#f:eq

Making progress, Steelwing is waving his bent sword around valiantly to absolutley no avail. He's mumbling something about bloatflies? Either way we're already half way to PonEvil. We will have to detour to the south to avoid the town its self in case more raiders showed up. We also want to stay well clear of Everfree.

Those slavers in Philidelphia are planning to do something with it. Again, I dont approve of slaving but I hope they succeed. It's easier to deal with ponies than the nightmares in everfree.

At any rate, there isn't much to the south of ponyville unless you hike towards Ghastly Gorge. No one goes there though, the place is filled with radiation, flux, ghouls, and abominations. My plan is to skim the area between the gorge and PonyEvil. With any level of luck I won't have to deal with anything more than a bloat fly.

Luna's Twisted Ovaries! I wish I had some back up right about now.

That's all for now. I think I see a prewar wagon in the distance. It's got some stars on it. More after I investigate.

Big emotions today.

I was hating myself by the time I reached the rest stop to catch up with the others. I opened up the boarded up door hoping to find them. Instead, all I found was a nervous young mare with an atomic symbol of her flank and a dumbstruck Steelwing. He looked beaten, his armor was in shreds, his shotgun holstered and in disrepair. One of his eyes were swollen shut. Steelwing was practically coated in dried blood.

Despite his obvious wounds, he still got up on to all fours and rushed me.

Have you ever been hugged by a griffon? Oh my goddess the feathers! A+ would reccomend it.

After he calmed down we swapped stories. Apparently everyone thought I was dead. They probably still think I'm dead. I cant tell you what kind of heartbreak that makes you feel. It's a unique sense of loneliness and guilt.

Steelwing went back for my body. He killed everypony that was holding down the fort in PonEvil. All of them! When he couldn't find my body he took to throwing dead ponies into the water around the Big Mac memorial pond to feed the radigators.

After all that he made his way out here to complete the contract for quantum.

He teared up a little when I told him that i was trying to do the same while looking for everypony.

After catching up and putting food in our bellies, Steelwing and Quantum filled me in on Quantum's issue. Her boyfriend for before the war was trying to catch her, but he had gone mad with dark magic.

I had several questions regarding her current age but withheld them, having witnessed the whole of Fetlock Grove slowly return from an artificial prewar state. Obviously magic was involved.

She wanted to confront him, but needed skilled back up. I agreed to do what I could and set up my sniper rifle amongst some debris in the distance. Whisper would be ready incase this stallion arrived early.

For now we are licking our wounds and counting our bullets. We both wonder where our other companions are, but neither have answers at this point.

Have you ever been walking around and a puff of dust gets in your mouth? Yeah so, apparently that's what it's like walking in the wasteland... all the time. My poor, newly repaired lungs. I've been stopping every 20 minutes or so to cough out everything the blows up into my face. Is this what it's like for ponies all the time? I dont remember having to do this before I got my original respirator.

Minor annoyances aside, I've reached the rest stop and found Steelwing. He's in no shape to travel, but he's alive. He says I've been gone for 3 days. His leg is completely broken, but he has a splint made up until we can get a hold of some Hyrda. He refused a potion, saying that it would cause the bones to heal improperly. He was more than happy to take several of the food packs that I found on the way here. I think the scientist ponies gave them to me.

I'm not sure how much about them I should share, but I did let Steelwing know what happened.

He says he's glad... he, likes my smile?

I'm not sure how to take that to be honest.

I'll have more to say when I figure out how to transport a half ton of Gryphon.

I've been here helping clean up for the past two days. I've officially missed the meeting time for the final contract we were supposed to fulfill.

If Hushlight, Cann, Refert, Steelwing, and Kona are on schedule they will be at the Roadside Rest stop I saw them camping at from the mountain by now. After this I should just head back to the Talons HQ.

A Caravanier came in today. I was able to do a little bit of resupplying with what caps I have on my person. It's just some bullets, incendiary grenades and a few potions. He tried to sell me some Dash after he saw my collection of Med-x. Goddess, has it gotten that bad? I'm only using it twice a day.

Last thing for now. The town looks a lot more like it belongs in the wasteland again, so do the ponies. I was sitting with an illkempt mare who ran the repair shop. As we were talking about how she might go about fixing everything, I saw her literally begin to degrade back into a ghoul. Some of her memory of the wasteland returned too.

Whatever happened to these ponies was temporary and its wearing off now. It will probably take a few more days before everything returns to normal around here... a few months before their hearts are back to normal...

The ponies that died are not reverting back to ghouls. They will stay dead this time.

I've woken up inside of a clean, empty, room. It's kind of familiar, but I dont know why. It does remind me of the Rangers' bunker save for the fact that the door to the hallway is open, I have all my gear, and I'm not stuck inside a rejuvenation chamber. In fact there is nothing in this room excepted for an operating table, and get this... my RESPIRATOR!

My Respirator is sitting on the table, blood still wet on the panels that were in my neck. Haha! Suck on that failing lungs and that irritating clicking sound!

I'll be honest, I thought I was going to die at first, until I realized I was hyperventilating with out the damned thing. There are small black circles on my neck with glowing blue lights on them where the tubes used to go into my neck and down into my lungs. My skin is a tad sore around there but, otherwise it doesn't hurt.

I'm a tad confused, but apparently I'm allowed to leave... so... that's what I'm going to do. Maybe I'll take a picture of myself first... for posterity?

I need to get back to Steelwing. Then back to Hushlight and the rest... where the buck am I anyway?

Apparently my friends dont need my help...

They're not here. No pony here seems to recall them even showing up. Actually, these ponies dont even seem to recall there being a wasteland.

Sure the town is all fixed up but it's like every pony here is in denial! It's bucking maddening!

All these ponies are acting like those damned pre-war ghouls, talking about news from literally 200 years ago. It's like the ghouls that were here just ZOOPED back to normal.

Ponies cant magically heal like that!

Can they?

Whatever. These ponies are in danger and I need that stick!

I have got to talk some sense into them. But how? I dont have a lot of time left. 20 hours tops.

I've got 1 hour left and I've come up with something the resembles a plan. They haven't discovered Whisper so I am able to use her scope to view the remaining raiders. Problem is I'm out of .308 rounds again. It's not like I can get over to the front of the town to reload her anyway.

I'm able to see that their numbers are much less than what they seem. They have the one pony running supplies and messages two in the windows of the former gun shop 5 guarding the ponies in the center 3 ponies in the bottom floor of the building we are in and impale himself, strutting his scarred flank all over the place.

I've also noted that he hasn't replaced the helmet he was wearing when I shot him in the head. There is still a massive indent where my bullet failed to penetrate. He does seem to have added a few more spikes though.

With this information I have to trust the ponies at my disposal. I will have them empty their guns at the store. I'll have one pony drop the grenade down the stairs and I'll use the S.A.T.S. system in my pip buck. If I take some dash I'll be able to hit all five guards ponies at once. After that we need to rush in an kill whoever is left.

I'll have to take on Impaler.

Shit.

Holy shit! Things did not go well! Oh my goddess they are throwing molotov cocktails at us!!

These ponies are damned useless. It's like they've never held a gun before!

After the attack started I actually got some of them to fight back with me. Most of them died out right in about a minute. The ones that are still alive were just ducking for cover almost the whole fight. They've already raided half the town and are pulling ponies from their homes. I'm doing my best but...

I cant do all this on my own.

It's not like back in The Hoof. Something was different back then.

I dont know what the fuck to do.

My survivors are holed up on the roof of a prewar building. It's pretty sturdy and we were able to block off the door way.

I'm am damn glad that there are no fliers with them.

Break over, back to shooting.