Chapter 9- Cold
"Maybe put away the good glasses."

In truth, I expected Nettle to be pissed, but for one reason or another, she wasn't. She just wiped the blood spatter off of her face and said, "We should move camp, any others in the area probably heard that, and if there aren't any, creatures might have." she responded, completely devoid of any emotion. Positive or even negative emotion would have been preferable, but there wasn't much I could do about it then. So, rather than dwell on it, I took the slaver's rifle, ammunition and magazines. It wasn't ideal to carry a rifle made by slaves and for slavers, but it would extend my range by a fair bit, so, better to deal with it than not have it as a backup option, especially if I was going to keep doing bounty hunting jobs. Though if they found out what Nettle and I were planning, it likely wouldn't be for the Hollow. And in all reality, even if they didn't I likely couldn't work for them again. At least not without having Nettle wait far from town the entire time I was in it.

At the same time as reconsidering my deal with Nettle, I also realized that I needed her at least as much as she needed me. Mutually beneficial alliance for working towards the same goal. The only options I had now were to say 'fuck it, let the chips fall where they may for the Hollow.' or to actually turn her in, collect my reward and completely screw her over. Neither option was particularly good, or even honest, but one of them did help me towards my end goal.

"Hey Nettle, got another cigarette?" I asked.

"Well, more than one more, but only if you find me another pack or carton of em later on." she replied, once again offering me the open tin. I took one and just like before, lit it with my magic. The taste was awful, acrid, and definitely stale, but it helped me to confirm my decision to help her with myself. As little sense as that might make, it was something that I felt a need for. To make sure that I could justify this to both myself and my comrades, comrades that had, for the time being, abandoned me. Though if I was to be honest with myself, more than just for the time being, and if I was really being honest with myself, abandoned wasn't the right word to use.. perhaps neither was comrade. In truth, they were forced to help me by my mother. Nettle wasn't much different in that regard, but rather than being forced by another to help me or I her, we made a deal based on our word alone. In all reality, up to that point, she was the closest I'd ever had to a friend.

That's some depressing shit right there, but the world is often depressing. And sure, part of that deal was based on money and freedom, but if I was for freedom of slaves, I couldn't rightly be against freedom for someone doing what was realistically right.That was her dad's shotgun, and by all rights belonged to her. She stole it back from some fuckstick that stole it from her. A thief wasn't likely to survive in the wastes, so if the true story were to come out then maybe he'd be exiled and she'd be freed anyway. But the way we were planning on got her the revenge she wanted, and hastened the process of him dying while also making sure that he couldn't steal from anyone else. But, that was just me justifying being an accessory to murder. I didn't feel right about the deal I made with Bullet or Nettle, but I also knew that I had to pick one of them to side with. We kept walking down the road, all the pavement torn up and broken until we hit a small patch of yellow grass. "Meal and a place to rest comfortably, wanna make camp here?" I asked.

"Might as well, can't say there's any other place to realistically camp." she replied apathetically. I looked around for anything that might make the rest actually restful, only to find nothing. So I laid in the dirt and pulled out the rifle. Disassembly on these was fairly simple for a unicorn. There was a spring that held a cover over the bolt and once that cover was off and the rod that held the spring was removed, everything was open other than the barrel. To be fair, these were pretty shoddy rifles, but they were also one of the only ones made post war. So to say it was expected is a bit of an understatement. I just gave it a look over and checked the magazine. Magazine was full and the rifle was at least in working order. It could do with a bit of oil in the barrel to clean out the residual powder that hadn’t burnt, but that could be dealt with in town or later on down the road. The bolt handle was also chipped, but being that I operated it with magic made it all much easier and not much of an issue at all. The magazine was actually the only part of the rifle in poor condition, I had to assume that this particular rifle was taken off of another slaver. Or at least that the magazine had. It still worked, but sometime soon I would need to replace the spring in it or risk jams. Having only one magazine also didn't help things, but I had to imagine these were fairly common rifles around here.

"You get comfort outta cleaning guns?" Nettle asked me.

"Not really, but this is sort of an exception. It's letting me think of our current situation in regards to arms and armor. We've got two guns that can't be beat in close quarters, but one that is falling apart where it counts for our medium to long range encounters. To be quite blunt, we're going to need more of these rifles and magazines." Admittedly, the rifle wasn't in bad shape at all, as previously stated, but I really needed those magazines.

"Fair enough, I see these used pretty frequently, so they shouldn't be in short supply, but armor is one thing we both sorely lack." she pointed out.

"Yeah, we can't exactly go about in power armor or slaver gear, so I gotta ask, you have any idea where we can find some half decent armor around here? Maybe an abandoned Stable?" Even if there was armor in there, it would be far from good, but I had seen ponies wearing Stable-Tec security barding in the past. It wasn't great, but it might get us safety from small caliber pistols.

"If we hit it after we're done at the Hollow then I know about one Stable that's still lived in and trading with wastelanders. They've generally got some pretty good shit there." she replied

"Which one?" I asked.

"Stable 187. They claim it's one of the control Stables, no side mission, no weird malfunctions, just a place for ponies to live in and out of until the radiation cleared up."

"Side mission?" I asked, furrowing my brow.

"Yeah, see, all of Stable-Tec wanted to try to improve shit, so they put in all sorts of weird doodads and things to either go wrong or challenge societal norms. This one was just normal, opened awhile ago and ponies just wanted to trade out of it."

"Oh, well shit, where is it?" I tried to appear unalarmed by the news that the ponies in charge of keeping Equestrians safe after the war would do something that might jeopardize that. I mean, theoretically, it was just for the overall betterment of society, but still. Actually, come to think of it, what were the "side missions" they had? Did they have one where it was like all the richest of Equestria living in conditions that were lower than the poorest? That'd be a good one, not one that would actually help anypony, but still. I'd get a good laugh out of hearing how they turned out.

"About two miles west of the Hollow. Decent folk there too." she replied with borderline enthusiasm.

Level up: Level 6
New Perk: Mr. Clean- due to cleaning your weapons regularly, they will almost never jam or malfunction.

Author's Note

So as you can probably guess, with the whole virus thing, money has been an issue. I’m not going to beg any of you for it, but I did manage to find a job that was deemed necessary. Unfortunately it’s giving me even less time to write than I already had. So in the time between chapter releases, I am going to beg you to be patient with me. Check out similar stories written by authors that are probably better than I am and the works that inspired this story to be written at all. Shoutout to Kkat, Somber, and Nobody for the inspiration as always. Which if you haven't already, check them out, true masters of the written word right there. And this time, I'm also going to include a shoutout to everyone who is featured in here in their own forms. Not that any of them are going to read it, but still.