Chapter Nineteen: Who Watches the Watcher?

“Oh, time’s almost up. Look, there are a few things you’re going to need if you want to survive out here. A weapon, or at least a lot more ammo for the one you have, armoured barding, a bit of guidance... and most importantly, you need to make some friends.”

“I can’t believe there was nothing in their database!” Cobalt moaned for the one hundredth and fifty-second time in the past hour or so. Seriously, get over it! “Not a thing on the Ministry’s research! Zilch! Nothing!”

We had all gotten a good amount of rest, and I for one had been all too happy to sleep on an actual bed that wasn’t ridden with lice. When I had woken up the next morning, however, Cobalt’s bad mood became quickly apparent. According to him, he’d spent much of the night combing the stable’s mainframe for any nugget of information about Twilight Sparkle’s research revolving around the changelings. But he’d come up empty-hooved. Apparently, they hadn’t stored any of that information within the stable, or if they’d ever actually intended and the bombs had dropped first.

So now we were as clueless as to the Ministry’s projects as we were when we set out, meaning Cobalt had nothing to take back to the Twilight Society. Honestly, I think only Cobalt was particularly bothered by that.

While he’d deprived himself of any meaningful sleep in his pursuit of ‘science’, me, Stripe and Altrix were all rested up and ready to go by the morning. It also seemed that, during the night, Princess Insidiis had wasted no time in sending out her security teams to deal with the ghouls. I just hope they’d taken a bunch of Rad-X before venturing out into the hive as we had.

It seemed to have gone well though, seeing as we passed a lot of living changelings and more than a few ghoul cadavers. Though more than a few looked a little queasy from the whole affair. And given that this was the first real action any of them had seen, I wasn’t too surprised. Still, it probably wouldn’t be long until they started whatever clean-up of the place they had planned. Who knows? Maybe when we’d return the changelings would have made something of the old ruin.

Altrix had stuck close to us as we’d walked through the hive’s hallways. She seemed even more disturbed by the ghouls and darkness than the security teams. She also hadn’t said all that much since we’d left, so I’d hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know our new travelling companion better. But there’d be plenty of time for that later.

As for where Cobalt was making his one hundredth and fifty-fourth complaint, we were just passing through the hive’s main entrance and stepping over the old bones scattered around in there.

“Complaining to us will not change what is,” Stripe chided the other unicorn.

Cobalt sighed. “Right, sorry. It’s just really irritating to come all this way for nothing.”

“We could always stumble across another really convenient memory orb, our track record for that is pretty decent so far,” I joked, thumping the unicorn lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. We have a new job to do, anyway.”

“Yeah. I don’t know much about this Stable 77…” Cobalt mused, stopping as we walked into the cave outside the main entrance. “There wasn’t much about it beyond the location, built into the Galloping Gorge.”

“Not this one, no,” he replied with a shake of his head. “I don’t know the population numbers, and if it requires an access code…”

“The Galloping Gorge…” Stripe mused. “That is remote. Who would have taken shelter within?”

“Probably ponies from Prosperity, that’s on the way if I’m remembering that metro map correctly,” Cobalt suggested. “Maybe some from Vanhoover too if they couldn’t get into a more local one.”

I could only imagine the rush to get into that place when the world went to shit. Well, we’d either find it filled with dwellers or a dead tomb, but we wouldn’t know either way by just standing around in a cave. So we started walking again and kept moving until daylight could be seen ahead. We stepped over the Steel Ranger corpses and emerged into the usual dull wasteland day.

“Altrix?” I asked, and we all turned to look at her with some concern. “What’s up?”

“Where’s the ceiling!?” Altrix squeaked. “It’s so… big and empty! I feel like I’m going to fall upwards!”

Right… She’d lived her whole life in the stable. The surface was new to her, she’d never even seen clouds outside of whatever books they have stashed away down there. Maybe a holotape or two, even.

“It’s fine,” I tried assuring the changelings. “The only way you’ll go up there is by your own wings. You won’t fall.”

“He is correct. We have lived beneath the clouds and sky as long as you have lived beneath a metal ceiling,” Stripe added helpfully. “It is safe, do not fret.”

“S-sorry,” she apologised, composing herself and taking a few experimental steps into the daylight. “I’ve just never see so much space. What do you ponies do with it all?”

That was it, I couldn’t help but burst out into laughter. I mean, I kinda felt bad at laughing, but come on! Her reaction to the outside was priceless!”

Okay, now I felt really bad. “Sorry, I shouldn’t laugh.” It was still funny though. “But yeah, you’ll be fine. Since you have wings, the clouds would probably be solid to you anyway.”

“They are to pegasi,” Cobalt explained. “I can’t say if changelings work the same, but griffons do. Though I wouldn’t fly up too high, there are ponies up there who don’t take too kindly to… intruders.”

“Oh… OK,” Altrix quietly replied, the changeling mare having a good look around the area we were in. “So, um, which way?”

I took a glance at my PipBuck’s map, also taking a glance at the latest marker on my Eye Forward Sparkle. They both conclusively pointed west.

“This way,” I said to the others, leading the way out of the crater while avoiding the eviscerated remains of the radscorpion.

The moment we got up the slope, Altrix was nearly floored again since she could now almost see from horizon to horizon. Still, we were ready to go. I gave one final check to my equipment, ensuring my shotgun and pistol were secured and all my supplies were safely stored inside my saddlebags. Insidiis had supplied us with food, Med-X, RadAway, Rad-X, healing potions… Anything we needed, really. I had never felt this well stocked, and that wasn’t including the extra medical supplies in Altrix’s medical boxes. I think she even had two Hydra in there.

We all gave each other confused glances, having a look around the landscape to see if we could spot the source of the music. Whatever it was, it wasn’t immediately obvious. The music, wherever it was coming from, was irritatingly cheerful. Seriously, give me Sweetie Belle any day over this crap.

“Is this normal for the surface?” Altrix asked, her wings buzzing nervously.

Before I could answer, I saw something emerge from a nearby cluster of blackened trees and rock. It was a small, metallic ball with antennas sticking out behind it. It hovered idly towards us, playing its terrible music, the ball’s bar on my E.F.S. being green to mark it as friendly.

“A what?” Now that it got closer I could see a small weapon attached to the front. I made sure to be ready to snatch up my shotgun at a moment’s notice.

Now that he mentioned it, the bot did have a familiar design. Though not as familiar as the larger Mr Handy was to me. I guess it hadn’t been a particularly memorable bit of salvage. Still, never seen one out and about before.

“You can sometimes see them around the wasteland, playing random musical pieces,” Cobalt continued, and the robot came to a halt in front of us. Cobalt circled it, giving it a look over. “Some old pre-war broadcasts. Nothing special.”

The music was suddenly cut off in a flurry of static, and we all took a united step back as the robot shuddered before a voice suddenly came from it!

“That’s rather harsh, I find them particularly useful,” a tinny voice remarked from the machine, well… what the hell just happened?

“Not surprising. I don’t know many others who can hack into their network and take manual control,” the Spritebot said rather… that was smugness in the robotic chatter, right? “Name’s Watcher. I’ve been waiting for you to come out.”

“Well, I heard about ‘The Scavenger’s’ quest to find Stable 84 from DJ Pon-3,” Watcher explained. “So I decided to have this little guy keep an eye on you, see what happened.”

“Why? What’s your interest in Stable 84?” I asked. “And who the hell are you?”

“I’m Watcher.” Yeah, I got that bit! “As for why… How are the changelings doing?”

“Judging by your faces, you’re surprised I know about them,” Watcher noted. “Well, I know a lot of things. I watch. It’s why I’m-”

“The Watcher, I get it,” I interrupted him, already feeling a headache coming on. “So what do you want with them, exactly?”

“Want with them? Me? Oh, nothing,” he explained, and I was more than a little dubious. “What I want to know is… What do YOU want with them?”

“I haven’t been stalking you, the Spritebot has!” And there was a difference!? “And I mean, you went through a great deal of trouble to get here. There has to be a reason…”

Watcher then turned to Altrix, who was standing behind us. In a flash, he had floated around us and stopped near the changeling, who shrunk back a little at the Spritebot’s sudden presence.

“And it seems like you came out with a changeling as well,” Watcher noted. “I haven’t seen a drone in, well… a long time. You’re not under duress, are you?”

Stripe stepped between Altrix and the Spritebot, giving Watcher a warning glare.

“We didn’t kill them all, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said to the annoying robot. “And we’re not telling you shit about the stable. We don’t know you, or why you’re here.”

“Fair enough,” Watcher replied. “But given your protectiveness of them, I’m guessing you’re helping the hive in some way?”

“They must be giving you something valuable, perhaps what you came out here for?”

I didn’t answer. Whoever was on the other end of the Spritebot, they were asking a lot of questions. What were the chances this was some technically gifted raider looking for a juicy target?

“Look…” Watcher began. “I’m no threat to you or the changelings. What I watch for is threats to the innocent people still living in this wasteland. I merely want to know if these changelings mean any harm to Equestria, as they have done in the past, or if they do not and they’re the ones who are under threat.”

“Well… there is one other thing, but we’ll get to that in a moment,” Watcher answered. “So please tell me, why are you helping the changelings? I’m guessing they’re not a threat, or the pony who saved an innocent family on that highway probably wouldn’t be doing this. I just want to know what The Scavenger and his friends are getting in return for whatever job they’ve been given.”

“Nothing,” I responded. “I came for caps, didn’t get any. But there are people down there who need help, badly. So we’re helping, that’s it.”

“Just helping for the sake of helping, huh?” he questioned. “I had a feeling it was something like that, I’ve been keeping an eye on your journey for some time.”

Watcher was silent for a few moments, and I had to wonder what was going on in that tin can’s head… Or at least, in the head of whoever it was hacking into the machine.

“There’s a town about a day’s trot from here, Prosperity,” Watcher finally stated. “Pre-war, no major settlement is there now.”

“Yeah, we know it,” Cobalt said, frowning. “It’s on the way to… where we’re heading. Why are you interested in it?”

“There’s something I’d like you to see at the local Megamart,” Watcher stated. “It’s… rather urgent. You’ll understand once you get there.”

Well, that’s not cryptic at all. “Mind telling us what exactly we’re looking for?”

Watcher was silent a moment. “I advise you four keep each other close. Friendship, well… it’s valuable. Magic, even. Don’t lose it.”

A burst of static, and then the Spritebot started to play music again. We just watched as it began to move away, floating off to Celestia knows where.

“I have absolutely no idea…” I answered. Because really, that was one of the most random exchanges I’ve ever had.

And I wasn’t so sure I liked the idea of a disembodied voice watching our every move. But one way or another, my PipBuck seemed to like the idea…

As Watcher had predicted, it took us a day to reach Prosperity, the town just now coming into view.

After our meeting with the strange voice, we hadn’t encountered anything that could really top it. Just more dead trees and scorched rocks, before we found an old road leading in the direction we wanted. The town itself looked much like Haven, broken and abandoned. The complete antithesis of its name, really.

We didn’t enter right away. Instead, we skirted around the town while keeping an eye out for the Megamart that Watcher had told us about. Really, we still were a bit cautious as to whether we should be trusting our mysterious acquaintance. But, well, he’d seemed sincere enough when we’d talked to him previously.

“It shouldn’t be too far,” I said to the others. “I mean, it should look like the one we slept in back in Manehatten, right?”

“More or less,” Cobalt confirmed. “It should have a big sign out front if nothing else.”

“Um, I’ve been meaning to ask…” Altrix spoke up. “What is a Megamart, exactly?”

“Where ponies went to buy produce before the Day of Doom,” Stripe explained to the changelings. “Food wasn’t so hard fought for back then.”

“We just get our food from our hydroponics lab,” Altrix said. “There we grow apples, carrots. That kind of stuff.”

“Most ponies out here have to make do with whatever they can find,” I informed her. “Normally two-hundred-year-old canned food.”

“It’s not that bad. They preserve pretty well,” I responded. Also, eating it for your whole life gets you used to the taste. “Still, it must be nice to have fresh food.”

Altrix gave a ‘yeep’ as we all turned to see the rude bastard who shouted. From off to the side, there were three ponies in scrap armour pointing various crappy looking guns our way.

“You idiot, now they know we’re here!” another shouted. “Ah shit, just kill em’ all!”

“Altrix, back!” I shouted as I grabbed the mare with my magic and shoved her away from the first volley of gunfire.

Once she was out of the way behind us, I quickly extracted my pistol and turned to face the raiders coming at us. But they weren’t going to wait on us, and they had already closed the gap between our groups.

I set up three shots. One for the head, and in failing that one for each foreleg. Without hesitation, I engaged the spell.

My first shot hit its target, and I watched as the side of the raider’s head was stripped away in fragments of brain and skull.

As he fell, his body skidding across the ground, one of his buddies jumped over the corpse and sprayed with his automatic rifle. I moved to the side, but Cobalt gave a hiss of pain as a bullet struck his left foreleg. While this was going on, the third raider made the mistake of contending with Stripe. He may have gotten too close for the sniper to be of any use… at least as a gun, though it worked just as well as a club around the raider’s head.

Cobalt yanked the second raider’s gun away with his magic, following Stripe’s example and whacking him around the head. I aimed and fired at the raider, his bar blinking out, while Stripe bucked away her adversary far enough that she could bring up her rifle in all its glory.

“W-what… why…?” Altrix whimpered, laid exactly where I’d pushed her. “They’re dead… You killed those ponies! Why would they attack us like they…?

“Some ponies are foolish as such,” she explained. “Raiders are a sad reality of the surface, Altrix. One of the many dangers up here.”

I sighed, turning to check on Cobalt. He was holding his hoof, and it was bleeding badly.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Altrix’s demeanour completely change from a shell-shocked stable dweller to some kind of action mare!

“You’re hurt!” she shouted in alarm, rushing over to Cobalt and looking over his wound. “Oh, you poor dear!”

“Hm, it went through. Hang on…” Altrix opened one of her medical boxes, bringing out of the potions in question. “Drink this.”

Cobalt did as he was told, taking a swing from the potion and grimacing as the wound on his leg began to heal. Once it had, Altrix was quick to clean the blood away and then check the hoof over for any more issues. Only once she had done a full examination did she give Cobalt a clean bill of health, close her box and…

“If the hoof shows any irritation, come straight back to me,” Altrix said to her new patient.

“That was one amazing transformation there, Altrix,” I complimented the changeling, who just blinked at me in confusion.

Then she flushed, shrinking back down again. “Oh, um… I just don’t like seeing others hurt when I can help, that’s all…”

While Altrix had been proving her dedication to medicine, Stripe had gone around the raider corpses for anything of use. They didn’t seem to have much, with their junk armour and cobbled together pipe weaponry. But Stripe did emerge with something held in her grasp.

“Scout the area. Kill anypony not one of us,” I read out the simple instruction scrawled messily in what I hoped was red ink. “I guess there are more nearby.”

“This might be one of the bigger gangs out here,” Cobalt cautioned. “Let’s move carefully.”

We left the three corpses behind, keeping an eye out for any more raider patrols. We didn’t see any, though that didn’t mean there wasn’t going to be any. Still, the town seemed as quiet as ever, deceptively so.

Skirting the perimeter of the town further, it wasn’t long before we finally set eyes on the local Megamart. The building seemed sunken and decrepit, half of the sign having collapsed into the concrete. Several rusted vehicles were strewn about outside, probably containing their fair share of skeletons. Everything seemed quiet at first glance, though we were a small distance away with a limited view. Neither were we quite willing to just walk on in at that moment, what with our raider encounter and Watcher’s dubious motivations.

What we needed was some idea of what we might find in there. Fortunately for us, we had a good way of doing just that.

We set up on a nearby hill, and we all laid down beneath a burnt tree as Stripe took her rifle and began to scope out the area. We remained low for a couple minutes, Stripe just examining the area as the rest of us remained quiet so not to disrupt her concentration.

“Oh, so that’s what’s going on here…” Stripe finally noted with a frown.

“Stripe?” I questioned and, in response, she hoofed over her rifle. “Huh?”

I did as she said, laying down and placing my eye on the scope. I scanned the area, and I saw a few raiders who had either just emerged from the Megamart or had just arrived there.

Yes, two had just walked out of the building, while another three walked up to it with another pony being carried by one of them, bound and gagged. The bound pony was a pegasus of all things. She was dark grey with a rather punk looking stylised purple mane, a leather jacket covering the front of her while her cutie mark was clearly visible, being that of a blood red moon.

The pegasus was dumped in front of the two emergent raiders, one of whom knelt down and removed the gag. They seemed to converse for a few moments before the bound pony tried to bite his face off! I’m not kidding, she went all in!

But it seemed like the raider was expecting it, and he quickly moved back while the others laughed at the attempt. They then replaced the gag and dragged her inside kicking and screaming.

With dawning horror, I now understood just why Watcher had decided to send us here. Not only was this the hideout of an entire gang of raiders…

Fallout: Equestria - War Does Change

by tom117z

19 - Who Watches The Watcher?