Fallout: Equestria - Heart of Nickel

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.

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The next morning…

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        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.”