Chapter Seventeen: There’s No Place...

“It’s good to see you again, dear.”

Incentive.

I didn’t like the word ‘incentive’ at all. It felt more like ‘blackmail’ to me. I really hoped Lost and I could come up with a plan to ditch the pink bitch and get revenge. The sooner we got free of her chokehold on us, the better. It sent a chill up my spine to know that if we weren’t fast enough we could end up back in collars at U Cig. If they got Praline and Lamington and all the rest, well, I couldn’t forgive myself for that. On top of that, I had the lives of the Unity mares to worry about too. I prayed to the Goddesses that the Wasteland itself would give us enough time, or we could buy more somehow.

It would take the entire night, walking non-stop, just to get back to Pommel Falls and the Stables, let alone however far away it was through the mountains to wherever Xeno called home. Add dealing with whatever happened there, the time needed to make everything on Rose’s little shopping list, and then another walk back. I tried adding up the time needed, and every different possibility just came up with us ending up returning late.

Then again, it was a good thing we didn't have to walk.

I lay on one of the rear seats of the motorwagon, as Rose had called it. It was extremely similar to the ones we’d used as cover during the firefight, except that this one worked. The engine appeared to be a combination of old-world combustion through steam or something. I couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said it was. The part that did work was magically powered by spark batteries. The only thing driving it right now was a combination of Rose and my sister putting their magic into it. I’d long since given up on figuring out exactly what they were doing, after Rose started going on and on about horn output and other terms that made my eyes spin.

I found myself unable to focus on anything my sister or Rose said to one another. It felt like my head was in a vice, or like I’d gotten caught in a daze. Instead, I focused on my surroundings. Thinking was hard right now, looking was not.

I looked back from my seat at the motorwagon itself. Four identical wheels were bolted on axles underneath, and a gigantic engine took up the majority of the back half of the deck. The floor was more a deck than anything else, and had a decent enough clearance on either side of the engine block so a pony could walk around to the back, where enough space was left to sit and keep watch. The engine consisted of a boiler-ish thing, and several other gizmos that I didn’t know the names for, all attached to various cogs, gears and pipes that went underneath the deck to power the axles and the wheels.

The engine might have once had an intact housing, but the wood had splintered and broken, leaving the top half exposed. Whoever had used it during or before the War had armored both the sides of the engine and the edges of the wagon, though time had worn most of it to rust. The front of the wagon had two bench seats facing each other, with a third one right behind the steering wheel for a driver. The deck’s wood was in good shape for its age, but the cushions over the seats were grimy and smelled awful.

Given I was in the Wasteland, it was par for the course.

The very front of the wagon had an armored, slanted bumper to push debris out of the way. Lights were fixed on either side of the driver’s seat, though one of them was busted and the other glowed so dimly that I expected it wouldn’t be of any use once the sun finally finished setting. Everything else about the motorwagon felt barren. Wheels, flat deck, seats, engine, and a whole lot of nothing. I’d have killed for a mounted gun or something, because I knew riding around in this thing would just draw all sorts of raiders, bandits, and monsters to us.

But it meant I didn’t have to walk, and that was worth it.

The seat was comfy too, compared to walking. I shifted and got comfier, relaxing into the cushion. I didn’t have to worry about standing or keeping myself going forward. My muscles didn’t scream in protest anymore, almost like I could just close my eyes and... No. I shook my head. I needed to stay awake and vigilant, in case something attacked this gigantic rolling ‘ponies with shit here’ beacon.

Xeno sat on her haunches at the back, behind the engine tower and the rest of the mechanics. She leaned against the boiler and held her rifle across her hind legs, ready in case of emergency. A thick stream of smoke wafted behind us as she chain-smoked cigarette after cigarette. How she lit them still confused me, but I was beginning to wonder how she still had so many. I’d watched her smoke at least a dozen between leaving the blob-pony that made up the original Rose and leaving the city limits. Her freaky zebra magic was actually beginning to weird me out.

Fine Tune meanwhile flitted back and forth as the pegasus. I’d started to get used to the idea of referring to the changeling I’d come to know as a ‘he’ as a ‘she’ whenever she was in the pegasus form. It only bothered me when I stopped to actually think about it, but really it just felt natural to see a mare and go ‘she’ without taking the time to consider body versus mind. I could always ask what she prefered to be called, but that could come when I wasn’t fighting to stay awake. I gave up worrying about it. It was just too damn complicated to think about.

The green pegasus darted around the motorwagon, inspecting the wheels as they turned, sticking her face into the top of the boiler-thing, and fidgeting with the steering wheel-thing whenever we weren’t needing to turn down the road.

How could she be so restless and twitchy? Had sucking part of me out really given her that much energy? I yawned.

L.A. stood at the side of the wagon with Rose, whom I’d decided to stop quantifying with ‘clone’ every time, since it was yet another thing that made my head hurt. The two kept talking about magical propulsion, for so long that I’d completely tuned it out. Despite Rose being our current captor, Lost seemed genuinely interested in how the vehicle moved, which I hoped meant we’d be keeping it after the ordeal was over. Having a mobile platform for cover would be nice, once we got it re-fitted with better armor and maybe a big gun I could use for protection.

I sulked a little. For protection. For half a second I’d wanted to have a big gun just to kill enemies before they got close, and had to remind myself that I couldn’t fall into that raider mentality again. I needed to think the way ponies before the War thought. Peace, friendship, kindness. The Glowing One said that if ponies cared about friendship as much as winning, they’d have never let the world end. Maybe I could learn a thing of two from that. Maybe I could find a pre-war book and get a fresh perspective on the importance of friendship and working together, and use that to break the hold Amble had on my mind. Her hoofprints still marred my brain, along with the little claws that tended to pick and poke at places I didn’t feel should exist. At least her hold had weakened.

I felt bad about the townsponies who had died. I knew I wasn’t the one who killed them, but I felt remorse that their deaths were caused by ponies who were actually out to kill me. It was a step in the right direction, and as long as I knew what direction I needed to go in, I could get there eventually. I hated that Lost felt she needed to give me an order, but I knew her heart was in the right place. A little push was worth it, and orders were easy to follow. It’s just too bad she couldn’t say ‘Miss Fortune, be normal’ and have me snap back to how things were before.

It just didn’t work that way.

I closed my eyes and sighed softly, and the world sank away into darkness. Friendship, trust... What made a good friend though? Loyalty was high up there, and that’s why I felt Xeno was such a good friend to my sister and me. She’d stood by us when she could have abandoned us. Rose had said that the Ministry of Peace taught her kindness, and I remembered something mom had once said about that and the mares who ran the Ministries. Maybe it just took a little bit of cheater magic to draw us all together.

I chuckled quietly to myself.

Suddenly, I felt very grateful mom had taught me how to read. I looked over in the direction I knew The Cinch was. It housed quite a few things that had just become goals of mine: the Ministry of Peace, lessons about kindness, and the stories of the Ministry Mares. I knew exactly where I’d be treasure hunting next. The minute we got away from this obligation, I’d ask Lost to let us head there so I could do a little research on something called friendship.

Maybe then I could find out how to keep my head on my shoulders and under my control.

~ ~ ~

Two mares battled in front of me, each stabbing with horns and kicking with hooves, attempting to put the other down for good. One mare had a crippled hind leg, with bone sticking out the back and a trail of blood following every step she took. The other wore ragged barding thrown together from what looked like the tanned hide of another pony, studded with far too many spikes. Both unicorns were green, but only one had the rust-colored mane that belonged to my mom.

I just hoped she could end the fight fast enough.

I hid with Lost behind an old mailbox. We stared out from behind it to watch the fight, one of us at each side. We’d been told not to move, and we weren’t going to while another pony was still alive other than mom. I shook against the cold metal of the mailbox, hoping the fight would end soon.

It was winter in the Wasteland, and every second we waited outside was one step closer to an early grave. But we needed food, and mom never let us split up. She always wanted us in sight and within charging distance. We’d had a few close calls before, but mom always kept us safe. She jumped to protect us the moment something bad happened. Lost and I couldn’t have asked for a better mom.

“Get her! You can do it mom!” yelled Lost. She waved a hoof in the air, cheering mom on.

I looked over at my sister. I prayed to the Goddesses, like mom taught me, that she’d win. The raiders had attacked what seemed like forever ago, and mom hadn’t had a single second to stop fighting since they started. The corpses of two other ponies littered the street, ones that hadn’t been so tough or stubborn. But mom wasn’t immortal, even if I wanted her to be. I was shaking, partly from the cold but mostly because I was terrified that mom wouldn’t make it.

“Working... on-Ah!” mom answered, dodging another jab from the raider unicorn’s horn. My mother wasn’t having any of it though. She bit down on the offending horn and yanked, dragging the other mare off balance and onto her face. “Gon’t you gare!” she shouted around the raider’s horn. She stomped the raider in the face with her forehoof.

She sounded strained, and I whimpered. Lost knew enough to keep the two of us safe, but I’d seen enough of the Wasteland already to want mom around for as long as possible. I fought back tears. I needed to be tough for her. I needed to have faith. I just... If something happened to her... Why’d they have to be so terrible?

The raider grunted, but didn’t let up. A kick to the face didn’t seem to faze her, and she just grabbed onto mom’s leg and pulled. Mom toppled, and soon the raider was face to flank with mom’s cutie mark, a set of three flowers in different phases of blossom. Both grunted, and resumed their battle. They rolled across the street, kicking and biting. Every now and then one would headbutt the other, but neither could reach with their horns from such an angle.

“Momma! Do you need help?” I yelled, thinking that I might be able to get a kick in and buy her the time she needed. Mom always said I was a strong pony, so maybe... I took a few steps forward, past the mailbox. I could bring her one of her guns, and then she wouldn’t have to worry about her leg. I’d never seen her with a broken leg before. I didn’t even know if we could fix something like that. I sniffled, and asked Celestia and Luna to keep her safe if I couldn’t myself.

“Get back there now!” mom shouted. She kicked the mare in the face and looked up at me. “You... Grr. You will stay- Hidden! I don’t have-” She screamed in pain as the mare bit her neck and twisted, digging a chunk out of her flesh.

I shied away, back behind the mailbox. Looking over to my sister, my ears drooped. I’d be in trouble for that later, especially since it got mom hurt. So I was a strong pony, she said, Lost was still the smart one.

Mom kept on with the mare, but she wasn’t gaining any ground. With her broken leg, I worried she’d pass out from blood loss before the fight ended. She didn’t give up. She pulled both hind legs underneath the mare, who’d gotten on top of her and was hitting her in the face with both forehooves, and pushed. She screamed in pain from the pressure on her crippled leg, but the mare went flying into the air and toppled through a pile of trash.

Given the moment to move, mom jumped to her hooves and charged. She dove into the trash heap and smashed both forehooves down hard onto the mare below her. They both screamed, and mom reared up once more. Slamming both hooves down, she pulled back and speared her horn straight through the leather armor, into the raider mare’s chest. Her red mane fell over her face, but we could still hear her panting.

She took a deep breath and pulled her horn out. Looking battered and torn, bleeding from her neck, her nose, and with bone sticking out of her back leg, she walked back over to my sister and I with her head held high. She breathed in shallow gasps, but wore the widest smile she could at the same time. “Alright, that was fun, wasn’t it?” she said, laughing hollowly. “Lost, go grab my pack so I can patch up, please.”

Lost nodded and darted off. Her horn started to glow a light blue, already reaching out with her telekinesis to find mom’s hidden saddlebags.

“Lucky fight, that one,” Mom joked. “They didn’t bother using their guns.” With a deep sigh, she sat down on her haunches and stuck her broken leg forward. “Hidden, when you grow up...” She bit her lip and winced, her horn and leg lighting up. “When you grow up. Find somewhere safe and don’t live like- Ah ah... like this.”

“Are you okay, momma?” I asked, scooting forward to look at the shattered bone. I’d seen her hurt bad before, but I’d never seen her hurt this bad. I could see the bone shift ever so slightly with her heartbeat. It made me a little sick to my stomach, and looked away from the wound. I thought the world of my mother though, and I knew she could handle everything the Wasteland might throw at her. I was scared, but I knew she’d pull through.

She always did.

“I’m fine, it just stings a little,” she lied. She always talked in the same voice when she lied, soft, with emphasis on the ‘a little’ that almost always followed when she was in pain. Seeing my concerned look, she patted me on the head with one of her blood-covered hooves. “Oop, sorry. Little red on you,” she giggled. “Look, I promise I’m okay.”

Lost ran back with saddlebags in tow, hovering them a few inches off the ground in the blue field of her magic. “Here mom!” she announced. She slowed to a trot a she got close. Her eyes went wide when she saw the full extent of mom’s broken leg. She swallowed, and took the final few steps forward, then set the saddlebags down. “A-are you gonna be okay, mom?” Her legs shook, but she didn’t show the fear in her voice.

“I’ll be- I’ll be fine, Lost. Would you like, ugh, to learn how to patch this sort of thing up?” Mom asked. She held the top of her leg, above the break, with both forehooves, and groaned. She was obviously in pain, but given how she pretended it was nothing, she didn’t want us to know just how bad it was.

Lost looked over to me, then back to Mom. Her coat was even paler than normal, but she nodded ever so slightly. “Yes,” she answered quietly. She took a few steps forward and sat down next to mom’s broken leg. She yelped when she sat, then scooted to the side to sit down again. She’d sat in the slowly pooling blood, and now looked as if she were about to faint.

“Alright,” Mom started. She groaned and fought back against the pain with gritted teeth and shallow breathing. “It’s a simple spell. I’m gonna do it this time, and I’ll teach you- Ugh. I’ll teach you next time.” Her horn lit up a lighter green than her coat, and she began to cast the spell. Lost watched intently as the bone slowly slid back into place and the lines where it had broken began to seal back up.

My sister gasped, holding a hoof over her mouth. Her eyes darted back and forth, from one chunk of bone over to the flesh that slowly closed itself up and sealed the meat and bone back beneath mom’s green coat. The process took several minutes longer than my attention span, but Lost never once took her watering eyes off while she worked.

I wasn’t a unicorn like the rest of my family, so I didn’t have any interest in healing spells. After a few minutes I got up and wandered off. While they worked their cheater magic together, I could at least see if the raiders had anything worth taking. Mom couldn’t get mad at me for that, right? She was wounded and I was just helping her with a step she’d be taking right after anyway. Then we could get back to our hideaway where it was nice and warm.

I trotted over to the last mare that she’d taken out, the one in the giant trash pile. Somepony had cleaned up the street long ago, but left the junk from old wagons, debris from the buildings nearby, and assorted bones lying in a pile. It was the perfect place to dig around for something good. I stuck my head in and started to nose around. “Where are you?” I asked nopony in particular, since I knew the raider wouldn’t be able to answer.

A voice groaned.

“Oh no,” I whispered. Maybe she could answer. Mom might not have killed her. I turned and ran. “Momma! Momma!” I screamed. I had to warn her. She could get Dedication and Devotion and-

I heard a strange noise, almost like somepony yelling ‘PLZ-OW.’ A pain like I’d never experienced before tore through my stomach. I fell mid-step onto the shattered sidewalk and slid forward, leaving a bright red trail of blood behind me. I curled up and groaned, tears already flowing down my muzzle.

“Hidden!” shouted my mom. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear the limping gait of her running toward me. A shot rang out, and the groaning behind me silenced instantly. The raider was actually dead now, not just playing that way and waiting for somepony to come back and check on her.

“Momma, Ah’m shory...” I muttered. “It hurts, momma.” I clutched my open stomach, the warm blood flowing over my hooves. It became hard to breathe, and I had to force myself to get any air in. For a second, everything went black, before reality snapped back with another horrible pain through my body. I cried out, sobbing as I fought to be strong against the pain.

“Don’t be sorry honey, it’s my fault,” she said, already working me over with her magic and her hooves. She pulled my forehooves from my barrel and looked down at me. “Oh, no...” She looked over at my sister. “Lost! I need your help.”

Lost stood there, staring at me and not moving. She hadn’t moved from where she’d been sitting while watching mom patch herself up. She’d barely managed to get to her hooves. Tears fell down the sides of her muzzle as well. She didn’t even blink as she stared at me.

“Lost Art!”

Lost snapped out of it and ran to my mother’s side. “Ye-yes, what do you need, Mom?” she asked, stuttering. She ran her hoof over her mane, pushing it from her face as she watched, once again standing on shaking legs.

“I need you to...”

I didn’t hear what she said after that, as the whole world faded to black.

~ ~ ~

I woke up with a start and bolted upright in the seat, only to find myself in the middle of the night and unharmed. Slowly, I touched the spot where I’d been shot so many years ago. I pulled my jacket open, and looked at the old scar. With a deep breath, I curled back up on the seat and held my forelegs over the spot.

I wanted my mom so bad. Lost was an excellent healer now, since she’d been able to learn how to actually cast the spell, but she wasn’t Mom.

I started to cry.

* * *

“Dammit, wake up!” yelled Lost as loud as she could. “Hidden, I need help here!” Her voice was full of urgency, but I just rolled over and covered my face with my hoof.

It wasn’t morning. I still needed sleep. Even if it was morning, I still wasn’t ready to get up. I just clenched my eyes closed and groaned.

“I’ll get her up,” shouted a voice I didn’t want to hear. There came a loud click, and then the FWUMP of a grenade rifle going off right above my head.

That woke me up in a hurry. The following explosion had me sitting up on the seat at attention.

“Finally,” Lost said. “Grab Persistence and go to the back with Xeno.” She stood at the steering column and fired her plasma pistol several times into the dark of the night.

The magical plasma lit up the sky in streaks, revealing a horde of advancing ghouls. I couldn’t count how many there were in the time it took the plasma to smash into one of them and send it back to where it belonged.

I rubbed my eye with my flesh forehoof, trying to make sense of what I saw. “What ha-”

“Now, Hidden!” she yelled. In her telekinesis she lifted another spark cell from her saddlebags and slammed it into the gun. The PipBuck glowed amber on her foreleg, lighting up just enough space in front of us to show how many they’d already killed.

The motorwagon rolled forward, past the charred remains of a dozen now-dead feral ghouls, each peppered with scorch marks from magical energy and grenades. The remaining ferals followed us as we moved, keeping pace until they were shot down. I looked back at the engine block, which chugged away, turning the wheels. Either Lost and Rose had found a way to keep it moving without their help, or they were pulling double duty powering the engine and defending us.

Fine Tune dove back and forth in his changeling form, chirping madly the entire time. Each pass he made, he lit up with the baleful green fire of transformation, only to slam into the ground with enough impact to throw up chunks of dirt and rock. A corpse flew into the air and out of our path.

“There’s another one over there,” L.A. yelled, pointing her hoof. She popped another shot of plasma off into the horde. “No, there.” She jabbed her hoof into the air several times. Turning back to look at me, she shot a glare like I’d never seen before. “Hidden!” Not missing a beat, she returned to firing.

With no time for even a salute or affirmation, I grabbed Persistence and got to work detaching her from the battle saddle. It would take longer for me to get it on than to get Persistence off, since I’d gotten good at swapping out weapons. After what felt like an eternity, I pulled the hunting rifle off. “Going!” I shouted. I grabbed some ammo in my teeth and made for the back of the wagon.

“Itis about time you woke, Hiddenpony,” Xeno whispered as I got to the back. She lay between the outermost wall and the engine block, hidden by the meager protections of the rusted armor along the side. In her hooves rested the sniper rifle I’d given her so long ago, and next to her rested her striped knife.

“How long have you been fighting?” I asked. I dropped down on the opposite side of the engine from her and leveled Persistence. I wasn’t the best shot without the battle saddle, but I’d make do. I just wished I had the PipBuck for S.A.T.S. It would make free-aiming a lot easier.

“Too long,” she answered. Her hoof twitched and the rifle unloaded another bullet. The casing ejected, bounced off the armored wall, and flew into my face.

“Ahh! Fuck,” I cursed. The little bastard burned. I bit down on my tongue and aimed, not bothering to try and converse.

Ahead of us, behind the wagon itself, shambled another half-dozen ghouls, dodging the corpses of their slain comrades and jumping over the craters left by Fine Tune. These had been Wartime ponies, going by their tattered clothes. I saw dresses and suits, and even one wearing the barding of a soldier. I aimed for the armored soldier, and pulled the trigger.

Two shots hit the zombie pony in the chest. It staggered him, but he didn’t stop. I’d aimed for the head, but my shots veered off a lot more than I’d expected. Maybe the time I could have used to get the battle saddle on would have been worthwhile.

Without my sister or Rose to keep the engine output at its max, we moved dangerously slowly. Our pace was just barely faster than the ghouls could move on their rotted and broken legs. I looked over the edge of the armoring and saw another ghoul beside me. On instinct, I hit it in the face with my steel hoof and dropped back down.

Ghouls on the sides were waiting for the open back of the motorwagon, but I finally figured out what exactly was going on. We’d gone into feral territory and had to make it through before we got overwhelmed. Numbers weren’t in our favor, so barreling through had to be the best bet. At least, I hoped that was what Lost was doing. It seemed like a smart pony plan, given how many zombies were surrounding us.

I fired again, aiming at the nearest ghoul this time, since it was easier to aim for the close ones as we passed. It would keep the more aggressive ones from dragging themselves onto the wagon and eating us. I missed the headshot I’d aimed for, but I took out the mare’s foreleg, and she toppled over. She wouldn’t be getting onto the wagon, but that wasn’t good enough. Another shot divorced her from her head.

“Are there a lot?” I yelled, trying to talk over the fwumps and B-KEWs from the front of the wagon. I knew I saw plenty in the front, but getting a better number than my sleep-addled brain could pull would help. The sky lit up every few seconds as Fine Tune dive-bombed to clear us a path.

“Less than when we started,” answered the zebra quietly as she stared down the approaching zombies. She was so quiet I almost didn’t hear her. She squeezed her trigger and dropped another with a sniper round through the chest. “Not many left,” she continued. “You fire, I will go fight the fast ones with my knife.” She passed me the sniper rifle and jumped from the back of the wagon.

I started to yell for her to stop, but she had a look of determination on her face that I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop. We were going slow enough she could catch up afterward. If that’s how she wanted to fight, I’d cover her.

Her dark coat blended in with the darkness around her, but I could see the smallest of flashes of her stripes when she moved. Holding her knife in her fetlock, she moved gracefully on her hind legs around the undead and got behind the fastest one. Once there, she turned and jabbed her knife into its skull in a single swift movement. Pulling it free, she jumped over the falling corpse and slammed another to the ground. The knife came down over the throat, and with a twist found its way up into the skull through the jaw.

I stared in awe, not having seen Xeno fight like that before. Either the night made her deadly, or she had something against ferals. She targeted carefully, moving in a slow path back away from the wagon by taking out the fastest of them first. I looked through the scope of the sniper rifle, wanting to save ammo in Persistence since she liked to fire multiple shots. I pulled the trigger, and another zombie fell behind my friend.

Unfortunately, that was the last bullet I had in the sniper rifle, and I didn’t want to waste the time to run back and get more. I tossed her rifle over to the side Xeno had been lying on, and pulled up Persistence. By the time I looked back up, she’d taken down another of the zombies, but the final one, the soldier, managed to get behind her.

“Behind you!” I shouted over the gunfire. I fired Persistence, but missed entirely.

The feral ghoul Xeno had just slain somehow snared the zebra’s legs, and she couldn’t pull away. The soldier ghoul attacked her, latching on with its teeth and pulling her to the ground. She screamed as she fell, twisting to trying and stab or slash the zombie, but he had her in such a hold she couldn’t reach anything.

Blood sprayed from the bite when the monster released her, but he only went back for another bite. Xeno yelled again, stabbing at the only thing she could reach, one of his armored legs.

I took a deep breath and aimed. I needed to hit it, or I might lose the best friend I had aside from my sister. I prayed to the Goddesses for the crazy zebra luck to once again be on my side. It had worked, most of the time, and I really needed it.

I fired.

The ghoul’s head exploded. Then the bullet passed straight through, right into my friend’s side.

Xeno yelled something in her native tongue and went limp.

I tossed Persistence down onto the deck and jumped off the wagon. She needed to be brought back, and Lost needed to fix her. If she died I wouldn’t forgive myself. I leapt over the remains of the zombie ponies and skidded to a stop next to her, right into a pool of her blood. I grabbed the rotten flesh of the soldier feral in my teeth, and threw him aside. Holding back my vomit, I grabbed my friend’s knife and stabbed it through my jacket. I grabbed Xeno next, and dragged her back to the wagon.

“Hiddenpony?” she said quietly. “You forgot my helmet...” She smiled, then closed her eyes.

* * *

Lost sat on the right seat of the motorwagon, her horn glowing light blue. She stared intently at the bite marks on Xeno’s back as they closed up and chewed on her bottom lip as she worked. Taking her glasses off, she looked at me and asked, “Why’d she jump off?”

“To go after them with her knife,” I answered. Remembering the striped blade was hanging from my jacket, I pulled it free and slid it into Xeno’s bag. She wouldn’t want me to lose it, after all. “What happened when I was asleep?” I asked.

“Well,” Lost started, looking back at Xeno to continue her healing. She looked down through her glasses and blew on them. Satisfied with how clean they were, she slid them back over her muzzle. “It was an uneventful ride. Rose got it so we could take turns powering the wagon and steering.” She hopped from the seat and pressed her hoof against Xeno’s neck. A small smile crept across her lips. She sat back down and looked over to me. “She’ll be fine.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Fine Tune chirped loudly from behind me. He’d taken to steering while Lost was healing Xeno, since he claimed to have the best night vision. He’d wanted to make Lost happy, and taking over one of the chores to free up time for her to heal did that just fine. He was pointed in the right direction and ordered to keep straight ahead.

Rose, meanwhile, stood at the back with her grenade rifle. She guarded the rear for any straggler zombies that might catch up to us, now that we were out of their territory. The distance gave us alone time and let her focus on both guarding and keeping the engine running.

“Continue?” I asked, waving my hoof to get L.A. to finish the story.

“Hmm? Sorry,” she said. “We went off the road to cross to one heading in the direction of the river. The wagon doesn't ride very well when it's not on a road.” She pulled her glasses off and rubbed them along her foreleg to clean them off. “Sorry, smudge.”

“That’s fine,” I said. I just wanted to hear the story and she seemed to be stalling. Or her glasses just really needed cleaning. Looking down at her hoof, I realized I knew exactly how she felt. We both had something we needed to function, and when it got dirty or full of grit, we needed it fixed.

“You had the PipBuck, I should have gotten it off you before you went to sleep but I didn't think of it,” she explained. Looking at her glasses once more, she scowled. She rolled her eyes and put them back on anyway. “It was dark and we couldn't see much at all, then I spotted a pack of ghouls ahead. Rose shot first, with that grenade rifle.” She looked back at the engine block, more than likely to the clone mare behind. “The explosions attracted the rest of the herd from all directions and the firefight started. Then I thought to grab the PipBuck and get E.F.S. up and some bearings.” She held the PipBuck up for emphasis. “Red markers in all directions. They would have been on us if we'd tried to turn and run and we wouldn't have been able to outrun them so we went through.”

Fine Tune chirped, and with a flash of green fire, transformed again. “We couldn’t go past though, because a one of the corpses from Rose’s grenade was blocking the way,” he continued for her. “When I saw my Queen needed help, I jumped to clear the road.” He didn’t mention that, at the time, we weren’t actually on a ‘road.’ I let that slide.

“Yeah, with that little exploding dive-bomb trick of his, he kept the path clear the whole time,” L.A. said. “Luckily he didn’t leave the road in such bad shape that we couldn’t drive over it.” She laid back on the seat and stretched her hooves out. Little pops followed as she cracked her rear hooves. Rolling onto her side, she looked up at Xeno, then back at me. “Anyway. I tried to wake you a bunch, but you were deep under. We got good headway clearing through the herd, but all the ghouls following us started gaining ground.” She looked over at Xeno. “She started to take them out in the back, but there were too many, too close for a sniper rifle. That’s when we finally woke you.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. My ears drooped to the side and I looked down at the wood deck of the motorwagon. “I just, hadn’t gotten any real sleep since we got away from U Cig.”

“Nightmares?” she asked.

“Yeah...”

“I’m sorry, sis,” she whispered. “Anything I can do?”

“No, just finish the story I guess,” I answered. I didn’t want to think about the nightmares. For some reason my subconscious wanted me to remember all the bad things that had happened to me in my childhood. I could only wait impatiently for it to get to the day we left the Stable. Maybe they’d stop after that, since everything before that was fairly nice.

Unless I got to dream about dad. Then a nightmare would be worth it. Seeing his face, even in a dream, would be worth any pain or trauma imaginable. It had been too long, and I feared I might forget what he looked like, soon.

With a shake of my head, I snapped back to the present.

“...was clearing a path for us, and I helped with Loyalty to turn the closest ones to goo,” she said. I’d missed a few words somewhere. “It gave us just enough room to squeeze through. We’d have been fine were it not for Xeno getting hurt.”

Beep!

Lost looked down at the PipBuck. “Time to change shifts,” she explained. She stretched her hooves once more, twisting mid-stretch to pop her back. “Running this thing really takes it out of you. I think Praline might be able to fix it though.” She rolled onto her hooves and walked to the side of the deck. “I hope she can, at least. See you soon, sis.”

She disappeared behind the engine housing. A few seconds later, Rose walked around and took a seat where Lost had just been, carrying the grenade rifle in a sling on her back.

“Ew, it’s all warm,” she whined, while shifting her haunches on the rotten cushion to get comfortable.

I glared at her.

“What?” she snapped.

“What do you mean, what?” I snapped back. “You’re blackmailing us to get something. You expect me to be pleasant to you?” I stood up and took a few steps back, then sat down again.

“Do you remember what I said about the Ministry of Peace?” she asked, deadpan. She pulled the grenade rifle from her back. From the sling she pulled a small dirty square of cloth, then started polishing the barrel of the gun.

“It teaches kindness,” I answered. I looked over to Xeno, who hadn’t woken up yet. A twinge of guilt struck through my heart, as I worried about how kind I’d been to her the past few days. We’d been procrastinating helping her so much.

“Exactly,” she answered, not looking up from her rifle. “Now, we’re stuck together and I didn’t get a say in the matter either. I know I’m a copy, but we all have our own brains. It’s a load of shit that I had to be the one to come with you.” She looked up at me and squinted. “Let’s at least try to get along.”

“It was your idea that we be escorted,” I snapped. “I’ll try. But...” I didn’t know exactly how to broach the subject, so I simply asked. “But, what are you? The world ended two centuries ago, how could you, or that fat blob of a pony in the bed, have been taught at a Ministry?”

Rose glared up at me. “You’re quite rude. Do you know what else the Ministry of Peace did during the war?” she asked. She squinted and polished a spot on her rifle’s barrel. “I’ll tell you, since you can’t know unless you’ve been reading classified materials. It taught ponies to heal on a level they never could before.”

“I take it she knows how to do that, then?” I guessed. I’d watched her heal herself back from a grenade exploding against her flesh. That took some powerful magic to do, so... maybe?

“Bingo. Trade secrets keep the original around long enough, and well...” She trailed off. “If I told you any more it would put me in a bad position.” She spit on the barrel of the grenade rifle and swiped it clean, then slid the gun over her back.

“So, umm. What was it like before the war?” I asked. “I’ve always wondered what the world was actually like, y’know from a eyes of a pony who lived there. Well, a pony I could sit next to and not need to chug RadSafe every other minute just for a conversation.” I chewed on my lip, hoping I wasn’t going to piss her off. “Mostly, I wondered what sort of life I could have lived if I was born back then. It’d be nice to live in a world where I could wear a pretty dress and not feel horribly out of place.”

I couldn’t help but blush, admitting dreams of mine for the first time and all. The Wasteland meant barding and weapons, not fanciful parties. I looked at Rose.

“The world was... boring? Better? I don’t know, two centuries makes you forget a lot,” she answered, and shrugged. “I came from Manehatten originally,” she explained, talking as if she were the original Rose and not a copy. “But they needed a courier to run back and forth between the Ministries, once the War got bad. I was scouted from the postal service and offered a job here in Blackhoof. The pay was a lot better, being a government job. I took it, packed everything, and moved.”

“Why were the Ministries that important?” I asked. If I’d paid more attention to Mom when she told us about the history of Equestria before the Wasteland, I wouldn’t have so many questions, but it hadn’t seemed important back then. Being a thinky pony wasn’t high on my priority list as a filly, and I was paying for that now.

“Because they were Princess Luna’s new way of ruling things, and she needed to make sure everything worked,” Rose answered. She looked out into the darkness and brushed her mane away. It fell back into the exact same spot. She looked at Xeno. “Every pony with a special talent that could help the new government function to its fullest was asked to step up. The zebras took the change in leadership badly, and everything got a lot worse. But for Equestria? For Equestria we would give everything.”

Rose leaned back in her seat and stared up at the cloud cover. “The Princesses could move the sun and the moon, we had a strong country, brave ponies, everything we could ever want as civilians. We thought we could win,” she continued. Her expression softened, as if she wasn’t talking about centuries long gone anymore, but about memories from yesterday. “I jumped at the chance to join the Ministry of Peace. It stood for everything I thought I believed in. Kindness, compassion, helping others. There were divisions for healing, divisions for re-integration to help soldiers who’d seen too much come back home and fit in. Fluttershy did so much for the country. Until she ruined it all...”

I cocked my head to the side. “She what with the who?” I stuttered. I could have sworn I’d heard that name somewhere, and racked my brain to place it. A moment later it clicked, as Fluttershy must have been the Ministry Mare of the M.O.P. Still, I didn’t know what she meant by ruining it all.

“The reason the world ended was because Fluttershy’s Ministry found a way to make megaspells, magic that was far more powerful and versatile than any one unicorn could cast,” she explained. “I never personally figured out how she came to the breakthrough, since she was a pegasus, but she did it. I was just a message-runner at the time.” She shrugged and smiled. “The promotion was so wonderful, to get a chance to work with those brilliant mares and stallions. We tested a lot of them initially, when she still needed to get the kinks out of the program.”

“Uh-huh?” I muttered. Most of the info went in one ear and out the other, but every piece of it was still interesting. Suddenly, I wanted to forgo the path we’d set ourselves on to get the Buck, Med-X, and other drugs, and forget Xeno’s brothers. I wanted to drive right to The Cinch and learn as much as I could about the Ministries. Knowledge could be a treasure too, and it wouldn’t shoot me if I started digging in.

I felt a pang of guilt cut me right through to the heart. No, Xeno had proven herself and it was our turn to be true to her. I couldn’t dare think about abandoning her request now.

“Blackhoof was a nice city, back before everything went to shit. The shopping center that made up the ‘public face’ around The Cinch had some nice stuff, and I loved spending the day there when I had time off,” she rambled. “Trusty and I, well, we knew this wonderful place where anypony with the right friends could get a supply of Mint-als.” She covered her mouth with her hoof and giggled. “She was a naughty girl once I got her going. Then the world ended.”

“How’d you survive?” I asked. To my knowledge, the surface was uninhabitable for ages afterward, with all the balefire radiation. I looked at Xeno, wondering if there were others like her that could just ignore it whenever they ran into it. I knew it would get to her, but she had such a high resistance for some reason. Did ponies back then have the same thing?

“Location, location, location,” she answered.

Xeno groaned and shifted on the seat. By the time I made it to her side, she’s opened one eye and started to look around. “Hiddenpony?” she asked weakly. “A brew.” She pointed at her bag.

I did as she asked, dragging out one of the many elixir or concoction vials out. She shook her head and I put it away. Three tries later, I passed her the one she wanted.

The mare pushed herself up with a hoof and chugged the potion down in three gulps. Finishing it, she gasped and panted. She looked at me, then up, then at Fine Tune. The changeling waved at her, and she lifted her hoof in a half-wave in return. “Where is my helmet?” she asked finally.

“In your bag,” I answered.

“And my-”

“I put your knife in there, too,” I said, cutting her off. “You feeling okay?” I rested a fetlock across her forehead, something I’d seen Lost do to me several times when I wasn’t feeling in top shape. She didn’t feel any warmer than usual, so I lowered my hoof.

“Iam fine,” she said.

“Does that make me Xeno?” the changeling asked jokingly. A burst of green flame erupted around him as he transformed into a zebra identical to Xeno. She looked back and laughed at us, before transforming back with another flash of fire.

Xeno gaped, looking positively mortified. Given how wide her eyes became, I figured she was feeling alright. It took serious strength to look that embarrassed.

“Good. We’ll be back in Pommel Falls soon enough,” I said with a chuckle. “You just rest.” Patting her side, I went back to the spot I’d been sitting. When Xeno finally laid back down, I breathed a sigh of relief. That had been far too close for comfort.

“Is getting shot like that normal for you, Miss Hidden?” Fine Tune asked in a quiet voice. He looked back at me and frowned. “I’m not much of a fighter, remember?” He had mentioned that magical energy weapons could affect him far more than any normal pony, and he’d professed to be better at sneaking than combat.

I nodded. “Just do what you do best,” I said. “Blend in.” I looked back at Rose, wanting to hear more of the story about Blackhoof before the world ended, but she had her eyes closed and was already snoring quietly. I guessed even clones needed to sleep.

Fine Tune looked back from the steering column. In a quiet, sheepish voice he asked, “Miss Hidden, can we listen to the music again?” The tiniest of smiled formed, and the look he gave me was almost pathetic.

“I’ll go get Lost,” I said as I pushed myself up. “I could use some music myself.” I trotted around the side of the engine block to see if we could liven up the dead of the night just a hair.

* * *

“And why aren’t you coming in?” asked Lost. She lit the area around us with her horn, and wore a not-quite-pleased look on her face.

The wagon sat in front of a house not too different from our own home, but in far worse condition. It leaned to the side steeply, and at least two of the support columns were cracked completely through. The closed windows had all been blown out, but the door remained firmly on its hinges. I knew why Rose wouldn’t be coming with us, because it was a deathtrap. I knew a place like that would be perfect for treasure hunting, though.

“Because it’s a deathtrap,” Rose growled.

Bingo. Only the bravest of ponies would dare try to loot a place like that. Or the stupidest. I preferred the former, since I’d have gone in there in a heartbeat given the chance. It might even be locked, unopened for two centuries and full of stockpiled food and weapons. I could almost feel myself drooling.

“This is a special place to me, and there’s an old memory orb in there that I want. So, since I’m in charge, I’m going to make you go get it,” Rose explained. She pointed at one of the windows on the second floor. “In that room is a bag. Bring the whole thing to me.”

“No. Going in there would be asking for certain death. You’re a clone, why can’t you go?” argued Lost. She looked back at the house and shook her head.

“Because I’m the one calling the shots, and I don’t want to be killed in there. It might not hurt, but I like having consciousness,” Rose countered. “Look, I only need the zebra alive. The rest of you can go back to the slaver if you prefer.”

“I’ll do it,” I offered.

Lost and Rose both turned and looked directly at me. Rose looked pleased with herself, while Lost’s face lost what little color it had in it. Suddenly the dark rings under her eyes looked far darker than they had in a long time.

“We’re wasting what short time we have arguing about it,” I explained with a shrug. I looked over the house again, from the cracked support beams to the second story window Rose had pointed to. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? “If I go alone, there’s less weight on the supports and less chance of a collapse. Plus I’m good at finding the little things we need, so we’ll be playing to our strengths.” I forced a smile. It was a good plan. I could be a thinky pony, dammit.

Lost looked at the window, then to the changeling resting on one of the seats near the engine. She cleared her throat and asked, “Why can’t we just have Fine-”

“Deal,” Rose agreed, cutting her off. She shot my sister a look that quieted the argument already forming in her mind.

I hopped from the motorwagon’s deck and looked up at Lost. “This way, if I get hurt, you’ll be ready to fix me up,” I said with the brightest smile I could muster. I knew I’d get yelled at for this one later. But for the chance to dig for treasure in a building that hadn’t been opened in two centuries, I’d deal with it.

I walked over to the door and gave it a try, just to confirm my thoughts. It wiggled a little, but stuck tight and locked. Perfect. “Fine Tune, can you please unlock this for me?” I asked the changeling.

His eyes lit up brightly and he jumped from the motorwagon after me. A flash of green fire in midair left only his natural changeling form when he landed. His wings started to buzz and he zipped past me to the door, chirping to himself, “Ki, crii!” His carved chitin lockpick slid into the lock with ease, and after several twists and catches, he pulled the door open. “Crikiki,” he announced, and flittered back onto the deck.

“Thanks,” I said. With a wave, I walked inside the rotting home. “See you on the other side.”

“Dammit, Hidden,” I heard Lost whisper as I passed the threshold.

Inside was dark, very dark. What little light filtered through the cloud cover from the moon and the stars kept it just bright enough to see, but inside I couldn’t make out my own hoof in front of my face. Even though the windows had been blown completely out, the place had an almost unnatural darkness to it. Once again, I wished for eyes like a ghoul or something similar that glowed bright enough to let them see in the dark. Maybe there was a cheater magic way to give a pony that sort of ability? I’d ask Lost about it later. For now, I needed to explore.

The house creaked slightly when I took a step forward, settling under weight that hadn’t been put on it since the world ended. I walked as light as I could, barely setting the heavier steel hoof down whenever I moved. I bumped into the sofa and winced. Maybe I should have waited for my eyes to adjust. A moment later, once I could actually see, I looked past the sofa I’d stumbled into, past the table in front of it, and for a door.

I needed to check the important spots first, the kitchen or the bathroom. Then I’d look upstairs.

For having such a troubled-looking exterior, the inside of the house wasn’t terribly damaged. The second floor hadn’t caved in or collapsed over the first floor, and I could see the staircase still had a guardrail attached to it. I ignored that for the moment and stepped into the kitchen.

The house creaked again, and the walls shifted. I jumped when I heard a snap as one of the window frames splintered and collapsed onto the counter on the far wall. I stood perfectly still, waiting to see if I needed to bolt for the door. Nothing else happened, as if the house had found its new resting position agreeable.

I breathed a sigh of relief and made for the cabinets above the countertop. Each new one I opened brought another noise from the building. I worked fast, not trusting it to hold steady for too long. I found the barest of supplies, a can of corn packaged before the world ended, a single bottle of Sparkle~Cola, and an unlabeled can... I slid all into my saddlebags. Waste not, want not. When I’d cleaned out what sparse food I could find, I turned away to head toward the bathroom.

An open note on the table in the corner caught my attention. It sat above a pile of other envelopes, but was the only one that had been opened. I picked it up and squinted through the darkness. An overdue bill for one ‘Sterling Silver.’ Was that the pony’s name, or had they been buying jewelry for a loved one? I set the bill down and left.

Had the ponies who lived here long ago known at all how close they were to death before the megaspells hit? I’d seen things like that before, in my treasure hunting. Books left open on a random page, meals half eaten and left to rot. One place had the water still turned on, not that it still flowed through the ancient pipes. Goddesses, I’d been spoiled by visiting that Stable. Ponies here must have dropped what they were doing on the spot and fled when the klaxons went off. But to take the time to stop and lock their doors after hearing such a warning?

I didn’t think I’d ever understand Wartime ponies.

I set my hoof down in the main room again and waited, expecting to hear another creak as the house shifted. When nothing happened, I continued on to the bathroom. Halfway across the room, I felt a jolt, and the floor underneath me began to sag, throwing me off balance. Something snapped behind me. Then another snap. I heard the groan of the wood that made up the floor.

“Well, shit,” I muttered to myself. I leapt forward and ran. I had no idea if this house had a basement and I wasn’t looking to find out by falling into it. I dashed around the coffee table I’d passed earlier and toward the bathroom door. It should have been supported independantly and hopefully safe. Twelve uncertain steps later, I jumped through the door. My heart pounded, and I felt it all the way in the back of my head. I’d never needed to count my steps before.

Another loud snap sounded behind me, and I turned around to watch the carnage.

The floor connectors on the far side, near the kitchen, broke off one by one from the wall they connected to. The sofa and the table both started to slide away from me as the side of the room dipped lower and lower. When the final beam cracked in two, the floor collapsed. A huge plume of dust and grit shot into the air. The furniture crashed toward the wall, tumbling to their sides from the sudden jolt of the floor.

It stopped a foot lower.

The house had no basement. Just a crawlspace tall enough for a pony to climb through. The sofa lay on its back, unmoving once it had settled after the ‘collapse,’ while the table had slid far enough to bump the wall.

I just laughed. I’d been so worried about getting trapped in a bathroom and needing to navigate my way back. I wiped a single tear from my eye and turned back to search for a medicine box. The Wasteland really just had me far too stressed and expecting the worst of everything.

Lost’s voice yelled through the walls, loud and clear, “Everything okay?”

“I’m fine!” I yelled back, hoping she wouldn’t come in and get herself hurt.

I looked around the bathroom for one of the iconic first aid boxes I’d gotten so used to. This house didn’t seem to have one, as all I saw was a tub, a sink, and a mirror. Tilting my head slightly, I walked forward and looked around the mirror. It sat a bit too far away from the wall. Raising a hoof tentatively, I pulled at one corner.

The mirror swung open.

“Well, that’s new,” I said to myself as I looked inside. A few bottles and a half-used tube of something sat on the shelves inside. I pulled each out and looked at the labels, searching for what I recognized. None were Buck, Med-X, Dash, Mint-als, or anything else I actually wanted to find. One had some ridiculously long name that I gave up trying to pronounce, the other was ‘whitening gel,’ and the rest just ended up being medicine for some condition that I couldn’t pronounce either. “And... bust.”

I trotted out toward the stairs, across the uneven floor. The building didn’t seem to shift or creak when I put weight down on the now-collapsed section, so I felt safe to cross without any real worries. The second I put a hoof on the stairs, though, the building gave a massive, ear-splitting groan. I could see the support beams holding up the stairs’ railing twist and split in half as the bannister moved away from the floor.

“Shit,” I whispered breathlessly, as if even the slightest change inside would settle the house to the new position of ‘fallen on me.’ I couldn’t back down, not when I thought about what was on the line. I pushed on, walking slowly up every step, counting them to keep myself from going too fast. Upstairs, front room. Grab what I needed and get out.

The house groaned again, and then I heard a horrifically loud snap. I didn’t like the sound of that. I held perfectly still, waiting. My ears twisted back and forth, trying to find any sound to betray that the building would collapse. I heard nothing, and decided not to wait any more. A few more steps and I reached the top of the staircase.

Once on the landing, I looked for the room in question. There were only three, so I just had to-

“Finally,” said a voice I recognized all too well.

I turned around and stared at the pink-coated, dark pink-maned unicorn mare. She cocked an eyebrow up and stared back at me. Same aquamarine eyes, same cutie mark.

“H-how’d you get up here?” I stammered. Nopony had opened the door after me. I hadn’t heard anypony trotting around on the wooden floors. I was alone inside. How could she be in...

She just stared at me. One ear twitched to the side, and her tail swayed slowly behind her. She looked almost bored.

“You’re not the same Rose,” I finally managed.

“You catch on quicker than I thought,” she said in the snarkiest voice I’d heard in a long time. “Come in here.” She turned and walked into the room that the Rose in the motorwagon had pointed me to. By the time I walked through the door, the building creaked another three times, and the other Rose had grabbed a brown burlap sack. She tossed it through the air at me with her telekinesis.

I fell back on my haunches and caught the bag with an ‘oof’ against my chest. The building groaned in protest.

“That’s what you need. Have that sister of yours watch it as soon as possible, it’ll answer some questions,” she explained. “I’m sure you want to know why I’m here.”

I didn’t give her a response, instead I was already opening the bag she’d thrown at me. Curiosity got the better of me. I needed to know exactly what was inside. A memory orb and... “Oh my,” I whispered. Enough Buck and Med-X to keep me off my own haunches for a month solid.

“Pay attention!” snapped the Rose. “Fucking Wastelanders.” She pressed a hoof to her temple and rolled it in a circle a few times.

“I’m not stupid. This was a show, to prove that she’s always watching,” I said, pulling the bag closed. “I can figure things out just fine, I just act before I think most of the time.” I stuffed the now-closed bag into my saddlebags for later. “I knew damn well that we were under close watch, once I figured out where I recognized you from. I just want to know what tipped you off that it was us who killed Wirepony in the first place.”

“If I told you that, it’d ruin the surprise. Now get out,” she said. She pointed her hoof and walked toward the far window, the one overlooking where the motorwagon was parked. “And watch your step. I’d rather not die here.”

I aimed Persistence at her. I really only needed one alive.

“And stop trying to kill all of us,” said a voice behind me. Suddenly I could feel the heat of a body next to me, as another of the Roses pressed herself close. She leaned in and nipped at my ear. “It hurts, how much you hate us,” she whispered.

I shuddered and took a step away. I really didn’t like the feeling of breath blowing across my coat. My ear twitched on its own, as if rebelling and trying to leap away as well.

“Fuck you,” I shouted. Pushing her out of the way, I ran down the stairs and for the door. I ignored the creaking of the house. I just needed to get out and get away from the craziness. I looked back, only to find the Rose who had snuck up behind me watching as I left, a sad smile across her lips.

I missed the days when exciting meant we got to see a pony walking by in the distance.

* * *

“Cut the engines here,” I said to Rose. We’d gotten close to Pommel Falls, and I didn’t feel comfortable strolling in with a motorwagon to announce our arrival. Heading in on hoof would do nicely, and then we could slip out just as quick. I didn’t need to see Hydro at all, not if I could avoid it. It had been... Goddesses, how long had it been? A few weeks maybe?

I didn’t know if she’d had enough time to cool down yet, and I wasn’t about to tempt fate to find out. A thinky pony I wasn’t, but that would be stupidity beyond the pale.

“Why?” she asked. Her horn continued glowing, and the engine kept rumbling as it had been all night.

“Trust me,” I shot back. With Lost still in the memory orb we’d found, I decided that I was in charge. When the engine quieted and began to whir down, I turned to Fine Tune. “Find somewhere to park, off the path, please.”

The changeling chirped in response and nodded. He spun the steering wheel with a hoof and turned us off into the dead forest.

The sun sat low in the sky, just barely cresting the horizon and still not above the cloud cover yet. It felt nice, warming and reassuring. Today would be a good day. We still had a day and a half to get back to Idle, and the motorwagon would get us there in time, so long as nothing broke on us. But for now, it was time to visit where this all started. I grinned.

The dead trees all around us were nice and familiar, even though we’d come back on the opposite side of the river. A bridge a short distance away would get us across so we could pass over toward the Stable. Even from this distance, I could see that Pommel Falls had changed. The waterfall at the far end of town was still visible, but now the framework of a new building blocked some of its majesty. Surrounding the town was a makeshift fence as well. It wasn’t as fortified as U Cig or The Cinch, but it was better than nothing.

Hopefully they’d built it as a precaution and not as necessity.

“As soon as Lost wakes up from the memory orb, we’ll head into town. All we need to do is see Broker to unload a few things, then we bolt,” I explained. I looked back at Xeno. “Ready to do some trading?”

The zebra sat on one of the rear seats with her sniper rifle propped up against her shoulder. She had the striped combat knife hooked in one fetlock and was enthralled in picking the dirt from her hooves. Her ear twitched when I addressed her, and she looked up. “Iam ready, Hiddenpony,” she answered. With a flick of her hoof, the knife disappeared into her bag. She grabbed the slaver helmet and slid it over her head, folding her mane down over an eye.

“I’m sorry I shot you,” I said quietly.

“Iwill return the favor one day, I promise,” she said back. Her tone sounded playful, but I could never quite tell with Xeno.

I just laughed.

Fine Tune did as well, though he wore a confused look on his face. He’d taken the familiar form of the blue unicorn with the f-holes again, and seemed to be content to stay that way while we were in town. “So, what is this place?” he asked once the laughter died down. While we had the downtime, he shimmied himself into the armor we’d picked up from the late Show Blossom.

“This is Pommel Falls. The Stables where we first found Gunbuck and his PipBuck are here,” I explained. I neglected to mention the severed head I’d carried with me and buried under a tree nearby. “That’s what started this whole adventure. We have friends in the Stables fixing them up. And since the mountain pass to Xeno’s home is nearby, this is a nice staging area to do some bartering.”

“Itis also the site of my brothers’ corpses,” Xeno interjected. She shot me a look.

“We’ll get them while we’re here,” I promised her. I looked at the wagon again. There was plenty of room to lay the fallen for transport. It was a load off my mind, to be honest. I’d been expecting that we would have to carry them on our backs through the mountains. I just hoped whatever ancient road wound through the mountains would still be serviceable for a vehicle to actually get through.

One of the skywagons would have been nice. We could have just flown over.

While I’d been lost in thought, Lost Art had woken up from the memory orb. She rubbed her head with one hoof and stared down at the memory orb. After blinking several times, she grabbed it in her hooves and slid it into her saddlebags. Once it was safely tucked away, she looked over at Rose, who stood behind the seat she was in.

“Did you take it?” L.A. asked her.

“Of course I did,” answered the clone. “The bits were better. I got to do something to help Equestria, or so I thought.” She shrugged and hopped off the wagon onto the dirt of the dead forest. “We need to hurry.”

“Right, everypony out!” I shouted.

“Hidden, there’s more than just ponies with us,” Lost chided as she hopped down.

“Oh, sorry. Everyone out!” I corrected myself.

We all filed out of the motorwagon and started toward town. Xeno and Lost chatted behind me, but I behaved like a good pony and didn’t eavesdrop. Fine Tune spent the entire walk staring at the rotting trees and darting back and forth to examine little bits of this and that within the forest. Rose said nothing, and simply kept her head forward and her horn alight with a telekinetic grip on the grenade rifle she had slung over her back.

While a fence had been built, it wasn’t being guarded. I didn’t see any ponies wandering around the streets though, so it might just have been for lack of personnel. Broker’s shop sat in the same place as always, as did the inn we’d stayed in forever ago. I could see the waterwheel in the distance, now churning away as the water passed through it.

Either the Steel Rangers had gotten it working properly, or the townsponies found a way around it. Good. The world hadn’t stopped just because we fucked everything up. I smiled, happy that they’d moved on in one way or another.

The five of us made for the shop first. The goal was to get in, sell our junk, and then get out. Xeno could sweet-talk Broker in a circle like he did to us when we were here the first time, then we’d leave. The faster, the better. Any longer and we chanced running into Hydro again. Since we’d technically been evicted from her town, I wanted to spend as little time inside as possible.

If she did show up though... well, I already had a contingency plan for that.

An apology.

“You go first,” I suggested to Rose. Broker wouldn’t know her, I hoped.

Rose just cocked an eyebrow at me. After a moment she rolled her eyes and went through the doorway.

“Hello, my good mare,” said the voice of Broker. He sounded the same as always, trying to be good salespony, but actually just self-serving.

I trotted in after he’d made his introductions. The blue unicorn stallion with the teal mane stood behind the counter, a bright salespony smile on his face. Beside him stood a lightish-red mare with just the faintest hint of discoloration in her coat. For half a second I thought she might be a zebra, or at least a mix. I looked at Xeno for comparison, but dismissed it. She seemed somewhat out of place, staring intently at the register and not making eye contact.

“Oh, you two,” he muttered the minute he saw me and my sister. At least he hadn’t forgotten us. His eyes widened as Fine Tune and Xeno followed us in. “Hmm,” he muttered. “You brought friends this time.” He didn’t bother with the sweet talk like he had before. I guess he knew better than to try with the fake sales-stallion act this time.

“Yeah, we just need to do some trading and then we’ll be on our way,” my sister said. She stepped past Rose and lifted her saddlebags off her back with her telekinesis.

“Alright, but my sale price for ‘saving’ the town has expired, I hope you know,” he said. He turned to the mare behind the counter next to him. “Alright Cherry Chalk, watch and learn. Okay?” He turned back to my sister. “Show me what you’ve got.”

“Gladly,” she said. Turning the bags over in her telekinesis, she emptied the contents onto the counter. While I usually held the majority of our things, she poured out a veritable gold mine of junk, knick knacks, supplies, ammunition, and weapons. I really hadn’t been paying attention to all the little things we’d picked up on the way to Idle and back.

Broker and Cherry Chalk’s expressions matched my own as they looked at the pile of things. Several items disappeared as Lost filtered what she wanted to keep back into the saddlebags. Finished sorting, she set the saddlebags back over her back and moved away from the counter.

“Xeno, go ahead,” she said with a smile. She looked over to me and winked, then moved to stand next to Fine Tune.

It was time to watch the master go to work.

Xeno whispered something in her native tongue and pulled the slaver helmet from her head. She trotted forward and set it down on the counter and appraised what sat before her.

Broker lifted and sorted, stacking various items in small groups based on what they were. Ammo went into one pile. Broken guns taken from U Cig went into another. Miscellaneous garbage went into a third pile. He separated tools away from that, organizing them into two separate bunches: one for household things, another for construction and repair tools.

Xeno watched patiently as he did, saying nothing. She looked over to the mare behind the counter, then back at the merchant. “What is your offer, merchant pony?” she finally asked.

“This is a lot more than what they brought here last time, I’ll need a minute to calculate,” he answered. Magenta eyes darted from stack to stack, and it was obvious he was adding caps up in his head. After only a moment, he nodded and looked up at her. “Fifteen caps for this pile, seventeen for this one.” He pointed at each grouping as he talked. “Tools go for thirty total. Seven for this stack here; I don’t really need any of them. Ammunition’ll get you another twenty, but I’ll throw in an extra five because the guards we’re hiring are asking to have bullets provided. That comes to... Ninety four.”

Xeno watched as he motioned to each pile, then turned back to us. She tilted her head to the side and glared. Receiving only a shrug in response, she turned back to him. “No deal, pony.” She lifted a hoof and set it on the counter. “These prices do not meet the quality,” she explained. “I was told by my friends you were a fair trader. Why do you insult us with this offer?”

“I have two foals and a wife,” he answered, pointing to the mare next to him. “She and my little ones are what matter to me, not caps. Food is worth more than any of this here, and I’d gladly up the price if you put something down. A single can of old-world food would get you the same as this pile here.” He pointed to the junk pile, which he’d noted would go for seven caps. He turned to the mare beside him. “See dear, you can’t give them any leeway or they’ll think they can run roughshod on you.”

“The wares are good, and you know it. Ihave heard much about you, Brokerpony,” she said, while squinting at him.

I turned to Lost. “I really hope he’s not teaching others to swindle customers,” I whispered. “Do you think he would actually do that?”

“Well, he screwed us and we never got our deal,” she whispered back. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think he’d be trying to get anypony who ran his shop to get the customers caps for as little as possible.” She looked back over at Xeno, then toward the door. She shifted on her hooves and grimaced.

I knew what she was thinking. The first time we’d tried to sell, Hydro interrupted us. I didn’t need to experience déjà vu about that. Ever.

I looked back over to catch Broker shaking his head. “I’m telling you, that’s nowhere near what those are actually worth. It’s part garbage and the rest, well, I’d need to find a buyer,” he answered. “If I paid what you’re asking, I’d need somepony to come in and pay twice that or else I wouldn’t make anything.” He reared back and whinnied. “If this were the old world, you’d have been laughed out of the store.”

Cherry Chalk looked mortified at how her husband treated customers.

“Wehave saved you the time and danger of finding wares yourself. You stay in town where it is safe,” she said. With a wave of her head, she motioned outside. “Walls now house your town. They were not here before, what caused you to build them?”

Broker’s eyes shifted. He looked at me, then at my sister. It lasted only the briefest of seconds, but I saw it. He shook his head. “Times change, we needed defense.”

“Itis not that a pony, ponies, warned you of raiders nearby?” she asked, a sly smile forming.

For a moment Broker said nothing. His wife tapped him with her forehoof and she motioned for him to lean closer. When he did, she cracked him in the head. “Give them a good deal, dear,” she said. Her accent sounded similar to Xeno’s, but far more diluted.

Broker stared at her. He looked her up and down and made several displeased faces. Finally he looked back at Xeno and hung his head. “One fifty, even if they’re worth less than a hundred,” he finally relented.

His wife looked quite pleased with herself. She waved at Xeno and said something in the zebra language.

Xeno laughed.

And here I’d thought this town was anti-zebra. Maybe times were changing. After all, it wasn’t zebra who had caused the trouble here. They’d retaliated when they felt cornered, yes, but they weren’t at fault. So, if they could soften enough that Broker would let his wife be in public and not wherever they actually lived, maybe Hydro would forgive us too.

“Deal,” said the zebra. She pushed the items forward with her forehooves. Turning back to face us, she gave a happy wiggle and snapped her tail side to side. “I didnot even need to threaten this time!” she said cheerfully.

“So you didn’t,” said Lost.

“Is this how you normally do business?” asked Fine Tune, looking away from the shelves. He’d spent the entire exchange watching intensely, never looking away from the scene. But now his curiosity seemed to have gotten the better of him.

“Eeyup. Let’s get back to the motorwagon. I want to get to the Stables before something happens,” Lost admitted. She collected the caps from Broker with her telekinesis and deposited them into her saddlebag.

“And have a good day,” said the salespony. His wife waved as we left.

“Back to friends,” I said happily. Looking back and forth, I saw no sign of Hydro or any other ponies. Given how early it was, I realized I was a bit surprised at Broker’s shop even being open. I followed my sister and the group out of town and toward the motorwagon.

* * *

We left the town without incident. Xeno looked pleased with herself the entire time, having gotten what she wanted from trading. Fine Tune spent the time exploring around the woods, just as he had when we’d arrived. Only Rose seemed unhappy, as she focused entirely on traveling. We got back to the motorwagon and started her up.

Reversing direction wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped, but after nearly breaking the back axle over a fallen log, Lost managed to steer us back around and to the bridge I’d seen earlier. While Rose powered the engine and my sister steered, I took the time to relax. The woods had been relatively safe, and since it wasn’t night we didn’t need to worry about any bloodwings flying around.

I sat in my seat and watched the woods as we wound down one of the old pathways. Fine Tune sat across from me, a dopey smile on his face as he took in the sights. The path we took must have been used for trade or for materials when making the Stables, as I couldn’t see a hoof path being this well cleared out. Had the world not ended, I expected it might have been overgrown. Luckily for us, the world had died...

“So, what’s got you so excited?” I asked the changeling.

“I’m not used to relaxing and just taking everything in,” he answered. He looked down at me, then back up at the remains of the forest. “I’m so used to scrambling from place to place and being unseen. You don’t get a chance to step back and see the sights while running for your life.” He could say that again. “Plus I’ve never been this far away from U Cig.”

“Were you born there?” I asked. I didn’t know anything about changelings, or how their life-cycle was set up. But if he came from the slaver town, it made perfect sense that he’d want to see whatever he could.

“You could say that,” he admitted. He shrugged. “I try not to think about it.” He looked over at Lost. “Truthfully, I know she’s not a ‘Queen’ in the same way a changeling queen is. But it’s a part of me to think like that. It’s just the way we changelings are programmed. And well, the old queen was killed and we ended up taking a surrogate.”

“You’re a lot more articulate than when we first found you, you know that?” I mused. It took me somewhat aback, to remember the stammering mess of chitin he was when we’d first met. He seemed so frantic and unable to even put together whole sentences at first.

“You did have me tied to a table,” he said. “I either shut down completely, or I start talking nonsense when I’m under pressure.” He rubbed his head, where I’d hit him just a few days ago. Funny how quickly things could change. “Like I said, programming.”

“I’m sorry,” said my sister. “You did sneak into our house though.” She didn’t look back from steering. She just stood there, forelegs up on the steering wheel and focusing on the path ahead. “We need to take a detour here anyway, on hoof.”

“Xeno’s brothers...” I muttered. “See anything on the E.F.S.?” Before she could answer, I grabbed Persistence and started to reattach her to the battle saddle. Better safe than sorry.

“It looks pretty clear. The forest is completely dead,” she answered. She waved a hoof in front of her, pointing toward the dead trees all around us as far as the eye could see. “Run up the mountain, grab them, bring them to the wagon, and off we go.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Rose. She walked around the engine block and stared at my sister. “I think I’ll keep the earth pony and the changeling to make sure you come back.”

“That’s unnecessary,” I protested. “We’re not going to abandon the ride, and you already know where we’re heading next. And we have names, you know.”

“I don’t feel like making the journey and I don’t want to be ditched,” she countered. “Either we do it my way, or we don’t do it at all.” She looked at me with disdain, as if we didn’t really have names to her, as if we were beneath that.

Xeno walked around from the back on the far side of the engine block. “It doesnot matter. We donot need all of us to carry them. I shall carry Zaki, and Lostpony can carry Zahi. He didnot weigh much,” she said. She set her sniper rifle against the back of my seat. Reaching to where we’d all stored our things, she grabbed her bag and slung it around her neck. “Itis a small sacrifice. Letus go.”

She hopped down and started toward the path up the mountainside.

“I’ll be quick, I have the map anyway. Just stay safe and don’t do anything stupid,” Lost said. She gave me a hug and a kiss on the forehead, then hopped off the wagon. A short trot later and she’d caught up to Xeno.

Together, the two walked into the distance.

* * *

I laid on the deck of the wagon and stared at the cloud cover. It looked a little darker than normal, which meant it might rain soon. I couldn’t ever really tell, since it looked the same in every direction as far as I could see. Only the tiniest slivers of blue between the horizon and the clouds at the very edge of the world gave a hint that it might not cover everything. Maybe some ocean past the edges of what used to be Equestria still had sunlight naturally?

I didn’t know how long I laid there staring up. Without the PipBuck, I didn’t have a good way to tell time. It went by slowly, since nothing bothered to attack. As Lost had said, the forest was dead.

Fine Tune passed the time transforming into different ponies. It wasn’t very amusing after the first two minutes. It did, however, give a nice bit of insight into how he could mix and match pony traits to make individual forms. His mane would light aflame all by its lonesome, and the color and style would be different whenever the flames receded. At one point he transformed into a female version of his normal unicorn self, with the same mane, colors, and cutie mark. It was actually kinda cute. Transforming back to normal, he looked over to the woods. “They’re back,” he said.

“Ugghhh,” I groaned as I pulled myself up. My back hurt from lying on the wooden deck, but it was better than being curled up on the seat.

L.A. and Xeno walked back, zigzagging around trees and carrying bodies on their backs. Xeno’s older brother was slightly bigger, but both had expressions of frustration from carrying them. I couldn’t imagine having to go through that tiny path like that. I thanked Celestia and Luna individually that they’d brought something to cover the corpses.

I didn’t need to be confronted with the memory of two headless stallions we’d killed without taking the time to at least ask what might be going on.

Lost lifted the corpse from her back and set it on the walkway between the edge of the wagon and the engine block. Without a word, she lifted the other from Xeno’s back and set it next to her brother’s body.

“Why not carry them with your telekinesis?” I asked, watching as my sister used her magic to hoist both corpses onto the deck. I knew better than to ask either of them about what had actually happened near the lake above the waterfall. I could see how bad it must have been.

“Xeno requested it. The way of her kind,” Lost answered, without looking at me. She hopped up and took her place at the steering wheel, while Xeno moved to the back of the wagon again. Nopony said anything as the engine was started again, and we moved on.

Lost, Rose, and Fine Tune had everything under control in the front. I decided to go sit with Xeno, in case she wanted to talk about what happened. I walked down the far side path to the back and took a seat at the edge of the deck next to the zebra.

“You okay?” I asked. It felt strange, dangling my hooves off over nothingness as we moved. Did ponies back before the War really use these sorts of things to drive around normally?

“Iwill be okay, Hiddenpony,” she answered. She kicked her rear hooves a bit. “You shot me.” She tapped her side where the bullet had pierced through her the night before.

“It wasn’t on purpose,” I said. It hadn’t been. “I thought you were going to get killed by the zombie. I acted without thinking. Just like...” I looked back at the covered bodies.

“Itis the way of ponies, yes?” she asked. “To jump so quickly at death without taking the time to look at the other side.”

“For a lot of us, yeah,” I admitted. “It was your brothers’ way too. They shot at us without warning.” I looked down at my own hooves. “I’m trying to be better than that, though. I’ve changed a lot since that day, and not just because of the slavers.” The shackles did a damn good job of making sure I remembered that I did change a lot because of what happened there. I pushed that memory aside. “You were my first friend, did you know that?”

“I had exhumed as much,” she said. Her tone sounded just a bit more playful than usual. “I agree. You and Lostpony have both changed. As have I.”

“I am sorry about your brothers,” I repeated.

“Iam sorry too. My mother will do what is needed, and they will be put to rest,” she said.

“Is she a, umm, spiritual... zebra... mare?” I asked, completely at a loss for words. I didn’t really know much about zebra culture and what they called their spiritual leaders, if they were called anything specific at all.

“Sheis a shaman, shewill know what to do with my brothers’ souls,” she answered. Once again she looked back at them, then to the ground. “I miss them, Hiddenpony. My brothers, and my family.”

“I know. I know we can’t replace your family, or your brothers,” I admitted. “I can’t speak for Lost, of course, but... well. I consider you part of my family.”

Xeno looked up at me. Her eyes wavered, and she looked me up and down twice. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes and she fell onto my side. She held on with her hooves as tight as she could, and for the first time since I’d known her...

She let it out.

I just held her, running one hoof through the mohawk of her mane. I listened as she told me about her brothers, all the little things that made them special. She told me in whispers how they talked, the little quirks her younger brother had picked up from her older brother. Most of what she said I could understand, except when she’d falter and start to talk in her native tongue. In times of stress, I supposed a pony or zebra would turn to what was most natural to them. Halfway through the story she started to hiccup, before she finally managed to calm down.

With closed eyes and her muzzle pressed against my side, she slipped into a fitful sleep.

I wiped a tear away and flicked it to the dirt of the forest.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to no one.

* * *

“We’re here!” Lost announced. She pointed at the familiar cave where the adventure started. Goddesses, that felt like forever ago. “Hidden, go tell them we’re here while I park this damn thing, okay?”

“Sure. Back in a minute,” I said. I hopped from the slowly-moving motorwagon and started toward the opening of the cave.

The minute my hooves hit the dirt, ponies began to pour from the split in the mountain. First Custard Berliner, then Raspberry Berliner. The two started to run toward me as fast as their little hooves could carry them.

I braced for it, knowing I was about to be tackled.

Then Praline emerged from the cave. “You’re here!” she shouted loud enough to drown out the sound of the engine block of the wagon. Thankfully, she wasn’t wearing her armor. That did nothing to calm my fear as she bounded toward me. She passed both foals with her longer legs and tackled me as hard as she could.

I braced myself at the last second.

She hit me hard enough to topple me onto my back. Both of us screamed when I landed. Praline, in all her bubbly happiness, sat atop me as if she were just as small as Custard and Raspberry. She even managed to bounce a little, eliciting a loud ‘oof!’

“Hi... Praline...” I groaned. Everything suddenly hurt like I’d just been blown apart with a grenade.

“Hi! I missed you guys! Welcome back. How’re you feeling? How’s your hoof? Have you been taking care of it? What’s it like on the other side of the Wasteland?” she asked, firing off question after question before I could answer. With her forehooves, she grabbed onto my steel hoof and started to inspect it.

“Hi, Hidden!” shouted Raspberry.

“Hey!” yelled Custard.

Then they saw the motorwagon. “Ooo!” both shouted at once. They bolted from me and jumped onto the wagon, where they began to scramble from seat to steering wheel picking things over and inspecting them.

“Praline. I. Can’t. Breathe,” I muttered. I let her jerk my hoof back and forth, unable to muster the strength to fight it.

“That’s okay, I’ll be done soon,” she said. She popped the bottom off my steel hoof and looked inside. With the bottom off, she wiggled the joint around. “Oh wow, you’ve gotten this thing so dirty. We’ll need to fix it right now!”

“Knight Praline. Would you kindly stop sitting on our guest?” chided the static-laced voice of Star Paladin Lamington. He trotted toward us, covered head to hoof in the ornate etched armor I’d expected him to be in. “Welcome back, Miss Fortune.”

I twitched, fighting it. “T-thank you,” I finally stammered.

“Sorry,” whispered Praline. She hopped off me and slammed the plate back onto my hoof. “Come on, we’ll go inside and to the maintenance wing!” With a wave, she trotted off and disappeared back into the caves.

“Knights Custard and Raspberry. Give our guests a proper welcome,” Lamington ordered. He offered a hoof to help me up. When I grabbed it, he pulled hard and righted me back on all four hooves. “Where did you get those shackles?” he asked, his helmet tilted down at my hooves. Even with the helmet hiding his face, I knew the tone. He knew exactly where I got them, and it sounded like he wanted details.

“I’ll tell you later,” I said, not making eye contact. I turned back to my sister. “So, was that a setup?” I asked.

“Why do you think I’m still on the wagon?” she asked. She laughed, and Fine Tune and Xeno joined in as well. “I figured out how to work the broadcaster while you were asleep. Rose actually gave me a bit of help with it.”

“Welcome back,” said Custard. “Where’d you get this?” he asked right after, lifting up one of the cushions on the rear seats.

Before anypony could answer, Raspberry chimed in. “Welcome! It’s good to see you again.” She hugged Lost’s leg, then joined her brother in digging through the cushions and poking around the engine block.

“So, who might these new companions of yours be?” asked Lamington. He pointed to Rose and Fine Tune, who were hopping down from the deck of the motorwagon.

“That’s Rose, she’s, umm,” I started. I decided to omit the little bit that she was ‘escorting’ us to get drugs for a town halfway across the city. “She’s from Idle, and we’re doing a favor for her. The stallion is Fine Tune. We met him after getting out of U Cig.” I rubbed a hoof behind my head, ruffling up my mane. It was hard to act casual without telling him things like how our captivity actually went and how Fine Tune was really a changeling. Stuff like that would mean more questions, and we didn’t quite have the time for that yet.

“Wonderful. Any friends of yours are friends of ours,” he said. He clopped a steel-encased hoof on my shoulders and cocked his head toward the cave. “Let us return to the atrium. You have arrived just in time for breakfast.” With a nod, he released me and walked toward the cave.

I breathed a sigh of relief and trotted over to my sister. Playfully, I hit her in the leg with my flesh forehoof. “That wasn’t very nice,” I said.

Lost just mussed up my mane. “One-time thing, I promise,” she said with a smile. “Let’s go.” She walked past and toward the cave, with Fine Tune in tow and already asking questions about the Steel Rangers. Xeno followed her, with her rifle slung over her shoulder.

I stopped Rose before she could walk off. Once we were alone, I looked her dead in the eyes. “I don’t care if you send me back to those slavers, but if you try to do anything to any of the ponies in this family...” I just squinted.

I’d let her imagine what I’d do if something happened to them.

Turning away, I snapped my tail in her face and trotted through the cave entrance and into the darkness.

* * *

The breakfast table hummed with more life than I thought possible. I saw the familiar faces of Elder Drop Scone’s family. Everypony, well almost everypony, from Stable Sixty milled about at the buffet line that Marshmallow Sundae had set up near the kitchen of the Atrium. Walking amongst them were almost a dozen ponies I didn’t recognize. A few unicorn stallions stood waiting in line, while two new earth ponies talked in a corner amongst themselves. Clinker and Lighthoof had made it here safely, and sat at one of the many tables talking. They both waved when they saw us, but went back to eating and talking once I waved back.

“Livelier than I remember,” I said to L.A. I looked for the end of the line, but couldn’t tell in the chaos where it might be. Another mare stood behind the buffet line with Marshmallow, serving something that I couldn’t see, but smelled delicious.

It felt a little hollow, knowing that a few weeks ago this Stable had been a ghost town. It was meant to protect, to help ponies to work together and realize they were stronger when they shared a bond. Something clicked in the back of my mind. Friendship. That’s what this place was supposed to teach. The design tried to get ponies to trust others they hadn’t known before, and to be generous enough to share what little they had for the good of all.

A shame it didn’t-

“Ow!” I yelped, feeling a jab at my side.

“Wasteland to Hidden, you okay?” asked Lost. She looked rather concerned, and rested a fetlock across my forehead. “You feel okay...”

“Sorry, just lost in thought. You were saying?” I asked, trying to recover.

“I was agreeing with you, that’s all. Look. Get something to eat. I’m gonna go... umm, take care of something,” she said. Before she even finished the sentence she’d looked away, her eyes darting back and forth as she searched for something, or more likely, somepony.

“Tell Crème Brûlée I said hi,” I said. I didn’t mention Nip Chaser, though I should have. Without waiting for an answer, I trotted off. Food and conversation called to me. I waved to ponies I knew as I moved through the crowded atrium, catching bits and pieces of conversations while I walked.

“...hear night shift is getting close to...” said one stallion as I walked by.

“Delicious!” yelled a mare, followed by the noisy smacking of her mouth as she ate.

To think, less than a month ago, and I’d have run from this, screaming about how groups of ponies only cared about their own. Now all I wanted to do was stay and never leave. Marshmallow Sundae’s delicious cooking? Conversations with Lamington and Praline? Teasing Lost about her ‘secret’ relationship with Crème Brûlée? It would be perfect. Xeno and Fine Tune would fit right in, too.

I looked at Rose, who had made herself comfortable chatting with one of the stallions I didn’t recognize. If only the threat of slavery didn’t hang above our heads.

“Hidden! Come, sit with us,” said Lamington, his voice artificially enhanced by the armor’s speakers. It still crackled with static every other word. “Elder Drop Scone was kind enough to procure a generous helping for you. She said you look emaciated and had better have seconds.”

I couldn’t help but crack a smile. I wondered if all older mares were like her, or if it was just a trait carried over from before the War due to their seclusion down in the depths of that mine. I trotted over and took a seat down at Lamington’s table, across from him. A smorgasbord of food waited for me on a large plate, piled high enough I knew I couldn’t finish it if I wanted to. And Goddesses, did I want to.

The table looked exactly like every other in the room, but somehow felt friendlier now that I was back with ponies I knew. A full plate sat next to the Star Paladin, loaded to the brim with wheat cakes and fried tomatoes, topped with sliced fruit and triangles of cut toast. I assumed that would be for the Elder, whenever she returned to the table. Chocolate Fondue sat next to his older brother, and winked at me when I sat down. He said nothing and simply returned to his meal. An empty plate sat next to Drop Scone’s plate, with not so much as a stain on it.

I felt I knew who it belonged to, but curiosity got the better of me. “So, who are we eating with? I see two extra seats,” I said cautiously.

“Yes, the Elder will be returning momentarily. She stepped away to gather Scribe Lemon Tart. The other plate is in remembrance of Paladin Chocolate Éclair,” Lamington explained calmly. His helmeted head turned to the empty seat. “It is somewhat of a tradition, I suppose. The Elder was very specific. We never had a soldier fall in battle due to the nature of our seclusion.” He leaned over and rested a hoof next to the plate. “While not superstitious by nature, my mother wants to make sure his spirit knows he is not forgotten.”

Chocolate Fondue placed a hoof on his brother’s shoulder. He tapped a few times, while looking away.

“I’m sorry, Lamington,” I said, holding back tears. “But, I’m glad you kept a place for him,” I blurted, then felt like crawling under the table and hiding. I hadn’t meant to say that, but I did mean it. It would at least allow me a place to apologize for reacting so poorly when Eclair tried to help.

“It’s the duty of a Steel Ranger,” he answered. Slowly, he raised both hooves and undid a set of hidden latches at the base of his helmet where it connected to his armor. Leaning his head down, he pulled the helmet off and set it off to the side. When he looked up, he smiled at me.

I’d almost forgotten how gorgeous he was. His mane looked perfect, not a single strand of hair out of place from the removal of his helmet. His smile lit up the room, brighter than the fake lighting from the giant tree-structure in the center of the room. Were it not for the polished metal of his one eye, I’d have said he was perfect. They matched though, both the same intense yellow.

I looked down at the table, trying to hide the blush I could feel forming.

Luckily for me, Elder Drop Scone arrived with Lemon Tart that exact second. “Good morning everypony,” she announced. “I hope you all slept well. I’d like you all to settle down for our meal. Take as much as you want, I don’t want anypony...” she paused and looked at Xeno. “Anyone. I don’t want anyone leaving until you are feeling too full to move.” The older mare smiled her warm motherly smile. She trotted through the room, stopping at table after table to share a few kind words and make sure each pony had more than they could ever need.

When she finally reached the table I sat at with Lamington, she walked around and hugged me with strength hidden by her age. I could have sworn I felt a rib crack. “It’s good to see you again, dear,” she said. She released me and sat at the table where her plate was. A hoof rested on the seat next to her, the spot saved for Chocolate Éclair. Without a word, she moved her hoof away and began to eat.

I saw Lost, Crème Brûlée, and Fine Tune eating at a table together with Praline. Xeno sat with Clinker and Lighthoof, quietly eating with her eyes closed. Rose, with no food in front of her, had managed to work her way into sitting with the pony she’d been talking to when we first got into the room.

Despite our long time away, nothing had changed. Everypony, everyone, slid right back into their place. Like family and close friends should.

* * *

“The weirdest thing about this Stable...” Praline said, more to herself than to me. She stood hunched over, her face buried into a filing cabinet.

“What’s that?” I asked. We were in the same drab grey maintenance room I’d taken tools from back when we first got the PipBuck. It still looked so incredibly boring. A mural really would have brightened the room up. I noted that Lost’s blood wasn’t splattered everywhere, nor had I seen any bloody hoofprints in the hallway. Just how much had they cleaned up?

“Well, none of the ponies here were issued PipBucks, not according to the records,” she answered. “But for some reason they still had the tools listed in the manifest.” She pulled her head back from the cabinet and slammed it shut. Whatever she’d been looking for must not have been inside. “But that’s not the weird part. The weird part is that the tools were actually missing. I could still see the outlines where they should have been.”

I chuckled. “I took them,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. Shrugging, she turned to face me. “Well, we don’t need them anyway. Curious how things work out... What we do need is for you to sit up here.” She pulled a chair around. “So I can take you apart.” A wicked little smile crossed her lips, before she started to laugh. “I’m kidding! I just want to clean the hoof out.”

“Uh huh, hah... haha,” I half-said, half-laughed. That wasn’t funny. I knew Praline well enough to think that she might actually try and dismantle me completely just to see what made me tick. With a deep breath, I sat down in the chair she provided and stuck my hoof out.

“So, I heard from the grapevine,” she said, already working on parts of my hoof. She popped the bottom off and set it on the table next to her. “A certain Star Paladin asked me the other night.” She paused again and pulled the casing from my leg, removing the entire outside of the prosthetic steel hoof so that only the cap on my stump and the replacement bone piece were left. Every movement she made was slow and careful, pulling it so the wires would stay connected and intact. “He asked what I thought about you. He was surprisingly vague about it, which is strange for him.”

“Oh. Did, umm, did he say why he was asking?” I stammered, focusing on the work to keep from blushing. I looked down at my hoof as she pulled the wires and connector pieces out and set them separately on the table. It looked quite morbid, with wires being the only thing that connected me to the parts I needed to move and stand without hobbling.

“Nope, he dodged the questio