Fallout: Equestria - Frontier Justice

BANG! Crack!

Another old dust-filled bottle off the fence. Another supersonic crack that the old man would inevitably hear. Did I care? If you asked me now, or when I’d been a bright-eyed colt, maybe. But in that moment? I couldn’t wait for something, anything, to happen.

And look where it got me.

“You know you shouldn’t.”

Her words stung more than any beating could, though it wasn’t as if my pa was in any state to give me one anymore. The last pony I wanted to see, the one I’d come out here to get away from, and yet she followed just to twist the knife in deeper.

BANG! Crack!

I’d loved her since we were foals. Since my ma and pa dug her out of the wreckage of that caravan - sacked back when this part of the wastes was still infested with raiders. Back when the NCR and the patrols that kept them out of the area didn’t exist. Back when the whole wasteland was under the thumb of whatever petty warlord gathered enough of a gang to keep it that way. Things had changed. Everything but her.

“Why are you mad?”

I swung around to face her, that beautiful earth pony mare I loved, with a rifle suspended at attention before me in what I assume must’ve been an, at the time, threatening pose. I wasn’t exactly known for being the smartest or most self-controlled of my siblings, so the fact that she didn’t even blink only made me love her even more, and turned momentary anger and frustration into a sinking despair.

“Why? Because we’ve talked about it since we were foals!” I replied, bitter and upset. My heart felt like a lead weight, my brain like a pile of mashed oats, and I was very aware that if I kept shoveling this grave, I’d hit water soon. That she was always so patient with me was maddening. “We’ve talked about running off for years, and then I go and save up to buy us both what we’ll need, talk it over with mom, find a caravan that’ll take us both on, and you just up and turn me down.”

I knew I was hurting her, I knew that she wasn’t going to change her mind, but I had to vent my frustration. She knew it too. That she didn’t seem as upset as I did, that she didn’t resent me, only made me hate what was coming even more.

“We can’t leave, Smoky. You know that.”

I did, and I hated it, because I knew she was right. I knew that leaving now that I was the oldest would be putting my littler siblings in the hooves of my sickly old mother. As safe as the place had gotten now that the NCR had a real presence, it was still way too risky.

I also knew that if I didn’t leave now, I’d never get out. I’d be stuck here for the rest of my life. Whether paying off family loans, or getting struck by some unforeseen event, I knew fate would find a way to keep me trapped, but I wanted to believe for just a moment that the world wasn’t that cruel.

I must’ve looked quite the sight; some young colt, brokenhearted over what in retrospect should’ve been the least of my worries, because Marigold wrapped her hooves around me and squeezed. My overpriced rifle fell to the dusty ground as I returned the hug.

“We’ll get through this together, alright?” she whispered quietly. Knowing her as well as I did, I could sense the deeper meaning in her words, and the weight in my chest lightened just a bit. Maybe being stuck on the farm wouldn’t be so bad after all.

*** *** ***

CRACK!

CRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACKCRACK!

*** *** ***

Crack!

As I dumped another bundle of dead branches into the crackling flames, the old ranger who’d dragged Marigold and I out of the ashes of our former life all those months ago turned his attention back towards me. I couldn’t blame him. I still looked like shit. My front left leg was busted up pretty bad, and my matte grey coat shorn off of it for the weeks of surgery I’d had to undergo. It had only just begun to grow back, and only in ugly patches.

“You know that we generally don’t take cripples.”

“But they let in toothless old stallions who look like they’re about keel over any minute?” I bit back. From his lack of immediate response, I accepted the petty victory, while acknowledging that he was likely just thinking aloud, as was his tendency to do.

“If your bone was going to heal right, you wouldn’t have so much trouble walking.”

Powder Charge. I hated the old fart. I hated that disapproving, paternal tone he had. The way he could both look down on you, while still seeming all fatherly and concerned. Gritting my teeth as I limped over to the side of the fire opposite him, I took a seat, the crackle of campfires and quiet conversation from the rest of the NCR soldiers scattered around the campsite already becoming my new norm.

“They haven’t gotten rid of me yet.”

“Because they haven’t found anywhere to dump you.”

He had been like this since the moment we met. Always speaking what he was thinking, always pointing out the worst possibilities; and always right. When everypony else had assured me I’d be just fine and my leg right as rain, he was the only one to express any doubt.

“So what do you suggest I do, then? Start packing? Check around for someplace that’ll take me and Marigold?” Very aware if he was saying all this, that there was a very real possibility it would happen, I continued, “Because you know I can’t do that.”

“Then find a way to make yourself useful, because we’ve got no lack of ponies that can shoot. We don’t need one that can’t keep up on a patrol.”

Easy for him to say. His cutie mark was clear as day - a big old-fashioned stick of dynamite on the old bastard’s coat of fading tan. I’d heard whispers from the troopers that the old fogey could turn a building to rubble in minutes with nothing but a jar of loose gunpowder and a floor plan. Me? I could count well.

“Your marefriend can stay, because good doctors and nurses are hard to come by these days, but they’re not going to let you use her as a meal ticket.”

As much as I hated how he spoke, hated how he brought up what I was afraid of acknowledging, I had to admit that at least he hadn’t insulted me by insisting I take a desk job. Everypony else had told me again and again that I should just settle down. Take a caravan to Junction R-7 and count ammunition or something. Do a cripple’s work.

“Thirty-three,” I muttered.

The old buck raised a brow at me and asked, “Of what?”

“A thirty-three round magazine,” I stated bluntly. “I find the raider with a thirty-three round magazine, and then I’ll quit. Not before.”

The old ranger knew better than to try and directly argue with me about it. Suppose he was smarter than I gave him credit for, too, because he caught me off guard with some questions that cut to the point.

“Then what’s your plan to find them? What equipment are you going to take, and how are you going to get it?”

He still sounded like an ass talking down to me, yet it seemed as if he just wanted me to answer for my own sake. It must have worked, because I started to consider some frankly pretty important questions I’d given little to no thought, despite having bullheadedly decided I was going.

And like a megaspell, he suddenly asked, “And are you going to leave that mare behind, or are you going to drag her along with you?”

My guts twisted up like somepony had taken a fork to them. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that Marigold would have to come with me. Even if I was able to separate myself from her after everything that had happened, there wasn’t even the remotest chance she’d let me leave without her. We were all that the other had left.

“If you can figure out how to make it work, go on ahead, son, but don’t just rush headlong into things. Use the brain you were given and think for a few seconds. Come up with a plan. You’ll live longer.”

“Long enough to see myself get as wrinkled and ugly as you?” I joked, already beginning to feel better. The codger’s nitpicking was like the healing powder some ponies made: it hurt like hell at first, but damn did it ever work. Grinning back at me as he cracked open a bottle of booze with his teeth, the ranger replied,

“The age of miracles is over, son. Worry about what’s right in front of you. Then you can worry about getting old enough to see your great-grandfoals.”

*** *** ***

From my meager pay and the charity of some of the other troopers who empathized with me and “lost” some of their equipment, I managed to get all of the necessities we’d need, along with a month’s worth of food, enough ammunition to put up a fight, and a “new” rifle that looked like it’d been thrown under the tracks of an old-world tank. All that was left was to talk it over with Marigold.

I really should have learned my lesson the first time.

Ducking through the flaps of the camp’s hospital tent, I scanned the room eagerly for the maroon-maned mare; and let me tell you, the place was packed. Wall to wall beds full of groaning, injured ponies. Must’ve been at least two dozen of them.

“Ambush,” a passing nurse stated. She must have noticed my confusion.

“You’re looking for Marigold, right? Can you wait a bit longer? She’s been at it since midnight, and we’re about to have to force her to leave for the sake of herself and the patients.” Looking quite worried, the mare added, “I think more than just the lack of sleep is starting to get to her.”

Concerned, but willing to trust her among friends, especially with what was coming next, I sat by the entrance and waited. And waited. As time dragged on, a steady stream of ponies limped or were carried in and out of the tent. Some went out the back flap into a separate tent just for them, always carried, yet I never saw any leave. It was pretty clear to me at the time why that was. That Marigold and I almost ended up back there just made my eagerness to leave all the more pressing. I’d find who did this, and I’d kill them. No pretense of justice, or protecting others. I just wanted revenge: the only law that mattered out here.

“Smoky?”

The mare’s familiar voice obviously fatigued, Marigold brushed up against me, the scarred, painful patches of grievously burnt flesh sending chills down my spine. I didn’t even need to see them in order for my anger to well back up in my throat. Felt like I’d learned how to spit acid.

“Hey, sweetheart.”

I had to force myself not to look at her face, scarred as it was by the inferno that’d once been our home. I would always love her until my dying day, but seeing what’d happened to her, what they’d done to her, would have driven me too mad to do what I needed to do. If I wasn’t calm, this wouldn’t work.

“I’m finding who did this to us.”

“No, Smoky. You aren’t.”

Even barely able to keep her eyes open, the mare almost convinced me not to go. Almost.

“I have to, Marigold. I’ll find them, I’ll do what I have to, and then I’ll come back. I promise.”

“And if you don’t? And if you die out there, just for the sake of your petty revenge? If I never hear from you again, or they drag back pieces of you like they have some of the ponies here?”

Naked patches of skin rubbed against me as the cinnamon mare tried to keep me with her. She was my world. She was the only pony that mattered. Even actively avoiding them, those eyes of hers burned a hole in my skull.

But I still needed to do this.

“I have to, Marigold.”

It must have been something about the way I said it that finally got through to her, and for once in my life, I saw the facade of strength and maturity collapse. I could see clean through the hole I’d put in her heart, and it nearly broke me. She didn’t look like the unbreakable, unshakeable mare who’d accepted her disfigurement with stoic determination, she looked like a heartbroken filly who’d already lost her only friend in the world. In her mind, I was already as good as dead.

“Marry me,” I blurted out.

Rather than looking embarrassed, or happy, she just looked forlorn and defeated. I hated what I was doing to her, hated myself for being a dumbass who was going to fuck up the only good thing in my life, but I couldn’t back down. This was how the world worked. I didn’t have a choice.

At least, that’s the lie I fed myself.

“Only if you come back,” she eventually replied. The despair in her voice was thick enough to cut with a knife, and here I was without one. Suppose I’d left it in her heart.

“Deal.”

*** *** ***

The weight of my pack putting an uncomfortable amount of strain on my busted-up leg, Powder Charge grunted his approval. He’d managed to grab a few extras from the armory under the pretense of “ranger business” once he realized I was serious. His “engagement present”, in his words.

“All set.”

With the sheer mass weighing me down, I felt like I wouldn’t make it out of eyesight of the camp, let alone all the way to Friendship City.

“Are you sure your ponies are reliable?”

“Maybe not, but I am, aren’t I?”

I wanted to disagree, but the buck hadn’t let me down yet, even if he was a gigantic pain in the flank. And it wasn’t as if I had any other leads. Still, though, that was a long ways away, and by the time I got there, they might’ve already moved on. I was beginning to have my doubts again, but I wouldn’t let this old fossil know that.

“Then I guess this is goodbye, huh?” I asked.

“What? Not planning on coming back? Already going into this assuming you’re gonna leave that poor mare all alone in the world?”

I resolved not to let him get to me, and to start taking his admittedly good advice. It hadn’t failed me yet.

“Then I’ll see you in a few months, grandpa.”

“Take care, Smoky. And come back safe.”

Touched and somewhat unnerved by the genuine affection and concern in his voice, the first I’d heard from him in our months together, I began my hobbling march out into the wastes.

This was gonna be a long trip.

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