Fallout Equestria: Sins of Retribution

Chapter 2: Detour

The more I thought about it, the more I didn’t like it. Scarlet’s expression on her face after I had killed that raider. That was how it had to be though right? Raiders don’t show any mercy, so we have to show them the same thing? I looked down at my new revolver slowly turning it over and holding it up to my muzzle.

Back in Hope my mother would teach me how to properly use a gun…kind of a strange thing for a doctor to be teaching her filly but at the time she just pretended like it was a little game. She would have me go around the outskirts of the town and shoot pesky Bloat Sprites that flew around there.
The rain had finally stopped after a few hours of trekking as my stomach churned looking for something in itself to eat.

“Any radroach left?” I grumbled at the thought of radroach. The stuff was crunchy, gooey and tasted like eating copper flavored snot. That was how hungry I was getting, I hadn’t eaten since earlier last night. Sandstorm had come racing back to the rest of the group with a cold grin growing on his face.

“Caravan to the east not too far away, only about four ponies. Two armed with varmint rifles.” Buckshot grew the same exact smirk which soon began to spread to the other ponies around me and Scarlet as we took the sudden detour from the still freshly dried ground.

Soon enough, just as Sandstorm had said, there was a small wagon being pulled by some weird looking cow thing that I later was told is called a Brahmin.

“Hey, stable ponies. You two go down there and uh see if we can get anything off them.” Eureka asked before me and Scarlet looked to one another.

“Why us exactly? Why don’t we all just go?” Scarlet shifted uneasily between their grins.

“You two have those fancy pipbucks, you could spot any hidden dangers with those things couldn’t you?” Eureka did have a point, I wasn’t sure how it worked exactly but I knew that if someone was hostile there would be a small red blip on the E.F.S. and if they weren’t hostile then the blip would just be yellow. I gave a small nod before the two of us slowly trotted down the slope to the group by the wagon.

“Hey! Uh excuse me-?” I jumped back as a bullet embedded itself in the dirt in front of us. The E.F.S. still showed them as yellow?

“Whoa stop shooting! We aren’t raiders!” Scarlet pleaded and well the fact that our heads were still on our bodies must have meant that they believed us, for the time being at least.

“Well, anypony that isn’t a raider is a friend of mine.” The silver colored mare at the front of the wagon said looking at us with a soft smile as she brought the wagon to a halt.

“Grace, we can’t just stop the wagon for everypony we stumble into…how can we even trust these two?” A brown buck who I was guessing was the one that fired the warning shot off came trotting up next to her.
Grace turned her head and gave a simple laugh waving him off with a hoof before returning to us.

“You’ll have to excuse my friend here. Sometimes he forgets that not everypony out here is a blood thirsty raider.” She would have had a point there that is until there was another crack of a gun from behind us. Eureka and her gang had already started shooting down at the little wagon as Grace and her friend took cover behind the caravan. I dropped to the ground as I looked at the group taking potshots from above. What the hell were they doing? These ponies didn’t mean us any harm and here they were trying to kill them!

“What the fuck are you three doing?” Scarlet shouted at the top of her lungs as they moved down the slope and began to close as our new friend behind us stood to return fire.

“Hey easy! Stop shooting alright!” I waved my hoofs towards the buck as he glared at us then to Grace.

“You see? These ponies set us up! They aren’t nothing more than raiders!” He growled before Buckshot fired a warning shot from his shotgun as Eureka stepped forward, that same smug grin I had seen when we first met her.

“Hello everypony, please come out with weapons down. We’ll be taking any goods you got on ya.” She giggled at her revolver in her talons, looking at herself through the reflection like a mirror. Scarlet ran up to them and stood in front of their path.

“We aren’t just stealing from innocent ponies!” Scarlet snarled, her normally well-kept mane now drooping down over one eye, her stable barding having a hole through the shoulder pad from a glancing blow.

Maybe we could just take the food. My stomach argued with me. Traitor.

Just a little bit? Shut up!

Grace got up from her cover and slowly made her way to Eureka then looked back at us. “You know these ponies?”

Buckshot suddenly moved forward knocking her onto the ground with a forceful buck to the side.

“Buckshot!” Scarlet practically flung herself onto him before Eureka fired her revolver into the air to get everybody’s attention.

“Scarlet, you and Shamrock are still new to this so let me clue you in on a little something.” Eureka trotted calmly to another one of the caravan members who was on the ground as well now, placing her clawed hoof on the sky blue mare’s head squeezing it slowly. “If you want to stay alive, you have to play your cards right and pick your fights. So here is the hand I’m dealing you, do you really want to fight?”

Scarlet glared before putting her rifle away as Eureka let go of the pony’s head, a small sliver of blood trickling down the little mares head as she crawled over to Grace, crying. These ponies were innocent, and here we were holding them up at gunpoint, threatening to kill them if they didn’t give us everything that belonged to them.

That was where I drew the line.I stepped back from the others and levitated my revolver and turned it to face Eureka. I had already killed one raider just a few hours ago. Now I felt more than fueled up to shoot a pony that sure as hell deserved it. Eureka’s smug grin faded as the hammer of my revolver clicked back. She expected Scarlet to stand down and behave. Me on the other hoof?

“Try me.” I gave a low snarl, stepping forward before all eyes turned to look up the ridge.

“There they are! It’s the ponies that killed Ratchet and Slit Throat!” Ratchet and Slit Throat? What kind of names were those? Guess raiders weren’t exactly known for their creative names. Nor are they exactly known for their great stealth capabilities.

Their boisterous entrance was all that we needed to shift our anger on as one of the leading raiders began to pull the pin of a grenade. I really started to hate explosives. Then I remembered what Eureka had done with the last grenade back at the station. If I couldn’t just get a little closer I could move the grenade out of the way before it even got close to us. The spoon on the apple shaped grenade flew away as the raider tried to toss it down the side of the hill. Yet no matter how hard he tried the grenade refused to leave him before it finally burst in his mouth.

Note to self: Never pull grenade pins or hold them in my mouth.

The other raiders had already pulled the pins and began to toss them down the hills. Once again let me reiterate how Raiders are not exactly known for their massive intelligence either. Many of the grenades that were tossed down the hill ended up detonating half way down the hill or being levitated back up the side of the hill.

“What is with these ponies and explosives?” Scarlet asked beginning to fire up at the raiders above us. This was the first time I had ever seen Scarlet really in action and well. It was pretty impressive, I guess spending 5 years shooting at annoying bloat sprites and bark scorpions really helped your aim. After realizing that they were out of range of grenade explosives and that their friends were dying just standing there the lead raider decided to get the bright idea to commence the charge. Seven or eight of them began to clamber down the hill shouting various and rather creative ways they were going to kill us when they got down there.

From threatening to fuck us with a grenade launcher and fire it up our ass, to sending us home back to our moms in a box. though the joke was on them I guess.

As soon as the first few got within range I opened up S.A.T.S. and took aim. The pip-buck identified the various potential targets and the percentage of hitting each one. Most of them were still too far away to get the percentage above 50% but I took what I could get and aimed each shot. Six shots for six raiders as time began to revert to normal. I watched as two raider’s heads were immediately reduced to exploding brain matter and blood as one had the misfortune of having a bullet pierce his satchel of explosive goodies, blowing up him and his friends.

I’m not really sure what possessed me but I quickly ran up in front of our group as I reloaded the revolver and began to shout back at the dazed and still cursing Raider’s that had stopped to try and count how many were still in one piece.

“You really want to keep this up?!? Look around you bud, you’re outmanned and out gunned! Even if you had a dozen more I would fucking dare you to try and get anywhere near these innocent ponies!” I shouted furiously. I wasn’t going to just sit back and watch Grace and her ponies die for trying to help us out. The lead pony stood firm in front of me for a second as he smirked, more raiders began to rise up over the hill.

“Maybe we should get back…” Buckshot backed up as several raiders began to stand up next to their leader. We couldn’t just back down now, I was feeling invincible. No matter how many raiders they put against us we could take them. I wanted them to fight us I was going to make them wish they had never even thought of attacking us or these ponies.

“Shamrock get back now!” Eureka’s shouting was drowned out by the sudden barrage of gunfire. I felt as though time had screeched to a halt, as if I had gone into S.A.T.S. without activating it. Bullets screamed over and around me as both parties exchanged fire. My mind was nothing more than a blur as my body went into a strange kind of autopilot. Roll, take aim, and pull the trigger, next target, repeat.

In less than a minute, the reinforcements the raiders had called in were face down in the ground. That was when the pain finally began to register as I doubled over screaming out in agony.

“Shamrock!” Scarlet ran up to my side with alarm in her eyes before Grace and the other caravan ponies rushed up to help. I looked down at myself and saw bullet holes all over my body. I felt warm and cold at the same time as blood poured out of my body.

Oh goddesses, that’s a lot of blood.

“Load him onto the wagon, we’ll get him fixed up.” Grace assured us. I groaned as everything started going numb before thinking it was a smart idea to stare up at the endless grey abyss above. I turned my head to the side and began to heave what little food I had left in my stomach.

“Come on just stay with us Shamrock, you’re fine” Scarlet sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than me. My vision began to grow blurry as I was loaded onto the wagon, even breathing was becoming a task now. Well, I wished for this nightmare to end and now I might get what I wanted. I couldn’t hear what anypony was saying anymore, their voices became nothing more than distant mumbles while I slowly began to drift.

I didn’t feel any pain anymore, just numbness and suddenly drowsy before the world around me went black.I stood in an empty black room no walls and an endless black void above that would make the grey clouds envious of its stomach aching dizziness. Was this really what death was like? Just an empty black void of nothing? I began to trot through the endless space trying to find something some kind of door or magical escape. Nothing absolutely nothing.

“Hello!?! Anypony out there?” I shouted only to be asked the same exact questions by my echoes.

“Yes, hello Shamrock.” A quiet tender voice called from the darkness.

“Mom?” I could already feel my eyes begin to water with tears just getting to hear her voice again, dream or not. She was wearing her usual lab coat but this time it had a strange looking symbol on the front. A triangle made of three smaller triangles with the sun and moon in the center of it.

I galloped to her as fast as my hoofs could carry me trying to hug her as I ran straight through her. Her visage gave a sad but nurturing smile as I got back to my hoofs.

“There isn’t much time sweetie so listen carefully.” She looked over her shoulder suddenly alarmed as if something was after her. “You have to find Tranquility, they will be able to explain everything else from there.” Her tone was urgent as she began to sink into the black void as if it was some kind of goo. I tried to levitate her out to little success, my hoof just phasing through her as I tried to hold onto her beginning to tear up again. “You were made for something better! I love you!”

I watched as her form was soon consumed in the black goo. Her final words echoed loudly through the abyss for what seemed like hours without end as I was finally woke up.My eyes opened to find themselves staring at a black and white mare. Not an earth pony, not a unicorn. The nurse apparently found humor in my confused stare before setting a healing potion on the table next to her.

“What? Never seen a zebra before?” The nurse cocked a brow, grinning slightly. All that I knew about zebras were that two hundred years ago Ponies and Zebras fought and well ultimately created the hell that I was now living in. I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting when she said she was a zebra, other than the Mohawk and dizzying stripes she looked like any other pony.Her cutie mark was a bit, off though. Ok maybe I was staring at her flank more than anything, but instead of some sort of symbol usually representing her talent. Whatever that talent might have been, I doubt that the strange squiggly shapes around a circle stood for being a nurse.

“I am Ambrose, one of Saving Grace’s assistants.” Ambrose nodded, motioning to the pony from before. Saving Grace? Fitting name. I tried to sit up before my body immediately decided to tell me that was a bad idea as thousands of pins and needles pierced every nerve in my limbs. Ambrose definitely seemed to be having her fun with my stupidity.

“You’re lucky your friends managed to get you here in time. I wasn’t able to save the other one though.” Ambrose looked down with a sigh placing a tender hoof on my own, making my coat change from its normal white to a beet red. “Deepest sympathizes for your loss”

My love-struck face changed to concern as I sat up again, fighting the urge to hurl from the soreness.

“Eureka is dead…” Scarlet answered grimly as she trotted inside before immediately embracing me in her hoofs. A lump formed in my throat, I had survived two firefights out of sheer luck my first day out here. I thought I was invincible, never really took in the fact that I could have died out there. Eureka could have just left us, she didn’t have to take us anywhere and just go on her merry way. I still couldn’t entirely remember what had happened at that firefight but I still couldn’t help but feel a hint of guilt. As if she was dead for my arrogance. Even if she wasn't exactly the nicest pony we met, she didn't deserve to die for it. “We almost lost you too, several exit wounds.”

I looked like a poorly patched together balloon, multiple bandages on my chest and even a lucky shot right on my flank. Talk about insult to injury.

“Where are Buckshot, Sand and Juniper?” My head spun around, still groggy from my awakening

“They already left, said they would meet up with us back in Trotton once you were able.” Scarlet assured me while my head started to ache, forcing me back down onto the pillow

“You may still feel just a little queasy, we had to give you eight healing potions to mend the wounds fast enough.” Ambrose kept me down as I tried to get back up. A little queasy was an understatement, the nectar taste lingered in the back of my throat as my stomach did backflips. Saving Grace finally trotted in to check on me.

“Oh good, you’re awake.” Grace trotted to us with a small bag in her mouth, handing it over to Scarlet who looked at the contents.

“Oh why thank you. You really shouldn’t have though” Scarlet levitated a Sparkle Cola bottle cap out of the small sack then gave a dumbfounded look over at me.

“Stable ponies, figures. Out here in the wasteland we use bottle caps as money.” Grace gave a small laugh as Scarlet tucked it away in her saddle bags.

“You can earn some more if you’re willing to help us out with a few tasks around the town.” I perched my head against the pillow and arched a brow at Grace's words.

“Oh no it’s fine, you don’t have to pay us. What do you need help with?” Scarlet nudged my side as Grace informed us of this task.

“We recently discovered an old abandoned stable just west of Hoofstead. If you could get some medical supplies from there to re-stock the ones used, it would gratefully appreciated. We attempted to explore it but were ill prepared for what was inside. If possible we would like you to help remove the Cazador hive that’s taken shelter in there. Any other loot, caps or supplies you can keep.” Find a stable, get supplies and smash a hive. Seemed simple enough.

“Alright that sounds good.” I got out of the bed and onto my hoofs instantly getting a bit of vertigo and nearly face planting right in front of Ambrose. First Impressions, they were definitely not my strong point at all. Grace trotted over to my pip-buck and set a waypoint on my map for a random spot not too far from Rivon. How did the pip-buck know the name of places? I had never been to or even heard of these places yet everywhere on the map were locations with names on them all. It even knew the items, weight and value of whatever random items I put in my inventory. From ammunition to even the old gum wrapper I picked up just to test it out, which apparently a gum wrapper was worth a cap. Go figure.

“You should probably go change out into something more intact” Grace motioned to my jumpsuit which had been neatly decorated with bullet holes, shrapnel and all other manners of grime. “I got some old Barding, I can remove the insignia if you’re not exactly one for them.” She levitated khaki colored suit of barding looking pretty well in-intact well more than my current uniform at least. "Wont have to worry about folk mistaking you for a raider at least"

Well, that was a bonus I suppose. Less chance of friendly folk trying to blow my head off was something I could live with. I removed the shredded remains of the old jumpsuit and put on the new barding, sliding my mother’s necklace underneath it. The uniform fit snug around my coat, definitely a lot heavier than my jumpsuit but I still felt rather light on my hoofs. Even had holsters for my revolvers, or one of them at least, saddle bags and a canteen too. My pip-buck notified me of the outfit change.

“I’m coming as well, in case you need some medical aid on the go. Ambrose trotted in wearing her brown hoodie and saddlebags, a sawed off shotgun slung on her back. New armor, more or less fully healed all that was left was to find Stable 24.

For doors the size of an entire building the stable was well hidden. If it wasn’t for the waypoint that Saving Grace put up we would have walked right past the crevice it was hiding in. So finding the stable wasn’t that hard. Now came the second problem.

“How in Equestria are we supposed to open this thing?” I gave frustrated growl stomping a hoof against the massive metal door. A small terminal on the side of it as Ambrose trotted over to it slowly and began to look at it.

“I think I might be able to get it open. Might take me a while though.” She tilted her head and began to work. That was when the next and probably worst problem came. A low ominous buzzing filled the air as my E.F.S. was filled with several dozen red bars. Well fuck.

I turned in the direction of the red bars and took out Reprisal and Vindication. I had never dual wielded before or even wielded a pistol as of yesterday but hey now seemed like the perfect time to test out my gun slinging capability. Lifting up both revolvers was one thing, but pulling the trigger on one revolver and not the other? That was a built harder than I expected as I reluctantly put one of them back into its holster.

Soon enough the buzzing came to a deafening roar of insect-like wings in front of us. They looked like giant mutant wasps about half as big as I was, with stingers the size of knives. The pip-buck identified them as Cazadors: Personally I would have gone with Wasteland Nightmare fuel as they came flying towards us with pure rage in their compact eyes.

I quickly slid into S.A.T.S. and target two shots directly for the head of the closest creature and then two for the chest in the next watching as the shots lined up reducing the first Cazador’s head to slimy green goo while the other one buzzed around wildly before dropping to the ground twitching. Ambrose began to open fire as well, splattering any of them that got close to us as Scarlet guarded Ambrose, picking off Cazadors from afar. One after the other it seemed like for every cazador we killed another would just pop up and take its place. Somehow one managed to get the drop on me smashing into my body and landing on top of me as its mandibles opened up and clamped down onto my shoulder. This probably should have hurt like there was no tomorrow had it not been for the padding my barding had as it thrashed around.

“Bit off more than you could chew huh?” I taunted before suddenly feeling a fiery explosion of utter pain in my body as I looked further down to see its syringe like stinger stabbed into the softer part of my barding. I let out a blood curdling wail before reducing its torso into a bullet riddled carapace, prying its barbed tail out of me.

“Mind getting that door open like now?” Scarlet shouted clubbing a cazador with her rifle before sliding in another clip. While I couldn’t dual wield the pistols very well I had managed to quickly levitate one revolver and shoot while reloading the second one, continuously laying down a stream of fire before I suddenly heard one revolver go click.

Then the second revolver went click as I raced through my saddle bags for more ammo I heard the loud creaking of the stable doors finally opening behind us.

“Everyone get inside!” Ambrose was already running inside and closing the door slowly so they didn’t follow us inside.The moment we got inside the doors slammed shut behind us. The moment the door slammed shut behind us was the moment my brain decided to remember I had just taken a pint of cazador venom to the colon. I felt my vision becoming blurred already as the fiery burn flowed through my body. Ambrose knelt down by my side to patch up the egg sized hole in my side with a magical bandage. So I wasn’t bleeding, but I was still writhing on the floor feeling like all my blood had been replaced with liquid fire.

“Cazador toxin: the pain is excruciating but you didn’t get an instantly fatal dosage so that’s the good news.” Ambrose didn’t really have to explain to me how painful it was just tell me the bad news. “If we don’t get you some proper treatment however it will eventually kill you.”

Right, that was the bad news. I already felt myself tensing up as the world around me spun before I began to heave on the floor.

“Well we don’t have any time to get back to Rivon, how do we get him treated?” Scarlet grimaced at my sickly body squirming around on the floor. Ambrose pursed her lips before looking back at the door.

“If I could grab some of the cazador venom sacks I might be able to brew up an anti-venom. With any luck the medical ward is still operational down here.” She opened turned to the doors again as they began to slowly open.I was half expecting us to be completely swarmed by the giant hell spawns yet as soon as the door had opened there was nothing more than the dead husks of the Cazadors we already gunned down as she quickly sifted through the bodies before tearing apart the thorax of one of the creatures. She squeezed the mucus colored liquid into a vial and put it in her saddles before returning to us, helping me onto my feet.

My vision transitioned from tunnel to blurred but other than that and a flaming flank I was good for the time being. I looked to my revolvers then checked for ammunition. Empty of course, though as my head began to spin I doubt that even if I had unlimited ammo I could aim straight.

The stable smelled old and stuffy, a foul moldy stench filling the air as we marched through. Every now and then the E.F.S. would occasionally click to signal another angry wasp from hell charging at us only to be blasted into chunks as we marched forward.
Most of the lighting in the stable had stopped working but every so often we came across a hallway with an occasional flickering light. After going through several drones and more than a few dead ends we had arrived at the medical ward and I was pretty sure the toxin was taking its toll on me. I was stumbling around as though I had drank an entire barrels worth of Wild Pegasus, spouting whatever came to my mind without hesitation.

“Hey, hey Scarlet…you know that zebra? She’s kinda hooooooot” I laughed uncontrollably. Goddesses I was going to regret this later. While I made a complete idiot of myself, Ambrose had already begun to work on the anti-venom, boiling down the venom and mixing it in with one of her potions before shaking it around a bit before trotting back over to me. “Oh hey Ambrose, what are you doing here? We have to find that anti-venom before I die!” Apparently I found talking about my slow and painful death to be quite humorous before taking in the pungent odor of the potion. Yet before I could even object to it she opened my mouth and poured the entire salve down my throat causing me to once again find myself coming to my senses on a cold floor.

“Well, now that that little scare is over with, let’s continue shall we?”

I asked getting to my hoofs as Ambrose began loading up every spare healing potion, rad-away and Med-X bag she could find before distributing out some of the supplies to each of us.

“So medical supplies, check. Kill the Cazador queen not so much.” How we were even going to find the queen in this labyrinth of winding rusted metal walls I had no clue. Though it was safe to assume that the sudden spike in the number of drones we encountered meant we were on the right track.

“Should hopefully be an armory around here.” Ambrose noted splattering the remains of a drone all across the wall with her hoofs. Ambrose was pretty light on her hoofs, but even I had my doubts when she went hoof to hoof or hoof to stinger in this case; with a giant wasp. She managed to maneuver herself out of the way of the Cazador’s stinger when it lunged at her, climbing onto its back and bashing its carapace repeatedly against an overturned footlocker until it finally made a stomach churning crunch and squish.

“Sure do know a lot about where things are in a stable that nopony has explored fully” Scarlet cocked her head as sure enough, to our left was the stable armory. A few footlockers were opened with lock boxes sitting inside them, while others were overturned or closed shut. Ambrose shrugged pulling a bobby pin out of the pocket in her hoody and began to pick one of the lock boxes open. Inside it held a few more .44 rounds and even a grenade.

“I’ve had my share of stable diving, most are built in the same concept.” She muttered as we began to search through the armory. I didn’t find much more revolver ammo but I did however manage to find a new toy to play with. It was an olive green colored carbine with an insignia similar to Sandstorm’s strange looking cutie mark, only the cloud was a faded white with a rainbow colored lightning bolt.

I shouldered the weapon and immediately my pipbuck added it into my inventory.

All-Equestrian added

Huh, All-Equestrian? I like it. Next to the Rifle sat various boxes of ammunition as well as a few empty magazines and even a well, reading magazine. I load the rounds into the magazines and put them in my saddles bags while the others finished restocking and reloading.

“So now all we have to do is kill this hive queen? Easy peasy one two threezy” Though the loud shriek from down the halls begged to differ. A wave of enraged drones came scurrying down the halls. They looked even creepier when they were crawling on the walls more than when they were just flying around. Of course with the narrow hallway and about twenty giant bugs, it was easy pickings.

I pulled out the All-Equestrian¬ and began to fire down the hallway. The All-Equestrian sure did pack a punch, there were so many drones clustered together we didn’t even have to bother with going into S.A.T.S. each pull of the trigger almost guaranteed to hit a target.

The special armor piercing rounds I had loaded into the magazine worked like a dream with these things, a clean entrance and exit through its body. By the time my first magazine was empty all the opposition had been reduced to piles of riddled husks followed by the Queens obviously enraged roar.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this…” Ambrose murmured as she slid another shell into her shotgun. Sure enough, the queen reared its ugly head through the darkness, a body as long as two tanks and mandibles that could snatch up a pony like a grape.

“Why can’t queen insects ever be small? Or at the least as big as all of the others?!? I mean really!” I groaned in frustration as we began to lay down a barrage of fire at the lumbering beast. Apparently it enjoyed the taste of bullets, all it had to do was open its mouth and ingest all the rounds fired at it before Ambrose lobbed a grenade down its throat. The queen lurched back and screeched as the grenade went off inside it, the large exoskeleton steaming but more or less unharmed by the snack.

“Heat! That’s it, we need to overheat the queen’s body!” Scarlet pointed out as the Queen Cazador recovered from the explosion.

“The Stable’s reactor chamber, we could lure it inside and activate the reactor. That should be hot enough to overheat its carapace!” Ambrose shouted, already leading the way down the halls while the Queen Cazador shrieked in rage, not so far behind us.

“And just how do we keep a giant bug inside a reactor room while it heats up?” Scarlet raised a pretty good point, mindless animal or not it wasn’t exactly just going to sit in a room as it melted. “We’re going to need a distraction while the reactor warms up.”

Stupid idea…this is a stupid idea, this is a very stupid idea. Which was exactly why I was the one who decided to say what everyone knew already. “I’ll do it, just keep the door open for me when it gets hot enough”

Scarlet was about to object before the Queen screeched behind us and rushed to the reactor’s control room along with Ambrose. “I swear to Celestia, Shamrock.” Scarlet shouted angrily before I stood at the door to the reactor the doors were definitely big enough for the queen to fit in, now to keep it inside without getting eaten, or microwaved
.

“Hey! Down here! Want a little snack? Right this way!” I waved my hoofs in front of it, firing off a couple rounds. The Queen Glared at me with her mandibles wide open as I rushed inside of the room my pipbuck already beginning to click as the radiation meter rose steadily. I looked back as the queen finally crawled through the doorway its compact eyes set on me as it snapped its mandibles at me. I barely had enough time to dive away before hearing a loud crunching sound as its saw blade teeth crushed clean through my left leg. Blood spattered like a hose across the floor behind me as my hoof clattered to the ground.

I screamed out of both anger and pain as I fired my carbine into the queen’s dome like eyes getting covered in disgusting mucus that only sped up my radiation levels. My eyes had started to burn as if someone had poured a bucket of salt into them while I could feel the waves of radiation and heat slapping my face.

I took this small pause in the fight to grab for a rad-away that Ambrose had given me and drank as fast as I could. The tangy orange flavored medicine barely slowed the ticker as it passed towards level 2, my insides boiling as the room felt like one giant oven. Thankfully I wasn’t the only one suffering in here. The queen had begun to scramble around trying to find the hole it had made, steam creeping out of its carapace and beginning to sizzle.

Sizzle? It was a good distance away from me but I could hear a faint sizzling noise, then felt as if my coat had burst into flames before prying away my barding. The necklace…

The heat from the reactors was so intense it had begun to burn the metal into my body. The golden outlines had melted onto my chest, leaving the shiny emerald green gem just pulsating in my sternum.

I would have marveled at how awesome it looked if I wasn’t A: slowly boiling alive in painstaking agony and B: trying to fight a giant killer wasp queen. I turned to the smoking creature as I limped for the hole, apparently it had the same idea before its second compact eye was splattered from several more shots with the All-Equestrian.

“Oh no you aren’t, if I’m dying here then so are you!” I continued to pull the trigger, round after round into its eye sockets until I had run out of bullets in the magazine. It stumbled and gave shrill shrieks of anger, eventually crumpling up into a ball. Okay, it’s dead…now I just have to get out of here before I’m extra crispy. I slowly continued to limp my way back to the large opening where all the others had gathered, not daring to run the risk of being burnt alive to pull me out.

One after another, I chugged down every last healing potion, Rad-Away and hell, even the anti-venom in my saddlebags in hope of making it out of there. Then suddenly, the Queen decided to get a little revenge from beyond the grave.Its melted carapace sunk in on itself and exploded, sending molten mucus everywhere in the room landing on yep you guessed it: Me.

Getting minor cuts from grenade shrapnel: Stings but walk it off.

Smashed against the ground by another pony: Ok that hurts, but I’ll live.

Getting shot full of holes in an adrenaline fueled moment of glory: Pain like I had never felt before.

Getting coated in heated radioactive bug guts: Celestia bend me over and shove the sun up my ass.

I dove for the gaping hole and rolled around frantically, shouting every last explicit word I had ever known and then some. By now my pipbuck had just given up on trying to measure how much radiation I had just absorbed and went with “Fuck it, you’re dead” as the small ticker just sat at the very end of the meter. It was right, I should be dead…yet after the flaming goo had mostly been shaken off I felt fine? Okay I use the word “fine” lightly, my hoofs ached and my chest was still burning but how the heck was I still alive?

“Uh…Shamrock you’re white.” Scarlet blurted out just staring at me with her mouth wide open. White? Last I check my coat was a dark….white My once dark grey coat was now a bright white color that was so bright that even I had to look away after staring for a few seconds. “You’re also uh glowing?”

We were taught about radiation poisoning and how sometimes if radiation levels got high enough that some pony’s bodies started to glow. In the worst cases they would even started to have their coats, manes and skin melt away and turn into hideous zombie ponies called Ghouls. Never was I told that you would turn completely white.

“Are you alright?” Ambrose asked as if it wasn’t obvious.

“Uh yeah, my chest hurts a bit and my leg.” I looked down at my leg and stared wide eyed at it. My hoof was completely healed, a small scar running the circumference of where it had once been bitten off.

“You just sucked up more radiation than a balefire bomb and all that happens is your chest hurts and you’re now glowing with a change in coat colors?” Scarlet stared in disbelief. Ambrose passed me another Rad-Away that I drank quickly. I cringed as I drank the orange drink instantly throwing it back up. Before looking up at the others.

“Can we discuss this when we’re back at Saving Grace’s office?” I groaned shuddering from the once life-saving drink.

Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk: Rad absorption -1 Rad every 20 seconds