Waking up in the morning feeling like you just got done living a nightmare before you were ever in a bed is a difficult way to wake up. Steel Wing could guess how Autumn Heart had felt the day after she had almost been raped. She had bounced back from it quite well, considering what he had walked in on last night. Finally something funny to think about, since that tree. "Fuck, right back to it." He murmured.

There was something he knew he had to do, and that was confront the psychotic griffon that was protecting this town. Autumn Heart stirred as his hooves hit the floor.

"Breakfast?" She asked sleepily.

"Corona, then breakfast." He replied softly.

"Don't get killed, sharp talons trees." Steel Wing could tell she was already falling back to sleep.

"Yeah I'll try not to." He was at the door before remembering that not having a gun was a large issue last night. He took a simple beam pistol and put it in holster on his left foreleg. A holster that had taken him some time to strap on. He realized he'd have to invest on time efficient gear or probably just roll over and die.

Pushing through the bar slowly again, the barpony eyed him warily after his stampede last night. "I'll pay you for any damages." He promised. The barpony nodded with mild satisfaction.

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Sitting once again in the empty lobby of the guard's station, Steel Wing simply watched the receptionist unicorn as she leafed through papers. One of very few, he noted, that he had spotted that was a resident of the town. "What am I waiting on this time?" Steel Wing was actually starting to be unnerved by the anticipation.

"Hmmm? Oh you can go back. I assumed you would go back whenever you pleased." The unicorn replied in a mocking tone. Clearly a pony who was a firm believer in organized processes. He trotted back without comment; an organized enemy, no matter how weak is still a threat.

Steel Wing stopped in front of the door to Corona's office. On the one hoof he didn't want to fiddle with the door between his hooves. On the other, using his mouth to try to open it would mean putting something in his mouth that he was sure was covered in the blood of a recently disemboweled pony. Taking the third, and by him least practical, option he tapped the door forcefully four times with his hoof.

"Just a minute~" Corona sang from the other side. When the door opened Steel Wing noted straight off that she was still wearing the same smile from last night. Even more she seemed to be basking in the afterglow of some rather intimate activity. "Oh how's my new favorite metal clad assistant doing?" She cheered, pulling him into the room.

Now that she stood in the light he saw that her darker feathers had a matted down and even darker patch. His face had touched there when she'd hugged him. He broke from her grasp and dashed to a mirror, and sure enough the entire right half of his face was covered in blood. Now he knew why Sweet Spot had given up on her questions so quickly.

"We need to talk now." Steel Wing could hardly look at the beaming griffon. "Why is it so cold in here?" Averting his gaze he spotted a shivering pile of cloth in the corner.

Eye's wide in horror he turned back to her, "You didn't come in here to complain about my AC unit did you?" She said without losing her smile.

"You let Lilly out when you got back didn't you?" Steel Wing said as evenly as he could.

"Uhhh... oh the foal? Yeah I think she got out." She giggled wrapping her arms around herself.

Steel Wing quickly moved over to the shivering mound. Unwrapping it he found the foal eyes full of fear, upon seeing Steel Wing she grabbed onto his muzzle for dear life still shaking.

"No she's here and she's terrified what did you do?" Steel Wing turned back to her bouncing the little foal as he spoke. Lilly clambered over his head and curling up in the ample warmth of his long mane.

"I didn't do anything to her." She replied with complete honesty.

"Well, What have you been doing? And why in the hell is it so cold in here?" Lilly had since ceased shivering so violently since she began to share heat with Steel Wing.

"I can get both of those in one: I was trying to cool off from last night, I was feeling so good I knocked out all those written complaints; I've had fifty ponies through here this morning. I usually have enough patience for two. I needed that so badly you have no idea." She had lifted off the ground in her joy.

"Needed what!?" Steel Wing questioned for the second time.

"Blood~" She said dreamily.

"Get in my saddle bag." He whispered, Lilly complied, sliding down into the mostly empty pack. She resumed shaking in the bag, more from nervousness than from the cold.

"Oh you're a not an evil raider pony, so you think I'm terrible or something right." Corona asked finally catching up with the rest of the world.

Steel Wing nodded as his wings began to unfold.

"Well give me a sec to explain myself." She said moving over to open a window. Her usual practical minded voice had returned, but occasionally Steel Wing saw her body unintentionally shudder after taking a few steps. Opening the window she stuck her head out and inhaled the outside air greedily. Turning off the very effective AC unit she opened up, "There was absolutely no way I was going to let that bastard live."

Steel Wing let his wings open fully and had them hang to his sides still at the ready.

"We never met back when I was free to do as I wished so I don't expect you to appreciate what you saw."

"So when you weren't a guard captain you strung ponies up by their innards and left them to die slowly?" Steel Wing heard a scared whimper from his pack.

"No, almost never; granted I may have gotten carried away, but being the guard captain means I have to deal with papers and bullshit. Come on though you know the feeling of a fight, that great rush from battle don't you?"

Steel Wing nodded with some understanding. "So imagine that feeling only fifty times stronger. It's like sex except the feeling can last for days."

Clearing his throat he reminded Corona, "Foal present."

"Now imagine you don't get that feeling for months. It was driving me up a wall and making me depressed at the same time. You'd be a little out of it too if you were going through withdrawl like that."

"So you have an addiction to combat, and you don't wash the blood off, choosing to instead wear it like some kind of macabre trophy?" Steel Wing summarized hesitantly.

"Yeah that sounds about right, so yes I got carried away; but that need for, er blood, coupled with how pissed I was at one single pony, anybody who knew me would see that coming.I mean I can still feel it. "

"Urf mrf urv." Lilly

"Kid I can't hear a word you're saying." She had gone to stretching out on her bed, "Will you let her out of there? That's starting to annoy me."

Steel Wing obliged, the black foal popped out of the bag gasping for air. "Blech! It smells like black powder in there!" Looking around nervously she said, "So everything is okay?"

"Yeah we're cool, and sorry if I scared you."

"I've seen worse; I live on the street after all." The foal said preaching the facts of life.

"I hope you aren't saying that the streets of my town are dangerous." Corona said sitting back up.

"Mmhm, hell our biggest source of food is all the radroaches running around. Lucky for us somepony snagged a huge crate full of rad-away; half a bag each will get any one of us through a whole week of eating irradiated garbage." She preached again to the both of them.

"But we had the radroach problem basically taken care of last week, our patrols haven't seen any since."

"Yep you're welcome." She grinned having the upper hoof on the grownups.

"Any other problems you young ones are having?" The griffon pressed, feeling her motherly instincts taking over her normally rational mind.

"Yep!" Lilly confirmed without realizing how much it was worrying the griffon whose job was to fix problems.

"Leave her with me, I think there are some issues that I've overlooked, ones I'll be addressing as quickly as I learn about them." With that she flew over and sat behind her desk indicating a spot where the filly should be placed.

"You're not going to get weird again are you?" Lilly asked as she settled down on the desk.

"If I do that will probably be the least of your worries." Corona reached out to pat Lilly again and this time there was no flinching. It gave the griffon a warm smile she could wear for the rest of the day.

Steel Wing quietly left them to their discussion.

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Back at the inn, Steel Wing paid off his debt to the owner and double checked that his roommate hadn't requested privacy again. The barpony informed him that Autumn Heart had left and wanted him to wait for her return. Against his better judgment he started ordering drinks, something he hadn't indulged in in a very long time.

A bottle and a half of some obscure brand of rum later, part of which Steel Wing convinced the barpony to drink, Steel Wing was in good spirits. The barpony whose name was Tips and who's cutie mark was a jar of bits and caps, had even managed to make a joke about the blood on the pegasus warrior's face.

Two hours after they had decided to stop, Steel Wing was beginning to feel the effects. It was at this time that Steel Wing felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see a unicorn mare pointing at a seat next to him.

"Is this taken?" She asked already knowing the answer and climbing up. Steel Wing felt a chill spread through his body, his alcohol fogged mind didn't immediately identify why though. Giving him her best flirty look she said, "What business does a big buck like you have sitting in a bar all on his own?"

It took Steel Wing a few moments to process the question and a few more to figure out she was attempting to flirt with him, "I- am waiting for a friend to get back."

"How long is he going to be out?" she fished leaning in closer.

"She," Steel Wing corrected, "is, I don't really know."

"It doesn't seem right for her to leave you to drink alone like this does it." The unicorn pouted leaning even closer.

"Autumn Heart is her own mare." Steel Wing absentmindedly moved the half bottle of rum closer to the unicorn, he'd paid for it why let it go to waste? "I'm done with it you can have the rest."

"Very generous of you." Smiling she levitated the bottle to her lips and took a large gulp making a disapproving yet cute face. Subtly, she levitated her stool closer to Steel Wing and was now physically touching him using his body to support her. "How close are you and this, Autumn Heart." She asked waving a hoof in the air.

"We're good friends." He shifted to make her weight on his body more comfortable, not questioning why it was there in the first place.

"Just friends?" She asked a grin spreading across her muzzle.

"Yes." he confirmed, "Just friends. Why?"

Tips simply shook his head at the scene and went on cleaning dishes and serving drinks. Hope he's not this clueless when he's sober. He shook his head again and trotted to the other end of the bar.

"Well I was just wondering if maybe you had some time for a mare like me." Steel Wing looked down at her confusedly. She winked back.

His brain processed the implication properly but chose the opposite of a proper response, "I don't think my sister would be to happy with me doin' what you're askin' me to do." In his mind it was the truth and it made sense to tell the truth. To the unicorn it was confusing and begged to be further divulged.

"Why would your sister have an opinion of what mares you took to the bedroom?" Attempting to keep her cutesy tone.

"Well..." He began, "For one thing, she used to get kinda antsy whenever I was playing with other mares as a kid. She did grow out of it though. I guess she had even offered to find another pony to join us, I told her she was all I needed."

"All you needed for...?"

"Oh!" He was struck by the revelation of what she was asking. "She was all I needed for se-uuuuurrgh." The second revelation that hit him was that he had almost admitted to having a physical relationship with his sister. Tips had even begun to listen and wasn't trying to hide it at this point.

Steel Wing glared at the bottle of rum sitting on the bar. "You almost got me." Pointing a hoof at the bottle and laughing.

"Steel Wing, you alright?" Autumn Heart asked from his left.

"Oh hey!" He cheered hopping down causing the unicorn to fall off her stool. "I've been waiting for you and meeting new people. The barpony, his name is Tips. Her name is- errr..." Looking over apologetically at the unicorn mare. "I never asked your name, mine is Steel Wing by the way."

"Polaris." The non alcohol consuming mare was already unsteady on her hooves after her swig of rum. "What was that you were saying about your sister." She attempted in vain.

Before Steel Wing could potentially expose the history of his love life Autumn Heart cut in, "Probably something about missing her." She said as she was corraling him towards the hall to their room.

"Nice meeting you Polaris, I think my roommate and I are going to have a talk now." He waved his hoof at her in addition to walking forward while looking back at the tipsy unicorn, subsequently he faceplanted into the stairs. He picked himself up and kept walking like nothing had happened taking much more care with his steps.

"Filly can't get any love in this town." Polaris levitated the bottle of rum off the bar and exited the bar, with a face full of glee. "He'll do nicely." Outside the gate she waved to a hill a half mile off, the guards watched her carefully while she stood silently, a sudden flare from her horn and she was gone.

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Back in the room Steel Wing was getting a talking to about drinking so recklessly. "What if she had been a thief? You'd be out of equipment. Hell the state you're in she could have removed your wings, nevermind the plates the whole damn wing."

"Don't ever joke about that." Steel Wing leveled his gaze at her, not trace or even hint of a smile.

"Right, sorry. Now last night Corona told me you had talked about assaulting some town called Armory, right?"

"Yep, but I've been thinking about your delivery, and as much as I want to help save those slaves I did make a promise to you first. Once you're delivery is complete I'll still have plenty of time to shut down that whole operation."

"Yeah and I wanted to talk to you about my delivery. As long as the bags with food in them remained closed, the food should be fine which you probably new in some small part. This is something I still can't quite get my head around and it's why I want to help you help those slaves." Steel Wing cocked his head in interest. "There is no due date for this delivery. There's a bonus for a speedy delivery, but the note pretty much said as long as it gets there it's fine."

"A really patient really rich ghoul?" Steel Wing suggested.

"We had a bet going back home. That was one of the choices actually, also where most of the money went."

"So you're saying that you don't mind if I go out of your way to help ponies?"

"I'm saying I'd be upset with myself if I didn't let you do what was right just to make my life better."

"Thanks, I appreciate this, a lot." Steel Wing then attempted to giver her a hug but couldn't quite judge the distance between them. With a sigh Autumn Heart moved closer so he could hug her. "What's your cuite mark by the way?" Changing the subject as he crawled into his bed.

"You haven't seen it?" She wiggled her rump at him.

"Nope, haven't." He made a motion with his hoof to get her to present her broad side to him.

The cutie mark was of a bullseye target with a letter pinned to the center mark by a throwing knife. "Deadly with a letter opener?" Steel Wing guessed to the best of his intoxicated ability.

"As a foal I was always helping other ponies by taking letters, messages or whatever packages they needed taken around town. I inherited my father's determination. In short I can get anything to exactly where it needs to be."

"Neat."

"You really don't even let yourself look at flanks?" The subject of his repressed urges was a concern that Autumn Heart now shared with the somewhat twisted griffon.

"Should I be?" He asked still remembering his reaction to seeing her go up the ladder. "Would you like it if I followed behind you all the time staring at your plot?"

Autumn Heart's face reddened a bit. "Well no I'm not saying you should do it. I just always assumed it was something a colt did secretly." She shook away the blush. "I'm just wondering what you think about during your free time maybe."

"Oh, if that's all then you could have just asked." Settling onto his pillows he thought about what he thought about. "When I'm in a town like this, not a lot. Unless something big happened I guess, like Corona's display last night."

"You talked with her didn't you?" She shuddered at the memory.

"Yeah, I'm not okay with it and you don't have to be either. But I do understand it, one 'warrior' to another."

"Why'd she do it then?"

"It's difficult to explain to somepony who hasn't had to fight every day for the last year or so of their life."

"I'd feel better if I could at least hear her reasoning."

Steel Wing relented and began explaining combat addicted griffon's excuse for her actions. As he went on Autumn Heart's expression softened similar to how Steel Wing had when he'd heard it. It wasn't a dismissal of such disturbing actions but one of grim understanding.

"So I'm going to sleep off this booze, this evening I'm going to go pick up all of what I traded over at the Triple P."

"Plunders' Pilfered Prizes?" Steel Wing confirmed. "Say hello to those two when you do go there."

"After that I need to go talk to Corona about storming Armory. I don't expect that she can help us physically but if she has info on the defenses and layout it'd be helpful." He concluded.

Autumn Heart yawned, "Isn't it nice to get a break from fighting raiders and running around the wasteland?" Steel Wing's eyes shot open. Here he was sleeping while Slaves were being beaten, bought and sold. He was out of the room in a heartbeat, slowing so as not to piss off Tips again. When he reached the door he was off like a bullet again, nearly knocking over a couple heading into the bar.

--------------------------------------

Steel Wing had picked up all of his supplies in under ten minutes, remembering to say hi to the twins from Autumn Heart. He was now strolling down the hall to Corona's office.

He knocked twice and was about to knock a third time when Corona swung the door open and put a talon to her beak, "Shhhhhh. Lilly is asleep." Steel Wing gave her a quizzical look. "What she was tired after we got done talking so I let her go back to sleep on my bed." She indicated a small bundle of blanket resting on a pillow that was rising and falling steadily.

"Right well I've been drinking a while and it hit me that I have a slave camp to charge. I came here to ask if you can give me any advice on not running headlong into unexpected walls."

"You need info on the layout of the compound?" She asked flatly.

"Don't know what to tell you fliers get shot down if they get within fivehundered yards of Armory air space. They have several operational AA guns."

Steel Wing closed his eye's in frustration. "So you're telling me that I'm going to have to go in blind and bring out several dozen slaves. Don't get me wrong I still want to help and I'm going to do what I can. Still I think I'm pretty well bu-"

"Hang on a minute, I didn't say I couldn't help you." She flew back into the room over to a large metal locker. It opened revealing its contents. Her black and red energy pistols were hung with care on either side. On the back wall of the locker was a suit of prototype griffon power armor. The pegasus, who's wings could cut a pony's head clean off and then take a bullet like a shield, was in silent awe of the display. Grenades of all kinds, all sorts of near pristine energy weapons, mulitple custom parts for all sorts of near pristine energy weapons, boxes of gem cartridges. A bit of drool escaped Steel Wing's mouth Corona simply stared with loving pride at her collection of multicolored beam firing scorch causing death tools.

Snapping himself out of his fantasy of showing this off to a whole room of Steel Rangers he turned to her, "Why are you showing me this?" If the initial disappointment of her lack of information had been sobering the sight of her equipment had an extremely opposite effect. His brain was once again in a state of slow processing.

"I'm coming with you, and I said be quiet." She pointed again to the sleeping foal.

"But what about your town?" He whispered.

"I have a second in command and a back up for her too. The guards know their duties and know how to watch for approaching invaders. I can leave for a little while and be fine."

"Who's your second?" Steel Wing asked skeptically.

"Sweet Spot, our sharp shooter." Steel Wing nodded in approval.

"What about Lilly?" He continued down the list of her priorities so she could dismiss them in order of already taken care of.

"What about Lilly?" She repeated.

"Look I'm still a little drunk from earlier but even I can tell that you care for that foal quite a lot. More than you do about the other orphans and I know how you get about protecting the other orphans." His words seemed to strike home. She was caught beyond the point of denying it, and by a drunk no less.

"Yeah okay, so a foal has a special place in my heart so what; are you just amazed that I have a heart or some stupid crap like that?" She asked defensively

"No that isn't it. I was asking because I imagine you two bonded after yesterday."

"Sort of yeah." She confessed.

"What if something happens to you at Armory? That will probably be the loss of yet a third person she cares about, not even counting whoever has already been taken by slavers."

"Don't you dare try to put guilt on me." She hissed talons gouging the door of the locker.

"I'm not trying to guilt you in or out of doing anything I'm just making sure you're sure you've thought of everything. I can find somepony- uh sombody else to help me. I'll probably have to even if you do come but I'm not trying to make you feel any which way at all."

"No, no you're not and I knew that, I'm sorry. Just, I don't know when I think of Lilly I want her to be happy. I don't think anything so young should have such a jaded view of life. Even for the wasteland she thinks dark." Corona proceeded to tell Steel Wing some of the things she and Lilly had talked about. At some points the idea that these things were brought up by a foal were enough to make Steel Wing feel sick to his stomach. He in return told her about the lie she came up with when he had saved her from getting in trouble.

"You know though, these orphans are damn smart at getting by. You were here when they talked about their food supply. Well it turns out with a huge collection of manuals, some spell charts and some rather talented young unicorns; they have a safely functioning water talisman of their own. It isn't perfect and might not last forever but it's also not going to poison them or explode."

Steel Wing would have been impressed had he not gotten hung up on a smaller detail, "You have young unicorns here?"

"Yeah a few, they get adopted fairly frequently near whatever is the average age of getting a cutie mark."

"Who adopts them?" He dreaded her answer already expecting she would tell him it was a mysterious unicorn assassin training camp.

"Some mare who says she's from an academy for young unicorns. I went to check it out when she first showed up. Almost took her head off when I saw her leading a line of unicorns to the front gate. I've been there and it's not a bad place. Some of the unicorns I saw were only a couple years older than the ones she wanted to bring from my town; they were teleporting all over the place. Now I never went to a pony school as a cub but I don't remember any unicorn that could brag about how easy teleporting was for them. Why?"

"Don't take this the wrong way but I think those unicorn orphans are being trained to fight in a serious way. I've met three unicorn assassins since leaving my place, probably not even a day up the road. They all are connected by some damn cult and I'm thinking you're supplying someone who has a serious grudge against me with more assassins. Not saying it's your fault but I'm scared by the thought of how many you've let be adopted."

"Unicorn assassins? Really?" Hard as it was to believe, she could tell when this pegasus was being serious. "Look there may be a cult but I don't think it's coming from that school specifically. Sure they may be training unicorns to fight up there but if you'll recall this is the wasteland full of things that can eat you... an average sized pony in a couple bites. It would be irresponsible not to teach them to defend themselves. Now maybe there are some bad ponies that get booted out for going too far, I can imagine them forming a group of fairly threatening assassins. An entire school dedicated to training unicorns to hunt just seems a bit too far for me to believe."

"Alright I'm sure it will probably come up before you stop helping me but for now I need to make sure I'm ready for this whole army of three assault on a fortress."

"Yeah and now I need a foalsitter. We leaving tonight?"

"One A.M. at the latest." Steel Wing was already out the door.

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Back in the room Autumn Heart had come up with a prank of her own to try on Steel Wing. After yesterday's incident when he walked in on her, she knew he wasn't very used to knocking before entering a room. The plan was simple: let it happen again but with him being the only one embarrassed. All she needed was a couple risque thoughts to get a blush going and then all she'd need to do was listen for his hoof falls. She had convinced herself to go through with this reasoning that it would teach him to knock more often, a lesson in manners is a good thing to do.

Fortyfive minutes after he left she started imagining things she knew would make her blush, expecting him to be back soon, since he was in such a hurry. Ten minutes latter now she couldn't get those thoughts out of her head and they were working a little bit too well. Celestia please don't put me through this, he has it coming and you know it. Her prayer's were instantly answered as she heard the unmistakable thud of Steel Wing coming down the hall. Sticking her rump up in the air she put her face in the pillow and waited for the door to open.

--------------------------------------

Steel Wing even though he had come to terms with what Corona did last night still felt like he'd lost an entire nights sleep. Now with the potential threat of an entire academy of well trained magical assassins plus the upcoming assault on Armory was seriously fatiguing him. He sent a prayer to whoever would hear it that he could get some sleep before all this could fall on his head.

Slowly wearily Steel Wing made it to his room. He was half way through climbing into bead when he heard something truly disturbing. "Oh Steel Wing harder! I want more please!" His wide eyes traveled over to Autumn Heart's bed where he saw her with her rear presented very clearly to him moaning his name into her pillow.

All at once her hind legs came together as a tremor ran through her body, she fell to her side panting. She threw a glance around the room, her expression changed from exhausted and pleased to absolute terror. She scrambled to wrap herself in the blanket to hide from him.

"Oh goddesses what the fuck?!" He cried diving down to avoid looking at her.

"Out of everypony in the wasteland I get stuck with the one who can't knock!" She shouted angrily at him.

"I errr, why can't you find someplace that I don't also have access to, to clop? Why here!?"

"I have nowhere else to go all I want is a little privacy once in a while jeeze."

"Well tell me sometime and I'll leave you in peace for an entire day; I am really getting tired of seeing your plot every time we share less than thirty feet of space with each other."

There was no response to this no noise at all. He poked his head over the bed and saw her, head in a pillow taking in shuddering breaths. For a filly who almost got raped she gets pretty upset when somepony doesn't want to be intimate with her.

"Autumn Heart don't cry please, I'm just a little upset but I didn't mean to yell at you." He slowly moved next to her bed. Instead of hearing the stifled sobs of a distraught mare he heard barely covered giggles. "You're laughing?"

She threw the pillow at him and no longer tried to hide how hard she was laughing. Hindlegs kicking wildly in the air she rolled around until she fell off the bed continuing to laugh.

"Why are you laughing?" He ran around the bed to be face to face with her.

"Because, the look on your face!" Autumn Heart couldn't stop laughing to talk and her abdomen was beginning to hurt.

"You planned that." Steel Wing concluded sitting down hard hoof on face.

"Yes, that is exactly what I did." She said sitting up wiping tears from her eyes. "Payback." She stated.

"Payback for wha- oh, yeah you got me." Steel Wing bowed low in recognition of her victory. "Even?" He asked hopefully extending a hoof.

"Even." She agreed tapping his hoof with her own.

"Good because I really do need some sleep. Also Corona is going with us to Armory." He was already under the covers holding a pillow between his forelegs like it was trying to escape the other cushioned his head like a cloud. By the time Autumn Heart had decided to voice an opinion of Corona accompanying them he was miles away, dreaming of lazing on clouds with the sun's glow warming him. The look of contentment on Steel Wing's face dissuaded Autumn Heart from disturbing him instead she left the room as quietly as possible.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The clouds were as soft as Steel Wing could remember, because he knew it as a dream he did his absolute best to remember. The sun was off and he could tell. Not even in dreams could you truly capture the glory of the sun, a sad truth since this was as close as he'd get to the real thing for a very long time.

Eventually he noticed his mind was shifting control from his hooves to the dark void where his nightmares lived. He became aware of a large black pony shaped thing standing on the clouds a ways away from him. He sat up to face his nightmare and sure enough it was menacing.

It was a suit of power armor, not one he had ever seen before. It appeared to be a suit of uniquely built Enclave armor. It's normally flat looking segmented plates each came out to a wickedly sharp looking point. In fact the whole suit looked lethally sharp. It was missing it's stinger it did not appear to have a replacement of any kind other than a section for a pony's tail to be safe in. The suit was hollow, at least Steel Wing couldn't see anything through the open eye sockets. It stood completely still. Now that he was a little closer, Steel Wing began to doubt it was power armor at all; no energy weapons on it's sides, the open eye ports told him there probably wasn't a normal targeting spell matrix if it had one at all. There was also the fact that it looked like each piece could be separated from the rest quite easily.

It began to remind him of the old design of armor built for knights long before the war two-hundred years ago started. Sturdy, reliable, but because it was only used in times of war it's use was lost. The thousand years of peace saw to it that this relic of conflict survival disappeared. Up until the war even began, the Canterlot guards were the only ones who had any reason to wear armor, it was for the sake of tradition; at that time they were barely trained in the use of swords. Being picked for their physical traits hoof to hoof suppression tactics were more than enough.

For something that existed more than twelvehundred years ago it was amazing that ponies today knew about it at all. Steel Wing could remember when he'd first heard of them; a book of ancient Equestrian history had been found in a box of junk his several times great grandfather had brought up just before the balefire apocalypse and the clouds were closed. Both container and several of its contents survived the two-hundred and some years before its rediscovery. Among the various war relics was the book very clearly magically and luckily preserved, it had been marked to be sent to the Canterlot Ministry of Image hub on the Ministry Walk. It had never made the trip.

In it were collections of stories handed down through generations of pony families. The eventual founding of Equestria and the first Heart's Warming holiday. He had first seen the armor in a depiction of a massive and tragic battle. Two of the largest pre-Equestria earth pony tribes were in a conflict over a large area of land where both sides were willing to sacrifice so much. The side that won had been for a very long time the leader in the production of weapons and armor and therefore had the advantage at the start of the war.

The pony wearing the armor was rearing up in victory spears broken off between the plates of his armor covered from head to hoof in blood, and the broken bodies of his enemies laying all around him. He was young at the time and had been torn between being uncomfortable with the idea of so much death, and imagining how amazing he was for single-hoofedly defeated so many opponents.

This suit of armor was jetblack and even empty it was intimidating. He could just imagine some poor raider exploding from total fear upon seeing him in this.

Steel Wing moved in closer still to inspect when a black mist began to seep out of the eyes of the armor. It was seemingly alive as it snaked towards him. Before it ever got close to him however it moved into the clouds which began to turn black. He noticed now that the clouds around the hooves of the armor were already blackened and spreading very quickly.

Steel Wing assumed this to be the end of his pleasant dreams. As soon as he accepted this the whole world turned black. The clouds were still there and somehow he knew the armor was there it had moved but it was right in front of him. Then ever so slowly a beam of light illuminated the head of the armor then the neck. Steel Wing's blood turned to ice water when he saw the armor had gained an occupant. A great horn and malevolent eyes were the first he could see of this creature. The beam of light continued to grow wider revealing the rest of the creature. It was an alicorn, an alicorn fully dressed for war. As far as nightmares went this was new.

He stared in awe of the creature is it continued its hateful stare right back. When the beam of light ceased growing Steel Wing realized it was coming from a full moon; it was unnaturally close and silhouetted the alicorn perfectly. Leaving only the eyes and horn truly present. Before Steel Wing realized what was happening he began to walk into the light, he tried stopping himself in a panic before he remembered that nightmares don't work that way.

"DOES ANOTHER THINK TO CHALLENGE ME?" Bellowed the magnificent creature before him. All his life people had told him he was almost as big as the two rulers of Equestria had been. Standing before this alicorn he felt woefully insignificant.

It was waiting for a reply that Steel Wing didn't think he could give he eventually forced himself to speak, "What?" His voice was weak as if he had been drinking nothing but desert air for a week.

"WHAT, WHAT YOU ASK? DO YOU DESIRE THAT I BREAK YOU AND SEND YOUR SOUL TO THE ABYSS?"

"Where am I?" he peeped.

"YOU DO NOT KNOW WHO YOU STAND BEFORE?" It roared indignantly.

"No I'm sorry." Steel Wing was beginning to think this was more than just a dream. He had always thought visions like this were reserved for unicorns looking into memory orbs. To him everything felt foreign and strange, but at the same time very very real.

"WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND, YOU CAME TO US." The alicorn's fury was tempered slightly by his obvious honesty and confusion.

"I should be dreaming." Steel Wing pleaded hoping his mind was still paying attention.

"DREAMING?! WE- you?" The creature was struck silent by some realization Steel Wing would never fully understand. "You came here in a dream?" The voice was serene, it had a very calming effect on Steel Wing. A decidedly female voice that came from all around echoed through the empty sea of clouds rendered invisible by the darkness beyond the moonlight.

"Yes I-" Steel Wing's body began to shudder violently as all the air was finally gone from his lungs the moment he collapsed the alicorn was over him with its horn glowing, channeling some sort of life giving magic into him. It disturbed him slightly to see that the magical aura was just a stream of the black mist that had created the darkness.

"We think you should have died out in the darkness if you have not planned to be here. Yet you have made it here to us soul ravaged but still intact. Who are you?" The black mist swirled around him lifting him back to his hooves, now that he wasn't locked in place his bottom chose to stick itself to the clouds and not move ever again.

"My name is Steel Wing." His voice was now fairly normal, he could have sworn its echo sounded from behind him.

"That- is not what we meant."

"I guess I don't understand your question, forgive me." He honestly meant his apology not wanting to piss off a powerful entity while still inside its domain.

"Be still." It commanded touching its horn to Steel Wing's head.

A tingle shot through Steel Wing's body from head to hoof, then out again but going somewhere he couldn't physically locate. It traveled deeper into this unknown territory for several eternities before finally coming back in an instant to the alicorn's horn.

"You are it." The alicorn's wings suddenly flared and it reared angrily, "THIS CANNOT BE!" In a single powerful motion it was off faster than anything Steel Wing had ever seen before. In seconds it was out of sight.

It had left him alone inside its realm. The moonlight did not fade but the darkness outside still remained. If this was not his own mind then he was trapped elsewhere while ponies in Armory needed his help. The thought of leaving ponies in need fortified Steel Wing's resolved and empowered his courage or perhaps stupidity to charge into the darkness to go back to where he had been laying, back in his dreams.

Charging through the darkness he felt waves of fatigue washing over him slowing his pace drastically. No more than thirty feet away he could see light from a candle perhaps but it was still light. A short gallop, a quick trot, a few more steps, and finally just as the heaviness and fatigue he felt took away all but the last of his energy, the light was just a hop skip and a jump away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Everything blurred as his tried to focus on that small point of light. It didn't get brighter but it wasn't fading away. He reached out to it desperately with a hoof it wobbled for a second before falling away.

"Hey you could have just asked me to blow it out." Came an annoyed mare's voice.

"Autumn Heart?" He had almost become accustomed to the foreign body and voice. This body and voice were very recognizably his but were now made strange by the dream.

"Yeah that's me, and you," a hoof poked his side "are an incredibly heavy sleeper. Corona came in here poking and prodding you with her talons. If it weren't for me she would have left scars, as it was healing bandages was all it took to repair the damage."

Now that he could see her vague shape he had something to focus on to bring himself out of this blurry daze. At length Autumn Heart's concerned face gained clarity as well as the rest of the room.

"Everything alright?"

"Pretty sure I had an actual magical vision. "Yeah just a strange dream."

"Right now the second thing I didn't want to bring up but it'll just be worse if I say nothing." Steel Wing cocked an eyebrow and tried to sit up she pushed him back down. "Ummmm- you know how sometimes a colt can, you were up before you were awake." She gave herself a nod of approval and walked out of the room.

Nothing all that erotic about that. Steel Wing sat up and looked at his little soldier standing at attention. "Well maybe I missed something but I was afraid for my life." It then came to him that his heartbeat was far above a resting tempo and he had broken out in a cool sweat in his sleep. All in all it felt as though he had flown hard for several miles, it felt amazing.

At length his soldier stood down and he got up. Judging by the small amount of ponies still out and about it was probably a little while before midnight. It took him twenty minutes to motivate himself out the door and down the stairs. When he got downstairs he found Corona chatting up Tips and ordering a few drinks. Autumn Heart was at a table organizing the multitude of grenades he'd purchased into efficient and useful combinations. Sparkpulse combined with a fragmentation grenade; anyone using robots as cover would be taken care of fairly quickly. Most of the time it was just bouquets of fragmentation grenades bundled up they way they'd done to take care of the slaver and his thugs. Being an earth pony meant planning ahead, something she did very well when she knew she had to.

He slowly cantered over to where Corona stood. "So I heard you like cutting ponies in their sleep?"

She grinned at him, "I just wanted to see if your tolerance for pain kept you from waking up, it does."

"Same thing happened an hour so before you found Autumn Heart and I. Raiders hit me in the mouth and tied me up I didn't come out of my dream until some time later." He looked over to where Autumn Heart sat and was suddenly fairly sure she could hear them. "I just hope it doesn't get somepony killed next time."

"So you're ready to go?" She inquired putting the assorted bottles of alcohol in a bag.

"Yeah, but weren't you going to wear that power armor?" They moved towards Autumn Heart's table as they spoke.

"Oh did you want me to." She asked sarcastically prompting Steel Wing to raise an eyebrow. "See the armor was a prototype most of the major ease of mobility spell matrices bugs were worked out. Most of them, that left quite a bit of room for experimentation. They looked into what could make them even slightly harder to hit. What could be better than not knowing your opponent was wearing armor." She tapped a wrist with a talon then offered it to Steel Wing. He tried to touch her wrist and was in fact stopped an inch and a half away by the wrist guards of invisible power armor.

"Surely that isn't permanent aren't you wasting valuable power?" He didn't really believe she could be that careless, but it worried him nonetheless.

"Prototype. Armor." She waited to see if he understood; all he gained from it was he didn't really need to worry, not the why. "Experimental spell matrix designed to recharge any depleted spell matrix while itself having a very slowly self-renewing core."

Steel Wing understood and appreciated what he had just been told, Autumn Heart was completely lost hearing the tail end of a conversation about a topic she didn't understand.

"So we are ready to get then right?" Autumn Heart chose to ignore their previous discussion.

They both nodded. She packed up her big bag of bombs and caught up with them as they left.

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They were on their way the town of Sky Fall slowly shrinking away from them.

Steel Wing addressed his two companions in a more authoritative tone than he meant as he laid out his plan, "We keep up a good pace until noon and we should be a couple hours away from Armory assuming no interruptions. I'm well aware this is the Equestrian Wasteland so the chances of a smooth journey are slim to none. Still we have the capability to deal with most problems pretty quickly. Barring a wing of alicorns being ridden by invisible hellhounds in power armor we should be fine. Once noon rolls around we need to decide on the best method of entry. Any questions?"

"Yeah how should we adress you now oh glorious leader." Crona asked voice dripping with disdain.

"Haha. Alright sorry, after three years I'm still not over leading troops into combat situations. It doesn't help that, and I'm not bragging here, I was damn good at it."

"Sure whatever so how fast is a good pace?" She asked looking between the two grounded ponies knowing it wasn't going to be very fast at all.

Without answering Steel Wing took one look at Autumn Heart then broke into a gallop. To his amazement the non warrior earth pony was the first to react to his sudden burst of speed. She matched his pace as excitement and adrenaline began to work its way into her system. Last to react but with the ability to fly Corona was right with them in a few moments. And so they began their daylong journey in a sprint that would carry them as far as they needed to go before exhausting them.

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A little past noon they were considerably farther than Steel Wing had anticipated. According to the navigator built into her suit Corona informed them that they could stop for the day, and at a brisk pace be at Armory by noon tomorrow.Though she had done remarkably well in keeping up it was clear that Autumn Heart had pushed herself much farther than she was used to. Steel Wing at least agreed to stop to rest for her sake.

Off in the distance was the somewhat intact remains of a house it would provide some shelter for the night at least.

As they drew nearer to the house Autumn Heart paused, "Do you hear something?" Corona landed and listened with Steel Wing.

There was in fact a faint noise a whine perhaps, "Maybe it's the wind?" Corona suggested. Another short silence followed during which Corona silently withdrew her input with a shrug of her shoulders.

"It's actually coming from the house." Autumn Heart deduced, she slowly started approaching the house. Steel Wing of course didn't like this considering his paranoia of unicorn assassins waiting behind every air molecule. As they drew nearer it became clear the whining sound was actually a low pain filled moaning.

"I really really don't like this." Steel Wing whispered, Corona nodded in agreement.

The three of them had approached the house from a side missing most of it's wall, when they were close enough it was clear what was making the noises. A familiar looking unicorn lay just inside the house, her normally bright orange coat was stained brown from the blood pooled around her. The source of bleeding was instantly visible, all but one of her hindlegs had been cut cleanly off.

Autumn Heart was already digging through her bags for healing supplies. Corona took to the air because she knew, Steel Wing started running towards Autumn Heart because he felt it, and Autumn Heart was too distracted by locating healing supplies to notice the unicorn pleading with her to run.

Steel Wing lunged using his wings to get to Autumn Heart, the first clawed hand missing his hind leg by less than a second. As soon as he was next to Autumn Heart, Steel Wing put himself under her and reared up sending her into the air; he could only pray that the airborne griffon had anticipated his plan and was ready to react. As Autumn Heart broke contact with Steel Wing's back the second clawed hand came out of the ground piercing through the armor of Steel Wing's right wing near it's base tearing outward shredding his wing into bleeding metal strands.

The first of the hellhounds to emerge was several yards behind Steel Wing and was prepared to pounce on him when an energy beam scorched the ground next to his paw. Corona drew its attention away from Steel Wing who was very quickly flanked by two more of the savage beasts.

The one who'd torn into Steel Wing's wing, had propelled himself out of the earth with his strike. Another simply dug its way up to Steel Wing's left taking a swipe at his legs. Steel Wing's conscious mind was still on the tattered remains of his wing, he simply hopped over the beats claws as they raked through the air where his legs had been reacting simply to the motion.

Violent thoughts suddenly erupted inside Steel Wing's head. He had come to terms with never being able to fly again he was accepting of that. His wings were still his sword and shield and some savage beast of the wasteland had just taken away a part of him. The pain was numbed by fury as he bucked the still half buried hell hound square in the face causing it to retreat. The one who had damaged his wing was now the only shape he could make out around the increasingly violent shades of red that filled the air around it. With a feral roar Steel Wing lunged at the creature that was now a beacon of everything he hated in that moment. The hellhound raised tried to raise its claws to catch Steel Wing's charge but the pegasus was very well trained in hoof to hoof combat, a skill many enemies in the past had underestimated of their winged opponent. Steel Wing plowed straight into the hellhounds chest and rolled over him.

The two were now intertwined; Steel Wing wouldn't be able to use his good wing offensively while their faces were only a couple feet from each other. He continually kept any attacks from his right side in check with his hoof shoving the hellhound's palm away while carefully deflecting attacks from his left with his working plated wing. Whenever the beast tried to snap at Steel Wing's throat he checked it in the jaw with his free left hoof.

Even in his rage, perhaps the most intense of his life, he still kept his mind on the battle as much as he could. The only progress he was making in the brawl was a fractured jaw which would certainly not be lethal. His fury had peaked and was finally leaving him, not however the gravity of his situation. He was able to take in the entirety of the fight now as well as feel all of the pain from his now limp wing. The pain surged through his body giving the hellhound a momentary opening which it took advantage of making several nonsuperficial cuts along Steel Wing's chest with it's temporarily freed hand. Time suddenly slowed to a halt, the once familiar feeling of SATS fell over Steel Wing as he watched the first drops of blood leave his new wounds. He took note of Corona's situation; she had in fact anticipated his plan to save Autumn Heart and currently had the earth pony mare tucked under an arm while raining lasers beams down on the two hellhounds below her. Unfortunately for the experienced griffon not having a place to put Autumn Heart down put her at a great disadvantage in terms of accuracy and maneuverability. Autumn Heart was trying her best to help occasionally scattering grenades down towards the hellhounds, which was the only reason they hadn't been able to place a couple well aimed shots at their avian assailant.

They needed a plan, each of them had exerted themselves during the journey to this point. Both Steel Wing and Corona were moving only because of adrenaline at this point. It suddenly hit him, there were three and only three. The only plan he had would either work or it was simply over for them.

Pinning the hellhound beneath him as thoroughly as possible and shouted, "STOP!" His voice was unnaturally loud, and he could have sworn the world physically froze around him for a moment. Needless to say every living thing within about a mile stopped what they were doing to look towards the source of the sound.

The hellhound let out a pained howl under Steel Wing, his voice had caused the beasts sensitive ears a good deal of pain.

"Pony loud, too much bad sounds." The hellhound snarled at Steel Wing.

"Alright listen." Steel Wing put more weight on the hellhound's palms drew himself up and turned towards its two companions. "You'd better hear me out if you want to live."

"Pony think he scary?" One of the mobile hellhounds mocked.

Steel Wing fixed the "funny" hellhound with a stare that nearly turned its blood to ice. Putting his good wing next to his pinned opponents head he enacted his plan, "There are three of you yes?"

The third hellhound who had not yet spoken looked at Steel Wing appraisingly while at the same time failing to hide its concern at the point the confident pony was trying to make. "So what?" It retorted.

"So you're probably an awful long way from the larger part of whatever pack you're from." Steel Wing was now fishing for the leverage he needed which the more diplomatic of the three hellhounds seemed willing to supply unintentionally.

"We have us we don't need whole pack." It said proudly.

Steel Wing breathed a sigh of relief, "Well consider this," He started, "I have in my hooves all three of your lives."

The hellhound under him growled the "funny" one snorted and the most reasonable of the three was growing more concerned. "Pony prove it, you're blood almost all gone how you kill?"

"All you need is the three of you." He stated simply the hellhound nodded. "If you try to kill my friends or me I kill this one." He motioned towards his hostage with the blade of his wing bouncing harmlessly off its toughened hide.

"Then pony dies too." It hadn't quite gotten the point of Steel Wing's position.

"If I kill him, you no longer have three of you. You have two." Steel Wing saw the understanding flash through the hellhound's eyes. "So even if I die you'd die before long, three is better than two, and when there are two of you left it'll be that much easier to kill another of you. So when there's one of you left you'll be easier to kill."

The diplomatic hellhound glared at his adversary's logic. "So how pony no kill us and we no kill pony?"

"We make a deal, how about-"

"Hah! pony always make promises, never keep." The hellhound snapped back.

"Why do all hellhounds insist on blaming the ponies alive for the actions of ponies two hundred years dead?" Steel Wing asked in exasperation. He also wobbled slightly now that they were in the bargaining phase his adrenaline was wearing off and his blood loss was making him lightheaded. "No, we will make a deal, and I'm asking you to try to trust me."

"We have honor we see pony honor today, pony make pony deal, I listen."

"If you will promise not to kill me my friends or that almost dead unicorn I will let your friend go and we can all be on our way without any death here today."

"We can't promise no death, other horned pony already die." The hellhound confessed.

"There was another unicorn?" Steel Wing was slowly approaching the point where he would need to push the deal through, he'd simply bleed out where he stood and the hellhounds would not be honor bound to leave his friends in peace.

"Other horned pony use horn magic and appear next to hurt pony. Hellhound trap work, but we not expect pony use magic to spring trap. So we kill before dead horned pony can use more horn magic."

"Alright, without any more death here today?" He asked hopefully, now on his last legs.

"We agree to pony deal, pony let friend go we let pony and pony friend go."

The joy he felt nearly brought tears to his eyes as he folded his wing back and stepped off to release his hostage. The freed hellhound immediately sprung up and charged at Steel Wing. He was too lightheaded to register his imminent death which was staved off by an angry hell hound diplomat giving his aggressive friend a swift powerful smack upside the head.

"We make deal with pony we honor deal with pony, pony honor pony deal too."

"Thank you." Steel Wing said desperately the events of twenty seconds ago finally coming to him.

"Metal wing pony not so bad pony. Maybe not all pony so bad, still many bad pony." It extended its clawed hand towards Steel Wing

"Steel Wing." He said placing his hoof in the hand of a creature that could give lethal nicks. Speaking of lethal cuts much worse than nicks, Steel Wing fell to his side as soon as his hoof left the ground.

The hellhound laughed at the honorable fallen pony. "Steel Wing pony last much longer than other pony with same wound. I am Trapmaw." The hellhound vigorously shook Steel Wing's hoof.

"Glad to make your acquaintance Trapmaw." Steel Wing gave a weak smile.

"Steel Wing pony friends come help Steel Wing?" Trapmaw called out.

Autumn Heart was there in an instant startling both Trapmaw and his more aggressive companion who nearly jumped again but chose not to after a stern look from his friend.

"You're an idiot you could have gotten yourself killed." Autumn Heart was applying healing bandages and forcing healing potions into Steel Wing's mouth.

"Well if it hadn't worked we all would have died together." Steel Wing forced himself to retch the slowly working healing potions.

"What are you doing?" Autumn Heart cried in alarm.

"If my wing is ever going to be one piece I need a doctor a surgeon preferably." He laughed sadly, "If I had let that crazy doctor back in Sky Fall work on my wings this would have fucked all that up quite nicely."

"If Steel Wing pony die now not hellhound fault?" Trapmaw asked worriedly.

"No, and I won't die. Thank you for your trust Trapmaw."

"We go now, thank you for honor of deal."

With that the hellhound trio dropped into one of their predug holes and left.

"I've seen some crazy shit and some stupid shit in my life, but damn that was the best of both right there." Corona almost nudged Steel Wing in the side but caught herself before she sent waves of pain through his body.

"Stand me up." He said looking to Corona standing over him. Autumn Heart immediately began to protest but Steel Wing gave Corona silent permission to ignore the fussy mare. After she had propped him up Steel Wing began to stagger towards where the fallen unicorn lay.

"Polaris right?" Steel Wing swayed back and forth trying to stay upright. She nodded solemnly. Steel Wing looked around the room and spotted the dismembered body of another unicorn mare discarded in a corner. "You're one of those highly trained assassin unicorns that're after me right."

She shook her head grinding her ear against the dirt. "Not an assassin." There was clear pain in her voice. The pain from his wing had died down to a dull throbbing because he had been trained to deal with pain, the unicorn laying before him had no such advantage. The pathetic display she made of trying to move towards him with her one leg did make him cry, whatever anger he had towards mysterious cults of unicorn mares was forgotten as he saw a pony suffering so greatly before him.

"Maybe your not, but I do know that you came from a school that produces very very gifted unicorns. Where is it?"

Polaris could shed no more tears for anything after having been left for several hours. Between dry sobs she said, "I can't tell."

"Yes you can, and you will." Steel Wing leaned closer to the weeping mare. "Because of you my wing will probably never work right again, but-" He felt the warm river of his bleeding heart running through his body. "I want to help you, whether you are an assassin or not you need my help and I need the help of whatever healing magic the unicorns at your school know. So please where is it."

Polaris let out one last pathetic moan before conceding, "Southwest right behind the big hill."

"Good that wasn't too hard." He fished around for a couple syringes of med-x, injecting Polaris with one and putting the other in her mouth. "Corona can you come here and put her in my saddlebag, carefully."

Corona complied without producing a 'glorious leader' joke. Autumn Heart came up and gently poured a healing potion down Polaris' mouth.

"Are you sure you're alright to walk?" Autumn Heart asked after tending to Polaris as best she could. "With as much blood as you've lost the odds of you simply keeling over are pretty high."

Steel Wing's response was to pull out and down a bottle of water followed by quickly devouring a box of Sugar Apple Bombs. After that he started walking southwest. It wasn't for the sake of being rude that he said nothing Steel Wing was convinced if he used any energy to formulate and give responses he was going to die. It was a very foreign feeling to him being so close to death. His fall to the wasteland was something he had accepted at the time as his last moments alive but now having something to fight for made the thought of death unacceptable.

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An hour of walking later, Polaris had fallen asleep occasionally whimpering. Steel Wing very much empathized with the still pathetic creature in his saddlebag, but continued to focus all his energy on putting one hoof in front of the other. In the time they had been traveling, Autumn Heart continued to voice her dislike of Steel Wing pushing himself. Ten or so minutes into agreeing with and trying to calm Autumn Heart, Corona simply tuned her out. Once the stand in doctor pony realized nobody was listening to her she shut up and continued on sullenly.

Steel Wing began to notice the various pieces of prewar junk jutting out of the ground had developed an increasingly pronounced fuzzy glow. By the time an hour had passed the air began to acquire the same quality causing him to try to focus his vision more. The whole world seemed to tilt, physically Steel Wing was walking perfectly upright but the world was beginning to spin.

His body went momentarily numb but the sensation quickly passed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Steel Wing stepped into the contrasted circle of illumination. A familiar and imposing armored alicorn stood silently in its center. He still wasn't quite with it until the alicorn noticed his approach.

"Do you think your cowardice in seeking us out at the suns peak will help you?" Her voice thundered around him seeming to filly a much smaller space than what was there.

"I don't want to fight you." Steel Wing mumbled.

"Oh, it is you. Your ability to come here continues to astound us, what is it you want." Her voice then assumed its much more gentle tone.

"Honestly since when I was here last night I was asleep, I have no clue why I'm here now." Steel Wing began moving around the small circle of light until he realized he could see somewhere near forever outside their circle. The space that had been moonlight before was now in the shade of the moon.

"So you once again come here not of your own will, but now while you are still awake and when the sun is at it's peak over Equestria? This confuses us deeply."

"I don't know what to tell you." He replied shrugging, Steel Wing saw the moment he spoke the alicorn's head turned to him. He had stopped moving but now he was curious so he continued.

"Then we ask again, tell us what it is you want." Her head was still turned towards the spot he had been standing.

"I want to get to the unicorn school so I can have them fix my wing." Again she turned her head towards his voice, but he was still moving.

"You're wing? What has happened to your wing." She asked more out of curiosity than concern.

"Can't you see?" He grinned, "Don't bother answering I know you can't."

Her eyes began to glow an angry red, "You dare insult us? You tread upon our domain and think you have any right to talk down to us?" The furious alicorn could not summon her strong voice to emphasize her rage.

"No that is not what I mean to do. I'm sorry." He started to come closer to her.

"What has happened to your wing. We wish to know." The fire in her eyes had quickly died out.

"A hellhound tore through it like paper."

"How dare those cretinous mutts harm our- my... you." Steel Wing was now very aware that the alicorn in fact wanted something from him.

"What is it you want from me?" He asked coming to a stop a few feet from her. She quickly tensed realizing he had closed the distance between them.

As she relaxed she muttered, "We want nothing from you but to stop intruding on our domain." She sounded very unconvinced of it herself.

"The fact that I can come here at all doesn't annoy you it intrigues you doesn't it." He sat and waited for her response.

"We must confess we have some interest in your... potential yes, potential."

"Potential what? If you're hoping to have me deliver things across the wasteland you should know that I'd still be grounded even if my wing wasn't a tattered mess."

"We believe you are connected to us, somehow." The proud alicorn was clearly at a loss for words.

"Somehow, as in we're related or something?"

"Of course not we- I have never had a mate, OFFSRPING we have no offspring." The alicorn's mind was reeling, not from the embarrassing words that had escaped her mouth but because she allowed herself to show it was embarrassing.

"You must go please we must have time to ourselves return when the moon is dominant we will answer your questions then."

"Right well the last time you just left me here and I ran out into the darkness I'm pretty sure it almost killed me. So is the light safe then?"

"No it is not you would be incinerated in moments. Do you not posses enough magic to return?"

"Pegasus, not unicorn. Accident, no idea how to get here in the first place." His tone was more condescending than he meant it to be. The majestic alicorn reacted by folding her ears back and cringing.

"Yes I had forgotten. Come let me place my horn upon you."

He closed the last few feet between him and leaned his head forward. When she did not react he cleared his throat loudly causing her to jump a bit but helped her to properly judge the distance to his head. As she lowered her horn to him it began to glow. When it touched him the world around him suddenly and violently retreated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This time when Steel Wing returned to the Equestrian Wasteland it wasn't slow or a struggle, he was back in his body in an instant. His eyes focused very quickly and before him stood a very large and very intact castle partially built into one of the only mounds of dirt and rock that could be considered a hill that existed in the Mexicolt territory. Soon everything took on that same fuzzy glow and he realized he was being yelled at from above in front and behind.

"Will you please talk to her before I have to start shooting!" Corona shrieked.

He looked up at her, "What."

"Not the pissed of griffon the pissed off unicorn up there." She pointed towards the wall were a unicorn stood levitating several rocket launchers. Steel Wing could only pray that she didn't have the ability to fire all of them accurately at the same time.

"Could you repeat the question please?" He requested sheepishly.

"What did you do to Polaris?!" The unicorn demanded.

"I didn't do anything aside from save her." Steel Wing was slightly offended by being accused of hurting an innocent pony, the mare on top of the wall had no way of knowing better of course.

"She hardly looks saved to me she looks tortured."

"Better than bled out if you ask me." She aimed two of the rocket launchers at him and narrowed her eyes to let him know he was inching his hooves into his grave.

"What happened to her?" She said coldly.

"She got caught somehow by hellhounds and they used her cries as a trap for other ponies, haven't my friends told you this?"

"Yeah you're carrying her mostly dead friend so she wanted to hear it from you." Corona said landing next to him. "You know you had a parasprite almost take a chunk out of your wing."

"Say again." Steel Wing made sure to look her in the eye.

"Yeah you were doing your stoic walk thing and one rushed you from somewhere, Autumn Heart was yelling at you as usual so I could expect that you'd tune her out," Autumn Heart turned her head and trotted towards the opening gate indignantly. "You're lucky it didn't know your wings were so damn sharp, it was flying at you so fast it cut itself in half."

"Well lucky for me I guess." He followed Autumn Heart through the gate. Steel Wing felt Polaris stir at his side. He lifted his wing to look down and felt tears well up in his eyes, once again the sight of her broken form was too pathetic for him to bear impassively.

The suspicious gaze of the guardponies turned to looks of horror upon seeing the limp and torn shreds of wing hanging off the body of the over sized pegasus.

A significantly older red coated mare than those around warily approached his lifted wing to get a closer look at Polaris in his bag. As she moved closer Steel Wing looked up sorrowfully trying to blink the tears from his eyes.

"I've been informed hellhounds did this?" She asked her voice unsteady. Steel Wing nodded. "Your wing was injured saving her?" He nodded again. "My condolences for your pain while rescuing one of our own. As well you have my profound gratitude for returning her to us, regardless of how you learned the location of our school."

"Don't you remember me Astra?" Corona complained coming closer.

"The griffon from the orphan town, yes I do and I suppose you would remember this place." She turned back to Steel Wing,

"We we will show you to our doctor and hopefully she can do something for your wing. And please don't mind the looks you get from the students, rumors have already spread that you brought back one of their own a bloody mess. That will be the next thing I'll address so your stay here can be somewhat pleasant."

--------------------------------------

A few minutes of stumbling through the halls later, Steel Wing had been levitated by two nurses onto an operating table. Surgeon: Check. Unicorn: Check. So far so good. He thought while he waited. They had given Polaris an anesthetic before removing her from Steel Wing's bag. He had requested they be sure to try and get her legs back before trying to mend his wing. As far as he knew self levitation was more or less impossible, doing it to get anywhere would be even more impossible. If there was anything they could do for her he wanted them to do it as soon as possible. He could make due learning to use a broken plated wing as metal plated whips as soon as he had new plates refitted for their new form. He could see that the specially shaped plates were beginning to fall off in places, the individualized flight feather guards were gone completely by now.

Two and a half eternities later and Steel Wing couldn't fall asleep. Luckily he had Corona there to constantly reminded him the doctor told him to stay laying down.

"Wow you look depressed can you at least close your eyes so I don't have to think about how sad you are?" Corona complained from where she lay on her back in a corner.

"Get fucked." Steel Wing said dismissively.

"I was about to say the same thing to you." She got up and moved next to him. Her talons making a click clack sound on the floor made him notice she was on all four legs for once.

"Not into griffons sorry." He thought for a moment, "I gather that isn't what you were getting at?"

"Well you seemed pretty out of it on the way here buuuuuuuuuuut," She leaned closer into him without lowering her voice much, "I saw at most two bucks walking around here."

Steel Wing rolled his eyes, "Are you still on that?"

"Yes, I'm just saying there are probably a lot of mares here that haven't even had a first time, eh?" She gave him a wink and a nudge. "At least think about it. If not for you then for at least one of the desperately horny mares I saw eyeing you."

Steel Wing facehoofed knowing something Corona didn't, "You know you're supposed to talk about them behind their backs, not while they're behind yours right?"

Corona turned her head to look at the two clearly designated medical ponies, one with a teal coat and slightly darker mane who was considerably older than the other. The younger with a who's deep purple coat looked very much like Steel Wing's mane, appeared to be barely old enough to not be called a filly. When Corona moved away from Steel Wing the young mare and he made eye contact for a brief moment, she quickly broke it and looked away trying to conceal her light blush. Steel Wing saw Corona grinning upon seeing her point being fairly well proven.

"Will you please ask your friend to leave ze room, so I can begin?" The older mare spoke with a mostly conquered accent Steel Wing had never heard before. It was clear she didn't appreciate Corona's previous remarks.

"Yeah I'm going to go have a talk with, someone else around here. Good luck." She ended her sentence without actually looking at anypony in particular.

The door magically closed behind Corona almost catching her tail. "Now what is it we are looking at?" The doctor asked trotting up to Steel Wing.

"Before you start prodding me with sharp objects I'd like to apologize for my friend's comment about the mares at this school." Steel Wing said genuinely worried about having an angry surgeon trying to fix his wing.

"She is not your problem. Her observation may also not be entirely inaccurate. I am however curious why she would, from what you said, be insistent on such a personal subject." She had begun to unpack a bag of surgical tools as well as a couple well preserved tomes that Steel Wing guessed contained notes on healing spells.

"She seems to think that I've gone too long without having a," Steel Wing cleared his throat awkwardly, "bed partner."

"If I may, how long does she consider too long to be?" She prodded with a quizzical look.

Steel Wing was beginning to worry just how right Corona had been about the mares here, "In the realm of three years, give or take a couple months."

The professional pony doctor suppressed her bodies desire to raise her eyebrow any further. "Yes, well again your friend my not be completely wrong on the subject but it is none of my business now is it? So what am I looking at?" She in an effort to remain professional changed the subject back to the matter at hoof.

"Uh," Steel Wing raised his shredded right wing with mild confusion, "I thought it'd be a bit obvious."

"Well ze way the metal was formed around them I had assumed you did it to compliment your other wing."

"Oh well, the metal plates were enchanted to remain sharp and thin. It must have formed around the separate sections as best it could to keep as compact as possible."

"Enchanted you say?" She beckoned her assistant to come closer. As the assistant unicorn's horn glowed, etchings and patterns were illuminated along his left wing. They meant little to Steel Wing as he had seen them once long ago when he first had them affixed to his wings.

"My it must have cost you something to have so many enchantments placed on each of ze plates, no?"

"Yes in a way. The method of payment was a number of jobs done in exchange for the services of an enslaved surgeon and unicorn. They worked together to do the job, and I tried to free them afterwards. Instead of letting his "property" get away their owner killed them both. I lost myself for a long while after that."

"So what exactly is it you want me to do? I can't replace your broken enchantments or missing plates I'm afraid."

"Were you able to help Polaris?" Steel Wing asked shifting slightly to look at her.

"She is none of your concern you- oh you are actually concerned for her?" The doctor pony seemed shocked by the idea. "I suppose we did treat her first at your request. Forgive me, even after the headmare informed me I hadn't quite forgotten the first thing I'd heard about you." She collected herself, "Your concern for her his very admirable, and she will walk again. After we finish regenerating her lost limbs and she's had enough time to recover we will try to rehabilitate her. Then we will watch her for any signs of mental scarring, which I suspect there will be plenty of."

"So you can regrow damaged appendages, then you could do that for my wing maybe?" Steel Wing was roused by hope now his eyes lighting up.

"It is possible, but it will be a slow process and ze remaining plates will have to come off." She watched Steel Wing closely for his reaction to the news. He seemed to accept it grudgingly at first.

"So you can fix the damaged wing if you remove the the protection that probably saved them from being removed completely? I guess eventually I can find somepony somewhere to do a replacement procedure at some point." Settling back down on the operating table he said, "Do what you have to doc, I suspect wings are harder to come by anyways."

"Just so you know this procedure will not be free." She moved to his right side and began examining the plates more closely.

"Yes, yes it will." Came the voice of a familiar and substantially older tan coated mare.

"Miss Astra, I did not expect you to see you at all today!" The doctor pony almost dropped her professional demeanor moving very quickly to properly greet the pony Steel Wing gathered was the headmare.

"Yes I came down here to make sure the savior of one of our own would be getting the absolute best treatment possible. I am already hopeful seeing it is you, but I cannot allow him to be charged for injuries he sustained rescuing Polaris. She was almost dead herself and he still risked his own life to help her." With a small step and a flash she was standing next to Steel Wing, "Captain Corona has informed me you have had less than friendly run ins with ponies you think came from this school. What makes you think they all came from here?"

"Oh fantastic I didn't even consider you'd be the pony to talk to about that." Steel Wing sat up again, "I should start off by saying that I rarely see unicorns just walking about around here, unless they're coming from way up north. Several days ago I met a unicorn for the first time in a long time, with a group of raiders."

"While it is true that most of the area's unicorns are at this school, the choices of unicorns from elsewhere cannot be blamed on our students."

"Please you'll want me to finish." He pondered the best way to show why he was concerned at all, "This unicorn was, in comparison to the other raiders, extremely well trained in combat. Nevermind that she was a unicorn and already had an advantage over the earth ponies she was running with, but had she been fighting anypony eles with less combat experience she would have won easily."

"And what makes you think a unicorn raider came from this school?" It was evident he had not gotten her on his side yet.

"If it was an isolated incident then I would have no reason to think so."

"There were others?"

"Reasonably just two others." He paused again. "The second was only a couple nights later, and this one intentionally spared my life."

"Intentionally?" Astra Questioned.

"Yes because she told me so herself. Again she was, oh and another thing all of them have been mares. Where was I, right; Again she was running with raiders who were so very ill prepared for anything besides unarmed travelers, but this unicorn leveled a plasma rifle at me and was teleporting everywhere without breaking a sweat. Something like you just did."

She paused thoughtfully, "Please understand that I can't have the name of my school sullied by somepony's tale about fighting unicorns." Steel Wing was about to protest but she raised a hoof to silence him, "If you would allow me to look through your memories I could confirm that you have indeed encountered any of my students."

"You wouldn't be looking through my whole life would you?" He didn't need some old mare judging him for his relationship with his sister in addition to anypony else who may have caught on."

"Only with your permission, otherwise I can look back to the last couple of days or so."

"I can consent to that but if you wouldn't mind horribly I'd like them to have my wing taken care of first."

"That is agreeable. I would like to put this trouble to rest before it damages our reputation. Is there anything you need before I go?"

"All I need is to know if my friends have a place to stay tonight. Other than that I'm okay."

She seemed almost offended, "Of course they do, and you do as well. I would hope you didn't think my gratitude would end as soon as you were well enough to walk out. Please know that you will always have a safe place to lay your head when and if you ever need it."

"Thank you, it's a significant rarity to meet good ponies out here."

She smiled kindly, "Think nothing of it." With another effortless motion she was back by the door and addressed the doctor, "Please Mercy take care good care of him." And with a slightly brighter flash she was gone from the room.

"So can all of you teleport like that? I thought that was something even Twilight Sparkle had to try at."

"It is much easier here inside the school. So even the least capable of us can get around more easily." She moved back to his right side. "Are you ready for removal of the plates?"

"They're very sharp I hope you have some thick protection." Mercy started her horn glowing in response, "Of course if you're a unicorn you don't have much to worry about." He settled down and waited for her to proceed.

She gave him an injection of med-x before carefully lifting one strip of his wing, The combination of time and med-x made the pain of moving his wing nothing. As she very carefully removed the first plate however barely dulled pain rocketed through his body. Steel Wing completely unprepared for the pain let out a his second inequine roar that day which echoed through the halls.

"Are you alright?" The assistant was standing in front of him levitating three more syringes of med-x ready to apply them all at his request.

Steel Wing could only grunt as the flood of pain signals to his brain slowly died away. "How can that hurt so much?" He near demanded of the startled doctor.

"It's possible that the individualized plates fused with your wing if they were designed to patch holes by themselves. It came away rather well though." Steel Wing glared at her as she inspected the exposed section of wing. "Are your wings supposed to be so much darker than your coat?" She asked concern evident in her voice.

"What?" Steel Wing turned his head to see what she was talking about. The feathers that had been revealed were black, utterly and completely black. "No they never have been." He said solemnly.

"This may be a much more in depth surgery compared to the magic it would take to mend the flesh and bone. How long have you had these plates?"

"About two years." Steel Wing was thinking back to a doctor who had been foaming at the mouth about this exact subject. "How bad is it?"

"Well the fact that your wings haven't been causing you pain makes me think it isn't so bad but the other wing should probably be deplated as well."

"Well you are the second doctor to say so, do it I guess. Will you be able to replace the good one later?" He supposed the answer was no.

"It will be much more possible than this one." she said nudging his limp wing. No would have been easier to say.

"Alright put me under or I won't be sane by the end of this." He thought for a moment, "Please and thank you."

Mercy's horn had already begun to glow before he'd finished. At the same time her assistant gave him an injection of something much stronger than med-x. The sensation of the waves of fatigue literally crashing down upon him told Steel Wing he would be out for sometime. He wondered if medically and magically induced comas would allow him to dream and visit his alicorn friend.

Nope.

Foot Note Level Up!

Steel Wing - Level 9

Quest Perk Added:

Strong Back, Stronger Heart: Because of previous training with helping wounded allies you do not suffer any movement penalties while moving ponies. When helping those in need your carrying capacity is doubled.

New Perk Added:

Much More Than a Flesh Wound - After the massive amount of pain you've experienced from a single injury, pain hardly slows you down at all. Wounds when you receive limb damage it doesn't affect your ability to perform actions with that limb; Pushing yourself to do extremely strenuous activities with a crippled limb will damage your endurance until you have both healed the limb and rested. This does not increase your DT.

Autumn Heart - Level 7

New Perk Added:

Explosives Mastery (Earth Pony) - Now that you have an ample supply of grenades your upbringing can really shine. Explosives Skill: 100

Corona (Griff) - Level 12

New Perk(s) Added:

Don't Trust the Ground (Power Armor) - Anytime you are walking and an enemy attempts to take you by surprise you can chose to slip into SATS. In addition you gain an extra 30 AP.

Foal At Heart - This is a very alien feeling for you as you are a griffon. Having formed an emotional attachment to a foal has allowed you to better understand your inner child. You may have special dialogue options when dealing with children as well as adults. After all you have a lot of your own childhood to make up for.

Quick Draw - You draw your weapon before you even think about it. You can draw and holster all weapons more quickly, in addition to retrieving and loading fresh clips of ammo.

Speed not Armor - In most cases as long as you keep moving enemies have an additional 10% chance to miss you in combat.

Quest Perk Added:

Prototype Power Armor - The armor you're wearing has a number of features not found in other types of power armor. These extra features come with the chance for the armor to fail from over use. Of course you already knew the risks.