Log18, Fortune favours a beating

Leaving the weapons shop with Gunrunners message in my head the idea of magical energy weapons would really help the stable I decided walking around for a while considering there was really nothing else to do and frankly I was getting board, for all the dangers the wasteland seems to hold there are long periods of just nothing happening while that didn’t bother me that much it felt like living in the stable, one of the major draws to leaving the stable was all the stories of the last exodus attempt they talked about monsters, crazy ponies and all manner of things but looking around me I feel cheated out of something special just can’t put my hoof on it. Walking around itself was getting boarding glancing at the entrance of a nearby shop something caught my eye in the window was the reflection of a skull turning around I got a good look at it, the skull was hung on a door it was almost entrancing walking over I glanced down at a tiny signpost to the side next to a blacked out window it almost more torched it read ‘Complete herbal’ guess it was some type of plant shop heading inside I was meet with a strong waft of smoke using my wing to move it out of my way I took a big breath and filled my lungs with the smoke causing me to coughing horribly. Once I managed to adjust to the smoke I could look around it burned my eyes but I could see what caused it several small piles of leaves where burning in odd gold plates on shelves breathing in here was becoming a problem putting my wing over my mouth I used cloth over them helped filter out some of the smoke.

“So what do we have here another pony so soon?” turning around enveloped in the smoke was a mare it was extremely hard to see but her fur almost seem to be two sets of lines “so tell me pony why have you come here you don’t seem the type to need my medication?” I tried using my spare wing to move the smoke more but it was to no avail, the mares hoof floated though the smoke causing it to sweal around it into odd shapes before resting on to the counter “the smoke help clear the air and lets me see both far from this place and closer than you would imagine” this did interest me how could smoke do that but on the other hoof breathing was more important, still looking for the door the mare behind the counter waved her hoof again this time the smoke cleared in a small area closer to the counter I rushed into the now open air pocket. Inhaling deeply I could breathe again the odd striped mare smiled moving a pack of what looked like cards in front of me “where would you like to know about ‘here’, ‘within’ or ‘everywhere’ I will only answer once so please chose carefully” given the choice of answers and because I was starting to think the door was one way I scrunched up my eyes and said

“Within” the striped mare nodded and began to lay out nine cards onto the counter each one had a strange scribble (or was it mark) on them once all nine cards had been place she flipped the centre card over
“Lost, I see you have lost something or maybe forgot” the next card was flipped this time the bottom right card “Memories, perhaps forgotten memories lost to time” the next card was flipped “Thieves, many thieves stolen from you but what could they have stolen?” the mare went to flip another card “the, they stole memories of the” without finishing what she was going to say the mare flung her hoof across the table as it happened my E.F.S sparked online and displayed one red dot I quickly reached down for Stability, but before I could even aim I felt a sharp pain hit me from the side and then another followed by another, I was flung back hitting a wall I misfired Stability at another wall and what was worse was I was back in the smoke. Trying to stand back up I felt the mares hoof knock my gun clean out of my mouth (which hurt in its own right) her hoof then hit me square in my ribs to the sound of cracking, throwing me back into the same wall desperately I punched up my equipment logs on my PipBuck and selected my battle saddle I felt the magic of my strange hoof mounted device kick in as I was wrapped up nicely in my battle saddle even my rifle was ready to fire, spotting the mare in the smoke I opened fire bitting hard into the trigger three shots rang out but not one seemed to land I fired off two more but with the same result then she charged going to fire again I was met with a clicking sound telling me I needed to change my clip, letting go of the trigger I bit down on the button above it I could hear the sound of the robotic clicks of the reload system however it was too late the mare got hooves between me and the gun and tore the rifle right out of my battle saddle snapping the saddles mouth trigger off in the proses. Another kick too my chest this time however instead of a cracking of bones there was just a massive amount of pain falling back I felt something hard over my barding rolling over it was Stability not wanting to drop it for a second time I quickly threw it into my saddle bag letting the PipBucks system deal with it. Looking back up I felt something cold hit the centre of my head followed by a hard wack across my head by my own rifle, I could feel the blood coming out of cut that last action had caused looking back I could see the mare standing over me reared up on her back hooves my rifle pointing down aimed right at my head.

Then a wall exploded as if out of nowhere a section of wall broke and splintered into pieces covering the mare and myself in the light that now flooded the room it was almost blinding a pull out of nowhere grabbed me pulling me into the light, but the striped mare shouted out something I couldn’t understand fired off my gun the pain of the bullet hitting my damaged ribs. I felt something come up in my throat it tasted bile another shot rang out this time met by the sound of a ‘ding’ as my eyes adjusted I could see a mass of metal in the shape of a pony standing in front of me two more gunshots followed by to more dings. The metal pony then floated up a strange yellow apple flinging it into the now open room the metal pony grabbed my face and wrapped its hooves around my eyes a few seconds later a loud ‘bang’ my ears began to ring loudly as it settled I could hear screaming from the direction of the shop then a very familiar but almost robotic voice came from the metal pony.
“All yours Torch make the striped bitch burn” free of the metal hooves I opened my eyes to see Torchlight with his flamer approach the opened up shop entrance biting down on his trigger the end of the hose burst out a stream of fire causing the screaming to get louder then as fast it happened the fire just stoped streaming out of the hose as well as the screaming dying down, the metal pony then turned around pulling off its helmet to revel none other than Booms white tipped back mane giving me a big smile she magically pulled Torchlight over into a neck hold “sorry it took so long Stable, Torch and I had trouble getting passed the guards” Nightlight, Stitch and Sunny ran over Nightlight went to give me a hug but was dragged back by Sunny as Stitch pulled off my barding, pressing down onto my chest he began to give his assessment
“Possibly multiple broken bones I’ll need to open you up before I can give you and healing potions” pulling out several scalps and a needle with his magic he levitated one of them to my chest and jabbed the needle into my side “the Med-X should help with the pain”.

Just as he went to make the first cut the screaming mare remerged from the ruins of the building the smell of her burnt flesh was extremely strong stitch took one look at me then before anypony else could react threw his scalps with his magic into the mare causing her to fall back then pounced onto her with a bone saw wrapped in magic and began cutting off her head when he was half way through with his hoof he ripped the head one way and with his magic the saw to other way tearing the head clean off and then as if for good measure took a larger part of the splintered door and rammed the head onto it the world just seem to fade to black after that.

I don’t know exactly how I ended up in a hospital bed but I was getting quite sick of waking up to the sound of beeping medical equipment what’s more trying to sit up was proving to be difficult somepony had strapped me down to the bed while I could move one of my forhooves the strap locks where not visible so I just lay there, eventually with nopony coming to let me loss and being to awake to go back to sleep I turned my attention to my strapped down PipBuck leg pulling out one of the earpieces finally bending to the will of all ponykind and listen to the radio, the first few minutes where just songs but before long the DJ pony started talking about other places in the wasteland apparently somepony in Hoofington was apparently making it big names was ‘Secretary’ or ‘Sorority’ some weird name beginning with ‘S’ finally after about three nice songs it was time for a report on Trottinghame,
“Hello all you ponies out in the Trottinghame wastes this is your old Friend DJ-pon3 bringing you all the news about your famous and infamous ponies, so it looks like the ‘Thunder bringer’ is bringing his boom stick down on a heap of problem ponies thanks to him it’s a lot safer to travel down ‘Ghoul valley’ having lead a team of get this, Steel rangers along the east side of the place and wipe out a small heard of the feral ghouls in there nice to see the colts in power armour actually helping for once, now for the other side of that coin because kids it time to hide your radios when I talk about this pony” my ear flicked at that wonder how he found out I was destroying radios every time he talked bad about Boom “ Looks like the young stallion from the stable has been in a bit of a ruff with the local zebra of the Royals which ended when her head was rammed through a chunk of door, now before you go crying foul or racist against the him reports from the Royals own guards say that he was rescued by a passing by adventure in metal armour and he was found half beaten to death before a doctor finished off the zebra himself luckily somepony got a statement” my ear suddenly filled with the sound of Stitches voice
“This zebra was a direct threat to my patient the idea I would just stand back and allow somepony else to deal with it is insane that Zebra was infested with the urge to kill, so I applied the correct treatment, death” the stallion gave a deep inhale “Well my little ponies next time I complain about doctor Helpinghoof treatments talking forever I’ll have to remember this doctors” with that the radio switched back to music, considering everything I decided to go back to sleep.

Author's Note

wow this one took a while to get right in the fight department still feel as if I messed it up badly