//------------------------------// // Chapter 50 // Story: Fallout New Vegas: Unexpected Friends // by Sleepyted //------------------------------// “I swear to Celestia that if anything happened to her I’ll rip her head off!” Twilight yelled as she stormed out through the front gates of New Vegas, her gear fully strapped to herself as she had three very concerned followers, or as concerned as a floating robot ball could be. “It couldn’t have been too bad…” Boone said, for once the hardened NCR sniper was actually fearful for things. “You’re lucky I don’t rip your head off!” Although a bright orange pony with a mane of flames tended to put people on edge as they went storming along through Freeside. “It’s either she’s dead or she’s not.” Gannon tried to reassure. “It didn’t sound like she was hit by laser or plasma, which would leave goo or dust behind…” “There is much worse than just being dead.” Twilight said through gritted teeth. “Who knows what tortures she could be going through?!” “ARE THOSE PENISIS WIGGLING ON ITS FEET?!” The large rounded tank with the pickled brain of a human inside yelled out through its broken voice box, three large screens on thin arms moving around, two with eyes and one with a mouth. Anne looked down at the ‘penisis’ on her feet, looking at her bare feet with the scarred up foot and the normal one. She had nothing on besides a hospital gown, even her once steel grey hair was fully shaved away to expose angry looking scars on the back of her scalp. “I believe those are toes, Dr. Klein. Little teddy bear toes. Penises are much larger than those tiny extremities... Eh, not that I would know.” A second floating brain said in a low feminine voice, the eye screens larger than others as if staring. “I don't recall the human penis ever being… that large” Another stated. “It depends on one's own frame of reference, Doctor O. Look at its little nose with its two orifices for ingesting oxygen.” The second said again, looking at Anne intently. “NOSES? BY THE GREAT STATIC, THESE LOBOTOMITES CONFOUND ME WITH THEIR SHEER NUMBER OF USELESS EXTREMITIES.” The first yelled out, seeming to be its normal tone in conversation. Anne just sat herself down on the ground, all the screens watching her intently as she cupped her head in her hands. “It finally happened…” She mumbled to herself. “I lost my mind…” They managed to calm Twilight down before they got to the place that Anne went missing, stood around the large broken and twitching satellite as if once alive. “This is the thing you were talking about?” Twilight asked looking over at the sniper. “Yeah…” he said unsurely, taking a step back from the thing. Twilight went over to the twitching machine, looking it over and looking to the screen that the lens were pointed at. After a few moments she tapped it with her hoof and when nothing happened she tried again. “And that’s what she did?” “Yeah…” He repeated. Twilight waited for a few moments before Gannon spoke up. “Maybe we have to wait for night as well?” Twilight tapped it with her hoof again and when nothing happened yet again she groaned in annoyance. “Great. Guess we should set up shop for the night.” “Do you… have any… Threes?” Gannon asked looking up at Twilight. “Go fish.” Twilight responded. The humans wanted to play something like Blackjack but Twilight said she didn’t want to do anything like gambling considering how much Anne had lost in the casinos around the strip. Boone did not look like he was having fun, he would much rather be stripping down his gun and cleaning it but Twilight had demanded that they all spend some time bonding together. Although E-DE just hovered next to Twilight, soft jazz from the radio coming from the little eyebot. “It should be about time to try the thing again.” Boone stated putting his cards down, looking over at the downed satellite as it shined the twitching eye on the screen again. Twilight sighs, every hour she gave the machine another little kick to see if it does anything. Going over again she doubted it was going to work but she let out a yelp of surprise as a bright glow burst around her and the edges of her vision got fuzzy. “This what happened?!” Twilight yelled over the humming sound to Boone. “Pretty much.” “Doesn’t look like weaponry, is it a teleporter?” Arcade asks in confusion. Twilight was about to note that it felt a bit like when she uses her teleport spell but was never able to before everything went white. Twilight sat up with a soft groan, going to rub her eyes but wincing at the pain of the missing one. Slowly her vision became clearer and the blur left. She was in the dirt in front of what seemed to be a huge dirty white dome with light blue lights blasting into the sky. The princess could see many different buildings around, a few just blocky concrete ones but there were a few massive satellite dishes around. There were large pipes going through the hardened dirt, some big enough that Twilight guessed a carriage could get driven through them without scraping the edges. “Where… am I?” Twilight asks herself in confusion, looking around for anything of note. She saw a group of three people waddling along together, each wearing dirty blue medical gowns with weird head harnesses strapped to their skulls. Each had different weapons, one had an axe that looked as if the blade was made of blue light, one had a power fist that seemed to be slicker and light blue color, and the last had a caravan double barrel shotgun. “Hello?!” Twilight called out as she got to shaky hooves, it felt as if when she was teleported it put her insides in the wrong places. The three people turned at the pony, large goggles covering their eyes. And before the princess could say anything else the one with the gun took aim and fired both barrels. But since they were so far away not a single pellet hit the pony. He started to reload his shotgun but dropped one of the shells to the dirt below him. The two others started to run at Twilight, who just looked at them in confusion as one of them tripped over and stabbed himself in the chest with the blade of the axe and went still while the other just ran at the pony like his arms had no bones in them. Unsurely the pony pulled out Lucky from the holster on her leg, taking aim at the one running at her and before she even pulled the trigger two rapidly following bangs rang out as the shotgun guy fired at Twilight but didn’t take into account for his buddy being in-between him and his target. Twilight just watched as the one with the fist collapsed to the floor in front of her and she noticed the horrid looking scars going along his scar and back where the gown doesn’t cover. Twilight had no clue what was going on, just aiming at the one with the gun as he tried to load in the shells backwards before pulling the trigger. With a splat the top of the skull of the man exploded into a shower of bone and a bit of blood but Twilight was concerned at the lack of anything else. Hesitantly she approached the one body she made and looked over the hole in the top of the skull. Twilight had to do a double take at what she saw. There was nothing, no brain. And while she understood shooting someone in the head could cause the brain to get shredded but with this there was nothing, no little bits or even a brain stem, just an empty shell. “What is going on here?” Twilight asked herself in real confusion. Before she could look around nay more a beam of red light shot right past her muzzle, singeing the fur on her nose. Quickly she whipped her head to the side to where the laser came from and saw a bright red person wearing a grubby glass sphere on his head, nothing visible from how dirty it was, bony hands fumbling with the weapon. It sent another ray of death in the direction of the pony and without much thought she took aim at the glass bowl surrounding’s his head. Pulling the trigger twice the first one punched a hole right through the glass at where Twilight guessed the head was while the second shattered the glass. Twilight paused as it staggered back slightly but soon started shooting again. What she was greeted with inside the suit was a dirty old looking skull with a hole through the dry bone. She realized that it wasn’t just thin looking hands, they were actually just bone. In slight fear she unloaded her pistol at the target, holes just punching through with cracking sounds as bones inside broke and shattered. When it still didn’t go down and Twilight didn’t want to risk the time reloading just pulled out Benny’s pistol and started firing at the suit. One bullet seemed to get lucky and the suit seemed to deflate its life and collapsed, bone visible pressing against the rubber of the insides. “What have you gotten me into this time Anne?” Twilight grumbled as she quickly reloaded her pistols. “EQUINE! WE CAN SEE YOU THROUGH OUR SUPER SCIENCEY CAMERAS AROUND THE MOUNTAIN!” A loud voice started booming out from every direction, making Twilight looking around in search for the voice’s owner. “COME TO THE DOME IN THE MIDDLE, NOT THE STUPID ONE ON THE EDGE RUN BY EVIL DOCTOR MOBIUS!” Twilight unsurely looked towards the large dome that was just next to her, and the one in the distance which was almost the exact same but red lights instead of blue. “IN OTHER NEWS, LOBOTOMITE, COME BACK TO THE DOME! YOU HAVE COLLECTED ALL THE TECHNOLOGY WE NEED!” “What is going on…?” Twilight slowly walked through the dark metal halls of what she assumed was the dome she was wanted to go into, the lights barely doing anything to illuminate. Soon she entered what she assumed was the main part of the dome considering that there was nowhere else this open in the building she entered. It looked like it was more set up to be dramatic, although it was over the top. There were five floating balls with glass tops of different colors floating over spotlights in the middle of the massive room. Each had a trio of screens held on lanky metal arms, two eyes and a mouth on each screen but each robot had different sizes of screens. And inside the glass tanks were brains floating in a thick looking clear liquid. “I SUPPOSE IT COULD PUT YOU BACK TOGETHER, BUT YOU WOULD NEED TO GET YOUR BRAIN BACK FIRST FROM DOCTOR MOBIUS!” The one in the middle yelled at a bold person facing away from the pony, familiar angry scars she saw on the brainless people on this person. “I mainly just want everything back the way it should be…” A familiar voice said. “Anne?” The person turned around and all the screens focused onto the equine. It was Anne, hair fully shaved off her head with a straight cut going along were her hairline once was, lines going along the sides. Twilight knew what happened, she just hope that her friend’s brain wasn’t removed and left as a vegetable like the others she saw. She was wearing a hospital gown, large scar running down along her back just above her hips and the base of her neck. “Twilight? I heard this idiot mention an equine and I had my suspicions but I didn’t think you’d come here.” Anne said walking over to the pony, quickly pulling her into a tight hug which the pony returned after a few moments of surprise. “I WILL NOT BE CRITICIZED BY A LOBOTOMITE!” The robot behind the woman yelled out, screens shaking in anger. “What happened to you Anne?” Twilight asked in concern. “They removed my heart, spine and brain and replaced them.” Anne said sadly. Twilight pulled back from the hug, looking at her friend in worry. “I saw others out there, they had their brains removed too but they were as dumb as a nail, why aren’t you like that?” She asked before quickly adding. “Not that I’m complaining you’re sane…” “Well, since I was shot in the head it muddled up my brain and apparently the auto-doc changed some settings to compensate and that’s the reason I’m sane and not dumb and, or dead.” Twilight wanted to raise the spirits in the room slightly for her friend, not knowing how she was taking having parts of her missing such as brain or heart. She adopted a forced smile. “Well, always thought you were brainless sometimes…”