Fallout: Equestria - Operation Killjoy
Chapter 9: Gears
Previous ChapterNext Chapter“The complexity of a weapon mirrors the complexity of the society that built them. The power armor with all its components showed how interwoven pony society was. Today the ramshackle rifles show how interwoven wasteland society still is.”
Freezing, shivering and exhausted they reached Stalliongrad hours after sunset. They contemplated resting in the tunnels instead of wandering for another few hours to reach the settlement. But Key didn’t want to let her mother wait.
When they arrived at the station, they all noticed a strange unease among the locals. Something was aloof. Something had happened that kept them awake. Fade eventually noticed concern in Midnight’s eyes, when his ears picked up the conversations.
“What is it?” Fade asked.
“They’re talking about war.” Midnight said quietly.
“Can you be a bit more precise?” Fade checked if her knife was still there.
Midnight sighed and trotted toward a few ghouls. The others waited impatiently while Midnight talked in the local language.
“Spasiba.” He returned to the others, slowly shaking his head. “The Enclave attacked Edmareton.”
“Eh… Told you.” Fade said and caught an angry glance from Midnight.
“My brother was there.”
“You there!” A unicorn in a ragged frontline barding approached them. Despite its age it still showed the emblem made of gears and a sword; A Steel Ranger. The unicorn was too young to have ever worn the uniform in the actual war. His eyes fell on Key. “It’s good that you are finally back. It’s about your mother—”
“Is she alright?” Key stepped forward, already worried.
“She is. She’s doing great actually, currently working with us to pay off her debts at the hospital. Also… you all look very cold.” He addressed the entire group now. “We have some tea and you can rest with us.”
Feather didn’t let the others speak up and agreed to join the Rangers. Fade was wary of the Ranger’s sudden hospitality and stood close to Key. Midnight was uncertain as well and kept his distance from them. After they arrived in the old hardware store, which the Steel Rangers had made their base, he always had a hoof on his rifle. He eyed the place skeptically. Something was amiss. No ponies in power armor. The beds in the far corner were empty and there was no buzz of ponies cooking a meal around a fire.
“Where are they?” He asked.
“Priob. The contingent was called as reinforcement. The remainder of the Edmareton contingent is there too or is about to arrive,” the engineer told them, then offered them some bitter tea.
But before he could give the first cup to Key, her mother stepped into the wide hall of the former store. “Key…” With the argument from a few days forgotten, she rushed to her daughter. Disregarding how much her body was still weak from the sickness, she hugged her daughter tightly, holding back tears. But her eyes were already fixated on Feather, and Fade could already see that Shibboleth would not be able to hold back her anger.
“Where did you take them!?” Shibboleth shouted, holding Key as if Feather was a monster from the wasteland. “Where!?”
Feather remained cold and didn’t even meet Shibboleth’s glare. “Key. Show her.”
It took her a brief moment to realize she had been addressed, but she took out the pristine holodisk with her magic. Shibboleth’s eyes opened wide when she saw the disk floating in front of her.
Feather suddenly snatched the holodisk with a wing. “Fade… You tell her what happened. I will take the disk to a terminal. You know… we have to know where Killjoy is located to plan our next step.”
“Our next step is—” Fade stopped herself, looking at the Steel Ranger. “Can we talk alone for a moment?”
He shook his head. “I think before you plan what to do next, you have to deal with the debts. Mrs. Shibboleth helped us quite well with the radio equipment, but since the Rangers have disembarked, we can’t offer any other work.”
“So, why do you want to talk with us?” Fade asked, not hiding her annoyance.
“The Steel Rangers have offered to settle the debts, if the young pony with the PipBuck joins us for the duration of the conflict.”
“No!” Shibboleth held her daughter tighter, looking back and forth as if she was surrounded by enemies.
“Don’t worry. She won’t see the front lines. She will remain in the engineer camps. Her PipBuck could prove useful for repairing power armor. It’ll be only for a few weeks.”
“This is the same story we heard during the war, kid.” Shibboleth growled.
“Shib…” Feather stood up, ready to leave. “Think this through. The Steel Rangers can protect you well and maybe—”
“Mom! What the fuck?” Fade interrupted her. “Are you going to ditch them, now that they’re of no use to you anymore?”
“No. I just want to give them the choice.”
Key freed herself from her mother. With her magic, she took her bags and stomped out.
Fade sighed and shook her head. “Great. You two should marry,” she said to Feather and the Steel Ranger before she followed Key.
“Is this enough?” Key demanded from the griffon doctor after she emptied out what she took from the Ministry hub.
The doctor’s eyes were shining when he examined the dozen tubes of toothpaste and still packed up brushes. He looked at the mouth wash and for a moment there was a longing for the old times on his face.
“This and… an apology,” Key said.
“I appreciate the apology, but it can’t pay for the medicine I need,” The griffon said, his rough voice comforting.
“Is it enough though?”
He looked at the toothpaste and slowly shook his head.
“What about her mother’s work, before the Rangers left?” Fade stepped forward. “That should add up, right?”
“Well… These won’t help with the rampant dental issues ponies have these days. You are better off with these yourself, because you still have good and healthy teeth.”
Fade sighed and began to dig in her bags. She took out two, then a third of the military rations. “Is this enough?”
“But that’s all you’ve got!” Key protested.
Fade didn’t answer. She let the griffon take the boxes and let him examine them. After reading the nutrition facts he nodded. Briefly, but he nodded.
The next morning Midnight noticed that Feather and Shibboleth no longer shared food with each other. Shibboleth only gave her food to Key and offered some to Fade.
However, Fade only shook her head. “Nah… I’m not used to eating big meals anymore. I’ll snack from my rations on the way,” she said.
Eventually Midnight couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “I would like to talk about where we will go next.”
“I can tell you,” Feather said quickly. “I was able to read the holodisk and our next goal is the Smokey Mountains.”
The others were looking at her, but Feather focused on bundling up the remainder of her food.
“Are you serious, Mom?” Fade asked. “You want us to go south, the entire way we came? Back to fucking Tall Tale and then another day?”
“With the exception that we won’t stop by in Tall Tale.”
Fade slammed her hooves on the table. “Of course we won’t stop in Tall Tale! Or White Horse, Edmareton, fuck we can’t even be sure Priob is safe! How do we get food? How do we get water? We almost starved on the way here!”
“I don’t think this is much of a problem. We both know how to survive on the bare minimum. Shib and Key can join the Rangers.”
“Excuse me?” Shibboleth raised her voice as well. “Are you that hell-bent on getting rid of us?”
“No. It is the most logical thing for you to do.”
“The most logical thing? You’re saying that it is best to go with the ones who want to conscript my teenage daughter to fight in a war?”
“You have very useful skills for them. They will feed you, shelter you… you may even be able to live with them in Stable Fifty-Six.”
Shibboleth glared at her. “You self-righteous, self-centered bitch!“
“Self-centered?” Feather stood up. “Which of us is self-centered? You didn’t want to tell Key that Valiant died for some self-centered reasons!”
“Oh, so I’m the bad mother here? You told your child for over a decade her dad would be back for Hearth's Warming Eve!”
“She was two years old! She doesn’t even remember the funeral…and the stupid rain! Of all the days, it had to have been that one!” Her voice cracked. “Do you know how much it hurt when there was another bombing drill in the night and Fade cried for her father? Do you know how lucky you are, that the wasteland waited sixteen years to come for you? You can go out there and take revenge, with or without the Steel Rangers. But I can’t! The ones who killed my Brave are dead and weren’t held responsible. The only gratification I’ve got is the knowledge that they painfully suffocated to death, when the Pink Cloud slowly turned their lungs into scar tissue! And you dare to call me self-centered, because Killjoy is the only thing the war left me with?”
Shibboleth was quiet and the anger in her eyes was replaced by sorrow. “You still have your daughter.”
Fade looked at her mother, but Feather was only looking at the table, sitting down again. Fade didn’t know if Shibboleth heard about what happened in the mine. She was too afraid to bring it up.
Midnight eventually broke the silence. “I know it is a bad time, but we really have to talk about—”
Feather stomped her hooves on the table. “Then we go to your stupid vault! Happy?”
“Feather…”
“Happy?”
Midnight nodded.
Feather got up and in an angry rush took her bags and headed out to leave the city.
Midnight was the only one who looked back. Stalliongrad’s skyline was disappearing in yet another snow storm. The city was lost, Midnight no longer had any doubt about it. Maybe this was its final winter. Maybe the next. “Forgetting doesn’t seem that bad,” he thought. “Maybe it is better if the world forgets as well.”
After his farewell to the city he took the lead again. With his knowledge about the treacherous winds, they crossed long distances with relative ease. But none of them were looking forward to the next part of their journey. Nobody dared to speak, but all of them dreaded the silence as well. They kept wandering, none of them complaining if they didn’t stop to rest their tired and aching legs.
The same afternoon they saw the northernmost parts of the Unicorn Range. It promised an early arrival in Priob. Maybe they made it before sunset. But the mountains also reminded them of their ultimate destination. Winding south past Edmareton and Whitehorse, it was only a short trek from the southern foothills to the Smokey Mountains.
After a few more hours they had to climb the first set of hills. They already reached the highlands and somewhere among them was Priob. Eventually they noticed more ruins around them. They passed by small, abandoned settlements, industrial parks built for the low property prices and sometimes even a mansion. The ponies hoped to survive the balefire in them and far outside the cities they did. But they succumbed, like the conifers, to the fallout and balefire radiation that blanketed the land.
When Priob came into sight, Fade and Key were astonished to see the many lights in the still distant town. A few smokestacks rose to the sky before they were blown away by the wind. Even though the city was big, only a small part was surrounded by fortifications, creating a small village among the ruins.
“Maybe Feather is right and the Rangers can help us…” Shibboleth said and took a few deep breaths. Her body was healing, but Fade and Midnight were impressed how well Shibboleth was doing. “I mean… Key and I can work for them.”
“Don’t you think they have enough radio operators?” Fade wondered.
“Probably. But they certainly need a pony who can decrypt Enclave communications.”
“You can do that?”
Shibboleth nodded. “Counterspy. I know all the common encryption methods. Sometimes the zebras used them to disappear in the airwaves. Sometimes ponies used them as well.”
The last stage of their journey led the group through the outskirts of Priob. The houses were only skeletal remains, after they fell victim to the balefire. Everything felt strangely sterile. Every building was looted; Every corpse buried. A remnant of hope that the wasteland would actually heal.
When they arrived at the door, the militia and the Steel Rangers were distracted by a group of hunters, who had brought back a huge, mutated boar. They were bickering with the soldier in the power armor to help them pull the cart to the marketplace.
Even though there was laughter and banter in the air, Fade quickly took one of her rags to hide Midnight’s wings. With the word of a successful hunt, the guards didn’t give them much attention. For them, they were just travelers, like everypony else. Inside the village walls, ponies were already rushing in, offering various things to get a piece of the food. Fade hurried the others forward before the crowd grew too big. As they followed the brittle tarmac road, they noticed that the village woke up. Traders opened up their booths again, hoping to get a fair share of the meat.
“I will look for a shelter.” Feather said with a stern tone in her voice. “You get us more food, work or whatever… We’ll meet back here when the market closes,” she said and left them, disappearing into some alley between the hastily refurbished ruins.
Fade sighed. Instead of protesting, she just took the opportunity to briefly discuss with the others what to do. For the first time she didn’t feel hunted. Midnight smiled as he heard the ponies barter in the local tongue. Even Key showed a tiny bit of curiosity of how life was outside the Stable.
After everything was said, they split up. Shibboleth and Key visited the radio station. Fade would look for food and Midnight wanted to learn from the locals and maybe look for work as a night guard, like he always did.
As Midnight followed the road he passed by many booths. Some were selling gnarly roots. Others were offering weapons. He eyed the ones with suspicion, who were selling equipment used by the Royal Equestrian Army. Midnight noticed a stray dog, looking for a chance to steal some food from a trader.
Even though it still saddened Midnight to know that Stalliongrad was losing its importance to the wasteland, it made him happy to see Priob prospering.
“Midnight!” A familiar and friendly voice spoke up from behind. For a brief moment he thought it was Blue Sky, but the voice told him that it was his brother. The cheerful tone and the way he greeted him by just calling his name filled him with dread. He forced a smile on his face, before turning around.
“Bolt?”
“What a big surprise to see you here! How are you doing?”
“Fine…” Midnight couldn’t hide his confusion. “How did you—”
“Edmareton?”
Midnight nodded.
“So you heard about it already. Don’t worry. There was a small skirmish outside the town. A stray missile hit the wall, but otherwise the city is alright.”
“Casualties?” Midnight forced himself to ask.
Thunderbolt had to steady himself. “Let’s say it was a fair trade. But I have no information about the other places.”
“Other places?”
He just shrugged. “Mostly Edmareton. Some places between Quebit and Fifty-Six. Let’s not talk about this. How are the others doing?”
Midnight shook his head. “Why are you so friendly all of the sudden?”
“It’s simple… All it needs is a crazy strafing run by a Vertibuck and you suddenly remember one or two words about… leaving the past behind.”
Midnight remembered the feeling of a tightness in his chest, clenching around his heart. It felt wrong. He felt wrong. “That’s very kind.”
“And I would like to show some kindness too. Your friend… What was her name? Shibboleth? She helped us out with her skills and the Rangers want to show some gratitude. So… is there anything you need?”
“I’m fine,” Midnight said.
“You are fine. As a ghoul you have it somewhat easier. But what about the others? The little one or… what about Swift?”
Midnight tilted his head. “Who?”
“Swift. Your pegasus friend. The one who took the food from the Enclave.”
“Her name is not Swift.”
“Your radio operator friend told us,” Thunderbolt said.
“No.” Fade appeared from the shadow between the booths. “She didn’t.”
Midnight and Thunderbolt were looking at her. Even though she remained mostly in the darkness, her knife was visible.
“Listen… There is no need to argue about a name. Shibboleth just… heard it somehow.”
“Bullshit. I am sure that the only one who heard my name was that Enclave bitch. There is no fucking way that anypony else but that cunt heard my name among the hailstorm and the thunders.”
Thunderbolt was quiet. His face hardened and Midnight took a step away when the all too familiar disdain returned to his eyes. His gaze was fixated on Midnight and Fade. He gave a barely noticeable nod and the heavy stomps of the Steel Ranger approached them. Midnight briefly looked over his shoulder and saw how the power armor’s massive minigun was primed at him. Slowly, Midnight reached for his rifle. The ponies around them went quiet when they noticed the tension.
“Why did she tell you my name?” Fade asked, quietly but with a threatening tone she had used so many times against Enclave loyalists before.
“It was just an idle chat, to defuse the situation.”
“Idle?” Fade asked and chuckled. “Are you trying to say that the Enclave who ambushed us at the Ministry Hub were just idling there?”
“Now I get it…” Midnight’s voice was filled with a growl. “You spied on us for them. What was the deal?”
Thunderbolt scoffed. “You and your ridiculous conspiracies, Midnight! You were always suspecting your friends to be your foes and then you allied with the enemy. There is absolutely no way of knowing why the Enclave thought you would go to the Ministry of Awesome Hub.”
Fade laughed. “Even the feather brains of the Enclave can add up two numbers and are right occasionally. Midnight. Get the others. We will leave.”
Midnight retreated slowly, ready to draw his weapon at any moment. He focused on the Ranger in the power armor.
“Midnight! Wait. We can protect you from the Enclave. All of you are safe with us.”
Midnight didn’t wait and disappeared between the booths.
“You would make a very good Enclave bitch, you know?” Fade chuckled. “Being so stupid as to believe we would trust you, after you tried to sell us to the Enclave.”
“Be very careful what you say, Swift. If we won’t get you, we will make sure that the Enclave won’t get you either.”
“You want to start a shootout in a crowded place like this?”
“Don’t worry… Unlike your Enclave friends, I won’t start a firefight in a crowded area.”
“And what about him?” Fade briefly nodded to the soldier.
Thunderbolt glanced over at the other Ranger. When he looked back, Fade already snuck away.
The Steel Ranger was chasing Fade, but she knew how to disappear in the sea of E.F.S. signals. While the initial escape was easy, it took her a terribly long time to find the others. The word of the stand-off made its round through the city and soon even the militia was alerted. Escaping through the gates was impossible by then.
After they regrouped, they tried to make sense of the situation. Midnight was brooding. His body was tense and a stern expression on his face. Fade saw something in his eyes; Something violent and he held his rifle tighter than usual. Fade eventually avoided looking at him and tried to figure out the deal between the Rangers and the Enclave.
“How much food do we have left?” Feather asked after they sat down in an alley for a brief moment. “Let’s try to bribe one of the locals to get us out.”
“Two packs each.” Shibboleth said. “That’s enough for two days, maybe four.”
Feather nodded. “Good. Fade? Your rations should be enough.”
“Mine?”
Feather nodded again. “You want to go to Galloping Gorge and Midnight doesn’t need food. I am only tagging along and I don’t want Shib and Key to give up theirs.”
“You can’t be serious,” Shibboleth seethed.
“This is the wasteland, Shib. If you want to chase some silly dream, then you pay for it yourself.”
“Oh really?” Shibboleth said. “Let’s see what you have donated to follow your silly dream. You donated our food, our resources and our lives—”
“I’m doing it for the betterment of Equestria—”
“Shut up!” Fade had enough. “Both of you. I don’t have my food anymore. I needed it to pay the griffon.”
Feather sighed. “We could have just left the city…”
“And have us make more enemies?” Fade said. “Right now I don’t see one single fucker who would help us. Paying that stupid griffon bought us at least his trust.”
“Yeah… Until somebody pays him more.”
“That’s still more trust than I’m currently receiving from you!”
“Stop it!” Key suddenly spoke up. “The food is all mine. I worked for it!”
Fade and Feather couldn’t continue their argument, even though Key was taking two military rations from her bag.
“Midnight? You know the ponies here better than us. Can you buy us a way out?”
It was difficult for Midnight to keep his composure and his voice soft when he talked to a member of the militia. The others stood nearby and couldn’t understand a word, but they heard that the negotiation was not going well.
He wanted twice as much. Feather paid the difference.
The guard let them escape over the wall. Shibboleth and Key needed to be briefly carried by Fade and Feather, but then they escaped into the dark ruins around the village.
Only when they arrived at the ashen buildings, they sought shelter. They found a room in an old apartment building without skeletons. Key’s PipBuck was constantly registering signals of vermin searching for food. They barricaded the door and Midnight took watch at the window. It didn’t take long for the Rangers to search the perimeter around the village. He held his rifle close to his body and felt the urge to aim the barrel at them.
Midnight wished he had a visor on his rifle, a bit like the weapon he held in the photos. But at the same time he was glad that he only had his Cicada, no matter how primitive it appeared when compared to the shiny weapon from the pictures.
Even though he couldn’t make out the details, he wondered why they were searching the eastern part of the city. Midnight couldn’t say if they deployed a detection spell or if they simply concluded that going eastwards was the most reasonable direction to take. Everlast, The Enclave and now the Rangers were hunting them. There was no other place to go. All they needed was a rough direction.
Midnight put the rifle away and his forelegs cramped tightly around his stomach. His body felt numb but his mind was flooded with memories of nausea and pain. He remembered the feeling of his coat sticking to his sweaty skin. He didn’t understand why his brother was so obsessed about hunting them. Midnight asked himself again and again if Thunderbolt wanted to see the others dead just for revenge.
Looking outside he saw the Rangers patrolling and searching like hounds. Their hasty escape let them smell a weakness and their masters were hungry.
The taste of the bark from the conifers wasn’t as terrible as Fade expected. But gnawing on them, to not rely on the meager amount left of the military rations, made her teeth hurt. She wondered if chewing the bark would be easier, if she could still brush her teeth.
For two days Fade and Feather didn’t eat anything else but branches, dead grass, moss or whatever root they found in loose dirt. Even Shibboleth converted to those, so that her daughter had the last pack of rations. Even though Key tried to share, they all shook their heads. But where Shibboleth and Fade were smiling, Feather couldn’t hide the frustration in her eyes.
They desperately wanted to search the buildings for food, but the Rangers were always close. Fade soon didn’t want to eat anything they found, as she was sure that the Rangers followed the plucked grass or peeled tree barks.
Midnight remained further behind, flying up on the trees or the few ruins to observe the Rangers. More than once each day he saw the soldiers in power armor sprinting over the hills and plains. They even drew heavy metal carts; Probably transports for engineers, food, ammo and tools. They were certainly equipped for a long chase. But when Midnight saw them setting up camp, he was torn between going to the others or to sneak up on the Rangers and kill one.
Fade chewed down the piece of bark. “How far is it, Key? Do you think we will arrive today or tomorrow?”
“Another mile?” She guessed while looking at her PipBuck. “Yeah… we are about there.”
“Really?” A small glint of hope could be heard in Fade’s voice. Together with Key both took the lead. The pain in their legs was forgotten when they kept wandering through the dead forest. In the distance they already saw the trees clearing. More of the dull light shone and Key couldn’t resist the urge to trot and then gallop to cross the remaining distance.
When she passed by the last line of trees she gasped and stumbled backwards. Fade, shaken by it, rushed forward, ready to draw the knife at whatever monster Key just saw. When she arrived at the rocky edges of Galloping Gorge she saw what scared her. Skulls… Massive skulls.
Fade and Midnight were hit by a cold gust of wind, while they looked down at the grave. The gorge was filled with the colossal skeletons of eel-like creatures. Their skulls, each bigger than a pony, were either scattered in the valley or resting at the entrances of holes in the cliff sides. Some skulls were broken and punctured, their ribs along the massive spines cracked open. Not by weapons, but by teeth.
“They weren’t that much different from us, were they?” Fade asked quietly.
“Monsters?” Midnight asked.
But Fade shook her head. “Starving.”
Both were quiet for a while.
“Do you think they are extinct by now?” Midnight wondered.
“They better be. It makes our search easier.”
Midnight furrowed his brows. “Are you glad that they are dead?”
“I am just glad that they don’t have stomach pain anymore.” Fade pushed her clothes away and stretched her wings. She didn’t like the look of her feathers after she had kept them covered for days.
“You are not planning on going down there,” Midnight said. “What if one is still alive?”
“Does that valley look in any way alive to you, idiot?”
Midnight sighed, grabbing his rifle tighter. But then he sat down. “Can we talk without calling each other idiots?”
Fade didn’t hide when she rolled her eyes and nodded.
“I would suggest we make sure there is no one left. If so, we turn around and leave.”
Fade shook her head. “What the fuck are you talking about? You were whining for the last week to come here or otherwise you would fuck off without us.”
Midnight glared at her. “Were you eavesdropping on Feather and me?”
“No. I was attentive. It would be nice if you would make up your mind. One day you are all in for Killjoy. Another day, you only care about Sky Blue—”
“Blue Sky.”
“Whatever. One day you are grumpy, one day you pretend nothing is wrong and on yet another day you pretend you have no emotions at all. You are worse than a mare in heat.”
“Fuck you, Fade! Have you thought that when I don’t talk, that I am thinking and trying to make sense out of this mess?”
Fade looked at Midnight and searched for that violent anger in his eyes. But there wasn’t any of it. Only a glint of frustration. She took a deep breath and forced herself to remain calm. “Okay… What do you think?”
Midnight looked to the others. Shibboleth was observing them, but tried to comfort her daughter. The sight of the huge skeletons shook Key more than any of them would have thought. Feather was a bit further away, eating some of the dry branches they found.
“I thought about what Feather said about how others shouldn’t pay for your little dreams.”
“Why?” Fade shook her head. “I want to come here as well.”
“But Shib, Key and Feather don’t. They only tag along, because they have no other choice.”
“Key may want to find out something about Valiant. He was a Shadowbolt as well,” Fade whispered.
“But Key won’t ask us to fight a quarray eel.”
“Unlike Feather,” Fade growled.
Midnight sighed and got up. “This is not about Feather. If there is any trouble we will leave.”
Fade rubbed her forehead in frustration. “Midnight. Why the fuck…” She began.
“Hmm?” Midnight stopped.
“Nothing. Just ask Mom for the plasma grenades. In case one of these things is still alive.”
Midnight and Fade were slowly walking through the gorge, searching for any sign of a hidden Shadowbolt base. But they stopped at a skull almost five times as high as a pony. Teeth had carved deep furrows into the bone. It made Fade remember how pegasi were talking about drinking bone marrow. She kept away from the giant skulls after the memory reappeared.
Midnight stopped and his ears flicked and twitched as he listened. He only heard Key and the others following them up on the cliff. But there weren’t any other sounds but the cold wind. No birds. No rodents. No insects. He held his rifle tighter and searched every cave dug into the walls.
As cautious as Fade was, her focus was to find the vault. She tried to wrap her mind around the idea of why they placed the vault in this forsaken valley. She couldn’t believe that the Shadowbolts put their base here only to keep it secret from the zebras. A vault like this can only be accessed by pegasi and most of them wouldn’t be able to make it past the eels.
Fade was giving a wide berth around another skull when Key suddenly shouted with fear in her voice. “Fade! Stop!”
Just when Fade and Midnight looked up they saw a massive head darting out from a cave only a few dozen feet away from Key. The creature’s neck twisted up, the maw open and baring hundreds of yellowed teeth to snap for the pony just standing on the edge of the cliff. The purple head crashed into the side of the cliff, whirling up dust and rocks. The ground was shaking from the impact.
Fade’s body was locked in place at the sight of the gigantic monster. It looked bigger than all the other skulls they had passed. Midnight however, didn’t hesitate. He raised his rifle, aimed and fired. The bullet uselessly glanced off the thick scales.
The loud crack of the rifle made the head twist around. Its eyes were barely moving in the sockets. The maw was oozing a sickening amount of slimy saliva. The stench from its maw was stinging in their noses already. When it furled the dry lips Midnight and Fade turned and ran to the next cave, tightly following the cracked spine.
With a loud roar the eel’s head darted forward, crashing into the skeleton. Fade and Midnight were knocked to the floor, scrambling to get up, while the eel was gnashing on a few ribs. Fade reached the cave, but Midnight tried to find his rifle. When he heard the monster crushing the brittle bones he only had enough time left to flee.
Just behind Midnight the massive head of the eel crashes against the mouth of the cave. It forced its snout into the small cavern, crushing the remainder of the spine and breaking a few rocks loose. The head blocked out the light and its foul breath made Fade gag in the far corner of the cave. Without a weapon or light, all they could do was to wait for the monster to stop grinding its teeth over the rock.
Minutes passed. After what felt like an eternity it finally retreated. But neither Fade nor Midnight dared to move. They didn’t need to see it to know it was just waiting. Soon Fade became restless. She got up and started pacing, worried about Key. Her mind was unable to focus on how to escape.
Midnight was equally restless. He saw his rifle just a few feet away from the entrance to the cave. He tried to think about how to reach it, but his mind was flooded with memories of fear gripping his body tightly. Fade’s pacing was distracting him and slowly he remembered the tense feeling of muscles wanting to lash out. “I told you to check the valley first!” He suddenly yelled at her. “Every time we end up in a shitty situation like this, it’s because of you!”
Fade stopped her pacing at Midnight’s outburst. “What?”
“‘I need to find my mom! I need to get Killjoy! I need to find out what happened to Dad!’ When does this stop?”
Fade glared at Midnight. “Do you want me to fucking apologise, because I have my priorities in order? I didn’t force you to come down here with me! Or the infested facility in Tall Tale or the fucking salt mine! But you forced me to go back to Stable Fifty-Four by dangling your Ministry of Morale good pony cuck boy shit in front of me! Or were you just hyped up for some good old anti-establishment terrorist action?”
“I was not a terrorist!” Midnight’s voice cracked. “Stop dragging me into your stupid conspiracy theory!”
“Well fuck, I don’t have to. Feather did that already for me. You took quite a liking to what Feather whispered to you about your peace activity group being an O.I.A. operation, didn’t you?”
“That’s wrong! I don’t care what Feather says about me or Blue Sky.”
“For not caring about what she says, you are really good at flipping your outlook every time she opens her mouth! You were so eager to come here until she said that you shouldn’t drag others into your stupid dreams.”
“Because it’s reasonable!”
“Was the Ministry of Morale reasonable to you, when they fucked your mind so hard, that you forgot your terrorist past? And now it looks like Feather has found a lot of room between the rest of your brain and the pink colored Ministry dick to turn you into her lapdog now!” She then chuckled. “Maybe your Blue Sky left some peace activist zebra dick as well!”
“Shut up, bitch!” Midnight roared and took off his bag and threw it at her with enough force that Fade wasn’t able to catch it. “Shut up and go out there! If you want to take on a quarray eel head to head, I won’t stop you. Pull the pin and go out in blaze of glory like all your little pegasus friends the Enclave killed.”
Fade tried to ignore him and checked the bags instead and found the plasma grenades. “You know what… Maybe that’s a fucking good idea, you prick!” Fade emptied everything from Midnight’s bag she didn’t need. With the bag only filled with about a dozen grenades, Fade stomped and then galloped to the entrance.
“Fade?” Midnight’s anger was forgotten when she rushed out, the bag held with a wing, a grenade’s pin in reach of her muzzle.
“Hey! Fuckface!” She yelled as loud as her lungs allowed.
The beast answered by rushing out of its cave again. Fade lunged forward to hide under the skull. She just reached it at the last moment when the teeth of the eel sunk into the brittle bone. The skull slid over the rocky floor and made Fade fall and she lost the bag. Among the dust, gravel and bone fragments she couldn’t find it anymore.
As the skull was slowly cracking under the force of the jaw, Fade realized she needed to get away. Looking for a way to escape she found the bag only a few feet away from her. She hesitated and the joint of the skeletal jaw burst. Fade took the bag, pulled the pin and hurled it into the maw, hoping it would get stuck between the teeth.
The skull ruptured and Fade had only seconds left before the eel would crush the huge fragments and her with them. Her heart stopped.
Midnight’s rifle cracked and the quarray eel screeched in pain. It swung its head violently. Fade ran while the bone fragments rained down on her. Looking back she saw a trail of blood running out of the eel’s eye. Then the grenades exploded and engulfed the head in rainbow colored fire.
Liquid plasma ran out of the eel’s maw as it kept screeching until Fade’s ears began to hurt. Still shaking its head, splattering plasma everywhere the creature tried to retreat back into its cave. In its desperate attempts the damaged tongue was torn and hurled out into the gorge. The blood was boiling and sizzling when it came into contact with the plasma. After the creature disappeared back into its nest, Fade and Midnight tried to ignore the dying screeches.