Fallout: Equestria - Sunny Days and Lonely Nights

Chapter 3: City Scum

“Insanity is just a synonym for imagination.”

Crackle

“Good morning, Baltimare! Today is day number seventy thousand five hundred and ninety eight since the implementation of the Baltimare Preservation Project!”

I jerked awake with a snort by what sounded like a megaphone blaring into my ear. Sitting up straight, I saw that the first shafts of morning cloudlight penetrated through the tattered curtains that had been left closed for who knows how long. Tiny particles of dust floating up through the air and light shafts, giving more authenticity to the atmosphere of this run-down house.

“Morning routines start now. Don’t forget to take a shower and put a smile on your face for your lovely mayor! Have a wonderful day.”

My ears folded back against the sides of my head in an attempt to drown out that horrible, chipper voice. Slowly I looked from wall to wall and spotted the offending megaphone nestled into the corner of the ceiling on the opposite side of the room. I pulled out my revolver and took aim at the absolutely ridiculous noisemaker, but before I could get a shot off it crackled once again and shut itself off. Asshole.

With a big, chittering yawn, letting the revolver fall out of my mouth and drop to the floor, I rolled over onto my belly and stretched my back out. I heard a few good pops that put quite the satisfactory smile on my face. Oh, I could just fall back to sleep right now. I couldn’t have slept for that long and we were tucked away in the back corner of this cul de sac, so what harm was there?

“You weren’t going to shoot that megaphone with your revolver, were you?”

I squeaked and my eyes shot open, spying Estoc watching me from the entrance to the kitchen. What was he smirking at? He didn’t catch me off guard or anything. I’m still waking up, damn it.

“What about it?” I grumbled after another yawn, sitting up onto my haunches.

“I know how much of a morning pony you are.”

I scrunched my nose up at him. “That thing was loud as fuck! You heard it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, something about another one of those military projects and how the nice mare was wishing you a good morning,” Estoc said, rolling his eyes.

“It’s a megaphone built into someone’s house. How’d you like it if there was one of those things installed in your wagon back in the caravan and I woke you up every morning just like that?”

He leaned against the kitchen door. “I wouldn’t mind it.”

My cheeks flushed with heat while the tips of my ears burned. What the hell did he just say to me? I’m trying to prove a point here! Who wants to be woken up by none other than a nagging voice so that they can get their day going? Not that my voice is nagging or anything.

After giving Estoc a brutal stare, I quite intelligently said, “Fuck off,” and turned to look away from him. I can’t be put up by his sarcastic humor right now.

I heard the soft patter of Estoc’s hooves as he stepped closer to me. “Can’t let someone appreciate your constant, grumpy barking for one minute?”

“I appreciate it as much as the stumpy pecker between your legs,” I said, catching him sitting down next to me out of the corner of my eye.

“Shots fired. Lighten up a little bit.”

I sniffed. “I am. I’m making jokes about your dick, or does that not count anymore?”

“Have it your way,” Estoc chuckled. “You want a can? We’ve got plenty.”

I almost told him no, but the sudden pain in my stomach at the mention of food stopped me. Luckily we had picked up more cans on our way to wall and we were well stocked, but then again we’ve got to think about how long we might be stuck here. I doubt zombies and that giant bat eat old pre-war food, but they can’t be the only ones roaming around this city.

While I was busy mulling over our food options, my stomach growled and gave my hunger away. Fucker. Hunger doesn’t matter when we need to conserve food.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Estoc said, getting back up onto his hooves to walk over to his bags.

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I said with a huff.

I moved myself over to the window looking out onto the front lawn of the house while Estoc got us some cans. Tiny, deadened wisps of grass blowed lazily from an early morning breeze, hardly improving the ramshackle look of the house itself. A crooked mailbox sat out near the street, looking ready to blow over and down the sidewalk as soon as the breeze picked up anymore than it already had.

It’s hard to say which I prefered more; the scattered, ruined houses out in the Wasteland or the admittedly more preserved houses inside Baltimare. They all look like they’re ready to collapse, but at least paint still clung to the walls and all of the windows hadn’t been shattered quite yet. It gave Baltimare a little bit more life to it. Well, as much life as there is in a withering old dog who’s on their last limbs before curling up under a bush to die.

“I got you vegetable soup,” Estoc said, setting a can down on the window sill. I didn’t even hear him walk up behind me.

I glanced up at him before popping the can open with my fangs.

“Thanks, Estoc,” he continued, mimicking my voice very poorly. When he failed to get any response out of me other than a casual eye roll, he added, “You think of our next move since you’ve been peering through these blinds?”

Oh. Oops. Yeah, sure…

“G-give me a second to gather all of my thoughts together,” I muttered, digging into my can.

“Ya huh, take all of the time you need.”

I fucking hate him sometimes.

Okay, so, turrets make flying over the wall a no-go. They’re getting power from something in the city. There was that apartment with the working lights, too… A city this big couldn’t be running on a centralized power grid, though, could it? I mean, we didn’t see any power stations on our way to the wall and on our way over here, so it’s possible.

“There’s gotta be some kind of running generator somewhere,” I said quickly after my brief silence. “That turret can’t be the only working turret in the whole city, and you saw how the apartment complex was still getting power, too?”

“The fluorescent lighting, right?”

I nodded my head. “Yeah. There might be a centralized power grid that’s giving power to both the wall and the rest of the city. I mean, what sense would it make for both to be receiving power if they weren’t connected in some way?”

“That means that our next destination’s a power station.”

“If you know where that is, feel free to lead the way.”

Estoc turned around so that he could lean his back up against the wall next to the window. “If we can get our hooves on a city map then I’m sure we’d be able to find it. One problem, though. This power grid’s funneling power to the turrets, right? And the turrets are what keeps ponies like you and me inside of the city, which means that the slavers are going to have their slimey talons clamped down hard on that power station. I don’t know what kind of equipment they have access to, but if they’ve got working Griffonchasers, then I can only assume that they’ve got access to other powerful pre-war tech.”

I grimaced. Estoc’s right. The turrets were half of the slavers’ plan for containment so of course it’d be pretty likely that any power station directing power to them would be well guarded. Worse yet, what if the station isn’t even inside of the city? What if it’s somewhere outside of the wall? It could be that the slaver base where we were loaded onto the Griffonchasers is Baltimare’s central power station.

There was another option, though.

“The Griffonchasers can fly freely over the wall, right?” I confirmed, watching as Estoc slowly lifted his eyebrows. “Couldn’t we steal one of those?”

“Steal a Griffonchaser?” Estoc asked. “You haven’t told me any stories about how you were dropped on the head as a filly. Do you understand how insanely risky that would be?”

I nodded. “Yes. I saw what those slavers were packing when they dropped us off. I’m not saying that we go back and wait for a Griffonchaser right now. We’ve got two pistols between us.”

“And I’m dry on ammo.”

“Wait, what? I didn’t hear you fire off fifteen shots.”

“Only because whoever used it last must have fired the gun himself before he was viciously drained of all of his blood.”

I felt myself grinding my teeth together. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

“I figured that I’d find some more ammo while we were out scavenging,” Estoc replied with a shrug, “but nope. All I found was some .308 and more .44 ammo.”

My eyes widened. Oh, that dick.

“You found more .44 ammo and didn’t tell me!?” I complained.

“You were asleep,” Estoc said calmly.

Oh.

“I decided to do some more scavenging and searched through all of the other houses in this cul de sac,” he continued. “Found three more rounds to top off your revolver, the .308 rounds, as well as a gun safe. I didn’t try to crack the safe, though, since I figured that you might want to see inside when we do get it open.”

“You could have woken me up,” I muttered.

Estoc looked like he was about to respond, but something that made his ears twitch caught his attention. He spun around to sit next to me and pulled the drapes out of the way of the window to get a good look outside with me, and that’s when I heard it. Several voices echoed from further off down the street. They were muffled and unintelligible, so it was impossible to discern who it was until they came into view.

And of course they would be raiders. There’s raiders everywhere, don’tcha know?

Two earth ponies and a unicorn wearing blackened, spiked armor came strutting into the cul de sac. The unicorn wore his spiked armor on his shoulders and hind legs, carried what looked like a battle rifle on his back, and had a blade that ran up along the length of his whole horn that I can only imagine was used for impaling other ponies. One of the earth ponies only wore one spiked shoulder pad, but he had armor covering his belly and back hind legs and carried a machete on his side, while the other also wore one spiked shoulder pad and had armor covering all four of his legs. He carried a long spear that looked as if it was just a knife blade attached to a long stick.

The unicorn walked ahead of the two earth ponies, mania emanating clearly through his eyes as he gave the cul de sac a quick glance over. When his eyes started to move towards our house, Estoc and I quickly hid behind the drapes and perked our ears. When our own eyes met, we both cringed and waited for someone to break the dead silence with their voice or gun fire.

“Alrighty, boys!” one of the raiders said in a nasally tone. “We need these ‘ouses searched and we need ‘em searched pronto! Don’ try an’ carry anything, just take inven’try and move on, got it? Yeh? Moe, you get this side and Curly get that side.”

My eyes darted towards the other side of the living room where there was a door leading out into the backyard. Luckily this house was more towards the back of the cul de sac so we had some time to maneuver around these guys.

“Let’s get out of here,” I whispered, my eyes returning to Estoc.

“Already way ahead of you, filly,” he replied, placing his half eaten can on the ground.

I did the same, and together we gathered up our saddle bags as fast as we could and crept over to the backdoor. With my ears perked, I heard the raider closest to us fumbling around in the house only a few doors down from us. He tossed what sounded like furniture and glass around, probably searching for bullets or anything that shines a little bit to wear around his neck. What fucking vultures.

Estoc lined up behind me when I reached the back door first, so I twisted the handle and pulled. Luckily the squeaks from the old, rusty hinges hardly echoed any louder than a dropped pen, so we shuffled our way out into the backyard and closed the door behind us. The back was in no better condition than the front. Dirt covered most of the ground while old, rotten shrubbery covered the rest, struggling against the cloudy sky and arid landscape to stay alive just a few days longer.

A concrete wall blocked us from crossing into the next house over in the other cul de sac, and we didn’t dare fly over the top in case we were spotted, but on either side of us it was wide open so that we could move into either neighbor’s yard. Of course, being that we didn’t want to stick around here any longer than we absolutely had to, we advanced along the shortest route to get us back out onto the main street and out of this cul de sac.

As we reached the edge of our house we stopped. I stuck my head out around the corner to check the gap between the two houses and the circular, open roundabout ahead. No raiders. We could still hear them rummaging through the houses, but they weren’t out on the street anymore, giving us some freedom to continue on.

The next house did have a fence surrounding it this time. A little gate had been left open with a patch of tall grass growing in the middle of it, so I made a beeline straight for it so as to avoid risking crawling over the fence posts and making some noise. The posts themselves were spread evenly apart to leave little gaps between them, so in the other yard you could see that significantly more dead grass was growing here, replacing the ugly dirt that covered the last house.

At the edge of the gate Estoc and I halted again, craning our necks up to see if we could look into any of the back windows. And we couldn’t. They were either covered by drapes just like the last house or boarded up. All clear then. I took a step through the gate.

CLICK

Next thing I knew, searing pain ripped through my right hind leg and coursed into flank. It felt as if something’s jaws had just clamped down onto me, tearing into my skin and rooting me in place. I couldn’t help it. I let out a shriek before quickly clamping my mouth shut to look back at what had caught me.

A bear trap.

Thick trails of blood trickled from where the rusty teeth of the bear trap had sunk into my leg, running down and soaking the fur around my hoof. A massive rail spike had been driven through the last link in the heavy chain connected to the edge of the trap to keep it rooted in place, but it’s not like it was possible for me to move my leg anyways. Simply yanking on it set more hot, painful flares up along my leg and threatened to make me squeal once again.

Speaking of, Estoc and I took a moment to perk our ears and listen in on the raiders. Dead silence.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” I wheezed, sitting on my flank and grabbing the bear trap’s mouth. “No no no, c’mon.”

“Hold on, lemme do it,” Estoc whispered, sitting down next to me. He placed his hooves on either side of the trap’s mouth, but when he pulled the thing hardly budged. “Shit, open damn it!” He pulled again, but it still refused to open.

“I think we caught somethin!” one of the raiders shouted. “You ‘ear that?”

“Les get ‘em!”

I slapped Estoc’s hooves out of the way and tried pulling at the bear trap’s mouth myself. Still no use.

“Why won’t this thing fucking open!?” I whispered hastily. The more I tried to free my leg from the trap the more it seemed to clamp around it and squeeze. The pain was unbearable. It felt like that thing had managed to drive its teeth so deep into my leg that it was scraping against the bone. Anymore and my leg might actually snap in half.

Estoc shoved one of his hooves into my mouth, prompting me to stop fumbling with the bear trap and stare back at him. He was giving me a hard, conflicted look. Oh, I was not gonna like what he has to say next.

“Stop!” he hissed. “It’s a bear trap. We’re not gonna get that thing opened with our hooves, alright? We need a special tool to decompress the springs.”

I ripped his hoof out of my mouth. “Where are we-”

“From the raiders. They were probably the ones who laid the trap so they know where it is, which means we don’t have much time so don’t protest now. Trust me?”

Do I have much of a choice at this point?

“So long as you don’t saw off my leg,” I said through gritted teeth. My ears flicked as I heard hoofsteps thudding on the concrete out in the middle of the cul de sac.

“You get to keep what’s left of it,” Estoc said as he reached over me and pulled the revolver from my holster. “Remember that safe? I’m gonna go crack it. You sit here and keep them busy until I get back.”

As Estoc placed my revolver behind the fence line in the tall grass just inside of my reach, my eyes went wide and I started shaking my head. He can’t be serious. He’s just going to leave me here? With raiders!

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” I squeaked. “They’re raiders!”

“What is it that you always say? Improvise? Well, here you go, put your talents to the test. And don’t take the revolver out until I give the signal, alright?”

Before I had a chance to ask him “what signal?” he had already flapped his wings and climbed up onto the roof. Just in time, too, because as soon as he was gone, the three raiders came sauntering around the corner, and I was right in their line of sight. All three of them stopped, their mouths curling up into wry, sadistic grins enough to send excessively cold shivers creeping down my spine. Fuck me, I bet they could sum me up into one, three-letter word.

Fun.

“Would’ya lookit that, boys!” the unicorn said, licking his lips. He’s the one with the nazely voice.“We got ourselves a live one skulking about here in the backyards. Forget about takin’ invet’ry, eh?”

“Look at her wings!”

It was just now that I realized that both of my wings were lying spread out on either side of me, totally limp from the pain fuzzing up my head. I quickly retracted them and put my hoof closer to the revolver.

“Uh… Y-you boys care to help me out?” I asked, wincing. “This fucking thing got my leg and as you can probably see, it’s kind of painful.”

“Help ya?” the unicorn repeated, sounding as if he was astonished. He nodded and the two earth ponies started advancing on me. “There’s only certain kinds’a help that we can offer ya, ‘lil pony, and I gotta say... this? This looks outta our league.”

“C’mon, look at me!” I pointed towards my leg, the blood having effectively soaked my entire hind hoof now and coating itself over the trap’s mouth. “You want some kinda payment? Huh? Look, I’ve got some cans here.”

I reached into my bag and pulled out a can of broccoli soup, then tossed it into the dirt between the two earth ponies. They were merely paces away from me now, and looked down at the can before looking back at the unicorn. When he shook his head, they returned their gazes to me and grinned even wider than before. Holy shit, how could they possibly manage that? It looks as if their faces are going to split in two at this point.

Next I pulled out a can of baked beans, then tomato and basil soup, and then a can of peas. Cream corn, chili, potato soup, cream of potato, asparagus, lentils, tomato rice. By the time I pulled out the last of my food, cauliflower cheese, there was quite the pile of cans in between the earth ponies, and yet they still wanted something more. Well, of course they wanted something more, they were raiders. Just gotta keep playing dumb.

“What?” I asked, scrunching my nose up at them. Fucking hell, c’mon Estoc, I know you’ve got to crack a safe, but look what I have to deal with here! “Want something else? Here, take my bags.”

I pulled my saddlebags off of my back and threw them on top of the pile. The entire time I’ve been tossing cans between those two earth ponies, none of them have said a single word. Instead, their eyes locked onto each individual can and watched as I chucked them over. They did the same with the saddlebags, but now that I had nothing left to offer them, they reinvigorated that apprehensive stare that they first gave me. Those damn beady eyes were almost boring through my skull now.

“Looks like yer all outta stuff, bat,” one of the earth ponies said, stepping closer. Now that he was within a leg’s reach, I could smell the mold and dried blood wafting from his armor. “So we’ll just be taken that an’ ‘avin a lil’ fun with you, too. How’s that sound?”

Fun? Alright, I can work with this. I’m fresh meat for these raiders.

“You know,” I started, laying down on my side and splaying my legs out, “if you’re looking for some fun then you’ve come to the right mare. You ever gone on a ride all night ‘till you’re all but dry come morning?”

The other earth pony started chuckling and looked back at the unicorn, who had managed to move closer to the three of us by now. “You listenin’ tuh this? Not even a lil’ fazed.”

“Well then, what’re you waiting for?” the unicorn asked, narrowing his eyes at me.

Next thing I knew, one of the earth ponies drew his machete while the other advanced on me so that he could stand over me. He gave me a quick sneer before kicking me in the right in the ribs, effectively knocking the wind out of me. I coughed and wheezed, my lungs feeling as if they had shrunk down to only a quarter of their original size while I tried to catch my breath again. The pain that had accompanied the kick was quickly overwhelmed by the stabbing agony that persisted from the bear trap, however. My senses returned, which allowed some strength to flow through my muscles.

I tried backing myself out of hooves reach, but he kicked me yet again. Harder this time. I collapsed onto the dirt in a heap, once more totally out of air and hyperventilating like a damn, panicked filly. My ribcage felt bruised, maybe a little cracked, but it was honestly impossible to determine what kinda damage had been done when every struggle I had made to avoid being hit by this guy resulted in the bear trap’s teeth digging themselves more into my leg. I couldn’t help myself anymore. Up until now I hadn’t released even a peep, but now I was left whimpering and curled up on the ground, watching these raiders slowly surrounding me.

“W-wait, c’mon,” I pleaded, one of my hooves digging into the ground and pulling me closer to where Estoc had placed my revolver. “I offered m-myself to you fucks! Take my b-batty ass, but p-please, let me live. Let me k-keep my l-limbs!”

“Oh yeh, you offered,” the unicorn jeered, “and we’re happily gonna took what’s ours. Curly? Why don’t you put her to work, eh?”

The earth pony with the machete, supposedly Curly, nodded his head and stepped over behind me. He kicked me in the other ribcage this time, forcing me back onto my belly with a whine, then plopped himself down right onto my back. He crushed one of my wings, scrunching it up painfully under his legs while he yanked onto my mane with a hoof.

“Oh, she givin’ a bloody blowjob, Larry?” Curly asked while he still had the machete in his mouth. “Moe sure does love ‘em bloody blowjobs.”

“Of course he does,” Larry said, sitting down in front of me. Carefully he peeled off the lids of two of the cans, then dropped the cans themselves onto the ground with a thunk. Their contents spilled out of them completely, soaking the ground and the dead grass as well as splattering everyone with chunky liquid who happened to be within the tiny blast radius.

Then the unicorn started tearing the lids apart, splitting the metal as if his own unicorn magic was being used as some kind of metal-cutting scissors. He didn’t cut the lid up into little pieces, though. Instead, he bent the edges of the lid in different directions so that it looked like some sort of jagged and jank throwing star.

And lastly he levitated both of them in front of my mouth. I felt the sharp edges poke my lips as if they were trying to tease their way between my lips.

“N-no, fuck fuck fuck,” I squealed, twisting my head as much as I could manage to the side. So this is what they mean by ‘bloody blowjob?’ For fuck’s sake.

“Open wide, lil’ bat,” Larry teased, jabbing the lids against my cheek.

No, I couldn’t. C’mon, Estoc, where the fuck are you? I’ve been playing this damn game for long enough! I’ve got three raiders all around me, trying to shove some half-ass throwing stars down my throat only so that I could gag on one of their dicks. I don’t wanna slice my throat up, choke on my own blood, die. I don’t want to fucking die, so if you could just-

BOOM

The unicorn’s head suddenly exploded into a shower of blood and brain matter. The two other raiders and me became absolutely soaked by the gruesome goop, aside from a small patch on my cheek where the unicorn had been holding the serrated lids up to my cheek. That is, until a sloppy piece of skin or eyeball or whatever slowly began to drip down towards my chin.

Both raiders turned their head towards the source of the noise, laying eyes on the top of the roof from the house next to us, which forced Curly to let go of my mane. My head slumped back down into the dirt, weakness from both the pain still screaming in my leg and the deafening noise from the gun’s dicharge overtaking my neck’s muscles. Now wasn’t the time to rest, though. I still had a raider on top of me and my revolver was only inches away…

BOOM

Another gunshot erupted from the roof, and this time the earth pony, Moe, nearly had the entirety of his head blown clean off. The bullet buried itself into his shoulder just below the neckline, allowing for his head to almost tear itself from his body right before it came tumbling to the floor next to me. Again, Curly and I were absolutely sprayed by Moe’s blood even before he had a chance to slam against the dirt to the floor.

But that didn’t matter now. I had the revolver in my hoof. I pulled it up to my mouth and twisted myself around underneath Curly, grabbing his attention. He looked down at me, machete in his mouth and wide eyed as myself and the barrel of my gun were staying up back at him. I almost wanted to wonder what was flashing through his mind, although, let’s be honest here, it was probably nothing. A raider who thinks is a slaver.

I pulled the trigger.

BLAM

A massive hole tore itself right through the center of Curly’s face, blowing away his nose, parts of his eyes, the entirety of his mouth, and then it was possible to see the massive exit wound on the other side. The force from the bullet sent him toppling backwards off of me, and also careened the back of my head into the ground. Hard. Harder than when that slaver slammed my head into the side of the Griffonchaser.

It was enough for me to black out.

Footnote: Level Up

New Perk: Dark Mare - You do extra damage to opposite sex, and extra +5 speech for seduction purposes on other-gender individuals (whose barn door swings that way).