//------------------------------// // Seeing Double // Story: Fallout: Equestria - Change of Heart // by The Tainted One //------------------------------// Chapter Five: Seeing Double A sweet scent enveloped my nose. It smelled like flowers and lavender. I felt a hoof around me and had no doubt about who it was. Rose was snuggled up against me, her head in my chest. Streak marks from tears matted the fur around her eyes. She was crying? Why? Then it hit me. Rose had abandoned the only home she had ever known, for a changeling, no less. I sighed. I couldn’t get up without waking her, and she looked so peaceful. silently snoring away. I just laid there, trying to get back to sleep. My efforts soon proved naught because Rose soon stirred from her slumber. She opened her piercing green eyes and gasped when she realized how close I was to her. “Oh, crap. I’m so sorry Vi-” I shoved a hoof in her mouth. “Don’t worry about it,” I said gently. “I know what you’re going through. Remember back in the caves?” I removed my hoof from her mouth and shook off the dampness. “Oh, Vice. I’ve never been away from home for this long before. I-” she sniffled and let out another sob. “I don’t think I can go back home” She cried into my chest for a good five minutes. Eventually, she quieted down and only the occasional sniffle or tiny sob would come out. A couple minutes later, she climbed out of bed and wiped her eyes. “Thanks Vice. I guess I needed that.” she said sheepishly. “It’s no problem. I know I’ve bawled my eyes out on more than one occasion,” I replied chuckling softly. “We should get going before anypony decides to take up residence in this house.” She nodded and, five minutes later, we were all packed up and ready to leave. It wasn’t until we trotted out the empty doorway and became almost instantly soaked that we noticed it was raining. Hard. “Well, that changes our plans.” I said with a sigh. We walked back inside and shed our soaking wet saddlebags. “I’ll start a fire.” I called to Rose as she went upstairs. I gathered up a few pieces of old, discarded wood and tossed it in the conveniently located fireplace. I dug around my saddlebags looking for a box of matches, to no avail. I facehoofed when I realized that I am a match, basically. Focusing my magic, I shot my light beam into the fire and the wood went up like, well, dry wood. I heard creaking and turned to face a completely dry Rose. I gave her a blank look and she giggled. “It’s magic,” she said slyly. I rolled my eyes and decided to ignore it for now. She sat down with a thump next to me and pulled out a can of yams. She opened the can slightly and set it near the fire. “So, think we could talk about what you did before the war? What was Chrysalis like?” she asked. I sighed and set a can of corn next to Rose’s can. “I was, before I got my ‘empathy sickness’, an infiltrator. I would go into pony towns and search around for the best sources of love. On occasion, I had to,” I gulped. “hurt ponies. Innocents. I hated it, but I couldn’t tell anyone back at the hive that. So I was forced to just go against what I thought was right. It wasn’t until the Invasion of Canterlot that I couldn’t take it anymore. My superior was about to kill a foal.” Rose gasped. “I tackled him and told the foal to flee. Unfortunately, his energy blast that was meant for the foal went wide and killed another changeling. I was arrested for treason and sentenced to rehabilitation. I spent the first fifteen years of the war in prison, undergoing daily ‘rehabilitation’ sessions.” I took a deep breath. “Chrysalis released me for some reason. I was a loner up until a year before the bombs fell. After that point, I was removed from my unit and placed back in prison. And you know the rest.” I sighed, glad that the story was over. I wasn’t expecting the hug I got from Rose. I fell backwards with an ‘oomph’. Rose giggled and released me from her embrace. “Sorry,” she awkwardly helped me back to my hooves. I grabbed my can of corn from next to the fire and pulled a spoon out of my slightly damp saddlebags. Rose dusted herself off and started gobbling up her yams. “It’s fine,” I took another spoonful of corn in my mouth. “I’m trying to forget about it. Anyway, Chrysalis is…” I thought for a moment. “She’s kind and compassionate sometimes, but other times she’s ruthless and cold. I’m a prime example of both.” I finished my can of corn and threw it out the back door. “She was kind enough to put me in stasis to save me from dying, but she was ruthless enough to let me get tortured on a daily basis for fifteen years.” Rose gave me a flat look. “She’s a bitch is basically what I’m trying to say.” Rose giggled. “I think the rain has stopped.” I looked outside and the rain had indeed stopped. ‘Let’s get going,” I said, putting on my saddlebags. Deciding to finally give Venom a much needed warm up, I pulled her out and loaded one of the weird looking power cells. “Where did ya wanna go?” Rose asked me suddenly, forcing me to come to a stop. “I was hoping we were going towards Dodge City. Are we going the right way?” I replied. She shrugged and started digging through her saddlebags. To my great surprise, she pulled out a Pipbuck, Noticing the scorch marks on the side of it, it was indeed the one I had tried on. “Ere, thak ths,” she said, her mouth full of Pipbuck. I grabbed the slightly wet Pipbuck and turned it on. Hello! Welcome to the loading screen of your brand new Pipbuck Delta Model! If this is your first time using the Delta Model, please run the tutorial. You can begin the tutorial by putting on the Pipbuck and selecting the ‘Run Tutorial’ option! I put the Pipbuck on with a slight pinch, and it chimed. Changeling ally detected, running custom tutorial. “You got it working?” she nodded in response. I grinned at her and looked back at the Pipbuck’s screen. This Delta Model Pipbuck is designed to be the replacement for the Pipbuck-3000 model currently in mass production. Changelings cannot use the 3000 model because it lacks the software upgrade in this model. Would you like to run the custom tutorial? (Y/N) I pressed the ‘Y’ button with my magic. Welcome to the Delta Pipbuck tutorial! Bringing the Eyes Forward Sparkle online now! A sudden burst of letters and numbers filled my vision. I moved my eyes, looking at all the areas that displayed my heart rate, my health, and even a compass. The Pipbuck chimed again. E.F.S spell online and running at 100%! Your Eyes Forward Sparkle displays all vital information, even including a FoF indicator on your compass! This signals a neutral entity. A yellow bar flashed in the center of my compass, stayed for a few seconds, then disappeared. This indicator means that the entity is a foe. A red bar flashed where the yellow one was earlier, then disappeared just the same. And lastly, this indicates a friendly entity . A blue bar flashed in the middle of my compass, but stayed. I looked up and Rose was standing in front of me, keeping an eye out for trouble. The Pipbuck chimed, bringing my attention back to it. E.F.S tutorial complete. Would you like to run the Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell tutorial? (Y/N) I nosed the ‘N’ button and lowered my Pipbuck. Rose noticed that I did so and looked at me. I hugged her tightly. “Thanks so much for getting this running.” I said, slightly muffled by her mane. She coughed and I sheepishly let her go. “Sorry,” I said while silently berating myself. “I had to do something while I was locked up.” she replied. “So, where’s Dodge City?” “Lemme check,” I said, raising my Pipbuck once more. I saw that there was a little model of a changeling with arrows displaying health and limb integrity. Smiling, I turned the dial and eventually located the map. I saw that we weren’t that far from a place called ‘Sewer Entrance’. I remembered something in the survival guide about sewers. They were infested with feral ghouls. I shuddered at the thought and moved the map until I found Dodge City. It was easily a couple days trot from where we were. Plus it helps when you go the right direction instead of back towards Ponyville. Sighing, I turned around and started walking. “It’s back this way, we’ve been going the wrong way.” “Alrighty, how far away is it?” Rose asked, trotting up to me. “About a couple days trot. At least.” I replied. We started walking over broken rocks and cracked roads. It was gonna be a long trip. * ** ** ** * After a couple hours of walking , we decided to take a quick break at a campsite. I pulled out one of my recently refilled gallons of water, along with two cups. Taking the cap off of one of the gallons, I filled them both and gave one to Rose. I heard whispering and turned to Rose. “Did you say something?“ I asked, refilling my water. “Nope, must have been the wind.“ she replied. “I’ve read horror stories; it’s never the wind.” I chuckled nervously. We both finished our water and, after another cup, decided to continue walking. I heard the whispers again, but it must have been my imagination, because Rose was giving me a weird look. “Something wrong?” She asked me. “I think I hear the whispering again. Do you hear anything?” I asked her. She shook her head and I began to worry even more. Then a booming voice in my head squelched all of my thoughts. “So this is the other Alicorn,” the voice yelled in my head. Rose must have heard it too, because she began to look around. “She is but a foal. We have been watching you.” the voice boomed again. “Who are you?” I asked through the slight throbbing in my head. “And quit yelling, it hurts my head.” As if I asked them to, they appeared in front of me out of thin air. Three of them. Alicorns. Rose and I gaped at them. “We are the Goddess,” the voice spoke in my head again, at a slightly softer volume. “Wait, something about this one isn’t right.” the voice said again. “She’s…. a changeling!” the voice practically screamed in my head. I just gaped at them. How did they know? What are they? “What will we do?” the voice asked itself. “These things are an abomination.” the voice replied. At this point I realized the three Alicorns were talking to each other. In my head. I shuddered. Then they said something that made my skin crawl. “It must be destroyed.” “Well, so much for diplomacy,” Rose said as she tongued the trigger to her pistol. The bullet caught the middle Alicorn in the leg, but it just ignored the slight flesh wound. I had to think fast or we would most certainly be killed. “Rose, close your eyes!” I yelled, charging my horn. She did so and apparently the Alicorns knew what I was about to do and did the same thing. I smirked as I realized they had fallen for my ploy. I overcharged my laser and fired it at the Alicorns. They didn’t even seem to notice as they were cut in half by the super powered beam. Their torsos were vaporized and the beam reflected off of a shield that the third one hastily brought up. I collapsed from the strain brought on by supercharging my beam. Gasping for breath, I looked at the third Alicorn who seemed hesitant to make a move after her two comrades were cut down so easily. “This is an unexpected development. The Goddess will be most displeased.” the third Alicorn spoke into my head, then took to the air. It was fleeing. I laughed with triumph. “Think they’ll be feeling that in the morning?” I asked Rose with haggard breathing. “That was awesome!” Rose beamed. I smiled and, having finally caught my breath, we got up and walked away from the still smoking corpses of the two Alicorns. * ** ** ** * “So, those were Unity Alicorns, I’m guessing?” I asked about ten minutes later, once we were a safe distance away from the corpses. “Yup, the Stable Dweller is at odds with ‘the Goddess’ and her Alicorn army.” she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm at the words ‘the Goddess’. “Who’s the Stable Dweller?” I questioned. She just shrugged. “Some crazy mare determined to get herself killed. She is trying to take on Red Eye and his slaver operation. Two armies are after this mare. If she doesn’t get herself killed, well, slap a penis on me and call me Ted.” she nickered. I chuckled at her joke. “Hold up a sec, I’m gonna check to see how much further we need to go.” We stopped and I held up my Pipbuck. I looked at the map and saw that we were just about halfway to Dodge City from where we initially started. I saw an option that said ‘Radio’ and turned the dial over to it. There was only one active signal on the list. “DJ Pon-3,” said out loud without realizing it. I clicked it and some beautiful music started playing. “I recognize this. This is pre-war music. Sweetie Belle if my memory serves me correctly.” “I don’t really care for that old stuff Pon-3 plays. How close are we?” she asked. I chuckled sheepishly. “We’re about halfway there.” I replied, keeping the radio on. I stuck my tongue out at Rose and we continued on our way. * ** ** ** * “Goooood evening, children! It’s DJ Pon-3 here bringing you the news! That crazy ass mare, aka the Stable Dweller, is at the Canterlot Ruins of all places.” I perked up at mention of this would be heroine. “What’s she doin’ there? Hell if I know. Now listen to me children, Canterlot is not a place you wanna be exploring. That place makes Hoofington look like a walk in the park. If the Pink Cloud doesn’t get ya, the Canterlot ferals will.” I shuddered at the mention of Canterlot ghouls. “ In other news, Red Eye’s embargo of Tenpony Tower is still in effect, even though half of his troops left the other day to Goddesses knows where. If anypony sees anything, remember, let ol’ DJ Pon-3 know, so I can tell the rest of Equestria. I leave you, children, with some Sapphire Shores singing about better times.” “So, that was the DJ?” I asked Rose as she prodded our fire with a stick. She nodded and tossed the stick in the fire. “He’s the one who announced that you freed a group of slaves.” Rose replied, laying out my bedroll. “I’ll take first watch.” She said as she patted the bedroll. Shrugging, I laid down and only just then realized how tired I really was. I was out like a light in about thirty seconds. * ** ** ** * I awoke sometime in the mid-morning. Rose had fallen asleep and forgotten to wake me up for my shift. Luckily, nothing attacked or captured us. The fire was cinders and I was lying on top of a log instead of the bedroll. I groaned. Sleeping on solid wood was not comfortable. I also realized that I was in my true form. I looked around and, after confirming that Rose and I were alone, breathed a sigh of relief. Rolling off of the log with an ‘oomph,’ I woke Rose up and she grabbed a cola out of her saddlebags. “Why don’t you have your disguise on? She asked, a touch of worry in her voice. “I dunno, I just didn’t feel like putting it back on after I woke up.” I replied, shrugging. Focusing my magic, I tried to get my disguise to manifest itself, but it only got about halfway before I was exhausted. “That wasn’t supposed to happen…” I whispered. “What’s wrong?” Rose inquired. “I don’t have the enough energy to maintain my disguise.” I took a deep breath. “I… have to… feed.” Rose’s eyes widened. A voice whispered in my head. “And thus, the immortal flaw of the changelings reveals itself at last.” I looked around, searching for the source of the voice. Shrugging, I reassured Rose. “Not on you, of course. Unless, you want to.” I cringed. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have suggested such a terrible thing. We need to find an animal den or something.” Rose put a hoof on my shoulder. “You can… feed on me.” She said a bit reluctantly. She stretched her neck out towards me. “It’s like vamponies, right?” she chuckled weakly. “Rose, I can’t do that to you.” I whimpered. “Well, I can’t go trotting into Dodge City with a changeling in tow, now can I?” she sighed. “Go on… do it.” She said while cringing. I trotted over to her and placed a hoof on her shoulder. After a few moments, I bit down into her neck. She gasped and fell to her haunches, her face contorted in pain. I felt her positive emotions slowly drain into me. Her love for her real parents, her love for her adoptive parents, her affection towards me. Her love of life. It was amazing. I haven’t fed in so long, I forgot how good the emotions felt. A whimper brought me out of my blissful trance. I released my grip on Rose and backed away. She smiled weakly at me. Even through her white fur, I could tell that she was considerably paler than before. I pulled out a roll of enchanted bandages and wrapped them around Rose’s neck. A chime from my Pipbuck brought my attention to it. A bar next to the changeling on the display was now full. ‘That’s handy.’ I thought. “Feel better?” Rose asked feebly. I nodded and gave her a hug. She winced slightly from her fresh wound. “I feel great.” I said triumphantly. “I don’t think I’ll have to feed again for a while.” Switching to the map, I saw that we were only about half a days trot from Dodge City. “Let’s get going, we should get there in the mid afternoon.” I motioned for Rose to follow me. We trotted along the broken road, towards our destination. * ** ** ** * After around an hour of walking, I saw half a dozen red bars on my E.F.S. They seemed to be in a building called Pony Joe’s. I signaled for Rose to stop and pointed at the building. “Hostiles, six of them.” Approaching from the alleyway, we smelled them before we saw them. It smelled like death. I gagged and Rose nearly lost her lunch, turning a horrid shade of green. We peeked inside the building and saw the raiders sitting around a table, cutting up a pony. I shied away from the window and had to swallow some of my breakfast that decided to pay me another visit. I looked back at Rose and saw that she was… standing on her hind hooves, holding a rifle in her fetlocks. I gaped at her and she just shrugged. “I’ll tell ya later.” She said, walking towards the window. Peeking in, she gagged at the sight of the bloody mess. She slung her rifle and pulled a grenade out of her bags. With a tiny ‘tink’, she pulled the pin and tossed the grenade into the raiders nest. I heard panicked yelling followed by a loud ‘fwump’, and five of the six lights on my E.F.S. went out. I trotted over to the window and saw that a mare was crawling away from the table, missing her hind legs. I pulled up Thorn and sighted her head. Squeezing the trigger, her light on my E.F.S. went out too. “You’re wasting ammo.” Rose said from behind me, spooking me slightly. “Hit the little switch on the opposite side of the safety.” I turned the gun over and sure enough, there was a tiny dial about half an inch above the trigger. There were three options set around the dial. ‘Burst-Fire’ was the first one., ‘Single Shot’ was the second one, and ‘Fully Automatic’ was the last option. I rotated the dial to single shot and slung my gun. “Ready to get going?” Rose asked me, a slight grin on her face. * ** ** ** * About halfway between Pony Joe’s and Dodge City, the sun was dipping below the clouds. “Well, shit. We should make camp.” Rose said, suppressing a yawn. “That building, lets bunk there.” She called out, pointing at a fairly tall building. Walking in the front entrance, I saw a sign that said ‘M.W.T. Subsidiary and Storage Bunker’. With a shrug, I trotted after Rose up to the second floor. She had her bedroll all set up and was giving me a pleading look. “Alright, I’ll take first watch.” I sighed. “It’s the least I can do after… ya know…” I pointed at her neck, but she didn’t even notice. She was snoring loudly into her pillow. I laughed quietly and took up a position in the window. I brought Thorn’s scope to my eye and looked out over the wastes. There was smoke coming from numerous places. A slight flickering drew my eye. I sighted it and saw there was a pair of bucks and a mare sitting around a fire, talking and laughing. I moved the scope to another source of movement. A group of five ponies were sneaking towards the trio I mentioned earlier. I know who either group was, but something inside me wouldn’t let three possibly innocent ponies get killed. I pulled out the silencer that Rose gave me for Thorn and screwed it on the barrel. Bringing the scope up once more, I began the dirty deed of taking lives. ‘PFFFT’, a pony goes down from a headshot. ‘PFFFT’, another one down. Their allies are panicking, looking around for the sniper. One of their guns goes off wildly, alerting the ponies at the fire. ‘PFFFT’ A third goes down from a shot to the gut. The ponies from the fire have found their would-be assassins and the reports from their guns echo everywhere. I look at Rose, who is still sleeping soundly. I checked my Pipbuck’s chronometer. Only half an hour had passed between the start and conclusion of the battle. With a heavy sigh, I pulled out the copy of the Survival Guide and flipped to the chapter on ‘Setting Traps’. I flipped through the pages until I found the one I was looking for. ‘How to rig a Combat Shotgun.’ * ** ** ** * Half an hour (and one misfire) later, I finally had the shotgun rigged to keep any intruders out of our room. Crunching broken glass underhoof, I trotted back over to my bedroll and laid down. Despite hating watch and wanting to go to sleep, I couldn’t bring myself to actually drift off. With a frustrated sigh, I turned over and closed my eyes. I counted backwards from 100 and drifted off sometime in the mid-fifties. ~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~ "Wake up, my child. You have a big day ahead of you.” I slowly opened my eyes and found Chrysalis staring back at me with either a loving or malicious grin. My guess is the latter. I got to my hooves and bowed low to the ground. “Rise. Follow me.” She trotted out of the room and I followed at a brisk pace. Chrysalis led me to the antechamber where her throne sat. Something I didn’t expect to see, was Princess Luna. “This is the one you spoke of, Chrissy?” Luna said in a surprisingly friendly tone. “Yes, this is the one with empathy sickness,” Chrysalis replied through gritted teeth. “And what did I say about calling me Chrissy?” Luna giggled softly. “You know I only do it to mess with you.” Luna smiled at the Queen and then turned to me. “Come over here little one. I won’t bite. Unlike someone.” she said, nodding her head towards the Queen. I looked at Chrysalis pleadingly and she just rolled her eyes. She shoved me over to Luna with a hoof. I turned to face the Queen once more and bowed. “What would you have me do, my Queen?” I inquired. “Why, whatever Luna wants to do with you.” Chrysalis chuckled mischievously as the dream faded away. ~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~ *BANG* My body jolted awake and I turned to grab Thorn. I aimed toward the doorway, when I saw Rose fiddling with the rigged shotgun. I sighed, setting Thorn down and getting to my hooves. Trotting over to the rigged gun, I pulled a wire near the base of the contraption. It all fell apart and the shotgun tumbled on the ground a few feet. I picked up the shotgun and tucked it into my saddlebags. “So, about that whole freaky standing on two legs thing?” I asked Rose hopefully. “Well,” she sighed. “I’m a Zony.” She looked up at me and caught my blank look. “My mother was a Zebra and my father was a Unicorn.” “Well if you’re half Zebra, shouldn’t you have stripes?” I inquired. “My father, my real father, used magic to cover up my stripes permanently.” Rose replied, cradling the pistol she used earlier. “This was his gun,” she said dejectedly. “What happened? Where is he now?” I queried. She let out a heavy sigh. “I was always an outcast at my village. The first… hybrid. My mother taught me the Wasteland basics. How to shoot a gun, how to pick a lock, and so on.” I nodded. “She had started my Fallen Caesar training a week before it happened. Raiders attacked our village. They took the women, killed the men, and…” her voice was breaking and tears were rolling down her face. “…left to foals to die.” She was sobbing loudly at this point. I grabbed her in a hug and petted her mane. “You don’t have to continue if you want.” I said softly. “No, no. I owe you the whole story.” She wiped her eyes and sniffled. “What few of us were left went to find the nearest village. We were attacked by Shifters. We got two of them before all my friends were killed. I thought I was done for, but some Zebra came and killed the three Shifters still left alive. He brought me to Acropolis and left me with Rhubarb and Striker. I’ve lived with them for the last ten years.” She wiped her eyes again. “Wow, you’re the first pony I’ve told that to in I don’t know how long.” She let out a weak chuckle. “Hate to be a buzz kill, but we really should get going if we wanna make it to Dodge City by dusk.” I whispered. She smiled kindly and got to her hooves. We walked out of the M.W.T. building and trotted down the road. * ** ** ** * We arrived at Dodge City’s main gate at around five o‘clock. The guard let us in after a small ‘bribe’ of 50 caps. I turned around to face the guard. “Where can we find housing?” “Down the road, towards the train station. Big building on the left. Can’t miss it.” He rasped, then took out a cigarette and lit it with a lighter. “Thank you,” I called back to him. Trotting alongside Rose, we found the building the guard was talking about. It was a two-story pre-war hotel called ‘The Old Barn’. The word ’old’ was written in what I hope was red paint. Rose and I walked inside the screen-less screen door and up to the front desk. “Got any rooms with two beds?” I inquired to the buck behind the desk. “Ayep, just one. 150 caps a night.” He replied, chewing on the wheat stalk in his mouth. I pulled out my cap bag and counted out 150 of the annoying little bastards. As soon as I set them on the counter, he lifted them in his magic and set them in a bin behind the counter. Judging from the amount of clanking I heard, he had a healthy supply of caps already. “Pleasure doin’ business with ya, ma’am.” He pulled a key off of the rack and set it on the desk. “Room Fifteen. Second floor, fourth door on the right.” I grabbed the key in my magic and, Rose at my side, trotted up the stairs to our room. “Eleven, thirteen, ah ha! Here it is.” I said while putting the key in the door and unlocking it. We trotted inside and saw the two beds along with a nightstand in the middle of them. A small lamp was on top of the nightstand along with an overly full ashtray and a copy of ‘Wingboners’. “So, you want that porn mag?” I asked her jokingly. “Naaaa, you can have it,” she said, laying down on her bed and shedding her saddlebags. I left the magazine alone and took off my armor and bags, then set them down beside my bed. I laid down and stretched while letting out a huge yawn. “Oh man, It feels like we’ve been walking for days.” I heard one of my wings crack and sighed in relief. “We have been walking for days.” Rose interjected. My other wing cracked and I relaxed on the bed. “That’s really gross, you know.” I chuckled. “It feel soooooo good though.” I laid on my back and let out a huge yawn. “Wanna go hit the bar?” “Ehh, why not?” She said, hopping off of her bed. We trotted out the door. Rose continued down the hall and descended the stairs. I locked the door to our room and hastily followed Rose downstairs. “Where’s the bar?” I asked the stallion behind the counter. He had a hoofful of caps and was organizing them into bags. “The shack next to the train station.” He replied, putting a bunch of caps into a bag labeled ‘500 bits’. We walked out the screen door and into the street. Several ponies ran by us towards the front gate. Rose and I continued to the bar. I looked up at the sign and read ‘Fill ‘Em Up’. Sighing, I walked into the half empty bar. “Good afternoon ladies, may I interest you in the ‘Fill ‘Em Up Special‘?” A very enthusiastic buck called out to us as soon as we walked in. “It’s two parts vodka, one part Wild P, one part Sparkle Cola RAD, and one part of my secret ingredient.” “Why not? I’m goin’ for broke tonight anyway.” I huffed as the buck started mixing drinks. “And for the missus?” he said, turning to Rose. “Wild P,” Rose said, resting her head on a hoof. “Comin’ right up!” The buck slid my drink to me. It glowed faintly, but I shrugged and downed the drink. It went down smoothly, with a slight hint of radishes. I tapped the bar, signaling for another. “So, what is there to do around here?” I asked the buck as he prepared my second drink. “And what’s your name?” “Name’s Tankard, and unless you like dirt, there ain’t much to do around here.” He told us. With a slight fizzing, he slid the second special over to me. I savored this one. It was pretty good, if not slightly irradiating. Then again, what doesn’t irradiate me nowadays? I set the half empty cup down and turned to look out at the bar crowd. Several ponies have come in since we arrived, and were playing darts or pool. I polished off my drink and rested my head on the bar. The unbelievably comfortable bar. “Maybe I’ll just rest my eyes for a bit…” I said, drifting off. I didn’t even notice the bright green flash as I passed into unconsciousness Level Up! Level Three! Perk(s) added: The Need to Feed: You must maintain your energy levels at all times, otherwise you will be unable to conjure your disguise. +1 to all Special stats when energy is at or above 90%. -3 to all Special stats when energy is at or near empty (10% or less). You can only conjure your disguise when your energy levels are at or above 25%. Fury of the Sun Goddess (Rank 2): Your beam has grown even more powerful. You can now hit multiple targets with it and temporarily overcharge your beam at the cost of 10% of your energy for every second your fire it. Bangarang: Your constant use of Thorn has increased your skill with Small Guns by 15. (A/N) Sorry this took so long everyone. I’ve been working as hard as I can around the funeral and all. Hope you enjoy it!