The rich scent of pipe tobacco filled the room, but I didn't recall ever entering a room. I looked around and by the wood floors, tables, chairs, and the obvious bar toward the back that was lit by neon signs advertising Wild P, Leaky Hose, and Barking Dog, I was in a bar and a clean one at that. Sitting behind the bar was a grey stallion no bigger than me, but his wings were pretty damn big and his right foreleg had been replaced with a metal one. He puffed on a redwood pipe and was cleaning a glass with a rag. I tentatively took a step toward the bar, then another and soon I found myself sitting on a barstool across from the buck. He looked up at me, yellow, cat like eyes, glistening as he looked at me.
“What are you drinking this fine evening,” he asked in a low toned voice that sent shivers down my spine.
“C-could I get a Leaky Hose,” I managed.
He grabbed a glass from behind the counter and filled it from the tap, before setting it on a coaster in front of me.
“You are afraid,” he said, puffing a cloud of smoke at me as he spoke.
“N-no,” I said in an attempt to be defiant.
He snickered, “That's about as convincing as my homework excuses.”
“Homework?” I thought, confused.
“Oh, I forgot. How could I forget that a proper school system is hard to come by these days,” he said thoughtfully.
“Cut the shit! Who are you,” I yelled, scared.
“Best drink your beer, I'll get to that,” he said, before taking a puff of his pipe.
I shakily lifted it to my lips, unable to use my magic, and took a sip. It was fresh, like in the stable. I kept drinking, letting the alcohol calm me as I watched him smoke and clean glasses and plates.
“You look a lot better than before,” he said, setting a plate in the sink and staring me in the eyes.
“I don't remember my name. The only one that I recall is Scratch, so you may call me Scratch,” he said.
“So, Mr. Scratch, what is this place,” I asked.
“A place from my memory. We are in your mind as well as my own,” he said.
“What,” I asked.
“I have taken your mind and body, not completely, nor for ill intent, but I am here for my own personal gain. It's also a pretty shitty life as a disembodied soul, who is neither dead, nor alive,” he said with a grin.
I backed away, knocking over the barstool that I was sitting on, shaking my head. His body seemed to dissolve and turn to shadows that covered the lights, but his face remained.
“Good luck, kid,” he said.
My vision then went black.
*
I sat up, gasping for air and found myself laying in the poppies, crosses on either side of me. I felt cold metal on my lap, and looked to find a black Colt Trotter revolver with poppies engraved into the barrel and receiver. There was also a sheathed black saber, that I put in my saddlebags, before setting off with the pistol at the ready in my magic. I followed the old interstate that was littered with trucks, carriages, and other debris.
“Find the four guardians. Get their keys,” Scratch’s voice echoed in my head.
I shook my head, before looking at my pipbuck, which was glitching out, before winking out entirely with a pop.
“Shit,” I shouted, before attempting to fix it with some tools in my saddle bags.
It was a lost cause. The component were compromised, but I didn't know what could've done that much damage besides a high powered EMP or a lightning strike. There was a crackling sound like you'd here from a scratched record on a record player, but there was also a voice.
“Welcome to your connection to this side of the wasteland, this is East Front Radio and coming up next is Lovely Rita by The Beatles,” the mare said enthusiastically.
The music was different from anything I'd ever heard, but I liked it, and followed the sound around the back of a sky carriage and found a radio that lay beside a couple, who had been beaten to death with a crowbar. I ducked back around the carriage and puked when the scent hit me and when I looked at their bodies, beaten and broken. I took a moment to catch my breath, still dry heaving at the thought about what I had seen.
It was sick, how could someone do something like that? That was grotesque and I was almost glad that it was at least a few days old. To get my mind off of it I wondered how the hell that radio was working while my pipbuck had fried. I decided to take the radio and examine it for clues on its survival. I held my breath, and bolted around the corner, grabbed the radio, and galloped down the street, before taking a breath. I kept walking until I reached an old bus, and climbed aboard.
I had begun to dismantle the radio on the dashboard, but I froze when I heard a roaring sound and gunfire. I abandoned my work, and dove under a bench seat. The sound grew deafening, before there was another volley of machine gun fire. There was then a high pitched noise followed by a tremendous crash and an explosion, but I decided not to peak, and hid instead. I heard screaming and more of the roaring noise, but it was quieter this time. It sounded almost like a buzzing noise, but it stopped next to the bus I was hiding in, before all went silent.
“Case the joint! Make sure nona those NCR fuckers survived,” a stallion with a Trottingham accent yelled.
There were galloping hoof steps toward where I'd heard the strange machine crash, but I was shaking when I heard the clunk of heavy hooves boarding the bus. I was facing the center of the aisle of chairs and I saw the power hooves of the pony, who was looking on the bus. I held my breath, but I wanted to scream, I was scared out of my mind. Just when I thought he was gonna leave, he suddenly dropped, grabbed me by my front hooves, and dragged me out. I bashed my head on the seat, and when I regained my sense of self, I had no idea how I had gotten from the bus to flat on my ass on the pavement with the wind knocked out of me. My foreleg hurt and when I looked at it, I almost screamed, but I was prevented from doing so by a tightness around my throat. I was lifted off the ground by my throat, kicking and wriggling, before being turned to face my attacker, a black unicorn stallion with a tattoo of a magenta alicorn on his neck.
“Look what I caught boss,” he yelled with glee.
The corners of my vision were growing dark as my head pounded and my lungs screamed. I had to get out, but how!? I tried to focus some energy into my horn as if I were casting a spell, and for better or worse I lost control of it and there was an explosion of light and noise like a flashbang and I was dropped like a ton of bricks. I gasped for breath and attempted to crawl away, but I was dragged by my tail back toward the brute, who had caught me.
“I love it when they struggle,” he said, licking his lips, before flipping me over and pinning me to the pavement.
Another pony appeared in my vision, a mare with a green tattoo of an alicorn on her neck and snorted as she watched me struggle.
“Smash her horn and have your fun, but don't kill her,” she said, before disappearing with a green flash.
“Oh I'll have fun alright,” he said as he lifted a buzz saw to my horn.
He flipped it on, but I shunted it away with a burst of magic, and shoved it into his face, causing him to lose his magical grasp on the buzz saw and I. I stood, and sent the running buzz saw through his own horn, then I twisted and bucked him square in the mouth, before charging at the next pony, who barely missed me with a shotgun, and bashed his head open with the back of the saw, before dropping the saw and taking his shotgun. I turned it on his buddy, and racked another shell into the chamber, before blowing his brains out over the asphalt. I quickly rolled out of the path of machine gun fire and found myself hiding behind a broken delivery truck. I peeked, and almost caught a bullet with my face, so I crawled under the truck and shot the mare. She was peppered with buckshot, so I crawled completely out, and saw the others were hiding behind the strange machine with mini guns and rocket launchers mounted on the side. I moved up and took the mare's BM60 from her battle saddle, before taking cover behind the sky carriage beside the dead couple. I noticed that there was a grenade held on the butt of my new gun by duct tape, so I tore it off, pulled the pin, and counted to three, before tossing it over the wreck. Screams echoed as it went off, then there was silence. I looked back at my foreleg and realized once again that 1: It hurt. 2: MY BONE WAS STICKING THROUGH MY SKIN!
I screamed and began hyperventilating, before I heard Scratch yell, “Calm down!”
*
I was...in a hospital?
“Yes and no,” Scratch responded to my mental question.
“We've taken a break and entered your mind,” he said.
I didn't feel the pain anymore, but my leg was still broken. He suddenly appeared right in front of me with the same injury.
“Wait, am I unconscious,” I asked, frantically.
“No, but we are in what I'd like to call a stand still, so don't worry about it,” he said.
“How did I survive that,” I asked him as he walked to a cart and returned with a leg brace.
“Now keep in mind that I am fixing our leg both in here and out there, but you need one of these,” he said, holding it up, then tossing it aside.
“How did I k-kill like that,” I asked shakily.
He grabbed my foreleg and pulled from the broken end until the bone went back under the skin and reset it. I screamed the entire time, but he grinned and I saw that his leg was now fixed and the pain stopped.
“The killing thing is a little bit of me that I let you have. I can't just let you die, before my business with you is done now can I, Bye,” he said.
I shivered, before I responded softly, “I guess not.”
“That and you've got a long, lovely life ahead of you that I can't just let end, because the Purifiers can't play nice,” he said with a chuckle.
I was about to speak, but I said nothing.
“Keep goin, kid,” he said.
*
I still stood where I was, looking at my foreleg, which was mended, but I needed to find bandages and a brace before I even considered putting weight on it again, so I hobbled back to the bus, and luckily found what I was looking for.
After cleaning the wound, wrapping it up, and fitting the uncomfortable brace, I was ready to set off once more, but this time with not just my pistol, but a machine gun as well.
I had walked for a few hours, before the sun plunged below the horizon and I took shelter in an old sky carriage and turned in for the night.
*
“Mommy, when are we gonna leave the stable,” I asked again.
I was bored and all of the other fillies and colts were taking their naps, while I bugged my mom, who was the stable disc jockey.
“Not for a long time sweetie,” she said, listlessly, as she gazed at an old photograph.
St. Fluttershy Infirmary Blues played on the radio and I listened, letting the music relax me, but there was a loud bang, followed by more loud bangs. My mom grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, and ran under the table in the corner, before flipping it, so we were protected from the door area. My mom set me down and drew her 10mm.
“Stay down,” she warned.
“What is it mommy,” I asked, afraid.
“Stay here unless I say,” she said, before hopping over the table, and walking toward the door without realizing that I was watching.
The door opened, and in the blink of an eye my mom had been shot through the head by a stallion, who looked like death itself. I thought she was screaming, but in truth I was screaming as I watched my mom's blood soak the brown carpet.
*
I sat up and sobbed, having woken from the same nightmare I had every night. Why did I have to remember my mom like that? Why wasn't it her goofy laugh, or her competitive spirit, or the way she sang to me before I went to sleep? I sighed and wiped the tears from my eyes. I looked out of the sky carriage’s broken window, still wrapped in my blanket, and I saw that it was raining.
“Just perfect,” I said sarcastically.
My leg hurt and it was still swollen, so to dull the pain, I pulled some med-x and a tourniquet from my bag, and tied the tourniquet around my right shoulder, and aimed for a vein, before sticking it in and depressing the plunger. I untied the tourniquet and sighed as all of my pain was wiped away.
“Another day in the wastes,” I said with a sigh.
I folded my blanket and put it back in my saddle bag, before putting my gear on and venturing into the rain. I made my way down the seemingly endless road, passing through the forest that lay on either side of me, occasionally revealing a waterfall or weapons and vehicles trapped in the sides of the hills I passed. The air tasted metallic and I felt sick, but I focused on the scenery.
The road eventually rose and became a tunnel through the side of a mountain with a wonderful view of the river down below. I stopped for a break, and I puked, before rummaging through a suitcase that lay beside a wrecked two wheeled vehicle and a pile of bones. Inside, I found a journal and put it in my bag as well as a postcard of this tunnel with the words, See You In Horsigan, printed in red cursive. There were bullet holes in it, but I decided to keep it, before walking through the tunnel, and seeing a house on a ridge overlooking the river and the interstate. My side hurt and when I looked at it, I saw an angry orange mark under my now grey fur.
“Radiation burn? How,” I thought aloud.
“If you had been listening instead of spacing out you would have heard me say to take the bypass back by where you slept,” Scratch yelled.
“But, how did I get exposed to radiation,” I asked.
“The trees absorbed the radiation from the megaspell, and still give off a high level,” he said.
“Oh,” I said as I began to understand what he meant.
“Go to that mansion on the ridge, it's an NCR trading post, you should be able to get your pipbuck fixed there,” he said.
So I kept walking until I reached an exit from the interstate and followed an old, washed out, mountain road until I reached a gate and a concrete wall with guard towers and machine gunners.
“What are you doing here,” the first gunner asked in an authoritative voice.
“Ask them to see the captain,” Scratch said.
“I'm here to see the captain,” I yelled.
CLICK CLICK
“That didn't work Scratch,” I said mentally.
“Sydney,” he said.
“What,” I asked as guns were trained on me.
“Code word Sydney,” he said frantically.
“Code word Sydney,” I yelled.
The ponies in the guard towers froze, before a unicorn in riot gear with three stripes on his shoulder appeared in front of me with a heavy revolver pointed at my head.
“Lie down on your stomach and don't do anything stupid,” he said.
I followed his instructions and felt my gear stripped from me, before he said, “Now stand up.”
A bag was put over my head, and I felt myself lifted into the air by a strong magical grip over my entire body. I was held like that for about a minute, before my vision was returned. I looked around and found that I was standing in front of an oak wood desk in a nice office with matching oak wood floors and bookshelves lined with reading material. On the desk was a blank name tag, an ink well, and a picture frame. The same stallion stood at attention next to me. A ghoul with what remained of a palomino coat and an eye patch walked in, wearing full riot gear minus the helmet. The silver bars on his shoulder and the saluting unicorn revealed that he was the captain.
“Leave us master sergeant,” he said.
The unicorn set down my gear and left as the captain took his seat behind the desk.
“Hello sir I-”
“Who told you about code Sydney,” he asked, stopping me dead in my tracks.
“Mr. Scratch,” I blurted.
He looked me dead in the eye and growled, “Bullshit you know my lieutenant or our code word he's been dead since the end of the war!”
He seemed to look me up and down, before speaking again, “You do look an awful lot like him. Who are you?”
“My name is Lullabye,” I said, a weird feeling overtaking me.
“What is your business at NCR HQ,” he asked.
“I came here for pipbuck repairs,” I said.
I wasn't trying to talk, but something was making me. I began to shiver at the thought of what could be forcing me to talk.
“Who told you about code Sydney,” he finally asked.
“Mr. Scratch,” I answered.
“She's telling the truth, sir” the unicorn from before said from behind me.
His eyes went wide as the feeling disappeared from my head.
“Where did you see him,” he asked, jumping over his desk.
“He did die, but something forced him to stay here. I ended up running into him by Flanders fields and he kinda just merged us together and decided to help me find the key holders to MoAS facility 81,” I said as concisely as I could.
He stared at me, eyes wide, mouth agape as I waited for him to respond.
“F81! You're insane, nopony has ever reached F81,” he shouted.
“It may be one of the only ways to peacefully clean up the wasteland quickly, but it's not worth getting killed for it,” he continued, pacing as he spoke.
Attempting to change the subject, I asked him, “What did you say your name was again?”
He paused and bowed to me, “Captain Pipsqueak at your service,” he said, but he wasn't distracted for long.
“I still don't understand why you want to do this to yourself. Even if you get a key the Purifiers will hunt you down and kill you,” he said, looking me dead in the eye.
“I want everypony to live a normal life and be happy no matter the cost to myself. Even if I get killed it will be because I wanted to make the world a better place,” I said, determined.
The worry seemed to fade slightly, before he said, “master sergeant, make sure she gets some unmarked ranger gear, get her all the bullets and mags she can hold on those bandoleers, and take her to private Sparky to get her pipbuck fixed,” he said.
“Yes sir,” the master sergeant said.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Pip said before we walked out.
“Yes sir,” the master sergeant asked.
“Go with her and help her find the keys,” he said.
“Understood,” the master sergeant said.
We left the big house and ended up in what used to be a very high class neighborhood with street vendors on the old roads that connected the giant houses that were converted to bars, barracks, libraries, or knocked down to make room for an air strip.
“What is this place,” I asked.
“This is NCR HQ Horsigan division. The base is nicknamed ‘The Homestead’,” the master sergeant said.
I saw the weird machines with the rotating tops and decided to ask about them as well.
“What are those things,” I asked, pointing a hoof at one.
“That is a Sweetie Bell UH-1 Iroquois, a helicopter built by engineers trapped here during Hosigans fall to fend off invading zebra forces 200 years ago,” he said.
“What's Hosigans fall,” I asked as we walked through the hustle and bustle of the homestead toward a huge house in the center of the neighborhood.
“The zebra army launched a magical attack that isolated our radio frequencies and destroyed any outside electronics. They then made a big push with dragons and tanks into the capital of Horsigan,” he said.
“So the zebras won,” I asked.
“Everyone won and everyone lost,” he said as we walked through the front door and were met with two armed military police ponies.
“I'm here to arm this recruit,” the master sergeant said.
“Go ahead,” the one on the left said.
We walked the long hall until we reached a wall with a plexiglass window and a baggage claim carousel that connected to the inside of the huge room behind the wall. A blonde unicorn mare with glasses suddenly came into view.
“Oh hey, Wild Card. How's your mom,” she said.
“She's still sick,” the master sergeant said, downcast.
Almost on cue a wave of nausea and a burning pain on my side hit me. I wanted to cry out, but I puked instead. The master sergeant, Wild Card, turned to me and looked me over.
“That, on your side, is a radiation burn,” he said, worried.
“Did you follow the interstate to get here,” he asked.
I nodded as I coughed and looked at my bloody vomit. He saw it too, and quickly shoved a pack of radaway and iodine tablets.
“You're gonna need more than this, but you still better take them before we go to the infirmary,” he said, before turning back to the mare.
“Gimme Quaker a pipbuck with AFS, 300 7.62mm rounds, and 200 45-70 govt. rounds,” he said quickly.
“But Quaker belongs to the captain,” she protested.
“He’s letting her have it,” he said.
The mare nodded and ran out of view as I became dizzy. A duffle bag came down onto the baggage carousel and Wild Card grabbed it in his magic, before teleporting us into the front room of a big house, that had a desk set up and a line of gurneys beside it. A nurse looked at us in surprise as we appeared, but Wild Card stepped up.
“We got a recruit with high rad exposure from Suicide Turnpike,” he said.
The nurse, bewildered, pressed a button on the entercom that emitted a clicking noise that reminded me of a geiger counter and in no time I was on a gurney being pushed deep into the mansion turned hospital. Wild Card and the nurse walked beside me as I was wheeled down a long hallway labeled “Radiation Treatment Center”.
“We're gonna be doing some extensive work to clean your systems, so relax and we should have a memory orb for you in no time,” the nurse said in a voice that was clearly a, you might die, so I'm gonna try and reassure you, voice and I began to shiver.
I wasn't really gonna die, was I?
There was a tap to my horn and my vision faded.
*
BOO- WWWW WOOOOOSH!
I found my host staring into...his hooves. He looked up as the flash disappeared and turned to see mushroom clouds all around him.
“Hoofington, New Pony, even the zebra lands,” he managed as dead silence fell over the battlefield.
Some lay dead, others who had looked away from the detonation on mount Hoof stood stock still on their hind hooves, rifles cradled in their forelegs, wearing riot gear that the NCR would later claim I assumed. He grimly gazed at one dead pegasus soldier beside him with a silver lieutenant bar adorning his helmet. He rolled him onto his back, taking his dog tags and a strange looking M16 rifle from his hooves.
“You were right mate. We all went too far,” he said, voice quivering, “We're all in the shit now.”
He took a white handkerchief from the dead buck's coat pocket and tied it around the barrel, holding it up as he climbed out of the trench and walked across, passing a zebra doing the same, walking toward the pony trenches with a white flag. When he got there, the zebras just stared at him with tears in their eyes, rifles down. A big zebra climbed out of the trenches, standing in front of my host.
He looked him up and down and said, “So captain, are you ponies happy with what you have brought upon us all?”
“I'm not here to argue sir, I'm here because this is the end. Whatever we were fighting about doesn't matter now that the world has ended,” my host said in a level tone.
In his peripheral vision I saw pegasi flying up into the clouds. My host turned on the radio to his pipbuck, which then emitted an almost woodpecker like knocking sound.
“Equestria’s knocking. The SPP is closing the skies, leaving us all to die and I would love to disappoint them, but I require as much help as I can get. Will you help us help the survivors,” my host said as the clouds closed in.
The zebra held his glare, but it began to falter, before he spoke, “What is your plan, pony?”
“First, what's your name, sir,” my host asked.
“I am Yunfakh,” he said.
“I am Pipsqueak,” my host said as they shook hooves.
“We need to secure the capital and establish law and order,” my host said, pointing to the barely visible tops of the skyscrapers through the trees.
Yunfakh nodded as more ponies approached with their guns on their backs.
“We also need to build defenses around the city and make sure the aquifer isn't or won't be contaminated,” Pip continued, “I will have my men gather survivors to the south, but I need your help securing Port City.”
Yunfakh chuckled and spoke once more, “You are ambitious, Captain Pip. We will help you, but you better treat us fairly or you and your people will face our wrath.”
“The war is over, we have no quarrel with your people,” Pip said.
“Let us go and secure the capital,” said with a determined grin.
*
I awoke on a hospital bed with Wild Card sitting beside me.
“How bad was it,” I asked him.
“You were lucky, they only had to fix your stomach and that nasty radiation burn,” he said.
I sat up and saw that he had the strange M16 from the memory orb on the table beside him. It had a redwood hoof hole stock with a high monte carlo comb and redwood grips with a flashlight under the barrel. It also had a bigger looking barrel and receiver, that had gold engravings on them, as well as a scope and a suppressor.
“Whose gun is that,” I asked.
“This is Quaker, the captain's friend made this rifle out of a standard issue M16A1 and chambered it to shoot 7.62mm. When the captain’s friend died, he took his rifle and used it to bring order to Port City and fight off the Steel Rangers and the Enclave, who were dumb enough to attack,” he said, clearly fond of the gun.
“Does it still jam like an M16,” I asked skeptically.
“No, surprisingly,” he said.
I chuckled, before speaking again, “So when am I getting outta here, Cardshuffle?”
“How did you know my last name,” he asked.
“It's on your chest plate,” I said, grinning.
“Oh,” he answered thoughtfully.
“Tonight,” he responded to my question.
I nodded in understanding, before asking, “Why haven't you removed your helmet in front of me?”
He shuffled a bit, but he disconnected the rebreather hose on his helmet and removed it. He had eyes as blue as the ocean and an almost light grey blue coat and a jet black mane.
“I usually prefer to stay prepared for trouble,” he said, before putting his helmet back on and reconnecting the rebreather hose.
“Good to know,” I said.
*
I fidgeted in the riot armor I was given as we left The Homestead.
“Why do I have to dress in this stuff again,” I asked.
“It's so nopony knows who's finding the keys,” Wild Card said.
“This is stupid,” I mumbled.
“I thought you wanted to help the wasteland,” he said, teasingly.
I sighed, this was gonna suck and I didn't even know the half of it.
