Chapter 7- Fun Stuff

"Do you ever wonder why we're here?".

Okay, so Doc Sawbones wasn't bullshitting about the manticore. As it turns out, it was tamed by a local trader and it guarded his caravan whenever he left town. Not exactly something anypony would expect, or for that matter, any being with even moderate intelligence. For me, it was just sort of scary at first, then came the realization that it was a calm, friendly monster. Even knowing that it was calm, if you weren't trying to hurt somepony, it still scared me at first. That was just until I heard its' name, Kitty. It sounded like the most satirical possible name you could give to a literal monster.

The trader's name was Watts, and as it turned out, he sold primarily magical energy weapons. But not just your standard, beat up, and well used laser guns. No, these weapons were in immaculate shape, like they'd just come off of an assembly line. He sold them at a minimalist price to any pony, griffin, or sand dog that needed them. Apparently just over the price he got them at, so still at enough of a profit to continue business, but not so high that one rifle would pay off his rent in town and feed his manticore. I had to admit, his business strategy was a good one.

"So, I see you're already used to the new limbs, good. Now, how are you planning to pay for these?" Sawbones asked from behind me, making me jump a little.

"Oh, I thought they were already paid for. I'm sort of low on caps right now, so what's the damage?" I replied with a grimace.

"Four thousand caps, what can you pay right now?" I felt around for my bags, only to realize they were still on the counter in the medical office.

"Right now? Nothing, my bags are still in your office. When we get back there, probably less than that." If I recalled correctly, I had about fifty caps. One of few times I wished my dad was around, the rich bastard probably would have paid extra for a whip installed though. "So, is there any work you need done? Maybe some supplies gotten? A caravan that needs guarding? Maybe a monster killed?" I asked.

"Well, there's a job board at the bar, but if anypony is paying that much for a single job, you'll want some help with it." So, two options for me. One, do one job that'll probably get me killed, or two, do a shitload of jobs that'll take a long time. Of course, either way would probably do quite a bit for my reputation around here. "Let's just head over there now, and since you'll need something to fight with, we'll probably need to increase that debt to pay your real debt off." Fucking. Great.

The bar was pretty well beaten by the balefire blasts, not enough to take it down, but there was a sizable hole in the front wall. Not a door mind you, but that didn't stop anypony from coming in through that hole. In front of the bar's actual entrance was a small board with a bunch of posters nailed up to it. Some were wanted posters, some were "help wanted" posters, and others were advertisements for merchants and mercenaries. In all honesty, mercenary work wouldn't be too bad if it didn't separate me from my brother and mother indefinitely or just end up killing me. The highest paying jobs were bounties, paying between 500 and 1000 caps each. Unfortunately, most of them were bringing the bounty in alive. However, one in particular caught my eye. It was somepony I knew all too well. My dad. Fifty thousand caps to bring him in alive, twenty thousand dead. Either way was enough to pay off my medical bill and whatever weapon I could want in town and still have some left over for whatever I could want. As tempting as it was, I also knew it would be a suicide mission. So rather than that, I looked for a "wanted dead or alive" poster that would end up being less dangerous. There was one for a mare who had stolen some ammo, 200 caps for her in either condition. The illustration they used made her look like either a junkie or somepony who couldn't afford food. Either way, caps were caps.

"Hey Doc, what do you know about this mare?" I asked Sawbones.

"Nettle Kiss? Well, she's a drifter, you bring her back alive, you could probably get the bounty from ten different towns. On her own, she's not much of a threat, and she's generally on her own. Was only in town for a week or so, slept on the street and mostly just kept to herself. Probably a good first job." and that was all I needed to hear.

"Alright, now for some weapons, not really into the whole laser gun thing, I like to know I'm shooting something. There any merchants around here that sell normal guns?" I asked.

"Well, Bullet sells em, just don't comment on his skin." Not really something anypony normally comments on.

But when we got to Bullet's shop, I could see why she said that. But before I can really get into this any further, I gotta tell you what a ghoul is. A ghoul is somepony that was irradiated so badly when the balefire bombs dropped that they froze in time. All their coat is burned off usually and they cease to age or heal normally. Needless to say, it looks pretty nasty if you're not used to ghouls. In addition to the cosmic comedy that is a ghoul's life, they also get to sound like they've smoked a carton of cigarettes a day since the bombs dropped. Raspy as hell and almost like they were never ponies to begin with. Needless to say, I could have done with a more specific warning, but this time I kept my cool. Not because of the warning, but because of a specific weapon he had in a small display case on the counter. A huge .45-70 revolver with near perfect bluing. I sprinted up to the counter and simply asked, "How much?" while pointing at it. Bullet just grunted ambiguously.

"Come on, how much?" I asked, the pitch of my voice raised slightly below that of a filly.

"The pistol? A hundred caps." he said with his dreadfully raspy voice. That took up half of what I'd be making if I found this Nettle mare.

"Does that include a box of ammo?" I asked, this time back in my regular voice.

Bullet just looked over the counter, "Son, you buy that gun and I'll throw in three boxes." Perfect, if I could get him to work out a deal with me. Sawbones came up from behind me.

"Got a better deal if he's tracking down Nettle for you? You know, the one who stole that shotgun off you." And with that, the ghoul's eyes lit up as much as they could.

"You track her down and I'll give it to you free, ammo still costs caps though. Five caps per box." That much told me that this was either a lot of ammo or some seriously specialty ammo.

"He needs a gun to track her down, and he owes me more than he could owe you for ammo." Sawbones said teasing the old ghoul a bit.

"Fine, he doesn't come through you owe me Bones. Don't think I forgot the last time you did this." Bullet replied. It took about ten minutes of them arguing, but I ended up walking out with a near mint revolver and a couple boxes of ammo. 24 rounds in each box. I could feel it with my magic, the cylinder opened so smoothly, the hammer was nice and crisp, the sights looked perfectly aligned and it was just beautiful. I could spend days gushing about it, and being that all I ever held in Northpass were homemade rifles and other guns that were just beat to shit, I would have if I didn't have a job to do.

First off, I asked around town for any sighting of Nettle, and as it turned out, that bounty was only posted a couple of days before. A caravan that was just coming into town said she was heading North to Manehattan. With her lead on me, I'd need to travel quick and without interruption, but not long after leaving town, there was a swarm of radroaches. Not more than I could squash with my new hooves, but it still took up time. Every little thing on the road took time from me, and while you might not have tried going after a fugitive on hoof with a monster lead, I have, and let me tell you, it's an absolute pain in the ass.

That being said, after about 12 hours of running, gunning, and stomping on roaches, I finally caught up to a mare that fit her description (courtesy of Bullet). She was about as tired as I was, but I did all I could to be sure that it didn't show. All that really involved was pulling a bit of fabric over my muzzle. "Howdy stranger!" I yelled in a fake country accent, "Mind travelin' with me? My companions got a little shot up tryna save emselves from slavers." Nettle was an average sized unicorn mare with a dark purple coat, which in this lack of light, made her fairly hard to see. She was also now glaring at me.

"And how'd you escape em?" she returned.

"Easy, let the rest of em take out the ones they could, then finish off the slavers that were left. Unfortunately, that sort of strategy only works once, and it killed some good friends o' mine." she was definitely starting to get jumpy, either at the thought that I may have been a slaver, or that I was just somepony looking to mug her.

"I'm not one to fall for bullshit like that, who are you and what are you doing here?" shit.

"Fair enough," I replied, dropping the accent, "My name is Silver Lining, I'm coming from the Hollow, I was sent here to get you back there, and I'd really prefer to do that with you still alive. So if you'd just come with me-"

"They tell you why that contract is really out on me?"

"You stole some shotgun from Bullet."

"So they gave you a load of crap too huh? I didn't steal that gun, I took what was rightfully mine, that gun was my dad's. When he died of old age, some jackass stole it from our camp and sold it to Bullet. He deals in a lot of stolen shit." And now, I was put in a shitty position.

"Well maybe if you explained the situation to him, he'd let it go. That's possible right?" Nettle just shook her head at that.

"You think I didn't try that already? I could have just killed him and taken whatever I wanted. Instead, I decided to sneak in and take just that. But I've got a better offer for you, 500 caps, right here and now, along with whatever they were paying you to bring me back, all you have to do is break me out of jail after so I can plug that rotten bastard." 800 caps is a lot better than 300.

"If I do, will you join up with me and my group? I had to ditch some of em, and I'm sure they'd be happy to have more."

"Well, that all depends, how do they feel about slavery?"

"They fucking hate it, as do I."

"Good, how do they feel about Northpass?" Once again, shit.

"They've got a hard-on about them in particular, me, well, that's sorta complicated."

"You a runaway slave too?"

"No, I'm the son of their leader. My dad, is Chrome Lining, and he's my kill."

Level up: Level 4
Perk: Intensive training- you get an additional point to endurance

Author's Note

Once again, lotta stuff I've been dealing with. Family, former friends, former partners, medical shit, all that stuff that kept me from writing. Since I can't rightly promise I'll upload at a schedule, just keep an eye out if you're interested in seeing where this goes. I'll post (hopefully) more frequently till this ends.

And once again, again, shoutout to Kkat and Somber for the inspiration. But this time, another thank you goes out to No One, who you can find https://www.fimfiction.net/user/872/No+One Just don't give em any shit if you don't like this so far. I haven't said that up till now because I was in a much better mental place, but now, not so much.