Fallout: Equestria: Honest Herds

Fallout: 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)