Fallout Equestria: Chasing Eternity

Chapter 2: Expectations

“The world isn’t tailored to your liking, pony. Out here, pain and misery roam the lands freely.”

I was given no clue on what to expect once I landed on the surface. So I thought of what seemed most natural. No, I didn’t forget I was made of metal. I hoped that the ponies I had met were just angry or something, and not a reflection of everypony on the planet. I was expecting friendly ponies. I thought I would see the sun. I expected to see grass and trees, any form of vegetation, really.

What I didn’t expect was a 2,000 foot free fall to the ground. Having just learned that I escaped from a hostile airship into a metal death trap, I was screaming my lungs out. The entire thing was spinning in the air! If I wasn’t so scared for my life, then I would have been sick then and there. The salvage I had taken from the ship was now flying around in all directions. There didn’t seem to be a way to get out of that situation. I screamed and kicked at the sides of the pod until a cool feminine voice started to speak.

“Hull damage detected. Eighteen percent of the arcane cushioning system has been disabled.”

So it wasn’t as bad as I had thought. Still, when I looked outside and saw the clouds rushing past, I began to shriek my head off again, but this time cursing the names of the ponies who were chasing me just then. They had damaged the pod knowing that it would disable the landing system. Those m-

The bottom of the pod rushed up to my face as my body was compressed into an unnatural position. My breath was punched out of my lungs. Everything lurched forward, the laser pistols in the air smacked down hard, and smashed. Broken glass filled the air as my health potions hit the floor and recoiled. The purple liquid went everywhere. Overall, I felt as though I had just been bucked by the force of a thousand ponies.

All the shards in the air fell back down and stayed there. I looked over at the tiny circular window. Amazingly, it was only cracked. Even with part of the cushioning disabled, the pod had amazing protection.

I gathered what was left of my things, and put them in my saddlebag. Unfortunately all of the healing potions had smashed; I was covered head to hoof in cuts and bruises.

With a swift buck at the opening, the door jarred, then fell off the hinges with screech. I slapped my hooves over my ears as the metal piece hit the ground with a painfully loud crash, and squeezed my eyes as dust was thrown up in all directions. It was definitely time to leave the death trap. I grabbed my saddlebags and crawled out, just then learning how injuries really were. It was like crawling out from a barrel sent over a waterfall.

After hacking out offending dust that made it’s way over to my lungs, I collapsed onto the ground and writhed in pain. I might have been there for a while, trying to get the world to stop spinning and my stomach under control. I flopped over to my back and cast my gaze upward to the sky. There was no sun, just an infinite covering of swirling gray clouds. Well, that was depressing.

Forcing myself up to my hooves, I climbed out of the small crater the pod made. I really did hit the ground hard. There seemed to be no grass either, which saddened me, because I could have really used a bite. It is the world I was created in, it was the world I was I had to live in...

I had half a mind to flag down the next airship and get on. It seemed that anything was more impressive than this forsaken dust bowl. I had no doubt in my mind that life here was going to be a pain in my metal plot.

"HACK!"

I jumped, then turned to the source of the noise. A lone earth pony laid sprawled out on his stomach. He had blood all over his deformed limbs, there were spots where bone extruded from the skin, the white contrasting from the glistening red. The clothes he wore was ripped in a multitude of places, as well as soaked in his blood. The expiring pony turned his head towards me.

"What t-the *cough* fuck are you?" he croaked out, then let his fractured skull drop to the dust. The pony didn't move after that.

It had to be the impact of the escape pod, there was no other reason possible. The earth pony must have been near the spot I landed, and killed by the pod. The cost of my freedom was the life of an uninvolved pony. I had killed somepony.

I dropped down to my knees and shivered. What was this place, so eager to claim lives? This barren land couldn't be the freedom I was seeking. I didn't mean to kill him. I didn't want to rip his life away. A single stream of tears fell from my one real eye.

"Why didn't you DODGE?" I shrieked at the dead pony. I slammed my hooves into the dirt and let out a howl.

"What am I s-supposed to do? I didn't want to kill h-him. I-It was an accident..." I bawled as foalish excuses poured out.

It was perhaps ten minutes before I decided to move again. My stomach decided that it had been distracted by the mourning long enough. Using my organic leg, I dried my tears on it's fur, then looked around. There was not a single blade of grass in my field of vision, let alone any flowers. Every tree I saw was dead, blackened, and fruitless. There wasn't a single bite there.

My gaze fell upon a pair of saddlebags. They must belong to the pony rotting not even ten feet away. I crawled towards it nervously, as though afraid I was going to offend the pony and make his spirit haunt me. I lifted the cover of the bag gingerly. The howling of phantoms failed to reach my ears, so I looked inside.

There was quite a variety of items in the bag. First was an ammo clip that did not fit my pistol. That meant the earth pony was expecting to be attacked...I quickened my search. There was a bundle of bandages tied together. I put them in my own bags, I might need them later. There was also a large bag filled with metal caps. It was a weird object to have, perhaps he collected bottle caps. I placed them next to the crushed pony as a sort of tribute.

Finally I came across a box labeled 'Sugar Wheat Cereal'. The pictures on the box were faded, but any worries over age disappeared when my stomach growled. I opened the package and looked inside. The cereal seemed to be edible, so I dug in. That's how I spent the next fifteen minutes, eating old cereal and sniffling at the dead body next to me.

When I finished the box, I decided I was thirsty. I found a small bottle of water in the bag and drank from it.

That's how I was reminded of the device strapped to my leg. The Pipbuck started making a strange ticking sound which caught my attention. Taking a closer look at it, I found that a few of it’s many meters had begun to change. The one that was moving the most was a small colorful dial. The needle was in the green zone, but was now slowly making its way to yellow. I had no idea what the dial was supposed to represent. But I messed with the device a little to see what I could find.

As soon as I pressed the button marked 'Stats' a green message box popped up on the green Pipbuck Screen. That wasn't a great design, frankly. The blandness of the green text on a green background could use better contrast.

'Synchronize with PjtIrpny_sub049?'

There were two options, 'Accept' and 'Decline'. There was no clue given as to what the Pipbuck wanted to synchronize with. Acting on impulse, I selected 'Accept'.

Immediately, multiple loading bars appeared in my vision before vanishing just as quickly. A tiny logo now appeared the corner of my vision. It was the same one that marked the edge of the pipbuck. Taking another look at it, I found a new tab in the Stats menu, ‘Pony’. When I selected I saw a list of weird options, such as ‘Release Waste’. Rubbing my eyes with my hooves, I brought my head in closer to the screen.

A bullet whizzed right above my head, and struck the bag of bottle caps that I left next to the dead earth pony. The bag burst and all of the caps flew into the air, knocking into each other with metal clinks before falling back to the ground.

My head snapped around in the opposite direction. It was quite distance away, but I somehow managed to see it clearly. There was a large ruined building, at least ten stories high, several hundred yards away. It was the only thing in my within my vision that wasn’t a rock or a dead tree. As a bullet managed to ping off the shoulder plate I still had on, I came to realization that there was a sniper in the building.

I grabbed the dead pony’s bags and threw myself at the death trap that had brought me here. When I hit the ground several feet away from the pod, adrenaline began to course my body as I realized just in how much danger I was in. I don’t think my body was ready. Scrambling up onto my hooves, I ran behind the escape pod as another bullet pinged off of more metal.

Believing I was safe behind the large piece of metal between me and the sniper, I looked into the dead pony’s belongings again. The last thing in there wasn’t going to to help me, it was only a small silver audiotape. There was a port on the pipbuck which seemed to be able to fit the audiotape. So I rammed it in, and didn’t hit play it. I preferred to get away from the sniper who nearly placed a one hit kill bullet through my head first.

I pulled out one or the laser pistols from the airship and brought it out into the range of the sniper. It was immediately ripped out of my hooves and smashed into pieces a bullet. There was no way I was going to survive a mad dash over to the dead pony’s body. As unappealing as the idea was, I would have been able to use him as a body shield for the bullets. But it wouldn’t work without the body.

As a precaution, I climbed into the metal pod. Slumping down on my seat, I looked around for anything that would be able to shield my head. Nothing but a few blankets and a smashed healing potion in a compartment. Sighing, I looked at the audiotape attached to the pipbuck. Well, there was nothing better to do, so I played the tape.

There was a crack as the recording started, then a filly’s voice began to speak, hushed and nervous.

“...shh,they’re close....(muffled hoofsteps). I think they’re gone. Keep quiet Flippy, let me record this. Dad, there are strange ponies in the house. I think they are slavers, I overheard them talking about fetching a high price at some city. I didn’t know what to do, so I hid myself and Flippy in the basement. He’s been bawling his eyes out since. I think they know we’re home, they have been searching for the last ten minutes. Please Dad, if they do take us, promise me we’ll see you again (sobbing). Dad...I’m sorry about last week. (a loud crash) Forgive me, daddy. I love you.”

At that point, my heart broke. I grabbed the father’s saddle bags, and tore through it, looking for anything that might tell me more. The main pockets were already empty, but I found a map in a side pocket.

It was an extremely old piece of parchment, yellow and frayed, marked up with a pencil. The top was labeled ‘Land of Equestria’. So this miserable plot of dirt was called Equestria.There were various arrows and crossed out cities, and only area that was circled multiple times. A name was written under it, ‘The Society’. The number one thousand was written besides it, but I had no idea what it meant.

Finally, it hit me. I killed their father. He was on the way to find his children,and I squished him like an insect. I couldn’t believe I could screw up so badly just by escaping. They would never see their father again, because of me. I had to go find them, I knew it was a silly thing to think, but I felt obligated to free those foals.

I might have left a dent in the escape pod just then. I smashed my robot hoof into the side of the escape pod, and put the other forehoof over my face. I didn’t understand how I could get myself into such a situation when I arrived not even an hour ago.

Putting my hooves over my temples, I racked my brains for a way to get past the sniper pony. The pony couldn’t have been a good sniper, because it took the simple, slow, forward movement of my head in order for the bullet to miss. But this didn't matter because there was nothing to hide behind besides the escape pod. The sniper would eventually get me.

I hit my head on the back of chair. There was no way out of this unless I wanted to push a one ton metal sphere over to the dead pony. It was hopeless. I looked out the small, cracked, plastic window of the escape pod; trying to find some feeling of peace in the instant mess that had become my existence. There was nothing out there except the darkening wasteland, if there was a sun somewhere behind the infinite cloud cover, I would imagine that it would have been setting.

I could nearly let adrenaline flow through my veins when I realized that I even in the darkness, the glow of my robot eye would give me away. But then I remembered the ‘Release Waste’ option. I switched back to the ‘Pony’ menu and scrolled through the options listed. I found what I needed, between ‘Ready Body’ and ‘Zoom’. As soon as I hit “Power Eye’, my vision dimmed out like a light bulb...which it probably was.

All that was left was to wait until nightfall.

I left the pod as soon as I figured it was dark enough for the sniper to lose visibility. After packing the blankets I found, I burst out of the opening of the escape pod. While galloping through the barren wasteland, I took one more look at the dead pony. There was some sort of giant scorpion standing over him, so I galloped even faster. I didn’t want to know how much poison that thing could pump. As I galloped into the unknown, I swore I would find Flippy Bit and his sister.

~~~

I switched my eye back on, deciding that I was far enough from the sniper, and that I could barely see a hoof in front of me without it. Luckily, the Pipbuck had an automatically adjusting screen. I looked back, and saw that I no longer recognized the setting; instead of a dead tree, there were two, plus the large carcass of some unidentifiable creature.

Surveying the land, I saw the outline of a new building this one only one story high. To say it was run down and vandalized would be an understatement. There were multiple holes in the concrete walls, metal twisted beyond its original state. Rubble surrounded the building at every side. Dried blood stained the wall, mostly formed in either vulgar words or explicit images. Trotting forward a little, a new horror came into view.

There were three medium sized dogs feasting on what appeared to be a rotting foal’s corpse. All of the appeared to be wild and aggressive, as though a few can tear a pony apart in the matter of minutes. I was already in motion, I couldn’t stop myself before my hoof struck the ground. It was just within the dog’s hearing range, the mutts turned to the source.

As soon they saw me, they raise their hackles and growled viciously, showing their large, sharp, canine teeth.

“Nice doggies...I don’t want to hurt you...” I managed to croak out.

Apparently they weren’t fans of my scratchy autotuned voice. They began to bark at me, so I turned and ran. They took off after me, barking as though commanding me to stop. Everywhere I went, a chase scene was directed, starring me.

I dug my muzzle into the saddlebags hitting my sides and pulled out the pistol in my teeth. I turned my head at the mutts following me and fired blindly. Except the gun didn’t fire.

Celestia forsaken rusty piece of droppings clip capacity.

Dogs are much better at running than robotic ponies. Never try to outrun dogs if you happen to be burdened with internal metal.

One of them bit onto my tail, and held on, while another jumped onto me. It sunk its teeth into my side. At the same time, I felt the third dog bite into my leg. I gasped in pain as I fell to the ground, flailing my limbs every moment of the way down. The gun dropped from my muzzle to the dust. My breath was knocked out of me as I hit the floor. I turned onto my back as I kicked all four legs, trying to keep off the dogs.

My kicks wouldn’t have kept the predators off forever. They kept scratching and biting at my hide. I would have been torn up pony meat if it weren’t for the bullet that buried itself into the one of dogs’ neck. Blood sprayed everywhere, onto the ground, onto my face and body.

I kicked the now dead dog away in horror. There were two terrific bangs, and the rest of the attacking hounds dropped dead. There was blood was everywhere. It rushed down my muzzle and nose, onto my neck. It dripped off my hooves and from my mane.

I looked up at my savior.

It was a unicorn mare. She looked down at me and grinned, showing two rows of either cracked, chipped, or missing teeth. Scars ran up and down her face, showing just how many knives she had taken up close. There was a shotgun in her magical grip.

“I think we’ve got us a main course. There’s enough for everypony!” the mare cackled as she pointed the gun at me.

I was too shocked by the fact that the mare had just called me food to do anything. The mare put the end of the gun to my temple, and began to force it against my skull. It would have taken only a millisecond then, to end my life. I squeezed my eyes shut as a gunshot the air.

It didn’t come from the shotgun.

I opened my eyes in time to see the mare fall down on top of me. Blood flowed from the back of her head, and onto my body. I freaked out and shoved the mare’s body of my own. I jumped to my hooves, ran over to my fallen pistol to pick it up.

I looked around me. In less than three minutes, I had been painted in the blood of four creatures, one of them being another pony. Blood seemed to flow wherever I went. I came to my senses and picked up all the noise around me.

Gunshots, yells and shrieks filled the air. Trotting closer, I peered through the holes in the ruined building.

There were so many ponies with insane looks on their faces, wielding guns, knives or bats. Each one of them seemed to be coated in dried blood, manes and tails cut short. They were all running towards one area of the building.

I moved to get a better view. There was only one pony fighting them all. A red earth pony was holding submachine gun in between his teeth, tongue straining against the trigger. Everypony else was being mowed down. I couldn’t believe the stallion was willing to take on all those ponies alone.

I thought he was done for once the bullets ran out. Instead, he pulled out a short sword. Swiftly dodging the attacks from the two remaining ponies, the red stallion ran his sword through the neck of one pony, and left it in there. He then pulled out another blade using a strap on his right hoof. Kicking away the hunting rifle of the final pony, the red stallion jumped on top of the mare and violently stabbed her, plunging his knife into her chest multiple times.

At this point, I heard a snicker behind me, and spun around to find another pony rearing over me, holding a nail spiked bat over my head. A sword flashed into my view, coming from around t corner. It went into the hoof holding the bat. The stallion shrieked in pain as the deadly bat spun away. Another sword entered the scene, this one aimed at the head of the stallion. He fell to the ground, dead before he hit it.

The red stallion walked into view, pulled out both of his swords, and viewed me with contempt.

“You should use this whiskey to disinfect those wounds, then wrap them up with anything clean you may have. Wasteland dogs are known to have infectious mouths.” the stallion said.

He tossed me a bottle of whiskey, which I caught. I immediately took his advice and tended to my injuries. The whiskey stung, but I endured the pain. I wrapped myself in the bandages I had taken from the pony back at the crash site. I looked back up.The stallion had left.

I galloped around the corner, and ran until I caught up with the red stallion. He glanced at me for a second before stopping.

“Why are you following me?” he asked stoically.

The red earth pony gave off an atmosphere of annoyance as he looked back at me. For some reason, I was intimidated. Aside from the fact that he had just taken on over twenty ponies with no more than a single firearm and a knife, there was something about the red pony that sent shivers down my spine. He had a pair of cold blue eyes that gave away no emotion. I wasn’t sure if I was making a smart decision by following him, but I had no other options. At least, any that involved me living.

“I’ll ask again,” the red pony said slowly, “Why are you following me?”

I jumped back as he turned around and took a step forward. Ripper here was obviously someone nopony should mess with. The command was clear, he wanted me to respond. I decided to answer him quickly, as he could most likely run five of his blades into me before I could pull out my pistol. He took another step, and I blurted out gibberish.

“Did you hit your head or something?” he asked.

I was thrown off by the bluntness, but I responded either way.

“Uh...thanks for saving me. I would have been on a dinner table if it wasn’t for you.” I spoke in my raspy voice.

“You’re welcome. If that is all , then you should get going.” he responded coolly.

“Where they planning to eat me?”

The stallion looked at me as though I was mentally impaired.

“Yes,” he said, “You're in raider territory. They're cannibals.”

“Raiders?” I asked. The term was new to me.

“You don’t know what raiders are?” the red stallion asked skeptically. ”Are you from one of those stables?”

“Stable? I don’t think so.” I responded. “I sort of...came from inside an airship. I crash landed here a few hours ago.”

The stallion was silent for a while. We walked through the barren wasteland, thankfully there wasn’t an enemy in sight. But I wasn’t sure if the red stallion was an enemy, he wasn’t nice, but he wasn’t after my throat either. But there was still something I didn't understand.

“How come you haven’t asked what I am? You know, glowing eye, and metal hide and all?” I asked.

“Listen,” he began. “It’s obvious you have never spent a full day in the wasteland. I don’t know where you have been. Nor do I care. This place is hell on earth. There are things in this land that will kill you, then turn your bones into toothpicks, and your skull into an ornament. I can’t say that I have seen everything, but I have seen a lot. You don’t surprise me.”

“...You’re right, I don’t know anything about this place. In fact, I’m not even sure where I am from. I just woke up at a l-”

“That seems like a story for somepony else.” the stallion interrupted. “Now, I’ll be off.”

“No, wait!” I shouted after he had briskly trotted a few yards ahead. “I need help. I don’t think I can survive here on my own. I nearly got my head blasted away by a sniper.”

The red pony stopped. I wondered if I had offended him in someway. He reached over to his right side, and pulled out a firearm. A sniper rifle. With a swift movement, the barrel of the rifle focused on my head.

I jumped back, and out of the aim. Bringing my pistol out, I prepared to shoot at the red pony. I couldn’t believe the sniper had followed me!

“Put that down, I didn’t shoot at you. This is the first time I wield this in over 12 hours,” the red pony said blankly, “Besides, I don’t remember shooting a robot pony.”

I stared at the pony in disbelief. I mean, really, who goes around pointing their weapons in pony’s faces for no reason whatsoever! I fumed at him.

“You should really be careful who you point your weapons at.” I managed to keep my annoyance somewhat contained.

All the red pony did was snicker. He started walking again, so I trotted behind him.

“Your aren’t going to last more than a week on your own, Winks,” he chided, “the wasteland is death incarnated into a country.”

I held my tongue at the jab at my one normal eye. I couldn’t risk angering this pony,. If everything he said was true, then I wouldn’t last very long alone. I was going to need to gain this pony’s trust, just to survive. If I was lucky, he would be able point my in the right direction, towards Flippy Bit and his sister.

“That’s true.” I breathed out. “That’s why I would like to keep you company, so that I don’t get torn to shreds.”

He didn’t say anything. Instead he kept walking, so I just kept following him. I had no idea where he was headed to but I kept on his trail either way. We must have spent 15 minutes just walking through the barren wasteland in the darkness. I was growing restless, I knew he was taking me somewhere.

Finally he stopped and crouched down low behind a large rock.

“What are you-”

“Shh.” the earth pony interrupted. “You want to keep the element of surprise with you.”

He gestured a hoof forward. About 50 yards ahead lay what appeared to be a large metal creates. Besides it was a glowing fire, surrounded by five ponies. They were all laughing wildly, their voices carrying throughout the empty wasteland fairly loudly. One of them was gesturing excitedly in front of the others. I looked over at the red pony.

“Raiders?” I whispered.

“No.” he answered. “Take a look at their setup. Fire illuminating the surrounding area, and they’ve got their immediate surrounding secure, for the most part. These are most likely bandits.”

It was true, the fire allowed them to see for quite a distance compared to without a fire. But it also let them be seen as well. They had a variety of weapons and saddlebags that seemed stuffed. Their barding wasn't heavy looking, but light and agile, as though they always needed to be able to move quickly.

"So," the red pony intruded into my concentration, "Do you want me to kill one or do you want to take them all on yourself?"

"What kind off a question is that?" I asked, unable to hide the disbelief in my voice. "Let's just sneak around them!"

"You should always shelter at night if possible. We need that place and they hav-”

“ACHOO!”

The sneeze escaped my mouth before I even realized what I had just done. It echoed throughout the Wasteland, not blocked by many obstacles. It probably reached the ears of creatures a mile away. Needless to say, I alerted the bandits of our presence.

“Fuck!” the red pony turned to me. “Do you have any idea what you just did? You lost us the advantage and probably attracted some other things out there!”

I sniffed.

“I’m sorry,” I pleaded, “I must have gotten sick somehow.”

I peered over the rock, and sure enough, five ponies were running at us. The red pony swiftly brought out his sniper rifle, put his eye through the scope, and shot a bullet. The head of one of the bandits exploded. The red pony brought himself back under rock, narrowly avoiding the lead spray of a shotgun. Some of the metal chipped off the rock, making it rain pebbles on us.

“Hit him with another shot!” I shouted over the opening of gunfire.

“They’re too close now!” the sniper pony hissed. “What the hell were you thinking, sneezing like that?”

In my mind, I cursed the light black barding I was wearing. The crotch area had only dried out recently. I should have known that having my insides out in the open, and wearing the wet suit, would have lowered my defenses. I must have caught the disease from whoever cut me open in the first place. Lovely. There was one bright side to this all though.

“I’M NOT A ROBOT!” I shouted into the air, as I whipped out my pistol and blasted bullets into the crowd of four bandits rushing at us. The red pony stared in complete horror.

“I think you did hit your head,” he muttered as he aimed and tossed on of his short swords at the bandits. It sailed harmlessly to the pony’s left.

“Thieves are a great deal smarter than raider’s. There’s your fucking protip number three,” he snarled at me.

I kept unloading my magazine into the crowd, which had then stopped about 30 feet away, unloading their ammunition as well. The pistol clip had run out, I ducked under rock and took some time to reload. I saw the red pony stuffing his short swords into some sort of weaved basket.

“Where do you keep this stuff?” I asked him.

He didn’t answer. Instead he threw himself back on his hooves, with the sword stuffed basket handle in his muzzle. He turned his head to one side, and quickly jerked it back towards the four remaining bandits. The swords flew out, a multitude of them flew through the air, like a locust plague of razor sharp death.The deadly barrage sliced into multiple areas of two ponies, and wounded a third. The two ponies dropped dead. The third staggered.

I popped back up above the rock, ready to shoot my pistol some more. But the wounded pony wasn’t done. He fired another three rounds at us, one of them hitting my shoulders. There was an explosion of pain as the bullet ripped through the armor, and embedded itself into my right shoulder. My tongue instantly jammed on the trigger, spraying bullets in random directions. I dropped the pistol and slammed my hoof over the hurt shoulder. Blood flowed from the wound and I slumped back down behind the rock, crying out in pain.

I wasn’t a robot, I still got sick, I still feel pain. But what did that leave me with? More unanswered questions, like how I came to be half-mechanical. Celestia damn all the mortals in this hellhole. Being alive HURT.

I looked over towards the red pony, who took my pistol in his teeth, and unloaded it towards the bandits. Finally, the deafening gunfire ended, and the red pony stood up all the way, walking away.

Despite my pain, I forced myself to peer over the rock, hoping that he wasn’t leaving me alone and wounded. I saw him pulling his swords out of the bandits. Two of the ponies had them inside multiple places in their body. Through the chest, in their stomachs, through their he heads. I groaned as I forced myself to limp over to the read pony.

“I’m, sorry.” I gasped at him. “I didn’t mean to sneeze and get us into this mess.”

I was expecting him to be upset. Angry that I had nearly gotten us killed. Instead, he only shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it, you managed to kill two. I think that proves you have some chance of surviving out here.” he said.

Sniffing my nose, I turned towards the rock.

“I already have your pistol,” the red pony said, “take it.”

A thought hit me as I accepted my weapon. “If you killed two with your swords, and I killed the other two with my pistol, then what you were shooting at just now?”

“Oh,” he grinned. “I just like to shoot things.”

~~~

Luckily, the fire was still going when the red pony arrived at their camp. The bandits had left all their things back at their camp, probably with the intention to return. The saddlebags sat around the fire, waiting for their owners. That was rather unfortunate.

I sniffed once more. My nose was starting to clog up. I had told myself the increasing sifflin was due to my cold.But the truth was I felt like crying. I had killed two more ponies. Intentionally this time. I may had shot the bullets seemingly at random, but that was just the aiming in agony. I was angry that one of them had decided to put a rifle bullet in my shoulder. So I killed two.

I was trying to hide my concerns from the red pony, fearing that he wouldn't see me fit to teach the essentials of survival in the inferno that was my new home. But he had noticed, it was obvious. He just didn’t say anything. Instead, he counted the loot from the dead bandits and their bags.

“Five pistol clips for you. A hunting rifle for each of us, with ammo of course. Take a shotgun each, ten shells each. Unfortunately the best model rifle broke. But here are a few hair pins...” and so on. He stored each item inside the giant metal box.

It turned out that the large metal crate was full of holes on one side. Small circular ones, then a huge irregular hole at one end. The entire thing was rusty, but there was plenty of space inside.
“It was probably some sort of prisoner transport, judging by the carriage in front.” the red pony explained and pointed at the large hole in the back. “They probably broke out at some point before wrecking the carriage and escaping. Either way, that’s about it for weapons, though there is a blanket, almost no food...”

The red pony went on and on in his monotone voice, sounding bored yet intrigued by the supplies that were found. He left me alone to my thoughts as he shifted through various materials. But not for long.

"Seven hundred three caps total.” he announced. “These ponies were relatively successful thieves."

I was in the middle of replaying the death of the pony who was crushed by my landing, when I heard that. He had liked to collect bottlecaps, apparently. I thought it an odd habit then, but I guessed it was a widespread thing around here.

"What a small world," I told the earth pony, "There's this pony with the same hobby."

The red pony gave me a confused look. "Hobby?" He asked. "Who said anything about a hobby?"

"I sort of...crushed a pony on my way here." I let out. "He liked to collect bottle caps as well."

"Did you take these caps with you?" the crimson pony asked slowly.

They had to have some sort of value, otherwise he wouldn't have it said it that way. It would have also made more sense as an explanation to why so many ponies carried it. So I tried to maintain some sense of respect.

"I was going to," I lied, "But then that sniper I told you about shot at me. He missed and hit the bag the caps were in, and I took cover."

"How many caps where in this bag?" the red pony asked.

"No idea, but a lot."

"If I led you back to that raider compound, can you lead me back to the caps?”

“But, the sniper!” I protested.

“I’ll take care of him.”

~~~

“Are you sure this is the place?” the counter sniper asked me.

“Yes,” I answered, looking up from the pipbuck on my foreleg as my cyber eye powered down. “There’s the the death trap that brought me here.”

The red stallion’s eyes moved away from his sniper’s scope and scanned the landscape until they settled on the large metal pod. He stared at it for a few seconds before whipping his head back around to peer through his scope.

“Did you take all of the valuables inside?” he asked while still focusing on his vision. “I still see nothing.”

“It’s dark, I don’t think you’ll be able to see the sniper.” I suggested.

“I’d still be able to see some sort of movement moving back and forth,” he countered, “and the sniper wouldn’t be able to hide anywhere else, because the only cover in the scope’s visible range is a dead tree. This place is practically empty.”

“What?” I nearly shouted in surprise. “There was a large building where the sniper was perched!”

The stallion gave me a doubtful look. “Winks, there is nothing in there now. Just look for the bag of caps.”

I cantered forward a while, looking for the supposedly scattered bottlecaps. I stopped as I felt a twitch in my nose. I knew what was coming but it was already to late. I opened my mouth, unable to myself.

"Achoo!" my sneeze escaped my lips.

It wasn't as loud as the first sneeze, but it was enough to attract something.

Two dark forms were hovering over a carcass, their wings making an erratic buzzing sound. The carcass was most likely the one of the pony I had landed on when I first made it to the wasteland, just several hours ago. As for me, my sneeze hand attracted the attention of the two blobs. My cyber eye was still off so it was hard to see just what the blobs were. However, the blobs seemed to be somewhat polite and kindly hovered closer, albeit being carnivorous. They were really ugly creatures, dark green and cancerous looking.

Then one of them spit at me.

A familiar, painful, burning sensation hit my chest immediately, it felt as though I didn’t have any armor on at all. I gasped in pain and ran back towards my mentor.

"Ripper! Ripper!" I called out.

The crimson pony stepped out of the escape pod, and dropped the sheets of metal he had striped from it. He had his contemptuous look on.

"Ripper?" he repeated in disbelief. "What the hell are you talking about? My name is Red Mist. See if you can guess why."

"You like to shoot things, now shoot those flying monstrosities behind me." I shouted.

"Don't tell me you can't handle a couple of bloatsprites." Red Mist said, putting a hoof over his face.

I reached into my saddlebags and pulled out my hunting rifle. Loading the .32 caliber bullets, I swung the weapon around and fired at the two flying blobs behind me. The bullet missed and flew off into the distance. I dodged another bio-projectile from the blobs. I spit out the hunting rifle, and brought out my pistol. The pistol spit out bullets at a fast rate, and although some of them missed, plenty of them hit home. One blob went down. I sprinted forward and jumped at the last bloatsprite. I was hit with another acid spit thing, but at the same time, I brought my pipbuck and smashed it into the bloatsptrite’s head. It burst open and the bloatsprite fell to the ground.

“Having fun?” Mist mocked.

I ignored the question. “How did you take the metal off the pod?”

“I have some tools on me, always salvage what you can.” he responded. “Now go get that bag of caps.”

It was just that, a bag of caps. The bottlecaps were not all over the place, nor was the bag burst open. But I had remembered seeing the bag being split open and the caps flying all over the place as the sniper’s bullet had hit it. Then again, it appears the building the sniper was perched in disappeared, as well as the sniper. Logically, that meant the sniper’s bullet didn’t exist either. I found myself wondering if any of it actually happened in the first place.

“Winks.” Red Mist distracted me from my thoughts. “Feel like bringing that bag of caps over?”

***TRANSMISSION VIA PIPBUCK 3000***
Level Up

New Perk: Sentry - Hold your ground and shoot!

-50% Spread while standing still