[Scotty]

I wrote this a year ago for my Comp class, and the teacher loved it.  I recently dug it up (as in about two weeks ago) and figured I'd continue it.  Before I do that, however, I thought I would gage reactions from a slightly larger base than my teacher and all 17 people who've read it on writing.com in that time.  Feel free to critique and suggest fixes.  Thanks!
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                                                                                                Be Warned
The house, high upon a hill, gave mute testimony to the tenacity of its builders.  It stood like a sentry, keeping silent vigil on the copses and clearings below.  Not a breeze blew, and it seemed for all the world that time had simply stopped.
   
A pair of figures approached the abode.  Jess Dimmel and her brother Bradd trekked closer, come to visit the distant relatives of the Kansas backcountry.  The house, a mansion almost, was painted a hideous lime green.  The paint became more faded, and the trim looked more rotted every step of the way to the steps.  The garden in front was merely a mass of tangled weeds.
   
Jess and Bradd exchanged nervous glances.  Both could remember the fiasco at last year’s family reunion.  The Lewises, the distantly related owners of the wretched structure, had made a mess of the party with just a riding lawnmower.  Before climbing the front steps, Jess gazed forlornly at the very rapidly receding dust cloud on the road.  Their parents hadn’t wanted anything to do with the Lewises, aside from dropping Jess and Bradd off to a long summer.  Bradd had already braved the mangled steps, and was about to answer the door.
   
However, before he could knock, the door swung open with enough force to knock more paint off the shabby exterior.  Jess whipped around to the door just in time to see a wide, smiling face peering out before the owner spoke.
   
“Well, gee!  It’s sure good to see y’all folks!” The cragged visage spewed, “Ain’t got much work done here since ol’ Trevor broke his leg.”  The broken, hillbilly-ish speech was the only clue needed to know that this was the dreaded Aunt Selma.  “Well?  C’mon in!  Figure I might’s well show y’all ‘round the place, afore I setcha to work.”  Bradd and Jess had time to share a dismayed look before they were almost dragged in by their collars.  Work!  This was supposed to be summer vacation!  There was no time to protest, though, before Aunt Selma gave them a grand 30-second tour of the house and its inhabitants.  Of the six, two were infants, one an invalid, one with a broken leg, one drifter, and Aunt Selma, the cook.  That left poor Jess and Bradd to do all the work.  It was going to be a long summer.
                                           *                     *                    *                     *                     *                    *
THUNK!  The thick axe thudded into the wood.  Bradd hefted the axe to swing again while Jess placed another log on the chopping block.  In three weeks, the only time they had spent not working had been spent eating or sleeping.  With the state of Aunt Selma’s cooking, both immensely preferred the latter.  Aside from those brief respites, every minute of every day was spent doing chores of one form or another.
   
THUNK! The axe thudded again, this time sending wood chips flying.  Mowing the ridiculously huge lawn, chopping firewood, pruning every tree and shrub for a mile in every direction.  The list went on.  Doing the dishes, washing the laundry, drying the laundry.  The chores never ended.  With a grunt, Bradd hefted the axe again.
   
THUNK!  Work went on.  Every few seconds, another resounding thunk echoed across the clearing.  Bradd and Jess were about a mile away from the house.  Much as they hated working, that didn’t stop the Lewis’ from making everything more difficult than it should be.
   
With a final thunk, Bradd split the last log he and Jess had brought with them.  His work done for now, Bradd leaned against the stump he had been chopping on to rest.  While he took the brief opportunity, Jess headed back with a wheelbarrow to gather more wood.  As the squeaky wheel faded in the distance, Bradd lay fully back on the stump to try and grab a quick nap before Jess got back.
   
A muted snap sounded to Bradd’s left, rousing him.  Rising from his rest, another sound caught his attention.  A faint rustling sound was getting slowly louder.  The sound was coming from the same direction as the snap.  Like an approaching freight train, the sound grew steadily louder, until it seemed like it came from right next to him.  Now it didn’t just come from one direction either.  Bradd frantically whipped around to find out where the sound was coming from, but every time he did, the source changed.  In the space of less than a second, the sound abruptly stopped.  There was another snap, muted this time, and then dead silence.
   
This time Bradd was alert enough to know where the last one had come from.  There was a stand of elm trees about thirty feet to Bradd’s left that the sound had come from.  He couldn’t hear the squeaky wheel in the distance, and decided he had enough time to check it out.  When Bradd was fifteen feet from the stand, the rustle started again, but muted, like through water.  Every step Bradd took, the sound got louder, until he was right next to the stand.  He peered in, the sound stopped, and Bradd saw… a completely normal stand of elm trees.
   
Bradd turned back toward the stump, the wheel now audible.  These Flint Hills are weird, I must be hearing things.  Right as he finished his thought, there was one more, quiet snap in the stand.  Despite his better judgment, Bradd turned back toward the sound… just in time to see the stand seemingly explode.  A strong gust of wind came howling out of the stand and knocked Bradd over.  While shocked over what happened, Bradd was really surprised when the seemingly solid ground crumpled beneath him like a Kleenex.  With a cry of shock, he fell into the newly opened pit in the ground.
   
He didn’t fall long.  Little more than ten feet down, the hole ended with a floor too flat to be natural.  Bradd lifted himself off the ground and tried to ignore the aches and pains already springing to his attention.  Where the heck did this come from? he wondered.
   
Bradd surveyed his surroundings.  The hole he had fallen in wasn’t so much a hole as a cave.  To his left, some stalactites and stalagmites had grown together and blocked off the path.  To Bradd’s right, an ornately carved stone door obstructed his way.  With a start, Bradd realized that, even though he could see the door, the only light in the entire cave was coming from the hole he fell in.  An eerie, diffuse blue-green glow allowed him to see everything beyond his little ring of light.  The Stone door was more than fifty feet down the passage.  Every ten feet was a cast iron bracket on the wall.  The bracket closest to Bradd had the remains of a crude torch in it.  Bradd was just about to head down the tunnel when his sister’s voice rang through hole. 
   
“Bradd?! Are you alright?” her concerned voice called.
   
“I’m fine!  Hey Jess, there’s something weird down here, I’m gonna check it out,” Bradd called back.  Before she could protest further, Bradd jogged up the corridor to the door.  The door was carved with symbols up and down the circular rim.  Mostly they looked like gibberish, but here and there was a familiar letter.  An L here, a b there.  None of it made any sense of course.  Bradd reached out to touch a symbol, but just before his had brushed the stone, the door swung silently inward, like it weighed nothing.
   
Bradd was about to call to his sister to come see the door, but suddenly,  he found his attention captured by something  in the center of the room.  A large reflecting pool sat in the center of a large room.  That in itself wasn’t very interesting, but what was in it was.  A thick trickle of water flowed into the other side of the pool.  Again, that wasn’t the weird part.  The weird part was, the pool didn’t move.  Not a ripple, not anything.  Bradd instantly became nervous about this whole thing.
   
On impulse, Bradd lifted up a small pebble from the ground and chucked it into the center of the pool.  It simply disappeared with nothing to show it had ever existed.  If he hadn’t seen the pebble sink into the pool, he would have said it never happened.  The mirror-like surface seemed to call out to him.  Bradd bent down to look in the pool… and he could feel that something was gazing back.  Transfixed, he stood there, minutes, hours, days, time had no meaning.  All the mattered was that he was gazing into the pool, and the someone was gazing back.
   
Bradd……  The sound was less than a whisper, but it blasted into his silence-deafened ears.  Shocked, Bradd jetted backward, and smacked his head none too gently on the wall behind him.
   
Stifling a groan, he yelled back up the hall, “Hey Jess?  There’s something really weird dow-”
   
With sickening suddenness, his voice cut off as a brilliant white light exploded from the surface of the still unnaturally smooth and silent pool.
                                            *                  *                      *                      *                    *                    *
Jess was getting more worried by the minute.  It had been almost half an hour since she had seen Bradd fall into the cave, er… hole, er… whatever it was.  Five minutes later, he had told her he was going to check something.  Now, she hadn’t heard from him in twenty minutes!  Whatever is down there had better be interesting! 
   
With a sigh, she laid back, debating whether to go in after him.  She had almost made up her mind to go in. Boy, is he gonna be in troub-
   
Jess……  The whisper startled her out of her growing anger.  She was still recovering from the shock when Bradd’s voice echoed out of the cave.
   
“Hey Jess?  There’s something really weird dow-”  Before he could finish, Jess’s world exploded.  A blinding white light blasted form the hole in the ground like a beacon, making what had been a sunny summer day seem like the depths of midnight by comparison.  Blinded, Jess fell to the ground, and a gusting wind shrieked out of the opening.  To Jess, it looked and felt like the end of the world.  It even seemed like the ground was moving.
   
Eventually, the tempest subsided, and the world calmed.  Jess got up… and saw a completely different countryside.  The clearing she and Bradd had been in was gone.  Now Jess was standing in and among trees of gigantic size.  Looking up, the lowest tree canopies were 500 feet up.  Around her, the landscape was as different as night and day.  She hadn’t imagined it when she felt the ground moving.  She had been waiting on a small hill, now she was at the bottom of a depression.  I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore.  Just about the only thing that was the same was the cave that Bradd was in.  Now that she looked at it, it was exactly the same, right down to the grass around it in a perfect circle for ten feet.  After that, it was a strange blue-ish color.  It was like the whole thing had simply been put somewhere else.  All in all, the scenery was surreal. 
   
The trees, the ones she could actually see, looked like a New England fall, but with a riot of colors like purple and blue mixed in.  Every single tree was a different color, and as she watched, a yellow tree turned orange spontaneously.
   
She was so enraptured by the scene that she failed to notice the group of figures gathering in the bushes around her.  Her first clue that something was wrong was a sound of rustling leaves that came from everywhere. Still spinning to look for the source of the sound, she fell into a blackness darker than the white had been bright before.     

Behind her, the cave entrance shimmered and disappeared.
                                            *                          *                          *                         *                       *
Consciousness returned slowly to Bradd.  He was unaware of how long he sat there, hovering between waking and blackness.  A far off dripping sound was what finally brought him fully awake.  The more he woke, the closer the sound got.  Bradd opened his eyes and gingerly stood up.  His head was killing him, and he couldn’t remember what he had been doing after he looked into the pool.  The dripping sound, he realized, was the trickle of water on the far wall dripping into the water.  Water that was still motionless.  Bradd watched in amazement as the dripping water formed a puddle on the pool.
   
Bradd looked around for the exit, whatever had made this place so enticing was gone now.  Bradd spotted the door in the faint…red?… glow.  He could have sworn it was green before.  The more he thought about it the worse his headache got, so he smartly forgot about it.
   
Bradd made his way to the door he came it.  Now that there was actual water filling the cave, however slowly, he didn’t want to be there.  Now that he was leaving, he noticed that the glow was noticeably brighter.  The ornately carved stone door was in the same place, so at least he was going the right way.  Something he didn’t quite recognize was bothering him though.
   
Oblivious, Bradd walked right through the door, now carved in picture perfect cursive writing :
      “Be warned, you who would walk between worlds……”

Notes: 
1) Stars indicate POV or time breaks.  The first is time, the second and third are POV switches to following Jess and Bradd, respectively.
2) I realize that Bradd's falling into the ground could be a lot less convoluted, but I can't for the life of me think how.  Any thoughts would be good.
3) Is there a better way to show thoughts and feelings of characters from thrid person than with italics?  It kind of grates when I do that.
4) I wrote this about exactly one year ago (wow, time flies), and I've started on a continuation.  Would anyone be interested if I posted it here too?
5) Total word count is 958 (I think, might be a few off).  Is that long enough for a chapter, or should I add to it first?

[General Battuta]

Definitely write more! Cut some of the verbiage - adverbs and adjectives can generally go. Streamline your environmental descriptions.

I like it. The most important thing is just to Keep Writing.

[Mongoose]

Yeah, I'd definitely be interested in reading more.

[watsisname]

I agree; this was a very good read.  Would love to see you keep going with it.
My only critique is for a couple of overused/rendundant words here and there, but these are minor.  Your description of events/setting and the overall otherworldliness are well done and I had great mental imagery while reading.

[Retsof]

Question.  Are they travening between worlds as in planets or "universes".  And will they all be of your creation or will you throw in some from other works?

[Scotty]

Well, it's hard these days to be completely original.  Someone, somewhere has done it before.  With that in mind, some of the more well know things may make an appearance, but I actually have a list of things that definitely WILL NOT appear in any further installment to avoid massive cliches.

As for the travelling question:  Wait and find out

The next part is about half done, from what I can tell, but the pseudo-ending (just the chapter thingy, not the story) isn't set in stone and is subject to change.  Will post here when finished.

EDIT: Since I finished the next part before someone else posted, I'll just add it here.

                                                                                    Be Warned (Chapter 2)
Jess Dimmel awoke suddenly and with perfect clarity to… absolutely nothing.  The only thing different from the blackness of unconsciousness was that now Jess could feel her eyes were open to the air.  So complete was the darkness that all sense of time flew from it.
   
Jess gingerly got up and tried to make her way to what most closely resembled a wall in this, her own personal abyss.  It didn’t take long to find; the wall did its best to appear out of thin air.  One moment Jess was groping for the wall with her outstretched arm, the next, she was lying on her back, very surprised.
   
Bewildered, Jess tried to reach at where she knew the wall was… but it wasn’t there.  She leaned forward, trying to get a better feel, and once again found herself lying on her back some distance away from where she was, with a dull tingling coursing through her limbs.  A quick venture in the opposite direction yielded the same result.
   
So… I’m trapped in here by something, she though, rubbing her arms, as if to restore the feeling to a limb that fell asleep.  There was obviously something keeping her in, the only questions were what it was and how to get out.
   
Thinking of that led Jess to realize that wherever she was, it didn’t feel artificial.  This place felt natural, as if it had been here longer than whoever built it had.  Jess futilely bent down to try and get a view of the floor.  Wonderful idea, that, since there was no light at all in the cell, er, whatever it was.  Jess reached out a hand for the floor, only to find dirt.  Just dirt? she wondered, Is that it?  Impulse struck, and Jess began wiping away the dust and grime.  Suddenly, her hand struck wood.  Jess knew what this was immediately.  I’m in one of the gigantic trees!  But there wasn’t any light coming from above her, so how did she get in here?
   
Jess lay back and considered her present predicament.  Alright, let’s see.  I’m in Kansas, chopping wood, when  Bradd falls in a pit.  A few minutes later, I’m blinded by something coming out of the same pit.  I wake up under impossibly gigantic trees, and immediately wake up, again, here.  Jess pondered, and came to the only rational explanation her tired mind could come up with.  I must be mad.  Stuff like that can’t happen!
   
But, what if she weren’t?  The though struck Jess cold.  If she wasn’t mad, that meant she was really alone and on her own.  The irony of madness being the most beneficial circumstance was, unsurprisingly, lost on Jess.  Bradd! He never came out of that cave!  Jess’s mind raced with the implications of her latest thoughts. 
   
So wrapped up, that she didn’t hear the faint, almost inaudible sound of rustling leaves.
          *                            *                                         *                                        *                                                    *
Bradd was trapped.
   
The faint red glow of the chamber behind him gave enough light to show him the futility of trying to break through the solid wall of ice between him and the outside.  The dripping had not stopped, but actually gotten stronger and more frequent.  The temperature of the cave was somehow unchanging, which was melting the ice around him.  The only problem with that was the cave would fill up before this was gone.  If Bradd didn’t get out soon, he never would.
   
Bradd got up from his rest at the base of the ice block.  His hands were warm again, it was time to try getting out again.  Bracing his weight, Bradd pushed with everything he had to move the sheet.  No good.  The block wouldn’t budge an inch.
   
A small pool of water was just beginning to form in the entrance to the cave proper as he watched.  That complicates things, Bradd though.  If I don’t get out in the next 15 or 20 minutes, I won’t at all.   

Although, Bradd still wasn’t sure exactly where “out” would lead him, or if it was any better than this place.
   
Speaking of “this place,” the only thing Bradd knew about it was it was cold outside.  For all he knew, the only reason he was still alive was that this cave was keeping him warm enough.  Bradd mulled over that particular point for a bit, then decided to keep trying anyway.  Here, it was certain he was a goner, outside might have a chance.  Either he got out or he didn’t. 
   
The water was filling the cave faster every minute.  This was going to be his last try, whether he made it or not.
   
Bradd stepped back to the highest point the water had risen.  Mentally preparing himself, Bradd launched himself at the ice at a dead sprint… only to have the ice explode quite violently just as he reached it.  Ice chips flew everywhere, several hitting Bradd, and he felt them whip past his head and face.  Unable to shop in time, Bradd practically flew out of the cave and skidded to a halt some distance from the entrance.  Dazed and confused, he lay there, ears ringing and tiny cuts bleeding, staring at the psychedelic canvas that was the sky in this particular impossible place.  Red to blue to green and no sun in sight.  Bradd was abruptly struck by the absurd though of what rainbows would look like here.
   
A paradoxically guttural and melodious language ripped him from his dazed wonderings.  “Ahrooth?  The voice was deep and husky, not altogether unpleasant to listen to.  “Ahmee, pheyn tiat.”  Bradd had never heard anything like it before.  “Sith ahroosh cwayt?”
   
Above him, a large face peered into his field of vision.  A face almost as large as his torso.  With a  yelp, Bradd sat bolt upright and tried to push as far away from the giant as possible.  The thing was gigantic!  It had to have stood at least 20 feet tall at the shoulder.  The face was human-like, only dozens of times larger than it should have been.
   
Almost amused looking, the creature pointed with a gargantuan, three fingered hand and muttered more of that unintelligible speech, “Siph cwayt ruhpth.”
   
Bradd cast a hasty glance over his shoulder, only to find himself less than ten feet form another brute.  There was no way he could outrun these things, so Bradd just gave up.  Only after the terror of the moment passed did Bradd realize these giants weren’t exactly trying to kill him.
   
“Ahrooth lehr?” the one behind him mumbled.  Was it his imagination, or was that one higher pitched than the other? 
   
“What?” Bradd, having never left the cozy confines of the known world, or the central United States, for that matter, had no idea what they were saying.
   
“Sish twelve lehr sicph lehr,” the deeper voice boomed.  A pause, then,”Sicph pheyn gweyth, ohm liht. Sish shuhp sichp Zhwahndohst.”
   
“Ahf, pheyn tiat.”  With that, the giants beckoned to Bradd.  For reasons he couldn’t explain, he followed.
                                                                                    *   *   *   *   *
Jess lay staring at the ceiling.  Time didn’t flow normally here, it seemed, and Jess had no idea how long she had been in here.  Maybe it was just the complete and utter blackness that disrupted the passage of time to her.  She did know she had missed some kind of meal if how hungry she was could be any indication.
   
A light from nowhere blinded her dark accustomed eyes.  Blinded and startled, Jess bolted up and almost fell over from overbalancing.  Jess slowly worked her eyes open to keep the light from making them ache too bad.  All the while she was acutely aware of just how vulnerable she was, standing in the middle of a large open space while she pried her eyes open.
   
Silhouetted in the doorway was a creature she had never even heard of.  It was a quadruped, covered in a bristly coat of brown fur.  Gruesome, inch long claws dug into the dirt of the cell floor.  The thing stood about five feet at the shoulder, leaving Jess peering into its face as she still tried shielding her eyes.  There wasn’t a nose to be found on its face.  A protruding  jaw with a massive under bite held a vicious assortment of gleaming white teeth.  All of this paled in comparison to the other feature of the animal.  Its eyes were the size of her hand, solid black with a white pupil.  It had no nose to speak of, but its eyes were spellbinding.  No matter what she did, Jess couldn’t stop from being drawn back into those bottomless orbs.
   
Then her enchantment ended with shattering suddenness when the creature spoke with the sound of rustling leaves.  With a grimace that Jess could only guess what meant, the creature strode into the room, stopping just short of her.  Jess cringed away from it in a vain attempt the keep some distance between them.
   
Jess was totally surprised when the creature started speaking in broken English.  “What… you?”  The halting speech had a sibilant hiss to it, like a snake.  “We called… nogsss.”  Jess simply stood in dumbfounded silence as a creature she knew shouldn’t be able to speak tried to engage her in conversation.
   
The creature, this nog, spoke again, louder, more sure of itself with an unfamiliar language.  “What… you?”  This time, however, Jess found herself able to break the lock on her voice.
   
“I’m J--” she croaked, her voice cracking mid word.  She cleared her throat before trying again.  “I’m Jess,” she squeaked.
   
“Jess…” the nog hissed, and a wicked, chilling grin spread across its flat face.

Notes:
1) I am not good at explaining what happens when nothing is actually happening.  When Jess is just sitting in the “cell,” I go mad trying to make it long enough to be worth reading, but not so redundant as to be irritating.
2) Say hi to biome number two.  No single-biome worlds for me.
3) The giant speech has a method to its seeming madness.  However, I will be incredibly impressed if anyone can figure out what they are saying.  That’s for later.  Right now, the speech is just there to give a bigger indication of how alien this place is.
4) Not all of the world is this colorful, just some places.  I’ll write those in later.
5) My first real bit of originality falls into this part.  I haven’t seen “nogs” in shape or in name in any other fantasy world.  Yay!
6) You know, I didn’t plan it this way, but the nogs are actually speaking much like the giants would be if the speech were translated literally.  I was having issues with tenses and forms of the word “be,” so it lacks explicit mention of am, is, are, was, were, etc.  Still, it’s passable, and it’s fun to see if a language can function without those.  I think I can fix the tenses with a  simple suffix or prefix (leaning toward prefix to be different).
7) This part ended up shorter than I expected, shorter even than part 1.  Well, that part seemed like as good a part as any to stop.  Starting the next part now.

[Retsof]

Hm... I'm guessing these Nogs are not tool users, as they seem to lack hands.  Also, Should I try to figure out the biology of having black eyes with white pupils or just say a wizard did it?  This is by no means meant to be discouraging, please keep writing.

[Scotty]

A(n) wizard author did it.

[NGTM-1R]

Authorial fiat is a powerful tool, wield it carefully.

[watsisname]

If I may say so, your style of writing reminds me a lot of Dean Koontz's work.  I mean this in a good way; he's one of my favorite authors.  Both of you appear to enjoy experimenting with things that are somewhat magical/otherworldly, at the same time with vivid scenery, language puzzles, and mystery and suspense.

Can't wait to read more!

[Scotty]

Okay, just finishing up typing part three.  Before posting, I'd had most of the story up to part two in my head before I started writing.  After that, the story was a blank page.  Following far too long after, part three should be up momentarily (damn finals).

EDIT:  And here it is:

Be Warned (Chapter III)

   Bradd was very thoroughly out of breath by the time the giants decided to stop for a rest.  Although for them the pace had only been a brisk walk, in order to keep up Bradd had to run just short of sprinting.  The giants seemed completely unaware of his difficulty.

   Just as he managed to stop gasping for air, the giants started up again.  With an exasperated sight, Bradd jogged to catch back up with them.  One of the giants, the higher pitched one, who Bradd guessed was female, turned to check on his progress, and apparently found it lacking.  “Tzehooth shuhp?”

   “I’ll be fine,” Bradd gasped out.  He really needed to execise more often, if this was how days passed here.  Several stops went by before Bradd realized the implications of his response.  It had actually been a response, not just a confused question.  Thinking back, he realized that he knew what the giant had said.  Maybe not the exact words, but the meaning behind them was clear.  What was happening here?  Not only was Bradd in a totally different world (or coma, but that hardly mattered now), he could somehow understand the meaning behind a language that, to the best of his knowledge, no other human had ever heard.

   All while these thoughts raced through Bradd’s head, the strange troop continued on.  Where before had been nothing buy small hills over the horizon, mountain peaks now jutted into the open sky.  The snow covered tops hardly cleared the hills in front of them, but even from this distance, Bradd could see their immense size.  The mountains loomed ever larger as the light dimmed.

   When the light reached the level of sunset back home (at Bradd’s best guess) the giant in the lead raised a hand, signaling a rest.  Bradd, exhausted from the grueling, giant-sized pace, almost collapsed in relief.  “Sicph ruhp tiat chrohmm,” the poing bellowed.

   “How the heck can I even understand them at all?” Bradd muttered.  He couldn’t speak the language or read it, assuming it was written, but he understood perfectly that they were stopping here tonight.  Without getting up, he asked no-one in particular, “Where are we even going?”

   “Sicph phayn Zhwahndohst,” one of the giants offered, as if that explained everything.  The other nodded in agreement, and both began constructing a rudimentary camp, clearing patches of ground of any obstacles.  Both were asleep within minutes of completing a rough bed on the ground and a small campfire, which caught Bradd by surprise.  He hadn’t seen them with any fuel, nor did he see them actually light the thing.  Upon a closer look, Bradd found the fire burning nothing, as if it were just there.

   With the trek ended for the day, Bradd had nothing to do, and his thoughts wandered.  I wonder where Jess is.  She wasn’t in the cave, and quite obviously not here.  As the stars emerged in silent glory, much closer than back home, and much brighter, he fell into an exhausted sleep.

*   *   *   *   *

   A phalanx of nogs “escorted” Jess out of her recent home.  No reason was given for the escort, and she figured they wouldn’t tell her if she asked, assuming they could understand her at all.  Wherever they were going had to be at least halfway important, by the ornamentation of her guards.  All but the one who first spoke to her had some kind of silvery armor, worked very finely into a perfect fit on every single body.

   Jess’s mind boggled at the size of the room she entered as she finally exited that cell.  The ceiling rose sharply in a room that formed a concentric ring around the cell.  Another ten meters lay between Jess and the door, with several flights of ramps lining the wall.  Each led to a higher floor, and the core, where she had just exited, was ringed by walkways, catwalks and platforms.  Doors opened into it constantly; nogs rushed in and out. (her cell must not have been very tall, judging by the height of the next level).  All things considered, the place looking like a beehive, full of activity.

   As Jess took in the hustle and bustle, the guards led her to an excessively ornamented door.  With a groan of aged wood, the high, heavy doors swung open.  Although the chamber was substantially brighter than the pitch darkness of her cage, jess still had to avert her eyes as light spilled in.  Actual sunlight, sunlight that Jess had not seen for however long she had been stuck here, wherever here was, streamed through the enormous opening.

   Her eyes adjusted, and despite the unreality of everything that had happened up to this point, Jess gasped at the most incredible and exotic sight she had ever laid eyes on.  Suspended among, between and carved into massive trees was a city.  At her best guess, the city stretched a few kilometers in any direction.  Normally, due to how spaced the trees were, that wouldn’t mean very much.  However, since they were trees, and not hills, the city spread it self over a hundred meters vertically as well.

   Jess was interrupted in her marveling by an icy push forward.  So cold was the touch that Jess gave a little yelp of shock.  Looking back, Jess saw a nog gesture out the door.  Her hand must have been made of ice to be so cold.

   The formation shifted to lead Jess to a rope bridge.  The whole thing looked about five feet at its widest.  There was no way the whole group could get across at once.  Nevertheless, Jess and her escort marched to it.

   Something about this whole place was messing with Jess’s perceptions.  Maybe the vast change in scale was to blame.  Whatever the reason, the rickety catwalk she had seen before had somehow inexplicably become the size of an old country highway.  Now the entire column could fit abreast with room to spare!

   To take her mind off of impossible things like the bridge, Jess let her mind wander, and just walked along.

   Following the ebb and flow of random thoughts was soothing.  Many minutes passed in silence before one random thought caught hold enough to stay a few minutes.  She had been imagining a perfect countryside, and saw herself in the middle of it, as if watching from someone else’s eyes.  The light was perfect, glinting off a small pond, and leaves rustled ever so slightly.  Too soon, she realized she had forgotten about the present oddity, and reluctantly let the image fade… almost.

   Jess opened her eyes and noticed they were to the end of the bridge.  She saw a door, beautifully crafted, carved, gilded, and adorned with any other kind of decoration she could name, and then some.  She also saw… herself, from that same angle as in her mind.

   There was no time for questions as she was hurried through the ornate portal.  Jess stepped into a chamber in the tree, and watched as she entered the room, and watched as she stepped through the door.

   A pedestal grown out of the inside of the tree rose from the floor opposite her.  On it sat a nog of gargantuan stature.  He must have risen three meters from the ground at the shoulder.  She saw that the silvery armor on this one encompassed almost its whole body.  Jess stared at it, and she saw it stare back at her.

   “You are Jessss,” Its first words were no a question.  “How did you come to be here?”  Not a waver disturbed a voice that was somehow both rumbled and hissed at the same time.

   Reality crashed in on Jess all at once.  All she wanted to do was curl up in a tiny ball on the floor, or magically wake up in her bed back home or something!  Closing her eyes didn’t help at al because she could still see herself as if from across the room.

   “I asssked you a quesssstion!”  A dull ringing crept into Jess’s ears, and her limbs filled with lead.  A tunnel wrapper her vision until she could only see the nog… and herself.  She felt pressured, as if by a bad head cold.  The ringing became a thunderous booming, loud enough to make the nog’s crashing voice seem small and tinny.

   “Answer me!” it roared, as Jess collapsed into blessed unconsciousness.

Still to be continued.

[watsisname]

Blaaah, you left us with another cliffhanger. D:

Can't wait for more.

[Retsof]

What he said.

[Scotty]

Okay, long break from this.  I've actually gotten more written on the story that opens the thread, but I'll try to post that later.  For now, a change of pace that I wrote-up while playing a rather long BattleTech game on MegaMek.  Enjoy.  (Note:  Characters are introduced once by full name, then referred to by callsign.)

Alright, listen up men.  We’ve been assigned to conduct the combat-eval run of the Light Combat Quad fighting vehicle.  Piretti, your team is being augmented by a single one of these units for the duration of the sortie.  Specialist Adolphos Baum will be piloting the vehicle, if that name means anything to you.  He will hold no command authority in this sortie.  If all goes well, we won’t be engaging in too dire a combat.  Recon elements have spotted an enemy team in the area.  Intelligence is pretty certain it’s nothing more spectacular than a light combat/recon team.  Current weather conditions are overcast, light rain.  Wind minimal.  Start your patrol in the northwest, and swing south.  Your turnaround point is a waypoint approximately twenty five kilometers from this position.  Reconnoiter the area around the waypoint, then depart the patrol area to the northeast.  Good luck, and good hunting pilots.

Combat Eval Team, 03rd Light Combat Team, Dyson’s Dragoons (Regular/Reliable)

Team Leader:
Name/Rank:  Lt. Leonardo Piretti (3/5)
Vehicle:  Light Combat Biped LCB-1A “Funeral”
Callsign:  Pyre

Team Second:
Name/Rank:  Sgt. Enrico Dominguez. (4/5)
Vehicle:  Light Combat Biped LCB-1A “Domino”
Callsign:  Tycoon

Regulars:
Name/Rank:  Pvt. Andrea Panas (3/6)
Vehicle:  Light Combat Biped LCB-1B “Hurricane”
Callsign:  Storm

Name/Rank:  Pvt. Alfredo Montoya  (4/5)
Vehicle:  Light Skirmish Biped LSB-1A “Epee”
Callsign:  Fence

Name/Rank:  Pvt. Eric de Vries (3/4)
Vehicle:  Light Combat Biped LCB-1C “Point”
Callsign:  Blackout

Combat Eval Pilot:
Name/Rank:  Spc. Adolphos Baum (4/5)
Vehicle:  Light Combat Quad LCQ-1A “Pegasus”
Callsign:  Jester

OpFor Combat Team, 15th Strike Team, O’Connor’s Ospreys (Green/Reliable)

Team Leader:
Name/Rank:  TLd. Duncan MacGuffin (3/5)
Vehicle:  Light Combat Biped LCB-1A “Tower”
Callsign:  Gryphon

Team Second:
Name/Rank:  XO. Adair Cameron (6/6)
Vehicle:  Light Combat Biped LCB-1A “Stiletto”
Callsign: Duke

Regulars:
Name/Rank:  Hsr (5). Dustin McCloud (4/6)
Vehicle:  Light Skirmish Biped LSB-1A “Peregrine”
Callsign:  Zephyr

Name/Rank:  Sct (5). Tavis Cullen (5/5)
Vehicle:  Light Reconnaissance Biped LRB-1A “Hawkeye”
Callsign:  Eagle

Name/Rank:  Sct (5). Arthur McKeon (4/5)
Vehicle:  Light Reconnaissance Biped LRB-1A “Camelot”
Callsign:  Lancer

*     *     *     *     *

Sgt. Enrico “Tycoon” Dominguez carefully stepped out of the small river, along with the rest of the 03rd Light Combat Team, Dyson’s Dragoons.  Wary, hardened eyes scanned the horizon and the heavily wooded terrain before him as the unit trudged on.  Supposedly, there was an enemy combat team out here, but Intel wasn’t exactly known as the most reliable thing to ever exist.  Tycoon noticed the unit’s resident skirmisher (basically a slightly faster combat model to harass enemy mainline units and keep them from getting a breather) was pulling a little wide.  “Hey, Fence, pull it in a little.  You drop off the scope, I’m not coming back for ya.”

Pvt. Afredo “Fence” Montoya grumbled an affirmative into his mic.  Patrol duty was so boring; nothing ever happened.  And they had to drag around this new quad design until they finished, that was just wonderful.  He was ready to give just about anything to get a taste of com-- “Contact!”  The words sprang almost involuntarily from his throat, he wanted to say that so much.  “Approximately 750 meters south-southeast.  Single contact, fast mover.”

Scout 5th Class Arthur “Lancer” McKeon swore under his breath.  They’d spotted him, and too early to spring the ambush his team leader had tried to set up when his extended-range sensors first picked up the advancing team.  He gunned the throttle on his Light Recon vehicle and attempted to salvage at least a little of the situation by pulling at least a couple of the enemy units off the rest of his team.

Lt. Leonardo “Pyre” Piretti gripped the control yoke of his vehicle, “Funeral,” as his pulse began to raise.  A lone enemy scout had just appeared under a kilometer from the team’s position, just outside of range.  In the heavily wooded terrain, the slow combat units had a chance to catch the nimble scout before it reported back.  Five other upright, multi-ton walking tanks strode on either side of him, crashing through the undergrowth as a light drizzle fell onto his canopy.  Only one enemy target presented itself, so Pyre needed give no orders.  Inexorably closing the distance, Pyre caught himself counting down to when he would finally be able to unleash the man-made lightning from his weapons, replacing trees with burning wreckage and the enemy scout with super-heated metal.

TLd. Duncan “Gryphon” MacGuffin signaled his other Light Combat unit and his Light Skirmisher to rejoin his position.  Coming at him were a full combat team with a tagalong too.  He didn’t have the firepower under his command to directly engage the entire force at once.  He had to separate them some how.  Lancer had apparently realized this too and was even now attempting to pull some enemy units away from the upcoming engagement.  A few seconds later, Gryphon ordered his other scout to join Lancer is his diversion.  If he played his cards right, he might even be able to take out an opposing unit with those scouts, especially if the other managed to stay hidden until close range.

“Dammit!” shouted Pvt. Eric “Blackout” de Vries the second time his vehicle bogged down in the swampy marshes.  The scout was going to get away at this rate!  With a snarl and a renewed effort, Blackout tore the vehicle’s leg out of the muddy ground and ran after the scout.  He was the best pilot in the outfit, and he’d be damned before that pipsqueak Fence in his skirmish unit got the kill before he did.

Fence was just turning to go after the scout when a far off glint caught his eye.  Focusing on the area in question, he saw a carefully moving vehicle, trying to avoid being seen setting up in an ambush position.  “Sir!  Enemy contacts setting up an ambush position 1 kilometer south of here.  Looks like a pair of Light Combat units.”

Pyre mulled over this new information.  “Acknowledged.  Continue pursuit of the scout.  All other units, close range with identified ambush position.”  There was something to be said of deception in warfare, but sometimes preponderance of firepower was all that mattered, and he had that in spades compared to this rag-tag skirmish team.

Gryphon felt the sweat start beading on his brow, despite the relatively cool temperature of the swamp.  It all came down to this.  If the enemy force didn’t separate even a little bit before reaching him, he would have to call a retreat or be overwhelmed.  In a classroom, he would have failed the student who proposed calmly waiting for a larger, better equipped force to bear down on a light unit without preparing somehow.  Seconds trickled by.  If the force didn’t break soon, he would be forced.  There!  One of the enemy combat units was gaining too much of a lead on the others.  It was now or never.

Tycoon swore mightily when the first hit rocked his vehicle.  The ambushers had moved their position forward since the last sighting, and managed to still carry out the ambush because he’d gotten careless.  More fire pounded into the trees all around him.  He could feel every hit, and he gripped his control yoke tighter with every one.  A bolt of man-made lightning impacted the right gun mounts of his ride, and his mouth thinned as his HUD flashed a “ARMOR BREACHED” warning across his visor.  The faintest threads of worry began to cross his mind as all of his return fire merely scorched trees.

As soon as XO Adair “Duke” Cameron saw his commander’s ride’s leg sink into the soft earth of the swamp, he knew he was in trouble.  Getting bogged down in the middle of a raging firefight was a stupid was to get shot down.  “Sir!  Pull back, you’re going to get yourself killed if you keep advancing.”

Gryphon, despite the dire circumstances, felt a smile tugging at his mouth at his XO’s words, but only for a moment.  “Concentrate all fire on the first enemy vehicle!  When it goes down, we fall back.”  Fountains of fire burst from the weapon emplacements on the three vehicles.  Machine guns blazed, and artificial lightning crackled through the woods.  Beams of coherent light lanced through the air, boiling armor from its housing.  Mere seconds later, the subject of the brutal bombardment lost its arm in a spectacular explosion that knocked the vehicle from its feet.  “That’s it!  Withdrawn at the soonest opportunity.  Keep firing until they stop advancing.”  As he spoke, Gryphon’s vehicle was rocked with even more fire than the enemy, but he miraculously managed to keep his footing.

Tycoon barely managed to keep from smashing his head against the displays on Domino’s control panel as he plummeted to the ground.  He stifled a groan as he realized the particle cannon that had been mounted on the Domino’s right side was a pile of useless scrap now.  Guess it would have to be done with regular lasers now.

Pvt. Andrea “Storm” Panas saw her Team Second go down and moved immediately to support his recovery.  As she did, she saw Jester and her commander make a break for the other side of cover, closer to the enemy units.  She and most of the rest of the team present pumped huge volumes of fire into the enemy vehicle still stranded in the bog after the other broke free by engaging his jump jets.  The combined volume of fire produced several alluring explosions in the left side of the vehicle as something not-insignificant ruptured under ballistic duress.  The crippling fire washed over it, and the vehicle fell.

Blackout rushed from cover to the newly uncovered enemy scouts.  Two of them, it turned out, but numbers mattered little, at least until he started to see between four and eight of them for several seconds after a glancing hit to his cockpit.  Even with starry vision, Blackout managed to land hits with all three of his weapons systems, causing molten metal to run in rivulets down the enemy scout.  A small puff of flame told him that a hit had even punctured the enemy’s armor, even if nothing important had been hit.  The enemy scout took the hits and just kept coming, and Blackout started to entertain doubts about rushing out of cover to engage.

Harasser 5th Class Dustin “Zephyr” McCloud felt the stirrings of panic as the enemy pounded his vehicle into the ground.  His head smacked the overhead displays, and stars danced before his eyes, all while fire continued to pour from the enemy team.  Confronted with the very real possibility of death, Zephyr reached down and punched the ejection lever.  “I’m punching out!” he yelled as his cockpit rocketed from the crumpling chassis of his skirmisher unit.  Though better than death, ejecting still knocked him around quite a bit, and stars danced before his eyes again before he landed.

Fatigue was creeping up on all of them.  Combat was not kind to people, even if no fire was actually taken.  Somewhere in the back of Scout 5th Class Tavis “Eagle” Cullen’s mind, the thought passed, and was then forgotten in the furious hail of laser fire surrounding the space his vehicle occupied.  Fortunately, most of the fire whizzing through the air missed his vehicle.  This was getting ridiculous.  Neither of the two scouts were equipped to deal with a skirmish unit by themselves, much less a skirmish unit and a combat unit.  “Lancer, I’m buggin’ out!”

Lancer was thinking much along the same lines when Eagle commed him.  “Roger tha’, breaking contact now.”  With a final kick at the back of the enemy skirmish unit, both scouts sped for safety.  “Link up after we lose these blighters.” 

Gryphon was fairly certain they’d broken LOS between the enemy units.  Without a scout of their own, they wouldn’t find them again.  “Duke, link up with me, and we’ll try and rejoin Lancer and Eagle in a few minutes.  Poor Zephyr, I hope they’re kind to the kid.”  All Duke could do was nod solemnly within his cockpit.

Pyre was satisfied with the results of the sortie.  “Command, one enemy Light Skirmish lance routed, confirmed one vehicle disabled.  Moderate damage to one combat unit.  Enemy units have broken contact and are fleeing.  Returning to base with one captured pilot and vehicle.”  Looping the tow cables around the new quad vehicle, the re-united team, with an additional passenger, made tracks for their home base.  A quick check of the rest of the teams’ status forced a sigh from his lips.  Fence had better not mind getting home late.

Fence was actually enjoying this fight, for once.  He was the subject of very little attention.  That is, until the scouts made the break.  Fence was suddenly the subject of six medium size lasers and a kick.  The kick alone was enough to send him toppling, and toppling took off his vehicle’s right leg at the knee.  By the time he got back up, both scouts were long gone.  “Sir, I’ve got a little problem here.  I’m seeing stars, and Epee isn’t doing so hot in the mobility department anymore.”

Comments?  Questions?

[Scotty]

Ducking back in here after a little more than a month, does no one have any comments for that piece?  Is it so good it doesn't need comments, or is it so bad no-one bothered writing comments for such a piece of filth?

Side note: I might have the next installment of Be Warned up in the next couple of weeks.  I've got a few pages written, but nothing typed up yet.

[General Battuta]

Well, the rapid POV shifts and interchangeable personas make it hard to get attached to any of the characters, and the nature of the action provides plenty of detail but little reason to care.

By nature I think these types of AARs work better written from an out-of-universe perspective; that way you can talk about your opponents and use the actual players as characters.

[Scotty]

The big problem with that in this case was that everything was me.  I was playing both groups.  Makes it difficult (or at least very pretentious) to talk out-of-universe about opposing players when it's me.

I don't think I'll be doing another like it, since stopping the game to do the fiction write up made it take quite a bit longer than it would have otherwise.

Now, back to Be Warned.  I think something might actually happen this time!

[Scotty]

That didn't take near as long as I thought it would.  Then again, this is probably a fair deal shorter than any of the chapters posted above.  It's about three and a half pages on my word document.  Oh well.  Enjoy Part IV of Be Warned:

______________________________________________________________ _____________________

When Bradd awoke, the camp was already mostly gone.  Both giants hurried about, clearing the “fire” pit, and generally making sure it looked as though no-one had ever camped there.  The smaller giant saw he was awake, and lifted its hand through a lazy upward arc, beckoning to him.  The gesture looked oddly natural despite being performed by a being a dozen times his size.
   
“Pheyth tiat, sihcph twent, shuhp.  Zhwandost kyirht gw-eyth.”
   
“Right.  Long way to go.  Just give me a minutes to get up.”  Bradd groaned as he rose, sore muscles protesting every move he made.  His whole body ached form yesterday’s march.
   
The giants, however, didn’t seem to suffer from that particular shortcoming.  Bradd was barely on his feet before they were on the move again.  We weary sigh later, he ran to catch up.
   
Bradd would never be completely sure what happened next.  One minute, the odd troop was marching along, mountain peaks rising above the horizon slowly but surely.  The next, a group of a half dozen large blurs burst from the frozen ground as if it were tissue paper.
   
The blurs, Bradd supposed they were creatures of some kind, moved blindingly fast, despite their size.  The same was true of the giants, who leapt to meet the sudden challenge.  For what seemed like minutes, but was probably little more than a few seconds, Bradd felt as if someone had hit the fast forward button on the world.  Large blurs grappled with even larger blurs in a dance that seem too graceful and smooth to be real.
   
Bradd snapped out of his daze to see blood staining the frozen ground.  One of the attacking creatures hung limp on a rock, eyes staring sightlessly from a neck craned at an unnatural angle.  It had six limbs, all of what appeared to be legs, and all capped by a foot the size of his head, complete with wickedly scythed claws.  Pebbly grey skin made it hard for him to see clearly, even when the creature was motionless.
   
Without warning, a blood chilling screech tore through the air, almost doubling Bradd over with its intensity as he tried to protect his ears.  The horrible sound made him dizzy, and by the time he could stand up reliably, all the creatures were gone, including the one Bradd had been looking at.
   
“Pheyth tiaht!” came an urgent rumble from behind him.  “Ahmee nahnt neyraht!”  Bradd turned to see a giant prone on the ground, blood staining the already disturbed snow.  The residual dizziness from the shriek and the sight of so much blood threatened to send Bradd tumbling to the ground.  A deep-seated nausea rose in him as he became aware of the smell.  It was all he could do to not keel over and vomit his guts out.
   
“Shohm!” the still-standing giant roared, shocking Bradd back to his sense.  “Sith lah-spihrtohrt tiaht,” it continued, gesturing to its friend’s side.
   
Bradd got the point.  Doing as he was instructed, Bradd placed his hands over the indicated area.  Immediately, a new wave of nausea threatened to overtake him.  He could feel the wound below him, as if it were his own.  A dull pounding filled his ears, and he began to feel lightheaded.
   
The giant, who, Bradd realize in a moment of absurdly insignificant clarity, had never given his name, readied himself for whatever was going to happen.  “Drahph pheyth!”  The command was given so forcefully, Bradd obeyed without thinking, freezing right where he was.
   
All of a sudden, time seemed to slow.  Bradd could count the seconds between each of his own heartbeats, which thundered in his ears, still elevated from the fight.  He looked to the giant below him, and his eyes tracked ever so slowly to her wound.  It was still there, but if Bradd wasn’t dreaming, it didn’t look as bad as before.
   
He wrenched his eyes from the gash and back to the unnamed giant.  Bradd was surprised to see a look of almost pained concentration on his face, and what looked to be sweat from exertion pouring down the giant’s body.  He looked to be at the breaking point of whatever it is he was doing.
   
As if noticing the giant’s exertion was the trigger for his own, Bradd suddenly felt a great weight settle on him.  He immediately felt as if he had sprinted a mile full out.  His arms trembled, and sweat now coated his own brow.  For two dozen agonizing heartbeats, the pressure built, and built, and built, and… was gone, just like that.
   
Bradd let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding and gulped fresh air like a fish out of water.  Nearly a minute passed before he could get to his feat without nearly falling all over himself.  When he could finally stand, he looked down to the wounded giant.  Or, at least, he thought he did.  When his eyes net the new, pale flesh where before had been a bleeding gash, he gasped in shock.
   
“What?!  How?!” he veritably exploded.  “It was there just a…” Bradd may not have been in the top of his class, back home, but he wasn’t stupid.  He read popular fiction to form a quick guess about what happened.  Magic.  It had to be.
   
He turned away from the still prone giant, and weariness hit him all at once.  The fading light only added to his already almost overwhelming exhaustion.  Wait, fading?  Bradd dragged his head up, and looked at where the sun had been in the sky when the attack had started, what felt like hours ago.  It was on the other side of the sky.  So… it really was hours ago.   Somehow the realization only deepened his fatigue.  Now he was struggling to keep his eyes open.
   
Ahmee was just managing to lift herself from the ground.  She looked exhausted too, as did the still-unnamed giant.  Even though hours had likely passed since the attack, both seemed to be in a great hurry to get away from the site.  Bradd tried to follow them, but his legs weren’t responding to well to his mind.  They felt like lead, and he could hardly move them.  When he tried to hurry up, he nearly pitched forward.  Ahmee noticed his trouble, and hefted him up and carried him bodily on their way.
   
Free from his slow pace on the ground, both giants were now able to break into a run, covering much greater distances on their way to wherever their destination was.  Still utterly exhausted, Bradd was unable to stay awake, even with the frenzied pace the giants took, and soon fell asleep.  The giants ran through the night, stopping only for short rests here and there.  Bradd slept peacefully through it all.  When he did wake, brought back to consciousness by the sun peeking over the snowy mountaintops, it was to a sight he never even imagined.

[Scotty]

You know what's awesome?  Fallout.  You know what would make Fallout 20% cooler?  My Little Pony.

There's already a God-tier/length fic on the internet about Fallout crossed with Ponies, this is just my little sidestory to it.  Enjoy.


Friendship is Power
Chapter One: Blood Ties
“Blood, as all ponies know, than water's thicker/ But water's wider, thank Celestia, than blood.”

Living in a Stable is hard. I mean, I know that objectively, somepony out there has it worse than I do. A lot worse, but it's hard to keep running that through my head in the middle of a long shift, tending the lonely, almost forgotten lounge in the deep recesses of Stable 20. I work the bar, you see, and spend all of my time waiting on customers that spend all their time trading with the local settlements, or rooting out the small, isolated groups of raiders in the hills around the Stable entrance. Fun stuff. Interesting stuff. I get maybe four ponies a day in here. Maybe. It's an exercise in patience that I always lose, electing to take a nap instead of stare at the door waiting hopelessly for a customer.

But wait, you ask yourself, what kind of Stable has a bar in it, of all things? Well, Stable 20 had much more than just a bar. It also had an indoor swimming facility, a gymnasium, fully equipped bathhouse, and auditorium. It was a “luxury” Stable, or was as close to being one as any other Stable I've ever heard of. Of course, that meant a lower than average population for the same space, but I digress.

Our Stable had been open and trading with the rest of the Wasteland for almost a decade. We were Stable ponies. Strong, able-bodied, well-supplied. We traded food and water, the two things we could always get more of, for guns and ammo and armor. Ponies came and went as they pleased, for the most part. Some joined us from the neighboring towns, some left to find their fortune, some were born, some died. Population was more or less constant. It was the next best thing to a fortress our corner of the wastes ever saw. The guards knew each other, had worked together for years, and could kick any wanna be raider's ass twice before they could even think about it once. Friendship is power, and we knew it.

Unfortunately for us, we weren't the only ponies to figure that out.

Oh, how rude of me. I've forgotten to introduce myself. My name is Mint Julep, but everyone who's known me for any length of time just calls me Julie. It's something of a running joke with my regulars. Most of them always order a mint jelup to start the evening, and always make a crack at my name. I'm just glad I don't look exactly like one. Mint blue with a forest green mane and eyes that match my coat make it a little irritating, though. It's a close enough match to be funny. The first dozen times, at least. At least my cutie mark is a martini glass complete with olive instead of a mint garnish. My quarters were actually connected to the bar, and I was the only one who ran it, so I spend the vast majority of my time sitting behind the counter. I left for meals and a thrice weekly exercise regimen and didn't say anything to anypony unless they talked first. They never did, and I lived my life all but friendless and eventless.

Like I said, I work the bar. It's hard stuff, staring at walls. I wished my life was more interesting. I wished my life was more exciting. I wished it was anywhere but here, anywhere but mixing the same drink for the same two ponies everyday. I had no idea just how horribly right my wish was going to go....

*    *    *    *    *    *

I woke from a particularly relaxing nap to the angry sound of a blaring alarm klaxon. I could hear... something echoing down the halls. It wasn't on this level, no, it had to be at least two levels up. That meant whatever it was was really, really loud if it was going through three meters of air and steel. I was still wondering what the blazes it could be when a quartet of shouting ponies rounded the corner and charged into the bar. Two of them came in dragging a third, with the fourth levitating some bag or sac or something alongside.

“Hey, what's going on up there?” I asked, this whole happening still little but a curiousity. They were clearly worked up over something, but I had no idea what, and it didn't excuse them from barging in like this so rowdy and loud.

“Clear a table, now!” the one levitating the... whatever it was, yelled at me. I froze for a second, the shock at being so rudely ordered around not doing anything to help my blossoming confusion.

“I beg your pardon? I asked you a question!”

The unicorn, the only unicorn of the bunch, gave me a piercing glare. “NOW!” That did it. A quick flash of my horn (I'm a unicorn, if you just missed it) shoved everything on the table closest to the door to the floor with a crash. The two carriers hefted their cargo up onto the newly cleared surface, and I finally got a good look at who they were carrying.

It was Ratchel. My best and only friend Ratchel. Ratchel, and a lot of blood. A whole lot of blood. “Goddesses! Ratchel! What happened?” The blood, more blood than I ever wanted to see, spilled over the edge of the table, splattering the spotless floor in a macabre inkblot pattern. I couldn't even tell if Ratchel was still breathing. A small, tinny voice in the back of my head was *****ing about how irritating cleaning this up was going to be, but I stomped it out as hard as I could before it got out of hand.

The unicorn didn't waste any time explaining. “Raiders. Hit the entrance, cut through to the cafeteria and the armory in minutes. Infirmary is full of them, and there are going to be more ponies coming in here. I need you to clear the rest of these tables and keep the floor clean so we can work.”

“Raiders?” I gulped, a feeling of dread spreading from the pit of my stomach to the rest of me. “Are they going to reach us down here?” An entirely justified feeling of panic was very quickly shutting down my basic thought processes.

“Hey! Stay with me. Clear these tables. Now.” That voice was... I don't know how to describe it. It was simultaneously compelling and conforting. Even a demand like that, the likes of which I would never suffer silently on a normal day, soothed my nerves. I found myself responding to the command instantly, horn flashing, dishes crashing to the floor.

The stench is always what bothers me most. It sticks to everything it touches, cloying the air, invading every space it can reach with the smell of blood and death. My bar became a grim picture of the worst the Wasteland could do in a matter of minutes. I didn't think I would ever be able to sit behind the counter again and mix a drink without seeing my bar as the portrait of hell it was. I knew, right then, that I would never be able to let this go unanswered. There were a dozen ponies on my tables, on the floor, wherever they would fit, their blood leaking from their bodies as nurses and doctors frantically tried to identify those with injuries serious enough to warrant a healing potion, and those that could be treated with a few stitches and a bit of antiseptic. From what I could see, almost all of them needed potions. Most of them never got one, and a lot of them didn't make it.

In the middle of this carnage, mopping the new coat of crimson paint from the floors, my coat specked with blood, sweat, and tears, I realized something. I was a stranger in my own Stable. Aside from Ratchel, I recognized maybe two other ponies sprawled out in my lounge, neither of them by name. I didn't know the doctors. I didn't know the nurses. I didn't know anyone. I felt like I didn't know anything. There was just one thing that I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt: the raiders had to pay. They had to pay, and I was going to make them.

The Stable was normally well stocked, but one of the places the raiders targeted first was the infirmary. The health potions we could use were limited to personal stashes and first aid stations in the halls. In other words, not near enough. I stayed up through the night, tending to the wounded and sometimes dying ponies that I didn't know but should. I'll never forget the moans and whimpers, each one feeling like a personal condemnation. Like I should have been up there with them, like I should have know what was going on while there was still enough time to help.

Ratchel died before they got a healing potion to her. The rest of my friends and the bar's regulars I had no news on. In the utter chaos of the situation, I couldn't get a good answer out of anypony. I drifted between groups of ponies, some injured, some not, all panicked and scared and irrational. None of them knew what to do next.

I needed to find the overmare. She would know what to do. I had to find her, and she would tell me exactly what I could do to help the Stable. I felt like I needed to help. Needed to make up for sleeping through most of the attack. Needed to make up for being useless. There was just one major problem with that plan.

The Overmare was gone.

No one knew for sure what had happened to her. She was still alive and in the Stable, but hiding away. No, she was dead and her body hadn't been found. No, she'd abandoned the Stable and led the raiders here. No, she'd been taken by raiders, for Goddesses know what reason. One senile old buck even claimed that an alicorn had taken her away before the fighting. An alicorn! The Goddesses had left Equestria 200 years prior, and he expected me to believe that one of them had come back? There were other rumors, even more fantastic and nonsensical tales that I gave even less passing interest to.

Still, they all agreed that in some way or another, she was unavailable. Not good. But I was not so easily shaken from my quest. I was going to help this Stable. I had to, for the ponies I didn't know and would now never know. Ponies who had never known I existed, or cared if they did. I was tired of being a drain, an insignificant speck at the bottom of the Stable. I took a moment to run through my options. What pony here would know what to do?

The unicorn! The one with the commanding voice, he would know what to do. I had to find him. I made my way up to the top level of the Stable, to the Overmare's office. I could start there and make my way down.

I immediately regretted my decision when I stepped into hallway outside of the real infirmary. It made what my bar had been turned into look immaculate in its cleanliness. I recoiled in horror as I realized that some of the lumps on the floor were pieces of ponies. Maybe even a pony I had known. The stench was even worse. Blood and death mixed with filth and bile and everything the raiders brought with them.

It was more than enough. I vomited. I had to get away from that vile pit. I practically galloped the rest of the way to the Overmare's office, and it still wasn't enough to avoid glimpses of the horror that filled the halls. Even a low population Stable had a lot of ponies, and raiders have a variety of ways of dealing with a 'surplus.' I finally broke out of the area the raiders had managed to claim before leaving, finally able to get out of that slaughterhouse.

Once I got out, the stench abated enough that I could breathe. I found myself in the upper level dormitories. The entire level seemed deserted. I could see why, being so close to that horror even if I couldn't see it set me on edge. I set off for the Overmare's office. It was luckily located at the other end of the dorms, so I wouldn't have to go back through that hell.

I got lucky, and the unicorn was in the first place I looked. He looked terrible. Ragged mane, haggard eyes, and a blood-stained coat told me he hadn't slept or refreshed himself since the incident. The sight of him, obviously miserable and desperate for rest, almost made me wait until tomorrow. Almost.

“Sir...” I trailed off. I didn't even know his name. A spike of trepidation almost made me back away and slink back to my little den. No, I was going to do this, Celestia dammit! I cleared my throat and started again. “I want to help.”

Wow. That sounded lame. The image of myself as a hero that had been slowly building faded in the awkward silence that ensued. The unicorn colt simply stared at me, as if he hadn't even heard what I said. “Sir?” That seemed to break him from his silence.

It wasn't exactly the response I expected. “Seriously?” his expression brightened, “it's about time somepony decided they wanted to actually help instead of just ***** and moan about how they should get special treatment while the Overmare is gone. I don't know how she handles it.” His smile faded slightly. “But now I have to, until she turns up again.” He stood up, wobbling slightly, exhaustion clearly evident in his posture and movements.

“If you really want to help, we need to find where those raiders went. They took everything they could get their grubby hooves on before scooting on out of here. Food, guns, medical supplies. Everything.” He paused for a second, gathering his thoughts, or maybe waiting to see if I would say anything. I didn't, too focused on the state of the Stable that I had until recently completely ignored. “That means we're in a bad spot. A really bad one. No food, we starve. No guns, the next time they come back, we won't escape with anything. No medicine, we get sick and die or the ones that get wounded eventually die. That means we need to get it all back, somehow. What I need you to do is track the raiders back to where they took our stuff, miss...?” He trailed off, waiting for an answer.

“Julep. Mint Julep, but everyone who knows me calls me Julie,” I replied, and realized that I didn't know his name either. “And what's your name?”

He shook his head quickly. “It's unimportant. Call me Doc for now.” Any protest I mustered died on my lips at the look he gave me. I felt the echo of this kind of... cloudiness permeating my thoughts. You know, it really was unimportant all things considered. He saw my reaction (or rather lackthereof) and gave a curt nod before continuing, “Good. Now, Miss Julep, I need you to find the raider camp in the wastes. Normally I'd send someone who knows the area, or at the very least which end of a gun the bullets come out of, but security took a beating in the attack. You're quite simply the only pony in this vault that's come forward to help, and I need all of security here in case they come back.”

That took even dull thoughts aback. The only pony? Really? I started to have my doubts. Were these ponies worth helping? Just how much did I not know about this Stable? “But... how am I going to find the raider camp? I've never been outside this vault before.”

“Trust me, you'll be able to find them. I want you to go see Officer Buckton and get outfitted for the wastes. He should have a pistol or something you can have. I'm not about to send you out there unarmed. It's very important to me that we not lose as many ponies as we possibly can, you included.”

Just who was this pony? In a matter of minutes, using nothing but his voice, he had given me direction, purpose, and the means to make a difference. There was no way I could have missed him. Somepony, somewhere must have mentioned him. Damn this fog, making it hard to think.

“Well? You have a job to do.” His voice cut through the fog and thickened it at the same time. I vaguely felt myself moving out of the office and toward the armory.

The next few minutes were a wonderful blur to me, talking to a security pony, getting issued a pistol and ammo. I don't even remember passing back through the slaughterhouse. I didn't know what kind it was, or really how to use it. The inventory spell on my Pipbuck helpfully labeled it a “10 mm Pistol.” I had three of what the guard called a 'magazine' and he showed me how to work the slide back to make it ready to fire, and then how to push the trigger button with my magic. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time or ammo for me to waste either precious resource practicing.

My Stable 20 jumpsuit, a handful of caps I pulled from the bar register, the pistol I didn't know how to use, and the pipbuck I never used except to listen to the Stable radio station were all I had, and as far as I was concerned, all I would need for my assigned task.

I didn't give the situation a second thought as I walked out into the wasteland, stepping over but not noticing the corpses of ponies I might have called friends once. I might never have left the Stable myself, but I knew ponies that had. Ratchel went into town every once in a while to barter for some spare parts, and liked to tell stories at the bar of what she did. This frequently involved obviously exaggerated tales of fighting off bloatsprites, radhogs, radigators, and all sorts of other dangerous creature. I felt like I knew exactly what I was doing. Now, looking back, it's obvious that I didn't. I had no clue what I was getting into.

I needed to get out of that Stable, and onto the trail of the raiders. That was really the only thing that mattered to me at that moment. I stepped into the entrance cave, ready to take on the world, and I wasn't about to let that trail get cold.

Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk: Thicker Than Water – You've seen enough blood that you never want to see it again, and will go to great lenghts to avoid seeing more. Your Medicine skill is increased by 10.

[Scotty]

Friendship is Power
Chapter Two: Live Wire
“What world do you live in? Out here in the real would, blood flows, man. Blood flows....”

I wished the trail had gone cold. At least then the Stable's entrance cave could have been cleaned up before I left. I did my best to get out of the immediate area before I lost it. Almost made it, too. At least I found a bush this time so I didn't have to look at what came out of my stomach.

Once I'd cleared cave, a breath of fresh air pierced the fog still lingering over my thoughts. Leaving aside my lingering nausea, I felt good. No, I felt better than good. I felt great. I was outside of the Stable. I was doing something productive. I was, for the first real time in my life, actually living.

There was a house a hundred yards away, and a trail leading from about where I was standing to the front door. No other structures were visible from where I was standing, and the trail I was on curled lazily toward the Stable cave before vanishing within. I didn't have any landmarks loaded in my Pipbuck, and I wasn't about to go charging aimlessly into the Wastes, so I started toward that lone house. My next move was laid clear before me. I loved it when things were simple.

The house was a two-level affair, surprisingly well cared for considering in was probably upwards of 200 years old. The paint wasn't even peeling, and the windows were all unbroken, which surprised me. In fact, the whole thing seemed a little too good. There was something off about the place, but I just couldn't afford to pass up any lead I could take. Just to be safe, I brought up the help file on my Pipbuck and turned on everything I thought would help. Eyes-Forward Sparkle? I didn't even know what that was, but on it went. Stable-Assisted-Targeting-System? That name was a bit more helpful, and it got turned on, too. Compass, at-a-glance health indicator, weapon status, it all got turned on now, before it came back to bite me in the flank for forgetting it later. I trotted up the front steps, pausing at the door.  The map function somehow figured out it was called the “Tourist Trap.”  Not sure how it knew that, wasn’t about to complain. Before I walked through I drew my beat up old pistol and made sure it was ready to use. Just in case.

I don't know how it knew, and I doubt I'll ever really figure out how it works, but somehow my E.F.S. lit up with a livid crimson bar as I knocked on the door. Everywhere else it's used, red is typically code for “bad,” and I wasn't about to second guess my gut out here. My horn flashed, pistol coming up, and I dove to the side, out of the door frame. Not a moment too soon, either, as the portal exploded into splinters as half a dozen bullets slammed into it. The crack of gunshots was deafening and terrifying, especially for somepony who's never heard them before. A bullet thudded into the small porch next to me, sending more splinters flying, cutting shallow gashes in my Stable jumpsuit. This thing obviously wasn't going to stop much more than a sharp stick as I was walking along, much less a bullet. My E.F.S. alerted me to another enemy, this one not inside the house, but instead at the top of a nearby hill. They evidently had a rifle of some kind. It flashed, another bullet shattered the window behind me, and the report echoed across the intervening distance.

This was definitely not good. I couldn't move into the building because of the pony in the house, and I couldn't stay here because of the pony with the rifle. I was pushing my luck just by staying here this long. Muttering fervent, panicked, and entirely too profane prayers to whichever of the Goddesses would listen, I rolled to my side and up onto my hooves, ducking frantically over the edge of the stairs and as far out of the way of the rifle as I could. Not quite good enough, and only luck saved me as the bullet deflected off of my still raised pistol. The jolt of the hit shocked me into pushing the trigger, and a much, much louder crack momentarily deafened me.

I dropped the pistol, it was probably useless now anyway, and reached out with my magic toward the door. I was never the best at levitation, and even worse at using my magic to manipulate objects I was already carrying, but I had to do something. The door swung open, twisted, and buckled at the hinges before finally tearing away entirely. I now had a shield, and my desperate prayers were answered as the rifle thudded into the solid wood but failed to penetrate. With cover, I could think out what I was going to do. First things first, make sure this wasn't just a horrible misunderstanding.

“Hey! Just wait a ****ing minute! I haven't done anything to you!”

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't the hysterical laughter that followed. Insane laughter. The pony in there was very clearly absolutely out of touch with reality in a big way.

Raiders. I froze in place. The damn butchers were right here! Why couldn't I move? I sat there, frozen, while bullets continued to slam into my makeshift shield. I was going to die here. I could feel it. I ducked as far into the corner as fast as I could, my magic wavering, shield dipping. A few more minutes, and they'd come out after me. It was all but over. There were more red dots now, at least three in the house now. Hysterical laughter echoed out of the house, now coming from not just one voice.

No no No NO NO! This was not happening! I was not going to let these ponies close in an butcher me. This strange, unfamiliar red-hot rage burned through the ice gripping my heart and evaporated my indecision. A guttural scream ripped itself from my throat and I vaulted back onto the porch and dove through the door hopefully fast enough that rifle-raider couldn't get a clear shot at me. I felt a strong tug at my hindquarters and I stumbled and fell, barreling headfirst into the first raider I saw. I couldn't feel anything wrong with me, but I was certain that I'd just been shot. No matter, it wouldn't stop me. These raiders would feel my rage whether they killed me or not.

We went down in a tangle of limbs. Apparently even raiders aren't in the habit of shooting at their own if there's a target on top of them. Good. The raider was wearing some grotesque collection of metal, bone, and what I was dreadfully certain was pony flesh half rotted away. I should have known they'd smell horrible. My gun was gone, my flimsy jumpsuit was full of holes just from falling on top of the collection of pointy bits the raider called armor. I was locked in hoof-to-hoof combat with one raider, there were two more staring at me with greedy, hungry eyes. I couldn't see what weapons they had, but it didn't matter. I had something they didn't.

I had an effective melee weapon.

My magic may not have been the strongest, but that doesn't seem to matter much when the object I was swinging was a solid wooden slab of a door. I rolled to the side and kicked the raider away from me a few inches. It was all I needed. The door, which I had somehow kept grip on during the incredibly brief struggle, hung in the air above the raider's neck.

I dropped it.

I've never broken a bone. I've never seen or heard a pony break a bone before. I watched the door crush the raider's neck under the impact. That hysterical laugh morphed into something grotesque, a wheezing, rasping cough as the utterer tried to draw breath through a shattered windpipe. Insane glee painted on his face morphed before my eyes to horrid realization. He was a dead pony.

Were it not for the other raiders around me, I would have just sat there to watch him die. I wanted to do nothing more in the world than watch this festering pox on the face of ponykind shudder and go still. But there were other raiders around me. I'd get to do it again. That thought kept me moving on to the next raider, moreso than any real sense of self-preservation.

The raider had been a unicorn, his weapon a gun that was bulkier than my pistol, with a magazine separate from the grip. I grasped it with my magic, my Pipbuck helpfully telling me it was a 10 mm Submachine Gun. A wicked grin spread across my face. This was even better than the pistol that was probably still smoking outside. I got to my feet, turning to look at my remaining two opponents in the house. One was an earth pony, the other a unicorn. Fortunately, only the unicorn had a gun, a pistol that looked worse than my old one, and the other raider only having a rusty knife that had definitely seen better days.

I liked my odds. Now I just had to pick which one of them to e--

Pain exploded in my chest, a red-hot spike that dimmed into a constant, heavy stream of the worst pain I had ever felt. An unpleasantly wet, warm feeling spread quickly from the center of the pain, dripping down my sleeves and onto the floor. Every throb of my heart intensified the feeling. I knew what it was, and instantly knew that what I had been so certain was a hit before had been nothing. But I wouldn't die, not yet. I grit my teeth against the pain, and before the smoking pistol could fire again, I depressed the trigger on the submachine gun. I wasn't expecting the stream of bullets to come out, and the muzzle drifted quickly upwards, tracking bullets across the gun-raider's torso and into the ceiling. Red mist blossomed out of the neat little holes that appeared in the raider's chest and neck, and then a bullet took the top of his head off.

Even in the middle of combat, I vomited again. Didn't matter if it was the middle of the fight of my life, didn't matter if I did it or somepony else did, watching cranial tissue decorate the other-wise decently clean walls put me over the edge again. Oh, Goddesses that hurt! The muscles in my chest spasmed, renewing the red-hot pain in my chest as it did so. I just wanted to curl up and die. Anything to make it stop.

NO! There was another one left! Whipping the submachine gun around with my magic, I depressed the trigger again. This burst stayed on target, but this raider had much better armor than the other, and they mostly skipped off barding or buried themselves in bits of leather and metal. The gun clicked empty.

****.

I really hate raiders. You know, in case you didn't pick that little bit up. But what I hate most about them isn't their dressing habits, it isn't their propensity for wholesale slaughter. It's their laugh. Their never-to-be-sufficiently-damned laugh. I got to hear it closer than I ever wanted to right then. Apparently my last raider was a mare. My knees buckled, and I found myself staring at the floor, the spasming in my chest not helping at all. The pain burned through my feeble fortitude, and the blood loss was really starting to get to me. I heard but couldn't see the raider approach. My vision was blurry, my hearing tinny and small. Thundering heartbeats threatened to drown out everything else.

Instinct took over. I lashed out with my magic, dropping the empty gun and instead grabbing for the knife in the she-raider's mouth. I got lucky. She was either so startled she dropped it, or I'm a lot stronger than I ever thought I was, or I wrenched it in just the right direction to free it. Whatever the reason, I now had a knife, and she-raider didn't have anything.

Laughing hurt too much, but swinging a knife with my magic didn't use my chest muscles at all. Thank the Goddesses for small favors.

There was no finesse in my technique. There was no grace in my swing. I just swung that knife and kept swinging, punching through armor and flesh and scoring bone. Kept swinging until I heard a thud and saw a pool of blood that wasn't mine spread across the floor. I barely kept from vomiting again. Only the knowledge that throwing up would wrack me with terrible pain kept the bile down.

Staying here would leave me dead in a pool of my own blood. I had to find medical supplies, and fast. The bathroom was the most likely place for that. My luck, such as it was, held out on me; the bathroom was right in front of me, the door not ten feet from my hooves.

Crawling to that door was the single most agonizing thing I had ever done. I wanted to stop. I wanted to die. I wanted to curl up in a ball and wait for that last raider outside to finish the job. Anything to make the pain stop.

Sometime later, I don't know how long, but it couldn't have been too long or I'd have bled out, I made it. There it was. A medicine box hung on the wall next to a mirror over the sink. Goddesses be praised!

Locked.

I wanted to cry. So close. I was going to die withing hoofsreach of the thing that could save me.

There was a bobby pin on the sink. Sometimes the register jammed, or I lost the key, or some other abject terror befell the bar in its worst moments, so I knew my way around a lock. Luck must have just been with me that day. The lock was simple, didn't even have to move the bobby pin from where I jammed it in. The lock clicking open was the most glorious sound I had ever heard.

Inside was a pair of empty bottles, a blood pack, and a healing potion. Luck was truly on my side. I downed it in seconds. Immediately I could feel the bleeding stop and the pain subside. Anatomy isn't my strong suit, and I'm fairly certain that the bullet missed most of my vital organs, but feeling the parts of my insides it did reach rearrange themselves, molding back together to not even leave a scar unsettled me in ways I can't really explain. It was unpleasant, but I wasn't about to complain about being alive. Well, not too loudly, at least.

I got back to my hooves slowly, not wanting to test the quality of my healing overmuch until I was sure I was safe.

The mirror saved my life. I got a glimpse of the last raider charging through the wrecked doorway with a rifle clenched in her jaw. I ducked and dove into the tub in the back as the mirror shattered under the raider’s fire. Fortunately, the tub was one of those metal dealies and could more than shrug off the rifle's bullets. I popped my head up so I could see what to do and almost lost an ear to a near-miss. Fortunately, the raider's gun was a piece of **** and her aim wasn't that great either.

It was just me and her, and I already knew how this would end. The rifle jammed, and a grin split my face from ear to ear. “Looks like luck isn't on your side, but it sure as hell is on mine.” She spat out the rifle and charged at me. I'd been out of the Stable for a grand total of ten minutes, green as green could be. She'd lived in the wastes her whole life, at least some of the time as a bloodthirsty, hardened raider. It shouldn't have been this easy. By all rights, she should have practically eaten me alive in hoof to hoof combat.

I brought the knife up, it flashed twice, hamstringing her hindlegs and sending her tumbling to the floor. It flashed again, cutting a gash down her flank, exposing a graphic representation of a pony being spit roasted over a bonfire.

It pissed me off. How ****ed up did a pony have to be to get a cutie mark that told the world their special talent was ****ing cannibalism? It sparked a deep, seething rage in me that wouldn't be satisfied by just killing this monster. She wasn't even a pony to me anymore.

The knife would be too quick. I tossed it aside and grasped for the door again. She was helpless, trying to crawl forward at me with just her front legs. There was still that murderous glint in her eyes, that hint of insanity. It was justification enough for me. The door blindsided her and sent her crashing into the wall. I don't know what broke and where, but it was evidently enough to make her stop trying to crawl toward me and instead just collapse in a heap. She was still alive, still breathing, but now pinned against the wall by the heavy door.

I grinned. It was a cruel, evil grin. “You and I are going to have a little talk. I want to know where my friends are. You are going to tell me. And then you're going to die. Any questions?” The knife, rusty as it was, glinted in the light of the sun shining at an angle through a window above the door.

She just spat in my face. That was okay by me. I could work with that.

“Alright, let's get down to business.”

I don't know how far into our little session she died, but I know it wasn't quick. It also wasn't at the end of it. I realized I didn't really care, either. I got what I wanted to know, and I got what I wanted to get, in the end. The sun had already halfway set behind the hills off to my left as I exited the house. The submachine gun and all the former-raider's ammunition found its way to my saddlebags, along with the knife and all of the medical supplies I didn't use while I was in the house, which amounted to one healing potion, a syringe of Med-X, the blood pack, and strangely a trio of bobby pins, which makes four. Still not a collection to write home about, especially since home was all of 200 feet from where I was walking. The rest of the house was barren and looked like it had been looted and left to rot years ago.

Thanks to my favorite raider, I now knew where the largest of the settlements in the area was. Unfortunately, she wasn't a part of the raider group that butchered half of my stable, so I didn't get that information, but now I had a definite starting place in the form of a mid-size town that the locals called Cantilly. At my current pace, I'd get there a few hours before dawn. My bloodthirst had been sated for now, but that still gave me more than a few hours for planning just what I'd do to all that scum when I finally got my hands on them.

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Surgeon – Through careful experimentation, you've discovered a lot about how the pony body works. All strictly academic, of course. Your Medicine and Melee Weapons are both increased by 5.