[Tick. Tick. Tock. Tock.]

“Meris, I change my mind. This is crazy,” Lilac said to me when I was purchasing shotgun ammo, a large saddle and every piece of junk in Lomi's shop.

Well, technically it was Lilac's money, but I promised to pay her back, and there wasn't much armor that could fit with my enhancements, so I had to settle with loose barding and leg pads made from old tires and scrap metal. So, I owed Lilac for ammo, junk and cheap barding on top of owing Heartbeat and Leur ten grand for the stupid operation.

Anyway, Lilac called the idea crazy and I basically ignored her and the uneasy look Lomi was giving me when she was helping me load the large saddle with the junk.

“What about the three weeks thing?” asked Lilac.

“Rose and Artisan don't have three weeks.” I told her.

“How do you know? What if they are just sitting there without any problems?”

I just looked at her, and with drooped ears she stepped back. After I was finished loading up I left the shop without another word with Lilac trailing behind me. I kept close to the walls, ignoring the odd looks the residents and guards were giving us, and the gatekeeper said nothing when I told him me and Lilac were leaving.

After the gate opened, I took a deep breath, rubbed my watch for some good luck and comfort, and then trotted out. Those damn enhancements and the weight of the gear really made my muscles sore, but I knew I couldn't wait. Every day that was wasted was another day Butter Bars could use to torture Rose and Artisan closer to death.

It had been a few hours after we left Orange, and the light was getting dim. Lilac had turned on the radio on her PipBuck, so we listened to some music while we walked down the cracked road. The music was actually soothing, with a nice melody of string instruments, but even though the music calmed us down, we both kept an eye out on the cracked road and its decaying scenery. You could never be too careful, after all.

We passed rusted, gutted wagons, some houses and buildings that were reduced to walls, and a playground with dozen little skeletons scattered around it. There was a partially collapsed school near the playground, but we decided it was best to ignore it and kept walking. Thankfully nopony or nothing came after us from that building. A few more hours of walking later put us passing a peeling billboard with an advertisement for a Stable. The ponies were all dressed in their finest with their saddles, all smiling and filing neatly in line into a Stable built into a mountain under the guidance of a mare in a Stable jumpsuit (also smiling brightly) with a hellish ball of fire in the background.

Where will you be when the world ends?
Reserve a spot today!

That is what the sign said. Seemed kind of morbid to have such a cheerful picture for a demented message. But there was a second message on it. This was painted on with a large rough brush, and it read:

Now Entering Republic 61

Seeing this, my heart suddenly got heavy and I looked at Lilac. Her steps have also slowed, and the calm music fuzzed out to the familiar bombastic music of Republic 61 radio.

“You do know where Mane Manor is, right?” I asked Lilac.

“Yes. It is right next to Stable 65. We've been over this,” said Lilac. “There's going to be a checkpoint up ahead, too, so just let me do the talking.”

I nodded and resumed walking in silence. Eventually the obnoxious music ended and Sweet Berry's voice played out.

“My little ponies, have you ever wondered what clean water tastes like? What a clean clinic looks like? Or wanted to learn to read? Republic 61 offers all these things, which cannot be said for the supposed noble Restoration,” said Sweet Berry.

I rolled my eyes and kept walking, scanning for any signs of this supposed checkpoint. I hadn't seen anything close to one, and the radio seemed louder than normal as it continued, echoing over the barren land.

“I know many out there see the Restoration as they good guys, but do not be fooled by their rhetoric,” continued Sweet Berry. “Their ambitions are not for the good of Equestria. Their mission is to keep you impoverished. To keep you afraid and at the mercy of warlords. Here, at 61, we are fighting for a future of universal law and order. A future where towns do not have to live behind walls and traders and farmers do not need to arm themselves to survive.”

Suddenly a light shined on me and Lilac, and we both stopped as somepony shouted at us to freeze. We couldn't see anypony, save for a pair of dark blurs coming towards us, and I will admit that I started sweating. I really didn't want to get shot, and while my heart raced and my throat went dry, my good ear still flicked to the speech coming from Lilac's PipBuck.

“Under the guidance of Republic 61, we will have schools, we will have hospitals, we will have social programs and jobs and no child will be without a home. We will have a future!” said Sweet Berry. “The Restoration wishes only to preserve fear and anarchy, but 61 will bring about a new world order of peace and prosperity for all. Under 61, the Macintosh Hills, Horseshoe Bay, Hayseed Swamp and all the surrounding areas will be rebuilt. We will make the grass green, the water clear, and we will break the clouds and bring the sun to us! With Republic 61 leading the way, our future will be bright and prosperous, and we will once again be able to walk freely without fear. Through my hoof, Equestria will be reborn as it was, as it was meant to be. Our golden past will become our glorious future.”

The speech then cut off to happy music and one of the blurs ordered Lilac to turn off her PipBuck. So she shut off the radio, and the pair walked closer so we could actually see their details. They were wearing 61 armor and one was an ashy colored earth pony with a white mane, holding an SMG in his mouth, and the other was a light unicorn with a striped mane of blue and white; he was levitating a shotgun.

“State your business!” said the unicorn.

“I'm a trader from 61, and this is my companion. We're on our way home,” said Lilac.

“Names?”

Lilac nodded to me. “That is Clockwork, my carrier.” She then pointed at herself. “And I am Sarah Sands.”

I smiled thinly and waved, and the guards grimaced at my mechanics.

“What happened to him?” asked the unicorn.

“We tried going West, but got attacked by some slavers near Appleloosa,” said Lilac. “We barely escaped with our lives.”

“Why the hell would you go near Appleloosa?”

“We heard there was prospect for trade in New Apppleloosa, but we learned our lesson. We certainly won't be going back. We'll keep our business around the Republic.”

“Uh huh. Well, we'll need you to come with us.”

“Of course. Come along, Clockwork.”

I gave Lilac an apprehensive look, but followed along nonetheless. They took us to a building that used to be a set of toll booths, but was now outfitted with heavy planks of wood to connect the booths, and it was surrounded by concrete slabs with a windmill on the roof. One of the booths had a hug hole in it, so it was occupied by a spotlight, which was being operated by an earth pony of dark green with a light green mane with a sniper rifle on a tripod.

When we entered the checkpoint, I saw that the floor was partially dirt, partially concrete, and a series of wires ran along the rust stained walls and disappeared into the ceiling. The lights were not very bright and the radio had a nasty static to it.

After we had our moment to take in the checkpoint, rhe unicorn ordered me to take off the saddle and for us to relinquish our weapons, so after we did that I looked around while they searched through my junk using a table to keep track of the garbage. They really were not too impressed with what they found, and I had similar feelings towards their checkpoint. I was surprised they didn't die from boredom.

“Excuse me, but do you mind telling me what you are looking for?” said Lilac. “This merchandise is valuable and I don't appreciate you ruffians handling it like trash.”

“Valuable? This is shit,” said the ash colored pony, tossing a restitched shirt to the floor. “What kind of trader are you?”

“I'll have you know that this 'junk' allows me to make more money in a week than you do in a month.”

The ash pony scoffed and resumed his search, and I looked at the unicorn. He was using his magic to spin a fan, but when he saw me looking at him, he put it down and returned eye contact.

“Clockwork, right?” said the unicorn.

I nodded.

“That is some interesting braces you got there. Where did you get them?” asked the unicorn.

Me and Lilac looked at each other, and when she nodded I looked back at him.

“Somewhere West.” I said. “Don't exactly remember much since I was about dead when she dragged me to the guy. But he was a doctor who used an old mechanic shop and had a lot of those robot books.”

“How much did it cost to get you fixed?”

“A lot. The guy's dead, though. The slavers went after us again, but they got him killed instead. We killed them all, though.”

“Convenient.” He looked at Lilac. “Sarah Sands, you said?”

“Yes,” said Lilac.

“What hub do you normally operate from?”

“Pardon?”

“You're wearing a PipBuck that is from 61. 61 law states that traders must be part of the Trade Union, which you have not yet offered to show us an ID and I have not seen you before, and you said that you are trying a new route, which means that you normally do business at a different hub. So, which hub do you operate from and where is your Union ID?”

“Oh... Uh...”

“We lost it when we were attacked by the slavers.” I said.

“Okay,” said the unicorn. “Now which hub do you operate from and who is your Union Hub-boss?”

“Oh, that's easy,” said Lilac hesitantly. “The hub we normally operate from is operated by Bottle Caps, who runs the Horseshoe River Trade Hub.”

The unicorn stared at Lilac, and I looked at the ash pony when he reclined in his seat, keeping his shotgun aimed at the floor, but his hoof on the trigger. The stale air suddenly got heavier.

I looked at Lilac out of the corner of my eye and saw little beads of sweat rolling down her neck. She tried holding a brave look, but the sweat and her little flicks of the eyes broke it. As for me, I was scared, too. I could hardly breathe, my hoof shook as it brushed against my watch, and I focused on the unicorn, wondering if I should use him as a meat-shield or try to take out the ash pony when the bullets start flying.

Fortunately no bullets flew. Instead, the unicorn looked at his ash partner and said: “Contact Mane Manor. Tell them we have a pair of traders off route and need to be returned to the Horseshoe River Hub.”

The ash pony nodded and walked down the length of the checkpoint, putting him out of our sight, and me and Lilac both exhaled.

“Why so nervous?” said the unicorn.

“I just didn't want to get shot,” said Lilac. “Clockwork certainly doesn't want to get shot, either. We had enough of that out there.”

The unicorn smirked. “Don't worry. We won't shoot you.” He stood up and headed to the door. “Make yourselves comfortable. It will be a few hours before your escorts get here.”

A few hours of shifting from being tense to being bored, our escorts came. They were a pair of earth ponies, but before they came in to get us they talked with the unicorn for a few minutes. I couldn't hear what they were saying since they were outside for their conversation, but I did hear them laugh and when they came in they were smiling and their steps were light.

“These are the traders who went West, huh?” said one of the escorts, a white stallion with a red mane and freckles.

“Yep,” said the unicorn.

“Lucky ones. Don'tcha worry, though. We'll have them back to safety in no time.”

“Glad to hear. Happy travels.”

The freckled stallion nodded, and after we gathered our stuff we were escorted out. It was nearly pitch black at that point with only the silhouettes of dead shrubs and bulky rocks to give us a visual and the distant buzzes and chirps of bugs to give our ears something to listen to. I stayed close to Lilac, who stayed close to the freckled guy, and as we walked the dirt crunched beneath our hoofs and I looked around, heart getting restless and throat getting tight. I tried to look over my shoulder at the other escort, but with the enhancements I couldn't move my head much.

I swallowed and looked at Lilac. She had her light on again and appeared to not be as restless as me. But I couldn't help it. Something didn't feel right. Something didn't... fit.

And that was when a sudden pale blue blast knocked me off my hoofs. I tumbled in the air and crashed into the ground hard, wheezing for air and head swimming with the scenery spinning all around me. Lilac landed next to me in a similar state, though she was shot with a green blob, and we both groaned and shifted on the ground. My vision was pulsing in and out and my muscles ached as I crawled on the ground through the scattered junk, trying to get myself to stand up. But it was useless. My muscles didn't work right and I fell over again, watching helplessly as a trio of blurry figures walked towards me and Lilac while our escorts stood by, scanning the surroundings.

My eyes closed for a second, but when they opened again everything was much clearer. One of the blurs was a unicorn in 61 armor aiming a shotgun at Lilac's head, his figure barely lit by his green magic, and the other was also a unicorn pointing a double barreled shotgun at me using pale blue magic. In the middle, illuminated by both colors and leaning down, grinning with my horrified face reflecting off of his sick eyes was an all too familiar pony.

“Hello, Meris. Remember me?” said Lieutenant Butter Bars.

And then his hoof smashed my face and I blacked out.

I woke up with the taste of kerosene on my tongue. I coughed and gagged and stood up on shaky legs, and when I looked around I saw that I was inside a shack of some kind. No windows, only one door leading to the outside, which had gotten a little bit brighter, and the walls were made of darkened, splintering wood barely held together with nails and other junk. The door was guarded by the unicorns that blasted me and Lilac, and in the center of the room, using his mouth to pour kerosene on the floor and splashing some on the walls was Butter Bars. When the container was empty he spat it out and kicked it away. He then smiled at me and I brushed my watch, grateful to find that piece of comfort there.

“Good morning, sleepy head. Did you sleep well?” asked Butter Bars.

I glared at him, but when I heard sniffling I looked at the corner across from me and saw Rose Petal was there in her Stable 67 jumpsuit and a sad mare character on her PipBuck. Her Stable jumpsuit was stained with dirt and blood, and she was covered in scratches and bruises and had a thick collar around her neck that chained her to a concrete block built into the floor. I immediately lunged forward, but a sharp tug on my neck pulled me back and left me chocking for air. I too was collared and chained to the floor.

“Oh, so that is your girl? Your mare?” Butter Bars slithered around Rose and gave her a squeeze from behind, causing her to yell and whimper. “Your squeeze?”

“Don't you touch her!” I yelled.

I looked around for Lilac, but she wasn't in the room, and I looked at Butter Bars again when he laughed.

“Oh this is beautiful,” said Butter Bars. “You still love her, but does she love you? I wonder if she will continue to love you if she finds out what kind of pony you became. Or really were. Lilac told me a lot while you were snoozing, and it just goes to show that the Wasteland has a way of revealing who we really are beneath the skin.”

Butter Bars slid to her side and brushed his hoof against her cheek, bringing her to recoil and turn her head, sniffling. I could only glare at him and the pair of unicorn guards at the door.

“As terrible as it is out there, we can agree that it reveals our souls,” said Butter Bars. “Some souls are good, but ours are not. Most are not, actually. We just pretend that we are good. Like how friends and family pretend that they are good. That they love you...”

Butter Bars sighed and began pacing around the middle of the room, like how my mom did when she would lecture me and then hide what came next with medical potions. Some meds, some smiles, nothing to see, nothing to report, don't remember it, go to school. Dad certainly never did see or hear it. Any of it.

Nope.

Never.

Not once did he see or hear any of it!

Not once...

...

...

Anyway, Butter Bars walked and talked. He said: “It is sad how you came all this way to save her, but she will stop loving you when it is convenient, just like everypony else. They will love you until the opportunity is right to abandon you! Sell you off! Its infuriating how ponies still cling to the things that abandoned us! Did friendship and love save the world? No. Oh, no no no no. No it did not. Is friendship and love fixing the Wasteland? No again. Love is a lie and yet you still follow it, Meris! You fucking follow it like everypony else out there who thinks that maybe, just fucking maybe, good deeds will mean something!”

Butter Bars took a deep breath and walked up to me, peering deep into my eyes, his hoof on my shoulder.

“I know you know all that mushy stuff is a sham,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes. But you want that lie to stay. It is your warm fire in the cold realm of reality... Well, today is your lucky day. You are going to die in the warmth of the lies.”

Butter Bars then walked to the door, grabbed a flare stick from one of the unicorns standing guard and struck it against the wall, activated a red, hazy glow and then he threw it on the floor. Oily flames engulfed the whole floor and walls in seconds, and Rose shrieked and tried to free herself from the collar holding her to the floor, as did I. As this happened Butter Bars quickly slammed and locked the door, trapping us in the inferno.

Heat started eating at my skin. The stench of burning wood, fuel, hair and flesh clogged my nose and I began stomping on the block with my braced hoof. I grit my teeth, tears clouded my vision and hot teeth tore into my body. Ripping, tearing, burning, unending pain. My blood boiled, my flesh cooked.

I stomped as hard as I could. Not stopping even when my vision was completely shrouded in tears, even when my heart and lungs were heavy and clogged with ash, even when the cracks in my bones grew.

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

Tick-tock! Tick-tock! Tick-tock!

Time is running out. Have to hit harder. Have to hit faster.

Tick-tock! Tick-tock! Tick-tock!

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

Can't stop. Couldn't stop.

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

I had to get out. I had to get Rose out. We were not dying like this!

I stomped and stomped and kept stomping, and right as I gave one last stomp my bone snapped and I screamed and fell over, pressing my broken hoof against my chest. It was black and gray with red lines breaching the cooked skin and pockets of flames growing larger and larger, eating more of me. Using my good hoof to prop myself up, I tugged with all my might on the chain, ignoring the pain in the neck, the pain on my back and limbs, and with that tug the block broke and the chain popped loose.

I fell over again in the fire and it went all over my like a flesh eating blanket, and I bit my lips, crying and hobbling over to Rose. The lock on her collar was simple, so I grabbed the locking bar with my teeth and pulled it loose. The collar fell off and Rose immediately nudged herself underneath me and put me on her back.

The door was gone in the flames and pieces of the ceiling were falling all around us. Rose whimpered and backed up, her eyes and ears darting this way and that, looking for any way out that didn't involve jumping through a fire wall.

“The door... The door...” I wheezed, pointing my good hoof at the rectangle of flame that was the door. “Gotta do it... Gotta... Rose... Do it...”

Rose swallowed, closed her eyes, and then ran into the door as hard as she could. The fire weakened it, so it exploded into flaming splinters when she rammed it, carrying smoke and flames when she staggered out, and she rolled over on the dirt, flinging me off her back. I crashed into the ground, rolled a little bit, and came to a stop with my eyes on the burning shack. Red and black tinted smoke rose into the sky from the orange block of hell, and in seconds the shack collapsed on itself, ejecting a ball of flame into the sky. Rose was laying not too far from me, panting and shaking and also watching the fire. She swallowed and when she looked at me, her face was covered in black streaks with patches of her mane and fur burnt off, and tears illuminated her eyes the dim light.

“Meris?” said Rose.

Blackout.

Perk Added: Fire Bug (1): Fire does 10% less damage and fire based weapons do +10% damage

Author's Notes:

Blerg