, they were trying to kill me!”

She rolled her eyes. “Ponies tried to kill you before and you tried to talk them out of it, but this time you just shot them.”

I grunted in agreement. She’d had a point but I didn’t really want to think about what it meant for me. Without a doubt I could see that she was right. I’d lost something. I wasn’t sure what I’d lost, but maybe it wasn’t a bad thing. Whatever it was, it kept me alive in that bar and in the shop, and it had helped protect Rimfire and Starburst.

“Forget about that for now. It’s nearly nighttime and we have nowhere to go and nowhere to stay. So let’s do something,” I said.

We all came to an agreement that staying the night in Balefire Point was reckless, but there wasn’t another option unless we wanted to trek back to the Steel Rangers’ bunker. Picking the cheapest inn put us at the Radroach Motel. The room wasn’t pretty but it would get the job done. Unlike last time, this room had two beds allowing Rimfire to sleep by herself while Starburst and I bunked together. I thought that it would be best to sleep before discussing what we would do tomorrow.

Waking up in the Radroach was about as delightful as sleeping on the beds that seemed to be stuffed with rocks. Instead of an alarm clock, I was awakened by the feel of skittering legs on my face. I opened my eye to see a cockroach looking back at me from the bridge of my nose. I swiped the bug off my face and heard a splatter as it hit the wall. It wasn’t much longer until everyone was up and in their barding and armor. As I was putting mine on I began to notice just how many holes, cuts, and burns had accumulated on it.

“So Short,” Rimfire started, “You don’t have any glaringly important things to do right now?” I shook my head. There were a few things, but not much I could do about them now. “Well why don’t we go back to New Pegasus?”

“Why?” Starburst asked.

“Why not? We’re not doing anything here. The ponies at the ‘Mare never had anything pleasant to say about the northern passages anyway.”

“No one ever had,” Starburst added.

“What’s north?” I asked.

“Nearly certain death,” Starburst said firmly. He continued after he most likely sensed my curiosity. “Merchants, caravans, and sometimes NER patrols go north sometimes, our scouts see them. They rarely come back. If they do, they’re changed. Nothing good ever came from the North, Short.”

“What are we talking about here? Is something just killing them?” I asked them both. Rimfire shrugged and once again Starburst answered me.

“We don’t know. Those who come back don’t talk about it, they just... don’t.”

“Then it’d be a journey for another perhaps. For now, though. I think that we might as well go to New Pegasus,” I said. “But how do we get there?”

“Well, Balefire Point is pretty much east of Goodsprings, we’d have to go over a small mountain range if we went there. If we went south, we could meet up with the road we took into New Pegasus,” Rimfire explained.

“Can we split the difference and go straight there?” I asked. “It’d be the shortest by a day or two at least.”

“A day or two?” Rimfire asked astounded. “I don’t think that’s accurate, Short.”

“It’s just that since we have nothing to hurry to, we didn’t have to make such a ragged pace. We can take our time.”

“That’s an admirable thought,” Starburst said, “But I don’t know if we should be just taking it slow in the desert.”

I frowned a little. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“Rimfire, what’s between us and New Pegasus if we go straight there?” Starburst asked.

“Ghouls,” she said. “Word has it that a town was overrun with them. It’s called Neyope.”

“Stable, Vault?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Everyone says they’re natural.”

“Well we’ve got guns and ammo, but...” I stopped mid sentence. I looked at the two ponies in front of me. Could I bring them into something like this. “We should be careful. Do you two think we can make it?” I didn’t imagine that either would be up for fighting ghouls..

“Sure,” Rimfire said. “They’re just ghouls. I’d have been a lot more hesitant with the old you, but now you can handle yourself.”

“Then it’s settled,” I said, “and why don’t I just use my PipBuck to set up a path?” I looked at the confusing legband and navigated to the map menu. Using the dials on the side I could move about the map of the San Palomino. Most of it was empty I saw, I wondered how much of had secrets hidden. After much scrolling I had the cursor over New Pegasus and I hit enter. The small compass in front of my eyes shuddered and an arrow pointed towards the southwest.

“Looks good,” I said. I turned to the rest of the gang. “Are we good to go?” We were.

***---***

By the time we hit Neyope, dusk was setting. On top of that, the wind had picked up and a dust storm was forming. Visibility couldn’t have been more than twenty feet ahead. The only sources of light we had were lights on Starburst’s power armor and the flashlight still attached to my revolver. The whipping sand and howling wind made it nearly impossible to hear each other. I turned to my side and saw Rimfire looking at me concerned. She had been walking only using three legs, the fourth she held in front of her face. In that moment I understood what she meant, we needed a place to get out of the storm, and that meant staying in Neyope.

The only guidance we had was the compass my PipBuck provided. I could see the hollow arrow that pointed towards New Pegasus, and the smaller one that I learned pointed towards towns and such. We hadn’t run into any ghouls yet, and I hoped we wouldn’t see any unless they were long behind us. With any good luck, the town wasn’t much further.

It wasn’t. We hadn’t walked any more than 100 feet when I saw a dark outline, and then more as we got closer. It was Neyope. The first building we came across looked like an average house. All the windows and doors were boarded up. We circled the building, testing every opening to see if there was an easy way in. The easiest way was a window, and I used my magic to ply off the boards. They came loose with a solid crack.

Starburst went in first to check the room out. I helped Rimfire through and then it was time for me to go. I jumped up to the window and hooked my forelegs over the side. My back legs scrambled for purchase on the wooden exterior of the house. Eventually I got it and kicked myself through the window frame. As I landed, Rimfire used her magic to place the board back over the window. Inside the house we could finally hear each other talk.

“Is it clear?” I asked. Starburst nodded. “Good.” I unhooked my saddlebags and let them fall to the floor. The room we were in appeared to be an old kitchen. Oven, refrigerator, tables, chairs, all the usual aspects. There was a door to another room opposite the window. I saw Rimfire trot through it while I laid back on the cool tile floor.

“This isn’t so bad,” Starburst said. “No ghouls.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Maybe they can’t hunt during the storm or something.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

I picked my head and back off the floor and leaned against the wall. “What’s that mean?”

“I’m just saying I don’t know, Short. Ghouls can be tricky. There’s a huge difference between ferals and the rest.”

I let out a small chuckle. “You think there are non-ferals here? I’m sure there’s a better place for them than here.”

“You don’t know that, Short. Some choose the company of ferals, some don’t.”

Rimfire walked back into the kitchen. “There’s a hole in the living room,” she said.

“In the wall?” I asked.

“No, in the floor.”

“Was it deep?” Starburst asked. She nodded.

“I could see the bottom with my flashlight but I’m pretty sure it turned away towards town.”

“Who would make a hole in the floor?” I asked. They both shrugged. “Well what are we going to do about it?”

“Three options that I came up,” Rimfire began. “We can cover it, explore it, or ignore it.”

“I don’t think ignoring it is a good option,” Starburst said.

“I didn’t say they were good options.”

“Regardless, it’s up to you guys, cover or explore,” I told them.

“It’s your choice too,” Starburst said. “What do you want?”

I felt a small stir in the pit of my stomach. “I kind of want to explore it,” I said.

“Well that’s fine. Personally, last time I went in a hole with Short there was a bit of trouble, no offense. So I think I’d rather just cover it up.”

“Sorry, Short, but I think it’d be better just to cover it up as well,” Starburst said. I was disappointed, but I understood how they felt. Why take needless risk?

“No guys, it’s fine.”

There wasn’t much to do besides cover the hole now. Rimfire and I used our magic to drag the nearly ruined couch over the hole. After that we gathered in the kitchen to eat a fair meal. I hadn't’ eaten well in days. I imagined that Starburst and the rest of the Steel Rangers had quite the meals ready in the base, and Rimfire had been working in a bar that wasn’t too shabby. Luckily I’d had the idea to pick up some decent food at Balefire Point. I started a fire and put bread and beans on.

“Wow, Short. I didn’t think you’d have anything more than canned food,” Rimfire said to me. “This must have been expensive.”

“Not really,” I said as I stirred the beans and added some odds and ends. “I may be better with a gun, but I can still talk circles around most shopkeepers.”

Starburst was looking at the ceiling. “Should we have a fire indoors?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. It looked like most of the smoke was creeping out of the window, but a bit too much was clinging to the ceiling and travelling through the house. In either case, the smell of the food was getting tantalizing and Starburst stopped complaining. It didn’t make much time for everyone to start eating. There was no doubt in my mind that this was the first cooked meal I’d had in a long time. Starburst and Rimfire took their time, but I ate ravenously. The flavor wasn’t the best, and the bread had been a little burned, but I didn’t really care at that point. The food was warm and filling.

After eating we rolled out our beds and curled up. Starburst didn’t even take off his armor before he fell onto the ground. His weight cracked the tiles a little bit and he looked a little perturbed. I laid my head back onto the moderately comfy bedroll. The fire was still going, keeping the cold, desert air away.

I thought I heard something drift along with the wind. I jerked to attention and grabbed for my revolver. I’d reloaded it before we left so I was sure that it was ready. Another noise sounded from outside, a low, hollow growl.

“Ghouls,” I said softly. Rimfire and Starburst got up. We buckled our gear and bags on. More and more growls were heard, and then things began to scratch at the walls of the house.

“They’ve surrounded us,” Starburst said. I looked around. All the red dots on my compass showed that he was correct, there must have been a sea of ghouls around us.

“Can we fight our way out?” Rimfire asked.

“Not likely,” I said solemnly.

“We have to try for the tunnel,” Starburst said. I agreed with him, how could we fight through so many ghouls? We ran for the tunnel. Starburst ran full speed at the couch, pushing it off the hole in one quick motion. Rimfire was the first down into the tunnel, followed by Starburst and then myself. After I leapt down, I grabbed at the couch with my magic and dragged it over the opening. Hopefully it would stop the ghouls from following us, but I wasn’t going to put my money on it. Starburst turned on his lights and I flicked my flashlight on.

The tunnel was well dug, like a mine. Wooden support beams jutted out of the ground every couple of feet on either side. Our lights didn’t illuminate the end of the tunnel, which was shrouded in darkness. I saw Rimfire pull out her rifle and ready it. It looked a lot newer than the one she’d had before.

She must have seen me looking because she said, “it is.” If the upstairs air had been cool, down here was freezing. Each of us could see our breathes come out as fog. I shivered as we walked down the dark passage.

“Where do you think this goes?” I asked.

“Center of town,” Starburst guessed.

“Any idea why?” I asked again.

“Hell,” Rimfire began, “why does anyone do anything out here? Maybe somebody just fucking said, ‘maybe I’ll dig a big hole today’ and he did.” I couldn’t fault her logic for the life of me, which probably wasn’t a bad thing.

“We need a plan,” Starburst said.

“Get out of town,” I said.

He scoffed. “Well isn’t that a great plan.”

“Do you have a better plan?” Rimfire asked.

“Sadly, no.” I didn’t have much else to say to them. What was starting to worry me was that the tunnel was sloping downwards. We were descending a foot vertically for every ten steps.

“Is turning back an option?” Rimfire asked. A drifting howling from behind us answered her. There was only one way, and it lay in front of us. We quickened our pace, running full speed through the tunnel, until finally a light illuminated the end and showed an exit. We didn’t slow down until we burst into the light and saw the room around us.

It was large, and instead of merely being dug from the ground around it, it was surrounded with cinder blocks giving it dull, grey walls. In the closest corner looked to be a full scale laboratory, in the other, a operating tables. In the farthest two corner were cages filled with skeletons. There were tunnels out of the room on each side of it. In the center of the room there was a pony clad in a white lab coat that was circling a pony that had been chained to the ground. He hadn’t seemed to notice us when we entered. I turned the flashlight off on my revolver, brought it forward and I crept forward towards the two.

As I got closer, I saw the ragged and burned flesh of the chained pony, it was a ghoul. It couldn’t howl or scream, only mumble; its mouth had been sewn up. The other pony had stopped circling it, his back to me, and was repeatedly jabbing the ghoul with some apparatus he had connect to his left forehoof. It looked a different version of a PipBuck. The contraption was fitted with needles, gauges, and a few blades. I couldn’t tell which tool he was using on the ghoul, but I knew it wasn’t for any good reason. No more than twenty feet away he stopped jabbing the ghoul and looked downwards.

“Who sent you?” he asked. His voice was dry and raspy.

“No one sent us,” I said.

“Then no one will miss you,” he said. He turned me and I saw his figure up close. Half of his face was just skull that had strange carvings. The socket still had the eye in it, but it didn’t look anywhere the regular one did. His body wasn’t much better at that. His coat was patchy at best and frequently his flesh was cracked open and dry. He raised his medical apparatus at me and I got a shot off but it buried itself in the ground right below him. A small dart flew from his hoof with a rush of air and pricked me right in the foreleg. I could feel that something wasn’t right nearly immediately. Concentrating my magic I took another shot at the stallion. This one grazed his side; it looked like it didn’t even hurt him.

“Is that the best you can do?” he asked. I heard the reports of Rimfire’s gun as she shot at the crazed doctor. He leapt to the side to avoid her spray of bullets, but one caught him on the hoof. The hoof was torn off with a sickening squelch and landed in a pile of black blood and green pus. His wound oozed onto the floor as he inspected it. “Interesting,” he said nonchalantly.

Whatever the doctor had put on the dart was working, my vision was fading in and out of color, focus to unfocused. I was swimming on a cloud of consciousness. I felt the cold edge of Starburst’s armor next to me, holding me from swaying. He had some sort of canister in his hoof but I couldn’t read it clearly at all. Starburst opened the tin and poured about half its contents into my mouth and I swallowed hard on the chalky tablets.

I’d felt the effects of Mint-als a few times in my life, and I knew that they could be incredibly addictive. My mind quickly burnt through the stupor I’d been in. Starburst gave me mint-als, what’s he doing now? He was removing a syringe from his suit and stuck it into my foreleg. I couldn’t move due to whatever effects I was under, but the mint-als had allowed me to think inside my own head.

Starburst was moving his lips, saying something I couldn’t quite hear or understand. He depressed the plunger on the syringe sending a vile green liquid into me. He pulled it out and strafed away from me.

I wasn’t any sort of chem genius, and I hadn’t taken any of them aside from mint-als. This was like a blazing inferno to the icy effects of the mint-als. There wasn’t a point in my life where I felt this mad at anything. My breathing was ragged and I was shaking from pure fury. I couldn’t even say what exactly I was mad at. I turned to the crazed doctor. He had busied himself with Rimfire and had evaded her from long range. Now he was toe to toe with her and he had her dodging his knives as he slashed at her. She looked to have been agile enough to get out of his way, but her barding had nicks and cuts on it, she was on the ropes. Starburst had his guns aimed that the two, but he wasn’t shooting. He was probably too afraid that Rimfire would get shot. I knew I wouldn’t hit her.

I picked up my revolver from where it lay and took aim at the doctor’s head and pulled the trigger. The bullet went true and I saw a splatter of blood erupt from his head. It was strangely satisfying, yet there was a little voice inside my head telling me that it’d be better to use my hooves. I chalked it up to the chems Starburst had given me. The doctor stopped swinging at Rimfire and turned to me.

“Feeling better, I see,” he said. “Let’s see if we can fix that.” He leapt at me like no pony I’d ever seen before. We weren’t even within thirty feet of each other and I could already tell he was going to make it. Starburst had had his guns locked on the stallion and was firing off shots left and right. A few connected and shot right through his body, but he wasn’t stopping. I readjusted my revolver and squeezed off another round. One of drugs must be affecting my accuracy or something, because once again I hit his skull. This time I hit the eye on the skeletal side of his face. The eye burst in a splash of gore. Before I could shoot again, his body collided with mine, throwing me off my balance and onto my back. His fore-stump was leaning on my chest as he held his knife array up high.

“It’s been real fun, kid,” he taunted. I knew my revolver wasn’t going to do anything, he didn’t seem to feel anything at all. As he brought down his armed foreleg to my face I grabbed my Tec9 and readied it. My preoccupation made it so I barely was able to move myself out of the way. I push the barrel to his forehead. “This again?”

I pulled the trigger. Twenty rounds screamed their way through his skull and to the side. Blood and visceral splashed over my body. The trigger clicked onto nothing and the doctor scoffed. He turned his head, cracking his neck, and I could see the light of the room through the new hole in his head. My mind was screaming at me to jam my hoof through it, that would make him hurt, but I knew it wouldn’t.

“Do something!” I yelled, fear creeping into my drugged rage. Instead of being answered by my companions the howling of ghouls filled the room. The doctor twisted his head to the tunnel we’d come through and he screamed.

“Filth! No!” he screamed, “Unworthy! Unclean!” The ghouls came piling into the room surrounded the doctor. None of them moved as they stared hungrily. The ghoul who had been chained up stopped struggling and looked forward calmly. One of the ghouls in the circle hurried to him and used a fallen knife to cut his mouth open.

“Hello, Doctor,” the ghoul said.

“Filth! You cannot speak! You aren’t worthy!” he screamed.

The chained ghoul ignored the doctor and looked at me. “Free the smoothcoat,” he said. Two of the ghouls came forward and bit into the doctor’s shoulder, dragging him off of me. He had stopped yelling and merely muttered “Filth” over and over. “Take him away,” he ordered. The ghouls surrounded the doctor and dragged him down one of the tunnels. Now it was just us and the ghoul.

“Will you free me?” he asked. I nodded. Snapping out of a stupor I stood up and walked in front of him. Rimfire and Starburst took up positions behind me.

“Yeah, where’s the key?” I asked.

“Check his lab tables.” Rimfire bounded off to the tables and searched frantically. She returned with a bronze key covered with dried blood. The ghoul was quickly freed. I could see a visible wave of relief wash over him as he walked away from the shackles. I saw the ghoul talking again, but I couldn’t hear him or even read his lips. He must have seen that I was in a spot because he looked at me with a trace of worry in his eyes. I felt Starburst next to me. Carefully, he lowered me to the ground and laid me on my side. The steady film of rage and clarity receded and I felt just as hollow and sluggish as I was before. Starburst gently twisted my head to face him.

“The drugs are fading, Short,” he said, “I gave you mint-als and stampede.” I wanted to both yell at him and thank him, but I just couldn’t move my mouth like that, all I could do was just grunt and mumble. Starburst turned to the ghoul and started talking again. This time I couldn’t understand him, or what the ghoul said back to him. The ghoul walked forward and examined me. He and Starburst exchanged some more information. Soon enough all three of them were discussing with words I couldn’t hear.

Rimfire and the ghoul trotted off towards the lab tables. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t even move my hooves a little. Starburst put his hooves on my shoulders and held me tight.

“You’re going to be fine,” he said, "Rimfire and the Ghoul are going to grab the cure.” I wanted to say anything to him, but I couldn’t. “Don’t worry.” His face was swimming in front of me. He looked away and then back to me. “They’re coming now.” I felt slimy flesh on the side of my muzzle and my vision turned to see the ghoul’s face. On his hoof he had a syringe applicator like the doctor had had, but less complicated. He jabbed it into my neck and I felt flames and my blood felt like it was boiling, but I felt alive.

END OF CHAPTER 7

Level up!

Guns 40

Perk Gained: Gunslinger. You’ve decided that guns are the way of the future, and the key to surviving.(+5 to guns and repair.)

Author's Notes:

Proofread by some of the finest people I begged to help me.