Fallout Equestria The Onyx Note

Rosey and I had been traveling across the wasteland for only about an hour, and I was already hating it. In the short time we had been walking I had seen glimpses of mutated bugs, lizards, snakes, even some kind of cow thing that had two heads. Rosey had said that was all natural, and had quickly questioned why I seemed to have no idea what was going on. She had quickly reached understanding though as I mentioned the vault I had come from, and the fate that had befallen it.

She had then explained that she was apparently a scribe for the steel rangers, a group that went back to before the war, under the ministry of wartime technology. “I had been assigned to check on friendly neighborhood to see if the ponies fit the name, and if not to come back to the main base to exterminate them,” she had explained, and to me it made sense. It was way to easy for a misleading name to drag a pony to their death, or for me and Rosey’s case to end up as a canvas. After just hearing that and knowing what fate had befallen her from their, I had attempted to hug her, which had just led to us falling into a pile while hugging.

As cute and nice as that was I did not think the ground was supposed to smell like someone had dumped 100 tons of garbage on it. She noticed the bracelets I was wearing, and her eyes widened in surprise, looking from me to them her mouth silently moving. Confused and slightly worried, I questioned “what?”

“I wish I could have been there to warn you not to put those on,” she sighed, and gave me a serious look before asking “Do you have any idea what those things are?”

“No, all I know is that they are weird and powerful,” I responded, earning a small chuckle from her.

“They are apart of some items that are said to take a piece of the soul of the user, and based off the soul turn them into powerful weapons,” she intoned, and I looked down at them, remembering the tugging I had felt on something deep within me. Something that had been apart of me my whole life. My soul. As dark as this all sounded, I had to speak up for these little bracelets, I mean they did save my life after all.

“Well I’m glad I found them, they are what saved my life,” I responded, and she nodded as if she had expected this. “Now that its already done I suggest you keep them, although I do wonder what they can do,” she conceded, and I smiled. If my thought about these was right, then I could..

A couple seconds later, the bracelets began to let out a faint, cheery tune as we trotted, and she looked at me surprised. I smiled, and focusing on the bracelets made the tune grow a bit louder, the music almost sounding like life itself, the tune fluctuating and changing to match the feeling of somepony in happy times. I even began to hum along to the tune, and a few moments after I started Rosey did too, humming and occasionally adding our own lyrics to the tune.

“When life brings you down, and you feel alone,” I singsonged, closely followed by rosey singed “Just look around, and hear the sound,”

“When you hear that sound, follow it close,”

“That sound is the music of your heart,”

“Your heart shows you, the real you,”

“And the real you, lets off a tune,”

“When you find that tune, youl finally find,”

“That you never were actually alone,” we said together, stopping in our tracts for a second.

“Your never actually alone in this world,”

“If you ever think you are,”

“Just find that tune again,”

“And then nothing will stop your heart!” we finished, panting softly and smiling at one another. I knew it wasn’t the best song, or even close too a good one. But it was song full of hope, hope and determination to keep moving on. I slowly put less focus into the bracelets, and the tune slowly faded away, leaving us to walk in a comfortable silence. Atleast comfortable until we heard shouting to our left.

My head whipped around to see a group of ponies heading right for us, drawing out weapons ranging from pistols to rifles. Oh celestia buck me with her hoofs what the heck. We literally had just gotten our hopes up, and now people with guns were charging at us. Seriously why was the wasteland this cruel!?

To my surprise Rosey took up a battle stance next to me, her horn pointed towards the oncoming ponies. Wait, she wasn’t planning to charge at ponies with guns, was she? “What are you doing!” I hissed through clenched teeth, slowly drawing out my lever shotgun. She shot me a confused look, then focused back onto the enemies, making me want to face hoof. Either I was being stupid, or she was about to be stupid.

“Friend or foe!?” the pony called out from ahead, catching me off guard. Looking to them, I saw most of the ponies, I now saw was there were four, had weapons out and were in battle stances. It was obvious they were prepared for a fight, but unlike the raiders they didn’t have that crazed look to them. They didn’t look like they wanted to hug it out and be best friends forever, but they also didn’t seem like they wanted to eat the meat off my ribs one by one in front of me.

“Friend!” I called back, and in an act I hoped wouldn’t get me killed I put my shotgun on the ground in front of me. If these really were non-hostile targets, then I would need to show trust. Although on that matter my EFS wasn’t helping at all, constantly flashing some of them from hostile to non-hostile then back again.

After a few seconds, there weapons lowered as well, and all of them except for a buck on the far left turned non-hostile on my EFS. I couldn’t make details out this far away, but from what I could tell he was wary, and I didn’t blame him. He hadn’t even seen my bracelets, which practically eminated “I don’t need weapons to fight”. I was glad though for the peaceful ending, and picking up my shotgun I began to trot over, Rosey helping with her magic to get the shotgun in my saddlebags. I shot her an appreciative glance, then looked back to the ponies in front of us, staying where they were and waiting patiently for us to arrive.

As soon as my bracelets came into view they all bristled, and I slowed down, getting a bit worried that just the sight would spook them to start shooting. After a few seconds though, they relaxed again as we walked up in front of them. “Hi, i’m mi - “ catching myself, I corrected “Onyx leaf,” before holding out my hoof. The pony in front set a confused look at the three others behind him, before reaching forward and shaking my hoof slowly. Jeez, this guy was like an anti-tsunami.

I laughed awkwardly, before he asked flatly, “what do you want? To trade?”

“Wha?” I responded, surprised. He pointed to the other three ponies behind him, and taking a closer look I saw each of them had a fairly large pack on their backs, probably full of stuff. I looked at Rosey, and she looked back shaking her head.

“No I think we are good, but I do have a question for you,” I said, and he raised an eyebrow. “Whats the nearest friendly settlement?”

“We were just going over to friendly neighborhood to trade, although there is also bucklemer back a mile or so,” He told us, nodding his head to about the north-east, but at that moment I didn’t care. “Wait, so you were knowingly going to trade with raiders?” I said, and their eyes widened in surprise.

“What are you talking about? It's a new settlement that just popped up a few months ago, we’ve traded with them a few times and everyone was plenty nice so wh-”

“Well if their were nice ponies there they were overrun by raiders and all killed,” I growled, cutting him off.

“O-oh..” he muttered, obviously stunned.

“Even if you were going to trade with raiders, they are dead now anyway,” I explained, my bracelets letting off a loud, angry humming. His eyes were drawn the the source of the sound, and he immediately took three steps away, a flash of fear showing in his eyes. “What the hell are those?” he asked in an accusing tone, and I smiled a bit. “The pickings from that raider place, I call them…” after a second of thought, I finished “I call them Pink melodies,”

“Pink melodies huh?” he asked, and I nodded. The name reminded me of the small burst of a song me and rosey had sung earlier, and I had the feeling for me not to be disgusted with these things for all the lives I knew I would probably have to talk with them, I would need at least one happy memory tied with them.

He stared at me for a couple seconds, before looking back at his, what I was guessing were guards, to keep moving, and before long we were waving to them as they headed in a different direction. I noted with satisfaction not towards friendly neighborhood, and we turned around to head our own direction. One or two miles huh? This was going to be a looooong walk.

Before long my hooves were aching and I wanted to just go to sleep. Somehow Rosey was still going at a brisk trot, and I wondered how she could continue walking so fast. Like seriously my hooves felt like jelly. Were we going to always walk everywhere like this? If so, I needed to redo hoof day.

I began to hum quietly, just loud enough for the both of us to hear, and she joined in. It wasn’t a very complex tune, just the one we had been singing earlier. A question suddenly formed in my mind, and stopping for a second I looked over at her, asking, “Hey Rosey, have you ever been too bucklemer?”

“I don’t think so, I remember passing by it to check on friendly neighborhood, but other than that I have never been inside,” she responded, her eyes squinting a bit as if she was searching her memories. “From what I remember it was a fairly small place, and it looked like anypony there was in good shape,”

“What do you mean by good shape?”

“Good enough shape to be able to fight off simple creatures without tripping into the ground and getting torn to shreds all because of a strained knee,” she elaborated, and I shuddered. I really hoped I never had to see something like that happen. For that matter I didn’t want to see something that could do that in the first place. Looking back over her, I saw she was gazing at me seriously, and I gulped. Dangit, I really didn’t want to know of the things she had seen by now.

“Earlier with those merchant ponies, what were you planning to do if they attacked?” I questioned, still confused on the earlier incident. She looked over at me, confusion showing in her eyes before a spark of understanding lit inside of them, and her mouth formed an “oh” shape. “I’m guessing you were never eyeing my flank to see it, or anything else, huh?” she said, and I blushed a small bit. Wait had she been thinking I was shooting looks at her flank!?

I stammered, trying to piece a simple sentence but failing. She giggled, and bumped me with her flank, only making me blush more and finally managing to explain,” n-no, even if I had you have clothes on, so I wouldn’t be able to see it anyway,”

“Ah, good point,” she conceded, but I still grew uncomfortable at the playful eyebrow that was raised. I really hadn’t looked at her flank! Okay maybe just a peak, but that had just been to see why the raiders had taken interest in her I swear. She pulled the small bit of armor she had to reveal her cutiemark, a blue rose with black thorns running down the sides of it, looking almost like a vine with a flower on top. “Its called poison joke, or more like killing joke, and shows my strength in illusion spells and alchemy,” she told me, and I nodded. I remember once walking into poison joke in the real world, and for a whole day before I found out the cure my hoofs had turned into mechanical balls. It had been so fricking hard to walk anywhere when you had to balance on those I swear.

I knew if Riptide had been there he probably would have had too lay down on the couch he would be laughing so hard. “Okay, but what kind of illusion were you planning?” I asked, and she immediately answered “A simple sudden cockroach, it would have focused their fire on the radroaches instead of us, so we could either run or pick them off,”

“Ah…” I said, thinking of stable 72. “Uhm.. if you ever do that don’t do radroaches, do something like rats or something,”

“Why?” she asked, sounding confused. I simply gave her a solemn look and she clammed up, seeming to sense there was some connection. After a second, I decided to explain with a sigh “Stable plus illusion inducing radroaches doesn’t last long, especially in one where guns are aloud..”

“Oh…” she whispered, seeming suddenly sad. Okay as sad as I was I was not going to let the pink colored pony, the color that practically screamed “I want you to hurt your eyes from looking at me,” be the one that was sad. So I hugged her, much to her surprise, but soon she hugged back. I could here the little pony in my head go “Yay, hugs,” which I agreed with. Even if I didn’t really know this mare much, a hug made everything better from what I had learned.

The hug didn’t last long considering we still had places to be, but soon we were walking again, now resting in a comfortable silence. I still wished we had something to make this go faster, but this was good enough. Nice, comfortable as you could be in the wasteland, and non-lonely. Well, comfortable until I heard a faint hissing from up ahead. My eyes immediately darted the ground infront, and I saw green glowing eyes peeking out from below a couple rocks. A couple of rocks which rosey was heading for with no knowledge of the danger she was in.

“Rosey look out!” I yelped, and startled she jumped back towards me right when a large snake lashed out at her, its jaws snapping where Rosey’s left forehoof had been seconds before.

Slowly it began to slip out of the rocks and coil in front of us, and I gasped at the size. It was about twice the size of a boa constrictor, its flat head and body covered in black and red shimmering scales. Its fat pink tongue flicked out to taste the air, and it slowly began to slink towards us, its eyes locked with rosey. Wait a second why wasn’t Rosey moving. I looked over at her and stared as I saw her, lock jawed and rigid as her horror filled eyes stared into those of the snake. Those green, almost hypnotic - oh celestia make the sun crash down on this thing it was hypnotizing its prey.

As quickly as I could I drew out my magnum, aiming for the things had as it slunk closer to Rosey, its mouth slowly beginning to open, revealing massive sharp hooked fangs. As the image of those fangs latching onto Rosey’s neck flashed through my head, I let out a battle cry, rage filling my every bone as I bit down hard on the wooden handle of the magnum and pulled the trigger. To my utter despair though, the bullet simply bounced off the creatures tough scales. Not so lucky for me though, it turned its head towards me, and now I saw the green rings spiraling in its eyes.

Wow, they were very pretty actually. I could my body relax as I stared into the eyes of the creature, ignoring the pony in my head screaming bloody murder. This couldn’t be wrong, it was so nice. The rings went woop woop woo- wait no no no! Shaking my head rapidly, i closed my eyes shut and aimed the pistol to where I last remembered it being and shot randomly.

I heard most of the shots bounce off its thick scales, but I also heard a loud hissing shriek. Opening my eyes I saw I had gotten both its eyes somehow, only glancing blows. But even those small glances were enough to make white puss and green glowing liquid spill out of its eyes, disrupting the rings it was still trying to flash at me. Unlucky for it though it was close enough to be in range for my hoofs, and in turn my pink melody.

With a scream I slammed both of my hooves against its head, pushing back as its giant maw opened and reached for me. It was strong, my hoofs slowly losing purchase on its smooth head, but that’s what I wanted. As soon as my hooves slid over its ears, I cranked the pink melody’s sound up till it seemed to fill the whole sky, and after a second the radsnake fell to the ground. I let its head flop to the ground, a small smile as I watched some goo leak out of the sides, maintaining a slight pinkish nature. Good riddance.

Looking back to Rosey, I saw her blinking drowsily, as if she had been asleep, before looking down at the snake letting out a cute “Eeep!” and jumping back. I laughed, and after a few seconds she started laughing too, although at what I wasn’t sure. But it was a happy laugh, and it helped me loose the anger and fury that had been building up as soon as the snake thing had attacked. I walked over to her, and gently poked her teasing, “Caught by its eyes were you?”

“S-shut up,” she said, her laughing turning to stuttering as she blushed, embarrassed. I giggled, and we both began walking again, leaving the dead radsnake behind.

It wasn’t long before we saw bucklemer in the distance, and I almost wanted to sprint all the way there to escape the aching in my legs. I wished I could, but that would just make it worse, so we continued a steady trot. Why couldn’t this be the time a sudden chariot appeared to bring us to the town. That would be both more relaxing and faster. Damn you wasteland and your open hostility towards all thing friendly.

It was about another 30 minutes before we finally reached bucklemer, as Rosey had said a fairly small seeming place. I couldn’t say it was homey, but it was a place to live, and in this wasteland that seemed the most rare thing. Unless you wanted to sleep with the radsnake in its stomach of course. That would probably be comfy until the hypnosis ended. Then lets see how long you last.

Level up, new skill added

Iron hoof: do to your hoof to scale combat, you do 20% more damage when unarmed.