Chapter 2 - Willow Wisp

    As I slowly regained consciousness, I tried to make sense of everything that had just happened. I was attacked by raiders who believed I was a pony called the Bloody Angel who was being hunted for murdering more than three hundred ponies in the Equestrian Wasteland in the past two years. In that all, the leader of the raiders had really been doing it for some pony with a harsh voice who seemed to have a grudge against my father, and had taken my power armor and PipBuck as a reward for their cooperation. I was then knocked unconscious by that harsh sounding pony before waking up here, where here was.

    I looked around the room, trying to get an idea of exactly where I was right now. I was at the end of a cave with a barred door blocking the way up. I was tied to the side of the cave by a chain which was attached to my hind leg, giving me no hope of escaping. Most of the room was completely empty besides from that, but as I looked around, I realized I wasn’t the only one in their.

    Looking to my left, I saw a pegasus tied up to the wall just like me. Her mane, tail, and coat were all white, or at least they would have been. The entire area around her was stained in blood, and her body was spotted with blood as well. Injuries scared her entire body, leaving not a single area of her body clean. A part of her left ear was cut off as well, blood still dripping down it meaning that it was new. There was giant scar across her neck, not bleeding, but still showing a past injury she had taken. With how still she was, you would think she was dead.

    She wasn’t, while the rest of her body remained still, her eye looked toward me. I looked in terror at the pony, wondering how she was still able to live with all those injuries on her body. I was going to talk to her, but she looked away from me, and closed her eyes. I looked on, not knowing exactly what I could say to this pony. Was this what these raiders were going to do to me?

    I got my answer as I heard the door open to see a raider enter the room with two guards at the door. I watched as he walked up to the pony to the left of me. He examined the pegasi, lifting her head up. After a few seconds, he let it dropped down once, and I watched as it fell motionless to the floor. Was she dead, was I just seeing things when she was had looked at me? I didn't know.

    “Poor pony,” The raider said, looking at the ground. “We thought we had the Bloody Angel when we got her, but she kept on denying it. We didn't believe her when she said she wasn't the pony, and tortured her to the point you see here,” I looked at the pegasus, feeling scared that they would do the same to me. “In the end we learned it wasn't her. That’s what that Twister pony said anyways. He said that the Bloody Angel was the daughter of one of his friends, and led us to you. She didn't have a chance at living, but you do. All you have to do,” He pulled a plank out and hit me over the head with it. “Is admit that you are the murder,”

    I looked the raider straight in the eyes. He didn't know I couldn't walk, he never saw me move behind my broken down power armor. If he had known that, that might have let me go, but as long as I was chained up in here I couldn't do that.

    “I'm not your Bloody Angel,” I said to him, but he didn't believe any of it.

    “It’s no use lying to us,” He said, delivering a kick to my face. “You see what happened to this young pegasus here for not telling us, and while she may have been innocent in the end, that doesn't mean we won’t do the same thing to you,”

    “Don't you know the difference between the truth and lies,” I said, trying to make him realize I was innocent. “A pony telling the truth wouldn’t change there minds, nor would they be able to the do what they are believe to have done,”

    “Do you think I care if you are lying or not,” The raider said, surprising me. “You know what Twister gave us all for capturing you? Food, bullets and guns, drugs, and even power armor. He payed us to make your life a living hell, and that's what we intend to do,” He knocked me to the floor, and started pressing down hard on my neck. “Of course, I could always be nice and put you out of your misery. Either way I’m solving his problem and saving you the trouble of being tortured to death. What do you say, shall I put you out of your misery? Or would you rath-,”

    His response was cut short of the sound of gunfire in the room. I watched as blood flew from the raiders chest and he hit the ground. I look to see one of the raiders at the door had pulled out a strange shotgun. Before the other raider was able to respond, the one with the shotgun shot him clean in the head, it blown into a thousand pieces. I look to my side to see the pony they said was dead look up, blood dripping from her mouth as she looked at the raider pony who had saved us.

    “I should never have agreed to this,” The raider said in a deep voice.

    I took a look at him, as he put his gun away and searched the bodies on the floor. His coat was pitch black, almost making him blend into the surrounding cave. He was bulky, looked as if he could flip an entire house on upside down. His mane, or what there was of it as it was almost completely cut, was a dark gray. The shotgun he carried was colored a light purple and had a pink pump reload. For a stallion like this to have such a girly looking gun was kind of funny honestly.

    He grabbed keys off one of them, which must have been the keys to our restraints. I watched as the tortured pegasus to the left of me tried to stand up, only for one of her wounds to open and blood to start dripping, dropping her back onto the floor. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. She was mute! Even if I had asked her a question earlier I wouldn't have gotten a response.

    “Stay still,” The deep voiced pony requested, “I don't want you bleeding out on me,” He unlocked her cuff and turned his back to the mute pony, “Get on,” The mute pony did as requested.

    He then walked over to me and did the same, glad to see he wasn't doing this just for the other pony. I used the wall as support to stand up the best I can, which wasn't much considering my back legs kept me from removing my front hooves from the wall. The deeper voice pony seemed to notice this.

    “You okay?” He asked me.

    “I can't stand up well with my power armor,” I explain to him. “My lower body is paralyzed and that power armor is modified to help me move. Until then I have no choice but to hug the wall here,”

    I felt a hoof grab around me and watched as the deep voiced pony effortlessly put me on his back. I felt kind of sad, having to rely on this pony that I had just met. Despite that I still felt happy to be able to get out of here. I looked to see the tortured pony underneath me sleeping. If there was any pony I felt the worst for, it had to be her.

    “Call me Dread,” The deep voiced pony, or Dread I guess, said. “As for the other pony, we don’t know her real name but every pony calls her Willow Wisp for some reason. You?”

    “Dead Hooves,” I reply. “I think you can guess the reason behind the name,”

    Dread simply just nodded in response. It was kind of hard to get a read on him and exactly what he wanted. It seemed like he wanted to help me, but I felt like there was something else on his mind as he opened the door. I took a look at his gun, intrigued in it. It certain was very colorful considering Dread’s darker coat color and mysterious attitude.

    “Got a problem with the gun,” He said coldly, having noticed my interest in it.

    “Oh sorry,” I apologized, “I just haven’t seen a gun quite like it. Did you make it?”

    “That’s not up for questioning,” He replied, “However, could you please take it for the minute until I get you to your power armor. I need somepony backing me up and since I don’t want to cause more harm to Willow then what they already have, you got to do it,”

    He floated the gun up to me, and dropped it in my hooves. He never told me he was taking me to my power armor, not that I thought it would matter. It was probably broken like before. However, I never really knew how long I was out for, so it’s possible that they might have been able to fix it. Not that I had much hope in that.

    I looked down at Willow Wisp, who was still fast asleep. Looking her over, I started wondering how this pony had managed to survive for this long. She looked as if she had been shot by a minigun from less than a foot away, but yet still managed to breath despite that. I was amazed by how tough this pegasus was. I don’t think I could have taken that kind of treatment and lived through it, that's for sure. Honestly, I felt like I was the weakest of all of them at the moment.

    “You wanna tell me what you did to piss of a pony like Twister?” Dread asked.

    “I have no idea,” Was the only response I really had. “He told these raiders that I was the Bloody Angel when there was no way I could be. In fact, the only pony I ever knew before this was my father, who passed away five years ago. The only thing I could think of is that he knew my father and hated him for some reason,”

    “Then allow me to tell you something you don’t know,” Dread replied “Never trust Twister. I don’t know much about him but from what I’ve heard he plays off of other ponies weaknesses and is the reason this entire search for the Bloody Angel is so damn hard. He hates everypony, but no one ever realizes it because he claims to “help” them before turning their backs on them and shooting them in the back. If you ever meet him, shoot him, got it,”

    I nodded my head as we made a turn into a small room at the side the cave. He sits down to let me get off and I look to see why we have stopped. There, waiting at the end of the room was my power armor. I crawl my way to it and try opening it, which managed to work. I don’t know how they managed to fix it, but they did. I lift myself inside and watch as the power armor closes around me, letting out a sigh of relief. Everything was working, and it seemed to have a brand new fusion core inside of it as well. Was that the reason it wasn’t working? My dad had a stash of them at home but I didn’t think that was the problem. It didn’t matter, I was finally able to move again.

    I took a step with my front left hoof and watched as my back left did the same. It hurt at first, but it was nothing I wasn’t use to. I let out a sigh of relief, this power armor made me feel free, and this was the first time in two weeks I’ve felt that way. I watched as Dread picked up some things from the tables to the side of me and stuffed them in a bag that he had grabbed from the same place. Among the things we're repair tools like a wrench and screwdriver as well as some shotgun shells and a shotgun. I took a look at the shotgun to realize it was mine.

    “They took everything you had of use in your house,” Dread explained to me, handing me the shotgun which had been fully loaded. “Your gun and power armor as you can see were among them,”

    I handed him back his gun and nodded in thanks as I checked mine. How much had they taken? I looked around the room, able to move much more normally now. I sighed when I saw the broken PipBuck sitting on a desk on the right side of the room. I put it on, happy to see it. They hadn’t bothered to fix anything on it, but that was okay considering that the power armor could do the same thing.

    “We better get this place cleared out,” Dread said, putting Willow Wisp on his back again. “Willow needs some medical treatment but it’s too dangerous to do that with all the raiders around,”

    “Gotcha,” I said, slinging my shotgun over my shoulder, which I was able to do thanks to the strap that had been added.

    We walked out of the room, guns at the ready as we made our way towards the exit of the cave. The light blinded me for a second, making me have to put my hoof up to block it. When my eyes had adjusted I looked around to see that the raiders had set up camp outside. There was a pretty good number of them from what I could tell. I looked up to see the sun had started setting in the sky.

    We took cover in a small area near the caves entrance and Dread once again set Willow Wisp down on the ground as we started discussing our plan of attack. All we had were shotguns, mine only having two shells. Given how there were around three dozen raiders, which we both thought was huge considering the numbers I usually saw (around six or seven), we realized we would stand no chance at taking them out with our current weapons.

    “One of us should stay here with Willow Wisp,” Dread addressed, “If anything happens to her then I feel like this was pointless,”

    I didn’t respond, scanning the camp that they had made. Everything was laid out for display, showing guns, ammo, and medical supplies. We couldn’t damage some of this stuff, as we would need it to survive, but maybe if I could grab a high power weapon of some sort. That's when my eyes caught onto a minigun on the racks in the far left corner of the camp. How the hell did they get something like? It must have been one of the weapons that Twister pony had given them but… how the hell.

    “Dread,” I said, getting out of my power armor, “Stay here with Willow Wisp, I got an idea,”

    “The fuck are you doing,” His voice in shock as he got out and started crawling my way outside.

    “You’ll see,” I replied, “I can’t bring the power armor because I’ll be an easy target, watch over it for me will you?”

    I don’t give him time to respond as I round the corner of the cave, shotgun hanging on my back. I start crawling my way across the canyon, looking to make sure that no one had spotted me. The shadow gave me cover, making me a little harder to spot, my tan coat also helping out a small amount. My heart was racing as I slowly made my way across the side of the canyon. It would have been easier if my father had told me how to use magic, but he didn’t know much himself.

    I watched the raiders go by as I inched my way along the side of the canyon. They look like they had themselves a life's worth when it came to things such as food and medical supplies. Most of it would probably go bad in a few months or so, maybe the radiation would do something to it.

    I’m going to say it right now, I don’t know much about the events that lead to the mega spells or whatever the heck they were called, I don’t know. It’s been a long time since any of that stuff happened, and it was mostly in the past now being around seventy-five years since the war ended. I didn’t have anything to do with that time, which means I have no reason to care about it.

    It seemed like just getting a good five yard away from the cave entrance took forever. In truth, I had gotten much farther than that but the canyon was so big that it felt like I was making no progress. I didn’t want to think about how long it would take until one of the raiders spotted me or Dread. I would probably be spotted first of course, considering I was much more out in the open.

    After what felt like an hour, I had finally made my way across to where I had seen the minigun, or at least to the side of the canyon. It was still a good couple yards away from me, but I had at least made some progress. The sun had almost disappeared from the sky (of course it was already pretty low to begin with) and I found myself rushing to make it before the sun completely disappeared. This was mainly due to something telling me that trying to shoot a gun in the dark was probably not a good idea, must have been common sense.

    When I reached the little stand that held the minigun I was after, I realized that their was a raider inside of it. My guess was that he was suppose to give weapons to those who would need it. You know, these raiders seemed pretty smart and organized, considering how retarded the first raider that tried to capture me had been. I shrugged and waited for the pony to turn away before sneaking behind him. I slowly started to take the minigun down from it’s place, trying to be as quiet as possible. When I did manage to get it down, the weight of it made me fall down to the ground, attracting the attention of the raiders that had been behind me.

    I smiled as I slowly took my shotgun out from under my back. “Thanks for the guns,” I said teasingly before aiming my shotgun at the two closest to me. “Now go fuck yourselves,”

    Without another word I fired a bullet at the raiders, hitting the first one square in the chest as it passed him and into the second one who gut a pretty good hole in their neck. Turning around I tried to pick the minigun up, realizing it was to heavy for me to carry. Great idea Dead Hooves, you had an absolutely great idea.

    I looked up as raiders started forming a semicircle around me, guns pointed at the ready. I found myself in a very familiar position, and not one the last time I would be either. I inched up against a wooden desk, getting ready to defend myself. If I could grab one of the other weapons in front of me, or an automatic rifle to be exact, I may be able to stand up against them. That being said, I would probably be shot before I could even load a single mag into it. I closed my eyes, expecting to hear a thousand bullets heading in my direction.

    What I heard instead was the sound of a single bullet and several screams of terror coming from behind me. I didn’t look but I could take a guess that it wasn’t a raider who fired that bullet. I listened to the sound of several bullets going in the direction opposite of me, and I opened my eyes to see that I was still alive. Taking the chance, I grabbed a rifle from the wall across from me, loaded it with a cartridge, and peeked my head outside of the wooden desk that had been my cover.

    What I saw at first was multiple raiders firing at nothing behind another wooden desk across from me. Then I saw the three raiders lying on the floor a couple yards away from me, a pool of blood forming on the ground. That's when I saw power armor, my power armor peeking out of the wooden desk. Once the raiders had fired most of their bullets, I saw the pony in my power armor holding up a familiar purple and pink shotgun. I sighed with relief, realizing it was only Dread that was occupying it. That being said, I still didn’t like another pony using my power armor. I would make sure to have a chat with him about that when this is over.

    Dread fired a bullet to three raiders standing next to each other, and I watched as the first one got hit. That’s when the strange part of this happened. The two raiders next to him somehow got hit as well piercing the side of their bodies and collapsing to the floor. I guess there must have been more to Dreads girly shotgun then I had originally thought.

    Not taking the chance of getting hit any longer then I had been, I quickly started firing at the raiders. I felt a bullet go through my shoulder but shrugged it off, not letting them get an opportunity to hit me. I had probably shot a good four of five of them before ducking back under the wooden desk, listening as Dread took another shot, claiming two more raiders. If I was correct, we must have been down seventeen or eighteen at this point.

    I took a look at the bullet that had hit me in the upper left shoulder, watching as blood dripped down from it onto the rocky floor of the canyon. I was breathing hard, almost hyperventilating from the intensity of the past half an hour (probably more, but I couldn’t tell). At least it was just the shoulder, and it wasn’t bad enough where I had to worry about blood lose. I listened as I heard another shot from Dread, bringing the total down one more.

    I decided to use my last shotgun shell before going back to the rifle. Looking around, I counted sixteen raiders still alive. I ducked down and dragged myself across my cover before looking back up. I looked at two raiders who were almost lined perfectly, which would allow me to get rid of two at the same time. I waited, watching as the moved closer together, calming my breathing to get a clear shot. Just when I thought I had it, gun fire from raider came from behind me, hitting me once again in the shoulder before ducking. I listened as Dread took another shot, taking down the three raiders that just shot at me, bringing the raiders still alive counter down to thirteen.

    With that taken care of I pulled myself back up and aimed down at the two raiders that were still in front of me. I once again managed to calm my breathing as I waited to take a shot. A couple seconds later, I finally fired, hitting one pony right through the neck and the other through the head. I quickly ducked back to cover and through the shotgun back over my shoulder. With another kill from Dread, we were just under a dozen raiders left.

    Inching my way back over to the rifle, I looked around to see if any raiders had taken aim at me. I managed to get back to the rifle in one piece before looking up to see one of the raiders standing right over me. I leaned back as he fired, hitting one of my back legs (thank Celestia I didn’t need them) a few times before I took the gun and yanked it from his hooves. Now disarmed, I pointed it back at him and fired, leaving one more dead.

    I looked down to see blood dripping from my right hind leg. They had gotten it pretty badly, but if I lived through this I was hoping we would be able to fix it with some medical supplies in the camp, Celestia knows how much we would need them. The pain in my leg was worse then in my shoulder as I clenched it with my hooves, trying to stop myself from yelling.

    This wasn’t going to get any better, I knew that for sure. I took the rifle in my hooves and reloaded it as another bang came from Dreads shotgun. We must have been down to five at this point, since it was starting to get less noisy. I slowly and painful brought myself and my rifle up over the wooden desk that was still acting as my cover and started shooting. I only killed two this time, the wound in my leg hurting due to the gun's recoil, causing me to drop back out of site. Luckily for me, I only heard one more bullet fire from Dread as everything after went silent.

    I looked as Dread walked up to me, carrying Willow on his back once again. He set her down as he got out of my power armor and walked over to me.

    “What the fuck were you thinking?” I yelled at him, “When everypony is looking the other way your suppose to run. Besides, what you did put Willow in greater danger than she is already in. Why the fuck did you try playing the hero,”

    He got down and looked at my wounded hoof, not caring to answer my question. He was really starting to get on my nerves. Sure, I guess he did save my ass, but that heroic action he took wouldn’t have met anything if he had been killed as well.

    “Did you really think you could carry that,” He glanced to the minigun that I had taken down while looking through his bag. “You were acting just as stupid, if not more stupid, then I was,”

    I simply looked away, not caring about what he was saying. It was better than just sitting there like we had been doing, that’s for sure. I looked over to see him take out some wraps. He took it and wrapped it around my injured hoof to stop the bleed before getting up and walking away. I looked up to see where he was going, only to see him walking to a path out of the canyon.

    “Where the hell are you going,” I yelled at him, not believing that he was just going to leave us here.

    “I have something I need to do,” He said, looking back at me, “Besides, I prefer to work alone,”

    “Where am I supposed to go?” I said, not knowing “I have no idea where I am, or what to do. What about Willow here? What am I supposed to do? I’ve never gone this far away from my house before,”

    Dread looked at me, his eyes cold and furious. “Go west to Manehattan,” He said, “You’ll be the safest there. Look for a pony named White Light, you tell him I sent you, he’ll help you and Willow Wisp. She’s already bandaged up due to how long it too for you to screw up your brilliant plan. I was planning to leave after we got out of the canyon, but seeing how we killed everypony besides us, you should be safe for some time,”

    I opened my mouth to speak, but realized that it would probably be useless asking him for any more advice. Giving how he had barely given me a good answer to any of my questions earlier that day, I bet the only reason he told me as much as he did was because of Willow Wisp. I simply watched as he walked away, leaving me with a bag full of food, medical supplies, and ammo as well as Willow Wisp.

    I sighed as I lowered myself to the ground, and watched as Willow Wisped opened her eyes to me. Just like Dread said, she was covered in bandages that was covering up her injuries. Not that most of them would heal up, considering that she was already covered in scars. She walked up and looked over the wooden desk, probably wondering where Dread was.

    “That friend of yours abandoned us,” I explained “He told me to take care of you, okay,”

    She dropped down besides me and nodded to me, not seeming to care at all. I wonder if that was because she couldn’t argue back, or if she didn’t really care about anything that was going on. On the bright side, it seemed like she could at least walk a little, meaning I wouldn’t have to worry about carrying her that much. That made me feel a little better, but I was still pissed that Dread had just left us without a real reason.

    I felt my temper rising from just thinking about what he had just done. I simply shook my head and turned my attention to my PipBuck. I was still on radio like when I had left it, but was turned off because I didn’t hear anything playing. Nothing else was working, like usual, and I simply laid down on the ground and curled up into a ball, or as much of a ball as I could.

    “We’re leaving for Manehattan first thing tomorrow,” He told Willow, “If there is anything you need to do before that, do it before then,”

    I fell asleep before Willow was able to give me her response, reliving a familiar dream of the last night with my father. It was a very sad dream, we were working in our little garden outside, I was in my power armor. We hear something behind us, even though I truely didn’t hear it in the dream, and turned around to see ghouls jump at us. I watched as the killed my father, who could barely get his shotgun out in time. I took it and shot them, both running away at the sound and sight of me. I had ran to my father side, watching as he died there. I only ever heard him say one thing in this dream.

    “Remember...”

    I was awoken to the feeling of Willow Wisp nudging me awake, looking at my with discomfort. I felt a tear flow down my face, realizing that I had been crying in my sleep. Seeing this I quickly wiped the tear away and shook my face.

    “It’s nothing,” I said to Willow “Don’t worry about it. It was just a dream,”

    I turn around so Willow could see my face anymore. I was crying because I never planned to my house, because I was far away from so many things. All I had was the power armor, shotgun, and PipBuck to remember my father by. I felt alone, like I was on an entirely different planet. That was the night I realized, nothing was going to be the same.