Chapter One: A Change in Mustangia
Chapter One: A Change in Mustangia
"Don't you see it's all gone? Everything you were, everything you stood for."
"Then what should I do?"
"Alright then. If you want orders, follow this one: Kill yourself."
Mustangia is an okay place to live.
Or it seemed that way. Some of the ruined homes were cleaned the fuck up, but still somewhat dilapidated.. I turn Rusty Nail's sniper rifle to and fro, soaking in all the details of the city. There were some ponies chatting casually about something which I was too far away to hear. I thought I saw one or two smiling. Yeah, this definitely seems like an okay place to live. The population of this little city's around twenty or so, so it should definitely fit us seventeen raiders.
"Kill Strike, I need my rifle back. Nopony will ever know what hit them." Ugh, I rolled my eyes. Rusty Nail was always a bit of a whiner. Sometimes, I would just want to bash his teeth in just to hear him shut the fuck up. I glared at him.
"Fuck off, we're going in there so we can smell their fear as we take this city for ourselves," I chastised him. If this wasteland was going to be horrible, then let it be horrible. Besides, the whole raider gang was a terrible shot at the sniper. All of us would sooner waste all our fucking ammo before we manage to shoot an apple at medium range.
Some of the raiders exchanged glances. Whatever, I knew they'd want to see the whites of pony eyes before those eyes turned lifeless.
I sighed. Not really much point in stalling any longer. I stood up and let my tail toss over the damned sniper rifle to Rusty Nail. Why does he even own a damn gun like that anyway? He should just stick to rusty nails in baseball bats anyway. That is what his cutie mark is. Mine? Still a white quill in a bottle of purple ink. Distinct enough from my black coat color. I internally snickered as he fumbled with it a little. Careful, the safety's off!
"Tactics," I turned the the raider group, pointing to a fraction of them, "you three head around. Gotta make sure that none of them flee." I pointed to another fraction. "You take the left side." Another fraction. "You, the right." The last fraction. "You just go straight. This way, they'll be fucking surrounded. They'll have no chance to escape."
Candy Carnage furrowed her brow and scratched the back of her neck. "What will you do?"
"Me?" I replied. I flared out my wings and made sure my sawed-off was still with me. "I'm going in from the top with intent to kill. That means you all are the killing net. And don't you fucking worry. They'll run. They always run away. It's the nature of ponies to abandon the things they should hold dear."
That last line seemed to give them a little bit of pause. I canted my head a little. "No. You guys are different. We don't hold anything dear. We have nothing to abandon. Now, come on. Let's go."
Before they could say anything more, I took off and flew slow enough for the others to get into position. I watched from my bird's eye view as the little shits scurried about, encircling the town. Mustangia will be an okay place to live. Just as long as we take out the filth. ...Replace it with different filth. Filth that actually gets something done. At least us raiders aren't going to betray each other. As I got closer to town, I noticed none of them panicking. Good, but that will soon change.
I touched down to the ground. They'd have surely noticed me now. I swiveled to look all around and yes, some of them were looking at me. One was even walking up to me. A unicorn. He had a magical field around a holster. This buck was breaking the first rule of the wasteland. Don't just be cautious, be terrified. When he got close enough, he opened his mouth to say something. That was my signal to arm myself. My wing grasped the sawed-off shotgun to bring it to my mouth. I bit down on the ironsight to keep it pointed forward. In the very same time, he had backed up a little, pointing the gun at me. Fuck me with a cumulus, why are things never so easy?
I shot the sawed-off, aimed at the pony's head, and felt pain in my right foreleg. It was a familiar pain, seeing as I've gotten shot plenty of times before. He was dead before he even thought about firing again. The first of the casualties was always the one that determined how things would generally go. I didn't like the chances of being out in the open like this. I flew open to a door and kicked it open when I got there with my hind legs. We had to kill the town before any healing could begin, so getting shot at further was not a good idea. By now, ponies should have started to run off to become easy pickings for the other raiders.
What greeted me from beyond the door were a pair of earth ponies, both with guns in their mouths. Okay, that isn't fucking fair at all. Heh. Since when has the wasteland decided to be fair? Never. I should've thought better. Before any could fire, I fired first, hitting the left one square in the upper chest. And now, my gun was out of ammo. I was forced back out into the open, hiding just behind the wall to reload. Some say that only being able to take two shots was a bad thing. I didn't care either way. This shotgun was the first weapon I picked up and claimed for my own. It was the first part of the rest of my life. A symphony of lead, siphoning itself into the flesh of others in order to purge the fucking life out of people. No longer would they be in the way when my hoof activated the trigger to the gun.
Glancing back behind me, I could see a few ponies rushing toward me and I was so fucked if I didn't immediately get into the cover of the building. One of them was wearing a damned battle saddle. How did I miss that? Oh wait. I know. Fuckface McWhinerhead distracted me. I'll be sure to give him a good pistol-whipping if we both manage to survive. In any case, I simply ducked back into the building only to be greeted with new pain entering my body. But it didn't matter now. Those two earth ponies were as good as dead now that I reloaded. I swiftly pointed my sawed off at the pony I shot before. He fell down easily, and I quickly turned my attention to the other one. With a quick spin and whip of my tail, I thwapped the gun out of my next victim's mouth. Now, I was free to blast the earth pony's brains out.
Red decorated the floor as I quickly reloaded. By the time I had killed both, Mr. Battle Saddle had arrived at the doorway and began shooting. With no other option, I decided to defenestrate myself through a window, my forelegs keeping my sawed off close to my chest, Good thing my wings weren't hurt. It meant I can fly up to get a tactical update and replan. I couldn't waste too much time though, or else us raiders would really be fucked. I spotted the raiders slowly tightening the city in a circle, but one was already dead. Fuck. There was also something worse. I didn't bother taking into account that there'd be more than around twenty. What was cloud-splittingly worse was that everypony in this town seemed to be armed. Rub an Altostratus and Cumulonimbus together and call them a storm, I was going to have to have the whole raider gang go stealth. That seemed like the best idea, but stealth doesn't fucking work when there's loud-ass guns firing off everywhere. It might work for me, given my black coat, but my two-toned blue hair left something to be desired for sneaking.
Okay. Fuck. Okay.
The townspeople of Mustangia started to notice that I was in the sky hanging around like a fucking feral ghoul high off its rocker, so I had to enter another building for cover. Dodge the damn bullets, Quill Stroke, you don't need to be any more hurt than you already are.
I slipped into the window of a nearby building and came face to face with a motherfucking Alicorn.
Nope. Fucking nope. All the nopes I could summon in a fucking instant.
I was out of there just as soon as The Alicorn noticed me and lit up its horn. I quickly took solace in the first floor of a two-story building. It shook, presumably from the magic of the Alicorn I was nearly eviscerated by. Inside, there were three. However, only one seemed to be armed with a gun. Shit. More pain is likely then. I immediately aim at the one with the gun and fire off my two shots as quickly as I could. I heard three gunshots, but woop-dee-fucking-doo, the wasteland decided to give me a small break and make the asshole miss me. I wasn't sure if the pony I killed was bought own on the first or second shot. I needed to reload again, but I couldn't risk it.
That was when I heard someone landing behind me. All the nopes from Mustangia to Manehattan were instantly bombarding me with their precious little presence of panicking peril. I was beginning to really wish I had stopped to scope out Mustangia some more. A lot more. In a burst, I tried to fly past the remaining two ponies to put something in between her and me. I was met with a punch to the ribs, but I had made it. I shifted the sawed-off from my forearms to my right wing and wrapped a foreleg around the pony's throat. An orange unicorn. Then I directed the angle of the gun so that the muzzle pressed against the side of her head.
"Take one step closer, and her head will be a pile of fucking goop on the floor!" I demanded.
Since the other pony was so close, I harshly directed my hostage away from the free one, heading towards a corner.
My hostage decided to speak up, "Iridescence, get the Freight Blurs!"
The Alicorn tensed up and seemed as she was trying to explode my head with hers, but then backed away and nodded. "They'll be here soon." With that, she flew back out of the window.
I saw opportunity. It was now or never. I removed the gun from the unicorn's head in order to make a quick reload, still holding onto the pony and using my wing and tail. The other pony saw this and started to rush at me. Just as the would-be savior nearly reached me, I pushed the hostage, which caused them both to fall down, one on top of the other. I shifted the sawed-off back to my mouth and foreleg and fired, killing off yet another victim.
With the other one, I had something else in mind. The pony pushed the dead unicorn off and started to get up, but I swiftly bucked it in the head with my hindlegs. She toppled over with a grunt of pain. I rushed forward and bucked her in the head again, hearing a small crack. With another gasp of pain, the pony fell unconscious.
There was no need to waste any of my ammo. I quickly holstered my sawed-off and went for the pistol the armed pony had used to completely fail and miss me with. With the short lull during my combat, I heard nearby sounds of gunfire. I can only hope those worthless Mustangians were the ones being made into swiss cheese and not us. Fuck the clouds and their cover, otherwise. I quickly grasped the pistol in my mouth and jumped back over to the skullcracked pony. With a quick flex of my mouth, it, too, was dead.
My options for escape had been quickly closing, I presumed. I glanced at the window, but dismissed the idea of escaping so close to the ground. I'd have to escape via the second story window. I never touched a step as I flew my way up there, my mouth still clenching the pistol.
I paused. There was a soft beeping sound, and then a groan. I swiveled my head to the source only to find a heavily mummified pony. "Gods, damn it. You had to come up here, didn't you? Please... please just leave me alone."
I grinned as much as I can with a gun in my mouth as I approached the mummypony. "Oha chass." Not a chance. I could see fear in his eyes before they bulged in pain, and then drooped in lifelessness as I shot the pony dead. I could hear the single-note drone on, but I payed it no mind as I yet again chose to defenestrate myself. I had to give myself pause to check on the battle. It wasn't looking good.
Mustasngia's side was barely thinning. I saw more raider corpses than Mustangia corpses. Sun of a fuck. Bullets wizzed by me, one grazing one of my wings, had bought me out of the reverie. The last thing I saw before escaping into yet another building for cover was the Alicorn flanked by two ponies with battle saddles containing machine guns. Now safe in what appeared to be a large storage shed, I needed to rethink my strategy again.
I didn't get that far. I was distracted by a whimpering noise. I saw four ponies, each floating up a revolver. I tensed and immediately pointed the mouth pistol at them and demanded, "Drahem," them to drop their weapons.
They didn't. Instead, they put the gun muzzles in their mouths and all four of them fired. Four bangs. And then the storage shed was painted crimson. I stood there, shocked still. My pistol dropped out of my mouth, clattering onto the stone floor.
They had committed suicide. In front of me.
They were in such despair, they just wanted to end it all and did.
Isn't that what I wanted? Isn't that what the wasteland wanted? This place was hell and all ponies should act in accordance to that. But a feeling of disgust and horror had started to build up in me. But... but this was what the wasteland wanted out of ponies!
My mind flashed back to when I first went down to the ground below the clouds. Enclave were killing so many innocents. They had betrayed us pegasi. All of us! Why was this having so much of a negative effect on me? I could barely hear any of the gunshots of fighting outside. This never felt wrong ever since I became a raider! Why now? Why fucking now!?
I tried gulping down the sorrow and horror, but all that made me do was grunt in a wavering voice. I blinked. For the first time, I didn't see just ponies. Ponies were expendable targets to inflict misery upon. I saw... I saw...
There were four ponies. Two adults and two foals. Children. I had just watched a fucking family commit suicide in front of me just because I was a raider. They were all sky blue... all... all pegasi. The pegasi all had dark blue hair. They must have been very close, even though none of their cutie marks were similar. One was a box, one a clipboard, and one of various fruits and vegetables on a plate. The last one didn't even have a fucking-damned cutie mark. And all of them had committed suicide. Because of me.
I... I felt like The Enclave. Lying backstabbers. I had indiscriminately killed innocent ponies just like they had and then left them to go kill some more. I was a monster. This was wrong. What the fuck had I become?
My vision turned blurry. I thought I started trembling. I missed the clouds. Fuck, have I ever missed the clouds. I wished I never went down that hole. This place was horrible. Mustangia is not an okay place to live. Neither is the wasteland. I took it back. I took it all back. I wanted to take back all eleven months I had spent here making everyone else-s life as miserable as I had felt. I hated killing. I hated guns. I hated raiding. I hated this wasteland. I hated mys-
The door slammed shut behind me. I directed my attention to the sudden noise. It was a bloodied raider, no doubt panicked and had desperateky hid from all the gunfire. I recognized the raider as Rusty Nail. He stood there. trying to catch his breath, and saw me. "There you are, Kill Strike!" Quill Stroke. I didn't want to be Kill Strike anymore. "Stop killing little fillies and help us with this fucking Alicorn!"
I gasped. Something gave away inside of me and everything seemed to snap into focus. I had been feeling sorry for myself. But there are raiders out there killing innocents. They were like The Enclave. I wiped my eyes, my vision becoming clear again and I unholstered my sawed-off.
Rusty Nail smiled in relief. "You ready?"
I smiled back. I tried to make it so something seemed off about that smile. "Yeah."
And then I jumped up onto him, causing the doors to burst open. I shifted my sawed-off to my mouth and stood on top of him. His eyes went wide with panic. "Wha-"
He didn't even get to finish the word before I allowed my gun to turn his head into a red gore.
And you know what? Fuck feeling sorry for myself. I fucked up. I fucked up big time. But whining and crying isn't going to do a single fucking thing to make things better. That kill... Me killing Rusty Nail, that was my redemption. All of it. I turned. This wasteland is a steaming pile of fogshit, but that doesn't mean people have to be the very same fogshit. I hold no guilt over the amount of suffering I killed. Guilt drags people down. I still hate the wasteland, but I will not be fucking consumed by it as I had been before this epiphany. I will be the consumer. The world deserves better. I intend to help make it better.
"Freeze!" I looked up. An angry Alicorn and two strongly-built earth ponies were staring at me. Iridescence was a dark green Alicorn. The two earth ponies were a jade green and a ruby red, their eyes and mane matching the color of their respective opposite's coat color. Oh, right. There was a battle going on.
...Oh, rake a thundercloud against my balls, why don't you? I'm fucked. I couldn't turn this shithole into a not-a-shithole if I was a lifeless husk full of lead. I did the only fucking intelligent thing someone would do in this situation: I peed myself and curled up into a ball of whimpering sobs. What the fuck do you think I did!? I dropped the fucking gun and threw my fucking hands in the air, you fucking moron! "Shit. I surrender."
My instincts told me to nope again as Iridescence (I thought that's her name) walked closer to me with anger in her eyes. She stood there without saying anything at first. It wasn't until I was about to explain I wanted to help them that the Alicorn spoke up. "You raiders killed a lot of people here today."
"Thought they were killer robots. Doing your asses a favor." The Alicorn snarled as I sighed. "If you kill me, what the fuck will that accomplish? I'd just be another carcass rotting in the ground. I want to help." This, unsurprisingly, surprised them. I continued, "I realized that I was making this hellhole even more of a hellhole and nopony needs more of that. I ask because it's the right thing to do, not because of any sense of drowning guilt. What the fuck can I do to help? the wasteland needs to become better."
They didn't get enough time to respond. My question was instead answered by the fire of a gun as the jade green earth pony was shot. Iridescence summoned up some sort of magical shield as I immediately bought down my body to reload my sawed-off. "Kill Strike, I think we have them now!"
I don't think so. I finish reloading and grab the gun with my mouth, jumping over the shield and aiming for the raider, and I immediately realize there were two there, so the raider on the right. The left one flinched in surprise as the one I just killed fell down. I called out, "Huck you! No uore!". He was just about to shoot me before I shot first. Now, I needed to reload again. ...Okay, maybe a sawed-off is a bad idea. I'll have to loot the raiders for good weapons after I'm finished saving Mustangia from them.
"The fuck, Kill Strike!? No-good traitor!" Hah. Laughable. They didn't realize I was the one who was betrayed all those months ago. I realize it now. I nap out of my thoughts as I see something spherical fly towards me. Of course, we had also bought grenades. This was going to hurt, and I did not want to hurt. I wanted to fucking hurt the raiders. With no other choice, I caught the grenade with my tail. I know I use it for a lot of things, but I'm still not all that dextrous with it. This is going to be tricky, but I really needed this to happen. I really, really needed this to happen. I had only a few seconds.
I took a deep breath and lifted my tail up, trying to think of it as a muscle. Become the muscle... Be the muscle as toss this grenade the fuck away. So I don't have to die right now. I released my breath and hoped for the cloudfucking best, snapping my tail to attention and I finally tried to throw it. In amazement, I saw the grenade arc away from me and toward the raider. Bullet Curtain. His eyes went wide and he tried to scramble away with a vocalizing, "Oh shit!". I smirked as he was too late. He was completely engulfed by the explosion. When it cleared, he was over there. And over there. Maybe a little over there, too.
"Drop your weapon," demanded one of the earth ponies with the battle saddle, "and we won't have to kill you."
I rolled my eyes, lazily glancing behind me as I shifted the sawed-off to one of my forelegs. "Fuck you, or are you just blind? I'm helping. Isn't that enough?"
A few gunshots sounded off in the distance as they contemplated my help. I didn't give them much time. "There's still more," I declared as I shifted reloaded then shifted the sawed-off back to my mouth. I unfurled my wings and took to the sky, getting a bird's-eye view again. My plans for Mustangia had been changing constantly, it seemed, but this will be the last plan change. I promised that to myself.
There were six raiders left and Mustangia was heavily winning. It turned out I didn't need to do all that much. A surprise drop-in to the area near what looked to be a diner would do some good. With a divebomb, I don't think the fucking Mustangians were aware of what side I was on now. A bullet found its way into my cheek and a pain clouded my neck and right eye. I careened off-course and crash landed a few feet beside the now, fleeing raider. This was it! My one chance! I hoisted myself up and emptied my sawed-off while it was aimed at Candy Carnage. I missed the first as predicted, but not the second. She grunted in pain and just... continued to try to crawl away using a hoof. Fuck the clouds, I was in too much pain to do much of anything and my gun had needed reloading, so I just sat back and watched the rest. The raiders were all but dead at this point.
After I watched Candy Carnage drop to the floor as a lead-filled corpse, I turned to the two Mustangians, one a golden pegasi and the other a white unicorn, and voiced a simple request, "Welp, my life as a raider is fucking over. I don't suppose I could help you with some work in any way?"
Footnote: Level Up!
New Perk: Tail Trick - Allows you to use your tail as a prehensile limb, capable of handling and throwing small items.
"What the fuck is going on? Why is everypony fighting? We need to ask the Enclave. They'd know. Look, here's one now.."
"Hey! Over here! We want to kno-"
"Oh shit, you just killed her! Why!? Hey- ow, fuck! Why are you shooting at us!? We're from above the clouds! Just like you!"
"Oh shit... Oh shit! They're abandoning us... Why are you closing up the sky!? I'm one of you! Why the fuck would you kill a pegasus!? You're the Enclave! You're supposed to help us! What... what the fuck is going on...?"
"...Hey! You!"
"Huh?"
"Yes, you."
"Oh, Goodness, you've been shot!"
"Y- yes. By... by the Enclave."
"How horrible. Here, come with me. I'll take you to the clinic."
"...But why did they shoot at me? At- at pegasi? They're supposed to be helping us."
"...I'm sorry. My name's Velvet Remedy. I can help you."
"They're supposed to be helping us. They abandoned us. Why were they killing?"
"There's... a lot you don't know. You came through Ditzy's hole?"
"Forget the hole! I just- I just want answers."
"Ahem. Attention, pegasi. I am Mayor Railright of New Appleloosa. I suppose I should cut straight to the point. You all no doubt have a lot of questions."
"What else is down here?"
"Ponies were hurt. How can I help?"
"Why did the Enclave kill us other pegasi?"
"This city doesn't really seem all that safe with all that fighting that just happened."
"Pegasi, pegasi! Please, one at a time!"
"Best t' listen 't th' mayor."
"Hey, where y'all goin'?"
"Out. Away. Fuck this. I've heard enough."
"Wait, who are y'all? Maybe we kin-"
"No! Fuck you, and fuck the Enclave! That hole just completely ruined my life!"
"Hey, let's be reasonable-"
"Reasonable!? Haha! What a laugh! Was it fucking reasonable the Enclave lied to us all our fucking lives!? Was it reasonable that we were shot at by them!? Is it reasonable I can never go back home!? Is it fucking reasonable if everyone's just lying, backstabbing cloudfuckers who only exist to make everyone else as miserable as possible!?"
"Now, come on-"
"Fuck you, I saw an unarmed pegasus got shot fucking dead! And now I'm stuck in this blighted, irradiated hellhole with all of you! No, I think we're well past being reasonable here!"
"Ah think-"
"Fuck you, fuck the Enclave, fuck New Apploosa, fuck Railright, fuck the clouds, fuck this wasteland, and fuck writing! I fucking quit!"
"W- wait...! Ya left yer book...! ...Damn... Ah was expectin' that t' go a lot smoother... The Grand Cascade. By Quill Stroke. ...Quill Stroke, Ah'm gonna return this to you someday."
