Old Vaquero
"Equestria was filled with tales of the ghost-vaquero
who hunts down those who prey on the weak."
The war torn wasteland where Equestria once stood has no lack of violence, starvation, and poverty. The only thing there seems to be a dearth of is relief. Maybe somepony will locate a forgotten stash of caps somewhere, or an extra scrap of food will find its way into needy hooves, but very rarely does one have the luck to meet a hero... or so most ponies think.
Heroes are everywhere. While most think of heroes as the likes of the Stable Dweller, the Pink Ghost, or the Security Mare, there are others, all closer than you'd think. The only difference is that, for many, the hero's fire that could burn brightly in their hearts has not caught yet. All they need is a fuel.
For others though, the flame has already burned out. The harrows of either age or depression has snuffed it, leaving the unfortunate has-beens to fade into obscurity.
These fallen stars are not always wasted though. For some, the fire reignites. For others, they find somepony to pass it on to.
This is the story of one such hero's brief return to glory, one last foray into the field of battle which allowed his embers to start another's blaze.
p= -
Today was going to be a good day. That's at least what I'd thought when I first walked in to Scrapyard, the field of treasures hidden under layers and layers of rusty chariots and carriages.
I'd been there time and time again, and had practically claimed the place as my own. After I drove the raiders out, the only pony, or mule in my case, who saw any value in the place was me and the odd prospector, but even with them there was always plenty to go around. At first, the local dogs would come and try to eat me, thought I smelled good I guess. After a couple of good smacks though, they learned to leave me alone. Pretty soon, they were practically domesticated, having learned that most ponies are too well armed to be worth attacking, especially me.
It wasn't too hard to find what I wanted, just some bits of leather and decent metal to pad my Petro-Potro jumpsuit
with. I'd been putting it off for years, but with the recent rise in slaver attacks and those creepy No-Face raiders that moved in a few weeks back, it paid to be cautious.
As I was cutting out one last tough looking patch of leather from an old chariot seat, I heard the sounds of a door opening and a yawn behind me. I turned around to see a dirty little colt crawling out from inside a chariot. He was wearing a pair of light looking saddlebags and what used to be a pretty good looking shirt, rather than the rags that most wasteland orphans wore if they bothered with clothing at all. He appeared well fed too, making me think that if he was orphaned, it hadn't been for long.
Part of me wanted to just ignore him. It wasn't my problem, and lots of the kids out here knew how to handle themselves. I picked up my new supplies and started trotting off.
That's when I heard one of the dogs start growling, and the colt yelling "Go away you stupid dog! That's mine!" With a roll of my eyes, I turned around to see the poor kid fighting a dog over a radroach corpse. Kid must have killed it yesterday and tried saving some for later. Guess now that he was coming out into the open, the dog wanted it.
I shrugged. Might as well toss the kid a bone. I drew the .357 magnum I'd brought with me and fast as you could blink the dog's head popped.
The kid looked surprised for a moment, then turned toward me. I gave him a smile and a wave, then started to leave when I saw him smile back, a big, wide, heart melting smile. There's my good deed for the day, I guess; now the kid's got radroach and dog.
I passively browsed the piles of trash as I went back toward the exit, contemplating what I might be able to build with the odds and ends I saw. I almost made it all the way out before I realized the kid was following me.
"You know, you should probably go and get some meat from that dog. It doesn't taste as bad as you'd think, and you take what you can get out here," I said.
The kid didn't seem to care much for my little words of wisdom though. "That was so cool when you shot that dog!"
"Yeah, it was I guess. I don't like having to do it too much though, so steer clear of them from now on, okay?"
"Alright, I will."
I turned and left again, assuming he'd just scamper off, but I hadn't taken three steps before I noticed he was right behind me again.
"Uh... How long you plan on following me, chico?" I said, walking and talking.
"You're cool! I wish I could do that with a gun!"
Not the brightest bulb, was he? "Years of practice, chico."
"How many?" he asked. The look on his face made me think that he was probably hoping for something low and easy.
"Almost my whole life, really." I couldn't repress a smile. He was making me all nostalgic. It reminded me of the first time I'd held a pistol. Not a bad memory, probably would have been my version of a cutie mark story, if I was a pony.
"Wow! That must be hundreds of millions of years of practice or something!"
I chuckled a bit. I'd forgotten how cute little kids could be. Probably thought nine digits was reasonable for the elderly, especially ghouls."Take out the 'millions' bit, chico. Try more in the two-hundreds."
"You keep calling me Cheek-O. That's not my name. It's Salsa."
"Chico is a Spanish word. It means colt."
"Spinach? Blegh."
"Spanish. It's a different language. You said your name was Salsa, right? Like the food? Well, the country it came from spoke a lot of Spanish. Don't see it too much of it since the apocalypse though. Kinda depressing really."
"My momma says that there's a lot of things that disappeared in the apocalypse, but it's okay because new things are gonna come and take their place. Maybe someday there'll be another new language instead of Spanish. Although I don't really get why everyone doesn't just speak... whatever language we're speaking now. Hey, is this your house?"
If he'd spoken a second later, I might have been able to stop, but as it was I reacted too slow and smashed my face right into my front door. "¡Ay! ¡Follando puerta!"
Heh, probably a good thing he didn't speak Spanish if I'm gonna be talking like that.
It turned out that we'd ended up talking all the way to my shack. That Salsa kid sure had a mouth on him, I'll say that much. It was kind of endearing, really, and it'd been forever since I had somepony to talk to like this.
"Hey, Salsa, you wanna come in?" I asked.
"Alright. Wait, do you think my parents will be able to find me here?" he asked. I had assumed he was an orphan, but then again, he had been speaking in present tense when he'd mentioned his mother. But if they were alive, why was he sleeping in Scrapyard?
"They might, but do you know where they are? They're probably worried about you."
He looked at his forehooves. "I dunno where they are. Yesterday a bunch of ponies in masks attacked us and my dad told me to run, so I did. I'm just waiting for them to come find me now."
Ponies in masks... "the No-Faces..." I muttered. He really was an orphan, but he didn't know it yet. How long until he figured it out?
"No-Faces?" he asked curiously, his head cocked.
"The raiders in masks. They... they're bad ponies." My chest tightened. I didn't plan on telling him myself, but it was only a matter of time until this little boy realized his parents were dead, probably murdered in the worst way.
"My dad can take them. He's strong." He put on a confidant front, but his doubts were just a scratched surface away.
I just nodded, sitting down and exhaling, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he was right. Equestria had too many orphans nowadays, and I liked this kid. He hadn't even averted his eyes from my rotten skin; I was used to the staring and cringing, but it had been decades since I met somepony who just didn't care, who just took me as I was.
"Do you want something to eat?" I asked him, feeling like I needed to do something for him. I didn't need food myself, but I always kept a few boxes of snacks around. When you're undead, you don't have to worry about the health issues of eating when you're bored.
"Sure!" he said, grinning. If he'd been living with his parents, he probably wasn't used to eating raw radroach. He looked like he'd been craving some nice, two hundred year old, preservative stuffed food.
I got out a box of snack cakes for him. "Here ya go. Have as much as you like."
He grinned and took a big bite out of one of them. He turned to me with a mouth full of cake and said "Thanks Mr... Hey, what is your name, anyway?"
"Raul."
He swallowed what he was chewing and began to chuckle to himself. "Heh. Raul... You're a ghoul... So you're Raul the Ghoul!"
Ah rhyming. The world's easiest way to entertain a child. "You think that's good? I'm also a mule. So it's Raul the Ghoul Mule."
It was a good thing the kid's mouth was empty, or he'd probably have cake coming out his nose the way he was laughing so much.
I smirked. "I'm also pretty good with working with tools."
Salsa rolled over laughing. "Stop! My sides are killing me!"
"You're lucky I can't think of any more rhymes then."
"Well, you could do school, or drool, but those don't really work, do they? You're pretty cool, so I guess that's another one."
"You think I'm cool?" In my experience, the older you got, the less cool you got, so at two hundred and twenty three, I figured I ranked somewhere between drying paint and a rock.
"Of course you're cool! the way you took out that dog, it was awesome!"
"Well, I used to be pretty cool I guess, back in the day. Do you know that one radio station, Wasteland Tales?" Aside from DJ Pon3, Wasteland Tales was the main source of entertainment in the Wasteland. It was run by some pony named Dashwood and every single second of it was dedicated to radio dramas about heroes and the like.
"Yeah! With Daring Do and the Ghost Vakaro and all those guys!"
"It's Ghost Vaquero. I would know. I'm him."
Salsa's jaw dropped. "You... You're... Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! You're like one of my favorites! You're so fast with your gun, like POW POW! Even the really big guys couldn't beat you cuz you were so much faster! You killed 'em before they even got close!" He gasped. " Hey... You could probably beat all those raiders, right? The No-Faces? You could probably march right up to 'em, kill a bunch of 'em, and make 'em tell you which way my parents went."
And here he goes with the childlike wonder and grandiose ideas. That was the last thing I wanted him to ask.
I took a deep breath. Well, here you go Raul, you undead cabron, time to make a little boy cry. "I'm retired. I'm sorry, but a while back I went too long without radiation... I'm just not as good at fighting as I used to be."
"But... no, you're so cool and strong, you got that dog earlier!"
"That was one dog, not a pack of raiders."
"But... But what if my parents can't find me? Please, Raul, you have to make the raiders tell you where they went!" And of course, I could see the tears in his eyes.
There was only one thing I could do I guess.
Celestia, Luna, why did you make me such a sucker for sad kids?
"Alright, alright, I'll do it. But before I go, I have to tell you something, and it's not good," I said.
He sniffed, and looked at me nervously. He knew what I was going to say already, I'm sure, but this needed to be out in the open. "What?"
"Chico, your parents were attacked by raiders. While they might have just taken your parents prisoner, chances are... Well, chances are that it's already too late for them."
He started to whimper, and when he tried to speak again, he just ended up bawling. I picked him up and gently stroked his mane. It was the only thing I could think to do, but I knew it wasn't enough. When you lose your family, nothing is enough.
"But... but you're still gonna look for 'em, right? Please! They can't just be dead, they can't!"
"I can't make any promises, but if they're alive, I'll bring them back, okay?" It was then that I had an afterthought: a grim one, but one that I immediately knew I had to follow through with. "And if I can't save them, then I at least promise that the No-Faces will never hurt anyone again."
"O-okay..." he still couldn't stop crying, but I could see a look of awe in his eyes.
"Just a sec. If I'm doing this, I have to get ready," I said, setting him down. I trotted over to my wardrobe and pulled open the dusty doors. It had been years since I'd opened it: all the old radio stories about me were from decades ago.
Inside was my old armor: a leather vaquero outfit; a special .357 revolver; and my most powerful rifle, a gift from a buffalo chief I once met. I got changed and picked up a fair amount of ammo, both regular and hollow point for unarmored raiders. I was on the fence about wearing the hat, but eventually I decided that if I was doing one last foray into the wasteland, I may as well complete the image.
Salsa certainly seemed to appreciate it, I noticed. "You look so awesome," he said, his tears seeming to slow.
"Thanks, chico. Now, do you remember where your family was attacked?"
"Uh... I dunno."
"What is the last landmark you can remember?"
"Um... Oh! A trading post! It was named after a number, but the weird thing is that there was a sign that said two different numbers. It was the last place we saw before..."
Ah. The 188 Trading Post, named because it was at the intersection of Highways 95 and 93. I knew it pretty well, a good place to sell off the stuff I couldn't use. "Alright, and do you remember which direction you went after that?"
"I'm not good with directions..."
"That's okay, chico. I know the merchants there, they probably saw you leave. Now what did your parents look like?"
"Well, my mom is pinkish orange, and her cutie mark is a couple of peaches. My dad's big and grey and his cutie mark is three steel bars."
"Alright. Now, the merchants at 188, Shot Glass and his daughter Shot Gun owe me a favor, so I'm gonna try to get Gun to come watch you. If she can't come, you can help yourself to any food here, and you can read or listen to the radio. If she can, just do what she says."
"Okay. Thanks Raul. Thank you so much!" He gave me a big, teary hug.
"It's nothing, Salsa," I said, despite 'nothing' being the least fitting word to describe it. "Just stay here until me or Shot Gun comes for you."
He nodded, and with that, I left while an annoying voice in the back of my head ranted about how one way or another, this was going to be the last time I stepped out of retirement.
*** *** ***
"Raul! How's it going, man? And... What are you doing in that old getup?" Shot Glass asked me when I walked by.
"I met a little colt whose parents were by the No-Faces, and in an episode of extreme sympathy and suicidal overconfidence, I agreed to go wipe the raiders out and save his parents if they're still alive." I figured that about summed up my situation. "In the meantime, I need to call in a favor."
He seemed oddly intrigued by the whole thing. "Oh really? Well, to be honest, I'm kinda glad somepony's standing up to them. Having raiders nearby scares off customers, so whatever I can do to help, I will."
"You wanna do it for me then, boss?" I said, only half joking.
He laughed a bit. "No, I'm afraid I can't do that much. You though? Now I know you're not exactly at the top of your game, but I've heard your stories, and I've seen you use that gun. You've still got the fastest draw I've seen, and if anypony can handle those raiders, you can. So what did you really need from me?"
"It's the colt. His name is Salsa, and I'm having him stay at my shack while I'm out. I was wondering if Shot Gun could go and watch him. Also, can you tell me if you saw which way his family went, and anything you know about the No-Faces would probably help."
"Well, Gun's supposed to be helping me run the shop, but I suppose I can handle things for a day. Like I said, the No-Faces are driving people off. As for the kid's parents, I do remember a couple of travelers with a colt yesterday evening... Peach colored mare, grey stallion?"
"That's them."
"The went straight north." He pointed. "As for the No-Faces, I don't know much about them except that they like masks, but there is one thing I keep hearing about them that you might wanna know: I wouldn't be surprised if a few of them had PipBucks, because they're descended from stable dwellers, Stable 7 to be exact."
"Gamma," a voice behind me blurted.
I turned around and saw an indigo unicorn wearing an old tattered robe. She blushed at the attention, a couple raven black strands of her mane falling into her face. "It... never mind..."
"Anyway..." continued Glass, "Their main base of operations is an old house to the northwest. There's supposed to be at least six of them, but that's just the rumors: there's probably more."
"Six... Good, I can handle six," I muttered, trying to convince myself more than anything. Of course, I knew about PipBucks and EFS and SATS and how that made ponies about five times deadlier. I Hopefully they didn't have very many of them... "Is that all you got?"
"'Fraid so, but I know you've handled raiders before. The age thing is all in your head, Raul, you can do this."
"I sure hope so, Boss, I sure hope so."
I heard a couple of hoofsteps, and saw the robed mare at my side. "I'll help too, just to be safe."
"You will? Why?" I asked.
"Well, for one, raiders piss me off. Two, I know what it's like to lose family, and that kid needs to either get them back or be able to know that justice has been served. And three..." she lifted up a hoof, revealing that she was wearing a set of power hooves. "These are new power hooves. Gotta break 'em in somehow."
*** *** ***
After buying a few healing potions from Shot Glass (at a discount, because of what we would be using them for). We moved for a good twenty minutes before I decided to break the silence. "So, what'd you say your name was?"
"I didn't. My name is Victor's Rebirth, but you can call me V."
"Okay then, Victor's Re-"
"No, really, call me V."
"Heh. I never understood the names some ponies give their kids."
"I'm just glad I didn't get named after some kinda food. Dodged a bullet there... And your name was Raul, right?"
"Yup. Were you listening to that whole conversation Shot Glass and I had?"
"Yeah, sorry. I saw you coming in with that big, flashy outfit, couldn't help but pay attention. And then you mentioned the No-Faces and stables."
"Just couldn't resist, eh boss? You said something when we were talking about stables, by the way, what was it?"
She sighed and looked around, like she was afraid somepony would hear. "Alright, I should tell you. But what I'm about to say is top secret. You can't tell anypony else. The only reason I'm telling you is because you're going out of your way and risking your life to avenge a colt's parents, so I feel like I can trust you."
She took a deep breath. "Stable-Tec wasn't the only group that produced stables during the war. They were the biggest and most prolific, sure, but they only made one hundred and one. Those who have done more research estimate that there were around one hundred and fifty stables made, possibly two hundred, when you include Stable-Tec's and those made by other companies and private individuals. One of their competitors made several using a labeling system based on an archaic alphabet. One of those letters, Gamma, looks sort of like the number seven, and that's where the No-Faces actually started."
I nodded. It was interesting stuff, but I didn't see why it had to be kept secret...
"Like Stable-Tec's, these stables carried out twisted social experiments in them," V continued. "Gamma's experiment was to see what would happen if ponies weren't allowed to show their bodies, especially faces and cutie marks. They were supposed to wear these grey full body jumpsuits and identify each other only by decorations they wore. After about seventy years, the practice was fully ingrained in the stable dwellers' culture. When the stable's jumpsuit production equipment failed, however, they decided they had to leave to get more supplies. When they saw the other ponies however..."
"They got freaked out by seeing the outsiders walking around with their faces showing," I finished, the pieces coming together in my head.
"Exactly. Most of them had been taught for their whole lives that ponies were supposed to use self-produced clothing modifications to identify themselves, that they had to create their appearance on their own. To settle for what they were born with, their 'birth face' was a sign of lacking creativity and intelligence. Most of the No-Faces refused to associate with the outsiders, and those that couldn't adapt to new ideas, to change, they turned xenophobic... and their sense of superiority over tribals turned them into monsters..." her gaze dropped to the ground, and she stopped walking, frozen.
"V?"
She snapped out of whatever it was. "Oh, um... Well, those who refused to tolerate the outsiders went raider, and gradually spread out into different groups due to infighting and scarce resources. Their PipBucks gave them an edge in survival and a lot of them prospered for a while, but by now most of their technology is failing them after so long, either from poor maintenance or simple loss and theft. Now the only ones with PipBucks are usually the leaders. In fact, most No-Face groups tend to have just one or two leaders who take the best of everything while the weaker ones get a couple leftovers. Most of them just have a mask, a cloth croupiere for their cute marks, and a knife or pistol, while the leaders have metal combat armor and grenade launchers.
"So their structure is basically dragons leading lizards. That's good to know."
"You got it."
"Say... How do you know all this stuff anyway, boss?"
"That's another secret, I'm afraid. One that you don't need to know. Hey, what's that?" She pointed off the road to an overturned caravan. Exactly what we were looking for.
There were no bodies, despite a couple of blood stains. On one hoof, that could mean the No-Faces took Salsa's parents prisoner... on the other, raiders tended not to keep prisoners very long.
As I was surveying the wreckage, I noticed the butt of a rifle sticking out from under the cart. I didn't need any weapons myself, but I went to look at it anyway, just out of curiosity.
I heard it as soon as I touched the gun.
Beep. Beep.
"Mine!" I yelled, turning and leaping away. The explosion threw me back a little, but most of the damage came from the wood shrapnel. It hurt horribly, but it would have been much worse if I'd been facing it.
"HA! I knew it would work! Greedy looter fools!" came a shriek from our right. A trio of No-Faces burst out from behind a mound of rocks, two earth ponies with metal horseshoes and a unicorn with a shotgun.
Three of my bullets tore through the unicorn before he even got the chance to aim. The other two split up, one going for me, the other for V, who simply charged right back at her opponent. The moment they met, it became obvious that the raider was grossly outmatched as V broke every one of his legs before he even knew what was happening. My guy, of course, didn't even get close to me before I took his knee out.
Even if they weren't a threat to me though, their crimes against others were very serious, and I couldn't pull punches with them. That much was proven when I approached the one I crippled and got a better look at his clothing: a suit of crudely stitched pony pelts.
I stood over him, kicked his mask off, and pointed my gun in his face. "Unless you want your skull to be like your head, you'll tell me everything I want to know." Through my career, I had learned two very useful things: one was how to talk with a gun in my mouth, and another was that, the raiders that weren't stupidly brave were unforgivable cowards. With the fear in his eyes, I knew before he even nodded that this one would crack like my flaky, necrotic, dry lips.
Yesterday your gang attacked this caravan. Where are the ponies who were riding it?"
"R-Red Death did it! He killed them! I just helped catch the caravan!" he yelped. So Salsa's parents were already dead... I knew that this would happen, but the thought of what this would do to Salsa infuriated me, and his attempt to pass the buck to Red Death only pissed me off worse.
"You helped him, you're just as guilty!" I roared, pistol whipping him in the eye. "Now, Red Death is your leader, right? What kind of equipment does he have?"
"An assault rifle battle saddle and military combat barding. Also, his second in command Brank's Bridle has leather armor and a really good rifle, but other than that there's nopony much better than we were."
V stepped forward and interjected. "No PipBucks then?"
The raider shook his head. "No. Last one I saw belonged to Kabuki, and we split from his group."
"Damn. Would have been great to bring one back..." V muttered.
I continued the interrogation myself. "Now how many of you are there, not including you three?"
"Five," he said.
"Alright then... The leaders may give us some trouble, but that's not too bad..." I thought aloud. "Now, which way is your base?"
"Straight that way." He pointed. "If that's all, can I please go now? I promise I'll never hurt anypony again!"
I glared at him. "When I go home, I'm going to have to tell a little colt that his parents are dead, and you helped kill them. Plus every time I've given a second chance to a raider before, all it does is allow them to kill even more ponies who would still be alive if I'd just killed the raider the first time. I can't let you go."
"Bu-But you said-"
"Yeah. I lie to murderers sometimes. It's a pretty bad habit."
BANG.
*** *** ***
"I guess this is the place," V remarked as we approached their hideout, a two story McMansion decorated with several pony skins nailed to the front. On the front, probably put there by the home's previous inhabitants, were the words "New Caneighnite Hospital and Safehouse," but it was painted over in blood with a new message: "Dwelling of the No-Faces. Lesser ponies beware."
"So, we gonna do any stealth work, or you think a full frontal assault if there's just five?" V asked.
"I usually just go in and shoot everypony, but I suppose I could tell my guns to fire quietly, if you want," I said with a shrug.
She rolled her eyes. "I don't mean the whole time, I'm not a ninja. Seriously, if you're any good at stealth we could maybe peek through the windows, gather some intel on their positions before going in. I'd do it myself, but I was never any good at sneaking."
"Me neither. We'll probably catch the first one we meet off guard, but other than that, I think we'll just have to hit harder and faster."
"Works for me."
We approached the door, only for a No-Face to open it on his way out. V kicked him in the chest with a forehoof, knocking the wind out of him... or maybe dislocating his lungs, judging by all the blood he coughed up. V pushed him out of the way in time for us to see another one wearing some kind of bloodstained apron rushing down a hallway screaming. I drew my gun, and fired, getting him in the thigh, but not killing him. Meanwhile, an angry female voice from up a nearby staircase yelled "What the hell is that?"
"I'll take the one upstairs," I said.
"Alright," she said, taking off after the one I shot. Meanwhile I pulled out my rifle and got in position to fire at anypony coming down the staircase.
It wasn't long before she appeared in the doorway, a unicorn mare in an iron black mask. Based on her leather armor and rifle, I realized she must have been Brank's Bridle. I fired the second she came into view, but the bullet ricocheted off her mask and she ducked back. I started to go up the stairs to go after her, but when I was half way I saw a little metal ball flying out the door at me. My only escape was to jump over the railing.
Now I know a lot of ponies think it's really cool to jump out of the way of an explosion, but those ponies have obviously never had shrapnel embedding itself in their back while they fell twice their height onto their hooves with a minor case of arthritis.
Brank's jumped out again, her rifle drawn, and fired a bullet right at me, missing my head by inches and actually blasting off the tip of my ear. Just what my appearance needed.
I rolled back onto my hooves before she could get another shot. She dropped another grenade on me, but I outran it and turned around to take another shot at her, getting her in the foreleg. She fired back again, hitting me in the shoulder.
I fired one more shot at her chest, getting a satisfying blossom of blood.
"You wastelander bastard!" she barked, wincing in pain. She responded quickly though: THREE grenades. I ran out of the house, my only escape, and once again made a painful but successful dodge. Successful in that I didn't die at least.
I ducked around outside the door and pulled out one of the healing potions Glass had given me, then another when that wasn't enough. While I was still healing, Brank's ran out of the house to chase me... unaware that I was only behind the doorframe. She ran right past me and didn't expect a thing when my bullet got her in the back of the head.
*** *** ***
I reentered the house, with one more healing potion left. I hadn't heard or seen anything from V yet, so I decided she was my first priority. I followed down the path she had taken, soon coming across the corpse of the No-Face she had been chasing. So there were two left, including Red Death. I checked in every room, and found another stairway, upstairs and went up that too. Along the way I had found a few rooms decorated with bones and typical raider things, but a few were particular points of interest or, points of revulsion, I guess, considering what they were. One was the room where I found several skins, one steel grey, and a pre-war sewing machine. I recalled that of the No-Faces I'd seen earlier was wearing only a mask and a threadbare cloth over his croup: Salsa's father was going to be his new outfit. Next was the kitchen, which had a bloody, headless, skinless corpse on the counter. It explained why V's target had been wearing an apron. The third thing I found though was the worst: a bedroom, where a peach colored mare's decapitated body was tied spread eagle to a bed.
My anger hadn't burned so intensely in years. It was as bad as when my home was burned with my family inside. As bad as when I found what was left of my only surviving sister after her encounter with raiders. As bad as when the pony named Pay Dirt and his gang kidnapped and murdered the last pony I'd ever let myself get truly attached to. I hastened my search through the house, not finding a soul. Then I noticed a cord hanging from the ceiling... an attic...
I pulled it down and climbed up. What I found inside was salt in the wounds, utter blasphemy on top of every other crime. There were at least twenty of them lined up in rows on shelves against the walls, with plenty of room for more. Head and cutie marks, preserved together in jars as trophies. A grey stallion head with steel ingots and a pink mare with peaches were in the two on the far right. Sorrow and hate fought for dominance inside me. I clenched my teeth until I thought they would crack and tears clouded my vision. There was no forgiveness possible for what I'd seen downstairs alone, and here these murderers had taken all their sins and put them on display, like they were proclaiming "We have stolen, we have raped, we have killed, and we are proud."
"Beautiful, isn't it?" A disgustingly polite and refined voice said behind me. I turned and fired my revolver without even thinking. All six shots were poorly aimed in anger and only half hit, the rest embedded themselves in his armor, none penetrating. "Hmph. That wasn't very nice at all. Didn't your mother tell you to respect your betters?" replied the monster that could only be Red Death as he wrapped me in a telekinetic grasp before I could grab my rifle.
He was so heavily covered in metal that he could have passed for wearing power armor. His barding concealed his entire body, bearing countless decorations and superfluous spikes, many of which were made with bone. His mask followed the same design as his armor, his horn hidden by a curved metal guard. His eyeholes, which resembled black voids, had streaks of red coming down from them, as did the nostrils and mouth. His battle saddle had been incorporated into the design, the trigger bits hidden in his mouth within.
I stared furiously at him, literally trying to glare him to death. "Why..." was all I could say.
"Why what?"
"Why did you murder all these ponies! What the hell did they do to deserve this!"
He laughed pettily. "Oh, you silly, silly wastelander. Your kind would ask that. It's not that they did anything to deserve death. It is simply that they didn't do anything to deserve to live." He kept me paralyzed in his grip, but moved me around him, making me look over his armor. "Just look at me. Have you ever seen more beautiful regalia in your life? It is proof of the No-Faces' superiority, of which I am the pinnacle. Did you see my entourage before killing them? Even those who went practically naked managed to create unique, beautiful masks for themselves, replacements for their dull, Celestia-made faces." He practically spat the goddesses name before pointing me toward the jars. "Just look at these heads, all unadorned, as we found them. They settled for nature. You yourself settled for something beneath even that. They were not brilliant enough to see that they could be beautiful. They did not even care for their own appearances, the very way they were seen: what value could ever be placed on such dull minds, such pathetic lives?"
"One of them would be worth more than a thousand of you!" I screamed.
"Ha! They are as low as animals. They are animals. As their betters, it is our right, our duty, to give meaning to their lives by allowing them to be our clothing, food, playthings, whatever we want for them! I even found use for their bones, as you can see. Although, I do have a problem: You see, a skull would truly complete my ensemble, perhaps, here, on my chest, but that conflicts with the way I keep my trophy collection... Your head, however, is rotten beyond use even as that. So I shall use your precious little cranium. After all, you were the one who ruined peytral. A little acid wash and your skull will be both the perfect patch and centerpiece!" He pinned me to the ground and took aim at me with his battle saddle. "Let's just get rid of that hideous body first!"
V's power hooves smashed into his side, knocking him to the ground. "Sorry I'm late. The mare I found in the sewing room had me chasing her all through the house. Must have lapped the place four whole times! Least she gave me a nice view."
I hurriedly got to my hooves and pointed my rifle at Red Death, getting in two good shots before he rolled over and jumped right at me. I wasn't fast enough to jump out of the way, and he sent us both crashing into a support beam, snapping it in half under our combined weight.
The next thing I knew, my bones began to crack under Red Death's weight, then it got even worse when the ceiling collapsed on us as well. The floor gave out and dumped us in the sewing room below. I was buried under the weight of the entire collapsed attic, only my head and a broken foreleg freed, while Red Death landed a few feet away. I had no idea where V was.
I hoped Red Death was down for good, the same miracle that saved me perhaps killing him, but that was not the case. He got to his hooves, visibly in pain, but far from dead.
"I've had quite enough of you troublemakers," he growled, glaring at me through his mask's dark eyeholes. "You better not have cracked your skull! I deserve something out of this!"
He took aim at me again, and I knew that was it. I didn't see my life didn't flash before my eyes or anything. All I felt was a tragic realization: I should never have come here. I was too old, no longer fit for fighting and gunplay. I hadn't seen his face, but Red Death's voice was one of a stallion no older than thirty, probably even less than twenty-five. He was still in his prime, much more than a match for me, as were so many others out there.
I simply stared back at him, glad that I had at least done some damage, and prepared to let death take me.
That's when V dropped down from the attic and brought all four power hooves down in a single blow on Red Death's back. As he wailed in pain, she leapt off him and bucked him in the head, throwing him into the air and onto his back, his mask sailing off his head into the far wall.
Near where he landed, there was a group of full length mirrors where the No-Faces probably tested out new looks and outfits. I could just see the reflection of his true face in one of the mirrors. He had a fat, bleeding lip and a black eye, but even when I was his age I'd have traded my left hind leg for a face like his.
"Oh... I'd forgotten how hideous I was..." he said, knocked silly.
V stepped over him and rolled her eyes. "I could make an inner-beauty-outer-beauty quip right now, but I think this will get the message across." With one stomp, she turned his head to a splatter on the ground.
*** *** ***
It took V the better part of an hour to safely dig me out and apply healing potions to my broken body. She hadn't had to use even one of hers in the fight. Even after I was stabilized, she insisted on carrying me back home, an offer that I didn't hesitate to take her up on.
It was a long ride home, and it gave me time to think. Ponies like the No-Faces were a blight on existence, there was no doubt about that, and they simply had to be taken out before they made others suffer. It was a dark fact, one that was unimaginable when I was a foal before the war, but one that could not be denied in the present age. Somepony needed to do it, and for a while, that pony had been me. Eventually though, when my body began to fail on me, I'd given up. The world wasn't mine anymore. It belonged to younger ponies, like V. I mean just look at her, she'd helped me fight the No-Faces, took out their leader by dropping from the ceiling on him, and even then still had the strength to carry me all the way back home. She was young, strong, and on top of it all good-hearted. She was the kind of pony the world could still rely on, not me.
This hadn't been the first time I'd reached this conclusion though, after all, I had already been retired. The first time though, it had been for selfish reasons, now that I thought about it. I was only thinking about how I was getting old, and how I felt the strain and soreness on my body. A good reason to stop, sure, but afterward I had simply dropped off the map, lived a life of seclusion, just to get myself by.
Today though, the whole event reminded me what it was like to do something for someone else. Despite all the pain and injury, I truly felt good about helping Salsa. In fact, I resolved that I still wasn't through with him yet; I'd seen enough homeless orphans for my taste. He wouldn't be the last pony I did something for, either. Even if I never fired a gun again, I decided that somehow I would find a place to be useful, rather than just sit on the wayside like before. There's a lot of niches left unfilled in the wasteland, I'm sure even a rotting bag of bones could find a place.
*** *** ***
Seeing Salsa's reaction to the news about his parents was the worst pain I'd suffered all day. I spared him the details about the state I'd found their corpses in, but as a foal he needed only to know his family was gone to reach the lowest emotions he could feel. He ran to me and buried his face into my chest. I felt unworthy of being his last source of comfort, after all I was the one who failed to save them, but nonetheless I wrapped a foreleg around him and held him close. Whatever he wanted, I would accommodate.
Shot Gun, who had spent the day playing with him while I was gone, knelt next to us and stroked his mane and back. V simply stood vigil nearby, wiping tears from her own eyes. None of us moved until Salsa eventually cried himself to sleep, and I gently laid him down on my bed.
Shot Gun approached me as I sat down on my couch, exhausted. "I feel so sorry for him... Listen, Raul, I need to go home for now. If he needs anything though, just tell me or my dad. I'm sure we can spare whatever he'll need."
I thanked her and let her go, but inside I knew he needed more than a few supplies.
V sat down on the couch next to me, and the minutes ticked by in silence before she finally spoke up. "Where is he going to go now?"
"I dunno, V. I just don't know."
She looked thoughtfully for a second, but simply sighed and let the silence overpower us again.
*** *** ***
I don't think either of us meant to, but eventually we both fell asleep right where we were on the couch. I was the one who finally woke up first.
My first step was to instinctively check Salsa. He'd kicked the covers off in a fitful sleep and the pillow was drenched in mucus and tears. Carefully, I pulled the covers over him again, but apparently the slight touch of the blankets were just enough to make his eyes inch open.
"Raul?" he said, looking up at me.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," I said softly.
"It's okay..." he said, "Thank you."
I simply nodded, saying nothing.
"Even if you couldn't help them, I know you tried really hard. You're still awesome." He gave me an admiring look far beyond what a failing mission deserved.
I smiled anyway and gave him a little hug. "Thanks chico, I needed that."
He returned the hug twentyfold. "So, did you beat all the bad guys?"
"Yeah. Well, it was mostly V, but I helped."
"Can you tell me?"
"What?"
"Can you tell me how you beat them? Ms. Shot Gun let me listen to Wasteland Tales and we heard one of the stories about you. I think it's one I heard before, where you saved those buffalo from the Blue Moon gang. That one was my favorite, but I wanna know all your adventures, even this one." His face was tinged with melancholy, but there was no doubt that he was interested.
I wasn't sure if this was the right time for a story, but my gut instinct told me to just sit on the couch with him and tell him an abridged version, so that's just what I did, naturally without the corpses and Red Death's trophies. He looked admiringly at me the whole time, especially when I defeated Brank's Bridle and stood up to Red Death. Even the parts where I was injured and failing, he admired me for surviving them. It was as if I'd done the whole thing perfectly in his eyes, even V's successes seemed to be an extension of mine.
When I finally finished we decided to go and get him some breakfast. We found V just waking up and stretching. "Hey, there kid. Did you sleep well?" she asked.
"Not really," he responded. "I had a lot of nightmares, but when I woke up, Raul was there and he told me a story about how you two beat the No-Faces and that made me feel a lot better."
She looked a little surprised, probably about my choice in stories, but she could see that it obviously worked.
As Salsa dug into a box of junk food I gave him, and I sat next to her again on the couch, she asked "Do you think he has any other family out there?"
"I'm not sure, probably too soon to ask him, considering. I'll figure something out though," I said, an air of promise in my voice.
"All right then. Listen, I gotta go, but I'll make sure to come back sometime. I'll definitely keep an eye out for potential homes for the little guy too," she said with a smile.
We said goodbye, as did Salsa through a mouthful of food, and she cantered away.
When Salsa finished up his food he trotted and sat next to me, cuddling up into my side. Eventually, he asked "Hey, Raul, do you think you could show me how to use a gun sometime?"
I shrugged. "I don't see why not. I think Shot Gun's been trying to sell an old BB Gun she found for a while, may as well let you try that. After all, if you wanna get good you still have a couple hundred million years to practice."
He chuckled and rested against me, and in spite of everything that happened, just for a moment everything somehow felt right.
Raul looked after Salsa for the next few days, telling him stories when he asked and helping him cope with the loss of his parents in any way he could. The grieving process was filled with ups and downs, but in time, the young colt learned to cling to his happy memories, as all in his position must do. V's visits never brought any promising leads to find Salsa a new home, and he had no other family in the wastes, but perhaps that was a good thing. Raul never once saw Salsa as a burden, and the two quickly grew attached to each other. Eventually, it became clear that the little colt had already had a home and new family all along.
Despite his permanent return to retirement, Raul fulfilled his goal of making himself more useful to those around him. He set up his own repair shop at the 188 Trading Post, and his skill with a wrench soon became well known throughout the area, bringing in plenty of business both to him and to the other traders at 188.
Apart from making the occasional visit to check up on Salsa and Raul, V continued her life much as she had before, traveling and collecting supplies for her own allies, the infamous Steel Rangers. However, her meeting with Raul intensified an already deep doubt in her when she saw the grim parallels between the Steel Ranger and No-Face xenophobia. Indeed, even on the first day she knew that she could bring Salsa to the Steel Rangers and they would gladly accept him as a recruit, but her fear of the paths they would take him down kept her silent until it became abundantly clear that leaving him with Raul was the best choice she could have made. One day, many years later, when she heard tell of a splinter faction called Applejack's Rangers, she sought to join them immediately. She never looked back.
Salsa took quite a bit of time to get over the loss of his parents, but thanks to Raul, he had somepony to bring him out of his worst moments of sadness. He began to take after the old ghoul, imitating everything he did. Raul gladly accepted the role of his teacher, and started training him in the arts of repair and marksmanship. By the time he was fully grown, Salsa's one desire was to be a hero and follow in the footsteps of the ghoul that he was proud to call his father.
Author's Note
Honestly, I had a lot of fun writing this one. Me and some of my friends, including most of the Wild Wasteland prereaders, have been doing an FOE roleplay, and the character I play is actually who Salsa would eventually grow up to be. So I'd like to say thanks to all my friends who helped inspire this story and make it what it is.
The No-Faces are a group that I've had in my brain for a while, and I just love them (in that villain love kind of way) in part because of their high and mighty attitudes making everything OK for them, in part because they have such a unique backstory, and in part (in fact, mostly) because they have cool masks.
If our group ever decides to make our RP into a full fledged fic (it's been discussed, and it's only a matter of time) then I'll definitely update this with a link.
