'Traveling with Hawkins hasn't been so bad. He can be a bit loco at some points but when it matters, he is there through and through.' I think to myself.

"Hey Hawkins, do you want to listen to anything on the radio?" I ask him

"Let's listen to see if there is anything noteworthy on the news. Let's set up camp while we listen."

'Well it is 10:00 at night.' I realize after checking my Pip-Buck's clock.

"Hey all you ponies out there. This is DJ Pon-3 here with the latest news for the last time today. Rumor has it that the resident doctor of New Pegasus, Dr. Horn, has been treating his patients with zebra black magic, not the good voodoo, but with the bad juju. Now this is an unconfirmed rumor so stay tuned as we update our information. In other news, fighting between the NCR and the LOZ(Legion of Zebras) had been getting more and more violent as rumors are balefire bombs are in the Legions' possession. Finally, plans for a SPP tower in the heart of New Pegasus have been confirmed. With this tower, Littlepip will be able to finally maintain the weather in New Pegasus and the surrounding areas. Tune back in as early as 9 in the morning to hear what happened overnight, and who knows, with the new player in the game, anything could happen. Now for some rockin new beats. With the release of the album Balloon Party, 45 new songs have been released to the public straight from Equestria's greatest artist. From that album, I give you Bronies are Weird by Senntenial."

Now that some techno-step, started to play, we started to look for a place to set up camp.

"Hey, that ridge looks like a good place to set up camp. I'll go scout it out since I am clearly the scout, where as you are the weapons expert. It also helps that I can fly." Hawkins states as he points to a rocky bluff that overlooks the road.

"Yeah, you might want to scout that out in your stealth mode. It looks like the perfect place for a sniper's nest."

"Your right."

While he's scaling up the side of the cliff, I can tell that his claws are taking a toll. It's an 85 degree incline all the way up. Even though it's dark, I can see well enough that I know where he is just by the fact that some of his feathers are brighter than others. I can see where he is on the cliff, already over halfway there when suddenly.

"Nyeeeeeh!" Hawkins screeched as part of the cliff collapsed inward on itself.

"Are you alright?" I yell

"NYEEEEEH!"

I jump up at the sound of his screeching and rush to see what the problem is. I can see a few rocks jutting out from the sides of the cliff and I use my wings to super jump up on those rocks and have reached the the spot where he vanished in 10seconds flat.

"What is it!" I ask

But then I realize what he was screeching at as I look at a pile of skeletons, of earth ponies, Unicorns, and even Pegasi. It looked like some sort of messed up ritual pyre or something.

'What the f*ck is going on here?' I ask myself in my thoughts.

"It's a f*cking bone pile. Judging buy the dirt tracks, it looks like the came from this cave, pulled out by a unicorn because all I see are hooveprints that go back and forth. Whomever did this is still here because these tracks are fresh. I don't know who is doing this, but I need to know why, and if they are messed up raiders, I'm sure my claws can do the talking." Hawkins threatens.

"Well lets just see what the f*ck is going on in that cave first, then we can do something about it.

The cave where it seems all of the bones are coming from is not all that large, maybe 6' to the ceiling and only wide enough for maybe 3 or 4 ponies to walk side by side at the same time.

"I'm going to turn my Pip-Buck's flashlight on OK."

"Please do, it's pitch black dark in here."

When I turn it on, I see that we had almost smacked our heads into a giant metal door. As we step back, I realize that it in the shape of Doc Mitchel's cutie mark without the needle and stimpack.

"I think this is one of the Protomark stables." Hawkins says quietly.

"Why do you say that?" I ask

"Well, you know about the Mark stables right?"

"Heh heh,well, not really. I am only a courier and this is my first time this far out in the middle ground. My most common route had been between Tenpony tower and New Canterlot, which happened to be on the exact opposite sides of Equestria."

"Well let me give you the short version. In the Middle Ground, we don't have normal stables. There are around 24 surrounding the New Pegasus area called Mark Stables. Everything in them was and still is in some cases top of the line. Now, things get even more weird. None of them have the typical cog door like all of your fancy Equestrian stables. The doors look like someponies cutie mark. Now here's where the legend begins, there are allegedly 6 Protomark stables. They all have the cutie mark of one of the Ministry Mares and all of their overmares could communicate with one another. Now, 5 of the Protomark stables make a some sort of shape and in the center of this shape in a legendary megaspell of destruction, which happens to be found in the sixth, and the only way to get into the sixth is by getting a Pip-Buck with the cyber key of the surrounding 5. It was said that the megaspell has the power to separate the New Pegasus area away from everything for a good 1000 years, in case of any apocalyptic event. Now whether this legend is true or not, nopony has ever found a Mark Stable and lived to tell the tale for to long. The usually come out full of holes or in the wind as a pink powder. There are also 6 Cybermark stables which have the same marks as the Protomark doors but those are a lot farther away and a used as decoy's. That's how I got my claw covers, in Rarities Cybermark stable."

"So then this is Fluttershy's Protomark stable?" I ask

"Yes, and I know this to be true, because I found her Cybermark stable. The entrance is literally inside of a tree and it is full of plant-pony hybrid monsters. I left a.s.a.p."

"Then that means that this stable was dedicated to advancing medical technology, right?" I ask

"Yep, that also means that whoever is in here may be either a looter or somepony just destroying everything. If that's the case, we need to stop them."

"I agree. Do you know how to enter the place?" I ask.

"Yep, through the gap in the side."

"Wait what gap?"

Then I see that somepony had blown a hole in the bottom right wing of Fluttershy's cutie mark door.

"Let's be quite, we don't know who or what is in here." I say as I pull out my magic pistol

Hawkins is glaring at the pistol, probably still a little bit pissed that I singed his wing.

I poke my head through the door first, nothing on my E.F.S. so I signal that the room is clear. As we both enter, we are shocked to see that, not only is the power is running, but it seems that the entire facility is still in perfect condition. Then we notice the security robot floating towards us.

"Hey, I thought I told you raiders to get the buck out of here. Oh wait, you wouldn't happen to be that flaming hero that DJ Pon-3 was going on about would you?" it says after it notices who we are not.

'Someone obviously is in control of this robot, otherwise there would be no other explanation as to why this robot can talk like a 18 year old mare.'

"Why yes I am. What do you want help with." I say

"Well, I was restoring this Protovault to its original condition when I was attacked by the security bots. I ran away and ended up trapped in the Overmare's office. There is an override key on one of the robots that is in the maintenance room of this Stable. If you would be so kind as to help me, I would offer my medical expertise to you and your amigo over there. I would also pay you."

"What are we talking about here, caps, Legion coins, NCR cash?" Hawkins asks her

"Better, I will pay you with a Green Opal."

"Let's do this then!" Hawkins yells

"Whoa whoa whoa, why are you so into this rescue mission right now. Whats a Green Opal?"

"I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it. They are very recent technology, maybe last 50 years, and at one made per month, well you get the picture. You know that the Black Opal allows for non unicorns to see whats hidden in those memory spheres."

"Yeah, I have my own Black Opal."

"Makes this a whole lot more simple. A Green Opal is like a Data Converter. You can take it, hook it up to you Pip-Buck, and if your a Unicorn, download the memory from a memory sphere right into the Pip-Buck's memory. Now, there's a custom hook-up that I have been known to do for the right price that replaces the unicorn element with a Black Opal. If we get that Green Opal, I can hook it and your Black Opal up to your Pip-Buck and then we can just download any info from a sphere straight to your Pip-Buck. There's a software update to the Pip-Buck that allows it to play video but I'm sure that you with your scientific capabilities can whip it up." Hawkins tells me.

"Actually, I can give your the software update. I've been testing it out on an old Pip-Buck 100 but it keeps dying right after I finish the video." Says the mysterious mare.

"Well then, we'll get right to saving you. Would you kindly tell me where the maintenance room is." I tell her.

"It's on the bottom level. Sorry but that's where the robot is and its not moving. It is talking to me for some reason. Says it's name is Appletracks."

"OK, hold the phone. Did you say Appletracks?" I ask.

"Yeah, why?"

"That's the Robot that dug me up and basically saved my life."

"Well that complicates things a bit."

"How so?" I ask her

"Well, the thing wants to kill me. I may have tried to salvage parts from it after I hit it with an EMP spell."

"Your kidding right. Well, I guess I'll try to reason with it. You know it works for Mr. Stable."

"Well f*ck. My mom's not gonna be happy about this. First the taint and now this. Ugh, I'm gonna use this robot to help you while I'm locked in here. The name's Twilight Break by the way"

"Nice to know, now tell us where to go." I say

"Well, the elevator has collapsed so there is no way of getting to it except from the bottom floor, from there, if you could fix it, you could take it all the way up to the top floor and from there, the Overmare's office since the elevator was the only way in. You'll have to take the stairs. Be warned, there are a lot of mutts(mutations) down there. I managed to sneak myself past them but it was hard. I had to use my hypnosis spells just to keep them loony enough for me to pass by unnoticed." Twilight says.

"Well that's no problem for me but Flare here isn't exactly mister light on his feet, even for a pegasus." Hawkins informs her

"Either of you have a weapon that uses Pyremagic on you."

"Yeah, my pistol does. Don't ask how, it just uses it to shoot flaming bullets."

"Then take this robots Pyremagic. It should be enough to last you a while."

Now we set off. She's opening the door and a hiss of steam later, I get tackled by a mutt. Hawkins claws its' face and its ' muzzle just falls off, splashing me with it's tainted blood. It jumps back in shock and I take the opportunity to snap it's neck with one of my grapples.

"Dang, mutts already. This is gonna be fun." Hawkins laughs

Level Up – LV.5

Perk Added – Grapple wizard Rank 1

The damage you deal with your grapples increases by 10% for each additional rank up this perk gets. You can also move 10% more weight with each rank up this perk gets.

Perk Added – Flares' Taint Rank .5

Your inner fire is sparking, you deal 5% more damage with Pyre weapons and take 5% less damage from any explosion or Pyre weapon attack. When Taint Rank 5 is reached, exterior transformations will occur. When Taint Rank 10 is reached, full mutation will be done.

AN: I am going on vacation for a few days so I wont be able to update until for a little bit. I am also putting all of the OC's onto my other deviant-art account that has the same name as this one.