//------------------------------//
// Pegasi 
// Story: Fallout: Equestria- Chasing Stars 
// by not_me 
//------------------------------//

Pegasi.

Pegasi were once a common find in Equestria. Now a days not so much. After the war they holed themselves up and selfishly took the sky from everypony below. A group called the Enclave rules them and not much is really known about them except they seem to think they are better than everypony, but really what group doesn’t in the wasteland. They rarely come to the surface, and when they do it is always done through their military. Pagasi for pegasi seems to be there motto, but then again it always was the pegasi’s unofficial motto before. I had never seen a pegasus before. Right now one had two mini guns pointed at me with a mad smile on her face. Two shots rang off far to the left of me.

“Hold up. Hold up. Don’t shoot. I am not a raider. Don’t shoot.” I screamed as I frantically waved my hooves and dug myself deeper into the couch.

Three more shots rang off before the fire ceased. She stood back surprised with a look of disappointment. “Are you sure your not a raider?”

“Do I look like one,” I screamed at her.

“Well, no, but neither did those two crazy mares outside, but they totally were raiders or maybe they were angry waitresses.”

“You killed those mares?”

“Yep, shot them. Dumb bitches tried to take me on with rolling pins. Guns beat sticks, duh. Every pony knows that. Only an idiot chooses melee when there are big guns just lying around practically everywhere.” She just called me an idiot.

“Okay, look what are you doing here,” I asked pulling myself out of a two hundred year old couch cushion.

“Scavenging, I am on my way to Applelossa. What are you doing?”

“I was sleeping. You haven’t listened to the radio anytime soon, have you?”

“Not for a while, its so boring they just keep playing the same songs over and over again. I swear if I hear Butcher Pete or that Bongo song again I’ll go CRAZY,” she screamed flapping her wings lifting her self all the way to the ceiling.

“Applelossa was destroyed, like, two days ago. Some pony named Stable Dweller wiped it off the map."

“Well that sucks. I guess I’ll have to go back to the Big 52. I think Broccoli might be the next closest town. Ok, all that is left is to settle out with you and be on my way.” 

“Settle? Settle what?”

“The standard heroes fee of course. I just saved you from some raider mares and scorpions, so cough up the caps so I can be on my way.”

“Fuck that.”

“Well I never!” She started to rev up her guns before stopping again. “Wait, are you a trader?”

“No, but I am willing to trade if you want to.”

“Cool, let me see what you got.” She was too dumb to be a bandit, apparently it never occured to her that she could kill me and just take what I have. As she approached I could make more of her out. She was a white pegasus with a short cut straight jet black mane. Her eyes were as dark as coal and her face, neck, and back were covered in grey freckles, and impeccably young. I think I saw her in my vision from yesterday.

“A, how old are you?”

She rolled her eyes. “I am 17, but I have been adventuring now for three years so I am experienced ok.”

“And what, you travel alone?”

“No, not alone. I had my dog; she died. Dumb bitch ran in front of my crossfire the other day. And, I have two bucking broncos right here,” she said revving both her guns. “Got any 5 millimeter ammo?” I pulled up my pip-buck to check. The light blinded her as she made to cover her eyes. “That’s a fancy pip-buck. Never seen a gold one before. Are you from a stable near here?”

“No, not from a stable. This thing was a custom job. As for the ammo I have fifty-six of the 5 millimeter. A cap a bullet sounds good to you?”

“That’s not too many, I’ll take them all. Any 10 millimeter?”

“Forty-three of them. Same price?” I had no idea what I was doing.

“That’s a bunch of bullets. I’ll take twenty.” How was 56 bullets too few, but 43 too many? We exchanged our goods. “Anything to eat?”

“I don’t sell my food. Although I won’t mind the company if you care to join me for breakfast.”

“Umm, okay.” At that I stood up and went to grab my jacket when I heard the pegasus gasp and take up a fighting stance.

“Seventy-seven! You ain’t him are you?”

“Who?”

“You don’t know! You are wearing that suite and don’t know! Dude, you should seriously burn that barding, than dig a hole, and bury the ashes, and leave, and never come back. That barding is bad news, it belonged to him.”

“Seventy-seven? What the hay are you going on about.”

“Wait! Did you kill him? How did you get it?” She flew up to me and grabbed my collar lifting me onto my hind hooves. “I need to know!”

“They belonged to my dad.”

“Did your dad kill him? Was he from Stable 77?”

“No…” she dropped me and breathed a sigh of relief. “My grandfather was the lone survivor of Stable 77.” At that she panicked and made to fly away. I bit her tail and prevented her from flying off. “Na ya don’d. Stay an tall ma evrythin,” I gritted through my teeth.

“No! Let me go. Let me go. I am too young to die!” I was so taken back I released my grip and she took off like a champagne cork into the wall.

“Please, don’t go. I never knew my family. If it is something bad, please tell me. I have to know.”

She looked at me upside down, lying on the ground. She flew into the air, righted herself, and landed patting the dust off herself. “Okay only cause you asked nicely.” She stood up straight, closed her eyes, and cleared her throat. Then she leaped into the air onto her back hooves. “This is the story of the puppet pony,” she said waving her front hooves in the air. “Woooooo,” she moaned. I just stared at her dead pan. “Okay not as scary if you don’t already know the story I guess.” At that she fell back onto her haunches. “The Stable’s were never supposed to save any pony. From what we can gather they were tests and sick jokes played on all of ponykind. Stable 69 had a thousand mares for every stallion and Stable 43 consisted of ten mares, twenty stallions, and a manticore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“But we are not talking about those stables,” she interrupted. “Stable 77 was one of the worst stables. It consisted only of one pony and one crate. After the first pony entered the stable, it closed behind him locking him inside. The pony was left inside by himself for years. Over time he found a crate full of puppets and formed his own weird puppet society ruled by a king puppet. Than one day the puppet pony had enough and snapped. He and another puppet killed the puppet king.”

“Wait, how do you kill a puppet?”

“I don’t know! You twist its head off or something,” she replied before regaining her composure for dramatic story telling. Which mostly consisted of her talking slowly in a low voice. “He escaped into the wasteland. He came across a super giant scorpion and punched it dead.” At that she swung her arm so hard she spun her whole body. “Than he tamed the ants and rode it as his mount. A group of bandits captured him and threatened to kill him. He did nothing at first, but they made the mistake of threatening his puppet. He beat everypony to death till they were in pieces, but he did not stop. He just kept killing. He killed every slaver, every raider, every bandit he saw. He would tear them limb from limb and bathe in their blood.”

“How is that worse than a raider? Isn’t that what heroes do? Kill bad ponies.”

“No, he was worse than a raider. Raiders kill out of a sick need or desire. The Puppet Pony just loved death. He wouldn’t even scavenge their bodies. All he would do was beat everypony to death. Sometimes he would even kill captured slaves, claiming they were too weak to live for being caught.  Somehow he found the secret to a long life for it was said he never aged a day. For over a hundred years he cut a bloody swathe across the wasteland, killing any pony that so even looked at him funny. Then one day he disappeared. It is said on the darkest nights he will come back and kill anypony he comes across with his puppet.” At that she closed her eyes and blinked a few times. “So wait, he settled down and had some kids?! What crazy mare would get with the puppet pony?” My grandmother, apparently.

Suddenly things started to make more sense. Why my adoptive family changed my name and kept my history from me. The other bison didn’t think I was cursed just because everyone died around me; they also thought I was cursed because of the atrocities my family had committed. Ok, that just made me feel worse. I felt my shoulders slunk as I turned away from the pegasus.  I walked over and put my jacket and hat on and just walked out the door plunging the exuberant pegasus into darkness. “Thanks for telling me,” I said as I made my way out of the room. 

“What about breakfast,” she called out to me. I just kept walking away though. As I made my way to the main room I could see the rays of the early morning suns light, but as I walked outside I heard the flapping of wings behind me. “Wait up." I turned and saw her come out. “You aren’t lying are you? You really are a descendent of the Puppet Pony. I am so sorry. I guess it would suck to learn that. To me it was always an old mare’s tale. A scary story like Chronos the Glue Maker.”

“Its alright. Truthfully I have been through the ringer the last few days. This was just the piece of hay that broke the ponies back, is all.”

“You poor thing. Did you hurt your back?” Was she always this oblivious?

“No, I am fine.” I stuck my hoof out. “My name is Star Chaser. What’s your name?”

She firmly took my hoof with both her hooves and nearly shook my arm off. “Call me Soaring Skies, or Sky for short. Do you prefer Star or Chase.”

“Either or. I’ll let you decide?”

“Chase it is. It just sounds more ‘namier’ if you know what I mean.” I didn’t. “Look you can join me if you want. I am headed to Broccoli to sell some gear.”

I had nothing better to do. Actually, I had nothing to do. “Sure count me in.”

“Good that means the only thing to do is settle out the standard escort fee and we can be on our way.” I face hoofed.





It turns out everything had a standard fee. There was a fee to scout out a hill. A fee to be the first to open up an empty abandoned toolbox and a fee for standing guard well I took a piss behind a bush. “No I am not paying any of your damn fees,” I screamed as she tried to charge me for the rights to butcher the bloatfly she nearly turned into paste. “Besides you said you weren’t taken’ the meat either.”

“That’s not the point. Bug meat is gross and I refuse to eat it well I have better things to eat. Besides that’s my kill so we do with it what I say.”

“Still not paying,” I said as I cut off any edible chunks.

“Aw, no pony ever pays the standard fees.”

“How can they be ‘standard’ if no pony ever pays them?”

“They aren’t yet. Give it time. Eventually everypony will pick them up as the standard. Commerce is the corner stone for society.”

“Well that pony ain’t going to be me. Here tell you what. You get first go on any crap we come across on our way to Broccoli.”

“Deal, sucker!” At that we bro-hoofed in agreement.

“What direction is Broccoli anyways? Cause we haven’t been going in any one direction this whole time.” We were mostly going from fleeing animal to fleeing animal as Sky chased after them guns blazing, while stopping at any abandoned piece of junk we came across.

“Some where over there.” She pointed east south east. “But we are not going that way yet. We’re going that direction.” She pointed her other hoof south south east.

“Why the hay are we going that way?”

“Silly pony, Broccoli is more than a day away. If we go this way we can hit up an unexplored power station and I know a safe place to sleep. Real Safe.”

“Okay, lead on.” I was screwed. No magic and no clue where in Equestria I was meant I was left to the whims of a half crazed pegasus. At least she wasn’t fully crazy. Maybe some of Lucky’s ‘luck’ rubbed off on me.

As we walked, or rather as I walked and Soaring Skies flapped (is that the proper term for half flying half trotting?), we came across power lines. “How can these still be standing after two hundred years?”

“Under Luna’s rule they started to overdevelop everything. They made everything to survive balefire attacks. Unfortunately most things didn’t. Go to Filly, Manehatten, or the Hoof and you can tell no pony knew just how bad the megaspells were going to be.”

“Have you been to all of those places?”

“Yes, though I haven’t been to Fillydelphia since I was a filly. I heard it has gotten a lot worse.”

“So you grew up in the wasteland? I thought all you pegasi lived in the clouds as Enclave.”

“Only the stupid ones live there. They think the pegasuses are special and that there abandonment of the rest of ponykind is somehow doing us all a favor. I am no Enclave, nor am I Dashite. I am a Remnant.”

“Remnant, never heard of them, Dashites neither.”

She rolled her eyes. “Dashites are pegasuses that agreed with Rainbow Dash and left the Enclave to live in Equestria. Most of them get branded or killed by their own families. Remnants were pegasuses that never left Equestria. We are descendants of the military that didn’t leave their posts even after the megaspells hit. There weren’t that many, really. Most of us live out in the desert where the bombs never hit. Of course the Enclave don’t care if your Dashite or Remnant. All non-Enclave pegasuses are killed on sight. They call us blood traitors.”

So Rainbow Dash survived the bombs by hiding in the sky only to turn against the Enclave. A part of me felt like cheering while the other part asked, “Isn’t the proper term pegasi?”

“No!” She screamed at me. She turned around crossing her front hooves over her chest flying with her legs hanging down directly in front of me. “Pegasus is an old world pegasus word. There is no pluralization using an ‘i’ in words ending ‘us’ like in Equestrian common. So for pegsuses words ending in ‘us’ the pluralization is ‘es.’ Like octopuses and pegasuses.”

“I am pretty sure it’s octopi too.”

“Aah!” She started pulling at her mane, still flying away. “Stupid ponies, stupid ponies everywhere I go!” We traveled on in silence following the power lines. Well actually mostly following lone standing power poles with maybe one suspended wire linking them. Eventually we finally found it. A tall three-story building with three smoke stacks  surrounded by several power substations and a bunch of dead animals. There were miles of wire strewn across the ground around the yellowed decrypted building. As we circled around the building I made sure to not touch any of the wires. This left me looking like a hopping idiot as Sky laughed at me. “Wings beat horns.”

“Hey if I had magic right now I could just levitate all these wires away from me.”

“Whatever, I’ll be waiting near the door.” It took me a minute longer, to reach it but I made it in record time. “Okay I think we should split up. These buildings always have their best stuff in the highest and lowest floors. You take the top. I take the bottom. After two hours we meet up right here, okay. And what the hay is that clicking.”

“Radiation.” I lifted my pip-buck to show her.

“Ok, meet out here in one hour.” I saw this as a chance to take another rad-x. Turns out most plants in the wasteland that survived the apocalypse taste horrible, and two hundred year old food has almost no taste. I was looking foreword to the taking it since we never did eat. I only had two left so I took one and gave the other Soaring Skies. After taking it she retched. “It tastes like an orange threw up in my mouth.”

We pushed the door open and entered a square metal room that might have once served as the main lobby. Every surface was brown and rusted. As I looked around the room Sky hopped over to the secretary’s desk and rummaged through old binders and papers. “Shit, this desk has already been hit up. If we are lucky no pony checked the rest of the building. We made our way into hallway, I moved silently as I could while Sky went ahead with out a care in the world. She approached a double door just as I noticed a red mark on the EFS moving straight towards her. Before I could word warning a glowing zombie launched its self at her. However, she was quicker. She jumped towards the ceiling and using her wings she pressed herself against the wall and let loose both barrels into its chest. It couldn’t even reach her. With that loud of a distraction I managed to get in close enough unnoticed to surprise it with a good buck to the back of the head. It came completely off. What was left of its body slumped next to it. “You stole my kill.”

“No I didn’t, we killed it together.”

“Well, I still get loot.”

“Go ahead.” I looked at the glowing mush. It once was a pony. I think it was a ghoul. I had only seen a couple in my life. Every once in a while one our two would stumble across the Herd, gross looking but generally nice. “Why is it glowing? Why did it attack?”

“It attacked cause it went full zombie. The brain rotted,” she said patting down the rags on its body. “When their minds go they seek shelter. Ghouls heal in radiation, this one probably came here to heal.” She pulled out a few bottle caps and a piece of hard candy that she popped into her mouth. I winced at the thought of eating ghoul candy, but Sky didn’t notice. “Its glowing cause it’s radiated to fuck. When they get like this they can heal their own body off their own radiation. You sure you didn’t grow up in a stable, this is common knowledge, you know?”

“I never have been to a stable. I grew up out west with the Bison Herd. We survived by keeping away from everypony.”

“I thought the buffalos died off ages ago. Glad to hear they made it. Soooo, what are you doing out here?”

I looked at my pipbuck and saw my radiation poisoning radiation steadily rising. “Maybe we should have this conversation outside where the air isn’t slowly killing us.”

“But, you might die cause your too dumb to carry a weapon, and than I’ll never find out about the buffalos.” Thanks for the vote of confidence.

“Well at least you have something to look foreword to,” I said as I walked further down the hall. She said something in reply, but I couldn’t make it out. I turned around and noticed she vanished into the double doors. I rounded the corner and moved as silently as I could up the staircase to find it come out o a railing above a huge room filled with half a dozen generators. One was still running.  I looked at it and noticed there was writing on it. It read ‘Assimov 1000 Mini Nuclear Generator.’ “Well that explains the radiation.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw a lone pegasus flying around looking lost. I noticed a group of red dots on my EFS making there way to her. Out of a side door below me a group of three more glowing zomponies came rushing out. I readied some dynamite and slipped into VATS and launched two of the explosives at the leader. I smiled as I watched them detonate in slow motion just after making contact with the leader. The dual explosions ate away his body sending it out as shrapnel killing the second and blowing off part of the face of the third. 

Time returned to normal and my smile faded as I saw the third one stand up and slowly regenerate its face. It let out a scream and turned towards me jumping in vain trying to reach me. Meanwhile, Sky came around and unleashed a hell fury of bullets pulverizing it. “I thought that was kill stealing.”

“Oh, I was just saving you dynamite. And, just so you know you technically aren’t unarmed if you use explosives.”

“These aren’t weapons, they’re construction materials.” She shook her head with a smile and made her way through the door the three ghouls came through. I turned back to the railing and made my way across as silently as I could. I kept my ears open, but I wasn’t expecting to come across anything. I figured any other ghouls in here would be coming our way after that display of castraphony. The first room was a control room. There were six displays all dead save one. I dare not touch it. I found some wonder glue and duct tape; I moved on. This whole floor was just open offices filled with posters with a pink candy cane mare staring out. It read ‘Remember: Pinkie Pie is Watching You, Forever!’ The eyes even followed you. “Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.” 

I found another set of stairs well and went up to the next floor. This one was filled with more offices. I dug through the filing cabinets and desks only finding a few caps, some bobby pins, and a ton of pens and pencils. Office supplies in an office, who would have guessed. I took everything and was going to call it done until I noticed a carton of cigarettes in one desk. Score!

I ripped open the box and pulled out a pack. They were Marlbronies; I was a Camels stallion myself. I ripped off the filter and made to light it before I realized no magic. I searched the desk again until I found a lighter. A ruby imbued with the essence of red rainbow fueled it. Double score! I managed to balance it on one hoof and press the button down with another. It had been several months since I last had a smoke. With the Bison smoking was reserved for prayers and offerings, I just liked to smoke though. I found a lab in the next room down the hall. I searched it and came up empty, just scrap metal. On the wall was a picture of a lavender unicorn in a lab coat wearing goggles. ‘Safety First!’ it read. I recognized her; it was the Element of Magic, Twilight Sparkle. There was a picture of her on the author page of her book.

At the end of the hall was one last door. It was the Directors office. There was a computer on a desk and a safe built into the floor underneath the desk. I walked up to the desk and put out my cigarette when I heard a beep from my pipbuck. I looked at and noticed it had already started the hacking protocol. This password was seven letters long. I guessed randomly three times before I was warned I would be locked out if I guessed wrong again. I backed out of the hacking system before re-launching it again. I had to do it six times before I was successful. The code was ‘HARMONY.’ I was logged in as Director Blue Spark. There were four options: PONYNALE FILES, WORK LOGS, PERSONAL PROJECTS, and SAFE LOCK MECHANISM.

I selected the third one. There two choices: PNUEMATIC STEEL HOOVES (HOOFO!) and SPARK CORE. I selected the steel hooves one.

Entry #1,

The colonel has asked me to switch off of the spark core design. He said it was unnecessary to continue since we had already finished working on Project Second Six. Luna’s interest has already moved on. It was decided that I was better suited helping the war effort by improving upon the mechanics of the Iron Power Hooves. A crude weapon, already out of use well before my stint in the military ended. Apparently, Minister Applejack is curious if we can improve upon robotics. I plan on fully integrating the spark core into the new design. If I wasn’t suppose to why else would Cupcake ask me to do this specifically.

Entry #2,

Okay scrap iron, its steel now. The spark core out paced the spark battery in energy output. I had to increase the energy consumption of the whole design to make it work better, but the kinetic force was so great it practically destroyed itself. I had to upgrade it to steel just to have the tensile strength necessary for it to function, but it still destroys itself. If only I could incorporate a self-healing mechanism to make the whole thing repair itself.

Entry #7,

So when Colonel Cupcake approached me about my progress, I told him I was working on a mechanical self-repair talisman instead. He reprimanded me for going beyond the confines of the original project, but I did mange to have him sell my data to Twilight Sparkle’s Ministry, of course I had to delete all my old notes on it. When I told him about the machine being so strong that it destroyed itself, he seemed happy about it. Back to the drawing board. I need something stronger than steel.

Entry #8,

I did it! It works perfectly. Steel worked perfectly, I installed some shock adsorption and integrated some pressure control. This thing runs on mollified air. I use the excess energy to excite the particles of the air itself to push the plates. It actually is magnetic in design. Electricity Blue, us Pegasi need to stick with what we understand. Let’s see some unicorn or dirt pony come up with this answer. The techs have started calling the thing ‘Hoofos!’ but I think a better term is Steel Hooves, much more elegant.

Entry #9,

Fucking Cupcake! He took all my results and gave it to the Ministry of Technology. They even took the name Steel Hooves. They aren’t even going to release it, they’re just integrating it into some larger project. At least I got paid this time.

I went back and clicked on SPARK CORE since I was now curious about it. Unfortunately all but the last entry had been deleted.

Entry # 21,

All notes on the spark core have been deleted and the technical notes turned over to the monarchy. For lack of a better word the spark core was a failure. It failed to produce the required parameters and Project Second Six has found success via an alternative route. The expenses were repaid, but there was no profit. It seems my money is now all tied into the success of this power plant, a shame since I only built it because the spark core required nuclear generation. All in all, the spark core was nothing but an improved spark battery. One that generates energy on itself and does not require recharging, but a battery nonetheless. The colonel has already has me working on a new component of another proposed project, but nothing as important as a personal request from Princess Luna, some minor MOT project. It’s a shame I wanted to find out what Project Second Six had to do with that hush hush project of Lunas. At last, I will never know what Project Moon Fall was truly about.

Shoot I was this close on finding something important about Moon Fall. Blue Spark seemed to be a somewhat important pony, but what was he doing out this far from Equestria proper? I had already wasted too much time reading so I opened up the safe. Inside were the Hoofos that Blue Spark wrote about, but two hundred years did not wear on them well. I stuffed them in my bag hoping I could find some way to repair them later. There were seven blue gems inside, I had no clue what they were, so I stuffed them in my bag and looked them up in my inventory. They were labeled spark cores. As I prepared to leave I noticed there was something white in there. It was an envelope, still clean like it arrived in the post only a day ago. It was enchanted paper, designed to repeal the wear that comes with age. The contents had to be important. Inside was a small red card with a black stripe on the back and and a folded up letter, also enchanted paper.

The following is an official correspondence from the office of Colonel Cupcake:

Hey Sparky,

How you doing? I hope Life is doing you well. I am sorry about the whole Spark Core and Steel Hooves thing. I never meant to hurt you. Also, not a day goes by that I don’t regret the unfortunate accident that deprived you the use of your left hind leg. I promised to make it up to you, and boy have I.

Luna has agreed to allow you into Project Moon Fall. The Second Six required to fuel the whole thing has proven to be wildly unstable. Unfortunately, I now have little to do with the project. Most of my old duties have been delegated to other ponies. Applejack has been appointed a full time military consort, Applesnack of all ponies. I almost feel sorry for the old mare. Well Luna feels that Twilight Sparkle can be trusted, she now runs the whole Ministry exclusively. The princess has deemed me most useful closer to the front line. I am heading to Hoofington to over see construction of the city core.

I don’t like it one bit. The whole thing just seems to be wrong, and tell you what, I think Luna is right in not trusting that Goldenblood. Any pony that can consolidate that much unchecked power is too dangerous to trust. I am so glad she keeps his filthy hooves out of the more important non-ministry projects. Trust me, once you find out about the true purpose of Project Moon Fall and Second Six all the other Ministry’s projects seem insignificant. Let the schemers scheme, were doing the works of the goddesses!

Forever your friend,

Cupcake

PS I have included a copy of my house key in Bucklyn. It’s located on 1217 E Lemon Drops. Stop in whenever, I am almost never near Manehatten anymore.

“So whoever Colonel Cupcake and Blue Spark were, they both knew what was going on. Was Luna trying to use time travel to win the war? Did she get the technology from humans? I am missing something that’s for sure. Also, who the hay was Goldenblood? And what is that popping noise?” After I said it I realized I knew exactly what that popping noise was, muffled gunfire. I ran as fast as I could back to the main generator room. I could see Sky firing into one doorway. “What’s going on,” I screamed at her. She looked at me scared. Without a word she ceased fire and flew right at me, picking me off the railing. She shot out the window behind me just moments before we would have collided with it. We were losing height as Skies wings strained to support all the weight. Once we reached the other side of the field of electrical wires we crash-landed. 

As I steadied myself and stood up, I noticed Sky had already started reloading both her chain fed guns. “Chase, get ready. It is coming,” she screamed.

“What?”

“That,” she said pointing a hoof towards a silhouette peering out the window we escaped through. I was going to say we were far enough away, when it unfurled a pair of wings and dive bombed towards us landing twenty feet away. It was a giant ghoulified griffin decked out in heavy armored carapace that had melded to its skin. Attached to its front hands were razor sharp metal gauntlets. Worse still it was glowing from excess radiation. The feathers around it beak and neck were missing revealing deformed skin. Bits of its skull were visible around its right eye, and instead of eyes it had two pink glowing orbs. The creature let out an unworldly scream and flew straight at us only to be met with two full streams of mini-gun fire. I watched as I saw bullets bounce off its armor, while its face was nearly liquefied from the onslaught. Eventually, Sky ran out of bullets I cheered at its demise but felt cold when I heard Sky say, “Cover me well I reload.” I turned back and saw in horror as the creatures face reformed from a pink mist. “It’s a Canterlot ghoul. The thing has absorbed enough taint to practically be immortal.”

“What happens when it’s glowing?”

“Than it most likely is immortal.”

Luna fuck me sideways with her horn. It had already fully reformed and was pressing attack again. Sky was busy reloading her guns leaving me on point. The thing rose up and swung at me. I jumped away and strafed around it as it kept swinging wildly. The heavy armor slowed it down, while my barding didn’t slow me any. I saw an opening and bucked it hard as I could in its beak. The creature flinched so I cut in and used my head to uppercut it under its jaw. The creature was knocked into the air, but instead of falling it flapped its wings and lifted into the air. I ran away as it gave chase. Every once in a while it would swoop in to swipe at me. We did this dance until it finally connected with my hind leg cutting into it like butter. I fell in a bloody mess, the creature standing over me. When I heard some whirling.

Bullets ripped into the creatures back. The creature undisturbed turned directly into the fire and charged Sky head on. It closed the distance taking every shot Sky put out. Her firepower wasn’t enough though, as it eventually managed to tackle her sending her flying ten feet away. It unfurled its wing intent on finishing her, but VATS was quicker. I loaded up three sticks of dynamite and threw them at it with magical aided precision. The explosion only seemed to stun it as it started reforming from all the damage. However, I had enough time to close in the distance. I leapt at it, biting down on its wing. I place my two hind hooves under each of its other two exposed limbs while hugging the rest of its wing with my forehooves. I pulled as hard as I could, intent on ripping its wing off. The creature screamed and made to roll over only to come face to barrel with Sky's gun.

“Smile you son of a bitch,” she screamed as she used her gun to saw its head off. Its body fell limp as I let it go. Sky ran over to its disconnected head and kicked it as far away from its body as she could manage, lest it some how found a way to reattach it. She ran up to me and pulled out a healing potion dumping it on my open wound before giving me another to drink. I lay there on the ground letting the magic do its thing.

“Sky.”

“Yes, Chase.”

“Next time lets not go into a ghoul zombie den.”

“Okay.” 

We stayed there ten minutes lying on the ground catching our breath. We got up afterwards and headed straight in silence, ignoring all small animals and random junk. Nothing seemed to bother us thankfully. As the sun kissed the horizon the cloud covered sky ignited in flames of red and purple as we entered a massive cemetery. I sullenly followed Soaring Skies past row after row of tombstones. “Sky.”

“Yes, Chase.”

“How safe is this safe place to sleep?”

“Real safe,” she replied pointing at a giant metal tank a top the hill. 


Footnote: Level up! Level 6

New perk: Travel Light: Move 10% faster wearing light or no armor

Explosives: 50
Sneak: 75