Fallout Equestria:Failure Chapter 5: Hostile Negotiations

“With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels”

A pipbuck wasn’t something I’d ever owned. Sure, there were tons left over from when we all left the stables. And sure, I’d seen them around, known they were useful. But they’d also been unbelievably expensive. However, now more than ever, it was practical.

Doc decided to give me one of his. It was so old, I thought I’d have to wind it up. But it had all the standard features. S.A.T.S. , a radio, and for me, a map with a marker on it. Of course that also meant that we either had to kill Havoc or get her on our side. Not that any of us had a problem killing raiders or slavers. But, like Doc said, they catch us without her and we’re dead. Plus, she obviously knew her shit.

In order to stop the slavers in this region, or at least kick them down a notch, we had to dismantle Grave’s organization.And Havoc knew more about that organization than we did.I didn’t know what sort of loyalty she had for Grave and his forces, I was seriously hoping it was just for the sake of survival.

Hollow and Lily came back in the room. I didn’t see Havoc.

“Is Havoc coming in too?” I asked

“Nope, she’s busy hassling the mayor for the shit she needs.” Hollow replied.

“Good, because I found us a way to get out.”

It was getting close to sundown by the time we were back on the road. Overall, the extortion wasn’t horrible. Nopony got killed. Havoc decided it would be best to make camp rather than try to make it back to the base. It was more than convenient for us, after all, it would be expected of most ponies to talk around a campfire.

“So Havoc, you ever think of leaving the life?” Hollow Point could not have made our intentions more clear or put it so bluntly.

“Never gonna, but yeah. I thought of building a shack in the middle of nowhere, maybe find a buck and raise some foals. Nothing but a pipe dream though.” she stared off into the dark, “I know what you’re trying to do. I did the same thing. It got my ass handed to me.” she glared down her muzzle, “I’d appreciate it I didn’t have to do the same to y’all.”

“But why let it stay a dream? Why not try to go for it? We’ve got ponies and land. We even have a wall.”

I worked quickly while Hollow distracted her. Lily was sweating bullets and so was I. Then, I heard a little click, and the collar fell right off. She caught the explosive device with her foreleg before it could hit the ground.

“You know what happens to dreamers out here? They die, they leave everyone they love behind. They go out one day, they try to make everything okay, then they get their head blown off.” she was crying now. Perfect.

I heard the same click as my collar fell off. Now for the hard part.

Lily had to sneak up behind Havoc and get the collar on her. Being that she was the smallest of us, and the best fit, she took the job. Havoc didn’t notice the collar getting tightly pulled around her neck and the detonator off of it as we came out of the shadows.

“Miss Havoc, you have two choices. One: You give us the keys to the collars and we walk away. Or two: You die. You’re free to join us, take these supplies back to our people with us or to go back to a life of raiding that you apparently never want to leave.” I announced, trembling in awe at the fact that our plan actually worked. She lunged at me full force, pulling a pistol and shoving it into my mouth.

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” yeah, expected that to happen. “WHY THE HELL WOULDN’T I JUST KILL YOU NOW?”
“Ecuz ou’d ever ee your ream?” yeah, that worked about as well as I could have managed. Thankfully, Lily managed to knock her out before she could do anything else. And I just about shit myself then and there. Perks of having no food, you can’t shit yourself or throw up. And right about now, I wanted to both.

Using some of the rope from Havoc’s supply delivery, we tied her hooves together and waited for the sun to rise.

Sure enough, Havoc wasn’t exactly happy to wake up in a position that left her totally vulnerable. Various and creative curse words were thrown around, along with some less than child safe implications about my mother. But, like any well mannered guests, we waited for her to calm down.

“We could have left you for dead or killed you. But we didn’t. So maybe hear us out?” Coming from Lily, I’ll admit, I was surprised. And even more so when Havoc actually did settle down and listen.

“Fine, I’ll listen if it gets me out faster.” Havoc unhappily replied.

“We aren’t bad ponies, you know that though. We aren’t trying to hurt anyone we don’t need to. But Grave, he’s trying to hurt ponies regardless of whether or not they need to be hurt. It puts all of the region in danger. We can either stop him from hurting ponies, or we can let it go and it doesn’t have to be our problem. Obviously, if it keeps our village safe, we want to do whatever it takes. You also have something to gain from his demise. You get to be free, you get a safe place to live, you get to be left alone. So, what I’m asking you is, do you want to make this world just a little better?” I looked to my comrades. “Or do you want to make it just that much worse?” I looked her dead in the eyes with those last words.

“You might as well put a bullet in me right now, there’s no way I’m going up against Red Eye.”

“I don’t see why we don’t oblige her. She’s probably killed more foals than we’ll see in our lives.” Hollow said cocking his revolver and putting it to her head. “I’ll do you a favor and make it painless, better than you’ve probably done.” She replied with a headbutt.

“We don’t want to kill you.” Hollow shot me a look “Let me rephrase I don’t want to kill you. Rather, I need you to help me take down Grave. So, here’s my offer, if we survive, you get every single cap in that camp. All we ask is that you burn it to the ground, save for the caps and the supplies we need to bring back home.”

“Fuck you” she said, apparently money wasn’t enough.

“So you’d really rather die than help innocent ponies escape to freedom? Even more, you’d rather die for a stallion that wouldn’t lift a hoof for you? Then fine, we’ll leave you here with a bullet in the face and find our own way in. But when you get to the afterlife, make sure you know how much suffering you caused and how much you could stop by helping us. You think you could stand to see one of the foals you’ve helped murder? You think you could stand to see the families you’ve gotten killed? Then fine.” Gotta say, out of the three of us, I expected that the least from Lily. From the passionate and burning glare she gave Havoc, who in turn, glared right back.

“Fine then bitch, you want in? I’ll get you in. There’s an escape tunnel system just to the northeast of the base, it comes out to an old grocery store. You let me go, I’ll lead you there.” I had to debate as to whether or not this was a ruse.

“You’ll tell us the coordinates and I’ll put it into my pipbuck. Then I’m gonna go check it out. If it’s legit, then we let you join us and take the caps. If not, I’m gonna come back and kill you.” I replied

“So what? I’m your hostage now?” clearly not what she was expecting.

“Yup” Hollow replied before kicking her to unconsciousness

End of Chapter 5

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New Perk: Intimidation - Pacify other ponies and make them do the dirty work

Author's Note

Author’s note: Sorry this has been taking so long, I've been moving around a lot lately and haven't had much time to write. Also, sorry for the weird new format, it's more or less an experiment.