Fallout Equestria Omega's Trials

Omega’s Trials Chapter 2
“Now Do A Backflip”

I had never seen a buffalo before, but from what my mom told me they were big, tough, and not to be fucked with. He easily fit into all categories; under his shaggy coat was pure muscle, two horns that could easily gore a pony grew out the side of his head. The bar shook with every step he took towards Trench. He looked at her subserviently, waiting for a reply as to why he was summoned.

“This gentle stallion is less than inclined to pay me the caps he owes.” She smiled, taking a few steps back. Didn’t mention the bouncers he took out. “Convince him that this is a bad idea.”

The buffalo nodded and stared at me, then looked at the pony across from Trench. He planted his feet into the ground and lowered his head, steam coming from his nostrils. Underneath his coat, every muscle tensed, and there were a lot. He dug his right fore-hoof into the ground. Goddesses, why was I still sitting here?

The pony got up and stared him right in the eyes, a calm smile on his face, like he had found an old friend. He then snorted and grunted and…I think mooed?

The buffalo stared wide eyed in shock, his jaw dropping to the ground, before performing the same action as the pony. The ‘conversation’ went on for what felt like several minutes. I glanced over at Trench, and she looked just as shocked-if not more so- than me.

“Psst. Do you know what’s going on?”
She looked over at me, her shocking fading to irritation.“How the fuck should I know? I just hire that buffalo, I don’t speak their damn language.” Her limited patience had obviously worn out. “Thunderstomp, quit yapping and kick his ass!”

“Alright boss.” The buffalo spoke in a very deep voice that matched his appearance. His employer stared in shock, apparently thinking he was a mute during his entire employment.

The conversation was finished in the language I was familiar with, thank Celestia. I was about to start adding comedic dubs. “I acknowledge your heritage is great, and I apologize that I cannot let you go free.” He lowered his head in preparation for a charge. “I am under her employment and must fulfill my contracted obligations.”

“Just tell me you have a clause that said it still counts if you try?” His voice was deeper and had a slight accent that I couldn’t pin. He then got up and trotted to a wider part of the tavern. “Of course, it would be foalish if I had it as otherwise.” His body tensed up and he lowered his head for a charge. “By the way, your buffalo needs work.”

The pony placed his hat on the bar. This was the first real look I had gotten at him. He had a long, scraggly blonde mane and matching tail. His coat was a dull brown. He snorted something and spat. The buffalo had a joyous grin on his face as he charged. I took another drink. Wish I spoke buffalo.

The massive bovine charged, trying repeatedly to gore the extremely agile pony, to no avail. The coated pony leapt over the buffalo, and somewhat clumsily landed on his hooves, skidding to a stop facing his opponent. Even drunk, I could tell to run from big scary buffalo, he would easily make it to the door way and get out before Thunderstomp could reach him. How drunk would you have to be to think this is a good idea? He was that drunk.
Thunderstomp charged again, but this time the pony leapt to the side and landed an applebuck squarely on his side, knocking him off balance and into the bar.
There was an explosion of wood, stone, and liquor as the buffalo jumped out of the wreckage, breathing through his teeth. It dawned on my slightly inebriated mind that he was covered with cuts, and alcohol. He charged, albeit a little clumsily from the pain he was in. The extremely agile earth pony dodged, and seemed to hang in the air, before landing a drop kick on the back of the buffalo’s neck, knocking him to the ground. He landed behind him and mumbled something under his breath. His eyes went wide and he tried to dodge the surprise kick from the buffalo, but caught it square in the flank. There was a sickening pop as he went tumbling to the back wall.
They were both having difficulty standing. The buffalo, from what I diagnosed as a concussion, and the pony from a hopefully only-dislocated hip. Trench was standing in shock as her tavern was being trashed. From the look on her face, calling down Thunderstomp on this drunker-than-hell earth pony wasn’t worth the money she would get out of him.
“Hey.” The earth pony looked me dead in the eyes from across what was left of the tavern. “Don’t let anypony stop this fight.” He…was…laughing… His leg was dislocated, and he didn’t want to stop the fight before it got worse? Was this an expected mental condition from living outside: Masochism? His look hardened when he saw the you-have-got-to-be-fucking-kidding-me look I gave him. What was wrong with this stallion?
“You’re not joking, are you?” Was I really considering this?
He shook his head no, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out something I had never seen before. “It’s Buffalo tape,” he explained, limping over to rock. “Put the sticky side over her mouth, and hold her down.”
“Let…meee….knnn-knoow…win…yoouu…are…are…gooood.” The buffalo stammered out and prepared to charge, focusing both eyes on the earth pony as best he could.
The brown buck lifted his hind legs and bucked the rock wall, throwing his leg back into its socket with another sickening pop. He grinned as his body quivered in pain. I leaned over, and for the third time today, vomited. It clicked what he could do to me if I let the now-in-more-control and less-in-shock Trenches interrupt the fight. What was she looking for behind the remains of the counter? So, I did what I had been told to do. I snuck up behind her and put the tape over her mouth. She mumbled and shrieked angrily as I sat on top of her. Then I saw what she was looking for, a pristine shotgun with a box of twenty four slugs, and loaded with eight more.

In the stable, both would be sent to medical and spend a week in isolation, not in that guaranteed order, depending upon my mother’s mood and the damages. Damn… had to stop thinking about her. Only made me sad, and angry at that Steel Ranger who used her. That reminds me, I need to find a sledge hammer before I find him. He better not be dead already.
“Alright, I’m good, everything shiny. Ready to finish this?” The earth pony walked fine while putting barely any weight on his leg at all. All the buffalo did was dig his hoof in the ground in preparation to charge.
They charged each other simultaneously. The earth pony timed his movements perfectly and almost artistically. He dove to the side of Thunderstomp, and landed a beautifully executed applebuck to the side of his face, knocking him headfirst into a rocky outcropping. He groaned before going completely limp. Then, the earth pony did something surprising. He rushed to the side of the buffalo, a look of panic on his face. He only relaxed when he saw Thunderstomp was still breathing, and poured a healing potion over his opponent’s skull and down his throat, and mumbled something. He then got up, grabbed his hat and started to walk out.
As he walked out, somepony else walked in. Or limped in, was more like. He was bloody like he had taken a bad fall. Shrapnel wounds peppered his body; his trashed battle saddle held a destroyed minigun and missile launcher. His eyes were covered with blood, and his head bled from an open wound in the side. You could see bone.
“Angelo’s back!” he cried into the empty bar. The mysterious pony froze in the doorway. “A black stable pony with a reaper cutie mark!” Trench sat silently under me. Were those tears?
The mysterious pony turned to look at me. He didn’t say anything, just eyed me over. His stare looked like it would kill me. He poured the healing potion down the mortally injured ponies throat and head. It wouldn’t be enough; he’d need at least five of them to stabilize him, but he would still need major surgery. The slaver had stumbled in here blind, delirious. Most likely, he had been here enough and knew ponies would be here. I saw the pony with the hat reach for something under his coat.
“WHOA!” I said as he pulled out a shotgun, “I’m not this Angelo’ pony, my name’s Omega.”
“Pleasure to meet you, but Angelo’ imitators need to be killed also. He was a monster, and some say he was the devil himself.” He loaded a drum into the gun. I readied the gun I had picked up from behind the counter.
“I didn’t kill anypony!” I yelled through the gun again. After seeing what this guy did to the buffalo without a gun, I didn’t want to find out what he could do with one. The slaver was passed out on the ground, most likely in shock from the healing potion. All he did was bought him a few minutes.
He clicked the safety off his gun and took aim. I was the one with tears in my eyes now. I was going to die, in my first day outside… I was never going to see my mom or FM again… Never going to be bored to the point of driving somepony completely insane… Never going to scare Spaz… So full of regrets... Time slowed as the gun fired. I saw his tongue pull the trigger, and the flash of the shotgun’s barrel. I tried to activate SATS but it was too late. I fell to the ground, the wind knocked out of me, but surprisingly not dead.
“Okay, I believe you.” He chuckled, “You wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot me if you were any follower of Angelo’.”
I was crying. I think, no, I know that I soiled myself. Why wasn’t I dead?
He sighed, “You are aware that others heard him walk into town mumbling that, if you want to live you need to get gone.”
“Where?” I choked out, rubber slugs still hurt like crap.
“I don’t know, do I look like a babysitter?” He was walking to the doorway. I heard noises outside, shouting about get every gun you could get. He looked out and whistled.
“What?” I was back on my feet the wind returning to my lungs, they were probably bruised.
“That’s a lot of ponies, and a lot of guns. Half expected most of them to run and hide.” He looked back to me. “Suddenly I don’t feel so good leaving you alone anymore.”
“Really?” I almost squealed, I might get out of here alive after all! “So how are we going to fight them all?”
“There’s a time to fight and a time to run for your life, and this is the latter.” He looked disappointed. “Wish we could, but you do that and then you are compared to Angelo’.”
“Who is he?” I asked I was really getting tired of being compared to a pony that I had never heard of.
“*Sigh. I’ll explain later.” He motioned me over.
“So what is the plan if it’s not fight our way out?”
“Simple, we steal that train.” He pointed his hoof toward some big black mechanical thing on the tracks. I was beginning to have massive suspicions about his sobriety.
“Do you know how to drive it?” I asked practically.
“Nope.” He grabbed his gun in his mouth. “How hard could it be?” We took off running for the train. After about thirty seconds of running, I was beginning to think we might make it. Then all hell broke loose as the area we were standing in was saturated with gunfire.

In my companion’s drunken stupor he seemed to sway to avoid every bullet. I, on the other hoof, was glad they were small caliber, poor condition weapons. We inevitably were separated as I dove for cover behind an over turned train car, hearing the rounds ping off of it. Seeing all the red lights on my EF’s move around to get a better shot, I had no choice but to shoot them. I had killed before, that was apparent from the dying pony in the bar. But that was a land mine. They were chasing me, and if they caught me, they were going to drag me off somewhere and work me to death, or just kill me straight up. This felt different, like I was making the conscience choice to take a life. The land mine felt more absent, like they had a chance to escape. This felt more determined. I was going to see them go down, see their blood and gore.

The first pony popped around the corner. I let my training take over and hit SATS. He was a middle aged stalion with a .32 revolver levitating beside him. His cutie mark was a needle, and his eyes had tears in them. At first I thought he was scared, but then I looked deeper into his time stopped eyes. That was blind rage. What could drive a pony to hate so much?

I fired two shots at his head; the spell slowed time down for me to watch the slugs slowly turn his skull to mush. Brain and skull fragments steadily flew backwards. The levitation spell for his gun dissipated. I just killed a pony. I wanted to sit there and sob. I thought my mom had prepared me for this, I thought it was going to be easy… Hide and scavenge for a few months, maybe join a caravan and offer my skills as a somewhat doctor… Not get framed for a horrific murder that turns everypony against me. This place was hell.

I felt teeth grab me by the back of the collar, and swung around the gun in my mouth. My attacker narrowly dodged the barrel hitting him upside the head. It was the Earth pony who had been trying to help me.
I was terrified, trying to follow the little green speck on my EF’s through the maze of red under constant small arms fire. Luckily, they didn’t have the benefits of built in targeting spells, so most of their shots were just in our general direction.
“There He Is!” A mare shouted from the ledge overlooking the town. A spotlight shown down on me, and she started shooting at me with her mounted rifle. I recognized that style gun from the armory. I always wondered why they had a sniper rifle in an area favoring a shot gun. It had a five clip magazine, I knew that much. The first three shots hit the dirt around me; with the next one I felt my back light on fire as the bullet grazed me. The final shot hit me square in the chest. Luckily the Kevlar stopped the penetration, but I felt some broken ribs. My companion returned fire with a pair of SMG’s he had kept under his coat, tied into what I was guessing was a battle saddle. He hit her and she went down, tumbling off the cliff, falling through the roof of the Sheriff’s office.
She stalled us long enough for the rest of them to be on top of us. We were being shot at from all sides as they steadily closed in. I’m not the brightest when it comes to military operations, but it seemed like they were being extremely hesitant to close with us and actually get in range for their guns to be accurate. Still, it was an awful lot of lead heading our way.
Finally, after the longest hundred yards of my life, we reach the train. We clambered aboard taking cover inside the heavy steel frame. Bullets pinged off the side of as we hid; only occasionally getting a chance to return fire. The coated pony began looking around the train for something. His eyes widened when he saw some levers and some hammers.
“When I say go, kick that lever as hard as you can,” the coated pony said as if this was a normal situation, his voice low and barely audible over the gunshots. He grabbed the hammer and headed to the back and started hitting something. I looked around and quickly found the lever and got in a position to kick it. I heard him say go…Barely… Did he ever yell?
The train started rolling down the slope to the rickety bridge, the extremely steep one, that looked like it was held together with good intentions and tape. Lots of tape. It started going faster and faster, heading for the ledge. My mind began having second thoughts about this as the train started to accelerate, then we hit the steep incline of the ledge. It was flying now, at least that’s what it felt like. As the train went over the rickety tracks, I held onto the lever for dear life, screaming at the top of my lungs and I think apologizing to the Goddesses for all my sins. My companion stood steady legged, walking around like being on an out of control train while being chased by some pissed off ponies was nothing special.
He was saying something to me in a calm voice, that I couldn’t hear over the wind rushing past my ears. He started to look more frustrated as he continued saying the same thing over and over. Then he grabbed my face and turned my head to look at the front of the train. Even with the low light and minimum night training I was given at the stable, my eyes could still make out the shape of a bridge. A bridge that was… not quite a bridge, because it was missing a huge chunk out of it.
I panicked. We were going to die, not by gunfire, but from falling to our deaths, and I would never get to--Why was he pulling back on the lever?
The train’s wheels screamed as the brakes kicked in. It hadn’t occurred to me that the same lever to turn off the brakes was the same lever to turn them back on! He looked at me, still clinging to the brake handle, like a small foal to its mother’s leg.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” I hissed when the train had finally stopped.
“Don’t really know, no pony’s been able to figure that out.” He smiled stupidly.
“Are you insane?! We could’ve died!” I pulled out my gun and slid into SATS. His eyes narrowed as time slowed. At first I thought he was in midblink, but I realized he was glaring at me. My time stopped heart skipped a beat; I was point blank and only getting 50% chance of hitting him. I turned off the spell, eyes wide in horror.
“Could’ve died, but we didn’t. Had we stayed there we would’ve died, undoubtedly.” He looked back towards the town; it was just some distant lights.
“Why were they chasing me, how did they get me confused with this Angelo’, and who is Angelo’?” I looked back towards the distant lights of the town and noticed some of them were moving.
“No time. I’ll tell you when we are safe, we need to be getting out of here NOW!” He growled out the last word, staring at the lights. “We need to get you someplace safe. Well… safer.”
“Can’t we just go to another settlement?” I looked at the lights, and pulled out my assault rifle, hadn’t gotten to use it yet.
“Not a good idea. If they think you are Angelo’, no place is safe for you.” He gave a small honest smile. “You need to get a new identity.” He hopped off the train and seemed to fall slowly.
“Okay…how do we do that?” I asked, unsure anymore of this pony’s plans.
“I know a stallion.” He looked back at me. “He’s good with this sort of magic; he’d be able to help you out.”
“Where is he?” I had hope in my voice. If this guy was able to disguise me, I may not end up dead, and be able to find my father. All hope faded when he turned around and shrugged.
“Just head east; I know that’s the general direction he was heading. He may have been heading to Dodge Junction.” He drew his shotgun. “I’m going to go buy you some time.” He ran towards the lights, screaming some foreign language, blasting his shot gun.
I watched as the red bars converged and followed the single green bar. There were some shots fired, and gradually most of the dots walked off my EF’s. I started heading east.
The gunshots had long since faded, but there was no sign of the insane earth pony. All the same when he said Dodge Junction my pipbuck highlighted it on my map. I smiled thinking that the insane pony was probably dead.

I was alert, keeping my pipbuck light off and my eyes on my EF’s. Almost forgot about those slavers chasing me. A group of red dots were behind the next boulder; at first I thought it was some mole rats or dogs, but they don’t make fires.
“Syph, we lost 9 good ponies, friends of ours, to that buck already! Don’t need to risk more.” One of them said, “He don’t matter!”
“Don’t tell me who does and doesn’t matter!” She was in tears. “He killed mah family!”
“And he gonna kill a lot moar, you seen how good he is.” Wait, what? “He toyed with us for half en hour before gettin’ Tiny and his brothers with dat trap.”
“I know, he’s a monster!” I could hear she was on the brink of tears. “I lost family when we left one monster alone, I don’t want to let another go, whut ef he is another An-“
“DON’T SAY THAT FUCKING NAME!” The stallion roared, “THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER ONE! HE IS GONE!”
“I just don’t want to go through it agin.” She was in tears. “He tortured me and forced mah parents to watch. HE PLUGGED A SPARK BATTERY UP TO MAH FLANK AN’ BURNT OFF MAH CUTIE MARK!”
Now that was just sick, who the hell is that fucked up? Yes they were slavers, but that was just too far.
“Yeah un’ I had to scrape my parent’s remains off the walls whun he shoved a grenade up their asses, after hookin’ a spark battery to mah stuff. He made them watch too, he always made them watch. He sed that if they blowed up, the cir-kit would be brokin.” The stallion murmured, “He lied…”

WHO WAS THIS FUCKER?! What they talked about was sick. Angelo’ wasn’t a sadist, he was a godless damn demon straight from Tarterous. I heard one of them wake up from a nightmare screaming about how it should’ve been him, begging for his mommy. From cover I watched them; they were all young, mid to early teens at best. All bore some scar of Angelo’. The leader had her flank burnt off. Like she said, all that was left was an ugly scar. They all seemed to barely hold together, and had hope that whoever had done this was gone for good. So did I, nopony deserved to watch their foals and fillies get tortured, or have to watch their parents be told that painful suicide was the only way for their child to survive. If he wasn’t dead, I was going to kill him myself.

…but he wasn’t dead. He tortured and killed those slavers, after how many long hours of me waiting, and left me to take the blame?

I continued to sneak by their camp listening to their horror stories, …was ripped apart, dropped into a vat of taint and they had to hear their agonized screams as their body warped… how they had to put the bullet through their skull. There was a struggle and several gunshots, a colt screaming over and over again, “Let me die.” They took the gun from him, but he grabbed another and pulled the trigger. There were sobs as they called for him. I continued to walk.

The stranger was waiting on the side of the road, looking at a watch; he looked complacently at me, and then saw the look on my face.

“What’s wrong?” He looked at me, confused.

“Nothing, I just guess the wasteland’s getting to me.” He tilted his head and smiled a little, looking to the sky.

“It can be a little depressing.” He put the watch back into his coat his gaze returning to the dark clouds in the night sky.

“How did you get ahead of me?” Depression had not lessened my curiosity, just changed my tone.

“I have my ways.” He looked down from the sky at me smileing wryly

“KILL THAT FUCKER!” The scarred slaver shouted as they poured bullets at me. I didn’t want to kill them. They were chasing me because they thought I was a monster, and they above all else knew what a monster was. I didn’t want to shoot them, but they gave me no choice. I had killed before and it was in self-defense, now I was shooting at them for the same reason. A couple bullets hit the Kevlar in the armor. I was winded and bruised, nothing more. The buck who hit me was less fortunate, taking a face full of buckshot from my shotgun. It was quick.

The Syph jumped out at me, levitating her assault rifle. I hadn’t seen such hatred before except in the old stallions eyes. She had lost everything, and believed I put her through it again. When she saw her cousin tortured to death, I imagined the barbed wire around his neck. Why didn’t he get me? He knew I was back there. He was he wanting somepony to see his work. She thought I was like the monster that tortured her and forced her family to watch, before making them commit suicide to save her. I grabbed my pistol, slid into SATS, and fired a shot at her glowing horn; I didn’t want to kill her. The bullet hit dead on, her horn exploding as the bullet continued going up, scalping her, and she fell down screaming in agony.

My companion was finishing up the last one by jumping over her and planting a knife in the mare’s skull. Somehow not a drop of blood landed on him.

The mare sat there crying as her body went into shock. My mom had taught me what happens when a unicorn loses her horn. It’s the most agony a pony can feel and still be alive; all the magic in her feeds back through their body, giving them a crippling migraine and incapacitating them.

She was still trying to move for her gun, her mouth wrapped around it and I slid into SATS. This was the kinder thing, she was a unicorn with no magic. Why save her? As far as I knew, that made her fair game in the wasteland, where she would be put through more hell than most ponies thought possible. Her family was dead, her friends were dead. She was a slaver. She found ponies, put explosive collars on their necks, and worked them to death. She needed to be put down, and it was quick.

After looting the bodies we started to walk on. What they had summed up to 215 caps, and miscellaneous ammo for their miscellaneous guns that were in barely working condition. I walked, my head low, thinking of what else I should’ve done, but the mercy killing was the only scenario that worked out.

“Tick-Tock.” My companion said staring off into apparent space, or at an extremely interesting rock.

“What?” I asked, breaking me from my depressive train of thought.

“My name. You never asked, and I figured four hours and fifteen minutes and thirty-six seconds was enough time to wait for you to ask.” He walked along, his eyes shifting to the ground and a small bush.

“OH!” He was obviously insane, no normal pony would count how long until somepony asked their name down to the second. “Mine’s Omega Pi.”

More silence. I kept running it over in my head, what I could’ve done differently.

“Know any good jokes?” He asked, breaking the silence.

“No.” I answered, not taking my eyes off the ground

“Riddles?”

“No.”

“Stories?”

“NO!” I snapped, drew my gun, and slid into SATS. I didn’t care that I wouldn’t have a good chance to hit him. He was in mid charge the time the spell was activated, knife in mouth. I targeted his feet. I didn’t want to kill him, just make him stop talking. I was in a bad mood and he was making it worse. Time steadily resumed. I watched as all three bullets left the gun, slowly flying towards this pony. His legs evaded all of them, and I was left vulnerable as time resumed, and he tackled me knocking the gun out of my mouth. He pinned me to the ground, sticking the knife in the dirt next to my head.

“Don’t do that to me.” He growled. “Stop targeting me with that damn spell. I excused you the first time and second time. Third time, I got pissed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop beating yourself up!” He glared me dead in the eyes. “You’ve been beating yourself up ever since that fire fight and it has to stop…what’s your name again?”

“Omega.” Had he really forgotten?

“Omega, there is nothing else you could’ve done. Mercy killings suck, they always do.” He got off me. “You try to avoid them, especially for friends. It sucks but you did the right thing. There was no way to fix the damage done to her, she was messed up psychologically too. She wanted you dead for the same reason everypony else in the wasteland wants you dead, and nothing could’ve changed that, so deal. It sucks, but that’s the wasteland.”

“How did you know?”

“I’ve been raised out here, so I can tell if something’s out of place. Excessive guilt is one of them. Decided letting you shoot at me couldn’t hurt.” Tick-Tock’s demeanor changed back to what it had been before. “So, do you know any jokes?”

“Nothing comes to mind.” What was wrong with this stallion, pissed off one second, and fine three seconds later? He had to be insane, my mother warned me I’d come across crazies. “By the way, how did you know I was targeting you when the spell seamlessly transfers time?”

“Time is my thing. I know time, I can feel time.” He glared at me. “That completely messes up my ability and gives me a funny feeling when it gets used.”

“Oh…” I wasn’t really buying it. If anypony could do that, it would be a unicorn, not an earth pony.

“You can use it; just don’t target. me That makes it so much worse.” Tick-Tock shuddered. “You ever have an ice cream headache?”

I shook my head no, I hadn’t even heard of ice cream.

“Okay…” He put his hoof to his chin. “Guess we’ll have to find you some ice cream. It’s the only way this analogy makes sense.”

“Can’t you give me another analogy?” I sighed. His mood swings were getting a little confusing. I was scared that I might cause another pissed off mood swing.

“No, unless you’ve eaten something extremely cold really fast.” He sighed when I shook my head. “See, then no other analogy will apply.” I had absolutely no clue what he was talking about, because the coldest food I ever had was room temperature in the stable.

I stood there, my mind blank. I had come to the conclusion that this pony was indeed stupid or insane, or he was wrong about not being able to get drunk. Everypony could get drunk.

“Are you coming?” He called out from ahead of me. “We need to find shelter before night hits, this is Bloodwing territory.”

“Bloodwings?” I didn’t remember my mom ever mentioning anything sounding like that.

“Big bats that travel in packs and can drink a pony dry in seconds.” He stared off, looking frustrated. “They are a pain in the ass to fight.”

“How bad could they really be?” I laughed. He was probably scared of them because he didn’t have stable training like I did, or SATS, or even EF’S that let him see hostiles.

(Level up)- Ninja-not-Congratualations due to you're awesome sneaking power you have an additional plus five to stealth, maybe?

(I'd like to thank my good friend Sarah who without this story would be full of infinite run-ons, comma splices and every other grammatical error you can imagine.)