Fallout Equestria Omega's Trials

Omega’s Trials
Chapter 9

All things considered, it could’ve gone worse. I was alive, if just a bit sore. The autodoc did its job. Even cleaned up my radiation. Something I had forgot to keep in check, which was bad. Tick-Tock was standing behind the controls reading a small book, occasionally flipping a page.
“Okay, questions.” He looked up from his book as I rolled off the operating table. “First, what took you so long? Second, why didn’t you come with me in the first place? Third, was the elevator always working? Fourth, why in the name of Luna are you in that ridiculous get up? And fifth, why didn’t the cards chase us?”
“First, I got lost. Second, I said I’d be along in five minutes, you didn’t wait. Third, same way I got the autodoc to work; hook up a couple of spark batteries to it and hope for the best.” I cringed a little. “And because it’s the only way the elevator will let you work it. I think it’s a security system or something.” He stretched his wings. “Fourth, it makes me look pretty good. I mean just look at all these buttons.” That was a lot of buttons. “As for the cards, they probably left after I grabbed you. They have a schedule to keep, so be thankful.”
I was speechless, so I just hung my head and chuckled. Goddesses, Tick-Tock WAS contagious.
“You didn’t say you’d be along in five minutes, and why should I be thankful?” I stomped, gritting my teeth through the pain.
“Yeah I did, by the campfire” he stated. I thought back, and he HAD mumbled something. Like he did just now while he was looking at the spark batteries, “If you had somehow, through some miracle, pulled it off and killed those five cards, the rest of the house would come crashing down on you. I thought I made this clear earlier, and I’m sorry if I didn’t.”
“If you said something, it was in a different language,” I countered. He paused and tapped his wing on his chin. “And you did make it clear.” I stomped defensively. I looked down to the ground, slightly ashamed, then mumbled, “It just didn’t click, I’m sorry.”
“Probably did, I do that sometimes.” He stretched and popped his back. He had my curiosity now. “And don’t worry about it, we all lose our temper from time to time.”
“How many languages do you know?”
“I know enough Buffalo to get in a fight and find a bathroom. Fancee, I can do pretty good, but Griffin is what I’m best at,” he answered, with some level of pride.
“And what were you speaking back at the camp?” I groaned. Luna, he was a frustrating pony to deal with.
“Griffin most likely; come on.” He waved me towards the elevator with his wing. “There’s something you need to see.”
We rode up the elevator. He was standing there, smiling blankly at the door, humming along with the music. I noticed a bullet hole in one of the elevator’s doors, then remembered the gunshot that the Diamond had fired trying to kill me before it closed. How stupid I was for charging in there like that? How stupid the whole thing was, actually... What did I really accomplish? I killed some raiders. Big whoop, no worries. They’ll be back. There’s no shortage of ponies like that in the wasteland. I endangered my life for the sake of a foal and a promise. I acted like a fucking hero. Heroes get broken by the Hub, which means I change, and I promised FM I wouldn’t. The elevator dinged.
“5th floor, maternity, pediatrics, emergency OR, and orphanage.” His happy tone dipped, and became deadly serious with the last word. He noticed my confusion, as usual. “What, you think raiders don’t have kids?” We turned left towards maternity and pediatrics. Corpses littered the hallway. They were armed with more desperate weapons: a mop with a sharpened handle, a broom, a plunger... I saw what looked like a sink. I think the mare planned to use it as a bludgeon on Crystal, but the opposite happened. It looked like none of them tried to hide, they just rushed out. Was that raider psychology? Seems stupid to run out screaming like that…Merciful Celestia, what the mare in the OR said now made sense. Pierce was with the other foals.

Ponies... I thought I was killing just lowlife raiders, but they were ponies all the same, with foals. We had made this place into an orphanage. I had taken part in- NO, I had started it- Parents, moms and dads, brothers and sisters... Tick-Tock stood beside me, clumsily kicking a hoofball around. I bucked the wall as hard as I could, then bucked it again, and again. The ancient wood of the tree gave beneath my kicks. My friend shook his head, laughing.

“That won’t bring them back,” he said as the ball slipped out from beneath his hooves, and splashed into the river of blood that filled the hallway. “And you did the right thing, you most likely saved Pierce.” I listened to the crash of something metal as he spoke, and saw something skitter across my EFS.

“How could I have done the right thing?” I looked at him, fuck was I crying again? “I killed their fucking parents; I turned this place into a fucking orphanage!”

“They smaller ones would’ve been sold as slaves to some Baltimarian who needs labor, or they’d get a ‘crash course’ in spelunking.” He sighed as we continued to walk down the hall, humming a somber tune. The sound of lullabies filled the air from the speakers on the wall as we walked past blood-stained wards, and his somber song was drowned out. We heard the sound of small foals crying for their moms and dads. It sounded like two ponies were trying desperately to hush them. We walked around the corner and saw Crystal Bullet in the middle of a nursery, eyes bloodshot from crying, cuddling a sobbing filly who was asking for her mother. I remembered when I was little, and terrified when I got lost in maintenance for a few hours. I was so glad to hear my mom’s comforting voice, something I took for granted, and took from them. She cradled the filly and tried to comfort the rest of them. I saw Pierce try to help by telling them it was going to be okay. I don’t think she told him about their sister yet.

“Now the foals have a better chance,” he said, and put his hooves on my shoulders, interrupting my brooding.
“How do you figure that?” I rasped angrily, almost about to vent at him again.
“We’re going to take them to Sanctuary, where they will be raised in a raider-free environment,” he answered stepping in front of me. “C’mon we have to go find the others.”
“Others?” I asked, stupefied.
“Other foals that ran off and hid during the gunfight.” He tilted his head backwards over his back so that he was looking at me upside down. “Got to do something to keep you from brooding.” How finding other ponies I had orphaned was going to keep me from brooding, was beyond me.

The foal we had been following rushed at me, screaming something profane. He wasn’t even old enough to have his cutie mark, and he tackled me at full gallop with a fire ax in his mouth. Tick-Tock knocked the ax out of his mouth and then delivered a fury of blows to his face and neck. The pony was barely awake, with a lot of blood coming from his face. He kept trying to get up, and Tick-Tock found this disturbingly funny after he searched where he had been hiding. A chem lab, and not the puny one in the 77’s medical floor either. This had chemicals, and drugs and compounds that I had only heard of in books.

“Looks like some pony found themselves some Stampede.” He laughed as the colt still tried to stand. I remember hearing about that drug. It was an attempt to make super ponies, but all you got was a pony with blind rage, and its side effects were nasty. Prolonged use could result in liver, heart, kidney, and reproductive issues, and this was a foal using a homemade version. I glanced at the corner he had been hiding, and counted the used needles.

“We need to get him flushed NOW.” I said, turning away from him as he regained balance.

“I agree, unfortunately I don’t have enough batteries to use the autodoc again.” Did he think that fixed everything? “So if you have any ideas, now would be a good time.”

“Autodoc is operation and healing, not chemical removal,” I corrected, jumping on the recovering colt. “He needs the proper treatment.”

I racked my brain for the methods I had learned in medical training for flushing drugs from a system. I had most likely killed his family... I wasn’t going to let him die.

“I’m going to need a lot of purified water, some fixer, a catheter, and thirty inches of tubing.” Tick-Tock darted out the door, and left me with the drugged up colt.
“I’m so sorry.” Tick-Tock barged back in a few seconds later. “I have no real idea what I’m looking for, or where to begin looking for it, so let’s trade,” he said, urging me out the door. “By the way, hurry.”

I darted down the hallway looking for my supplies. The tubing wasn’t hard to find, just checked the supply closet. The raiders hadn’t seen it for having much use, except for tying off limbs for drug injections. The floor was covered with old used needles. The floor of the closet looked like somepony’s sick nightmare. Then I remembered where I was, and glanced at the ceiling. The needles fell out of their target. I put the surgical tubing into my bags and walked on. I found the fixer in the OR, in a cabinet. I was amazed I could stomach going back in there. Why didn’t I tell Crystal to stop when the mare told her where to look? I stood by and knew what was going to happen. I just stood by impassively. The only thing I cared about was killing the ones who had organized the thing, and what would that have accomplished? There would’ve been forty-seven more pissed off ponies hunting me down. Forty-seven trained, ruthless, and motivated ponies. I took the fixer and got out.

I went to each bathroom I found, hoping to find a sink that wasn’t pumping out irradiated water, but no luck. I bucked the sink, shattering it. I was going to be responsible for another pony’s death; I had killed his family in blind rage and was killing him out of incompetence. I bucked the wall again, leaving hoof prints indented in the wall, then leaving the bathroom altogether. On the plus, I found the catheter.
I dashed from room to room, desperately looking for anything that hadn’t been looted, while looking for non-irradiated water. All my pipbuck found was water that didn’t look clean enough to drink for a healthy pony. I took it anyway, hoping it wouldn’t come to using this. I realized I was running out of time. I started to head back, and then I heard an annoying buzzing noise. It sounded like a radroach was fluttering its wings, only bigger... a lot bigger. I turned around, expecting to find a giant radroach that the raiders had been keeping as a pet. Instead, I saw a pony wearing a purple mask, with blue lenses over her eyes roll a bottle of water over to me. I picked it up and checked it with my pipbuck, it was clean.
“Where did you get this?” She stood silently, then gestured with her head for me to follow her, then she took off down the hallway.
I chased after her, thinking she might know where more clean water was, if any. It wasn’t long after that I realized that the mask wasn’t the only thing off about her. I was chasing a fully grown pony down the hall that was dressed like a damned super hero. She was dressed in a ridiculous costume, a dark blue, almost black cape fluttered behind the pony, occasionally revealing a violet outfit underneath. Her hooves were wrapped with some cloth, up to the ankles. The whole absurd outfit was completed with a hat. We came to a stop in a room on the other side of the building, next to the OR. She opened the door, and inside was water. Clear, pure water with no rads, no contamination, neatly stacked in plastic bottles. Just like the bottle she tossed me earlier.

“How did yo-“ I turned, and she was gone. I didn’t have time to wonder or worry. I grabbed the water and ran down to Tick-Tock. I went through the steps, dealt with him crying as we inserted the tube, got bucked in the face, forcing the water down his throat and heard him sob about his brother. I didn’t cry, I was out of tears.

“How long should it take?” Tick-Tock asked, nudging the tube into the corner as the urine started to flow.

“A few hours?” I answered with a shrug, “I really don’t know.”

“I got this,” He put a wing on my shoulder, “get some rest.” From the way he was looking at me, I could tell this wasn’t a suggestion.

“Okay,” I sighed, my body realizing how tired I really was. I wanted to keep fighting it, I had to do something to try and help them. “Oh Tick-Tock, by the way,” He glanced back from the sleeping colt. “Saw a pony dressed in purple, she gave me the water.”

He muttered something under his breath. “Thank you.” He smiled before waving me off with his wing.

I trotted down the stairs, the events playing over and over in my head; it had all become a blur of me shooting my way through them. I tripped on another mutilated corpse; it had been chained to the wall. I set out looking for a bed but couldn’t find any that weren’t stained with blood. I walked into the director’s office and saw a small green pony dart under the desk. I walked around to the front of the desk.

“Hey little guy.” I said in the tenderest voice I could muster... Don’t know why I was having problems with that. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

I heard a click, and several gunshots flew through the wood in the micro-desk. Seriously, this was a small desk. The gun clicked again, signaling a jam. I trotted around to the front of the desk and looked under at the terrified emerald-green filly, with an evergreen mane and tail. She was filthy, just like the rest of them. Filthy, sickly looking, covered in old blood stains, and terrified.

“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you.” I said, crouching down to get a better look at her. “What’s your name?”

“Scooter,” She blubbered, not taking her eyes off me.

“That’s a nice name.” I smiled back at her.

“Thanks, I got it cause everypony can ride me.” She answered, with a small look of terror in her eyes, as I realized she wasn’t looking at me but at my…parts. Suddenly I felt very sick. “Are you going to be gentle?”

I felt my stomach churn, and I actually saw where the blood stains were on this filly. She wasn’t even old enough to have her cutie mark!

“Hey, I’m not like that.” I shook my head, trying to sound comforting, while trying to comfort myself. This was fucked up...

“So, you like colts?” She looked…sad about this.

“Wha-NO NO NO NO!” I answered, standing up and banging my head on the desk.

“Then…what are you going to do?” She sniffed, and a tear rolled down her face. “Ar-are you Angelo?”

“No, I’m not him, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“But you killed my mommy and daddy.” She started to sob. “My daddy said I was starting to ge-“

The door creaked open and Crystal Bullet poked her head in. I signaled her over, and she trotted in with several fillies in tow, her little brother bringing up the rear.

“Hey there sweetie, what’s your name?” She asked Scooter.

“Scooter.” She coward further under the desk, like she was expecting to get hit or something.

“Well hi Scooter, I’m Crystal Bullet.” She said, smiling warmly. “I’m sorry for what happened.”

She just shivered under the desk, trying to push away from the purple unicorn. Crystal Bullet backed out from under the desk and the emaciated filly.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.” She smiled, a tear rolling down her cheek.

“Don’t worry 'bout her.” One of the little fillies piped up from the hallway with a snide tone. “She couldn’t handle the bigger ones, like her daddy.” A deafening silence permeated the room. I was dumbstruck.

“I will tape your mouth shut if don’t be quiet Sliver.” Crystal said staring daggers at the filly.

“I’m just letting ya know, that cunt can’t handle a- Mmmph!” A silver roll of tape flew out of Crystal’s saddle bags, and wrapped itself around the filly’s mouth. It got a small laugh from the rest of them, but still they had a vacant look in their eyes like their brains were still processing what had happened.

“Don’t worry about her.” Crystal said warmly to Scooter. “I’m going make sure nopony ever lays a hoof on you like that again.”

“Please, don’t hit me,” she whimpered.

“Why would I do that?” She smiled back warmly.

“Because my mommy always said that before she beat me,” She sobbed. “Now you’re going to beat me up too.”

“No, I’m not.” She answered firmly. “I’m not going to touch, and I’m going to make sure nopony else touches you.”

“What do you mean?” She asked, confusion showing through bloodshot eyes and tears.

“I’m going to protect you,” She answered, “I’m going to take you back to our friends, and we are going to take you to a place where you’ll be safe.”

“Oh…so you’re slavers?” Scooter asked, less shocked. “My mommy said she was gonna sell me someday…”

“No, we’re not.” She gestured to me and herself. “We’re part of a caravan, we’re going to Sanctuary.”

“The Pussy town?” One of the older colts groaned. “That’s all my pa said lived there, nothing but a bunch of-“

“No, they are nice ponies that will take care of you.” Crystal Bullet answered, what little patience she had left wearing thin.

“Yeah, nice ponies die.” He snorted, a small grin on his face.

“And I believe your parents can argue that point extremely well,” Tick-Tock yelled lazily down the hall, the colts eyes tearing up a bit, remembering what had happened a brief while ago. He trotted past the door, humming to an imaginary tune the passed out colt slung over his back. Crystal shot the dirtiest look out the door as he passed and I saw her using all her restraint to avoid charging down the hall after him.

“Nice to know his mood isn’t changed by this,” Crystal hissed.

“The world needs some constants, even if they are chaotic,” I answered, forcing a smile.

“Doesn’t give him a reason,” She said, nuzzling the crying colt, his tears staining her violet coat.

We looked after them and finally got them to go to sleep. Some of them had tried to get a sip of moonshine before going to bed, but Crystal put a stop to that, only allowing them one shot. They all had scars on them, and so would I. I kept trying to find a relatively clean mattress. Making my way back to the director’s office, Tick-Tock was right, I did need sleep. I collapsed on my stomach. Then I felt something small and warm crawl under my left fore hoof.

I opened my eyes and saw Scooter snuggling up to me. She started out as cute, but then kept getting closer and closer, then I stood up. She cowered on the mattress, waiting for me to hit her.

“Scooter.” I said, as evenly and tenderly as I could manage without being betraying how freaked out I really was, “You don’t have to do that anymore.”

“But it’s all ahm good fer,” she answered, looking extremely depressed.

“Well Scooter, if that’s all you’re good at, then why don’t you have your cutie mark yet?” I answered, looking at her blank flank.

She stood there, silently looking down. “ahm just not that good at it yet, I guess.”

“Hey, you can be good at other things,” I said, remembering back to being a blank flank. Running around the stable like a mad pony, trying desperately to find my special talent, getting the occasional injury, a few bumps here, some scrapes there, jumping out my mom’s office window when I read about skydiving. Never thought it would be a common chore, though. “You just need to keep trying new things.”

“Lahk what?” She was beginning to cry. I had taken all meaning from her fucked up life. “This is all mah daddy sed ah’d ever be good at.” Oh wasteland, you are just full of surprises.

“Scooter,” I said in mock sternness, something she wasn’t used to and it startled her. She flinched, thinking I was going to hit her. I changed my tone back to as close to gentle as I could muster. “I know this is a lot for you, and I don’t mean this to hurt you.” She stared up at me in confusion. “But now you can have a better life, one where nopony tries to hurt you.”

“Okay…” She still stood there, looking up at me with her big eyes. “Where can ah sleep though?”

“What do you mean?”

“This is mah room,” she answered meekly.

“OH!” I answered, secretly facehoofing, and walked out of the room. “I’m sorry, for what happened.”

She just stood there in silence. I heard her start to cry when I left the room. I stood there for a minute until I realized Tick-Tock was standing behind me. Apparently, he had changed clothes again. That was something I was never going to get used to.

“Don’t do that!” I whispered, when my pulse had returned to normal.

“Don’t do what?” He asked, looking genuinely confused.

“Sneak up on ponies, you’re going to give me a heart attack,” I responded, feeling exasperated.

“I’ll have to keep that in mind,” he said, looking like nopony had ever told him that before. “But the Cards left you this on the roof.” He opened his bags with his wing and dug out a holotape.

“How do you know it’s for me?” I took the holotape, plugged it up to my pipbuck and let it download.

“There was a note that said, ‘to the stable pony.’” He said. “I’m going to go to bed. We need to be leaving tomorrow morning. We need to catch up to what’s left of the caravan, I know a short cut, I think.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Isn’t it though? Adds a sense of adventure to a dull day.” He smiled, skipping off before I could retort.

I decided to play the tape while I walked around looking for a clean bed. I immediately recognized the voice of the Two of Hearts.

“Hey cutie, if you survived,” Celestia, was she painfully cheerful, “which I think you did, we have a little betting pool going on. I bet on a full recovery, if you wanted to know.” I was about to turn it off when her tone changed to something less silly and more serious. “Anyway, I’m guessing you’re fresh out of a stable, so you don’t know a lot about the Deck. We don’t typically extend many invitations, but from what you did to get up here, I just have to say... Damn. If you’re ever in Baltimare, look me up, I might be able to get you a job with the Deck. I have a feeling we’ll be having a few openings soon, and I may have an opening for you too. Well, Bye!”

The first thing I took away from that was that Tick-Tock wasn’t the only crazy pony in the wasteland. The next thing I got, was they had just offered me a job for effectively trying to kill them all. The third thing I took from that, was an understanding how they operated. They’d offer a job to anyone who proved to be worth a damn. Also that mare needed therapy.

Finally, after what felt like most of the night, I found an out of the way room with a clean bed except for some dust, and a skeleton. I lay down in the bed, then smelled something awful. I looked around the room trying to find the corpse that I had missed. It was me. I did a quick back track, and realized I hadn’t showered since I left the stable. I made my way to the bathroom in the corner of the room, still half asleep. Opening the door, I felt an extremely sharp sting in my ankle that made me jump back onto the bed, with a radroach hanging onto my hoof.

“Get Off!” I yelled at the uncooperative insect, swinging it around into a lamp to no affect. Desperately, I started swinging it against the wall until its body popped off. The head didn’t get the message and it kept chewing. I was suddenly very glad that Tick-Tock had put my armor back together while I was out so it was just pain, nothing too bad. I finally stamped my hoof down and cleaved the head off with my pipbuck. I winced as I pulled the mandible that had gotten through and managed to draw some blood. Stumbling off the bed, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before because a lamp was there. A memory orb carved into a hole in the wood under the lamp.

“Now looky here?” I said to myself, rolling the ball out of the hole and onto the nightstand. “Since you were hidden, I’m going to assume you are not mister skeletons suicide note.” I put it into my saddle bags next to the recollector, then went to take my shower.

I walked out, both amazed and sickened at how much blood my mane and coat could hold and carefully watched the ticking Geiger counter on my pipbuck. According to Tick-Tock, who apparently not only sees the future but also notices small details like the barely visible needle and dial on my pipbuck, it had been in the yellow. I was actually just glad that I wasn’t going bald, or been ghoulified.

I was a little orb shy after my last experience but in all honesty who would hide a suicide note? It’s something you want other ponies to see. Confident with my powers of deduction, I slid it into the slot on my recollector, concentrated, and let the world slip away.

0000000000000

My host, a unicorn stallion, was walking down a hall, reading a file on some pink cloud that was used against a school.

“Bastards.” He said, shaking the folder, his pulse skyrocketing. “Who thinks of such a weapon?”

“I can think of several, with the knowledge of necromancy, talisman fusions, research materials, and resources, but to go so far as to make this a weapon is just awful,” the tan earth pony with a Trottington accent said, coming up beside my host. He looked at the file for a brief moment, then flipped all the pages in the folder. “A bit slow in the middle.”

“How do you do…” He paused half way through the sentence before shaking his head in frustration. “So I take it you're back from your meeting with princess Cel...Luna?” He said, looking at the amber stallion with a dark brown mane. “Sorry, after her ruling for a millennium…”

“It’s quite alright, I treat her the same as the princess either way.” He looked at the ponies who were rapidly working to change the decorations of the castle palace from a sun to a crescent moon.

“Well then, I guess she gave you your mission?” He said, looking at the stallion.

“Yep, and I turned her down,” he said coolly. My host showed the same reaction I would’ve.

“YOU DID WHAT?!” He said, jumping back losing his concentration and dropping the file.

“I turned her down. I gave her a list of other ponies that would be just as useful for running her ministries.” My host was still just as stunned ... You don’t just turn down the princess. “On that list was Twilight Sparkle, her sister’s prized pupil.”

“Bu-But-But she’s the princess...”

“Yes, you’ve said that, Brig.” He sighed, and smiled the same smile you’d give an old friend. “But I can’t stand being nailed down. I almost went insane when I had to stay in Ponyville all those years.”
“But what will you do? Equestria is at war, there are talks about stepping it up, a draft, even an invasion of the zebra homeland.” He stated. “And then there’s this pink cloud.” I felt his magic surge and engulf the file folder…the sensation was odd.

He gave it a small pause, then smiled, flipping out some glasses. He took the file and started rambling on about things that were over my head, but I assumed not my host's, because he seemed to be nodding along in agreement. “I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.”

“I didn’t expect you to.” He smiled back. “I’m just going to need some things.”

“Last time you needed some ‘things’,” he snorted smiling, “you ended up taking apart my fan, two blenders, a prototype scooter, and the princess’s private train.”

“Oh, blimey, two blenders? Thought it was just one. But don’t worry nothing like that.” He shook his head. “Although, it did work.”

“Yeah, whatever it was,” he answered. I knew this feeling, this is the feeling of resignation.

“Trust me, Brigadier. You are best off not knowing.” He smiled.

He sighed, “Now, what do you need?”

“You’re probably best off not knowing this time as well, I will however need you to get ahold of Ditzy Doo though.” He patted his unicorn friend on the back. “Well then, allons-y!”
The memory started to fade away

00000000000000000

I awoke, feeling…satisfied and refreshed. The memory had been pleasant, just two friends. But now I was intrigued, who was that amber pony, and why had he turned down Luna’s offer to be part of her ministries? I had already guessed it was the Ministry of Arcane Sciences. Furthermore what gave him the right? I mean, she was the princess, THE PRINCESS. What made him so high and mighty?

“Questions that will never be answered,” I assured myself before packing up the memory orb. I would definitely want to keep this one. It just felt so calm.

I looked out the window and saw the grey light that I had come to recognize as morning. I looked in the corner where what was left of my gear was sitting, nothing but barely held together armor, some knives, and a pathetic revolver.

“Hey Scythe,” Tick-Tock poked his head in. Apparently he was flying, unless there was another way he could get his head in through the top of the door frame. I looked at my friend’s upside-down head as he floated there, with what would have to be a world-class poker face. “We need to be getting ready to head out, the young'uns are restless.” He grinned.

“Honestly, the sooner we get them out of here, and maybe to a pony who knows a thing or two about therapy, the better,” I answered, sliding into my armor.

“I agree.” His tone switched to depression. “This place holds nothing but bad memories and nightmares for them. They were up most of the night, crying.” His tone returned to its normal state. “...In their sleep of course, but still.” He shook some dirt out of his upside down mane, I didn’t need to ask what he did last night.

“How’s Crystal handling it?” I asked.

“About as well as one could expect when they have lost so much in such a short time,” he stated, in a voice that sounded nearly poetic. He then started staring at a point in the center of the room.

“That was almost poetry,” I joked, trying to get him back to his normal, unpredictable self. He immediately snapped out of it.

“Eh, it’s a hobby.” He shrugged before he continued flying down the hall. Upside down of course.

Level Up-JuniorCounselor-You have a way with children, +10 to speech when children are involved also allows for unique speech options.
(I’d like to thank my friend Sara for editing and making this readable at least to some degree. Also thanks Kkat for creating FoE in the first place.)