Chapter Four: Buck Up
"Oh, quit bein' a bitch."

If you thought things got better following my glorious rescue, you are sadly mistaken.

Following my liberation, we ran down the hall, turned a corner or two, and then ran into a group of armed raiders. Even worse, my revolver was gone, the one weapon I’d spent a good portion of my life fine tuning specifically for my preferences and my style, was now probably in some raider's mouth crying for it's mama. While here I was, behind cover, under fire with nothing but my own bare hooves and a very pissed off unicorn.

I hate to interrupt here, but I suppose I must explain the custom, built from scratch weapons.

You see, weapon factories are, logically, gone. No more mass produced weapons and what not. But nopony thought about it because we had a load of weapons left over. It’s one of those “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.” oversights.

Anyways, fast forward a couple hundred years to the present. Guns, especially working, original ones are regarded as a treasure in the wasteland. Most of them were most likely overused to the point of being irreparable or they were simply lost. So, what do we do? Simple. We use whatever’s left.

Most guns nowadays are hybrids. Perhaps a pistol rebuilt to fire grenades, or a minigun that fires shotgun shells. It is rare to find an original gun that still hasn’t been modified one way or another, much less one in pristine condition.

Besides not having a choice, ponies got to customize their firearms to fit their needs. A weapon tailor made for them. Plus, thanks to this a new way of living was born in the form of gunsmithing. Ponies pay ponies to make guns and perform modifications. Everypony’s happy.

So, yea. Where were we again? Oh right! The fire fight.

"Come out and plaaaaaaaaaaaay!" A raider said as he fired another cascade of bullets, most of them hit the walls, only a fraction of them came anywhere close to nailing my cover.

Belette responded by levitating her weapon above her head and blindly firing it with her magic while she remained behind cover. A spray of hot lead mowed down the closest pair of raiders, both of them soaking up the shots with a splatter of blood before dropping to the floor with a thud. The remaining three ponies were undeterred, watching their comrades die in battle must’ve been common for them because they frankly did not give a shit.

As they continued to spray bullets at us with the accuracy of a drunk, three legged dog on a carnival ride, I looked to the side to quickly glance at Belette, who was in the midst of reloading. I could barely hear her growl over the sound of the guns as she rummaged through her magic portal. Summoning a magazine, she quickly stuffed it in the gun and turned her head to look at me.

“I don’t have too much ammo left on me! About three or four more magazines! I’ll cover you while you move up ahead and get yourself a piece!” She yelled over the ensuing firefight.

I nodded my head, ready to carry out the plan. As soon as she popped up from her cover, I ran out from mine, dashing into one of the now vacant rooms, I spotted a faded, green SMG on the floor on the floor, outfitted with tape, and a strap, resting next to a dead raider. I ignored the corpse and equipped the gun before crouching by the doorway. My heart was pounding, Sweat trickled down my head and into my eyes, stinging them. I blinked a couple of times before focusing my attention on the action.

I watched as Belette cut down yet another raider. Which, in all honesty probably wasn’t that hard. All she had to do was levitate her gun out from the safety of her cover and just fire. Simple as that. Before she could continue her massacre, the raiders turned the tables and lobbed a grenade at her.

The silver apple tumbled through the air, flipping end over end before landing onto the pile of rubble Belette was camping behind. I watched her eyes widened as she scrambled onto her hooves and ran towards me, I backed up as she leapt through the doorway, the grenade exploding as she did so. The walls shook, threatening to fall over. Dust rained over the entire room as the shock wave washed over me and Belette. Shrapnel flew everywhere, burying themselves into the walls and the roofs.

Stumbling, I made my way through the dust and to the door before popping my head out and letting loose. Bullet shells were rapidly dispensed from the side of the gun, opposite to the trigger. I kept my tongue pressed against the trigger, never once easing off. However, the gun had terrible accuracy that could have rivalled Mirage’s. Bullets all flew towards the raider, resembling a weird shotgun spray pattern instead of a steady stream.

Turning, the raider attempted to seek refuge in the room. However, his attempt at escape was futile. As soon as he turned, hot lead embedded themselves into his body, some striking his neck while others found a new home in his stomach. The shots were even powerful enough to stagger him, causing him to lean against what was left of the door, bullet holes materialized all over him, all of which soon began gushing blood.

I ejected the empty magazine and dashed back into the room, where Belette was more than ready to jump right into action. Exiting the room I could hear the electrical whirring of the barrel spinning up before she once again put into action the very same plan she used for just about any problem. Pull the trigger, and watch the problem solve itself. It sounded like a jackhammer, it was loud enough to devour the gruesome demise of it’s victim. Shortly after, it stopped.

Stepping outside, I took in the new, far more abhorrent decor. The walls were now completely wrecked, blood drenched the hall, bullet shells were scattered all over the place. And it smelled like victory.

“Oh hey look, you weren’t useless this time.” Belette congratulated me.

“That’s because I wasn’t snuck up on.” I replied, a triumphant grin plastered on my face.

“Congrats, you’ve got your first kill.”

“Oh that’s not my first, actually wasted a... couple more... on the way up.” I faltered.

I felt my legs go weak. My throat was as dry as sand, the world spun as I tried to stomach the fact that I was now, a certified murderer. I had taken the lives of my fellow ponies, even if they were deranged slayers who probably deserved to die anyways. My legs gave out and I fell on my haunches, trembling as horrible realization hit me. I hadn’t even thought about it in the heat of battle, I was too panicked, too scared. And now that I had some time to think...

“Listen, it can be a little tough knowing that now you’re a killer. But it’s okay. You’ll get over it.” Belette reassured.

“How are you acting so calm about this?! You probably killed hundreds of them!” I snapped.

“I wouldn’t say hundreds, maybe twenty? And the reason why I don’t give a shit? Easy. I just look at them and think about all the lives they’ve taken and how they’ve had this coming for a long, long time.”

I didn't respond. Everything was a blur to me.

“Listen, if you didn’t get them, they were gonna get you. Plus, you wanna make it anywhere out here, you’re gonna have to get your hooves a little bloody.”

And then I threw up.

******

After I finished having my mental breakdown and upchucking everything my stomach held, Belette had reminded me that we still needed to find the medkits and escape. The sound of approaching raiders and the urge to not become their lunch only helped to move things along.

Advancing through the halls, Belette and I made sure to look into every room. We didn’t want to head inside and search because quite frankly all I wanted to do was to get this quest over with so that I could go back to our likely-to-collapse-on-us house and continue wallowing in my guilt.

The lack of gunfire and screaming ponies at least gave me a chance to catch my breath, and study my new weapon. The SMG was manufactured by Castro inc., a company I knew exactly nothing about. Although it’s name was nowhere to be found on the gun itself, wastelanders have taken to calling it: “Bootlegger” simply because it was easily manufactured, easily repairable and was found generally anywhere on the planet due to them being one of the most mass produced weapons... I think. The history book was charred. Anyways, due to the fact that it used ten millimeter ammo, which was pretty common, and that you could toss it into a river, have it go through the digestive systems of a hellhound and probably still be functional, it became a huge hit among the wastelanders.

It’s performance, was a different story.

Like I said before, it didn’t have very good accuracy. In all my years of being a trader, I’d seen my fair share of them. And every single one of them sprayed, even the best conditioned one had a tendency to miss it’s mark sometimes. What’s more, it wasn’t as powerful as some other guns you could find, usually failing to penetrate anything stronger than combat armor.

Reaching the end of the hall, Belette and I pushed open the large, wooden door, it’s peach paint peeling off. Once the door swung open, we looked inside to be greeted with the stairs. Again. Anyway down was blocked off by an assortment of furniture and random nonsense, the only way, was up.

“So, how sure are we that we didn’t just stumble into the wrong place?” Belette complained.

“Well, did you see any other raider nests around?” I replied.

“Do you see any medkits around?”

“That’s… a good point...”

“We’ve been searching for hours!” Belette groaned as she took her first steps up the flight of stairs.

“We’ve only got one more floor left.” I said, looking up from the staircase.

Looking straight up, I was right. I could see three more flights of stairs, with the third suddenly transitioning to the top of the lower half of the building. Despite that, it was still rather dark, presumably thanks to the top half of the tower blocking out the sunlight.

“The top half isn’t completely useless. It isn’t leaning that much, they could very well have shit stored there.”

“You’re not helping but okay.”

Arriving at the door for the seventh floor, Belette didn’t bother to take caution, at all. Opening the door, she immediately slammed it shut again and ran towards me. Before I could say anything, the door was hit with a barrage of bullets, causing wood splinters and lead to fly about, while I ducked and took cover. Belette cursed, Mirage now summoned, was encased in purple magic and ready to go, despite the fact she was running low on ammo.

I swung the SMG from my side to my front before grabbing it with my mouth and making my way to the wrecked door. The walls should’ve been thick enough to stop bullets, so I was more or less safe as long as I didn’t stand in front of the doorway. As I leaned against the wall, I used my gun to shoot out the door closer before placing my foreleg in the handle and yanking it open. Swinging open, the door was sent crashing into the wall in front of me as a volley of bullets whizzed past.

I crouched low and poked my head out. The hall was littered with upturned tables, couches and various other forms of cover. Rays of sunshine seeped in through various cracks and holes on the walls. Paper and bullet shells were scattered all over the floor, the walls were covered in graffiti and blood. Down the hall, I spotted a pair of heads, slightly peeking out from behind a tarnished white couch.

Firing my gun, I sent a fusillade of bullets in their direction. I knew the couch couldn’t have offered much protection against the high velocity rounds. I heard splattering, followed by groaning and thuds, signaling my success. I stood back up and poked my head through the doorway once more to make sure the coast was clear before entering the seventh floor, Belette following close behind.

The hallway was pretty dark compared to the stairwells. It depended solely on the stray beams of sunlight to illuminate the way. Either it had used light bulbs before Belette screwed with their electronics, or the raiders had night vision. Knowing Belette, it was probably the former of the two.

Creeping down the hall, I noted the odour of the stale, musty air was now combined with the metallic smell of freshly spilt blood. Cobwebs, big and small were scattered across various corners and crevices. Just about everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, the walls were littered with holes and cavities. Generally speaking it did not look like a very happy place.

“Last floor. Assuming the raiders didn’t decide to use the top half. It’s either here or it’s nowhere.” Belette said, advancing forward, taking quick sweeps of the rooms and their contents as she forged on.

“So, how have things been while I was gone?” I asked curiously.

“A little more quieter.”

“You had any trouble coming up here? At all?”

“Surprising how much trouble these guys can cause.”

“Really? Don’t look like it.”

“A couple of empty health potion vials and a nasty gash beg to differ.”

“You might actually want to get that looked at sometime soon.”

“I’ll down another potion later and it’ll be good as new.”

As Belette glanced through yet another room, she let out an excited: “Aha!” before entering said room, emerging with a grin plastered on her face.

“I found AK mags.” She said, her happiness evident by the momentary smile that flickered across her face.

“Gee can’t wait to use them all up in ten seconds again.” I teased.

“Shut your yaps. Got something for you too.” Belette retorted, tossing me a couple of SMG magazines.

I, in all my agility and skill managed to catch neither of the two.

The two magazines flew past me, one over my head and one between my legs and either smashed against the wall or clattered against the floor. Although they were more than durable enough to survive a game of catch-gone-awry, I was more concerned with the fact that we might have alerted any nearby ponies of our presence. But then again we just had a firefight less than fifteen minutes ago and we had yet to be swamped by smelly, ugly raiders so I dunno. While I picked up the ammo, Belette continued on without me, looking through room after room.

"Fucking finally!” Belette said, .

I hastily stuffed the magazines into my bag and trotted up to her. Looking into the room, I immediately spotted three identical grey boxes, all of them sporting a yellow plus with pink butterflies on the top. Neither of the three were in mint condition, the third one was open and also completely wrecked, with shards of glass and dried up medicine coating what was left of it’s innards. In the corner of the room I spotted a fourth one, significantly more damaged than the first two but it was still closed and in somewhat usable condition, more than I could say for the third one..

The first two were also battered and worn out with most of it’s paint scratched and faded and it’s edges rusty, but despite the wear and tear, it it looked relatively good and most of it’s contents were probably still in good condition. That is, if the raiders haven't used them up yet.

Unlatching the two metal latches on the top two corners, Belette opened the first med kit and peered inside. It’s contents were aged, it’s bottles and bandages covered in a thin layer of dust, some cotton swabs and half the roll of strapping tape was gone, blue liquid coated the bottom and the sides, presumably from a shattered health potion. The color of the health potion always depended on the skill of the brewer, however medkits always had blue health potions, signifying that it was well brewed, and it was also far more potent than the yellow or pinks ones that are so commonly found in the wasteland.

“Grab one and go. Raiders probably won’t be too happy to find us here.” Belette urged as she stored two of the medkits in her magic pocket.

“You don’t want to check the others?” I chided.

“The sooner we leave, the better the chance we survive. ‘Sides, if they didn’t use up this one, what makes you think they’ll have used up the others?”

I swung the saddlebag off my back and re-organized everything, moving everything to the right bag so as to make space for the medkit on the left. Luckily for me, it fit, but only just barely. With my newfound cargo, in all it’s bulkiness, stretching my bag to it’s limit, I doubted that I would be as agile anymore.

“See, it’s only afternoon and we’re already done!” I said cheerfully.

“We left at six in the morning.” Belette mumbled.

“Oh quit being such a sour-”

A loud *BANG* sounded, followed by shotgun shells whizzing through the hall, effectively interrupting me mid-speech. A good deal of the pellets had found themselves riveted into the wall above the bed, mere inches away from me and my companion.

******

“WHO’S FUCKING IDEA WAS THIS?!” Belette screamed as she continued to scramble across the debris, stumbling from time to time as she did so, the raiders behind us occasionally stopping to send a deluge of hot lead flying our way.

"Lets see, who hasn't been here before? Oh that's right! IT'S ME!” I yelled back.

Let me just be the first to say that traversing a building that’s been tilted to forty-five or so degrees really isn’t fun. The slanted floors meant you’d naturally attempt to run yourself into one of the rooms and out of the window before falling to your death. So, a good deal of the time me and Belette spent leaning against the walls and hopping through doorways. As if that wasn’t enough, there was furniture who’d managed to slide into the walls thanks to gravity. Oh, did I mention all the holes in the walls and the floors?

Despite our new walking style that vaguely resembled a drunk monkey with wheels for feet, we still managed to maintain the distance between us and our pursuers who were having just as, if not even more trouble negotiating the new, weird terrain. Even though Belette fell down a doorway and slammed into a bed, we still accomplished the task of staying away from the murderous psychopaths.

Fortunately for me, years of free time spent running around the school meant I had agility to spare. It was no cakewalk, but I would’ve preferred this over shooting any day. I managed to hop, skip, and run my way past the whole twisted obstacle course undeterred by the med kit in my bag. All the while Belette did decent, but it was clear she was struggling to keep up.

Realizing that we were on the highest floor and that there was literally nowhere else we could go, I stopped, turned around to face Belette and and found her leaning against the wall, sweaty, dirty and out of breath.

“Where do we go?! It’s the highest floor!” I asked, my heart racing, probably from the workout and not the danger considering the raiders were still lagging behind and seemed intent to keep walking towards us like ragdolls that failed walking school, which pretty much demolished any form of intimidation whatsoever. I had no reason to be afraid.

I was given a reason when a bullet hit my bag, undoubtedly penetrating the medkit and presumably decimating a good portion of it’s contents before exiting on the other side. I yelped and ducked down, staying as close as I could to the ground.

“We’re gonna have to jump.” Belette answered, looking into the doorway.

I peeked in and noticed she was staring at a window, which just so happened to be positioned in such a that jumping across to the other building was actually a survivable option, that is if you don’t miss the window on the other side and you actually make the jump.

“Excuse me, what?!” I asked, questioning Belette’s sanity.

“Just follow me.” Belette reassured.

Before I had time to object, she stood up, dashed into the room and leapt through the window, curling up into a ball at the last second. Glass shattered and wood splintered while she shielded her face with her forelegs. I watched as she tumbled through the air and crashed through the other window, clipping a bit of the frame before landing and rolling through the dark insides of the building, where she was probably rolling around probably covered in her own blood and screaming in agony. Oh hey, sounds like my first period.

I gulped and followed suit, hoping that the glass Belette had smashed would lessen the pain to some extent. Hopping onto the windowsill, I sprung myself into the air. Less than a second later, I found myself tumbling across the floor, which probably wasn't doing my cargo any good.

Once I came to a halt, my body wasted no time in telling me I was an idiot. I responded with groaning as my whole body ached, my head hurt, newly formed wounds stung, I was dizzy, disoriented, and I was very convinced that I might've pissed myself while I made the jump.

"Never. Never again." I groaned.

Pain shot through my body again as I brought myself back up to my hooves. A quick survey of my body revealed no serious injuries, a scrape here and there, but nothing a health potion or two couldn’t do. The med kit most likely earned another dent in the process, but at least it wasn’t completely obliterated.

“You okay?” Belette asked as she lumbered over, looking just as, if not even worse than me. The gash above her right foreleg had stopped bleeding, but it still looked like it was going to need medical attention.

“Could be worse. That uh… gash looks serious...” I replied, eyeing her wound.

“It’s nothing.” Belette said, brushing it off.

“Oh no, we’re not going anywhere ‘till we get it disinfected and dealt with.”

“I’m fine!”

“Oh will you just sit down? It’ll only take a minute. Plus, I’m tired and hungry. We could use the rest.”

“Fine.” Belette mumbled as she sat down scowled at me.

Craning my neck, I poked my head into the bag and bit onto the medkit. I pulled it out and set it down next to Belette, who was in the midst of laying down all the loot she had gathered from the nest. One of the corners was caved in, which made opening it troublesome. When I did manage to pry the thing open, I studied it’s cargo, letting out a huge sigh of relief that the decimated corner had only split open a pack of tissues and a medical mask. The rest, was a little cramped together, but usable.

“I could just drink a health potion or two and get it over with, I mean, how many ponies really get sick from an infected wound anyway?” Belette

“Most ponies don’t get their wounds from a gore filled, diseases ridden slaughterhouse.” I

I gripped the bottle of antiseptic with my teeth and pulled it out. Once I set it down, Belette assisted me and unscrewed the lid while I grabbed one of the tissues. I picked the bottle back up in my mouth and slowly tilted it sideways, letting a few drops of the yellow liquid fall onto the tissue before getting soaked up.

Placing the tissue on my right hoof, I slowly brought it to my friend’s laceration. As soon as I made contact, Belette flinched while I rolled my eyes.

“Just tough it out, bite down on something.” I urged.

“Whatever you say doctor.” Belette muttered.

Continuing my work, Belette started to get accustomed to the stinging pain, soon enough, I was done and she was free to ingest a potion. She grabbed a vial of pink liquid and wrenched the cork out before sending it my way. It bounced off my chest, and rolled away having done no harm.

“Now that wasn’t very nice.” I said with a pout.

******

The building we had landed in was abandoned, devoid of any life save for the occasional radroach or molerat. Both of which, weren't dangerous so much as they were annoying. Opting to conserve ammo, I decided to borrow one of the machetes Belette had managed to loot from the raider nest. Needless to say, it was messy. But nothing a quick shower couldn’t clean.

Gotta admit, I can’t even imagine how the early years of the wasteland must’ve been. The Enclave taking control of the sky meant not a lot of rain got through, they often used it up for themselves before the clouds got too heavy.

Now, things have changed.

With ol’ Lightbringer controlling the skies now, we got plenty of rainfall. We reinvented showers, got plenty of water to drink as well as to water crops, and it was a huge step forward to rebuilding civilization y’know? For once we finally had more than enough water to drink and we didn't have to worry about radiation poisoning!

Of course, we didn’t stop there. About a year ago, we had the pleasure of meeting all kinds of foreigners. Folks from Haywaii, Alascolt, heck there was even a guy from Faustralia. How? Supposedly, boats were starting to become more and more common. We even have pirates now! Which is bad! But cool!

But yea, ever since boats were reinvented, we got to trade from different countries in the world, so long as we survived the sea creatures that supposedly dwelled the ocean bottom and the aforementioned pirates who wouldn’t hesitate to decapitate their victims.

The next few hours were uneventful, the only highlight being me almost falling down the stairs, but besides that, it was mostly just me and Belette going down staircase after staircase, the molerats and radroaches weren’t exactly ‘life threatening’, and that’s if they even bothered to attack. They seemed more concerned with scrounging for scraps than anything and wisely left us alone.

******

Things had been all smooth sailing up until that point. We had the loot, we more or less lost the raiders… ish. As long as we stayed away from windows they didn’t have much of a chance to take shots at us. Eventually they’d have to lose interest in us. The change of pace gave birth to a lot of… interesting dialogue.

“Pew pew.” I muttered under my breath.

“What are you doing?” Belette asked, stopping to turn around and look at me.

“Pretending to shoot stuff.

“Oh so now you want to shoot something.”

“Okay first of all, ow. Second of all, under the circumstances we were just in I highly doubt anypony could’ve fired straight, much less actually get a kill.”

“And before that?”

“I.... okay I’ll give you that one.”

“Gonna have to work on that if you don’t plan on uh... retiring early.”

“It’s my first quest alright? Give it time.”

As I walked past the doorway, I found myself behind a counter, faded and dirty with the left end smashed to oblivion, fallen chairs and torn paper littered the floor. I spotted many built-in drawers, all ripe for looting and scavenging.

And then I heard a growl.

“Whatthefuckbarbeque!” I exclaimed.

Snapping my head to the left, I spotted a brown dog standing atop a medical chest, teeth bared and mouth pulled back to form a snarl. It refused to stop as I stood in front of it, frozen in fear. The animal was in terrible shape, with patches of fur gone, giving it bald spots. It looked painfully thin, so much that I was almost convinced that I could put him down. Almost.

“Bel…” I said in a hushed tone.

“Just go, he probably won’t chase you.” Belette whispered back

“But the medkit…”

“Its probably just hungry. Throw him an apple or something.”

“You do it. He’s looking right at me.”

I watched the hound, not daring to take my eyes off it, in return, he did the same. Eventually, his growling turned into straight up barking, which really wasn’t any better. All while Belette took her sweet time rummaging through her inventory.

“So uh, sometime today would be nice.” I whispered urgently, the danger of having a rabid dog very much on my mind.

I continued locking eyes with the dog, not daring to move in case I might trigger an attack. Eventually, Belette took her eyes off all her shiny-ish new guns long enough to lob an orange over my head, causing it to bounce off the countertop and roll across the room before bouncing down the stairs.

Jumping onto the counter, the canine was quick to give chase to it’s lunch. I watched as it dashed down the stairs, skidding into the wall before scampering down after the orange. I let out a sigh of relief as I finally let my body relax.

“Didn’t think he’d go for an orange to be honest.” Belette said.

“Then why’d you throw him one?” I queried.

“You were nagging me.”

I walked over to the medkit, lowering myself to grab it before I realized that we barely had enough space.

“You think you can cram one more kit into your portal?” I asked Belette.

“Nope. Why don’t you carry it in your mouth?” Belette replied.

“Put something filthy like that and risk catching a disease?”

“Well, you just did it a couple hours ago.”

“Okay that was different.

“The other bag is filled with stuff too.”

“Well then let’s ditch it.”

“But he might pay extra!”

“We already agreed that he’d pay us two hundred caps.”

“Well, we can always re-negotiate.”

The unmistakable pitter patter of claws tapping against the floor sounded throughout the room. Belette and I slowly turned our heads to face the stairway and found the dog, sitting by the top of the stairs, an orange by his paws.

“I have an idea.” I said, my mouth curving into a grin as I realized my own genius.

******

“Interesting…” The sheriff said as he eyed all four medical kits, including the one that was in Whathefuckbarbeque’s mouth.

By the way, that’s the dog. Yea, that’s his name. Couldn’t think of anything better at the time. Kinda suits him anyways, after all that is the first thing that comes to mind when you look at him.

“So, we brought back an extra medkit…” I said, rocking on my hooves.

“No, no you didn’t.” The sheriff said blatantly.

“What.”

“There was supposed to be a total of seven medical kits and double that number in health potions.”

“Oh.”

The sheriff eyed Barbeque, while the dog simply continued to stare off to the side, Medkit still very much in his mouth. Slowly reaching out, the sheriff attempted to nab the kit from Barbeque’s jaws. Immediately, he turned his head to face forward and growled at the sheriff’s hoof.

“It’s got… character.” The sheriff said, retracting his foreleg with a look of disgust.

“So… uh… we’re still getting paid right?” I asked.

“I suppose a deals a deal. I promised two hundred caps, and you'll be paid two hundred caps.”

“Are you serious?” Belette said in disbelief.

“A stallion keeps his word. By the way, where’d you get that dog? Didn’t see it when you two set off.”

“Oh we found him in an abandoned building just a couple hours ago.” I answered.

“And you already trained it? Amazing.”

“Oh we didn’t train him. He probably still doesn’t even know any basic commands and hates my guts.”

“Then… how did you get him to hold the kit?”

“Well, at first we tried throwing it like a disc but it didn’t do anything. Then we tried shaking it in front of it, then we tried bumping it into him but he never really held onto it for more than a few seconds. Finally, we stored some food in it. He didn’t want to leave us because we fed him, and he didn’t want to just give up the food in the medical kit either, so he just brought it along.”

“I see...” The sheriff said, eyeing the dog cautiously.

“It was never supposed to work.” Belette added.

“So, how exactly are you going to get him to drop it?”

“Well I dunno. We never thought we’d make it this far.”

******

After much coaxing from all three of us, Whatthefuckbarbeque finally relented after Belette lobbed a pear across the room. He instantaneously dropped the medkit, most likely destroying the few medical processions that were in usable condition before charging after the fruit so fast any bullet would’ve been ashamed of itself.

Following that, we proceeded to the general store where we proceeded to find out that we had been collecting weapons in vain as even the shopkeeper didn’t have enough bottlecaps to buy them all. And neither the doctor or restaurant staff were interested in purchasing our loot either. But besides that, we both got ourselves some pretty decent armor and a boatload of ammo.

Belette had invested in a set of combat armor, sans the helmet, because according to her, it wasn’t bulletproof and quite frankly it looked ugly. It was nothing special, it looked like any old set of armor, but hey, it was more than capable of stopping a bullet, that was all Belette looked for in a suit of armor.

Meanwhile I had bought myself a full set leather armor, which, for whatever reason lacked a sleeve for my left foreleg, instead it came with a roll of black cloth that I was supposed to wrap around my left hoof. Despite that, I bought it simply because it looked the best, and compared to my other options, it was lighter and I wouldn’t have to sacrifice as much agility.

Seeing as how we had more caps than we knew what to do with, I decided to start a new project and buy myself some spare parts to tinker on my new SMG in order to fill the empty void my beloved revolver had left. The store didn’t have as many components as I’d liked, but I was sure I could pick up whatever I needed on the way to the Detrot Tunnel.

After our shopping spree, the sun had already begun to set, forcing me, Belette, and my dog to stay the night if we didn’t want to bear prey to the various predators that roamed the night. Early next morning, we left the village well-rested… ish, with a good amount of ammo, a few extra weapons we could sell off should we find ourselves low on caps, which probably won’t be needed considering we were close to four hundred caps.

We were wealthy by wasteland standards, we were well armed, and we had a dog! It still hated me seeing as how he growled every time I was within a meter of him, but a dog is a dog. Life doesn't get any better than this.

For once, I felt confident. I felt sure that we would cross over to Equestria no problem. That this trip was going to be smooth sailing all the way and I could enjoy myself. It also didn’t occur to me that I was probably jinxing myself. But I didn’t care, I legitimately thought we were going to be fine.

But then again, when has anything ever gone to plan in the wasteland?

Author's Note

Alright, so, if you didn't read my blog post, Chapter 3.5 has been removed simply because it;s a touchy subject and yea.

k thx