FO:E Every kind of chip: Vocal's story.by goneforeversorryChaptersPart OnePart TwoPart ThreePart FourPart FivePart One[Chapter One “Wake up and smell the ashes”/center] Well, ‘ere we are, suppose I should start the story from the beginning, or maybe start at the end and periodically go back there to showcase the characters and get perspective, but, I think I should just stick to the traditional method, my name is Vocal, I’d been in a stable my whole life, Stable 86, if memory serves which (thank Celestia) still does. In that stable, we were divided into two groups, red and blue, I was a security guard, so I was technically neutral, as the children and their parents are separated from the two until we get our cutie marks. Our Stable’s little experiment was, luckily, not very dangerous for us, just separation. But, I digress, I was a security guard, and one day the overmare calls me into her office and she says “Vocal, we need you to leave the stable,” so naturally, I ask “why?” and then she nearly knocks me out, she replies by saying “Because the door is set to open, and we need you to recon the situation” so, after a little bit, I agree. Having no family left, I was the obvious choice. I didn’t know what was really in store. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Door rumbled open, and after a breath, I stepped out. I walked out the door, and left. The door closed behind me. I looked around, and immediately knew the situation wasn’t good, running back into the cave, I pounded on the door, the overmare’s voice came out of a speaker “I’m sorry Vocal, we have to send someone out once every 20 years, we can’t let you back in, the stable’s systems would eradicate all life inside the stable,” so naturally, I yelled back a rather rude retort, involving some words about a female dog and some other things, and she responded calmly “I’m sorry, we chose you because you were trained and had no family, but I can give you one more thing to help you,” a small vent rumbled open, revealing a small 5.56 SMG with about 80 rounds, some health potions, and a few other supplies. I stood there for some amount of time, just staring at the supplies, slack jawed, looking like an idiot. It must have been a few hours or maybe a few minutes, before I moved on. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Looking around, I saw what looked like a camp, as I approached it, gunfire flew out to greet me. Levitating out my pistol, I began to take shots, I was thankful for my training. A raider went down, a bullet between her eyes, it was, by all means, a lucky shot. Three raiders were out of the fight already, leaving two, when another came out, with some kind of chaingun saddle rig up. I took him down before he got off a shot. I was aiming to injure, not kill, the raiders. Another shot flew out, but this time, directed at the raiders. I glanced over to see someone in metal barding coming up, a different one of those gun rigs firing at the raiders. As the last raider fell he walked up and shooting the dying raiders. I watched in cold shock as he did so. He was a grey color. When he finished he turned to me and said “Name’s Duke,” he said in a slightly southern accent, “Vocal,” I replied, “well Vocal, mighty brave of ya to take on a raider camp, either that er stupid,” he continued “hmm, nice armor ya got there, you from a vault?” I nodded. “so, is it open?” he asked, “No,” I replied “I was kicked out, it’s a long story, well, I better be going now, thanks for your help,” he grunted a reply. Before I went on my way, however, I walked up and grabbed two ammo boxes, I had an idea to use them as saddle bags. It would be good to have some armor between my stuff and some bullets. Not to mention between me and said bullets. Footnote: Level Up New Perk: Mare killer – You do more damage versus the opposite sex, and sometime you will get special dialogue options. Part TwoChapter Two “Roads less Traveled” Scrapheap was exactly as the name suggested. The stench was overwhelming at first, but I got used to it. I realized how hungry I was, so I went to one of the shops. However, they wanted bottle caps for some reason. I headed over to a store entitled “Cherry Pie’s Barter Station,” using cobbled signs. I headed in. I was greeted by a green apple colored mare. She gave me a wave, and said “Hiya! I’m Cherry Pie, you’re new in town aren’t you?” and, without waiting for a response, continued “I remember pretty much everyone, what’s your name?” she pondered “I’m Vocal,” I answered, “well pleased to meet you, Vocal!” she said, “now what brings you on into my store here?” she asked, “well,” I began “I was looking to sell some of my things, get some, uh, caps,” smiling, she asked, “Well, what do you have?” I pulled out some of the ammo that wouldn’t work on my pistol or SMG, and was about to hoof them over, when I saw a rifle on the wall, “what’s that?” I asked, gesturing to the semi auto carbine, “That’s some hunting rifle, uses that ammo there” she said, pointing to a couple clips I was holding. I asked “How much?” she said “I’ll give it to ya for those three magazines there,” and I hooved them over. Then she said “how much do you want for the rest?” I said “twenty caps?” and she shook her head, “I couldn’t just rob you like that, they’re worth at least forty,” I thanked her, and received my caps. I walked out, bidding her a good day. The food was filling, although it left a bitter after taste. I walked out, and tried to think of what to do. I was new in the wastes. Despite being kicked out of the stable, I was feeling rather up beat after eating. I pulled up my Pipbuck and looked at the map. Unsurprisingly, there were no new locations. Before I go on, I should explain a few things. I’ll start off at the beginning, when I got my cutie mark, to be exact. I really liked my cutie mark, the shield. I got it defending some other fillies and colts from a few bullies, well, truthfully, defending isn’t the right term. More like, being a sand bag for them to wail on while the others escaped. But, it got me my cutie mark. For that, I got a position on the security force. After that it’s pretty bland. Back to the story. As I walked the wasteland in the area around Scrapheap, I heard the sounds of a gunfight. I was curious (and a part of me seemed to want to live up to my cutie mark) a walked towards the sounds. A few minutes later, the battle came into view. I saw what looked like a family fighting off raiders. Un-holstering my SMG, I opened up SATS (Stable-Tec Assisted Targeting Spell) and began picking targets. Two of the bandits were down, and three remained. The family used the opportunity to pop out and take shots. In a few minutes, the last raider was dispatched. “Well Thank y’ much, stranger,” said the crimson coated stallion, “people call m’ vendor,” he said with a bit of a drawl. “I’m Vocal,” I responded “and it was no problem,” Vendor continued “that’s awfully kind of y’ and I know it wasn’t jus’ nothing, ain’t many folks in the waste that would risk their skin for some random people, and speaking of which, where are m’ manners,” he turned and started gesturing to his group, “this ‘ere is Greengrass,” he said, pointing at his son, “this is Daisy,” he said, pointing to his daughter, “and, well, I think y’ c’n introduce yerself, honey, y’ ain’t no filly,” his wife responded “I’m Lightrose,” I continued the conversation, “well it’s a pleasure to meet you all,” the stallion looked at my barding, “are y’ from one of those stables?” I nodded, suddenly uncomfortable for some reason, “is it open?!” he said, a light shining in his eyes, “no, I was kinda kicked out, it’s a long story, but the short reason is that the stable has to send everyone out once every some years,” he looked saddened, and I felt a pang of guilt, he and his family should be in the stable. He regained his composure, “oh well, I knew it was a long shot, but thanks for your help, and here take this,” he said, tossing me a bag of caps, “we’re kinda low on money, gotta get to the next town to trade, but you saved our lives,” I started to refuse them, but he insisted. As they walked towards the town, I looked around, spotting a crest and climbed towards it, and saw a good view of the surrounding land. I saw what looked like smoke from a town, and a city off in the distance. I suspected it was Stalliongrad. Turning around, I spotted what had to be Ponyville off in the distance. Night was falling, and I decided to hike towards Ponyville, I would probably be there after three hours. As I neared the town I came upon a hill, and decided to climb it and get a better view. What I saw was quite a surprise. There was a grey mare, obviously from a Stable, taking down a last couple of raiders. ‘hmm,’ I thought to myself, ‘I’ll have to keep and ear out for news on that’ and I remembered that my Pipbuck had a radio, I slipped the earbloom in, and tuned into a broadcast. I heard a song that was familiar, something that they played in the stable. I found myself wondering if the whole wasteland had one radio station that was controlled by Stable-Tec, but I dashed it from my mind. As a guard, I was given more information than the local populace, which was why I wasn’t very surprised as I came out of the Stable. I turned off the radio, and saw a Pegasus fly out of the tree which was probably a library, except that it was, different, I thought that it was green, when I realized that it was decomposing, I was shocked, and concluded that it must have been the magical radiation. Once I had found a shelter in a drainage culvert, I took out the two ammo boxes I had found earlier, I began rig them to my saddlebags. It covered my flank, and I suddenly decided to armor my saddlebags as well, I was very grateful for my skill with tools. I had discovered that I had them in my saddlebags and they were very helpful. There was a lot of scrap nearby, and I began to pick up some of the less rusted stuff. After a while, I was pleased with my setup, and settled in for the night. Without something occupying me, my thoughts started to swirl. It was a mix of depression, fear, and burning anger. I didn’t want to kill an innocent pony, but there were some pretty dark thoughts running through my head. As far as I was concerned, the raiders had it coming. Ponykind had come up from nothing, we could rebuild, but there were all of these evil ponies trying to stop it. I decided not to get all high and mighty; after all, I had killed them without a second thought. It was quite dark, and I decided to flip down the visor on my helmet, it had night vision built in. I began to observe my surroundings, I saw a billboard off in the distance, and the thoughts starting creeping back in. I wondered if this was what insanity was. A heard a sound, like hooves on pavement, I quieted myself. A voice began talking about the time I noticed crying, “quiet down! Ill teach you what happens to ponies who don’t listen,” the crying seemed to quiet, “that one might not get as high of a price,” one said, hold on, were they selling people? I risked a look and saw several ponies in chains, and three ponies guarding them. They had poor armor, and only one had a firearm, I could take that one down and deal with the other two easily. I pulled out my SMG. BAM BAM BAM The one with a pistol was dead, and I turned to the others, pumping lead into one. The other got to me, he had a shovel handle, several seconds later, he was on the ground, and I pumped a round through his brain. I looked at the ponies, they were frightened, and I searched for a key. Once I found it, I began to unlock their cuffs. There were three, a colt, filly, and a mare. She thanked me, and I levitated the pistol to her. She took it and thanked me. Once they were out of site, I began to loot the bodies. The other one with a knife was still alive, and she looked up at me with terrified eyes. I gave her a painkiller shot and she dozed off into a deep slumber that she wouldn’t wake from. I didn’t want to be a monster. But she made her choice, and it was the wrong one. Those were the consequences of that choice. I decided to travel for the night. My helmet turned darkness to light, and I wasn’t getting asleep soon because of that. A few minutes later, I stumbled upon a house. I looked at my weapons, and decided to go for the pistol; it would be difficult to bring about a long rifle in close quarters. I also decided to ready my security baton. I brought up my eyes forward sparkle, there was nothing in the house, but I am not very trusting of technology, and kept out my 10mm Maysur pistol. The house was already quite looted, but I found an old military helmet, which I decided I could use to upgrade my modified security helmet. The helmet reminded me of the spells I knew. I had a group of about seven, and I was pretty fair with them. My three best were my electrical shock spell (only powerful enough to stun), my ‘riot shield spell’ as I called it, and my favorite, the ‘weapon jammer’ which is quite self explanatory. After a bit more searching, I found a safe. Locked. Luckily, I was able to force it open, but I vowed to learn how to lockpick. Inside the safe I found a beautiful 12mm Kegholt auto pistol and about 45 rounds. I also found a memory orb (I didn’t even think many of those survived) and a healing potion. Once I was sure the building was secure, I focused on a memory orb with my magic. The room I was in, or, the person I was watching the memory of was in, was quite nice. A cool draft was blowing through a window. The room was small, a bedroom, and I realized that it was the room I found the memory orb in. there was a radio on. It was blasting out news of some coalition disbanding. I wondered why he was recording this memory. He walked up to a wall and tapped one it three times in one place, two in another and another four in the first. A panel in the wall slid open. I revealed a terminal. The host tapped in his passcode (which was ‘dutiful’) and browsed the terminal. He found a file titled ‘LOCATIONS’ and opened it. He copied the info onto a holodisk and backed out. Then he selected a directory entitled ‘FINAL’ and brought it up, which led to two options ‘NO RETURN’ and ‘GO BACK?’ and he clicked ‘NO RETURN’ which made text pop up. He only skimmed it and hit the last option, ‘END’ and the terminal shut down, my ‘host’ pulled out a small device, which I realized was a magnet, and scanned it over the terminal. It would wipe all of the data off it. After doing that, he pulled out the Kegholt and fired into it for good measure. Taking out a Pipbuck, he slotted the holodisk in along with some kind of transmitter. He pressed a few buttons, and sent the info. He took out the holodisk and shot it as well after he scanned it with the magnet. Sounds came from the main door. Someone was getting in. the door burst open, right as my host was hiding the safe. He looked up as a pony in black combat armor came in. He had one of those gun rigs with a single rifle on it. Without giving my host more than a glance, he fired, taking him down. He crawled to the safe, taking the memory device off. I came back to the real world. I was in a bit of a daze. I decided not to think about what happened. I slid the orb into my saddlebags. I walked over to the wall, and tapped in the code. The terminal was the same. I managed to take out some of the scrap and found some parts that might be useful. I decided to sleep there for the night. Footnote: Level Up New Perk: Gun Lover – You have and maintain a wide variety of firearms, you get +5 to guns and repair. Part ThreeChapter 3 “The Descent” I woke up. Trapped. Slavers had found me in the middle of the night and put me in a cage in their wagon. They had injected me with a sedative to keep me under. There were two others in the cart, a filly and her mother. I saw my weapons on the back of one of the slavers. I thought about levitating them off, but the other guards would have rounds pumped into me before I could click off the safety. I had nothing to do. My thoughts kept drifting back to my last day in the Stable. The air had been stale, as usual. The lights seemed dimmer, and everyone seemed tired. I had been called into the security office. I had expected it was for my report on the fight that had broken out. Two of the engineers, drunk, got into a disagreement and I had to pull them apart. They were both under stall arrest. I was greeted by Chief Patroz. He told me to follow him, and I obeyed. He led me to the Overmare’s office. She greeted me. “The Stable is running out of parts for the generators,” she said I stood there obediently, trying to figure out why I needed to know. “we need to send someone out, and see if it is safe for the rest of us to go, the cameras that we used to use were knocked out a decade ago,” she continued I looked dumbstruck, I was already knowing what was coming next. “We need you to go out, and recon the area,” I stood there for a few seconds, and then nodded. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ I was pulled put of my thoughts as the wagon came to a halt. I looked up. It was a compound of some sorts. But it looked like we were just passing through. As we passed in, I was shocked by the scene. Bodies of ponies, strung up on crosses, were everywhere. They were still alive. I then noticed red banners, with manticores on them. This wasn’t a raider camp. A pony in armor with a helmet made seemingly of feathers walked out. The slaver gave him a few caps and we started rolling again. After about two hours of travelling, we stopped, the slavers got out some of their food, and I sas the perfect chance to get out. The one with my weapons dropped his saddlebags as they gathered around and started setting up a fire. Two of the four went off to find more firewood. Once they were out of sight, I slowly levitated out my rifle and SMG, the guards didn’t even take out the ammo. The two around the fire were down, and one of the others came back. He already had his shotgun out, and started pumping shells towards me, they were slugs, but he was a poor shot. The other two prisoners cowered in the corner of the cage. Even with his poor aiming, a round made it through my right foreleg, taking me down. My magic imploded. He ran towards the cage shooting, but I used one of my best spells, the weapon jamming spell. Sadly, it also works on my guns and I had to find something to take him down with. Quick. I saw a rusted piece of relatively sharp metal and floated it up. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ The cage door opened with a click, and I limped out, the mare and child in tow. I holstered my now unjammed weapons and turned to the other two. They had expressions of happiness and fear. I turned away, bringing out a healing potion from my bag, when I realized that I would have to get the lead out. The two were walking away, and the mother scooped up the shotgun that the slaver had been using. I turned my attention to getting out the chunk of lead. ‘busy hooves are happy hooves,’ I thought to myself with a smirk. I didn’t have any tools, so I decided to use my magic. I let out a pained groan. As I finally got it out. I sighed with relief. I decided to put away the potion, and took out a few bandages, wrapping them around my leg. I walked over to a different dead slaver. I searched his saddlebags, and repeated the process with the others. At the end, I had found three cans of food, some ammo, and a few bandages. I checked my Pipbuck, I was near Phillydelphia. Fantastic. I looked at the wagon. In a few minutes, I had it on and was pulling it, with even more of the supplies that they had. I didn’t have any clue where to go, but I didn’t want to head in to the big city. Instead I started heading back in the direction of Ponyville. I checked on my Pipbuck map, when I found a new broadcast. I tuned in to it. “-please help, this message repeats….. if there is anyone out there, this is Velna’s Rangers, we are pinned down outside of Phillydelphia, please, help, this message repeats.” I turned off the radio, ‘looks like I’m heading to Phillydelphia after all, I thought to myself.’ I sighed. I had only been out here for three days, and I had already been captured by slavers. Things were not going well. I let out a sigh. I was probably going to die out here soon. ‘unless,’ I thought to myself, ‘I can find some friends, or at least help, how corny,’ I stifled a laugh. Walking along, I knew this wouldn’t be easy, they hadn’t said what they were pinned down by, I was hoping it was raiders or something. I halted and sighed. ‘there is no was ill be able to take anything down, who am I kidding,’ I mumbled. I hated not being able to do anything. I cursed myself, I cursed the wasteland, I cursed everything. Apparently, I was yelling pretty loud, because someone started talking. “you’ve got quite a mouth on you, haven’t you?” a mare asked I froze up, it would be near impossible to quickly turn the wagon, and I suddenly wished I hadn’t taken it, so instead I played along with her questioning, “yeah. I suppose,” I slowly turned my wagon, “hold up right there, buddy,” I heard a shotgun being pumped, “how do I know you aren’t a raider, or a slaver?” she asked, “you don’t, but your just gonna have to trust me on my word,” I responded, “what’s your name?” she questioned, “Vocal,” I responded flatly. “Well, Vocal, nice to meet you, I’m Very Merry, but people just call me Verma,” “Nice to meet you too,” I said dully. “alright, you can turn, you haven’t tried to shoot me yet, and your armor doesn’t make you look like a raider,” she said I turned, Verma was a light blue pony, a unicorn, in fact, which explained how she could talk while holding the shotgun, which she now had holstered by her saddlebags. Her eyes were a dark green, and her main a light brown, with a single light blue strand in it, she held out a hoof, I took it and shook it, to the best of my abilities, the wagon encumbering my movement. “So where are you heading?” she asked with an inquisitive look. I shrugged and answered, “Not sure, just roaming around.” “It’s pretty dangerous out here on own,” she said “Yeah,” I paused and lifted my injured foreleg, “I noticed.” “well why don’t you come with me?” she said “I could always use an extra hoof in my travels.” I paused for a moment. Verma seemed pretty good natured, compared to most of the other ponies I had met. I took a moment to consider it. “Why not,” I responded “Well alright!” she said with a smile, “let’s go then, do you wanna bring the wagon or…” “not really,” I said, tugging the straps loose. ‘How corny,’ my thoughts teased, I smirked at my own brain, it seemed. We started walking, I didn’t bother to check the direction, I didn’t care at this point, it would be good to have someone to talk to, to keep the dark thoughts out of my mind. “So, where are you from?” she asked I paused, wondering what to say, “Vault 86,” I said after a moment. “Really? I thought they were closed, that’s interesting.” She said “Yeah, but I was forced to leave,” and she gave me a quizzical look, “It’s a long story,” We walked for a while, before we spotted a small village. “Oh my,” she said, very concerned, “We have to go around,” “Why?” I asked, puzzled. “That is a Legion outpost,” she said, a bit of fear in her voice. I didn’t ask any more questions, I decided I would ponder later. She motioned for me to follow, and we started to make a large circle around the camp. Amazingly, we made it around without any issue, although a Legionnaire almost saw me, and a I realized that they were the same ponies who’s camp I had passed through when the slavers had me. Once we finally made it around, and were out of earshot, I started asking questions. She gave me a short summary of the Legion, after I had launched out at least a dozen questions. “The Legion is a large… army, consisting of slaves and conquered tribes, they are… evil, and they crush everyone who opposes them… and kill anyone else,” she finished with a shiver. “Wow,” I said solemnly. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ We had been walking for about four and a half hours before it started to get dark. Then it started to rain. We ran for cover, and found a cave. It was somewhat dry inside, dryer than the outside, at least. I ventured outside, and came back with some timber for a fire. It was soaking wet though, but, luckily, there was some dry wood in the cave, which we used to dry the wet logs and sticks off. After a while, there was a soft fire, and I realized that while I had my nightvision, Verma hadn’t been able to see a thing. The fire provided light, but it was dim, so I flicked on my Pipbuck light. I sat on my hauches, and took off my saddlebags. I started searching through them manually, and found what I was looking for. I took out a small holodisk, and popped it in my Pipbuck. I switched the Pipbuck to its speakers (security models had speakers for broadcasting messages in the Stable) and a song started playing. It was a fully instrumental version of a song that I couldn’t remember the name of. I then started rifling through my saddlebags, while Verma watched with an amused look. I took out some of the terminal parts, along with a broken radio I had found, and started to tinker with them. The radio didn’t work, and I tried to figure it out. After a while, I found a piece that looked like it was burnt out, and replaced it with a piece of the terminal. Putting it back together, I tuned into a broadcast, and switched off my Pipbuck’s Song. “until next time, kiddies, this is DJ Pon3…” I smiled with my success, and Verma gave a little clap. ‘Busy hooves are happy hooves,’ the voice inside my head whispered, it seemed to hate me, or at least get joy in spiting me. I tried to repel those thoughts and turned to Verma. “Who’s DJ Pon3?” I asked. “Just somepony who seems to have a lot of informants and knowledge in the wastes,” she said, “There are a lot of people who listen to him, he’s a symbol of hope to most, just a voice to others,” “hmph,” I responded, it wasn’t very important. But at least someone was trying to help, unlike the majority of ponies I had met so far. ‘Verma’s pretty attractive, don’t you think?’ my thoughts tempted. i pushed them away, thinking like that would make me think of… past occurrences… instead, I turned my attention to my saddlebags, pulling out my bedroll, Verma already had hers out, and I started setting up mine. ‘Busy hooves are -‘ I politely told my thoughts to go die in a hole. Once it was setup, I decided to turn my thoughts to less dark things. I started messing with my Pipbuck, trying to find out why it marked random locations, like Scrapheap, that hadn’t existed before the war. After not finding a single thing, I gave up. I saw that Verma was reading a book, I couldn’t see the title, and I didn’t bother trying to find out. “Who’s taking first watch?” I asked. “Oh right, thanks for reminding me,” she got up, taking out some things from her bags. She set up an alarm system out of string and cans, “Simple, but I gets the job done, and I’m a light sleeper.” I nodded, why hadn’t I thought of that? I decided that I would have to find a library of some kind, and get a book or two. “Well, goodnight Vocal.” She said “Goodnight,” I responded softly, I stared off into space for a few minutes, but before I could be caught in my own thoughts, I had fallen asleep, I hadn’t noticed just how tired I was. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ The morning was colder than others. Other than that, it was pretty much the same. I slowly got up. I checked my Pipbuck, it was 7:48. I yawned. Verma wasn’t up yet, and I started getting breakfast ready. She really was quite good looking, as I saw her without her barding. I looked at her cutie mark; it was two horseshoes next to each other. I got the fire up again, and started cooking a can of beans and took out a can of apples. I went outside to survey the area. We were next to an old forest, completely barren and burned. The air was relatively fresh, and there was a small break in the cloud cover. As I watched, it was quickly drawn closed. I looked around, and saw no definable landmarks. I went back into the cave. Verma was awake when I came in. “Good morning,” she said cheerily. “Morning,” I said in a somewhat less depressing tone than usual. I sat down and tended to the beans. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ After breakfast we headed out. I checked my Pipbuck, but there were no locations nearby. “How’d you get your cutie mark?” I asked her “Exploring, it would seem, it kinda makes sense,” she responded, “I wondered why it wasn’t a map or something, but horseshoes make sense too.” I nodded. We walked for another hour or so, before stumbling upon a house. “I’ll go inside, you wait out here and keep watch,” she told me. “Alright.” I confirmed. I looked around, and saw a rock jutting out of the ground. I clambered up on it, and kept a lookout. After only a few minutes, I saw something. I levitated on my modified helmet, and switched to thermal vision, but it had limited range, so I flipped it off. I crouched down, and waited. After another minute, they were close enough to get a good look. Four ponies. All raiders. I crawled over to the house, and warned Verma. She snuck out of the house, and we waited to see if the raiders would come closer. I carefully brought out my rifle, and got ready. Apparently, my luck had run out when we passed the Legion camp. The raiders spotted us, and charged shooting. One of them had a rusty sword, two had pistols, and one had a light SMG. I fell the one with the SMG and Verma got one of the pistol users. They were closing in, and I took out my SMG while putting away my rifle. They were a few paces away, and I brought up my riot shield spell. I pumped a dozen rounds into the other pistol holder, and turned to face the final one with the sword. I stunned him with my shock spell, and Verma finished him off. “You got some pretty nifty spells there Vocal,” Verma said “I like to think so,” I responded, panting, “What spells do you have?” “a handful,” she answered, “mainly some bland ones, but I also have one that throws people back, kinda like telekinesis, except I don’t’ have to really aim it,” “Neat,” I said, regaining my composure. “Well, ready to go?” she asked, I nodded. Footnote: Level Up New perk: Educated – you get +3 skill points per level. Part FourChapter Four “The Darkness of Remembrance” All was silent. It wasn’t a peaceful silence; it was a heavy, almost loud silence. I slowly came out of my stupor. I was on the dirt and rock of the ground, that much I could tell, and I tried to remember what had happened. All I could remember was the sound of explosions, and a bright light, a bright heat, fire. I tried to move, when a sharp pain went up my left side, as well as my right foreleg. It hurt. I had been shot before, but this was different. My skin of my leg felt like it was melting. I was sure that I had broken, if not shattered some bones. I noticed a sound, breathing. I bit through the pain, and looked towards the sound, I saw Very Merry. I turned back, and tried to bring my memories together. CLICK The sound was followed by a thud against the ground. I had just enough time to shout a warning before the area lit up in an explosion, throwing us back. I hit the ground, letting out gasp as the wind was knocked out of me. It was an ambush. The alleyway erupted in a hail of gunfire. The pain throughout my body was excruciating. I don’t know how, but I managed to bring up my shield. I floated out a healing potion, and passed it to Verma, who had managed to get up. I searched for another one, with no results. I floated out my rifle, and began taking shots, although I missed most of them in my state. Two of the five bandits had some of those battle saddles. I managed to hit one of them, knocking him off his feet. “Just give up!” one of the bandits yelled, her voice cracking. I responded by pumping a few rounds at her, she hit the ground with a thud. One of them made a mistake; they threw a grenade. The memories reached me, and I realized what had happened. The grenade had been cooking, and when they threw it, it exploded in mid-air. It had been a concussion grenade, instead of fragmentation. I struggled to my feet, my leg exploding in pain. I let out a groan. Only two of the bandits were left, knocked out, and I limped over to them, and sat down, while pulling out my SMG. I didn’t want to kill them while they were sleeping, and I thought I might give them a second chance. They weren’t raiders, as I, they didn’t want to kill us just for the sake of killing us and mutilating our bodies. They didn’t want to kill us, just take our things, but, taking our stuff would be just the same as killing us. One of them started to stir; she was a light brown mare with dark green hair. She first looked at the other bandit, and then, slowly, her eyes went to me. I could see the fear in them. I had on my best poker face, not betraying any emotions. I, honestly, didn’t care at that point about what would happen. I’d let her go peacefully, or, if she tried to attack me, I would kill her. “A-are you g-going t-t-to kill m-me?” she asked, shaken. “Depends on whether or not you are going to leave peacefully.” I answered. She got the point and woke the other bandit, he shot up, but she whispered something to him, and he nodded. They turned and left. “I didn’t expect you’d let them go,” Verma said, startling me. “I didn’t either,” I responded truthfully. “Oh hell,” she said, concerned, “you’re bleeding out!” “I’ll be fi-,” I managed to get out, before passing out. I awoke later, on the ground, and an overwhelming sense of Déjà vu came over me. I looked around, and saw Verma by a fire. “You’re not a very friendly person, are you?” she asked. It was a completely logical question, all things considered. “I suppose not, I’ve been a loner most of my life.” I realized that hadn’t had much social interaction since I lost my wife. The thought sent me back into my memories. It had started off as an ordinary day in the Stable. I walked to the security station, got my things, read my jobs for the day, and walked off on patrol. Probably three hours in to my duties, a quake shook the Stable. I assumed it was just an earthquake. Several minutes later my radio buzzed to life and the voice of Officer Redgin came out. “Vocal? We need you to come to the Security Station,” he said, a slight falter in his voice. “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I responded, wondering what was wrong that would make Redgin sound like that. I snapped back to the real world. I tried to push the thoughts out of my mind, with some success. Verma had a concerned, almost sad look on her face. I wondered how often I actually spaced out. I looked at my leg, the one that was broken, it was in a brace, and I am pretty sure that I had gotten a healing potion. I counted the days I had been out here; I realized it had been nine. I had known Verma for five of them. I wondered why I had trusted her so easily that day I had met her. Maybe it had been since she had the chance to kill me and didn’t. Maybe it was only since I just wished that it was true. It seemed like my hope had rung true, and I felt like I could trust her quite well. I brought up my Pipbuck and scrolled through it to the maps section. I was outside of a place called “Appleloosa.” I flipped to my radio section, and saw that emergency broadcast was still playing. Apparently, it had a really strong signal. I wondered if it might be a good idea to help (assuming Verma would be willing to jump right into danger for no reason whatsoever) or if we should just leave it be. I took a moment to look at our surroundings. We weren’t in the alley where we were ambushed, but instead, we were in the ruins of an old building. The walls, while still standing, were blasted apart, only seeming to be held up by small fragments of drywall. There was no ceiling, and I wondered where the wood for the fire had come from. I filed it in the ‘Unimportant Questions’ part of my brain. The itch was back. I tried to stop thinking, but the memories rushed back anyways. I heard the high pitched whirring of the drill, the warm and steady trickle of blood going down the back of my head. No, I couldn’t, wouldn’t think about that. I needed to forget, or the itch would turn into a pain. But I couldn’t stop thinking, I was back in the lab, the harsh lights were burning down on me, they were like eyes, glad of my suffering. I screamed, the pain drilling into my mind itself, and the only thing I think of was the torture. The whirring changed pitch and – I came back, hearing a gunshot. I looked up and saw Very Merry right in front of me, a pistol floating by her, the barrel pointed up. “Wha- what happened?” I asked, shaken from my memories. “You blanked out and started screaming, I couldn’t get through to you,” she said, quite panicked, “What the hell happened?” “I,” I trailed off. I didn’t want to tell her, I just wanted to forget, “It’s… nothing, I just…” “It’s obviously not nothing Vocal,” she responded, “You scared the living hell out of me!” she let out a sigh, “Okay, if you don’t want to tell me, I can understand,” she paused, “But just try not to let that happen again!” “I-I’m sorry Verma,” I replied, “And thanks for understanding, it’s just… something I’d rather not talk about.” “Well I can understand where you’re coming from, but, you’re going to have to tell me sometime, alright?” she said. I nodded back, unsure of whether or not it would be a lie. Looking back, I still am not sure whether or not I should have told her outright at that moment. ‘go on, tell her,’ the voice in my head pestered, ‘Go to hell,’ I retorted, having conversations with myself, that seems like a sure sign of insanity, or was it just split personality disorder? Or are they both in the same category? Ooh! Having conversations with myself, what does that chalk our number up to? Wait, getting off track again. “Okay, so - ” Very Merry began, getting cut off by a rumbling sound, she let out one word “Run!” and I didn’t hesitate. It wasn’t easy with my leg in a brace, but I managed to use three legs to move. I still had my saddlebags on, and I telekinetically grabbed Verma’s from the ground as we started to run. A plume of dirt erupted where we were. “What was that?!” I yelled out, practically screaming. “I’ll tell you later!” she screamed back. I heard the sound of beating hoof steps – no, paw steps, gaining on us. The creature let out a, for lack of a better word, bark, and I put it together. This was a canine, so it was probably a diamond dog. I looked back. I was greeted with the sight of probably the meanest, ugliest, most terrifying fucker I had ever seen. So that’s why we needed to run. The thing was gaining on me, my cast impairing me. So, flight was tried and out, so that meant I would need to, “Fight!” I yelled out, not even noticing it. I dropped Verma’s bags, and sent a bolt of my electricity into him, the bastard barely flinched. I hadn’t even noticed my rifle floating at my side, I had taken it out subconsciously, and I managed to send three rounds into him, two above the ribcage, and one in head. Amazingly, he didn’t fall. He had cleared the distance rather quickly, and was only a few meters away. I heard a shot to the right of me, the shell of Very Merry’s shotgun burying itself into its lungs, the power of the blast causing it to stagger. I reloaded my rifle and started firing. 1... 2... 3... 4... Reload. 1... 2... 3... 4... Reload. It had to be dead; its head was just a mush of blood and gore. The crimson liquid was flowing around it in small pools. The sight made me want to retch, and I turned to the side and let out the contents of my stomach. “Now, then, what the fuck was that?” I said between heavy breaths. “That is a hellhound. Looks like a young one,” She replied, equally out of breath. “Well,” I said, “Fan – fucking – tastic,” “Yeah well, it could have been worse,” she began, “It could’ve been a pack of them. You don’t have a very strong stomach, do you?” “I’m not very used to seeing the liquefied insides of something’s head.” I flatly responded. “I can see, well, it doesn’t seem very safe out here, maybe we should head for some civilization.” She said I nodded, and we started walking. On the way Very Merry told me about Hellhounds, how they used magical energy weapons, and burrowed underground. The news was scary, to say the least. I hoped that it was the worst that the wasteland had to throw at us. But, I somehow knew that it wouldn’t be. Part FiveChapter Five “Bound” He walked up. His weapon clattered to the ground. I couldn’t see it. I was on my side, and I felt something warm and wet- I managed to bring up a hoof. It was drenched in my own blood. I looked around, unsure of where I was. Small memories came back to me, the tearing of concrete coupled with the screeching of rebar. I looked at the stallion; he was dragging some kind of sled behind him, trotting towards me. I slowly turned my head, surveying the area. I saw a light blue hoof sticking out of the rubble of the building I was in. “No…” I painfully whispered. It couldn’t be… I slowly lapsed back into unconsciousness, and my mind began replaying what happened from the last time I could remember. Damn. Damn. Damn. CELESTIA DAMNIT THIS HURTS. The pain in my broken was excruciating, and I really wanted a healing potion, but those seemed to be in short supply. The running from that fucking dog had really messed up my leg. I didn’t have to be a doctor to know that it wasn’t healing properly. At the next town we got to, I decided, I was going to try and barter the radio I had fixed for some proper doctoring. Or, depending on how I was feeling, a bottle or two of whiskey, or scotch, or some kind of mind and pain numbing alcohol. The cast was helping, and I am certain I would have no way of walking without it, but it wasn’t perfect. I looked up from my leg and surveyed the area. The only land mark I saw was a tower far off in the distance. “What’s that?” I asked, gesturing towards the tower. “That is Tennpony Tower,” Verma answered, “Hoity toidy kinda place. Wouldn’t let us in for sure.” I nodded. I had expected as much, safe place where things are probably better, and they wouldn’t let anypony in. Then I realized I was being hypocritical. I came from a Stable, and back in it, we sure as hell didn’t let any living thing in. I thought back to the spells I had at my disposal, I figured I might need some more powerful ones. The stunning spell had only made the mutt blink. Of course, bullets seemed to do wonders, and they weren’t as hard to find as good spells. “So how did you get that?” she said, pointing at my left ear, it had gotten about half of it sliced off years before. It brought back memories, and, as most of my memories are, they weren’t good ones. I snapped myself out of my thoughts, and turned to Very Merry “Well, my ear got shredded when I was just a colt. Magical energy discharge in the reactor area, my dad worked there and he brought me in that day. One of the generators malfunctioned, and sent out a burst of power. My ear got singed but my dad blocked most of it. He…” I trailed off. It had been a long time since I had thought about my father. He wasn’t so different from me, black coat, light brown mane instead of my grey one, and his eyes were a light blue instead of my dark green. “He… didn’t make it.” I said quietly. “Oh, I’m sorry about that.” She said. “What’s done is done, no reason to be sorry, last thing I want is somepony pitying me.” “Oh. I’m sorry for feeling sorry for you,” she said with a chuckle. “Well, there’s no use dwelling on the past. What’s our goal?” I asked, putting a lot of fake cheer into my voice. “Well, I know there’s a town east of here that probably would have some work available.” She answered, I nodded. As we began to walk (and my leg began to throb) my mind drifted back to that day. I had blocked the memory away, but I guess it wanted to come out. ‘It was your fault, after all’ the voice in my head snapped. ‘Bullshit it was,’ I thought back, once more having a fully fledged conversation in my head. ‘Oh but it’s true! He told you not to what all of the different selections on the terminal did, and you were a bit ahead of your classmates. You knew what it meant. He told you not to mess with them, but did you listen? Nooo, and now daddy’s gone. Because of you.’ ‘No… it’s not true!’ I was fighting a losing battle. ‘Oh come one Vocal, you’re me! And I’m you! I know everything you know. Maybe more. Maybe…’ it paused, ‘Maybe you wanted to kill him. You didn’t trust him. He was always so mean to you,’ he chided, mimicking a colts voice, ‘And one day, you saw the perfect chance. You’re just a cold blooded murderer! Who’s next? More ‘raiders’ or maybe some innocent townponies who are just trying to survive by any means necessary?’ The voice quieted. ‘no,’ I whispered back to it. ‘Why not!? You’re obviously capable, why don’t you just kill that mare? Easy as anything else for you! Go on, kill her! It wouldn’t matter to you. After all, she is just slowing you down, who’s fault is it that your leg is busted. Hers. Get rid of her! You know you – we… want to.’ it cooed. ‘How about I get a lobotomy? Get you taken out for good! Sound like a plan?’ at this, the voice seemed to grow distant and quiet. ‘Oh, you think it would be THAT easy? Hey! I got an idea!’ the voice stopped. I pondered what it had meant, but my thoughts were interrupted, ‘look behind you!’ and, against my better judgment, I did. What I saw was probably scarier than any monster I would ever encounter. It was me. No, not me, but a… darker version, it looked at me with MY eyes, tinged red. He was smiling. ‘What are you?’ I thought, somehow remembering not to talk aloud and seem like a total nut. ‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m you!’ it said, laughing. I shook my head, backing up. It didn’t belong in this world. I knew that, and was repeating it in my head like a nursery rhyme. He- It looked injured, like this world was hurting him. But he still was grinning, from ear to ear. “Uh, Vocal?” I heard a voice like it was miles away. ‘There’s no use hiding from the truth, Vocal! We both know it.’ I was still looking at it in horror. “Vocal!” I heard someone shout. It snapped me out of my trance. I looked at Very Merry, then back to the spot. Nothing. Thank Celestia. “What the hell!?” Verma snapped, “Why didn’t you answer me? I called your name at least seven times!” “Y-You didn’t s-see it?” I stuttered. “See what?!” at this, I was startled. Okay, so I hadn’t really expected her to see it. I was pretty sure it was in my head. But still, the confirmation wasn’t something that calmed me. “I-I don’t know…” I began. I was cut off, by the shuffling of weapons being raised. Very Merry turned around. What we saw were seven raiders, fully armed and each one pointing automatic weaponry at us. I uttered one word. “Shit.” And then, there was a bag over my head and I was being herded somewhere. After what must have been an hour or so of walking, we arrived somewhere. Next thing I know. I was shoved in some dank cell. I got the bag off of my head and looked around. I was in a police station, in one of the barred cells. Next to me in the cell was Verma, who had just gotten the burlap sack off her head. In the one to my left was a reddish brown earth pony with shaggy black hair and a scar across the left of his muzzle. He was stirring from sleep. “Looks like they dragged some more sons a’ bitches in, huh?” he asked. I only narrowed my eyes. “And you are?” I asked. “The name’s Ryder. You?” he responded. “Vocal,” I said flatly. “Where’d they catch you? That one gas station?” he asked. “Where it happened doesn’t matter, what matters is getting the hell out of here.” Verma chimed in. I nodded my head. “Ha, yeah right. I’ve been in here for at least a month, there’s no way out.” Ryder said. “Oh yeah? Why are they keeping us here then?” Very Merry retorted. “To sell, so I guess there is a way out, but it’s not without a slave collar attached. Course, for a mare like you…” He said, turning to Verma, chuckling, “They might ‘get acquainted’ with you, if you catch my drift.” “Fuck you too, asshole” Verma said to him, he raised his hooves defensively. “Not trying to be one, just saying facts here.” He responded, flatly, “Anyways, they probably are gonna sell us guys to the legion, I’m sure you’ve heard of them.” “Just a bit, all I know is that they’re some violent tribe.” I said “Yeah, they are a bunch of mares. They enslave any stallions, or kill them.” He told me. I sighed. Great, I had been captured once before and got out through sheer luck. Now I was a captive again. And I was going to get sold to some legion bitches that were probably going to work us to death. Lovely day. “There sure are a lot of slavers out here.” I mumbled. “So Vocal?” Very Merry beckoned, “What the hell happened back there?” she asked. I had been worried about this, so, using my amazing bullshitting skills, I began, “I think it was a dehydration hallucination,” which was partly true, and I had finished off the water in my flask before we arrived in the cells. “Well alright, those are never fun,” she said, believing me. I inwardly let out a sigh of relief. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I wasn’t ready to share it to the world. I looked over to the sounds of somepony walking down the hallway. I began thinking of a plan. I was busting out of here… but it would take time. I began to regain consciousness. I was on the sled, and I had no idea where my comrades were. At first, I remembered my co-workers from the security force, and wanted to find them, but then I remembered that was a life passed. Then I remembered my two – was it two? I think it was – friends. They were somewhere, but I couldn’t remember them. Everything was scrambled. I heard a voice. ‘Ohhh, you fucked up this time,’ chills went down my spine, ‘Looks like I was right, it wasn’t going to work.’ Wait, hold on a second, this meant we had some kind of conversation, me and the voice in my head, it seemed to pick up on this, being in my head and all, ‘Yes, we had a conversation, ahh, forgetful are we?.’ I fell into my memories again. Footnote; Level up. New perk: Purifier: You do extra damage towards any mutated creature. Authors note; Sorry for the delay, but i have a good explanation! I am very lazy. Anyways, expect the revisions to occur sometime very soon, I have gotten most of them done, but I want to release them at the same time. anyways, thank you for reading, and i hope to see you next time!
Part One[Chapter One “Wake up and smell the ashes”/center] Well, ‘ere we are, suppose I should start the story from the beginning, or maybe start at the end and periodically go back there to showcase the characters and get perspective, but, I think I should just stick to the traditional method, my name is Vocal, I’d been in a stable my whole life, Stable 86, if memory serves which (thank Celestia) still does. In that stable, we were divided into two groups, red and blue, I was a security guard, so I was technically neutral, as the children and their parents are separated from the two until we get our cutie marks. Our Stable’s little experiment was, luckily, not very dangerous for us, just separation. But, I digress, I was a security guard, and one day the overmare calls me into her office and she says “Vocal, we need you to leave the stable,” so naturally, I ask “why?” and then she nearly knocks me out, she replies by saying “Because the door is set to open, and we need you to recon the situation” so, after a little bit, I agree. Having no family left, I was the obvious choice. I didn’t know what was really in store. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Door rumbled open, and after a breath, I stepped out. I walked out the door, and left. The door closed behind me. I looked around, and immediately knew the situation wasn’t good, running back into the cave, I pounded on the door, the overmare’s voice came out of a speaker “I’m sorry Vocal, we have to send someone out once every 20 years, we can’t let you back in, the stable’s systems would eradicate all life inside the stable,” so naturally, I yelled back a rather rude retort, involving some words about a female dog and some other things, and she responded calmly “I’m sorry, we chose you because you were trained and had no family, but I can give you one more thing to help you,” a small vent rumbled open, revealing a small 5.56 SMG with about 80 rounds, some health potions, and a few other supplies. I stood there for some amount of time, just staring at the supplies, slack jawed, looking like an idiot. It must have been a few hours or maybe a few minutes, before I moved on. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ Looking around, I saw what looked like a camp, as I approached it, gunfire flew out to greet me. Levitating out my pistol, I began to take shots, I was thankful for my training. A raider went down, a bullet between her eyes, it was, by all means, a lucky shot. Three raiders were out of the fight already, leaving two, when another came out, with some kind of chaingun saddle rig up. I took him down before he got off a shot. I was aiming to injure, not kill, the raiders. Another shot flew out, but this time, directed at the raiders. I glanced over to see someone in metal barding coming up, a different one of those gun rigs firing at the raiders. As the last raider fell he walked up and shooting the dying raiders. I watched in cold shock as he did so. He was a grey color. When he finished he turned to me and said “Name’s Duke,” he said in a slightly southern accent, “Vocal,” I replied, “well Vocal, mighty brave of ya to take on a raider camp, either that er stupid,” he continued “hmm, nice armor ya got there, you from a vault?” I nodded. “so, is it open?” he asked, “No,” I replied “I was kicked out, it’s a long story, well, I better be going now, thanks for your help,” he grunted a reply. Before I went on my way, however, I walked up and grabbed two ammo boxes, I had an idea to use them as saddle bags. It would be good to have some armor between my stuff and some bullets. Not to mention between me and said bullets. Footnote: Level Up New Perk: Mare killer – You do more damage versus the opposite sex, and sometime you will get special dialogue options.
Part TwoChapter Two “Roads less Traveled” Scrapheap was exactly as the name suggested. The stench was overwhelming at first, but I got used to it. I realized how hungry I was, so I went to one of the shops. However, they wanted bottle caps for some reason. I headed over to a store entitled “Cherry Pie’s Barter Station,” using cobbled signs. I headed in. I was greeted by a green apple colored mare. She gave me a wave, and said “Hiya! I’m Cherry Pie, you’re new in town aren’t you?” and, without waiting for a response, continued “I remember pretty much everyone, what’s your name?” she pondered “I’m Vocal,” I answered, “well pleased to meet you, Vocal!” she said, “now what brings you on into my store here?” she asked, “well,” I began “I was looking to sell some of my things, get some, uh, caps,” smiling, she asked, “Well, what do you have?” I pulled out some of the ammo that wouldn’t work on my pistol or SMG, and was about to hoof them over, when I saw a rifle on the wall, “what’s that?” I asked, gesturing to the semi auto carbine, “That’s some hunting rifle, uses that ammo there” she said, pointing to a couple clips I was holding. I asked “How much?” she said “I’ll give it to ya for those three magazines there,” and I hooved them over. Then she said “how much do you want for the rest?” I said “twenty caps?” and she shook her head, “I couldn’t just rob you like that, they’re worth at least forty,” I thanked her, and received my caps. I walked out, bidding her a good day. The food was filling, although it left a bitter after taste. I walked out, and tried to think of what to do. I was new in the wastes. Despite being kicked out of the stable, I was feeling rather up beat after eating. I pulled up my Pipbuck and looked at the map. Unsurprisingly, there were no new locations. Before I go on, I should explain a few things. I’ll start off at the beginning, when I got my cutie mark, to be exact. I really liked my cutie mark, the shield. I got it defending some other fillies and colts from a few bullies, well, truthfully, defending isn’t the right term. More like, being a sand bag for them to wail on while the others escaped. But, it got me my cutie mark. For that, I got a position on the security force. After that it’s pretty bland. Back to the story. As I walked the wasteland in the area around Scrapheap, I heard the sounds of a gunfight. I was curious (and a part of me seemed to want to live up to my cutie mark) a walked towards the sounds. A few minutes later, the battle came into view. I saw what looked like a family fighting off raiders. Un-holstering my SMG, I opened up SATS (Stable-Tec Assisted Targeting Spell) and began picking targets. Two of the bandits were down, and three remained. The family used the opportunity to pop out and take shots. In a few minutes, the last raider was dispatched. “Well Thank y’ much, stranger,” said the crimson coated stallion, “people call m’ vendor,” he said with a bit of a drawl. “I’m Vocal,” I responded “and it was no problem,” Vendor continued “that’s awfully kind of y’ and I know it wasn’t jus’ nothing, ain’t many folks in the waste that would risk their skin for some random people, and speaking of which, where are m’ manners,” he turned and started gesturing to his group, “this ‘ere is Greengrass,” he said, pointing at his son, “this is Daisy,” he said, pointing to his daughter, “and, well, I think y’ c’n introduce yerself, honey, y’ ain’t no filly,” his wife responded “I’m Lightrose,” I continued the conversation, “well it’s a pleasure to meet you all,” the stallion looked at my barding, “are y’ from one of those stables?” I nodded, suddenly uncomfortable for some reason, “is it open?!” he said, a light shining in his eyes, “no, I was kinda kicked out, it’s a long story, but the short reason is that the stable has to send everyone out once every some years,” he looked saddened, and I felt a pang of guilt, he and his family should be in the stable. He regained his composure, “oh well, I knew it was a long shot, but thanks for your help, and here take this,” he said, tossing me a bag of caps, “we’re kinda low on money, gotta get to the next town to trade, but you saved our lives,” I started to refuse them, but he insisted. As they walked towards the town, I looked around, spotting a crest and climbed towards it, and saw a good view of the surrounding land. I saw what looked like smoke from a town, and a city off in the distance. I suspected it was Stalliongrad. Turning around, I spotted what had to be Ponyville off in the distance. Night was falling, and I decided to hike towards Ponyville, I would probably be there after three hours. As I neared the town I came upon a hill, and decided to climb it and get a better view. What I saw was quite a surprise. There was a grey mare, obviously from a Stable, taking down a last couple of raiders. ‘hmm,’ I thought to myself, ‘I’ll have to keep and ear out for news on that’ and I remembered that my Pipbuck had a radio, I slipped the earbloom in, and tuned into a broadcast. I heard a song that was familiar, something that they played in the stable. I found myself wondering if the whole wasteland had one radio station that was controlled by Stable-Tec, but I dashed it from my mind. As a guard, I was given more information than the local populace, which was why I wasn’t very surprised as I came out of the Stable. I turned off the radio, and saw a Pegasus fly out of the tree which was probably a library, except that it was, different, I thought that it was green, when I realized that it was decomposing, I was shocked, and concluded that it must have been the magical radiation. Once I had found a shelter in a drainage culvert, I took out the two ammo boxes I had found earlier, I began rig them to my saddlebags. It covered my flank, and I suddenly decided to armor my saddlebags as well, I was very grateful for my skill with tools. I had discovered that I had them in my saddlebags and they were very helpful. There was a lot of scrap nearby, and I began to pick up some of the less rusted stuff. After a while, I was pleased with my setup, and settled in for the night. Without something occupying me, my thoughts started to swirl. It was a mix of depression, fear, and burning anger. I didn’t want to kill an innocent pony, but there were some pretty dark thoughts running through my head. As far as I was concerned, the raiders had it coming. Ponykind had come up from nothing, we could rebuild, but there were all of these evil ponies trying to stop it. I decided not to get all high and mighty; after all, I had killed them without a second thought. It was quite dark, and I decided to flip down the visor on my helmet, it had night vision built in. I began to observe my surroundings, I saw a billboard off in the distance, and the thoughts starting creeping back in. I wondered if this was what insanity was. A heard a sound, like hooves on pavement, I quieted myself. A voice began talking about the time I noticed crying, “quiet down! Ill teach you what happens to ponies who don’t listen,” the crying seemed to quiet, “that one might not get as high of a price,” one said, hold on, were they selling people? I risked a look and saw several ponies in chains, and three ponies guarding them. They had poor armor, and only one had a firearm, I could take that one down and deal with the other two easily. I pulled out my SMG. BAM BAM BAM The one with a pistol was dead, and I turned to the others, pumping lead into one. The other got to me, he had a shovel handle, several seconds later, he was on the ground, and I pumped a round through his brain. I looked at the ponies, they were frightened, and I searched for a key. Once I found it, I began to unlock their cuffs. There were three, a colt, filly, and a mare. She thanked me, and I levitated the pistol to her. She took it and thanked me. Once they were out of site, I began to loot the bodies. The other one with a knife was still alive, and she looked up at me with terrified eyes. I gave her a painkiller shot and she dozed off into a deep slumber that she wouldn’t wake from. I didn’t want to be a monster. But she made her choice, and it was the wrong one. Those were the consequences of that choice. I decided to travel for the night. My helmet turned darkness to light, and I wasn’t getting asleep soon because of that. A few minutes later, I stumbled upon a house. I looked at my weapons, and decided to go for the pistol; it would be difficult to bring about a long rifle in close quarters. I also decided to ready my security baton. I brought up my eyes forward sparkle, there was nothing in the house, but I am not very trusting of technology, and kept out my 10mm Maysur pistol. The house was already quite looted, but I found an old military helmet, which I decided I could use to upgrade my modified security helmet. The helmet reminded me of the spells I knew. I had a group of about seven, and I was pretty fair with them. My three best were my electrical shock spell (only powerful enough to stun), my ‘riot shield spell’ as I called it, and my favorite, the ‘weapon jammer’ which is quite self explanatory. After a bit more searching, I found a safe. Locked. Luckily, I was able to force it open, but I vowed to learn how to lockpick. Inside the safe I found a beautiful 12mm Kegholt auto pistol and about 45 rounds. I also found a memory orb (I didn’t even think many of those survived) and a healing potion. Once I was sure the building was secure, I focused on a memory orb with my magic. The room I was in, or, the person I was watching the memory of was in, was quite nice. A cool draft was blowing through a window. The room was small, a bedroom, and I realized that it was the room I found the memory orb in. there was a radio on. It was blasting out news of some coalition disbanding. I wondered why he was recording this memory. He walked up to a wall and tapped one it three times in one place, two in another and another four in the first. A panel in the wall slid open. I revealed a terminal. The host tapped in his passcode (which was ‘dutiful’) and browsed the terminal. He found a file titled ‘LOCATIONS’ and opened it. He copied the info onto a holodisk and backed out. Then he selected a directory entitled ‘FINAL’ and brought it up, which led to two options ‘NO RETURN’ and ‘GO BACK?’ and he clicked ‘NO RETURN’ which made text pop up. He only skimmed it and hit the last option, ‘END’ and the terminal shut down, my ‘host’ pulled out a small device, which I realized was a magnet, and scanned it over the terminal. It would wipe all of the data off it. After doing that, he pulled out the Kegholt and fired into it for good measure. Taking out a Pipbuck, he slotted the holodisk in along with some kind of transmitter. He pressed a few buttons, and sent the info. He took out the holodisk and shot it as well after he scanned it with the magnet. Sounds came from the main door. Someone was getting in. the door burst open, right as my host was hiding the safe. He looked up as a pony in black combat armor came in. He had one of those gun rigs with a single rifle on it. Without giving my host more than a glance, he fired, taking him down. He crawled to the safe, taking the memory device off. I came back to the real world. I was in a bit of a daze. I decided not to think about what happened. I slid the orb into my saddlebags. I walked over to the wall, and tapped in the code. The terminal was the same. I managed to take out some of the scrap and found some parts that might be useful. I decided to sleep there for the night. Footnote: Level Up New Perk: Gun Lover – You have and maintain a wide variety of firearms, you get +5 to guns and repair.
Part ThreeChapter 3 “The Descent” I woke up. Trapped. Slavers had found me in the middle of the night and put me in a cage in their wagon. They had injected me with a sedative to keep me under. There were two others in the cart, a filly and her mother. I saw my weapons on the back of one of the slavers. I thought about levitating them off, but the other guards would have rounds pumped into me before I could click off the safety. I had nothing to do. My thoughts kept drifting back to my last day in the Stable. The air had been stale, as usual. The lights seemed dimmer, and everyone seemed tired. I had been called into the security office. I had expected it was for my report on the fight that had broken out. Two of the engineers, drunk, got into a disagreement and I had to pull them apart. They were both under stall arrest. I was greeted by Chief Patroz. He told me to follow him, and I obeyed. He led me to the Overmare’s office. She greeted me. “The Stable is running out of parts for the generators,” she said I stood there obediently, trying to figure out why I needed to know. “we need to send someone out, and see if it is safe for the rest of us to go, the cameras that we used to use were knocked out a decade ago,” she continued I looked dumbstruck, I was already knowing what was coming next. “We need you to go out, and recon the area,” I stood there for a few seconds, and then nodded. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ I was pulled put of my thoughts as the wagon came to a halt. I looked up. It was a compound of some sorts. But it looked like we were just passing through. As we passed in, I was shocked by the scene. Bodies of ponies, strung up on crosses, were everywhere. They were still alive. I then noticed red banners, with manticores on them. This wasn’t a raider camp. A pony in armor with a helmet made seemingly of feathers walked out. The slaver gave him a few caps and we started rolling again. After about two hours of travelling, we stopped, the slavers got out some of their food, and I sas the perfect chance to get out. The one with my weapons dropped his saddlebags as they gathered around and started setting up a fire. Two of the four went off to find more firewood. Once they were out of sight, I slowly levitated out my rifle and SMG, the guards didn’t even take out the ammo. The two around the fire were down, and one of the others came back. He already had his shotgun out, and started pumping shells towards me, they were slugs, but he was a poor shot. The other two prisoners cowered in the corner of the cage. Even with his poor aiming, a round made it through my right foreleg, taking me down. My magic imploded. He ran towards the cage shooting, but I used one of my best spells, the weapon jamming spell. Sadly, it also works on my guns and I had to find something to take him down with. Quick. I saw a rusted piece of relatively sharp metal and floated it up. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ The cage door opened with a click, and I limped out, the mare and child in tow. I holstered my now unjammed weapons and turned to the other two. They had expressions of happiness and fear. I turned away, bringing out a healing potion from my bag, when I realized that I would have to get the lead out. The two were walking away, and the mother scooped up the shotgun that the slaver had been using. I turned my attention to getting out the chunk of lead. ‘busy hooves are happy hooves,’ I thought to myself with a smirk. I didn’t have any tools, so I decided to use my magic. I let out a pained groan. As I finally got it out. I sighed with relief. I decided to put away the potion, and took out a few bandages, wrapping them around my leg. I walked over to a different dead slaver. I searched his saddlebags, and repeated the process with the others. At the end, I had found three cans of food, some ammo, and a few bandages. I checked my Pipbuck, I was near Phillydelphia. Fantastic. I looked at the wagon. In a few minutes, I had it on and was pulling it, with even more of the supplies that they had. I didn’t have any clue where to go, but I didn’t want to head in to the big city. Instead I started heading back in the direction of Ponyville. I checked on my Pipbuck map, when I found a new broadcast. I tuned in to it. “-please help, this message repeats….. if there is anyone out there, this is Velna’s Rangers, we are pinned down outside of Phillydelphia, please, help, this message repeats.” I turned off the radio, ‘looks like I’m heading to Phillydelphia after all, I thought to myself.’ I sighed. I had only been out here for three days, and I had already been captured by slavers. Things were not going well. I let out a sigh. I was probably going to die out here soon. ‘unless,’ I thought to myself, ‘I can find some friends, or at least help, how corny,’ I stifled a laugh. Walking along, I knew this wouldn’t be easy, they hadn’t said what they were pinned down by, I was hoping it was raiders or something. I halted and sighed. ‘there is no was ill be able to take anything down, who am I kidding,’ I mumbled. I hated not being able to do anything. I cursed myself, I cursed the wasteland, I cursed everything. Apparently, I was yelling pretty loud, because someone started talking. “you’ve got quite a mouth on you, haven’t you?” a mare asked I froze up, it would be near impossible to quickly turn the wagon, and I suddenly wished I hadn’t taken it, so instead I played along with her questioning, “yeah. I suppose,” I slowly turned my wagon, “hold up right there, buddy,” I heard a shotgun being pumped, “how do I know you aren’t a raider, or a slaver?” she asked, “you don’t, but your just gonna have to trust me on my word,” I responded, “what’s your name?” she questioned, “Vocal,” I responded flatly. “Well, Vocal, nice to meet you, I’m Very Merry, but people just call me Verma,” “Nice to meet you too,” I said dully. “alright, you can turn, you haven’t tried to shoot me yet, and your armor doesn’t make you look like a raider,” she said I turned, Verma was a light blue pony, a unicorn, in fact, which explained how she could talk while holding the shotgun, which she now had holstered by her saddlebags. Her eyes were a dark green, and her main a light brown, with a single light blue strand in it, she held out a hoof, I took it and shook it, to the best of my abilities, the wagon encumbering my movement. “So where are you heading?” she asked with an inquisitive look. I shrugged and answered, “Not sure, just roaming around.” “It’s pretty dangerous out here on own,” she said “Yeah,” I paused and lifted my injured foreleg, “I noticed.” “well why don’t you come with me?” she said “I could always use an extra hoof in my travels.” I paused for a moment. Verma seemed pretty good natured, compared to most of the other ponies I had met. I took a moment to consider it. “Why not,” I responded “Well alright!” she said with a smile, “let’s go then, do you wanna bring the wagon or…” “not really,” I said, tugging the straps loose. ‘How corny,’ my thoughts teased, I smirked at my own brain, it seemed. We started walking, I didn’t bother to check the direction, I didn’t care at this point, it would be good to have someone to talk to, to keep the dark thoughts out of my mind. “So, where are you from?” she asked I paused, wondering what to say, “Vault 86,” I said after a moment. “Really? I thought they were closed, that’s interesting.” She said “Yeah, but I was forced to leave,” and she gave me a quizzical look, “It’s a long story,” We walked for a while, before we spotted a small village. “Oh my,” she said, very concerned, “We have to go around,” “Why?” I asked, puzzled. “That is a Legion outpost,” she said, a bit of fear in her voice. I didn’t ask any more questions, I decided I would ponder later. She motioned for me to follow, and we started to make a large circle around the camp. Amazingly, we made it around without any issue, although a Legionnaire almost saw me, and a I realized that they were the same ponies who’s camp I had passed through when the slavers had me. Once we finally made it around, and were out of earshot, I started asking questions. She gave me a short summary of the Legion, after I had launched out at least a dozen questions. “The Legion is a large… army, consisting of slaves and conquered tribes, they are… evil, and they crush everyone who opposes them… and kill anyone else,” she finished with a shiver. “Wow,” I said solemnly. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ We had been walking for about four and a half hours before it started to get dark. Then it started to rain. We ran for cover, and found a cave. It was somewhat dry inside, dryer than the outside, at least. I ventured outside, and came back with some timber for a fire. It was soaking wet though, but, luckily, there was some dry wood in the cave, which we used to dry the wet logs and sticks off. After a while, there was a soft fire, and I realized that while I had my nightvision, Verma hadn’t been able to see a thing. The fire provided light, but it was dim, so I flicked on my Pipbuck light. I sat on my hauches, and took off my saddlebags. I started searching through them manually, and found what I was looking for. I took out a small holodisk, and popped it in my Pipbuck. I switched the Pipbuck to its speakers (security models had speakers for broadcasting messages in the Stable) and a song started playing. It was a fully instrumental version of a song that I couldn’t remember the name of. I then started rifling through my saddlebags, while Verma watched with an amused look. I took out some of the terminal parts, along with a broken radio I had found, and started to tinker with them. The radio didn’t work, and I tried to figure it out. After a while, I found a piece that looked like it was burnt out, and replaced it with a piece of the terminal. Putting it back together, I tuned into a broadcast, and switched off my Pipbuck’s Song. “until next time, kiddies, this is DJ Pon3…” I smiled with my success, and Verma gave a little clap. ‘Busy hooves are happy hooves,’ the voice inside my head whispered, it seemed to hate me, or at least get joy in spiting me. I tried to repel those thoughts and turned to Verma. “Who’s DJ Pon3?” I asked. “Just somepony who seems to have a lot of informants and knowledge in the wastes,” she said, “There are a lot of people who listen to him, he’s a symbol of hope to most, just a voice to others,” “hmph,” I responded, it wasn’t very important. But at least someone was trying to help, unlike the majority of ponies I had met so far. ‘Verma’s pretty attractive, don’t you think?’ my thoughts tempted. i pushed them away, thinking like that would make me think of… past occurrences… instead, I turned my attention to my saddlebags, pulling out my bedroll, Verma already had hers out, and I started setting up mine. ‘Busy hooves are -‘ I politely told my thoughts to go die in a hole. Once it was setup, I decided to turn my thoughts to less dark things. I started messing with my Pipbuck, trying to find out why it marked random locations, like Scrapheap, that hadn’t existed before the war. After not finding a single thing, I gave up. I saw that Verma was reading a book, I couldn’t see the title, and I didn’t bother trying to find out. “Who’s taking first watch?” I asked. “Oh right, thanks for reminding me,” she got up, taking out some things from her bags. She set up an alarm system out of string and cans, “Simple, but I gets the job done, and I’m a light sleeper.” I nodded, why hadn’t I thought of that? I decided that I would have to find a library of some kind, and get a book or two. “Well, goodnight Vocal.” She said “Goodnight,” I responded softly, I stared off into space for a few minutes, but before I could be caught in my own thoughts, I had fallen asleep, I hadn’t noticed just how tired I was. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ The morning was colder than others. Other than that, it was pretty much the same. I slowly got up. I checked my Pipbuck, it was 7:48. I yawned. Verma wasn’t up yet, and I started getting breakfast ready. She really was quite good looking, as I saw her without her barding. I looked at her cutie mark; it was two horseshoes next to each other. I got the fire up again, and started cooking a can of beans and took out a can of apples. I went outside to survey the area. We were next to an old forest, completely barren and burned. The air was relatively fresh, and there was a small break in the cloud cover. As I watched, it was quickly drawn closed. I looked around, and saw no definable landmarks. I went back into the cave. Verma was awake when I came in. “Good morning,” she said cheerily. “Morning,” I said in a somewhat less depressing tone than usual. I sat down and tended to the beans. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ After breakfast we headed out. I checked my Pipbuck, but there were no locations nearby. “How’d you get your cutie mark?” I asked her “Exploring, it would seem, it kinda makes sense,” she responded, “I wondered why it wasn’t a map or something, but horseshoes make sense too.” I nodded. We walked for another hour or so, before stumbling upon a house. “I’ll go inside, you wait out here and keep watch,” she told me. “Alright.” I confirmed. I looked around, and saw a rock jutting out of the ground. I clambered up on it, and kept a lookout. After only a few minutes, I saw something. I levitated on my modified helmet, and switched to thermal vision, but it had limited range, so I flipped it off. I crouched down, and waited. After another minute, they were close enough to get a good look. Four ponies. All raiders. I crawled over to the house, and warned Verma. She snuck out of the house, and we waited to see if the raiders would come closer. I carefully brought out my rifle, and got ready. Apparently, my luck had run out when we passed the Legion camp. The raiders spotted us, and charged shooting. One of them had a rusty sword, two had pistols, and one had a light SMG. I fell the one with the SMG and Verma got one of the pistol users. They were closing in, and I took out my SMG while putting away my rifle. They were a few paces away, and I brought up my riot shield spell. I pumped a dozen rounds into the other pistol holder, and turned to face the final one with the sword. I stunned him with my shock spell, and Verma finished him off. “You got some pretty nifty spells there Vocal,” Verma said “I like to think so,” I responded, panting, “What spells do you have?” “a handful,” she answered, “mainly some bland ones, but I also have one that throws people back, kinda like telekinesis, except I don’t’ have to really aim it,” “Neat,” I said, regaining my composure. “Well, ready to go?” she asked, I nodded. Footnote: Level Up New perk: Educated – you get +3 skill points per level.
Part FourChapter Four “The Darkness of Remembrance” All was silent. It wasn’t a peaceful silence; it was a heavy, almost loud silence. I slowly came out of my stupor. I was on the dirt and rock of the ground, that much I could tell, and I tried to remember what had happened. All I could remember was the sound of explosions, and a bright light, a bright heat, fire. I tried to move, when a sharp pain went up my left side, as well as my right foreleg. It hurt. I had been shot before, but this was different. My skin of my leg felt like it was melting. I was sure that I had broken, if not shattered some bones. I noticed a sound, breathing. I bit through the pain, and looked towards the sound, I saw Very Merry. I turned back, and tried to bring my memories together. CLICK The sound was followed by a thud against the ground. I had just enough time to shout a warning before the area lit up in an explosion, throwing us back. I hit the ground, letting out gasp as the wind was knocked out of me. It was an ambush. The alleyway erupted in a hail of gunfire. The pain throughout my body was excruciating. I don’t know how, but I managed to bring up my shield. I floated out a healing potion, and passed it to Verma, who had managed to get up. I searched for another one, with no results. I floated out my rifle, and began taking shots, although I missed most of them in my state. Two of the five bandits had some of those battle saddles. I managed to hit one of them, knocking him off his feet. “Just give up!” one of the bandits yelled, her voice cracking. I responded by pumping a few rounds at her, she hit the ground with a thud. One of them made a mistake; they threw a grenade. The memories reached me, and I realized what had happened. The grenade had been cooking, and when they threw it, it exploded in mid-air. It had been a concussion grenade, instead of fragmentation. I struggled to my feet, my leg exploding in pain. I let out a groan. Only two of the bandits were left, knocked out, and I limped over to them, and sat down, while pulling out my SMG. I didn’t want to kill them while they were sleeping, and I thought I might give them a second chance. They weren’t raiders, as I, they didn’t want to kill us just for the sake of killing us and mutilating our bodies. They didn’t want to kill us, just take our things, but, taking our stuff would be just the same as killing us. One of them started to stir; she was a light brown mare with dark green hair. She first looked at the other bandit, and then, slowly, her eyes went to me. I could see the fear in them. I had on my best poker face, not betraying any emotions. I, honestly, didn’t care at that point about what would happen. I’d let her go peacefully, or, if she tried to attack me, I would kill her. “A-are you g-going t-t-to kill m-me?” she asked, shaken. “Depends on whether or not you are going to leave peacefully.” I answered. She got the point and woke the other bandit, he shot up, but she whispered something to him, and he nodded. They turned and left. “I didn’t expect you’d let them go,” Verma said, startling me. “I didn’t either,” I responded truthfully. “Oh hell,” she said, concerned, “you’re bleeding out!” “I’ll be fi-,” I managed to get out, before passing out. I awoke later, on the ground, and an overwhelming sense of Déjà vu came over me. I looked around, and saw Verma by a fire. “You’re not a very friendly person, are you?” she asked. It was a completely logical question, all things considered. “I suppose not, I’ve been a loner most of my life.” I realized that hadn’t had much social interaction since I lost my wife. The thought sent me back into my memories. It had started off as an ordinary day in the Stable. I walked to the security station, got my things, read my jobs for the day, and walked off on patrol. Probably three hours in to my duties, a quake shook the Stable. I assumed it was just an earthquake. Several minutes later my radio buzzed to life and the voice of Officer Redgin came out. “Vocal? We need you to come to the Security Station,” he said, a slight falter in his voice. “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I responded, wondering what was wrong that would make Redgin sound like that. I snapped back to the real world. I tried to push the thoughts out of my mind, with some success. Verma had a concerned, almost sad look on her face. I wondered how often I actually spaced out. I looked at my leg, the one that was broken, it was in a brace, and I am pretty sure that I had gotten a healing potion. I counted the days I had been out here; I realized it had been nine. I had known Verma for five of them. I wondered why I had trusted her so easily that day I had met her. Maybe it had been since she had the chance to kill me and didn’t. Maybe it was only since I just wished that it was true. It seemed like my hope had rung true, and I felt like I could trust her quite well. I brought up my Pipbuck and scrolled through it to the maps section. I was outside of a place called “Appleloosa.” I flipped to my radio section, and saw that emergency broadcast was still playing. Apparently, it had a really strong signal. I wondered if it might be a good idea to help (assuming Verma would be willing to jump right into danger for no reason whatsoever) or if we should just leave it be. I took a moment to look at our surroundings. We weren’t in the alley where we were ambushed, but instead, we were in the ruins of an old building. The walls, while still standing, were blasted apart, only seeming to be held up by small fragments of drywall. There was no ceiling, and I wondered where the wood for the fire had come from. I filed it in the ‘Unimportant Questions’ part of my brain. The itch was back. I tried to stop thinking, but the memories rushed back anyways. I heard the high pitched whirring of the drill, the warm and steady trickle of blood going down the back of my head. No, I couldn’t, wouldn’t think about that. I needed to forget, or the itch would turn into a pain. But I couldn’t stop thinking, I was back in the lab, the harsh lights were burning down on me, they were like eyes, glad of my suffering. I screamed, the pain drilling into my mind itself, and the only thing I think of was the torture. The whirring changed pitch and – I came back, hearing a gunshot. I looked up and saw Very Merry right in front of me, a pistol floating by her, the barrel pointed up. “Wha- what happened?” I asked, shaken from my memories. “You blanked out and started screaming, I couldn’t get through to you,” she said, quite panicked, “What the hell happened?” “I,” I trailed off. I didn’t want to tell her, I just wanted to forget, “It’s… nothing, I just…” “It’s obviously not nothing Vocal,” she responded, “You scared the living hell out of me!” she let out a sigh, “Okay, if you don’t want to tell me, I can understand,” she paused, “But just try not to let that happen again!” “I-I’m sorry Verma,” I replied, “And thanks for understanding, it’s just… something I’d rather not talk about.” “Well I can understand where you’re coming from, but, you’re going to have to tell me sometime, alright?” she said. I nodded back, unsure of whether or not it would be a lie. Looking back, I still am not sure whether or not I should have told her outright at that moment. ‘go on, tell her,’ the voice in my head pestered, ‘Go to hell,’ I retorted, having conversations with myself, that seems like a sure sign of insanity, or was it just split personality disorder? Or are they both in the same category? Ooh! Having conversations with myself, what does that chalk our number up to? Wait, getting off track again. “Okay, so - ” Very Merry began, getting cut off by a rumbling sound, she let out one word “Run!” and I didn’t hesitate. It wasn’t easy with my leg in a brace, but I managed to use three legs to move. I still had my saddlebags on, and I telekinetically grabbed Verma’s from the ground as we started to run. A plume of dirt erupted where we were. “What was that?!” I yelled out, practically screaming. “I’ll tell you later!” she screamed back. I heard the sound of beating hoof steps – no, paw steps, gaining on us. The creature let out a, for lack of a better word, bark, and I put it together. This was a canine, so it was probably a diamond dog. I looked back. I was greeted with the sight of probably the meanest, ugliest, most terrifying fucker I had ever seen. So that’s why we needed to run. The thing was gaining on me, my cast impairing me. So, flight was tried and out, so that meant I would need to, “Fight!” I yelled out, not even noticing it. I dropped Verma’s bags, and sent a bolt of my electricity into him, the bastard barely flinched. I hadn’t even noticed my rifle floating at my side, I had taken it out subconsciously, and I managed to send three rounds into him, two above the ribcage, and one in head. Amazingly, he didn’t fall. He had cleared the distance rather quickly, and was only a few meters away. I heard a shot to the right of me, the shell of Very Merry’s shotgun burying itself into its lungs, the power of the blast causing it to stagger. I reloaded my rifle and started firing. 1... 2... 3... 4... Reload. 1... 2... 3... 4... Reload. It had to be dead; its head was just a mush of blood and gore. The crimson liquid was flowing around it in small pools. The sight made me want to retch, and I turned to the side and let out the contents of my stomach. “Now, then, what the fuck was that?” I said between heavy breaths. “That is a hellhound. Looks like a young one,” She replied, equally out of breath. “Well,” I said, “Fan – fucking – tastic,” “Yeah well, it could have been worse,” she began, “It could’ve been a pack of them. You don’t have a very strong stomach, do you?” “I’m not very used to seeing the liquefied insides of something’s head.” I flatly responded. “I can see, well, it doesn’t seem very safe out here, maybe we should head for some civilization.” She said I nodded, and we started walking. On the way Very Merry told me about Hellhounds, how they used magical energy weapons, and burrowed underground. The news was scary, to say the least. I hoped that it was the worst that the wasteland had to throw at us. But, I somehow knew that it wouldn’t be.
Part FiveChapter Five “Bound” He walked up. His weapon clattered to the ground. I couldn’t see it. I was on my side, and I felt something warm and wet- I managed to bring up a hoof. It was drenched in my own blood. I looked around, unsure of where I was. Small memories came back to me, the tearing of concrete coupled with the screeching of rebar. I looked at the stallion; he was dragging some kind of sled behind him, trotting towards me. I slowly turned my head, surveying the area. I saw a light blue hoof sticking out of the rubble of the building I was in. “No…” I painfully whispered. It couldn’t be… I slowly lapsed back into unconsciousness, and my mind began replaying what happened from the last time I could remember. Damn. Damn. Damn. CELESTIA DAMNIT THIS HURTS. The pain in my broken was excruciating, and I really wanted a healing potion, but those seemed to be in short supply. The running from that fucking dog had really messed up my leg. I didn’t have to be a doctor to know that it wasn’t healing properly. At the next town we got to, I decided, I was going to try and barter the radio I had fixed for some proper doctoring. Or, depending on how I was feeling, a bottle or two of whiskey, or scotch, or some kind of mind and pain numbing alcohol. The cast was helping, and I am certain I would have no way of walking without it, but it wasn’t perfect. I looked up from my leg and surveyed the area. The only land mark I saw was a tower far off in the distance. “What’s that?” I asked, gesturing towards the tower. “That is Tennpony Tower,” Verma answered, “Hoity toidy kinda place. Wouldn’t let us in for sure.” I nodded. I had expected as much, safe place where things are probably better, and they wouldn’t let anypony in. Then I realized I was being hypocritical. I came from a Stable, and back in it, we sure as hell didn’t let any living thing in. I thought back to the spells I had at my disposal, I figured I might need some more powerful ones. The stunning spell had only made the mutt blink. Of course, bullets seemed to do wonders, and they weren’t as hard to find as good spells. “So how did you get that?” she said, pointing at my left ear, it had gotten about half of it sliced off years before. It brought back memories, and, as most of my memories are, they weren’t good ones. I snapped myself out of my thoughts, and turned to Very Merry “Well, my ear got shredded when I was just a colt. Magical energy discharge in the reactor area, my dad worked there and he brought me in that day. One of the generators malfunctioned, and sent out a burst of power. My ear got singed but my dad blocked most of it. He…” I trailed off. It had been a long time since I had thought about my father. He wasn’t so different from me, black coat, light brown mane instead of my grey one, and his eyes were a light blue instead of my dark green. “He… didn’t make it.” I said quietly. “Oh, I’m sorry about that.” She said. “What’s done is done, no reason to be sorry, last thing I want is somepony pitying me.” “Oh. I’m sorry for feeling sorry for you,” she said with a chuckle. “Well, there’s no use dwelling on the past. What’s our goal?” I asked, putting a lot of fake cheer into my voice. “Well, I know there’s a town east of here that probably would have some work available.” She answered, I nodded. As we began to walk (and my leg began to throb) my mind drifted back to that day. I had blocked the memory away, but I guess it wanted to come out. ‘It was your fault, after all’ the voice in my head snapped. ‘Bullshit it was,’ I thought back, once more having a fully fledged conversation in my head. ‘Oh but it’s true! He told you not to what all of the different selections on the terminal did, and you were a bit ahead of your classmates. You knew what it meant. He told you not to mess with them, but did you listen? Nooo, and now daddy’s gone. Because of you.’ ‘No… it’s not true!’ I was fighting a losing battle. ‘Oh come one Vocal, you’re me! And I’m you! I know everything you know. Maybe more. Maybe…’ it paused, ‘Maybe you wanted to kill him. You didn’t trust him. He was always so mean to you,’ he chided, mimicking a colts voice, ‘And one day, you saw the perfect chance. You’re just a cold blooded murderer! Who’s next? More ‘raiders’ or maybe some innocent townponies who are just trying to survive by any means necessary?’ The voice quieted. ‘no,’ I whispered back to it. ‘Why not!? You’re obviously capable, why don’t you just kill that mare? Easy as anything else for you! Go on, kill her! It wouldn’t matter to you. After all, she is just slowing you down, who’s fault is it that your leg is busted. Hers. Get rid of her! You know you – we… want to.’ it cooed. ‘How about I get a lobotomy? Get you taken out for good! Sound like a plan?’ at this, the voice seemed to grow distant and quiet. ‘Oh, you think it would be THAT easy? Hey! I got an idea!’ the voice stopped. I pondered what it had meant, but my thoughts were interrupted, ‘look behind you!’ and, against my better judgment, I did. What I saw was probably scarier than any monster I would ever encounter. It was me. No, not me, but a… darker version, it looked at me with MY eyes, tinged red. He was smiling. ‘What are you?’ I thought, somehow remembering not to talk aloud and seem like a total nut. ‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m you!’ it said, laughing. I shook my head, backing up. It didn’t belong in this world. I knew that, and was repeating it in my head like a nursery rhyme. He- It looked injured, like this world was hurting him. But he still was grinning, from ear to ear. “Uh, Vocal?” I heard a voice like it was miles away. ‘There’s no use hiding from the truth, Vocal! We both know it.’ I was still looking at it in horror. “Vocal!” I heard someone shout. It snapped me out of my trance. I looked at Very Merry, then back to the spot. Nothing. Thank Celestia. “What the hell!?” Verma snapped, “Why didn’t you answer me? I called your name at least seven times!” “Y-You didn’t s-see it?” I stuttered. “See what?!” at this, I was startled. Okay, so I hadn’t really expected her to see it. I was pretty sure it was in my head. But still, the confirmation wasn’t something that calmed me. “I-I don’t know…” I began. I was cut off, by the shuffling of weapons being raised. Very Merry turned around. What we saw were seven raiders, fully armed and each one pointing automatic weaponry at us. I uttered one word. “Shit.” And then, there was a bag over my head and I was being herded somewhere. After what must have been an hour or so of walking, we arrived somewhere. Next thing I know. I was shoved in some dank cell. I got the bag off of my head and looked around. I was in a police station, in one of the barred cells. Next to me in the cell was Verma, who had just gotten the burlap sack off her head. In the one to my left was a reddish brown earth pony with shaggy black hair and a scar across the left of his muzzle. He was stirring from sleep. “Looks like they dragged some more sons a’ bitches in, huh?” he asked. I only narrowed my eyes. “And you are?” I asked. “The name’s Ryder. You?” he responded. “Vocal,” I said flatly. “Where’d they catch you? That one gas station?” he asked. “Where it happened doesn’t matter, what matters is getting the hell out of here.” Verma chimed in. I nodded my head. “Ha, yeah right. I’ve been in here for at least a month, there’s no way out.” Ryder said. “Oh yeah? Why are they keeping us here then?” Very Merry retorted. “To sell, so I guess there is a way out, but it’s not without a slave collar attached. Course, for a mare like you…” He said, turning to Verma, chuckling, “They might ‘get acquainted’ with you, if you catch my drift.” “Fuck you too, asshole” Verma said to him, he raised his hooves defensively. “Not trying to be one, just saying facts here.” He responded, flatly, “Anyways, they probably are gonna sell us guys to the legion, I’m sure you’ve heard of them.” “Just a bit, all I know is that they’re some violent tribe.” I said “Yeah, they are a bunch of mares. They enslave any stallions, or kill them.” He told me. I sighed. Great, I had been captured once before and got out through sheer luck. Now I was a captive again. And I was going to get sold to some legion bitches that were probably going to work us to death. Lovely day. “There sure are a lot of slavers out here.” I mumbled. “So Vocal?” Very Merry beckoned, “What the hell happened back there?” she asked. I had been worried about this, so, using my amazing bullshitting skills, I began, “I think it was a dehydration hallucination,” which was partly true, and I had finished off the water in my flask before we arrived in the cells. “Well alright, those are never fun,” she said, believing me. I inwardly let out a sigh of relief. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I wasn’t ready to share it to the world. I looked over to the sounds of somepony walking down the hallway. I began thinking of a plan. I was busting out of here… but it would take time. I began to regain consciousness. I was on the sled, and I had no idea where my comrades were. At first, I remembered my co-workers from the security force, and wanted to find them, but then I remembered that was a life passed. Then I remembered my two – was it two? I think it was – friends. They were somewhere, but I couldn’t remember them. Everything was scrambled. I heard a voice. ‘Ohhh, you fucked up this time,’ chills went down my spine, ‘Looks like I was right, it wasn’t going to work.’ Wait, hold on a second, this meant we had some kind of conversation, me and the voice in my head, it seemed to pick up on this, being in my head and all, ‘Yes, we had a conversation, ahh, forgetful are we?.’ I fell into my memories again. Footnote; Level up. New perk: Purifier: You do extra damage towards any mutated creature. Authors note; Sorry for the delay, but i have a good explanation! I am very lazy. Anyways, expect the revisions to occur sometime very soon, I have gotten most of them done, but I want to release them at the same time. anyways, thank you for reading, and i hope to see you next time!
