Fallout: Equestria - Nuclear Nobody

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I fucking hate Geckos.

I didn’t even like the abominable little things before. The first time I saw one, it was on display in a museum; a tiny, petrified corpse from pre-war times. Even now, they still have those freaky-looking, bulgy eyes.

The only differences are that these have sharper teeth.

And they’re a hell of a lot bigger.

It was difficult to keep track of them all, but from a quick glance, at least five or six of them must have swarmed us at once. I watched two of them slither out from beneath the water pump Sweetie Belle had just been gesturing at, and three of them ceased feasting on a very dead person that had the bad luck of getting here a little before we did.

And, of course, the damned kid just stood there.

I don’t exactly carry around a lot of heavy weaponry on my person. I don’t lug around a lot of firepower, and I learned the hard way with a dud grenade that I’m no good with explosives. What I do have, however, is a grubby little nine millimeter pistol, which I keep tucked into my belt at all times.

Just for the record, don’t take any lessons from me. Buy a damned holster. What I’m telling you now is from before I even considered whether or not sticking a loaded weapon into my pants was a bad idea.

Genius, my ass.

Two of the overgrown lizards from the pump both charged the unicorn, and I managed to shoot one of them square between the eyes with no problem. I was pretty proud of myself, right then. Sweetie Belle panicked, jabbing the sawed-off shotgun uselessly in the other’s direction.

The Gecko sailed through the air as it pounced, and Sweetie Belle shrieked when it grabbed her by the mane and dragged her to the ground.

I didn’t even get the chance to stop it before the other three freaking mauled me.

One of them (and I’m damned lucky in hindsight) was a young one; pretty small for a gecko. It was the first one to latch onto my leg, biting and digging through my pants like so much paper. I panicked, firing straight down and wasting a shot while desperately trying to kick the little yellow bastard off. Instead, another of his much bigger friends sideswiped me, grappling my hip while the other one tried gnawing on my neck.

Have I ever mentioned that I hate Geckos?

Slamming as hard as I could onto my back to dislodge the large Gecko around my neck, I elbowed the little monster while I went down just to be sure. That wouldn’t do much more than phase it, though; meaning that follow-up shot from over the shoulder had to put it out of commission.

Hey, I’m not much of a shot long-range, but when it’s that close, I’m pretty accurate.

On the downside, HORRIBLE pain.

I was bleeding pretty badly from the back and side of the neck by the time I hit the ground, and I barely had time to jam the pistol into big Gecko number dos’s eye before firing. It was messy, but efficient.

Leaving me with a free leg to kick the ever living hell out of the remaining mini-monster on my leg.

Now, keep in mind; all of this was going down in a matter of seconds.

In my defense, I was a little too preoccupied to pay much attention to how Sweetie Belle was faring.

Which could probably explain why, as I stood there victoriously panting and bleeding like a triumphant moose baring it’s antlers, I never saw the Gecko Sweetie had barely managed to telekinetically toss off of herself come scrabbling at me.

Being the idiot that I am, I’d completely unloaded my pistol on the other three Geckos;

Pitifully aiming up from the ground, I had the pistol leveled directly at the freakish thing’s head; it was the depressing click of an empty magazine that really sunk in. Almost as much as those teeth sunk into my face barely a moment afterwards.

I really, really don’t like Geckos.

Believe me, if I could have screamed, I would have.

Instead, I just let out that awful gargle and slapped at the beast with one hand while its hind legs scratched and cut into my head like a buzz saw.

And, thank god, Sweetie Belle took her one opportunity when the Gecko was preoccupied to pick up the shotgun and clobber that bastard has hard as she could. If it hadn’t been for that, the Gecko very well might have dug straight through my head.

The butt of the gun must have at least shattered his cranium, because I think I part of his head sort of… cave in when she hit him.

And then kept hitting him.

It probably should have occurred to me before that (of course it should have, duh) she’s a kid. Sweetie probably never killed anything in her entire life; she didn’t even know how to hold a gun, for crying out loud.

Even when it was obviously dead and crippled beyond anything a single bullet could have done to it, the poor kid just kept swinging the shotgun harder and harder, crying the whole time.

… I’m going to admit, that had to be just about the saddest, most heart wrenching goddamned thing I have ever seen.

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Sweetie Belle really hadn’t meant to break down and cry.

She sniffled miserably, sitting beside the masked man as he stoked the flame of the campfire.

It had been more than a bit surprising when the man tried showing her that he was okay, silently attempting to sooth her. Instead, he probably made it worse when he showed her his wounds slowly disappearing. Watching the flesh and skin slowly but steadily stitch itself back together had been just as jarring and terrifying as being attacked by enormous lizard-like aberrations. If not more so.

And then he began picking apart the Geckos.

Sweetie shuddered when he offered her a slab of toasted meat, pushing the revolting display away from her. The fact that he was actually eating them was just so… disgusting. Then again, since the monsters had just tried to eat them, maybe he just had a really, really sick sense of irony.

Her stomach growled as the wisp of smoke curled into the night sky peacefully, and she watched in fascination and horror as her newfound protector lifted his mask a small bit. Nothing more than enough to show his mouth and part of his bottom jaw. From what Sweetie could see from the flickering light of the fire didn’t look too appealing. From the glance she had, it revealed pieces of scarred, unhealthy flesh and…

The masked man bit into the steak with fervor, juicy bits dribbling down his wrist as he offered a makeshift gecko-kabob once again.

Sweetie politely declined by turning away and violently vomiting.

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Thump thump.

Phillip blinked, and immediately regretted doing so.

His head pounded viciously, and he squeezed his eyes back together as his heart raced even faster.

He was dead. He had to have been dead.

Breathing slowly and focusing on the pain in order to drag himself back to consciousness, Phillip ground his teeth. Think. He had to think.

Assess the situation.

First of all, he wasn’t dead.

That was pretty surprising.

He should have been dead; if not because of that masked attacker, then only because he’d failed his mission.

He’d seen what happened to Enclave recruits that failed missions. Everyone knew what happened if you failed a mission. Your Pip-Boy acted as a nonstop data transfer to the higher ups, and if they decided that you’d failed, you didn’t wake up.

Sometimes, the failures were automatically injected through the device with a lethal amount of drugs. The cocktail itself was almost always painful, and definitely always lethal. Sometimes, they decided to force you to Jump – into one of the ‘other zones’. Places where nobody ever came back.

And sometimes, they just decided that you were easily exploded.

Needless to say, recruits like Phillip had plenty of motivation to never, ever fail.

Ever.

Or else.

And yet, here he was.

Lying on his back with his hands bound in front of him, stripped of his armor and staring up at the morning sky as he was trundled along in the back of a caravan wagon along with a myriad of other unfortunate souls.

Perhaps the Enclave decided that he hadn’t failed after all…

Maybe they were giving him a second chance.

Spurred on by this despite the horrendous blinding headache, Phillip struggled to sit up and peer around at some of the others.

The stench of the mutated bovine Brahmin jerking the rickety cart along assaulted his nostrils, but nobody else seemed to have noticed it.

One of the many men in identical uniforms briskly jogging beside the large cart nodded toward another of his comrades, eliciting a response from the one leading the Brahmin.

“Well, lookie who just woke up?” the broken toothed man grinned at him wickedly, giving the Brahmin another whip to hurry it along. The Vexillarius armor adorning the man displayed his high ranking position as a lump grew in Phillip’s throat as he realized just how badly his situation had taken a turn for the worse.

The padded, razor-tipped armor of the many foot soldiers of Caesar’s Legion clanked heartily as they traveled.

The forlorn, downcast and dirty faces of the men, women and children around him should have tipped him off first. They weren’t just being transported.

They were going to be sold as slaves.

He swallowed hard, keeping his head down.

Oddly enough, they hadn’t bothered taking his Pip-Boy. It still remained attached firmly to his forearm, the bio-injector still linked tightly to his veins. Maybe they hadn’t wanted to… damage their product?

In confusion, Phillip tilted his bound wrists slightly until he could get a better look at his device. It definitely appeared as though it had been tampered with. He scowled, thinking heavily.

Seven soldiers, plus the high ranking official.

He needed to strategize if he was going to resume his mission, after all.

Obviously, he needed to debilitate the leader first. The Vexillarius didn’t get to that position by being weak, and he’d received enough information on Caesar’s Legion to know that they were a formidable force in the Mojave already.

It took Phillip a moment to realize that he’d been staring hard at the same chained woman for several minutes, and she held his gaze. The bedraggled woman wore nothing but a tablecloth as makeshift clothing, holding a small dirty-faced brown haired boy next to her side. He didn’t seem to share his mother’s sharper looks, and seemed surprisingly healthy in contrast to her. Awkwardly noticing, he cast his gaze downward toward his now bare feet and rubbed his finger along the Pip-Boy.

“Are you going to save us?” the boy said in a whispered tone.

His mother promptly hushed him, worryingly gazing over at the guards.

Phillip almost chuckled at that. He was going to have a hard enough time saving himself.

Especially considering the fact that the Enclave wasn’t responding to any of his signals.

The Pip-Boy was in perfect working condition.

They should have answered.

But it remained silent, he didn’t explode, he didn’t Jump.

Meaning that Plan B had to work, or a headache was going to be the least of his worries.

And, as he ever so slowly fingered the VATS calculating device so as not to be seen by the guards, his chances of beating Lady Luck slowly grew.

The Enclave couldn’t hear him anymore.

All the more reason to make some noise.

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Sweetie Belle tossed and turned all night.

The masked man had kindly offered her his bedroll, instead sitting by the campfire and keeping watch throughout the night.

That didn’t make it any easier to sleep.

Her stomach growled once again as she rolled onto her opposite side, sighing heavily. She was trying to make the best of a bad situation, but that still wasn’t much. Sweetie was tired, hungry, cold, and downright miserable.

Even the stars above were unfamiliar to her.

She stared at them as the world slowly turned to a new day, watching them dance and twinkle, pirouetting through the sky in a slow waltz.

How was she supposed to get home?

Where was home?

Sweetie tried to push the thoughts from her head, rolling over once again. She furrowed her brow, trying to force herself to sleep. Needless to say, it didn’t work very well.

And then she heard it.

A noise she might not have heard had she been asleep.

A light, scratchy skittering.

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I might have fallen asleep a little.

What?

Okay, so I was supposed to be on watch. I didn’t get much sleep. Is that really my fault?

I couldn’t have drifted off for more than a minute.

A minute, tops.

Just goes to show that I’m still learning about survival.

My eyes were heavy, and my head was drooping a bit. The fire was warm, I had a full belly. I could come up with all sorts of excuses for never hearing that big ass Gecko creeping up on me.

I didn’t even get a chance to defend myself properly when the bastard pounced on my back, tearing right through the flesh.

If you’ve never had sharpened, dirty Gecko claws ripping into you, compare them to a really, really big cat. They latch on with all fours if they get the chance, and proceed to bite the hell out of whatever they get ahold of. It’s a vicious, brutally effective method of taking down prey – they’re most effective in packs, but a single Gecko can take down a Brahmin if they have the element of surprise.

So, I really shouldn’t be so much to blame for getting my ass handed to me by something half my size.

The Gecko shrieked in victory when I flailed forward, burning myself on the campfire as I tried to roll away. The pain in my back and shoulders from the claw wounds, coupled with unsurprisingly hot fire started to put me into a state of shock.

By the way, if you’re ever in any kind of fight, try to avoid going into a state of shock. It’s a fast way to die.

So, while I was lying there stunned and bleeding into the sand, flapping around like a landlocked fish in search of a pistol in the dark, Sweetie Belle actually managed to surprise me.

The Gecko leapt in glee when I failed to get up immediately…

Only to be blasted out of the air with a loud bang! from the sawed off shotgun.

Sweetie stood over the body of the decapitated Gecko, breathing heavily. The magically levitated shotgun stayed still in the air, even though her whole tiny body was shaking.

And, like an idiot, I just laid there, staring.

I’ve got to admit, that was kind of an impressive shot.

“Are-are you o-okay, m-mister?”

If I could have laughed out loud, I would have. The poor kid was standing there, quivering like death itself had just tapped her shoulder, and she was asking if I was okay.

Actually, no. I was not okay, I was bleeding from multiple lacerations and had a couple of nasty burn wounds along my palms from where I tried to keep from eating campfire. But I was slowly healing, so I guess I was okay.

The little shrug I gave her as I stood told her all that I could.

By the way, the whole ‘regeneration’ thing? It itches like crazy. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that enough, because aside from being painful, the urge to scratch is so damned appealing. Just because I’ve begun to develop a higher pain threshold since getting bitch-slapped by radiation doesn’t mean I don’t get hurt or god I need to scratch so badly!

I tried to quit the twitching long enough to avoid freaking out the kid any longer, and began silently (duh) packing up the camp. Sweetie saw what I was doing, and slowly began setting about helping. It obviously wasn’t safe here.

Then again, it wasn’t safe anywhere.

That’s another thing I’ve learned from life in the Mojave.

You can’t ever let your guard down. For any reason.

Ever.

Every time you think you’ve got it made, every time you think you’re finally safe, remember;

You’re not.

It’s easy to forget that, and it’s even easier to slip into the many pitfalls this place has to offer.

And, as we continued our journey through the dark, it occurred to me that I really don’t think that’s a lesson Sweetie Belle will easily learn.

Or worse, when she finally does, it’ll make her into a ruthless, cold blooded killing machine. It wasn’t the death of wild animals, or even our own impending doom lurking around every corner that made a shiver go up my spine. It was the fact that I’d just personally lent a hand in something awful without even realizing it.

I’d just witnessed the beginning of the death of innocence itself.

Those shattered remains of Geckos were a testament to that.

And it scared me, just a little bit.