Chaos Rules in the Wasteland

"What's that?" asked Twilight, indicating a pile of rubble in the distance.

John took a look at where Twilight was pointing with a hoof, to the left of their direction of travel.

"It looks like the remains of somebody's home. I was actually expecting to see something like this, what with the war, but I thought we might see more of them." They had been traveling since morning. It was well into the afternoon, and this was the first thing in the wasteland that was man made.

"War?" asked Twilight, shocked.

"It was one hundred years ago or so." said John. "I don't remember why they were fighting, but two countries in that time went to war. Neither side seemed to be winning, so they both decided to launch nukes at the other. And that has left the whole world is like this, I've been told."

"Nukes? They did this?" asked Twilight, both in horror and unbelief.

"So I've been told," repeated John. "They make explosions that are so huge that they reach higher than the clouds, and they give off a kind of energy called radiation that kills things slowly over time."

"And people have not been able to recover in one hundred years?"

"The wasteland is ruined. The vaults are the only safe places left in the world. Anything left out here is savage. I don't have any idea how they stay alive."

They reached the ruined home and looked it over. Inside an non-functioning "fridge", as John called it, was a supply of pre-war food.

"You're serious?" asked Twilight. "This stuff is one hundred years old?"

"Yes. And we're taking it."

"That is DISGUSTING."

"It's a matter of survival, remember? There was no way I could carry more than about a weeks worth of food out of the vault. I thought I might have to keep going back for fresh supplies, but I for one am thankful that this stuff is out here."

"Fine." said Twilight grumpily. "You didn't bring any apples anyway," she said, picking up a box with the words "Dandy Boy Apples" printed on it. She put it into John's bag.

As they continued to "raid the fridge", John said, "When we get to Vault 15, we're going to have to find you a bag of you're own."

Soon after they began walking to the east again, Twilight had a disturbing thought.

"So we are trying to find Vault 15. Are you sure that that vault is still safe?"

"I have no idea." said John. "We've tried to radio the other vaults, but we never get a response. Vault 13 might be the only safe place left in the entire world."

"I think I see a recurring theme here." said Twilight gloomily. "If things could be any worse, they are."

"Hey, things might be bad, but there's one thing that you have that makes up for it."

"What would that be?" asked Twilight, interested.

"Me! I'm the most dangerous thing on two legs you've ever seen, and there's no way I'm going to let you die with me around!"

Twilight didn't speak. Arrogant as he is, thought Twilight, I suppose that is another way of saying that he is my friend.

"Thank you John," answered Twilight, though less than enthusiastically. "You're right. That is probably the best thing I could have asked for in this place."

"Damn right!" exclaimed John. Twilight sighed.

"You have the WORST luck." muttered Twilight.

"Yep, only three, remember?" replied John jokingly, barely fazed by the swarm of scorpions that had surrounded them.

He turned to Twilight. "Are you going to use that thing?" Suddenly, all that occupied the spot he had been standing in was a cloud of dust.

Twilight raised the pistol up, but just stood in place, dumbfounded. Fortunately for her, the scorpions only seemed to care about the man that was trying to escape them, and for the moment none of them were after her.

"Shoot these things! Shooooot theeeeeem!" shouted John from a distance. He had turned left and was leading the scorpions in front of Twilight.

She decided that she had the least chance of accidently hitting John if she shot at the scorpion furthest away from him.

BANG

It missed.

BANG BANG BANG

All shots missed. She bit her tongue and changed the way she was trying to aim. She pulled the trigger six more times before the gun would fire no more.

"Oh no!" Twilight thought. "John has all of the ammunition!!"

To her astonishment, firing potshots into the hoard chasing John had apparently downed two of the scorpions, probably dead. Then she saw an unexpected movement from John caught her attention.

He had let the scorpions catch up to him and had pounced on the nearest one with his knife. The others had taken the opportunity to surround him.

"Watch out!" screamed Twilight as she charged to his aid. The scorpions were trying to climb onto him. The scorpion that he had pounced on was without question dead, but now he was in a panic as they surrounded him. One stung him. He shouted and rolled aside, crushing a couple of them as he did so. He was still surrounded though, and they stung him twice more.

Twilight's magic enveloped one and threw it away as hard as she could. She wasted no time in repeating this, getting as many of the things away from John as quickly as she could. Unfortunately, this only enraged the bugs, and now they were coming for her.

Regaining composure, John stabbed the remaining scorpion on his chest and ground it into the dirt with his foot as it fell off. He dug into his pocket and threw the pistol ammunition at Twilight, who caught it with her magic. She frantically grabbed two shots and loaded them into the gun, not bothering to fill it up.

BANG BANG went the gun as soon as it was pointed at the nearest scorpion. Both shots hit, and the scorpion stopped moving.

John had already knifed another one into a bloody mess, but the last one was getting very close to Twilight.

She fumbled with the ammo box again, but the bullets tumbled out and into the dirt.

She heard screech. She looked up and saw that the scorpion had a knife in its armor, and all of its legs and its tail were twitching wildly. She looked at John. He was lying face first in the dirt about fifteen feet away.

As John woke up he immediately regretted it.

"Arghhhhh!" he cried in a whimper, clutching his chest as he rolled over.

Twilight was beside him in an instant.

"Oh my goodness! You're finally awake! How bad is it?"

"I feel like death." moaned John.

"You had five scorpion stings! It's a miracle that you are still alive! There is no way I would be. It seems that the poison isn't cumulative."

"Not... Helping..." moaned John.

"Oh! I did try to help as best as I could," said Twilight apologetically. "I had to go through your bag, I hope you are not mad. I found one of those medical syringe things and tried it, but I don't think it has any affect on poison."

"Can you try... another one?" John stopped to have a terrible coughing fit. It sounded like he was about to hack up a lung. "please."

"Where does it hurt the worst?" asked Twilight, trying to stay calm.

"Everywhere..."

Twilight didn't say another word and applied the syringe to his torso.

"Oh man, YES, that's... exactly... what I needed." John nodded off.

"Oh no! Please, I didn't just kill him!" thought Twilight. She checked his pulse. It was steady. After a short examination, she determined that he had simply fallen into a sleep.

"We don't have any more of that medicine." Twilight thought sourly.

When John woke up again, he bolted upright. He regretted this, as he was still in significant pain.

"John!" Shouted Twilight. "How are you?" she asked as she stopped beside him, concerned.

"Surprisingly... good. Compared to before."

He got to his feet with a groan. "We need to get out of here."

"Are you sure?" asked Twilight. "Nothing else has found us here, and you're still recovering. What if we walk into another scorpion nest or something?"

"NO." said John with such force that Twilight didn't speak from shock. "The vault has four, maybe five months before the water runs out. I can't afford to wait for any reason."

"But... Are you going to be ok?"

"Twilight, I don't give a damn how much pain I'm in. If something is after me, it beats being dead. Besides, I'm fine."

He looked up into the morning sun. "But, I think you had better be the one to hold the supplies," he said.

"Yes, of course I will!"

"Here, I think we can keep it on your back like this."

"What's with this?" said John, staring at the walls of what was clearly a town.

"I do believe this wasteland has some shred of civilization after all!" said Twilight, much more cheery than she had been since she found herself in the wasteland in the first place.

"Do you think they know where we can get a water chip?"

"Only one way to find out."

"Welcome to Shady Sands, stranger," the man at the entrance to the town called out. Please that knife in its holster while you are here."

John grudgingly put his knife away. He had not done so since his recovery from the scorpion attack.

John approached the man. "Good day. I am Seth. I must apologize, but your livestock will have to wait outside.

"Livestock?" asked Twilight, genuinely confused. "What livestock?"

"The hell!" exclaimed Seth. "You're a mutant!" He raised his shotgun to chest height, but did not aim it at Twilight.

Twilight narrowed her eyes at him. "Mutant." she said in monotone.

"I don't care what you are," said Seth suspiciously, "but you are not allowed into Shady Sands."

Twilight glared at him. "Whatever, fine." she said, turning away from the man. "Come find me when you're done with this- place, John." She walked away.

John took a breath and looked Seth in the eye. "I'm not coming in unless you let her come with me."

"Then you are not going to get in, my friend." replied Seth.

John didn't reply for a few seconds. "I want to know about your town."

"Shady Sands is a peaceful community. We can grow our own food. If we were not plagued by raiders and radscorpions, we would have no problems."

"Radscorpions?" said John, unsurprised. "Those things nearly killed me yesterday. Can you not keep them under control even here?"

The other man shook his angrily. "Those damn Radscorpions have been after our brahmin since we moved here. Not a week goes by that someone doesn't get poisoned trying to keep them out of the pens. Last week, they took my brother Jarvis. Razlo, our doctor, is looking for an antidote as quickly as he can."

"What if I were to wipe those pieces of crap out for you?" said John.

"Why the hell would you want to do that? You just said you almost died because of them, and you want me to show you their NEST?"

John ignored this. "If I wipe those things out, will you let me and Twilight both into town?"

"Twilight being the mutant." said Seth, awaiting confirmation.

"No, Twilight being the alicorn."

"Fine." said Seth without argument.

"Now take us to the radscorpion cave."

"There's no well in hell I'm going near those caves. But I guess I will show you the way."

"Well?" asked Twilight bitterly as John approached. He frowned at her.

"I hope you're ready for this," he said. "It's payback time."

"What?!" cried Twilight. "You mean Seth?"

"No, not him. The radscorpions."

"Radscorpions? Is that what they're called? Why would you want to go near them?"

"Seth told me what they were. And I'm going to hit their nest so hard, there won't be any more left in these parts to do what they did to me to anybody else."

"As much as I would love to do these people a favor, you haven't even fully recovered yet! You're going to die."

"No, I won't. Besides, if we can do this, they will let us BOTH into the town. The nest is that way," he finished, pointing.

"Fine, but we are not charging in without a plan."

"This has gotta be the cave," said John. "Look at that thing's skeleton at the entrance."

"I know," said Twilight, worried. "I don't want either of us to end up like that either. Remember the plan, don't put yourself in danger. You know, other than you're going into a cave full of deadly scorpions."

"Yeah, I know, I know. How many shots have you got left?"

"Just ten. I really hope I won't need them."

"You know that you will sooner or later."

"Yes, that's what bothers me. This was a bad idea."

"We're not going to turn back now. I'm going in."

Twilight watched him go into the cave. She put the bag down on the ground and started counting. She had decided that she would count to two hundred, and only then start to worry. It did work for the most part.

Twilight had counted to about one hundred and fifty when she saw John emerge from the darkness of the cave at a sprint.

"It's right on my tail!" he shouted.

The situation was too tense for Twilight to be confused by this expression. She braced herself against the side of the rock wall next to the cave and waited.

A second later John came out like a bullet. Twilight aimed her pistol at the ground in front of the cave and almost immediately the scorpion emerged.

BANG

The scorpion stopped moving unceremoniously.

"Are you ok?" asked Twilight.

"I feel AMAZING actually," said John, provoking a questioning look from Twilight, "From these things, UNSCATHED!" he cried, shouting the last word boastfully.

"What happened in there?"

"The plan worked perfectly is what happened!" he continued excitedly. "Get their attention one at a time, act like I'm trying to escape, and just when they think they've got me on the run, BAM! I killed two of them like that already. But this guy here," he said detesting as he kicked the scorpion corpse, "would not let me slip the knife through that armor of his."

"But we are not done yet," he continued. "There's quite a few more in there, but they are rather deeper in. If you don't come with me somewhat, you won't be there to help me"

"Ok," said Twilight uncertainly, "Just as long as the front is clear."

"Yeah, it is, these things are stupid. If they see you, they always just charge straight for you."

"Let us hope everything out here is 'stupid' then," said Twilight flatly. "If anything gets smart, you and I both will be walking into a trap."

"I'm sure you'll come up with something. Now come on!" John said excitedly.

Twilight followed him into the cave. It was, to her surprise, easier to see in than she anticipated. It was best not to attract attention with a light anyway. John held his hand up in a motion for her to stop. She did so, looking at him expectantly. He indicated the wall next to the passage, and Twilight nodded and braced against it.

It was quiet for about thirty seconds. Twilight could barely hear John taking steps on the stone as he proceeded. Suddenly his steps became much louder and more far more frequent; he was clearly running back. Twilight looked down the passage and cast a small light spell out of curiosity.

This illuminated John running down the tunnel. Suddenly he simultaneously and seamlessly spun around and crouched and hit the scorpion with a surprise thrust of his knife. Admittedly, this didn't much faze the scorpion, but John had already spun back around and was running away again.

Twilight couldn't help but be impressed. She now felt sure that the incident that John had told her about in the vault wasn't the only demonstration of agility he had displayed to his friends, and she could see why he would be their choice to scout the outside world.

Then she realized that that the scorpions truly were incredibly stupid as it fell for exactly the same trap that John had preformed moments before. This time the knife punched right through the armor, but the scorpion wasn't going to stop yet.

A BANG echoed through the cave.

Twilight let out a sigh as she confirmed that the scorpion had in fact been killed by her shot.

"What is with that light? whispered John. "For a moment I thought that was sunlight! Don't you think you should stop before the others see that?"

"Sorry, sorry!" said Twilight, extinguishing the light.

"This kind of 'run away' tactic takes such a long time to kill these things," said John. "But it's definitely better than being stung."

"Be glad you are fast enough for that to work! If we run into anything that can keep up with you-"

"Ha!" laughed John, a little to loud. "That's likely."

He didn't give Twilight time to respond. Instead he took off down another passage.

Twilight rolled her eyes and followed behind slowly.

Shortly later she heard John shout out, "Oh, HELL." and the sound of him running back. She tensed up. John came racing out of the passage, not even seeing Twilight. Twilight heard the scratching of what sounded like hundreds of legs.

"Or perhaps only 30 legs," thought Twilight in terror after watching the small swarm of scorpions go by. "I can't believe I'm doing this," she thought as she charged after them. She raised the pistol and fired her whole clip into the swarm. When it was empty, there was only two left, and the sun was shining down on her again. John turned and kicked a scorpion away. Twilight seized the other one with her magic and scrunched it into the ground as hard as she could, preventing it from getting up again, but she wasn't strong enough for this to kill it. John ran up to the struggling bug and, with the speed and ferocity of a fury, stabbed the thing three times, and it too was dead.

John promptly left to deal with the last scorpion. Twilight suddenly noticed something that revolted and terrified her. The back of the dead scorpion was moving, and climbing off of it were several "babies". They were coming right for her.

She let out a squeal and grabbed a nearby rock and used it to bash their guts out, which proved easy, as their armor had not hardened yet.

When the last one was reduced to a pile of slime, she dropped the tainted rock. "I can't believe I just had to do that..." she whispered.

John walked over to her and saw what she the cause of her upset composure. "Ugh! That's nasty."

"It... I had to do it," whispered Twilight, not moving her eyes.

John didn't know what to say to her. Feeling awkward, he decided to say "You wait here, I'm going to go check the cave one last time," said John. Twilight didn't argue.

As soon as John was out of sight, Twilight turned away from the dead scorpions and stared into the ground, her expression hardening. She didn't know how long she stayed like that, but before long John came back out of the cave and said "I checked the rest of the cave, there's no more of these things in it. Do you want to go back to Shady Sands now?"

He had barely let out the last syllable when Twilight replied in a stern voice, "Yes."

Twilight didn't notice, but John had hacked off the tail of one of the scorpions and he shoved it into his bag, which he then picked up and slung over his back.

"Are you going to be ok?" asked John.

"I'm fine" snapped Twilight.

Neither of them spoke on the way to Shady Sands.