After the small run in with those raiders--it took Jason and company about fifteen or so minutes to reach the one eighty-eight trading post for some much needed rest.

“Finally...some rest.” Said Vexan as she walked over to a piece of still intact concrete road partition and slumped to the ground against it.

“Well after today, I think we earned it.” Said Jason as he tossed a bottle of clean water over to her, which she took and drank immediately.

“Thanks.” She said after she downed little more than half the bottle.

“Don’t mention it. Enjoy it now though--clean water is very hard to come by in the wastes.” Jason responded back.

“Exactly how hard?” Asked Shining as he sat in the stool next to Jason.

“Harder than trying to get laid after a long dry spell my friend.” Jason says, making Gilda, Rainbow and Applejack laugh.

“Good one.” Rainbow said with a hint of giggle in her voice.

Jason got off his stool and left shining to walk over to Gilda who was just setting her rifle down against the wall.

“How’s your arm Gilda?”

Gilda looked at where she got shot before and ran that moment over again in her head. If she had been a little more to the left, she would have been dead for sure.

“It;s doing fine. The feathers will regrow, don’t you worry about me, I’m fine.” She said with smirk on her face. Though Jason could tell she was hiding something.

“You know, the first time I got shot...I thought I was gonna die for sure.”

Gilda looked at him with a confused look across her face.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

Jason looked at her arm and then at her face.

“Because--where I got shot was in the head.”

Everyone in the camp went silent as Jason took a glove off his hand and passed it through his hair, exposing the scar above his right eye where two nine-millimeter bullets collided, but didn’t pass through his skull.

“You’d think that someone who got shot in the head would die from that--but, lemme’ tell you something,” He looked up at her so she could see his face. “I’m one stubborn sonova’bitch ta’ kill.” He said with steeled look in his eyes.

“I can see that. most people who take an arrow to the face, or in this case a bullet, would surely die.” Said Shining.

“Yeah,” Jason pulled out a bottle of whiskey from his duster and took a few gulps--he shook his head and coughed once before screwing the cap back on and putting it away. “most do, though I didn’t. I ain’t just gonna lay down and die like that.”

“From a bullet tah’ the head? Sugarcube, now I know this ain’t the time tah’ get morbid like this, but I’d die from a bullet tah’ the head.” Applejack added.

“Are yah’ stubborn as a rock?” Asked Jason.

Applejack nodded her head. “Sometimes.”

“Then you’re fine.” He said back.

Applejack turned looked away with a smile on her face before she zipped her head back in Jason’s direction. “Hey!”

Everyone got a good laugh out of that as even Shining armor was laughing up a storm at the bar.

“Hardy har har. Very funny.” Applejack said as she crossed her arms across her chest and snorted.

“Awww lighten up There AJ--it was just a joke.” Rainbow said as she nudged AJ’s shoulder.

“Awwwww, whatever. Fine, I’ll let it slide.”

“Hey, so, why did you get shot in the head for?” Rainbow asked bluntly.

“Rainbow, that’s probably not something you should just ask like that.” Shining said.

“Don’t worry, I don’t mind it.” Jason turned to look at Rainbow Dash and Applejack. “Well, the reason I got shot in the head was because of what I had on me. See, I was a courier before I was shot--but I digress. I was in the middle of transporting said item across the wastes to that very big tower in the distance. Before I could get there however, I was knocked out and woke up tied up and on my knees surrounded by a bunch of really bad looking people and a guy in a suit with the item that I was transporting in his hand. I was gonna’ say something, until he pulled out a silver and gold nine millimeter and pointed at my head telling me, “The game was rigged from the start.” and he pulled the trigger twice I guess--I was only conscious for the first shot. After that, I woke up in a small town in a doctor's office with very little memory of I was before. All I had on me when I was given my stuff back was a small name tag with the name “Jason” on it, a gun and some bullets, some food and water, and some bottle caps.”

Jason looked up to see his companions all looking at him with a somber look on his face. meanwhile he just pulled out the bottle whiskey again and took a few more gulps.

“Now I’m here. So I’d say that fucker is gonna get what’s coming to him when I see him soon.”

“How can you say something like that without even flinching? I’m sure you mean to get revenge on him for trying to kill you in the first place, but you don’t even sound the least bit remorseful.” Said Vexan.

“That’s because I don’t feel remorse for anyone trying to kill me...or for someone who half succeeded in doing so. I’ll gladly find him and put a bullet right in between his fucking eyes and give him a taste of what he gave me. Think of it of…...returning the favour.”

“I can see why you’d want to go and get your payback on him, but are you sure that killing him will fix anything?” Asked Shining.

“Nope.” Jason said casually back. “But I’ll get my revenge on his sorry ass. That’s how the world works right now.” Jason said. “Someone fucks with you and you live, you find them and return the favour.”

No one said anything for a bit before Gilda spoke.

“Makes sense. Someone fucks with me, I’ll put’em in the ground.”

“Ditto, sister. Nobody fucks with me and expects to not get theirs.” Jason said back.

Rainbow Dash got up and walked over to one of the tents and stretched her back.

“Well, I think I’m going to hit the sack.”

“Sleep? Now? It’s only just hit mid-day--we’re nowhere near where we need to be yet--we’re just resting.”

Rainbow and Vexan shot around and looked at Jason.

“WHAT!?” They both shouted.

“Yeah, we’re going to a town called Novac to get some more supplies, ammo and see an old friend of mine.”

“Uggggghhhhh.”

“Oh come on Rainbow, don’t’ be like that. We’ve barely even gone anywhere.” AJ said as she poked Dash in the head.

“Maybe we should call it a day?” Asked Vexan.

“No can do. We’ve burned enough daylight as is--we need to keep moving so when can get to town before the sun starts to go down. Bad shit comes out at that time.” Jason said grabbing his rifle and standing up.

Rainbow and Vexan both reluctantly grabbed their things and joined the rest of the group as they made their way past the bar area and onto the road past it.Just as they made it below Rainbow spoke again.

“So where is this No-vac...yeah, Novac. What direction is it in?”

“Well if we cut through the dry lake bed we could make it to there in less time, but-”

“Perfect, then I guess we’re going through there.” Rainbow said as she split off and started walking towards the lake bed.

“Rainbow, I don’t think it would be a good idea to go off the road. A lot of really bad mutated animals could be wandering around there.That or other people who want nothing more than to do really bad things to us. You saw those kind of people earlier.” Jason said with some force behind his voice.

Rainbow cringed a bit and her ears flopped against her head--something Jason noticed. Rainbow quickly got her bravado back and just shrugged it off.

“Awwwww, they get creamed anyway. If more come after us again, we can so take them.”

Jason watched as she just kept walking off towards the lake bed.

“Damn it Rainbow!” Jason looked back and forth between the road and the lake bed before taking off after Rainbow.

“Rainbow, I just said it’s really bad to deviate from the roads because there could be something bad out there.Plus, there is a slight sandstorm right now--our visibility is gonna be crap.” Jason kept walking since he wasn’t just going to leave her to split off from them like that. “This can only end bad.”

Rainbow scoffed at him. “Quit being a baby. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Jason facepalmed. “And you just signed our death warrant.” Jason pulled his rifle out and had it ready. The other did the same, though Vexan did it more out of fear.

Jason and Shining moved to the outside of the group to watch the sides. Just as Rainbow was going to say something, a big pair of jaws and a head of a creature poked through the sand with it’s jaws wide open and ready to bite through her. Jason whipped his rifle to it and fired without a second to spare. Rainbow looked back in time to see the giant worker ant about to crush her head like a mutfruit--and then watch it’s head splatter in a shower of it’s blood and gore. She barely had time to react as more ants came out of the sand crawling towards them.

One of the ants, Jason knew was different and put on his helmet. Shining had already tore through two of the smaller ones and Vexan shaily shot and killed a bigger one. Applejack was just finishing putting down another giant worker ant when the last small one crawled up to here and looked like it was about to spit something--only for it to spit fire out of it’s mouth. Applejack froze on the spot and watch as it crawled close to her. Shining yelled at her to move, but she was stuck in place from the shock that an ant was spitting fire at her. The ant shook it’s head and was about to spew more of its fire at her when she was shoved out of the way by Jason--who was now engulfed in flames.

“JASON!” Shining and surprisingly Vexan start tearing into the ant with the remainder of their clips until their empty.

They all look to where Jason was and saw him standing there--still engulfed in the fire from the ant, though it was starting to die down due to the sand storm.

Jason turned his head to the side to look at them. “This is why we don’t go off the path when I tell you not to.” He patted out the last of the flames on his duster and picked off a few more of the ants before continuing to cross the lake bed--now devoid of ants, it was safe to cross it.

The group crossed the lake bed without any further problems until the came up on the road there were on before again.

“This time let’s stay on the road please.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright. So, anyway, I suppose you guys are wondering about my past, and if not, now you are.” Jason ran a gloved hand through his hair and ruffled it a bit. “I don’t remember where I was born or exactly how old I am, nor do I really remember much of my past. So I suppose I can tell you about everything that happened after I woke up from getting my head carefully, and I mean very carefully, operated on.” Jason breathed deeply and let out a long sigh before continuing. “I woke up and immediately left the small doctors house I was in--nice guy, patched me up for free. I did a few things around there to help them out--helped them clear out some vermin, fixed a radio, killed a few people that were causing a ‘ahem’ disturbance in the town. They were no good anyway, so if you think I killed people that were innocent, you’re wrong. They were all in jail for something.”

Jason looked back and made eye contact with Shining.

“As long as you did it to protect, nothing else matters Jason.”

“Right, so, anyway--after that I left the town in search of the guy who shot me in the brain socket. So, I eventually made it to Novac, which is where we’re headed right now--and I helped someone else with a problem. Poor guys wife was taken away with his unborn child in her womb still and sold as a slave. She was dead already according to him, so all he told me was to, and I quote, “Find the son of a bitch who sold her to the legion bastards.” and bring them to him. Suffice to say, the bitch who sold her to them is now just a stain on the dirt in front of the town. Huh...wonder if the body is still there, maybe I can put one more round in her just to do it.”

Gilda cut in. “Some bitch sold another one of her town's members over to some group called...the legion? What...for money? Power? I don’t get it. either way, doesn’t matter--she’s dead now and she can’t do that to any other peo-”

Gilda got cut off when a grenade from a grenade rifle came whistling through the air and struck right in front of her--launching her in the air and into a heap on the ground behind the group.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” Jason shouted before taking a bullet to the side and the thigh--dropping him quick. “Fucking hell, I need to get some fucking armour for my legs damn it! You’d think I’d learn by now!” He raised his rifle with a grimace as the bullet wound in his side burned like a red hot fire poker in his side. “FUCKING DROP’EM!” Shining began unloading a full clip from his LMG into the three raider members.

The raiders didn’t even flinch--they were too hopped up on chems to even care about the pony with the big gun aimed and unloading on them. They kept advancing and firing on them until the one with the grenade launcher took a round to the face that blew out the back of her head and dropped her. After the one got dropped, the other two started running at them with knives and screaming at the top of there lungs.

“VIIIIPEEEEERS!” The one screamed--right before his head was reduced to blood and gore by Applejack’s shotgun.

“FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! YOU’LL PAY FOR THAT!” She screamed as she put another shell into the other guy, making him double over clutching his stomach. Rainbow then took her snub nose and put it against his head and pulled the trigger; blowing his brains out the back of his head.

“THAT’S FOR GILDA YOU SORRY FUCKFACE!”

“Guys...up to...the gas station up there...we can check on her...and I can patch us both up……...if she’s still breathing.” Jason said with pained groans in between words.

Applejack helped Shining to carefully move Gilda up to the gas station and Rainbow dragged Jason by the back of his armour while Vexan watched with her rifle for any more raiders in hiding--all the while her hands were a trembling mess.

Upon getting to the door, Shining kicked the door open and they carefully set her down on the floor.

Gilda was a bloody mess. Blood seeped through her armour in multiple places and she had bits of shrapnel sticking out of her legs and arms and even her chest in a few places. Blood was coming out of her mouth but she was still faintly breathing from what Shining could tell.

Jason reached into his duster and pulled out a stimpack and jabbed his side and pressed the plunger on the top, then did the same with his leg. Jason started getting up before his skin and was close to finished re-knitting itself back together and dropped to his knees in front of Gilda’s unconscious body.

“Okay, I need to get her armour off and remove the larger pieces of shrapnel first--then I need to use something to pull all the smaller bits of metal out of her. I need Applejack and you Vexan, to search this place for anything alcohol and maybe if we’re lucky, some healing items.”

Jason started to undo the straps on her armour and remove the pieces slowly. Once he got to the chest piece however, it got tricky--he had to cut the chest piece down the middle and peel it to the sides. Shining and Rainbow help to lift her carefully while Jason slipped the piece off of her and past her wings.as for the legs, he had to remove the pieces of shrapnel first.

Using a knife that was attached to his leg, he carefully slipped it into one of the wounds and lifted the flesh and slowly and carefully removed the metal bit--Gilda whimpered softly as he did so.

“Shit, forgot to give her the injection.” Jason pulled out a med-x syringe as he said that and gave her the shot, numbing the pain immediately.

Jason went on to so the same with the other leg and around the rest of her body, while also closing up any large wounds caused by the bigger pieces of shrapnel. The whole process of removing and stitching up took a whole hour or so. The armour had blocked most of the smaller pieces of the the grenade’s shrapnel, so it was more closing up wounds properly since they didn’t have any stimpacks on hand anymore--Jason had used the last one on her chest to heal her lung and other wounds on her chest.

“Okay...that should be it now.” Jason said before falling back on his ass and leaning up against the wall behind him. While he was performing wasteland surgery, the others were moving shelves and making more room inside the place--they moved the four metal shelves up against the wall near the cabinet that was across from the door.

Just as the last shelf was propped up against the wall is when Gilda decided to wake up with a groan.

“Where...what happened?” Gilda asked very confused.

“We’re inside a gas station while you recover.” Jason pulled out an old bottle with a bunch of metal pieces in it and shook it. “You got blow the fuck up by a grenade, but your armour took most of it--that said, you’re armour is fucked now. Also,” Jason shook the bottle again and Gilda looked at it as he brought it closer. “all this was sticking either out of you or in you. Took a good hour to remove all the bits of metal outta’ ya’.”

“How am I alive?” Gilda asked with a groan.

“Because Jason saved your life. He was the only one that was able to work on you and make sure you pulled through. Neither one of us were trained in something like that, so he took it on himself to do everything--he didn’t stop for a full hour or so until you were completely ‘fixed’ as he said.” Vexan finally spoke for the first time after they came in there.

“And how are you holding up--and don’t lie, I saw you shaking when we came in here and you hid yourself away in the corner behind the counter.”

Vexan blushed with embarrassment. “Well, I was...losing it I suppose--oh, also, I found this.” SHe pulled out two more stimpacks and handed them to Jason.

“This’ll be handy to have again. I really need to buy more, or make more.” Jason said before putting them into his duster.

“Still though,” Jason looked up when Vexan started talking again. “I just shut down, I couldn’t do anything after that first kill. I’m fucking useless.” With every word she shrunk deeper into herself until she was a crying ball.

Jason walked up to her and kneeled down to look her in the eyes.

“Vexan.” Jason lifted her head so she looked at him back.

Vexan looked up at him with tearful eyes. “Wh-what?”

“I want you to remember that you are part of your Queen’s guard. That there may be a point in time that you may have to kill to protect.” Jason stood up and Vexan looked up at him. “You need to understand, and I’ve told you before, you need to shoot them first before they shoot you. You need to realize that this world will chew you up and mangle you. destroy you if you do not say “Fuck you” and kick it in the fucking nuts back.” Jason puts out his hand to Vexan and she took it. lifting herself up. “I want you to know, it’s fucking difficult. It hurts when you have to turn your back on some people. and it definitely hurts when you get shot by a bullet ,” Jason looks back at Gilda and then back at Vexan. “or blown up by a grenade, a lot more than you being too scared to fire back and kill the guy trying to kill you. They don’t give a shit about you. They’d much rather kill you, rape you and then loot your body. Yes, in the order.”

Vexan looked down and hid her eyes with her mane. Jason just backed up and leaned against the wall.

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a pussy lately.”

Jason looked up at her. “Hmm? You finally growing a pair sweetheart?” Jason chuckled before he got a fist to the gut and he clutched his stomach as he doubled over.

“No, I just think you reminded me why I enlisted to the guard in the first place. Also,” Vexan got in his face with her muzzle almost touching his. “pussies can take more of a beating than what you got downstairs Jason.” Vexan walked over to the other side of the room and began looking in one of the crates for anything useful.

Jason looked around at everyone in the room and got nothing but surprised stares.

“So...besides me, who else thought that was hot?”

“Awwwww shut it and give me a fucking stim…thing, whatever you called them.” Gilda said. “I hurt like a bitch all over.”

Author's Note

Hey guys...and girls. Finally got an update out for one of my stories. Took me long enough XD

Anyway, I don't really have much to put in this section...sooooooo...ENJOY THE CHAPTER BYE!