Instead of going to the stable, i trotted around the streets of Sanctuary, in which construction was already being taken care of by loaders and construction ponies. Though they argued about what to do with holes that rocket launchers and grenades had made, the seem to be eager to make Sanctuary normal again.
Apparently, they didn't have trash day. Back before i was taken by Secret Tale, the village would gather our trash together at the end of the week and burn it in a huge bonfire and tell stories. It was one of the saner moments.
Apparently, they didn’t do that here. I wonder why.
I got lost quickly, finding myself in a place called Shoot Up! A pony sat next to the door, shaking his head. He mumbled about how he couldn't afford something,but he needed it.
I trot in it, already regretting my decision when the smell hit my nostrils. Behind a cage was a mare, her mane draping down her face. She seemed to care a whole lot less.
“Guns to the left, Missions on the board, shooting range in the back. No questions.”
I looked around, trotting toward the board.And beneath all these missions was a green paper with a familiar cutie mark. I quickly move everything to find a WANTED poster.
WANTED: SILVER BULLET, for Illegal gun trafficking, contraband…..REWARD for his head, just his head.
I blink. He was what i was looking for.
I took the poster off the wall, finding writing on the back.
For those who can keep a secret, the vault in T-bone Cavern has the best view this time of year. - Silver Bullet
T-bone Cavern.
I slip the paper nonchalantly into my inventory, looking over to make sure no one else had seen.
When i get to the stable, Derpy had fallen asleep, her head resting on tick tock’s shoulder.Tick Tock didn’t seem to mind, having dozed off while looking over some blueprints and making adjustments to them. The Doctor’s tie sat on the other side of the bed, the stallion sitting outside.
He looked up at the sunset, his eyes soft and moist as if he’s been crying. I look around, wondering why he wasn’t with Tick Tock and Derpy.
“Doctor?”
He turns his head, a soft welcoming smile on his face.
“Views pretty isn’t it? I used to watch sunsets all the time with Meriweather, brillant filly she was. Bright and filled with imagination, she was born with defective wings. I made her wings to replace them but she could only hover with them.” he rambles.
“Doctor?” I try again.
“I-I-I’ve been having nightmares…”he admits.”Nightmares of other mes. Other Doctors, ones that…”
“That…”
“Some of them are good. Like, one that is married and happy with a pony named Roseluck. Or another that hadn’t seen that day, hadn’t opened the vault, blissfully ignorant. Or one that is with a sky captain who has a bit of a drinking problem, Jack Daniels.” he blushes, but it fades all to quickly. “ But then there’s one who beats on his wife, Ditzy Doo. She’s a Derpy alternative, one that has been through alot and refuses to leave because he’s all she’s got. Another that gets dissected by a filly, Pinkamena, because he’s addicted to drugs that he’s fed. Or one that Murders and...and other things to please his lover and master.”
I sat quietly, wondering what to say. This sounded to surreal, but Hyperia had their nasty regeneration program that brought ponies who didn’t die “just” deaths in their eyes. There is a possibility that all these Doctors are actual Doctors. And i think, he knew that.
“There was a Doctor who didn’t go back for Tick Tock when Derpy begged, one that didn’t try, and regrets it. One that met a mare, Study Glitter, who had lost her mind and killed her out of mercy. Then, lost his own. And a Doctor, who becomes a crime lord underneath Lust’s reign, having several mares and stallions to do his bidding.”
I think he was waiting for me to stop him. It sounded like there was many more to list.
“I have nightmares...i think their nightmares. I see Secret Tale. She wants to tell me things, but there something stopping her.” I say.
He nods.
“I’m scared to believe that those ponies may exist. That they might have hurt ponies out their. Or left ponies all alone. Or...that I’m not the real Doctor, just a fake running around while the real one is…”
“You’re as real as you make yourself out to be.” I say, looking up at him. “The Doctor you are is helping ponies as well as he can, looking and watching over them. He had to great assistants and friends with him, and is happy. As far as i’m concerned, he’s pretty real to me.”
The Doctor smiles at that.
“You’re right…”he says. The lingering But was in the air, but left unsaid.
“What was your last dream about?” I ask.
“ I was with Ditzy and a filly named Artemis, we had beautiful children...but it seemed that they we’re both Artemis’...Ditzy was just...there. She seemed unhappy, but i didn’t seem to care. I had children…” He says, mirthful. “ Artemis...she was the one who wanted Ditzy to stay, though she didn’t say why...i got angry when Artemis tried to shield Ditzy from a beating...and hit her instead.”
I look up at him, he’s eyes refusing to leave the now blackening sky.
“The part that made me wake up was the fact that he regretted it with Artemis, but felt like he was entitled to hitting Ditzy. Such a sickening thought of mind… i couldn’t even…”
“But you’re not him.”
“But i could’ve been. I could be…” he says.
“But you’re not.” I try again. “ I have nightmares about being psycho like my parents. To losing my mind and reveling in it. You don’t think im scared too?”
The Doctor looks over at me.
“We just...have to accept those nightmares and know that they are just that, nightmares. That we will wake up to find that we aren’t those ponies and live hoping that we never be. That we are better ponies then those we fear…”
“And the ones we don’t? The ones we wish we could be?
“Would you change your life to be them? Leave Derpy and Tick Tock?”
He looks back at the sleeping couple, now spooning, leaving his side of the bed empty.
“No. Never.”
“Do you feel dirty, waking up and not being with those you dream about.”
“No, but to have dreams of others while having such great…”Lovers. “ companions. It’s..”
“Then be happy for those Doctors...happy that they aren’t the others.”
The Doctor nods, looking up at the stars and moon. I do the same.
As promised, i woke up to a cup of coffee(cream and sugar) and warmed canned candied apple pie filling along with a couple magazines of bullets, normal and elemental bullets.And to be completely, honest. It reminded me of home. The one after Secret Tale found me.
Sometimes she would get up and make breakfast, usually to butter you up and go hunting with her or when she knows somethings up and wants you to talk about it, and leave it next to you bed with and envelope that looks like her cutie mark.
I discard that thought quickly. She was dead, and while i can still mourn, flirting with memory lane is not an option. Things like this gets you killed in the badlands...in Pandora as a whole. Besides, i don’t get sappy over memories about…
I stopped myself, almost losing my appetite. That would be a lie if i said i didn’t miss the days where i was with my parents. Even when they turned psycho, they still cared for me. Which is saying something, at least. Even at their last breath, they were fighting to keep me safe.
After breakfast, i go down to greet the Doctor and the others.
“Knock. Knock!” i say, knocking on the door. Something i learned from being with lots of older ponies the hard way. Thinking about that, how old is Derpy? She couldn’t be that old? Maybe a couple years older then i am...i’ll have to ask her.
Thump! “Who’s there?” Tick Tock groans.
“Vault Hunter.”
“Come in.”
I open the door slightly to find the orange unicorn upside down. It seems that he was pushed out of the bed by Derpy’s butt. Her flank stuck out out the blankets, but the rest of her still was sound asleep and unstirred. The Doctor was half wake, caught by Derpy’s hold on one side.
“Morning?” I greet trying not to giggle.
“It was.” Tick Tock sighs, getting up. He pushes Derpy over before sitting back on the bed with little to not protest. I blush at the implication that could have meant.
“Good Morning Ms. Hunter...or would you rather be Ms. Vault?” the Doctor asks.
“Uh...Hunter?” I say, a little confused.
I wasn’t used to the formalities. It was “Come now, little hunter.” “You know what, you stubborn Vault!” or simply “Vault Hunter!” Granted the Hunter came from my mom’s side of the family, her cutie mark being a crossbow. My dad was called Game Changer, his cutie mark being a poker chip. How they met, I’ll never know.
“Well, Ms Hunter. Are you ready for today’s mission.”
“As ready as i’ll ever be.” I smile weakly. I wasn’t really. I am never really ready for this kind of stuff, but it's one of those things you have to do when it came to it. Like unclogging a toilet or cutting off a limb or looting a dead body.
“Then shall we be off?” Doctor asks.
“Off where?” Derpy yawns, sitting up and wiping her eyes. The two stallions give her bedroom eyes and i knew that i have overstayed my welcome.
“Actually, i think i’m going to go talk to Venandi...so…” I trot backwards, closing the door behind me. Ugh, adults and their hormones.
The smell of pizza hit my nose as i walk into the Crater bar.Venandi seemed less than thrilled to be making it, however. She was covered in flour, grumbling to herself.“One of Pandora’s finest Vault Huntresses and here i am making pizza. Not even good pizza, pony pizza.”
She slides the pizza in the box, the box labeled “WYLDSTYLE’s”. She pats the lid of the pizza box.
“One ticket into the Stronghold.” she says, confident. “Now, all you need is a ride.”
Going down to Skeeter’s garage, we come to find him talking to a carriage, sniffling.
“Alright, baby girl, you gotta go out there and make daddy proud. And don’t you worry, you have made me so proud over the years, i just never thought i would be sending out to war. So you got to give them hell, and if you don’t come back, i know you went out in a hell of a good battle.” he says, stroking the hood of the car. “Gosh, remember i got my cutiemark fixing you up. I remember when you was just a bandit car, but i made you a whole new girl with those automatic machine gun add ons, a new engine, and a modest paint job.”
“Skeeter, it’s a fucking car!” says the other colt from yesterday. “You spent all night with it, you need to let it go.”
“Shut up, Tenderheart!” Skeeter yells. “She is so much more than a car! She’s a RIDE! A CATCH-A-RIDE!”
Both Venandi and Tenderheart rolled their eyes at Skeeter’s actions. It takes an hour and a half for of him explaining to drive before he gives me the key, telling me if the carriage blows up to loot the corpse and bring back what i can.
Twenty-six ponies traveled along side me to search, showing no mercy to anything that they killed, looting the bodies for all it’s got. It got me thinking.
How different were we from bandits, if we do the same things? I wonder if it was a matter of mentality, that maybe we weren’t to different, that it’s just a misunderstanding. But then i remember my parents, it might just be by what we do or don’t do. Our image and how we carry ourselves. Or simply the look in our eyes when they look at us.
Bandits don’t have pupils, just the white in their eyes. It shows the empty void and deterred state of their psyche or whatever. At first, the color in their eyes fade, then sometimes they are there and sometimes their not. And then they're gone, along with the person who originally own them, leaving a hostile shell behind. And then, there’s when they become bloodthirsty and enraged, when their eyes are blazing red.
Speaking of bandits…
I align my gun, shooting out the tires of any bandit carriage tires to keep them from catching up, the other travelers handling the rest. Bandits have horrible aim, probably due to not have in pupils. Their gunfire bounced off the side of the carriage, not even leaving a scratch.
“Bullymongs approaching,” says a pony, throwing a grenade at the offending creatures, causing the barely alive and enraged.I hesitate to pull my trigger, thinking about how we were wasting ammo killing these things rather than saving it for the strong hold. I mean, are we so confident about the storm that we are willing to burn through all of our ammunition?
But i put the suffering bullymong out of its misery.
We stop at a hotel called “Happy Hog Hotel”, owned by a couple donkeys named Cranky and Matilda. Their staff was mostly pigs, which was strange. Most pigs that I know can’t understand pony language, so these pigs must be super smart.
Matilda apologizes for the broken transportalizer. She reported it broken to Pandora authorities about a year ago, seeing that it is illegal to mess with Hyperion technology but there has been no rush to come fix it since. I ask if i could scavenge the transportalizer and Cranky approved, quoting that it was “you’re funeral”.
I glance over at the pizza, wondering if it would be that easy. It couldn’t be.