Chapter 13 What's to Come

I was clutching something I'd found in the wastes. It was a girthy syringe with colorful cylinders attached and a couple wires coming out of one and plunging into the other. Capper saw me staring at it. He put a paw on my shoulder and I frowned. It was something called Rage, something I knew a lot about. "You know, I wouldn't necessarily say I'm opposed to these things, but they've always kinda made me uncomfortable."

"You haven't said a word since we left Nakano yonder and the first thing y'all say is about a drug?" Capper was leaning over my shoulder, giving me a wide grin.

I sighed and closed my eyes, "Well on one hoof, this thing helped a lot of ponies fight and win an important battle. On the other, it was a fight in its own just to get it."

"Perfect balance." Capper stroked his chin.

"I'd say imperfect. Just like our whole experience on Cumber."

Pre-War: 12 Years Before The Megaspells

Pinkie Pie popped a mintal as Nexus and I presided over the controls. "Those things are bad for you," I said to her.

"Soo? So's this whole war! So's Opportunity." her head twisted around like a spring then popped back into place.

"Not exactly," said Nexus and I at the same time then shot each other glances. We knew what was at Opportunity. We'd been there, we'd worked on the project together. An A+ job, but quickly abandoned. Now it was something that even Pinkie agreed we needed. Though she was a bit crazy.

The bird was in the air, hovering, "You ready?" I asked Nexy.

"Crazy as I'll ever be!" said Pinkie, her squeal reverberating around the cockpit.

"I was going to say yes, but now I'm not so sure." said my best friend. But we sped off anyway, towards the dense forests of Everfree.

The night was so dark, the stars were barely visible through the clouds of black smoke coming from a distant burning village. It was terrible. Yet it was something that had to be ignored for now, as our mission was much more important. I felt kind of heartless, trying to put aside the sufferings of ponies we could now easily reach, but Pinkie chewed on her candy drugs without thought and Nexus had his famous intense focus on his one main task. I had to shove away my thoughts, for now, thinking we'd be helping an awful lot more by doing what we're doing now.

It didn't take long to reach the landing port hidden deep in the jungle that nopony knew about because most were too afraid to venture here. However the military had taken advantage of that, using the dangerous wood as a cover for a secret base known as Opportunity. As our large helicopter landed, blossoms began to glow in greeting, the perfect helipad without any of the work. The door opened and we got out one by one, and saw vines retracting.

"This was Zecora's last known location, and I'm sure she's still here." said Nexus. He was looking at a small device in his hoof, it was carved in runes and glowing with magic. It was something made to sense anomalies in the magical atmosphere. It seemed there were plenty of those based on the many zings and blips it gave off and its flashing lights. "There was a fight here."

"LOOOK!" shouted Pinkie Pie and we ran toward her. There was a trail of liquid in the dirt, meaning somepony had been here not too long ago. It was a rich blue in my flashlight, even as it soaked into the brown ground.

"A key ingredient in Rage has been spilled here." Nexus muttered to himself.

"What, are you making a scientist recording?" I teased him. He stuck his tongue out at me and moved off down the path slowly. I noticed hoofprints in the mud and they looked to be a zebra's.

"She went down this way." I moved quickly ahead of Nexus, pointing out the tracks.

"To Beta site then!" Pinkie stuck a hoof in the air, either pointing the way or making a weird salute. Possibly both.

Opportunity was separated into three different branches, all connected by underground tunnels. The Alpha site extended deep underground, into natural caverns converted into laboratories and testing chambers. Beta was just botanical, a place for sampling ingredients in experiments that Nexus and I had been a part of a long time ago. It sent shivers down my spine, but it was something Twilight had wanted.

Far in the thick of the trees I thought I heard the snapping of a branch and I gasped, "Guys did you hear that?"

"What? I didn't hear a thing!" Pinkie laughed and waved us on. At the door she swiped a card and it opened for her. Air wooshed forth and blasted us with a terrible scent.

"Oh Faust," Nexus moaned. We knew that smell all too well. Chemicals from herbs found in Everfree. Somepony had been playing with the plants again.

I shivered. When we passed the rows of once thriving plants, now shrivelled and almost giving up on life, I had to face it. I glanced at Nexus, who had a 9mm pistol raised in his glowing green aura and ready to defend himself, thoughts about the project that went on here filled my head. I had overseen a lot of it. I wouldn't say I was in command here all those years ago but the responsibility wasn't lost on me. Dark times called for even darker measures, and I also remembered the relief that had flooded me when Twilight ordered us to abandon it. But if Zecora was here, then I wouldn't doubt that it was something Equestria still needed. Unethical or not.

Why was she here? What thoughts had filled her head to bring her back here? Nopony was helping her, she was alone in a world that hated her. Or at least what she represented. I wondered if she felt any resentment for ponykind. She had been just as used by us as the rest of Zebricka. Yet she had stayed and continued helping, thinking she could end the conflict. She must hate the Ministries for using her and tossing her aside. Maybe she was here to get revenge.

"These ones are still alive!" Nexus called, sounding horrified. The painful reality had hit him just as hard.

I ran over to him, where he and Pinkie were ogling over some glowing purple leafy vegetation. The plants were sitting in their pots on the long metal table, blooming proudly. "They've been treated."

"This is a good thing!" yelled Pinkie Pie.

The two of us immediately shushed her. "Keep it down!" "Are you crazy?" of course she was. A clanging in the far corner of the room alerted us to the presence of some watcher, sending chills down my spine. We hadn't been alone this whole time. Whoever it was could be heard galloping down the access corridor to the rest of the facility. "Come on!" I called as I didn't hesitate to follow the intruder.

We chased him through an array of computer labs that were long since destroyed by neglect. He was wearing a dark green hoodie with a belt around his waist and we could see he was heavily armed. So the question remained: why wasn't he shooting at us? It probably wasn't his job, and it also meant there were others here he was most likely going to warn. "My guess is that somepony came here to steal the Opportunity project and use it against us!" Pinkie called in a huff from the opposite side of the new corridor we found ourselves in.

Just then we noticed a large set of doors sliding closed. They were slow because I'm sure the hydraulics were faulty plus there was barely any power. We could make it through, we had to! I dived through at the last second, not knowing if my companions were with me. When I heard two other bodies roll and stop behind a set of counters I knew they were still with me. I wound up at a table, hiding between two chairs. I couldn't see anything past this but I heard shuffling hooves in the darkness, past the shapes of more counters. Then I heard a familiar voice, one I hadn't heard in a long time, and my ears perked.

"Now now, this can be settled. No need to feel nettled." it was Zecora!

I hissed some low words to Nexus and Pinkie, "She's in trouble."

Pinkie opened her mouth and Nexus hastily put a hoof tightly over it, "What in tartarus are we going to do?"

"Listen, we don't wanna hurt ya, but if you don't hoof it over, we won't hesitate." it was a gruff male voice. He sounded like a workhorse.

I looked around, assessing our options. I hadn't been in here very often but I knew this area. There were three sets of parallel counters straight ahead of me, there was just the one where Nexus and Pinkie were. They had the most visibility, but if they could be quick enough, I could sneak around the three counters and we could surround them. "You two go that way," I motioned, "We'll ambush them." they nodded.

"Boss there's—" I popped up just as the rat was about to give us away.

"Nopony move!" I yelled as I trained my gun on the biggest looking guy. A bunch of semi-automatic weapons trained on me.

"Ha and what are you gonna do?" asked a rather stunted looking stallion, who came crawling out from behind the bigger one. He was short, but it was the voice that had been threatening Zecora. I shot a quick glance at her, she was watching me carefully, looking completely calm despite the danger.

Two more guns clicked, locked and loaded, from the other side of the group of what I could see was 6 ponies all in hoods. "Drop em and we can all go home!" Pinkie Pie was the loudest mare in the world.

"Shit! Boss!" wailed the guy we'd chased in here.

"Heheh," the runt chuckled turning to face the Minister of Morale. "Look what we have here. Miss crazy psychopath herself."

"I believe you meant to capitalize that title." she winked.

"What?" one of the grunts questioned.

"I'm going to give you to the count of three and then I'm gonna bust a party cannon on your donkeys." she was suddenly looking very angry. I did not like that look of rage on her face.

"The count of three, right." runt rolled his eyes.

"One…" she wasn't kidding.

"Get her boys!" all hell broke loose on that one command. Nexus dived out of the way and I didn't get a chance to see what happened to the Minister as I watched Zecora take advantage of the chaos and run up a flight of stairs to the main command area of the lab. There was a second flight on the opposite side of the room and I ran towards it, meaning to follow her. One of the intruders grunts got in the way.

She dropped her hood, revealing that she was a zebra. Ponies working with zebras, zebras working with ponies. I couldn't tell who the traitors were, it was all too hectic. Her eyes were like marbles, twisting with shades of blue and green, and her mane was worn in an afro. She had on war paint, twisting under her eyes, either leading down to her sadistically smiling mouth or up to her eerily calm eyes. She licked her teeth then pulled out a tomahawk. "Are you kidding me?" it threw me off guard to see she'd brought a knife to a gunfight that I didn't take it seriously enough until I saw it flying right at me. I spun away, trying to dodge but there was a searing pain in my chest.

"Buck!" I screamed but adrenaline filled me as I saw her running up that second staircase I'd mentioned earlier. I ignored the pain and ran to save Zecora.

I saw the enemy and began shooting at her whipping tail but then I had to stop when I saw her engage in combat with the other zebra. It was like watching a well choreographed dance. I know it sounded cliche, but when the enemy zebra lashed out at Zecora with butterfly knives, Zecora bent backwards on her hind legs to avoid it then flipped back and bucked her in the chest. However, the enemy used a wheeled chair to shove herself away then used the same momentum to come right back with a hard punch. Zecora took it full force, but then spun around to land a kick.

The second zebra saw me coming and tossed a knife. I shot at it and it went flying away. She cursed under her breath and Zecora leapt onto her, pinning her down. I pointed my gun at her but Zecora slammed a hoof down, knocking her out cold. "No need for more misery, it'll only lend more salt to injury. The battle is done, and we have won. But why have you come? I asked for no one."

"Well we couldn't very well leave our favorite zebra to die, now could we!" Pinkie laughed as she appeared through a stream of confetti falling around her. "Good call on leaving her alive, we can question her about why she's here."

"I suppose you will question me on the same, but do not cast your blame." Zecora's cool broke and she bit her lip as she handed Pinkie the object she'd been protecting. A syringe with two cylinders attached.

"Yeah, why are you here? I thought you were glad to leave this place," Nexus was behind me.

"I do not forget the horror this has brought, but far worse could be wrought. In this time of great undoing, I felt an herbal remedy was best for brewing."

She looked downright sad about it, but worst had come to worst. "We all hate that it's come to this, but if it'll help us win, then it's for the best." I told her. She just looked at me with sorrow.

"You know," said Pinkie, popping another mintal in her mouth as we left, "it fills me with rage that anypony would try to steal from Equestria."

"Rage, what a name for this sage." Zecora as always used wordplay to make a reference, as in the herbs from Everfree used to help make this drug.

"I can't believe it was just left here." Nexus said to me as the unconscious zebra floated behind him. I couldn't believe we were taking it out with us.

Present Time: 207 Years After the Incident of Stable 14

"It's a double edged sword." I said as I finished recounting the story. "On one hoof, it helped win a lot of important battles that got a lot of ponies to safety. On the other, I saw reports of soldiers who made it to Stables before I became Overseer of mine, a sort of prep I suppose, and it was not good…"

"Now, I don't know about all this double edge mumbo jumbo," Capper rolled his wrist around then put his paw down on my shoulder, "But if yo' trying to compare it to what happened on Cumber…"

"I just feel that we went there to save one pony and we only created more problems." I sighed.

"I think they've got a far easier problem to resolve now than they did before, don'tchu?" Capper smiled down at me. "Why don'tchu keep the chem, put it in your pocket. Outta sight outta mind mindset, for now."

I looked up at him and gave a hesitant laugh, "Then what?"

"I never had no problem with chems really. I wasn't one to dish em out, but I wasn't gonna judge if somepony off the street wanted help finding some addictol." Capper winked at me like that was some hint at something else. I suppose I couldn't say he was a bad smooth talker, because I didn't feel as bad about slipping it into my inventory. I'd never had a problem with drugs themselves just circumstances surrounding them. "Why don't we put on some tunes and see where our journey takes us next?"

We went walking through the streets of the Back Bray, heading back towards Double Diamond City, perhaps planning on contacting Piper and the mayor and seeing how things were going there. Then a voice sounded on my Pip Buck I hadn't thought about in awhile. DJ Pon3 howled in greeting, and I remembered why I didn't listen to the radio much. He reminded me too much of what happened in Bittsberg.

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlecolts! How y'all doin' on this fine fine day? I don't know 'bout y'all, but after pickin' up on some great news, I feel a lot better about this crappy world we live in. Now I just heard tell some Minute Hooves ben helpin' some folks in Broncston, and pushing back some raiders. They'd have a lot better time of it if they could take their old resting grounds back from reportedly a strange mutant. That's all I know, and hey, maybe somepony listening can help out! Keep fighting the good fight—"

I switched it off and stopped in the middle of the street. Capper had been strolling along the sidewalk but he stopped when he realized I wasn't keeping up. "I don't think I want to listen to the radio anymore."

"What's wrong?" he asked. I bit my lip as he came to join me and I thought about mentioning my old friends from Bittsberg, and how one of them used to listen to DJ Pon3 a lot.

Instead I said, "I know the Minute Hooves. I kinda forgot about them till now."

"You thinkin' you wanna go help them?" Capper grinned.

Slowly I nodded, "We'll need to trek to Sanctuary, which is further from here than DDC." I told him.

"Never heard of it, but I don't got anything better to do, do you?" he laughed. I laughed too.

Dust burst in a spot in the pavement right by my hooves. Just another hole in the millions already on this street. I was starting to get used to all this by now, and I already had my gun out before Capper even shouted, "We got raiders!" they must've had suppressors because I hadn't heard a single shot. We dove behind some parked cars to take cover and make a plan.

"Since when are they smart enough to mod their weapons?" I breathed heavily as I looked around frantically for our attackers.

"Beats me." Capper shrugged paws up style.

I plucked two apples from my vest. "Last two apple grenades. We don't know how many there are—"

"But we can make em run scared." Capper gave me finger guns.

He took one and on three we tossed them at the same time in two different directions of the same general vicinity. I heard shouts and saw a couple ponies dive out of the way. One was more flying than diving and he crashed into the brick wall of a mechanics shop, dead. I heard shouts coming from the alley behind said shop and smirked at Capper. "I hear about 4-5." Enemy markers were already appearing on my compass.

"Never too smart, are they now." Capper stood with his kitty claws bared but I saw his fists beginning to glow from the arcana he'd unlocked on Cumber. I bet it was all the radiation there. As I peppered the few visible enemies with bullets from an old shotgun Capper created two blue orbs in his paws he gave them curious glances, looked around and locked eyes with an invisible spectator then threw the orbs at another raider brave enough to face us. When they struck him it looked like a huge wave of water splashed him in the face. "I think I'm gettin' the hang of this moola!" he snickered and tossed a couple more. The raider was literally drowning in his barrage and fell down choking.

"They're crazy!" yelled one raider, who I shot in the head after pinpointing him from the source of his sound.

"They gotta be mutated!" yelled a mare who I also shot as she tried to dart to another car after yelling and giving herself up.

"And they gotta be dumbasses." I rolled my eyes.

"All raiders are, what are ya gonna do?" Capper laughed as he tossed some orange orbs in a random direction. The magic acted like grenades, a bit less powerful than my apples but still effective in freaking the last of the raiders out.

A bunch could be seen breaking their positions and running through the alley to escape. "Say, you up for a goose chase, friend?" Capper smirked at me as he had a blue orb in one paw and an orange in the other.

"Not sure why you're calling it that, but I'm game." I shrugged and threw the shotgun to the side as it was out of bullets. I drew my trusty revolver.

"Because there really ain't a point to chasing them down when they're just this easy!" Capper yelled it like a war cry and I had no choice but to go after him into the alley.

Neither of us made anymore hostile moves beside chasing them down, but when I looked at him, his energy made me smile. I was actually enjoying the activity of chasing down raiders. Not because violence was fun, I had no standpoint on that either way, but because being with him made me happy even after all the hardships we'd faced. I could forget that he had feelings for Chess, I could forget he neglected to mention his brother, because in the end the wasteland made everypony into a worse version of yourself. Seeing that he could stand up and take it and still have the energy to smile made me feel better.

That is until the raiders became scared of something much worse than a crazy puddy tat and an excellent marksstallion. We reached what looked like a once beautiful public park surrounded by historical buildings. The raiders all stopped in their tracks, trying to backpedal, looking around at each other with horrified faces and looking over their shoulders at us with wide eyes then at the fenced in area in front of them. They all scattered at once, not giving a care for any of their comrades nor us who could kill them at any moment for their lack of strategy. I didn't get what the big deal was. But apparently Capper did when I saw him do a double take and skid to a halt, and for cartoon effect, smoke coming from his heels.

"What, what is it?" I couldn't help but feel the odd one out from a bunch of deviants and my own tomfriend.

"You gonna tell me you don't know?" he rose a skeptical brow at me then realized I didn't. "You make journeys all across the map looking for Stable-Tech secrets, but you don't take much time to look into the places your goin' do ya?"

"Treasure hunting isn't really about what the place is about, it's more about finding what I'm looking for and moving on."

"I got a thing or two to teach you about treasure hunting, but first I got a thing or two to teach you about Swan Lake." the ground began to shake.

"See here," he snapped his fingers then leapt to the iron fence, easily balancing himself on it and walking along. He pointed a glowing claw at a large mass rising from the pond. I stepped out of the alley, and that's when my Pip Buck informed me

You have discovered

SWAN LAKE

Capper grabbed a lampost near the fence and swung around it to avoid a pike then continued walking along the fence.

"You've got yourself a case of class A mutation. Don't get too close folks, it might rub off." he smirked at a joke I didn't know or get.

"I ain't done now." He waggled a finger and jumped off the fence to the sidewalk underneath the open gate. "He ain't a pretty picture, and he towers above the rest. Nopony has seen anything else quite like him. Except maybe one or two others out there in the wild wild wastes." Capper shrugged. "This one's the residential superstar of Broncston and the Back Bray to be more specific." he started walking toward the thing, getting ideas. With two new orbs he lashed out. It only made the creature angry. My Pip Buck labelled it as BEHEMOTH: SWAN.

"They call him a behemoth," he saw me raising my gun and as I fired he used two paws to create a large white ball of mana. Little pinpricks of light shot from it and latched onto the already flying bullets.

The mutant had bulging arms and it had taken what looked like pieces of a swan styled paddle boat to wear as armor. It picked up a huge piece of debris from the pond and tossed it at us. Capper leapt into the air and I saw magic flowing all around.

He landed on all four paws, back arched, on a chunk of road in the water and was facing the Swan head on, "Now to just avoid his massive hammer thingie!" the hammer swung and was aiming to strike him! Capper lifted his paw and what looked like the glowing orange translucent wheel of a pirate ship spun around and then came full circle suddenly as a shield instead.

When the hammer hit him I saw some of his HP fall as he was tossed into the air like shrimp and smash into the old husk of a Tour Bus, what Pinkie Pie called one of the many types of cruiser tanks she commissioned. I had a brief flash of memory in which either she or some soldiers in flashy armor cruised around in them to quote and quote "keep the peace." They were meant for show not war these ones.

I shook my head, getting my cool back to focus on the battle at hoof. However, all thinking was not lost on the cruiser as I remembered a lot were also used to conceal weapons for transport. "Capper, the bus!" I shouted as he picked himself up.

"Bus?" He looked around in a daze. "Oh, Pinkie's Tour Bus." he laughed to himself. "What about it?"

"It should have better weapons to use against this thing!"

"How do y'all know all that now?" he scratched his head but ducked inside regardless. Now the Swan was focused on me.

I jumped back as he smashed his hammer into the road I had just been standing in. The big guy moved quite fast, but now that I saw him out of water, I think that was only in the pond. He'd reached this spot quickly from there but now he was lumbering. Capper emerged from the tank looking pleased. "This'll do, but come get it fast!"

The hammer smashed down again, and there was no way I was getting there like this. Capper shot a red orb at me which stopped before hitting me and another spot of magic dosed me like with the bullets. I suddenly felt energized, and my hooves did a little dance before I darted between cars like I'd trained to be a race horse all my life instead of an Overseer. I was near Capper before I knew it and he tossed me a large weapon. It was heavy on my shoulder but I hoisted it.

I was now carrying a T-shirt cannon, Pinkie's name for an amplified rocket launcher she, Rarity and Dash had worked on. It relied heavily on arcane tech to bolster the missile inside. This packed thrice the punch of a normal bazooka. I fired it and it hit the behemoth square on. He was thrown back but terrifyingly not knocked off his feet.

Capper handed me another missile. When I fired again, I felt the full force of the recoil. I had felt it before but I was losing my steam and I dropped the weapon. "There ain't no more missiles anyway." Capper shrugged and we took cover on the other side of the tank.

"Capper, I'm struggling here." I wheezed.

"He's a tough guy, many have tried and failed, might I add, to take him down."

"Then what the hell are we doing?" I felt my heartbeat speed up.

Capper put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't you worry. Did ya forget, you got a nice trump card up your sleeve. Or rather in your pocket."

"You mean the…Rage?" I eyed him warily. Just then the hammer swung full force into the tank and I felt the impact through the whole hull.

"Yes, and whatever you decide I support you in full, baby. But you're gonna need to decide right now."

I slipped it out of my vest and held it in my hooves. The stomps of the Swan were only seconds away. I gulped and sucked it up. I stuck the needle in my foreleg as fast as I could and pressed the grip down. It gurgled and I felt cool liquid course through my veins. Then I felt my heart racing and my mind reeling. "Your eyes supposed to do that? Get bigger?"

"Buck that!" I ran out from behind the metal shell just as it was getting smashed in and didn't even look back as Capper did a magically aided back flip away. I grabbed onto the shaft of the hammer, much too big for me, and ripped it from the monster's grip. Then with the strength I could muster, which was a lot but I was only doing once no matter how long the drug's effects lasted, I smashed the beast and let go of the hammer in the momentum. For a second I thought it was getting up, then it struggled to just its four hooves and that's when I noticed.

It was definitely a pony, but horribly deformed to the point of bulging and bubbling masses that caused it to grow uncontrollably. The then Overseer and now treasure hunter in me took those observations but the Rage and Capper's magic in me ran full speed at the thing without stopping for a second after tossing that toy and tackled it. I was punching it over and over. Capper came in behind me and pulled me from it, then he put his paws together and a blue and white beam of light finished the bitch off just as I was laying on the street in the dust on my back, holding myself up from my forelegs. The light shone upon me, making everywhere else seem super dark.

When it dimmed to nothing Capper backed up from the finished off corpse of the behemoth. I was breathing heavily and still felt ready to tear into more enemies. "I think I'm getting the hang of this magic stuff." he said to nopony in particular then his laugh that came after a brief pause reminded me that our duo was a trio. I tried to hold back my anger but I needed to let it out as the battle was over and I was still Raging.

"Why'd you do that!? I had him!"

"Calm down, Blitzy, you still got a buzz from that chem." Capper offered a paw and I took it, letting him help me up.

My eyes darted around and I felt jumpy. But now that the heat of battle was fading away there was something else. A pulsing energy. Things started bursting with dark shades of red in my vision and I laughed heartily. Then I yelled, "I'll kill them all!" My hooves were dancy, and I fucking bolted. "Capper, we're still heading to Sanctuary, get a Faust damn move on!" this felt good.

"Okay there warhorse." Capper was laughing out loud. I was way ahead of him but I wouldn't lose track of him. I loved him too much. The energy that I put into my rage was also going into my emotions for him.

"Faust I wanna fuck him so bad right now." I wondered if this is how raiders felt after doing this shit.

"I heard that!" Capper yelled to me. I stopped in my tracks and let him catch up. I was dodgy, looking everywhere at all the shadows trying to lash out at us.

"Didn't mean for you too."

We kept moving and we heard a gunfight. I thought it was in the distance but for some reason it kept getting closer. I put it off as the Rage making me paranoid but then Capper pulled me to a stop. "You hear that?"

"And don't come back you hear?!" a mare was yelling loudly.

I saw a raider dart by an alleyway, and it looked like one that we'd chased to Swan Lake. We ran toward the direction of the shout and saw a mare walking away from what looked like an old convenience store situated between two unidentifiable buildings that had been boarded up. I saw ponies inside working to fortify the location. As this was a T-intersection, and it was at the head of the perpendicular street, it would be a good place to defend. "Wait up!"

The mare turned to us as we ran up and thank Faust the Rage was wearing off as I'd done my best to exert extra energy in the few blocks from the Lake. I'm sure if I hadn't been fighting it would've lasted way longer which is probably how ponies got addicted to it. Misuse. I shook myself off, jittery but calm again. I'd think about everything later. First I wanted to ask about this shop and why she was leaving in such a hurry.

"Who are you?" she asked, adjusting her wide brimmed hat. Cords on it were hanging into her big white scarf.

"My name's Ravager Blitzfire, this is Capper."

"Blitz—oh! I know you, or at least, I've heard of you. Press talks about you. Wondered where you'd gone off to."

"Oh, so you're a Minute Hoof?"

"That's correct."

"Where you off to in such a hurry?" I asked her.

"Back to Sanctuary to request backup at this location. There's a chem station so we could brew up lots of potions and remedies for the homefront." she smiled with her eyes closed, looking all cute.

"Well, it seems like you have some authority here, am I right?" Capper leaned closer to her, one paw beneath his chin inquisitively.

"I suppose, but I had to show leadership, bravery, by going back to get more ponies to help." she looked flustered.

"Two things wrong with that," Capper held up his paw pads to count it off, "One, you're leaving your compatriotes and two, you got us now so don't worry!"

"Oh! Really?"

"We were heading to Sanctuary to see if Press could use some help with the Castle anyway. We heard about it on the radio." I shrugged, nonchalant.

"Okay!" she did a little jump, "The raiders seem to be camping out in a factory warehouse type building a mile or so up the road," she pointed at the street leading directly away from the convenient store. "They've laid out heavy traps so none of us have dared go up there. Are you sure?"

"I think we can avoid them," I nodded.

"I'm light on my feet," Capper winked.

"Alright! Gives me more time to set up shop here. The boys would love it if I stayed. And Shell…" she trailed off as she wandered back to the storefront. Then she stopped cold. "Oh, I was so busy thinking about all this nasty business and how Press looks so fondly on you that I forgot to mention that he's not the only one talking about you."

My blood ran cold for a second. That could mean a million things and anxiety flushed through me. "What does that mean?" I demanded a bit too harshly.

"A little orange pony and a huge armored guy looking like a Steel Ranger but with a way slicker face mask came into town only a few days ago. They wanted the Minute Hooves to spread the word that Bittsberg was safe and that they were looking for you." she saw my uneasiness and gave me a reassuring smile. "If it helps I'll send you off with supplies when you get back so you can more easily make your way to them. They seem important by the way you're giving me dagger eyes."

I kicked up some dust lightly with one hoof and barely uttered, "Um, yeah." she hopped off inside, too perky for her own good.

(Footnote: Can you believe the size of that Swan?! It was no ugly duckling that was for sure. Keep in mind they agree to help the Minute Hooves now, so don't forget about the little quip from DJ Pon3, it's a reference for later in the story. Also if you remember in the flashback, the butterfly knife/tomohawk slices Blitz in the chest. Where do you think he got his scar? Also, I believe that finally wraps up that little flashback storyline! Anyway, can't wait to post the next Chapter, let's keep this rolling!)

Brohoof! /)