Fallout Equestria: Ashes to Ashes

by Tango

Chapter 2: Fireproof

Ashes to Ashes Chapter 2 -

Fireproof

The first thing I noticed was the smell. An unpleasant mixture of smoke and something I couldn't quite put my hoof on. It penetrated my nostrils and hurt my lungs. I coughed in a reflex to clear them.

That made me notice the second thing: moving hurt. A lot. You know when somepony describes pain as being stabbed by thousands of tiny needles? Well, I felt as if I was being stabbed by thousands of spears. Oh, and apparently somepony had dropped a building on my head. Every single muscle in my body hurt. Every muscle? Hey, will you look at that! My eyelids were still okay!

This led to the third thing I discovered: my surroundings. The world around me was mostly black, the ground littered with unfamiliar shapes. Which was strange, because judging from the light that filtered through the ever present cloud layer it was already early in the afternoon. Wait, early in the afternoon? Why weren’t we on the move already? And more importantly: were was everypony?

For some reason the black shapes intrigued me, it was as if they were calling out to me, I found myself limping to the closest one. While crawling closer, I noticed that the smell was getting stronger, and if I looked closely I could see a little bit of smoke coming out of... its mouth and eye-sockets?

Suddenly the events of the previous night came back as I fell on my haunches. The guard mare, Stargazers defiance, the griffin, his death, the grinning slaver, the fire, and finally my rage. My incredible anger towards everything around me, focused on the the green slaver.

I looked away from the smoldering corpse and my eyes fell on something shiny next to it. Looking closer, I found out it used to be a shotgun. Now it was partially molten and rendered useless. My gaze fell back to the corpse, all that was left of my tormentor was a pile of charred flesh and bones. Her hide and mane were completely burned away.

One part of me told me she got what she deserved, another told me she didn’t deserve this. That nopony deserved this. I blocked the second part out. She did deserve this, she hadn’t given a damn about the lives of other ponies. She had been grinning when Stargazers life was crushed out of him. She didn’t deserve to live. I picked myself up with some effort and turned around.

Oh.

I fell back down again as I saw that she hadn’t been the only one in the camp. All around me I now recognized the corpses of ponies and griffins. A few of them were still smoldering. From the positions they were in I could tell that most of them had been trying to run away, it hadn’t made a difference. I had killed everyone in the camp. No. Not killed. Slaughtered, annihilated, I had burned them alive.

I remembered the screaming of which I had only vaguely been aware. I imagined their last moments, desperately crawling away from me, their bodies on fire. I shuddered and closed my eyes, but the images wouldn’t go away. I opened them again and saw a pony, it was impossible to tell if it had been a buck, mare, slaver, or slave, lying on the ground, it’s back arched in pain. It was too much, my stomach launched the grey sludge from the night before back out, a part of my brain noticed in amusement that it was still sticking together.

I forced myself not to look directly at the carcasses again as I slowly walked towards the fireplace. That only made it worse; from the corners of my eyes they seemed as demons to me. I fully expected them to jump at me. Hyperventilating I reached the fireplace, which now contained nothing more than ash and a few small pieces of charcoal..

I caught my breath and shot one last glance behind me. Every single one of them returned my gaze. Maybe I was hallucinating, maybe not, but not a hair in my mane (which was, by the way, standing straight up) wanted to stay here any longer.

So I ran.

I ran until I could run no more.

Then I walked.

Every single step was hell, so the walking turned into limping. I kept going though, because there was no way I was going to survive the night without any supplies. In order to turn my attention away from the pain, I forced myself to count every living plant I walked by. Counting rocks would have been a better idea: as the cloud layer slowly turned red, foreshadowing the night, I had counted precisely thirty-two green plants. Those plants had been the only signs of life I had seen all day, save for some bloatsprites in the distance. In my current condition, I think those bloatsprites would have kicked my flank easily.

I was slowly climbing a hill while my legs were moving themselves without me having to think about it. As the day drew to an end, the struggle to keep my eyes open slowly became harder and harder. When I reached the hill top though, something caught my eye. There, half a kilometer from the base of the hill, was a small settlement! Lights were burning among the dark shapes of buildings, inviting me to come over. I had no clue whether or not the locals would be hostile or friendly but I honestly didn’t give a buck.

Unfortunately,while I was distracted by the town, one of my hooves got stuck in a hole. Before I knew it, my face had already made contact with the ground. A new surge of pain shot through my leg as it was bent in a way it wasn’t supposed to. To make matters worse, I was already descending the hill and my forward momentum caused me to roll over, gaining speed as I came down. My attempts at stopping were useless so I resorted to my old habit: screaming as loud as possible.

Finally the slope flattened and I managed to come to a halt. Remember when I was talking about being stabbed by spears? Scratch that, the pain I now made me feel as if I was burning alive. I chuckled a bit about the irony and coughed up some blood. Wondering how close I was to the settlement, I opened my eyes. If I had had some strength left in my front legs, I would have used them to wipe my eyes. A couple of hundred meters from me, a dragon was watching me. A giant. Bucking. Dragon. My last thoughts before passing out from sheer exhaustion and terror were how it was going to eat me. I concluded that my personal favorite method of being devoured was being swallowed whole before the darkness took over.

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Slowly, my eyes opened. I blinked a couple of times to check if they really were open since I couldn't see a thing. Everything was completely black around me. The only indication of up and down came from the feeling of a cold, smooth floor underneath me. I tried standing up and, to my pleasant surprise, found that it no longer hurt.

I attempted magic to light my surroundings but utterly failed to produce even a single spark. The act did provide me with a better view of the area though, just not in a way I felt really comfortable with. All around me, countless pairs of faint lights appeared, shaped like eyes. It was impossible to tell how far away they were from me, but I could tell they were coming closer.

Frantically I looked around, searching for a way out.

There was none.

While the eyes slowly approached me, the soft glow of their eyes allowed me to distinguish their shapes. Ponies and griffins. It didn’t really surprise me. That didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid when they came closer.

They were now close enough for me to touch them. I did my best at kicking, punching and biting to keep them away but the sheer number of them overwhelmed me. All of them jumped on top of me, crushing my breath out of my lungs. Their sticky, hot and disgusting limbs pinning me down under them. I tried desperately claw my way out of the mass of cadavers, searching for a place to breathe.

I managed to get my head out of the ball of bodies, only to find myself staring into two large reptilian eyes. Petrified, I watched as the creature opened its maw. A faint glow started to build up in its throat. It grew bigger and bigger as time slowed down, until the glow turned into a fire, so bright and hot.

I thrashed around, trying to escape while sweating from the increasing heat. However, it was of no use. The flames rolled out of the great maw and circled around me, the heat was suffocating, the light blinding.

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I jumped up. Or rather, I tried to but was held back by a firm pair of hooves on my chest.

“Aaauuurrhgggh!” That was me. It really hurt, so the screaming was perfectly justified. “What precisely hurt?” You might ask, upon which the answer would be: Every. Single. Thing. Granted, some things hurt more than others but the overall feeling was not pleasant by any means.

“Hold still! This is for the pain!” I didn’t recognize the voice but immediately tried to be as still as possible. Not that the alternative was much better.

“Aaauuh!” I felt a sharp stinging pain in my left foreleg, the one that had decided to get stuck behind something. My instinct was to pull it away, but I blocked it. The voice had promised it would help against the pain and compared to pretty much everything else, the sting was nothing.

“That’s it, try to relax.” The voice was from a mare. As my eyes adjusted to the bright lights above me I noticed she had a silver grey coat and a light blue mane. A sad smile was on her lips as her bright green eyes met mine.

That was the last I saw of her as my vision blurred and the pain faded away. I felt really sleepy and struggled to try and stay awake, I didn't want to fall asleep and have that dream again. The painkiller, or whatever it was she had injected me with, was stronger than me though and soon I was plunged back into sleep.

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This time, luckily, there was no dream and for a change I woke up normally. I felt a lot better than before, whatever that mare had done to me, it had helped. Part of the comfortable feeling came from the bed I was lying on. It was a proper, clean bed and it felt great just lying down. I gently lifted my neck, careful not to strain anything. Looking down at the rest of my body I saw a whole lot of bloodied bandages. My left foreleg was wrapped in a brace, preventing me from bending it.

Next to my comfy bed were several carts with medical equipment on them. One of them held a large heap of bloodied rags and a shiny bowl. Surrounding me were portable curtains, placed to create a small private room. It was nice and quiet and for half an hour I was happy to just lie there. I couldn't even remember the last time I chose for myself when to wake up. After a while though, I got utterly bored. I couldn't move properly and I had seen every detail of my makeshift room already. So I decided to see what was inside the big, shiny bowl.

Since the cart was just out of reach I tried to grab it telekinetically. As a slave, I wasn't allowed to use magic, so it took me a couple of attempts and a lot of effort before I finally got a grip. Luckily I still remembered how to do it from my foalhood, when it was the first thing I (and every other unicorn) learned. I didn't remember it being so difficult and exhausting though. As I slowly lifted the bowl towards my bed, the headache returned. It got worse quickly until I could no longer hold it and my magic collapsed.

The bowl, no longer supported by my magic, was once again bound by the laws of physics. More specifically, gravity. For a split second, it was just hanging still in the air as a last act of defiance. Then it accelerated towards the ground, which it shortly afterwards met. The impact of metal on concrete was very loud, even more so because it was pretty much the only sound in the building. As the bowl bounced up, its contents, small pieces of metal, were launched out of it. Each of the the pieces was bound by gravity as well, the sound they made when hitting the ground resembled a hailstorm on a rooftop.

Needless to say, all this noise attracted attention. I was still frozen in place, staring at space which had been occupied by the bowl less than ten seconds before, when the curtains were opened. The grey mare who had put me to sleep came storming through the opening. She stopped at my bed and looked first at me and then at the bowl with spilled contents on the floor.

I tried my best to look as innocent as possible, upon which she burst out in laughter. It took her a full minute to calm herself enough down to talk. “I see you found out that you’ve got a burnout.” Upon my not-understanding look she answered. “When you overexert your magic, you can suffer a burnout. Compare it to straining a muscle. While recovering it is impossible or very difficult to use magic, as I’m sure you just noticed.” She chuckled and picked up the bowl and the metal bits and placed them back on top of the cart.

“If you were wondering what that metal was, I think you’d have more of a clue than me. I found them in you after all.” I shuddered. The mental image of all that metal inside me was pretty disturbing. “They were a real pain to get out too, you know.” She continued. “Especially since the entrance wounds had been burned closed.” My stomach chose that moment to interrupt with a loud rumbling noise.

The mare facehoofed. “Oh silly me, you must be starving. I mean, look at you. Your ribs are almost poking out.” She levitated a plate with some meat to me. “Here you go. Bon appetit.”

It took me precisely twelve seconds to gobble it up. Not that the taste was so great, mind you, but my stomach just demanded the food to be brought to it as soon as possible. The mare stood next to me, looking at me with an amused expression. She levitated a bottle of Sparkle-Cola to me, I recognized it from my foalhood when it had been my favorite drink. “Here, you’re probably a bit dehydrated as well.” Wasting no time, I immediately chucked down the entire bottle, it’s taste was amazing! I could almost cry over the the magnificent carrot flavor. Once I was done, I smacked my lips and looked back at the grey mare.

She chuckled at my eagerness. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I think it is time for introductions. My name is Fixer and, as you probably have already guessed, I’m the doctor of around here. So, what is your name, mysterious mare?”

I gulped. On the one hoof, I didn’t want to talk. It went against my principles. But then again, Fixer had saved me and well, fixed me up. She had taken care of me, given me medicine, food and drinks without asking anything in return. The least I could do was answer the damn question.

“E... Ember.” There. I said it. Okay, for a casual observer it might have seen like a gust of wind, but still, I said it. And luckily Fixer was listening closely. “Nice to meet you Ember. I have some questions for you, but they can wait if you are too tired. Do you feel like you can answer me?”

I nodded. “Good, now, don’t take this the wrong way. But I’m curious. How are you still alive? You came in here with a dozen bullets in your body, a broken leg, evidence of small burns, minor dehydration and starvation. You didn’t have any supplies with you and the nearest settlement in the direction from where you came is a three day journey. So, how did you manage to get here?”

“I only broke my leg just before I arrived here.” I apologized, flushing. My throat hurt a bit and I coughed. She laughed at me and floated another sparkle-cola over, which I gladly drunk. “You truly are a special one aren’t you?” She grinned. “But still, that doesn’t answer my question. How did you manage to walk for such a long time with such injuries?”

Truth to be told, I had no clue myself, so I gave her my best attempt at a shrug in my circumstances. She tapped at my neck. “Does this have anything to do with it perhaps?” Wait, what did she mean? I brought my right hoof to my neck. There was something metal around it.

My heart stopped for a second. The collar! How could I have forgotten about it? More importantly: why hadn’t it exploded yet? Slave collars are fitted with a small explosive charge, big enough to blow of the slave’s head, yet small enough to not hurt any bystanders. They were constantly in contact with a radio transmitter, if you tried to escape and went out of range, the collar would explode. I knew this because I had seen it happen. It’s not a pretty sight.

Now for the one-million-caps question: why was my head still attached to my body? Unfortunately I couldn’t answer that since it was a bit difficult to see it. It did feel different from usual though. As I ran my hoof around it I could feel that it had deformed a bit, but nothing more than that.

Fixer saw how confused I was with the collar. “I think it is a slave collar, didn’t you know you were wearing it?”

I sighed and explained. “I’ve had it for a long time. Too long. It’s just. I’m surprised it didn’t work.”

“Oh. Oh! I’m sorry.” She then gave me a quizzical look. “What do you mean with ‘work’? How is it supposed to work?”

As I explained how it was fitted with explosives her expression went from surprised to enraged. “What kind of pony would even design such a horrible thing? And here I thought I had seen it all.” She sighed.

After a small pause she spoke up again. “You know what, stay here, I’ll bring Sticky Piston over. He’s our town mechanic, I’m pretty sure you don’t want to keep walking around with a live explosive on your neck.” And with that she left me.

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As it turned out, the brown earth pony with rusty mane knew what he was doing and he was able to release me from the collar without too much of a problem. Piston then proceeded to examine it thoroughly. When he was done he turned back to me and Fixer. “This is one mighty fine piece of equipment. The pony who created it must’ve been really skilled for getting all those components into such a small space.” Fixer shot him an angry glare. “Oh, and he must’ve been really evil as well of course.” He added quickly. “Anyway, I figured why it didn’t work properly. It’s been fried.”

“So somepony overloaded the circuitry?” Fixer asked. I had no idea what she meant with circuitry, or how one would overload it. Luckily Piston explained. “Nope. It’s been literally fried. As in, somepony burned it. See how it’s not a shaped like a circle.” He pointed at the collar, which was more egg-shaped. Fixer and me both nodded. “Well, it’s not supposed to be like that. Something heated it up enough for it to melt a bit. Do you even know how hot that is? And since you were wearing that around your neck I have no bucking clue how you’re not a small puddle of pony goo.”

I winced, images from the camp flashing in front of my eyes. “Hey, you okay? I didn’t mean it like that.” Piston’s voice snapped me out of it. He and Fixer were looking at me in concern. “I’m fine.” I managed to squeeze out.

Fixer closely inspected me. “Well then, if you’re as fine as you say, I think you’ve stayed in bed long enough.” I stared at her, my braced leg and the bandages. She followed my look. “Don’t worry about that. The bandages were to stop bleeding while I cut the bullets out and the brace to keep your leg still while the healing potions did their magic. You should be fine by now. So, let’s have a look shall we?”

With that, she removed the bandages and the brace. Underneath was smooth hide, with only tiny scars. Clearly Fixer knew what she was doing. There was something else though. Something I had never seen before. On my flank a yellow flame had appeared! A cutie mark! My cutie mark!

My enthusiasm got drilled in the ground when I figured out when I must have gotten it. I had gotten my cutie mark for mass murder. For burning all of the slaves and slavers alive. I could see all their corpses looking at me again. Fixer misinterpreted my distress. “Yeah, one of the bullets hit your cutie mark, I did my best to disguise the scars. I’m sorry if it wasn’t enough.”

Great, even before I learned I had one, my cutie mark had already been damaged. Well, it was not like it was something I was very fond of. “No. It’s okay. Really.” I managed to mutter. Deciding to not worry about it anymore I stepped out of bed, careful not to put any weight on my previously broken leg. Once I was standing firmly I slowly put some weight on it. I was amazed that it didn’t hurt. At all. Then again, I had never experienced the wonders of a healing potion before. If one of the slaves would be injured, he or she would get a day off at best. After all, we were considered expendable equipment.

After I was done admiring and testing my healed limbs I turned back to Fixer. There was a question that had been on my mind for a while now. The problem was that even though I was curious, I still wasn’t used to the whole “talking” thing, let alone asking questions. But, I reasoned, I wasn’t a slave anymore, and I knew I wouldn’t last long without information. And in order to get information, you need to inform. So, I took a deep breath and asked the question that had been bothering me the most. “Uhm, I’m sorry but, where am I?”

They both stared at me for a full minute, then looked at each other and fell on the ground laughing. Deeply embarrassed I tried to make myself as small as possible until they were done. “Oh my. Heh heh. Sorry, I totally forgot you might have some questions of your own. Well Ember, you’re currently in my medical outpost. But I’m going on a limb here and assume you mean the name of the town. Welcome to Neighvac. Our small piece of paradise in the wasteland. If you don’t mind the occasional attack and the bugs crawling around, that is. Luckily Sureshot and Fifty got us covered.”

Once that was cleared out it was time for my next question, equally bugging as the previous one. “What was that dragon?” Fixer and Sticky Piston went for another round of rolling on the floor. This time it was Piston who was the first to get back on his hooves again. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about that scary dragon. That old bastard has been here for a long time and he hasn’t hurt a bloatsprite. Not that that would have been a bad thing, the little buggers are annoying as hell.”

Upon my confused look he chuckled. “Hey Doc, got permission to let me show her?”

Fixer gave me a brief glance. “I don’t see why not, and while you’re at it, why not show her the rest of town as well?”

Piston nodded and tossed the collar to me. “Here, it’s yours. I made sure that the explosives are disarmed so you don’t have to worry about it anymore.” I caught it and wondered if I should keep it, and, where I could keep it. I put it on the bed. “Thank you, but I can’t really keep it with me.” I said, gesturing to my non-existent saddlebag.

This caused him to blush a bit. “Right. Um. Fixer, can you hold on to that thing while we get Ember some supplies?” Fixer chuckled. “Sure I’ll keep it for a while. Now off you go.” We were pushed to the door, which she opened with her magic. “Oh, and one thing Ember. It’ll take a while for your magic to come back, so don’t push it okay?”

With those last words of advice we were shoved outside. It was somewhere around midday in the small town. I saw several ponies sitting in front of their small wooden cottages. I turned back to the medical outpost. What I saw almost made my heart stop. The giant friggin dragon! It was standing right behind Fixer’s office, scanning the wasteland. In the daylight I could see more details. It was tall, about twenty meters of rusty scales, claws, fangs and all sorts of nastiness.

Wait a second. Rusty? I walked around the building to get a better view. From up close, I could see that it’s scales had one day been painted red. The paint had long since fallen off, exposing the metal scales to the environment. I tapped one of it’s legs. It sounded hollow. I looked back up, the giant beast hadn’t moved a muscle, standing still like a statue. I looked back at Piston, who had a wide grin on his face. “It isn’t a real dragon is it?”

“Nope, this bad boy here was build before the war. It’s actually hollow and was part of a playground.” He gestured to some rusty wreckages around us. My mouth fell open. Oooohhh. Well that made sense.

Piston chuckled. “Hey, wanna take a look inside? I’ll introduce you to Fifty.” I nodded, still amazed at the construction, and followed him to the other side of the dragon. By design, it’s tail was bent to one side, revealing an opening. I shot him an incredulous look. “Seriously?” I asked.

“Hey, remember it was made for foals. They must’ve found this hilarious!” He shot back and crawled inside. I followed him up some small stairs. Luckily it got wider in the middle of the dragon. After we made our way through its neck, we arrived in the mouth of the beast. I chuckled, before I had passed out, my wish had been for the dragon to eat me in one bite. Now I was standing in its mouth.

“Ember, this is Fifty. Fifty, this is Ember.” Piston waved his hoof at a dark green stallion with a large bullet for a cutie mark. I suddenly realised I had never looked at Piston’s or Fixer’s cutie marks. A quick glance showed that Piston had a steamy piston on his flank. Figures.

“Pleased to meet ya Ember, my full name is Fifty Cal by the way, but everypony just calls me Fifty.” He said, without looking back. He was scanning the wasteland, apparently looking for any threats. Mounted on a rails was a large scoped rifle. The rails allowed him to aim anywhere within 180 degrees. I noted several mirrors hanging from the dragon’s nose, showing the spots behind us. From up here, you could see anything coming from kilometers away.

BANG!

I was startled by the gunshot and, as it appeared, so was Piston. “Sonnuva! What was that for?”

“Damn Geckos. They built a nest near the well, just behind that hill over there.” He was pointing straight ahead, I followed his leg with my gaze and was just able to make out a small hill. How Fifty was able to see Geckos beat me. “Every time somepony goes to get some water, the buggers attack them. I shoot as many as I can, but they just keep coming. Bastards breed like bloatsprites.” He actually turned around to face us for a second. “Say, why don't you two flush 'em out? It would be mighty appreciated to, you know, get our only water source back. I'll give you supportive fire while you're at it.”

Without hesitation, I nodded. This would allow me to actually do something back for the people who had saved my life. Besides, Geckos didn't sound so bad. “I'll do it.” I looked to Piston, who also nodded. “Sure, why not.” He turned to me. “Let's get ourselves some guns then, shall we?” Oh, right, guns. I had actually never fired a gun, everypony did it though, so it shouldn't be hard to learn. I turned around and followed Sticky Piston down the dragon, until we got out of it's, uhm, backside again.

We went to a small store were the owner, Golden Cap, gave us a discount after Piston told her what we needed the supplies for. Then we went behind the shop, were Piston set up some tin cans for us to practice. Since my magic was still rubbish, I had to use the mouth grip. The gun tasted filthy, but I had had worse things in my mouth. “Okay, first things first, have you ever used a gun before?” My teacher asked me. I shook my head. “Figured as much. So, for lesson number one. You point a gun only at things you want to shoot, never to things you don't want to shoot. Understand?” I nodded, careful not to point my head directly at him.

“Good. Next lesson, safety. Right now, the safety is on, as long as you haven't cocked the gun, it ain't gonna fire. So disengage the safety like this.” He showed me to movement with his mouth and I copied him. “Good job. Now, while the safety is off, keep your tongue from the trigger ’til you're sure you wanna shoot. Then, point the gun at the thing you want dead, hold it steady, and pull the trigger.” He showed me the movements and shot, knocking off one of the tin cans. “Damnit, I wanted the left one.” I heard him mutter.

Grinning, which is pretty hard with a gun in your mouth, I copied his movements and aimed for the can on the right. I took a deep breath and pulled the trigger. Now it was Piston's turn to grin: I had not only missed the can, but the recoil from the gun had jerked my head backwards and made me drop the gun. “Whoops, forgot to tell you 'bout the recoil.” I was not amused, it had hurt! “Anyway, the shot was close enough for me. You've passed gun training! Now for the real work, what do you say we go hunt ourselves some geckos?”

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I knew it! I knew that every single thing in the wasteland was mutated. So no exception for geckos. But there was no way I could have known they had turned into some kind of dragon hybrid with the ability to breathe fire! I mean, it was bad enough that they were slightly bigger than most ponies, were damn fast and had sharp claws and teeth. But fire? Come on! That was just unfair.

Luckily we also had an unfair advantage: Fifty Cal was a very skilled sniper and once we had managed to lure the geckos from behind the hill, he was picking them off one by one. Still, there were plenty left for me and Piston to have fun with. And with that I mean run away from them while screaming. It also didn't help that we had dropped our guns. No, I didn't drop it from the recoil. It's just that my pistol had become pretty much useless after I was done shooting with it, since Piston had forgotten to tell me how to reload it. Not that I would have had enough time to do that. The geckos were incredibly fast on two legs and had forced us to a tactical retreat.

I looked back when I heard curse words mixed with Piston's screams. It turned out he had every reason to curse as he had tripped and fallen down. One particularly large gecko was looming over Piston, ready to incinerate him.

Without hesitation, I launched myself at the wannabe dragon just as it started to exhale. The impact send both of us rolling on the ground and I learned something new. Ever since I found out that I had survived being incinerated in the camp, I had wanted to know if I was invulnerable to all fire or just my own. When the gecko's fiery breath set my mane on fire, I learned that it was just my own.

Luckily the rolling put the fire out before it could do any serious damage. Still, my situation was hardly ideal as I ended up below the large creature. It had me pinned down and inhaled to burn my face off. By inhaling, it exposed its neck to me. I gladly jumped at the opportunity by stabbing him with my horn. Blood splattered all over my face as my horn cut open his artery. Still, the creature didn't realise it was supposed to drop dead and instead went berserk, cutting me with its claws. I tried my best to block them and managed to land some kicks myself, but he kept going until his last breath, making some deep gashes.

After he was finally dead, I had another problem: I was kinda stuck with my horn inside the throat of a heavy reptile, who was lying on top of me. After several minutes of wriggling, I managed to free myself. Around me were half a dozen of geckos. Fortunately Fifty had already dealt with them. I saw that several of the corpses were missing a head and made a mental note to never piss off anyone with such a rifle.

I looked around, searching for Piston, whom I eventually found lying underneath one of the geckos. I helped him move the carcass and helped him up. “Thanks for the save with the big one Ember.” He said, before looking concerned at my rump. “Uh, let's get back to Fixer. Those gashes look pretty bad.” I followed his look. All over my body were scratches and cuts. Most of them seemed superficial and would probably heal on their own, but two of them were pretty deep and bleeding heavily. “Yeah, that would be smart.” I agreed, before adding. “Um, do you happen to have something to stop the bleeding with?” I didn't want to end like the big gecko.

Piston nodded and quickly skinned one of the corpses. He strapped the makeshift bandage over the wound. It was gross, but at least I wouldn't die.

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Once we were finished, Piston picked up our guns and we went back to town. We entered the Fixer's office after confirming to Fifty that all of the geckos were dead. Fixer was pretty pissed at me for getting so many new injuries on the same day she had declared me cured. Piston told her to shut up and treat our wounds, which she did, albeit while constantly muttering at how irresponsible we were. When she was done, all of the cuts had were closed and some small burns on my neck had been treated. Piston then told her about what had happened, and her mood improved slightly. It turned out that she was running out of water, and if we wouldn't have cleared the well, she would have had to improvise with alcohol.

“What? You saying that if we wouldn't have gotten rid of those devils, you would have made alcoholic healing potions? Ember! We gotta find more of them buggers and lure 'em to the well!” Fixer, who’s cutie mark depicted a bottle of pills I finally noticed, facehoofed. I, on the other hoof, had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. “Why would we want to do that? Wouldn't that be incredibly redundant and dangerous?” I asked.

Now it was Piston's turn to facehoof. “Ember, everything is better with alcohol, don't you know that? And I would happily risk my life if it would mean alcoholic healing potions!” I wasn't really used to rhetorical questions, since I wasn't really used to answering questions in general, so I answered. “I'm sorry, but I've never drank alcohol, so I didn't know that everything is better with it.”

Piston gasped and faked a heart attack. “Fixer, permission to take Ember to the bar and show her the liquid miracle? I simply cannot allow anypony to not know its sweet, sweet taste! And besides, after all she's been through, I bet she could use a drink.” Fixer eyed Piston closely and then looked at me. “Permission granted. But only, and you need to listen to me carefully, only if you don't let her drink too much. I don't want to see her here tomorrow with alcohol poisoning, understood?” Piston nodded furiously and dragged me out.

He brought me to the local bar and ordered a dozen bottles of varying liquids.

Piston grinned at me. “Let's start with this one.” He pointed at a bottle containing a red liquid, named Pan Equestrian Gargle Blaster...

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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 things to improve!

Comments

[NeverKnown]

Pan Equistrian Gargle Blaster....... Mother of god thats going to be some hang over if she doesn't wake up in some random bed with a two way tattoo
mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw2080-13258119447882.png

[Tango]

120382
something like that

btw, shouldn't that be mother of Gawd?

[shiningdark]

120491 "Mother of Gawd" oh, all the Gawd jokes...
Sticky Piston? His cutie mark should've been the Minecraft sprite for a sticky piston...
And the commentary on the slave collars. They were invented before the War, but what use did they serve?

120382 Fixed it
i.imgur.com/cja7Y.jpg

[NeverKnown]

120676 Sir i applaud you have made my morning (´▽`)/) ==> Brohoof

[shiningdark]

121026 (\ (´▽`) Brohoof

This story is turning out pretty good, Tango. Keep up the good work!

[Tango]

120676 That's perfect!
About the slave collars, I don't know what use they served before the war, but in the Fallout universe, they were invented as a prisoner control device.
And I'll do my best to keep writing.

ps. Small update, fixed some errors and made small improvements.

[Tutis75]

Things are starting to pick up now! I gotta admit, the dragon threw me off at the beginning. I had no idea how you were gonna write your way outta that one. But you pulled it off, with a nice reference to New Vegas to boot. I also liked how Ember had such conflicting feelings about her Cutie Mark. Its her talent! But it killed everyone... I wonder what's next for the liberated pony. I'll be watching!

[The Jack]

Spotted an error; Rigth as Piston teaches Ember to gun, this quote pops up; "Right now, the safety is on, as long as you haven't cooked the gun, it ain't gonna fire". I believe it's supposed to be "cocked", not "cooked" :P

Also...
I believe you misspelled Pan Equestrian Gargle Blaster.

And finally.. I think I know where this is going. xD