Fallout Equestria: Black Sky

Chapter 6: The Long Way

Me and Skitters could only look dumbfounded as we saw what the Rusty Hooks member was tided up in, ropes covered him nearly from head to flank his muzzle was closed tight with a bridle made of the same rope to keep him silent, all four of his legs where kept tight to his body, and on top of all that, he was then roped onto all four contours of the cart, a rickety barely holding together thing that looked ready to fall apart if you so much as sneezed in it's direction.

“We're suppose to take him in that?” Skitters asked.

“Pretty much,” Spear said.

“This is all we can spare” The Mayor said, she then gave a nod as two guard ponies quickly left back into town. “We don't have a lot of parts for it, but you should be able to use it.”

“Not but to be ungrateful, but are you sure we couldn't have something a bit less...deathtrap?” I said.

“Sorry kid.” Spear said as he started to walk back into town. “But what we got needs to be ready for the rest of the gang. From here you're on your own.”

“I've got every bit of confidence you'll do great,” the mayor said as she slapped me on my back and walked back herself. With that the doors closed behind her with a mighty clang and the locks being put in place.

And there we where, just me, skitters, and the gang member.

“So now what?” Skitters asked me, I just looked at him with a raised eye brow.

We were taking a wide birth around town. If the Rusty Hooks were out looking for us their efforts would mostly be focused in and around Los Pegasus. Since our destination was on the other side of town it was safer this way.

It would be a several hour trip with me tied to the cart pulling it, being an Earth Pony may have it's advantages like a big athletic advantage over other ponies, but it was no less exhausting. We were at this point having to travel South to make a bee line straight for Los Pegasus. This close to the old Smokey Mountains and the Unicorn Range behind us, we followed one of the old caravan trails along side some train tracks, given the hilly nature of the route in the immediate area, it gave us some measure of cover.

The time spent walking said trail was quiet and other then a few Bloatsprites, and Radroaches, in the area, it was pretty lonely. Dead trees lined either side of the tracks as we passed through this part of the trail.

Eventually we deiced to take a break and give my sore legs a bit of a rest. Skitters unhooked me from the harness then went to help 'escort' our prisoner around to a dead bush to let him relieve himself as it where. Skitters kept his gun trained on him so he wouldn't try to anything. Once done we tied him back up.

While skitters had been busy with that I spent that time getting our food ready, I had to make do with some dried up jerky, a few pieces of what looked like lettuce, and some of the flattest bread in the world. Given that the bread we got amounted to some hard crusty old thing that you could use to hammer a nail in, in fact I think I saw someone using it as such back in town before we left.

“This stuff is nothing like the food back home.” I said. “At least with that I don't want to gag afterwords.”

“All tastes the same to me,” Skitters commented. “bland and boring, not like my, favorite meal. Mind you it's not like I can get it at the moment.”

“hmm.” was my only response as I took another bite.

“HEEEMPH!” our prisoner tried to say though the bridle “merrhs meeer mre?”

Skitters and me looked at each other then back at the prisoner. I tilted my head to him and Skitters magicked the bridle from his muzzle.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“Bahh! I said 'can I have some?' I haven't had anything to eat in two days.” He said with a bit of a whimper.

Skitters was indifferent to the matter, but couldn't let him starve, no pony deserve that. Walking up to him with the other half of my sandwich I stuffed it into his mouth.

“Here,” Just because I didn't want to starve him didn't mean I was going to be nice about it, he still hurt a good number of ponies back in town.

“Mrrph mou!” He said as he ate his meal, showing a big smile as he swallowed it all in a few bites. “That was good.”

I saw Skitters ready the gag for his mouth put I put my leg before him to stop it, I wanted to know a few things.

“So what's your name?” I asked him while I had the chance. No point in treating him any worse then he deserved, and maybe I could get something out of him as to why he did it.

“Rusty Chrome.” Now that I was paying him some attention I noticed how young he was, he must have been barely 15 or so.

“Pretty young to be in a gang.”

“It's the wasteland, you are either part of some gang, an epic bad-ass loner, or you're dead out here.” He said with a shrugged as best he could tided down as he was.

“I'm surprised you are being so friendly.” Skitters pointed out. “I'd figure you'd be as unhelpful as possible.”

“Are you kidding? Knowing that FlayClaw might be coming for us, I'm hoping to get put in an NCR prison, I'll live longer, and anything that gets me there quicker will only make me too happy to help.” He said, just how bad is this FlayClaw. Besides what little Spearhead had given me, I know next to nothing about his pony, I would push the matter but Skitters had a bit of a pale look on him from the name alone, so I decided to move on.

“So why did you attack the town?” I asked, not sure I was going to like his answer.

“Besides revenge? Mostly because Steel Hook, the pony you killed, was the current leader.”

“Current?” Skitters asked.

“Yeah, after your stunt with the train, you kind of killed all the leadership that was in the building you crashed it into. Brilliant bit of work if you ask me, if I hasn't been on the edge of all that you would have gotten me and Steel Hook as well after he stormed off from the meeting.”

Talk about timing, I never knew I had dealt such a huge blow like that, still given the retaliation that took place.

“Tell me about Steel Hook. Why'd he decide to attack the town?” I asked him.

“Steel Hook was always ambitious, he tired a few times to take over.”

“I take it he failed big time?” Skitters commented after laying down and using his magic to pull out another dried jerky to consume.

“Oh you don't know the half of it, anypony else would have been hung from their legs and used as a practice dummy, but Steel Hook was too good at his job intimidating the Caravans into giving up their goods and taking care of the ones that wouldn't.”

'Wow, this guy sounds like tons of fun,' I'm kind of glad I got rid of him when I did.

“The ones that wouldn't, well he liked to be really nasty to the fillies and colts they might have had, he used to tell tales of when he worked for somepony big on the east coast in Fillydelphia where he would attack caravans just to capture ponies and drag them off to be sold into slavery. If it wasn't for the boss being on top of him all the times he tried to pull something, she kept him in line, but since you blew up our base he took it as an opportunity, so he rounded up those of us that weren’t dead, injured, or ran off and went to start off his career as the boss of this part of the Rusty Hooks.”

“Not for very long.” I said, “I think I did the world a favor.”

‘SNAP’

The sound of a branch snapping had Skitters on alert and put an abrupt end to my information gathering. bringing his gun up he scanned the trees around us, the shadows of the dead forest making it hard to tell if there was anything out there.

“Lily, get hooked up.” I didn't need to be told twice, given what I'd learned of monsters that are out in the wasteland from what Skitters told me up to now, I figured it was best to do what he said.

‘SNAP’

“Skitters?” I asked trying to tie myself into the harness. “What's going on?”

“I don't know,” he said as he scanned the direction of the noises. “I'm seeing shadows between the trees. Get hooked up already!”

The Gun floating in his magic kept scanning back and forth with each new shadow that seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. I had finally gotten the final strap tied down when Skitters fired a few shots. That's when we heard the growling.

What I saw was a walking out of the tree line and into view was a corpse of a pony. It was rotten and decayed, the smell alone I could barely stand as my brain practically froze staring at it, and then more walked out, starting to growl at me and my changeling friend.

BOOM! The sound of Skitters' shot snapped me out of my stupor, looking back at him, the gun still smoking in his magic.

“LILY! RUN ALREADY!” He said as he took another shot at another of what I could only say was a horde coming out of the woods as they started to pour out like a flood of water, I didn't bother with any kind of complaint as I just ran. Skitters just started pumping shot after shot as I pulled the cart as hard and as fast as I could, ignoring any objects that got in my hooves. The fact that these things could be heard screaming over the sound of the gun fire should give you an idea of just how big said flood was.

We had already been running for a good five minutes following the old trail when I spotted the split.

“SKITTERS! LEFT OR RIGHT?” I shouted as best I could to get his attention, when he didn't out right answer I tired again. “SKITTERS! ARE YOU LISTENING?!”

“For Luna's sake YES! What is it?” he said looking back for a second before a ghoul tried to climb up back of the cart, he promptly slammed its head with the butt of the gun a few times to knock it loose, the body falling still on the ground as the sea of undead like flesh over swept it.

“Left or Right! 'HUFF' Fork ahead!” My body at this point was starting to feel the marathon running catch up to me, now growing up in a stable isn't really all that bad if you need to work out, the gym we had was set up to help with long term health in mind, sure we had treadmills, weights, and other kinds of stuff to help keep in shape, but all that was in a controlled environment.

Out here that isn't the case, sure i’m an Earth Pony with plenty of endurance, and can do a lot more physical activity than other unicorns...not too sure about pegasi...or an Alicorn...and maybe a changeling if they focus their form into an earth pony form. Running from a horde of what i could only imagine were flesh eating zombies while pulling a cart with two passengers, and hitting just about every sharp rock on the trail without a stop for over five minutes on the other hoof can take some steam out of your engine.

I was starting to feel the adrenaline dump start to wear off, muscles start to burn like you'd expect after a long run. It wouldn't be long before I would have to stop, and we needed to put distance between us and the horde that was chasing us. I felt shudders of more zombies trying to get on while skitters at this point used his gun to bat down the unwanted hitchhikers off our ride.

“RIGHT!” He shouted after he pulled out a grenade to try and slow another group that was coming up after peeling off the current offenders, it only worked to stop all but two that also tried to latch on. “LEFT GOES TO A GHOST TOWN!”

“Gotcha!” I said as I pulled the cart more to the right following the split in the tracks, I kept going around a corner when the trees on my left gave way to a bit of a drop, and a wall rock rose suddenly on my right, the trail had narrowed a bit but that gave Skitters more of a shooting gallery as it forced the ghouls to narrow up or fall off the side and into a big drop.

That's when I felt the cart start to bite into my sides, a good number of zombies had caught up and were trying to climb up the back, even with skitters doing everything he could, they just wouldn't stop, he would peel one off for another to take it's place, and hitting them in the head was only stunning them until he was able to get a shot off point blank at their heads.

I meanwhile was running on fumes as I noticed the bridge up ahead a bridge that was missing the middle, no wonder this trail wasn't used anymore, not only because of the undead prowling the woods, but the fact that the only way past this point was gone.

“SKITTERS! There's a bridge ahead, and the middle is gone!”

“What!?” He shouted looking up from shooting another zombie. “ACHK!” Only to barely dodge a bite from some filly that got too close, Skitters could only punch it in the face to back it off, however it still held on, he was dealing with only two at this point and they were not going to give up on us.

We had picked up speed at this point, with the back end of the cart just barely touching the ground every so often. The rather steep grade of the trail made a perfect slide for us to stay ahead of all but the fastest of the zombies coming after us. It wasn't without the issue that I had no option to stop and prevent us from going over or to go back there and lay the smack down myself.

“Lily! Do something!” Skitters shouted as he got rid of one of the zombies only to have to wrestle with the last one trying to eat his face off.

“Do something!? Like what?”

“I DON'T KNOW! I'm too busy dealing with my new special somepony here, and she is really needs to brush her teeth! Just do something, anything at this point!”

It was really was a no win situation, and I didn't have much to work with, I could hear Rusty screaming which didn't help matters as he looked back from me to the rotting pony, we were coming up to the bridge quickly and the gap that was in it. If I had something like a ramp of some kind-

“Skitters! I have an idea, but you're not going to like it!”

“I don't care, just DO IT!” he said doing his damnedest to try and shove the corpse-faced pony out.

“Okay! But you need to get rid of the dead weight!” I pushed myself forward with everything I had left in me. Given the rather steep grade for this set of trail, somepony had built a ramp seemingly for the purpose of a daredevil skating jump. I wasn't about to question the sanity of a bunch of pre-war kids and pressed forward hoping it would hold up.

Skitters had just ejected his girlfriend as I pulled the cart right into the ramp, the ghouls following right behind us, with the momentum and myself pushing with everything, I was pulling away from the horde, going up the ramp without slowing down, we hit the end of the ramp and got a rather nice view of what was once a river in a gorge.

Skitters took a few seconds for his mind to finally understand what I just did, he looked back to see the horde stopping at the edge with some of their numbers going over the edge from not slowing down in time. He had a such a smile on his face until he realized that we were mid air.

That smile faded when we started to hit the peak of our arch, and free fall started to kick in. Rusty began to scream in panic as his face went as pale as a clean sheet as realizing we'd be the ground a bit short of our needed distance.

“SHIT!” I heard skitters shout, I myself looking death in the face for probably the third time...or was it the seventh? Moments of my life flashed before my eyes as I went through them like a sideshow, from birthday parties, to times I was grounded for pulling pranks on the overmare with her son, to the class lessons, all kinds of things. I was so engrossed that I didn't notice Skitters had climbed on top of me and with all four legs held me in a death hug. A green glow of light flashed behind me and the sound of pegasi wings flapping with all their might started filling my ears.

Our straight drop became a more forward movement as Skitters pulled us slowing our descent and increasing our forward momentum, we just barely cleared the edge when we slammed, bounced, and skidded into a large bush on the side of the trail.

After what felt like a thousand cuts and scrapes we had come to a full stop. Poking my head out of the dry bush I got a survey of our surroundings, Skitters was okay...mostly, our prisoner was out like a light, eyes rolled back and foam coming from his mouth while his body was limp like a wet noodle in his restraints.
Lastly I checked on our cart to see if it was still able to work and for anything that may have fallen off it. Once that was finished my body decided this was a good time to collapse as I fell to the ground exhausted and sore.

Nap time...I deserved it.

The sun was getting low in the sky as we continued down the foothills. It would be a few more hours before we got anywhere near where we needed to go, so looking back to skitters trying to keep our prisoner from drowning in his own drool I stuck up a simple question that sort of needed to be asked.

“Skitters, what was that? They looked like Zombies out of one of my Daring Do books back home.”

“Well, you aren't far off, they used to be ponies,” That made me stop.

“Ponies? Used to be?” the idea was finally sinking into my head after all that time running. “Don't tell me-”

“I'm afraid so, it's what happens to those that get too much exposure to any large dose of magical radiation. Far as I can tell if you don't die out right from it, you change and from there you have two ways it can go.”

“What's the other?” I picked up my trot going around some rocks that were on the trail, letting skitters keep treating chrome best he could.

“Well, what we saw back there is what happens to after becoming a ghoul and your mind rots, the other kind is the type that still has their mind intact for the most part, some have lasted for the last 200 some odd years even.”

“Wait, there are ones that old? From before the war?”

“Yeah, I meet a few, one I know claimed to have know a lot of what happened back then, wrote a book about it and everything, mind you it is hard to get a copy since paper and Ink is hard to make. If we find a copy I'll get it, pretty good read.”

The rest of the way was in silence, the wind was very slight as the shady overcast broke in places giving spotty light and shade. Looking down from the foothills I could see a wide open area and just on the horizon what looked like a speck, our destination.

It was near sunset when we would then stop near a fork in the road that went east and west, a small way station had been set up made up out of old train cars and a few pieces that look like they came off houses all built into a large ring with only two ways in or out. It looked run down, a bit smaller then the town we left from, and very very old, but it had life, there was a small caravan line waiting to get in.

As we came up behind the line we could hear an argument going on between one of the ponies of the Caravan and what looked like a guard.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE CAN'T LEAVE HERE!?” a rather loud voice shouted, we couldn't really see but you could tell there was some tall pony there.

“I'm sorry, but until you are cleared and your cargo's been inspected you have to wait” Said a unicorn stallion. he had on a mishmash of armor pieces and a battle saddle on him, There was a patch with the letters ‘NCR’ on his shoulder. Given how cheap the outfit looked, it was surprising that he had that much, While his partner looked like a Pegasus with full armor and some of the nastiest looking guns I ever saw.

The pony he was arguing with was an alicorn of all things, she looked rather imposing with her tall stature and almost midnight blue coat, her main and tail was cut short but had what looked like flowers in them, and not the wilted stuff either, they looked fresh and vibrant. Trust me as a florist I would know.

“Well why in Celestia's black beard?” Cussed the alicorn to the guard looking rather unhappy that he was put in this situation.

“We've been told to check for any illegal goods and we can't make any exceptions, even if your forms said otherwise. These orders come from the top, we can't chance it.”

“That will take forever already! I'm already behind schedule as is!”

“There's nothing I can do, what with the order we have to fulfill, look you're holding up the line, and we need to clear the others before we close the gate for the night, why not just head to the bar. I'll send somepony over when it's done. NEXT!”

One of the guards in the caravan then pulled on the lead Brahman and lead them into a holding area for inspection. When we came up to the gate we got a few looks.

“Oh boy, I bet there's a story behind this.” The pegasus guard said to my rather raggedy look and how our cart was leaning to one side.

“Name and businesses.” Said the same guard that was auguring with the alicorn before, up close I got a good look at him and his gear, mishmash was right, some of armor looked like it came from parts of a hoofball uniform.

“Dragonlily and Golden Blaze, bounty hunters.” I said trying to not let the annoyance of the situation get to me, I mean I was expecting to go on an adventure, have exciting tales to tell like Daring Do, not get drafted into a plan that used me as bait to lure away a bunch of psycho killers from a town

“I see, got any ID to prove it, and what's with that guy?” he pointed a hoof to rusty chrome.

Skitters magicked the papers the mayor gave us in Burham Springs to the guard and the warrant order that she drew up for us.

“Whoa, Rusty hooks? Heard about these guys, nasty and organized. And the bounty is for the leadership, he doesn't look like top tier material, neither do you from the looks of it.”

“We got lucky,” Skitters took over, “We ran a train into their base, didn't expect it to take the whole place out really.”

The Guard whistled looking back at our prisoner, “So he was the only survivor then?”

“The only one from those that attacked a town after words. Got his' bosses' cutie mark in the bag as proof, this guy is at least worth putting on trial.” I paled a tad at the sound of that.

'We took his cutie mark?' The idea didn't sit well with me, I knew this place was going to be harsh, but I didn't think something so...so, so gruesome would happen. Still we had to keep our cool so I just held down what was left of my stomach contents. 'Wait, when did we get his cutie mark?' Something I would have to ask later.

“I see,” He looked over the rest of the paper he took out a stamp from his side saddle and marked the bottom of the page near the mayor's signature, “take this to the brig, it's across from the bar next to the guards barracks, make sure to show the guards there the stamp, you can hold him there until you have to move on your way.

He gave it back to us which I took in my mouth and put it in my bag.

“Also we're going to be checking your things as well, the inspection station is next to the brig, as long as you are clean of illegal items you will be fine, next in line please.” I was ushered into town as the next pony behind me came up to the guard, “Name and business?”

“Prodigious Peddler-” That was all I heard as I walked into town, the noise of the street was amazingly deceptive from the outside given how much was going on, still the town was a stretch to say the least, it looked and felt more like a fort with buildings taking up every inch they could, alley ways so small you could barely fit one pony in.

All the housing was built on top of business two, three, even four stories at a time, no amount of space was wasted, and the main road though the fort lead to another gate on the far side, there were three side streets on each side and we were making our way to the barracks from one of them, after getting our prisoner secured and our cart checked in for inspection, Skitters and me decided to head to the bar, thankfully they had an inn built on top of it so we could get some rest.

The bar we walked into was a colorful place, there were tables with card games and betting, drinking and fillies and stallions flirting, some going upstairs. some music was playing while a small stage in the back had some ponies putting on some kind of play as a crowd in front of it would either cheer or boo the actors as they threw caps or rotten food at them.

I didn't need to have it spelled out to me just what kind of place this was, but I kept whatever ideas to myself. right now I needed a drink and some decent food, and we had enough caps for just that and a night's rest. walking up to the bar me and skitters sat on a stool each, waiting for the bar tender.

“So what will you two be having,” a Unicorn Stallion walked up to us with a rag and a glass in his magic that he was cleaning.

“Got a cola?”

“Apple Whiskey for me.” Skitter said.

“And a room with two beds please?” I spoke up.

“The drinks coming up, but the rooms are full, not unless you can get someone else to let you bunk with them or you take one of the working ponies for the night. We got a special for couples who are into that kind of thing, filly or stallion, your choice.”

“Uh.” we both said looking at each other then back to the bar tender. “We're not a couple.” Skitters broke in.

“Could have fooled me,” he said putting my bottle of Sunrise Sarsaparilla and a shot of Apple Whiskey before us. “Offer is good until last call, don't take too long.”

Looking at our drinks we both took a swig, the cool drink helped my throat's dry and scratchy soreness from all the dust on the trail.

“Ahhh,” we both said as we put our drinks down.

“So what are we going to do?” Skitters asked me.
“I don't know, but we sure can't sleep on the street, maybe we can get a spare bed or two at the barracks?” I said while Skitters poured himself another shot.

“I don't know, looked pretty full to me, maybe there's another in here?”

“Good luck with that.” We both turned and saw the Alicorn from before sitting next to me taking in a whole bottle of something with a very odd glowing rainbow hue to it. She drank at least a quarter of it before she put it down on the bar and wiping her lips, my pipbuck kind of reacted to the bottle as my EFS showed a less than 0.01 Rad count from here. “The only other places is the full time whore house on the edge of town or Bedbug's place. Either of which I wouldn't suggest unless you are dead, desperate or tougher than a Hellhound.”

The alicorn took another swig, much smaller this time, setting off my rad counter again.

“Sorry, name's Wintergreen.” She said holding out a hoof.

“Dragonlily,” I said taking the friendly gesture then pointing to Skitters, “This is Golden Blaze.”

Wintergreen nodded to him when he waved. “I take it you two are new here, you’re sure not one of the regulars.”

“Nah, we're passing through on our way to an NCR outpost near Los Pegasus.” I said.

“Oh? What for if you don't mind me asking?” she said taking another swig.

“Transporting a prisoner.” Skitter said.

“I see. So that makes you two either mercs, bounty hunters, or military.” She pointed out, “And since Lily here doesn't look all that seasoned as you Golden, nor the fact that you two don't carry yourselves like the NCR, that leaves mercs or bounty hunters.”

“That's pretty observant of you.” I said taking a swig of my drink, to say the least she was starting to impress me.

“When you're out on the road as much as I am trading between towns or hauling big scores for some big shot, you learn a thing or two. Like for one you two seem pretty lightly geared so I'm guessing you two are starting out, and you don't have the normal gear most mercs use, and they don't tend to transport prisoners very much if ever, that leaves bounty hunters. Plus Golden doesn't look like he came from a stable like yourself, so that leaves just starting out?”

“uhhh.” We said a bit bewildered.

“I'll take that as a yes, so which big name did you two bag?” she said with a look that seemed to be a mix between devious and curious, “Some no name two bit hood trying to make a name for themselves?”

“Close, some pony from a gang, shot up a town and we're taking him in for trial.” I said. don't know why but I felt like I didn't want to give away too much to her, at which point I noticed Skitters had his hoof on my shoulder.

I wanted to say something to him, but I didn't, I felt like I really didn't want to question it, but I knew Skitters was responsible for it, I'd have to ask him later.

“Say, come sun up I'm heading out myself, I need to make a beeline to Los Pegasus too, I could use some extra guards, all I got is my one right hoof guy and myself, and it's a pretty long trip.”

“Don't know, we're in a bit of a hurry and we don't have time to waste.” I said.

Wintergreen nodded at that, she still pushed however, “Well, that's something we both have in common, I've got make it there in a days time, and it takes at least half a day on hoof for the next leg, which is why I'm going to head to a train stop, it will cut the trip down massively, plus I can pay you two on top of what ever bounty you got coming. 200 caps each to start and another 500 when we get there in one piece?”

The deal sounded nice, plus a caravan would have some needed supplies we could bargain for or use if it came it. “Tempting.”

“I'll even have that cart of your fixed up some. Saw you two at the barracks and let me tell you it really could help me out, plus if that doesn't seal the deal, I can get you two rooms tonight to stay in.”

“Really? Wow, how nice of you, what's the catch?” I felt like this was too good to be true.

“hehe,” she chucked though another swig of her drink, “not bad, I over played again. Well, I need the extra bodies for guard duty because I'm hauling some really choice goods that the trade in the area is paying major caps for, six figures in caps, but so far this trip has taken it's toll, I lost two recent hires to raiders and... competition. I need to find ponies that might need work, and given what I saw you two seem to fit the bill.”

“Okay, but why us?” I asked, that calm feeling was really starting to feel heavy on me, like it was taking a pound of flesh from me.

“To be honest, you two had a look about you, like you are more trustworthy than most of the town, and given I have to do to keep the loyalty of my workers, I figure you two would be a better pick than most of the mercs that normally go through here. Plus I've had my fair share of mercs and hires that have turned out to be bad employees. enough to know if I'm getting scammed by now.”

Wintergreen then took the bottle and drank down the last of her drink with a satisfying breath. “Ahhhh, so what do you two say? You in?”

“It does seem like a good opportunity, but how can you guarantee this isn't going to bite us in the flank?” Finishing my own drink I set the glass down next to skitters' half empty bottle of apple whiskey.

“None really, this is the wasteland after all, but the arrangement I've already made should keep us from having to face nothing more than a bloatspirte or the like.”

Give how much time we might not of had from the start of this trip to now I figured it was better than nothing, plus sooner we got Chrome to a proper NCR holding area, the sooner we can avoid those after us.

“Yeah, we'll take it.”

“Good, I'll see you two in the morning, OLD SALT!” She shouted to the bartender. “Give them my extra key, I need to finish up a few things.”

“Gotcha.” He waved and magicked a key at us not caring what direction it flew in, Skitters got it in his magic and looked at it.

“I'll be back in a few hours, need to do some last minute things.” And with that she was out the door.

Old Salt turned out was his name, though he didn't look all that old, but he pointed us to the fourth floor of the inn and what door to go though.

“This place sure is a lot nicer then I expected from the outside.” I said.

“Yeah, never been through here but heard some stories of it, it's a whole lot better than some of the rumors give it. I have no idea they had this place looking so clean, so pre-war.”

“Skitters, what did you do to me?” The question took him suddenly and he stopped in the middle of the stairs as we neared the fourth floor.

“What?”

“You heard me, what did you do? I felt like something was wrong but I didn't want to say, what did you do?” He looked to the side, like he was a bit ashamed of something, he thought long and hard of what words to say, but finally gave up and sighed.

“Not in the open. Upstairs.” He pushed me forward, soon as we reach the door on top we went to the thirteenth room, there was a huge double door, skitters put the key in and turned, what we saw when we walked in was nothing short of amazing.

The whole room was like a large living room, it was huge, in fact you could maybe fit two and a half of my Stable quarters into this place, there were small hallways to doors for other rooms, seven of them, at the far end was a large office with a glass window in the door, the living area we were in had several couches, an area with a pre-war movie projector, a record player, and other nice things. This place was leaps and bounds ahead of what we expected, it had to be the owners place. Did that mean Wintergreen owned this room or the building?

That would explain her attitude from before, but that could wait, I still needed to know what Skitters did. Closing and locking the door behind me I came up behind him and got his attention.

“Skitters! We're alone, now tell me, what did you do?” I didn't mean to be forceful, but I needed to know why and how. Looking at me he dropped his 'Golden Blaze' Form for his changeling self.

“Okay, what you need to know is that I did it to protect you, you seemed to be letting out more information then we really should, so I decided to use an....emphatic ability, a kind of suggestion to keep you from giving out too much.”

“What!? You were in my head again?”

“No, nothing like that, more like I was guiding your feelings really. Given who is going to be chasing after us, I felt we needed to leave as little an impression as possible, throw off the trail if you will.”

It was a sound and logical idea, not that I could blame him, still it would have been nice to have a warning about it.

“Besides, something felt...off.” he said which got my attention.

“Off? What do you mean off?”

“I don't know, something felt weird, like the room had you talking, I don't know where it was coming from, but something at the bar gave off something. Soon as I started to guide you I felt like I was playing a game of tug-of-war with your emotions, it was subtle at first,” he said looking away as he tired to think of a way to describe further. “Best way I can describe it was as if the rope that was pulling you was getting thicker, stronger, heavier, and more blunt. Like once it noticed you weren’t doing what it wanted it tried to force things, took every trick I knew to stop it.”

I was worried at this point, something was affecting me and Skitters stopped it? But he was a changeling and I didn't know if he was lying to me, I mean really why would he be-

“STOP!” He shouted grabbing me and then forcing his horn on my head. The rush of energy I felt just then was euphoric, it was like one of my dreams of floating in nothingness, and just like that, it was over.

Skitters was on the ground, his head between his forehooves, I myself was on my back just coming down from the high I just felt.

“Wha?” I looked to skitters as I was splayed out on the floor.

“You spiked, whatever had it's claws in you left something behind. I felt your emotions starting explode.”

“Wha, what?” I was still dazed, but I still could, sort of understand.

“Long story short, I just did something to shield your mind, it should be good for a day or two. But we need rest, come on.”

I was way still more out of it then it seemed, I just nodded and agreed with Skitters as he picked me up and helped me to one of the bedrooms, soon as I hit the sack I was out like a log.

Footnote:
Level up – Gained points for skills.
Temporary bonus, Mental shielding. With Skitters help, you are immune to metal effects for the next 24 to 48 hours.