Fallout Equestria: Desperados V2 (of Blood and Dirt)

Desperado’s V2, Chapter 09

A Cruel Joke (Part 1)

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I felt stiff, real stiff, with almost every muscle in my body having a dull pain. The last time I felt like this was when Waterspout punished me for starting a fight in the tavern. That cursed dancer's dress had me bending in every way possible, all within the rhythm of the music.

I could have chosen the easy way out, and let the stallion I knocked around and his friends fuck me, but I had promised mom that I wouldn't whore myself out. Prism didn't want me to make the same mistake as she had, chasing after easy money and destroying myself because of it.

Though stiff, I found the strength to curl up into a fetal position, trying my best to not cry. But I missed Prism so much, I wanted her to be here, I wanted to hug her again, have her hug me. I wanted to be a family again, along with our Bridget.

But she was gone, and it was my fault!

*Click*

It was the sound of a hammer being cocked, the kind or sound only a heavy revolver could make. "I take it your sane again?" Rook asked me.

Opening my eyes, the world was no longer red, but its normal dark and gray.

"I doubt I've been sane for a long time." I muttered out.

Rook sighed and relaxed, but kept her revolver ready where she could easily grab it. "You and me both. Now if you plan to get up, please do me a favor and get up slowly. I'm sure you understand, but cannibals can rarely be trusted."

"I'm not a cannibal!" I growled at her.

She looked me dead in the eyes, "Sure as fuck foold me when you bit a chuck out ofb our friend!"

"Harp!" I whimpered out as I sat up, all while Rook didn't move, just kept herself at the ready. "Is she okay? Oh by the Goddess, what did I do?"

"You got cursed by an evil plant." Said Harp as she limped into the room. One of her legs was heavily bandaged, and she had a black eye. "But it's okay now."

I moved to get up, but Rook then drew her magnum revolver on me.

"It's fine, put the gun down." Harp told Rook with a tone of authority.

Rook did just that, but kept the revolver's hammer cocked.

Getting off what happened to be an old moldy medical bed, I found it hard to even stand. "Are… are you okay?"

She lifted up her bandaged leg, shaking it a little and wincing in pain. "Let's just say that you're a very dangerous mare. But I've had wore, remember." Harp then pulled out a tato from her bag and passed it to me.

The memory of Harp being all shot up flashed in my mind as I took the nasty fruit and bit into it. If Slowtrot hadn't returned from where ever he vanished to, she'd have died,

"Thanks, and… sorry." I apologized.

"Your not at fault, Star." Harp tried to comfort me, but I knew it was a lie.

Shaking my head, I told her. "No, I am at fault! I should have been in control, I should have done better. I… I…" tears welled up from in me, and that's when she gave me a hug.

"Star, it's okay, I don't blame you, so stop blaming yourself." Harp told ,e as she held onto me.

I held my friend tightly, as though I was scared she would leave me too.

A sharp and annoying whistle then came from Rook. "Not to be rude… naw, I want to be rude. But can you give her that damn cure, it's freeking me the fuck out."

I let go of Harp, feeling confused. "What do you mean?" I asked.

But Harp held onto me. "Nothing, it's nothing. The cruel joke just made you look like somepony else, that's all." She told me nervously. "I don't know who, but it's not going to matter once we get you that cure."

Weird?

I did a quick body check, and both to my relief and disappointment, I was still a mare and a pony. Though I would have loved to try out being a stallion for a day. But something the manes color bothered me, a deep scarlet that felt all too familiar. I stopped myself from checking more of me, feeling that I was not going to like what I found.

"Let's… get that cure." I said, my voice quivering a bit.

Another click then came from Rook as she put the hammer gently down, and holstered her revolver. "Are you sure she's okay?" The older mare asked.

Sounding annoyed, Harp then answered. "No, I'm not sure, but almost nopony here can be considered okay."

Rook shrugged. "Fine, but if she starts going crazy cannibal again, I aint taking no risks, and putting a bullet in her head."

"If I do go crazy again, I want you to put a bullet in my head." I told her.

"Enough talking about that." Harp said with a huff. "Let's trot and talk."

With Harp taking the lead, Rook and I followed, passing by another corps along the way.

"So… I'm guessing you found out the story of this place then?" I asked.

Harp nodded. "Unfortunately yes, and you're not going to like it."

"Well I'm sure as shit they were growing that damn plant down here, so what can be worse than that?" I added.

"Well, this turns out to be where Blue Skies was getting their cruel tea." Harp explained, and ya, I didn't like that at all. Though Blue Skies and their leader, Quicktrot, was more Harp and Slowtrot's problem then mine. "And the main ingredient for growing the vines and getting them to flower are dead bodies."

"Which means Golden Harvest was what? Killing ponies to feed the plants?" I tryed to guess, but was unsure of my answer.

"Maybe," Harp said. "If anything, Blue Skies knows how to cover their assed. So there was nothing that connected the two. As far as I could tell, Blue Skies was here first, and Golden Harvest just happened to set up shop above them.

"Which is a load of brahminshit." Rook added.

"I agree, but the point still stands." Harp said dejectedly. "At least once this place burns a second time, Blue Skies will lose one of their sources for chems. Though I doubt this was the only one." Her face then scrunched up in disgust. "Just thinking about it pisses me off. Somewhere, out there, she's growing punga plants to make chill. Not caring how that plant could doom Equestria if it got out."

"A what now?" Rook asked.

"It's a fruit bearing plant that produces a toxic pollen, and has a psychoactive sap that can be made into a chem called chill." Harp answered, letting out a depressing sigh. "That plant is partly why you can't go to the surface of the Marewaii Islands without a gas mask on."

"I… see." Rook said.

We finally made it to the medical room, though it was just as rusted and run down as everywhere else. But at least here the equipment was actually somewhat in okay condition. In the room was Fort playing a game of chess with Order.

The colt took a look at me and became quite nervous. But as he got up, he straightened himself out and trotted over. "Th… thank you miss Star Charter. For coming to my aid and helping my mother."

As he looked at me, I could see him blushing a little. He was fourteen years old, so I couldn't blame him for finding whoever I looked like as attractive.

"It's nothing. Truthfully, I've been a right bitch for a while, so I can't help but feel this is partly my fault." I told him as I trotted further into the room. "So where's this cure? I want to look like myself again… shit!"

There was a tall mirror, and in it I saw myself looking back at me. But my mane was a scarlet red, my coat a dark sea blue, and the face, it was my face, but I also had two nub like horns.

"Star? Star, are you okay? What's wrong, Star?" Harp said as she looked at the mirror, then at me before sighing. "Who is she, Star?"

I snarled at my reflection, yes it was mine, but it was also hers. How could it not be? "It's… my mother."

"Prism?" Harp said in confusion, but quickly realized. "Oh, I see… Let me get that cure for you."

I nodded, then trotted closer to the mirror, getting a better look at the bitch that birthed me. "Hello, Setting Sun." I said coldly as I studied my reflection. I couldn't really tell if it was her face, or mine in her colors, but I knew I hated it. "Would you have loved me if I looked like this, or would you just treated me like a burden all the same. Would you have at least given me a name, or taken me with you when you disappeared?"

"I'm guessing she's why you have such a stick up your ass about me?" Rook asked as she throttled up behind me.

The bigger war like mare couldn't be any more different from the thin and curvy mare that I currently looked like. Actually, if I had looked like this, I was sure I'd have been the most popular mare at the Ruffled Feathers. Which wouldn't be surprising, since mother was a very popular whore.

"Ya, she was a self entitled whore, and I was just her failed attempt to raise her standing in the… the fleets." I began to explain but started to choke up.

"So what did the bitch do?" Rook further asked.

I took a moment to collect myself. Between hurting Harp, and literally becoming my mother, I was starting having trouble just keeping my thoughts straight. And there she was, looking at me, mocking me.

It was like a flood as I remembered everything I tried to forget. Her insults, her beatings, and her neglect. I couldn't take it and thrused my hoof at the mirror, shattering it.

"Nothing, she did fuck all for me, then fucked off without me!" I shouted out. "I… I don't know why I still care after all these years. And after I was able to forget about her. But look at me, I'm just like her. Now both inside and out."

"Ya, join the club." Rook said dismissively, and I shot her a dirty look. "Hay now, with eyes like that, I might consider sleeping with mares again. Anyway, before I go on some long speal about my past, I already know about your deal with Lean Year."

"I told her." Harp said, as she levitated a glass vile to me. "It's the right thing to do, and I had a feeling there's more going on."

Taking the glass, I let out a sigh. "I… I guess your right. And whats this, a potion?"

"A cure for poison joke." Slowtrot's voice came through Harps pipbuck. "It happens to work on killing joke, so it should work on cruel joke."

Not wasting time, I downed the drink. "I hope so, the sooner I never see this face again, the better."

"About that?" Harp said as she got closer. "Are those horns real?"

I rubbed the nubs that were my mothers horns. "Ya, I think she mentioned that she had a bicorn father, thus relating her to some rich family or something. Those horns were half the reason she was such a successful whore."

"Well, I was thinking, maybe their wheir Bridget got her own horns. I mean, they do look golden in color like hers." My friend pointed out.

Now that I thought about it, she might be right, and that didn't make me happy. "Harp, please dont tie my daughter to that mare."

She took a step back, understanding that she nerely stepped over a line.

I turned my attention back to Rook, wanting to not talk about Setting Sun. "So, let me guess, your mother was a souless killing robot."

The big mare let out a huff. "If only. We White Scorpions are a mercenary clan, selling ourselves to the highest bidder is how we lived. My mother was no different, though she's far more of a conniving, backstabbing, con artist than a warrior. Anyways, it wasn't like she raised me, it's not the clan way."

I cocked an eyebrow at that. "What, they throw you off a cliff and wait for you to grow up down there?"

"Were not that kind of savage." She said without any humor. "No, the elders raise our foals. And they make sure we grow up loyal to the clan, not to our parents. Which for me was a good thing, since I was my mothers consolation prize for taking a bad contract and then failing to complete it. Lets just say that sometimes when a contract state that they must complete it or get fucked, the fucked part is litral. So when I finally got to meet her, all she ever saw was her own failure made manifest."

"Thats… horrible." I said, feeling a bit sorry for the older mare.

"You don't know the half of it." Rook said with a scowle. "Somehow she was able to make herself elder, so when I had my first child, she was in position to raise her."

"Keep, you mean?" Harp asked.

Rook nodded. "Ya, though it only made things worse between me and her. I was supose to have had a chiled with some welthy merchant with a thing for young mares, but insted I ran off for a month with my… cousin, and came back pregnant as a big fuck you to her."

I face hoofed. "Why would you commit insest as a fuck you… well at least you weren't sixteen at the time."

The older mare shrugged. "I was fifteen at the time actually."

Harp then bauked. "Wait, so your only forty years old?"

I looked at my friend, a bit confused.

"Keeps only twenty five years old." Harp explained to me.

I looked at Rook, the mare looking more on the later end of sixty years old then in her early fortys. "Not to be that bitch, but you look old for your age."

Room rolled her eyes at us. "I lived through a lot of shit, the kind that makes you age quickly. Anyways, my mother took Keep from me and made sure to raise her to hate me. When I had my second with a talon, my mother made sure the talons kept him, and had me take a contract far away from them."

Rook then became quiet, a slight tremble in her lip. "After my third, I had my twins, but by then I just let the bitch have them."

"Wait, why did you skip the third like that?" I asked.

"None of your fucking business!" She snapped, then took a deep breath. "After them, I sighed onto Redeye's army and threw myself into the violance. Somehow, I survived it, and found a new family among Redeye's army. I even grew to believe in Redeye's message." A snarl formed on her muzzle, and her eye twitched. "I thought… I believe that if he could unify the wasteland, then fucked up situations like the White Scorpions could become a thing of the past."

"Ya, I heard it all from Hardballer, how the slavers just took back the power." I commented.

Rook nodded. "I used to go drinking with Stern, before Redeye you see. We had the same contract, but then I got pregnant from our employer with my second child." Her eyes had become downcast and distant. "But when I met her again, she had become so cruel. Hated me too. Blamed me for why her contract from back then failed, though I knew she was in love with our contractor."

"Soo… then what?" I asked, trying to change the subject.

But Rook became silent again, glancing at her son. "Fort, wait outside."

The colt narowed he eye at her. "No mom, I want to know. After all this, why did you leave me with Redeye if you hated him?"

Another long and quiet moment came from Rook before she let out a defeated sigh. "Fine, your almost an adult anyways." She turnd her attention back to me. "I guess you know most of the brahminshit Lean Year told you, and I bet he believes it too. Well the part about Fort being Baron Flint's grandson is correct. But he has a lot of the fuckers around, not that anypony would admit to it. Baron Flint was known to fuck anypony he could, even foals."

I snatled at that. "Digusting!"

"And his heir was no different, though unlike his father, Flint jr. Lacked the charm. So he compensated it with chems and rape." Rook said bitterly. "Ya, one day I was leaving the bar, the next I knew I was in some back alley all fucked up and with a broken leg. It didn't take long to find out who did it, and not much longer to find out I was pregnant. But nothing was done, and Flint Jr. Was allowed to do it again, and again."

Rook glanced at Fort for a quick moment, a hint of shame in her eyes. "When Fort was born… I couldn't do it again, I knew my mother was coming for him, and I just couldn't have another child be raised to hate me. So I gave him to Redeye and disappeared. I… I left to go fined someplace to die. Yet everpony else kept dieing around me instead."

"Th… then why did you come back for me?" Fort asked his mother.

She looked away. "I… I didn't. I happened to pass nere the clan and they found me and dragged me back."

"But I thought you came looking for me… but…" Fort clenched his teeth. "You lied to me!"

"I lie to everypony." Rook huffed back at her son.

Fort took a step back, tears welling up in his eyes. "Bitch!" He said befor running out of the room.

"I deserve that." Rook said as she slumped back.

"You certainly do," I said coldly to her. "But why not keep up the lie?"

She looked at me with cold, almost dead eyes. "I am keeping it up."

"You mean the deal with Lean Year?" Harp then asked.

Rook nodded, "I've been thinking for a long time, and… maybe… I… I don't know anymore. But if he can have a better life, then he should."

"Wait?" I spoke up, now relizing. "You want the Harvesters to take him? After what was done to you?"

"Times changed, and he's a smart boy. Almost an adult." Rook said with a rather sad smile. "I'm pretty sure why they want him. He's Golden Harvest's hoof into White Scorpions land, and as for my mother, all she ever sees is the caps she can make. But Fort will be fine, he isn't a fuckup like me."

"You don't know that!" Harp interjected, sounding rather crossed. "If anything, you could be throwing him into the jaws of a beast, not helping him!"

Rook waved her off dismissively. "He's a White Scorpion, jumping into the jaws of beasts is what we do."

"Oh fuck off with that shit." Harp said, dropping any attempt of politeness. "You wouldn't be here if you believed that. This is not about him, it's about you! You got problems with your mother, Star's got problems with her mother. Fuck, I had problems with my mother! We all have problems with our mothers!"

"I don't. My mother and I got along real well." Slow spoke through the radio, resulting in Harp turning it off.

"Slowtrot aside, maybe instead of doing whatever this is, you just focus on being a mother." Harp calmly told Rook.

Rook took a deep breath, and looked away without saying anything.

"Well that was… a thing." I said with a sigh. "I'll go find Fort, make sure he's okay."

"It was my fault." Rook then said. "My son, my third foal… he died because of me."

Both Harp and I looked at Rook, our full attention on her.

She continued. "I kept my pregnancy a secret, not wanting my mother to take another child away from me. His father was a veteran mercenary I had been working under, not that it mattered to me, and I was sure he had impregnated a few other mares in our compony. I just wanted a child of my own."

Violently, she kicked one of the medical beds in the room, denting the metal. "But my son caught the plague and I didn't know what to do. I… I turned to the clan and… they shut the doors on me. I wanted to raise a child without the clan, and so I would not be given their aid in helping him."

It wasn't an uncommon problem out in the wasteland, foals getting sick and dying. Or some other thing getting to them. I've even heard about radroaches eating babies in their cribs while the parents sleep. Bridget could have easily died from being sick if mom hadn't had her connection with the Followers of the Apocalypse. I knew jack shit about raising a foal as a teenager, thank the Goddesses for mom.

After a pause, Rook continued. "All I could do was hold him as he grew weaker and weaker. As he became colder. Then I had to put him into the ground… if I had just followed my clans rules, he would be alive, he'd hate me like the others, but he'd be alive." She then looked out the doorway and sighed. "Fort looked just like him too. And I… I thought it was going to happen again. I thought about going to the clan, but after giving up the twins, I just couldn't do it anymore. Better that he never knew who I was then hate me."

"But the clan found him." Harp said.

Rook nodded. "I knew who he was as soon as I saw him. Keep, always grandmother's little mare, found him and gave him to her. And it made me beyond mad, and after all the shit I'd been through, the rivers of blood I had to waid. The things the elders had to say to me, about me… I just couldn't tolerate it anymore."

A bitter and somewhat unnerving chuckle came from Rook. "They all called themselves veteran mercenaries. Survivors of tartarus, and true warriors all. Yet they all broke under my hooves like dry sticks, and all I needed was my hooves to break them. I even warned them, and they laughed in my face." Again she chucked. "Oh, my mother tried to put a bounty on my head for it, but the NCR saw it as an internal conflict, and chose to not get involved. Gwadina's way of saying that she knew who my mother was, and that she and the elders definitely deserved it."

Harp gave me a worried look, then asked. "And then that's when you took Fort?"

But Rook shook her head. "No, he followed me when I left. When I sobered up after a long rest, he was there. A nine year old colt wondering if I really was his mother. It's been five years since then, and he's done more taking care of me then I've taken care of him."

"And now you're pushing him away!" I snapped at her.

"So what!" Rook said with a shrug. "I thought you wanted this! It's not like you're wrong, I'm a shitty mother, always have been, always will be."

I gritted my teeth, not finding a way or the will to argue with her.

Harp on the other hoof stepped between us. "Star, maybe you should take a step out. I'll stay with Rook while you go check on Fort. Anyways, now that you're back to normal again, I think you're safe to be on your own again."

Looking at my hooves, my fur was back to a light sea blue, and my mane a dark sea green that naturally curled about. The memory was still vague, but I could remember it again after so long. Dead Reckoning, my father, had the same colors, same messy mane that curled about, almost looking like seaweed.

Was it fate that I found his notebook and navigation gear in Blackpowder's office, that all this time I had my fathers things and never knew it. The more I started to remember, the stranger it all got.

But pondering about the past can wait.

"Alright, I'll be back in a bit." I told them.

Trotting out, fortunately it wouldn't be hard to find the colt, since there was a hoof print trail left in the dust on the floor.

After two turns, I found the colt in a room where one side was mostly a big and thick plain of glass. Fort sat in front of the glass, staring intensely through it. Trotting over, I was mildly shocked to see that on the other side of the glass was a whole mess of cruel joke vines.

"This must be where they originally harvested the flowers." I said.

Fort nodded and pointed at the ground, where I saw a decaying corpse. "Probably just tossed bodies in here, but look at that." He then pointed at another spot, where to my surprise I saw an animal. It was a small furry thing with big back paws, two long ears, and dear-like antlers. "Never thought I'd ever see a jackalope."

"A jack-o-what?" I said, a bit confused.

"Jackalopes. Their Hares that live in more magicly active places. I think. It's been a long time since I was with the Followers, but I remembered Miss Fluttershy telling us about them. She said that when she was trapped as a tree, she'd often see jackalopes taking shelter among the poison joke, and even when it became, killing joke, the jackalopes were never affected by them."

As I watched the jackalope hopping around, I then saw it bite off the stem of the cruel joke, and began eating it. "Wait, they eat those vines?"

Just as I said it, two more jackalopes hopped into view and joined the first in eating the vines.

Shrugging, I then sat next to Fort. "You know, adults really suck sometimes."

"Pot calling the kettle black." Fort said to me.

"Ya… though sometimes I forget I'm an adult." I said with a chuckle. "Doesn't help that nothing really changes after growing up. I'm just as dumb and reckless as an adult, as I was as a foal. Realy, the only change is that other adults expect you to take responsibility for your actions, and threaten to kill you if you don't."

He gave me a less than friendly glance. "Says the mare with a bounty on her head." Fort then sighed. "Am… am I a burden?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "Kid, the best part of being a young is being a burden. You eat sleep and shit, all while contributing nothing. Sometimes you even drive your parents insane… and even then, I would trade everything to be with her." From under my pipbuck, I pulled out a photo, one with Prism, Hardballer, Bridget, and myself on it. "Sometimes… We adults fail, and those we care for the most suffer for it. Somethings… can never be fixed, no matter how much we wish it so."

"It's the same way for mom. She's so broken, and… nothing I do helps her. And now she wants to send me away." I watched as tears began to well up in his eyes. If I didn't know he was from a clan of vicious mercenaries, I'd never believe it. "Am I a failure?"

Giving Fort a hug, I then told him. "You're a kid, nothing more, nothing less. The fact your mother wants to send you to ponies who could give you a better life shows that she cares. It means she's worried for you. My mother, the mare who birthed me, didn't even care enough to feed me most of the time. She didn't even care to say goodbye, just vanished with everything she owned."

Looking at the photo, and seeing how happy I looked, it prickled at my heart. "Prism found me, a little filly running with a gang at war. She was broken, lost, and so very confused. But she was also warm and kind, she even worried for me… nopony worried for me like that before and I didn't understand why she'd even bother. When she took me away from all that violance, she did her best to help me be a better pony, and in time I called her… mom. Such a worry wart, it was annoying, yet I never hated it."

Fort wiped his eyes. "I got sick once, and mom freaked out. I've never seen her so scared before. She could look down the barrel of a loaded gun and not flinch, but a minor flu had her terrified."

"And you don't think you getting captured didn't scare her?" I then asked. "She literally ran after you as soon as she heard you were in danger. Don't think she would have stopped running if we didn't offer her a ride."

"That sounds like mom." Fort said, looking more relaxed. "She stops for nothing when she's motivated."

"And her motivation was getting you back and safe." I told him, then lightly jabbed him on the shoulder. "Say, why don't we head on back now, before your mother gets worried again."

He nodded, but as he got up a jackalope jumped onto his back. "Oh hello!" He said as he levitated a tato out of a small bag he had over to the Hare.

"Where the fuck did that come from?" I asked, worried about the Cruel joke getting inside.

Fort shrugged. "Who knows, maybe they're magical." He then smiled at the strange creature. "Hey, you want to come with me?"

The jackalope tilted its head at Fort, then stopped on him and stretched out its paws. Fort then levitated another tato, which the jackalope took and happily began to eat.

"I guess that's a yes." I said as I shruged. Since I had a magical rattle-pup myself, I wasn't going to be a buzz kill.

With Fort and his new friend in tow, we returned to the medical room, where a very concerned Harp sat at a terminal.

"Oh please don't tell me there's some bigger braminshit going on." I nervously said as I trotted over.

Harp sighed. "Ya, that's about right. Order had just finished decoding a coded message on this terminal. I was hoping to get the locations of the other chem plantations. But… well, you should read this."

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