Fallout: Equestria - Broken Worlds

Chapter 4.

Misty, Caps and I walked down the dusty dirt road. I was told that Stable 114 was just a few miles south of Gem City, it would take a few hours to get there. Only after a few minutes I regretted ever coming out here. My hooves where already aching and I wasn’t even half way there. I always hated walking, I would normally fly to places, but I hated flying slow, and with Misty and Caps with me, I have no choice but to walk, or to slowly fly above them.

We walked for a little while longer, I realised I was walking ahead of Misty and Caps, so I stopped and turned round to let them catch up. But as I turned round, I noticed Misty staring at me flank. She noticed me and blushed.

“Uh…I was just wondering how you got your cutie mark.” She said nervously as her and Caps came to join by my side.

I looked down at my cutie mark. It was a white cloud with golden wings coming off from the side. It seemed like such a long time ago that I got it. I guess it was. 200 years ago…

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. My cutie mark was something I was never happy about. “I just flew through some clouds one day, I liked it, then boom, cutie mark.” It didn’t seem like I had a talent at flying, or flying though clouds. It was just something I enjoyed doing, I loved the feeling of going through them.

“Oh, cool.” Misty said. She looked down at hers. It was a crescent moon with a light grey mist covering it. The mist was just barley viable against Misty’s grey coat. “I was the last to get my cutie mark in my class. I wanted it so badly that I tried everything. I think I may have rushed my cutie mark; I don’t think it’s right for me. I got it from flying through mist at night, I was able to see through the mist, whereas my class was blind as a bat. I guess my special talent is good eyesight?” She shrugged. “Anyway, I changed my name to go with my cutie mark because I didn’t like my name before.”

“What was it before?” I said before I could think. It was probably rude of me to ask, but I wanted to know.

“Flutter Wing.” She said laughing slightly. “Yeah, you can see why I changed it.”

I then looked over to caps and saw his cutie mark was…A bottle cap.

“Does everyone base their names of their cutie mark?” I asked.

Caps chuckled. “Not everyone, but lots do. Yeah, got my cutie mark when some ass hat was trying to rip my mum off. I told him to lower the price by 30% and he said yes. That’s how I got my cutie mark. Guess I’m good at haggling.” He smiled.

Misty had good eyesight, Caps was good at haggling. I was…good at flying through clouds. If I could go back and change my cutie mark, I would.

“Well, that was a nice chat.” Caps said. “But we need to get back on track if we want to get to Stable 114 by sunset.” And with that, we were off again.

No one spoke much the entire journey. The occasional comment or joke came up, but that was it. I looked on my pip-bucks map. It said we were almost there, in fact, it said where were there now.

I looked around. Nothing. No stable, no mountain where a stable could be, no nothing.

“Well, the map says it should be here.” I said still searching for anything that could be a stable.

“Maybe the maps wrong?” Suggested Misty.

I hope it wasn’t. Because that would mean we just walked for miles for nothing.

“Or maybe…” Caps trailed off and pointed to a small cave entrance. “It’s underground.”

                                                                                                              ***

The entrance to the cave was small. We barley just squeezed into it. It was dark. But luckily, I found out that my pip-buck worked as a lamp as well. Stable-Tec may be bastards who froze me in stasis pods, but right now I was really thanking them for making the pip-bucks.

We once again walked in silence. The cave was narrow so we had to walk in single file. I looked at my map again. It still showed us to be above the Stable.

“Maybe we’re going the wrong way?” I asked.

“We might as well look down here.” Caps said. “We never kno-wow!” He yelled as he skidded to a stop over a large drop. He wobbled and Misty bit the back of his main and pulled him back.

“Thanks.” He chuckled.

The drop-off we large enough for all of us to stand on the edge. We all gathered round it and looked down.

“Can’t see the bottom.” Misty said as she stared down at the drop.

“I’ll fly down and check it out.” I offered. When neither of them objected, I took off.

I slowly descended the cave. I was about to give up and fly back, but the something caught my eyes. A train. I flew down and landed on a stone platform. It was an old, broken down train station.

I shouted out for Misty and Caps to come down. Misty came down, holding the terrified Caps in her hooves. Misty and Caps examined the area. Caps got onto the train and I followed.

“You think it still works?” He asked. I shook my head.

“It’s horse-powered. It requires coal and ponies to pull it.” I said as I pointed to the harness on the front of the train. Caps sighed.

“Gonna search it for loot.” He said and turned to go deeper into the train.

I jumped out and checked my map. It said I was just a little ways of Stable 114, so it could be anywhere. Well, I’m pretty sure it will be hard to miss a Stable.

I fly from platform to platform in search of the Stable. I was ready to give up and say we’re looking in the wrong place, but then Misty called my name. I went over to her. She was in an area I must have missed. I walked in, keeping my hoof in front of me to provide light. I called out to her, but then I spotted her in front of the big Stable 114 door.

“Found it!” She smiled.

I was about to call out for Caps, but he was already walking this way.

“Good job, Misty.” He said. “But how are we going to get in?”

Misty shrugged. I stepped up to the door and went over to the control panel. Misty sighed.

“We’re never going to guess the password!”

I looked at the buttons. I sighed and slammed my hoof onto the control panel. To mine, Misty and Caps’ surprise, an alarm sounded as the large Stable door rolled open.

“Well. That was easy.” Misty smiled as she and Caps walked in.

I followed, checking behind me in case someone heard the loud alarm. This was a proper Stable. Well. It was. I highly doubted any pony inhabited it anymore, for it had been ransacked. Paper’s littered the floors, cabinets were looted and knocked over. I wonder what happened to it.

The light of a glowing green terminal caught my attention. I jumped into and old broken chair and tapped my hooves on the keyboard. Luckily, it wasn’t locked. There were three files on it. Two were just reports about the Stable, nothing interesting. But the other…I clicked onto the file that was called. ‘I can hear ponies.’

I’ve been listening to the Stable door. I can hear ponies talking, ponies walking, ponies firing guns. It scared me. I don’t want anypony to come here and take our home. I’ve tried talking to the Overmare, she doesn’t believe me. I said we should go out and investigate, but all that got me was a slap to the face. She said we we’re never to open the Stable door. I kinda want the ponies to invade us, just so I can prove the Overmare wrong.

• Lily Hearts

I guess that would answer my question. The ponies must have invaded the Stable and killed and looted everypony. I hadn’t spotted any dead bodies…yet.

I got up and walk out into a hallway and caught up with Misty and Caps. This Stable was huge! It was already twice the size of mine.

“Where do we go?” I asked. “This place is huge!”

But as if to answer my question, a speaker above burst to life with the voice of a stallion.

“You want your precious Clockwork, back? Come and get him in the Overmare’s office. You better have the caps, or you and Clockwork die!” There was a burst of laughter then silence.

“Well, to the Overmare’s office we go.” Caps said but I put out a hoof to stop him.

“We don’t know how many of them there are, we don’t know what kind of guns they have!” I said, but Caps just smiled.

“Please. They’re raiders, they aren’t exactly the smartest ponies, we can easily take them on.” Caps said with a smile as he started off walking again.

I sighed and mumbled. “If you say so.”

                                                                                                            ***

We got lost quite a few times. The Stable was very big, and had many twists and turns. But eventually we found the hallway leading to the Overmare’s office. We followed it, going in a single file line. The hallway ended and opened up into a large room. There was some kind of generator placed right in the middle, and above that was a room with a large window. Looking into It, I could make out a stallion tied up.

We walked around and reached the room. There was a set of stairs which would lead right into the office. At the top of the stairs there was a door, which luckily had a window. Misty went up to see into the room. She looked around and counted something with her hoof, then came back down.

“Right, so there’s five of them. From what I can see, they don’t look very well armoured, and they don’t have very good guns. I say we go in and go crazy, just don’t shoot the pony tied up.” Misty said with a nod.

I thought these ponies were organised. But now they’re just saying go crazy. But I wasn’t arguing, ‘going crazy’ was my way to play.

We walked to the top of the stairs. Caps stood one side, I stood the other and Misty was in the middle. She mouthed the words, 3, 2, 1. When she said one, she kicked down the door and all chaos broke lose.

She flew in screaming and firing her assault rifle. Caps and I exchanged worried looks then followed in after her. I tried to stay back and hit unexpected targets with my shitty 10mm pistol. One pony was backing away, trying to find a place to hide. Before I could think, I fried. The bullet landed right in his head. His body went limp. It was bad before when I killed that other raider, but that pony was attacking me. I had to kill him. But this pony. This pony wasn’t fighting; he didn’t want to be here. And I killed him.

I was snapped out of my daze as a bullet came flying my way. It missed, luckily. I found the pony who had fired the bullet, I aimed up my gun, but then lowered it. I couldn’t. He was about to shoot again, and I was going to let him. I deserved it. I had already killed two ponies in one day! He brought the gun up, wrapped his magic around the trigger, he was about to pull it, but Misty’s bullet stopped him.

“There. That’s the last of them.” Caps said.

I couldn’t take my eyes of the pony in the corner. The pony I murdered. I felt cold tears tickle down my face. Misty looked to me and came rushing over.

“Slipstream, are you alright?” She asked, placing a hoof on my shoulder.

I shook my head. “No. I killed a pony. I killed pony who didn’t deserve to die.” I sighed. “I’m turning into a monster.”

Misty frowned. “Slipstream. These ponies are raiders, they rob, murder and rape innocent ponies! You shouldn’t feel bad about killing them.”

Although that fact did make me feel better, I still couldn’t shake the fact I had killed two ponies in one day. Doing something like that back before the war, would get you locked up for life! Or worse, they’d have you killed.

“Ehm, little help maybe?” Clockwork said, struggling against his restraints.

I walked over to the chair he was tied up to. I tried to undo the knot with my mouth and wings but had no luck. Caps walked over and easily undid the knots with his magic. He smirked.

“Unicorns are the master race.” He chuckled.

Clockwork got up and brushed the rope of him. He looked at me, and I took a step back. His grey fur. (If you could call it fur.) was torn and ripped in places, revealing wires and gears underneath. He wore a dirty old trench coat, which covered most of his body. Any mane he had was hidden under a brown, ripped fedora. His yellow glowing eyes locked onto me.

“Thanks for coming out to save me.” He said. “I was starting to think no pony was coming.” He smiled.

He must have recognised Misty and Caps because he seemed to ignore them as he held out a robotic claw for me to shake. I slowly reach out my hoof to shake his claw. He smiles.

“Clockwork. The synth detective.” He says proudly.

“Slipstream. The two-hundred-year old pony.” I replied.

He raised an eyebrow. “Two-hundred-years old?” He asked.

I sighed. “Long story.”

                                                                                                            ***

I explained everything to Clockwork. It took a while to explain, but after I did, he stood there shocked.

“You’re from before the war?” He asked. “That’s truly amazing. Never thought that cryostasis even worked!” He smiled. “What was it like?” He asked.

“Look, I’m sorry to break up your little interview Clockwork, but we really need to get going. This place gives me the creeps.” Caps said as he shivered.

“Ah, of course. I want to get back to Gem City as soon as possible too.” Clockwork said. “We can talk along the way.”

“Right then, let’s go.” Caps said as we all left the Overmare’s office.

We did one more search of a few rooms, to pick up any loot. I found a looked room. I also saw about five or so bobby pins scattered on the floor. I was taught the basics of lock picking by Tracer. So curiosity got the better of me, and I set down in front of the lock, picked up a bobby pin with my mouth and started picking the lock.

After a while of swearing and breaking bobby pins, I came down to my last pin. I moved extra carefully with this one, taking my time. I sighed with relief as I heard the click of the lock opening. I pushed the door open and stepped in.

It was a small room. A storage closet. Well, that was disappointing. I looked through the shelves, picking up anything useful like food, ammo, combat shotgun. Oh, combat shotgun. I pick it up, it felt good. It was a well-made gun. Wasn’t too heavy and wasn’t too light. As I held it, my pip-buck flashed. Apparently the gun was called ‘The Overmare’s Guardian.’ I guess this used to belong to the Overmare. Well, she wouldn’t be needing it now. So I slipped it, along with the ammo, caps and food I had collected, into my saddle bags.

We re-grouped by the Stable door. When I arrived, Misty and Clockwork where there, sitting on the floor talking. I sat down and joined them. We waiting a while for Caps. Misty was about to go and search for him, but then he came running in, panting.

“S-Sorry. Got lost.” He said panting.

Once Caps had gotten his breath back, we were out. We made our way through the train station, but Caps insisted he searched through it one last time. While he searched, we went on ahead. We reached the drop-off and waited for Caps’ return. After a short while, he came trotting over.

“Anything?” Clockwork asked.

Caps sighed. “Nope.”

“Waste of time.” Misty sighed.

“I’ll take Caps up, Slipstream, if you could take Clockwork?” Misty asked.

I nodded. I waited for Misty to safely fly Caps up. After she gave the all-clear I wrapped my hooves around Clockwork's chest. I grunted and I heaved him up. Should have expected the big metal pony to weigh a fucking ton.

After I got him up, I fell to the floor and rested while I caught my breath.

“Heh. Sorry, can’t help weighing a ton, tried going on a diet. Didn’t seem to work.” He smiled. I laughed and smiled up to him.

Once we were already, we got in a single file line and walked down the narrow tunnel towards the cave entrance. I stayed to the back, behind Clockwork. My hooves moved on in front of the other.

I was so focused on staring out ahead of me. I didn’t notice the tree root coming out from the ground. My hoof tripped on it. As I fell I reached out my hooves and pulled Clockwork down with me, Clockwork knocked Caps over, who then knocked Misty over…It was quite spectacular really. I got up and gave an awkward smile.

“Heh…Sorry.”

I bent down to help Clockwork up. He put out his metal claw, except all the fingers were pointing in the wrong direction. I flinched.

“Oh sweet Celestia, I’m so sorry.” I gasped. I just broke his fucking hoof…claw?

He laughed and shook his head. “It’s fine, happens all the time.” He bent down and pulled a screwdriver out of his trench coat.

As Misty and Caps got themselves up, Clockwork, worked on fixing his hoof. He carefully placed the screwdriver in each place until each finger was back in position.

“See. No harm done.” He smiled.

We continued to walk out. I stayed far back from the group this time, and kept my eyes to the ground.

As we reached the exit, we all got out and spread out. Clockwork sighed.

“Ah, good to see the…” He trailed off. “Good to see the clouds again anyway.”

I looked up. It was overcast here as well. Come to think of it. Everywhere was! It wasn’t like a normal cloud overcast, there was no breaks it in at all. Caps must have noticed me staring strangely at the cloud layer.

“The Grand Pegasus Enclave, built it.” He said. “The pegasus live up there with the luxury of the sun beating down on them, while we suffer miserably down here.” He growled. “Pieces of shit, all of them.”

Misty coughed and ruffled her wings. “Not every pegasus is in the Enclave.” She corrected him.

I continued to look up. The cloud layer didn’t seem that thick. A pegasus could easily fly through it. Especially a pegasus who’s special talent was flying through the damned things.

“Has any other pegasus tried to break through it?” I asked. Caps bitterly chuckled.

“Yeah. Many have in fact. But they were shot on sight.” He narrowed his eyes. “They don’t care about us. They don’t care about the Wasteland. All they care about is them.” He said sourly.

“Right.” I said, trying to break Caps from his rant about the Enclave. “We should get going, it’ll be dark soon.”

Clockwork looked up. “Doubt we’ll make it back before nightfall. We should find a place and set up camp.” He said.

As much as I really didn’t want to just sleep in the middle of nowhere, where ponies kill at please. I really didn’t want to argue either. And apparently neither did Caps or Misty. So we set out to find a place to set up camp.

                                                                                                              ***

We found a decent enough place under a large, withered old tree. The over-grown roots provided a place to rest our heads. It wasn’t a bed and there wasn’t a pillow…or blankets, but it would do for the night.

It got to be about midnight, and I still couldn’t fall asleep. I was too parodied about sleeping in the open, and since no one else had fallen asleep either, it seems everyone else was as well. It didn’t take a genius to work out the problem. I stood up, and went to stand on the other side of the tree.

“I’ll take first watch.” I said. No one argued.

“Just come wake me up when you want your watch to be over.” Misty yawned as all three of them closed their eyes.

I stared at Clockwork. Did he even need sleep? And how does he sleep? Does he just shut down or something? I shook my head. I would ask him some other time. I looked outwards and sighed. Why did I offer to take first watch? I was fucking shattered. I yawned…then closed my eyes. I then snapped back up and forced them open. I repeated this process about five times. But on the fifth time, I didn’t open my eyes again.

                                                                                                              ***

“There! I see them!” Growled a very similar voice. “Go!”

One day, maybe not today, or tomorrow, or in the next year, but one day I will get some fucking sleep.

I opened my eyes, then when I saw Zappity and three other ponies climbing a hill to our tree, I panicked. No. Panic is an understatement, more like, I had a panic attack and scream and cried for the others to get up, is more like it.

Misty, Caps and Clockwork all brought out their weapons. Clockwork bent down and fired. His gun was some sort of energy laser beam. Didn’t look like it would do much damage. But when one of the pony's exploded in one hit, and turned into ash, I took back the statement.

I brought out ‘The Overmare’s Guardian’ Misty eyed up my gun.

“Where’d you get that?” She asked as she too brought up her gun.

“In Stable 114. It was in a looked room.” I replied as I too eyed it up. Then I think we were both think the same thing.

“Do you know how to use it?”

Unfortunately, there wasn’t any time for me to answer. A shot rang out and just barely missed Misty and I’s head. Misty growled and aimed her gun.

“Just pull the trigger and hope for the best.” She said. She pulled up her gun and amid.

The two remaining ponies were using their magic for shields as they charged up the mountain. But there was no sign of Zappity. While Misty, Caps and Clockwork, where doing their best to get through their shields. I refrained from using my gun, which I didn’t even know how it worked. Plus, I couldn’t stand killing another pony today. So I went to look for Zappity.

I walked round the large tree. Nothing. I walked back. Nothing. I then turned round and-

“Surprise!” Zappity yelled as his armoured hoof flew right in my face.

I fell over from the force. He smirked.

“Well, well. We meet again.” He smiled.

I looked round to see if I could grab the attention of someone, but I was hidden behind the tree. I didn’t want to risk calling out, Zappity would shoot me in a blink of an eye. He continued to smirk and he placed a hoof on me, to keep me from moving.

“You know; I’ve been chasing your friends for a while now. They’re fuckers, both of them.” His smirk changed into an evil hate filled snarl. “My wife was just stealing some supplies to feed our daughter. Honestly! In this day and age stealing is the least bad thing that happens. Anyway, these little pricks over-reacted and killed her! Now I have to be a raider just to get supplies for feed my daughter.” His snarl went away and was replaced with sadness. “I don’t want this, but I have to.” Then that evil smirk returned. “And revenge is really sweet.”

Why was I getting pulled into this shit? I wasn’t the one who kill his wife. I didn’t want to think about Misty and Caps killing an innocent pony. She probably wasn’t, stealing is against the law anyway! Is there even a law in this time?

He pulled out his shotgun, smirking the whole time. He lined it up to my throat. His smirk grew more evil, it travelled to his eyes and all his features. It made me sick that ponies get a kick out of doing this.

He went to pull the trigger, but instead of his mouth grabbing it a blue mist got a hold of it instead. The blue mist yanked the gun out of Zappity’s hooves and turned it to face himself. The mist slowly wrapped around the trigger, and it took no time for Zappity to dash away.

The gun still levitated in the air, while Zappity ran down the mountain, then out of sight. The blue mist disappeared and then the gun fell. There was silence all around, so I guessed the others had finished their fight with the shield ponies.

“Hello?” I called out.

I looked around. There was nothing. I looked round the tree, Misty, Caps and Clockwork where there, looting the two dead bodies. I then looked up. There was a white unicorn mare with a stunning blue main, perching on a branch above me.

“Hi.” She says in a high pitched voice.

I look at her, then raise an eyebrow and point to the gun.

“That was you?” I asked. She nodded slightly. “Cool.” I smiled. “Thanks.” I then added.

“No problem.” The mare smiled.

From looking at her, she didn’t seem much older that a filly. She was small and skinny, but she had stunning deep blue eyes and sky blue main.

“Tootsie.” She smiled, then added. “That’s my name.” With that she jumped down from the high branch. I went out to catch her, thinking she would break a bone from that height. But her magic wrapped around her and she floated to the floor.

“Wow.” I stood there in awe. “You’re very talented with magic.” I said.

She smiled. “I know.” She walked closer to me. “What’s your name?” She said as she circled around me.

I saw Misty, Caps and Clockwork head my way, then they spotted the mare and froze.

“Slipstream.” I smiled down to her. I looked back up at the tree. “What where you doing up there?” I asked.

“looking for a way to Gem City.” She said, still walking around me.

I smiled. “You want to go to Gem City?” I asked. She froze.

“Yes. I’ve been searching for such a long time now. I’ve travelled all over Trottingham!” I saw small tears form in her beautiful eyes. “My mother and sister were heading over to Gem City, but a group of raider split us up.” She frowned, I went to comfort her but she snapped. “I know they are alive! They were strong! They wouldn’t die. So I want to go to Gem City to see them again.” She said then continued to walk around me, then she spotted the others.

Her magic searched for Zappity’s gun, but before she could grab it, Clockwork put a hoof on her.

“It’s okay. We’re not going to hurt you.” He smiled and Tootsie relaxed.

“You want to go to Gem City?” Misty asked with a smile. Tootsie nodded. “We’ll were heading there now. Tag along with us, it’s not far.”

Tootsie’s eyes lit up. “Really?” She asked with wide eyes.

Misty nodded with a smile. Tootsie ran into Misty, and wrapped her hooves around her. “Thank you! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” She cried.

I smiled. Seeing little fillies like this, with hope still in them, gave my hope as well.

The sun was just coming up, so there wasn’t much point in going back to sleep.

“We should head of now.” I said. The others agreed and we started down the hill.

                                                                                                            ***

We walked for a couple of hours. It was just a few hours until noon. I looked down at my pip-buck’s map. It was we were just about half way there.

Tootsie was jumping circles around us, chanting:

“Are we there yet?” Every few bounces.

She was a lovely filly. Don’t get me wrong, but right now I wanted to blow my fucking brains out.

“Almost.” I kept saying. Each time I said it, more annoyance was filled in my voice.

She kept asking it, then I snapped.

“You say that one more time and we won’t go to Gem City!” I yelled, I then saw the sadness on her face. “Sorry.” I added. “But please be quiet.” I begged almost. Tootsie nodded and smiled.

She continued to bounce around us, then she started whispering.

“Are we nearly there yet?”

I growled and sighed. Misty beside me laughed.

“Heh, foals hey?” She chuckled.

Misty looked my age. Old enough to have foals, so I had to ask;

“Ever had any yourself?”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Never had a partner.” She sighed.

“Do you ever plan to?” I asked. I was always very noise with questions…it got on ponies’ nerves most the time…Might explain why I never had many friends.

Misty shook her head. “No…I can’t really…” she mumbled, then her eyes darted up. “By that I mean, I can’t bring myself to bring a foal into this shit hole.” She added. “Ever thought about yourself?”

“Like you, I’ve never had a partner, so the idea never really came up?” I sighed. The problem with liking other mares is you have to take risks. I was never a massive risk taker. You would have to risk a good friendship. I’ve done that countless times, asked a friend out, they get grossed out and I never see them again. So after that happened many times, I would just keep to myself.

“Would you?” Misty added on a little later. “Bring a foal into this world, that is.”

“Depends. If I had a safe life living somewhere like Gem City, then maybe. But If I was a raider living a shit life then no.”

Misty nodded thoughtfully. I looked back and realised that we were walking far ahead of the group. I put a hoof out to stop Misty, and let them catch-up. As we were waiting, I brought my pip-buck up to check out the map.

I saw a line at the bottom of the screen, something I had never noticed before. There were five red dots moving along it. Misty noticed it and her eyes went wide.

“Caps! Hostiles!” She yelled.

Almost immediately, Caps’ horn flared up. His eyes darted, left to right.

“I can’t see anything!” He said, his voice full of panic.

Misty grabbed her gun out and flew up.

“Slipstream!” She waved a hoof for me to follow her up.

Once I reached her altitude, she grabbed my hoof and scanned my pip-buck.

“I don’t get it! It says there are right here.”

I looked below me. As I looked down, fear filled my heart. Something was tunnelling under the earth.

“Uhm...Misty?” I said, but she was glued to my pip-buck.

Five tunnels surrounded Tootsie, Caps and Clockwork. The tunnels stopped.

“Misty?” I shook her. Nothing.

“MISTY!” I shouted. Then all chaos exploded below.

The tunnels exploded as some dog-like monsters emerged from them. I gaped. They were fucking huge, and they had guns! They stood on their hind legs and aimed their guns towards the group. These weren’t dogs, they were mutants.

“Hellhounds.” Misty said with terror in her voice. “Get your gun ready.” She ordered me. “And get ready. These bastards put up quite the fight.” She said as she brought her assault rifle up.

I grabbed my shotgun. I brought it up, then frowned. Even though I had very little knowledge of guns, I still knew I wouldn’t hit shit from up here with a shotgun. Misty looked at me and nodded.

“Got down a bit lower. I got your back.”

And with that, I slowly descended ever so slightly. The hellhounds, as Misty calls them hadn’t started shooting yet. They seemed to be talking to Caps and the rest.

I decided it would be best If I was on the ground. So I silently landed, and took cover behind a dead bush. I still couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I didn’t need to. The fight was already starting.

Clockwork was running off with Tootsie and Caps was dashing off in another direction, just narrowly avoiding the hellhound’s gunshots. Once Clockwork had put Tootsie in a safe place, he jumped out to join the fight. His laser gun was picking off Hellhounds one by one. Only after a few shots, two were already down.

The hellhound who I guess was the leader or alpha, commanded two to go after Clockwork, and he went after Cap’s himself. The alpha seemed to have a stronger weapon, so I went for him first. I focused on the hellhound, then my vision turned green as I opened S.A.T.S.

I targeted two shots on his torso since that was a 90% hit chance. I pulled the trigger and my vision returned to normal. The shots fired out after each other. They hit him but seemed to do hardly any damage against his armour.

He turned and I ducked behind the bush. I then peaked out and saw he had turned his attention back to Caps. So I tried again. I tried to open S.A.T.S but nothing happened. I sighed. I would have to do this on my own then.

I put the scope to my eye, I targeted his head. On the side he had a large unarmoured area where his ears where. I aimed for that. I lined up the shot. I took a breath in and held it to steady myself. I got it just right, then I fired as many shots as I could. I managed to get 4 more shots in, then the gun just clicked. But luckily I would need more. The alpha’s limp body had already fallen to the floor.

I ran up to join Caps, I was half way when a shot rang out. Caps shouted but it was too late. The bullet already found its way to my chest.

I gasped with pain and fell to the floor and skidded over to Caps. He grabbed my hooves and pulled me behind a tall rock. The pain was bad. The pain was really bad, but I was still alive so it hadn’t stuck anything major. Caps rummaged through his bags and pulled out a healing potion. He put the bottled to my mouth and tipped my head up.

I sat back and let the potion work its magic. I peeked over the rock. The two hellhounds still remained, they got closer and closer to Clockwork and Tootsie.

“I’m going to help them.” Caps said as he leaped over the rock.

It didn’t take a second for the hellhound to notice and fire a shot towards him. He fell and didn’t move.

I tried to stand up. I was very unsteady on my hooves, but I could move. I ran out to Caps, praying the hellhound wouldn’t notice. I grabbed him by both his hooves and dragged him towards the rock cover. Just as I got him safe, two shots were fired towards me. The first mist completely, but the other got the side of my hoof. I yelped, but the pain wasn’t as bad as the other shots. You know your life isn’t great when you’re comparing pain with different gunshots.

I reached down into Cap’s bags. There was one healing potion left. I sighed, and opened the bottle and poured it down Caps’ throat.

I chucked the bottle away and looked over the rock. One hellhound was down, but the other was still closing in.

I had to help them, it wouldn’t be long before the hellhound reached Clockwork and Tootsie. So I gritted my teeth and walked around the rock.

I could just about put a little weight on my hoof, but not much. So I limped over to them. Thankfully, the hellhound was more interested in Clockwork, Misty and Tootsie, so he didn’t look my way.

The hellhound took turns firing at Clockwork, then at Misty above. As I got closer I saw that he had mechanical claws, that were sharp, very sharp. He was swinging one arm to a gap where Tootsie was curled up. I could see the fear and the tears on her eyes from where I was.

I brought up my gun, I aimed to fire, I pulled the trigger. Click. Click.

Fuck!

The Hellhound had a shield attached to one arm, he kept blocking all the hits. I needed to distract him so Misty or Clockwork could get a hit in.

I ran round so I was just a few meters behind him. I picked up rocks with my mouth and chucked them towards the beast. He snapped round and begang to charge at me.

Okay. My plan worked, I distracted him. But I didn’t expect for him to come at me. Shit.

I galloped away and screamed for Misty or Clockwork to kill it. They got many shots in, the hellhound stopped and turned to face them again. I looked to where Tootsie was hiding. She was gone.

I searched round for her. Then my heart froze as she was galloping straight for me. The hellhound was facing the opposite direction, so I was praying to Celestia he didn’t turn round.

“Slipstream, help!” She cried, loudly.

No.

The hellhound turned, and it took him no time to scoop Tootsie up with his mechanical claw and crushed her.

No!

Hot tears burned my eyes and pure rage took over. I charged at the beast with nothing. It went to attack, but before his claw could come down, Misty and Clockwork landed the final shots on him, and he finally fell to the floor, dropping Tootsie’s mangled body with him.

I went up to the dead hellhound’s body. Tootsie’s body was stuck in the beast’s claws. My eyes were blurry with tears so I couldn’t see a thing. Clockwork ran round to join me and Misty flew down.

“Oh no.” She gasped as she noticed Tootsie’s body.

I fell down to my knees and strocked her main. Then she moved, and a little bit of hope filled my heart, but it was soon destroyed and she coughed up blood.

“I can see them…” She whispered, using her last breaths. “My family…My dad, my sister, but mother isn’t here.” Her high pitched voice was barely audible. “I was so close to seeing her again.” A tear dripped down her eyes. “But I can see the rest of my family now.” She smiled.

I bent down to her and smiled with her. “I’ll bet they’ll be happy to see you.” She nodded.

She smiled. “Heh. Do you think there’s a Gem City where I’m going?” But her question would never get an answer as he chest stopped heaving.

My smiled disappeared and I broke down into a fit of tears. It was all too much. Everything that had happened in the past few days had finally hit me hard. I felt Misty place a wing around me, I looked to her, she had tears in her eyes too. She placed her wing and hooves around me and sat by my side, Clockwork joined too. He didn’t appear to be crying, because I don’t think he could, but he still wore a sad expression. We sat in silent grieving for a short while, then I couldn’t cry any more. I still felt sad, but the tears didn’t come. So I got up.

“We should bury her.” I said. They both nodded, so we got to work on making a grave for her.

As we were digging out a hole, Caps walked up to join us and helped up with the preparations. As we placed her broken body in the grave, we said a blessing to Celestia for her, then poured the dirt back in. As we were doing this, I couldn’t help feel like this was my fault. She died running after me, we would have never even meet if I had been more careful with Zappity hoof! But I shook my head. I couldn’t be thinking things like this now.

Once the grave was finished, we said one final blessing to Celestia and then continued on our journey to Gem City.

Footnote: Level up!

New perk added: Sluaghterer - You do 5% more damage to any non-pony target.