Jack woke up with a groan, trying not to vomit as a pounding headache hit him with waves of nausea. He tried to sit up, only to find himself pinned down by the immense weight of his deactivated power armor. With a sigh, he struggled to lift one hand up to knock at his T-60’s helm. On the third ear ringing thump, the HUD finally flickered to life, along with the rest of the battered power armor. Finding it much easier to move, especially since the armor wasn’t just dead weight anymore, Jack sat up. Flicking on his headlamp he took a look around and tried to get his bearings.
He was obviously underground, the damp stone walls, and dusty air made that abundantly clear. Grunting, he stood to his feet in the unwieldy mechanized suit. Jack took stock of himself as best he could in the dim, flickering light of his cracked headlamp. His T-60’s pressure seal was broken somewhere, letting an unpleasantly damp draft into the armor and unless he got out of the protective mech there was no way he would be able to find the leak. More importantly, his Tesla Rifle was nowhere to be seen. Thankfully, his trusty army painted 10mm was still magnetized to his hip and his combat knife was still mounted on his right pauldron, so he was at least somewhat protected.
Jack swung his head around, letting the light from his headlamp trace over the walls and floor of the dank cave. On the second or third pass something glinted in the light, and he suddenly found himself very relieved at the sight of the big green plate sport the white arm star. He stomped his way over to the form curled in the dirt and did his best to shake them awake.
“C’mon Daisy, I need you on your feet.” He said as gently as he could through the crackling speakers of his helm. “We gotta’ go find Sturgis so I can kick his ass for teleporting me into a hole.”
The large form shifted but didn’t rise, instead letting out a puff of air big enough to stir the dust around them. Jack could only roll his eyes and rap his plated knuckles on the oversized combat armor with a huff. “Don’t give me that you sleep all the time. Let’s go.”
With a groan the large form shifted to their clawed feet and Jack had to take a few stomping steps back as to not get flattened. The light of his lamp flickered over the scaled hide of a very large, and very tired looking Lizard. The forest green beast groaned, reaching up with one wickedly clawed hand to clutch at its head as the strange speaker box mounted onto the collar around its neck crackled to life.
“My skull is pounding.” Came the staticky feminine voice.
“Mine too.” Jack nodded as he measured out a trio of aspirin from a tin bottle. He carefully took one for himself before holding his hand out to the combat armor clad Deathclaw. “Here. Ain’t much, but it should take the edge off.”
“That isn’t a word.” The Deathclaw grumbled, her speaker box whining slightly as she leaned down to lick the chalky pills from his armored hands.
“I’d show you that it is, but I don’t have a dictionary handy.” Jack mumbled as he swallowed his own pill, before slipping his helmet back on and locking it in place. “Besides, everyone says it so who cares if it’s actually a word.”
“I do.” She huffed, turning her snout up at him. “I didn’t spend years learning English just to listen to everyone butcher it.”
“Yeah well, humans invented English so we can butcher it all we want.” He chuckled as he turned around. “Now help me find my gun so we can get the hell out of here.”
For a few moments, the odd duo was quiet as they searched the dusty cave’s floor for the energy weapon, only for the larger of the two to suck in a breath suddenly. “Jack, Wait!”
Jack stopped as quickly as his power armor would allow, but not before his armored heel smashed down with a metallic crunch. The thirty-year-old’s shoulders sagged, made all the more noticeable by his large pauldrons. “Daisy, please tell me that wasn’t my gun.”
Daisy could only sigh as she padded up beside him, her large tail swaying gently. “Sorry, I would have warned you sooner, but it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust.”
Jack sighed again and took a step back, wincing at the sound of broken metal clattering off his heel. He reached down, plucking the mess of construction yellow metal off the floor. He turned the crushed weapon over in his hands for a moment, doing his best not to break off any of the battered parts. “Well… I’ve fixed worse.”
With that he slung the weapon onto his back and let the magnetic clip lock it down before he started walking deeper into the cave. “C’mon, let’s get moving.”
Daisy let her amber irises roam over the relatively large cave before following the armored human with a sniff. She could smell fresher air further ahead in the tunnels and made sure to tell her partner just that. Jack only nodded and kept stomping further into the dank cave. Eventually things slowly started to get brighter as the ground started to slope upwards, and Jack was glad to see that his Geiger counter was starting to rise. Hopefully, they’d been Teleported somewhere relatively close to Sanctuary by Sturgis’ rebuilt array. That way he could get there and kick the tinkerer’s ass that much faster.
After a few more minuets of walking, the pair found themselves standing in front of a wall of hanging moss and ivy that had light pouring between the gaps. Jack almost had to do a double take at just how green the plants were. The last time he’d seen a plant that green it had been in the Institute. Daisy was quick the nearly shove past him, taking deep drawn out lungful’s as she smelled the air.
“Daisy wait!” He yelled as she forced herself past him and slipped through the wall of plants. Jack groan and followed her, shouldering through the plants as he drew his pistol.
Only to freeze in shock at the sight before him. Daisy was standing there, in the sunlight of the clearing. Her battered green combat armor and forest-colored scales blended well with the lush and vibrant forest around them. Tall healthy trees surrounded the clearing, brimming with big flat leaves. Jack glanced down, finding himself standing in ankle high grass that was full and luscious.
“What the hell…” Was all he could mutter in his shock.
A few seconds later Daisy giggled. The sound was odd, partially because the little voice box wasn’t really made for noises like that, and partially because he’d never heard her do it before. “Everything is so green! And the air is so clean!”
While his Deathclaw put her nose to the breeze, drawing in all the scents of the forest, jack reached up with shaking hands to unlatch his helmet and pull it off. A sweet, clean breeze ruffled his brown hair as it blew past. The acrid tang of smog and ozone was just… gone. Even the electric taste of background radiation was absent.
For a long while the two just basked in the glory of a normal forest. Jack could almost feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes when he looked up and spotted big fluffy white clouds floating through the clear blue sky. He’d almost forgotten how blue the sky had been before the bombs had tinged it all yellow and green.
“Is this what it used to be like before?” Daisy finally asked, breaking the silence as she turned to look at him with her slitted amber eyes.
Jack just nodded dumbly, still too shocked to form proper words.
X===X
A few kilometers away, high in Canterlot Castle, Celestia got that feeling again.
It started as a shiver that ran down her spine, making the fur on her scruff stand on end, then her stomach dropped, as though she had been given awful news about a loved one. With a sigh she set down her quill, letting the golden halo of her magic release the writing utensil back into the inkwell. Slowly she stood from her desk, leaving behind the mountain of paperwork as she nearly dragged her hooves across her private study to stand beside the window that overlooked Canterlot proper. With a tired glare she wondered just what sort of ancient horror had been let loose on her poor kingdom this time. The last time she'd gotten this feeling had coincided with the return of the Crystal empire, and more importantly, King Sombra.
Sometimes the solar diarch wished she'd gotten slightly stronger precognitive abilities. Her own sister had the rare premonition in her dreams, though Luna's visions were far and few between and often held little to no pertinent information. Still, she wondered if it would be better or worse if she had more than just a 'bad feeling' every time something awful was about to happen. The fact that her ability wasn't even consistent, and hadn't warned of things like Discord or her sister's return just made it all the more frustrating when ever it cropped up.
"Ms. Task?" She eventually called, her secretary and aid popping her head through the door of her office.
"Yes Princess?" The beige mare asked, her violet eyes just as tired as Celestia's, likely from a similar load of paperwork.
"Bring me a large cup of coffee and a slice of cake. I have a bad feeling it's going to be a long day."
"Yes ma'am." Ms. Task sighed, knowing full well that when her Princess had a 'bad feeling' it was usually for good reason. "Red velvet or Angel food?"
"Chocolate."
The secretary winced, but trotted off to do as she was told. It really was going to be bad this time. "Faust help us all." She muttered as she disappeared into the hallways, trotting towards the kitchens.
Author's Note
So, this got a lot more attention than I thought it would. From here on out, I'm going to try and increase the word count of each chapter. My rough goal is 3000 words per chapter, though it may fluctuate a bit.
At any rate, here's chapter two of LWTF. Comments, and constructive criticism are welcome!
Rough and Tumble
Jack kneeled next to the small stream, eyeing the crystal clear water. His T-60 stood several feet away, slouched over and looking particularly worse for wear. He glanced back at his reflection in the water, noting just how pale he looked. Between the scars along his jaw, the wiry beard and the still raw looking burn mark to the left of his forehead, Jack could easy say he looked like shit. That was fairly normal. What was really bothering him was dirt smeared across his pale face, for the life of him he couldn't remember when the last time he'd bathed was.
Jack had been a power armor trooper during his service days, back before the war. Hell he'd been deployed to Anchorage, being a bit pale was just the reality of wearing power armor constantly. for all that the walking tanks were good for, a tan wasn't something a Power Armor trooper often got. He could still remember the other troops calling the Power Armor Jockeys 'ghosts'. Grabbing a fistful of the water, he took a few sips before using the rest to scrub some of the dirt from his face with a sigh. The cool water was refreshing, and if nothing else it was clean and unirradiated, so he wasn't going to complain.
"It's so strange." Daisy muttered from beside him, as she lapped at the water with her forked tongue. "The water here tastes less... metallic? if that makes sense."
Jack nodded, gaze roaming down to meet the blue eyes of his reflection. "Probably less heavy metals from the bombs."
The Deathclaw nodded her head, dipping down to take larger mouthfuls of the cool liquid. "It's not bad though. Just different."
Jack let out a wry chuckle. Daisy had grown up in the wastelands, it would make sense that clean water tasted funny to her. With a sigh jack stood back up, snagging the fusion core he'd pulled out of his battered armor of the ground and rolling the yellow cylinder in his hands. The little indicator on this one was nearing the red, it probably wouldn't be much use now. Not unless he could find a place to charge it. Slipping it into his satchel, he took another good look at the forest around them.
Jack had no idea where Sturgis had managed to send them. Most places that didn't get a direct hit from one of the bombs had usually suffered from one sort of nuclear winter or another. Not to mention even those few places that had avoided a direct blast still managed to pick up some of the fallout carried on the wind. But the Geiger counter in his pip boy hadn't so much as chirped since they left the cave.
"Got any idea were we could be?" He asked Daisy as he glanced at his wildly spinning compass, which seemed to be busted.
"Nope." She sighed a moment later. "Nothing smells familiar."
"Didn't think so." He muttered, pacing back over to his armor and slotting a fresh core into it. With a sharp crank of the latch, the armor unfolded and he hauled himself into it. as soon as he was settled it swiftly snapped shut, the HUD flickering to life before him. "I guess, we'll head west, towards the sun. We have to hit some sort of landmark eventually."
Daisy nodded and followed along as he trudged through the shallow stream. The pair weren't particularly fast, but they set a decent pace as they trudged through the forest. Almost an hour passed in relative silence, with nothing but the odd chirping of bird and the rustle of the forest to lend ambiance to the trip. As they walked, Jack flicked through the radio waves on his armors short range transmitter. It was slightly concerning when he didn't get anything but static. everyone used the radio. It was a simple fact of life after the war. Phones and every other kind of communication just weren't reliable after the bombs fell. Mostly because the infrastructure needed to use them was shot.
If no-one was using the radio, then that meant on of two things. Either there was no one to use it, or they were too afraid of being heard to use it. In either case, Jack would have to keep his guard up. As nice as this place was, he knew that there was always a catch. He'd be ready when it came to it.
X===X
Twilight wasn't sure exactly what she was supposed to prepare for, but that didn't stop her from preparing for anything. While the letter Celestia had sent was a bit... vague, Twilight knew that as a Princess of Equestria herself, she had an obligation to take it seriously. Much to Spike's chagrin.
"Do we really need to be doing this?" The little drake grumbled as he followed along behind the purple Alicorn, precariously balancing a tall stack of books in his arms. "If Celestia wanted us to go this far, don't you think she would have said more than 'be prepared'?"
Twilight didn't even pause from anchoring another focusing Crystal to the ground. "Spike, the last time anything big happened in Ponyville, the library was blown up, and I had to fight a giant centaur and then a castle made of crystal erupted from the ground."
"Point taken."
The two continued marching around the perimeter of Ponyville. Every once in a while twilight would consult her chart, then drop another large pink crystal into the ground. By the time they made it back to where they had started, Spike was almost certain that his arms were going to fall off, if they hadn't already. He couldn't really tell anymore because they had gone numb over an hour ago. Too preoccupied with his aching muscles, he didn't notice Twilight had stopped until he walked into her.
The youngest princess squawked, her wings fanning out to keep herself from falling over as Spike landed in a heap of books behind her. "Spiiiike, those tomes are important!"
Spike just grunted from under the pile of heavy books. Twilight rolled her eyes, but took pity on her adopted brother and levitated all the tomes off of him in her magenta halo. Spike still didn't get up, but Twilight didn't try to force him to. If he wanted to lay in the dirt, then he would just have to take a bath later.
"Well, with the anchors in place, Ponyville now has a town-wide magical shield." Twilight said with pride. "All it takes to trigger it is a simple spell, and the shield itself should be just as good as, if not better than Shiny's!"
"That's great Twi, but can we go home now?" Spike groaned from the ground. "We just walked all the way around Ponyville, and Sweet Apple Acers. I'm Exhausted."
"Well, I suppose we could go straight home." Twilight mused, rubbing her chin with one hoof. "or we could swing by Sugarcube corner and grab a snack?"
Before Spike could answer, there was a loud scream from further in town. Spike barely had time to turn his head before a bright flash of purple light left him alone beside the road, a pile of books left haphazardly on the ground as his sister disappeared. He eyed the heavy pile of reading material for a few moments before sighing and gathering them up. Whatever was going on, the little drake knew that Twilight would never let him hear the end of it if he just left them there.
"She'd better buy me a great big ruby." He growled, eyes roaming over to the huge crystal castle on the other side of town.
X===X
The muffled 'bang' of his 10mm reverberated through his helm. Ejected casings pinged off his armored frame every time he pulled the trigger, Jack almost cursed as his ammo counter slowly dipped lower and lower.
The beast had come out of nowhere, barreling into Daisy and sending the Deathclaw careening into the underbrush. with a startled roar. It was both comforting and saddening to know that whatever ideallic place they had landed in had still been effected by the radiation of the bombs. That was the only explanation for the beast currently locking horns with Daisy. It was huge, easily outclassing the armored Deathclaw by sheer mass. Three different heads, a goat, lion and lizard from left to right sat on the shoulders of a hulking semi-bipedal body covered in fur and scales. All three heads sported wicked curved horns and the claws on the beast easily rivaled Daisy's own.
Jack swore as Daisy flung the beast off of herself with a roar, diving to the side to avoid the beast's bulk as it slammed into the tree behind him. The Servo's of his T-60 whined and ground against themselves as he hauled himself back onto his feet. He made a mental note to oil the old armor's joints whenever he got a chance, then he dumped several more rounds into the beast as it struggled onto all fours.
"Daisy, you good?!" He asked, not taking his eyes off the monster as he reloaded his gun.
A pained whine, and the distinct lack of her synthetic voice nearly made him turn to check on her. He was very glad he didn't, as if he had he likely would have been sideswiped by the beasts thick bladed tail as it whipped around. With a muffled 'fuck you', Jack threw the power armor into overdrive and socked the mutant across the face with an armored fist as it charged him. The beast barely got a moment to register the blow before Daisy's bulk came barreling past him to ram her horns into the beasts shoulder.
The two apex predators went tumbling through the brush in a caterwaul of snapping jaws and crushing blows. Jack cursed and did his best to follow the them, noting that the tree's were thinning which meant they were nearing either a clearing, or the edge of the forest. If that monster dragged Daisy out into the open, things were only going to get a worse. Daisy was good at close quarters, she'd learned how to be after following Jack into the many abandoned or infested buildings in the commonwealth. She'd lose what little advantage she had if that thing had more room to maneuver.
Jack squared his shoulders and charged out of the tree line, only to find the beast pinning his Deathclaw to the ground as it tried to claw the armored plate off of her soft belly. With a roaring yell of his own, Jack threw his T-60 into a full sprint. A loud, train like whistle echoed over the grassy hill as he barreled down on the monster. The impact was bone jarring, and sent him, and the mutant, ass-over-tea-kettle down the hill.
Daisy was quick to scramble to her feet, panting and growling as both her friend and the monster rolled down the hillside. Her eyes were wide, tracing past them to the quaint looking village down below. She'd never seen anything like it. All the buildings were small, and had what looked like grass on their roofs. Then there was the oddest looking skyscraper she'd ever seen. It reminded her of a tree made out of glass. Her eyesight wasn't good enough to make out anything but the buildings out from this distance, but she knew that this fight was about to get even more messy. Especially if the settlers down there blamed them for that thing getting let loose on their town.
With a tired huff she raced after her human, eyes narrowed. There was always the chance that the people that lived here had weapons that could help them kill that monster. Though she had a feeling that their luck wasn't that good.