//------------------------------// // Reunion // Story: Fallout: Equestria - Change of Heart // by The Tainted One //------------------------------// Chapter Four: Reunion Three whole days. I’ve been in New Appleloosa for three whole days with no sign of Rose. I’ve done several jobs for Ditzy and Railright, even helped defend against a raider attack. At which point Railright saw my laser rounds for the first time. He thought that they were pretty awesome, but hated the mess they made. In the end, he just ended up covering the puddles with layers of dirt. I spent my nights at the bar talking with locals or playing pool. On the fourth night however, I was bored out of my gourd and decided to see what all the fuss with liquor was about. I was sitting at the bar when Railright came up and sat down next to me. “Still no sign of your friend?” He asked gently. “Nope, I hope she got the note,” sighing, I took another shot of something called Stalliongrad Vodka. It went down pretty roughly, but I soon found myself with a pleasant warmth in my belly. I tapped the counter, signaling for another glass. “Ya better slow down, that’s your twelfth shot in the last ten minutes.” Railright informed me. “Alright, two more then I’m done.” I replied, tapping the counter again. Two shots later, I began to feel slightly tipsy. ‘So, this is what it’s like to be drunk’ I thought. “So, what do ponies do when they’re drunk?” I asked, one hoof on the counter to steady myself. “Some ponies get laid, some play pool, If ah was you, however, ah’d go to sleep. Vodka is nasty business.” He said, taking a shot of whiskey for himself. “Alright, g’night Railright. I’ll see ya in the morning.” I walked to the staircase, stumbling a bit. I could have sworn that I heard Railright mutter something that sounded like ‘Ah don’t envy that mare in the mornin'.’ Shrugging, I walked down to my room and after a few seconds of fumbling with the keys, unlocked the door to my room. I stumbled inside and tossed my saddlebags onto the chair, shed my armor and my guise, and took out Thorn and began cleaning her: A routine that I was used to. It turns out, that cleaning a gun while drunk isn’t a good idea, because it discharged into the ceiling. Thankfully, I had gone on a hunting trip earlier that day and had regular rounds loaded. I shuddered at the thought of having incendiary or explosive rounds loaded instead. A knock on my door brought me out of my thoughts. “What was that?” came a stallions voice. Quickly reassuming my disguise, I called back: “I was cleaning my gun when it accidentally went off.” I set Thorn down, deciding that it probably wasn’t smart to clean a gun while wasted. “Oh, be more careful. You should sleep off the booze instead of handling firearms.” he replied sternly. “Yeah yeah, you sound like my mother.” I shot back. “Ah’m gonna chalk that one up to the liquor. Now go to sleep, ya hear?” he said through the door. “I’m goin’ I’m goin,” I called back. I heard the stallion walk away and, sighing, I laid down in bed. After a few minutes of tossing and turning, I finally drifted off to dreamland. * ** ** ** * BANG BANG BANG BANG. Someone was knocking on my door, loudly. I clutched my aching head and slowly got out of bed. Instead, my legs decided to not work and I hit my head on the table. “Oooooowwwwwwww,” I groaned, clutching my wounded. I covered my mouth, realizing that my guise had fallen away sometime during the night. “Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap.” I whispered to myself. “Don’t worry, Vice. Ah know you’re a changeling,” Railright’s voice whispered from the other side of the door. I froze. He knew? How did he know? Oh crap, he’s probably got a mob waiting downstairs to gut me. He opened the door, walked in, and quickly shut it behind him. I flinched away from him when he started towards me. “It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you.” He said softly. “Really?“ I asked skeptically. He nodded and smiled at me. I breathed a sigh of relief and reassumed my disguise. “Ah poked in on you after hearing you fall off of your bed about an hour after you came up here. Ah figured that you wouldn’t do all the stuff you’ve done for us if you meant us harm, so Ah’m keeping’ your secret.” He smiled at me. I smiled back and got up to put my armor on. “So, what happens now?” I asked him, securing Thorn at my side. “The townsfolk will worry to no end if word of a changeling gets out.” he replied. Then taking a deep breath. “Ah’m afraid, that after you meet up with your friend, you’ll have to leave New Appleloosa.” I gaped at him. “Ah’m not good at keeping’ secrets, which is why Ah hafta. Ah’m sorry. You’re a good mare, but people overreact and Ah don’t know what they‘d do to ya.” I sighed, hanging my head. Even though it wasn’t my home, New Appleloosa had grown on me. I could never go back home. There was nothing there for me. Rose was my first friend in the wasteland, and I’m probably never going to see her again. I slumped down onto my bed, sobbing quietly. Railright left sometime that morning. * ** ** ** * It was about noon when I finally stopped crying. I thought I heard someone come to my door a couple times, but they didn’t knock. I wiped my eyes and got to my hooves. Taking the latch off of my door, I walked downstairs to the bar and ordered some radgator with a side of bacon and canned corn. A voice next to me said something, but I wasn’t paying attention to anything. Then somepony nudged my shoulder. I turned to look, ready to tell them off, but my eyes widened in surprise when I saw who it was. Rose was sitting there, a worried look on her face. I wrapped her in a huge hug. “When did you get here?” I asked her, tears welling up in my eyes. “Last night, but Railright told me you were passed out in your room so I bunked with him. I tried to go to your room this morning, but all I heard was you crying. What was wrong?” She was softly crying at this point. I sighed. “As you know, I got drunk last night,” she nodded. “Anyway, I passed out on my bed and apparently I fell off. Railright came up to check on me, but I didn’t have,” I lowered my voice “my disguise on.” she gasped. “So, Railright found out, and now in order to keep the town from mass hysteria, I have to leave before someone else finds out.” I sighed. “That’s awful!” Rose said in alarm. “But, I guess it is better than causing a huge ordeal over nothing.” I nodded at her glumly. “So, wanna leave tomorrow?” I asked Rose as she polished off her lunch. She shrugged. I guess that she was just happy to hang out with me again. “Umm, if you wouldn’t mind me asking, what happened after I left.?” “Well, my dad sent a hit squad after you, but they stopped when they saw you flew over the Everfree. After that, he actually tried to interrogate me. My own father! Treating me like I was some kind of prisoner.” she sighed. “I refused to talk to him or any of his ‘goons’. The gate guard gave me the note you left for me, but my dad caught me trying to sneak out. He kept me locked in my room until yesterday. Like some kind of bucking prisoner!” she sighed in obvious frustration. I rested a hoof on her shoulder and smiled at her. “It’s okay, you’re out now. That’s what matters.” she smiled back and got off of the chair. “So, what do we do now?” I asked. “I don’t know, I bet my parents are just now finding out that I’m gone. Then they’ll question everyone to see who knows where I went. Then they’ll figure out I’ve come h- OH FUCK!” she yelled. “They’re coming here! We have to go now!” “Who’s coming here?” I heard Railright ask from the doorway. Thankfully, the tavern was empty except for Rose, Railright, the bartender, and myself. “Remember when I told you I came from the badlands?” he nodded. “Well, while technically true, it’s not the whole story.” And so I told them. Starting at waking up in the stasis chamber, meeting Rose, getting to Acropolis, meeting her parents, the next few days, until I finally came to the part where I was ousted as a changeling to the whole town and was forced to blind them to escape. “That’s quite the tale, but Ah don’t see how they could have known-” his eyes shifted to Rose. “-oh. That’s how.” Railright rubbed the back of his head and sighed. “Well we can’t fight them. Ah guess y’all are gonna hafta leave earlier than you wanted.” “We planned on it,” Rose replied. “I just hope they don’t get here before we're ready." As if on queue, a guard threw open the door and handed Railright a note. She opened it and said: "Oh, horseapples.” He crumpled up the note and threw it. “Well, we got sight of a dust cloud on the horizon, so ya might wanna get goin’ while the gettin’s good.” He sighed. We nodded and walked up the old, rickety staircase to my former room. “Quite a setup you have here, Vice.” Rose said, looking around my personalized room. Over the last few days, I had all manner of things strewn about my room. Cups, bullet casings, old, half broken down guns. At first glance, you might think my room was a gun shop. We hastily packed everything into Rose’s and my saddlebags, relocked the door, and trotted downstairs. “Here’s the key,” I said, floating the key to the barkeep. “What do I owe you?” I asked him. He waved a hoof. “You’ve done plenty around here to more than pay for board and food.” he replied chuckling. “In fact…” he said while bending underneath the counter. “Call us even, we really have to get going.” I said, turning to walk out the front door of the tavern. There were several ponies standing around, looking at us or other things. The little filly I rescued a week prior galloped up to me and gave me a big (for her size) hug. “Bye bye miss princess. My mommy and I wish you could stay some more, but she said you have some bussi… buusi… stuff to take care of.” I smiled down at her and tousled her mane. “Don’t worry, I’ll come back and visit,” I hope. She smiled up at me and gave me another hug. She trotted back over to her mother who grinned at me and walked with her foal back to the common house. “Let’s get going,” I said back to Rose. * ** ** ** * We had been walking for about an hour before we came across anything. Four blobs on the horizon, one of them bigger than the others, came steadily towards us until we saw it was a merchant caravan. ‘That’s handy,’ I thought. We approached the caravan which I now saw consisted of a Brahmin, two guards, and the merchant him- er herself. She smiled as we approached her. “What’ll it be?” she drawled in a similar accent to Railright’s. “I need .44 magnum rounds, water, and any food you can spare.” I replied. Turning to Rose, I asked her, “Need anything?” She shook her head. I got out my bag of caps. She pulled out an ammo box and set it down in front of me. I opened it and saw a ton of bullets. “Are all of these .44’s?” I asked her. “Yup, there’s some specialty ammo in there too. Regular rounds are 5 caps per. Incendiary and Explosive are 15 per.” she replied hocking a disgusting loogie away from us. I began digging through the box and to my great surprise, I found some laser rounds in there. “How much for these?” I asked her, digging out three more rounds. “60 caps per bullet.” I cringed, she chuckled. “Alright, since Ah like ya so much, how about 50 per bullet.” ‘Better than running out,’ I thought. I pulled out every laser round I could find, which amounted to 15, 20 of the regular ones, and 10 of each incendiary and explosive. “That’ll be 1000 caps.” She said coolly. “Not including the food and water.” * ** ** ** * After nearly exhausting my caps on my specialty ammo, of which I now had over 50 bullets, Rose and I decided to find someplace to hold up for the night. We came upon a somewhat intact house. The door had been ripped from the wall some time ago. Rose and I decided to completely ignore the open downstairs area and check upstairs. We found two bedrooms, but only one of them had a bed. “Take the bed, I still have my bedroll.” I told her while digging out my bedroll. After taking it out and letting it unfurl, she shook her head. “It’s plenty big enough for the both of us.” she started rolling up my bedroll and set it on a table. I shrugged and after shedding my armor, climbed into bed. ‘I’ll keep my disguise on.’ I thought as Rose climbed into bed. “G’night Vice,” she said, snuggling up to her pillow. “Good night, Rose.” I replied, letting myself fall away to a hopefully dreamless slumber. Level Progress: 80% Current Sub-Perk: Power of the Sun: When in direct sunlight, you get a +2 bonus to your Strength, Endurance, and Perception. When in clouded sunlight, these benefits are cut in half.