Chapter Twenty-Two: Puppet Show
“Hey! What about all the other fucking people!?”
I was actually surprised when the door opened without a hitch, as the wood around it looked all rotten and decrepit. From there, we were all too happy to retreat away from the Galloping Gorge into the safety of the cave.
Presumed safety, anyway. Who could say otherwise in the Equestrian Wasteland?
We all piled in quickly, shutting the rickety old door behind us. It wouldn’t stop any of those eels looking for a quick snack, but we were rather hoping that they were dumb enough not to know the difference between a wall and a door.
Speaking of doors…
“Well, do you think we found the right place?” Cobalt quipped, pointing at the large gear shaped stable door directly ahead of us.
The door was all but identical to Stable 84’s, right down to the weathered finish; the only real difference was the number slapped onto it. The entranceway was also predictably sealed up tight, the control panel sitting idly nearby.
I wordlessly took a few steps forwards, eyes on the control panel as the others moved to follow. I prayed to the Goddesses that the door didn’t require a specific password, or we were pretty much screwed. Well, there was only one way to-
Crunch.
I stopped dead at the sound, and it took me a good few moments to realise that it had come from under my own hoof. And now that I thought about it, I was standing on something unusually hard… and with a jagged edge or two. Lifting my hoof to the side, I peered down to see what I’d inadvertently trodden on.
“What in the…”
I levitated up the object, twisting it left to right in front of me as I looked it over. After what we went through six days ago, there was no way I’d ever mistake this thing for anything else.
“It’s a bit of a carapace,” I informed the others.
“D-do you think other changelings have been here…?” Altrix asked, though her voice betrayed how unsure she was in that assertion.
“I wouldn’t think so,” Cobalt stated. “You’re the first changeling to leave that stable in two hundred years.”
“…Right. I guess so.”
Stripe walked up next to me, giving it an examination of her own.
“It looks to be from a radscorpion,” Stripe noted. “Long dead, one would both presume and hope.”
“Think another big one made this place its home,” I asked her.
She looked away from the shard, giving the cave itself a look over. “Possibly. It must have been long ago, any tunnels it dug in and out are long gone.”
“Well, that’s hope it left no descendants,” I said, throwing the shard to one side. “Come on.”
I trotted on up to the control panel, giving it a look over. It had a keypad and a screen blinking idly, awaiting input. I ignored both for the time being, igniting my horn and pulling down on the lever to activate the stable door’s mechanism.
The panel gave a beep, and text rolled out on the display.
Stable door manual lockdown. Stable-Tec PipBuck verification required.
Not a password…? Huh, I wonder…
I yanked out my PipBuck’s utility cable, locating the correct socket on the panel and plugging it in. My PipBuck’s screen flickered briefly before going black. Then, after a moment of waiting, rolling green text began to scroll through faster than I could read any of it. I only spotted bits and pieces, but it all seemed to be technical crap that would mean nothing to any of us barring Cobalt.
The text stopped, and another moment passed us by.
Then the alarm began to sound, the door’s opening sequence activated.
I disconnected by PipBuck from the control panel and stood back, flattening my ears to protect against the deafening noise echoing throughout the cave. The mechanisms inside the stable entrance shrieked and grinded, the agonising sound mixing in with the constant alarm.
And then, with one final screech, Stable 77’s door was dragged into the entrance and rolled aside, the alarm ceasing but a moment later.
What was within was definitely not a stable full of dwellers.
As we gingerly stepped into the ancient fallout shelter, we observed the rust covered walls all around us. Old refuse covered the floor, many of the lights were broken and old Stable-Tec motivational posters were either torn or had decayed into illegibility. Not only did it look trashed, but it reeked of mould as well. From the moment we walked through that massive door, we knew there would be no life here.
Altrix shrunk down, looking the most disturbed out of all of us.
Stripe trotted over to the changeling as we stood in the entrance, placing a comforting and yet questioning hoof on her shoulder.
“Sorry…” Altrix sniffed. “It’s just… this looks like home. Home… if something really bad happened.”
“The residents may have left a decade or two after the bombs fell,” Cobalt noted, examining a busted box of electronics on the wall. “Some stables only remained closed for twenty years or so before returning to populate Equestria.”
“They would have been better off staying put,” I mused, walking up to a window to the right of the room. Peering through, I could see an equally decrepit security checkpoint inside.
“They may not have had an orchard,” Cobalt pointed out. “And only enough food to last so long.”
“A stable without an orchard…?” Altrix muttered in disbelief. “Why would they make one like that?”
“As I said, some stables seemed to have intended early attempts of repopulation,” Cobalt reiterated. “Some seemed more inclined for the long haul. I bet your Queen chose the latter on purpose.”
I know which one I’d have wanted to be in. But more to the point…
“You think their water talisman still works after all this time?” I asked.
Cobalt frowned. “Hard to say… But easy enough to discover.”
After a quick examination of the room, Cobalt walked up to a lone water fountain sitting in the corner of the room by an overturned table. His horn ignited, and he pulled the lever on the fountain.
Water began to flow, being flawlessly drained away down the plughole as Cobalt observed with a hum.
I didn’t even need asking. I moved over next to him, lifting my PipBuck up to the stream of water. There wasn’t a sound from it, not even when I experimentally put my hoof into the flow of water.
“No rads,” Cobalt noted. “I’d say it’s working.”
Well, that was a good sign if any were to be had. Unless the water was just, by random chance, really clean here despite it all. But I went with the talisman explanation because the other one would be really unfortunate for both us and the Equestrian Hive.
There was also still the issue of the collapsed catwalk behind us. But that just meant there was only one way for us to go…
The door into the rest of the stable struggled a moment before sliding open. The place had power still, clearly, but the lack of maintenance was making me a little nervous.
The hallways of the stable were in just as much a sorry state as the entrance. Rust covered every visible sheet of metal, wires hung from exposed conduits, many of the lights were busted… The list of issues was through the roof. And something else that was off about this place?
This was a really long corridor leading in just one direction. Sure, there were twists and turns, but the only other door we’d seen since leaving the entrance was a random closet with busted cleaning equipment inside. It wasn’t like it was stretching for miles and miles mind you, but I counted two right turns and three lefts without a single branching corridor. After the first left turn there’d also been a set of stairs leading downwards, but that just eventually led to the second right turn, which then left to the second left. It was only after traversing that final corridor, passing by busted old ventilation unites hanging from the ceiling, did we actually come across another door at the end of the hall.
‘Atrium’ was marked above the door, and it slid open easier than the last door we’d passed through.
The room was as huge as the atrium I’d seen in Stable 84, though didn’t seem to have an upper floor. As we wandered in, we could see a door to our right that was marked as the cafeteria, though the window was obscured by blinds. To our immediate left sat another entranceway marked as the living quarters that had a window blocked off in the exact same way as the other one, while at the far end of the room sat a second door on both the left and right hoof sides of the room. One was marked as ‘reactor’, while the other led to the Overmare’s office of which I could see the circular window directly opposite of where we walked in, just one floor up.
As for the atrium itself, it was almost entirely empty. Empty… except for a single central table on which sat an old metal crate and some dusty holotapes.
“So, um… this is a little creepy,” Altrix muttered. “This stable feels… wrong.”
“I feel it too,” Stripe concurred. “The design is strange. The unusually long walk to here from the entrance, no branching paths and what appears to be a single bedroom. This place is far too small for a stable.”
They had a point. And if the only other room beyond here were the Overmare’s office and the reactor…
Something wasn’t right.
“Stripe, Altrix, check the living quarters,” I told them, and they gave a quick nod before moving towards the door in question. I then turned to Cobalt. “Check the cafeteria as well.”
“The talisman will probably be down by the reactor,” Cobalt noted.
“Yeah, but this place is bothering me too. I want to make sure we’re safe to go exploring further,” I rebuked. “Stripe’s right, it’s too small.”
“Yeah… no way this place could hold a viable population if this is all there is to it,” Cobalt mused. “There’s not even an infirmary…”
“Tell me about it…” I was doing my best to ignore the weird itch in my mane and the chill running down my spine. “So check the cafeteria. I’ll see if those tapes over there can shed some light.”
“Alright. Scream like a filly if the ghosts attack you,” Cobalt said, and he is so fucking unfunny. Screw you!
With him off to probably think up more of his famous remarks, jerk, I trotted towards the table and the holotapes.
First though, I was immensely curious about the crate.
The lid was already half off, so it was easy to brush it aside and take a peek inside.
…Um, why would a fallout shelter need puppets? I mean, I’m sure the foals would enjoy them, but… seriously? There were three inside. A dog, not even a diamond dog, just a standard dog. The second was an old mare, she really didn’t need the years of neglect to look aged. And the final one was… well, it was the strangest. But not because of its looks.
The final one was a puppet of Princess Celestia. And the weird part? It looked like it had been slashed with a knife several times over, and the puppet was in tattered pieces. The main body was full of gashes, while the head laid on the entire other end of the box.
Somepony apparently didn’t like the Goddesses all that much. Or maybe it was just Celestia? A Luna fan, perhaps?
It still seemed weird, and more than a little sadistic. If a child did this, they were probably future raider material.
Perhaps the audio logs would provide some answers. There was quite a few, though some seemed damaged. I popped the first one into my PipBuck and listened intently, keeping an eye on my E.F.S. just to be safe.
“Where are all the other fucking ponies!?” a male voice cried out, sounding like they were in the midst of an emotional meltdown. “Oh dear Celestia… It all happened so fast. The sirens, and then green mushroom clouds coming from… I think they hit Manehatten. I could see it all the way from here! And it wasn’t alone…”
The panicked stallion took a deep breath, before then continuing on.
“When I got to the gorge, the bridge had been locked down. Ponies were trying to get to the stable, but they were only letting admitted residents through. I was let right on in, given a stable jumpsuit and then shoved onto the catwalk. I chose to fly down, it was easier than walking on that rickety thing.”
He was a pegasus then? Goddesses, did the military back then really stop all those ponies from getting in? Damn, I could imagine many of them went with the bridge when it collapsed.
“But when I got in, the door just shut behind me! And there’s NOPONY ELSE HERE! It’s just me, and I don’t think there was ever meant to be anypony else. Stable-Tec… you are fucking monsters! If you’re listening, ROT IN HELL YOU BASTARDS. Gah… there’s… there’s also this box in the atrium. The only thing in here. I have yet to open it…”
The log ended, and I was left with my jaw on the floor. Only one resident… on purpose? Why… why the hell would anypony want to do that? What was the point?
I slipped in the second log, and I let it play.
“There were hoof puppets in the crate…” the stallion announced. “Four of them. Celestia, an old mare, some random dog and the Stable Colt. Why would they…? Ugh, forget about those things. I’ve been in here for days, and I’ve heard nothing from the outside world. The door won’t open, and the door controls say that it’ll only open in five years or so. What am I meant to do for that long?”
The log ended.
I had so many questions building up. Who was this guy? What happened to him? Why did Stable-Tec build a one pony stable? Where was the fourth puppet?
That chill grew colder, though my E.F.S. remained clear of all but my friends in the other rooms. The next few tapes were busted, so I just shoved them to one side and put in the next usable one.
“The five-year mark arrived yesterday,” the pegasus said in a depressed voice. “By Luna that was the biggest scorpion I’d ever seen. It’d just been sitting there, right by the stable door in the cave. I’m trapped with no weapons to speak of, just when I thought I was free…”
There was silence on the tape for a full minute, and for a moment I thought he’d just wandered off and let the tape run. But I was sadly proven wrong by an unhinged giggle that sent my stomach plummeting.
“Oh, Reverend Hound, even you couldn’t take on that thing,” the pegasus said as he giggled to himself. “No, we need you here to protect Granny. What’s that Princess? Oh, don’t mind Stable Colt, you know what he’s like. Yes, Princess, I’m sure Reverend Hound will keep an eye on him. He is mischievous, isn’t he? Oh well… Me and my friends will just have to see if the bug thing moves on…”
Once again, the log came to an end. Just… what. What the actual hell happened in this place?
Looking at the other holotapes, all of them were busted except for two. I shoved all the broken tapes in the box with the puppets, leaving me with the three I’d listened to and the two remaining others. Taking a breath to calm my nerves, I hesitantly slotted the second-to-last tape in my PipBuck.
“Oh Celestia… Why did we do that? Stable Colt and I… we killed Princess Celestia. Took a knife and cut her to pieces. Oh, when Reverend Hound finds out…” The pegasus took several deep breaths, nearly hyperventilating. I could relate at the moment… “We need to leave. That scorpion thing is still there… But we killed once, we can do it again.”
The log ended, and I didn’t even take in a breath as I switched it out for the final tape.
“We’re back,” a far raspier voice said, taking a moment to cough sickly before continuing. “World’s gone to shit, hasn’t it Stable Colt? Oh… we met some bad ponies, but Stable Colt and I killed them. We did, didn’t we? Ripped them apart with our hooves. Rip. Rip. Hehe.”
Oh, fuck me…
“Think I spent too long out there, though,” the pony said amidst a wheeze. “My skin and hair has been falling away. But it’s fine, Stable Colt says it suits me. Heh, we’ve locked the others in the crate. They won’t bother us now. Stable 77 is ours. Our little slice of the apocalypse. Ours… OURS!”
…That was it. The final tape.
“What the hell was that?”
BLOODY HELL!
Gah, I hadn’t heard Cobalt return from the cafeteria. He’d nearly given me a heart attack!
I glared at the stallion, my heart racing fifty miles a second. On his part, he just gave me a dumb deadpan look.
“I wasn’t serious about the ghosts, you know.”
“Piss off!” I spat, quickly trying to collect myself. It’s fine… he probably died of radiation poisoning not long after that last tape. His bones were probably in the living quarters.
“So… Mind explaining?” Cobalt asked.
“Right, right… hold on…” I took a final breath, feeling my nerves calm a little. “Basically Stable-Tec had this one guy live in here by himself. He went nuts, talked to puppets like they were people. That’s all.”
“That’s horrible!” Altrix said in horror as she and Stripe returned to the atrium. “W-why…? I thought stables were meant to protect people!”
“On paper, they were…” Cobalt muttered.
Stripe frowned at the unicorn. “Cobalt, do you know something we don’t…?”
Cobalt winced, and then sighed. “Not for sure… Or at least, I hadn’t. But there’s long been rumours that most of the stables held… experiments. Social experiments that were thought up by the company back before the bombs fell. It’s why so many stables failed to save their occupants.”
I had been unaware that ‘so many’ had failed, as he’d put it. That was… rather disturbing.
“Like zebras and ponies in a stable split in half…” Stripe muttered bitterly. “Of course… Though I doubt the pink cloud was part of their intent.”
“Stable 3 was probably testing to see if ponies and zebras could live in peace after we’d blown each other up,” Cobalt noted. “Rumour has it that Stable 101, where Red Eye hails from, was designed for earth pony supremacists only. There are more rumours and tales like that, and I fear that many of them are true.”
“B-but… but…” Altrix whimpered. “The… My stable’s door malfunction...”
Cobalt bit his lip. “It had crossed my mind that it might not have been a malfunction at all, yes.”
“And you never thought to mention this before?” Stripe growled.
“It was a rumour! I didn’t want to mention something that could have been an old pony’s tale!”
“So somepony in Stable-Tec tried to seal the hive away forever,” I interrupted them before the argument could escalate. “But we saved them, and we are still saving them so let’s get the talisman and get out of this house of horrors!”
I did recall Scootaloo not being overly fond of Queen Chrysalis…
Cobalt shook his head, and then just headed off in the direction of the Overmare’s office. “Hold that thought, I need to check this out.”
“Check what out!?”
“If I’m going to find out anything of these experiments, it’ll be on the Overmare’s terminal.”
Great. I wasn’t really in the mood for side quests…
But he seemed pretty adamant, so I just groaned in exasperation and followed on. It was a good groan too, so I think he got the message.
Not that it even slowed him down at all.
The door led to a staircase heading upwards, and it was only a single flight to get to the office. The door was already open when we arrived, and boy did the room look ransacked. I guess the dweller decided to get back at Stable-Tec by trashing their room.
The lockers had all been dented by multiple bucks and knocked over. The computer monitors at the back of the room were all smashed to bits, the officer chair had been thrown at the window and the desk seemed to have been… um… used as a toilet at some point long ago. The terminal, however, seemed to be mostly intact.
A good thing it was one of those near indestructible models.
Cobalt planted himself by the computer, moving to the log in screen.
“Huh…” he murmured. “Seems the dweller here never got access.”
“I guess not everypony is a… What was it you called yourself that one time?” I asked.
“A data analyst,” Cobalt answered. “It’s my job back at Tenpony.”
“Right. That.”
Cobalt rolled his eyes, tapping away as he began his hacking attempt.
“Enjoying yourself?”
We all froze at the raspy voice coming in through the intercom.
“Um…” I responded smartly.
“See this, Stable Colt?” A shrill giggle assaulted our ears. “They think they can walk into our home unnoticed… Bad ponies. And a filthy stripe too, how about that?”
What did he call her!?
Stripe seemed unphased by the comment, I guess since it was her alias and all, but the way he used that word just made my blood boil!
“I have no idea what the bug is, doesn’t look like a nasty scorpion or a nice ant. But all the same, hehe, you need to die.”
All out heads turned in unison as the doorway shut tight. I ran over to the control panel, pressing the button to open it up again. But even when I pressed it a second and third time, the door didn’t budge.
“Sleepy time, my little Bonnie Kins…”
A foul smell attacked my nostrils, and then it became decidedly more difficult to breathe.
“GAS!” Cobalt shouted, his horn alight as he placed a shield over the ventilation unit in the room. “Bastard’s trying to gas us!”
Too bad there were two ventilation units…
“Well, that buys us some time!” I stated appreciatively. “But we need to get out of here, now!”
Stripe pulled out her rifle and took aim at the circular window.
CRACK.
The bullet hit the glass… But it failed to shatter.
“Bullet proof!” she shouted in alarm.
Crap!
Even with just one ventilation unit, the gas was already burning away at my throat and lungs. It was like somepony was feeding me hot coals, but there was nowhere for me to get fresh air! My friends too were feeling the strain, coughing violently as the gas threatened to overwhelm us.
“Cobalt, teleport us!” I shouted.
“I could barely teleport with you two, let alone adding Altrix!” Cobalt rebuked. “And I’d have to drop my hold on this other vent, we’d suffocate quicker!”
He was worried about this now!? I mean, it’s not like there was any other-
What was that?
I trotted over to the window and looked out into the atrium. And there… Was this stuff making me lost my shit, or was that the raider pegasus from the Megamart?
The pegasus was walking into the atrium like she owned the place, giving the place a casual look over.
Fine, Plan B!
I began knocking on the window as hard as I could, and it seemed to do the trick. The mare looked up at me and tilted her head in question. I made a throat-slitting gesture and then hastily pointed towards the door, repeating the process hoping that it would sink into the head of the random visitor.
She looked off to the side and then wandered out of view.
“What are you doing?” Stripe asked as she caught Altrix, the changeling seemingly a second or two from passing out from the gas.
“I either just asked for help or made a death threat.” Goddesses I hoped I hadn’t made a death threat. “Cobalt, if that didn’t work we need you to try that teleport!”
He gritted his teeth. “Alright, give me a moment. When I release this vent we’re not going to have long before we all lose consciousness.”
“Whatever! Just do it!”
Cobalt didn’t answer, instead closing his eyes in concentration. I moved in close to Stripe and the barely conscious Altrix, praying that Cobalt could find the mana to pull the mass teleport off. Come on, it’s just one more than in Our Town. He could do it!
He had to!
Then I heard a hiss as the door slid open.
“You idiots coming or what?”
None of us argued with the new voice, and Stripe hauled Altrix up onto her back as we all made a bolt for the doorway. We threw ourselves out into the corridor, and then the pegasus hit the button to make the door close again.
Sweet stale, but breathable, air began to fill my lungs again. I just sat on the floor, taking in deep wonderful breaths even as my lungs still burned from then poison that’d nearly killed us right then and there. The others had collapsed next to me, all taking in breaths of their own. Cobalt was coughing violently, while Stripe continued to protectively hold onto a stricken Altrix.
My body was screaming for rest, and at that moment I wanted nothing more than to oblige. But there was still the matter of that crazed ghoul, and the pegasus looking down at us. And upon looking up at our impromptu saviour, I had more than a few new questions come to mind. But first on that list…
…Why was there a knife stuck in the control panel?
“So, you wander into freaky abandoned places often?” the pegasus asked, leaning up against the wall as she extracted her knife from the panel. “Name’s Moon Blossom by the way. But Moon is fine. Didn’t get time to introduce myself after you blew the Boss’ head off.”
“Scrap Heap…” I responded, looking at the pegasus in bewilderment. I shook my head, rising to my hooves as that sweet air continued to fill my lungs. “This is Cobalt, Stripe and Altrix…”
My friends were all recovering at their own paces. Altrix still seemed the worst off, though Stripe was steadily helping her back around.
“Huh, well, you’re a crazy bunch,” Moon Blossom commented, brushing her purple mane to one side as she gave us an amused smirk. “Guess we’re even now, though. Like my hacking of the door?”
“Huh?”
“Door wouldn’t open when I got up here, so I hacked it,” she explained with a shrug.
“That was not hacking!” Cobalt protested.
She frowned. “Uh… yeah, it was. I got my knife out and hacked away until I hit something important. Then it opened. Easy!”
I saw Cobalt’s eye twitch in the corner of my own.
Any further deliberation on what constituted as ‘hacking’ was cut off when the turret emerged from the ceiling.
Oh, come on!
We jumped for it! The turret had just rounded on where we’d been sitting and opened up when we slipped away. As it went to reorient itself, I instinctively pulled out my combat shotgun and blasted it at point blank range.
Alright then. I had had enough of this!
“Stripe, Cobalt, stay with Altrix while she recovers!” I ordered, gesturing to the still recovering changeling. “You, Moon Blossom, want to help me kill a ghoul?”
She gave me a wide grin. “Good to see we’re on the same page, horn head!”
I’ll let that comment slide…
I stepped over the sickly Altrix, hoping she would regain lucidity soon, and started off down the stairs with Moon Blossom right behind me.
We bolted across the atrium, opening the door to the reactor and heading inside. It was the only place he could be, there had to be controls in there he was using to mess with us!
As if to confirm my suspicions, turrets descended all along the hallway leading towards the reactor room.
I entered S.A.T.S. in a heartbeat, targeted the first two turrets with my shotgun and unloaded into them.
As they detonated, the others opened fire with fortunately low calibre bullets peppering my barding and forcing me back out into the atrium for cover. Damn, that was going to bruise!
But while they were all still focused on me, Moon Blossom leapt into action with a gleeful laugh. Unfurling her wings, I spied her kick off into the air towards the closest turret. There was a pause in the gunfire, and I used the moment to pull out my pistol and return to the hallway.
Moon Blossom was jamming her knife into one of the turrets, pulling out the poor machine’s wiring like they were a pony’s entrails.
I targeted the remaining two turrets, opening fire before they had a chance to zero back in on either me or Moon Blossom.
They all exploded in a shower of sparks.
I ran forward without stopping, trusting that the manic pegasus would be right on my tail. I slammed my hoof into the controls for the next door to open it.
The two turrets inside zeroed in on me.
I didn’t even think as I rolled behind some machinery, blindly firing my pistol at them but without hitting anything. I was reading exactly three red bars on my Eyes Forward Sparkle, the third had to be the dweller!
Moon Blossom wasn’t as lucky as I had been when she entered the reactor room, and her leather jacket wasn’t as protective as my barding. A bullet immediately nicked her in the shoulder, the pegasus giving a squawk as she fell to the side behind machinery of her own while unleashing every vulgarity in the dictionary.
I levitated out a healing potion and rolled it out towards her, which she took and downed in a second.
With that done, I peeked over from my cover and gave the room a look over. The large reactor was sitting in the centre of a large room, and it seemed to be sparking rather dangerously. All kinds of other equipment and consoles lined the room, and in front of the central reactor was the main console with the words ‘power and water talisman control’ inscribed on it.
Eureka!
It was also then I noted an advantage to Moon Blossom’s big entrance. All the turrets were focused on her now, so I half emerged from my hiding spot and took aim on the first one.
It exploded in a flash of flame.
I ducked down again as the second turret realigned towards me, though Moon Blossom used this opportunity to fly for her revenge.
I didn’t envy that turret.
“OURS!” Was all I heard when I got slugged in the side of the head. Where the hell had he come from!?
Oh, above me. He was a pegasus too…
“This stable is ours!”
The ghoul had lost almost his entire coat, though a couple of green tufts could still be seen mixing in with his tattered brown mane. His eyes were a milky white, and upon his hoof was a Stable Colt puppet.
He came at me, punching with the puppet! I ducked to the side, his hoof hitting the metal instead, though if that hurt in any way he showed no signs of it!
“You won’t take this place! No, he won’t. Will he, Stable Colt? No, he won’t…” he said, using his free hoof to stroke his puppet affectionately.
“You know that’s just a puppet, right?” Moon Blossom remarked as she lunged at the ghoul, punting him with her front hooves before stabbing her combat knife into his side.
“LIES! FALSEHOODS!” he accused, taking the wound in stride as he hit Moon Blossom in the face, sending her sprawling. “We’ll kill you!”
I scrambled to pick up my pistol again, though I was seen. The moment I had it, it was knocked aside as the pegasus grabbed onto me and took to the air.
I didn’t know if he was planning on throwing me into the reactor or not, but I wasn’t keen to find out!
I grabbed onto his bony wing with my telekinesis, yanking it in a random direction and diverting our course. We slammed down into a large metal crate, and I rolled off and away from the crazed pegasus.
“No! No! IT’S OURS!”
“Come on, this is nuts!” I shouted at the ghoul, grabbing for my shotgun. “That thing on your hoof isn’t a real pony! You don’t even have to stay here anymore!”
The ghoul just gave a feral scream and charged towards me with gnashing teeth.
I pulled the trigger.
He fell, his momentum carrying him past me and to a rough stop. And there he laid, his eyes looking feebly around as his movement became sluggish. I’d blown a huge chunk out of him, he was done for…
Moon Blossom trotted up next to me, hissing at a new bruise on her muzzle. “Ugh… you get him?”
“Yeah…” I responded sadly. “I think I did.”
The dweller’s wing twitched, and he weakly brought his puppet up to eye level. He just laid there for some moments, fading away, humming some comforting song to what had been his sole companion for the past two centuries.
“We… Time to sleep, my little Stable Colt…” he merrily whispered to himself. “Time to… sleep…”
I just watched as his body went limp, the puppet sliding free from his hoof in his very final moment. And then he was gone, leaving behind nothing but a withered vessel that had done nought but suffer since the moment that door had closed two hundred years ago.
You know something? I really hate Stable-Tec.
Footnote: Level 20 – Max Level
New Perk: Raider Repentance – Your companion has given you an extra +5% damage resistance.