Chapter 8: Along the Beaten Path

“You try so hard to do your best, but in the end, there is always be someone better…”

“FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!” I huffed as I dove behind the rock Lucky was holed up behind as bullets sparked and zinged over our heads.

“Why do they hate us so much?! They attacked us first!” Lucky exclaimed as he fired a few rounds downrange.

“Well, it doesn’t help at all that you killed their only mare.” I hissed, picking up a piece of wooden debris from the ground next to me.

The three Raiders approached the cover of the two of us. I looked up quick enough to see a pistol floating in the blue magic pointing at us. Without a second to spare, I swung the wooden stick at the gun, breaking the hold of the magic, sending a round ricocheting off the dirt right next to Lucky. Making him yelp a little, sending the gun rolling away in the swirling dirt. Lucky took the opportunity, peering around the cover and sending two bullets into the disarmed pony, dropping him to the ground writhing in pain till he passed. The two remaining raiders screamed in rage and began to stampede our cover.

I took to the charge, taking up my splintering stick in my muzzle, and stepped out to meet our enemies. The first one, a unicorn with a dirty red coat, pulled out a machete from his side, leaped at me and swung down into my shoulder, barely nicking the skin, running the blade down the metal leg. The other one, named Black-Blood, drew out a .223 rifle and proceeded to draw down on Lucky.

The first caught me in the leg, nicking a chip of the blade into my shoulder as the blade ran down the metal appendage. I winced, but grit my teeth as I swung my badly splintering stick at the raider. Black-blood fired three times at Lucky, barely missing him. Lucky fired twice in response, making their mark into his adversary’s leg and chest. Black-blood fell over, yelling unpleasantries. I placed a well-aimed kick to my opponent’s face, making him reel back. I swung my stick up into the raiders chest, piercing his heart. The pony was dead before he hit the ground. As the last of his life was draining out of him, Lucky came to the dying Black-blood and ended his suffering with a quick stab to the throat.

As the dust settled, a post office and barely standing store provided the only shelter from the coming night. The rest of the town was nothing but rubble and the eerie silence of the long dead.

Lucky turned to see me hunched over my latest kill, staring at the still raider on the ground.

“Hey… we-we should look around and scavenge what we can find. We can meet back up in the post office.” Lucky spoke to me, looking at me in worry.

After a few painful long moments, I sighed and nodded. “I’ll take the food store and the west side, you can take the post office and the east.” I stood up and trudged into the store.

After a few quick run-ins with giant roaches and a fire-breathing ant. I ran out of the store, throwing a empty can back through the entrance. “F...Shi… fucking hate those things.” I exasperated as he limped away towards the post office.

Lucky already cleared out the post office and had his spoils laid out in front of him. I sat beside my friend and poured out my findings from my saddlebags of loot and separated everything. After two hours of scavenging, both of us found 4 cans of various soup, 3 dirty water bottles, 9 rounds of .44 (as per the Pipbuck), a leather barding, and the weapons and ammo from the raiders.

“So you can have the pistol and the barding, and you can have the .44 rounds.” Lucky divided up the goods and stuffed our saddlebags with our loot. I checked my newly acquired weapon. The 10mm pistol had seen a lot of use. The whole thing was rusted and the thing could’ve never been cleaned, surprising me that it fired at all.

After patching up my shoulder and determining there wasn't much damage, we barricaded the front doors and settled in the farthest office away. Both of us were too tired and exhausted to even speak, and passed out next to each other.

The rain started to drizzle again, causing the clouds to darken out the last rays of visible light. The two of us had traveled almost a quarter away from the last known location of Echelon, and it everything was going smoothly as it could.

I woke with a start. The never-ending rain was pouring outside and the sound of slight dripping hitting the metal desk on the other side of the room was the only sound. I looked around the room for Lucky, but was nowhere to be found.

“Lucky?” I whispered. Silence followed.

I stood up and grabbed my knife from my barding. I poked my head out of the doorway and continued my search for my friend. Nothing changed from earlier, but still didn’t damper that eerie feeling I was getting.

“Lucky?” I whispered again. “... Where did you sneak off to?”

A thud sounded from above me, making dust fall from the ceiling. I continued up the stairs to the next floor, listening for whatever made the sound. Slight creaks and groans from the wood below my hooves. As I reached the top of the stairs, I placed my knife back into its sheath. I noticed the door leading to the roof was cracked open. I pushed open the door slowly to reveal the dull, hazy horizon. Out in the distance to the north, was the city of Hoofington. The dark green glow from the city seemed out of place and evil. To the west was the ruins of the once great Canterlot. The seemly never-ending haze drowned out the sky with its tears, causing the world around us to soak in the sadness.

Sitting underneath a makeshift tent, sat a familiar white pegasus. I trotted up to my friend, and sat down beside him on the dirty couch overlooking the hillside. He seemed lost in thought. I flipped through my Pip-buck, checking through all of my stuff. Somehow, someway, my Pip-buck cataloged everything in my saddlebags, gave it a value in caps, and alphabetized it.

Suddenly, Lucky spoke up.

“I don’t think I ever told you about Kalem and Polaris at all, have I?” He whispered, almost to himself.

I looked up to my friend with a cocked expression.

“No, not really. Just that he is a psychopath looking for old equestrian artifacts and stuff.” I replied. I flicked through my Pip-buck for something to eat for the both of us. I fished out a couple boxes of Apple Sugar Bombs and passed one to Lucky.

Best damned food in the wasteland.

“Well,” Lucky spoke between chews. ” Kalem wasn’t much a Lord to begin with. He grew up in the Society, where they believe they are descended from royalty, even if they are not. All are pretty much just a bunch of posh snobs. Kalem on the other hoof is believed to be descendant of a Blueblood pony, I’m not quite sure who that is, but moving on.”

Lucky stood up and waved me to follow. As we descended back down into the post office, he continued.

“Well, being from the Blueblood line, he is believed to be a genius in his own right. Hell, he could run the Society if it wasn’t for King Awesome and his heirs.” Lucky paused to check outside the building for anything else, and after a brief moment, he motioned to follow. “After a few years, he challenged King Awesome for the throne, lost horribly, and was exiled out, stripped of everything. After a while. He caught wind of some project people were looking for, and ran into Red Eye in Fillydelphia. Polaris was hired up right after that. Or so I was told.” Lucky said, stepping over broken parts of the road we caused hours ago.

“So… This Red Eye character...isn’t he, like, the leader of the slavers that I hear so much about?” I asked, keeping my eye open for any possible dangers that might rear their ugly heads as we exited the road onto a trail.

Lucky snickered a little. “Well, yes and no, but we can go over that later. But for now, let’s focus on Polaris and his… entourage.” Lucky pushed aside a tumbleweed. We heard a couple of shots in the distance. I glanced in the direction it came from, but E.F.S brought up nothing.

“They call themselves the Outcast. They were all Steel Rangers once, sworn to protect the technology and teachings of the Ministry of Wartime Technologies, but they went rogue when the Elders deemed them… volatile. They were kicked to the curb and became mercenaries. Polaris himself was a Paladin, which made him the most dangerous of them all. He decided to level an entire settlement over a worthless piece of tech.” Lucky winced at that.

I looked at my friend with newfound curiosity. If he knew all of this, why didn’t he just leave them? Why wait till the slaughter of my Stable? I’d have to ask him once our current adventure was over.

Three red bars suddenly appeared in my eyesight, making me motion to Lucky to halt. We sneaked up closer to the bars, hiding behind some dead bushes.

We came up to a clearing with a caved in house. Three raiders we enjoying themselves with a corpse of a recently deceased mare and her filly. Rage quickly built up in my head, causing a pit in my stomach. Out came the 10mm and I started to advance on the defilers before Lucky grabbed my tail.

“Elric, no. Don’t. We haven’t-” was all he got out before one of the raiders turned towards our direction and giggled.

“I hear fresh meat.” he crowed.

I didn’t give him any more time to speak before I slipped into S.A.T.S, marked his head three times, and released. In slow motion, I saw his face become a mishmash of viscera. The body slumped to the ground with a wet thump. His two friends pulled themselves from the bodies, and drew their weapons. A shotgun came out from one and peppered me with pellets, stopping me in my tracks as it ripped flesh from my chest.

Ow, that fucking hurts! Let’s not do that shit again!

The other pony, wielding a knife, came at me, putting his blade into my neck.

Well, tried too anyway. Lucky tackled knife pony, tumbling into the mud. With blurry vision, I shot two more times at the pony who shot me. First bullet missed, but the second suck home in the right leg, putting the pony to the ground on his knees, spitting out curses at me. Lucky put all his weight on top of the buck, keeping him pinned to the ground. Shotgun stood back as I tried to fire again. The blood-smeared dirt was becoming more and more inviting, but I knew what was at stake. I wasn’t ready to go yet.

With pure luck, I fired three more shots at my foe, all three making their holes in his chest, producing a yowl and dropping to the ground. I looked over to Lucky placing his firearm in the mouth of his opponent and letting loose a round. Pink and red mist colored the air for a split second, covering Lucky’s face also. He looked at me in horror as I too slumped to the ground and stared at the grey haze above me. Lucky appeared in my fading vision, whispering “Don’t die” and digging in his bags. A bottle was produced, the glass came to my lips, and I felt the purple liquid slip into my system and started its magical curing. I felt the holes close and disappear.

“You damned idiot! Next time, Don’t just run into the fight. That will get you killed!” Lucky screamed as he helped me to my hooves.

“I-I-I’m sorry, Lucky. When I saw way they were doing, I just-” I tried explaining before Lucky grabbed my shoulder and looked at me with a worried expression.

“I know you meant well, L. But what’s done is done, and sadly that shit happens everywhere, sometimes even worse. You running into danger like that will get you killed. Don’t throw away your life with reckless abandon.” He gripped my shoulder, and turned away from me, leaving me sitting there, letting the rain wash the blood away from my coat.

After we scavenged what we could, finding a leather jacket fitting me just fine, and some medical supplies, we continued to follow the road for what felt like an eternity until we came up to set of hills. The road forked towards the west, winding down farther into a patch of forest and another path up towards the hills. We climbed the hill until a radio frequency popped up in my vision, making my Pip-buck chirp. I looked over to Lucky, who just rolled his eyes. I panned through my Pip-buck and switched on the station. Some static came out, but tuned in to a male speaker.

“...And thanks to the efforts of the Stable Dweller, that’s one less group of raiders terrorizing the wasteland,” The deep voice spoke.

Stable Dweller?

“In other news, the Town of Charity was attacked by an army of raiders, but the fearless townsponies fended off the horde with the help of some passing by Steel Rangers. Sources tell me, however, amongst the fighting, somepony swore they saw a pegasus in stable barding? I don’t know about you folks listening in, but that would be a peculiar sight to see, indeed. So if you’re out in that out of the Hoof, be sure to watch out for large groups of raiders and our Stable Pegasus. This is DJ PON-3 bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts.” I clicked off the station and looked at my companion with a questioning expression.

“What? It’s just some reporter or somepony in Manehattan. Nopony has seen him or met him before, so I doubt he is even real.” He replied with a shrug.

“Okay, but what did he mean by a Stable Pegasus?” I asked. Lucky froze in his tracks and turned towards me with a shocked expression. “ Is that a bad thing?”

Lucky trotted over to me and looked into my eyes. I bulked away and looked side-to-side, wondering what he was doing. He sat down in front of me and frowned.

“You’re serious, aren’t you? You really don’t know?” Lucky questioned.

“Know what? You’re being weird.” I rebutled.

“You don’t know about the whole ‘Enclave’ thing and the pegasi fleeing to the sky? Closing up the sky from the ground, sealing themselves in the sky? You don’t know anything about that? Never wondered why ponies stares at you like a walking sideshow?” Lucky gaped.

“Ah… no? I always assumed that they stared at me because I’m taller than most?” I smiled, Lucky face-hoofed in response.

“Okay look. Long story short, when the bombs fell, all the pegasi were recalled back into the clouds, sealing the ground away from the rest of the sky, hence the clouds never going away. The pegasi scientists and military are called the Enclave. They do whatever they do in the sky, awaiting the day they get their heads outta their asses and open the sky back up, or we all die down here and they come down and clean up what’s left. Pegasi on the ground are either born down here or Dashites. Dashites are pegasi exiled from the sky by the Enclave. They have had their cutie marks burned off and replace by Rainbow Dash’s brand. And pretty much all of Pegasi are hated for it.” Lucky explained. Drawing circles in the dirt as he talked.

After a couple minutes soaking in what I was just told, I nodded. “Sounds like a fun bunch of folks.” Lucky just hung his jaw, then shook his head in disbelief. “So there aren’t a lot of pegasi from stables, I take it?” I questioned.

“Well, in all honesty, you are the first I’ve ever heard about. I always wondered that also. Your brother isn’t a pegasus, and he said your parents were not either.” He said, cocking his head. “So how is it that you are, both NONE of your family is?”

I just rubbed my chin in thought. Then shrugged. “I really couldn’t tell ya. Maybe one of the first of my ancestors in the Stable was a pegasus. Never really asked about it.” I gave him my best ‘ I’m sorry ’ smile. He just gave me another look of disbelief and turned away from me.

I’ll just put that on the list of stuff to ask Blitz later once we got back.

“Well then. From the countless groups you’ve regaled me with so far, are there any more I need to know?” I quizzed.

Lucky rubbed his chin and smirked. “ Hmmm… Enclave, the Steel Rangers, the Society, slavers and their ilk… Raiders. There’s the Collegiate, but they are mostly doctors and scientists, so for the most part harmless… There are those Twilight ponies in Tenpony tower… and rumors of the Zebra Remnants here and there. And of course there is the Stable Dweller out in the Manehattan area.” Lucky rambled on. “Some damned hero he is..” he finished, mumbling to himself.

All the groups swirled around in my brain, making it hurt. This is going to be a long day….

We reached the crescent of the hill after several minutes of slipping and sliding in the mud. We looked out towards a horizon of dead trees and patches of grass dotted the hillsides. Bloatsprites and Radgators swirled around a lake filled with toxic barrels of rainbow-colored sludge, making my coat crawl. A lone Protectron ponies wandered slowly in circles endlessly. The eerie green glow of the Core in the distance continued its inviting, yet sinister feeling, putting my adventurous side of me in a quick cycles of excitement to curiosity to caution to dread. Like two tiny ponies wrestling in my head. Some faint lights in the northeast put my brain on alert and snapped me out of my trance.

I looked down at my blood and mud caked prosthetic limb to my covered Pipbuck. I sighed and opened up the map, revealing that we were close to our goal.

I just got a shiny new limb and it’s already ruined…

“Not much further. The arrow thingy says it’s just over the next hill.” I pointed out. Lucky turned to me and smiled.

Then I’ll go ahead and scout it out. See ya in a few!” He unfolded his wings, and shot off into the sky.

That’s not fair. My ears flattened to my head as a crack of thunder broke the sky, making the slight drizzle hasten.

I grumbled to myself as I slid down the slope. I’ve been trying as hard as I could to learn how to fly, but with little progress. The stable was never big enough for it, plus I had no teacher. The attempts in Charity had failed also, either ending in me landing on my face or crashing into a building. Lucky did his best, but he isn’t the best pony in teaching either. His way of helping me out? Pushing me off the belltower.

Whilst I was wallowing in my misery, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, tripped over a rock, and sent sprawling to my face. I sat up, holding my bloody nose and holding back a tear.

Celestia-damned...Okay, that’s it. I officially hate the Wasteland now.

I crawled up to my buddy sitting on a stump overlooking the other side with a very scared expression on his face. I soon found out way, and I almost soiled myself as well.

A curtain of red bars laid in front of me. My Pip-buck chimed as “Apricot Dairy Farm” appeared in my E.F.S. The three decrepit buildings laid out in a triangle pattern were teeming with raiders and the like. Several walked around with what looked like scrapped power armor, which would not bode well for us if we got caught. The barn was transformed into a makeshift bar. Ponies were laughing and fighting, throwing beer bottles and cups at each other. The guest house was lit up with purple and pink string lights. Sounds of screaming mares and hollering stallions pierced the valley, both either from pleasure or pain.

I wasn’t about to find out.

The main farmhouse was the only building not seemingly overpopulated at the moment. Hardly any lights or sound came from the wooden two-story building. Ponies of all age, shape, and size galloped back and forth from house to barn. Several of them had dark, wet underside, making my mane and coat crawl with anger and sickness.

We both looked at each other and gulped.

“Still think this is a good idea?” Lucky whimpered.

I pondered on it for a good minute. Then gave him my best, fake smile. “Yeah. What’s the worst that could happen?” I replied with a shrug.

Shot. Stabbed. Drawn and quartered. Enslaved. Raped. All the above at once?

Yeah. I Still think it’s a good idea...

Level up!
Perk obtained!
Raider Physiology: You’ve learned of the ways of the raiders attacking techniques (however sporadic). Damage to Raiders +5