Fallout Equestria: Desperados

Fallout Equestria: Desperados

The Consequences Others Pay, Part 2

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"Another place Star Charter told me about was a strange town called Highground. It was a small town built on top of an intact highway overpass that towered over the ruins it passed through.

The town survived by growing food in hanging gardens, and herding brahmin. They relied on traders to supply them with anything else they needed. What made the place interesting to Star was how the town was afraid of almost everything. They did their best to keep others out. They only let her and Prism in so that they could help them deal with some local ganggeres that were harassing them.

When you live in this wasteland where nearly everything is out to eat you, it’s understandable why ponies find any way to keep the wasteland out. Like an old saying goes, guns and walls make good neighbors. Unfortunately, it seems that over here, those things aren't enough to make good neighbors. " ~ Azure Dice

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It was funny to see the Nightstalkers happily running around the still burning fake farmhouse. Azur let them do as they pleased until he located another cazador. With a very loud whistle, louder than any of us could do, the nightslakers would come running and later drag out a large bug.

“Oh be careful mister Azure. You can hurt sompony by whistling like that, somehow.” Harp told the Lurker.

“How so? Is it related to the native lurkers?” he asked.

Harp gave him a nod. “Only saw it a few times with a friend of mine. It was some sort of sonic attack she could do. Don’t ask me how she did it. It was, well, you know.”

“Hard to describe for someone that’s not a lurker,” Azure answered for her. “Don’t worry. I understand. Where I’m from, that's a common problem. I once spent a week trying to decipher a story a tree was telling me. Well, it wasn’t actually a tree. Trees can’t talk, but it was hard to tell the difference.”

Harp looked… confused, before letting out a sigh. “Alright, we will come back to pick you up once we clear out the town of ghouls.”

“Oh, Miss Harp, a bit of advice from an experienced explorer. You might already understand this with what you told me about the stable, but if all you're doing is recovering treasure from a ruin turned crypt, avoid reading the history. One, that’s the archaeologist's job. Two, you may not like what you find out.” The lurker advised her.

“Thanks, and good hunting,” she said back before trotting over and hopping into the Smuggler.

Slowtrot started the engine. We were off to return to the main group.

The excitement of this job had died down enough that I was able to relax a little. I wanted to get it over with it sooner so that I could see if we got any replies to our letters.

Possibly out of boredom, I remembered the predicament Slowtrot was in. With all that had been going on this morning, it had gotten drowned out.

“So Slowtrot, which mare are you going to pick?” I asked over the coms.

The Smuggler swerved a little. “Fuck, I don’t know. I had forgotten about it,” he muttered over the radio.

“Star, not the time,” Harp told me.

I chuckled. “Oh come on. Both are cute mares with their own advantages. Live has that though mare with a soft inside shit going on. Then there’s Dead who is fun to be around.”

“I rather not talk about this right now. Not until I’ve had more time to think about it,” Slowtrot said.

“Or you want to fuck Live first before choosing?” I chuckled. “See if she is as wild as her sister is?”

“Oh no,” Harp said as she face hoofed.

I looked down at her for a moment, then I heard a crackling over the radio followed by Live axle yelling. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?!”

The radio remained silent as Slwotrot kept focused on driving. Nopony else said anything during that time. After a moment, we could hear Dead Axle speak up. “Smooth, Star. Real smooth.”

With a bit more driving, we arrived at the forward base of this operation. It was a mostly walled-off parking lot with dead ghouls laid all around it. Rolling in, we saw a very upset Live Axle stomp over to the Smuggler.

“WHY DID NOPONY TELL ME FUCKING SHIT?!” she yelled at us.

Both Slowtrot and Harp looked a bit lost for words on how to deal with this firecracker, so I hopped out of the gunner nest to head her off.

“You're an emotional time bomb. That's why,” I told the younger mare. “And you're kind of a bitch.”

Live Axle slapped me hard. “FUCK YOU!” She screamed in my face.

That just made me sigh. It wasn't the first pissed off mare I had screaming at me for no good reason. Probably not the lase. Unfortunately, it was likely not a good idea to hit her back. Harp and Slowtrot would likely get upset with me if I knocked one of her teeth out.

“If you're so upset about your sister getting laid, then we’ll just let you and Slowtrot drive off somewhere private. You can have your turn to get your cherry popped,” I told her.

She slapped me again. “That's not it, bitch! I want to know why nopony tells me anything!”

“We're telling you now, aren't we?!” I snapped back at her. “Anyways, that is your sister's business, not yours. Now stop pretending like you're some tragic mare and just admit that you're jealous. That you wanted him.”

She raised her hoof back for another slap, but then put it back down, tears forming in her eyes. “It’s just not fair.” Live whimpered.

I was now feeling bad. Making such a sweet mare cry was not my intention. “Oh sorry… I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”

Reaching out to give the mare a hug, she slapped my hoof away. “Fuck off,” she said softly and trotted off to one of the vehicles to sulk.

After another awkward moment, the other sister finally came trotting over.

“Give her some time. She will get over it,” Dead Axle said, looking as uncomfortable as the rest of us.

Raising an eyebrow at her, I had to ask, “So… why the fuck didn’t you tell her that you had sex before? Also, why Slowtrot of all ponies? No offense.”

“None taken. I’m still confused by it myself,” Slowtrot said from the Smuggler.

“Because she gets upset over everything. I guess we just started to avoid telling her some stuff just so she doesn’t blow up at us all the time. Actually, this is the first time I’ve seen her take it so well,” Dead explained

“She slapped me hard… twice,” I reminded Dead.

Dead shrugged. “Trust me, this is a lot better than her normal freakouts. I guess those counseling lessons she's been getting have really helped.”

Harp trotted to us. She looked over at Live as she thrashed about within the vehicle she hid in. “You sure she's okay? She looks like she's about to rip that thing apart.”

“Well, maybe somepony should talk with her. If they're brave enough,” Dead suggested, sounding unsure.

A long sigh came from Slowtrot. “I’ll do it. This is my fault in the first place.” As he trotted past, he gave Dead Axle his shotgun and trench shovel.

“Say, we’re still good for later?” Dead asked him.

“Got other shit on my mind,” he answered.

“You fucking kidding me, Dead. After all this, you’re still thinking about fucking him?” I asked the now more annoying mare.

She trotted up to me and bumped my flank with hers. “Oh come on. You of all mares shouldn’t talk. I saw some of what you did last night.” Dead raised an eyebrow and looked at Harp. “Say, what was the final score, Miss referee?”

My head slowly turned to Harp who now looked extremely embarrassed. “Hey, you roped me into it. Oh by Celestia, actually seeing it is so different than from that video.”

Dead laughed as she gave Harp a hug. “You're so cute. You know that? Maybe we can have a little fun once the ghouls are cleared out. Scratch that itch we’re both feeling.”

Harp pushed her away, looking both embarrassed and annoyed. “That is a no. Now let’s get to work. All we’re doing is wasting time right now. We can talk about that later.”

With a laugh from Dead and I, we checked our gear and then joined the others for the feral ghoul extermination.

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The closer we got to the center of town, the more rusted over vehicles were piled up, thus making it impossible to navigate without having to climb over them. Fortunately for us, most of the vehicles were of the non-explosive kind that could be found out here. Unfortunately, they were a natural hazard of jagged edges and ghoul hiding spots.

“So why did some of these things explode?” I asked Dead as we climbed over one of them.

“From what Elder Big Papa said, it was because of an arcano-tech engine made by the Flim and Flam brothers. Something about it being more powerful and longer-lasting than any engine used before,” she explained.

“And explosive,” Harp added.

“Well... it was just really powerful,” Dead said mockingly.

She pulled out the trench shovel as a ghoul slowly got up, then lobbed its head off like she was digging into dirt. Putting it away, she chuckled in satisfaction. “This thing is surprisingly good at killing things.

“Well, that aside, we don’t use those engines for diving because of the exploding problem. I’ll admit, we do use them for providing power for settlements and make sure they're not where ponies work or sleep.”

Harp carefully tipped hoof around the oozing dead ghoul. “But why not use them for your vehicles? Why not use them for spark battery engines?” she asked.

“Probably the same reason why Longslide didn’t use that kind of engine. There are more parts to be found with a spark battery engine. They're easier to fix too, and don't explode when shot.” Dead explained as she climbed over a vehicle then offered a hoof to help Harp up. “Got a look at one of those Flim and Flam engines, and fuck, I don’t know how anypony was supposed to fix that shit. It was something to do with them being tamper-proof that also made them near impossible to work on. Like they were expecting ponies just to throw them away after a few years.”

“So why are there so few of them here?” I asked as I hopped on top of a rusted vehicle.

Dead shrugged. “Probably because this ain't a city. You see most of those stupid rides in and around the big old cities. Most of the exploring vehicles here are further out along the edge of town. They probably came here from farther away and got abandoned out there. Ponies actually died after finding out that this place was just as screwed.”

After wading through the field of rust, we made our way to the town center where the underground shelter was supposed to be. Since nopony had gotten this far and the others were clearing out the surrounding area, we had decided to not break open the door guns blazing.

“Order, go take a look inside for us,” Harp told her drone.

The little robot flew up and over to a broken window above the door. It was just large enough for the thing to hover inside. Harp herself kept an eye on her pipbuck with a worried look on her face.

“Now that's a lot,” Dead Axle remarked while looking over Harps shoulder.

Harp nodded. “More than we can reasonably deal with. We should come back later and bring back more ponies.”

“I don’t know. They don’t look like they’re going to just stay there,” Dead commented.

Trotting over, I saw the green filtered video on Harps pipbuck. On it was a room packed with feral ghouls. Many of them just stood around. Dead then pointed to several that were around the edges of the building. There the ghouls were moving about. Some thrashed at each other. Others bumped into the walls.

Dead then explained, “See, all the noise we have been making has already woken them up. Some are alert now. Our ghoul elders have had a long time to observe the ferals. When they get like this, it takes days for them to calm down. If it was just a few, then whatever, but larger groups like this will rile each other up until they space out a bit.”

“So you're saying that eventually they're going to break out just because a few woke up,” Harp said and sighed. “Right. Nopony but ghouls have been here for over two hundred years. This might be the first time they've been moving around since then.”

“And that can be used to our advantage,” Dead said as she pointed to one ghoul that stumbled around. “It takes a while for them to be able to move around properly. Right now is going to be the best time to attack.”

I pulled out a bundle of powder charge and suggested, “We could also bomb them first.”

Harp looked at the building, back over at the crowded road of dead vehicles, then at her pipbuck. “Alright. If we used the dead motor wagons as a barrier, even if there's too many, it should slow them down as we retreat.”

Dead then reached out her hoof with a goofy smile on her face. “Hoof bump.”

Harp and I looked at each other awkwardly for a moment and shrugged before hoof bumping the mare.

With a basic plan, we quickly got to work. Order came back out to pick up the bomb. Once the other two were a safe distance away, I lit the fuse and ran. I jumped behind a rusted slab of metal and readied my rust gun. I watched as Order flew into the building. A short moment later, the robot quickly flew out and over to Harp.

With a boom, thick smoke burst out of the building. The explosion sent the front doors flying off its rusted hinges.

It didn’t take long for the first ghoul to trot out. The rotten corpse suffered burns from the bomb as it fell down the stairs. Looking around with its white soulless eyes, the thing then saw us and let out a gargled howl right before Harp put a bolt through its head.

More howls came from inside. The first wave of ghouls burst out. I unloaded my rust gun at them. Dry rotted gore went flying as 10mm bullets ripped into them. With such a small bottleneck, it was easy, but they kept on coming. Those that managed to make it past the doorway were soon hit by bolts or a shotgun blast.

*Click*

Ejecting the drum magazine, I inserted a large magazine and began firing again. A few ghouls had gotten closer in the short few seconds I reloaded, but made quick work of them.

*Click*

Again I changed magazin then fired. Steam rose from the rust gun as I felt some heat near my hooves.

*Click*

My last large mag was spent. I fumbled around for the smaller magazine.

Loading it, one ghoul got close enough to jump at me. Grabbing my rusty gun and shoving it into the ghoul’s mouth, it made a loud hissing noise before I pulled the trigger, thus blowing out the back of its head.

*Klunk*

That was a new sound!

Looking at my rust gun, a shell was stuck inside, half crushed by the gun's receiver. “Stupid piece of shit!” I grumbled as I attempted to free the shell.

*Ping*

Another new sound?

The shell fell out and just in time as another ghoul came too close.

*Bang click*

The one bullet hit the ghoul’s shoulder, barely stopping it. This forced me to again use the now burnt gore-covered gun to bash the undead freak, knocking it to the ground. Looking at my gun, I could see it still had some more ammo in, so I racked the action and fired.

*Bang click*

Again!

The shot was not enough to kill the ghoul, so as it got up, I just bashed it again and again until its head caved in. When I was done, my rust gun’s barrel was bent and part of its frame had come loose.

“Fuck! I just got it back!” I cursed.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to mourn my gun as more Ghouls were coming through the doorway. Quickly using my Nightstalker’s Regards, I took out the closest ghoul. Then I quickly holstered the pistol in favor of using my sword, ready for a brawl.

“Fall back, Star!” Harp called out.

Hopping onto the vehicle behind me, several ghouls slammed into the vehicle I had been using as a barrier. Even more ghouls soon joined them which had the benefit of keeping the ones in front pinned. This unfortunately did not stop several pegasus ghouls who flew out from the building on tattered boney wings.

One came right at me with its mouth wide open to take a bite. With a step to the side and a swipe of my sword, the head of the ghoul split open and it crashed down. A second flying ghoul didn’t have the chance to get me as a shotgun blast ripped through it. It crashed in a way that it decapitated itself on one of the rusty vehicles. A third got real close, but I managed to cut off one of its wings. After that, Harp finished it off as it got up. Two more flyers were taken out by Order who was diligently flying around as air support.

Looking back at the crowd of ghouls, they were slowly making their way over the vehicles now. I also saw that no more were coming out of the building, meaning this had to be most of them. Seizing the chance, I hopped over to the first barricade and over the mass of ghouls. I made sure to cut one down as I landed.

The ghouls quickly turned around to come after me like a wall of gnashing teeth and cracked hooves. In response, my sword cut through them cleanly, breaking teeth, bones, and hooves with each swing.

Several managed to grab me, even bite me, but I quickly broke free with aid from Order. I rolled away from the pack. Getting back up, shotgun pellets and bolts ripped through the ghouls and opened me up to finish them off.

Once the last ghoul stopped twitching, I made sure to clean off my sword and return it to its sheath.

“You crazy bitch!” Dead yelled as she went in for a hug, but skidded to a stop with a disgusted look on her face. “You are going to need to wash up... again.”

I had managed to get some of the ghoul guts and icor on me. It’s a hazard of the fight.

“When I say fall back, you really should listen to me,” Harp huffed. “There was no need to take such a risk.”

“But it was fun,” I said, smiling.

Harp sighed as she called over her drone. She loaded it with some new bolts. “Ya, but also gave me a heart attack, you know. Now let's get this over with.”

Sending in Order first, we entered the main building. The place was dilapidated and filled with the bodies of ponies who didn’t turn into ghouls. It was hard to not step on them with how many dead ponies were here. There were still feral ghouls here and there, but they were more spread out, making them easier to deal with. Order was doing most of the work by cleanly and quietly killing any feral that stuck its head out with a bolt shot.

Finding the shelter wasn't too hard. There were signs hanging everywhere which lead us to two large metal doors. It was a shock to see the doors themselves having been ripped open long ago. The long dead rusted tools used to open them were discarded next to those doors.

“Warning, radiation detected,” Order alerted us from inside the shelter.

“How bad?” Harp asked.

“The drone flew around for a moment before telling us “Low levels. Simple protection is advised.”

Harp pulled out her gas mask and looked back at us. “Did any of you bring protection?”

“Only from getting pregnant. Right, Star?” Dead joked for a moment then pulled off her saddlebag. From inside she pulled out two rough-looking gas masks. “Ma is a bit paranoid about us and radiation. We both got sick from the stuff when we were really young, so she makes sure we at least have something to protect ourselves from it.”

Harp nodded and turned to her pipbuck and turned on her broadcaster. “Advised to anypony going into the town’s center shelter, low levels of radiation have been detected. Use protection if you come down here.”

Putting on our gas masks, we made our way down. Both Harp’s and my pipbucks now clicked slowly.

Inside more dead ponies and more ghouls were found, and again Order did much of the fighting for us here. Fortunately the ghoul population was rather light down here, and most were not awake enough to charge us when they did see us. Also surprising, the shelter was not very big. It was nothing like the stable. It was also rather light on supplies.

“Well… fuck…” Harp said, sounding really annoyed.

“What?… Oh, you got to be fucking kidding!” Dead complained, sounding even more annoyed.

Trotting over to see what it was, I saw several sleek-looking vehicles looking right out of a billboard advertisement. In and around them were skeletons, each with a broken skull that was clearly from a gunshot wound. A few of the skeletons had guns, holding them in a way that was clearly suicide.

“I guess that’s why there are so few ghouls down here. I probably would have done that too if I were in their position,” Dead Axle said.

Not far from the dead were several yellow barrels labeled as HALM, with what looked like half-melted skeletons next to them. “The fuck happened over there?” I asked out loud.

“Highly Active Liquid Magic,” a muffled Slowtrot spoke up from behind us, causing everypony to jump in shock. “It’s the stuff used to power a lot of the newer magical powered machinery. That’s another product made by Flim and Flam, of course. It was used all over the place in the last few years of the war. Had a temporary job moving the shit around until the robots arrived to do the job. Never wanted to get close to the stuff with how many safety procedures there were. Oddly, one was to not even look at the stuff.”

Live Axle was next to him, looking at the vehicles in the room.

“You okay sis?” Dead asked.

“Fuck do you think? We really need to talk later, okay?” Live hissed through her gas mask.

Not wanting an argument here in all places, I spoke up. “Say, why are those near mint condition motor wagons here? I thought you said their city folk shit.”

“Clearly somepony wanted to drive them once everything blew over,” Harp answered and she trotted over to a generator. She backed up when her pipbuck’s geiger counter spiked. “Looks like somepony fucked up refueling this generator.”

“Just keeping these barrels here is a big fuck up. The stuff inside has a tendancy of eating through nearly everything when it goes bad. They needed a containment room, not a warehouse,” Slowtrot explained.

A beep came through our pipbucks as Orders voice spoke out through them. “Madam Harp, desired materials have been located.”

Trotting over to Order, we found it hovering in front of a shutter. The thing had several bullet holes and signs of an attempt to break-in. “On the other side are your desired materials. The door requires power to be opened from the other side.” We then watched as Order entered a vent that connected to the other side of the wall.

Harp sighed as she muttered. “I’m going to have to thank Jali for giving Azure those packs of rad-away.”

After she supplied the door with some power, a light flickered on and the shutters rolled up. Inside was a dusty and very almost untouched room filled with several boxes that had the ministry of peace symbol on it. Oddly, there was also a rather nice motorcycle inside the room as well painted in the sparkle-cola colors and adorned with the company’s symbols.

A gasp came from Slowtrot. “A Sparkle-Cola Lone Wander? How in Celestia’s name is there even one here!?”

“What?” the rest of us said.

He trotted over to the very shiny motorcycle. “It’s a motorcycle that just recently came out… well a few months before the bombs fell, I mean. They were advertised everywhere. Even got put in a big action movie. As you can see, sparkle-cola got in on it too. It was selling a bunch of custom-made ones. As far as I know, only super-wealthy ponies could buy them.”

“Neat,” Dead said as she trotted over to the bike. “I want to ride it.”

Live hopped over and pushed her sister to the side. “Sluts go second.”

“Not the time for that shit. I think I found out why it’s here,” Harp spoke up as she sat next to a terminal. Slumped in a seat next to it was a skeleton in a suit. Several used syringes of med-x littered the floor around it.

“From what it looks like, the mayor had embezzled the town's money and made himself rich. Also, the mayor was getting paid off by Barnyard Bargains to let them conduct some sort of agriculture experiment. There's also a note here about Flim and Flam paying him to use the town to dump expired products. Instead of using that money to build a proper shelter, he just bought shit for himself,” Harp explained.

She then back hoofed the skeleton. “He hid here because he knew it had shit like rad-away in bulk, but then chose to take himself out in a painless manner.” She then slumped down, looking extremely upset. “Ya. Azure was right. I shouldn't have read that.”

I trotted over and gave Harp a hug.

“How can some ponies be so selfish?” she asked me.

“Because some are evil. Simple as that,” I told her as I looked at the others. “Alright. Let’s get the fuck out of here, and bring the bike.”

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Things went fairly quickly in the next hour. We swung by to pick up Azure as ponies grabbed what they could load in the vehicles they came in. With the town mostly cleared of danger, it was time for everypony to return to the Desperados and let them return later to gather what they needed.

Live Axle enjoyed her new ride as Dead was forced to be just a passenger on the Lone Wanderer.

Rolling in, there were several Desperados waiting for us, clearly wanting to know if we cleared the town for them. As we stopped, I tossed a bottle of sparkle-cola to one of them as I yelled, “BIG SUCCESS!”

A yellow claw caught the bottle in mid-air, and with his beak, Longslide opened the two hundred-year-old soda and guzzled it down.

I locked eyes with the angry-looking pony-griff as he trotted over. Not saying a word, Longslide caressed his claw gently across the Smuggler before popping open an armored plate that protected the engine. We all sat there, waiting for whatever he did next.

After a moment, Longslide finally spoke up. “So you really did manage to install a high magic voltage converter into the engine.”

Crankshaft trotted out and over to Longslide, both looking at the engine. “Ya. You find them in a lot of old-world military combat transports. The best are found in heavy industrial machinery which is made to last and can take a lot of punishment. With it, you can pump more power into this baby and not have it burn itself out.”

Longslide closed the panel. “I’ll have to keep that in mind if I ever make another Smuggler.”

He then looked back up at me. His eyes had dropped the anger. “Star, we need to talk.” I was glad to see the grumpy griff, but the way he said that made me worried, as though this was not about him venting his anger at me.

We watched him trot off to the elder’s tent as we got out of the Smuggler. Both Slowtrot and Harp looked unsure.

“Well, at least this is better than just a letter,” I said.

Harp sighed. “Ya. Still does not make it easy. We did see his father die after all.”

“Then let's get this over with,” I said as I dug into the back of the Smuggler and pulled out Hardballer’s guns. “I want to make sure these at least get back to where they belong.”

Trotting over was Live Axle, looking a bit confused. “Was that one of the Gunrunners?”

Slowtrot nodded. “Longslide, the son of Hardballer. We're about to go hear what he has to say to us… so where’s Dead?”

“Enjoying the new motorcycle… She’ll be a while,” Live explained.

Not wasting any more time, we trotted over to the big tent where not just Longslide was waiting for us, but also the elders. Even Tire Fire and some other pony I didn’t recognize was here. He was in a very clean suit that screamed merchant.

“Moody? What are you doing here?” Harp asked the new pony.

The stallion put on a smile that could have been fake, but I couldn't tell. “Doing business. That's all.”

A growling hiss came from behind him as a cybernetic nightstalker walked out with its tail up. Alpha then made herself visible as she growled back. The larger female was just as agitated as the cyber mongrel.

“Easy, Alpha. This is not your territory,” I told the ghost nightstalker. Fortunately, that was enough for her to at least lower her tail and stop growling.

“Now that's new. She listened to you without a problem,” Moody said in astonishment, then whistled. The cybernetic nightstalker immediately sat down and became calm. “I doubt you have trained that thing since it hatched, and I don’t see any modifications to it. Nightstalkers are known for being utterly uncontrollable, so how is she so calm?”

“Maybe later, Moody,” Longslide spoke up.

“Yes. business talk later,” I said as I placed the two cloth-wrapped guns on the table and pushed it over to Longslide. “First, I guess these are yours now.”

Longlside froze for a moment before slowly unwrapping the guns with great care. His claws carefully caressed the griffonstone typewriter his father had made. After that, he looked over his father’s claw cannon, an imposing magnum revolver with a light amount of engraving along the barrel and cylinder.

Using one claw to cover his eyes, Longside took a deep breath. “Thank you for returning these. It means a lot to know they aren’t in the hooves of some bastards and will be returning to where they belong.”

“We're glad to give them back to your family,” Harp said. “But that's not what you're here for, since you wanted this to be more private.”

Longslide took a deep breath and sighed. “You're right. This is about more than just getting back what belongs to the Gunrunners. But where to start?”

“Let's start with the side of events, then we can get onto recent events,” Moody advised.

Tire Fire huffed. “I already told them what happened, but the griff wants to hear from you.”

We all looked at each other and nodded.

Slowtrot was surprisingly the first to speak. A sense of guilt was on his face. “Well first off, it was an accident, as far as-”

“Accident!” Longlside blurted out, but Moody put a hoof in front of him, giving Longslide a stern look.

“Continue,” Moody invited calmly.

“Well, I forgot that my gun, Chekhov's Promise, was in my bag when Ashy had us all disarm. It fell out and she took it. Words were said, and she accidentally shot him with it.” Slowtrot tried to explain.

Harp quickly covered for him. “Hardballer was trying to call for peace and had trotted up to Ashy. He wanted to move on and wanted her to do the same. At some point, as they talked, the gun went off. Hardballer was shot in the heart and didn’t suffer.”

A sense of anger washed over me as I replayed that moment in my head. How in the end, after all their talk about justice, she was exempted from her own rules.

“Doesn’t change the fact that she then ran the fuck away,” I complained, “and let her deputies label us as raiders and throw us into that prison to be slaves. Oh, and let’s not forget she was going to send us further away as some fucked up apology. She was going to send me to Arbu, that fucking cursed place where cannibals once lived.”

“Star... you're shaking,” Harp observed.

“Damn right I’m shaking! I’m still pissed off about it!” I told her. “They were waiting for us like fucking cowards. Slowtrot should have just ran her down as soon as we saw her.”

“That’s enough, Star,” Harp said with a sigh, then turned to Longlsed, saying. “If you want definitive proof, I had Order record most of it,though I haven't had the heart to watch it myself.”

Again Longlside took a moment before responding, his claws in a tight fist. “Show me.”

What followed was Longslide growing more angry as he held a pipbuck 2000. He watched the video with shaking talons. Once it was over, he put the pipbuck down and sat there in silence for a minute.

Taking a deep breath, Longslide then asked Harp, “Can you make several copies?”

Harp nodded slowly. “I can make them as soon as you want.”

I was still pissed off, but at least now I know something was going to get done over all this. Maybe we can even have our names cleared. It would be nice to see my Briget as a free mare, but I doubt I could stay. I know Harp can’t stay. She needs to get back to the ponies who could protect her.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I was curious as to what else he was here to talk about. “So before we go talk about how the Gunrunners and Talons will be ripping Ashy some new holes, what was the other thing you wanted to talk about?”

Longslides angry expression quickly faded as he looked at me, becoming more dower in expression. Somehow I knew I was not going to like this at all.

“Star… it’s Prism,” he informed gravely. I felt a hole form in my stomach that was like a bottomless pit. “She was attacked, and-”

“IS MOM OKAY?! IS BRIDGET OKAY?!” I yelled.

“Bridget’s fine. Prism had her stay in the compound after you were taken away,” he told me, but he also avoided eye contact. “But Prism isn’t. The Flowers have done what they can, but they can't fix what was done to her.”

Tears… tears started to flow from my eyes as a wave of fear enveloped me. “Take me to her… NOW!”

_______________________________________________________

-Reputation-

-Desperados

The Desperados now have access to needed resources in which they will need in the future. With the three now part of the Desperados, those resources are also their resources.