The winds of the Mojave often carried more than just dust and sand in the times of the apocalypse. Whether it was blood or the scents of prey, there was always some form of death floating around in the air, inhaled by all beings that wandered the desolate wastes. One such being was the currently terrified Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn and all round adorkable pony. Said pony was currently hiding behind a large rock, clutching a marksman rifle with a frightened expression on her face as bullets whizzed past and impacted on her makeshift hiding spot.

“THIS IS INSANE!” She shouted at the top of her lungs as hot lead and plasma fire drowned out most of her voice.

“You’ll get used to it!” Arcade yelled from next to her, occasionally popping up and launching a few streaks of plasma at the opposition. “Try popping up and firing a few shots off, you might just hit something.” He said with a smirk, reloading his plasma rifle as he did so.

“Are you Crazy!?” She cried. Another bullet whizzed past her head and smashed into a rock she was facing, causing it to explode into a shower of debris

“No, Red’s the crazy one.” He said, pointing his finger towards said woman. Twilight was shocked to say the least when she spotted Red Standing on top of the boulder she had previously been behind, pointing her rifle towards the vipers as she unloaded round after round into each of them, heads splattering after every shot. Once she had emptied her magazine she quickly holstered it and drew out a long, sleek and gunmetal grey Remington Model 1858 Percussion Revolver from its holster on her waist.

“I Am The Law!” She shouted in a deep gravelly voice as she unloaded each six shots into another six vipers craniums. Twilight watched this all happen with a slack jaw and wide eyes, not quite comprehending what she just saw.

“I get it!” Came the excited response of Willow as she threw a grenade at a group of vipers, killing them all.

“Hey Twilight!” Red shouted after she had ducked back behind her rock to reload. “Shoot at them!” She yelled.

“I am not sticking my head up while they are shooting at me!” Twilight yelled back after she had finally regained control of her jaw muscles.

“Fine, I’ll draw their fire then you use VATS and deal with them!” Red called. This caused Twilight to remember something she had found out about her Pipboy during her stay in Vault 3. She had learned that it had a function called Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System that allowed her to line up actions before doing them with a probability of success.

Twilight hooked up to the Pipboys ocular interface and got ready to initiate VATS. She looked over to Red and nodded her head nervously, giving her the sign that she was ready to go.

“Have at thee foul brigands!” Red shouted loudly as she jumped out from behind her cover and unloaded the shots from her rifle at the vipers, making them turn and all open fire at her.

This gave Twilight all the time she needed to pop up from behind her cover and activate VATS, slowing everything to a complete standstill.

*right, okay, let’s see what I can do* she thought to herself as she flicked between each of her targets. She stopped at a viper who currently had his head popped up from behind the concrete barrier he was using as cover, about to fire at Red. *I don’t want to kill him so I think an arm shot will be fine* Twilight set her shot to fire at the vipers left arm, hopefully disabling him and making him drop his weapon. She then felt herself losing control of her body and it making movements on its own, aiming her rifle and pulling the trigger. The bullet soared through the air and hit the vipers’ upper left arm obliterating the entire limb, killing him almost instantly.

“Nice shot!” Arcade shouted from beside her. Twilight didn’t share his enthusiasm, staring shakily down at the rifle in her hoofs with a blank, wide eyed expression.

“I… I only meant to make him d-drop his gun.” She said quietly, she looked up and saw Spike staring in the direction of the dead viper with his jaw dropped. Twilight realised that she had just killed something right in front of her young son and tried to stutter out a response. “Spike I-“ She started to say before Spike looked over at her and started to speak.

“That…” He started to say, causing Twilight to try and utter out an apology, “That was… AWESOME!” he yelled with a wide grin and excited eyes, catching Twilight completely off guard.

“But I just killed someone!” She protested hysterically.

“It was so cool though, the way his arm blew up and how you just aimed and fired almost perfectly, it was badass!” Spike ranted as he waved his claws around, accentuating his description with wild movements.

“But I killed him!” Twilight yelled, shocked by Spikes lack of care for heinous act.

Spike then realised why Twilight was acting this way and walked up to her and placed a claw on her withers. “Twilight, you need to remember three important things.” He said, holding up three claws. “One, they started attacking first with the intention to kill, which means that even by Equestrian law you are allowed to kill him.” Twilight tried to protest but spike held up his claw to stop her as he continued. “Two, these people have killed, hurt and sold other living beings, all for just some measly money. And three, If we weren’t killing them, they would be killing us, which includes me and all the others.”

All of the things that Spike had said made sense in a crazy way. Equestrian law did allow killing in self-defence or the in the defence of others. It was also true that these people were monsters and deserved to face punishment for their crimes. The last point though made Twilight pause, that was a very manipulative way of making twilight feel far less guilty about doing these things. “How come you don’t care?” Twilight asked confusedly after she had thought about the last point for a bit, causing Spike to shuffle awkwardly on his feet.

“When I told Red about our world she said that I may need to persuade you about killing and that it is not as bad as it is in this world as it is in Equestria.” He looked sheepish for a second but his expression soon became resolute. “It is either kill or be killed in this world Twilight, and no matter how wrong it is to do so, you must do it to survive. If you won’t do it for yourself then do it for me or the girls.” He then gained a mischievous glint in his eyes and smirked. “Or you could do it for Trixie, I’m sure that she would be horribly heartbroken if she found out that you weren’t coming home.” This made Twilight blush as red as a tomato.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Twilight stuttered as she flicked her head from side to side nervously.

“It’s pretty obvious that you like her and she likes you, it’s just that you two can’t see it in each other.” Spike said.

“She likes me too?” Twilight asked with a hopeful smile.

“Blatantly” Spike said with a sharp nod.

This made Twilights heart flutter at the prospect of her crush liking her as well, bringing her to also think about everyone that she loves and how they would feel if she didn’t come home. She also remembered how much Discord was relying on her to bring back his little sister, and if she meant as much to Discord as Spike did to her then she needed to bring her home.

With a firm nod of her head, Twilight got up from her haunches and pulled up her rifle in her magic and started to move out from behind her cover. Only to immediately duck back behind it as a barrage of hot lead soured through the air and peppered the area in small holes.

“Horseapples!” She shouted as she clutched her weapon in her hooves from behind her cover. “How am I going to get a shot off?” She said to herself. She then turned and saw Spike looking at her with one raised eyebrow. “What?”

“They are extremely in accurate Twilight, all of those bullets would have missed.” He said with a deadpan expression.

“Oh. Well then, let’s try that again then.” She said blankly, shifting back towards the edge of the rock and quickly peaking round. A hail of bullets flew in her direction, making her flinch, but after not feeling any pain she opened her eyes to see all the vipers reloading their weapons. Taking the opportunity and starting up VATS, she lined up multiple shots at each of their heads.

*I may not like the fact that I have to kill them, but if I have to then I can at least make it quick* She thought to herself as she ended VATS and let it take control of her movements. Out of the five shots that she had lined up, two of them had missed, two more had made contact and had killed their targets, the last one had caused the vipers head to explode in a shower of blood and gore.

“Good hits!” Red shouted from where she was taking cover. “But can you do this?” She then jumped up and pulled back her left hand and then quickly shot it forward, producing a large ball of fire as she did so that flew towards the Vipers and exploded as it hit one of them in the head. Both Twilight and Spike had a hard time picking their jaws off of the ground after that display.

“What?!?” They both shouted, equally shocked at what Red had just done.

“Bionic Augments are so awesome.” Red said as she used her other arm to whip out her revolver and unload each of its six shots into a particularly armoured viper, tearing off both of his arms and his head. Twilight noticed that her left hand was split open and had shifted into a strange looking mechanical device that was streaming with smoke, and that her left arm had a slight metallic sheen to it that she had noticed. Her mind slowed down to a standstill as it tried to process what she had just seen, flicking through her entire memory to try and find where she might get information on what Reds arm was. Twilight found that she knew nothing about these ‘Bionic Augmentations’ that the redhead human mentioned, meaning that she needed to know about them.

“What are they, where do they come from, how do they work, what powers them, TELL ME!” The frenzied Alicorn yelled, strands of hair popping out at her apparent neurotic state.

“I’ll tell you after the fight if you want.” Red said with a cheeky grin and a fold of her arms.

With the state she was in, Twilight was not nearly as worried about killing the vipers as she was about finding out what these augments were, meaning she was totally fine with killing the vipers if it meant information. To that end, she leaped out from behind her cover and started VATS back up again and lined up as many shots a she could into each of the vipers, some were aimed at heads and others at torsos. When Twilight exited VATS she unleashed a steady stream of rounds into each of her targets, all of which hitting their desired area and killing their target.

“Whoa” Spike said as he watched the vipers start to flee, running in all directions after the battle had been clearly lost. Twilight was just standing on her hooves breathing quickly in and out with pinprick irises within twitching eyes.

“So are you gonna tell me now, are you?” Twilight asked quickly looking at Red with a manic grin.

“I’ll tell once we get back in the truck, okay?” Red said as she holstered her weapons and her left hand shifted back into its normal state. She then turned to Willow and asked, “Can you drive the rest of the way while I talk to miss crazy over here?”

“Sure.” Willow responded as they all got back into the truck and took their seats within.

Arcade, Twilight and Spike took the same seats as they did before, with Boone sitting in the passenger seat of the front with Willow. Red was leaning against the worktable that was adjacent to the seats as she pulled out a small black carton and plucked a cigarette out and lit it using her left hand, her thumb emitting a red glow as she pressed the end of the cancer stick to it. She then lifted it up and took a long drag, inhaling it into her lungs and exhaling it into a small jar.

“So, you want to know about Bionic Augments?” She asked Twilight, the purple alicorn frowning at her use of tobacco but nodding none-the-less. She had calmed down by this point and was under control of her mental state thanks to the help of Cadences breathing techniques.

“Please, it sounds so amazing that all of this is done without magic.” She said with barely contained excitement, shuffling closer to Red and leaning in.

“If we want to start with the basics then I will start by saying that the Augmentation that you saw was the result of the work of a Doctor X, who works in the clinic north east of New Vegas in a partitioned off area. He used reverse engineering to create the Augments that I have off of strange Androids that he had me locate and ‘decommission’ out in the wastes.” Red took another puff of her cigarette and blew it into the same jar as before. “The Augment that you saw me using just then was called fireball and it allows me to shoot out balls of napalm at my targets. I had just lost my arm in a particularly violent fight when I came to the clinic and they directed me to the good doctor for help.”

(Flashback)

“Thank you, that will be 100 caps please.” A young voice said from behind a counter in a dingy but lit room. The owner of the voice was a youthful Asian woman with black ponytail and a kind smile. The name on her badge read Usanagi and she wore the trademark emblem of the Followers of the Apocalypse on her doctor’s coat. After her latest charge had left through the door she let out a long sigh and slumped her shoulders, bringing a hand up to massage her head thanks to a brewing headache.

“Slow day huh Doc.” Came the voice of one of the bodyguards stationed at the clinic, leaning against the wall with a sympathetic smile.

“It’s not that Laurence, it’s just that we only get addicts or people with minor injuries.” She said with a frown, “I mean, I love helping people and it is the right thing to do, but I trained for more than this.” She placed her elbows on the counter and rested her head in her hands. She slowly lifted herself off of the counter when the door started to open and light poured into the room. “I just wish something interesting would happen.” She said quietly to herself.

“You might get your wish Doc.” Came the voice of the woman that had opened the door. Surprised by the fact that this person had heard her, Dr Usanagi shifted her position to get a better look at whoever had entered, and nearly did a double take at what she saw standing in the doorway. An extremely tall woman with red hair was leaning against the right side of the door, clutching her left shoulder with her right arm. Another, shorter woman was holding onto the taller one with a worried expression upon her face.

“Holy shit.” Laurence voiced quietly as he saw the state of the woman, and Dr Usanagi saw why when she stepped further into the room. Her entire left arm was missing and she was covered in huge cuts as well as missing both of her eyes, with a large gash over the front of her face displaying how it happened. The lower half of her left leg was also a mess, barely holding itself together. She was completely soaked in blood from head to toe to the point that there was probably more blood on her than was inside her at the current moment. Through all this though the woman kept a strained smile on her face, shrugging off the help of Laurence as he ran over to help her.

“I’m fine, just direct me to the front desk please.” She said as she hobbled over to Dr Usanagi, leaving a trail of blood on the floor as she went. When she was about a metre away from the counter Dr Usanagi shook herself from her stupor and quickly ran over to help the woman.

“Laurence! Tell Doctor X to prepare his table for a massive surgery.” She yelled as she placed her arm around her patients back. Once she was sure that the guard was getting the doctor prepared, she turned to her patient and asked her an important question. “How in god’s name did this happen!?”

“Decide to fight an alpha deathclaw.” The red haired woman responded with a slight shuffle which Usanagi assumed was a shrug.

“With what, a sword?!” Dr Usanagi was downright shocked by the response from her patient. Instead of the red head answering this question though, it was the blonde haired woman who answered it.

“No, she fought it with a pair of knuckle dusters… idiot.” She said shaking her head.

“He got it worse than me though, you’ve got to admit.” Her friend said.

“Damn it Red, that’s not the point!” The blonde shouted back.

“Sorry Willow.” Red said apologetically, “But he was about to attack a group of nightstalkers and you know how much I love those things.” She pouted at Willow and attempted to do puppy dog eyes.

“Red, I love you, but don’t do puppy dog eyes with no eyes. It is downright creepy.” Willow said with a shudder. Laurence made this an opportune time to burst through the door, interrupting the scarily casual conversation between these two people.

“He’s asking if she can pay for the treatment.” He said with a worried expression on his face.

This pushed the good doctor over the edge. “WHAT?! How can he be so-“

“How much?” Red calmly asked, shocking Dr Usanagi with how little she cared. Laurence leaned back into the room and could be heard talking with someone, after which he leant back in to the room with distressed expression.

“5’000 caps for treating the injuries, 30’000 for getting working replacements and 50’000 for some added functions.” He listed off as he drummed his fingers on the side of the door.

“50’000 it is then.” Red said without hesitation. She then turned to the small flying robot that seemed to almost appear out of nowhere. “ED-E could you go back to the van and grab 50’000 caps and bring them to the good doctor please.” She said kindly, to which she got a few determined beeps.

“You can pay for that?” Usanagi said with a raised eyebrow.

“Don’t let the doc hear this because he will probably charge me more for it, but that is barely anything for me.” Red whispered, holding her right arm up to her face. She quickly brought it back down though when she realised that she needed that arm to stop the blood flow.

When they got through the door to Doctor X’s half of the clinic, they were forced to stop by a force field that was blocking their way.

“Is this really necessary?” Willow asked, looking around the small space with a critical eye as the scanner moved down the room.

“Can’t be too careful in this wasteland.” Came a raspy voice from the intercom to their right. “Jesus Laurence wasn’t kidding when he said you were a mess. Alright get in here quick and set her down on the table.” The voice said as the force field dropped.

“So, you want 50’000 for this then?” Red said as she was lead into the operating room.

“If you can pay for it, then yes.” Doctor X said as he stepped into view of the others. He was wearing a rebreather and a white lab coat, though the most striking thing about him was his eyes. They had White irises that were brightly glowing, causing Willow to squint when he looked at her. “Let’s get you up on the counter then shall we.” He said as he moved out of the way to let the others pass.

“Will you need my help?” Dr Usanagi asked as helped Red up onto the slab.

“Yes actually, I will need your help on doing the surgery on the brain to get her some new eyes. You have knowledge on how to install implants from that NEVADA group right?” X asked, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves and pulling over a canister of knockout gas.

“That was one of my main study points back in the Boneyard yes.” Usanagi replied, pulling on her own set of rubber gloves and a doctor’s mask.

“Okay then, I’m going to have to ask everyone not necessary in this procedure to leave the room now.” X said as he placed the mace mask for the knockout gas over Reds face. He then looked down at Red as she slowly faded into unconsciousness and asked, “How did this happen then?”

“Fist fight with a Deathclaw alpha.” She mumbled with a stupid grin. As she finally lost consciousness she could have sworn she heard the doctor call her a moron.

(End of Flashback)

“Are you serious?” Twilight said with a deadpan stare, Spike mimicking it as well.

“Yep, both my left arm, lower half of both legs and both my eyes are cybernetic and bionic.” Red said with an oblivious smile.

“I was talking about the- *sigh* you know what never mind.” Twilight said as she facehoofed. “What were the upgrades that he gave you for the extra caps?” She asked after she had let the frustration out of her system by vaporising the cigarette butt that Red was about to through in the trash.

“For the arm, he gave me the fireball, the ability to create a kinetic barrier that stops incoming damage, a sort of grapple like energy blast that pulls my targets towards me and a sonic push that flings my enemies away.” She said as she held out her arm and it shifted between each of the different forms for each ability as she listed them off. “For the eyes, I got an AR scanner and enhanced visuals that allow me to scan my targets and view infra-red, night vision and thermal vision.” Twilight watched with awe as Red’s eyes glowed briefly in different colours, expanding and contracting her pupils on a whim. “They doctor threw in another half of a leg for free so that I wouldn’t be walking awkwardly. Those allow me to run a lot faster, create different types of blast waves by stomping a different leg and they also allow me to carry a lot more.”

Twilight was staring at the part-person-part-machine in front of her with a raised eyebrow. “How much of you is actually human?” She asked.

“The doc also had to replace some of my organs as well, meaning I can now breathe under water and my bod heals itself a lot faster. So to answer your question, I don’t really know.” Red answered with a shrug, causing Twilight to grumble. Just as soon as they had finished their conversation though Willow opened up the hatch to the front o f the truck and leaned through.

“We’re here.” She said as she and Boone climbed out.

“Okay then, it’s time for you two to meat Veronica and Vanessa.” Red said as she lead Twilight and Spike out the back of the truck, into the open street, and right into the foot of a giant lizard.

“Wha?” Twilight said eloquently.

Author's Note

Longest chapter yet. Need feedback.

Relevant mods:

Bionic Augmentation
Project Nevada