Fallout: Equestria - Heart of Nickel

by SOGGYPOTATOCHIPS

Chapters

Ch 1: Awakening
Ch 2: First Contact
Ch 3: You Save One Town...
Ch 4: ... And Somepony's Bound to Want You Dead

Ch 1: Awakening

Chapter1: Awakening

>RUNNING STARTUP SEQUENCE

>DAYS INACTIVE: ERR. OVERFLOW

>LOADING .MEM FILES…

>LOADED

>LOADING STATS.PNE

>S.P.E.C.I.A.L. LOADED

>EMERGENCY POWER UNIT: CHARGED

>DEUTERIUM FUSION DRIVE…

>...

>... ERROR; CAPACITY NOT REACHED. RUNNING AT 25% CAPACITY.

>AUTOMATIC REPAIR UNIT: 10% EFFICIENCY

>ACTIVATING...

Eyesight slowly faded back into my eyes, starting blurred, but eventually providing a clearer image. I first looked down at my hands, flexing the fingers, feeling the pistons moving. I had stretched out my arms, hearing the groans and pops of servos and gears not wanting to work after… . how many years was it? I threw up my H.U.D., and, ignoring all of the other information, located the date and time. It was 99:99, 99/99/9999999… the nines trailed off the edge of my sight. oh, goody, I have no clue what year it is. I had stepped out of the chamber that was barely large enough to fit myself, and immediately fell over. Of course, because waking up after hundreds of years is akin to getting up after a long car ride. Curse my robotic body. Having forgotten my own name, thanks to those .mem files occasionally going bad,causing myself to forget things or not remember them as they were, I had looked to the small metal plate next to my pod. Nickel. ah, yes, now I remember. I was Nickel 1, built and designed to emulate the human mind. Why? Why would someone want to build a brain? It was one of those things that everyone says would be nice, but everyone knows that would end in some horrifying way. They did it, though. They did it and I was the result. I wasn’t sure about how I felt about that. “You are the pinnacle of technology,” they had said to me. Sure I was, at least until some new gizmo is invented that allows average computers to store more data than a brain while costing less than a gas station cheeseburger.

I was walking along the small chambers, the tallest being about four and a half feet tall, and each one was dirtier than the last. Having forgotten what my robotic companions looked like, I had decided to make an attempt to wipe the dust and dirt off of one of the pods. I was not ready for what was inside the pod. A small metal horse stared out of the chamber, sending new memories flowing out of the obscure black depths of my mind. I remembered walking through the hallways with these small robots everywhere, my builders explaining to me that the “pony” mind was easier to emulate than the human mind. speaking of my builders, where were they? well, that was a stupid question. if I was inactive so long that my clock was freaking out, they were probably dead. still, it never hurt to check.

As I was walking through the hallways to the offices, my mind had slipped back to that eternal fact. I’m not alive. I will go through my nigh-infinite lifespan without feeling the warmth of a loved one’s touch, seeing all of my friends grow old and die. Never feeling love. I was an immensely expensive computer with legs and arms, and that’s all I’ll ever be. I found it hard to focus on the task at hand as the thoughts began to overtake even basic processes. Despair started to flow over me as a river flows over stones. I sat down, curling up into the fetal position, and began to sob. I sat there for some time as I made the noises of crying, but no actual crying happening. Tears didn’t flow. My robotic body had to deny me the comfort of almost everything, even that of tears running down my metal cheeks.

Several hours passed before I got up from my position on the floor.

Stepping into my father’s office, I had no idea why he insisted on me calling him things like “dad”, he was just a bit odd like that, I had noticed that, on the screen of his terminal, was “pod 354- Nickel 1” with a flashing “activated” next to it. Yep, everyone’s dead. if Dad wasn’t in his office, the world must have ended. Next to the terminal was a note; If you want to survive longer than half a weekend, you’re going to need some backup, armor, and weaponry. In the floor safe is a pistol, some ammo and some caps. When you have some friends travel west of this facility. All will be explained to you when you get there.

That wasn’t suspicious at all. Recently activated without half a clue what’s going on and a note telling me to get some friends or die. Well, who am I to question a mysterious person that left a mysterious note? Other than a robot who is able to think for himself. On second thought, maybe I won’t follow his instructions.

I checked the floor safe, and, it turns out, he wasn’t lying. There was a pistol and some caps. Granted, the pistol was in some bad shape, but it was a pistol. I have no idea what compelled me to do so, but I grabbed the note, thinking that it may be useful some time later.

I had climbed several thousand flights of stairs, and was now nearing the exit of the facility. As I was climbing the final steps, many questions flowed through my head. Is it really that bad? Where would I even make friends if it was that bad? To be honest, I was kind of… kind of… nervous. was that the word? Whatever it was, I was feeling it. I was so focused on trying to figure out what word to use, I hadn’t realized that I was upon the entrance to the facility. I opened the door, and stepped outside.

Ch 2: First Contact

Chapter two: First Contact

I was momentarily blinded from the sudden change in lighting as I stepped out from the dark facility into the relative brightness of the overcast sky. I looked down at where there should have been grass, green and thick. What my optical sensors met was not a carpet of green grass, not even the brown of grass long dead, but a mixture of dirt, ash and sand. I gazed over the edge of the plateau the building was set upon. It was not a pretty picture. I perceived the sad gray and brown of a land long dead, two small clusters of, what seemed to be, mostly intact buildings, one of them walled. I wasn’t sure what to do with this new information. I was expecting something like a war.Yeah, this looks nothing like the aftermath of a nuclear armageddon, a small voice in my head told me with a tone that was just oozing sarcasm. Great, now I have a voice in my head. I guess all those years inactive have gotten to me. I guess so. You better get used to it, too. I grumbled inwardly about getting some antivirus software installed as I began down the side of the tableland towards the closest of the two towns, the walled one.

Ya know, the last time you went through a place as lifeless as this was back during the war. Yeah… woah, wait. what war? I’m not really sure. All I really remember was that there was a war, and that we were in it. Okay, two things. First, you weren’t there. Second, why would I be in a war? I hate fighting. two more things, asshat. I must have been with you, ‘cause I remember it vividly. Also, you were in it. I remember that we were sent out by the ministry of something-or-other. Then why don’t I remember it? I was there too. I started thinking for a probable way that this annoying voice in my head could remember things that I didn’t. Maybe he was a split personality of mine that took some memories with? Or maybe he fabricated his own memories? You got anything? Your guess is as good as mine, pally.

I was roughly 300 metres away from the walled town before the snipers started firing.

I didn’t stand a chance against the first wave of bullets. The snipers all took their shots within seconds of each other. The large rounds exiting my body barely slower than when they entered. One of the shots went through my leg, Nearly tearing it clean off.

Hundreds of error messages popped up on my H.U.D., each one more severe than the last.

I spotted a nearby boulder, and took my chance. Moving as quickly as I could, I took cover behind the stone.

Oh, fuck, man, we gotta do something! I’m thinking, okay! Just let me focus.

Shooting the snipers wouldn’t work, they’re too far away. Neither would trying to storm the place, they’ve probably got a lot more soldiers.

My gaze came down upon a nearby house that was surprisingly intact. Okay, target locked. These snipers didn’t seem like the type to just let me escape, though.

I began to scan my surroundings once again, my sight locking on a nearby cliff face.

That was it! I could just use the cliff face to redirect my voice. One more time for whose of us who aren’t nerds? I sighed, mostly to the annoying voice. I could talk really loudly, and make the echo go towards them, thusly making them think that I am over there, at the cliff. Ya really think that they’re that stupid? You have any better ideas? No. Exactly.

I cranked my voice up to maximum volume, angled myself a bit better, and let loose. “I’M OVER HERE!”I screamed with a surprising amount of volume.

I began my quick limp over to the house, my body getting more and more sluggish along the way.

I was only halfway before the snipers started firing on me.OH GOD, WE’RE GONNA DIE HERE! “No. We. AREN’T!” I screamed at both myself and my internal counterpart as the battery indicating my power levels shot up to halfway.

>EMERGENCY POWER ACTIVE

I burst through the door of the house, quickly shutting it. My power levels read 5% and dropping.

POWER LEVELS CRITICAL: ACTIVATING HIBERNATION MODE

My body went limp, slamming to the ground with enough force to kick up some dust.

***

I woke up some hours later, briefly unaware of my surroundings. That feeling of blissful ignorance was quickly replaced by alarm. I quickly stood up, realizing that if I was here long enough for that massive leg wound to become repaired, then they clearly must have forgotten about me.

Exiting through the door opposite the walled town, I started for the wall-less one.

Along the way, I had decided to start up a conversation with myself. So we were in a war? Yeah, man. It was brutal. There were people dying left and right. the scent of blood was heavy in the air constantly. We were lucky to get out of there alive. Why is it that you say “we” all the time? I dunno. It’s just a bit more natural for me. Weird. Coming from the robot with a voice in his head. … good point.

The town wasn’t very far away before the tenants started raising their alarms. I was close enough to make out that the current occupants were… candy colored ponies wearing armor, some of them with guns floating next to them.

As I neared the town, I started to make out that the armored ponies were keeping other, unarmed ponies in cages. I may be a soulless automaton, but I know the difference between right and wrong, and this was clearly wrong.

They began firing upon me, but without the lethal accuracy of the snipers from the other town.

I took cover behind one of the houses, pulling out the small pistol, and taking aim. BANG! One of the ponies’ heads exploded into a brilliant shower of skull fragments and brain matter.

We can’t stay here, It’s too open. See that police station across the way? Try getting in there. Having no reason to argue with the voice, I listened, Laying down suppressive fire for myself as I ran into the police station.

What my eyes met in there was not for the faint of heart. at least two dozen foals, some with horns, many without, and one that was in a cage separate from the rest with wings. Each one was bruised, battered, cut, shot, and some looked like they had been burnt.

I looked towards the ground, clenching my fists so tight that the pistol was crushed in my hand.

I heard a whirring, and felt an odd sensation in my arms. I looked at my hands, only to notice that my right one was no longer there, replaced by a weapon crackling with energy, and that my left arm had a machine gun sticking out of the side.

With a large amount of sudden strength, I ripped the doors off of the two cages.”Stay here, and stay quiet. It’s not safe yet,” I said, with the voice in my head also saying it, trailing slightly behind.

I stepped outside, doing the only thing that was on my mind. I massacred the bastards. I was met with little resistance in my rage-fueled state.

I burst into the office of their leader, who was obviously waiting for me. He put a bullet into my shoulder.

I barely felt it. I dove at him, first grabbing him by the head and smashing it against the ground over and over and over, keeping careful to not knock him out. I wanted him to feel it.

I then tore his legs off, his forelegs I shot off with my newfound machine gun. his back legs, I just tore off with my bare hands.

Making sure that he didn’t die, I cauterized his wounds with my beam cannon, making it as slow and as painful as possible.

He was begging to be killed by the time the wounds have been burned shut.”Oh, we’ll be getting to that later,” I had said in a voice that was dangerously close to purring.

After I had freed all of the ponies, I had returned to the boss, whom had passed out from the pain.

I woke him up with a swift punch to the gut, picked him up, and promptly tossed him out the nearby window.

I walked out of the building to be met with the cheers of many of the former slaves, others were beating the crap out of the boss. I didn’t deserve this. I had brutalized the brains of this operation. I had enjoyed it. I had tossed his helpless form out of a window to either succumb to his wounds or starve to death, and I was loving it. Just the thought of that made me sick of being around myself.

I strolled out of the town, the crowd still cheering for me.

I hadn’t noticed a certain pegasus filly follow me out of the town.

LEVEL UP!

New perk: Robot Rampage

As it turns out, robots apparently have quite the temper, and will gain incredible strength and endurance in certain situations.

Ch 3: You Save One Town...

Chapter 3: You save one town…

I stumbled back into the house I had “slept” in the previous night, once again tired due to my overuse of the plasma cannon. I set up a small area for myself to rest, laid down and switched to hibernation mode.

During my sleep, I dreamt. I didn’t dream often, but the dreams that did happen were often quite fuzzy and blurry. This one was as vivid as though I was awake. I was in the middle of the wasteland, with a lone house perched right in the middle of my view. The house seemed to exude an aura that just screamed “don’t come in here”. I didn’t listen, opening the door and stepping inside. there was gore everywhere. blood caked the walls and sat on the floor in dark pools. where there wasn’t any internal organs on the furniture, there were the severed limbs of ponies.I looked into the oddly clean mirror in the corner and found something that was not me, but, somewhere deep inside me, I knew it was. The figure had armor, not of my silver, not even the dull of silver long weathered by the dust of the wasteland, but of a jet black. It was covered in blood, but its face was seemingly untouched by the splatters.

Its face had a large smile, drawn with blood.

“Hello…,” It began speaking in a demonic tone, “You seem to be a bit disturbed by my, or, I should say, our mess.” The figure began stepping out of the mirror.

“You stay away from me!” I had yelled, lifting up arms and activating my weaponry.

The figure began laughing. “Why should I? after all I am you.”

“ No. You aren’t me. You’re a monster.” I prepared to fire.

“Exactly, my friend,” The figure began laughing harder.

“Don’t make me…”

“Use those? Go ahead. It will only delay the inevitable,” He dove at me.

I opened fire, unleashing a barrage of bullets and superhot plasma, kicking up a cloud of dried gore.

I only stopped when I was out of bullets for the machine gun and power for the plasma cannon, the cloud they stirred up so thick that I couldn’t see two inches in front of me.

A large gust of wind emanated from right in front of me without warning, revealing the face of the figure.

His bloody smile was open wide, revealing an endless abyss with sharpened bones lining the sides. I fell in.

I awoke, screaming in horror, sitting up with a jolt, and startled the pegasus filly.

She had made a fire, which now crackled in the center of the room, bathing myself and the tiny pegasus in orange. She was yellow, much like the sand of a beach, with her wavy mane and tail a deep ocean blue, ending in white.

“... What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Well, it was dark, and I was tired, so I came in here. You woke up the moment I started the fire”

I gave her an inquisitive look, “Really? you didn’t see me?”

“Really! Honest!”

That’s when it hit me, “You’re the pegasus that I saved from the slavers, aren’t you?”

She sighed, “yeah… I am. I… I needed a place to stay the night, and you were the one to save me, so I thought I could just stay in here while you were sleeping, and leave before you got up.”

“Look, kid, don’t you have parents?”

Her eyes became wet with tears at the mention of parents, “I did. Before the slavers killed them, that is. The slavers knew that I would be worth a lot of caps, and my parents refused to just give me up. So they did the only thing they know other than kidnapping.”

I felt a pang of guilt at the thought of this, admittedly cute, filly dying cold and alone in this wasteland. But she couldn’t stay with me, I didn’t know the first thing about parenting. I looked at her stare into the heart of the flames. Although, the two groups of ponies that I found have both shot at me, which really says something about just how many of these ponies can be trusted.

That and you can defend her, The voice added. Isn’t that enough?

I’m not sure… couldn’t we decide in the morning? we didn’t charge quite a lot during that nightmare.

Sure, but I’m still saying she sticks with us.

I looked towards the foal. I couldn’t just leave her here. “Look, I don’t quite know what to do with you…, but I may just let you stick around for a bit. If only until I find you a suitable home.” Her eyes brightened up as I said that in a way that “warmed my heart”, as they say.

\//\//\//\//\//\//\//\//\//\//\/

The next morning…

\//\//\//\//\//\//\//\//\//\//\/

As we were packing up what little there needed packing, I had realized that, in my extremely tired and fear riddled state, I hadn’t done something important. I hadn't introduced myself.

“Guh, how could I have been so stupid?” I asked myself out loud, the filly’s head perking up at my voice. Noticing this, I took the chance to explain myself. “I… haven’t quite introduced myself to you yet, have I? I am Nickel One.”

The foal giggled, “Nickel One? That’s a weird name. But, then again, you’re not very normal, are you? I’m Peaceful Ocean, but my parents called me Pacey.”

“Well, Pacey, I have something to ask of you. Do you know if that walled city over there is friendly or not?”

“Maneton? Yeah, my daddy went there all the time to trade and stuff.”

“Good, good. I’m going to need you to go over there and convince them that I’m friendly, okay?”

Pacey gave a little salute, “Can do, Niccy!”

The child ran out of the house, towards Maneton, leaving me alone with “myself” again.

Cute kid, huh?

“Well, yeah. isn’t that the whole thing about kids? Being cute and all?” I found myself speaking out loud

Well, not entirely. Remember when you were a kid? You were annoying. Really annoying.

I chuckled. “Yeah, the look on the engineers’ faces when I ran into the room were… were…?” I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t remember a single face, not even a body, or even a foot.

SomeThIng WroNg? The voice’s voice was becoming distorted, sounding almost demonic at times.

“Oh, goddesses,” I said, not knowing what compelled me. The memories of the figure were coming back.

The voice was full-on demon now, "Are you okay? You're freaking out"

The voice was being drowned out by the thoughts of the dream monster the voice drudged up, still vivid as life.

I sat in the corner, shooing the memories away when Pacey returned.

“Niccy? You okay?”

I looked up at her, the only light in the room coming through the open door and shining out of my dim green eyes, “Yeah, I’m fine,” I stood up, unsure of my balance, “What’d they say?”

“They said to tell you that ‘The robot that saved all those ponies is welcome here any day’,” she put on a gruff voice to mimic the pony that talked to her, “Oh! Yeah, and they’re sorry for shooting at you,” she smiled.

With renewed confidence that this world isn’t all bad, I strode out the door, and began towards the city, Pacey following behind me.

“So… what exactly are you s’posed to be, anyway?”

“I’m designed after humans.”

“Ooohh… What’s a human?”

“You don’t know? Walks on two legs? Intelligent? Doesn’t ring a bell?”

“Not a one!”

“How long have I been inactive?” I muttered to myself.

When we neared the town, a stallion trotted out, and began to greet us. “Hello, hello, robot! Might I say that we are mighty sorry for firin’ at y’all, and that it would never happen again.”

“Apology accepted, sir. But, I need to ask, why would you even let me into your town?”

“Why, you saved those ponies from those slavers across the way, of course! That Mr. Pon3 even said it on the radio.”

“Pon3?”

“ Oh, you really are new to the wasteland ain’t ya? Dj Pon3 is a pony who runs a radio station, the most popular in the wasteland, and he talks about the various happenings what go on around here. I even brought a recording for ya.”

“Why would you even record the news?”

His face grew grim, “I always record the news in case something… Important happens.”

Not wanting to push the recording-of-news matter any further, as he seemed like the type of pony who, as friendly as he’s been so far, punish one who asked too many questions, I took the recording and played it.

“Hello, children. Have I got a story for you. Remember the robot that was spotted outside of Maneton yesterday? Well, it turns out our tin-bipedal-stallion has a heart. Reports state that gunfire and flashes of blue light emanated from that slaver camp some ways from Maneton shortly after the automaton walked into the camp, with our metal hero walking out with the cheers of the saved and a yellow filly in tow.”

I looked down towards Pacey only for her to guiltily not meet my gaze,” Well, that explains some things,” I stated as I looked back toward Maneton’s mayor, “I guess we’ll be heading inside now. but first, do you know where I could get a job?” I was woefully hopeless unless I got some cash and some upgrades, assuming there was an expert in robotics here.

“There’s always the message board in the center of town, and if, by some off chance, nothing’s posted there, you could always just ask ponies.”

“Thanks,” I said, myself and Pacey walking through the large entrance, taking note of the message board.

The large door was quite loud, and ponies would only usually glance at the door to see who was entering. I got stares instead of glances.

I walked in the uncomfortable silence to the town’s center, which had many vendors and stores surrounding a dead park. The message board was to the east side, in front of a store that had a simple “supplies” written on the front in paint.

I strode quickly to the board, the ponies slowly going back to their daily activities, but keeping a wary eye on me lest I do something suspicious. The board had a lot of requests on it. Everything from ponies asking for sexual favors to requests for some ponies to be murdered, many of which were offering “caps” as a reward. I assumed that the caps were the currency here, and took a job that probably wasn’t going to jeopardize my “hero” status, seeing as, if it got me into a place that shot me before, it could probably get me into other places as well.

“Mercenary needed to activate generator, see Wattson in Maneton Supplies for more details,” the paper read.

“Seems innocent enough,” I spoke to myself, as I turned around to the only possible building that could fit the bill of “Maneton Supplies”, “C’mon Pacey.”

We strode inside. The building seemed deserted.

Suddenly getting the creeps and regretting I had ever stepped inside here, I turned around. Only to be met with a lightning yellow earth pony stallion with a similarly colored mane in my face. “Hey there!” He said loudly, almost yelled, at me. his mane and tail were all over the place, almost as if he was recently shocked, “What can I get for ya? Food? Water? Ammo? Healing Potions? Drugs? Well, I don't sell drugs, but I know a guy.” He didn't even seem to breath between words, “ Ohh… maybe you’re here because of the request I put up on the board?”

Shaking off my confusion, “Um, yeah. You said you needed help with a generator?”

“Yep! I need somepony to go explore the deep, dark ruins of the abandoned power facility,” He was making Pacey visibly scared, “Yeah, but seriously, I need you to go turn on the old generator and return power to the ponies of Maneton!”

“I can do that. No problem”

“Oh, yes problem! I already sent at least ten other ponies there, and they never came back.”

“You forget, my dear Wattson. I am no pony.”

Ch 4: ... And Somepony's Bound to Want You Dead

Chapter 4: … And somepony’s bound to want you dead

I slipped on the saddlebags, newly modified by Wattson so that I could wear it. The clasp, which was formerly a metal flower, was a computer terminal. “Like it? I call it a…,” Wattson’s face scrunched up for a moment as he tried to think of a name, “Backbag! No, no that doesn’t sound very good.”

“How about ‘backpack’?” Pacey asked before returning her head to the inside of a box of Sugar Apple Bombs that I bought for her with my limited caps.

“Great idea, I’ll have to write that down somewhere,” Wattson said as he dug through the many cabinets in his store, speaking to me all the while about my mission. “Now, this is a rather dangerous task. Mostly because I have no clue what’s going on in there. For all I know, it could be massive amounts of radiation or some creature like a manticore or a hellhound that’s been killing the ponies.”

My mind went towards my tiny pegasus companion. there was no way that I was taking her with me. Wattson seemed like a nice enough guy. Sure, he was a bit odd, but from what I’ve seen so far, “a bit odd” was a thousand times better than “kidnap and sell you”.

“Wattson, could you look after Pacey?”

The electric stallion looked up at me, “Sure. Why, scared you’re gonna lose her?”

Pacey piped up, “Woah, woah, woah! You can’t just leave me here!” her wings flitted nervously and I could see her face become red even through her yellow coat.

“I’m not just leaving you here, I’ll be back for you when I’m done with the job.”

“And what if I follow you?”

“I won’t allow that,” Wattson answered, “ But if I’m going to be a foalsitter, I’m gonna need to be paid like one, too. No worries, though, I’ll just take it out of the payment.”

“My, my, how generous of you,” I said flatly

“Keep in mind who’s paying for your backpack, and who I put the job up for.”

He was right, I wasn’t doing this for just him. I was doing this for everybody in town.

“Anything else I need to know?”

He pulled out a crudely drawn map of the facility. “There are three generators, here, here and here,” he said, pointing towards their respective places on the map, “I’m not sure if any of these are even working, but the main one should be the one connected to town. The others are connected elsewhere, and are probably broken. If you feel lucky, you could try to repair them. Don’t count on it though, this is some pretty advanced tech.”

“Okay so turn on the main generator ,try to fix the other ones, and come home alive”

“You forgot ‘Avoid horrible monsters.’”

“That was implied.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Several minutes later, outside of Maneton

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I began walking south, towards the power plant, after being waved off by Pacey and Wattson. I had found the closest thing I ever had to a friend in who knows how long and I managed to lose her in less than a day.

“No, I didn’t lose her. not yet, and if I have anything to do about it, not ever.”

That’s the spirit!

“Oh, you again.”

Yes, me again! You think that you can just lock me away along with your memories of that... thing and get away with it?

“I was hoping so, yes.”

You’re lucky I’m a forgiving person. Anywho, I see you’ve got some new gear.

“You know about the backpack?”

Yep, I can see everything you have on you in here

Several moments pass, with an awkward silence between myself and… myself.

Y’know, I’ve been scanning through your memories, and I’ve noticed that some holes in it fit with my memories eerily well.

Really? Have you come to any conclusions?

None that aren’t obvious, no.

“I suppose that confirms my theory about you being an offshoot of my own personality, but still leaves the question of where the rest of my memories are.” My mind shot to the dream figure, but I shook it off.

~~~~~~

An hour or so passed before a group of three griffons landed in front of me, kicking up a large cloud of dust.

“May I help you?” I asked in the hopes that they were friendly.

“Why, yes actually. You see, some pony’s hired us to take you out.”

“Why?”

“Let’s just say that they were rather invested in that slaver camp you busted up”

I powered up my weapons, hoping to intimidate them. “You don’t want to do this.”

“Look, man. Just don’t fight back, and we won’t kill you. We’ll just cripple you and bring you back to a town to get you fixed.”

A male griffon with an almost scarily big gun strapped to his side looked at the one I was speaking to. “Why are you talking to it?! It’s just a robot.”

“And you’re just a big bird with cat legs, what’s your point?”

They all looked at me, eyes filled with varying degrees of anger, with the big-gun-griffon looking the most pissed.

“That’s it! I’ve had enough!” He said, firing a barrage of bullets at me.

I had barely enough time to react. Diving behind a nearby rock, I managed to get out of the line of fire without very many injuries. The griffon’s screaming about how he was having a shit day was inaudible over the sound of the massive gun firing.

The sound of two more guns joined the sound of bullets bouncing off of the rock, chipping off small stones.

I was peeking over the boulder, waiting for an opportunity to get either a word or a bullet in, when I heard a Whoomph behind me, along with the familiar click of a pistol and a distinct pressure on the back of my head.

Fuck.

I put my hands up. “Look, I give up. You win. See?”

“Damn straight. Now turn around and look me in the eyes. I love to see the fear in the eyes of those I kill.”

I obeyed her orders, turning around and looking down towards her eyes. She was weathered, her body and face covered in scars, some areas devoid of fur or feathers. Her eye was covered with a patch, accompanied by a large scar.

I had one chance to save myself. “ Tell me, why do you do this?”

“Kill? Griffons got to eat.”

“I suppose that’s a good enough reason, but why kill?”

“It’s what I’m good at,” the other two stopped firing and flew to join her, “It’s what we’re good at.”

“I guess living here long enough would make you good at that. Allow me to be more specific. Why must you kill the innocent? Why not the deserving?”

“You’d be surprised what the deserving pay to get the innocent killed. Not to say that the innocent don’t pay, too,” I noticed that the three were wearing black leather armor.

“So you’ve gotten requests to kill the deserving, but ignore them because they don’t pay enough?”

“Pretty much, yes,” her guard was down. this was my chance.

I activated my plasma cannon, pressing the business end of it against her skull. the other two readied their weapons, pointing them at me, “Very well,” I stated flatly,” I’ve decided that you’re deserving.”

She started laughing, “You really think that you have the guts to fire that thing?”

“The only difference between you and a psychopath is the fact that you have the choice to be good, yet deny it. that’s even worse than your average crazy,” I flooded power to the plasma cannon. I wasn’t going to get two shots, so may as well only need one.

I heard an audible gulp from the griffons as the plasma cannon grew brighter and brighter before a massive flash of light, an explosion, then relative darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up in the dead of night, my body covered in holes and loose wires, slowly being fixed. I spotted the body parts of what appeared to be two griffons. More specifically, three back legs and two-and-a-half front claws. The third griffon was, judging from the irradiated goop on the ground, reduced to an irradiated goop.

I continued walking. At this point I was probably closer to the power plant than Maneton, so I may as well get the job done.

Y’know, you didn’t have to do that.

“Yes I did.”

She said she would drop you off at the nearest town.

“Who knows where that is.”

You could’ve waited to heal, then gotten to Pacey and told her --

“And tell her what? that the big tough robot that saved her from those slavers was almost killed by three birds?”

You could’ve told her that you held back because it was the right thing to do.

I paused for a moment, thinking about my response.

Nic? I’m noticing that there’s a lot more power being devoted to your emotional and mental processes than there should be.

I silently mulled over the other ways I could have gone about dealing with the griffons. They weren’t truly deserving. Just more than most. The voice tried to get me to speak up several times, eventually getting the hint, and shutting up.

The topic of my thoughts had slowly shifted, and I was contemplating the various ways this world could have come about when I noticed the shadow of the power plant peaking over the horizon.

“Oh, thank the stars!”

‘bout damn time, too! Check your clock, it’s almost dawn.

“You fixed the clock?”

Yeah. It wasn’t that difficult, to be honest. Surprised you didn’t do it earlier.

“It’s hard to fix things when you’re being shot at.”

And what about the times you aren’t being shot at?

“... shut up.”

So the genius robot isn’t so smart after all.

“It’s not that, it’s just that I never really wanted to learn about my internal processes,” I started jogging towards the plant.

Mhm. and next time you’ll be telling me that you didn’t want to learn about physics.

“You shut your mouth, I love physics.”

I walked through the doorway of the old building. the structure seemed to nearly crumble as I walked in, groaning slightly and allowing some pebbles to rain from the ceiling.

“Alright,” I said as I opened up the map, seeing the area that the generator was, and starting for it.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

Did you hear that?

“Probably just the building falling apart.”

I’d like to say that you’re right, but I just have a feeling that something terrifying is going to be waiting for us.

“Knowing our luck, probably.”

The thumping was getting louder as I got closer to the generator room, but stopped some time before I reached the door to the room.

I swung open the door, weapons at the ready for anything.

It was twice as tall as I was, maybe even three times, and had the body of a lion, a scorpion’s tail, and one wing.

So maybe I wasn’t ready for that. I started charging the plasma cannon, but before I could fire, the large creature swung at me, easily taking my arm off and putting large gashes into my torso.

Warnings flashed all across my HUD, telling me things that I barely understood.

The creature swung at me again, and I leapt backwards through the doorway. I had to do something, anything, to kill this thing as quickly as possible.

I could take down the roof, but that would destroy the generators.

I started shooting at it, but to no avail, the bullets were barely drawing blood. This thing’s hide was a lot tougher than it looked.

I ran out of the room, and the creature followed, smashing its way through the doorways.

After what seemed to be hours, I sprinted up several flights of stairs to a roof, the creature roaring after me.

I had a chance. I hid behind a half destroyed air conditioner as the creature emerged through a hole it had made.

It sniffed around for me, to no aid. Thank the stars that I don’t bleed.

Rather stupidly, it walked up to the edge of the building, possibly thinking that I jumped off. I had a clear shot at its neck.

I lined up my rifle-arm to the best I could with one arm, and shot.

The barrage of bullets struck nearly spot on, catching the creature off guard.

as the bullets penetrated, freeing a massive burst of blood to go with them, the creature stumbled, and fell off of the building. releasing a blood curdling roar mixed with a gurgle as his lungs filled with blood on the way down.

The last thing I heard from it was a wet splat.

I calmly climbed back down the remnants of the stairs and made my way to the generator room.

I collected my arm and turned on the main generator, noticing something move as I did so.

Moving closer to investigate, I powered up my only means of protecting myself.

“Oh, no…”

You fucked up, dude.

tumbling and and rolling in front of me, I saw at least five baby creatures, complete with tails and wings.

Not knowing what else to do, I ran. I ran out of the building until I couldn’t run anymore, once again cursing my body for not allowing me to cry.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I stepped through the door to maneton, the people opening it readily for me this time.

Once again, I caught the attention of nearly every pony in town, but their eyes weren’t full of suspicion this time. They were smiling. Some even gave me a look of concern due to my distinct lack of an arm.

They began cheering. This was nothing like the feeble cheers of the slaves, however, they were loud, almost deafening. the cheers followed me through the town, giving my ego a good boost, although there was still that little seed of guilt for those small creatures.

I swung open the door to Maneton Supplies.

“OH MY CELESTIA! Niccy!” Pacey screamed as she flapped her small wings so quickly that she left the ground for several moments, “What happened to your arm?”

“There was a creature. At least twenty feet tall with a scorpion’s tail and claws the size of machetes!” I blew the size of things slightly out of proportion, but she would probably imagine it like that, anyway.

“Woooah.”

“I knew that you could do it, buddy,” Wattson said, “Here, let me fix your arm up on the house.”

LEVEL UP!

New Perk: Arm-Rifle Mastery I

You’ve started to get used to the whole firing-bullets-out-of-your-arm thing, and will now be more accurate and deal more damage with your arm-rifle