FoE: Death Is Just a Feeling
Fallout Equestria: Death Is Just a Feeling
“My Little Pony. Apocalypse Pony.”
The bullets crashed into my side, knocking my aim off target. The wounds bled profusely, allowing the red liquid to run down my dark blue coat and mat my fur with sticky blood. I didn’t feel any of it, though. I was so hyped up on Stampede that I didn’t give a fuck about the sort of abuse I was putting my body through.
I floated my assault rifle up to eye level, took aim again, and forced my magick to squeeze the trigger. Three rounds were dispatched from the barrel. Then three more. I fired the weapon in rapid bursts; I wasn’t gonna miss the bastard who just shot me.
“Butcher, get to some fucking cover, dammit!” Grim Veil, my companion, yelled. The rust-coloured earth pony had ducked behind an overturned and dilapidated wagon as he reloaded his combat shotgun. I was a little slow to heed his advice due to the drugs, but I eventually joined him behind the old vehicle.
“Shit, there’s a lot of them,” I announced, as if he didn’t already know that.
“Well, you’re a mare. Why don’t you just use your feminine charm to woo th— OW! I was joking! Geez, bitch.”
Even though I knew he was just trying to be funny, he had received a swift hoof upside the head. For a second afterward, I thought he was going to shoot me for it as he raised his gun to me. I ducked as he pulled the trigger and the hammer fell. I heard a loud thud behind me as the slaver pony dropped.
“Well, chalk one more up to my kill count.” A wide smirk grew across Grim’s face before I raised my rifle over his head and returned the favor.
“And one more onto mine.”
I had honestly lost track of how many I had killed during this battle. Hell, there certainly wasn’t any counting the ponies I had slain and mutilated over my career as a raider, either.
This had been getting insane, though. A territory dispute with the local slaver empire had kept us fighting for years now, though it was only off and on. This time, it seemed that they finally decided to get rid of us... permanently. So far, they had done a good job of it. Fires consumed much of our camp, and only a small group of us still drew breath. They came in such numbers and with such force that we were unable to hold them off for long. Grim and I had been able to keep our combat edge only by using what drugs we were able to get our hooves on. I could, however, feel that edge fading as the large gaping wounds in my side began to sting harshly. Grim was pretty torn up as well.
I pulled the last two healing potions from my bag, as well as my final remaining dose of Stampede. I nodded to Grim, as I levitated one of the potions to him. He nodded back to me. Both of us understood that this was it; we were going to die here – or become slaves. And I didn’t plan on serving any master. We were going to stand our ground and fight to the death. Be it ours or the slavers’.
We toasted the potion vials together, giving a quick “Unto death!” and downed the potent drink. Our wounds healed swiftly. Checking my rifle’s ammunition and injecting the Stampede into my body, I gave one more nod to Grim to let him know I was ready. I took one deep breath to calm my nerves, and the next thing I knew, I was on the other side of the wagon screaming at the top of my lungs. Rounds tore out of my rifle and within a few seconds I found myself reloading.
This time, I placed my shots with more reserve, covering Grim Veil as he moved to flank the oncoming group of slavers. I had pinned them down with my first chaotic spray of lead. They probably weren’t expecting somepony to leap out from behind a wagon, yelling random obscenities like a filly with tourettes who had just found herself a gun.
They each took turns popping out of their cover to take potshots at me. As they did so, I put a burst in their direction. I felt like I was playing whack-a-manticore – only with guns and slavers. Every once in awhile my rounds would actually connect, and their heads would erupt into brilliant red geysers. As for any shots that hit me, I didn’t feel them at all as the latest shot of Stampede had worked its way deep into my system. Then a single sound gave me some comfort.
Blam!
Grim had managed to flank them and had started unloading into them. I heard him fire again and then the scream of a dying pony reached my ears. His companions moved to counter mine. One of the slavers, much to his own dismay, was forced out from behind the rubble in the process. I lined up and tapped the trigger three times. A fountain of blood painted the ground around him. The bullets had all found their mark. I may not have been able to feel bullets, but I did feel a big, psychotic smile draw itself across my face. There was a drug induced blood rage coming on.
I let out a goddess-awful battle cry – Celestia only knows what words actually left my lips – and charged forward, reloading as I went. When I reached the enemy’s cover, I vaulted over it and lit into the nearest slaver. His body hit the ground hard before he could even react. The others were just as confused as he had been. I put more rounds into the next one. Grim took two more down from his end. The sole remaining pony panicked. He dropped his gun and fled. We didn’t let him get far, though. Both of us brought our sights upon him and fired. His body fell mid-gallop, bloody and mangled.
Crack!
My Stampede-slowed mind took what felt like minutes to register what had just happened. I looked to my companion and closest friend in these goddess-forsaken lands; his body stood there rigidly before collapsing to the ground, headless and dead. A sniper had shot him with explosive rounds.
Raider culture should have prepared me for the sight of a headless pony. I have even decapitated a few myself. But this... this was different; this was my best friend, and I was now covered in his brains and gore.
I didn’t cry for him, though. Instead, my insatiable bloodlust, enhanced by the Stampede, was only fueled further. I was sure that if I looked in a mirror, I’d have seen the flames radiating from my eyes.
There was another group of slavers barrelling toward me. I floated up my assault rifle and emptied the rest of my magazine into them. Four of them fell. The other two opened fire. I ducked behind a sheet metal wall. One of the other survivors joined me. It was Slice ‘N’ Dice. Her blood red coat made it hard for me to tell exactly how badly destroyed her body was.
“Doing okay, Butcher?” she asked.
“I’ve been better.” I tried not to show that Grim’s death had affected me.
“I’ll cover you while you rush them.” She flung herself into a firing position, using the wall as a brace for her rifle.
“No!” I shouted, reaching a hoof out to pull her back down. It was too late.
Crack!
Her limp body fell backwards, half of it missing from the round that exploded inside her. Most of what was blown off now covered me. I didn’t care. I had just watched two ponies I knew torn to bits in an instant. I was furious. I knew, though, that if I were to get hit by that sniper, there wasn’t enough Stampede in Equestria that could keep me going.
I heard another shot ring out as a round pierced through the metal barrier and exploded at my hooves, kicking up dust. Shit. Those aren’t just exploding rounds, they’re armour-piercing too.
I knew I couldn’t stay in place much longer. The rounds pinging the other side of my cover ceased while the other slavers reloaded. That was my chance.
I jumped over the wall and galloped at them, bullets beginning to land all around me as they finished reloading. I didn’t even bother shooting the first one. I simply clubbed him over the head with the gun, putting as much force as I could muster from my magick into the attack. His skull splintered on impact, caving in as I followed through.
His earth pony partner raised his gun to me. I seized the weapon with my magick and ripped it from his mouth. I forced its barrell back around and up to his throat and pulled the trigger. He collapsed, killed by his own device. I let the gun drop next to him.
Three more of the slaver ponies were approaching, and they were closing the gap quickly. I brought my rifle to bare. Upon pulling the trigger, however, nothing happened. The weapon just clicked stupidly. I had completely run out of ammo now. Son-of-a-bitch.
I tried the slaver’s guns. Both were empty. I then drew the revolver that was holstered on my back, dropping the other weapons as I abandoned them. I only had six shots in my side arm – the ones that were already in the cylinder. I intended to make them count. I floated the weapon in front of me and charged with reckless abandon. When I was in range, I took aim and fired.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three hits, one miss. Three more dead slavers. Then something hit me in the plot. I felt it hit me in the plot. The drugs were wearing off, and I had neglected to notice the three other slavers from this group flanking me, one of which had just shot me in the ass. Stampede or not, I was genuinely pissed. I spun around and shot.
Bang! Bang! Click.
Three slavers plus only two bullets left meant I only took down two thirds of my attacker’s force, and was left with no ammo. Well at least my brain could still do simple math.
I only had one option left. I took out the only remaining drug from my saddle bag, a near-lethal dose of Dash. Inhaling the chem, I instantly began to feel faster. I unsheathed the giant butcher knife that I had gotten my nickname from and stormed faster than a wild stallion toward the remaining slaver.
Using his magick, he brought his gun up to shoot me. He didn’t get the chance; I was on him too quickly. His horn flew off as my blade cut cleanly through the hard protrusion at its base. Cut off from the source of magick that held it aloft, his shotgun clattered to the ground. He let out a bloodcurdling wail which only drove me to further acts of violence and gore. The Dash kept me moving quicker than he could counter, and when I was finished, there were enough cuts of horse meat to feed a village of cannibals for a week.
I could also feel the countless wounds that covered my body. The Stampede had long since worn off. I was only still standing because of pure adrenaline and bloodlust. Or I would have still been standing.
Crack!
The round went into my leg, which was then torn from my body in a million bloody pieces. I felt my body hit the dirt as I blacked out, either from shock or exhaustion; I’ll honestly never know which. All I knew is that I was dead.
I opened my eyes. Everything was pure white. My first thought was something along the lines of why I was in Heaven instead of Hell. Then, as I slowly came to, a sad realization came to me that this place wasn’t either. I found myself in a room that had been painted white, but it was still just as run down as any other building in the Equestrian wasteland. It had just been spruced up a bit is all. Another pony came into the room, and another realization hit me.
“How the fuck am I still alive?” The light gray earth pony mare with the golden mane and unusual blue uniform seemed to flinch at my words, but proceeded adamantly toward me. Her voice was somehow calming, though, when she spoke.
“I’m honestly amazed myself. When we brought you in, you had more holes in you than a feral ghoul pony hit with a shotgun shell. You were a bloody mess, but somehow still alive. I am sorry about your leg though.”
Shit. Then it wasn’t a dream. Wait... Fuck. I realized the weight of her last statement. My leg had been blown off. Though why did I feel a solid structure where it should have been? I pulled the tattered bed sheet off me and there, in place of my leg, was a hunk of metal, and tech, and magick.
“They’ve done their best to fix you up with a cybernetic replacement. They assured me you’d be alright, though. You’ll just need some more therapy before you can leave. They want to flush all those drugs from your syst—”
I leaped up from the bed, not wanting her to finish her thought. Instead, I stumbled from the weight and clumsiness of my new mechanical limb.
“Easy,” she said, catching me. Her touch was warm and comforting. Something I had never felt before from neither stallion or mare. Even as wicked, tainted, and twisted as mine was, I could tell that her heart was pure. “It’ll probably take some getting used to.”
“Why did you bring me here? And where is here?”
“We were wandering through the ruins when we heard gunshots. It sounded like a massive firefight. When we arrived to see what the disturbance was, all had fallen silent. Whatever happened had already passed. We only found one pony who was still breathing – you. We rushed you back here to Underdog Town as quickly as we could. They’re salvagers, so they had the equipment and supplies to fix you up with some makeshift tech and my friend’s magick.”
That made my heart skip a beat. She had risked her life to save me, despite who I was and what I’d done. A complete stranger who cared about the one dying soul on that damned battleground. My heart skipped another beat, and I felt a pain of anguish run through me.
“You said nopony else made it?”
“Unfortunately not. They were all either dead, or probably captured. I’m sorry.”
I hung my head. I knew what I had to do. I’d stay here until I was physically fit again. Then I was going to hunt down and kill every last one of those Luna-damned slavers, or actually die trying. If I survived, I’d cast off my raider ways.
“Thank you,” I uttered for the first time in over a decade.
“No problem. Always happy to help.” She smiled the warmest smile, and allowed me to stand on my own. “Now, I need to get back to my friends. We need to get back to our mission.”
“I’m forever in your debt. I wish you good luck in your quest whatever it may be. I never caught your name though. Mine’s Bu—” I sighed. “Mine’s Summer Withers.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I had used that name – my real name. I was surprised I even still remembered it.
“Pleased to meet you, Summer,” she said, turning to me as she walked out the door. “I’m Dovetail.”
The door closed behind her. Dovetail. That name would be one I’d always remember.
Footnote: Level Up!
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