1 - Lost
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Lost

1 - Lost

Author's Note

Looking for pre-readers, proofreaders, anyone that can lend a hand.

1 - Lost

Act 1 – Wayward Son

“I hope you know what you're doing.”
“Baby, I always know what I'm doing.”
-Unknown

A spent 12 gauge hull tumbled to the ground, bouncing across the cracked pavement as a tall man racked a fresh shell into the chamber of his shotgun.

“You must be one of those ‘super mutants’ I was warned about. Thanks for eating five of my shells, asshole.”

David gave the yellow-green body an angry kick as he passed it, and jogged over to the the little encampment sitting a little ways from the Anchorage Memorial. Silence weighed heavy on the young man as he made his way around the walls of the encampment, shotgun at the ready. Normally, the lack of noise after a gunfight would have indicated that David could relax a bit, but the fact that he could no longer hear the voice that had drawn him over, calling for help, was a cause for concern.

“Hey! You alright, man? It’s all good out here!”

It wasn’t too difficult for David to determine where the voice had been coming from, within the little encampment. The only structure behind the two cargo trailers that made up the walls of the encampment was a tent, adorned with a fresh bloodstain surrounding a small, ragged hole near the middle of one of its walls.

“Fuck. Fuck! Don’t tell me that ugly bast-”

Inside was the person he had intended to rescue.

“-ard… It did. Godammit.”

The owner of the voice was a man who looked to be in his early forties. He laid on his back, evidently flung backwards from the force of a .308 round ventilating his skull, grey matter and blood slowly pooling on the floor beneath him. The back of his skull and what looked to be a large portion of his brain was splattered behind him against the wall and floor of the tent, mostly centered around the aforementioned hole in the fabric.

An angry sigh escaped David as he cut the bindings from around the captive's wrists. A useless gesture, but it would at least give the poor bastard some measure of dignity in death.

“Shit! Sorry I wasn't able to get to you in time.”

There wasn’t much else that could be done for the poor bastard, save for laying his arms at his sides, and covering him with a nearby sleeping bag.

“Must not have wanted him to escape. Now why’s that?”

David muttered as he walked out of the tent. The rope burns around his wrists and ankles indicated that the guy must have been in captivity for a while, yet he still appeared to be in a more than decent physical condition, especially for a man his age. His body was packed with the kind of lean muscle that came from a lifetime of hard work, and he lacked the sagging gut that came with heavy alcohol use. He had to have been a farmer or a mercenary of some sort, to maintain that level of fitness.

The other bodies outside were a different story. Even in their various states of decay and dismemberment, David could tell that they were in poor shape. One was the corpse of an old woman, wrinkled skin and a few liver spots visible on what remained of her limbs and torso.

The other two corpses, a man and a woman, looked sickly and malnourished, their visible ribs and gaunt cheeks making David simultaneously cringe and clench his fists in anger. He’d seen some shit since leaving 101, but this still ranked up there, right between raider lawn decorations and grilled radroach. Nobody deserved to die like that, starving, sick and afraid.

“So, they capture the strong and eat the weak. Again, why?”

David shook his head, tucking those thoughts away for later. He still had work to do. After dragging the other corpses next to the captive, cutting down a wall of the tent, and covering them with it, David ransacked the encampment. There wasn't much else to be found in the tent, just a handful of .308 rounds laying on a table next to a holotape recording labeled “Keller Family Transcript #5”.

The open semi-truck trailer, however, was a much different story. David couldn’t help the grin on his face as he found a well-maintained Model 29 revolver and dark leather holster, two loaded cylinders and a half-empty box of .44 slugs tucked away in the drawer of a battered dresser, right next to a “Pugilism Illustrated – The Way of The Fist” book. They had probably belonged to the captive he had found laying in the tent, but David figured that whoever he was, he’d prefer that his belongings be put to good use after his death.

David’s grin turned into a decidedly manic smile as he threaded his belt through the loops on the holster, and with a touch of reverence, slid the powerful bull-barreled revolver in. He quickly decided that he liked the new weight hanging from his right hip.

It was strength, it was power, it was death with an eight inch-barrel!

Also, it reminded him of the old western holotapes back in 101.

“Yeah, I’ll put you to good use, baby. Just let me run into some more mutants. We’ll show ‘em.”

David made his way back to the slowly cooling body of the super mutant to kick it a few more times, and pry the worn hunting rifle from its hands. The front post was a little crooked, and the wooden stock and body was scratched up, dented in places and dirty, but the rest of it looked like it would keep working just fine, especially once he got a chance to take it apart and clean it.

Several magazines for the rifle, a frag grenade and twelve caps stashed in the pockets of the mutant’s leg armor made for a decent haul, on top of the revolver and book from the encampment.

“Alright, Rivet City. Let’s see what you got for me.”

David muttered, following the river for the south-east leg of his trek. Hell, if he was lucky, he’d manage to find some sort of clue on the whereabouts of his father while he was there. It sure beat the alternative: wandering into the dangerous D.C. ruins in search of Galaxy News Radio.

Discord was tired.

He was tired of watching, and he was most certainly tired of waiting. He had done both, for years innumerable, for periods of time that had made lesser immortals go mad. What, exactly, was he waiting for?

Change, of course. True change. The kind of change that would forever alter the face of Avalon, home to his little ponies and many others, for starters. The kind of change that would lead to a shift across two worlds, a re-alignment of the powers-that-be.

“It’s over, Discord! Your little mind-games, your chaos, and-”

The primary catalyst for such a change, a group of six little ponies, barely on the cusp of marehood, stood in front of him. Defiant, strong-willed little things they were, but he had his eyes on one little pony in particular. She was, after all, the smartest out of them, and the reason that her fellow bearers were no longer victims of his brainwashing.

“Hush, child. It’s far from over.”

They were, like most mortal beings, predictable. Collectively, they let out a surprised gasp at his statement. Let the mask you’re wearing slip, and it’ll throw just about any mortal off-balance.

“As a matter of fact, I’d say that ‘it’ has just begun.”

The first one to break out of their collective shocked stupor, of course, was Twilight Sparkle. Most ponies her age would be cowering at home, waiting for the big ponies to come and save the day.

Not her, of course. For all she knew, the world might very well be coming to an end around her, yet here she was, standing tall with her friends against a chaotic being of immeasurable power, despite the heart-stopping terror he knew she was feeling.

Courage is, after all, taking action in the face of your fears. She would need that courage, and so much more, to bring about the change that Discord had been waiting for.

Discord’s snaggle-toothed grin widened as he came to the realization that young Twilight Sparkle would need help, not only to enact said change, but to come out of her trials alive, and with her sanity intact. There was another catalyst, several in fact, in the place he was about to send her to, but it never hurt to be careful.

“We’re not afraid of you, Discord! Surrender now, or we’ll be forced to use the Elements of Harmony on you!”

A low chuckle escaped Discord at the serious looks on their faces, and their various cries of approval and agreement. It was just so hard for him to take his little ponies seriously at times, what with their squeaky little voices and adorable little horsey cheeks!

But, he figured, as the smile faded from his face, play-time was over. There was a storm on the horizon, and it would stop for nothing. Not him, not the princesses, not the laughable “might” of the Equestrian military. Nothing on this world would be able to counter it, let alone push it back and defeat it.

It was time. Discord decided to completely drop the “mad god-tyrant” facade. He had long since grown weary of it.

“Alright, fillies. The time for our fun is over. Your Elements, if you please.”

A quick snap of his fingers found all six of their elements, as requested, at his side. He ignored the sounds of their panicked protests, conjuring a dome over the relinquished Elements with another snap of his fingers.

“Now, which one of you to send with...”

Discord muttered to himself, absentmindedly redirecting the blast of energy Twilight sent his way.

“Save your energy, young one. You will need it, in time.”

Dumbfounded, the young unicorn complied, a confused “Huh?” escaping her as Discord gave each of her friends a look-over.

The yellow one was too fearful, the blue one too brash, too prideful. Those were both qualities that would get either of them killed, where he would be sending them. The white one was a drama queen, and the orange one was too hard-headed. A pity, really. The orange one would have been a great asset in the wasteland that young Twilight was about to find herself in, with her ability to grow food crops.

That left the pink one, Discord’s second favorite out of them all. Goofy, almost too friendly for her own good, and passionate about making others happy. Not bad with her earth-pony magic, and she had command over a fair share of her own unique… flavor of chaos magic.

A slight grimace found its way onto his face at the thought of sending Pinkie. Discord really didn’t want to send the two ponies he liked the most out of the bunch, but they would be the best for the job, and he knew what the cost of inaction would be. As much as Discord hated to intentionally put his little ponies into harms way, it had to be done.

A heavy sigh escaped Discord as he motioned for the prodigy and the party pony to come forward. They did so against their own will, pushing their hooves into the dirt in an effort to halt their momentum. He frowned, the looks of helpless terror on their faces as they skidded to a stop in front of him once again making the chaos god want to reconsider his choice.

But he couldn’t. It pained him, but it had to be done.

“I wish I could allow you to say goodbye to your friends, family, and loved ones, for you will not be seeing them for some time. Unfortunately, we’ve wasted enough time as it is with this little game.”

The little mares squirmed in his magical grasp, fruitlessly struggling against his hold on them. They stopped momentarily as their saddlebags appeared, loaded with various supplies, upon their backs.

“Godspeed and good luck, my little ponies. You’ll need it”

The two young ponies truly started panicking at that point, sobbing, struggling and shaking their heads as Discord snapped his fingers once again.

And just like that, they were gone. All that was left to do, was to wait.

Discord sighed as he undid the chaos around him, flashing an apologetic grin at the four remaining mares and the horrified looks on their faces as he landed in front of them. He hated waiting.

David got the drop on the next group of super mutants he came across. He saw the mutant dogs first, patrolling the walkway in front of a destroyed pre-war building as he was following the river. Using the grappling hook he picked up in Megaton, David was able to climb atop the nearby bridge, and use his new height advantage to spot the two super mutants stomping around the inside of the building.

“Surprise, motherfucker.”

Or at least, David thought he had the drop on them. Just as he pulled the trigger on the larger of the two mutants, the one wielding an MP9 submachinegun…

*BLAM*

...an even bigger mutant, wearing heavy scrap-metal armor and carrying a fucking minigun stepped into view on the top remaining floor of the building.

“Aww, shit.”

David’s aim was perfect, the round lancing out and striking the MP9-wielding mutant in the head, dropping the big ugly like a sack of potatoes.

“NO! YOU KILLED MY BROTHER!”

“BROTHER!”

It also had the unfortunate side-effect of simultaneously pissing off the rest of the mutants and giving away his general position, something that the minigun-wielding mutant capitalized on. Letting out a rage-filled, anguished roar, the mutant began hosing the area of the bridge where the shot had come from.

David swore under his breath as he rose to a half-crouch and launched himself to the right, hitting the ground behind a crumbling concrete rampart as a flurry of 5mm rounds flew past the space he had just been occupying.

Unfortunately for the mutant, it was wielding a CZ53 personal minigun. During the great war, the U.S. military quickly retired the CZ53 in favor of the CZ57 and later, the GAU platform for a multitude of reasons; the biggest of those being the pathetic magazine capacity and less-than-optimal recoil control of the CZ platform. As such, it only took the enraged super mutant about twenty seconds of poorly aimed sustained fire to empty the 240 round magazine.

David, in turn, capitalized on the mutant’s unfortunate choice of firearm by rising up and putting a .308 round into its forehead just moments after it stopped firing.

*BLAM*

The mutant’s head jerked back, dropping the minigun as it fell to its knees, momentum and its own bodyweight causing it to fall forward to the ground below.

David chambered another round, rising to a crouch as he searched for the remaining mutant and the two dogs.

“COME HERE, LITTLE HUMAN! GOT A TREAT FOR YOU!”

He didn’t have to look for long, as the sledgehammer-wielding mutant and its hounds came out from under his bridge, baying and snarling as the mutant searched for a way up to him. David grinned and walked over to the other side of the bridge, pounding his chest and flipping the mutant off as he taunted it.

“Fuck you! Come up here and get me!”

That wasn’t one of his smartest ideas, as the super mutant snarled and threw its sledgehammer at David like a javelin. It caught him square in the chest, crushing the N99 he had clipped to his combat armor, sending him a foot into the air and knocking the air out of him. David landed flat on his back, clutching at his chest as he started sucking down air.

“Arghhh, fucking fuck! Alright, dumb idea!”

David grumbled, pulling himself up into a sitting position. His chest hurt like hell, but it looked like his armor and pistol had absorbed the worst of the impact, which was good news as far as he was concerned. Anything that resulted in him avoiding broken bones or a punctured lung was a good deal.

The bad news, however, was that he was now down a gun, and the chest piece of his combat armor was surely going to need repair. The hammer had left a half-inch deep dent in his armor, and most of the firing mechanism and receiver on his N99 was completely flattened from where the hammer had struck it.

“Jesus fuckin’ christ, how strong are these things? That was a perfectly good pistol!”

David stood up, stalking over to the edge of the bridge, an angry snarl on his lips as he yanked his .44 from its holster.

“GONNA EAT YOUR LIMBS WHEN YOU’RE DEAD, HUMA-”

*BLAM BLAM BLAM*

“Shut the fuck up! I’ll eat your goddamn limbs, you ugly fuck!”

The super mutant hit the ground, sporting a pair of bloody holes in it’s chest, and a third hole where it’s nose would have been. David holstered his magnum, reaching down to grab his hunting rifle as he yelled at the corpse.

“Your dogs are next, asshole!”

Pinkie Pie was a heavy sleeper. That was to be expected, considering the fact that she was a party pony, the party pony of Ponyville. Between her job in the bakery, hanging out with her friends or planning and throwing parties, the poor girl needed as much un-interrupted sleep as she could get. After all, a girl couldn’t run off of sugar alone.

That’s why it took Twilight a full ten minutes of crying, frantic shaking and finally a low-power zap to her hindquarters to get Pinkie to wake up.

“-inkie, you need to wake up!”

Pinkie groaned, rolling on her side with a slurred “five more minutesh, mommy”.

The pink pony was content to go back to sleep until she realized that Twilight was not, in fact, her mommy, the two of them and their other friends had been facing off against Discord not too long ago, and that the big meanie had snapped his fingers and sent them hurtling through time and space and ohgoshohgoshohgosh-

“Twilight!”

Pinkie shot straight up, grabbing the frantic unicorn by her shoulders and pulling her into a hug. The unicorn anxiously returned the embrace, nuzzling into Pinkie’s neck before they pulled away from each other.

“Pinkie! You’re awake! Thank goodness, I thought that- that jerk Discord did something to you! I just couldn’t get you to wake up for the longest time a-and I-”

Pinkie put a hoof to her friend’s muzzle, going in for another nuzzle in an effort to calm the panicking mare.

“Twilight! Stay with me! We can panic later, okay?”

Twilight nodded, taking a deep breath to try and calm herself.

“Okay, panic later, got it. I’ll hold you to that, Pinkie.”

Pinkie grinned in spite of their situation.

“Okie-dokie! It’s a date, we’ll do it at eight!”

She paused, taking a look at her surroundings.

“M-maybe we should move our panic-date back a bit, Twilight. I don’t like the look of this place.”

Twilight nodded, gulping nervously as she too, took in their surroundings. She had been so preoccupied with trying to wake Pinkie that she hadn’t really bothered to take a look around.

Now that she was, Twilight kinda wished she hadn’t.

“Yeah. I-I don’t like it much either.”

They were on a street, with tall, gray buildings stretching into the sky on either side of them. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a problem. Buildings and streets were a sign of civilization, after all!

But it was all wrong. The buildings were in various states of destruction and disrepair, twisted metal and shattered concrete scattered about the street around them. Twilight figured that she and Pinkie were standing in what had once been a mighty city, if the amount of rubble and destroyed buildings around them was any indication.

Now? They stood in the ruins of a past civilization.

Moss and tall grass, most of it an unhealthy brown color, grew from between cracks in the street, and sprouted in uneven patches in the sections that had been destroyed by whatever calamity had befallen the inhabitants of this city.

“What are we gonna do, Twilight?”

Twilight sighed as she wiggled out of her saddlebags and sat down next to them.

“Well, for one, we should see what’s in our saddlebags. I don’t know why Discord gave them to us, but we need to see if there’s anything useful or dangerous to us in them. We’ll also need to find somewhere we can rest overnight, preferably before the sun goes down.”

Pinkie agreed. She didn’t like the idea of wandering around this dead city in the dark.

Twilight flared her horn to open her saddlebags, giving a little grunt as she did so. She was having a bit of trouble with her spellcasting, for some reason. Was it something that Discord did to her? Twilight shook her head and tucked that thought away for later. She and Pinkie had more pressing concerns.

“I’ve got a baker’s dozen- heehee- of hay rations, some seed packets and- ooh, goodie, some candies!”

Seed packets? What the hay would they need seed packets for? Twilight nosed around in her own saddlebags, finding that they were loaded down with empty notebooks, three shatter-proof jars of ink, and a dozen quills.

“I’ve got a bunch of notebooks, Pinkie. Most of them are blank, but there’s four weird ones.”

Said notebooks turned out to be journals, with hard covers and a locked latch opposite the spine to keep prying eyes out. That, however, wasn’t what Twilight found to be odd about the journals.

One of the aforementioned journals was shaded the same color as her fur, emblazoned with her own cutie mark, and unlocked the moment she held it in her magical grasp. The second was shaded and emblazoned with Pinkie’s fur color and cutie mark, and Twilight suspected that it would react similarly to Pinkie’s touch.

The other two, however, were a bit strange. The third journal was shaded a dark, steel-gray and emblazoned with a symbol that looked like a cutie mark, just not one she had ever seen. It was the outline of a appeared to be a large gear with a trio of strange squiggles in the center, superimposed over a massive hammer crossed with a strange, blocky… thing, with what appeared to be a banner, or a battle standard behind the hammer and thing. The fourth and last journal was almost identical in design as the other three, save for two things; it was a light brown color, and the front was blank, devoid of weird squiggles or cutie marks.

“That’s a weird cutie mark. Wonder who it belongs to?”

Twilight gave Pinkie a shrug as she stuffed the four journals back into her saddlebags.

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen a cutie mark like that, let alone one with those strange squiggles. We’ll just have to figure this all out later when we’re someplace safe. For now, we need to get moving.”

Once again, Twilight had a bit of trouble using her magic to get her saddlebags up onto her back and strapped tight. She didn’t feel any more worn out than she had expected to be, so there were really only two options to explain her difficulty in spell-casting; Discord put some sort of dampener on her spell-casting, or wherever he’d sent them had a naturally weak thaumic field. Both options were equally terrifying to the little mare.

“Which way should we go, Twilight?”

Pinkie asked, trotting up to her with a bounce in her step. Twilight took one last look at their surroundings, pushing her fears back a little and simply deciding to head towards the sun. The road behind them was blocked with rubble, anyways, and what harm could come from heading towards the sun? The sun was pretty great, in her totally, absolutely one hundred percent unbiased opinion.

“This way. Let’s just follow this road, and head towards the sun. I think I read somewhere that it’ll take us north, and… well, it’s always good to go north if you’re lost. I think.”

Pinkie shrugged, content to simply follow her friend. Twilight was a super smarty-pants, and if anypony could find them a safe place to spend the night, it would be her. Maybe they’d get to meet someone nice!

“Fuck! You! Fucking! Asshole!”

David growled, punctuating each word with an angry stomp to the corpse of the hammer-chucking super mutant. His chest still smarted fiercely from the thrown sledgehammer, even after a stimpack and a small dose of Med-X.

Still, he supposed, having the mutant throw the hammer at him was probably better than actually getting hit with it. With that kind of strength, the mutant most likely would’ve caved his chest in with the sledge, combat armor or not.

“Dick!”

But, David was still allowed to be angry at the yellow prick. It did, after all, throw a fucking sledgehammer at him.

Giving the corpse one last stomp for good measure, he left behind the mutant and its dogs, heading for the ruined building and the other two super mutants he’d killed. He grinned at the thought of what he was about to claim for his own; a minigun. Granted, it was an archaic piece of shit of a minigun, but it was a minigun nonetheless. If anything, the weapon would get him a decent amount of caps.

“Hello, uglies. What you got in here for me?”

The inside of the building was empty, save for the pair of dead super mutants, several fishnet bags filled with a variety of severed limbs, bones and gore, a pair of ammo cans and a single medical supply box.

Aside from the obvious boon of a minigun and a submachine gun, the ammo cans on the top floor held a decent amount of ammunition, one packed to the top with 5mm rounds, the other filled halfway with a variety of ammo, the most prevalent being shotgun shells, 5.56 and 10mm rounds. The medical box, of course, was about the same as any other he’d found so far; stimpacks, Rad-X, RadAway and a few syringes of Med-X.

“Too bad I can’t take you with me right now. You’re probably gonna end up paying for a new shotgun.”

David muttered, dragging the minigun into a corner and piling rubble on top of it. The ammo cans would have to come with him, David really didn’t like the idea of dumping all those loose rounds into his field-pack, just to sort them out later. He could cram at least one of the cans into his pack, anyways, and if needed, he could simply tie the other can to the outside of it.

Or, David realized as he set his field-pack on the ground, he could just rearrange the contents of his pack. If anything, it’d give him a moment to think about the fucking mess he’d gotten himself into.

“How many of these fucking ‘super mutants’ are there out here? Godamn raider gangs, mutant wildlife, and now these assholes! What the hell’s next?!”

David paused for a second and closed his eyes, setting the ammo can in his hands on the ground and heaving a sigh as he rubbed at his forehead.

“Why’d you have to leave, dad, and drag me into all of this? The Vault sucked, the Overseer sucked, but it was a friggin’ paradise compared to this- this fucking mess out here! Motherfucking-fuck!”

The last word was punctuated by David slamming his fist into the pillar next to him, bruising and scraping up his knuckles on the crumbling concrete and rebar. The boy shook his hand, grumbling under his breath at his momentary lapse of judgement.

“Alright, alright, slow- slow and steady. Deep breaths, in and out. Gotta keep it together.”

It would do him absolutely no good to let his anger get away from him, not out here. David had already ran across enough resistance just today, several raider gangs, super mutants, and strange crab-like creatures emerging from the water near the Anchorage Memorial. If he wanted to reach Rivet City in one piece, or even at all, David would need his wits about him.

“Just gotta get to Rivet City.”

That’s right. All he had to do was get to Rivet City, and he’d be one step closer to tracking down his dad, and getting some damned answers. All David had to do was keep his cool.

“Alright. Let’s do this.”

David stood up, slinging his field-pack onto his back and rolling his shoulders until the new weight of the ammo cans settled to his liking. Shotgun at the ready, he continued his trek to Rivet City.

Twilight felt her knees getting shaky, sweat soaking into the straps of her saddlebags and dripping to the ground from her belly as she walked. She looked around her, not daring to stop moving until she found someplace her and Pinkie could rest for a bit in the shade.

“Pinkie, I-I think it’s time for another break. Look, there’s an alley, right over there.”

Pinkie followed her into said alley and flopped to the ground on her belly, voicing her approval with a miserable groan.
It was hot.

And not hot in a ‘Cloudchaser-forgot-to-order-enough-cool-air-from-Cloudsdale’ kind of way, it was just… hot. Miserable, high-humidity, mouth-is-a-desert, no-feathering-wind-at-all hot!

Well, Pinkie thought as she glanced at Twilight, at least she wasn’t the only one feeling this miserable, right?

That thought was immediately followed by a frown. It wasn’t very nice to take comfort in somepony else’s suffering.
Twilight looked like she was doing even worse than Pinkie was, if her panting and the way her knees had been wobbling was any indication. It made sense to Pinkie, though. Twilight was a super smart pony, so that meant that she had to spend a lot of time reading and studying to get even smarter. That meant no exercise for Twilight!

And it’s not like Twilight even needed to exercise to stay skinny, Pinkie figured. All that magic her silly smart friend uses does the trick. All those books-

Books. Pinkie glanced over at Twilight’s saddlebags, and grimaced. All those notebooks had to be heavy, especially for a skinny little unicorn who just wasn’t used to carrying heavy things without the use of her magic!
In comparison, Pinkie had a bakers dozen of hay rations, some candies, and a bunch of seeds.

“Twilight! Wakeupwakeup!”

The unicorn let out a surprised yelp as Pinkie bolted over and started nudging her with her nose.

“Ah! Pinkie! What’s the matter with you?!”

“It’s not time for a nap, silly filly! Do you wanna trade saddlebags?”

“Trade… saddlebags? Why?”

Pinkie rolled her eyes, poking at Twilight’s bulging saddlebags with a hoof.

“Because mine are light, and yours look super heavy, silly!”

Twilight blinked, looked back at her saddlebags, and wiggled her way out of them.

“Oh, stars, yes, please yes! I-I like having a bunch of notebooks, but sweet merciful Celestia are those things heavy! Thank you, thankyouthankyouthankyou!”

Pinkie giggled at her silly friend as she slipped out of her own saddlebags, and into Twilight’s. It should have been that way in the first place! Pinkie was an earth pony, and earth ponies are pretty much almost always stronger than-

Oh, geeze. Twilight wasn’t kidding, those saddlebags were heavy!

But that’s okay, Pinkie thought. It wasn’t anything that she couldn’t handle. She wasn’t super strong like Big Mac or Snowflake, but she was a Pie, and Pies don’t raise weaklings!

Not that Twilight was a weakling. No ma’am, if Twilight could have muscles from using magic, she’d make Snowflake look tiny!

Twilight glanced over, tilting her head a little as she heard Pinkie giggling to herself.

“What’s so funny, Pinkie?”

The party pony startled, jumping around to face Twilight with her ever-present smile.

“Oh, I was just thinking about how cool it would be unicorns got muscles for using magic, and then I thought, ‘Huh, Twilight would be hu~uge if she could do that!’, and it’s true! You’d make Snowflake and Big Mac look like little fillies! Wouldn’t that just the funniest thing ever?”

Twilight frowned at the idea of her resembling the wall of muscle that was Snowflake. She still felt that colts were kinda icky and being pretty was second to literally everything else, but she liked herself the way she was!

Still… if that was a thing, she’d have to give Shining Armor a new nickname; Little-Big Brother, Best Friend Forever! And Princess Celestia? She’d take up the entire throne room during court!

“That- that is pretty funny. Could you- heeheehee- c-could you imagine?”

“I know, right? You’d be all ‘Me Twilight! Bring me books!’ And I’d be-”

BLAM

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT

BLAM

It was both ponies that startled this time, as the distinct sound of… something hit their ears. To Twilight, it was almost like fireworks going off, and a really loud zipper. A zipper, of all things! What on Gaia could produce such a sound?!

“What was that? That’s not a natural sound, Pinkie!”

To Pinkie, on the other hand, the cacophony reminded her of the mining charges that her daddy would use on particularly stubborn boulders. Pinkie nodded, licking her dry lips as she stood back up.

“Yeah, but we should be careful. I don’t like the sound of… whatever that was.”

“Me either. I think I can channel enough energy to cast and maintain a barrier spell, if it turns out to be dangerous.”

Pinkie shrugged. She knew Twilight would keep her safe.

“Okie Dokie! Do you think there’s gonna be ponies where those sounds are?”

Twilight shook her head.

“I don’t actually know what to expect here. If there’s sentient life here, it probably won’t be ponies. Unless that jerk sent us to an alternate version of Gaia, the chances of us meeting lifeforms similar to us are astronomically low.”

Despite the merciless heat, Twilight shivered as she looked around.

“I sure hope Discord didn’t do that, send us to an alternate version of Equestria. I don’t know if I could take seeing our beautiful country like this.”

Pinkie bit her lip as she looked around as well. If they were in an alternate version of Equestria… Pinkie didn’t want to think about that.

“Yeah. W-why don’t we go, then. Who knows, maybe the ponies living here are tall, silly, bipedal creatures that love ponies!”

Twilight chuckled as she stood up. Wouldn't that be something?

“Maybe, Pinkie. But we’ll never know until we find out! Let’s go!”

Pinkie trotted after her with a big smile on her face. She’d put her faith in Twilight, and look how it turned out! They’d found… something! And something was always better than nothing!

Pinkie bet it was a really nice something, too.

The noises continued for a bit, then suddenly stopped. It wasn’t a big deal, Twilight knew what general direction the noises had come from. Even if she didn’t, there was always the trail of… corpses.

Oh, dear.

The two of them almost turned back when they came upon the first group of corpses, two yellow creatures that looked like Tartarus-born mockeries of dogs, and an utterly massive yellow creature that appeared to be bipedal.

But they couldn’t. Twilight and Pinkie had both come too far to turn back now. All they could do was keep walking and hope against hope that whatever they were heading towards was friendly.

The mares gingerly stepped past the bodies, keeping as much distance as they could between themselves and the pools of disgustingly crimson blood.

“Oh gosh, oh gosh, this was a bad idea. Bad idea. Bad-”

Pinkie intervened before Twilight could go critical, wrapping up the hyperventilating unicorn in a tight hug and gently moving her line of sight away from the corpses.

“Twilight! Remember what you said earlier? Panic date later. Okay? I-I need you right now, Twilight!”

Pinkie forced herself to look at her saddlebags on Twilight’s back, rather than the monstrous hounds and creature. She couldn't start to panic either. If whatever k- hurt the yellow creatures was still out there, it would find them, and probably-

No. No, Pinkie couldn’t afford to think like that. Not while Twilight was panicking.

“I need you, Twi-Twi. Please? Come back to me. I n-need you.”

After what felt like a year of fighting back her own mounting desire to panic, Pinkie felt Twilight nuzzling her neck. Pinkie let out a relieved sigh. Her friend was back.

“Okay, okay, Pinkie. I-I think I’m good. Um, uh, th-thank you. I just… oh gosh. This is…”

Twilight shook her head, trying to derail that train of thought before it could go any further.

“L-let’s just go. We still need to find somewhere we can rest for the night, and we’re going to need to find a source of fresh water.”

Twilight looked at the murky water in the river nearby. That… mess looked like it would do them far more harm than good if she or Pinkie drank it.

“I don’t know if we’re gonna find one, though. I-I’ll figure something out. I know a lot of spells, once we get a chance to rest and get our thoughts in order, we’ll be fine. I promise, okay Pinkie?”

Pinkie tore her gaze away from the disgusting river, giving Twilight a smile and friendly nuzzle.

“I trust you, Twilight. Just don’t forget our panic date!”

Twilight giggled, returning Pinkie’s nuzzle. As much as she didn’t want to be here, wherever here was, she was glad that she had Pinkie.

“I won’t forget, I promise. Eight at night, right?”

In fact, Twilight was beginning to rethink her previous views on Pinkie. Being under pressure seemed to bring out a whole new side to the seemingly care-free, happy-go-lucky pony.

Pinkie, being responsible? Who’d have thought?

“Yepper-doodle! We’ll-”

BOOM BOOM BOOM

TAT TAT TAT TAT

BLAM

TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT TAT

BOOM BOOM

Two sets of ears flattened as the noises resumed, and not too far from where Twilight and Pinkie stood, if the volume of the noises was any indication. The mares looked at each other, at the corpses behind them, then back at each other.

Twilight let out a frightened squeak, before turning to Pinkie.

“We’re gonna go look, aren’t we?”

Pinkie swallowed and nodded, giving Twilight one last nuzzle before trotting off.

“Yeah. I’m scared, you’re scared, and we’ll have to pick where we left off in our little moment later, but right now? We have a pony-loving something to find!”

Twilight cracked a smile at that, taking off in a brisk canter to catch up with Pinkie.

“I hope so, Pinkie. I really wish I had your optimism.”

The two trotted past a building containing several more corpses that both of them pretended not to see, heading for the new source of the strange, deadly sounding noises.

BOOM BOOM

”Take it, motherfucker!”

BOOM

Both of them froze in place at the sound of what could only be words, sandwiched between the other loud noises.

“Pinkie. You- you heard that, right?”

Pinkie nodded, giving her friend a wide-eyed glance.

“Yeah. That sounded like- like words!”

Twilight grinned, doing an excited little jig in spite of herself and in spite of her fears. To hay with all that, she’d just heard something talking! Talking!

Granted, it was a language that she had never heard before, but it was a start! As a matter of fact, she knew a translation spell! An incredibly limited translation spell, but a translation spell nonetheless! She could ask where they were, ask for water, ask for books, alien books! She could even-

“Twilight? Twi~light? Twily? Twi-Twi? SILLY FILLY LIBRA-”

Twilight startled, letting out a yelp as she snapped out of her little daydream.

“Pinkie! We have to go meet whatever was talking! Do you know what this means?”

Pinkie shrugged, licking her dry lips again.

“Water? I’m super-duper thirsty, and I’m pretty sure you are too.”

“Yeah, definitely some water. I know a very, very limited translation spell. I’d explain how it works, but my mouth is just too darn dry right now. So, I’ll use the spell, ask the creature if it’s friendly, then ask it for water and shelter.”

Pinkie nodded. That sounded like a pretty good idea to her! Twilight looked around, mainly at the bodies that she was still pretending not to see, before her eyes found their way back to Pinkie.

“We won’t- w-we won’t survive out here, Pinkie, not alone. We need to find help. It’s too hot out here for us to survive without an adequate source of fresh water, and those creatures we passed were just- oh gosh. I don’t even want to think about it, i-if we ran into any of them.”

“Yeah. This place is pretty awful.”

“Yeah. I hate to judge a book by it’s cover, but those dead creatures we passed? They didn’t look so nice. Those d-dogs and creatures, I could smell b-blood on them. Blood that wasn’t their own. If we can find whatever uh, um, took them down, it might help us.”

Twilight gulped, giving those corpses one more glance. Yep, they’re still not there.

“Or it could be even worse than those creatures, or I could be wrong about them, or let’sjustgobeforeIchangemymindPinkiestaybehindme.”

Pinkie smiled at Twilight, giving the little pony another nuzzle and a hug.

“C’mon, silly filly. We have a new friend to catch- I mean, find. Heehee.”

Twilight smiled back, giving her silly friend a nuzzle of her own.

“Yeah, c’mon. Friendship waits for nopony!”

The two set off at a brisk canter, equal parts eager and terrified to find out just what was making that noise.
It was but a few minutes later that they found out.

”Junk. Junk. Fucking junk.”

Twilight and Pinkie came to a stop just behind the last building on the walkway, ears perking up at the sound of the creature’s voice. Even if they couldn’t understand what the hoof it was saying, the fact that it was talking meant that the creature was intelligent, just like them!

”Fucking raiders. Alright, bodies are done. Now, where’s your chems?”

As the two of them slowly crept up to the corner of the last building, Twilight realized that if it was talking, that meant that there must be another one of the creatures nearby!

”Maybe I should stop talking to myself. Nut-jobs do that.”

It surely couldn’t be talking to itself, that would be crazy!

”Eh, fuck it. Who cares?”

Twilight crouched down, motioning for Pinkie to stay back, and be quiet. The pink mare flashed a bright smile at her, running a pink hoof across her mouth. Lips sealed.

As she peeked around the corner, Twilight realized four key things about the creature; he appeared to be a male, he was ridiculously tall, he was, in fact, talking to himself, and most importantly, he was also walking away from a neat row of corpses.

Oh, dear.

Twilight let out a terrified little whine, ducking back around the corner of her building. It was safe there, where the incredibly tall noise-making other creature-killing creature couldn't see her.

Pinkie trotted up beside Twilight, giving her a questioning look. Twilight laid a hoof on her chest, trying to calm her racing heart.

Oh geez. Oh gosh.

”Ah, there’s the chems. Not much, but it’s better than nothing. Now, what kinda food do you have around here?”

Twilight jumped as the creature’s voice came drifting around the corner. It sounded a little farther away, probably coming from the walled-in area past their building, but it was still far too close for comfort.

Well, maybe. It wasn’t exactly fair for her to just jump to conclusions, after all, and those massive yellow creatures hadn’t looked too nice.

Then again, this one looked like he was pretty mean, too. He had a metal… thing, a stick! A metal stick, and a mean-looking metal stick at that! And armor! He was the one who fought and kill- killed those other creatures!

”Oh, great, a roach on the fucking counter. Yeah, you can keep that, fucking savages.”

Twilight peeked around the corner again, taking a quick look at the corpses that she would soon be pretending didn’t exist. They looked pretty mean, too. Or at least, most of them did. Some looked like they were afraid, but the others just looked… mean.

Or at least, they would, if she wasn’t pretending that they didn’t exist.

Twilight let out a distressed whine as she backed away from the corner. Did everything in this place look so mean?

”What the fuck was that sound? Hey! You either fuck off and leave me be, or I break your arms, break your legs, and throw you in the fucking river for the ‘lurks!”

Like the creature. Oh geez. He- and there was no mistaking that the creature was a he- was tall. Obscenely, taller-than-Princess-Celestia tall, and he was huge, to boot! Twilight thought that she’d be huge with magic muscles? This creature would still dwarf her! His upper arms were bigger around than her barrel! It was nonsense!

Even then, how could she be sure that this tall creature was the same one that k- took out those yellow creatures? What if there were more mean-looking, creature-killing, obscenely-tall creatures out there? What if Pinkie was right, and they did like ponies, but not because ponies were cute and cuddly and nice, but becausetheythoughtponiestastedgo-

Twilight wasn’t aware that she had been hyperventilating, again. Pinkie, on the other hoof, was aware…

”What the fuck?”

...and so was the creature, with his mean-looking metal stick, ridiculous height and terrifying surplus of muscle. Pinkie and Twilight slowly separated from each other, a terrified whine escaping them in unison as they looked up at the creature.

Oh, dear.

David was having one motherfucker of a day.

In the space of four hours, he’d fought and looted his way through three groups of raiders, two groups of super mutants and their dogs, and a handful of massive, mutant crab creatures.

He’d been shot four times, flipped off a super mutant, and had a fucking sledgehammer thrown at him for his efforts.

He’d found some very nice toys, namely a sexy, bull-barreled revolver and a minigun, as well as a borderline obscene amount of ammunition.

“I’m done. I’ve seen it all. Fuckin’- why’d it have to be ponies?”

And now, he had come across two brightly colored, cutesy little… things, animals, that bore a strong resemblance to pre-war ponies.

Or rather, they had come across him. David didn’t like that.

“Doubt I could eat you, even if I wanted to. Those bright colors usually mean that you’re either incredibly toxic, or incredibly dangerous. I’m betting on it being the first one.”

David shouldered his shotgun, checking his surroundings one last time before looking at the tiny equines at his feet. Caution had to come first, even if the tiny equines were actually really kinda cute, especially with the way they were holding each other and looking up at him with their remarkably expressive little horsey faces.

Wait.

”H-hello?”

David snorted, setting his shotgun next to him on the ground as he crouched in front of the equines.

”Hi! Gosh, you’re big!”

The pink one waved one of her legs at him, a big grin plastered on her little face.

”Pinkie! Are you trying to get us- uh, um, hurt?”

”Nope! I’m trying to make us a new friend!”

“Why not, man. Why the fuck not. You just talked to me. Those were words, those were definitely words! God. Horse words. Hey, say something else.”

The equines froze and quieted down when he spoke, staring up at him with their freakishly large, fearful eyes.

“What, was I too loud?”

David frowned, he liked the pink one. Even if he couldn't understand what the fuck she was saying, he liked the sound of her bubbly little voice.

“C’mon, say something! What, you scared of me?”

David flashed a smile at the two, chuckling as he held his hands down to them, palms up.

“I was just joking about eating ya. You’re too godamn cutesy looking, and you’d probably give me diabetes. I’m not a bad guy, I ain’t gonna hurt ya.”

”Twilight.”

”Yes, Pinkie?”

”He’s not eating us.”

David pulled his hands back, resting them on his knees as he watched the tiny equines conversing with each other. Equines? Nah. Ponies? Ponies.

”Yes, I-I can see this.”

”Maybe we should try talking to him.”

The purple one let out what could have only been a little horsey gasp, and held her front legs above her head. Surrender?

“What the hell are you doing?”

”Yeah. I’ll try my translation spell. Ooh, I really, really hope this doesn’t scare him or make him mad.”

As he watched the little pony apparently surrender to him, he noticed that she had a small bony protrusion on her forehead, and it was starting to… glow?

“What are you playing at? What’s this glowy bullshit?”

David mumbled, reaching for his shotgun. He really wasn’t too keen on shooting the little purple pony, and the very idea that it could pose a threat to him was, quite frankly, laughable. But, caution was what had kept him alive so far, and David saw no reason to change that.

His caution was unneeded, much to David’s relief, as the little pony and her glowing horn did absolutely nothing. The glow around her little horn persisted, but it that was about it. Well, it didn’t appear to do anything. The Status screen on his PipBoy wasn’t showing any ill effects, nor was the geiger counter registering any rads.

So what the hell was it doing? Why was her horn glowing? Some sort of strange, FEV inspired bioluminescence?

“I’ll say it again, little... horsey. What are you playing at?”

The little pony let out another gasp, shook her head a couple times, then looked right at David, smiled brightly and said-

“Hello. I use spell for words. I am Twilight Sparkle, this am Pinkie Pie.”

“What.”

David stared blankly at the little ponies, gears turning in his head, working in overdrive as he attempted to piece together just what the fuck was happening to him. The pink one giggled as he pinched his arm, and the purple one stared back.

This went on for a good thirty seconds, until the purple pony let out a little squeak, a squeak, adopted the countenance of a kicked puppy and looked away. This brought David back into the world, shaking his head as he realized that no, he was not, in fact, dreaming, and he most certainly was not high.

He watched as the pink one rubbed her head against the purple- a nuzzle. The pink one was giving the purple one what looked like an affectionate nuzzle.

”It’s okay, Twilight. I don’t think he’s mad. Just try talking to him again.”

Were they related? Siblings? Friends? What the fuck were they anyway? What-

David shook his head, running a hand through the stubble on his jaw.

“You just talked. You just frikkin’ talked, and I understood you, ah, mostly. Fuckin’ hell, man. Run that by me again?”

David decided that the two would need a nickname, until he could understand what their actual names were. The pink one was… well, she was pink. Pink coat, pink hair, pink tail, and bright, blue eyes that he was totally unashamed to admit were gorgeous.

Pinkie, David decided. It was better than just calling her Pink, and it was cutesy enough to match the little pink pony. Besides, David figured, returning the little wave she gave him earlier, Pinkie would probably like her nickname.

The purple one was gonna be a bit harder. She was acting kinda mousy towards him, something he was sure had to do with their height difference. Other people usually ended up being intimidated by his height, so he really couldn't blame the little pony for it. The little thing looked to be all of two feet tall, if that, and he dwarfed her even when crouching.

David wasn't gonna give her a nickname based off that, though. She had pretty eyes as well, he noticed, a darker shade of purple, and she had a little pink streak in her hair and tail. Given the bright coloration of the two, it could either be natural, or it could be a dye job; some rebellious teenager bullshit?

David didn’t know, nor did he care. He already had enough on his plate.

“Hello. I sorry for confusion- for miscommunication- for- sorry. I sorry.”

David smiled again, in spite of himself. Here he was, in a post-nuclear wasteland, talking with a pair of cutesy little ponies. Godamn.

There would be a point, later that evening, where David would allow himself to crash, reboot, and then try to process all of the crazy shit that happened to him that day.

“It’s all good, I guess. Is there any reason you’re here, watching me? You want something, or you just curious? What are you, exactly?”

But for the time being, David decided he was just gonna roll with it, let whatever happens happen. No point in blowing a gasket trying to figure all this shit out, especially when he was out in the open.

“Lost. Chaos take from Equestria- home, send here. Need help. Not survive long. Tired, thirsty- needing water, much. Not have bits- currency- value for barter. Please, help.”

Value? Valuables? Money, probably. They didn’t have any caps. David grimaced as he dropped his field-pack to the ground beside him, and gave the little ponies another look over. He’d been too busy trying to process, well, them, that he hadn’t really looked at them.

Now that he was, he realized that they were looking pretty fucking haggard.

“Yeah, I got you. Don’t you worry none about that. What goes around, comes around, right?”

The little ponies watched him as he opened his field pack, and pulled out three bottles of water. All that fur was probably hell in this weather, so he uncapped and handed them the two largest bottles he had.

“Go sit under the building, get out of the sun and drink. Go slow, or you’ll get sick, but do your best to drink the whole thing. You need help with that?”

The purple one shook her head and stood up, revealing that she had a marking on her ass. Pinkie quickly followed suit, showing her own mark and letting out a sigh of relief as she took a large sip from her bottle.

David filed the marks away to ask about later, and took a moment to inspect the marks while they were distracted.

“No, drink okay. Thank you, many thank you. Thank you!”

Starburst. That’s what David would call the grateful purple pony. Starburst. Pinkie and Starburst.

David watched the two slip out of their little packs and start attacking their bottles as he finished his up. They looked pretty damn happy now that they had some water. He frowned as he realized that somewhere during their little conversation, Starburst had stopped sweating, if the lack of it dripping from her coat was any indication. Yeah, it was a good thing they’d run across him. A damn good thing.

“Go on, drink up, you’re safe here. No more raiders.”

Starburst nodded furiously, sipping at her bottle with a vengeance. Nevermind that the bottle was about half as big as her torso, but she was already a quarter of a way through it. David stood up, tossing his empty water bottle into his field-pack as he stretched. He was gonna have to move on before too long. The map on his PipBoy said that Rivet City wasn’t too far away, but he’d still like to make it there with enough time to have a look around.

“So, while we’re resting here, I want to get a few things cleared up, alright?”

Starburst perked up, giving him a nod and a happy little smile.

“Yes. Good idea- plan. I answer.”

“Alright. First of all, what are you?”

“We ponies. No. Ah, little horse? Little horse, not same but yes. What you?”

Little horse? Pony? David decided that calling he was gonna continue calling them ponies. It was still pretty accurate, and sounded a hell of a lot better than calling them “equines” or “little horse not same but yes”.

“You really don’t know what I am? We’re all over the place.”

The little pony shook her head.

“No. Never see.”

David frowned, but decided to play along. Something wasn’t right, and he intended to find out.

“Alright, I am a human. Do you understand that?”

Starburst bit her lip, before nodding excitedly and trying the word out herself.

“Hyu-mann. Not have word for Hyumann. New word, new word!”

David chuckled, holding a hand up as he corrected her.

“No, hu-man, not hyu-mann. Hu, man.”

“Hyu-man? Hu-mann? Hu-man. Human!”

Starburst excitedly clapped her little hooves together as she repeated the new word to Pinkie.

“Human, Pinkie, human! Human teach new word! New word!”

Starburst paused, looking back at David.

“What name? What… call you?”

“Call me? Ah, you want my name. I am David. David Cooke.”

Again, Starburst scrunched her little muzzle up as she tried the new words out.

“Not have word. Day-vid? Coke? Dayvid Cock?”

Godammit.

David grimaced and waved at her to stop. It wouldn't do to have the cutesy little ponies calling him “David Cock”. That just brought to mind all kinds of horrible imagery, most of which depicted things that were probably still illegal.

“Stop, no, Cooke, Cooke. David Cooke.”

“Dayvid- no, David… Coke? Cooke? Yes, good, David Cooke!”

The little pony gave David a happy little grin that the man just had to return. He couldn't help it that his new little buddies were built with weapons-grade enthusiasm.

“Yeah, you got it, you got it! Great job, Starburst! We’ll have you speaking english in no time!”

Starburst looked up at David, head tilted to the side and a little frown on her face.

“Star-berst? You call Twilight Sparkle, Star-berst?”

David shrugged, he’d either learn how to properly pronounce her name or get a proper translation later. Starburst seemed to share the sentiment, shrugging her little shoulders as well.

“Oh! Pinkie!”

The little ponies turned towards each other, conversing for a bit before Starburst started nosing around in her discarded pack. With a happy little smile, she pulled out a tan, foil packet and a trio of small, wrapped objects, and placed them between herself and David.

Food. Starburst and Pinkie were offering him food; what looked to be a military ration of some sort, and… was that wrapped candy he saw?

Oh, hell yeah.

Starburst nudged the foil packet forward with her nose.

“Not value, I know, but good for eat, yes? We give more, need help.”

Yet another grin worked it’s way onto David’s face as he took one of the candies.

“I said you don’t have to worry about that, but I’ll have one of these candies. What flavor are they?”

Starburst shrugged, looking over at Pinkie, who shrugged in return.

“Pinkie not know. I eat one.”

David sighed as the little mare proceeded to light her horn up even further…

“What are you doing?”

...surround one of the candies with a matching glow, peel the wrapper off and pop the rainbow colored sphere into her mouth.

All without actually touching the candy, the wrapper, or even moving from her spot.

“Well, that’s just great. Shatter my faith in the laws of physics. Why the fuck not?”

Starburst flinched, visibly sagging and looking away from David as she mumbled an apology to him.

“I sorry. Not want to stress. I sorry.”

David shook his head, giving her a smile and a gentle pat on the cheek as he made Starburst look up at him.

“What is going on with you? One second you’re happy, the next you’re cowering away from me. Are you really that scared of me?”

Starburst made eye contact with him, then whimpered and looked away.

“Yes, and no, much fright. Here is fright. Monsters are fright. Y-you are fright. I sorry. Lost. Everything fright.”

David frowned. Just how lost could they be?

“You keep saying that you’re lost. Where are you from?”

“Equestria- Gaia- not here. Not here. Where is here?”

Not here?

“You’re in the Capital Wasteland, formerly known as Washington, D.C. before the Great War? C’mon, you gotta know at least that, right?”

Starburst’s eyes grew wide, a horrified look on her face at the mention of the “Great War”.

“N-no, no Big War. Big War make all this, make everything fright?”

David frowned. Something about this wasn’t right. Either the colorful, little ponies were lying to him, or-

His own eyes grew wide as it all came together, the language difference, the fur coat and lack of water in this heat, the lack of caps, the fear, the questions, all of it!

They actually, really weren’t from here.

David stood up, placing his hands on top of his combat helmet as he took a few steps back.

“Oh, shit.”

Twilight looked up, her heart going a mile a minute at the sound of David swearing under his breath. Had she angered him again?

What was up with this crazy, huge pon- cre- human in the first place?! Twilight just couldn't understand! One moment, he looks calm, the next he’s getting loud and looking angry! It-

“Twilight. It’s okay, I don’t think he’s mad. I think he’s just a big ol’ silly willy, just like you and me, okay?”

Pinkie whispered, giving the frazzled unicorn a friendly nuzzle. Twilight nodded, leaning into the nuzzle as the human paced a few feet from them.

Suddenly, he stopped, moved over to her and Pinkie with one long stride, knelt down in front of her and spoke.

“You not from here. You not from here. Holy fucking shit. Not from here.”

He understood. He understood. She could see it in his eyes. He knew! Twilight sighed in relief, smiling up at him with watering eyes. He knew! He could help them!

“I sorry, Starburst, not mean stress, fright. You not stress, not fright either, okay?”

Even with all that, the human, David, was still pretty scary looking and monstrously tall, and she instinctively flinched away from him as he knelt down in front of her, took one of her hooves in his… hand, and gave it a little squeeze.

Twilight almost jerked her hoof away at the feeling of David’s hand and his long fingers, gripping and wrapping around her entire hoof and part of her foreleg. He was incredibly careful, gently squeezing her hoof, as if he was afraid of hurting her.
That caution, however, was what really worried Twilight. She’d seen and greeted enough Minotaurs visiting the Princess to know that when someone shakes your hoof like that, it’s because they are, in fact, strong enough to crush your hoof or hurt you.

“Wow. St-strong.”

David gave her a lopsided grin, before letting her hoof go and offering his other hand to Pinkie.

“Work hard for strong. Here, strong survive, smart survive.”

Twilight glanced over at Pinkie, getting a dazzling smile as the mare placed both of her hooves in his outstretched hand. Twilight envied the party mare at the moment, she didn’t have to hear all of this awful stuff about a “Big War”.

She wasn’t afraid.

“Wowie zowie, Twilight! He really is strong! Ooh, ooh, ask him if he wants to hoof-wrestle!”

Twilight giggled, in spite of everything. Perhaps she should have included Pinkie in the translation spell. It would have been a greater drain on her, but Twilight had a feeling that Pinkie would somehow be able to handle the things she’d just heard better than she was.

“No fright. Calm, yes? Come with me, go to Rivet City, safe place. Eat, drink, talk more. Yes?”

Twilight nodded, but pointed a hoof towards David before he could say anything else. There was one thing- actually, two things she had to know before she or Pinkie could leave with him.

“I-I don’t mean to insinuate anything, b-but… W-well, what are you going to do with us? I- I…”

She waved her outstretched leg at the row of corpses that still weren’t there for her. David looked over at the corpses and scowled, a hard look on his face.

This was it, Twilight had done it, she’d gone and messed it up and now David was angry and he was going to crush her and Pinkie with those strong-

“Starburst, no fright. What I say?”

-hands that were not, in fact, crushing her, but instead cupping her jaw and rubbing her cheek?

“Bwah?”

David smiled at her again, rubbing her cheek one last time before standing up and gesturing at the corpses that still weren’t there for her.

“Raiders, those raiders. Bad humans, hurt, kill other humans, take value, take food. Survive bad way. They sickness, like super mutants.”

As David pointed at himself, Twilight suddenly felt foolish.

“I stop raiders, because I more strong than raiders, because good to do. Survive good way, best way.”

Scratch that, Twilight felt incredibly foolish. She dropped her head, unable to face the tall, mean-looking-yet-kind human that she had been fearing and judging without even knowing, let alone asking for, his side of the story.

“No more sorry, yes? No more sorry. You right, to not trust. Good thing. I not trust, I alive.”

Twilight blinked, looking back up at David as he knelt down to grab his hay ration and candies.

“But I-”

“Stop. No sorry. Come, must go. Rivet City close, get there before dark.”

Twilight shook her head as she stood up. She still needed something from David, probably the most important thing, something she really should have asked him already.

“David. Will you be our friend?”

The tall human stopped what he was doing, in the process of putting his hay ration into his bag, then gave her a warm smile.

“Yes. Yes, we are friends.”

David stood up, once more slinging his field-pack onto his back as the little ponies watched. He grinned, shaking his head a little at what Starburst had just asked him.

Friends. She was either very young, or very naive. He didn’t know which one was worse, in this situation.

“Alright, you two. Come on. We’re burning daylight, just standing here.”

Starburst trotted up, her face strained as she held his shotgun in her… glow.

“Shit!”

A brief moment of panic washed over him as he realized that Starburst- who for all intents and purposes probably didn’t know what she was holding- had his fucking shotgun, but it passed when he saw that she was holding it vertically, with the muzzle facing the ground, and the stock in the air. She let out another one of those little squeaks, alarm showing on her face at the sudden tension in his body.

“I-I sorry, bring stick, forget stick.”

Is that what she thought his shotgun was? A stick? David relaxed, letting out another chuckle as he took his shotgun from her. As his fingers passed through the purple glow, David noticed that he felt a small, almost imperceptible tingle.

“I didn’t forget about it, Starburst, I just needed both of my hands to be free for a moment. Just- make sure you ask, before you touch anything you don’t know about, alright? You could've hurt yourself, or someone else, very fucking badly.”

Starburst nodded, looking away and scuffing a hoof at the ground as he continued.

“I sorry.”

”What did I say? No more of that. But, thank you for bringing it to me.”

The little pony perked up, giving him a bright smile and pointing her hoof at his shotgun.

“What is stick? Danger stick?”

David laughed, holding his shotgun up and giving it a look. Danger stick? Oh, if she only knew.

“It’s called a shotgun, and it’s incredibly dangerous, especially if you don’t know how to properly handle one. All of the, ah, ‘sticks’ I carry are like that. You don’t want to be-”

David tapped the muzzle of his shotgun.

“-on this end of a ‘stick’, if it’s in anyone else’s hands. If we run into more raiders, mutants or god knows what-the-fuck-else out here, I want you to find something solid, and hide behind it. Don’t come out for anything or anyone but me. Do you understand?”

Starburst nodded with wide eyes, turning again to jabber at Pinkie, presumably relaying what he had just told her. The two went back and forth for a bit, before wriggling into their own little packs, and trotting over to stand in front of David.

“We ready to go. Go to safe place, yes?”

David nodded, giving what he hoped was a reassuring smile to his little friends.

“Yeah, we’re going to a safe place. Just listen to what I tell you, try not to talk, and if you have to, keep your voices down, and we should all be fine. You got all that?”

Starburst jabbered at Pinkie again, then both of them turned to David and nodded.

“Yes, understand. We go now?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Much to David’s surprise, the next leg of their journey was relatively peaceful. No raiders, no super mutants, no crabs, just a radroach making a snack out of a dead bird. It was easily crushed under David’s boot.

”-wonder what kind of yummies they have where we’re going?”

Despite what he’d told them before leaving, the ponies had started to excitedly chatter amongst themselves not long after they started walking.

”I don’t know, but can you imagine how much there is to learn about this place? Pinkie, what if, w-what if they have a library?”

Well, at least they were talking quietly. David couldn't bring himself to tell them to shut up, not when they sounded so godamn happy.

”Ooh, maybe they’ll have a library with recipes for special human yummies!”

They wouldn't understand him, anyway, a quick glance back at the two when they’d first started talking told him that Starburst’s horn wasn’t glowing. Whatever it was that allowed them their limited communication earlier seemed to be tied into that glow.

”What if they have books about technology, or- or medicine? David mentioned a ‘Big War’, and I once read that civilizations advance the quickest during times of war, us-”

So aside from the word “human” or his name, David couldn't understand what the hell they were talking about. But he figured that was for the best, their conversation would be easier for him to ignore that way. He had to stay alert, after all, he had two others with him now, depending on him to look after and protect them.

David chuckled to himself at that thought.

“Petite Pony Protection Services, at your- er, service.”

He shot a glance back at the ponies, just long enough for Pinkie to notice, and give him a dazzling little smile.

“Thanks, I thought it was pretty clever, too.”

Just like all good things, the peaceful part of their journey came to an end a few minutes later.

Super mutants. If the stench of unwashed bodies and rotting flesh wasn’t a dead giveaway, the sound of their shouted conversation was.

David came to a stop a few feet away from a rubble wall, holding up a hand to signal his little friends to do the same.

”Oof!”

”Hey, why’d you do that for?”

They didn’t, of course, hand signals being a totally foreign concept to the young ponies. David quickly turned around and knelt, putting a finger to his lips and frantically shushing the two of them, before pointing at Starburst’s horn and imitating a talking mouth with his hand.

Starburst frowned, her ears swiveling towards the rubble wall, but nodded and lit her horn up.

“Why stop? What wrong?”

She hesitated, a hint of fear coming onto her face.

“More bad? I hear, not sound nice.”

David sighed, nodding as he gave her a reassuring pat on the back. Pinkie trotted right up next to her, wanting a pat as well, if the little pout on her face was any indication.

“Yeah, super mutants. Listen to me very carefully, alright? There is a set of stairs, just that way. I want you to go down them, and hide. I will deal with these assholes, and come get you. Understood?”

Starburst nodded, quietly relaying his order to Pinkie.

“We go. You be safe, please?”

David found that these little mares had an annoying habit of making him smile. Whether that was for better or for worse, he supposed he would find out.

“I’ll do my best. Now go, I can’t start until you’re behind cover.”

The look on Starburst’s face told him she wasn’t quite satisfied with that answer, but she complied nonetheless, nudging Pinkie towards their designated hiding place.

“Alright, assholes. Let’s see what you got.”

David muttered, crouching down and carefully moving up to the wall, unaware of the two sets of colorful eyes that were watching.

Peering through one of the half-foot gaps in the wall, David was able to determine that there were a total of four super mutants, spread throughout the encampment.

Two of the mutants were milling about near the entrance to the encampment, one armed with an R91 assault rifle, and the other carrying a super sledge.

Not the incredibly stupid rocket-powered sledgehammer he had heard of, but a genuine, pre-war U.S. military KEAW-71. The original super sledge. David grinned, he’d be taking that mutant down first.

After the two mutants guarding the entrance, there was a mutant wielding a bolt-action rifle, almost identical in appearance to his own. That one was standing near the top of the slope that took up half of the encampment.

“Aw, fuck.”

And the last mutant bastard, looking directly at him from behind the twisted metal spikes that lined the top of the slope, was holding a GAU series minigun…

“GET HIM!”

...and standing just a few feet away from another captive.

“Oh, not this time.”

David seethed, slinging his shotgun on his back, and pulling the hunting rifle out from between his pack and his armor.

*BLAM*

The minigun-wielding mutant’s head jerked back, minigun falling from it’s lifeless hands courtesy of the .308 round now lodged in it’s brain.

“You’re not fucking killing another one!”

*BLAM*

The mutant with the super sledge fell next, the first .308 round punching through it’s throat as it came running around the rubble wall, followed by another that left a neat hole in it’s forehead.

“Fuck you! You’re nothing, nothing!”

*BLAM*

It was joined by the other mutant it had been standing around with, a disgusting, drippy red hole where it’s left eye used to be.

David ran down to the entrance of the encampment, aiming his rifle up the slope, intent on finishing off the last mutant. His heart stopped as he realized that the ugly yellow bastard had aimed it’s rifle at the captive…

“No, no, no, no! You-”

*BLAM*

*CRACK*

...and fired, only for the round to hit a purple wall of light that sprung up in front of her.

“-are so, so fucking dead.”

David dropped his hunting rifle, stalking over to the two mutants that had been guarding the entrance. He wasn’t surprised to see Starburst and Pinkie standing near them, the purple mare focusing her attention on the last mutant and it’s captive. Pinkie smiled and waved, and Starburst’s horn was glowing brightly, strain showing on her face as she shot him a nervous grin.

“I-I sorry, David, but-”

“Save it. Keep that… barrier up.”

Starburst flinched at the tone of his voice, but nodded nonetheless as he snatched up the mutant’s super sledge. Giving it a few test swings as he stalked back into the encampment, David looked up at the mutant, his mouth twisted into a hate-filled snarl, and ran at the mutant.

Sprinting at full speed, he slammed into the mutant hard enough to stagger it, pushed away from it, and brought his super sledge crashing into the mutant’s jaw.

“Fuck- you- mother- fucking- FUCK!”

Each word was punctuated by a wet crunch as David furiously and repeatedly brought his sledge down on the mutant, finishing it off with a blow that turned it’s head into a pancaked, disgusting mess of flesh and shatter bone, sending a mixture of blood and pulverized brain matter spurting out onto the ground.

“Fuck you, you yellow bitch! Try to murder- wait.”

David propped his super sledge against one of the rusted metal beams lining the top of the encampment, and rushed over to the captive that Starburst had saved. He cut the ropes from around her wrists and ankles, wincing at the sight of the skin rubbed raw hidden underneath.

“Hey, you there? You all right?”

The question was rhetorical, as David moved her into a sitting position and gently tapped her cheek to get her attention. The girl, whoever she was, looked fucking awful.

She murmured something incomprehensible at him, her unfocused eyes drifting everywhere but him, until she suddenly snapped awake, eyes wide as she frantically grabbed his hand and held it to her cheek.

“Please, please, d-don’t let the yellow men take me ag-gain!”

David grimaced as he looked her over. He had barely noticed it the first time he tapped her cheek, but the girl was trembling.

“Whoa, whoa, easy, take it easy. I won’t let them take you.”

She was painfully thin as well, and had bruises on her upper arms, most likely from where the yellow bastards had grabbed her.

“D-do you promise?”

David gave her a smile, moving out of her line of sight and pointing at the two dead super mutants behind him.

“I promise. They’re dead, they won’t be taking, or hurting anyone ever again, see?”

The girl stared at the mutants for a moment, her grip tightening on his hand as she burst into tears.

“Thank- thank you, thank you! They said they were gonna eat me, a-and I-”

David cut her off, gently bringing the frantic girl into a hug with his free arm.

“It’s alright, you’re alright, I got you. You’re safe now. You understand me? You’re safe.”

The girl sobbed into his shoulder for a good few minutes. David couldn't really blame her, given what she’d told him.

Still didn’t make it feel any less awkward for him. He hated it when people cried in front of him, it made him feel shitty for no reason at all.

What did make it less awkward, was when the girl finally stopped, shakily wiped her face with her arm, and gave him a grateful smile. That’s what he was looking for.

“Th-thank you. I-I- thank you.”

David returned her smile, wiping away a stray tear that she’d missed with a thumb.

“It’s all good, er- what’s your name?”

Her eyes widened, hanging her head as she replied.

“Z-Zoe, with an ‘e’, Zoe Deloss. Argh, I’m such a dummy. You just, came up here and saved my life, and I didn’t even think to give you my name!”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. I didn’t save you to find out what your name was.”

The girl- Zoe, pulled back from David, trembling just a bit harder as scenarios, each one more unpleasant than the last, started flashing through her head. Her savior had been nothing but kind to her so far, but...

“Why did you rescue me? I-I’m not making accusations, it’s just- well, n-nobody does anything for free.”

David stood up, rolling his eyes as he went. Zoe, on the other hand, scuttled back as best she could, considering her current condition. She hadn’t realized just how enormous her savior, and now potential… something was. If it hadn’t been painfully obvious before that he could do anything, anything he wanted to her, it was now.

David arched an eyebrow as Zoe looked away from him, and let out a frightened little noise that was disturbingly similar to the ones that Starburst would make.

“That’s a good point, but I don’t have any ulterior motives or untoward intentions in rescuing you. I did it because I fucking hate super mutants, I had the capability to do so, I wanted their stuff and most importantly, it was the right thing to do. See that minigun, that super sledge? Consider that the... ‘price’, of your rescue. I got what I wanted, and expected, out of this.”

Zoe nodded, biting her lip and looking away from her savior. David felt a strange sense of deja vu, as he watched Zoe wilt under his words, kinda like-

Starburst. Ah, yep, time to nip this in the bud. David really didn’t feel like spending another fucking half hour sorting through another mess of misunderstandings, insecurities and his own admittedly shitty attitude.

Zoe jumped as she felt rough fingers grasp her chin, and gently turn her head up and towards her savior.

“Hey, look, I-I’m really, really sorry about th-that, I-”

“Save it. You were right to distrust me, and you were right about everything having a price. Look, I’ve heard some shit, it’s fucking hard out here, even more so for women at times. I get it, alright?”

Zoe shook her head, stammering out a reply.

“W-well, yeah, b-but you-”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, just drop it! I’m not angry, not hurt, so don’t go beating yourself up over it!”

David frowned as the girl wilted even further under his verbal barrage. With a sigh, he knelt in front of her, and offered her his hand.

“Look, I’m not a bad guy. I didn’t mean to yell at you, but you would not believe the fucking day I’ve had so far. Now, unless you turn out to be a super mutant in disguise, you’ll have absolutely nothing to fear from me. Alright?”

Zoe smiled and nodded, placing her hand in his. The massive hand engulfed hers, and he gave her a gentle squeeze.

“A-alright. So, um, what happens now?”

David dropped his field-pack to the ground, pulling out a bottle of water and a syringe of Morphine. Zoe’s eyes widened, locking on to the massive syringe as he uncapped it and gave the tip a couple of flicks.

“Well, first of all, my name’s David, David Cooke, also with an ‘e’. As for what happens, well, I wanna get the hell out of here. Here, drink, slowly. The sooner we can get to Rivet City, the sooner I can get you to a doctor, and come back here to grab all of this stuff. Here, gimme your arm.”

Zoe bit her lip, looking away as she slowly extended her left arm to David. Once again, she found his rough fingers on her chin, guiding her head back towards him.

“Afraid of needles?”

Zoe gave him a quick, shameful nod.

“Nothing wrong with that. You’re sure you don’t want any? Nothing broken, you’re not in any pain?”

Zoe shook her head, letting out a relieved sigh as David stashed the monstrous needle away.

“N-not really, the m-mutants- it’s nothing I can’t handle, n-no needles for me. I’m just really hungry, and I feel really weak.”

David nodded, that was about what he expected.

“Alright, if you say so. Think you can walk? I have two friends waiting for me down below. I’m gonna grab that super sledge, grab my rifle, and we’re gonna go to Rivet City, get you some help. That sound good to you?”

Friends? Well, some friends they were, if they let him fight those mutants all by himself!

“Why didn’t your friends help you fight the super mutants?”

David grinned a grin that Zoe wasn’t so sure she liked.

“Oh, but they did, one of them, anyway. She did more than help, if you ask me. Remember that purple barrier that sprung up in front of you?”

“Yeah, I remember it, but I thought I was just seeing things! You can’t mean-”

Once again, there was that grin that Zoe didn’t care much for.

“I think it’s something you’ll need to see for yourself. C’mon, we’ve wasted enough time already.”

Zoe nodded as David took both of her hands in his, and slowly pulled her up as he stood.

“I- whoa! Oh boy, it’s been a while since I’ve been on my feet. I think I’m ready.”

David nodded, supporting her with one arm as she leaned against him and limped out of the encampment.

“Starburst, Pinkie! Come on, we’re leaving.”

The two little ponies came trotting up as David and Zoe made it out of the encampment, and back onto the road. Starburst had his hunting rifle in her glow, business end pointing at the asphalt, though she seemed to be holding it a bit further away than last time. Her face, and Pinkie’s too, lit up when they saw the girl leaning against David.

“You drop stick, aga- you save her, you save her!”

David shook his head.

“No, Starburst, you saved her. Think you can hold on to my ‘stick’ for a little longer?”

Starburst nodded, smiling up at Zoe and waving a hoof at her.

“Oh god, I-I think I’m hallucinating again. David?”

“Could we not do this right now?”

Zoe blinked confusedly. Did her hallucinations always sound so irritated? No, wait, that was just David.

“Y-yeah, uh, sorry, they- just- sorry.”

“Let’s just get out of here. I’m sure they’ll be happy to answer all of your questions when we’re all safe.”

Zoe nodded, tearing her gaze from the ponies as they passed the decomposing corpse of a pack brahmin.

The pack brahmin that she had known for eleven years, that she and her father had been traveling with, up until four days ago. Or was it six? She didn’t know, she’d spent a lot of the past few days either unconcious, or delirious from the sun.

“Goodbye, Sir Moos-a-Lot.”

That got her a curious look from David.

“’Sir Moos-a-Lot’? He was yours? You look a little young, not mention scrawny, to be running a caravan.”

Zoe shook her head, sparing her late overly-vocal companion one final glance.

“No, she was my daddy’s, but I gave her the name when I was five. She liked to say ‘moo’ a lot, so that was her name. But, to answer your question, it was my daddy’s caravan, we- well, long story short, we had to leave our farm after mom died. There was a group of raiders, they kept coming after our farm, and they ended up scaring away the farmhands. I-if we didn’t give them most of our crop, they- they said they w-would...”

A shudder ran up the girl. David frowned as he gave the girl a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder, he didn’t like any of the implications that carried.

“Well, a-anyway, Daddy decided to ah, ‘get rid’ of the raiders that were coming after us, then he booby-trapped the farm, put everything he could onto our brahmin, and we just went south. We had to leave a bunch of stuff behind, though, mostly just gun parts and stuff.”

Zoe paused giving David a proud little smile.

“Daddy was really good with guns, and building them. He had a workbench, and everything! He made me a hunting rifle, did you know that? He built it from parts he scavenged, and painted it pink, just for me!”

David frowned at that. A pink hunting rifle? Might as well paint a target on your chest, while you’re at it.

“I hate to ask, but, what happened to your father? I assume the mutants attacked your little caravan right where the brahmin is laying, right?”

Zoe swallowed, eyes tearing up as she gave David a jerky nod.

“Y-yeah, the- they attacked us there, after we left Rivet City. They, they killed Sir Moos-a-Lot, and they took us both. We had to surrender, we couldn't beat them! Some jerk stole daddy’s power armor and minigun when we were asleep, s-so we couldn’t, a-and they said the same thing about him!”

David stopped, raising an eyebrow at her.

“What do you mean, ‘said the same thing’?”

Zoe sniffled, wiping at her eyes.

“They said ‘another one for the green stuff’, just like when they captured daddy. You haven’t seen him, have you? He’s, I dunno, about half a foot taller than me, kinda big like you, and his skin’s darker than mine, but not by a whole lot. Oh, and he was wearing jeans, boots, and a shirt, like me.”

David froze, nearly dropping Zoe as he came to a sudden stop. She had just given him an almost perfect description of the man he’d found in the first super mutant encampment, his brains blown all over the inside of a tent. He turned Zoe’s confused face up towards him, to get a look at her eyes.

They were the exact same green that his were.

“Oh, fuck.”

Zoe’s face fell instantly. She knew what he was about to say.

“No, nonononono, David, please do-”

Her mouth stopped working when David moved her to his other arm, and pulled out-

“Was… did this belong to your father?”

-her daddy’s revolver. Overall, the weapon wasn’t especially remarkable, better condition aside, but she knew that it was his. How could she not, after all the times she’d seen it on his hip, in his hand, or being cleaned by him? Every scratch, every dent on the weapon told her it was his.

A choked sob was all the answer she was able to give David, but it was all he needed.

“He died trying to get free, and I’d bet you were gonna be his next goal.”

David slipped the revolver back into it’s holster, and quickly knelt down to catch and hold Zoe as her legs gave out, her grief getting the best of her. She once again found her face in his shoulder, and his strong arms around her shoulders and back as she wept.

“I wasn’t right there when it happened, but the ropes around his ankles were cut when I found him, so I’m guessing that he was trying to escape when he heard me fighting the mutant’s hounds. I heard the shot as I was killing the second hound, there was nothing I could have done.”

Starburst and Pinkie trotted up and hugged Zoe around the waist, laying their heads on her back and sides.

“I covered him, and the others in the encampment, with a piece of the tent before I left. I figured the revolver was his, thought he might have been a merc. Either way, I thought he would want the revolver put to good use, so I took it.”

Zoe looked up at David, giving him a little smile through her tears.

“H-he would, he would. Did you...?”

The girl trailed off, glancing in the direction of the dead mutants. David smiled down at her. Oh, yes, yes he had.

“Yeah. I killed the mutant that killed your father, and his dogs. Then I killed the next group I came across, used the revolver on one of them. Came across a group of raiders, killed three with the revolver. Then my little friends here came across me, but that’s a story for another time.”

Her smile grew a little bigger, as Zoe wiped her eyes with a shaky hand.

“H-how did you kill the m-mutant?”

“Long story short, I flipped it off, it threw a sledgehammer at me, hit me in the chest and crushed my pistol-”

David pointed a finger at the dent and aforementioned pistol, still strapped to his armor.

“-knocked me flat on my ass and pissed me off, so I stood up, it said something about eating my limbs, I shot it twice in the chest and once in the face, and- well, that’s not important.”

Zoe giggled, poking at the indentation in his armor.

“And what? What did you do?”

“Well, I may have said something along the lines of, ‘I’ll eat your godamn limbs, you ugly fuck!’”

As Zoe’s giggles turned into laughter, David couldn't help but to chuckle along with her. After the fact, it was pretty damn hilarious, and he’d rather see the poor girl laughing than crying, even if it was at his expense.

“Yeah, well, look, sometimes I get a little, ah, over-zealous when I’m fighting angry.”

“I can tell, heehee, I, th-thank you, for making me laugh. Thank you.”

Zoe replied, softly pressing her face into his shoulder. David really was a swell guy, she decided, and she really wouldn't mind if he kept her daddy’s revolver. He’d put it to better use than she could, anyway. Darn thing about broke her wrist the first- and last- time her daddy let her shoot it!

“Hey, David?”

He looked down at her, a gentle smile on his face.

“What’s up?”

Zoe gestured at her da- no, his revolver with a sad smile.

“I-I want you to keep it, the revolver. You were- you were right, my daddy would rather it get put to good use, instead of being sold or just abandoned. So you keep it, it’s yours now. Just promise me one thing?”

David was about to argue back, but decided against it. If she changed her mind later, he’d give it back.

“Depends. What is it?”

“Use it for good, please? I-I know I’m ‘preaching to the choir’, but, I thought it would bear mentioning.”

David frowned, snapping his fingers and clenching his fist in mock anger.

“Well, damn. There go my plans to become, um, ‘Grand Evil Overlord McAsshole’ of the whole shitty wasteland! Undone by my one weakness, a pretty face!”

Zoe giggled, holding a hand up to cover the slight flush on her cheeks.

“In all seriousness, though, I will, and that’s a fact. I’m flattered that you trust me enough to give me your father’s revolver.”

He sighed, patting Zoe on the back as he stood up, pulling her up with him. Pinkie clung to Zoe’s waist with all four legs as David pulled the girl up, but was quickly surrounded with Starburst’s glow, and with a pout on her face, pulled off.

“When I find my father, I doubt we’re going back to live in 101. Hell, I’m not sure I want to go back to living in there. I have a chance to make a life, my own life, for myself out here, and I’m not gonna waste it.”

Yeah, that settled it, David was pretty great. Matter of fact, if her father was still alive…

“Y’know, I think you and my daddy would get along pretty great, i-if he was still here.”

David smiled, heading towards the metal construct that he assumed was some sort of boarding platform for the wrecked aircraft carrier.

“That’s Rivet City, right? The broken carrier?”

When Zoe nodded, he continued.

“I’m glad to hear that, about your father. Sounds like he was a great guy, and smart too. Taking out those raiders, and trapping the farm? That’ll teach any other asshole that comes by. How far did he go with that?”

Zoe broke out into a smile that tread a very fine line between innocently happy and vicious.

“Well, he laid mines out in the fields, a lot of them, rigged shotgun traps in each doorway in the house, and rigged the workshop in the barn to explode with four mini-nukes if anyone walked in, pressure plates, trip-wires, and even a proximity sensor. He really didn’t want those jerks to get their hands on his workbench, or the gun parts he had to leave behind.”
David gave her a lopsided smile as she finished up. Zoe looked up to see that the four of them had reached the boarding platform.

“I think I’m really starting to like your dad. If you don’t mind, and it doesn’t hurt too much, I’d like to hear more about him. I’ll tell you about my dad, in return. Sound good?”

Zoe nodded, slumping against him as her left leg gave out on her again. Now that the adrenaline was fading, she felt a lot weaker than she had originally thought.

“Y-yeah, that sounds good. I’d love to hear about your daddy. He must be a pretty great guy, too.”

David grinned, she had no idea.

“Yeah well, he did raise me, after all, and I think I’m pretty fucking awesome.”

He looked back at the ponies following him, and held his super sledge out to Starburst.

“Starburst, can you carry this as well? Just for a little bit?”

The purple mare nodded, enveloping the weapon in her glow. Her face grew just a little more strained as the weapon floated next to David’s hunting rifle.

“Yes, can carry. This danger stick too? Looks like hammer.”

David nodded as he looped his left arm under Zoe’s legs, and with a surprised yelp from the girl, scooped her up into his arms.

“Yes, it’s a ‘danger stick’. Don’t drop it on your foot- er, hoof.”

Looking down at the girl in his arms, David continued.

“Don’t look at me like that. We’ll be up the ramp and inside much quicker this way. Now c’mon, let’s get you some medical attention. Uh, there is a doctor here, right?”

Hiding her flushed face behind her hands, Zoe nodded. He was so freaking strong, to just pick her up like that, with no effort!

“Yeah. We passed by his office on our way to the hotel.”

“A hotel, huh? Alright, let’s go then. Rivet City. About damn time.”

With that, David started up the ramp, followed closely by his two new friends.

1 - Carry On
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1 - Carry On

Author's Note

WIP. Very, very rough draft of a possible alternate beginning to "Lost". More of a trial run and character sketch, than anything. Characters are meant to be stereotypical and ridiculous, it allows me to re-shape them into what I want.
Going to pull elements from this and the 16k chapter that I wrote in the beginning of the year to make a final first chapter. No more real changes after that. I have a plot that I'm satisfied with. I'm not going to promise constant updates, but I will be working on "Lost" whenever I can.
Working on a prologue chapter, let me know what you think of this.

1 - Carry On

Act 1 – Wayward Son

"I hope you know what you're doing, for our sake as well as theirs.”

"Baby, I always know what I'm doing.”

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"A whole new chapter in my life, a new beginning. Can you see it through my eyes?”

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"The true measure of a man lies in what he is willing to do for those who cannot do anything for him in return."

“Super Duper Mart? Genius. Wonder who came up with that?” David grumbled, making his way down the road leading up to said store. The boy checked his shotgun again, a slightly battered but very much functioning Remington 870. as he reached the south wall. He'd be lying if he said that he wasn't nervous. Moira had told him that, while the store had been used as a hideout for raider gangs in the past, it probably didn't have anyone living in it currently.

Probably.

He'd already tangled with two groups of raiders yesterday and the day before, both of which was nearly the end of him, and he wasn't looking forward to testing his luck again today.

David groaned as his stomach rumbled again. Wasn't like he had much of a choice in the matter, anyway. Much as he hated 101, there were no raiders, and food was readily available each day after he finished whatever back-breaking task the Overseer assigned him. He didn't have to worry about choosing ammunition over lunch, down there. But, it could've been worse, David supposed as he peered around the corner of the store, to find the parking lot devoid of life.

Literally. There were three raiders, a brahmin and who he assumed was the late owner of the brahmin lying in the parking lot, all of them riddled with bullets and slowly baking in the afternoon sun.

Yep, raiders. Fucking perfect. At least three of them were dead, leaving him with who knows how many left to kill. Judging by the voices echoing from the closed doors near him, there was more than he'd care for.

But it could be worse. The boy felt that he was at least a little prepared for life out here. He knew how to shoot well enough and barring that, he had the V.A.T.S. function of his PipBoy, limited as it was. The results of his G.O.A.T. and Officer Gomez saw to the first part.

David took a deep breath as he pressed himself against the double doors, preparing to breach. He supposed what he was doing now wasn't too different from moving heavy parts or crates around, or sanitation in the lower levels with the rest of the social outcasts. At least out here, he was his own man. No Overseer, no security officers, no Tunnel Snakes to keep him down. It was a fair enough trade, he supposed.

At the count of three, David kicked the door inwards and rushed in, gun up and finger on the trigger-

THUD

-then everything went black.

David awoke to the sound of cat-calls, laughter and, to his growing horror, the tearful begging of a young woman nearby. Before he even opened his eyes, he knew that he was naked and restrained, the feeling of the rough, scratched-up tile floor on his bare ass and back, and hot metal cuffs around his wrists and ankles was proof enough of that.

“Please, d-don't do this! I-I-”

SLAP

The laughter picked up as the girl hit the floor with a whimper, and one of her- their captors spoke up, “Toys don't fucking talk, pretty thing, so keep your fucking cocksucker shut until I say you can put it to use.” His voice was eerily calm, sending a chill down David's spine as he felt the speaker turn his attention to him.

It was then that David opened his eyes, and that feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach doubled, then tripled in size. That girl that had just been begging? She too, was naked, her wrists and ankles bound together. An assortment of bruises marred her light-brown skin, mostly centered on her breasts, face, neck and stomach. He spied some distinctly hand-shaped bruises amongst the mess on her thighs and bottom before he realized he was staring, and averted his eyes. The poor girl was already being leered at, hungrily, by seven armed and disturbed-looking raiders, one of which was tucking his flaccid-

Oh god, they- they'd fucking raped her.

The girl began to openly sob as one of their captors approached, leering down at her with a malicious grin on his face. The bastard grabbed a fistful of her curly hair and roughly hauled the girl to her knees, her cries softening into terrified whimpers as their captor dragged her over to David, and threw her to the floor next to him. “Hey, don't do tha-” A hard kick across David's jaw shut him up.

“Shut the fuck up. Toys. Don't. Talk."

A normal person would know when they were beat, accept their fate and try to get it over with as quickly as possible. "Fuck you, bitch!” David wasn't a normal person. Another, harder kick was delivered to his jaw, followed by a boot to the stomach. His captor grinned down at him as David, ever-defiant, spat a loose tooth and a wad of bloody spit at his feet.

“It's funny you say that, though.” the raider continued, putting his knee into the small of the girl's back as he flipped her onto her stomach, and released the cuffs around her ankles, “Fuck me? Oh no, my big, meaty toy.” David began to struggle as the raider pulled her ass into the air, kicked her legs open, hauled David to his knees by the back of his neck, and positioned him just behind the girl. “No, you're going to fuck her.”

The raider laughed as David froze, waving over the only female raider present. “Hope you don't mind sloppy seconds, boy. You showed up late to the party." In each hand she held a syringe of Psycho, which she quickly handed over to the bastard that David could only assume at this point was the leader of this raider gang. David paled as she knelt behind him and wrapped a surprisingly soft hand tight around his flaccid member.

"Oooh, you're a big boy, ain't ya?" David tried pushing her away, but he was unable to do much but press himself against the raider as she started playing around the flesh in her hand.

"Fuck you, you sick fucking cunt!" David cried, struggling to shake the raider off of him. She let out a sick little giggle at that, looping her free arm around his torso and tucking her forehead into the spot between his shoulder blades.

"Mm, think I'll take you up on that later, let you wreck two pussies in one day." David tried again to shake her off, prompting a bout of laughter from the raiders still watching. "Bet she'll still be real snug on you, with a dick like that. I'm jealous that little bitch gets you first.” The girl had stopped sobbing by that point, frantically hyperventilating as David unwillingly loomed over her.

“Don't fucking do this, please!”

The raider holding David's head forced him to look down at the girl, calling over several other raiders to hold his arms while he freed the boy of his restraints. The raider snuggling herself against him redoubled her efforts, frustrated that he wasn't getting hard quick enough. "Think it's time for that liquid courage, big boy here doesn't seem to be in the mood." She squeezed his dick a little harder as she mocked him, "You got a headache tonight, baby?"

David hissed as the syringes pierced his neck on each side, emptying a double dose of Psycho right into his arteries. The raider leader laughed as David's struggles intensified, even as he was being pushed towards the terrified girl below him. The raider still clinging to him cooed as she felt the drug taking effect, the flesh in her hand growing stiffer by the moment. “Don't be shy now, go on, take a gander. She's a pretty little thing, ain't she?” As much as David hated it, hated the bastards that had put them in this position, hated his growing erection?
She was right.
Even with the bruises, tear-stained face and the terror in her eyes, the girl was quite pretty. Her slender frame had just enough softness to it that David knew she'd had an easy life, one bereft of hard labor or hunger. The poor girl couldn't be much younger than he was, and if they'd met under better circumstances? Who knows what might have happened. Maybe they'd be friends. Maybe they would court each other. Maybe they'd find each other supremely annoying, and leave each other be.
But they'd never find out. That opportunity had been taken away from them both, by these fucking animals.

"Ooh, you lucky little fucking cunt. Look at this dick, he's gonna make you fucking scream!"

They'd already beaten and raped the poor girl into submission, they'd drugged him and was about to force him into doing the same, and there was nothing he could do about it.

David growled, a red haze settling over his vision as he felt the raider clinging to him stand up, satisfied with the throbbing erection he now had. She gave him a light peck on the lips before stepping around him and kneeling right in front of the girl. David could see, just as clearly as the girl could, that the raider wasn't wearing any undergarments.
The raider tenderly stroked the girl's face before roughly grabbing a handful of her hair, and pushing the girl's face into her exposed crotch. "Ah-ah-ah, be a good girl and make me scream, too. I licked you earlier, it's only fair that you return the favor."

David didn't want this!

The raiders had all went back to watching what was going on, and were making a proper noise now, yelling profanities and slurs at the girl, promising her that they'd be next in line once David was through with her. The female raider gripping the girl's hair let out a happy sigh as the girl did what she was told.

Why was this happening?

David wasn't being held back anymore. By the time he realized what was wrong with that statement, he was insi-

Zoe jolted awake with a panicked cry, quickly curling into a trembling, sobbing ball in her fit of nightmare-induced panic. Several minutes passed before she was able to calm herself enough to realize that it was just a dream, none of that had happened. She heaved out a deep, shuddering sigh as she remembered that she was safe, David was safe, she was inside Megaton, laying in their bed, tucked away in the corner of their bedroom in the sheet-metal shack David had purchased.

She was safe, she was safe, she. Was. Safe.

It only took about a dozen or so repetitions of that mantra to convince herself of that, this time.

Zoe uncurled herself just enough to snag David's pillow, hug it to her chest and bury her face in it. No, none of that happened, to her or to David. He'd saved her, just in the nick of time. There were no guards to catch him unawares and knock him out. Those animals were too busy getting their jollies from tormenting her to care about watching the door. And why would they, anyway? They had a new toy to play with, and it was rare that anyone who actually had to deal with raiders would be both well-armed and brave enough to fight back, let alone attack them on their home turf!

Things got a little fuzzy for her when David opened fire on her captors. Zoe recalled grabbing a pistol from the belt of the raider that had been restraining her, crawling into a corner away from the gunfight, curling into a ball and hoping against hope that the intruder would not only win the fight, but be of decent enough character to help her, or at the least, leave her be and not hurt her. David turned out to be the kind of guy who really didn't take too kindly to what the raiders were doing, or raiders in general. So when reinforcements showed up in the middle of the fight, he didn't do the smart thing and take off.
No, he stood his ground and fought, five-to-one, until it was just him and the leader of that raider group.

David's shotgun barked again, silencing the enraged scream of the raider that had been charging at him with a fireaxe. By his count, there was only one of those sadistic fucks left to kill. Ears ringing, heart pounding, he pumped the forearm on his shotgun, poked his head around the concrete pillar he was using for cover-

"Gotcha, you little bastard."

-to find himself staring down the barrel of an R91 assault rifle. "Drop the gun, and step away from it. Two steps, do it now!" The raider holding it walked around the corner, keeping the gun trained on David as he laid his shotgun on the floor and moved away from it. "You killed a lot of my boys, and you're gonna fucking pay for that. On your knees, hands behind your head!" David complied, seeing no other suitable course of action. This bastard was smarter than the rest, it seemed. He kept well out of David's reach, and did not take his eyes off of the boy.

A few moments passed in silence as the raider looked the boy over, broken only by the quiet, terrified sobbing of the girl the raiders had been working over. She'd had enough sense to stay out of the way when David opened fire, thankfully, and had tucked herself into a corner somewhere behind him. But that didn't help him right now, and it wouldn't do her any good when the raider came for her next. "What's your name, boy? Where'd you get that suit and that contraption on your arm?" David spat at the raider. Fuck him, and fuck his questions. The raider rolled his eyes and asked again, "Suit, doohickey, answer. Running low on patience right now."

David was tempted to tell him where he could shove his patience, but if the raider was interested enough to ask again instead of simply blowing his head off, then he might just be able to talk his way out of this. "Vault 101. Got the Pip-Boy when I turned ten. Got this suit two weeks ago from the req officer."

The raider cocked his head to the side, "You're a vault dweller? The fuck are you doing out here, then?"

"I'm looking for my father. Woke up to security trying to kill me because he left, so I killed them and left too. I came here because I heard there might be supplies."

That got the bastard's attention. "You left, huh? Can you get back in?"

David hesitated, "Uh, well-"

The raider snorted, circling around to David's back. "'Course ya can't, idiot. They probably changed the access codes the minute you left. No matter." David felt the still-hot muzzle of the rifle poke him in the back of his neck. "Thanks to you, I don't even have anyone to try and take a Vault with, not that these ones were worth a godamn anyway. Idiots didn't even have anyone outside or watching the doors, did they? Answer me!"

David sneered up at the raider, shaking his head, "Nope. I walked right in and started blasting. Got two of em' before they even realized what was happening, your 'boys' weren't worth shit!"

The raider chuckled, walking back in front of David. "Ha! You've got balls. I like that, kid. If you'd left a few of my boys alive, we coulda'... talked, see, until you saw things our way. I'm always looking for capable, loyal men." The rifle was leveled at his forehead again. "Too bad you didn't. Ah well, one good thing came outta this, I don't have to share that hot, young piece of ass waiting for me right over there with anyone else." The girl started crying again. "Now, I can't risk having you come at me when I've literally got my pants down." David tensed, and the smug bastard holding the rifle shrugged, "So, looks like I gotta kill you. Goodnight, sweet prince."

CLICK

The raider blinked. "...fuck."

As the raider reached to draw the charging handle back, David surged to his feet and grabbed the barrel of the rifle, shoving it skywards as he slammed the raider into the shelving unit behind him. They struggled for control of the rifle, but David easily had the advantage in height and raw strength, and quickly wrenched the gun downwards, pulling it from the raider's grasp and sending him to his knees.

David reversed his grip on the rifle as he freed it from the raider, smashing the stock into his face one- two- three times as the raider fell to the floor, crawling away from the boy as he clutched at his obviously broken nose.

"You fucking sack o-"

The boy stepped forward and brought the stock of his new rifle crashing down on the raider one last time. As the raider's head bounced off the floor, David checked the chamber of his new rifle, giving the bottom of the magazine a firm slap when he realized that it wasn't properly seated. "And here I thought you were the smart one," he chuckled, aiming the rifle down as he chambered a round. "Good night, sweet prince."

The girl let out a sigh and slowly sat up, letting go of David's pillow to blearily rub at her eyes and glance at her alarm clock. "S... seven-twenty." She uttered a tiny, wordless whine as she briefly considered trying to lay back down to catch a few more hours of shut-eye, but between the absence of David and the absolute shit-show of a dream she'd had? “No, I-I think that's enough sleep for now.” It had been three days, three fucking days since her encounter with that particular gang of raiders, and it wasn't any easier. Zoe grimaced, lifting up her sleep shirt to check the angry, black and blue bruises on her belly. She wasn't really expecting it to get easier.

Losing the farm and almost all of her family had been hard enough. The girl had thought she'd lost everything then, but now? Her father was gone, cut down by another group of raiders, same as the brahmin that had survived the razing of the farm. Zoe shivered, hugging her arms to herself. She was not a fighter. When the raiders came for her, she choked. They knew, those, those bastard animals knew that she wasn't going to fight back, once her father fell.

Didn't stop them from slapping her around in the parking lot, nor did it stop them from beating the hell out of her once they dragged her inside, groping her with their disgusting, dirty hands and promising her all kinds of torments! If David hadn't shown up and started shooting, those monsters would have raped, tortured and eventually murdered her, there was nothing she could have done about it, and that fact chilled Zoe to her very core.

So no, it wasn't going to get easier, not anytime soon. Zoe had lost her home, lost her family, her trust in others and now, her peace of mind! Suffice to say, Zoe had a lot on her plate, and she wasn't exactly a hearty eater.

The girl groaned as she stood up, wincing as the soreness between her legs fully asserted itself now that she was up and about. Her cheeks flushed as the reason for her discomfort came to mind, stumbling over to the desk and flicking the lamp on. Zoe wished that David would have stayed with her until she woke up, especially after last night. She'd found rest easily, after being worn out and cuddled by her... boyfriend? Lover? One-night stand? She'd figure it out later.

She was fairly sure that sleeping with David was what had influenced her nightmare to be different this time. She had her misgivings about doing that after only knowing him for a few days, not to mention how readily he'd taken her to his bed. Had he felt that she owed him something for saving her? Well, of course she did, but not in that sense, she hoped! Was she going to become pregnant? He'd... finished, in her. Had he even given it any thought? She sure as hell hadn't, caught up in the moment as she was.

He wouldn't do that on purpose, would he?

Was he going to want her body again, when he came back?

The girl hoped not, because she was very sore. Hell, she wasn't even sure why she had offered herself to him in the first place! Sure, he'd saved her life and he was certainly very desirable in her eyes as a male; tall, strong and commanding, capable of protecting his own, too. He was also kind enough to make sure she got food, water, and pain-killers each day.

But on the other hand, she barely knew him. He'd told her that his name was David, he hailed from Vault 101, he was searching for his father and had stumbled upon and saved her by pure chance.

That was pretty much all he had told her about himself. Every time the man was around, Zoe was either too miserable or too nervous to really try striking up a conversation with him. He kept to himself, and spent most of his time awake outside of Megaton, either "hunting" or down at that god damned Super Duper Mart, tearing everything he could out of that store and selling what he didn't keep for caps. Other than making sure she was alive and somewhat comfortable, he didn't seem to really care about her, or show any emotion other than annoyance.

The girl had seen people like him before, and that only made her less certain of her decision. Lots of people would stop by the farm, scavengers, merchant caravans, wanderers and even the occasional mercenary band, looking to trade for a hot meal or supplies for the road. As such, Zoe had seen and interacted with a lot of people, something the shy girl had come to love. Most of them looked and acted normal, for what that was worth in the wasteland.

But some of them? They were different, they had a look of hunger about them. The young girl could see it in their eyes whenever she was brave enough to look. The hunger wasn't always the same, and it wasn't as strong in some as it was in others, but it was there. Sometimes, it was the only thing that was there.

David had that look of hunger about him, especially the last two times he'd returned to her, smelling like propellant and sporting a few new dents in his combat armor.

So why did she sleep with him and more importantly, why did he take her to bed with him?

Was that his end goal, to get her into his bed? Was he just playing some sort of sick, twisted long-game with her? Was he going to use her until he became bored, then simply abandon her? Kill her? Sell her into slavery? Zoe paled at that particular thought. She was the youngest of her siblings and while she thought that her older sister was prettier, Zoe was soft, slender and healthy. She knew there was only one fate that awaited girls like her, once they were sold. David wouldn't do that to her, would he? Zoe shook her head, that was just her imagination running away from her.

She was grateful that David had tried to be gentle with her, considering her injuries and the fact that neither of them really knew what they were doing. It certainly wasn't under the best of circumstances, but given the alternative that had very nearly happened?
Misgivings aside, Zoe preferred having the option to give her virginity to David, rather than having it violently stolen by a gang of filthy, drugged-up murderers.

Still, she had a lot of questions for David, questions that needed answers. All she needed was the courage to ask.
David was... different, but he certainly hadn't struck her as malicious yet. She'd try talking with him about her dream, about last night, about him, about anything, once he got back from the Super Duper Mart. The sooner he was done there the better, in her opinion.

Some day, she'd get the caps and the courage to buy a few bricks of plastique explosives, and she'd collapse that monster's den. It would never be used as a hideout for raiders, and nobody would ever have to be hurt in there again! Maybe then she'd be able to start getting over it. Maybe she'd stop feeling so helpless all the time, so... little. She was definitely ready to get some motivation back, or to stop being so afraid, so jumpy around other people. Hell, even Wadsworth made her nervous! It was just a domestic robot, it didn't have the desire, let alone the capability, to be cruel to her!

Zoe hated, fucking hated the state she was in.

Why did David have to leave her alone? Didn't he know that she was hurting and had nobody but him to turn to? That she needed him? Was she crying again? Sure was, she'd been doing a lot of that recently. Zoe shook her head again, wiping her eyes with the bottom of her shirt. She'd try talking with David once he got back from his scavenging. Maybe she'd be able to get a conversation out of the guy.

The girl let out a yawn and turned her attention to the decent collection of literature David had stacked on the desk. It was mostly random works of fiction that had managed to survive nuclear bombardment and exposure to the elements, but there was a distinct stack of technical manuals, magazines and a few comics as well, one of which was a "Dean's Electronics" edition that she hadn't yet read. Zoe pulled that one over, and cracked it open while she waited for David to return.

She was chewing through a section regarding fission batteries when Wadsworth decided to intrude.

"Madame Zoe? It seems that both you and Master David have missed breakfast, again. Shall I leave your portion outside the door as usual?"

Zoe dropped her book with a yelp, swearing under her breath as she lost her place. "Um, j-just a minute!"

She huffed in frustration and stood up, she'd had enough of this, of being scared all the damn time! There was no way in hell she'd be able to overcome the trauma on her own, not without drastically changing who she was, and Zoe was just fine with who she was, thank you very much. "Wadsworth, right? Would you mind if I, um, talked to you a bit?" But she had to be willing to help herself, to start taking steps of her own, even if they were baby steps.

"Certainly, Madame. What do you wish to discuss?"

Especially if the first of those baby steps was to simply stop hiding. Zoe slowly opened the door, taking a moment to calm her racing heart before stepping out, and closing the door behind her. No running away, it was just a robot. Not a rogue U.S. Army murderbot, but a friendly butler-bot, with food! "W-well, you're actually the first Mr. Handy I've seen that has a personality module, so..." The Handy- Wadsworth, hovered just at the top of the stairs, a plate containing a fork, a decent portion of scrambled eggs and some kind of fried meat held in it's manipulator arm. Yeah, she supposed it wasn't so scary. "Um, I guess, what do you want to talk about?"

The robot bobbed in place as she took the plate from it, something inside it giving off a quiet whir as it processed her request. "If I may, Madame?" Zoe hesitantly nodded, spearing a piece of egg with her fork. "Do you know any jokes?"

Zoe smiled, really smiled for the first time in days. "Have you ever heard of a 'brick joke'?"

David let out a tired grunt, giving the deactivated Protectron unit one final heave next to the doors of the Super Duper Mart. He'd figure out a way to get it back to Megaton later, he'd been out scavenging since two in the fucking morning and he was exhausted. He wandered back into the store and sat on an overturned shopping cart, resting his eyes for a moment as his thoughts turned to Megaton, or more specifically, the teenaged girl who he hoped was still peacefully asleep in his bed. The girl's nightmares had been taking a toll on them both, causing her to wake up, crying for her lost loved ones in the cramped bed that she had begged him to share with her.

She wasn't his problem. The boy shook his head, that wasn't quite correct. He'd taken the girl in, provided and cared for her, and had bedded her not even twelve hours ago. The girl shouldn't be his problem, but he had done more than enough to ensure that she was his problem. He didn't know what to do with a traumatized young woman, he didn't even know what he was going to do with himself! Before he'd encountered and rescued Zoe, David at least had the goal of tracking down and getting some answers from his father. That was pretty much the only thing that had kept him going since he fled 101, having a purpose. The bounties, the scavenging? Those were just a means to that end.

But now? Zoe didn't fit into that. If the girl couldn't bring herself to leave his room on her own, how the hell was he going to convince her to come with him, going who knows where, to track down his father who might just be dead already? He'd felt that he was almost prepared to make the trip to Rivet City and beyond, and she'd brought that to a screeching halt.
It had taken him every cap he'd scrounged up to convince Lucas to sell him the vacant house near the town entrance, as well as the promise of more caps, and several services to be rendered. He'd had his eyes on the house, sure, but David had wanted to get it on his own terms, and his own time.

He certainly didn't regret it, but David had planned to use those caps in Rivet City to purchase armor, ammunition and supplies to use in the search for his father.

Part of him wanted to just cut his losses, and abandon the girl. Have another romp with her, since that was all she'd proven to be good for so far, gather his few possessions and just leave in the night. Whatever happened to her after that wouldn't be his problem. And as much as David hated to admit it? He was a product of his environment. He didn't really trust or care about other people. In 101, he'd felt more than justified in that, and he didn't have any reason to feel otherwise towards the various denizens of Megaton.

But Zoe? She was in a similar boat as him, only hers was on fire, sinking rapidly and didn't have any life preservers in sight. She didn't have any reason to lie to him. The tears that the girl shed when he walked her past the riddled corpse of her father were real

And after taking her to bed with him, for the first time in her life? The very thought left a bad taste in his mouth. He had a fair idea of why she'd propositioned him last night, and it only made him feel that much worse about the whole thing.
So no, leaving Zoe behind, especially in her current state, was not even on the board. He was involved with her now, one way or another.

Unfortunately, that left him back at square one. What was he going to do with himself, let alone Zoe? Once again, that small part of him spoke up, screaming at him to use his common sense, just leave now! "Should've just stayed in the Vault." He muttered, wiping at the wetness gathering in his eyes. "Wouldn't have any of this fucking shit to deal with." But that was selfish, wishful thinking, he knew it. Staying hadn't even been an option, the fucking Overseer had seen to that, even in death. "You just had to- to fucking start that witch-hunt of yours, you paranoid fucking dead sack of shit! I had nothing to do with the roaches or Dad leaving, nothing!" David had never liked the Overseer, Bannon or his lapdogs in the Mack family. Hell, he hated half of the assholes living in the Vault, and he'd never made any effort to hide that fact, same as they did to him!

Pulling the trigger on Officer Kendall wasn't too hard, the bastard had came at him with a shotgun. A fucking twelve-gauge shotgun, loaded with slugs, intended for use against an unarmed boy. David remembered the look on the bastard's face as he disarmed him, and turned the shotgun against him.

The next guard he came across met a similar end.

Gomez had simply stepped aside when he and David ran into each other. Maybe it was the shotgun, maybe it was the blood on his jumpsuit. Maybe Gomez had seen something in the boy's face, in his eyes.
Something dark, something that quietly reveled in what was happening, and hungered for more.
Or maybe he also thought the Overseer was a paranoid, murdering, authoritarian asshole, and respected David enough to not get himself killed over something the boy didn't have a hand in.

David figured it was probably the last one. Gomez was a good guy.

Everything he'd done up to the point where he came upon Jonas' broken and bloodied body in the Overseer's suite had been self-defense. He certainly didn't shy from or regret ending anyone who came at him, but he hadn't sought anyone out for revenge.
After that? What had been building for well over a decade, the exhausting work, the scorn, the broken bones, the loneliness? It came to an end, the business end of his shotgun. Amata would probably never forgive him, but he couldn't really blame her. Were their situations reversed, he would have done far worse than telling her to leave.

David slowly stood up, letting out a heavy breath as he walked to the closest check-out counter, and leaned against it.

Had it come to an end, though? Here he was, out here in this strange, unknown wasteland. He was killing and scavenging to get by, having to decide between lunch or ammunition on a daily basis. He'd almost died four times in the last week, he had nobody to back him up out here, and he'd made no fucking progress in finding his father at all!

It hadn't fucking ended! He was alone still, more than ever before! Sure, there was the girl, Zoe. She was interested in him, one way or another.

But she wasn't out here with him, she was hiding in Megaton.

The boy froze as it finally hit him in full; he had no plan, no help coming, nobody to tell him where to go, what to do, how to handle this situation. He was on his own now, whether he liked it or not, and he had someone depending on him to get his shit together and stop moping about. Adapt, improvise and overcome, like his father was fond of telling him.

David stood in silence for a bit, clenching his fists against the counter and mulling over his options. Purchasing the vacant house in Megaton hadn't been an entirely altruistic move. He'd not only secured a roof over his and Zoe's head, and a safe place to store their belongings, but he now had a staging and fall-back point for any expeditions into the Wasteland, even after he found his father.
Zoe would be the first item on his list. Whether he liked it or not, he wouldn't be able to abandon her. She needed him, and he could definitely use someone who was native to the Wasteland at his side. His father could wait, he was the reason that David had found himself in this mess. His old man grew up in the wastes, anyway, and would most likely, probably be okay until David sought him out. He let out a heavy sigh, pushing off from the counter and heading towards his discarded armor.

Detach, adapt, improvise, overcome. Easier said than done of course, but David had a new trick up his sleeve when it came to clearing his head.

David stretched his sore arms, before donning the few pieces of combat armor he'd acquired over the past week. His heartbeat picked up in anticipation of what was to come, as he retrieved his assault rifle and checked it for potential misfires. Killing was one of the things that David had thought about at length, ever since he'd thwarted the radroach invasion of the reactor level on his tenth birthday. He'd wondered since then what it would be like to take the life of another person. The boy had put a fair amount of thought into the subject, but he'd never been able to actually answer that question, only speculate. Then his father left the Vault, and he got his answer.

He didn't want to say that he liked killing, but he couldn't deny the rush it gave him. So far, the firefights had been quick, brutal and by god, had they been intense. It gave him chills, it felt empowering beyond belief, having and exercising the opportunity to take someone's life.

And it wasn't just the killing, no. His kills in 101 had left him with mixed feelings, necessary as most of them had been, but the raiders? They were a different story. Something had awoken in the boy during his flight from 101, and it only grew stronger as he hunted down and killed his first group of raiders. He was doing good, every time he killed a raider. He was fighting a good fight, and that satisfied him in a way that he couldn't quite put into words.

David shivered in anticipation as he left the store and headed towards the nearby river. As a part of his services to be rendered, Lucas had informed David of a small group of raiders camped out near the Farragut West Metro, on the river's edge. They were taking potshots at travelers and merchant caravans journeying between Rivet City and Megaton, and would be a threat when he finally convinced Zoe to make the trip to Rivet City with him.

As he walked, David absentmindedly ran a thumb over the notches he'd carved in the stock of his assault rifle, one for each group of murdering, scumbag assholes he'd taken care of so far.

They wouldn't be a threat for much longer.

"Okay, um, here's another one. Are you ready?” Zoe smiled, she'd learned this one from a friendly scavenger who would come by her farm to trade every month. “Okay, okay, so two chemists walk into a bar. The first tells the bartender, 'I'd like a glass of H2O, please.' The second tells the bartender, 'I'd like a glass of water, too.' As the bartender goes to fill their orders, the first chemist fumes, seeing his assassination attempt foiled." The girl giggled as she finished her retelling, despite having heard and told this particular joke dozens of times.

“I'm afraid I don't understand the premise of this joke, Madame.”

Zoe's mouth scrunched up, she'd also had to explain this joke more times than not. “Well, the first chemist asked for a glass of H2O, that's the atomic formula for water. If the second chemist had asked for a glass of water in the same manner, he would have asked for a glass of H2O, too. But if the second chemist had phrased his request like that, he would have been asking for a glass of hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, instead of water, H2O. Get it?”

The butler-bot bobbed in place again, “I see it now, very good! The humor is in the second chemist's termination.”

Zoe opened her mouth to explain further, but the door swung open and David walked in. All of a sudden, the girl felt very small again. She'd managed to distract herself and was having a good time with Wadsworth, but now he was here and his armor had a few new dents in it and he smelled like a gunfight and he was looking at-

"Hey, Zoe. You feeling a little better today?"

Her only response was a small, timid nod, hugging her arms to herself. David let out a sigh, and sat next to her on the stairs. "Zoe, I- I did some thinking, while I was out. I have done wrong by you, and if you're acting this way towards me, then I can only assume you've come to that realization too."

Zoe perked up a bit, was this really happening? "I, um, well no, but I had a bad dream about you and I-I did want to talk to you about some things, if that's okay with you."

"Last night one of them?" The girl nodded again, and David continued. "Yeah. I, uh, go ahead then, ask me what you want to know. I've got a lot to get off my chest, and I just don't know how to say it."

A few moments passed in silence, before the girl replied, "Um, I- a-am I going to be pregnant?"

David shook his head, "Unless you've had sex with anyone else since I left this morning, no. I'm, uh, I'm sterile. Found that out when the Overseer had me and the rest of the guys tested for, ah, viability."

Zoe frowned. "I'm sorry."

The boy shrugged. "Don't be." An awkward silence fell over the two, until Zoe quietly spoke up again.

"Why did you leave me, this morning? Why have you been leaving me all alone?"

He looked down at the girl, as she looked up at him with teary eyes. "Because, honestly, I have no idea what to do with you, Zoe." He sounded tired to Zoe, and not just in the physical sense, as he continued. "Look, last night, the past three days, I've been going about this whole thing the wrong fucking way, I know that much. But I don't know what I'm doing out here now, with or without you. I had a single purpose when I left the Vault, and that was finding my father to get some answers from him. Everything I'd been doing up until finding and rescuing you, I'd been doing to further that goal. Now, I don't regret saving you and killing all those bastards, not at all, but you've derailed that." The girl seemed to wilt at that, and opened her mouth to respond, but David hushed her with a finger and continued. "I just said, I do not regret saving you. If I had it to do over, I would not hesitate a single second to get in there and start shooting, and I'm not saying that because you slept with me, either. But the fact still stands that I do not know what to do with you."

Zoe didn't know, either.

David took a deep breath, offering his left arm in a hug, "Regardless of what happens, I will figure something out. And if you'll still have me as a friend after we finish talking, then we will figure something out. Okay?" Zoe quickly nodded, accepting the hug. "Does that sound good to you?"

Zoe took a moment to think it over, before giving him another nod. "I, um, I know you have things to do, a-and you're looking for your daddy, so I promise to try to help in any way that I can. I'm scared and I don't know what I'm going to do either. But I know that I have to get over this, eventually, and I'm tired of feeling so little, and so helpless all the time! You make me feel a little bit safer so please, please don't leave me all alone again, please? I'll do anything, just please don't leave me."

David frowned. "If it's in my power, I won't. We're in this together, now." The girl smiled, resting her head against David's chest. "But there's a few things we're gonna have to clear up before we can move forward, the most important being last night." The boy took a deep breath, and sighed. "I'm going to say my piece, before I lose my nerve and start making bullshit excuses, so do me a favor and don't interrupt until I'm done. Can you do that for me?"

Zoe realized that she'd been doing a lot of nodding in the time since David's return. "I, um, yes. For what it's worth, I don't regret it. It was..." Her cheeks flushed, "It wasn't so bad, after it stopped hurting." She wasn't lying, either. The penetration had been harsh, what with David being much bigger than her, and both of them not knowing what they were doing.
But the pain eventually faded to a manageable level, and the girl was able to enjoy the sensation of just being filled, kissed and caressed by the big guy.

David frowned, his voice a bit unsteady as he continued. "Don't say that just yet. Zoe, I, I feel like I took advantage of you last night, by taking you up on your offer of sex while you were not in a sound state of mind. I could make excuses until the sun goes down, but the fact stands that I took advantage of you. It was not my intention to do so, never was, but I did. You're dealing with a significant amount of psychological trauma, Zoe, and you were clearly in distress. The issue of consent gets a little messy at that point. What I did could very well be considered, well-" Another sigh. "-it could be considered rape."

The girl tensed, but she did not move from her spot. There was some merit to his words, but after some thought, she felt otherwise. "Look at it from my direction, Zoe. You've had everything taken away from you, you had nowhere to go, nobody to turn to other than some random guy who stumbled upon and rescued you by chance. If I were in your shoes- I can't even imagine being in your shoes! I-"

A soft pair of lips, gently pressing against his own cut him off. His immediate reaction was to try and push the girl away, but as she climbed into his lap and straddled him, he decided to just go with it. Mixed feelings about sleeping with the girl aside, he still wanted her. She let out a happy little noise as he pushed into her kiss, holding her close by the waist.

As his hands slid down past her undershirt to cup her rear, he noticed that she was wearing one of his undershirts, most likely the one he'd been wearing when he took her to bed... and nothing else.

David felt like he should bring that to her attention at some point, but for the moment he was content with loving on the beautiful girl in his lap.

Almost a minute passed before Zoe pulled back, face flushed and panting as she felt David caressing her bare bottom. Her face flushed even harder as she realized that she was pushing her rear into his hands, and his gentle ministrations. She didn't really know where this, this forwardness was coming from, but it made the normally shy, reserved girl feel more confident, and she liked it. "David, can I talk now, and you'll listen to me?" The boy nodded, moving his hands up to her hips as she continued. "I still don't regret giving my, um, virginity to you, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I don't feel like you took advantage of me, either. Maybe you did, maybe you didn't, you did make a good point about consent. But I made the offer, David. If you had came to me and told me that I owed you sex for saving my life, then I definitely think that would have been taking advantage of me. But you didn't."

David opened his mouth to rebut her, but she silenced him with another kiss, just a quick one this time. "Please let me finish, before I lose my nerve, a-and go back to being shy. I don't know why I offered myself to you, but what's done is done, and I still don't regret it. Maybe I was just fed up with being lonely and scared and I thought that having sex with you would make you hang around longer before leaving me each day, m-maybe I thought I owed you something, something for saving my life and taking me under your protection and feeding me and not asking anything of me at all."

The girl paused, tucking her face into the crook of David's neck. She was crying again, surprise! "Maybe I'm just a naive, desperate little girl clinging to the only thing I have right now in the only way I can think of, I-I-I don't know. And I don't know why you took me to bed with you. But I don't think I care, either."

They both sat in silence, David idling rubbing Zoe's back as she cried herself out against him. She jerked, just a little, as he spoke up. "I- You're beautiful, did you know that? Has anyone ever told you that?' The girl flushed a little, mumbling something about her parents. "I guess, and it just sounds like I'm making an excuse here, but I guess that, well, you did catch me off-guard. I just know that I was tired, I was in one of my moods, and as soon as I walk in the bedroom door you're in your underwear, and you're kissing and holding onto me and I-" He paused, "I felt so fucking ashamed afterwards, that- that I just left, once you'd fallen asleep. I know you just said you don't regret it, but I will respect whatever decision you make regarding us sleeping together."

Zoe shyly glanced up at David. "Do you regret it?"

David stopped rubbing her back, moving his hand down to her waist. "No. You were so, so soft, so warm, you felt so goddamn good to be inside, Zoe. Just thinking about it makes me want you, again and again and again until I can go no more. So, no, I don't regret sleeping with you. But if I had it to do over, I'd unfuck myself from the beginning, and make sure you were in a well-enough state of mind to make that decision, or even to simply stay here by yourself while I scavenge and- and hunt. I kinda figured that you don't want anything to do with that fucking Super Duper Mart, so that's why I haven't been taking you out with me. I knew you were in a bad way, but if I'd known you were hurting like this, I wouldn't have left you here all alone."

Zoe pulled away from David, just enough to plant another kiss on his lips. "I think, maybe we both did wrong by each other. I don't blame you for not knowing what I'm going through, and I don't think you're a bad person, David. I... I think I can trust you. I think, I think that if you were a bad person, or if you didn't care, we wouldn't be having this talk, you'd just be trying to get in my pants again, o-or worse. I think neither of us know what we're doing out here, a-and that's okay. We'll just have to-"

"-figure it out together. I- heh, yeah." It was David's turn to initiate a kiss, and Zoe loved every second of it. "Tell you what, Zoe, mulligan?" He chuckled at her confused look. "Mulligan, it's slang for getting a do-over. Why don't we start over?"

Zoe smiled, wriggling around until she was sitting sideways on his lap. "Okay, um, hi! My name is Zoe, spelled with an 'E', Deloss, I like cooking, computers and robots, my favorite color is pink, and I'm a Taurus. What's your name?"

"Hi, 'Zoe-spelled-with-an-'E'', my name is David Cooke, also spelled with an 'E'. I like guns, food, pretty girls, and fixing things, my favorite color is red, and I don't believe in astrology. You looking for someone to wander the wastes with?"

The girl giggled, "Well, the wasteland is scary and I prefer to know where I'm going, but wandering doesn't sound too bad. Especially if I have a big, tough guy like you at my side."

The two lapsed into silence after that, content to sit on the stairs and hold each other as Wadsworth went about his business upstairs. What had awoken a week ago in David burned bright inside him as the girl dozed off against him, strengthening his resolve to protect and help not only the girl, but anyone who was in need. He had a chance at a new lot in life. There was nobody out here to tell him what to do or where to go, that much was true. But the boy realized that he didn't need anyone to guide him. This was his life now, and he was going to make the most of it. He knew, first-hand, that there was much evil and misery out in the wastes.

The traumatized girl snoozing against him was more than enough proof of that.

So, for the first time since his flight from Vault 101, David started to plan. He couldn't do a whole lot of good by himself, and he wasn't about to put Zoe in the line of fire for his admittedly lofty goals, regardless of whatever type of relationship they would end up in. The girl struck him as the type to want a quiet life. And after what she'd been through so far? She deserved it. If it was within his power, she would have that quiet life.

David softly rubbed the girl's shoulder, and closed his own eyes. First things first, they needed some actual furniture in this house. A bigger bed, for sure, with extra sheets, just in case Zoe was up for more fun. A few workbenches, a couch, maybe, and some extra storage. He'd get that once he was able to finish his scavenging later in the day, after ensuring that Zoe would either be fine by herself, or coming with him. The Protectron unit he'd left in the store would likely fetch him a pretty sum of caps, given the excellent condition it was in. After that, he'd work on helping Zoe get over her trauma. He wanted to visit Rivet City sooner rather than later.

Also, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to see the girl smiling more often, and more sure of herself. Finding his father would come after that, and the boy figured that it would be a good thing for Zoe, as well. His father was smart, and probably knew how to help Zoe.

"Hey, David?" His eyes snapped open, and he glanced down to see Zoe shyly looking up at him.

"Yeah, what's up?"

The girl took a breath to sturdy herself, and asked, "What are we going to be?"

"Aside from a team, you mean?" She nodded, and David shrugged. "We can try to make something out of this, or we can move on. It's up to you, Zoe. I'm... different, and I'm sure you've noticed that. There's a long-winded, boring explanation I could give you, but it all boils down to this; sometimes I feel, sometimes I don't. Valleys and hills, simple as that. Everything just kind of, turned off a while back, I can't really control it, and that just became the status quo. You'll have to understand that, if we're going to enter any sort of romantic relationship."

"Do you, um, feel anything right now?"

David pulled the girl a little closer. "I uh, yeah. I could blame it on you, on a sudden change of environment, on anything, but yeah. I'm back to normal, for now. If you're asking whether or not I feel any sort of way towards you in particular... I don't know. I think you're beautiful, and I'd like to get to know you more, so there's that, I guess. I've never, uh, never really done this before."

Zoe flushed a bit, turning her face into David's chest. Such a flatterer! "Oh, um, okay. I've never done this, either. You were my, m-my first, and I'd really like to get to know you more, too. I think part of it is because you saved my life, but," the girl paused, "...I really like you, David. I think you're probably a really, really great guy, and I would love to give a, um, relationship with you a try."

The boy absentmindedly nodded his head, before moving Zoe off his lap, standing up and offering her his hand. "Well, if you think you could brave going outside with me, we give this a test run. Are you okay with that?"

Zoe hesitated, before taking his hand letting him pull her up. "Um, yes. I am okay with that. Going out, it- it doesn't sound so scary, now. You'll keep me safe, right?"

David smiled, "You know it. Let's get cleaned up and get you some clothes on, and I'll take you to the Brass Lantern for lunch. It'll be a practice-date. When we get back, we can talk about those nightmares you've been having, if you want."

For the first time in over two weeks, Zoe's smile reached her eyes. Things were looking up.