Fallout: Equestria - The Lunar Archives

We crashed and burned that night. A one-hour nap, some sugar, and hard drugs a healthy energy level does not make. Lucy wasn't in any condition to travel, much less the pile of stoned pegasi we’d left behind the hotel. I couldn't even be bothered with a campfire.. Not that I could start one with my horn overexerted. So I found a particularly ergonomic pile of rubble to lay on and left Lucy in the capable hooves of Moonstone… So passed the buck out.

My slumber was as intense as it was instant. I expected some kind of reactor coolant trip of nightmares, not.. this. Flashes of red, white, and black. Cracks of orange lightning and black splatter across the solid colors. And this full-body feeling of being thrown around like a ragdoll changing direction with every flash smacking the wind out of me until-

I awoke to the sun in my eyes and my lungs gasping for air. My hooves clutched at my chest as I struggled to breathe. Had I not been breathing this whole time?! I coughed, wheezed, and rolled off my rubble bed before pushing myself to sit up. “Sweet.. Bucking…” I panted as whatever that just was faded and I could breathe again.

“Hey bro you okay?” My head snapped right to see one of the enclave pegas standing next to me. He was a dull blue and clad in bits and pieces of what I assumed was his old uniform.

I reacted like any mare does to surprises after struggling to breathe for no reason. “AHHH!!” Flailing in place and skittering away from him.

He only looked back and called to the rest. “Hey does screaming mean she’s okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine!” Moonstone’s voice answered back.

The pega gave me a nod. “Well, that’s my job done.” before walking off to join the crowd of other enclave pegasi gathered around the impromptu camp.

Peering from behind the rubble I adjusted my glasses and took in my waking reality. A lot of the pegasi idled around seeming so unsure of what they should be doing. I guess without anypony of rank barking orders at them they start getting confused. A few of them were having some kind of back and forth with Moonstone who stood between them and a still unmoving Lucy. My pipbuck said it was about noon which means I was out for… 9.. 10 hours?

I rolled my shoulders, wiggled in place, and did some stretches that made my body pop all over. “Ahh.. yep…” I smacked my lips a bit. “This is how my days start now.” I groaned doing a little lunge until I heard a much larger pop in my back. “Fuck…” I went limp for a moment before springing back up. “Okay ready to go!”

I made my way over to my… friends (goddesses that feels weird to write) and many a pega silently got out of my way, rubber-necking as I passed. “Ain't it just a bright sun-shiny day? I bet Celestia’s havin’ a right fine-” My chipper morning routine was ruined by the lack of ponies paying attention to it.

“I don’t care how many times you ask, you’re not waking her.” Moonstone poked a big hoof at a pink pega mare that looked slightly more important than the rest with two bars on her little badge compared to the single bar all the others had. Moonstone briefly noticed me and gave a “Morning Sketchy.” before turning back to the other pega. “She’ll wake up when she’s ready to wake up.”

“We need orders, even if it’s from the likes of her.” The pega mare pointed. “She’s the only pony here with sufficient rank and training to organize this smattering of squads into a functional mission.” she poked back glaring up at the larger Moonstone.

“You want her help? You’re the ones who abandoned her! Why should she help you?”

“Cause she’s still one of us! So she got lost, but that still doesn't mean she isn’t part of the Enclave.”

“Okay, that's it!” I forced my way into the conversation getting between the two. “What the flying fuck a duck is this about?” I may have never seen a real duck, but it rhymes!

“This savage of yours won't let us wake Corporal Noctilucent so we can receive orders from a ranking officer.” She stated accusatorily glaring at Moonstone.

“And I keep telling you, she needs her rest until she recovers from being nearly disemboweled last night!” He growled.

Now I have even more questions! “Alright, alright, break it up you two.” I physically pushed them apart with my noodly nerd forehooves. “First of all, Who are you?”

The mare rolled her eyes. “Specialist Candy-Cloud of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. West coast if you want to get specific about branches.”

“Aaaand you think he belongs to me?” I asked pointing at Moonstone.

“Doesn't he?” She looked between the two of us. “We were under the impression unicorns usually ran the show down here on account of…” she briefly looked at my horn. “Your kind’s inclinations.”

Two seconds of being self-conscious about my horn size later. “Well I don't, we're a team, the team that has been keeping Lucy alive the past several weeks while she did everything in her power to find you guys.” I squinted.

Candy-Cloud only shrugged. “If you say so. I’m not here to argue with the madmare covered hoof to horn in blood.”

I briefly looked down at myself to see I was in fact, disgusting. Dried blood flaked off my hooves, my fur was stained and matted, and my suit was… anything but Stable-Tec blue. “Third!” I quickly changed the subject. “Unless you guys have healing potions hidden up your collective asses, Lucy isn't going to be in any shape to give orders much less wake up.” I pointed back at the downed mare. “I would know, I plugged the GAPING HOLE! that THIS GUN!-” I subconsciously whipped the massive golden gun out of my bag making several pegas back up. Huh… guess I can use my horn again. It still feels really sore though, like a sprain just barely safe enough to stand on. “-Blew through her solar plexus!”

Weapon: ‘Flower Power’
Descriptor: A golden, pearl-handled, and VERY heavy revolver with a massive barrel gilded grip to tip in golden safflowers.
Ammo: 500-S&W Custom (good luck finding those!)
Special: +15% more damage to opponents poorer than you.

“We get it, she's injured.” Candy-Cloud started, using a wing to gently lower my new blood-stained revolver. “But she just needs to tell us to do something, anything! All the leadership are dead or gone and we have no way of contacting back home without being declared AWOL. She’s our ticket back home.”

“That's what she said about you guys!” I threw my forehooves in the air in exasperation. “I need to reconnect with my squadmates, Cause if I go back without them they’ll say I went AWOL and kick me right back out.” I tried to parrot Lucy’s voice and even did some gesticulation to drive it home.

“I don’t sound like that…” groaned behind me.

“Do too,” I contradicted before continuing. “And another thing-” Everypony suddenly looked back towards Lucy with her eyes finally open and getting her legs under her body.

“Should I be insulted or flattered at your pale impersonation attempt of.. Ah.. me?” she added wincing as she struggled to move.

“Stay still, you aren’t healed yet.” Moonstone turned, hooves on Lucy’s withers to keep her in place.

Lucy still managed to raise her head to look over the gathered crowd of pegas waiting eagerly for orders. “Normally I'd be thrilled to be getting so much attention but…” she coughed into her hoof doing her best to suppress it. “But I appear to be missing a piece of rib judging by this horrible pain in my side.”

“Did you uhh… want it back?” I smiled sheepishly as I hovered a small piece of bone out of my backpack. Everypony just stared at me, the blood-soaked nerd mare holding a piece of rib that got blown out of their friend. “What?! If I had a rib fall out I'd want somepony to find it for me!”

“Beating wings that’s just.. eww…” Candy-Cloud muttered backing away.

“Sketchy, darling.” Lucy wheezed struggling to achieve her usual patronizing tone. “I appreciate the thought… but this has to be the most disturbing act of consideration I’ve received to date.” many of the pegasi in the background nodded keeping a safe distance from me. “Please just… put it away for now. Before I start asking why.”

I glanced around awkwardly as I lowered the rib back into my bag. “Was kinda hard to find with all the blood…” I mumbled, slowly being crushed under the weight of the awkwardness.

“The gun too Sketchy…” Moonstone added, his hoof draped over wounded Lucy who was trying her best not to look at the hoof-cannon that nearly killed her.

Realizing said gun was probably traumatizing Lucy for life I quickly stashed it too. “Right…” I looked down at my hooves, you could barely tell they were charcoal grey if not for the blood flaking off. “Sorry…” Oh Celestia! Not the guilt!

Lucy seemed to relax, as best one could relax while recovering from a gaping bullet wound. “Status… report.” She panted looking back to the Enclave ponies.

Specialist CandyCloud trotted right back up, saluting with a wing. “Specialist CandyCloud reporting. We estimate the west-coast scouting battalion has suffered a 40% attrition rate. Scout squadrons A, B, D, and F are all that remain post-capture by the surface barbarians. All forward recon bases appear to have been lost in the days leading up to our descent, We have nopony to call, no shelter to go to, and most of our equipment is missing or inoperable, due to… poor decisions by previous leadership.”

Lucy gave a very tired blink. “Is that all?”

Is that all?! That sounds like a complete mission FUBAR to me! How could there possibly be more!?

“Aaaand we have little to no food or water.” Candy Cloud added struggling to maintain a perfectly straight face as she gave such a dire report.

“Well, at least we aren’t being shot at.” Lucy winced “Anymore… I want- ah..” she panted trying to catch her breath.

“Don't push yourself…” Moonstone uttered in concern.

Lucy took a deeper strained breath to get more air in her system to speak. “I want two of you, any of you, to maintain air patrols. We’ll be in even deeper trouble if raiders or mutants catch us unawares. I’d do it myself but… prohibitive injuries persist.” taking another strained breath before looking at me. “Sketchy… Would you be a dear and check your little book for any locations that might suit our needs?”

“If I may sir, Her?” CandyCloud questioned looking at me. “Why are you asking the blood-drenched surfacer for directions and not the actual scouting party? Why should we ever trust her?”

“Yeah, what?!” I questioned too, hooves going to hold my archive saddle bag close to my personage.

“Because I’m telling you to trust her.” Lucy tried to be stern, maintaining a pained glare. “Unlike the Enclave’s finest, Sketchy here has been roaming and recording everything she can about the surface since she left her stable. Meanwhile, all of you managed to accomplish was getting yourself captured by slavers. Slavers which my hired help here slaughtered to save you.”

Let's just… omit the fact she fell into the same honey trap as the rest of her enclave buddies. Yeah, I like this version of things…

“So instead of being suspicious of Shetchy’s motives, you could be grateful you weren’t sold to a gaggle of horny raiders. The last ones I encountered were certainly keen on the idea of *ahem* ‘fucking a turkey’.” She weakly air-quoted with her pinion feathers, while the mental image made the rest of the soldiers squirm. “Obviously being the good little mare that our adorable Sketchy here is, she slaughtered those deviants too.”

Am… am I being patronized for my spontaneous acts of hyper-violence?

CandyCloud clearly still didn't like the idea as she maintained that glare looking between Lucy and I. “Fine… but I’m shooting her if she leads us into some dirty surfacer trap.”

“Hey, I’m not…” I looked down at myself. “Oh yeah…”

“I’d expect nothing less~” Lucy nodded in agreement with her immediate… what was the opposite of a direct superior? Inferior? Her direct inferior.

“Right…” Well this was a first for me, nopony had ever asked anything like this before, but I didn't see the harm in it. So long as none of them tried to look at anything else I- You know what? Only I get to hold my archive! “Let's see..” I muttered hovering the yay thick tome out of its dedicated saddle-bag.

A few of the soldiers muttered in the background. “When was the last time you saw that much paper in one place?” and “I dunno man, I always used my cloud terminal.” and let's not forget. “How many berries do you think we could buy for all that?” followed by. “Dude!? You don't say that shit when a superior is around!”

Goddesses they were bad at whispering… not that Lucy or CandyCloud seemed to care as they watched me with expectation.

Pages fluttered in my magic until found where I started writing about Applewood. Aaand quickly flipped one more page because I forgot I stuffed a doodle of Lasso-Lean’s flank in here. “Ahem…” I whistled innocently skipping a few more pages to be safe. “Sacked, sacked, looted, burnt down, ants, destroyed, looted, ruined, ghouls, more ghouls, fire… AHA!” I put my hoof on the page. “Oh wait…” I bit my lip.

“What is it?” Lucy and CandyCloud, asked in unison.

“Uhhhh…” I shrank holding the open book close to my chest.

“Spit it out. We don’t have all day. If you know where food and shelter are then tell us.” Candy squinted.

I raised a hoof and opened my mouth to speak. “Ahhh….Weeeell…”

—-------

“I can’t believe this!” Candy protested as we all shuffled our way along the same route we took to get to the hotel.

Much like last time I managed to fashion Lucy a sled of sorts from whatever hot garbage I could find. “Well believe it. And as your commanding officer, I’m ordering you NOT to shoot them.” Lucy huffed from her prestigious trash chariot being pulled by Moonstone.

“But ghouls?! They're mutants! Viscous brain-eating monsters!” Candy added, gently flying along right above Lucy.

Lucy sighed. “Sketchy would you be a dear and give her the ghoul story?”

“The ghoul story?”

I looked up from my shiny new gun and the rag I was using to try and smear the blood guck off of it to minimal effect. “Yep, Ghoul story. You’re probably gonna hear a lot of 'em out here but here’s mine. I used to think the exact same thing about ghouls, I mean why wouldn't I? One of YOUR engineers turned into one in the guts of the Fog-Bank-”

“You found the FogBank?!”

“Ehh!! Storytime!” I countered pointing my smudgey hoof up at the pega. “As I was saying..” I coughed. “Nearly got my face bitten off by a ghoul, whom I promptly blew to pieces.” Okay, so maybe the ghoul didn’t get that close and I was omitting how many shots it took for me to hit it. But it was scary! “So yeah, horrible undead, flesh-eating monsters. That was until I met the sentient ones.” I noted genuflecting with both rag and gun. “Do you have any idea what it's like to talk to ponies that were around before you were even a protein in a tomato your 10x grandma ate before the bombs fell?”

Many pegas gave me a long slow blink.

“Exactly, It's a window into the bucking past. Walking pieces of history who were smart enough to survive 200 years without getting shot or eaten.” I have no bucking idea how Button's mom lasted so long on her own, maybe it was the crazy. “And atop all of that. They're just like you and me. Upstairs at least.” I tapped the barrel of the gun on the side of my head to emphasize what I was implying… before I quickly pulled said gun away from my brain pan! “Plus think of it like this. Would I really risk my ass to save all of you from armed slavers just to feed you to a pair of ghouls?”

In a long pause of thought Candy-Cloud eventually grumbled. “Okay fine! But we don't have to like it! They could turn at any moment!”

“And if they do try to eat you, I will be the one to shoot them, Not you, not that guy” I pointed at a random pega. “Or her!” I pointed at Lucy. “I will put them down. But Until then, if it talks like a pony but smells like a corpse don't shoot ‘em unless they shoot you!” I glared at the surrounded Enslave pegas, taking in their mixed looks of intimidation, admiration, hesitation, and internal conflict.

Silence was their answer, and I took it as acceptance of my demands. I think they understood that anypony who hurt Button’s or his mom would get perforated by their recent savior. The blood-soaked wasteland savage… with a fuck off huge gun and an attitude to back it up.

“And..” Lucy started, with a faint knowing smile as she looked to our merry band of vagabonds, ready to be the carrot to my stick. “Not only has Mrs Creamheart been maintaining the local houses for the past 200 years, But…”

“But?” one of the scout pegasi flew a little closer to hear, his curiosity serving as the foundation of Lucy’s maneuver.

“If all of you prove courteous and understanding with this highly sentient and kind ghoul, she might let you partake in her extensive berry garden.”

“Corporal!” Candy protested as all the other enclave members started cheering and whooping for some reason. “You can’t be serious! We can’t just-” her objections quickly drowned out in the whooping and giddiness of her comrades.

One of them even came up to me to ask. “Hey uhh, does this ghoul really have berries?” his wings twitched a little as we walked.

I had no idea why something as mundane as fresh produce would be of such interest to pegasi like this, were they that hungry? “I mean… I didn't go into her backyard and inspect it myself, but she had tons of bushes back there and-”

“Wooo!!” the stallion cheered before zipping off. “They got berries guys! Lets gooo!! ‘B’s for everypony!”

Morale skyrocketed to such a degree I had to start trotting just to keep pace with the now enthusiastic mob of pegasi. “Maybe I should add this to the archive as a ‘pegasus thing’,” I said to myself before cardio could catch up with me.

They slowed down… eventually. Turns out regular role calls and pit stops to make sure nopony got lost was a common practice in the enclave. But I couldn't help but wonder if it was because the Enclave cared about its soldiers, or didn't want any of them running off unnoticed. Still, it gave me to chance to firmly plop my flank on the corner of Apple Way & West-Beaverly. Twas the least broken piece of pavement I could find, the occasional two-century-old newspaper blowing on by, a chance to rest my legs.

“This is nice…” I said to myself letting the gentle wasteland breeze blow through my mane. The distant gunshots synonymous with the Applewood wasteland were muffled down by the steady howls of wind passing through creaking buildings. It really gave a sense of just how immense this ‘city’ was. It would take hundreds, maybe even thousands of stables to compare to the volume this place had to it. Just listening to the wind and letting my senses expand to all the little passing sounds and small details the cityscape offered. The most notable of all was the city core… where Los-Pegasus fell from the sky right atop Applewood. A mountain of twisted steel, and green clouds flowing from broken buildings. And if I focused I could hear the distant hum of machinery, the hiss of cloud emitters, and a thousand raspy cries of pega-ghouls swarming the ruins like flies. There was only one thing that could make this better…

“Music!” I noted bringing a hoof down on my pipbuck radio button!

“Zzzt- Good afternoon my little ponies, I’m DJ Pon3 and that was Sweetie-Belle teaching us all one of the oldest truths in the world. Everypony has something they regret.”

“Damn it, I missed the song!”

“We’ll be back to the music soon folks, but first some News! Let's see what I got here~” There was the squeak of a wheely chair and the ruffling of some papers. “Ah, there’s where Homage put it. Great assistant but her organizational skills were clearly not something the lightbringer desired.”

There was an ever-distant “I heard that!” that soon followed before DJ Pone3 chucked. “This just in out of Neigh-Orleans. Some freelance salvagers known as the panhandlers have been hard-working little ponies. Pried from the cold jaws of the Neigh-Orleans muck, they got their hooves on a one-of-a-kind edition of Windy Gale’s Grand Galloping Galla vinyl. Signed too! How do I know this? Hehe yeah well, it's cause they mailed it to me, courtesy of the DitzyDoo Delivery Service~ And I am so looking forward to sharing it with the rest of you little ponies out there in the wasteland. Good Job Panhandler crew, and uhh..let me know if you find anything else this disk jockey can spin.” DJ pon3 gave a jolly laugh.

Okay, that’s kinda cool. DJ pon3 gets fan mail… and ponies send him music they find. Neat! Restoring pre-war culture one find at a time.

“And now some news from everypony’s favorite little hellhole, and I ain't just talking about New-Pegas. I’m talkin’ bout good old Applewood baby. If Glitz, Glam, a shotgun slug to the chest somehow ran a city. I’m happy to tell folks there appears to be a mysterious new player in town. Now I know I’m here to bring you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts, So I’ll give you the facts. Somepony, the same pony, has been making waves. Witnesses have been spotting this mystery mare’s deeds across the region.”

Please tell me he isn’t talking about me…

“She’s been connected to the exile of ponies selling chems to kids in bubble town. Some witnesses say she single-hoofedly wiped out a raider toll booth in a hail of gunfire. Others say they saw her slaughtering fire ants on the northside. And quite a few culture-shocked ghouls say she tamed the War-Fields all on her lonesome. And that aint all this lil mare has on her resume. Just last night folks, she made quite the display out of the Hotel Coltifornia. That's right folks, Ten-Pony's little brother out west has fallen.. Or should I say gone up in flames? Turns out our ‘little brother’ was getting his kicks by dipping into the slave market. Taking in Enclave remnants as refugees, racking up a bill, and then putting them in chains. Terrible, just terrible. But wasteland justice was swift and brutal at the hooves of our mystery mare. She Freed the slaves, set the place ablaze, and killed everypony involved. If you go there now you’ll find the former manager enjoying her new view… on a pike, and an angel painted on the marble floors in the blood of her enemies.

I… I feel sticky…

“Just who is this mare who’s shown a complete disrespect for Applewood's status quo? This liberator of slaves, whisperer of ghouls, and slayer of raiders? This Angel of Applewood?”

“She sounds awesome! Kinda hot too am I right?” A voice chuckled behind me. A way too familiar voice… a joyful happy-go-lucky voice of a deadbuck that sent a chill down my spine. I slowly turned my head to look back and see standing behind me, looming, was a perfectly intact Zony prince, Moko. “Last night’s party was awesome right?”

I reacted the same way any sane and reasonable mare would- “FUCKING GHOST!! AHHH!!!”

POOOOOM!!

A cone of red viscera sprayed up the ruined storefront behind me as the ghost’s head disappeared into a fine red mist that wafted over me. The bulky Zony body of this ‘ghost’ didn’t dematerialize or melt away, but slowly fell to the pavement with a meaty thump. And there I sat… shaking… with a new coat of red paint on my everything.

“Holy HorseA- I mean… DJ Pon3 needs to be right back children, I’m receiving a disturbing news report and will be back with you soon. In the meantime, enjoy this selection from the ponies that made ‘Balefire Baby’. Zzzt~”

Im going to have a heart attack if I don't die of sepsis first. I’ve spent an ungodly amount of time covered in everypony else’s blood. Actually, this whole surface thing has been just that… one massive blood stain.

“Sketchy… Sketchy?” A hoof waved in front of my face and I slowly looked left to see a concerned Moonstone connected to it.

I took a deep shaky breath and let fly my inner thoughts. “Please tell me I just killed a ghost. Cause that looked exactly like the prince” I inhaled again. “Whom is dead…very dead… the deadest of deads.”

Moonstone looked between me and the new body lying next to me as pegas gathered around to see. “Uhh… It’s kinda hard to tell given the lack of-” he bit his lip looking for a way to spare my delicate psyche. “Facial features.”

Lucy was next on the scene, weakly wheeling herself over while shooing away the other pegasi that gathered around to gawk. “Good heavens what happened this time?” she looked down at the body. “Is that the prince I saw in that gaudy hotel?”

“SEE?!” I pointed at the corpse. “It’s a bucking ghost! We let his body burn after the hookers stabbed him to death and now I’m HAUNTED!” I lamented to the heavens, hooves pulling at my mane as I was ready to snap. I got to thinking and I got to pacing, always a bad combination. “Why am I being haunted this time?! Fire usually works! What did I do wrong? Is he pissed I got him killed? Or that I left him? Does he think I killed him? Is it dark zebra magic? But there’s no body for his soul to cling to. I don’t- I can’t-” Before my rambling could continue I got a wing to the shoulder from Lucy stopping me in place.

“Sketchy…” she stated looking my right in the eyes, locking my frantic focus in place. “There’s a perfectly logical reason for this. And I can say this with confidence, not only because it's me saying it, but because you’ve been stressed to the breaking point for days now. And cause ghosts aren’t real.” she gave me a pat “It’s just some… what did you say happened to the prince again?”

“He got stabbed- with the knives and- the fire!” In hindsight, it was at this point in my adventure I should have noticed just how much of a wreck I was becoming. Incomplete sentences, covered in gore, eyes bugged out, practically pulling my mane out, and making stabbing gestures towards the body. I looked, Insane.

“Sketchy, don’t make me sedate you.” Lucy threatened with an authoritative yet caring scowl. “Because you know I will. And Moonstone will have to drag us back to Mrs Cream-heart’s house.”

“Hey!” Moonstone protested at being volunteered for ‘carry the team’ duty.

“Now slow down dearie.” Lucy, reluctantly, patted me with her shaky wing. “Slow down, breathe, think. It’s probably just some poor stallion that looks like the prince. Nothing to worry about.”

Moonstone nudged the body with his hoof. “It sure looks like him. Identical size, matching stripes, even got the same zebra cutiemark-looking thing as the prince. But we saw him die, and..”

“That settles it then, obviously not the same stallion.” Lucy continued “Because ghosts aren’t real and there are two separate accounts of witnessing his untimely death.” Lucy nodded patting me all the more. “Who knows, maybe he had a brother.”

“An identical twin is more like it…” mutter Moonstone.

“Or his stunt double. He did say his father ran that silly Actors clan right? He probably has stallions pose as him all the time to keep from being assassinated. It’s what I’d do if I were any more desired by the masses than I already am.”

Lucy being full of herself despite her injuries aside, her words got me thinking. “Double?.. Actors?...Looks the same? Warlord-” I jumped up. “Holy shit they're gonna think we killed the prince!” be still my screaming heart- “And I just killed an innocent stallion!! AHHHHH!!!!” I’m going to HELL!!! Why cruel world! Whyy!?!

“What?! No they wont.” Moonstone countered putting a hoof on my withers to sit back down. I’ve never known a stallion who was more likely to get gutted in the streets than the prince. The real magic is how he managed to survive this long to begin with!” he said gesturing at the body. “Anypony could have offed him.”

“But WE killed him!” I gestured both forehooves at the body. “And this time there isn't a blazing inferno to destroy the body we- Wait no,” I paused with the blink of realization. “I killed him! I don’t wanna fight a warlord! He might skin me and turn me into a flag or something!” Brain…you aren’t helping.

“So we just hide the body?” Moonstone raised a brow.

My eyelid twitched. “Where?! Under the pavement?! In the ruins scavengers comb over all the time? Or better yet, anywhere in the vicinity of the only part of town WE’VE-” I rapidly pointed at us three. “Been in so far? It’s Applewood’s most identifiable corpse! A bucking zony!”

“Well do you have any better ideas, or are you just going to sit there and have a panic attack?”

I looked around for somewhere, anywhere we could dispose of this totally not a murder. I looked at the pegas, and they all shirked away. Not only that but using them would make them a target. I looked at the ruins, but he'd be found by scavengers. I looked down the road towards Button’s place and paused. “Fuuuuuuck meeeeee!!!!-”

—

“-heeey buddy how ya been?” I gave my most convincing smile to the VERY non-plussed brown ghoul standing at the bottom of the stairs in a blue bathrobe.

Button-Mash just looked at me, with his long dead stare as he sipped from his ‘Sweetie Belle 1026 tour’ coffee mug. “I was doing fine…” he said calmly… too calmly.

“Great, that's great, just great…” I trailed off looking down at my own coffee mug I’d been given.

I took a sip from the mug, to be fair I’d never tasted coffee before and I gotta say… it smells way better than it tastes. Still, I forced it down and smiled, cause I really needed to be on this stallion's good side. “Mmm… well damn Buttons, this is some of that gourmet stuff right here. You know we would have been satisfied with some everjuice, but here you are being out the gourmet-”

“Knock it off…” He said flatly maintaining that long brooding stare.

“What?...”

He squinted at me, something only I normally get to do! “I don't need you to tell me how fucking good my coffee is okay? I’m the one who buys it. When mom goes shopping she buys crap, I buy the expensive gourmet shit cause I wanna taste it.”

I blinked slowly shrinking in on myself.

“But you wanna know what's on my mind right now? Cause it ain't the 200-year-old coffee I buy,” he stated gesturing the mug at me. “It's the dead zebra in my living room!” he said pointing behind me where Moonstone could be seen slowly dragging off-brand Moko’s corpse towards the cellar door.

“Oh uhh…” I quickly looked around for an answer. “You don't need to worry about that Buttons. We’ll-”

“I’m gonna ask you an honest question” He kept squinting.

“Yeah?...”

“When you came back here, did you notice a sign on my front lawn that said ‘Dead Zebra storage?’”

“Button’s, you know we didn't-”

“DID YOU!” he enunciated loudly leaning in. “See a sign out front that said ‘Dead Zebra Storage’?!”

“No…” I squeaked shrinking further.

“Do you know why you didn’t see that sign?”

“No-”

“Cause storing dead zebras is none of my bucking business that’s why!” he yelled, glaring at me.

I can still save this! “Buttons, we don't wanna keep him here forever, we just-”

“NononoononononoNO!!! Do you have any Idea how my mom is going to react if she comes home and finds zebra gore all over the living room floor?! She’d kill me! Again!” he gestured to his ghouly self. “There is no kind of therapy left in Applewood to fix that level of trauma! And I don't wanna die again! Do you see how dead I am already? If this is step two I don’t wanna see step three!”

I slowly sipped from the coffee mug struggling to get past the bitterness about as hard as I struggled to keep eye contact with Buttons.

“Ya know…I wanna help you. Cause ya know, reasons. But I don't want my mom to kill me either, alright?”

“Buttons Buttons, she ain't gonna kill you-”

“Don’t Button’s me Sketchy! Don't Buttons me. What, in the history of the Ponish language, what sacred combination of words, can you say to make my mom not freak the fuck out?!” he huffed, starting to pace in a circle, kinda like I do actually… “Now.. she should be back from the hardware store in about an hour. The autowagon is fucked so a 3-minute drive is now a 40-minute walk.”

“She went out there all on her own?”

“Well yeah, She figured if she's been doing it for 200 years just fine, nopony will stop her now.”

“And you didn’t go with her?”

He set the mug down to drag a hoof across his face. “Sketchy, I have bigger problems than that right now. Do you need to make a phone call? Get some ponies to help you get the dead zebra off my living room floor? Please do so.”

“A…phone… call?” I smiled sheepishly earning another long stare from the begrundled ghoul, the silence only broken by Moonstone’s grunts and the creak of the floorboards.

Fortunately, his eyelids were still there and he blinked real slow like. “You gotta be fucking kidding me… Scoots didn’t put phones in the stables?!”

“No!” I hid behind my hooves and the coffee mug. “The stable had an internal radio for the intercom system and pipbuck network, but that's it!” Placate him with answers! Placate him!

“Get him the fuck out of my house before she gets here!” he ordered pointing at the body.

“Alright alright.” I tried to soothe the angry ghoul. “It's all cool, it’s cool. We don’t wanna mess your house up, we just… need to hide this body is all.”

“Mess my house up? You're messing my house up right now!” He gestured to the long blood streak between the door and the corpse. “There’s a red fucking line of zebra blood from here to-” he trotted over to the door and leaned out. “Holy shit! Four marefucking blocks and around the corner?!” he couldn't believe it, I couldn't believe it, I didn’t know a pony.. Err zony could have this much blood in him! “My Mom is going to murder us!”

“I know! But this is a bad situation for us too! I mean.. Like.. he was important, I think! Or a ghost, or something! We gotta get rid of him or we could die too!”

“Then why did you bring this dead ass here?!”

“Cause you're the only stallion I know that has a basement!” to be fair, my qualifications for places to hide bodies should be longer than ‘basement’ and ‘guy I know’.’

“I barely know you!!”

“I know! I’m fucked no matter what, but I had to try!” I exclaimed throwing my hooves in the air.

Buttons looked between me, the body, and the blood trail before he rubbed his temples. “Just…you…ughh… bury him by the stream out back.” he pointed out the door.

“There’s a stream?” Moonstone, Lucy, and I all said in unison looking to Buttons.

“Well yeah, You didn't see it? It’s literally just downhill from the house at the end of the cul-de-sac.” he nodded in the general direction. “It's only like… an inch deep.”

Turns out, there was a stream behind the neighborhood, but it wasn't an inch deep. 200 years of nopony pumping out groundwater has resulted in this crystal clear stream being ass deep in some places. It was the most water I’d ever seen in one place, and I got to see the stable purification system that one time.

Now that we were out of the city proper, we could bury this Moko doppelganger/potential ghost anywhere. We settled on a spot much further downstream stream as to not contaminate the water we could potentially drink. ButtonMash begrudgingly let us use his mom’s shovel and Lucy provided moral support… but mostly workshopped how to best break the idea of Enclave refugees moving in to Button's mom. They had to live somewhere…right?

After many trials, tribulations, and a lot of shoveling we got Moko buried in equafirma. Some part of me wanted to wack him with the shovel a few times just to be sure he was dead and not a ghost, revenant, or ghast that’ll come back to bite me in the ass…but in the end it seemed this was just some zony. I will begin to process reflexively murdering an innocent buck… after I get a bath. Lucy went to organize the enclave members while Moonstone went back to help de-blood Cream-Heart’s floor with Buttons.

I went back up to the part of the stream just beyond the backyard of the final house on the cul-de-sac and gazed into the water. Flowing at a steady pace, cool to the touch, crystal clear, and a bed of large pebbles and mud. The shoreline was strewn with plants seemingly forever locked in a state of half-decay or sprouting with new-ish greenery. I waved my pipbuck over it to see if any rads were coming off it and it took a whole six minutes before It made a single feint ‘tick’.

“Clean enough!” I cheered taking my first ginger steps into the stream. “Cold, cold, cold! Ahhhhh~” I sighed as the cool water washed over my blood-caked body. It would take a lot of effort to clean my suit, but the water was a good first step. The water was deep enough to stand in yet keep your withers above water if you wanted to. I didn't. This was the first bath, much less shower, I'd taken since that night in PJ's room. It was cold…not like freezing, but a nice cold. Like the water you drink after a day in the mines, or sitting in a river after two days of mass pony slaughter. Two whole days of fighting, killing, and bathing in the blood of my enemies… three if you count that raider toll booth I mowed down. All the physical reminders of those events washed off of me, forming a great red smear that flowed downstream… I could float here… in fact.

“Quibbit.”

I let myself sink into the water and float there like a depressed rubber duckie, I went face down in the water letting the current wash my mane for me. “Gurgled flergbbt…” I bubbled under the water just letting it all go, not even feeling the need to breathe. That was when another great realization the wasteland had to offer hit me. I pulled my head up from the water with a gasp, wet mane falling over my face. “I’m a fucking psychopath…” When I left the stable, everything was scary. When I killed Brick in self-defense I was so torn up about it that I thought I was going to be dragged to Tartarus for murder. And now… “I’ve killed more ponies than every murder and execution in the history of 83 combined… and all I feel is tired,” I mumbled to myself, gazing into the rippling water of the stream, droplets falling off my glasses. I’d been surviving for little over a week.. and I was already numb.

“Quibbit.”

How does a mare even begin to process not only taking a life but having taken so many that she doesn’t even feel bad about it? I couldn’t even remember what most of them looked like-

“Quiiiibbit!”

“WHAAAT?!” I snapped turning right to the source of the sound next to me, hooves curled up ready to sock whoever was doing it. But it wasn't a pony… Floating there being inspected by the tiny princesses was a small, fuzzy, bright yellow amphibian-looking thing. Small enough to fit in my hoof, the creature floated there effortlessly. Four little webbed feet gently paddling under the surface keeping it effortlessly in place. It stared at me, occasionally blinking its large wet eyes, gazing into my soul through those orange orbs and slitted pupils.

“Quibbit.” it croaked… or quacked. I wasn’t sure, I couldn't recall ever reading about a creature like this in surface class, then again surface class didn't tell us anything about rad roaches either.

“Please tell me you aren't another figment of my imagination…”

“Quibbit.” came from my left side this time and when I looked there was another one floating there, staring at me. When I double took to the original there were now two on my right. Left again there were three more. “Quibbit” the mass of gently floating creatures quoked around me. Many more were emerging from the plants, taking perch on various leaves, dead branches, and large rocks. There were dozens of the things and I guess they’d been hiding up to the point I seemed harmless.

“Well, this is adorably intimidating.” I scooped one up with my hoof and its little legs kept gently paddling through the air while it looked around, eventually going limp once it realized it no longer needed to swim. “It has the shape of a frog… but it’s covered in yellow fuzz like a baby duck. It has four legs like a frog… but webbed feet like a duck… well frogs have those too, but these are orange with lil' claws. What are you?” I squinted through my wet glasses at the creature.

“Quibbit!”

“An astute argument, but not an answer I’m looking for.” I pondered, eagerly welcoming this distraction from my existential crisis about my own moral decay. “Ducks quack…and frogs ribbit… Quibbit?”

“Quibbit.” it responded, along with a chorus of other creatures joining in for a few moments.

I sighed. “This… this is almost as bad as the tato incident. Another affront to the goddesses finds its way into my hooves…and it’s cute.” they blinked at me and I groaned. “Great! Now I gotta name you guys!”

“Quibbit…”

“Alright listen here you frog.. duck.. hybrid.. things! I discovered you so I get to name you whatever I like. Unless you guys prove to be sentient like Brad. Speak up now if you’re capable of higher thinking!” I offered looking around at the gathered yellow creatures. I took their silence as a no.. “Alright, cool name for a new species… of frog…duck…. frog…. duck… drog?” my horn glowed and an ethereal lightbulb appeared above my head. The perfect name crawled forth from the enlightened parts of my mind! “Oh oh! That's perfect! I’ll call you a Fu-”

“-cking awesome party last night, am I right?” came a voice from behind me, familiar, too familiar, dead familiar. The Applewood prince, pristine as ever, smiling, standing on the shore behind me.

I reacted the only way appropriate to such a surprise.

“AHHHH!!!” I screamed like a filly, yeeting the little yellow guy in my hoof.

Level up!
Perk unlocked: Medic(rank 1)
-On-the-job experience works like no other am I right? Your familiarity with magic bandages, healing potions, and radaway has grown. These items now restore 40% of your total health and remove 40% of your rads respectively.

Achievement Perk!: Zoologist (rank 1)
-You discovered a creature! +5% more damage both with and against creatures you have tamed or killed.