//------------------------------//
// You Probably Did Not See This Coming 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: Taking Life By The Horns 
// by Pokonic 
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Frankly, I considered the pros and cons of goring the little blue betrayer right there. Discord knew I could use a break. She had not even apologized for putting me to sleep! Really! What do they teach in Steel Ranger bunkers! No wonder no one likes them, even the most harmless-looking ones are prepared to lie, steal, and cheat there way into a better position in life!

But I kept that to myself, and just grumbled and began to pull the cart in earnest. Blueberry was standing on a pile of scrap and just looked around us, as if we needed a guard. Hah! The road we were using did not even have vermin, let alone actual threat's to our lives! Sure, we both could tell we were getting close to a city, albeit I only knew that from the increasing amount of billboards and other such half-frozen relics of the past dotting the sides of the street, but this road was isolated and barren of anything of worth. 

The fact it was cold never really bothered me. Just living in the north tends to give you certain resilience, according to the occasional awed trader who passed by the commune, and frankly I always thought ponies were exaggerating when it came to bundling up for a trip “up north.” Apparently, down south, which is mostly everywhere else of note in the world, the cloud cover is thicker, yet the wastelands are hotter. I could hardly think about how crazy you had to be to live down there.

But that’s not what bothered me at moment. What did bother me, however, was the fact that Blueberry was not cold, or did not show it. For someone who claimed to be from Fillydelphia, she was rather fine with what some ponies called “tundra”, and while she has said she has come up here before, I know to take anything the little mare says with a fist-sized lump of salt.

“Stop!” yelled Blueberry.

I, feeling betrayed by my own two legs, do as I am commanded. What could possibly get the little mare upset? There’s nothing of any importance around here! It’s all grey ground and weedy concrete! The only thing in sight besides a few irregular rocks is a one story rusted-over building off to the side that looks....remarkably...protected?

Blueberry let out a little laugh.“I thought your name was Ever Watchful. Come on; let’s see what’s in this bad boy.”

How did I miss the only building in an hour’s travel with boarded windows! I am a guard, guarding anything or not! 

Blueberry just jumped roughly on the ground, and with a little huff levitated her personal small grey bag onto her back and started trotting to the old junk-heap. I had little choice but to follow her, considering I noticed a whip in one of the supply bags and it was probably not for recreational use. Also, duty and a wish to not remain lost in the wilderness, but mostly out of fear.

You know, this probably wasn't not healthy, fearing for my safety, but so far she has done nothing to suggest she would not put a laser in my back after all this was done.

Going by the sign that depicted a motorized carriage filled with happy ponies in it, it was probably a store or gas station of some sort. A store that was probably still well-stocked, if the boards on the windows were any indication. Discord knows how little this backwater of a road would be used.

After passing a nest of concrete pillars and broken plastic tubes, Blueberry just watched as I knock the door in with a kick. Actually, it was more like a light tap, considering it was far weaker than it looked and my leg went right through it. I questioned if it even safe to go in, going by how destabilized the building looked. 

Then I looked to my side, planning on confiding with Blueberry, and saw that she had already gone inside it. 

If she sprang a trap, I had no obligation to help her. Neverless, I followed her inside, and quickly regretted that course of action.

Floors are not supposed to be squishy, after all. The rotten wood creaked under my weight, and it was worryingly yielding under my hooves.

"That’s it, baby steps from here on out. Can't taking the chance that there is a basement under all this junk." I muttered to myself.

Despite my fears, Blueberry was illuminating the moldy interior of the horrid building with a surprisingly strong purple-blue light, letting the both of us see every little bit of the rotten place we found ourselves in. The roof was a yellowed mess, and there was signs of water damage everywhere. The floors near the freezers had some unholy yellow-grey slime coming out of it, and the floors themselves were surprisingly damp and sponge-like for presumably being tile at one time. I tried to avoid looking at anything else after seeing the produce section; or rather the putrid remains of it. No flies, surprisingly.

“Huh, surprised this place is this fresh.  This must have been sealed tight a few weeks ago, wonder if something broke it or it just died over time. Pity. ” she said, sounding curious about the room rather than disgusted.

Of course, her first thought was about the fact it was a preserved stink-pit.

“Well, is there anything you want, little pony? See anything you want to eat?” I said mockingly.

She seemed to gave the question some thought, to my slight disgust, holding a hoof to her chin. 

“Go check near the register, I am going to see if there’s anything in the back rooms.”

I looked behind me. I had not even noticed the counter off to the side of the place, considering everything coated in wet filth. It was a shoddy affair, frankly, and it was hardly worth walking over to it to check.

That train of thought stopped with the force of a charging buffalo when I heard something slam against metal in the back rooms, followed by something screaming.

When I charged into the surprisingly clean concrete room, I was simply surprised that it was as cold as it was. It was surprisingly nice, really, as most of the produce must have been frostbitten long ago and left only a mild stench of mold. 
However, my attention was held by the horror in the freezer that Blueberry was standing near that was leaned against the wall.

It was a pony at one point, probably. It was tall, no doubt, and looked like it was covered in sparse combat armor, if combat armor was melded with its wearer. Its bluish flesh, mostly free of hair, was riddled with wormy veins and large open pits, and what little hair it had was a greasy green color. The head was a sin against nature, all sores and rotten holes, and its eyes were off-white colored and bulging out of it's sockets, either from frost or cataracts. Its bony legs, while mostly covered with the seemingly natural metal parts, had some bone exposed at points. I winced as I noticed the abscess-filled hooves the poor pony had. At least it was dead; nothing should have to live like that.

Then it clicked.

It was a cyberpony. It was a dead cyberpony. No wonder it looked so odd, that armor was a part of it! At worst, Blueberry would just want to ‘salvage’ the thing. 

Then it gave a little rasping gasp for air, like the one that made me enter the room in the first place.

I think I felt my heart stop for a moment. Blueberry just, to my continually building horror, giggled at my expense.

“Oh, stop overreacting, she’s clearly not going to hurt you.”

“It’s a monster!” I said, somewhat irrationally.

Blueberry barely batted a eye at my outburst “Yes, yes it is. It’s also a monster that we are very lucky to find. Guard the door, unless you want to help me get what I want out of it.”

The blunt way she said those words oozed harshness. I was surprised, confused, and most of all, scared. Scared about the fact I was not sure which one of the mares in the room was the monster.

So, rather than standing my ground, I walked near the door and crossed my arms when I got in front of it in a posture that probably suggested that I was displeased with the situation.

Blueberry just grinned at me, and then at the slowly breathing abomination at her feet. With surprising grace, she levitated the bag on her back and began examining the poor creature. From this distance, I could clearly see it’s nearly empty chest cavity rise and fall ever so slightly, while its mouth just ever so slightly moved in sync. Its blank grey eyes started at nothing, and I secretly hoped it was brain-dead.

Then Blueberry smashed into its putrid flank with a forehoof, causing it to scream like stuck radhog. Well, so much for acting back at the commune, this little blue bitch was a natural sociopath!

“Talk, scrap!” she half-yelled at the ghoul-like creature at her feet.

I felt a sinking feeling take over me; Blueberry clearly saw the creature more ‘cyber’ than a ‘pony’. Everyone knew the stories about Rangers and technology.

The ‘scrap’ just kept gibbering and weakly flailing in futile agony, it’s flank now sporting a hoof-sized spot where it’s thin skin sloughed under Blueberries touch, exposing both steel and grey meat. The mare just grimaced and wiped her rot-covered hoof on the concrete in an effort to get it off.

“It’s a pity; you don’t have anything on you that could make this easier.” she groaned.

In response, the cyberpony just mewled in fright. Blueberry just sighed, and her horn began glowing. I was not sure what happened next, really, but involved a burst of purple light and the cyberpony suddenly issuing a bloodcurdling scream.

I gave an accusing finger at Blueberry. “You’re nothing better than a raider!”

She said nothing, but the cyberpony actually screamed out the first intelligible thing it has said during the whole processes.

“K-kill mmeee!”

Well, that’s unfortunate, as that seemed to be the last thing on Blueberry’s mind, going by her growing smile.

“Oh, good, I am glad I do not have to shock you further out of your daze.”

The cyberpony whimpered. 

“I-I cannot live. My body…won’t….”

Blueberry, however, just looked as gleeful as I was shocked at her words. “I will take care of you, don’t worry. Just after a few questions.”

The mare could barely move her neck to nod, but she managed it. Going by the way she was sprawled out, I could only think that if she could move, she would have by now. Actually, looking at her legs, she had almost no muscles….

It dawned to me that her fate, had we not come in here, would have been one of unimaginable horror. Cybernetics last a long time.

Blueberry was all business. “First, could you tell me about why you are here?”

The cybermare, for that was what she truly was behind the horror that was her body, quivered slightly.

“ I was in the area, traveling up to Tauronto, but I was searching for supplies and found this store. There was a magical seal that was on it, and everything was fresh. I was happy, until I accidently locked myself in here. I…I have been in here for a month now, probably. I feel horrible, and I….I can’t see. I put myself in lockdown mode…but then you…made me lucid again. All my bodies’ emergency systems have been used up, and….”

Blueberry rolled her eyes. “I can tell that. Do you work for Horse? All the cyberponies I know of in Caldonia work for him.”

I was confused. That was another word I had heard before but didn't know. Caldonia. I thought we were in Equestria?

The mare, in a seeming attempt to get on our (IE:Blueberry’s) good side, gave her best attempt at a nod and smile. It still looked pathetic and sad, considering she could barely move her neck from it’s flopped-over position on her shoulders.

Blueberry gave the pathetic creature a soft little smile, and then smashed into the prone mare’s head with a savage slam with her hoof! As the cyberpony began screaming once again, the insane blue mare that I was forced to be on the same side as began wiping the white ooze that used to be a eye off on the ground.

“Liar! You work for House! Horse died at the same time he was supposed to! I want consistency from a Hizai!” the little mare barked at the screaming pony twice her size.

The who and the what?

The putrid pony gave a little wail. “Monsters! I am captured by monsters!”

Blueberry spoke in a calming tone, one that made me feel all the more angrier at her. “There are no monster's here, miss…”

“Not telling.” the cyberpony responded quickly.

Blueberry was not surprised at the mare’s words like I was. They still held some defiance, despite the situation she was in.

I was then alerted to the grey bag next to Blueberry become alight with purple, and then shifted slightly. To my distinct lack of surprise, little miss sociopath brought out some metal objects of varying purposes, but I did spot a saw and a screwdriver out of them. Some of them had a lot of sharp spiky bits. Some had none at all.

“I suppose that, if you are not going to tell me anything, you are worth only the spare of your parts. Even if they are Cerberus trash, they look like they have been modified enough to be of some use.”

The situation slowly sank into the cybermare, and she began to cry. Or at least attempted to.

“Watchful, you can go out and guard the cart if you don’t want to see this.”

She did not have to speak twice, I was halfway outside before she opened her mouth, cursing my inability to act all the while.

I heard the cybermare screaming before I was out the door, accompanied by the sound of something distinctly industrial revving up.





Blueberry was wiping the sweat off her brow when she finally began to walk over to too me. I wanted to sleep, but it was still day outside and I still heard the screaming mare in my head. 

However, Blueberry, despite butchering a pony for the last hour or so, just looked tired as she began unloading her slightly bigger bag of things on the cart.

“Whew, that took longer than I thought it was going to be. But hey, Watchful, we got some cybernetics! The girl’s legs were really nice, custom too! Bio-magical weave, sound-dampening matrix, grade-b weight absorber systems, she had the best scout-class military cybernetics I have seen! I could-“

She noticed my less-then enthused glare, and grumbled. 

“Okay, fine. Start pulling. We lost some time, but by the time we arrive to Braymont it will be night, which will be good.”

I was very much prepared to brutalize her right then and there, but then she slapped a hoof over her head and laughed like she forgot to leave something on back at the store.

“Oh gosh, we forgot about the desk! Watchful, could you go check them before we leave?”

I was dumbfounded. This was the same mare who just butchered another pony for the sake of…hoarding electronics, actually, knowing her. And now she was giggling like a bull skipping through a field of pussy willows.

No idea what that actually means, but Copper said it occasionally. I had a hunch, but it was probably worse than it’s actually meaning. Hopefully.

Refusing to talk to her, I half-stomped into the crumbling structure, apparently to look at a dead terminal.





Naturally, I walked right into the back room. I took a moment to vomit after I did so.

The cybermare was a ruin. Blueberry, whatever she did, did not waste any time removing what she wanted.Her legs were gone, and most of the flesh that was clinging to them was lying in a filthy grey-red pile near her. The surprisingly small amount of blood in the room was pooled around the mare, and it looked sluggish and black on the grey concrete.  Most of her body, besides her legs, was untouched, sans a few new holes in her midsection which revealed some strange, shiny plastic-like material. 

However, to my horror, she was still breathing, ever so slightly. 

I actually took careful measures to conceal my presence, moving as softly as I could to her, but the mare, blind and quivering, somehow knew that I was there.

“Wh-why? Why are you here again?”

I did not know myself.

I tried to sound reasonable.“To help you.”

She stopped shaking at the sound of my voice, as if startled.

“You’re a minotaur!” she accused.

I groaned. How did she know?

“Yes, yes I am.”

Her voice hardened. “Make it quick, monster!”

Well, that just knocked her down my list of things to feel sorry for. Slightly.

Never less, I was shocked. “But…why?”

“Kill me, beast!” the mostly dead thing wailed at me.

I was indigent at that. 

“I am no killer!” 

“All minotaurs are killers!” the mare countered, defiantly.

I was mortified. “No they are not!”

“My mother and my little brother were killed by your kind!” she yelled, screamed really. 

I understood, now. The plain-dwellers. She must be from the west. “I…I am not part of that tribe. I am sorry for there actions. They are akin to most of my kind to...your people's raiders, or the griffon's and their Talons. ”

That got her attention. She was silent for several moments, only opening her mouth to take gasping breaths for air. Finally, after a few moments of jerky attempts to move her head, she slowly opened her mouth to speak.

“I-if you are truly...different….pick me up and look at my neck.”

Well, it seemed simple enough. Abrupt change in personality, but a nice one.

As gently as I could, I raised the mares head off the wall and began to look over it, and there was a raised patch of skin at the base of it, a healthy pink with green hairs covering it, not larger than the width of my thumb.

“Do you see it?” she said, almost smugly. 

“Yes.” I said.

“Pull it.”

Skeptical, I did, putting a finger on each side and squeezing it. What happened both fascinated and disgusted me. Slowly but surely, accompanied by organic sucking noise, I pulled out a small red-capped white tube that was seemingly inserted lengthwise into the mare’s spine, leaving a pink-ridged hole down her neck. I was confused and strangely impressed at the freakish lengths ponies would go to alter themselves.

“Gaaaahh, that was…that..." the pony flailed her limbs slightly, seemingly pained by the extraction of the object from her neck.

Slightly upset with myself, I said the only thing I could reasonably say at the time.

“I am sorry. For what happened to you.”

If she had eyelids, she would have blinked, but she just stared at me with one blind eye.

“Heh...your not a monster after all."

I blinked. 

She coughed slightly.

"Monsters do not apologize for there actions, unlike your…..” 

“I am not her friend.” I said flatly.

She had the audacity to smile.

I was beginning to tear up, and I think she knew that.

“Now...that's a message in a bottle. If you want…bring it to a pony who knows Mr. House personally. There not hard to miss. They are all cyber ponies, like me.”

I blinked, and pulled on one of the ends of the ‘bottle’ and was surprised to find a little piece of paper, that, to my displeasure, was written in some sort of pseudo pony-script. 

Which I could not read.


GЯЗЭИ

ШДTCHЗЯS ИФЯTH.

GHДST/ PHДЯФ/ SILЗИT SДMЗ?

ДЯISЗ. 

PЯЗPДЯЭ ЯЗДVЭЯS.

SФMЬЯЗД SLДVЗS ДШДКЗ.

FLЭЭ.

“Oh, it’s in some silly code, so no use trying to read it.” chuckled the blind paraplegic former-cyberpony.

I groaned. “Oh, your cheeky for a dead pony, aren’t you, miss…”

“My name is Emerald Seas. What’s…yours?” she said, hesitating a little more with every word.

“My name is Ever Watchful, miss Seas.”

She gave a valiant effort to blink in surprise. “You with the Watchers? Explains a bit.”

“No, but I know where some are.” I lied.

“Oh, well…that’s good. Always liked them.” she said slowly. 

Ah, good, something liked them! I was right!

We spent a few moments very carefully not speaking, and those few quiet moments were those I had no idea I was even dreading.

Emerald finally spoke, and there was a degree of finality in her voice. “Watchful, I need you to put your hands on my neck and squeeze.”

No.

Never.

“I refuse to kill you!”

Her voice bubbled up to a half-sob.

“I will last for days like this! Death is a mercy!”

“But…”

“If you are a good person, do it!” 

Oh, Discord, why me.

I did knew what I had to do…but…

Even if I could, I would never want to go back to the commune ever again. Not after today. Not after killing a pony.

With a heavy sigh, I sat down close to the mare, careful not to get any blood on me, and I took great care to lift the pony from her position on the ground and, ever so slowly, moved her until her back rested halfway onto my chest. I wasn't sure what I should be doing, really, but I tried and gently move her head under my outstretched right arm, not quite under elbow but close to it.

I wondered, for a moment, what led me to this mess. One day I was living in my home, and four days later I was cradling the rotten form of a pony begging for death. 

Finally, it seemed that Emerald Seas was getting impatient with me, going by her low groans, and I, perhaps out of shear pity, started to rub the pony's right ear with my right hand, I little thing I had once heard from Copper Pot, who claimed that, like cats, ponies had sensitive ears, but that, because of a lack of hands, they never really realized this. Going by the mare's reaction, the comparison to cat's was apt.

"Goodness, you've done this before, sonny?" the mare said, quiet and almost amused. "Pity I didn't know you before today, you could have done this to m-"

There was one loud pop, followed by several smaller but far wetter one's as I snapped her neck between my forarm and my chest, and after one last ragged attempt for a breath the mare was what she resembled.





It took me a while to stop sobbing, but even then Blueberry had not bothered to come and check on me. As such, I was not surprised when she was did not ask why I was in there so long.

“Broken terminal, huh?” she said, as if she could care less.

“Yeah.” I said flatly.

Neither of us spoke, with me half expecting her to speak up about what in Tartarus's name has happened back there. The other half was me accusing her of being a monster. I had so many questions, and most of them involved Blueberry. I was conflicted in only how to dispose of her body.

However, I surprised myself, even if it did come out of my own mouth.

“Why are you not a Ranger anymore, Blueberry?”

To my surprised, she just gave a little low chuckle. 

“Oh, goodness me, I thought you were…never mind, Sorry.”

I did not know if it was a apology. To either me or Emerald Seas. Perhaps it was not one at all. It hardly mattered now, in my mind.

“I left, well…heh…”

I slowed down the pace that I was walking at, I wanted to hear every bit of this.

“Sometimes, in the wasteland, a pony needs to wipe their slate clean.”