“What do we do?!” Twilight yelled.
“Just keep running!” Anne yelled back, not really aiming as she pointed her shotgun behind her and sent a load of fletchet darts down behind them at the mass of abominations chasing after the three, the little bot beeping in fear as it floated away. “These things just won’t go down!”
Nothing seemed to really affect them much, a shotgun blast right to the chest seeming to just knock it backwards but it wouldn’t last long when they got back up and continued to chase them.
“We have to get out of this place!”
Twilight was about to call back a reply but as she opened her mouth the ground just in front of her exploded out with screech of the beast bursting from the ground itself, thumping Twilight backwards from the force and quickly it was on top of her.
The abomination screamed right into her face, maw opening wide and saliva splattering against her face as it got ready to bite. She reached out with her magic for the first weapon she could think of but slapped herself when she pulled out the flare gun but didn’t have time to pull out anything else once she did. Bringing it up to its face she pulled the trigger, the gun letting out a soft poof sound as it sent out its bright red flaming load right into the thing’s maw. It recoiled in surprise, the flare going right down its gullet as it staggered off of Twilight, its gut glowing a bright red as it screeched in agony, starting to tear at its own belly to try and get itself rid of the light.
Green blood splattered on the rocky floor below it as it tore through its own guts but fell dead before it could. Twilight was about to continue running when she noticed that all the beasts all screeched differently and recoiled away from the glowing body, trying to get away from the light it was emitting.
“What are you waiting for?!” Anne yelled as she realized Twilight had stopped. “Run!”
Twilight wanted to test her theory, quickly loading another flare into the launcher before sending it off at the horde that had started advancing again.
The light sailed through the air and slammed against one, the phosphorus burning into its hide. But the thing that got the most reaction was the light itself, all tunnelers seeming more bent on getting away from the light than the chase.
“They don’t like the light!” Twilight yelled back to her friend as she quickly ran towards her, reloading the flare. “It should keep them at bay for however the flares last for.” She said once she got closer but she didn’t have many left, she didn’t think that she would need to have that many of them but it seemed she was wrong about that.
Both pony and human was laid down on the rocky rubble, gasping for air to fill their lungs now that they were under the light of the sky again, the wind heard but not seeming as bad as it was in the town before.
“Fuck… under… ground…” Anne said between heaves, everything feeling heavy and unresponsive.
“More… flares… needed…” Twilight noted as she rested her hoof over her eyes, wings laying limply on the ground below her.
A crackling sound came from the floating robot before a familiar deep voice started talking. “There you are, you went quiet for a time. Then that signal came in strong from your machine, like a heartbeat. Made your way through Old World towns, the tunnels that join them... now, the High Road. For all you've seen behind you there's worse along this stretch. Deathclaws, hunt the Marked Men, and they also hunt what burrows below, and within.”
“Oh just shut up.” Anne groaned as she forced herself to sit up, glaring over at the robot. “The last thing I want to hear right now is your yapping mouth.”
He didn’t say anything at first before letting out a low deep chuckle. “I understand now…” He stated. “The bullet you took, made you forget, but you’re starting to remember.” He stated.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Anne said, a bit too quickly in Twilight’s eyes.
“You might not remember exactly what you did, but you can feel it, deep inside.” He stated. “You’ve walked many roads, many would melt together.”
“Exactly, I don’t have any clue what you’re talking about.” Anne said getting to her feet, glaring over at the robot.
“Then let me refresh the memory.” He stated.
“No, you’re just going to shut the fu-“
“Anne.” Twilight said firmly, her friend looking over at the pony as she sat on the ground. “You came here to know about your past, you can’t run away from it.”
“This road leads nowhere! There’s nothing in the Divide!” Anne yelled.
“Many in the Mojave think the Divide's nothing but canyon and storm. Wasn't always. There was life, a town, farther West... not talking about an Old World town like Hopeville... more recent. Something you saw in your lifetime. It had the name ‘The Divide,’ too. But rather than cracks in the earth, it was a road from the West into the Mojave, a supply line. Took a Courier to make that road. You. Back then, you saw the road with eyes facing East. This time... the Divide's in the other direction. And if your eyes try to make sense of it when you reach it... home's not what it was.”
“You say that as if you know where I was born, you don’t! You don’t know anything about me!”
“Home isn't where you're born into this world. You taught me that. Part of your message, whether you meant it or not. Can be a place of mind, a moment where you know who you are, the history of it. And they can be places you breathe life into.” The robot said.
“Never would have known the Divide had it not been for you. The road you made with your tracks, again and again. You were the only one willing to make the journey to and from here... a hard road. Kept the land before the Divide alive through seasons, storms ...can't have been just a job. Was something more to you. Don't feel for a place that hard unless it's home.”
“It means everything, even if you deny it, cast it aside. That speaks to what you are, proves what happened here. What you did.”
“It was you walking that road that kept the Divide alive. It grew from what you did. Settlers... camps... filling that Old World city. Chance for a new nation, new beginning. New way of thinking. Could've breathed new life into the Mojave, bridging East, West. Like Hoover Dam... but not Old World, something you made. Road was a supply line.”
“The Long 15 is the only way from the NCR to the Mojave.” Anne stated.
“Not any more. If one existed, the two-headed Bear would have claimed it. And it tried to. NCR saw the worth in that road you made. Staked a claim, whether it was wanted there or not true elsewhere in the Mojave. And where the Bear tries to cling to life, the Legion comes... bearing messages. Some brought by blade. Others... by Couriers. You knew what was coming, as sure as I know what's coming for you. This time you carry the burden. Walk west into the sun, and keep walking until it dies. There - I'll be waiting.”
Twilight had tried to talk to the woman about things but Anne just shrugged her off angrily, just trying to move along. And that found them up high above the ‘High Road’ in a building that had partially collapsed at an angle into the overpass of what once was a highway. It had once been used as a sniper nest by a ghoul wearing armor much like Anne’s but more reinforced with thick fabric plates in the trench coat and thicker armor on the chest along with some on the back, better protection on the forearms and large shoulder pads. She immediately changed over to the better equipment.
They were high above the actual ground, the sandstorm seeming to not go higher than the supports for the road itself, seeming more unnatural than it actually was.
They were sat by a fire they had made using the wood from an ammunition box up there with the sniper, lit up on fire using a flare to start it. Anne was smoking as she cleaned her shotgun, not once looking up at the pony, leaving her feeling extremely awkward.
“I’m going to go to bed…” Twilight said looking over at her friend uncertainly.
Anne didn’t reply but the pony knew she heard and just sighed tiredly as she went over to a flatter pile of rubble and grabbed Anne’s old Trench Coat and used it as a mattress of sorts even though it didn’t protect her from the ground much.
She managed to get to sleep after a while of tossing and turning, Anne’s back illuminated by the light of the fire.
Twilight sat up with a yawn, stretching her front hooves and wings out wide with a few pops of her joints. Rubbing her eyes she looked around, seeing the small trails of smoke come from the charcoal left.
She continued to look around and something soon became very apparent, a certain human no longer anywhere to be seen in the sniper nest that they had camped up in. “Anne?” She asked sitting right up, magic slowly taking hold of Lucky and cocking the hammer back.
No answer came until there was slight humming sound and a round metal body peeked out from around a pillar. ‘Beep’ it let out as it floated out.
Twilight noted there was a very large dent along one of its sides, seeming to make it fly on a wonky angle.
“What happened to you?” Twilight asked in confusion as she slowly got up and went over to the robot.
‘Beep Beep’
‘I don’t speak beeps…’ Twilight thought to herself as she sighed.
The Eye-bot seemed to understand that and it let out a crackling sound before what must have been a recording started to play, the sound of a familiar wind and the crackle of a fire heard through the bot.
“The past hurts more than one realizes.” The deep voice of Ulises said.
“You can just shut up right now.” Anne’s voice said.
“You seem to think that out of all the horrors that the Divide has to offer that I’m the one that you might not be able to overcome. You can’t even imagine…”
“All I know is that when I find you and end you I can be done with everything.” Anne stated, the sound of her shotgun getting pumped heard.
“What of Michelle?”
There was a long moment of silence, the sound of the fire burning away the only reason Twilight knew the recording was still going.
“That name, you know that a name can hold power over a man. And you have not heard that name in a long time.”
“Shut up…”
“You can still feel what that name means deep inside, even if you don’t remember it.”
“Shut up.”
“She did not die in the Divide, and you will find her further you come into the Divide.” He stated.
“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!”
“What would she say of what you did?” He asked. “What would Anne think?”
There was a loud crash sound followed by what sounded like the microphone dropping on the floor but Twilight knew that Anne had just hit the robot with the shotgun. “I think you should shut the fuck up before I skin you and boil your screaming body in lemon juice!”
“You lose your memory of your home from a shot in the skull, and you try to piece it back together with what’s left. I hear your companion call you by a name you were not born with, one that belonged to another. And if you knew, you would fall to the Divide again.”