//------------------------------// // Chapter 4A // Story: Fallout Equestria: War Never Changes // by jarmari //------------------------------// Chapter 4A: (So again this was intended as the start to the actual chapter and somehow got away from me. Personally I blame Avatar: The Last Airbender. I decided to watch through the series for the first time and everything was going fine, until the Fire Nation attacked and suddenly I found I couldn't split my attention between the show and writing like I could with most shows. So once I get through the rest of the series I'll get the rest of it done up properly again. I'm sorry.) Ruby said very similar things to what Crackshot and Hailstorm had said about my nightmare, my worries about the wasteland projecting themselves. It didn't really help matters any so I just left it alone. The next week of my life was fairly uneventful, though not completely uneventful as you'll see. It turned out that when we returned with the Fatbuck and the plans for the other weapons the council was so excited they promoted our team, Rank C to Rank B, which meant a fancy new sky wagon, which meant we upgraded from a totally rusted piece of shit to just a normal piece of shit. But it was twenty percent bigger and had six turrets instead of just four so over the next week while Brutus, Ruby and Crackshot did some supply runs closer to home I set about upgrading our new transport. I removed the EM pieces from our old wagon and reassembled the turret back to it's original specs, then moved them into the new wagon. One by one I upgraded the turrets, first stripping and upgrading them to be capable of multiple ammo output. Each retained their original bullet abilities, but again I upgraded one to fire EM bursts, another with a flamethrower between the turret barrels for more close quarters work, another I fitted with a poison talisman and a tank and hose system that I filled with just simple water, any water would work with it that was the best part, ground water, rain water, radioactive sludge from a stagnant puddle, load it into the tank and the gun would fire streams of corrosive poison, maybe I'd missed my calling with weapons design...Of course I'd thought that too soon and the poison tank exploded in my face. Luckily it had been almost empty, of course I'd still woken up in the infirmary, feeling like I'd been crushed by a falling sky wagon and with a vile taste of blood and vomit still burning in my mouth. Ruby sat beside my bed asleep. It had to be late because the lights were dim and I couldn't hear much movement beyond the curtain that separated me from the rest of the room. I saw a jug of water on the side table and floated a ball of water out of it and into my mouth, swishing it around and rising my mouth out well then spitting it up into the air, catching it with my magic and putting it into the bucket beside the bed. From the look of wear on it the bucket had clearly seen a lot of action. “Hey...” I croaked at Ruby, reaching out a hoof and nudging her gently. My voice sounded terrible. She stirred slowly and opened her eyes. “Oh thank Celestia you're awake.” She grinned, getting up and leaning over me. “How do you feel?” She put a wing to my forehead and nodded. “Your fever has broken.” “I feel like a million bucks.” I muttered, rolling back into place and dropping my head into the pillows again. “That bad eh?” She sighed, leaning down and kissing my lips gently. Wow, that was love right there...I had to taste at least as bad as Crackshot right now but she just smiled and stepped back. “You blew your ass up pretty bad. Poisoned yourself even worse with that talisman.” She looked exhausted and very worried. “Yeah, not part of the plan I swear.” I sighed, shaking my head slowly. “Rosa and Venture used to say that the project wasn't complete unless I blew something up, and myself in the process.” I smiled, trying to make her at least smile, though it didn't work. “How long have I been out?” “Two days.” She said, sitting down again. “Well that's not so bad, I put myself in the hospital for a month during the beginnings of the Cryo program. I had a freeze talisman burst while I was installing it in the first prototype pod, I ended up with severe frostbite on my forelegs, head and neck, almost lost one of my legs to it. But I bounced back and we got the project up and running and we might even have gotten it fully approved and funded, I haven't been able to find out everything that happened after I was frozen.” She smiled sadly and nodded. “Well you're lucky, the doctors said if the system had been fully loaded you'd probably be dead, as it is you're only a little scarred in the face, and missing some of your coat on your neck, but your armour did a damned good job of protecting you. The doctors are going to want to keep you under observation for at least another day. They said once you wake up it was just a matter of making sure you were okay and they'd release you.” The curtain parted and a black mare with a white mane came in quietly. “Glad to see you're awake Doctor Sugarcane. I'm Nurse Gauze, we haven't really had a chance to meet since you ran out and locked down the medical area.” I blushed a little and looking down at my hooves. “I'm sorry about that, I just have a thing about being poked and prodded so much.” She smiled a little and shrugged. “It's fine, no real harm done, how are you feeling?” “Like I could take on the whole of Red Eye's army. Wanna let me outta here so I can go do just that?” I grinned, giving my best bad ass look. She chuckled and shook her head. “Not until at least tomorrow night.” She said. “You had a whole poison weapon system explode on you, and thanks to the fact that it's YOUR proprietary design it was crazy hard to make sure you were alright when you were brought in, which was gross by the way, so much vomit and blood, half conscious, screaming and throwing yourself around. Brute Force had to carry you in a magic field until we could get you sedated.” She sneered a little and sighed. “It'll make a great weapon that's for sure.” “I'm sorry if I made a mess or wrecked anything.” I said quietly. “Don't worry about it, I'm a professional, if things get out of hand I have my trusty cattle prod to keep things in check.” She said. “He will get them!” ZAP! I shuddered as I remembered the strange half memory that had come along with the memories the Pinkie Pie statue had given me, I felt a wave of fresh nausea and fear sweep through my body, but I suppressed it and just nodded. “I'll behave.” I said meekly, not really sure what had terrified me so badly. Ruby gave me an odd look and then turned to Gauze curiously. “Uhh I wouldn't expect you to do otherwise Doctor Sugarcane.” Gauze said slowly as I looked back up at her, looking like a beaten foal, course given what I had to look like at the moment I had to look even more pathetic. “I didn't mean I'd use it on you, just that I've had to in the past.” “Use it on Sugar?” Ruby asked in surprise. “What? Who said that?” Gauze asked defensively. “I didn't mean I used it ON Doctor Sugarcane, I meant I've used it on other patients before.” She explained quickly, suddenly looking very flustered. “I have to get back to my rounds, get some sleep and we should be able to get you out of here tomorrow.” She said, hurrying out past the curtain again. “That...was weird.” Ruby said, watching Gauze's shadow hurry down the row and out of sight. “You're telling me.” I muttered, laying back again, still feeling weird about the whole thing. “Don't worry.” Ruby leaned over and kissed my horn gently. “We'll get you out of here tomorrow and I'll take you home and you can have a nice long shower and I'll help you get all cleaned up and make sure you haven't suffered any serious damage.” She winked and nuzzled my cheek. “If that was supposed to be flirtatious it kind of fell flat.” I chuckled, nuzzling her in return. “Look I've been worried sick about you for two days, forgive me if I'm not able to make a good sexual innuendo right now.” She countered, smacking my face with a wing. “Now shut up and get some sleep.” She said, moving back to sit in the chair again and stretching out. Despite myself I found sleep an easily reached point and was gone in a matter of minutes, of course it meant I missed it when Ruby got up and left me. //////////// “Hey...Hey wake up Cane.” A soft husky voice whispered in my ear. I groaned and squirmed in the bed, not wanting to wake up. “Leave me 'lone.” I muttered, turning my head and pressing into the pillows more. “Aww come on wake up I wanna fool around a bit before work.” A muzzle pressed to my neck and nuzzled me gently. “Please...just for a few minutes?” I groaned louder and opened my eyes, only to find a dead face right in front of me, jaw agape, tongue hanging out. I screamed and threw myself backwards, falling out of the bed and to the ground, landing hard on my back. Crackshot pulled her head back from where it had been right in front of my face as she and Brutus roared with laughter. “Sweet Celestia's solar powered anal emissions you gave me a heart attack!” I cried, making them laugh all the harder. “Where did you pick up language like that?” Ruby asked, coming through the curtain, a tray with four plates of food on it balanced on her wings. Brutus lifted the tray up and off her back, setting it on the bedside table while Ruby came over and helped me up and back onto the bed. “Uhh I overheard one of the techs in the Sky Wagon bay use that one the other day and I was looking for an excuse to try it out, that seemed like the best time.” I replied, floating an apple up off the plate I assumed was mine, since I always had apples for breakfast, despite a new found love of bacon I tried not to eat it too often. “Well it doesn't really suit you.” Crackshot said, sitting back and taking her plate, again hay with the weird green sauce. “I gotta ask, what's the green sauce?” I asked curiously. “Oh it's delicious.” She grinned, taking a big bite. “It's a peppermint sauce from before the war that spent 200 years absorbing radiation after the warehouse where it was kept was partially blown up by a mega spell missile. I'd offer you some but your teeth might melt.” She chuckled, taking another bite. “Yeah I think I'll pass.” I chuckled, biting into my apple. “So aside from the totally fucked up poison turret how far from finished are you?” Brutus asked as he munched down on his own food, again lots of bacon. “Because I don't want to have to spend a lot of time cleaning that thing out every other week unless it's to unload supplies.” “Was the damage bad?” I asked, cringing a little at the thought. “Nah, not that bad, some poisoned water, the deck plating is a little corroded but nothing we can't work around. The turret only burst it's casing, it can still just be shut like normal. Now how much more work?” he asked again. “Well I wanted to automate the turrets but I need pip bucks for that unless you want to sacrifice space in the wagon to outfit a computer server that can run the software.” “Not really no.” He said, shaking his head. “Maybe we can find some pip bucks or something?” Ruby asked. “They're fairly rare outside of the stables.” I explained. “The only reason I have one is because Stable-Tec gave them to my brother as a good will gesture in the hopes that he'd reciprocate when we invented something substantial.” “We got ours from a stable out west. They decided to shut it down when their water talisman failed and everypony there moved out into the wasteland and started a town. They still used the stable for housing and such but they became a big caravan town and they came through here a few years back and we scored a dozen or so of them, but the council only lends them out to teams who need them. We're all proficient in our various weapons so we don't normally use them. I only had those because we tend to find massive databases in those old research buildings. Once they finish their decryption, if they ever finish, they go back into rotation for other teams to use.” “Oh shit I forgot I said I'd work on the decryption, and here I am wasting my time upgrading our new ride...” I blushed a little and felt more than a little ashamed. “Oh no no, don't even worry about it.” Crackshot said, putting a hoof on my shoulder. “We're heading out on another mission in two days and we need all the extras we can get.” “Oh good because I'm going crazy in here and I only remember a few hours of it.” I chuckled. “Well with luck you'll be gone in a few hours, tonight at the latest.” A purple stallion unicorn said as he passed through the curtain. “Now that you've recovered and you're clearly eating I don't see much reason to keep you beyond running some tests to make one hundred percent sure the poison is totally out of your system.” “No...fluid extraction?” I asked seriously. “Of course not.” He said, shaking his head quickly. “I do not want to deal with the fallout of trying that again. The computer still spits out errors from time to time because of whatever you did.” “Oh, sorry about that.” I laughed, again feeling a surge of embarrassment. “I can fix it before I leave, I promise.” “If you could that would be great.” He nodded. “Now I'll leave you to your breakfast and I'll be back in an hour.” Then he was gone again. We just sat back for the moment and enjoyed breakfast. //////////// Luckily for me the rest of my time in the medical bay went smoothly. They cleared me to leave and after fixing the glitch in the computer that was causing their issues I was out the door and on my way as fast as I could. I was a little disappointed that my face was a little pockmarked where the acidic poison had burned away the hair, but at least it was nothing terrible and Ruby was happy to hear that my voice wasn't going to suffer for it, which just left me feeling awkward about it again. Ruby walked along beside me, wing wrapped around my back, keeping me close. “The Storms left last night, I know you've basically been sleeping in the Wagon bay but your room is all yours again.” She said, heading towards the living area. “Oh good. I just want a shower and a nap in a proper bed and then I'll finish up my work on the wagon in time for us to head out.” “You gonna want company?” She grinned impishly. “Uhh would you hate me if I said no?” I asked softly. “Of course not.” She laughed, stopping in front of the door to my quarters. “Okay, then I'll be back to work in...4 or 5 hours?” I said, looking at the clock on my pipbuck, glad to have it back on. “Alright, I'll check up on you later, make sure you actually eat.” She smiled, leaning in and kissing me gently. “Just don't strain yourself.” “I promise I won't strain myself.” I said, returning the kiss. “Alright.” She turned and started down the hallway, then paused and looked back, the relief in her eyes still very clear. “I love you Cane...” She said softly. My eyes got wide, I felt an odd swell of embarrassment, confusion, not to mention a wicked case of butterflies. My hesitation made Ruby blush furiously. “S...Sorry.” She stammered, starting off again in a rush. “No wait!” I cried, hurrying behind her and grabbing her tail with my magic, pulling her back to me. “I love you too.” I said, grinning happily and kissing her passionately. Sure I could feel this massive swelling of guilt and some part of my heart breaking at the thought of Rosa, but a bigger part of me swelled with more happiness than I thought I'd ever feel for another mare again. “M...Maybe I could use some company...” I whispered, breaking the kiss only long enough to offer before kissing her again. “Gross! Get a room you two!” A young buck said as he walked past, sticking his tongue out in disgust. “Yeah I think that's a good idea.” Ruby nodded and we started back up the hall to my room. Needless to say I didn't make it back to the Sky Wagon that night... Footnote: 50% to next level This fanfiction is based on Fallout Equestria by Kkat; a familiarity with the source material may aid your understanding. You can read Fallout Equestria by Kkat on Equestria Daily The Fallout: Equestria logo used above was designed by DotRook, who, according to the original deviantArt page, allows usage in supplementary materials created for and associated with the series. Images really do make a difference, so he has our eternal gratitude and respect. If you enjoy Fallout Equestria Side Stories, you will want to check the Fallout Equestria Side Stories post on Equestria Daily and the Fallout Equestria Side Stories thread on Ponychan The Ponychan group is also a hatching ground that you can join if you want to share your experience, writing or comments with us.