Fallout Equestria: And None Shall Follow

Chapter 4: Old Friends

It was one thing to say we were going to Fillydelphia, quit another to actually get there. The main problem was quit simple, the facility we were starting out from was nearly on the other side of Equestria from Fillydelphia. So yeah, we had several weeks of travel ahead of us, and and the end, out destination was almost literally on the doorstep of the closest thing to taurtarus. Heck, I'm pretty sure taurtarus was getting off easy compared to Filly. We were going to have to pick up more supplies somewhere, probably a couple places. I catched essentials along my frequent trade routes, but I had never been foolish enough to try and trade with Filly. And I couldn't carry enough supplies to get us across Equestria all at once. Thankfully, we now had a decent stock of goods to trade for essentials, but it was still going to be a long hard road.
I had spent the evening putting everything of value in my pack saddle, then sorting out the cheaper items by priority. Food and water all came, but I had to leave a bit of junk that I would have normally loaded into Practicality. I needed the space for essentials, and I really did prefer avoiding danger rather then shooting through it. Plus I could always just chuck rocks into it if I ran out of my current limited supply of junk. That morning, we set out, in yet another wet miserable day. Thankfully the storage facility was far enough from any settlements or main trade routes that the next few days were uneventful. Not a pony crossed out path, and the only wildlife we encountered was smart enough to stay out of our way. However, we had to get into more "civilized" areas eventually, and I altered our coarse, heading towards a settlement for a supply run.

It was a little farming settlement called furrow. I had only been here once, a couple years ago, but they had a half decent market. Unfortunately, they also didn't remember me. Which left to the usual ritual of me standing very still with a lot of guns shoved in my face.

"We don't need any stinking raiders here!" Snarled a female earth pony, pointing a double barreled shotgun smack in my face.

"I'm a trader, not a raider." I growled, rolling my eyes.

"I only seen manes like that on raiders." She glowered. "An' I don't like them stripes. What are you, some sort of half-zebra raider spawn?!"

"I'm a DONKEY!" I said, doing my best to keep the growl out of my voice. I wanted into the place after all. "Look, big ears, tufty tail, just got a few stripes to. NOT part zebra."

She paced around me, looking me all over, carefully. Finally, she stopped. "Fine." She said, semi-resentfully. "We might need a few thing. But I got my eye on you. So keep any weapons holstered or we will blow you ta' kingdom come."

With that, she turned and motioned for me to proceed. Which I did. I even managed to avoid rolling my eyes until she couldn't see. See, polite as anything. The kid followed, seeming quite a bit more rattled by the whole experience, if the stuttering was anything to judge by.

"Th-th-they p-pointed guns at us!" He squeaked.

"Yup" I intoned.

""J-just for walking up!"

"Uh-huh."

"WHY?!"

"Because they're stupid ignorant ponies who shoot anything that looks different than them." Was what I thought. What I said was. "Just be glad they didn't shoot us at first sight, happens a lot to me."

He stopped in his tracks, looking ether shocked or frightened, I wasn't sure which, but by then, we had reached the market, and I had other things to do. I headed for the nicest looking stall, but froze for just an instant when I saw a well-muscled dull-grey unicorn with the cutie mark of a rifle finishing business. For a moment, a look of rage crossed my face, before it fell away and was replaced with a carefully neutral expression, and I resumed moving. The kid had noticed, but he wasn't asking yet.

"Got trade goods." I said, trotting up to silver earth pony mare behind the wooden counter as she finished counting out coins to the unicorn.
"Yeah, let me finish with..." She started to say, before she was interrupted.

"Scrounger!" The unicorn exclaimed, sounded a little surprised and happy. The shopkeeper looked confused. Especially when I failed to react at all and just started placing out goods.

"Uh, Scrounger?" The unicorn said, tapping me with a hoof. Still no reaction. "Oh come on, your still holding that against us?"

"Hey Ready Fire, whats up?' A mares voice inquired. A soft orange unicorn wandered over from the next stall, drawn by the others words. He motioned at my still unresponsive form, and she brightened up. "Hey, Scrounger!" She called happily. "Good to know your still kicking!" Again, I didn't react. She looked from me to the stallion. "Really, still?"

"Apparently." He sighed. Meanwhile, the shopkeeper decided to just ignore all this as well and start examining my goods. A large green earth pony stallion moved over from where he had been guarding a heavily loaded brahmin and also caught sight of me. He started to call out, but the others just shook their heads, rolling their eyes.

"Um, whats going on?" The kid asked. Apparently, the others hadn't noticed him behind me, and they crainned their heads to look, causing him to duck back nervously.

"Holy crap, she stole a kid." I heard the earth pony mutter.

"Trading." I grunted, starting to haggle with the shopkeeper for caps and goods.

"But... who are they?" He asked, motioning to the others.

I made a great show of looking around. "No one here kid." I said after a moment, then got back to haggling. The kid just looked confused.

"Oh, don't bother kid." Ready Fire said. "She won't acknowledge we exist. But I'm Ready Fire, this is Dawning Light, and the earth pony is Heavy Load."

"Um, hi." The kid said, stepping away from me. "Uh, why won't Scrounger look at you?"

"Long story kid." Ready Fire said. "Lets sit down were miss PRISSY HOOVES over there can hear and I'll tell you. "

They moved off, but of course stayed where I could hear as they talked.

"Its like this, back when we were younger, we were all in a caravan together. Scrounger must have been just a few years older then you, but she's so short, who knows. Anyway, we had been traveling together for a while..."
.....
Equestrian Wasteland, 11 years previously

I huffed, panting slightly in the heat, the heavy saddlebags at my sides rubbing away at my back. Still, I was doing better then a lot of the ponies here. Ready Fire, Dawning Light, and Heavy Load were all suffering from the heat more then I was, and I still had more water in my canteen. Sometimes being a donkey had its advantages, like being more adapted for the heat, for one. True, my legs had to take three steps to their two, but I had plenty of growing left to do. They may be a few years older then me, but I hoped they always wouldn't tower over me.
Hard Trail held up a hoof ahead, signaling us to take a break. A dark brown unicorn, he was Ready Fire and Dawning Light's father, and the one who had finally given me a job. Found me hauling a load of scrap nearly my own weight to sell for a enough to get some food for once, and offered me a job hauling for his caravan. At the time I had nearly idolized him for being to kind. Now... well, the old skin-flint had probably just found another dirt-cheap source of labor. Come on, his work-pool was made up of three teenagers and a dumb brahmin for a reason. But at the time all I cared about was that I actually got to eat every day, and all I had to do was carry a pack around with me. Yeah, I seemed to get a bit less, but I was small, I couldn't do as much. At least, that's what I told myself.

After a couple of years, I sort of began thinking of us as some weird sort of family, traveling the wastes together, searching for "treasure" to sell and seeing the world. All the time with jokes and fun had by all. Yeah, the jokes were on me, a lot, ok, all of them were. But hey, families did that... right? As we sat and drank, I got another little "Joke" In which my canteen got tossed around and everyone else got a drink. But they finally tossed it back to me, Hard Trail signaled us to get moving, and we were on our way.

It was still blisteringly hot, and the sand underfoot made for slow going. but the road to New Pegasus, biggest settlement in this part of equestria, ran through this desert, so cross it we would. As hours passed, I was right behind Hard Trail, while the others were starting to lag. I figured we were due to stop soon. We had passed a massive old sky wagon a few minutes before, but an old fuel station was just in sight, and we were heading for that. Then, as we past a massive sand dune, it seemed to explode.

Sand flew everywhere as three massive black forms leaped out from the remains of the dunes. We drew guns and fired. I just had a little pistol made out of rusty parts and a bit of pipe. It did nothing, just seemed to make the radscorpions even angrier. They charged in, and as the others also realized their rounds were doing little damage, we bolted. I was nearest the creatures, and the shortest, but, as a donkey, my legs were even shorter then pony legs. I was not built for sprinting. The others were swiftly outpacing me, heading strait for the sky wagon. I called out desperate, wanted them to slow down, to help me. They didn't even look back. Meanwhile, the radscorpions were right on my tail, and I was already tired from a long days travel. My legs and lungs were already starting to burn. But if I could just hold on until I got to the sky wagon with the others. Far ahead, the others were jumping into the wagon. I did my best to speed up, but my legs had no more speed left in them. Then, I heard them close the wagon doors.

Shocked, I missed a step, and tumbled to the ground. The radscropions were instantly upon me. Only shear luck saved me. The had been running to fast to stop and get me. Instead, they ran right over me, multi-jointed legs falling on all sides of me. They swept over me, and started to turn. I rolled to my feet and staggered into a run as the radscorpions came after me again. I couldn't keep this up long, I needed shelter, NOW. But their was nothing, except the fuel station, which was to far to reach, and sand in every direction. So I just kept running. I headed for the distant station, hoping against hope that I could make it. I knew I wouldn't, but it was the only hope I had. Then, I spotted the pipe. It was small, dark, sticking out of a sand bank, and I had no idea where it went, but I had nothing else. I went for it.

I dove into the narrow inlet, and as my head and shoulder cleared, I thought I was home free. Then I stuck tight, my hindquarters sticking out into the wasteland. I knew the problem, the saddlebags. I squirmed, desperate to break loose. A pincer caught my hind leg, and started dragging me out, and I fought it to no avail. Dragged back out of the pipe, I screamed in sheer terror as one of the radscorpions tail barbs swung down... and ripped through the saddlebags. I couldn't believe the luck. But I wasn't going to stay and question it. Now able to see my foe, I put a hoof into the radscorpions eye, and it released me. I leaped into the pipe, and crawled in as fast as I could manage. To my horror, after only a moment, my nose hit sand. It was a dead end.

The pipe wasn't even big enough for me to turn around in, so all I could do was sit and wait to be hauled out. But several long moments passed and nothing reached in. Instead I simply heard a lot of scraping outside the pipe. Then, I realized the giants claws were far to big to actually fit in the pipe. As long as they couldn't break through, I was safe. And so began the waiting game. They kept up outside for a long time, and, exhausted, I finally fell into sleep.

When I awoke, I heard movement outside the pipe. I listened hard, but it wasn't radscorpions, it was hooves. And voices.

"Got her saddlebags." I heard Hard Trail say. "Must have got her. Lucky for us they left the bag, so its not much loss."

I saw red. Really, for all they new, I was in twenty pieces right now, but as long as they had my loot, it wasn't an issue? I backed out the pipe as fast as I could, coming flying out in the middle of them all. They jumped back, surprised, and I clambered to my feet.

""Not much of a loss!" I screamed, red faced and practically vibrating in hate. "I worked for you, helped you, and I'm not much of a loss!"
"Now look.." He started. But I interrupted. By shoving my pipe pistol in his mouth.

"SHUT! UP!" I screamed, eyes tearing. "I trusted you people, and you left me to flipping die!" By this point, the others were pointing their own guns as me, but I didn't care. I held his head in place with one hoof and leaned in. "You are all dead to me." I growled. With that I released him and lowered my pistol. The others were yelling commands for me to stop, to drop the gun, anything. I didn't react. They were dead now. They no longer existed for me.
.....
"And she just walked off" Ready Fire finished. "No canteen, saddlebags, or anything but that pistol. Just walked off into the desert. Thought she had lost it. Didn't expect her to survive. But ran into her a year of so latter. Never has spoken to us though. Heck, wont even look at us."
"You left her to die." The kid spoke up. He looked upset. I didn't blame him.

"Hey, it was her or us." Ready Fire said with a dismissive wave of a hoof. "Really, you don't think she'll do the same to you if it comes down to it?"

"Hey kid, time to go." I said, as I finished storing away the goods. The kid, startled, climbed back to his feet and followed me out of town. He didn't say anything, not that he had to. As we passed out of town, I simply turned breifly and simply said. "No, I wont." And with that, we headed out again.

Level up!

New Perk Added: The Power of Backstory! Level 1: Your companion understands you better now. Companion combat efficiency is now raised 5%. Just think, you could level this perk up if you actually start interacting with that colt.