Fallout: Equestria: Honest Herdsby sargecadetChaptersChapter 1: The AmbassadorChapter 2: Into the WastelandChapter 3: A Continuing Education in Effective ViolenceChapter 4: A Trialing Travel Trip of TroubleChapter 5: In Which Things Get Increasingly WorseChapter 6: BrutalityChapter 7: Where Does One Road End...Chapter 8: ...And Another Begin?What Would Have Been Chapter 9 But Is Instead The Last ChapterPrologueChapter 1: The AmbassadorFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 1: The Ambassador “The Ghost Lands may not be lost to us, after all...” In the White Hooves we have a saying: "Your greatest gift to the tribe is your story." If that's the truth, then in all my time growing up in the tribe I must have never have had much of a gift to give. But that’s all changed. My tribe grew large and powerful after it left Vile Rock cave. Our ancestors, both pony and buffalo, conquered other tribes and assimilated them into our culture until we had created what tribe historians called a "super tribe." Little did our ancestors know that on the other side of the river that divides the Ghost Lands in half, another tribe, the Fire Hairs, had done the same. While we desired peace we soon found that they were too different from us to coexist. In their tribe earth ponies and buffalo were subservient to unicorns holding them under the sway of their magic. We're now at war. Several years ago trader ponies from the north began visiting our tribe, and about one year ago two ponies who said they were ambassadors visited both sides of the river. They said they were scouts for some tribe called the New Canterlot Republic. One, a unicorn called Sergeant Bloodfire, came to us, spoke about the new and restored magical land our ancestors had escaped before balefire and dark magic consumed the world, and then left. The other scout was an earth pony who visited the Fire Hairs instead, and we never heard what happened to her, though we expected either slavery or death. But enough about the tribe, I'm going to talk about myself now. My name is Fall Hammer-heart. I have a dad, a mom and three sisters. I'm the only earth pony in my family, the rest being unicorns. It sucked being the only one without magic because this excluded me from the one job the males in my family had always performed, the one job I really desired: being a thought-travel scout. Instead, like many other untalented earth ponies and buffalo, I was stuck with a late-shift job in the mines. All I did all day for five years was swing a pickaxe at a wall of ore deposits. I'd gotten so good at breaking rocks apart I discovered that, despite how much I disliked it, swinging a pick is my special talent. You can probably guess what my cutie mark is. But don't get me wrong. Even though I hated my lot in life at least I was safe and I knew my family was safe. Not like now. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm Fall, and this is my gift. My shift ended late that night. I was tired, covered in dust, and all I wanted to do was sleep when I got back to my family’s cabin.The walk back from the mine was always tiring after a long days work. I meandered down the path to Iron Hide, the village my family and I resided in. Iron Hide is the newest village in our tribe’s half of the Ghost Lands. It was built because of the large amount of ore in the canyon walls nearby. The Chief relocated his camp here so that he could oversee our mining operations. When I arrived home I attempted to open the door quietly to avoid waking everyone up. As I said, it was late. To my surprise I found my mom and sisters still awake, sitting at the table, sipping fan-root tea. I noticed that my dad wasn’t there. First question. “Hey, mom,” I said, “why are you all still awake?” “Oh, Fall, your home,” she responded, apparently surprised I'd gotten back, “We’re waiting for your father to get home, that’s all.” Second question. “Well, um, where is he?” My youngest sister, Cactus Flower, jumped in before mom could speak. “The Chief has dad working on some scouting thingies. He said something about that unicorn who came here from that republic place last year.” Mom glared at her for her interrupting, “Oh, sorry.” That was enough information for me. It was late, I was tired, and I didn’t feel like talking anymore. “Well, I’m going to hit the hay,” I announced, “Good night, see you all tomorrow.” “Good night, Fall,” they all replied sort-of in unison, with an extra “Luna and the ancestors bless you,” thrown in by my mother. And with that I shrugged off my saddle bags by the door and fell into my pile of hay by the far right wall, and drifted off into a well earned sleep. Little did I know it would be the last time I slept at home. The last night I would spend together with my family. I woke up the next day to the frantic clatter of hooves and my older sister, Stream, yelling at me. “Wake up, Fall, wake up!” It felt early. I glanced out the window at the sun. It was early. My shift didn’t start for another five hours at least and I was still tired. I glared at my parent's favorite with all the hate I could muster in the morning. “Why, in the name of the Goddesses and all that is holy," I said through gritted teeth, “are you yelling at me? What could possibly be so important that it can’t wait till later, when I normally get up?” “The Chief is calling everyone in the tribe to a meeting,” she answered, still yelling, “It’s about something important. Now get up and make yourself look presentable!” She was smiling. I think she enjoyed forcing me to wake up early. “Tell him I’m busy,” I groaned sarcastically and rolled away from her. She answered by levitating a bucket of water over and dumping it on me, which made my previously crisp bed of hay uncomfortably soggy. Did I mention that it sucks being the only one without magic? I stood up and let out a long sigh as I shook the water off and walked to the bowl of white paint my mom had set out. I stepped in it to cover my hooves and fetlocks. I never could win arguments with Stream anyways. I finished up painting myself for the day about a few minutes later after applying stripes of white to my nose, ears, and shoulders, which is really hard when you have to hold the brush in your mouth. Applying the tribe’s markings has always been hard for me. At every tribe meeting or special ceremony I seemed to have the distinction of looking the crappiest. “Hurry up, we’re gonna be late!” Cactus Flower shouted with her usual youthful excitement as she ran out the door. She never seemed to miss a chance to look adorable. I, much less excited (the Chief’s speeches were almost always incredibly boring), walked behind the rest of my family at my normal speed. We trotted to the village center. Ponies and buffalo from all corners of our empire were there, standing clustered around their village flag. A cacophony of muttering filled the circle. “I heard that the Fire Hairs crossed the river again,” said a rather fat buffalo mare, to which the unicorn stallion next to her replied, “Not a chance. I live in Sour Branch. If they crossed I would be dead.” “But what if they crossed elsewhere?” “They can’t this time of year.” An earth pony filly joined the conversation saying “My momma said that the Chief is going to cross the river to their side and beat up Salted Corn-Field and her entire army, all by himself!” which her mother responded to by saying “I didn’t say anything like that! Now stop making up...” She was cut off by the sound of our tribes distinctive war trumpet. Two glowing balls of light spun around each other and lifted into the air, then exploded in a shower of multi-colored sparks, eliciting an excited “Ooh,” from the crowd. Tribe meetings usually didn’t include any fanfare. A swirling cloud of smoke appeared in the center of the crowd forcing those standing there to take a few steps back. With a loud pop the smoke cleared and there stood Chief Sand Horns (an old, massive buffalo warrior with scars covering his lower jaw) and Arch-Seer Night Minder (the perpetually tired looking river-green unicorn mare with a blue-gray mane and a cutie mark of a black arrow piercing a cloud). The entire crowd stomped their hooves in applause at the dramatic entrance until the Chief lifted his right fore-hoof to signal a need for silence. Night Minder’s horn glowed and cast a green halo around the Chief’s throat. A volume spell? “FRIENDS, BUFFALO, PONIES, TRIBES PEOPLE!” Yup, definitely a volume spell, “IN THESE DAYS OF TROUBLE, AS WE STRUGGLE TO BETTER OURSELVES AND ANNIHILATE OUR EVIL ENEMIES, WE MUST ALL DO OUR PART FOR THE TRIBE.” Cue applause, then a raised hoof for silence, “WE HAVE SURVIVED MANY YEARS AGAINST THE FIRE HAIRS AND HAVE BECOME STRONGER BECAUSE OF IT.” More applause, then the hoof again, “BUT FOR AS STRONG AS WE ARE, WE CANNOT WIN.” Worried murmuring. What in the Celestia's name was he talking about? “THE ELDERS AND I HAVE STUDIED THE LAND, SCOUTED IT. WE CAN SURVIVE, BUT WE WILL NOT THRIVE AGAINST THE MIGHT OF THE FIRE HAIRS.” Shouts of things like ‘Oh goddesses, it isn’t true!’ and other cries rose up. “UNLESS... UNLESS WE CAN GAIN ALLIES.” Silence. “THE ELDERS AND I HAVE DISCOVERED THE ONE WEAKNESS OF THE ENEMY: THEY ATTACK EVERYONE THEY MEET. WE ARE DIFFERENT!” he motioned to the Arch-Seer to stop the spell, “Last year, an scout from the north came to us and told us of a tribe that seeks the friendship of the White Hooves. They call themselves the New Canterlot Republic. Now I ask for your help.” The crowed whispered to each other. I looked to my right at Stream who turned to me and shrugged. I looked at my dad who was on my left and he just gave me a knowing smile. Of course he knows, I thought, he’s on the elder counsel. “I need one brave buffalo or pony,” the Chief said, “to be my scout.” special emphasis placed on my, “and travel the long and dangerous road north to the land where our ancestors lived two-hundred years ago. I will not anger the ancestors by lying, my their scouts tell me that there is a good chance that whoever goes may not return. I only ask that...” I stopped listening. I knew what he was offering. The Chief was offering an adventure! When I was little my parents told me stories about great ponies in the past visiting places in old Equestria like the Everfree Forest, ponies slaying dragons, ponies vanquishing great evils that threatened to destroy the world. I was told the stories of the great buffalo warriors of ages past in tribal ceremonies. When I was old enough to read religious books like the “Story of the Goddesses” I read of how Celestia and Luna wandered the world and saved it numerous occasions. I grew up always wanting more than a life as a miner, more than an untalented earth pony, more than the tribe could give me. I wanted to be special. I wanted adventure! “...and that is why a volunteer is necessary. Thank you for your time.” the Chief finished his speech and I shot my hoof into the air. “Chief Sand Horns,” I shouted with probably a bit to much enthusiasm and volume, “I will be your scout!” And then everything got awkward. The Chief and the Arch-Seer stared at me. My family stared at me. The entire assembled tribe stared at me. “What in a hell-cave full of Timberwolf shit are you doing?” Stream hissed at me, “Did you listen to anything he just said? Leaving the valley is pretty much instant death, you moron.” “Son, this is a bad idea,” my father whispered. I couldn’t tell whether he meant the Chief’s plan or me being the one to do it. “Chief Sand Horns, I wish to be...” I began saying but was cut off by the Arch-Seer. “Child,” she said in the soft, serene, slow way that she was known for, “you are still young. Let a warrior of the tribe travel instead.” I stomped my hoof, “No, wise one,” I argued while still trying my best to be respectful using the proper form of address, “the tribe needs all its warriors to defend it,” I was really just making up reasons on the fly, “I’m just a common miner. Please, I want to serve my tribe. It is my holy duty, given to me by the ancestors." They couldn't argue with that. The Arch-Seer and the Chief glanced at each other. The Chief shrugged, then turned back to face me. “Miner,” he commanded, “come forward.” The Arch-Seer teleported the Chief and I back to the War Hall (which is a pretty jarring and uncomfortable sensation if you’ve never teleported before), and I found myself standing in front of a very large and very incomplete map. The Ghost Lands occupied about a quarter of it. The rest was blank. “So, what now?” I asked. “Now you learn what we truly ask of you.” the Chief sighed. He pointed to the far corner of the room, “You may explain,” he said to no one. No, not no one. A shadowy earth pony mare with a jet black coat, a jet black mane, and jet black eyes with a cutie mark that looked like a big green mushroom emerged from the darkness. She was the freakiest pony I’d ever seen. She stared straight in my eyes, as if studying me, causing me to look away. She addressed the Chief and Arch-Seer. “This is who you’re sending?” Ooh, that hurt. “He volunteered, yes,” Night Minder answered defensively, “and no heart is stronger than that of a volunteer.” The dark pony walked closer, put a hoof under my chin, and turned my head from side to side. She was really cold. I took a step back. She stepped back also. “Well, kid, listen now and listen good. I’m from out there, the Wastes, beyond this little paradise ya’ll’ve got here and if you ain’t prepared for the shit the Wasteland will throw at you then I can guarantee that your gonna get your Goddess damned head blasted off, got it?” She yelled at me. Her words carried such vehemence that I felt like I’d been trampled by the entire tribe. Goddesses, could it really be that bad out there and that good in here? I straightened myself up and stared down at her after I got a grip on myself. I cleared my throat. “Well then,” I retorted, trying to act the part of the tough buck, “teach me how to survive.” She smiled smuggly. “Fine,” she turned to face the map, and pointed to the northern boundary of the valley with her hoof , “What your leader hasn’t mentioned to you is that your tribe is surrounded by your enemy, those Fire Hair unicorns and their mind-controlled drones.” I’m screwed, I’m screwed, I’m screwed..., “Fortunately for you, I scouted their camps and this one right here,” she pointed at a place on the map, “has fewer warriors than the rest,” maybe I’m not screwed..., “So all you have to do is kill them all, then go through the Timberwolf cave nearby and you should be able to bypass the bulk of their forces.” Good, I can... wait what was that she said about killing? And Timberwolves? “So,” I questioned, “your saying that to get to these Canterlot Republic ponies I have to kill a bunch of battle tested warriors...” “Yes.” “Then kill a full caves worth of Timberwolves...” “Uh-huh,” “And after that I’m safe?” She snorted a laugh. “Safe?! Oh Goddesses, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in years!” She wiped away a tear, “No, no, that’s the easy part. After that you’ve still got a whole Wasteland between you and the NCR.” I’m screwed. The creepy dark pony spoke with me for another hour about the dangers of the wasteland between me and the NCR and each second left me regretting my decision more and more. “... And that’s why Radscorpian stings are so deadly. Any questions?” she finally said. “Um, yeah, I’ve got one,” I replied, “do I have any advantage at all?” I was really hoping she would say yes. She smiled an annoying smug smile. “Why, as a matter of fact you do.” she pulled out a box, seemingly from thin air, and placed it gently on the table. “It’s called a Pip-Buck and I have to say, it is by far the best piece of scavenge I’ve ever found. Military grade magical engineering, inventory management, health diagnostic, rad counter, assisted targeting, auto-mapping, this thing has it all, and it’s my gift to you.” She opened the box and took out the device. “Put your hoof out.” I complied by stretching out my left foreleg towards her. She clamped the weighty object on my leg. It made a few beeping noises. The piece of glass on it glowed blue and presented me with a crude picture of a smiling earth pony with small bars near each of the limbs. I pushed one of the orange buttons on the device and the screen changed. The next screen showed a map that presented a birds eye view of the valley and had marked Iron Hide and the surrounding villages (to this day I still have no idea how it does that) and two arrows, one presumably marking my location and a bigger one at the edge of the valley. “The tall arrow is where your going,” the dark mare said. “Thanks, but why are you giving me this thing?” I asked. It felt a little suspicious. Why would she give up so easily what she had just called the best piece of scavenge she had ever found? Her answer was cryptic, “I can’t use it.” “Well, why?” What the hell? Can’t you just put it on and use it? “I have reasons,” she replied quickly, then added, “Reasons that aren’t for nosy ponies like you to know. Now go talk to your Chief. I think he has more stuff for you.” I hadn’t noticed that the Chief and the Arch-Seer had left while we were talking. I turned around and walked out the door where I was immediately greeted by the Chief, along with my family standing behind him. “So, miner, have you learned all you can from our expert?” he asked. Had I? I was feeling really unprepared for what I’d signed up for. “I... I guess. I was told you had something for me?” “Yes.” he smiled and motioned to my dad who levitated a set of leather armor and saddlebags to me like the type the warriors wear. A pistol like the ones that a traveling merchant from the north had been selling was tucked in the attached holster along with some ammunition. “Put it on.” my dad said. I shrugged on the barding. “Does it fit?” It fit perfectly. “Yeah, dad, it fits,” I replied, then added, “Thanks.” “It used to be mine when I fought. I hope it protects you like it protected me.” And then it hit me. I wasn’t just going to ask for allies. This was a war mission. Mom (“Come back to us,” she whispered with tears forming in her eyes) and my sisters (“Try not to do anything too stupid, little brother” Stream joked) walked up and hugged me. Dad simply shook my hoof (“Take care, son,”). The Chief put a hoof on my shoulder (“Let your ancestors guide your aim,”). The Arch-Seer touched her horn to my forehead and prayed (“May Celestia protect you with the sun by day and Luna guide you with the moon by night. Seek peace in the knowledge of their love,”) and slipped a copy of “Story of the Goddesses” into my saddle bags. The dark, creepy mare (“Good luck, kid,”) walked away with a scoped rifle slung over her back. And then I left. I’d been walking for an hour towards the mark on my Pip-Buck, all the while fiddling with it to see what everything did. So far I’d figured out that the screen with picture of the pony was the health diagnostic the dark mare had mentioned (it was telling me I was thirsty, as if I didn’t know), the screen that had been blank was the inventory and had marked what I was wearing and the pistol (which was apparently a 10mm, whatever that meant), and that this thing had a lamp function. I had also somehow accidentally turned on some system called E.F.S. which laid itself over my vision and showed a compass heading, my objective arrow, and some other stuff I didn’t quite understand all presented in a pleasant shade of blue. As I neared my Pip-Buck’s objective marker, red tick marks appeared on the E.F.S. compass. The red marks turned out to be the guards the dark mare had mentioned who started shooting at me. I made a mental note: red means bad. These enemies could not only see me, they knew I wasn’t one of them. Of course they know, I thought, I forgot to wash off my White Hooves markings before I left. I deserved to die for my stupidity. A few bullets hit my right flank before I was able to jump into a dry streambed, and those bullets hurt like hell. I swallowed down some of the chalky healing powder that had been packed in my bags, which just dulled the pain a little, before crawling on my belly farther toward their camp. They stopped shooting, apparently thinking they had killed me, and went back to whatever it was they had been doing before. I now had a dilemma. I'd never killed so much as a field rat before, let alone another pony. It had been my hope that I could avoid killing other ponies and buffalo and to just sneak by, but now that appeared impossible. Dear Celestia, what should I do? Was I to be forced to murder others you creation so I could survive? But I knew that I had a mission to perform. Failure could mean my death and the death of my tribe. Mom's death. Dad's death. My sister's deaths. I tried to calm myself and gather strength for the upcoming battle, and with a quick prayer I drew the pistol out with my mouth and peaked my head over the edge. I could see the Fire Hairs unicorn sitting in the center of the camp, directing her workers. Five earth ponies and a buffalo were the total of her guard detail so that brought the odds to seven against one. That didn’t seem good. I figured though that since the unicorn must be the leader and that if I could kill her first it would disorganize the rest of them. I took aim at her head, exhaled, and pulled the trigger with my tongue as many times as fast as I could, emptying the whole clip. All my shots missed. “Thit” I muttered through a mouthful of gun. Just my Goddess damned luck. The unicorn jumped up and stared at me. “Kill that fucker!” she yelled at her troops. They needed no motivation as they began shooting happily (I actually heard some laughter) and much more accurately than I had, forcing me to duck down again. I put the gun away. Poking my head over the top of the ditch again would be suicide. I scrambled through the inventory-thingy on my Pip-Buck searching for anything that could help. Dynamite? I had dynamite in my saddlebags? Now that I knew how to use! I pulled the red rod of my bag and waited for a pause in the shooting. When it seemed like they were reloading I quickly knocked the safety-cap off and threw the now sizzling red stick as far as I could towards my enemies. It blew up two of the earth ponies into a bloody mist and tore off the hindlegs of another who quickly bled out. That took three ponies out of action, but more importantly threw up a big cloud of dust. I ran in. Maybe if I couldn’t shoot them to death I could bludgeon them, I thought as I picked up a sledge hammer one of the dead ponies had had with them. I found one of the remaining earth ponies as the dust began to clear and smacked his head twice with the hammer as he tried to find his gun again. His jaw gave way with a sickening crunch from the first blow and his skull broke open spraying blood and brain matter with the second. My next target was a mare who had already found her gun and was trying to aim it at me. I was just a little bit faster. Swing one, gun gone. Swing two, lots of broken ribs. Swing three, head no longer attached. I was good at this. My self-congratulation was short lived, however, as I was tossed forward from behind about ten feet by the massive buffalo stallion I had somehow forgotten about. I staggered to pick myself up and had just grabbed my hammer as I was thrown another ten feet. This time I was able to hold onto my weapon and spun around to face him. I wished I had more time. And then I did. Everything froze. “Welcome to Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell or S.A.T.S!” flashed across my vision in that same bright blue. The buffalo stood frozen in front of me outlined in blue. parts of his body were marked: Horns 90%, Head 95%, Right Foreleg 80%, and so on. I selected his head once and watched some marks at the bottom of my vision disappear. The spell charge? I executed the attack. Wham. I felt like I wasn’t completely in control of my body, but sweet Luna did that attack feel satisfying. The buffalo fell over, not dead, but just dazed enough to make it easy to finish the job. I stood up straight. Now just the unicorn. Click. “Got ya now ya little dirt-fuck,” the unicorn whispered. She held a gun she had picked up off of one of her dead comrades and held it against my head. Shit, I thought. “I hope you prayed to Celestia a lot, foal, cause yer gonna see her real soo...” she was cut off by her head... no scratch that, most of her body, exploding on me in a shower of gore. I looked around for my savior, but could only a small black speck on the top of the canyon wall. Footnote: Level up New Perk added: Mine Pony- Years of working the mines has made you skilled with its primary implements. You deal 15% more damage when using melee weapons and explosives. (Thanks go to Kkat for making an awesome post-apocalyptic Equestria for amateur authors like me to play with.) Chapter 2: Into the WastelandFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 2: Into the Wasteland "I turned, and there before me stood... the Timberwolves!" Night was falling. I sat in what had formerly been a Fire Hairs camp. I’d killed them all. Well, most of them. I’d found the remains of the bullet that had blasted the unicorn’s body apart, and it was fricken huge. No wonder her body exploded. Then noticed the sickening feeling of my coat being matted down with blood and gore and bits of bone. The natural reaction, vomiting, followed almost immediately. I realized two things while I spat to rid myself of the disgusting taste: one, I hated killing and it made me feel sick, and two, the bullets in my flank were really painful. I thought of trying to pull out the bullets but vaguely remembered something my mom had said about arteries. Plus, there was no way I could reach my flank with my mouth, so it would be impossible anyways. I looked at the sky as I wiped off as much of the unicorn's guts as I could, almost vomiting again. The sun had almost completely set, but I was afraid that if I stayed where I was a new bunch of guards would arrive to relieve the ones I’d killed. I poured some Healing Powder directly into my bullet wounds to dull the pain, picked up my new sledgehammer, and walked into the cave. This is a bad idea, I thought, staying away from a cave of Timberwolves always seemed like a good idea before. Was this really the only route around the rest of the Fire Hairs' forces? I opened the door blocking the cave entrance and was greeted by the smell of mildew and rotting animal flesh. My E.F.S. wasn't showing anything yet so I assumed it was safe to proceed. I switched on my Pip-Buck light. The walls were wet and slimy with an ooze I couldn't identify. I continued further into the cave. The cave eventually split off in two directions. I checked my Pip-Buck's local map. Apparently the right passage was... well, the right passage. So I went right. One by one lots of small red marks appeared on my E.F.S. compass. I turned off my light to avoid detection and began creeping forward slowly. Throaty snoring noises emanated from a cavern ahead of me. Pack of Timberwolves hindering my path? Check. At least they're asleep, I thought. The space reeked of rotting flesh. Carcasses of small animals littered the floor. Wait, not just animals. With my eyes adjusting to the light (or rather the lack of light) I noticed a decidedly pony shaped corpse held under the paw of one of the monsters. The horn on top of the pony's skull had been gnawed on to the point where it had begun to crack apart. I definitely didn't want to end up like that pony. I crept slowly around the bulk of the monsters toward where my map said the exit of the cavern was. Yeah, this is easy, I thought with a grin, all I've got to do is make sure I don't step... And then I stepped on one of them. "Oh thit." I whispered through my hammer. Damn bad luck. The huge critter opened its glowing purple eyes to the sight of me standing on its paw. The beast stood up to full height and howled for blood (well, it seemed thirsty for my blood at the time. What else do Timberwolves howl for?). All the others woke up at once, and before I knew it a whole pack of wooden monstrosities were chasing after me. Running for my life was something I suddenly realized I hated, but fighting an entire hungry pack of Timberwolves seemed like a really bad idea. Screw stealth, I thought as I turned on my Pip-Buck light so I could see where the hell I was going. My pursuers stumbled for a second, their eyes apparently adjusting to the new light. That was good, I wanted as much distance between them and myself. I could see daylight down the tunnel a little ways. Salvation! Unfortunately salvation was guarded by two more Timberwolves. No time to stop and no way to avoid them, I used the only tactic I knew: I charged. I took advantage of their temporary blinding by my bright light and wished for that S.A.T.S. thing again. Time froze and I lined up a hammer swing at an angle that would knock the larger Timberwolf into the smaller one. It worked. The two tangled Timberwolves fell together and acted as a roadblock, causing the rest of the pack to stumble over them. I dove out the cave entrance, opened my saddle bags, fished out two sticks of dynamite, knocked off the safety caps, and tossed them into the jumbled mess of monsters. The explosion had the added effect of closing off the tunnel by causing several extra-large boulders to roll in front of the entrance. Guess I wouldn't be getting back that way. I was able to collect the wooden limbs of some of my deceased foes and used them to get a fire going. I combined some cactus fruit and sand-root I found to make a poultice which I placed on my bullet wounds. I stared at the Goddess Luna's bright moon. I'd once heard a trader from the north mention that she had only seen the for the first time a few years ago. I couldn't imagine a night without the moon. While my mind was on the moon (and while trying to avoid thinking of the Fire Hairs I'd killed), I decided to open the copy of "Story of the Goddesses" the Arch-Seer had given me. It seemed a little too heavy for its size, but at the time it didn't bother me much. I nosed my way through to my favorite part, "Second Discord, chapter ten", and began reading to myself: “And the Six didst take up their Elements, as was the Goddesses' will, and with them advanced against the King of Chaos. And the wielder of Magic said unto her friends...” And that was where I fell asleep (on my left side, of course). It had been a tiring and traumitising first day adventuring, and I needed some rest. “Ger’up, yew. Whoer yew? Wher’ yew from? Wutch yew dooin near mah cave?” An old and scarred grey unicorn who was missing several teeth and wobbled back and forth was sticking the barrel of the rifle he was levitating in my face when I awoke. My E.F.S. registered him as a blue mark. “What? Who are you?” I mumbled, my sleepy brain still in a haze. He just poked my nose with the rifle. “Ah’m askin da queshuns,” he barked, “Nah yew, me!” I hate mornings. “Um, I’m...” should I lie about my name and where I’m from? What if this buck really hated White Hooves for whatever reason? “I’m Fall. I’m, uh... I’m an ambassador... no, I’m a scout... no, I’m an ambassador. Yeah, that’s right, I’m an ambassador.” Oh yeah, Fall, real convincing. “Ambassadur? Frum wher’?” Some yellow spit flew out of his mouth as he spoke. I stood up, cringing from the pain in my side. “I’m an ambassador for... the White Hooves tribe...” Judging from the confused expresion on his face, what I’d said didn’t seem to be ringing any bells for this pony, “I’m from the Ghost Lands.” Still nothing. He telekinetically rocked the bolt back and then forward. I don’t know much about guns, but I think that means it had a bullet ready. A light suddenly seemed to go on in his head. “Oh, da Ghosht Landsh! Down sout’ oh here!” I nodded. Maybe he understood... “Yew’re wun oh dem Fa’ir Hair raiders whoev ben stealin’ and killin’ all da brahmin!” he pushed the tip of the barrel between my ears, “Yew cost me faib-hunred caps yew little shit!” The blue mark on my E.F.S. turned red. His magic tightened around the trigger. I wished for S.A.T.S. Time froze and I suddenly realized I wasn't carrying a weapon. S.A.T.S. didn't seem to care as I queued up three unarmed hits. First strike knocked the rifle out of his magical grip, cracking the wooden stock. The next two strikes hit his face with enough force to knock him over but not enough to kill him. Time accelerated again and I pinned him to the ground. "No!" I shouted in his ugly face, "I'm a White Hooves, not a Fire Hairs, and I haven't been killing your brahmin!" Why the hell would I kill brahmin anyways? He just stared back at me, confused. His mark changed to blue again. I stepped off of him and carefully kicked away his rifle. This pony clearly wasn't right in the head. I placed "Story of the Goddesses" back in my saddlebags and picked up my hammer. The strange unicorn buck stared at his rifle, then at me, then back to his rifle. "Wah yew got st'ipes on yew?" the crazy buck asked. I face hoofed and dropped my hammer. "They're my tribes marks." I responded. He nodded, appearing to understand what I was saying. I got an idea. "Hey, could you point me in the direction of the NCR?" "Da NCR?" he asked, "Wah yew wanna talk ta dem?" How could I put this? "Um, because I'm an ambassador?" That made sense, right? The strange unicorn seemed to get what I was saying, anyways. "Dere's a trad’n posht nah far from here. Ah could take yew dere," and then, almost as an afterthought, he said, "fer fifty caps." I was a bit hesitant to trust a buck who had just tried to blow my brains out a moment ago. Also, what the heck was a cap? I decided to play along for now and pay him back later, assuming that caps were some sort of currency I had yet to encounter. I'd also hold onto his gun for now. "Sure, take me there." I said. He reached for his rifle with magic. I promptly picked it up instead and placed it into my bag, "And you'll get your gun back when we get there." He nodded, apparently thinking that was fair. "Dis way!" the gray unicorn proclaimed happily, and began trotting forward, wobbling with each step. I grabbed my hammer and followed along. You can learn a lot about a pony when you walk (in pain with every step) with them for a few hours. For example, the strange unicorn proclaimed his name was Pickle Hooves (which matched his cutie mark depicting hooves in a pickle jar), he sold pickles for a living (predictably), that he was actually a griffon in disguise, and that the NCR was part of his "impirer". I had some trouble believing those last two "facts". “So, who’s the NCR’s chief?” I asked once I was able to get a word in. "Well, Ah jus toll yew it's pert oh my impirer," sure it is... "but dey don't really have a chef." I turned and stared at him. "What? No chief?" A tribe without a chief? That's like a pie without a crust! He scratched his chin with the edge of his hoof. "Nah, da republic's got a... um... oh, was da word? Oh yeah, dey gah a president." he seemed pleased to remember that word. But what the heck was a president? "Well, what makes a president different from a chief?" getting an alliance suddenly seemed more confusing than just talking to their chief. "Ah don' rightly know. Ah think is b'cause dey're chosen. President Fluttershah was, Ah think. Yew kin ask some'un else ooh knows more. We're 'ere." The trading post was... underwhelming. It was less than half the size of Iron Hide. The buildings were made of rusting sheet metal and the short barrier surrounding the camp (and I call it a camp because it truly wasn't even worthy of being called a village) was made of razor wire that was just as rusty as the buildings. I felt disappointed. Not disappointed in the inhabitants or the fact it was so small, but more of a feeling of being let down. I had expected more of this supposedly powerful northern tribe. Was the NCR so weak that it couldn't ensure its ponies were safe and their towns strong? My Pip-Buck map marked the location: Waypoint Trading Company. Wow. So exciting. An attractive yellow-green earth pony mare with a red mane who wore an ancient mud-brown hat stood by the small gate to the town. She raised her rifle, cradling it in her fore hooves. For a second time this day I was staring down the barrel of a gun. "I swear ta Celestia, tribal, if yah try anything I will blow your damn head off." she growled with venom behind her words. Was there a sign on my head that said 'Danger: Will Attack Unprovoked' or something? "I'm not here to cause any harm." "Oh yeah? Then why did you take Pickle hostage, huh?" What the hell? She turned to Pickle, "Did this tribal hurt yah? Cause I can kill him right now if yah want." Oh, shit, I don't want to die. What if that crazy buck still wanted to kill me like this morning? Crap... "I kinda want to anyways..." she added in, playing on my (probably apparent) fear. "Ah, nah, Lily, dis 'ere pony's mah guest," Oh Goddesses, what a relief, "An belief yew meh, dis pony's a tough buck. Blew up mah Timmerwolfs, he did. 'sides, he's mah hostage, to." Yeah... wait, what? "He's ain't your hostage, Pickle. He's got your gun." Lily retorted, with a role of her eyes. I stamped my hoof in agreement. "Yeah," I said, "I've got your gun. How am I your hostage?" Why were we discussing hostages anyways? "He's mah hostage cause he got a debt tah pay. Been killin' our brahmin." Oh, dear Goddesses. This buck didn't remember anything. Fortunately Lily backed me up. "He ain't been killing our brahmin, Pickle. He's part of the wrong tribe, obviously. Just look at those stripes. I ain't never seen a Fire Hairs wear stripes." she turned to me, "Now you ought to give my pal his gun back, right now." I quickly obliged. "Well, if you ain't here to ransom Pickle, why are ya here, tribal?" she asked, her gun still pointed at my head. "My name is Fall. I'm here to form an alliance between my tribe, the White Hooves, and the NCR." I tried to smile, but it just made me look constipated. "All us here are NCR, tribal." she replied, apparently not caring to use my name. Great! One day away and I'd already found the ponies I'd been sent for. "That's awesome news. Can I speak to your chief..." I corrected myself, "I mean, your president?" A loud 'whump' sounded behind me. "Pony, your a long way from the president," growled a deep bass voice behind me. I spun around, nearly tripping over my hooves. A huge lion bird thing- a griffon, I remembered from stories- was towering over me, his sharp talons scratching into the ground. He wore the toughest barding I'd ever seen: heavy looking black metal with a small white talon painted on the chest peice. He stood at twice my height, bright brown eyes staring into me. I had no idea why a huge griffon-monster would be around a bunch of ponies... unless they were for food... "Um, hi?" I choked out. I was not in the mood to get eaten right now. "Remove your barding and empty your saddle bags." the griffon commanded. "W-why?" he just stared with his cold eyes, forcing me to comply. I quickly slipped out of my leather barding and dumped out the contents of my bags into the dirt. The griffon inspected me, took my pistol and three remaining sticks of dynamite, then turned to Lily. "Lily, you can open the gate now." he turned to face me, "Welcome to Waypoint." Apparently the ponies at the trade post were not the griffon's food. They were his employees. Red, the griffon, led me to his office, an eight by eight rusting shack furnished with a molding desk. He sat in a chair, leaning back in the most bizarre way and propping up his feet on the desk, eliciting a groaning creak from the war-era furniture. "Remind me again why you're here... Fall, was it?" Red asked, stretching out his wings in a way that made me feel small. "Yeah, that's right," I answered. He'd allowed me to put my barding back on but hadn't returned either the pistol or the dynamite. "I'm here because my tribe wants an alliance with your tribe. You wouldn't happen to know where I could find your, um, president, would you?" "The NCR isn't a tribe, Fall. Even if it was, I couldn't help you with your alliance." he paused and squinted, as if gathering his thoughts. "The ponies who work for me are citizens of the republic, but the only one with a connection to the government is Pickle, so they can't help you either." I snorted a little at the mental image of Pickle talking to a tribal elder. "And me," the griffon continued, "I turned down citizenship a long time ago. I prefer to be unattached." Well that put a kink in my plan. I'd expected the NCR to be like the White Hooves. In the tribe, if you needed to tell the chief something you just talked to a seer, who talked to an elder, who talked to the chief. Why wasn't everywhere as simple? "However," he began to say, "what I can offer you is a job." "A job?" How would a job help me at all? Blackwing cleared his throat. "You see, a few of my good couriers and guard ponies have been killed recently in raids by Fire Hair tribals. You see, my company is right on the edge of the Ghost Lands. It was peaceful here for a long time. Now the Fire Hairs occupy the border, and they, for whatever reason, really hate us. Of course, you probably already knew that." "So, you want me to join up with you to help replace your dead ponies. I jumped in, cutting to the chase. "How exactly will that help me form an alliance?" "It won't, not directly at least." he smirked. "A pony like you won't last out in the wasteland. Not long, anyways. Hell, Pickle was able to capture you and he isn't even able to find the gate most days." I felt a little insulted. "I wasn't captured. If anything I captured him!" I stomped my hoof for emphasis. The smirk was still there. "Regardless," he continued, "you’re fresh out of the herd. First radscorpian you meets going to stab you to death before you even know it's there. You need experience to survive your journey, I need workers." I thought about it a little, staring at the ground. "I can provide you with medical care to. I noticed your bullet wounds. All my employees get free medical care." As soon as he mentioned it I began feeling pain in my flank again. I knew that healing powder would only numb it, not fix it. And he was right. I was new out here, and as much as I had learned from the creepy dark mare it wouldn't match working with a bunch of wasteland veterans. I sighed. "Fine." Red led me to Waypoint's resident surgeon. When I saw the unicorn... well, it wasn't much of a unicorn. Her skin was peeling off in a way that made her look burned and made it impossible to tell what color her coat had been before. Her mane consisted of a few tufts of seafoam-green and white hair growing (well, not growing, sprouting really) along her neck. Her horn- to be honest I was amazed it could do magic at all- was cracked in half down the middle. Needless to say I freaked out. "Holy shit!" I screamed in her face, "What in the name of Celestia and Luna and all the Goddess-damned ancestors fucking happened to you!?" She looked at me with an expression of disbelief, then turned to my new boss. "Red," her voice sounded like a barrel of rocks being tossed down a hill, "who the fuck is this?" "Lyra," Red replied," meet Fall. Fall, meet Lyra. Lyra is our one and only surgeon." "But what the hell is she?!" I screamed. "What, have you lived in a cave? Haven't you ever seen a ghoul, kid?" the- really, really ugly- mare said. What in Luna's name was a ghoul? I'd only seen monsters like this in nightmares. "Fall is from a tribe down south, Lyra. He hasn't seen a lot of things." Red answered her, "Fall is Waypoint's newest member and he's already taken a few bullets. I'd like you to pry them out of him." The ghoul mare sighed. "Fine, boss. But next time you hire somepony new, would you mind telling them I'm a ghoul first? I hate when ponies freak the fuck out about ghouls." The huge griffon chuckled "Can do, Lyra." then walked away, leaving me in the care of the freakishly disfigured mare. "Well then, don't waste my time. Get on the table." she growled. A look in her darkly yellowed and bloodshot eyes told me, somehow, that she understood the fear I felt. She must have been accustomed to reactions like mine because she didn't look angry, just sad. I clambered onto the blood stained operating table and laid down on my stomach. She magically stripped off my barding and began inspecting the bullet wounds in my flank. "What exactly did you use to treat yourself?" she asked as she prodded the holes with some type of medical instrument. "Your skin has started scarring over the bullets." "I poured in some healing powder. You know, to dull the pain." That had been a good idea, right? She let out a disgusted grunt and mumbled something about tribals. "Whatever was in that powder cauterized your flesh. I'm gonna have to cut the bullets out." Wait, cut? That sounded painfu... Ow. Yeah, scalpels hurt. I began trying to make small talk to take my mind off the pain in my flank. "So," I said, "what, um, happened to make you a, uh, ghoul, was it?" "Radiation. Lots of radiation. I got stuck in the edge of the blast of a balefire bomb explosion." Wow. I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but that sounded really bad. "How'd that happen?" She proceded to tell me her life story: "I used to live in a little town in Equestria called Ponyville. It was a nice place, quiet, peaceful. I played the harp in a little band my marefriend and I were part of. I still miss Ponyville. But that was before the war." "Wait, you were alive before the world was burned?" That couldn't be possible, could it? But that was more than two-hundred years ago! "That's where a lot of ghouls are from. As I was saying, Ponyville was nice, but I needed money so I moved to Fillydelphia. Lots of ponies looking for work went there to work in factories. Bon-Bon wouldn't come with me though..." she sounded sad. No, not sad, remorseful. Remorseful and a touch of nostalgia. "Anyway," she continued, "the war started. The pay and conditions sucked in the factories and there wasn't exactly very much demand for an amateur harp player, so I decided to join the army as a medic. Being in the Equestrian army sucked also. Long story short, I took a bullet that shattered my leg, got transferred to a soft duty job with the Ministry of Peace, and got sent south to Desert Outpost 17. Then one day the big top secret project thingy the MoP was working on blew up. I turned into this, I wandered for a long time, I joined Waypoint, the end. Aaaand that's the last bullet hole sowed up. All done." That... was one hell of a story. I couldn't imagine being an irradiated monster for two-hundred years, forced to outlive everypony I'd ever known. Her life... I couldn't imagine. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked." I raised myself up (ow) slowly off the table. I couldn't empathize with her since I'd obviously never lived a life as a ghoul, but she had all my sympathy. Also, in a very strange and slightly uncomfortable way, she reminded me a little of my mom. "Oh, don't be sorry, kid," the gravely voiced ghoul growled, "It's my story. It's part of what makes me who I am." She gave me the warmest smile I'd ever seen. How could she smile like that? "Well, thanks for patching me up." I said weakly. "Oh, it's no problem at all. After all, you work here." she replied, then added, "And a little word of advice: wash off that paint. Some ponies get antsy around tribals." "Got it. Thanks again." I turned and began walking out the door. From behind me I thought I heard her whisper 'good luck,' but maybe I'd just imagined it. I would have washed off my (poorly applied) paint like Lyra had said... if I knew where anything in Waypoint was. I ended up just wandering around, lost, till I finally found a trough of water. Unsure if it was intended for drinking or washing, I just sat down in front of it and began thinking. Thinking wasn't something I was particularly good at and something I didn't have much of a use for when smashing rocks. What in Luna's name was I doing here? Why had I volunteered? One day away from my tribe and I had already gotten shot up, run through a cave of angry Timberwolves, sort-of gotten captured by a buck who was a few walls short of a barn, been coerced into joining a company of NCR ponies in self-imposed exile led by a monster I'd only heard stories about, and then healed by a monster I never could have imagined. When did the Goddesses decide my life needed to take a turn for the dangerous and bizarre? "You've got a tooth in your tail," two voices, one male and one female, said from behind me, breaking my train of thought. I turned around. Before me stood twins, both dark blue unicorns with black manes, both with cutie marks of a butterfly. Correction, a butterfly ripped in half. "What did you say?" I asked. The male answered without his sister's echo. "A tooth. You have one stuck in your tail." I combed through my tail with my hoof and found it. It was very bloody with the root still connected. My insides began to move. My mind was brought back to that Fire Hairs unicorn exploding by me, definitely the source of this bloody shrapnel. Oddly the vision of my enemies violent end bothered me more now than when it happened. My insides lurched again, sending the contents of my stomach in an outwardly direction. "Are you okay?" his sister asked, "Teeth aren't normally considered that disgusting." I wiped my mouth with the back of my hoof and spat on the ground, trying to rid myself of the taste of bile. "Well, you know what they say about tribals." her brother replied. "No, what do they say about tribals?" she asked with a slight tilt of her head. "Who are you?" I interrupted the odd pair. Was there some rule that all NCR ponies had to be strange? "He's Twoblue..." said the mare. "...and she's Threeblue." finished the stallion. "Who're you, new guy? We haven't seen you around here before." Two and Three? They just got even weirder. "I'm Fall." "Hi, Fall." Threeblue said with a very perky smile, "So, why'd the big boss griffon hire you? Got any special skills we should know about?" "You know, since we're coworkers now, after all." Twoblue added. Did I have any special skills? Or, a better question would be: does breaking apart rocks really count as a skill? Wait... was being really good at something sort of a thing with this company? "Um, I'm good at hitting stuff with hammers and picks. Is that what you mean?" I scratched at my Pip-Buck and spat on the ground again. The twins glanced at each other and started talking, adding to each other's sentences. "Sure..." "We always need ponies good at breaking stuff..." "And we obviously wouldn't complain about..." "Getting somepony new..." "But..." "The boss usually hires ponies with more..." "Specific..." "Skills." Uh, what? "I'm not sure what you mean." What in Luna's holy name where they talking about? Specific skills? What did that even mean? "Well, for example, Three is really good at invisibility magic," the stallion said, "and I'm good at choking ponies from a distance and dropping rocks on them." The mare picked up where her brother left off. "Yeah, and Lily is really good at shooting ponies in the face, and Silver Gallop is awesome at making potions, and Pickle is good at... um," she glanced at her brother, "herding brahmin?" Two just shrugged. Speak of Discord. "Hey, twins, boss wants to see all us." Lily, the guard mare I'd met earlier, announced to my new coworkers. She was wearing spiked metal barding that fit her form beautifully (I'm almost inclined to say seductively, but in regards to Lily that feels wrong), along with a setup I'd never seen before that had rifles strapped to her sides along with mouth-bits connected to the triggers. "Okay, Lily, see you there." the twins sang out in concert. Threeblue looked back towards me and smiled, "It was nice to meet you, Fall. See you around!" Lily glanced back at them, then shifted her eyes to me. "Oh, hey tribal, the boss wants to see ya to." she squinted, "But wash off the paint first. Red told me your one of us now, so try and look more professional." ...said the pony with spikes sticking out of her armor. "Where should I wash it off?" I asked. Her response was coupled with a face-hoof. "The Godesses-damned wash trough is right frickin in front of you." So that water was for washing after all. "Just get over to the boss's office when y'all are done." I quickly washed away my marks, and for some reason I felt a little pain when they were gone. We stood together in Red's office. I hadn't really noticed it before, but now I realized how small it was with four ponies and a big griffon taking up the space. The unicorn twins had donned barding on their way over here, Twoblue armored in combat barding similar to Red's, while Threeblue wore a sleek and stealthy looking polished black one-peice... um, thing. Not quite sure how to describe it but for some reason it didn't seem made for ponies. I was still wearing my leather barding, leaving me as the least protected. Red cleared his throat. "Well, my little ponies, we've got an order from a client in Violetville for fifty spark batteries. Unfortunately, we don't currently have fifty spark batteries." "So ya want us to go find some?" Lily interjected. "Exactly, kiddo." Kiddo? Did NCR ponies... I mean griffons... normally address their employees like foals? "I'm sending the four of you to D.O. twenty-one." My Pip-Buck's map updated to show two small small boxes: one to the northeast of my current location labeled Desert Outpost 21, the other to the northwest labeled Violetville. "An old base like the D.O. should have lots of old sky-wagons and other vehicles to scavenge batteries from." "Great," Lily replied, "all we need now is a map of the base and..." Red cut her off. "I don't have that particular map. That's why Fall is going with you." All eyes were on me. "He has one of those old Stable-Tec Pip-Bucks. It auto-maps everywhere he goes." So that was why he hired me. I had a map attached to my leg. Great to know how important I was. Threeblue gaped at me, entranced by the huge hunk of magical metal on my leg. "Just like the Savior wore..." Who? "Oh, don't talk about her that way. The Stable Dweller was just a normal pony." Twoblue half-scolded his sister. Huh? Stable Dweller? Savior? Were these ponies cultists or something? Lily ignored the twins. "So we're supposed to take him along just 'cause he's a walking road map?" she asked Red. "Correct." "And what if he dies? Don't those things shut off when the owner dies?" "I don't know, but if that's the case you'd better make sure he doesn't." Lily glared a (very attractive) glare towards me. "Y'all'd better stay close. If ya wander off and get killed I'll..." she struggled to find a threat, "...I'll do something, and y'all's ghost won't like it... or something. Ya get the point." Got it: don't wander, don't die. In truth, I hadn't been planning on doing either. Lily didn't like me much. I could tell. From the way she was never farther away than twenty feet but never closer than five, to how she eyed my pistol constantly (ever since it had been returned to me along with my dynamite) as if she suspected I would whip it out and try to kill all of them. However, I do have to give her credit. Despite her dislike of me and that she was stuck with me as a part of the group, at least she did try to strike up a conversation, albeit one I had pretty much nothing intelligent to contribute to. "So, tribal, nice pistol ya got there. 10mm Ironshod Fleetwing, right?" she gave the single most awkward smile I'd ever seen, but at least she was trying, right? "Um, yeah, I guess it's that, Fleet, um, thing." I'd never heard of a Ironshod or Fleet-anything before. To me a gun was a gun was a gun. If you pulled the trigger it went bang. "So, Lily, right? You know a lot about guns?" "You could say that. I was born in an armory after all." she chuckled a little, leaving me wondering if she was serious or if it was just a poor attempt at humor. Given how strange these NCR ponies had proven to be so far I was inclined to guess the former. "So how'd you meet Red and get a job with him?" Small talk wasn't my strong suit, evidenced by her immediate change of expression. She looked serious and sad, as if she was recalling something that brought her pain. She snorted and inhaled. "My parents were raiders in Ponyville. Not like those crazy cannibals in the Hoof, though. Nope just your average everyday psychopath." Insanity was considered normal? "The taught me all the normal stuff little fillies should learn. Shooting, ambushing, torture, castration, more shooting. You know, typical raider shit." She got kinda quiet. "What happened?" I prompted, genuinely interested. She stole herself up before she began speaking again. "One night, some crazy mare, out of nowhere, comes in and starts shooting up the town. My dad wasn't as high on Dash as he normally was and had the good sense to hide me in a closet. I thought that since my daddy was big and tough he and the others would just destroy that mare. Nope. Crazy freak killed them all, even Dead-eye Brick-face the fucking unkillable sniper." she sniffed, "Even dad." "I'm sorry." I really was. I could imagine few things worse than having your family and friends (even if they were psychopaths) killed by some mass-murdering mare. She brushed her hoof across her face to get a tear she thought I didn't notice. "Oh, don't be sorry. They were real shit-bags. Anyways, this group called the Talons comes through a few days later. Red was one of them. He took me in and raised me. After the war 'tween the 'Clavers and slavers and Rangers, he left the Talons and the NCR and went south. Said it wasn't like he'd hoped. I went with him." The end, I guess. "Funny thing is, though," oh, so not the end, "that crazy mare, turns out she's the one who ended the war and opened the sky. The Stable Dweller." I think my confused expression spoke for me. I began to open my mouth to ask for more information, but the Threeblue zoomed up to us like a speeding blue bullet. "Hey, were you guys talking about the Stable Dweller? Cause, you know, that's like my very favorite subject!" "No." Lily lied, "Besides, shouldn't ya be scouting ahead with that invisible stuff ya do?" "But that's so boring!" she jumped up and down repeatedly, "What could possibly happen that all of us couldn't see..." a crack sounded and a bullet quizzed past her head, barely missing her, "Oh, fudge." "Raiders!" Lily yelled, "Take cover, everypony!" She dove behind a large rock (which I noticed, pointlessly, had thin ribbons of iron running throughout it, making me imagine it had been pulled here from Iron Hide for the very purpose of blocking bullets) and motioned me over. Instead, I just stood there. Getting shot was not what I wanted, but I just couldn't move. I stood, facing the ponies who'd opened fire on us, and saw the bizarrely disfigured face of one of the raiders charging towards me with a foot long knife held in her magical glow. Fortunately, Twoblue leaped out of the ditch he had taken cover in and gave me a swift rear legged kick to the side, sending me tumbling into Lily behind her rock. Twoblue stood firm in front of the raider. His horn cast a glow that wrapped around the charging unicorn's neck, and tightened. He lifted the unicorn in front of him to absorb the bursts of incoming rounds, leading to the death of the crazed pony. He motioned to Lily who turned to me. "Okay, tribal, here's the plan. I'm going to go out there with Two and start shooting them. Y'all are gonna sneak around behind them with Three and catch 'em off guard. Got it?" Yeah, I think I could manage that (although the thought of killing another pony made my stomach do a few flips). I nodded. She nodded and rolled out from behind cover, chomping down on her rifles mouth-bits repeatedly, sending bursts of gunfire towards the enemy. I tried to calm my shaking hooves, and rolled out in the opposite direction. Based on my prior experience trying to avoid the Fire Hairs, sneaking was probably not my strongest skill. However, the sound of gunfire was enough to cover my hoof-steps as I snuck around behind the ambushers. They were a very... unclean, group of ponies. Covered in grime and the desert's sand it was impossible to tell their true colors, but I can say that they appeared well armed. One I noticed had a very compact weapon which he fired rapidly and wildly before a burst of rounds courtesy of Lily turned his head into a dark red and grey mush (oh Goddesses, stomach flips...) and also somehow blasting off all his limbs as well. Another was using a large weapon mounted on a tripod which fired even faster and was rapidly tearing through the meat shield. The third was getting ready to sprint forward with a heavy club made of concrete and rods of metal. I only noticed Threeblue when she briefly flashed out of invisibility. I drew out my pistol, intending to take out the pony on the big gun, and motioned to where I thought Threeblue was to kill the club-mare. Inhaling deeply I tried to steady my aim. From this distance I couldn't miss, right? Wrong, dammit. My bullet missed and just made a hole in the dirt, prompting the raider (whose gender was hard to tell) to spin around the weapon towards me. I jumped out of the way just in time, dropping my pistol, and gave the pony a two hoofed buck to the face, giving me just enough time to notice that our invisible unicorn had severed club-mare's head. The psycho-pony raised itself to its hind leg and stretched out what I suddenly realized were wings wrapped in bandages, launching itself at me. It bit down on my neck and I could feel the blood beginning to rush out. It was getting hard to breath as the insane pegasus was crushing down on my windpipe. In that moment of terror I felt something. Suffocation. The fear of death was upon me, the sheer panic at the thought of dying. And yet, almost immediately I began to feel peace. For a split second I saw a face haloed by the sun above me: the face of Celestia. Well, that sense of peace ended fast when the head of the pegasus broke open in a bullet induced blast of brain and skull, and I realized that it had been Lily's face in the sun. She kicked the corpse of my attacker off of me and applied pressure to my bleeding throat. Three ran over with a vial of purple liquid which she opened and poured (mostly, her magic was shaking a little) into my gasping mouth. Feeling my skin knitting itself back together was certainly a new experience. Able to breath again after the potion had done its work, I savored the the air I inhaled in deep gulps. "Wounded on the job, and you almost killed a raider." Twoblue jumped in, "Welcome to the team, Fall." Footnote: Level Up! New Perk: Company Pony- You've got a job to do! When doing missions for Waypoint Trading Company you move 5% faster and have +5 DR. (Credit goes to Kkat for creating the original Fo:E) Chapter 3: A Continuing Education in Effective ViolenceFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 3: A Continuing Education in Effective Violence "Fifteen years as a unified nation, and this is what we have to show for it? I expected better from us." Alive, but only for the moment. My ability to breath, given to me again by the repair done by the potion, quickly left. I could still feel blood gushing around inside my neck and became acutely aware of the hole still in my wind pipe. Those two injuries were not a particularly good combination. I was soon gasping for air once again and coughing up dark crimson blood. "Shit!" Lily yelled, "What level of potion was that?" she shouted to Threeblue. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the dark blue unicorn mare trembling. "I gave him a point-seven solution potion! That's all we have!" "Oh fuck!" Lily turned to Twoblue, "Do you know any healing spells? Please say yes!" Their voices were beginning to sound faint. "You know I don't, dammit!" he paused for a second, "But I know something we can do. Lily, I need you to cut an incision in his neck barely to the right of his esophagus." Wasn't cutting my throat more of the opposite of what I needed? Lily thought it seemed stupid also. "Are ya fucking, Luna-damned, bloodwing shit insane?!" "Just do it, dammit!" With that Lily took out a big, sharp knife, and precisely made a two-inch long cut vertically in my throat where the potion had just healed it. I felt a force- magic, I realized- pressing against my bleeding artery and covering the holes in my throat. "Give him Med-X." he said to my other companions, almost whispering. I felt a needle stabbed into my side and immediately began to feel my pain dulled. Not gone, for sure, but lessened. It felt like hours as Twoblue stood there, keeping me from bleeding out, suffocating, or both. I breathed slowly. The pain had started to return when Two started removing a little pressure, apparently deciding my blood had clotted enough, from the inside of my throat and began wrapping bandages tightly around my neck. "Give him two more healing potions." again, almost whispering. Threeblue carefully handed her brother two more bottles of purple magic, which he poured into the side of my half-open mouth with the utmost steadiness. "These potions aren't good enough on their own for the major arterial injuries you have," he explained, "but after what I've done you should heal." I nodded slightly, not wanting to move the bandages. I hurt like hell, but I was alive and breathing. It was then that I realized that without these ponies, these ponies I had only met that day, I would have died. Had I run into this same group of raiders alone a would just be another corpse in the desert. My life, and by extension the lives of everyone in my tribe, had been saved by my new friends. So there we sat. I was dizzy from the amount of blood I'd lost and the others stared at me hoping I wouldn't just keel over and die. Well I didn't die, but I certainly keeled over. I fell into a shallow, blood-loss induced sleep. When I came to I was being carried in Two's magic field, and he looked really tired. I wasn't exactly the lightest buck around, after all, even without my saddlebags which Three was carrying. "I can walk," I croaked. The others turned to me. "Oh, you're awake." replied Twoblue, "Are you sure you should walk. I mean, you did just lose a shit-ton of blood just three hours ago." Three hours?! I'd really been out that long? I nodded my head. "Yeah, I can walk. I don't want to slow any of you down." With a quietly mumbled 'okay then' he set me down. My legs felt like jelly, and I would have fallen over if Three hadn't rushed up beside me to let me lean against her. "It's fine, I'll walk with him." she told our companions. Lily and Two shrugged. "Fine, where to next?" Lily asked. I checked my Pip-Buck map. It showed we were almost directly south of our objective. I looked to the sky, discerning west by the position of the sun based on the time of day, then pointed north. "Straight that way." I growled. My voice reminded me of Lyra, they way it was gravelly and lower than normal. We resumed walking to our objective. It felt like we had been walking beside each other for an hour before Three spoke again. "I'm sorry." she apologized in a whisper. There was pain in her voice, regret and sadness. "Why? You didn't try to kill me." If anything I should be apologizing for making them waste three potions and a roll of bandages on me because I couldn't to kill a psycho. This kind unicorn mare didn't need to be sorry. She sighed. "I was supposed to be scouting ahead, and I got lazy. If I had seen the raiders..." she sniffed quietly, "You almost died, Fall. Even though we just met I can tell you're a good pony, and good ponies shouldn't die. I want to be like the Stable Dweller because she saved ponies. You could have died, and I don't want anypony to die because of me." "Don't," I demanded, "blame yourself. It wasn't your fault you didn't know those ponies were there." She began to cry soft tears. I lifted a hoof and put it around her shoulders. "It wasn't your fault, and for as long as I'm with you all I'll make sure no ponies who should live die because of you, got it?" For the moment it made her feel a little better. I could tell that something bad had happened in her life. She tried to cover her pain with a buoyant and happy attitude but sometimes, like now, the facade cracked. But I would protect her. I should have known better than to make promises I couldn't keep. Desert Outpost 21 was bigger than any settlement I'd ever seen. Concrete houses, barracks, depots, armories, and types of structures I'd never heard of before stretched out in vast rows into the quickly darkening horizon. In its time before the war it must have been the home of a thousand ponies, a home away from home hundreds of miles away from Equestria proper. I could also immediately tell that its purpose had been a mostly military one. Ancient rifles and other weapons of war lay scattered through the streets, giving me the feeling the D.O.'s occupants left in a hurry. We cut out a section of the razor wire fence and crept through into a monument to Equestria's greatest failure. The stories I'd been told had described Equestria before the war. A kingdom under the immortal rule of the Princesses Celestia and Luna, always at peace with its neighbors, a paradise. Until the war the nation's most advanced technology was steam trains and its biggest conflict was fought with pies. But this Outpost was not from the Equestria I'd been told about. Twoblue lit up a minor illumination spell to light our path and I switched on my Pip-Buck lamp. This type of darkness felt foreign to me, the type of darkness where the buildings are close together and cast their own shadows on our path. In Iron Hide all the houses and halls had been much more separate. I was beginning to feel claustrophobic, but I didn't let it show. I didn't want my new friends to think that not only was I worthless with a gun but also that I was afraid of narrow streets. We kept walking until we came upon a large rusted hunk of metal with wheels. From her saddle bags Lily drew out a wrench and got to work on extracting the spark battery from under the wagons hood. Two kept watch while her back was turned, as did Three. I had regained the capacity to stand on my own again, but I wasn't sure what to do with myself to be useful. I wandered over to Lily. "Anything I can do to help?" I asked our mare mechanic, hard at work extracting the big black block. "Yeah," she grunted, "hold y'all's light up." I lifted my leg to shine my Pip-Buck's lamp on the twisted metal. Using a wrench and some leverage, she was able to lift out the battery and set it on the ground. "Hey, Two," she called to the unicorn stallion, "first one down, forty-nine to go. Carry it." Twoblue wrapped the large battery in a field of magic and followed after Lily, who had already started working on the next vehicle. I just repeated the job of holding the light, and Threeblue kept guarding. Fifteen batteries later it was getting pretty dark. "Fall, what time is it?" Twoblue asked. I was amazed he was able to carry all those spark batteries with just magic. I glanced at my Pip-Buck. "Eight fifty-two, why?" My companions looked at each other. Lily started extracting the battery she was working with more quickly. "We need to get inside one of the buildings." she said. "Why?" I asked, "What happens if we aren't?" "Nine was curfew for these old outposts." Three explained to me, "After that the automatic security protocols activate. And that means metal ponies and turrets with beam weapons." she saw my confused expression, "They can flash-burn us to ashes." Oh. That didn't sound nice. Lily grunted as she pulled out the last battery of the night and gave it to Two. "Alright," she announced leaderishly (I know that isn't a word, but it fits), "we need a house or something, preferably one without a turret system in it. Fall," she turned to me, "y'all've got a sledgehammer, right? Go smash a door down." I found a suitable looking dwelling (labeled "House 2096") and drew out my hammer. Unfortunately I'd forgotten my neck injury and when I slammed my sledge against the door. I experienced a whole new wave of pain and found myself wishing for that Med-X stuff I'd been given earlier. I put my hammer back in my saddle bags, half sticking out so I could easily reach it, and we entered House 2096. The shelter stank of dry rot. Mold grew up the concrete walls. In the far right corner of this entrance hall lay two unicorn skeletons wrapped in each other' hooves. The larger one was draped in a disintegrating military uniform. The smaller pony couldn't have been any older that Cactus Flower. I suddenly and powerfully had the urge to run back home and hug my littlest sister, but that was impossible. Scattered around the two deceased ponies were lots of small Med-X syringes, all empty. "They must have overdosed." Three said. I hadn't noticed her next to me and her voice startled me. I looked back again and noticed a full syringe I hadn't seen before. I felt another twinge of sharp pain in my neck, but looking at these poor overdosed ponies made me lose the urge to use that last full Med-X. "Why... why would they overdose themselves?" I asked my friend, dropping my voice to a mere scratchy whisper in reverence. She pointed to the radio on the counter nearby. "They must have heard about the megaspells. Lots of ponies just thought the world ended. Suicide was really common when the bombs went off, I've heard." Suicide. As strange as it may seem, I'd never heard that word before, but I was able to figure out it's meaning: Death by ones own hooves. That never happened in my tribe, and if it did I'd never heard about it. I shuddered. I couldn't imagine the fear and hopelessness these ponies had felt. I wanted to bury these two-hundred years dead ponies. But then I started thinking (like I've said, it wasn't something I did often). Those raiders from earlier, what had happened to them? "Hey, Three?" I asked, "Can I ask you something?" "Sure, Fall. What is it?" "Did you guys bury those raider's?" I was hoping she'd say yes. My conscience was hoping for it. In the White Hooves, all the dead had to be buried whether or not they were with the tribe, but the wasteland was uncivilized and I didn't know how NCR ponies treated their enemies' corpses. Her answer made me cringe. "Nope. Why would we? They're just raiders. We took their stuff and left." Because they're ponies! my mind screamed, but at the same time I guess I understood. Nopony had the time to bury the psychos that tried to kill them out here. The creepy dark pony who taught me about life in the wastes had warned me that kindness could get a pony killed out here, and I suppose kindness to the dead was no exception. So instead of subjecting her to a lesson in my tribes sense of morality I just shrugged and lied, "Oh, no reason. Just wondering." Lily's voice sounded out from the adjoining room. "Hey, guys, y'all should come see this." The other three of us- myself, Two, and Three- rushed in to find Lily standing with her hat off in the center of a room full of the skeletons of young ponies, some older, some younger than the little pony in the other room. Each of the skeletons had one bullet hole in the top of their skulls. A compact assault rifle gun laid on the couch in the far corner of the room with the clip empty and ejected. How could a pony do this to all these little foals? I thought I was gonna be sick again. Lily looked even worse: her expression was cold, and that scared me. Twoblue, his saddle bags loaded down with salvage, laid down on the ground, crossed his legs over his eyes and began to weep. Seeing the strong unicorn buck who had saved me from bleeding out and carried me telekinetically for three hours cry like that scared me even more than Lily's steely cold lack of sadness. Three walked over and laid down next to her brother, stroking his mane. I didn't know what to think. That pony in the other room, the one in the uniform, they must have killed all these foals. I could almost understand their suicide, but murdering almost twenty young ponies with precision like that, and then letting yourself die an easier way? What the FUCK!? I was angry! I wanted to kill a two-hundred-years-dead murderer who had probably been scared out of their mind when they committed their atrocity. My faith had taught me to feel sympathy for those who were morally weaker and to respect the dead, but all I wanted to do now was bring them back to life so I could kill them again. I left the room of dead foals. I just couldn't take it anymore. Lily followed behind me. I came to a large box in the wall with the logo "Chill-Master 10,000 Refrigerator" and opened it by the handle. Old boxed food rested on shelves. It didn't look particularly appetizing, but I was hungry. I tore open one box of something called "Mini-Cherry Cupcakes" and was mildly surprised to find they still looked edible. I popped one in my mouth and found it crunchier than I'd expected cupcakes to be, but still food. I swept the rest of the refrigerators contents into my saddle bags and swallowed my mouthful of cupcake, feeling a twinge of pain as it traveled down my throat. "Ya look angry, tribal." Lily said. I snorted. "Damn right, I am. Aren't you? How can you not be when you see murdered foals?" "I was raised a raider, remember?" she replied, "Murder was a part of life." I turned to face her. "Killing doesn't bother you? Not a bit?" "Oh, don't misunderstand me. The senseless slaughter o' innocents makes my blood boil. But those foals were killed out of mercy, or at least mercy all twisted up." she shrugged, "But no, I don't mind killing. The first time I killed another pony I was about four. I actually enjoyed it a little. Still do, sometimes." Sweet Goddess Celestia, have mercy on her soul. I walked away. I wanted peace. I wanted sanity. Most of all, I wanted to bury the bodies of all those little foals. I laid down on a decrepit mattress I'd found with my barding laying next to me. I lit the pages of "Story of the Goddesses" with my Pip-Buck lamp as I nosed through it, trying to find a passage in it explaining why the world outside of the Ghost Lands sucked so much, but so far was finding nothing. Eventually I closed the holy book with disgust and shoved it back into my saddle bags. I rolled over onto my back and stared out into Luna's sky through a missing chunk of the ceiling. I needed to talk to a seer, say a confession, do something to get rid of the fear and hate I felt. The stars were beautiful. Little spots of light in the overwhelming dark. There was probably a good metaphor in it, but I couldn't see it. What did the Goddesses want from me? They had a purpose for everything, right? Right now I just wanted to not be in this house, but the thunking hoof steps of the metal ponies I'd been hearing outside made leaving seem like a bad idea. Lily walked into the room. She'd taken her armor and hat off, presumably to be more comfortable since we weren't in any immediate danger. I noticed that her cutie-mark was a skull being shattered apart by a bullet and surrounded by spots of blood. A fitting talent for a mare who had admitted earlier that she enjoyed killing. "Hey, tribal..." I cut her off. "My name is Fall. Fall Goddess-damned Hammer-heart. Stop calling me tribal, dammit." I rolled off the mattress and pressed my face up against hers, staring with all the anger I could muster into her eyes. She returned my gaze in an annoyed way. "Fine, what the fuck ever, Fall." she replied, "Just came to tell ya I'm taking first watch, and y'all're taking second. After that ya wake up Three for third watch. Get some sleep if ya want it." She turned to trot away. "What about Two?" I asked, "Is he taking a watch also?" "No," she replied, "and don't bother him when you wake Three." "Fine. Good night." I laid back down on my mattress. I began drifting off to sleep before a small voice interrupted my rest. "Fall," whispered Threeblue "are you awake?" I grumbled. "Yes, I'm awake." I faced towards her, "What is it?" Her face was tear stained and downcast. She shivered even though it wasn't cold. Something about her just seemed off. When I'd first met her she was happy and hyperactive, definitely not the mare I saw now. "I, um, I was wondering... this is going to sound stupid..." she stammered, leaving me unsure what she was trying to say. Finally she drew a deep breath and voiced her request. "Can I sleep with you tonight?" I was a little taken aback. A mare had never asked to sleep with me before, and I wasn't quite sure how to react. My mind replayed part of one of the Arch-Seer's sermons: 'Above all else, the words of Element Bearer Fluttershy teach us to always be kindness. Whether that kindness is genuine or not depends on you.' I would needed to show kindness, if not out of genuine love for this mare then at least to comfort her. And, in truth, I needed companionship to. "Sure, you can stay here tonight." then a thought worried me, "Your brother doesn't mind you doing this, right?" I really didn't want to get in a fight with a unicorn whose self professed special skill was choking ponies to death for sleeping with his sister. She shrugged off her black barding and laid down next to me on the mattress. "My brother just wants to be alone, and right now I really don't want to be alone. I'm sure he'll understand." she nuzzled her way into my forehooves and pressed her head against my chest. Her horn dug into my bandaged neck. "You're a nice pony, Fall. Please, don't ever change." She drifted off to a quiet sleep, her tears occasionally wetting my coat. I didn't want to change, Three, but I fear the wasteland has changed me. The mine I stood in was littered with the bones of foals. They cried out to me in cold voices 'Save us, save us,' but I couldn't help them. I just walked over them. I could see daylight at the exit of the mine, but it was still far away. The bones of small earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi, lay littered, scattered around my hooves. They grabbed at me. I took out my hammer and smashed them to fine powder. Their screaming stopped. It was the merciful thing to do, right? The corpse of the dead unicorn foal-murderer looked at me with frightened eyes before I kicked her head into the wall and watched it brake apart into red mush. The raider who had bitten my neck now pleaded for its life, clutching the head of the mare who had been carrying the club in its hooves. I pointed the deranged pegasus' own machine gun at its throat and pulled the trigger. I couldn't miss from that close. I saw the Fire Hairs earth pony whose legs I'd blown off with dynamite slithering towards me. She begged for help, but I couldn't help her. I left her to bleed among the other fallen. I reached the mine's exit to find my village burning and my littlest sister with a hole in her head like all the dead foals. I scooped her small body into my hooves and hugged her to my chest as I cried over her. The dark mare stood in front of me. Her mushroom cutie-mark glowed in sickly green brilliance. A sickly green cloud rolled toward me from behind her as she spoke to me. "Fall, what are you doing?" I wanted to talk to her to tell her I had no idea what I was doing, but I was rendered mute. "Fall, are you okay?" No, I'm not okay. I couldn't handle the death I'd seen, the cruelty, the evil inherent in the wasteland. I couldn't be a warrior, and I was going to let my tribe down. "Fall? Fall?! Fall! Fall, you're hurting me!" I awoke. Threeblue stared into my eyes with a pained expression. I released my tight grip on her and felt the thick beads of sweat that covered me. "Are you alright?" she breathed. The way she spoke sent chills through me. I'd almost really hurt her. "You had a dream, didn't you?" I nodded. "What was it about?" she asked with a softness that was new to me. I sighed. "I was having a nightmare about..." I wasn't sure what it had been about, "It was just really bad." She wrapped her legs tighter around me. "I have dreams like that sometimes. They always start the same, but I can never see the ending." I could feel the warmth of her body pressed against me. "When did you start having those dreams?" I asked the mare I was sleeping with but knew next-to-nothing about. She shivered. "Don't ask me about that. Good night again, Fall." Oh, wrong subject I guess. "Goodnight, Three." I drifted off into a (blessedly) dreamless sleep. "Fall, you fat tribal, wake up. It's y'all's turn for watch." I opened my eyes to Lily glaring down at me disapprovingly. After sliding my leg out from under Three, I crawled off the mattress, grabbed my stuff, and followed Lily to the front door I'd knocked down. I noticed Two laying on the decrepit living room couch as I walked past. What was that in his hooves? It looked like one of the foal skulls, but in the dark I couldn't be sure. Lily cleared her throat. "Watch from here and make sure nothing gets in, got it?" "Sure." "If something does try to sneak in, no matter what it is, kill it, okay? Nothing good sneaks around at night in the wasteland." "Understood." "Got everything ya need?" I patted my hammer and a box of two-hundred snack food. "Yup. Got my stuff." She cleared her throat and smirked. "So," she whispered in a distinctly twitty way, "y'all and Threeblue..." I interrupted her. "...are just friends. That's all." "That isn't what I saw." she poked my chest with her hoof, "Must be something about y'all that makes her trust ya. I don't." I blinked. "What?" "Y'all heard me. I'm keeping ya alive 'cause Red wants ya alive. Far as I'm concerned, Fall, y'all're just another tribal an tribals ain't good ponies when they deal with the NCR. Never." I was really feeling pissed at this mare. "And what does this have to do with Three?" I think I already kinda knew the answer, but I really just felt like being a jerk to Lily. She rolled her eyes. "If y'all and her are an item, that makes trouble for the company. That's 'cause if y'all leave she might decide to go with ya. If she convinces y'all to stay that means I have to keep watching out for y'all's sorry flank. Plus, if ya haven't noticed yet, those twins got enough trouble on their own without ya getting mixed up in things." The last part of her statement confused me. "What exactly," I interrogated, "are the troubles you're talking about?" She searched for the right words. "Let me put it this way: the twins used to be triplets. Ever wonder why they're Two and Three instead of One and Two? That ever strike ya as odd?" To be honest, I hadn't really thought about it. I'd just chalked up the weird names to 'NCR ponies are crazy' and shoved it to the back of my mind. "No, I hadn't thought about it. But what's it matter? Three and I are just friends, anyways." "Sleep with all ya female friends, Fall?" she pointed out, then tossed in a small verbal grenade, "Is sleeping around with ponies ya just met that day a tribal thing?" Okay, that pissed me off. I stomped my hoof against the floor. "Just go the fuck to sleep and leave me alone, Lily." She shrugged. "Don't listen to me. Whatever. Y'all's funeral." She walked away. I watched her unarmored body saunter off into the dark of whatever room she'd chosen. Curse my traitorous mind: I realized I actually found Lily more physically attractive than Threeblue. Luna have mercy on my soul. Sitting just in front of the smashed door watching the empty street was more boring than any day of smashing rocks. Large, clunking metal ponies walked by occasionally, but after taking a quick glance at me they continued their patrol. Oversized roaches occasionally approached me. I dispatched the ugly critters without hesitation by a quick hoof-stomp. Other than that almost nothing happened. I glanced at my Pip-Buck. Two in the morning. Awesome. I sighed. Had I really messed things up by letting Threeblue spend the night with me? I had accepted her out of kindness, but that probably didn't change anything. I think that Lily had interpreted Three and I sleeping together as a sexual thing. As far as I was concerned we were just friends, and friends comforted each other, right? She was a pretty mare and she seemed to care more about me more than my other two companions, but I didn't love her. I remembered back to life before I left my village. My sister Cactus Flower used to sleep with my parents when she had nightmares. Then, one night, they said she would have to mature and she couldn't sleep with them anymore. So she chose me. When I realized that was the type of comfort Three wanted, spending the night with some pony to help guard you from your fears and not... um, something else, I actually felt more comfortable. But I'm rambling. I should get back to the story. It was still the early morning, and I was still bored as hell. Stuck here doing nothing and I was tired. Fantastic. "Mind if I sit with you?" a gruff voice said from behind me. I turned to see Twoblue standing behind me. "Sure, go ahead." I patted a patch of floor next to me. He sat and I decided to try make some small talk. "What's it like where you're from?" He snorted. "I'm from Junction Town, capital of the New Canterlot Republic. It used to just be a small town, then everypony started trying to move there. We left because they only way to afford a life around there for ponies like us is to join the army or do mindlessly stupid odd jobs. But overall, nice place." He nodded, apparently agreeing with his own statement. "What about you? What's your hometown like?" Dear Goddesses did I ever miss Iron Hide right then. "It's, um, a nice place. We're generally far enough away from the fighting that it doesn't affect us much. Life was nice. Boring, but nice." All I wanted then was my boring life. Right now, I would give what's left of my soul to have never left my village, my tribe, my family. "Damn, I wish my life were boring." Two grumbled. "How did you know how to save my life?" I asked once I realized I'd never thanked him. Fall, you moron, learn how to be more polite and considerate. A smug grin. "I had no idea what I was doing. Remember when said I was good at choking ponies? That was what I did, but inside-out and backwards. Made it up as I went along." That... was a bit disconcerting. "At least it worked though, right? I mean, you'd be dead if it didn't. Choked to death on your own blood. What a way to go." He paused for a moment before he decided to really get threatening. "If you hurt my sister I'll kill you." Alright, Fall, just play it cool... "What do you mean?" "My sister likes you. A lot. I can see it in her eyes. Like a good brother, I get suspicious when my sister falls in love with a stallion she met that day." He jabbed his hoof into my neck where the raider bit me. I gulped. "She... she's just a friend to me." Then why'd you let her sleep in your bed, Fall? "Then why the fuck is she in your bed, Fall?" Wow, sure hadn't seen that question coming... I narrowed my eyes at him. "How do you know about that?" Great job not incriminating yourself, genius! He lightly chuckled and jabbed harder into my throat. "Do I look stupid to you? Lily took the far room, you took the middle room, I took the living room. My sister wasn't with me when I woke up, and she doesn't like Lily much. That... only... leaves... you." He poked my throat at each word of his last sentence. If he was trying to intimidate me, he was doing a fairly good job at it. Oh, come on, Fall! Grow some Luna-damned balls and stop being such a pushover! "So what?" I asked, "I let her sleep in my bed because she didn't want to be alone, and you didn't want her around." I knocked away his hoof for added forcefulness, and delved into what I divined as the root of the problem. "The dead foals affected all of us badly: you broke down in tears, I got pissed at some dead army pony, Lily got bitchy and philosophical, and your sister just wanted some damn comfort. So don't start blaming your problems on me!" "You don't know a fucking thing about my problems! Your just another fucking tribal, you slimy piece of sister-stealing filth!" he telekinetically grabbed my throat and pushed me high against the wall, giving me a free first-hoof demonstration of his skill. "I don't know how you White Hooves shitbags do things, but where I come from if you hurt my family I will fucking end you! Got it?!" I would have answered if I could breath, but I couldn't, so I didn't. Lily and Three rushed out. Lily took a running jump and tackled Twoblue to the floor, breaking his magical grip on me. I crashed to the floor in a gasping heap. Three ran to me, checking to make sure I was okay and that my wound hadn't reopened. Lily kept him pinned. "What in Fluttershy's name happened? Why were y'all trying to kill him?!" she shouted in his face. He turned his face away. I spoke for him ('Sometimes a lie is easier to take'). "Nothing. We were just arguing about... something. It's not important." Everypony looked at me as if I'd just spoken a different language. "Is there a problem here, resident?" said a metal pony who had been patrolling. Awesome, freaky two-hundred year old mechanical ponies were trying to solve our problems now. The wasteland was just full of damn surprises. "Uh, no problem at all, um..." Lily glanced at the faded name written on the walking tin can, "um, Unit Twenty-six. Just a small disagreement among friends, that's all." She mustered up a huge lying smile. The artificial pony turned and trotted away. She stepped off of Two and glared at both of us. "Look," she chided, "I don't know what happened and something tells me I don't want to, but we almost just got the damn house searched by robots. Fall, ya suck at keeping watch. Two, I have no idea why y'all want to kill him, but please don't ruin our map until after we get back to Waypoint, okay?" We nodded. "Okay then. I'll finish off tonight's watch and in the morning..." Two interrupted her. "I'll keep watch. I need time to think." Lily shrugged. "Whatever. The rest of us will get back ta sleep then. See y'all in the morning, Two." She walked back to her room. I grabbed my sledgehammer but left my box of food behind, half as a weak peace offering, half because I felt to lazy and tired to take it with me. Three and I trotted back to our room and laid down on the mattress. I expected Three to say something, to ask me why her brother tried to kill me, something like that. Instead she just wrapped her legs around me tighter than before. It seemed like she was trying to keep me from going anywhere. She didn't say anything, but I should have. I should have asked what had happened to make Two so protective, or where her nightmares came from, or what happened to her other sibling, or if she had even wanted to leave her hometown with her brother. Instead, I just asked nothing and relaxed into sleep in her hooves. Three, I'm so, so sorry. The morning awoke me with the sun shining on my face through the gap in the ceiling. Three looked beautiful (not that I loved her like that though, right?) and at that moment I didn't want to leave. I glanced at my Pip-Buck. Six-thirty. Way earlier than I used to wake up in Iron Hide. I slid my leg out from under her, trying not to wake her up, and began slipping on my barding and saddlebags. Her eyes fluttered open. "Good morning." she murmured. "Good morning to you also, Three. Sleep well?" She glanced around at her surroundings. Scrunching up her face in confusion, she asked, "Were we sleeping... together?" Huh? "Uh, yes? You don't remember?" I was confused... She shook her head. "Nope. Can't remember anything. Did we, um, you know...?" "No. No we didn't. Our night together was perfectly innocent." Three tilted her head. "Was I drunk?" I would have said no if Lily hadn't peeked her head in. "Up an' at 'em, lovebirds! Found a map of this base in a desk, and now I know 'bout a garage where we can get a shit-ton o' spark batteries!" My Pip-Buck pinged the new location: D.O. 21 Repair Depot. How did it do that? Lily bounced away wearing a face-splittingly big grin, eager to get a 'shit-ton o' spark batteries.' I looked back to Three. "I'm pretty sure you weren't drunk." Was I? I'd heard of drunkenness but I'd never seen it. When traders first brought beer to Iron Hide the Arch-Seer, acting as moral compass of the tribe, quickly banned it after it started a fight between two warrior comrades. For all I knew Threeblue could have been very drunk. "Damn," she muttered, "that's so weird. I don't remember being with you at all last night." She squinted at me. "Are you sure we didn't..." "Yeah, Three, I'm sure." I cut her off with a slight smile, "I think we should get going." She stepped off the mattress and started putting her barding on, murmuring to herself. I walked out into the front hall where the bones of the murderer lay. Despite looking at the bones through my gaze of hate I suddenly noticed something I'd missed before. The pony's uniform had rotted, causing a small, dark orb to drop out of a pocket and into the murderer's chest cavity. I reached to pick it up. Written on the side were the words 'My Sin: Last Confession of Army Corporal Camera Recorder' in very small white print. I almost left it behind, but something told me to keep it. Who knew? Perhaps it would be useful later. The repair depot was unfortunately all the way on the other side of the base. We were forced to navigate our way through piles of rubble and more abandoned vehicles. Two and I hadn't spoken to each other all morning, which made his sister hanging around me most of the entire time feel like I was tempting fate. I wasn't that keen on the idea of accidentally giving Two a reason to kill me. It was a really strange morning. Three couldn't remember anything that happened from when we saw the dead foals until when she woke up. Lily was shooting every deactivated robot pony she saw and taking bits of metal from them. Like I said, Two hadn't talked to me that morning. In fact, he hadn't said anything to anypony, not even his sister. That meant, obviously, that Three had no idea her brother had tried to kill me last night, making everything more awkward. I could see the garage of the repair depot after we crossed over one last big pile of concrete. Unfortunately it wasn't as abandoned as the rest of the base. Fire Hairs soldiers milled around the area with raiders. What was strange, however, was that the raiders weren't trying to kill them. In fact, they were talking! "Remind me again why we're here?" a Fire Hairs buffalo said to a grime smeared raider unicorn. The buffalo didn't even try to hide her disgust towards the filthy pony. The unicorn rolled her eyes. "Because we need scrap and you need scrap, and somepony has to decide who gets it." Great. Raiders and battle-hardened Fire Hairs warriors were already scavenging the place we were going to scavenge, and there were about five times as many of them as of us. I felt a tug on my tail and fell back down the rubble pile. My coworkers looked to me. "How many of them are there?" Lily asked. "About twenty," I replied, "but their might be more inside." Two glanced at Lily. "We've had worse odds." he deadpanned. Wait, what? Worse odd than four-plus to one?! And they survived? "Yeah, but the last time that happened the company lost half its workforce." Lily reminded him. Okay, so bad odds with a bad ending. That seemed more realistic. "Three, I want y'all to go invisible and get an exact count, inside an' out." "Aye, aye, ma'am, sir, ma'am!" Three threw a happy salute and quickly vanished. Two opened his mouth in protest, but shut it when he realized his sister had already left. It seemed to me that Three was back to being the joyful and energetic mare I'd first met. But why did it feel wrong? Four minutes later she got back. "How many?" Lily asked as soon as Three un-vanished (that's a word, right?) "Fifty-seven," she replied. Damn, that's a lot for the four of us to take on. "Plus a really big robot." Lily tilted her head. "What type of robot?" Seriously, Lily? All you cared about was the robot? Not the other crap-ton of battle hardened murderous ponies? Three chewed her bottom lip. "The robot... is really big. And it has a rocket launcher. And a flamethrower. And a grenade launcher. And a minigun." As soon as she said 'minigun' the big garage door exploded outward. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking fuckity FUCK!" screamed a raider from amid the stream of ponies running like all hell had broken loose through the blasted door. The really big robot rolled out slowly. Really big was an understatement: It was bigger than I thought possible. I'd never seen something so big that could still move! Why would anypony ever build that?! And that's when I noticed the crazy grin on Lily's face. Lily leapt on top of rubble pile. "Come on, ponies!" she shouted back to us, "We've got an order to fill and a robot to kill! So let's go kill us a giant fuckin robot!" Shit. The rest of us glanced at each other, then followed her. We couldn't let our leader get killed, right? Everypony shot at the robot. The robot shot, blasted, blew up, and burned back. It was Discord-tier chaos. This was my life now. Footnote: 25% to next Level (Special thanks go to Kkat for writing the original. Because the original is always the best.) Chapter 4: A Trialing Travel Trip of TroubleFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 4: A Trialing Travel Trip of Trouble “Well you've got opportunity, in this very community...” If my mother was here now I know exactly what she’d say: “Fall! Just look at this mess you're in! Clean it up!” What a mess it is. I guess it’s my own fault, though. I did leave my home freely, after all. Adventure? Not that great, it turns out! None of the adventure stories I’d been told as a foal had death in them. Then again, I should have known better. Equestria, the world, pony culture; it had all changed over the past two-centuries. Life sucked now. But what could I do? I couldn’t go back home, that was for sure. I guess I could have just walked away from the fight, but I didn’t want any of my new friends to get hurt. Well, I wouldn’t mind seeing a jerk like Two get hurt, but I didn’t want anypony to get killed. I was stuck. But enough of my complaining. I should get back to the story. The sounds of battle surrounded us. Everywhere ponies were getting blown up by rockets, blasted by grenades, perforated by bullets, and roasted alive. The burning ponies were definitely the most terrifying for me. They flames stuck to them in the way fire shouldn't. Some jellyish stuff held it to their skin. Their screaming was like foals crying for their mothers, only worse because nopony answered them. The scent was unlike anything I’d ever smelled. It was sweet, but not in a good way. It got in your nose and stayed there, filling your mind with visions of death, and I suddenly understood what ‘the stench of fear’ meant. But worst of all, the way their skin curled and shriveled up. It stopped being protection against the world and turned into a sheet wrapped too tightly, choking them, smothering them. Lyra must have felt like that when she turned into what she is. I never wanted to be burned. I don’t think Celestia really cared what I wanted. I felt the searing pain as the flames swept across my unarmored back right leg. I dropped to the ground and rolled to put it out and scraped the burning liquid off, but not before it burned through my fur and skin and left bright red, tender, bleeding patches of muscle exposed. A flame lit the bandages on my neck. I ripped them off in a hurry, not wanting to be more injured than before. To my surprise my neck wound had almost completely healed. Only a scar which I could feel without touching it remained. An errant missile barely missed me, blowing me off my hooves into pile of sharp scrap metal that was lying around. Lily was rushing around like a crazy pony, shooting at whatever looked like weak spots. Twoblue, much more calmly, telekinetically chucked rock and chunks of concrete at the giant metal abomination. Three must have been invisible again because I couldn't see her anywhere. Me? I wasn't sure what to do. I just didn't want to get blown up or hit by one of the raider's and Fire Hairs' stray bullets. Not getting shot again had moved itself up to the top of my priorities, right above not getting choked to death by Two. I could almost feel the minigun train itself on me and I jumped out of the scrap pile away from its aim as the multiple barrels rotated. Running to avoid death I sprinted away from my previous position... and ran right smack into a very large Fire Hairs buffalo in heavy combat barding. The buffalo turned her massive head towards me and squinted at me. No, not at me, at my barding. Her eyes got wide. She spun (faster than I'd expected for a buffalo of her size) and bucked me with her back hooves into the path of the minigun. I barely managed to avoid getting shot full of holes. The buffalo charged, horns down, towards me. I pulled out my hammer and jumped (faster than I'd expected for myself) to my hooves and braced myself for impact. I closed my eyes, waiting to be knocked off my hooves again by the charging buffalo. A sharp crack and opened my eyes just in time to see my enemy's now headless body tumble onto me. Lily helped pry the dead corpse off of me and lifted me to my hooves. "Is y'all's Pip-Buck okay?" she asked. I lifted my left hoof and showed it to her. I was actually surprised that it was completely intact without so much as a scratch on its screen. Then I thought for a moment and felt pissed at her again. She didn't care about me at all. She just cared about my Pip-Buck! A stray bullet clipped the tip of my ear reminding me this wasn't the time to be angsty. The two of us ducked out of the way of an incoming wall of flames. The gigantic robot thing of giantness was really, really close. So close that I could see written on its armor the words "Macintosh 5 Prototype Dreadnought Unit." It rolled towards me on its huge treads. Getting crushed to death was starting to creep up my list of ways to not die. Mounted to the front of the "Dreadnought Unit" was what appeared to me to be a metal eye (I only realized later it was a targeting camera). It pivoted to face me. All the weapons (and I mean ALL the weapons) rotated till they pointed at me. The minigun started spinning. This was the end. I didn't want to die out here. I didn't want to have spent my final days away from my family. I didn't want to be just another unburied corpse in this wasteland, doomed to haunt it eternally. I squeezed my eyes closed and waited to be shot, burned, grenaded, and blasted apart by rockets. Nothing happened. I opened my to see Three standing on the behemoth, holding the metal eye telekinetically. The "Dreadnought Unit" had powered down. She hopped down looking awfully proud of herself. Not getting killed by a giant rampaging war machine? Awesome! Surrounded by a shit-load of ponies and buffalo who almost definitely wanted to kill us? Not so awesome. The three of us (where was Two?) backed up by each other as the crowd began to surround us. A toweringly tall purple and white Fire Hairs unicorn mare with red circles painted on her coat and wearing metal barding tied together by strips of cloth stepped out from the crowd. "Who are you ponies?" she asked Three in a particularly derisive way. Three looked behind and around her, expecting that the Fire Hairs mare was talking to somepony else. "Answer me! Leader to leader, tell me why you and your band of thieves just destroyed our property." Three wasn't the leader. However, I understood the confusion. The Fire Hairs believed that unicorns were the only race suitable for freedom and constantly kept the buffalo and earth ponies under them in a state of low level hypnosis. The idea of somepony other than a unicorn being in a position of command was probably unthinkable to her. Lily put herself between Three and the Fire Hairs mare. "Ahem," she coughed, "I'm in charge of this 'band o' thieves' as y'all call us. I'm a representative of Waypoint Trading Company on a business related mission and if y'all will consider for a Celestia damned moment that we just saved y'all's sorry flanks from all getting killed, you should thank us." Oh Goddesses, Lily, why'd you have to talk back to the crazy racist pony? "The fuck did you just say?" the Fire Hairs mare sputtered, "You stupid, insolent, fucking earth pony! Know your Goddess-damned place!" a raider gave a small, but noticeable 'What?' from behind her. "What are you doing with a unicorn, anyways? I swear, if you're slaving unicorns I'll..." her eyes drifted to me and burrowed into mine, "Who are you?" she asked me, "I feel like I've seen, or heard, about you, maybe..." her eyes went wide as she noticed my cutie mark,"Hol-ee SHIT! A pickaxe? You're that little White Hooves bastard who killed a team of our warriors!" All that was running through my mind was 'Ah crap.' Of course they had thought-scouts watching their warriors! I had suddenly become the focus of all our enemies. We were hugely outnumbered with one team member nowhere to be seen and nowhere to run. Yup, pretty much screwed. "You little... Why, I should tear your Goddesses-damned head off and stuff it full of shit and then bury it and then dig it up and then sew it back onto your body and feed you to the cannibals in the horn-fucking hills!" she ranted at the top of her lungs. Dear Celestia, this pony must really take war seriously. "I swear by Luna's holy genitals I will avenge my little sister's death, you fucking fuck-faced Fuck-Hooves!" Oh, the unicorn with those guards was her sister? Damn... I was trying to reach for my hammer when she threw herself on top of me with a knife drawn (a really big and heavy knife with serrations on both edges) that she held in her magical grip. All hell broke loose. The three of us, my friends and I, were badly, badly outnumbered. I scrambled out of crazed-unicorn-pony's grip and thrashed around trying to avoid her knife strikes. Somehow the "Dreadnought Unit" had turned itself back on and was firing into the battle. As I tried to dodge a column of flames I ended up running into my attacker. She gave a strong (and very, very, very painful) two-hoofed kick into my ribs. Thank the Goddesses I landed on my other side, right next to my hammer. I snatched it up in my mouth and wished for S.A.T.S. to give me my only advantage. Time froze and outlined the Fire Hairs mare in that thick cerulean blue my Pip-Buck projected. I would only get one swing in S.A.T.S. (apparently swinging hammers takes up a lot of the spell's charge) so I had to make it count. Where should I aim? I could aim for the side of her head and possibly knock her out, but that was only possibly. The knife? She would just pick it up again magically. What about her horn? If I could shatter it, or at least wound it enough, I could take away her most useful tool. Plus it had a slightly higher chance that the rest of her head or the knife. I selected her horn. But then I saw her eyes. Her eyes held anger, but not just anger. Sadness. I'd killed her sister (well, not technically but i felt like I had). For a moment in frozen-time I imagined if one of my sisters was killed. She had cared about her sister, I could see that, and now I was getting ready to smash the only part of her that gave her any power in her tribe. At that moment a wave of pity and kindness swept over me. I canceled the attack. I backed out of S.A.T.S. and was rewarded for my kindness by a knife scraping passed my ribs. My side exploded in pain. She drew out her weapon and slashed across my left knee, just above my Pip-Buck. I jerked around, carried by impulse, and swept the heavy end of my hammer into the side of her head. Her face twisted and smushed around the sledgehammer. She fell down and immediately began scrambling up again as a wave of fire (without the jelly stuff this time, praise the ancestors...) washed over us. I jumped away as fast as I could as it scorched my fur and burned my mane. My leather barding didn't catch, but hers sure did. Several of the cloth strips burned away. Plates of metal dropped off as she desperately tried to regain her vision and find her weapon, all while trying to pat out her flaming mane and tale. This was my chance, and this time I wasn't going to let kindness stand in my way. I charged. I swung. I smashed down on the tip of her horn. It shattered like pottery. Chunks of it, the most important and sacred bone in a unicorn's body, blew up in my face, sparking tiny blue pinpricks of light. Only a jagged and bloody stump remained on her head. And yet she didn't die. She didn't even go down. Her smoke brushed eyes shot open. The Fire Hairs mare launched herself onto me with tears of pain and anger flooding from her eyes. I stumbled as she went for my neck, for my scar. I went down in a heap on the ground and tried to hold her off me with the staff of my hammer. My enemy didn't even look like a pony anymore. Her lips curled back, the jagged stump, red eyes, blood trickling down her face. This was a monster. I took a brief glance around me. All the ponies fighting, dying, were monsters. Ponies shouldn't be like this. I tried to buck her off, but was unsuccessful. She kept jabbing at my neck and stomping at my face. I tried to hold her off uselessly. Her rage gave her strength I hadn't seen before in a pony. She knocked the hammer out of my mouth and then slammed both front hooves down on my face. I could feel a tooth crack and I bit through the side of my cheek. She leaned her full weight against my wind pipe and began choking me to death. As my eyes started rolling back in my head I wished for S.A.T.S. and time came to a standstill. It didn't seem to care that I was unarmed, I guess. Her smashed horn was labeled as "crippled." Because of the strange angle I was laying at her head had a much lower chance of being hit then the rest of her. Her now unarmored torso and legs, however, were fair game. I selected a bunch of hits to her body and legs and let my Pip-Buck take over, making the hits I couldn't. She was knocked back by one particularly strong kick to her groin (I hadn't meant to hit her there, but S.A.T.S. didn't care, it just reacted) and I rolled over to stand up. I gasped, sucking in the warm, dusty air I'd been deprived. I snatched up my hammer and spun towards the mare, readying myself for the next attack. And then I got hit by a buffalo. Literally. Missiles (launched from the wrong direction, I noticed) swam through the air blasting raiders and Fire Hairs to bits and throwing the heavy buffalo on top of me. Immobilized I was pretty much a sitting duck in the middle of the battle. The Fire Hairs mare struggled to her feet and found her knife. She held it awkwardly in her teeth as if she had never used a tool that way before. She trotted over to where I was laying. Pinned and gasping for air beneath the crushing weight of the buffalo's corpse I was a very easy target. This was the end. "Ah’am gu-ing dah breed uu drai, an Ah’am gun-ah engoy iff." she mumbled with a wicked grin through her knife's hilt, "Diff iff vore mah zister, uu muver-vucker!" She swung the knife up. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the end and squeezing in those last moment prayers. Dear Celestia, have mercy on me. Blessed Luna, redeem me. Holy ancestors, let me walk in your halls. Dear Goddesses, I didn't want to die. And then the world exploded. My head throbbed and thudded mercilessly with each beat of my heart. I cracked my eyes open which took a surprising amount of effort. Green hills and blue skys. Sweet Celestia, the sun! I'd never seen it so bright, so full of life! If this really was hell then whoever built it didn't have the mean-streak I would expect from a demon. Was I dead? No, I couldn't be. Dead wouldn't hurt like this. I was in pain everywhere. There wasn't a single part of my body that didn't hurt. Well, maybe I was dead but I was in hell instead of heaven. That would make sense, right? I sat upright on my rump in a very unpony-like way. Before me was a mine entrance that looked familiar but at the same time was completely foreign. I looked behind me and saw a tall red barn. A short pony wearing some type of blue and yellow barding trotted inside the door. "Hey!" I tried to catch her attention, "Hey! Where am I?!" The pony tilted her head, as if she was trying to hear a faint whisper, and then continued on inside. Maybe hell was lonely... I turned back to the mine entrance and suddenly found it much closer than before. A faintly glowing unicorn horn stood upside down in the dirt. I felt sad and cold despite the warmth I felt from the sun. It was her horn, the one I'd smashed. Maybe this was my punishment. Knowing I'd failed my mission for my tribe by dying in a meaningless fight. Shit. I started sobbing and wallowing in my self-pity, or whatever it was ponies wallowed in in hell. Celestia wrapped her wing around me and I cried into the Goddess's embrace. Not hell after all, I guessed. "Fall," the Goddess whispered in her divinely serene eloquence, "wake the fuck up. There's a battle going on and I'm not going to get killed standing around waiting for you." Huh? Two stood over me with a rocket launcher slung across his back. I was leaning against the outer wall of the garage covered in gore and blood. I glanced down briefly to find buffalo intestines wrapped around my hind legs. I jerked my head and coughed up some blood of my own. "Good, you're still alive." Two said in a monotone, "If you'd died it would've been a real bitch to get another pony with a Pip-Buck." Oh yeah, glad to see you as well, Two. "How long was I out?" I asked. I spat blood off to the side. It tasted like iron. He shrugged. "Just a few seconds, I think. The rocket knocked you out a bit. Doesn't matter. Can you walk?" I tested moving my legs and kicked off the buffalo intestines. They still worked (my legs, not the intestines). "Yeah, I think I can." My head and the rest of my body, on the other hoof, were still probably concussed from Two’s damn rocket. "Good." he nodded quickly. He tossed a roll of bandages from a pocket on his armor to me. "You should cover up that knife wound before you bleed too much. I'm going to go find my sister. You go help Lily. Good luck." And then he sprinted off into the chaos, levitating his rocket launcher by his side. I stripped off my blood stained leather barding (which I realize now was a really disgusting thing to do since I took it off with my teeth) and inspected the ugly, deep gash in my side. I wished I hadn’t immediately. Within the gooey, cut-up muscle and skin I could see my ribs cracked, chipped. Fortunately I wasn’t losing as much blood as I thought I was and no arteries had been cut. I looked away and did my best to wrap the healing bandages around my torso. After taking a small glug of water I slipped back into my disturbingly slimy and wet armor. I reached for my hammer... and my heart stopped beating. My hammer, the only weapon I was any good with, wasn’t with me. I muttered off a string of colorful profanity laced with traces of prayers as I desperately searched for a stand in weapon, eventually settling on a heavy L-shaped pipe. I glanced out from behind the wall, trying to find Lily in the (slowly getting smaller) crowd. The chaotic battle still raged. ‘Dreadnought Unit’ rolled forward at a slow but persistent pace towards the bulk of the ponies and buffalo. My eyes continued to scan the area. A hat lying in the dirt caught my attention: Lily’s hat. I soon found Lily under a pile of bodies and/or body parts. She was still breathing. And she was right in the ‘Dreadnought Unit’s path. The gigantic treads crawled towards her. Without thinking, I ran out from behind my shelter and pranced around the giant thing in an attempt to distract it. It just kept rolling. A gunshot blew off by my head. I spun around and crushed the skull of the offending pony (apparently a worse shot than me) and then tossed his corpse into the rolling robot behemoth's tracks in an attempt to slow it down. The robot just rolled over it. I caught a glimpse of the underside then and noticed something odd about it: it had no armor at all. For a brief second I spotted a panel with a faded yellow lightening bolt on it. That had to be where the power came from! I reached down into my saddle bags, pulling out one of my last sticks of dynamite. Knocking off the cap and rolling it under the machine I ducked and hoped for the best. Yet another deafening blast in the day of deafening blasts and the huge thing paused momentarily and then continued. Tails of flame were licking out from the underbelly of the robot, eating away at the rubber treads. I fished out my last stick and kicked the cap off. I tossed it. One second, two seconds, three seconds. I counted up to twelve. Was the stick a dud? The extra big explosion answered 'no' as the dynamite went off, causing a chain reaction with the engine block and whatever ammo was still inside it. You know, come to think of it, leaving the bottom of that thing unarmored was a pretty big design flaw. Bits and pieces of 'Dreadnought Unit' landed all around me. The top turret flew off and crushed a raider pony. I heard somepony scream the words 'killed' and 'you bastard,' but was to busy trying to avoid death by shrapnel to understand the context. When the rain of burning metal stopped falling I rushed over to Lily. A large, jagged hunk of the metal abomination's armor had buried itself in her left shoulder pad, barely stopping before digging into her flesh. I tried to shake her awake. "Hey, Lily, wake up!" I yelled. She rolled over and I saw a big gash in the back of her head. That must have been what knocked her out. "Mmmm... Jus' lemme sleep a lil lonner..." she grumbled. "No!" I shouted, "No sleep! Fighting! Get up!" I shook her harder and slapped her cheek with my hoof. Her eyes shot open and she kicked me in the chest out of reflex (I think...). "Luna dammit, Fall! Ah was having a nice dream!" she screamed at the top of her lungs as she touched the gash on her head and loaded rounds into her battle-saddle. She redirected her anger towards to crowd of ponies and buffalo killing each other (of which there were only a few left) and shouted, "Alright, you shit-lickers, Ah'm sick an tired of this fight! If y'all want to kill me, come an get me!" She shot into the crowd with her twin rifles and began perforating her enemies with a whole shit-ton of bullets. I picked myself up off the ground (I was getting knocked down a lot that day, it seemed) and grabbed my crappy metal pipe, bracing myself for impact with the war-painted, pistol wielding buffalo bull that was charging towards me. His first shot missed. Bullet number two found a home in my right shoulder. I staggered to the right a bit as my right foreleg started giving out. After the beating I'd taken today it wasn't all that much of a surprise that I couldn't take much more. He dropped his pistol and lowered his head to impale me on his horns. Steadying myself, I waited until the buffalo was within range of my makeshift club and took a swing. The pipe barely connected with his jaw, but my weak swing and the speed of his charge combined to create enough force to knock a few of his teeth out and (fortunately for me) re-angle his horns away from my neck. The impact itself, however, didn't hurt any less as the big buffalo bull plowed into me. I flew back ten feet, crashing against the garage's metal doors. Dear Goddesses, I just couldn't get a break today. I was seeing stars. The swished and somersaulted over each other as I tried to get the world to stop swimming. I was bleeding a lot. My shoulder dripped slowly like syrup being poured out. The bandages I'd wrapped around my side were getting soaked through with my blood, and unable to hold any more blood the bandages leaked and oozed out red from beneath my barding. The burns on my body had started itching. My throbbing head ached constantly and lead me to believe I was concussed. The impact with the door had bruised my spine and for some reason my hooves tingled because of it, and that definitely couldn't be a good sign. I think I was about ready to just call it quits and die right there. The upside down buffalo (upside down in my visio, not in reality) put a hoof to his jaw where I'd landed my hit and then tugged out a knife from a sheath strapped to his barding. He walked towards me, presumably to finish me off. I should have been scared. Looking back on it, I should have been bucking terrified. At the time, though, I was way to out of it all to completely get what was going on. He drew closer with the knife to where I was slumped over, trying to regain my balance. My eyes half closed on their own, but I just barely saw a thin red line form around the buffalo's neck. Just like that. First it wasn't there and then it was. A gushing waterfall of blood poured out of the cut and in a few seconds my attacker (the last of our attackers, I somehow noticed) was dead. I lay there for a few seconds, wondering how that had happened, before Three appeared in from of me. Oh yeah, I remembered, invisibility spells. "Nice timing." I murmured before I faded out into darkness. I was woken up by the feeling of being unarmored, the bullet in my shoulder getting plucked out, and having bandages pressed and wrapped around me. I cracked one eye open. Three was in front of me, her horn glowing palely as it was outshone by the sun which cast a halo around her head. Behind her I could see Lily scavenging ammunition and supplies from the corpses. A thick cloth bandage was wrapped around her head and she'd tilted her hat away from her wound. I tried to pick myself up off the ground. Bad idea. Waves of throbbing pain, dull and sharp alike, washed through my body. "Whoa, easy, Fall," Three cautioned, "you took a hell of a beating. I'm amazed your spine isn't broken." She poured a healing potion down my throat and i felt some of my smaller wounds knit themselves together. She looked unscathed. There wasn't a single wound on her body. Her invisibility spell must have been really good. She was, however, specked and smattered with blood. "Here, these might help." she said, offering me a tablet and a syringe that she held in her magic. I'd never seen these things before, but something about them worried me. I opened my mouth to speak and coughed instead to clear my throat. "What are they?" I asked her. She shrugged, as if to say that my question was just sorta purposeless. "Med-X and Buck." she answered, "One's a painkiller, the other will get you back on your hooves." and then, seeing my confused expression, "Medicine stuff." The medicine I was used to came from herbs. I'd never seen medicines like this and I wasn't quite sure what to think about them, but if Three trusted them then I guessed that I should too. "Okay." I stretched my hoof out towards her. She slid the needle into my skin and pressed down the syringe's plunger. Almost immediately my pain started retreating, first from my legs and then from my back and side. My headache dulled to a much more manageable low drumbeat. I opened my mouth to receive the tablet. She placed it on my tongue and I chewed. I couldn't say anything for the taste (somewhere between dried cactus skin covered in chalk and rotting apples) but it definitely made me feel stronger. So strong, in fact, that within a minute I was standing up and stretching out my muscles and popping my stiff joints. Damn, that was some good medicine. Strangely though my heart seemed to be speeding up and slowing down at weird times for no real reason. But it didn't bother me much at the time so I ignored it. The world looked brighter, almost like the sun had gotten... well, sunnier. "Thanks." I said to Three. I put on my barding and trotted off to go find my lost hammer under the debris and guts of the fight. It was lying under blasted up concrete and the splayed ribcage of a pony. The wooden shaft was broken in half. I picked it up by what looked like the cleanest part and wiped off as much blood and grime as I could. My garbled mind made me feel like I’d lost an old friend. I put my half-a-hammer in my saddlebags and trumbled onwards to Lily. The ammo and bits of food she was collecting were spilling out of the pockets of her saddle bags. She made no attempt to wipe off the little drops of blood trickling over her muzzle. Bits of pony flesh were caught in her mane. "Hi." I said, "How's your head?" She glanced at me and the returned to her scavenging. "Ah'll be fine. Ah've had worse than this before. Ain’t mah first rodeo, after all. How's y'all's..." she paused, trying to think of the right word, "...everything?" I shrugged. "I feel okay. The medicine that Three gave me really helped." She looked at me funny. For some odd reason the blood and grime made her prettier. In my hazy mind I imagined leaning forward and kissing her. I resisted that urge, and instead asked, “So, I didn’t see Two fighting for about half the fight. Where was he?” “Hiding our stash of spark batteries.” she replied as she rolled her eyes. Apparently I should have known this. “We do have an order to fill, after all. So how’d that tribal unicorn bitch know ya?” “I killed some warriors from her tribe.” I said. She raised an eyebrow at me. “One of the warriors was her sister. They must have been using a watching spell or something because she knew what I looked like.” My stomach flipped. The guilt of killing that I’d felt before crashed over me again. I started noticing, really noticing, all the dead around me. So many. Blown up, shot, burned, stabbed and slashed. Had they all had families also, ponies and buffalos who had loved them and would want to avenge their deaths at our hooves? My legs mushed under me and I fought the urge to vomit. Dammit. I deserved hell. We all did, didn’t we? I steadied myself. “I’m gonna go see if Two needs any help. You know, with the batteries and stuff.” “Sure. He’s in the garage.” Lily said. What was left of the garage, anyways. ‘Dreadnought Unit’ had blown out half the building. Chunks of the wall littered the ground. Dust floated in the air, making me sneeze. Two was trying and failing to break open a locker with a pin and a screwdriver. The pile of spark batteries we’d collected the previous day sat next to him. I walked up beside him as he worked. “Mind if I try the lock?” I asked. He offered me the pin and screwdriver. “Be my guest.” he said. He smirked, apparently expecting me to fail. I brushed aside his method and drew out my half-a-hammer. He stepped away as I started my backswing. One strong impact and the lock broke apart. “Well,” he sighed, “that’s one way...” He opened up the dented locker. Shelves full of pristine spark batteries that had remained untouched for two centuries rested in neat lines. “Jackpot.” he whispered. He gathered up all the batteries in a magical cloud and then looked at me. “Got any space in your pack?” he asked I opened my saddlebags and he dropped in about fifteen of the objects. We walked out, leaving behind the old batteries we'd scavenged the day before, and he announced to our other companions that he'd found the fifty we needed in to fill the order in perfect condition. Three looked overjoyed that we could finally leave this old, decrepit outpost. She hopped around with the energy of a little filly as her brother loaded her pack with a few batteries. Lily was more subdued, only smiling slightly. The bandages on her head had begun to slide down over her left eye, giving her by accident that mysterious look that my sister, Stream, had tried so hard to achieve to woo some buck she liked. I liked Lily, even if she didn't like me. I like Three also, but not in quite the same way. Three reminded me of Blossombrook, a mare that my mother had tried to set me up with years ago. I was never very good at romance and relationships. Too complex for me. I was happy that we could leave Desert Outpost 21 also. The blood and gore around me, not to mention the twenty dead foals in the house we’d spent the night in, had convinced me that this was a bad place to be. "Alright, Fall," Lily commanded, "You've got the map. Lead us to Violetville." And, happily, we walked off into the hot and sandy and bone dry desert, leaving behind the dusty, bloody, abandoned relic of Equestria's sins behind us, all of us hoping to never return again. On our journey to Violetville, a few events stood out to me and I feel that I should recall them for the purposes of this story. We'd left the Outpost about a half hour ago. The sun beat down on us, sapping the moisture from our bodies. Several white, wispy clouds hung in the air and let themselves be pushed and pulled by a gentle breeze. Well, most of the clouds. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the strangest cloud I'd ever seen. Unlike the the bone-white clouds around it this cloud looked like it would be more at home in a thunderstorm. It was a dark shade of gray and blue bolts of lightning arced inside it. But that wasn't the oddest part. What made this cloud completely out of place was that it was flying in the wrong direction and that it was boat shaped. Really boat shaped. Sharp edges and everything. Clouds aren't like that, shouldn't be like that, and it freaked me out. Three noticed it also. "Watch out, guys," she said, "Enclave is patrolling." "Ah, they shouldn't be a problem," Two shrugged, "Those pansy-assed pegasi won't fly down from their clouds and get their frickin power armor dirty unless we start shooting rockets at them." It was funny that he said that, since he did have a rocket launcher slung across his back. "The Enclave are pegasi? Like the one that bit my neck open?" I asked. Like I've said, all this wasteland stuff was still very new to me. "Yeah, but not really," Three answered without really answering. "The one that attacked ya'll had gone feral for some reason. I dunno, a virus or sum'in," Lily broke in, "Lots of 'Claver pegasi flew down here after the war when..." "When the Stable Dweller beat the shit out of them!" Three squee'd. Damn. Was the Stable Dweller really that important to NCR ponies? "Picture this, Fall: A Sonic. Fucking. Rad-Boom! So awesome!" I had no idea what I was supposed to be picturing. "So, anyways," I asked further, "why shouldn't we worry about them?" I never really got a straight answer, though. Three and Lily started bickering about something (I can't remember what) and Two just didn't care enough to answer me. In hindsight, I really wish I had been able to learn more about the Enclave because it would have really come in handy. A few hours later my Pip-Buck started buzzing and screeching. It made terrible noises. I practically jumped out of my skin. "Relax, Fall. We're probaly just in range of a tower. Let me take a look at it." Lily grabbed my hoof and fiddled with my Pip-Buck. She pressed some combination of buttons and ended up on a function labeled 'radio'. She selected the option named 'NCR Radio South' and the scratchy garbage became words (spoken by a buck who sounded like he had a cold) and music. "...dust storms expected around eight in the evening. All citizens are urged to close their shutters and hunker down at home, travelers should take cover in a rented room or somewhere similar. "In other news, Colonel SkyLoom of the NCR Sixth Military Police Brigade would like to remind you that hate crimes against ghouls, griffons, former Enclave members, and other species are not tolerated and will be dealt with in accordance with Republic Code 17.6-8. Severely. "And now, some smooth music from our friend Pon-3 up north. This is Corporal Limelight, Seventh Communications Battalion, signing off..." Instrumental music bloomed out of my Pip-Buck. Horns and trumpets and instruments I'd never even heard before spewed sounds and danced around each other in ways I hadn't heard before. Sure, we had music in my tribe, but that was all dedicated to the Goddesses and the ancestors. This, on the other hoof, was just music for the sake of having music. I liked it. We walked in the direction my Pip-Buck said with the music playing for about an hour longer. Occasionally the music would be interrupted by the message ‘You are listening to NCR Radio South, your local source for your country’s news and entertainment’ but then the songs (which sometimes included singing, but not always) would resume. One voice, I remember, was particularly sweet. It was a mares voice. When she sang it felt like she was speaking to you directly. Her emotions (pain, happiness, anger, or anything) all felt real. She sang with the voice of a pony who must have seen too much. The last instance that I feel is important to mention is when my ‘medicine’ started wearing off. My headache was the first to come back in full force. Next my side made itself noticeable, and I felt the edges of my cracked ribs rubbing against each other. Then everything hurt and I tripped over my hooves landing face down in the sand. “Ow.” I groaned. It felt like I was under a bag of rocks. I’d lost all the strength I’d had before, leaving me helpless and in pain. Lily turned around and kicked my hooves. “Ger up, Fall.” she insisted, “Citys right there.” I glanced up. Violetville, a little ragged looking large village surrounded by a high scrap-metal wall, was indeed only a few hundred meters from were I was laying in the sand. I tried to lift myself up but just couldn't. My legs refused lift me. "I can't get up." I explained, "I don't have any strength left. I think the medicine Three gave me stopped working." Lily turned around and glared at Three. "What tahp of 'medicine' was this, exactly?" Three gazed into space as she spoke. "Well," she said, "I gave him one of our healing potions, some Med-X... and some of that new formula of Buck that that one caravaner was selling a few months ago." Two slammed his hoof against his face and grimaced. "Dear Goddesses, sis! You could have killed him!" Death by medicine? This was new to me... "You should never, never mix painkillers and combat chems. I'm amazed he's still alive with that in his system!" "Ah'm amazed it didn't wear off 'til now." Lily added. She actually looked genuinely impressed. "Two, would ya mind carrying him into the town 'til we can find a doctor or sumthing?" Without saying another word, Two hefted me off the ground with his telekinesis. As we approached the gates of the town I faintly heard a voice shout "Halt! State your business." or something along those lines. Another wave of overwhelming pain swept over me and I blacked out (which seemed to be happening to me a lot that day). I awoke with a very angry looking red unicorn with a paper mask, an apron a few sizes too big, and glowing horn standing by me. She (or it could have been a he, I'm still not sure) was holding a scalpel, a pair of tweezers, a needle with something in it, and other foreign looking medical things in a strangely ugly telekinetic cloud. He (or she) put down the things and cast a spell that made me feel filled with light. I felt the wound in my side close up, my headache recede completely, and almost all my joints pop in a satisfyingly loud way. I let out a low sigh. "Oh, you're awake." the mare (or stallion) grumbled, "Well, you're all patched up. Twenty caps." He (or she) put out their hoof. What was a cap? Lily walked over, her head wound gone. "Y'all'll get yer caps right after we make our delivery, alright?" "Ugh. Fine. Whatever." the doctor pony sighed, "Hey, Lucky," he (or she) said to a rifle carrying buck in khaki barding (with "NCR Peacekeeper" written on the side) standing by the entrance of the clinic, "Follow them and pick up the caps when they get them." We left with Lucky trailing behind us. Two and Three were waiting outside, both leaning against different sections of the wall in very similar ways. "You guys feeling okay?" they asked at the same time, with Three sounding distinctly more concerned. She offered me my barding (which was now full of holes) and saddle bags. I shrugged them on without pain. "Yeah, we're fine." Lily answered for the both of us, "Let's jus' get goin and get our caps." What was a cap?! We trotted through the thin streets. Buildings stood pressed together uncomfortably and leaned at odd angles. They were mostly constructed out of the same scrap as the wall. The guard pony, Lucky, limped behind us with a brace on his right hind-leg. I wondered to myself why he was injured but never came up with a reason. Somehow my Pip-Buck had found the exact location of the pony we were delivering our batteries to, so our path followed the direction of the arrow. The street opened up into a courtyard filled with tents and stands. Ponies (of all types, including pegasi which surprised me), griffons, a few ghouls, and even a donkey meandered around selling and buying different products and goods. The smells of foods I'd never even seen before drifted through the air and touched my nose. Strangely, I also saw and smelled cooked flesh (not from ponies, I hoped) which was a little uncomfortable after being raised a vegetarian like most ponies. The ponies here all seemed to have weapons with them. Guards dressed like Lucky walked around with compact rifles slung around their necks on wide fabric straps. The Pip-Buck's arrow landed on a dark red pegasus mare with an eggshell white mane and a cutie mark of what looked like a house standing. She was by a cart guarded by two more pegasi in lightweight barding. She seemed about my age, maybe a year or two older, and stood with a strange and mysterious look of confident boredom defining the way she carried herself. Her confidence and comfort with the situation she was in seemed to be something she felt like showing off: she was the only pony in the entire market without any barding or protective clothing of any type. Her eyelashes were long. "Our buyer is right there." I said to Lily, pointing to the pegasus mare. We walked over to her as a group. Her eyes landed on us very briefly and then returned to the nothing she had been staring so intently at. "Have you four got my batteries?" she asked, "You're late." Her voice was direct and sharp. She pronounced each syllable as if she felt the need to be efficient and was trying to speak clearly enough to never need to repeat herself. Lily scowled at the 'You're late' comment. "Yah, sure. We've got y'all's damn batteries." "Let me see them." the red mare demanded. She continued staring into the middle distance. "Caps first." Two interjected. Both mare glanced at him. Lily nodded in agreement. The red mare brought up one wing and motioned with it to her guards. They produced two bags, one of them opened. Small, circular discs with ruffled edges and paint on top with silly words. This was there currency? What was even the point of these bits of metal? What in Discord's hell was the purpose of this crap? "One thousand caps for fifty batteries. Happy?" the red pegasus mare asked in the same bored tone. She acted like she made deals like this everyday (which, come to think of it, she probably did). Lily examined the tiny garbage discs and a slight grin crept across her muzzle. She then caught herself and banished her smile to the moon. "Four-thousand caps. No less. Plus an eight-hundred finders fee." she declared, stomping her hoof to show just how serious she was. She seemed to think these 'caps' were deathly important. I was still trying to figure out what their purpose was. Did they do something magicky? "You're late." the mare repeated, "One-thousand for the batteries, one-hundred finders fee. I'm being generous because you all look like you've been through hell." "No!" Three shouted. The mare and my companions haggled over the price for a while. I stayed out of it because I had no way of knowing the going price in garbage for pristine batteries. Lucky had sat down with a book to pass the time. I just stood around, staring at the sky, trying to divine the purpose of those stupid metal discs. Eventually I was broken out of my thoughtfulness by the feeling of eyes on me. Everypony was staring at me. "What?" "You haven't said anything. Do you think my price sounds fair?" the mare asked, still bored but with a little edge in her voice. Lily looked too tired to argue anymore. Three sat, chewing on her upper lip. Two just looked at me and shrugged. "Sure. I guess it's fair." I answered. She threw down another bag and a roll of pieces of paper, mumbling something along the lines of 'about damn time somepony listened to reason'. What was the point of the bits of paper? Aargh! None of it made sense! We gave Lucky the caps we owed the doctor, and then we left the market with the garbage currency we'd worked so hard to earn. The sun was dipping just below the horizon, and somewhere between the market and wherever we were wandering Lily announced "Ah'm thirsty as fuck. Let's find a bar." So we found a bar. A bar, I discovered, was what northern ponies called a well, except not really because instead of being outside or in a cave it was in a building, and instead of water it provided drinks based on sugar that had gone bad (or good, I guess, depending on your point of view). Anyways, the bar we found was a run down two-and-a-half story building with boards nailed over shattered windows and red paint peeling off. A sign hung too low over the door, proclaiming that the name of the establishment was 'The Dead Pegasus' with the word 'Pegasus' painted over and replaced with 'Rock' which made a lot less sense. 'The Dead Rock' shared a wall with a much smaller and more brightly painted building called 'Chapel of the Holy Lightbringer'. To be honest I was more inclined to visit the chapel, but my companions were intent on visiting the bar and I wasn't very keen on the idea of being left alone in a city I felt like a complete foreigner in. So I followed after them. The bar was filled with ponies and a few griffons sitting at tables, standing, lying on the floor asleep. One pegasus was walking on the ceiling upside down and the earth pony buck she was drinking with was resting hammock-style in the chandelier. A large upright piano (which I recognized from an old pre-war picture my dad kept) was being played by a jet-black griffon. The tune was awful. Behind the counter was a ghoul and a donkey. They cleaned glasses and poured drinks in an unnecessarily flashy and complex way, throwing them over their heads and tossing them around their legs. I quickly lost sight of the others in the crowd. Moving quickly toward the counter to try and avoid being jostled I found an empty stool (which was unnatural to sit on). The donkey (who did not have his natural mane) swayed, favoring one side over the other, across the floor to face me. "Whud'd ya like, buck?" he asked. Several of his teeth were missing and his breath smelled like the trash heap back home, but his genuine smile made him more bearable to talk to. I wasn't sure what to say to his question, having never been to a bar before, and simply replied, "I'm not sure. What do you think's good thing to drink?" He nodded and rubbed his chin. "Mmm, the beers nice, but da ice is all gone. Mmm..." he looked at me, studyingly, "Vodka? Nah, don' look like da type. How 'bout whiskey? Five caps fer a shot, twenny-fahv fer a bottle?" That sounded as good as anything else to me. I took out the pieces of paper Lily had divided up with us and laid them out. "Sure, but just a little, I guess. How much of this money?" He grabbed one of the pieces and stuffed it in the pocket of the stained apron he wore. With the same odd gracefulness he took out a tiny glass and, after flinging a bottle of goldeny-brown liquid around a few times, filled the little cup and pushed it to me. "Drink up." and then he trotted away to fill the next customer's glass. I sipped the stuff and found it warm, a bit biting, but definitely pleasant. I emptied the tiny glass and, slightly lightheaded, found myself wishing for more. A very green unicorn buck with a spinning top for a cutie mark sat on the stool next to me. He ordered a bottle of wine, pulled out the cork, started taking short sips, and slammed his head into the counter with a sigh. His mane was ruffled in some places and matted down in others, like he'd been wearing a hat. A small burn scar marked his forehead above his left eye. Eventually he looked at me. "You're new here, aren't you?" he asked. His accent was one I hadn't heard before. I nodded. "I'm just passing through. I'm from south of here." "That so?" he groaned, "What's your name? I'm Jumper Cable." He offered his hoof to shake without removing his head from the counter. "My name is Fall." I returned the hoof shake. This buck seemed like a nice guy so far. "So why are you at this bar? Are you with friends, work buddies, marefriend?" "Alone," he muttered, "or, at least mostly alone." "What do you mean, mostly alone?" He brushed aside my question with the wave of his hoof and changed the subject after another sip of wine. "What do you think of the pegasi, Fall? You're an earth pony, so what do you think about the flyers? You don't like them, do you?" I scratched at my mane and wished I had more whiskey. "I'm not sure what I think. I've only met two..." "And how'd they seem?" "Well, the first one tried to kill me..." He abruptly cut me off with a hoof to my mouth. "Exactly, Fall, exactly." his eyes got shifty, "You can't trust them. Especially not the older ones." His eyes turned to the ceiling. The pegasus mare who'd been walking on the ceiling was doing flips and loops for the entertainment of a group of NCR Peacekeepers. "Never can tell what they're thinking..." I brushed his hoof away. "Well, the other one I met was nice enough." "Are you a soldier, Fall?" he asked, completely changing the subject. "If you mean a warrior, then no." I admitted, "I'm more of a messenger, or an agent, or something." He took a big gulp from his bottle. He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, and then poured some wine into my cup. "I'm a soldier. Drink up." "What's it like?" "It tastes like grapes. You don't drink much, do you?" "No, what's it like being a soldier?" I sipped at the wine. It didn't feel as warming as the whiskey and it was much sweeter. Still nice, though. My head was starting to feel a little fuzzy. "Oh." he coughed. He cleared his throat and in a different, much deeper voice, recited, "The Sacred Land of Equestria is Reborn, but War Waits for Nopony! Join Now to Protect, Serve, and Fight for Harmony! Visit your local New Canterlot Army recruiter!" he changed his voice back and snorted, "Bullshit." I was puzzled. Where I was from warriors were proud to serve. It was their duty to the tribe, their ancestors, and the Goddesses. "What's so bad about being a soldier?" I finished off my drink. He swigged down the rest of his bottle, smashed it on the floor, and tapped the counter with his hoof. The donkey walked over. Jumper ordered two pints of the "house" cider. When he received the big, frothy pints he pushed one mug over to me and gave the donkey a small pile of caps. "Drink up." "Thanks." It was sweeter than either of the other drinks. In the back of my mind I heard my mother warning me about eating rotten apples or something, but I wasn't paying attention. "So, what's so bad about being a soldier?" "I've been fighting for five years, Fall," he explained, "and during that time I've done some shit I regret. I've killed ponies, Fall, and I've gotten good at it." I nodded, getting a little lightheaded. "I've killed ponies alsho, but I'm no good at it." Damn, did that ever sound stupid. "I've applied for the Rangers six times, Fall. Today I got rejected for the seventh time." I nodded in agreement and sipped the yellow, heavy, foamy, tasty cider slowly till I'd drunk all of it. "The say I'm not qualified." Jumper explained. He looked angry and pointed to himself. "Does this look like the face of a weak pony to you?" he shouted. He telekinetically picked up his cider and downed it all in less than a minute. I started clapping and shaking my head. "Mno. You look toufve to me, Jumpy. Can I call ya Jumpy, Jumpy?" "I've killed more Steel Rangers than anypony else in my company, more Enclavers than the rest of my platoon combined, and more fucking shitty-flanked raiders than I can count!" "I thogt ya sed you wanted ta be *hic* a ranger? Maybe kill'n rengers is why they won't 'cept you maybe." I said, believing I was making a valid point. "Different Rangers." Oh. I didn't get it. "Tell you what, Fall, how about we hoof wrestle to see who buys the next round of drinks. You game?" I rested my non-Pip-Bucked front leg on the counter. "Mmm, sure. That shounds gud. Mm game." He propped his leg up and we locked hooves. I quickly brought him down. He demanded a rematch twice before finally buying the drinks. I wasn't even sure what I was drinking. We repeated the process, I drank more alcohol, got woozier. Somewhere during this time I noticed a very tall purple unicorn buck in a black cloak sitting alone at a corner table. His cloak was lumpy on the sides, making my addled brain think he was hiding wings (Which my logical side knew was crazy). He was staring at me. I asked Jumper who the buck was. He said something about keeping to himself. This night was my first experience with drunkenness. Because of this I found it very hard to focus on anything, so I'm going to describe the rest of the night in the way I remember it: Jumper punches me in the face. NCR ponies tell him to walk away. Giant unicorn says to be careful. Three is drunk and dancing on the piano. The griffon playing piano falls asleep. Lily is talking to some mare. Two isn't drinking. My money gets stolen. Three makes me dance with her. Lampshades. Chandelier falls on a table of card playing ponies. Card playing ponies move to another table. Glue and caps. Lily is kissing some mare. Jumper is drunk and apologizing. I punch Jumper. NCR ponies hit me with sticks. I'm okay. For some reason, I drink again. I try talking to my Pip-Buck. The Pip-Buck says nothing. Three starts crying about something. I say something wrong. She slaps me. I fall off the piano and clunk my head. Two drags us all upstairs. I woke up the next morning on a hardwood floor, with a splitting headache, and unable to see. I brushed at my face to clear what was blocking my vision. After brushing off the lampshade resting on my head I saw where I was. I was lying on the floor of a dusty room next to a puddle of vomit. A glance up blinded me. The damn sun felt extra bright. Damn stupid worthless pain-inducing sun. I felt like Celestia was just messing with me for the hell of it (which, if some of the apocryphal stories in the “Story of the Goddesses” were true, was definitely a possibility). I lowered my head to get away from the blinding light and, still groggily, placed my face in the vomit puddle. Disgustedly I stood up, staring at the ground to avoid the light, and wiped away the sludge on my face. Shielding my eyes I took in my surroundings. I'd been lying next to a chair that Three was sleeping in upside down. Her horn had drawings of male genitals on it. Seriously, what type of a pony would do something that stupid? I looked over to my right. Lily was asleep in a wide bed with a bottle of vodka tucked under one hoof and the mare I'd seen her with held in the other. Jumper was lying at the foot of the bed with a swollen and bruised face. A small side table with a pitcher of water on it caught my attention next. Eight chipped cups rested in a circle around the pitcher. I suddenly felt very thirsty. I poured a glass for myself and drank. "Oh, you're awake." Two said from behind me. I spewed water from my mouth. Where had he been? Also, why was he yelling so loud? "Dear sweet Celestia, stop yelling! I've got a headache. Yes, I'm awake. Thank you for pointing that out." I choked out over the water. "Ugh... what was I drinking? And what the hell happened last night?" I tried to take another sip of water but just ended up coughing again. Two snickered deafeningly. "You're new to alcohol, aren't you? Yeah, drinking copious amounts of booze usually fucks ponies up the next morning, and you REALLY drank a lot. You even won a drinking contest with some griffon who played piano." Oh Goddesses, why? "Why would I do that? I've never even had alcohol before! We would I have so damn much?!" "Because you're an idiot." Ha ha, Two. "So, what happened? And where are we?" "You and that buck there," he pointed to the still unconscious Jumper, "became friends and then, like all good friends, beat the living shit out of each other. You cracked his nose and knocked out a few teeth. My sister started dancing and then tried making other ponies dance with her. She knocked you off a piano. It was hilarious." he smiled at the memory of me falling to the floor. He pointed to Lily. "Lily met a prostitute. At the time she was already really drunk and was convinced the hooker was the 'love of her life' as if that meant something. I had to drag you all to the rooms upstairs." Something that had probably taken too long to dawn on me suddenly dawned on me. "Lily likes other mares?" "Yes," Two replied, "does it matter?" I shrugged. It was then that I realized I wasn't wearing my barding and I had no idea where my saddlebags were. "Where's all my stuff?" He motioned with his head to the far side of the room. "Over there. By the way, do you want to keep those caps on your face?" I felt over my face with m hoof. I could feel small metal circles attached to me, glued to my fur. "No, I don't. Why do I have money on me?" Two started telekinetically pulling off each cap, tearing off tufts of fur in the process. "You were stripping off your armor for some mares and that was their way of paying you." Why would I do that? Then an odd thought occurred to me. "Hey, why doesn't your head hurt?" "I didn't drink." Two shrugged, "Somepony had to watch over the caps." After Two had pulled off all the caps from my fur I put on my (incredibly beaten up) barding and shrugged on my saddlebags. Three woke up from the noise and gave a groggy "Good morning," before tumbling out of her chair. Three's impact woke Jumper who shot straight up, wide-eyed, and grabbing wildly for a weapon, eventually choosing Lily's vodka. That woke up Lily, who smacked Jumper in the face and grabbed the bottle in her teeth before it hit the floor. Lily's sudden movement tipped the prostitute mare out of the bed and into my vomit puddle. "Ugh... I don't get paid enough for mornings like this." the prostitute moaned. After the whole situation was defused (and an unhappy looking Lily hoofed over several pieces of that NCR paper money stuff to the mare she'd slept with) we trotted downstairs to the bar. It was a wreck. Glasses lay shattered across the floor, chairs were in pieces, the chandelier was in a thousand bits on the ground, and the piano had a hoof-sized hole in the side (plus a griffon asleep with his face on the keys). The ghoul bartender was sweeping the floor. The donkey demanded money from Two for the room. Jumper apologized to me for starting a hoof fight with me (he couldn't remember what we'd been arguing about either) and I apologized for knocking his teeth out. We wished each other luck and he left. Three apologized to me for knocking me off the piano and explained that she'd been trying to say she was sorry for giving me bad drugs. Apparently I'd been a real ass about it. I accepted her apology and in turn said I was sorry for being a jerk. The rest of the day and part of the next night were spent getting back to Waypoint and recovering from our hangovers. Life was good for the next two and a half weeks. The contract I'd signed kept me with the company so I kept going missions with my companions. We would scavenge and trade and delivery orders to ponies who needed stuff. Everyday the radio gave us the same odd warning about hate crimes. I got better at killing, and while I still disliked it it was good to be able to not die in combat (I even learned how to shoot, sort of). I saw places and learned how things worked here in the north. Two and I generally stopped hating each other. Threeblue and I became closer to being romantically involved, but we were never quite coltfriend-marefriend. Lily warmed up to me and she and I could actually be considered friends. Yeah, life wasn’t all that bad. Until one awful day. The sun was bright and dust hung heavily in the air. We were returning from delivering exactly seventeen and a half pounds of scrap metal to an armor maker in the NCR encampment of Gold Ridge. I'd spoken to the Lieutenant in charge while I was there. Just like every other member of the NCR I’d met on my travels, he said he couldn’t authorize an alliance. I was beginning to wonder if my quest was pointless. The desert sun poured liquid heat down on our heads. Sweat caused my leather barding to slide and chafe against my skin. My new weapon of choice, since my hammer had been broken, a club made of rebar and concrete, weighed me down, slung off center across my back. The apple shaped grenades I’d bought on the previous mission hung in such a way that they tapped annoyingly against my body with every step. Lily fussed over her guns as we walked, cleaning sand out of the little nooks and crannies with a piece of cotton as we walked. Three had broken her ankle during the mission, leaving her limping. Gold Ridge had been without a medic, so she just gave herself a shot of Med-X, tied a stick around her leg for a brace, and carried on. Two held our caps, like usual. I took the lead, using my E.F.S. to scout ahead for enemies. I selected the radio on my Pip-Buck. The tail end of a song about a soldier mare missing her stallion ‘back home’ wrapped itself around my ears just before the news report began. “Good afternoon, everypony! Corporal Limelight here, and I’ve got some news for you. First off, some announcements. “The Sixth Military Police Brigade has issued a statement today regarding the sale of addictive chems. Any pony in an NCR territory without an NCR certified medical license caught selling controlled substances, particularly Buck, Dash, Med-X, and Mint-Als, will be in violation of NCR’s new territorial code known as Ordinance 11-67. This can result in fines and jail time. So don’t do that. “Also, Colonel SkyLoom has reiterated today that any hate crimes committed against ghouls, griffons, former Enclave members, and other species will not be tolerated and will be dealt with. You know, same law as there has always been. “As for news, NCR forces in Equestria proper have made advances in the war against remaining Steel Ranger units. General Subpar claims that the recent progress can be attributed to increased support received from AR and Republic Ranger forces. “Tensions continue to rise between ponies on the south-eastern border and the so called ‘zebra cultists’ across the river. More news when available. “For more local news, increased slaver activity has been spotted along the road between Gold Ridge and the Waypoint Trading Company headquarters. Travelers are advised to find an alternate...” I quickly tapped the radio off. I glanced back at my companions. They’d heard the radio. They knew that we were definitely in a bad place right now. I caught a look from Lily. Her face was twisted and screwed around as she bit her bottom lip. It was the type of look that just screamed ‘Oh shit’. Red marks started filling my E.F.S. compass. I turned in a circle, scanning the area. We were surrounded. From out of the sand, behind boulders, out of mirages our new enemies approached. These slavers were definitely not like the raiders I’d fought before. These ponies were well fed, well equipped, and well armored. They outnumbered us by... by a lot. I unslung my rebar club and crouched in a low stance, readying myself mentally to fight and kill yet again. Lily readied her guns, loading a new magazine of rounds into each rifle. Two’s horn started glowing preemptively. Three levitated out four knives she’d been keeping tucked away. We stood back to back, getting ready to defend ourselves and each other to the death. “Well,” Lily said, cracking the heavy silence that had fallen over the desert road, “here goes nothin.” A bullet clipped the very tip of my left ear and the fight had begun. Ponies rushed forward at us, surrounding our group. Lily began firing. I brought my club down hard on pistol wielding unicorn in front of me. Her barding was thicker than I’d expected, however, and all I succeeded in doing was knocking her over and rattling my jaw. The sharp sound of Lily’s rifles cracked in my ears. The pony in front of her split apart in an overly bloody way into a cloud of guts and bright red blood. Three lashed out with her knives, bringing them down on multiple opponents at once. Two stood behind me. He knocked back his enemies with blasts of telekinesis, sending them crashing into one another. “Feisty targets!” a buck with a machete shouted to his friends, “Just like I lik...” I cut him off with a concrete slab to the face. Shards of skull coated with brain matter and blood splashed out around my club. An errant bit of bone had the misfortune of getting in my eye. “Thun ub a bitth!” I screamed. I couldn’t see and frantically twisted around, trying to wipe out the foreign object without harming my eye. A sudden lance of glowing hot pain slammed its way through me. Dropping my weapon, I tumbled away from the pain, the piece of bone dropping from my eye. Blood, my blood, squirted in front of my face. “Shit!” I screamed. A large caliber of bullet had torn its bloody path through my neck. In a lucky glimpse I caught sight of the sniper, resting comfortably on top of a dune. I choked on my cry to Lily. I wanted to tell her the position of the sniper. Before I could say anything I saw a buck twice her size slam an overly huge hammer against her knees. Her body crumbled to the ground as her shattered legs gave way. She screamed so loud over the cacophony around us that my ears rang. Just my luck, another slaver grabbed my fallen club and performed the same operation on me. I felt my legs crack, leaving me even more helpless than ever. Several large slaver bucks tossed themselves on us, holding us down, immobilized. I couldn’t see Three anywhere, either fighting or as a corpse. I prayed to Celestia that she’d turned invisible and escaped. Two reached out with his magic and captured a pony’s neck in his grasp. He twisted. The corpse he’d just acquired became his new hammer. The body, tongue lolling off to the side, was brought down heavily on the spine of a mare steadying her aim at him with a long automatic rifle. I heard a sickening crunch as her back snapped in half. A green bolt shot through the sky. Two was its target. Time slowed as it landed against his side. A burning aura of green surrounded him. His skin contracted and stretched at the same time, splitting along arbitrary lines. Muscles, now visible through split skin, liquified and dripped to the ground. His bones crushed beneath their own weight, leaving him a pile of green pony goop in the sand. A stallion who’d saved my life before had become a puddle in front of me. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from what I saw. At that moment, as ashamed as I am to say it, I hoped that Three was dead so that she didn’t see her brother’s death. I will never be able to remove Two’s death from my mind. "This is it?" asked a unicorn slaver mare missing an ear as a wad of gauze was shoved into the bullet wound in my neck and ropes were wrapped around Lily’s and my legs, "Two fucking earth ponies? Fucking shitty intel! This is complete bullshit! They killed twelve of us!" she kicked one of her teammates for emphasis, "I swear, if we don't meet our quota by the end of the month, I will personally castrate all of you!" The bucks who made up her team all whimpered a little. She looked deadly serious. "Oh, fuck it," the mare said, "I'm heading back to camp. Frogs, Dandelion, Trunk, you broke their legs so you've got to drag them back now. Get them back by sundown. The rest of you, come with me." As the mare and her posse walked away I could see Three become visible and attack them wildly. She was torn apart. I hate myself for not crying. The three bucks left with us were probably the ugliest and stupidest of the group. One, the only unicorn, was missing most of his lower jaw and his remaining teeth were rotting out. The next was a buck half Lily's size with unnaturally large hooves and a spiked mane. The last had a large tumor hanging from his neck. The brutish slavers dragged us along through the desert. Night was falling when they decided to take a break. They left us tied and lying on our backs. The chatted with each other about stupid stuff and ate two-hundred year old food. Somehow they got onto the topic of mares and sex. The small one looked over at Lily. "We've got a mare right there." he casually commented to his friends. Lily spat at him in disgust. "Hmm, that's true, that's true..." mused tumor-buck, "But what if she doesn't like us?" "She doesn't got ta like us!" replied the short one, "She's gonna be a slave, anyway." "Fe foodin bayf da mefindies." the jawless one interjected. "What was that?" asked the short one. Tumor translated for him. "He was just pointing out that it's usually bad to break the merchandise before it's purchased." "Don't think of it as breaking, or using, or anything like that." snapped the short one, "Think of it like... testing her out. For the customers." His friends couldn't argue with that logic. They proceeded to... fuck, I can't describe this. It was awful, terrible. I'd never been so horrified and angered in all my life. Lily's screaming... when I close my eyes sometimes I can still hear it. The pain, the defilement, the hideous torment they inflicted by forcing themselves on her, I can’t imagine what she must have felt. I wanted to kill those bucks. I wanted to make them feel pain. I would make it slow. I would have them begging for my mercy but I wouldn't give them any mercy. I would kill them because it would be the good and holy thing to do, and because Lily was my friend. But I can't describe what happened. All I can say is that they took turns. After those bucks were done with their 'fun' Lily was sobbing on the ground. Tears rolled from her eyes. I looked up just to get away from the horror of what I'd seen. One of those dark, boat shaped clouds was flying above. I started calling for its help, because anything was better than this. The de-jawed buck whipped me with his pistol. A glazed look came over him and he walked over to where my friend was lying. He muttered something unintelligible in a much more sinister tone than before. He shot her in the face. I shut up. I couldn't comprehend why he would do that, and I didn’t want to. His buddies shouted at him, but I couldn't hear them anymore. I looked away from the grisly scene and saw a speck, darker than the rest of the slowly darkening background, far in the distance. I was dragged away into the gathering night, leaving behind the corpse of my friend and any innocence or sympathy I had left in me. Footnote: Level Up New Perk: Wounded Soul: You've seen some terrible things in the wasteland. You do 10% more damage to Slavers and Raiders, and have some unique dialogue options. (Once again, thanks go to Kkat for writing the original FO:E. Also, thanks to any of you who are actually reading this fic) Chapter 5: In Which Things Get Increasingly WorseFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 5: In Which Things Get Increasingly Worse “Ya know, there oughtta be a law about how bad things can get before everypony just drops dead...” I just realized now while telling this story that I haven’t ever described how I looked back then. The truth is, I don’t remember. It’s odd, really. I can remember just about everything else, whether I want to or not. I still remember my friends, their faces, even up to the point they died, but when it comes to my face I draw a complete blank. Sweet Holy Celestia, that was a long time ago... My Waypoint friends. I’d only known them for a short time, but their deaths weighed me down and filled me with rage. Two was a puddle of green goo. He’d snapped the neck of an attacker before being shot from behind by a glowing bolt of evil death. At the time I’d wondered, Is that what balefire looks like? before realizing the irrelevance of the question. Three had tried to attack the slavers as they walked away from where Lily and I were bound up. She’d landed at least one good knife strike on their leader before four strong ponies took hold of her and literally tore her apart. I couldn’t believe she was dead. It wasn’t an easy thing to comprehend for me. The heroes weren’t supposed to die, at least not like that. And then they killed Lily. Her murder was the worst. I’d been no more than a meter or two away from her as the three slaver bucks... did what they did. As if they were taunting our helplessness, the one missing part of his jaw shot her. In the face. Half of her head sprayed out sideways, her right eye blasted into jelly. And for all three deaths, I couldn’t help any of them. I think this was when I started losing my faith. I’d been dragged for several miles through the sand by the time I arrived at the slaver camp. My barding and my sides had been rubbed raw and bleeding. Being dragged by my legs had torturously extended my broken legs. Most of all I wanted water. Night had fallen thickly over the desert, like a quilt with too much stuffing. The Goddess Luna's moon hung lonely among the stars that shunned it. Fires set up in trash cans lit the slaver camp. I was dragged the largest canvas and scrap metal tent. On its door, painted crudely by hoof, were the words 'The Boss'. From inside I could hear low moaning and heavy breathing, accompanied by slow and scratchy music, probably from a record player. I itched at my ropes, trying to get them off so I could kill the bastards who brought me here, but they were tied too tightly to remove. The small pony with the big hooves tapped on the metal door five times. I could hear grunting and sheets rustling inside the tent. The mare who was missing an ear swung open the door so quickly that it smacked the big hoofed buck in the face. The jagged and rusty edge cut his cheek. "The fuck are you getting me up from a good screw for?" she hissed in an angrily-calm way, then, seeing the three bucks standing there, "You fucking idiots! You're fucking late, you fucking fucked-up fucks!" Dear Luna, the language... "Um, we got the slave here, chief," said tumor buck. His profane use of the word 'chief' just made me hate him more. She glanced down at me and then back at the three bucks. "Slave?" she asked, "Slave, singular? Slave, Goddess-damned singular?! Where's the other one?! Where's the fucking mare?!" The jawless one glanced downward. Tumor buck scratched at the dirt with his hooves and stepped backwards. Big hooves looked sideways at jawless and shook his head. "You broke the merchandise?" Jawless nodded. Ear lacking mare seethed with anger as she addressed big hooves. "Take this slave," she gave me a quick kick in the back, "and put him in the pen. You," her eyes bored into jawless, "I will make you bleed in the morning. Now all of you get the fuck out of here," She slammed the door behind her. My three tormentors tried to act tough as they dragged me to the pen "You won't last a minute with the other slaves, slave," taunted big hooves. His heart wasn't really in the taunt, though. Tumor agreed with a small "Yeah," but he wasn't really in the taunting mood either. Jawless said nothing. The pen was a large, high-walled rectangle of cinderblocks several layers thick and held together by a crude mortar. The gate was made of iron bars that made me think of a jail (which, come to think of it, is exactly what it was). Tumor pulled off my saddlebags and barding, throwing them into a nearby pile of saddlebags and barding. The unicorn guarding the gate opened it for the bucks. They untied my hooves and tossed me inside, quickly slamming the gate shut again. I must have woken somepony up because a unicorn lit up an illumination spell. The sudden white light forced my eyes to adjust. I could hear ponies groaning from the sudden brightness, but most stayed asleep. The dim light illuminated the scarred old dark-purple face of a kind looking unicorn mare who wore tattered rags. "So, they got you too?" she asked in a whisper. I nodded. "Your legs are broken, aren't they?" I nodded again. "Those idiots have been doing that a lot recently. Here." her horn glowed with another layer of magic. I could feel the bones in my legs start to knit themselves together. It was not a pleasant sensation, but it was over quickly. "Thank you," I whispered. I tried standing up but she stopped me. "You're welcome, but don't get up yet," she cautioned, "The bones in your legs are still soft and need time to set. Wait until the morning." I obeyed her directions. "Now," she said, "what about that hole in your neck?" I felt at the wad of gauze stuffed in my bullet wound. "I've had worse," I answered. "That's no reason not to get healed," she replied. She did have a point. "Here, let me fix it," She pulled out the gauze and stopped the blood with telekinesis. I felt each piece of bullet she pulled out, but said nothing. The mending spell itself only took a few seconds. "Need anything else?" "Water, if you have it. I'm very thirsty." She produced a thin waterskin and let me sip a small gulp. Water had never tasted quite so good before. "Thank you," I said again, "but why are you helping me?" She shrugged and smiled. "There's never a reason not to be kind. Plus, I like to stay in practice." "Stay in practice? So you're a medical pony?" "New Canterlot Army Seventh Engineering Brigade's former chief medical officer," she whispered with pride. "Name’s Cross Heart, formerly Major Cross Heart. And you are...?" I cleared my dry throat. "White Hooves tribe ambassador to the NCR and Waypoint Trading Company employee Fall Hammer-heart. Nice to meet you, Major," "It's a pleasure to meet you also, Fall," she replied. She pointed to one of the ponies who had been woken up who rested against the wall. "That's Grim." she pointed to another, "That's Spindle," she pointed, "and that's..." She was cut off by the guard kicking at the gate. "Shut up in there," growled the guard, "It's not like any of you are gonna see each other after tomorrow anyways." "Ignore him, Fall," the mare said, lowering her voice more so that I had to lean in to hear her. "Say, how'd you get that Pip-Buck? Those are pretty rare these days." "It was a gift," I replied, and then changing the subject, "What did he mean? What's happening tomorrow?" "Tomorrow’s a market day. Ponies get sold on market days," the pony called Grim whispered. "Owners come from around the region to bid on slaves," the Major said, "I've been here for twelve market days running and I still haven't been bought." She gave a little smile. "Why wouldn't they want to buy you? Ponies with medical training can't be that common," I pointed out. "If you were a slaveholder, would you want a pony who wants nothing more than to escape to operate on you?" She had a good point. "Besides, most slaveholders have companies that do heavy manual labor, like mining," I cringed a little, knowing that was a skill they would be looking for. She continued, "I'm too old for work like that. I barely made it under the age requirement for the army, and I only got my rank because of my medical training." The guard kicked the gate again. "Shut up, and go the hell to sleep, dammit!" The Major rolled her eyes. "Good night, Fall. See you in the morning." "Good night," I replied, and slowly slipped off into an unrestful sleep filled with visions of the deaths of my friends. “Hey, Fall, wake up.” I rolled over and groaned. “Just a few more minutes, mom. “I’m not your mom, Fall,” the voice chuckled softly. I rubbed at my eyes and looked up. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon and the Major stood over me with a set of clothes (if you could really call them that) held in her telekinesis. “Oh,” I said. I realized two things at that moment: one, how much her voice reminded me of my mother, and two, how thin she and the ponies around her were. “I’m sorry, I forgot where I was for a minute...” She cut me off as I pulled myself up on my (now solid) hooves. “No problem,” she said, “Now put these on.” She pushed the rags towards me. “Why?” “Because we’re all wearing them,” she replied, “and being different makes you stand out. Standing out is something that gets you sold. Also, you’re muscular and healthy looking. Wearing these makes everypony look like crap.” I couldn’t argue with that logic, so I put them on. Baggy and tattered, I was surprised they had something as sophisticated as pockets. In the daylight I could really examine where I was. At least fifteen ponies, give or take, were in the pen with me. All of them looked under fed. All of them wore the same shoddy rags. None of them were pegasi. That made sense, though, because the big cinderblock pen didn’t have a roof. The stallion called Grim was talking to the filly called Spindle. Spindle was a very light blue with an equally light yellow mane. She was too young to have a cutie-mark and definitely too young to be a slave. Grim, on the other hoof, was probably about the same age as my dad. His coat was gray and his mane was a darker gray. His cutie mark was covered by his rags. Grim spoke softly to little Spindle and wiped away each fresh tear that dripped from her eyes. He must have been her father. I never found out for sure. A group of slaver guards arrived at the pen and began shackling us together in a line. They had a bit of trouble putting shackles on me because of my Pip-Buck, so I ended up with one manacle high and one low. I was third to last in line, with Grim in front of me and somepony I didn’t know the name of behind me. The Major was somewhere near the front, and Spindle was in the middle. As we passed by the pile of saddlebags I pretended to trip. I grabbed what I could from my bags as the slavers yelled at me. The “Story of the Goddesses” and the orb I’d found in the house with the dead foals were all I could grab. Neither of them seemed particularly useful, but I took them anyways and jammed them into my pockets. I’d been hoping to snag one of the grenades I’d bought on a recent mission, but oh well. The slavers led us to a big bowl boiling over a campfire, tended to by a pony with two and a half eyes. I say two and a half because the hugely fat unicorn had an extra pupil and iris in their right eye, which gave them the creepy effect of seeming to stare through you. They served up some sort of thin gruel made of... stuff... that the slavers guarding us forced us to eat quickly. It tasted disgusting. We were marched up to a large makeshift stage with a microphone standing on it, and told to sit down in front of it. Soon, other chains of shackled ponies were marched into the camp from other directions by groups of slavers who I’d never seen before. I hadn’t seen any of these new slaves in the pen last night so I assumed they were from other slave camps. Groups of unshackled ponies (and griffons, and several zebras, and exactly one buffalo complete with Fire Hairs markings) began arriving several minutes later. These I took to be the potential buyers. Some buyers spoke with each other in loud voices, like pony would with their old friends. Others stood on their own with their guards and entourages. The entire crowd hushed when the mare who was missing an ear walked on the stage. She tapped at the microphone to make sure it was on, and began speaking. “Fillies and gentlecolts (and griffons, and others)! Thank you for coming!” she said cheerfully, “The bidding will begin soon, but first, allow me to treat you to some...” she squinted at the sky as she searched for the correct word, “entertainment.” She licked her lips, as if that word were a tasty dessert served after a big meal. The jawless buck who’d shot Lily was led up to center stage by four guards. He looked downcast and resigned to whatever his fate was, and I would have felt sorry for him if I hadn’t hated him so much. The mare leaned towards her microphone again. “This fine buck here, is a fuck-head,” she declared, “In my company, I can’t afford employees who damage my sellable merchandise.” She pulled out a very heavy looking knife. I knew what was coming next. She walked over to him and said in his ear, “Do you have anything to say, Trunk?” Tears gushed from the murderer’s eyes. “Aif vorry! Aif vorry! Aif fon’t fufven doof iff afen! Honiss!” His missing jaw and his crying made him twice as hard to understand, but I could tell he was begging for her forgiveness. “I know you won’t, Trunk,” the mare answered, and with one quick slash opened up the inside of his chest to the outside air. He fell to the ground, writhing in pain. “Hold him still.” she ordered her guards. They obeyed with wide eyes. I don’t think they’d been expecting this. Next went his hooves, each of them removed after some loud hacking. His crying rang out through the crowd. Some buyers chuckled, and at least one roared laughing, but most seemed disgusted by what they saw. His eyes were her next target. Then his ears... then his snout... then his balls (one guard ran away screaming and crying at this point)... then his horn... Finally, after a solid five minutes of torture (I was amazed he’d stayed alive that long), she lopped off his head. She kicked his head off the stage, walked forward to face her guests, and took a bow. The other two bucks, the one with the tumor and the one with big hooves, were standing by the base of the stage with looks on their faces revealing that they knew they'd dodged the proverbial bullet. They were called up to clean away the mess. My fellow prisoners and I were brought onto the stage. I looked at the crowd. There were ponies in outfits and uniforms I'd never seen before. I tried to guess which groups were more likely to treat their slaves better, but I couldn't really say. It was a real mixed bag. Some ponies just looked like raiders. Others were dressed in suits and dresses. Most wore barding and outfits that were somewhere in between. One stallion in a tattered suit took the stage from the mare who was missing an ear, after giving her a playful peck on her blood splattered cheek. He leaned in toward the microphone. "Gooood morning, everypony!" he said cheerfully. He pointed his hoof to the first prisoner in line, "The bidding will begin on this pretty mare right here. The starting bid is one-hundred caps, starting in three, two..." he slammed his hoof against the stage. The crowd began shouting commands and prices. The buck on stage responded to what they were saying with a waterfall of gibberish. Occasionally I could recognize numbers in the loud, garbled noise, but everything else was impossible to understand. Guards responded to commands from the crowd by turning the mare, poking her, prodding her, showing her cutie mark. After about a minute and a half the announcer slammed his hoof down again. "Sold!" he exclaimed, "Sold to the orange unicorn in the back for two-thousand seven-hundred sixteen caps!" Guards unshackled the mare and escorted her to her new owner. The process was repetitive. Bucks and mares were bid on and sold in the same rapid-fire way. To the buyers we were just pieces of meat, machines to do their bidding, whatever that might be. Everypony being sold saw it a bit differently than that. Some of the ‘merchandise’ cried, others looked angry. Still others just stared ahead blankly. When it became the Major’s turn to be sold she stared intently toward the back of the crowd at a group of late arrivals. I recognized their barding. NCR Army troops. What would the NCR be doing at a slave auction? “A hundred caps,” the shortest of the five troopers offered. They were willing to pay the absolute lowest price for this old mare, a veteran of their wars. Was this really how the new Equestria valued the lives of their elders? Did my tribe really want an alliance with these ponies? “Sold!” shouted the auctioneer. He seemed anxious to rid himself of a pony that had taken up a spot on the roster for twelve market days in a row. The Major was unshackled. She looked surprised that she was being sold at all, but soon the shock left her face and was replaced by a calm smirk. Before she was led away she gave me a confident and kind nod, as if she was trying to tell me that everything would be okay. She walked away with the NCR ponies into the still low sun. Again, the sales were very repetitive. Some ponies were sold, others weren’t. The crowd roared louder for the strong and attractive ones, the ugly and weak garnered less interest. Some ponies were sold and others weren’t, but the next one that is at all worth mentioning was the auctioning off of the little filly, Spindle. “The next pony on the market is this little gal, right here!” the auctioneer who I was increasingly growing to hate announced, “Like usual, starting bid is two-hundred for little ones! Bidding begins in three, two...” Grim jerked at his chains. A flurry of prices rose in the air. Spindle was tossed and turned, flipped and prodded every-which-way you could think of. It was chaotic. Caps were literally thrown on the stage in bags. I couldn’t imagine why there would be such a demand for a filly too young to have even received a cutie mark yet, but the whole thing made me feel sick. Grim ground his teeth. In the middle of it all, a white unicorn with a very short pink mane who wore a business suit magically magnified his voice, and shouted over the rest of the buyers, “SEVEN-THOUSAND CAPS, TO BE PAID IN FULL IMMEDIATELY.” No more offers were made. “Sold!” said the auctioneer, “Sold to the stallion in the suit!” The guards had already taken Spindle out of her manacles. At this point Grim launched himself off the stage, taking the entire chain of us with him. I hadn’t expected him to be so strong. “How fucking DARE YOU!” Grim shouted at the top of his lungs. He struggled forward uselessly, the rest of us in a heap acting like an anchor. “Every time you’re here you only buy fillies! I fucking want to know why, you son of a bitch!” I could hear Spindle sobbing quietly over her fate. The pony in the suit said nothing. His entourage put a new, cleaner set of manacles and a beeping metal collar I didn’t know the purpose of on the little filly. Guards rushed toward Grim to hold him back. “If you hurt her, I swear to Celestia and Luna and the Elements, I will! Fucking! Rip your! Goddess-damned skeleton out of your Goddess-damned dick! Do you fucking hear me you shit?! I will end you! I’m going to find you and...!” His jaw was clamped shut by two powerful looking bucks who held him to the ground. The unicorn in the suit straightened his tie. “We shall see,” was all he had to say. At that point even I wanted to rush forward and kill him, but I restrained myself. I hate myself for not doing anything. The suited stallion walked away with his purchase without even a scratch. A minute of silence later and we were still on the ground in front of the stage. A pegasus encased in a heavy suit of armour fitted with a scorpion-like tail was the first to say anything. “We will pay five-hundred for the gray one,” the pegasus said. It took a second for the auctioneer to process what the armoured pony had said. “Um, yeah, sure. Sold for five-hundred...” After order had been restored and Grim had been taken away by the group of armoured pegasi (who I suddenly realized was the Enclave I’d heard about), the bidding continued in a dull manner. Many buyers preferred buying multiple slaves. I was sold (just my luck) to a mare who I recognized as the one who’d been laughing the loudest during the pre-auction ‘entertainment’. Now she didn't make a sound and kept her mouth shut tight. She was a bright orange unicorn with a green mane with yellow tips. She was definitely an odd pony. After I'd been brought to her she held my eyes wide open and stared intently at them. It seemed like she was examining me jaundice or something and, finding I didn't have yellowed eyes, she shoved me to the ground and clapped her hooves around my left ear. For no damn reason. She did the same thing to every other pony she bought. My major selling points had been my Pip-Buck (which the auctioneer said was worth a raising of the starting price) and my cutie mark. Mining. Luna-damned mining. I hated my talent then more than I ever had before. The slave auction went on for the rest of the day. Every group of slave-sellers got their shot at selling their products to the slave-buyers who stayed. The mare who bought me also bought a pink coated, blue maned earth pony mare, a dark green unicorn colt with no mane, and a very unhappy looking zebra. I'd never met a zebra before. Crazy mare's guards shackled the four of us slaves together when the last pony had been sold. By then it was sundown. I watched the horizon as my new owners fitted manacles above my Pip-Buck. I watched the sun as it dipped beneath the distant hills. I wasn't sure the sun was Celestia's anymore. We were marched, hungry and dehydrated from a lack of food and water during the auction, across the desert. The pink pony was in the lead, with the colt behind her. I walked behind the colt and behind me was the zebra. The zebra didn't really walk, though. It was more like he... glided over the sands. The ground became harder as we neared our distant destination. I could feel pebbles and pieces of cracked shale under my hooves. The air was dry and I craved water. My mouth felt full of lumps of cotton. The colt tripped forward, catching a face full of cracked stone. I barely avoided tripping over him. The zebra and I helped him to his hooves. He cried small tears that dripped into the cuts that marred his young face. "Do not cry, little one," whispered the zebra. I'd never heard that accent before. "You must be strong. Never let your enemy see weakness in you." Funny, my father had told me that same thing once. The camp was an unremarkable and uninspired little settlement. It was called the ‘Equestrian Army Research Base 8-36’ by my Pip-Buck and was apparently at about the mid-point of the huge desert. Slaves lived in shoddy tents of decaying fabric, in an area surrounded by barbed wire and rusting electrified fences. The slavers lived in old trailers and small shacks made of whatever crappy construction materials they could find. The camp was built around a mine. The mine was built into a hill... no, not quite a hill, a big stone cube that looked entirely unnatural and out of place. The cube was scored with tool marks and holes that suggested dynamite placement. Why anypony would make a mountain into a giant cube in the middle of a desert was entirely beyond my understanding. A single, lonely radio blared music continuously in the center of the slave enclosure. "In the wasteland, sometimes good ponies have to do bad things," said the Bearer of Laughter. The saint was alive. Not an icon or a description on a page, but a living, breathing pony. I felt I should kneel and pray before her. I wanted to ask her blessing. To ask her to help my slowly failing faith. But I wasn't there, and I couldn't move. "That doesn't change anything," said the short mare, "and no amount of good intentions can bring any of them back. Dead is dead." I had seen her before, but I just couldn't remember where. The room (and I use that word in the loosest way) began to glow. Green fire began to... exhale (I know that doesn't make sense, but that's the only way to describe it) from the "walls" that held me. The fire was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. A thing to run from and a mesmerizing, ethereal holy light all the same. I felt pain, burning, but I couldn't look away. And then I saw HIM. Discord, the arch-demon of chaos, the monster who lived in every seer's mind, stared into wherever my eyes would be if I was there. He turned to where the Bearer and the short mare spoke. He wrapped his arm around where my shoulders weren't. "Fall, my friend," the deity of disorder whispered to me, "you and I are a lot alike." I shivered at his words. "Neither of us know all that much about the new world. Neither of us has friends. Both of us are very, very good at failure," he smiled an uneven, mismatched grin that dripped blood. "But that little filly," he said, pointing to that short mare, "she's an achiever. She accomplished her mission. No. Matter. What. Now she's a goddess." Before my eyes the small mare grew huge. She was as tall as Celestia now and had a set of wings. Her horn was lengthened. She stood atop an immeasurably high tower. Thunder clouds and bolts of lightning were her tools and even the sun and moon obeyed her whims. The thunder spoke in a language all its own: "Dead isn't always dead." Discord placed his clawed finger where my forehead should have been, "Have you ever felt balefire?" And then I burned. The loud horn sounded, surrounding and shrouding my final moments. Green. The tarp over me was green. When I'd claimed the tent I'd found the maggot infested corpse of a mule clutching a unicorn foal. It had been dirty business pulling the two bodies out. I wished I could have known their names or had something nice to say about them when I buried them. Now they were just two more dead unknowns in the wasteland. I'd been having the same dream every night. I couldn't figure out its meaning. I just woke up, hating the green tarp and the fresh grave. I thought about the little mare who became a Goddess. She was always the rock of the dream, the only pony that seemed entirely real. Speaking of rocks, I’d been seeing a lot of them. The giant cube was only the top of the mine. Tunnels stretched into the ground farther than I would ever see. In the top of the cube the more “senior” slaves mined magical gems. The newer slaves, like me, mined for metal ores deep beneath the ground. This particular morning was the start of my third day as a slave. I left my tent and walked the gate. Everypony (plus zebras, donkeys, and mules) were gathering by the exit to wait for the overseers to turn off the electricity running through the fence. “My collar itches,” the green colt with no mane told me. He scratched at the metal collar with the unlit red light. The slavers had assembled one that was too small for him. His name was Martyr. I don’t know what parents in their right mind would name their child that. Since becoming slaves I’d tried my best to keep him safe and away from the periodic wrath of the guards and other slaves. I’m not sure why I choose to dedicate myself to keeping this little colt safe, but something about him- his eyes, I think- reminded me of Threeblue. I guess I didn’t want to stop being a good pony just yet. “At least you won’t have to wear it forever, right?” I replied with a shrug. I wanted to keep the little buck’s spirits up. He just shrugged in a resigned way. The camp’s head overseer was a muddy brown mare with a dark crimson mane. She was missing part of her horn and the pain that caused with using magic forced her to use more manual, earth pony methods. She flicked the lever by the gate, turning off the spark battery powered electrification of the fence. An earth pony who stood next to her tapped the biggest of four buttons on the gadget hanging on the lanyard around his neck. The little red lights on our explosive collars lit up. The brand that had been burned over my right cutie mark (a unicorn's head with pointed teeth) itched. It had itched since I'd been given it. I’d never really liked my cutie mark, but this was just deponyizing. It felt like a violation of my individuality. Another violation on top of all the other evils the desert wasteland had already shown me. Four guards worked together the gate. For a chain link fence it sure was hard to open. “Alright, you all know the deal,” the bored unicorn overseer said, “Do your work and don’t run away, and you won’t get your head blown off. Get moving.” Escorted by guards who looked almost as miserable as we were, we walked to the huge, unnatural cube. Outside the mouth of the cave entrance the mare who’d bought me was stretched across a lawn chair sunning herself while wearing sunglasses and sipping a green drink with ice. There was definitely something off about her. Small lanterns were hung from hooks on our collars as we entered the cavern. I grabbed a pickaxe. The little colt grabbed a small shovel. Little Martyr and I traveled down the dry, black tunnels. We found a cart and searched for a vein of ore in the walls. I took a strong grip on the handle of the pick, gripping it in my teeth, and swung it at the wall. Martyr clenched his small shovel in his teeth since he was too young to use magic. He scooped up the ore that fell from the wall and dumped it in the cart. Together we developed a pattern, a sort of rhythm. The work went on for hours. The two of us shared a small canteen of water I’d scavenged from the corpse of the dead mule. Breaks between swinging and shoveling contained a little getting to know each other. “So, Fall, where’d you say you were from again?” Martyr asked. “The Ghost Lands,” I replied. I’d told him about my home before, but he asked me about it every day. It was almost as if he pretended to keep forgetting what I said just so I could tell him about it again. He lifted a mound of ore veined rocks into the cart and then put down the shovel again. "What's it like there?" I thought back to my home. It felt so far away. "It has rivers, mines like this, some small farms too," I said, "Big canyon walls stretch around most of it. All the ponies and buffalo in my tribe work together to keep the other tribe away." "What did you do there? I mean, you had a job, right?" I picked at the wall some more, knocking loose bits of stone from the wall. I dropped my pick and gave a sideways glance to Martyr. "Why are you asking me? Haven't I already told you about what it's like back home? Why don't you tell me about what it's like where you're from instead," I replied to the little colt. Picking up a large wooden beam, I wedged it between the floor and ceiling of the thin tunnel. I started picking again. "Where I'm from?" Martyr asked, "Why'd you want to know bout a place like that?" "Beecaughf," I put my pickaxe down and tried speaking again, "Because you already know where I'm from, but I know almost nothing about you." "Um, okay," the little colt whispered. He cleared his throat. "My momma was from these ponies who call themselves... something like... the Legion with Zebras, or something like that. They lived a lot north of here, by a river, a really big river. They lived in tents and my momma said they were nice ponies and zebras to be around..." his voice trailed off as an overseer walked past our little tunnel. He started again in a quieter voice. "My daddy was from some ponies called the Flowers of Pocked Lips, and they helped everyone they met. I think they were from the NCR side of the river, but I'm not sure. Momma told me that one day the Flowers ponies walked across the big bridge over the river. Some ponies with guns came with them. The Flowers ponies wanted to welcome the Legion ponies and zebras to the other side of the bridge, I think. Well, the pony who was the Legion's boss said the Flowers ponies could stay a while. Momma said that daddy saw her while she was teaching some of the younger ponies how to fight good. Momma said they fell in love and..." "And that's where you come from?" I said. "No, that's where my sisters came from. They were twins that didn't look like each other. They both left before was born. Momma told me one of them got set on fire." Well, damn. What a thing to tell a little pony. He continued. "The Legion boss pony got killed bout a year or two after I was born, and the next pony in charge said the Flowers ponies did it," he looked down and started sobbing soft tears. I'd heard enough to piece together what had happened next. I think the boss pony had ordered the Flowers killed. Next, I bet his mother was accused of being a traitor. With no mother he would just be another mouth to feed, so they sold him. How many times has he been sold? I wondered. I dropped my pick and put a hoof on Martyr's shoulder. "I understand. I'm sorry I asked." Shouting erupted from a distant cavern. Soon it grew into a violent roar. Slaves rushed down the halls toward the noise. Hadrine, the zebra who’d been bought the same time we were, trotted into our tunnel. “Fall and Martyr,” he said, unnervingly calmly, in his odd accent, “come quickly. There is a commotion arising in the center of the mine. I believe we may be escaping. Follow me.” The zebra began running through the tunnels again. I nudged Martyr to break him out of his daze. We followed the zebra down the halls, our lanterns swaying side to side as we ran. The central cavern was crowded with ponies. Overseers and guards were doing their best to hold the waves of slaves pouring from the tunnels. I stood on the tips of my hooves and craned my neck to try and see what was happening, but couldn’t due to the swarm of ponies in front of me. I picked up an out of breath Martyr and put him on the shoulders like I would with my youngest sister, Cactus Flower. “Martyr, can you see what’s happening?” I asked him. He squinted his eyes and peered forward. “Uh, there’s a mare and she’s pink... and she’s got her hoof around the top overseer’s neck. I think she’s got... is it?... yeah, I think she’s got a knife,” he looked down at me, “A bunch of the guards have got guns pointed at her.” I wondered what could possibly be going on. Why hadn’t the guards activated her explosive collar yet? I heard a guard yelling. “Let her go! I swear on my mother’s horn, if you let her go, we won’t shoot!” “Bullshit!” the pink pony shouted in return, “Let me walk away from here first, and then once I’m far enough she’s all yours. I’m not going to be a fucking slave!” I pressed forward through the crowd until I could see for myself what was happening. The mare was backed against the wall, a broken collar lying on the cave floor in front of her. Some of the guards with their guns trained on the pink mare were mumbling. The one who’d spoken before turned to face her again. “Um, well..” she said, unsure of herself, “well, shit. I don’t know, um, maybe you can do that...” The hostage overseer shouted at her subordinates. “Don’t you dare let this pony get away! We payed a lot of caps for this bitch! If you let her get away I’ll..!” her voice was choked off by the pink mare’s tightened grip. The tip of the knife was pressed harder against the overseer’s throat, drawing blood. “Shut up! I will kill you! Don’t fucking test me!” The whole room was suddenly lit by an orange glow. I felt paralysed. Everypony stopped moving. Magical orange tendrils sprouted from the ground and wrapping themselves around the necks of each pony in the room. My eyes continued to roam as my body was held still by this new spell. The mare who’d bought me meandered into the cavern. Her horn glowed. She sipped at a new drink through a straw. She tilted down her sunglasses to examine the hostage taker. Carefully, she lifted the knife away from her employee’s neck and levitated the pink pony away, laying her on the ground in front of her. She twisted the knife around in her telekinesis, admiring the way it was built and its balance. The orange mare knelt down to stare into the eyes of her slave. “Do you know what I hate? I mean really, really hate?” she asked the paralyzed pink mare with an almost unnoticeable lisp, “I hate disobedience. Oh, and ungratefulness, of course. It isn’t so bad here, you know? Three square meals, nice tents, good working hours, kind guards... It’s pretty much paradise compared to a lot of slave companies. Have you ever heard of a slaver king by the name of Red Eye?” she pretended to wait for an answer, “No, I suppose not. Red Eye was like a god-pony. I’ve read a biography about him. Maybe I should run my business like he ran his. Come to think of it, Red Eye is the pony who inspired me to get in the slaving business. Just thinking about him makes me want to," she hissed as she pressed the tip of the blade against the pink mare’s right eye, “change the rules..." Blood gushed and splattered as the knife slid into the pink mare’s eye. She twisted her blade around, carving out the slave's eye. The crazy mare pressed a hoof down on the pink pony's chest, holding her in place as she released her paralysis spell on everypony. The pink mare with the blue mane screamed at the top of her lungs. The orange mare moved on to the other eye, carving it out in an agonizingly slow way. "Well, at least this way you won't have to see the changes I'm making!" the orange mare quipped, laughing at her own pun. "Why would she do that?" I asked Hadrine. He, Martyr, and I were sitting by my tent. Night was falling. The sun was slinking back below the mountainous horizon in a blaze of reds and purples. "I mean, why would she blind a slave she'd bought? I understand hurting somepony if they attack you, but blinding a slave?!" Hadrine shrugged. "Why do ponies do anything at all?" Martyr sat chewing on his forehooves, rocking back and forth, eyes wide. He shouldn't have seen that. Nopony should see another pony's eyes carved out, but especially not one so young. I patted the top of his maneless head softly. After the orange mare had finished her torture of the pink pony she had her tied to a wooden pole in the center of the camp. When we'd finished work Hadrine had asked me if I knew anything about poultices. Before letting me answer he told me the names of several plants that grew in the desert. To my surprise I was able to find them all within the fence. I seemed to have a sense of where to look. I'd brought the herbs and roots back to Hadrine who concocted them into an odd mixture he claimed healed wounds. We came to the mare at the pole and applied the stuff to her eye sockets. I tore off a strip of fabric from the rags I wore and tied it around face to keep it in place. "Thank you," she'd whispered. “But why would she carve her eyes out? If she wanted to prove a point, why not just kill her?” I persisted in asking Hadrine. I wasn’t brand new to the wasteland anymore, but there were still some things the ponies here did that I couldn’t understand. As far as I knew, even the Fire Hairs didn’t torture captured warriors from my tribe. Torture was to me the second worst crime. Rape was the first. “Perhaps the mare in charge receives pleasure from causing the pain of others.” was his answer. We weren’t served dinner that evening. I awoke the next morning, dry mouthed and feeling less than rested. Sand had found its way under my Pip-Buck and was chafing at my skin. I hated the green tarp. Turning my head to the right I saw Martyr. He hadn’t gone back to the tent shared by the other fillies and colts where he normally stayed. Seeing the mare’s eyes carved out had terrified him. Honestly, it had terrified me too. When I was living with my family I always woke up late because of the hours of my shift at the mine. Now, for some odd reason, I had no trouble I’d been waking in the early morning consistently. I don’t know what had prompted the change, but then again I didn’t really care. The sun rose slowly in the east, climbing its way out from the mountains that imprisoned it. The horn that signaled the start of the work day should have sounded by now. I pulled on my rags and checked the slowly disintegrating pockets to ensure my two remaining possessions were still there. Trotting away quietly to keep from waking the sleeping colt, I made my way to the fence. A lone mare guarded the fence, leaning on a well used and duct tape covered hunting rifle. “Hey,” I asked to get her attention, “what happened to the horn?” She gave me a sidelong glance and let out a breath of exasperation. “Look, slave, I’m not supposed to be talking to you. Please, just go.” “Shouldn’t we be working by now?” I prodded. I was too bored to leave. Oddly enough, these slaver guards weren’t as bad as I’d expected. I hadn’t been beaten or purposely injured, and they did feed us. During my travels working for Waypoint I’d heard about some terrible slave operations: beatings at the drop of a hat, rapes, working around mutated insects, fights to the death... “Godess dammit! Go away! You must be the only slave ever who actually wants to work.” she shouted in exasperation. Getting nowhere, I turned around, only for my dry throat to prompt me to turn back a second later. “Food? Water?” She sighed. “I have no idea. Just go away!” I began the trot back to my tent when I noticed something odd. My vision looked less... blue. Then it hit me. My E.F.S. was gone! Granted, I hadn’t fought anything in several days so I hadn’t had much use for it but now that it was gone my eyes felt almost naked. I stared down at my Pip-Buck. It was still working, on, but I didn’t know enough about my Pip-Buck to turn my E.F.S. back on. I walked back to my tent, feeling uncomfortable the entire time. Martyr was awake, curled in a ball, staring with wide eyes at the faded and hole-riddled tarp. My hoof crunched on a patch of gravel, breaking the little colt out of his trance. He sprang up and ran towards me. “Where were you?” he asked pleadingly. He wrapped his small hooves around my non-Pip-Bucked leg. “I woke up and you were gone! I thought... I thought...” he stammered, breaking down in tears. I patted the top of his head. “I’m fine,” I assured him in my most calming voice, “I just went to go see if we’ll be getting breakfast soon. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” I wasn’t going anywhere. “I had a really, really, really bad dream, Fall,” he wept, “I thought there were monsters chasing me, and they tore out ponies’ eyes and ate them, and then I saw them kill momma, and then I found you, and then I thought I was gonna be safe, but then you became the mare who cut out that pony’s eyes, and then she tried to tear me apart, but she couldn’t, and then...” He broke down in heavy sobbing again as I wrapped my hooves around him in a tight hug. For a second I was taken back home. For a brief moment I was hugging my youngest sister, imagining she’d had a nightmare. The food and water didn’t arrive until mid-day. A cauldron of watery soup containing flecks of mystery meat was lunch. The water was a stagnant, muddy filth in a grime covered plastic barrel. I would try to boil out the impurities later, I decided. All in all, it was worse than what we’d been served before. The soup disgusted me. I couldn’t get meat past my teeth, knowing it had once been a living creature. Martyr didn’t have the same problem with meat, however. I carefully picked out the bits in my soup and dropped them in his. Even the broth was hard to stomach. It tasted putrid. I guessed that the chef had used the same water source as what the barrel was filled with. Hadrine was nowhere to be found during lunch (or “chow” as some slaves called it) leaving me wondering what had become of him. I experimented with buttons on my Pip-Buck until early evening. Nothing I did turned my E.F.S. back on. All I got was a message in the ‘notes’ section that read: NOTICE: Eyes Forward Sparkle and Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell systems currently offline. Please contact a Stable-Tec engineer to reactivate. The message did absolutely nothing to help me. Fed up, I walked to the center of the camp to talk to the pink mare. She slouched low against her wooden pole. The part of the rag covering her empty sockets was drenched with blood. “Hello,” I said weakly. What else could I have said? How do you make small talk with a pony whose life has been reduced to the darkness around her and the wooden pole that supported her. She licked at her lips and turned her head, trying to find where my greeting came from. “I’m right in front of you,” I told her. Her head turned forward, staring directly at me. “Do you need anything?” I asked. She licked her cracking lips again. “Water,” she breathed in a hoarse whisper, “I need water.” I pulled out the cork of my small canteen, realizing then that I’d never boiled it. That had been a stupid idea to begin with, seeing as there wasn’t any wood to use. Still, I decided, any water was better than no water. “Sure, here you go,” I said as I pressed the canteen held between my hooves to her lips, praying the water I was giving her didn’t carry any terrible diseases. She didn’t need any more pain. She sipped down half of what I had before tilting her head back to signal being done. I pulled the canteen away. “Thank you,” she said. “Hey, slaves like us got to stick together, right?” I replied. I felt an uncomfortable chuckle rising in my throat, but I forced myself to swallow it back down. I was about to laugh around a mare who’d lost her eyes just a day ago. Goddesses, what was wrong with me? As if reading my mind, she started laughing. Quiet, soft breathy laughter at first, then getting louder and louder like a madmare. I worried for her sanity. Hell, I started worrying for my sanity! I started wondering if I was just hallucinating the whole scene. Her laughter soon degenerated into a fit of dry coughing. “So, um,” I said nervously, “want anything else?” “Ye-yeah,” she said through a cough, “Three things. One, I want my FUCKIN’ EYES BACK.” “I’m,... well I can’t...” I stammered before she cut me off. “Two, I haven’t had any, ugh, physical affection in months.” I reached out and hugged her, feeling that I could at least provide that. Physical affection, right? “Well, not quite what I meant, but whatever...” Oh. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Number three,” she continued, I want to get out of here. I am hoof-sucking sick of being stuck here. I need to get back to my bunch of prospectors. I want to escape.” She leaned forward, staring with sightless eyes directly at me. I was about to open my mouth, to give yet another apology for an inability to help, but something stopped me. I’m not sure what came over me. Instead of saying I couldn’t, I leaned forward and said, “I’ll see what I can do.” I was the only occupant of my tent that night. Martyr had rejoined the other young ponies. The events of the day tossed and turned themselves over and over in my head. I couldn’t sleep. Why was there no work that day? Why was the food and water worse? Why had I decided to give that mare hope when escaping seemed hopeless? My hoof felt around for “Story of the Goddesses”. I hadn’t looked for answers in my beliefs in too long a time. I grabbed the book and hit the lamp feature on my Pip-Buck. As I prepared to open it, a wave of anger swept over me, forcing me to shove it back roughly in my tattered rags. No, I thought, Celestia and Luna are kind, loving Goddesses. I’ve seen things that loving Goddesses would never allow. They would never let a mare have her eyes carved out, or let a foal see his mother executed, or let ponies butcher and torture each other to death, or let my friends... or let my friends die, or let Lily be... I decided to stop thinking, and I just grabbed the next closest object. The little orb. A whole new wave of anger consumed me as I remembered the foals in the house, two-hundred years long dead. I channeled all my hate at that little orb, finally falling asleep with a heart full of rage. The next five days were filled with beatings and pain. Stepped in the wrong direction, you got hit. Spoke without being spoken too, you got hit. Moved too slowly to your tunnel in the mines, rifle butt to the face. Can you see a pattern emerging? The head overseer had been replaced by a griffon that the crazy mare hired. The griffon encouraged the ponies under her to always treat slaves with as much cruelty as possible without crippling them. I worked in silence and bruised anguish during the ever-lengthening work hours. Martyr, thank Luna, had been able to avoid the constant beatings suffered by the rest of us. Each night I’d snuck away from my tent, sneaking bits of food and water to the eyeless mare in the center of the camp. It seemed I was the only pony who cared. Her name was Scrapper Line, I’d learned as we talked. She came from a big extended family of ‘prospectors’ (a fancy name for pre-war trash scavengers) and had lived her entire life in the desert. Her family had wandered around, finding facilities that the old Equestria had built in the no-pony’s-land of the desert, collecting here and there bits and pieces of old technology. She’d visited a Desert Outpost on her own one day to find a specific type of old armor that made its wearer stronger. Needless to say, she was captured. Our conversation on the fourth night went something like this: I walked slowly, as sneakily as I could manage, towards the pole in the ground. Most slaves were either asleep or tending their new bruises in their tents. The guards had already retreated to their own trailers and shacks. “Fall?” she whispered into the descending night when she heard the low crunch oh my hooves on a patch of pebbles, “Is that you?” “I’m here,” I replied, “Thirsty?” “Fuckin bone dry, Fall,” I pressed the edge of my canteen to her lips. She sipped in short, stuttering gulps. She tilted her head back and sighed after she emptied what was left of my water. I held a little pouch of swollen oats under her nose, allowing her to sniff the food I’d brought her. She shook her head in disgust. I stuffed the small pouch back in my pocket. “So,” I asked, “how was your day?” Her chuckle was dry and cough-like. “Oh, Fall, you joker,” she spat back with a snide smile, “You’re so funny that you should go fuck yourself.” “So, about as good as every other day,” I smiled back. There was something comforting about talking to this mare. The way she said my name reminded me of Three. The way she swore reminded me of Lily. “Same old same old. Tied to a pole, can’t see, legs twisted how they shouldn’t be, public example... oh yeah, life’s just fine.” “Do you think the boss mare is going to cut you down from there soon?” If she had eyes she would have been rolling them. “Nope.” “Damn. Well, can’t say I’m too surprised.” “Neither am I,” she replied. A pause filled the space between us, consuming any words I could think of to fill it. Finally, she broke the silence. “You know,” she said, “I’m still waiting on some of that physical affection I mentioned a few days ago.” “Sorry,” I replied, “I’m still in the process of grieving for somepony right now. Not that you aren’t a nice mare and all, but...” I really was still grieving for Three, feeling an acute loss when I thought of the close companionship and kindness she’d shown me (and, in a different way, missing Lily also). Plus, the idea of doing that in the center of this slave camp with a mare tied to a pole was an idea that absolutely disgusted me. “Yeah, sure, I get it. Anyways...” she continued, rapidly shifting the conversation, “got any ideas how to escape?” Honestly, I hadn’t really thought about it. I wasn’t ever the best at coming up with plans, but I doubted that any under-fed, beaten, unarmed slave, no matter how skilled could find a way out of this camp past the electrified fence, guards, and, most of all, explosive collars. Explosive collars. Something, a question, suddenly gnawed at my brain. “Um, no plan yet,” I admitted, “By the way, how’d you get your collar off that day?” She leaned forward, as if making sure I could hear. “Some mare -one of the guards, I think- just came up behind me while I was mining. She did... um, something, and the light turned off. The mare gave me a knife, told me to get to someplace called ‘Camp Steelhooves’, and then she was gone. I used the knife to pry the collar off at the hinge,” then, as if she thought I didn’t believe her, “No shit, that’ the honest truth. Really happened.” This was news to me. News, that is, that I was glad to know. It meant that somewhere around here, maybe we had an ally... “You know,” she continued, her voice lowered, “I hear things sometimes. There’s a group of ponies who meet by here everyday, right after the mining ends. I think they might have a plan to get out of here. You should talk to them.” I woke up on the fifth morning to the sound of a loud horn and beatings. The green tarp hadn’t left me in the night. Sad pink light peaked through the holes in my ceiling at an angle determined by the low sun. I hated that tarp. I stood, groggily, and ended up nose to nose with Hadrine. I took a step backwards to regain my personal space. Martyr stood next to him, gripping his leg. A loud, terrified scream rose up from the distance with a distinctly donkey voice. “Good morning, Fall,” Hadrine said without emotion. “What’s happening?” I asked, ignoring his greeting, “Who’s screaming?” Martyr looked terrified. He pressed one ear against the zebra’s leg, and the other he held shut with a free hoof. “The griffon is beating a slave. As for who, an upper level slave called Gwendolyn. The charge is scheming to escape,” The calm in his voice unnerved me. I rifle shot sounded in the air. Martyr began whimpering louder. Hadrine tilted his head down slightly and whispered something, a prayer I think, in a language I couldn’t understand. I pulled on my rags, slung my canteen around my neck, and picked up Martyr. “Stay in the tent,” I commanded. I sat him down, giving him the little murder orb to play with. With yet another pile of anger dumping itself on my already heavy heart, I made my way to the center of the camp. At the hooves of my bound and blind earth pony friend was the headless corpse of a donkey mare. No, that isn’t quite right. A body-less head, not a headless body. Bits and pieces of what used to be a living, breathing, thinking being had painted the ground a dark red in a grisly circle. Half a stomach, leaking its last few drops of acid into the sand, and a mutilated section of a spine lay at the feet of the griffon. The griffon smiled on one side of her crisscrossing-scar marred face, apparently pleased with her work. A large scoped rifle was strapped to her back light golden brown feathered back. The pony guards around her wore expressions that more closely matched those of the onlooking slaves. “No work in the mines today,” the griffon announced, her voice high, tinny, and annoying, “Tomorrow will be filled with fun and games, courtesy of your owner.” Fun and games? With what this griffon seemed to enjoy, this couldn’t be good. “Your owner said she wanted to be more like Red-Eye,” the widely grinning griffon cooed, “Today’s the day you dig The Pit!” Footnote: 50% to next Level Quest Perk: Sharing Kindness: When you see ponies in need you feel compelled to help them. You gain +2 to both Charisma and Luck for five hours after performing selfless acts (at no benefit to yourself) towards either friends or enemy. (Thanks go to Kkat for writing the original Fallout: Equestria. Thanks also to OkiiNovice who has been proofreading and discussing the chapters with me) Chapter 6: BrutalityFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 6: Brutality “Here, in the midst of darkness, you see what a pony is really made of.” Picks and shovels. The entire day consisted of the clanging of picks and shovels making repetitive music as they snailed their way through the earth. The light sand had been dragged away and used to fill bags near the start of our job. After that the ground was a heavy, compact, sunbaked mess. The hole we were digging was big and circular, the boundaries marked off by a ring of paint laid down by a particularly stupid looking pony. Several guards stood around the ring, making sure we didn’t try anything sneaky. About twenty of us were told to dig. The rest were taken away by the griffon and a group of guards to... to do something. I didn’t know, and I didn’t really feel the need to find out. Sweat dripped down my brow and into my eyes. I continued swinging my pick at the hard earth. Clumps of stone and dirt flew up with each downstroke. Bits of earth planted themselves in my mane and tail. The elderly gray unicorn stallion with a fading yellow mane next to me dropped his shovel. I glanced over at him. His eyes looked glazed as he stared intently at the ground. His hooves slipped away from him, allowing him to crash to the ground. I dropped my pick and lifted his head and, after unslinging my canteen from my neck and checking to make sure he was breathing, gave him a few sips of water. I patted the side of his face. “Hey,” I whispered, “are you okay?” His eyelids fluttered briefly, momentarily focusing forward, before closing again. I began dragging him up the sloped edge of the circle, out of the pit, laying him in the small shade of the pole Scrapper was tied to. A rifle barrel was pressed against my wet forehead. I looked up. The griffon was back. Behind her a mass gaggle of bruised and bleeding slaves (which, I noticed to my extreme distaste, included Hadrine and Martyr) looked around, scratching at the ground and avoiding eye contact with the guards surrounding them. “What do you think you’re doin’? Hmm?” the griffon overseer asked, a smirk stretching itself across her face. How could she smirk with a beak? “That stallion fainted,” I informed her, gesturing with my hoof, “I moved him out of the way so he wouldn’t get hurt.” She presses the end of her rifle harder against my head. “That so?” “Yes.” She squinted at me. Suddenly, with speed that I’d thought impossible with so big of a weapon (because it was a really, really, really big gun), she spun the gun around in her claws and slammed the butt into my face like a big metal club. It connected with my lower jaw first, then my cheekbone. I felt my face mushing around the gun as it impacted. The ground reached me quickly. Writhing on the ground, I spat out two teeth. Blood trickled out out of my mouth. My jaw felt broken, searingly painful. The griffon placed the butt of her rifle on my chest and knelt down next to me, leaning on her gun. “You left your work, little pony. Leavin’ your work is a real no-no around here.” One of the guards who’d been left in charge of watching our ditch digging detail piped up. “He was just trying to help, ma’am. The slave was just saving us the trouble of carrying that buck outta the pit,” he said, his face betraying that he regretted saying that the instant he opened his mouth. Leaning on me harder, the griffon overseer shot the unlucky guard a murderous look. “Oh, is that it, then?” she breathed sarcastically, “He did you all a favor? Well how. Fucking. Generous. Of him!” With each pause she shoved the rifle into my increasingly bruised side. She sprang up and glided over the pit. She grabbed the buck by the neck with her clawed hand and threw him into the wide hole, knocking over several slaves as he skidded to a halt. “You can get out once you’ve learned how to guard slaves properly!” She motioned to the slaves who’d been followed her. “You. In,” she commanded, then turning to the slaves in the pit, “Out.” They promptly obeyed. In a few seconds a group of sweat covered, tired, pained ponies had switched places with a group of sweat covered, tired, pained ponies. The old, knocked out stallion was tossed forcibly back in the pit. I attempted to get back on my hooves, each movement another blaze of pain. A guard mare, darkly purple with a sand colored mane, telekinetically wrapped my jaw with a roll of healing bandages, tying it in a knot I couldn’t untie without magic (which I obviously didn’t have), and as payment to herself she took my canteen. Great, now instead of spitting out my blood, I just had to swallow it. Fan-fucking-tastic. The griffon took us to a small, flat, crudely fenced off section of the camp. By crudely fenced off I mean a ring of barbed wire around the edge with a pony width gap as an entrance. A decrepit and disintegrating armchair was set in front of the the closest corner. She turned to face us standing on her hind legs in an attempt to appear menacing. “This is your practice pit. Who wants to go first?” she announced. I didn’t understand what she was talking about, and by the looks on the other slaves faces I wasn’t the only one. “Oh dear Gawd,” the griffon moaned, apparently invoking some deity I wasn’t familiar with, slamming her claw against her face, “You have no idea what I’m talking about.” We didn’t. She picked up two slaves, a unicorn mare and an earth pony buck, and tossed them into the ring. “Fight,” she commanded. “w-Why?” the mare stammered. “Because tomorrow, in that pit you were digging,” the griffon explained, “we’re going to have some entertainment. I want to see which of you’re gonna cut it.” A smile crept across her face. I felt disgusted now that I knew what this was for. If I ever got a chance to kill this griffon I would do it without hesitation. Wanting to watch ponies beat the shit out of each other just got added to the list of reasons why. Neither the mare or the stallion made a move, instead staring at the ground. These two had no hatred toward each other. Once the stalling had gone on long enough the griffon began searching for something to motivate the fighters with. A little unicorn filly, probably no older than Martyr, was hiding behind the legs of a massive stallion.Her eyes were tearing up as she stared intently at the buck in the ring. Was he her brother? Her father perhaps? The griffon noticed the young filly's gaze. She grabbed the young filly by her neck with her sharp talons and flew upwards, high above the rest of us. A tiny drop of the filly’s blood fell on my bandaged muzzle. The filly’s tears became a waterfall. The griffon turned her eyes towards the stallion who, like everypony else, looked in terror at what was happening. “Have you ever seen what happens to someone when they’re dropped from this high?” she asked him, “Neither have I, but I have this feeling that if we don’t see some fighting soon we might find out!” Her happy tone was a desperately bad fit for the situation. My stomach was doing disgusted flips as I positioned myself carefully beneath the filly, just in case she slipped. Something snapped in the stallion. He lowered his head, gave a blood curdling yell, charged. His shoulder caught the mare under the jaw, knocking the wind out of her and throwing her backwards. Soon he was on top of her, slamming his hooves mercilessly down anywhere he could make contact. The mare kicked hard with her hind legs in retaliation, taking out the buck’s stance from under him. A second kick met his ribs. A sickening cracking sound. She slammed her head forward. Her horn stabbed at his windpipe. A third kick knocked him off of her. She stood. The stallion tried to get to his feet again. The mare was too fast for him. She gave a hard, double-hoofed buck to the face, smashing his jaw and tripping him into the ring of barbed wire. Her horn glowed. The wire began to wrap around his neck. “That’s enough,” the griffon said. She slammed down on the ground, casually tossing the filly into the crowd, a unicorn just barely catching her in a magical cloud before she hit the ground. The mare stared in horror at the murder she’d almost committed, quickly doing her best to untangle the wire from around the choking and bleeding stallion’s neck. He gasped for air, sucking in deep gulps of the hot, dry, sandy air. I put my hoof to the scar on my neck in empathy. I knew what it’s like to not be able to breath. The mare gently lifted him out of the wire, placing him on the ground. Her horn glowed dimly as she began performing a very basic healing spell. The griffon walked into the ring and, much less gently, swung the wounded buck over her left shoulder. With her free claw the griffon grabbed the mare’s right hoof and raised it in the air, pronouncing her victory. “Little filly, you’ve got potential!” the griffon overseer sneered. The mare hung her head in shame. I was up last. The sun was steadily creeping its way towards retreat. The unicorn buck I was paired to fight was big. Really big. He stood at least a head taller than me. My heart sank. I was going to get very, very hurt, and it was going to suck. The griffon tore the bandages off my face with her claws (“Slaves don’t get bandages, you little fuck!”) allowing me to finally breathe through my mouth again. The magic in the bandages had done its work; I was no longer bleeding and the smaller fractures in my jaw had mended themselves. My missing teeth, on the other hoof... She’d considered my Pip-Buck for a moment, trying to decide if it was an unfair advantage. Apparently she was familiar with them. After several minutes of attempting to remove it from my leg she gave up, mumbling something about cutting off legs being too big of a disadvantage. She forced us both into the center of the ring. The battered onlookers groaned. “Start!” Unlike the stallion from the first fight, this buck needed no motivation to let out his violence on me. Before I could blink he’d rammed me with his horn, slamming the magical piece of bone into my chest below the base of my neck. It pierced skin and muscle, thankfully stopping before it hit bone. He brought his head back, drawing his horn from my gaping wound. He brought his heavy front hooves down across my face. I fell to the ground. Blood gushed from the hole in me. I began feeling faint, screaming out as pain consumed me. I was going to die. I’d come so far, seeing ponies around me die. Ponies I’d cared about. Would I get to see them again when I was gone? Why hadn’t the griffon stopped the fight yet? Then something miraculous happened. I’m not sure whether it was my dead friends helping from the other side, or a bizarre side effect of the massive blood loss (probably the blood loss), but I suddenly felt very strong and very angry. I jammed my un-Pip-Bucked hoof into my wound to slow the bleeding, tears of pain flowing freely. I rolled away just in time to avoid the buck’s next strike. Striking out with the weight of my Pip-Buck carrying my hoof forward by sheer momentum, I struck both of his front legs out from underneath him in the split second before he lifted them again for his next strike. With speed I didn’t know I had, I leapt up and brought my Pip-Buck down on his spine. It did nothing. The buck swung himself off the fucking ground and gave a powerful kick to the leg I was using to slow my blood-flow. I heard and felt the bones shatter. I flew into the barbed wire, but luckily wasn’t caught in it, and landed face up. He rushed towards me, horn down, hoping to finish me off once and for all. I raised my Pip-Buck. I closed my eyes and swung my hoof down. It connected. My Pip-Buck and his speed combined, making enough force to chip off the tip of his horn! He reared his head back in pain. Noticing the opening, I kicked at his chest with my back hooves, cracking one or two ribs. He retaliated against my attack by slamming his forehooves down on my chest. I could hear shattering bone. I couldn’t take much more. I was preparing for my fate, my mind playing through the prayers before death. One last strike and he would end me. Desperation controlled my final actions. I kicked upwards with my right hind leg, catching him directly beneath his rib cage. His body seemed to seize up as he fell on me. My vision went dark. I woke up, long after the sun had set, chest down beneath my green tarp tent. I hated that tarp. Pain covered me like a blanket. I felt at the wound on my chest, surprised to find it had been stitched up. My ribs and my leg were unbroken. My teeth were still missing. How am I alive? I wondered. I turned my head to the right. Martyr slept curled up by my side, covered in bruises and scabbed blood. Hadrine sat keeping watch. His wounds had begun healing faster than Martyr’s for some reason. “You are awake,” the zebra observed. I cleared my throat. “What happened?” “Your opponent is dead,” he replied without emotion, “You hit a pressure point that caused his lungs to collapse.” How did I do that?! “The slaver surgeons repaired you,” Hadrine concluded. The camp had surgeons? Since when? I suddenly by a realization. “Scrapper!” I exclaimed, pain shooting through me as I spoke, “She needs food and water! I haven’t been able to...” Hadrine cut me off and pushed me back down to the ground. “One of the slavers provided the blinded mare with sustenance,” he informed me calmly, “They spoke of escape.” The mare on top of the tower. Was it in her hooves that Equestria was held? Thunder clouds and bolts of lightning, rending the sky apart, moved at her command. The sun and moon were hers. Who needs the Goddesses when a lone mare could bear the burdens of the world? I loved her. Not romantic love, but the type of love one feels for a pony who deserves the intense reverence of all. I felt I owed her a great, unknown debt. Perhaps she was the Goddesses... A stab by my spine woke me from my blasphemous dream. A needle. The sky was still dark. I looked to my right. Nothing. To my right. The dark purple unicorn mare with a sand colored mane held a lantern in her teeth as she magically pressed the plunger of the small Med-X syringe. A crashing wave of relief from the pain that was covering my bruised and battered body washed over me, leaving me (artificially) happy and seeing clearly. “Who are you?” I asked, immediately realizing how ungrateful I sounded for not thanking her for the dose of Med-X first. She ignored my question and my rudeness. Setting down the lantern she replied, “You can help the ponies in this desert, Fall. I’m keeping you alive for that. I can see it in your eyes. You’re going to do great things. I’m helping a friend of yours for the same reason.” She pulled the needle from my back. I suddenly recognized her. “You! You’re the one who stole my canteens and tied my mouth shut with bandages!” I shouted in a whisper, “Why would you do that?” She opened her saddle bags and pulled out my canteen. She placed it on the ground by my head. “Don’t drink this,” she commanded, “until right before the fight.” “Why?” I asked, growing increasingly annoyed with each sidestepped question. Wait, what fight? “Trust that I’m protecting you,” was her final reply. She picked up her lantern again and trotted away into the consuming blackness. How could I trust her when I didn’t even know who she was? Morning. My Med-X had worn off before the horn sounded. My wounds had healed overnight somehow. Several large, puckered scars had formed on my body. The one on my chest was particularly prominent. I slowly, achingly, dragged myself up to my hooves, hitting my head against the top of the tent. I hated that tarp. Martyr was clutching my ragged clothes in his hooves along with ‘Story of the Goddesses’ and the ball from Desert Outpost 21 while he slept. I pried my stuff from his hooves, trying my best not to wake him. I failed at that. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. I put on my rags and stuffed my belongings into the pockets. I slung my canteen around my neck. He looked up at me. One of his eyes was surrounded by a large purplish welt. His entire body was scratched and bruised. The lights on our collars flickered on, telling us we were already behind schedule. He nodded to me. I returned the nod. We trotted as fast as we could to the gate. A gaggle of slaves milled around the unopened entrance. What were they waiting for? A voice, magnified by magic, boomed out over the camp. “SLAVES, FRIENDS, FELLOW COUNTRY PONIES!” it began, speaking the loud, slightly lisping, and overly excited voice of a certain mare, “I LOVE FUN! DON’T YOU?!” Fun could not possibly be a good thing around here. “WELL, SINCE I THINK FUN IS FUN, WE’RE GONNA HAVE SOME FUN TONIGHT!” the voice exclaimed with a huge amount of redundancy, leaving my ears ringing, “THIS EVENING WE’RE GONNA HAVE OUR (WAIT FOR IIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTT!)” we waited for it for a straight three minutes, “MONTHLY ULTRA-AWESOME-SUPER-COOL-KICK-FLANK-TAKE-NO-PRISONERS-NO-HOLDS-BARRED-” the sound of a deep intake of air, “FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC PIT BRAWL!” Shit. “HERE’S HOW IT WILL WORK, EVERYPONY: TWO TEAMS OF FIVE. WEAPONS FOR PONIES WHO DO REAL GOOD. WHICHEVER TEAM’S GOT PONIES LEFT BY THE END OF THE EVENING WINS! WHOEVER WINS FIGHTS THE NEXT PONY TILL THEY... STOP FIGHTING! RULES! YAY!” This wasn’t good. I could tell that right away. Lots of ponies were going to die for no reason. No, not for no reason, for the ‘entertainment’ of the insane mare in charge. “TEAMS! TEAM RED: SERVICE STEWARD, FLOYD, RAINCLOUD FLASH, FALL HAMMER-HEART, SIMPLE MAUVE! YAY! GO TEAM RED!” Her enthusiasm was sickening and I felt the urge to... wait, my name? I suddenly remembered what that guard had said to me the night before: ‘Don’t drink this until right before the fight.’ Dammit. Dammit all. I looked at my canteen. What was special about it? Why was I chosen to fight? I'd barely even survived the fight the day before. I’d only survived by luck! Why would they choose me to fight in the pit? Wait a second; how’d they even know our names? “TEAM DARKER RED: HOOFHOLD, FRAGILE GLASS... ONE REALLY BIG PONY I DON’T KNOW THE NAME OF, COURIER, HADRINE! WOO HOO! GOOD LUCK TEAM DARKER RED!” What? What was that?! Hadrine? I glanced at my zebra friend, my jaw hanging open. He looked back at me. He bowed very slightly. “NOW, ALL YOU PONIES WHO ARE GONNA FIGHT THIS EVENING, GET A GOOD REST. EVERYPONY ELSE, HAVE A GRRRREAT DAY AT WORK!” the voice ended abruptly. I just stood there as ponies muttered and shuffled around. The electrified gates opened and the slaves not conscripted to either team were ushered out the door by guards. The movement kicked up clouds of dust. I almost started following them, but I stopped myself. Not only would I be fighting, I’d be fighting on the team against one of the only friends I had left in the wasteland. Ten of us (plus Martyr, who refused to leave my side) stood by as the heavy, slow swinging gates were closed. We stood eyeing each other for several tension and suspicion filled moments. Finally a mule stallion with an out of place pink shock of hair running through his mane broke the silence, summing up our situation in the simplest way possible. “Well,” he said, “we’re fucked.” “Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, “Two holy and light-filled Goddesses reigned over sun and moon, day and night. They saw that their land was good and full of peace. But what good was peace? Would sun and moon remember the peace of Equestria? Would the stars remember their maker, the trees and plants the giver of sunshine? Peace could not last. The moon came down from the heavens, the sun scorching the earth beneath. The fire of dragons and the power of spells magnified a thousand times over brought the world crashing to its knees. The foundations of the reality that had been were shattered, the pillars of glass holding truth and order melting beneath the hooves of ponies and zebras. Where was order? Where was purity? Where were the goddesses in the world’s time of need? They cowered like mortals, fearing for their flesh. “Where were the Elements? Where were the saints, the prophets, the conjurers of the magic of friendship? Could even magic delay the loosening of the bonds of reality? What of love? Friendship and love failed in the face of the fires. That which had surmounted so much withered and blew away like the petals of a flower. Can you see the face of the old Equestria, Fall? Is it even there? “Brutality conquered beauty. Twisting lies conquered truth. Loyalty became a word uttered only by the damned. The zebra, scattered to the edges of the world. The pegasi, content to confine themselves to their monotonous nation of clouds and militarism. Earth ponies and unicorns shut themselves in steel and concrete coffins, waging their own silent war against the fear of the outside that consumed their rationality and turned them against one another. Ghouls? What of them? Their very existence is the result of the evils ponies offered themselves. “And what of you, Fall? You are the product of cowardice. The buffalo left, foreseeing the end. Your ancestors followed when they realized they were right. Why did they leave when Equestria needed them most? Their cowardice must have been handed down to you. You let your friends die, the only ponies you cared about in the wasteland. You did nothing. Haha! What are you now, Fall? An empty shell of what you could have been? Can you blame this on some easy target of your rage? Is this the fault of the demon Discord or some unhelpful Goddesses? Perhaps it is just bad fortune or having gained too many enemies? Maybe your earth pony misfortunes or some weak...” Shut up. “So, what are you going to do?” Scrapper asked. The sun was high and sweat trickled down her face, under the bandages I’d just changed, getting into her empty sockets. I brushed the sand with my hoof. “I’ll fight, I guess. Hope I’ll survive it.” “What about the other fighters? Are they good?” she asked as she scratched an itch on the back of her head against the stake, wincing in pain. Over the past days the skin below her fur on her back and neck had grown red and blistered. Bits of it were peeling off from the sunburn and tufts of fur had begun falling out. Then, in an unrelated question, “Do you have any water? I’m dying of thirst here.” I looked at my canteens. ‘Don’t drink this until right before the fight’. Well, that only applied to me, right? “Sure,” I replied, pulling off the cork and tipping a little water into her mouth. I responded to her first question, “I don’t really know much about the other fighters. I guess that if they got chosen they must be good then, right? Oh, and the zebra got picked, too.” Scrapper wasn’t listening. Her head lolled back, a large shiver ran through her body. “Fall,” she said in a very rushed voice, “why are you talking so slowly?” I rested in the shade of my tent, rolling the orb from Desert Outpost 21 back and forth between my hooves. Work at the mine had ended. Martyr rested nearby, watching me. We said nothing for at least an hour. It was too hot to talk, even now as the sun began nearing the edge of the sky. In a few minutes the fights would start. Finally, Martyr piped up. “Fall?” he asked “Yeah?” “Where did you get that ball?” I looked down at the little dark sphere. “I found it a while back,” I said. I figured an incomplete answer was better than telling him I’d found it on the corpse of a two-hundred years dead pony guilty of mass foal-murder. He nodded, as if to say that it was a satisfactory answer, then opened his mouth to speak again. “Fall?” he echoed his earlier question. I sighed, not exasperated at him but at the despair I felt about the upcoming fight. “Yes?” I replied as I picked up the orb and stuffed it in my pocket. “What happens when ponies die?” Damn. I hated questions like that. I didn’t know. From what I’d seen of the wasteland so far I wasn’t even sure if the Goddesses even cared enough for there to be anything after death. So, I decided to say what I’d always been taught and wasn’t sure I believed anymore. “Um, when ponies die, they go somewhere special so they can be with Celestia and Luna forever. Everypony else who's ever died is there too. Do you understand what I’m saying?” “PONIES! IT’S TIME FOR FUN! TO THE PIT!” blared the magically enhanced voice. I stood up and Martyr did the same. Taking a deep breath, I began walking with the young colt by my side towards the center of the camp. The crowd of slowly trotting ponies grew thicker the closer we got to the pit. The sun had dropped below the distant mountains. The crowd stood in a ring around the pit, deeper than I’d remembered and surrounded by barbed wire and torches stuck in the ground. Just a hole in the ground, what made it so special? Was fighting to the death in the dirt a northern tradition? If it was, it made me want even less to do with the NCR I was supposed to find than I already wanted to. From where she was, my blinded friend would have had a great view of the games if she could see. “Red team, over here!” a unicorn guard buck yelled. I closed my eyes and breathed, then turned to walk towards the guard who’d called. Martyr started following me. I put my hoof down in front of him. “No,” I said, turning my head to look down at him, “stay here. You can’t come with me.” Tears began forming behind his eyes. The little colt who’d lost his entire family was now worried that he’d lose his only friend. He bit back his sadness and trotted away back into the crowd. I continued to were my team was gathering. The donkey with the pink in his hair, a purplish earth pony mare with a sickly brown mane, a bright blue unicorn stallion with a mane of different shades of orange and a small tumor beneath his right eye, and a white unicorn mare with a black and white spotted mane, plus me made Team Red. We definitely did not look like a formidable fighting force. The unicorn guard held a clipboard that was too big for the scrap of paper it held. He glanced at the note, reading over the poorly scrawled words covering it. When he was certain she understood the instructions he looked up at us. “Alright you poor fuckers, here’s how it’s gonna work: Floyd, you’re up first.” The donkey hung his head at the news of his bad luck and gritted his teeth, letting out a low and very angry ‘fuck me’. I didn’t envy him going first. “After that’s Raincloud, then Mauve, then Simple, and then if the other team isn’t all dead yet, Fall.” I was last? Finally, some good luck! Maybe I won’t have to kill anypony after all... I remembered my scars... or be killed. The guard buck put the clipboard in his saddlebags and pulled out fives bandannas, each of them red. “Put them on,” he commanded. We did as we were told. “This way,” the buck said, motioning us towards a tall tent that had been set up away from the pit. Team Darker Red (featuring my friend Hadrine) entered with their darker red bandannas the same time as us. Inside was the griffon standing beside a lawn chair bearing the crazy mare who owned us all. She sipped at a drink through a straw and wore a pair of dark sunglasses despite the descending night. She rolled off her chair and telekinetically passed off her drink to the overseer. Her glasses slid down her snout slightly. She inspected each of us, turning our heads, contemplating our scars, checking our teeth for some reason. She bopped two of the unicorns on the horn for some reason. When she came to me I craned my neck back slightly. Her breath was foul and her mane had bits of... something in it. She put a hoof under my chin and brought my head back forward, then gave me a very unexpected and extremely unwelcome wet kiss. I was immediately overwhelmed by the urge to wash myself. She then turned and got her drink from the griffon, returning to her chair. The griffon spoke next. “Alright, you sacks of shit, line yourselves up over there.” she said, pointing a dagger-like claw towards a two smallish ditches positioned on opposite sides of the pit. The guards with us prompted us towards these smaller pits, dividing us into our teams. I stood between the donkey and the unicorn buck. The griffon flapped her wings and flew over the pit. Her body was lit dimly by the ring of torches. “Slaves,” she began, “tonight you’re getting a real treat. In some places ponies would kill to get to see a fight like this,” she snickered at her own pun, “First fight is between Floyd the donkey of Team Red and Click the earth pony of Team Darker Red.” The guards on both sides dragged out the contestants and shoved them down the sloped walls of the pit. With the crowd blocking my view and being in a ditch I had some trouble seeing what was going on. I barely noticed that the boss mare had moved her chair for a better view. Beside it she set down a box with contents I didn’t know. "Fight!" commanded the griffon. I heard dull hoof strikes. Grunts of pain. One of the fighters got flipped at least once. Strangely, I heard a cheer. Not a very loud cheer, but a noticeable holler from a pony in the audience. Another pony joined in the cheering. Soon the entire bunch of slaves ringed around the pit were cheering for their favorites. The sound of the fighting rose in volume so as to be still audible over the crowd. I could see the boss mare smile wickedly in approval. So much approval, in fact, that she drew out two knives from her box and dropped them in the pit. Now I could hear steel against steel. A loud cry of pain rang out over the crowd’s loudness as one of the fighters was forced to drop their knife. Another slash, a gurgle of pain, and the crowd grew much louder. “And the donkey wins!” the griffon proclaimed, "One point to Team Red." The hoof stomps of the crowd became overwhelming, drowning out other sounds. Two guards worked together to telekinetically lift the earth pony's corpse and the knives out of the pit. Dark crimson blood drenched the equally dark red bandanna as it seeped from the dead pony's almost completely detached neck, held on only by the spinal column. The guards laid the body down beside the boss mare's chair. My stomach did flips as I watched her dip the tip of her right forehoof in the puddle of blood and taste it. I desperately fought the urge to vomit, knowing that losing food and water would only make me weaker for when I had to fight. "Darker Red's unicorn Pilot Light enters the Pit!" A vividly green unicorn mare with a white mane was pushed into the pit, disappearing from view. I could hear kicks and magical shimmering sounds as the fight began, screams of pain from both fighters. The cheering crowd's cheering became more cheerful as they watched two people with the same right to live start using all they had to kill each other. I heard the mare scream loudly along with a vile crunching noise. Then I saw flames shoot into the sky out of the pit. An incendiary spell, the unicorn was conjuring fire as a weapon. A stray bolt of flame set the rags of one of the ponies in the audience on fire, causing their screams to join the cacophony of noises. Floyd the donkey's sizzling skin was audible over all the other noises somehow, only adding to the disgust and sense of illness I was feeling. Knives were dropped in. Another loud scream and then hoofbeats against the ground as one side of the crowd showed their approval for the winner. "And the donkey wins again!" Oh Godesses, what!? The fighter who'd just been burned alive by a huge magical-incendiary spell had won!? How? "But it looks like he won't be participating in the next fight..." the griffon both smirked and cringed as the guards lifted out the two corpses from the pit. The unicorn mare had been slit open from below her ribcage to the base of her horn, cutting several arteries in the process somehow. The donkey was more terrifyingly disfigured. I would say he looked like a ghoul, except that would be an insult to ghouls. His flesh dripped like molasses from his bones, the handle of the knife clenched tightly in his jaw that refused to open. The smell was terrible. I'd smelled burned pony-flesh before but this was worse. "Next in is Raincloud and Mercantile." the two ponies were thrown in without so much as the cloths on their backs. The fight was brief. Raincloud was a skilled magical fighter. He dispatched the next pony after Mercantile equally easily. For a moment I let myself regain the hope that I wouldn't have to kill anypony after all. Then it was Hadrine's turn. When I'd met Hadrine, the day he was bought, I hadn't pictured him being a steely eyed killer. Raincloud and the two ponies on my team after him didn't stand a chance. I had the (oh so lucky) opportunity to watch Hadrine and Simple fight each other, being moved forward to the edge of the crowd so that the guards didn't have to push me too far. The zebra and the unicorn circled around each other like wolves, waiting to strike, in the dirt wet with blood and charred by incendiary spells. In a sudden moment (if I'd blinked I would have missed it) Hadrine threw himself clear across the pit, his hooves tipped forward so the edges would strike instead of the flat part. Simple tried to dodge with a roll, but was too slow. Hadrine's forehooves tore through the mare's body, one entering through her neck, tearing a gaping hole as it exited, the other cracking through her ribs and lodging in her body cavity. The mare twitched for a few seconds and then coughed blood as my zebra friend withdrew his hooves. She fell to the ground, dead. As the guards lifted the former fighter to join the boss mare's pile of corpses while the griffon announced the winner, Hadrine stared at his owner, channeling all the hate he felt at that moment. And then he looked at me. A wave of despair crashed over me as he offered a knowing nod. I remembered my canteen, remembered that one guard's instructions, and pulled out the cork, taking a sip. Then everything became really slow and my vision was tinged purple. I could feel each beat of my heart and could hear my bones as the joints shifted. My muscles quivered and tensed. I felt faster despite the speed everything else was moving at. The guards tore off my rags and pushed me through the gap in the barbed wire, down the slope of the pit, landing and turning myself in agonizing slow motion to face my opponent. The command to fight sounded distant. Hadrine took a stance and began circling me. I went the opposite direction, my violet tinged vision kept steadily on my enemy. When he pounced I noticed something odd. His hooves faced flat instead of pointed. As he drew near to me I lifted my left hoof, knocking aside his attack as I delivered my own jab into his side. The sudden change in momentum sent the zebra to the ground. His attack hadn't been to kill, so my next move wasn't either. I felt like I was walking against the current of a river as I moved to where he lay and wrapped my right foreleg around his neck, hoping to choke him just enough to knock him out. He was having none of that, flipping me over his head with a powerful backwards hit to my stomach. I felt my heart stop momentarily and then return faster than before during the time it took for me to reach the ground. He wrapped me in a chokehold of his own (better than the one I'd attempted) and began squeezing my neck. As I began losing the ability to breath, I panicked, flailing my hooves wildly in an uncoordinated attempt to get free. I felt his free hoof jab into a point in my side. Searing pain jolted through my body as I felt my muscles seize up. He whispered, just loud enough so that I could hear him over the crowd, "Kill me," and then let go. I fell forward, feeling relief from being able to breath (incredibly slowly) again, and feeling terror at the idea that Hadrine had killed all the other competitors just so I could kill him. What was his reason? Why me? I was nothing special! A double hoofed buck to my side, cracking two ribs, brought me out of trying to understand. I howled in pain as my slowed perception forced me to somehow feel my broken bones more intensely. I rolled to my hooves, planting them firmly down. Hadrine lifted himself into a standing fighting stance on his back hooves. It wasn't a very strong stance, however. He was open so that I could land a hit on his breastbone. I took the opportunity. I lowered my head and rammed his chest with the top of my skull. As quickly as I could I pinned him to the ground. I raised my Pip-Buck over his striped head, readying myself to bring it down with all the force I had. Two things stopped me. First, his face had no emotion. An equine should at least feel something before they're about to die, but he just held an expression of serene, lock-jawed contentment. This buck had been one of my only friends since I was made a slave, and now I was about to kill him at his request. The second thing was the world sprinting back into full speed. It felt like a hammer smacked against my head. My muscles twanged and rebelled against the feelings my nerves threw on them. I felt like vomiting again. I opened my eyes, my vision moving in and out, making me feel off balance and sicker. Oh Goddesses, it was like being hung over, but ten times worse! Hadrine jammed his hoof hard against my jaw to break my out of my daze. He shouted at me but my ears were ringing loudly. I couldn't tell what he said, but I'm sure it had something to do with killing him. I looked down at him. I couldn't kill him, not like this, not for the entertainment of these freaks, not when he'd asked me to. "No!" I shouted, my own voice sounding underwater and distant. He responded by flipping himself off the ground, kicking me just above my groin. Dull, aching pain shot through me. I lay doubled over on the ground. A knife landed handle up, blade in the dirt, next to my head. I picked it up with my teeth and pulled myself to my hooves. My groggy, pained head throbbed awfully. I squeezed my eyes shut, tears welling up behind my eyelids. I opened my eyes to see Hadrine balancing on his back hooves with the same open stance. He held his own knife in the crook of his right forehoof. He gestured very slightly to a spot on his neck, asking me to kill him again. I couldn't move. My hooves felt cemented to the ground and my heart beat without a rhythm and slammed with pain every time I breathed. He interpreted my hesitation as refusal. Before I could blink he'd put me in a headlock, one leg choking me around my neck, the other gripping his knife menacingly by my head. "Fall, listen," he whispered with the strong sound of command burning through his voice, "my death is a piece of the larger puzzle. You have the need to continue north, I need a good ending. If you don't survive this fight, things will become very difficult for everyone. Now put aside your morality and give me a believable death!" He drew his knife across my right shoulder as he released his grip, letting me drop to the blood-soaked dirt and grime underhoof. My shoulder exploded in pain. The deep gash he'd given me oozed blood. I screamed. My open mouth dropped my weapon. The chems that were wearing off in me magnified the intensity of the agony I felt. I glared up at him. What plan? What morality? I understood the necessity of killing, I just didn't want to kill him! Hadrine had been my only ally in the camp since our purchase as slaves. But something in his eyes, something about the way he'd spoken told me there really was a reason for all of this. I picked up my knife again, stole my nerves and brought my aching, shaking muscles under control. He stood in a pose that appeared menacing but revealed his neck, opening himself up to death. I gritted my teeth, grinding them around the dirty knife handle, and attacked. Blood. In the White Hooves the blood of an enemy was something to be washed away carefully. Special prayers (that I realized then I'd been neglecting) were said by warriors as the sponged off the lifeblood of another from their coats and manes. These prayers asked for two things: forgiveness for killing, and the endowment of the power of the dead on the warrior. 'Celestia forgive me for the death of one of your children, Luna give me their strength.' The first line of the first prayer. This was what was said for an enemy, but what could I say for a friend? Hadrine's blood drenched my coat, drying on my muzzle, sticking in my nostrils and coating my eyelids, seeping into my open wounds. I couldn't breathe right. Time twisted itself. The minutes after I'd killed him were choppy, unreal, fast and slow at the same time. "Team Red wins!" the griffon had exclaimed. The crowd, which had been loud before, got much louder. Somehow they either hadn't noticed or were ignoring the falseness of the fight. If Hadrine had been fighting to kill I would have been dead. But instead of seeing the truth they just stomped their hooves against the ground and cheered. I remember feeling sick. "Good. Everything went according to plan. You even look beaten up," said the mare who'd given me the drugged-up water. She had led me through the crowd away from the pit and given me my stuff back, including a freshly refilled canteen. I felt inclined to tell her I looked beaten up because I was, but felt to tired and shaken to be witty. "Now what's next is important," she informed me, "Since you've won you're going to get a private audience with the mare in charge of this slave operation. I have no idea what she would want to talk to the winner for, but I need you to kill her. Messily, if at all possible." My buzzing, addled brain could only give a one word response. "Why?" It wasn't that I was particularly against the death of the pony who'd forced me and nine other equines to fight to the death in a pit, who carved out the eyes of a mare who only wanted to escape, who liked to taste of pony-blood. I just didn't know why this mare who was supposed to be a guard was plotting her boss's demise using me as a tool. And why me? Wouldn't Hadrine have made a better assassin? I looked over my shoulder toward the pit. Hadrine's body had been thrown in the crazy mare's small mountain of corpses. I'd slit his throat wide open. It had been quick. The blood-- damn, so much-- had amazed me. How much blood was in a body? How much blood had I seen in my short time in the wasteland desert? A ponds worth? "Because we have plans for you, Fall," the guard mare answered, "The desert and the people in it need a pony like you, and fewer ponies like her. We're sending a message." Martyr walked next to me as the mysterious guard mare led me toward the gate. His eyes were wide and he kept silent. He'd never seen me kill before, and I was sure that he was wondering whether he could trust me. My shoulder oozed blood through the bandages wrapped around it. The area just above my groin ached as a bruise from Hadrine's kick formed. My brain was being stepped on by my tribes chief as pounding waves of pain crashed on top of it. Withdrawal from whatever I'd drunk was much, much worse than any hangover. The mare had done something to my collar. The light had turned off. She'd warned me to keep it hidden under my rags so it would be less visible. I turned to the little buck next to me as we walked. "Martyr," I started, "are you alright?" What a stupid thing to ask. Nopony was alright here. "Mmm, I don't know. Hadrine is dead. He was nice to us," he glanced up to meet my gaze, then quickly looked toward the ground again, "Are you alright?" His voice sounded strained, almost like he was holding back anger. "Shut up, both of you," the mare hissed, "We're almost to the gate." I saw the griffon standing by the gate, the lock shut. The griffon was looking at the dark sky. Her rifle was slung over her wings in a way that made her appear uncaring towards the rioting crowd of slaves behind us. I shoved my freshly filled canteen towards the little unicorn buck. "Share this with the mare who doesn't have eyes. I'll see you later." He nodded like a pony in a daze and ran back to the lit pit in the center of the bloodthirsty crowd of ponies. Only a day ago they'd been calm and normal, most even kind. How did ponies slip like that? I turned my eyes to the griffon in front of me and gulped. All I knew was that I was the only friend that Martyr and Scrapper had left. I would get them out of here. We were going to run far away from here. We would find the NCR. Together. I wasn’t going to lose anypony else. "Do you even know the damage you've done? You're much more of a monster than I could ever be. You... you’re right up there with Red Eye and the Stable Dweller... maybe even as big of a monster as Fluttershy. Incredible. Truly, I'm almost inclined to say I'm impressed. Almost." I said shut up! Dammit, I won! You don't get to give me a speeches. "Oh, come on, Fall. You’re not serious, are you? Together, we've created a new, stronger world. The NCR couldn't have achieved this. My ponies couldn't have either. But together, look what we've made. It's beautiful..." There isn't anything beautiful about war! You aren't anything but a raider! “Please, give me a little credit. Do common raiders build nations to last generations, armies of thousands, cities on the knife’s edge of foreverness? If I'm just a raider, then what are you? A genocidal maniac? You’re already halfway to monsterhood as you are! No, you're better than that. Yes, I suppose I am impressed by what you've accomplished in such a short time. I don't want my followers to forget this, not for as long as we’re around. You should write it down. Hurry though. By the looks of it, you won't be able to remember for much longer..." I don’t want to remember. Not long now though... Footnote: Level Up New Perk: Intense Training: Your experiences in the wasteland have forced you to endure a lot. This perk adds +1 one to your Endurance. (Thanks go to Kkat [as usual] for writing the phenomenal original fic. Thanks also go OkiiNovice for reading my fic and consistently giving me his honest opinion on it. Thanks go out to the FO:E fan-community and the great people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in it) Chapter 7: Where Does One Road End...Fallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 7: Where Does One Road End... “You see, there was never time to hesitate when we fought them” I apologize for my scrawling in the last chapter. Those particular memories were slipping away from me. If I hadn’t written them down then they might have been lost forever. But really, what would that matter? I’m just another earth pony with a story... my own, particular story... who can ramble and ramble on and on because in the end only one other pony: You, is ever going to read it. So take care. Maybe I’ll give my story to you personally. "Sho, Fall, right?" I nodded. "Where're you from? Not the north, right?" The orange mare, my owner, sat across a small card table from me. She twirled a cone shaped glass filled with a clear liquor with the tip of her hoof. Her smile was menacing, somewhere between an attempt at being seductive and murderous. The slight lisp she had came from her teeth; sharpened to points. Her shack was, not surprisingly, the biggest. Sheet metal on the outside, it was decorated with bits of fabric, a cot covered in hay and dried rose petals, a standing and decrepit wardrobe, a radio buzzing almost inaudibly, scraps torn from paintings, the hides of mutated desert beasts I hadn't even seen, and the corpses of the recently deceased fighters. The smell was putrid, making it hard to be appetized by the plate of food in front of me. Not that I would have found it very appetizing in the first place as it was mostly some sort of mystery meat. To my right was a workbench. Several weapons rested on it, two of which looked like some strange cross between a machine gun and a grenade launcher. Ammo of all types lay scattered underhoof on the floor. If I was going to kill her, I had all the tools I needed. "No, I'm not from the north," I replied. She'd put makeup on, I realized. Was that normal for insane slave drivers? "Hmm, then where from? East, west, south?" "South," Her breath! Dear Celestia, it was so... so sickening! What did she eat? "Colonist then? NCR? No, you can't be. You don't look like a scavenger. You've mined before, right?" "Not a colonist. Yes, I've been a miner," Planning. I needed to make a plan. "Yeah, the cutie mark says it all, doesn't it? Mining, mining, mining... So damn boring of a job, right? Well, I like mining, as long as I don't get my hooves dirty. So tell me about yourself. You did have a life before this job, right?" There was a pick hanging on the wall behind the cot. That would be my primary weapon. Now, how to get it without her taking me down with magic... "I... um..." Why should I tell her anything about myself? I wanted her dead! She had caused so much suffering to slaves here, especially the slave who had fought that night. No, telling her about my real life would be indulging her. Lying. How should I lie... "I've been traded around by sla... mining companies since I was a colt. I was, uh, part of a tribe that got attacked by raiders," Yeah, she'd believe that. Now, back to the pick... She nodded her head in understanding, pressing her forehooves together as she leaned against the card table. The table's hinges creaked. "We are sho alike," she told me, making my skin crawl a little, "When I was a little filly my parents got killed and I was shent away. My little brother and I got sold. I don't know what happened to my sister, though. I think they set her on fire," she rubbed her chin, "Wasn't raiders in my case though, right? It was my own fuckin people who did it!" She broke out in a big grin. Her story. It sounded familiar for some reason... That pick. I needed it. "Hmm," I replied, "that sounds terrible." A distraction. What could I use to distract her? "Oh, it wasn't all bad. Being a slave was kinda nice for a while. I even learned about some stuff. Got a book once. It was about some mare who killed a bunch of... well, everything. I especially liked the parts about a very shpecial slaver who wanted to save the world." She sighed, eyes shut, lost in the memory for a moment. I began shifting out of my seat, moving towards the pick. She opened her eyes again and I stopped where I was. "And then," she continued, "I killed my masters. That was fun. The slavers who didn't fight against me work for me now! See, I'm an entrepreneur!" I didn't know that word, but I was pretty sure she wasn't using it right. She lifted a bottle from under the table. It was full of whatever she was drinking. "Want shome?" she asked. Honestly I didn't, but if playing along with her dinner plans got me closer to killing her then it was worth it. "Sure, why not?" Sure, why not? She placed an old tin can with no label in front of me and filled the can halfway. I took a cautious sip. No smell, no taste, but damn was it strong. I squeezed my eyes shut as I swallowed. It burned going down, more than whiskey. "Vodka," she informed me, "It's hard to find bottles of Shtalliongrad's Finest these days." I nodded, saying nothing. "Sho," she began again, tearing off a bit of meat from her plate and stuffing it in her mouth, gnawing through it with her sharpened teeth, "where did you learn to fight? That zebra was awfully good, right?" "Luck. Just plain, stupid luck," I lied. A distraction. Vodka hurt, so... "Oh, don't give me that bullshit, Fall." Was I that obvious? She trotted slowly around to my side of the table and whispered in my right ear, "Just how high were you? I know what a pony on combat chems looks like. Question is," she draped her forehooves across my shoulders, "who gave them to you?" Dammit. Goddesses dammit all to hell. I was beginning to think that guard mare had set me up. Try to lie again. "No chems, just talent." "Sho your telling me," she said as her hoof traced lazy circles around the scar on my neck, "that you, a common earth pony miner, are... sorry, were more talented at hoof to hoof fighting than a zebra that I chose specifically because he was well known prizefighter from a Little Warchestnut casino? Fall, Fall, Fall... I know you can't possibly be that shtupid, right?" She started nibbling on my ear with her sharp teeth. I felt a few drops of blood trickle out. "Fine," Tell the truth, Fall. She won't believe you anyways, "There is a traitor in your organization. One of them gave me a cocktail of a bunch different drugs. Hadrine, the zebra, forced me to kill him." I wrapped my hoof around my can of vodka. She let out a heavy sigh and kissed the side of my face. I cringed. "Thank you. It's nice to get some honesty once in a while," Wait, what? She believed that? But it sounded so ridiculous! "Traitors, huh? Well, thoshe aren't to hard to deal with. An eye for an eye and all that shit, right?" My blood was boiling. An eye for an eye... She left my side and... sprawled herself across her cot, gazing at me with bedroom eyes. So this was the real reason she wanted the winner of the pit games to visit her. She was a horny, sadistic, psychopathic mare who idolized a dead megalomaniac slaver. How did she get so messed up? "I'm a fan of winnersh," she informed me, "and I believe in rewarding good behavior." Sweet Luna, my face was getting hot (well, along with another part of me...). Damn stupid traitorous body! I held on tight to my vodka can and took another small sip. Yup, still burned. She patted the hay next to her, leaning her head on her right hoof. I stood where I was. This couldn't be right. There was no way things could be going according to my plan this easily. She noticed my unwillingness to move. Her horn glowed. I felt the hairs on my back stand up as she magically pushed me towards her. I glanced at the pickaxe on the wall, then back at the can. “What’s the matter?” she asked, her lips curled in pouty... oh, what’s the right word... bitchiness, “You don’t want to acshept my offer? Well, this ish an inauspicious start, right? Was hoping to make this a tradition. The winners of the Pit games... sound delicious...” Her eyes had wandered as she had spoken. She abruptly brought them back to me. “Oh, I undershtand,” she nodded, her voice becoming heated, “You don’t think I’m pretty enough, right? Tell me, honest to Gawd, ish it the pointy teeth? Ooh, or maybe it’s the horn. Do you hate unicorns, Fall? Horn envy, or shomething like that, right?” She stretched herself across the bed again, horn glowing brighter. I noticed for the first time the detonator she wore on a string around her neck. That was why she believed I couldn’t fight back, why she felt she could do whatever she wanted. Not that it mattered... Goddesses, this was a weird evening. I felt her telekinetic cloud wrap itself around my neck as she slowly pulled me forward. Still, I resisted, pushing my hooves against the floor. I shouldn't have since I needed to get near her to kill her, but she repelled me so much. I hated her. I despised everything she had done. But at the same time, I knew that murder was wrong. Not killing to defend yourself, I'd done that, but planning, plotting to kill another... No, I reminded myself, it isn't murder. It's war. War between good and evil, and I am definitely good. Killing in war was good, an almost... holy thing to do. I gripped my vodka can tighter and loosened my grip on the floor, and walked towards her. She smiled. I hated her smile. I placed my hoof on the side of her face, trying my best to look like I cared, and she shuddered. "Itsh been years since I've been with a strong buck," she whispered, "and you look sho much like somepony that used to love me." A psychopath one moment, a lonely, lovesick mare the next. She must have been deeper than I'd thought, but I couldn't care less. Lost love was no excuse for brutality. With a flick of my hoof I splashed vodka in her eyes. She howled in pain and lost concentration on her telekinesis. She tapped wildly at her detonator as I snatched the pickaxe from the wall. She screamed. I gripped the pick's handle tightly in my mouth and brought down the pointed end down through her chest. Blood splashed in my face. But she wasn't dead yet, not even close. The point hadn't done the damage I'd been expecting. I flipped the pick around to use the flatter part and got to work on her neck. It was over quick. There was blood. A lot of it was on me. It wouldn't be long until her guards became suspicious of the scream that came from her shack. I moved quickly, trying to gather supplies I would need to escape. Barding. I smashed open the wardrobe with the pick. A dress, a set of work rags, some sort of full body metal armor with a visor, and... combat armor. Perfect. No saddlebags though. That could be a problem for a long journey. After strapping on the combat armor I moved to the workbench. The grenade machine gun things looked like it was in perfect condition (or at least what I thought was perfect condition since I'd never seen one before). The grenade machine guns were attached by a battle saddle with mouth triggers. They were both fully loaded with fat grenade shells that looked bullet shaped. I dragged the heavy battle saddle of the work bench to the ground. It thunked heavily. I crawled beneath it and strapped it to my barding, tucking the handle of the pickaxe between the straps. On standing up I found it wasn't as heavy as I'd guessed. I readied the triggers. Just then an ugly looking dark green unicorn buck levitating a submachine gun slammed open the shack door. He gaped at his decapitated boss's corpse then spun towards me, firing off a burst of screaming bullets. "You!" he shouted. I felt a shot of pain as two of the bullets pierced my barding. Panicking, I bit down on both mouth triggers. Big mistake. His body exploded into a cloud of bloody guts and muscle, along with bone shrapnel that peppered my face. The concussive force of the blast in the enclosed space crashed against me. My ears rang so loudly that I was afraid I was deaf. A thin trail of blood trickled out my right ear. As soon as I got bearings back (minus my hearing) I dashed for the door. Outside, other guards were waiting for me. They were unorganized and panicking. Several of them saw me and opened fire, leading the rest of them to begin shooting wildly. I tried to roll out of the way (which the bulk of my battle saddle made difficult) and fired a salvo of grenade rounds at my attackers. I saw guns go flying and bodies ripped apart by the explosions. A leg landed at my hooves and a pistol smacked against my head, giving me a deep gash. A huge bullet impacted the ground by my right back hoof, leaving a sizable crater in the dirt. I looked up. The griffon. She took aim again. Oh, fuck me, ran through my head. I took off running. A bullet to my right. A bullet to my left. As I neared the gate the edge of a bullet clipped my ear. By clipped what I actually mean is that the Goddesses damned bullet tore my left ear off, leaving behind a bleeding stump. I screamed, but I couldn't hear myself. I reached the gate. Taking out my bloody pick I found the generator and smashed the spark batteries to sparkling, burning, electrical bits that blew up in my face, at the same time narrowly dodging being blasted apart by the griffon's high powered rifle. A sharp whine that even my deafened ears could hear came from the fence, and the electrified fence was electrified no more. With my pick I ripped a hole in the fence big enough to go through with my battle saddle. Avoiding another deadly bullet, I crawled through. The griffon continued to chase after me as I ran towards the center of the camp. I was spotted by more of the camp's guards. Bullets pinged off my barding. A grenade went off next to me, showering me with red hot shrapnel. Scrapper and Martyr weren't there. They weren't by the pit, and now I was forced to search for them. Dammit, there went my hopes for a quick getaway. A swarm of slaves rushed by me, running to the gate as the guards attempted to corral them. Whump. The griffon landed behind me and placed the barrel of her rifle squarely between my ears. "You think you're some kind of a hero, don't you?" she asked me, "Just so you know, this is just a job to me. I won't feel an ounce of sympathy when I pull this trigger, but I will feel a little pleasure. I enjoy watching rebellious ponies squir--" I'm certain she would have finished saying the word "squirm" if her head hadn't been blown to pieces just then. I found myself showered in yet another layer of blood, bone fragments, and gore. Spinning wildly, I searched for the sniper, only to feel a hoof flick against the back of my head. I turned around and saw the guard mare who’d given me the drug-water-canteen. She was wearing a few more wounds than I’d last seen her with as well and was carrying a hunting rifle that was more duct tape than gun. I opened my mouth to thank her for saving my life, but she interrupted me. “Your friends are fine,” she informed me, “They’re in the upper section of the cube. Open the gate for the other slaves to escape, get your friends, and head north to Camp Steelhooves. Do not travel through Little Warchestnut.” As she spoke, my Pip-Buck pinged new locations on its map. “Camp Steelhooves, not Little Warchestnut. Got it?” I nodded. “What do I do once I get there?” She placed a hoof on my shoulder as an explosion rocked the ground ten yards away. “Become a citizen,” she said, “and keep heading north.” She turned and began trotting toward the battle raging between the slave and their masters. “Why are you helping me?” I shouted, asking a question I’d asked before, “No other guards have even tried to free us.” The sand maned mare glanced over her shoulder and grinned. “Because I’m no guard. I’m an NCR Ranger.” The gate stood before me. Big and imposing, I was strangely feeling a bit sentimental about it. I shouldn’t have been. It was a symbol of oppression, keeping the slaves like me locked in, cruelly separating us from freedom. However, at least I knew where I was behind this gate. Outside was just the wasteland: big, vast, violent. Well, that was enough sentimentality. I rammed my armoured shoulder against the gate, pushing with all my might. By destroying the electrification system I’d destroyed the massively heavy gate’s automated opening as well. Also, I’d stupidly forgotten about the Goddesses-damned lock. I backed up and analyzed the situation. I could tear apart the gate with the pick, but that would take too much time and a glance behind me at the ensuing battle told me I didn’t have that. Maybe I could try to find a guard with a key. No, because that faced the same problem. Then it hit me. I was an idiot. In my possession were two over-powered grenade machine guns mounted on a battle-saddle. I took in a deep breathe, trotted farther back, braced myself, and bit down on the triggers. The intensely explosive projectiles arced through the air at my obstacle. The fiery ribbon of explosions tore the chain links apart, ripping the gate off its hinges, throwing bits of metal in all directions. Well, that wouldn’t go unnoticed for long. I galloped out the non-gate and headed toward the cube. Never before had I realized how far it actually was from the camp. With the weight of the barding, battle-saddle, the pick, and the fatigue I had already been experiencing, I was losing energy. I was out of breath by the time I entered the cube. Tapping on my PipBuck’s lamp, I proceeded through the upwards slanted passage. “Martyr!” I shouted, “Scrapper! Where are you!” Even with the light from my PipBuck the passages were ominously dark. Bizarrely, I feared that the walls wanted to eat me, which was an odd fear, especially from an experienced miner like myself. There was something... off about these upper caves. What were the veteran slaves mining for up here? More coal? No. Not coal. Not coal at all. I heard my PipBuck’s Rad-Sensor go click-click-click. Coal didn’t give off magical radiation. Then I started hearing things. Just bits of random sound at first, but soon I heard voices. Ghostly, whispery, terrifying voices. No, my rational brain told me, the ancestors wouldn’t live here. But still, I heard them. “...torn to pieces...” “...scientist, not a fucking sold...” “...what if they can hear us...” And then, just as suddenly as they began, the actual words stopped. A deep, gravelly growl replaced them. It chilled my bones. “Scrapper! Luna-dammit, where are you?” I screamed, “Martyr!” I felt something brush my hoof. I spun around, readying both triggers. Martyr looked startled, gazing at me wide-eyed with fear as I pointed my massive battle-saddle at his head. Scrapper stood behind him. Exhaling the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, I lowered my weapons and scooped up the little buck in a hug. He blinked away the shock of me turning my grenade machine gun on him and wrapped his small hooves around my neck. I reached a hoof around and drew Scrapper to me also. The growl had stopped. I tried to say ‘I thought I lost both of you,’ but all that came out was “...lost you...that noise...” “That you, Fall?” Scrapper asked. I grunted in confirmation. “That one mare said you’d get us out of here.” “Yeah...” I responded, letting go of the two slaves, “um... yeah, you’re right. We should go.” “I’m glad you’re here,” said Martyr. We trotted out the halls, my PipBuck still protesting the radiation we were consuming. I had to lead Scrapper in the right direction through the tunnels with Martyr trotting quickly behind. I didn’t hear the voices again. Outside the cube was chaos. The population of slaves had found the “opened” gate. So had the the slavers. Ponies rushed around, running away from the camp, running away from the guards. Bullets flew through the air, blood stained the sand. The moon was full. It illuminated the battlefield with silvery-white light, revealing every gory detail. A unicorn slave mare noticed me (or rather, noticed the firepower I carried) and cried out "Help us! We're getting slaughtered!" just before she was turned into a pony shaped sieve by a stream of bullets fired from a light machine gun battle saddle. The killer turned his attention toward us. ‘Boom’ was my response to that threat. The shoddily barded slaver buck exploded and splattered across the sand and the mixed up crowd. I grabbed Martyr by his ragged clothing with my mouth and swung him onto my back. He grabbed my neck to hold on. I prompted Scrapper quickly to face the direction we needed to go and shouted “Run!” And with that we fled into the desert, away from slavery, away from the mare who’d helped us escape. I had no plan for what we would do. We had no supplies besides a single canteen, two heavy guns, and a pick. The map showed Camp Steelhooves being far to the north, much farther than what we could cover in a night, and I had no idea what was in between. Despite all this I was happy. I’d finally escaped and, for at least a little while, we were free. My eyelids were drooping. The moon was setting in the west behind the mountains. My battle saddle was weighing me down but I refused to get rid of it in case we ran into trouble. The barding I wore chafed against my scars and the brand on my cutie mark. Many of my bruises still throbbed. My deactivated but still attached collar felt tighter. The stump of my left ear had scabbed over. But none of that pain mattered because we were free. We were heading for the distant NCR border, nothing had attacked us yet, and... where was Scrapper? Panic swept over me. I spun around, trying to spot her. I checked my PipBuck map. No marker. Dammit! Our canteen had been completely drunk several hours ago. She must have fainted from dehydration or something a while ago and I hadn’t noticed. Shit. Shit! I needed to go looking for her. She was lost, blind, and out of water in the middle of the desert. But I couldn't go looking for her, not without putting myself and Martyr in danger. Like I said, we were out of water, I was running low on grenade ammo, and the sun was rising. As much as I hated it, finding water and shelter was more important than finding a lost friend. Fuck! Celestia-dammit, why couldn't decisions be easy for a change? Martyr slept quietly on my back. How could he be so peaceful? No matter what, I decided, I wouldn't lose him. I'd already lost too many ponies. Too many friends. Shelter. The sun was peeking over the eastern horizon. I brought up my map and zoomed in on our position. I searched for blips, shapes that suggested a cave or something. I found one better. A rectangular shape, obviously not natural. A shack? I licked my dry lips. It must have been getting closer to summer for it to have been that hot in the night. My body felt sapped of moisture. If that really was a shack of some sort then a pony must have lived there once. If somepony had lived there then they might have left something behind. Hopefully water. It wasn’t too far. Just about a half an hour’s march to the west. Great. Now we would have shelter and a base to start looking for Scrapper. Yeah, I guessed that some things weren’t all bad. No, everything is bad. We got to the shack within thirty minutes. Martyr had woken up and trotted beside me. The shack looked sturdy enough and the dryness of the desert had kept the metal it was made of from rusting. Problem was it was already occupied. By a pack of radscorpions, “Hide,” I whispered to Martyr as I undid the straps of my battle saddle, letting it slide to the ground, and took out my pick. He obeyed, hiding himself behind the heavy weaponry. I choose not to use the grenade machine gun out of fear of damaging the only shelter for miles around. That left me with just my melee weapon. Oh joy. One of the large blue bugs skittered over the sand towards me, claws clicking and tail waving. I slapped its barbed tail away with one swing and with the next I impaled the spike through its ugly face. It uttered an unearthly "skreeee" as it died. Apparently that was like a battle cry for radscorpions because the rest of the family decided to skitter my way. I took a ready stance. I slammed my pick through the head of the closest bug repeatedly. It still swung its tail at me as it was dying, the barb clanging off my barding. Next bug. WHAM. Dead. I jumped back to avoid a massive stinger from the biggest one of the group. Leaping forward again, I brought up the pick through the beast’s tail and twisted, ripping its flesh under the thick exoskeleton. “skraaaaw!” it protested, whipping me around with its tail, my teeth still gripping the pick's handle. Its throes of pain resulted in ripping off the half of its tail above my weapon. My success, however, was short lived. The giant radscorpion leapt on top of me, snipping at my face with its huge pincers. It opened wide its mouth(?) and screeched, "click-click-ckraaw!!!" with rotten, sickeningly meaty breath. Mustering up all my strength, I jammed my pick through the beast's chin. It writhed. I wriggled out from under it. And that's when I got stung. You know, that's a major design flaw with the combat barding I was wearing. The sides were heavily armored with metal and some sort of ceramic plates. I could take most shots to the sides and shoulders and walk away just fine. If a bullet slipped in between the plates (as several had), oh well, it was just one bullet. Clouds of shrapnel were mostly no problem either. All in all, it was pretty good armor for a gunfight. The underbelly, on the other hoof, was just the opposite: useless. Just a system of straps designed to keep the rest of the barding held to the user despite being thrown around like a rag doll in an explosion. So, basically, when the only remaining radscorpion (a white one, oddly enough) decided to stab me with its ugly, barbed, poisonous tail there was nothing to stop it. And it hurt like shit. I flipped over and slammed the pick through the remaining bug's ugly right most eye. The beast twitched for a while until it looked dead. I stabbed it a few more times just to be sure. Oh Goddesses, did my guts ache. Venom from the bug's stinger seeped into me. But I was okay. I could still stand and walk. My vision blurred a little and I heard a disembodied hissing sound as I trotted over to Martyr's hiding spot, but it quickly went away. I could try to fix myself up when we got inside. "Hey, Martyr," I called. He peeked his head up from behind the huge grenade machine gun battle saddle. "Let's go inside." He nodded. "What about the guns?" he asked as he ran up to my side. I looked back at my battle saddle laying in the sand. It looked so... heavy. My head felt buzzy. "We'll get it later," I decided. We trotted slowly toward the shack. I... wasn't feeling right. I tripped over my own hooves, narrowly avoiding falling on my face. Something was wrong. But I was okay. I could make it to the door. Then I could rest. Yes, the door. Then water, then sleep, then finding Scrapper. I swung open the door. Oh look, a floor that wasn't sand. That's nice. "Hey, he's awake!" a mare shouted. I felt my eyelids flutter open. Oh Goddesses, I felt bad. "Really?" another mare said, "The medicine pony said he'd be out for a week. Is something wrong?" He's alive, at least. I say that's pretty right," I saw the outline of a light bulb through my blurry vision. The lightbulb was swinging back and forth. It was mesmerizing. "Stream, tell Lyra to come here quick! His wound just opened up again out of nowhere!" What? "Yes ma'am, miss Three!" What where my sister and Three doing here? Where the hell was I?! It was dark. My stomach felt like it was splitting open. My face felt wet, sweaty. "FUCK!" I shouted. I was in so much pain. I felt like I was on fire and like I was drowning at the same time. "Fuck... Luna kill me, please, please, PLEASE! It hurts! Oh, Goddesses..." Was dying like this? My intestines were being ripped apart by hooks. I thought of Two being melted by that energy weapon blast. Was this what that had been like for him? Agony? "I promise I'll be better... fuck, fuck, shit..." I whimpered, begging forgiveness from the Goddesses, "I'll pray more and I'll be good and I won't chop up evil ponies anymore I promise I promise... Oh, FUCK!" I felt a hoof gently rest on my face. "Shhh... just go back to sleep Fall. You'll be okay." "So you're saying he's awake but he hasn't said anything?" asked a voice that sounded like a mare gargling gravel. My vision still looked fuzzy, but I could clearly see that the face above me had a horn. A split horn. "Yes," replied another voice. Three's voice? I wasn't sure. "Well that's odd. I haven't seen catatonic shit like this since the war. Some ponies... lots of them, actually... who got seriously fucked up in the head just froze like this." "So he has brain damage?" asked a deep stallions voice. Dad? The gravel throated mare scoffed. "Nope. More than one way get your head fucked up." "How do we... uh... fix him? Ah mean, we can't do deliveries if he can't move." Lily? No way. I watched her die. There was no way she could be here. Actually, where was here? The blurry mare shrugged. "I don't know," she grumbled, "I wasn't ever trained to deal with advanced psychology stuff like this. Just stay near and talk to him, I guess." Cold. So, so cold. Colder than a river in winter. Why? Why was I so chilly? I felt sweaty. Where was I? I glanced around my surroundings. Light fell through a window above me at an angle that made every bit of dust in the air shimmer. Tin walls, refrigerator, shards of a mirror held to a board, radio, rotten wooden floor. Martyr was lying on the floor, curled up asleep. He looked so peaceful. A short gash was cut diagonally across his forehead. For some reason I felt guilty about that gash but I wasn't sure why. My eyelids started getting heavy again... The mare on top of the tower. What did she do? How could that tall tower fit in this dark, small, cold box I was in? So many questions, and none of them mattered. And suddenly I wasn't cold anymore. I was burning. Green flames wrapped around me. I saw my skin melting off, dripping from my shoulders to my hooves. But it didn't hurt. It was actually a bit funny. I started laughing! I felt happy. This could be the end, but who cared? It was my turn. I'd watched my friends die and now I finally got a chance to see them again. I could apologize! But the burning... it was just so fucking hilarious! The dark mare walked up beside me. "Do you understand now?" she asked. I shook my head, a big smile plastered across my stupid face. "Well, you'll know the truth eventually." The ceiling above me looked cold. One hoof hung off the edge of the cot. My vision was locked on that solitary patch of ceiling and my breath was stale, sickly, disgusting. I was stuck in that odd paralyzed state that comes with waking up. So I did nothing. I must have just stared at the ceiling for an hour before I felt strong enough to move. Lowering one hoof to the ground slowly, I felt confident enough to put my weight on it. I collapsed. My legs were too weak and wobbly to support me. Slowly, painfully slowly, I raised myself up, leaning on the cot. My barding and slave rags lay folded in the corner by the refrigerator. Besides them were my book and the orb from the foal killer. Where was Martyr? The door was kicked open and I jumped, anticipating an attack. Goddesses, had a few weeks in the wasteland made me that nervous? Fortunately, it was just Martyr. He was dragging in, backwards with his teeth, my massive battle saddle. Once he was indoors the little unicorn set down the guns with a thud and sat, panting. “They’re heavy, aren’t they?” I muttered. The little buck jumped, startled, and faced me. He still had that mysterious gash under his horn. "Fall! You're awake!" "Yes, I am," I replied, "How long was I asleep?" Martyr swiped his hoof along the ground and looked toward the ceiling. He mumbled something under his breath. "Martyr? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you." "Umm," he murmured a little louder, "you've been out for three days." I stood there and blinked. Three days? No, that wasn't possible. I'd found this shack so that I could have a base to go looking for Scrapper. I couldn't be three days behind! No! It wasn't fair! She could be dead by now! And, Goddesses dammit, I was sick of losing friends! Leaning against the wall, I stumbled over to my barding. I needed to go. I needed to find her. I picked up my barding and tried my to put it on, but my wobbly legs collapsed under me. Dammit, I needed to search for her! This couldn't be happening. I needed to find my friend! "Hey," the little colt piped up, "what are you doing? You still need to rest." "Help me put my barding on." He stomped his hoof. "No." I raised myself up to a standing position again. I turned my head toward him. "What. Did. You just say?" What right did this little buck, this... this kid, have to tell me what to do? I saved his life! "Help me. Now," I growled through gritted teeth. I couldn't armor myself on my own. "No. I said no," he replied, "I spent three days and nights fixing you! Do you know what it's like to make an antivenom for an albino radscorpion sting with only basic poison training? It isn't fucking easy! You almost died!" Small tears had started to trickle down his face. 'I'm sorry. You are right, I shouldn't put my life at risk anymore after being in a medical coma for several days. I will return to the cot and continue to rest.' That's what I should have said. Instead I said this: "You don't get it, do you?" I shouted, "Scrapper is out there because I wasn't damn smart enough to make sure she didn't get separated from us! And what were you doing? You were sleeping! You didn't even try to make sure she was with us!" He stumbled back and fell on his rump. Tears streamed down his face. And I continued to be an idiot. "Don't you get it? I need to find her! It's my fault she's out there in the desert!" Oh Celestia, I felt lightheaded. I blinked the headache away. "Now get me some water," I said in a calmer tone, "and help me with my barding." Salty drops streamed down Martyr’s face. He stammered, "N-no," through choking tears. I sighed. "Fine." Reaching down I picked up my barding and slipped it on the best I could. I didn't bother with the straps. I stumbled over to open the fridge. Half a bottle of water surrounded by empty bottles. I grabbed it with my teeth and drank it down. My PipBuck clicked angrily at the radiation tainted water I consumed. As soon as I’d finished it I hated myself. The last of the water. Damn. I turned slowly to face Martyr. “What happened to the water? Were those bottles full before?” I asked, my voice quivering. No more water. No more water. No more water. We were stuck in the middle of Detailing Sergeant Bloodfire? “That’s me.” Oh, well that’s good. Nice to meet you. I’m... “What d’ya need, civvy? Actually, why are you even in my office? Your marefriend get deployed to some eastern shithole? You here to try and get her orders changed? Well, I gotta tell you that I see a lot of ponies like you trying to get orders adjusted and...” Umm, no. I’m here because, umm... crap, what was that code phrase... uh, ‘what you did for me was a very kind gesture.’ Yeah, that was it. “Oh. Ooooh, so you’re that buck then. Well, it’s certainly good to finally meet you. Your name wouldn’t happen to be Fall, would it? a Goddess forsaken desert and I’d just chugged down the very last of the water. Oh fuck. I shook my head, trying to clear away that thought. I found my pick and stumbled out the door. The sun beat down on my battered hide oppressively. Already I felt woozy, but I needed to find Scrapper. I needed to find her. There wasn't any time to waste. My PipBuck map, once again, told me nothing about her location. Trying to figure out the route we’d followed was impossible because all the sand looked the same and we’d been travelling at night. I’d just have to guess. We’d left the camp, heading north... had we changed course? Dammit. Where was our path? I couldn’t figure it out. I wandered. I had my PipBuck to tell me how to get back to the shack, but with the E.F.S. not working it didn’t really tell me anything else. Well, not much else regarding enemies. What it did tell me was that I was already getting dehydrated again, my body wasn’t quite right, and that I’d consumed enough radiation from the tunnels and the water to be... umm, whatever the technical term for the needle pointing to the yellow was. Stumbling through the wasteland was not a good search method. Unfortunately, it took a long time for my jumbled mind to get that. I was at least two and a half miles away by the time I figured that out. My mouth and throat screamed for water. The sun was beginning to set. I sighed and turned around. You’ll find her tomorrow, I told myself. What a load of horseapples. The walk back to the shack was demoralising. Every step felt heavier than the last, every breath more filled with despair and sand. I couldn’t do it. There was no way I’d make it to the NCR and convince them to help my tribe. I couldn’t save anypony, either. All my friends ended up dead. Two and Three, Lily, Hadrine, and potentially Scrapper as well. I stopped. No, I reminded myself, you have Martyr. You are saving him. You can take him somewhere safer, somewhere where he can grow up without worrying about being enslaved and starving. The thought of saving that little unicorn buck gave me strength and it gave me hope. I would make it. I would find my way north for him and, together, we would save my tribe. When I (finally) made it back to the shack I heard a terrible noise. It was like a scream, only it wasn’t a scream. It sounded otherworldly, like it was being said by a voice trapped in another voice. I barged through the door. Martyr sat in the far corner with his hooves clasped over his ears. It was the radio. That little Celestia damned radio was what was making that terrible noise! I stepped towards it, pick raised, ready to turn it off the easiest way possible. The clicking of my PipBuck made me step back. What the hell? Change of plans: don’t smash the mysterious radioactive screaming radio. Then, out of nowhere, the screeching stopped. “Access code, seven, eighteen, kindness, fifty-two, loyalty, ninety, twenty-seven, thirty-six,” said the voice, sickeningly sweet yet strangely familiar, of a mare. It was immediately followed by a deeper, more artificial voice saying, “Access granted. Welcome to section blue, Doctor Leftcoil.” The screaming started again immediately, louder than before. I released my pick and dropped to the floor. I pressed my hooves to my ears. The torturous sound rose higher and higher until finally, with no warning, it stopped. It just... stopped. I stood up. My ears rang. I trotted over to Martyr. “What was that?” I asked. I could barely hear myself speak. Martyr tapped his hoof against his head a few times, as if he was trying to knock the sound out of his brain. “That,” he said, pointing his horn toward the demonically loud gadget, “happens every night. You just never heard it ‘cause you were asleep.” Well, that made sense, but why did it do that? And that’s when my dry mouth, woozy head, and weak legs reminded me that that was a mystery for another day. I closed the door, shrugged my barding off in a corner, and pulled the cord connected to the single lightbulb in the room (what was it powered by, I wondered), plunging us into darkness. “Good night, Martyr. I’m sorry for yelling at you.” “Good night, Fall.” Flicking on my PipBuck lamp, I looked at myself in the shattered mirror. I looked... different. Missing an ear, covered in scars, my old self wouldn’t have recognized me. Me then wouldn’t recognize me now, either. “Hey, Fall, you asleep?” asked a little voice from the cot behind me. “Not yet,” I replied from my spot on the floor. Sleeping was hard. Everytime I closed my eyes I saw my friends being killed. Conversation was better. “So, Martyr...” “Yeah?” he whispered back. “How’d you learn about poison?” “I was a slave in a lot of places, remember? One of them was a radscorpion farm.” “What pony would be stupid enough to keep radscorpions?” “The ones that make casseroles out of their stingers.” I would never understand northern ponies. "So," I continued, "how'd you get that cut? The one on your forehead, I mean." "You hit me while you were sick. You kept thrashing around." "Oh... sorry." "It's all right," he replied, his voice sounding small and distant in the darkness of the tin shack. He yawned. "Good night again, Fall." "Good night, Martyr. We'll leave in the morning, alright? Find more water and food, then we'll go north." "Okay. And Fall?" "Yes?" "I'm glad you're not dead." "Thanks." Good night, Martyr. I'll miss you. “You fucker, you made us walk this entire way for a shack?!” was the sentence that woke me up. “Really? A Luna fucking shack? In the middle of the fucking desert?!” “The fuck I did. Shit horns over here is giving the ball-sucking orders!” said a mare’s voice. I rose to my hooves as quietly as I could and shook Martyr awake. His eyelids fluttered open. “Wha...” he started to say as he rubbed the front of his hoof across his face. I pressed the tip of my hoof to his mouth and signaled to be quiet. Dammit, this could be bad. A deeper voice spoke. “Shut up, you two. Look, it’s not just a shack, it’s a really old shack.” I motioned for Martyr to move off the cot. His eyes were wide. I put on my slave rags, stuffed my book and the orb in the pockets, and began strapping on my barding. Luckily I was stronger today. Martyr scurried under the cot and snatched out a jug of water. Why hadn’t that been in the refrigerator? Never mind, it didn’t matter. “So it’s a fucking shack. Big damn deal. What the hell do you expect us to find in there? Bricks of fucking gold and shit?” Martyr helped me strap the heavy grenade machine gun onto myself. I readied the triggers. Who were these ponies? Slavers? Raiders? Looters? The deep voice spoke again. “Wartime tech goes for lots of caps at trading posts. We can use the metal walls to make better armor, too.” “Oh, fuck you,” said a stallion, “Since when have we ever traded with those New Canterlot pussies? We’re the fucking East Rock Raiders, in case your walnut sized brain dropped that tid-bit of obvious...ness.” Raiders. Shit. “Hey, big guy?” said the mare who’d spoken earlier, “There’s a bunch of dead radscorpions around the front. I think somepony got here before us. All the good loot’s probly gone.” “OOOOH!” exclaimed a much more energetic sounding mare, “Now I can test out my new magic propelled grenade! Ya know, to see if there’s somepony inside!” I looked at Martyr. He looked at me. We ran for the door at the same time. A whistling sound shredded the air. We barreled out the door and threw ourselves on the sand just as the shack exploded in a blast of flames and shrapnel! My pick’s point slammed into the ground in front of me. Martyr and I both looked unhurt, but we had bigger problems than shrapnel wounds. We stood and dusted ourselves off. I readied the triggers on my battle saddle. I examined my enemies. Three earth ponies, two unicorns, two pegasi (I still wondered why they weren't with the Enclave), and, most bizarrely, one medium sized buffalo bull. What the hell was a buffalo doing this far from the Ghost Lands? And what was he doing with raiders? As much as I was examining them, they also seemed to be examining us. Neither group did anything besides stare at the other. "Huh. I guess there really were ponies inside of that shack," said a pegasus mare wearing the magical propelled grenade launcher battle saddle and a pouch of ammo. The buffalo she was flying above whipped out a pump action shotgun from a holster by his side and shot a slug through her wing. "You. Fucking. Idiot!" he shouted at her as she dropped to the ground, "That shack was the best find we made in months! Shit, even without the tech there might have at least been fresh water!" He gave her a swift kick in the groin and picked up his shotgun, reholstering it with lightning speed. "Ouch," empathized a tan earth pony mare with a spiked yellow mane. A purple unicorn mare pointed a hoof at us. "Hey, shit horns," she called to the buffalo. "What?!" the buffalo snarled. "Those fuckbags there've got water." This was bad. "Hmm, so they do," said the buffalo, rubbing his chin. "Let's kill 'em," said the unicorn buck who had before proclaimed they were the 'East Rock Raiders'. "You idiot, that pony has got a bigger gun than..." replied the buffalo (who so far seemed like the most level headed of the group) before he was cut off by a pistol shot fired the empathetic mare. The shot flew over my head by a meter, but that was enough of a threat that I decided to open fire. I bit down on my dual triggers, sending the thunking rounds toward the aggressors. Unfortunately, I hadn't checked my ammo before hoof to see how much I had. The thirteen remaining grenades exploded on impact with the ground, blowing apart pistol mare, breaking two legs on the downed pegasus, and sending burning shrapnel and sand at her friends. The sand drifted through the air. Carried by a small gust of wind it clouded my vision. I picked up the pick from the ground and pulled Martyr close. "Thiiit..." I whispered. This was bad. Surrounded by raiders, sand in my eyes, armed with only a pick, I was in a pretty bad position. Buckshot impacted the side I held Martyr on, pinging off my barding, striking through my neck, head, and exposed flank. I heard the little unicorn yelp in pain as the lead pierced his flesh as well. Blood dribbled into my right eye, further blinding me. I searched wildly for where my attackers hid. During the split second as I turned my head from the right to the left was when it hit me. And by "it" I mean the stock of the magically propelled grenade launcher. Swung by the buffalo. You know, it's funny how when you're asleep you don't really feel pain. While I was unconscious I had, for the first time in a long time, a nice dream. Scrapper and I had taken my little sister, Cactus Flower, and Martyr to a little creek bed to play. The grass was a brilliant green (very un-tarplike, I should add) and birds sang sweet, repetitive songs as they flew. A tiny string of water looped itself around my front hooves as I stood at the very edge of the water. Scrapper had her eyes back and I guess that in this dream she had never lost them. Martyr and Cactus splashed each other with water and played around. It was nice. Well, it was nice until Cactus pulled the pin on the grenade. I woke up in pain, which wasn't all that unusual for me by now. The first thing I noticed was my hooves weren't touching the ground. Where my front shoulders connected to my body felt on fire. I shook my head to clear my blurry vision, making me swing, making me hurt more. My scream was so loud that I hurt my own ears. I was held off the floor by two hooks hanging from chains. They pierced and dug through my flesh, worming their way deeper into my muscles as I hung. I fucking hate raiders. "Help!" I screamed, "Somepony, please, help me!" But nopony heard me. I cried. I felt helpless. All I could do was hang there, just like the other corpses hanging near me. The darkness was all around me, suffocating me. Or maybe the suffocation was from the stench. It didn’t matter. All those other times I’d almost died, and here I would die a raider’s decoration. Laughter. Through all the pain and tears I started to laugh. “Ha! That’s right, mother-fuckers! Fall’s gonna be a chandelier forever!” I wasn’t even sure what I meant, but it sounded rebellious so I liked it. Fuck those raiders. Especially that buffalo. Traitor. What right did he have to have left the Ghost Lands? I kept laughing and laughing, each breath pulling the hooks further through my shoulders. The pain made me laugh. “Yeah! About damn time, too! I hate all of you! Go screw yourselves!” I shouted at nopony. I wish I could still laugh at pain. Goddesses bless those gunshots that woke me up out of that daze. I felt together again. The pain became more real and my laughter stopped. My automatic reflexes when it came to gunfights were kicking in. I needed to hide from whoever wanted me dead. I bit around the hook on my left and agonizingly lifted my shoulder off it. Without both of them holding me up I started falling to the ground. The right-shoulder hook pulled more harshly at my flesh, tearing away at the skin and muscles, until finally a large strip of skin, from the joint of my shoulder to my back, tore off my body and I fell to the hard, cold floor. Blood gushed from my wounds. I screamed. Standing at that very moment was more painful than anything I’d ever experienced before. A billion razor sharp needles heated a million degrees took turns stabbing me each time I moved. The muscles in my right foreleg refused to work. I leaned on my left side to keep myself up. Go! I screamed in my head, Just go! I inched my way to the door. I didn’t need to open it. The door was blasted off its hinges by the edge of a magical-energy grenade boom. Splinters showered me, sticking in my skin and mane. I was thrown onto the floor. I stood once again. Limping, I slowly, painfully made my way out into the warzone. It was hell. Streets between buildings of wood, metal, rock ran with blood. My hooves landed in a clump of former pony that the dark had concealed. I tried to slither my way along the walls, trying to not be noticed. A full moon lit the battlefield. Glancing up briefly, I was met with vertigo and the sight of... one of the Goddesses flying? How much blood had I lost? Raiders fought ponies in NCR armor, only it wasn’t quite NCR armor. The barding looked more protective and the soldiers all either wore wide brimmed hats or frightening gas-mask-helmet abominations. The NCR ponies were winning. While the raiders sprayed bullets wildly and lobbed every grenade they could lay a hoof on, the soldiers used controlled bursts and precise shooting. I would’ve been impressed if I wasn’t bleeding and trying to escape. A sniper's large bullet whizzed through my mane. I tried to trot faster. Go! I told myself, Get away from here! Then I remembered Martyr. The need to find him pushed aside my urge to escape. "Martyr!" I shouted out, my voice barely noticeable over the battle. An NCR pony backed up against the wall in front of me, her face scrunched up in pain from the bloody gash on her flank. The raider attacking her pressed his pistol against her head with levitation, mouthed the words "you won't hurt me anymore," and blew her brains out. The raider took one look at me, a bleeding and pitiful excuse for a buck, and walked away to where his comrades were fighting. I guess I wasn't a worthy opponent. I continued slithering my way along the walls, staying out of the way of ponies with guns. I stopped to pick up a combat knife the NCR mare had carried. A familiar thunking sound told me that the raiders had found the right ammo for my battle saddle. "Maahduhr!" I called out again, my shout muffled by the knife. My call was answered by screams from across the street. Not the deep, throaty death screams from adults, but the shrill cries of fear that little fillies and colts make. They came from behind a makeshift door that was part fence, part sheet metal. I limped across the road, narrowly avoiding a stray rifle bullet. I pushed down the weak door with what little strength I had left and was greeted with a bullet dangerously close to my already destroyed right shoulder. A little blue coated and pink maned raider pegasus child, younger than Martyr, clenched a pistol in his teeth. Behind him were other children cowering in fear. "Fall!" I heard Martyr's voice but I couldn’t see him. The pegasus colt spoke through his pistol. “Fuhendah, fuff ‘ace!” I put down my knife as I leaned against the wall, taking weight off my right foreleg. “What did you say?” I wasn’t a threat as long as he was aiming that gun. I could barely hold myself up. All I could do was make him think that putting away his gun so he could speak was a good idea, and maybe I’d have a chance. He put his pistol under his wing. He tried his threat again. “I said surrender fuck fa..!” I picked up the knife again as fast as I could, threw him against the wall, and pressed the knife against his throat. “Ret. Dese. Foars. Go," I breathed. I must have twisted my right leg again because it burned like salt poured on open muscle. The raider colt hyperventilated. His throat scraped against the blade, drawing blood. He turned his eyes toward the foals huddled in the corner. “Go!” he shouted, “Leave!” He turned his eyes to me. “Please,” he whimpered, “I don’ wanna die!” I let go of him and kicked away the gun he’d dropped. “Ah don’ kirr foars.” I turned to face the children huddled in the corner and dropped the knife. "Let's go." Martyr sprinted across the room and wrapped his hooves around my neck. "I knew you'd find me! None of the others believed me, I knew you'd get here!" I set him down and lightly kissed the top of his head. Slowly, the other five foals trotted over to me, cautiously deciding whether or not I was real. No, that wasn't it. They wanted to know if I would hurt them. They were covered in bruises. Some of them walked funny. One or two of them clenched their hind legs together. I immediately knew what had happened to them. It was the same thing that happened to Lily. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. It isn't Goddess-fucking fair! I wanted to kill every damn raider who'd ever lived, but at that moment I was in no condition to do it. Instead we just needed to escape. "We should go," I repeated. One filly nodded in agreement. A peek out the door showed that the bulk of the battle had moved away from us. The road north was open. I motioned for the kids to follow me. The noise from the fight was still deafening. I started leading my new followers in between the corpses that littered the street. Martyr walked slowly at the end of the line, helping a wounded and shivering filly to walk. Have you ever felt that shock of fear that chills your bones, makes your knees weak, threatens to knock you down? I felt that. Six pistol shots. Just six. Those pistol rounds broke my world, shattered it irreparably. I could always recover before, but this was the end of what I’d known since I was born. Those shots were aimed for the flesh of innocents. I spun around, searing pain ripping through my torn muscle. Martyr’s eyes were wide. He looked at the filly he was supporting. A bullet had grazed her flank and she was crying, but it wasn’t serious. Martyr then looked at himself. His side was bleeding. It was bleeding a lot. “I... I can’t feel it...” he muttered. He took a step forward, the filly still by his side, then collapsed. His face hit the dirt road with a thud. As fast as I could I limped over to his body. I pressed my hooves uselessly against the three bullet holes in his side to slow the bleeding. It was everywhere. The red life crawled its way up my fur over my hooves. Fresh tears came to my eyes, washing over the old trails that had stained my face. Too much blood, too fast. Shock. I raised my eyes to see the raider colt. He stood at the edge of the door, mouth hanging open, pistol on the ground. His eyes met mine. He ran. “You, with the scarf!” I shouted at one of the kids I’d just freed, “Give it to me!” He hesitated. “Bu... but momma gave me it before the...” “Just fucking give it!” He obeyed. I snatched it from his weak telekinesis and did my best to tie it around Martyr’s bleeding abdomen. I lifted him onto my back, barely able to support him. I was shaking. If I ever saw the colt who’d shot him again, I’d blow his scrawny pegasus head off! “Let’s go!” I shouted. The warm summer night air became cold as my little group of refugees stumbled through the desert. I was so thirsty. So painfully thirsty. And lightheaded. My torn muscles had been bleeding for a while. Martyr’s blood had long ago soaked through the thin scarf and dripped off my back in thin streams. So thirsty. So hungry. So cold. So dead. Why couldn’t the suffering just end? Every friend I made... I wanted it over. How are they, friend? Are they well? I haven’t seen them in so, so long... We aren’t so different, you and I. I’m just... worse. That’s the word. Worse. My right foreleg gave way and I dropped to the sand. Goddesses, help me... I thought, Give me a break, just this once. My help came in the form of a dark green (almost black) pony seven feet tall with wings and a horn. It glided gently to a stop in front of me, its hooves only inches away from my face. This wasn’t one of the Goddesses. I’d seen them enough in dreams to know this wasn’t them. It had to be a hallucination. I looked upwards to the being’s face. Around its neck was a sign. In the dim light of my PipBuck I could make out the words “Vocational Brute.” Footnote: Level Up New Perk: Camel Pony: Thirsty? You should be. You’re in a desert. Fortunately you’ve trained yourself to be able to ignore your thirst for longer than most ponies. Dehydration does not affect your stats until you reach the Advanced Dehydration stage. (Thanks [once again] go to Kkat for building the foundations for the amazing FO:E universe. This fic wouldn’t exist without her. Thanks go to OkiiNovice for reading my fic before just about anyone else and being a real swell dude. Thanks go to oki_all_day for promoting this fic in Scootaloo's Pre-War Blues’ footnotes [you should read his fic]. Thanks go to primepersephony for promoting this fic in Equestrian Wetgrave’s footnotes [you should read that also]. And finally, thanks to all my readers and the awesome FO:E fan community. Thanks y’all!) Chapter 8: ...And Another Begin?Fallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 8: …And Another Begin? “Do you know what this calls for? A party!” --- --- --- "What's the word, Corporal? Or, should I say, agent? That little issue we discussed all wrapped up?" You didn't tell me there would be foals there. And don't call me that. We both know I'm not. "I didn't tell you about the foals because you didn't ask. And don't be offended by the rank. Cherish it. With the work you've done so far you've earned it." How the hell was I supposed to know a bunch of foals were at an underground casino!? That's just fucking sick! You couldn't have said 'Hey, Fall, by the way there's going to be a bunch of little colts and fillies there that might be caught in the crossfire so watch out'! Couldn't you have just told me that!? Four innocent children died last night! "Don't say your real name so loudly." Well why the fuck not!? All you've done is sent me on missions that end up with ponies getting killed! Why should I even listen to you!? "Because I'm the only pony who can get you the alliance you need." Vocational Brute. I wondered what those words meant. The beast (a stallion, I thought, but I wasn’t sure. Did hallucinations and un-Goddesses have genders?) stood still in front of me. It was majestic. I could feel the power the creature had, flowing out from it in all directions. The power felt cold, dark, bent. Did the wasteland reach its influence into everything? It looked from me to the foals, levitated them in a magical bubble, and then looked back to me. The foals shouted and cried for a few moments and then fell asleep. In a deep voice the beast said, “I will take these children somewhere safe. I will come back to save you afterwards.” “What about Martyr?” I asked. “The child you carry on your back?” I nodded. “He is already dead.” I shook my head. “No. No he isn’t. Take him somewhere safe. Please.” I pressed a hoof to my face and squeezed my eyes shut. “Take him anywhere but here. I don’t know who you are, but please, help me save just one friend...” “I will take both of you later,” it insisted. And with that the creature flew away, carrying with it the sleeping fillies and colts. An hour must have passed before it returned. Maybe several hours. By then I had fallen asleep. Martyr had slumped off my back and lay in the sand. I reached my less injured left foreleg and pulled him close. He was cold. Children aren't supposed to be cold. If I ever became a father, I decided, I would adopt Martyr into my family. He should've had a family to protect him. Instead he just had me. I wasn't going to let him go anytime soon. The bleeding had stopped. That was good. It was matted, congealed on his coat, drying the scarf to his skin. He must have lost a lot of blood, but it had stopped. I couldn't feel him breathing. He must have just been breathing very softly. I couldn't feel his heartbeat either. Maybe I was just too tired to feel it. The creature returned silently. It glided to a stop and folded its wings. I wondered what it was like to have wings and a horn. It must be nice. Earth ponies and buffalo (and donkeys and mules, I guess) are always at a disadvantage. "Are you ready to leave?" it asked. "We're ready," I replied, hugging the little colt close. I wasn't going to let him go until I found somepony to help him. I didn't care if this un-Goddess said he was dead. He wasn't. I'm sure of it. He's probably somewhere nice right now, lolling around on a couch and drinking whiskey, telling jokes to a bunch of mares or something. I'll find him someday, and then I'll let that little colt know how glad I am that he's still around. The winged-unicorn thing lifted us up in a field of telekinesis and began to fly. The desert got far away and I felt sick to be up that high. The wooden "Vocational Brute" sign around the thing's (It's a he, isn't it? I wondered) neck made a repetitive thumping noise as the un-Goddess flew. I could see the whole world and it scared me. I fell asleep. The floor was cool and a little sandy. I felt complete, satisfied. I must have done something, saved Martyr and a bunch of children. My body felt less full of holes and I suddenly became aware that I had both ears again. The deactivated explosive collar around my neck was gone too. The light from the sun shined in my eyes. I got up. I was near the mouth of a cave. The cave was in the side of a hill. The hill looked out over the vast, dry wasteland that. The bright, yellow, hot sun had not yet passed over my head. My PipBuck told me I was facing east. Must have been morning. “The desert is beautiful, isn’t it?” said the un-Goddess from behind me, “But you have plenty of experience out there already, do you not?” “It is beautiful. At least, from up here,” I replied, “Desert likes killing my friends...” The thing stood next to me. “The wasteland doesn’t kill. If it was not for the magic of the wastes my race wouldn’t be.” “Your race? Are you the new deities? Or are you demons?” I almost choked on my words as I added, “Do you know the Goddess on the tower?” I never got my answer. “Oh, he’s awake?” said a mare’s beautiful muffled voice behind me. “Yes,” said the un-Goddess. I turned around to face the new voice. She had the shape of a unicorn wrapped in layers upon layers of bandages. Her eyes were blue. On top of her bandages she wore red barding that looked somewhere between combat armor and an NCR uniform. “Good morning,” she said, “Did you sleep well?” “Morning,” I replied as I scratched my new ear with my once again functional right hoof, “I don’t know. I was asleep.” "You have a lot of scars," she commented. I cleared my throat. "I'm guessing you do too." "You could say that." It got really quiet all of a sudden. I don't know why. I drew lazy circles in the thin layer of sand and dust that coated the floor. Bandage mare locked eyes with the un-Goddess creature and twitched her head. It (he) excused himself and flew out the mouth of the cave heading northwestish. "So," she said, "what do you think of Brute?" What did I think of a big demon/deity thing that had the same type of body as the Goddesses I'd worshiped since I'd learned to speak? "Brute's... alright I guess. Big." She chuckled. "Yeah, alicorns like him can get pretty tall." So it was a him. "I can understand why seeing an alicorn would be a bit disconcerting for a tribal pony like you. Took my folks a while to get used to 'em also." "Who... are your folks exactly?" "Oh, it's not important right now." "Oh, alright then." So when would it be important? "Thank you." "For what?" she mumbled through her wrappings. "For patching me and Martyr up." She stomped at the ground a little. "Umm, listen..." This is where my memory starts getting hazy. I don't know what she said. It's funny, really. I know it was important but for the life (or death) of me I can't think of what it was. Dammit. Memory is a funny thing that way. I can remember most everything else, even the stuff I don't want, but I... ~~Where was I? Sorry, something distracted me. Who visits this part of town this fucking time of night? It's dangerous around here. Dammit, hold on.~~ ~~Idiot.~~ Anyways, what I do remember is that once she was done telling me... whatever it was she was telling me, I was crying. I hate crying, especially when I don't know what I'm crying about. "I'm sorry," the bandaged mare said, "Believe me, there was nothing I could do." "How did Brute find us?" I asked. The bandaged mare had given me a tin cup full of water and a small box of (somehow preserved) crackers. "Brute was on duty. He'd been watching that group of NCR Rangers gearing up to attack those East Rock thugs for weeks," she replied, "Luckily he saw you escaping with those kids." "Are those kids okay, by the way? I was so focused on getting Martyr out that I..." She interrupted me. "They'll be fine eventually. A few have them have injuries but those will heal. I'm more worried about their minds." I suddenly felt bad for yelling at them. But I couldn't change the past. I decided to change the subject. "So... why the bandages?" "Well, my people weren't exactly the easiest to grow up around. I got some nasty burns because of something somepony else did. Or didn't do. I'm not sure." "I'm sorry." "It's not your fault." Celestia-dammit! Why did ponies have to do that? Did no pony outside of my tribe understand sympathy? "It doesn't really matter anyways. I'm used to the bandages. Changing them is a pain though, but life is livable and I've got friends like Brute to keep me company. Plus I have work to keep my mind off of the pain I feel occasionally." Work? What could she do from this cave? "What type of work exactly?" I thought I saw her smile beneath her bandages. "I'm glad you asked..." A plan. That’s what I’d been missing the entire time I’d been out in the wasteland. An actual plan to tell me where to go and what to do so that I could finally get the alliance I'd been struggling for. But, like all things, I was informed it wouldn't be as simple as it sounded. "Why not? I just need to go to that place," I poked my hoof at the crude map the bandaged mare had drawn in the sand, "meet up with that pony you talked about, and then head for the border. Simple!" "No. It isn't that simple." "Why not?" "Because this plan isn't about just getting your tribe an alliance," she said, "It's also about helping out my folks. Get it? It's like killing two radroaches with one stomp." She levitated her pistol out of her shoulder holster along with a set of cleaning tools and started disassembling her weapon. "The wasteland is more complicated out here than you think. Not everything is about the NCR. Other groups need help, and can help you, too." I was about to tell her that I understood when Brute flew in through the mouth of the cave. With him he carried a bunch of food supplies and bottles of water. "Hello," he said. "Hey Brute," the bandaged mare replied without looking away from the pistol she was cleaning. "Uhh, hello again." My response to the alicorn's greeting was awkward and I knew it. I just didn't know how to respond to a pony double my height who looked like the Goddesses I prayed to. Something about him made me feel sick. But maybe that was just the paranoia. Every day I spent out in the wastes I felt more afraid of my surroundings. Each step I took I was scared would be my last. Even the burned mare's plan worried me a little. If all went well I would have my alliance and I could rejoin my family again and try to forget all the pain I'd seen and felt. But things never went well. Never. And I'd learned that the hard way before. So that's why I started making my own plan. And my plan is still working. Dinner. I'd missed real meals with other ponies. I also hadn't realized how hungry I'd been. The last meal I'd had was that odd grayish porridge slime they'd served in the slave camp. Real food with real ponies. Brute, the bandaged mare, the children I'd help rescue (except for Martyr, but I can't remember why), and I all gathered around a fire by the mouth of the cave. I don't remember the meal, but I remember the smiles. The mare in bandages was grinning under her wrappings. Brute wore a look of smug contentment with the meal he'd cooked (I wondered aloud where he got the ingredients and received no answer). The little fillies and colts lost the gloomy, downcast expression they'd held the day before and began to chase and play with one another. I was glad I was with these ponies, my hosts. I couldn't believe the luck I'd finally gotten, so long held away from me by the wasteland. I'd been rescued, rested, repaired, and fed by ponies who seemed to want to help me. I wasn't sure I completely trusted their motives, but it was good enough for now. ~~Oh, Great Scorched Mare, Virgin Queen of the Border, Cornerstone of the Three Siblings, May You Live Forever!~~ ~~I shouldn’t praise~~ anypony. "Here," the mare said, "take this. It's good barding. You’ll probably need it.” It did look like good barding. It was made of the same type of ceramic plates that had been built into my old combat armor, but black, less bulky, and with a neck protector. Across the front were the words "Appleloosa Sheriff's Department" in white letters. Along with the barding she also offered me a long coat (which she called a duster) that was tinged slightly greenish, and a straw hat. I accepted her gifts with a "Thanks," and tried the whole ensemble on. The barding fit perfectly and the duster fit perfectly over that. I thanked her once again and picked up the weapon she'd loaned to me: a single bladed axe. Perfectly weighted and impeccably clean, I almost felt bad about using it as a tool for killing. She gave me a sheath for it that could be strapped to the new saddlebags I also received. At the same time the bandaged mare was fitting me up with barding and weapons, the alicorn was also preparing for our trip. He slipped on a set of leather armor (too tight for him, by the way) and then put on what looked like formal attire (which was also too tight). He strapped two pistols on either side beneath his wings. “Are the kids going to be okay?” I asked. “Yeah,” the bandaged mare replied, “My people will try to get them back to their families if they still have any. If they don’t they’ll stay with us across the river.” I nodded. At least ~~Martyr~~ they would be safe. "Remind me again who this pony I'm meeting is?" I asked the mare. "He's a member of my people... well, not completely, but... you'll see what I mean when you meet him." Should I have been worried? "So... I can't trust this pony?" "Well, Broken Skull trusts him, so that's good enough for me." Who? "Broken what?" That was a frighteningly violent sounding name... "Don't worry," she assured me, "Everything is going to work out just fine." Yes. Everything would work out fine. Mostly fine, at least. Actually, now that I think of it, things could have turned out much worse than they did. I’m lucky, I guess. "Thank you... for everything. For all of this, thank you..." I paused. "I don't think you ever told me your name." She smiled under her wrappings. "Prophetess. Prophetess Goodpony." Brute and I had been walking through the desert for about an hour before either of us said anything. I was the first to break the silence. "So," I began, "what do you do for work?" "I keep the border safe," he replied. “From what?” “Everything.” “Oh. How so?” He sighed loudly. “My... tribe does not feel particularly safe around the NCR. In turn, due to events in the past, the NCR feels animosity towards us as well.” So he and the bandaged mare were watching the border (which up until now I didn’t even know existed; I’d thought the NCR controlled all of Equestria and the desert) because of some old anger between these two groups? I found this hard to understand for some reason. It sounded like war but it wasn’t. At least, that’s what I thought. My PipBuck pinged the name “Wago Stop” when we reached the town. Well, calling it a “town” would actually be giving this particular suburb (of a suburb) of Little Warchestnut too much credit. It looked more like a refugee camp with a few extra buildings. Tents and sheet metal huts surrounded by rusted barbed wire fence made up most of the place. At the center of the ring of shelters was a bit pre-apocalypse architecture. It looked like a place where travellers would’ve stopped to pick up fresh spark batteries for their wagons (really, how could the inhabitants of this place have not realized the sign on the building had said “Wagon,” not “Wago”?), food, water, and other supplies. It had once been painted green and purple, more festive than the eyesore it was now. “Hmm...” muttered Brute. “Hmm what?” I asked, “It’s a town. We can get supplies here, can’t we?” “Everypony is gone.” When he said that I suddenly realized he was right. However, I failed to see how that caused us a problem. “And...?” “And what?” “And why does that make you worried?” “I am not worried. I am thinking.” He thought for a while. In the meantime I decided to root around in my saddlebags. “Anything yet?” I asked with my face in my left saddlebag. “Still thinking,” he grumbled, his eyes fixed intently on the missing “N” of “Wagon Stop.” “Take your time...” I was amazed by the amount of stuff the mare had given me. Three bottles of water? Non-perishable snack cakes? A cardboard box full of caps and NCR bills? And... the orb from the house of the foal killer. I’d thought I’d lost that. I kinda wish I had, because I couldn't bring myself to leave it behind. I checked the other saddlebag. Healing potions, a whetstone, a book... my copy of "The Story of The Goddesses". I'd thought I'd lost that as well. Tucked inside of the front cover was a letter. Deciding that it was there for a purpose, I left it where it was. Brute snorted. I pulled my face out of my bag. "We will loot and then continue on. I believe I know where our contact has gone." I nodded in reply. We split up, he heading to start searching the largest tent, I to the "Wagon Stop" at the center of the non-town. As I passed by the tents I noticed something, or rather, the lack of something: corpses. If this place had been abandoned because of an attack by raiders I would've expected to see at least a few bodies laying around. Raiders were messy. I spotted a splash of dried blood on a bedroll. Still no corpses though. But the blood suggested that something violent did happen here. As I reached the "Stop" I noticed a patch of blood on the wall by the door marked by at least ten bullet holes. The door was off its hinges. Shelves had been knocked off the walls. Bags and boxes were scattered on the floor. The register on the counter had been smashed open, its contents looted. A Sparkle-Cola machine against the far wall, smashed open as well but still with a few unbroken bottles, seemed to be the only thing of value left. I trotted over to it and grabbed a bottle. As I was about to knock the cap off I felt a cold circle pressed against the back of my head. I turned my head slowly with the Sparkle-Cola still held in my teeth. The unicorn threatening me pressed the barrel of his revolver between my eyes. Half the skin on his face was peeling off. One eye was covered by a piece of blood-soaked sackcloth. His breathing was labored, probably because of the nasty, sickly green bullet wound in his side. He wore no barding beside a wide brimmed NCR trooper helmet. "Who," he demanded, "are you? Looter? Legionnaire? Merc come to finish us off? Well that'll be no fun for you cause I'm the last fucking one! Ha!" He coughed for about a quarter minute. I gently lowered the bottle to the ground. "How about you put the gun dow..." "Not a chance in hell," he replied. "Well, that's a problem then, I guess." "Who are you? Answer, for Element's sake!" "I'm a traveler..." "Brahmin shit!" "Put the gun down." "No!" "Celestia dammit, I promise I won't try to do anything!" I promised, "Gun beats ax anyways." He lowered his pistol. It quivered in his his magical grip. His mane was matted with blood so badly that I couldn't tell what the original color had been. His coat was greenish blue and covered in a layer of dust. The skin peeling off his face quivered with every breath. "What happened here?" I asked. He sat on the floor with his pistol still aimed at me. "Legion happened. Those crazy fuckers..." "Legion?" He looked at me like I'd just told him the sky was covered in stripes. "Shitters from across the big river. The brass won't attack them 'cause they're too busy wiping out border raiders and shit." He looked at the hole in his side. "Doesn't keep 'em from comin' after us." "Why?" "Why what?" he sneered, "You think shit-for-brains tribals need a reason to take a big long piss on us?" "Shouldn't they?" The 'shit-for-brains tribals' comment stung a little. He shook his head. Looking up again, he asked, "So why are you here, really? Loot? You're dressed like a trader. There's not much." I shook my hoof at that idea. "I'm not a trader. I'm traveling. I need to meet somepony. My companion and I were looking for somepony who should've been here." "Everypony who was here is dead." "There aren't any bodies." "Legion burns 'em to pray for fuckin' rain dances or some such shit." "Oh." The Legion didn't sound like a very nice group of ponies. "Wait," he said, hovering the revolver up to my face again, "you said you had a companion here?" "Yeah, I think I said that." Was that a problem? He fumed as he spoke. "You bitch-fucking-schlong-licker! You're not a looter, you're a Goddesses damned scout! You fucking slavers travel in pair!" I'd never heard that fact before. "Get your friend in here, but if you warn them I'll turn your brains to paste!" I called out to Brute, carefully avoiding mentioning that there was an at-least slightly crazy buck pointing a gun at me. Brute came to the door. The buck's uncovered eye went wide when he saw the alicorn. He lowered his pistol and I reacted. I bit down on the grip of the revolver and tried to wrestle it away from him. "Oh, fuck no!" he screamed. He whipped around the pistol in his telekinesis as he worked the trigger. Of the six bullets, one of them buried itself in my armor. Another found the tip of Brute's right wing. "Gof, fuf yef!" I replied. My chest throbbed from the impact. I could feel the bruise forming already. I wasn't strong enough. The last soldier tore the gun from my mouth and whipped me across the face. He would've beaten me to death if Brute hadn't magically thrown him into the Sparkle-Cola machine. I heard both the bottles and his bones break. "Hmm..." Brute said as I gasped for breath, "I believe this town is uninhabited." "Shouldn't we bury him?" I asked Brute, already knowing the moral answer, "I mean, we did kill him. Looting the town had been a success. We had canned foods, caps, and ammo to sell that my giant traveling companion stuffed in his saddlebags. Looting felt bad though. We were profiting off of other ponies stuff. Not that I hadn't taken stuff from dead enemies before, but the ponies of this town hadn't done me any harm. Except, of course, for that last survivor. "What would be the purpose?" Brute answered my question with another question. I sighed. "Yeah, I guess we shouldn't. We'll let the NCR find his body then and they'll send him back to his family, right?" "One can only hope that the New Canterlot Republic retains the values of its old world predecessor." The town we stopped in looked more like a real town. It was farther north than Wago Stop and it was, as Brute described it to me, yet another worthless suburb of Little Warchestnut. Little Warchestnut, he said, was a "non-aligned, non-territory, non-governed trade hub for the NCR." Whatever that meant. The town was called, unimaginatively, named 'Town'. I decided that the name fit it. A single street ran down the center of it with business entrances opening up onto it on either side. Little apartments were built on top of them. Ponies wandered around on the street, doing their business, each with, at the very least, a pistol on their side. I couldn't see any NCR soldiers in uniform though. "Wait here," Brute said. He left me by the saloon and trotted to the whorehouse. There several mares welcomed him in. I was unsure why my companion would choose to do that now. Weren't we supposed to be looking for our contact who might or might not have been still alive? Having absolutely nothing useful to do, I decided to get out of the burning sun and go in the saloon for a drink. It was smoky smelling. Dust glittered in the air when it fell through beams of light that came through cracks in the wooden walls. I sat down at the bar and tapped the counter. A little pegasus buck, maybe just a year or three older than Martyr, trotted over to me. "What's your best drink?" I asked. I figured that while I was there I might as well buy something. That box of caps in my saddlebag wasn't going to spend itself, after all. He shrugged. "Ma likes wine, Pa likes gin. Get whatchever ya' like, we got everythin." "I'll have a beer, then, thanks." He grabbed a bottle out of the icebox beneath the counter (how'd they get ice in a desert, anyways?) and bit off the top. He snatched an only slightly chipped mug from the shelf behind him with his wings and poured the contents of the bottle into the mug. A bit of foam spilled over the side. "It's on the house," he said, "New-in-towners always get a first drink free. Ma's policy, not Pa's. Not the LW's neither." I nodded. "Thanks." He returned the nod and went back to whatever he'd been doing before. I'd gotten about a third of the way through my drink when the mare at the other end of counter changed seats to be next to me. "Name's Vi. Short for Violet Honey Punch," she said. I didn't pay too much attention to her. I didn't really feel like getting to know anypony new that day. "You?" "Fall." "Nice to meet ya', Fall. Always nice to see new faces ‘round here." "Mmhmm." I kept sipping my beer, only half paying attention. "So what brings ya' to Town? Business or pleasure? Pleasure's always a choice, though, of course." "Looking for somepony, so business." I didn't really know who the pony I was looking for was, but that didn't matter. "You came in with Vocational Brute, right?" "Oh, so you know him?" Ah, of course I do! Brute's a great buck. Big too. Always tips well. Glad to see him in Town, so I decided I'd meet his friend. Is he here on business too? Cause it looks like he's already made time for some pleasure. I might just go visiting him later." "Oh," I replied. Then my mind finally clicked those separate thought together. "Oh, so you're a whore?" She clicked her tongue and laughed. "Yes," she replied, "and no. We prefer 'paid company.' Sounds nicer that way." "Oh, and Brute visits you often?" "Didn't I just say that?" she asked playfully, batting her long, fluttery eyelashes. "You can visit me too some time, if you want. Here," she pulled a small piece of paper from nowhere, "take my card." I looked at it on the table. 'Vi Punch, paid company, best in TOWN' it said in scratchily written letters. "Costs vary, depending what ya' want of course." I didn't want to be rude so I tucked the card into my right saddlebag where, blasphemously, it fell next to the holy book I was carrying. I said, "Thanks. I'll keep you in mind if I ever come back," but didn't really mean it. I'd sort of expected Brute and Prophetess to have been really holy ponies or something, holed away in a cave like that. I guess my perception could be wrong sometimes. Brute entered the bar, wings folded to his side. "Hello, Violet," he said. "Hi Vocational. Nice to see you again!" she hopped off her barstool and trotted next to him, swishing her tail across his chest. "Looking forward to seeing you later. Bring your friend if you want." And with that she left. "I have ascertained the location of our contact," Brute informed me. Finishing off the last of my beer, I dropped my hooves to the floor. "Great," I said, "Where are they?" It turned out our contact was staying on the floor directly above the saloon. He was a red unicorn stallion my age or a little older with a purple mane. He was asleep on a mattress without sheets, a trail of drool dripping from one side of his mouth, the end of a cigarette hanging out the other, and two mares with smudged make-up sleeping curled up next to him. I felt unimpressed with this contact. I had trouble seeing how this buck would get me an alliance with the NCR. "Fall," Brute said, "meet Solon, our tribe's ambassador.” Footnote: 50% to Next Level Quest Perk: Are You Feeling Alright?: Hey, Fall, are you sure you’re thinking straight? (Thanks go to Kkat for FO:E original, just like always. Also as usual, thanks are sent out OkiiNovice, oki_all_day, and primepersephony for being all around awesome dudes. Also, if it is indeed’ appropriate to call my readers fans, I have to thank y’all for being the best fans in the world for being the most patient bunch of fan-fic connoisseurs in the world. Y’all’re some handsome, badass people and you should feel good ‘bout yerselves. This is the first chapter of Book Two by the way. Next chapter coming... eventually.) What Would Have Been Chapter 9 But Is Instead The Last ChapterFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 9: I'm Okay "Madam Chairpony Fluttershy, thank you for your kindness towards the wayward children of the Equestrian Wasteland." Med-X and Mint-Als are really good. I haven't felt this clear in a long, long time. I probably wouldn't even be able to write my story (my gift, how ridiculous that sounds now) without those chems. Friends supply me. It's awfully nice of them, considering they'd be charged with trafficking if they got caught. They don't say much to me though. They just stuff the needles and tablets into a gap behind a brick and leave. I miss them. Takes a lot of the stuff to get lucid enough to write. Some ponies say I'll turn any day now, but I think they're wrong. They don't know me. They don't see the world the way I can. I hurt all the time. Do they still keep in touch with you? What about her? Does she ever mention me? Wait, of course not. I can feel the buzz wearing down really fast now. I'd best get to writing the story. It's a really important chapter. I might see you soon. ~~I felt lightheaded when I saw her, unable to fully believe what my eyes showed me. It couldn’t be her. I’d watched her die. I was with her, only a meter or two away, when I saw the bullet from the slaver’s gun turn her features to paste.~~ ~~But there she was. She sat at the bar, pistol strapped to her left foreleg, scoped hunting rifle slung across her back, barding scratched and bloody but newer than what she’d had before, sipping whiskey straight from the bottle.~~ No, I'm remembering out of order again. "Solon," Brute said as he nudged the sleeping buck's face with his hoof, "wake up." Solon continued to sleep. He started making loud snoring noises. The mares sleeping next barely stirred. One of them yawned without opening her eyes. I wondered why any buck would want to sleep with two mares at the same time. Wouldn’t that be a bit crowded in such a small bed? “Wake up, Solon,” Brute said again. The alicorn’s horn glowed, wrapping the mattress in a glowing magical field. He flipped the mattress over, sending Solon and his two mare friends onto the dusty floor. "The fuck was that...!" the buck started to scream, but when he opened his eyes and saw Brute, "Oh, hi again, you big ol' pain in the flank!" "Hello as well, Solon," Brute replied. I could see disdain for Solon in Brute's eyes. I didn't know where it came from. "Ughhh..." moaned one of the mares. The other one was still asleep. Solon smiled and spat the cigarette butt that had gotten stuck in his mouth onto the floor. He raised himself to his hooves and walked past me and Brute to get to a bottle of whiskey set on its side on a small table against the far wall. His horn glowed as he lifted and uncapped the bottle, pouring some of the dark gold liquid into a short glass which he twirled, and smoothed his mane with his left forehoof. Somehow what his actions made him seem more confident, a buck with a mind of his own doing whatever the hell he wanted to just because he felt like it. "So what can ol' Solon do for you gentlecolts? I assume this isn't just a random visit, am I right?" He sipped from his glass when he finished speaking, his back still turned towards us. “You are correct. I have a task for you...” “Hmmm... How bout no?” “Solon...” The red buck turned around and threw, with as much force as he could, the glass of whiskey at the alicorn’s head. He missed completely and it shattered against the wall. Some of the shards scattered over the mares who were resting on the ground. The one that had groaned earlier, an earth pony, jumped up and shook the glass off her back. She stared wide-eyed at her surroundings before sitting down on the overturned mattress, pressing both forehooves to her face and mumbling “Shit, Solon, what happened last night?” Solon ignored her and kept his attention on Brute. “Fuck you and fuck that burned bitch who owns you! I’m not doing whatever you want cause you think you have some Luna-blessed-shit-stuffing leverage over me! Fuck you!” “It saddens me that you feel that way, Solon,” Brute sighed. I decided to add my own voice to the conversation. "Umm, I'm sorry that we bothered you, but do you think that maybe whatever problem you have with Brute and Prophetess you could put behind you, at least for a little while?" Solon glanced at me, studying me it seemed, for just a moment before returning his gaze to Brute. "Who the fuck is this?" "I'm Fall," I said, depriving Brute of the need to introduce me, "and I was told that you could help me with something." "No." "You don't even know what..." "Fuck off." "Solon," Brute said, "all that we are in need of is your assistance in helping this stallion cross the border and join the army." Wait... I was joining the army? Solon just grunted. It was the awakened mare's turn to speak. "Look," she said, turning her gaze towards us, "I don't know what y'all're arguing about, but I can tell you that I'm not going to have it in my place o' business. Solon, hun, if'n y'all need to discuss whatever work it is that you do with these ponies, please head down to the cellar where the customers can't hear ya." With that ultimatum she stood, gave Solon a peck on the nose, pulled on a shabby, tattered dress that I guess passed for classy clothing in this part of the NCR, and left. Solon hung his head and sighed. "Fine, do you two really want to talk?" I was... joining the army? Why? "Yes, I think we should..." Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that something was missing. "Where did the other mare go?" "What other mare?" I realize now that the other mare had been orange. The cellar was cluttered with booze, papers, and maps. And guns. There were a lot of small guns. Brute was too tall for the room and had to crane his neck down to keep his horn from scraping the ceiling. Solon lit a lantern on the table in the middle of the cellar. In its dim light I saw for the first time a map depicting the vastness of the desert I'd crossed. A red line divided the upper third of the map from the rest of it. Above the red line was the NCR. "Alright, look," Solon said, "like I said before, nopony owns me, not like you, alicorn. If you really do need my help I'm going to need either a really compelling reason or a fuck-load of caps and I know that you ain't got caps. So there it is, your choice." I still wasn't sure why we needed this buck to help me get an alliance. "The tyrants are calling," was all Brute said. Solon's expression changed immediately. His eyes got wide and his right hind leg started shaking. The self-confident swagger he'd had earlier was gone. "Oh, sweet Celestia's..." He stopped his curse short, almost as if he couldn't find the words to complete it. "Are you serious?" "I am." Solon chewed on his lower lip. I wasn't sure what was happening. "Umm, I'm sorry," I interjected, "but would you mind telling me what 'the tyrants are calling' is supposed to mean?" Solon took out a pre-war cigar from a drawer in the desk and lit it with a small incendiary spell. He stuck it in the side of his mouth and said, "It means each and every one of us who ain't with the NCR but ain't with LW either might be royally--or should I say, democratically--fucked beyond all chance of survival." "How so?" "Every corner of the goddess-damned world is at war right now, kid. Now just imagine if all those wars moved in right on top of us." He chewed on the end of the cigar. "That is an incorrect description, Solon," Brute replied. "What do you mean, every war moving in on us?" This sounded bad, but it didn't make much sense. Solon looked at me, and then back to Brute. "This kid doesn't know about the Legion?" "You mean the bunch of raiders that attack refugee camps and burn the inhabitants for sacrifices?" I asked sarcastically, "Yeah, I've heard of them." My mind went back to that last remaining soldier in Wago Stop, half out of his mind and desperate. "The fuck are you talking about? Refugee..." Solon's eyes got wide. "Wago Stop? That shithole? Did something happen there?!" "Indeed," replied Brute. "Yeah, the sick Legion freaks killed everypony," I added. Brute shook his head. "You are incorrect, Fall." "What the fuck do you mean the Legion killed everypony in Wago Stop?" Solon asked, worry... or was it fear?... coloring his voice. "It was not the Legion." "The soldier there said it was!" I protested. Brute sighed. "The same soldier who was missing half his face and more than half of his mind? Fall, you must learn to find more credible sources. What we saw there was the work of the Steel Rangers, of which, I realize now, he was one. Did you not notice that the tents themselves were still intact, along with the bedrolls? The Legion would have taken those." I tilted my head. The conversation had lost me. Sensing my confusion, Brute explained. "The Legion is poor and would have salvaged the tents and bedding. Only some of the corpses would have been burned and others would be hung from wooden poles to mark the town as Legion territory. In addition to that, the Legion has only attacked raider and slaver settlements for the past year and a half. The 'soldier' was a plant in the NCR military by the Steel Rangers, which could be discovered by glancing at the brand on the inside of his right foreleg. He was there to look as though he were a victim while monitoring hoof traffic along the road north." I was even more confused than I had been a moment ago. Who were the Steel Rangers? "Dead? There was an attack?!" Solon worried, "Oh shit, oh fuck, oh fuck fuck fuck! My contacts! My papers!" Brute levitated a folder from his saddlebags. "These papers?" Solon snatched them out of his grip. He dumped them onto the floor and began sifting through them until he found a piece of paper with a raised seal depicting a rising sun with crossed rifles above it and a coffee stain on the upper right corner. The print on the page was really small and there was a squiggly signature at the bottom. He let out a big sigh of relief. "Fuck. Thanks," he said. My head was buzzing with questions. The loaders one bubbled to the surface. "Brute?" "Yes?" "How do you know all that about the Legion?" Solon answered instead. "Because we are Legionnaires." Trust is for the weak. Mag taught me that. That belief of her's was vindicated in the end. I should've listened to Solon also. He warned me about the north. Everything is a deathtrap off base. You can't even trust the ponies you thought you could. Everything I learn I learn the hard way. It's kinda fucked up. I'm sorry, Celestia. There was nothing I coulda done. "Here's the plan. I've used it a shit ton of times to do exactly what we're doing here so don't try to find holes in the plan ‘cause they're already patched." Solon was explaining the process of getting me across the border semi-legally. Apparently there was a process to it beyond just crossing over an imaginary line. He had spread out a grid covered map held down at each corner by empty gin bottles. "First, we've gotta get you past the border guards. Now, these schlubs aren't the brightest of the army but they're usually pretty vigilant when it comes to their job, so we need a way to get past them so that they only see me and not you," he explained. "Why not just go around the border guards?" I asked. "Shut up. What we're gonna do is go up through the highway east of north LW and I'll hitch us a ride with the local produce convoy that travels on that road every week. Day after tomorrow, actually, is the next one. I'll chat 'em up and you hide yourself under a pile of lettuce or something and I'll push a few caps their way to let me ride. I'll hop off and tap the back of the cart two times to give you the signal to hop out once we got ourselves past the border and 'bout halfway to Camp Garden Tiller." "But why not just go around the border guards?" I asked again, a little annoyed that he hadn't answered me the first time. He rolled his eyes. "Because if we go around them we go around the roads to. We don't want to do that." "Why?" "Radscorpions and shit, now pay attention. When we get to Camp Garden Tiller I'm going to need you to wait on the shaded side of the outside wall, so since that would be 'round 'leven o'clock you'd want to be on the..." He stuck his tongue out and glanced up. "...west side, which is where this one old pissant is always tryin' to sell sandwiches so if you're hungry I suggest you buy one 'cause it's gonna be late by the time you reach your destination. Now, if anypony ask you why you're loiterin' around just tell 'em you forgot your ID on base and a friend is talking to the desk monkeys to nab you a new one, got it? Then after that we are gonna go south to the bus station, just about a block away. The bus'll take us to Camp Steelhooves. Questions?" I raised my hoof. "Yes?" "What's a bus?" I asked. "Shut up," he snapped, "Dooya have any non-stupid question?" "What's so important at Camp Steelhooves?" "Our contact is there." "I thought you were my contact." "I'm middle management. The drywall, the support beams, a desk clerk, a glorified armed guard, a paper pusher, a grunt who can waltz off base and get piss drunk when they want. Kapeesh? I'm just the pony to help you get to where you need to go and that just happens to be where Sergeant Bloodfire is. Ol' Bloody is the one who can really pull strings on that base, get what I'm saying?" I scratched at the dented barding covering my bruise. "Yeah, I guess I can understand that." I put my hoof down and looked at Brute, who'd been quiet for a while, resting with his legs curled under him by a shelf on the far wall. "Will Brute be coming with us?" "Dooya think Brute could hide under a bunch vegetables? Really? Come on, be serious." Brute cleared his throat. "It would be unwise in my case to cross the border. I am currently not welcome in NCR territory." "Ha, you're a little more than not welcome, you stupid fuck!" Solon said with a wink. "When we get to Camp Steelhooves," I asked, "are you going to stay with me a while? I might need some help learning how things work on an army base." "Eenope," he said sarcastically, "You're on yer own after you meet Ol' Bloody. I've got this place to worry about. I'm too happy living the quiet family life with a mare who thinks I'mma buck worth lovin' and a colt who sees me like the father he never met. Nope," he repeated, "I used to run with the killers, but not anymore." The bar had a porch. Did I mention that? And by had I really do mean had. But at the time it and the rest of Town were intact. I walked out on the porch to get some fresh air and to get away from Solon's persistent whiny yammering. Life had made me tired. I was sick of all this, the quest, the violence. I don't intend to sound weak but I wanted very strongly to go home. My tribe was under attack and I wanted to be there for them, not here in the north. I complain too much. You don’t want to read the rambling complaints and anxiety of an old, slowly dying buck who can barely keep his head on right without chems. I’m sorry. In fact, if I hold any respect in your eyes, you should probably just stop now. Things only get worse from here. How could I, a simple mining pony, be the cause of so much death? I don’t know. Somepony more of a historian than I will ever be will probably put things into perspective one day. But I am getting off topic. I walked out on the porch to get some fresh air and to get away from Solon's persistent whiny yammering. There was something I didn’t like about Solon. It wasn’t his persistent use of the word “fuck” or his slimy attitude and his over-self-confidence, it was just... him. He bothered me. His accent got under my skin and crawled around. The idea that he was helping to raise that little colt who was controlling the bar when I arrived worried me also. The idea of sneaking into the territory of a faction that so far hadn’t really impressed me was troubling me too. The NCR... all I’d seen them do was show weakness in the south. They’d let the Major Doctor, one of their own, be stuck in a slave trader’s market until they bought her out! And what about Martyr? If that attack had been launched earlier Martyr ~~might still be alive right now~~ would be travelling north with me stillIf that attack had been launched earlier Mint-Als. A Safe, Natural Alternative to Harmful Mental Stimulants! Caution: Can cause dependency, itching, swelling of the left-rear-fetlock area, eloquence, lucid dreaming, susceptibility to addiction to other chemical substances (including but not limited to: alcohol, paint fumes, duct-tape adhesive, anabolic steroids, Med-X, sheep’s milk), excessive charisma... I was the only one on the porch. The sun had passed its high point and the day was half over. It was still hot outside though. The ponies I’d seen walking around earlier had all retreated inside, except for three of the prostitutes across the street who, modestly, wore nothing and were fanning themselves with bits of old NCR newspaper. The bruise under my barding ached acutely as I rested. The axe by my side felt weighted. My father once told me that a warrior's weapon always felt heavier before it needed to be used. I hoped that I wouldn't have need of it too soon. I examined my PipBuck. I wondered what the matter was with it in regard to its mechanical failure. I suspected that some pony in the north, across the border, could give me an answer. Uncomfortable. Yes, uncomfortable was how I really felt about the whole thing. Why was it important for me to join the army? Who was this "Bloodfire" stallion? How did any of this help my tribe? What was this band of "Legion" raiders (if they were, indeed, raiders) actually do, and how did they tie into what I was doing? If Brute was with the Legion, did that mean that Prophetess was with them as well? Why was Solon so disconcerting to be in the presence of? My trail of thought was shattered by the arrival of a friend. An old friend. But at the same time, a friend I never would have wished to see. "Hey, kid." I turned toward the voice. My jaw plummeted to my chest and my eyes went wide as grenade-launcher rounds. "How've you been? Any of my advice work out for you?" said the dark mare. A sniper rifle was slung across her back. She wore no barding, but her side was impaled by a metal pole that went straight through her and appeared to be causing her no pain, so perhaps that counted for something. I wasn't sure of the proper way to respond. I should have said 'Hi, nice to see you again' or 'Thanks for saving my life all those weeks ago' or maybe even 'In the name of the holy goddesses and all that is sacred, what the fuck happened to you?' but instead I said nothing. "What," she asked, "nothing? No 'how've you been?' or 'are you hurt?' or maybe just 'hello'?" I stutteringly said, "Hello." What had she really expected me to say? She had been no real help to me once I had left the Ghost Lands. If she had stayed with me, escorted me north, maybe I could have avoided all of the pain and suffering I had found. "Well, now that we've got minor formalities and salutations out of the way," she gestured to the pole in her side, "mind helping me out? I can't quite reach it." The north-west edge of Little Warchestnut was grimy looking. I saw NCR soldiers and civilians lying, passed out drunk, in the gutters. Some of who I presumed were locals joined them. Every building was brown and defaced by graffiti. Doors and shutters hung off their hinges. We passed a building that was a burned out set of walls missing a roof. I was not very impressed. Why, I wondered, would any government, connected to a country or a tribe or anything, let its citizens live in such awful conditions? It didn't even look like any real standards of quality were being enforced. I saw a zebra in a suit laying in a gutter, passed out, with his hoof around a mule whose throat had been slashed open messily. My stomach lurched at the sight and I cringed as I fought the urge to vomit. I had seen some bad shit, but that dead mule and the passed out zebra just gave such an air of casualness to death that it made the whole city seem extra sick and fucked up. I looked to Sergeant Bloodfire. He seemed completely unfazed by the disgusting conditions of the neighborhood. I guess seeing it before had made him less sensitive to it. "The general store is just about a half a block away," he said. I nodded. Strangely, it was then that I noticed my new NCR MP service dress uniform wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as I'd expected when I first saw it. "Absolutely Everything - North LW Branch" (the general store we'd been seeking) was (relatively) more impressive than the buildings we'd been walking past for the last quarter of an hour. The door was covered in chipping red paint and the window to the left of it had been replaced with cardboard, but all the shutters seemed to still be attached which placed it higher on the niceness scale than just about everything around it. The sign could've definitely benefitted from some touching up. As a place to stay, it seemed promising, at least from the outside. "Well," the sergeant said, "shall we?" "Yeah. I could use a rest," I replied. We walked inside (the lock was unlocked) and stood on a floor mat that proudly said "WELCOME" and had a picture of a smiling pegasus without any hair and a bad skin condition (for some reason I didn’t immediately think “ghoul”) with eyes going opposite directions. The walls and shelves were lined with odds and ends, gears and (familiar looking) spark batteries, canned foods and glass-bottled drinks, gizmos and stuff that could only be described as "stuff", all of it covered in a thin film of gray dust. Some of the dust launched into the air as I wiped my hooves on the floor mat and I sneezed hard enough to make my ears pop. "Hey, Cram, you here?" the sergeant called, his tilted slightly up towards the top of the staircase at the back of the general store. I heard a crash come from above us and a mare's voice saying the words "Celestia damn you, you fucking boxes!" and then another crash, followed by an "eep" of pain. "Yeah," the sergeant whispered to me, "she's here." Within a minute I saw the shape of a pony materialize at the top of the stairs. She walked down... no, glided down the steps, wings half opened, and then trotted between shelves towards us. Her coat was a dark cranberry color and her mane was the color of eggshells, a soft white. She wore an apron streaked with stains of rust and other things that make stains. And, by Luna's infinite mercy, she looked so familiar! "Do you have a passport?" the border guard asked the cart owner. The cart's owner grunted and shuffled some papers around. "Eyop," he said in affirmation, a weird accent leaking into his speech. One of the Brahmin heads mooed and the other said "Shut up. I'm hungered too. We'll get som' food later." The guard snorted and then said "And you?", a question directed at Solon. "Well, ya see," my companion explained, "you even asking me that is illegal." I heard the rustle of paper once again. There was a short pause, during which I guessed the border guard was reading. "So?" he asked. My nose itched under the hay. "Diplomatic immunity and protection against search and seizure of property." Solon's voice sounded mildly slimy. "So?" repeated the border guard. "So you need to let me an my friend here with the cart across the border. This paper is just as good as a passport." "Oh," replied the guard, "Okay then. Lemme just check the cart for contraband, standard procedure and all, you understand..." "What part of 'protection against search and seizure of property' do you not get?" "Huh?" "You can't search the cart." "But I have to. It's the standard." "But you can't." "But if you have contraband in the cart..." Solon suddenly sounded indignantly angry. "I am insulted at the very suggestion, private!" "But I'm just following..." "Fine, search away," Solon sneered, "but know that your superiors will hear of this!" "B-b-but I..." the border guard sputtered. "Fine. Go. Just forget I said anything." I pictured Solon wearing a huge grin just then. "Thank you, private," He replied, "I am glad that I could convince you to listen to reason... and the law." The cart lurched forward and I heard the border guard, just a few yards or so from me, mutter "Oh, Gawd, I'm gonna get so much crap for this." "There he is," Solon said, pointing to the uniformed stallion sitting behind the desk against the far right wall. I nodded, I guess as a way to acknowledge that I saw him. Solon nudged me. "Go talk to him." "About what?" I asked. "I don't know," Solon replied, rolling his eyes, "You need something, right? And that something requires you to join the army, right? Well, he's a detailing sergeant. It's his job to right orders for ponies who've been 'transferred' from one base to another." He nudged me again. "Go." I snorted. Goddesses be good, none of this made any sense! I walked to the front of his desk and asked, timidly, "Detailing Sergeant Bloodfire?" "That’s me," he said, not even bothering to look up from the levitated book he was reading. It was a thick paperback book with the title 'The Naval High-Seas Adventures of Hayseed Hoopspinner' and a very creased spine. The detailing sergeant looked probably twice my age, but maybe a little less than that. His golden coat looked dulled from age. Gray strands stood out against his red mane. His body looked like he had once been a strong warrior but had let that go a little by taking a job that made him sit around a lot. His face had was a little creased as if to match the spine of his book. I already knew I was talking to the right pony because Solon had told me, but I pretended to act relieved at finding the correct detailing sergeant because it felt a little less awkward. "Oh, well that’s good. Nice to meet you. I’m..." He interrupted me. "What d’ya need, civvy?" he asked, bringing down his book so he could peer over the top of it, his voice tinged with annoyance. "Actually, why are you even in my office?" I was in an office? I thought he just had a desk. "Your marefriend get deployed to some eastern shithole? You here to try and get her orders changed? Well, I gotta tell you that I see a lot of ponies like you trying to get orders adjusted and..." I had no idea what he was talking, so I decided it was my turn to interrupt. "Umm, no. I'm here because, umm..." My mind went slightly blank as I grasped for the words Brute had told me to say. "Crap, what was that code phrase... uh, 'what you did for me was a very kind gesture.' Yeah, that was it." His eyes widened and brightened. He gently folded down the corner of a page in his book and set it down in an already opened drawer. "Oh. Ooooh, so you’re that buck then. Well, it’s certainly good to finally meet you." He had heard of me? Had Brute told him about me? Or Prophetess? "Your name wouldn’t happen to be Fall, would it?" "It is," I answered. “Well then, So, tell me again, exactly why you did... what you did. Why do you care? Well, I do care. That’s what matters. It’s my job to understand the minds of those who... I don’t have any reason to trust you. Do you have a reason to trust anypony? You’re a wanted stallion and there are plenty who would not be willing to give you due process. You certainly chose a... gruesome method for your work. I... Look, Iron, I want to help you. I don’t have a hidden agenda or some reason to be lying to you, it’s just my nature to need to help ponies! You’ve seen my cutie-mark, you know I’m telling the truth. A scalpel can cut for more than one reason. What does “the tyrants are calling” mean? What? We found it written a hundred times on the underside of your mattress. I don’t... What is that?! Oh, don’t be alarmed. It’s just a little gizmo the army came up with to help soldiers suffering from psychological trauma. Soldiers like you. I’m not suffering from... Yes... yes you are. Yes... yes I am... I’m sorry for doubting you, Ma’am. I always knew you had my best intere... Shhhhh... Rest easy, soldier. You’ve got a long trip ahead of you. “What?” “The bar,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, kid, I’m no unicorn and my neck doesn’t exactly stretch that far.” “Oh.” I tentatively reached my jaw to grab the pole jutting from the dark mare’s side. “Alright,” she said, way too calm for what I was about to do, “when I say go, you yank that fucker out, got it?” I nodded. “Okay. One, two, three, go!” I yanked that fucker out and let it clatter to the floor, thunking hollowly against the boards. Following the pole came an ugly green ooze of some unnatural sludge that really didn’t seem like it should have come from a pony. The smell of it, or lack of smell rather, made me feel a little sick. The dark mare showed no pain, exhaling slowly as though she’d just managed to remove a tiny splinter that had bothered her for a few days. let’s get your paperwork in order and get you set up with a good story,” He glanced at my barding. “and get you a uniform.” “What’s wrong with the armor I have?” He smirked and tilted his head. “Well, you know, the NCR may be a bit more... shall we say, standardized? Than what you’re used to.” “Hmm...” That sounded true. And this is how I became Iron Heart, Corporal, NCRA Military Policepony. I was transferred from Appleloosa Auxiliary Reserve Command where I had patrolled the streets, finding criminals and keeping other military ponies from violating some set of laws called the Standardized Code of Equestrian Military Justice or SCEMJ. As it was customary when arriving at a new command post, the sergeant outfitted me with a Class-A dress uniform. It was a deep, dark green high collar coat made of wool with a black stripe running down either side. On the front of the right shoulder was a sewn-on patch depicting two slanted gold stripes next to a shield. This patch was apparently what made me a corporal. The sergeant gave me several little pieces of multicolor cloth pasted to thin bits of metal. He said they were awards for... something, I forget what they meant. Except for one of them. One was for being wounded in combat. I put on a set of boots. He said Military Policeponies wore sand colored boots in their dress uniforms instead of fancy pony-shoes. Hat, or “cover” as he called it, came last. It was a red thing made of a soft fabric, a beret he said, that sloped over my ear to the left so that it felt lopsided. A silver shield shaped badge was pinned to the front. And when I put on the uniform I had a strange feeling. A new name, a new look, a new story... I could feel the old me, the real me, being buried. “Oh, you’re back,” she said. A half-smile wormed its way across her face. Bloodfire smiled in return. “Yes, it would appear that way. I brought a friend.” “I can see that.” She turned away from us and trotted to a small table by the big counter on the left side of the store. “So how much trouble is this one in?” “None,” he replied, and with a smirk added, “believe it or not.” “Sooo...” Her voice trailed off, “He’s here because...” “Because he’ll be of import to us later. For now, he just needs a place to stay.” The mare turned her eyes on me. “You’re letting yourself get pulled into his crazy schemes, you know, right?” I shrugged. “Can’t end me up in a worse place than I was before.” Before Solon and I left for the border Brute pulled me aside. “When you meet the sergeant,” he said, “tell him 'what you did for me was a very kind gesture.' That is the codephrase you must use to let him know I sent you.” “Your bed is in this room. It’s the one on the right hoof side, third from the wall. You might want to change the sheets, though. Last mare who used that bed brought over a lot o’ smelly ghoul hookers.” I nodded, outwardly showing no emotion, or at least attempting not to show any excitement. Inside, I was jumping for joy like a young buck getting their first warrior stripes painted on. A bed? A real bed all to myself? After all the time I spent in the desert, in the slave camp, I had a place to stay with a real roof and a real mattress and real food! "Breakfast is at seven, but since you'll be working on base you should check out the chow hall schedule. I guess Bloody is going to show you around your first day." She looked to my new employer. "That right?" He nodded and she continued. "If you need something, ask for it. If I find any shit missing from my store I know who to blame. You're the only pony staying here right now who I don't know much about." I nodded. "So what should I do while I wait to... to do whatever it is Military Policeponies do?" She shrugged. "Most of the ponies who stay here don't do much of anything. There're casinos and stuff downtown, but you don't exactly look like the most cap-loaded of ponies." She shrugged again, as though she perceived the act of shrugging needing reiteration. "The Church of the Lightbringer has a chapter up the street if you're the religious type, and there's a cheap saloon down the street if you ain't." The Lightbringer. I'd heard that name before. The pony who saved Equestria or something like that. I felt the need to learn more. "If that's all I need to get back to work arranging the attic," she said, "Feel free to settle in and get comfortable. Dinner's at eight, er, twenty hundred. Whatever." She turned to leave, heading with folded wings toward the ladder coming from the ceiling. Bloodfire seemed to have mysteriously vanished. "Wait," I said as I suddenly realized I'd forgotten something important. She stopped and turned her head. "What is it?" "I didn't get your name." She smiled slightly. "It's Cramberry, but everypony calls me Cram. You?" "Fall... I mean, Iron. It's nice to meet you, Cram." "Nice to meet you too, Fall, Iron, whatever." Authors note: I’m not going to finish this fic. I have completely lost interest in it and it depresses me to look at it. However, I thought that if anyone wanted to look at what I had written for chapter nine before I gave up then it would only be fair to post it. Anyway, I’ve learned my lesson: never, ever, ever attempt an experimental fan fic your first time around. Ever. Thanks for the support I got from those of y’all who actually liked this crap. If you’re interested, I’m working on a new fic that may or may not be a one-shot. Adios! PrologueWar. War never changes. In the months leading up to the great conflict between Zebras and Ponies that destroyed the land of Equestria, the great seers of the buffalo tribes predicted the end of days. After warning the ponies in the city of Appleoosa of their nation's demise, they traveled south to The Ghost Lands, a realm of valleys and canyons that had been their home a thousand years before their migration to Equestria. When the War began, some unicorns and earth ponies remembered the warning and left to join the buffalo. While not directly hit by balefire and megaspells, ponies and buffalo were nevertheless forced to escape the fallout and ambient magical radiation produced by the war's violent end by seeking refuge in vast cave networks. When they emerged a hundred years later, they had formed separate societies and culture. In some of these new tribes, ponies and buffalo were equal. In others, they were not. These differences led to conflicts. Now only two major tribes, the Fire Hairs and the White Hooves, vie for complete control of the ever dwindling farming and stampeding grounds of The Ghost Lands, neither being able to gain the upper hoof. To the far north a new nation has sprung up. The New Canterlot Republic, a country made possible by the sacrifices of the mysterious Stable Dweller, the Elements of Harmony, and the Gardens of Equestria, was founded on the principals of hope, forgiveness, and restoration, though it also has enemies. Both tribes were contacted by ambassadors of the young New Canterlot Republic and now the leader of the White Hooves, Chief Sand Horns, seeks an alliance. For that, however, he needs an ambassador of his own. The road north is filled with hazards both environmental and sentient. One pony will be sent to brave the dangers posed by the land and inhabitants of the Southern Equestrian Wasteland, a place where war never changes. Fallout: Equestria: Honest Herds
Chapter 1: The AmbassadorFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 1: The Ambassador “The Ghost Lands may not be lost to us, after all...” In the White Hooves we have a saying: "Your greatest gift to the tribe is your story." If that's the truth, then in all my time growing up in the tribe I must have never have had much of a gift to give. But that’s all changed. My tribe grew large and powerful after it left Vile Rock cave. Our ancestors, both pony and buffalo, conquered other tribes and assimilated them into our culture until we had created what tribe historians called a "super tribe." Little did our ancestors know that on the other side of the river that divides the Ghost Lands in half, another tribe, the Fire Hairs, had done the same. While we desired peace we soon found that they were too different from us to coexist. In their tribe earth ponies and buffalo were subservient to unicorns holding them under the sway of their magic. We're now at war. Several years ago trader ponies from the north began visiting our tribe, and about one year ago two ponies who said they were ambassadors visited both sides of the river. They said they were scouts for some tribe called the New Canterlot Republic. One, a unicorn called Sergeant Bloodfire, came to us, spoke about the new and restored magical land our ancestors had escaped before balefire and dark magic consumed the world, and then left. The other scout was an earth pony who visited the Fire Hairs instead, and we never heard what happened to her, though we expected either slavery or death. But enough about the tribe, I'm going to talk about myself now. My name is Fall Hammer-heart. I have a dad, a mom and three sisters. I'm the only earth pony in my family, the rest being unicorns. It sucked being the only one without magic because this excluded me from the one job the males in my family had always performed, the one job I really desired: being a thought-travel scout. Instead, like many other untalented earth ponies and buffalo, I was stuck with a late-shift job in the mines. All I did all day for five years was swing a pickaxe at a wall of ore deposits. I'd gotten so good at breaking rocks apart I discovered that, despite how much I disliked it, swinging a pick is my special talent. You can probably guess what my cutie mark is. But don't get me wrong. Even though I hated my lot in life at least I was safe and I knew my family was safe. Not like now. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm Fall, and this is my gift. My shift ended late that night. I was tired, covered in dust, and all I wanted to do was sleep when I got back to my family’s cabin.The walk back from the mine was always tiring after a long days work. I meandered down the path to Iron Hide, the village my family and I resided in. Iron Hide is the newest village in our tribe’s half of the Ghost Lands. It was built because of the large amount of ore in the canyon walls nearby. The Chief relocated his camp here so that he could oversee our mining operations. When I arrived home I attempted to open the door quietly to avoid waking everyone up. As I said, it was late. To my surprise I found my mom and sisters still awake, sitting at the table, sipping fan-root tea. I noticed that my dad wasn’t there. First question. “Hey, mom,” I said, “why are you all still awake?” “Oh, Fall, your home,” she responded, apparently surprised I'd gotten back, “We’re waiting for your father to get home, that’s all.” Second question. “Well, um, where is he?” My youngest sister, Cactus Flower, jumped in before mom could speak. “The Chief has dad working on some scouting thingies. He said something about that unicorn who came here from that republic place last year.” Mom glared at her for her interrupting, “Oh, sorry.” That was enough information for me. It was late, I was tired, and I didn’t feel like talking anymore. “Well, I’m going to hit the hay,” I announced, “Good night, see you all tomorrow.” “Good night, Fall,” they all replied sort-of in unison, with an extra “Luna and the ancestors bless you,” thrown in by my mother. And with that I shrugged off my saddle bags by the door and fell into my pile of hay by the far right wall, and drifted off into a well earned sleep. Little did I know it would be the last time I slept at home. The last night I would spend together with my family. I woke up the next day to the frantic clatter of hooves and my older sister, Stream, yelling at me. “Wake up, Fall, wake up!” It felt early. I glanced out the window at the sun. It was early. My shift didn’t start for another five hours at least and I was still tired. I glared at my parent's favorite with all the hate I could muster in the morning. “Why, in the name of the Goddesses and all that is holy," I said through gritted teeth, “are you yelling at me? What could possibly be so important that it can’t wait till later, when I normally get up?” “The Chief is calling everyone in the tribe to a meeting,” she answered, still yelling, “It’s about something important. Now get up and make yourself look presentable!” She was smiling. I think she enjoyed forcing me to wake up early. “Tell him I’m busy,” I groaned sarcastically and rolled away from her. She answered by levitating a bucket of water over and dumping it on me, which made my previously crisp bed of hay uncomfortably soggy. Did I mention that it sucks being the only one without magic? I stood up and let out a long sigh as I shook the water off and walked to the bowl of white paint my mom had set out. I stepped in it to cover my hooves and fetlocks. I never could win arguments with Stream anyways. I finished up painting myself for the day about a few minutes later after applying stripes of white to my nose, ears, and shoulders, which is really hard when you have to hold the brush in your mouth. Applying the tribe’s markings has always been hard for me. At every tribe meeting or special ceremony I seemed to have the distinction of looking the crappiest. “Hurry up, we’re gonna be late!” Cactus Flower shouted with her usual youthful excitement as she ran out the door. She never seemed to miss a chance to look adorable. I, much less excited (the Chief’s speeches were almost always incredibly boring), walked behind the rest of my family at my normal speed. We trotted to the village center. Ponies and buffalo from all corners of our empire were there, standing clustered around their village flag. A cacophony of muttering filled the circle. “I heard that the Fire Hairs crossed the river again,” said a rather fat buffalo mare, to which the unicorn stallion next to her replied, “Not a chance. I live in Sour Branch. If they crossed I would be dead.” “But what if they crossed elsewhere?” “They can’t this time of year.” An earth pony filly joined the conversation saying “My momma said that the Chief is going to cross the river to their side and beat up Salted Corn-Field and her entire army, all by himself!” which her mother responded to by saying “I didn’t say anything like that! Now stop making up...” She was cut off by the sound of our tribes distinctive war trumpet. Two glowing balls of light spun around each other and lifted into the air, then exploded in a shower of multi-colored sparks, eliciting an excited “Ooh,” from the crowd. Tribe meetings usually didn’t include any fanfare. A swirling cloud of smoke appeared in the center of the crowd forcing those standing there to take a few steps back. With a loud pop the smoke cleared and there stood Chief Sand Horns (an old, massive buffalo warrior with scars covering his lower jaw) and Arch-Seer Night Minder (the perpetually tired looking river-green unicorn mare with a blue-gray mane and a cutie mark of a black arrow piercing a cloud). The entire crowd stomped their hooves in applause at the dramatic entrance until the Chief lifted his right fore-hoof to signal a need for silence. Night Minder’s horn glowed and cast a green halo around the Chief’s throat. A volume spell? “FRIENDS, BUFFALO, PONIES, TRIBES PEOPLE!” Yup, definitely a volume spell, “IN THESE DAYS OF TROUBLE, AS WE STRUGGLE TO BETTER OURSELVES AND ANNIHILATE OUR EVIL ENEMIES, WE MUST ALL DO OUR PART FOR THE TRIBE.” Cue applause, then a raised hoof for silence, “WE HAVE SURVIVED MANY YEARS AGAINST THE FIRE HAIRS AND HAVE BECOME STRONGER BECAUSE OF IT.” More applause, then the hoof again, “BUT FOR AS STRONG AS WE ARE, WE CANNOT WIN.” Worried murmuring. What in the Celestia's name was he talking about? “THE ELDERS AND I HAVE STUDIED THE LAND, SCOUTED IT. WE CAN SURVIVE, BUT WE WILL NOT THRIVE AGAINST THE MIGHT OF THE FIRE HAIRS.” Shouts of things like ‘Oh goddesses, it isn’t true!’ and other cries rose up. “UNLESS... UNLESS WE CAN GAIN ALLIES.” Silence. “THE ELDERS AND I HAVE DISCOVERED THE ONE WEAKNESS OF THE ENEMY: THEY ATTACK EVERYONE THEY MEET. WE ARE DIFFERENT!” he motioned to the Arch-Seer to stop the spell, “Last year, an scout from the north came to us and told us of a tribe that seeks the friendship of the White Hooves. They call themselves the New Canterlot Republic. Now I ask for your help.” The crowed whispered to each other. I looked to my right at Stream who turned to me and shrugged. I looked at my dad who was on my left and he just gave me a knowing smile. Of course he knows, I thought, he’s on the elder counsel. “I need one brave buffalo or pony,” the Chief said, “to be my scout.” special emphasis placed on my, “and travel the long and dangerous road north to the land where our ancestors lived two-hundred years ago. I will not anger the ancestors by lying, my their scouts tell me that there is a good chance that whoever goes may not return. I only ask that...” I stopped listening. I knew what he was offering. The Chief was offering an adventure! When I was little my parents told me stories about great ponies in the past visiting places in old Equestria like the Everfree Forest, ponies slaying dragons, ponies vanquishing great evils that threatened to destroy the world. I was told the stories of the great buffalo warriors of ages past in tribal ceremonies. When I was old enough to read religious books like the “Story of the Goddesses” I read of how Celestia and Luna wandered the world and saved it numerous occasions. I grew up always wanting more than a life as a miner, more than an untalented earth pony, more than the tribe could give me. I wanted to be special. I wanted adventure! “...and that is why a volunteer is necessary. Thank you for your time.” the Chief finished his speech and I shot my hoof into the air. “Chief Sand Horns,” I shouted with probably a bit to much enthusiasm and volume, “I will be your scout!” And then everything got awkward. The Chief and the Arch-Seer stared at me. My family stared at me. The entire assembled tribe stared at me. “What in a hell-cave full of Timberwolf shit are you doing?” Stream hissed at me, “Did you listen to anything he just said? Leaving the valley is pretty much instant death, you moron.” “Son, this is a bad idea,” my father whispered. I couldn’t tell whether he meant the Chief’s plan or me being the one to do it. “Chief Sand Horns, I wish to be...” I began saying but was cut off by the Arch-Seer. “Child,” she said in the soft, serene, slow way that she was known for, “you are still young. Let a warrior of the tribe travel instead.” I stomped my hoof, “No, wise one,” I argued while still trying my best to be respectful using the proper form of address, “the tribe needs all its warriors to defend it,” I was really just making up reasons on the fly, “I’m just a common miner. Please, I want to serve my tribe. It is my holy duty, given to me by the ancestors." They couldn't argue with that. The Arch-Seer and the Chief glanced at each other. The Chief shrugged, then turned back to face me. “Miner,” he commanded, “come forward.” The Arch-Seer teleported the Chief and I back to the War Hall (which is a pretty jarring and uncomfortable sensation if you’ve never teleported before), and I found myself standing in front of a very large and very incomplete map. The Ghost Lands occupied about a quarter of it. The rest was blank. “So, what now?” I asked. “Now you learn what we truly ask of you.” the Chief sighed. He pointed to the far corner of the room, “You may explain,” he said to no one. No, not no one. A shadowy earth pony mare with a jet black coat, a jet black mane, and jet black eyes with a cutie mark that looked like a big green mushroom emerged from the darkness. She was the freakiest pony I’d ever seen. She stared straight in my eyes, as if studying me, causing me to look away. She addressed the Chief and Arch-Seer. “This is who you’re sending?” Ooh, that hurt. “He volunteered, yes,” Night Minder answered defensively, “and no heart is stronger than that of a volunteer.” The dark pony walked closer, put a hoof under my chin, and turned my head from side to side. She was really cold. I took a step back. She stepped back also. “Well, kid, listen now and listen good. I’m from out there, the Wastes, beyond this little paradise ya’ll’ve got here and if you ain’t prepared for the shit the Wasteland will throw at you then I can guarantee that your gonna get your Goddess damned head blasted off, got it?” She yelled at me. Her words carried such vehemence that I felt like I’d been trampled by the entire tribe. Goddesses, could it really be that bad out there and that good in here? I straightened myself up and stared down at her after I got a grip on myself. I cleared my throat. “Well then,” I retorted, trying to act the part of the tough buck, “teach me how to survive.” She smiled smuggly. “Fine,” she turned to face the map, and pointed to the northern boundary of the valley with her hoof , “What your leader hasn’t mentioned to you is that your tribe is surrounded by your enemy, those Fire Hair unicorns and their mind-controlled drones.” I’m screwed, I’m screwed, I’m screwed..., “Fortunately for you, I scouted their camps and this one right here,” she pointed at a place on the map, “has fewer warriors than the rest,” maybe I’m not screwed..., “So all you have to do is kill them all, then go through the Timberwolf cave nearby and you should be able to bypass the bulk of their forces.” Good, I can... wait what was that she said about killing? And Timberwolves? “So,” I questioned, “your saying that to get to these Canterlot Republic ponies I have to kill a bunch of battle tested warriors...” “Yes.” “Then kill a full caves worth of Timberwolves...” “Uh-huh,” “And after that I’m safe?” She snorted a laugh. “Safe?! Oh Goddesses, that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in years!” She wiped away a tear, “No, no, that’s the easy part. After that you’ve still got a whole Wasteland between you and the NCR.” I’m screwed. The creepy dark pony spoke with me for another hour about the dangers of the wasteland between me and the NCR and each second left me regretting my decision more and more. “... And that’s why Radscorpian stings are so deadly. Any questions?” she finally said. “Um, yeah, I’ve got one,” I replied, “do I have any advantage at all?” I was really hoping she would say yes. She smiled an annoying smug smile. “Why, as a matter of fact you do.” she pulled out a box, seemingly from thin air, and placed it gently on the table. “It’s called a Pip-Buck and I have to say, it is by far the best piece of scavenge I’ve ever found. Military grade magical engineering, inventory management, health diagnostic, rad counter, assisted targeting, auto-mapping, this thing has it all, and it’s my gift to you.” She opened the box and took out the device. “Put your hoof out.” I complied by stretching out my left foreleg towards her. She clamped the weighty object on my leg. It made a few beeping noises. The piece of glass on it glowed blue and presented me with a crude picture of a smiling earth pony with small bars near each of the limbs. I pushed one of the orange buttons on the device and the screen changed. The next screen showed a map that presented a birds eye view of the valley and had marked Iron Hide and the surrounding villages (to this day I still have no idea how it does that) and two arrows, one presumably marking my location and a bigger one at the edge of the valley. “The tall arrow is where your going,” the dark mare said. “Thanks, but why are you giving me this thing?” I asked. It felt a little suspicious. Why would she give up so easily what she had just called the best piece of scavenge she had ever found? Her answer was cryptic, “I can’t use it.” “Well, why?” What the hell? Can’t you just put it on and use it? “I have reasons,” she replied quickly, then added, “Reasons that aren’t for nosy ponies like you to know. Now go talk to your Chief. I think he has more stuff for you.” I hadn’t noticed that the Chief and the Arch-Seer had left while we were talking. I turned around and walked out the door where I was immediately greeted by the Chief, along with my family standing behind him. “So, miner, have you learned all you can from our expert?” he asked. Had I? I was feeling really unprepared for what I’d signed up for. “I... I guess. I was told you had something for me?” “Yes.” he smiled and motioned to my dad who levitated a set of leather armor and saddlebags to me like the type the warriors wear. A pistol like the ones that a traveling merchant from the north had been selling was tucked in the attached holster along with some ammunition. “Put it on.” my dad said. I shrugged on the barding. “Does it fit?” It fit perfectly. “Yeah, dad, it fits,” I replied, then added, “Thanks.” “It used to be mine when I fought. I hope it protects you like it protected me.” And then it hit me. I wasn’t just going to ask for allies. This was a war mission. Mom (“Come back to us,” she whispered with tears forming in her eyes) and my sisters (“Try not to do anything too stupid, little brother” Stream joked) walked up and hugged me. Dad simply shook my hoof (“Take care, son,”). The Chief put a hoof on my shoulder (“Let your ancestors guide your aim,”). The Arch-Seer touched her horn to my forehead and prayed (“May Celestia protect you with the sun by day and Luna guide you with the moon by night. Seek peace in the knowledge of their love,”) and slipped a copy of “Story of the Goddesses” into my saddle bags. The dark, creepy mare (“Good luck, kid,”) walked away with a scoped rifle slung over her back. And then I left. I’d been walking for an hour towards the mark on my Pip-Buck, all the while fiddling with it to see what everything did. So far I’d figured out that the screen with picture of the pony was the health diagnostic the dark mare had mentioned (it was telling me I was thirsty, as if I didn’t know), the screen that had been blank was the inventory and had marked what I was wearing and the pistol (which was apparently a 10mm, whatever that meant), and that this thing had a lamp function. I had also somehow accidentally turned on some system called E.F.S. which laid itself over my vision and showed a compass heading, my objective arrow, and some other stuff I didn’t quite understand all presented in a pleasant shade of blue. As I neared my Pip-Buck’s objective marker, red tick marks appeared on the E.F.S. compass. The red marks turned out to be the guards the dark mare had mentioned who started shooting at me. I made a mental note: red means bad. These enemies could not only see me, they knew I wasn’t one of them. Of course they know, I thought, I forgot to wash off my White Hooves markings before I left. I deserved to die for my stupidity. A few bullets hit my right flank before I was able to jump into a dry streambed, and those bullets hurt like hell. I swallowed down some of the chalky healing powder that had been packed in my bags, which just dulled the pain a little, before crawling on my belly farther toward their camp. They stopped shooting, apparently thinking they had killed me, and went back to whatever it was they had been doing before. I now had a dilemma. I'd never killed so much as a field rat before, let alone another pony. It had been my hope that I could avoid killing other ponies and buffalo and to just sneak by, but now that appeared impossible. Dear Celestia, what should I do? Was I to be forced to murder others you creation so I could survive? But I knew that I had a mission to perform. Failure could mean my death and the death of my tribe. Mom's death. Dad's death. My sister's deaths. I tried to calm myself and gather strength for the upcoming battle, and with a quick prayer I drew the pistol out with my mouth and peaked my head over the edge. I could see the Fire Hairs unicorn sitting in the center of the camp, directing her workers. Five earth ponies and a buffalo were the total of her guard detail so that brought the odds to seven against one. That didn’t seem good. I figured though that since the unicorn must be the leader and that if I could kill her first it would disorganize the rest of them. I took aim at her head, exhaled, and pulled the trigger with my tongue as many times as fast as I could, emptying the whole clip. All my shots missed. “Thit” I muttered through a mouthful of gun. Just my Goddess damned luck. The unicorn jumped up and stared at me. “Kill that fucker!” she yelled at her troops. They needed no motivation as they began shooting happily (I actually heard some laughter) and much more accurately than I had, forcing me to duck down again. I put the gun away. Poking my head over the top of the ditch again would be suicide. I scrambled through the inventory-thingy on my Pip-Buck searching for anything that could help. Dynamite? I had dynamite in my saddlebags? Now that I knew how to use! I pulled the red rod of my bag and waited for a pause in the shooting. When it seemed like they were reloading I quickly knocked the safety-cap off and threw the now sizzling red stick as far as I could towards my enemies. It blew up two of the earth ponies into a bloody mist and tore off the hindlegs of another who quickly bled out. That took three ponies out of action, but more importantly threw up a big cloud of dust. I ran in. Maybe if I couldn’t shoot them to death I could bludgeon them, I thought as I picked up a sledge hammer one of the dead ponies had had with them. I found one of the remaining earth ponies as the dust began to clear and smacked his head twice with the hammer as he tried to find his gun again. His jaw gave way with a sickening crunch from the first blow and his skull broke open spraying blood and brain matter with the second. My next target was a mare who had already found her gun and was trying to aim it at me. I was just a little bit faster. Swing one, gun gone. Swing two, lots of broken ribs. Swing three, head no longer attached. I was good at this. My self-congratulation was short lived, however, as I was tossed forward from behind about ten feet by the massive buffalo stallion I had somehow forgotten about. I staggered to pick myself up and had just grabbed my hammer as I was thrown another ten feet. This time I was able to hold onto my weapon and spun around to face him. I wished I had more time. And then I did. Everything froze. “Welcome to Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell or S.A.T.S!” flashed across my vision in that same bright blue. The buffalo stood frozen in front of me outlined in blue. parts of his body were marked: Horns 90%, Head 95%, Right Foreleg 80%, and so on. I selected his head once and watched some marks at the bottom of my vision disappear. The spell charge? I executed the attack. Wham. I felt like I wasn’t completely in control of my body, but sweet Luna did that attack feel satisfying. The buffalo fell over, not dead, but just dazed enough to make it easy to finish the job. I stood up straight. Now just the unicorn. Click. “Got ya now ya little dirt-fuck,” the unicorn whispered. She held a gun she had picked up off of one of her dead comrades and held it against my head. Shit, I thought. “I hope you prayed to Celestia a lot, foal, cause yer gonna see her real soo...” she was cut off by her head... no scratch that, most of her body, exploding on me in a shower of gore. I looked around for my savior, but could only a small black speck on the top of the canyon wall. Footnote: Level up New Perk added: Mine Pony- Years of working the mines has made you skilled with its primary implements. You deal 15% more damage when using melee weapons and explosives. (Thanks go to Kkat for making an awesome post-apocalyptic Equestria for amateur authors like me to play with.)
Chapter 2: Into the WastelandFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 2: Into the Wasteland "I turned, and there before me stood... the Timberwolves!" Night was falling. I sat in what had formerly been a Fire Hairs camp. I’d killed them all. Well, most of them. I’d found the remains of the bullet that had blasted the unicorn’s body apart, and it was fricken huge. No wonder her body exploded. Then noticed the sickening feeling of my coat being matted down with blood and gore and bits of bone. The natural reaction, vomiting, followed almost immediately. I realized two things while I spat to rid myself of the disgusting taste: one, I hated killing and it made me feel sick, and two, the bullets in my flank were really painful. I thought of trying to pull out the bullets but vaguely remembered something my mom had said about arteries. Plus, there was no way I could reach my flank with my mouth, so it would be impossible anyways. I looked at the sky as I wiped off as much of the unicorn's guts as I could, almost vomiting again. The sun had almost completely set, but I was afraid that if I stayed where I was a new bunch of guards would arrive to relieve the ones I’d killed. I poured some Healing Powder directly into my bullet wounds to dull the pain, picked up my new sledgehammer, and walked into the cave. This is a bad idea, I thought, staying away from a cave of Timberwolves always seemed like a good idea before. Was this really the only route around the rest of the Fire Hairs' forces? I opened the door blocking the cave entrance and was greeted by the smell of mildew and rotting animal flesh. My E.F.S. wasn't showing anything yet so I assumed it was safe to proceed. I switched on my Pip-Buck light. The walls were wet and slimy with an ooze I couldn't identify. I continued further into the cave. The cave eventually split off in two directions. I checked my Pip-Buck's local map. Apparently the right passage was... well, the right passage. So I went right. One by one lots of small red marks appeared on my E.F.S. compass. I turned off my light to avoid detection and began creeping forward slowly. Throaty snoring noises emanated from a cavern ahead of me. Pack of Timberwolves hindering my path? Check. At least they're asleep, I thought. The space reeked of rotting flesh. Carcasses of small animals littered the floor. Wait, not just animals. With my eyes adjusting to the light (or rather the lack of light) I noticed a decidedly pony shaped corpse held under the paw of one of the monsters. The horn on top of the pony's skull had been gnawed on to the point where it had begun to crack apart. I definitely didn't want to end up like that pony. I crept slowly around the bulk of the monsters toward where my map said the exit of the cavern was. Yeah, this is easy, I thought with a grin, all I've got to do is make sure I don't step... And then I stepped on one of them. "Oh thit." I whispered through my hammer. Damn bad luck. The huge critter opened its glowing purple eyes to the sight of me standing on its paw. The beast stood up to full height and howled for blood (well, it seemed thirsty for my blood at the time. What else do Timberwolves howl for?). All the others woke up at once, and before I knew it a whole pack of wooden monstrosities were chasing after me. Running for my life was something I suddenly realized I hated, but fighting an entire hungry pack of Timberwolves seemed like a really bad idea. Screw stealth, I thought as I turned on my Pip-Buck light so I could see where the hell I was going. My pursuers stumbled for a second, their eyes apparently adjusting to the new light. That was good, I wanted as much distance between them and myself. I could see daylight down the tunnel a little ways. Salvation! Unfortunately salvation was guarded by two more Timberwolves. No time to stop and no way to avoid them, I used the only tactic I knew: I charged. I took advantage of their temporary blinding by my bright light and wished for that S.A.T.S. thing again. Time froze and I lined up a hammer swing at an angle that would knock the larger Timberwolf into the smaller one. It worked. The two tangled Timberwolves fell together and acted as a roadblock, causing the rest of the pack to stumble over them. I dove out the cave entrance, opened my saddle bags, fished out two sticks of dynamite, knocked off the safety caps, and tossed them into the jumbled mess of monsters. The explosion had the added effect of closing off the tunnel by causing several extra-large boulders to roll in front of the entrance. Guess I wouldn't be getting back that way. I was able to collect the wooden limbs of some of my deceased foes and used them to get a fire going. I combined some cactus fruit and sand-root I found to make a poultice which I placed on my bullet wounds. I stared at the Goddess Luna's bright moon. I'd once heard a trader from the north mention that she had only seen the for the first time a few years ago. I couldn't imagine a night without the moon. While my mind was on the moon (and while trying to avoid thinking of the Fire Hairs I'd killed), I decided to open the copy of "Story of the Goddesses" the Arch-Seer had given me. It seemed a little too heavy for its size, but at the time it didn't bother me much. I nosed my way through to my favorite part, "Second Discord, chapter ten", and began reading to myself: “And the Six didst take up their Elements, as was the Goddesses' will, and with them advanced against the King of Chaos. And the wielder of Magic said unto her friends...” And that was where I fell asleep (on my left side, of course). It had been a tiring and traumitising first day adventuring, and I needed some rest. “Ger’up, yew. Whoer yew? Wher’ yew from? Wutch yew dooin near mah cave?” An old and scarred grey unicorn who was missing several teeth and wobbled back and forth was sticking the barrel of the rifle he was levitating in my face when I awoke. My E.F.S. registered him as a blue mark. “What? Who are you?” I mumbled, my sleepy brain still in a haze. He just poked my nose with the rifle. “Ah’m askin da queshuns,” he barked, “Nah yew, me!” I hate mornings. “Um, I’m...” should I lie about my name and where I’m from? What if this buck really hated White Hooves for whatever reason? “I’m Fall. I’m, uh... I’m an ambassador... no, I’m a scout... no, I’m an ambassador. Yeah, that’s right, I’m an ambassador.” Oh yeah, Fall, real convincing. “Ambassadur? Frum wher’?” Some yellow spit flew out of his mouth as he spoke. I stood up, cringing from the pain in my side. “I’m an ambassador for... the White Hooves tribe...” Judging from the confused expresion on his face, what I’d said didn’t seem to be ringing any bells for this pony, “I’m from the Ghost Lands.” Still nothing. He telekinetically rocked the bolt back and then forward. I don’t know much about guns, but I think that means it had a bullet ready. A light suddenly seemed to go on in his head. “Oh, da Ghosht Landsh! Down sout’ oh here!” I nodded. Maybe he understood... “Yew’re wun oh dem Fa’ir Hair raiders whoev ben stealin’ and killin’ all da brahmin!” he pushed the tip of the barrel between my ears, “Yew cost me faib-hunred caps yew little shit!” The blue mark on my E.F.S. turned red. His magic tightened around the trigger. I wished for S.A.T.S. Time froze and I suddenly realized I wasn't carrying a weapon. S.A.T.S. didn't seem to care as I queued up three unarmed hits. First strike knocked the rifle out of his magical grip, cracking the wooden stock. The next two strikes hit his face with enough force to knock him over but not enough to kill him. Time accelerated again and I pinned him to the ground. "No!" I shouted in his ugly face, "I'm a White Hooves, not a Fire Hairs, and I haven't been killing your brahmin!" Why the hell would I kill brahmin anyways? He just stared back at me, confused. His mark changed to blue again. I stepped off of him and carefully kicked away his rifle. This pony clearly wasn't right in the head. I placed "Story of the Goddesses" back in my saddlebags and picked up my hammer. The strange unicorn buck stared at his rifle, then at me, then back to his rifle. "Wah yew got st'ipes on yew?" the crazy buck asked. I face hoofed and dropped my hammer. "They're my tribes marks." I responded. He nodded, appearing to understand what I was saying. I got an idea. "Hey, could you point me in the direction of the NCR?" "Da NCR?" he asked, "Wah yew wanna talk ta dem?" How could I put this? "Um, because I'm an ambassador?" That made sense, right? The strange unicorn seemed to get what I was saying, anyways. "Dere's a trad’n posht nah far from here. Ah could take yew dere," and then, almost as an afterthought, he said, "fer fifty caps." I was a bit hesitant to trust a buck who had just tried to blow my brains out a moment ago. Also, what the heck was a cap? I decided to play along for now and pay him back later, assuming that caps were some sort of currency I had yet to encounter. I'd also hold onto his gun for now. "Sure, take me there." I said. He reached for his rifle with magic. I promptly picked it up instead and placed it into my bag, "And you'll get your gun back when we get there." He nodded, apparently thinking that was fair. "Dis way!" the gray unicorn proclaimed happily, and began trotting forward, wobbling with each step. I grabbed my hammer and followed along. You can learn a lot about a pony when you walk (in pain with every step) with them for a few hours. For example, the strange unicorn proclaimed his name was Pickle Hooves (which matched his cutie mark depicting hooves in a pickle jar), he sold pickles for a living (predictably), that he was actually a griffon in disguise, and that the NCR was part of his "impirer". I had some trouble believing those last two "facts". “So, who’s the NCR’s chief?” I asked once I was able to get a word in. "Well, Ah jus toll yew it's pert oh my impirer," sure it is... "but dey don't really have a chef." I turned and stared at him. "What? No chief?" A tribe without a chief? That's like a pie without a crust! He scratched his chin with the edge of his hoof. "Nah, da republic's got a... um... oh, was da word? Oh yeah, dey gah a president." he seemed pleased to remember that word. But what the heck was a president? "Well, what makes a president different from a chief?" getting an alliance suddenly seemed more confusing than just talking to their chief. "Ah don' rightly know. Ah think is b'cause dey're chosen. President Fluttershah was, Ah think. Yew kin ask some'un else ooh knows more. We're 'ere." The trading post was... underwhelming. It was less than half the size of Iron Hide. The buildings were made of rusting sheet metal and the short barrier surrounding the camp (and I call it a camp because it truly wasn't even worthy of being called a village) was made of razor wire that was just as rusty as the buildings. I felt disappointed. Not disappointed in the inhabitants or the fact it was so small, but more of a feeling of being let down. I had expected more of this supposedly powerful northern tribe. Was the NCR so weak that it couldn't ensure its ponies were safe and their towns strong? My Pip-Buck map marked the location: Waypoint Trading Company. Wow. So exciting. An attractive yellow-green earth pony mare with a red mane who wore an ancient mud-brown hat stood by the small gate to the town. She raised her rifle, cradling it in her fore hooves. For a second time this day I was staring down the barrel of a gun. "I swear ta Celestia, tribal, if yah try anything I will blow your damn head off." she growled with venom behind her words. Was there a sign on my head that said 'Danger: Will Attack Unprovoked' or something? "I'm not here to cause any harm." "Oh yeah? Then why did you take Pickle hostage, huh?" What the hell? She turned to Pickle, "Did this tribal hurt yah? Cause I can kill him right now if yah want." Oh, shit, I don't want to die. What if that crazy buck still wanted to kill me like this morning? Crap... "I kinda want to anyways..." she added in, playing on my (probably apparent) fear. "Ah, nah, Lily, dis 'ere pony's mah guest," Oh Goddesses, what a relief, "An belief yew meh, dis pony's a tough buck. Blew up mah Timmerwolfs, he did. 'sides, he's mah hostage, to." Yeah... wait, what? "He's ain't your hostage, Pickle. He's got your gun." Lily retorted, with a role of her eyes. I stamped my hoof in agreement. "Yeah," I said, "I've got your gun. How am I your hostage?" Why were we discussing hostages anyways? "He's mah hostage cause he got a debt tah pay. Been killin' our brahmin." Oh, dear Goddesses. This buck didn't remember anything. Fortunately Lily backed me up. "He ain't been killing our brahmin, Pickle. He's part of the wrong tribe, obviously. Just look at those stripes. I ain't never seen a Fire Hairs wear stripes." she turned to me, "Now you ought to give my pal his gun back, right now." I quickly obliged. "Well, if you ain't here to ransom Pickle, why are ya here, tribal?" she asked, her gun still pointed at my head. "My name is Fall. I'm here to form an alliance between my tribe, the White Hooves, and the NCR." I tried to smile, but it just made me look constipated. "All us here are NCR, tribal." she replied, apparently not caring to use my name. Great! One day away and I'd already found the ponies I'd been sent for. "That's awesome news. Can I speak to your chief..." I corrected myself, "I mean, your president?" A loud 'whump' sounded behind me. "Pony, your a long way from the president," growled a deep bass voice behind me. I spun around, nearly tripping over my hooves. A huge lion bird thing- a griffon, I remembered from stories- was towering over me, his sharp talons scratching into the ground. He wore the toughest barding I'd ever seen: heavy looking black metal with a small white talon painted on the chest peice. He stood at twice my height, bright brown eyes staring into me. I had no idea why a huge griffon-monster would be around a bunch of ponies... unless they were for food... "Um, hi?" I choked out. I was not in the mood to get eaten right now. "Remove your barding and empty your saddle bags." the griffon commanded. "W-why?" he just stared with his cold eyes, forcing me to comply. I quickly slipped out of my leather barding and dumped out the contents of my bags into the dirt. The griffon inspected me, took my pistol and three remaining sticks of dynamite, then turned to Lily. "Lily, you can open the gate now." he turned to face me, "Welcome to Waypoint." Apparently the ponies at the trade post were not the griffon's food. They were his employees. Red, the griffon, led me to his office, an eight by eight rusting shack furnished with a molding desk. He sat in a chair, leaning back in the most bizarre way and propping up his feet on the desk, eliciting a groaning creak from the war-era furniture. "Remind me again why you're here... Fall, was it?" Red asked, stretching out his wings in a way that made me feel small. "Yeah, that's right," I answered. He'd allowed me to put my barding back on but hadn't returned either the pistol or the dynamite. "I'm here because my tribe wants an alliance with your tribe. You wouldn't happen to know where I could find your, um, president, would you?" "The NCR isn't a tribe, Fall. Even if it was, I couldn't help you with your alliance." he paused and squinted, as if gathering his thoughts. "The ponies who work for me are citizens of the republic, but the only one with a connection to the government is Pickle, so they can't help you either." I snorted a little at the mental image of Pickle talking to a tribal elder. "And me," the griffon continued, "I turned down citizenship a long time ago. I prefer to be unattached." Well that put a kink in my plan. I'd expected the NCR to be like the White Hooves. In the tribe, if you needed to tell the chief something you just talked to a seer, who talked to an elder, who talked to the chief. Why wasn't everywhere as simple? "However," he began to say, "what I can offer you is a job." "A job?" How would a job help me at all? Blackwing cleared his throat. "You see, a few of my good couriers and guard ponies have been killed recently in raids by Fire Hair tribals. You see, my company is right on the edge of the Ghost Lands. It was peaceful here for a long time. Now the Fire Hairs occupy the border, and they, for whatever reason, really hate us. Of course, you probably already knew that." "So, you want me to join up with you to help replace your dead ponies. I jumped in, cutting to the chase. "How exactly will that help me form an alliance?" "It won't, not directly at least." he smirked. "A pony like you won't last out in the wasteland. Not long, anyways. Hell, Pickle was able to capture you and he isn't even able to find the gate most days." I felt a little insulted. "I wasn't captured. If anything I captured him!" I stomped my hoof for emphasis. The smirk was still there. "Regardless," he continued, "you’re fresh out of the herd. First radscorpian you meets going to stab you to death before you even know it's there. You need experience to survive your journey, I need workers." I thought about it a little, staring at the ground. "I can provide you with medical care to. I noticed your bullet wounds. All my employees get free medical care." As soon as he mentioned it I began feeling pain in my flank again. I knew that healing powder would only numb it, not fix it. And he was right. I was new out here, and as much as I had learned from the creepy dark mare it wouldn't match working with a bunch of wasteland veterans. I sighed. "Fine." Red led me to Waypoint's resident surgeon. When I saw the unicorn... well, it wasn't much of a unicorn. Her skin was peeling off in a way that made her look burned and made it impossible to tell what color her coat had been before. Her mane consisted of a few tufts of seafoam-green and white hair growing (well, not growing, sprouting really) along her neck. Her horn- to be honest I was amazed it could do magic at all- was cracked in half down the middle. Needless to say I freaked out. "Holy shit!" I screamed in her face, "What in the name of Celestia and Luna and all the Goddess-damned ancestors fucking happened to you!?" She looked at me with an expression of disbelief, then turned to my new boss. "Red," her voice sounded like a barrel of rocks being tossed down a hill, "who the fuck is this?" "Lyra," Red replied," meet Fall. Fall, meet Lyra. Lyra is our one and only surgeon." "But what the hell is she?!" I screamed. "What, have you lived in a cave? Haven't you ever seen a ghoul, kid?" the- really, really ugly- mare said. What in Luna's name was a ghoul? I'd only seen monsters like this in nightmares. "Fall is from a tribe down south, Lyra. He hasn't seen a lot of things." Red answered her, "Fall is Waypoint's newest member and he's already taken a few bullets. I'd like you to pry them out of him." The ghoul mare sighed. "Fine, boss. But next time you hire somepony new, would you mind telling them I'm a ghoul first? I hate when ponies freak the fuck out about ghouls." The huge griffon chuckled "Can do, Lyra." then walked away, leaving me in the care of the freakishly disfigured mare. "Well then, don't waste my time. Get on the table." she growled. A look in her darkly yellowed and bloodshot eyes told me, somehow, that she understood the fear I felt. She must have been accustomed to reactions like mine because she didn't look angry, just sad. I clambered onto the blood stained operating table and laid down on my stomach. She magically stripped off my barding and began inspecting the bullet wounds in my flank. "What exactly did you use to treat yourself?" she asked as she prodded the holes with some type of medical instrument. "Your skin has started scarring over the bullets." "I poured in some healing powder. You know, to dull the pain." That had been a good idea, right? She let out a disgusted grunt and mumbled something about tribals. "Whatever was in that powder cauterized your flesh. I'm gonna have to cut the bullets out." Wait, cut? That sounded painfu... Ow. Yeah, scalpels hurt. I began trying to make small talk to take my mind off the pain in my flank. "So," I said, "what, um, happened to make you a, uh, ghoul, was it?" "Radiation. Lots of radiation. I got stuck in the edge of the blast of a balefire bomb explosion." Wow. I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but that sounded really bad. "How'd that happen?" She proceded to tell me her life story: "I used to live in a little town in Equestria called Ponyville. It was a nice place, quiet, peaceful. I played the harp in a little band my marefriend and I were part of. I still miss Ponyville. But that was before the war." "Wait, you were alive before the world was burned?" That couldn't be possible, could it? But that was more than two-hundred years ago! "That's where a lot of ghouls are from. As I was saying, Ponyville was nice, but I needed money so I moved to Fillydelphia. Lots of ponies looking for work went there to work in factories. Bon-Bon wouldn't come with me though..." she sounded sad. No, not sad, remorseful. Remorseful and a touch of nostalgia. "Anyway," she continued, "the war started. The pay and conditions sucked in the factories and there wasn't exactly very much demand for an amateur harp player, so I decided to join the army as a medic. Being in the Equestrian army sucked also. Long story short, I took a bullet that shattered my leg, got transferred to a soft duty job with the Ministry of Peace, and got sent south to Desert Outpost 17. Then one day the big top secret project thingy the MoP was working on blew up. I turned into this, I wandered for a long time, I joined Waypoint, the end. Aaaand that's the last bullet hole sowed up. All done." That... was one hell of a story. I couldn't imagine being an irradiated monster for two-hundred years, forced to outlive everypony I'd ever known. Her life... I couldn't imagine. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked." I raised myself up (ow) slowly off the table. I couldn't empathize with her since I'd obviously never lived a life as a ghoul, but she had all my sympathy. Also, in a very strange and slightly uncomfortable way, she reminded me a little of my mom. "Oh, don't be sorry, kid," the gravely voiced ghoul growled, "It's my story. It's part of what makes me who I am." She gave me the warmest smile I'd ever seen. How could she smile like that? "Well, thanks for patching me up." I said weakly. "Oh, it's no problem at all. After all, you work here." she replied, then added, "And a little word of advice: wash off that paint. Some ponies get antsy around tribals." "Got it. Thanks again." I turned and began walking out the door. From behind me I thought I heard her whisper 'good luck,' but maybe I'd just imagined it. I would have washed off my (poorly applied) paint like Lyra had said... if I knew where anything in Waypoint was. I ended up just wandering around, lost, till I finally found a trough of water. Unsure if it was intended for drinking or washing, I just sat down in front of it and began thinking. Thinking wasn't something I was particularly good at and something I didn't have much of a use for when smashing rocks. What in Luna's name was I doing here? Why had I volunteered? One day away from my tribe and I had already gotten shot up, run through a cave of angry Timberwolves, sort-of gotten captured by a buck who was a few walls short of a barn, been coerced into joining a company of NCR ponies in self-imposed exile led by a monster I'd only heard stories about, and then healed by a monster I never could have imagined. When did the Goddesses decide my life needed to take a turn for the dangerous and bizarre? "You've got a tooth in your tail," two voices, one male and one female, said from behind me, breaking my train of thought. I turned around. Before me stood twins, both dark blue unicorns with black manes, both with cutie marks of a butterfly. Correction, a butterfly ripped in half. "What did you say?" I asked. The male answered without his sister's echo. "A tooth. You have one stuck in your tail." I combed through my tail with my hoof and found it. It was very bloody with the root still connected. My insides began to move. My mind was brought back to that Fire Hairs unicorn exploding by me, definitely the source of this bloody shrapnel. Oddly the vision of my enemies violent end bothered me more now than when it happened. My insides lurched again, sending the contents of my stomach in an outwardly direction. "Are you okay?" his sister asked, "Teeth aren't normally considered that disgusting." I wiped my mouth with the back of my hoof and spat on the ground, trying to rid myself of the taste of bile. "Well, you know what they say about tribals." her brother replied. "No, what do they say about tribals?" she asked with a slight tilt of her head. "Who are you?" I interrupted the odd pair. Was there some rule that all NCR ponies had to be strange? "He's Twoblue..." said the mare. "...and she's Threeblue." finished the stallion. "Who're you, new guy? We haven't seen you around here before." Two and Three? They just got even weirder. "I'm Fall." "Hi, Fall." Threeblue said with a very perky smile, "So, why'd the big boss griffon hire you? Got any special skills we should know about?" "You know, since we're coworkers now, after all." Twoblue added. Did I have any special skills? Or, a better question would be: does breaking apart rocks really count as a skill? Wait... was being really good at something sort of a thing with this company? "Um, I'm good at hitting stuff with hammers and picks. Is that what you mean?" I scratched at my Pip-Buck and spat on the ground again. The twins glanced at each other and started talking, adding to each other's sentences. "Sure..." "We always need ponies good at breaking stuff..." "And we obviously wouldn't complain about..." "Getting somepony new..." "But..." "The boss usually hires ponies with more..." "Specific..." "Skills." Uh, what? "I'm not sure what you mean." What in Luna's holy name where they talking about? Specific skills? What did that even mean? "Well, for example, Three is really good at invisibility magic," the stallion said, "and I'm good at choking ponies from a distance and dropping rocks on them." The mare picked up where her brother left off. "Yeah, and Lily is really good at shooting ponies in the face, and Silver Gallop is awesome at making potions, and Pickle is good at... um," she glanced at her brother, "herding brahmin?" Two just shrugged. Speak of Discord. "Hey, twins, boss wants to see all us." Lily, the guard mare I'd met earlier, announced to my new coworkers. She was wearing spiked metal barding that fit her form beautifully (I'm almost inclined to say seductively, but in regards to Lily that feels wrong), along with a setup I'd never seen before that had rifles strapped to her sides along with mouth-bits connected to the triggers. "Okay, Lily, see you there." the twins sang out in concert. Threeblue looked back towards me and smiled, "It was nice to meet you, Fall. See you around!" Lily glanced back at them, then shifted her eyes to me. "Oh, hey tribal, the boss wants to see ya to." she squinted, "But wash off the paint first. Red told me your one of us now, so try and look more professional." ...said the pony with spikes sticking out of her armor. "Where should I wash it off?" I asked. Her response was coupled with a face-hoof. "The Godesses-damned wash trough is right frickin in front of you." So that water was for washing after all. "Just get over to the boss's office when y'all are done." I quickly washed away my marks, and for some reason I felt a little pain when they were gone. We stood together in Red's office. I hadn't really noticed it before, but now I realized how small it was with four ponies and a big griffon taking up the space. The unicorn twins had donned barding on their way over here, Twoblue armored in combat barding similar to Red's, while Threeblue wore a sleek and stealthy looking polished black one-peice... um, thing. Not quite sure how to describe it but for some reason it didn't seem made for ponies. I was still wearing my leather barding, leaving me as the least protected. Red cleared his throat. "Well, my little ponies, we've got an order from a client in Violetville for fifty spark batteries. Unfortunately, we don't currently have fifty spark batteries." "So ya want us to go find some?" Lily interjected. "Exactly, kiddo." Kiddo? Did NCR ponies... I mean griffons... normally address their employees like foals? "I'm sending the four of you to D.O. twenty-one." My Pip-Buck's map updated to show two small small boxes: one to the northeast of my current location labeled Desert Outpost 21, the other to the northwest labeled Violetville. "An old base like the D.O. should have lots of old sky-wagons and other vehicles to scavenge batteries from." "Great," Lily replied, "all we need now is a map of the base and..." Red cut her off. "I don't have that particular map. That's why Fall is going with you." All eyes were on me. "He has one of those old Stable-Tec Pip-Bucks. It auto-maps everywhere he goes." So that was why he hired me. I had a map attached to my leg. Great to know how important I was. Threeblue gaped at me, entranced by the huge hunk of magical metal on my leg. "Just like the Savior wore..." Who? "Oh, don't talk about her that way. The Stable Dweller was just a normal pony." Twoblue half-scolded his sister. Huh? Stable Dweller? Savior? Were these ponies cultists or something? Lily ignored the twins. "So we're supposed to take him along just 'cause he's a walking road map?" she asked Red. "Correct." "And what if he dies? Don't those things shut off when the owner dies?" "I don't know, but if that's the case you'd better make sure he doesn't." Lily glared a (very attractive) glare towards me. "Y'all'd better stay close. If ya wander off and get killed I'll..." she struggled to find a threat, "...I'll do something, and y'all's ghost won't like it... or something. Ya get the point." Got it: don't wander, don't die. In truth, I hadn't been planning on doing either. Lily didn't like me much. I could tell. From the way she was never farther away than twenty feet but never closer than five, to how she eyed my pistol constantly (ever since it had been returned to me along with my dynamite) as if she suspected I would whip it out and try to kill all of them. However, I do have to give her credit. Despite her dislike of me and that she was stuck with me as a part of the group, at least she did try to strike up a conversation, albeit one I had pretty much nothing intelligent to contribute to. "So, tribal, nice pistol ya got there. 10mm Ironshod Fleetwing, right?" she gave the single most awkward smile I'd ever seen, but at least she was trying, right? "Um, yeah, I guess it's that, Fleet, um, thing." I'd never heard of a Ironshod or Fleet-anything before. To me a gun was a gun was a gun. If you pulled the trigger it went bang. "So, Lily, right? You know a lot about guns?" "You could say that. I was born in an armory after all." she chuckled a little, leaving me wondering if she was serious or if it was just a poor attempt at humor. Given how strange these NCR ponies had proven to be so far I was inclined to guess the former. "So how'd you meet Red and get a job with him?" Small talk wasn't my strong suit, evidenced by her immediate change of expression. She looked serious and sad, as if she was recalling something that brought her pain. She snorted and inhaled. "My parents were raiders in Ponyville. Not like those crazy cannibals in the Hoof, though. Nope just your average everyday psychopath." Insanity was considered normal? "The taught me all the normal stuff little fillies should learn. Shooting, ambushing, torture, castration, more shooting. You know, typical raider shit." She got kinda quiet. "What happened?" I prompted, genuinely interested. She stole herself up before she began speaking again. "One night, some crazy mare, out of nowhere, comes in and starts shooting up the town. My dad wasn't as high on Dash as he normally was and had the good sense to hide me in a closet. I thought that since my daddy was big and tough he and the others would just destroy that mare. Nope. Crazy freak killed them all, even Dead-eye Brick-face the fucking unkillable sniper." she sniffed, "Even dad." "I'm sorry." I really was. I could imagine few things worse than having your family and friends (even if they were psychopaths) killed by some mass-murdering mare. She brushed her hoof across her face to get a tear she thought I didn't notice. "Oh, don't be sorry. They were real shit-bags. Anyways, this group called the Talons comes through a few days later. Red was one of them. He took me in and raised me. After the war 'tween the 'Clavers and slavers and Rangers, he left the Talons and the NCR and went south. Said it wasn't like he'd hoped. I went with him." The end, I guess. "Funny thing is, though," oh, so not the end, "that crazy mare, turns out she's the one who ended the war and opened the sky. The Stable Dweller." I think my confused expression spoke for me. I began to open my mouth to ask for more information, but the Threeblue zoomed up to us like a speeding blue bullet. "Hey, were you guys talking about the Stable Dweller? Cause, you know, that's like my very favorite subject!" "No." Lily lied, "Besides, shouldn't ya be scouting ahead with that invisible stuff ya do?" "But that's so boring!" she jumped up and down repeatedly, "What could possibly happen that all of us couldn't see..." a crack sounded and a bullet quizzed past her head, barely missing her, "Oh, fudge." "Raiders!" Lily yelled, "Take cover, everypony!" She dove behind a large rock (which I noticed, pointlessly, had thin ribbons of iron running throughout it, making me imagine it had been pulled here from Iron Hide for the very purpose of blocking bullets) and motioned me over. Instead, I just stood there. Getting shot was not what I wanted, but I just couldn't move. I stood, facing the ponies who'd opened fire on us, and saw the bizarrely disfigured face of one of the raiders charging towards me with a foot long knife held in her magical glow. Fortunately, Twoblue leaped out of the ditch he had taken cover in and gave me a swift rear legged kick to the side, sending me tumbling into Lily behind her rock. Twoblue stood firm in front of the raider. His horn cast a glow that wrapped around the charging unicorn's neck, and tightened. He lifted the unicorn in front of him to absorb the bursts of incoming rounds, leading to the death of the crazed pony. He motioned to Lily who turned to me. "Okay, tribal, here's the plan. I'm going to go out there with Two and start shooting them. Y'all are gonna sneak around behind them with Three and catch 'em off guard. Got it?" Yeah, I think I could manage that (although the thought of killing another pony made my stomach do a few flips). I nodded. She nodded and rolled out from behind cover, chomping down on her rifles mouth-bits repeatedly, sending bursts of gunfire towards the enemy. I tried to calm my shaking hooves, and rolled out in the opposite direction. Based on my prior experience trying to avoid the Fire Hairs, sneaking was probably not my strongest skill. However, the sound of gunfire was enough to cover my hoof-steps as I snuck around behind the ambushers. They were a very... unclean, group of ponies. Covered in grime and the desert's sand it was impossible to tell their true colors, but I can say that they appeared well armed. One I noticed had a very compact weapon which he fired rapidly and wildly before a burst of rounds courtesy of Lily turned his head into a dark red and grey mush (oh Goddesses, stomach flips...) and also somehow blasting off all his limbs as well. Another was using a large weapon mounted on a tripod which fired even faster and was rapidly tearing through the meat shield. The third was getting ready to sprint forward with a heavy club made of concrete and rods of metal. I only noticed Threeblue when she briefly flashed out of invisibility. I drew out my pistol, intending to take out the pony on the big gun, and motioned to where I thought Threeblue was to kill the club-mare. Inhaling deeply I tried to steady my aim. From this distance I couldn't miss, right? Wrong, dammit. My bullet missed and just made a hole in the dirt, prompting the raider (whose gender was hard to tell) to spin around the weapon towards me. I jumped out of the way just in time, dropping my pistol, and gave the pony a two hoofed buck to the face, giving me just enough time to notice that our invisible unicorn had severed club-mare's head. The psycho-pony raised itself to its hind leg and stretched out what I suddenly realized were wings wrapped in bandages, launching itself at me. It bit down on my neck and I could feel the blood beginning to rush out. It was getting hard to breath as the insane pegasus was crushing down on my windpipe. In that moment of terror I felt something. Suffocation. The fear of death was upon me, the sheer panic at the thought of dying. And yet, almost immediately I began to feel peace. For a split second I saw a face haloed by the sun above me: the face of Celestia. Well, that sense of peace ended fast when the head of the pegasus broke open in a bullet induced blast of brain and skull, and I realized that it had been Lily's face in the sun. She kicked the corpse of my attacker off of me and applied pressure to my bleeding throat. Three ran over with a vial of purple liquid which she opened and poured (mostly, her magic was shaking a little) into my gasping mouth. Feeling my skin knitting itself back together was certainly a new experience. Able to breath again after the potion had done its work, I savored the the air I inhaled in deep gulps. "Wounded on the job, and you almost killed a raider." Twoblue jumped in, "Welcome to the team, Fall." Footnote: Level Up! New Perk: Company Pony- You've got a job to do! When doing missions for Waypoint Trading Company you move 5% faster and have +5 DR. (Credit goes to Kkat for creating the original Fo:E)
Chapter 3: A Continuing Education in Effective ViolenceFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 3: A Continuing Education in Effective Violence "Fifteen years as a unified nation, and this is what we have to show for it? I expected better from us." Alive, but only for the moment. My ability to breath, given to me again by the repair done by the potion, quickly left. I could still feel blood gushing around inside my neck and became acutely aware of the hole still in my wind pipe. Those two injuries were not a particularly good combination. I was soon gasping for air once again and coughing up dark crimson blood. "Shit!" Lily yelled, "What level of potion was that?" she shouted to Threeblue. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the dark blue unicorn mare trembling. "I gave him a point-seven solution potion! That's all we have!" "Oh fuck!" Lily turned to Twoblue, "Do you know any healing spells? Please say yes!" Their voices were beginning to sound faint. "You know I don't, dammit!" he paused for a second, "But I know something we can do. Lily, I need you to cut an incision in his neck barely to the right of his esophagus." Wasn't cutting my throat more of the opposite of what I needed? Lily thought it seemed stupid also. "Are ya fucking, Luna-damned, bloodwing shit insane?!" "Just do it, dammit!" With that Lily took out a big, sharp knife, and precisely made a two-inch long cut vertically in my throat where the potion had just healed it. I felt a force- magic, I realized- pressing against my bleeding artery and covering the holes in my throat. "Give him Med-X." he said to my other companions, almost whispering. I felt a needle stabbed into my side and immediately began to feel my pain dulled. Not gone, for sure, but lessened. It felt like hours as Twoblue stood there, keeping me from bleeding out, suffocating, or both. I breathed slowly. The pain had started to return when Two started removing a little pressure, apparently deciding my blood had clotted enough, from the inside of my throat and began wrapping bandages tightly around my neck. "Give him two more healing potions." again, almost whispering. Threeblue carefully handed her brother two more bottles of purple magic, which he poured into the side of my half-open mouth with the utmost steadiness. "These potions aren't good enough on their own for the major arterial injuries you have," he explained, "but after what I've done you should heal." I nodded slightly, not wanting to move the bandages. I hurt like hell, but I was alive and breathing. It was then that I realized that without these ponies, these ponies I had only met that day, I would have died. Had I run into this same group of raiders alone a would just be another corpse in the desert. My life, and by extension the lives of everyone in my tribe, had been saved by my new friends. So there we sat. I was dizzy from the amount of blood I'd lost and the others stared at me hoping I wouldn't just keel over and die. Well I didn't die, but I certainly keeled over. I fell into a shallow, blood-loss induced sleep. When I came to I was being carried in Two's magic field, and he looked really tired. I wasn't exactly the lightest buck around, after all, even without my saddlebags which Three was carrying. "I can walk," I croaked. The others turned to me. "Oh, you're awake." replied Twoblue, "Are you sure you should walk. I mean, you did just lose a shit-ton of blood just three hours ago." Three hours?! I'd really been out that long? I nodded my head. "Yeah, I can walk. I don't want to slow any of you down." With a quietly mumbled 'okay then' he set me down. My legs felt like jelly, and I would have fallen over if Three hadn't rushed up beside me to let me lean against her. "It's fine, I'll walk with him." she told our companions. Lily and Two shrugged. "Fine, where to next?" Lily asked. I checked my Pip-Buck map. It showed we were almost directly south of our objective. I looked to the sky, discerning west by the position of the sun based on the time of day, then pointed north. "Straight that way." I growled. My voice reminded me of Lyra, they way it was gravelly and lower than normal. We resumed walking to our objective. It felt like we had been walking beside each other for an hour before Three spoke again. "I'm sorry." she apologized in a whisper. There was pain in her voice, regret and sadness. "Why? You didn't try to kill me." If anything I should be apologizing for making them waste three potions and a roll of bandages on me because I couldn't to kill a psycho. This kind unicorn mare didn't need to be sorry. She sighed. "I was supposed to be scouting ahead, and I got lazy. If I had seen the raiders..." she sniffed quietly, "You almost died, Fall. Even though we just met I can tell you're a good pony, and good ponies shouldn't die. I want to be like the Stable Dweller because she saved ponies. You could have died, and I don't want anypony to die because of me." "Don't," I demanded, "blame yourself. It wasn't your fault you didn't know those ponies were there." She began to cry soft tears. I lifted a hoof and put it around her shoulders. "It wasn't your fault, and for as long as I'm with you all I'll make sure no ponies who should live die because of you, got it?" For the moment it made her feel a little better. I could tell that something bad had happened in her life. She tried to cover her pain with a buoyant and happy attitude but sometimes, like now, the facade cracked. But I would protect her. I should have known better than to make promises I couldn't keep. Desert Outpost 21 was bigger than any settlement I'd ever seen. Concrete houses, barracks, depots, armories, and types of structures I'd never heard of before stretched out in vast rows into the quickly darkening horizon. In its time before the war it must have been the home of a thousand ponies, a home away from home hundreds of miles away from Equestria proper. I could also immediately tell that its purpose had been a mostly military one. Ancient rifles and other weapons of war lay scattered through the streets, giving me the feeling the D.O.'s occupants left in a hurry. We cut out a section of the razor wire fence and crept through into a monument to Equestria's greatest failure. The stories I'd been told had described Equestria before the war. A kingdom under the immortal rule of the Princesses Celestia and Luna, always at peace with its neighbors, a paradise. Until the war the nation's most advanced technology was steam trains and its biggest conflict was fought with pies. But this Outpost was not from the Equestria I'd been told about. Twoblue lit up a minor illumination spell to light our path and I switched on my Pip-Buck lamp. This type of darkness felt foreign to me, the type of darkness where the buildings are close together and cast their own shadows on our path. In Iron Hide all the houses and halls had been much more separate. I was beginning to feel claustrophobic, but I didn't let it show. I didn't want my new friends to think that not only was I worthless with a gun but also that I was afraid of narrow streets. We kept walking until we came upon a large rusted hunk of metal with wheels. From her saddle bags Lily drew out a wrench and got to work on extracting the spark battery from under the wagons hood. Two kept watch while her back was turned, as did Three. I had regained the capacity to stand on my own again, but I wasn't sure what to do with myself to be useful. I wandered over to Lily. "Anything I can do to help?" I asked our mare mechanic, hard at work extracting the big black block. "Yeah," she grunted, "hold y'all's light up." I lifted my leg to shine my Pip-Buck's lamp on the twisted metal. Using a wrench and some leverage, she was able to lift out the battery and set it on the ground. "Hey, Two," she called to the unicorn stallion, "first one down, forty-nine to go. Carry it." Twoblue wrapped the large battery in a field of magic and followed after Lily, who had already started working on the next vehicle. I just repeated the job of holding the light, and Threeblue kept guarding. Fifteen batteries later it was getting pretty dark. "Fall, what time is it?" Twoblue asked. I was amazed he was able to carry all those spark batteries with just magic. I glanced at my Pip-Buck. "Eight fifty-two, why?" My companions looked at each other. Lily started extracting the battery she was working with more quickly. "We need to get inside one of the buildings." she said. "Why?" I asked, "What happens if we aren't?" "Nine was curfew for these old outposts." Three explained to me, "After that the automatic security protocols activate. And that means metal ponies and turrets with beam weapons." she saw my confused expression, "They can flash-burn us to ashes." Oh. That didn't sound nice. Lily grunted as she pulled out the last battery of the night and gave it to Two. "Alright," she announced leaderishly (I know that isn't a word, but it fits), "we need a house or something, preferably one without a turret system in it. Fall," she turned to me, "y'all've got a sledgehammer, right? Go smash a door down." I found a suitable looking dwelling (labeled "House 2096") and drew out my hammer. Unfortunately I'd forgotten my neck injury and when I slammed my sledge against the door. I experienced a whole new wave of pain and found myself wishing for that Med-X stuff I'd been given earlier. I put my hammer back in my saddle bags, half sticking out so I could easily reach it, and we entered House 2096. The shelter stank of dry rot. Mold grew up the concrete walls. In the far right corner of this entrance hall lay two unicorn skeletons wrapped in each other' hooves. The larger one was draped in a disintegrating military uniform. The smaller pony couldn't have been any older that Cactus Flower. I suddenly and powerfully had the urge to run back home and hug my littlest sister, but that was impossible. Scattered around the two deceased ponies were lots of small Med-X syringes, all empty. "They must have overdosed." Three said. I hadn't noticed her next to me and her voice startled me. I looked back again and noticed a full syringe I hadn't seen before. I felt another twinge of sharp pain in my neck, but looking at these poor overdosed ponies made me lose the urge to use that last full Med-X. "Why... why would they overdose themselves?" I asked my friend, dropping my voice to a mere scratchy whisper in reverence. She pointed to the radio on the counter nearby. "They must have heard about the megaspells. Lots of ponies just thought the world ended. Suicide was really common when the bombs went off, I've heard." Suicide. As strange as it may seem, I'd never heard that word before, but I was able to figure out it's meaning: Death by ones own hooves. That never happened in my tribe, and if it did I'd never heard about it. I shuddered. I couldn't imagine the fear and hopelessness these ponies had felt. I wanted to bury these two-hundred years dead ponies. But then I started thinking (like I've said, it wasn't something I did often). Those raiders from earlier, what had happened to them? "Hey, Three?" I asked, "Can I ask you something?" "Sure, Fall. What is it?" "Did you guys bury those raider's?" I was hoping she'd say yes. My conscience was hoping for it. In the White Hooves, all the dead had to be buried whether or not they were with the tribe, but the wasteland was uncivilized and I didn't know how NCR ponies treated their enemies' corpses. Her answer made me cringe. "Nope. Why would we? They're just raiders. We took their stuff and left." Because they're ponies! my mind screamed, but at the same time I guess I understood. Nopony had the time to bury the psychos that tried to kill them out here. The creepy dark pony who taught me about life in the wastes had warned me that kindness could get a pony killed out here, and I suppose kindness to the dead was no exception. So instead of subjecting her to a lesson in my tribes sense of morality I just shrugged and lied, "Oh, no reason. Just wondering." Lily's voice sounded out from the adjoining room. "Hey, guys, y'all should come see this." The other three of us- myself, Two, and Three- rushed in to find Lily standing with her hat off in the center of a room full of the skeletons of young ponies, some older, some younger than the little pony in the other room. Each of the skeletons had one bullet hole in the top of their skulls. A compact assault rifle gun laid on the couch in the far corner of the room with the clip empty and ejected. How could a pony do this to all these little foals? I thought I was gonna be sick again. Lily looked even worse: her expression was cold, and that scared me. Twoblue, his saddle bags loaded down with salvage, laid down on the ground, crossed his legs over his eyes and began to weep. Seeing the strong unicorn buck who had saved me from bleeding out and carried me telekinetically for three hours cry like that scared me even more than Lily's steely cold lack of sadness. Three walked over and laid down next to her brother, stroking his mane. I didn't know what to think. That pony in the other room, the one in the uniform, they must have killed all these foals. I could almost understand their suicide, but murdering almost twenty young ponies with precision like that, and then letting yourself die an easier way? What the FUCK!? I was angry! I wanted to kill a two-hundred-years-dead murderer who had probably been scared out of their mind when they committed their atrocity. My faith had taught me to feel sympathy for those who were morally weaker and to respect the dead, but all I wanted to do now was bring them back to life so I could kill them again. I left the room of dead foals. I just couldn't take it anymore. Lily followed behind me. I came to a large box in the wall with the logo "Chill-Master 10,000 Refrigerator" and opened it by the handle. Old boxed food rested on shelves. It didn't look particularly appetizing, but I was hungry. I tore open one box of something called "Mini-Cherry Cupcakes" and was mildly surprised to find they still looked edible. I popped one in my mouth and found it crunchier than I'd expected cupcakes to be, but still food. I swept the rest of the refrigerators contents into my saddle bags and swallowed my mouthful of cupcake, feeling a twinge of pain as it traveled down my throat. "Ya look angry, tribal." Lily said. I snorted. "Damn right, I am. Aren't you? How can you not be when you see murdered foals?" "I was raised a raider, remember?" she replied, "Murder was a part of life." I turned to face her. "Killing doesn't bother you? Not a bit?" "Oh, don't misunderstand me. The senseless slaughter o' innocents makes my blood boil. But those foals were killed out of mercy, or at least mercy all twisted up." she shrugged, "But no, I don't mind killing. The first time I killed another pony I was about four. I actually enjoyed it a little. Still do, sometimes." Sweet Goddess Celestia, have mercy on her soul. I walked away. I wanted peace. I wanted sanity. Most of all, I wanted to bury the bodies of all those little foals. I laid down on a decrepit mattress I'd found with my barding laying next to me. I lit the pages of "Story of the Goddesses" with my Pip-Buck lamp as I nosed through it, trying to find a passage in it explaining why the world outside of the Ghost Lands sucked so much, but so far was finding nothing. Eventually I closed the holy book with disgust and shoved it back into my saddle bags. I rolled over onto my back and stared out into Luna's sky through a missing chunk of the ceiling. I needed to talk to a seer, say a confession, do something to get rid of the fear and hate I felt. The stars were beautiful. Little spots of light in the overwhelming dark. There was probably a good metaphor in it, but I couldn't see it. What did the Goddesses want from me? They had a purpose for everything, right? Right now I just wanted to not be in this house, but the thunking hoof steps of the metal ponies I'd been hearing outside made leaving seem like a bad idea. Lily walked into the room. She'd taken her armor and hat off, presumably to be more comfortable since we weren't in any immediate danger. I noticed that her cutie-mark was a skull being shattered apart by a bullet and surrounded by spots of blood. A fitting talent for a mare who had admitted earlier that she enjoyed killing. "Hey, tribal..." I cut her off. "My name is Fall. Fall Goddess-damned Hammer-heart. Stop calling me tribal, dammit." I rolled off the mattress and pressed my face up against hers, staring with all the anger I could muster into her eyes. She returned my gaze in an annoyed way. "Fine, what the fuck ever, Fall." she replied, "Just came to tell ya I'm taking first watch, and y'all're taking second. After that ya wake up Three for third watch. Get some sleep if ya want it." She turned to trot away. "What about Two?" I asked, "Is he taking a watch also?" "No," she replied, "and don't bother him when you wake Three." "Fine. Good night." I laid back down on my mattress. I began drifting off to sleep before a small voice interrupted my rest. "Fall," whispered Threeblue "are you awake?" I grumbled. "Yes, I'm awake." I faced towards her, "What is it?" Her face was tear stained and downcast. She shivered even though it wasn't cold. Something about her just seemed off. When I'd first met her she was happy and hyperactive, definitely not the mare I saw now. "I, um, I was wondering... this is going to sound stupid..." she stammered, leaving me unsure what she was trying to say. Finally she drew a deep breath and voiced her request. "Can I sleep with you tonight?" I was a little taken aback. A mare had never asked to sleep with me before, and I wasn't quite sure how to react. My mind replayed part of one of the Arch-Seer's sermons: 'Above all else, the words of Element Bearer Fluttershy teach us to always be kindness. Whether that kindness is genuine or not depends on you.' I would needed to show kindness, if not out of genuine love for this mare then at least to comfort her. And, in truth, I needed companionship to. "Sure, you can stay here tonight." then a thought worried me, "Your brother doesn't mind you doing this, right?" I really didn't want to get in a fight with a unicorn whose self professed special skill was choking ponies to death for sleeping with his sister. She shrugged off her black barding and laid down next to me on the mattress. "My brother just wants to be alone, and right now I really don't want to be alone. I'm sure he'll understand." she nuzzled her way into my forehooves and pressed her head against my chest. Her horn dug into my bandaged neck. "You're a nice pony, Fall. Please, don't ever change." She drifted off to a quiet sleep, her tears occasionally wetting my coat. I didn't want to change, Three, but I fear the wasteland has changed me. The mine I stood in was littered with the bones of foals. They cried out to me in cold voices 'Save us, save us,' but I couldn't help them. I just walked over them. I could see daylight at the exit of the mine, but it was still far away. The bones of small earth ponies, unicorns, pegasi, lay littered, scattered around my hooves. They grabbed at me. I took out my hammer and smashed them to fine powder. Their screaming stopped. It was the merciful thing to do, right? The corpse of the dead unicorn foal-murderer looked at me with frightened eyes before I kicked her head into the wall and watched it brake apart into red mush. The raider who had bitten my neck now pleaded for its life, clutching the head of the mare who had been carrying the club in its hooves. I pointed the deranged pegasus' own machine gun at its throat and pulled the trigger. I couldn't miss from that close. I saw the Fire Hairs earth pony whose legs I'd blown off with dynamite slithering towards me. She begged for help, but I couldn't help her. I left her to bleed among the other fallen. I reached the mine's exit to find my village burning and my littlest sister with a hole in her head like all the dead foals. I scooped her small body into my hooves and hugged her to my chest as I cried over her. The dark mare stood in front of me. Her mushroom cutie-mark glowed in sickly green brilliance. A sickly green cloud rolled toward me from behind her as she spoke to me. "Fall, what are you doing?" I wanted to talk to her to tell her I had no idea what I was doing, but I was rendered mute. "Fall, are you okay?" No, I'm not okay. I couldn't handle the death I'd seen, the cruelty, the evil inherent in the wasteland. I couldn't be a warrior, and I was going to let my tribe down. "Fall? Fall?! Fall! Fall, you're hurting me!" I awoke. Threeblue stared into my eyes with a pained expression. I released my tight grip on her and felt the thick beads of sweat that covered me. "Are you alright?" she breathed. The way she spoke sent chills through me. I'd almost really hurt her. "You had a dream, didn't you?" I nodded. "What was it about?" she asked with a softness that was new to me. I sighed. "I was having a nightmare about..." I wasn't sure what it had been about, "It was just really bad." She wrapped her legs tighter around me. "I have dreams like that sometimes. They always start the same, but I can never see the ending." I could feel the warmth of her body pressed against me. "When did you start having those dreams?" I asked the mare I was sleeping with but knew next-to-nothing about. She shivered. "Don't ask me about that. Good night again, Fall." Oh, wrong subject I guess. "Goodnight, Three." I drifted off into a (blessedly) dreamless sleep. "Fall, you fat tribal, wake up. It's y'all's turn for watch." I opened my eyes to Lily glaring down at me disapprovingly. After sliding my leg out from under Three, I crawled off the mattress, grabbed my stuff, and followed Lily to the front door I'd knocked down. I noticed Two laying on the decrepit living room couch as I walked past. What was that in his hooves? It looked like one of the foal skulls, but in the dark I couldn't be sure. Lily cleared her throat. "Watch from here and make sure nothing gets in, got it?" "Sure." "If something does try to sneak in, no matter what it is, kill it, okay? Nothing good sneaks around at night in the wasteland." "Understood." "Got everything ya need?" I patted my hammer and a box of two-hundred snack food. "Yup. Got my stuff." She cleared her throat and smirked. "So," she whispered in a distinctly twitty way, "y'all and Threeblue..." I interrupted her. "...are just friends. That's all." "That isn't what I saw." she poked my chest with her hoof, "Must be something about y'all that makes her trust ya. I don't." I blinked. "What?" "Y'all heard me. I'm keeping ya alive 'cause Red wants ya alive. Far as I'm concerned, Fall, y'all're just another tribal an tribals ain't good ponies when they deal with the NCR. Never." I was really feeling pissed at this mare. "And what does this have to do with Three?" I think I already kinda knew the answer, but I really just felt like being a jerk to Lily. She rolled her eyes. "If y'all and her are an item, that makes trouble for the company. That's 'cause if y'all leave she might decide to go with ya. If she convinces y'all to stay that means I have to keep watching out for y'all's sorry flank. Plus, if ya haven't noticed yet, those twins got enough trouble on their own without ya getting mixed up in things." The last part of her statement confused me. "What exactly," I interrogated, "are the troubles you're talking about?" She searched for the right words. "Let me put it this way: the twins used to be triplets. Ever wonder why they're Two and Three instead of One and Two? That ever strike ya as odd?" To be honest, I hadn't really thought about it. I'd just chalked up the weird names to 'NCR ponies are crazy' and shoved it to the back of my mind. "No, I hadn't thought about it. But what's it matter? Three and I are just friends, anyways." "Sleep with all ya female friends, Fall?" she pointed out, then tossed in a small verbal grenade, "Is sleeping around with ponies ya just met that day a tribal thing?" Okay, that pissed me off. I stomped my hoof against the floor. "Just go the fuck to sleep and leave me alone, Lily." She shrugged. "Don't listen to me. Whatever. Y'all's funeral." She walked away. I watched her unarmored body saunter off into the dark of whatever room she'd chosen. Curse my traitorous mind: I realized I actually found Lily more physically attractive than Threeblue. Luna have mercy on my soul. Sitting just in front of the smashed door watching the empty street was more boring than any day of smashing rocks. Large, clunking metal ponies walked by occasionally, but after taking a quick glance at me they continued their patrol. Oversized roaches occasionally approached me. I dispatched the ugly critters without hesitation by a quick hoof-stomp. Other than that almost nothing happened. I glanced at my Pip-Buck. Two in the morning. Awesome. I sighed. Had I really messed things up by letting Threeblue spend the night with me? I had accepted her out of kindness, but that probably didn't change anything. I think that Lily had interpreted Three and I sleeping together as a sexual thing. As far as I was concerned we were just friends, and friends comforted each other, right? She was a pretty mare and she seemed to care more about me more than my other two companions, but I didn't love her. I remembered back to life before I left my village. My sister Cactus Flower used to sleep with my parents when she had nightmares. Then, one night, they said she would have to mature and she couldn't sleep with them anymore. So she chose me. When I realized that was the type of comfort Three wanted, spending the night with some pony to help guard you from your fears and not... um, something else, I actually felt more comfortable. But I'm rambling. I should get back to the story. It was still the early morning, and I was still bored as hell. Stuck here doing nothing and I was tired. Fantastic. "Mind if I sit with you?" a gruff voice said from behind me. I turned to see Twoblue standing behind me. "Sure, go ahead." I patted a patch of floor next to me. He sat and I decided to try make some small talk. "What's it like where you're from?" He snorted. "I'm from Junction Town, capital of the New Canterlot Republic. It used to just be a small town, then everypony started trying to move there. We left because they only way to afford a life around there for ponies like us is to join the army or do mindlessly stupid odd jobs. But overall, nice place." He nodded, apparently agreeing with his own statement. "What about you? What's your hometown like?" Dear Goddesses did I ever miss Iron Hide right then. "It's, um, a nice place. We're generally far enough away from the fighting that it doesn't affect us much. Life was nice. Boring, but nice." All I wanted then was my boring life. Right now, I would give what's left of my soul to have never left my village, my tribe, my family. "Damn, I wish my life were boring." Two grumbled. "How did you know how to save my life?" I asked once I realized I'd never thanked him. Fall, you moron, learn how to be more polite and considerate. A smug grin. "I had no idea what I was doing. Remember when said I was good at choking ponies? That was what I did, but inside-out and backwards. Made it up as I went along." That... was a bit disconcerting. "At least it worked though, right? I mean, you'd be dead if it didn't. Choked to death on your own blood. What a way to go." He paused for a moment before he decided to really get threatening. "If you hurt my sister I'll kill you." Alright, Fall, just play it cool... "What do you mean?" "My sister likes you. A lot. I can see it in her eyes. Like a good brother, I get suspicious when my sister falls in love with a stallion she met that day." He jabbed his hoof into my neck where the raider bit me. I gulped. "She... she's just a friend to me." Then why'd you let her sleep in your bed, Fall? "Then why the fuck is she in your bed, Fall?" Wow, sure hadn't seen that question coming... I narrowed my eyes at him. "How do you know about that?" Great job not incriminating yourself, genius! He lightly chuckled and jabbed harder into my throat. "Do I look stupid to you? Lily took the far room, you took the middle room, I took the living room. My sister wasn't with me when I woke up, and she doesn't like Lily much. That... only... leaves... you." He poked my throat at each word of his last sentence. If he was trying to intimidate me, he was doing a fairly good job at it. Oh, come on, Fall! Grow some Luna-damned balls and stop being such a pushover! "So what?" I asked, "I let her sleep in my bed because she didn't want to be alone, and you didn't want her around." I knocked away his hoof for added forcefulness, and delved into what I divined as the root of the problem. "The dead foals affected all of us badly: you broke down in tears, I got pissed at some dead army pony, Lily got bitchy and philosophical, and your sister just wanted some damn comfort. So don't start blaming your problems on me!" "You don't know a fucking thing about my problems! Your just another fucking tribal, you slimy piece of sister-stealing filth!" he telekinetically grabbed my throat and pushed me high against the wall, giving me a free first-hoof demonstration of his skill. "I don't know how you White Hooves shitbags do things, but where I come from if you hurt my family I will fucking end you! Got it?!" I would have answered if I could breath, but I couldn't, so I didn't. Lily and Three rushed out. Lily took a running jump and tackled Twoblue to the floor, breaking his magical grip on me. I crashed to the floor in a gasping heap. Three ran to me, checking to make sure I was okay and that my wound hadn't reopened. Lily kept him pinned. "What in Fluttershy's name happened? Why were y'all trying to kill him?!" she shouted in his face. He turned his face away. I spoke for him ('Sometimes a lie is easier to take'). "Nothing. We were just arguing about... something. It's not important." Everypony looked at me as if I'd just spoken a different language. "Is there a problem here, resident?" said a metal pony who had been patrolling. Awesome, freaky two-hundred year old mechanical ponies were trying to solve our problems now. The wasteland was just full of damn surprises. "Uh, no problem at all, um..." Lily glanced at the faded name written on the walking tin can, "um, Unit Twenty-six. Just a small disagreement among friends, that's all." She mustered up a huge lying smile. The artificial pony turned and trotted away. She stepped off of Two and glared at both of us. "Look," she chided, "I don't know what happened and something tells me I don't want to, but we almost just got the damn house searched by robots. Fall, ya suck at keeping watch. Two, I have no idea why y'all want to kill him, but please don't ruin our map until after we get back to Waypoint, okay?" We nodded. "Okay then. I'll finish off tonight's watch and in the morning..." Two interrupted her. "I'll keep watch. I need time to think." Lily shrugged. "Whatever. The rest of us will get back ta sleep then. See y'all in the morning, Two." She walked back to her room. I grabbed my sledgehammer but left my box of food behind, half as a weak peace offering, half because I felt to lazy and tired to take it with me. Three and I trotted back to our room and laid down on the mattress. I expected Three to say something, to ask me why her brother tried to kill me, something like that. Instead she just wrapped her legs around me tighter than before. It seemed like she was trying to keep me from going anywhere. She didn't say anything, but I should have. I should have asked what had happened to make Two so protective, or where her nightmares came from, or what happened to her other sibling, or if she had even wanted to leave her hometown with her brother. Instead, I just asked nothing and relaxed into sleep in her hooves. Three, I'm so, so sorry. The morning awoke me with the sun shining on my face through the gap in the ceiling. Three looked beautiful (not that I loved her like that though, right?) and at that moment I didn't want to leave. I glanced at my Pip-Buck. Six-thirty. Way earlier than I used to wake up in Iron Hide. I slid my leg out from under her, trying not to wake her up, and began slipping on my barding and saddlebags. Her eyes fluttered open. "Good morning." she murmured. "Good morning to you also, Three. Sleep well?" She glanced around at her surroundings. Scrunching up her face in confusion, she asked, "Were we sleeping... together?" Huh? "Uh, yes? You don't remember?" I was confused... She shook her head. "Nope. Can't remember anything. Did we, um, you know...?" "No. No we didn't. Our night together was perfectly innocent." Three tilted her head. "Was I drunk?" I would have said no if Lily hadn't peeked her head in. "Up an' at 'em, lovebirds! Found a map of this base in a desk, and now I know 'bout a garage where we can get a shit-ton o' spark batteries!" My Pip-Buck pinged the new location: D.O. 21 Repair Depot. How did it do that? Lily bounced away wearing a face-splittingly big grin, eager to get a 'shit-ton o' spark batteries.' I looked back to Three. "I'm pretty sure you weren't drunk." Was I? I'd heard of drunkenness but I'd never seen it. When traders first brought beer to Iron Hide the Arch-Seer, acting as moral compass of the tribe, quickly banned it after it started a fight between two warrior comrades. For all I knew Threeblue could have been very drunk. "Damn," she muttered, "that's so weird. I don't remember being with you at all last night." She squinted at me. "Are you sure we didn't..." "Yeah, Three, I'm sure." I cut her off with a slight smile, "I think we should get going." She stepped off the mattress and started putting her barding on, murmuring to herself. I walked out into the front hall where the bones of the murderer lay. Despite looking at the bones through my gaze of hate I suddenly noticed something I'd missed before. The pony's uniform had rotted, causing a small, dark orb to drop out of a pocket and into the murderer's chest cavity. I reached to pick it up. Written on the side were the words 'My Sin: Last Confession of Army Corporal Camera Recorder' in very small white print. I almost left it behind, but something told me to keep it. Who knew? Perhaps it would be useful later. The repair depot was unfortunately all the way on the other side of the base. We were forced to navigate our way through piles of rubble and more abandoned vehicles. Two and I hadn't spoken to each other all morning, which made his sister hanging around me most of the entire time feel like I was tempting fate. I wasn't that keen on the idea of accidentally giving Two a reason to kill me. It was a really strange morning. Three couldn't remember anything that happened from when we saw the dead foals until when she woke up. Lily was shooting every deactivated robot pony she saw and taking bits of metal from them. Like I said, Two hadn't talked to me that morning. In fact, he hadn't said anything to anypony, not even his sister. That meant, obviously, that Three had no idea her brother had tried to kill me last night, making everything more awkward. I could see the garage of the repair depot after we crossed over one last big pile of concrete. Unfortunately it wasn't as abandoned as the rest of the base. Fire Hairs soldiers milled around the area with raiders. What was strange, however, was that the raiders weren't trying to kill them. In fact, they were talking! "Remind me again why we're here?" a Fire Hairs buffalo said to a grime smeared raider unicorn. The buffalo didn't even try to hide her disgust towards the filthy pony. The unicorn rolled her eyes. "Because we need scrap and you need scrap, and somepony has to decide who gets it." Great. Raiders and battle-hardened Fire Hairs warriors were already scavenging the place we were going to scavenge, and there were about five times as many of them as of us. I felt a tug on my tail and fell back down the rubble pile. My coworkers looked to me. "How many of them are there?" Lily asked. "About twenty," I replied, "but their might be more inside." Two glanced at Lily. "We've had worse odds." he deadpanned. Wait, what? Worse odd than four-plus to one?! And they survived? "Yeah, but the last time that happened the company lost half its workforce." Lily reminded him. Okay, so bad odds with a bad ending. That seemed more realistic. "Three, I want y'all to go invisible and get an exact count, inside an' out." "Aye, aye, ma'am, sir, ma'am!" Three threw a happy salute and quickly vanished. Two opened his mouth in protest, but shut it when he realized his sister had already left. It seemed to me that Three was back to being the joyful and energetic mare I'd first met. But why did it feel wrong? Four minutes later she got back. "How many?" Lily asked as soon as Three un-vanished (that's a word, right?) "Fifty-seven," she replied. Damn, that's a lot for the four of us to take on. "Plus a really big robot." Lily tilted her head. "What type of robot?" Seriously, Lily? All you cared about was the robot? Not the other crap-ton of battle hardened murderous ponies? Three chewed her bottom lip. "The robot... is really big. And it has a rocket launcher. And a flamethrower. And a grenade launcher. And a minigun." As soon as she said 'minigun' the big garage door exploded outward. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking fuckity FUCK!" screamed a raider from amid the stream of ponies running like all hell had broken loose through the blasted door. The really big robot rolled out slowly. Really big was an understatement: It was bigger than I thought possible. I'd never seen something so big that could still move! Why would anypony ever build that?! And that's when I noticed the crazy grin on Lily's face. Lily leapt on top of rubble pile. "Come on, ponies!" she shouted back to us, "We've got an order to fill and a robot to kill! So let's go kill us a giant fuckin robot!" Shit. The rest of us glanced at each other, then followed her. We couldn't let our leader get killed, right? Everypony shot at the robot. The robot shot, blasted, blew up, and burned back. It was Discord-tier chaos. This was my life now. Footnote: 25% to next Level (Special thanks go to Kkat for writing the original. Because the original is always the best.)
Chapter 4: A Trialing Travel Trip of TroubleFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 4: A Trialing Travel Trip of Trouble “Well you've got opportunity, in this very community...” If my mother was here now I know exactly what she’d say: “Fall! Just look at this mess you're in! Clean it up!” What a mess it is. I guess it’s my own fault, though. I did leave my home freely, after all. Adventure? Not that great, it turns out! None of the adventure stories I’d been told as a foal had death in them. Then again, I should have known better. Equestria, the world, pony culture; it had all changed over the past two-centuries. Life sucked now. But what could I do? I couldn’t go back home, that was for sure. I guess I could have just walked away from the fight, but I didn’t want any of my new friends to get hurt. Well, I wouldn’t mind seeing a jerk like Two get hurt, but I didn’t want anypony to get killed. I was stuck. But enough of my complaining. I should get back to the story. The sounds of battle surrounded us. Everywhere ponies were getting blown up by rockets, blasted by grenades, perforated by bullets, and roasted alive. The burning ponies were definitely the most terrifying for me. They flames stuck to them in the way fire shouldn't. Some jellyish stuff held it to their skin. Their screaming was like foals crying for their mothers, only worse because nopony answered them. The scent was unlike anything I’d ever smelled. It was sweet, but not in a good way. It got in your nose and stayed there, filling your mind with visions of death, and I suddenly understood what ‘the stench of fear’ meant. But worst of all, the way their skin curled and shriveled up. It stopped being protection against the world and turned into a sheet wrapped too tightly, choking them, smothering them. Lyra must have felt like that when she turned into what she is. I never wanted to be burned. I don’t think Celestia really cared what I wanted. I felt the searing pain as the flames swept across my unarmored back right leg. I dropped to the ground and rolled to put it out and scraped the burning liquid off, but not before it burned through my fur and skin and left bright red, tender, bleeding patches of muscle exposed. A flame lit the bandages on my neck. I ripped them off in a hurry, not wanting to be more injured than before. To my surprise my neck wound had almost completely healed. Only a scar which I could feel without touching it remained. An errant missile barely missed me, blowing me off my hooves into pile of sharp scrap metal that was lying around. Lily was rushing around like a crazy pony, shooting at whatever looked like weak spots. Twoblue, much more calmly, telekinetically chucked rock and chunks of concrete at the giant metal abomination. Three must have been invisible again because I couldn't see her anywhere. Me? I wasn't sure what to do. I just didn't want to get blown up or hit by one of the raider's and Fire Hairs' stray bullets. Not getting shot again had moved itself up to the top of my priorities, right above not getting choked to death by Two. I could almost feel the minigun train itself on me and I jumped out of the scrap pile away from its aim as the multiple barrels rotated. Running to avoid death I sprinted away from my previous position... and ran right smack into a very large Fire Hairs buffalo in heavy combat barding. The buffalo turned her massive head towards me and squinted at me. No, not at me, at my barding. Her eyes got wide. She spun (faster than I'd expected for a buffalo of her size) and bucked me with her back hooves into the path of the minigun. I barely managed to avoid getting shot full of holes. The buffalo charged, horns down, towards me. I pulled out my hammer and jumped (faster than I'd expected for myself) to my hooves and braced myself for impact. I closed my eyes, waiting to be knocked off my hooves again by the charging buffalo. A sharp crack and opened my eyes just in time to see my enemy's now headless body tumble onto me. Lily helped pry the dead corpse off of me and lifted me to my hooves. "Is y'all's Pip-Buck okay?" she asked. I lifted my left hoof and showed it to her. I was actually surprised that it was completely intact without so much as a scratch on its screen. Then I thought for a moment and felt pissed at her again. She didn't care about me at all. She just cared about my Pip-Buck! A stray bullet clipped the tip of my ear reminding me this wasn't the time to be angsty. The two of us ducked out of the way of an incoming wall of flames. The gigantic robot thing of giantness was really, really close. So close that I could see written on its armor the words "Macintosh 5 Prototype Dreadnought Unit." It rolled towards me on its huge treads. Getting crushed to death was starting to creep up my list of ways to not die. Mounted to the front of the "Dreadnought Unit" was what appeared to me to be a metal eye (I only realized later it was a targeting camera). It pivoted to face me. All the weapons (and I mean ALL the weapons) rotated till they pointed at me. The minigun started spinning. This was the end. I didn't want to die out here. I didn't want to have spent my final days away from my family. I didn't want to be just another unburied corpse in this wasteland, doomed to haunt it eternally. I squeezed my eyes closed and waited to be shot, burned, grenaded, and blasted apart by rockets. Nothing happened. I opened my to see Three standing on the behemoth, holding the metal eye telekinetically. The "Dreadnought Unit" had powered down. She hopped down looking awfully proud of herself. Not getting killed by a giant rampaging war machine? Awesome! Surrounded by a shit-load of ponies and buffalo who almost definitely wanted to kill us? Not so awesome. The three of us (where was Two?) backed up by each other as the crowd began to surround us. A toweringly tall purple and white Fire Hairs unicorn mare with red circles painted on her coat and wearing metal barding tied together by strips of cloth stepped out from the crowd. "Who are you ponies?" she asked Three in a particularly derisive way. Three looked behind and around her, expecting that the Fire Hairs mare was talking to somepony else. "Answer me! Leader to leader, tell me why you and your band of thieves just destroyed our property." Three wasn't the leader. However, I understood the confusion. The Fire Hairs believed that unicorns were the only race suitable for freedom and constantly kept the buffalo and earth ponies under them in a state of low level hypnosis. The idea of somepony other than a unicorn being in a position of command was probably unthinkable to her. Lily put herself between Three and the Fire Hairs mare. "Ahem," she coughed, "I'm in charge of this 'band o' thieves' as y'all call us. I'm a representative of Waypoint Trading Company on a business related mission and if y'all will consider for a Celestia damned moment that we just saved y'all's sorry flanks from all getting killed, you should thank us." Oh Goddesses, Lily, why'd you have to talk back to the crazy racist pony? "The fuck did you just say?" the Fire Hairs mare sputtered, "You stupid, insolent, fucking earth pony! Know your Goddess-damned place!" a raider gave a small, but noticeable 'What?' from behind her. "What are you doing with a unicorn, anyways? I swear, if you're slaving unicorns I'll..." her eyes drifted to me and burrowed into mine, "Who are you?" she asked me, "I feel like I've seen, or heard, about you, maybe..." her eyes went wide as she noticed my cutie mark,"Hol-ee SHIT! A pickaxe? You're that little White Hooves bastard who killed a team of our warriors!" All that was running through my mind was 'Ah crap.' Of course they had thought-scouts watching their warriors! I had suddenly become the focus of all our enemies. We were hugely outnumbered with one team member nowhere to be seen and nowhere to run. Yup, pretty much screwed. "You little... Why, I should tear your Goddesses-damned head off and stuff it full of shit and then bury it and then dig it up and then sew it back onto your body and feed you to the cannibals in the horn-fucking hills!" she ranted at the top of her lungs. Dear Celestia, this pony must really take war seriously. "I swear by Luna's holy genitals I will avenge my little sister's death, you fucking fuck-faced Fuck-Hooves!" Oh, the unicorn with those guards was her sister? Damn... I was trying to reach for my hammer when she threw herself on top of me with a knife drawn (a really big and heavy knife with serrations on both edges) that she held in her magical grip. All hell broke loose. The three of us, my friends and I, were badly, badly outnumbered. I scrambled out of crazed-unicorn-pony's grip and thrashed around trying to avoid her knife strikes. Somehow the "Dreadnought Unit" had turned itself back on and was firing into the battle. As I tried to dodge a column of flames I ended up running into my attacker. She gave a strong (and very, very, very painful) two-hoofed kick into my ribs. Thank the Goddesses I landed on my other side, right next to my hammer. I snatched it up in my mouth and wished for S.A.T.S. to give me my only advantage. Time froze and outlined the Fire Hairs mare in that thick cerulean blue my Pip-Buck projected. I would only get one swing in S.A.T.S. (apparently swinging hammers takes up a lot of the spell's charge) so I had to make it count. Where should I aim? I could aim for the side of her head and possibly knock her out, but that was only possibly. The knife? She would just pick it up again magically. What about her horn? If I could shatter it, or at least wound it enough, I could take away her most useful tool. Plus it had a slightly higher chance that the rest of her head or the knife. I selected her horn. But then I saw her eyes. Her eyes held anger, but not just anger. Sadness. I'd killed her sister (well, not technically but i felt like I had). For a moment in frozen-time I imagined if one of my sisters was killed. She had cared about her sister, I could see that, and now I was getting ready to smash the only part of her that gave her any power in her tribe. At that moment a wave of pity and kindness swept over me. I canceled the attack. I backed out of S.A.T.S. and was rewarded for my kindness by a knife scraping passed my ribs. My side exploded in pain. She drew out her weapon and slashed across my left knee, just above my Pip-Buck. I jerked around, carried by impulse, and swept the heavy end of my hammer into the side of her head. Her face twisted and smushed around the sledgehammer. She fell down and immediately began scrambling up again as a wave of fire (without the jelly stuff this time, praise the ancestors...) washed over us. I jumped away as fast as I could as it scorched my fur and burned my mane. My leather barding didn't catch, but hers sure did. Several of the cloth strips burned away. Plates of metal dropped off as she desperately tried to regain her vision and find her weapon, all while trying to pat out her flaming mane and tale. This was my chance, and this time I wasn't going to let kindness stand in my way. I charged. I swung. I smashed down on the tip of her horn. It shattered like pottery. Chunks of it, the most important and sacred bone in a unicorn's body, blew up in my face, sparking tiny blue pinpricks of light. Only a jagged and bloody stump remained on her head. And yet she didn't die. She didn't even go down. Her smoke brushed eyes shot open. The Fire Hairs mare launched herself onto me with tears of pain and anger flooding from her eyes. I stumbled as she went for my neck, for my scar. I went down in a heap on the ground and tried to hold her off me with the staff of my hammer. My enemy didn't even look like a pony anymore. Her lips curled back, the jagged stump, red eyes, blood trickling down her face. This was a monster. I took a brief glance around me. All the ponies fighting, dying, were monsters. Ponies shouldn't be like this. I tried to buck her off, but was unsuccessful. She kept jabbing at my neck and stomping at my face. I tried to hold her off uselessly. Her rage gave her strength I hadn't seen before in a pony. She knocked the hammer out of my mouth and then slammed both front hooves down on my face. I could feel a tooth crack and I bit through the side of my cheek. She leaned her full weight against my wind pipe and began choking me to death. As my eyes started rolling back in my head I wished for S.A.T.S. and time came to a standstill. It didn't seem to care that I was unarmed, I guess. Her smashed horn was labeled as "crippled." Because of the strange angle I was laying at her head had a much lower chance of being hit then the rest of her. Her now unarmored torso and legs, however, were fair game. I selected a bunch of hits to her body and legs and let my Pip-Buck take over, making the hits I couldn't. She was knocked back by one particularly strong kick to her groin (I hadn't meant to hit her there, but S.A.T.S. didn't care, it just reacted) and I rolled over to stand up. I gasped, sucking in the warm, dusty air I'd been deprived. I snatched up my hammer and spun towards the mare, readying myself for the next attack. And then I got hit by a buffalo. Literally. Missiles (launched from the wrong direction, I noticed) swam through the air blasting raiders and Fire Hairs to bits and throwing the heavy buffalo on top of me. Immobilized I was pretty much a sitting duck in the middle of the battle. The Fire Hairs mare struggled to her feet and found her knife. She held it awkwardly in her teeth as if she had never used a tool that way before. She trotted over to where I was laying. Pinned and gasping for air beneath the crushing weight of the buffalo's corpse I was a very easy target. This was the end. "Ah’am gu-ing dah breed uu drai, an Ah’am gun-ah engoy iff." she mumbled with a wicked grin through her knife's hilt, "Diff iff vore mah zister, uu muver-vucker!" She swung the knife up. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the end and squeezing in those last moment prayers. Dear Celestia, have mercy on me. Blessed Luna, redeem me. Holy ancestors, let me walk in your halls. Dear Goddesses, I didn't want to die. And then the world exploded. My head throbbed and thudded mercilessly with each beat of my heart. I cracked my eyes open which took a surprising amount of effort. Green hills and blue skys. Sweet Celestia, the sun! I'd never seen it so bright, so full of life! If this really was hell then whoever built it didn't have the mean-streak I would expect from a demon. Was I dead? No, I couldn't be. Dead wouldn't hurt like this. I was in pain everywhere. There wasn't a single part of my body that didn't hurt. Well, maybe I was dead but I was in hell instead of heaven. That would make sense, right? I sat upright on my rump in a very unpony-like way. Before me was a mine entrance that looked familiar but at the same time was completely foreign. I looked behind me and saw a tall red barn. A short pony wearing some type of blue and yellow barding trotted inside the door. "Hey!" I tried to catch her attention, "Hey! Where am I?!" The pony tilted her head, as if she was trying to hear a faint whisper, and then continued on inside. Maybe hell was lonely... I turned back to the mine entrance and suddenly found it much closer than before. A faintly glowing unicorn horn stood upside down in the dirt. I felt sad and cold despite the warmth I felt from the sun. It was her horn, the one I'd smashed. Maybe this was my punishment. Knowing I'd failed my mission for my tribe by dying in a meaningless fight. Shit. I started sobbing and wallowing in my self-pity, or whatever it was ponies wallowed in in hell. Celestia wrapped her wing around me and I cried into the Goddess's embrace. Not hell after all, I guessed. "Fall," the Goddess whispered in her divinely serene eloquence, "wake the fuck up. There's a battle going on and I'm not going to get killed standing around waiting for you." Huh? Two stood over me with a rocket launcher slung across his back. I was leaning against the outer wall of the garage covered in gore and blood. I glanced down briefly to find buffalo intestines wrapped around my hind legs. I jerked my head and coughed up some blood of my own. "Good, you're still alive." Two said in a monotone, "If you'd died it would've been a real bitch to get another pony with a Pip-Buck." Oh yeah, glad to see you as well, Two. "How long was I out?" I asked. I spat blood off to the side. It tasted like iron. He shrugged. "Just a few seconds, I think. The rocket knocked you out a bit. Doesn't matter. Can you walk?" I tested moving my legs and kicked off the buffalo intestines. They still worked (my legs, not the intestines). "Yeah, I think I can." My head and the rest of my body, on the other hoof, were still probably concussed from Two’s damn rocket. "Good." he nodded quickly. He tossed a roll of bandages from a pocket on his armor to me. "You should cover up that knife wound before you bleed too much. I'm going to go find my sister. You go help Lily. Good luck." And then he sprinted off into the chaos, levitating his rocket launcher by his side. I stripped off my blood stained leather barding (which I realize now was a really disgusting thing to do since I took it off with my teeth) and inspected the ugly, deep gash in my side. I wished I hadn’t immediately. Within the gooey, cut-up muscle and skin I could see my ribs cracked, chipped. Fortunately I wasn’t losing as much blood as I thought I was and no arteries had been cut. I looked away and did my best to wrap the healing bandages around my torso. After taking a small glug of water I slipped back into my disturbingly slimy and wet armor. I reached for my hammer... and my heart stopped beating. My hammer, the only weapon I was any good with, wasn’t with me. I muttered off a string of colorful profanity laced with traces of prayers as I desperately searched for a stand in weapon, eventually settling on a heavy L-shaped pipe. I glanced out from behind the wall, trying to find Lily in the (slowly getting smaller) crowd. The chaotic battle still raged. ‘Dreadnought Unit’ rolled forward at a slow but persistent pace towards the bulk of the ponies and buffalo. My eyes continued to scan the area. A hat lying in the dirt caught my attention: Lily’s hat. I soon found Lily under a pile of bodies and/or body parts. She was still breathing. And she was right in the ‘Dreadnought Unit’s path. The gigantic treads crawled towards her. Without thinking, I ran out from behind my shelter and pranced around the giant thing in an attempt to distract it. It just kept rolling. A gunshot blew off by my head. I spun around and crushed the skull of the offending pony (apparently a worse shot than me) and then tossed his corpse into the rolling robot behemoth's tracks in an attempt to slow it down. The robot just rolled over it. I caught a glimpse of the underside then and noticed something odd about it: it had no armor at all. For a brief second I spotted a panel with a faded yellow lightening bolt on it. That had to be where the power came from! I reached down into my saddle bags, pulling out one of my last sticks of dynamite. Knocking off the cap and rolling it under the machine I ducked and hoped for the best. Yet another deafening blast in the day of deafening blasts and the huge thing paused momentarily and then continued. Tails of flame were licking out from the underbelly of the robot, eating away at the rubber treads. I fished out my last stick and kicked the cap off. I tossed it. One second, two seconds, three seconds. I counted up to twelve. Was the stick a dud? The extra big explosion answered 'no' as the dynamite went off, causing a chain reaction with the engine block and whatever ammo was still inside it. You know, come to think of it, leaving the bottom of that thing unarmored was a pretty big design flaw. Bits and pieces of 'Dreadnought Unit' landed all around me. The top turret flew off and crushed a raider pony. I heard somepony scream the words 'killed' and 'you bastard,' but was to busy trying to avoid death by shrapnel to understand the context. When the rain of burning metal stopped falling I rushed over to Lily. A large, jagged hunk of the metal abomination's armor had buried itself in her left shoulder pad, barely stopping before digging into her flesh. I tried to shake her awake. "Hey, Lily, wake up!" I yelled. She rolled over and I saw a big gash in the back of her head. That must have been what knocked her out. "Mmmm... Jus' lemme sleep a lil lonner..." she grumbled. "No!" I shouted, "No sleep! Fighting! Get up!" I shook her harder and slapped her cheek with my hoof. Her eyes shot open and she kicked me in the chest out of reflex (I think...). "Luna dammit, Fall! Ah was having a nice dream!" she screamed at the top of her lungs as she touched the gash on her head and loaded rounds into her battle-saddle. She redirected her anger towards to crowd of ponies and buffalo killing each other (of which there were only a few left) and shouted, "Alright, you shit-lickers, Ah'm sick an tired of this fight! If y'all want to kill me, come an get me!" She shot into the crowd with her twin rifles and began perforating her enemies with a whole shit-ton of bullets. I picked myself up off the ground (I was getting knocked down a lot that day, it seemed) and grabbed my crappy metal pipe, bracing myself for impact with the war-painted, pistol wielding buffalo bull that was charging towards me. His first shot missed. Bullet number two found a home in my right shoulder. I staggered to the right a bit as my right foreleg started giving out. After the beating I'd taken today it wasn't all that much of a surprise that I couldn't take much more. He dropped his pistol and lowered his head to impale me on his horns. Steadying myself, I waited until the buffalo was within range of my makeshift club and took a swing. The pipe barely connected with his jaw, but my weak swing and the speed of his charge combined to create enough force to knock a few of his teeth out and (fortunately for me) re-angle his horns away from my neck. The impact itself, however, didn't hurt any less as the big buffalo bull plowed into me. I flew back ten feet, crashing against the garage's metal doors. Dear Goddesses, I just couldn't get a break today. I was seeing stars. The swished and somersaulted over each other as I tried to get the world to stop swimming. I was bleeding a lot. My shoulder dripped slowly like syrup being poured out. The bandages I'd wrapped around my side were getting soaked through with my blood, and unable to hold any more blood the bandages leaked and oozed out red from beneath my barding. The burns on my body had started itching. My throbbing head ached constantly and lead me to believe I was concussed. The impact with the door had bruised my spine and for some reason my hooves tingled because of it, and that definitely couldn't be a good sign. I think I was about ready to just call it quits and die right there. The upside down buffalo (upside down in my visio, not in reality) put a hoof to his jaw where I'd landed my hit and then tugged out a knife from a sheath strapped to his barding. He walked towards me, presumably to finish me off. I should have been scared. Looking back on it, I should have been bucking terrified. At the time, though, I was way to out of it all to completely get what was going on. He drew closer with the knife to where I was slumped over, trying to regain my balance. My eyes half closed on their own, but I just barely saw a thin red line form around the buffalo's neck. Just like that. First it wasn't there and then it was. A gushing waterfall of blood poured out of the cut and in a few seconds my attacker (the last of our attackers, I somehow noticed) was dead. I lay there for a few seconds, wondering how that had happened, before Three appeared in from of me. Oh yeah, I remembered, invisibility spells. "Nice timing." I murmured before I faded out into darkness. I was woken up by the feeling of being unarmored, the bullet in my shoulder getting plucked out, and having bandages pressed and wrapped around me. I cracked one eye open. Three was in front of me, her horn glowing palely as it was outshone by the sun which cast a halo around her head. Behind her I could see Lily scavenging ammunition and supplies from the corpses. A thick cloth bandage was wrapped around her head and she'd tilted her hat away from her wound. I tried to pick myself up off the ground. Bad idea. Waves of throbbing pain, dull and sharp alike, washed through my body. "Whoa, easy, Fall," Three cautioned, "you took a hell of a beating. I'm amazed your spine isn't broken." She poured a healing potion down my throat and i felt some of my smaller wounds knit themselves together. She looked unscathed. There wasn't a single wound on her body. Her invisibility spell must have been really good. She was, however, specked and smattered with blood. "Here, these might help." she said, offering me a tablet and a syringe that she held in her magic. I'd never seen these things before, but something about them worried me. I opened my mouth to speak and coughed instead to clear my throat. "What are they?" I asked her. She shrugged, as if to say that my question was just sorta purposeless. "Med-X and Buck." she answered, "One's a painkiller, the other will get you back on your hooves." and then, seeing my confused expression, "Medicine stuff." The medicine I was used to came from herbs. I'd never seen medicines like this and I wasn't quite sure what to think about them, but if Three trusted them then I guessed that I should too. "Okay." I stretched my hoof out towards her. She slid the needle into my skin and pressed down the syringe's plunger. Almost immediately my pain started retreating, first from my legs and then from my back and side. My headache dulled to a much more manageable low drumbeat. I opened my mouth to receive the tablet. She placed it on my tongue and I chewed. I couldn't say anything for the taste (somewhere between dried cactus skin covered in chalk and rotting apples) but it definitely made me feel stronger. So strong, in fact, that within a minute I was standing up and stretching out my muscles and popping my stiff joints. Damn, that was some good medicine. Strangely though my heart seemed to be speeding up and slowing down at weird times for no real reason. But it didn't bother me much at the time so I ignored it. The world looked brighter, almost like the sun had gotten... well, sunnier. "Thanks." I said to Three. I put on my barding and trotted off to go find my lost hammer under the debris and guts of the fight. It was lying under blasted up concrete and the splayed ribcage of a pony. The wooden shaft was broken in half. I picked it up by what looked like the cleanest part and wiped off as much blood and grime as I could. My garbled mind made me feel like I’d lost an old friend. I put my half-a-hammer in my saddlebags and trumbled onwards to Lily. The ammo and bits of food she was collecting were spilling out of the pockets of her saddle bags. She made no attempt to wipe off the little drops of blood trickling over her muzzle. Bits of pony flesh were caught in her mane. "Hi." I said, "How's your head?" She glanced at me and the returned to her scavenging. "Ah'll be fine. Ah've had worse than this before. Ain’t mah first rodeo, after all. How's y'all's..." she paused, trying to think of the right word, "...everything?" I shrugged. "I feel okay. The medicine that Three gave me really helped." She looked at me funny. For some odd reason the blood and grime made her prettier. In my hazy mind I imagined leaning forward and kissing her. I resisted that urge, and instead asked, “So, I didn’t see Two fighting for about half the fight. Where was he?” “Hiding our stash of spark batteries.” she replied as she rolled her eyes. Apparently I should have known this. “We do have an order to fill, after all. So how’d that tribal unicorn bitch know ya?” “I killed some warriors from her tribe.” I said. She raised an eyebrow at me. “One of the warriors was her sister. They must have been using a watching spell or something because she knew what I looked like.” My stomach flipped. The guilt of killing that I’d felt before crashed over me again. I started noticing, really noticing, all the dead around me. So many. Blown up, shot, burned, stabbed and slashed. Had they all had families also, ponies and buffalos who had loved them and would want to avenge their deaths at our hooves? My legs mushed under me and I fought the urge to vomit. Dammit. I deserved hell. We all did, didn’t we? I steadied myself. “I’m gonna go see if Two needs any help. You know, with the batteries and stuff.” “Sure. He’s in the garage.” Lily said. What was left of the garage, anyways. ‘Dreadnought Unit’ had blown out half the building. Chunks of the wall littered the ground. Dust floated in the air, making me sneeze. Two was trying and failing to break open a locker with a pin and a screwdriver. The pile of spark batteries we’d collected the previous day sat next to him. I walked up beside him as he worked. “Mind if I try the lock?” I asked. He offered me the pin and screwdriver. “Be my guest.” he said. He smirked, apparently expecting me to fail. I brushed aside his method and drew out my half-a-hammer. He stepped away as I started my backswing. One strong impact and the lock broke apart. “Well,” he sighed, “that’s one way...” He opened up the dented locker. Shelves full of pristine spark batteries that had remained untouched for two centuries rested in neat lines. “Jackpot.” he whispered. He gathered up all the batteries in a magical cloud and then looked at me. “Got any space in your pack?” he asked I opened my saddlebags and he dropped in about fifteen of the objects. We walked out, leaving behind the old batteries we'd scavenged the day before, and he announced to our other companions that he'd found the fifty we needed in to fill the order in perfect condition. Three looked overjoyed that we could finally leave this old, decrepit outpost. She hopped around with the energy of a little filly as her brother loaded her pack with a few batteries. Lily was more subdued, only smiling slightly. The bandages on her head had begun to slide down over her left eye, giving her by accident that mysterious look that my sister, Stream, had tried so hard to achieve to woo some buck she liked. I liked Lily, even if she didn't like me. I like Three also, but not in quite the same way. Three reminded me of Blossombrook, a mare that my mother had tried to set me up with years ago. I was never very good at romance and relationships. Too complex for me. I was happy that we could leave Desert Outpost 21 also. The blood and gore around me, not to mention the twenty dead foals in the house we’d spent the night in, had convinced me that this was a bad place to be. "Alright, Fall," Lily commanded, "You've got the map. Lead us to Violetville." And, happily, we walked off into the hot and sandy and bone dry desert, leaving behind the dusty, bloody, abandoned relic of Equestria's sins behind us, all of us hoping to never return again. On our journey to Violetville, a few events stood out to me and I feel that I should recall them for the purposes of this story. We'd left the Outpost about a half hour ago. The sun beat down on us, sapping the moisture from our bodies. Several white, wispy clouds hung in the air and let themselves be pushed and pulled by a gentle breeze. Well, most of the clouds. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the strangest cloud I'd ever seen. Unlike the the bone-white clouds around it this cloud looked like it would be more at home in a thunderstorm. It was a dark shade of gray and blue bolts of lightning arced inside it. But that wasn't the oddest part. What made this cloud completely out of place was that it was flying in the wrong direction and that it was boat shaped. Really boat shaped. Sharp edges and everything. Clouds aren't like that, shouldn't be like that, and it freaked me out. Three noticed it also. "Watch out, guys," she said, "Enclave is patrolling." "Ah, they shouldn't be a problem," Two shrugged, "Those pansy-assed pegasi won't fly down from their clouds and get their frickin power armor dirty unless we start shooting rockets at them." It was funny that he said that, since he did have a rocket launcher slung across his back. "The Enclave are pegasi? Like the one that bit my neck open?" I asked. Like I've said, all this wasteland stuff was still very new to me. "Yeah, but not really," Three answered without really answering. "The one that attacked ya'll had gone feral for some reason. I dunno, a virus or sum'in," Lily broke in, "Lots of 'Claver pegasi flew down here after the war when..." "When the Stable Dweller beat the shit out of them!" Three squee'd. Damn. Was the Stable Dweller really that important to NCR ponies? "Picture this, Fall: A Sonic. Fucking. Rad-Boom! So awesome!" I had no idea what I was supposed to be picturing. "So, anyways," I asked further, "why shouldn't we worry about them?" I never really got a straight answer, though. Three and Lily started bickering about something (I can't remember what) and Two just didn't care enough to answer me. In hindsight, I really wish I had been able to learn more about the Enclave because it would have really come in handy. A few hours later my Pip-Buck started buzzing and screeching. It made terrible noises. I practically jumped out of my skin. "Relax, Fall. We're probaly just in range of a tower. Let me take a look at it." Lily grabbed my hoof and fiddled with my Pip-Buck. She pressed some combination of buttons and ended up on a function labeled 'radio'. She selected the option named 'NCR Radio South' and the scratchy garbage became words (spoken by a buck who sounded like he had a cold) and music. "...dust storms expected around eight in the evening. All citizens are urged to close their shutters and hunker down at home, travelers should take cover in a rented room or somewhere similar. "In other news, Colonel SkyLoom of the NCR Sixth Military Police Brigade would like to remind you that hate crimes against ghouls, griffons, former Enclave members, and other species are not tolerated and will be dealt with in accordance with Republic Code 17.6-8. Severely. "And now, some smooth music from our friend Pon-3 up north. This is Corporal Limelight, Seventh Communications Battalion, signing off..." Instrumental music bloomed out of my Pip-Buck. Horns and trumpets and instruments I'd never even heard before spewed sounds and danced around each other in ways I hadn't heard before. Sure, we had music in my tribe, but that was all dedicated to the Goddesses and the ancestors. This, on the other hoof, was just music for the sake of having music. I liked it. We walked in the direction my Pip-Buck said with the music playing for about an hour longer. Occasionally the music would be interrupted by the message ‘You are listening to NCR Radio South, your local source for your country’s news and entertainment’ but then the songs (which sometimes included singing, but not always) would resume. One voice, I remember, was particularly sweet. It was a mares voice. When she sang it felt like she was speaking to you directly. Her emotions (pain, happiness, anger, or anything) all felt real. She sang with the voice of a pony who must have seen too much. The last instance that I feel is important to mention is when my ‘medicine’ started wearing off. My headache was the first to come back in full force. Next my side made itself noticeable, and I felt the edges of my cracked ribs rubbing against each other. Then everything hurt and I tripped over my hooves landing face down in the sand. “Ow.” I groaned. It felt like I was under a bag of rocks. I’d lost all the strength I’d had before, leaving me helpless and in pain. Lily turned around and kicked my hooves. “Ger up, Fall.” she insisted, “Citys right there.” I glanced up. Violetville, a little ragged looking large village surrounded by a high scrap-metal wall, was indeed only a few hundred meters from were I was laying in the sand. I tried to lift myself up but just couldn't. My legs refused lift me. "I can't get up." I explained, "I don't have any strength left. I think the medicine Three gave me stopped working." Lily turned around and glared at Three. "What tahp of 'medicine' was this, exactly?" Three gazed into space as she spoke. "Well," she said, "I gave him one of our healing potions, some Med-X... and some of that new formula of Buck that that one caravaner was selling a few months ago." Two slammed his hoof against his face and grimaced. "Dear Goddesses, sis! You could have killed him!" Death by medicine? This was new to me... "You should never, never mix painkillers and combat chems. I'm amazed he's still alive with that in his system!" "Ah'm amazed it didn't wear off 'til now." Lily added. She actually looked genuinely impressed. "Two, would ya mind carrying him into the town 'til we can find a doctor or sumthing?" Without saying another word, Two hefted me off the ground with his telekinesis. As we approached the gates of the town I faintly heard a voice shout "Halt! State your business." or something along those lines. Another wave of overwhelming pain swept over me and I blacked out (which seemed to be happening to me a lot that day). I awoke with a very angry looking red unicorn with a paper mask, an apron a few sizes too big, and glowing horn standing by me. She (or it could have been a he, I'm still not sure) was holding a scalpel, a pair of tweezers, a needle with something in it, and other foreign looking medical things in a strangely ugly telekinetic cloud. He (or she) put down the things and cast a spell that made me feel filled with light. I felt the wound in my side close up, my headache recede completely, and almost all my joints pop in a satisfyingly loud way. I let out a low sigh. "Oh, you're awake." the mare (or stallion) grumbled, "Well, you're all patched up. Twenty caps." He (or she) put out their hoof. What was a cap? Lily walked over, her head wound gone. "Y'all'll get yer caps right after we make our delivery, alright?" "Ugh. Fine. Whatever." the doctor pony sighed, "Hey, Lucky," he (or she) said to a rifle carrying buck in khaki barding (with "NCR Peacekeeper" written on the side) standing by the entrance of the clinic, "Follow them and pick up the caps when they get them." We left with Lucky trailing behind us. Two and Three were waiting outside, both leaning against different sections of the wall in very similar ways. "You guys feeling okay?" they asked at the same time, with Three sounding distinctly more concerned. She offered me my barding (which was now full of holes) and saddle bags. I shrugged them on without pain. "Yeah, we're fine." Lily answered for the both of us, "Let's jus' get goin and get our caps." What was a cap?! We trotted through the thin streets. Buildings stood pressed together uncomfortably and leaned at odd angles. They were mostly constructed out of the same scrap as the wall. The guard pony, Lucky, limped behind us with a brace on his right hind-leg. I wondered to myself why he was injured but never came up with a reason. Somehow my Pip-Buck had found the exact location of the pony we were delivering our batteries to, so our path followed the direction of the arrow. The street opened up into a courtyard filled with tents and stands. Ponies (of all types, including pegasi which surprised me), griffons, a few ghouls, and even a donkey meandered around selling and buying different products and goods. The smells of foods I'd never even seen before drifted through the air and touched my nose. Strangely, I also saw and smelled cooked flesh (not from ponies, I hoped) which was a little uncomfortable after being raised a vegetarian like most ponies. The ponies here all seemed to have weapons with them. Guards dressed like Lucky walked around with compact rifles slung around their necks on wide fabric straps. The Pip-Buck's arrow landed on a dark red pegasus mare with an eggshell white mane and a cutie mark of what looked like a house standing. She was by a cart guarded by two more pegasi in lightweight barding. She seemed about my age, maybe a year or two older, and stood with a strange and mysterious look of confident boredom defining the way she carried herself. Her confidence and comfort with the situation she was in seemed to be something she felt like showing off: she was the only pony in the entire market without any barding or protective clothing of any type. Her eyelashes were long. "Our buyer is right there." I said to Lily, pointing to the pegasus mare. We walked over to her as a group. Her eyes landed on us very briefly and then returned to the nothing she had been staring so intently at. "Have you four got my batteries?" she asked, "You're late." Her voice was direct and sharp. She pronounced each syllable as if she felt the need to be efficient and was trying to speak clearly enough to never need to repeat herself. Lily scowled at the 'You're late' comment. "Yah, sure. We've got y'all's damn batteries." "Let me see them." the red mare demanded. She continued staring into the middle distance. "Caps first." Two interjected. Both mare glanced at him. Lily nodded in agreement. The red mare brought up one wing and motioned with it to her guards. They produced two bags, one of them opened. Small, circular discs with ruffled edges and paint on top with silly words. This was there currency? What was even the point of these bits of metal? What in Discord's hell was the purpose of this crap? "One thousand caps for fifty batteries. Happy?" the red pegasus mare asked in the same bored tone. She acted like she made deals like this everyday (which, come to think of it, she probably did). Lily examined the tiny garbage discs and a slight grin crept across her muzzle. She then caught herself and banished her smile to the moon. "Four-thousand caps. No less. Plus an eight-hundred finders fee." she declared, stomping her hoof to show just how serious she was. She seemed to think these 'caps' were deathly important. I was still trying to figure out what their purpose was. Did they do something magicky? "You're late." the mare repeated, "One-thousand for the batteries, one-hundred finders fee. I'm being generous because you all look like you've been through hell." "No!" Three shouted. The mare and my companions haggled over the price for a while. I stayed out of it because I had no way of knowing the going price in garbage for pristine batteries. Lucky had sat down with a book to pass the time. I just stood around, staring at the sky, trying to divine the purpose of those stupid metal discs. Eventually I was broken out of my thoughtfulness by the feeling of eyes on me. Everypony was staring at me. "What?" "You haven't said anything. Do you think my price sounds fair?" the mare asked, still bored but with a little edge in her voice. Lily looked too tired to argue anymore. Three sat, chewing on her upper lip. Two just looked at me and shrugged. "Sure. I guess it's fair." I answered. She threw down another bag and a roll of pieces of paper, mumbling something along the lines of 'about damn time somepony listened to reason'. What was the point of the bits of paper? Aargh! None of it made sense! We gave Lucky the caps we owed the doctor, and then we left the market with the garbage currency we'd worked so hard to earn. The sun was dipping just below the horizon, and somewhere between the market and wherever we were wandering Lily announced "Ah'm thirsty as fuck. Let's find a bar." So we found a bar. A bar, I discovered, was what northern ponies called a well, except not really because instead of being outside or in a cave it was in a building, and instead of water it provided drinks based on sugar that had gone bad (or good, I guess, depending on your point of view). Anyways, the bar we found was a run down two-and-a-half story building with boards nailed over shattered windows and red paint peeling off. A sign hung too low over the door, proclaiming that the name of the establishment was 'The Dead Pegasus' with the word 'Pegasus' painted over and replaced with 'Rock' which made a lot less sense. 'The Dead Rock' shared a wall with a much smaller and more brightly painted building called 'Chapel of the Holy Lightbringer'. To be honest I was more inclined to visit the chapel, but my companions were intent on visiting the bar and I wasn't very keen on the idea of being left alone in a city I felt like a complete foreigner in. So I followed after them. The bar was filled with ponies and a few griffons sitting at tables, standing, lying on the floor asleep. One pegasus was walking on the ceiling upside down and the earth pony buck she was drinking with was resting hammock-style in the chandelier. A large upright piano (which I recognized from an old pre-war picture my dad kept) was being played by a jet-black griffon. The tune was awful. Behind the counter was a ghoul and a donkey. They cleaned glasses and poured drinks in an unnecessarily flashy and complex way, throwing them over their heads and tossing them around their legs. I quickly lost sight of the others in the crowd. Moving quickly toward the counter to try and avoid being jostled I found an empty stool (which was unnatural to sit on). The donkey (who did not have his natural mane) swayed, favoring one side over the other, across the floor to face me. "Whud'd ya like, buck?" he asked. Several of his teeth were missing and his breath smelled like the trash heap back home, but his genuine smile made him more bearable to talk to. I wasn't sure what to say to his question, having never been to a bar before, and simply replied, "I'm not sure. What do you think's good thing to drink?" He nodded and rubbed his chin. "Mmm, the beers nice, but da ice is all gone. Mmm..." he looked at me, studyingly, "Vodka? Nah, don' look like da type. How 'bout whiskey? Five caps fer a shot, twenny-fahv fer a bottle?" That sounded as good as anything else to me. I took out the pieces of paper Lily had divided up with us and laid them out. "Sure, but just a little, I guess. How much of this money?" He grabbed one of the pieces and stuffed it in the pocket of the stained apron he wore. With the same odd gracefulness he took out a tiny glass and, after flinging a bottle of goldeny-brown liquid around a few times, filled the little cup and pushed it to me. "Drink up." and then he trotted away to fill the next customer's glass. I sipped the stuff and found it warm, a bit biting, but definitely pleasant. I emptied the tiny glass and, slightly lightheaded, found myself wishing for more. A very green unicorn buck with a spinning top for a cutie mark sat on the stool next to me. He ordered a bottle of wine, pulled out the cork, started taking short sips, and slammed his head into the counter with a sigh. His mane was ruffled in some places and matted down in others, like he'd been wearing a hat. A small burn scar marked his forehead above his left eye. Eventually he looked at me. "You're new here, aren't you?" he asked. His accent was one I hadn't heard before. I nodded. "I'm just passing through. I'm from south of here." "That so?" he groaned, "What's your name? I'm Jumper Cable." He offered his hoof to shake without removing his head from the counter. "My name is Fall." I returned the hoof shake. This buck seemed like a nice guy so far. "So why are you at this bar? Are you with friends, work buddies, marefriend?" "Alone," he muttered, "or, at least mostly alone." "What do you mean, mostly alone?" He brushed aside my question with the wave of his hoof and changed the subject after another sip of wine. "What do you think of the pegasi, Fall? You're an earth pony, so what do you think about the flyers? You don't like them, do you?" I scratched at my mane and wished I had more whiskey. "I'm not sure what I think. I've only met two..." "And how'd they seem?" "Well, the first one tried to kill me..." He abruptly cut me off with a hoof to my mouth. "Exactly, Fall, exactly." his eyes got shifty, "You can't trust them. Especially not the older ones." His eyes turned to the ceiling. The pegasus mare who'd been walking on the ceiling was doing flips and loops for the entertainment of a group of NCR Peacekeepers. "Never can tell what they're thinking..." I brushed his hoof away. "Well, the other one I met was nice enough." "Are you a soldier, Fall?" he asked, completely changing the subject. "If you mean a warrior, then no." I admitted, "I'm more of a messenger, or an agent, or something." He took a big gulp from his bottle. He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, and then poured some wine into my cup. "I'm a soldier. Drink up." "What's it like?" "It tastes like grapes. You don't drink much, do you?" "No, what's it like being a soldier?" I sipped at the wine. It didn't feel as warming as the whiskey and it was much sweeter. Still nice, though. My head was starting to feel a little fuzzy. "Oh." he coughed. He cleared his throat and in a different, much deeper voice, recited, "The Sacred Land of Equestria is Reborn, but War Waits for Nopony! Join Now to Protect, Serve, and Fight for Harmony! Visit your local New Canterlot Army recruiter!" he changed his voice back and snorted, "Bullshit." I was puzzled. Where I was from warriors were proud to serve. It was their duty to the tribe, their ancestors, and the Goddesses. "What's so bad about being a soldier?" I finished off my drink. He swigged down the rest of his bottle, smashed it on the floor, and tapped the counter with his hoof. The donkey walked over. Jumper ordered two pints of the "house" cider. When he received the big, frothy pints he pushed one mug over to me and gave the donkey a small pile of caps. "Drink up." "Thanks." It was sweeter than either of the other drinks. In the back of my mind I heard my mother warning me about eating rotten apples or something, but I wasn't paying attention. "So, what's so bad about being a soldier?" "I've been fighting for five years, Fall," he explained, "and during that time I've done some shit I regret. I've killed ponies, Fall, and I've gotten good at it." I nodded, getting a little lightheaded. "I've killed ponies alsho, but I'm no good at it." Damn, did that ever sound stupid. "I've applied for the Rangers six times, Fall. Today I got rejected for the seventh time." I nodded in agreement and sipped the yellow, heavy, foamy, tasty cider slowly till I'd drunk all of it. "The say I'm not qualified." Jumper explained. He looked angry and pointed to himself. "Does this look like the face of a weak pony to you?" he shouted. He telekinetically picked up his cider and downed it all in less than a minute. I started clapping and shaking my head. "Mno. You look toufve to me, Jumpy. Can I call ya Jumpy, Jumpy?" "I've killed more Steel Rangers than anypony else in my company, more Enclavers than the rest of my platoon combined, and more fucking shitty-flanked raiders than I can count!" "I thogt ya sed you wanted ta be *hic* a ranger? Maybe kill'n rengers is why they won't 'cept you maybe." I said, believing I was making a valid point. "Different Rangers." Oh. I didn't get it. "Tell you what, Fall, how about we hoof wrestle to see who buys the next round of drinks. You game?" I rested my non-Pip-Bucked front leg on the counter. "Mmm, sure. That shounds gud. Mm game." He propped his leg up and we locked hooves. I quickly brought him down. He demanded a rematch twice before finally buying the drinks. I wasn't even sure what I was drinking. We repeated the process, I drank more alcohol, got woozier. Somewhere during this time I noticed a very tall purple unicorn buck in a black cloak sitting alone at a corner table. His cloak was lumpy on the sides, making my addled brain think he was hiding wings (Which my logical side knew was crazy). He was staring at me. I asked Jumper who the buck was. He said something about keeping to himself. This night was my first experience with drunkenness. Because of this I found it very hard to focus on anything, so I'm going to describe the rest of the night in the way I remember it: Jumper punches me in the face. NCR ponies tell him to walk away. Giant unicorn says to be careful. Three is drunk and dancing on the piano. The griffon playing piano falls asleep. Lily is talking to some mare. Two isn't drinking. My money gets stolen. Three makes me dance with her. Lampshades. Chandelier falls on a table of card playing ponies. Card playing ponies move to another table. Glue and caps. Lily is kissing some mare. Jumper is drunk and apologizing. I punch Jumper. NCR ponies hit me with sticks. I'm okay. For some reason, I drink again. I try talking to my Pip-Buck. The Pip-Buck says nothing. Three starts crying about something. I say something wrong. She slaps me. I fall off the piano and clunk my head. Two drags us all upstairs. I woke up the next morning on a hardwood floor, with a splitting headache, and unable to see. I brushed at my face to clear what was blocking my vision. After brushing off the lampshade resting on my head I saw where I was. I was lying on the floor of a dusty room next to a puddle of vomit. A glance up blinded me. The damn sun felt extra bright. Damn stupid worthless pain-inducing sun. I felt like Celestia was just messing with me for the hell of it (which, if some of the apocryphal stories in the “Story of the Goddesses” were true, was definitely a possibility). I lowered my head to get away from the blinding light and, still groggily, placed my face in the vomit puddle. Disgustedly I stood up, staring at the ground to avoid the light, and wiped away the sludge on my face. Shielding my eyes I took in my surroundings. I'd been lying next to a chair that Three was sleeping in upside down. Her horn had drawings of male genitals on it. Seriously, what type of a pony would do something that stupid? I looked over to my right. Lily was asleep in a wide bed with a bottle of vodka tucked under one hoof and the mare I'd seen her with held in the other. Jumper was lying at the foot of the bed with a swollen and bruised face. A small side table with a pitcher of water on it caught my attention next. Eight chipped cups rested in a circle around the pitcher. I suddenly felt very thirsty. I poured a glass for myself and drank. "Oh, you're awake." Two said from behind me. I spewed water from my mouth. Where had he been? Also, why was he yelling so loud? "Dear sweet Celestia, stop yelling! I've got a headache. Yes, I'm awake. Thank you for pointing that out." I choked out over the water. "Ugh... what was I drinking? And what the hell happened last night?" I tried to take another sip of water but just ended up coughing again. Two snickered deafeningly. "You're new to alcohol, aren't you? Yeah, drinking copious amounts of booze usually fucks ponies up the next morning, and you REALLY drank a lot. You even won a drinking contest with some griffon who played piano." Oh Goddesses, why? "Why would I do that? I've never even had alcohol before! We would I have so damn much?!" "Because you're an idiot." Ha ha, Two. "So, what happened? And where are we?" "You and that buck there," he pointed to the still unconscious Jumper, "became friends and then, like all good friends, beat the living shit out of each other. You cracked his nose and knocked out a few teeth. My sister started dancing and then tried making other ponies dance with her. She knocked you off a piano. It was hilarious." he smiled at the memory of me falling to the floor. He pointed to Lily. "Lily met a prostitute. At the time she was already really drunk and was convinced the hooker was the 'love of her life' as if that meant something. I had to drag you all to the rooms upstairs." Something that had probably taken too long to dawn on me suddenly dawned on me. "Lily likes other mares?" "Yes," Two replied, "does it matter?" I shrugged. It was then that I realized I wasn't wearing my barding and I had no idea where my saddlebags were. "Where's all my stuff?" He motioned with his head to the far side of the room. "Over there. By the way, do you want to keep those caps on your face?" I felt over my face with m hoof. I could feel small metal circles attached to me, glued to my fur. "No, I don't. Why do I have money on me?" Two started telekinetically pulling off each cap, tearing off tufts of fur in the process. "You were stripping off your armor for some mares and that was their way of paying you." Why would I do that? Then an odd thought occurred to me. "Hey, why doesn't your head hurt?" "I didn't drink." Two shrugged, "Somepony had to watch over the caps." After Two had pulled off all the caps from my fur I put on my (incredibly beaten up) barding and shrugged on my saddlebags. Three woke up from the noise and gave a groggy "Good morning," before tumbling out of her chair. Three's impact woke Jumper who shot straight up, wide-eyed, and grabbing wildly for a weapon, eventually choosing Lily's vodka. That woke up Lily, who smacked Jumper in the face and grabbed the bottle in her teeth before it hit the floor. Lily's sudden movement tipped the prostitute mare out of the bed and into my vomit puddle. "Ugh... I don't get paid enough for mornings like this." the prostitute moaned. After the whole situation was defused (and an unhappy looking Lily hoofed over several pieces of that NCR paper money stuff to the mare she'd slept with) we trotted downstairs to the bar. It was a wreck. Glasses lay shattered across the floor, chairs were in pieces, the chandelier was in a thousand bits on the ground, and the piano had a hoof-sized hole in the side (plus a griffon asleep with his face on the keys). The ghoul bartender was sweeping the floor. The donkey demanded money from Two for the room. Jumper apologized to me for starting a hoof fight with me (he couldn't remember what we'd been arguing about either) and I apologized for knocking his teeth out. We wished each other luck and he left. Three apologized to me for knocking me off the piano and explained that she'd been trying to say she was sorry for giving me bad drugs. Apparently I'd been a real ass about it. I accepted her apology and in turn said I was sorry for being a jerk. The rest of the day and part of the next night were spent getting back to Waypoint and recovering from our hangovers. Life was good for the next two and a half weeks. The contract I'd signed kept me with the company so I kept going missions with my companions. We would scavenge and trade and delivery orders to ponies who needed stuff. Everyday the radio gave us the same odd warning about hate crimes. I got better at killing, and while I still disliked it it was good to be able to not die in combat (I even learned how to shoot, sort of). I saw places and learned how things worked here in the north. Two and I generally stopped hating each other. Threeblue and I became closer to being romantically involved, but we were never quite coltfriend-marefriend. Lily warmed up to me and she and I could actually be considered friends. Yeah, life wasn’t all that bad. Until one awful day. The sun was bright and dust hung heavily in the air. We were returning from delivering exactly seventeen and a half pounds of scrap metal to an armor maker in the NCR encampment of Gold Ridge. I'd spoken to the Lieutenant in charge while I was there. Just like every other member of the NCR I’d met on my travels, he said he couldn’t authorize an alliance. I was beginning to wonder if my quest was pointless. The desert sun poured liquid heat down on our heads. Sweat caused my leather barding to slide and chafe against my skin. My new weapon of choice, since my hammer had been broken, a club made of rebar and concrete, weighed me down, slung off center across my back. The apple shaped grenades I’d bought on the previous mission hung in such a way that they tapped annoyingly against my body with every step. Lily fussed over her guns as we walked, cleaning sand out of the little nooks and crannies with a piece of cotton as we walked. Three had broken her ankle during the mission, leaving her limping. Gold Ridge had been without a medic, so she just gave herself a shot of Med-X, tied a stick around her leg for a brace, and carried on. Two held our caps, like usual. I took the lead, using my E.F.S. to scout ahead for enemies. I selected the radio on my Pip-Buck. The tail end of a song about a soldier mare missing her stallion ‘back home’ wrapped itself around my ears just before the news report began. “Good afternoon, everypony! Corporal Limelight here, and I’ve got some news for you. First off, some announcements. “The Sixth Military Police Brigade has issued a statement today regarding the sale of addictive chems. Any pony in an NCR territory without an NCR certified medical license caught selling controlled substances, particularly Buck, Dash, Med-X, and Mint-Als, will be in violation of NCR’s new territorial code known as Ordinance 11-67. This can result in fines and jail time. So don’t do that. “Also, Colonel SkyLoom has reiterated today that any hate crimes committed against ghouls, griffons, former Enclave members, and other species will not be tolerated and will be dealt with. You know, same law as there has always been. “As for news, NCR forces in Equestria proper have made advances in the war against remaining Steel Ranger units. General Subpar claims that the recent progress can be attributed to increased support received from AR and Republic Ranger forces. “Tensions continue to rise between ponies on the south-eastern border and the so called ‘zebra cultists’ across the river. More news when available. “For more local news, increased slaver activity has been spotted along the road between Gold Ridge and the Waypoint Trading Company headquarters. Travelers are advised to find an alternate...” I quickly tapped the radio off. I glanced back at my companions. They’d heard the radio. They knew that we were definitely in a bad place right now. I caught a look from Lily. Her face was twisted and screwed around as she bit her bottom lip. It was the type of look that just screamed ‘Oh shit’. Red marks started filling my E.F.S. compass. I turned in a circle, scanning the area. We were surrounded. From out of the sand, behind boulders, out of mirages our new enemies approached. These slavers were definitely not like the raiders I’d fought before. These ponies were well fed, well equipped, and well armored. They outnumbered us by... by a lot. I unslung my rebar club and crouched in a low stance, readying myself mentally to fight and kill yet again. Lily readied her guns, loading a new magazine of rounds into each rifle. Two’s horn started glowing preemptively. Three levitated out four knives she’d been keeping tucked away. We stood back to back, getting ready to defend ourselves and each other to the death. “Well,” Lily said, cracking the heavy silence that had fallen over the desert road, “here goes nothin.” A bullet clipped the very tip of my left ear and the fight had begun. Ponies rushed forward at us, surrounding our group. Lily began firing. I brought my club down hard on pistol wielding unicorn in front of me. Her barding was thicker than I’d expected, however, and all I succeeded in doing was knocking her over and rattling my jaw. The sharp sound of Lily’s rifles cracked in my ears. The pony in front of her split apart in an overly bloody way into a cloud of guts and bright red blood. Three lashed out with her knives, bringing them down on multiple opponents at once. Two stood behind me. He knocked back his enemies with blasts of telekinesis, sending them crashing into one another. “Feisty targets!” a buck with a machete shouted to his friends, “Just like I lik...” I cut him off with a concrete slab to the face. Shards of skull coated with brain matter and blood splashed out around my club. An errant bit of bone had the misfortune of getting in my eye. “Thun ub a bitth!” I screamed. I couldn’t see and frantically twisted around, trying to wipe out the foreign object without harming my eye. A sudden lance of glowing hot pain slammed its way through me. Dropping my weapon, I tumbled away from the pain, the piece of bone dropping from my eye. Blood, my blood, squirted in front of my face. “Shit!” I screamed. A large caliber of bullet had torn its bloody path through my neck. In a lucky glimpse I caught sight of the sniper, resting comfortably on top of a dune. I choked on my cry to Lily. I wanted to tell her the position of the sniper. Before I could say anything I saw a buck twice her size slam an overly huge hammer against her knees. Her body crumbled to the ground as her shattered legs gave way. She screamed so loud over the cacophony around us that my ears rang. Just my luck, another slaver grabbed my fallen club and performed the same operation on me. I felt my legs crack, leaving me even more helpless than ever. Several large slaver bucks tossed themselves on us, holding us down, immobilized. I couldn’t see Three anywhere, either fighting or as a corpse. I prayed to Celestia that she’d turned invisible and escaped. Two reached out with his magic and captured a pony’s neck in his grasp. He twisted. The corpse he’d just acquired became his new hammer. The body, tongue lolling off to the side, was brought down heavily on the spine of a mare steadying her aim at him with a long automatic rifle. I heard a sickening crunch as her back snapped in half. A green bolt shot through the sky. Two was its target. Time slowed as it landed against his side. A burning aura of green surrounded him. His skin contracted and stretched at the same time, splitting along arbitrary lines. Muscles, now visible through split skin, liquified and dripped to the ground. His bones crushed beneath their own weight, leaving him a pile of green pony goop in the sand. A stallion who’d saved my life before had become a puddle in front of me. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from what I saw. At that moment, as ashamed as I am to say it, I hoped that Three was dead so that she didn’t see her brother’s death. I will never be able to remove Two’s death from my mind. "This is it?" asked a unicorn slaver mare missing an ear as a wad of gauze was shoved into the bullet wound in my neck and ropes were wrapped around Lily’s and my legs, "Two fucking earth ponies? Fucking shitty intel! This is complete bullshit! They killed twelve of us!" she kicked one of her teammates for emphasis, "I swear, if we don't meet our quota by the end of the month, I will personally castrate all of you!" The bucks who made up her team all whimpered a little. She looked deadly serious. "Oh, fuck it," the mare said, "I'm heading back to camp. Frogs, Dandelion, Trunk, you broke their legs so you've got to drag them back now. Get them back by sundown. The rest of you, come with me." As the mare and her posse walked away I could see Three become visible and attack them wildly. She was torn apart. I hate myself for not crying. The three bucks left with us were probably the ugliest and stupidest of the group. One, the only unicorn, was missing most of his lower jaw and his remaining teeth were rotting out. The next was a buck half Lily's size with unnaturally large hooves and a spiked mane. The last had a large tumor hanging from his neck. The brutish slavers dragged us along through the desert. Night was falling when they decided to take a break. They left us tied and lying on our backs. The chatted with each other about stupid stuff and ate two-hundred year old food. Somehow they got onto the topic of mares and sex. The small one looked over at Lily. "We've got a mare right there." he casually commented to his friends. Lily spat at him in disgust. "Hmm, that's true, that's true..." mused tumor-buck, "But what if she doesn't like us?" "She doesn't got ta like us!" replied the short one, "She's gonna be a slave, anyway." "Fe foodin bayf da mefindies." the jawless one interjected. "What was that?" asked the short one. Tumor translated for him. "He was just pointing out that it's usually bad to break the merchandise before it's purchased." "Don't think of it as breaking, or using, or anything like that." snapped the short one, "Think of it like... testing her out. For the customers." His friends couldn't argue with that logic. They proceeded to... fuck, I can't describe this. It was awful, terrible. I'd never been so horrified and angered in all my life. Lily's screaming... when I close my eyes sometimes I can still hear it. The pain, the defilement, the hideous torment they inflicted by forcing themselves on her, I can’t imagine what she must have felt. I wanted to kill those bucks. I wanted to make them feel pain. I would make it slow. I would have them begging for my mercy but I wouldn't give them any mercy. I would kill them because it would be the good and holy thing to do, and because Lily was my friend. But I can't describe what happened. All I can say is that they took turns. After those bucks were done with their 'fun' Lily was sobbing on the ground. Tears rolled from her eyes. I looked up just to get away from the horror of what I'd seen. One of those dark, boat shaped clouds was flying above. I started calling for its help, because anything was better than this. The de-jawed buck whipped me with his pistol. A glazed look came over him and he walked over to where my friend was lying. He muttered something unintelligible in a much more sinister tone than before. He shot her in the face. I shut up. I couldn't comprehend why he would do that, and I didn’t want to. His buddies shouted at him, but I couldn't hear them anymore. I looked away from the grisly scene and saw a speck, darker than the rest of the slowly darkening background, far in the distance. I was dragged away into the gathering night, leaving behind the corpse of my friend and any innocence or sympathy I had left in me. Footnote: Level Up New Perk: Wounded Soul: You've seen some terrible things in the wasteland. You do 10% more damage to Slavers and Raiders, and have some unique dialogue options. (Once again, thanks go to Kkat for writing the original FO:E. Also, thanks to any of you who are actually reading this fic)
Chapter 5: In Which Things Get Increasingly WorseFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 5: In Which Things Get Increasingly Worse “Ya know, there oughtta be a law about how bad things can get before everypony just drops dead...” I just realized now while telling this story that I haven’t ever described how I looked back then. The truth is, I don’t remember. It’s odd, really. I can remember just about everything else, whether I want to or not. I still remember my friends, their faces, even up to the point they died, but when it comes to my face I draw a complete blank. Sweet Holy Celestia, that was a long time ago... My Waypoint friends. I’d only known them for a short time, but their deaths weighed me down and filled me with rage. Two was a puddle of green goo. He’d snapped the neck of an attacker before being shot from behind by a glowing bolt of evil death. At the time I’d wondered, Is that what balefire looks like? before realizing the irrelevance of the question. Three had tried to attack the slavers as they walked away from where Lily and I were bound up. She’d landed at least one good knife strike on their leader before four strong ponies took hold of her and literally tore her apart. I couldn’t believe she was dead. It wasn’t an easy thing to comprehend for me. The heroes weren’t supposed to die, at least not like that. And then they killed Lily. Her murder was the worst. I’d been no more than a meter or two away from her as the three slaver bucks... did what they did. As if they were taunting our helplessness, the one missing part of his jaw shot her. In the face. Half of her head sprayed out sideways, her right eye blasted into jelly. And for all three deaths, I couldn’t help any of them. I think this was when I started losing my faith. I’d been dragged for several miles through the sand by the time I arrived at the slaver camp. My barding and my sides had been rubbed raw and bleeding. Being dragged by my legs had torturously extended my broken legs. Most of all I wanted water. Night had fallen thickly over the desert, like a quilt with too much stuffing. The Goddess Luna's moon hung lonely among the stars that shunned it. Fires set up in trash cans lit the slaver camp. I was dragged the largest canvas and scrap metal tent. On its door, painted crudely by hoof, were the words 'The Boss'. From inside I could hear low moaning and heavy breathing, accompanied by slow and scratchy music, probably from a record player. I itched at my ropes, trying to get them off so I could kill the bastards who brought me here, but they were tied too tightly to remove. The small pony with the big hooves tapped on the metal door five times. I could hear grunting and sheets rustling inside the tent. The mare who was missing an ear swung open the door so quickly that it smacked the big hoofed buck in the face. The jagged and rusty edge cut his cheek. "The fuck are you getting me up from a good screw for?" she hissed in an angrily-calm way, then, seeing the three bucks standing there, "You fucking idiots! You're fucking late, you fucking fucked-up fucks!" Dear Luna, the language... "Um, we got the slave here, chief," said tumor buck. His profane use of the word 'chief' just made me hate him more. She glanced down at me and then back at the three bucks. "Slave?" she asked, "Slave, singular? Slave, Goddess-damned singular?! Where's the other one?! Where's the fucking mare?!" The jawless one glanced downward. Tumor buck scratched at the dirt with his hooves and stepped backwards. Big hooves looked sideways at jawless and shook his head. "You broke the merchandise?" Jawless nodded. Ear lacking mare seethed with anger as she addressed big hooves. "Take this slave," she gave me a quick kick in the back, "and put him in the pen. You," her eyes bored into jawless, "I will make you bleed in the morning. Now all of you get the fuck out of here," She slammed the door behind her. My three tormentors tried to act tough as they dragged me to the pen "You won't last a minute with the other slaves, slave," taunted big hooves. His heart wasn't really in the taunt, though. Tumor agreed with a small "Yeah," but he wasn't really in the taunting mood either. Jawless said nothing. The pen was a large, high-walled rectangle of cinderblocks several layers thick and held together by a crude mortar. The gate was made of iron bars that made me think of a jail (which, come to think of it, is exactly what it was). Tumor pulled off my saddlebags and barding, throwing them into a nearby pile of saddlebags and barding. The unicorn guarding the gate opened it for the bucks. They untied my hooves and tossed me inside, quickly slamming the gate shut again. I must have woken somepony up because a unicorn lit up an illumination spell. The sudden white light forced my eyes to adjust. I could hear ponies groaning from the sudden brightness, but most stayed asleep. The dim light illuminated the scarred old dark-purple face of a kind looking unicorn mare who wore tattered rags. "So, they got you too?" she asked in a whisper. I nodded. "Your legs are broken, aren't they?" I nodded again. "Those idiots have been doing that a lot recently. Here." her horn glowed with another layer of magic. I could feel the bones in my legs start to knit themselves together. It was not a pleasant sensation, but it was over quickly. "Thank you," I whispered. I tried standing up but she stopped me. "You're welcome, but don't get up yet," she cautioned, "The bones in your legs are still soft and need time to set. Wait until the morning." I obeyed her directions. "Now," she said, "what about that hole in your neck?" I felt at the wad of gauze stuffed in my bullet wound. "I've had worse," I answered. "That's no reason not to get healed," she replied. She did have a point. "Here, let me fix it," She pulled out the gauze and stopped the blood with telekinesis. I felt each piece of bullet she pulled out, but said nothing. The mending spell itself only took a few seconds. "Need anything else?" "Water, if you have it. I'm very thirsty." She produced a thin waterskin and let me sip a small gulp. Water had never tasted quite so good before. "Thank you," I said again, "but why are you helping me?" She shrugged and smiled. "There's never a reason not to be kind. Plus, I like to stay in practice." "Stay in practice? So you're a medical pony?" "New Canterlot Army Seventh Engineering Brigade's former chief medical officer," she whispered with pride. "Name’s Cross Heart, formerly Major Cross Heart. And you are...?" I cleared my dry throat. "White Hooves tribe ambassador to the NCR and Waypoint Trading Company employee Fall Hammer-heart. Nice to meet you, Major," "It's a pleasure to meet you also, Fall," she replied. She pointed to one of the ponies who had been woken up who rested against the wall. "That's Grim." she pointed to another, "That's Spindle," she pointed, "and that's..." She was cut off by the guard kicking at the gate. "Shut up in there," growled the guard, "It's not like any of you are gonna see each other after tomorrow anyways." "Ignore him, Fall," the mare said, lowering her voice more so that I had to lean in to hear her. "Say, how'd you get that Pip-Buck? Those are pretty rare these days." "It was a gift," I replied, and then changing the subject, "What did he mean? What's happening tomorrow?" "Tomorrow’s a market day. Ponies get sold on market days," the pony called Grim whispered. "Owners come from around the region to bid on slaves," the Major said, "I've been here for twelve market days running and I still haven't been bought." She gave a little smile. "Why wouldn't they want to buy you? Ponies with medical training can't be that common," I pointed out. "If you were a slaveholder, would you want a pony who wants nothing more than to escape to operate on you?" She had a good point. "Besides, most slaveholders have companies that do heavy manual labor, like mining," I cringed a little, knowing that was a skill they would be looking for. She continued, "I'm too old for work like that. I barely made it under the age requirement for the army, and I only got my rank because of my medical training." The guard kicked the gate again. "Shut up, and go the hell to sleep, dammit!" The Major rolled her eyes. "Good night, Fall. See you in the morning." "Good night," I replied, and slowly slipped off into an unrestful sleep filled with visions of the deaths of my friends. “Hey, Fall, wake up.” I rolled over and groaned. “Just a few more minutes, mom. “I’m not your mom, Fall,” the voice chuckled softly. I rubbed at my eyes and looked up. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon and the Major stood over me with a set of clothes (if you could really call them that) held in her telekinesis. “Oh,” I said. I realized two things at that moment: one, how much her voice reminded me of my mother, and two, how thin she and the ponies around her were. “I’m sorry, I forgot where I was for a minute...” She cut me off as I pulled myself up on my (now solid) hooves. “No problem,” she said, “Now put these on.” She pushed the rags towards me. “Why?” “Because we’re all wearing them,” she replied, “and being different makes you stand out. Standing out is something that gets you sold. Also, you’re muscular and healthy looking. Wearing these makes everypony look like crap.” I couldn’t argue with that logic, so I put them on. Baggy and tattered, I was surprised they had something as sophisticated as pockets. In the daylight I could really examine where I was. At least fifteen ponies, give or take, were in the pen with me. All of them looked under fed. All of them wore the same shoddy rags. None of them were pegasi. That made sense, though, because the big cinderblock pen didn’t have a roof. The stallion called Grim was talking to the filly called Spindle. Spindle was a very light blue with an equally light yellow mane. She was too young to have a cutie-mark and definitely too young to be a slave. Grim, on the other hoof, was probably about the same age as my dad. His coat was gray and his mane was a darker gray. His cutie mark was covered by his rags. Grim spoke softly to little Spindle and wiped away each fresh tear that dripped from her eyes. He must have been her father. I never found out for sure. A group of slaver guards arrived at the pen and began shackling us together in a line. They had a bit of trouble putting shackles on me because of my Pip-Buck, so I ended up with one manacle high and one low. I was third to last in line, with Grim in front of me and somepony I didn’t know the name of behind me. The Major was somewhere near the front, and Spindle was in the middle. As we passed by the pile of saddlebags I pretended to trip. I grabbed what I could from my bags as the slavers yelled at me. The “Story of the Goddesses” and the orb I’d found in the house with the dead foals were all I could grab. Neither of them seemed particularly useful, but I took them anyways and jammed them into my pockets. I’d been hoping to snag one of the grenades I’d bought on a recent mission, but oh well. The slavers led us to a big bowl boiling over a campfire, tended to by a pony with two and a half eyes. I say two and a half because the hugely fat unicorn had an extra pupil and iris in their right eye, which gave them the creepy effect of seeming to stare through you. They served up some sort of thin gruel made of... stuff... that the slavers guarding us forced us to eat quickly. It tasted disgusting. We were marched up to a large makeshift stage with a microphone standing on it, and told to sit down in front of it. Soon, other chains of shackled ponies were marched into the camp from other directions by groups of slavers who I’d never seen before. I hadn’t seen any of these new slaves in the pen last night so I assumed they were from other slave camps. Groups of unshackled ponies (and griffons, and several zebras, and exactly one buffalo complete with Fire Hairs markings) began arriving several minutes later. These I took to be the potential buyers. Some buyers spoke with each other in loud voices, like pony would with their old friends. Others stood on their own with their guards and entourages. The entire crowd hushed when the mare who was missing an ear walked on the stage. She tapped at the microphone to make sure it was on, and began speaking. “Fillies and gentlecolts (and griffons, and others)! Thank you for coming!” she said cheerfully, “The bidding will begin soon, but first, allow me to treat you to some...” she squinted at the sky as she searched for the correct word, “entertainment.” She licked her lips, as if that word were a tasty dessert served after a big meal. The jawless buck who’d shot Lily was led up to center stage by four guards. He looked downcast and resigned to whatever his fate was, and I would have felt sorry for him if I hadn’t hated him so much. The mare leaned towards her microphone again. “This fine buck here, is a fuck-head,” she declared, “In my company, I can’t afford employees who damage my sellable merchandise.” She pulled out a very heavy looking knife. I knew what was coming next. She walked over to him and said in his ear, “Do you have anything to say, Trunk?” Tears gushed from the murderer’s eyes. “Aif vorry! Aif vorry! Aif fon’t fufven doof iff afen! Honiss!” His missing jaw and his crying made him twice as hard to understand, but I could tell he was begging for her forgiveness. “I know you won’t, Trunk,” the mare answered, and with one quick slash opened up the inside of his chest to the outside air. He fell to the ground, writhing in pain. “Hold him still.” she ordered her guards. They obeyed with wide eyes. I don’t think they’d been expecting this. Next went his hooves, each of them removed after some loud hacking. His crying rang out through the crowd. Some buyers chuckled, and at least one roared laughing, but most seemed disgusted by what they saw. His eyes were her next target. Then his ears... then his snout... then his balls (one guard ran away screaming and crying at this point)... then his horn... Finally, after a solid five minutes of torture (I was amazed he’d stayed alive that long), she lopped off his head. She kicked his head off the stage, walked forward to face her guests, and took a bow. The other two bucks, the one with the tumor and the one with big hooves, were standing by the base of the stage with looks on their faces revealing that they knew they'd dodged the proverbial bullet. They were called up to clean away the mess. My fellow prisoners and I were brought onto the stage. I looked at the crowd. There were ponies in outfits and uniforms I'd never seen before. I tried to guess which groups were more likely to treat their slaves better, but I couldn't really say. It was a real mixed bag. Some ponies just looked like raiders. Others were dressed in suits and dresses. Most wore barding and outfits that were somewhere in between. One stallion in a tattered suit took the stage from the mare who was missing an ear, after giving her a playful peck on her blood splattered cheek. He leaned in toward the microphone. "Gooood morning, everypony!" he said cheerfully. He pointed his hoof to the first prisoner in line, "The bidding will begin on this pretty mare right here. The starting bid is one-hundred caps, starting in three, two..." he slammed his hoof against the stage. The crowd began shouting commands and prices. The buck on stage responded to what they were saying with a waterfall of gibberish. Occasionally I could recognize numbers in the loud, garbled noise, but everything else was impossible to understand. Guards responded to commands from the crowd by turning the mare, poking her, prodding her, showing her cutie mark. After about a minute and a half the announcer slammed his hoof down again. "Sold!" he exclaimed, "Sold to the orange unicorn in the back for two-thousand seven-hundred sixteen caps!" Guards unshackled the mare and escorted her to her new owner. The process was repetitive. Bucks and mares were bid on and sold in the same rapid-fire way. To the buyers we were just pieces of meat, machines to do their bidding, whatever that might be. Everypony being sold saw it a bit differently than that. Some of the ‘merchandise’ cried, others looked angry. Still others just stared ahead blankly. When it became the Major’s turn to be sold she stared intently toward the back of the crowd at a group of late arrivals. I recognized their barding. NCR Army troops. What would the NCR be doing at a slave auction? “A hundred caps,” the shortest of the five troopers offered. They were willing to pay the absolute lowest price for this old mare, a veteran of their wars. Was this really how the new Equestria valued the lives of their elders? Did my tribe really want an alliance with these ponies? “Sold!” shouted the auctioneer. He seemed anxious to rid himself of a pony that had taken up a spot on the roster for twelve market days in a row. The Major was unshackled. She looked surprised that she was being sold at all, but soon the shock left her face and was replaced by a calm smirk. Before she was led away she gave me a confident and kind nod, as if she was trying to tell me that everything would be okay. She walked away with the NCR ponies into the still low sun. Again, the sales were very repetitive. Some ponies were sold, others weren’t. The crowd roared louder for the strong and attractive ones, the ugly and weak garnered less interest. Some ponies were sold and others weren’t, but the next one that is at all worth mentioning was the auctioning off of the little filly, Spindle. “The next pony on the market is this little gal, right here!” the auctioneer who I was increasingly growing to hate announced, “Like usual, starting bid is two-hundred for little ones! Bidding begins in three, two...” Grim jerked at his chains. A flurry of prices rose in the air. Spindle was tossed and turned, flipped and prodded every-which-way you could think of. It was chaotic. Caps were literally thrown on the stage in bags. I couldn’t imagine why there would be such a demand for a filly too young to have even received a cutie mark yet, but the whole thing made me feel sick. Grim ground his teeth. In the middle of it all, a white unicorn with a very short pink mane who wore a business suit magically magnified his voice, and shouted over the rest of the buyers, “SEVEN-THOUSAND CAPS, TO BE PAID IN FULL IMMEDIATELY.” No more offers were made. “Sold!” said the auctioneer, “Sold to the stallion in the suit!” The guards had already taken Spindle out of her manacles. At this point Grim launched himself off the stage, taking the entire chain of us with him. I hadn’t expected him to be so strong. “How fucking DARE YOU!” Grim shouted at the top of his lungs. He struggled forward uselessly, the rest of us in a heap acting like an anchor. “Every time you’re here you only buy fillies! I fucking want to know why, you son of a bitch!” I could hear Spindle sobbing quietly over her fate. The pony in the suit said nothing. His entourage put a new, cleaner set of manacles and a beeping metal collar I didn’t know the purpose of on the little filly. Guards rushed toward Grim to hold him back. “If you hurt her, I swear to Celestia and Luna and the Elements, I will! Fucking! Rip your! Goddess-damned skeleton out of your Goddess-damned dick! Do you fucking hear me you shit?! I will end you! I’m going to find you and...!” His jaw was clamped shut by two powerful looking bucks who held him to the ground. The unicorn in the suit straightened his tie. “We shall see,” was all he had to say. At that point even I wanted to rush forward and kill him, but I restrained myself. I hate myself for not doing anything. The suited stallion walked away with his purchase without even a scratch. A minute of silence later and we were still on the ground in front of the stage. A pegasus encased in a heavy suit of armour fitted with a scorpion-like tail was the first to say anything. “We will pay five-hundred for the gray one,” the pegasus said. It took a second for the auctioneer to process what the armoured pony had said. “Um, yeah, sure. Sold for five-hundred...” After order had been restored and Grim had been taken away by the group of armoured pegasi (who I suddenly realized was the Enclave I’d heard about), the bidding continued in a dull manner. Many buyers preferred buying multiple slaves. I was sold (just my luck) to a mare who I recognized as the one who’d been laughing the loudest during the pre-auction ‘entertainment’. Now she didn't make a sound and kept her mouth shut tight. She was a bright orange unicorn with a green mane with yellow tips. She was definitely an odd pony. After I'd been brought to her she held my eyes wide open and stared intently at them. It seemed like she was examining me jaundice or something and, finding I didn't have yellowed eyes, she shoved me to the ground and clapped her hooves around my left ear. For no damn reason. She did the same thing to every other pony she bought. My major selling points had been my Pip-Buck (which the auctioneer said was worth a raising of the starting price) and my cutie mark. Mining. Luna-damned mining. I hated my talent then more than I ever had before. The slave auction went on for the rest of the day. Every group of slave-sellers got their shot at selling their products to the slave-buyers who stayed. The mare who bought me also bought a pink coated, blue maned earth pony mare, a dark green unicorn colt with no mane, and a very unhappy looking zebra. I'd never met a zebra before. Crazy mare's guards shackled the four of us slaves together when the last pony had been sold. By then it was sundown. I watched the horizon as my new owners fitted manacles above my Pip-Buck. I watched the sun as it dipped beneath the distant hills. I wasn't sure the sun was Celestia's anymore. We were marched, hungry and dehydrated from a lack of food and water during the auction, across the desert. The pink pony was in the lead, with the colt behind her. I walked behind the colt and behind me was the zebra. The zebra didn't really walk, though. It was more like he... glided over the sands. The ground became harder as we neared our distant destination. I could feel pebbles and pieces of cracked shale under my hooves. The air was dry and I craved water. My mouth felt full of lumps of cotton. The colt tripped forward, catching a face full of cracked stone. I barely avoided tripping over him. The zebra and I helped him to his hooves. He cried small tears that dripped into the cuts that marred his young face. "Do not cry, little one," whispered the zebra. I'd never heard that accent before. "You must be strong. Never let your enemy see weakness in you." Funny, my father had told me that same thing once. The camp was an unremarkable and uninspired little settlement. It was called the ‘Equestrian Army Research Base 8-36’ by my Pip-Buck and was apparently at about the mid-point of the huge desert. Slaves lived in shoddy tents of decaying fabric, in an area surrounded by barbed wire and rusting electrified fences. The slavers lived in old trailers and small shacks made of whatever crappy construction materials they could find. The camp was built around a mine. The mine was built into a hill... no, not quite a hill, a big stone cube that looked entirely unnatural and out of place. The cube was scored with tool marks and holes that suggested dynamite placement. Why anypony would make a mountain into a giant cube in the middle of a desert was entirely beyond my understanding. A single, lonely radio blared music continuously in the center of the slave enclosure. "In the wasteland, sometimes good ponies have to do bad things," said the Bearer of Laughter. The saint was alive. Not an icon or a description on a page, but a living, breathing pony. I felt I should kneel and pray before her. I wanted to ask her blessing. To ask her to help my slowly failing faith. But I wasn't there, and I couldn't move. "That doesn't change anything," said the short mare, "and no amount of good intentions can bring any of them back. Dead is dead." I had seen her before, but I just couldn't remember where. The room (and I use that word in the loosest way) began to glow. Green fire began to... exhale (I know that doesn't make sense, but that's the only way to describe it) from the "walls" that held me. The fire was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. A thing to run from and a mesmerizing, ethereal holy light all the same. I felt pain, burning, but I couldn't look away. And then I saw HIM. Discord, the arch-demon of chaos, the monster who lived in every seer's mind, stared into wherever my eyes would be if I was there. He turned to where the Bearer and the short mare spoke. He wrapped his arm around where my shoulders weren't. "Fall, my friend," the deity of disorder whispered to me, "you and I are a lot alike." I shivered at his words. "Neither of us know all that much about the new world. Neither of us has friends. Both of us are very, very good at failure," he smiled an uneven, mismatched grin that dripped blood. "But that little filly," he said, pointing to that short mare, "she's an achiever. She accomplished her mission. No. Matter. What. Now she's a goddess." Before my eyes the small mare grew huge. She was as tall as Celestia now and had a set of wings. Her horn was lengthened. She stood atop an immeasurably high tower. Thunder clouds and bolts of lightning were her tools and even the sun and moon obeyed her whims. The thunder spoke in a language all its own: "Dead isn't always dead." Discord placed his clawed finger where my forehead should have been, "Have you ever felt balefire?" And then I burned. The loud horn sounded, surrounding and shrouding my final moments. Green. The tarp over me was green. When I'd claimed the tent I'd found the maggot infested corpse of a mule clutching a unicorn foal. It had been dirty business pulling the two bodies out. I wished I could have known their names or had something nice to say about them when I buried them. Now they were just two more dead unknowns in the wasteland. I'd been having the same dream every night. I couldn't figure out its meaning. I just woke up, hating the green tarp and the fresh grave. I thought about the little mare who became a Goddess. She was always the rock of the dream, the only pony that seemed entirely real. Speaking of rocks, I’d been seeing a lot of them. The giant cube was only the top of the mine. Tunnels stretched into the ground farther than I would ever see. In the top of the cube the more “senior” slaves mined magical gems. The newer slaves, like me, mined for metal ores deep beneath the ground. This particular morning was the start of my third day as a slave. I left my tent and walked the gate. Everypony (plus zebras, donkeys, and mules) were gathering by the exit to wait for the overseers to turn off the electricity running through the fence. “My collar itches,” the green colt with no mane told me. He scratched at the metal collar with the unlit red light. The slavers had assembled one that was too small for him. His name was Martyr. I don’t know what parents in their right mind would name their child that. Since becoming slaves I’d tried my best to keep him safe and away from the periodic wrath of the guards and other slaves. I’m not sure why I choose to dedicate myself to keeping this little colt safe, but something about him- his eyes, I think- reminded me of Threeblue. I guess I didn’t want to stop being a good pony just yet. “At least you won’t have to wear it forever, right?” I replied with a shrug. I wanted to keep the little buck’s spirits up. He just shrugged in a resigned way. The camp’s head overseer was a muddy brown mare with a dark crimson mane. She was missing part of her horn and the pain that caused with using magic forced her to use more manual, earth pony methods. She flicked the lever by the gate, turning off the spark battery powered electrification of the fence. An earth pony who stood next to her tapped the biggest of four buttons on the gadget hanging on the lanyard around his neck. The little red lights on our explosive collars lit up. The brand that had been burned over my right cutie mark (a unicorn's head with pointed teeth) itched. It had itched since I'd been given it. I’d never really liked my cutie mark, but this was just deponyizing. It felt like a violation of my individuality. Another violation on top of all the other evils the desert wasteland had already shown me. Four guards worked together the gate. For a chain link fence it sure was hard to open. “Alright, you all know the deal,” the bored unicorn overseer said, “Do your work and don’t run away, and you won’t get your head blown off. Get moving.” Escorted by guards who looked almost as miserable as we were, we walked to the huge, unnatural cube. Outside the mouth of the cave entrance the mare who’d bought me was stretched across a lawn chair sunning herself while wearing sunglasses and sipping a green drink with ice. There was definitely something off about her. Small lanterns were hung from hooks on our collars as we entered the cavern. I grabbed a pickaxe. The little colt grabbed a small shovel. Little Martyr and I traveled down the dry, black tunnels. We found a cart and searched for a vein of ore in the walls. I took a strong grip on the handle of the pick, gripping it in my teeth, and swung it at the wall. Martyr clenched his small shovel in his teeth since he was too young to use magic. He scooped up the ore that fell from the wall and dumped it in the cart. Together we developed a pattern, a sort of rhythm. The work went on for hours. The two of us shared a small canteen of water I’d scavenged from the corpse of the dead mule. Breaks between swinging and shoveling contained a little getting to know each other. “So, Fall, where’d you say you were from again?” Martyr asked. “The Ghost Lands,” I replied. I’d told him about my home before, but he asked me about it every day. It was almost as if he pretended to keep forgetting what I said just so I could tell him about it again. He lifted a mound of ore veined rocks into the cart and then put down the shovel again. "What's it like there?" I thought back to my home. It felt so far away. "It has rivers, mines like this, some small farms too," I said, "Big canyon walls stretch around most of it. All the ponies and buffalo in my tribe work together to keep the other tribe away." "What did you do there? I mean, you had a job, right?" I picked at the wall some more, knocking loose bits of stone from the wall. I dropped my pick and gave a sideways glance to Martyr. "Why are you asking me? Haven't I already told you about what it's like back home? Why don't you tell me about what it's like where you're from instead," I replied to the little colt. Picking up a large wooden beam, I wedged it between the floor and ceiling of the thin tunnel. I started picking again. "Where I'm from?" Martyr asked, "Why'd you want to know bout a place like that?" "Beecaughf," I put my pickaxe down and tried speaking again, "Because you already know where I'm from, but I know almost nothing about you." "Um, okay," the little colt whispered. He cleared his throat. "My momma was from these ponies who call themselves... something like... the Legion with Zebras, or something like that. They lived a lot north of here, by a river, a really big river. They lived in tents and my momma said they were nice ponies and zebras to be around..." his voice trailed off as an overseer walked past our little tunnel. He started again in a quieter voice. "My daddy was from some ponies called the Flowers of Pocked Lips, and they helped everyone they met. I think they were from the NCR side of the river, but I'm not sure. Momma told me that one day the Flowers ponies walked across the big bridge over the river. Some ponies with guns came with them. The Flowers ponies wanted to welcome the Legion ponies and zebras to the other side of the bridge, I think. Well, the pony who was the Legion's boss said the Flowers ponies could stay a while. Momma said that daddy saw her while she was teaching some of the younger ponies how to fight good. Momma said they fell in love and..." "And that's where you come from?" I said. "No, that's where my sisters came from. They were twins that didn't look like each other. They both left before was born. Momma told me one of them got set on fire." Well, damn. What a thing to tell a little pony. He continued. "The Legion boss pony got killed bout a year or two after I was born, and the next pony in charge said the Flowers ponies did it," he looked down and started sobbing soft tears. I'd heard enough to piece together what had happened next. I think the boss pony had ordered the Flowers killed. Next, I bet his mother was accused of being a traitor. With no mother he would just be another mouth to feed, so they sold him. How many times has he been sold? I wondered. I dropped my pick and put a hoof on Martyr's shoulder. "I understand. I'm sorry I asked." Shouting erupted from a distant cavern. Soon it grew into a violent roar. Slaves rushed down the halls toward the noise. Hadrine, the zebra who’d been bought the same time we were, trotted into our tunnel. “Fall and Martyr,” he said, unnervingly calmly, in his odd accent, “come quickly. There is a commotion arising in the center of the mine. I believe we may be escaping. Follow me.” The zebra began running through the tunnels again. I nudged Martyr to break him out of his daze. We followed the zebra down the halls, our lanterns swaying side to side as we ran. The central cavern was crowded with ponies. Overseers and guards were doing their best to hold the waves of slaves pouring from the tunnels. I stood on the tips of my hooves and craned my neck to try and see what was happening, but couldn’t due to the swarm of ponies in front of me. I picked up an out of breath Martyr and put him on the shoulders like I would with my youngest sister, Cactus Flower. “Martyr, can you see what’s happening?” I asked him. He squinted his eyes and peered forward. “Uh, there’s a mare and she’s pink... and she’s got her hoof around the top overseer’s neck. I think she’s got... is it?... yeah, I think she’s got a knife,” he looked down at me, “A bunch of the guards have got guns pointed at her.” I wondered what could possibly be going on. Why hadn’t the guards activated her explosive collar yet? I heard a guard yelling. “Let her go! I swear on my mother’s horn, if you let her go, we won’t shoot!” “Bullshit!” the pink pony shouted in return, “Let me walk away from here first, and then once I’m far enough she’s all yours. I’m not going to be a fucking slave!” I pressed forward through the crowd until I could see for myself what was happening. The mare was backed against the wall, a broken collar lying on the cave floor in front of her. Some of the guards with their guns trained on the pink mare were mumbling. The one who’d spoken before turned to face her again. “Um, well..” she said, unsure of herself, “well, shit. I don’t know, um, maybe you can do that...” The hostage overseer shouted at her subordinates. “Don’t you dare let this pony get away! We payed a lot of caps for this bitch! If you let her get away I’ll..!” her voice was choked off by the pink mare’s tightened grip. The tip of the knife was pressed harder against the overseer’s throat, drawing blood. “Shut up! I will kill you! Don’t fucking test me!” The whole room was suddenly lit by an orange glow. I felt paralysed. Everypony stopped moving. Magical orange tendrils sprouted from the ground and wrapping themselves around the necks of each pony in the room. My eyes continued to roam as my body was held still by this new spell. The mare who’d bought me meandered into the cavern. Her horn glowed. She sipped at a new drink through a straw. She tilted down her sunglasses to examine the hostage taker. Carefully, she lifted the knife away from her employee’s neck and levitated the pink pony away, laying her on the ground in front of her. She twisted the knife around in her telekinesis, admiring the way it was built and its balance. The orange mare knelt down to stare into the eyes of her slave. “Do you know what I hate? I mean really, really hate?” she asked the paralyzed pink mare with an almost unnoticeable lisp, “I hate disobedience. Oh, and ungratefulness, of course. It isn’t so bad here, you know? Three square meals, nice tents, good working hours, kind guards... It’s pretty much paradise compared to a lot of slave companies. Have you ever heard of a slaver king by the name of Red Eye?” she pretended to wait for an answer, “No, I suppose not. Red Eye was like a god-pony. I’ve read a biography about him. Maybe I should run my business like he ran his. Come to think of it, Red Eye is the pony who inspired me to get in the slaving business. Just thinking about him makes me want to," she hissed as she pressed the tip of the blade against the pink mare’s right eye, “change the rules..." Blood gushed and splattered as the knife slid into the pink mare’s eye. She twisted her blade around, carving out the slave's eye. The crazy mare pressed a hoof down on the pink pony's chest, holding her in place as she released her paralysis spell on everypony. The pink mare with the blue mane screamed at the top of her lungs. The orange mare moved on to the other eye, carving it out in an agonizingly slow way. "Well, at least this way you won't have to see the changes I'm making!" the orange mare quipped, laughing at her own pun. "Why would she do that?" I asked Hadrine. He, Martyr, and I were sitting by my tent. Night was falling. The sun was slinking back below the mountainous horizon in a blaze of reds and purples. "I mean, why would she blind a slave she'd bought? I understand hurting somepony if they attack you, but blinding a slave?!" Hadrine shrugged. "Why do ponies do anything at all?" Martyr sat chewing on his forehooves, rocking back and forth, eyes wide. He shouldn't have seen that. Nopony should see another pony's eyes carved out, but especially not one so young. I patted the top of his maneless head softly. After the orange mare had finished her torture of the pink pony she had her tied to a wooden pole in the center of the camp. When we'd finished work Hadrine had asked me if I knew anything about poultices. Before letting me answer he told me the names of several plants that grew in the desert. To my surprise I was able to find them all within the fence. I seemed to have a sense of where to look. I'd brought the herbs and roots back to Hadrine who concocted them into an odd mixture he claimed healed wounds. We came to the mare at the pole and applied the stuff to her eye sockets. I tore off a strip of fabric from the rags I wore and tied it around face to keep it in place. "Thank you," she'd whispered. “But why would she carve her eyes out? If she wanted to prove a point, why not just kill her?” I persisted in asking Hadrine. I wasn’t brand new to the wasteland anymore, but there were still some things the ponies here did that I couldn’t understand. As far as I knew, even the Fire Hairs didn’t torture captured warriors from my tribe. Torture was to me the second worst crime. Rape was the first. “Perhaps the mare in charge receives pleasure from causing the pain of others.” was his answer. We weren’t served dinner that evening. I awoke the next morning, dry mouthed and feeling less than rested. Sand had found its way under my Pip-Buck and was chafing at my skin. I hated the green tarp. Turning my head to the right I saw Martyr. He hadn’t gone back to the tent shared by the other fillies and colts where he normally stayed. Seeing the mare’s eyes carved out had terrified him. Honestly, it had terrified me too. When I was living with my family I always woke up late because of the hours of my shift at the mine. Now, for some odd reason, I had no trouble I’d been waking in the early morning consistently. I don’t know what had prompted the change, but then again I didn’t really care. The sun rose slowly in the east, climbing its way out from the mountains that imprisoned it. The horn that signaled the start of the work day should have sounded by now. I pulled on my rags and checked the slowly disintegrating pockets to ensure my two remaining possessions were still there. Trotting away quietly to keep from waking the sleeping colt, I made my way to the fence. A lone mare guarded the fence, leaning on a well used and duct tape covered hunting rifle. “Hey,” I asked to get her attention, “what happened to the horn?” She gave me a sidelong glance and let out a breath of exasperation. “Look, slave, I’m not supposed to be talking to you. Please, just go.” “Shouldn’t we be working by now?” I prodded. I was too bored to leave. Oddly enough, these slaver guards weren’t as bad as I’d expected. I hadn’t been beaten or purposely injured, and they did feed us. During my travels working for Waypoint I’d heard about some terrible slave operations: beatings at the drop of a hat, rapes, working around mutated insects, fights to the death... “Godess dammit! Go away! You must be the only slave ever who actually wants to work.” she shouted in exasperation. Getting nowhere, I turned around, only for my dry throat to prompt me to turn back a second later. “Food? Water?” She sighed. “I have no idea. Just go away!” I began the trot back to my tent when I noticed something odd. My vision looked less... blue. Then it hit me. My E.F.S. was gone! Granted, I hadn’t fought anything in several days so I hadn’t had much use for it but now that it was gone my eyes felt almost naked. I stared down at my Pip-Buck. It was still working, on, but I didn’t know enough about my Pip-Buck to turn my E.F.S. back on. I walked back to my tent, feeling uncomfortable the entire time. Martyr was awake, curled in a ball, staring with wide eyes at the faded and hole-riddled tarp. My hoof crunched on a patch of gravel, breaking the little colt out of his trance. He sprang up and ran towards me. “Where were you?” he asked pleadingly. He wrapped his small hooves around my non-Pip-Bucked leg. “I woke up and you were gone! I thought... I thought...” he stammered, breaking down in tears. I patted the top of his head. “I’m fine,” I assured him in my most calming voice, “I just went to go see if we’ll be getting breakfast soon. Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.” I wasn’t going anywhere. “I had a really, really, really bad dream, Fall,” he wept, “I thought there were monsters chasing me, and they tore out ponies’ eyes and ate them, and then I saw them kill momma, and then I found you, and then I thought I was gonna be safe, but then you became the mare who cut out that pony’s eyes, and then she tried to tear me apart, but she couldn’t, and then...” He broke down in heavy sobbing again as I wrapped my hooves around him in a tight hug. For a second I was taken back home. For a brief moment I was hugging my youngest sister, imagining she’d had a nightmare. The food and water didn’t arrive until mid-day. A cauldron of watery soup containing flecks of mystery meat was lunch. The water was a stagnant, muddy filth in a grime covered plastic barrel. I would try to boil out the impurities later, I decided. All in all, it was worse than what we’d been served before. The soup disgusted me. I couldn’t get meat past my teeth, knowing it had once been a living creature. Martyr didn’t have the same problem with meat, however. I carefully picked out the bits in my soup and dropped them in his. Even the broth was hard to stomach. It tasted putrid. I guessed that the chef had used the same water source as what the barrel was filled with. Hadrine was nowhere to be found during lunch (or “chow” as some slaves called it) leaving me wondering what had become of him. I experimented with buttons on my Pip-Buck until early evening. Nothing I did turned my E.F.S. back on. All I got was a message in the ‘notes’ section that read: NOTICE: Eyes Forward Sparkle and Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell systems currently offline. Please contact a Stable-Tec engineer to reactivate. The message did absolutely nothing to help me. Fed up, I walked to the center of the camp to talk to the pink mare. She slouched low against her wooden pole. The part of the rag covering her empty sockets was drenched with blood. “Hello,” I said weakly. What else could I have said? How do you make small talk with a pony whose life has been reduced to the darkness around her and the wooden pole that supported her. She licked at her lips and turned her head, trying to find where my greeting came from. “I’m right in front of you,” I told her. Her head turned forward, staring directly at me. “Do you need anything?” I asked. She licked her cracking lips again. “Water,” she breathed in a hoarse whisper, “I need water.” I pulled out the cork of my small canteen, realizing then that I’d never boiled it. That had been a stupid idea to begin with, seeing as there wasn’t any wood to use. Still, I decided, any water was better than no water. “Sure, here you go,” I said as I pressed the canteen held between my hooves to her lips, praying the water I was giving her didn’t carry any terrible diseases. She didn’t need any more pain. She sipped down half of what I had before tilting her head back to signal being done. I pulled the canteen away. “Thank you,” she said. “Hey, slaves like us got to stick together, right?” I replied. I felt an uncomfortable chuckle rising in my throat, but I forced myself to swallow it back down. I was about to laugh around a mare who’d lost her eyes just a day ago. Goddesses, what was wrong with me? As if reading my mind, she started laughing. Quiet, soft breathy laughter at first, then getting louder and louder like a madmare. I worried for her sanity. Hell, I started worrying for my sanity! I started wondering if I was just hallucinating the whole scene. Her laughter soon degenerated into a fit of dry coughing. “So, um,” I said nervously, “want anything else?” “Ye-yeah,” she said through a cough, “Three things. One, I want my FUCKIN’ EYES BACK.” “I’m,... well I can’t...” I stammered before she cut me off. “Two, I haven’t had any, ugh, physical affection in months.” I reached out and hugged her, feeling that I could at least provide that. Physical affection, right? “Well, not quite what I meant, but whatever...” Oh. I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Number three,” she continued, I want to get out of here. I am hoof-sucking sick of being stuck here. I need to get back to my bunch of prospectors. I want to escape.” She leaned forward, staring with sightless eyes directly at me. I was about to open my mouth, to give yet another apology for an inability to help, but something stopped me. I’m not sure what came over me. Instead of saying I couldn’t, I leaned forward and said, “I’ll see what I can do.” I was the only occupant of my tent that night. Martyr had rejoined the other young ponies. The events of the day tossed and turned themselves over and over in my head. I couldn’t sleep. Why was there no work that day? Why was the food and water worse? Why had I decided to give that mare hope when escaping seemed hopeless? My hoof felt around for “Story of the Goddesses”. I hadn’t looked for answers in my beliefs in too long a time. I grabbed the book and hit the lamp feature on my Pip-Buck. As I prepared to open it, a wave of anger swept over me, forcing me to shove it back roughly in my tattered rags. No, I thought, Celestia and Luna are kind, loving Goddesses. I’ve seen things that loving Goddesses would never allow. They would never let a mare have her eyes carved out, or let a foal see his mother executed, or let ponies butcher and torture each other to death, or let my friends... or let my friends die, or let Lily be... I decided to stop thinking, and I just grabbed the next closest object. The little orb. A whole new wave of anger consumed me as I remembered the foals in the house, two-hundred years long dead. I channeled all my hate at that little orb, finally falling asleep with a heart full of rage. The next five days were filled with beatings and pain. Stepped in the wrong direction, you got hit. Spoke without being spoken too, you got hit. Moved too slowly to your tunnel in the mines, rifle butt to the face. Can you see a pattern emerging? The head overseer had been replaced by a griffon that the crazy mare hired. The griffon encouraged the ponies under her to always treat slaves with as much cruelty as possible without crippling them. I worked in silence and bruised anguish during the ever-lengthening work hours. Martyr, thank Luna, had been able to avoid the constant beatings suffered by the rest of us. Each night I’d snuck away from my tent, sneaking bits of food and water to the eyeless mare in the center of the camp. It seemed I was the only pony who cared. Her name was Scrapper Line, I’d learned as we talked. She came from a big extended family of ‘prospectors’ (a fancy name for pre-war trash scavengers) and had lived her entire life in the desert. Her family had wandered around, finding facilities that the old Equestria had built in the no-pony’s-land of the desert, collecting here and there bits and pieces of old technology. She’d visited a Desert Outpost on her own one day to find a specific type of old armor that made its wearer stronger. Needless to say, she was captured. Our conversation on the fourth night went something like this: I walked slowly, as sneakily as I could manage, towards the pole in the ground. Most slaves were either asleep or tending their new bruises in their tents. The guards had already retreated to their own trailers and shacks. “Fall?” she whispered into the descending night when she heard the low crunch oh my hooves on a patch of pebbles, “Is that you?” “I’m here,” I replied, “Thirsty?” “Fuckin bone dry, Fall,” I pressed the edge of my canteen to her lips. She sipped in short, stuttering gulps. She tilted her head back and sighed after she emptied what was left of my water. I held a little pouch of swollen oats under her nose, allowing her to sniff the food I’d brought her. She shook her head in disgust. I stuffed the small pouch back in my pocket. “So,” I asked, “how was your day?” Her chuckle was dry and cough-like. “Oh, Fall, you joker,” she spat back with a snide smile, “You’re so funny that you should go fuck yourself.” “So, about as good as every other day,” I smiled back. There was something comforting about talking to this mare. The way she said my name reminded me of Three. The way she swore reminded me of Lily. “Same old same old. Tied to a pole, can’t see, legs twisted how they shouldn’t be, public example... oh yeah, life’s just fine.” “Do you think the boss mare is going to cut you down from there soon?” If she had eyes she would have been rolling them. “Nope.” “Damn. Well, can’t say I’m too surprised.” “Neither am I,” she replied. A pause filled the space between us, consuming any words I could think of to fill it. Finally, she broke the silence. “You know,” she said, “I’m still waiting on some of that physical affection I mentioned a few days ago.” “Sorry,” I replied, “I’m still in the process of grieving for somepony right now. Not that you aren’t a nice mare and all, but...” I really was still grieving for Three, feeling an acute loss when I thought of the close companionship and kindness she’d shown me (and, in a different way, missing Lily also). Plus, the idea of doing that in the center of this slave camp with a mare tied to a pole was an idea that absolutely disgusted me. “Yeah, sure, I get it. Anyways...” she continued, rapidly shifting the conversation, “got any ideas how to escape?” Honestly, I hadn’t really thought about it. I wasn’t ever the best at coming up with plans, but I doubted that any under-fed, beaten, unarmed slave, no matter how skilled could find a way out of this camp past the electrified fence, guards, and, most of all, explosive collars. Explosive collars. Something, a question, suddenly gnawed at my brain. “Um, no plan yet,” I admitted, “By the way, how’d you get your collar off that day?” She leaned forward, as if making sure I could hear. “Some mare -one of the guards, I think- just came up behind me while I was mining. She did... um, something, and the light turned off. The mare gave me a knife, told me to get to someplace called ‘Camp Steelhooves’, and then she was gone. I used the knife to pry the collar off at the hinge,” then, as if she thought I didn’t believe her, “No shit, that’ the honest truth. Really happened.” This was news to me. News, that is, that I was glad to know. It meant that somewhere around here, maybe we had an ally... “You know,” she continued, her voice lowered, “I hear things sometimes. There’s a group of ponies who meet by here everyday, right after the mining ends. I think they might have a plan to get out of here. You should talk to them.” I woke up on the fifth morning to the sound of a loud horn and beatings. The green tarp hadn’t left me in the night. Sad pink light peaked through the holes in my ceiling at an angle determined by the low sun. I hated that tarp. I stood, groggily, and ended up nose to nose with Hadrine. I took a step backwards to regain my personal space. Martyr stood next to him, gripping his leg. A loud, terrified scream rose up from the distance with a distinctly donkey voice. “Good morning, Fall,” Hadrine said without emotion. “What’s happening?” I asked, ignoring his greeting, “Who’s screaming?” Martyr looked terrified. He pressed one ear against the zebra’s leg, and the other he held shut with a free hoof. “The griffon is beating a slave. As for who, an upper level slave called Gwendolyn. The charge is scheming to escape,” The calm in his voice unnerved me. I rifle shot sounded in the air. Martyr began whimpering louder. Hadrine tilted his head down slightly and whispered something, a prayer I think, in a language I couldn’t understand. I pulled on my rags, slung my canteen around my neck, and picked up Martyr. “Stay in the tent,” I commanded. I sat him down, giving him the little murder orb to play with. With yet another pile of anger dumping itself on my already heavy heart, I made my way to the center of the camp. At the hooves of my bound and blind earth pony friend was the headless corpse of a donkey mare. No, that isn’t quite right. A body-less head, not a headless body. Bits and pieces of what used to be a living, breathing, thinking being had painted the ground a dark red in a grisly circle. Half a stomach, leaking its last few drops of acid into the sand, and a mutilated section of a spine lay at the feet of the griffon. The griffon smiled on one side of her crisscrossing-scar marred face, apparently pleased with her work. A large scoped rifle was strapped to her back light golden brown feathered back. The pony guards around her wore expressions that more closely matched those of the onlooking slaves. “No work in the mines today,” the griffon announced, her voice high, tinny, and annoying, “Tomorrow will be filled with fun and games, courtesy of your owner.” Fun and games? With what this griffon seemed to enjoy, this couldn’t be good. “Your owner said she wanted to be more like Red-Eye,” the widely grinning griffon cooed, “Today’s the day you dig The Pit!” Footnote: 50% to next Level Quest Perk: Sharing Kindness: When you see ponies in need you feel compelled to help them. You gain +2 to both Charisma and Luck for five hours after performing selfless acts (at no benefit to yourself) towards either friends or enemy. (Thanks go to Kkat for writing the original Fallout: Equestria. Thanks also to OkiiNovice who has been proofreading and discussing the chapters with me)
Chapter 6: BrutalityFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 6: Brutality “Here, in the midst of darkness, you see what a pony is really made of.” Picks and shovels. The entire day consisted of the clanging of picks and shovels making repetitive music as they snailed their way through the earth. The light sand had been dragged away and used to fill bags near the start of our job. After that the ground was a heavy, compact, sunbaked mess. The hole we were digging was big and circular, the boundaries marked off by a ring of paint laid down by a particularly stupid looking pony. Several guards stood around the ring, making sure we didn’t try anything sneaky. About twenty of us were told to dig. The rest were taken away by the griffon and a group of guards to... to do something. I didn’t know, and I didn’t really feel the need to find out. Sweat dripped down my brow and into my eyes. I continued swinging my pick at the hard earth. Clumps of stone and dirt flew up with each downstroke. Bits of earth planted themselves in my mane and tail. The elderly gray unicorn stallion with a fading yellow mane next to me dropped his shovel. I glanced over at him. His eyes looked glazed as he stared intently at the ground. His hooves slipped away from him, allowing him to crash to the ground. I dropped my pick and lifted his head and, after unslinging my canteen from my neck and checking to make sure he was breathing, gave him a few sips of water. I patted the side of his face. “Hey,” I whispered, “are you okay?” His eyelids fluttered briefly, momentarily focusing forward, before closing again. I began dragging him up the sloped edge of the circle, out of the pit, laying him in the small shade of the pole Scrapper was tied to. A rifle barrel was pressed against my wet forehead. I looked up. The griffon was back. Behind her a mass gaggle of bruised and bleeding slaves (which, I noticed to my extreme distaste, included Hadrine and Martyr) looked around, scratching at the ground and avoiding eye contact with the guards surrounding them. “What do you think you’re doin’? Hmm?” the griffon overseer asked, a smirk stretching itself across her face. How could she smirk with a beak? “That stallion fainted,” I informed her, gesturing with my hoof, “I moved him out of the way so he wouldn’t get hurt.” She presses the end of her rifle harder against my head. “That so?” “Yes.” She squinted at me. Suddenly, with speed that I’d thought impossible with so big of a weapon (because it was a really, really, really big gun), she spun the gun around in her claws and slammed the butt into my face like a big metal club. It connected with my lower jaw first, then my cheekbone. I felt my face mushing around the gun as it impacted. The ground reached me quickly. Writhing on the ground, I spat out two teeth. Blood trickled out out of my mouth. My jaw felt broken, searingly painful. The griffon placed the butt of her rifle on my chest and knelt down next to me, leaning on her gun. “You left your work, little pony. Leavin’ your work is a real no-no around here.” One of the guards who’d been left in charge of watching our ditch digging detail piped up. “He was just trying to help, ma’am. The slave was just saving us the trouble of carrying that buck outta the pit,” he said, his face betraying that he regretted saying that the instant he opened his mouth. Leaning on me harder, the griffon overseer shot the unlucky guard a murderous look. “Oh, is that it, then?” she breathed sarcastically, “He did you all a favor? Well how. Fucking. Generous. Of him!” With each pause she shoved the rifle into my increasingly bruised side. She sprang up and glided over the pit. She grabbed the buck by the neck with her clawed hand and threw him into the wide hole, knocking over several slaves as he skidded to a halt. “You can get out once you’ve learned how to guard slaves properly!” She motioned to the slaves who’d been followed her. “You. In,” she commanded, then turning to the slaves in the pit, “Out.” They promptly obeyed. In a few seconds a group of sweat covered, tired, pained ponies had switched places with a group of sweat covered, tired, pained ponies. The old, knocked out stallion was tossed forcibly back in the pit. I attempted to get back on my hooves, each movement another blaze of pain. A guard mare, darkly purple with a sand colored mane, telekinetically wrapped my jaw with a roll of healing bandages, tying it in a knot I couldn’t untie without magic (which I obviously didn’t have), and as payment to herself she took my canteen. Great, now instead of spitting out my blood, I just had to swallow it. Fan-fucking-tastic. The griffon took us to a small, flat, crudely fenced off section of the camp. By crudely fenced off I mean a ring of barbed wire around the edge with a pony width gap as an entrance. A decrepit and disintegrating armchair was set in front of the the closest corner. She turned to face us standing on her hind legs in an attempt to appear menacing. “This is your practice pit. Who wants to go first?” she announced. I didn’t understand what she was talking about, and by the looks on the other slaves faces I wasn’t the only one. “Oh dear Gawd,” the griffon moaned, apparently invoking some deity I wasn’t familiar with, slamming her claw against her face, “You have no idea what I’m talking about.” We didn’t. She picked up two slaves, a unicorn mare and an earth pony buck, and tossed them into the ring. “Fight,” she commanded. “w-Why?” the mare stammered. “Because tomorrow, in that pit you were digging,” the griffon explained, “we’re going to have some entertainment. I want to see which of you’re gonna cut it.” A smile crept across her face. I felt disgusted now that I knew what this was for. If I ever got a chance to kill this griffon I would do it without hesitation. Wanting to watch ponies beat the shit out of each other just got added to the list of reasons why. Neither the mare or the stallion made a move, instead staring at the ground. These two had no hatred toward each other. Once the stalling had gone on long enough the griffon began searching for something to motivate the fighters with. A little unicorn filly, probably no older than Martyr, was hiding behind the legs of a massive stallion.Her eyes were tearing up as she stared intently at the buck in the ring. Was he her brother? Her father perhaps? The griffon noticed the young filly's gaze. She grabbed the young filly by her neck with her sharp talons and flew upwards, high above the rest of us. A tiny drop of the filly’s blood fell on my bandaged muzzle. The filly’s tears became a waterfall. The griffon turned her eyes towards the stallion who, like everypony else, looked in terror at what was happening. “Have you ever seen what happens to someone when they’re dropped from this high?” she asked him, “Neither have I, but I have this feeling that if we don’t see some fighting soon we might find out!” Her happy tone was a desperately bad fit for the situation. My stomach was doing disgusted flips as I positioned myself carefully beneath the filly, just in case she slipped. Something snapped in the stallion. He lowered his head, gave a blood curdling yell, charged. His shoulder caught the mare under the jaw, knocking the wind out of her and throwing her backwards. Soon he was on top of her, slamming his hooves mercilessly down anywhere he could make contact. The mare kicked hard with her hind legs in retaliation, taking out the buck’s stance from under him. A second kick met his ribs. A sickening cracking sound. She slammed her head forward. Her horn stabbed at his windpipe. A third kick knocked him off of her. She stood. The stallion tried to get to his feet again. The mare was too fast for him. She gave a hard, double-hoofed buck to the face, smashing his jaw and tripping him into the ring of barbed wire. Her horn glowed. The wire began to wrap around his neck. “That’s enough,” the griffon said. She slammed down on the ground, casually tossing the filly into the crowd, a unicorn just barely catching her in a magical cloud before she hit the ground. The mare stared in horror at the murder she’d almost committed, quickly doing her best to untangle the wire from around the choking and bleeding stallion’s neck. He gasped for air, sucking in deep gulps of the hot, dry, sandy air. I put my hoof to the scar on my neck in empathy. I knew what it’s like to not be able to breath. The mare gently lifted him out of the wire, placing him on the ground. Her horn glowed dimly as she began performing a very basic healing spell. The griffon walked into the ring and, much less gently, swung the wounded buck over her left shoulder. With her free claw the griffon grabbed the mare’s right hoof and raised it in the air, pronouncing her victory. “Little filly, you’ve got potential!” the griffon overseer sneered. The mare hung her head in shame. I was up last. The sun was steadily creeping its way towards retreat. The unicorn buck I was paired to fight was big. Really big. He stood at least a head taller than me. My heart sank. I was going to get very, very hurt, and it was going to suck. The griffon tore the bandages off my face with her claws (“Slaves don’t get bandages, you little fuck!”) allowing me to finally breathe through my mouth again. The magic in the bandages had done its work; I was no longer bleeding and the smaller fractures in my jaw had mended themselves. My missing teeth, on the other hoof... She’d considered my Pip-Buck for a moment, trying to decide if it was an unfair advantage. Apparently she was familiar with them. After several minutes of attempting to remove it from my leg she gave up, mumbling something about cutting off legs being too big of a disadvantage. She forced us both into the center of the ring. The battered onlookers groaned. “Start!” Unlike the stallion from the first fight, this buck needed no motivation to let out his violence on me. Before I could blink he’d rammed me with his horn, slamming the magical piece of bone into my chest below the base of my neck. It pierced skin and muscle, thankfully stopping before it hit bone. He brought his head back, drawing his horn from my gaping wound. He brought his heavy front hooves down across my face. I fell to the ground. Blood gushed from the hole in me. I began feeling faint, screaming out as pain consumed me. I was going to die. I’d come so far, seeing ponies around me die. Ponies I’d cared about. Would I get to see them again when I was gone? Why hadn’t the griffon stopped the fight yet? Then something miraculous happened. I’m not sure whether it was my dead friends helping from the other side, or a bizarre side effect of the massive blood loss (probably the blood loss), but I suddenly felt very strong and very angry. I jammed my un-Pip-Bucked hoof into my wound to slow the bleeding, tears of pain flowing freely. I rolled away just in time to avoid the buck’s next strike. Striking out with the weight of my Pip-Buck carrying my hoof forward by sheer momentum, I struck both of his front legs out from underneath him in the split second before he lifted them again for his next strike. With speed I didn’t know I had, I leapt up and brought my Pip-Buck down on his spine. It did nothing. The buck swung himself off the fucking ground and gave a powerful kick to the leg I was using to slow my blood-flow. I heard and felt the bones shatter. I flew into the barbed wire, but luckily wasn’t caught in it, and landed face up. He rushed towards me, horn down, hoping to finish me off once and for all. I raised my Pip-Buck. I closed my eyes and swung my hoof down. It connected. My Pip-Buck and his speed combined, making enough force to chip off the tip of his horn! He reared his head back in pain. Noticing the opening, I kicked at his chest with my back hooves, cracking one or two ribs. He retaliated against my attack by slamming his forehooves down on my chest. I could hear shattering bone. I couldn’t take much more. I was preparing for my fate, my mind playing through the prayers before death. One last strike and he would end me. Desperation controlled my final actions. I kicked upwards with my right hind leg, catching him directly beneath his rib cage. His body seemed to seize up as he fell on me. My vision went dark. I woke up, long after the sun had set, chest down beneath my green tarp tent. I hated that tarp. Pain covered me like a blanket. I felt at the wound on my chest, surprised to find it had been stitched up. My ribs and my leg were unbroken. My teeth were still missing. How am I alive? I wondered. I turned my head to the right. Martyr slept curled up by my side, covered in bruises and scabbed blood. Hadrine sat keeping watch. His wounds had begun healing faster than Martyr’s for some reason. “You are awake,” the zebra observed. I cleared my throat. “What happened?” “Your opponent is dead,” he replied without emotion, “You hit a pressure point that caused his lungs to collapse.” How did I do that?! “The slaver surgeons repaired you,” Hadrine concluded. The camp had surgeons? Since when? I suddenly by a realization. “Scrapper!” I exclaimed, pain shooting through me as I spoke, “She needs food and water! I haven’t been able to...” Hadrine cut me off and pushed me back down to the ground. “One of the slavers provided the blinded mare with sustenance,” he informed me calmly, “They spoke of escape.” The mare on top of the tower. Was it in her hooves that Equestria was held? Thunder clouds and bolts of lightning, rending the sky apart, moved at her command. The sun and moon were hers. Who needs the Goddesses when a lone mare could bear the burdens of the world? I loved her. Not romantic love, but the type of love one feels for a pony who deserves the intense reverence of all. I felt I owed her a great, unknown debt. Perhaps she was the Goddesses... A stab by my spine woke me from my blasphemous dream. A needle. The sky was still dark. I looked to my right. Nothing. To my right. The dark purple unicorn mare with a sand colored mane held a lantern in her teeth as she magically pressed the plunger of the small Med-X syringe. A crashing wave of relief from the pain that was covering my bruised and battered body washed over me, leaving me (artificially) happy and seeing clearly. “Who are you?” I asked, immediately realizing how ungrateful I sounded for not thanking her for the dose of Med-X first. She ignored my question and my rudeness. Setting down the lantern she replied, “You can help the ponies in this desert, Fall. I’m keeping you alive for that. I can see it in your eyes. You’re going to do great things. I’m helping a friend of yours for the same reason.” She pulled the needle from my back. I suddenly recognized her. “You! You’re the one who stole my canteens and tied my mouth shut with bandages!” I shouted in a whisper, “Why would you do that?” She opened her saddle bags and pulled out my canteen. She placed it on the ground by my head. “Don’t drink this,” she commanded, “until right before the fight.” “Why?” I asked, growing increasingly annoyed with each sidestepped question. Wait, what fight? “Trust that I’m protecting you,” was her final reply. She picked up her lantern again and trotted away into the consuming blackness. How could I trust her when I didn’t even know who she was? Morning. My Med-X had worn off before the horn sounded. My wounds had healed overnight somehow. Several large, puckered scars had formed on my body. The one on my chest was particularly prominent. I slowly, achingly, dragged myself up to my hooves, hitting my head against the top of the tent. I hated that tarp. Martyr was clutching my ragged clothes in his hooves along with ‘Story of the Goddesses’ and the ball from Desert Outpost 21 while he slept. I pried my stuff from his hooves, trying my best not to wake him. I failed at that. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. I put on my rags and stuffed my belongings into the pockets. I slung my canteen around my neck. He looked up at me. One of his eyes was surrounded by a large purplish welt. His entire body was scratched and bruised. The lights on our collars flickered on, telling us we were already behind schedule. He nodded to me. I returned the nod. We trotted as fast as we could to the gate. A gaggle of slaves milled around the unopened entrance. What were they waiting for? A voice, magnified by magic, boomed out over the camp. “SLAVES, FRIENDS, FELLOW COUNTRY PONIES!” it began, speaking the loud, slightly lisping, and overly excited voice of a certain mare, “I LOVE FUN! DON’T YOU?!” Fun could not possibly be a good thing around here. “WELL, SINCE I THINK FUN IS FUN, WE’RE GONNA HAVE SOME FUN TONIGHT!” the voice exclaimed with a huge amount of redundancy, leaving my ears ringing, “THIS EVENING WE’RE GONNA HAVE OUR (WAIT FOR IIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTT!)” we waited for it for a straight three minutes, “MONTHLY ULTRA-AWESOME-SUPER-COOL-KICK-FLANK-TAKE-NO-PRISONERS-NO-HOLDS-BARRED-” the sound of a deep intake of air, “FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC PIT BRAWL!” Shit. “HERE’S HOW IT WILL WORK, EVERYPONY: TWO TEAMS OF FIVE. WEAPONS FOR PONIES WHO DO REAL GOOD. WHICHEVER TEAM’S GOT PONIES LEFT BY THE END OF THE EVENING WINS! WHOEVER WINS FIGHTS THE NEXT PONY TILL THEY... STOP FIGHTING! RULES! YAY!” This wasn’t good. I could tell that right away. Lots of ponies were going to die for no reason. No, not for no reason, for the ‘entertainment’ of the insane mare in charge. “TEAMS! TEAM RED: SERVICE STEWARD, FLOYD, RAINCLOUD FLASH, FALL HAMMER-HEART, SIMPLE MAUVE! YAY! GO TEAM RED!” Her enthusiasm was sickening and I felt the urge to... wait, my name? I suddenly remembered what that guard had said to me the night before: ‘Don’t drink this until right before the fight.’ Dammit. Dammit all. I looked at my canteen. What was special about it? Why was I chosen to fight? I'd barely even survived the fight the day before. I’d only survived by luck! Why would they choose me to fight in the pit? Wait a second; how’d they even know our names? “TEAM DARKER RED: HOOFHOLD, FRAGILE GLASS... ONE REALLY BIG PONY I DON’T KNOW THE NAME OF, COURIER, HADRINE! WOO HOO! GOOD LUCK TEAM DARKER RED!” What? What was that?! Hadrine? I glanced at my zebra friend, my jaw hanging open. He looked back at me. He bowed very slightly. “NOW, ALL YOU PONIES WHO ARE GONNA FIGHT THIS EVENING, GET A GOOD REST. EVERYPONY ELSE, HAVE A GRRRREAT DAY AT WORK!” the voice ended abruptly. I just stood there as ponies muttered and shuffled around. The electrified gates opened and the slaves not conscripted to either team were ushered out the door by guards. The movement kicked up clouds of dust. I almost started following them, but I stopped myself. Not only would I be fighting, I’d be fighting on the team against one of the only friends I had left in the wasteland. Ten of us (plus Martyr, who refused to leave my side) stood by as the heavy, slow swinging gates were closed. We stood eyeing each other for several tension and suspicion filled moments. Finally a mule stallion with an out of place pink shock of hair running through his mane broke the silence, summing up our situation in the simplest way possible. “Well,” he said, “we’re fucked.” “Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, “Two holy and light-filled Goddesses reigned over sun and moon, day and night. They saw that their land was good and full of peace. But what good was peace? Would sun and moon remember the peace of Equestria? Would the stars remember their maker, the trees and plants the giver of sunshine? Peace could not last. The moon came down from the heavens, the sun scorching the earth beneath. The fire of dragons and the power of spells magnified a thousand times over brought the world crashing to its knees. The foundations of the reality that had been were shattered, the pillars of glass holding truth and order melting beneath the hooves of ponies and zebras. Where was order? Where was purity? Where were the goddesses in the world’s time of need? They cowered like mortals, fearing for their flesh. “Where were the Elements? Where were the saints, the prophets, the conjurers of the magic of friendship? Could even magic delay the loosening of the bonds of reality? What of love? Friendship and love failed in the face of the fires. That which had surmounted so much withered and blew away like the petals of a flower. Can you see the face of the old Equestria, Fall? Is it even there? “Brutality conquered beauty. Twisting lies conquered truth. Loyalty became a word uttered only by the damned. The zebra, scattered to the edges of the world. The pegasi, content to confine themselves to their monotonous nation of clouds and militarism. Earth ponies and unicorns shut themselves in steel and concrete coffins, waging their own silent war against the fear of the outside that consumed their rationality and turned them against one another. Ghouls? What of them? Their very existence is the result of the evils ponies offered themselves. “And what of you, Fall? You are the product of cowardice. The buffalo left, foreseeing the end. Your ancestors followed when they realized they were right. Why did they leave when Equestria needed them most? Their cowardice must have been handed down to you. You let your friends die, the only ponies you cared about in the wasteland. You did nothing. Haha! What are you now, Fall? An empty shell of what you could have been? Can you blame this on some easy target of your rage? Is this the fault of the demon Discord or some unhelpful Goddesses? Perhaps it is just bad fortune or having gained too many enemies? Maybe your earth pony misfortunes or some weak...” Shut up. “So, what are you going to do?” Scrapper asked. The sun was high and sweat trickled down her face, under the bandages I’d just changed, getting into her empty sockets. I brushed the sand with my hoof. “I’ll fight, I guess. Hope I’ll survive it.” “What about the other fighters? Are they good?” she asked as she scratched an itch on the back of her head against the stake, wincing in pain. Over the past days the skin below her fur on her back and neck had grown red and blistered. Bits of it were peeling off from the sunburn and tufts of fur had begun falling out. Then, in an unrelated question, “Do you have any water? I’m dying of thirst here.” I looked at my canteens. ‘Don’t drink this until right before the fight’. Well, that only applied to me, right? “Sure,” I replied, pulling off the cork and tipping a little water into her mouth. I responded to her first question, “I don’t really know much about the other fighters. I guess that if they got chosen they must be good then, right? Oh, and the zebra got picked, too.” Scrapper wasn’t listening. Her head lolled back, a large shiver ran through her body. “Fall,” she said in a very rushed voice, “why are you talking so slowly?” I rested in the shade of my tent, rolling the orb from Desert Outpost 21 back and forth between my hooves. Work at the mine had ended. Martyr rested nearby, watching me. We said nothing for at least an hour. It was too hot to talk, even now as the sun began nearing the edge of the sky. In a few minutes the fights would start. Finally, Martyr piped up. “Fall?” he asked “Yeah?” “Where did you get that ball?” I looked down at the little dark sphere. “I found it a while back,” I said. I figured an incomplete answer was better than telling him I’d found it on the corpse of a two-hundred years dead pony guilty of mass foal-murder. He nodded, as if to say that it was a satisfactory answer, then opened his mouth to speak again. “Fall?” he echoed his earlier question. I sighed, not exasperated at him but at the despair I felt about the upcoming fight. “Yes?” I replied as I picked up the orb and stuffed it in my pocket. “What happens when ponies die?” Damn. I hated questions like that. I didn’t know. From what I’d seen of the wasteland so far I wasn’t even sure if the Goddesses even cared enough for there to be anything after death. So, I decided to say what I’d always been taught and wasn’t sure I believed anymore. “Um, when ponies die, they go somewhere special so they can be with Celestia and Luna forever. Everypony else who's ever died is there too. Do you understand what I’m saying?” “PONIES! IT’S TIME FOR FUN! TO THE PIT!” blared the magically enhanced voice. I stood up and Martyr did the same. Taking a deep breath, I began walking with the young colt by my side towards the center of the camp. The crowd of slowly trotting ponies grew thicker the closer we got to the pit. The sun had dropped below the distant mountains. The crowd stood in a ring around the pit, deeper than I’d remembered and surrounded by barbed wire and torches stuck in the ground. Just a hole in the ground, what made it so special? Was fighting to the death in the dirt a northern tradition? If it was, it made me want even less to do with the NCR I was supposed to find than I already wanted to. From where she was, my blinded friend would have had a great view of the games if she could see. “Red team, over here!” a unicorn guard buck yelled. I closed my eyes and breathed, then turned to walk towards the guard who’d called. Martyr started following me. I put my hoof down in front of him. “No,” I said, turning my head to look down at him, “stay here. You can’t come with me.” Tears began forming behind his eyes. The little colt who’d lost his entire family was now worried that he’d lose his only friend. He bit back his sadness and trotted away back into the crowd. I continued to were my team was gathering. The donkey with the pink in his hair, a purplish earth pony mare with a sickly brown mane, a bright blue unicorn stallion with a mane of different shades of orange and a small tumor beneath his right eye, and a white unicorn mare with a black and white spotted mane, plus me made Team Red. We definitely did not look like a formidable fighting force. The unicorn guard held a clipboard that was too big for the scrap of paper it held. He glanced at the note, reading over the poorly scrawled words covering it. When he was certain she understood the instructions he looked up at us. “Alright you poor fuckers, here’s how it’s gonna work: Floyd, you’re up first.” The donkey hung his head at the news of his bad luck and gritted his teeth, letting out a low and very angry ‘fuck me’. I didn’t envy him going first. “After that’s Raincloud, then Mauve, then Simple, and then if the other team isn’t all dead yet, Fall.” I was last? Finally, some good luck! Maybe I won’t have to kill anypony after all... I remembered my scars... or be killed. The guard buck put the clipboard in his saddlebags and pulled out fives bandannas, each of them red. “Put them on,” he commanded. We did as we were told. “This way,” the buck said, motioning us towards a tall tent that had been set up away from the pit. Team Darker Red (featuring my friend Hadrine) entered with their darker red bandannas the same time as us. Inside was the griffon standing beside a lawn chair bearing the crazy mare who owned us all. She sipped at a drink through a straw and wore a pair of dark sunglasses despite the descending night. She rolled off her chair and telekinetically passed off her drink to the overseer. Her glasses slid down her snout slightly. She inspected each of us, turning our heads, contemplating our scars, checking our teeth for some reason. She bopped two of the unicorns on the horn for some reason. When she came to me I craned my neck back slightly. Her breath was foul and her mane had bits of... something in it. She put a hoof under my chin and brought my head back forward, then gave me a very unexpected and extremely unwelcome wet kiss. I was immediately overwhelmed by the urge to wash myself. She then turned and got her drink from the griffon, returning to her chair. The griffon spoke next. “Alright, you sacks of shit, line yourselves up over there.” she said, pointing a dagger-like claw towards a two smallish ditches positioned on opposite sides of the pit. The guards with us prompted us towards these smaller pits, dividing us into our teams. I stood between the donkey and the unicorn buck. The griffon flapped her wings and flew over the pit. Her body was lit dimly by the ring of torches. “Slaves,” she began, “tonight you’re getting a real treat. In some places ponies would kill to get to see a fight like this,” she snickered at her own pun, “First fight is between Floyd the donkey of Team Red and Click the earth pony of Team Darker Red.” The guards on both sides dragged out the contestants and shoved them down the sloped walls of the pit. With the crowd blocking my view and being in a ditch I had some trouble seeing what was going on. I barely noticed that the boss mare had moved her chair for a better view. Beside it she set down a box with contents I didn’t know. "Fight!" commanded the griffon. I heard dull hoof strikes. Grunts of pain. One of the fighters got flipped at least once. Strangely, I heard a cheer. Not a very loud cheer, but a noticeable holler from a pony in the audience. Another pony joined in the cheering. Soon the entire bunch of slaves ringed around the pit were cheering for their favorites. The sound of the fighting rose in volume so as to be still audible over the crowd. I could see the boss mare smile wickedly in approval. So much approval, in fact, that she drew out two knives from her box and dropped them in the pit. Now I could hear steel against steel. A loud cry of pain rang out over the crowd’s loudness as one of the fighters was forced to drop their knife. Another slash, a gurgle of pain, and the crowd grew much louder. “And the donkey wins!” the griffon proclaimed, "One point to Team Red." The hoof stomps of the crowd became overwhelming, drowning out other sounds. Two guards worked together to telekinetically lift the earth pony's corpse and the knives out of the pit. Dark crimson blood drenched the equally dark red bandanna as it seeped from the dead pony's almost completely detached neck, held on only by the spinal column. The guards laid the body down beside the boss mare's chair. My stomach did flips as I watched her dip the tip of her right forehoof in the puddle of blood and taste it. I desperately fought the urge to vomit, knowing that losing food and water would only make me weaker for when I had to fight. "Darker Red's unicorn Pilot Light enters the Pit!" A vividly green unicorn mare with a white mane was pushed into the pit, disappearing from view. I could hear kicks and magical shimmering sounds as the fight began, screams of pain from both fighters. The cheering crowd's cheering became more cheerful as they watched two people with the same right to live start using all they had to kill each other. I heard the mare scream loudly along with a vile crunching noise. Then I saw flames shoot into the sky out of the pit. An incendiary spell, the unicorn was conjuring fire as a weapon. A stray bolt of flame set the rags of one of the ponies in the audience on fire, causing their screams to join the cacophony of noises. Floyd the donkey's sizzling skin was audible over all the other noises somehow, only adding to the disgust and sense of illness I was feeling. Knives were dropped in. Another loud scream and then hoofbeats against the ground as one side of the crowd showed their approval for the winner. "And the donkey wins again!" Oh Godesses, what!? The fighter who'd just been burned alive by a huge magical-incendiary spell had won!? How? "But it looks like he won't be participating in the next fight..." the griffon both smirked and cringed as the guards lifted out the two corpses from the pit. The unicorn mare had been slit open from below her ribcage to the base of her horn, cutting several arteries in the process somehow. The donkey was more terrifyingly disfigured. I would say he looked like a ghoul, except that would be an insult to ghouls. His flesh dripped like molasses from his bones, the handle of the knife clenched tightly in his jaw that refused to open. The smell was terrible. I'd smelled burned pony-flesh before but this was worse. "Next in is Raincloud and Mercantile." the two ponies were thrown in without so much as the cloths on their backs. The fight was brief. Raincloud was a skilled magical fighter. He dispatched the next pony after Mercantile equally easily. For a moment I let myself regain the hope that I wouldn't have to kill anypony after all. Then it was Hadrine's turn. When I'd met Hadrine, the day he was bought, I hadn't pictured him being a steely eyed killer. Raincloud and the two ponies on my team after him didn't stand a chance. I had the (oh so lucky) opportunity to watch Hadrine and Simple fight each other, being moved forward to the edge of the crowd so that the guards didn't have to push me too far. The zebra and the unicorn circled around each other like wolves, waiting to strike, in the dirt wet with blood and charred by incendiary spells. In a sudden moment (if I'd blinked I would have missed it) Hadrine threw himself clear across the pit, his hooves tipped forward so the edges would strike instead of the flat part. Simple tried to dodge with a roll, but was too slow. Hadrine's forehooves tore through the mare's body, one entering through her neck, tearing a gaping hole as it exited, the other cracking through her ribs and lodging in her body cavity. The mare twitched for a few seconds and then coughed blood as my zebra friend withdrew his hooves. She fell to the ground, dead. As the guards lifted the former fighter to join the boss mare's pile of corpses while the griffon announced the winner, Hadrine stared at his owner, channeling all the hate he felt at that moment. And then he looked at me. A wave of despair crashed over me as he offered a knowing nod. I remembered my canteen, remembered that one guard's instructions, and pulled out the cork, taking a sip. Then everything became really slow and my vision was tinged purple. I could feel each beat of my heart and could hear my bones as the joints shifted. My muscles quivered and tensed. I felt faster despite the speed everything else was moving at. The guards tore off my rags and pushed me through the gap in the barbed wire, down the slope of the pit, landing and turning myself in agonizing slow motion to face my opponent. The command to fight sounded distant. Hadrine took a stance and began circling me. I went the opposite direction, my violet tinged vision kept steadily on my enemy. When he pounced I noticed something odd. His hooves faced flat instead of pointed. As he drew near to me I lifted my left hoof, knocking aside his attack as I delivered my own jab into his side. The sudden change in momentum sent the zebra to the ground. His attack hadn't been to kill, so my next move wasn't either. I felt like I was walking against the current of a river as I moved to where he lay and wrapped my right foreleg around his neck, hoping to choke him just enough to knock him out. He was having none of that, flipping me over his head with a powerful backwards hit to my stomach. I felt my heart stop momentarily and then return faster than before during the time it took for me to reach the ground. He wrapped me in a chokehold of his own (better than the one I'd attempted) and began squeezing my neck. As I began losing the ability to breath, I panicked, flailing my hooves wildly in an uncoordinated attempt to get free. I felt his free hoof jab into a point in my side. Searing pain jolted through my body as I felt my muscles seize up. He whispered, just loud enough so that I could hear him over the crowd, "Kill me," and then let go. I fell forward, feeling relief from being able to breath (incredibly slowly) again, and feeling terror at the idea that Hadrine had killed all the other competitors just so I could kill him. What was his reason? Why me? I was nothing special! A double hoofed buck to my side, cracking two ribs, brought me out of trying to understand. I howled in pain as my slowed perception forced me to somehow feel my broken bones more intensely. I rolled to my hooves, planting them firmly down. Hadrine lifted himself into a standing fighting stance on his back hooves. It wasn't a very strong stance, however. He was open so that I could land a hit on his breastbone. I took the opportunity. I lowered my head and rammed his chest with the top of my skull. As quickly as I could I pinned him to the ground. I raised my Pip-Buck over his striped head, readying myself to bring it down with all the force I had. Two things stopped me. First, his face had no emotion. An equine should at least feel something before they're about to die, but he just held an expression of serene, lock-jawed contentment. This buck had been one of my only friends since I was made a slave, and now I was about to kill him at his request. The second thing was the world sprinting back into full speed. It felt like a hammer smacked against my head. My muscles twanged and rebelled against the feelings my nerves threw on them. I felt like vomiting again. I opened my eyes, my vision moving in and out, making me feel off balance and sicker. Oh Goddesses, it was like being hung over, but ten times worse! Hadrine jammed his hoof hard against my jaw to break my out of my daze. He shouted at me but my ears were ringing loudly. I couldn't tell what he said, but I'm sure it had something to do with killing him. I looked down at him. I couldn't kill him, not like this, not for the entertainment of these freaks, not when he'd asked me to. "No!" I shouted, my own voice sounding underwater and distant. He responded by flipping himself off the ground, kicking me just above my groin. Dull, aching pain shot through me. I lay doubled over on the ground. A knife landed handle up, blade in the dirt, next to my head. I picked it up with my teeth and pulled myself to my hooves. My groggy, pained head throbbed awfully. I squeezed my eyes shut, tears welling up behind my eyelids. I opened my eyes to see Hadrine balancing on his back hooves with the same open stance. He held his own knife in the crook of his right forehoof. He gestured very slightly to a spot on his neck, asking me to kill him again. I couldn't move. My hooves felt cemented to the ground and my heart beat without a rhythm and slammed with pain every time I breathed. He interpreted my hesitation as refusal. Before I could blink he'd put me in a headlock, one leg choking me around my neck, the other gripping his knife menacingly by my head. "Fall, listen," he whispered with the strong sound of command burning through his voice, "my death is a piece of the larger puzzle. You have the need to continue north, I need a good ending. If you don't survive this fight, things will become very difficult for everyone. Now put aside your morality and give me a believable death!" He drew his knife across my right shoulder as he released his grip, letting me drop to the blood-soaked dirt and grime underhoof. My shoulder exploded in pain. The deep gash he'd given me oozed blood. I screamed. My open mouth dropped my weapon. The chems that were wearing off in me magnified the intensity of the agony I felt. I glared up at him. What plan? What morality? I understood the necessity of killing, I just didn't want to kill him! Hadrine had been my only ally in the camp since our purchase as slaves. But something in his eyes, something about the way he'd spoken told me there really was a reason for all of this. I picked up my knife again, stole my nerves and brought my aching, shaking muscles under control. He stood in a pose that appeared menacing but revealed his neck, opening himself up to death. I gritted my teeth, grinding them around the dirty knife handle, and attacked. Blood. In the White Hooves the blood of an enemy was something to be washed away carefully. Special prayers (that I realized then I'd been neglecting) were said by warriors as the sponged off the lifeblood of another from their coats and manes. These prayers asked for two things: forgiveness for killing, and the endowment of the power of the dead on the warrior. 'Celestia forgive me for the death of one of your children, Luna give me their strength.' The first line of the first prayer. This was what was said for an enemy, but what could I say for a friend? Hadrine's blood drenched my coat, drying on my muzzle, sticking in my nostrils and coating my eyelids, seeping into my open wounds. I couldn't breathe right. Time twisted itself. The minutes after I'd killed him were choppy, unreal, fast and slow at the same time. "Team Red wins!" the griffon had exclaimed. The crowd, which had been loud before, got much louder. Somehow they either hadn't noticed or were ignoring the falseness of the fight. If Hadrine had been fighting to kill I would have been dead. But instead of seeing the truth they just stomped their hooves against the ground and cheered. I remember feeling sick. "Good. Everything went according to plan. You even look beaten up," said the mare who'd given me the drugged-up water. She had led me through the crowd away from the pit and given me my stuff back, including a freshly refilled canteen. I felt inclined to tell her I looked beaten up because I was, but felt to tired and shaken to be witty. "Now what's next is important," she informed me, "Since you've won you're going to get a private audience with the mare in charge of this slave operation. I have no idea what she would want to talk to the winner for, but I need you to kill her. Messily, if at all possible." My buzzing, addled brain could only give a one word response. "Why?" It wasn't that I was particularly against the death of the pony who'd forced me and nine other equines to fight to the death in a pit, who carved out the eyes of a mare who only wanted to escape, who liked to taste of pony-blood. I just didn't know why this mare who was supposed to be a guard was plotting her boss's demise using me as a tool. And why me? Wouldn't Hadrine have made a better assassin? I looked over my shoulder toward the pit. Hadrine's body had been thrown in the crazy mare's small mountain of corpses. I'd slit his throat wide open. It had been quick. The blood-- damn, so much-- had amazed me. How much blood was in a body? How much blood had I seen in my short time in the wasteland desert? A ponds worth? "Because we have plans for you, Fall," the guard mare answered, "The desert and the people in it need a pony like you, and fewer ponies like her. We're sending a message." Martyr walked next to me as the mysterious guard mare led me toward the gate. His eyes were wide and he kept silent. He'd never seen me kill before, and I was sure that he was wondering whether he could trust me. My shoulder oozed blood through the bandages wrapped around it. The area just above my groin ached as a bruise from Hadrine's kick formed. My brain was being stepped on by my tribes chief as pounding waves of pain crashed on top of it. Withdrawal from whatever I'd drunk was much, much worse than any hangover. The mare had done something to my collar. The light had turned off. She'd warned me to keep it hidden under my rags so it would be less visible. I turned to the little buck next to me as we walked. "Martyr," I started, "are you alright?" What a stupid thing to ask. Nopony was alright here. "Mmm, I don't know. Hadrine is dead. He was nice to us," he glanced up to meet my gaze, then quickly looked toward the ground again, "Are you alright?" His voice sounded strained, almost like he was holding back anger. "Shut up, both of you," the mare hissed, "We're almost to the gate." I saw the griffon standing by the gate, the lock shut. The griffon was looking at the dark sky. Her rifle was slung over her wings in a way that made her appear uncaring towards the rioting crowd of slaves behind us. I shoved my freshly filled canteen towards the little unicorn buck. "Share this with the mare who doesn't have eyes. I'll see you later." He nodded like a pony in a daze and ran back to the lit pit in the center of the bloodthirsty crowd of ponies. Only a day ago they'd been calm and normal, most even kind. How did ponies slip like that? I turned my eyes to the griffon in front of me and gulped. All I knew was that I was the only friend that Martyr and Scrapper had left. I would get them out of here. We were going to run far away from here. We would find the NCR. Together. I wasn’t going to lose anypony else. "Do you even know the damage you've done? You're much more of a monster than I could ever be. You... you’re right up there with Red Eye and the Stable Dweller... maybe even as big of a monster as Fluttershy. Incredible. Truly, I'm almost inclined to say I'm impressed. Almost." I said shut up! Dammit, I won! You don't get to give me a speeches. "Oh, come on, Fall. You’re not serious, are you? Together, we've created a new, stronger world. The NCR couldn't have achieved this. My ponies couldn't have either. But together, look what we've made. It's beautiful..." There isn't anything beautiful about war! You aren't anything but a raider! “Please, give me a little credit. Do common raiders build nations to last generations, armies of thousands, cities on the knife’s edge of foreverness? If I'm just a raider, then what are you? A genocidal maniac? You’re already halfway to monsterhood as you are! No, you're better than that. Yes, I suppose I am impressed by what you've accomplished in such a short time. I don't want my followers to forget this, not for as long as we’re around. You should write it down. Hurry though. By the looks of it, you won't be able to remember for much longer..." I don’t want to remember. Not long now though... Footnote: Level Up New Perk: Intense Training: Your experiences in the wasteland have forced you to endure a lot. This perk adds +1 one to your Endurance. (Thanks go to Kkat [as usual] for writing the phenomenal original fic. Thanks also go OkiiNovice for reading my fic and consistently giving me his honest opinion on it. Thanks go out to the FO:E fan-community and the great people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in it)
Chapter 7: Where Does One Road End...Fallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 7: Where Does One Road End... “You see, there was never time to hesitate when we fought them” I apologize for my scrawling in the last chapter. Those particular memories were slipping away from me. If I hadn’t written them down then they might have been lost forever. But really, what would that matter? I’m just another earth pony with a story... my own, particular story... who can ramble and ramble on and on because in the end only one other pony: You, is ever going to read it. So take care. Maybe I’ll give my story to you personally. "Sho, Fall, right?" I nodded. "Where're you from? Not the north, right?" The orange mare, my owner, sat across a small card table from me. She twirled a cone shaped glass filled with a clear liquor with the tip of her hoof. Her smile was menacing, somewhere between an attempt at being seductive and murderous. The slight lisp she had came from her teeth; sharpened to points. Her shack was, not surprisingly, the biggest. Sheet metal on the outside, it was decorated with bits of fabric, a cot covered in hay and dried rose petals, a standing and decrepit wardrobe, a radio buzzing almost inaudibly, scraps torn from paintings, the hides of mutated desert beasts I hadn't even seen, and the corpses of the recently deceased fighters. The smell was putrid, making it hard to be appetized by the plate of food in front of me. Not that I would have found it very appetizing in the first place as it was mostly some sort of mystery meat. To my right was a workbench. Several weapons rested on it, two of which looked like some strange cross between a machine gun and a grenade launcher. Ammo of all types lay scattered underhoof on the floor. If I was going to kill her, I had all the tools I needed. "No, I'm not from the north," I replied. She'd put makeup on, I realized. Was that normal for insane slave drivers? "Hmm, then where from? East, west, south?" "South," Her breath! Dear Celestia, it was so... so sickening! What did she eat? "Colonist then? NCR? No, you can't be. You don't look like a scavenger. You've mined before, right?" "Not a colonist. Yes, I've been a miner," Planning. I needed to make a plan. "Yeah, the cutie mark says it all, doesn't it? Mining, mining, mining... So damn boring of a job, right? Well, I like mining, as long as I don't get my hooves dirty. So tell me about yourself. You did have a life before this job, right?" There was a pick hanging on the wall behind the cot. That would be my primary weapon. Now, how to get it without her taking me down with magic... "I... um..." Why should I tell her anything about myself? I wanted her dead! She had caused so much suffering to slaves here, especially the slave who had fought that night. No, telling her about my real life would be indulging her. Lying. How should I lie... "I've been traded around by sla... mining companies since I was a colt. I was, uh, part of a tribe that got attacked by raiders," Yeah, she'd believe that. Now, back to the pick... She nodded her head in understanding, pressing her forehooves together as she leaned against the card table. The table's hinges creaked. "We are sho alike," she told me, making my skin crawl a little, "When I was a little filly my parents got killed and I was shent away. My little brother and I got sold. I don't know what happened to my sister, though. I think they set her on fire," she rubbed her chin, "Wasn't raiders in my case though, right? It was my own fuckin people who did it!" She broke out in a big grin. Her story. It sounded familiar for some reason... That pick. I needed it. "Hmm," I replied, "that sounds terrible." A distraction. What could I use to distract her? "Oh, it wasn't all bad. Being a slave was kinda nice for a while. I even learned about some stuff. Got a book once. It was about some mare who killed a bunch of... well, everything. I especially liked the parts about a very shpecial slaver who wanted to save the world." She sighed, eyes shut, lost in the memory for a moment. I began shifting out of my seat, moving towards the pick. She opened her eyes again and I stopped where I was. "And then," she continued, "I killed my masters. That was fun. The slavers who didn't fight against me work for me now! See, I'm an entrepreneur!" I didn't know that word, but I was pretty sure she wasn't using it right. She lifted a bottle from under the table. It was full of whatever she was drinking. "Want shome?" she asked. Honestly I didn't, but if playing along with her dinner plans got me closer to killing her then it was worth it. "Sure, why not?" Sure, why not? She placed an old tin can with no label in front of me and filled the can halfway. I took a cautious sip. No smell, no taste, but damn was it strong. I squeezed my eyes shut as I swallowed. It burned going down, more than whiskey. "Vodka," she informed me, "It's hard to find bottles of Shtalliongrad's Finest these days." I nodded, saying nothing. "Sho," she began again, tearing off a bit of meat from her plate and stuffing it in her mouth, gnawing through it with her sharpened teeth, "where did you learn to fight? That zebra was awfully good, right?" "Luck. Just plain, stupid luck," I lied. A distraction. Vodka hurt, so... "Oh, don't give me that bullshit, Fall." Was I that obvious? She trotted slowly around to my side of the table and whispered in my right ear, "Just how high were you? I know what a pony on combat chems looks like. Question is," she draped her forehooves across my shoulders, "who gave them to you?" Dammit. Goddesses dammit all to hell. I was beginning to think that guard mare had set me up. Try to lie again. "No chems, just talent." "Sho your telling me," she said as her hoof traced lazy circles around the scar on my neck, "that you, a common earth pony miner, are... sorry, were more talented at hoof to hoof fighting than a zebra that I chose specifically because he was well known prizefighter from a Little Warchestnut casino? Fall, Fall, Fall... I know you can't possibly be that shtupid, right?" She started nibbling on my ear with her sharp teeth. I felt a few drops of blood trickle out. "Fine," Tell the truth, Fall. She won't believe you anyways, "There is a traitor in your organization. One of them gave me a cocktail of a bunch different drugs. Hadrine, the zebra, forced me to kill him." I wrapped my hoof around my can of vodka. She let out a heavy sigh and kissed the side of my face. I cringed. "Thank you. It's nice to get some honesty once in a while," Wait, what? She believed that? But it sounded so ridiculous! "Traitors, huh? Well, thoshe aren't to hard to deal with. An eye for an eye and all that shit, right?" My blood was boiling. An eye for an eye... She left my side and... sprawled herself across her cot, gazing at me with bedroom eyes. So this was the real reason she wanted the winner of the pit games to visit her. She was a horny, sadistic, psychopathic mare who idolized a dead megalomaniac slaver. How did she get so messed up? "I'm a fan of winnersh," she informed me, "and I believe in rewarding good behavior." Sweet Luna, my face was getting hot (well, along with another part of me...). Damn stupid traitorous body! I held on tight to my vodka can and took another small sip. Yup, still burned. She patted the hay next to her, leaning her head on her right hoof. I stood where I was. This couldn't be right. There was no way things could be going according to my plan this easily. She noticed my unwillingness to move. Her horn glowed. I felt the hairs on my back stand up as she magically pushed me towards her. I glanced at the pickaxe on the wall, then back at the can. “What’s the matter?” she asked, her lips curled in pouty... oh, what’s the right word... bitchiness, “You don’t want to acshept my offer? Well, this ish an inauspicious start, right? Was hoping to make this a tradition. The winners of the Pit games... sound delicious...” Her eyes had wandered as she had spoken. She abruptly brought them back to me. “Oh, I undershtand,” she nodded, her voice becoming heated, “You don’t think I’m pretty enough, right? Tell me, honest to Gawd, ish it the pointy teeth? Ooh, or maybe it’s the horn. Do you hate unicorns, Fall? Horn envy, or shomething like that, right?” She stretched herself across the bed again, horn glowing brighter. I noticed for the first time the detonator she wore on a string around her neck. That was why she believed I couldn’t fight back, why she felt she could do whatever she wanted. Not that it mattered... Goddesses, this was a weird evening. I felt her telekinetic cloud wrap itself around my neck as she slowly pulled me forward. Still, I resisted, pushing my hooves against the floor. I shouldn't have since I needed to get near her to kill her, but she repelled me so much. I hated her. I despised everything she had done. But at the same time, I knew that murder was wrong. Not killing to defend yourself, I'd done that, but planning, plotting to kill another... No, I reminded myself, it isn't murder. It's war. War between good and evil, and I am definitely good. Killing in war was good, an almost... holy thing to do. I gripped my vodka can tighter and loosened my grip on the floor, and walked towards her. She smiled. I hated her smile. I placed my hoof on the side of her face, trying my best to look like I cared, and she shuddered. "Itsh been years since I've been with a strong buck," she whispered, "and you look sho much like somepony that used to love me." A psychopath one moment, a lonely, lovesick mare the next. She must have been deeper than I'd thought, but I couldn't care less. Lost love was no excuse for brutality. With a flick of my hoof I splashed vodka in her eyes. She howled in pain and lost concentration on her telekinesis. She tapped wildly at her detonator as I snatched the pickaxe from the wall. She screamed. I gripped the pick's handle tightly in my mouth and brought down the pointed end down through her chest. Blood splashed in my face. But she wasn't dead yet, not even close. The point hadn't done the damage I'd been expecting. I flipped the pick around to use the flatter part and got to work on her neck. It was over quick. There was blood. A lot of it was on me. It wouldn't be long until her guards became suspicious of the scream that came from her shack. I moved quickly, trying to gather supplies I would need to escape. Barding. I smashed open the wardrobe with the pick. A dress, a set of work rags, some sort of full body metal armor with a visor, and... combat armor. Perfect. No saddlebags though. That could be a problem for a long journey. After strapping on the combat armor I moved to the workbench. The grenade machine gun things looked like it was in perfect condition (or at least what I thought was perfect condition since I'd never seen one before). The grenade machine guns were attached by a battle saddle with mouth triggers. They were both fully loaded with fat grenade shells that looked bullet shaped. I dragged the heavy battle saddle of the work bench to the ground. It thunked heavily. I crawled beneath it and strapped it to my barding, tucking the handle of the pickaxe between the straps. On standing up I found it wasn't as heavy as I'd guessed. I readied the triggers. Just then an ugly looking dark green unicorn buck levitating a submachine gun slammed open the shack door. He gaped at his decapitated boss's corpse then spun towards me, firing off a burst of screaming bullets. "You!" he shouted. I felt a shot of pain as two of the bullets pierced my barding. Panicking, I bit down on both mouth triggers. Big mistake. His body exploded into a cloud of bloody guts and muscle, along with bone shrapnel that peppered my face. The concussive force of the blast in the enclosed space crashed against me. My ears rang so loudly that I was afraid I was deaf. A thin trail of blood trickled out my right ear. As soon as I got bearings back (minus my hearing) I dashed for the door. Outside, other guards were waiting for me. They were unorganized and panicking. Several of them saw me and opened fire, leading the rest of them to begin shooting wildly. I tried to roll out of the way (which the bulk of my battle saddle made difficult) and fired a salvo of grenade rounds at my attackers. I saw guns go flying and bodies ripped apart by the explosions. A leg landed at my hooves and a pistol smacked against my head, giving me a deep gash. A huge bullet impacted the ground by my right back hoof, leaving a sizable crater in the dirt. I looked up. The griffon. She took aim again. Oh, fuck me, ran through my head. I took off running. A bullet to my right. A bullet to my left. As I neared the gate the edge of a bullet clipped my ear. By clipped what I actually mean is that the Goddesses damned bullet tore my left ear off, leaving behind a bleeding stump. I screamed, but I couldn't hear myself. I reached the gate. Taking out my bloody pick I found the generator and smashed the spark batteries to sparkling, burning, electrical bits that blew up in my face, at the same time narrowly dodging being blasted apart by the griffon's high powered rifle. A sharp whine that even my deafened ears could hear came from the fence, and the electrified fence was electrified no more. With my pick I ripped a hole in the fence big enough to go through with my battle saddle. Avoiding another deadly bullet, I crawled through. The griffon continued to chase after me as I ran towards the center of the camp. I was spotted by more of the camp's guards. Bullets pinged off my barding. A grenade went off next to me, showering me with red hot shrapnel. Scrapper and Martyr weren't there. They weren't by the pit, and now I was forced to search for them. Dammit, there went my hopes for a quick getaway. A swarm of slaves rushed by me, running to the gate as the guards attempted to corral them. Whump. The griffon landed behind me and placed the barrel of her rifle squarely between my ears. "You think you're some kind of a hero, don't you?" she asked me, "Just so you know, this is just a job to me. I won't feel an ounce of sympathy when I pull this trigger, but I will feel a little pleasure. I enjoy watching rebellious ponies squir--" I'm certain she would have finished saying the word "squirm" if her head hadn't been blown to pieces just then. I found myself showered in yet another layer of blood, bone fragments, and gore. Spinning wildly, I searched for the sniper, only to feel a hoof flick against the back of my head. I turned around and saw the guard mare who’d given me the drug-water-canteen. She was wearing a few more wounds than I’d last seen her with as well and was carrying a hunting rifle that was more duct tape than gun. I opened my mouth to thank her for saving my life, but she interrupted me. “Your friends are fine,” she informed me, “They’re in the upper section of the cube. Open the gate for the other slaves to escape, get your friends, and head north to Camp Steelhooves. Do not travel through Little Warchestnut.” As she spoke, my Pip-Buck pinged new locations on its map. “Camp Steelhooves, not Little Warchestnut. Got it?” I nodded. “What do I do once I get there?” She placed a hoof on my shoulder as an explosion rocked the ground ten yards away. “Become a citizen,” she said, “and keep heading north.” She turned and began trotting toward the battle raging between the slave and their masters. “Why are you helping me?” I shouted, asking a question I’d asked before, “No other guards have even tried to free us.” The sand maned mare glanced over her shoulder and grinned. “Because I’m no guard. I’m an NCR Ranger.” The gate stood before me. Big and imposing, I was strangely feeling a bit sentimental about it. I shouldn’t have been. It was a symbol of oppression, keeping the slaves like me locked in, cruelly separating us from freedom. However, at least I knew where I was behind this gate. Outside was just the wasteland: big, vast, violent. Well, that was enough sentimentality. I rammed my armoured shoulder against the gate, pushing with all my might. By destroying the electrification system I’d destroyed the massively heavy gate’s automated opening as well. Also, I’d stupidly forgotten about the Goddesses-damned lock. I backed up and analyzed the situation. I could tear apart the gate with the pick, but that would take too much time and a glance behind me at the ensuing battle told me I didn’t have that. Maybe I could try to find a guard with a key. No, because that faced the same problem. Then it hit me. I was an idiot. In my possession were two over-powered grenade machine guns mounted on a battle-saddle. I took in a deep breathe, trotted farther back, braced myself, and bit down on the triggers. The intensely explosive projectiles arced through the air at my obstacle. The fiery ribbon of explosions tore the chain links apart, ripping the gate off its hinges, throwing bits of metal in all directions. Well, that wouldn’t go unnoticed for long. I galloped out the non-gate and headed toward the cube. Never before had I realized how far it actually was from the camp. With the weight of the barding, battle-saddle, the pick, and the fatigue I had already been experiencing, I was losing energy. I was out of breath by the time I entered the cube. Tapping on my PipBuck’s lamp, I proceeded through the upwards slanted passage. “Martyr!” I shouted, “Scrapper! Where are you!” Even with the light from my PipBuck the passages were ominously dark. Bizarrely, I feared that the walls wanted to eat me, which was an odd fear, especially from an experienced miner like myself. There was something... off about these upper caves. What were the veteran slaves mining for up here? More coal? No. Not coal. Not coal at all. I heard my PipBuck’s Rad-Sensor go click-click-click. Coal didn’t give off magical radiation. Then I started hearing things. Just bits of random sound at first, but soon I heard voices. Ghostly, whispery, terrifying voices. No, my rational brain told me, the ancestors wouldn’t live here. But still, I heard them. “...torn to pieces...” “...scientist, not a fucking sold...” “...what if they can hear us...” And then, just as suddenly as they began, the actual words stopped. A deep, gravelly growl replaced them. It chilled my bones. “Scrapper! Luna-dammit, where are you?” I screamed, “Martyr!” I felt something brush my hoof. I spun around, readying both triggers. Martyr looked startled, gazing at me wide-eyed with fear as I pointed my massive battle-saddle at his head. Scrapper stood behind him. Exhaling the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, I lowered my weapons and scooped up the little buck in a hug. He blinked away the shock of me turning my grenade machine gun on him and wrapped his small hooves around my neck. I reached a hoof around and drew Scrapper to me also. The growl had stopped. I tried to say ‘I thought I lost both of you,’ but all that came out was “...lost you...that noise...” “That you, Fall?” Scrapper asked. I grunted in confirmation. “That one mare said you’d get us out of here.” “Yeah...” I responded, letting go of the two slaves, “um... yeah, you’re right. We should go.” “I’m glad you’re here,” said Martyr. We trotted out the halls, my PipBuck still protesting the radiation we were consuming. I had to lead Scrapper in the right direction through the tunnels with Martyr trotting quickly behind. I didn’t hear the voices again. Outside the cube was chaos. The population of slaves had found the “opened” gate. So had the the slavers. Ponies rushed around, running away from the camp, running away from the guards. Bullets flew through the air, blood stained the sand. The moon was full. It illuminated the battlefield with silvery-white light, revealing every gory detail. A unicorn slave mare noticed me (or rather, noticed the firepower I carried) and cried out "Help us! We're getting slaughtered!" just before she was turned into a pony shaped sieve by a stream of bullets fired from a light machine gun battle saddle. The killer turned his attention toward us. ‘Boom’ was my response to that threat. The shoddily barded slaver buck exploded and splattered across the sand and the mixed up crowd. I grabbed Martyr by his ragged clothing with my mouth and swung him onto my back. He grabbed my neck to hold on. I prompted Scrapper quickly to face the direction we needed to go and shouted “Run!” And with that we fled into the desert, away from slavery, away from the mare who’d helped us escape. I had no plan for what we would do. We had no supplies besides a single canteen, two heavy guns, and a pick. The map showed Camp Steelhooves being far to the north, much farther than what we could cover in a night, and I had no idea what was in between. Despite all this I was happy. I’d finally escaped and, for at least a little while, we were free. My eyelids were drooping. The moon was setting in the west behind the mountains. My battle saddle was weighing me down but I refused to get rid of it in case we ran into trouble. The barding I wore chafed against my scars and the brand on my cutie mark. Many of my bruises still throbbed. My deactivated but still attached collar felt tighter. The stump of my left ear had scabbed over. But none of that pain mattered because we were free. We were heading for the distant NCR border, nothing had attacked us yet, and... where was Scrapper? Panic swept over me. I spun around, trying to spot her. I checked my PipBuck map. No marker. Dammit! Our canteen had been completely drunk several hours ago. She must have fainted from dehydration or something a while ago and I hadn’t noticed. Shit. Shit! I needed to go looking for her. She was lost, blind, and out of water in the middle of the desert. But I couldn't go looking for her, not without putting myself and Martyr in danger. Like I said, we were out of water, I was running low on grenade ammo, and the sun was rising. As much as I hated it, finding water and shelter was more important than finding a lost friend. Fuck! Celestia-dammit, why couldn't decisions be easy for a change? Martyr slept quietly on my back. How could he be so peaceful? No matter what, I decided, I wouldn't lose him. I'd already lost too many ponies. Too many friends. Shelter. The sun was peeking over the eastern horizon. I brought up my map and zoomed in on our position. I searched for blips, shapes that suggested a cave or something. I found one better. A rectangular shape, obviously not natural. A shack? I licked my dry lips. It must have been getting closer to summer for it to have been that hot in the night. My body felt sapped of moisture. If that really was a shack of some sort then a pony must have lived there once. If somepony had lived there then they might have left something behind. Hopefully water. It wasn’t too far. Just about a half an hour’s march to the west. Great. Now we would have shelter and a base to start looking for Scrapper. Yeah, I guessed that some things weren’t all bad. No, everything is bad. We got to the shack within thirty minutes. Martyr had woken up and trotted beside me. The shack looked sturdy enough and the dryness of the desert had kept the metal it was made of from rusting. Problem was it was already occupied. By a pack of radscorpions, “Hide,” I whispered to Martyr as I undid the straps of my battle saddle, letting it slide to the ground, and took out my pick. He obeyed, hiding himself behind the heavy weaponry. I choose not to use the grenade machine gun out of fear of damaging the only shelter for miles around. That left me with just my melee weapon. Oh joy. One of the large blue bugs skittered over the sand towards me, claws clicking and tail waving. I slapped its barbed tail away with one swing and with the next I impaled the spike through its ugly face. It uttered an unearthly "skreeee" as it died. Apparently that was like a battle cry for radscorpions because the rest of the family decided to skitter my way. I took a ready stance. I slammed my pick through the head of the closest bug repeatedly. It still swung its tail at me as it was dying, the barb clanging off my barding. Next bug. WHAM. Dead. I jumped back to avoid a massive stinger from the biggest one of the group. Leaping forward again, I brought up the pick through the beast’s tail and twisted, ripping its flesh under the thick exoskeleton. “skraaaaw!” it protested, whipping me around with its tail, my teeth still gripping the pick's handle. Its throes of pain resulted in ripping off the half of its tail above my weapon. My success, however, was short lived. The giant radscorpion leapt on top of me, snipping at my face with its huge pincers. It opened wide its mouth(?) and screeched, "click-click-ckraaw!!!" with rotten, sickeningly meaty breath. Mustering up all my strength, I jammed my pick through the beast's chin. It writhed. I wriggled out from under it. And that's when I got stung. You know, that's a major design flaw with the combat barding I was wearing. The sides were heavily armored with metal and some sort of ceramic plates. I could take most shots to the sides and shoulders and walk away just fine. If a bullet slipped in between the plates (as several had), oh well, it was just one bullet. Clouds of shrapnel were mostly no problem either. All in all, it was pretty good armor for a gunfight. The underbelly, on the other hoof, was just the opposite: useless. Just a system of straps designed to keep the rest of the barding held to the user despite being thrown around like a rag doll in an explosion. So, basically, when the only remaining radscorpion (a white one, oddly enough) decided to stab me with its ugly, barbed, poisonous tail there was nothing to stop it. And it hurt like shit. I flipped over and slammed the pick through the remaining bug's ugly right most eye. The beast twitched for a while until it looked dead. I stabbed it a few more times just to be sure. Oh Goddesses, did my guts ache. Venom from the bug's stinger seeped into me. But I was okay. I could still stand and walk. My vision blurred a little and I heard a disembodied hissing sound as I trotted over to Martyr's hiding spot, but it quickly went away. I could try to fix myself up when we got inside. "Hey, Martyr," I called. He peeked his head up from behind the huge grenade machine gun battle saddle. "Let's go inside." He nodded. "What about the guns?" he asked as he ran up to my side. I looked back at my battle saddle laying in the sand. It looked so... heavy. My head felt buzzy. "We'll get it later," I decided. We trotted slowly toward the shack. I... wasn't feeling right. I tripped over my own hooves, narrowly avoiding falling on my face. Something was wrong. But I was okay. I could make it to the door. Then I could rest. Yes, the door. Then water, then sleep, then finding Scrapper. I swung open the door. Oh look, a floor that wasn't sand. That's nice. "Hey, he's awake!" a mare shouted. I felt my eyelids flutter open. Oh Goddesses, I felt bad. "Really?" another mare said, "The medicine pony said he'd be out for a week. Is something wrong?" He's alive, at least. I say that's pretty right," I saw the outline of a light bulb through my blurry vision. The lightbulb was swinging back and forth. It was mesmerizing. "Stream, tell Lyra to come here quick! His wound just opened up again out of nowhere!" What? "Yes ma'am, miss Three!" What where my sister and Three doing here? Where the hell was I?! It was dark. My stomach felt like it was splitting open. My face felt wet, sweaty. "FUCK!" I shouted. I was in so much pain. I felt like I was on fire and like I was drowning at the same time. "Fuck... Luna kill me, please, please, PLEASE! It hurts! Oh, Goddesses..." Was dying like this? My intestines were being ripped apart by hooks. I thought of Two being melted by that energy weapon blast. Was this what that had been like for him? Agony? "I promise I'll be better... fuck, fuck, shit..." I whimpered, begging forgiveness from the Goddesses, "I'll pray more and I'll be good and I won't chop up evil ponies anymore I promise I promise... Oh, FUCK!" I felt a hoof gently rest on my face. "Shhh... just go back to sleep Fall. You'll be okay." "So you're saying he's awake but he hasn't said anything?" asked a voice that sounded like a mare gargling gravel. My vision still looked fuzzy, but I could clearly see that the face above me had a horn. A split horn. "Yes," replied another voice. Three's voice? I wasn't sure. "Well that's odd. I haven't seen catatonic shit like this since the war. Some ponies... lots of them, actually... who got seriously fucked up in the head just froze like this." "So he has brain damage?" asked a deep stallions voice. Dad? The gravel throated mare scoffed. "Nope. More than one way get your head fucked up." "How do we... uh... fix him? Ah mean, we can't do deliveries if he can't move." Lily? No way. I watched her die. There was no way she could be here. Actually, where was here? The blurry mare shrugged. "I don't know," she grumbled, "I wasn't ever trained to deal with advanced psychology stuff like this. Just stay near and talk to him, I guess." Cold. So, so cold. Colder than a river in winter. Why? Why was I so chilly? I felt sweaty. Where was I? I glanced around my surroundings. Light fell through a window above me at an angle that made every bit of dust in the air shimmer. Tin walls, refrigerator, shards of a mirror held to a board, radio, rotten wooden floor. Martyr was lying on the floor, curled up asleep. He looked so peaceful. A short gash was cut diagonally across his forehead. For some reason I felt guilty about that gash but I wasn't sure why. My eyelids started getting heavy again... The mare on top of the tower. What did she do? How could that tall tower fit in this dark, small, cold box I was in? So many questions, and none of them mattered. And suddenly I wasn't cold anymore. I was burning. Green flames wrapped around me. I saw my skin melting off, dripping from my shoulders to my hooves. But it didn't hurt. It was actually a bit funny. I started laughing! I felt happy. This could be the end, but who cared? It was my turn. I'd watched my friends die and now I finally got a chance to see them again. I could apologize! But the burning... it was just so fucking hilarious! The dark mare walked up beside me. "Do you understand now?" she asked. I shook my head, a big smile plastered across my stupid face. "Well, you'll know the truth eventually." The ceiling above me looked cold. One hoof hung off the edge of the cot. My vision was locked on that solitary patch of ceiling and my breath was stale, sickly, disgusting. I was stuck in that odd paralyzed state that comes with waking up. So I did nothing. I must have just stared at the ceiling for an hour before I felt strong enough to move. Lowering one hoof to the ground slowly, I felt confident enough to put my weight on it. I collapsed. My legs were too weak and wobbly to support me. Slowly, painfully slowly, I raised myself up, leaning on the cot. My barding and slave rags lay folded in the corner by the refrigerator. Besides them were my book and the orb from the foal killer. Where was Martyr? The door was kicked open and I jumped, anticipating an attack. Goddesses, had a few weeks in the wasteland made me that nervous? Fortunately, it was just Martyr. He was dragging in, backwards with his teeth, my massive battle saddle. Once he was indoors the little unicorn set down the guns with a thud and sat, panting. “They’re heavy, aren’t they?” I muttered. The little buck jumped, startled, and faced me. He still had that mysterious gash under his horn. "Fall! You're awake!" "Yes, I am," I replied, "How long was I asleep?" Martyr swiped his hoof along the ground and looked toward the ceiling. He mumbled something under his breath. "Martyr? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you." "Umm," he murmured a little louder, "you've been out for three days." I stood there and blinked. Three days? No, that wasn't possible. I'd found this shack so that I could have a base to go looking for Scrapper. I couldn't be three days behind! No! It wasn't fair! She could be dead by now! And, Goddesses dammit, I was sick of losing friends! Leaning against the wall, I stumbled over to my barding. I needed to go. I needed to find her. I picked up my barding and tried my to put it on, but my wobbly legs collapsed under me. Dammit, I needed to search for her! This couldn't be happening. I needed to find my friend! "Hey," the little colt piped up, "what are you doing? You still need to rest." "Help me put my barding on." He stomped his hoof. "No." I raised myself up to a standing position again. I turned my head toward him. "What. Did. You just say?" What right did this little buck, this... this kid, have to tell me what to do? I saved his life! "Help me. Now," I growled through gritted teeth. I couldn't armor myself on my own. "No. I said no," he replied, "I spent three days and nights fixing you! Do you know what it's like to make an antivenom for an albino radscorpion sting with only basic poison training? It isn't fucking easy! You almost died!" Small tears had started to trickle down his face. 'I'm sorry. You are right, I shouldn't put my life at risk anymore after being in a medical coma for several days. I will return to the cot and continue to rest.' That's what I should have said. Instead I said this: "You don't get it, do you?" I shouted, "Scrapper is out there because I wasn't damn smart enough to make sure she didn't get separated from us! And what were you doing? You were sleeping! You didn't even try to make sure she was with us!" He stumbled back and fell on his rump. Tears streamed down his face. And I continued to be an idiot. "Don't you get it? I need to find her! It's my fault she's out there in the desert!" Oh Celestia, I felt lightheaded. I blinked the headache away. "Now get me some water," I said in a calmer tone, "and help me with my barding." Salty drops streamed down Martyr’s face. He stammered, "N-no," through choking tears. I sighed. "Fine." Reaching down I picked up my barding and slipped it on the best I could. I didn't bother with the straps. I stumbled over to open the fridge. Half a bottle of water surrounded by empty bottles. I grabbed it with my teeth and drank it down. My PipBuck clicked angrily at the radiation tainted water I consumed. As soon as I’d finished it I hated myself. The last of the water. Damn. I turned slowly to face Martyr. “What happened to the water? Were those bottles full before?” I asked, my voice quivering. No more water. No more water. No more water. We were stuck in the middle of Detailing Sergeant Bloodfire? “That’s me.” Oh, well that’s good. Nice to meet you. I’m... “What d’ya need, civvy? Actually, why are you even in my office? Your marefriend get deployed to some eastern shithole? You here to try and get her orders changed? Well, I gotta tell you that I see a lot of ponies like you trying to get orders adjusted and...” Umm, no. I’m here because, umm... crap, what was that code phrase... uh, ‘what you did for me was a very kind gesture.’ Yeah, that was it. “Oh. Ooooh, so you’re that buck then. Well, it’s certainly good to finally meet you. Your name wouldn’t happen to be Fall, would it? a Goddess forsaken desert and I’d just chugged down the very last of the water. Oh fuck. I shook my head, trying to clear away that thought. I found my pick and stumbled out the door. The sun beat down on my battered hide oppressively. Already I felt woozy, but I needed to find Scrapper. I needed to find her. There wasn't any time to waste. My PipBuck map, once again, told me nothing about her location. Trying to figure out the route we’d followed was impossible because all the sand looked the same and we’d been travelling at night. I’d just have to guess. We’d left the camp, heading north... had we changed course? Dammit. Where was our path? I couldn’t figure it out. I wandered. I had my PipBuck to tell me how to get back to the shack, but with the E.F.S. not working it didn’t really tell me anything else. Well, not much else regarding enemies. What it did tell me was that I was already getting dehydrated again, my body wasn’t quite right, and that I’d consumed enough radiation from the tunnels and the water to be... umm, whatever the technical term for the needle pointing to the yellow was. Stumbling through the wasteland was not a good search method. Unfortunately, it took a long time for my jumbled mind to get that. I was at least two and a half miles away by the time I figured that out. My mouth and throat screamed for water. The sun was beginning to set. I sighed and turned around. You’ll find her tomorrow, I told myself. What a load of horseapples. The walk back to the shack was demoralising. Every step felt heavier than the last, every breath more filled with despair and sand. I couldn’t do it. There was no way I’d make it to the NCR and convince them to help my tribe. I couldn’t save anypony, either. All my friends ended up dead. Two and Three, Lily, Hadrine, and potentially Scrapper as well. I stopped. No, I reminded myself, you have Martyr. You are saving him. You can take him somewhere safer, somewhere where he can grow up without worrying about being enslaved and starving. The thought of saving that little unicorn buck gave me strength and it gave me hope. I would make it. I would find my way north for him and, together, we would save my tribe. When I (finally) made it back to the shack I heard a terrible noise. It was like a scream, only it wasn’t a scream. It sounded otherworldly, like it was being said by a voice trapped in another voice. I barged through the door. Martyr sat in the far corner with his hooves clasped over his ears. It was the radio. That little Celestia damned radio was what was making that terrible noise! I stepped towards it, pick raised, ready to turn it off the easiest way possible. The clicking of my PipBuck made me step back. What the hell? Change of plans: don’t smash the mysterious radioactive screaming radio. Then, out of nowhere, the screeching stopped. “Access code, seven, eighteen, kindness, fifty-two, loyalty, ninety, twenty-seven, thirty-six,” said the voice, sickeningly sweet yet strangely familiar, of a mare. It was immediately followed by a deeper, more artificial voice saying, “Access granted. Welcome to section blue, Doctor Leftcoil.” The screaming started again immediately, louder than before. I released my pick and dropped to the floor. I pressed my hooves to my ears. The torturous sound rose higher and higher until finally, with no warning, it stopped. It just... stopped. I stood up. My ears rang. I trotted over to Martyr. “What was that?” I asked. I could barely hear myself speak. Martyr tapped his hoof against his head a few times, as if he was trying to knock the sound out of his brain. “That,” he said, pointing his horn toward the demonically loud gadget, “happens every night. You just never heard it ‘cause you were asleep.” Well, that made sense, but why did it do that? And that’s when my dry mouth, woozy head, and weak legs reminded me that that was a mystery for another day. I closed the door, shrugged my barding off in a corner, and pulled the cord connected to the single lightbulb in the room (what was it powered by, I wondered), plunging us into darkness. “Good night, Martyr. I’m sorry for yelling at you.” “Good night, Fall.” Flicking on my PipBuck lamp, I looked at myself in the shattered mirror. I looked... different. Missing an ear, covered in scars, my old self wouldn’t have recognized me. Me then wouldn’t recognize me now, either. “Hey, Fall, you asleep?” asked a little voice from the cot behind me. “Not yet,” I replied from my spot on the floor. Sleeping was hard. Everytime I closed my eyes I saw my friends being killed. Conversation was better. “So, Martyr...” “Yeah?” he whispered back. “How’d you learn about poison?” “I was a slave in a lot of places, remember? One of them was a radscorpion farm.” “What pony would be stupid enough to keep radscorpions?” “The ones that make casseroles out of their stingers.” I would never understand northern ponies. "So," I continued, "how'd you get that cut? The one on your forehead, I mean." "You hit me while you were sick. You kept thrashing around." "Oh... sorry." "It's all right," he replied, his voice sounding small and distant in the darkness of the tin shack. He yawned. "Good night again, Fall." "Good night, Martyr. We'll leave in the morning, alright? Find more water and food, then we'll go north." "Okay. And Fall?" "Yes?" "I'm glad you're not dead." "Thanks." Good night, Martyr. I'll miss you. “You fucker, you made us walk this entire way for a shack?!” was the sentence that woke me up. “Really? A Luna fucking shack? In the middle of the fucking desert?!” “The fuck I did. Shit horns over here is giving the ball-sucking orders!” said a mare’s voice. I rose to my hooves as quietly as I could and shook Martyr awake. His eyelids fluttered open. “Wha...” he started to say as he rubbed the front of his hoof across his face. I pressed the tip of my hoof to his mouth and signaled to be quiet. Dammit, this could be bad. A deeper voice spoke. “Shut up, you two. Look, it’s not just a shack, it’s a really old shack.” I motioned for Martyr to move off the cot. His eyes were wide. I put on my slave rags, stuffed my book and the orb in the pockets, and began strapping on my barding. Luckily I was stronger today. Martyr scurried under the cot and snatched out a jug of water. Why hadn’t that been in the refrigerator? Never mind, it didn’t matter. “So it’s a fucking shack. Big damn deal. What the hell do you expect us to find in there? Bricks of fucking gold and shit?” Martyr helped me strap the heavy grenade machine gun onto myself. I readied the triggers. Who were these ponies? Slavers? Raiders? Looters? The deep voice spoke again. “Wartime tech goes for lots of caps at trading posts. We can use the metal walls to make better armor, too.” “Oh, fuck you,” said a stallion, “Since when have we ever traded with those New Canterlot pussies? We’re the fucking East Rock Raiders, in case your walnut sized brain dropped that tid-bit of obvious...ness.” Raiders. Shit. “Hey, big guy?” said the mare who’d spoken earlier, “There’s a bunch of dead radscorpions around the front. I think somepony got here before us. All the good loot’s probly gone.” “OOOOH!” exclaimed a much more energetic sounding mare, “Now I can test out my new magic propelled grenade! Ya know, to see if there’s somepony inside!” I looked at Martyr. He looked at me. We ran for the door at the same time. A whistling sound shredded the air. We barreled out the door and threw ourselves on the sand just as the shack exploded in a blast of flames and shrapnel! My pick’s point slammed into the ground in front of me. Martyr and I both looked unhurt, but we had bigger problems than shrapnel wounds. We stood and dusted ourselves off. I readied the triggers on my battle saddle. I examined my enemies. Three earth ponies, two unicorns, two pegasi (I still wondered why they weren't with the Enclave), and, most bizarrely, one medium sized buffalo bull. What the hell was a buffalo doing this far from the Ghost Lands? And what was he doing with raiders? As much as I was examining them, they also seemed to be examining us. Neither group did anything besides stare at the other. "Huh. I guess there really were ponies inside of that shack," said a pegasus mare wearing the magical propelled grenade launcher battle saddle and a pouch of ammo. The buffalo she was flying above whipped out a pump action shotgun from a holster by his side and shot a slug through her wing. "You. Fucking. Idiot!" he shouted at her as she dropped to the ground, "That shack was the best find we made in months! Shit, even without the tech there might have at least been fresh water!" He gave her a swift kick in the groin and picked up his shotgun, reholstering it with lightning speed. "Ouch," empathized a tan earth pony mare with a spiked yellow mane. A purple unicorn mare pointed a hoof at us. "Hey, shit horns," she called to the buffalo. "What?!" the buffalo snarled. "Those fuckbags there've got water." This was bad. "Hmm, so they do," said the buffalo, rubbing his chin. "Let's kill 'em," said the unicorn buck who had before proclaimed they were the 'East Rock Raiders'. "You idiot, that pony has got a bigger gun than..." replied the buffalo (who so far seemed like the most level headed of the group) before he was cut off by a pistol shot fired the empathetic mare. The shot flew over my head by a meter, but that was enough of a threat that I decided to open fire. I bit down on my dual triggers, sending the thunking rounds toward the aggressors. Unfortunately, I hadn't checked my ammo before hoof to see how much I had. The thirteen remaining grenades exploded on impact with the ground, blowing apart pistol mare, breaking two legs on the downed pegasus, and sending burning shrapnel and sand at her friends. The sand drifted through the air. Carried by a small gust of wind it clouded my vision. I picked up the pick from the ground and pulled Martyr close. "Thiiit..." I whispered. This was bad. Surrounded by raiders, sand in my eyes, armed with only a pick, I was in a pretty bad position. Buckshot impacted the side I held Martyr on, pinging off my barding, striking through my neck, head, and exposed flank. I heard the little unicorn yelp in pain as the lead pierced his flesh as well. Blood dribbled into my right eye, further blinding me. I searched wildly for where my attackers hid. During the split second as I turned my head from the right to the left was when it hit me. And by "it" I mean the stock of the magically propelled grenade launcher. Swung by the buffalo. You know, it's funny how when you're asleep you don't really feel pain. While I was unconscious I had, for the first time in a long time, a nice dream. Scrapper and I had taken my little sister, Cactus Flower, and Martyr to a little creek bed to play. The grass was a brilliant green (very un-tarplike, I should add) and birds sang sweet, repetitive songs as they flew. A tiny string of water looped itself around my front hooves as I stood at the very edge of the water. Scrapper had her eyes back and I guess that in this dream she had never lost them. Martyr and Cactus splashed each other with water and played around. It was nice. Well, it was nice until Cactus pulled the pin on the grenade. I woke up in pain, which wasn't all that unusual for me by now. The first thing I noticed was my hooves weren't touching the ground. Where my front shoulders connected to my body felt on fire. I shook my head to clear my blurry vision, making me swing, making me hurt more. My scream was so loud that I hurt my own ears. I was held off the floor by two hooks hanging from chains. They pierced and dug through my flesh, worming their way deeper into my muscles as I hung. I fucking hate raiders. "Help!" I screamed, "Somepony, please, help me!" But nopony heard me. I cried. I felt helpless. All I could do was hang there, just like the other corpses hanging near me. The darkness was all around me, suffocating me. Or maybe the suffocation was from the stench. It didn’t matter. All those other times I’d almost died, and here I would die a raider’s decoration. Laughter. Through all the pain and tears I started to laugh. “Ha! That’s right, mother-fuckers! Fall’s gonna be a chandelier forever!” I wasn’t even sure what I meant, but it sounded rebellious so I liked it. Fuck those raiders. Especially that buffalo. Traitor. What right did he have to have left the Ghost Lands? I kept laughing and laughing, each breath pulling the hooks further through my shoulders. The pain made me laugh. “Yeah! About damn time, too! I hate all of you! Go screw yourselves!” I shouted at nopony. I wish I could still laugh at pain. Goddesses bless those gunshots that woke me up out of that daze. I felt together again. The pain became more real and my laughter stopped. My automatic reflexes when it came to gunfights were kicking in. I needed to hide from whoever wanted me dead. I bit around the hook on my left and agonizingly lifted my shoulder off it. Without both of them holding me up I started falling to the ground. The right-shoulder hook pulled more harshly at my flesh, tearing away at the skin and muscles, until finally a large strip of skin, from the joint of my shoulder to my back, tore off my body and I fell to the hard, cold floor. Blood gushed from my wounds. I screamed. Standing at that very moment was more painful than anything I’d ever experienced before. A billion razor sharp needles heated a million degrees took turns stabbing me each time I moved. The muscles in my right foreleg refused to work. I leaned on my left side to keep myself up. Go! I screamed in my head, Just go! I inched my way to the door. I didn’t need to open it. The door was blasted off its hinges by the edge of a magical-energy grenade boom. Splinters showered me, sticking in my skin and mane. I was thrown onto the floor. I stood once again. Limping, I slowly, painfully made my way out into the warzone. It was hell. Streets between buildings of wood, metal, rock ran with blood. My hooves landed in a clump of former pony that the dark had concealed. I tried to slither my way along the walls, trying to not be noticed. A full moon lit the battlefield. Glancing up briefly, I was met with vertigo and the sight of... one of the Goddesses flying? How much blood had I lost? Raiders fought ponies in NCR armor, only it wasn’t quite NCR armor. The barding looked more protective and the soldiers all either wore wide brimmed hats or frightening gas-mask-helmet abominations. The NCR ponies were winning. While the raiders sprayed bullets wildly and lobbed every grenade they could lay a hoof on, the soldiers used controlled bursts and precise shooting. I would’ve been impressed if I wasn’t bleeding and trying to escape. A sniper's large bullet whizzed through my mane. I tried to trot faster. Go! I told myself, Get away from here! Then I remembered Martyr. The need to find him pushed aside my urge to escape. "Martyr!" I shouted out, my voice barely noticeable over the battle. An NCR pony backed up against the wall in front of me, her face scrunched up in pain from the bloody gash on her flank. The raider attacking her pressed his pistol against her head with levitation, mouthed the words "you won't hurt me anymore," and blew her brains out. The raider took one look at me, a bleeding and pitiful excuse for a buck, and walked away to where his comrades were fighting. I guess I wasn't a worthy opponent. I continued slithering my way along the walls, staying out of the way of ponies with guns. I stopped to pick up a combat knife the NCR mare had carried. A familiar thunking sound told me that the raiders had found the right ammo for my battle saddle. "Maahduhr!" I called out again, my shout muffled by the knife. My call was answered by screams from across the street. Not the deep, throaty death screams from adults, but the shrill cries of fear that little fillies and colts make. They came from behind a makeshift door that was part fence, part sheet metal. I limped across the road, narrowly avoiding a stray rifle bullet. I pushed down the weak door with what little strength I had left and was greeted with a bullet dangerously close to my already destroyed right shoulder. A little blue coated and pink maned raider pegasus child, younger than Martyr, clenched a pistol in his teeth. Behind him were other children cowering in fear. "Fall!" I heard Martyr's voice but I couldn’t see him. The pegasus colt spoke through his pistol. “Fuhendah, fuff ‘ace!” I put down my knife as I leaned against the wall, taking weight off my right foreleg. “What did you say?” I wasn’t a threat as long as he was aiming that gun. I could barely hold myself up. All I could do was make him think that putting away his gun so he could speak was a good idea, and maybe I’d have a chance. He put his pistol under his wing. He tried his threat again. “I said surrender fuck fa..!” I picked up the knife again as fast as I could, threw him against the wall, and pressed the knife against his throat. “Ret. Dese. Foars. Go," I breathed. I must have twisted my right leg again because it burned like salt poured on open muscle. The raider colt hyperventilated. His throat scraped against the blade, drawing blood. He turned his eyes toward the foals huddled in the corner. “Go!” he shouted, “Leave!” He turned his eyes to me. “Please,” he whimpered, “I don’ wanna die!” I let go of him and kicked away the gun he’d dropped. “Ah don’ kirr foars.” I turned to face the children huddled in the corner and dropped the knife. "Let's go." Martyr sprinted across the room and wrapped his hooves around my neck. "I knew you'd find me! None of the others believed me, I knew you'd get here!" I set him down and lightly kissed the top of his head. Slowly, the other five foals trotted over to me, cautiously deciding whether or not I was real. No, that wasn't it. They wanted to know if I would hurt them. They were covered in bruises. Some of them walked funny. One or two of them clenched their hind legs together. I immediately knew what had happened to them. It was the same thing that happened to Lily. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. It isn't Goddess-fucking fair! I wanted to kill every damn raider who'd ever lived, but at that moment I was in no condition to do it. Instead we just needed to escape. "We should go," I repeated. One filly nodded in agreement. A peek out the door showed that the bulk of the battle had moved away from us. The road north was open. I motioned for the kids to follow me. The noise from the fight was still deafening. I started leading my new followers in between the corpses that littered the street. Martyr walked slowly at the end of the line, helping a wounded and shivering filly to walk. Have you ever felt that shock of fear that chills your bones, makes your knees weak, threatens to knock you down? I felt that. Six pistol shots. Just six. Those pistol rounds broke my world, shattered it irreparably. I could always recover before, but this was the end of what I’d known since I was born. Those shots were aimed for the flesh of innocents. I spun around, searing pain ripping through my torn muscle. Martyr’s eyes were wide. He looked at the filly he was supporting. A bullet had grazed her flank and she was crying, but it wasn’t serious. Martyr then looked at himself. His side was bleeding. It was bleeding a lot. “I... I can’t feel it...” he muttered. He took a step forward, the filly still by his side, then collapsed. His face hit the dirt road with a thud. As fast as I could I limped over to his body. I pressed my hooves uselessly against the three bullet holes in his side to slow the bleeding. It was everywhere. The red life crawled its way up my fur over my hooves. Fresh tears came to my eyes, washing over the old trails that had stained my face. Too much blood, too fast. Shock. I raised my eyes to see the raider colt. He stood at the edge of the door, mouth hanging open, pistol on the ground. His eyes met mine. He ran. “You, with the scarf!” I shouted at one of the kids I’d just freed, “Give it to me!” He hesitated. “Bu... but momma gave me it before the...” “Just fucking give it!” He obeyed. I snatched it from his weak telekinesis and did my best to tie it around Martyr’s bleeding abdomen. I lifted him onto my back, barely able to support him. I was shaking. If I ever saw the colt who’d shot him again, I’d blow his scrawny pegasus head off! “Let’s go!” I shouted. The warm summer night air became cold as my little group of refugees stumbled through the desert. I was so thirsty. So painfully thirsty. And lightheaded. My torn muscles had been bleeding for a while. Martyr’s blood had long ago soaked through the thin scarf and dripped off my back in thin streams. So thirsty. So hungry. So cold. So dead. Why couldn’t the suffering just end? Every friend I made... I wanted it over. How are they, friend? Are they well? I haven’t seen them in so, so long... We aren’t so different, you and I. I’m just... worse. That’s the word. Worse. My right foreleg gave way and I dropped to the sand. Goddesses, help me... I thought, Give me a break, just this once. My help came in the form of a dark green (almost black) pony seven feet tall with wings and a horn. It glided gently to a stop in front of me, its hooves only inches away from my face. This wasn’t one of the Goddesses. I’d seen them enough in dreams to know this wasn’t them. It had to be a hallucination. I looked upwards to the being’s face. Around its neck was a sign. In the dim light of my PipBuck I could make out the words “Vocational Brute.” Footnote: Level Up New Perk: Camel Pony: Thirsty? You should be. You’re in a desert. Fortunately you’ve trained yourself to be able to ignore your thirst for longer than most ponies. Dehydration does not affect your stats until you reach the Advanced Dehydration stage. (Thanks [once again] go to Kkat for building the foundations for the amazing FO:E universe. This fic wouldn’t exist without her. Thanks go to OkiiNovice for reading my fic before just about anyone else and being a real swell dude. Thanks go to oki_all_day for promoting this fic in Scootaloo's Pre-War Blues’ footnotes [you should read his fic]. Thanks go to primepersephony for promoting this fic in Equestrian Wetgrave’s footnotes [you should read that also]. And finally, thanks to all my readers and the awesome FO:E fan community. Thanks y’all!)
Chapter 8: ...And Another Begin?Fallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 8: …And Another Begin? “Do you know what this calls for? A party!” --- --- --- "What's the word, Corporal? Or, should I say, agent? That little issue we discussed all wrapped up?" You didn't tell me there would be foals there. And don't call me that. We both know I'm not. "I didn't tell you about the foals because you didn't ask. And don't be offended by the rank. Cherish it. With the work you've done so far you've earned it." How the hell was I supposed to know a bunch of foals were at an underground casino!? That's just fucking sick! You couldn't have said 'Hey, Fall, by the way there's going to be a bunch of little colts and fillies there that might be caught in the crossfire so watch out'! Couldn't you have just told me that!? Four innocent children died last night! "Don't say your real name so loudly." Well why the fuck not!? All you've done is sent me on missions that end up with ponies getting killed! Why should I even listen to you!? "Because I'm the only pony who can get you the alliance you need." Vocational Brute. I wondered what those words meant. The beast (a stallion, I thought, but I wasn’t sure. Did hallucinations and un-Goddesses have genders?) stood still in front of me. It was majestic. I could feel the power the creature had, flowing out from it in all directions. The power felt cold, dark, bent. Did the wasteland reach its influence into everything? It looked from me to the foals, levitated them in a magical bubble, and then looked back to me. The foals shouted and cried for a few moments and then fell asleep. In a deep voice the beast said, “I will take these children somewhere safe. I will come back to save you afterwards.” “What about Martyr?” I asked. “The child you carry on your back?” I nodded. “He is already dead.” I shook my head. “No. No he isn’t. Take him somewhere safe. Please.” I pressed a hoof to my face and squeezed my eyes shut. “Take him anywhere but here. I don’t know who you are, but please, help me save just one friend...” “I will take both of you later,” it insisted. And with that the creature flew away, carrying with it the sleeping fillies and colts. An hour must have passed before it returned. Maybe several hours. By then I had fallen asleep. Martyr had slumped off my back and lay in the sand. I reached my less injured left foreleg and pulled him close. He was cold. Children aren't supposed to be cold. If I ever became a father, I decided, I would adopt Martyr into my family. He should've had a family to protect him. Instead he just had me. I wasn't going to let him go anytime soon. The bleeding had stopped. That was good. It was matted, congealed on his coat, drying the scarf to his skin. He must have lost a lot of blood, but it had stopped. I couldn't feel him breathing. He must have just been breathing very softly. I couldn't feel his heartbeat either. Maybe I was just too tired to feel it. The creature returned silently. It glided to a stop and folded its wings. I wondered what it was like to have wings and a horn. It must be nice. Earth ponies and buffalo (and donkeys and mules, I guess) are always at a disadvantage. "Are you ready to leave?" it asked. "We're ready," I replied, hugging the little colt close. I wasn't going to let him go until I found somepony to help him. I didn't care if this un-Goddess said he was dead. He wasn't. I'm sure of it. He's probably somewhere nice right now, lolling around on a couch and drinking whiskey, telling jokes to a bunch of mares or something. I'll find him someday, and then I'll let that little colt know how glad I am that he's still around. The winged-unicorn thing lifted us up in a field of telekinesis and began to fly. The desert got far away and I felt sick to be up that high. The wooden "Vocational Brute" sign around the thing's (It's a he, isn't it? I wondered) neck made a repetitive thumping noise as the un-Goddess flew. I could see the whole world and it scared me. I fell asleep. The floor was cool and a little sandy. I felt complete, satisfied. I must have done something, saved Martyr and a bunch of children. My body felt less full of holes and I suddenly became aware that I had both ears again. The deactivated explosive collar around my neck was gone too. The light from the sun shined in my eyes. I got up. I was near the mouth of a cave. The cave was in the side of a hill. The hill looked out over the vast, dry wasteland that. The bright, yellow, hot sun had not yet passed over my head. My PipBuck told me I was facing east. Must have been morning. “The desert is beautiful, isn’t it?” said the un-Goddess from behind me, “But you have plenty of experience out there already, do you not?” “It is beautiful. At least, from up here,” I replied, “Desert likes killing my friends...” The thing stood next to me. “The wasteland doesn’t kill. If it was not for the magic of the wastes my race wouldn’t be.” “Your race? Are you the new deities? Or are you demons?” I almost choked on my words as I added, “Do you know the Goddess on the tower?” I never got my answer. “Oh, he’s awake?” said a mare’s beautiful muffled voice behind me. “Yes,” said the un-Goddess. I turned around to face the new voice. She had the shape of a unicorn wrapped in layers upon layers of bandages. Her eyes were blue. On top of her bandages she wore red barding that looked somewhere between combat armor and an NCR uniform. “Good morning,” she said, “Did you sleep well?” “Morning,” I replied as I scratched my new ear with my once again functional right hoof, “I don’t know. I was asleep.” "You have a lot of scars," she commented. I cleared my throat. "I'm guessing you do too." "You could say that." It got really quiet all of a sudden. I don't know why. I drew lazy circles in the thin layer of sand and dust that coated the floor. Bandage mare locked eyes with the un-Goddess creature and twitched her head. It (he) excused himself and flew out the mouth of the cave heading northwestish. "So," she said, "what do you think of Brute?" What did I think of a big demon/deity thing that had the same type of body as the Goddesses I'd worshiped since I'd learned to speak? "Brute's... alright I guess. Big." She chuckled. "Yeah, alicorns like him can get pretty tall." So it was a him. "I can understand why seeing an alicorn would be a bit disconcerting for a tribal pony like you. Took my folks a while to get used to 'em also." "Who... are your folks exactly?" "Oh, it's not important right now." "Oh, alright then." So when would it be important? "Thank you." "For what?" she mumbled through her wrappings. "For patching me and Martyr up." She stomped at the ground a little. "Umm, listen..." This is where my memory starts getting hazy. I don't know what she said. It's funny, really. I know it was important but for the life (or death) of me I can't think of what it was. Dammit. Memory is a funny thing that way. I can remember most everything else, even the stuff I don't want, but I... ~~Where was I? Sorry, something distracted me. Who visits this part of town this fucking time of night? It's dangerous around here. Dammit, hold on.~~ ~~Idiot.~~ Anyways, what I do remember is that once she was done telling me... whatever it was she was telling me, I was crying. I hate crying, especially when I don't know what I'm crying about. "I'm sorry," the bandaged mare said, "Believe me, there was nothing I could do." "How did Brute find us?" I asked. The bandaged mare had given me a tin cup full of water and a small box of (somehow preserved) crackers. "Brute was on duty. He'd been watching that group of NCR Rangers gearing up to attack those East Rock thugs for weeks," she replied, "Luckily he saw you escaping with those kids." "Are those kids okay, by the way? I was so focused on getting Martyr out that I..." She interrupted me. "They'll be fine eventually. A few have them have injuries but those will heal. I'm more worried about their minds." I suddenly felt bad for yelling at them. But I couldn't change the past. I decided to change the subject. "So... why the bandages?" "Well, my people weren't exactly the easiest to grow up around. I got some nasty burns because of something somepony else did. Or didn't do. I'm not sure." "I'm sorry." "It's not your fault." Celestia-dammit! Why did ponies have to do that? Did no pony outside of my tribe understand sympathy? "It doesn't really matter anyways. I'm used to the bandages. Changing them is a pain though, but life is livable and I've got friends like Brute to keep me company. Plus I have work to keep my mind off of the pain I feel occasionally." Work? What could she do from this cave? "What type of work exactly?" I thought I saw her smile beneath her bandages. "I'm glad you asked..." A plan. That’s what I’d been missing the entire time I’d been out in the wasteland. An actual plan to tell me where to go and what to do so that I could finally get the alliance I'd been struggling for. But, like all things, I was informed it wouldn't be as simple as it sounded. "Why not? I just need to go to that place," I poked my hoof at the crude map the bandaged mare had drawn in the sand, "meet up with that pony you talked about, and then head for the border. Simple!" "No. It isn't that simple." "Why not?" "Because this plan isn't about just getting your tribe an alliance," she said, "It's also about helping out my folks. Get it? It's like killing two radroaches with one stomp." She levitated her pistol out of her shoulder holster along with a set of cleaning tools and started disassembling her weapon. "The wasteland is more complicated out here than you think. Not everything is about the NCR. Other groups need help, and can help you, too." I was about to tell her that I understood when Brute flew in through the mouth of the cave. With him he carried a bunch of food supplies and bottles of water. "Hello," he said. "Hey Brute," the bandaged mare replied without looking away from the pistol she was cleaning. "Uhh, hello again." My response to the alicorn's greeting was awkward and I knew it. I just didn't know how to respond to a pony double my height who looked like the Goddesses I prayed to. Something about him made me feel sick. But maybe that was just the paranoia. Every day I spent out in the wastes I felt more afraid of my surroundings. Each step I took I was scared would be my last. Even the burned mare's plan worried me a little. If all went well I would have my alliance and I could rejoin my family again and try to forget all the pain I'd seen and felt. But things never went well. Never. And I'd learned that the hard way before. So that's why I started making my own plan. And my plan is still working. Dinner. I'd missed real meals with other ponies. I also hadn't realized how hungry I'd been. The last meal I'd had was that odd grayish porridge slime they'd served in the slave camp. Real food with real ponies. Brute, the bandaged mare, the children I'd help rescue (except for Martyr, but I can't remember why), and I all gathered around a fire by the mouth of the cave. I don't remember the meal, but I remember the smiles. The mare in bandages was grinning under her wrappings. Brute wore a look of smug contentment with the meal he'd cooked (I wondered aloud where he got the ingredients and received no answer). The little fillies and colts lost the gloomy, downcast expression they'd held the day before and began to chase and play with one another. I was glad I was with these ponies, my hosts. I couldn't believe the luck I'd finally gotten, so long held away from me by the wasteland. I'd been rescued, rested, repaired, and fed by ponies who seemed to want to help me. I wasn't sure I completely trusted their motives, but it was good enough for now. ~~Oh, Great Scorched Mare, Virgin Queen of the Border, Cornerstone of the Three Siblings, May You Live Forever!~~ ~~I shouldn’t praise~~ anypony. "Here," the mare said, "take this. It's good barding. You’ll probably need it.” It did look like good barding. It was made of the same type of ceramic plates that had been built into my old combat armor, but black, less bulky, and with a neck protector. Across the front were the words "Appleloosa Sheriff's Department" in white letters. Along with the barding she also offered me a long coat (which she called a duster) that was tinged slightly greenish, and a straw hat. I accepted her gifts with a "Thanks," and tried the whole ensemble on. The barding fit perfectly and the duster fit perfectly over that. I thanked her once again and picked up the weapon she'd loaned to me: a single bladed axe. Perfectly weighted and impeccably clean, I almost felt bad about using it as a tool for killing. She gave me a sheath for it that could be strapped to the new saddlebags I also received. At the same time the bandaged mare was fitting me up with barding and weapons, the alicorn was also preparing for our trip. He slipped on a set of leather armor (too tight for him, by the way) and then put on what looked like formal attire (which was also too tight). He strapped two pistols on either side beneath his wings. “Are the kids going to be okay?” I asked. “Yeah,” the bandaged mare replied, “My people will try to get them back to their families if they still have any. If they don’t they’ll stay with us across the river.” I nodded. At least ~~Martyr~~ they would be safe. "Remind me again who this pony I'm meeting is?" I asked the mare. "He's a member of my people... well, not completely, but... you'll see what I mean when you meet him." Should I have been worried? "So... I can't trust this pony?" "Well, Broken Skull trusts him, so that's good enough for me." Who? "Broken what?" That was a frighteningly violent sounding name... "Don't worry," she assured me, "Everything is going to work out just fine." Yes. Everything would work out fine. Mostly fine, at least. Actually, now that I think of it, things could have turned out much worse than they did. I’m lucky, I guess. "Thank you... for everything. For all of this, thank you..." I paused. "I don't think you ever told me your name." She smiled under her wrappings. "Prophetess. Prophetess Goodpony." Brute and I had been walking through the desert for about an hour before either of us said anything. I was the first to break the silence. "So," I began, "what do you do for work?" "I keep the border safe," he replied. “From what?” “Everything.” “Oh. How so?” He sighed loudly. “My... tribe does not feel particularly safe around the NCR. In turn, due to events in the past, the NCR feels animosity towards us as well.” So he and the bandaged mare were watching the border (which up until now I didn’t even know existed; I’d thought the NCR controlled all of Equestria and the desert) because of some old anger between these two groups? I found this hard to understand for some reason. It sounded like war but it wasn’t. At least, that’s what I thought. My PipBuck pinged the name “Wago Stop” when we reached the town. Well, calling it a “town” would actually be giving this particular suburb (of a suburb) of Little Warchestnut too much credit. It looked more like a refugee camp with a few extra buildings. Tents and sheet metal huts surrounded by rusted barbed wire fence made up most of the place. At the center of the ring of shelters was a bit pre-apocalypse architecture. It looked like a place where travellers would’ve stopped to pick up fresh spark batteries for their wagons (really, how could the inhabitants of this place have not realized the sign on the building had said “Wagon,” not “Wago”?), food, water, and other supplies. It had once been painted green and purple, more festive than the eyesore it was now. “Hmm...” muttered Brute. “Hmm what?” I asked, “It’s a town. We can get supplies here, can’t we?” “Everypony is gone.” When he said that I suddenly realized he was right. However, I failed to see how that caused us a problem. “And...?” “And what?” “And why does that make you worried?” “I am not worried. I am thinking.” He thought for a while. In the meantime I decided to root around in my saddlebags. “Anything yet?” I asked with my face in my left saddlebag. “Still thinking,” he grumbled, his eyes fixed intently on the missing “N” of “Wagon Stop.” “Take your time...” I was amazed by the amount of stuff the mare had given me. Three bottles of water? Non-perishable snack cakes? A cardboard box full of caps and NCR bills? And... the orb from the house of the foal killer. I’d thought I’d lost that. I kinda wish I had, because I couldn't bring myself to leave it behind. I checked the other saddlebag. Healing potions, a whetstone, a book... my copy of "The Story of The Goddesses". I'd thought I'd lost that as well. Tucked inside of the front cover was a letter. Deciding that it was there for a purpose, I left it where it was. Brute snorted. I pulled my face out of my bag. "We will loot and then continue on. I believe I know where our contact has gone." I nodded in reply. We split up, he heading to start searching the largest tent, I to the "Wagon Stop" at the center of the non-town. As I passed by the tents I noticed something, or rather, the lack of something: corpses. If this place had been abandoned because of an attack by raiders I would've expected to see at least a few bodies laying around. Raiders were messy. I spotted a splash of dried blood on a bedroll. Still no corpses though. But the blood suggested that something violent did happen here. As I reached the "Stop" I noticed a patch of blood on the wall by the door marked by at least ten bullet holes. The door was off its hinges. Shelves had been knocked off the walls. Bags and boxes were scattered on the floor. The register on the counter had been smashed open, its contents looted. A Sparkle-Cola machine against the far wall, smashed open as well but still with a few unbroken bottles, seemed to be the only thing of value left. I trotted over to it and grabbed a bottle. As I was about to knock the cap off I felt a cold circle pressed against the back of my head. I turned my head slowly with the Sparkle-Cola still held in my teeth. The unicorn threatening me pressed the barrel of his revolver between my eyes. Half the skin on his face was peeling off. One eye was covered by a piece of blood-soaked sackcloth. His breathing was labored, probably because of the nasty, sickly green bullet wound in his side. He wore no barding beside a wide brimmed NCR trooper helmet. "Who," he demanded, "are you? Looter? Legionnaire? Merc come to finish us off? Well that'll be no fun for you cause I'm the last fucking one! Ha!" He coughed for about a quarter minute. I gently lowered the bottle to the ground. "How about you put the gun dow..." "Not a chance in hell," he replied. "Well, that's a problem then, I guess." "Who are you? Answer, for Element's sake!" "I'm a traveler..." "Brahmin shit!" "Put the gun down." "No!" "Celestia dammit, I promise I won't try to do anything!" I promised, "Gun beats ax anyways." He lowered his pistol. It quivered in his his magical grip. His mane was matted with blood so badly that I couldn't tell what the original color had been. His coat was greenish blue and covered in a layer of dust. The skin peeling off his face quivered with every breath. "What happened here?" I asked. He sat on the floor with his pistol still aimed at me. "Legion happened. Those crazy fuckers..." "Legion?" He looked at me like I'd just told him the sky was covered in stripes. "Shitters from across the big river. The brass won't attack them 'cause they're too busy wiping out border raiders and shit." He looked at the hole in his side. "Doesn't keep 'em from comin' after us." "Why?" "Why what?" he sneered, "You think shit-for-brains tribals need a reason to take a big long piss on us?" "Shouldn't they?" The 'shit-for-brains tribals' comment stung a little. He shook his head. Looking up again, he asked, "So why are you here, really? Loot? You're dressed like a trader. There's not much." I shook my hoof at that idea. "I'm not a trader. I'm traveling. I need to meet somepony. My companion and I were looking for somepony who should've been here." "Everypony who was here is dead." "There aren't any bodies." "Legion burns 'em to pray for fuckin' rain dances or some such shit." "Oh." The Legion didn't sound like a very nice group of ponies. "Wait," he said, hovering the revolver up to my face again, "you said you had a companion here?" "Yeah, I think I said that." Was that a problem? He fumed as he spoke. "You bitch-fucking-schlong-licker! You're not a looter, you're a Goddesses damned scout! You fucking slavers travel in pair!" I'd never heard that fact before. "Get your friend in here, but if you warn them I'll turn your brains to paste!" I called out to Brute, carefully avoiding mentioning that there was an at-least slightly crazy buck pointing a gun at me. Brute came to the door. The buck's uncovered eye went wide when he saw the alicorn. He lowered his pistol and I reacted. I bit down on the grip of the revolver and tried to wrestle it away from him. "Oh, fuck no!" he screamed. He whipped around the pistol in his telekinesis as he worked the trigger. Of the six bullets, one of them buried itself in my armor. Another found the tip of Brute's right wing. "Gof, fuf yef!" I replied. My chest throbbed from the impact. I could feel the bruise forming already. I wasn't strong enough. The last soldier tore the gun from my mouth and whipped me across the face. He would've beaten me to death if Brute hadn't magically thrown him into the Sparkle-Cola machine. I heard both the bottles and his bones break. "Hmm..." Brute said as I gasped for breath, "I believe this town is uninhabited." "Shouldn't we bury him?" I asked Brute, already knowing the moral answer, "I mean, we did kill him. Looting the town had been a success. We had canned foods, caps, and ammo to sell that my giant traveling companion stuffed in his saddlebags. Looting felt bad though. We were profiting off of other ponies stuff. Not that I hadn't taken stuff from dead enemies before, but the ponies of this town hadn't done me any harm. Except, of course, for that last survivor. "What would be the purpose?" Brute answered my question with another question. I sighed. "Yeah, I guess we shouldn't. We'll let the NCR find his body then and they'll send him back to his family, right?" "One can only hope that the New Canterlot Republic retains the values of its old world predecessor." The town we stopped in looked more like a real town. It was farther north than Wago Stop and it was, as Brute described it to me, yet another worthless suburb of Little Warchestnut. Little Warchestnut, he said, was a "non-aligned, non-territory, non-governed trade hub for the NCR." Whatever that meant. The town was called, unimaginatively, named 'Town'. I decided that the name fit it. A single street ran down the center of it with business entrances opening up onto it on either side. Little apartments were built on top of them. Ponies wandered around on the street, doing their business, each with, at the very least, a pistol on their side. I couldn't see any NCR soldiers in uniform though. "Wait here," Brute said. He left me by the saloon and trotted to the whorehouse. There several mares welcomed him in. I was unsure why my companion would choose to do that now. Weren't we supposed to be looking for our contact who might or might not have been still alive? Having absolutely nothing useful to do, I decided to get out of the burning sun and go in the saloon for a drink. It was smoky smelling. Dust glittered in the air when it fell through beams of light that came through cracks in the wooden walls. I sat down at the bar and tapped the counter. A little pegasus buck, maybe just a year or three older than Martyr, trotted over to me. "What's your best drink?" I asked. I figured that while I was there I might as well buy something. That box of caps in my saddlebag wasn't going to spend itself, after all. He shrugged. "Ma likes wine, Pa likes gin. Get whatchever ya' like, we got everythin." "I'll have a beer, then, thanks." He grabbed a bottle out of the icebox beneath the counter (how'd they get ice in a desert, anyways?) and bit off the top. He snatched an only slightly chipped mug from the shelf behind him with his wings and poured the contents of the bottle into the mug. A bit of foam spilled over the side. "It's on the house," he said, "New-in-towners always get a first drink free. Ma's policy, not Pa's. Not the LW's neither." I nodded. "Thanks." He returned the nod and went back to whatever he'd been doing before. I'd gotten about a third of the way through my drink when the mare at the other end of counter changed seats to be next to me. "Name's Vi. Short for Violet Honey Punch," she said. I didn't pay too much attention to her. I didn't really feel like getting to know anypony new that day. "You?" "Fall." "Nice to meet ya', Fall. Always nice to see new faces ‘round here." "Mmhmm." I kept sipping my beer, only half paying attention. "So what brings ya' to Town? Business or pleasure? Pleasure's always a choice, though, of course." "Looking for somepony, so business." I didn't really know who the pony I was looking for was, but that didn't matter. "You came in with Vocational Brute, right?" "Oh, so you know him?" Ah, of course I do! Brute's a great buck. Big too. Always tips well. Glad to see him in Town, so I decided I'd meet his friend. Is he here on business too? Cause it looks like he's already made time for some pleasure. I might just go visiting him later." "Oh," I replied. Then my mind finally clicked those separate thought together. "Oh, so you're a whore?" She clicked her tongue and laughed. "Yes," she replied, "and no. We prefer 'paid company.' Sounds nicer that way." "Oh, and Brute visits you often?" "Didn't I just say that?" she asked playfully, batting her long, fluttery eyelashes. "You can visit me too some time, if you want. Here," she pulled a small piece of paper from nowhere, "take my card." I looked at it on the table. 'Vi Punch, paid company, best in TOWN' it said in scratchily written letters. "Costs vary, depending what ya' want of course." I didn't want to be rude so I tucked the card into my right saddlebag where, blasphemously, it fell next to the holy book I was carrying. I said, "Thanks. I'll keep you in mind if I ever come back," but didn't really mean it. I'd sort of expected Brute and Prophetess to have been really holy ponies or something, holed away in a cave like that. I guess my perception could be wrong sometimes. Brute entered the bar, wings folded to his side. "Hello, Violet," he said. "Hi Vocational. Nice to see you again!" she hopped off her barstool and trotted next to him, swishing her tail across his chest. "Looking forward to seeing you later. Bring your friend if you want." And with that she left. "I have ascertained the location of our contact," Brute informed me. Finishing off the last of my beer, I dropped my hooves to the floor. "Great," I said, "Where are they?" It turned out our contact was staying on the floor directly above the saloon. He was a red unicorn stallion my age or a little older with a purple mane. He was asleep on a mattress without sheets, a trail of drool dripping from one side of his mouth, the end of a cigarette hanging out the other, and two mares with smudged make-up sleeping curled up next to him. I felt unimpressed with this contact. I had trouble seeing how this buck would get me an alliance with the NCR. "Fall," Brute said, "meet Solon, our tribe's ambassador.” Footnote: 50% to Next Level Quest Perk: Are You Feeling Alright?: Hey, Fall, are you sure you’re thinking straight? (Thanks go to Kkat for FO:E original, just like always. Also as usual, thanks are sent out OkiiNovice, oki_all_day, and primepersephony for being all around awesome dudes. Also, if it is indeed’ appropriate to call my readers fans, I have to thank y’all for being the best fans in the world for being the most patient bunch of fan-fic connoisseurs in the world. Y’all’re some handsome, badass people and you should feel good ‘bout yerselves. This is the first chapter of Book Two by the way. Next chapter coming... eventually.)
What Would Have Been Chapter 9 But Is Instead The Last ChapterFallout: Equestria: Honest Herds By sargecadet Chapter 9: I'm Okay "Madam Chairpony Fluttershy, thank you for your kindness towards the wayward children of the Equestrian Wasteland." Med-X and Mint-Als are really good. I haven't felt this clear in a long, long time. I probably wouldn't even be able to write my story (my gift, how ridiculous that sounds now) without those chems. Friends supply me. It's awfully nice of them, considering they'd be charged with trafficking if they got caught. They don't say much to me though. They just stuff the needles and tablets into a gap behind a brick and leave. I miss them. Takes a lot of the stuff to get lucid enough to write. Some ponies say I'll turn any day now, but I think they're wrong. They don't know me. They don't see the world the way I can. I hurt all the time. Do they still keep in touch with you? What about her? Does she ever mention me? Wait, of course not. I can feel the buzz wearing down really fast now. I'd best get to writing the story. It's a really important chapter. I might see you soon. ~~I felt lightheaded when I saw her, unable to fully believe what my eyes showed me. It couldn’t be her. I’d watched her die. I was with her, only a meter or two away, when I saw the bullet from the slaver’s gun turn her features to paste.~~ ~~But there she was. She sat at the bar, pistol strapped to her left foreleg, scoped hunting rifle slung across her back, barding scratched and bloody but newer than what she’d had before, sipping whiskey straight from the bottle.~~ No, I'm remembering out of order again. "Solon," Brute said as he nudged the sleeping buck's face with his hoof, "wake up." Solon continued to sleep. He started making loud snoring noises. The mares sleeping next barely stirred. One of them yawned without opening her eyes. I wondered why any buck would want to sleep with two mares at the same time. Wouldn’t that be a bit crowded in such a small bed? “Wake up, Solon,” Brute said again. The alicorn’s horn glowed, wrapping the mattress in a glowing magical field. He flipped the mattress over, sending Solon and his two mare friends onto the dusty floor. "The fuck was that...!" the buck started to scream, but when he opened his eyes and saw Brute, "Oh, hi again, you big ol' pain in the flank!" "Hello as well, Solon," Brute replied. I could see disdain for Solon in Brute's eyes. I didn't know where it came from. "Ughhh..." moaned one of the mares. The other one was still asleep. Solon smiled and spat the cigarette butt that had gotten stuck in his mouth onto the floor. He raised himself to his hooves and walked past me and Brute to get to a bottle of whiskey set on its side on a small table against the far wall. His horn glowed as he lifted and uncapped the bottle, pouring some of the dark gold liquid into a short glass which he twirled, and smoothed his mane with his left forehoof. Somehow what his actions made him seem more confident, a buck with a mind of his own doing whatever the hell he wanted to just because he felt like it. "So what can ol' Solon do for you gentlecolts? I assume this isn't just a random visit, am I right?" He sipped from his glass when he finished speaking, his back still turned towards us. “You are correct. I have a task for you...” “Hmmm... How bout no?” “Solon...” The red buck turned around and threw, with as much force as he could, the glass of whiskey at the alicorn’s head. He missed completely and it shattered against the wall. Some of the shards scattered over the mares who were resting on the ground. The one that had groaned earlier, an earth pony, jumped up and shook the glass off her back. She stared wide-eyed at her surroundings before sitting down on the overturned mattress, pressing both forehooves to her face and mumbling “Shit, Solon, what happened last night?” Solon ignored her and kept his attention on Brute. “Fuck you and fuck that burned bitch who owns you! I’m not doing whatever you want cause you think you have some Luna-blessed-shit-stuffing leverage over me! Fuck you!” “It saddens me that you feel that way, Solon,” Brute sighed. I decided to add my own voice to the conversation. "Umm, I'm sorry that we bothered you, but do you think that maybe whatever problem you have with Brute and Prophetess you could put behind you, at least for a little while?" Solon glanced at me, studying me it seemed, for just a moment before returning his gaze to Brute. "Who the fuck is this?" "I'm Fall," I said, depriving Brute of the need to introduce me, "and I was told that you could help me with something." "No." "You don't even know what..." "Fuck off." "Solon," Brute said, "all that we are in need of is your assistance in helping this stallion cross the border and join the army." Wait... I was joining the army? Solon just grunted. It was the awakened mare's turn to speak. "Look," she said, turning her gaze towards us, "I don't know what y'all're arguing about, but I can tell you that I'm not going to have it in my place o' business. Solon, hun, if'n y'all need to discuss whatever work it is that you do with these ponies, please head down to the cellar where the customers can't hear ya." With that ultimatum she stood, gave Solon a peck on the nose, pulled on a shabby, tattered dress that I guess passed for classy clothing in this part of the NCR, and left. Solon hung his head and sighed. "Fine, do you two really want to talk?" I was... joining the army? Why? "Yes, I think we should..." Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that something was missing. "Where did the other mare go?" "What other mare?" I realize now that the other mare had been orange. The cellar was cluttered with booze, papers, and maps. And guns. There were a lot of small guns. Brute was too tall for the room and had to crane his neck down to keep his horn from scraping the ceiling. Solon lit a lantern on the table in the middle of the cellar. In its dim light I saw for the first time a map depicting the vastness of the desert I'd crossed. A red line divided the upper third of the map from the rest of it. Above the red line was the NCR. "Alright, look," Solon said, "like I said before, nopony owns me, not like you, alicorn. If you really do need my help I'm going to need either a really compelling reason or a fuck-load of caps and I know that you ain't got caps. So there it is, your choice." I still wasn't sure why we needed this buck to help me get an alliance. "The tyrants are calling," was all Brute said. Solon's expression changed immediately. His eyes got wide and his right hind leg started shaking. The self-confident swagger he'd had earlier was gone. "Oh, sweet Celestia's..." He stopped his curse short, almost as if he couldn't find the words to complete it. "Are you serious?" "I am." Solon chewed on his lower lip. I wasn't sure what was happening. "Umm, I'm sorry," I interjected, "but would you mind telling me what 'the tyrants are calling' is supposed to mean?" Solon took out a pre-war cigar from a drawer in the desk and lit it with a small incendiary spell. He stuck it in the side of his mouth and said, "It means each and every one of us who ain't with the NCR but ain't with LW either might be royally--or should I say, democratically--fucked beyond all chance of survival." "How so?" "Every corner of the goddess-damned world is at war right now, kid. Now just imagine if all those wars moved in right on top of us." He chewed on the end of the cigar. "That is an incorrect description, Solon," Brute replied. "What do you mean, every war moving in on us?" This sounded bad, but it didn't make much sense. Solon looked at me, and then back to Brute. "This kid doesn't know about the Legion?" "You mean the bunch of raiders that attack refugee camps and burn the inhabitants for sacrifices?" I asked sarcastically, "Yeah, I've heard of them." My mind went back to that last remaining soldier in Wago Stop, half out of his mind and desperate. "The fuck are you talking about? Refugee..." Solon's eyes got wide. "Wago Stop? That shithole? Did something happen there?!" "Indeed," replied Brute. "Yeah, the sick Legion freaks killed everypony," I added. Brute shook his head. "You are incorrect, Fall." "What the fuck do you mean the Legion killed everypony in Wago Stop?" Solon asked, worry... or was it fear?... coloring his voice. "It was not the Legion." "The soldier there said it was!" I protested. Brute sighed. "The same soldier who was missing half his face and more than half of his mind? Fall, you must learn to find more credible sources. What we saw there was the work of the Steel Rangers, of which, I realize now, he was one. Did you not notice that the tents themselves were still intact, along with the bedrolls? The Legion would have taken those." I tilted my head. The conversation had lost me. Sensing my confusion, Brute explained. "The Legion is poor and would have salvaged the tents and bedding. Only some of the corpses would have been burned and others would be hung from wooden poles to mark the town as Legion territory. In addition to that, the Legion has only attacked raider and slaver settlements for the past year and a half. The 'soldier' was a plant in the NCR military by the Steel Rangers, which could be discovered by glancing at the brand on the inside of his right foreleg. He was there to look as though he were a victim while monitoring hoof traffic along the road north." I was even more confused than I had been a moment ago. Who were the Steel Rangers? "Dead? There was an attack?!" Solon worried, "Oh shit, oh fuck, oh fuck fuck fuck! My contacts! My papers!" Brute levitated a folder from his saddlebags. "These papers?" Solon snatched them out of his grip. He dumped them onto the floor and began sifting through them until he found a piece of paper with a raised seal depicting a rising sun with crossed rifles above it and a coffee stain on the upper right corner. The print on the page was really small and there was a squiggly signature at the bottom. He let out a big sigh of relief. "Fuck. Thanks," he said. My head was buzzing with questions. The loaders one bubbled to the surface. "Brute?" "Yes?" "How do you know all that about the Legion?" Solon answered instead. "Because we are Legionnaires." Trust is for the weak. Mag taught me that. That belief of her's was vindicated in the end. I should've listened to Solon also. He warned me about the north. Everything is a deathtrap off base. You can't even trust the ponies you thought you could. Everything I learn I learn the hard way. It's kinda fucked up. I'm sorry, Celestia. There was nothing I coulda done. "Here's the plan. I've used it a shit ton of times to do exactly what we're doing here so don't try to find holes in the plan ‘cause they're already patched." Solon was explaining the process of getting me across the border semi-legally. Apparently there was a process to it beyond just crossing over an imaginary line. He had spread out a grid covered map held down at each corner by empty gin bottles. "First, we've gotta get you past the border guards. Now, these schlubs aren't the brightest of the army but they're usually pretty vigilant when it comes to their job, so we need a way to get past them so that they only see me and not you," he explained. "Why not just go around the border guards?" I asked. "Shut up. What we're gonna do is go up through the highway east of north LW and I'll hitch us a ride with the local produce convoy that travels on that road every week. Day after tomorrow, actually, is the next one. I'll chat 'em up and you hide yourself under a pile of lettuce or something and I'll push a few caps their way to let me ride. I'll hop off and tap the back of the cart two times to give you the signal to hop out once we got ourselves past the border and 'bout halfway to Camp Garden Tiller." "But why not just go around the border guards?" I asked again, a little annoyed that he hadn't answered me the first time. He rolled his eyes. "Because if we go around them we go around the roads to. We don't want to do that." "Why?" "Radscorpions and shit, now pay attention. When we get to Camp Garden Tiller I'm going to need you to wait on the shaded side of the outside wall, so since that would be 'round 'leven o'clock you'd want to be on the..." He stuck his tongue out and glanced up. "...west side, which is where this one old pissant is always tryin' to sell sandwiches so if you're hungry I suggest you buy one 'cause it's gonna be late by the time you reach your destination. Now, if anypony ask you why you're loiterin' around just tell 'em you forgot your ID on base and a friend is talking to the desk monkeys to nab you a new one, got it? Then after that we are gonna go south to the bus station, just about a block away. The bus'll take us to Camp Steelhooves. Questions?" I raised my hoof. "Yes?" "What's a bus?" I asked. "Shut up," he snapped, "Dooya have any non-stupid question?" "What's so important at Camp Steelhooves?" "Our contact is there." "I thought you were my contact." "I'm middle management. The drywall, the support beams, a desk clerk, a glorified armed guard, a paper pusher, a grunt who can waltz off base and get piss drunk when they want. Kapeesh? I'm just the pony to help you get to where you need to go and that just happens to be where Sergeant Bloodfire is. Ol' Bloody is the one who can really pull strings on that base, get what I'm saying?" I scratched at the dented barding covering my bruise. "Yeah, I guess I can understand that." I put my hoof down and looked at Brute, who'd been quiet for a while, resting with his legs curled under him by a shelf on the far wall. "Will Brute be coming with us?" "Dooya think Brute could hide under a bunch vegetables? Really? Come on, be serious." Brute cleared his throat. "It would be unwise in my case to cross the border. I am currently not welcome in NCR territory." "Ha, you're a little more than not welcome, you stupid fuck!" Solon said with a wink. "When we get to Camp Steelhooves," I asked, "are you going to stay with me a while? I might need some help learning how things work on an army base." "Eenope," he said sarcastically, "You're on yer own after you meet Ol' Bloody. I've got this place to worry about. I'm too happy living the quiet family life with a mare who thinks I'mma buck worth lovin' and a colt who sees me like the father he never met. Nope," he repeated, "I used to run with the killers, but not anymore." The bar had a porch. Did I mention that? And by had I really do mean had. But at the time it and the rest of Town were intact. I walked out on the porch to get some fresh air and to get away from Solon's persistent whiny yammering. Life had made me tired. I was sick of all this, the quest, the violence. I don't intend to sound weak but I wanted very strongly to go home. My tribe was under attack and I wanted to be there for them, not here in the north. I complain too much. You don’t want to read the rambling complaints and anxiety of an old, slowly dying buck who can barely keep his head on right without chems. I’m sorry. In fact, if I hold any respect in your eyes, you should probably just stop now. Things only get worse from here. How could I, a simple mining pony, be the cause of so much death? I don’t know. Somepony more of a historian than I will ever be will probably put things into perspective one day. But I am getting off topic. I walked out on the porch to get some fresh air and to get away from Solon's persistent whiny yammering. There was something I didn’t like about Solon. It wasn’t his persistent use of the word “fuck” or his slimy attitude and his over-self-confidence, it was just... him. He bothered me. His accent got under my skin and crawled around. The idea that he was helping to raise that little colt who was controlling the bar when I arrived worried me also. The idea of sneaking into the territory of a faction that so far hadn’t really impressed me was troubling me too. The NCR... all I’d seen them do was show weakness in the south. They’d let the Major Doctor, one of their own, be stuck in a slave trader’s market until they bought her out! And what about Martyr? If that attack had been launched earlier Martyr ~~might still be alive right now~~ would be travelling north with me stillIf that attack had been launched earlier Mint-Als. A Safe, Natural Alternative to Harmful Mental Stimulants! Caution: Can cause dependency, itching, swelling of the left-rear-fetlock area, eloquence, lucid dreaming, susceptibility to addiction to other chemical substances (including but not limited to: alcohol, paint fumes, duct-tape adhesive, anabolic steroids, Med-X, sheep’s milk), excessive charisma... I was the only one on the porch. The sun had passed its high point and the day was half over. It was still hot outside though. The ponies I’d seen walking around earlier had all retreated inside, except for three of the prostitutes across the street who, modestly, wore nothing and were fanning themselves with bits of old NCR newspaper. The bruise under my barding ached acutely as I rested. The axe by my side felt weighted. My father once told me that a warrior's weapon always felt heavier before it needed to be used. I hoped that I wouldn't have need of it too soon. I examined my PipBuck. I wondered what the matter was with it in regard to its mechanical failure. I suspected that some pony in the north, across the border, could give me an answer. Uncomfortable. Yes, uncomfortable was how I really felt about the whole thing. Why was it important for me to join the army? Who was this "Bloodfire" stallion? How did any of this help my tribe? What was this band of "Legion" raiders (if they were, indeed, raiders) actually do, and how did they tie into what I was doing? If Brute was with the Legion, did that mean that Prophetess was with them as well? Why was Solon so disconcerting to be in the presence of? My trail of thought was shattered by the arrival of a friend. An old friend. But at the same time, a friend I never would have wished to see. "Hey, kid." I turned toward the voice. My jaw plummeted to my chest and my eyes went wide as grenade-launcher rounds. "How've you been? Any of my advice work out for you?" said the dark mare. A sniper rifle was slung across her back. She wore no barding, but her side was impaled by a metal pole that went straight through her and appeared to be causing her no pain, so perhaps that counted for something. I wasn't sure of the proper way to respond. I should have said 'Hi, nice to see you again' or 'Thanks for saving my life all those weeks ago' or maybe even 'In the name of the holy goddesses and all that is sacred, what the fuck happened to you?' but instead I said nothing. "What," she asked, "nothing? No 'how've you been?' or 'are you hurt?' or maybe just 'hello'?" I stutteringly said, "Hello." What had she really expected me to say? She had been no real help to me once I had left the Ghost Lands. If she had stayed with me, escorted me north, maybe I could have avoided all of the pain and suffering I had found. "Well, now that we've got minor formalities and salutations out of the way," she gestured to the pole in her side, "mind helping me out? I can't quite reach it." The north-west edge of Little Warchestnut was grimy looking. I saw NCR soldiers and civilians lying, passed out drunk, in the gutters. Some of who I presumed were locals joined them. Every building was brown and defaced by graffiti. Doors and shutters hung off their hinges. We passed a building that was a burned out set of walls missing a roof. I was not very impressed. Why, I wondered, would any government, connected to a country or a tribe or anything, let its citizens live in such awful conditions? It didn't even look like any real standards of quality were being enforced. I saw a zebra in a suit laying in a gutter, passed out, with his hoof around a mule whose throat had been slashed open messily. My stomach lurched at the sight and I cringed as I fought the urge to vomit. I had seen some bad shit, but that dead mule and the passed out zebra just gave such an air of casualness to death that it made the whole city seem extra sick and fucked up. I looked to Sergeant Bloodfire. He seemed completely unfazed by the disgusting conditions of the neighborhood. I guess seeing it before had made him less sensitive to it. "The general store is just about a half a block away," he said. I nodded. Strangely, it was then that I noticed my new NCR MP service dress uniform wasn't nearly as uncomfortable as I'd expected when I first saw it. "Absolutely Everything - North LW Branch" (the general store we'd been seeking) was (relatively) more impressive than the buildings we'd been walking past for the last quarter of an hour. The door was covered in chipping red paint and the window to the left of it had been replaced with cardboard, but all the shutters seemed to still be attached which placed it higher on the niceness scale than just about everything around it. The sign could've definitely benefitted from some touching up. As a place to stay, it seemed promising, at least from the outside. "Well," the sergeant said, "shall we?" "Yeah. I could use a rest," I replied. We walked inside (the lock was unlocked) and stood on a floor mat that proudly said "WELCOME" and had a picture of a smiling pegasus without any hair and a bad skin condition (for some reason I didn’t immediately think “ghoul”) with eyes going opposite directions. The walls and shelves were lined with odds and ends, gears and (familiar looking) spark batteries, canned foods and glass-bottled drinks, gizmos and stuff that could only be described as "stuff", all of it covered in a thin film of gray dust. Some of the dust launched into the air as I wiped my hooves on the floor mat and I sneezed hard enough to make my ears pop. "Hey, Cram, you here?" the sergeant called, his tilted slightly up towards the top of the staircase at the back of the general store. I heard a crash come from above us and a mare's voice saying the words "Celestia damn you, you fucking boxes!" and then another crash, followed by an "eep" of pain. "Yeah," the sergeant whispered to me, "she's here." Within a minute I saw the shape of a pony materialize at the top of the stairs. She walked down... no, glided down the steps, wings half opened, and then trotted between shelves towards us. Her coat was a dark cranberry color and her mane was the color of eggshells, a soft white. She wore an apron streaked with stains of rust and other things that make stains. And, by Luna's infinite mercy, she looked so familiar! "Do you have a passport?" the border guard asked the cart owner. The cart's owner grunted and shuffled some papers around. "Eyop," he said in affirmation, a weird accent leaking into his speech. One of the Brahmin heads mooed and the other said "Shut up. I'm hungered too. We'll get som' food later." The guard snorted and then said "And you?", a question directed at Solon. "Well, ya see," my companion explained, "you even asking me that is illegal." I heard the rustle of paper once again. There was a short pause, during which I guessed the border guard was reading. "So?" he asked. My nose itched under the hay. "Diplomatic immunity and protection against search and seizure of property." Solon's voice sounded mildly slimy. "So?" repeated the border guard. "So you need to let me an my friend here with the cart across the border. This paper is just as good as a passport." "Oh," replied the guard, "Okay then. Lemme just check the cart for contraband, standard procedure and all, you understand..." "What part of 'protection against search and seizure of property' do you not get?" "Huh?" "You can't search the cart." "But I have to. It's the standard." "But you can't." "But if you have contraband in the cart..." Solon suddenly sounded indignantly angry. "I am insulted at the very suggestion, private!" "But I'm just following..." "Fine, search away," Solon sneered, "but know that your superiors will hear of this!" "B-b-but I..." the border guard sputtered. "Fine. Go. Just forget I said anything." I pictured Solon wearing a huge grin just then. "Thank you, private," He replied, "I am glad that I could convince you to listen to reason... and the law." The cart lurched forward and I heard the border guard, just a few yards or so from me, mutter "Oh, Gawd, I'm gonna get so much crap for this." "There he is," Solon said, pointing to the uniformed stallion sitting behind the desk against the far right wall. I nodded, I guess as a way to acknowledge that I saw him. Solon nudged me. "Go talk to him." "About what?" I asked. "I don't know," Solon replied, rolling his eyes, "You need something, right? And that something requires you to join the army, right? Well, he's a detailing sergeant. It's his job to right orders for ponies who've been 'transferred' from one base to another." He nudged me again. "Go." I snorted. Goddesses be good, none of this made any sense! I walked to the front of his desk and asked, timidly, "Detailing Sergeant Bloodfire?" "That’s me," he said, not even bothering to look up from the levitated book he was reading. It was a thick paperback book with the title 'The Naval High-Seas Adventures of Hayseed Hoopspinner' and a very creased spine. The detailing sergeant looked probably twice my age, but maybe a little less than that. His golden coat looked dulled from age. Gray strands stood out against his red mane. His body looked like he had once been a strong warrior but had let that go a little by taking a job that made him sit around a lot. His face had was a little creased as if to match the spine of his book. I already knew I was talking to the right pony because Solon had told me, but I pretended to act relieved at finding the correct detailing sergeant because it felt a little less awkward. "Oh, well that’s good. Nice to meet you. I’m..." He interrupted me. "What d’ya need, civvy?" he asked, bringing down his book so he could peer over the top of it, his voice tinged with annoyance. "Actually, why are you even in my office?" I was in an office? I thought he just had a desk. "Your marefriend get deployed to some eastern shithole? You here to try and get her orders changed? Well, I gotta tell you that I see a lot of ponies like you trying to get orders adjusted and..." I had no idea what he was talking, so I decided it was my turn to interrupt. "Umm, no. I'm here because, umm..." My mind went slightly blank as I grasped for the words Brute had told me to say. "Crap, what was that code phrase... uh, 'what you did for me was a very kind gesture.' Yeah, that was it." His eyes widened and brightened. He gently folded down the corner of a page in his book and set it down in an already opened drawer. "Oh. Ooooh, so you’re that buck then. Well, it’s certainly good to finally meet you." He had heard of me? Had Brute told him about me? Or Prophetess? "Your name wouldn’t happen to be Fall, would it?" "It is," I answered. “Well then, So, tell me again, exactly why you did... what you did. Why do you care? Well, I do care. That’s what matters. It’s my job to understand the minds of those who... I don’t have any reason to trust you. Do you have a reason to trust anypony? You’re a wanted stallion and there are plenty who would not be willing to give you due process. You certainly chose a... gruesome method for your work. I... Look, Iron, I want to help you. I don’t have a hidden agenda or some reason to be lying to you, it’s just my nature to need to help ponies! You’ve seen my cutie-mark, you know I’m telling the truth. A scalpel can cut for more than one reason. What does “the tyrants are calling” mean? What? We found it written a hundred times on the underside of your mattress. I don’t... What is that?! Oh, don’t be alarmed. It’s just a little gizmo the army came up with to help soldiers suffering from psychological trauma. Soldiers like you. I’m not suffering from... Yes... yes you are. Yes... yes I am... I’m sorry for doubting you, Ma’am. I always knew you had my best intere... Shhhhh... Rest easy, soldier. You’ve got a long trip ahead of you. “What?” “The bar,” she replied, rolling her eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, kid, I’m no unicorn and my neck doesn’t exactly stretch that far.” “Oh.” I tentatively reached my jaw to grab the pole jutting from the dark mare’s side. “Alright,” she said, way too calm for what I was about to do, “when I say go, you yank that fucker out, got it?” I nodded. “Okay. One, two, three, go!” I yanked that fucker out and let it clatter to the floor, thunking hollowly against the boards. Following the pole came an ugly green ooze of some unnatural sludge that really didn’t seem like it should have come from a pony. The smell of it, or lack of smell rather, made me feel a little sick. The dark mare showed no pain, exhaling slowly as though she’d just managed to remove a tiny splinter that had bothered her for a few days. let’s get your paperwork in order and get you set up with a good story,” He glanced at my barding. “and get you a uniform.” “What’s wrong with the armor I have?” He smirked and tilted his head. “Well, you know, the NCR may be a bit more... shall we say, standardized? Than what you’re used to.” “Hmm...” That sounded true. And this is how I became Iron Heart, Corporal, NCRA Military Policepony. I was transferred from Appleloosa Auxiliary Reserve Command where I had patrolled the streets, finding criminals and keeping other military ponies from violating some set of laws called the Standardized Code of Equestrian Military Justice or SCEMJ. As it was customary when arriving at a new command post, the sergeant outfitted me with a Class-A dress uniform. It was a deep, dark green high collar coat made of wool with a black stripe running down either side. On the front of the right shoulder was a sewn-on patch depicting two slanted gold stripes next to a shield. This patch was apparently what made me a corporal. The sergeant gave me several little pieces of multicolor cloth pasted to thin bits of metal. He said they were awards for... something, I forget what they meant. Except for one of them. One was for being wounded in combat. I put on a set of boots. He said Military Policeponies wore sand colored boots in their dress uniforms instead of fancy pony-shoes. Hat, or “cover” as he called it, came last. It was a red thing made of a soft fabric, a beret he said, that sloped over my ear to the left so that it felt lopsided. A silver shield shaped badge was pinned to the front. And when I put on the uniform I had a strange feeling. A new name, a new look, a new story... I could feel the old me, the real me, being buried. “Oh, you’re back,” she said. A half-smile wormed its way across her face. Bloodfire smiled in return. “Yes, it would appear that way. I brought a friend.” “I can see that.” She turned away from us and trotted to a small table by the big counter on the left side of the store. “So how much trouble is this one in?” “None,” he replied, and with a smirk added, “believe it or not.” “Sooo...” Her voice trailed off, “He’s here because...” “Because he’ll be of import to us later. For now, he just needs a place to stay.” The mare turned her eyes on me. “You’re letting yourself get pulled into his crazy schemes, you know, right?” I shrugged. “Can’t end me up in a worse place than I was before.” Before Solon and I left for the border Brute pulled me aside. “When you meet the sergeant,” he said, “tell him 'what you did for me was a very kind gesture.' That is the codephrase you must use to let him know I sent you.” “Your bed is in this room. It’s the one on the right hoof side, third from the wall. You might want to change the sheets, though. Last mare who used that bed brought over a lot o’ smelly ghoul hookers.” I nodded, outwardly showing no emotion, or at least attempting not to show any excitement. Inside, I was jumping for joy like a young buck getting their first warrior stripes painted on. A bed? A real bed all to myself? After all the time I spent in the desert, in the slave camp, I had a place to stay with a real roof and a real mattress and real food! "Breakfast is at seven, but since you'll be working on base you should check out the chow hall schedule. I guess Bloody is going to show you around your first day." She looked to my new employer. "That right?" He nodded and she continued. "If you need something, ask for it. If I find any shit missing from my store I know who to blame. You're the only pony staying here right now who I don't know much about." I nodded. "So what should I do while I wait to... to do whatever it is Military Policeponies do?" She shrugged. "Most of the ponies who stay here don't do much of anything. There're casinos and stuff downtown, but you don't exactly look like the most cap-loaded of ponies." She shrugged again, as though she perceived the act of shrugging needing reiteration. "The Church of the Lightbringer has a chapter up the street if you're the religious type, and there's a cheap saloon down the street if you ain't." The Lightbringer. I'd heard that name before. The pony who saved Equestria or something like that. I felt the need to learn more. "If that's all I need to get back to work arranging the attic," she said, "Feel free to settle in and get comfortable. Dinner's at eight, er, twenty hundred. Whatever." She turned to leave, heading with folded wings toward the ladder coming from the ceiling. Bloodfire seemed to have mysteriously vanished. "Wait," I said as I suddenly realized I'd forgotten something important. She stopped and turned her head. "What is it?" "I didn't get your name." She smiled slightly. "It's Cramberry, but everypony calls me Cram. You?" "Fall... I mean, Iron. It's nice to meet you, Cram." "Nice to meet you too, Fall, Iron, whatever." Authors note: I’m not going to finish this fic. I have completely lost interest in it and it depresses me to look at it. However, I thought that if anyone wanted to look at what I had written for chapter nine before I gave up then it would only be fair to post it. Anyway, I’ve learned my lesson: never, ever, ever attempt an experimental fan fic your first time around. Ever. Thanks for the support I got from those of y’all who actually liked this crap. If you’re interested, I’m working on a new fic that may or may not be a one-shot. Adios!
PrologueWar. War never changes. In the months leading up to the great conflict between Zebras and Ponies that destroyed the land of Equestria, the great seers of the buffalo tribes predicted the end of days. After warning the ponies in the city of Appleoosa of their nation's demise, they traveled south to The Ghost Lands, a realm of valleys and canyons that had been their home a thousand years before their migration to Equestria. When the War began, some unicorns and earth ponies remembered the warning and left to join the buffalo. While not directly hit by balefire and megaspells, ponies and buffalo were nevertheless forced to escape the fallout and ambient magical radiation produced by the war's violent end by seeking refuge in vast cave networks. When they emerged a hundred years later, they had formed separate societies and culture. In some of these new tribes, ponies and buffalo were equal. In others, they were not. These differences led to conflicts. Now only two major tribes, the Fire Hairs and the White Hooves, vie for complete control of the ever dwindling farming and stampeding grounds of The Ghost Lands, neither being able to gain the upper hoof. To the far north a new nation has sprung up. The New Canterlot Republic, a country made possible by the sacrifices of the mysterious Stable Dweller, the Elements of Harmony, and the Gardens of Equestria, was founded on the principals of hope, forgiveness, and restoration, though it also has enemies. Both tribes were contacted by ambassadors of the young New Canterlot Republic and now the leader of the White Hooves, Chief Sand Horns, seeks an alliance. For that, however, he needs an ambassador of his own. The road north is filled with hazards both environmental and sentient. One pony will be sent to brave the dangers posed by the land and inhabitants of the Southern Equestrian Wasteland, a place where war never changes. Fallout: Equestria: Honest Herds
