AN: ARGH! school is a pain, and AP physics, even more so. but I still managed to get this out, so enjoy.

"Let's get out of here before any more Fiends show up." I say to the group.

"Agreed, but how do we get out?" Hawkens asks.

"Just follow me." I set off in the direction my Pip-Buck tells me to go, thank you E.F.S. Anyways, I lead the way back up through the maze of a stable with little interference from the Fiends. A few try to be smart and sneak up on us but they are easily taken care of. By the time we get outside, the sun is going down and the clouds in the sky glow with a red and orange hew.

"Dang, we've been in that stable all day." Hawkens states.

"Yeah." I reply. "We need to get those heads up to Camp McMaren before they start to rot."

"Dahtri is unavailable at the moment." One of the NCR soldiers tells when we ask for him. "Try again after sunrise tomorrow."

"Thanks." I reply. Turning to the rest of the group, I say. "Well, may as well get some rest."

We all head towards the skycarriage and get in. It is surprisingly large on the inside, with 6 bunks on one side, a stove, refrigerator, storage chest, and cupboard on the other, and still had room for the New Equestrian Solar Power Core towards the back, which was the size of a pony. Anyways, I get in the bunk above Twilights and instantly fall asleep. When I wake up in the morning, Hawkens is already making something that smells delicious. I get out of the bunk and see that Twilight is still sleeping, and she looks very cute. I go over to Hawkens and he gives me a plate of food and grabs some for himself.

"It's a mix of various plants, all edible, flavored by some honey that I found in the cupboard."

"Sounds delicious." I say before grabbing some of it with my grapples and eating it. It is, as always, delicious. After I finish eating the delectable dish, I go wake up Twilight.

"Twi. Wake up." I whisper. "Time to go and have some more adventures."

Her eyes slowly open and she yawns awake. Her normally streamline mane is now shaggy with bedhead.

"What time is it?"

"It's time for you to wake up. Everyone else is already awake and Hawkens made breakfast."

She lifts her head into the bottom of my bunk at the mention of Hawkens and breakfast with a bonk.

"I take it you want some food."

"Get out of my way hotshot." She replies.

"Whatever you say egghead." She glares at me and I just crack up and move out of her way. I then go outside and the sun's heat wakes me up even more. I sit down at the side of the skycarriage and turn on the radio.

"GOOD MORNING MIDDLE GROUND! Ready for some good news? The Fiends are done. Our favorite flaming pegasus and his comrades took down their leaders yesterday. If I were them, I would head over to the NCR base at Camp McMaren and pick up their bounty. In other news, Redwing Lucy, the head of the Thorn, is looking for new hunters to collect creatures for the fights. Also, reports of a strange pony who knows about the future have been sent from my sources at Fortification Hill. Lastly, it seems that a new species of mutated creatures is appearing. Reports of doppelgangers killing whomever they look like and then feasting on the body have recently come to me. The reports are only coming from the edges of the New Pegasus territory so don't stay off the roads if you have to leave the area. Tune in later for more updates on the wild wild wasteland. For now, have some music."

"Did she say Redwing Lucy?" Hawkens asks, his head poking out from the doorway to the skycarriage.

"Yeah, why?"

"We need to go to the Thorn. She is a long lost friend of mine."

"After we collect the bounties, we'll go."

"Thanks." He replies, lightly punching my shoulder. "I owe you one."

"OK guys." Stardust says, trotting towards us with a sack of caps in her mouth. "The total bounty for the Fiends was 2000 caps."

"Nice!" I reply. "Could you give those to Twilight? After you do, we need to go to the Thorn."

"So this is the Thorn." Twilight observes, looking at the signs above a ponyhole in the ground that say Thorn. Hawkens pry's open the ponyhole cover and jumps down into it.

"Wait for us!" I shout after him, jumping down after him, followed by the rest of the group. It looks less like a sewer down here and more like an underground town. I follow the sound of Hawkens claws to a huge pit in the middle of the room. I can see Hawkens running towards a griffin overlooking the pit. The griffin notices Hawkens and, even though her face doesn't change, I can tell that something is going on inside her head.

"Lucy, is it really you?" Hawkens asks the griffin.

"Yes it is you dolt. I'm surprised you're here, after the raid and all." She replies, punching his shoulder. She's a bit smaller than Hawkens, but not much. She also has a red tint in her feathers, making her look crimson.

"Well, as of late, it's been a bit harder to stay out of trouble." Hawkens says. "I'd like you to meet my friends. Lucy, this is Stardust, Shiara, Twilight, and Flare."

"The pleasure is mine. So what brings you here?" She asks us.

"Well, I heard your name over the radio, and had to see if it was you."

"I'm sensing you two have some history." Stardust interrupts.

"Yeah, Hawkens and I were part of a caravan of survivors. We had barely escaped a Legion raid on the town where we lived with other griffins and pegasi. Hawkens and I were hatchlings back then. After a couple years of wandering with our group, we were ambushed by raiders. They killed almost everyone. I saw Hawkens and some others fly away but the only ones who weren't shot down were Hawkens, his parents, my uncle, and myself."

"Wait, my parents escaped?!" Hawkens asked with excitement.

"Yeah, I thought you knew." Lucy replies.

"No, but this is great news. I wonder where they are."

"The direction I saw them fly off to was towards New Equestria."

"Oh." Hawkens says quietly.

"Look, I'm sure they're ok. I mean, one of the founding members of New Equestria was Gawd, a griffin. Not to mention that they are non-violent means that they have to be safe."

"I suppose you're right. Anyways, I heard you were looking for hunters." Hawkens responds. "Well I would be glad to help."

"WHAT!?" Twilight and I shout in response.

"Only for a while. Besides, I'll be back on your team immediately after I'm done here."

"But how am I supposed to fly the skycarriage on my own?"

"How about this." Lucy interrupts. "We'll take care of the carriage until Hawkens leaves. That way it will be safe and you won't have to worry."

"I suppose. Well, Hawkens, stay safe my friend."

"Don't worry, as you know, it takes a lot to take me down."

"Whatever, anyways, what is this place?" I ask Lucy.

"I am insulted that you don't know of this place. The Thorn is a place for ponies and creatures to fight for the amusement of others. If you want, you can fight in the arena." She replies to me.

"Why not. What do you have for me to take down?"

"You can have your choice. We have various creatures for you to fight, anything from Bloatsprites to Hell Hounds and everything in between."

"Well give me a warm up, something strong, but not too strong." I reply

"I have something in mind. Head down to the arena gate and when you're ready, head in, or you can just jump down there now."

I leap down and wait for the opponents she sends my way. After a minute or so, three giant mantises come through the gate on the other side of the arena. When they come at me, I whip my grapples at them, cutting straight through two of them and then, when the last one charges at my head, I lower my head and burn it to death.

"NEXT!" I yell up to Lucy.

"Very well!" She yells down to me, and then nods to one of the ponies near at the edge of the arena. Soon enough, three radscorpions rush through the gate on the other side of the arena. I pull out my rifle with both grapples and fire off magic at them. They can take a shot or two but on the third they vaporize. Two down, and one is about to get me, so I leap over it, gaining more air with my wings, and land behind it. I put away my gun and with my grapples, cut its stinger off. Now with it unarmed, so to speak, I send a grapple through its head.

"Come on!" I yell to her. "Is that the best you got!?"

"VERY WELL!" She yells down to me. "I have recently come across some new creature to fight, and I don't know their power. You want to test them out?"

"BRING IT ON!"

"Suit yourself. We don't have many so I am only sending one out." She replies before nodding towards the same pony as before. Soon enough, a new creature comes out of the gate. This one is defiantly some sort of insect pony with a black exoskeleton and a dark blue shell of sorts on its back. It also has holes in its limbs, horn and wings. Instead of normal hooves like your average pony, this thing has full blown scythes that it walks on instead. When it sees me, it rears up on its hind legs and screeches at me, revealing a wicked set of fangs. Its horn begins to glow a strange green and I start to get a headache. I close my eyes to try to block out the pain and after a few moments, it stops. I open my eyes and in the place of the creature was Twilight.

"What the hell is going on?" I ask nopony in particular.

"FLARE!" Twilight yells from the scaffolding above the arena. "THAT THING JUST CHANGED INTO ME! IT'S A FAKE!"

"WHAT?!"

"I thought as much." Lucy starts.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?!"

"When we captured it, it continuously changed into impersonations of those we cared for the most. We believe that this is what has become of the Changelings after the war."

"THAT THING IS A WHAT NOW?!"

"JUST KILL IT FLARE!" Twilight shouts at me. The moment after she says that, the creatures horns begin to glow and suddenly, the earth around us shoots up and forms a dome in the stadium. Inside is pitch black, except for the glow of my fire, and the only sounds are my own breath and the creatures hoofsteps.

"What are you?" I ask into the darkness.

"We are the Changelings. We have been empowered by our queen and soon, we will become powerful once again." It replies in a raspy voice

"What do you mean by 'we'?"

"That is none of your business pegasus. All you need to know is that your pitiful life will soon be over. Don't worry about the unicorn that you love, we will take good care of her."

"WRAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" I shout, my fire rising and filling the room with light. I can now see the creature, directly in front of me, with a scythe-claw about to spear through my head. I roll back right as the scythe comes down and strikes the floor, cracking it.

"Yes, burn up your oxygen supply even more. We don't need any, and it will simply bring your death quicker."

"And what is that supposed to mean, bug?"

"We don't need to breath like you. We are higher beings than you." It replies before flying at me, scythes outstretched. Before it can get to me, I jump above it and use my wings to keep myself aloft. Suddenly, the makeshift chamber that the Changeling thing made is filled with a blinding light.

"FLARE!" Twilight shouts for me after teleporting into the chamber. "GET TO ME RIGHT NOW!" I dive to her and the second I make contact with her back she teleports us out.

"That thing needs to be put under lockdown or killed now." I say to Redwing Lucy after I catch my breath. "Whatever it is, it is contact with a hive mind and has metamorphic powers along with regular magic."

"How do you know it is part of hive mind, and what is that anyways?" Lucy asks.

"It means it's part of a collective conscious, an entire species that have mental links to each other, linked through a single mind, usually a queen of some sorts for insects like that one. And I know all of that because first, it was always referring to itself as we, suggesting a larger mental force behind it, second, in New Cloudsdale, I was at the top of my class in the science department, which includes biology." I answer with a smug grin on my face.

"So, that's bad right?" Hawkens asks.

"Of course it's bad. If it is still linked to a hive mind, it could be communicating with the queen or whatever is in control of the hive as we speak. Secondly, it can use the communicative abilities of the hive mind to relay any and all information it sees and hears to every single member of the hive mind."

"SOMEPONY OPEN UP THAT CHAMBER AND KILL THAT THING!" Lucy yells.

Some pegasus with what look like giant hammer gloves covering its front hooves flies down to the edge of the chamber.

"Boss, its making some sort of tapping noise!"

"Morse code. Something bad, this does forebode."

"Shiara, are you sure?" I ask her and she nods. "Stardust, blast a hole in the chamber."

"With pleasure." She replies before jumping up from where she was laying down and blasting a hole in the side of the chamber and the creature shoots out of the smoke and slams into the ceiling with a bang. An instant later, it begins using its scythes to dig through the ceiling.

"Stardust?" I ask her.

"Gotcha." She proceeds to target the creature, and hit it with 100000 volts of pure pain. When the smoke from the shot clears, the creature is still digging.

"What the hell is that thing?" Twilight asks.

"I have no idea." I reply. "It's a bug, so I am going to try and burn it." I proceed to hook up the pyre to my rifle and take aim. Shortly after, I send pyre burst at the creature very quickly and repeatedly. The creature catches fire but keeps on digging. It does however, slow down notably.

"That thing is unstoppable." Lucy observes.

"Lucy. Do you have any taint around?" I ask her.

"Flare, what are you thinking?" Twilight asks.

"Yeah, why?" Lucy replies.

"I am already a tainted pony. The more taint I absorb, the more heat and fire I generate. I am already as hot as my pyre, maybe more will make me hot enough to kill that damn thing."

"Are you sure?"

"Flare, stop and think for a second."

"I already did. If we can kill that thing, then the entire hive will know that we are powerful enough to kill them." I reply to her. "Bring me some taint."

Lucy motions urgently to two of her subordinates and they rush off. A few seconds later, they rush back with a small bucket of taint. I nod to them and they heave the taint my way. I close my eyes as it splashes over me. I can feel my body changing on the inside and a little on the outside. When I open my eyes, I examine my body as much as I can. I can see the inorganic parts of my wings are glowing hot, and my grapples are also glowing hot.

"Let's do this." I say before lifting off and rushing at the Changeling mutant. I slam into it, knocking it out of the hole it was digging. On the way down, I whip it with my grapples, sending it to the ground. After it hits the ground, I slam down on top of it, and try to stab it with my grapples. They easily go through its exoskeleton and into its chest, making a hissing sound and the flesh boils. "Hello Changeling Queen. We know how to defeat you now, so back off!" I say to the Changeling mutant, knowing that the queen can hear me through the hive mind. To finish it, I get angrier at it, for impersonating Twilight. My fire gets larger and hotter and proceeds to surround the two of us. The fire gets closer and closer to us until it engulfs us entirely. When the fire dies down, there is only a charred husk remaining of the changeling.

"And that, is how we do things around here." Twilight says to Lucy.

Level Up: Lv. 18.

Perk Added – Flare's Taint Rank 7.

You can now control the element of fire. Your mane and tail can now be controlled and manipulated easily by your mind. Your body can generate enough heat to melt low grade metals.