The mare was sound asleep, her prismatic mane fluttering with each breath she blew as she rested on the man's bed. Next to her, Carter sat, watching the Pegasus as her fresh wounds slowly began to heal from the various amounts of Stimpaks he had injected into her.

The ventilated air of the small confinements of the room felt incredulously hot as he turned tail away from the bed, opting to walk downstairs and get something, really, anything done. Ever since some of the populace outside of Megaton and the Citadel hitched the hell out of D.C., things had been pretty quiet. Raider attacks, though try as they might, slowly began to diminish, though not entirely leaving the barren, lawless Wasteland. As chaotic, bloody, and barbaric as the Wastes were, at this rate, D.C. might just become peaceful after all.

Peace. Something he had secretly set out to make happen since day one in the cruel wasteland. Though he knew in the back of his head that it would not be so long before, he might just be reconsidering that proclamation very soon.

As he slowly descended the staircase, his usual greeter was absent, not even so much as trying to scare his owner as he had tried so many times before. Calling out the Mister Gutsy's name proved futile as well, the silence of the house and the sleeping mare's snores replacing him.

Placing his hands on his hips in annoyance, Carter shook his head, putting it off with a reassurance that the robot was just out and about, probably for his weekly maintenance check-up with the local shopkeeper. Now at the foot of the staircase, the Wanderer looked toward the set of lockers he knew contained his impressive plethora of weaponry, and with a small nod and a hmph of agreement, he approached it.

Disassembled upon his table lay the remains of the man's anti-materiel rifle, almost unrecognizable as its owner thoroughly cleaned each and every little part that bore even the tiniest mark. After all, the rifle was arguably his most catastrophic weapon he had, unless he counted his Experimental MIRV and Esther. As he threw his cleaning cloth in the air and leaned back in his chair with a sigh of relief, a sudden noise caused him to freeze on the spot. Turning his head, he was met with a red-eyed, sweat-matted rainbow-maned Pegasus glaring at him. Her nostrils flared with every loud outtake of air that passed through her. Her eyes' normally white exterior was replaced with a pale-red hue, with small puddles forming underneath them. The mare was holding back tears.

"What am I doing here?" she asked. Her voice was raspy, and the man could sense the anger within it.

"I don't understand the quest-"

The mare stomped her hoof with a loud bang, gritting her teeth, "What the fuck am I doing here? Do I have to spell it out to you?"

"I don't have a clue; you haven't really said anything about it-"

The mare raised her right foreleg, which she had hidden behind her body. Cuffed to her hoof was a very shaky revolver, the barrel facing him, "BULLSHIT YOU DON'T KNOW! I'M STUCK IN THIS FUCKING HELLHOLE!"

Putting both hands in the air, Carter began to try to defuse the situation, "Rainbow, I think you should put the gun down-"

"DON'T THINK I WON'T SHOOT! I KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS WHOLE THING CHRYSALIS!" the mare yelled, raising her gun and firing a bullet into the air, "I KNOW ABOUT THE SIMULATION! IT'S ALL FAKE! DON'T TRY TO HIDE FROM ME!"

Raising an alarmed brow at the fired round, Carter began to speak, only to be met with the business end of the revolver, "DON'T YOU MOVE A FUCKING STEP ASSHOLE! I'LL PAINT THE WALLS WITH YOUR BRAINS IF YOU SO MUCH AS MOVE! MY FRIEND IS DEAD BECAUSE OF THIS! TWILIGHT IS FUCKING DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!" the mare's foreleg slowly faltered to the ground, her firearm falling to the ground with a metallic clang. Shaking her head in disbelief, the mare clenched her eyes shut and quickly turned around, flaring her wings with a sniffle. As she launched herself through the front door, the Wanderer looked on with shock, sprinting out the now destroyed door as he stared up at the sky.

A rainbow trail arched across the dusk sky, heading northward from the small town of Megaton. The mare was taking off. Lowering his head, he slammed his fist into the railing with anger, knowing full well that the mare would succumb to the Wastes if she lost her sanity in unknown territory. He remained this way for sometime, before reluctantly turning tail and heading back inside his residence, making sure to prop the door closed before he took a seat in the living room, twiddling his thumbs and pondering what to do next.

Author's Note

I have a feeling there'll be at least three "That escalated quickly" comments. I've been planning out The Last Of Us lately, so brainstorming this has been a bit of a struggle.