//------------------------------// // Honest Apple Pt. 3 // Story: Fallout: Equestria - Lovely New Pegasus // by No one is home //------------------------------// “Is it me or is that a lot of smoke?”  That’s not me.  There is a lot of smoke rising offa Neighton. “Smoke levels are consistent with several large bonfires.”  Sweets feeds the data into the parts of my brain that still function.  “Smoke profiles do not match profiles for burning buildings.” “Something ain’t right.”  Jackie rolls in beside me. “I won the lottery!”  A manic stallion runs up outta no where and only doesn’t die, because Sweets paints him as clearly non-hostile in all the words that foat at the edge of my vision now.  He’s dressed in one of the Powder Gangers ridiculous prison jumpsuits, and laughing like a foal. -?-?-?-?- “Do you even feel anything, Six?”  He’s angry, that’s understandable. “They had to know…” I can hear the boss lady try to make sense of what we just did.  What I just did…  “Sire’s Hollow is dead, because of him!”  It hurts because it’s true. “It was a drawn lot!”  The boss lady defends me.  I don’t deserve it.  “It could have been because of me, or maybe because of you!” -?-?-?-?- “What exactly did you win?”  I can hear Jackie’s words.  I understand that things are happening right now. “The only prize that matters!”  The would-be raider laughs as he paws the earth with his hooves.  “Can you smell that air?” “Yeah… yeah, actually that’s part of the problem…” I can admit I’m curious to see where this would-be raider is going with this.  His tag remains green in my SATS. “That is the smell of survival, friend!  That is what being alive smells like!  Don’t you get it?  I won the buckin’ lottery!”  And he goes running past screaming jubilations.  Apparently he ‘won’ whatever the buck is going on here. “I don’t like this.”  Jackie can really just state the obvious better than any pony.  It’s actually a kinda enduring quality.  “Focus, Six.  This ain’t right.  Neighton is farely large settlement,  where is everypony?” “I’m gonna guess they’re all in the center of town where all the smoke is coming from.”  I know that smell. As we get closer we start seeing ponies hanging from wooden crosses.  Jackie is displaying a potential-panic-face.  “Do ya figure it was raiders?” “Normally I’d say yes, but half these ponies are powder gangers.”  A cold pit is forming in my gut.  “And this is too big… too organized.” As we approach the burning pit in the middle of town, the smell becomes almost unbearable.  “Be glad you two don’t have a sense of smell.” “Actually sugar cube, I do have air-quality sensors.”  Jackie informs me and I learn a thing. “My atmospheric analysis capacity is beyond what you can possibly imagine!”   Sweets chimes in to remind me that I am apparently completely wrong on this one.  “Don’t worry, I do not judge your body odor.  I also hate the water!  It makes me feel funny…” “Well met courier!  I am pleasantly surprised to see you!”  I take in the cosplay clown who did this.  In all his ‘glory’.  He wears a dog's pelt, he prolly say’s it’s a wolf, but it’s a dog.   His troops wear Roaman cosplay. “Legion.”  Jackie knows what’s up.  That’s why she’s great.. “Don’t worry, courier, I have no intention of nailing you to a cross.”  The officer proclaimed.  “This settlement colluded with known raider gangs.  They sold sex and chems to powder gangers and the NCR equally.  We offered them caps to lead those they happily exploited into a trap.  Only when the trap closed did they realize they themselves were caught within.” “This is not raider violence.  It is Legion justice.  We respect the couriers.  Take our message.”  Sweets records every image, in case it doesn’t imbed itself in my brain.