Red and Twilight arrived back at the van soon after they had left McCarran with the alicorn still curled up in Red’s arms. Just before they were about to enter the truck, Red looked down at Twilight and Placed her on the ground.

“You okay?” She asked, leaning against the doorway.

“Yeah… I guess?” Twilight said uncertainly. “I think I’ll be okay.”

“Well, if you want to chat, then you’re always welcome to talk to me.” Red said as she squatted down and placed her hand on Twilights shoulder. She got back up and was about to open the door when Twilight spoke.

“Red… can I talk now?” She said, rubbing her left fetlock on her right foreleg.

“Sure, let’s sit over here.” Red said as she gestured for Twilight to follow her to a slightly damaged, but still standing bench. They both sat down on the bench, Twilight lazily flying onto her seat and Red carefully plonking herself down as to not break it. “So what did you want to talk about?”

“Would… would you say I’m being desensitised to violence?” Twilight asked, shuffling awkwardly in her seat. “I mean, I never would have agreed with killing anything before I came here.” She looked up at Red to see the woman staring ahead, a tired expression on her face.

“You are more than likely desensitised to violence, but a better question to ask is do you think that it is good?” Red said after a bit, her eyes never leaving the horizon.

“No, I don’t like violence at all.” Twilight frowned, her hooves brushing over her body until she found one of the many small scars that had been left by her time in Vault 3. They were barely noticeable thanks to her fur, but she knew where each of them was located, she could feel them constantly. “But I can’t help but want to inflict it on them.” She sighed.

“The Fiends?” Red said as she finally broke her gaze and looked down at Twilight.

“Yeah, they hurt me more than anything else ever had.” She said petulantly, clenching her eyes shut as a wave of pain crept up her entire body, making her shudder. She reached behind herself with her magic and pulled the box of Fixer from out of the straps, opened it and took one of the large disc shaped tablets. It tasted slightly of lemon. “In more ways than one.”

“Did Arcade give you those?” Red questioned lightly, an expression of sympathy adorning her face.

“Yeah. He said they would help when the urges came back.” She placed the tin back into the straps on her back and finished chewing on the tablet. “I’ve had to take three so far, one before I went to bed, one when I woke up and one at lunch.” Twilight shifted on her haunches and rubbed her hooves together. “I haven’t had to deal with anything like this before.”

“Addiction and withdrawal are two sides to the same, blood coated coin.” Red said as she opened up her backpack and pulled out another tin of fixer and handed it to Twilight. “They are both the terrible results of something that seems great, the positives almost never outweighing the negatives.”

“Why take the risk then?” Twilight asked as she put the new tin under her straps.

“Because sometimes the chances that the positives stop something horrible happening are too great not to risk.” Red said as she got out a bottle of water and took a swig, offering Twilight a blood bag at the same time.

“I still don’t know I got addicted to blood though.” Twilight said, looking down at the blood bag in her hooves as she lined up the ‘straw’ to her mouth.

“I’ve seen weirder things.” Red said as they both sat there in relative silence and drank their beverages. Red finished hers first and put the empty bottle back in her bag and settled to looking back at the horizon. “I’ve heard stories of people who rejected cannibalism and instead decided to drink blood bags.”

“I don’t think it’s quite the same… at least I hope I don’t become a cannibal.” Twilight looked at her now empty blood bag and handed it to Red. “I don’t think there are laws in place in Equestria to deal with that.”

“Can I let you in on a little secret?” Red said as she nervously looked around. “You have to promise not to tell anyone.”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” Twilight said as she did the coveted pinkie promise.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Red said with a raised eyebrow before getting back on track. “I may have, ever so slightly, taken [art in a teensy bit of cannibalism once.” Red winced and rubbed her arm nervously.

Twilight just looked up at her, both eyebrows raised and questioning. She looked Red up and down as she tried to gauge if she was giving of any cannibalistic vibes. “You don’t seem the type.” Twilight said carefully after a while.

“It was back when I was young, before I met Florence.” Red said quickly, waving her hands widely.

“I guess I can’t say I know what going mad is like… well maybe not the way you’re talking about.” Twilight said as she thought back to a certain occasion with a doll and spell. “Anyway, you weren’t in your right mind, so I won’t hold it against you.” Twilight brushed a lock of mane out of her eyes and shuffled a bit in her seat. “I would hope you’re not doing it anymore though, that is less excusable.”

“Yeah, I gave that up a long while ago.” Red chuckled bitterly, “Almost got plain shot by the NCR for that, thankfully, that was when Flo found me and took care of me.”

“What happened to this ‘NCR’ anyway, I don’t see them around here?” Twilight asked, her eyes roaming the wastes as if to try and spot any signs of them.

“They’re still around, they tend not to come into the Mojave though since I we kicked them out.” Red laughed and lit a cigarette and inhaled its poisonous fumes.

“How can you stand those things, aren’t they really bad for your lungs and other organs?” Twilight grimaced and leaned away from Red as she exhaled.

“I thought I told you that I’ve probably more synthetic parts in me than a pack of Fancy Lad Snack Cakes?” Red said with a raised eyebrow as she looked down at Twilight, who smacked her hoof one her forehead.

“Sorry, forgot about that.” She said as she lowered her hoof from her face. “Getting back on track though, what are the NCR doing now?”

“In general? They’re still running their states with taxes and secret observation, while the army are holding the borders against raiders, tribals and the remnants of the Legion.” Red sneered and took another drag of her cigarette. “In relation to the Mojave? They are keeping their distance and watching the borders, the only place they are allowed to step on being the Mojave Outpost.”

“Won’t we be passing through there when we travel to the Sierra Madre?” Twilight questioned.

“Yep.” Red said cheerfully.

“Isn’t that a bad idea?” Twilight worried, a questioning look being directed at Red.

Red just leaned back on the bench and smiled. “I would be worrying if the post was being manned by generals and colonels and not lower ranked soldiers. Because, while the politicians and highest ranks of the military dislike me heavily, the masses and lower ranked soldiers find me to be a very good inspiration of what to be like, ignoring the going against the NCR bit of course.”

“Surely they have to follow orders though?” Twilight asked as she hopped off the bench to stretch her legs.

“That would be the case if they weren’t running a democracy where a big decision like killing the powerful, non-violent leader of another city would require a majority approval vote, which every time it has been put forward has been scrapped faster than a car in luddite territory.” Red grinned and brought her cig up to her mouth.

“Didn’t realise you were so popular.” Twilight smirked as she stretched in a similar fashion to that of a cat.

Red was about to retort when the sounds of a firefight could be heard nearby with wild shouts accompanying the shots, indicating Fiends or raiders to be the culprits.

“What’s happening?” Twilight asked as she jumped up onto her hooves and grasped her rifle in her magic.

“Sounds like a fights going down, and by the sounds of it it’s raiders of some kind c’mon!” Red shouted as she started running towards the gunfire, Twilight having to gallop to keep up with her.

“God damn fucking Fiend bastards!” Came the shout of a particularly irate caravan guard who, along with the rest of the crew, was taking heavy fire from the aforementioned Fiends.

“How fucking many of them are there?!” another of the guards shouted before a bullet tore through her skull, splattering it across the wall behind them.

“Fuck!” the first guard shouted. “Rachael’s dead!”

“We can’t keep this up for much longer Tony!” Another guard shouted to the first.

“Just keep your head down and don’t get shot!” Tony yelled to the rest of the group, popping up and letting loose a few shots from his 44’.

“That is easier said than FUCKING DONE TONY!” another guard, this one a woman, shouted as she clutched her bleeding stomach with one hand before grunting and twisting to get a few shots out with her 10mm.

“Just hold on Keri, once this battles over we’ll get you to McCarran.” Another guard said from next to Keri as he ducked his head to avoid stray laser fire.

“When this battle is over the Fiends will be looting our corpses!” The owner of the caravan shouted from behind a concrete barrier that been moved to face long ways across the road. “As well as my caravan!” He leapt up and fired a good few shots with his assault carbine before ducking back down behind cover as a hail of lead tore through where he was previously.

“If we make it through this, you are paying us triple Davidson!” Tony shouted from his position.

“I won’t be able to pay you jack if I’m not alive!” Davidson argued loudly.

“OH FUCK! Is that a Gatling Laser?!” The guard with Keri shouted, just in time to receive a veritable storm of laser beams to his face, completely eviscerating it.

“SAMSON!” Keri screamed, her good arm reaching out to the now headless body of Samson.

“We are so fucked.” The last unnamed guard shouted as he reloaded his hunting rifle.

“Don’t give up yet Reid!” Tony called, “There’s still a chance we can survive!”

“What the hell could save us now!?” Reid shouted as he tossed a grenade over the cover. “Nothing short of a god could save us now!”

“I don’t think I’m quite god status yet.” A voice rang out as a shadow was cast over them from above. The owner of the voice jumped down into the middle of the battle, silencing even the fiends as the floor cracked underneath her.

“Is that who think it is?” Tony said as he looked up over the cover at the mysterious woman.

“If you’re thinking of the Courier then yes, yes it is.” She said as she whipped out a Remington Model 1958 and fired off all six shots, each shot splitting a fiends head. She then leapt back behind the same cover the guards were behind as the Fiends gunfire resumed with vigour.

“Fuck me.” Reid whispered out as Red lent against the same cover he was behind, a smile never leaving her face.

“I don’t think my fiancé would approve of me doing that, but thanks for the offer.” Red said cheekily, causing the guard to sputter. She turned and popped her head up and fired a couple of shots the Fiend with a Gatling Laser, a few beams of the laser scorching the area around Reds head but not making any actual hits.

“T-that’s not what I meant at all!” Reid shouted indignantly, throwing another grenade into a large grouping of fiends, scattering pieces of them into the air.

“Don’t you find me attractive enough?” Red asked as she mock pouted and positioned her body to accentuate her ‘assets’.

Reid just blushed and kept his mouth causing Red to laugh and stand back up and empty the rest of the rounds in her revolver into the crowds of Fiends. She shrugged off any shots that hit her, merely reacting to the force before straightening back out again. She knelt back down once all her shots had been fired and began to reload her gun and checked to see which shots she had taken mattered.

“Goddess damn it Red, how can you run faster than a quadruped?” Twilight muttered to herself as she panted after her long gallop to catch up with Red. She slowly walked up to the edge of what appeared to be a large concrete trench with a road going along the bottom of it. Twilight almost instantly spotted Red among a few other people, three males and one female. As she looked towards what they were fighting her heart almost stopped at the sight of the Fiends.

Twilights mind was fight with whether to run or to fight, the fearful part of her mind telling her that they might somehow get hold of her again and repeat her treatment. The Rest of her mind was screaming at her body to rip them to shreds and brutalise them all. This side one out against to the feeble excuses of her minds fearful part. With what looked like practised ease she entered V.A.T.S. and lined up as many shots onto the Fiends that she could and released, her rifle unloading five of her loaded shots into five different bodies, four dying and one collapsing onto the ground howling in pain. She then, using the tips Red taught her, aimed at another of the Fiends heads and pulled the trigger, a bullet loosing from the barrel and tearing through the air and the targets head. The process was repeated for each of the remaining four bullets in her rifle, before the fiends started firing on her. She managed to avoid being hit by the gunfire and ducked behind a brick wall between her and the Fiends.

As she was reloading she peered round the corner to look down to see how Red and the other people were doing. Red was still fighting with her revolver and every now and then she would launch a fireball out of her arm, ducking back down when reloading to talk to the guards. Said guards had gained a second wind when The Courier had dropped down to help them and were each killing a respectable amount of Fiends. She was about to go out behind the wall when the wounded woman sitting against a concrete barrier got hit by one of the Gatling Lasers shots, the beam striking her firing arm causing her to let out a scream of pain.

The scream made something in Twilight snap, her memories going back to the nights in Vault 3 and her own screams. Her Vision went crimson and her rifle lay forgotten on the floor by her hooves as she leapt into the air fast enough to cause a huge gust of wind to kick up a cloud of dust. The soured through the air towards the Fiend with the Gatling Laser at a speed that could rival Rainbow Dash, dodging gunshots with professional ease as the Fiends tried to desperately shoot her down. As the Gatling Laser was turned on her she tilted her wings before quickly bringing them tight against her body causing her to aileron roll through the stream of lasers, snapping them open again quickly, flapping and then barrel rolling around the beams.

Just as she was about to plow into the Fiend, she used her wings to turning entre bod around so that her rear hooves were pointing towards his head. To everyone watching, time almost seemed to slow as Twilight unleashed a magically enhanced flying buck to the Fiends head, shattering it completely and spraying gore behind him in a cone of red. Twilight flipped in mid-air, landed facing the rest of the Fiends and skidded a few feet before charging at breakneck speeds towards another of the Fiends unlucky enough to be in front of her. She gored his throat with her horn before sending a burst of magic into it, severing his head and splattering her with blood. Without a second even going by, she was galloping towards another Fiend and slicing any others that got in her way with the discarded blades of the already dead Fiends.

Once she reached the one she was originally going for, she leapt up onto her shoulders and snapped her neck with her hooves while holding her body upright with her magic. As the, now lifeless, body stood upright with Twilight perched on its shoulders it lifted up its weapon and began firing on the rest of the Fiends, Twilight ducking behind the body whenever shots were fired at it. After the gun ran empty Twilight pulled the pins on the body’s grenades through it into a group of Fiends. It was at this point that Red decided to join in on the melee that was taking place, her first action being to leap up onto one of the concrete barriers and using it to jump onto a Fiends head, smashing it as she crushed it into the ground.

The fight continued for about a minute until all the Fiends were either dead or had fled from the two demons that had ripped them to shreds. Stood among the bodies was one grinning woman and one blood coated mare, both of whom were panting heavily as the adrenaline began to wear off.

As Twilight finally came down from her anger induced high, her clouded mind came into focus and she actually saw what she had done. She stood speechless for a good few seconds before she looked down at her hooves, all four of which were coated in blood that was quite obviously not hers. She threw up violently as the whole scene fully soaked in and she realised that she had done this.

“It’s not pretty.” Red said as she began pouring some water over Twilights coat to try and get the blood out. “But, for what it’s worth, they deserved this.”

“I-I d-did this.” Twilight stuttered as she hacked and spat to get the taste of vomit out of her mouth. “So easily.” She whispered as tears poured down her horrified face.

“What do you feel?” Red asked as she turned Twilight to face her and looked deeply into the mare’s eyes.

“I-I… horror.” Twilight finally settled on. She looked around at the mutilated corpse that lay around her. “Disgust” She then looked at the faces of the fiends that still had them and the clothes that they wore, her mind flashing back to the Vault. “But no guilt.”

“I never do feel guilt for these things anymore either.” Red said as she looked around the bodies with a clear expression of disgust on her face. “If I was killing NCR I would feel guilt, if I was killing a man who had done bad things but didn’t want to continue I would feel guilt. These… monsters though?” Red spat the last bit out like it tasted bad. “I don’t even think twice, whether it’s Fiends, Raiders or the Legion, I shoot them down with nothing but a sense of pity.”

“Why?” Twilight croaked out, the tears still flowing even though she wasn’t actually crying.

“I pity them because they lost their humanity, but I don’t think twice because they enjoy the fact they don’t think twice either. That’s something I don’t enjoy no matter what.” Red took out another bottle of water and began rinsing Twilights main of the worst bits of blood and gore, said alicorn was ruminating on the information that Red had given her. As this was happening, the three guards and caravan boss walked up to the bloodbath, Keri being helped along by Reid while Tony kept an eye out for more Fiends and Davidson kept his eyes on Red and the small purple equine that she was cleaning.

“Thanks for the save.” Tony said as he holstered his magnum in its holster. “Though I don’t think this was necessary.”

“I think they deserved every bit of it.” Keri spat at the corpse of the Fiend who wielded the Gatling Laser.

“Are you guys going to be okay to get to McCarran?” Red asked as she used a third water bottle to get any last bits of blood off of Twilight.

“I think we’ll make it.” Davidson said as he started looting the corpses along with Tony. “Damn shame about the others though.” He sighed.

After a few minutes of exchanging small talk, the guards and caravan boss had gathered all that they could carry and left to reach McCarran, Red having given them a slip of paper that made sure that they could get through the main gate quicker. It had turned out that Twilight had taken more hits than she previously thought, the scorch marks of laser fire on her left foreleg being any indication. Red had decided to carry the mare, against Twilights half-hearted protests, and they were now at the door to the truck. Red set her down and opened the trucks backdoor and lifted Twilight up into the truck, where she proceeded to limp over to the medicine box and take out a syringe of Morphine and inject it into her injured leg.

“I suppose using your addiction for its intended purpose is a good enough excuse to take it.” Red said as she walked into and shut the door, spotting Spike asleep with his head on the desk next to the closed Wasteland Survival Guide.

“I’m too tired for anything right now.” Twilight said with a sigh and a yawn, her haunted eyes drooping and her limbs weakening.

“Let’s get you to bed then.” Red said in a motherly tone as she lifted Twilight by her armpits (foreleg pits?) and placed her onto the top bed and tucking her in with a spare blanket that was under one of the seats.

“Thank you Red.” Twilight said drowsily before she let out a long yawn and her eyes closed completely.

“Don’t mention it Twilight.” Were the last words Twilight heard before the exhaustion finally took hold fully and she was lost to the world of the waking.

Author's Note

This chapter took far too long.

I don't believe I mentioned any new mods in this chapter.

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