Edited by the Awesome TacoTown
Chapter 1
I'm Never Getting Drunk Again...well at Least until tomorrow anyways
Ethan groaned as he rubbed his face.
“Good god, what did I do last night?” He asked as dull sunlight assaulted his eyes. His head felt like there was a super mutant with a super sledge pounding against the inside of his head in an attempt to get out. Once he’d finally managed to open his eyes he found that he’d been sleeping against the side of a tall grey building. Brown wasteland stretched out in all directions.
“Of all the places in the fucking wasteland to take a nap, I had to pick here?” He asked with a sigh. “I’m lucky no one tried to rob me; then again, if they did it wouldn’t have ended well for them. Come on drunk me. Get it together...” He berated himself.
The surroundings were familiar to Ethan; the same type of grey building, the same cracked concrete and asphalt, the same brown fucking wasteland that he’d been living in for the last ten goddamned years. The place never changed. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. The people changed and made things better, but the scenery itself almost never changed. Ethan ran a hand through his light brown hair as his blue eyes finished their observations. His dull red leather duster rippled slightly as he got to his combat boot covered feet and dusted off the Riley’s Ranger Combat Armor that he wore beneath the duster.
His favorite pistol, a scoped .44 magnum that he’d gotten from Agatha, rested at his hip and as always, at least eighty rounds of ammo were spread out inside the multitude of pockets that covered his duster. His Chinese shock sword also hung at his side in its sheath, and as always, it’s comforting weight put his mind at ease. A half dozen stimpacks, which he didn’t use much anymore but kept around in case of emergencies, were also easily obtainable from his pockets. Finally, his hands found the large pouch loaded with ten thousand bottle caps that constituted his walking around money these days. After assuring himself that he had everything he needed, he checked his Pip-Boy.
He scrolled through his medical status which looked normal; his inventory screen showed that he was indeed carrying just what he’d thought he was. The weird thing however was that the map function seemed to be broken. Instead of its usual display of the Capital Wasteland it showed an entirely new land, and the map was blank besides two words. Equestrian Wasteland.
“Great, my pipboy, which is guaranteed to never break, has broken. Fucking perfect.” He swore. “I’ll have to get Moria to mess with-” Ethan began but he was cut off by a loud and angry female scream. “-duty calls I guess.” He said with a shrug and began to make his way in the direction of the scream; his magnum was already out and loaded.
He walked around the building to the side where the scream had come from and found something that he found extremely odd. Instead of the woman that he’d been expecting he instead found a small horse with a horn. She was being held clearly against her will by another horse with a horn, who was holding something that looked to be 12.7mm pistol in an odd glowing grip. The pistol was held against the mare’s head and she was struggling roughly, easily telling Ethan all that he need to know. Neither had seen him yet.
“Get the hell off me you asshole!” The mare shouted as she attempted to punch the raider in the face.
“First I’m going to rape you, then I’m going to eat you piece by piece, and then I’m going to kill you!” The stallion said in a loud yet hushed tone. That was what did it, Ethan burst out laughing.
“Really? That’s the best you can do?” Ethan asked sarcastically with a chuckle. “I’ve heard better threats from goddamned children; you should be ashamed of yourself!” Ethan told the stallion.
“You’re next me-” The stallion shouted before he turned around to face Ethan, the threat died on his lips as he saw who it was that he was talking to. “What-who-wa?” The stallion sputtered.
“The name’s Ethan Smith, asshole; and you’re dead. So I’m not sure why I’m bothering to tell you that.” Ethan replied as a bullet shot out of his magnum and slammed into the raider’s head, causing it to explode in a shower of gore.
The mare turned to look at her savior, and then jumped in surprise as she saw the unfamiliar creature who was still pointing a gun in her general direction. Then, the pistol suddenly shot into the air and fired eight times directly into Ethan’s chest. The armor that he wore absorbed the majority of the bullets, but one or two broke through and Ethan felt the familiar searing pain that always accompanied bullets. Instead of falling down and dying or at least having the good decency to flinch, Ethan rolled his eyes.
“Would you please stop shooting me miss? I just saved you from being raped, and eaten, and killed, hopefully not in that order, so the least you could do is not shoot me.” Ethan asked her politely. The mare stopped reloading and stared at him. “Well that’s a start I guess, so what’s your name?” Ethan asked.
“Holly…” The mare said in a confused voice.
“Well Miss Holly, like I said. My name’s Ethan Smith, aka the Lone Wanderer, but you can call me Ethan if you want. Of course, you could always call me that weird asshole and I can dig that too” Ethan told her with a chuckle as he put away his magnum. The mare let out an unexpected laugh, and Ethan gave her a large grin in return.
Most people would’ve been surprised to suddenly find themselves talking to a unicorn that could talk back. But Ethan had been kidnapped by aliens, tripped balls through a swamp while an asshole cut up his brain, and stormed his way through an entire army of simulated Chinese soldiers. Oh, and he’d talked to a tree, nothing really compares to all of that as far as weirdness goes. Not even talking unicorns.
Holly finished reloading the pistol and strapped it to the side of her heavily reinforced leather barding as she began to strip the corpse of the raider who’d been trying to rape/eat/kill her as she looked for ammo and anything of value. Her mane was a soft blue color, something between sky blue, and the color of the water in the bay around Project Purity. Her coat was green like the leaves of the trees where Harold grew, and Ethan found himself wondering how nature had possibly made her fur one color and her mane the other. Once she’d finished looting the corpse Holly turned back to Ethan and regarded him with green eyes that almost perfectly matched her coat.
“So Miss Holly, what are you doing out here by yourself in what’s obviously raider territory?” Ethan asked as he took a step closer to the mare.
“Scaving, I didn’t think that there were any raiders near this building. Oh and please, just call me Holly.” She told him with a sigh.
“Ah, so how’d you almost end up as a raider’s toy?” Ethan asked as he closed the gap between them and took a seat next to the mare.
“I was stupid and let my guard down.” She said with a scowl as she eyed the dead raider.
“Meh, it happens to the best of us.” Ethan replied with a shrug.
“Yeah, but I’ve never had it happen to me before.” She told him with another scowl, he had the oddest feeling that this one was aimed more at herself then at anyone else.
“Well you’re alive, so there’s that.” Ethan told her encouragingly. The mare let out a sigh.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” She said with a rueful shake of her head. “Look, I hate to ask, but would you mind helping me scav this building? I know that we just met, and that you’ll probably try and kill me the second that we get inside. But I’d like to avoid being ambushed again. Oh, and I’ll let you have your share of the loot when we’re done.” She asked him sounding slightly annoyed with herself for having to depend on him.
“Sure, I’ve got no idea where I am, or how I got here, but that stuff can wait till later. Not like I have a family to worry about.” Ethan replied with a shrug.
“You’re in the Equestrian Wasteland, welcome to hell.” Holly replied darkly.
“Meh, I’ve seen worse.” Ethan told her with a chuckle that made Holly turn to stare at him for a second before shrugging beginning to walk back towards the entrance.
“So, would you mind telling me what the fuck you are?” She asked as Ethan joined her back on the main street.
“I’m a human, a good looking man to be specific.” Ethan told her with a chuckle. “So what are you?” He asked.
“I’m a unicorn.” She told him flatly.
“Well shit, and here I thought that they only existed in old comic books.” Ethan said with a chuckle.
“You don’t seem very concerned about it.” Holly told him absently as they rounded the corner of the building.
“Trust me Holly, I’ve been in much weirder situations then this.” Ethan replied with a shrug.
“You must live an… interesting life.” Holly said.
“You’re damn right I do.” Ethan told her as they came to stand before the front door of the building.
Ethan looked at the three story, grey building in front of them; the letters MWT were broadly displayed across the front of it. His pipboy told him that the building was the Ministry of Wartime Technology hub 42. A familiar symbol made up of a pair of gears, bisected by a sword was located slightly underneath it the large acronym.
“I wonder why it has a Brotherhood symbol on it.” Ethan mused.
“I don’t know what the Brotherhood is, but that’s the symbol for the Ministry of Wartime Technology.” Holly told him as she walked towards the door. “It’s been abandoned for a few years now, and I think that there’s probably still some good tech inside.” Holly added.
“If it’s so big and easy to see out here in the middle of nowhere, then why do you think that there’s anything here?” Ethan asked curiously.
“Apparently there’s a defense system that randomly activated and killed everyone inside.” Holly said.
“Neat.” Ethan replied with a shrug.
“I tell you that we’re going into an ancient ministry building that has a security system armed to kill anything short of a Steel Ranger, and your reaction is that it’s neat?” Holly asked him in surprise.
“Well you don’t earn a tittle like ‘That Crazy Son of a Bitch’ by letting robots intimidate you.” Ethan said with a chuckle before his foot shot out and slammed the door of the ministry building open. “I’m here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I’m all out of bubblegum so come on out you robotic fuck buckets!” He shouted, only to be greeted by complete silence from within. “Well that was a letdown, I was hoping for a sentry bot.” Ethan said with a frown.
“Are you crazy?!” Holly shouted. Ethan turned to her with a smirk. She glared at him and he just kept up his smirk as he walked into the main lobby. Half a dozen long dead ponies’ skeletons littered the ground, and Ethan saw the signs of lasers and plasma impacts covering the wall. A large circular desk with a computer terminal sat in the center of the room.
“Damn, you ponies sure know how to design destroyed lobbies, but I’d can’t say as much where the security system is concerned.” Ethan told her with a chuckle.
“You could’ve gotten us killed!” Holly shouted at him from just outside the door.
“Well I’d have taken the most of the incoming fire. Besides, it takes more than a few lasers and plasma to kill me, a lot more.” Ethan told her with another chuckle.
“Well I’m a normal pony and I really don’t like having my skin and fur burned off by magical lasers!” Holly told him in a tone of voice that was a combination of annoyance and a hint of fear.
“Oh relax, there’s nothing here.” Ethan said as he walked up to the desk and began to boot up the computer.
“That’s a really bad idea; you might trigger the security system.” Holly cautioned as she walked into the building.
“And that’s a problem how?” Ethan asked.
“It killed everypony here.” She replied flatly.
“I still don’t see the problem.” He told her without looking up from the screen. It took him around thirty seconds to hack the terminal. “Of all the passwords that they could’ve chosen, I wonder why it had to be fjords.” Ethan said with a roll of his eyes.
“I don’t know, now would you mind moving out of the chair so that the one who actually knows what we’re looking for here can search for it?” Holly asked in an irritated voice.
“Sure, have at it.” Ethan replied as he vacated the chair. Holly rolled her eyes and took the offered seat. “So what are we looking for in here anyways?” Ethan asked as he began to pick over the corpses for valuables.
“According to rumors there’s some kind of advanced tech on the top floor in a vault, all we have to do is get to it.” Holly replied without looking up from her data combing.
“A hundred caps says that we’ll be fighting the entire way there.” Ethan told her as he picked up an assault rifle from one of the corpses and began to run his fingers over the mechanism. “That’s odd.” He said.
“What?” Holly asked, an edge to her voice.
“The area around this gun’s trigger has teeth marks on it.” Ethan replied as he began to take the rifle apart so he could see how it worked.
“It’s because it’s made for non-unicorns, earth ponies and pegasi have to use their mouths.” Holly told him. “Ah! Got it!” She said.
“You know where we’re going?” Ethan asked.
“Yes, apparently the door to the top floor hasn’t been opened yet, that’s where we’re going.” She told him.
“Cool, let me go first.” Ethan said.
“Be my guest, the less fur I have to regrow the better.” She replied as she drew her pistol. Ethan quickly reassembled the assault rifle and strapped it to his back, it was surprisingly similar to the ones that he was used to besides the obvious mouth trigger thing, and drew his sword which hissed and sparked.
“What is that thing?” Holly asked.
“A sword that I got for running through a simulation, it does great against pretty much anything and the electricity makes it especially useful against robots and power armor.” Ethan explained with a smile as he twirled the sword around with his right hand. Holly backed up slightly to make sure that she was as far away from the spinning blade as possible. “So which door do we take?” Ethan asked as he looked between the three doors at the back of the room.
“The middle one, it should take us to the stairs. From there we go up to the second floor and then to the third one. We’ll have to go through the majority of the third floor and eventually we’ll come to a thick door with a security terminal. I’ve got a device that should be able to hack next to any computer but it only works once, so we’ll have to save it for that one.” Holly told him.
“Sounds way too easy.” Ethan said with a smirk.
“You think that it’s not going to work?” Holly asked as he kicked the door open.
“Oh no, I think your device will work perfectly. But I’m guessing that the third floor is full of giant killer robots.” Ethan replied smoothly.
“Yeah, you’re probably right, knowing the Wasteland.” Holly said with a scowl.
“Oh cheer up. They’re only murderous robots, nothing that I can’t handle.” Ethan told her lightly as they walked up the crumbling stairs to the second floor and then continued up to the third floor.
He kicked the door to the third floor open, and was immediately noticed by not one, not two, but three sentry bots shaped like ponies. They’d entered a grey hallway that had several doorways leading into it. Off to the left a desk was lying on its side. Of the robots, two had large miniguns protruding from their backs along with a missile launcher, while a third had what looked like a modified gatling laser instead of a minigun. They all turned to face Ethan, who smirked at them.
“Whelp, I’d recommend standing back now.” Ethan advised Holly who hadn’t even entered the room yet. Then, with a wild shout he ran at the nearest robot with his sword at the ready.
“Hostile detected, opening fire.” The robots said in unison as they unleashed their armaments on Ethan.
The heavy bullets smashed into his body, tearing through his duster and the combat armor beneath but the man didn’t seem to notice even as the front of his chest began to bleed more with every step. He reached the first robot and stabbed his sword straight into its chest, somehow disregarding the thick armor and causing a blinding flash of light as the robot shook in place. Then, Ethan pulled the sword out of the broken robot and charged the next one.
Holly meanwhile stared in open mouthed amazement as the wounds from the bullets healed before her eyes as Ethan made contact with the third robot and slashed through its neck, decapitating the robot in a single swift motion. Instead of continuing to stand there like an idiot Holly opened fire on the last bot with her 12.7mm, and unloaded an entire clip. The robot fell to the ground with a clunk.
“See, what did I tell you? Full of killer robots.” Ethan said with a chuckle as he began to dig into the robots’ backs for their power supplies and ammo. His chest had already healed completely and Holly found her eyes inexplicably drawn to it. “Like what you see?” Ethan asked with a smirk as he pried something that looked to him like an electron charge pack out of one of the bot’s arms. Holly just snorted at his suggestion.
“Let’s hope that these were the only ones up here.” She said giving one of the ruined bots a kick.
“They aren’t, there are at least eight or nine more in between us and where we need to go.” Ethan told her with a shrug.
“How do you know that?” Holly asked as Ethan pulled a missile out of the arm of the bot that he was taking apart.
“Pipboy.” Ethan replied as he held up the supercomputer on his wrist.
“They’re called pipbucks here.” Holly said with a shake of her head.
“Anyways, it can tell me how many enemies are on a floor, and I see at least eight dots moving around.” Ethan explained. “Oh, and it looks like they’re all coming this way. I’d find some cover if I were you.” He added with a nod towards an overturned desk lying a few feet away.
“And here I was hoping that I could just slip into the vault without being noticed.” Holly muttered under her breath.
“Where would the fun be in that?” Ethan asked, seemingly confused by her reluctance. Holly sighed; she had the oddest feeling that the second that she got out of the building with the loot that she’d point Ethan in the direction of the nearest town, and then take off towards the town in the opposite direction. If she didn’t he might get her killed.
The sound of the robots moving closer filled Ethan’s ears as their wheels squeaked across the tiled floor of the building. When the first bot entered the hallway Ethan’s magnum shot three times, easily dispatching the robot. They seemed to be slightly weaker than the standard issue sentry bot that inhabited the ruins of the Capital Wasteland. Ethan idly wondered how he’d get back home, but decided not to dwell on it. He’d find a way back, and if he didn’t then he’d make a home for himself here.
Four bots entered the corridor at the same time and unleashed a withering wall of lead and lasers that chewed up the floor and the walls as Ethan returned fire with his magnum. Then, time stopped around him as he entered VATS. Ethan had always wondered about VATS, did it truly stop time, or did it just enhance your senses so that everything seemed to stop. Regardless, it didn’t really matter at the moment. He took a second to pick his targets, and noticed that Holly was about to fire at one of the bots so he switched one of his targets for another. Then, time unfroze and his magnum fired six shots, three bullets went into one bot’s head, blowing it off of the black metal body, and the other three slammed into a second bot’s torso, tearing through it with ease.
From her more covered position behind the desk Holly’s 12.7 roared as it sent a trio of its own shots into faceplate of another of the bots causing its head to explode in a shower of machinery. Ethan took advantage of the lack of over whelming fire and charged forward, shock sword in one hand. He closed with the last bot who was just about to bring its missile launcher to focus on Holly, and cut the launcher off. Sparks and hot oil shot out from the damaged bot’s now useless appendage as Ethan’s sword slashed out and sank into its robotic skull with a satisfying screech.
“Nice shooting Holly.” Ethan said over his shoulder as he wiped a streak of oil off of his face with his duster sleeve, he was going to need to wash it. Dammit, he’d just washed it a day ago.
“Thanks.” The mare replied as she reloaded. “How many more are there?” She added. Ethan noticed that there was a trickle of blood flowing from a bullet wound in her shoulder. With a deft jab he injected a stimpack into her neck. “What the hell was that?!” She shouted at him.
“Relax, it’s just a stimpack. It’s what I used to use to heal wounds before I got mutated enough that they healed naturally.” Ethan told her reassuringly.
“Oh… we use healing potions for that.” Holly said after a moment of slightly embarrassed silence. “Umm, next time you want to inject something into me ask my permission first? I thought you’d just given me a shot of Med-X and that’s the last thing I need with my history.” She asked a little awkwardly.
“Sure, sorry. Where I’m from it’s the natural thing to do.” Ethan said with an apologetic shrug.
“It’s okay, just, like I said, warn me next time.” Holly told him before changing topic. “So how many are left?” She asked. Ethan took a quick look around.
“Three, same dance as last time. Actually, you get behind that door frame. I’m willing to bet that after having all of their buddies torn apart they’ll open with missiles.” Ethan told her.
“And you’ll just stand out here as they explode around you?” Holly asked sarcastically.
“Fuck no; I’m going to shoot the things out of the air as the leave the launcher.” Ethan replied with a grin.
“You know I’m not sure if you’re insane, or just really lucky.” Holly told him with a shake of her head.
“A little of column A, a little of column B.” Ethan replied with a shrug. “Honestly though, I’ve just been through so many firefights that things like this don’t even faze me anymore.” He added.
The sound of tires on tile alerted them to the fact that the bots were on the way. Holly stepped back into the doorway and leaned to the side so that only her head was peering out. Ethan stood in the middle of the hallway with the clear intention of attracting the most incoming fire. The bots entered the room from the very end of the hallway and opened the engagement with a salvo of missiles. Ethan grinned as time froze.
The missiles had just left their launchers and were angled right at him. Excellent. Time unfroze and his magnum roared once hitting the middle missile right on the nose. The missile exploded, along with the other two blowing the three sentry bots off of their wheels. Ethan finished them off with three quick shots. Then he went over to the destroyed bots and began to retrieve their ammo.
“You aren’t normal.” Holly told him as she came up behind him.
“Yeah, you could say that.” Ethan replied lightly as his hands came out of the bot’s body with a missile that he slipped into a specially reinforced part of his duster that he used to hold explosives. “By the way, do you want any of this stuff?” Ethan asked the mare.
“I’m not into heavy weapons, so you can keep it.” She replied with a slight shrug.
“Oh, I figured you’d want to sell them for caps. I mean, I’ve got ten thousand caps on me, and I can easily make that much in a few days once I know where a town that I can sell stuff to is. But you look a little poorer than me, no offence, so I thought that you’d want them.” Ethan said as he got to his feet.
“Te-ten thousand caps!?” Holly all but shouted.
“Yep, back home I had close to four hundred thousand. I mean, it’s not like there’s that much to spend it on, and I’m not a better so they just kind of accumulated over time until I had more than I could count. Seriously, I’ve got an entire room devoted to the damn things and it’s close to overflowing.” Ethan ranted. Holly just sat there in open mouthed amazement.
“You-you have that many caps?” She asked softly.
“Nope, well yes, but nope.” Ethan replied with a shrug. “I’ve got that many caps in my house, which is nowhere near here. Actually, I think I might have done something really stupid last night, and ended up in another plane of existence, so distance could be relative, but the point remains I have no way to get to them.” Ethan explained. Holly sighed and shook her head.
“Just when it sounded like I could get out of the scaving business.” She said dejectedly.
“Meh, stick with me and you’ll be rolling in caps before you know it.” Ethan told her with an upbeat smile. “Now let’s get to that vault you were talking about.” They walked in silence for several minutes as Ethan fought down his inner kleptomaniac so that he wouldn’t go running into every room that they passed and begin to look for caps and other valuables.
Eventually, they came to a large metal door that was partially open and the ceiling had a large hole in it. A terminal was plugged into the wall next to it. Floating next to the terminal was another terminal, and it appeared to be made of clouds! Holly’s eyes widened and she let out a muffled curse.
“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked quietly.
“It’s the Fucking Enclave!” Holly cursed softly. "I haven't seen them before, but I've seen this cloud tech of theirs before." She added. Ethan’s eyes narrowed dangerously and all of his apparent lightheartedness disappeared instantly.
“I take it that they’re assholes here to?” He asked quietly.
“Yes, the bastards showed up a few months ago after being gone for two hundred years and they keep on appearing at random places.” Holly explained.
“Well then let’s go and have a talk with them, shall we?” Ethan replied as he walked up to the door and kicked it open with a loud clang before Holly could stop him.
The scene before him was familiar and different at the same time; honestly, it was a bit surreal. The interior of the vault was the typical grey metal that always made up Vault Tech facilities back in the Capital Wasteland. In the center of the room was a large glass tube, and suspended in the middle of that tube in silver light was a small golden orb. The surreal part came from the other occupants of room.
All five were pegasi; two of them were wearing black power armor that seemed a bit slimmer then the Enclave armor that Ethan was used too, strapped their backs were what appeared to be two sets of laser rifles. Two more of the pegasi were in what resembled Enclave scientists’ outfits, faces obscured by yellow masks. The final pegasus was a red maned stallion with a blue coat, wearing officer’s clothing. They had all turned to stare at Ethan and they just kept staring.
“Okay, there are two ways that we can do this.” Ethan began as he stalked forward, sword in hand. “You can leave without a fight, or I can send you home in pieces.” He continued as he brought his sword up to the ready position. “Think fast. I don’t like Enclave ordinarily, but under my personal circumstances at the moment I’m willing to let bygones be bygones and let you leave without painting the walls with your blood.” Ethan explained with an almost cordial smile. “Oh, and to the one on the ceiling who thinks that I can’t see him, I’d just like you to know that I could kill you with a single well placed stab.” Ethan added with a nod towards a sixth pegasus who’d been hiding on the ceiling, waiting to drop down on Ethan.
“Wh-what are you?” The officer asked in confusion.
“The name’s Ethan Smith, aka the Lone Wanderer, aka That Crazy Son of a Bitch, I’m a human.” Ethan replied with a smile. “Now are there any more questions?”
“What the hell makes you think that you can take all of us?” One of the soldiers asked.
“We’re in power armor.” He added menacingly.
“And?” Ethan asked with a smirk. He moved before they could react. His sword slashed out and the tip of the blade stabbed straight through the neckpiece of the power armor that the soldier who had just spoken. “My blade is currently oh… let’s say an inch, it might be more, it might be less, away from your throat.” Ethan explained as the pegasus in front of him gasped nervously. “Your armor didn’t seem to do you too much good, did it?” He asked with a wide smirk.
“We-we can’t just leave, we’ll be court marshaled!” The officer shouted.
“Meh, just tell your boss that there was a big scary monster here that gave you the chance to make a tactical withdrawal in order to get more support. Trust me, they’ll buy it. Superior officers love that kind of excuse.” Ethan replied with a chuckle.
“You aren’t getting this device!” One of the scientists shouted, drawing a magic laser pistol and taking aim at Ethan’s chest. Ethan rolled his eyes.
“That’s not going to hurt me very much, pigeon.” Ethan informed him simply.
The scientist let out an outraged shout and began to hammer the trigger of the pistol with his feathers. The crimson rays smacked into Ethan’s chest, but the man didn’t even flinch and once the scientist stopped to reload Ethan moved. He had the scientist in by the neck with one hand; the sword was in the other and pointed at the rest of the pegasi.
“I would really advise you all to run, well fly actually, but the point remains the same.” Ethan explained coldly. “If you do not, I will kill each and every one of you without any remorse whatsoever.” He let the scientist fall to the floor. “Now go, return to your superior, or face your death now.”
The officer took glance at the other members of his squad. Before nodding in the direction of the door and taking to the air and heading towards it. The others nodded to each other and followed their leader. Holly emerged from her hiding place in the hallway a minute later and stared at Ethan, who had sheathed his sword and had begun to tap the glass around the floating orb experimentally.
“How did you do that?” She asked.
“Do what?” Ethan asked as he walked over to a console that was attached to the tube.
“Talk them into leaving.” Holly asked.
“Oh it was easy; they were green as fucking grass.” Ethan told her simply. “If they weren’t then they would’ve shot me on sight and asked questions later.” He explained as his fingers danced over the console’s keyboard. “So do you have any idea what this golden sphere is?” Ethan asked.
“No, I only knew that the Vault hadn’t been opened yet. Honestly I was hoping for more than just some random sphere.” She said. Her voice was full of disappointment. Ethan reached into his inside duster pocket with his free hand while his other continued to dance across the keyboard and pulled out a sack. He opened the draw string pouch and quickly pulled out another sack from within. Then, he tossed them to the unicorn who caught them in her magic, Ethan only now noticed that it was the same blue as her mane.
“That’s five thousand caps.” Ethan told her, her eyes widened. “Consider it a thank you for being my guide, and for putting up with me. Oh, and if it turns out that this thing isn’t the kind of thing that can be sold easily then consider it a consolation.” He said with a shrug.
“But you can’t just give away this kind of money!” She protested.
“Yeah I can, trust me I’ll make it back in a few days without even trying.” Ethan replied without looking up from the terminal.
“This-this just doesn’t happen in the Wasteland, nopony is this generous!” Holly told him.
“Well it’s a good thing that I’m not a pony then, isn’t it.” Ethan said with a smirk on his face as he pressed the enter button on the keyboard.
The glass around the orb dropped at slow self-assured pace that would’ve made many impatient, but for Ethan he was just glad that his science skills seemed to be working despite the fact that he was in what he was pretty sure was another dimension. Once the glass had lowered completely the silver light disappeared and the golden orb began to fall. Ethan’s hand reached out and snagged it out of the air. Then, the sphere moved by itself acting as if it had a mind of its own. It moved faster than even Ethan’s lightning quick reflexes could react to. The orb landed on his pipboy, and then somehow sank into it before two sets of confused eyes. Ethan’s pipboy suddenly changed, the metal changed color from dull a grey to a brilliant gold. More importantly, a smiling face appeared on the screen.
“Hiya, I’m Eddie!” An extremely upbeat male voice said; it came from the speakers of Ethan’s pipboy. Holly fainted in surprise. “Aww, come on. I’m not that scary am I?” The voice asked sadly.
“Well this is new…” Ethan said scratching the back of his head with his off hand.
“Yeah, tell me about it. I haven’t had anything to actually interact with in over two hundred years, I got sooo bored!” Eddie said enthusiastically.
“Hey, um, Eddie? May I ask you something?” Ethan asked his pipboy.
“Sure, it would be my pleasure to help!” Eddie replied with such a high amount of enthusiasm that Ethan’s eyebrows raised in surprise.
“What day is it?” Ethan asked
“Why it’s Tuesday of course!” Eddie said.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Ethan said with a sigh. "It's always fucking Tuesday!"