Fallout Equestria: The Outcastby MadHatterBronyChaptersPrologueChapter 1: The FactionsChapter 2: The Rocky Road to Junktion R-7Chapter 3: The OutcastChapter 4: The WanderersChapter 5: Attack in the mountainsChapter 6: The Writer´s RevengeChapter 7: The Everfree ForestChapter 8: Back to Ten Pony Tower (Part 1)PrologueSo here I am sitting in front of Ten Pony Tower and before you ask, no I am not planning to get in, no I have just gotten myself kicked out. “How?”, you ask? Well it all started when I arrived here my first day I more or less got kicked out of the Enclave because i said something that didn’t completely agree with what they said. Still lucky me I only got kicked out, folks in my hometown said pegasi who disagree with the Enclave get taken away at night and executed in some secret facility. So I flew down here and low in behold it didn’t start very good, I flew down and circled around as I saw what looked like a caravan of traders and I flew down to trade, only I might have forgotten the fact that every non Dashite Pegasus was about as friendly treated as a raider trying to rape fillies. Oh well I flew down and out of the corner of my eye I saw a Pegasus with a desperado hat flying towards me, I only later realized that he wore a battlesaddle, later meaning after a bullet went clean through my ass. I flew as fast as I could in some direction, I had better things to do than get shot in my first minute down here and after what felt like hours, I saw a huge building in the distance. You guest right if you said it´s Ten Pony Tower! So I flew towards it up high in the air trying to avoid any anti Enclave gunfire and my Eyes lit up as I saw that I could land on the roof, well about as much landing as I could do with a bullet hole in my ass, let´s just say I fell more than I landed. As I impacted and gave a loud thud the door leading down opened and a grey unicorn mare stepped out and ran towards me. She asked worried: “Are you okay?” and I just gave a annoyed “Do you think I am?!” look and pointed with one of my wings at my ass, “Oh no! let´s get you inside and heal you!”, she said extending a hoof. I of course took it, anything is better than getting shot and then bleeding out on a roof on my first day down here. We walked in and she introduced herself as Homage, the assistant of some guy named Dj-Pony. We walked past a nice statue and she brought me into a clinic. “Doc I need your help here!”, she shouted, a stallion approached us and introduced himself as Doctor Helping Hoof, “He landed on the roof looks like someone shot him.”, she explained and the doc pulled out a little glass bottle and explained: “Give him that and some rest he should be fine soon”. So we walked back to what I’ve learned is Dj-Pony´s broadcast station in a pre-war hub according to Homage it belonged to the Ministry of Arcane Sciences which had a emergency broadcast station he used for his wasteland radio. First day after my rest: I stepped out of the walls to collect metall and trade it inside of the city, I walked about 3 meters before i found a bunch of scrap metal that looked like it could actually be still used for something so I collected it and walked back in. Day two of my new life: I once more stepped out this time i had to search a little bit longer before I found a passable piece of metall but only one small piece wouldn´t get me all to far so I continued and after easily three hours or even more I walked back in once more earning myself a little bit of money or rather currency since they used bottlecaps for some reason which wasn´t exactly the money I was used to. Day three of me actually gaining quite a reputation in the tower and enjoying my life with a clean bed and a shower everyday: I trotted throught the ruins once more and while gaining a bit of scrap metal I found something else, a weird looking machine that looked like the motors we used for the ships but older, still it was worth bringing it with me because the local Historians were about to fight about it as I said: "Whoever bids the most get´s it", 15 minutes later one histotian gave me three thousand bottlecaps and took it with him. After those three days I had not only acquired the good sum of five hundred bottlecaps but also thanks to a small bit of pre war tech a leather action rifle, a lot of ammunition for said rifle, a saddlebag and something called a pip buck, no idea what it is but it had a map and a radio and some other stuff I didn’t bother to look at, all that strapped around my forehoof. There was only one problem: I was a Pegasus without a Dashite symbol on my flank which meant for the residents I was Enclave, which led to the unfortunate circumstances I’m in right now. On the fourth day a bunch of security ponies approached me and told me I had to leave because neither they nor the citizens where very fond of me being here and or the Enclave marching into Ten Pony Tower to collect me. So now I sit in the ruins of a city my pip buck named Manehatten, contemplating my next move but I didn’t know what to do so I scrolled through the pip buck. “Oh fuck!”, I shouted as I read through the data files, there was a heavily encrypted file on there and even I who decrypted files while sleeping had never seen a encryption this strong, which meant it was important, which meant whomever this file belonged to would now hunt me. “Oh great”, I mumbled as I stood up and looked at my map: In the distance a town called Fillydelphia was marked, “maybe this one isn´t in ruins” I thought and started trotting in the direction the pip buck said the city was in. Author's Note Hello, thanks for reading this far, if you liked it why don´t you give me a like to help me get the story out to ohters and if you have any criticism to give feel free to do so! Chapter 1: The FactionsI was walking towards Fillydelphia when I met the last thing I wanted to meet in the wasteland: Raiders! Of course with my luck the first thing I found was a group of four raiders. Problem: I didn’t have a battlesaddle what I had gotten used to in the army of the Enclave. Solution: Ten Pony Tower had a shooting range to train in which I could test various forms of weapon handling and over my three and a half days there I had perfected my talent to use my wings on my leather action rifle one wing on the trigger the other one I lay the gun on as if it was a table. I aimed for the first one and took him out easily, the second one was a bit harder as they looked around, the third one charged towards me in a straight line another easy headshot, the third one actually dodged my bullets but thanks to the fact that I killed the only one with a firearm first I could shoot the last one as he tried to grab it. Note to self, think of a better way to use the left wing to enable faster shots, waiting for the weapon to settle back down took a second or two, a second or two which could decide if I died or my enemy died. As I walked past the corpses I picked up the assault rifle and flung it into the holding of my leather action, which I decided to hold in the right wing at all time for emergencies and overall other fights until I had a reasonable amount of bullets for the assault rifle, as I continued walking I saw a little café at the street attached to a motel. At this point red flags should have popped up all over my brain but after being used to the luxury of Ten Pony I wanted something to eat. Stupid me. As I walked through the main door a little bell chimed and as I walked towards the counter ten slavers with notably more advanced weaponry than raiders sprung out of the booths left and right to me and a black unicorn Stallion with crossed revolvers as cutie mark said: “Hey look this one has a pip buck maybe it´s the one the boss wants!”, “Either way he looks like he is gonna get us a good amount of caps if we bring him to Appleloosa!”, a mare hissed. The entrance bell chimed once more and in walked a white unicorn with hat and a big trench coat that reached back even over his tail. “So, you didn’t take my last warning seriously?”, he said looking at the supposed leader: “Why don´t you fuck off Bone?”, the black stallion shot back, “Ok, let´s make a deal I don’t want to kill you and you don’t want to die so just give up on the slavery stuff and we all go our ways?”, the buck answered, “Why that you are only one and we are ten. We take you both with us and sell you in Appleloosa, get them guys!”, the Slaver answered and all the slavers pointed their guns at the stallion with coat and hat. He just sight and I saw his horn glowing with white magic. The next thing I didn’t expect: He pulled out two pistols with extended magazines and filled the slavers with bullets before they could even react and soon it was only me and the other buck still alive and he floated out two new magazines for his guns and put the empty ones back under his trench coat. “So”, he started, “Now to you. I know that you aren’t one of those slavers and since you have wings I don’t think you are from a stable, so a Dashite?”, “More or less”, I answered, “I got kicked out but ain´t a Dashite.”, “But you have a pip buck, didn’t acquire it in Ten Pony Tower by any chance?”, he asked, “I did buy it in Ten pony.”, I said and his eyes lit up, ” Does it have an encrypted File on it?”, he asked still sounding like he wasn’t faced by what just happened at all, “With a ridiculously heavy one even!”, I half answered, half complained. “Good, I’m sorry”, he said and I looked at him and asked: ” For wha…”, nope he wouldn’t even let me finish, he just struck me with one of his pistols and everything went black. As I woke up I lied in a bed in a huge library, the buck from the café took of his hat and his coat revealing a professionally made mane and an equally nicely made tail and he had his two pistols plus what I guest had to be a two digit amount of magazines and a … no wait no cutie mark just a nasty scar where it should be. “Oh good your awake”, he said, I wanted to shout and cuss at him for knocking me out but thanks to my head still throbbing the only thing I could put out of my mouth was a muttered: “Where am I?”, “You are in Ten Pony Tower, dear, the library of the hub of arcane sciences to be precise.”, Homage explained as she trotted into my line of sight and added, “Here drink this then you´ll fell better.”. She floated a bottle of Sparkle Cola towards me and I immediately grabbed it with my wing and gulped it down without thinking and as the coolness flew through my body my head stopped throbbing pretty quickly and I sat up looked Bones straight in the Eyes and asked: “Why the fuck did you knock me out ?!”, “Because you wouldn’t follow me here.”, the buck answered nonchalantly, “Yeah because I got kicked out of here!”, I said angrily, “And? I got kicked out too.”, Bone answered, “But if you´re banned too how did we get in here?”, I asked now genuinely wondering about how I got here, Bones just made his horn glow. Right Unicorns can teleport, work you stupid brain! A green Earthpony mare poked her head in the door and said: “Homage, Bone I cracked it! We found it!”, I could see Bone smile, or rather show any emotions, for the first time, it looked weird seeing the emotionless face forming a big grin. ” Great! Is it all?”, Homage asked, “No the important part is missing.”, the green mare said, “Fuck, shit, fuck, SHIT!”, Homage exclaimed and Bone just sighed but his face had this "I am about to use profanities so bad they should be banned" look to it but he remained silent. “Could somepony please explain to me what happened?”, I asked, now I really wanted to know what was going on. Bone started: “You know how everypony says Raiders and Guls are the worst thing you can come across in the wasteland?”, I just nodded, “Well if that file you got on your pip buck gets into the hands of certain ponies, this wont be the case anymore.”, he added, “And what would that be?”, I asked, “Power Armor lighter and stronger than the one of the steel rangers and better weapons than anything you have ever seen plus Wings”, Homage explained, “Bone I need to go back broadcasting, look after our little guest here and watch out that he doesn’t tell anypony.”. She trotted out and I finally stood up and asked, “So, Bone, is it?”, “Yes and you are on most every kill list right under the stable dweller and Security, so let´s just skip the formalities.”, he said, well now I know what floor tasted like after my jaw hit said floor, “How?”, I asked while picking my jaw back up, “You are the owner of the pip buck they are after and since you are able to use a rifle they prefer you dead.”, he explained, “Who are they?”, I asked, “They are the three warlords and their respective Factions.”, he explained. Factions? Holy fuck this shit just went from press trigger to survive kind of simple to a lot of people with whole factions behind them want me dead for something I bought to have a map kind of complicated. “Bone!”, the Green mare shouted from the door, “I think I found something that might help us!”, “On my way, dear!”, he shouted back and added, “Follow me.”. We walked through the library and into what I got to know as the wasteland radios broadcast station. And now I had another sample of floor to compare the taste. I looked at a huge wall full of monitors which essentially showed the whole wasteland. At a table Homage sat with the green mare behind a terminal as we approached the earthpony said: “So you two here’s the situation: We are missing the decoder for the self-destruction, the New Republic most likely knows we have the file and the only hint to the decoder is that it got lost somewhere in the Everfree forest.”, “Hold on for just a second! Can somepony please explain to me what is going on here?”, I interjected before anypony else could say something, “It´s simple”, the green mare explained, “In the wasteland there are three Factions: The New Republic, who think they are the leaders, the Wanderers, who want to control the wasteland and the Black Squad, who think they are the descendants of the Ministry of Awsome´s Black Ops and think to save Equestria they have to conquer the wasteland and eliminate everycreature who disagrees with them, all have secret hideouts somewhere in the wasteland and hire Raiders and slavers as mercenaries, but because those people are stupid no one ever gets the upper hand and recently we and with the help of their spies they, discovered that the last project of the Ministry of Wartime Technology was a better Steel ranger armor but as the bombs fell the file with the plans was encrypted and a code for the complete destruction of said file, was created, encrypted and given to a pony who was told to run as fast as possible in any direction, same was done with the plans and the decoder was send to the CEO of stable tech, we found the decoder and thanks to you we now have the plans now we only need the self-destruction code to prevent a new war.”, “That´s a lot to take in when you say it all at once…”, I muttered as I looked at her, “So let´s get you into some armor and get to the Everfree before they do!”, Bone ordered. So, within two days I got myself shot, nearly bled out, nearly shot again and into a little squad trying to prevent a bunch of crazy lunatics to go to war with overpowered armor. Great! Chapter 2: The Rocky Road to Junktion R-7As we stepped on the roof I asked: “Why the trench coat, Bone and not armor?”, “I have realized that if you don’t wear armor and something that hides who you are, you are not so likely to get shot by the ponies with a little bit brains left, but to be sure I wear this little thing under it.”, he explains as he pushes the trench coat aside and points to a bullet proof vest and added, “And you should maybe put this here on.” And he pulled a full body armor out of his trench coat, I will never understand how he fits so much into that coat. As I put it on I first realized that it has way more pockets and multiple slings for weapons and then I asked: “Why don’t I get a trench coat too so I at least don’t get shot by the smart ponies”, “The trench coat and hat are one of a kind so best thing is you are as resistant to gunfire as possible.”, he answered, so he teleported us to the outside of Ten Pony Tower. “What does that little pip buck of yours say?”, Bone asked, “Everfree is in that direction”, I said pointing in the direction my pip buck indicated, “Oh fuck!”, Bone mumbled and I turned around and asked: “What’s up afraid to walk for too long?”, I teased, “No that’s not the problem.”, he answered, “Than what is?”, I wanted to know, “Looks like our route leads us right along Slaver highway.”, he answered and now I was really grateful for the armor he gave me. We started walking towards the Everfree forest or rather whatever lie between that and us. We didn’t even walk half an hour before we saw two Raiders. “I got those two.”, I said and pulled out the weapon that, I have learned from the green mare, is called a Winchester and took my normal shooting position, “What are you doing with your left Wing?”, Bone asked, “I use it as a table to lie down the rifle.”, I answered while aiming at the first, “Why don’t you just wrap it around the Barrel?” he asked. That was actually not that bad of an idea so I tried it and it did help me. I killed the two with two fast shots and it did help me to reload faster but it did make my aim slightly shacky. Note to self, wrap left wing around gun barrel for close range combat but still use the wing as table to ensure long range accuracy. We continued walking and soon reached what looked like an old train station at the end of the Manehatten ruins and who would have thought, we saw Slavers but they actually had hostages in a cage so even more reason to fight. Bone saw them too and explained: “You wait here and give fire support I get in there and kill the rest!”, “Forget it”, I answered back pulling out my Winchester and wrapped my wing around the barrel, “I´m gonna come with you down there!”. So we went down there and opened fire. The first five went down pretty easy, and the next three and the last three, I killed four, the rest were filled with Bullets by Bone, I have no idea how in Equestria he could shoot and reload that fast. We quickly looted them, I added a pistol with a mouth grip to my arsenal and thanks to the fact that it used small 9mm bullets like my rifle I now had good amount of ammunition for both and found the key for the cage and opened it. The slaves ran out immediately, some throwing me a thank you look, some just running as far away as possible. I was about to leave when I saw a little curled up unicorn in the corner, she wasn’t a filly anymore but not much bigger than one, her white coat was full of mud and blood, her black mane and tail were frazzled and full of mud. I poked her and with a squeak she jumped up and backed up in the corner, you could see that she wasn’t so much of a slave to sell but more the object of fun for the slavers and only then I realized that most of the blood was from when she was raped and she was forced to sit in it. “Everything is going to be ok we are here to get you out.”, I said slowly trying to approach her, she just flinched back even more and I could see that she had a open wound under her cutie mark, I rummaged through my bag and pulled out a healing potion and handed it to her saying: “Here drink this so you will feel better.”, she looked at me with her big crimson eyes for a few seconds than slowly grabbed it with her magic and gulped it down. I could see her wound close but from all the aggressiveness of the slavers she still was bruised all over her body. I shouted out to Bone: “We need to get her somewhere safe so she can heal!”, “Ten Pony Tower?”, Bone asked, “No”, I answered, “They wouldn’t let us in and I doubt you can teleport us all back up!”. “Come on you stupid thing do something useful!”, I mumbled as I hammered a hoof against my pip buck, then it gave a silent Beep and a marker appeared with the name Junktion R-7 next to it. “My pip buck says there is a village or something like that near us!”, I shouted out to Bone as he searched the corpses for the millionth time, “Then let’s get her there!”, came back. I turned back to the mare and said: “We´re going to get you where its safe can you walk?”, she just shook her head, “Well then jump on.”, I said laying down. She climbed onto my back and we walked right towards R-7. As we arrived it was already close to midnight. As we approached I saw a black unicorn walking towards us and as she saw my little passenger she started running and said: “Come with me!”, she turned around and walked into something that looked like part of a train. She pointed to a mattress in the middle of the room and with a careful nudge with my wing I slid the injured unicorn on the mattress, “What happened to her?”, the unicorn with yellow and red lines in her mane asked, “We don’t know we picked her up from a slaver caravan and brought her here.”, I explained, our generous helper trotted around her for a bit then grabbed a few healing potions and gave them to her patient, “That should help her recover quickly.”, she said. Just as I wanted to thank her and go the door opened again and, oh fuck me to the moon and back I thought as I saw the Pegasus with Desperado hat walk in and say: “Velvet please don’t tell me your back in tha… YOU!”, he turned and pointed his battlesaddle at me just as I pointed my pistol at his head, “Velvet what is the Enclave doing here?!”, he asked not looking away from me, “I ain´t Enclave!”, I said, “Guys”, Velvet whispered, “Oh and why do you still have your mark then?!”, he asked loudly, “Guys!”, Velvet shouted silencing us all and continued, “Little pip is taking her well deserved rest not three rooms next to us and if any of you wake her up I am going to impale your head on a stick and feed it to the next rat roach we find!”, now we all looked at her with surprise, even the other Pegasus looked like he had never seen the mare pissed like that, “You go back to bed Calamity and you three better leave, NOW!”, she ended her rant. Calamity was gone before I could look back at him and I just sat down so the now healing unicorn could jump back up and we left as well. After a few minutes of walk we reached a tree which looked like it was hollow on the inside. “Can you teleport you two in?”, I asked Bone as we inspected the hollowed-out tree, “Yes but how will you come in then?”, he answered, I just pointed at the top of the tree and he nodded and teleported the two inside. Note to self, never piss off a mare no matter who sweet and kind and couldn’t hurt a fly she looked, she could impale your head on a stick and feed it to rat roaches. Chapter 3: The OutcastI slept and I slept good, as if I was back in Ten Pony Tower on my bed and I slept long, at least so I thought. I was woken up in the middle of the night, still not a single bit of daylight by a horrific scream. I shot up and saw that there was a whole in the tree, I woke up Bone and shouted: “Bone wake the fuck up we have a problem!”, “Mhm… what… what’s going on?”, he said as he rubbed his eyes, “The unicorn! I just heard her scream, she´s gone!”,, I exclaimed, within a second he jumped up and drew his pistols, I drew my Winchester. We walked out of the tree and I immediately saw tracks coming from the street and leading back to it. “Tracks! There!”, I shouted and we followed them, “They went this way!”, Bone said pointing in the direction of mud that has fallen of a wheel as it seemed. We followed the tracks for half an hour until we came to what looked like an old dinner with multiple stories. Bone didn’t wait he just went in. As we walked into the dinner, we were greeted by ten rifles pointed directly at us. “Fuck off you aren’t welcome here!”, a buck with chains as cutie mark groaned but as he turned around to look at us his eyes widened, “Look who we have here guys, our old friend Bone.”, he said as he walked towards us, “Thought you died ages ago after what we did to your mark!”, he added as he flicked up Bone´s trench coat to reveal the nasty scar I was too afraid to ask about. ” And you even brought us another slave how nice of you!”, he grinned at me, “Where is the unicorn?”, Bone hissed at him, “The one we found in the tree? My boys are having a little fun with her upstairs.”, he said and as if a button was pressed, I heard her scream of pain. And I snapped. I don’t exactly remember what happened, I saw red, pointed my gun at him and filled his head with three bullets, the other seven were killed by Bone. I ran upstairs and kicked in the first door, nothing, I kicked in the second door, weapons and ammunition have to remember to loot later, third times the charm. I kicked in the door and was greeted by the sight of a black earthpony having his fun with the poor unicorn who was bound. I just jumped at him and tackled him to the ground, holding him there with my hooves while Bone cut the mare free with his knife he hid somewhere in his coat. “Please, please don’t hurt me!”, the buck begged as he tried to get free. I pulled out my Winchester and put another bullet into its chamber. The buck’s eyes widened even more, “No please, please no!”, he begged. I put the barrel to his head and said: “Give me one good reason not to end you!”, he just begged: “Please I can give you caps if that’s what you’re after!”, “Not in the slightest”, I answered pressing the gun even harder to his head, he just begged even more: “It wouldn’t be fair, it’s against the law!”, “I know no law other than my own, I am not fair, I am biased, I am my own law, I am an Outlaw.”, I said, “And you have just broken said law”. Then I put a bullet through his head, it didn’t take me much and he deserved it. The unicorn sat in the corner crying, Bone stood next to her and I walked over to her and hugged her, she took the hug and just cried into my shoulders. We two walked back downstairs while Bone looted the second room, “Thank you”, she suddenly mumbled to me, “Thank you for saving me.”, “I’m happy to do so but we never got to know each other, my name is Fire Strife.”, I said, “I’m Starry Diamond”, she said and only now I realized that her cutie mark was a ruby with sparks on it, “Nice to meet you Diamond”, I answered back trying to lighten her mood. “What now?”, she asked, “Well”, I said, “first you need to rest, this time I will stand guard while you sleep and after that you could join old Boney and me on our journey to the Everfree forest.”, “Isn’t the Everfree forest one of the most dangerous places in the wasteland?”, she asked, “Yes it is”, I replied, “but the only thing the wasteland likes more than being toxic is forcing me to go exactly there.”, she actually snickered at that. As Bone came back down Diamond was already asleep and I told him: “We are gonna rest here for a while until Diamond has had a bit of sleep. I am standing guard you can sleep if you want and tomorrow, we will continue our journey.”, “With her?”, Bone asked, I nodded, “Ah whatever I´m getting some shut eye.”, he growled. As I sat there I activated my pip bucks radio and switched to Dj-Pony´s broadcast, right at the time where he said: “This was Sweetie Belle remembering us that the sun will rise again someday and now to an interesting bit of news, While our friendly stable dweller fights for the good of the wasteland it seems like we have another hero: I just got in reports that a Pegasus, a non Dashite Pegasus, was taking care of the slavers in the old Dinner near Junktion R-7 and as it seems this Outlaw as he was called had something to say to the buck who just raped an innocent mare, let’s play the recording”, I was stunned as my voice sounded from my pip buck, “I know no law other than my own, I am not fair, I am biased, I am my own law, I am an Outlaw. And you have just broken said law. And then he finished him off with a quick shot to the head. Looks like the Outlaw didn’t take too lightly to rape, so watch out you Slaver bastards ´cause if you rape the next time the Outlaw will come and kill you even before you can finish!”. I chuckled at that, the Outlaw doesn’t sound that bad and being known as the one who punishes rapists is a reputation I could live with and do something for it. Chapter 4: The WanderersIn the morning I was still awake and I didn’t feel like sleeping, I didn’t want to sleep at all until Diamond was safe. “Good morning, Fire.”, I heard her say behind me, “Good morning, Diamond.”, I answered with a smile on my face. ” Something I wanted to ask you”, I said, “Do you know how to shoot a gun?”, she looked at me with big surprised eyes, “I… I… No, I don’t want to shoot, I don’t want to kill!”, she muttered back, “Well in the wasteland you are going to kill someone sooner or later and personally I would prefer that you have a weapon to shoot and not get nearly deadly injured.”, I said worried, I really didn’t want to lose her, “No I will not kill, I will not wield a weapon!”, she said. So, she doesn’t get a gun, ok means I have to keep her safe. As Bone walked down to us, he asked: “You didn’t sleep at all, did you?”, “No I didn’t.”, I answered, well I somehow activated overprotective mother mode with that. “What?!”, Starry Diamond looked shocked at me, “You didn’t sleep?”, “Yes so you wouldn’t get captured!”, I said back, “We are not leaving this place before you slept.”, she told me, “We don’t have time for this!”, I said, “Then we are going to take the time, that is final”, she ordered, she looked cute when she looked at me angrily with her big eyes but of course I didn’t say that, so I just teased: “Ok mom…”, she looked satisfied even ignoring the little tease and I walked upstairs into the first bedroom and lay down in the bed and tried to sleep. I stood on a wide-open field full of flowers, I liked it. This was not the wasteland, this was what Equestria looked like before the Bombs fell. I took a deep breath and took in the scenery. The field ranges as far as I can see , flowers everywhere, except for a little place three meters away there was a little round plaza and on one half of the outline there were six statues, each one of them displays one of the ministry mares and everyone has a little sentence under it. I approached the first statue, the one of Pinkie Pie the ministry mare of the MOM her statue said…… I woke up back in the bed in the dinner, woken up by gunfire. Starry wasn’t the only one with a overprotective core, so I jumped up and grabbed my rifle from its sling and rushed downstairs. As I arrived and pulled up my weapon I only saw Bone standing over a guy with a bullet in his foot and Bone whispered to him: “Listen up you bloody degenerate, run your bloody ass back to your boss and tell him if he wants this fucking file he can move his useless ass to me and rip it out of my lifeless hooves if he has the fucking balls to face me!”. You could see his rage manifesting in his face and he just let the guy go while putting a bullet into the head of another guy who was crawling towards Diamond. I go to her and asked, “Are you okay?”, “Yes I think I am.”, she answered smiling at me. Ok Diamond is ok now to Bone. “Did you find something usable?”, I asked, “You aren’t gonna ask me how I am?”, he asked with a snicker, “Is it that obvious?”, I asked blushing like mad, “Even more that you think. Tell her!”, he said half teasingly half actually trying to give good advice, “It´s time to go you two!”, he announced as he reloaded his pistols. We walked out of the diner to the relaxing voice of Sweetie Belle and are greeted by the corpses of more slavers, I looked stunned at Bone and asked: “How many did you kill and how do you still have bullets left?!”, he just simply answered: “Killed everyone who came and refilled at the armory back in the dinner.”. Oh, right the armory I completely forgot about it. We continued our journey and ran into a few raiders, as expected they mostly were killed quite quickly and gave a good bit of close quarter combat practice. We walked along a railway until we reached a bunch of hills. “Something is wrong here I can feel it.”, I said. Oh, how I hate to be right! Just as I said that the ground began to shake and around us as a bunch of Guls jumped up and charged at us. “Diamond behind me!”, I shouted as I pulled out my rifle and began to fill the ghastly creatures with bullets but they just stood back up. One Gul jumped me and I lost my gun, I just tried to prevent him from biting my head off with my hooves. Suddenly I saw something flying and a knife impacted the Gul´s skull. ” Decapitate them that’s the only way to kill them!”, Bone shouted and I pulled the knife out with my teeth and slashed it through it´s throat. The head came clear off and I jumped to Diamond to ensure she doesn’t get bit. I pulled out the Winchester and quickly realized that filling their throats with shots was quite the effective way to decapitate them. “Holy fuck where did those bastards come from!?”, I shouted after we finally killed the last one. Note to self, decapitate a Gul to kill it, there is no other way. We continued our journey and soon arrived at a village my pip buck marked as New Appleloosa. We were greeted by the mayor and brought to a hotel where we rented out a room so we could stay the night. You might think that after nearly getting eaten by Guls the wasteland would cut us some slack, but nope the wasteland wasn’t that kind of nice. Before I could even prepare my bed, we already had the next problem. Diamond went to Absolutely Everything, the local shop, to get some food and as I looked out of the window I saw a bunch of what I could only guess were slavers waiting with knives in front of the shop, “Bone we have some folk waiting in front of Absolutely Everything with knives. I’m gonna go down there and look that they don’t make problems.”, I explained and he just nodded. I went down there and just as I wanted to approach them Diamond walked out of the store and gets grabbed by the leader, a brown unicorn, who puts his knife to her throat. “Hey!”, I shouted as I approached him, “Searching for me?”, then I pulled out my Winchester and filled his four lackies with bullets, each one with two, two bullets remaining. “You are going to come with me and I am going to release your little friend here.”, the buck said, “How about I just put my last two bullets through your head!”, I shouted back, “I wouldn’t do this!”, he said as he pulled his barding aside and I could see a shit ton of explosives along with a dead pony’s switch he levitated out. “Didn’t you forget something?”, Diamond asked the buck, “Absolutely Everything has absolutely everything”, I could see her horn glow and then she dropped a metal apple with a blue stripe on it. The apple detonated and I could see the light of the switch going off and then suddenly her hind hoof struck the pony’s private part causing him to drop the knife then she turned around and boxed him in the face so he fell down backwards and she picked up the knife to fixate him where he lay and then she just lifted the groceries up again, walked past me and said: “Dinner is in half an hour.”. It took me some time to process what just happened then suddenly I felt a coolness creep from my hind and as I turned around, I just saw a blow dart and everything went black. As I woke back up my eyes felt heavy and it took me some time to see straight. The first thing I realized was that I was sitting in a chair at a rather fancy looking wood table, then I realized that my forehooves were chained to it so I couldn’t stand up, then I realized that at the other end a earthpony stallion sat, his coat was a deep grey and his mane and tail were the darkest black I have ever seen but something still was off, one of his hooves tapped on the table but that wasn’t a normal hoof, for one it was made completely out of metal and it had claws but the buck could move the claws. “So you finally are awake?”, he asked, the only thing I could bring out was a weak: “Where am I”, “You are at the headquarters of the Wanderers and I am very interested in a certain file on that pip buck of yours.”, he answered back still tapping his claws on the desk. The wanderers? Oh fuck I thought, I was actually kidnapped by one of the factions who are after the power armor, “The only problem is”, the buck explained, “that we don’t have to decoder, so you are going to decode this for us.”, “And what if I don’t want to?”, I shot back, “Well”, he answered pressing a button on his part of the table with a claw, “in that case I would be forced to use an object of pressure.”. A screen lit up on one of the walls showing Diamond and Bone sitting in a cage surrounded by various ponies in armor pointing weapons at them. ” Ok I will do it just get me to a terminal and give me some time.”, I said “Great!”, the buck answered and tapped another button on his desk part, “Boys bring our little friend to the terminal.”. Two armored ponies walked in and one of them opened my chains and they started guiding me through a hallway full of armored ponies. Note to self, everypony except big boss claw hoof seems to wear full body armor. They escorted me into a small room and to a terminal, which already had the file and a programming software open, here´s to hoping that this recognized simple Enclave commands. I sat there for I don’t know how long when big boss claw hoof came in and asked: “Are you finished?”, “Nearly but I need advanced admin rights on this thing to run the decoder.”, I answered, he nodded to one of the soldiers who hammered on the keys and entered the admin password. ” Oh, and a little tip”, I said, a smile forming on my face, “Never ever fuck with the tech pony!”, I hit the button to run the program. The armored soldiers putt their hooves to their heads screaming in pain and as the claw hoofed motherfucker looked around, I punched him in the face, I might not be a particularly strong pony but my hoof still had enough force to it to make the buck fall back several steps. I just scooped up a pistol from one of the soldiers and ran. At the end of the hallway was a door to a big atrium and there I met back up with Bone and Diamond. “Care to explain to us what in Tartarus just happened?”, Bone shouted as we ran to what a sign marked as the Armory. “Simple”, I answered while opening the door, “They wanted me to program a decoder for the power armor file, and stupidly let me to a terminal. So, I wrote a program that sounded an alarm bell at maximum volume through the speakers in their helmets and then opened the cage you were in, then I let one of those idiots give me admin permissions so the program wouldn’t get blocked by some security software.”. We walked into the armory which was surprisingly unguarded and I found a crate labeled “CONVICTS”, as I opened it, I saw not just our weapons and gear but those of presumably earlier prisoners. Bone and I grabbed our belongings and ripped a scope from an old broken sniper and I picked up a pistol in the hope I could persuade Diamond to at least carry it with her. We ran through the complex and by now we encountered one or two enemies who actually put of their helmets to get rid of the sound, this left them very vulnerable to head shots, we ran for ages until we came to a hatch we climbed through. We now stood at the foot of a mountain and my pip buck flashed the name of a village near us: “MOUNTAIN HIGHTS”. We climbed up the hill and towards the village, we were greeted by an earthpony mare who introduced herself as the mayor and she let us to a little building called Rocky Mountain Inn. We went to the receptionist a bored unicorn mare and asked: “How much are three rooms for one night?”, she didn’t even look up as she answered: “250 caps.“, I looked down worried on the 205 caps we had, then she did look up and said, “but for you 200 Mr. Outlaw.”. Well looks like my reputation is already paying of but how she could know that I was the outlaw and not just Enclave I just had to ask: “Here you are, but how did you know I was…”, “The Outlaw? The Dj described you this afternoon saying if we come across you, we should do you a little favor for keeping the wasteland clean of those raping fuckers.”. Only then I realized that the song coming from the loudspeakers was from the Dj´s broadcast, if I ever came across him I had to thank him, this was the first favor he made us and already it decided if we had a warm place to sleep tonight or not. She gave us the keys and we walked to our rooms. Thankful to finally sleep I put away my armor and my gun, only keeping the pistol under my pillow for emergencies and I final went to sleep. I once more stood on the wide flowerbed, but this time something was different, as I looked towards the statues one socket was empty and a pink mare sat on the plaza. “Miss Pie?”, I asked as I approached, “No silly my name is Pinkie!”, the mare answered bouncing around me, “Ok fine, Pinkie but why are you here?”, I continued asking, “Because you showed awareness against those nasty no good ponies.”, she answered, “Awareness?”, I asked now completely confused, “Yes awareness, it was under E!”, she chanted as she still bounced around me. I felt as if I could hear Twilight Sparkle sigh, I wondered why. Then finally I took a closer look at Pinkie´s socket: “AWARENESS, IT WAS UNDER E”, read a small little engravement, “But why do you show up in my dream?”, I continued asking, “I don’t know, you´ll have to figure it out. Uh, my Pinkie Sense, you´re about to waked up.”. I wanted to take a moment to process all of this but then I actually woke up. Author's Note Well I finally finished this one and with over 5 pages in Word and over 2500 words this is my longest chapter of any story yet. First if you like what you see please give me a follow cause theres a lot more where that came from and second I am of course no kkat or Somber so if you have any criticism fell free to write a comment. Chapter 5: Attack in the mountainsAs I woke up I had about eight rifles of three different kinds shoved in my face. ” So, finally awake, Enclave?”, a brown buck said, it took me a second to notice that all eight were Pegasi. “I’m not Enclave, I know I still have my mark but that’s because my parents kicked me through the clouds before the Enclave could!”, answered back, “Likely story you cunt!”, a mare with what could only be a high caliber bolt action hissed, “What do you think Spy or is he here to scout out an attack?”, “The more important question is should we kill him here or outside to send a signal?”, a yellow buck answered. “The answer is you let him go before I send my bullets into you!”, Bone said with his pistols pointed at the Pegasi, he must have come in. They all starred at him and at the same time I heard magazines drop and the rifles ejected the one bullet left in their chambers as they were touched by red magic. Diamond stepped in behind Bone and said: “Go now or I can’t guarantee that my friend here will let you live.”. She knew exactly that she would stop Bone before he pressed the trigger but they didn’t, so they squeezed out the door and Bone said: “You wouldn’t have let me kill them, would you?”, “No of course not!”, Diamond answered seeming a bit offended that he even considered otherwise,” They were innocent they thought our little friend here would mean danger.”, “I am not little!”, I said falling straight of my bed while jumping up, “Oh I know but that was the best way to get you out of bed.”, she said with a giggle as she helped me up from the floor. Suddenly an alarm rang and we ran down to the reception after I jumped into my armor and I asked a very worried receptionist: “What is happening?”, she took some time to stop screaming profanities about Celestia raping her with her horn earning her some disgusted looks from Diamond and said: ” The alarm means those Wanderer bastards are attacking again from the Cloudsdale plains!”. ” Cloudsdale plains?”, I asked with a confused look, “The big open space to the east were Cloudsdale was before it got obliterated and now if you excuse me I´m gonna get my ass to safety in the underground bunker, you should do the same!”. We all ran outside, the reception mare ran to a small building in the middle of the village but I didn’t want to just hide, I wanted , as cliché as it might sound, to help, so I ran to what looked like the town hall and as I ran into the rather small building and a mare in obvious mayor attire approached us and said: “The Bunker isn’t here it´s three houses to the west!”, I simply answered: “We want to help I saw some turrets on the City wall don’t they work?”, “They are part of an old Enclave help project but the code never got finished!”, my eyes lit up and I asked: “Where is the code?”, “Can you fix it?”, the mare asked, “I can improve it”, I said and pointed to my mark, a bit of code, at least what a normal pony would imagen as code, the mayor pointed to an office. As I entered the office I jumped behind the terminal and began coding. The code was, as it seemed, programmed by somepony who knew their stuff and in the end all that was left was making slight changes to the Enemy-Detection-Matrix of the gun and program an auto reload function. “Got it, it should work now!”, I shouted to the mayor, “Good we need it running now!”, she shouted with urgency in her voice, I just pressed the run program button and heard the old miniguns and artillery humming back to life. I ran outside and saw Bone and Diamond sitting on the wall next to one of the miniguns looking down at the battlefield, as I joined them I saw that they were all wearing armor, these were no mercenaries, these were their main army, “He is really pissed that I punched him in the face.”, I said with a chuckle, “No they are after me.”, Bone said and as I and Diamond looked at him with no idea what he meant he added, “You ever wondered why that motherfucker has an iron hoof?”, we nodded, “As I met him the first time I was just a simple salvager and met him as he wanted to sell me to slavers, but I scooped up a pistol and shot some of his henchmen to escape, turns out one of them was his only son, so when we met the next time he sliced of my cutie mark, but I once again got my hands on weapons and as he tried to stop me from escaping I shot his hoof of.”. We both looked at him in shock, “Well then we better defend this place!”, I said and he answered with a grin: “Well we have to defend this place, don’t we?”, and pulled out his pistols out. I looked at my pip buck as it said: “Warning Enemies detected view Eyes-Forward-Sparkle for more information.”, I did so and was greeted by not only a zoomed in version of my map but a ton of red bars on the plains but also a few yellow ones two sitting next to me the rest all over the city walls and in one edge it said "SATS ready" next to a little button, I pressed the button and the time slowed down as I pressed it again the time resumed at normal speed and a little bar recharged the few bits it lost. “Guys good news my pip buck has a Battle mode I can slow down time so I can aim better!”, Bone smiled at me and gave a small not to the plains and I just nodded and looked at the EFS, about twenty contacts close to the wall. We jumped down and I rolled a bit until I jumped up pulled out my rifle and slipped straight into SATS, the time slowed down and I raised my rifle shooting at the heads of three, SATS ended and I quickly realized that a few shots with 9mm ammunition were rather ineffective against steel helmets. So back to my god old Winchester I go, as I slipped back into SATS I aimed for five of them two for each one, SATS ended itself again and I could see the five ponies falling down dead. Note to self, two Winchester bullets can kill you even through a helmet. Bone was having his fun killing one after the others, no matter how good your armor was there was a maximum of bullets it can take and Bone was an expert at overshooting this maximum. After everything was finished, we salvaged the dead soldiers and found a lot of ammunition and some Battlesaddles and as we returned, we were greeted with glee and admiration. “Thank you so much!”, the mayor said as she hugged each of us, well me and Diamond as she approached Bone he whispered: “If you try to hug me, I will shoot you.”, and she quickly backed up again, “What are you going to do with all the salvage?”, she asked and I got to thinking, we could equip me and Bone with Battlesaddles and had a lot of weapons and even more stuff to sell but those folk needed it way more, “It´s all yours.”, I said, “Really?”, the mayor asked surprised, “Really?”, Bone asked, Diamond gave him a little shove and I said: “ Yes really you need it way more than we do.”, the mayor looked at me with glee and handed me a bag of Bottlecaps with 5000 written on it and said: “Then at least take this.”. We trotted back into the Rocky Mountain Inn and were greeted by a smiling receptionist, “Staying another night?”, she asked, “Yes three rooms again.”, I said as I tried to give her 250 caps but she just said: “This one’s for free as thanks for saving our flanks out there!”, “Thanks”, I said with a smile as we trotted towards our rooms. After such a long day I just wanted to sleep. As I woke back up, I was once more on the field of flowers with the plaza, but this time there was not only Pinkie but also a white unicorn looking at me than at her. As I approached Pinkie said: “Told you he´d be here soon Rarity!”, I just looked stunned at the both of them for a while. Rarity finally decided to break the silence and said: “I liked how you gave all those weapons to the village other than just selling them, really generous of you!”, then I finally took a look at the socket she was on before, “BE GENOURUS”, it read and so I asked: “And because of the generosity I displayed you are here now?”, “Yes Darling.”, she answered, “But you have no idea why either, do you?”, I asked, “Sadly not Darling but I don’t mind sitting in this divine flower field.”, “I…”, I started but Pinkie cut me off: “You´re about to wake up, Oh and good luck with Diamond!”, she said with a smile. I wanted to ask how she knew about Diamond but I woke up. This time I thankfully wasn’t circled by Dashites who were about to kill me instead I woke up with Diamond sitting in front of my bed. ” Oh, good you´re awake I was just about to wake you up to tell you that lunch’s ready.”, she said with a smile. I made my bed and then trotted back down to see that Diamond made what looked like Hayburgers in the Inn´s kitchen, which had no staff. I ate two of the surprisingly tasty burgers. “Mmm where did you learn to cook that good?”, I asked after I finished the second one, “Well while you two learned how to shoot I used my time in the wasteland wandering from restaurant to restaurant trying to learn some prewar recipes.”, she explained. Well I actually never thought about that. “We have to go you two Lovebirds.”, Bone said. I wanted to shoot him just put a bullet in his head for that comment and he just chuckled as we looked at each other blushing like mad. We trotted out of the Inn and out of the City, “Guys my pip buck marks something called Sweet Apple Acres between the Everfree and us about a one-day march from here.”, I said as I looked at the little thing, “We can rest there the next night.”, “Well then let’s go!”, Bone said, “We should better get there before its dark!”. So, we followed the way my pip buck indicated and came across a bunch of slavers as always they were no problem and thanks to SATS I could kill more than one as Bone killed five, we quickly made it to Sweet Apple Acres, quickly meaning a good time before sunset. Diamond and I looked into the main house and found three Bedrooms, we all went to sleep after bone armed some traps made with grenades and some wire he found. I thought about asking Pinkie how she knew all this stuff and then I fell asleep. Chapter 6: The Writer´s RevengeAuthor's Note The Hiatus is over *YAY* After now the chapters will come out a bit faster (or at least won´t take this long), also The Insignium will get it´s next chapter soon. Chapter 6: The Writer´s Revenge I woke up again but neither in the flower field nor in my bed. Instead I sat at what looked like an old wood table. On the other end sat a pony with a black fedora black suit and crimson red tie, but as I looked closer, I realized that he was no ordinary pony, instead he was an earth pony skeleton with two glowing crimson orbs as eyes. “Who or what are you?”, I asked surprised, “I have many names, the dealer, the tradesman, or just the boney motherfucker.”, he answered while balancing a prewar bit on his right forehoof, “but I’m way more interested in who you are.”, he added, “Why that?”, I asked with a dumbfounded look on my face, “You see”, he explained, “I am the wasteland, I see, hear and smell everything, but I can’t see what ponies are thinking and in certain towns, villages and towers my presence is not strong enough to understand everything that’s going on. So, tell me what is this file of yours all about?”, “Why should I tell you?”, I asked back with full intention to keep the secret, “Because I can give you what you desire the most.”, he said and flung his hoof across the table and a card fell out of his sleeve and landed in front of me, the card showed me and Diamond kissing, “No!”, I insisted, “I won’t fall for your tricks!”, “Well if you think this is a trick then you can go, but beware of the one named Iron Cutter!”, he said and pointed to a door behind me and I just stood up and walked through it. I woke up back in Sweet Apple Acres, I slowly rolled out of my bed and walked out the door. Bone was already looting the place for anything useful and Diamond once more made her surprisingly tasty burgers. “So, eat then we walk the rest of the way!”, Bone ordered in a stern voice, “Calm down Bone, we just woke up!”, Diamond said, Bone just answered, “I don’t care, we are in the ruins of a Farmhouse from two centuries ago and possible already surrounded by Raiders and or Slavers, do you want to get…”, “BONE!”, I quickly interrupted him before he could bring this topic back up, “Let’s just eat for now!”, I ordered to the visible delight of the little white Unicorn mare. After we ate, we quickly looted the rest of the place and then we trotted towards Ponyville, or whatever was left of the Village. We trotted through a village that seemed to be looted already but nobody was there, we continued walking until we arrived at a tree that seems to be a hollowed out tree turned into a library and Diamond squealed of joy and nearly ran off if I didn’t bite her tail and stopped her. “Watch out!”, I hissed. We walked into what my pip buck marked as the Golden Oak Library and were greeted by a sight that made me and Diamond gag: The floor was laid out with corpses in raider attire, Bone just walked over to a few and took a closer look, “Killed by gunfire and looted most likely by other raiders.”, he said. “We should better get out here before they return! “, I ordered, “Oh don’t worry she won’t be back any time soon”, a pony voice announced from the stairs, I and Bone pointed our weapons at him while Diamond just let go a yelp and hid behind me, “Who. Are. You?”, I asked with the most frightening voice I could, “I’m Iron Cutter and I took over this place after the stable dweller cleared it.”, he explained, “Why don’t you come upstairs with me for a tea.”. I didn’t really listen to most of it my ears perked at the name Iron Cutter and I remember what the tradesman said: ” Beware of the one called Iron Cutter!”. “I´m not sure of this…”, I whispered to the other two, “Neither do I.”, Bone said and kept his weapons on Iron Cutter, “Ugh… why do you pony folk have to make it always this complicated!”, Iron grunted and gave a short whistle… I got hit by something on the back of my head and everything went black …. That boney motherfucker was right! I woke up this time in a room not chained to anything just lying on a chair next to yet another table this one was made out of glass and had some buttons on the other end right next to a Chair with even more and a strange pony sitting in it. He was an earth pony with darkish brown coat, a deep black mane, a black coat and a badge over his right eye. Only after taking a closer look at what I assumed is another faction leader I fully took in my surroundings and saw that Diamond and Bone sat in chairs next to me. “So where is the file?”, he asked hooves crossed, “Up in your ass”, Bone replied crossly, Diamond just groaned, “Am I the only one here with manners? I´m Starry Diamond, this here is Fire Strife and this sailor mouthed individual is Bone. And what’s your name?”, “I´m the Director.”, he replied simply, “Ok Mr. Director we don’t have this file you´re going on about so if you kindly could show us the way out-”, Bone began chuckling and as I followed his gaze I could see why. For some reason they positioned our weapons right in the corner and Bone started lifting his pistol when a stallion popped into the door with booze and a gun levitating next to him, “You still didn’t escape? Gah why do I always have to do everything myself!”, he flung the weapon around and shot the two guards, “Now follow me!”, we just all stood there stunned for a second before running after him, we ran for ages through tunnels and even if he obviously was drunk out of his mind the unicorn stallion was still knowing where exactly to go, after ages we arrived once more at a hatch the unicorn quickly threw open. Hell, the wasteland might have been dark but the artificial lights of the bunker made even the little light it had blinding. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that we were out in nothingness and the closest thing my pip buck marked was a location called Splendid Valley right next to a heavy radiation warning. “Follow me so I can get you away from here!”, the stallion announced and walked to a ship I only then saw, the ship actually was quite impressing, it was reinforced by stainless steel and had what looked like canons sticking out of the side, five to each side and had an open steering wheel sitting on a higher point on the back of it. After all that I finally took a closer look at our rescuer, he was a rather huge stallion with grey coat a small beard a kind of messy but also kind of clean grey-blueish mane and a rusty blue chest plate, with a sapphire in the middle, he also seemingly always has booze in his magical grip. He took a deep sip of the bottle and introduced himself: “Hello I´m Captain Mitch, me and my merry bunch are the crew of the Jolly Bat.”, “He-”, I started but was cut of by a groan coming from the hatch behind Captain Mitch: “Dad! I told you a thousand times stop with the drinking you are getting delusional if you drink so much!”, said a earth pony mare, “I don’t want you telling those poor guys the story of how you made Twilight Sparkle into an alicorn, she was just a unicorn!”, the mare added. She was smaller than the captain but still a little bigger than Diamond, she had a light pink coat and a mane with brown and purple stripes, “Oh Amy darling you are making that up I don’t get delusional and I did make her an alicorn same as you gave the original crusaders their cutie marks!”, “No I didn’t dad!”, she shot back and then walked past him to us, “I´m sorry my dad is drinking since ever and his huge imagination doesn’t make things better either, so allow me to introduce myself, I´m Amy and I’m the actual captain of the ship that is actual called the Writer´s Revenge which was just another alcohol idea of my Dad, let me introduce you to the crew.”, she trotted down the hatch and into the kitchen where another stallion sat on a chair with a small table with cupcakes on it, “This is Dave our blind cook.”, I took him in closer, he was a unicorn with light green coat a brown tail and a grey cap covering all his mane, “Oh good if he´s blind he won’t realize.”, Bone whispered and grabbed a cupcake in his magic, but Dave seemed to not have it and he raised a bamboo stick roughly his height and gave Bone a slap against the horn, who quickly lost his magic grip and catched it with his stick and brought it right back onto the table, “He is blind but that doesn’t mean he´s oblivious.”, Amy said with a chuckle and walked out motioning us to once more follow her. We walked into a room in the back that was filled with different generators and a mare came out under one of them and said: “Ok Amy the flux generator is running again we can leave as soon as Mitch got those folks- Oh, I see you’re already here you nice looking bunch”, she looked in our general direction and I could see Diamond blushing like crazy, “This is Gillian our technician.”, Amy explained, “N- Nice to meet you.”, Diamond stuttered and I mustered the little technician from top to bottom was roughly the size of Diamond and had a light yellow coat and a brown mane with a light blue bow on her tail. We all walked up for one to talk with Amy about our course and to get Diamond out of there before she broke completely. “So where do you need to go?”, Amy asked looking at a map strapped to a table in what I would assume are her quarters, “The Everfree Forest.”, I said, “ Oh good we are already on the river leading to the Everfree.”,she answered, “Aren’t you going to tell them that this is dangerous?”, Diamond asked hoping to hear Amy telling us of but she said, “I pulled a drunk Stallion out of a cave full of Guls, the Everfree will be a peach.”. She led us back up to the deck and shouted back down the hatch: “Gillian start the generators were leaving!”, she trotted up to the steering wheel and put the lever to full speed and we left of. Chapter 7: The Everfree ForestSomething has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.Chapter 8: Back to Ten Pony Tower (Part 1)We met back up with Amy the next day in her quarters to discuss the route of Ten Pony Tower. “Ah hello everypony”, she greeted us happily, “We are on our way to Ten Pony Tower, but there is a little problem …”, “What problem?”, I asked worried trying to suppress the notion of us being thousands of bottlecaps in debt, “We can get to the outskirts of the Manehatten Ruins, but there is no river leading into the ruins or even close to Ten Pony Tower.”, Amy explained, “There is another way”, I said, “If we get into the sea and get close enough Bone, Dave, Diamond and Mitch can combine their magic to teleport us and the ship to the roof of Ten Pony Tower.”, “Are you sure this will work if either Bone, Mitch or both of them are drunk again?”, Gillian asked, “Good point!”, Amy added, “We have to take the journey by hoof!”, we agreed on getting towards the ruins and walk the rest. After our discussion the sun had nearly set and so we walked to the hatch, Mitch and Bone separated themselves from the group quickly, most likely for another drinking party, I thought, , Gillian went straight back to her engine room and Diamond and I walked some time in silence before I said, “Diamond I want to be honest to you, has anypony ever told you what we are after?”, “I know you´re searching for a data pad with some kind of code on it.”, “Well yes we are but that’s not the whole truth…..”, I explained, “the code we are after is for the complete destruction of a file we have in Ten Pony Tower, that file contains the blueprints for a power armor so strong you are unkillable and loaded with weapons and those factions who captured us are after those plans to conquer the wasteland.”. I could see how her ever-present smile slowly faded as she realized what this means, I added, “And I´d prefer it if you would stay here with Amy and her crew, you´ll be safer with them”, she looked at me for a solid second and the answered, “I will think about it.”. We both walked to our rooms and I just lay down in my bed. I woke up being looked up and down by an orange mare with cowboy hat, “Ah you´re awake sugar cube.”, she said, “Awake?”, I asked, “I thought this is a dream”, “Sure you are, don´t confuse him Applejack!”, Pinkie said hopping to her side, “Confuse him? I´m confused myself Pinkie, I was fucking dead and the next thing I knew was me waking up here! We all should be dead!”, her eyes teared up as she talked, “Us, Big Mac, Applebloom and her friends, we´re all dead!”, “So you’re as clueless as I am about what this is and why you are here?”, I asked trying to switch the topic, “Oh no darling, we know where we are, this is your dream, we just don´t know why.”, Rarity explained as I stood up, “I was just inspecting your armor, or rather the patches of metal on your barding…… just give me a few seconds”, Applejack added. She trotted over to the plaza, searched for a spot, sat down, waved her hoof and a small workshop appeared, “Wha …... How…. What?”, I stuttered trying to wrap my head around what just happened, an earth pony could do such feeds of magic, “This is a dream”, I heard Rainbow Dash shout, “You can do whatever you want!”, she was not far away from the plaza fighting off zebras with her bare hooves. Note to self: everything’s possible on the plaza. “Come here sugar cube!”, Applejack shouted from the workshop, so I walked over and sat down next to her, “Making armor is simple, making armor better is even simpler.”, she waved her hoof again and my armor disappeared and reappeared on the desk, “You just take your armor and find a bunch of scrap metal”, which promptly appeared to her left, “Now take off the old metal, every armor has a bit of fabric under it, then you take big pieces of scrap metal and cut them into hexagons or any other shape of your choice, and put them all over the fabric, now you take the smaller pieces that you couldn´t use for the hexagons and put a bunch of them in the oven, after that give it some time to cool down. Now you have a mushy metal substance, now just fill the gaps between your shapes of choice and let it harden, now you have a metal armor that should be able to stop most bullets.”, ” Wow!”, I exclaimed with wide eyes, “That looks really easy!”, “Fire!”, Pinkie shouted and I spun my head around to look at the pink mare, “Good luck with Amy!”, she added. Once again everything went black and I woke up back in my bed with my old armor. I walked up and out the hatch to get some fresh air and was greeted by Mitch and Bone sitting at a table drinking, “Have you been drinking since yesterday?”, I asked stunned, “No just for the last 5 hours”, Bone answered and grabbed another bottle of Wild Pegasus, the 8th if I counted the empty ones correctly. Amy trotted up next to me, “Oh good you´re awake I´m gonna need your help.”, she said, “With what?”, I asked, “Getting those two away from the alcohol, otherwise this is going to turn into another one of my dad’s 12 hour drinking sessions”, she answered, “Ok I grab Bone you grab your dad”, I said taking a step towards the now completely shitfaced stallions, she just nodded and we both jumped them at the same time earning a look that could kill a Gul from both of them and even if they were piss drunk they still fought back. BOOM. A massive explosion sounds as if somepony detonated another Balefire Bomb and as we looked around for the source. The cloud curtain was enveloped by a green flash that seemed to wander across the sky and within the blink of an eye the impenetrable indestructible cloud curtain was gone. “What…? How…? How the fuck did just happen? How is that possible?”, I stammered as I watched the strongest clouds the weather factory turned out being destroyed within seconds, “A Sonic Rainboom.”, Mitch said, “That green light must have been a Sonic Rainboom.”, “But isn´t that impossible? Wouldn’t a Pegasus have to break the sound barrier to do that?”, Diamond asked, “Yes, the stories say the only Pegasus to ever do that was the mare of the Ministry of Awesome and she did it twice.”, Bone explained, “That´s impossible. there are millions of Pegasi in the Enclave and no one has ever pulled it off!”, I said my eyes still locked on the sky, admittedly the Enclave was fast to patch it back up. “Land ahead!”, came from Amy, which finally freed my eyes from the sky, „Great we´re finally here!”, I said, “now it´s just a day’s walk to Ten Pony Tower!”, “Then let´s go!”, Amy said, “Come on Mitch let´s get our guns.”, Bone exclaimed, “Hold up! My dad is staying here!”, “No can-do Amy darling I´m coming with Wind!”, Mitch answered back, “Wind?”, Diamond and I asked confused, “Yes let´s get our guns!”, Bone said quickly and pulled him down the hatch, at the same time Gillian emerged from the hatch and talked to Diamond, I couldn´t hear what they were saying but after they finished Gillian gave the small unicorn a peck on the cheek. Gillian asked Amy, “ Do you still have it?”, “Yes I do.”, Amy answered, “I kept it just like you asked me too.”, ” What is this all about?”, I asked, “What did she keep?”.
PrologueSo here I am sitting in front of Ten Pony Tower and before you ask, no I am not planning to get in, no I have just gotten myself kicked out. “How?”, you ask? Well it all started when I arrived here my first day I more or less got kicked out of the Enclave because i said something that didn’t completely agree with what they said. Still lucky me I only got kicked out, folks in my hometown said pegasi who disagree with the Enclave get taken away at night and executed in some secret facility. So I flew down here and low in behold it didn’t start very good, I flew down and circled around as I saw what looked like a caravan of traders and I flew down to trade, only I might have forgotten the fact that every non Dashite Pegasus was about as friendly treated as a raider trying to rape fillies. Oh well I flew down and out of the corner of my eye I saw a Pegasus with a desperado hat flying towards me, I only later realized that he wore a battlesaddle, later meaning after a bullet went clean through my ass. I flew as fast as I could in some direction, I had better things to do than get shot in my first minute down here and after what felt like hours, I saw a huge building in the distance. You guest right if you said it´s Ten Pony Tower! So I flew towards it up high in the air trying to avoid any anti Enclave gunfire and my Eyes lit up as I saw that I could land on the roof, well about as much landing as I could do with a bullet hole in my ass, let´s just say I fell more than I landed. As I impacted and gave a loud thud the door leading down opened and a grey unicorn mare stepped out and ran towards me. She asked worried: “Are you okay?” and I just gave a annoyed “Do you think I am?!” look and pointed with one of my wings at my ass, “Oh no! let´s get you inside and heal you!”, she said extending a hoof. I of course took it, anything is better than getting shot and then bleeding out on a roof on my first day down here. We walked in and she introduced herself as Homage, the assistant of some guy named Dj-Pony. We walked past a nice statue and she brought me into a clinic. “Doc I need your help here!”, she shouted, a stallion approached us and introduced himself as Doctor Helping Hoof, “He landed on the roof looks like someone shot him.”, she explained and the doc pulled out a little glass bottle and explained: “Give him that and some rest he should be fine soon”. So we walked back to what I’ve learned is Dj-Pony´s broadcast station in a pre-war hub according to Homage it belonged to the Ministry of Arcane Sciences which had a emergency broadcast station he used for his wasteland radio. First day after my rest: I stepped out of the walls to collect metall and trade it inside of the city, I walked about 3 meters before i found a bunch of scrap metal that looked like it could actually be still used for something so I collected it and walked back in. Day two of my new life: I once more stepped out this time i had to search a little bit longer before I found a passable piece of metall but only one small piece wouldn´t get me all to far so I continued and after easily three hours or even more I walked back in once more earning myself a little bit of money or rather currency since they used bottlecaps for some reason which wasn´t exactly the money I was used to. Day three of me actually gaining quite a reputation in the tower and enjoying my life with a clean bed and a shower everyday: I trotted throught the ruins once more and while gaining a bit of scrap metal I found something else, a weird looking machine that looked like the motors we used for the ships but older, still it was worth bringing it with me because the local Historians were about to fight about it as I said: "Whoever bids the most get´s it", 15 minutes later one histotian gave me three thousand bottlecaps and took it with him. After those three days I had not only acquired the good sum of five hundred bottlecaps but also thanks to a small bit of pre war tech a leather action rifle, a lot of ammunition for said rifle, a saddlebag and something called a pip buck, no idea what it is but it had a map and a radio and some other stuff I didn’t bother to look at, all that strapped around my forehoof. There was only one problem: I was a Pegasus without a Dashite symbol on my flank which meant for the residents I was Enclave, which led to the unfortunate circumstances I’m in right now. On the fourth day a bunch of security ponies approached me and told me I had to leave because neither they nor the citizens where very fond of me being here and or the Enclave marching into Ten Pony Tower to collect me. So now I sit in the ruins of a city my pip buck named Manehatten, contemplating my next move but I didn’t know what to do so I scrolled through the pip buck. “Oh fuck!”, I shouted as I read through the data files, there was a heavily encrypted file on there and even I who decrypted files while sleeping had never seen a encryption this strong, which meant it was important, which meant whomever this file belonged to would now hunt me. “Oh great”, I mumbled as I stood up and looked at my map: In the distance a town called Fillydelphia was marked, “maybe this one isn´t in ruins” I thought and started trotting in the direction the pip buck said the city was in. Author's Note Hello, thanks for reading this far, if you liked it why don´t you give me a like to help me get the story out to ohters and if you have any criticism to give feel free to do so!
Chapter 1: The FactionsI was walking towards Fillydelphia when I met the last thing I wanted to meet in the wasteland: Raiders! Of course with my luck the first thing I found was a group of four raiders. Problem: I didn’t have a battlesaddle what I had gotten used to in the army of the Enclave. Solution: Ten Pony Tower had a shooting range to train in which I could test various forms of weapon handling and over my three and a half days there I had perfected my talent to use my wings on my leather action rifle one wing on the trigger the other one I lay the gun on as if it was a table. I aimed for the first one and took him out easily, the second one was a bit harder as they looked around, the third one charged towards me in a straight line another easy headshot, the third one actually dodged my bullets but thanks to the fact that I killed the only one with a firearm first I could shoot the last one as he tried to grab it. Note to self, think of a better way to use the left wing to enable faster shots, waiting for the weapon to settle back down took a second or two, a second or two which could decide if I died or my enemy died. As I walked past the corpses I picked up the assault rifle and flung it into the holding of my leather action, which I decided to hold in the right wing at all time for emergencies and overall other fights until I had a reasonable amount of bullets for the assault rifle, as I continued walking I saw a little café at the street attached to a motel. At this point red flags should have popped up all over my brain but after being used to the luxury of Ten Pony I wanted something to eat. Stupid me. As I walked through the main door a little bell chimed and as I walked towards the counter ten slavers with notably more advanced weaponry than raiders sprung out of the booths left and right to me and a black unicorn Stallion with crossed revolvers as cutie mark said: “Hey look this one has a pip buck maybe it´s the one the boss wants!”, “Either way he looks like he is gonna get us a good amount of caps if we bring him to Appleloosa!”, a mare hissed. The entrance bell chimed once more and in walked a white unicorn with hat and a big trench coat that reached back even over his tail. “So, you didn’t take my last warning seriously?”, he said looking at the supposed leader: “Why don´t you fuck off Bone?”, the black stallion shot back, “Ok, let´s make a deal I don’t want to kill you and you don’t want to die so just give up on the slavery stuff and we all go our ways?”, the buck answered, “Why that you are only one and we are ten. We take you both with us and sell you in Appleloosa, get them guys!”, the Slaver answered and all the slavers pointed their guns at the stallion with coat and hat. He just sight and I saw his horn glowing with white magic. The next thing I didn’t expect: He pulled out two pistols with extended magazines and filled the slavers with bullets before they could even react and soon it was only me and the other buck still alive and he floated out two new magazines for his guns and put the empty ones back under his trench coat. “So”, he started, “Now to you. I know that you aren’t one of those slavers and since you have wings I don’t think you are from a stable, so a Dashite?”, “More or less”, I answered, “I got kicked out but ain´t a Dashite.”, “But you have a pip buck, didn’t acquire it in Ten Pony Tower by any chance?”, he asked, “I did buy it in Ten pony.”, I said and his eyes lit up, ” Does it have an encrypted File on it?”, he asked still sounding like he wasn’t faced by what just happened at all, “With a ridiculously heavy one even!”, I half answered, half complained. “Good, I’m sorry”, he said and I looked at him and asked: ” For wha…”, nope he wouldn’t even let me finish, he just struck me with one of his pistols and everything went black. As I woke up I lied in a bed in a huge library, the buck from the café took of his hat and his coat revealing a professionally made mane and an equally nicely made tail and he had his two pistols plus what I guest had to be a two digit amount of magazines and a … no wait no cutie mark just a nasty scar where it should be. “Oh good your awake”, he said, I wanted to shout and cuss at him for knocking me out but thanks to my head still throbbing the only thing I could put out of my mouth was a muttered: “Where am I?”, “You are in Ten Pony Tower, dear, the library of the hub of arcane sciences to be precise.”, Homage explained as she trotted into my line of sight and added, “Here drink this then you´ll fell better.”. She floated a bottle of Sparkle Cola towards me and I immediately grabbed it with my wing and gulped it down without thinking and as the coolness flew through my body my head stopped throbbing pretty quickly and I sat up looked Bones straight in the Eyes and asked: “Why the fuck did you knock me out ?!”, “Because you wouldn’t follow me here.”, the buck answered nonchalantly, “Yeah because I got kicked out of here!”, I said angrily, “And? I got kicked out too.”, Bone answered, “But if you´re banned too how did we get in here?”, I asked now genuinely wondering about how I got here, Bones just made his horn glow. Right Unicorns can teleport, work you stupid brain! A green Earthpony mare poked her head in the door and said: “Homage, Bone I cracked it! We found it!”, I could see Bone smile, or rather show any emotions, for the first time, it looked weird seeing the emotionless face forming a big grin. ” Great! Is it all?”, Homage asked, “No the important part is missing.”, the green mare said, “Fuck, shit, fuck, SHIT!”, Homage exclaimed and Bone just sighed but his face had this "I am about to use profanities so bad they should be banned" look to it but he remained silent. “Could somepony please explain to me what happened?”, I asked, now I really wanted to know what was going on. Bone started: “You know how everypony says Raiders and Guls are the worst thing you can come across in the wasteland?”, I just nodded, “Well if that file you got on your pip buck gets into the hands of certain ponies, this wont be the case anymore.”, he added, “And what would that be?”, I asked, “Power Armor lighter and stronger than the one of the steel rangers and better weapons than anything you have ever seen plus Wings”, Homage explained, “Bone I need to go back broadcasting, look after our little guest here and watch out that he doesn’t tell anypony.”. She trotted out and I finally stood up and asked, “So, Bone, is it?”, “Yes and you are on most every kill list right under the stable dweller and Security, so let´s just skip the formalities.”, he said, well now I know what floor tasted like after my jaw hit said floor, “How?”, I asked while picking my jaw back up, “You are the owner of the pip buck they are after and since you are able to use a rifle they prefer you dead.”, he explained, “Who are they?”, I asked, “They are the three warlords and their respective Factions.”, he explained. Factions? Holy fuck this shit just went from press trigger to survive kind of simple to a lot of people with whole factions behind them want me dead for something I bought to have a map kind of complicated. “Bone!”, the Green mare shouted from the door, “I think I found something that might help us!”, “On my way, dear!”, he shouted back and added, “Follow me.”. We walked through the library and into what I got to know as the wasteland radios broadcast station. And now I had another sample of floor to compare the taste. I looked at a huge wall full of monitors which essentially showed the whole wasteland. At a table Homage sat with the green mare behind a terminal as we approached the earthpony said: “So you two here’s the situation: We are missing the decoder for the self-destruction, the New Republic most likely knows we have the file and the only hint to the decoder is that it got lost somewhere in the Everfree forest.”, “Hold on for just a second! Can somepony please explain to me what is going on here?”, I interjected before anypony else could say something, “It´s simple”, the green mare explained, “In the wasteland there are three Factions: The New Republic, who think they are the leaders, the Wanderers, who want to control the wasteland and the Black Squad, who think they are the descendants of the Ministry of Awsome´s Black Ops and think to save Equestria they have to conquer the wasteland and eliminate everycreature who disagrees with them, all have secret hideouts somewhere in the wasteland and hire Raiders and slavers as mercenaries, but because those people are stupid no one ever gets the upper hand and recently we and with the help of their spies they, discovered that the last project of the Ministry of Wartime Technology was a better Steel ranger armor but as the bombs fell the file with the plans was encrypted and a code for the complete destruction of said file, was created, encrypted and given to a pony who was told to run as fast as possible in any direction, same was done with the plans and the decoder was send to the CEO of stable tech, we found the decoder and thanks to you we now have the plans now we only need the self-destruction code to prevent a new war.”, “That´s a lot to take in when you say it all at once…”, I muttered as I looked at her, “So let´s get you into some armor and get to the Everfree before they do!”, Bone ordered. So, within two days I got myself shot, nearly bled out, nearly shot again and into a little squad trying to prevent a bunch of crazy lunatics to go to war with overpowered armor. Great!
Chapter 2: The Rocky Road to Junktion R-7As we stepped on the roof I asked: “Why the trench coat, Bone and not armor?”, “I have realized that if you don’t wear armor and something that hides who you are, you are not so likely to get shot by the ponies with a little bit brains left, but to be sure I wear this little thing under it.”, he explains as he pushes the trench coat aside and points to a bullet proof vest and added, “And you should maybe put this here on.” And he pulled a full body armor out of his trench coat, I will never understand how he fits so much into that coat. As I put it on I first realized that it has way more pockets and multiple slings for weapons and then I asked: “Why don’t I get a trench coat too so I at least don’t get shot by the smart ponies”, “The trench coat and hat are one of a kind so best thing is you are as resistant to gunfire as possible.”, he answered, so he teleported us to the outside of Ten Pony Tower. “What does that little pip buck of yours say?”, Bone asked, “Everfree is in that direction”, I said pointing in the direction my pip buck indicated, “Oh fuck!”, Bone mumbled and I turned around and asked: “What’s up afraid to walk for too long?”, I teased, “No that’s not the problem.”, he answered, “Than what is?”, I wanted to know, “Looks like our route leads us right along Slaver highway.”, he answered and now I was really grateful for the armor he gave me. We started walking towards the Everfree forest or rather whatever lie between that and us. We didn’t even walk half an hour before we saw two Raiders. “I got those two.”, I said and pulled out the weapon that, I have learned from the green mare, is called a Winchester and took my normal shooting position, “What are you doing with your left Wing?”, Bone asked, “I use it as a table to lie down the rifle.”, I answered while aiming at the first, “Why don’t you just wrap it around the Barrel?” he asked. That was actually not that bad of an idea so I tried it and it did help me. I killed the two with two fast shots and it did help me to reload faster but it did make my aim slightly shacky. Note to self, wrap left wing around gun barrel for close range combat but still use the wing as table to ensure long range accuracy. We continued walking and soon reached what looked like an old train station at the end of the Manehatten ruins and who would have thought, we saw Slavers but they actually had hostages in a cage so even more reason to fight. Bone saw them too and explained: “You wait here and give fire support I get in there and kill the rest!”, “Forget it”, I answered back pulling out my Winchester and wrapped my wing around the barrel, “I´m gonna come with you down there!”. So we went down there and opened fire. The first five went down pretty easy, and the next three and the last three, I killed four, the rest were filled with Bullets by Bone, I have no idea how in Equestria he could shoot and reload that fast. We quickly looted them, I added a pistol with a mouth grip to my arsenal and thanks to the fact that it used small 9mm bullets like my rifle I now had good amount of ammunition for both and found the key for the cage and opened it. The slaves ran out immediately, some throwing me a thank you look, some just running as far away as possible. I was about to leave when I saw a little curled up unicorn in the corner, she wasn’t a filly anymore but not much bigger than one, her white coat was full of mud and blood, her black mane and tail were frazzled and full of mud. I poked her and with a squeak she jumped up and backed up in the corner, you could see that she wasn’t so much of a slave to sell but more the object of fun for the slavers and only then I realized that most of the blood was from when she was raped and she was forced to sit in it. “Everything is going to be ok we are here to get you out.”, I said slowly trying to approach her, she just flinched back even more and I could see that she had a open wound under her cutie mark, I rummaged through my bag and pulled out a healing potion and handed it to her saying: “Here drink this so you will feel better.”, she looked at me with her big crimson eyes for a few seconds than slowly grabbed it with her magic and gulped it down. I could see her wound close but from all the aggressiveness of the slavers she still was bruised all over her body. I shouted out to Bone: “We need to get her somewhere safe so she can heal!”, “Ten Pony Tower?”, Bone asked, “No”, I answered, “They wouldn’t let us in and I doubt you can teleport us all back up!”. “Come on you stupid thing do something useful!”, I mumbled as I hammered a hoof against my pip buck, then it gave a silent Beep and a marker appeared with the name Junktion R-7 next to it. “My pip buck says there is a village or something like that near us!”, I shouted out to Bone as he searched the corpses for the millionth time, “Then let’s get her there!”, came back. I turned back to the mare and said: “We´re going to get you where its safe can you walk?”, she just shook her head, “Well then jump on.”, I said laying down. She climbed onto my back and we walked right towards R-7. As we arrived it was already close to midnight. As we approached I saw a black unicorn walking towards us and as she saw my little passenger she started running and said: “Come with me!”, she turned around and walked into something that looked like part of a train. She pointed to a mattress in the middle of the room and with a careful nudge with my wing I slid the injured unicorn on the mattress, “What happened to her?”, the unicorn with yellow and red lines in her mane asked, “We don’t know we picked her up from a slaver caravan and brought her here.”, I explained, our generous helper trotted around her for a bit then grabbed a few healing potions and gave them to her patient, “That should help her recover quickly.”, she said. Just as I wanted to thank her and go the door opened again and, oh fuck me to the moon and back I thought as I saw the Pegasus with Desperado hat walk in and say: “Velvet please don’t tell me your back in tha… YOU!”, he turned and pointed his battlesaddle at me just as I pointed my pistol at his head, “Velvet what is the Enclave doing here?!”, he asked not looking away from me, “I ain´t Enclave!”, I said, “Guys”, Velvet whispered, “Oh and why do you still have your mark then?!”, he asked loudly, “Guys!”, Velvet shouted silencing us all and continued, “Little pip is taking her well deserved rest not three rooms next to us and if any of you wake her up I am going to impale your head on a stick and feed it to the next rat roach we find!”, now we all looked at her with surprise, even the other Pegasus looked like he had never seen the mare pissed like that, “You go back to bed Calamity and you three better leave, NOW!”, she ended her rant. Calamity was gone before I could look back at him and I just sat down so the now healing unicorn could jump back up and we left as well. After a few minutes of walk we reached a tree which looked like it was hollow on the inside. “Can you teleport you two in?”, I asked Bone as we inspected the hollowed-out tree, “Yes but how will you come in then?”, he answered, I just pointed at the top of the tree and he nodded and teleported the two inside. Note to self, never piss off a mare no matter who sweet and kind and couldn’t hurt a fly she looked, she could impale your head on a stick and feed it to rat roaches.
Chapter 3: The OutcastI slept and I slept good, as if I was back in Ten Pony Tower on my bed and I slept long, at least so I thought. I was woken up in the middle of the night, still not a single bit of daylight by a horrific scream. I shot up and saw that there was a whole in the tree, I woke up Bone and shouted: “Bone wake the fuck up we have a problem!”, “Mhm… what… what’s going on?”, he said as he rubbed his eyes, “The unicorn! I just heard her scream, she´s gone!”,, I exclaimed, within a second he jumped up and drew his pistols, I drew my Winchester. We walked out of the tree and I immediately saw tracks coming from the street and leading back to it. “Tracks! There!”, I shouted and we followed them, “They went this way!”, Bone said pointing in the direction of mud that has fallen of a wheel as it seemed. We followed the tracks for half an hour until we came to what looked like an old dinner with multiple stories. Bone didn’t wait he just went in. As we walked into the dinner, we were greeted by ten rifles pointed directly at us. “Fuck off you aren’t welcome here!”, a buck with chains as cutie mark groaned but as he turned around to look at us his eyes widened, “Look who we have here guys, our old friend Bone.”, he said as he walked towards us, “Thought you died ages ago after what we did to your mark!”, he added as he flicked up Bone´s trench coat to reveal the nasty scar I was too afraid to ask about. ” And you even brought us another slave how nice of you!”, he grinned at me, “Where is the unicorn?”, Bone hissed at him, “The one we found in the tree? My boys are having a little fun with her upstairs.”, he said and as if a button was pressed, I heard her scream of pain. And I snapped. I don’t exactly remember what happened, I saw red, pointed my gun at him and filled his head with three bullets, the other seven were killed by Bone. I ran upstairs and kicked in the first door, nothing, I kicked in the second door, weapons and ammunition have to remember to loot later, third times the charm. I kicked in the door and was greeted by the sight of a black earthpony having his fun with the poor unicorn who was bound. I just jumped at him and tackled him to the ground, holding him there with my hooves while Bone cut the mare free with his knife he hid somewhere in his coat. “Please, please don’t hurt me!”, the buck begged as he tried to get free. I pulled out my Winchester and put another bullet into its chamber. The buck’s eyes widened even more, “No please, please no!”, he begged. I put the barrel to his head and said: “Give me one good reason not to end you!”, he just begged: “Please I can give you caps if that’s what you’re after!”, “Not in the slightest”, I answered pressing the gun even harder to his head, he just begged even more: “It wouldn’t be fair, it’s against the law!”, “I know no law other than my own, I am not fair, I am biased, I am my own law, I am an Outlaw.”, I said, “And you have just broken said law”. Then I put a bullet through his head, it didn’t take me much and he deserved it. The unicorn sat in the corner crying, Bone stood next to her and I walked over to her and hugged her, she took the hug and just cried into my shoulders. We two walked back downstairs while Bone looted the second room, “Thank you”, she suddenly mumbled to me, “Thank you for saving me.”, “I’m happy to do so but we never got to know each other, my name is Fire Strife.”, I said, “I’m Starry Diamond”, she said and only now I realized that her cutie mark was a ruby with sparks on it, “Nice to meet you Diamond”, I answered back trying to lighten her mood. “What now?”, she asked, “Well”, I said, “first you need to rest, this time I will stand guard while you sleep and after that you could join old Boney and me on our journey to the Everfree forest.”, “Isn’t the Everfree forest one of the most dangerous places in the wasteland?”, she asked, “Yes it is”, I replied, “but the only thing the wasteland likes more than being toxic is forcing me to go exactly there.”, she actually snickered at that. As Bone came back down Diamond was already asleep and I told him: “We are gonna rest here for a while until Diamond has had a bit of sleep. I am standing guard you can sleep if you want and tomorrow, we will continue our journey.”, “With her?”, Bone asked, I nodded, “Ah whatever I´m getting some shut eye.”, he growled. As I sat there I activated my pip bucks radio and switched to Dj-Pony´s broadcast, right at the time where he said: “This was Sweetie Belle remembering us that the sun will rise again someday and now to an interesting bit of news, While our friendly stable dweller fights for the good of the wasteland it seems like we have another hero: I just got in reports that a Pegasus, a non Dashite Pegasus, was taking care of the slavers in the old Dinner near Junktion R-7 and as it seems this Outlaw as he was called had something to say to the buck who just raped an innocent mare, let’s play the recording”, I was stunned as my voice sounded from my pip buck, “I know no law other than my own, I am not fair, I am biased, I am my own law, I am an Outlaw. And you have just broken said law. And then he finished him off with a quick shot to the head. Looks like the Outlaw didn’t take too lightly to rape, so watch out you Slaver bastards ´cause if you rape the next time the Outlaw will come and kill you even before you can finish!”. I chuckled at that, the Outlaw doesn’t sound that bad and being known as the one who punishes rapists is a reputation I could live with and do something for it.
Chapter 4: The WanderersIn the morning I was still awake and I didn’t feel like sleeping, I didn’t want to sleep at all until Diamond was safe. “Good morning, Fire.”, I heard her say behind me, “Good morning, Diamond.”, I answered with a smile on my face. ” Something I wanted to ask you”, I said, “Do you know how to shoot a gun?”, she looked at me with big surprised eyes, “I… I… No, I don’t want to shoot, I don’t want to kill!”, she muttered back, “Well in the wasteland you are going to kill someone sooner or later and personally I would prefer that you have a weapon to shoot and not get nearly deadly injured.”, I said worried, I really didn’t want to lose her, “No I will not kill, I will not wield a weapon!”, she said. So, she doesn’t get a gun, ok means I have to keep her safe. As Bone walked down to us, he asked: “You didn’t sleep at all, did you?”, “No I didn’t.”, I answered, well I somehow activated overprotective mother mode with that. “What?!”, Starry Diamond looked shocked at me, “You didn’t sleep?”, “Yes so you wouldn’t get captured!”, I said back, “We are not leaving this place before you slept.”, she told me, “We don’t have time for this!”, I said, “Then we are going to take the time, that is final”, she ordered, she looked cute when she looked at me angrily with her big eyes but of course I didn’t say that, so I just teased: “Ok mom…”, she looked satisfied even ignoring the little tease and I walked upstairs into the first bedroom and lay down in the bed and tried to sleep. I stood on a wide-open field full of flowers, I liked it. This was not the wasteland, this was what Equestria looked like before the Bombs fell. I took a deep breath and took in the scenery. The field ranges as far as I can see , flowers everywhere, except for a little place three meters away there was a little round plaza and on one half of the outline there were six statues, each one of them displays one of the ministry mares and everyone has a little sentence under it. I approached the first statue, the one of Pinkie Pie the ministry mare of the MOM her statue said…… I woke up back in the bed in the dinner, woken up by gunfire. Starry wasn’t the only one with a overprotective core, so I jumped up and grabbed my rifle from its sling and rushed downstairs. As I arrived and pulled up my weapon I only saw Bone standing over a guy with a bullet in his foot and Bone whispered to him: “Listen up you bloody degenerate, run your bloody ass back to your boss and tell him if he wants this fucking file he can move his useless ass to me and rip it out of my lifeless hooves if he has the fucking balls to face me!”. You could see his rage manifesting in his face and he just let the guy go while putting a bullet into the head of another guy who was crawling towards Diamond. I go to her and asked, “Are you okay?”, “Yes I think I am.”, she answered smiling at me. Ok Diamond is ok now to Bone. “Did you find something usable?”, I asked, “You aren’t gonna ask me how I am?”, he asked with a snicker, “Is it that obvious?”, I asked blushing like mad, “Even more that you think. Tell her!”, he said half teasingly half actually trying to give good advice, “It´s time to go you two!”, he announced as he reloaded his pistols. We walked out of the diner to the relaxing voice of Sweetie Belle and are greeted by the corpses of more slavers, I looked stunned at Bone and asked: “How many did you kill and how do you still have bullets left?!”, he just simply answered: “Killed everyone who came and refilled at the armory back in the dinner.”. Oh, right the armory I completely forgot about it. We continued our journey and ran into a few raiders, as expected they mostly were killed quite quickly and gave a good bit of close quarter combat practice. We walked along a railway until we reached a bunch of hills. “Something is wrong here I can feel it.”, I said. Oh, how I hate to be right! Just as I said that the ground began to shake and around us as a bunch of Guls jumped up and charged at us. “Diamond behind me!”, I shouted as I pulled out my rifle and began to fill the ghastly creatures with bullets but they just stood back up. One Gul jumped me and I lost my gun, I just tried to prevent him from biting my head off with my hooves. Suddenly I saw something flying and a knife impacted the Gul´s skull. ” Decapitate them that’s the only way to kill them!”, Bone shouted and I pulled the knife out with my teeth and slashed it through it´s throat. The head came clear off and I jumped to Diamond to ensure she doesn’t get bit. I pulled out the Winchester and quickly realized that filling their throats with shots was quite the effective way to decapitate them. “Holy fuck where did those bastards come from!?”, I shouted after we finally killed the last one. Note to self, decapitate a Gul to kill it, there is no other way. We continued our journey and soon arrived at a village my pip buck marked as New Appleloosa. We were greeted by the mayor and brought to a hotel where we rented out a room so we could stay the night. You might think that after nearly getting eaten by Guls the wasteland would cut us some slack, but nope the wasteland wasn’t that kind of nice. Before I could even prepare my bed, we already had the next problem. Diamond went to Absolutely Everything, the local shop, to get some food and as I looked out of the window I saw a bunch of what I could only guess were slavers waiting with knives in front of the shop, “Bone we have some folk waiting in front of Absolutely Everything with knives. I’m gonna go down there and look that they don’t make problems.”, I explained and he just nodded. I went down there and just as I wanted to approach them Diamond walked out of the store and gets grabbed by the leader, a brown unicorn, who puts his knife to her throat. “Hey!”, I shouted as I approached him, “Searching for me?”, then I pulled out my Winchester and filled his four lackies with bullets, each one with two, two bullets remaining. “You are going to come with me and I am going to release your little friend here.”, the buck said, “How about I just put my last two bullets through your head!”, I shouted back, “I wouldn’t do this!”, he said as he pulled his barding aside and I could see a shit ton of explosives along with a dead pony’s switch he levitated out. “Didn’t you forget something?”, Diamond asked the buck, “Absolutely Everything has absolutely everything”, I could see her horn glow and then she dropped a metal apple with a blue stripe on it. The apple detonated and I could see the light of the switch going off and then suddenly her hind hoof struck the pony’s private part causing him to drop the knife then she turned around and boxed him in the face so he fell down backwards and she picked up the knife to fixate him where he lay and then she just lifted the groceries up again, walked past me and said: “Dinner is in half an hour.”. It took me some time to process what just happened then suddenly I felt a coolness creep from my hind and as I turned around, I just saw a blow dart and everything went black. As I woke back up my eyes felt heavy and it took me some time to see straight. The first thing I realized was that I was sitting in a chair at a rather fancy looking wood table, then I realized that my forehooves were chained to it so I couldn’t stand up, then I realized that at the other end a earthpony stallion sat, his coat was a deep grey and his mane and tail were the darkest black I have ever seen but something still was off, one of his hooves tapped on the table but that wasn’t a normal hoof, for one it was made completely out of metal and it had claws but the buck could move the claws. “So you finally are awake?”, he asked, the only thing I could bring out was a weak: “Where am I”, “You are at the headquarters of the Wanderers and I am very interested in a certain file on that pip buck of yours.”, he answered back still tapping his claws on the desk. The wanderers? Oh fuck I thought, I was actually kidnapped by one of the factions who are after the power armor, “The only problem is”, the buck explained, “that we don’t have to decoder, so you are going to decode this for us.”, “And what if I don’t want to?”, I shot back, “Well”, he answered pressing a button on his part of the table with a claw, “in that case I would be forced to use an object of pressure.”. A screen lit up on one of the walls showing Diamond and Bone sitting in a cage surrounded by various ponies in armor pointing weapons at them. ” Ok I will do it just get me to a terminal and give me some time.”, I said “Great!”, the buck answered and tapped another button on his desk part, “Boys bring our little friend to the terminal.”. Two armored ponies walked in and one of them opened my chains and they started guiding me through a hallway full of armored ponies. Note to self, everypony except big boss claw hoof seems to wear full body armor. They escorted me into a small room and to a terminal, which already had the file and a programming software open, here´s to hoping that this recognized simple Enclave commands. I sat there for I don’t know how long when big boss claw hoof came in and asked: “Are you finished?”, “Nearly but I need advanced admin rights on this thing to run the decoder.”, I answered, he nodded to one of the soldiers who hammered on the keys and entered the admin password. ” Oh, and a little tip”, I said, a smile forming on my face, “Never ever fuck with the tech pony!”, I hit the button to run the program. The armored soldiers putt their hooves to their heads screaming in pain and as the claw hoofed motherfucker looked around, I punched him in the face, I might not be a particularly strong pony but my hoof still had enough force to it to make the buck fall back several steps. I just scooped up a pistol from one of the soldiers and ran. At the end of the hallway was a door to a big atrium and there I met back up with Bone and Diamond. “Care to explain to us what in Tartarus just happened?”, Bone shouted as we ran to what a sign marked as the Armory. “Simple”, I answered while opening the door, “They wanted me to program a decoder for the power armor file, and stupidly let me to a terminal. So, I wrote a program that sounded an alarm bell at maximum volume through the speakers in their helmets and then opened the cage you were in, then I let one of those idiots give me admin permissions so the program wouldn’t get blocked by some security software.”. We walked into the armory which was surprisingly unguarded and I found a crate labeled “CONVICTS”, as I opened it, I saw not just our weapons and gear but those of presumably earlier prisoners. Bone and I grabbed our belongings and ripped a scope from an old broken sniper and I picked up a pistol in the hope I could persuade Diamond to at least carry it with her. We ran through the complex and by now we encountered one or two enemies who actually put of their helmets to get rid of the sound, this left them very vulnerable to head shots, we ran for ages until we came to a hatch we climbed through. We now stood at the foot of a mountain and my pip buck flashed the name of a village near us: “MOUNTAIN HIGHTS”. We climbed up the hill and towards the village, we were greeted by an earthpony mare who introduced herself as the mayor and she let us to a little building called Rocky Mountain Inn. We went to the receptionist a bored unicorn mare and asked: “How much are three rooms for one night?”, she didn’t even look up as she answered: “250 caps.“, I looked down worried on the 205 caps we had, then she did look up and said, “but for you 200 Mr. Outlaw.”. Well looks like my reputation is already paying of but how she could know that I was the outlaw and not just Enclave I just had to ask: “Here you are, but how did you know I was…”, “The Outlaw? The Dj described you this afternoon saying if we come across you, we should do you a little favor for keeping the wasteland clean of those raping fuckers.”. Only then I realized that the song coming from the loudspeakers was from the Dj´s broadcast, if I ever came across him I had to thank him, this was the first favor he made us and already it decided if we had a warm place to sleep tonight or not. She gave us the keys and we walked to our rooms. Thankful to finally sleep I put away my armor and my gun, only keeping the pistol under my pillow for emergencies and I final went to sleep. I once more stood on the wide flowerbed, but this time something was different, as I looked towards the statues one socket was empty and a pink mare sat on the plaza. “Miss Pie?”, I asked as I approached, “No silly my name is Pinkie!”, the mare answered bouncing around me, “Ok fine, Pinkie but why are you here?”, I continued asking, “Because you showed awareness against those nasty no good ponies.”, she answered, “Awareness?”, I asked now completely confused, “Yes awareness, it was under E!”, she chanted as she still bounced around me. I felt as if I could hear Twilight Sparkle sigh, I wondered why. Then finally I took a closer look at Pinkie´s socket: “AWARENESS, IT WAS UNDER E”, read a small little engravement, “But why do you show up in my dream?”, I continued asking, “I don’t know, you´ll have to figure it out. Uh, my Pinkie Sense, you´re about to waked up.”. I wanted to take a moment to process all of this but then I actually woke up. Author's Note Well I finally finished this one and with over 5 pages in Word and over 2500 words this is my longest chapter of any story yet. First if you like what you see please give me a follow cause theres a lot more where that came from and second I am of course no kkat or Somber so if you have any criticism fell free to write a comment.
Chapter 5: Attack in the mountainsAs I woke up I had about eight rifles of three different kinds shoved in my face. ” So, finally awake, Enclave?”, a brown buck said, it took me a second to notice that all eight were Pegasi. “I’m not Enclave, I know I still have my mark but that’s because my parents kicked me through the clouds before the Enclave could!”, answered back, “Likely story you cunt!”, a mare with what could only be a high caliber bolt action hissed, “What do you think Spy or is he here to scout out an attack?”, “The more important question is should we kill him here or outside to send a signal?”, a yellow buck answered. “The answer is you let him go before I send my bullets into you!”, Bone said with his pistols pointed at the Pegasi, he must have come in. They all starred at him and at the same time I heard magazines drop and the rifles ejected the one bullet left in their chambers as they were touched by red magic. Diamond stepped in behind Bone and said: “Go now or I can’t guarantee that my friend here will let you live.”. She knew exactly that she would stop Bone before he pressed the trigger but they didn’t, so they squeezed out the door and Bone said: “You wouldn’t have let me kill them, would you?”, “No of course not!”, Diamond answered seeming a bit offended that he even considered otherwise,” They were innocent they thought our little friend here would mean danger.”, “I am not little!”, I said falling straight of my bed while jumping up, “Oh I know but that was the best way to get you out of bed.”, she said with a giggle as she helped me up from the floor. Suddenly an alarm rang and we ran down to the reception after I jumped into my armor and I asked a very worried receptionist: “What is happening?”, she took some time to stop screaming profanities about Celestia raping her with her horn earning her some disgusted looks from Diamond and said: ” The alarm means those Wanderer bastards are attacking again from the Cloudsdale plains!”. ” Cloudsdale plains?”, I asked with a confused look, “The big open space to the east were Cloudsdale was before it got obliterated and now if you excuse me I´m gonna get my ass to safety in the underground bunker, you should do the same!”. We all ran outside, the reception mare ran to a small building in the middle of the village but I didn’t want to just hide, I wanted , as cliché as it might sound, to help, so I ran to what looked like the town hall and as I ran into the rather small building and a mare in obvious mayor attire approached us and said: “The Bunker isn’t here it´s three houses to the west!”, I simply answered: “We want to help I saw some turrets on the City wall don’t they work?”, “They are part of an old Enclave help project but the code never got finished!”, my eyes lit up and I asked: “Where is the code?”, “Can you fix it?”, the mare asked, “I can improve it”, I said and pointed to my mark, a bit of code, at least what a normal pony would imagen as code, the mayor pointed to an office. As I entered the office I jumped behind the terminal and began coding. The code was, as it seemed, programmed by somepony who knew their stuff and in the end all that was left was making slight changes to the Enemy-Detection-Matrix of the gun and program an auto reload function. “Got it, it should work now!”, I shouted to the mayor, “Good we need it running now!”, she shouted with urgency in her voice, I just pressed the run program button and heard the old miniguns and artillery humming back to life. I ran outside and saw Bone and Diamond sitting on the wall next to one of the miniguns looking down at the battlefield, as I joined them I saw that they were all wearing armor, these were no mercenaries, these were their main army, “He is really pissed that I punched him in the face.”, I said with a chuckle, “No they are after me.”, Bone said and as I and Diamond looked at him with no idea what he meant he added, “You ever wondered why that motherfucker has an iron hoof?”, we nodded, “As I met him the first time I was just a simple salvager and met him as he wanted to sell me to slavers, but I scooped up a pistol and shot some of his henchmen to escape, turns out one of them was his only son, so when we met the next time he sliced of my cutie mark, but I once again got my hands on weapons and as he tried to stop me from escaping I shot his hoof of.”. We both looked at him in shock, “Well then we better defend this place!”, I said and he answered with a grin: “Well we have to defend this place, don’t we?”, and pulled out his pistols out. I looked at my pip buck as it said: “Warning Enemies detected view Eyes-Forward-Sparkle for more information.”, I did so and was greeted by not only a zoomed in version of my map but a ton of red bars on the plains but also a few yellow ones two sitting next to me the rest all over the city walls and in one edge it said "SATS ready" next to a little button, I pressed the button and the time slowed down as I pressed it again the time resumed at normal speed and a little bar recharged the few bits it lost. “Guys good news my pip buck has a Battle mode I can slow down time so I can aim better!”, Bone smiled at me and gave a small not to the plains and I just nodded and looked at the EFS, about twenty contacts close to the wall. We jumped down and I rolled a bit until I jumped up pulled out my rifle and slipped straight into SATS, the time slowed down and I raised my rifle shooting at the heads of three, SATS ended and I quickly realized that a few shots with 9mm ammunition were rather ineffective against steel helmets. So back to my god old Winchester I go, as I slipped back into SATS I aimed for five of them two for each one, SATS ended itself again and I could see the five ponies falling down dead. Note to self, two Winchester bullets can kill you even through a helmet. Bone was having his fun killing one after the others, no matter how good your armor was there was a maximum of bullets it can take and Bone was an expert at overshooting this maximum. After everything was finished, we salvaged the dead soldiers and found a lot of ammunition and some Battlesaddles and as we returned, we were greeted with glee and admiration. “Thank you so much!”, the mayor said as she hugged each of us, well me and Diamond as she approached Bone he whispered: “If you try to hug me, I will shoot you.”, and she quickly backed up again, “What are you going to do with all the salvage?”, she asked and I got to thinking, we could equip me and Bone with Battlesaddles and had a lot of weapons and even more stuff to sell but those folk needed it way more, “It´s all yours.”, I said, “Really?”, the mayor asked surprised, “Really?”, Bone asked, Diamond gave him a little shove and I said: “ Yes really you need it way more than we do.”, the mayor looked at me with glee and handed me a bag of Bottlecaps with 5000 written on it and said: “Then at least take this.”. We trotted back into the Rocky Mountain Inn and were greeted by a smiling receptionist, “Staying another night?”, she asked, “Yes three rooms again.”, I said as I tried to give her 250 caps but she just said: “This one’s for free as thanks for saving our flanks out there!”, “Thanks”, I said with a smile as we trotted towards our rooms. After such a long day I just wanted to sleep. As I woke back up, I was once more on the field of flowers with the plaza, but this time there was not only Pinkie but also a white unicorn looking at me than at her. As I approached Pinkie said: “Told you he´d be here soon Rarity!”, I just looked stunned at the both of them for a while. Rarity finally decided to break the silence and said: “I liked how you gave all those weapons to the village other than just selling them, really generous of you!”, then I finally took a look at the socket she was on before, “BE GENOURUS”, it read and so I asked: “And because of the generosity I displayed you are here now?”, “Yes Darling.”, she answered, “But you have no idea why either, do you?”, I asked, “Sadly not Darling but I don’t mind sitting in this divine flower field.”, “I…”, I started but Pinkie cut me off: “You´re about to wake up, Oh and good luck with Diamond!”, she said with a smile. I wanted to ask how she knew about Diamond but I woke up. This time I thankfully wasn’t circled by Dashites who were about to kill me instead I woke up with Diamond sitting in front of my bed. ” Oh, good you´re awake I was just about to wake you up to tell you that lunch’s ready.”, she said with a smile. I made my bed and then trotted back down to see that Diamond made what looked like Hayburgers in the Inn´s kitchen, which had no staff. I ate two of the surprisingly tasty burgers. “Mmm where did you learn to cook that good?”, I asked after I finished the second one, “Well while you two learned how to shoot I used my time in the wasteland wandering from restaurant to restaurant trying to learn some prewar recipes.”, she explained. Well I actually never thought about that. “We have to go you two Lovebirds.”, Bone said. I wanted to shoot him just put a bullet in his head for that comment and he just chuckled as we looked at each other blushing like mad. We trotted out of the Inn and out of the City, “Guys my pip buck marks something called Sweet Apple Acres between the Everfree and us about a one-day march from here.”, I said as I looked at the little thing, “We can rest there the next night.”, “Well then let’s go!”, Bone said, “We should better get there before its dark!”. So, we followed the way my pip buck indicated and came across a bunch of slavers as always they were no problem and thanks to SATS I could kill more than one as Bone killed five, we quickly made it to Sweet Apple Acres, quickly meaning a good time before sunset. Diamond and I looked into the main house and found three Bedrooms, we all went to sleep after bone armed some traps made with grenades and some wire he found. I thought about asking Pinkie how she knew all this stuff and then I fell asleep.
Chapter 6: The Writer´s RevengeAuthor's Note The Hiatus is over *YAY* After now the chapters will come out a bit faster (or at least won´t take this long), also The Insignium will get it´s next chapter soon. Chapter 6: The Writer´s Revenge I woke up again but neither in the flower field nor in my bed. Instead I sat at what looked like an old wood table. On the other end sat a pony with a black fedora black suit and crimson red tie, but as I looked closer, I realized that he was no ordinary pony, instead he was an earth pony skeleton with two glowing crimson orbs as eyes. “Who or what are you?”, I asked surprised, “I have many names, the dealer, the tradesman, or just the boney motherfucker.”, he answered while balancing a prewar bit on his right forehoof, “but I’m way more interested in who you are.”, he added, “Why that?”, I asked with a dumbfounded look on my face, “You see”, he explained, “I am the wasteland, I see, hear and smell everything, but I can’t see what ponies are thinking and in certain towns, villages and towers my presence is not strong enough to understand everything that’s going on. So, tell me what is this file of yours all about?”, “Why should I tell you?”, I asked back with full intention to keep the secret, “Because I can give you what you desire the most.”, he said and flung his hoof across the table and a card fell out of his sleeve and landed in front of me, the card showed me and Diamond kissing, “No!”, I insisted, “I won’t fall for your tricks!”, “Well if you think this is a trick then you can go, but beware of the one named Iron Cutter!”, he said and pointed to a door behind me and I just stood up and walked through it. I woke up back in Sweet Apple Acres, I slowly rolled out of my bed and walked out the door. Bone was already looting the place for anything useful and Diamond once more made her surprisingly tasty burgers. “So, eat then we walk the rest of the way!”, Bone ordered in a stern voice, “Calm down Bone, we just woke up!”, Diamond said, Bone just answered, “I don’t care, we are in the ruins of a Farmhouse from two centuries ago and possible already surrounded by Raiders and or Slavers, do you want to get…”, “BONE!”, I quickly interrupted him before he could bring this topic back up, “Let’s just eat for now!”, I ordered to the visible delight of the little white Unicorn mare. After we ate, we quickly looted the rest of the place and then we trotted towards Ponyville, or whatever was left of the Village. We trotted through a village that seemed to be looted already but nobody was there, we continued walking until we arrived at a tree that seems to be a hollowed out tree turned into a library and Diamond squealed of joy and nearly ran off if I didn’t bite her tail and stopped her. “Watch out!”, I hissed. We walked into what my pip buck marked as the Golden Oak Library and were greeted by a sight that made me and Diamond gag: The floor was laid out with corpses in raider attire, Bone just walked over to a few and took a closer look, “Killed by gunfire and looted most likely by other raiders.”, he said. “We should better get out here before they return! “, I ordered, “Oh don’t worry she won’t be back any time soon”, a pony voice announced from the stairs, I and Bone pointed our weapons at him while Diamond just let go a yelp and hid behind me, “Who. Are. You?”, I asked with the most frightening voice I could, “I’m Iron Cutter and I took over this place after the stable dweller cleared it.”, he explained, “Why don’t you come upstairs with me for a tea.”. I didn’t really listen to most of it my ears perked at the name Iron Cutter and I remember what the tradesman said: ” Beware of the one called Iron Cutter!”. “I´m not sure of this…”, I whispered to the other two, “Neither do I.”, Bone said and kept his weapons on Iron Cutter, “Ugh… why do you pony folk have to make it always this complicated!”, Iron grunted and gave a short whistle… I got hit by something on the back of my head and everything went black …. That boney motherfucker was right! I woke up this time in a room not chained to anything just lying on a chair next to yet another table this one was made out of glass and had some buttons on the other end right next to a Chair with even more and a strange pony sitting in it. He was an earth pony with darkish brown coat, a deep black mane, a black coat and a badge over his right eye. Only after taking a closer look at what I assumed is another faction leader I fully took in my surroundings and saw that Diamond and Bone sat in chairs next to me. “So where is the file?”, he asked hooves crossed, “Up in your ass”, Bone replied crossly, Diamond just groaned, “Am I the only one here with manners? I´m Starry Diamond, this here is Fire Strife and this sailor mouthed individual is Bone. And what’s your name?”, “I´m the Director.”, he replied simply, “Ok Mr. Director we don’t have this file you´re going on about so if you kindly could show us the way out-”, Bone began chuckling and as I followed his gaze I could see why. For some reason they positioned our weapons right in the corner and Bone started lifting his pistol when a stallion popped into the door with booze and a gun levitating next to him, “You still didn’t escape? Gah why do I always have to do everything myself!”, he flung the weapon around and shot the two guards, “Now follow me!”, we just all stood there stunned for a second before running after him, we ran for ages through tunnels and even if he obviously was drunk out of his mind the unicorn stallion was still knowing where exactly to go, after ages we arrived once more at a hatch the unicorn quickly threw open. Hell, the wasteland might have been dark but the artificial lights of the bunker made even the little light it had blinding. As my eyes adjusted, I saw that we were out in nothingness and the closest thing my pip buck marked was a location called Splendid Valley right next to a heavy radiation warning. “Follow me so I can get you away from here!”, the stallion announced and walked to a ship I only then saw, the ship actually was quite impressing, it was reinforced by stainless steel and had what looked like canons sticking out of the side, five to each side and had an open steering wheel sitting on a higher point on the back of it. After all that I finally took a closer look at our rescuer, he was a rather huge stallion with grey coat a small beard a kind of messy but also kind of clean grey-blueish mane and a rusty blue chest plate, with a sapphire in the middle, he also seemingly always has booze in his magical grip. He took a deep sip of the bottle and introduced himself: “Hello I´m Captain Mitch, me and my merry bunch are the crew of the Jolly Bat.”, “He-”, I started but was cut of by a groan coming from the hatch behind Captain Mitch: “Dad! I told you a thousand times stop with the drinking you are getting delusional if you drink so much!”, said a earth pony mare, “I don’t want you telling those poor guys the story of how you made Twilight Sparkle into an alicorn, she was just a unicorn!”, the mare added. She was smaller than the captain but still a little bigger than Diamond, she had a light pink coat and a mane with brown and purple stripes, “Oh Amy darling you are making that up I don’t get delusional and I did make her an alicorn same as you gave the original crusaders their cutie marks!”, “No I didn’t dad!”, she shot back and then walked past him to us, “I´m sorry my dad is drinking since ever and his huge imagination doesn’t make things better either, so allow me to introduce myself, I´m Amy and I’m the actual captain of the ship that is actual called the Writer´s Revenge which was just another alcohol idea of my Dad, let me introduce you to the crew.”, she trotted down the hatch and into the kitchen where another stallion sat on a chair with a small table with cupcakes on it, “This is Dave our blind cook.”, I took him in closer, he was a unicorn with light green coat a brown tail and a grey cap covering all his mane, “Oh good if he´s blind he won’t realize.”, Bone whispered and grabbed a cupcake in his magic, but Dave seemed to not have it and he raised a bamboo stick roughly his height and gave Bone a slap against the horn, who quickly lost his magic grip and catched it with his stick and brought it right back onto the table, “He is blind but that doesn’t mean he´s oblivious.”, Amy said with a chuckle and walked out motioning us to once more follow her. We walked into a room in the back that was filled with different generators and a mare came out under one of them and said: “Ok Amy the flux generator is running again we can leave as soon as Mitch got those folks- Oh, I see you’re already here you nice looking bunch”, she looked in our general direction and I could see Diamond blushing like crazy, “This is Gillian our technician.”, Amy explained, “N- Nice to meet you.”, Diamond stuttered and I mustered the little technician from top to bottom was roughly the size of Diamond and had a light yellow coat and a brown mane with a light blue bow on her tail. We all walked up for one to talk with Amy about our course and to get Diamond out of there before she broke completely. “So where do you need to go?”, Amy asked looking at a map strapped to a table in what I would assume are her quarters, “The Everfree Forest.”, I said, “ Oh good we are already on the river leading to the Everfree.”,she answered, “Aren’t you going to tell them that this is dangerous?”, Diamond asked hoping to hear Amy telling us of but she said, “I pulled a drunk Stallion out of a cave full of Guls, the Everfree will be a peach.”. She led us back up to the deck and shouted back down the hatch: “Gillian start the generators were leaving!”, she trotted up to the steering wheel and put the lever to full speed and we left of.
Chapter 7: The Everfree ForestSomething has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.
Chapter 8: Back to Ten Pony Tower (Part 1)We met back up with Amy the next day in her quarters to discuss the route of Ten Pony Tower. “Ah hello everypony”, she greeted us happily, “We are on our way to Ten Pony Tower, but there is a little problem …”, “What problem?”, I asked worried trying to suppress the notion of us being thousands of bottlecaps in debt, “We can get to the outskirts of the Manehatten Ruins, but there is no river leading into the ruins or even close to Ten Pony Tower.”, Amy explained, “There is another way”, I said, “If we get into the sea and get close enough Bone, Dave, Diamond and Mitch can combine their magic to teleport us and the ship to the roof of Ten Pony Tower.”, “Are you sure this will work if either Bone, Mitch or both of them are drunk again?”, Gillian asked, “Good point!”, Amy added, “We have to take the journey by hoof!”, we agreed on getting towards the ruins and walk the rest. After our discussion the sun had nearly set and so we walked to the hatch, Mitch and Bone separated themselves from the group quickly, most likely for another drinking party, I thought, , Gillian went straight back to her engine room and Diamond and I walked some time in silence before I said, “Diamond I want to be honest to you, has anypony ever told you what we are after?”, “I know you´re searching for a data pad with some kind of code on it.”, “Well yes we are but that’s not the whole truth…..”, I explained, “the code we are after is for the complete destruction of a file we have in Ten Pony Tower, that file contains the blueprints for a power armor so strong you are unkillable and loaded with weapons and those factions who captured us are after those plans to conquer the wasteland.”. I could see how her ever-present smile slowly faded as she realized what this means, I added, “And I´d prefer it if you would stay here with Amy and her crew, you´ll be safer with them”, she looked at me for a solid second and the answered, “I will think about it.”. We both walked to our rooms and I just lay down in my bed. I woke up being looked up and down by an orange mare with cowboy hat, “Ah you´re awake sugar cube.”, she said, “Awake?”, I asked, “I thought this is a dream”, “Sure you are, don´t confuse him Applejack!”, Pinkie said hopping to her side, “Confuse him? I´m confused myself Pinkie, I was fucking dead and the next thing I knew was me waking up here! We all should be dead!”, her eyes teared up as she talked, “Us, Big Mac, Applebloom and her friends, we´re all dead!”, “So you’re as clueless as I am about what this is and why you are here?”, I asked trying to switch the topic, “Oh no darling, we know where we are, this is your dream, we just don´t know why.”, Rarity explained as I stood up, “I was just inspecting your armor, or rather the patches of metal on your barding…… just give me a few seconds”, Applejack added. She trotted over to the plaza, searched for a spot, sat down, waved her hoof and a small workshop appeared, “Wha …... How…. What?”, I stuttered trying to wrap my head around what just happened, an earth pony could do such feeds of magic, “This is a dream”, I heard Rainbow Dash shout, “You can do whatever you want!”, she was not far away from the plaza fighting off zebras with her bare hooves. Note to self: everything’s possible on the plaza. “Come here sugar cube!”, Applejack shouted from the workshop, so I walked over and sat down next to her, “Making armor is simple, making armor better is even simpler.”, she waved her hoof again and my armor disappeared and reappeared on the desk, “You just take your armor and find a bunch of scrap metal”, which promptly appeared to her left, “Now take off the old metal, every armor has a bit of fabric under it, then you take big pieces of scrap metal and cut them into hexagons or any other shape of your choice, and put them all over the fabric, now you take the smaller pieces that you couldn´t use for the hexagons and put a bunch of them in the oven, after that give it some time to cool down. Now you have a mushy metal substance, now just fill the gaps between your shapes of choice and let it harden, now you have a metal armor that should be able to stop most bullets.”, ” Wow!”, I exclaimed with wide eyes, “That looks really easy!”, “Fire!”, Pinkie shouted and I spun my head around to look at the pink mare, “Good luck with Amy!”, she added. Once again everything went black and I woke up back in my bed with my old armor. I walked up and out the hatch to get some fresh air and was greeted by Mitch and Bone sitting at a table drinking, “Have you been drinking since yesterday?”, I asked stunned, “No just for the last 5 hours”, Bone answered and grabbed another bottle of Wild Pegasus, the 8th if I counted the empty ones correctly. Amy trotted up next to me, “Oh good you´re awake I´m gonna need your help.”, she said, “With what?”, I asked, “Getting those two away from the alcohol, otherwise this is going to turn into another one of my dad’s 12 hour drinking sessions”, she answered, “Ok I grab Bone you grab your dad”, I said taking a step towards the now completely shitfaced stallions, she just nodded and we both jumped them at the same time earning a look that could kill a Gul from both of them and even if they were piss drunk they still fought back. BOOM. A massive explosion sounds as if somepony detonated another Balefire Bomb and as we looked around for the source. The cloud curtain was enveloped by a green flash that seemed to wander across the sky and within the blink of an eye the impenetrable indestructible cloud curtain was gone. “What…? How…? How the fuck did just happen? How is that possible?”, I stammered as I watched the strongest clouds the weather factory turned out being destroyed within seconds, “A Sonic Rainboom.”, Mitch said, “That green light must have been a Sonic Rainboom.”, “But isn´t that impossible? Wouldn’t a Pegasus have to break the sound barrier to do that?”, Diamond asked, “Yes, the stories say the only Pegasus to ever do that was the mare of the Ministry of Awesome and she did it twice.”, Bone explained, “That´s impossible. there are millions of Pegasi in the Enclave and no one has ever pulled it off!”, I said my eyes still locked on the sky, admittedly the Enclave was fast to patch it back up. “Land ahead!”, came from Amy, which finally freed my eyes from the sky, „Great we´re finally here!”, I said, “now it´s just a day’s walk to Ten Pony Tower!”, “Then let´s go!”, Amy said, “Come on Mitch let´s get our guns.”, Bone exclaimed, “Hold up! My dad is staying here!”, “No can-do Amy darling I´m coming with Wind!”, Mitch answered back, “Wind?”, Diamond and I asked confused, “Yes let´s get our guns!”, Bone said quickly and pulled him down the hatch, at the same time Gillian emerged from the hatch and talked to Diamond, I couldn´t hear what they were saying but after they finished Gillian gave the small unicorn a peck on the cheek. Gillian asked Amy, “ Do you still have it?”, “Yes I do.”, Amy answered, “I kept it just like you asked me too.”, ” What is this all about?”, I asked, “What did she keep?”.
