The Stranger With a Big Iron on Her Hip

by Omega_code


Chapter 8

Big Thanks to ProtheanBrony for proofreading. Enjoy.
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Spear in hand Scarlet walked down one of the Villa’s streets, keeping an eye on her Pip-boy to make sure no more Ghosts would sneak up on her. She walked quickly to the Police Station, trying to keep out of the Cloud as best she could, but the air was fully covered in its copper color. As she reached for the door, she took a quick glace at the note scribbled on the wall, and opened the door and walked through it.

However, she found herself not inside a building, but outside…in a completely different place. There were NCR soldiers patrolling the area and people talking to merchants or to each other, in a town that Scarlet hadn’t seen in a long time. Out in the distance Scarlet saw a red haired woman wearing an armored Vault 13 suit just walking through them, and Scarlet’s body just froze.

The other woman stopped walking, and turned her head to face Scarlet. Scarlet was looking at herself…a younger version of herself…in the town Hopeville. Suddenly something touched Scarlet's shoulder and a male voice spoke out, “You doomed them all…”

****************

Scarlet grabbed whatever was touching her and pulled it away from her. She quickly opened her eyes ready to…see Braeburn, scared out of his wits. Scarlet let out a sigh and released Braeburn’s hoof. “You know you shouldn’t do that to a woman.”

Braeburn looked at her, confused and said, “Huh?”

Necklace Scarlet, necklace, she told herself. She reached over to the nightstand and grabbed the necklace, and quickly put it around her neck. “I said you shouldn’t do that when a woman is sleeping, keeps you alive longer.” She rubbed her eyes to get them to wake up.

“Sorry, I'll remember that next time.” Braeburn rubbed his hoof for a bit. “So…do you want some breakfast?”

“Breakfast?” Scarlet looked at the clock and saw the time was 7:45. Wow…I slept for a long time; must've been more tire than I thought.

“Never heard of breakfast before?”

“Yes I have, it just I wasn’t planning to sleep through the whole night.” She ran her hand through her hair trying to untangle it. “I’ll be down there shortly.”

“Alrighty then,” Braeburn said in a cheerful tone. He left the room and trotted down the hall.

Scarlet waited till Braeburn was out of view, before getting out of the bed. What a strange dream, first I was at the Sierra Madre, then at Hopeville, and that voice.... She grabbed the duster and combat vest and put them on. I need to stop drinking atomic cocktail mixes; it’s messing up my mind. Scarlet made sure the leather glove was on tightly before grabbing the rest of her gear. And what did that voice mean, “I doomed them all?” She walked down the stairs and was greeted by the smell of a pleasant aroma.

“Wonderful smell,” she commented as she walked into the kitchen. Braeburn had a skillet flipping some sort of flat bread. On the table there was a bowel full of apples and other fruits she didn’t recognized. One looked like an apple but its color was orange, and the other was a skinny, slightly curved, yellow skin fruit. But there was no sign of meat. “I guess you horses don’t eat meat,” she asked.

Braeburn stopped what he was doing, and his pupils got smaller. He gulped and nervously answered, “No…we don’t eat meat.”

Scarlet realizing what was wrong quickly said, “You don’t have to worry Braeburn, my species are omnivores, I can eat fruit and vegetables. It just, getting them fresh are hard to get where I come from, so meat has mostly been my diet. Don’t worry though, I not going to make a meal out of any of y'all.”

Braeburn let out a sigh of relief, “I’m glad to hear that. Also Scarlet, we call ourselves ponies, not horses.”

“Ponies? Huh…okay.” Scarlet reached over and picked up the strange yellow curved fruit and studied it in her hand.

“So Scarlet, would you like to try out my families world’s famous sweet apple pancakes?”

Scarlet looked away from the strange fruit, and asked, “Pancakes?”

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Strongheart was heading back to Appleloosa when she heard a familiar voice. “Good morning Strongheart, heading back to Appleloosa I see.” Strongheart glace up to see Alpha flying down next to her. “Would you mind if I walk by you into town?”

“Of course not,” she answered.

“So yesterday, I heard Applejack and Braeburn talked to the town’s folks about Scarlet, and how we shouldn’t be afraid of her. Applejack even said she was sending a letter to Princess Celestia. However, I did feel the two of them were hiding something about Scarlet.” He looked a Strongheart with an inquisitive look, “You won’t know what they’re hiding?”

“Maybe the fact Scarlet is probably the most dangerous creature that has entered Appleloosa.”

“How so?”

“Because…,” Strongheart started to say but she stopped herself. What am I doing? “I don’t think I should say. If Applejack didn’t say anything about it yesterday then I have no right to tell. Now if you excused me I have some things to do in Appleloosa.”

“Of course, but allowed me to say something to you before I part from here.” Strongheart stopped her walking and looked at Alpha. In an ominous voice, Alpha said, “If you’re afraid of Scarlet, you shouldn’t be. She’s not a threat to Equestria, but maybe its only hope.” Before Strongheart could even ask what he meant, Alpha opened his wings and after a few strong flaps, flew off into the sky.

Strongheart watched Alpha fly off in the sky for a moment, before continuing her advance towards Appleloosa.

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“A cutie mark, huh,” Scarlet said before taking another bite of pancakes. During breakfast, Scarlet thought to ask some questions about this world. The first few were about the pancakes and the two strange fruits. Next were the tattoos she kept seeing on every ponies' flanks. “So they tell what yours life job is going to be?”

“Not exactly,” Braeburn said as he sat across from Scarlet. “They show what our special talent is, what we’re good at. They never determine what our jobs will be.” He cut into his own stack of pancakes. “Don’t you have one?” he asked before taking a bite.

Scarlet let out a small chuckle, “No, I don’t have a “cutie mark” on my butt. I don’t think any of my kind has anything like that.” She reached over and grabbed the fruit called a banana (from what Braeburn told her). “So what’s your special talent?”

“Oh, it’s…,” the sound of the front door opening interrupted him. Both Scarlet and Braeburn turned to see Applejack and Strongheart coming inside. “Ah, good morning ladies,” Braeburn said in a merry tone.

“Morning Braeburn and morning to you too Scarlet,” Applejack replied in the same merry tone.

“Morning,” Strongheart in a bit of an acidic tone while looking at Scarlet.

Scarlet just gave Strongheart an unamused look, “I see you are still bitter at my killing of those griffons.”

“And I see you still don’t care that you took someone’s life,” Strongheart replied.

“Look, I’m getting tired of this bitterness between the two of us. If I tell you about my world, maybe you’ll finally understand why I don't care about taking someone's life.” Everyone sat down, waiting to hear Scarlet’s tale.

“Now, about 200 years ago there was a war, the Great War, which devastated my world. No one fully knows what was being fight over, but it nearly killed every human and every living being on the plant.”

“Human?” Applejack asked.

“That’s what my species is called, now luckily an the old world government put out an order to builds these underground shelters, called Vaults. These Vaults were designed to withstand the nuclear fallout from the war.”

“What’s a nuclear fallout?”

Scarlet paused, and thought for a moment of how to answer correctly. “A fallout is the dangerous side effect caused by nukes. Now nukes are an extremely powerful explosion that can completely devastate an area and leave little to nothing left. They cause a nuclear fallout, which is the wide spread of radiation for miles and miles, which does more damage than the explosion. The Vaults, for the most part, did their jobs of protecting anyone who were lucky enough to be inside one. Very few people who were outside survived the fallout, and the very few of those people who did survive, didn't remained the same. After a few centuries some of the Vault’s doors finally opened, and the dwellers of those Vaults were met with a barely livable world, full of deadly creatures. Those dwellers fought those creatures to survive and later on they even fought with each other.”

“They fought with each other even though they were probably the last of their kind,” Strongheart asked.

“That’s because war never changes, Strongheart, even in a post-apocalyptic world. People want land, resources and anything else they want and some will murder others to get it. My world is a very violent place. It’s either fight to survive for another day or die and be part of the wasteland. I don't know about y'all but I like to survive so I have to kill.” Scarlet paused for a moment and allowed her information to sink in. “Besides, I need to survive since I do have a city to run.”

The three of them looked at Scarlet in amazement. “You’re the mayor of a city?” Applejack asked.

“Something like that,” Scarlet took a sip from her apple juice. “I’m the overseer, so to speak, of city called New Vegas, the shining pearl in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It’s a place where a person can lose themselves in the glitter of old world’s lights.” Scarlet just stared aimlessly out in the open thinking of old memories. “I think I’ve talked enough for now. I’m going to grab my gear and take a nice little walk up the river.”


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Fallout New Vegas is copyrighted Obsidian Entertainment and Bethesda Softworks.
MLP: Friendship is Magic is copyright to Hasbro.
All characters that belong to their companies are rightfully theirs. This writing is for fun and nothing else.