Fallout Equestria: Salvation

Fallout Equestria: Salvation

Chapter Five: Deception

“Why can’t we all just get along?”

    This was not how I had planned my evening. I was staring at the three raiders who ambushed Bean and I as we came out of her underground base. The middle one, a teal unicorn, was levitating a cocked revolver at my head while having a smug look of satisfaction.

    “Well well well, look what we got here,” she said, “a couple of rats coming our of their hole.” Bean started backing away. The unicorn turned her levitated revolver onto Bean, “Ah ah, no scurrying off little rat.”

   A bullet ripped a small clean hole through Bean’s left foreleg, right below the knee. She clenched her mouth shut, and breathed heavily through her nose as she fell back on her haunches. Bean held her other hoof over the wound, blood dying the coat of her forelegs a murky brown.. The teal pony and one other raider laughed, but the third who was wearing a goggled helmet didn’t. He looked really nervous.

    “Guys, we don’t have time for this. Just kill them and let’s go, the boss will be mad if we’re late,” the goggled raider said. Since when did raiders have a boss? The teal mare looked back over her shoulder at him, practically snarling.

    “Shut the fuck up, we didn’t wait out here after following these fucking idiots just to kill them quickly!” She turned her pistol in her magical grip, and pistol whipped the goggled raider’s head, knocking him to the ground from the blunt force.  She looked back at us licking her lips, “No, we’re going to do this nice and slow.”

    Oh hay no, I wasn’t going to go without a fight. I charged the teal raider without warning, her eyes widening in shock. Right before I body slammed her, a gunshot rang out as a bullet pierced her neck, crimson liquid squirting from both holes as she fell to the ground while holding her forehooves to each hole trying to scream, she barely managed a pained gurgling sound. I saw the goggled raider getting up, his hunting rifle battle saddle looked very threatening. I jumped at him, and slammed my spiked hooves into his face, the flesh ripping apart. I felt his neck snap back sharply, his body going deathly limp afterward. I stepped off his head to try and take on the last raider.

    Fire lanced from my shoulder, spreading throughout my entire body as I felt something pierce deep into my hide. A long machete was buried into my shoulder really deep. I shut my eyes in pain after I saw the earth pony raider. He laughed and twisted the blade, I yelled in pain as I fell to my knees.

    I peeked through the blinding flame that gnawed my mind to see a hunting rifle floating at the back of his head as its bolt slid back, loading in another cartridge. The trigger clicked, and the inside of the pony’s skull splattered all over the side of my face. Bean was still sitting at the top of the stairs, holding her hoof over her bullet wound.

    “Hey, I’m going to pull that stupid thing out. On the count of three,” Bean said. I reached into my saddlebags and pulled out a healing potion. I nodded to confirm, and clenched my jaw to avoid biting my tongue in surprise. A green magical field surrounded the hilt of the machete. “Three.” She yanked it out, blood flowed quickly from the gash now that the blade that was blocking it was freed. Immediately I opened and drank the potion down, feeling the burn dissipate and my wound magically knitting itself back together.

    “Thanks, I would’ve probably made it worse trying to get it out.” I got up, and trotted over to Bean. She closed her eyes in concentration, and I saw the bloody bullet and some fragments of it float out of her leg. She dropped them, floated a healing potion of her green pair of saddlebags, and gulped it down.

    “Fuck, they must have been waiting out here after following us. Two healing potions for killing three of them though, not a bad deal.” Bean said. That was true, my mind and body reacting almost instinctively as I walked over to the fresh corpses, and started to loot their equipment and items. I could almost feel Bean looking at me funny behind my back though it is practically a rule of survival.

    After a few minutes of searching, I ended up with enough to make up for our unfortunate event. These raiders had a lot of useless junk, but I gained four healing potions and some chems, along with the weapons they were using besides the battle saddle, which I just took the ammo for. You wouldn’t catch me ever actually taking their armor and hoping some poor merchant would actually buy it.

    “All in all, we came out ahead from this if you don’t count blood loss.” I glanced left and right, “Which way do we go?” I asked.

    “It is ten minutes from here, though it might take us longer if we don’t want to get caught again.” Bean reloaded her rifle, and put it back on her harness. We made our way out of that alley right into another, sticking to the shadows as we trotted toward our destination. While we crossed buildings and dashed across streets I didn’t see any other enemies around. The wall that she had said protected their actual city came into view. Large slabs of concrete, practically entire walls off of buildings were stood upright and put together to form a massive circular wall, metal sheets covering any gaps and steel girders forming supports to keep them in place.

    “How are we going to get past that? They’re bound to be watching any gates.” I asked. Bean looked at me with a frown, and nodded to a half collapsed building that stood close and slightly over the height of the wall. I stared at it, and looked back at her confused. Was she suggesting we jump over it?

    “Come on,” she said, walking to the ruin. We arrived there and climbed up three flights of stairs to reach the roof. I looked out over the wall, and saw what the true Ciderside City. It was a decent size, the protective wall encircling a dozen multi-story buildings with the City Hall in the center. The large courtyard area in front of it had several campfires with tents surrounding them, though I still couldn’t make out any pony shaped figures.

    “So, how are we doing this?” I asked.

    Bean levitated a small rope out of her green saddlebags, “It isn’t much, but it’s better than falling the whole way.” The length of the rope would lower us maybe halfway, leaving over a whole story drop. She tied a noose and hooked it on a sturdy jut of stone, pulling to test if it would hold before nodding to me. She tossed it over the side. “When you get down there, I’m going to need you to catch me.” This was a horrible idea.

    I walked up, wrapped the rope around my forehoof and took the rope in my mouth, gripping it hard and fell over the side. The rope jerked in my jaw as gravity took hold of my body, my firm jaw grip the only things keeping me from falling to my death. I squeezed the lower part of the rope between both my hind hooves to try and gain a hoofhold, and slowly released a little bit of my grip on the rope. My descent was extremely slow and unpleasant; my jaw started to cramp. When I reached the end of the rope, I looked down to see no rubble that would break my body should I have fallen on it. I swung my body a bit, gained a little momentum, and released as I was swinging toward the wall. I descended quickly, and halfway down I reached the wall. Before I rammed against it, I twisted my body in mid air, kicked off the wall with my hindlegs, and landed on the ground with a roll to spread the impact across my body..

    “Damn, that was some crazy shit,” I heard Bean say from above. My body was friggin’ sore between that dangerous stunt I just pulled and getting shanked back in the alley. I just noticed that I was terrified, my breathing was really heavy, and my heart was racing. I walked under the rope as Bean positioned herself to climb down. When she was halfway down the rope her jaw must have gave out as she slid down extremely fast. I positioned myself to catch her on my back, and she wrapped herself in a cocoon of telekinetic energy. Her descent slowed quite a bit when she was only a decent drop above me before her field burst, and she landed on my back hard. I groaned as my entire body struggled to stay standing up, and waited until she slid off my back onto her hooves.

    I gave her a threatening look, “Never again.”

    “Agreed,” Bean replied. That would have been a sad way to die, falling to my death trying to scale a wall, or better yet, breaking my spine trying to catch a mare who was falling to her death. I was tempted to chug a healing potion just to get the ache out of me, but that could be a healed fatal injury. Instead I pulled out a bottle of dirty water and took a couple drinks, because purified water was better spent elsewhere. I tossed the rest of the bottle to Bean who finished it off.

    “Alright, follow me, and make sure to be quiet,” she said, leading the way behind the buildings on the opposite side of where all the fires and tents were. We passed behind three buildings before reaching the back side of City Hall. I looked around, but the only door was blocked by a bunch of debri.

    “Over here,” Bean whispered. I walked over to her; she was pointing to an open window above a dumpster bin, easily big enough for us to climb through. Excellent, I climbed up onto the metal dumpster, making almost no noise, and proceeded to jump through the window.

Crack crunch crack

    What the? I looked down to see I landed on a pony skeleton. I gazed around the room I had jumped into, it was a standard single restroom with a broken sink and an already looted open first aid box. The poor pony that I was standing on must’ve died on the toilet, what a way to go. I wasn’t sure if the apocalypse caught him unaware, or that he was killed after it. I walked off the bones to the sink on the wall and waited for Bean. There was a sound of somepony stomping on metal, and soon Bean jumped through the window and landed on the same thing I did.

    “What... Ugh, this fucking sucks.” She kicked the bones away, and walked to the door next to me. She cracked it open and peeked through to see if anything was there, then trotted into the hallway. I followed her, my life as of late seemed to be nothing but tunnels and hallways, I had to break out of this rut. The floor was made out of what once was beautifully styled tile, the walls were old smooth polished stone that was mostly intact besides the cracks and small holes.

    “I think I know where we are, follow me,” I said. I walked stealthily to where I remembered a set of stairs were. I looked back and made sure Bean was following as I reached the corner of the hall. I looked around the edge, and saw that it was clear before advancing down that too. At the end of this hall was a single doorway, the door long gone for some unknown reason, and inside a set of stairs both descending and ascending.

    “This is weird, isn’t this whole place supposed to be filled with raiders?” I asked, they couldn’t have been all sleeping. When I reached the first step down, my body froze. Going underground twice in one day, I was sure I was insane. Bean looked at me, and rolled her eyes. “I’m telling ya, these things are death traps,” I said as we started down the stairs.

    “Yeah, it is weird, but I say it’s a good thing we haven’t ran into anypony. If we started shooting,” I looked at her, “we as in raiders and I, the whole place would rush us,” Bean said. As true as that was, it still bugged me. Water talismans are a holy treasure of the wasteland, I doubted they would just leave it like this unless they had already found it. We reached the first basement level, and found that the way down to the second level was blocked off by a collapsed wall.

    “There should be another set of stairs across the building from here,” I said. I leaned out of the exit of the stairwell looking for any threats. With none spotted, I walked out into the corridor and took a right. The lighting was terrible, just barely enough light to see in front of you. I could hear Bean’s hoofsteps behind me as I turned left. I saw something on the roof a little bit down this next hall, a small glowing red light.

    “Hey, I think I see-”  I didn’t get to finish my sentence, the red light lowered itself down.

Whirrrrclackclackclack

    A flurry of bullets hit me in my side and chest, embedding themselves in my armor and hide. The pain jolted my brain in action, my reflexes activating in my legs, I jumped to the side, opposite of Bean and got out of the opening. I leaned against the wall as the whirring slowed down, its target no longer visible.

    “Holy mother of the goddesses...” I said, and held a hoof to my chest. I could feel the bumps where the bullets were stuck in thick leather, my heartbeat resonating through them. I lifted up my hoof to see blood, and pulled out a healing potion.

    “Can you pull out the bullets?” I asked Bean. She nodded and I felt the metal pull out of my chest, immediately downing the potion after I saw the glowing green scrap that had almost killed me. Was a day of not being in a life threatening situation too much to have? Of course it is.

    “What was that, an automated turret? I have never seen these here before,” Bean said. She peeked around the corner, long enough for the turret to shoot a few bullets at her. She pulled her head back, “I got an idea.” Her horn illuminated the area in green glow as her hunting rifle levitated off its harness. She poked it around the corner and fired a few blind shots, and pulled it back right as the turret shot at the rifle.

    I took a quick glance around the corner, not long enough for it to shoot at me, and heard the whirring start and stop. “I’m going to try something crazy, keep the area lit for me,” I said. Bean looked at me like I was stupid.

    “What, are you going to charge right at it?” I looked around the corner to get a good view at where it was a few times, quickly pulling my head back so it didn’t get shot full of holes. I took a javelin in mouth, walked a ways down my end before turning around. I turned my head to my left, and dashed straight forward. As soon as I entered the opening and saw the turret in my right eye, I twisted my neck, released my grip on the spear, and sent it flying.

Whirrclackclackclackclackbzzzrt

    Bullets had hit the wall a second behind me as I sped past, the sound of the turret malfunctioning was sweet music to my ears. Me and Bean both walked out into the hallway, my spear was lodged above the gun barrel between it and the roof mount. The javelin had managed to destroy some wiring and electronics that probably made the turret function, or gave it power. You would have had to ask a smart science pony.

    “Damn, that was a good throw,” Bean said.

    “Years of practice, though you think you could get it for me?” She rolled her eyes, and magically pulled my spear loose, floating it back to me. I took it in mouth, and we continued past the sparking gun. I was surprised that this building still had power running through it, let alone have automated defenses.

    “I expected enemy ponies, not machines on our not-so-little mission. That gunfire has probably attracted them too. It’s a left up here,” I said as we reached a T-intersection. I took one step out before I heard the sound of death again.

WhirrBANGBANGBANG

    I jumped back, bullets hitting the tiled floor where I was, smashing it to pieces. Woah, this one had packed a lot more power than the other. I backed up slowly, I couldn’t pull my last trick without running straight into a wall.

    “What the hay do we do now?” I asked.

    “Is there another way down?” Bean asked. I shook my head, only an elevator which I was positive wouldn’t work. She looked down in thought for a moment, then levitated out a metal apple.

    “Woah now, that could cause more problems than what we have.”

    Bean shrugged, “It is the only plan I have for you.”

    I looked around, the area lit in green light from her horn. An idea popped into my head, “How much can you lift with your magic?”

    “Enough, why?” Bean replied, putting the grenade back into her bags.

    “Think you could bash that turret with a chunk of rock?” I asked. A smile crept onto her face, giving me slight shivers.

    I led her back to the collapsed stairs, and she levitated a few large chunks of the broken wall back with us. When we got back to our corner, she floated up a chunk the size of my head. We peeked around the corner as she swung the stone at the turret. It whirred to life, and shot at the incoming projectile instead of us, bullets breaking apart the chunk of rock. Another stone floated past my face towards the turret as the first one smashed into it, only denting it. The automated turret continued to blast away at the rock, it falling apart as the second chunk slammed into it, bending one of its barrels badly. She repeatedly smashed it against the turret, both breaking in some way or form. I heard Bean start chuckling to herself as a third floated past us, I think she was enjoying it a bit too much.  The stone on metal beatdown continued for another few minutes before the turret just fell off its mount to the ground as a mess of busted scrap.

    “That was pretty fun,” Bean said, walking around the corner and stepping over the pile of metal. I followed after her into the stairwell, the path going down to the level beneath us completely intact. I thought about how unicorn magic could be useful as we climbed down one flight of stairs to the second basement level. I wondered why there were still no guards coming to tear us apart.

    I guessed after we caused so much noise, we were abandoning stealth because Bean kept her horn lit as we entered the second level. We were in yet another hallway, I was starting to think prewar architects gave up on creativity. We proceeded swiftly and cautiously toward the boiler room while looking out for any more turrets.

    “So, what does a water talisman look like?” I asked Bean as we turned into another corridor.

    “You don’t know? It’s like this... thing... Fuck, I thought you knew,” she said. Great, I hoped it would be exactly where we were told, otherwise I didn’t think we would recognize it. “I know it is small, and a gem. Maybe it glows because it’s magic?”

    “Let’s hope-” I shut up quickly, and stopped dead in my tracks. Bean slowed down when she saw me, and aligned herself next to me. I listened for what I had probably imagined, but wasn’t going to take that risk. I could hear something from up ahead, like somepony banging metal against the ground. I started to back up as it got louder, Bean following my moves. I looked to her, and signalled to her horn, moving my hoof across my neck. She snuffed out her magical light, the hallway descended into darkness. All of it except further down the hall. A white light appeared around the corner, illuminating what I had heard. A large metal pony figure, at least a head taller than myself, rounded the corner into our hall. The entire upper half of its head was a some kind of casing from which the extremely bright light shown from. It slowly stomped its way toward us, a robotic voice coming from it.

    “Please cease your activities and prepare to be eliminated. Thank you.” It said as it opened its mouth. A square barrel extended from the back of its throat  and fired a red energy beam that scorched the floor in front of us.

    “Oh shit, run!” Bean yelled, we both turned tail and bolted back. She levitated her rifle backwards, and fired shots at it every time she glanced at it. I saw the bullets spark off the metal plating of its body, it continued to slowly march toward us. We turned left when we reached the turn. The lasers had stopped, but the sound of its metal hooves didn’t.

    “How the fuck are we supposed to get past that?” Bean asked.

    “We can either fight it, or run.” I pulled out a javelin, shifting it in my mouth until I got a good grip. I crouched down while angling the spear upward. Bean ejected all her rifles rounds, and swapped them with armor piercing ones.

    “I only have a few of these,” she said. Hopefully it would be enough to bring this thing down. The metal hoofsteps grew louder, until it turned around the corner.

    “Please cease your running and prepare to be vaporized. Thank you.” It said. I thrust my spear straight below its jaw, the spear pierced its thinner metal armor and into the barrel of its weapon. When it fired, the laser hit the spear jammed into the barrel. Its entire lower jaw turned bright red before the jaw and my javelin melted into sludge. I heard the fire of Bean’s rifle, and a bullet hole striking the glowing casing of its head causing a crack. I ran to the side of the robot as a line of plates from the middle section to its shoulders opened up, and an small automatic rifle sprung out of each side. I turned around and bucked its hindlegs as hard as I could. It fell over as it fired its shoulder guns, the bullets barely missing its target.

    “Holy fuck, fucking die!” Bean screamed as she shot another armor piercing bullet at its glowing head, another crack appearing. She fired another, and another, then her last, each making a crack but not breaking it. She levitated her rifle over, turned it against, and smashed its stock into the robot’s head, finally destroying it. The light winked out and it stopped moving. I looked at Bean, she was breathing hard with her eyes wide in shock.

    “Nice save,” she said, putting her gun back on her harness.

    “I’m tellin ya, the underground is a deathtrap. And I just lost one of my weapons; today friggin’ sucks.” I kicked the robot for good measure. I took out the machete I looted from the earlier raider, and cut and pried off one of the extended shoulder guns exposing its insides.

    “What are you doing?” Bean asked.

    “It was shooting us, meaning it has bullets. Might as well take them to sell later on,” I replied, cutting out wiring and chunks of important machinery. I found a large box in the middle of its chest, and had Bean levitate it out as I cut away anything connecting to it. I put away the machete, and pulled out my multitool, popping the screwdriver out. I began to undo the screws holding the metal box together. With the final screw out, a wall of it fell off revealing almost the whole thing being full of standard 5.56mm bullets.

    “Hey, I’m taking these, I need more ammo for my rifle.” She floated them into her smaller brown saddlebags. I shrugged, her having bullets meant me having covering fire. I put away my tool and we trotted to the boiler room.  We didn’t run into any more threats. I opened the door and waited for some kind of attack before walking inside. The room was about as big as a standard bedroom.

beepbeepbeep

    I looked down to my left to see a proximity mine. Panic filled my mind as I thought of a way to live. Seeing that the explosion would kill me, I quickly moved to the mine trying to disarm it before it blew me apart. The beeping stopped as I was fixing to turn it off, the mine still sitting there with its light glowing red. I got up, and stared at it cautiously. Must have been a dud. Bean looked inside, then at the mine. In hindsight I could have just backed out of the room instead of going toward the device of my death.

    “Just go get the talisman while I keep watch out here.” I thought she just didn’t want to be in a room with a mine, dud or not. I trotted over to a set of five lockers, going to the middle one. I pulled the key out of my pocket, and looked for a lock to open. Oddly enough, there wasn’t one. I put away the key, and pulled the middle locker open. It wasn’t locked. Inside on a shelf was a padded pouch. I opened the bag to see a perfectly pristine diamond prism, half the size of my hoof. I knew gemstones were talismans, but didn’t know if this was it. The pouch was where I was told it was, so I put it away in my saddlebags in a safe spot. I didn’t want it to get damaged in any way. I glanced at the lockers, and had an urge to search everything. I looted the other lockers, gaining some random bits of ammo and another healing potion.

    I trotted out of the room saying, “I found it, come on.” I closed the door behind me.

beep

    An explosion rocked me on my hooves, the door bending outwards from the blast inside the room. I could hear the building shake as dust fell from the ceiling. Bean gave me a death stare, “What? I thought it was a dud.” I said in my defense. She just left me there, I trotted behind her as we retraced our steps back up to the bathroom door on the base floor. The explosion below somehow caused the doorway to the bathroom to collapse, and would take too long to clear it. Yet again hindsight tells me that I should’ve disarmed the mine, dud or not.

    Bean groaned, “Fuck, let’s find another way out.”

    We explored the back part of the building trying to find any exits, but all of them seemed to be blocked off or inaccessible. We entered a large rectangular office, five desks lined up to form a long table, with five chairs behind it.

    “This is the council room, or was until we reclaim it,” Bean said. I walked around the room, and spotted four semi-fresh corpses.

    “How long has this conflict been going on again?” I asked, examining the bodies.

    “I’m not sure, the time kind of blurred together since I don’t get much sleep. I guess two weeks, why?” she replied. Yep, the bodies looked about that old, or I was just acting smart and they were just kind of rotten instead of skeleton. I motioned for her to come over here to check it out. When she saw the bodies, she facehoofed. “What the fuck... these dead idiots are the fucking council!”

    I looked back to her while I was looting the bodies and shoveling everything I could get into my bags, not even bothering to check what some of it was. “Then who are you ponies fighting? They didn’t die yesterday, not by the stink.”

    “Whatever, we got the talisman, and these idiots are dead. Let’s just go,” Bean said, walking to the front of the building. I trotted to her side, apparently with her main enemy dead we were just going to walk out the front door. We exited the council room into the front lobby, the ceiling a couple stories high with a warped chandelier hanging from it, it must’ve looked elegant in its younger years. We past a reception desk, heading toward a set of glass doors that was the front entrance. Something was clawing at my mind while I followed Bean, the thoughts of all the information I had forming something in the back of my head. The light of the campfires shown through the doors as Bean opened them, and walked out of City Hall.

    Bean froze in place as soon as she set a hoof outside, and I trotted out to her side to see what was going on. I took one look, and realized why things seemed so wrong. Out in front of us were torn tents and several campfires, an army of raiders just standing there all with sadistic grins on their faces. The rebellion was defeated, dozens of ponies were freshly gutted and mutilated, their corpses strung about the ground. Any pony that had survived wore thick black collars and were all shoved with their backs against a wall surrounded by their slavers. All of this was frightening and would shatter anyponys hope, but that wasn’t the real deal breaker. I heard Bean start to cry beside me, looking out at this horrible scene that almost made me want to as well.

    Standing in front of it all with a smug look on his face was a brown stallion with a greased back moss green mane, “So, did you retrieve my talisman?”

    “What the hell is going on?” I yelled. My mind was in a state of panic, horror, confusion, sadness, and curiosity. We were gone maybe two hours, how had all this happened in that time?

    “Mister Step, answer the question. Do you have my talisman or not?” Oaktree asked impatiently. Bean was still crying over seeing her friends and family murdered.

    “Is the water talisman really worth all this?” I asked while motioning to the slaughter around us, the sadness apparent in my voice. The raiders laughed at me as if they even needed a reason to kill ponies.

    “Yes, and much more. Now hoof it over,” He said flatly. Did he seriously expect me to just give him an object that had almost gotten me killed, and what he killed a whole city for? I looked around for a way to run, but we were in a walled city with the only gate in front of us behind our enemies.

    “Not a chance in hell,” I said, glancing back at the City Hall entrance thinking I would probably be shot to death by the time I even got through the door.

    Oaktree smiled, and levitated out a metal pad with a red button on it. “Now, don’t say that. I’m willing to trade this detonator for the talisman. Detonator to what you ask? Why, all these surviving ponies’ slave collars!”

    My jaw dropped. I looked at the cowering ponies against the wall, and back at the raiders. The trade was obviously stupid, they would just kill us all anyway. I wasn’t a hero, I was a mercenary and this talisman seemed to be the only thing keeping me alive.

    “No deal,” I said. Oaktree looked frustrated at my denial, and I saw Bean staring at me in the shock of just dooming all her remaining comrades.

    “Sad to hear it. Sour Bean, my dear, I am offering you the same deal. Kill the mercenary for the talisman, and trade it for these slaves lives.” Bean looked between me, the slaves, and Oaktree before laying on the ground and continuing to cry.

    “How did this happen? I don’t even see the smallest dent in your group; I don’t think the rebellion went without a fight,” I said.

    “Oh, they tried, but it doesn’t do much good when you are led into a trap. I sent them straight into an ambush. Those who gave up were rewarded with survival,” Oaktree said, waving a hoof at the enslaved ponies. The raiders around him groaned, bored with the talking, and most of them continued to mutilate and loot the corpses while acting like children with new toys. The few next to Oaktree kept their weapons trained on me.

    Bean stifled her crying, “Why? Just, why the fuck did you even rescue us in the first place if you were going to just kill us anyway!?” she asked, yelling in anger. Oaktree paused for a moment, then gave a condescending laugh.

    “Hah, yes, that was indeed a great plan. You see, when The Spectres contacted me to get that talisman in exchange for a valuable position within the group, it was in the possession of a certain pony who found out what I was planning. Unfortunately, that pony was Starwind, a councilpony such as myself. She turned on the buildings long-dead defenses and had it stored for safety. I killed the her and the rest of the council, which was one of my best moments, and let my friends here in to do as they please. I gathered some ponies and pretended to be their saviour, sending them out on missions to find the stragglers who had hid. Every now and then I’d send a pony or two with a fake key to try and retrieve it for me, but they never succeeded. That was until you brought back this mercenary. I guess I bet a lot of you two, but it all worked out.” Oaktree finished.

    “You fucking monster...” Bean said. The raiders were starting to get anxious about killing us, it showed on their faces. Oaktree swung around the detonator remote in his telekinesis while rubbing a hoof on his chest.

    “Sticks and stones, my dear. I do not want to risk damaging my prize, so would you two give it to me? I give you my word that you will not be killed, merely turned into a slave. It is the least I could do for retrieving it for me.”

    We were in a terrible situation, with pretty much no hope of escape. It seemed that this gemstone was worth more than an entire city of ponies to them, so I did the only thing I thought I could do at the time. I quickly poked my head into Bean’s saddlebags, and pulled out the grenade with my mouth. Oaktree’s eyes widened in fear while the raiders stopped what they were doing and all glared at me menacingly. Apparently the talisman was worth a lot as a hostage. I rested the grenade on my hoof next to my mouth, the stem between my teeth.

    “I reckon this grenade could destroy a lot from point blank, including your precious talisman,” I said.

    “Careful now boy, think about what you are doing,” Oaktree said trying to intimidate me.

    “Are you crazy?” Bean said. Yes, I was definitely crazy at that moment. I started to back up slowly, every step back matched with the large group of raiders taking one forward.

    “Get inside.” Bean ran inside quickly, as soon as she got in I pulled the stem and threw it at the raiders. I turned around and ran inside, hearing Oaktree yell behind me as I closed the door, “Kill them! Kill them both,and do not damage that talisman!”

    “Hurry, up to the roof. I have a plan,” I told Bean. An explosion went off outside, and a few screams following it. We ran back through the council room and into one of the stairwells. I heard the sound of the raiders bust down the glass door, the grenade giving us a decent head start. We climbed up four flights of stairs before we reached the blue metal door that led to the roof. I tried to open it, but it didn’t open. I started to panic, turned around, and bucked the door off its rusted hinges. We ran out onto the left side roof.

    “Now what?” Bean asked. I looked around, and spotted the building closest to our left. Its roof the same height as the one we were on. “Silent, what do we do now?” Bean pleaded.

    “You are going to float us to the next roof,” I stated. I searched the roof, and found what I needed. I grabbed four scraps of metal large enough to safely walk on.

    “What!? I’m not powerful enough to do that!” She replied.

    “No, look, you float these pieces of metal, and I will carry you across. Magic can work like that, I’ve seen a superior pull this trick once. The distance isn’t that far... I hope,” I explained. She probably thought I was insane, then we heard shouts come from the stairs..

    “Alright, not like we aren’t going to die anyway.” I walked to the edge of the roof, Bean floating the pieces of metal in front of my like stepping stones. She jumped on my back, and I put my left forehoof on the metal. When I didn’t plummet to our deaths, I continued one hoof at a time, picking up the pace as I got used to it. I kept looking forward, making sure to not look down. I don’t have a fear of heights, but this was completely different. When we were a bit over halfway I heard the raiders get out onto the roof and start yelling at us.

    “Hurry, I... can’t.. hold this... much longer!” Bean gasped out, stress in her voice. Gunfire rang out, most of the bullets flying past me. Thank the Goddesses that they were terrible shots. We were almost there, only a few more steps. Bean grunted as a bullet hit her shoulder causing her magic falter. I jumped off the floating metal only a second before they fell down four stories, I faceplanted into the floor of the next building's roof. Bean gasped for breath, exhausted from the task of saving our lives. I looked back to see the raiders firing a couple more shots before retreating down the stairs.

    I walked to edge and looked down to the courtyard to see Oaktree standing there, glaring at me from below. I backed up until he couldn’t see me, and pulled out one of my last two javelins. I was angry, afraid, and blamed it all on him. I wanted justice and revenge for all the innocent ponies that he had gotten killed. I walked back to the edge of the roof, reared up, and threw the spear down at him at a lightning fast speed, gravity increasing its velocity. I got to see him turn to try and run, the spear piercing straight through his spine and stomach and embedding itself in the ground. I smiled in satisfaction, then quickly looked in horror at the remote detonator fall from Oaktree’s now dead magical grasp. It turned in the air, time seemed to slow down as it fell to the ground, landing on the button. The next sounds I heard were twenty-two small explosions sounding out from below in a chain reaction, the slave bodies leaning against the wall that was now painted with crimson gore.

    My mind blanked as I stared at what I had caused in my moment of anger, the feeling drained out of my legs as I stood there staring down below as the pile of headless bodies dyed red. I felt a hoof on pull be backwards, I looked to see Bean. Her eyes were filled with tears and her expression pained and fearful.

    “Snap out of it, we have to go!” She said, pulling me by my neck to the opposite edge of the roof. She stopped when I was right at the drop off point, and pushed me over. I descended to my death, staring up as Bean watched me fall, the only thought going through my head was that her killing me would be justified as I had just gotten many of her friends killed by the drop of a button. This lasted all but a few seconds as my back hit something cagey and metal. I groaned, got to my hooves, and saw that I was on a fire escape that led to the ground. Bean jumped down to my side, and starting hastily down the stairs. I followed her, going down to the bottom set. She kicked down the drawn up step ladder, and we ran down it. My body moved on its own, following Bean wherever she went. We galloped to the large makeshift gate, or the gap where it used to be. I glanced over my shoulder to see the raiders standing around in the yard looking at the dead slaves and Oaktree run through by my spear.

    “Fucking run while they are distracted!” Bean yelled, they saw us at the entrance and ran after us, some firing their weapons and missing. We continued to move as fast as we could, Bean’s shoulder bleeding from her earlier gunshot wound. She was running remarkably fast for an injured pony, or I was so out of it I was not even going half my top speed. We ran through several streets before Bean collapsed mid-stride, tumbling along the ground until her body stopped. I ran to her, I assumed she had passed out from the stress of everything that had happened combined with all of the blood loss. I bent down, hoistered her onto my back, and hid inside the nearest building. I found a door to the basement, gulped as I weighed the situations compared to going back underground, and went down. There was no light, so I slowly walked down a metal set of stairs, or that was what it sounded like as I descended into darkness. I set Bean down gently on the floor, pulled my lighter out of one of my coat pockets, and lit it with a flick of a hoof. I tilted my head to the side to let the flame burn up as I got a look to where I ended up. I heard sounds come from outside, mostly the sounds of ponies running.

    The basement was just a small cellar, four simple stone walls and floor with a couple wooden shelves that held jars that were broken or filled with something long gone bad and covered with dust. I removed the jars without cutting myself on the broken ones from one of the shelves and smashed the shelf into pieces, and lit them with my lighter after gathering them to make a fire. I moved Bean closer to it to keep her warm, the thoughts of the entire past day haunting my recent memory and keeping my mind active. The flame of the fire flickered, and I fed it another strip of wood whenever it seemed to get low. I pulled out my multitool, opened up the tweezers while scooting over to Bean, and removed the bullet from her shoulder. She groaned as she woke up, I pulled out a healing potion and put it to her lips. She drank it slowly, laying back down to sleep after finishing it.

    I pulled out the pouch with the water talisman, and opened it to reveal the diamond prism that looked perfectly new. I held it up between my eyes and the fire, just staring at it. Was it really worth all that had happened? I thought about just burning it, destroying the gem and making sure nopony ever gets it, but then today’s sacrifice would be meaningless. I could make out the colors of the rainbow as the light of the fire shone through the gem. It didn’t sit right with me, it wasn’t how I envisioned water talismans. Maybe as a nice sapphire, or any color of blue. I continued to stare at the diamond in the light of the fire.

Footnote: Level Up

Skill Note: Sneak 80, Melee Weapons 80, Speech 50

New Perk: Push Through the Pain (Rank 2): When you are suffering from high damage or ill effects, you find the endurance to continue onward without losing consciousness. +3 Damage Threshold at all times.

Quest Perk: Raider Hater: You become enraged at the sight of raiders and tend to lose your temper. +1 Strength and +1 Agility when fighting any raider, -1 Intelligence for losing your cool.

((A/N: Woo, longest chapter (not counting prologue). And they will only get longer! Thanks goes out to Kkat for creating the Fallout Equestria world, and to the many other sidefics of FoE for making me love the universe. Any and all feedback is much wanted and welcome))