“D-don’t move!” I heard a new voice stammer, my face still buried in the snow. I stood up, shaking the dirty snow off of my body, only to be facing a unicorn, levitating an AER9 standard issue laser rifle between us both. The navy blue pony was shaking slightly, the tips of his orange mane being blown by the small breeze that blew in from the hole in the roof. He flicked the laser rifle upwards a bit, indicating for us to relinquish our weapons. His eyes flicked back and forth between Twintails and myself, or more specifically, my horn and leg. “W-what’re you doing here? Were you the ones that set off the explosion?” I levitated out my plasma rifle, but I didn’t drop it. I may be willing to give this guy the benefit of the doubt, but there’s no way I’m leaving myself unarmed.

“We may have. There are a lot of ponies around here, and a testing facility like this one isn’t exactly unfamiliar with explosions...” I said. The pony just kept pointing his rifle at us. I scanned the pony’s body, fixating on his armor. I froze, my heart picking up… No way… that’s… I squealed, leaning in for a closer look, completely disregarding the trigger happy wearer. “OhmyCelestiathat’saT-51BPowerArmorsuitwhereinEquestriadidyougetthat?” I was grinning giddily. Power Armor had to be the best thing behind plasma; there’s no way a bullet’s getting through that thing!

The pony looked at me, his nervousness changing to a bit of surprise and confusion. As I inspected his armor he traded glances with Twintails, who only shrugged. Ooh what I wouldn’t do for a set of that armor. It’d definitely mean less concussion induced naps. Well, barring an Electromagnetic Pulse of course. The pony still looked a little confused, but holstered his rifle (I suppose I could do with one of those too), figuring we would’ve fired by now if we were going to shoot him.

“So… what do you guys know about what happened?” He asked. He shifted his weight a little, his suit releasing air to lower pressure and allow him to lean. That hiss of air probably got me a little more excited than I should have been. Twintails raised an eyebrow at me as I stood myself straight up again, before turning back to face the power-armored unicorn.

“There was a camp of raiders holed up in the ravine,” Twintails said, the other stallion pressing a small button near the collar of his suit. A red light began to flash as a soft crackle of static was heard. “We gunned a couple of them down, but we were running low on ammunition as more were approaching. We climbed out of the ravine... I think... and lobbed a Balefire Egg into there. The explosion knocked me out, I didn’t see what happened afterwards, except a giant snowslide where the group was.” Twintails ears lowered a bit, looking disappointed.

The unicorn squinted a little. “That sounded and felt a heck of a lot bigger than just a single Balefire Egg. You sure you didn’t ‘accidentally’ find a Megaspell warhead around here?” He asked. I bit my lower lip a little, partially afraid to disclose the information to the unicorn and partially not wanting to disappoint Twintails even more.

“Well… I may have seen… some kind of large metallic object buried in the ravine before I chucked the Balefire Egg in.” The unicorn squinted a little, looking upset. “I swear I thought it was some kind of mainframe!” I said, not wanting to anger him any more than I already had. He pressed the button on his collar again, the light stopped its flashing and the crackle of static was heard again.

“Alright, but I want you two out of here, now. And if I hear another explosion, my superior’s won’t be happy.” He ran off to investigate the canyon, leaving Twintails and me standing in the small room made out of a big depression in the ground. Twintails looked over to me, raising an eyebrow a little before we started to climb out. I pulled out my Pipbuck, finding we were only a bit east of the Quebuck ballistic defense base. Well, I suppose that at least makes sense.

“Superiors? Who do you think he’s working for?” Twintails asked as we trotted across the test site, many craters dotting the landscape. I watched Twintails’ eyes dart excitedly around the place, wide as dinnerplates; sheesh, they’re just irradiated holes in the ground. “You don’t think he’s with the Enclave, is he?” He started to drift towards a small shack near a fence. I only rolled my eyes and followed him.

“It’s unlikely. He was a unicorn after all, and I don’t think Enclave use T51-B model armor. It’s good, but there are better models out there.” I said as we approached the small shack. “Heck, that suit wasn’t even winterized; He’s probably freezing in it.” I chuckled a little. Twintails ignored me, walking up to the shack. He tried the door, the hinges creaking loudly as it swung open. He trotted in and I followed, Twintails already on the look for any sort of explosive device, I could guess. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I don’t think I’d like to have that guy’s friends swooping down on us.”

He dug through the various junk surrounding the room, tossing aside empty cans of beans. “Oh relax, we’ll be fine.” He said, moving from the shelf to digging around in a locker. “Are you kidding me? An emergency shelter on a test bed doesn’t even have an instruction manual? C'mon, pre-war Civil Defense, I though you were better than that...” He tossed aside a burned up book. I started to dig around in the garbage as well - who knows, maybe there’ll at least be some microfusion cells around. I came across a safe, pulling out my set of bobby pins and trusty screwdriver.

For a testing facility, the lock was surprisingly simple, just a quick jiggle, turn, and click! I opened the safe, expecting just some old bits and perhaps a few caps. Instead, there was just a lone, faintly glowing sphere in the center. I levitated it out, staring into it. It looked pretty fragile and the glow pulsated slightly. “Hey, Twintails, any idea what this is?” He looked over to see the object I was holding in my magic, studying it for a moment.

“I think… yeah, that’s a memory orb! Minuette at the museum in Mooscow told me about them.” He stared into it a bit more. “I wouldn’t touch it to your horn, though, she said you’re kind of stuck watching the memory until it ends... and this isn’t exactly the best place to do that.” I nodded and lowered the orb into my saddle bags. “I think we may as well head out, there’s nothing here.” He said, letting off a sigh, still looking a little glum.

We headed out of the shack, finding our way to the frozen gates of the site. We trotted down the road from the testing site towards Quebuck. The path from the site to the military outpost was pretty uneventful, only the occasional bloatsprite needing a shot of plasma and .45 Auto rounds to the face - I really ought to tell him how overkill he is sometimes. We passed by the defense complex, myself having to practically drag Twintails away from the doors to the silos - no, the missiles aren’t going to magically reappear Twintails, let it go.

We crunched through the dirty snow through Quebuck, hoping beyond hope more ghouls weren’t eyeing our flanks. “So… what were you saying about finding old world tech earlier?” Twintails asked, keeping his voice a little low. I mulled the idea over in my head. Admittedly, there were a lot of reasons, salvaging parts, improving augmentations being just a couple.

“Well, probably for the same reason you’re obsessed with explosions.” I chuckled a little, Twintails rolling his eyes. “After all, what’s not to love about robots and computers?” I asked. He smiled, shrugging a little. “And… well. I know it’s a long shot, but on my way out of the Stable, I grabbed instructions on how to convert the one way radio in my Pip-Buck to a two way transmission radio. I was hoping, maybe Cross Stitch and I could stay in contact.

Twintails looked at me as we continued through the city, approaching the demolished limits. “I tried to convince him to leave, but he didn’t think he’d survive. I knew I couldn’t stay, I just hoped he’d be willing to go with me.” I lowered my gaze, a little disheartened. “And after seeing your stable destroyed, I’ve gotten really worried mine might…”

Twintails put a hoof on my shoulder, smiling softly towards myself - there was a faint tinge of pain behind his eyes, but he was hiding it well. “We could always stop by Stable 76, if you need to.” He said. I smiled at him as we exited the city limits and continued along the road. It wasn’t much, but the option comforted me. I pulled out a bottle of Sarsaparilla, popping open the cap, checking for a star. Aaaand... nope, nothing this time. I took a swig as Twintails made a gagging noise, the drama princess he is. Giving an eyeroll, I tossed the cap at him, smirking at the satisfying *ping* as it bounced off of his head. He grumbled a little, pulling out his own bottle of Sparkle-Cola, shaking it up and pointing it at me. I did my best to cover my face, but he still managed to fire the cap at my exposed cheek. Ouchie, geez, yeah, that stung. Yeah… yeah, I guessed I deserved that. He chuckled a little before starting to drink it down. As we headed along, a large figure started to come into view from over the horizon to the west. It looked like a city, a fair deal smaller than Mooscow, but containing still a fair number of houses.

As we came nearer to the settlement, it was easier to see it was surrounded by several crashed train cars, a few lying on their sides. We approached one of the train cars which had its doors cracked open. Twintails slid them apart and stepped through, revealing a small collection of buildings. We trotted in, a few ponies wandering about, a couple sitting at a small shack serving food. A small rusted sign was placed in the dirt, the words “Welcome to” in peeling paint, with the word “Turnpike” spray painted beneath it, the larger word covering the “Welcome” a little.

A large, grey, muscular stallion in a parka trotted by as I started to head towards a small building with the words “Stockcar Supplies” spray painted on the side of a large red boxcar. Jeez, you think they’d at least get the type of car right. I looked back when I noticed Twintails wasn’t following me. His gaze was following the stallion, his eyes unfocused, and seeming a bit distant, almost as if... I rolled by eyes and grabbed ahold of his tails with my magic, dragging him to the store. “Come on, lover boy. You can make googly eyes at the locals later.”

We entered the car, the place lit by a few lanterns hanging from the ceiling. A brown earth pony was repairing a 10 millimeter gun at a workbench. She waved to us, lifting a pair of goggles up over her black mane. “Ah, hi there! Welcome to Stock Car Supplies. Anything in particular you need?” She asked. “I got all sorts of ammunition, weapons, armor, you name it!” She said. We browsed the stores, Twintails collecting a few bags of Rad-Away and .30-06 rounds for his rifles while I scooped up some Microfusion cells and health potions. She rang up the items. “Alrighty, that’s… 137 caps.” She said. I counted out the caps and slid them across the counter.

As she collected the caps, Twintails slid his purchases into his saddle bags, and I slid mine into my own. We turned to leave, the mare going back to her repair. “Ah, we've been doing a lot of walking... think we could rest here tonight?” Twintails asked as we left the store. I saw him scan the area, no doubt in search for that stallion from earlier. Sheesh, if all it took for him to have the hots for somepony was a blue mane and grey coat, where'd he get the right to question my love of robotics from?

I pulled up the map on my Pip-Buck again, looking at the distance between the Turnpike and the marked Trotisk. “C'mon Romeo, it’s not too late in the day, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be much longer of a hike.” I said. “Besides, we don’t need another reason for you to go running after whoever that was.”

Twintails stuck his tongue out playfully at me. “Aw, come on, I was hoping we could have a three way.” He smirked, myself chuckling as we left the settlement. Alright, you got me on that one. We followed the road yet again, the wasteland just as empty as ever. My mind was clawing for something to fill the silence. Umm… A… brax…o. Yeah… I remember the jingle tune, but of course the only lyrics I remember were the childish ones from school. Great, now that’s stuck in my head.

Abrax-O, makes your mouth turn green.
Abrax-O, tastes like gasoline.
Abrax-O, for a clearer head!
Abrax-O, for a you that's dead!

I shook my head, flipping on the radio to find something to overpower that song. A crackle of static and a familiar voice appeared. “Hey all you wanderers out there, it’s time for another news update from your favorite little Turtle in a Stable! Remember, Turtle, not Tortoise!” Hi-Fi’s voice came on, just as enthusiastic as ever. “There’s something strange going on out in Pripytrot. Haven’t heard any sort of broadcast coming from there in a few days, and no one’s been going in and out. So, just a warning to all of you, you better be careful when visiting that area, who knows what’s going on out there? And now, the weather, with our brand-spankin' new weather stallion, Tom Neighrer!" Well, looks like Twintails'll get to hear Tom a bit more often, at least. An entire city gone silent? That was just plain weird, even for the wasteland...

"Thank you, Bertie! Our sensors predict will be a 100 percent chance of radioactive snow tomorrow, followed by more snow, and just to change things up, clouds, and snow the day after! I'm no meteorologist, but I'm pretty sure warm clothes are very highly recommended...” The ghoul-pony said, chuckling, Hi-fi - ah, Bert the Turtle, I mean - coming back on.

"Sounds like sound advice far as I can tell! Now, to tickle all your listening ears, here's a nice soothing melody from one of Tom's collection, put your hooves together and put down that machine gun because it's National Brotherhood Week on CONELRAD radio - all classics, all the time!"

I looked over at Twintails as we trotted along, turning down the radio volume. “What do you think happened at Pripytrot?” I asked. He shrugged, kicking a chunk of ice along, the frigid wind blowing in our faces. The song continued on softly, being intercut with static every now and again as a big gust picked up a wall of icy snow. I guess the reception on these things aren’t quite as good as I thought.

“Who knows?” Twintails said. “Raiders, undetonated Balefire bomb, dysentery outbreak, anything could do it, really.” He said. I tilted my head to the side a bit. That’s true, death wasn’t exactly uncommon. It’s just weird an entire city would go out. “Or, heck, maybe their radio towers just all lost power and they can’t send a message... at the same time...” He said. We continued along the road, myself looking south, in the direction of Pripytrot as it's icon showed on my Pip-leg map. Nothing seemed off, except the clouds were a little darker than normal. I suppose that could just be a storm though, maybe the antenna idea wasn’t too farfetched.

That dumb Abraxo song still stuck in my head as we walked along, despite the plethora of songs we heard during that time. Another city appeared over the horizon as we walked, this one much larger than the one made around the Turnpike along the highway. We walked up to the edge of town, this one not barricaded off as Mooscow and the Turnpike had been. We followed the roads, ponies milling about in the cold. Thankfully there was a motel near the entrance, as the sun was starting to set in the sky. We headed into the main room, a golden stallion standing behind the counter. “Hey, got any free rooms?” I asked.

The pony nodded, lifting a key off of a hook and spitting it onto the counter. I picked it up and stowed it in my saddlebags. “First time in Trotisk?” He asked. Twintails and I nodded, as he let off a grunt. “Well, if you want to know anything about this place, I’m an open book.” He said. “There’s the general store on the south side of the city, pretty much everything not weapon related you can find there. There’s a Gun Runner’s station just across the street from them. Let’s see… medical clinic on the north side, food pretty much everywhere in between… Oh, and of course the Plasma Spaz. Best energy weapons shop in the wasteland.”

My ears perked up when I heard the name of the store. A store specializing in energy weapons? That’s on the top of my places to visit before I’m mauled by a bear list now. I looked over at Twintails, grinning broadly. He chuckled, rubbing his eyes a little. “Tomorrow, Minty. It’s really getting late, now.” He said. I let off a sigh, following him out. I suppose it could wait. Sleep is more important than Lasers, Minty. We walked up the stairs to our hotel room, slipping the key in and unlocking the door.

We walked into the room, Twintails gently sliding off his saddlebags and machine guns, doing his best not to ding them up. I set Bloodbeak’s heat lamp on the bedside table, levitation off the metal chunks of my armor and saddlebags. As I did, I remembered the memory orb we’d picked up earlier. I lifted it out of the bags in my magic. “Hey, Twintails, did you-” I stopped short, already seeing Twintails had flopped down into the bed, settling himself down. I looked into the orb, curiosity starting to gnaw at my insides. It couldn’t hurt just to see what it was, right? After all, I doubt these orbs could hold a large memory, it was barely the size of my horn. I lifted it up, bringing it close to my horn, resting back in the bed beside the gold-coated pegasus. I paused for a moment, not sure if I really should go through with this... oh, you're in a locked bedroom, aren't you? Twintails would wake up if he heard screaming... wouldn't he? I gulped a bit, and pressed my horn into the glass-like material. Everything seemed to fade.

---oooOOOooo---

I found myself riding in the back of a carriage being pulled by two large stallions. I bounced in the seat, but when I tried to take a look around, I found myself unable to move my eyes... were these my eyes? There were a couple ponies sitting beside and across from me, all in advanced suits of power armor. We passed by a large wooden sign on the side of the road, which read in big red paint “If you wouldn’t tell the stripes, don’t tell anypony.” Oooh, this seemed official. The carriage bounced along the dusty road for a few minutes before coming to a slow halt. There were a few trenches dug into the dirt, two mares in thick jackets standing in front of them.

I felt myself stand up, hopping out the back of the trailer and walking over to the aging mares, saluting with a wing... ooh, that felt weird. Is this what a pegasus feels like? The purple unicorn nodded, and I felt my host - that seems like the right term, right? - stand at ease. An orange earth pony with blonde mane flowing from beneath her wide stetson started to pass out dark goggles and ear muffs. The mare seemed strangely familiar, but for whatever reason I couldn’t remember where I’d seen her before... the purple unicorn turned to face myself and the other ponies.

“This is the first air activation of a self-contained megaspell. You must wear your eye and ear protection at all times. This is a highly classified test, and is not to be discussed with anypony, regardless of their status, or whether or not they are present here. There will be a siren sounding at thirty seconds before detonation. At this time, one should double check their gear is properly secured. After the detonation you are to remain in the trenches until ordered otherwise by myself.” The orange pony returned, and the purple unicorn hopped onto the carriage and started to head towards a steel bunker a ways up the hill. Yeesh, that mare could just go on and on and on in a lecture, couldn't she? At the same time... well, she seemed like she knew what she was talking about.

My host walked to one of the trenches, settling in as a few other ponies joined us, the others sliding into the one behind me. He slipped on the goggles, both of our vision darkened, followed by our hearing muffled as he pulled on the ear muffs. We simply stood in the trenches for a while, a few of the ponies looking around, unsure of when something was about to happen. I looked off in the distance, seeing the faint shadow of a tower and some strange, brightly metallic object hanging from it.

I thought about what was going on… the secrecy, the object, the mare who talked as much as my old teacher… wait… I thought back to the ravine earlier. That metal sphere… was that? My heart wanted to pound faster, but it remained its steady beat as a siren started up. Thirty seconds. The siren was a bit quiet through the ear muffs, my gaze fixed upon the object swaying in the breeze. This couldn’t be happening. Twenty seconds. I tried to run, to scream, but I was simply stuck staring at the tower as the siren continued to blare. Ten seconds. No, this close to a Megaspell detonation? What were those ponies thinking?!

Five. The siren started to die down, the air seeming very quiet in comparison. Four. I wanted to cower down into the trench, but no matter how I struggled, nothing moved. Three. Oh no. Two. This won’t be good. One. The silence was deafening, time seeming to slow to a halt before... there was nothing for a moment, then there was a very, -very- bright flash.

It must have been like looking into the sun, I thanked Celestia I had the goggles on, or I’d have likely gone blind. There was a low rumbling as the flash dissipated, a cloud of dirt and snow starting to rise into the air. Suddenly, the rumbling grew louder exponentially, then a shockwave slammed us into the side of the trench, an ear shattering explosion ripping through the ear muffs. The host gained his bearings, moving forwards and staring back to the explosion - a firey cloud rose up, the top starting to expand outwards, forming a mushroom like shape. I looked up at the cloud, my vision going dark.

---oooOOOooo---

I shook my head groggily, trying to get my bearings. I found myself sitting in a room with no visible doors or windows. The floor, walls and ceiling were made of some soft, puffy material. I tried to move, but I looked down, finding myself bound up in a jacket. My left foreleg felt especially short… was I missing my leg? And is my horn gone? I groaned in pain, suddenly noticing a mare cuddled up to me. She nuzzled me a little, before noticing I’d woken up. “Oops, I don’t think you’re supposed to be up yet!” She pulled a syringe out from her pocket of her saddlebags, jamming it into my neck. Ooh… geez that hurt… My vision went dark again as I heard her giggle, herself snuggling up to me again.

Oh, I knew that was a bad idea...

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