AN: So with school, I am writing another story that will be updated more than this one. I will still work on this, rest assured. But I just thought I would let you know.

"Oh COME ON!" I yell in frustration as the taint soaks in.

"Thanks for taking one for the team." Hawkens says to me when I land.

"Are you ok? Anything hurting?" Twilight asks me, rushing to me.

"It's ok. I'm fine. Just some taint."

"Well at least let me look you over." She insists, and I let her. Her horns glow and I can feel the magic feeling around inside of me. It feels very weird but I let her continue. After a few minutes, the glowing dies and she says, "Well, your insides are fine. You have a new organ pair though. Above your spine near your tail and along your neck are two glands. They seem to generate pyre."

"Well I guess now you really are a 'hot head.'" Stardust jokes.

*Thump.* A divot suddenly appears on the ground under my head. We all look around to see what that could have come from.

"SNIPER!" Twilight explains, pointing towards one of the ruins far behind us. There is nowhere to hide so Twilight has all three of her horns glow and generates a transparent, midnight blue field around us. A second later, something ricochets of the field.

"Made any more enemies that we should know about?" Stardust asks.

"Not that I know about."

"Flare, look through my sniper and see if you can see who or what is shooting at us." Twilight orders me. I grab the sniper from her back and set it down. I look through the scope and I can see a reflection from the sun on the top of one of the ruins. I zoom in and can see an outline of a pony, lying down. The only thing I can tell about the pony is that it is an earth pony.

"Sniper alright, on the top of a ruin. It's an earth pony but I can't tell anything more than that."

"We need to get to cover and fast. If not, this day may be our last."

"Ya don't say." Hawkens replies. "Anyone have an idea of where we can hide?"

"There!" I say, pointing to a rest station.

"Good as anything. Let's move." Twilight says, dropping the shield. A second after, a round hits the ground where we were. As we get closer to the station, my rad-meter starts to go off. I lead the gang behind the station but far enough away so we don't irradiate ourselves.

"Is everyone ok?" I ask.

"Yeah. The sniper missed us, barely." Twilight replies

"I guess we need to be more careful." I say.

"Are you really going to be captain obvious?" Hawkens asks sarcastically.

"Whate…huh, what's this?" I ask myself, noticing some red arrows on my E.F.S, closely followed by barking. "I think we found Violet."

Twilight gets her sniper ready and looks down the scope in the direction of the barking. "Twelve dogs, and Violet."

"Take out the dogs as fast as you can. Leave Violet to Shiara." I command.

Hawkens proceeds to jump into the pack of dogs rushing at us, while Twilight takes out what she can. Shiara, meanwhile, is galloping as fast as she can towards Violet, with her machete in her mouth. Some of the dogs get to Stardust, Twilight, and me. I proceed to use my grapples to lift two of them into the air and Stardust char grills them. I then use the grapples to stab the other two dogs through their skulls. Now that those dogs are taken care of, and Hawkens has a pile of shredded dogs bodies on the ground surrounding him, we watch as Shiara fights against Violet. Violet is, well, violet colored with a dark purple mane and tail. He Fiend armor is basically scraps of whatever they could put together, with steel scraps, spikes, rubber tires pieces, and other random junk that somehow fits together to provide protection. She has a hunting rifle attached to her side and is trying to use it to shoot Shiara, and failing miserably. Shiara, while dodging the shots, takes stabs at Violet and one of her attacks severs the rifle from Violet's side. Now defenseless, Violet is trying to hit Shiara with her hooves, and is still failing. Shiara dodges one of the attacks, jumps up to the roof of a nearby trailer, and jumps at Violet. She cuts Violet's head off at the base of the neck. She wraps the head up in a sack near her and the brings it over to me. Twilight grabs it with her magic before I can get a hold of it and puts it in one of her saddle bags. I still have no idea how anything fits in them, with all of the medicine and ammo inside. One of my arrows on my E.F.S. vanishes, so I start off towards one of the other arrows. Soon enough, I an see a few Brahmin, bloated, two headed cow mutts, near what looks like a half destroyed building, but now-a-days, one can never be to sure.

"This must be where Cook-Cook is." I say. "Let me take him, pyro vs. pyro."

"Whatever dude. We'll take on the rest." Hawkens replies to me.

"Sounds like a plan." I reply before taking off and flying into the metaphorical meta-bee nest. The Fiends in their makeshift base try to shoot be down through the gaping hole that comes from a lacking roof. My response to that is to shoot my pyre rifle at them. The Pyre explodes near them and they are lit ablaze. I laugh to myself as the run around in panic. Suddenly, I am hit by a ball of fire, the force of which knocks me to the ground. I, not being even slightly harmed by the fire, get up and look for my attacker. I find a huge earth pony clad in steel armor and it had a welders mask on. On each of its sides were a Pyre-cannon and a Pyre-thrower respectively.

"Come to burn to death?" He asks me. "FINE BY ME!" He continues, laughing insanely.

"If you haven't noticed, I am partially made of fire dumbass." I reply to him, making my mane and tail flare up.

"Well then, pyro vs. pyro. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU UUUUUUUUUN!" He yells before launching more fire at me. I, of course, absorb the fire, and send it into my pyre canisters for later use. I rush at him, taking out my grapples, and prepare to stab through his steel armor, or his neck for the kill. He launches more fire at me until I get close enough for him to use his Pyre-thrower and bathe me in fire.

"You idiot, you're just making me stronger." I shout at Cook-Cook. Now practically blazing, I am next to him, and melting his armor. I send a grapple through a gap in his armor, between his mask and his armor. The grapple comes out through the other side of his neck, and I pull his head off. I turn calm down to turn my fire down and carry the head of Cook-Cook to Twilight and she puts it in her saddle bag. Two arrows left, so I head toward the next one.

"This must be Driver Nephi's hideout." Hawkens says as we near a two story ruin crawling with fiends.

"Now who's being captain obvious?" I ask him rhetorically.

"Nyeh shuttup."

"What do you see?" I ask Twilight, noticing that she is looking through her scope.

"Looks like there are nearly 20 fiends in there that I can see. I can see Nephi. He has a driver on his back, go figure."

"Well then, Stardust, this looks like a job for you. Just make sure not to hit Nephi." I say to her.

"Then let the fun begin." She says before targeting a group of fiends on the second level. *BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!* She char grills that entire group. This obviously gets the entire groups attention and they swarm out to get us. Twilight snipes one after the other but by this time they are almost on us.

"How the hell are they this fast?" I ask before almost getting hit with a golf club. I look to the attacker, who must be Nephi. He is a grey Pegasus with a lightning yellow mane and tail. His Fiends armor looks lighter than the others and he is already coming back in for another go at me. I take off to meet him with my grapples out. Nephi tries to take a swing at me when we get close but I fly under his swing, and grab the club with one of my grapples and I threw it on the ground. After, I do an immelmann loop, fly over him, and with both grapples, clip his wings. He tumbles to the ground and crashes in a cloud of dust. I drop down to meet him but I get intercepted by another Pegasus. Seeing as the only one who needs to be in one piece after death is Nephi, I light up even more, let my grapples out to their full length, and begin to spin around, creating a tornado, and proceed to create a flaming tornado, just as I had in the simulation last night. This engulfs the surrounding pegasi and the smell of burning fur and flesh begins to fill the air as more of the pegasi as drawn into my tornado. Soon, my tornado connects with the ground and now it is sucking up the earth ponies and unicorns. I can hear somepony yelling my name from outside the tornado, so I slow my rotations to a stop. I can see that Twilight has Nephi in a levitation field.

"Flare, they're all burned. Hawkens also wants to fight Nephi here." She informs me.

"Let him at the Fiend. Just make sure they are both in a field so Nephi can't escape."

'Thanks bro." Hawkens says at my statement. Twilight then quickly releases the field around Nephi and then remakes it to surround both him and Hawkens. Nephi, now able to move around, is already dashing at Hawkens, driven in mouth, wings flapping to move him faster. Hawkens, prepared for this, already has his claws ready and fly's at Nephi. Nephi draws his club back for a swing as the get closer to each other and Hawkens lets his claws trail behind him. When they connect, Hawkens claws shred through the club and leave a gash in Nephi's shoulder. The head of the club hits the ground with a resounding *ping*. Now defenseless, Nephi begins to try to flee, but is only caught in the field and repelled back. Hawkens takes advantage of this, fly's at Nephi, grabs him with one claw, and uses the other to grab his heart through his rib-cage, and pull it out. The now dead Nephi slouches and Hawkens drops the body. Twilight, using her extensive medical magic, is able to cleanly sever the head from the body. She then proceeds to put the severed head in her bottomless saddlebags.

"How the hell do you fit everything into those saddlebags?" I ask her.

"I put a spell on them that quintuples their internal size."

"Well ok then. Next target is Moto-Runner. I guess it's time to go into the hive."

After returning back towards Camp MacMaren, we enter the ruins that are supposed to house MarkStable 3, the center of the Fiend operation. Upon entry, we are seen by two Fiends who shoot at us with varmint rifles. Shiara proceeds to cut them up with her Machete. We continue on, further through the "hive." There are a few more Fiends every so often as we move along the fallen or partially standing buildings. I can tell we are getting closer to the stable because there are more and more of the raiders coming across us. Soon enough, we are swarmed. Twilight has a field around us that blocks weapons fire. Stardust is popping out of the field every so often to zap the occasional grouping of Fiends. As they get closer to us, Shiara jumps out from nowhere and cuts them up, before disappearing back into whatever ninja dimension that she come from. Hawkens and I can only sit back and wait for the onslaught to end.

"FLARE, HAWKENS!" Twilight yells at us over the sound of weapons and falling Fiends. "I'm going to teleport up to that building to get a better sniping zone. That's going to leave you two to fend them off."

Hawkens and I jump up, flapping our wings to stay up. Hawkens cracks his claws and says, "Bring it on." Twilight teleports up to a three story ledge and begins to snipe down Fiend after Fiend. Hawkens and I, on the other hoof, fly into the fray and take on the pegasi that are keeping Stardust from moving very far. Hawkens takes advantage of the fact that he is airborn to shoot his shotguns into the groups of pegasi. The recoil from each shot sends him flying back a good 10 feet, but there are no buildings at his height so he can easily recover in time to reload and shoot down another group. He also manages to use his grenades again when he cuts one of the pegasi, leaving a gash big enough for him to shove a grenade in, blowing him and another 4 fiends to kingdom come. I, however, am flying around with my grapples out, cutting down Fiends left and right. In a few minutes, the Fiends are reduced to corpses on the ground, some smoking.

"Well I'd say that that is taken care of, now to the stable." I say to nopony in particular.

We head off towards the direction where all of the Fiends seemed to be coming from, and find a still standing building. It's more of a garage of sorts, leading down towards a large metal door in the shape of a golden Lyre. I walk up to the console next to the door and open it. Inside is a mare with a hunting rifle on her side.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" She asks. "Get the buck out now before I kill you."

"Um...no." I reply before sending a grapple through her eye. Not shortly after, the Fiends swarm through the entrance to the rest of the stable to try and kill us. Instead, they come face to face with Hawkens shotguns. Needless to say, there were no more Fiends in our way. Unfortunately, the recoil sent him into the stable door. "We really need to find you those gems."

"Yeah, no recoil would be nice." Hawkens replies, his head wobbling around a bit. Twilight walks over him and uses her magic to heal his newly created concussion.

"You guys go ahead." She says to us. "We'll catch up later."

Shiara, Stardust, and I move on through the stable. Each room we enter has a group of Fiends that are quickly cut down by Shiara or electrocuted by Stardust. I have my rifle out, with the spell-packs for ammo, ready to take down whoever in in our way. I hear an explosion in the distance along with echo of party horns.

"Twilight must be using the party cannon." Stardust observes from the sound.

"I pity the foals who mess with her." I reply.

"Who are you?" Stardust asks sarcastically. "The original Iron Will?"

"Just practicing, in case I need to."

"Whatever the scenario, I will stand beside you. I will stand by you through thick and thin, and ensure that we win."

"Yes indeed Shiara, and I appreciate that. Now then, my E.F.S. is pointing lower, so Moto-Runner must be in the depths of this stable."

"Then let's go." Stardust replies before galloping off in one direction. She soon gallops back to us, with a veritable hoard behind her. In quick response, I change my rifle to Pyre mode and rapid fire off some pyre bursts. The result is a mass of burning Fiends, screaming in pain and rage. We quickly run off in the other direction, and after a few twists and turns and stairs, we find ourselves in what looks to be the maintenance wing, which is confirmed by my Pip-Buck. Since my E.F.S. seems clear of reds, we decided to loot the area. I find some big rounds, some pre-war potions, and a memory sphere. I proceed to download the memory into my Pip-Buck and it says that it will take 5 minutes to download. Once we are done looting, we move further on through the stable. As we get further in, the walls appear to be covered in more and more blood. Surprisingly, there are few Fiends in the halls of the stable, but soon enough, I can hear the sound of an engine. It gets closer as we get even further in the stable until, after opening a door, I can see the pony who must be Moto-Runner. He is a cyber-pony like I was. He is an earth pony, black coat with a crimson mane. His cutie mark looks like a body cut in half. His two front legs are replaced with makeshift mechanized arms with claws. He is sitting in a junk throne in the center of the room with two dogs on his sides, and in front of him is a chainsaw, stuck in the ground.

"So you must be the vigilantes who have been destroying my Fiends. TIME TO DIE!" He yells, pointing a metallic finger at me. His dogs instantly charge at me but Shiara cuts them down. He angers at this, stands up on his back legs, picks up his chainsaw in both claws, and charges at me. At the same instant, Twilight teleports, with Hawkens, behind us. In the time before Moto-Runner gets to me, I say to the group, "Let me take him. Stand back unless I am going to get my head cut off." I bring out my grapples and prepare to fight. He tries to bring his chainsaw down on me but I bring both of my grapples up to block the attack. The chainsaw connects with the metal of my grapples, bringing sparks. It hurts like hell but I hold my grapples against it. With some effort, I repel the chainsaw and jump away before it can drop back onto my head. I then leap back at him, lit up more than normal. He sees me coming and swipes at me with a claw. He hits the side of my head, drawing blood. This lights me up even more, and I fly at him for a headbutt. I'm moving to fast for him to dodge to my head connects with his side, burning him. The metal of his armor melts into his skin, causing him to yell in pain. I take this moment to bring both of my grapples down on one of his arms, where it connect to his body. The metal joint disconnects and the arm falls to the ground with a loud clang. This causes him to drop the chainsaw, due to its weight and lack of an arm. With this opportunity, I send both of my grapples through his chest, and bringing them out the sides. Twilight severs the head with her magic and puts it with all of the others.

"Let me heal you up Flare, who knows what else Moto-Runner damaged other than your face." Twilight says to me.

"Fine, gives us a chance to see what this memory i picked up is." I reply before laying down and setting my Pip-Buck into the projector mode. A still image begins to appear on one of the walls, showing what must have been the Over-mares office.

Other than the Over-mare, who's memory we must be seeing since we are seeing behind the desk, there is a white unicorn mare with a black, flowing mane. Her cutie mark is an open eye with six lines extending out of the pupil, forming a circle. Suddenly, the mares eyes start to glow a bright white and she starts to rise. Our host perks up at this, and begins to pay more attention to her. Now the unicorn begins to speak, but it sounded like multiple voices speaking at the same thing at the same time.

"THE FIRES OF DETERMINATION MARK THE BEGINNING OF THE END! THE BRUTE FORCE OF JUDGEMENT WILL BE THE SECOND, AND WILL GO ALONGSIDE THE FLAME! THEY WILL BE CALMED BY CORRUPTED EMPATHY, AND HEALING WILL SPREAD! HIDDEN WISDOM WILL GUIDE THE SURVIVORS, AND GIVE THEM THE ADVANTAGE WHEN NEEDED! SHOCKING RESPONSIBILITY WILL REVEAL ITSELF, AND MORALITY WILL FOLLOW! ALL WILL HAVE THEIR INTEGRITY TRIED, AND MOST WILL BREAK, EXCEPT THE ONE WITH AN IRON WILL! THE END WILL OCCUR AFTER THE RISE OF MACHINE, AND THE WORLDS FIRST DESTRUCTION!" She then fell on the floor and the Over-mare rushed to her side. The unicorn began to wake up again and the Over-mare asked.

"Are you OK? You just gave another prophecy."

"My head hurst a little, but nothing else."

"Well that was an abrupt end, not to mention a prophecy that was dificult to comprehend." Shiara states after a few minutes.

"I'd say. What do you think it was about?" Hawkens asks.

"Whatever it is, it can't be good." I reply after getting up from Twilight healing me.

LEVEL UP: LV. 17

Perk Added: Grapple Wizard Rank 4

You now deal 10%(40% overall) more damage with your grapples and can lift 10%(40% overall). Your grapples are also 50 less likely to break. You are 20% more dexterous with your grapples, increasing lockpicking skill.