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Lightning followed the group in the air, most of the time, and at times, walked with the group as they made their journey to the Mohoofe landscape. Despite being late on their schedule, nothing bad has happened yet in terms of combat or injuries. So, he considered it a pretty good trip. It was nice to get out of Stableton for once and learn more about the wasteland. Lightning could tell that Trails and the griffon, Kes, knew alot about these lands and it would be worthwhile for him to take note of everything they do.

The pegasus began to wonder how much longer until the NLR outpost. Probably for the first time in his life, Lightning began to feel that he probably flew a little too much. He sighed a little as he took a quick drink from his canteen. As he peered inside the container, he tried to gauge the water level inside. He closed the canteen and stuck it back in his bag. Following in line with the others, he did what they did, pretty much. Walk.

He looked just like Rudie...and I killed him. Shoved my gun down his throat and pulled the trigger until it went click. He was always there when I was a colt and needed a rest, always carried me the rest of the way to camp. Now he's dead because of me. Oh dear god Trails, you've become your father.

The brahmin attack had left him in a self abusive state. One of them had looked just a little too much like one of the brahmin that had gotten rustled when when he was younger, and he'd killed them in the most brutal fashion he could. Adding to his emotional turmoil was the aggravation he had begun to feel towards his caravan mates. The whole bramin incident should've put them behind three days tops, but their slow pace and greenhorn bellyaching had dragged his normally fast pace to a crawl.

He could tell they were trying though, always watching how he boiled the water he scavenged and filleted any kill. It was an understandable and admirable thing, trying to pick up the tricks of survival, but it still got wearisome after a month straight. The trip had served to reinforce his decision to give up caravaning, he lacked the patience to run one.

Despite them being behind schedule and had run in to some smaller problem during the journey in was refreshing to walk the wasteland being on constant watch for anything that would attack you at any time, it help Kiras mind to keep concentrated on other things and not running wild. It was true that she had almost started a gun fight in that Cowpony town but it was not her fault they should not had not made fun of her, it was good that the other was there so it did not got more out of control that it had.

Now was she looking over this new desert landscape that was the Mohoofe with tired eyes, she did still have nightmares which didn't allow her to get a good nights sleep. She had tried her best to keep up the pace with Trails during the journey but she was not just used yet to travel the wastes for long periods of time, but that did not stop her from keep trying. Still she was happy that they would soon arrive in the Mohoofe.

The desert appeared, at least for first few days, as a thing of beauty. Arc's mind finnaly found a modicum of rest, as his eyes had nothing new to look at for miles of sand and occasional dry vegetation. He found this emptiness in his head quite relaxing, allowing him to reflect on the last week, and even perhaps once again to find peace with once again losing almost everything but his life, and not being able to do anything to prevent it. But, as the pieces of his mind decided to finnaly assemble themselves together to form a coherent consciousness again, they started to do what they do best: think and process outside imputs.

"Fucking heat. Honestly, if someone calls this place a home and actually finds in himself a need to return here, well, then Trails has probably a quite a baggage with him."

Still, even with discomfort caused by the fine sand, heat and rationing of water, he found Mohoofe to be beautiful, in a way only a desert can be.

"But you know far too well that won't last long", the analytic part of his personality said in the back of his head.

Violet somehow managed to maintain her cheery disposition during the trip, even through the worst of it. It was like nothing could wipe that grin off her face for long. She didn’t do much complaining during the trip either as a result, unlike some of the others. And she seemed to pick up on some of Trail’s survival techniques rather quickly, she was a smart filly.

When the group was stopped by the brahmin herd, Violet showed a...disturbing effectiveness at killing the wild animals. Using her cleaver to slice arteries and causing the animals to quickly bleed to death, or using her precise telekinesis to crush their trachea followed by a neck break while they suffocated to death. All without losing her cheery demeanor, which did not help the creepiness. She didn’t seem to revel in it though or anything.

Her characteristic grin remained on her face when they finally arrived at the edge of the mohoofe. She was so excited! So many new things to see! Animals, ponies, New Pegasus itself, and loads of other stuff! She even heard of a town that had a giant dragon statue! How cool would that be to see?

‘Not to mention all the raiders...’ she thought as a vicious grin flashed on her muzzle.

As the group traveled into the desert, Violet turned to the quietest member of the group, besides Kestrel, ‘Bakewell Tart’. She was passive throughout the entire trip, rarely speaking and letting the others do the leading. Well, she couldn’t do anything about Mr. Kes’ silence...yet...but that didn’t mean she had to let this other pony, who Violet noted was probably more shy than anything, go silent for any longer!

With that declaration, she trotted up to the older mare, beaming a wide smile. “Hey Bakey! Haven’t seen you talk much, how you doing?”

Bakewell started slightly when spoken to by Violet, clearly the earth mare’s focus had been elsewhere and she hadn’t been paying very close attention to her surroundings; a dangerous habit in the wastelands, to be sure.

She turned her head to the purple unicorn filly and mimicked the younger pony’s wide smile in as accurate a fashion as she was able. Bakewell had found herself sometimes being extremely creeped out by the filly's eyes and actions in combat. But really, who could hate a smile like that? Besides, the group had been somewhere around four weeks; She had a hard time seeing any of the group doing anything bad to the rest at this point.

“Oh, hey…” She paused for a moment. What was this pony’s name? Ooh, come on! Was it Violet? No, Violet was the super silent griffon, right? Wait, that wasn't right! Violet had to be the small filly. It made the most sense, but what if it wasn’t? Bakewell wasn’t going to risk calling her by the wrong name. That would be a horrible way to start out.

“…you!” She finished. “I’m great, thanks for asking! I just haven’t been this far out before. Everything looks so different!” She paused for a moment to survey the wastes in front of them before chuckling. “That’s a lie, actually. It still pretty much looks like wasteland to me. Just a little more sandy I guess. How about you, hanging in there?"

“Oooh, I’m just peachy!” the filly said with a grin, before her silver eyes turned to the desert before them. “And, I don’t know, there’s a lot more sand here then back home! That’s something, right?” she turned back to Bakewell. “Oooh, I wonder what New Pegasus is like? I heard the city has lots of pretty lights!” Her grin vanished as she put a hoof to her chin. “Hmm...probably won’t let me into any of those casinos...” And then it reappeared with a flash. “But that’s what airvents are for!”

“Yeah, it should look pretty neat! I think I really want to see those lights! And don't worry, I’m not really convinced you’ll be missing much by staying out of the casinos anywa- wait, airvents?” Bakewell stopped herself before scrunching her nose slightly in confusion “What do you mean, airvents?” Airvents were part of the machinery in stables that kept clean air flowing through the underground bunker. They obviously existed outside of the metal tombs and probably had the same basic purpose, right? What could the purple filly want to do with that? Visions of Violet fighting the mad cattle only weeks before surfaced in Bakewell’s brain, bringing with them several ideas of what the filly might be willing to do to get into a dumb casino.

“Well, just be careful. Please let me know ahead of time if you’re going to try anything crazy; not that I really plan to go into a casino anyway. I’d just rather not be surprised by… whatever might happen.”

Kes couldn't help overhearing the conversation between Bakewell and Violet; as always, he said nothing about it, nor did he show that he was listening in at all. The comment about air vents had the big gryph' quirking a mental brow; he could care less about the filly wanting to get into a casino. So the crazy purple one, with a knack for killing wildlife, liked vent crawling?

That could come in handy in the future. Very handy indeed.

The Mohoofé gave way to the last dregs of civilization that clung desperately to existence. The NLR outpost was ringed with chainlink fence with a dozen caravaners and traders pinned up in line. Trails nodded curtly in hello to the guards flanking the entrance. They returned the greeting and kept their service rifles in their slings.

Another group of guards sat around a picnic table, smoking and bitching about KP duty. One grumbled about touring the Mohoofé making him wish for a nuclear winter. Trails shook his head and may his way to the main building. The caravaners ignored him, too irritated with the sea of red tape that came with the NLR to care, the NLR troopers were to drunk on boredom to notice.

"Stay here." He grunted at the group before going in. "I've got me and nine others looking to enter the Mohoofé."

Sergeant Custard Pie, or as the troops who knew better called him "Cuss", stood grumbling behind the registration desk. When they had told him he was being transfered to the Mohoofé he'd been excited. He imagined intense skirmishes with Caesars Legion, pushing those damned Fiends outta the desert and into some radioactive hole far away, and of course living it up on the strip whenever he'd gotten leave. The first week had been exciting admittedly: dealing with the Kings up in Everfreeside. Now the action was at a snails pace.

He was fully convinced that this was where his career was going to die. His days of charging the battlefield and wasting tribals were behind him, so now it was just paperwork. Occaisionally he'd have a Shadowbolt come through looking for their latest delivery of orders from back west that a courier had dropped, whenever they did he made sure they didn't leave without giving him a run down on the state of the desert. He was hungry for something to happen, tired of staring at the ass ends of Brahmin for days on end.
Then Trails walked in, announcing he'd brought even more ponies to the outpost. More mouths to feed during the quarantine, more voices added to the constant roar outside, more paperwork. It didn't improve his mood. When he heard just how much paperwork he felt his blood pressure rise just a little more. He was going to have a heart attack soon and he could feel it.

"Caravan, civilian, courier?" He grumbled.

Kestrel offered no signal of confirmation to Trails before the stallion had walked into the offices to do...whatever he had to do. Most likely register or some bullshit like that. Kes had only been out this far a few times in his life, each time he had to stop and fill out paperwork.

Even after the end of the world and folk still clung to any sense of old world living they could; even if that normalcy was annoying procedure and protocal.

"Strange." Kes commented in his head.

Still being stuck outside wasn't all that bad, plenty of things to do out here. Like recon. Kestrels eyes began scanning the groups of ponies around him, his ears tuned in to any conversations within range. Most of what Kes heard was the bellyaching of hopeful soldiers and a few comments about the Legion and its recent activity.

Hell it looked like there was nothing but bored guards and enough caravans to supply the Mohoofe here at the moment, no wonder they were bored. There was absolute fuck all happening. Off on the roof of a building Kestrel could make out the familiar outline of a pony's head. Sniper no doubt, watching the road down into the Mohoofe proper.

Kes felt it would be wise to check in with this person before the group left. He would do that once Trails returned. Till then Kes continued to watch all that was going on around him, planning out routes of attack and defense, mentally mapping who would be the easiest to kill should the NLR decide to attack.

It was not really necessary, Kes knew that they would not do so without reason. Still, instinct and old habits die hard.

(To be added to.)

The outpost was something a little different for Sky, See actual NLR soldiers doing, nothing. That was when Trails told the group to stay behind while he went to some building, probably just office of sorts. Sky looked around, they were to many caravans Around here. But this was just probably them being protected here, or resting for the day. Whatever the cause, this place looked rather organized, chain link fence, soldiers stood guard, and alot of caravans. yup, these guys know there stuff.

Lightning listened half heartedly to the conversation going on between Bakewell and Violet. The little filly was certainly an interesting character seeing how she knew so much of how to kill so easily and effectively. Made him a little sick in his stomach watching it but he is slowly beginning to just accept it.

Upon arrival of the outpost, Lightning forced himself to pay more attention to his surroundings, despite how tired he felt. With all the different ponies around, he made sure to stick close to the group. He didn't want to accidently aggravate somepony and bring harm to the group. Lightning watch as Trails walked off on his own to some kind of building, most likely for some kind of paperwork. 'Even in the wasteland, we still have to wait for these dumb, trivial things...' he thought.

The NLR outpost the last the first point of old world civilization in the Mohoofé and to the NLR, it was a statement to the old world order in a world that is pretty much in complete chaos. Even this small outpost showed that there was some of the old world still left out there in the wasteland and Kira didn't like it, this way of trying to hang on to the old was something that just felt wrong for her.

She barely registered what Trails said when he left the group in to some build that she could only guess was some kind administrative building or perhaps a barrack for all these guards. She looked around tiredly at the caravans and guards as she waited for Trails to get back to the group.

Scrap didn't really pay much attention to the outpost at first, it just seemed like any other trading outpost he'd been to, abet a bit more organized.

He was disassembling his lightning pistol in his head, looking for someway to improve it preformance and when Trails told the group to stop it didn't register so he kept going forward into Bakewell, who was in front of him.

"Oof...sorry Bakewell...I guess I kinda got lost in thought there..."

As Bakewell entered with outpost with the rest of her group, she couldn’t help but think that the outpost wasn’t quite as impressive as she had imagined. A bunch of (as far as Bakewell could tell) well-armed ponies staring at things from amongst wire fences and small buildings. Nopony seemed all that happy to be here.

Upon reaching the main building Bakewell immediately and unquestioningly obeyed Trails’s command, stopping in place without bothering to break from the formation. There had been plenty of time for Scrap to stop had he been paying attention, but the situation could have just as easily been averted had Bakewell simply moved before stopping.

“Oops! No,no. My fault!” She quickly dismissed Scrap’s apology as she turned to check on the unicorn behind her. The actual collision had done little to nothing in the way of displacing the mare. “You were lost in thought? Why, is something bothering you?”

"Civilian." Trails replied curtly. He could see the frustration written clearly on the NLR's face. "We're hoping to see New Pegasus." he itched to get done and go back outside. Didn't want to be the frustrated officer's vent.

"Oh no, nothing's wrong" Scrap smiled at Bakewell before continuing "I was just reconstructing my lightning pistol in my head, I'm trying to figure out how to adjust the firing mechanism so I can shoot faster without sacrificing accuracy or damaging the matrix that powers it. But that's enough of my babbling, anything up with you?"

“Adjust the Who? Avoid damaging the what?” Bakewell raised an eyebrow as she stared at Scrap as though he had suddenly sprouted four extra eyes, bare minimum.

“Uhm, okay. Lightning Pistol. That’s your gun, right? I don’t know much about guns aside from “pull trigger make boom”, sorry. Glad to know that everything’s fine though!… I think?” She shook her head in a visual representation of clearing her thoughts. “Um, nothing much is up, on my end. Just kinda sitting and waiting.”

"Adjust the firing mechanism and avoid damaging the spell matrix" Scrap continued before noticing the look Bakewell was giving him. "Err...sorry tend to technobabble...Same here on the waiting bit..."

Scrap finally took in the surroundings and noticed the lunar themed armour of the NLR soldiers.

"Ooh, I like the armour-wonder if I could get a set-the lunar motif is so cool, at least I think so cause Luna's my favorite princess."

Cus groaned and marked down the newcomers in the logbook. He then took a drink and cleared his throat, preparing himself to give the New Lunar Republic in a nutshell speech.

"Right we have a few simple rules in the Mohoofe as far as the NLR are concerned." He began, as he talked he realized he felt like cutting loose and taking a little bit of his anger out on the stallion in front of him. "Don't do anything stupid in NLR, that means from McMareren to this outpost along the highways you do what we say without question. We just barely won the damn dam and have got these new fucking Desert Pegasi teaching our bucks how to fight, so we're not in the most forgiving mood. The wasteland is under martial law where we're concerned. Secondly don't talk to the legion, don't look at them, don't even think about them. As I said we just got the dam and the Legion intends on winning it if they can. Finally, have a nice stay." He let out a sight, he hated that last line, just like the damn PR board to try and win over some stranger with dumb as fuck one liners.

Trails fought the simultaneous urges to laugh, raise an eyebrow, and deck the officer across from him. Instead he chose to try and get a little info on the NLR and if he was lucky his parents. "So what was that about the Desert Pegasi?" He asked in a mock respectable tone.

Cuss raised his eyebrow at the pony. Smooth Operator. "We just got in the Mohoofe ten months ago. We saw the Desert Pegasi were struggling with the Legion with their damn witchcraft. We offered them some help in return for their help in gaining control of the desert. We got our asses near handed to us but ended up winning it in the end. Now the Desert Pegasi are called Shadowbolts our training our elite troops, Shadowhooves to be the best damn marksmen in the wastes and operate as self contained units. There's rumors that command's gonna have them copy the treatment with the unicorns and make a Shadow Batallion." As he told the pony this Cus realized he was talking too much and shut up as soon as he could. "If that's all kindly get the fuck out, I've got a shit ton of paperwork."

Trails nodded and turned, seeing that question time was over. Besides ten months was too short. The fledgling nation was too preoccupied with not getting snuffed out too have noticed anything but the Legion, let alone what was now ancient history. He exited the building and jerked his head at the group with a whistle before heading to the construction site at the exit of the outpost.