My Little Wastelander

Rusty Fortune

Why does this keep happening? He was coming to again, not entirely sure if that was a good thing with the possibly homicidal nurse, and not even his worst hangover could match this headache. However... He might've been a bit of a flank to the nurse, what if she had really just been trying to help this whole time?

NO! No one is trustworthy in the wasteland!

Then something occurred to him, was he really in the wasteland? What of the colors he saw? The birds he heard?

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, had to be, Equestria has been dead since the bombs fell.

But yet those sounds he heard. He'd never heard anything remotely like it, it sounded beautiful. Was his mind really capable of playing that much of a trick on him, did he end up somewhere else, somehow?

He sighed just thinking about it, he needed to get outside, he needed to hear those sweet sounds again.

Rust felt a hoof jab him in his arm, apparently he'd managed to somehow screw it up, because the contact felt weird, not exactly painful, but he could also recognize a painkiller spell when he saw one, or in this case felt.

"Hey, you, with the head trauma." It was a playful sounding voice, didn't sound like a homicidal nurse. But voices can be pretty deceiving. They can have some really good ideas, and not even be real.

He managed to peel one eye open, and looked towards the voice. There was a unicorn mare sitting to the right of his bed, who had very interesting colors, they reminded him of...

Toothpaste... Colgate. I probably shouldn't tell her that unless I want to earn a few more bruises.

His throat was dry, unsure whether he could even speak, he just kept his mouth shut. He just blinked, to let her know he had her attention.

"I'm Minuette, how are you?"

He made some unintelligent noise, it would have to do, because his was pretty sure a two-way vocal conversation was impossible at this point. Some overly-polite part of his brain clicked into action. Hell, she was cute, can't be rude.

Wait what? Damnit! I've only been awake in this place for probably a hour total, and I've already called a mare cute.

"Ponies usually respond with words, i'm going to take it your throat hurts?" She said, pretty much the same amount of emotion a rock had went into that one.

Rust nodded, and hoped to the goddesses that maybe, just maybe, this mare, Colg-... Minuette would get him some water. Preferably not irradiated, and if possible, clean. Then she simply nodded, got up, and left. And Rust was left alone to his thoughts, he felt pretty safe in the hospital now, convinced they wouldn't kill him... Yet. So he mostly focused on the events of the explosion, or, explosions, rather. For one, what was he thinking firing his revolver in the warehouse he had, undoubtedly destroyed, with all that flammable junk in there? Actually, better question, how in Tartarus had there been so many barrels of fuel, or whatever it was, in there? Stuff was about as hard to get as platinum.

There was a click of the door as it opened.

Didn't even notice it closed, maybe the reason I keep getting brought so close to death is that I have the attention span of a sleepy old mare.

Rust brightened up a bit as Minuette walked back into the room, but he assured himself it was just because she had his water.

Minuette

She resumed occupying her seat by the bed when she gave him the water. Then watched as he gratefully (and sparingly, Minuette noticed) drank it. This happened over the course of about five minutes, and the mare sat there, watching the stallion, eventually he gave her a glance, hardly moving his head, a look something of curiosity on his face, and it made the mare realize she'd been staring. She blushed a bit, and looked away.

The look in his eyes made it seem as if the simple cup of water to him was like a big perfectly-cut diamond for Rarity, the fashion designer in town.

Finally he'd finished the water, he set the cup down on the bedside cupboard, sighed gratefully, and then looked at her, for a moment they kept eye contact, and she was afraid she'd combust from his stare when he finally spoke.

"Thanks." His voice was deep, not Blueblood's moneybags deep, but probably about as deep as the voice she imagined Big McIntosh had as a younger stallion.

Eventually, he spoke again, "How much do I owe you?" Her eyes widened a bit at that.

"You don't owe me anything," She replied. "It's just water." She'd noticed his eyes had widened when she'd said 'just water.'.

An awkward silence fell upon them for a time, he was staring into space since she'd said that, and paranoia was getting to her.

"Hey..." She started. "Would you want to go outside and get some fresh air with me?"

Bingo.

He'd snapped out of it, and his ears, previously deflated, perked up. She swore she'd seen his mouth curve upward a bit, but then frowns took over again.

"Can I even move?" He deadpanned. "It took almost every ounce of will I had just to get up and jump out the window, then I fell three stories."

"Well..." Minuette started, and she let her happy expression falter. "That's where it gets challenging... You're paralyzed waist down... Permanently." His eyes seemed as if they were going to match the size of the moon, she was already beginning to see his colors fade to grey.

Rusty Fortune

Paralyzed. He couldn't survive like this. Had to be a nightmare, he'd already reached for his revolver twice, twice realizing it wasn't there.

Has to be a bad dream, and I only know one way to get out of bad dreams.

Minuette

"Oh, by the way, none of that is true, you're fine. You'll be able to get up." She chuckled. Evil as it may be, the look on his face was priceless.

And when he'd given her a look that'd turn ponies ponies to stone, she just continued giving him her innocent little smile. Eventually he'd sighed, and started moving to get out of bed.

"I got you a spell that should make the pain easier to... Stand." She'd almost stopped when she realized a pun was coming, but she went through with it anyway.

The stallion's ear flicked a couple of times, and his eye performed a few more twitches. Minuette was obviously hitting his sanity hard. When the stallion was finally to his unbalanced feet he turned to face the tormentor of psychology, and opened his mouth to say something, but Minuette just shoved her hoof in it before he could speak, something she as good at doing.

Once she was convinced he felt too defeated to say anything, she started towards the door, gesturing for him to follow. It was at this point she saw the stallion's cutie mark, two cogwheels grinding against each other. Must've been some sort of mechanic?

Or maybe he makes clocks! She thought giddily.

This reminded her of the odd looking tool, she had put it in a saddlebag after bringing... That inconspicuous unnamed stallion to the hospital.

Minuette grabbed her bag, then walked out of the hospital room, the stallion she'd rescued right behind him.

Rusty Fortune

"So," Minuette started as they exited the room. "I don't know your name yet."

And this matters... Why?

"I'm Rusty Fortune, just call me Rust though." He informed the mare, ignoring his shell thoughts.

"Huh." The mare mumbled. "How'd you get a name like that?"

Rust thought a moment, he hadn't really had to explain it before. "Well, I was a colt when my parents were killed..." He started, and heard a gasp from Minuette.

"I'm so sorry." She pleaded.

"It happens."

At that, Minuette gave him a look as if he was crazy. "Um, anyway..." He continued. "I was rescued by a scavenger, he was a great stallion, started to think of him as my father. After he saved me, he noticed I was talented at finding anything of value in old buildings, piles of rubble, machines, ect., so he named me Rusty Fortune. I was suffering from a mental illness known as amnesia, so neither of us knew our real name, and couldn't just keep calling me 'kid'."

"Amnesia, yeah i've heard of that, so what's your actual name, just out of curiosity?"

"Who says I ever recovered? Hell, I bet my brain was doing me a favor." Rust deadpanned.

"Right, so what about your scavenger friend?" The blue mare trying to get more information, pried.

"Well, I never got his real name out of him, something I guess he wanted to leave in the past, everyone called him Trump Card. By the time I was a young stallion, he taught me everything he knew about machines, after that, Trump more or less just vanished." By the time Rust had explained this, they had made it to the hospital doors, they retracted as he got close, and he slowly advanced into the outside world. Everything was so colorful, the world seemed very much alive. He got off the stone into the grass, and scanned for any sign of an illusion.

"This is very different then were I came from." Rust mumbled to the mare accompanying him. "By the way, where are we?"

"Well, our humble little town here is called Ponyville."

Click

Mental gears were turning, faster then ever. Also, where I come from, Ponyville is a big empty bomb crater.

So that meant one thing. The portal he used was meant to get him beyond the Crystal Mountains, supposedly were the Crystal Empire was, a place where either nopony made it to, or just never came back.

Instead, he was sent to the past. Huh, that's different.

And then he heard the birds, and he began to laugh, uncontrollably, and Minuette seemed to be trying to figure out if this was a good idea.

"Hey!" Minuette prodded him with her hoof. "I wanted to ask you about something that fell out of your pocket."

This got Rust's attention. He ceased his laughing and looked towards her questioningly. And that's when she levitated his revolver out her saddlebag,

That would be my revolver, the thing I use to end the lives of mutants and fellow ponies alike, ma'am.

He tried not to look uneasy, but on the inside he was panicking. Should she begin pull the trigger, the hammer would come back, and if not released carefully it would strike the firing pin. This would ignite the primer inside the bullet currently at the top chamber of the cylinder, ultimately causing the bullet to be launched at speeds fast enough to break the sound barrier, and would easily kill a unarmored pony.

"Minuette," This was difficult, from his history books he learned there was little to no major conflict and crime rate was minimal in the past, or present, given the situation, if anypony in this time found out he was carrying a weapon that'd end their lives with a mere pull of finger, they'd freak. "I need you put that on the ground, carefully."

"What? Is it dangerous? Doesn't-" At that moment, the business end of the barrel had been faced to Rust. He instinctively put up a barrier, scaring Minuette, and of course, causing her to pull the trigger.

Everypony in Ponyville heard a loud crack, similiar to the ones they heard yesterday, but closer, and they all stopped what they were doing to look around cautiously before returning to their occupation.

Minuette

Minuette was frozen stiff, the object had made the same sound as the ones she heard before finding Rusty. Looking at said stallion, she noticed the flash of light was a barrier, only it was now cracked, and it flittered as if it was going to disappear. At the origin of the cracks sat a small metal pellet, it had been launched at an amazingly fast speed. If his barrier had broke, the pellet would've went straight to his chest. Minuette dropped the weapon, she was shocked, and she could feel tears welling up in her eyes. Her vision blurred from the tears, but she could see that Rust had lowered the magic barrier.

"Why in the hell would you have something like that?!" She was screaming at the unicorn stallion. "I... I would've killed you!" She found herself backing away from the mysterious stallion, the one she was starting to think she should have left back at the forest.

"I suppose this is about the time I should tell you i'm actually from a violent, war-torn future." He sighed.

"What." She gave him a questioning glare. He'd said that entire sentence with a serious face.

Rust had levitated the weapon to him and pulled out the cylinder part, causing more shell-covered pellets to fall out. Picking them up he spoke again. "Show me where all my gear and clothes are, and i'll explain better, I don't feel comfortable having my gun out in public like this." There was a sudden darkness to his voice.

Minuette eyes narrowed, but she nodded and began to lead him back to the hospital, where the nurses had come out to investigate the noise.

So, unicorn comes through a portal followed by explosions and "gunshots", nearly kills himself, then I nearly kill him. I should probably go talk to Twilight Sparkle first chance I get, but for now I guess I should just get him back to the hospital.

Rainbow Dash

She'd seen the whole thing, Minuette levitating the gun out of her bag, the barrier getting shot, and them heading towards the hospital. She may be a little overprotective, but she knew a really dangerous stallion when she saw one, and if he could kill a pony just like that, they needed to know.

At that, she sped off towards Twilight Sparkle's library.