Fallout: Equestria - Old Grudges

With the sun hanging just at the horizon between the cloud layer and the ocean horizon, the one thing I could be thankful for, was that the ambient air was cooling down rapidly. Looking back along the road, I paused as the sunlight finally pushed through the edge of the clouds. Even for as much as I hated the heat, I’d always enjoyed the sunset. I didn’t hate the Pegasi for closing us off from them at the end of the war, but what I did want to see was the actual sun go across the great blue sky of all the old stories. Getting back to real life, I pushed onward.

In the failing light of day, the imposing ornate tower that stood as the entrance to the old Neighpon theatre ruins sat as they had for the last two centuries. The crumbling, hole dotted outer walls that wrapped around it to make a small courtyard had long since lost their ornate decorations, most of them laying on the ground as worthless scraps of wood and metal. The scars of repeated gun battles and weather sent rays of scattered light through across the dusty concrete. Trotting between the large pillars that held up the front entrance to the place, I glanced over the flaking orange paint on them, finding that numerous obscenities and crude drawings adorned them.

Seeing them made me reflexively reach out for my revolver with my magic. Pulling it out, I checked the cylinder to make sure it was loaded. Satisfied that I was ready if there were a few raiders inside, I reached out with my magic and gripped the large door handle to the heavy wooden entrance doors. Pausing with a realization, I smirked and put my revolver back in my holster. If this ‘Banshee’ was here, why would there be raiders at all? She’d have cleared them out if she was using this place as a hideout.

Opening the door, I cringed as it let out a fairly loud and long set of heavy creaks. Stepping inside, I was immediately greeted with a set of curved, semicircle ticket counters to my sides. Looking over the dusty stands, I found a set of old movie posters set out on the one to my right. Curious, I stepped over to them to take a look. Like an idiot, I let the door go without thinking, and the heavy door shut with a resounding slam.

“What?” The gruff voice of a stallion spoke up from further in the old building. “Who’s there?” Banshee wasn’t supposed to be a stallion. So either A, this was a friend of hers… “Awww, don’t be shy! We only want to have some fun with you.” Or what looks like B, she hadn’t yet cleared the raiders from this place after all...

Okay, so this was bad. In a panic, I put my hooves through the dust on the ticket counter and pulled myself up, hopping over and behind the counter. Ducking down, I pressed myself back against the counter and let out a sigh. Staring at the floor, I perked my ears to listen.

“Here, pony pony pony.” The hoarse voice of a mare reverberated through the hall as it approached. Looking up, I froze as I looked across the semicircular ticket counter. A pair of small, green eyes peered angrily at me from the inside of a large cubby. A little brown filly with orange mane sat trained on me as I stared back. Quickly, she looked over toward the door out, nodding at it then at me.

Listening as the quick hoofsteps of the raiders drew closer, I shook my head. If I got up now, I’d be seen and they’d just gun me down. The small filly rolled her eyes angrily before repeating the process again. Did she want me to die? She obviously didn’t belong to these raiders, and she obviously wasn’t Banshee…

“Maybe the asshole left?” The stallion’s voice cropped up again, sounding like it was just over the counter. I listened as the heavy door creaked open again, only to slam shut again fairly quickly.

“Nah, we woulda heard ‘em go.” The mare spoke, her voice falling off for a moment. For almost half a minute, the air sat completely still and quiet. As slowly as I could, I wrapped my magic around my revolver, and slid it from it’s holster, levitating it right next to me. The heavy slam of a fire axe as it embedded itself in the counter next to my head made me flinch, but it made the filly in the cubby squeak in surprise.

“There ya are!” The stallion’s voice said as he all but leapt over the counter towards where the filly was. As he did, I pointed my revolver at him and was about to pull the trigger when a hoof swept down from above me and knocked it from my levitation. The crimson coated raider mare hopped down in front of me with a smile, standing on her rear hooves.

“Goodnight, Banshee!” She cackled out, swiftly bringing her hoof down on my head, and sending me into a world of pain and darkness.

“I’m going to say this again,” The angry voice of a stallion filling my ears was a rough way to come back to things. Wincing, my head spiked in pain, sending a sharp feeling from the base of my skull to the tip of my horn. “You always have been, and always will be, incompetent fucking MORONS!” The angry stallion bellowed.

“We swear, we didn’t know she was a mare!” The mare from before answered him hesitantly. “We’d only heard that the banshee is a blue coated unicorn with a pipbuck.”

Groggily, I opened my eyes to… fuzziness. Rubbing at my eyes with my forehooves, I found my glasses missing. If that weren’t already annoying enough, even without them, in the flickering firelight I could tell I was suspended in a cylindrical metal cage in somewhere that was not the old theatre. Now awake, I shivered as I was also missing all my clothes. The only thing still in my possession was thankfully my pipbuck.

“Besides, what were those two doin’ there if they ain’t know her?” The stallion from the theatre spoke up. “Wakey wakey!” He called out from below me, smacking the side of my cage with something. I recoiled at the hits, bracing myself against the sides of the cage with my hooves. I had to find a way to get out of this place! “Hey, bluebitch, you know Banshee?” The stallion laughed, amused at my fear.

Get ahold of yourself, Sawyer. You’re smarter than this. Sure they are raiders, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be talked out of it! I mean, if they were looking for Banshee as well, they’d have to be smart enough to know what’s what in the Los Pegasus ruins! I’ll just have to do the same thing I do to protect myself when at home, and that’s hide behind Eighth Note!

“I…” I started out. “I’m a courier for Eighth Note.” Turning my fuzzy gaze, I looked into the darkness where the stallion who’d sounded like he was in charge had been. “He… He’ll come and tear this place apart if he finds out you’ve hurt me.” That was fantastic, Sawyer, really sold it to them. Now they’ll just hold you for ransom and get Eighth to spend even more caps.

“Just shut your muzzle and relax. B wouldn’t let anything happen to her best friend.” The annoyed sounding voice of a filly came from behind me. Spinning around as best I could in my cage, the green eyes of the little filly from before swung in another cage near mine. “B will find her way here soon enough.” She sighed out, looking to get just a bit more comfortable in her cage. “Just a matter of time really before she shows up and wipes all these wimps off the face of the wasteland. Keeping quiet will make sure she doesn’t confuse you for one of them.”

“Oh, really?” The stallion in charge belted out a healthy laugh. “And what makes you so sure that she’ll come and save you?” From out of the dark, heavy hoofsteps approached our cages. The most massive unicorn I’d ever seen walked into the flickering firelight, absolutely rippling with muscles along his caramel colored coat. Even without my glasses, the gnarled shape of his short horn glinted with odd facets, most likely meaning it had been fractured at some point.

“The only reason you’re still here, Twix, is because your band haven’t been a threat to any settlements, only preying on random travelers like all the other scum raiders in this city.” The small filly had guts, I’ll give her that. But did she have to actively work to piss these guys off? Maybe she knew Banshee like she said, but alternatively she could be bluffing. “Though, you aren’t the first ones to have found her hideout, it’ll be the last time any of you step hoof near there again.”

“Strong words from such a weak little filly.” The stallion snorted. “Though, I’m getting tired of your attitude and lack of respect.” With a glimmer, his horn sparked as he lifted a bright yellow key up from his side. “Let’s see what’s more likely to happen first. If you’ll drop the attitude, or if your screams for mercy will draw your ‘friend’ here faster.” Even without my glasses, I could see the filly’s eyes go wide as the key floated closer. “Who knows! If I don’t break you in my tent, maybe I’ll let the others have a go at you as well!”

“Take me.” I blurted out, sharply covering my muzzle as I realized I’d acted without thinking. Silence fell across the camp as the key froze in place. Sure, it was without thinking, but she was a filly for Celestia’s sake! I couldn’t sit and watch as they took her like that.

“Oh, is the ‘courier’ that desperate for my ‘package’?” Twix bellowed out in laughter, his whole camp seeming to join in the hysteria as I felt more shame in that moment than ever before, even if it was in doing the right thing. Unfortunately, before I knew it, the laughter was over and he began moving the key up to the filly’s lock again. “I think not. What use are you as a prize to hold up over Eighth Note’s head, if I’ve broken you? I could trade you for anything I desire, so you will stay in your cage and be quiet.”

Without another option, I reached out with my magic and ripped the key away from his relatively weak magic. With only a moment to control it, I turned my attention to the bright bonfire in the center of the camp. Using as much force as I could muster, I flung the key at it, happily watching as it zipped into the center of it and sent up a few more ashes. A collective gasp fell across the camp, as Twix shifted his angry brown eyes up at me.

“Get him down from there.” He spoke in a low, guttural tone that shook me to the core. “Scalding, grab me the chain.”

“Y-yes, sir.” The mare who’d knocked me out nodded before trotting off toward the fire. As she did, one of the other stallion’s magic wrapped around my cage and lifted it. The large construction crane I’d been hooked onto came into view as I was spun around. With a sharp screech, the hook that still dangled off of the old pre-war equipment released the cage from it. Without any warning, the stallion holding me let me go, and the cage dropped hard onto the ground with me in it.

I cried out as I slammed into the cage and dirt. It rolled for a moment, flipping me onto my side before it rocked to a stop. I sat laying there as my head spun and I saw stars shoot around my vision like fiery streaks. Only, after a moment, one of the bright lines didn’t disappear. The whole cage rolled sideways, one of the rusted iron bars pressing down just behind my pipbuck and pinning my foreleg outside of the cage.

“Maybe you are right. Eighth Note would think me weak if I returned his ‘messenger’ in pristine condition.” As Twix spoke, he took heavy steps forward, the glowing line next to him in his magic swinging slightly as he did. I did my best to focus on it, going wide eyed as I realized that it was in fact, not a glowing line, but a red hot section of chain held in his magic. Tugging at my pinned hoof, I began to panick. “Now, keep that horn of yours dark, or I might just find the act of returning you at all… more trouble than it’s worth.” He smirked as he stepped up and lowered the chain down slowly. “Count yourself lucky. Were you anypony else, I’d just cut your pretty little pip leg off and watch you bleed to death in the dirt.”

The intense heat the iron gave of as it lowered down made me whimper. Desperately, I flailed and tried to move. The weight of the other raiders holding the cage still made it pointless, and the eagerness in their eyes only drove my fear to new heights. As the heat became too much, I opened my muzzle up and let out a scream.

And then he set it down across my foreleg.

My flesh boiled and my mind went blank with pain. I’ve been shot, stabbed, and sick to the point of near death, but nothing compared to this. All of me locked up as there was nothing else in my world but pain. Tears flowed from my eyes as I cried out, and all of my will to fight drained out of me faster than a glass of whiskey on a lonely night.

It had only been moments, but when he finally removed the chain, it had felt like hours. Even then, the pain still existed. The smell of my own burning flesh choked every breath. Even with the chain removed, the flesh between my hoof and my pipbuck bubbled and smoldered. More than anything, I’d wished for some release. Some way to end this painful suffering. With my voice exhausted of any more screams, and my body unwilling the writhe and thrash anymore, I watched as Twix’s smile grew even wider than it had been.

“Thank you for giving me just that little extra kick to remember why I so enjoy doing this.” He spoke with a strong tone, but it was lost on me. As Twix turned back around toward the fire, he gave a giggling laugh. “Leave the fucker there till morning. We’ll deal with him after we kill Banshee. But first, let’s eat. I’m fucking starving.”

“What about the filly?” The stallion from the theatre spoke up.

“Leave her as well.” Twix snorted. “She’ll need her rest for later tonight.” All the other raiders gave of various calls of excited agreement as they turned to follow him. Mercifully, I was now left alone.

The pressure against the side of my cage dropped off, and it rolled back slightly. The moment it did, I whimpered and pulled my charred forehoof back in. Coddling it, I curled myself up as tightly as possible and sobbed. This was why I never left home on my own. Days like today were why I couldn’t ever be anything other than a pony running short errands. I wasn’t strong enough to fight anypony. Sure, I’d done the ‘right’ thing, but what did it cost me?

“Pst.” The sound from behind me caught my attention as I sat whimpering in pain. “Psssst.” Again it came through the pain, making me turn my head to find out what it was.

“Hey.” The green eyes of the small filly looked down at me from her cage, hardly visible through the flickering firelight and my own watery eyes. “You’re still an idiot… but thank you.” She whispered softly. “You just need to hold on, alright?” Her voice lacked the anger it had held before, sounding nicer than anypony else I’d ever even known out here. Even my friends didn’t have that amount of respect in their voices. “I wasn’t lying. B is coming for us. Managed to scratch a T in the top of the desk before they dragged me out of there. She’ll know what it means.”

With another whimper, I carefully lowered my head back down. What good was it going to be with me on the ground. If a firefight broke out, I was nothing more than convenient cover to these raiders, or even worse, a hostage. Still, I was the expendable hostage, so what chance did I even have of getting out of here in the first place?

Best to just close my eyes, focus on nothing, and try to wait until this was all over. Before too long, the pain in my leg reminded me of an old memory I’d had. It was a painful memory, but it was still less so than the real world. With a calm heart, I lost myself in it, and prayed for tonight to be over.

The other foals around me screamed and laughed as they all ran around in the Stable’s apple orchard. I on the other hoof, was resting under one of the trees. In my recently discovered magic of levitation, I held two objects. One, was a clipboard with a blank piece of lined paper, while the other, was a pencil. Scrunching my muzzle, I didn’t understand why nothing was coming to mind today. Normally, my inspiration held no bounds, and I struggled to write with my muzzle as much as I’d come up with during the day. Now that writing was easier than anything, I felt as blank as my flank.

Then I was struck without warning. Not by inspiration, or an idea. Rather, by a flying soccer ball. It smacked off my head, knocking my writing supplies from my magic and the glasses from my muzzle.

“Oh yeah, did you see that?!” One of the other colts called out. I couldn’t recall his name, but I know I’d always hated him. “S.A.T.S. said it was a sixty percent chance and it got him right in the face!” To this, most of the other foals cheered and giggled incessantly. Annoyed, I went to pick up my stuff to leave, but I found that my pencil had snapped in half.

“That was a week's worth of allowance…” I sighed, feeling almost on the verge of tears. As my mother made very sure to tell me, pencils didn’t grow on trees down here in the stable. We had to make use of everything fully and completely.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.” The sharp voice of a mare had startled me. At first, I’d thought she was talking to me, but when I looked up, she held the ball in her own magic, standing there pointing her hoof at the offending colt. “I’m going to tell your Mom and get her to buy him a new pencil.” The blue mare who’d always sat in front of me in school stood over me, protecting me. Though I couldn’t recall her at the time, we’d grown to be best friends shortly afterward. Turning to me, she’d smiled, ignoring the insults that the bastard colt was throwing at her. “Come on, I’ll take you to his dorm.” Holding out her hoof to me, I smiled and wiped the tears forming in my eyes.

“Okay.” I nodded, taking her hoof and climbing onto my own. I don’t think I ever got why she took the stance of defending me back then. Even now, I’m not sure of why she did it. However, of course with my writing implement broken, it was at that moment I’d been struck by the hoof of inspiration. A superhero, a masked vigilante, out for justice to help those without hope. Sure, it’d be a lot like Mare Do Well, but this mare would be better, and more beautiful, and I’d call her…

Pausing before walking with her, I took the jagged and broken part of my pencil, and wrote the name down before I forgot it. Of course, it had been so long ago since that day, that just like the filly who’d been my friend, I couldn’t quite remember the name…

I missed my home, my family… my friends.

I came back to reality with a whimper, opening my unfocused eyes and looking up at the dark night sky. As I did, a soft, blue glint caught my eye traveling above me. I watched oddly as it drifted over, right into the little Filly’s cage.

“See.” She whispered. “Told ya’ she’d come through.” With a little snicker, the filly shuffled around in her cage a bit. Wondering just what the hell was going on, I turned over, whining from the pain my forehoof gave. There was a soft click before I watched in amazement as the door to the filly’s cage swung open. Without a moment’s hesitation, she hopped down from her cage to the dirt next to me. In her muzzle, she bit down on a long piece of dark metal, and the glint of a gold hairpin shone in her fetlock as she approached.

A fairly prominent crackle came through the air past the bonfire in the center of the camp. The odd sound of an old doo-wop song picked up, the tones of an old world stallion carrying through the night like the call of a two century old ghost.

Did someone leave the stove on?

Or did my darling just walk by?

She's hotter than a bright July

She is my cutie pie.

“It’s comin’ from da’ gate!” The annoying stallion from the theatre spoke up as he and another pony trotted towards the gate at the far end of the compound. The two of them pushed the gate open, revealing an odd sight. It was hard to tell from here, but it looked like a lantern had been set on the wreck of a skybus, with some sort of holotape system pumping out the music.

“It’s just a scare tactic.” Twix called out across the camp. Looking around with a smile, he scanned along the tops of the walls for a moment as the song continued. “It’s Banshee alright.”

Did someone turn the heat up?

Or did my love walk in the room?

Oh, just a little whiff of her perfume

Makes my heart go-

The wreck exploded in a prismatic display that was left as a fuzzy afterimage in my vision. The Stallion and his friend disappeared in the ferocious blast, which brought a smirk to my muzzle.

With a click, the back of my cage opened. Looking over, the filly stepped back and spit her tool out into her hoof. “There, you’re free.” She looked around for a second, pointing over to one of the ragged tents that sat opposite to where the crane that held us was. “Come on. My bet is our stuff is in there.” Rolling over, I bit down on my tongue to stifle the scream I gave from putting pressure on my wounded leg. She gave a chuckle as I favored my leg and limped out of my cage. “Atta boy, suck it up. We’re almost done here.”

“Hey!” The hoarse mare from before snapped. “The prisoners are free!”

“Shit,” The filly said as she went wide eyed. “time to run!” Turning, she took off straight toward the tent. As I did my best to hobble after her, gunfire and screaming erupted all around us. I don’t know if it was at us, or between Banshee and them, but I didn’t want to look back. Quickly approaching the entrance to the old canvas tent, I tripped and flopped down through the tent flap.

“Owch…” I grumbled as I rolled onto my side and started to stand up again. A few more shots punched a pair of holes through the canvas, streaming shafts of light into the dark interior. Another scream came from the outside, followed by more gunfire.

“Here.” The filly said before I felt a familiar shape resting on my muzzle. Using my horn, I tilted my glasses until they sat correctly on me. With the world in focus, I looked over in time to see the filly scoot my revolver along the floor toward me. Grabbing it in my levitation, feeling it’s weight again, it changed something in me.

Normally, combat left a pit in my stomach. I’d be good to get the hell out of here and never look back. Maybe it was being held like a slave again, or because I never want to lose the life I know for a second time. I wasn’t a fighter, but this was different. I wanted to kill that fucker for what he did to my leg, for what he promised to do to me. With a snarl, I turned back toward the tent flap and hobbled out.

Immediately as I pushed out the flap, that mare who’d hit me in the theatre met my eyes. She skid to a stop in front of me, fire axe held tightly in her muzzle. Slipping into S.A.T.S. without a second thought, I found that the system gave me an eighty percent chance to hit her in the chest, and a sixty percent chance to hit her in the head. With the memory of that day in the stable still fresh in my mind, I toggled three shots to her head and executed the spell.

The slowness of S.A.T.S. was still an oddity to me. I never really used the system because I hardly ever found myself in combat. Even then, it’d hardly ever proven itself useful. However, today I needed it. I watched in content fascination as the spell guided my .44 and pulled the trigger. One, two, three shots, straight at the mare’s stupid face.

All three shots zipped through the air. The first two missed by mere inches, flying past each side of the mare’s neck. Two misses at sixty percent? Seriously!? Okay then, odds were in my favor for the third shot… So why was I not surprised when the third shot punched a hole straight through the angry mare’s right ear.

Time jerked forward as it did with the end of the spell, and the angry mare recoiled only momentarily from the shot. Panicking, I squeezed the trigger again with my magic, sending a round right through the mare’s leg. That got her to scream, but as she did, she launched herself toward me. With the force of an out of control wagon, she slammed me down to the dirt. I lost focus on my gun again, quickly shaking the hit off as she pushed herself up to stand over me. Raising her axe high with her muzzle, she was about to bring it down and end my life.

The resounding blast of a shotgun snapped her head to the side as half of it exploded into gore. The mare slumped over, dropping into the dirt in a bloody heap straight onto my revolver.

The silence that filled the air now felt awkwardly forced to my attention. The cracking of the bonfire still lit in camp was one of the only sounds I could hear. The other sound was that of a few hoofsteps slowly coming up to me. Looking up from where I was, I watched as the strange, white masked unicorn walked closer.

The rough burlap cloak she wore as a hood fluttered in her magic as she pulled it off. Under it, she wore various pieces of combat armor strapped over a dusty blue jumpsuit. The armor itself wasn’t much anything special, but it had been well used. In fact, there was still a lead slug stuck in the composite breastplate she wore. Two blue eyes stared at me curiously from behind the intimidating white mask that hid her face, going wide. Her blue aura wrapped around the mask and pulled it off sharply while also flicking the tie for her bunned white and grey striped mane out as well. The mare that stood before me smiled as she looked down at me, and my brain screamed to tell me why she looked so familiar. But I didn’t believe it.

“Sawyer?” She spoke. “Been a long time since the stable fell.” Holding out her hoof to me, I couldn’t help but think that even though we’d both been out in this hellscape of a world, she hadn’t even changed. “How’s my long lost best friend been holding up all these years?”

With that revelation out of the way, and the adrenalin worn off, my body told me that I was done for today, and my mind agreed. With a sigh, I collapsed back into the dirt, and gladly passed out for a while.

--Chapter End--

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”

Quests Finished: Rebel Without A Cause

Quests Started: Scream of The Banshee

Levels Earned: 2->3

Perks Earned: Stalliongrad Roulette -

Nothing beats a little luck in a gunfight. Your critical chance is increased by 1 for each empty chamber in a revolver, but your chances of a misfire likewise increase.