Fallout: Equestria: Honest Herds

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.)