Fallout Equestria Omega's Trials

Chapter 7

“Alright everypony, let’s move out!” shouted an elderly pony, whom I guessed was in charge. The four griffons took up post, walking along the fringes of the caravan. Tick-Tock walked in the back, at least a half-mile behind the rest of the caravan.

“What’s Tick-Tock doing?” I asked one of the griffons. She looked at me puzzled, and I pointed backwards with my chin.

“Oh! Him. He’s bringing up the rear. That way, if we get in trouble or ambushed, he can give us a way out,” she answered, scratching her beak.
“Thanks, I’m still a bit new to all of this.”
“Don’t worry Scythe, you’ll get the hang of it.”

I cringed inside every time I heard that name. It isn’t my name, these aren’t my colors, and that isn’t my cutie mark on my flank. I wanted to slash it off. I wanted to hurt Tick-Tock, and I realized that most of all, I wanted to kill Angelo’ for putting me through this. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I was being hunted because of it. I was so lost in my steadily bubbling pool of rage that I didn’t notice the little foal until I tripped over her. She kicked me off her.

“What’s your problem, creeper? Can’t you keep an eye out for where you’re going?” she spat. I realized she wasn’t a foal, just a small mare. She had a creamy colored, pale coat with a brown mane. Her black eyes looked at me with calm rage. She had brown leather barding and two shotguns mounted to a shambled-together battle saddle. Over her back, she had an additional sawed-off shotgun. Also, I had overlooked it at first for its size, but she had a small horn atop her forehead.

“I’m sorry, I’m just distracted.” I tried not to stare at her horn, but evidently I was failing.

“What are you looking at?” She said sharply, and I looked away. “Hey, I’m talking to you! You were looking at my horn, weren’t you?!”

“No, of course not… I was just distracted,” I said, looking away into the clouded sky.

“Yeah, you better be ‘just distracted!’” Everypony was looking at us now.
“Could you please not…”
“You’ll be distracted when I’m kicking your flank!”

“Scythe, Beatrice wants you.” The griffon next to me interrupted before the mare could continue her berating. She pointed to Beatrice who was waving me up. I was too happy to go.

“You’re more of an idiot than Tick-Tock is,” she said under her breath when I caught up to her.

“So, is this how you discipline your employees in the day time?” I chuckled. Her taloned foreleg knocked me on the back of the head.

“I can beat the shit out of you whenever I damn well feel like it,” she answered. “How’s your EF look?”

I spun in place and signaled that it was clear. She let out an eagle cry, and the two griffons took off and started to circle the caravan.

“Why were you waiting for me to tell if it was clear?” I asked, while watching them circle the caravan.

“Don’t really know. Tick-Tock told me to do it and ‘we may make it through this.’”
I stared at her.

“And you listen to him?”

“I’ve known Tick-Tock almost my whole life. If I trust anypony, I trust him.” She took out a bottle and drank from it. “Goddess knows his insanity has saved my life more times than I care to count. He could, though.”

“Count them?” Somehow I was beginning to find this believable. I was about to ask her if she was serious, then I froze as red lights moved across my EFS. “Got red,” I announced, then pointed in the direction.

Beatrice signaled in the direction of some rustling bush. Jerry descended, fired four shots, and then emerged.

“Just some mangy mutts,” Jerry growled, reloading his shotguns. Beatrice nodded and he went skywards again.

“What’s going on?” I asked turning to look at her. She shrugged, and then looked around warily.

“Tick-Tock is being cautious. When he is cautious, that worries me.” She looked at me and I checked my EFS again. I nodded. It was all clear.
“There are three things he rarely does” she continued “get angry, panic, and be cautious.”

“By the way, can he really see the future?” I asked, finally getting another opinion on his insane proclamation.

“It seems so.” She groaned, “Just wish he would give me more than his cryptic vagueness.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that.” I swallowed and asked her my next question. “What… what did Angelo’ take from him?”

She stopped and shuddered. I could see her restraining herself from shooting me. “He took a lot from him; his family, friends… Pretty much everything.”

“How did I-“ She stopped me with her glare.

“Omega, don’t. Just don’t talk about it.” She glared at me, and looked back to the distant dot that was Tick-Tock.

“Must be tough...” I started.
She eyed me. Why did I still get the feeling that she was still going to shoot me? “…To see a friend go through that.”

“Yeah, it is.” She took off and signaled one of the other griffons down.

The caravan kept moving for a few hours, going through the winding caverns and crags of the Hub. Somewhere along the way, the landscape went from caverns to low, sloping hills of grey dead grass, with the occasional wrecked sky cart. Eventually, we reached a highway overpass and stopped. Twenty odd ponies and the griffon guards stopped, opened their canteens, put up their legs and leaned back.

“Well, you know what Jeff, you are the worst other head a Brahmin could have!” One of the bovine shouted to its other head.

“Well you, Louis, you are an idiot!” The other head shouted back. “If you fell off a cliff, you’d have to ask for directions to hit the ground!”

“Yeah I’d hit the ground, cause you are dragging me down!” responded Louis while he tried to bite his other head. I was left wondering what the fuck was going on.

“Louis, Jeff, what the fuck are you arguing about?,” One of the caravan’s ponies shouted, attempting to breaking up the fight. “You bovine idjits are the best of friends.”

“WERE friends!” Jeff corrected, “Then that idiot stole mah hay! I don’t mind if ya ask!”

“I didn’t steal anything!” Louis shouted back.

“Now wait a second, how do you know he stole your hay?” He eyed Jeff. Nopony asked the important question, why did it matter? It was all going to the same damn place!

“I looked away for a second, and there was some missing.” Jeff glared at Louis. “Unless some mysterious phantom came along and took it.”

“Well, I didn’t take it!” The other head shouted back. “I always ask before I take some.”

“Well apparently not this time!” Jeff shouted.
Tick-Tock approached them, accidentally sneaking up on the caravan pony and startling him. He whispered something conspiratorially to the trio. Both heads of the Bovine looked at each other sheepishly and started laughing. The caravan pony shook his head and sauntered off. Tick-Tock smiled and found his way to me.

“What happened?” I probed as he walked by.

“Told them that when neither of them was looking, a small colt came up and stole a nip.” We looked back to see a very nervous looking Pierce, whose big sister was glowering at him.

“Hate to be in his horseshoes.” I remarked. He already had fresh bruises on his blank flank, and was trying not to cry.

“Yeah, it would suck.” Tick-Tock yawned and popped his neck.

“You find anything out?” I asked. He looked at me quizzically. “About the caravan.” I expounded, “You were worried about it.”

“Oh! That. No, nothing. Been giving it a lot of thought, and narrowed it down to one of two things.” He stopped, and I looked at him expectantly.

“Which are…” I questioned him. Goddesses, it felt like I was dealing with a small foal.

“The two theories are, that we are either transporting somepony, or something important.” He eyed each of the ponies. “And none of these ponies look like they are high rollers in Baltimare.”

My eyes drifted to each of the Brahmin. Nothing on them looked important; no big packages or guns. Tick-Tock saw this and commented, “Just because it isn’t big doesn’t make it unimportant.”

“I’ll keep a look out for anything.” I looked at him while he stared off into apparent space. “So, the only reason I’m here is to use my EF’S?”

“And that damn targeting spell,” He answered quickly. “You aren’t too bad in a fight. As long as the pony you are fighting doesn’t have real training, you may have a chance. Just be careful when we get hit. It’ll happen. I’m not sure when, but when it happens, be careful.”

“Why are you always so cryptic?” I finally asked, turning as he started to walk away towards the rear of the caravan.

“Because it’s fun,” he said blankly, trotting away. He stopped, and then turned back. “Ponies are more important than anything we are transporting. If you have to choose between an object or a living thing, go with the living thing.” He continued trotting off to the back of the caravan. I stood there staring off into space, wondering what he was talking about, until Beatrice called me to point.

The hours passed, and we walked down the old highway. Occasionally, I’d point to some red dots I saw on my EF’S, and one of the griffons would descend to check it out. Typically, it turned out to be a mole rat family or a small swarm of bloat sprites. It was starting to wear on the griffons’ nerves.

“Contact, 8 o’clock.” I said, pointing to a downed sky chariot. Beatrice signaled Jerry down. He grumbled and rolled his eyes before circling the sky chariot and diving at it, guns drawn. He popped out a second later wiping something from his foot.

“Radroach.” He looked at me, frustrated. “Is there any way you can tell the difference between annoying bugs and Angelo’ Death?” Everypony in the caravan had stopped at the mention of that name; idle chatter stopped, I heard gasps. I knew somewhere in the group a pony was holding back tears, just from the name. Jerry stood there, apparently oblivious to what he said, or how loud he said it.

“No, it just pops up as red bars.” I answered at the ground, trying to stay out of the gaze of these ponies and the griffon in front of me. They had spent the last three years trying to forget that he even existed.

He swore under his breath about me being inconvenient, and took off circling the caravan as it started to trudge onward.

“You’ve known Tick-Tock longer than anypony right?” I asked Beatrice under my breath. No matter how she reacted before, I decided that I needed to learn everything I could about my friend.

“Yeah?” She glanced at me, narrowing her eyes.

“What did Angelo’ take from him?” I mumbled.

“You’re not going to relent are you?” Beatrice whispered, sighing with resignation. “About twelve hundred years ago, there was a hero named Gale Winterborn.”

“Okay, what does that have to do with any-“ She silenced me and quickly looked back at the black figure that was Tick-Tock.

“It was his favorite childhood story.” She continued “He was a hero that never faltered, never failed, and always put others ahead of him. So when the Angels came around, he saw his chance to be like him, and rise to an immeasurable challenge and fight to help others. Something he did already, but now he knew he wasn’t alone.”

“Okay…”

“When Angelo’ fell, the Angels stayed together, if I may quote DJ Pon3, ‘to fight the good fight’.” She shuddered. “The rest of the wasteland wasn’t convinced, thinking they were as bad as him. If you think the prejudice the pegasi had to endure was bad, you didn’t see Angels tortured to death when a town they saved turned on them, or when Puddin’ Cup’s Angel Slayers tracked one down. They leave them begging for death before leaving them to the wasteland.”

“But they didn’t have anything to do with it,” I whispered. Tears were starting to form in my eyes. “Why not go after the problem?”

“They couldn’t track him. Griffons stopped taking contracts on him after several hits ended with horrible cases of dismemberment… Amongst other things.” She stared at me. “Griffons and large doses of taint do not mix. So they went after the next best thing, the ones who followed him.”

“That’s terrible. How many died?” My sadness gave way to pain and anger. That was just stupid...

“Don’t know. A few lucky ones probably went into hiding, but every time one pops their head up, it gets blown off.” She looked at me. “The wasteland is hell on heroes.”

“What about Tick-Tock?” I asked, staring at the black figure who was staring at a ridge, then at a highway overpass.

“He’s alive.” She was finished talking, and I didn’t feel safe pushing the matter any further.

“Beatrice, don’t move,” I said, doing a 360. “I think we may be surrounded.”

“What do you mean?” She hissed, signaling to the griffons circling overhead. “Shouldn’t you have seen them?”

“Not if they were hiding!” I did another spin to double-check my EF’S. The red bars were moving around slowly, occasionally blinking out, then reappearing when I looked away. “The spell can be tricked if you’re standing really still at a dista-“ She dragged me behind a rock just in time to avoid a sniper round. I looked up, and could barely make out a gun barrel through a dead bush.

“Fuck! AMBUSH!” She shouted, reaching under her wings and pulling out two magical energy pistols. She shot the bush, igniting it, and to some degree the pony inside it. The sniper fired one more shot that went way wide before diving for cover behind a sky chariot. I looked back, but didn’t see Tick-Tock. All the other ambushers who had been hiding opened fire, as did the caravan. I had just noticed the other ponies were armed, ALL of them.

“Beatrice!” One of the griffons shouted, shooting, as some of our attackers dove behind a rock. “We’re sitting ducks out here!” She rolled through the air, barely avoiding a stream of mini-gun fire.

“Tell me something I don’t know!” She growled, taking a round to her Kevlar chest, then returning fire with her magical pistols. The pony took five shots to the chest before letting out a horrific shriek as he was turned into a pile of dust.

“I saw a bunch of sky chariots, and carts and shit down the highway,” Jerry shouted, darting through the air to avoid the incoming fire.

“Beats the hell out of staying here!” I shouted, rolling out of the line of fire from a pony with dual assault rifle battle saddles. I hit SATS and blew his head off. That was a sight I was never going to get used to. Now I was glad I hadn’t eaten breakfast.

It had been a running fight to the abandoned highway. The Brahmin took point with the rest of the caravan behind them. Miraculously, none of them had been hit, only the guards. All the while a question was forming in my mind. Something was off, and I couldn’t put my hoof on it, right at the tip of my tongue.

“Where’s Tick-Tock?” Yep that was it. I ducked from a bullet.

“I don’t know. Thought you were supposed to be watching him,” Jerry laughed, diving for cover behind an old delivery cart and pulling out a healing potion.

“Do you think they could’ve got him?” All the griffons started laughing.

“I’d hate to meet the sniper that could take Tick-Tock,” Beatrice grinned, swapping out her magical pistols for her revolvers. “They can’t touch him, he says it has something to do with the planning they have to make.”

“So where is he?” I asked, loading a fresh clip into my assault rifle and rolling my eyes. I wasn’t even going to ask.

“Listen for the laughter.” Her grin was somewhat comforting. “Trust me, if anypony can get us out of here, it’s him.”

“Didn’t think it was that bad.” I quickly looked around, checking my EF’S. It looked clear, except for a few red lights. The last of the caravan went into the wreckage.

“Scythe,” the griffon behind me said, loading her mini-gun, “we just walked into their trap.” There was a disturbingly familiar beep and an explosion, followed by a scream.

“Shit, got another one,” I said to Beatrice, carefully pushing the button to disarm it. They weren’t even hidden, just lying out in the open. I bent over to pick it up, and then heard the beep of the other ones. The sky chariot next to me exploded in a blinding fireball, as shrapnel tore into my face and Kevlar. The helpful pony icon appeared in the top right of my vision, letting me know my right legs were crippled. I was beginning to question the importance of being told what my blinding pain already indicated, but that wasn’t what I was worried about. I was worried about the blast having pushed me into the middle of some more mines. It was nothing short of a miracle that I hadn’t set them off.

“Scythe!” Beatrice shouted, “Don’t move!”

If I had the courage to look, I would’ve rolled my eyes. Instead, I was looking at the land mine right in front of my nose. If I could just move my right hoof, which was crippled, I may be able to push the stupid button in the middle of it. I struggled to slowly move my right hoof over to the land mine; I was working on a lot of assumptions. I was assuming that the land mine operated on the same principle as my EF’S. That meant if I’m slow enough, and cautious enough, and most importantly lucky enough, I can trick it. I slowly moved my crippled hoof, dragging it on the ground until it touched the cold metal of the land mine. I started to hear gunshots around me, and spared a glance to my EF’S, my hoof resting on top of the button. If it went off, I would be able to deactivate it, hopefully. Goddesses, I was starting to think like Tick-Tock. I think that’s how he thought, at least. ‘Beep’. I pushed the button and exhaled.
The griffon with the mini-gun burst into my view revved it up and opened fire directly above, all the while letting out a bird like screech. I rolled over to grab a healing potion out of my saddlebags, and found myself looking directly at another active land mine, and a corpse filled with 5 mm bullet holes. I saw another pony aiming at me down the barrel of an assault rifle. It was the same model of assault rifle as at the factory, except Tick-Tock wasn’t here to save me. I activated SATS and targeted his head, with the land mine in front of me. I kicked the land mine, activating it, but had flipped it in such a way that the blast was pointing at the pony, thank Luna. He was too far away for the blast to do much more than blind him. Not long, but just long enough for me to shoot him, get to cover, and down a healing potion. My legs quickly mended. I did a quick count of red bars and counted twenty, at least.

Now I realized what was meant by trap; they had us surrounded, scattered us, and knew the only ways we could escape. I triggered SATS and targeted the pony from earlier. All three of the round burst hit him, tearing his body apart. That was one down.

The griffons had taken to the skies to try to pin down snipers whose rhythmic gunshots were ever so kind enough to remind us of their presence. Beatrice and Jerry stayed behind to give the rest of the caravan air support.

“Three more inside the sky bus!” I shouted to Jerry.
He threw two grenades in one of the broken windows.

“EVERYPONY DOWN!” He yelled, laughing like a maniac as the bus exploded, turning the ponies inside into bloody pulp. The bus caught fire, triggering several more minor explosions. Something intangible pulled me down just as the bus exploded with thunderous blasts that knocked me back and irradiated the local area. I looked back and saw Crystal Bullet’s horn glowing violet, and a violet glow likewise around my armor. I signaled ‘thank you’, she nodded, and the fight continued. Jerry soared through sky, passing by just close enough for his shotguns to be of use.

Steadily the ambushers moved in. Jerry was taken out by a lucky shot through his wing. He had crashed on an overpass, but was still breathing last time I saw him. One by one the caravan’s guards dropped, either dead or unconscious, until it was just Beatrice, Crystal Bullet, and me. The caravan ponies had guns, but they weren’t worth a damn. I gave Beatrice a look that asked ‘Where in the name of Celestia is Tick-Tock’? She read it perfectly and shrugged, firing both her revolvers into the face of a pony who leapt over some wreckage. She had given up flying. The attackers had at least two ponies with mini-guns mounted on their battle saddles. I was going to have words with my mom about her use of the word ‘uncommon’ when I make it back, if I make it back.

A squad of them leapt over a nearby car, one knocking me to the ground and planting her spiked hooves firmly on my face. I rolled, and decided to try something I read in one of the magazines, some Griffon Judo. I put my hind legs beneath her, and flipped her to where she was beneath me. I pulled my knife out from its pocket and drove it deep into her unprotected neck, getting it caught in the bone. I let go of the knife and wrapped my mouth around the sledgehammer on my back, swinging it into the battle saddle of an approaching lime green stallion, shattering his shotgun. He cringed and turned to avoid my next swing, which connected with his jaw and twisted his neck in a disgusting way.

I spun my sledgehammer around and shattered the spine of a pony who had tried to sneak up on me. I brought it down on his head to finish him. I took one second to look at the bloody pulp that was the ponies head, and it was all I could do to not to vomit my sledge hammer out. It was one second too long, and several rounds punched into my barding, knocking me to the ground. I was really getting too familiar with staring down assault rifle barrels. A glowing purple shot gun came up from the pony I had killed, pumped and pulled the trigger into my assailants head.

Crystal Bullet was obviously more than a bandit. She levitated three shotguns at the same time, each in a different direction, laying down fire to keep the bandits back. One leapt out from behind her. I slid into SATS and fired three rounds into the buck’s skull, shattering his horn and turning his face inside out. She held one of the guns in a salute before getting back to work.

So far, we had managed to drop between ten and twelve. There were more though, all they had done is take a break.

“What are they waiting for?” Crystal asked impatiently, reloading her shotguns.

“Back up? Healing potions? Trying to find somepony who has the guts to issue an ultimatum?” Beatrice shrugged, sparring a glance at her wristwatch.

“Do you think Tick-Tock is-” Her glare stopped my sentence.

“Nope, he can’t be.” She said, scanning the skies.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because, he wouldn’t be taken out by low life shit like this.” She answered, in a matter of fact sort of way. “And the snipers have stopped.”

“That could’ve been those two griffons you sent off after them.”

“Yeah it may have been them, or maybe Tick-Tock has some cunning plan involving them to come and save our tails.” She looked at me. “In my experience, it’s the latter.”

A rifle round pinged off one of the carts, and we took our positions as a lone ghostly white unicorn in a black suit and mane trotted up to shouting distance of the highway.

“What do you want?” Beatrice shouted while I nudged some healing potions over to Crystal. She took the hint and gave them to the injured ponies.

“Just fer ya’ll to surrender!” He shouted back. “The mercs get to go, but all the other ponies come with us to the Hub.”

“Yeah, on whose orders!” Beatrice shouted while stealthily loaded her guns.

“Don’t see how that’s important, we’re the ones with the most guns and ammo, and you are the ones trapped on a highway full of mines.” He shouted back. “You will be fully compensated.”

“This buck is really starting to piss me off.” I recognized Sure Shot’s voice. She had a sniper rifle pointing at him from under a cart. Crystal Bullet thumped her horn, making her drop the gun.

Beatrice looked at her wristwatch and smiled. “How much are you going to pay us?” She asked. The caravan ponies jaws dropped in disbelief.

“One thousand caps each, so all in all five thousand caps.” He shrugged.

“That’s odd; there were six in my group.” He looked irritated. “There was one bringing up the rear, a pony with a black hat and coat.”
Beatrice looked to me and began counting down on her talons.

“There wasn’t (Five) anypony bringing (four ) up the rear, (three) now if you’re done (two) bluffing come down here (one) so we can talk business (zero).” He finished blustering, and straightened his tie.

A strange laughter started up, almost cackling, like Stand-Up just took down a heckler in the stable. They all heard it too. I could tell by the freaked out look on their faces it was one of terror. Tick-Tock stepped out from behind a rock directly halfway between the suited pony and us. He didn’t even appear on my EF’S.

Beatrice looked to me. “Tick-Tock has always had a flare for the dramatic.”

The ponies drew their weapons as Tick-Tock took a bow, blood dripping from his wings.

“Salutations, mon bon monsieur.” He grinned, and even though his back was toward me I could tell he had his best crazy grin on. “Allow me to introduce myself I’m-“ He dodged the bullet from the suited pony’s rifle. Then he continued. “Tick-Tock, and I will have your life in my hooves this evening.”

“Shoot hi-“ Before he could finish the sentence, Tick-Tock rushed the stallion, cutting his neck open with his bladed wing, leaving him gurgling on the ground while charging the rest of the ponies. Unluckily, there was at least a quarter mile stretch between them. Luckily, Tick-Tock had planned for this. He expertly dodged bullets as the griffons sniped from the clouds, and rained fire down on them, picking off the ponies with the mini-guns first. One of the griffons descended, tearing them apart with her mini-gun and sending the rest of the bandits scattering. All except one. Tick-Tock pulled a healing potion out of his bags and made the pony in the suit drink it, then drug his healing body over to Beatrice.

“Now, these are the ponies and griffons you were trying to kill.” Beatrice seethed. The malice in her voice sent my mane crawling. “Why are you trying to do that?”

He spat in her face. Tick-Tock stepped back as she slashed his face open. Tick-Tock motioned me over to help him loot the bodies as the pony started to scream.

“How’d you do?” He smiled, his calm voice barely audible over the agonized screams of the pony.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I was feeling sick. I had killed again. I felt crushed under the weight of the wasteland; torture, murder, robbery… My mind wasn’t coping. I was about to look back and see what Beatrice was doing to him, I had never known a stallion to hit such octaves. Tick-Tock blitzed between me and the sight.

“Why don’t you come help me loot the bodies?” He smiled, trying to make it better.

“Fine, I think those ponies need medical supplies, some of them are stable and OH SHIT, JERRY!” I screamed, taking my last healing potion out of my bag, only to have Tick-Tock take it and soar off in the general direction I was heading. Tick-Tock went over to where he had gone down and dived on him.

I ran over the hill and saw Jerry leaning on a very pained looking Tick-Tock. The healing potion had worked from the look of it, just not as well. Tick-Tock had been in the nick of time, from the gear these ponies were carrying it looks like they were tired of wasting time.

Tick-Tock cleared the remaining mines by sprinting full speed through the field a few times, triggering every mine he came across.

“Now that’s how you clear a mine field.” He shuddered, shaking the debris off his black leather armor. I started to trot through the wreckage, but he held out a wing to stop me. There was another explosion as one of the sky buses blew up. “Okay, now it should be good.”

I hadn’t really taken a look at Tick-Tock’s armor until now. It was all black leather, just black leather. No Kevlar or hardened spots anywhere. On each wing was a blade that curved with his wings perfectly, mounted into his armor was a battle saddle that had dual SMG’s with drum magazines. On each hoof was a knife of various sizes going up to his knees. Slung under his right wing was his combat shotgun, and sheathed directly below his left SMG was a curved sword.

The other ponies of the caravan kept eyeing them. A couple reached for guns, a few kept them trained on him. A glare from Tick-Tock made them think otherwise.

“I don’t get it?” I asked as Tick-Tock took a healing potion from one of the dead bandits, putting it in a cart we found. “You saved them, shouldn’t they be grateful?”

“Angelo’ stuff.” He mumbled coldly.

“That’s bullshit and you know it.” I stomped, much to his confusion. “It doesn’t matter, you saved their lives!”

“Not to them. Angelo’ did a lot of awful shit,” he answered, yanking a gun from a dead earth pony’s vice-like grip. “I’m a reminder of that.”

“SO?” I stomped angrily, trying to get some kind of change from Tick-Tock. “They need to get over it.”

“So, they need somepony to blame and that somepony is me, or any pegasus really.” He smiled, putting some needles in his bag. “And if you don’t get over it. They never will.”

“But doesn’t that get you mad?” He turned his head and gave me a slight smirk and a sigh.

“Not anything I can do about it, so there’s no point in getting angry.” He tried to walk away, but I wasn’t having any of it. Tick-Tock had ended too many conversations like this already, and I was fed up with it.

“You saved our lives!” I stomped, chasing after him. “You’re a goddess damn hero!”

“Some hero I turned out to be. I got so tied up with the snipers I let a friend get shot, and failed to secure an escape route.” He answered, with painful amounts of sarcasm. “I should’ve set the trap sooner, or let you know the second I was feeling trouble, or scouted ahead… There are literally dozens of things I could’ve done instead. Yet, when it came time for me to do my JOB, my FUCKING JOB! I screwed up. I’m not a hero,” He stomped, staring me in the eyes.

“Tick-Tock, you saved everponies life!” I shouted directly into his face, not yeilding an inch as he tried to stare me down.

“First, I didn’t, stop saying that. I’m not a hero. Ponies died because of me. Second, if I did accept this, it wouldn’t change their fear and hatred of me. Angelo’ Death probably tortured somepony close to each of them, and they need somepony to blame.” He turned around and exhaled deeply into the ground, barely holding back tears. “I’m sorry, didn’t mean to lose my temper.”

“What did he take from you?” I asked, and Tick-Tock’s whole body shuddered.

“A lot.” He glared from under his hat, his mane falling over his eyes. “Leave it at that, I won’t guarantee your safety if you push it again. All you need to know, is I want this one dead as much, if not more, than anypony else.” I froze, the tone of his voice was murderous. My body wouldn’t move as he loaded a cart with the loot.

“Tick-Tock,” I gulped, the words took every ounce of courage I had. “I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

“Thanks, Omega.” His tone was back to being carefree, and boardering on apathy. He hooked himself up to a cart he had loaded everything in, leaving me standing there as the rain started to fall.

(Level Up) Griffin Judo beginner- you know the basics of this martial art, even though you can’t do any of the moves right for anotomical reasons +10 unarmed.

(I’d like to take a moment to thank my friends Sara and John for editing and Kkat for creating FoE. Comments on improvements are appreciated as well as compliments. Thanks.)