"Uuugh"
Another drab morning in Vanhoover. That usually meant the day was off to a good start. Any day that didn't start with getting rained on first thing in the morning was off to a good start. However, life is a roller coaster, when you go up, you're soon on your way down. This particular down was a noticeable lack of food, that meant a trip to the Salvage Post, a trip to the Salvage Post meant going out into the wastes, and going out into the wastes meant I was at risk of disembowelment by whatever form of nastiness I ran into first.
Slowly pulling myself from the pile of rags I called a bed, I grabbed the slightly harder pile of rags I called barding from under my head and slipped it on. Then reaching under the softer pile of rags I grabbed my armament, nothing fancy, just a battered 10mm pistol and a couple of boxes of ammunition. I sighed, levitating a magazine into the gun, then sliding the gun into the holster I'd fashioned on the left foreleg of my barding. I was ready to head out.
The Salvage Post was nothing too special, a few vendors selling and buying whatever junk, food or water other's brought in. It had sprung up years ago, far before my time as a way of keeping the small community of Pentown from killing each other over things needed for basic survival, like food and water. The town itself had once been a prison of sorts, back when the world wasn't an irradiated wasteland. Iron Lock Penitentiary, that's what I was told it used to say on the sign at the gate. At some point someone had managed to pry the letters off and rearrange them to say "Pentown", using the two "r"s to make a "w". At that point the town had a name, four defensible walls and a way to pass resources around without killing anyone (most of the time). If you wanted something from outside the town, someone was probably willing to go fetch it, for a price of course. That's how I scraped by, I was on good terms with the owner of one of the fetching services, a rather large, greenish-brown earth pony who went by the name of Crate Haul. He'd take in orders that people had for items, or failing that, he'd have somewhere to send me for a food run, either way, it gave me what I needed to keep going. Just barely. Not enough to move out of "The Yard", which was the name given to the communal living space in which I had claimed my pile of rags (the ones for sleeping, not wearing). If one had the caps, they could purchase one of the cells, which had the luxury of having a concrete roof and lockable doors.
With the largest open area allocated to living space, Pentown's residents had decided that the cafeteria was the next best place to house the Salvage Post, having enough open space to house all the vendor's booths. Making my way inside, I tried to make myself as discreet as possible, while there were rules against fighting residents, there were some scary ponies in here, rough haircuts, tattoos, facial scarring, the works. I, however, am not quite as scary-looking. I was lacking in the facial scars department, my yellowy-green mane came down and encircled my neck, and the tough, almost scaly texture of my brown hide made getting tattoos rather difficult. Also, the way in which my horn curved back and tapered off in two ends was the final nail in the coffin for me ever being able to truly converse with others normally.
I feel like now is probably a good time to mention that I'm not exactly a pony. I mean yeah, I have four hooves and a tail, but it's admittedly a rather different looking tail. I mentioned earlier that during the war many of Equestria's non-pony residents tried to evacuate to the Crystal Empire but were detained on the way there. Among these failed evacuees were several groups of Kirin. After the war ended, many of them tried to make their way back home, I don't know what happened to them, but seeing as we never heard anything from them afterwards I can assume what happened. Nowadays there's not many of us left in Pentown, and the few that are mostly keep to themselves, myself included. Fighting between residents may be forbidden, but I evidently none of us saw any reason to make ourselves bigger targets than we already are, after all, there are some scary ponies in here.
Okay, history lesson over, back to present day.
As I approached Crate's stand, he picked me out of the crowd and waved me over.
"Heya Oak!" He said enthusiastically
Definitely a job, he was always extra friendly when giving out jobs
"Hey Crate, what've you got this time?"
He noticed my dry tone of voice and toned it down a bit
"Should be an easy one this time. Shipping warehouse about 30 miles out from here. It's only on the outskirts of Vanhoover so it shouldn't be too bad, so long as you're okay with a bit of a walk."
I gave him a flat look "The last time you said it was going to be easy I almost got mauled to death by mutated baby dragons." Crate began to object. "And the time before that I almost lost a couple of legs to that family of radigators." Crate began to open his mouth again. "And before that was the incident with the toaster." At this, Crate kept his mouth closed and conceded the point.
"Alright, but this time it's going to be easy, it's a small warehouse, the boxes inside are labelled and organised with serial numbers, and I have the number here that you're looking for. The client was even nice enough to have the key for it as well." He said, handing me a piece of paper with "#0115935" written on it alongside a blue key card with a yellow stripe.
I sighed, taking them both. I was so going to die
Author's Note
Here we are, chapter 1. I feel like I've once again just dumped a lot of exposition without getting anywhere. Hopefully I can actually start telling a story in the next chapter rather thn just telling you about the setting the story is in.
Here's to hoping I don't suck.
"It's only on the outskirts he says"
I'd been going for around 4 hours now, 4 rather uneventful hours, but I'd take boredom over Raiders any day. I'd noticed a service station along the side of the road into Vanhoover and figured it would be a reasonable detour, it was approaching lunch time and I had nothing on me, not yet anyway.
I slowly made my way past the long empty fuel pumps and rusty husks of long-dead wagons and chariots that had been left to decay over the years and pushed the door open into the building itself. Predictably the shelves had been picked over by other scavengers at some unspecified earlier date, if I wanted lunch I'd have to actually look for it. Oh well, this is what I did best! Considering the shelves a complete write off, I began with what I assumed was the employee's office behind the counter, which abruptly ended that search with a locked door. I'd never been one for fiddling with locks and I didn't see myself starting now.
Resuming my search, I trotted over to the drink refrigerators where another door was situated and tried the handle. The door swung open without much resistance, revealing a large number of empty boxes and a skeleton wearing a tattered uniform. Quickly surmising that this must be the storage room I gave the boxes a quick search over, finding nothing but a pack of gum in one of the boxes at the back of the room. Well it was a consolation prize if nothing else. Then I turned my attention to the skeleton. It was sitting there, undisturbed in the fetal position, and most likely had been since the world they had known crashed down around them. Well that wasn't my problem, the fact it was undisturbed meant no one had searched it yet, I began rooting through the uniform's pockets, and while I did so, I noticed that there was a faded name tag, but I could still make out the name "Mark Up". If they'd worked here, then they probably had... Aha! My hoof brushed against something metal in the front chest pocket and pulled out a key. Pfft, who needed lock picking skills when there was a perfectly good key made for that lock somewhere in the world?
Levitating the key next to me I proudly made my way back to the employees office and slid the key into the lock, turning it with a satisfying *click*. Pushing the door open I beheld the fruits of my effort, a desk with a terminal sat towards the back of the room with a safe mounted into the wall behind it, but my eyes drifted towards what was next to the desk. I rushed over to the mini-fridge and flung the door open, inside were a few bars of "Cadbuckys" brand chocolate and a couple of bottles of Sparkle-Cola. Oddly enough, there was a note taped to the bottles that read "Stock, I swear to Luna, if I open this fridge and find you've touched any of these, I will personally douse your ass in fuel and light you the fuck up! Three strikes and you're out, and you've had your two. Mark Up". I have to admit, I hesitated before levitating the contents of the fridge out, slipping one of the bottles of Sparkle-Cola into one of the pockets in my barding alongside the chocolate. It was Stock's problem now.
Pocketing the cap, I took a swig from the other Sparkle-Cola and began to make my way back into the main body of the station, when I heard the front door open. I paused, trying to hear whatever had made its way in and was met with the sound of hoofsteps. Great, "hopefully just another scavenger" I thought to myself as I cracked the door open in inch to get a look at my new "friend". Unable to see them I opened the door a little further and slipped out, hiding behind the counter. Peering over my new hiding place I could finally see this mystery individual who had intruded on my scavenging session. From the scrappy looking armour stained with various old splotches of dim red to the crude and battered double barrelled shotgun he carried, I could sum them up with one word: raider.
"Just my luck" I muttered to myself before drawing my gun from its holster and levitated it over to behind their head, keeping myself behind the cover of the counter before calling out to him.
"Drop your weapon and don't move!" I pressed my pistol into the back of his head to emphasize my point. It got the reaction I wanted, he froze up instantly and dropped his shotgun to the floor with a clatter.
"Fuck" He muttered under his breath
I made my way around the counter, keeping the pistol pressed against the back of his head. I could kill him with a thought and he knew it.
"There's a back room behind the counter, move it" I commanded. The raider begrudgingly obliged, slowly trotting towards the employees office. All the while, I maneuvered myself so he wouldn't be able to see me. If I was going to let him live, I didn't want him coming after me for revenge and bringing all his raider friends. Once he had entered the room I withdrew my gun from the back of his head and closed the door before locking it again with the key.
"I'll string you from your own fucking intestines for this, you hear me!" Came the shout from the other side of the door. Funny, he seemed much chattier now that he wasn't in immediate peril.
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me about any friends that you might have nearby would you?" I called back through the door.
The response I received was a long rant about his small army of raiders who'd happily pin me down and fuck me alphabetically before dismembering my body for decorative purposes or something to that extent, although I'm not entirely sure, his voice started to get rather muffled as I left the building, making sure to scoop up his shotgun on my way out. Can't have him playing with that after all, he might hurt somebody!
As I returned to the road, I pulled out a chocolate bar, peeled off the wrapping and took a bite. Smiling at the taste I continued on my trip to the shipping warehouse.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I'd finally arrived at the outskirts of Vanhoover, the buildings further in to the city towering above. The streets that parted them filled with radiation, the occasional pack of feral ghouls and a few raider groups tough enough to survive in there. Fortunately I didn't have to go in that far, only a few streets in and I was at my destination. The shipping warehouse was easy to locate on account of it being a huge fuck off building among all the smaller houses nearby.
"Okay, now I'm here, how do I get in?" I muttered to myself, as I looked over the warehouse. I could see a front door to the place, although it seemed someone had deemed it a good idea to nail boards over it to keep it shut. I could take the time to pry them off, but that would take time and make too much unnecessary noise. Then I looked over the wall of bay doors to the left of the front entrance. While they all appeared to be closed, one of the wagons parked by one of the bay doors seemed to have reversed into it. As I walked over to examine it I was able to see that the wagon had managed to misshape the bay door just enough that I could squeeze through. "Bingo" I was in.
Taking a look around the warehouse, I was hit with the immediate realisation that finding shipping crate #0115935 might be a little trickier than I originally anticipated. As I stared into the depths of the warehouse, rows upon rows of crates stared back, it would take months to search through all that!
"They must have had a system of some sort to find which crate is where" I reasoned to myself. "Perhaps there's a terminal or some miraculously preserved documents, preferably with big arrows pointing to where I need to go". Wouldn't that be nice?
Peering down the warehouse in the direction of the boarded over door outside I could see where the warehouse ended and the office area began, odds where I'd find the information I was looking for there.
I slowed down as I approached, I had the option of turning off to the left or I could head up a nearby set of stairs, both ways seemed to lead to office spaces of some description. As I was pondering my decision I was put on alert by the sound of voices coming from the direction of the stairs although I couldn't see who they belonged to due to the door at the top of the stairs. Ground floor it was then!
I began to make my way through the lower offices, listening out for anyone else who might be down here or the whirring sound of a running terminal, fortunately I heard the sound of the latter, and thankfully none of the former. Trotting up to the desk I looked over the terminal's contents, it hadn't needed a password. There were a few messages on memos about things such as the upcoming staff party, what people should bring and the subsequent banning of any further staff parties, but other than that, not much else. Sighing, I got up from the desk, I'd have to check upstairs.
After a brief search for any other way up, I made my way back to the stairs as quietly as I could. I'd found a locked door that lead past the offices downstairs, unfortunately it seemed no one had the courtesy to die nearby with the key this time. Upon my return to the stairs, I listened out, trying to make out as many voices as I could. After about a minute I'd managed to pick out five distinctive voices, three male, two female. I didn't have enough faith in my own combat capabilities to take on five ponies by myself, nor did I trust myself to remain quiet enough to sneak past them. The only thing left that I could think of was to lure them out and slip around them. I smiled, looking at my recently acquired shotgun, I'd need a few more supplies, but I could make this work.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Smash!
"The fuck was that?!"
"Calm down, probably just a radroach or something"
"Didn't we get rid of those when we got here?"
"We probably missed one or two, fuckers are like sand, they get everywhere"
"Well hey, that's good eatin', guess I'll grab us dinner!"
I'd hidden around the corner from the office area and thrown my now empty bottle of Sparkle-Cola towards the lower offices. I smiled at the sound of hoofsteps coming down the steps, waited a few moments and peeked around the corner, yup, definitely a raider, his cutie mark was a rusty nail dripping with blood. I shuddered thinking about how he'd gotten that of all things. He then disappeared through the doorway, I waited with baited breath and listening out for what should happen next.
BANG!!!
"AHHHH FUCK ME!!!"
I quickly hid back around the corner as I heard Rusty Nail's friends rushing down the stairs before hastily making my way up them as quietly as possible. Closing the door behind me I looked around the upstairs offices, not seeing much of a difference from the downstairs offices, that is to say a lot of cubicles with desks and mostly broken terminals. I did however notice a set of filing cabinets which I began pushing in front of the door, didn't want them coming back up here while I was poking around now. I could hear the other's voices through the floor as I did so.
"The fuck happened?!"
"There, someone rigged up a shotgun to some tripwire"
"That wasn't there earlier was it?"
"No, I don't believe it was"
"Guys! Can we focus on my fucking leg here?!"
"Shit I don't think we can fix this, that's gonna need some Hydra, we have half a healing potion, shit's fucked"
"Well fucking hand it over!"
I could faintly make out an exasperated sigh "It's not gonna do much, but here"
It was around this point I finally got the filing cabinets in place and began to search the upper offices.
"Saw, stay with his sorry ass, the rest of you, spread out, keep an eye out for any other sneaky bullshit and let's fuck this guy up."
It seemed my plan had worked, I'd be relatively fine as long as I didn't make too much noise.
I began to pick my way through the various office cubicles, pocketing the occasional bottle cap or two from the bins next to the desks, although I wasn't having much look on the information front. It seemed like all the terminals here had either been smashed or had simply ceased functioning years ago. It didn't take long for me to come to the conclusion that the information I was looking for wasn't here. It seemed I would have to move past the office spaces and further into the building.
It took no time at all to find the door I was after and thankfully this one wasn't locked. Slowly opening the door I felt my eye twitch a little as I stared at the emergency stairwell leading from the floor above all the way down to the ground floor. If it hadn't been for that one locked door, I could have continued completely unnoticed... Oh well, no crying over spilled milk, or eviscerated forelegs.
I took one step towards the stairs that would take me to the second floor before freezing up as I heard a call from behind me.
"Hey! Someone's blocked off the door up 'ere! Hook, help me get this thing open!"
I closed the door to the stairwell behind me, muttering a quiet "shit" under my breath before making my way up the stairs as quickly as possible.
As I reached the top of the stairwell I started to hear a series of bangs from Hook and his buddy trying to force their way past the filing cabinets. I flung the door open to observe what appeared to be a manager's office, complete with a desk in the middle of the room and a terminal perched atop it, alongside a a photo frame and a a small name plaque that read "Clipboard". Odds were that if there was any info left in this building about where my delivery was, it was on that terminal.
Crossing the room, I booted the terminal up and was greeted with a password prompt. "Well fuck" These were basically virtual locks, and I couldn't do those either.
Any I was trapped up here until the raiders downstairs made their way up, and any fight in here was likely to break the terminal and any precious information on it, if I was going to find where I needed to go, it had to be now!
I began to frantically search the desk drawers for anything that might give me a clue as to what the manager's password would be, but came up with nothing of importance. I then turned my attention to the top of the desk, eyeing up the photo frame. The picture itself was faded, showing a middle-aged colt closely hugging a mare of a similar age. Removing the photo out of its frame I discovered some words scrawled on the back of it.
"Clipboard + Marigold". There was also a heart drawn around the two names.
Well it was better than nothing, turning my attention back to the terminal I typed in the Marigold. In response, the terminal beeped and displayed its contents. Despite my current situation, I smiled as my logic once again proved itself to be true. If there's a lock, then there's a key for it somewhere in the world, virtual or otherwise.
I quickly skimmed over the terminal's contents. "Messages, staff, issue reports... Aha! Shipping database!" Selecting the last one, I was met with a prompt for a serial number. I hurriedly keyed in "0115935" to which the terminal responded with another beep before displaying another series of options. This time I could choose between the contents of the delivery, the delivery's location or returning to the previous menu. I selected the location option, I could find out what it actually was when/if I got there. In response to this, the terminal displayed a crude graphic of a map labelled "Section C" with an arrow pointing towards one of what I assumed was the shelves, the arrow itself had a 2 next to it which I could only assume meant it was on the second level of the shelving unit. Huh, what do you know, there was a big arrow telling me where to go.
I'd just about finished making a mental note of where my delivery was when the terminal exploded into my face, sending me reeling back behind the desk.
"Well look what we have here"
Fuck. I'd been so focused on the terminal I hadn't even heard them come up.
"Now listen here bitch, you walk out from behind there and surrender and we might let kill you at some point over the next couple of hours. Alternatively we can drag you out from behind there, and I can assure you, you'll beg us to kill you by the time we're through with you"
Yeah, fuck that. I levitated out my pistol and fired three rounds at Mr.Talkative, though only the first two hit as he dove out the way of the third. As I did so his two friends began to charge my position. It was at this moment I realised I may be in just a little bit over my head...
I was able to fire two more shots into the underside of one of the charging raiders as he leapt over the desk, tackling me to the ground. As my head impacted the floor I lost my grip on my gun, I heard it clatter somewhere towards the back of the room. I began to shove the raider off of me, but any efforts were soon wasted as his friend helped pin me down.
Mr.Talkative slowly made his way around the desk, a smug grin on his face. "So how did you think that was going to go?"
Just the look on his face sparked something within me, I wasn't quite sure what, but I could feel it growing.
"I fucking told you not to try it. We'd of at least made some sort of effort to make it quick, but no. You had to try and be some sort of fucking hero."
There was just something about this guy's arrogance, I could feel it feeding whatever this was inside me.
"I'm sure something like you could fetch a good price, although we might just have to give you a try first..."
And just like that, I realised what this odd spark was inside me. I was fucking pissed!!!
"Uhh, Cleave?" I heard the stallion who had tackle me say
"What!?" Mr.Talkative yelled back. That was all he got to say.
Feeling a sudden rush of strength come over me like a wave of fire, I heaved the two raiders off of me, although it almost seemed like they tried to clamber off of me as fast as they could. Why? Who cared, they were fucking dead now. I turned to the second raider who'd helped pin me down, she'd fallen onto her back when I'd heaved her off. Without hesitation I reared up and brought my front hooves down on her face as hard as I could. Unsatisfied with the results I repeated the motion two more times before I was content with the state of her face. I then turned to the raider who'd tackled me, he'd taken the time to get back on his hooves. I glared at him, stared back with a look of horror.
Two quick bounds brought me to him, another brought him crashing to the ground, screaming in agony. Two swift kicks to the face stopped the screaming. It was only now that I became aware of a slight stinging in my side as I turned to face Mr.Talkative who dropped my empty gun to the ground and started to back up. I found it amusing how quickly his face had changed from a devious grin to "oh shit".
"What kind of fucking demon are you!!?" he yelled as I launched myself towards him.
Crashing into him I grabbed his head with my forehooves, ready to begin smashing it into the ground, when I noticed his mane was beginning to smoke.
Crack
I slammed his head in to the ground. I grabbed his head again, ready to break open his skull when I became aware of the fact that his mane had progressed from "smoking" to "on fire". I held on a little longer trying to figure out how this had happened until Mr.Talkative began screaming.
Instinctively I let go and backed up, feeling the burning rage recede as the flames began to consume Mr.Talkative's head while he futilely tried to bat out the red-ish blue flames. I also became aware of a crackling noise coming from behind, turning I discovered that the raider who had tackled me had also been set alight with red-ish blue fire.
Had... Had I done that? And if so how? Something had happened, I'd done something and I didn't know what.
"All right, until I can figure what the fuck just happened I'll need to keep tabs on myself. I don't want to end up doing... that in the middle of Pentown..." I said, speaking my thoughts to myself.
I moved to scoop up my pistol up from where it lay next to the now-still body of Mr.Talkative and winced as I did so, the rounds he'd unloaded into my side making themselves more well known. The flames had begun to die down and the remains of his face assured me I wouldn't be sleeping anytime soon. I hesitated to search the bodies in their gruesome state, but my scavenging instincts won me over. One begrudging search later gave me a few more clips for my pistol, a spare pistol that I proceeded to take apart and repair mine with, a small hoofful of bottle caps and a can of cram, although I wasn't very hungry right now. I made to holster my pistol before realising that there was no longer a holster there, nor was there anything else of my shoddy outfit. Looking back to where I'd been held down I saw a lightly charred bottle of Sparkle-Cola, a melted chocolate bar, a slightly seared key card and a few loose caps among a few smouldering scraps of cloth.
"Well shit" I'd spent 65 caps on that outfit and no longer had anything to show for it... "Guess I'm levitating all this with me"
Making my way down to the ground floor I searched around the warehouse a bit. Hopefully Saw and Mr.Tripwire had heard all the screaming and had the good sense to stay put. After a few minutes I had found an old mail carrier bag to stow all my stuff as well as Section C of the warehouse, and with it my package. The package itself stood out like a sore hoof, alongside the smashed wooden crates and mouldy cardboard boxes that lined the shelves was a small solid metal container with a slot for a key card.
"I hope this still works" I said as I swiped it across the reader.
The box beeped and made quiet whirring noises before finally unlocking with a click. I let a out a sigh of relief as I opened the lid to see what I'd risked my life for this time. I tilted my head in confusion as I pulled out what appeared to be a small leg-mounted terminal. Looking it over I read the words "Pip-Buck" and in smaller letters underneath it "Model 3000"
While I may not have much of a clue what this was or how it worked, someone was paying for it. I secured this "Pip-Buck" in my new bag and made my way towards the exit when something else caught my eye. Nothing special, just a couple of toilets at the back of the warehouse. Hopefully one of them would have something to deal with the now burning pain in my side.
While the colts' bathroom didn't yield much, the fillies' room did. I grinned as I pulled a couple of healing potions out of the medical box I'd found in there. Wasting no time I pulled the stopper off of one and chugged it down. The effect was almost immediate and I sighed with relief as I felt the burning in my side recede. I looked down at the other healing potion, thought for a moment, then made my decision.
Saw immediately jerked her head up the moment I walked in before she scrambled for her shotgun. I stayed perfectly still. I could see that my lack of a response unnerved her. She didn't attempt to say anything around the grip of the shotgun, she just stared at me with a terrified expression, her eyes tiny pinpricks. Mr.Tripwire on the other hand simply looked over at me with a resigned expression on his face. So they had heard the screaming! Good to know.
The looks on their faces turned to those of surprise and confusion as I levitated the other healing potion towards them and set it down on the floor. The without saying a word I turned and left. The last I heard from them as I made my way out was the sound of the shotgun hitting the floor and a quiet "huh?"
Squeezing my way back out of the bay door I considered the wisdom of my actions. Sure they may go on to kill tons more ponies, but that would happen at a later date, and there had been way too much death today already. I suppose it was also the same reasoning I had for why I didn't kill the raider back at the fuelling station, at the end of the day we were all survivors just trying to scrape by. I may not like how others go about it, but it's not up to me how they choose to survive.
As I set foot back on the road, I lamented my walk back. It looked like the sun would start to set in a little bit, it would most likely be dark by the time I reached the fuelling station. Well no time like the present! I began to make the journey home to complete my delivery.
~~~~~
Footnote: Level up!
Gun Nut: You’re obsessed with using and maintaining a wide variety of conventional firearms. With each rank of the Gun Nut perk, you gain an additional 5 points to the Small Guns and Repair skills.
Quest Perk: Fiery Rage: When things aren't going your way and everything seems hopeless, you don't get sad, you get mad! Your melee damage increases by 100% and have a chance of igniting enemies and your DR increases by 75%!
Author's Note
I was no where near happy with either of the first two chapters, I just wanted them out, just to say "Hey! I finally got off my ass and did a thing!". I wanted to actually take time with this chapter and make it everything I wanted chapter 1 to be. I also learned in greater detail this time that writing is hard. Then other stuff came up and I kept putting it off until I finally said "enough is enough, this is getting done before the new year" and it is! I honestly have no clue how I did this time, I only know it's better than the garbage that is the previous two
rushed exposition dumps I call chapters.
