Wasteland Wanderers

Over the next few days, the girls had done everything in their power to hope that what had happened recently was nothing more than a bad dream, but as each day passed with the girls sleeping in the dirt outside a ramshackle town in the desert, it dawned on them more and more that whatever was happening… it was real.

It was only when Rainbow had gotten clawed on the leg by some strange reptilian beast that they finally dragged themselves into town looking for a doctor, with Applejack carrying Rainbow on her shoulder. It wasn’t hard to do that; there was only one shack on the outskirts of the town Twilight figured would have the proper facilities for a doctor… or at least, as close to the proper facilities as anyone could get out here in whatever this place was, so Sunset knocked on the door. An old man opened the door a few moments later and his eyes popped in surprise when he saw the girls. “All my years in this wasteland, I thought I’d seen everything,” he remarked.

“Please sir, our friend needs help,” Sunset said seriously, gesturing to the claw mark on Rainbow’s left shin, haphazardly bandaged with scrap cloth the girls had found wrapped around a piece of metal earlier but still bleeding.

“That she does.” the old doctor remarked as he looked it over. “Gecko got ya good, huh?”

“No way, man; that thing was no gecko.” Rainbow countered as she stumbled into his house, the other girls carefully following him.

“No? Big fella, two-legged, scaly, claws like combat knives?” the doctor interrogated.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Rainbow nodded cautiously as she sat down in a chair.

“Well, that’s a gecko.” the doctor shrugged as he unwrapped Rainbow’s leg, examining the mark. “Hmm… well, doesn’t look too bad. Few stitches and you’ll be fine.”

“Stitches? Ugh, I hate stitches.” Rainbow groaned as she looked away. The others watched in intrigue as the doctor sewed up the cuts in Rainbow’s leg.

As he worked, Sunset glanced up and saw something interesting on the bed nearby. “Who’s that?” The others looked and saw a young man maybe a few years older than them on a cot at the far wall.

“My other patient.” the doctor shrugged. “Got dragged in here the other day with a bullet in his brainpan, and I got asked to clean him up.” Twilight’s eyes popped at that news; this couldn’t be the same guy the girls had just seen killed and buried the other night, could it?

It looked as though they would get their answer soon as his brown eyes opened, bleary as he looked up at the ceiling fan. The doctor had just finished Rainbow’s stitches when he noticed this and sat down across from the young man. “You’re awake. How ‘bout that?” The young man groaned gently as he sat up, suddenly nursing a headache. “Whoa, easy there. Easy.” the doctor encouraged as the young man groaned at his headache. “You been out cold a couple of days now. Why don’t you just relax a second? Get your bearings.”

“Is he alright?” Sunset asked, still astounded that this guy – who not a few days ago they’d seen gunned down – was sitting up as alive as her or the others.

“Well, I suppose there’s only one way to find out.” the doctor shrugged as he looked at the young man. “Let’s see what the damage is. How about your name? Can you tell me your name?”

“Ugh… it’s… it’s Marty. Marty Barron.” he groaned.

The doctor just chuckled a bit. “Can’t say it’s what I’d have picked for ya, but if that’s your name, that’s your name.” he shrugged as he glanced at his other patients. “And who might you ladies be?”

Marty looked over and his eyes opened in surprise when he saw the unusually colored girls. “I’m Sunset Shimmer.” she introduced herself as she indicated around at her friends. “These are my friends Twilight, Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow at those names. “Well, I can certainly see where ya got ‘em from,” he remarked. “I’m Doc Mitchell. Welcome to Goodsprings.” He turned back to Marty with a scrutinizing eye. “Now I hope you don’t mind, but I had to go rootin’ around there in yer noggin to pull all the bits of lead out.” Rarity could just feel her stomach turning at that description. “I take pride in my needlework, but you’d better tell me if I left anything out of place.” He reached over and handed Marty a small gadget that looked like a mirror. “How’d I do?”

Marty looked himself over in the mirror, examining his stubbly well-tanned face and long dirty brown hair. The only thing that really looked out of place was the small white scar right in the middle of his brow… from the bullet the other night, no doubt. “Everything looks okay to me.”

“Well, I got most of it right, anyway.” Doc Mitchell shrugged as he stood up. “Stuff that mattered. Okay, no sense keeping you in bed anymore. Let’s see if we can get you on your feet.”

“I can try.” Marty shrugged as he pulled himself up, shaky on his legs as his vision swam.

“Here, lemme give ya a hand.” Applejack offered as she grabbed his free hand and pulled him to his feet.

Marty blinked a few times and his vision cleared as he looked around. “Ugh. Thanks.” he nodded.

“Good.” Mitchell nodded as he watched Marty stand on his own two feet. “Why don’t you walk down to the end of the room? Over by that vigor tester machine there.” He pointed with his thumb to the machine in question at the far wall. “Take it slow now; it ain’t a race.” Doc Mitchell walked over to the machine as Marty started after him.

He stumbled a bit, catching himself on a gurney before he got his bearings right and walked slowly over to the machine. “Mm, lookin’ good so far. Go ahead and give the vigor tester a try. We’ll learn right quick if you got back all your faculties.”

Marty nodded and firmly gripped the handle of the machine, ending up with a fairly balanced set of numbers on something called a SPECIAL scale. The girls weren’t sure what to make of it, but Doc Mitchell seemed to trust it as he wrote down the numbers. “Yep, that's a pretty standard score there. But after what you been through, I'd say that's great news,” he remarked as he walked to the next room, the group quickly following. “Well, we know your vitals are good. But that don’t mean them bullets didn’t leave you nuttier than a Bighorner dropping. Whaddaya say you take a seat on my couch and we go through a couple questions? See if your dogs are still barkin’.”

“Alright.” Marty shrugged and sat down. The girls figured these questions were more for Marty than for them, so they waited outside as they ran through the questions.

As they went, Rainbow started to get curious about the machine. “What’s the deal with this thing anyway?”

“Not sure. Lemme see.” Sunset said as she knelt next to the machine, looking it over as she found something… a strange label. “Looks like it was made by some company called… Vault-Tec?”

“Never heard of it.” Twilight shrugged.

“That’s not really that surprising.” Rarity remarked. “This is hardly our own world.”

“Ain’t that the understatement of the week…” Applejack scoffed.

“All right, I guess that about does it.” Doc Mitchell remarked as he strode toward the girls. “Come with me, I’ll see you out.”

“Thank you, doctor.” Twilight nodded as they followed him to the door.

The doctor stopped Marty and handed him a few things. “Here; these are yours. Was all you had on you when you was brought in.” Among the items Marty was handed were a scrap of paper, four small needle-like items, a small pouch full of what sounded like coins, a small clutch of bobby pins, a small gun, and a few dozen rounds for it. “I hope you don’t mind, but I gave the note a look. I thought it might help me find a next of kin. But it was just something about a platinum chip.”

That helped Marty remember it; the whole reason he’d been shot was over the platinum chip he was carrying. “What’s so important about a potato chip?” asked Rainbow.

“No, a poker chip.” Marty countered. “Guy who shot me stole it. And I need to find out why.”

“Well, if you’re headin’ back out there, you oughtta have this.” Doc Mitchell shrugged and handed the young man a strange device.

“What’s that?” asked Twilight. “Looks like a computer or something.”

“They call it a Pip-Boy.” Doc Mitchell explained as he helped Marty put it – and the included glove – on his left wrist. “I grew up in one of them Vaults they made before the war. We all got one.”

“Vaults? War?” Sunset thought in confusion.

“Ain’t much use to me now, but you might want such a thing after what you been through.” Doc Mitchell shrugged. “I know what it’s like, having something taken from you.” Then he handed Mitchell a large blue jumpsuit with yellow trim. “And put this on, too, so the locals don’t pick on you for lacking modesty. Never was much my style anyway.”

“Thanks.” Marty nodded and pulled the jumpsuit on, zipping it up before he examined the Pip-Boy on his wrist.

Twilight looked at the back of the jumpsuit and saw a bright yellow number on the back. “21? How many Vaults are there?”

“Who knows?” Doc Mitchell shrugged.

“All I wanna know is if you know anything about the guy who shot me,” Marty noted as he looked at the doctor.

“I didn’t see him or the men with him.” Doc shrugged. “You might ask around town, though. Could be someone saw which way they was headed. Your best bet would probably be Trudy, the bartender at the saloon up the road. If anyone saw anything, she’d know about it.”

“Like who dug me up?” Marty asked.

“That’d be Victor. Curious fella. He’s sort of odd. And I don’t just mean ‘cause he’s a robot.” Doc shrugged, not noticing the surprised intrigue that flashed across Twilight and Rainbow’s faces. “I couldn’t tell you much about him. He’s real friendly, don’t get me wrong. You just get the sense that ain’t the whole picture. Just a feeling.”

“Where can I find him?” asked Marty.

“Keeps to himself, mostly.” Doc shrugged. “You want to know more about him, you’ll have to ask him yourself. He has a shack on the southern edge of town.”

“What about you, Doc? What’s your story?” asked Applejack.

“Well, I already told you I came from a Vault. After that, I was a traveling doctor for a spell.” Mitchell remembered. “Seemed like a good idea at the time. Most folks out here ain’t educated, so people with medical know-how are hard to come by. Found that I could help a lot of people with what I knew, and that was all right with me. Eventually, I went back and married my childhood sweetheart and that was the end of my traveling days. Didn’t miss it none then. Still don’t.”

“You said you had something taken from you?” Twilight asked.

“Well, ain’t we all, right?” Doc shrugged. “That was a long time ago. I don’t pay it much mind anymore.” Thinking of it now seemed to pain the old doctor, so Twilight stayed quiet. Doc quickly changed the subject. “You ladies don’t look anywhere near well-equipped enough to handle the wasteland. You should talk to Sunny Smiles before you leave town. She can help you learn to fend for yourselves in the desert. She’ll likely be at the saloon. You ever get hurt out there, you come right back. I’ll fix you up. But try not to get killed anymore.”

“Do my damndest. Thanks, Doc.” Marty nodded as he opened the door… and welcomed the whole group with the blazing desert sun.

“Agh…” Marty groaned and shielded his eyes as he let them adjust. The girls looked out in awe; they’d never really thought much about this desert they were trapped in until now, and it looked fairly impressive… at least, as impressive as what they guessed was a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland could look anyway.

“What happened to this world anyway?” Twilight said breathlessly.

Marty just scoffed. “What rock have you girls been hiding under for the last two hundred years or so?” he asked as he started down the hill.

“Well, someone’s feeling chummy,” Rainbow remarked sarcastically.

“It’s a long story, Mr. Barron.” Twilight shrugged. “And to be quite honest, I’m not completely sure you would believe it.”

“Try me.” Marty shrugged. “And call me Marty.”

“Well… Marty… to put it simply, we’re from another world.” Twilight explained quickly.

Marty raised an eyebrow as he looked over the girls. “What, you’re aliens or something?”

“Eh, something like that.” Twilight shrugged. “I’m thinking we’re probably from another dimension or something, but the point is we don’t belong here; we’ve got to get back but we don’t know how.”

“And you obviously don’t know the first thing about the wasteland either.” Marty shrugged. “My advice? Find somewhere to hunker down and figure out how to get home yourselves; I got better things to do.”

“Like what? Get shot again?” asked Rainbow.

“S’just the way things go out here. If it ain’t holdin’ a gun, it’s tryin’ to eat ya.” Marty returned. “And right now, I gotta go find the fuck who put a bullet in me and give him the same courtesy.”

A handful of the girls grimaced at that language, but Sunset tried her best to ignore it. “The least you could do is let us come with you,” Sunset said seriously. “At least then we’d have some idea of where to go instead of just wandering around for no reason.”

“Fine. Just don’t slow me down.” Marty scowled as he kept walking along the blasted-out road. “I got one question; what’s with the…?” He gestured over Rainbow, unsure of how to describe it.

“You just pointed at all of me,” Rainbow remarked. Marty shrugged as if asking for clarification.

“You wanna know why we look like this?” Twilight’s question was met by a nod. “Well… this is sort of the norm in our world.”

“Hm. Must be some world.” Marty remarked.

“Our turn. What happened to this world?” asked Rainbow.

Marty sighed as he looked around. “War happened,” he said simply. “Bout two hundred years ago, the whole world damn-near nuked itself out of existence. Most of the only survivors hid in Vaults like Doc Mitchell, popped out after everything calmed down to rebuild society… and ended up formin’ tribes and a few sovereign nations. Everyone who isn’t recognized by those tribes or states or any of that… we’re all just tryin’ to survive out here any way we can. Me, I’m a courier, runnin’ packages across the desert to make ends meet, but… well, you saw how well my last job went.”

“Yeah, firsthand.” Sunset thought to herself.

“What sort of job was it?” Rainbow asked.

“See for yourself.” Marty handed her the note Doc Mitchell had given him, which she looked over.

“‘Mojave Express Delivery Order 6 of 6’.” she read aloud. “‘Instructions; Deliver the package to the north entrance to the Vegas Strip, by way of Freeside. An agent of the recipient will meet you at the checkpoint, take possession of the package, and pay for the delivery. Bring the payment to Johnson Nash at the Mojave Express agency in Primm. Bonus on completion: 250…’ Caps?”

“Bottle caps.” Marty clarified, pulling a few of the items out of the pouch the doc had handed to him.

“You use bottle caps for currency?” Rarity asked in confusion.

“Bout all we can use, really.” Marty shrugged as he set the caps back in his… wallet, I guess you could call it? – before he put it back on his belt. “Paper’s too delicate – despite the NCR’s efforts – but these things… tough, light, and well… name one other thing you could use ‘em for in a hell like this.”

“Wait, back up; NCR?” asked Sunset.

“New California Republic.” Marty clarified and pointed out west, aided in finding the direction with the compass on his new Pip-Boy. “They’re one of the main powers out here in the Mojave; set up out west, dedicated to old-world values; democracy, rule-of-law, all that crap. Not much good out here.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Twilight.

“Look at it this way; even in the places they outright dominate out west, there’s still raiders; crazy sons-of-bitches who’ll kill ya soon as look at ya just for fun,” Marty explained. “Course, you want a real power in the Mojave, look no further than the Strip.”

“‘The Strip’?” asked Sunset.

Marty walked to her side and pointed way out across the horizon. “You see that tower out there?” he asked, earning a nod from Sunset as she saw the high spire piercing the desert sky. “That there’s New Vegas; shining beacon for everyone with the wit, balls, and luck to try and make some cash. Whole town’s run by a spook called House; no one’s ever seen him in years though.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes and went back to the note. “Okay, ‘Manifest: this package contains… one oversized poker chip, composed of platinum’.”

“Wait, pure platinum?” asked Twilight. “That thing must be insanely valuable.”

“Shoot, now Ah get why someone’d gun ya down fer that.” Applejack remarked to Marty.

“Yeah, I betcha there’s a lot more to it than that though.” Marty countered. “But I ain’t gonna find out standin’ around out here. So if you wanna come along, then let’s get goin’.”

“Right. Maybe we should talk to Victor first; get his story.” Twilight suggested.

“You’re just saying that because you want to see a robot.” Pinkie smirked. “Which, I guess I do too.” She giggled and snorted to herself as she skipped down the street.

“Chipper one, ain’t she?” Marty remarked.

“Yep. That’s Pinkie Pie for ya.” Applejack nodded.

Marty narrowed his eyes after Pinkie. “I give her three days. Tops.” That statement earned him some confused looks from the other girls. “Take it from one who knows; this wasteland has a way of eating people alive.”

“You’ve obviously never met Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow remarked as she limped over and handed Marty back his note. “She’s the most positive person any of us have ever met.”

“Twenty caps says I’m right.”

“You’re on,” Rainbow smirked as she clapped hands with the courier.

“You better make some money soon; I collect on my debts,” Marty smirked.

“Same to you,” Rainbow smirked right back. What she didn’t know was that she was going to end up paying that debt… and it would hurt more than her wallet.