Fallout Equestria: Prospector

Fallout: Equestria

Prospector

By Shukin

Chapter 2 – Long Way

“The hardest step is the first one.”

“I told you he’d like it.” I heard Prickle whispering to Coral, which sighed and gave him some caps. I smiled, now knowing that they still kept contact through everything that happened. With each four of five steps, I took another sip of the healing potion I was supposed to drink that night. Between the same boring clouds, the moon was hardly visible, poorly illuminating our path.

“That’s why you knew that I’ve punched him so fast?” I told them, showing that I heard and understood what happened.

“Wha- What, do you thought I’d choose a side? You’re both my friends!” Coral stuttered trying to protect herself. “And we could talk about our jobs… It was still like a dream that came true, you know.”

“A dream which you decided to not be part of.” He added.

“...because I wanted to follow my own. Nothing’s wrong with that.” I answered rapidly, cutting another answer short. The silence stood for some moments of music in my head through the magical speakers of the PipBuck, when DJ Pon3 interrupted our stroll. I turned to them and quickly dropped to the ground, PipBuck in their direction. Both of them followed, and I sent the audio for the actual speakers.

“Hello out there? Anypony awake? It’s time for a special late night edition of the news!” Finally something about the Stable Dweller. “I have with me, communicating over broadcaster, one Grandpa Rattle, long-time resident of Arbu and new citizen of Friendship City.” I saw him earlier, with one of the new foals. I heard he’d be the one to care for them. Coral whispered something in the same lines, and we shushed her. “And he’s here to set the record straight. The whole pony about what went down three nights ago.  So sit down and hold onto your hats, children, because this is going to be a hell of a story.

But first, I have something that I have to say.  And this goes out from me to that Heroine of the Wasteland, our little Bringer of Light: I’m sorry.”

“So she wasn’t wro—“ They shushed me.

“When you’ve seen as much as I have, when you see as many heroes fail and fall… it’s hard not to expect it.  It’s hard to keep believing.  Even when you know there’s somepony out there you should believe in. You didn’t fail us, Stable Dweller. I failed you. And you have my deepest and sincerest… A particular toaster repair-pony once told me that she would always be tuned in, listenin’ to my message of hope.  Well, listen close, Stable Dweller, cuz this is the honest truth, straight from me to you: That message of hope?  That’s you.  You are my message. Now then Grandpa Rattle, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself and this book you want to share with us tonight?”

I didn’t knew he were away, and by the looks of their faces, neither did they. “Ain’t a book.  It’s a ledger.  A recordin’ of every sick thing the ponies in Arbu did.  By the time I’m done readin’ two pages, I gare-un-tee every one of y’all will wish ya coulda been there to do what that little mare did fer ya...”

=-=-=-=

“I- we- wow.”  My jaw dropped and I couldn’t put it back together after that. How could there be such sick ponies? The world is hellish, sure, but it’s still not enough for… that. That wasn’t just me, Coral was visibly nauseous, I didn’t need my little pony to tell it to me (as it did), and Prickle was at loss of words just as me.

“I—I ate th- th-“ She couldn’t continue, and it wasn’t needed, really. Coral tried to take some steps back, throwing up some meters from where we stood. I turned off the radio after the message, and the PipBuck quickly turned off its display, leaving us in nearly no illumination besides the moon itself.

The awkward silence stood for some time, roaming our group like the old-tales wendigos. Sadly, they’d still be hungry by the time they left, as we only felt disgust, not hate. It took us some minutes to continue walking towards Heat’s Kingdom, where we decided to stay up for the night, as I remember some of the landmarks in the region and in the path.

We reached the farm close to 3am, as my PipBuck said. It wasn’t that strange that it was completely silent and devoid of light, it’s a common sleeping time, common enough that the three of us were nearly dropping and sleeping right on the ground. Without much noise, we crossed their land and knocked on the door. “It’s me, Golden Patch.” I said, trying to tranquilize them.

No answer. The broken window was hastily covered with a metal sheet. I knocked again. “I helped you a week ago, remember?” Still no answer. I twisted the knob and the door opened without any kind of resistance. Something was wrong in there. I popped the Rifle’s drums and reload it while floating it from my back, ready for anything. As I took my first step, Coral bit on my tail and pulled me. “Why did you—“ She nodded to the ground.

It was a mine. I let her go first and disarm the bomb, following every step of the pink pony with my aim ready. Prickle had already readied his nightstick in his mouth, whispering to me through it: “Don’t your stupid watch have anything to help us?” And I remembered the E.F.S., inactive for that moment.

I turned it on and, exactly as I thought, there weren’t anyone in the house besides the three of us. I sighed, a little after she disarmed another mine. “They aren’t here. Let’s search the house and reactivate the mines… We need some place to sleep, this will be it.” We found other two mines through the kitchen and another one in the top of the stairs.

Both the children’s rooms were a mess, with their blankets thrown to the ground and wardrobes upturned. “Or they were in such a hurry…”

“Or they were forced to go away. Look…” Coral said, guiding me to the main bedroom. I instantly noticed the drips of blood entering the room, keeping my rifle steady. We opened the door and… it was completely empty, in the same mess that the other two rooms were. This time, though, there was a message.

“Those little fuckers thought they were so smart, this is the fucking payback, bitches. If that fucker that killed one of ours come back, this is my little message to him: We’re coming for you, motherfucker.”

“Ain’t that nice?” I smirked.

“We just started our quest and you’ve already made enemies? What a good start, don’t you think?” Prickle said by the door.

“We don’t have much choice than rest right now. We’ll search for them by the morning, okay?” I said, burying myself under the blankets. That was better than I thought it would be: A quality bed was as valuable as water these days. They agreed and went each one to a bedroom.

Just to be woken up by an explosion. I threw the blankets in the wall before running as fast as I could with the rifle already in my telekinesis, kicking the room’s door down and being greeted by four shots from a raider in the lower floor. One of them scraped my face, the burning sensation forcing me to close an eye and throwing myself for cover back to the bedroom. “Get that little shit!” one of them screamed. I heard hoofsteps up the stairs, then a metallic noise and the same hoofsteps rolling back from where it came from.

I activated my E.F.S. and noticed five red dots along two green ones, one of them still in its bedroom, the other away from the house itself. I stopped my breath for a moment, felling the whole world around me stop in mid-air. A quick side step, the rifle in front of me. In the middle of its aim, one of the raider’s head. I pressed the trigger, felling the monstrous knockback of the huge-ass gun weaken my telekinetic grasp. I took a step back, going back to where I was moments before. Gasping, I noticed one of the red dots blinking out of existence, and I laughed.

Even with that much power, it was nearly completely silent! The whole barrel was suppressing its noise, and a little smoke came from the butt of the rifle shortly after the headshot. A row of bullets alerted me to my situation, close enough to kill me if I stood where I was moments ago. Another red dot blinked out of existence, and I heard more gunshots under me. I stepped through the doorframe and another mine got other distracted raider, which was impressing as they’re the ones that armed them in the first place.

To my side, Rosy Coral was reloading her combat shotgun behind her doorframe, two bullets taking off part of the wooden panel she used as cover. Again aiming for the head, I flanked the stallion that was shooting her and, in a stroke of luck, he saw me before I made his head splatter in the walls. One of his bullets, from a pistol, hit my new armor, forcing me to take a step back and bruising its area of impact. I lost my aim and hit him in one of his legs instead.

The 5mm bullet took a whole part of his front leg with it, dropping him screaming and kicking in the ground. I floated his own pistol to finish him off with a bullet square in the head. He stopped kicking shortly after. “Patch!” I looked behind me. A beautifully-crafted spear surrounded in a purple magic went straight to my head.

I couldn’t do much to stop it, and Prickle knew it. I closed my eyes instinctively, flinching from its tip which, in turn, just scrapped my forehead with the tackle the unicorn wielding it received from the silver dash. “Damn!” I yelled, taking a step back. Prickle tackled her into one of the walls, and my little pony told me the details shortly after. I didn’t need to see that when her head was a little bit by my hoof, and another bit in the ceiling. Even the wall cracked with that brute-force attack.

“It’s not over yet!” My E.F.S. still signaled me danger, though I couldn’t find where exactly the last raider was. I turned around, searching for the red dot that hated me enough to try to kill me in my sleep. Prickle was breathing heavily from the dash, and his own torso was aching from the impact, his nightstick locked in the side of his armor’s front left hoof, with easy access to him. I took another step to my left, noticing the last red dot walking slowly towards the front door and a green one moving fast in its direction.

Then the drop, a high-pitched squeal and the sound of the shotgun shot reached my ears a little before the red dot blinked out. Coral went back to us wiping her face of the blood of the last raider, panting as heavily as everypony else.  “... fucking… raiders…” I whispered, dropping my flank in the ground.

I activated the S.A.T.S., looking to each of my partners. Prickle had been shot in his flank, though the armor blocked enough of the bullet impact to only bruise him, and his right shoulder had strained in his last attack. Rosy Coral, surprisingly, was completely healthy. “It’s nice that the only mare in our group isn’t hurt or got shot at…” She smiled sleepily with my comment.

We took their weapons and Coral stripped their armors of its metal for small repairs, and Prickle liked how that spear was crafted. "It's pretty lightweight, despite its size. Its completely made of a pretty resilient metal alloy." He spoke. I was the living proof of its sharpness, the small cut in my forehead bleeding profusely. The forehead has many blood vessels and, with the help of the sweat, it looks a lot worse than it actually is. I picked up the same towel Coral used to clean herself and pressed it against the cut to stop the bleeding, using a little bit of my own magic to close the wound. In place of my magic energy, a golden patch covered and closed it, stopping the bleeding.

It was my talent, as it was my cutie mark, and the only different magic that I know besides the basic telekinesis. One trick pony doesn't even makes justice. In one of their saddlebags, over some of the raiders that got his head smashed in by Prickle's Nightstick, we found two bottles of dirty water and two radigator sticks... "Oh goddesses." They came from Arbu. Coral lost her smile at the moment she saw the 'radigator' stick, getting that nauseating look stamped in her face for the second time.

"They're probably using the remains of the town as their hideaway." I spoke to Coral, walking directly past Prickle. I reloaded the rifle that I was starting to name as Stitches in my head (for they'll need to stitch you back in hell, I know I suck at this) and noticed I had only fifty bullets left. The ammo was sold in bulks, but it was really hard to find with the traders that went to Friendship City. The weapons that usually used it were too heavy to be used by anyone without a battle saddle, and they were rarer than purified water around those parts.

"I have it in my map," I kept going. "and everypony that lived here are probably there, as prisioners. We can reach it in three hours if we start now."

"What we're waiting for? Let's go, then!" Coral strapped her shotgun to her back and took a sip of the irradiated water found in one of the raiders. Before she exited the house, though, I called her attention with a hoof stomp.

"Why are you so eager to go there? I'm sure it's not about the raiders, or those ponies." I strapped Stitches back where it belonged and Prickle actually got the spear to himself, strapping it to his back as well. She turned around, this time with a completely serious face that I've never saw before.

"Those... monsters... I-- I'll finish what the Stable Dweller started. That town doesn't deserve to exist..." She was visibly shaken with the whole cannibalism and murder that Arbu did. At the time, I thought it was because they, besides doing those monstrous things, exported the damned meat as radigator's. It was simpler that way, wasn't it?

We had to pick up our pace to reach her, walking alongside to her fit of vengeance. The sun started taking the place of the moon in the cloud-covered sky, and the sickly green light illuminated our way. Prickle noticed how she's been strangely grumpy with the whole 'quest' and approached her. "Remember when we used to sing that Sweetie Belle's old foal music we've found in that holotape? The one that talked about smiles?"

"...come on everypony..." I started, smiling as each word was pronounced. "... smile... smile... smile..."

"Fill up my heart with sunshine... sunshine..." Prickle continued, both of us synchronizing our hoofsteps to the rhythm. That was one of my favorite pre-war songs since I was a foal.

"Come on everypony, smile, smile, smile..." Both of us sang at the same time, waiting for her answer. She didn't say anything, so we just waited. And waited. "C'mon, Coral... You know the lyrics." I said. "Sing with us. To remember the old times..."

She didn't utter a single word. I looked back to Prickle, with a small smile in my face. We never went that well together, but she kept us under line. Coral, with her bumbling personality and strangely happy attitude against the harshness of the wasteland, was half of the reasons we were together at that time.

"If I remember correctly, Sweetie Belle's not the original... It was a tribute or something... Do you remember the start of the lyrics, Prick?" I was deeply sorry I've lost the holotape, dropped from one of the catwalks of Friendship City a long time ago. He started humming a melody that resembled what I remember of the song.

"My name is Pinkie Pie..." he sang, finishing with a simple whisper of 'I think'.

"Wasn't she the head of one of the ministries?" I remember actually seeing a poster with her face and "Pinkie Pie watches you forever!"

Coral relaxed her shoulders over the joke, but still didn't laugh. I looked back to Prickle and kept going. "I think it continues like this: 'And I'm here to say...' or something."

"I can't remember exactly what went after that, but I'm sure it ends with 'brighten your day'." He took a sip of a sparkle~cola he took from his own belongings. He offered me some of it, and I gladly accepted. "The only thing I'm sure to remember is the chorus..."

We went after it at the same time. "Come on everypony, smile, smile, smile! Fill up my heart with sunshine, sunshine! All I really need is a smile, smile, smile..."

Silence. "C'mon, Coral! Help us with this, I know you remember it!" I said, already laughing.

"...from these happy... friends of... mine." I couldn't see her face, but I was sure she was at least smiling. I kept going; Prickle got the idea right and continued to sing too. I heard a whistle, and a little crater opened itself right in front of our eyes, little time before the gunshot reached our ears.

“Fuck! Run for cover!” I leapt inside some ruins, another bullet lodging itself near my flank, in a wooden wall. The ruins were partially destroyed, but they were good enough of a cover to stop the shooting for a while. I breathed heavily, tremulous. Where the hell was the shooter?! I couldn’t see him in my E.F.S., and even the gunshots would betray us. Was he so far away like that?! What chance would we have against that kind of enemy?

“Could you see him?” I glanced at Coral, who shook her head, answering exactly what I thought it would be. Prickle, too, wasn’t that happy with the interruption. “I can’t find him. And he can find us. We can’t leave this place…” I muttered angrily. Prickle was the one in the worst situation here, with melee-only weapons. Despite our predicament, Coral sought the ruins for anything valuable, I thought. “If there was something here, it was took long ago, Coral.” I said, trying to restrain my uncontrolled breathing. I just observed when she took a shot glass and broke its bottom off, then picked up another two and duct taped everything together. “What the hay are you—“

“Perfect!” She interrupted me, looking through the glass in my direction. She threw me the MacNeighvered (She always told me of the adventures of MacNeighver, some kind of trepid inventor and cop, her idol) thing and smiled. “Look through it. You’ll understand what I’m saying when you do.”

“Well, couldn’t hurt.” I floated the apparatus to my right eye and… “H…how did you learn this?!” I questioned her, surprised with how far I was capable of seeing through it. It was the perfect scope to find our strange and probably pretty good enemy.

“MacNeighver’s books, silly.” I told you. “It works, doesn’t it? So use it!” She trotted to me as I leaned out of cover, searching for the sharpshooter. My answer came with another bullet, nearly hitting me and scraping Coral’s mane. I quickly dived back to where I was.

“I couldn’t see him, damn it!” Prickle approached and took the matter in his own hooves, muttering to Coral to strap the thing into his left eye. “What the—“

“I’ll find him for you. And, then, you take the shot.” He said before testing the glass scope and jumping from a table to a cabinet and then to a hole in the ceiling. I used a chair to follow him around and lay beside him. “Let’s see…” He crawled to an opening in the attic we were in, the natural ambience coming from holes in the rooftop and some broken boards along the structure. I followed him, finding a good shooting place and backing Stitches against a beam.

It was silent for something like a minute, when Prickle spoke. “You’re still bitter, aren’t you?”

“…Why would you say this?” I answered, trying to see anything that showed us where our enemy would be.

“It’s clear you’re ignoring me every time and you speak only with her.”  He spoke through his gritted teeth.

“Obviously. You were my friend, then you turned into an asshole. It takes some time to… accept you aga—“

“Right of the lone cactus, near the ridge. Under the rooster in the rooftop of the sheeted roof building.”

I directed my aim to the enemy, barely seeing him even when I knew where he was. It was a good three hundred meters from here. “Y’ think you can do it?” He spoke, without any kind of irony in his voice. I think his concern were valid: It would announce our position to the sharpshooter if we missed. I floated the glass scope over my eye and positioned its aim to Stitches’, focusing on the mohawked raider.

“Sure I can.” I said, turning on S.A.T.S.. My eyes flew through the battlefield, staring the green-shining head of my opponent with full functionality. I stopped breathing, a good measure to stop the gun swaying and, swallowing hard, took my shot. It hit the rooster. “Fuck, I missed!” And was punished with the retaliation, a bullet trespassed the boards I hid, hitting me in my right front leg. “F-fuck!”

Through S.A.T.S., I tried to ignore the pain that burned through my flesh and skin. The hit board broke in four pieces, each piece flowing with the wind, throwing splinters into my face and mane, blocking partially my eyesight. I couldn’t let the sharpshooter take another shot, not after I lost my own cover. I closed my eyes to protect them from the splinters and drew breath, focusing on his green-glowing mohawk (as S.A.T.S. do) and tried my luck.

I smiled and let my breath escapes when I saw the sheets being pushed by the mohawked corpse, breath that easily turned into a shriek when the pain from my leg reached my cerebellum. “D-da-amn it!” I chugged a healing potion and counted mentally to three before shrouding the bullet inside my leg and plucking it out with magic, quickly applying some of my bandages to stop the bleeding.

“Patch? Remember our conversation? Well, I thought you’d be still bitter… C’mon, let’s get to Coral.” He said, picking me up. At first, I tried to stop him, claiming that I was better. And I was a pretty bad liar. After we went back to the first floor, with Prickle’s help, Coral hopped in happiness.

“We did it, guys! Now we can continue!” She looked to my leg. “Oh, yeah… We shall wait a little, then…”

“That’s Arbu, and we just killed their sentinel. They’ll be expecting us. Are you sure you want to—“ I was interrupted by Coral’s stomp, locking her eyes onto me and quickly changing her stance.

“I don’t want to. I need to… They don’t deserve… anything. Not even the same air as us.” I shook my head, opening a sparkle~cola. We would be outnumbered, out experienced and, by the looks of that weapon that raider used against us, outgunned, so it could be probably my last one.

I wanted a last one, damn it.

S: 3

P: 4

E: 3

C: 4

I: 9

A: 5

L: 5

Tags: Medicine, Science, Guns.

Traits: Trigger Discipline, Heavy Handed.

Level: 2

Perks: Rapid Reload