The Last Quest

The Last Quest

Chapter Two

“... This is now on my top ten of weirdest things to happen to me... this year anyway.” Chase muttered to himself as he looked at the snoring pink horse next to him. Some bandages had been wrapped around her head and the bleeding had stopped for the most part.

Chase was leaning against the wall by the doorway, keeping vigil for the night. He did this most nights as sleep only brought him nightmares, making him see things he wanted to forget about, ‘Like the always smiling face of a traitor.’

Despite his best efforts, Chase would never forget all the mistakes he made leading to the downfall of New Vegas, ‘Why didn’t I see it when you mysteriously left just after I conquered the dam...’ Chase shook his head, ‘Stop, I will not repeat mistakes like that ever again... never trust a god damn smiling robot.’

With a sigh Chase pulled up his pipboy and set a quiet alarm to wake him at sunrise, he would need his rest for the journey ahead. Then he would need to talk to the horse about where the hell it came from.

******

Smoke... smoke was all he could see. He could hear fire, like a raging inferno was inside. The sound and the smoke rushed into the elevator as the doors opened as if a bushfire had been contained within. The Courier looked in horror at the vault that had contained his army for the past few days. Quickly he dropped down to his stomach and began crawling as fast as he could down the hallway and into the vault.

The heat was intense, but the fate of New Vegas rest on the army he had recalled on the advice of a friend. Chase silently thanked god that he had an air filter on his Elite Riot Gear helmet as the smoke was thick. Just as he crawled into the first room he saw the smiling face of Yes Man on the monitor and the door that lead further into the Vault was barely open.

“Yes Man! What’s the status of the securitrons?!” Chase yelled.

“Completely destroyed!” He said in his usual happy voice.

“What happened, you said they all needed to be recalled for an emergency safety protocol update!”

“Oh, that’s what I was programmed to say when in reality this is what was meant to be of the army. Hey that kinda rhymed!”

Chase looked up at the monitor, behind his mask his mouth was opened in shock, “What! Who programmed you to do this!”

“Remember when I had to go offline for a bit after you took over the dam, to download the code snippets that would allow me to be more assertive? Well I was flat wrong. They turned out to be contingency plans that Mr. House had made to end anyone who tried to use his own creations against him.”

“You just doomed all of New Vegas!” Chase screamed, “Without the securitrons we won’t stand a chance against the Tunnelers!”

“I know and I’m sorry, but under Mr. Houses protocols I was to download any and all upgrades of his should I come across them, but hey look at the brightside I just sent the letters I needed to finish the protocol and now we can be friends and plot a new take over of the Mojave!” Yes Man continued in his annoying happy tone.

Chase stared wide eyed at the monitor, his voice dripping with hate for the AI, “... What letters did you send... and who did you send them to...”

“Why, to the families of the strip of course. I needed to make this disaster seem entirely the new leader of New Vegas’ fault, so I sent all the evidence that this was caused by a single rogue tunneler to them. With that being a hot topic between you and them it seemed like a slamdunk at the time.”

“...” Chase quickly snatched A Light Shining in Darkness from his hip and shot the terminal three times in quick succession. One bullet in each speaker and another in the middle of the screen.

‘Hopefully the NCR doesn’t find out about this too soon.’ Chase thought to himself as he reholstered the pistol, ‘Maybe I could use the robo scorpions from Big-Mountain as a new security force. The think tank would need time to build them and create all the right protocols so they won’t attack the wrong targets.’ an explosion to Chase’s left alerted him he was still in danger he was still in.

Crawling back the way he had came chase began to think of ways he could regroup his allies again. All he needed was time.

******

Chase awoke with a start as something screamed, “Ahh! Two headed monster cow!” then proceeded to yell in a very high pitched voice. Chase lowered Lil' Devil, which he had brought up on reflex, back into it’s holster and began to rub the sleep out of his eyes. He pulled off his first recon beret and wiped the sweat off his forehead.

‘It was a good idea to hog tie her to the cars like the brahmin.’ Chase thought as he got up and began to stretch, ‘Maybe not so much a good idea to tie her to the same car as one of brahmin though.’

As the pink horse continued to scream Chase shouted, “Shut up!” loud enough that an echo could be heard. Immediately the horse stopped screaming and turned to look at him. Her eyes turned to pinpoints, irises and all, before she opened her mouth and sharply inhaled her breath.

“If you call me a mutant monkey, I gotta tell ya, I won’t be very happy.” Chase said interrupting whatever she was going to say. The two had a small stare off before the horse began giggling then outright laughing, “What? What’s so funny.”

“You, silly. You look more like a minotaur than a monkey.” the small horse said through it’s laughing fit, “What I was going to say though is: Hi my name is Pinkamena Diane Pie, but all my friends call me Pinkie. What’s your name. Are you the one that saved me from those zombie things. Why do the cows here have two heads. And do you happen to have directions to Ponyville from here?” she finished with a smile on her face that was creepy big.

“...” Chase just stared at the fast talking horse in front of him piecing together all of the questions she had just asked him. Chase knelt down next to the small horse and answered, “Okay, nice to meet you Pinkie Pie, my name is Chase Liam Cole, my friends call me Chase. I am the one that saved you from the feral ghouls. They’re called brahmin and they mutated that way from cows. Lastly I have no idea of any place called Ponyville.” Chase answered as quickly as he could to try and match her speed and ending trying to smile as big as her, mostly because he was bored. Despite her appearing nice and sincere Chase never took his right hand off Lil' Devil.

“Wow, usually when I get to talking to fast or asking a lot of questions somepony puts their hoof against my mouth to try and shut me up.”

“That... sounds pretty disgusting. If someone ever tried putting their foot in my mouth to shut me up, they probably wouldn’t be alive much longer.” Chase chuckled at the thought of someone trying to shut him up with their foot.

Pinkie got really quiet as chase finished, her eyes got wide and the smile left her face, “What?... You’d kill somepony, just for trying to get you to be quiet?”

“... Well when you say it like that I sound like a scumbag raider. I’d kill someone for trying to shut me up when I’m talking by shoving something dirty in my mouth.” as Chase finished everything got quiet as Pinkie Pie just stared at him, mouth open in shock.

“You’d still kill though...” Pinkie said slowly.

“Yep, you’re definitely not from around here if killing upsets you. Although your ad... pinkness gave it away pretty easily.” Chase replied before standing up, “I need to go disable a lot of explosives, I’ll be right back.” he then turned to walk away, “Don’t go anywhe-What the fuck!” Chase jumped back as Pinkie was now in right in front of him, he pulled out Lil' Devil and pointed it at her head.

“Why would you want to kill anything? Killing is bad, no matter what it’s for.” Pinkie said in a sad voice lowering her head as her poofy mane and tail seemed to deflate. Chase meanwhile looked from the small pile of rope, to Pinkie, and back again.

Finally settling on Pinkie, Chase muttered quietly, “W-When did... How... How did... I-I didn’t even... What?” a multitude of things where going through Chase’s mind as he stared at the sad little horse in front of him. One thought stood out though, 'This just got really crazy, really fast.'

After a few seconds, Chase gathered himself enough to make a coherent sentence, “What the hell are you?”

“I’m a pony and you’re a murderer, and murderers are all the same.” Pinkie muttered.

‘Oh no, I am not having any of the crazy little pony’s sadness added to what the fuck is going on with this situation.’ Chase thought before saying, “You weren’t that concerned with death when I killed those ghouls.”

Pinkie never looked up from the ground, “Because they're monsters and they were trying to eat me...”

‘This is fucked up on so many levels.’ Chase thought as he saw a tear drop to the ground, “Well, would it make you feel better if I said I only kill monsters and murderers?...” Chase asked slowly and cautiously, keeping his eyes on the pink pony.

The pony looked up from the ground and the sight of it’s face was the almost sad enough to make him lower his gun... almost. The fur under her face was dark and matted down because of the tears, her eyes were slightly red, and a few tears had made a puddle in front of her fore hooves. It was like a nuclear level puppy dog eyes trick. Chase just ignored the fact the tears should of been absorbed by the dry ground as the situation was getting weird enough.

“You-you’re not an evil doer who wants to hurt everypony?” her voice was quivering as if she was going to start weeping at any moment.

Chase thought of his next words carefully, “No, I’m actually the one who hunts down people like that and I only use violence if I can’t talk them out of... whatever it is they’re doing.”

Without any warning her mane and tail pooffed back up and Chase came so close to shooting her that a breeze more could of pushed the trigger the rest of the way. She was once again all smiling, happy, and was wiping the tears off of her face, “Cool, so you take down bad guys like a police officer or a royal guard.”

Chase was baffled by the pony once again, ‘She’s either all happy or very sad. That's a sign of insanity I think, or maybe I’ve finally lost it completely and this is just some hallucination... nah, it’s her.’ “Sure... listen as fun as it’s been talking to you, I really gotta be deactivating the minefield around us so, just stay here and I’ll be right back...” Chase slowly walked around the pony as she continued to look at him, smiling. He was only slightly freaked out, and tried to ignore it, when her head was able to do a one-eighty and then her body did so shortly after.

Since Pinkie seemed to be staying put Chase passed Lil’ Devil to his left hand and approached the first mine. Meanwhile Pinkie looked closely at her new surroundings finally taking note that everything seemed to be in a state of decay, “Who’s the cleaning mare cause this place is a wreck.” Pinkie said loud enough for Chase to hear.

Chase pretended not to hear her as he focused on just deactivating the mines, he would pick them up after he was done. Suddenly a brilliant idea came into Chase’s head, “I’ll explain that later, why don’t you tell me how you got into that nasty situation I found you in, and start from the beginning.”

“Okay, well it all started when I got up from bed yesterday and my Pinkie sense was telling me that today was going to be a super duper special day...” She went on for the next twenty minutes describing her morning routine of getting out of bed, fixing her bed, feeding her toothless pet alligator Gummy, brushing her teeth, everything.

‘This was one of the stupidest plans I’ve ever had.’ Chase thought to himself as the pony’s nonstop talking continued. He finished deactivating the last mine though, ‘Now for the tripwire traps.’

“Then Twilight walked through the front door just a minute after Applejack walked out. She's a lavender alicorn, a pony with both wings and a horn, with a straight, really dark blue mane and tail that have two streaks of color in them. One was violet and the other was a slightly darker pink than my coat, but not as dark as my mane. She was all mopey when she walked into Sugarcube Corner talking about how Discord was actually sick this time and he was driving her insane with the requests he was making. So I did what I always do when my friends are down, I offered her a cupcake, because cupcakes always make me feel better, and I told her that I would help her any way I could.

“I rushed up stairs and asked the Cakes if I could have the day off, and Mr. Cake said, ‘Of course Pinkie, we’re not open on Sundays.’ I was so happy I told them thanks and rushed out the door to Twilight's house. Along the way I waved to Lyra, Bon Bon, Derpy,-” She went on to name thirteen more ridiculous names while Chase put the mines and grenades into one of the crates.

“Pinkie.” Chase said trying to get her attention.

“Then I waved to the birds Fluttershy was helping before continuing towards Twilight’s. I hopped and skipped-”

“Pinkie.” Chase said a bit louder and more forcefully this time.

“-and I even started humming this little tune I couldn’t get out of my head, it went-”

“Pinkie!” Chase yelled, finally getting her to look at him.

“What?”

“Can you skip to the part where you get sent here... please?” Chase asked pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Okey dokey, so I opened up Twilight’s front door and saw Discord changing from blue, to green, to yellow, then back to blue. Twilight quickly rushed me in and I said hi to Discord before she started thanking me repeatedly for coming over to help take care of him. First thing Discord wanted me to do was ask Twilight for a cup of water like he would.”

“Could you make this a long story short kinda thing cause I would like to get to my home before nightfall.” Chase asked as he untied the rope to the brahmin.

“Sure, after a while Twilight tried to cure him with alicorn magic, Discord sneezed, I got hit with the magic, and the next thing I know I’m running away from zombies trying to eat my brains.” Pinkie finished up as I walked up to her.

“So you’re here because of an accident involving a purple alicorn using magic on this Discord guy, to try an cure a cold, which he somehow sneezed into you, and that magic sent you here. Correct?”

“Yeah, alicorn magic is really strong, where are we anyway?” Pinkie asked as we began walking.

“Well Pinkie, since no-one else will, allow me to be the first to welcome you to,” they both stood at the eastern edge of the parking lot looking across a small bunching of dead trees and rocks, “The Capital Wasteland.”

...

“... Kinda looks like the Badlands, but more dead looking... and more trees.” Pinkie said after a few moments of silence.

“Yeah, this place would look like anywhere with ‘bad’ in the name.” Chase replied as he lead the brahmin between the thin trees, “So, Pinkie, you seem to be pretty calm about this whole situation, care to explain.” Chase asked before adding quickly, “A short explanation please.”

“Oh, well I was sad and scared at first like when I was being chased by the ghouls, but after you found me, I knew I would be just fine. Besides Twilight probably knows exactly what happened and is working on a spell to bring me back right now.” Pinkie said with a big smile on her face.

***Equestria***

Inside of a tree at the center of Ponyville there was a panicking, sobbing alicorn, four sad ponies and a sleeping Discord. With every second Twilight grew more and more frantic, trying to come to terms with what she had done.

“I have no idea what happened!” Twilight practically yelled as Rarity stroked her back, trying to comfort her.

“Twi, ya jus’ need to calm down. Now ya shot some magic at Discord to cure him, he sneezed, and Pinkie got zapped. Am I right so far?” Applejack asked trying to get Twilight’s story right.

“Yes, but when my magic met with the magic in Discord’s sneeze it’s properties changed. I could have teleported her, made her invisible, shrunk her, even-” Twilight’s eyes grew wide and began to tear up, “killed her.”

“Twi, don’t you even think that for a moment, Pinkies fine, we just got to find her.” Applejack said, her voice solid and unwavering like she was speaking the truth.

“Relax Twilight, Princess Celestia will be here soon and we can all have a good laugh when she get’s Pinkie back.” Rainbow Dash said while hovering over Twilight and Rarity, "Hey, where's spike?"

“She sent him to my boutique to keep an eye on the Crusaders." Rarity said before looking back down at Twilight, "Rainbow is right Twilight, you must stop this crying at once. The princess will be here and she’ll fix everything.” Rarity said continuing to rub Twilight’s back.

“What if I did-” Twilight tried to say before she was smacked hard across the face by Applejacks hoof.

“Now stop, ya can either keep up with the what ifs or ya can pick yourself up and make an effort to try a find our friend instead of crying over an accident.”

“Uh, girls...” Fluttershy asked to try and get their attention.

“Applejack! Show some compassion, can’t you see she’s hurting. It’s okay sweaty we’ll find her.” Rarity put a forehoof around Twilight’s neck and pulling her in for a hug.

“Uh, girls.” Fluttershy asked a bit louder this time as Rainbow Dash landed next to her.

“We’re all hurting Rarity, but she needs to get up and be ready to help the Princess when she gets here.” Applejack stated.

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash shouted getting all of their attention, “All yours Fluttershy.”

“Thank you. I wanted to ask when you sent letter to the Princesses?” Fluttershy asked from her spot by the window.

Twilight lifted herself off of the ground and wiped the tears out of her eyes, “About seven minutes ago, why?”

“Because Princess Luna’s carriage just landed outside, with both princesses in it.”