Fallout Equestria: Otherlands

Fallout Equestria: Otherlands

Chapter 4

The Shotgun Mare

Okay after my short lunch break, which also gave me time to tend to my shoulder, I used he last cloth rag I had. Oh well it went to good use. Now I'm having trouble find a store, lucky me. My pip-boy isn't providing much help and I still don't know how to fucking use it. Ugh I hate...just everything now. No one has showed up so far so I guess thats good, I hope. No traps so thats good. Anyway of getting home, nadda. Ah fuck I'm just gonna get consumed by this place aren't I. To kill without mercy is to kill without purpous. And thats how you become a serial killer. Though killing horses that shoot back...its either the pyshcoactive LSD trip or a mental patinte's nightmare. I'm just saying though, I'd rather have the LSD trip. Yay more broken shit. I sigh and kick a bent can, I better find this store fucking quick or I'm gonna-

Ever have that moment of just plan lucky couincidence? Well I just ran into fucking wall, a wall of an intact building. My pip-boy sounds and the place is labled' Ponyville Genral Mart', holy fucking shit on a shingle, goddamn conveniance. Okay so I ran into my objective, counicendentaly as well as conveniantly. Now to get inside, hmm no door on this side of the building. Okay try the front of it. I round the corner of the mart and I deadpan...mines, fucking mines sterwn out on the lot. About twenty or so layed out to the point that if one goes off all go off. Hmm this may be fun as hell if I can get them to go off. Should I? Should I? Okay extreme hopsotch lets do this! I take one step forward in a gap of two mines and I step forward.

You put one foot in front of the other, oh god I almost started laughing my ass off. Okay I see the door and OH SHIT! I stop dead in my tracks as I almost step right down on mine, fuck that was too close for comfort. I breath heavily and I long hop to the door area, which is surprisingly mine free, thank christ. Well at least I didn't set one off, wait aren't mines supposed to ya know...go off when you step NEAR them? Okay you know what this place is broken reality so I guess mines don't act the same. Either way I didn't become the next Metallica song material. I open the market door to discover another trap, a grenade trip wire. Okay I may not be the brightest and sharpest tool in the shed but I'm smart enough to STEP OVER the bloody thing.

I step over and walk into the actual building. Okay its majorly dark in here, much darker than outside defiantly. Alright if I were a book in some sort of creepy supermarket, I think I'd be in the very back. Oh god the smell just hit me, death and disease, ugh. I step in a dark pool on the floor....ye thts blood, fanfuckingtastic. I look up from where the blood pool is and there's a hanging body there, another horse body, lovely decor.

If this place wasn't infested with psycho horses, it would make a great Halloween horror house. I haven't actually ran into any in here but I'm hearing talking and I'm sneaking around here like a bandit." You think the entrance is safe? I'm not pissing on your ideas here but the entrance isn't particuly hidden."

" I fucking know that you dolt. That's why we laid down those fake mines out there. Nopony in their right mind would dare wonder near an exposed minefeild, but if that dosen't stop the exploritve ones, the grenade trip wire is at the front of the doors. Full proof. Now if your not gonna use that Med-X give it over."

Well that explains why those mines didn't go off. Good thing I'm past pissing myself if I get scared as hell, otherwise I would have soaked my pants. Okay so this place is inhabited by more horse, but they seem to have let their guard down due to their 'sheer engineering prowless', time to piss on their paride. But how? I would get torn to shit If I just went all blazing, plus with the lack of more arrows really sets my standards low right now But maybe I can do the 'throw something to disrtact then assassinate' trick? Could work. I reach down and scoop up an empty can and I toss it at a darkened area near me but I should be hidden enough. Sure enough they hear it.

" The fuck was that?" A girl cries.

" Hang on I'll go check it out." The sound of hoofsteps start coming my way and this horse has...a horn and is floating a gun along with it. Holy shit a unicorn, a unicorn, oh boy. He gets to about the point where I threw the can at annnnd he never saw it coming. I jam my blade into the back of his skull and I break his neck in swift motion. He drops and I grab what he was carring with him. It looks like a sawed off twelve gage shotgun. Akward as hell to hold though, the side grip it has on it is on the left, not the right. Good thing I've watched Die Hard like a thousand times or else I wouldn't know that much about guns, well playing Far Cry and shit probaly would have made up for that but hey. I eject the shells to see two in there, nice a full clip. Okay my survival has gone up slightly due to now owning a beat up shotgun." Hey! Shell? You see anything?" Oh fuck the other one has noticed the lack of extra horse. Should I fuck with her? I mean she's gonna die if she attacks me anyway. Okay time to improv." Yeah I'm here. Didn't see anything, must have been a rat then." I pull off the best I could do.

" Oh well good then. Now get back over here."

" Nah I'm taking a piss right now. I'll be done when I'm done."

" You are a fucking idiot you know that." Okay don't fuck around anymore, just kill the bitch and get the book, simple. I pick p an empty soda bottle and I chuck it over the shelves I'm hiding behind. It shatters an I hear the girl jump. I peak out around cover and I see the poor girl looking around, there's a small table with a lamp on it. She's a unicorn with a two toned dirty blonde mane and her coat is a dark pink color. To be honest why do I get the feeling that I should spare her? Oh boy this should be good. Maybe take a hostege? No why am I thinking like that? Fuck it, I'll die otherwise. The mare is looking around, kinda freaked out maybe? I take the oppurtinity to climb the shelf and perch there like a cat, or a bird, whichever." If you're looking for your friend, you're to late." I call out to her below. She looks up and gasps, and backpeddles into the table, well into her chair, and trips, wow.

" What the fuck!? The hell are you?" She tries to grab at something but I draw my bow faster.

" I wouldn't do that if I were you. You've got two choices right now, cooperate and live, or fight and die. Your choice." I draw back expecting her to whip out a gun and blow me back to kingdom come. But surprisingly she stops grabbing at whatever she was trying to get." Fine, oh you got me. You've got five seconds to explain what the fuckshit you are. Or else I'll call my friends." Okay she's temping me to shoot her. I can read her mouth from here.

Five,

Four,

Three,

Two,

One...

" HEY WE HAVE TROUBLE HERE!" She shouts, shit. From a few shelves away a door burst open and about 7 other horses rush in, each with their own weapons. One is covered in makeshift plate armor and has two miniguns on its side. I can't tell if its a guy or a girl. Sratch that...he lets out a blood curdaling scream and I'm now in a firefight with horses, fuck. I fire off the one arrow I had drawn and I hop down behind the shelves. The miniguns blaze out and pepper the walls around my area, he don't need to aim. One horse runs up to me and tries to stab me with knife. My knife's bigger though. I throw my bow down and slash her throat open and kick her back. I'm covered in her blood now, great. I remember the shotgun so I whip that out and another horse rounds the corner.

BLAM

He drops dead. The gun handles alright but is still hard as hell to hold. Damn one bullet left in it and I hove no spare ammo. Fuck I need to get out of a corner. I rush to the other side of the store room. The miniguns rowar and next thing I feel is a ringing in my ear and pain." AH MY EAR! I GOT SHOT IN THE EAR! Fuck that hurts!"

" HAHAHA little fuck got shot. Now yer gonna die!"

Fuck you asshole. I look down at the ground to see if there's anything I can use. Shit nothing but empty bottles and cans. Something hits me in the head from above and clatters to the ground. Its...its a handful of shotgun shells, what? Screw it, ask questions later. I manage to reload the gun and I decide to rush out of cover to shot. I manage to hit one in the leg, got her enough for her to scream at least. Another mare rushes at me with I think is a pistol, not very smart by the look on her face when I took aim at her. No more face, no more life. I'm much more calm about blowing off someone's face than I thought. Well actually they are all mutated animals to me so I'm doing them a favor. I got shot in the fucking ear though, dammit. I pop out of corner again only to get blasted in the same shoulder I got shot in earlier, again. That asshole with the miniguns. UGH fuck that stings. You'd be surpised that it doesn't hurt as bad as you think, most of your adreniline will dull the pain for the time being. I need to get the upperhand, somehow. I reload again and pop out of cover to fire blankly, I must have hit someone as hear him scream out in pain. That asshole with the miniguns fires at me more, then, clink. He ran out of fucking ammo, idiot.

" Ah shit I'm out!" He screams, now's my chance. Wait...my bow! I rush back to where I threw my bow down at and I take out the one poison arrow I made. I nock it and run out in the open, stupid yes, I'm not a solider so I don't know much militray combat tactics. I draw back and aim at the minigun horse. Suddenly it feels as if time is at a crawl now as I aim right for his heated minigun barrels, hope Watcher was right about those apples. I fire and I'm surprised that I hit right. This puff of greenish hued cloud blankets the minigun horse and the two others helping him reload. They cough and sputter and one grabs for their throat as they coke to death, wow I'm serious deja vu right now. They drop presumibly dead as the gas dissapats and I see the two I injured struggling to get to their hooves and fight. I actually pick up a piece of wood the minigun ripped out by the gun fire and I smack the closest horse to me over the head. He tries to put up some sort of struggle by bucking at me with one of his hind legs but I cheat him out of that via boot to nuts, dirty cheap but effective. I then strike him twice and he's not moving. What the fuck is wrong with me? I've gone violent in a matter of hours of being outside, what's happening to me?

I get shot again in my left arm. Fucking hell. I swing at the mare amd strike her upside the head and she goes down. I think thats it for the enimies. Fuck I can feel the bullet in my forearm, need to get that out. I find a broken piece of wood, sharpened and I hope this works as well as Far Cry shows it. I stick the sharpened end into my bullet wound, it hurts like hell but I manage to get the bulle out, covenient. I let out a sigh and look at what I caused. Sure they attacked first but I guess in their case it was self defense. Wait....there's only seven, where's the mare I said 'hi' too?

BLAM

I fall to the ground cluching my stomach, godammit I got gut shot! I cough up some blood and watch said mare walk towards me, floting a double barrel shotgun at me. The gun floats next to my head." Go ahead, shoot me." I cough out. Hey I gave it my all. She glares at me for a few moments but then her expression softens. She lets out a sigh and then I feel a prick in my left arm, the pain begins to weaken. Why is she even trying to help me? I blew away her friends, with a really shitty firefight skills none the less. She pulls out a bottle of some sort of liquid. She uts it to my lips." Drink. Don't ask just drink it." She praticly shoves the liquid down my throat, it taste like cherry syrup, gross. I feel sorta strange but my body feels, better. The mare steps aside and I sit back up. My clothing is peppered but the holes are closed and the pellets removed, how. I look over at the mare and she's already lotting her fallen friends." Wha-? How? Who the fuck are you?" The mare looks back at me with a smirk.

" The same mare that just saved your sorry ass. I can also ask the same of you. What sort of fucktard like yourself just walts straight into raider territory and tries deplomacy!? Your lucky I even spared you to be honest. I could take my gun, put it in your mouth, pow, and your done."Okay creepy factor with her is defiantly high. Raiders, huh? So this has to be some fallout based orld, just replace people with horses." Ugh, look I'm lost and was sent here for a damn book by a..., oh what was it? A sprite-bot." The mare's ear twitches slightly.

" So you met Watcher, huh? Damn bot keeps sending ponies to their deaths with his stupid fetch quests." She lets out a sigh." Okay look yes I'm a raider like the rest of these dead dumbasses, but I try to do what I can to get ponies the hell out of Ponyville. A double agent if you will. Now you've got a lot of explaining to do bud. Just remember to chose your words wisely, otherwise I'll bash your damn teeth in." For better effect she smacks the butt of her shotgun on one of the dead horses, wait didn't she say ponies? Well horses are, I assume taller than a pony, so I guess these are ponies then?

" I'm waiting.." Oh shit she's serious isn't she?

" Uhh well what do you NEED to know about me? I'll at least tell you that I'm...not from around here defiantly."

" Yeah I can tell. Okay I'm going to break a deal with you. You tell me what the fuck you are and I won't break your face. Deal? Good. Start talking." That was suttle.

" I'm a human. Watcher sent me to get some sort of Wasteland book. Okay question for you. You shot me in the gut then healed me with...whatever the hell that was you used, are you going to just shoot me again?" She actually rubs her chin with her hoof.

" That depends if you piss me off or not. Look I'll admit that you seriously strike my curiosity right now, so that will decide if you live, or die. So what is a...hooman?"

" I'm not going to explain the vast defintion on what a human is, okay? Look...just give me the damn book and I'll get out of your hair. Plain and simple." For that I get a surious bruise on the side of my ead via shotgun butt. The gun floats around and the barrels are pointed straight in my chin. She giggles kinda wickedly.

" Don't get jazzy with me. Remember what position your in." We kinda stare at each other for a few until she laughs." Wow even in th face of unsertenty and death you just have the strangest squint. Like you don't even care. Okay tell me hooman, do you have have a name?" Wow from violent to 'hi do you have a name?', in 10 seconds.

" I'm...Booker, Booker Evans. And I assume you have a name too or is it 'Horse #285?'" On that note the shotgun pokes at my neck again, so threatened in this manner again huh?" Name's Double Barrel," Double Brrel, really?" Don't call me 'horse' you freak fuck. That's a deogritory term for 'whore'. If you call me something it better be my name or here's your other option." Her gun pushes my chin up. I'm sensing a pattern here.

" Okay, okay, I get it. I won't call you horse. Can you get your shotgun out of my face...please?" I give a slight pleading eyes and she actully smiles, still the creepy yellowed teeth raider smile, but a smile non the less." See how things go differently when you say please? Now considering that you layed waste to my crew, you owe me big time, but also considering that you didn't killed me, consider your 'Owe Me' token taken. Now I'm giving you the chance to leave now, or else I will shoot you dead this time." What the fuck? I get shot by her, she revives me, now she's gonna shoot me again!

" What? Fuck no! I just walked my sorry ass all the way here to retrive a fucking book for a stupid ass robot. Then I get into a firefight with your whole fucked up 'family', now your telling me to leave or die. So you know what, fuck you all. I'll just kill you and take your shit myself." I jump up and draw the machete. I'll go down with a fight, fuck this world, and fuck this bitch right here. Double Barrel seemed surprised and then she gets this grin, this Chesire Cat like grin, but she doesn't attack or point her gun at me again.

" You jump to more conclusions than anypony I know. First off put your little toy away. I was just fucking with you. Go ahead take our shit, the book,and everything that isn't nailed dow, fuck take the nails too for all I care. Hell kill me and do what you want with the body too." Hmm she calls me jumpy but I think she's high or something. I sigh and sheath my weapon." Alright. I'll get what I need, leave you the rest, and then I'll be on my marry way." As I say that there is a loud booming crash outside and what sound's like heavy rain pounding everything." Aw fuck." Double Barrel chuckles.

" Good luck with that. When it rains like that outside theses days you bet your ass there's gonna be huge floods of radioactive mud and water everywhere. If you want my advice. Don't go outside." Lets see, go outside, get irradiated wading through water to...fuck knows where, or stay with a raider in a shitty store, where she may or may not slit my throat in my slee. Descions descions. You know, dying of drowning and/or radiation is probaly worse then peaceful death from a raider in your sleep." Ugh, look can I...stay here tonight. Look we don't need to be in the same area."

" Fuck it, fine. But if your staying here your gonna have to help me clean house, then."

" Clean house? Like what, dust the shelves, mop te floor, pick up everything in here?" She gives me a serious look.

" No fuckwad, I mean move these bodies somewhere else. So we have more moving space." She starts to drag, with her hooves mind you, one of the bodies. Seeing that this is the only way to, I guess, stay here for the night. I grab two of the bodies by their hooves and drag hem over to where Double Barrel decided as a 'proper' place to put them, behind a few fall shelves. We continue the process untile the only things left are the blood smears, bullet casings, and broken shit." There see how muc nicer it is now? Okay so considering that we'll be in each other's presenace for the time being till the storm passes, I guess we should at least learn whatever, about each other." I sigh and take a seat across from her, god I hope I made the right decision.

" Sure I guess. Okay I'm just putting this out there, I am not from here, not from this world to say. I just want to get back home."

" I could figure that ou'd be some freaky alien in this shithole. There's ALWAYS something fucked up in this wasteland. What surprises me the most right now on how you managed to take out the entierty of this place. Your fighting skills are....to say, complete shit." I give out a very slight chuckle, why is she is trying to nice to me." Well I've never been in....a firefight. Okay I have to ask, aren't raiders supposed to be...ya know, bloodthirsty killers, rapists, and theifts?" This time Double Barrel chuckles.

" Your not wrong kid but some are more fucked up than us. Some raiders you meet may let you live if you give you everything you have, some willl kill you for food or sport, or some may foalnap you for slave labor or sex. Your lucky that you ran into me. Us Scorchers like to only pick on the weak and weary but learn not to mess with some ponies. Me personally, I'm more curious than others. I'd rather learn that fight at first, but that won't stop me from shooting your ass with a shotgun." Yay me, a slightly psycotic mare with a shotgun fetish, just what I need.

" So what do you do for the raiders, then? You definatly are smarter than the others."

" Haha your damn right I'm smarter than those bozos. I was what they called, the Shotgun Surgeon. I'm as capable of killing you with my trusty twelve gage as well as patching you up when you got hurt. Of course though I, tend to take some of my stock for personal use, but I'm their medic so to speak. By the way you owe me for that Med-X, that shit is precsious to me." Wait, Med-X....isn't that the same shit I got from the cave? I pull out the medical box from my bag and I take out the little needle. I feel like I don't need it." Here take it. I found this in the medical box yesterday but I'm not a fan of shooting up shit like this. So here for the Med-X you used on me." I slide it over to her, and ya know what, the look of genuine generosity hits hard. She seems to just stare at the needle in her hooves, don't know how they work like that, just gonna call it radiation mutation, whatever. Either way she seems genuinely surprised by this." Tha-thanks, this is a shock. Normaly nopony willingly gives away drugs, without payment of somekind."

" Well I've been clean for years and only take drugs when I need too. Alcohol not included because I'll still drink till I'm dead. Look I know we are still able to kill each other in our sleep, but maybe that nice gesture will sway your opinion of killing me." Double Brrel lets out a chuckle.

" I'll admit while its tempting, I'll let you stay safe through the night. Though tomorrow your gonna have a fun time getting to the nearest settlemnt. I'm assuming you know where that is?" I shake my head no and she sighs." I figured as much. Okay here is a proposal for ya. You need guidence and somepony that knows their way around the area. I'll take you to New Appleoosa, for a price of course."

" Raider offering her services for a price then, huh? Okay all I have on my is the shotgun I picked up from your friend, 15 bottlecaps, some meat, and my bow and arrow. And the pip-boy." I hold up my left arm for her to see. I see her already tiny eyes, I swear she's high, widden.

" Damn! Stable-Tech technology all shiny and new. I haven't noticed that till now. It's been a long time since I've seen a pip-buck before." Okay tere's that word again, pip-buck.

" Okay so is this thing called a pip-buck? I have too many question and not enough answers." I look over the computer around my wrist. Double Barrel nods, I don't understand her, she's like fucking bipolar or something." Yeah. It says so on the side of the thing, can't you read? Well...I guess the question would be CAN you read?"

" Of course I can read. What made you think I couldn't? Ehh nevermind that, I'm just....dunno trying to make a rational sense of whats going on right now. Fuck I'm a mess." I sigh and grab my head with m left hand and hold it there, I can't make heads or tails of anything anymore. Double Barrel just shrug and gets up, and walks away. About a minute later I'm hit by a book, THE book I came here to get mind you." There's what you were after."

" Uhh thanks, I guess."

" Whatever. Well I'm going to go lay down where I normally sleep at. Study that book and live or don't and die out here, your choice. Night." She walks away with me just staring at...just everything. I notice she has a tattoo like everyone else I've seen so far. Well tattoos are nice so I'm not one to judge, mostly.

Ugh, I feel like shit, like I'm hungover or something. I don't know when I feel asleep last night. I whoke up in a puddle of blood, not mine thankfully, but still I smell like shit. No signs of the mare, so should I just leave? Don't know if I should though. Sure I may survive for a few days but that book only helped cover a few basics of survival in what they refered this place as 'The Equestrian Wasteland'. Plus that mare, Double Barrel, provided some usefulness. I don't have anything to pay her though, and I know payment of anythin here is blood money in this place. Food, medicine, caps, or weapons, anything useful. The fact the she's a Raider scares me enough, she could kill me and take my shit anyway. But I think she's good enough not to kill me at least. Kick me out of her home maybe but I dunno. I look over my bow, it still needs fixing after yesterday. I need something to get my mind shifting from sleep to alertness. I prefer to do stuff when I first wake up so my mind can wake up faster without the need for coffee, I've always done that for years.

I start to replace broken pieces of wood with the stronger parts I gathered yesterday. Its definatly not perfect but it will work, for now at least. I still want some coffee. Fuck I want to go home, go home back to Denver where I can rock climb all I want, drink purified fresh water, just go....back o normal. Well as normal as it can get for me, with cops still checking in up on me every now and again. My thoughts are inturpted by glass bottles moving around on the ground near my area. I quickly draw my bow an aim at the dark area that I heard the bottles move from. Out of the area Double barrel walks out. I get a better focused look at her now that my mind isn't clouded by post firefight thought. She has scares that dashed all over her body. She looks battered but not broken definatly, I can say she has warrior's beauty to say." Damn you are jumpy as hell in the morning." She trots out alll they way into the open as I put my bow down. She looks like she's packed with some sort of bags hanging on either side of her. Her trusty shotgun is strapped to her side as well.

" Sorry, you just scared me is all."

" Being on edge like that 24/7 will run you into the ground. You've gotta learn relax, even in the worst of situations, that way your better off suriving to live another day."

" Wow phylosiphy from a Raider, now I've heard everything. By the way that book isn't very specific about some things. Like somethings aren't as detailed as other areas. And the section about the world's fauna, boy am I gonna do some serious hunting if I get the time."

" Okay first off of screw you, and second off I don't control how the book is written. I was pratily the only one here who actually read the damn thing. Either way I hope your up and ready to go already. Time doesn't wait for us and we don't wait for it, so grab your shit and lets go."

" Yeah, yeah, give me a moment to piss at least." I stand up and wipe of the loose dirt off my pants. Double Barrel points a hoof over to to a tipped over shelf." Behind the shelf over there, in a bucket. Hopefully you can follow orders better then the others." I nod and walk over to the shelf and do my buisness. I finish and walk back out to find a pile of random junk.

" I took the liberity of gathering up what I found I could take and use from my dead 'friends', but I saved all the shit I didn't. Mostly pieces of cloth, empty soda bottles, some boxes of nails, and I think some old home cleaner. Take what you want or don't, don't care. Just get your stuff together and lets go." Well she grabs all the good shit and gives me crap, well you know....I can make this work. I grab a bit of everything and pack up." I'm all set on my end." I pick up my bow and string it on myself.

" Alright, to hell and back again."

Footnote:

Level Up!

Small Guns(25)

New Perk(s): Gunfighter: You're getting the hang of it. Small Guns increased +5

Quest Perk: Takedown-When prompted use this to take out a single enemy. Progress further to aquire better/allternative versions of it.