Lamps flickered above us as the railcar rolled slowly into the train yard, the wheels clacking smoothly along the tracks as the brakes screeched a bit to bring us to a stop in the maintenance shack. I switched the railcar off, the headlights dimming as the engine’s rumble died down. Night Strike slipped off of the railcar and pulled the lever beside the large wooden doors, gears cranking loudly as they swung shut, keeping out the errant freezing gusts. Opening the door to the shack, we saw Oil Slick trotting up to us, his hooves leaving a trail in the thin layer of snow on the ground. “Ah, good to see you guys back already. I hope you didn’t have to deal with any Hellhounds this trip.”

“Nah, they must’ve gotten the message the first time around.” Night Strike said as the others climbed out of the coal hopper. Oil Slick stepped inside to take a look at the spare parts, lifting one of the shaped pieces of metal off of the flatbed car to check it over. The jacketed pegasus wore a smirk, patting the side of the flatbed. “And I doubt they’ll be forgetting the last message we just gave them either. We did get those parts out before blowing the place up, you’re going to need a team of excavators to get anywhere in that mine anymore.”

Oil Slick chuckled a little as he placed the part back onto the pile of metal, following us out. “Yeah, I think we heard that thing go off from up here. I wouldn’t be surprised if it caused a rockslide somewhere.” My stomach clenched slightly. Ooh, yeah, in retrospect that probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do... damnit, Night Strike. Hopefully we don’t end up crushing somepony’s house or blocking that Steel Ranger Vault door, especially if Cerberus is friendly with them...

“You know, Oil Slick, I’d say we’ve done more than our end of that bargain for the new parts for our mini-tank, taking all this into consideration.” I said, the stallion’s smile faltering slightly. “I think a bit of a discount on that upgrade isn’t unrealistic. Say, 30%?” Oil Slick’s face pulled into a small grimace as we made our way towards the hotel, the blue lighting overhead casting long shadows on the snow. Why's the railyard lit up in blue, anyways? “At the very least it should be considered some compensation for using up one of those bombs on the mines. Those things aren’t exactly common much anymore, not to mention how hard it was to haul just one all the way here, and who knows how big of a problem those Hellhounds could’ve been.”

Oil Slick gave small defeated sigh, hooves crunching in the snow. “Yeah, I suppose that is fair. Not to mention this would let us try digging in those mines for some coal again, electrics can only keep so many houses warm, you know?” He turned away, moving back towards the building housing the generators as we trotted up to the doors of the hotel. “Well, thanks again for the help. I should have the tank fixed up around the day after tomorrow.”

I waved and stepped into the warmth of the hotel lobby, spotting the receptionist dozing in a chair through the door to the back room. “You think we could actually get some real food with the money we’re saving on that repair, now, Static?” Night Strike said as we trotted up the steps, which creaked a little under our weight. “I’d rather not eat nothing but snack cakes and Sparkle Cola… even if that is one of the main food groups. Besides, new town, new restaurants, we should see what they have available” I rolled my eyes as we trotted down the hallway, Scouring and I breaking off from the others as they unlocked their own room.

“Fine, fine. Just try not to order the whole kitchen, alright? I’ve seen what you can do when you actually do decide to eat.” The lock to our room clicked open and Scouring and I stepped inside. I let my saddlebags fall onto the floor before climbing into bed, Scouring slipping off his armor before hopping into the bed beside mine. I sighed, burying my face into the pillow as I closed my eyes. I really could use tomorrow to relax after everything we’ve done today.

---

I awoke to the sound of Scouring fitting his armor on, the servos and fans whirring to life as he slid his hooves into the metal plating. Yawning and rubbing my eyes, I sat up in bed as the metal shifted on small gears to cover up his back, leaving him enclosed in the armor. “Mornin’. I was just planning on heading down to the roundhouse for a few drinks.” Scouring said, a bit of a smile on his muzzle. Sheesh, drinking this early? Hope you don’t have a problem you neglected to tell us about.

“Ah, erm, well, alright.” I yawned again, pushing the covers off of me. “We’ll probably end up finding someplace to eat later, we’ll swing by to find you.” Scouring nodded and headed out the door, myself rolling out of bed and trotting into the bathroom. C’mon, please let this place have some warm water. I cranked open the faucet, water cascading down from the slightly rusty showerhead, the meager heat from it being enough to fog up the mirror. I slipped off my jacket and stepped into the lukewarm water, bending my head to try and wash out some of the blood that had dried onto it from yesterday. Ech, at least the smell was gone by now.

Rinsing down my mane and tugging some knotted hairs out, I closed my eyes as some water flowed down over my face and fell to the floor of the tub. I gave a sigh of relief as I let the water coat me, feeling a bit of a weight fall off me. We really need to get some warmer showers back up north, I swear they always feel like they’re on the verge of freezing. Not long after I’d managed to clean my coat, I flipped the faucet back shut, reaching out for a towel, that... turned out to not exist. Gah, what hotel doesn’t have towels available? Dripping, I stepped out of the shower and picked up my jacket, slipping it back over me. The fabric clung to my skin as it absorbed the moisture, my hooves leaving faint marks in the old carpet as I walked back over to the bed.

My saddlebags clinked around as I slid them on, slipping the key to the room into one. I reached down into my saddlebags and slipped out the folded up stealth armor I’d found, looking over its fabric for a moment. My muzzle scrunched at the smell before I stuffed it back in. Yeah, should probably find somepony to clean that thing while we’re here. I stepped into the hallway, walking over to Night Strike’s room and knocking on the door a few times. The door swung open to reveal Aerith in her puffy winter coat. ‘Morning, Static. Night Strike’s off looking at the tanks again, Crash Dive tagged along.’

“Oh, ok. Well, I was just planning on wandering around, looking for somepony that might be able to wash or fix up that armor I found. Wanna tag along?” Aerith shrugged and smiled, stepping out of the room and walking with me down the hall. I shivered a little as we stepped outside, my still-damp flanks extra sensitive to the cool air. Ponies were starting to mill about the town, sliding the large doors of the boxcars that were now their homes open. I spotted a few ponies dragging the flatbed car full of engine parts over from the railcar house along the tracks towards the generators.

The sound of raucous laughter could be heard as we passed by the roundhouse, a snippet of somepony’s standup act being heard before being drowned in another round of cheers and laughter. I looked around, spotting a boxcar with a sign hanging beside the large door that read ‘Laundromat’. Aerith followed as I turned towards it, walking up the few wooden steps inside. The smell of detergent wafted through the boxcar as I trotted up to a makeshift counter, a couple ponies scrubbing away at clothes in tubs of water. “Heya! You here to drop off or pick up?” One of them called, dropping the clothes into the bin and drying her hooves off with a rag as she stepped up to the counter.

I flipped open my saddlebags, sliding the stealth armor out. The clerk’s muzzle wrinkled as the smell of rotting flesh hit her nose, trying in vain to keep a smile on her face. “Uh, so I found this armor on somepony... I was told it’s some kind of stealth suit, but I don’t think it’s going to work all… you know…” I tried to think of a better description than ‘reeking of the zebra corpse’. “…pungent.” The clerk unfolded the armor, inspecting the fabric and electronics lining it.

“Yeah, sure, ‘found this armor’. Look, we really don’t care what you do out in the wastes for clothes, but I’m legally obligated to tell you killing somepony for their suit is frowned upon at this station.” Before I could reply, the clerk continued. “Anyway, this looks like some pretty sophisticated stuff. I’m going to say… five hundred caps if you don’t want this thing clean without shorting out all the electronics on it.” My jaw fell open. Five hundred?! Come on, they’ve got to know how to clean blood off of stuff easier than that, it’s not that uncommon! “This thing’s got to be about as advanced as power armor, and we clean that for eight hundred. Take it or leave it.”

Grumbling and reaching into my saddlebags, I pulled out my bag of caps and began to count out the payment. Five hundred… highway robbery hundred more like… The clerk scooped up the caps and folded up the armor, trotting back to her basin. “Come back ‘round eight, we’ll have it done by then.” I turned and trotted back out, Aerith following me. We began to trot through the train yard, passing by a few cars converted into food stands, steam rising up out of their windows.

“Well, anywhere in particular you want to go?” I asked Aerith. She shrugged and we continued through the yard, passing by a few ponies. A large crane stood overhead, the gears that moved the beam having long ago been ruined by rust and repeated winter freezing. As we continued along, Aerith tapped me on the shoulder and pointed over to a small building. As we changed our course towards it, I could read the paint on a rusted sign hanging from the upper deck of the shack. “Triage: Maple Station Outpost” We trotted up the steps, kicking a bit of snow through the gaps to let it fall to the ground below us.

Stepping inside, we were greeted by a small track switching station that had been converted into an office, desks shoved up against the wall, a coffee maker bubbling away on a small table. A mare sitting at one of the desks looked up from her computer, her eyes magnified by the thick glasses balanced precariously on the tip of her nose. “Hello? Can I help you?” She pushed her glasses up her nose, blinking a bit as she tried to focus on us.

Aerith’s horn glowed as a sign popped up beside us. ‘Hello, we’re Aerith and Static of the Vanhoover Five. We were wondering if you might have any work available. We'd be happy to help if you do.’ The mare’s eyes widened as she pushed her chair away from the desk and trotted around to shake our hooves.

“Ah, I’ve heard of you! You helped fix up the dam for the Triage branch in Hopeville, out of the old hospital there, right?” I nodded and the mare trotted over to a filing cabinet squeezed into the corner, pulling open one of the drawers and rifling through the papers. “Maybe you can help me out with something here. I was doing some research on the lake fauna before I was moved up here. I think you might have noticed, there’s this strange species of creatures that don’t seem to have mutated from any of the native animals, at least as far as we can tell.”

She trotted over to her desk with several files stuffed under her foreleg, dropping them onto the desk and opening them up. “They appear to have mutated from ponies, but I can’t seem to find any way such a mutation could occur, their genes are just a mess of different species cobbled together.” She pulled out a sheet of paper, showing several blurry photographs, revealing nothing more than a few vague sihlouettes. Some arguably familiar vague sihlouettes, at that... “It doesn’t help that they can’t stay out of the water very long.”

‘Didn’t those files at Shady Shores have some information on those weird pony fish things?’ Aerith's face lit up as she looked over one of the files with us, flashing up her screen for me to view. I quickly began to rummage through my saddlebags, pulling out the stack of files we’d recovered from the small base. I handed them over to the scientist, who adjusted her glasses and stared down at the paper. She flipped through the files, her expression changing between fascination, horror, and confusion.

“Where did you say you got these?” Aerith’s horn glowed as she popped up a map, circling the shore of the lake opposite Hopeville where the research dock used to be, labeled as Shady Shores. The mare looked back down to the paper, frowning. “The coordinates on this thing don’t seem to match up with that… how big was this place? Is this where that bomb was set off a few days ago?” I nodded, and the mare only looked more confused. “They would have needed much more space than that, there’s no way that’s where these creatures are coming from.”

I glanced over the shoulder to get a better look at the files she was rifling through, though it was such a mess of equations and genetic sequences, I could barely understand more than a few words. “You think there could be another base? I mean, the place we blew up did seem kind of small for some sort of biological research facility. More of just a testing dock, or something.” The scientist glanced down to see my Pip-Buck. Following her gaze, I lifted up my leg and let her flip to the map, shifting between staring at the screen and fiddling with the knobs and referencing the coordinates printed on one of the pages.

“Hang on… I think I’ve got this…” She muttered, tugging on my leg a little as she worked with it. She punched a button, marking a location on my map and dropping my leg. “Well, that’s where those papers are pointing. Doesn’t seem anywhere near where you set that bomb off, from pre-war maps the closest landmark I can give you is the Battered-Sea Power Station.” I lifted up my Pip-Buck, Aerith looking over my shoulder as I scrolled through the map. The area she’d marked was on the western coast, almost at the top of the map, practically due west of Maple Station.

“So, you think this is where those experiments first took place?” I asked, looking back up to her and raising an eyebrow as she began to cross reference the files we’d given her with her own. The scientist nodded, grabbing a pen and scribbling some notes on the back of one of the sheets of paper. Well, that’s just great news, there’s Celestia knows how many of those things still swimming around in the ocean... do megaspells work underwater? Wait, what did I just think? Gwuuh, I've been spending way too much time with Night Strike...

Still scribbling away at the paper, the scientist looked back to us, Aerith nuzzling the neck of her coat for a moment. “This is fascinating… Do you mind if I keep these files? The Triage could always use more information on pre-war tech and biological studies. At the very least this should help explain more about these creatures.” I shrugged, answering her with a nod; It’s not like any of us could really understand it anyway. “Look… this might be a little much to ask of you, but would your team be willing to go searching around that site? Any facility that could create things like this has to have some information on medical technology that’d be invaluable to the ponies of the wastes.”

I hesitated, understandably not too thrilled of the prospect of heading into those fish monster ponies' breeding grounds. Aerith looked over to me, giving me a bit of an annoyed look. Oh c’mon, it’s not my fault I’m the only one in our group with any sense of self-preservation! “Yeah, we can go search that place for you. The others would probably want to go just for the chance to get rid of those monsters.” The scientist looked both relieved and thankful, starting to rearrange her files.

“Thanks a ton. If you’re not heading out of town anytime soon, you could stop back in some time later today, I’ll be looking over these files in case there’s more to them.” I nodded and we turned to head back out, the wind causing me to shiver as we walked down the wooden steps. Well, at the very least there’ll probably be some valuable tech in Shady Shores too. Assuming we don’t get our faces ripped off.

As we trotted back through the town, my stomach let off a low grumble, causing my face to turn red and Aerith to giggle. “I suppose we could go and find the others for lunch now.” I said, starting to trot towards the building that held the tanks. Heading past the roundhouse, the sound of the doors opening prompted me to glance over to see Scouring trotting out, a little unsteady on his hooves. “What happened to you?” I asked.

“Oh, aye, somepony thought 'ey could drink me under the table… bugger barely ha' three shots b'fore he passed out. Er… was it five?” Scouring paused, scratching his head. I rolled my eyes and helped lead him away from the roundhouse, the whiskey clear on his breath. He was able to keep pace with us, though it was pretty clear he had had more to drink than he’d originally intended.

“Maybe you should head back to the hotel for now. We’ll pick something up for you to eat from somewhere around here, alright?” I patted Scouring on the shoulder and he nodded, starting to walk back to the hotel, albeit with a slight wobble in his gait. Aerith and I trotted up to the door of the long railshed meanwhile, opening it to find Night Strike sitting amongst a circle of ghouls, Crash Dive leaning up against the wall nearby with an armored hoof on her forehead. Night Strike turned around to see us trotting up, waving us over.

We trotted up to the circle, Crash Dive stepping over to join us. “So, Static and I are flying in this Vertibuck we stole from these Steel Rangers, but then one of their scribes jumps out from an onboard locker. Luckily I was able to fight her off and throw her out of the side before she drew her plasma gun and turned us into piles of goo! Of course, Static didn’t know how to fly the thing, so next thing I know we’re now stranded in the middle of the wasteland with a wrecked Vertibuck and a whole chapter of Steel Rangers on our tails!” Oh yeah, that’s definitely what happened.

Before she could continue, I stepped into the circle. “Are you talking about when you decided to throw my third cousin from a helicopter while we were in the middle of a flying lesson I bought us into? And then proceeded to try and take the controls from me when I turned us around so Fringe didn’t kill us?” Night Strike blushed, stammering a little. The other ghouls laughed, causing Night Strike to scrunch her muzzle and stand up.

“Oh, come on, Static, don’t ruin the story! Sensha was totally gonna let me drive her tank around!” I shook my head and we turned around to leave, the others going back to fixing up their tanks. “Besides, you should be thankful I at least tossed Sugar Flare out of the Vertibuck before she tried to make out with you. Pretty sure I saved us from crashing then.” I shuddered, not needing to be reminded of her. Guh, maybe this unexpected trip did have an upside... “Anyway, we going to actually have something to eat other than 200 year old snack cakes now?”

I nodded, and we trotted out into the main section of the railyard once more, walking past several railcars converted into food stands. Smells wafted through the air as we trotted through between the wide lanes of rolling stock, my stomach growling again. Night Strike stepped up to one where a unicorn was expertly tossing about ingredients on a stove, slicing them and flipping them into the air with the large knife. She scanned over the menu as I stepped up and did the same, the unicorn continuing to put on a show. “Alright… can I get the molerat slider?” The chef nodded and glanced over to me.

“Uh, same, you guys?” I asked, turning around. Crash and Aerith each placed another order, the chef dropping some meat on the stovetop as I counted out the necessary caps. Okay, four of us, and 20 caps apiece... d'oh, wait. “Oh, I almost forgot, one more for Scouring. He went back to the hotel, wound up in a drinking contest.” Night Strike let off a small chuckle as Crash Dive gave her helmeted head a shake, hopping up onto one of the stools mounted on the side of the railcar. The chef kept up his show as we joined her, enjoying the heat from the stove and reveling in the smells of freshly-prepared food. Mmm, I did miss this...

It wasn’t long before we were trotting away with our food, my stomach quieting down now that it had something in it. Night Strike was washing hers down with another Sparkle-Cola as we trotted back towards the hotel, more ponies milling about now that the sun had warmed up the air a bit. The door to the lobby creaked open, revealing a pony standing confused at the main desk as the receptionist was out cold, a thin line of drool leading from her mouth to the ledger her head was resting on. Erm, okay then… I guess she isn’t a daytime pony either. We headed upstairs and trotted towards our room to find Scouring asleep outside our door, snoring loudly.

Ooh… I forgot to give him the keys, didn’t I?

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