//------------------------------// // Chapter 53 // Story: Fallout New Vegas: Unexpected Friends // by Sleepyted //------------------------------// “Anne, tell the farm to stop hitting on me.” Twilight grumbled as she stopped past the woman who was reading over a list she had been given by one of the brains, containing all the known, past and present, research centers and all the study conducted in them. “What about ‘effects of prolonged exposure to Swiss cheese’?” Anne asked. They had returned to the Mojave to tell everyone they were all okay but one look at Anne’s missing arm showed that was wrong. But then they headed back to the labs, looking for anything that could help them with issues. Be it the missing limbs, or a way to get Twilight back to her own world without getting herself killed. “Unless it’s radioactive it’s not going to grow any limbs back.” Twilight stated with a sigh, Anne was always such a slow reader, she had already gone through the blueprints and research material of the teleporter that was used to get them there. It was much like magical teleportation, bending space to make it so two different places were in the exact same place so one didn’t have to move for them to go somewhere else so to speak. Like drawing two dots on different edges on a piece of paper. Normally you would have to go all the way across the paper to get from point a to point b but teleportation just folds the paper so they are in the same place at the same time, even for just a split second to move the object or target. But the amount of energy required to teleport from one side of a country to another takes incredible amounts of energy, which she originally got around when she got sent to the Mojave by having all the Princesses lending power along with hundreds of power runes and gems storing more energy in each one than the average pony uses in a lifetime. But at the Big Empty they used just a single small fission reactor. She was trying to work out how they managed to make it so power efficient. But Anne was trying to find a way to replace their missing parts. “Oh, here it says they were trying to do cybernetic combination of human and robotic parts.” Anne noted. “Anything other than that to go on?” “Well, it did have a 95% mortality rate, and the one that did survive ended up dying in a non-related raccoon accident.” Anne stated. “Does it say what was wrong with it?” “No. But it is a part of the section that Doctor 0 ran.” Anne stated. “I’ll go ask him about it, I’ll be back soon.” She added standing up from the chair she was in, walking towards the Think Tank. “Hey baby, why don’t you let the seed flow?” A deep sensual voice said from another room after Anne left. “SHUT IT!” Twilight groaned tiredly as she felt the warm water cascade over her body, she didn’t know how much she missed having a proper shower. And with the massive water purifiers that had been cleaning water for hundreds of years without much being used and the water heaters so it wasn’t freezing cold water. At first she was slightly disgusted at the blackness the water had at the start but it soon went down to a normal after almost half an hour at constant scrubbing. The only downside was she couldn’t find any soap or shampoo to clean out her mane more. She spent another half an hour sat under the stream of water. She forgot how bright her purple fur really was, seeing it without it being matted with sweat and dirt. Her mane was no longer a rat’s nest, back to its straighter normality. It actually made herself feel better about things, no longer feeling dirty all the time. Although it did disgust her somewhat when she realized that Anne’s grey hair was actually marble white. She almost didn’t want to come out of the shower but she knew that if she wanted to get home she would need to actually get out there and do things. “Okay, so they stopped cause’ the only way they were able to get the limb to be anything near usable they attached it into the nerve endings.” Anne stated walking back into The Sink. “Why did that make them stop?” Twilight asks, slowly sliding the personality chip for the Bio-Lab underneath the bed. “Well, the pain was so bad that it literally killed almost all test subjects instantly.” Anne said looking over the notes she got, if they could even be called notes. “The only one they managed to get work without killing the person was a big toe and even then the person ended up dying anyway.” “How..? You know what? Never mind…” Twilight grumbled before sighing. “Can we have it put back into the works to try and reduce mortality rate?” “I asked about that, it will be about a month before they get anything remotely useable with a less than fifty percent death rate.” Anne said with a shrug. “Great, so knowing them that month will be longer than it should be…” Twilight sighed sadly slumping onto the bed. “Not all bad news, I asked about that thing you wanted to know about with the power.” Anne said. “They used a lot of an alloy them made with Gold, Uranium and a weird red crystal they have in the Forbidden Zone. They have the crystals and Uranium, but the shipment of gold they were meant to get for power never came cause of the nukes and they don’t know where it is.” Anne stated. “Well that’s just great, that’s twice I was dangled a bit of hope in front of my muzzle and they were ripped away.” “Well, they mentioned a place that funded for some technology, and they used gold bricks to do so.” Anne said. “Might be worth a look into.” “They mention anything about it?” “Not really, just saying some dude Sinclair ran the place.” Twilight watched as Anne cleaned her pistol as they sat in the penthouse of the Lucky 38, which was kind of amusing to see considering she only had one arm to be able to do it so there was a lot of trying to hold things squeezed between her knees or under her arms to clean it with the oil and brushes. And it was even harder with her trying to puff away at a cigarette that was hanging from the corner of her mouth and with her one hand busy she had the ashes sprinkling down onto her legs. Twilight was reading through the large tome that was given to Anne and herself when they helped the tribals leave Zion. ‘No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.’ she read before putting in the book mark she had and putting the book aside “Gannon?” Twilight called out. “What?” the man called back. “Let’s go out and do something, I’m bored.” Twilight grumbled getting off her seat. “Hey, I’m always here…” Anne said in slightly jealous tone. “You’re one handed Anne, I don’t want to have to reload your guns for you. And we both know you don’t really take time to aim you just unload and hope they go down.” Twilight stated. “Awww…” Anne grumbled leaning back where she sat. Gannon and Twilight walked out of the penthouse, hopping into the elevator. “So! Where are we off to?” The pony asks happily. “You don’t have an idea of what you wanted to do before we left?” Gannon asked as he pressed the button to go down but before the door could close a flying ball of metal shot itself into the elevator and nuzzled itself up against the pony, glancing at the human. “Are you really letting that thing come with us?” “Why not?” Twilight asks rubbing a hoof over the top of the robot. “You two need to learn to get along together with us living all under the same roof. Now, do you know anywhere that will have some adventure for us to have fun with?” “Well… there’s a radio station that might be worth checking out. It’s called Black Mountain.” “Worth checking out you said… Let’s have an adventure I said…” Twilight grumbled. “Well I’m happy you decided to go out boss.” A ghoul that went by the name Raul said as he huddled behind the wreckage of an old car with Twilight, Gannon and E-DE. Before Twilight could say anything else a rocket went sailing over their heads, exploding against a wall nearby and showering the area in rubble of concrete. “Out of all the things to fight it had to be a horde of super mutants.” Gannon stated as he clicked in another battery to his plasma pistol, raising it above cover and letting lose a few un-aimed shots. “Could have been worse… could have been a giant robotic scorpion…” Twilight stated, quickly taking am as a Nightkin faded into existence next to them, a few well-placed shots sending it down. “We could always, you know… leave…” Raul said with a shrug, using Lucky for now considering there wasn’t much else to use besides heavy weapons that the ghoul wasn’t strong enough to use. “Just glad Anne didn’t come along…” “CHUG CHUG CHUG!” The off duty NCR Troopers and caravaners chanted as Anne and her new drinking buddy held a bottle of whiskey in their mouths with their heads tilted back as they tried to empty the bottle faster than the other. They finished too quickly to each other that no one knew who won but that didn’t stop them from cheering again louder. Twilight had her one wing dragging along against the ground as she tiredly limped into the Lucky 38 along with the little group following after her, each looking just as tired. “I always want to go out at first but I never take into account how tired I get afterwards…” The pony grumbled as she walked in but paused at what she saw. Since the ground floor was the casino she wasn’t too surprised to see Anne and another woman gambling with a Securitron with a familiar face of Yes-Man on the screen. But was surprising was that Anne was wearing nothing but a pair of boots and a pair of sand goggles. Yes-Man had several of hit metal plates stripped off, not very cleanly done, and dumped to the side. While the unknown woman was dressed normally, although a jacket and hat were off to the side. “What the… What’s going on here?!” Twilight yelled, getting some energy back. All three turned to look at the shocked group, obvious from the look on the human’s faces they were drunk. “You’re back!” Anne said happily, standing up from her chair. Boone looked away, Gannon just looking blankly at the woman while Raul seemed to like the view he was getting, not many people tended to be naked around ghouls after all. “Why are you naked?!” Twilight yelled, using her magic to throw the barding that went under Anne’s armor at her, trying to cover her scarred body. “Well Cass, Yes-Man and I were playing strip poker…” Anne said happily, the barding just sliding off her scarred body. “I have them feeling secure, then I’m going to have my comeback!” “I can hear you.” The woman who must be ‘Cass’ said taking a sip from a glass on the table. “You know I’m going to win! It’s just so much better to feel the fear in your enemy’s eyes before you crush them beneath your naked foot!” Anne said grinning as she sat herself back down at the table. “You said that before I took all your caps as well.”