Fallout Equestria – Morals of the Wasteland

“I wanted to see if you could handle yourself.”

“As far as I cared after hearing that message, a Mother was nothing to me but just a pony who gives birth to you.”

“I’m guessing that electronics aren’t your strongest skills, so I’ll talk you through using the PipBuck as clearly as I can.”

“You're gonna need more practice with that spell.”

“You sure have a funny way of teaching survival.”

“Fear, is a hell of a motivation to act.”

Chapter 4: Darkness and Tight Spaces

As of now, coffins and dark caves have a lot in common in my book. Me and Deadtrot were finally off to find a way out of the tunnels, leaving the rotting corpses behind us.

I was thinking that we had to search the bodies for something useful, but what's to find on living zombies? The one who accompanied me now was the only one here who carried something useful.

Most of what Deadtrot carried were weapons, and saddle-bags full of survival; medicine, ammo, food, everything. Most of the weapons he carried to sell them later.

All I carried was what Brahmins are usually made to carry, which was mostly just junk that general store owners crave. I continued to see little to no benefit of my freedom from Out Town.

The light from my PipBuck and another torch Deadtrot carried lightet our path.

Unsurprisingly, we were passing by a bunch of skeletons. Deadtrot said that they were of Ponies from before the war who hoped this long tunnel would save them from the bombs. Whether it did or didn't, I guess the answer is pretty obvious.

At least they didn't died in vain. They can now house plenty of homeless rats with their corpses. In the Wasteland, even rats have a hard time finding a home. One in which they can last for very long anyway.

Unfortunetly, I myself am a different kind of rat that cannot live inside a corpse. It's bad enough I'm guided by one.

Speaking of corpses, we eventually found a fresh one.

We found a pony, with a dark green coat that was slowly going dead-pale. And his mane was as messy as mine. Several bullets in his chest, and lying faced down in a pool of blood. And there was some of it on the wall too.

"Another great citizen of the Wasteland?" I asked Deadtrot with little sympathy for the poor guy.

"One of many" he answered while he was searching and examining the body. "Finding a pony who was killed the natural way, that's normal, but look, his throat is slit open." I noticed it really was, and THAT'S why the pool of blood was so damn big. And when Deadtrot mentioned the "natural way", I immedeatly figured out it was by being shot.

Examining the wound on the neck, I was thinking that for sure Deadtrot was gonna start drinking from it. The Ghoul instead told me what he figured out from the wounds.

"He was shot, but not killed. Old rusty bullets combined with an old used-up weapon tend to just seriously wound you but not kill you instantly. So he's finished off with a knife to his throat, to die slowly. I recognize that sadistic style. More Raiders"

And I was so glad I would never see Raiders ever again.

"They must have set themselves up a camp in the tunnel up ahead."

You need a reminder? 7 Years of slave-life under the Raiders. It was a very, VERY inviting thought that I would finally get to kill some of those cunts myself.

Nedless to say, I got excited for the idea. I'm sure Deadtrot will like it that I'm finally eager to kill. I thought so as he was reaching for his suddle-bags for weapons. I was carrying the heavy equipment, but off course he wouldn't let me have a gun . . . . . . . until now, that is.

We had plenty of guns in the saddle bags.

Deadtrot loaded his sniper rifle while I stood like a dumb puppy waiting for a biscuit.

When he finished loading it, he finally looked at me with his glowing red, dead eye, and reached for a pistol. I figured it was the same pistol I used on those zombies before. By then I finally knew how to reload a pistol.

Deadtrot was pretty stricked about me using a weapon though, with him being close in range.

With a threatening grin, he gave me a warning,

"There's no telling right now if we can sneak our way past the Raiders, or shoot our way through them. But if you're gonna waste every single bullet, or worse, shoot me instead of them, and I'll detonate the collar."

Every time I remmembered that I still have this bucking collar on, I was feeling more at home. The home I always hoped I'd burn down some day.

Whatever he was ever telling me, he never seemed to have considered a scenario in which he wouldn't live. But imagining scenarios in which I was dead, seemed disturbingly easy for him to picture. Was he really that arrogant? Or proud?

Regardless, he allowed me to have my own gun for now.

The next thing Deadtrott pulled out of the bags was a leather armor. I wondered where he got it from.

He answered after I aksed, "While you were unconscious, I came back to where we last saw the others alive, and grabbed whatever was useful. I also grabbed one of their armors before it got irradiated."

I suddenly had another reminder of ghoulification 101: Ghouls are unique to radiation poisoning.

Deadtrott then ripped off the sleeves and threw me what was left of the armor. The sleeves would obviously be a problem since this armor was before weared by someone bigger than me.

Right after I've putted the armor on, I had the pistol in my mouth again. Right after I was sure where the trigger was, my Zombie companion was ready.

"Follow me" he said without any other instructions. He must have expected me to be as obedient as the slave I still technically was thanks to the collar.

We went ahead for a while. The air was getting annoyingly more suffocating as we went, it was getting harder to breathe. It might have been the fact that this was a long tunnel abandoned for years. Maybe the smell of corpses rottet out the air, but Deadtrott assumed that the air was mostly contaminated with drugs. Believe me, when you first won't recognize Raider territory with displayed corpses, you'll recognize it with the smell of drugs.

I recognized the smell of each drug out there. Drug-manufacturing was actually one of the most easiest jobs I had in Out Town. I still remmember how to make them.

I smelled Mint-als, Dash, Rage, even some Buck. Just smelling all of that at once is enough to give you a high. Luckily it still wasn't enough for me. Working long enough in the Out Town drug-labs made sure of that. And speaking of drug-labs, we were getting close to one.

Deadtrott stopped first. He then stopped me with his left hoof. "Mines" he said before I could respond. Then I noticed what he meant.

I was so glad I still had my PipBuck light on. Landmines were all over in front of us. Another step and I could have started hearing beeps. That's the landmines saying, "Have a nice afterlife".

Not today . . . . . . . . . . hopefully.

We hugged the wall trying to went passed the mines, and as we did, we saw far ahead of us a train-cart lighted by burning trash-cans. Honestly, in a train-tunnel it would be better to hide in train-carts; most likely more loot to salvage there.

We finally started hearing the Raiders inside the carts.

I've heard some sneezes and laughs, and the smell of drugs was getting stronger. And I saw the shadows through the broken windows of the cart.

Our next obsticle through the tunnel, was a small Raider camp, where they just happened to have built a drug lab. Deadtrott noticed a lack of graffiti's on the walls. He said that this meant that they just recently showed up here. Because when Raiders run out of corpses to display their territory, they instead make marks with Graffiti's of skulls, atmoic fire, a lot.

They didn't know we were approaching. It was better for us to leave it that way.

These Raiders putted too much faith in scavengers being dumb enough not to see the mines. Finally a reliefing Wasteland Survival Lesson: Average Equestrian Wasteland Raiders, are much more bucking stupid than ones I've grown up with.

My Ghoul companion threw away the torch and whispered to me to turn off the PipBuck light.

We were finally past the minefield and silently approached the back entrance of the cart. He told me to stay on one side while he moved to the other. He kept giving me hoof signals to stay quite and not to move anywhere.

The cart door finally opened. One Raider exited while trying to sing in an intoxicated state.

"Winter's BUCKED up, Winter's bucked uuuupp, nah nah nah NAH nah nah naaaah"

. . . . . . .

From this overwhelming smell of drugs I could tell that these Raiders would be almost too high to fight us. This one was too high to see us, hiding on the sides of the cart. He just headed towards the landmines with his head spinning all over the place. The high must have made him forget they left mines there. He was so damn bucked-up with drugs his eyes were red. Eyes glowing red, that's a side effect of a near overdose of Dash.

But it wasn't an overdose that would kill him.

Deadtrott then suddenly grabbed him by his head, covered his mouth, and stabbed his neck with a switchblade.

"He he he, You okay out there Trigger? Look, it's good that you're piucking it all out, you won't feel the worse side-effects." One of the other raiders yelled as he heard the sound of blood spilling from the guy's throat assuming that he was piucking.

Well, this "Trigger" did piucked something. His own blood.

Deadtrott came back to hiding by the cart door, and peeked to see how many more of them were in there. I looked too, looking over the edge with just one of my eyes.

This cart had no side-doors, so more were probably on the other side of the cart and because of the rubble, the only way through was inside the cart. Inside it we spotted just three of them, including one that seemed to have been passed out on one of the seats.

With the smell of drugs, I would be surprised NOT to see one of them lying on the floor, unconscious OR dead.

Anyway, only two of them were on their hoofs. One Earth-Pony, the other a Unicorn. The Eart-Pony Raider was sitting nearly in the middle of the cart. The Unicorn Raider was sitting by one of the left seats at the end, making drugs with a small lab set.

The Earth Pony Raider looked even worse than Trigger back there. I could tell he was hallucinating by the way he was moving his hoofs in the air. Empty Mint-al boxes were around him on the floor.

In case you don't know, Mint-als are chems designed to increase a pony's mental state; memory, focus, all that stuff. But for addicts, it's the side effects and taste that matters. This one must have taken too much to feel the intended effects.

Deadtrott gestured to me that I should follow him quietly, while he still held the knife in his hoof. So, we started sneaking inside the cart, and neither of the two Raiders noticed us. One had his focus on the lab while the other one probably had his focus on hallucinatory stars around. Either way he had his back turned on our direction.

Until I screwed up.

Just as Deadtrott was closing in for the next kill, I accidently stepped on one of the Mint-al boxes that the Riader hasn't touched yet. The sound got his attention.

"Son of a DICK!"

I whispered still hoping the Raider wouldn't notice us pass the hallucinations. Then, in just a split second, Deadtrott made sure he will never see anything, ever, and I mean that literally.

The Raider suddenly had Deadtrot's knife stuck in his skull. The Ghoul pushed it into his left eye.

As he screamed in agonizing pain, the Unicorn Raider got off the chem-set just to have the exact same knife thrown into his throat. Deadtrott finished off the still screaming Earth Pony Raider by snapping his neck, while the Unicorn one bled to death.

I couldn't believe that the trotting zombie managed to kill both of them so painfully in just a 3 seconds. I almost gulped out of surprise. I would have told him that this was awesome, until more Raiders showed up.

Turns out two of them were on the other side of the cart. They both entered.

Deadtrott was really showing off his killing skills at that time. He viciously attacked the two next. Taking two Raiders at once in a hoof-fight . . . . .

I wondered if he would start zombie-growling at them. But I was a lot more sure that he would surely berate me for just standing rhitarded and looking instead of helping. Then suddenly he gave me a chance to do more than enjoy the view.

"This ones all yours!"

He told me that while punching in the face one of them in my direction.

The Raider was now lying on the ground in front of me. Noticing me, the Riader stood up and gave me the evil eye. I immedeatly started pulling the trigger of the pistol in my mouth. At this distance, I didn't had to aim.

I pull the trigger more than once, and with my eyes closed, getting ready for the impact of the shot to push me back and possibly even bust one of my teeth. And above all, I was expecting to see the Raider in front of me dead.

But, instead of loud bangs, I hear nothing.

No bullets? Worse. I pulled the wrong thing with my tongue. In all that was happening, I didn't noticed that I accidently pressed safety button instead.

I know, who the buck puts safety buttons on pistols? The most logial answer would be, Ponies who never saw the Wasteland; Ponies before the war. This pistol did looked ancient enough to be from there.

"Bad luck red."

The Raider suddenly with a reliefed grin on his face said that, obviously reffering to my red mane. He was now very eager to freaking stomp me.

Wearing boots with spikes, he rose his hoof and was just about to hit me. Seeing just a little scared colt with a gun (with no freaking bullets), he apperently didn't expected me to be a Slave who is pretty much used to being hit. But being beaten up for that many years by Raiders turned out to be rewarding.

I dodged the hit spitting the pistol out of my mouth in the process. The Raider's reaction showed he was surprised that a colt was smart enough to figure this out.

He swang again, and I dodged a second time. Immedeatly I started thinking fast what to do. Than I saw a sledgehammer by the Raider lying on the seat, who by now was pretty clear, was dead, possibly from an overdose. And this whole time, we thought that he was just sleeping.

I quickly grabbed the Sledgehammer with my teeth. The thought of me smashing that Ghoul's head before, was now possibly going to save my life.

I stood facing the Raider with the hammer in my mouth. He laughed histerically first.

"Hhhaaahahahahahah!! Oh, this is gonna be hilarious! You really thinkg that this is all you need! GO ON! Try to stop me!!!"

He was daring me to kill him with that hammer. As far as I could tell, this Raider thought that being a little colt was all it took to lose in a meele fight.

He wouldn't live long enough to regret that thought.

I triggered the S.T.A.T.S spell again. Everything once again froze. I had a perfect view of the Raider who was just about to jump at me.

Until that moment I didn't even knew that this spell could be used with meele weapons as well.

By now it was clear that this spell would be my main savior in every situation in the future. Hell, it could have possibly saved me if I had it back in Out Town.

I targeted his head. Our distance between each other was close enough. Next I targeted his right hoof.

I flang the hammer almost from the very ground, and whacked it at his jaw. When I hit him, I could have sworn I heard a few of his teeth cracking. I almost cracked my own neck just trying to hold that freaking hammer. The damn thing was so heavy.

Then immedeatly, I swang it again. I hitted his right hoof, just as I targeted with the spell.

What happened next, almost made me regret it.

I hit him just on the side of his knee. Then, I was this time perfectly positive that I heard something cracking. His bone.

The hoof was now bent in a direction where it shouldn't.

The very sight of his hoof-bones being outside the skin . . . . . . . . . not a pleasent memory to say the least. Ditto for the screaming he unleashed.

"AAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGHHH!!!!!!! RRRAAAAAAAAHHHR!!!! YOU LITTLE BASTARD!!!!!"

Now, it was my turn to look down upon him. He lied on the ground screaming out of pain. With one of his hoofs broken in half, I had mere seconds, maybe minutes, before he would try to attack me again.

I used the spell one last time.

His head. Perfect success rate.

I rose the hammer again, having it for a second right above my head. I had to jump with my frontal hoofs to make it right. Releasing the weight of the hammer above my head, I letted it fall on his head.

Now he was definetly dead. Even if his entire head wasn't crushed. Just the half of it.

I don't know why I was panting so hard afterwards. Was it because of how freaking heavy this hammer was, or because I was once again close to dying?

Either way, I looked to the very end of the cart. Deadtrott stood like he was about to congratulate me. I would only assume. You can't see a smile or any other face underneath that gas-mask of his.

Next to him lied the other Raider he left for himself. He was lying on the floor with blood pouring from his mouth.

Deadtrott approached me.

"Was that as satysfying as you possibly always imagined killing a raider to be?"

That meant that he obviously knew of my deep hate for the Raiders of Out Town. I was compelled to answer him only after I took a look at the Raider I killed.

I moved the end of the hammer from his head. His lower jaw was completely dislocated from the rest of his head. I certianly left a mark with that hammer, seeing how part of his face was now flattened. It was fair to assume that his skull certianly had cracks in a few places.

It didn't felt satysfying to look at his dead eye that was still open. Aren't dead Ponies supposed to have their eyes closed?

But after I've let go of the hammer, I answered his question nonetheless, with sarcasm.

"Sure, it felt satysfying. It will be even more satysfying when it will be your turn."

I should have possibly thought this through before giving him that answer.

"Oh right." he responded with a happy altitude "Who doesn't love to kill Ghouls, am I right? Espescially ones like me, who can most certianly kill you."

That's when I realized I've pissed him off.

He striked me in the face with his hoof. This time I didn't dodged in time.

He then grabbed me by my armor and lifted me off the ground. He was serious about what he said next. And he said it angrily.

"Listen to me you little shit! This is the Wasteland. We will both die in it at some point. But I promise you, no matter how fast you learn, no matter how hard you try, you WILL die long before I will. The very collar alone, is just one of many things that will ensure that. You want to at the very least live longer? At least until you see your Mommy dearest? Don't ever threated me again. Do you hear me?"

He released me after I nodded for him.

Hell of a first experience in killing another Pony. And did I had any remourse? If the life taken was one of Raiders? Absolutely bucking Not.

We've spend the next several minutes salvaging what we could. What we found most of, was chems. The amount of them we found, looked like enough for both of us to OD to death. Deadtrott said that we should take them anyway.

I assumed that he may have got an addiction to chems.

The Raiders didn't have much in their pockets, other than just more chems, a bit of ammo to my pistol, cigarettes, and several caps.

Deadtrott then took a look outside on the other side of the cart, and I immedeatly followed him. He hit the Jackpot of this search.

Outside where those two other Raiders surely stood guard, there were several wooden stretched boxes by the door, right behind piles of rubble, that surely were meant to provide cover. Deadtrott took a look into ones in the corner left of the door. THIS was where the Raiders kept most of their weapons.

By now, we had space in our bags only for a few audditional weapons, so Deadtrott picked the ones that would make most caps, which were also the most interesting.

Inside the boxes were several grenades, more mines, at least two rifles, but Deadtrott took only one thing. A laser rifle.

Now, eversince the first time in Out Town I was ever sent to the caves to search for gemstones, I've always fancied Energy weapons. There was just something about turning your enemies into ash that kind of grabbed my attention.

Back then I could have simply said that I had a thing for weapons of PURE AWESOMENESS!!!

Off course, Deadtrott wouldn't let me have it. He surely grabbed it so he can sell it. The very ammo alone to that weapon costs a lot of caps, from what I heard anyway. But that's not to say I kinda didn't hoped we'd get another opportunity to fight, and we would need to use that weapon.

I was hoping to find one of those awesome weapons in another one of those boxes. I went to check the one in the right corner. I was so excited, which weapon I would find there. Pressure increases, I open, look inside, and surprisingly all I find in there is a burned-up Teddy Bear.

. . . . . . .

A dirty, burned, shitty, useless Teddy Bear, just standing there in the very middle of the box, staring at me as if he's about to giggle that I didn't get what I wanted.

Why haven't I found anything valuable to salvage yet? In my first salvaging experience all I find is jack-shit.

That summed up our salvaging, and Deadtrott then grabbed me by my armor and ordered me to move. The tunnel still seemed to have been going for miles and miles. I almost couldn't believe that we literally had a mountain above our heads.

I hoped that it wouldn't crumble.

Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk: Wild Wasteland: Wild Wasteland unleashes the most bizarre and silly elements of post-apocalyptic Equestria. Not for the faint of heart or the serious of temperament.