Fallout Equestria: Ol' Buddy, Ol' Pal
There are heroes, there are legends, and there are simple exaggerations to create them. The real stories come from things too outlandish to be true, yet so completely pointless that they must exist simply for the idea that a pony would have no reason to make such shit up. “It's true, damn it! I saw it with my own eyes!”
Or in my case, I suppose the real reply would be “He gave me the stuff I smoked!”
The story of Buddy is not long, intricate, or sordid. Perhaps that is why it remains endearing to other drug-addled wasters. Maybe because I knew the story is why he actually saw fit to descend upon me.
Ol' Buddy was more and less than your average ghoul. He survived the war, of course, and was said to hold immense and incredible knowledge from the before times. Then, he forgot it all on a drinking binge.
How he survived? It's said he was doing just what he did in the wastes, even before the war. He traveled a lot, slept outside, watched the cities bustle, and did the friendly thing whenever he was given the rare chance. In worship of Pinkie Pie, the old goat did what he wanted, and harmed none, before the megaspells erupted outside of Las Pegasus. Knowing the world of cities and bustle was over with, he only shrugged, and went on his way to offer up his barely lucid intellect to those he encountered. That, and access to his packs loaded with an intricate assortment of chem inhalers, injectors, powders, pills, vials, dried plants, and even humble alcohols, which he is never seen without.
That's where his odd story starts and ends. It's all true, though easy, and I'll tell you how I met him.
I was a raider. Was. A mid-road raid had turned sour against caravan guards much stronger, and all the stallions I knew had died around me. Though his injuries were graver, Meathead lasted the longest besides me, since he was far larger and had more blood to lose.
Amidst the rocks, charred trees, and shrouded sun, I awaited my own death. I cursed and spat dryly, giving rude gestures toward anything that could hear or see me from on high. The Goddesses would have me, I thought then, and I was happy to be free of the torment of the wastes. Even though it had taken hours, I knew I was dead, seeing how walking is rather a necessity among the ruins and my rear legs were shattered.
It's then that I heard fluttering jazz. Between the rocks and dust, it came closer. The scuff of hooves did nothing to abate the approach, and at first I thought it a cruel joke on death's part. Why should he, with so morbid a collection task, be so peppy as to play such upbeat music?
The blistered, rotting goat crested from behind a rock. He was bouncing in tune with the music, a small radio hanging from his neck in within a homemade horsehair net of sorts. He was smiling, tinted glasses on his face polished to absolute perfection. A pair of cushy bedrolls were at either side of the nearly anemic creature, red, the color garbled by sun bleaching and making him look like a pack Brahmin.
He bounced twice in his walking dance on each corpse of my fellows, trading looks from behind those glasses between each one. When he found one dead, he carried on, none the worse for wear. “I know just how ya feel brother.” He would say.
When he came to me, I barely had the strength to talk. My eyes fluttered up to him, and he tilted his head one way for two more bounces, then the other for the other two. As the music carried on, he exhaled a breath over me that had a unique stink only palpable for those that have experienced it. Sweet smoke, decaying teeth, and happy thoughts.
“Well now, what have I got here, huh?” He smiled. Buddy always did smile; he didn't have the option to avoid it, his leathery lips drawing back across his teeth in an eternal grin. “Ol' Buddy, Ol' Pal can ya spare a colt some time?” He'd say to himself.
To my disgust, he poured over my still lips something other than water. It wasn't unwelcome, of course, but potions always do go down better when the throat doesn't think they're sand. As my legs spun back into place and the joints fused back together, my veins filled with cold sparks. I gasped and coughed, strength alive within me again, and I laid amid the dry stain of my own blood and missing teeth.
Before I could finish breathing, I drowned myself on the bottle of water he offered me. The liquid gone in moments, I began to see stars, and nearly fell over even though I was still upon the ground. I thought I shared a glance with him (it's impossible to tell where his eyes wander behind those glasses), before I rolled to stand and took up my pistol again.
Buddy just stared at me while still bouncing, wearing his brown-yellow grin. “Oh, is this one of the new fangled stick ups?” He'd asked me. “Like in the comic books and on the radio?”
His reaction was utterly alien to me. The mouth of a gun had always been the perfect language in any part of the wastes. Buddy, being who he was, didn't give two shits to either side of his beard what I was ready to do. In fact, he seemed almost excitedly amused by it.
“You can ask, you know. No need to be like that, and I got plenty I sure don't need, and a lot of what you obviously do.”
My own reaction to those words was, of course, confusion. I'd never, ever asked nicely. He'd just told me, too, that he'd had more for me to steal. I'd never met anypony that stupid. Or, was it kindness? Were the the two any different?
I'd resolved to shoot him, loot him, and leave, but my gun clicked. I had to remind myself that I was quite lacking in the ammunition department after the firefight. He just laughed a bit, and said “Well looks like what you got into, the Goddess sure don't want you dying to, or starting over.”
With that gravelly, unflinching plainness of his words, it brought me further pause. Who the fuck was he to judge me on it? How did he know? Had he watched me getting my ass kicked?
He hoofed me some more water bottles, and with that my silent inquiries died out under the distraction. I downed another, and shook my head when I got dizzy. “That's the ticket.” he said. “Nothing worse than a bad trip, huh? Can't imagine being you right now was a good one.” His head tilted to one side, and paused only when the music reached the deadzone between songs.
I had two choices. I could stay with that obscenely bizarre fucker, or I could simply leave and hope our raiding outpost was still standing so I could scavenge enough to draw another set of violent savages bent on pillage and rape. As if he had the power to read minds while my brain was convening, he spoke again.
“C'mon now. I ain't met another soul with a need for what I got in weeks. You don't wanna curse your own sorry ass by movin' too fast, do you? Besides, it's free if you sit around and listen to what I got to say.”
Threat, promise, or simple insinuation at my own validly observed nature, I sure didn't know. So I sat with him and started to drink the water, keeping him in front of me in some misplaced notion of safety. He began to unload, shuffling off his heavy looking packs and tinkering quietly with the contents.
When the bedrolls unfurled, I found they had pockets sliced and sewn into them. Inside each was any sort of drug you could imagine- the list is far too long for me to recite, but I'll say the street value could have placed a capless punk like me into positions better suited for warlords and pimps with too much time.
He drew his hoof over the pockets like a librarian searching through named books, and gave me an odd cigarette filled with something blue. I raised a brow, but seeing as how he'd practically thrown some of his own supplies toward me, I didn't consider it dangerous. I put it between my lips at his insistent gestures. He clenched a match between his teeth, lit it with a draw across a nearby rock, and singed the edge.
“Take a few breaths,” he said. “Can't get your bearings if you think you know where you are.”
I eyed the tip of the cigarette as it burned purple. If I was instead dead and dreaming, it was certainly a strange way to induce penance. I took some bitter tasting breaths as he instructed, and the world turned flat. Sound turned tinny, light grew brighter, and color grew fantastic and loud enough to squint at like it burned.
Buddy presented to me a suitcase. “Now, seein' you as you are,” he said, “I'd say you don't got much in the way of methods to pay me for your life.” He interrupted me as I began to protest, and before I could simply turn and leave. “So, I'll be a cheap-ass and just help you on your way, aight? You just answer yourself and me a few questions and we'll call this little altercation something balanced.”
I'd never gotten something so close to free in my life. As my legs grew numb to whatever I was puffing, I realized I had about as much capacity to survive as I had when they'd been broken. He knew it, too. “What you need, colt, is a point. You got one? Huh? You even had a chance at giving yourself one?”
I remained confused. It wasn't from what I was smoking, either.
“No? Well, it don't have to be important. Lemme show you.”
He produced a suitcase from his other bedroll. When he popped it open to me while I continued to helplessly smoke, in full view were magazines. It was another collection of his, the one less spoken about, but no less incredible. How they'd survived the Last Day, let alone his years of rumored travel and dodged violence, had me... Well, truth be told, I can't remember much beyond what was in there. Smoking poison joke like that can do that to you, if you haven't said anything for it to abuse.
Porn. Piles, and piles of porn. Formed into neatly organized bricks behind straps, in pockets, and with dusty plastic jackets, large issue numbers glowed from writings done up in orange highlighter atop yellow sticky notes. “You seen this shit?” He asked me.
“Not that much.” I jabbed, the cigarette barely clinging to my lips. The stick half gone, I was already beyond any high I had ever been on. I was sailing by then- I can say I was smoking with him, but if you asked where I was, there was no way you'd ever get coherent directions.
“Well whatcha seen?” He was no doubt interested, and rifled out an issue. Wingboners, issue 68. On it was a plush pink pegasus, a beauty of which I had never seen, wings and legs spread, wrapped in string and lace. DJ-P0N3 and the Soarin- are the rumors true? INSIDE- Magical power sources and their effect the sex industry.
Feeling like I was brandishing some incredible artifact, I leafed through the provided issue with reverence. It was perfect condition; the roll of gloss on paper had a delicious sound I could feel, and how it had survived in such a condition was a marvel in itself.
“Nothing like this!” I proclaimed honestly. By Luna, I wish I could recall that centerfold. I'd lost a lot of time by then, and I'm still not sure just how much. I still think I'd been talking in slow motion.
“Well shoot. You got anything? Seen anything about this stuff?”
“Sure have. Who hasn't?” I tilted it upside down, as if it could somehow move her legs just an inch to the side. Fucking photographers and their use of “saucy.”
“Well, what about issue sixty nine?” He asked. “Seen that one lying around?”
“I don't pay much attention to numbers.” I admitted. In that condition, though, I wasn't paying attention to much. When had girls of the wastes ever been so pretty? Did it even matter?
“Shit. You got any back where you're from?” He asked.
“Naw.” I admitted with a drawl. The poison joke butt had burnt my lips and I had merely let it drop, careless and unresponsive otherwise to the pain. “I've seen some in a gas station west of here. Still has the paper on the front.” I lowered the magazine, the centerfold retreating into it's original position. Curious, I asked him. “Is... Is this all you do?”
Buddy continued grinning, as if he could help it. “Why not?” He asked. “Ponies kill each other for less. If you're gonna go screaming, might as well be a happy yell.” He chuckled.
I tried to put the magazine back in the plastic. I was so messed up, I completely failed. He did it for me, and gave me a pair of pink pills. I threw them back, shrugging, and began to snort just a few seconds later. I was laughing by the time he spoke up again, unable to reply for the rest of my meeting through the cackling. Even the dirt was hilarious.
“Yeah! Pinkie pills; that's the ticket. Feels good dunnit?” He rocked as the music bobbed from the speakers. “Man, ponies think bullets ruin lives? Issue sixty nine could ruin history!” He laughed with me.
I tried to hold up a hoof to make him stop. Every squak of his voice was tickling my lungs.
“Ain't no other got the Rainbow in it!” He said. “The Ministry of Awesome sure lived up to it's name with that issue around!”
I bit my lower lip, air escaping it in a sputter. I burbled into another laugh, just as incapacitated and blind as I had been while dying with broken legs. He wasn't kidding, but I'll be damned if it wasn't funny.
“The articles! By the goddess, there's so much history in those damned things.”
Brain to body, please respond. I thought. I need help, sir. There are too many giggles. I repeat, I am being overrun!
As I kicked at the air amidst my own joke, he was busy rolling up his various belongings. I turned back to the water, and as I tried feebly to recover by chugging it, it painfully escaped my nostrils in jets. My own predicament made me laugh harder.
Buddy lifted me up and helped me trot. It was hours, or so I was later told, by the time we reached an old police outpost. The ponies there, well aware of my place in the wastes thanks to my shoddy armoring, were completely confused. As Buddy stood next to me, bouncing, I tried to reason with the guard at the door.
“Hey.” I proclaimed. “Hey.” I squeezed his cheeks together with my hooves, just to make him listen. “Ever seen the world in pink?” He had no fucking idea. The sight of his scrunched face made me roll and cackle. I had to speak again between fits. “He... He looked like a blowfish! Blow!” I raspberried, pushing my own face together from where I was laying.
Nopony keeps their faculties against potential violence if they accept Buddy's hospitality. Not even dying raiders.
I spent some time in the stations cell block, laughing at the blemishes in the walls. He visited me, too, after a while. I'd recovered by then, stunned and still riding waves of foreign bliss. He was a welcome sight, and after I saw him I approached the bars to talk.
I wasn't sore he had turned me in. With the condition I'd been in, the ponies at the station had even been worried. I was a maniac, to them. Just plain stupid, or maybe even contagious. That poor position had been my saving grace, and they had jailed me to observe just to see if I'd survive it. Despite being confined, I'd been fed and watered reasonably. In the same period of time, I'd had a lot of thoughts pass through my head once they made sense.
Buddy and I didn't chat much, as there wasn't much to say. He produced a magazine- another copy of issue 68, which he left to me as a parting gift. A bit sad that was all he had for me, besides my own life, I asked him.
“Hey, you got any more of that pink stuff?”
“Well sure.” Buddy said. “But that's for ponies that need it.” He bobbed in place. “War's a bitch even I wouldn't sleep with, and a little bit of laughter is all you need to keep that dominatrix off your flank.”
“Where can I get more?” I asked him.
He pondered for a bit. “Well, if you ever need it again, you gotta want it when you ask:” Just like the stories say, he recited the prayer that I've not had the reason to whisper since then. I've been too clean. Too happy.
“Ol' Buddy, ol' pal, can you spare some time?”
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