Fallout Equestria: A Horse With No Name

“What do you want?” I shouted at the sprite bot that had been following me for nearly twelve hours. I was surprised by its presence due to the fact that sprite bots where such a rare sight in the wastes, especially in the desert. They used to be a common occurrence when the slaver, Red Eye, had held power in Fillydelphia. But after his untimely death at the hooves of Littlepip, they had greatly reduced in number.

Fizz....Fizz...POP!

It looked like the bot’s communicating device was broken, probably from lack of maintenance. Even if the thing could commune with me, I still wouldn’t be able to understand it. Learning the language of pre-war robots was very difficult, and usually only accomplished by the most intelligent of ponies. I never had the time to be taught the computerized dialect, and the one translation dictionary I had found was traded to some scavenger a few years back.

Fizz…Crack….Fizz…

“Listen, I wish I could help you out. I’m just not skilled in the likes of science and mechanics. Do you understand me?” The thing stayed silent for a moment before bobbing its frame up and down. “Does that mean yes?”

FIZZ!

“Piss!” I screamed. I was dead tired after walking for an entire day without any breaks, and the sprite bot only served to get on my nerves. I spun around on my heels and continued on my way towards Kirkwood. Once I reached my destination, I would find somepony to take the blasted automaton off my hooves.

I continued to plod through the desert for a few hours more. The robot followed close behind, spewing white noise from its damaged speakers the entire time. Oddly enough, as I drew closer to Kirkwood the sprite bot’s buzzing seemed to increase. It became louder and had fewer breaks in between. The sudden change in action unsettled me a bit, it couldn’t just be coincidence that the machine was acting more sporadic as I grew closer to the settlement. As a precaution, I drew my gun and cocked the hammer back.

I cautiously proceeded forward over a few more sand dunes until I came upon a gentle slope. At the bottom of the sandy hill lay the settlement of Kirkwood. It was an awfully small collection of half buried buildings and tents that were reminiscent of an old fashioned ghost town. The sprite bot’s fizzing abruptly stopped as it gazed upon the lonesome colony. Perhaps it had not known about Kirkwood, and its rambunctious buzzing would have sounded like inquiring beeps and pops if it had a properly functioning communicator.

“Well little guy, lets hope we can find somepony down there to fix you up.”

Disappointment! Disappointment, and a pinch of fear circled around inside my head.

I had found Kirkwood to be empty. The damaged buildings had been picked clean of anything useful and the tents hadn’t been in use for what looked like a very long time. Something had obviously happened since the last time I had visited, and that’s what had scared me. The fact that everypony there just disappeared without a trace had ‘suspicious‘ written all over it. You’d think that perhaps somepony would have passed through Titan’s territory in the past two years and told him about the exodus of an entire settlement.

My imagination ran wild with countless travesties that could have befallen the inhabitants of Kirkwood. Raider attack? Alicorns? A rival slaver gang? With all the crazy stuff that had happened in the past ten years, anything was possible. All I knew was that whatever happened hadn’t been good.

After nearly three days of traveling to and from Kirkwood, I had arrived back at the train wreck. It was the only point of reference that I had to go off of, and the only other location I could trek to with what resources I had left. I planned to scavenge the debris more thoroughly, gather whatever materials I could find, and set out east. I didn’t really know what I would find once I got out there. The only thing guiding my step was desperation, as I only had the power of prayer to save me now.

“Pretty sure I can get my hooves on a few more bottles of water.” I relayed to the sprite bot that had continued to follow me. “You wouldn’t happen to have a, what’s it called again? Oh! A scavenge protocol, would you?”

Fizzle….fizzle…click….

“ Mmhm, that’s what I thought.” I knew it was a little odd to chat with a piece of machinery, especially one that couldn’t talk back. However, it brought me comfort to convey my plans to something other than my own psyche. I did find myself to be a particularly interesting fellow to converse with, but talking with anypony for too long a time can become quite maddening. “Well, it makes me sad to think that Kirkwood is dead. From what I heard, the well they had dug in the center of town produced water clear as crystals. Regrettably, when we found it there was nothing but dried mud at the bottom.”

Again, the sprite with no ‘buzz’ responded to me with a few zips, fizzles, and pops.

“So this was pretty much a wasted trip. I didn’t find any place or anypony to help me, and I drank two of my water bottles on the way there. Next time, ill need somepony to remind me that knocking back one bottle a day is an easy way to end up dead.”

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