Chapter 5: No Place Like Home
Ashes to Ashes - Chapter 5
No Place Like Home
When the night fell, we had made our way into town. For me it was familiar and strange at the same time. I recognized most buildings. The saloon I only knew from the outside, since I had been too young to go in. There was the sheriff's office, where the bad ponies, if any, were locked up. Then came the town hall, a large and prestigious building where most parties were held. The medical outpost, a place I could easily remember from my many visits, from back then I had had a talent for getting injured. My mother half expected my cutie mark to be a broken leg. I saw the houses where my friends used to live, their parents driven crazy by our enthusiastic games. And finally I saw my own home, I recognized the window of my room, now stained with dirt.
I recognized it all, and yet, at the same time, I didn't. Every building had changed from what I remembered. Windows were smashed in and now covered with planks. Offensive slurs were written on walls. Very few ponies roamed the streets, and those that did seemed to be either in a hurry or looked at our caravan with suspicion. From the saloon came not the sound of laughter and singing. Instead angry yells and shattering glass could be heard.
It made me feel uncomfortable and unwanted. Subconsciously, I moved closer to Lazuli, only noticing when we bumped into each other, causing both of us to yelp in surprise. From the look on her face I could tell she wasn't very happy to be here either, so we stayed close together. We stopped in front of the town hall, where we would spend the night.
As we entered, I once again noticed the differences between what I remembered and what it was like now. The room was dim and dusty, with only several blankets on the floor to indicate the places where we were supposed to sleep. The old, patchy curtains were gone and had been replaced by the trademark boards. The chairs and tables were also gone, leaving a feeling of emptiness.
And yet I could still see how it used to be, how the whole town would come together in here to celebrate whatever it was we were commemorating. My last day here had been the morning after one such party. Once we foals were sent to bed, I would see the adults going to the saloon through my window. Now that I thought about it, it seemed as if the slavers had pretty good timing. After experiencing a hangover myself I doubted that the guards on the morning shift would have been as alert as usual. Plus, all the gunshots and loud noises wouldn't have been nice on their hangovers. The longer I thought about it, the more I realized what luck the slavers must have had when they had attacked.
"What's wrong?" The voice of the caravan leader snapped me out of it. All of the other caravan members were already lying on their blankets, which made me realise I must have been standing there for several minutes.
"Nothing wrong!" I quickly replied before finding a sleeping spot for myself. I choose a nice piece of wooden floor next to Lazuli. The turquoise mare was still ignoring me completely. I had respect for whoever had made this floor. Even after two-hundred years of ponies walking on it, it still was pretty much intact. The only thing noticeable was that mold and woodworms had hollowed parts of it out, giving it a sponge-like structure. That was only a good thing though, since it made my sleeping spot a bit softer.
./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\.
The next morning I woke up with an unfamiliar pressure on my back. A quick inspection showed that it was a hoof, a hoof which turned out to be connected to a turquoise leg. I smiled and decided to stay in bed for a little while longer.
About half an hour later the leg stirred and indicated that Lazuli was waking. Curious to see her reaction, I pretended to be still asleep. Soon enough I heard a soft moaning behind me. "Mmmmhh, Lapis?" Oh, she thought I was Lapis, who I assumed to be her sister. That was kinda awkward. I had no idea what to do, so I just kept playing dead.
It didn't take long for her to figure out I wasn't Lapis though, as evidenced by the jerking back of her leg. I heard her mutter something incomprehensible, followed by quick, short breaths. That made me worry a bit, so I decided it was a good time to pretend to wake up and see if she was alright.
When I turned towards her, I saw that she was uncontrollably sobbing. It broke my heart to see her like that, especially since it was partly my fault. The worst part though was that she kept repeating the same line over and over again, as if she were in a trance. "She's gone. She's gone. She's gone."
I wanted to do something for her, to tell her everything was gonna be alright. But it wasn't. I remembered how Fixer had hugged me after telling my story, and how much better I had felt afterwards. That was something I could do as well.
So I walked over to her and held her. Nothing more, silently praying it would help her calm down.
Eventually it did. When she stopped crying I held her for a little bit longer before letting go again. She looked up to me and gave me a small smile after which she stood up and started gathering her stuff. I couldn't help but give a small chuckle at the irony, I, the mare who destroyed a whole slaver camp out of suppressed frustration, was giving emotional help to another mare. Long live the wasteland.
As I watched her pack her belongings, I felt glad that I had helped her. Still, she probably needed to talk about it. "What was her name?" I asked. I was pretty sure it was Lapis but I wanted to get that cleared up. It also seemed like a good opening question to me.
"Lapis." Her answer confirmed my suspicion, but nothing more.
“Tell me about her.” Yeah, talking was good. I hoped.
“She was my big sister. We were twins you know. Always doing things together, helping each other out. It was easier that way. Even when those slavers captured us, we figured that if we would stay together, we would hold out. But now? I just... I just don’t know anymore.”
“Don’t... don’t you have anyone back in Neighvac?” I suggested.
She let out a snort. “Ha! It was always just the two of us, always wandering around. We had only been in Neighvac for what? Two weeks? Two and a half? It was hard for us to settle, so we went with the caravan. See the world you know. Nothing could stop us together. Or so I thought...”
An awkward silence followed. After some hoof scraping, Lazuli was the one to finally break it. "Why did you come back anyway? You were free. You could have left, never come back." Her tone was accusing
It was a good question which I hadn't thought about. “Well...” I started, trying to remember my thoughts “...I don’t know. It actually never crossed my mind to not come back. I guess I wanted to save you guys. And I wanted to kill those slavers.” It was an honest reply but Lazuli didn’t seem satisfied with it.
“But why risk your own life and everypony else’s?” Her tone was angry and she took several steps towards me, causing me to instinctively back off.
At the moment I hadn’t cared about my life. And I never actually thought about ‘collateral damage’. “I think I was overconfident, the idea of anypony besides the bad guys dying never occurred to me.” I began to wonder, who was questioning who?
“So you’re a stupid, arrogant, madmare who lacks any form of consideration for other ponies?” That was actually pretty much how I felt at the moment.
I gave her a weak smile. “You can punch me if you want.” It was all I had, really.
She took another couple of steps forward, as I backed off I stumbled and fell on my haunches. Lazuli brought her face close to mine, inspecting me with her deep blue and especially angry eyes.
Then she let out a loud groan and gave me a weak punch in the shoulder. “But you also saved the caravan and probably Neighvac as well.” Upon my non-understanding look she elaborated. “If we wouldn’t have delivered the water, the ponies here would taken it by force. Saltash is dependant on Neighvac for water, and they have more and bigger guns. I don’t think even Fifty and Sureshot would stand a chance if Saltash became desperate enough.”
“Would they really attack Neighvac, just for water?” I asked, glad for the change of subject.
“Remember that a lot of retired slavers and raiders settle here. And just because they’re retired doesn’t mean they suddenly become harmless. If anything, they are more dangerous than normal raiders and slavers, otherwise they wouldn't have survived long enough to be able to settle downin the first place."
“Wait wait wait. So what you’re saying is that slavers now live in this town? That it wasn’t enough for them to enslave us? That they decided to add a little bit of extra humiliation by making it an old pony’s home for fucking retired slavers? And why has nopony told me that before?” Now it was Lazuli’s turn to back off as I shouted my questions at her, trembling with rage.
“Please don’t hurt me.” Her voice was soft, but enough to make me realize what I was doing. I found myself standing over her shivering form. She was looking at me with big, scared eyes.
“Oh crap. I’m so sorry. I... it’s not your fault.” I fell back down on the floor, ashamed of my reaction.
Still, it wasn’t fair. Slavers that had destroyed my life were now living in my home! As my anger returned I stood back up. I wanted to outside and kill every single one of them. I just couldn’t let them desecrate my home. While levitating my shotgun and submachine gun over, I was about to trot outside when Lazuli’s voice stopped me.
“You didn’t care about any of us. You just wanted to kill those slavers.” Her voice was soft, she didn’t sound angry. Somehow that only made it worse, her statement caused me to stop dead in my tracks and think. Was she right? Had I really not cared about the ponies that were killed because of me? Had revenge been the only reason for me to come back?
Then came the really frightening question: did Iron Shield, Lapis and those other ponies die because of my revenge? I didn’t want to answer that. "I... I don't know. Yes, I wanted to kill every single slaver. I still do. I hate them and will always hate them. But I don't want to hurt other ponies, and I'm sorry for what happened."
Lazuli walked next to me and gently lowered my guns. “What did they do to you to make you hate them so much?”
I sighed and gestured for her to follow me, leading her outside. Our conversation had been slightly confusing for me, I was pretty sure that I had been trying to console her, not the other way around.
Once we were outside I pointed my hoof at my old home. “That used to be my house.”
"If you lived here, then why didn't you know what kind of ponies live here?"
"Because I lived here before them. And when I lived here, there were no slavers and raiders around. Or at least not until the end."
"So you were taken by slavers. Then what happened? Were they so impressed by this town that they decided to settle here?"
"I don't know, but I intend to find out." And with that I set out to the saloon. There was a good chance the caravan leader would be there and hopefully he would be able to point me in the right direction for answers. Lazuli stood there for a moment before following me.
./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\.
I was lucky, the dark-green stallion was sitting at a table, having a conversation with another pony. The old, ruby red buck looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. Was it his fedora? The long scar running across his left eye? Or maybe the uninterested look with which he watched the caravan leader yelling at him? "I told you already, it wasn't my fault that we were caught by slavers!"
His conversation partner didn't seem impressed at all. "Your part of the deal was to deliver the water. I don't care how you do it, as long as I get it. But since you didn't bring enough, it wouldn't make sense for me to pay you, would it?"
This seemed to make the caravan leader even angrier. "And your part of the deal was to keep your 'friends' of our backs!"
The other just shrugged. "I did, nopony I know attacked your little caravan. So you still owe me six barrels of water. For a discount of course, seeing as you didn't deliver on time." He gave a large, toothy smile.
The caravan leader stood up and slammed his hooves on the table, causing everypony in the bar to look up. "That's an outrage! You cannot expect me to give you a lower price! You don't even need the water right now, we've brought a month's supply for crying out loud!."
The ruby stallion leaned back and put his forelegs behind his head. "Half price, last shot. Take it." Amused I noticed he didn't say 'or leave it'.
That left the caravan leader opening and closing his mouth several times. Finally he reluctantly grumbled "Fine," before walking towards the exit and bumping into us. "Are you also intent on sucking the caps out of me?"
I gave him a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, we're just looking for some info about the town."
He seemed to clear up a bit at that and pointed at the ruby stallion, who featured a smug grin on his face. "Go bother that leech over there, he'll be able to give you the information you want.” He gave a small huff and left the building.
I nodded and walked over to the table.
"Well hello there ladies! To who do I owe the pleasure?" He offered his hoof, which I carefully shook.
"I'm Ember. And she," I pointed at Lazuli, who also shook the stallion's hoof. "is Lazuli. Though I have no idea why she's here as well."
That got me a confused look from the turquoise mare. "Why? To make sure you do nothing stupid of course."
I was shocked, I would never do such a thing! "Hey, why would you think I might do something like that?"
She gave me a sly smile. "You were about to take on the whole town this morning, if I remember correctly." Oh, that.
"Yeah? Well, maybe you didn't remember correctly!" Ha, perfect comeback! I focused my attention back to the old buck, who had been watching our small discussion with amusement. "Anyway, that's not why we're here. We've got some questions for you, Mr..."
"Silver Tongue. And though my tongue isn't made of silver, I still can do some nice tricks with it." He gave us a wink, which confused me a bit. When I looked at Lazuli to see if she understood what he had meant, I saw that she was furiously blushing. That only confused me more. Oh well, it probably wasn't very important.
"Right... About our questions Mr Tongue."
"Please, call me Silver. And I'm more than willing to help you two lovely ladies in any way I can. And while some secrets are worth a price, I'm sure we will be able to come to an agreement." I hoped the price wouldn't be too high.
Before I could ask something though, Lazuli jumped in. "We were curious about the history of this lovely town. Could you help us with that?" That wasn't precisely what I wanted to know, but she seemed to know what she was doing. So I let her do her thing.
Silver Tongue waved his hoof dismissively. "Why would two nice mares as yourselves care about history? There are so many more interesting things to do for you two."
"Perhaps, but we would still like to know more about Saltash. It just seems like such an interesting place." I didn't know why she didn't just cut straight to the point, but Silver seemed to be enjoying the conversation. Perhaps he would be more inclined to tell us what we wanted to know if we asked nicely, instead of saying 'Hey, I used to live here until slavers took over. Tell me who they are so I can kill them.' Yeah, I began to see why Lazuli wanted to do the talking.
The old buck shrugged. "If you really want to. But let me order some drinks first. Hey Broken Bottle, one wild pegasus and three glasses over here!"
"No, thanks. I don't drink." I told Silver. Considering what had happened last time, drinking might not be such a good idea.
"Nonsense, everypony in the wasteland knows how to drink. Besides, it's my treat, it would hurt my feelings if you'd decline." I nodded, from what I understood about Lazuli's tactics, we were supposed to make him like us, so it would be better to play along.
We waited for the deep-blue unicorn to bring a bottle of wild pegasus and three glasses to our table. Silver filled the glasses and handed them over to us. "Cheers. To good company and boring history!" I had told myself to only take small sips, but as I tasted the fine liquid my tongue demanded more. Before I knew it my glass was completely empty. This caused the old stallion to chuckle. "See? Told you it was good."
As he refilled my glass, Lazuli gave me a worried look. I gave her an apologetic smile in return and made a mental note to let this glass stand untouched.
"Right. Where were we? Oh yes! You were wondering how Saltash became such a sanctuary for the veterans of the wasteland. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?" Upon the confirming nods from both me and my companion he continued. "A long time ago, on this very spot, there was a beautiful lake. It may not have been as brilliant as your coat, but it was beautiful nonetheless." He gave a small wink at Lazuli that made me feel a bit jealous. "Once ponykind discovered this lovely place, they decided to settle here. The town was prosperous but small, something that saved them during the war. When the bombs fell, Saltash was too unimportant to be a target. That, and the mountain range which protected it from most of the fallout, saved the town and it's inhabitants."
"Wait a second, the mountains stop the rain, which is why you need the water from Neighvac. So why was there a lake here in the first place?" I knew that what he said was the truth, I had heard it before at school after all. But it didn't make sense to me and I had never wondered about it before.
"Ah, you're a smart one." His compliment made me beam with pride while I gave Lazuli a triumphant look. Ha, you may be pretty, but I am smart! Wait, why did I think that? We were supposed to be a team right? My thought was true though, she was pretty. From her brilliant turquoise coat to her deep blue eyes. From the way her mane flowed and ended in a playful curl. I remembered when we had washed ourselves, how her wet mane had looked, hanging in front of her eyes, her eyes that were now giving me a very odd look. Wait, what were we talking about again? "...so that's why there already was water here." Crap.
How had I become so distracted? Now I had missed the whole explanation! I sighed and brought my glass to my mouth as Silver continued. "So, you would think that the town was spared while Equestria was burning. That was not the case however. Maybe it was the shockwaves from the bombs, maybe it just bad luck, but one way or the other, a sleeping volcano in the mountain range erupted. Because of the tremors, the ground underneath the lake was torn open, emptying the water in an underground cavern where the heat from the earth vaporised it. That tear in the earth is still visible today, if you want to visit it. The ashes from the eruption then descended upon the whole valley, covering it in a thick layer."
I nodded again and noticed that my glass was empty, as was Lazuli's. I had to admit, the way Silver told the story made it way more interesting than the version of my old teacher. I swear, one of my classmates who was good with technical stuff had recorded one of his lessons, every night when he had trouble falling asleep he would then play the recording and bam! Instantly asleep. I even borrowed it for myself once to see if it really worked. It did.
While filling our glasses, Silver continued. “For several years, the locals struggled, surviving only on old supplies. Several families left, searching for a better life, which was pretty difficult considering it was only a few years after the apocalypse. They were lucky though, and found Neighvac and it’s uncontaminated source of water. A trade route was set up between the two towns and the rest is history.” Huh, I didn’t remember hearing about Neighvac in class. Probably because the anything else always seemed more interesting.
“Wait a second, you said that the ponies in Neighvac set up the trade route, right?” Lazuli’s voice was a bit slurred as she spoke up. “But nowadays they seem scared of you guys. So what changed?”
As Silver replied, I noticed that he had only taken a few sips from his own glass. Ha! I was winning! “Winning what?” A tiny voice in the back of my brain asked. “Doesn’t matter, still winning.” Was my response and I finished my glass. Lazuli followed my example and opened a second bottle, brought by the bartender.
“Up until about decade ago that was the case. Both towns were prosperous. Problem was, they didn’t want to share with everypony. Back then I was living with a band of adventurers, roaming the wasteland and having a fairly good time altogether. But every time we tried to come into Saltash to have some fun, they denied our access. We didn’t like that. So we waited for an opportunity and took over. The ponies in Neighvac quickly adjusted, especially after we showed them how much they could use our protection.”
So he had been there all those years ago. He had been one of the slavers that had taken away my life. I felt my blood begin to boil. I wanted to stand up and rip his face open, make him choke on that fedora of him. Something held me back though. A pressure on my shoulder. It was Lazuli’s leg keeping me in place. What had she told me again? Something like: “I’m here to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.” Did she consider making a pony choke on a fedora stupid? I didn’t really see anything wrong with that.
There was also nothing wrong with the pressure on my shoulder. Her leg felt soft and warm and made me relax. How come I hadn’t noticed that before? Was it the alcohol? Nah, alcohol couldn’t do such things. “Alcohol made you climb up a dragon statue.” the voice in the back of my mind pointed out. A good swig of wild pegasus drowned the voice and let me focus on the conversation again.
“But what *hick* happened to the ponies who lived here?” Lazuli’s hiccup made me giggle, for no other reason than it being funny. Then my giggling made her giggle as well. I noticed that she was slightly swaying so I put a leg around her as well, to prevent her from falling. Her back felt the same as her leg, soft and warm.
Silver Tongue was broadly smiling. “Oh, they didn’t make too much of a fuss. In the end they left peacefully.” Instantly my happy thoughts were gone again.
Goodbye happy thoughts! Hello again rage, how have you been? What’s that? You want to blow up his face? Why yes, of course I’m willing to help, that sounds like a lot of fun!
I stood up and reached for my shotgun, but couldn’t find it. Whatever, improvising might be fun as well. As I my mind tried to find a creative solution I thought it might be a good idea to have a little chat. “Peacefully? I wouldn’t describe it as peacefully.”
Silver Tongue gave me an odd look. “What would you know about that?”
I gave him a cold stare. “Traumatising might be a better description.”
This only seemed to confuse him more. “But you weren’t there, were you? No, you’re too young, would’ve been a filly and we had no fillies with us. Unless...” His eyes went wide for a second before returning to their usual confident expression. “Unless you were a filly. I knew you looked familiar, you were the little brat under the bed!”
Now it was my turn to be surprised. The only way he could’ve known I had been under the bed was if he had been in the room as well. And since he wasn’t the unicorn that had dragged me away, he must’ve stayed in my room. With mom. I felt my blood grow ice cold. Back then, I hadn’t know what they had meant with the things they had taunted my mommy with. Later on, I got first hoof experience.
“Ah yes. It was you! Heh, and to think I’ve been trying to get you two drunk enough to continue the family tradition! I do wonder if you have as much endurance as your mommy, she lasted three rounds if I remember correctly. Pretty impressive, given her state.” He chuckled as everything I slowly turned red. “You could say she was dying for a good fu-”
He didn’t get to finish the sentence as I had grabbed the bottle, smashed it and was now pressing the sharp glass against his throat. Simultaneously I heard chairs falling and a lot of clicks, indicating that pretty much the whole tavern was now holding me at gunpoint.
I couldn’t care less.
“Take it back and I’ll make it quick.” I hissed, standing over him. Small trickles of blood were running down his throat, blending in with his ruby coat. Silver stared back at me, his eyes were wide with fear, something that made me feel rather satisfied. Then he looked around, presumably at the rest of the tavern and his expression became slightly more confident.
“You’d be dead before you could even make a scratch.” His spoke softly, probably because there was a sharp and pointy object on his windpipe.
I grinned. “That sounds like a challenge to me. You’d be surprised at how many bullets I can take.” I thought back at the charred remnants of the slaver camp where I had woken up. How many bullets did I have in me then?
He gulped, causing more blood to mix with his coat and my grin to grow wider. All I had to do was give it a quick slash, or a slow one. Slow might be better, but riskier as well. I tried to figure out how much damage I could do while being shot at, but was rudely interrupted by a now familiar pressure on my shoulder.
“Ember, come.” Damnit Lazuli! Can’t you see I’m busy? I wanted to ignore her, but she slowly pulled me away. I shot her an annoyed glare. She slowly shook her head. “Remember what I said about stupid things? The only thing you’ll accomplish is creating a bloodbath, getting yourself killed. And me as well.”
She had a point. Celestia damn her! Why did she have to be right? If I would start a fight, she was likely to be caught in the crossfire, considering she was standing next to me. And if she would die I would never forgive myself. Of course, never is relative if you’re going to be dead as well, but I didn’t want it to end like that. So I let her drag me away from him. Just as Silver’s smug expression came back though, I turned around and gave him a quick buck in his nether region. It felt immensely satisfying.
“Run!” I yelled at a surprised Lazuli as our roles reversed and I became the one dragging her away. Luckily everyone in the saloon seemed to surprised or amused to be shooting at us. I was sure I heard at least several loudly laughing. We quickly bolted out of the door, onto the streets. It was somewhere in the afternoon, the sun still tried it’s best to pierce through the cloud cover. I had no doubt they would come after us so we needed a place to hide. The town hall with the rest of the caravan? No, too obvious. My old home? Silver knew me, so he probably remembered where I lived. That wouldn’t be safe either. I decided for the next best thing, my old neighbour’s house. I used to come over to play with Coal Ore a lot and knew his place as well as my own.
As I led Lazuli into the abandoned building, I heard a strangely high-pitched scream come from the tavern. “Find her!” Smiling, I closed the door behind me and made my way to the attic.
./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\.
The Ores had been good friends of my mother and I. They had a big family and an equally big home. Cole was by far the youngest of them all, and though his brothers and sisters loved him, they didn’t spend a whole lot of time playing with him. He didn’t mind though, since he had me and I had him. Together we terrorised the town, from borrowing candy from the general store (we were going to return it! Eventually...) to jumping off rooftops in homemade contraptions, attempting to earn our flying’ cutie marks (though we came closer to ‘broken leg’ cutie marks).
We also played games together: ancient board games that had survived the apocalypse, painting awesome pictures on the walls, playing tag and hide-and-seek. There was always a lot to do in the Ores’ house, and my mom had to came over a lot to apologize for any property damage. I don’t think she or the neighbours minded it though, since they always were nice to each other.
Those days of running around in the house now proved to be invaluable as I knew just where to hide. In the attic there was a fake wall, with a small storage room behind it. The opening was well hidden and you would have to know it was there in order to spot it. Luckily, I did know where it was. There was something strange going on though, normally, the removable planks were hidden in plain sight but somepony had apparently decided to put a large chest in front of it. The chest was pretty heavy, but my telekinesis and Lazuli’s earth pony strength allowed us to quickly shove it aside, giving us access to the hidden passageway.
Several days after I was captured by the slavers, the initial shock had subsided a little. It was only then that I noticed that I couldn’t find Cole in the group. I had never known what happened to him since his parents were among the slaves.
Until now.
As I triumphantly opened the hidden room, a dull smell filled my nostrils. Inside was an impressive mountain of empty Sparkle Cola bottles, stacked in a pyramid. Lots of food wrappers littered the ground, organised to form happy faces. The faces were placed in a circle. In the middle of that circle, illuminated by small cracks in the wood, lay a small unicorn skeleton curled up in a ball.
I fell down, almost knocking over the glass pyramid, and cried. Evidently his parents had put him in here, making extra sure he was safe by placing the chest in front. How long had he been here? Judging by the empty bottles at least several weeks. I looked around the room with blurry eyes, scratch marks around the door and cracks in the wooden outer wall showed that he had tried to make his way out. Unfortunately, even two hundred years after the apocalypse, this house was still tough enough to withstand the efforts of a little colt.
Lazuli silently pushed me completely inside, covered our tracks and closed the secret door again, forcing my eyes to adjust to the little amounts of light. I just sat there, silently weeping for my old friend. Now it was Lazuli’s turn to hug me. I let myself fall to the ground, a respectful distance from Cole’s remnants. The events of the day, the alcohol and the calming presence of Lazuli made me swiftly fall to sleep.
./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\.
I was still in the hidden chamber, but instead of a skeleton, a live version of Cole Ore was sitting next to me, tinkering with his invention. His dark grey coat was spotted with black specks of dirt, matching his ink black mane. I noticed that my coat wasn’t much better. Heh, our moms would probably make a big fuss about it, giving a speech about how we had to use the water sparsely and blah blah blah. I didn’t care. Neither of us did. Sacrifices had to be made for the greater good, in this case a small combustion engine put together from scraps. Cole was good with engines and other mechanical stuff. I mostly cheered him on and assisted with my telekinesis if needed.
We were convinced that the single ponypower the thing provided would be enough to propel our ingenious contraption: a pair of wings which were to be attached to my back. Besides being Cole’s assistant, I was also the test pilot. So far, no test had been successful. Which wasn’t really surprising in hindsight, strapping a contraption heavier than myself on my back was not the ideal way to fly.
Still, we weren’t going to give up just yet. We were sure that the engine would be the solution. Nothing could ever go wrong with strapping a homemade combustion engine on your back and jumping off a building. Nope.
We didn’t get to that though. Loud bangs from outside distracted us from our work. That didn’t sound good. Not good at all. I went to the opening, our only significant source of light. I had to see what was going on outside, I had to make sure nothing bad would happen.
The moment I stuck my head outside, something took hold of my mane and pulled me out. As I looked up I saw it was Silver Tongue. Immediately I started flailing around, trying to hit him in every place I could. My efforts were in vain though, he hardly seemed to notice my struggle.
Cole Ore did hear me though and he came looking for through the hole. Surprised to see me in my position, he stopped just before the exit. Silver dropped me and a wide grin spread on his face. I realised what he was doing but couldn’t stop him as he swiftly placed the cover back in its place. I tried to rip it away, let Cole free, but I simply wasn’t strong enough.
With no other reason than to taunt me, Silver put the heavy chest in place again and left the room. I had no idea why he didn’t take me with him, perhaps he knew I couldn’t possibly free my friend.
I tried though. I bucked, I hit, I scratched and threw heavy objects at the wall separating us. After a while it became clear that it had no use, so instead I lay down on the chest and cried. From the other side of the wall I heard Cole’s sad voice. “Thanks for the company.”
./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\.
I woke up with a shock, hitting my head on the ceiling. I didn’t really have a hangover from the previous day, just a light headache but the impact didn’t really help. I had a bigger problem though. Two actually. Firstly, a certain turquoise mare was no longer by my side. Secondly, I could barely see my hoof even when I practically poked myself in the eye with it. It was probably smart to first fix the light issue, so that I would have an easier time solving the mystery of the missing mare.
Let’s see. Oh wait, that’s the problem, I can’t. Um, let’s think. I could try to blast a hole in the wall, but seeing how little light was shining through, I doubted that it would solve my problem. It would also attract every single pony in town, kinda negating the whole idea of a hiding place. It would also be nice to actually have my shotgun. I still didn’t know where that thing had gone. Dammit, now I had three problems to solve instead of two. Things weren’t looking up. Okay, what else could I do? I needed light but didn’t exactly have a torch. Or anything to set on fire for that matter. Maybe if I made my horn glow?
Gears fell into place in my mind. Wait a second! I need a light, fire makes a nice light, I’ve got a freaking flame for my cutie mark! I could make fire, couldn’t I? I did it before, though completely uncontrolled and unintentionally. In fact, I wasn’t even sure how I’d done it. It probably wasn’t a good idea to try to precisely replicate that first attempt though, seeing as how I was currently hiding in what was basically a flammable box. I needed to make something smaller, much smaller. And less likely to kill me and everything around me. I shuddered as I thought about the charred corpses. Yeah, let’s not do that again.
I focused on my horn. Normally when levitating, I imagined the object flying so I figured it would be best to try to do the same sort of here. I pictured a small flame, floating in the air and lighting up my surroundings. It took a bit of effort to imagine the everchanging shape, but eventually I got a clear picture. Then I willed that picture in existence, floating in front of me. A small spark appeared, gave a weak flash and winked out of reality once more. That was promising! I tried again and this time the spark stayed. And grew. And grew. What started as a tiny spark was now the size of my hoof.
Uh, that wasn’t good. I tried to stop it from growing. It didn’t. I panicked and blew and waved my hooves at it. That only seemed to make it bigger. Think, think, think! I hit myself in the head, hoping to find a solution before burning the town to the ground. Strangely enough, it helped. Because as I hit my head, the flame grew again. That made me curious and stopped the panic mode, which stopped the flame from growing. Interesting. I calmed myself down some more, clearing my mind (which was surprisingly easy) and the flame shrank. That was cool, or rather, hot. I toyed a little bit more until I got complete control over it and after some practice I managed to shape it independently of my emotions, which was pretty useful. I wouldn’t want to accidentally burn Lazuli to death because I got startled by a bug or something. I also noticed that the flame wasn’t very hot or large; it only seemed to get as big as two hooves maximuml and I could lick it with no problem. Okay, that last part may not have been my smartest move, but I was just curious to see what fire tasted like and I figured it probably wouldn’t hurt me. As it turned out, it was rather spicy.
Oh, right! Now that the light issue had been dealt with, it was time for my other quests: find Lazuli and my shotgun. Or the other way around. I still had my SMG, but that thing only had one magazine left. I looked around, searching for clues. One of us apparently had caused the bottle pyramid to collapse in our sleep. I felt a bit sad as one of the last things Cole had done was make that thing. It felt wrong that we had disturbed it. Carefully I levitated the bottles back in their original position. The only change I made was to position the pyramid a bit further away from our sleeping spot, so no more accidents would happen.
Happy to have restored my old friend’s final resting place to its original state, I opened the door panel and crawled out. Still there was no sign of Lazuli. This worried me; why would she leave our shelter? She had been the one who insisted to not do anything stupid. Running off didn’t seem like something she would do. Why would she leave me alone like that? I would have to go looking for her, subtly.
./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\.
In hindsight, walking into the bar and demanding to know Lazuli’s location might not have been very subtle. I did learn that none of Silver’s goons knew where she was as well. And I got some running practice. Dodging bullets is a really good motivation!
I was glad that I still knew all the places to hide and sneak away in from my childhood. Still, the layer of murky water in the barrel I was hiding in was slowly turning red, indicating that I needed to work on my speed if I wanted to outrun bullets again.
Once the coast was clear I climbed out of the barrel and looked over my injuries. It turned out to be only a couple of grazing shots. Nothing some improvised bandages wouldn’t hold together until I got my hooves on a healing potion. I would have to get some kind of cloth for the bandages though. The only two safe places I could think of were my hiding spot in the attic and perhaps with the caravan. Hopefully my pursuers would think twice before opening fire on ponies who could shoot back. Hopefully.
I snuck my way back to the town hall, doing my best to stay unnoticed. My efforts were rewarded and I managed to arrive unharmed at the building. Well, except for my previous injuries that didn’t want to heal. Apparently if you dip your wounds in dirty old water, they get itchy. I didn’t like itchy. It was distracting to say the least.
As I opened the door, I was in the middle of a particular annoying itch, it was so very hard not to scratch it open. So hard that I didn’t notice that the town hall was pretty much empty, except for a familiar ruby stallion with a fancy fedora, sitting in the middle of the room with a big grin on his mouth.
The itch had nothing to do with the fact that I didn’t notice a bag being pulled over my head, followed by a heavy blow against my skull, knocking me out almost instantly. That was just me being stupid.
./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\./^\.
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!
Stats
Page generated in 0.023 seconds
Total duration
1,082 users online
1,727,960 hits today, 1,960,719 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
awww snap
Daaaaaaaaaaaang 0_0 im looking forward to the next chapter..........*mumbles something about cliff hangers and ducks*
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/181/813/1726009-shut_up_and_take_my_money_super.jpg?1317708806
162565 Gladly *heads off to invent way to take money from the internets*
By the way, I have no idea what will happen next chapter as well, so it's a cliffhanger for me too :D
*reads latest chapter of PH* 0_0 i know yull think of something
Well, at least she can burn them all to the ground if the situation gets too bad
well cue the rape scene followed by a well done stallion
174888 well, she hit the live slaver on his leather barding. It seemed a bit weird to me to have it ignore that. Plus, it was indeed partly for narrative reasons.
Found 'nother misspelling; "I used to come over to play with Cole Ore a lot and knew his place as well as my own." Supposed to be "Coal Ore" I presume. :P
Also. Little Coal... *sadface*
"I also noticed that the flame wasn’t very hot or large; it only seemed to get as big as two hooves maximuml and I could lick it with no problem. Okay, that last part may not have been my smartest move, but I was just curious to see what fire tasted like and I figured it probably wouldn’t hurt me. As it turned out, it was rather spicy."
... What was Ember's INT again? xD