Fallout: Equestria - Deadlands

Chapters

Chapter 1 - Rose By Another Name
Chapter 2 - Zebra of a Different Stripe
Chapter 3 - Trouble With Changelings
War. War Never Changes.

Chapter 1 - Rose By Another Name

Chapter 1
Rose By Another Name

Coyote was having a bad morning.

Waking up sprawled out on the floor of his room with a horrible hangover was bad enough. The bruises on his face and the fragments of glass in his skin were rather bothersome as well, but easily treated. No, the worst thing about this morning was the discovery that yesterday’s haul of hard-earned caps were gone. Stolen, in fact.

More specifically, stolen by a snarky bitch named Whiskey.

If it had only been a few caps, the unicorn scavenger wouldn’t have cared. But this was the payout for weeks of salvage. Over two thousand bottle caps, earned through his blood and sweat, which had been meant to pay the rent, buy him some new gear, and go towards his retirement fund. To have all that taken away in a matter of seconds, courtesy a whiskey bottle to the face, was rather heartbreaking. Demoralizing, even. And maybe just a tiny bit infuriating.

Coyote had been left with two options – mope around like a loser until he eventually worked up the motivation to start over from scratch, or set out to reclaim what was rightfully his.

Stumbling up a rocky hillside in the western Deadlands, Coyote grumbled under his breath as he looked around for any sign of the mare who wronged him. According to some of the folks around Wellspring, yesterday evening she’d bought a brahmin and some supplies, hired a cheap mercenary, and galloped out of town as fast as one stuck with a slow-moving mutant cow could really go. With nothing more to work with than a vague direction (South-ish), the scavenger had slapped on his combat barding, grabbed his guns, and set out to get his caps back – or what caps remained after her apparently lavish spending spree.

Bitch.

Coyote sighed as he neared the top of the hill, and sat down to rest for a moment in the shadow of a large boulder. He wasn’t used to this much work, especially while wearing this much barding. He usually just skulked around in his beloved leather vest and some loose clothing, not full leather armor sporting steel pads and plating over his vitals. But if this little endeavor went sour, especially considering the presence of a low-quality and probably trigger-happy merc, protection was more important than comfort and aesthetics.

Taking off his black desperado hat, he swept a sandy-brown hoof through his dark, chocolate-brown mane a few times before casting his green eyes up towards the sky. As oppressive as the eternal overcast was, he found the lazily drifting cloud formations to be slightly relaxing. Idly rubbing a hoof at the tuft of fur beneath his chin, Coyote allowed himself to become momentarily lost in the sky, and let his mind drift back to the prior afternoon where all his troubles started…

Rose stared at the empty glass of whiskey on the bar in front of her, and tried to ignore the painful throbbing in her skull. Much to her disappointment, the headache was not the reward of several delicious drinks, but rather the product of a crowbar to the back of the head.

When her merchant caravan had arrived outside the small Deadlands town of Wellsping, her partner Long Haul had suggested she trot in to town to grab some supplies. Thinking nothing of the request, the mare had taken only a few steps before her friend had called out to her. “And one more thing!” his jovial voice had proclaimed.

There was a sickening thwack of metal on bone, and Rose’s world exploded into pain. Her vision was replaced by stars, and her body dropped limply to the dirt, quickly followed by the telekinetically hurled crowbar.

“I’m afraid I’mma hafta terminate our partnership,” the other merchant had apologetically informed her. His voice sounded faint and distant, yet she was vaguely aware of him standing over her. Another lance of pain, this time from her right side as he delivered a kick to her gut. Left writhing and retching up the contents of her stomach, she’d been in no shape to stop the bastard as he trotted off, with her caravan in tow. “Happy trails!”

By the time she’d recovered her senses enough to stand without dry-heaving, Long Haul was long gone. Rose was all alone in an unknown land, abandoned with only the contents of her pockets and a crowbar to her name. And a concussion. There was probably a concussion, too.

Thankfully, the small little town of Wellspring was both relatively friendly and home to a charming old doctor. Rose had enough caps on her to afford a check-up, which determined she did not in fact have a concussion or any other major head injuries. This, in turn, meant it was perfectly fine for her to blow her last remaining caps on drowning her sorrows.

Unfortunately she quickly discovered that she only had enough caps to buy a single shot of whiskey, which wasn’t even enough to drawn the sorrows of a radroach. With her left elbow on the counter and the corresponding hoof supporting her chin, Rose picked her glass up with right hoof and studied her reflection in its reflective surface.

Rose didn’t look like your average, grizzled traveling merchant, aside from the bottle cap cutie mark and the battered brown cargo jacket and matching trader cap. She was an earth mare with a vibrant coat of chartreuse green and a short, well-kept crimson mane. She also had the benefits of both youth and beauty. Her blue eyes, normally bright and brilliant, held a certain dull sadness as she looked into her reflection. Yes, she was certainly not what you’d expect from your normal travelling merchant.

Mostly because your normal travelling merchant actually had an actual caravan and things to sell.

With a sigh, Rose put the glass back on the bar with a soft clink. The bartender, who was an elderly, bespectacled earth pony with beige fur and a silver mustache, looked up from the glass he was cleaning. “Anything else for ya, missy?” he politely asked her, continuing to clean the glass with an old rag. The glass and rag perfectly matched the ones that were pictured on his flank.

Rose gave a sad shake of her head; a jolt of pain from the back of her skull caused her to wince. “No, I’m afraid not,” she sighed. “Not unless you know where I can find a few thousand caps on really short notice.”

Before the bartender could reply, the front door to the small establishment flew open and grinning unicorn stallion cantered in. Curious and wary, Rose glanced over her shoulder to quickly look him over, analyzing the stranger’s every detail. Young, handsome, light brown fur, dark brown mane, green eyes, black vest and white undershirt, black cowboy hat, brown backpack, and a cutie mark that looked like a dog skull over some coins. Interesting. “Heya Spit Shine!” the stranger enthusiastically proclaimed with a nod to the bartender.

Rose’s eye twitched. Was that really how the bartender cleaned these glasses?

“Heya Coyote!” the bartender waved in response. “I take it you got some good deals?”

The unicorn briskly trotted over to the bar, and hopped up on the stool two seats to the left of Rose. “Yup! You want the rent money now?” he cheerfully asked.

The elderly stallion gave a shake of his head. “Nah, it can wait ‘til the usual time. I’m in no rush.”

The stranger – whose name was apparently Coyote – gave a crooked smirk. “You’re just lazy.” The bartender returned his smirk, and went back to cleaning glasses. Before Rose could avert her gaze from the oddly-named stallion, the unicorn suddenly turned to smile at her. “Well hey there! I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

Rose’s eye twitched again. This guy was too chipper. Way to perky for her right now, especially with this lingering headache. “Nope, you haven’t,” she deadpanned, in no mood for his cheerful attitude.

Coyote’s smile faded slightly. “Well, uh, what’s your name?” he asked, a hint of uncertainty in his voice. “Mine’s Coyote.”

Rose tried not to smirk in triumph at having put a slight damper on his obnoxious enthusiasm. “Rose,” she flatly replied.

The unicorn tipped his hat back, and raised a curious eyebrow. “Rose what?”

Rose countered with a raised eyebrow and a question of her own. “What do you mean ‘Rose what?’”

Coyote shrugged, and averted his gaze to the empty shot glass on the bar in front of her. “Well, I just thought there might be another part to your name, like most ponies have. ‘Rose’ just seemed-”

Rose narrowed her eyes, and put on a false frowned. “A pony can’t just be named ‘Rose’ and nothing more?” she asked indignantly, simply desiring to mess with the unicorn’s head. Coyote shifted uncomfortable, and she was just about to press on and do her best to make him look like an idiot when the bartender suddenly spoke up.

“Are you done with your glass, Miss Whiskey?”

Rose allowed her head to drop, lightly bonking her forehead on the bar counter. “Dammit,” she grunted under her breath.

“Guess not,” the bartender shrugged, turning his attention elsewhere.

Coyote was clearly trying not to smirk or snicker. “So. Whiskey, huh?” he nonchalantly asked.

Rose began to lightly bonk her forehead against the bar repeatedly, which did absolute wonders for her headache. “Yesssssss…”

“Rose Whiskey or Whiskey Rose?”

“Whiskey Rose, dumbass,” the mare growled, continuing to gently bop her forehead on the counter. “Seriously, the other sounds fucking stupid.”

“How-”

Rose picked her head up to frown at Coyote. “Dad was an alcoholic merchant, mom was a Tribal of the hippy variety.”

Coyote worked his jaw thoughtfully. “I see. So do you-”

The mare’s gaze hardened. “I swear to any and all things holy, if you actually ask me whether or not I like whiskey, I will take this shot glass and shove it as far down your throat as my hoof can reach.”

Coyote flashed a sheepish grin. “So how ‘bout them geckos?”

Rose tilted her head to the side slightly, caught off guard by the random reptile inquiry. “The little lizards? Um. They’re kinda cute, I guess. Why?”

For a moment, the light-brown stallion simply stared. A small snicker was heard from the bartender. “You’re not from around here, are you?” Coyote asked warily.

“Well shit, what gave THAT away?” Rose asked with a scowl. “No, I’m from Manehatten, which is a major step up from this hellhole and its geckos.”

Coyote frowned slightly at her attitude. “Hey now, there’s no need to be pissy.”

The merchant’s eye gave yet another twitch. She wasn’t joking around anymore. Now he was just starting to get on her nerves. “I’m not pissy. You would know if I was pissy. Right now, I’m just slightly irked.”

The brown stallion gave a small sigh, before showing an apologetic smile. “Look, we’ve obviously gotten off on the wrong hoof. How ‘bout I buy you a drink?”

Rose studied the unicorn warily for a moment, before giving a sigh of her own and allowing her shoulders to slump. “Gimme a shot of whiskey.”

A funny look flickered across Coyote’s face as he obviously struggled not to seem amused. His horn began to glow with a faint green aura, and the buckles on his backpack started to unfasten. The top flap opened, and an old moneybag floated out and in front of Coyote. The burlap bag was telekinetically opened, and Rose tried not to look surprised as she glimpsed its contents - caps numbering in hundreds, if not thousands. “Might as well pay off my tab,” the stallion muttered to himself as he counted out caps, floating them out of the bag and onto the counter beside him.

An idea was forming in Rose’s head. An idea which quickly began to turn into a plan. While she considered herself to be a “good pony,” who was “nice” and whatnot, she realized that the situation she was in right now could be considered rather dire. Flat broke and alone in a strange land, she needed caps. Lots of caps, and really fast, if she ever wanted to get back into the caravan business, or even just have some hope for survival in this hellish landscape. And realistically speaking, the only way a gal like her could make any decent money was through the kindness of strangers (yeah right), selling her body to the night (hell no), or… stealing.

With a mental sigh and more than a little guilt, the mare looked up at Coyote and smiled. “Mister Coyote, was it?” she asked, her voice taking on a tone of inquisitiveness. “You never mentioned the second half of your own name.”

The stallion gave a shrug, not looking up from his cap-counting. “Ain’t got one.” Rose frowned slightly. Why had he asked about the second half of her name, when he didn’t have one himself? She opened her mouth to ask him as much, but he cut her off. “Coyote ain’t my real name,” he flatly observed.

Rose closed her mouth and gave him a curious look. “Well, what is your real name then?”

Coyote gave another shrug. “Dunno.”

Before Rose could stop and consider the etiquette of prying, her curiosity got the better of her. “How do you not know your own name?” she asked, confusion audible in her voice.

Coyote paused his cap counting, and gave a small sigh. He looked up at her with a mildly bored gaze; no doubt he’d told this story many times before. “My parents were killed when I was a baby. Bandits hit our farmstead, and some prospectors – fancy name for scavengers – saw the smoke. They found me and took me in, and it turned out I had a pretty strong knack for scavenging. Hence the name, and the cutie mark,” he casually explained, jerking his head towards his rump. His cutie mark was a profile of a canine skull – no doubt a coyote – with three gold coins beneath it. “And that’s the story of how I became Coyote the professional prospector,” he concluded with a wry smile.

Rose nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Well, Mister Coyote, I have another question for you.”

“Hm?”

Rose’s lips curled into a faint smirk. “How good are you at holding your liquor?”

About half an hour later, Coyote was staggering up the stairs towards the room he lived in above the bar. With the help of Rose, of course. “Yer a reeeeel nice mare,” Coyote observed with a goofy smile on his face and a goofier slur in his speech. “Thanks fer helpin’ me back up to mah room…”

“Oh, it’s no problem at all,” Rose said with a shake of her head, trying to ignore the guilt eating at her mind. Unlike the stallion leaning on her for support, she was entirely sober, even after several shots of her own. Fully sober, and fully aware of what she was about to do. “Do… do you want to keep drinking? I grabbed the bottle on the way up.”

Coyote beamed as he fumbled with the lock on his door. “Tha’s great! Fanf… fantastic! Nothing wrong with a nice drink with a nice mare. The more the merrier!” His face suddenly went very serious. “More drinks. Not more mares.” He tilted his head to the side, and gave Rose a stern look. “I don’t… approve of cheating. On mares. Or at cards. I’m… I’mma honorable stallion. Usually. Mostly.” His eyes shifted around furtively. “Don’t judge me.”

Rose didn’t know whether to laugh in amusement or cry in shame. As Coyote got the door open and staggered into his room, Rose sighed and followed after him. “Mister Coyote?”

Coyote turned to look back at her. “By the way, sorry about-”

Rose never got to find out what he was going to apologize for. Just as Coyote turned to face her, she swung the empty bottle of whiskey at his face with all her might. The glass shattered on impact, and the unicorn dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.

For what seemed like an eternity, Rose stared at his limp form, holding her breath. She finally exhaled a sigh of relief when Coyote began to snore. Trembling slightly and wracked with guilt, she quickly went for his saddle bag and tried not to cry as she robbed the poor idiot blind.

A few minutes later, with her pockets full over over two thousand bottlecaps, the mare descended the stairs and began to casually trot towards the bar’s exit. A cough from behind her caused her to freeze dead in her tracks. Turning slowly to look over her shoulder, Rose found the bartender giving her a rather disapproving stare. Their eyes locked. Neither said a word or made a move. Finally, Rose let out an exasperated sigh. “Oh come on,” she huffed, giving Spit Shine a knowing look. “We both know he deserved a good smack.”

The bartender gave an idle shrug. “Eh, good point.” He went back to his glasses, and Rose went off to hastily put together a new caravan and flee.

The distant echo of gunfire snapped Coyote back to reality. Leaping to his hooves, his horn flickered as he put his hat back on and checked his weapons. He had a pair of .45 semi-auto handguns holstered against his chest, and an old scopeless hunting rifle strapped to his back. Not the most imposing loadout, but telekinesis was one of his best skills, so the fact that he could wield multiple weapons at once helped to even the playing field. In theory, at last. He typically preferred to avoid combat, instead opting to just sneak around, trick, trap, or otherwise avoid his enemies. He was just a scavenger, after all. Not a professional mercenary or psychotic hitman or something of that sort.

Taking a deep breath to steel his nerves, Coyote hastily resumed his climb, though not without a fair bit of grumbled. “What am I getting myself into?”

Almost half an hour and a few rocky hillsides later, Coyote was close enough to the source of the gunfire to make out the sources. There had originally been three guns firing – the thunder of a sawn-off shotgun, the staccato clatter of a sub-machine gun, and the underwhelming cough of a low-caliber pistol. The pistol had recently fallen silent, but the shotgun and sub-machine gun continued to fire. However, the reports were now few and far between, sometimes with several minutes passing before the next blast or coughing burst.

Raiders playing with their prey, more than likely.

As Coyote neared the crest of a ridge, he heard another shotgun blast and uproarious laughter from nearby. Dropping to a low crouch, the prospector slowly inched towards the summit, before cautiously peeking over the edge.

Coyote found himself overlooking a shallow, rocky valley. There were countless boulders and rock formations scattered about, as well as a few dead trees and some patches of stubbornly rugged prairie grass. The valley was completely devoid of life, except for the two raiders and a certain merchant mare.

Whiskey Rose was cowered behind a large boulder in the middle of the valley. The rock was covered in countless pockmarks and small craters, having been subjected to quite a bit of target practice. Not far below Coyote’s position, two stallions were standing about twenty feet from each other, idly reclining against some boulders as they smoked cigarettes and carried on what sounded like a cheerful conversation. From the snatches of dialogue Coyote could hear from his vantage point, they seemed to be discussing their plans for the mare they had cornered. Rape, flaying alive, more rape, fun stuff like that.

Coyote scowled. Theoretically, there was nothing stopping him from just trotting away, and pretending this whole thing never happened. But he wasn’t that kind of pony. And nopony deserved to be left to the mercy of raiders, no matter what. Even if this Whiskey gal had wronged him, there was nothing in this world she could have done to earn a gruesome fate like that.

The scavenger-turned-potential-rescuer continued to observe the raiders, while slowly using his magic to unsling his hunting rifle. He wasn’t the best shot in the world, but they were only about a hundred feet away. A rifle shot from this distance wouldn’t be too difficult. Hypothetically, at least. As he laid himself prone and set the rifle down in front of him so he could look down the iron sights, he analyzed his targets.

One was a burly earth stallion with an icy blue mohawk, wearing a few patched of spiky armor over his slate grey fur. He seemed to be in the middle of reloading his shotgun, and he didn’t seem to be in a hurry. The other was a deep-blue unicorn with a shaggy moss-green mane, wearing leather armor much akin to Coyotes. Althought Coyote’s didn’t have nearly as much dry blood and rusty metalwork decorating it. There was a sub-machinegun levitating by his side, a 9mm judging from the design, and he didn’t seem to be aiming it anywhere in particular.

The burly earth stallion slapped the break-action shotgun shut, and gave a dark, throaty chuckle. Slipping the weapon’s bit back into his mouth, the raider casually took aim at the boulder Whiskey was hiding behind, intending to further torment her. The wind shifted; Coyote could now hear her sobbing. The retched sobs of a mare who was truly convinced she was going to die, but not before experiencing unimaginable suffering that refused to end.

The raider’s eyes went wide as his shotgun was suddenly wrenched from his mouth. Wreathed in a light green glow, the weapon quickly spun around in front of the raider and pressed both barrels against his forehead. “OH FUCK!!” he screamed, his face contorting in absolute terror as Coyote magically pulled both triggers.

There was a resounding boom, and the majority of the raider’s brain matter erupted out the back of his shattering skull. As everything above the stallion’s jaw exploded into a storm of gore, Coyote released his telekinetic grip on the shotgun and let it drop in tandem with the brute’s corpse. He’d only killed a few ponies before, and taking a life was never an enjoyable experience. But right now, his moral qualms about slaying other equines were the last thing on his mind.

Currently his mind was rather preoccupied by the blue unicorn raising an SMG towards him, a look of bloodthirsty hatred on his gore-splattered features. Coyote had expected him to take longer to recover his wits, hopefully giving him enough time to crack off a shot from the rifle. Sadly, that was not to be the case. “Shit,” the scavenger-turned-defender growled as he ducked for cover. The sub-machinegun clattered to life, and the fusillade of bullets kicked up dirt and sparks along the rocky summit of the ridge around Coyote. “Shit shit shit…” he grumbled to himself, scooting back a bit just to be safe.

“You fucker! You killed Bucky! You fucking killed Buckshot you bastard!” the raider screamed, his voice filled with loathing and anguish. Granted, his screaming was barely audible over the bark of the SMG bursts, but Coyote got the gist of it.

And Coyote loved to push ponies’ buttons! “Sorryyyyyyy!” he called out to the raider in a mocking, sing-songy voice. “Was he your spicy lover or something? Heeeey, don’t worryyyyy, there are plenty of other psychopaths in the sea.”

“FUCK YOU!!” the raider screamed, unleashing another burst of gunfire.

“Slap some duct tape on him and maybe he’ll be good as new! Hell, I’d say this is an improvement on his looks!” Coyote called out with a crooked grin.

Consumed by rage, the raider opened fire on full auto. “Fuck you! Fuck you fuck you f-” There was a dull click as the magazine ran dry, and a look of confusion briefly flickered across the enraged killer’s face. “-uck?”

Coyote hopped up, and magically leveled his rifle with the psychopath’s head. “You!” he cheerfully chimed as he squeezed the trigger. There was a resounding crack as the weapon fired, and its report echoed through the whole valley.

A large plume of dust erupted somewhere behind over the raider, and both he and Coyote shared a look of confusion at the fact he was still alive. “What?” the both asked in unison.

Stupid old rifles and their crappy iron sights.

“Shit!” Coyote snarled, quickly working the bolt on the rifle. The raider let out a laugh of triumph, and dove behind a boulder for cover. By the time Coyote had chambered the next round, his foe was fully concealed. “Great…” he grunted in annoyance.

Without warning, a field of blue arcane magic wrapped itself around his rifle. “Gah fuck!” Coyote yelped, jumping backwards and throwing all his focus into keeping control of his weapon. The new aura of energy struggled to overpower his green-hued telekinesis, and the rifle shuddered and danced wildly as the two unicorns struggled for dominance. Finally, Coyote managed to drag it back out of the raider’s line of sight, weakening his focus and allowing the weapon’s proper owner to regain control. The blue magic faded, and Coyote sat down to catch his breath while eying the still-hovering rifle warily. “Shit… That could have been bad…” he muttered, slightly panting as beads of sweat ran down the side of his face. “That… That coulda… Hey wait.”

A wolf-like grin flickered across Coyote’s features.

A moment later, Coyote and his rifle popped up atop the ridge. The raider was waiting, sitting atop his boulder armed with only psychotic grin. As soon as Coyote and his weapon were visible, the demented killer put all of his arcane focus into wrenching the rifle out of the prospector’s telekinetic grip. Coyote tried to resist, but the raider tore the weapon from his grasp with ease. “Shit, so much for that plan,” he grunted.

“Alright, hooves up, fucker!” the raider barked, leveling the rifle with Coyote’s forehead. Judging from the demented glee sparkling in his eyes, the psychotic unicorn clearly had plans for his new hostage. “If I see your horn glow, I pull the trigger!”

Coyote tilted his head to the side curiously. “What, like this?” he asked obliviously, just as his horn flared with a vibrant glow.

True to his word, the raider pulled the trigger. There was a dull click as the rifle tried to fire an empty shell casing.

At the same time, Coyote put all of his own focus into one of the spikes on the raider’s vest. In one swift motion, he broke it loose, brought it to the raider’s neck, and slit his throat from ear to ear. The blue glow around the rifle disappeared, and the weapon dropped to tumble down the rocky hillside. A few chocking gurgles escaped the raider’s ruined throat before he unceremoniously toppled off the rock and landing in a convulsing heap. He was dead in seconds.

Coyote averted his gaze from the twitching body, trying to fight back the waves of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. He’d never slit another pony’s throat before. It was a rather gruesome and personal method of killing somepony, and it was one he sincerely hoped he would never have to use again. He also couldn’t shake the feeling that the look of pleading fear in the raider’s eyes as he was slain would forever haunt his dreams.

Coyote took a moment to throw up before beginning his descent down into the valley.

Rose had watched the final showdown between Coyote and the last raider. Eyes wet with tears, she’d screamed into her hooves when the raider had wrenched Coyote’s rifle away, and again when he tried to pull the trigger. Twice in a matter of seconds, she had been thoroughly convinced that she’d gotten an innocent stallion killed.

But instead, Coyote had pulled a clever trick, and Rose had felt no remorse as the raider’s lifeblood had fountained from his neck. She’d instead been left with a mixture of relief at having escaped the raiders, and dread for what Coyote may do to her. But as Coyote had thrown up after killing the raider, she’d realized that a stallion who couldn’t stomach killing raiders would surely be unable to torture a defenseless mare.

She was safe.

With this realization, numbness washed over her. She was physically and mentally exhausted, and more than a little traumatized. Sinking back down behind the boulder and sniffling softly, Rose curled up on her left side and quietly waited for Coyote to arrive.

Somewhere nearby, she heard the unmistakable sound of a stallion tripping over some rocks and tumbling down a hill. “Ow! Ow! Shit! Ow! Fucking shit! Dammit that hurt! Gah, stupid rocks! Raiders are fine, but rocks give me trouble? Seriously? Dammit!” Despite everything she’d been through in the last half hour, Rose couldn’t help but softly smirk at the sound of Coyote yelling in frustration.

A few minutes later, she heard the crunch of gravel and underhoof slowly drawing closer to the boulder. “Miss Whiskey?” she heard Coyote call out cautiously. “You alright? Still alive?”

Rose let out a small sigh at being called Whiskey; he was probably doing that to mess with her. “Alive and well, Mister Coyote,” she quietly called back. “Generally speaking.”

Coyote’s sigh of relief was easily audible. “Good to hear. You’re not gonna shoot me or anything if I come over there, are you Miss Whiskey?”

“No, but I might throw something at you if you keep calling me Whiskey,” she bluntly warned him.

Coyote peeked his head over the boulder, a crooked smirk on his face. “Hey now, I think I have the right to call you whatever I want, seein’ as I saved your life even after you robbed me blind. My face still hurts a bit, by the way.”

Rose pulled her cap down over her eyes. “Don’t remind me…” she weakly muttered. “I’m not proud of that, you know.”

Coyote cocked his head to the side. “Um, if ya ain’t proud of it, then why did you do it?”

Rose was silent for a while. Finally, she let out a sigh and shook her head. “I didn’t know what else to do. I needed money, and I had no other way to get it. What was I supposed to do, whore myself out?”

Coyote pondered her words for a moment. “Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point there.” He then hopped over the boulder and sat down beside the prone mare, startling her slightly. He tilted his hat back a bit, and craned his neck to look around. “Anyhoo, I thought you bought yourself a merc, among other things?” he curiously inquired. “No sign of ‘em. Must be a shit bodyguard.”

Rose let out an annoyed snort. “He rode off with the brahmin this morning while I was asleep. I tried to follow him, but as you can see, I ran into a bit of a raider problem.”

“Ah. So he’s a reeeeeally shit bodyguard. Gotcha.” The stallion looked down at Rose with a slight grin. “Wait, you slept through being robbed? Seriously?”

Rose pushed her cap back up so she could give Coyote a dirty look. “I’m a heavy sleeper, alright?”

“I bet you snore.”

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks!” Coyote quipped with a pleasant smile. “You’re not my type, and I ain’t really into the whole ‘angry sex’ thing.”

Rose resisted the urge to punch her rescuer. “Okay, ignoring the last few rounds of mutual insults,” she muttered, “Thank you for saving me.”

Coyote shrugged. “No problem. I mean, what was I supposed to do?” he asked rhetorically. Casting his gaze to the sky, the stallion frowned slightly. “I couldn’t leave you or anypony else that, whether or not you wronged me. Just wouldn’t have been right.”

“Thanks…”

Coyote nodded, before casting his gaze to the pistol laying in the dirt nearby. “Jammed?”

The vibrantly green mare sat up, and gave the stallion a confused look. “Yeah. How’d you know?

Coyote frowned. “Most ponies would have given up and shot themselves before running out of ammo. Jam was the only other reason you’d have stopped shooting before I got here.”

Rose’s shoulders and ears drooped. “Oh. Yeah.” She averted her gaze. “That… was my backup plan, yes. Thanks again…”

“Don’t mention it.” The unicorn’s horn began to glow, and the pistol hovered over towards him. “Y’know, all the caps you stole from me, and you bought a Zebrican Red Nine,” he remarked with a bemused smirk. He shook his head in disapproval. “Tsk tsk tsk. No wonder if jammed.”

Rose had no idea what he was talking about, though she wasn’t liking his patronizing attitude. “A Zebra what? What’s wrong with it?” She didn’t use guns much, and since the kick usually hurt her teeth, she’d just bought a small pistol she thought would have less recoil.

Coyote gestured a hoof at the levitating weapon, and began to telekinetically disassemble it. “Zebra sidearm from the War. Semi-auto nine millimeter, hence the red ‘9’ printed on the handle. Cheap and mass produced, highly unreliable even two centuries ago. No surprise, since most Zebras preferred to use blades and martial arts in close quarters combat rather than sidearms. They were mostly just for show, I’m guessing. This one’s in pretty bad shape, too.” He floated the parts closer so he could inspect them. “Yup, terrible shape. I’m surprised it still fired to begin with.”

The earth mare gave him a dumbfounded stare. “How do you know all that?”

Coyote reassembled the pistol and magically hurled it over his shoulder. “I’m a scavenger, remember? Mind you, I prefer the term ‘prospector’ since it sounds more professional and respectable. I find old stuff, fix what I can, and sell what I don’t want for myself. You’d be surprised what you can learn from old books, comics, newspapers, computers, and other stuff I find while scrounging through ruins.”

“Impressive,” the earth mare mused.

Coyote nodded, and stood up to dust himself off. “Eeyup. And speaking of scrounging, let’s go loot those fuckers, then grab my rifle and go get my brahmin back.”

Rose did a double-take. “Wait, what?”

The armored stallion raised an eyebrow. “What, do you have a problem with stealing from dead raiders? C’mon, they-”

“No, I mean, what was that about the brahmin?” Rose asked, narrowing her blue eyes warily.

Coyote flashed a crooked smirk. “Well, you bought it with my money, so doesn’t that technically make it mine? Pack brahmin are slow, so even with a few hours head start, we should still be able to theoretically catch up before too late in the afternoon. If we’re lucky, we can probably make it all the way back to Wellspring with the brahmin before nightfall.”

“Theoretically,” the mare deadpanned. “So, what, we get the cow back and you get a refund and we’re square?”

“Well, yeah, pretty much. Unless of course you want to do scav work with me until you can pay me back for all those caps, which I doubt you want to do,” Coyote remarked with a smirk. “Though, I promise I’d be a good boss.”

Rose hopped to her hooves and briskly trotted off towards the dead raiders. “Right, loot the bodies, then get the brahmin. Let’s go, hurry up, chop chop!”

Luck seemed to actually be on Coyote and Rose’s side. They’d spent a few hours following the trail the merc and brahmin had left, mostly in silence aside from some light travel banter. Rose was from Manehatten, Coyote was afraid of heights, and other relatively useless information had been exchanged. Finally, as they crested a rocky hillside topped with some tall prairie grass, they’d noticed two figures in the distance.

Using two sets of binoculars they’d scavenged from the raiders, Coyote and Rose both scoped out their target. “What an idiot,” Rose grunted as she watched the mercenary drag the brahmin along by the reigns. “That’s not how you lead a brahmin. He’s clearly got no idea what he’s doing.”

Coyote studied the gun-for-hire. Light leather and metal barding, a sub-machinegun, looked like a green-furred and black-maned unicorn. “Hm. I’d rather avoid a straight fight. Maybe we can try to reason with him?” he muttered.

“I dunno, he seemed kinda jumpy, what little we talked,” Rose said with a frown. “The moment he sees us, he’ll probably-”

Off in the distance, a giant trap-door spider the size of a tank popped out of the ground and pounced upon both the brahmin and the mercenary. With a scream and a moo, the two were crushed beneath its weight, blood spurting into the air as the monster’s fangs punched cleanly through the pony. With the brahmin squirming beneath its forelegs and the dead mercenary dangling from its mandibles, the giant arachnid dragged its dinner back down into its burrow. With a final forlorn moo from the mutant cow, hunter and prey disappeared into the creature’s dark lair.

The trap-door of web-enforced earth slammed shut, and that was that.

Coyote telekinetically tossed his binoculars over his shoulders, stood up, and turned to casually trot back towards Wellspring. “Welp. Looks like you work for me now,” he stated with an unenthused deadpan. “Huzzah.”

Rose continued to stare through her binoculars, her mouth hanging agape in stunned disbelief. “Did… did that just fucking happen? Did that really…?! Does… does shit like that happen normally down here?!”

“Eeyup,” Coyote sighed wearily. “Welcome to the Deadlands.”

End Chapter 1

-Coyote has gained Experience Points!
-Coyote has lost 2,000 caps!
-Coyote has gained a new Companion!

Author's Note

Some character art, done by yours truly, to help illustrate the appearances of our protagonists...

Coyote

Whiskey Rose

Chapter 2 - Zebra of a Different Stripe

Chapter 2
Zebra of a Different Stripe

As the sun reached high noon above the Deadlands, gunfire echoed through the halls of a forsaken Sparkle Cola factory. The clatter of small arms was quickly replaced by the zapping of magical energy weapons, followed by terrified screams of a certain unicorn scavenger and his snarky merchant companion.

Coyote hadn’t been joking when he told Rose she would be working with him until she could pay off her debt. She’d still felt rather awful about robbing him and costing him over two thousand caps, so she had shown very little opposition to the idea. Besides, the arrangement was rather beneficial to both of them beyond just paying back her debt. An assistant to help Coyote with his scavenging would be very useful, and Rose found herself with a guaranteed place to stay. Granted, that place was on Coyote’s sofa until she could afford a room of her own at the bar, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Though at the current point in time, as she and Coyote sprinted for their lives with a psychotic security robot right on their tails, Rose was having serious second thoughts about this arrangement. They’d only been working together for two days, and she was already about to die.

The hovering robot was robot was comprised of a silver, spherical body sporting several mechanical limbs tapering off in claws, saws, and various weapons. It had three optical sensors mounted on stalk-like protrusions, and each of the “eyes” was glowing with a rather malicious-looking shade of red. “Surrender, trespassing Zebra scum! Justice shall be swift and painful!” its synthetic voice bellowed much too enthusiastically.

“For the last time, we’re not Zebras!” Rose yelled back over her shoulder as the pair galloped for their lives. No matter how many corners they turned or doors they barreled through, the thing just wouldn’t give up its pursuit. And in their desperation to lose the security droid, the two ponies had managed to get lost in the ancient factory, with no idea where the exit was.

“Less talking!” Coyote yelped. “More fleeing!” His horn flickered with an emerald glow, and a nearby door ripped off its hinges to levitate behind them as a wooden shield. However, whatever hopes of protection the door offered disappeared, along with the door itself, as the robot sprayed it down with a flamethrower. “Well shit!”

Rose squealed in pain and terror as flames licked at the tip of her tail. “Think of something, you idiot!”

Coyote’s eyes darted around the hallway, frantically searching for some sort of inspiration or idea. “Um, um, shit, um, uh…” he muttered, wracking his brain for some sort of plan. Another stray energy beam zipped past his ear and slammed into a vending machine up ahead, kicking off a flurry of sparks and globs of molten metal.

As he watched the side of the beverage dispenser melt, an idea finally clicked in the scavengers head.

“Excuse me!” he yelled back over his shoulder to the over-zealous guard. “Before you kill us, can we try some delicious Sparkle Cola?”

The hovering robot metaphorically skidded to a stop in mid-air. “Oh! Would you like some free samples?” the construct asked with cheerful enthusiasm. Coyote’s hunch about the guard’s programming had been correct – ensuring customer satisfaction overrode murdering trespassers.

Rose and Coyote managed to avoid tripping as they both halted their galloping and skid to a stop. “Why certainly!” Coyote beamed. “We’ll wait right here while you go fetch the tasty beverages for us.”

The robot waved one of its claws in a friendly manner. “Alrighty. You two Zebra bastards don’t move a muscle, and I’ll be riiiiight back with your drinks and well-deserved deaths.” And with that, the security construct hovered off to find some fresh Sparkle Cola.

The two ponies stood in the hallway in silence for several seconds, before Rose turned to whisper to Coyote. “Run?”

He was already halfway out the building.

Once they had a safe distance between themselves and the deathtrap soda plant, Coyote and Rose sat down to catch their breath. Rose also took the opportunity to start punching the stallion in the shoulder. “You stupid idiot! If you hadn’t started shooting, I could have tried reasoning with it!”

“Ow, stop!” Coyote hissed, trying to bat her hooves away. He’d gone back to wearing his beloved vest and a blue undershirt, so he no longer had the luxury of armor or barding to protect him from Rose’s surprisingly painful blows. “Cut it out! Besides, the dumb robot was already in ‘rawr kill all Zebras!’ mode when I ~ow~ started shooting! Have you ever tried reasoning with ~ouch!~ a Mister Hoovesy when it’s in ‘murder everything’ mode? It doesn’t work!”

Rose finally stopped hitting the scavenger, and turned away from him in a huff. “Fine. Whatever. What were we looking for in there, anyway?” Coyote had only told her they’d be going to an old factory he’d heard about, and that there were a few things in particular he wanted to look for. He hadn’t told her any of the specifics though, and she hadn’t cared enough about the junk to push the subject. But now that they’d almost been turned into glittering piles of ash over it, she was much more curious about their quarry.

Coyote shrugged. “Well, I wanted to see if I could find some of those rarer bottles of the special Sparkle Cola flavors. Those things sell for a ton. Plus, some mule told me that if I could find a bottle cap press, he’d pay me-”

Rose resumed beating the tar out of Coyote. “You fucking dumbass!” she barked, pummeling him with a flurry of blows to the shoulder. “A bottle cap press?! Do you know how fucking illegal those are to have, let alone sell?! You almost got us killed over that?!”

Once again on the defensive, Coyote flinched away and tried to shield himself from her fury. “Ow! Fuck! Ow, stop! No, I didn’t know they were illegal! I barely know what the damn thing looks like, he just showed me some sketches! Shit, stop hitting me! What’s the big deal?!”

The angry mare briefly paused in her assault to explain things to Coyote. “The big deal is that ponies who get involved with that stuff usually wind up getting their asses kicked, or worse! The bottle cap economy in most of the Wasteland, Deadlands included, is run by the bigger caravan companies and families. Ever wonder where new bottle caps come from, and where old, busted up ones go? Yeah. Them! So when some bozo starts cranking out new bottle caps, it screws up an already unstable economy. And when the caravan syndicates find out, they deal with that bozo through any means necessary. Usually involving Talon mercs and a few loads of buckshot! Sooo… Do you realize what all this means?” she asked with a falsely pleasant, patronizing smile.

Coyote looked around uncertainly. “Um…”

Rose grabbed the unicorn’s hat off his head, and smacked him across the face with it. “It means you’re an idiot!”

With an angry snort, Coyote telekinetically reclaimed his hat and put it back atop his head, slotting his horn back through the gap in the brim. “Alright, alright, I get it. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know it was illegal, I didn’t know it would cause us so much trouble. I was just trying to get us some caps. I had no idea it was that big a deal, and I especially had no idea we’d end up with a fucking robo-guard on our asses for it.”

“Apology accepted, I suppose,” Rose sighed. “Even if you did almost get me fried. Seriously,” she gestured to the singed tip of her tail, “Look how close that thing got to roasting me!”

With a sigh and a shake of his head, Coyote turned to begin trotting back towards Wellspring. “Come on. We’ve got a few hours’ worth of trotting ahead of us. You can complain and hound me all you want on the way.”

Rose took him up on that offer. Trotting along alongside him, she resumed berating the prospector. “And another thing! You left without me! I was standing there, wondering if it was safe to run or not, and when I turn around, you’re gone! Just ran off and left me to die, asshole!”

Coyote sighed. “It’s gonna be a long trip…”

“So what’s Manehatten like?” Coyote idly inquired. He and Rose were about halfway home, and were following along an old abandoned highway. Aside from pausing to check the occasional scorched hulk of an ancient carriage, the two didn’t really have much else to do to pass the time besides make small talk or play I Spy. And I Spy was extremely boring when being played in the middle of a desolate landscape.

Rose shrugged. “It’s a ton of old buildings and deathtraps full of monsters, ghouls, and raiders. There are a few settlements, scav posts, and other little places where ponies live, and then there’s Tenpony Tower.”

“Tenpony Tower? Oh, right, the place where DJ Pon3 broadcasts from,” the scavenger nodded along.

Rose raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you listen to the DJ?”

“Sometimes,” Coyote shrugs. “The reception down here is shit, but on a good day you can pick him up. I haven’t listened in awhile, though. I assume things are still pretty much the same though. Raiders makin’ folks miserable, that Red Eye fella building himself an empire on the backs of slaves, yadda yadda.”

At the mention of Red Eye, Rose averted her gaze towards a rather fascinating rock. “Yeah, same old same old,” she muttered.

A moment of silence passed, before Coyote returned the conversation to its original topic. “So, Manehatten’s pretty much a hellhole, huh?”

“Hm?” Rose looked back to Coyote, slightly startled from her thoughts. “Oh, yeah. Lots of manticores. Bloodwings, too. Y’know, big nasty bats that-”

“Oh, we’ve got bloodwings down here, too.”

“Really? Shit,” Rose groaned. “I hate those things. So damn creepy.”

“Do you have Cazadores up there?” Coyote inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“The hell is a Castadoor?”

“Caz-a-dor. Giant wasp,” the stallion replied with a shrug. “Very hostile, and very poisonous. And sometimes they lay eggs in their victim, and-”

Rose blanched at the thought. “Stop,” she squeaked. “I get the picture. Castadoors equal really really bad. Understood.”

“Also got geckos.”

The merchant sighed. “What do they do, wear their victims skin or something fucked up like that?”

Coyote smirked. “Nah, just a big ass lizard.”

“Yaaaay.”

“Yeah, they-” Coyote suddenly froze mid-stride, and narrowed his eyes. “Wait a sec.”

“Hm? What is it?” Rose asked, slightly concerned by his change in demeanor. Coyote didn’t respond, instead crouching low and telekinetically pulling a pair of binoculars from his saddle bag. As he brought them up to his eyes, the merchant looked off in the direction he was observing. Further down the road she could see a small plume of smoke ascending into the cloudy sky. “What is that?”

“Campsite,” Coyote muttered. “Somepony’s cookin’ over a campfire. They’re alone. Looks like they’re wearin’ a cloak, or something. I can’t really tell, but I don’t see weapons.”

“Should we go around them or something?”

Coyote stood up, and slid the binoculars back into his pack. “Nah. Probably just a traveler. Even if it is an ambush or something, I’d rather walk into a trap I’m expecting, than try to circle around and fall into a scorpion nest or Cazador hive or some shit like that.”

Rose shuddered at the thought of Cazadors. “Right. Let’s keep moving then.”

Coyote magically checked his pistols and rifle to make sure they were loaded, and then resumed his trot. If the stranger camping out turned out to be a threat, he’d be ready. And if not, Coyote was kinda hoping they’d share some of whatever they were cooking. Running for his life and putting up with Rose had left him rather hungry.

A short while later, the Coyote and Rose found themselves trotting near enough to the roadside campsite to see who the owner was, and what they were cooking. The owner was clad in a dark brown traveling cloak, and beneath that their attire seemed to be a mess of rags and loose robes. Their face was obscured by a hood and cowl, keeping their exact identity a secret. They were laying on their stomach with their legs folded beneath them, and they had an old battered copy of the Canterlot Medical Journal open on the ground in front of them. And the food cooking on the campfire was a rather large mole rat, impaled upon a spit and roasting over the flames. Before Coyote or Rose could say anything or just keep trotting, the stranger turned their hooded head up from the book to face them.

“Greetings travelers. Care to take a seat? Or would you like to have a bite to eat?” they asked. Their voice was rather coarse and gravely, even a bit raspy, much like that of a ghoul’s. Coyote looked them over again, but he couldn’t see a single patch of skin or fur to confirm whether or not they were actually a ghoul or not, or determine their gender.

Coyote looked slightly surprised by such hospitality, while Rose looked rather disgusted by the thought of eating meat. “Um,” Coyote looked back and forth between the stranger and Rose. “Thanks stranger. But we-”

“Ah, you don’t eat meat, do you? My mistake,” the stranger said with a shake of their head. “It’s hard to tell who will or won’t partake. Some ponies don’t like meat, while other’s do. I’m sorry if I have offended you.”

Rose went rigid, her eyes widening slightly as a sudden realization hit her. Coyote just smiled warmly at the hooded stranger. “Ah, no worries. You ain’t offending me none. Actually, I don’t mind-”

“Let’s go, Coyote,” Rose suddenly hissed.

The scavenger gave her an odd look. “Huh?”

Rose gave him a stern, serious look. “I said, let’s go.”

Coyote looked back and forth between Rose and the stranger. “Why, what’s wrong?”

The mare nodded to the stranger with a scowl. “It’s a Zebra.”

Coyote blinked twice. “What?”

The stranger scoffed. “Racist.”

“See?” Rose growled. “They admit it.”

“Oh no,” the stranger waved a rag-shrouded foreleg at the mare. “That was just an observation, remarking on your discrimination.”

Coyote shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Um, Rose, what makes you say they’re a Zebra?”

The mare continued to scowl. “They’re speaking in rhymes. Only Zebras speak in rhymes like that.”

The stranger chuckled. “Oh nooooo,” they rasped sarcastically. “Speaking in rhymes automatically makes me a striped equine. How terrible.”

“That one didn’t rhyme,” Coyote muttered.

Rose rolled her eyes. “Only Zebras speak in rhymes, but Zebras don’t speak only in rhymes, dumbass. Don't you pay attention to the old stories and legends?”

“Well what difference does it make?” the scavenger shrugged. “So what if they’re a ghoul, or a zebra?”

“My goodness, another accusation,” the cloaked figure muttered hoarsely. “Zebra, ghoul… What’s next? Crustacean?”

“Oh hey, that one rhymed…” Coyote smiled in amusement.

“They’re accusations that make sense, considering your voice and rhyming, and the fact that you’re all dressed up to hide your identity,” Rose growled. She then turned to frown at Coyote. “And what do you mean ‘what difference does it make?’ You of all ponies should know what’s wrong with this, Coyote! You know all about the War, and what it did! Every day, you dig through wreckage and bones, just to make a living! All because of the Zebras! Zebras destroyed Equestria! They made everything this way! They killed millions!” she snarled. “They-”

The stranger coughed. “They. Not me. I am not that old, you know.”

Rose narrowed her eyes. “Or are you? If you’re a ghoul, you could be that old. Maybe you’ve been around since the day the bombs dropped! You could have been here, in Equestria, doing Goddess knows what!”

Coyote sighed. “Rose, you’re being unreasonable.”

“No I’m not!” the mare angrily barked. “I’m being a pony! I’m-”

Coyote suddenly turned to look at the cloaked stranger. “What’s your name anyway?”

Rose gave Coyote a flat stare. “Are you fuckin’ serious?”

“What? Just being polite,” Coyote replied with a faint smirk.

The stranger, who had gone back to reading their book, looked back up at the stallion. “Mim,” they politely answered, before looking back down at the medical text. “My name is Mim.”

“Mim, huh?” Coyote mused, rubbing the back of his head. “That’s kind of an odd name for a pony.”

“See?!” Rose exclaimed with flailing hooves. “Mim’s not a pony name! It’s a ‘something else’ name! And this something else is obviously a Zebra! Look, they’re even eating meat!”

Once again, Coyote shrugged. “So? I eat meat,” the scavenger aloofly observed.

Rose fixed the unicorn stallion with a stare of disbelief. “You… you what?”

“What? I actually know some really good recipes,” Coyote grinned. “Ever had smoked iguana with a spicy barbeque glaze?”

Mim looked up from their book. “That actually sounds quite appealing. Would you be interested in sharing?”

“Sure!” was the prospector’s enthusiastic reply, which only made Rose growl in frustration and start trotting away. “Oh come on, Rose! You’re being ridiculous!”

“No I’m not!” the earth mare screamed indignantly. “I’m doing my patriotic duty to the great nation of Equestria by hating its eternal foe!”

Coyote turned to smirk at Mim. “You know, the irony is, we almost got killed a couple of hours ago by a robot who thought we were Zebras.”

Mim chuckled beneath their hood. “Heh, that is somewhat amusing.”

Rose stomped back over to the unicorn and stared him straight in the eye. “It’s not traveling with us.”

“Who mentioned traveling?” Mim idly asked. “I’m just cooking.”

“Stop rhyming!” the green mare snapped. “It’s annoying!”

“You just rhymed,” Coyote muttered. Rose punched him in the shoulder. “Ow! Ugh. Anyway,” he looked back at Mim, “Where are you heading?”

The cloaked “Zebra ghoul” shrugged. “I was heading to a town that’s nearby. I think Wellspring was the name of it. Why?”

“You’re rhyming just to mess with me now, aren’t you?” Rose grumbled.

Mim shrugged again. “My apologies. Old habits die hard.”

“SEE?!”

“Actually, that I did just to mess with you,” Mim observed cheekily.

Coyote stepped between the angry mare and the passive aggressive “Zebra.” “Hey now, you two play nice. Even IF Mim is a zebra ghoul who’s over two hundred years old, which I doubt, I personally don’t have a problem with them. They’re still trying to survive out here, just like you and me. The War’s over,” he sighed. “Stripes, spots, don’t matter what we’ve got on our coats. Every pony, zebra, griffin, mule, or whatever is equal in the Wasteland. Seriously, there are bigger issues out here than old interspecies rivalries.” He looked back and forth between Rose and Mim, and frowned. “Now are you two going to be reasonable? Or are we just going to keep opening old wounds and continue to be stupid about this crap?”

Rose glared at Coyote for a long time, before sighing and lowering her gaze. Mim simply went back to reading. “Hm. You are wise, Mister Coyote,” the “Zebra” remarked as they swept a cloth-wrapped foreleg over their book to turn a page. “Few ponies are willing to stop and look at the big picture. They cling to old grudges, unhealing wounds. Of course, I do not fault them for it. I am sure there are many, many Zebras who still hate ponies. These things cannot be helped, usually. But you… You are different. I like that.”

Coyote smiled sheepishly, blushing slightly at the random praise. “Oh, um, thanks.”

“I’m sorry for being such a bitch,” Rose suddenly sighed.

Mim turned another page of their book. “Apology accepted.”

“Actually,” Rose frowned, “I was apologizing to Coyote, not to you.”

Coyote groaned. “Oh come on, not this again. Can we just sit down and enjoy some nice roasted mole rat together, as mutual survivors of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, rather than foes? I’m kinda hungry anyway.”

With a nod of their hooded head, Mim gestured to the other side of the campfire. “You are welcome to take a seat. Both of you.”

Coyote looked over at Rose, waiting to see her response. The merchant mare gave a roll of her eyes, and with a sigh trotted over to sit down on the far side of the campfire, well away from Mim. Coyote smiled, and trotted over to take a seat as well. “So, Mim, you said you were going to Wellsping?”

Mim nodded. “Yes. Also, help yourself to the mole rat.”

“Thanks,” the scavenger smiled. “We’re headin’ that way, too.” His horn flickered, and one of the mole rat’s roasted legs ripped free. As he hovered it over to bite into, he idly asked: “You wanna tag along with us?”

Rose scowled. “Oooooh no. No no no. I am not traveling with a Zebra.”

“I can’t believe I’m travelling with a Zebra,” Rose grumbled.

Sure enough, Mim had accepted Coyote’s offer. Rose had begrudgingly agreed to allow it, but only on the condition that Coyote walked between them, and Mim still kept their distance from her. There had been much eye rolling from Coyote, of course.

Strangely, Mim had not eaten any of the mole rat they cooked, allowing Coyote to eat his fill before simply leaving it behind. Coyote guessed they didn’t want to be seen eating, as that may allow their face to be glimpsed. Maybe they really were a Zebra. Or maybe they just enjoyed dangling the mystery over Rose’s head.

Probably the latter.

“Yes, I know, you have made that very clear,” Mim sighed, before turning to Coyote. “So how much longer is Wellspring from here?”

“About thirty minutes, I’d guess. Why, in a hurry?” he asked, before speeding up his trot and moving a few yards ahead of his two traveling companions. “We can-”

Mim froze. “Wait. Mister Coyote!”

Coyote looked back over his shoulder. “Hm?”

There was a click, followed by a beep.

With a yelp, Coyote jumped backwards, his horn lighting up. A small tan saucer wrenched free from a patch of rubble less than a foot in front of him, wreathed in a bright green glow. Filled with terror, Coyote hurled the active landmine with all his telekinetic might.

The device flew about five yards in front of him before exploding.

While not directly caught in the blast, Coyote was still hurled to the ground by the force of the pressure wave. Without the protection of armor, his body was defenseless against the storm of shrapnel created by the landmine exploding in mid-air. Several fragments of white-hot metal struck the scavenger, tearing through his flesh and spilling his blood upon the pavement. While most of the wounds were merely cosmetic flesh wounds, his right foreleg took several direct hits as he'd tried to shield himself with it. And judging from the amount of blood pouring from the leg, something vital had been hit.

“Coyote!” Rose screamed, immediately galloping to the fallen stallion’s aid.

Mim simply stood their ground, turning their hooded head from side to side. “Miss Rose, are you good with a gun, or first aid?”

Rose ignored Mim’s inquiry, instead rushing to crouch over Coyote’s sprawled form. “Coyote! Coyote can you hear me?!” she yelled, rolling the bloodied stallion over onto his back.

Coyote blinked, and weakly raised his head to look at Rose. Blood was freely flowing from several small cuts, as well as his nose. His eyes also held a glazed look. The stallion was no doubt stunned, maybe even concussed. “Oh hey Rose. You see that ‘splosion?” he groggily asked, before flashing a grin that revealed blood-stained teeth. “It was kinda cool. My leg hurts.”

Rose looked down at the scavenger’s leg, and realized how bad the bleeding was. While several of the wounds were freely flowing, waves of crimson lifeblood gushed heavily from one gash in particular with every beat of Coyote’s heart. Rose didn’t know much about first aid, but it didn’t take an idiot to realize an artery had been hit. Without treatment, Coyote would bleed to death soon. If she could just feed him a potion, maybe-

A burst of machine-gun fire clattered from nearby. Rose screamed and threw herself over Coyote, while Mim continued to simply stand by idly, acting almost as if bored. “Miss Rose, I believe we have company,” the cloaked not-a-pony factually observed.

Sure enough, three stallions had emerged from hiding nearby, galloping out from behind several boulders to rush towards the road. Two unicorns magically wielding assault rifles, and an earth pony with an antique but deadly Zebra officer’s sword clutched between his jaws. Judging from their relatively-clean combat armor and helmets that fully covered their bodies and heads, they weren’t run-of-the-mill raiders. These ponies were professional bandits, or worse, slavers.

“Alright, hooves up!” a unicorn barked, his black helmet and armor matching the tail that swept out behind it. He galloped towards Rose and Coyote, while the other two advanced upon Mim. “I said hooves up, bitch!”

“B-but!” Rose stammered, eyes darting between Coyote and the bandit. “But he’s bleeding to death.”

“Ah, shit,” the bandit growled. “Dammit Keg, I told you the landmines were a shit idea!”

“Hey, if he croaks, we can still steal his shit,” the other unicorn, clad in blue armor that also matched his tail, replied with a flippant shrug. “But hey, if she can keep his ass alive, I won’t complain.”

The black-armored stallion loomed over Rose, and pointed his assault rifle at the back of her head. “You heard him. Save his life. I hate to lose merchandise.” Apparently, they were slavers.

Rose nodded, and began to apply pressure to the wound. She wasn’t sure if she was doing it right, but the bleeding seemed to be slowing. Coyote looked up at her and smiled goofily. “Oh hey Rose. That's awfully nice of ya to hold my hoof... but yer doin' it wrong...”

“Shut up!” Rose whimpered, tears welling in her eyes. “Stop acting like an idiot for once!”

“Can’t help it…” Coyote muttered with a sad frown. “Head hurts. Kinda sleepy…”

“No!” the mare gasped. “Don’t go to sleep! Coyote, stay awake!”

Meanwhile, the other two slavers encroached on Mim, who was still just standing motionless. “Alright, hooves up!” the blue-armored stallion growled, racking the bolt on his assault rifle. The third stallion – clad in red armor that accompanied the color of his tail as well – tilted his sword threateningly towards the cloaked figure.

Mim’s hooded head tilted to the side. “You are making a mistake.”

Everypony froze. “What?” the blue armored slaver growled. The black armored stallion chuckled darkly.

“If another step you take, it will be the last you make,” Mim quietly observed in an almost sing-songy manner.

The unicorn in blue armor threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, real fuckin’ scary with the nursery rhyme shit. What are you gonna do, lull me to sleep? Whatever.” The stallion to a step forward.

Mim struck with the speed and fury of lightning, and the slaver’s head hit the ground before his hoof did.

The red-armored slaver let out a scream of terror, the Zebra blade falling from his mouth just a split second before Mim struck again, their movements too fast to even see. Blood and sparks filled the air, and most of the slaver's helmet fell off, along with the majority of his muzzle. The front of the stallions face completely gone, he fell to the ground screaming and gurgling as he died in agony.

The black-armored stallion screamed in terror and rage, and spun his weapon around to fire. The assault rifle peppered the air where Mim was standing – or rather, had been standing. The slaver only succeeded in shooting an empty cloak, which had still been hanging lazily in the air when Mim disappeared.

“Where’d they go? Where’d it go?!” the slaver frantically screamed, spinning around as he tried to find the killer of his comrades. He staggered backwards away from Rose, stepping off the road to put distance between him and Mim’s friends. “I’m going! I’m leaving! Alright?! You’re friends are safe! J-just let me go, okay?!” he called out, his voice trembling with fear. “W-w-where are you?!”

Rose stared at the spot where Mim had been standing. As the bullet riddled cloak fluttered to the ground, her brain tried to comprehend what her eyes had seen. Just as Mim had had cast off their cloak and rags, Rose had caught a glimpse, only a brief glimpse, of the truth that lay beneath the fabrics. The reality was that Mim wasn’t a Zebra.

Mim was something worse.

A pair of claw-tipped paws smashed through the ground beneath the slaver. He barely had time to scream before the Hellhound pulled him through the dirt, and to his gruesome death within the earth below.

The slaver's screams still echoing in her ears, Rose broke down into choking sobs and pressed her muzzle into Coyote’s mane. Despite her terror and trauma, however, she continued to apply pressure to his bleeding leg with her shaking hooves. “Rose…?” the scavenger weakly asked, his glazed eyes filling with concern. “Why are you crying? Where’s Mim?”

Rose sniffed. “Mim… M-Mi-Mim’s… They’re a…”

A shadow loomed over the mare and her wounded friend. “Miss Rose?” The voice that spoke was not the same hoarse rasp that Mim had spoken with. It was a deep, guttural growl. The voice of a monster.

“Please… Please don’t…” Rose whimpered.

“How is Coyote?” the voice asked in a low rumble.

Rose didn’t look up, instead simply pressing down on Coyote’s leg with more force. “He’s… He’s hurt bad…” she answered softly, her voice and body trembling with terror.

“Oh heeeeey, it’s a doggy…” Coyote observed with a massive, goofy grin. “Hey doggy…”

The doggy in question was a large wolf-like hound, with black fur and amber eyes. Standing over Rose and Coyote on its hind legs, most of its body was wrapped in tattered robing and dirty rags. For a Hellhound, though, it was rather small – about the size of a large pony. The canine’s mouth twisted into a crooked smirk. “Hey, Coyote,” it returned the greeting, before looking back down at Rose. “Move.”

“W-what?” Rose stammered, finally turning her head to look up at the beast. “Why? No! No, I won’t let you-”

The Hellhound rolled its eyes. “Shut up. I’m not going to kill him. I just need to see the wound. I know a lot more about medicine and first aid than you,” it growled. “Now move over, and press your hooves down higher up on his leg.”

For a long moment, Rose simply stared up at Mim. Finally, she began to inch over to the side, moving her hooves to apply pressure higher up Coyote’s leg. Mim crouched beside Coyote, and picked up the limp limb in his paws to examine it closer. “No exit wounds. Major blood vessels struck. Shrapnel will have to be removed before healing potion can be administered,” the Hellhound growled. “I’m going to have to pull the fragments out.”

“Oh, well, that sounds fun…” Coyote muttered blearily. “This is gonna hurt, ain’t it?”

The Hellhound held a paw out towards Coyote’s mouth. “Bite.”

“Huh?”

“Bite down on my forearm,” the wolf-thing stated, nodding to the furred limb. “It won’t hurt me, but this is going to hurt you. A lot. So bite.”

With a weak shrug, Coyote weakly bit down on Mim’s forearm. A split second later, he let out a muffled scream and bit down much harder as the Hellhound’s claws began to dig into his leg to fish for shrapnel.

Several bloody, scream-filled minutes later, the “operation” concluded with a barely-conscious Coyote being force-fed a healing potion. The bleeding from his wounds quickly slowed, his flesh reknit, and soon his injuries had all but disappeared. The dullness in his eyes was replaced by the spark of intelligence, with whatever concussion or dazing he’d received being healed as well. “Oh fuck…” he groaned, closing his eyes and shaking his head. “Everything hurts.”

His eyes promptly shot back open, and locked on the Hellhound looming over him. “Oh fuck. You’re… you’re not a Zebra at all, are you?”

“No shit,” Mim deadpanned. “Nice to see you’ve recovered your wits. You should also recover full use of your leg, though it will probably be sore for a few days. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” the Hellhound rumbled, shifting its gaze back and forth between the two ponies before simply turning and walking off to find its cloak. “I will be going now.”

“Okay,” Rose quietly said, still trembling. “Bye.”

Coyote weakly raised his head. “Aw, where ya goin’?”

In unison, Rose and Mim both turned to stare at Coyote and simply ask: “What?”

“Where ya goin’?” Coyote repeated, a look of confused concern on blood-smeared face.

Mim looked around uncertainly. “Um… away?”

“Yeah, but where exactly? Why?” Coyote inquired.

Rose forced a smile to her face. “Coyote, stop asking questions, and let the nice Hellhound go away and leave us alone,” she stated with forced pleasantness.

“But he helped us,” Coyote muttered. “He killed those slavers.”

“Coyote, it’s a Hellhound,” Rose pointed out with a rather nervous smile. “Killing is what they do.”

“But he’s nice…”

“It’s a Hellhound,” the mare repeated. “What makes you think it’s nice?”

Coyote weakly waved his still-sore foreleg. “He saved my life when he didn’t have to. Why would a bad monster-thing do that, if they weren’t nice?”

Rose looked around fretfully. “Coyote… It’s a Hellhound.”

“Well I like him. I don’t want him to leave,” the scavenger huffed. "If he's nice to us, we should be nice to him, regardless of what he is..."

Mim chuckled. It was a rather disturbing sound, for Rose at least. “Mister Coyote, you once again show that you’re wiser than the average pony. No offense, Miss Rose.”

“None taken,” Rose squeaked, not wanting to disagree with or otherwise bother the monster-thing.

“But really, Mister Coyote, it is better if we part ways.”

Coyote managed to climb up into a sitting position, with only minimal pained grunting. “Well, why? I mean, do you have somewhere else to go? Do you have a pack or something?”

Mim’s yellow eyes lowered. “No. I do not have a home, or a pack. I am… an exile, of sorts.”

Coyote’s ears fell back, and he frowned sadly. “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” The scavenger then flashed a smile. “You should totally join us, then!”

“Coyote!” Rose whispered frantically. “What are you doing?! It’s a Hellhound!”

“Yeah, I know!” Coyote grinned in response. “He’s a big badass dog that likes us! How is that not awesome?!”

“It’s. A. Hell. Hound.”

“Racist.”

Rose flailed her hooves in frustration. “I’m not a racist! I’m a survivalist!”

While the two ponies bickered over him, Mim simply shook his head and went to get his cloak. Once he had his hood, cowl, and shrouding back in their proper places, the once-again-incognito Hellhound walked back over to the arguing ponies to see who was winning. Considering how desperate Rose sounded, the odds were likely going in Coyote’s favor. “No, no, no, no, NO,” the mare declared with exaggerated head-shaking. “The Hellhound is not joining us!”

“I still can’t believe the Hellhound joined us,” Rose groaned, trotting along on the opposite side of Coyote from the cloak-clad dog-thing.

“He’s not ‘the Hellhound,’ Rose,” Coyote corrected her. “His name is Mim.”

Mim coughed. “Actually, Mim’s not really my name. It’s just a nickname I use.”

Coyote raised a curious eyebrow. “Wait, really?”

The hooded Hellhound nodded. “Yes. Mim is short for Mimic, since I can blend in among ponies. Or Zebras, apparently.” Rose rolled her eyes. “I just thought it was witty. But no, my real name is Cain.”

“Cain? Like, as in ‘canine?’” Coyote guessed.

“Yes, Coyote,” Cain slowly stated with an even, measured tone.. “Like ‘canine.’ You ponies are not the only creatures who use puns in your naming conventions.”

“Are you being sarcastic there?”

“Actually, no. Most Hellhounds really do have dog-themed names. My father’s name was Floofywoofie.”

“Heh. And what was your mom’s name?”

“Razorclaw the Bloodsoaked.”

“Oh. Okay,” Coyote nodded in understanding. “Okay, yeah, gotcha. Well, Cain, I get the feeling we’re gonna be good friends.”

“Or he’s gonna kill us in our sleep,” Rose muttered.

“If I were going to kill you,” Cain stated aloofly, “I wouldn’t bother to sit around and wait until you were asleep.” Rose paled slightly. “That was a joke, Miss Rose.”

“Right… joke… yes…” the mare nodded slowly, clearly not a fan of Cain’s sense of humor. An awkward silence descended over the group, before it was eventually broken by Cain as they neared the outskirts of Wellspring.

“So Coyote, about that recipe you mentioned?”

End Chapter 2

-Coyote has earned Experience Points!
-Coyote has leveled up, and gained the “Heave, Ho!” Perk!
-Coyote has gained a 50% increase to thrown weapon velocity and damage!
-Coyote has gained a new companion!

Chapter 3 - Trouble With Changelings

Chapter 3
Trouble With Changelings

The burley stallion screamed like a little filly as the Hellhound hurled him bodily across the bar room, his shotgun clattering to the floor before he even had a chance to rack the slide.

Rose simply took another sip of her whiskey, not even bothering to glance over her shoulder as Cain choke-slammed a heavily-armored unicorn through a table. She did, however, glance over at Spit Shine, who was watching the brawl with a mixed look of horror and exasperation. “So, uh… same deal as last time? Double the cost of the damages?” she asked dryly. Between repeatedly paying for damages and picking up a new hunting rifle, medical gear, and a couple of grenades for Coyote, the group had already burned through most of the caps they got from selling off the slavers’ gear. A fact that she was not too happy about, especially as she heard what sounded like a chair breaking behind her.

Spit Shine, mouth hanging open in disbelief, could only nod. And cringe, particularly as the Hellhound picked up the filly-screaming stallion from earlier and threw him against the nearest wall, knocking him out cold. The entire building rattled from the impact, and then again as the mutant canine gave loud roar of dominance, sending the rest of the rag-tag mercenaries running for their lives, screaming and, in one case, sobbing incoherently.

The group’s plan to kidnap and sell the Zebra rumored to live in Wellspring had, needless to say, not gone quite as they’d hoped. With the situation resolved, Cain let out a low growl of annoyance, before returning to his seat. Rose continued to sip her whiskey, expression flat. Spit Shine simply continued to stare, jaw still hanging.

And when Coyote trotted through the front door a few seconds later, he wore a rather unamused frown. “That’s the third time this week.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Rose grunted, knocking back the rest of her drink, before sliding the glass to down the counter for a refill. She spun in her seat, turning to face the unicorn and give him a flat stare and a dour frown. “You should have seen this coming, y’know. You brought a Hellhound home with you. A Hellhound posing as a Zebra, sure, but that’s not much better. Worse in some ways, really. Did you really think there wouldn’t be trouble?”

Coyote looked over at the heavily-armored stallion weakly trying to crawl out of the wreckage of the table he’d been smashed through. “Uh…”

Rose threw a plate at the stallion, nailing him in the back of the head and knocking him out. She then turned her attention back to Coyote. “Seriously. You’re shit at thinking things through.” The grumpy mare suddenly put on a big goofy grin, and began to tilt her head from side to side. “Oh look at me, I’m Coyote! I can find cool stuff, but dammit if I can’t plan things out! Come on Rose, let’s go get our asses shot off by robots while trying to find counterfeiting tools, which we’ll get shot over if we survive the robots! Oh oh oh! Let’s make friends with a Hellhound, too, and tell everypony he’s just a Zebra, nevermind the fact that EVERYPONY HATES ZEBRAS!”

Coyote gave a meek shrug, grinning sheepishly. “Uh… well… When ya put it like that…”

Rose turned to frown at Cain, who had finished adjusting his cloak and resumed his seat next to her, once again trying to hunch over and pose an equine. “Why do I put up with him again?”

The Hellhound gave a low, throaty chuckle, before giving a Zebra-rhymed reply. “Aside from the promise of pay and protection, methinks your stay may also be due to… affection.”

Rose blinked a few times, trying to process what the canine had just rhymed. When it finally clicked, she blushed vibrantly – and began to slap the brute on the back. “Dammit you stupid mutt you take that back right this instant!” she snarled indignantly, smacking Cain’s back and shoulders repeatedly, while the Hellhound simply laughed. “I already told ya I wasn’t interested in him! Stop laughing!” she snapped, growing only more frustrated by the moment. Her green face was now bright pink with anger and embarrassment. “It ain’t funny, Goddess damn it!”

Ignoring the quarrel between his two friends, Coyote carefully trotted past the damage and unconscious ponies strewn about the bar, before taking a seat at the counter. “So, uh,” he smiled sheepishly at Spit Shine, “How much do I owe you? Eheh?” he laughed nervously.

Spit Shine started to calculate the damages, and Coyote began to mentally sob.

The flames of the campfire crackled and snapped, casting dancing shadows across the faces of the caravan members huddled around it. A half-dozen ponies, as well as a griffon, all sitting as close to the heat and the light as they could get. Some of them shivered against the cold night air, while a few of them whispered prayers to the Princesses. The griffon, a Talon with more than a few scars, and a few of the ponies held guns close, both to protect the caravan, and themselves.

A twig snapped in the darkness. Ears perked up. Eyes glanced around nervously. Two of the guards stood up.

Silence followed. Silence, and the gentle crackle of the flames. After a moment, the two guards sat back down.

“Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake…” a hoarse voice whispered from the darkness.

The guards jumped to their hooves, brandishing their weapons. The rest of the ponies – settlers and merchants, not soldiers by any measure – huddled together, clinging to each other for protection and comfort. A mother tried to keep her colt from crying, lest he draw further attention to them.

“Clap your hooves…”

The Talon racked the slide of his shotgun, and brought it to bear on the whispering void.

“And make your last mistake…”

“So run this by me again one last time, just so I can make sure I understand,” Rose said dryly as she trotted along behind Coyote. “We’re going where to do what and die how?”

Coyote sighed, while Cain snickered. “We’re goin’ to a hospital,” the stallion explained for the umpteenth time. “And we’re gonna check to see if it’s still got stuff worth lootin’.”

“But we’re not actually looting it ourselves.”

“Nope.”

Rose frowned. “And why is that again?” She was not too keen on the idea of going on a three day hike, wearing uncomfortable leather armor and carrying a saddle-bag full of gear, just to see that something of value was there for somepony else to take and enjoy. Coyote didn’t seem to mind wearing armor and galloping around in for days on end, but Rose was already starting to find it rather uncomfortable and annoying. But at least it didn’t chafe. Yet.

Coyote gave another sigh, slightly more exasperated. “Because unless you know how to use an X-Ray machine, I don’t think the stuff we’re lookin’ for is gonna be too valuable to us. And I sure as hell ain’t cartin’ said X-Ray machine home on my back, especially if I ain’t got no use for it. But some of the hospitals in New Neigas pay really good caps if you can tell ‘em where to find working medical equipment. Finder’s fee sorta thing.”

“What about potions? Healing bandages?”

“We can snag those for ourselves, sure, if there are any left. But the main thing we’re lookin’ for is old medical gear that still works. X-Ray machines, stuff that reads vital signs an’ stuff, surgical gear and machinery, so on and so forth,” Coyote explained.

“There is a catch,” Cain stated factually from beneath his hood.

“What?”

“You heard the dog,” Rose deadpanned. “There’s always a catch. You haven’t mentioned it yet.”

“There ain’t a catch,” Coyote muttered.

“There’s a catch,” Rose and Cain both grunted in unison.

Coyote frowned, and paused his trotting. Adjusting his hat, he let out a beleaguered sigh. “Okay, okay. Maybe, just maybe, there might be a small catch.”

Rose began to look around for a rock to throw at the scavenger. “What sort of catch?”

“There may be raiders.”

Rose began to look for a really big rock. “That’s, uh, some catch, Coyote.” The trader frowned deeply. “Quite a big catch.”

Coyote turned to flash a familiar, sheepish grin. “Hey, like I said, there might be, but there probably won’t be. The fella I got the map from said all the raiders there were dead when he and his buddies got done clearing it out. They were doing some bounty hunting, and they tracked the psycho they were lookin’ for back to the hospital. Shot up all the raiders, and left most of the medical gear behind since they didn’t have any use for it.”

“Probably because the gear was shot to hell while they were clearing out the raiders,” Rose commented dryly.

Coyote opened his mouth to say something, before closing it. He worked his jaw thoughtfully for a moment, mulling over that prospect. Cain turned to Rose and simply stated: “Your impersonations of Coyote and his lack of foresight were not incorrect.”

Rose simply resumed trotting, a rather dour frown on her face. “I hate both of you.”

Chop-Chop wasn’t afraid of anything. He was one of the roughest, toughest, craziest raiders around. He ate colts for breakfast and dined only on the tears of deflowered fillies, or so he liked to boast. There wasn’t anything in the Equestrian Wasteland that scared him, especially when he had his trusty fire axe by his side.

And he was holding that fire axe particularly close as he slowly crept down the dark hallway of the hospital’s long-abandoned psych ward. A rather ironic home for a psychotic raider such as himself, he normally felt quite happy and content within its blood-smeared walls. But today was different. Today the walls of the psych ward offered him no solace as he tried his best to not make a sound, his armor-clad hooves slowly stepping over long-forgotten medical restraints and charred bones.

He wasn’t alone. He could feel it. Something was in here with him. Not one of his fellow raiders, whose screams of terror and agony he’d heard echoing all through the hospital over the last few hours. No, there was something else in here with him. Something that wasn’t a pony, or anything even remotely equine. There was something-

-right behind him!

Or so he thought as he spun around and swung the fire axe with all his might, brutally decapitating absolutely nothing with the powerful swing. For a moment he sat there holding the axe in his hooves, panting slightly from the effort. After steadying his nerves a bit, he let out a small sigh of relief. “Guess it was all in my head. Must be goin’ crazy. Heh. Crazier. Heh heh.”

“Maybe you should see a therapist about that?” something softly whispered in his ear.

Chop-Chop’s shrieks were louder than any of his victims’ had ever been.

Three days of travel and quite a few arguments later, Coyote, Cain, and Rose were almost to their destination. They’d managed to avoid any serious obstacles or dangers, aside from the occasional scorpion or wandering ghoul. Cain had easily dispatched most of the threats, his diamond-sharp talons making short work of the mutant arachnids and zombified equines. Coyote had made quite a few quips about the advantages of having a Hellhound traveling companion, and Rose was forced to agree.

As the trio made their way along a rocky trail surrounded by boulders and prairie grass, Cain suddenly stopped and rose to stand on his hind legs. Pulling back his hood and taking a deep sniff of the air, the Hellhound’s ears pinned back. Slowly looking from side to side and studying at the craggy landscape around them, he let out a low growl. “Coyote?”

Coyote turned to look back at him. The stallion’s horn flickered with magic, and his pistols slipped from their holsters to hover aloft beside him. “What’s wrong?”

“The scent of blood is heavy upon the wind,” Cain said, almost poetically. He narrowed his eyes, gazing at a bend in the road further ahead. “Half a dozen lives lost. Ponies.” He took another deep sniff of the air. “A griffon, as well. Much blood and rot.”

Rose shifted her weight uncomfortably, trying not to look nervous. “Raiders?”

Cain shook his head. “No. Something else. Another scent, not of pony or griffon. I do not know what it is.” He took a moment to rub a paw against his dark muzzle. “It smells… wrong. I cannot describe it.”

Coyote frowned. “Let’s just stick to the road, and stay close together.”

“Wait, we’re going forward?” Rose asked, looking a bit unsettled about the prospect of heading towards whatever may have killed half a dozen Wastelanders. “Not back, or around?”

Coyote shook his head. “Going off the road makes us easier targets, and I’d rather not go home empty hooved, especially since we kinda need the caps from this job to pay off all the damages to Spit’s bar. Besides-“ he pointed at Cain with a grin, “We have a Hellhound.”

The mare looked back and forth between Coyote and Cain a few times, before shaking her head and starting to trot again. “It is nice to know I am deemed a valuable tactical asset,” Cain grumbled, before dropping to all fours again and resuming his trek along the road as well.

“Quite valuable!” Coyote beamed. “Now, let’s all hush up. The less attention we draw to ourselves, the better.”

The trio fell silent, walking along the rocky path as quietly as possible. They managed to keep their noise to a minimum for several minutes – until they rounded the bend in the road, and saw what was on the other side.

Rose screamed. Coyote paled and gagged. And beneath his cloak, even Cain grimaced at the sight before him.

Strewn about the road and surrounding hillside where the remains of a several ponies, mangled beyond recognition. Most of them were far from intact, their limbs and organs scattered about the bloody landscape. The remnants of a campfire were smoldering nearby, several eviscerated and dismembered corpses scattered closely around it. The stench of blood and death was overpowering.

Coyote lost the battle with his stomach, and turned to puke on the roadside. Rose buried her face in her hooves, whimpering and muttering what sounded like a prayer. Cain took a few steps forward, sniffing the air. “Over a day old,” the Hellhound gutturally observed. “Some manner of mutant or abomination. Some were consumed. Others, merely torn apart. We should-”

A soft, timid voice, like that of a foal, whimpered from nearby. “H… hello?”

Cain’s ears pinned further back, his head swiveling towards a cluster of rocks. Coyote and Rose both looked up, and the mare took a cautious step forward. “Is somepony there?” she cautiously called out.

From behind the rocks stepped a small colt, his bright blue fur stained dark crimson with dried blood, his eyes bloodshot from crying and filled with fear. “Are you a m-m-monster?” he whimpered, shivering with fear.

Rose immediate galloped towards him, half-choking on a sob. “No sweetie, we’re not monsters,” she said as she moved to embrace the foal.

“Good,” the colt said back with a small little smile.

The wind shifted, and Cain’s eyes widened in realization. “ROSE!!” he roared, lunging after her – too late to stop the mare from making her mistake.

The colt’s smile turned into a fang-filled grin far wider than was natural. “Because I am.” His grin spread wider, splitting his face in half as his eyes sank back into black pits of soulless hunger. Across his body flesh cracked and tore, talons and claws and tentacles bursting forth in a shower of red gore and black ichor. The colt-thing’s head split open to form a toothy maw, and with a hideous keening howl, the abomination threw itself at the mare in front of it.

Rose’s life flashed before her eyes. There was no time to run, no chance to escape. As scything talons and hooked tendrils reached out to flay her alive, she could only flinch and hope to die quickly.

Instead, she was treated to begin grabbed by Coyote’s magic, and hurled quite forcefully to the side. Being slammed to the ground and bounced several yards certainly wasn’t pleasant, but it was better than being eviscerated and eaten alive. The abomination’s talons and claws sliced through the empty air where she’d just been, and the creature let loose another ghastly howl of frustration and hate.

That howl was met by another howl, belonging to a rather pissed off Hellhound. Smart enough to know charging into melee with the thing would be suicide, Cain instead resolved to pick up the nearest rock and hurl it at the creature – quite forcefully. With the force of a cannonball, the small boulder slammed into the center of the writhing abomination, blasting clear through it and splattering gore and fragments of black flesh across the ground behind it.

The monster, however, seemed to consider the gaping hole through its squirming body a minor inconvenience at best. With another keening shriek, it charged towards the Hellhound, claws glinting and maw gaping with murderous intent. Despite its clumsy, shapeless nature, the create seemed almost unnaturally fast, quickly closing the distance and bearing down on Cain with blinding speed. The Hellhound barely managed to dodge the first swipe of claws, and snarled in pain and anger as a second swipe raked across his stomach, his tough hide offering little resistance to the blasphemous creature’s talons. The wounds weren’t too deep, but bled freely. Desperately throwing himself backwards, he managed to some distance between himself and the monster just in time to barely avoid being decapitated.

While Cain played a rather deadly game of tag with the shapeshifting creature, Rose staggered to her hooves, disoriented and in pain. Her head was spinning and her whole body hurt. Blinking tears of pain and fear from her eyes, she tried to look around to see what was going on. Cain was jumping from side to side, backpedalling away from the snapping jaws and slashing claws attempting to end his life. As for Coyote, he seemed to be hunkering down behind some boulders just off the road. Blinking her eyes properly into focus, Rose could see that he was levitating his rifle, though his aim didn’t seem to be directly on the monster. He also seemed to be levitating a-

Rose dove behind the nearest boulder, just as Coyote threw the item in question and yelled out a sharp order. “CAIN, DIG!” The Hellhound, barely avoiding another bad case of decapitation, did as commanded. He threw himself down, ducking under another snap of the bloodthirsty maw, and quickly dug through the rocky soil and into the earth below.

The abomination turned to see who was yelling – just in time to find itself face to “face” with a frag grenade. For a brief moment, just before Coyote pulled the trigger and sent a round through the explosive, the creature’s hollow eyes seemed to betray a faint hint of what looked like perturbed annoyance.

The resulting explosion, however, erased that look from its eyes. It also erased the majority of the creature itself, leaving nothing more than a smoldering crater and quite a few chunks of twitching flesh scattered around the surrounding area.

Jumping up from behind his impromptu sniper’s nest, Coyote quickly galloped towards Rose. “C’mon, we gotta get out of here!” he snapped, slinging the rifle back over his shoulders. “Ain’t no tellin’ if that actually killed it or not!”

The ground rumbled a bit beneath Rose’s hooves, and for a brief moment, she wasn’t sure if it was Cain, or another one of the monster’s tricks. However, as the ground next to her burst open, she found herself feeling far happier to see a Hellhound than she ever thought she would be. Her eyes quickly fell upon the bleeding gouges across his stomach though, causing her to gasp in shock and concern. “Cain, you-”

“Not important. Just flesh wound,” Cain growled, gritting his teeth in both annoyance and ill-concealed pain. “We need to move. I can patch up later.” Neither pony felt like arguing. The trio quickly took off, sprinting as fast as their hooves and paws could carry them.

After putting the group had few miles between themselves and the ghastly ambush, Coyote began to slow down. “Alright, I think we’re safe for now,” he panted, finally stopping for a moment to try to catch his breath. “Besides, need to patch Cain up. Blood trail might make us easier to track.”

Cain gave a small growl of annoyance, but knew not to argue. Coyote had a point. As Rose started to dig through her saddlebags for some medical supplies, she couldn’t help but shiver at the thought of what they’d just been through. “What the hell was that thing?” she asked with a shudder.

With a scowl and a cautious look back over his shoulder, Coyote gave a simple, grim response. “Something that’s supposed to be just a damn legend.”

“A legend?”

“Mhm,” the stallion frowned. “Never heard of a Changeling?”

Chop-Chop galloped through the pediatric ward of the hospital, sobbing not unlike one of the foals that would have once sought treatment there. As he rounded a corner to head down another hall, he nearly plowed into another raider – Spine Snapper. The hulking brute of an earth stallion was covered in armor and tattoos, and served as the de facto leader of their little raider group. “Oh fuck, boss! Boss it’s you!” Chop-Chop exclaimed, staggering back a bit and grinning with relief.

“Who else would it be?” the burly raider deadpanned. “What’s got you so spooked?”

Chop-Chopped looked around, paranoia written clearly on his face. “That thing. Thing thing got ‘em, boss.”

“Got who?” Snapper growled, frowning in annoyance. “Who did it get? I only just got back from scouting, and I heard you screaming like a little bitch.”

Chop-Chop gave Snapper a wary look. “Scouting? I don’t remember you planning to go scouting.”

“I felt like going for a trot, alright?” Snapper growled. “Now, what got who?”

“I dunno,” Chop-Chop shivered. “It tried to come after me, but I outran it. It kept changing its voice. I heard it use Blood Rain’s voice, but then I found her. Or… w-what was left of her,” he said with a shudder. “I think… I think it… might be a-”

Spine Snapper leaned in closely to Chop-Chop’s face, his eyes staring coldly into the smaller raider’s own. “A Changeling?” he asked, a faint smirk tugging at his scarred muzzle.

Chop-Chop let out a small whimper, and nodded. “Y-yeah.”

Snapper’s smirk deepened. “You mean one of those things from the old legends? That steals souls, assumes the identity of its victim, and then preys on the victim’s friends?”

Chop-Chop gulped nervously. “Uh huh.”

Snapper grinned. “Really now? Well…” He stared at Chop-Chop for a long moment, almost eerily, before laughing and turning away. “Come on then, we’d better get out of here. If we see anybody else, shoot ‘em. Can’t take any chances, right?”

“Right,” Snapper’s own voice replied from right behind him.

The burly stallion spun around, and rather than the terrified face of Chop-Chop, he found looking at his own scarred visage. The eyes of not-Snapper held an almost playful look, as they flashed a crooked grin. “Hi,” not-Snapper said rather cheerfully, before slamming a massive hoof into Snapper’s jaw.

Reeling from the sucker punch, Snapper collapsed to the floor. His head spinning and his vision blurring, he tried to stagger back to his hooves. Another hoof slammed into his face, and he collapsed limply to the floor. “Wow, you put up even less of a fight than that last fucker,” not-Snapper idly mused. “I gotta say, this has been the easiest buffet I’ve ever been to. Granted, you all taste like a mix of ‘hate’ and ‘crazy.’ I’m probably going to be sick for a week after I finish feeding on you, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers,” the doppelganger shrugged.

Barely clinging to consciousness, he vainly tried to crawl away from himself. “What… what…” he rasped, confusion and fear in his eyes. “What the hell are you?”

Green fire spread across the face of not-Snapper, fur and flesh burning away like ash to reveal smooth black chitin. A pair of glowing blue eyes soon stared down at Snapper, a playful smirk on the creature’s face as it slowly loomed over him. As the rest of its disguise burnt away, the Changeling let out a coquettish little giggle, before providing a cheerful answer to his question.

“I’m hungry~”

End Chapter 3

-Coyote has gained Experience Points!

War. War Never Changes.

FALLOUT: EQUESTRIA
DEADLANDS

War.

War never changes.

Long ago in the magical land of Equestria, before the dark shadows of War came, ponies lived in peace and prosperity. Wildlife and nature flourished from coast to coast, with all manner of flora and fauna thriving in perfect cohesion with the ponies that lived near them, and in many cases, tended them. From the sprawling apple orchards of Appleloosa, to the stunning royal gardens in Canterlot, there was beauty and life.

Except in one place.

The aptly named Badlands, which made up the central Southern border of Equestria, were a far cry from the vibrant forests and farms found in the rest of the kingdom. The arid wastelands were relatively inhospitable, playing host to scorching deserts, treacherous canyons, and arid plains. Where most of Equestria's wildlife was docile, the Badlands boasted a variety of significantly more dangerous and deadly creatures. There were also hushed whispers and rumors of the banished Changeling Queen, and her brood of shapeshifting parasites.

No, aside from a few small towns and the party city of Las Neigas, the Badlands were a harsh, unforgiving environment that stood in sharp contrast to the rest of Equestria. So when the War came to its final day, and the world ended in a holocaust of magical hellfire, the Badlands were left little worse for wear, relatively speaking. Though the city of Las Neigas was supposedly targeted, it managed to avoid a direct hit from Zebra megaspells. However, several near-misses still caused devastating collateral damage to the city and surrounding settlements. Thousands died, and whatever peace and harmony had existed in the Badlands disappeared in a maelstrom of arcane destruction and suffering.

Over two hundred years have passed since the day the world ended…

The Badlands have changed, though not quite in the ways many would have expected. When the ponies who survived the War emerged from the protection of the Stables, they found things to be surprisingly the same. Arid and rocky wastelands free of vegetation still make up most of the environment, though it is unclear whether this is due to magical devastation, or the perpetually overcast skies, courtesy the Grand Pegasus Enclave. If anything, what was already an inhospitable environment was now simply just more-so.

Aside from dehydration and starvation in an unforgiving environment, the survivors were now forced to face the threats of magical radiation and its butterfly effects. One noticeable change they soon discovered was that the wildlife of the Badlands had been corrupted or mutated, or simply just evolved into more capable killing machines. Giant scorpions, massive wasps, hybridized creatures, and other abominations thrived where ponies simply could not. And where the whispers of fear around the campfire were once of Changelings, it was soon discovered that there were now worse monsters now lurking in the shadows.

It didn't take long for the Badlands to earn a new, more apt moniker – the Deadlands.

Against all odds, though, survivors of the War and settlers from the Stables managed to establish a few small bastions of civilization amongst the Deadlands. Small towns and ancient tourist traps have been reclaimed and revitalized by new generations of ponies trying to eke out a living. Scattered villages of Tribals, descendants of the original survivors of the War, have in some places thrived. Ancient military and research stations now play host to the Steel Rangers, the fractured remnants of Equestria’s once-proud military. In the far South, various Tribes have united under the banner of Celestia’s Legion, a society of warriors and slavers idolizing the Warrior Goddess of the Sun. And in the very center of the blighted land, the once-dark lights of New Neigas have begun to shine once more, drawing ponies from regions even beyond the Deadlands to its siren’s song of safety and supposed salvation.

But War. War never changes.

Across the Deadlands, blood is being spilled for the sake power, resources, survival, and even simple fun. The various factions, tribes, and bands of psychopaths struggle against one another throughout the shattered wasteland. But in the humble town of Wellspring, nestled away in the Deadlands' western plains, a lowly scavenger by the name of Coyote has no desire to be involved in any of that. His one want is to enjoy a quiet, honest life of trading salvage for caps. A life spent minding his own business in hopes of avoiding the conflict, bloodshed, and death that darkens the lives of so many other ponies. So far, he has succeeded in this goal.

But life rarely works out as we want it to, does it?

Author's Note

Welcome to the Deadlands!