Fallout Equestria - Long Way Home

Chapter Ten: What Was Lost

“I’m just glad I haven’t been replaced by a bucket of turnips.”

        I awoke to the sound of a loud squawk, naturally I pulled my .45 from under my pillow before even ascertaining the threat. It was only after I had Nightflight in my sights that I realized my griffon friend was just trying to wake me up.

“There was no trying about it, she woke us up.” Synthie said through my Pip-Boy speakers to the effect of startling Nightflight.

        “The fuck was that?” She yelled either because of Synthie speaking, or perhaps because I had yet to lower my gun.

        “Remember me telling you about the annoying voice I kept hearing in my mind?” I say while lowering my gun. She nods in agreement to my question, before Synthie decides to speak once more.

“Nice to formally meet you, Nightflight,” He says this in a sickeningly British version of my own voice, like unsweetened ice tea and crumpets british.

        I begin my routine of equipping armor and stretching while they (mostly Nightflight) got acquainted.

Before I had finished ‘upgrading my casing’ they had begun making the first of many  jokes at my expense.

“So after the bounty hunter,”  he started before Nightflight interjected.

“Dusk Beam,” She corrected more him more politely than I had her speak before in the short time I had known her.

“Left him in the room he just sat down and moped for seventeen minutes forty three seconds before we started moving.” Their communal laughter gave me thoughts of trying to intervene, but in all reality doing that would only make things worse. At the time he asked the next question I was in the process of reloading my spent magazines both for the forty five and Epilogue. “Query, males don’t usually object to having sex, correct?”

“Yeah… wait, did he start to cry or something?” She asked incredulously.

I was looking through my bag trying to ignore them and I noticed that I still had the That Gun, I was deliberating as to whether to keep it, it was mostly an attempt to distract myself from their continuing conversation. Honestly though at least my ‘companions’ talking about me, directly in front of me is on some ways better than having them talk behind your back. Gives you fair warning before a mutiny or something right?

I loaded the revolver with starmetal rounds, and replaced the the rifle magazine filled with the rest of the starmetal rounds with conventional rounds. That being done I muffled my Pip-Boys speaker with my gloved right hand.

“Hey, he’s better a conversation than you are,” Nightflight said in a mopey tone. I had a small, but definitely present, urge to strangle her. You can’t go from hormonal teenage girl to amoral killing machine. Or maybe you shouldn’t… or maybe all teenage females as a rule secretly have a wanton disregard for basic morality. Stop Jake, just keep with the subject at hand.

“I’ll uncover the speaker when he agrees to bugger off about my personal life,” I say before I hear an affirmative in my head.

“Why are you speaking in a pseudo english manner?” Synthie asked as soon as he had the ability to speak out loud.

        “With all the digging you’ve done through my memories, you must have learned I speak eclectically,” I responded as I began putting my rifle magazines in their places.

“You’re making some of that for me, right,” Nightflight asks to which I nod.

“I didn’t think you speak the way you do just to obtain a mild rush, a rush that is predicated upon being borderline incomprehensible. Now that it’s been brought to the forefront of conversation I must say that it is an almost sociopathic behavior.” Synthie was acting like it was a punishment to cohabitate a body with me, and not the other way around.

To put it in perspective, how many times has someone back seat driven you? Okay, maybe a lot, maybe never, but you’re aware of how the phenomena works right? Well imagine someone being perpetually with you, but they also give you ‘helpful’ hints when you’re doing something like taking a leak. Some things aren’t meant to shared experiences but when these things become a collective experience, it becomes annoying rather quickly, (Ex. the observer telling you the optimal angle of the urine stream to avoid splashback).

 “You’re doing the exact same thing, you don’t get to call me a sociopath just because I have dopamine receptors.” After I said this I looked at Nightflight; she was confused, very confused.

“To be honest I have no idea what you… two are talking about, so can we go find Arthur and go over what I learned?” She says while clicking the safety on her gun on and off.

 Neuroscience being alien to her doesn’t surprise me, the lack of firearms safety does.

“Where is Arthur?” Synthie asks before I could respond. Nightflight’s bemused expression didn’t wasn’t helpful.

“Nightflight, does this place have a jail by chance?” I say while rubbing my temples. “Also keep the fucking gun’s safety on,” Seriously was it just a subconscious behavior or was she just kinda careless.

“No it doesn’t have a ‘jail’, and what about keeping the safety on?” She says quickly after she stops playing with her guns safety.

“Fuck it lets go eat go get breakfast,” I say while attaching my helmet to one of my many belts.

“Are we going to try to find Arthur?” Nightflight said as I walked out of the room.

“Do you really care?”Synthie asks as we walk through the hotel hallways.

        “Yes, okay kinda.” She stammers out noncommittally.

“He can take care of himself,” I say, besides depending on what she tells me she found out he could be useful for what has to be done next.

                                ---===*===---

 We had just finished eating, and I was trying to figure out Crucible Caravans agenda. Between bites of questionable meat she told me what she had learned. She found their headquarters after asking a caravan she had found outside of baltimare. The headquarters were about a days foot travel to the northeast, an old port facility that was used as military logistics hub. It was as well defended as a talon mercenary headquarters, and I got the feeling from Nightflight that even being in the same ballpark as the Talons was impressive. At least to her she was impressed, this impression was helped by the treatment they had given her. There was a public entrance into the compound, which she of course used. On the inside she talked to an actual secretary about why she was there. She didn’t really have a straight answer so in her attempts to give something satisfactory, she let slip who her employer was. That was point I had to question what in god’s name she had done to her face.

“You know how much certain people want me dead, how in hell did my name slip out?”

“They seemed nice: they had armed guards, the place was swept, and I guess the secretary colt was cute.” She answered with some shame in her voice. Well I can’t judge her yet, but now I know her weaknesses are homesickness and her…  libido?

“Not gonna judge, acknowledging that can you please finish your report operative?” I said while thinking that maybe adding some professionalism would help our interpersonal dynamic.

Are you going to be a ‘suit’ or a ‘white coat’ ?

 Ignoring that question from my annoying roommate, I listened to the rest of her admittedly short tale. Once Nightflight had let her relationship with me come into the open, they had become even happier. The secretary had asked her if she wanted to talk to the regional head… Pearl Diver. After saying yes they ‘escorted’ her to a conference room at the heart of the place. She says she remembers what words were exchanged exactly, even if it is wild paraphrasing it is still intel I would like to have. Legitimately calling someone my operative sounds nice as well I decided before listening to her purported conversation.

She sat down at the table before Pearldiver walked into the room and did the same.

        “Hello Nightflight… that’s your name correct?” The older Black coated stallion said to her.

        “Uh, yeah,” Nightflight responded quickly.

    “Well Nightflight we want to ask you some questions, and you will be compensated for your time believe me.” He said quickly before extending a hoof towards her.

        “Okay, ask away,” she said as she belatedly shook his hoof.

“Your employer is a little strange isn’t he?” Pearldiver asked innocently. Nightflight told me she suspected he already knew more about us than either of us were comfortable with before she continued telling me how the conversation went.

        “He said he’s an alien, so yeah,” her response brought a grin to his face. Whether it was from his information being confirmed or her humourous delivery of her response she didn’t know. From how she told me it seemed like the former was more likely.

        “If you’re wondering why we wanted to know this? Just understand we work for the betterment of all equestrians, and being aware of non-equestrians is important as well.” According to Nightflight he said ‘non-equestrians’ with some held back anger.

“Is there anything else you wanted to know, cause uh… I have to find the nearest Talon hub.” Nightflight recanted this with awkwardly, did she think I was against her finding her family?

“Has this human told you where he came from or why he was here?” As Nightflight told me what he had said I couldn’t hold back my first thought.

“Did you say I was a human? I don’t identify myself that often how could he have known.” After I pointed this out to her her shrug in response told me two things: she didn’t question that at the time and I was getting better at interpreting griffon body language.

   “Just continue, I’ll try to hold all questions till the end.” She seemed to accept my doctrine and opened her mouth to continue.

“Jake told me he comes from a place like pre-war equestria except it’s only filled with humans, he tells me he really just wants to go home.” She told Pearldiver who seemed surprised by what she had said.

“Interesting, so he really comes from another world. Hmmp, waterboard is going to be angry, he had two-hundred caps on ‘Jake’ actually being a minotaur that fell into a taint barrel.” Apparently he let out a genuine chuckle after saying that.

“Yeah, funny. Any other questions?” She said quickly.

“You seem to be in a hurry so i’ll be concise, has he ever said anything about the black tower or the Tet Corporation?”  He asked his final and most insightful question (in what I could determine from it) as though he was reciting from a memorized list.

I finally began to remember something that enlightened me yet filled me with more questions.

“No,” She had replied. Nightflight said he had looked relieved at her answer.

“Is that when he let you leave?” I ask after she stayed quiet for a few seconds.

        “Basically, he seemed satisfied with those answers. Oh… I almost forgot, he wanted to meet with you ‘when it’s convenient for you’. Whatever that meant, when he said that it kinda gave me the chills.”  She said the last part of her statement in a subdued manner uncharacteristic of her.

        “Oh fuck it’s all falling into place now, but that’s fiction right?” My statement of understanding gave Nightflight exactly no understanding.

        “Can you explain what the hell you're whining about?” She said to me in a mostly empty cafe in a desecrated world. The real problem is I can’t remember all that much about that series, it had been years since I had read through it.

 “Nightflight I don’t remember everything about it but I think this place is being influenced by multiple factions from beyond Equss proper. The best starting point would be ‘there are other worlds than these’.” I waited for an interjection or a request for clarification but amazingly none came from her. “The person who said that was a boy named Jake Chambers. In the books he died multiple times. The first was when he got hit by a horseless carriage, after that he woke up in a different world. The second time he fell into a ravine, and that time all of his memories were transferred into another copy of Jake Chambers and that one with help from the other set of memories that were tearing his mind apart, found a door between worlds.” As I finished that she look like she had a question on the end of her tongue.

“You read all of this in a book?” She didn’t seem to believe this judging from her expression.

        “Yeah and interestingly enough Jake Chambers was only a supporting character. Now to continue, the plot of the book revolved around a diverse group of people searching for the Dark Tower, the most important object in that entire multiverse. And I’m starting to think that maybe this world is on a level of the tower as well.” Wooh, this is one of the times you realize a conclusion before the implications sink into the psyche.         Are you refering to me because I believe I made it clear that I’m an independent entity. As for the connections to this Dark Tower series, they seem to fit in some ways to what we observed in that Stable. As implausible as it seems, I back your conclusion.

        “Are you talking with Synthie, cause you’re spaced out?” Nightflight said right after I finished hearing Sythie’s response.

        “Yeah, he agreed with me reluctantly,” I say before eating a bite of food.

“What is the Dark Tower, and why did he say Black Wower instead?” Nightflight asked after a brief silence.

        “In the books, it was the nexus of all worlds. In other words, the center of everything. It also exists in some form on every world. For example, it’s a rose in the world that i’m beginning to think I came from. As for why he said Black Tower instead, I guess he didn’t really know what he was talking about and said something close to what he was supposed to say.”Only after I said this did I think about what I had said, “supposed to say, so he probably doesn’t know anything about either thing, but his bosses must know!” I spoke my thoughts aloud for no reason.

“So you think this tower actually exists?” She said skeptically.

“Based upon the number of times I’ve been moved between worlds, I would say it’s existence is more than likely. And don’t ask about the how the last book ends, it’s not exactly inspiring.” If she calls me crazy then at least that explanation is more plausible.

        “I’ll take your word for it. Now are we just gonna wait here for Arthur or do you want come with me to the Talons’ hub?” I think she wants to leave the multiverse discussion behind.

“How far away is the hub?” I ask.

        “A couple hours walk to the southwest,” She answers quickly; perhaps wondering If having your sorta employer follow you around is a breach of our oral contract.

        “Wanna leave a message for him at Blurred Lines’s place?” Gotta help a brotha  out, right?

        “Do think really Blurred could remember a message?” She says skeptically

“It’s worth a try, right?” I say while shrugging.

---===*===---

        It was midday and the sky was getting growing darker. I was thinking we would be receiving the gift of rain. Shame nothing grew in the wastes that could use such a gift. As for the people striding on the ruins of what was once a paved road, thinking of rain in abstract terms didn’t help anyone. Yet, the ability to do just that is a blessing by itself.

        Thinking in third person aside, what wouldn’t I give for an automobile? What about a motorcycle? Nah, only room for one. So what about a sidecar? At the end of my fanciful train of thought I needed outside input.

        “Have you ever seen any smallish aircraft in the skies before?” I asked, primarily to start conversation with my ‘operative’, secondarily to see if she knew anything about the aircraft that I had spotted on my second day out of the ranger bunker.

        “It was probably an Enclave reconnaissance flight by a vertabuck, what’d ya think? That it was a flying saucer?” She answered with a sigh, I don’t think she liked the Enclave.

“If we’re talking about flying saucers: is it flying, or is it parked on the ground?” It was a legitimate question.

“It’s a flying saucer full of little green mares… okay it’s on the ground, what would you do?” As she spoke I had a nagging suspicion I was giving her a migraine.

“Obviously assault the UFO, I’ve played enough XCOM to know to do that.” I answer chuckling as she works up the courage to ask what Xcom is.

“What is XCOM, and what does it have to do with flying saucers?” Her question though expected and an intentional reaction that I wanted from her, didn’t lessen the good memories that thinking about XCOM brought forth.

  “If I explain this you’ll probably know more about Earth in the process, which I think is good. It might even make what I say less incomprehensible, maybe.” She nodded with enthusiasm. Does she want to understand my references? Whatever, I’ve got a job to do.

        “Knowledge is power, that fits in more than one way. Okay, in XCOM, you are the commander of an organisation created to protect the countries that fund the organisation    , and to a lesser extent, the whole earth. The enemy you fight is a mysterious group of aliens, or extraterrestrials. In case you’re wondering, Terra is another name for Earth. For example, I’m not gay, I’m just delightfully Terran. The game revolves around XCOM capturing and reverse engineering alien technology. Also, by the end some of your soldiers discover magic powers. Oh… and the console controls are pretty shitty.” After that we had a half hour question and answer session. To explain what engineering was in a world filled with literal magi-tech, even weirded were the questions about the aliens. She had the hardest time accepting that the vast majority of alien species (in XCOM) were Bipedal.

“So the chrysalids kill you, rape you, turn you into a ghoul, and then the baby chrysalids pop out of you,” I nodded at her summation. “But they’re the stupidest of the aliens… do all humans think that four legged creatures are stupid?”  Her vocalized chain of thought led me to explain talking animals in my culture.

“Why do humans make movies and other things that have talking animals in them,” Her somewhat predictable question still took me a second to think up an appropriate response.

“I guess because were tired of ourselves, maybe there’s a hole in our hearts that isn’t filled by our planet's inhabitants. It’s weird in a way because in the past there were different types of hominids. Perhaps it’s some manifestation of survivor's guilt. Honestly, I doubt that. I mean, back home scientists pretty much proved that dolphins spoke to each other; only problem is theres no to start communication. If I’m being perfectly honest, the fact that I’m from a culture filled with fictional talking animals, and now talking to an actual griffin to be kind of ironic.” I had a sudden urge to look up, but instead I turned to Nightflight who…  wasn’t beside me.  I had time to think FUCK before I saw Nightflight pour pistol fire into a barricade garrisoned with raiders.

Why had she not told me there were murderous psychopaths barely a hundred yards away? I ascertained they were holed up in an old farmhouse with the remains of a chain link fence around it. Epilogue was in my hands and being aimed within the span of ten seconds. It was automatic. Well, it was becoming automatic. I found cover behind the burned out husk of what might have been a tractor or a pony buick. I couldn’t tell.

All the raiders were focused on my… frie- operative and her flying. The first few rifle shots went unnoticed by the bandits, and by the time they figured out they were being targeted by a markman, the fight was over. Contrary to their belief, pieces of sports equipment and scrap metal aren’t bullet proof, or even very bullet resistant. One magazine empty, reload, move forward. Nightflight helped me flush out the last few raiders holed up in the house. As I ran into the house pistol drawn, I knew how this would end. A raider jumped over a shabby couch with a paring knife in it’s mouth. The suppressed pistol made rang twice, the recoil was the strongest feeling in my mind during the firing and it was stronger than what should have made me retch. The decor in the place was composed of intestines and viscera smeared on walls. Opening a closet door yielded a decomposing corpse with evidence of semen still evident around the cadavers genitals.

Nightflight entered the place a minute or so after I fired the two shots. I saw that she was unharmed, still she looked to be experiencing the effects of adrenaline.

“Thanks for the heads up,” I said before I let myself drop onto the couch.

“I saw a threat and I took care of it, isn’t that enough.” She says as she walks over and climbs onto the couch as well. She must then have saw the bloody decorations that adorned this place.

        I just look at her for a moment before sliding up next to her. I removed my helmet and laid it softly on the ground. The outside world is quiet, as are the two of us, never are the two of us somber. That can’t happen… right?

        “We didn’t really help ourselves at all, no we expended ammunition and obtained a few rusty shotguns and revolvers. We really could’ve avoided them and they probably wouldn’t have chased us.” Were staring at one another now, the house smelled of poor sanitation and cordite, I blinked. “I guess we’ve made the road a little safer right. Ya know where I come from if theres a violent shoot out next to a highway it gets shown on the news. There would be police helicopters, SWAT teams, and some evidence, maybe an electronic record of the broadcast… something. But in this place, there is just somebody who’s better equipped or more effective at putting the other person down. After we leave, another group of raiders could be set up in a few minutes.” I begin to let out a dark laugh that had an edge of desperation in it. A Knight of the order ‘Not Terrible’ continues killing, not because there isn’t another way, but because they only see the flight resolution after the fact. Killing being the best possible solution for literally everyone, isn’t the way things should be. Hollow I may be, but spit on my bones the day, the day I only deal in lead.

Now you're just paraphrasing THE GUNSLINGER. If were going to quote, then ‘Killing is my business and business is good’. However serious that was aside, get over it. The raiders terrible they maybe in their actions were nothing when compared to our skill with Epilogue, they may have served as little more than target practice but that doesn’t give you justification for you and the bird to mope about.

“Both of you may belong in the ‘black parade’ but I don’t, I’m unfortunately attached to this guy and have unfortunately picked up some of his mannerisms. However this gives me the ability to be the callous one everyone dislikes but the person they need.” He said this and I couldn’t help but smile at my roommate’s direct style of communication.

“How much of his personality is based off of you?” Nightflight asked me before jumping off the couch and moving to search the raiders kitchen.

“I don’t really know, he seems more informed about his existence than I do about mine.” I said as I got up to follow her. I then thought ‘Why didn’t I think to check the kitchen?’.

“After you two are done looting, can we go before it starts pouring. I don’t want to have my immune system compromised by outside conditions.” His suggestion was logical and duly noted; though I did wonder why he called it his immune system?

---===*===---

           The rain was coming down in sheets and my duster was currently storing Epilogue, and was also full enclosing my body. Nightflight wasn’t enjoying the rain, being part cat probably had something to do with that. When I checked my Pip-Boy, it told me it was eight o’clock and getting surprisingly chilly. The flat, dead scrub land surrounding Baltimare was as empty as ever. It reminded me of the prairie back home.

        “Ya know my relatives had a farm on land that looked a lot like this? I miss it. It was peaceful, and there were no people for miles.” I said to her just loud enough to be heard over the rain.

        “I thought all you really liked was electronics. I never took you for someone who liked anything other than sarcasm.” She said these things and it struck a chord with me, she’s right I haven’t had conversation with any depth for weeks, inner dialogue with synthie excluded.

        “It’s not like you're any less emotionally closed off, all I really know about you is that you like drinking, fighting and fucking.  That and you got captured by some cultists, really not a lot to go off of.” I say with more force than was probably necessary.

        “What more do you want, I had pretty normal wasteland childhood. Got laid for the first time at age fourteen, killed someone for the first time. See, it doesn’t fucking matter. You could get the same story from a ton of other people. Why don’t you start listing off things about yourself?” She says angrily. Lightning flashes off in the distance, the rain intensifies as I think about how to respond.

“Well I dunno, you want to exchange hopes and dreams or something. Because I’m getting tired of traveling with people that are useful, but at the same time, I know nothing about. Heh, I’ll start I was an undergraduate studying physics, you know why?” I say this while thinking: Show my companion that I have some depth, why the fuck not.

“Whats an undergraduate?” She said, apparently the lack of cultural context on her part would continue to be a barrier to proper communication.

I then explained what a college was and what role an undergraduate played in the a college to her. By the end of that I just explained to her that the only thing I was interested in with any real practical value was physics. She didn’t really understand my love of philosophy or psychology. In the end she could really only identify with my accumulated knowledge of rocketry. When I went about explaining my favorite rocket design, she loved the idea of it.

“They almost built a spaceship powered by dropping a balefire bomb out the back and riding the blast wave?” She wanted affirmation about her summary of nuclear pulse propulsion.

“Yeah, and in the process of developing the technology needed to do that they made designs for something called a casaba howitzer. It was a shaped nuclear charge that generated a massive plasma beam, the actual details still aren’t released to the public still. So my countries military probably built the weapon and are just sitting on it.” I said this without saying that the thought of a nuclear death beam didn’t seem all that exotic anymore.

      “Why isn’t that a weapon in ‘XCOM’? It sounds like it would kill flying saucers pretty well.” She responded faster than I would have expected.

“Not that many people know such a weapon could even be made, it’s not an area of common knowledge.” I said before involuntarily shivering. Damn, it was getting cold.

“Thats weird, you had balef- um… shaped nuclear bombs before laser rifles and powered armour.” She said before she visibly shivered.

“Both of your minimum operating temperature has been reached and the ambient temperature shall continue dropping for a projected three hours. Find shelter immediately.” Synthie let out in an urgent tone.

“Just how far away are we from the Talons’s base?” I ask, Can’t be that far right?

“Probably only six or seven miles. I hate winter, just another reminder of the the pegasi not doing their jobs.” She told what I needed to know, but not what wanted to hear. If we keep talking that should distract us from the cold some.

“What do they do up there really?” I ask her before turning on my night vision, I may be succumbing to hypothermia in the future, but really like to see effectively. The nights here were usually close pitch black. In this case, the universe thought jet black was aesthetically pleasing, or maybe Ragnarok was happening and we had no idea because the sky was always kept from us.

“Well they have big cloudships, lots of power armor and they don’t come down here very much, what they do is they sit their asses down on fluffy clouds. I heard this dashite in a bar once talking about how the normal pegasi don’t even know people are down here.” She answered while looking up into the dark uniform ceiling that was the sky.

“Question, have you ever seen the stars before?”

“No…  why have you?” If she could’ve seen my face, the involuntary guilty look would have given her the answer.

“I saw them enough times to make them a normal part of life. You know what’s funny? In all the industrialized nations the stars aren’t all that visible; too much light being given off by the cities. One of the few places I could see the stars well was at my relatives place. It was out in the middle of nowhere with not a lot of light to outshine the stars.” By the time my melancholy speech was done, I looked over at my companion who had an unreadable expression on her face.

We fell into a companionable silence, the cold moved slowly inwards. Time became nothing more than a progression of footsteps seen in shades of amber. The winds howling got louder, the rain abated. It was of little solace to someone who was soaked. It was a testament to the power of leather that I wasn’t soaked to the bone, besides I had a nagging suspicion wearing a duster made you look like an actor in a western.

I wondered that if I was in a western what role would I play? Lets start with the basics: like hat… No, silver colour to my gas mask+… Yes. I guess I’m the good guy, by the slimmest of margins, the mask wasn’t pearly white. However no one in this place had a whiter mask then me. Therefore I was good right? I the process of comparing myself to a western protagonist, I had an idea. If I turn on the rebreather and seal the mask, I won’t have to breath in cold air, warmer air means less chance of a flu.

After doing that I did a quick swivel of my head on the off chance somebody or something was approaching. The desolate panorama that I observed wasn’t surprising; I sighed. I guess I wanted anything with any novelty in it. However, it seemed the universe wasn’t going to provide.

---===*===---

        We didn’t get to the Talon base that night. Later into the night I saw the light from a campfire. I pointed it out to Nightflight. She told me it was probably a merchant caravan.

We had both came to the conclusion that we needed to bed down for the night. That caravan was still a mile off or so, but other than that it was perfect for us.

        A lot of things look that way when you’re desperate.

 Would they be receptive to a griffon? I’m not in the mood for violence, really if I could have some nice campfire chats that would be… wonderful.

        “Why don’t you go introduce yourself to those hopefully nice people?” I asked her as we stared at their camp.

        “Why do I have to do this, can you even make a good first impression?” She asked before shaking her wings off.

        “I left a good first impression on you.”

“At the time I thought I got rescued by two alien alicorn hunters, now I know better. Now I know the truth?” She says before flapping her wings and taking off.

        “Whats the truth?”

“Now I see you as the egg head that shoots well.” She says before flying off towards the camp.

        “Do I still have that good impression, then?” I yelled towards her. She didn’t hear me.

I guess if I’m waiting I should get a better look at the camp. Epilogue had a three and half times scope, better than my eyes.  The camp was actually built around a surprisingly intact service station. To my surprise there were no pumps, did this civilisation never develop automobiles.        But that makes sense, I guess a third of the ponies can fly and the rest can run faster than a person.

        “Trains would make transport between cities easier as well. Besides all the land seems like it would have been developed before their industrial revolution got to the point where they coul-”

“Where they could make automobile analogues, so If the society would have survived it would have had a more European feel. Concentrated populations where mass transport could serve all their needs. Not to change the subject but why did you speak out of the microphone?”

“It makes you feel less like a schizophrenic, besides it feels good to be less of a superlative observer. Back to the pre-war pony society, I guess we should be happy they never figured out fission.”

 “No unmanned reactors Chernobling all over the place. Radiation that can hurt us is actually terrifying, all that diarrhea.”

“You said it, colleague.”

“Colleague sounds really dry, why not friend?” I say as I pull out one of my alien power cells.

“Why do you not call Arthur and Nightflight your friends?”

“They barely put up with me, I fight with them constantly.” The alien cell was being played with like most play with a bouncy ball.

“Based on what I found in your memories, you seem to like arguments. Calling your friends normally offensive things was just an expression of endearment to them. How are your actions around those two any different?”

“I guess i’m worried about getting attached, Arthur is a nice enough guy, and the bird is fun to have around. Besides, being friends with your roommate is practically a rule, doubly so since we share most of our body parts. I think were pretty much one being now.”

        “‘Siamese’ twins if we’re being insensitive. You know you’re good at avoiding change right? Changing the topic or going off on an expository tangent isn’t helping you become more tolerable.” He said this getting angrier as he went on.

        “Good argument, I’ll try to be more cuddly I guess.” I said before I slung Epilogue over my back again.

“Having more camaraderie isn’t a strange concept, besides showing people that you like them will in turn make you more likeable. And you need as much help with that as you can get.”

By this point I had waited long enough, I began to close the distance between the camp and myself. Patience was never going to be my virtue, but who dares wins… right.

God, an SAS squad could tear this place a new asshole. This got me thinking what would others do in my circumstances? Try to make themselves king in some sort of imperialist plot? Or try to get home come hell or high water? Wow, I really should get to that bunker, I mean I have location marked down. In reality though I need a guide and supplies to reach that place.

        I looked down at my Pip-Boy and opened up the map function, in my current position the bunker was nearly directly to the west. The distance between to it wasn’t encouraging.

        At a rough estimate it looked to a hundred or so miles away. With a round trip that could take a week and a half. Ehh… it’s only the lead to a way home, no biggee.  Desperation: Magic Doors, Aliens, and Sufficiently Advanced Technology. Maybe the nice camp ponies have a map or something, maybe some magic shoes.

        I saw a non-hostile blip moving towards me on my EFS, and sure enough a few seconds later I spotted Nightflight. She landed beside me, she faced me and cleared her throat.

        “They’re okay with letting us sleep in the building, they weren’t using it, of course.” She says while keeping up with my steps.

“And you told them you were traveling with, well, me?”

        “When I told them I was with you, one of the ponies, I think Glycerine was her name   , got a big grin on her face. Other than that and a few looks at each other they seemed as happy as anypony would to have some extra protection.”

“Okay so worst case scenario are they going to try to seduce me?” Preempting her I added. “You sold us as a mercenary team didn’t you?”

“Would you try to stop them if any of them offered to screw, and yeah you’re gonna have to take a shift on watch.”

“Whatever, I’m getting first watch,” I say a standoffishly. Synthie I don’t you telling me I’m oppressed, I’m dealing with that tonite. “By the way I got some pay for you, when were warm and in a more secure location.”

“You don’t want to flaunt our caps to the caravaners. Were you paranoid before you got to the wastes?”

“Not really, although there was that time I was in Detroit.” I shivered after remembering my time there.

“Did you say Detrot?” She asked inquisitively.

“Don’t even tell me theres a hellhole here with the name ‘Detrot’, because after hearing ponies talking about Fillydelphia and Manehattan… all I can say is this world has a lot of similarities with mine. I mean all of you speak english, my god coincidence much.”

“So I’m guessing there are cities with names that are close to the ones here?”

I just nodded and slipped into my vigilant yet barely conscious marching state.

---===*===---

        As we walked into the camp, I was surprised to see all the caravaners standing around their campfire not brandishing weapons. A smaller earth stallion backup as I walked into the camp with the red eyes of my mask still glowing. The rest of them weren’t fazed, although later when I did take off my mask I heard someone let out a relieved breath.

        The moment of first meeting was peaceful enough with Nightflight walking over and introducing me to the leader.

        “Tilted Axis, this is my friend Jake, and Jake this is Tilted Axis.” I moved over and shook his… hoof.

        “Nice ta meet ya, don’t meet many people along this route. Meet even fewer aliens.” The buck had a western feeling to him, he was friendly though and that was enough.

        “I hope you’re not disappointed I’m not a little green mare.”

“Thats alright, you some humour to ya I like that in a buck,” Before he said this he had laughed quite a bit… and my joke wasn’t that funny. After hearing his reply I had a nagging suspicion he was interested in me. I kinda stood there awkwardly for a moment while trying to process the possibility of a gay cowboy horse.

“Griffin got your tongue,” A mare said before pushing past him. I held out a hand to shake, to which she grabbed the gloved hand and lightly kissed it.

If only she knew what you did with that hand.

“Thanks milady, but thats generally after names are exchanged.” The mare looked really excited at being called that, she was wearing a scraped up set of metal armor.

“Oh, sorry. My name is Glycerine,” she said apologetically. Her head was the only exposed part of her body put that didn’t stop me from noticing the grenade rifle hanging on from her side.

“It’s fine, just unexpected. Now not to be impolite, but can I get my start getting myself dried off first.” I say before moving towards the fire.

Tilted Axis just tips his hat and moves off towards one of the tents. The mare grabbed me by the hand and led me to a drying rack one of them had set up near the fire.

The other caravanners were staying near their tents, they didn’t seem as happy as Nightflight had made them out to be. Then again, one happy explosive loving pony was enough for me.

“Why are you so happy to meet me? I’m not all that interesting.”

“I dunno you’re new and different. Tales from another world are valuable.” As she said this I had already laid my duster on the rack, and my helmet was sitting on the ground underneath it. I had forgotten about Nightflight, ah… she’s probably sleeping already.

“Is that combat armor?” She asked as I taking off the Riot Armor itself.

“I don’t know that much about it actually. I kinda just found it in a container, but from what's in the operators guide the plates are made from Saturnite.”

         She then tapped the armor with a hoof. Furthermore she leaned down looking to want to lick the plating.

        “No, please don’t do that it doesn’t taste good, trust me about this.”

“So I’m not the only one who likes tasting metal,” she whispered conspiratorially.

I had time to think this was one of the weirdest avenues of conversation I had ever ventured on.

“A guy gets curious sometimes when he’s alone. Honestly, Bowie tastes better.”

She quickly had a smile on her face, until I said Bowie; at that she raised an eyebrow.

“You wanna see my knife?” I uttered, it felt strange but I felt like I had said that before, (deja vu?).

“Okay,” She said very bubbly.

I pulled bowie from its sheath, and she just watched for a second as it reflected firelight off of itself.

She looked at me, grinned and snatched the knife. I was torn between concern for her and amusement as she licked the knife.

        “You’re right. It does taste pretty good…”  I saw her look at the little bit of blood left on the blade.

        “That had some of my blood on it. Sorry, should have warned you.”  I had to fight myself from adding; I didn’t warn you because I didn’t think you would just take the damn thing. “Thats okay, you do taste pretty good.” She said with smirk, then she realized what she said and looked at me for a reaction.

        “I don’t disagree with you, I mean what person hasn’t tasted their own blood at least once.” She got seemed more at ease with me after I admitted that.

        “Most ponies would have ran off or avoided me at least,” She said this before stopping to run her chin with one of her front legs. I stayed silent, mostly because I had never seen a pony so deep in thought before. Besides I felt… comfortable around her already. She just seemed more like someone would have associated with back at… my world. It was weird that everyone was avoiding us, but seeing as I a fire drying me off and a spontaneous, honest perhaps to a fault mare beside, I didn’t really give a shit.

“Aside from the taste, did you like Bowie?”

“Do you just not care?”

“I don’t really judge people in general for their quirks, but in your case I just think what you did was cute.” Wow, it feels good not to be either whining or condescending.

Maybe it was the fire, I hadn’t been around a campfire in months. At this point I noticed her blushing. I probably would have noticed it earlier had her coat not been redish orange.

        “Griffon got your tongue?” I’m a god of speech. (Never in a million years)

“This is how it went for Star Bolt, that moon prince was playing hard to get.”

        “I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but while you’re figuring that out, I’m gonna be eating.”

        “I was just wondering where you come from and if you’re royalty there?” She asked just as I had set one of my MREs to autoheat.

        “A place exactly five miles to west of here in the eleventh dimension,” I said with a smirk.

        “Eleventh dimension?” She let out in a dogged manner.

“You caught me I really don’t know where this place is in relation to my worlds hyperspace location. Or would meta space be a better word? Oh and no I’m what's considered a commoner where I come from.”

        “But you’re feisty and intelligent; are submissive when someone’s won your heart?”

 That made me spit out the water I had sipped. It just happened to hit her in the face.

“What could possibly possess you to ask that?” I said with an expression of non comprehension. “I apologize for the spit take, but my god, Why?”

“A Prince of Lunopolis?” She said to me, my blank look and twirling finger told her to continue elaborating. “Its about a mare named Star Bolt accidentally teleporting to the moon. At the end she’s the queen of the moon with a moon stallion husband.”

“And after many little hybrid abominations they live happily ever after right?” I say to her.

“I actually don’t know, the copy I had was missing the last few pages.” She says this sadly, the water was still glistening on her face.

“Sorry about that, I’m seriously trying to be less of a dick,” I say before taking off my undershirt.

“What ar-” She got out before I began drying her off. The previously wet spots were sticking up as I finished the job. “I was fine,” she said before folding her forelegs in front of herself.

“Probably, but now I have to live up to your expectations of nobility and my own attempts to be less of a terrible person.” I said as I put my slightly damp shirt back on. In the process of this I heard her let out a sigh. So the fantasy loving nerd girl is into me, though being the equivalent of a green alien female showing up at a trekkies house wasn’t comforting. I had a feeling that both genders in this society were equally objectified before the bombs had dropped, and even after the collapse of the patriarchy, this state of affairs had remained.

“Why do you want to act like a noble now? No-... not that I’m complaining.” She stammered out, cutely.

“It sounds fun, I like a little challenge. Besides it can’t be that hard, a knight errant could help this place out.” She smiled at my bluster filled statement.

“Now that I think about it, you would be a better fit for Star Bolt anyway. You being a buck excluded.” Her statement made me do the only sensible thing. I grabbed my helmet, pointed the face mask at her and turned on the glowing eyes. “Also she didn’t wear a creepy helmet.”

        “You know you love the helmet,” I say before I let out a snort.

“Everyone I’ve ever talked to has always said aliens would be either like ponies with extra horns, or tentacle monsters.”

        “I’m not all that dissimilar I know, I’ve had this conversation in the past.” I said before leaning in towards her. “Do you know where we can talk more privately,” I whisper to her.

I was worried where the caravaners had gone, and where Nightflight had gone off to.

“Follow me,” she said with a wink.

I did just that, however gave my armor and most of my gunna* a look before shaking my head. I didn’t need my stuff all the time right? Besides, I had my forty five and a spare magazine for it in my pants pocket.

I couldn’t help but notice my fellow metal taster was flicking her tail excitedly. My realization of our destination was a consequence of averting my eyes from her rump. Politeness aside we heading towards the gas station. At least I could check whether Nightflight was asleep there, while I was speaking with Glycerine.

---===*===---

        As I sat down beside Glycerine on a mattress that should have held a sleeping Nightflight, I had to calm myself. My growing attachment to my companions wasn’t going to help me sleep tonight at any rate. And that was ultimately the point of stopping, to get some rest in a warm place. A warm body pressing up against me threw my train of thought off the rails. I glanced over Glycerine, the need to know about these caravaners was important and if I had to interrogate I would. I laid down parallel to my new friend and laid a hand over her stomach.

“Hey… whatever… you’re doing… DON’T STOP.” I chuckled as her complaints turned to promises of terrible acts she would do to me If I stopped rubbing her belly.

“Quick question: are you part of that caravan?”

“No, me and Tilt were just lucky to find them. They’re going to the same place as us, and they act nice. So we’re just traveling with them.” That calmed me down to some extent. She might have just flown the rest of the way to the Talon base after seeing me settle in with these (this) ponies (PONY).

“Flip over, I have an urge to massage someone. And you seem like you deserve one.” The blush on her face this time was alot easier to detect and therefore more awkward for the both of us. Nevertheless the horny pony (Unicorn) obliged. I leaned over her and began to massage the tension out of her shoulders, given the one of the appropriate times to moan. Glycerine did just that, A lot. “How do you know Tilt?” It had been nagging at me for some time.

“I don’t really want to talk about it, for now just know he isn’t my biological father. But he is like a father to me. Oh can you get my lower back, right next to my spine.” So that helped a little, to be fair hearing a squeak or two at my efforts made gave me some pride.

After a few minutes of that I rolled over and laid down. While my defences were down a relaxed mare gave me kiss on the cheek. Before I could say anything though she blocked my mouth by laying a leg over it.

“I don’t care what you say, you enjoyed that. Besides I think you deserved it, even if you hesitate too much around me.” She ended her statement by lifting her leg and putting it under herself again.

“To be honest I’m kinda over the whole not the same species thing which made me feel awkward in the past, my main hang up is that I… have a mutual crush on a knight in the Apple’s Rangers.” As I admitted this to her I felt an emotional weight lift off of me. I was calm around her, being honest was really easy around her.

“Are you actually in a relationship with her?” She didn’t seem angry at my announcement. Her lack of judgement was a fresh air, maybe it was the lack of stress in the air but we seemed to get along very well.

Then again you’ve known her for around an hour and a half.

“No, only after a lot of teasing did I finally admit what was obvious to anyone around me. But I think I’ve matured a little, or maybe I just got out of the state of shock that accompanied the beginning of my travels. I think after today we’re gonna be going our separate ways, so as good as this has been I don’t want us to get too invested in one another.”

“Are you still trying to act like a noble? Because you’re good at it, but can I be really honest now.”

“I’m not sure i’ll like what you’re going to tell me, yet I like honesty more than pleasing deception. So go on…” What would others do in my circumstances?

“It doesn’t matter here how long you’re with someone here, no one knows when the bullet with your name on it will be fired. You’re trying to be good pony and it’s not something you find out here very often.” I cut her off by pressing my palm against her mouth, which she proceeded to immediately lick. Ignoring her antics I drew a breath before saying my piece.

“I understand what you’re saying. How about we just cuddle or something… damn I’m bad at this.”

At this point I felt a physical weight rest on my chest. She was warm and with the way she laying on me, I didn’t feel crushed. It was nice.

“This is very pleasant but I’m just a little paranoid about my stuff. Can I go grab it?”

“Nah, you’re staying here.” She said half seriously before resting her head on my chest again.

        “That duster is dry now and it’s practically a blanket,” She responded in no way to that.“Come on don’t make me withhold future massa-” I was cut off.

        “You are a monster,” She said before getting off of me and stretching. “Hope you can sleep tonight with what you’ve done.” She said as I got up and walked out, but not before responding.

        “You’ll be hoping I can sleep in a few minutes,” My mind wandered as I walked the short distance to what had once been a roaring fire. All my stuff was in the exact same place that I had left it in. When I walked over to get my shit together I was irritated to hear a beeping, for about a second. Oh fuck, frag mine. All at once I pulled Bowie out of its sheath and looked down.

        The mine was directly in front of me. Upon seeing it Synthie entered V.A.T.S. for us.

In the dilated time that V.A.T.S. gives you we had time enough to have a brief conference. The reason it could only be brief was because of a simple reality; it takes time for neurons to fire and thought to occur, especially conscious thought. This is why in normal V.A.T.S. targeting complex thought is impossible for you do; however when you have a conscious being partially based upon the Pip-Boy that makes V.A.T.S. possible some modification to the operation could be made. If V.A.T.S. is used like this then there is a flaw to it. In the time that thoughts are occurring, the V.A.T.S. program turns off and on quickly enough so as to not be noticeable to the human using it. A machine based consciousness called Synthie was aware of this as soon as the first rapid toggling of V.A.T.S. occurred. He would later say that he had to take action quickly because was of the essence, and he to act then as explanation of the problem would only have exacerbated the problem.

        At the moment of V.A.T.S. activation I had the beginnings of an asinine solution to the land mines detonation. The solution was based upon multiple things I had learned in the past couple weeks: frag mines had a button on their top that upon being pressed disarmed the mine, V.A.T.S. was capable of freaky accuracy with throwing weapons, bowie was an effective throwing weapon. All these thoughts were stopped in their tracks by Synthie’s panic upon discovering that the time he and to a lesser extent me had to think was less than expected. We were paralyzed for less than a tenth of a second; in that time he had stopped his own consciousness and by reversing the V.A.T.S. conference routine he had started I as a consciousness was turned off. The lights were out in my own head, and as time still skipped ahead to Synthie’s terror he stopped all of his neural activity as well.

        All beings have weaknesses, whether they are (relatively) slow lateral thinking processes, or complete inaction due to terror. The depths of the unconscious mind are deep and in most ways superior in function to the consciousness most being identify themselves as. Synthie had left them online, and that was what saved the both of us.

        A human being for better or worse is designed around a large brain that itself is built around a process of self awareness. Perhaps a being that was sentient would have behaved differently, but humans are sentient and to do novel things they needed a consciousness to assume control, so Jake was restored.

        It took a half second of brain operation to figure out the solution to the land mine ticking in front of Jake. The knife flew straight into the mine, the handle depressed the button before bouncing off into the dirt a few feet away.

        As I exited V.A.T.S. I fell to my knees in pain, my head felt about to burst. I felt a drip of something fall from my nose. I collapsed onto my stomach, my only thought was brain hemorrhage. Blackness was pressing in on my vision, In the closing tunnel I spotted my duster, the pocket closest to me was filled with… syringes?. I fought to stay awake, and remember what was special about those syringes.

Stimpacks… I crawled forward… More blood… I reached out. The sight of the miracle in a needle gave me the strength needed to stay awake long enough to stab the syringe into my other arm.  A slight dulling of the pain in my head followed, and then the blackness closed in.

                        ---===*===---

The feeling of cold broken tiles under me was never a feeling I had ever awoken to in the past. I was content to not move until I the realization that I had been moved startled me into opening my eyes. The pain in my head had receded to the point that it was no worse than most stress headaches, I tried to move my right arm only to find out it was shackled to the piping beneath a sink. I yanked on the chain to no avail.

I moved closer to the wall so that I could at least sit up properly. Whoever had chained me to the wall did a thorough job of stripping me. Cold tile on a bare bum wasn’t pleasant, but I had a feeling it was going to get worse before It got better. At the very least I could watch time tick by on my Pip-Boy clock, this however did nothing more than remind me that I had a radar scanner added to my vision. The area around me was filled with six  hostile contacts and  two friendly contacts. Seeing the hostile contacts move while the friendlies stayed static didn’t improve my morale. All things considered, at least I wasn’t dead from a brain hemorrhage. whatever fuckery Synthie had done wasn’t good for the brain.

“Thats the closest brush I’ve had with death had my entire life,” I said out loud, the euphoria of surviving to deadly things was wearing off. These fuckers better not mess with my stuff, if they do that… I don’t know what I’d do. I’m not a torturer, I’m just a guy trying to be not terrible, and that seems to bite me in the ass more than being terrible would.

My thoughts were interrupted by the clopping of hooves on a hard surface. My Captor(s) must have heard my voice, as I heard theirs.

“I fuckin’ hate griffons,” A male pony said before stepping into the bathroom they had locked me into.

“Look who’s awake,” a gruff brown stallion said when he saw me glaring at him.

“You aren’t really caravanners are you, dammit I should have known something was up.”

“You ain’t the sharpest. Hey Warm Trail, you sure we got the right… thing.” He said before pointing at me from across the small bathroom. I had a thought of grabbing him but unless he had the key that would do little to improve my situation.

The new arrival stepped into the room quickly, as I thought about how to escape my bindings. I had about two feet of slack on my chains and he was roughly four feet away, so that if  I stretched I could tap him on the muzzle. ‘Warm Trail’ was a younger looking buck with a yellow coat that glanced at me quickly before looking at the other pony in the room.

“Unlike you, I can read a wanted posted. He fits the description.” He said this and walked back out. As the unicorn passed out of sight I heard him say “goddess damned illiterate”.

“Are you just going to take that?” I said to him. He walked up to me and was cocking back a foreleg to punch me when I decided to say. “You’re just proving his point if you do that?”

He let his leg drop to the floor in front of him before looking me in the eyes. “Well what should I do, let the horn head walk all over me?”

“I dunno, whine like a bitch. no but on a serious note this is bad idea for your group.”

His anger flared up again, his eye twitch kinda gave that away. The real question was could I reason with these slavers.

“Whats wrong with us gettin’ some caps from some chickens?”

“Where do I start: the pegasi are less trustworthy than most wastelanders, they’ll likely kill you all to avoid paying anything, in the case that they do follow through that amount of caps will tear your group apart, and you don’t seem like the one that would win in a fight against anyone in your group. I can do this all day, but get this I forgive most of the time. If you let me out and let me have my stuff I might not kill you.” I was about to go on about what I had done to power armored troops but he slugged me in the face first.

“You just want me to let you go, that ain’t happening.” He punctuated this statement by spitting on my face. I was going to castrate this idiot if only for reasons of eugenics. “By the way I’m gonna love that orange mare tonite.” Scratch that last plan he’d be lucky to get off that easy.

“All those reasons are secondary to this one,” I said quietly.

“Whats the reason slave,” he said before looking for the weird (to him) cracking noise coming emanating from my right hand. The sound of an eye being punctured and a muffled cry of agony resonated through the room. He laid on his side after I pulled him down to the tiled floor, his left eye was open from a pointed hand being driven into it. I began to look through his ragged clothing in an attempt to find the key.

“You alright in there, that thing giving you any trouble?” Another slaver said from outside the room. Uhh… improvise to buy some time. A loud smack came out of the room along with a cry of pain from me. That was what someone outside the room would have heard, I just hoped that would be a good enough reason for them to not enter the room.

The stallion must have thought I was groping him; that was fine with me though. This place’s depravity was put on display by this rapist wannabe. After checking all of his pockets, I realize he must have hidden it somewhere else.

“Where’s the key?” I whispered into his ear.

I moved my hand away from his muzzle. “In my tail,” I moved my left hand back over his mouth before he had a chance to say anything else.

“Just know that if you try anything the other eye will be gone along with your gentials.” I growled softly into his ear as I ran my right hand through his tail. I could hear him moan softly at the tail stroking, this must be terrifying to him. I might have had more sympathy If he hadn’t stated his intentions to rape my new friend, the aching from my face might have hurt his case as well. At long last I found the key near the beginning of his tail. It was disgustingly close to his anus. A fleeting thought about someone hiding things in their ass nearly made me wretch. To unlock the chain I would needed to use my left hand, so I wrapped my left arm around his neck and moved to unlock my chains.

His scream was unexpected and would be swiftly punished after I got unrestrained first. He the sounds of many hooves filled my ears; my chains came loose and with that I quickly got up. The buck was carrying a thirty eight revolver along with a lead pipe. I grabbed the thirty eight and held it in my right hand, the pipe was in my left hand. The first pony to enter the room was the unicorn buck from before. He walked in only to have a pistol round take off his horn. My thoughts were; five rounds and annoyance at missing his head at point blank range. Before anyone else came into the room filled with moaning ponies I cracked the earth pony I had gotten the key from on the head. The other pony had screamed once and passed out as a thin white fluid seeped out of his mutilated horn. I now had four contacts to deal with and if the universe decided to fuck me an Enclave retrieval squad.I briefly wondered where Nightflight was before deciding on a tactic to spook the rest of the slavers. It was risk stepping into the doorways line of sight but the benefits were two fold: I could maybe shoot some of them, and I knew that throwing the end of their comrades horn would send a message to them.

To my annoyance they had moved out of the firing arc provided by the bathroom doorway, a consequence of that was that none of them saw the horn fragment roll into the main room of the gas station. I had fleeting thought about the rabid animal I turned into when in intense combat, but that was cast aside. I thought hard for a moment about my next move before deciding that an ultimatum would be for the best.

“If you surrender I won’t hate fuck your corpses, I might just let you leave… intact.” I yelled out into the building and beyond.

“Is that you, Jake?” I heard Glycerine say in a response I didn’t expect.

“Bet your ass it is,” I say before stepping into the building and right into the sights of a unicorn mare firing from an outside window. A trio of bullets hit miss me before I jump back into the bathroom, a trickle of blood falls down my back from where a bullet had grazed me.

        “You better not have messed with my stuff or you're all gonna be missing your genitals,” I yelled again.

        So with that said I thought about how to get at the mare at the window without being perforated. I had an idea, and If I wasn’t dealing with the worst a shitty world like this could offer I wouldn’t have done it.

I threw Warm Trail into the hallway outside the bathroom, and even before he hit the ground he had a new hole in him. The gamble I made in leaning around the doorway and entering V.A.T.S. paid off as I targeted the mare holding a rickety lever action carbine. These shots in their computer guided brilliance destroyed her neck, the marker showing her as a hostile would disappear a few seconds later. I barely noticed.

The last hostiles were outside of the house that much was clear, if I was in their shoes I would have taken a hostage first, but in lieu of that I would have taken position outside the entrances. Maybe these slavers were being lead by someone with some tact, my assertion was supported in some way by my observation that none of the ponies I had seen so far looked like leadership material of any kind. Why do I have to fight a smart opponent? It must have been their original plan for the landmine to kill me without problems, and if they hadn’t had incompetents guarding me then they might have actually pulled off selling me to the Enclave. Even if the Enclave would have betrayed them, there was a good chance a good enough leader could have fought them off.

        “Can you get us out Jake, we’re both good fighters… when were not caught off guard.” Glycerine said from the main room.

        My rush into the main room wasn’t troubled by the slavers, they seemed to have moved off for the second. I spotted both Tilt and Glycerine chained to the wall fixtures. The doors of the place were troubling they could be opened at any second and they were at opposite sides of the convenience store.

        Ignoring that for the second I madly rushed over to unlock Tilts chains. In the time that it took me to unlock his bindings I was trying to go over my next move in my head. He looked strangely at me as I thought outloud under my breath.

        “They can enter any time, are they waiting for something? Do they think they can wait us out? They obviously have more supplies out there; and more ammunition.”

        “They’re slavers, not tacticians.” Tilt told me as I went to unlock the chain around one of his legs.

        “So are they wondering what to do now?” I said to him, which he nods to. “Generally in military thinking you’re supposed to have a 3:1 numerical advantage before attacking, and with you free they don’t have that,” I said to him just as the last chain binding his legs opened up.

“Can I have the pipe,” the pony says. I hand him the pipe which he grabs with his mouth. I get up and walk over to Glycerine and start unlocking shackles, upon seeing her I saw that she was unharmed other than a couple bruises.

“So after saying things that could make a raider blush you’re back to acting like a noble?”

I shrug at her before putting all of my focus towards getting her free. Shackle number one opened with a click that gave me a little satisfaction. I spot Tilt at the north facing doorway with the pipe ready to give someone a bad day.

The next minute is delightfully uneventful up until the point the last chain binding Glycerine to the wall opens up. I was caught totally by surprise as she leaned towards me and presses her mouth against mine. I open my mouth in surprise in surprise only to have it invaded by her tongue, though it was more like the retaking of france during the second world war. It was nice for the three seconds it lasted, actually it made my day.

She pulled away after those three seconds before running to the bathroom with a rushed explanation of wanting to check for more weapons. I was on my knees for another second, just thinking about the taste she had left in my mouth… citrus. How that worked was a question that left my mind shortly after.

A door opening suddenly and small metal object bouncing in interrupted any normal semblance of order in my mind and had me open up V.A.T.S. in hopes of hitting the pony that had thrown it.  Instead it gave me percent chances for hitting the… flashbang. V.A.T.S. then was dissipated, and I had time to cover my eyes with the palm of my hands. The boom from the device wasn’t good for my headache, however I wasn’t blinded. The same couldn’t be said for Tilt who looked very dazed. I picked back up the pistol and aimed it at the doorway, which I would quickly find out, was what the slavers wanted. The door Tilt was guarding swung open and a pony ran inside firing at the person who was standing with their back exposed in the center of the room. I yelled as pain exploded across my back.

I spun around ready to fire at the prick, only to see Glycerine beat me to it. Glycerine was pretty good with the automatic she must must have gotten from Warm Trails’s slumped body; seeing as the stallion that shot me was already half way to bleeding out on the floor.

“Are you okay?” She asks me as I moved to look out side from the doorway. My EFS was telling me that the last contacts were retreating and the pain in my back told me I had a bullet lodged beside my spine.

“For now, do you think you can go outside with me to go see If what they left behind?” I asked the two ponies before shivering. Being striped naked against your will is annoying. My exposure to this culture at the very least made me less self conscious.

“You helped us when we needed it, besides they took our equipment as well,” Tilt says resolutely.

“Before we go out can you tell me what happened to the griffin?”

“They dragged her in thinking she was knocked out cold; she wasn’t. I saw her run outside, you think she went to get help?” Glycerine said with some resentment towards Nightflight’s escape.

        “Uh… the only place thats close is a Talons base, so maybe. But back to the moment, I’m cold and my clothes are out there somewhere.” I said as I walked out the door pistol raised with an eye out for either my stuff or the last couple slavers. They followed the naked ape out the door and into the night.

                                        ---===*===---

 To the winner goes the spoils, the spoils in this case being the fun of dragging stiffening corpses away from camp; and getting the stuff that had originally been our own back. To my surprise I had found a note left by the head slaver laying upon my folded up armor.

To the creature known as Jake,

I applaud you on escaping, rarely do you find someone who can run off slavers.

Just know that I was once in charge of the operation near first estate, slavers such as I do not forget easily, though perhaps we need better subordinates. If you are truly the beast that you act like in our presence then the winged ones are right and you should be put down. If that is merely a mask then know that… you will be mine.

        Yours Truly, Pale Blade

   I had read that and felt like he had been holding back the entire time. Why put the least effective goons next to the prisoner? Why not rush all your lackeys into the room in one rush? He must have been holding back? My thoughts had rushed and by the end of that thought train, I realized that Synthie had been silent since the V.A.T.S. fuck up. Realizing that I was worried about his well being indictated that I missed my roommate a little… just a little.

        Looking back at those events I wondered where exactly Nightflight had gone along with the whereabouts of Arthur.The rumination about all of this was from the mattress that throughout all that had transpired hadn’t been affected by any of it whatsoever. All of my stuff was sitting beside against the wall no more than a few feet away from me. Glycerine was pressed up against me and I knew Tilt was standing watch. The girl was passed out, and I remembered seeing Tilt pop a mint into his mouth. Mint-als; I had seen some tins of in Silver Tongues back room. One of the less important things I had asked that guy was ‘what are those?’. He had responded by telling me that they: kept you awake, made you smarter, and let you see things things you normally wouldn’t. By that point in his explanation I had a hypothesis about the drug, but after he explained the withdrawal symptoms in a devious tone; I had figured out what they actually were. Space Caffeine made by small talking equines…  that was my conclusion.

        That alone was enough to make me want to sleep; at least that place was a rational world. After a short time with my eyes closed…  sleep took me.

                                ---===*===---

        In the past, dreams had always eluded me, to the point that anything that could be remembered the morning (or afternoon) was special. I had heard of lucid dreaming, but that had always seemed far out of reach. In the still regenerating brain I had an experience that made all of my dreams look thin and dry in comparison.

        The shell of a city empty, yet maintained surrounded me, and as I looked at myself the feeling of a light set of clothing fit with what I saw. A grey tee-shirt and faded jeans, perfectly normal dress, if a bit dull. The sensation of my legs moving of their own volition was odd, but not unexpected. Time skipped forward incoherently and I ended up standing in front of a skyscraper covered in skin of tinted glass. Movement into the lobby wasn’t important to this dream, and the secretary sitting behind a desk was the only person in the room. My vision locked onto the secretary, it was a pony dressed in a blue jumpsuit with multiple two’s covering it. A waking mind would have wondered who this was and why they had steel plating covering parts of their jumpsuit; being asleep is infuriating to someone who wants to know why?

“It took you long enough, you’re appointment is scheduled… five minutes ago. Celestia’s Flaming Cunt, what were you doing out there touring?” The small pony said to me before I began continued moving in the direction of my appointment. As I approached the elevator I looked back to see her turn on her Pip-Bucks radio and pull a big revolver from under her desk, her voice was definitely a soprano as her accompaniment of the music proved. Before the dream I had time to ponder the nametag she had been wearing.

‘Hello My Name Is: The Lightbringer’

 The elevator might as well have not happened seeing as the only thing given any detail was a flying saucer seen through the transparent side of the elevator. Hanging over the city like a chrome cloud it made me cringe upon seeing it, it had it’s beam weapons pointed directly at the tower I was in.

        “Boo,” I said outloud.

It merely floated there as though it was content in its position of power for now. The image of Nightflight entered my semi-lucid mind, By the ‘time’ it had dispelled I was at my destination. Doors with the gleam of stainless steel were the gateway into my appointments office. They opened on their on to reveal a large room empty except for an office chair with it’s back facing towards me. My entrance into the spartan room was in sync with the chairs rotation. What might have at one point been called a pony looked back at me. He had gunmetal grey fur with a close cropped pink mane, his right eye was cybernetic along with large patches of his exposed fur. The clothing he was wearing baffled me even as I seemed to baffle him; he was dressed like a bishop except the clothing was black and reinforced with ceramic plates.

        “I apologize for my previous behavior, it almost killed us.”

I felt more self aware even as my mouth opened on it’s own, I had freedom to choose what to say; there would be words coming out of my mouth,  choice wasn’t present.

        “As a backdrop this place is impressive, why did you create it?”

“I didn’t, I merely awoke in the chair to hear the noise of opening doors. I turned, then the present happened.”

        “Why are we here, you should be dead.” The words were mine and not mine at the same time.

“Why are you here? You should be storing long term memories while laying beside a strange female.” He said with the same stiffness of body, we weren’t pulling the strings.

The plate glass window behind him was suddenly lit up, the sun glyph from the ‘door’ recreated in neon seemed was the culprit. We both moved in sync to view, I then he had yet to move out of his chair. This was brought to the forefront of events as the sound of a jet engine filled the room. A detached jet engine flew past me and struck the back of his chair.

His scream filled the room as he careened forward, before he struck the window the entire north face of the building evaporated. As my eyes followed his descent I looked down to see I had only a foot of floor between myself and a thousand feet of empty air. Beneath that air where the building had once existed was a black void. My eyes looked away on their own, and in the process the saw the spot that He would have landed. It too was barren.

Nothingness ensued…

                                ---===*===---

I opened my eyes to see my chest partially covered by pony. I guess it was only fair considering I was resting my head on her flank. My change in breathing made her awaken.

She lifted her head from my stomach to yawn, I needed to ask her a question.

“Did I do anything weird while I was sleeping?”

    “You shivered a lot and flipped over a bunch of times, I got tired of that and just laid on you. You calmed down after I did that.”

“Thanks for doing that, I didn’t really sleep well.” My understatement skill increased right then. Sparing people the details of these things is the right thing to do… correct?

“If you want to, the slavers left all of their food behind-” I cut her off if only to ease things along, she wasn’t the kind of person to mind.

        “Breakfast together?”

“How’d you know?”

                “There aren’t really that many things to do in the mornings? And a far smaller subset of those things are enjoyable.”

        “I can think of at least one other thing,” she says before running her leg over my crotch. That got my attention, and deserved an immediate response.

        I ran my hand through her tail, before squeezing the rump, that I was resting my head on. The yelp she made served her right, I was surprised all the more when she rested her head between my legs.

        “Are you gonna stop there?” She said before covering my face with her tail. For a brief moment I was jealous that she had a tail. That was gone after I began to scratch her stomach again. She relaxed at the sensation. It was a shock to both of us when I rubbed over her nipples accidentally: she moaned, I found evidence that ponies were indeed mammals.

        I just continued eyes closed, until I lost my improvised pillow, all wasn’t lost as I soon felt a familiar weight on my chest. I felt hot breath on my face and a tail brushing against my boxers. With the opening of my eyes they were instantly locked to Glycerines eyes. Her smile probably had nothing to do with the bulge beneath her… no it was probably because of that. Nevertheless I felt that the initiative was on me this time, she was surprised when I went for a kiss, pleasantly surprised was the feeling I got from her at that. She gasped when my tongue entered her mouth. It turned out that her tongue was either a lot stronger than mine or she was just better than me at this. I turned my head to regain my breath after I solid minute of her controlling the interior of my mouth. At this moment the door of the convenience store opened up and in marched two griffins and an earth pony. Nightflight had returned with company, the look Tilt gave me told me that he had come there following them. Noticing this development Glycerine hopped off of me, then remembering what she had done minutes before wiped her mouth with a leg.

        “What took you so long, Nightflight?” I ask her accucatatorily.

“I should’ve told you that I was discharged by the Talons,” She said this sheepishly and to to the apparent entertainment of the other griffin in the room. This griffin was older looking and female, the ceramic plates of her armor were well worn, she exuded an aura of ‘don’t fuck with me’. When she was around I felt an odd urge to add ma’am after I spoke.

“This gryphoness told you she was a Talon correct?”

“At one point… I think,” meet authority with vagary, even if the authority figure in question was carrying a rifle big enough to liquify you.

“Was she selling herself as a Talon Company mercenary or not?” Big Bird asked me  a question, which was reason enough for me to get off the mattress before answering.

“Not directly. She said her parents were in the Talons and if memory serves, it was implied she was part of Talon company before her capture. Now I have a question for you, why does it matter to you?” I say as I move over to my Equipment where I started putting it on.

“She broke contract and was blacklisted. If she’s been saying she was a part of Talon company than she would have to be punished. The Talons are a respected group that in most cases leaves well enough alone, however we have a common name and a common reputation. Her entry to the base would have been cause enough for a shake up. Asking for assistance is grounds for a de-feathering, and now that I see you’re group is in no danger she would be lucky to get off that easily.” Nightflight’s silence up till now wasn’t  boding well.

Was this other griffin her old commander? She looked broken, not physically but in spirit. My silence wasn’t perceived well by the griffin in charge, every second I took thinking was angering her.

“Trust me some help last night would have nice. I don’t like needing to have a person pull a bullet out of my back.”

“She put in a request for decisive aid, as in you all would either be dead or fuck toys.

Her actions prove that she is unreliable. Therefore, we’ll be leaving and at some point depending on what the tribunal decides you may see her again. If it was up to me she’d have her wings clipped then thrown into a raider den. But it’s not entirely up to me.”

        I liked her armor and her choice in firearms, but the person in question?; This bitch was lawful evil, which in a world where the rule of law is basically nonexistent is actually impressive. Impressive in the same way abusing crystal meth for years and surviving or an efficient genocide is, they’re terrible yet hard to accomplish.

  Dark thoughts aside, I needed to set things straight. My bird may make of fun of me at every opportunity, but she’s my bird.

“Don’t try It, she’s staying with me,” I say as I insert a magazine of AP rounds into Epilogue.

“It’s not worth it, she has this place surrounded by Talons.” Nightflight said before being clocked in the beak by the older griffon. The sound of something breaking in her face resounded throughout the room.

My aim shifted to the gryponesses head, she grinned and a high pitched squeak exited her mouth.  As the sound left the building I immediately heard the sound of multiple weapons being readied.  Before that I didn’t think that Nightflight was lying. However, after hearing the sheer number of weapons nearby I felt that she wasn’t trying to stop me in an attempt to keep her honor intact. Rather, I felt she just wanted to keep us safe; at the cost of her own freedom.  I could try to fight them… that would be irresponsible given I have two neutral people that could be injured or killed in the crossfire. Besides, I can’t fight this many people at once.

“Does she get a legal console or the like?” I say as I lower the gun and lay it on the ground. Before she can respond I leave my right hand near my holster in the hopes that I could draw it before she could fire that rifle at me.

        “No, punishment is between Talons. You’re lucky that we hate the Enclave more than we want caps or you would have a raptor baring down on your ass.” She snorted after saying that, her grin only widened. A slimy feeling of futility registered in my mind, to which I could only accept. She could have me killed at this time easily, why would she leave a potential enemy alive?

        “I don’t know what you’re getting from this, but in the hopes of keeping everyone alive, can you leave this place?” I responded after a few moments of silence had passed.

        “I don’t get to see peoples friends get lead away in chains very often in this business… It’s funny seeing the looks on their faces.”

        “I wouldn’t suggest becoming a slaver,” I said simply.

“Oh, I heard about that. You burned down an entire warehouse. Regolith said he could smell baked pony for miles. Just for that I’ll leave.” She turned her back to me displaying confidence that I wasn’t going to attack her before walking to the door.

As she opened the door to leave she said one last thing to me.

“Keep doing what you’re doing, you piss off the Enclave and the DJ, stay alive… I need the entertainment.”

The door shut behind her leaving me to the ponies I had only known for a day.

After a moment of silence I walked over to where I had left the rest of my equipment, the feel of leather under my fingertips felt right.

“Alone again, well almost.” I said under my breath before the sound of an angry mare rung in my ears.

“Are you just going to let her be killed by that asshole Talon?”

“If she is going to be held at the Talon base close to us then they will be on guard for a biped and whoevers with him. If I had Elvis or Icepick maybe I’d try it, but one is days away from here and the other is probably in his house getting wasted. All I really can do is try to find someone who knows the desert well,” my explanation of hopelessness seemed to kill her anger along with some of her spirit.

        “Why do you need to go into the desert?” Glycerine asks.

The shifty look I give prompts Tilt to ask a question that I would rather leave unasked.

“Appaloosa is empty now, and Dodge is gone. Do you know about something important in the desert?”

“Out there somewhere in all the sand is a link to something in the past, and the only lead in getting home. If you want an explanation then suspend your disbelief for the duration.” Before they can reply I lob one of the alien power cells at Glycerine. “I found that cell in a hidden bunker near Baltimare. The place was flooded with chlorine gas. On the bright side, it had a complement of aliens left inside. I’m not sure if they actually were aliens. However, I doubt anything in this biosphere has any reason to breath chlorine, so they were probably aliens. Before you ask… that bunker is now a smoking hole in the ground, courtesy of the place’s reactor.”

“So you got this power cell from that place?” Glycerine asked before hoofing the cell over to Tilt.

“Indeed,” I respond

“And you’re looking for another of these bunkers?” Tilt summermised.

“You have it figured out by now, good. Now if you knew someone who could help me in my endeavour?”

“Back when Dodge had some ponies in it, I made a few runs that way. I could take you at least that far, after we make it back to Manehattan.”

“Friendship city needs some parts for their desalination plant,” Glycerine spoke up and drew both of our attentions, though she continued only after gaining mine. “We’re high value prospectors…”

“If you’re obtaining high-tech parts, wouldn’t that put you at odds with Steel Rangers?”

“We go where they don’t know about usually, and if they decide to give us trouble then we can take care of them.” Tilt answered my question and began to walk over to one of his bags.

“Forty millimeter grenades aren’t stopped by Ranger armor. A direct hit can down one of them.” Glycerine said before she saw what Tilt had pulled out of the bag, the eye roll she did only left me to wonder what it was.

“How many times have you tangled with Rangers?” I asked Glycerine while trying to see what Tilt had in his hooves.

“Three times… they’re good fighters even if you can hear them coming a mile away. We try to avoid them.” As Glycerine told me in a more melancholy tone I was putting on my shoulder pads, having given up on seeing what Tilt had from where I was standing.

“Til,t what do you have?” I asked while walking over to him, shoulder pads thoroughly locked down.

He then turned to face me, large revolver clenched between his teeth.

“Thuis,” I heard him say through the object in his mouth. The gun had a massive bore and seemed to have only five cylinders. After a few seconds of me being able to visually examine it he spit it out into a hoof and held it out for me to examine. I grabbed it by barrel, I didn’t want to touch his saliva. That moment the void that Synthie had left was made apparent, he would have said something about my saliva exchanges with Glycerine.

“I traded a whole chemistry set for that in New Appleoosa.” Glycerine interjected after trotting to us. “Tilt said it was the best hearth warming eve gift he had almost gotten.”

“She broke her jaw using it on the manticore, it was lucky she used it when she did. I ‘bout got skewered by the thing’s tail.” Tilt explained for her.

“I was angry I couldn’t give it to you at the right time. I couldn’t say that at the time… I couldn’t say anything at all.” Glycerine said before absentmindedly rubbing the bottom of her jaw with a hoof.

“She passed out after that. I had to carry her on my back all the way to Gutterville. Took you to the town doctor, he gave her a shot of hydra.”

“I woke up screaming, feeling your jaw rebuild itself in a just a few seconds sucks. Seeing the doctor didn’t help either…  creepy ghoul.” Glycerine shuddered as she spoke about her doctor.

“I have nothing against ghouls, but the look smile he gave me after I told him about the manticore attack didn’t put me at ease.”

“I actually have business up in Manehattan. This works, and the bunker situation isn’t time sensitive… I hope. Can I head up there with you two?”

“What business would that be?” Glycerine asked.

“Applejack’s Rangers owe me some money, and a favour.” I told them this as I finished the final prep on my armour.

“We’re not working with rangers,” Tilt told me in a voice darker than any tone I had heard from him so far.

“If they have red paint on their armor then they should act with more respect for the common man… pony. Just give them a chance. Out of all the bastards I’ve worked with so far, they’re probably the best.” I said that while thinking that nostalgia might be biasing me.

        “I’ll believe it when I see it.” He says before leaving the building to do something important I guess.

“Why does he hate the rangers that much?”

“Ask him,” she says as she vacates the room leaving me with the choice to follow or stay.

        My running away from tense situations had cost me before, I had to stay with them. If only to prove to myself that I could maintain a relationship in this hellhole. The last time I had been left truly alone, I hadn’t liked the consequences.

                                        ---===*===---

        Tilt had stayed barely within sight range as we walked in the direction of Baltimare.  Conversation between me and Glycerine had lulled when she caught me staring in the direction of the swamp.

        “What are you looking for?”

“A friend,” I told her as my vision shifted down to look at her.

        “You have a lot of those don’t you?”

“I’m good at making friends; Keeping them, not so much. Don’t be surprised if we run across a human wearing power armor, a unicorn with a plasma caster or a colt deputy.”

        “And apparently flying saucers,” She added with a laugh. I did not laugh with her.

“Can you do something for me ?”

 “Depends on what you want,” She had sensed the seriousness in my last statement, I could tell this by the way she had pushed away the remains of the smile on her face. I felt a pang of regret for the removal of her mirth. Although it was necessary and temporary, it still hurt.

“Don’t let me run away. I’ve done it so many times and I’m not sure why.”

“I’ll try my best?” She said halfheartedly after a few seconds of silence.

        “You mind playing therapist for me?”

“Will you buy me drinks later?” She asked me with a smile on her face, which was matched by mine after I realized Blurred owed me for life.

        “I know a guy in Baltimare who he owns the club there. He owes me for the music in the club, therefore he gives me drinks.” She was looking at me inquisitively at this point, I stopped myself from rubbing my neck. I needed to get to the point before I started stammering.”If you wanted to die of alcohol poisoning… he could hook that shit up, free of charge…  If I tell him to… of course.” I forgot that I couldn’t be reticent to save my life; the words just built up, If I stayed silent then the second I spoke they all spewed out.

She shot me an amused look before beginning in a serious tone,”I don’t know if I can do this without the couch.” My expression was lost on her (stupid mask), nevertheless she continued in a tone that told me she had been joking about the fainting couch. “So whats broken in your noggin?”

“Physically, very little; though less than twenty four hours ago I think I had an aneurism. I think the problem was solved, if only because if it hadn’t been solved my body would probably cold to the touch right now.  Mentally, I don’t know where to begin. I guess I’ll start with telling you that the other consciousness that resided in my head for the last couple days is silent; I have a feeling he’s going to be gone for a while. Illogically his absence is depressing. How losing the voice in your head is more distressing than having it remain, I don’t know…”

“You were talking about leaving your friends a couple seconds ago. Duh, you’re missing all of your friends. If that voice was another person sharing your body than losing that person would make any normal pony sad.”

“That makes sense. I still don’t think it’s normal to grow attached to the thing sharing your body.”

“Mares have months to grow attached to the thing sharing their body,” she says while keeping her eyes fixed on the horizon.

“Are the closest parallels to my experiences pregnancy and schizophrenia?” After I say this she stares at me silently unmoving. I stopped and after some thinking came to a conclusion. “Fuck,” Expletives convey understanding right? Upon the realization that a rhetorical question was part of my normal stream of consciousness, I couldn’t stop myself from bursting into laughter. Hysterical laughter.

 “This is going to take a while.” She said before joining me in my laughter.

     “Hell yeah it is.  Why, do need to get something off your chest too?” She didn’t immediately respond to my offer for a sympathetic ear.

        “Do you really want to hear about my problems?”

“I could have asked you the same question a few minutes ago. How would you have answered it?”

        “Yes,” Glycerine responded.

“That would have been enough for me. If you need more than that I guess I’ll tell you,  I’d like to know more about you.”

        “When you say things like that… I keep thinking of the Moon prince.”

“Have you ever actually seen the moon?”

        “Have you seen the moon?”

   “Yes, and I miss it. Then again I miss being able to call someone on the other side of a town, to have them deliver food to me.” I let out a sigh after saying that. For better or for worse I had gotten used to hunger pangs in my time here. Food wasn’t that easy to keep around.

        “I understand why you want to get back there as soon as possible. This place used to be the kind of land that people wanted to come to.” Her eyes drifted to ground as she said this.

        “Come on, this place isn’t that bad…” I said halfhearted to her in a (futile) attempt to cheer her up again. “Yeah, this place is a wasteland. However, I can say that at least the leading cause of death in this country isn’t a sedentary lifestyle.”

“Someday it’ll get better. The land is getting less poisoned every day.” She responded with a fake looking smile on her face.

        I jumped as I heard a boom to the west, turning my head I gazed at a bright green mushroom cloud poking up above the horizon.

        “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I doubt this place is getting better from an ecological point of view.” I said before sardonic laughter begin to leave my mouth.

“Can we go back to talking about our problems, they aren’t as big.”

“I think a ‘balefire’ bomb going off is a pretty big deal, you just want to ignore it? I do plan on heading in that direction pretty soon.” I decided not to finish that sentence off with ‘with or without you’.

 “So you wanted to talk about the friends you left behind?” She had ignored my entire statement, and strangely I wasn’t angry. she had hit close to home with her total rejection of conversation involving her world. Maybe she just liked to ignore the problems she could no effect on? Whatever her reasons, she still had this aura of tolerance, and I was attracted to that.

“Aren’t you afraid of radioactive particles from that bomb raining down on you?”

“Yes, but I have medicine that fixes radiation poisoning.” She answered quickly before looking at me as though I was trying to avoid conversation. Which I was not, sometimes a person is curious about another person's health. Besides I liked her better with hair, and not dry heaving. Did magical radiation poisoning have the same symptoms as atomic radiation poisoning?   “Do you try to make friends?”

“I try to be funny, sometimes I feel people just need a friend. Other times I have to distance myself from others for their own good.” An image of Bright Surprise flashed through my mind as I finished speaking.

“You’re not crazy, you don’t like killing, and that makes you better than half the wastes right there. Do you not see that?”

        “The first time I killed someone, I barely felt a thing other than the rush of adrenaline and happiness at surviving an encounter with a crazy man. Now the only thing I feel most of the time is sadness at having to use ammunition up. It’s getting easier… both the act and the time afterwards. I guess I kinda saw this coming, so I left an orphaned kid in a defenseless town to grow up as a guard there.”

“You couldn’t take care of a foal, so that makes sense. You did the best you could, silly. You aren’t a bad guy, how do you not see that?”

“You know what’s funny about that? I used to live in a house that had mirrors. Everyday I could look at myself in the mirror. I didn’t always like the thing that stared at me, but at least I had some way to see what I was. I used to go through life knowing somewhere there was a document that told you what a person can or cannot do. There isn’t anything like that here, or if there is… I haven’t found it yet. A world without mirrors, you have to trust yourselves to see things in the way with the most possible truth. Or trust another to do it for you.  I think if there were more mirrors, there would be fewer monsters. People need something to compare themselves to. If I could see a reflection of myself right now; I would do it in a heart beat. The last time I had a chance to look at myself I had yet to take another life, I had yet to spare what most would consider a monster, I had never burned people alive. Would I see a monster? Do you see me as a monster now? Are there really monsters?” I only felt the mask I wore coming off when the process was halfway through, my hands were practically moving of their own volition. The helmet was attached to my belt in a single motion, in the past It would have taken me multiple tries to do the same action; Now though I had finesse, it’s the little changes that sneak up on you.

“I was torn out of my world a human, I don’t know what is coming back.”  I thought outloud, and as I looked at Glycerine her slight frown derailed my train of thought.

        “What do you see when you look at me?”

“What exactly do you mean?” I ask her quizzically.

        “I’m trusting you to be my mirror. What do you see?”

“A person that’s fun and spontaneous, likes explosives, and sad, but not angry that she was born into a world that was ruined generations before.” A pause happened here, we shared a look. My raised eyebrows were matched by her neutral yet hard facial expression. “Orange with black mane, shorter than me. Ultimately, I know very little about you and vice versa, the final thing I see is an attraction to something about me. What that is I have only guesses.”

   “I don’t need a mirror; Sometimes people need to see themselves as others see them.” She replied slowly with an air of confidence.

---===*===---

        The rest of the journey to the resurrected city of Baltimare was uneventful to the point that we were free to converse for the remaining duration. She was interested like most about where I came from. Unlike others, she asked about my family and how daily life went on there. I was happy to explain some things about my past. When I asked about her family, she shied away from the question, and when I pressed for some sort of answer, she admitted she wasn’t ready to talk about that subject with me at that point. My mind was filling rapidly with speculation, fueled by both her actions and her reticence in that area.

When I asked how she met her friend she looked surprised; up until I explained that I was surprised that a Psychiatry as a profession even existed in this hellhole.

        “I think there’s a doctor that does psychiatry in Tenpony tower, but back to doctor feel good,” yeah the guy’s name was doctor feel good. She looked at me quizzically when I started laughing at his name. Regardless I got the feeling that while I was in Manehattan I might as well spend some caps on a professional. Also I wanted to see the pony statue of liberty; Does every alternate universe have some version of the United States? The answer I found out during the conversation was… there’s an analogue of China too. I had a feeling there were Nazi’s here too, on the other hand that entire train of thought was probably overgeneralizing.

        If you were to erase all the details of our Journey to baltimare, you would be left with a series of happy moments interspaced with awkward ones; Which is why we arrived at the cities main gate and saw that tilt was speaking with the gate guard, I felt a pang of despondence at the realization that we were done with that happy segment in our lives.

        Walking into the city I was mollified to remember that Glycerine was coming with me to get a drink at Blurred’s place. I then remembered what had happened last time I had gotten a drink at that place, it didn’t help that I was bringing a woman there this time. The train of thought smashed into another train of thought that had guilt about Icepick as one of its cars. Alcohol sounded really good right then. Consequently I hurried Glycerine towards the establishment, to my displeasure, she got a real kick out of being hurried towards a bar.

        Before we went to far she told me she was breaking off to tell Tilt where we were going. This left me a few feet from the main gate beside a sweating guard. Remembering something I had to decide whether I wanted to tell the guard about the hole in the wall. Taking a glance at the guard and his gun;  the shotgun must have been at least half duck tape. That bit of knowledge told me that leaving a second way into the city was a bad idea. Naturally A lie of omission followed.

        “On my way in I spotted a hole in your wall. Fix it?”

I left the guard behind after giving him a heads up and saying nothing else, I could see Glycerine telling Tilt goodbye. We matched speed and our mutual interception went well, before either of us spoke I pointed us in the direction of Blurreds place. She followed implicitly… I liked this.

“What did you tell that guard?”

“I told him there was a hole in the wall; I didn’t tell him that I helped create the wall.”

        “Chivalrous of you?”

“Not really, it’s just the bare minimum of good to keep myself from becoming terrible. Besides this place puts up with me, a bunch of raiders sneaking in might end that.” Saying that I was worried that she would be disappointed in me; Speaking  honestly about my motivations isn’t normally something that I do. With someone whose opinion carries some weight at least.

        “Are you trying to protect your bartender friend?” Surprise, I felt surprise at how she took the conversation. Before I spoke I attached a rare attribute to my friend. Humanitarian, no (on multiple levels)… People person, maybe… Empathic, yeah that works.

        “He’s cool I guess, and I have helped a bunch. He’s either a friend or an investment, and that depends on which way I view the world.”

         “That’s cold of you.” Was all she said, but that was only part of what she was telling me.

        “I try to aim for a lighter shade of grey, but that doesn’t stop the world from putting me in situations where I have to do things that make me cringe later on; in the end all I can hope for is a day where I can look at my past and say ‘I survived without abandoning all of my ethics’.  Is that a happy ending, not really. Is it good enough to shoot for? I haven’t had enough data to decide myself .”

“That’s not very heroic.”

“I’m not a hero, I’m a guy doing his best to get home. If you think you’re following a hero than I feel bad for giving you the wrong impression.”

        “You really believe that?”

“There’s a difference between having some a little morality and being a hero out to save the world. I mean what do you expect, this festering shithole isn’t my world. I’m well equipped to survive here both because of my physical form and because I was lucky to find good Equipment . That doesn’t mean I want to…” My speech was left unfinished; the aircraft in the sky having diverted all of my attention.

        It had drawn the attention of others even in the waning light of otherwise normal evening. The aircraft blended in well with the grey cloud cover, which made sense seeing as large parts of it appeared to be made out of cloud. Part of me namely the part of me that still believed in the laws governing aerodynamics felt like crying; other parts of me were thinking of ways to splash it. After a few seconds of staring at the thing I determined a  couple things: No-one around me had seen one of these things before, it was traveling away from the town, I should probably get inside a building. After ascertaining these things I did get inside a building, while at the same time wondering about the technology involved with the airship.

        Standing inside Blurred’s bar my mind was a million miles away, it made everything worse when I realized there were several power armored ponies staring at me, to make everything more interesting the only human I had met so far was shooting me a look I didn’t like. Everyone stayed static up until the moment Glycerine ran in after me. By that time I had realized these were Applejack’s rangers, given the fact they had apples painted on their armor and the fact that they were welcome in a bar to begin with. That and the fact that Paradise city was about halfway through.

“Told you he’d be here,” Elvis says to a pony still wearing a helmet.

“Please tell me this isn’t an intervention.” I tell the assorted patrons in a voice that sounds more whiny than I like.

        “These the friendly rangers you wanted me to meet?” Glycerine says after tapping me on the hip.

        “I can answer that easily enough. No seriously; Hey Icepick you wearing your helmet?” I yell my question at the assembled rangers while walking towards the friendly owner of the establishment.

        “Nice of you to ask,” The pony that Elvis had spoken to before took off her helmet.

A rush of happiness hit me as I saw the person that had helped me get a start here. “So I hear from this guy that you’ve had some fun here.” Icepick and her dark sarcasm, I missed it.

        “God I miss Synthie… he’d have a ball right about now. Oh speaking of crazy, did you get the talisman installed correctly… Elvis?”

        “He had some help… “ A buck wearing power armor said, and in the process earning the chagrin of Elvis. I had figured out that Blurred wasn’t manning the bar, an unfamiliar buck was tending instead. I had feeling this could get almost comically awkward. So against my better judgement I was walking over to the table that all of the rangers were sitting at.

“Shut up Elvis, and Glass, don’t anger the creature that’s twice as big as you.” Icepick asserted dominance over the males with a single sentence. I would have been more impressed If she wasn’t carrying a gun that would punch holes in APCs.

As I sat down, the form of Glycerine dropping into the chair beside me calmed me down.

“Are you aware of the pre-war government's involvement with alien technology?” I yelled at Icepick.

“Are you aware that the Enclave wants to dissect you?” Icepick yells back.

I burst out laughing, and when I see everyone at the table including Icepick glaring at me, I formulate the best possible response.

“For auld lang syne?” The glares continue in every case but Glycerines.

“For the times gone bye? You’re being intolerable for my benefit… that’s sweet.” Icepick figured my plan of attack more quickly than I anticipated. In that case, she’s earned the more matured Jake, damnit. It looks like one of my old enemies is about to speak, so to render whatever she says inane, I throw my alien power cell at Icepick.

        “I don’t understand why she… “ The bitch known as Ironsight, starts to speak about Icepicks behaviour; However Icepicks Exclamation of surprise at an object bouncing off of her chest plate interrupts her.

        “What was that for?” Icepick and Glycerine say simultaneously, but my attention was elsewhere. Ironsight was looking at me in a way that suggested she knew something was going on, so in a move that only after reflection later on I would see the folly of I bared my teeth at her.

         “Are you two gonna fuck or what?” Elvis quipped from the other side of the table.

“HAVE YOU SEEN HIM,” Ironsights yells at him.

“HAVE YOU SEEN HER,” I yell half at elvis half a second after her.

“Besides she’s gay,” The named glass said in the silence that followed. The blessed silence that followed was broken when Elvis asked an innocent question, in the most mischievous way possible.

“Who are you?” The question directed at Glycerine has the (intended) side effect of directing everyone’s attention towards glycerine.

“Somepony, who knows why he left you people,” Glycerine says before getting up and leaving with a fake looking neutral expression on her face. I follow suit, because I had a feeling there needed to be words. To her credit, Icepick got up a few seconds after I did to join the procession.  There would be words… that was the only thing that was certain as I made my way through the crowded bar, my bastard brain filled my thoughts with all the ways this talk could blow up in my face.

---===*===---

The night was in full effect, the air chilled, did this change how things would go down? I’d rather not waste breath on such things. I had a few seconds lead on Icepick, this was more important than any other thing. I found Glycerine sitting on the corner just around the club’s north side. There was a catch in my throat as I built up the confidence to speak, this was uncharacteristic of me, but that question only lead my attention away from the situation at hand. Besides only crazy people spend time thinking about what constitutes their own character… wrong, oh so wrong.

“Why do you act so differently around those ponies?” A straight question with an answer so convoluted It hurt.  Asked by a person I barely know, yet strangely feel attached too, does that make sense?

“To be fair It’s like a half and half affair: Sometimes I’m mopey and contemplative and in the mood for things like pleasent conversation, other times I become an addled brute. I can barely remember what I felt like normally, the implants have changed me. Humans don’t have fucking metal parts, americans don’t fight ponies in power armor, I never in the past grew painfully attached to partners in the span of a day. You ask why I vary so much? Well you want to know the truth… I have no idea; Sure I can guess till the sun goes down… but what does that fucking accomplish. I feel a shiver down my spine everytime something reminds me of the time before this. There you go, we can play physiologist all day, it won’t make a difference. Psychology as a tool is made to get people functioning in society, nothing more; It can’t fix what isn’t broken, and that’s the goddamn kicker. I function just fine from an operationalist point of view, If you see me as a machine with a goal then yeah, I’m highly functional.

Hey hey

Jake Embrea

How many ya killed today?”

“That’s probably just the tip of the iceberg isn’t it?” I turned to see Icepick give me a concerned look.

“He needs help, and I don’t think you help him.” Glycerine spoke up with a fire I had yet to see in her. Fire and Ice, I thought as my eyes shifted between them. Laughter although in this case suppressed laughter, blunted my self loathing, I was back from the brink. At least I think I’m away from the abyss? Whatever, just repeat the unofficial operationalist mantra.

Everything is a black box! When Icepick spoke again I lost my foothold in my un-happyplace.

“Who are you? All I can guess is ex-raider guessing from the scars on your legs.”

“If I was an outside observer, I would let you fight. But I’m attached to you both, now can all of us agree that I have problems?” I got reluctant nods from them both, this let me continue to the next step in my not-plan. “Now that this has been agreed to by all parties involved, can we all agree to let me keep my issues unresolved at the moment, only under extreme duress does my compromised psyche act up.”

        “So, first contact with extra-equestrians doesn’t include ‘extreme duress’?” Icepick points out.

        “Not if It’s done right,” I counter.

“Isn’t the desert out west the same desert filled with radiation from the bomb,” Glycerine says. She approaches things differently, or is it a method of stymying conflict?

Regardless of that observation I proceed to tell them I’m completely immune to magical radiation, to which Icepick tells us that ranger armor is basically a Radiation suit. Icepick doesn’t appreciate it when I begin laughing at her, in my defense I felt that the difference between resistance and immunity was pretty obvious.

“What’s so funny?” Glycerine asks me, the honest queries from her were a breath of fresh air, mostly because I had a pedantic streak and her questions stroked it.

Explaining my laughter brought a quizzical look to Glycerine and seemed to piss Icepick off. The final line could have pissed someone off all by itself.

“-and so you should have surmised from this that novices study tactics, masters study logistics.”  The logistics being the operation of a military team in what would normally be a hostile environment, made worse by a nuke going off nearby. If I had been talking to a private or a high school student it wouldn’t have been that grating overall. However I was ‘educating’ a young military officer with a competitive streak, the competitive streak that had manifested between the time of my departure from her life and our reunion.

But as some jackass said a long time ago (in every world with a linear understanding of time), ‘Hindsight is a hell of a lot clearer than foresight’. This was never more apparent than when Icepick tackled me after my speech finished. That went about as well as you would expect; Three hundred pounds of steel augmented pony will beat you in a wrestling match a million times out of ten. I had no idea what glycerine was doing, really though my thoughts were more focused on how not to beaten to a pulp. This was harder said than done given the fact that I wasn’t built like most strong people, what that means is… I’m pretty weak compared to an earth pony wearing power armor, implant notwithstanding.

Trying to keep Icepick from crushing me with her front hooves took all of my attention.  Therefore when Icepick was bucked off of me by a homicidal Glycerine I had no other option than to take a breather. I had never seen anything quite so terrifying and adorable as two ponies growling with bared teeth ( their noses get scrunchy).

“I haven’t seen this much batshit crazy since that time I watched hoofington raiders trying to eat a canterlot ghoul, so in other words cool the fuck down.” All of us turned to look at the most vulgar eyebot in the history of eyebots. Watcher.

“I made friends… “ I said between one of my deep breaths; fun fact, broken concrete is a lot more comfortable when you're trying to regain your breath.

“I can tell. Now can you all apologize, you have potential as a team. And this place needs as many teams as it can get. Oh and congratulations on the promotion Icepick, now if you excuse me I have to give a pep talk to every wastelander with even aspirations of heroism.”

“You know if you need to talk about your problems we can arrange a small group session,” Glycerine told him as the mysterious watchers avatar floated away, she followed this up with “they need it too.” Strangely she said this in a quiet hiss, as though we wouldn't hear it.

This conclusion lead me to conclude that everyone is broke yet functional, the counterpoint my own head supplied was ‘or maybe you just attract that kinda person’. I pondered this for at least two minutes with my eyes locked on the sky.

“I apologize for acting like a condescending prick, I kinda get like that sometimes.” I broke the silence by saying this while sitting up.

“I thought about what I said, I crossed the line when called you an ex-raider. That’s why you started acting like you did, you were defending her by attacking me in a roundabout way. I forgive you Jake and… it’s Glycerine, isn’t it?”

“I think this is the first step to making things better, So I apologize for being clingy towards you Jake, Icepick l wish we could start over.”

“This is going to sound like I’m trying to avoid further apologies along with all the touchy feely stuff that entails; this is the opposite of that in actuality. Question, you wanna get some guns...  on me of course?” I finished my strangely phrased proposition with a smile that I think is charming, an outside observer would think it looked slightly creepy.

        The look on Icepicks face was stuck halfway between; Are you serious?, and ‘ Are you propositioning me?’

        Glycerine instead seemed to know that I was serious about the question, she was giddy. She was probably thinking this would be a chance to play group therapist in a neutral location, she was going to have to learn about my friend Silver at some point. That would be fun. In the time before either of them responded I had a distinct question about the latency of therapist training, was it always lurking under the surface just waiting for the right person to be ‘healed’ by it? The ethics of creating a happy go lucky wasteland therapist was a quandary for a quieter evening.

        “If my troops are going with you then they could use some extra munitions, logistics. Right, Jake.”

“If that was yes, then I guess I’ll come with you guys,” Glycerine said before standing up and dusting herself off with telekinesis.

And like that we were at peace with each other for the moment, there would be all kinds of problems, that was obvious. In spite of this we were trying our best to be ourselves without getting into death battles with each other. Case in point, as we walked down emptied streets…

“So how much can you bench press with that armor?”

“You do get a sick thrill from talking about things only you know.”

“You love me for it,”

End Of Chapter Ten: What was lost

End of Part Two: Resurection

Footnotes-

        50% to level up-

        Implants fully integrated- You’re never itchy, you’re more in control than ever before and the protein you’ve been aching for has been going towards now completed muscle tissue.

        Now if any of  this did anything to keep you same, that would make you a lot happier.

Companion perks added-

Fifty Caliber Serenade- Is it an artillery piece?  is it a mortar? When she is in your party people that aren’t normally affected by intimidation checks are now more liable to accede to your demands.

“Political power comes from the barrel of a gun” -A real swell guy.

   Medicine Of The Mind- So you’re traveling with the perhaps the youngest therapist in the wastes. Will help you when you need it, and that kinda thing is hard to quantify.

        “Mare, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.”