Fallout Equestria - Long Way Home

Interlude 3

        The ghouls from the previous night were carrying very little supplies. The only thing cool I could find in the entire aftermath was a ripper. The spark battery on the inside of the handle was already half drained and it was in terrible condition. It was almost as though someone wanted to break it.

        Luckily I found a couple of spark batteries in the ammo box they brought with them. It was a hard lock for a newbie, but then again I’m not a newbie to picking locks. It only took 2 bobby pins and a screw driver to get it open. It looked like that was all the supplies I was going to scavenge for the day, so I took what I had inside.

        I walked to the workbench and used my screwdriver to open up the Ripper’s handle to find the old spark battery. It looked old and smoldered. “No wonder it didn’t work.” I muttered. After I replaced the battery it was an easy fix. Wood splinters (who tried to cut wood with it?) were stuck inside the chain, slowing it chain speed so I removed it. With it fixed I put it back together and sharpened the blades on the chain to a point.

        I squeezed the handle on the Ripper and it came to life with a sputter. A smirk came across my face. “Now this is a formidable melee weapon.” I stuck it magnetically to the side of my right leg and stood up.

        Just then I remembered that I was still very low on food. It could not be put off any longer, I had to make the journey to Baltimare and trade some of my Alcohol for it. “And just when things were going right…”

        I checked my ammunition for Chaos. I still had 85 shots left total, the last 85 in equestria. The ponies here did not make Microfusion Cells like they did back home. I had neglected the fact that I needed a weapon I could easily find ammo for. “Well, might as well trade for a pistol too.”

        I made use of just about everything the ghoul ponies had left behind. The ammo box lock was converted into a lock for my door. I even stumbled upon a valuable recipe for Dash, which was put up safely in my house for my return.

        The ghouls in this area came from the swamps to the south. That meant taking an alternate route to Baltimare. A direct confrontation with a large hostile force was bound to end badly for me, especially since I needed double doses of healing potions. The two I had on me would run out fast, but there was no backing out now. So I packed up my bag, and posted a sign out in front of my house, it read “This is my Swamp”.

[====A====]

        The first three hours of traveling were largely uneventful, besides killing a few of those annoying sprite bots. Until then I didn’t know they had a programmed voice, sometimes yelling at me for clubbing it to death with the butt of my rifle. God, those things were so annoying.

        I largely kept myself entertained by trying to tune into the pony radio stations. They normally weren’t compatible with my Pip-Boy so it took a bit of work to get a good signal. Although there were only really two clear stations. One being from some guy in Manehattan and the other a man named DJ Pon-3. The guy from Manehattan was a bore, and the one from Tenpony tower had like 15 songs (and not a single one from Elvis Presley, which my daddy recorded on to vinyl discs from his Pip-Boy). After DJ Pon-3 started to talk about a stable dweller for third time, I shut it off and turned on my own music on the Pip-Boy.

        Although the radio offered no entertainment, the road offered even less, at least until I saw a little pack of ponies run down a side path of the road. At first I thought they were just running away from me, but then their were more traveling down the path. So I did what any person in a scary suit of power armor would do, I followed them down the path.

        The camouflage of dusk allowed me to be unseen as I followed from a distance. I was no master of sneak, especially in heavy armor, but they weren’t particularly vigilant either.

        “I wonder what goodies they have up there.” I thought to myself as we neared their camp. There were a few tents surrounding a fire, but separate from the campsite was a large metal constructed statue. It was no masterpiece, but impressive none the less for being made out scrap. The only problem was that I couldn’t see what it was, but what I could see was a rack of red wine by the statue. So while they were conversing, I crept over to the area which now was visibly an altar.

        At about 20 feets distance, it was clear that the statue was a pony, but unlike anything else it had a horn and wings. That was interesting, but the wine was calling my name. Using the statue as cover I picked bottles off of the rack and put them in my bag. They looked cheap but that was justified when I noticed that there were communion crackers on the altar next to the wine. What sort of camp was this?

        After nearly stuffing my bag the pony crowd shifted towards the altar. The sermon was starting and I had to get out of there. Unfortunately there was no direction to go without being seen. The pony up front began to speak.

“Shit.” I whispered to myself.

“We gather here today to give the ultimate gift to the goddess. The gift of our time. In the best interest of our services, we ask you donate 5 caps for attendance, or dedicate a few hours of your time to some services.” The smirk across his face after the word services scared me and I couldn’t help but wonder what these services were.

“Some of you newcomers must be wondering, what is our mission here? The answer is, the ultimate sacrifice. Not of flesh but of time. We all wish to join the great unity some day.”

I was seriously considering risking a run into the darkness surrounding the camp when I saw a golden necklace on the altar. I knew that this could fetch a good price.

His rant continued for several minutes until I realized it was definitely time to go. So I did something I’m not proud of, I threw a full wine bottle in the direction east of the camp. The entire crowd turned in that general direction, giving me time to slip away and run to the main road with my loot in tow.

[====A====]

        Upon arrival in Manehattan, everypony acted as expected. It is amazing what being a biped can do to a pony. Although some of my frightening appearance could have been the consequence of the huge metal armor around me.Most children were ushered inside their homes at a fast pace.

        Even though everypony was running scared, I couldn’t help but admire the repaired city they had built. Most of the market consisted of wooden stalls with sheet metal roofs, but it was a functioning system nonetheless. Surprisingly enough, my Pip-Boy didn’t pick up any radiation around here, at least very little.

        Another relic my spectacular daddy left me in this wasteland, was a modded Pip-Boy that could pick up magical radiation, as the local populous called it. It did come in handy considering that was the only form of radiation in this land. The extensive library in the basement told me this. Although in theory, if a balefire bomb drew its energy from the sun, it could be potentially radioactive. So my Pip-Boy’s geiger counter is helpful like five percent of the time.

        I wandered around in the market square for awhile, looking for anypony to trade with. It seemed like hours until I stumbled upon a blind stall owner who thought he speaking to a pony. The disadvantage of trading with him was the fact he had to take a sip from every bottle of apple whiskey before he bought them. That bastard was drunk half way through, although this did help to smooth some trading over. We settled on the bag of apple whiskey and wine for 32 cans of tuna, 10 cans of pork n beans and a 12.7 mm pistol. I managed to make him throw in a clip of armor piercing ammo with it.

        The problem with the trade occurred when he asked to shake my hoof. I insisted against it, saying I had the flu. “Now youngster, Ah ain’t never done no deal without a hoof shake.” The old geezer replied.

I caved and grabbed his hoof and shook. At first their was no response, but my luck broke. “Gah, what the fuck are you!” He threw my hand away and reached to take his supplies back. Luckily, I saw it coming and swooped all of the supplies back into my bag. “This is why we don’t leave the house.” I thought angrily at myself.

At this point I had one thing in my favor and another out of it. I did have a head start to run the fuck out of here, but the old man was starting to yell. I quickly made the executive decision to swipe back some of my whiskey for bad service and turned to run. My legs felt stiff and slow from today’s walk, but my adrenaline kept me going as I ran at full speed down the street.

A guard jumped in front of my path with a rifle in hand, he aimed down the sights at my head. So I did the one thing nopony could do, drop on the ground. The wind was knocked out of me as I hit my stomach hard, but it confused the pony long enough for me to close my distance. I brandished the knife magnetised to my leg and dug it deep into his neck. Blood spilled all over my daddy’s enclave armor as I threw the guard over with force.

The fright of me taking out the guard made the other ponies think twice about getting close. Instead they pulled out their firearms and kept their distance. The ponies with fully automatic weapons opened fire on me. The gate was just a few yards now, and luckily nopony was brave enough to try to close and lock it.

Three bullets smashed into my torso, dinging off onto the streets. I wouldn’t have been scared, except for the ever looming possibility that one of them had magical or armor piercing rounds. Unfortunately for me, I soon figured out they had both.

With just a few feet left to the gate, an armor piercing round dug through my seemingly indestructible suit right in the calf. “Fuck, shit, fuck!!!” I screamed in utter agony, but I ran on through the gate. I was almost out of sight in time to escape the magical bullet whizzing at my arm, but the bullet in my leg slowed me down.

The magical bullet buried into my arm with a cold feeling. The wound was seemingly numb until the bullet ignited. The fire sent searing pain up and down my arm. “Oh my god, my arm is on fire!!” I unlocked the sleeve of my armor and tore it away. Still running, I jabbed my knife into my arm and flung the bullet out. “Fuck!!” I screamed and thrashed wildly, but the damaged was already done.

From my wrist to my shoulder, I was covered with second and third degree burns. With care, I emptied the contents of my canteen onto the burn. “I have to move, fuck.” I whispered aloud, they would catch up to me soon.

I pushed myself up with my right arm, (the not burnt one) and began to stumble down the trail. My burn ached, and my foot cried out in pain with every step, but I couldn’t stop. I had to get home and treat myself right away. The swelling in my leg told me that there could be a raging infection soon, not to mention my boot was filling up with my own blood, causing it to develop blisters.

I don’t know if it was the blood loss or lack of sleep, but the walk felt hazy and dream like. I began to think of home, not this wasteland but real home. Well, real home was still a wasteland, but there I wasn’t a monster. My daddy died when I was 13, and with him any hope of getting home. As far as I knew, there was no way.

Me and daddy had arrived here by some sort of teleportation device in a facility. We had been scavenging the area looking for guns to sell. I was too young to remember the details, but I sure do remember arriving here. These people were xenophobic and suspicious of everything. Back home, we were way further ahead than this. Not technology wise, but definitely with interacting with each other.

I was awaken from my daze by a sprite-bot, surprisingly I was still walking. I did not have the energy beat the shit out of it, so I let it play its annoying tunes. The sprite-bot’s song stopped, and it started another one of those pre recorded messages.

 “This is not a pre recorded message you dick wad and I swear to god I’ll hunt you down if you try to blow me up again! Now be a good, whatever you are and listen.” This caught my attention, so I froze and looked at the bot. “Look, it is obvious that you are in bad shape, you took a magical bullet in the arm. I have a drop area with medical supplies, but you must do a job for me in return. I noticed that you are quite effective with a gun, are you not?” The sprite bot emitted from its speaker.

 It took a second to gather my thoughts. “Well, I learned from the best. What do I need to do for you?”

The sprite-bot again spoke. “I do not like questions, do not ask them. All will be revealed when the time is right. The time will be when you arrive at Tenpony tower in 9 weeks and not a day more. If you fail to comply, a bounty will be placed on your head for a significant amount. Goodbye.”

“Wait, how do I contact you, what’s your name?” I shouted just in time.

The speaker was static for a minute and I thought he had gone. “What did I tell you about questions Arthur? I shall contact you. As for names...hmm...well..I suppose you can just call me...Watcher.”

With that, the speaker resumed its horrible music, and I was tempted to smash it but refrained. Then a thought raced through my head, I don’t know where the medicine supplies are. How did I forget to ask him? I sighed and continued walking forward, frustrate+-

--d and confused until a blip appeared on my Pip-Boy interface. A grin passed my face, he had marked the location for me and it was only a few miles down the road.

My pace quickened and excitement spread through my body. I was going to live after all. For some reason this made me more and more excited with every step, even though every step was filled with pain. I tried to keep my mind off of fulfilling Watcher’s request. To travel from here to Tenpony tower in 9 weeks would be hard with my leg in its current position.

I rounded the bend up ahead and noticed the camp that I had been to earlier. I tried to sneak by as best I could for fear of them seeing who I was. I ran up behind a rock as cover from the campfire light. The camp was strangely much quieter than before. Like suspiciously quieter.

The midnight black tents revealed nothing behind them, and neither did the campfire. Still something seemed very wrong about the scene, and I couldn’t peel myself away from it. Although my waiting paid off when I heard some talking up ahead. I carefully crept toward the inner edge of the camp with inexpirienced footing.

“Get the hell off of me! Ow fuck my wing!” The shouting came from the statue that I had hid behind earlier. They had a poor griffin in a cage, and the savages were poking her with sharp sticks. Tactical or not, I walked towards them.

“Hey you bastards, what the hell? How would you like it if..” I was cut off abruptly by a brief slamming into the concrete. I would have to work on my padding in my armor.

I sat up slowly, my head throbbing. My head wasn’t injured horribly, although it did feel like it was being violated. My feeling was soon confirmed.

“How dare you come to this place and steal from the goddess. How audacious and rude of you.” A voice spoke clearly in my head.

“What the fuck did you just do to me?” I demanded in shock.

“It is called telekinesis you savage. Now I have lured you back here to teach you a lesson you will not soon forget.”

A large aura surrounded the winged pony that approached me. The energy practically radiated off of her. I think it was a her.

“So you caged a griffin, tortured her and then used her as bait to lure me back as punishment for stealing wine?”

The figure shifted slightly. “Well...um...yes, yes I did.”

“Wow, you bitch.”

She obviously took offence to this. “You do not speak to me in that tone you mere mortal. Now you shall pay with your own blood.”

Five shots then rang out two of them struck the winged figure, it screamed out in pain. Realizing my chance, I stepped close enough to it to unleash a power armored fist to it’s face, followed by five shots from my laser rifle. Only two made contact even though I was at practically

point blank range.

As it fell to the ground, I stomped on it’s head. Then took the time to cut it’s horn off, better safe than sorry. It’s unconsciousness was nice but now all the ponies that were antagonizing the griffin decided to try and kick my ass. Grabbing Chaos from my back I fired a special delivery of photonic death at the stick wielding assholes.

After ashing a couple ponies, the griffon turned to me.

“Thanks for the save, but what the fuck are you?” she said not trying to offend me but very curious.

“The guy who just saved your ass.” before she could respond I asked “ you wouldn’t by chance be a surgeon.”  She just pointed a claw to something behind me.

“Depends on your definition of surgeon,” A smug male voice panted from behind me. Turning to face the stallion who had said that.  The Guy who had said that was an actual human, he didn’t have a cow head like those minotaur things. Although I could see half of his armor was charred, and his left arm was burned.

“So could you remove bullets and bullet fragments?” Whatever happiness I felt at the knowledge I wasn’t the only human in this place took a back seat to the slug currently residing in my leg.

“Probably, where did you take this bullet?” The seemingly concerned human responded.

“Got shot in the leg and my left arm is roasted.” Maybe he knows what he’s doing...it’s worth giving him a shot.

        “A leg...a leg I can do,” He says not exactly giving off confidence to spare. “But, since you shot me, you should probably patch me up too. Asshole.”

        I chuckled, he took a couple in the arm but still had sarcasm to spare. “Sorry, I’m not a very good shot when I’m sober.”

        He snorted and stuck out his hand for a shake. I gripped his hand and shook, but promptly slapped his burnt arm. He chuckled  halfheartedly, but got the point.

        “So, what is your name?” The man asked.

        “Arthur, and you?”

        “Jake, nice to meet you your majesty.” He said sarcastically.

“Hey, before you go all amateur surgeon can you get me outta this cage?” The griffon groaned.

        While Jake fucked with the cage, I managed to strip myself of the armor still surrounding me.  I pulled out my last bottle of whisky and sat down by the fire.

        I realized how thirsty I truly was as the bottle touched my lips. I couldn’t help but gulp without moderation.

        End of Interlude Three

Don’t Beat a Dead Horse

Footnote

27.678934% to level up