//------------------------------// // Chapter 25 // Story: The Stranger With a Big Iron on Her Hip // by Omega_code //------------------------------// Thanks to PiquoPie for proofreading. Celestia and Scarlet walked slowly down the road of Appleloosa. Ponies were searching through the ruins of their homes, either for personal items or for other ponies. Many came for Celestia’s aid, and she tried to comfort them as best she could; however, Celestia’s current gloomy mood didn’t help. Sure she got rid of it and put a warm face the moment she talks to one of her subjects, but the instance the pony left, her somber mood quickly grew back. Scarlet was getting sick of it. “You need to get over this,” Scarlet said bitterly. “Otherwise it’s going to bite you really hard in the ass latter on.” Feeling both insulated and confused Celestia asked, “I can’t feel sympathy for the harm my subjects have endured today?” “No, just pick a mood and sick with it. These ponies’ moral has already been struck low as it is; seeing their ruler flip flopping from being all sad and gloomy to everything is alright only to go back again won’t help raise it.” *cough* “They’ll just start questioning your strength, and maybe even begin to question your ability to lead. So pick a mood, preferably one that gives them some form of hope.” Celestia was a bit astonished by Scarlet’s wisdom, and could only smile at it. “You’re right; my subjects do not need to see me demoralize. I need to remain strong for them so they can have hope. It’s just...they don’t deserve this...they’re not ready for war.” *cough* “Well, tough luck.” *cough* “You’re ankle deep in this and the only way out of it is to kill Cadbury.” Scarlet coughed again, this time very small squirts of blood spurt out of her mouth. She wiped the blood of her lips with the back of her hand. “Damn it, the stimpak mustn’t have heal all of my internal injuries, though I think the broken ribs aren’t helping.” Suddenly, Scarlet almost lost her balance as her left leg slightly gave away causing her to stumble forward for a bit. Celestia started to rush closer to Scarlet side, but Scarlet held a hand up at her. “You need to stop pushing yourself Scarlet. You need to sit down and rest and let me heal you.” Celestia offered. Scarlet was taking in breath gasp of air, trying not to throw up. “I don’t need your magic for help.” She began to walk forwards again. “Just get me to my medical supplies and...,” this time her right leg gave in and Scarlet began to plummet towards the ground. Celestia quickly grabbed her in a yellow glow, stopping scarlet mid free fall. Scarlet grunted and her face winced in pain. Celestia “Okay, just this once.” Scarlet reluctantly mumbled out. Celestia helped support Scarlet back up and let her regain her balance before they continued their walk down the road. “So what happen to Alpha?” Scarlet asked. ************************* “You need to stay still Dash; your wounds haven’t fully healed yet.” Applejack said as she tried to keep the impatient pegasus from moving. “I feel fine AJ. I just can’t sit here on my rump doing nothing while Appleloosa is in danger!” “Appleloosa is safe for now Rainbow Dash,” Alpha spoke out. “Celestia and I took care of the griffons that were a threat to this town. They won’t bother it anymore.” Applejack and Rainbow Dash looked back to see Alpha still working on what he was doing since he got here. He was standing next to a group of ponies with one of his hoofs extended out. His hoof was glowing with a faint green light as it absorbed a thin stream of green mist that was coming from ponies. The girls had no idea what he was doing, but he did that strange absorption tick on Dash when he first arrived and saw she was injured. After which Dash, who had some sort of fever, instantly recovered. When Applejack asked what he was doing he only replied that he was making sure she won’t get tainted. He then began to do the same thing to everypony in the room. Applejack didn’t fully trust Alpha at first, but when he stated he came by on Celestia’s orders she eased up a bit. “How about Scarlet, is she okay?” Braeburn asked. The green mist came to an end and Alpha put his hoof back to the floor. “I only know that she is in town, and ignored my warning of coming here.” “Why did you warn her about coming here?” Applejack curiously asked. “She is the final piece for Cadbury’s master plan; if he ever got his hooves on her nothing will stop him from unleashing it upon Equestria. Equestria will be destroyed in fire and his vision of the world will be built upon its ashes.” The town ponies were stunned by Alpha’s statement as they worriedly murmured with one another. The doors to the building suddenly swung opened showing a battle scared Celestia and Scarlet on the other side. “See, they’re still here. I knew they wouldn’t try to do any more stupid ideas once I left them here.” Scarlet smugly stated to Celestia. The two walked inside and Celestia help Scarlet settle down with her back next to a wall; Scarlet grunted and winced as she slowly slide down the wall. Alpha walked up to her with a disapproval frown on his face. “What were you doing coming down here and fighting Cadbury’s minions!? You could’ve been killed or capture and Cadbury could’ve won!” Scarlet glanced up at Alpha with annoyed expression. “Geh, really? I’ll put that into consideration the next time I run into a life-threating situation.” Scarlet winced as a sudden spike of pain shot through her ribs. “Scarlet, Alpha, now is not the time to bicker amongst ourselves.” Celestia spoke up before an argument could brew between Scarlet and Alpha. “Scarlet knew the risks and still tried to help anyway. Now we must help her get better. I would use my magic, but it was hard enough to carry her let alone heal her with all of the radiation her body has absorbed.” Celestia looked at Alpha. “Can you please get her bag; I need her medical supplies to get rid of the radiation.” “No need for that.” Alpha raised a single hoof in the air. The hoof started to faintly glow green as a similarly green mist whisper out of Scarlet’s body and started to flow into it. Scarlet’s body did a startled jerk as her eyes widen. Her face quickly adopted a perplexed expression as she tried to figure out what was happening to her, then utter disgust as if she tasted the most fowl thing in her life. The mist stopped flowing and Alpha put his hoof down and started to make his way to the door. “I’ve done what I can. I’m going to her campsite to retrieve her equipment and tell the others that it’s safe to come back.” Alpha pushed aside the double swing doors and walked outside taking to the air with a few strokes of his wings. Everypony watch him leave before turning their heads towards the still confused Scarlet. “Are you alright?” Applejack asked. Scarlet remained quite as she gazed up in the air. Then in an unsettled tone she said. “I feel like someone took a slimy piece of cloth and scrubbed every inch of my body with it.” She placed a hand on her head as if she was trying to forget the experience. “Though now I don’t feel like I’m going to throw up at any moment.” She brought down her hand to look her Pip-boy and was surprised on what she saw. “Huh, my rad level is at zero. Nice little magic trick.” Scarlet put her arm back down over her ribs. “Now if only he could’ve mended my ribs before heading out.” “I’m able to help with that,” Celestia offer. “An advance healing spell should do the trick though you will have to take your clothes off so I can cast it correctly.” Scarlet gave a sour looked at Celestia. “And why in the world should I do that?” She snipped. “Just cast your spell with my armor on; I’m not stripping down just to get some broken ribs fixed. I’ll wait for Alpha to come back with my supplies.” Celestia let out a strained sigh. “Cause the spell might accidently fuse your skin to your armor. I’ve heard it an unpleasant feeling, and we don’t want that now do we?” Celestia leaned her head closer to Scarlet. “Look, I can tell you don’t like to be naked in front of others, but does that really matter?” Celestia said in a low voice. Scarlet looked straight into Celestia’s eyes, then moved to gaze at the other ponies in analyzing rapid movements. “Well...you do have a point.” She winced in pain again. “Okay, but I will only expose my chest. I’m not going full nude even if y’all already are.” With that Scarlet began to remove her duster. ******************** The faint smell of smoke filled Strongheart’s nose. During most of the time the wind was blowing to the east, carrying the smoke away from the hill side and to the vast wilderness. However, the wind had started to shift southwest towards the area of Scarlet’s campsite. The small amount of smoke reaching her was a good sign to Strongheart, telling her that the initial town fires had died out and the situation in the town was under control. “You think my mother is safe and okay,” the young filly, Hearsay, asked. Strongheart looked down at the worried filly with uncertainty in her eyes but bore a firm smile. “I do not know, but your Princess is there and Alpha is a pony who looks as if he can do well in a battle. I’m sure they were able to drive out the ones who were attacking your town before anypony got hurt.” Strongheart knew that was a lie, but she didn’t want to diminish what little hope the filly had. “What about that hairless ape? Would it also make sure nopony gets hurt?” Strongheart hesitated to answer. “She....I...hope so.” The filly’s worry seemed to grow with Strongheart uncertainty. “I mean, she made sure you weren’t harmed, I believe she would do the same to others.” While Strongheart still didn’t fully trust Scarlet, she did see her surrender herself to the Changeling, from what Strongheart could deduce, to protect the filly. For Strongheart, that was enough to...tolerate Scarlet. The filly seemed to be happy with Strongheart answer as she looked out towards Appleloosa. Then her face got excited when she pointed her hoof out and shouting. “SOMEPONY IS COMING!” Strongheart lifted her head up to see who was coming, and was a bit relived to see it was Alpha flying in. He landed a few feet away from Strongheart and the filly, and immediately went over to Scarlet’s things...completely ignoring the pair. His right hoof glowed green and he began gathering Scarlet things. He then looked over at Strongheart and Hearsay. "It's safe enough to head back to Appleloosa. Your friends are safely gathered in a building near the clock tower with Celestia and Scarlet." “What are you doing?” Strongheart asked. “I’m gathering Scarlet’s things and I’ll bring our prisoner to them.” Alpha headed towards the still passed out pinned to the ground changeling. Alpha waved his hoof over the changeling making the chains around each hoof disappeared. The changeling’s body was then wrapped in a green glow and lifted off of the ground and placed on Alpha’s back. “Let’s head back to the town, I’m sure the young filly is worried about her family. It’s time to put her worry to an end.” He said in a monotone voice. ******************** “So many scars…,” Applejack said in a disturbed tone. During the time Celestia was healing Scarlet, the ponies were treated to a view of what the upper body of a human female looked like; of course that sight also contained the view of the scars Scarlet obtain though her life. Scars varying in both length and width were embedded on Scarlet's tanned chest; it looked like a bear had mauled the trunk of a tree and left no outer bark intact. Scarlet stated that most of the scars she got were during her younger days when she was first starting off as a courier. “Are all of y'all jobs so…life threating,” Applejack asked still a little zone out. “Pretty much,” Scarlet said as she put on a dirty tan shirt on. “From being a stripper to being a soldier, your life will always be at risk.” Scarlet started to poke at her chest, checking on Celestia’s handy work. “Nice job mending me up Cele, it doesn’t even hurt; you’re almost as good as an Auto-Doc.” “I’m just surprised that you are still alive. From what I can tell on my brief medical scan, your body has suffered through a lot of physical trauma. I healed your ribs and other injures the best I could, though I wish I could have done more to fix you up.” Celestia replied back while she was checking on Rainbow Dash’s own injures. “Done more? You’ve done more than enough fixing me up. Normally I’m still in pain for a few minutes even after I heal my own wounds. I feel like I could take on the whole Legion again.” Scarlet threw a few punches in the air to test out her body. A small smile formed on Celestia’s face, though unease grew in her mind. She was happy to see Scarlet in a pleasant mood, though a bit disturbed that the mood was focused on more fighting. “So…Princess, am I going to be okay?” Rainbow Dash voice’s asked in a embarrass tone. Celestia’s focus was taken away from Scarlet and back to her patient. Dash was lying on her side allowing Celestia access to her underbelly where she got hit from the fire ball. Part of her underbelly was hairless due to fire eating it away and the cleaning of the burnt wound. “Yes Rainbow Dash, you are going to be okay.” Celestia replied. “I didn’t have to do too much healing, it seemed the medicine Scarlet gave you healed all of the serious damage that was dealt to you. Though, it did leave some scarring, but I was able to fix the scared tissue before it became permanent. You’re going to make a complete recovery.” Celestia knelt back up allowing Rainbow Dash to get up into a sitting position. “Cool,” she stiffly mumbled out with a half bake smile. She lifted a hoof to her bare chest and started to slowly rub it as a small blush formed on her face. “Though, you think you could make my fur grow back faster?” She optimistically asked. “Like now?” Celestia gave a captivating smile as her horn lit up once again. A single light beam flashed from her horn hitting Dash’s chest and in mere seconds her fur had fully grown back. Dash let out a relieved sigh as she brought her hoof down back to the ground, and the blush on face faded away. “Thank you Princess Celestia.” Dash gratefully stated with an appeased smile as she bowed her head. “You’re welcome,” Celestia kindly replied. Dash lifted her head back up with her smile still mounted on her muzzle. Applejack trotted over. “Excused me Princess, but where’s Twilight? She went looking for you and Scarlet when Alpha came in here.” Celestia’s heart waded in sorrow. “She... she isn’t with me, and needs some time alone. However she also needs help from her friends to help her regain her moral.” Confused, Applejack tilted her head. “Why?” Celestia thought how to explain what happen; however, Scarlet’s voice spoke out first. “She ran away crying after seeing Celestia run her spear through a two legged bull.” Gasps of shock and disbelief were extricated by the ponies who understood Scarlet, and Celestia let out a disappointed sigh. She glanced over at Scarlet who was examining the chest plate of her armor, but there was a smug expression on her face. Scarlet glanced up from her chest plate with a look saying, Payback is a bitch isn’t? Celestia looked back at her subjects, who were waiting on her to disavow Scarlet’s statement about her. With another bended sigh she stated. “She’s right my little ponies, but I want you to understand something. I didn’t like what I did and wish I could’ve stop the minotaur and the griffons by some other means, but there were none. This isn’t like Nightmare Moon trying to make the night to last forever so she could feel appreciated by her subjects, Discord spreading chaos upon the world for his enjoyment, nor Chrysalis who wanted to capture everypony to feed on love. Cadbury wants everypony’s death, and nothing is going to change his mind. I need to stop him, and there is only one way to do so; I need to permanently end him by taking his life.” Fallout New Vegas is copyrighted Obsidian Entertainment and Bethesda Softworks. MLP: Friendship is Magic is copyright to Hasbro. All characters that belong to their companies are rightfully theirs. This writing is for fun and nothing else.