Fallout Equestria: Stable Dwellers

Fallout: Equestria, Stable Dwellers

Chapter 1

HONEY DROP

“I’ve never killed a pony before”

I slowly awoke to the sound of… silence. No, wait, that couldn’t be right.  Had I actually woken up before my pipbuck’s alarm? I lie there in my bed for a few more minutes. I would’ve been perfectly content with just going back to sleep until my pipbuck actually did wake me up, but waking up without the blaring ANK ANK ANK ANK sound was just too strange. I lifted my left foreleg, and the pipbuck attached to it, to my face. I stared at the screen until I remembered where the clock was. After I saw THAT, I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep.

“Oh, shit.” I said to myself as I sprang from the bed, quickly floating my stable 65 uniform on.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.” I repeated while quickly brushing my honey and caramel colored mane into its usual ‘style’. That is, if you can count, getting it out of my eyes, as a style. I let the rest of it just hang limply over my shoulders.

I stared at myself in the mirror for a few seconds, quickly glancing from the tip of my horn to the blue stable 65 uniform. As soon as I was satisfied with my appearance, I galloped out of my living quarters and down the hall towards the atrium. I was momentarily blinded by the hallway lights; I hadn’t turned on my room’s lights in my hurry. I tried to enter the atrium stealthily, to avoid any embarrassing confrontations.

That plan failed miserably. “Hello, Honey Drop.” Cherry Blossom, just a little too loudly.

Everypony turned to look at me. So much for avoiding embarrassment. Cherry Blossom was an earth pony mare; she worked food prep, with me. Every day, having to work with her. It was torture.

“Busy with your duties, I’m sure.” Her tone let me know that she didn’t actually think that was possible.

“Something like that.” I replied, sitting down at my usual place around the large, circular table.

“Well, now that you’ve found time for your other duties, we can proceed to the matter at hoof.” The impatience in Cherry’s voice told me that, she, and the ten other ponies sitting around the council table, had been waiting a long time.

“Oh, joy.” I said flatly. “What is it today? Are we revisiting the lunch menu change? Or maybe deciding on the color of security uniforms?”

“Watch your tone, Honey Drop. You should respect your privilege as a stable council member.” Snapped an older, unicorn buck. Blue star was the only one on the council who still took it seriously.

“Please, blue,” I snapped back, “don’t call this job a privilege. Everypony serves on council at some point.” I leaned my head to the left. “Start when you’re twenty.” I swung my head to the right. “End when you’re fifty.” I finished, bringing my head back level to look him in the eyes. “It’s not a privilege.”

“You’re right. It’s not a privilege. It’s an obligation. To this stable and its ponies.” Blue star was the only pony that was old enough to have his cutie mark, and still took council seriously. In sixty-five, you learn pretty quickly that being part of the council isn’t really that glorious. “And if you’ll notice,” he continued, “we are missing a council member.” I was about to say something else, when I noticed he was right.  There were only twelve of us. Yesterday there had been thirteen. My eyes scanned the council to see who was missing. Wait a minute? Where was power flux? The pipbuck technician was missing.

“Where’s power flux?” I said, concern evident in my voice.

Blue star was the first to answer, “Honey Drop, Power Flux is gone.”

Power flux had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. We were PFFs she couldn’t have just left! Especially without telling me! How long had he been planning this? Wait…

“What do you mean gone!?” I asked. She couldn’t have just disappeared. Oh no! She couldn’t be dead! Oh, please don’t be dead. Blue star answered that question.

“Don’t worry, she’s not dead. We just can’t find her.” He paused. “We found this audio log on her terminal.” He lifted his pipbuck so that I could see the file labeled “confession”. His horn glowed, the play button on his pipbuck glowed the same color, and the message began. Power Flux’s soft, yet regal voice filled the room.

“To whom it may concern,” she began, “I am leaving. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. I’m sure- oh my goddesses, this is actually happening! I- I’m sorry; I’m- I’m going off script here. I just- As I was saying, I’m sure my apprentice, Golden Glow, will do just fine as the new pipbuck technician. And... If me leaving, has hurt anypony, in any way, I am so sorry. I wish there were another way, but I really have to do this. Good bye, forever. To all of you. I am leaving the stable. Goodbye, sixty five. Most sincerely, Power Flux.” For a moment, I just stood there, not quite comprehending those words. “I am leaving the stable.” She had said.

“But that’s not possible.” I said aloud. “There’s nothing outside the stable, just a radioactive wasteland; you’d die in ten seconds.” I stated, it was a known fact for all of us living in the stable.

“Not everypony believes that.” chimed in Golden Glow, who was standing opposite me on the table, looking at Power Flux’s usual seat. She was obviously wondering whether she would take Flux’s place on the council or not. “Power Flux always believed that there was really something out there.” Oh yes, there were so many theories about the outside, some believed that there was nothing outside, that there was just an endless darkness, an ongoing oblivion, absolute nothing.

“We have to go find her.” I demanded.

“We are. We can track her with her pipbuck tag.” Said Blue Star, in that annoyingly cool voice of his. Golden Glow interrupted him.

“Or at least, we could if it wasn’t completely offline.”

“Then why haven’t you sent anypony after her?” I asked.

“Actually, that was the matter at hoof. All in favor of sending a search party to find Power Flux?” I and four others raised our hooves. “And against?” Blue and five others raised their hooves. I was surprised to see that Cherry Blossom was one of the four. I wasn’t surprised to see that Red Glory, head of security, was part of the five. “This council votes against sending a search party to find Power Flux. Case closed, council dismissed.” As most of the council trotted back to their routine daily tasks, I stood and stared at blue.

“How could you?” I said simply, with the most accusing tone I could make.

“I’m thinking about long term effects. If the search party is unsuccessful, we will have lost three security ponies, and we have no replacements.” His calm, unemotional tone was infuriating.

“Then just send one! I don’t care who! Just send somepony after her. There can’t be anything too dangerous out there.”

“Then maybe you’d want to go.” I hadn’t realized that cherry blossom had stayed behind too.

“Wh- what!?” I stammered. I had never thought of that. Dangerous stuff was security’s job. Wait, what dangerous stuff? Hadn’t I just said there was nothing dangerous out there? Cherry opened her mouth to say something, but I cut her off before she had a chance to insult me more than she usually did. “Sure, okay, I’ll do it. Just to show you” I looked at Blue, “how stupid your being.” That shut her up. I don’t think she had expected me to take the challenge. “I am going to leave the stable.” I continued, a note of confidence creeping into my voice. “And I am going to come back. Alive. With Power Flux.” I said with such finality that they both knew, I would do this, or die trying.

Five minutes later, I was completely ready. I was wearing the cleanest jumpsuit I had, a gun strapped to my leg just below my cutie mark. The council hadn’t even spared a set of security barding.

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Blue asked one last time, in an effort to dissuade me.

“Absolutely.” I said with as much confidence as I could muster. “It’ll be fun. I added, to seem more convincing.

“Honey Drop, be careful.” He said as he pulled the lever to open the stable door. Right then, I knew why the stable doors were never meant to be opened.

It sounded like somepony’s horn being scraped against a chalkboard on a loudspeaker at maximum volume. The first thing I noticed though was, well, the noise. But the second was the three ponies standing right there outside the door. Live ponies. Live ponies, with guns. Live ponies, with guns, pointing them at us. They had guns I’d never even seen before. I admit, that wasn’t saying much, but why would a gun need gems on it? One of them was wearing some strange barding with two strange guns on the sides. He was the one with the gem guns. Before I could ask, the one in the middle, a grey unicorn buck, spoke up.

“Hello! On behalf of the equestrian wasteland, I greet you, stable dwellers.”

“y- You can talk!?” congrats, Honey. You’ve just asked Equestria’s dumbest question. Luckily, the unicorn just laughed.

“Of course we can talk!” he began. But one of his companions, an earth pony in a mottled brown cloak that bulged at the sides, interrupted. “”look, we really need a place to stay. Just for a little while. If we could just-” *BLAM* the pony on the right, the one with the gem guns, fell to the ground. Bits of his bone and brain matter splattered all over the unicorn. I screamed. The pony in the cloak galloped into the stable. Blue yelled.

“What the-” *BLAM* *BLAM* BLAM*. The unicorn’s chest exploded. He didn’t even get a chance to scream before the second shot. And the third was just overkill. The unicorn who had snuck up behind the three turned to face the hooded pony. Except, he wasn’t hooded anymore. It had fallen off when he ran in. I could now see him. His coat was white, pure white, as white as the clouds in a foal’s story book. And his short cut mane was as dark as the cave outside the stable door, except for a bright yellow patch that hung above his left eye. He had royal blue eyes, eyes filled with absolute terror. The unicorn swung her weapon around to point at him.

“NO!” I had just seen two ponies die. I wasn’t going to let her kill another. My magic took hold my pistol as I activated S.A.T.S., the Stable-Tec Automatic Targeting Spell did its job as I fired three shots right into her head. She went limp and fell to the ground.

“Thank you.” The stallion said in a rushed voice. “Now, there’s going to be more of them, I really need a place to hide for a while so they don’t shoot me. I need to hide here. We can talk to the overmare later, just please close the door.”

I just stood there. I had just shot a pony. And now the pony I had just saved was asking me to close the door I had just opened.

“What-?” I stammered “I-” I didn’t understand! More?

Before I could say anything else, blue spoke up. “What do you mean ‘more are coming’?”

“I mean,” the stallion was now struggling to keep his voice down, “more ponies like,” he pointed to the unicorn I had just shot, “her.”

“Then you have to leave. I won’t let you endanger our stable.” Dammit Blue! Couldn’t you just hear him out?

“That’s not your choice to make. If the-” he stopped to draw a pistol that was strapped to his right foreleg.

“Whoa!” blue yelled.

“Quamut!” he yelled as he aimed at the stable entrance.

“What!?” blue wasn’t quite comprehending that he had a pistol in his mouth.

“Shhdmp!” He started firing as soon as the four ponies entered. He hit the first one in the head, the second one in the leg, missed the third, and the last one in the chest before he dove behind the door controls. Blue was taken completely by surprise.

“Wh-” was all he had time to say before 5 bullets impacted with his chest. I, on the other hoof was able to get into the control room (or at least I think it was a control room. What were those computers for anyways?) Before anypony had the chance to shoot at me. A unicorn with some kind of rapid fire weapon noticed me though, and fired. I ducked, and the glass above my head shattered everywhere, bits of it getting caught in my mane. I looked through the doorway on my left. The white stallion hadn’t moved from his cover. He was reloading.

“Don’t just sit there! Shoot!” I didn’t know who he was or who those ponies were, but I did know that they had shot blue, and were shooting at me. My magic enveloped my pistol as it slid out of its holster, I brought it close enough to aim down the sights, as I ran out of my hiding spot and took aim. I used S.A.T.S. for my first shot, hitting Rapid Fire in the chest. The next four shot were just me, half of them missed, but I managed to hit a green earth pony in the leg and the other hit a brown one in the head. Two down. I dove back behind cover as Rapid Fire shot where I’d just been. My temporary distraction gave the white stallion clear shots at the remaining infiltrators. He fired twice, two ponies fell and didn’t get up. I rushed over to Blue; he was completely unmoving but thankfully, still breathing. The cloaked stallion holstered his weapon and calmly walked over to Blue, he took the chain that held his cloak on him, and carefully undid the latch. The cloak slid off. Whoa! He had wings! He wasn’t an earth pony, he was a pegasus. It was the first time I’d seen one; there were no pegasi in stable 65. Back when I was a foal, I thought that they only existed in books.  Surprisingly, his wings weren’t what drew my attention. He had a pipbuck! He activated the inventory arrangement spell, and the screen glowed the same blue color as his eyes. Wait- blue? My pipbuck was green, the same color as a terminal. I knew you could change the color if you really wanted to, but everyone in stable 65 kept theirs green, there was no point in changing it. And it wasn’t even pipbuck blue, that blue was a lighter color, this was the same royal blue as his eyes.

“Hey, name’s Cyber,” he said quietly as he extended his right wing to access his saddle bags. He looked down at his pipbuck. “Shut up,” he said quickly. Was he talking to me, or his pipbuck? When I asked, all he said was “I know. Sorry, very rude of me.” Now he reached into the top of said saddle bags and pulled out a syringe of med-X and a healing potion. He set the healing potion down and jabbed the med-X into blues chest and pressed the plunger that injected the painkiller. Blue immediately let out a sigh of relief. “Drink this,” Cyber commanded. Blue’s horn glowed softly as he lifted the potion to his lips and obeyed. The healing was miraculous. I watched as his wounds closed.

“You talk… to your pipbuck?” I asked again, still confused.

“Of course,” he said matter-of-factly. “Don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.” after a few more moments of confused looks, I cautiously asked, “Does your pipbuck talk back?”

“Doesn’t yours?”

“No. No it doesn’t.” How could a pipbuck talk? It was a piece of machinery. I’ll admit, it’s an incredibly useful piece of machinery, it has an inventory arrangement spell, its own radio, a light, a Geiger counter, for all it was worth, and S.A.T.S., but still, it was just a machine, it couldn’t be self-aware… could it? Before I could get too confused with the mysteries of the pipbuck universe, Cyber spoke up. “Nexus is right, I’m putting you in danger. There’ll be more of them soon. I really need to speak with Power flux. Can-”

“Power flux!? You know where she is!?” The Pegasus tried hard to not to fall over it was funny when he did. But he was already getting back up.

“I thought she was here. This is stable sixty five, right?” then he looked back down at his pipbuck as if telling it to shut up again.

“Well,” I began, trying to ignore him ‘speaking’ to his pipbuck, “well, she was, but she left. I was- wait, who’s Nexus?” He lifted his right hoof to point at his pipbuck.

“Nexus.” Seriously? He named his pipbuck?

“You…?” I began, but he interrupted.

“She left!?” Concern and shock evident in both his voice and expression.

“Well, yes.” I continued, back on topic. “I was going to find her.” Now he looked concerned.

“Oh, no. you have no idea how good you have it in the stable. I’ll go find her.” I was thoroughly confused.

“Why!? Why would- you know what? I’ve given up on trying to figure you out. You can look for her all you want, but I’m coming with you.” He stared me right in the eyes.

“NO. You won’t. Its hell out there, and I don’t want anypony else to get hurt on my behalf.” I stared right back at him.

“I’m. Coming. With. You.” I said with the same level of finality. He set his jaw and stared at me, obviously calculating his probability of winning the argument with the time it would take the “others” to get here. Apparently he didn’t like his odds. His grim expression broke into a wide smile.

“Welcome aboard.” He stepped aside and waved a hoof at the stable door. “The entrance, or exit in this case, is right that way. I’ll be with you shortly.” I reveled at how quickly his entire demeanor could change. After a moment of confusion, I reminded myself that I had given up on understanding him. I slowly walked through the open stable door, being careful not to step in the blood from the firefight just minutes ago, and stepped through.

***************************************************

CYBER/NEXUS

Today had not been a good day.

Both Spark Battery and Crimson Flare were dead, the mare I was supposed to meet here was just as stupid as I was, and I had just gotten a pony shot.

“And you lost a healing potion,” nexus added helpfully.

“And some med-X,” I replied as I began looting.

Assault rifle, shotgun, two healing potions, an inhaler, and various ammunition. I left most of the blunt weapons my assailants had wielded. I moved to exit the stable, but the blue coated stable dweller spoke up.

“That’s all? You’re just going to leave them here?”

“Yep. I got what I needed from them. Dispose of them as you will. Although,” I paused, “if I were you, I’d study the. That way you know what’s out there.”

“No thanks, we know that the outside is bad. We don’t need to take them apart to figure that put.”

“Dissection won’t be necessary, they’re still ponies. More or less. Just make sure you know what to expect next time somepony comes a’knocking.”

“Like you?”

“No. if everything goes well, you’ll never see me again.”

“Oh yes I will. You still have to bring her back,” he pointed to the unicorn mare exiting the stable.

“I’ll try. But I’m not one to make promises I can’t keep.”

And with that, I picked up my cloak, turned, and flew away. Away from the destruction I had brought.

“He’s right, you know,” Nexus badgered me. “You should’ve removed those corpses.”

“Why? I doesn’t benefit us to take them, and if he’s smart, he’ll have-“

“That’s not the point. That stable is their home. Imagine if that had happened to you.”

“I can honestly say that I’d be thrilled to know that there’s something out there.”

“Alright, but imagine how the rest of stable 78 would react.”

“I imagine they’d be appalled.”

“Exactly. I doubt they have a way to dispose of those.”

“But- Hay! You didn’t let me finish! The ponies in seventy eight were idiots.”

“Compared to us, everypony is an idiot.”

“Well, you know what? It’s too late now. What’s done is done.” I said as I landed next to the orange mare.

“What’d he say?” she asked.

She hadn’t heard that? Well she’d seen us talking.

“Just telling me to bring you back safely,” I decided to change the subject. “Any idea where she went?”

“No. And we couldn’t find her pipbuck tag either.

“Great.” “Fantastic.” Nexus and I said at the same time and with the same level of sarcasm.

“But she hasn’t been gone very long. Everypony saw her just last night. There’s no way she’s gotten very far.”

Now that was helpful.

“It’s possible that she’s taken refuge in a nearby building.”

Nexus was right.

“Then we should check the nearby buildings.” I said to… what was her name?

“Good idea,” she interrupted the thought.” Where’s the nearest building?”

“Um, I think over that way,” I stammered as I turned to point-

“Southeast.” Nexus informed me.

“Oh! And um, what’s your name?”

She seemed surprised. “My name? Oh, Honey drop.”

“Good to know,” was all I said as I smiled. “Let’s get going.

As we walked towards, ok it was really more like ‘in the general direction of’ the old sparkle cola factory, she started asking questions.

“How long have you been out here?” she was a bit tentative.

“Huh?” I replied with all the grace of a legless radroach.

“You’re from a stable, right? Those ponies back there didn’t have pipbucks, and you do, you’re from a stable.”

“She’s smart.” Nexus commented before retreating back into himself.

“Oh, uh, yeah.” It’s alright, Cyber. You’ll figure out how to talk eventually.

“So how long have you been outside?”

“Almost a week.” There we go, a nice, definite answer.

“Who are you running from?” She was getting a bit more confident with her questions.

“Mercenaries, bounty hunters, this one group of raiders.” Had I already become so matter-of-fact about my own death warrant?

“Raiders?” Oh damn, how do I phrase this?

“Err, they’re kind of…” I paused, not sure which words would fit. “Sad degenerates of ponykind who do, or try to do terrible things to anypony unlucky enough to come across them. They mutilate corpses and do and do even worse to the living. Either every one of them is a complete asshole, or they’re all horseshit insane. I haven’t figured out which one yet.”

“Oh.”

That had obviously shaken her.

“That’s horrible.”

“I told you it was hell out here.”

That was followed by a lot of silence. And quiet. And more quiet. Too quiet. I checked my Nexus’ EFS for threat detection. Nothing. That was creeping me out. Especially, since that ever present fog made it so that I couldn’t see more than fifty meters in any direction. Goddesses I hated that fog. It made this entire region unbearably humid. The temperature was actually pretty mild compared to what the other ponies had told me. Well, the one who didn’t immediately shoot me anyways. My new companion asked about the fog a couple times. They were all mostly the same question of ‘what is it?’ can’t you use your wings to make it go away?’ ‘Why not just fly away?’ I had to explain that the fog just reformed if you tried to remove it, and that I couldn’t fly away because every time I’d fly directly upwards and then find myself flying full speed at the ground. On the subject of flying away, I still wasn’t quite sure where in Equestria I was. I’d tried asking the ponies I’d met in Ironside but they all just laughed and said something to the effect of, ‘the last place you’ll ever know.’ For the last week I had been wondering exactly what that meant. It was clear that they all expected me to die here, but what was to stop me from leaving and dying someplace else? I kept wondering about that, and I started walking automatically. If Nexus didn’t have a direct link to my brain, probably I wouldn’t have heard him.

“We’re here.”

“We’re here.” I repeated as I opened the door and immediately began searching for threats. There were red bars all over my EFS compass. Half an hour later, the entire building was free of hostiles. That is to say, radroaches.

“She’s not here we should leave,” Honey drop said.

Nexus and I agreed. We kept moving and eventually reached the ruins of an old pre-war settlement. The tall concrete buildings lowered visibility even further.

“Keep an eye on your threat detection compass, if there’s anything here, we probably won’t see it before it’s too late,” I advised.

“What?” What did she mean, ‘what’?

“These buildings. Anypony could hide in them and we’d have no way of knowing.”

“Right. How do you turn on the EFS?”

I really didn’t know. I just always kept mine on.

“Nexus?” I thought expectantly.

“Notes. Settings. EFS. ON,” he responded immediately.

I relayed the information to Honey Drop, after a few clicks, she had it up.

“Spin around a couple times,” I commanded, to get her used to the movement.

Once she had done so, I continued instruction.

“See the part that moves when you turn your head? That’s the compass, see the green bar on it? That’s me. Anything friendly will be a green bar, anything that wants to hurt you will appear as red. Got it?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Alright just keep an eye on that. If you see a red bar, tell me, and get your gun out.”

“Okay.”

We continued cautiously moving through the streets of the seemingly abandoned town for a while before I saw it. A lone red bar over to my right. I tapped my companion on the shoulder and pointed to it. Once she saw it, I quickly raised a hoof to my lips. We moved quickly and quietly over to it, partially to see if there were any more and partially to make sure it wasn’t just an insect in a bad mood. More red bars came into view as we moved closer, and then we saw it. A pony, with a hunting rifle on each side of his battle saddle. I pulled Honey drop to the back a few meters so that the fog would obscure us. I was about to tell her that we were turning back when I noticed a blue bar in the midst of all the red. I let out a sigh of frustration.

“Don’t,” Nexus transmitted immediately.

“You know I have to.”

“Saving them won’t help us. There’s not even any reason to assume that the blue bar isn’t helping them.”

“That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

“It’s not one that you have to take.”

“I’ve already made my decision.”

I outlined my plan to Honey Drop in hushed tones, she listened intently until I got to the ‘you stay here’ part.

“No way!” she interrupted, her voice barely above my own, “I’m coming with you.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt becau-”

“I won’t.”

I swear, there’s just no arguing with her!

“Fine, but stay close.”

We began our approach by hiding on one side of an abandoned, broken skywagon with the raider on the other. The moment he turned his back, we followed, I quickly drew my revolver in case we were spotted. We stayed behind him, keeping his pace and staying out of his FOV. Eventually we made it close enough to see who the blue bar was. A ghoul in combat armor was standing surrounded by them, all of them who had guns kept them trained on him. He seemed calm. More than that, he seemed in control. Honey drop saw the ghoul and immediately screamed, or at least tried to. I had put a hoof over her mouth as soon as the ghoul came into view. I gave her a look that she hopefully interpreted as ‘I’ll explain later’. I pulled her back behind one of the walls they had set up in the middle of the road so that we could see what was happening.

“Ah ah ah!” He barked at one of them that was crouched over a… actually I wasn’t sure what that was. “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you.”

Nexus and I saw his hoof on a detonator. That brick of whatever it was must have been some kind of explosive.

The ghoul continued, “Need I remind you that only I know how to disarm that! Cut the wrong wire and this entire street goes up in smoke.”

Instantly I understood why he was surrounded. If his hoof came off the button on that detonator, the explosives would arm themselves. And then the gravity of the situation hit me. How many more explosives had he set up? Apparently enough to destroy the entire street. I had to think of a solution before we were spotted.

“Nexus, best course of action?”

“Find a way to get the ghoul’s attention without the others seeing you.”

“After we get Honey Drop to keep the detonator still with her telekinesis, we could start shooting without the place blowing up.”

“Good idea, but if you want the non-hostile to survive, you’ll need some way to get him out of there.”

Idea! While the raiders were arguing over whether or not he was bluffing, I detailed the plan

“Honey drop, psst! Honey Drop! See that devise under his hoof?”

I waited for a response and then realized that I still had my hoof over her mouth. I removed it long enough for her to answer.

“Yeah. I see it.”

“Good, I need you to grab it with your telekinesis and not let go of it. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Perfect. Just keep the button held down, that’s all I need you to do.”

“Got it.”

Time to get us all killed. I picked my gun up off the ground where I set it so I could talk and flew upwards and forwards until I was directly above the confrontation, and then I flew downwards until I landed right next to the ghoul. Time to act! I lined up the shots in SATS targeting the raiders with guns. I felt Nexus guide my movements and watched as I put clean holes through two heads, and in SATS, I got to watch in glorious slow motion as I was unable to turn around in time and took a hunting round in my side. But the targeting spell continued its job even as I felt the bullet rip through me. I missed the headshot, but I managed to hit her in the leg. SATS ended, time resumed and I fell to the pavement with a bullet in my chest. Fortunately, my stunt had given Honey drop time to shoot. I heard the first two almost before I hit the ground; that was the one we’d followed. A moment later I heard another shot, from a rifle, and I heard her cry out, just before I was I heard another two shots from- my own gun!? The ghoul had picked it up and was firing at the remaining two who were not quite surrounding him anymore. I heard more shots as the last red bar blipped out.

“Friendly!” I yelled as soon as they stopped firing and my voice was audible, “We’re friends!”

“No you’re not! You’re crazy!” the disarmed ghoul shouted even as he bent over to administer a healing potion.

I chuckled, “There really isn’t that much of a difference.” I was already getting back up as the healing effects finished. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“For what? I had everything under control.”

“You were about to blow up a road.”

“I was actually exaggerating about that, I only have the two packages.”

“Oh. Well I still would’ve liked to have seen you talk your way out of that mess.”

“If you hadn’t done that, I might’ve.”

“Hay!” the orange mare with the detonator spoke up, “can you two shut up? Excuse me, sir? Have you seen a yellow-ish unicorn with glasses anywhere around here?”

“There ain’t much to ‘see’ ‘round here,” the earth pony scratched his chin, “Nope. Can’t say that I have. But if they’ve been out here long, they've probably found their way to Ironside.”

“Where?”

At this point, I chimed in, “it’s part of a city not far from here. Most ponies find that first since all you do is follow the road. It’s called iron side because of the walls the inhabitants put up around it.”

“Then why aren't we going there?” Honey Drop seemed almost accusing about my decision.

“Because she hasn't been outside long enough to get there. We should keep looking for her closer to the stable.” I quickly explained to her.

“Alright.” She nodded.

The ghoul stallion spoke again. “You might check the slaver campsite not far from here, if your friend is from a stable, there’s a chance they’ve gotten her.”

“Slavers!?” she was visibly shaken for the second time today.

“Hey!” I snapped, “Maybe you shouldn’t stress out the pony holding the detonator.”

Nexus decided it was time for him to enter the conversation. “And that’s not a definite circumstance.”

“And besides, Nexus is right, that’s not a foregone conclusion.” I relayed to those without an extra voice in their head.

I fished some duct tape out of my saddle bags and tossed it to Honey Drop, “maybe you could use that to make sure we don’t blow up?”

She caught the tape midair and wrapped it around the button a few times and floated it over to our ghoulified acquaintance.

“I guess you’ll have to disarm those explosives yourself.” I regretfully asked.

“Oh that’s nothing,” he deflected “It’s really easy, let me show you two.”

Fifteen minutes later, we were on our way, educated in the nuances of bomb disposal and my newest problem had gotten a satisfactory education on ghouls. Time to get searching again. Eventually we made our way to an old weapons manufacturing plant. It was basically indistinguishable from the sparkle cola factory earlier that day, save for a few differences. It was larger and had a few more conveyor belts, but it was the same walkways, the walls were made of the same material. The place was empty, aside from a few securiponys. We dealt with those fairly easily.

“What are we doing here? Power Flux isn’t here, we should keep looking for her.”

“Negative,” nexus and I said simultaneously. “It’s almost dark outside, we should stay here and try to get some rest.

“No, we should keep looking we have our pipbuck lights in case it gets dark,” she explained patiently.

“Not a good idea,” I responded, mocking her own tone. “You see, little stable dweller, the oh-so-menacing fog gets even worse at night. You can barely see a meter in front of you. You could be right next to your friend and neither of you would know. Or- Oh now here’s a scary thought what if it wasn’t your friend?”

“We have the threat detection compass on our EFS for that.”

“Good point, let’s say you see a red bar directly in front of you. How are you going to tell if it’s a radroach or some half pony half bloatsprite thing that’s out for blood?”

She just sat there trying to think of something else. Her facial expressions made it clear that she kept thinking of a reason and then thinking of another reason on why that wouldn’t work.

After a while she just said, “Fine. But you have to tell me everything you know about this fog. And this area. And-”

I stopped her right there with a hoof on her lips. “Shush. I’ll honestly answer any questions you ask. After we find a place to sleep.”

***************************************************

CAMELLIA

I watched them enter that old Iron shod firearms factory. That was definitely the Pegasus we were looking for. Goddesses, how lucky was I? I was just settling down in an abandoned prewar building when I saw them. That was definitely him. The pegasus with the biggest bounty in the wasteland as we knew it. But who was that orange mare? It didn’t matter. This was the best thing that had happened me since I left the stable. I waited until they had disposed of the security in the building and finally dawned my zebra stealth cloak and began moving just as night set in. there was no way I was going to be outside when the fog rolled up. I could probably handle myself for one night, as I’d done all too many times before. I could hear them arguing as I entered through the back door. They had already taken care of the robots and sentries turrets in this place, good. With nothing in my way, I made it to their room before they were finished talking.

“I already told you,” the target’s voice wafted through the halls, “all I know about his fog is that it’s arcane and it’s a jerk”

This was too perfect, they were distracted with each other, I was invisible, and the other problem was so fresh out of the stable that she didn’t even know about the fog yet. I couldn’t get too close. This cloak was good but if you look closely you can see the wearer’s outline. I couldn’t get too close, but I had to. I reached into my saddlebags, and retrieved one of my slave collars. Now how to do this… well, the simple method usually works best.

“No, we should be safe, nopony else is stupid enough to-“my collar snapped around his neck and stopped him mid-sentence.

Okay now the collar was out of my mouth I had to get my pistol quickly, the unicorn was already moving. I got the mouth grip and immediately hit SATS. But wasn’t able to move quickly enough. She had already brought her weapon to bear. There was no she’d miss at this range, but in the calm of SATS, I had a little more time to think. I targeted her weapon and fired, the shots went wide as the weapon flew out of here telekinetic grasp. Now all I had to do was shoot her. SATS was up again and I was ready to end her. But something stopped me, a golden telekinetic glow in my peripheral vision. Dammit! Time stood still in SATS and all I could do was mentally scream as I stared at my ammo clip, already half way ejected. I still had the one bullet that was already in the chamber, but would that be enough? I had to hope. I cancelled the extra shots so that I wouldn’t be standing there tonguing the trigger for an extra few seconds. I fired and the shot connected. I dropped the pistol and tackled her before she could regain coherent thought and began furiously trying to pin her down, I succeeded easily enough. I was about to congratulate myself when I heard the click of a pistol’s hammer being drawn back. Two pistols. I could feel them both against the back of my head. I could see her horn glowing. I froze.

“Give me a reason I shouldn’t kill you right now,” she said all too smugly.

“I can answer that,” the pegasus cut in before I could reply. I could hear his surprisingly calm voice from behind, and slightly to the left of, me. I heard him tapping on the metal slave collar. “Rigged to explode.”

“And!” I interjected before I could seem like more of a weakling. “I have the detonator.” I declared as I tapped my pipbuck leg against the floor.

“Well, that doesn’t exactly matter, now does it?” stupid orange unicorn and her stupid cheatie telekinesis.

“Unless your hoof moves faster than a bullet, then you’ll die before I do,” chimed the pegasus. Would these two stop it?

“It’s also on a timer,” I said almost too quickly, “even if you kill me, it’ll still go off.” I was bluffing. But they seemed to have bought it.

I carefully stepped off of her and stood in the middle of the room. She still had her and my pistol trained on me. So that’s where the second one came from. Time to try negotiation.

“So,” I tried to say things clearly, “if you let me go, I’ll take the collar off

“How abou-” the unicorn started to say something.

“If you don’t mind,” feather face interrupted, “I’d like to negotiate for me own life.” He now faced me directly. “If you get this collar off me and leave me alone, I’ll get my friend here to give you your gun back, and we’ll let you leave.” Nice try.

“How about no. I’ll take the collar off and you get a two day head start,” I reasoned.

His turn. “Let us keep the collar and your gun, and the head start won’t be necessary.”

Was this guy serious? “Not happening, featherbrain. I’ll take the collar back, you can keep the gun, and I won’t come after you until the day after tomorrow.”

“Deal.”

“Guns down first.”

“Alright.” He quickly nodded to her, and she reluctantly holstered one of them, and placed the other in her saddlebags.

I pressed the disconnect button under my pipbuck’s radio setting and the explosive ring neatly detached and fell with a resounding clank to the metal floor.

Immediately, everypony in the room visibly relaxed.

“So, what now?” horn head asked.

“We’re stuck here until night.” I added, seeing her point.

“Now?” it wasn’t a question. The feather brain was just being arrogant again. “Now, we learn everypony’s names. I’ll start. My name is Cyber, and this is Nexus.” He said as he pointed to his pipbuck. Wait, what? I was about to ask, but the cheatie cheatie unicorn interrupted.

“You’re just going to-!? She tried to kill you!”

“So? Everypony does. Now be polite and tell her your name.”

“Polite!? She just tried to kill us!”

Cyber just sighed and shook his head disappointedly. “This is Honey Drop. And you are…?”

It took a while from me to respond; this was so surreal. I had expected this guy to be some kind of badass, not a total weirdo.

“My name is Camellia.”

Footnote: Level up!

Honey Drop

New Perk. Silly pony, Rank I: you are stubborn and relentless, you don't give up. +5 to both speech and barter.

Quest Perk added! Bomb disposal: you can now defuse most explosives through dialogue.

Cyber/Nexus

New Perk. Never all alone: you have an extra voice inside your head, you don't always agree, but it's a useful second opinion.

Quest Perk added! Bomb disposal: you can now defuse most explosives through dialogue.

Camellia

New Perk. Explosive bondage: you know your way around a lave collar and can equip any to an unaware target through pickpocket.