Secrets and lies! It’s all secrets and lies with those ponies!

Chapter 12: Fool Me Once

Our trip towards Neighton wasn’t very eventful the first day. There were a few shacks we passed, and a radgator we cooked for our dinner. As day gave way to the darkness of night, I took first watch and cast my night vision spell. We hadn’t come across a real threat since Dodge Junction, and that made me uneasy.

The wasteland didn’t let us go so easily, I could almost feel it planning another attempt on our lives, and the thought made me suspicious of even the smallest breeze. Roughly near midnight, my EFS flashed a friendly signal approaching. I turned my rifle on the newcomer, waiting until I knew there was any danger before waking John.

“Woah there!” said the dark brown mare, fear showing in her face. “I don’t mean you no harm, but I need help! My daughter is trapped by a bunch of radgators up the road only a little way!”

I considered calling the mare out on her claim, but it was too dark for me to make much logical deduction or read her body language clearly. I glanced at John and saw him deep asleep in the world of pleasant dreams.

“Ok,” I said to her. “Back me up and I’ll help you.”

The mare nodded and led the way to a large nest radgators. There weren’t an extreme number of them, but it was far more than I’d faced before… Ten or so at the high end. I sighed and took aim. I picked out my target, lining up with the closest gator. I held my breath, just a John taught me.

Pop pop!

Dead. Stupid animal. My shots alerted the rest and I calmly took aim again.

Pop! Pop pop! Pop!

Dead. Dead. Reload.

Pop pop!

The next was too close for me to aim properly so I hit S.A.T.S. and triggered two shots to the beast’s head. Dead. Five down, five to go. The dark mare finally had decided to help out and shot down one herself.

A barrage of bullets rained down from our little outcropping and one-by-one radgators fell dead. I looked down carefully and realized instantly what was wrong here…

There was no daughter… no captive. The mare had crossed me. Of course, I would’ve loved to turn at this moment and hit her, but I felt the barrel of her gun press against my head at that moment.

“Drop it!” she snarled in a tone quiet different from before.

I did as she said and used the excuse to tap S.A.T.S. on my pipbuck again. The stupid mare had been just so kind as to let me know exactly where her revolver was by pressing it against my head. I used that knowledge to trigger an attack at the weapon. I released the spell and the gun was sent skidding across the dirt. She watched it leave in terror and then I did punch her, hard.

Blood splattered and I attacked again, and again, and again until I was quite sure that once had been a pony was a useless collection of brain matter. I shook myself… Honestly, if she’d just been willing to ask I would’ve given her what I had to spare, but it seemed that honesty was a virtue long devoid of the wasteland…

I searched the mare for anything I could use until I came across a very odd potion. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it and I’d certainly never seen anything about one of these in my history books. Cautiously, I had my pipbuck examine it.

Memory potion…

Well that wasn’t very specific. Memory potion? My memory was already perfect, what more memory did I need?

I knew it wasn’t smart to do, but dammit all to hell, I wanted to see exactly what this potion did. I could find only one way to do that. I took a gulp of the strange white liquid, and the world around me shimmered and vanished. At first, I was terribly afraid, but then I slowly felt the world come back to me… but something was wrong.

I was me, I was quite sure of that. I had all my memories and understanding of the world that I had always held. However, something was different. I was just as I always had been, but I was missing the all-too-familiar feeling of a pipbuck on my left foreleg. In fact, I didn’t have any gear at all.

The ground beneath me was different too. It was… fuller, more complete. We didn’t have ground like this anywhere in the wasteland as far as I’d seen. The ground there was mostly broken up dirt, that had long ago lost of it’s ability to bear plants and trees. This ground was lush, and hungry. For a long while, I couldn’t tear myself away from it.

When I finally did look up at the world around me, I saw battle had flooded this area. Gunshots and explosions were everywhere. Ponies and zebras alike where yelling and killing each other. This wasn’t like the fights I’d had in the wasteland. These creatures weren’t desperately clinging to life while destroying each other because it was what they had to do.

This wasn’t a fight to make sense of the world. These ponies and zebra had purpose and anger atop years of hatred fueling them. I knew of course, that I wasn’t witnessing this as a real event. This was no doubt a memory I was being forced to relive due to the potion, but despite myself I couldn’t help being curious.

The books I had read never properly explained war. They didn’t show me any pictures of half-mangled zebras holding their brethren as the last breath of air lift their bodies. I hadn’t read testimony from ponies who were covered in the blood and guts of their friends and family. I’d never really seen anypony hate and fight like these ones did.

I had been angry before, sure. I’d even killed… quite a lot actually. But I wasn’t a solider. I never had been and I likely never would be. I trotted calmly through the embodiment of death and destruction that surrounded me, looking from zebra to zebra and pony to pony. I saw pain… death… hate… regret… many things ponies were never taught to deal with.

I saw several of them psychologically break under the pressure of battle and either freeze up, rush headfirst into battle, or just take their sidearm and shoot themselves in the head. Then I saw her.

I’d only seen her picture in a few books, and they’d failed to truly capture the regal appearance she bore. Oh sure, her mane was covered in dirt and her white coat bore injury and was covered in blood, but there was no other mare like Princess Celestia. I could see her clearly now, as she stared at the ponies she loved and once raised in peace, dying by the dozens around her.

Her light purple eyes had tears in them as she struggled to think of a way to end this bloodshed. I knew better, but only because I was from a time where all of this was like a ghost story. If I thought she’d hear me, I’d have tried to comfort the princess then. All testimonies praised the white coated mare for her clear thinking and efforts towards peace.

None of them mentioned the true horror the war imposed on Celestia, and looking at her now, I could see the self-loathing in them. I knew the look because I’d seen it in my own reflection whenever I drank from a water source. I felt so sorry for the princess, and finally allowed the feeling to pass. None of my pity could help her now.

I looked in front of the beautiful mare and saw a bright red stallion in a sergeant’s battle armor.

I didn’t know him from any picture in the books, and I found I was a bit disappointed. This was a true solider. He wasn’t a battle-obsessed killer, but somepony who really believed in the cause he was fighting for.

Idiot.

I watched as he defended the princess from several zebra attempting to kidnap her, and I admit, I was impressed. For having no weapon on him at the time, this stallion didn’t seem to be suffering much. He didn’t fight like a madman as I did when frenzied. He kept a clear head and picked precise targets. I studied him as he fought, making sure my mind took in every bit of his style and discipline.

I would’ve followed that stallion into battle myself.

Suddenly, he spoke, and I realized he must’ve had a headset, and that I couldn’t hear half of the conversation he was having.

“Anope!” he said, solidly. “Our mission is to protect Princess Celestia, understand?”

I looked into his brave solider face, and the fierce gaze in his green eyes, and I realized in a moment that I did know this pony, though I hadn’t even seen him in a photo before. This was Big Macintosh… the martyr of the war effort. That meant this… oh shit… This was the moment when he died protecting the princess from a zebra sniper pony.

“I know you won’t Psalm,” he said. “I know you’re a good pony.”

My brain-terminal scanned the name Psalm in connection with Big Macintosh, but returned with nothing. I looked at Big Macintosh as he as he smiled up at whoever Psalm was, and I saw the pride mixed with trust in his face, right as his chest was split open by the bullet.

Interesting thing about a shot to the heart. There’s an infinitely small moment where the pony that gets shot is actually still alive, until the blood stops flowing through the brain and they properly die. I could see clearly the look on Big Macintosh’s face. He no longer looked happy or proud of his friend.

There was just a dull shock across his features. A simple look that said there was no possible way he could actually be dying. Then, it was over. His brain stopped receiving the blood and oxygen it needed to go on, and the open eyes in his skull became devoid of life.

I stared at him for a full second before my investigative instincts too over. I took a quick moment to judge where he would’ve been shot from, based on how he’d been standing and where the bullet had hit him. I had known this would be the case, but I was still a little shocked when I looked up on the outcropping and saw a pony sniper lying there with a stunned look on her face. Tears streamed down her face as she was trying to take aim at Celestia, and was readying herself to kill again.

Boom!

I saw an explosion of rainbows as the leader of the Ministry of Awesome and her shadow bolts arrived. She was a rainbow-streaked shadow of death and any zebra that stood in front of her died, quickly and completely. The battle resumed as the world slowly blacked out, and I felt I was being pulled back into the wasteland, despite my desire to see more of what happened.

I felt the wasteland reappear under my hooves as John was shaking me softly. I blinked twice, trying to clear my vision of tears. They were stupid. After all, everything I’d just seen was decades, centuries old maybe. It wasn’t like I could undo anything from then or help those ponies anymore… So why was it still affecting me?

Perhaps I was unable to overcome my baser instincts in spite of myself. After all, I think most normal ponies would’ve been disheartened at what I witnessed and knew. Maybe I was closer to them than I’d thought for my life…

“What in the hell were you thinking?!” asked John out of concern.

It took several minutes, but I explained why I’d left him at the tent and what I’d seen from the memory potion. John was frustrated at having been left behind more than anything else, but he soon calmed down. That was a good thing about him, he never stayed mad… at least not long.

“It’s your turn to get some rest,” he said. “You look like you could use it.”

I nodded and collapsed into my little bedroll, quickly falling asleep. I spent the whole night dreaming of a battle between ponies and zebra. Stupid ponies and stupid zebras who were all too full of hate to understand that there was no reason for them to really be fighting at all.

Note: New Perk!

Big Mac Approved! – Your memory and appreciation for hoof to hoof combat was shared by a big red sergeant from the past. After studying him, your chances of getting a critical strike in unarmed combat is 20% higher… or 20% cooler if you will.