Fallout: New Republic

Selene was able to drag Neighbourhood along under his wing easily enough. She had almost no balance left from the vodka poured through the hose directly into her stomach, and was likely still tiered. As a result Selene had to hold her tightly against his side and balance her himself, but at least she was able to carry her own weight as they trotted along after the wagon.

By the time night fell they were deep into the San Palomino Desert, with near perfect visibility for miles in every direction. They could camp here and be sure no ponies could sneak up on them.

As the others began to settle in not far from the road, Selene dragged Neighbourhood, still gagged and muzzled, further away from the others. Pint Sized followed them.

"Hey," she mumbled, "I just want you to know I'm sorry about being an ass when we first met; I'm wasn't having a good day."

"It's ok," Selene mumbled back with a small smile. "Shit happens. As long as you own it and admit it, I'm ok with it."

Selene then turned to help Neighbourhood lie down, being careful to move her slowly. Her eyes had glazed over, and she was no longer really seeing what was in front of her. She looked about ready to pass out now, and was mostly oblivious to the world around her.

"Hey," Pint mumbled again, "do you really think she's safe?"

"Safe to have around? Yea, I'm sure she's not stupid enough to try anything," or at least that she'll spare me if she does get loose and start killing, Selene finished in his mind. "You should head back to the others: I'll be fine here."

"Ok... just shout if you need anything."

As Pint left Selene considered removing the muzzle and hose from Neighbourhood's head and mouth, but didn't, since he'd just have to wrestle it back on tomorrow. He then considered if he should give her any more vodka. She was close to blacking out as it was, but if he didn't she might sober up enough to be able to cast by morning, and if she woke up before him....

Not wanting to take that risk, Selene poured a bit more vodka down the hose into Neighbourhood's stomach.

Feeling the heat of alcohol in her belly, Neighbourhood looked up at Selene and frowned, eyes beginning to water slightly.

"Hey, you're going to be ok," Selene assured her, rubbing the back of her head. "Just go to sleep," he finished, pushing her head to the ground before leaning his own head on the side of her hips, far enough down he wouldn't be putting any pressure on her stomach.

He told himself he was just leaning against her so she couldn't try an sneak away without waking him, but he felt his breath hitch as he leaned against her. Hey, stop it! She's just a powerful tool, although if she becomes too much more trouble she may not be worth it...

***

Selene slept surprisingly well, all things considered. During his sleep he had migrated up Neighbourhood's side, and now lay with his neck and forelegs curled around her chest. He nuzzled his head into the soft fur on her neck, enjoying the moment wall it lasted. I may not love her, but a soft mare to cuddle with is a soft mare to cuddle with...

He eventually began to hear the noise of the others waking, and preparing to continue their journey, and pried himself from Neighbourhood's grip, taking the moment to look her over.

His eyes passed over her cutie mark. While this wasn't the first time he had seen her without her harness or cloak, this was the first time he really looked at her mark. It was a simple circle split by a jagged line down the middle, white on the bottom and a dark cyan on the top. The circle was itself cloaked in a red smear that trailed up her flank, smoothly curving up her hip.

It looked like a bi-colored meteor. ...I have no idea what that means... Oh well.

"Hey, it's time to get going," Selene said, shaking Neighbourhood awake.

***

They continued on for two days, slowly working their way down the San Palomino Dessert, and closer to Las Pegasus.

As they continued across the desert for the last day, the San Gabriel mountain range reared up on the horizon. When they had first drawn close enough to spot the mountains, Selene had thought they would reach them by nightfall easily. He was wrong, it had taken the entire day and they were still far from them when they stopped to sleep again.

Now, a day later, as they drew closer to the mountains, Selene began to understand why. Thunder had told him that they were not as tall as the Sierra Neighvada Mountains, but apparently not by much, Selene thought to himself as he stared up at the mountains lording over them, far into the permanent grey cloud cover that stretched across the wastelands. They were covered in snow for their entire top half, even now in the summer, creating a strange winter backdrop for the desert they were still crossing.

Luckily, while the San Gabriel Mountains were nearly as tall as the Sierra Neighvada range, they stretched only a dozen miles instead of the Sierra range's thousand miles, so they could easily pass around the mountains to the east instead of having to scale them.

"The Cajon Pass," Thunder explained to Selene as they neared it later that day, "is not so bad in terms of environmental hazards, but there is a large ghoul population nearby. They're mostly the ponies that survived the bombings of Las Pegasus, only to die from the radiation. Some managed to flee up into the San Gabriel mountains, only to die and end up frozen in the snow. Every summer the snow melts back further, and more are set free to replenish the few we manage to kill off in the valley pass, so don't bother wasting ammo on them, we'll just keep moving and stay quiet.

Tomorrow though. We're going to spend the night well away from those mountains."

"If we want to sneak through, wouldn't it be better to pass through during the night, when we're harder to spot?" Selene asked, although he was happy to get off his aching hooves earlier than usual today. He was a good sprinter and had great flying endurance, but he had only rarely needed to hike this kind of distance on his legs, and it was starting to get quite painful. He was a Pegasus, not a pack mule, and the extra weight of his new armor wasn't helping.

"No," Thunder answered simply. "They can't see well anyway: it'd be more of a disadvantage for us to travel at night, taking away one of our advantages over them."

***

As the others prepared to camp just off the road, Selene lead Neighbourhood away, down towards a small river coming down off the mountains to their west.

As they neared the river Selene took a few glances back at the others to make sure none were watching him too closely, then turned to the river. He took two of the three canteens he had been given filled with vodka, to keep Neighbourhood under, and quickly poured two of them out and filled them with river water.

Neighbourhood lay on the ground with her head towards the water a few feet away, but she was staring up at him with a curious look. She had spent the last three days quite drunk. Selene had tried to back off on the vodka he was forcing her to drink, but the others were too concerned that she might sober up enough to attack them, and told him to give her more.

Her expression shifted as she realized what he was doing, and could probably guess what he was planing.

***

As they started up into Cajon Pass Selene was careful to only give Neighbourhood the canteens filled with water. He had kept her drunk all last night, mostly because he didn't quite trust what she would do around the others once she sobered up enough to cast, but now that they were traveling into danger he wanted her able to defend herself, and him if it came to that. He cared about her more than them, was what it basically came down to. She was more valuable.

Pint was walking with Selene and Neighbourhood, well behind the others, when she turned to him and asked, "hey, can I have some?"

"Some what?" Selene asked back.

"The only thing you've got, bird brain!" she barked back with a broad grin, jumping into the argument with gusto. Selene was starting to like this little green mare, even if she was a little annoying.

"No, go get your own," Selene said with finality, gesturing towards the vodka cart well ahead of them.

"Naw, too lazy, so give it! What? You haven't replaced it with anything, have you?" she asked, obviously joking.

Selene tried to find a comeback that wouldn't incriminate him. He was a fairly good liar when it came to emotional things (oh, of course I really love you and am not just using you for sex... why would you think that?) but was fairly terrible at informational lies. Faking an emotion was easy, but keeping it from seeping in when delivering a simple answer was something he just couldn't do.

So he went with his usual tactic: telling the honest truth, but making it sound unbelievable. "Of course I have; swapped it with river water days ago. Look, she's basically sober," he finished by giving Neighbourhood a shove.

She stumbled away, shooting Selene a vicious glare after regaining her balance. She should have been mostly sober by now, but she still managed to put on a great act of still being deeply intoxicated. Note to brain: Neighbourhood is a good liar.

"Ha-ha, yea, whatever, just give it!" Pint squeaked, throwing herself into Selene's shoulder.

"I'm not even sure you're old enough to drink yet, little pony!" Selene shouted, shoving her back.

"Hey, I'm in my young twenties, same as you! Now give it!"

Selene sighed, and pulled what he hoped was the one canteen he still had filled with vodka from Neighborhoods harness, which he was still wearing over his own armor, and handed it to the little lime green pony.

She took a long swig, then handed it back, coughing. "Yuck. Premium Belvedeer Vodka my flank!"

"Hey, you asked for it," Selene mumbled as he pocketed the vodka and pulled out one of the water filled canteens, and poured some down Neighbourhood's hose. Even though she knew it was just water now, she still gave him a glare that was somehow both sad and angry at the same time. "Relax, you'll be fine," he said, giving her a soft pat on the shoulder as he turned away.

***

They had made it up over a large rise, and were preparing to descend down into the valley that was Cajon Pass. It was mostly a thick evergreen forest, far thicker than any Selene had seen in his travels across the wastes. The air was thick and humid, a sharp contrast to the arid desert they were leaving, making it hard to breath. It was as close to a jungle as they were likely to find in Northern Equestria.

"Ok, Swift, I want you to fly a good distance ahead of us. Selene, can you go with him?" Thunder asked, turning to him.

Selene stretched out his left wing, the one Neighbourhood had badly broken six days ago. Selene had been taking the potion she had bought him in Luckies Find for five of those days, and it had been healing shockingly fast. The bones and tendons were fine by now, but he was still completely missing two primary feathers. Normally they would take up to four months to grow back, but he had grown the other three in just four days. At this rate he'd be 100% in two days at most, which was lucky as he only had two days worth of potion left.

He probably could fly, on his own at least, but he didn't want to leave Neighbourhood behind with the others, for fear of what she'd do to them as much as fear of what they might try to do to her.

"Naw, I'm still not airworthy. Sorry Flint."

Thunder Flint winced slightly at the use of his family name, something Selene had picked up on during their travels, but he apparently didn't hate it enough to ask Selene to stop, so he didn't. "Ok, well then you can scout with Rosemary on the ground. Pint, I want you to check the sides, well ahead of us. If you get any ghouls on you, lead them away and lose them instead of leading them back to us.

I don't think any of the rest of you are fast enough, so kill them quietly if you can, or get Swift to lead them away, then he can just fly back. Understood?"

"Aye boss," The red mare Earthpony Selene had mostly ignored up until now barked. She had been rather quiet for the most part, staying well ahead of everyone else. The two massive Earthponies pulling the cart had hardly said anything either, so Selene ignored them too. Now that they would be alone with Neighbourhood and Thunder, Selene was wishing he had gotten to know a bit more about them, but it was too late now.

Swift took off, and extended out over the forest. He wouldn't be able to see much through the thick trees though.

Pint had already vanished. Selene hadn't noticed when she had left much less which direction she had gone. Oh... this is a wonderful idea...

He followed the red mare, Rosemary, off down the road, the two of them moving much faster than the Earthponies pulling the cart to get ahead of them.

***

Selene had tried to strike up a conversation with Rosemary, but she had shushed him immediately. So they trotted along in silence.

Every time they made it to a long straight in the road, or a decent sized meadow where visibility picked up to a few hundred feet, they would cross to the far side and wait until the cart would catch up, before continuing on ahead at a faster pace. They didn't want to get too far ahead and be unable to help if something went wrong.

Pint slipped back onto the road with them every ten minutes or so to check in, before disappearing back into the forest that was several shades darker than her light green coat. She was also checking in with Thunder periodically, keeping everyone informed.

Selene was beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about, when he heard gunshots not too far ahead of them.

"That sounds like Swift's carbine," Rosemary blurted out as she picked up into a gallop.

Selene kept pace with her fairly easily, using his wings to cheat by taking alternating leaps and glides through the air.

They rounded a bend in the road and came into a smaller meadow. Swift was perched up in a tree on the far side, firing down into a tightly packed horde of ghoul ponies. They're colors had faded, leaving a sickeningly bland collections of greys and browns instead of the bright pastel colors the ponies originally were. They fell as Swift fired, taking time to hit each in the head with a single aimed shot, safe on his high perch.

"Damn it, that idiot," Rosemary swore under her breath, stamping her forehoof on the ground as she thought. "Are you sure you can't fly?" she asked suddenly.

"I can short distances, easily enough to get to him."

"Ok, well fly over and tell him to lead them away: we don't have enough ammo to kill them all, and this noise will just bring more."

"Are you sure? It doesn't look like—"

"There are more: thousands," Rosemary interrupted, shoving Selene forward. "Go, and when he leads them away, hide in the trees and wait for them to clear out, or help lead them away yourself if you think you can fly long enough to escape."

"Ok," Selene mumbled.

He took several quick steps before jumping into the air, bringing his wings down hard, trying to push himself higher. He was expecting his left wing to catch less air, and wasn't flapping as hard with his right to compensate, but he still veered to the left at first, before finding his new balance on his still injured wing. He was able to gain altitude fairly easily though, and he already knew he could glide. He probably couldn't hover though, and he wasn't going to risk finding out over those... things.

He flew quickly across the meadow, well out of reach as the ghouls below surged around Swift's tree. He managed a rough landing in a tree opisite of Swift, making enough noise that many of the ghouls around Swift's tree turned to press against and flow around his. There were at least a hundred of them, and more were trickling out of the treeline.

"Whoa, hey!" Swift shouted across from his tree, holding fire for the moment. "This is crazy! Look at all of them!" He was wearing an ear to ear grin, having far more fun with this that he had any right to.

"Hey, Rosemary wants you to lead them away, and stop making so much noise!"

"What? We need to kill these things, otherwise this forest will never be safe!"

"It'll never be safe anyway, and besides, we don't have the ammo! Buck off, and lead them away! The more noise you make, the more will come!"

"Yea, yea," Swift mumbled, taking a few more shots at the ghouls, emptying what was left of his magazine, before switching it for a fresh one.

Selene checked his SMG and his personal 9mm pistol. Both were loaded, but neither had a round in the chamber, and he didn't feel like he'd need it: there were too many to kill, or even slow down, so he holstered and slung both weapons immediately after checking them.

Swift slung his carbine, then glided down from the tree, landing a few dozen feet further down the road. "Common, dinner time!" He shouted at the ghouls, which immediately gave up on trying to get Selene up in his tree, and turned to charge Swift. Selene had expected the slowly stumbling ghouls of fairy tails, but they managed a somewhat impressive if extremely uncoordinated canter, many skewing sideways as they ran.

Some couldn't keep that pace though, being too decayed, and fell behind. They would be the dangerous one's Selene realized, being left spread out behind the main horde, losing interest and beginning to wander, they would be the few to find prey and call the main horde in. If this even was the main horde, which Selene was beginning to doubt. And how many will Swifts firing bring down on us?

Selene waited in his tree for the last to move away, and for Rosemary to catch up. "Ok, let's keep moving," she called up to him.

***

They began to run into ghouls from then on, but usually just one or two. Selene would move forwards to get their attention, then lead them passed Rosemary who would move up behind them and rip them apart with two single-hoof arming swords she carried for apparently just this propose.

"Did you live around here?" Selene asked.

"No, but I've done this rout before. You need to kill them quietly, or you might as well just let them get you."

As they carried on, getting deeper into the forest, they began to run into larger groups. Selene had begun to help kill them himself. His armor was more than thick enough to stop their teeth from harming him, as long as he kept them away from his face. Even most of his neck was covered when he put is armored hood up and closed the collar.

His combat knife wasn't ideal for ghoul work though. It was too light to do any serious damage with a draw cut, and wasn't long enough to easily thrust into their internal organs. He tried slashing through their legs, tearing tendons and muscle, but they'd just lash out, using their crippled limbs as clubs. He tried bashing their teeth out with an armored hoof, but they'd just slam their head into him.

Every time he engaged even a small group, he would lose ground rapidly as his strikes and slashes refused to do enough damage to put them down. He couldn't even slow them. Luckily Rosemary was having a much easier time, her longer arming swords cutting deep into the ghouls, taking off entire limbs or tearing into their neck, severing their spine and the nerves within, leaving them flopping on the ground like fish.

Selene thrust his knife into a tall mares eye socket, stabbing back into her brain. He expected this to be enough to drop her, but apparently the ghouls didn't need much of their brain intact, and she kept coming. She thrashed her head to the side, jerking the knife out of Selene's grip. He would have grappled with her, to try and take the knife back, but a stallion was coming in on his right.

He jumped back, abandoning his knife for the moment, stepping to the side to put the stallion between him and the mare. As the stallion rushed forward, mouth hanging open, his massive eyes stained black with dried blood, Selene sprung forward, taking the momentum from his forward leap and transitioning it into a vicious forehoof strike catching the ghoul on the side of his skull. If it wasn't for his armored and padded shoe integrated into his armor he may have broken his wrist. Even through his armor he was left with a dull throbbing pain through his entire hoof.

The results were worth it though: with a disgustingly wet crunch the entire side of the stallions skull caved in, and he was sent sprawling back into the mare still struggling to rise behind him. To Selene's horror the stallion, who's skull was collapsed to the point of being almost unrecognizable, with bits of brain seeping out of the gaping cracks in his skull and tears in his hide, began to rise.

But the mare got to him first, completely ignoring the knife still lodged in her eye socket as she rushed him, snapping her jaws.

Selene backpedaled again. He noticed the mare was a Pegasus, her wing's flailing at her sides. Her feathers had fallen out centuries ago, leaving the thin wing arms bare, the skin rotting away in large patches revealing the hollow bones and tendons normally hidden beneath. She may have been quite attractive once—Selene was quite fond of mares that neared his own height—but the stumbling terror that had been left behind was a faded mockery of whatever she had once been. He couldn't even tell what her original fur color had been, and her mane was completely gone.

He hesitated for far too long. She managed to get close enough to snap her head forwards and bite down on his shoulder. Her teeth dug into the outer leather layer of his armor, but couldn't get through the thicker layers, let alone the thin metal plates. He threw himself backwards, and twisted away, dragging her onto her side, then yanked his knife from her eye. He tried stabbing through the side of her skull, but he missed whatever small part of her brain was still alive, hitting nothing but useless parts already long dead. He tried again in several other places.

She began to thrash from side to side, like a dog trying to break the back of it's prey. Selene was too heavy for her to bring down, but it made it impossible to aim as he fought to keep his balance. He reached a foreleg around behind her neck, pulling it down, then twisted his entire body away from her. He was trying to pry himself from her teeth, but she refused to let go. He ended up putting so much force into her head that her neck snapped with a wet pop.

She still clung to his shoulder for a few moments as her body went limp behind her, but after a moment her jaw went limp too as she finally died. Apparently severing their spine near the head was enough to actually kill them.

The stallion slammed into his right side, knocking them both to the ground. Selene pulled himself up and jumped away before turning to face him. The stallion, the side of his skull still caved in beyond all reason, was struggling to rise again. The damage Selene had done wasn't fatal, but it had left the monster barely functioning. Selene drove his knife into the stallions neck, just below the skull, and severed it's spine.

He then looked around to see how Rosemary was doing, just as she finished the last ghoul that had attacked her. There were nearly ten corpses arrayed around her. She had managed to kill all of them in the time it had taken Selene to kill his two.

"...You just need the right tool," she said as she moved up to Selene, passing him one of her swords. "Here, you'll do much better with this."

"Are you sure?" He asked, sheathing his combat knife at his side and gently taking the sword from her.

"Well, just be careful not to gut yourself with it," she said, giggling. The cold veneer of her personality had seemed to fade away. Selene put it down to an adrenaline high.

"What? No, I meant are you sure you want to give it to me."

"Yea, you're going to need it," she said, pulling off the swords scabbard and handing it over too.

Selene quickly found a place on his left side to strap it on, angled up enough to hopefully hold the sword during transit. The sword stuck in the scabbard fairly tightly, taking quite a bit of force to pull out, but he imagined it wouldn't be too hard to stop fast enough to have it go flying out. That would be a little embarrassing.

By the time he was done fixing the sword at his side, Thunder and his two stallion guards had rounded the bend and come into sight. He gave them a quick nod, noting the ghouls lying unmoving all around them.

"Let's get moving," she said, sliding back into her cold business tone.

***

The sword made everything much easier, but it was still annoyingly difficult to kill these things, and they were coming in ever larger swarms. Selene slashed the sword in a horizontal cut, the tip of the blade biting through a ghoul stallions throat, all the way back to it's spine. He didn't quite decapitate it, but it was enough damage to the spinal column to put it down.

Another ghoul took it's place imminently, so Selene cut back from the other direction in a mirror of his first strike, downing the second one.

The sword was a fairly bland looking thing, with a simple straight double edged blade, made from what looked like pressed steel. It was more of a doubled edged machete than a true sword, with it's balance far up the blade, making it feel more like an axe than the practice sabres Selene had sparred with as a kid. As a result it felt heavier than it was to move, and it's tip responded slowly. This, combined with it's complete lack of a guard and it's short length, would make it a terrible weapon in a dual against another sword, and almost useless when used defensively.

But Selene's armor made a guard redundant, he had enough guns to win a sword duel outright, and his current enemies were unarmed anyway, and with the balance so far up in the blade it was an incredible cutting tool for it's weight. It would be overkill against another pony, but every bit of extra depth he could get in his cuts counted against these monsters.

Still, it wasn't enough: Selene was cutting them down as quickly as he could, but he was still being pushed back, quickly. He heard more coming up behind him. He couldn't fight them like this.

He cut to the side, looping around the stream of ghouls coming at him from the front while also distancing himself from those coming out of the woods behind him. He cut down a few more as he crossed around them, retreating back up the road from where he had just come from, and where Rosemary still was.

Rosemary was doing far better than he was with the same weapon, killing the ghouls so quickly that she was pushing them back, able to advance forward. Still, more ghouls were coming up behind her, closing faster than she could press forward.

Selene disengaged from the ghouls still chasing him, and began to gallop back towards Rosemary. "Hey, who want's some free pony meat!" he shouted as he galloped up behind the ghouls coming up behind Rosemary. Almost all of them turned to charge him.

"Get it? It's a dick pun!" He imminently began to realize a problem. While Rosemary was now free to continue chopping away at the ghouls in front of her, she still had a lot to get through, meaning she wouldn't be able to come to help him anytime soon, and now he was facing ghouls both in front and behind himself.

He turned to run to the side, possibly looping back around the ghouls behind him, but another good sized herd pushed through the tree line, cutting him off. He turned to try the other side of the road, but more ghouls were coming in from that side to. Now, with ghouls rushing him from every side, Selene froze in the middle of the road.

His mind shouted at him, you're a Pegasus, stupid! right as the first ghoul hit him from the side. He tried to leap up, but two more bit into his flanks and dragged him back to the ground as the ghouls washed over him from every direction.

Well, buck me...