//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Revenge // Story: Fallout Equestria: Ashes to Ashes // by Tango //------------------------------// Ashes to Ashes - Chapter 6 Revenge My head hurt. A lot. As if somepony had thrown a boat on it. Not that anypony could ever hope to survive that, but still, you get the idea. I tried to rub it, hoping to ease the pain a bit, but found out that my leg was chained to something. I tried my other legs, but they were just as tightly secured as the first one. Chains held them splayed out, making it very difficult for me to even wriggle. They didn't stop me from trying though. I had a good motivation: my wounds were itching even more than before, and not being able to scratch them drove me crazy. Briefly I wondered what made them so irritating. Then I remembered I could simply open my eyes to see what was wrong. It took me several seconds of blinking before my eyes had adjusted to the light. When I was finally able to see again, I saw something I hadn't seen in a very long time. It was a detailed wood engraving. On it were a dozen ponies, playing, eating and laughing. It was part of an old bed, from before the bombs, a memory of happier days. I recognized it because I had been sleeping with my head next to it for most of my foalhood. Then that must mean... I looked at the mattress I was lying face down on. I hadn't even realised it had been there, the itching was rather distracting. Now that I knew it was there, my eyes swiftly found what they had been looking for: a couple of black circles, very small and almost unnoticeable on the stained fabric, but they were there. About a year before I left this town for the last time, me and Cole had gotten a bit wild while jumping on my bed. I tripped and fell, hitting my mouth against one of the bedposts. Blood was spilt and tears were shed but after a quick trip to the all too familiar doctor's office, all that remained were some small now brown stains on my mattress. “Welcome home.” The voice would have made me jump up in the air, were it not for the chains holding me in place. I knew that voice, I could easily imagine its owner's smug grin. Rapidly I swung my head around, searching for the source of that voice. Twisting my head, I could see him. Silver Tongue was standing right behind me, with him were two other ponies that I didn't recognize, probably his goons. The one on the left was a big, pink earth pony. Thinking back to my last memory before I was knocked out, I figured he must've been the one who hit me in the head. I was a bit disappointed at myself; how could I not have noticed something so big and bright? A sudden surge of itchiness answered that for me. While struggling and wriggling in an attempt to ease the irritation, I looked at the other henchpony, a dark green unicorn mare. She looked happy to see I was awake. Way too happy for my liking, her smile caused an involuntary shudder to run down my spines. "Well, well, well. The long lost daughter finally returns. Tell me, Ember, how does it feel being in the same room in which your mother died?" I yanked at the chains, trying to pull myself free so I could rip his gut open. All I accomplished was to injure myself further. As I growled in frustration, Silver let out a loud laugh. "Oh, look at her. They grow up so fast, I can still remember your mother's face when we pulled you from under the bed. Priceless." I forced out a smile as I looked him in the eyes. He was trying to get me angry? Well, two can play that game. "Your voice sounds different, Silver," I smirked. "Almost like a mare actually." It worked, Silver's eyes narrowed as he came closer and hissed. "We'll just see how much you'll be smiling in an hour from now. I can assure you that you will regret that." I gave him a questioning look. "Regret? I'm really proud of it. It was really hard for me to hit such a small target." I gave him the widest smile I could produce as his face showed a wide display of emotions. No matter what they would do to me, that face was more than worth it. After opening and closing his mouth for a couple of seconds, Silver pulled himself together and gave a small nod to the mare. I decided to call her Smiley since her trademark smile got absurdly wide after the gesture. The reason for her joy soon became apparent as she floated out a whip. Normally I wouldn’t be too worried about being whipped. It would hurt me pretty bad, but I was used to it. Smiley’s smile was way too big for my liking though, it wouldn’t surprise me if her cutie mark was a whip. I decided to check once more how tight my chains were. Some frantic tugs made it clear that my legs were still perfectly secured. Knowing what was coming, I tensed my muscles and bit down in the mattress, which tasted familiar, and pretty disgusting. *Whack!* The whip cracked and came down on my flank, causing me to arch my back in pain. I had expected the mare to hit me on the back, like normal slavers did. Consequently, I wasn’t properly prepared for the jolt of burning pain. I had never known cutie marks are a particularly sensitive part of your body, probably because I had never had one before. All in all, I was glad I had been biting in the mattress, as filthy as it might be. I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of hearing my screams. Instead, I remembered my itching. Thanks to the pain, the irritating feeling had subsided a bit. I let go of the mattress and smirked. “Can you scratch a little lower? It’s a bit itchy there.” She complied instantly, not giving me the opportunity to bite into the mattress again. As a result, a surprised yelp escaped my mouth as I trashed and pulled at the chains. The pain numbed out the itch though, making it hardly noticeable. I grinned at her. “Perfect, thanks.” She just grinned back at me and readied her whip. Quickly I bit back in the mattress, just in time for the third strike. She had skill, I had to admit it when she hit the first wound spot on. I would have yelled my lungs out if it weren’t for the mattress. As I let out a breath and steeled myself for the next blow, I attempted to think of something, anything to make her stop. Preferably involving hurting her. I couldn’t exactly hit her physically, due to those damned chains. But I still was an unicorn, wasn’t I? All I had to do was drop something heavy on her. Looking for such a thing, my eyes searched the room. There wasn’t a lot to work with, the only thing suitable was my night table next to me. I focused on it, slowly lifting it with my telekinesis. It’s funny how distracting it can be to get whipped in exactly the same place for a third time. Seriously, how did she do that? With a loud thud, the table fell back on the ground and tipped over. Even worse, since I had been focusing on levitating the thing, I wasn’t prepared for the burning pain. As I shot up as far as my chains would allow, I could hear Silver and the pink giant laughing behind my back. Luna damn me! I was supposed to keep my cool, not let them have their fun! But then again, I wasn’t that silent, submissive Ember anymore. I hated them. I hated Smiley for having so much fun torturing me. I hated the pink giant for catching me off guard and hitting me in the head. But most of all I hated Silver Tongue. I hated him for invading my home, killing and enslaving the ponies that I grew up with. I hated him for shooting my mother, and even more for the things he and the other slavers did to her afterwards. I hated him for taking away the town, arrogantly settling in the houses of ponies who’s lives he ruined. I hated him for taking me back here, choosing this place above all to humiliate me. I hated him with every single fibre of my being. And above all else, I wanted him to know that. I couldn’t use levitation? Well, how convenient that I had just learned a new trick. I let go of the mattress and craned my neck as far as possible towards Silver, who gave me an amused look. I gritted my teeth and imagined the fire. As I felt my horn tingle, the whip came down on me again. It broke my concentration for a second, but I disregarded the pain, instead feeding the small spark that had appeared in front of me. It felt great to see Silver’s confidence melt away as the spark grew. The whipcracks filled the air more and more frequently, each time briefly snapping me out of my focus and causing the flame to shrink a bit. Each impact also increased my rage and after every jolt of pain, the flame had grown bigger. Silver became nervous at the sight. “Don’t stand there! Do something!” he yelled at the giant pink pony. The pain on the back of my head reminded me of what this one could do. I didn’t want to be knocked out before I was finished, so even though I wasn’t nearly satisfied with the size of the fireball, I decided to give it a test run. And I knew just the target. I did a very convincing imitation of Smiley’s expression as I looked Silver in the eyes. “Catch.” I launched the ball of energy at the source of my anger, just before the behemoth punched me in exactly the same spot as before. Seriously, where did these ponies learn to be so accurate? As my world faded away, I heard a satisfying and surprisingly high-pitched scream. ./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\. Pain. So much pain. Everywhere, but mostly on my flanks and the back of my head. And damnit, I still couldn’t lift my hooves to rub it, partly because of the chains, partly because I was way too tired. The only thing I seemed to be able to move were my eyelids, which I slowly opened. The darkness before my eyes turned into redness and then whiteness as they adjusted to the light. Once I could see properly again, I looked around the room and saw only the large pink stallion. He was standing directly behind the me. “Where are Silver and Smiley?” I asked, hoping the answer would be ‘at Silver’s funeral’. I wasn’t so lucky though. “Boss is at doctor. You burned him!” well, at least I had done some damage, I was satisfied with that. I gave him the widest grin I could muster as I pictured a flame in my mind. “Why don’t you go visit him then?” He stared at me in confusion. “Boss said I must stay here.” Then he spotted my glowing horn and jumped on top of the bed and, since I was on it, on top of me. As he landed he brought his hoof down on my spine, the impact driving all the air out of my lungs. I swung my neck back in agony as I howled in pain. This guy was heavy, way too heavy, and I was his rug. He let out a triumphant laugh. “Ah, ah, ah. No magic, little pony.” I tried to buck him off of me, an attempt which completely and utterly failed of course. Partly because he was just too damn heavy, partly because I could only move so much because of those damned chains! It was surprising how much I had grown used to my freedom in the last week and a half. After the loss of my mom, the lack of freedom hadn’t been my main concern and I had quickly grown used to it. Sure, it had bothered me at times, but now that I had tasted freedom again there was no chance in hell that I was going to let them take that away from me again. So, against better judgement, I started another spark. It was a bad idea for several reasons: firstly, my headache was killing me and using magic didn’t help it one bit. It took all my willpower to stay focused enough in order to actually create the spark. A spark which, almost as soon as it was formed, disappeared again. Why? Because a certain somepony who was crushing me with his weight, decided to smack my horn, causing my head snap sideways and sending a bolt of pain through my skull that almost made me pass out. The pink brute let out another laugh. “Puny pony can not use magic. Puny pony can do nothing. Boss said I could do anything.” I was ashamed of myself, how could a pony this stupid have snuck up on me. I really should pay more attention to my surroundings. Like the fact that the stallion had lifted his lower body from my back and had brought it further down... Shit. I turned my head as far back as I could, hurting my neck muscles some more, and the sight confirmed my suspicion. My eyes went wide as I looked at his face while he got in a good position. Somehow his smile was more disturbing than Smiley’s. “No.” I whispered. “NO!” I screamed and tried to make another fireball, levitate something heavy on top of him, anything. The only thing I accomplished was making my brain hurt, he didn’t even need to hit me. Desperately I started to wriggle, making the chains bit deeper in my skin. I knew what was coming, sadly, and it never was fun. But this time was even worse, on my own bed, just next to the spot where they had done the same to my mom. I screamed. He laughed. Once he was done he finally got off of me, allowing me to breath normally again. I was panting, tired from constantly yelling and trying to escape. I had gone into blind panic mode, the only thing I achieved was tearing the skin beneath the chains open. My sight was blurry from my tears, though I couldn’t remember starting to cry. I heard hoofsteps coming from next to me. With effort, I lifted my head at a pink face. I  decided that he deserved a name: Giant Asshole, Asshole for short. Through my tears I could see a big smile on his stupid face. I saw something else too, behind him was a bright blue shape. Wait, was that who I thought it was? Whoever it was, Asshole seemed oblivious of the other’s presence and was just standing there, looking at me. The opportunity was just too perfect. “Asshole.” I whispered, too soft for him to hear me. Curiously, he moved his head closer as I saw the blue shape move away. Now that he was close enough I swiftly worked up some spit and launched it at his face, causing him to stumble back. Furiously he looked at me while wiping the saliva from his muzzle. “You are bi-” He never got to finish his sentence as a loud explosion tore up his midsection, right where his saddlebags were. I was showered in pieces of Asshole and shrapnel and laughed. I kept laughing, even when my chains were opened and I could move my legs again, even when a glass bottle was shoved in my mouth and I choked on the liquid that was flowing through my throat. Then, as I felt my wounds close, I stopped laughing and cried. Though I could move my legs again, I didn’t. I just stayed on my bed as I remembered lying directly below it, seeing my mother fall. Eventually I was dragged off by my tail and unceremoniously dropped on the ground. The impact with the floor made me regain my senses somewhat. I wiped my tears and stood up shakily. In front of me was Lazuli, who gave me a worried look. Between us, on the floor was an old stain: a large, rust-coloured spot. I fell back again and kept staring at the place where my mom had spend the last minutes of her life. I just sat there, frozen, not blinking until Lazuli pushed me up. I didn't resist her gentle force, but kept looking at the spot as she drove me out of the room. Instead of going through the front door, she led me upstairs, to the attic. My mind was just blank as she pushed me forward and onward, to the window at the back of the house. She opened the window and stepped outside, onto the slightly sloped roof, and gestured for me to follow her. I complied. Together we carefully walked towards the next house, one misstep and we would fall all the way down. I didn't think about that though, I simply followed. Between the two houses was a small gap, about one meter across. To get to the other side we would have to walk over a plank that was placed in between, probably by Lazuli. She went first, taking great care to balance herself. Once she was across it was my turn. Though the healing potion had closed most of my wounds, the strained muscles in my legs still hurt from the chains, making the balancing act much more challenging. It was a good thing my mind was blank when I looked down, since it prevented me from freaking out at the height. Once I was across, Lazuli led me towards our shelter. As soon as I was inside, I went towards a corner and curled up before drifting into sleep. ./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\. I was standing in the middle of nowhere. Around me was nothing, complete darkness. It was impossible to see anything except my own body, which was somehow still illuminated. Below me was a floor. I couldn't see the floor, nor feel any texture. The only reason I knew there was a floor was because I wasn't falling. I moved forward, looking for something I could use as a reference, a beacon, but I found nothing. Nonetheless, I kept moving, always forward, never stopping. I tried using my magic to light the area, but it didn’t work. So I just kept going. Eventually I noticed something new. Gradually, the area in front of me had become brighter, illuminated by a faint light. The change had been subtle, and I only noticed it when I saw that the floor wasn’t one solid piece, but had long cracks in it. All of the cracks seemed to originate from a point far in front of me. Happy to finally have a guidance, I followed the cracks to their source. I noticed that the further I went, the more details I could see. Initially I had thought that there were only several large cracks, but as I looked more closely, I could see that the area between them was not smooth either. Thick lines branched into smaller ones, which split into even smaller ones. With every step I could see more and smaller lines, never touching one another. The sight amazed me. I was so occupied by the intricate patterns that I almost walked into a giant pit. I was standing at the edge of a completely vertical cliff. As I looked beside me, I could see that both sides of the edge were slightly curved and would probably form a circle. I couldn’t know for sure though since I couldn’t see the other side. Instead, I saw a giant hole with a flickering light deep inside that reflected against the irregular walls. It seemed as if I had found my beacon, but how was I supposed to reach the light? A loud cracking noise from right behind me made the answer to that question clear. As I turned around, two cracks behind me connected, separating my piece of floor from the rest. Slowly but surely the impossibly tall pillar I was standing on started to tilt. I wanted  to jump off, but I couldn’t move. Looking down, I saw that there were chains around my legs, holding them into place. I could do nothing but scream as the pillar gained speed faster and faster. I saw the light grow and noticed that it was a raging inferno. I looked at the shifting shapes of the flames and felt a calmness wash over me. Mesmerized by the dancing forms of light, I fell silent again. The warm glow enveloped me and I felt the chains become loose. Further and further down I fell, until everything was light and warm. I smiled as a tranquil peace washed over me. ./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\. When I woke up, Lazuli was still there. In fact, she was right beside me. Asleep, holding me with one leg. The darkness of our shelter was a little suffocating. Quietly I worked my way out of her grip and slowly opened the hatch after listening for sounds from the other side. I needed some fresh air. Once I had walked to the other side of the room and opened the window, I lay down in front of it. Fresh air swept through the room as a gentle breeze rolled in. I closed my eyes and sighed. Much better. After a while I scrambled back onto my hooves. A stinging pain around my fetlocks drew my attention. The healing potion from before had done a decent job in reattaching the loose pieces of skin, but it wasn’t fully healed yet. I made a mental note to look for more healing potions and started to check the rest of my body. Despite the healing potion, sleep and the fresh air, my head was still throbbing with a dull pain, specifically at the back of my skull and at the base of my horn. Carefully I felt my horn. I winced as even the slightest touch sent a jolt of pain directly to my brain, even I wasn't stupid enough to make an attempt at magic now. Instead I continued my inspection. My head seemed badly bruised, but it wasn't a serious hindrance, just like the stiff and sore muscles in my neck. Moving further down, I felt that my rump was pretty much okay. Some small scratches were the only real injuries. That, at least, was some good news. I turned my neck and looked at my flank. It was not okay. My skin had been torn open in long, vertical stripes, most of which had been closed now. But one cut was bigger and deeper than the others, and it ran directly through the middle of my cutie mark, splitting it in two. I still wasn't sure about how I felt about my mark, but I didn't like the mutilation one bit. The itchy wounds were gone though. A soft thump from right behind me caused me to jump up. As I spun around, I found myself staring in Lazuli's eyes. I let out a relieved sigh. “Will you never sneak up on me like that again please, I thought they had found me.” Lazuli's eyes averted my gaze. It made me feel a little guilty; she did save me after all. So I gave her a small grin which of course she couldn’t see. “But what you did to that pink moron was fantastic. How did you do that actually?” “Live grenade in his saddlebag.” She was still staring at the floor, which struck me as odd. I mean, how often can you explode somepony like that? That was something to be proud of, but she seemed to feel bad about it. “Hey, don't feel sorry for that idiot. I'm really happy that you came along and gave him what he deserved.” I tried to sound as enthusiastic as possible, but the memory of why he deserved it made me involuntarily shudder. She looked back up at me, tears forming in her eyes. “I am sorry. Sorry that I couldn't help you earlier. I knew where you were, but I was too scared to help you. I thought: I'll just wait until they're gone and then free you. And then you started screaming. I was hiding in the other room and came out when I heard it, but when I saw what he was doing... I just froze. Only afterwards, when he was done,” she spat out 'done', “then I realised what was happening. I should have done something sooner, helped you, but I was a coward.” Her eyes went straight back to the floor after she was done. I put a leg on her shoulder. “Hey, I'm glad you came in the first place. And don't worry about not acting sooner, your timing was perfect. If you would have made him explode when he was still...” I shook my head, banishing the thought. 'Anyway, any sooner and you would have got me killed too. And that would have been really unfortunate don't you think?” Lazuli seemed to feel slightly better after our talk and she brought me across the room, into the our hidden sleeping spot, where she had stashed an impressive supply of food, water, and medicine. “Wow.” I commented at the neatly stacked pile. “Where did you get all that stuff?” She waved her hoof dismissively. “Oh, from the general store. And the doctor's office. And a couple of houses.” I grinned as she pointed at the various items. She then pointed at another pile in the corner. “And that's from the armoury. Putting a lock on the door isn't going to help much if you leave the windows open.” She beamed as she showed a couple of pistols, three grenades, three sawed off shotguns, including my old one, an assault rifle and four mines. So that's why my shotgun had been missing. In hindsight, not being able to draw a gun might have saved my life in the bar, with everypony else pointing theirs at me. I levitated the shotguns over and grabbed a saddlebag from the other pile. “Did I already tell you how awesome you are?” “Well, my special talent is sneaking around.” she said, showing her cutie mark to me. It was a tiptoeing pony, looking over her back, fitting. I started filling my saddlebag with half of the supplies. Two of the healing potions disappeared down my throat, knitting the cuts on my flank back together and easing my headache tremendously. Most of the stripes left no traces, but the large cut turned into a long, perfectly straight scar. There was nothing I could do about that, I thought. There was something I could do about the creator of that line though, and I was looking forward to meeting Smiley again. I turned back to Lazuli, who was still looking rather content with her loot. Since she was actually good at not getting caught, I figured it might be a good idea to let her make the plan. “So, how are we gonna kill Silver Tongue and Smiley?” I asked as casually as possible. Her grinning face turned into a serious one. “The smart thing to do would be to sneak out of town unnoticed, preferably at night.” She sighed and looked me in the eyes. “For once, I'm not going to do the smart thing. I know I won't be able to get you to leave this place before you get your revenge, and after seeing what they did to you...” She shuddered. “But first, I need to ask you a question: do you think that killing Silver will give you some kind of peace?” I saw his face flash before me, sporting a smug grin that made me want to punch it in. “Definitely.” I said, without any hesitation. I paused for a moment, something in the back of my mind irking me. Another face flashed before my eyes. It was the face of a grinning stallion, peeking under a bed. “Wait a second, Silver was one of the original slavers that came here. That means that he must know who was behind everything.” And boy did I want to meet that guy again. Lazuli nodded. “Now you're thinking. If you want to get to the pony responsible for this whole mess,” she gestured her hoof around her, stopping at Cole's remains. “then Silver's probably your only shot.” I nodded. “And he probably doesn't want to give the name to me if I just ask nicely, so I'll have to force it out of him.” Grinning, I started rubbing my hooves together, I was genuinely looking forward to some alone time with Silver. Lazuli backed off several steps before smiling weakly. “Uhm, yeah. How about we go and find him first?” “Follow me!” I enthused as I trotted a few steps and then paused, briefly waiting for Lazuli to fill her saddlebags and go after me. ./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\. Once again I was glad about all the hours I had spent running between the houses when I was a filly. The both of us managed to sneak behind and between the houses unnoticed until we reached the doctor's office. We ended up on either side of an open window. Since subtlety wasn't exactly my speciality Lazuli went first. Two minutes and a dull thump later she put her head out of the window again, smiling. Once I had climbed through the window, I found myself in the doctor's private quarters. There was a small bed, a terminal, several bookshelves, an unconscious unicorn with a stethoscope around his neck, tied up and gagged, a storage cabinet with medical equipment and drugs and a nice, dark green rug. How that rug survived the apocalypse beat me, but it was nice nonetheless. From the cabinet I grabbed a couple of bloodpacks, four healing potions and a scalpel, then we silently entered the hallway. The hallway connected the front door to four other doors, which I recognized as the waiting room, the consult room, the stairs to the next floor and the doctor's private quarters, from we had come. In front of the consult room was a familiar unicorn, now without her usual grin. Instead, Smiley looked pretty bored. Lazuli quickly made her life more exciting by galloping towards her, turning at the last moment and planting her hind hooves in Smiley's face. The force of the blow sent the dark green unicorn flying, making somersault, which she actually executed pretty gracefully, at least until her head made contact with the floor again and dragged a long blood trail over the planks. Littered across the floor were white and red fragments of teeth, making me take a mental note to never piss Lazuli off thoroughly. I gave a wide grin to the moaning heap of pony before giving her a hoof to the head myself, aimed at the spot in her neck where the pink asshole had hit me too. Though I couldn't hit nearly as hard as Lazuli, it was enough knock her out. After dealing with Smiley, Lazuli and I returned to the door she had been guarding. Very carefully we opened it and peeked into the room. On the far end was a desk littered with clipboards and thick books. Against the wall next to it were two cabinets: one with medical supplies and one with dead, preserved animals. At the opposite wall, left from the door, was a bed on which lay a snoring stallion wearing a fedora. His chest was covered in bandages and he was lying on his back. It made me strangely happy to know that he was now at my mercy, something I was no planning to show. While Lazuli kept an eye on him, I grabbed his sheets and cut them into four equal pieces with the scalpel. It was a bit tedious, but in the end we had ourselves one tied up, splayed out Silver Tongue. We brought in Smiley and placed her on the chair behind the desk, bound by her own whip. While waiting for the two to wake up, we looted their saddlebags. Smiley had three bottles of wild pegasus and a ton of drugs, all of which I let Lazuli have. From Silver's saddlebags we took almost two thousand bottlecaps, half a dozen cigars and a silenced pistol which was perfect for what I had been planning. Using a normal pistol would work too, but then we might risk alerting others to our presence. With the silencer we would run no such risk. Getting a bit restless, I decided it was time to wake up Silver, so I punched him in the face, which proved to be a very effective way to stop somepony from sleeping. The look on his face went from anger to confusion to a combination between the latter two and fear. I gave him my best imitation of Smiley when she still had her teeth. “Rise and shine old buck.” This seemed to tip his emotions back to anger. “How the fuck did you get here? I thought I had told that moron to keep you occupied!” The memories from the day before came back, and with them my grin melted away. “Oh, he did. But I have a friend.” I pointed at Lazuli and smiled at her. ”Thanks for the paint job by the way. The walls could really use some colour and red really is my favourite.” Strangely enough her face became a tint greener at my compliment. Oh well, back to Silver who's expression had a little more fear mixed in it. “Anyway, I want to know something and you will tell it to me.” He laughed, his smug look returning. “I'm not telling you shit. You got nothing on me.” I grinned. “I was hoping you would say something like that.” I turned to Lazuli. “You may want to look away for the next part.” I grabbed the pistol in my mouth, my horn still hurt too much for any kind of magic, and put it against his leg. One gunshot and a loud scream later and the smug grin was replaced by a look of pure hate. “You brat! How dare you fucking shoot me! You will pay for this.” Clearly Silver was not amused. Good. I put the gun on a small table and smiled at him. “Oops, sorry. Let me take the bullet out for you.” From the table I got the scalpel. I knew that Fixer had forbidden me to use it without magic, but I figured that this was the perfect opportunity to practice. It took me four bullets before I realized what I was doing wrong: you were supposed to make a small incision and use a tweezers to grab the bullet, not cut away the flesh around the wound until the bullet was completely exposed. It made me wonder how I never picked that up from Fixer's lessons. Oh well, at least I knew it now. And so did Silver. Lazuli had left the room halfway through, something I didn't hold against her. One part of me didn't agree with what I was doing either, but that was drowned out by the rest of me that screamed for sweet, sweet revenge. As I went on my vision started to get blurry and the world around me faded away. I stopped thinking about what I was doing and just kept going. It was only when the pistol's magazine was depleted and I had removed seven bullets that I paid attention to my surroundings again. I found that my muzzle was covered in Silver's blood and struggled not to throw up. I failed. After wiping my mouth and washing it with some water I turned back to the whimpering slaver. I had put tourniquets around his legs to prevent him from bleeding out but his face definitely looked a lot paler. He was crying and kept muttering the same word: 'Steel Collar'. “Is that his name?” I asked. He nodded frantically. “Ye-yes. Collar. St-steel Collar. You want him. Not me. Not me. Please. Not me. Not any more.” He broke down, tears streaming down his face. It was strange, this was one of the ponies that had raped and killed my mother, driven me from my home, sent me into a life of torture and then tortured me some more. And yet I felt bad for what I had done to him. I looked at the bloodied scalpel, his mutilated legs and I felt sorry for him. I didn't want to. I wanted to make him suffer as much as possible. But here he was, and I felt pity. I sighed. “Where can I find him?” I asked, my voice flat. He looked up to me with begging eyes and shook his head. “Please. No more. No more.” I had to know and he was the only one who could give me a clue for where to look. He had to know it! I slapped him in the face and raised my voice. “Where is he?!” But he shook his head again. “I don't know. You gotta believe me! It's the truth!” I looked at him. There was no trace of arrogance anymore. I believed him. That meant that I lost the only lead I had. So much for getting my revenge. I sighed, I still had a job to finish. With the shotgun in my mouth I trotted over to him. I wasn't proud for what I had done to him, but I would not ignore what he had done to me. He stopped sobbing and stared at me, eyes wide. A moment later they were gone. Shotguns are pretty devastating from up close. I looked at his remains and didn't know how to feel. On the one hoof I wasn't proud of what I had done, but on the other I still believed that he had deserved it. It would probably lead to some more nightmares. A loud maniacal laugh made me spin around. It was Smiley, having the time of her life in her chair. She saw me looking and nearly suffocated in her bonds. I slowly trotted over to her and looked her in the eyes. She calmed down to a nervous giggle. ”What's so funny?” I asked her. She had another laughing fit before calming down enough to answer me. “You fink fad you are beffer fan ush, bud you are wrong!” She burst into another laugh. I raised an eyebrow. “I'm taking revenge, you were the one who enjoyed torturing me. You can't compare that.” “You liked id!” she laughed. “You kepfd going, fad means you liked id!” She was right, at least partly. I had liked it. But at the same time I had known that it was wrong. Did that make me like her? “I liked taking revenge, but I do not hurt innocent ponies like you do. That's the difference, what I did was for a reason. What you did was unjustified.” I felt proud of myself, of course it had been justified! Maybe I went a bit too far, but that was just because I lost control of myself. I wasn't like her. And yet she kept laughing. “He dook revenge doo. You bucked him in fe nuds!” I wanted to argue back, say that what he did to me was way out of proportion for kicking him in his stallion parts. But she was right, no matter how much I hated to admit it. My kick humiliated him, so he took revenge by whipping me. I took my revenge by shooting him in the chest with a fireball. He took his revenge by telling Asshole to do whatever he wanted. I took my revenge by slowly cutting out bullets that I shot in his legs, and then killing him. My ears dropped. Every time, one of us had made it worse. It was like a competition on who could hurt the other the most and I had won. Yay. At that moment I realized I needed a drink. Badly. But there was still the issue of a crazy tied-up mare who was laughing at me like a drunk hyena. My anger was gone, washed out by the feeling of guilt, but I couldn't just leave her here. I looked at my flank, at my cutie mark which was neatly split in half by the same whip she was now tied up with. Smiley followed my gaze and managed to laugh even louder. I looked at her, promising to never be like her again. To never take pleasure over the death. When I found Steel Collar I would make it as swift and clean as possible. I closed my eyes and stopped her laughter. Without looking back I walked out of the door and collapsed into Lazuli. She lead us back to the hiding spot where I slowly calmed down a bit. “You do not look like you have found peace.” she said softly. I shook my head. “It felt good to hurt him, and that scares me. I do not want to be like them.” Lazuli hugged me. “You're not like them. The fact that you don't want to be proves that. It makes sense that you felt good to finally have revenge on him, after what they did to you.” I kept shaking my head. “I kicked him in the nuts, he made them whip me. I burned him, he let them go ahead. We were like a bunch of foals, pointing at each other and telling that the other started it.” “That may be right, but letting him walk away wouldn't be right either. One day or another he had to pay for his crimes and today was that day. I didn't like the way you made him pay, but I can understand why you did it. Just, when we find the one behind this, try to keep in control, okay?” I nodded. “Thank y-.” I was cut off by loud yells from the streets. “Find them!” “Silver's dead!” “Kill them!” Pushing my head against one of the planks, I could see a large mob gathering outside. They had found out about our little adventure sooner than we had expected. What I also didn't expect was that the plank I was leaning against decided, after over two hundred years of decay and days or even weeks of abuse by a colt, to finally give up and break. Now that my support had snapped and splintered and I was still leaning forward, I was sent dangling half over the edge, two stories above the ground. Beneath me the mob, alarmed by the sound of planks snapping and crashing onto the dirt, looked up at me. I stared back at the two dozen slavers and raiders and all of us just kept like that for several moments, nopony moving a muscle. Finally I waved my hoof and put up a sheepish grin. “Uhm, hi.” Once again I owed my life to Lazuli who yanked me back behind the edge moments before bullets whizzed past. We rushed over the plank connecting this building to my former home down the stairs and out through the front door as the mob bashed in the Ores' door. As we galloped away somepony must have spotted us, because gunfire sounded behind us. We went away from Neighvac, towards some close by hills. Running over a wide, flat lake bed with no cover whatsoever didn't seem like a tactically sound decision. The falling darkness helped to hide us and we were eventually able to shake off our pursuers. For good measure we kept going as far as possible, until we encountered the ruins of an old farm. After crushing the radroaches inside we went up to the only intact bedroom and lay next to each other on the old bed, not before carefully moving the skeletal remains of it's previous owners off of it of course. The stress of the day made ensured a deep sleep for the both of us. ./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\. I do not own the rights for Fallout nor My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic They are held by Bethesda and Hasbro respectively Furthermore the Fallout Equestria universe has been created by Kkat who also deserves a lot of credit. And also thank you Otherunicorn for proofreading and pointing out some things to improve!