Jacks continued to stand in place, looking the pink, smiling pony eye to eye. The pony, in return, continued staring at him, a constant look of happiness plastered across her face. The two had been locked in the stare ever since they had shaken hands. Er… shaken hand and hoof. The silence since said handshake was only broken by the occasional roar of a deathclaw or the spatter of distant gunfire.
“So…” Jacks began, breaking the silence between them. “…what now?”
Pinkie’s eyes squinted as her happy look turned to that of confidence. No response.
Jacks closed his eyes and pressed his gloveless hand into his forehead. “Maybe there really isn’t any intelligent life out there after all…”
“HA! Gotchya!”
Pinkie’s sudden outburst almost made Jacks jump, causing him to look up from his facepalm and back to the pony.
“Say what?”
“You put up a tough fight, I’ll give you that.” Pinkie giggled. “But I never lose a staring contest!”
Jacks blinked again and looked around in confusion. “Um… Am I missing something?”
“What, didn’t you know we were having a staring contest?”
“Nooooo…”
Another moment of silence ensued as the two continued staring at the other once again. Jacks was still having a difficult time trying to wrap his mind around the whole situation. From what ED-E had told him, this was a pony: a pre-war animal that was long since extinct. Yet, this thing was at least a semi-intelligent alien. Where was it really from? Were there more ponies like her from wherever she came from? Were they civilized? Had this pony come here willingly to scout out the world so that the others could send an invasion fleet to conquer his already weakened world?
And what about the bag of goodies? Like the pony, they were allegedly pre-war in origin, yet they too were alien. And another thing: who had made them? Had the pony made them? If so, then how? It didn’t even have any hands to work with. All of these questions and more bounced around in his mind, all of which were left answerless.
Realizing that he had been zoning out, Jacks shook his head and looked at the rocket.
“Well, this is awkward…”
ED-E floated up to Jacks’ side and began beeping. “--Do you have any ideas as to what we do about this alien?--“
“Oh oh! Mr. floaty robot guy! I have an idea!” Pinkie raised a hoof and waved it back and forth. “I could come with you two!”
Jacks held up his hands defensively. “Whoa there. I don’t know anything about you, or even if I can trust you. Why should I just let a strange alien creature that I just met come with me across the hell-on-earth that is the Mojave Desert?” He paused. “…And did you understand what ED-E just said?”
Pinkie roller her eyes. “Of course I did, silly! Italics is like a second form of writing for me.”
“Oh? So that’s like, the language he speaks?” He looked over to the eyebot curiously before shrugging and looking back to Pinkie. “I’ve always wondered about that… Anyhow, you still have to give me some explanations.”
“Liiiiike what kinda’ explanations?”
“What you are, where you came from, why I should trust you, etcetera, etcetera. You know; basic stuff.”
It seemed like a reasonably simple request, but unfortunately for Jacks; Pinkie was not one to take words like “basic stuff” too lightly. She immediately began telling him all about Equestria, her friends, and all of the adventures she’d had with them.
Jacks, barely able to keep up with the never-ending stream of stories, tried to keep pinkie on topic whenever she began straying into how cupcakes were made or how fast paint dries when you’re staring at it. However, he was still able to enjoy himself as the pony rambled on about her home.
Shortly after she had begun into her tale, Jacks had sat down beside the goodie-bag and pulled out a few more pies to keep him company. And to be honest, he really did find himself fascinated by many of the things Pinkie was telling him about. I mean, flying horses that controlled the weather and broke the sound barrier? Magic? A government based upon love and friendship (despite the somewhat frequent contradictions)? It all sounded too good to be true for Jacks. Yet he still sat there eating pie and staring at the pink pony with wide eyes, picturing the fairytale world being described to him.
ED-E, too, was taking a certain amount of interest in the story. Although many of the things being told seemed to contradict the logistics of his data, he left open the possibility that the pony was, indeed, telling the truth. It was an alien, after all.
A few hours passed by, and Pinkie didn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon, so Jacks decided it would be best to save the rest of the story for another time. Always being one who hated to interrupt a good story, he waited until what he thought was a good place to interject before raising his hand timidly. Pinkie, seeing him raise his hand, stopped and pointed a hoof at him.
“Yes, you in the back, do you have a question?”
Jacks waited a second before he answered, catching that Pinkie had addressed him the same way the tour guide at the REPCONN headquarters had. “Yea, um, I hate to interrupt, but… You see, out here in the Mojave, it’s never wise to stay in one place for too long. And considering that we’ve been sitting under a rather sizeable pillar of smoke that I’m sure can be seen miles away for a good couple of hours now, I’m almost certain that there are other people already on their way to this location. So, if you don’t mind, we need to-”
“More people? Oh! They must be coming to throw me a ‘welcome to…’ wait, where did you say this is?”
“Um… the Mojav-”
“Right! They must be coming here to throw me a ‘welcome to the Mojave’ party! And I haven’t even gotten the streamers set up yet!” Pinkie balanced herself on her hind legs and slammed her hooves together. “You’re right Jacks. We need to get off our tooshies and get ready for this party!”
Jacks gazed at her blankly for a moment as her hair began to wave in the breeze, making her seem even more iconic. A second later, he set aside an empty pie pan that he had had in his lap and stood up.
“Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that’s not the case. I hate to be blunt, but by ‘other people,’ I mean that whoever is coming this way is very likely to kill any living thing they find here, then loot the area of anything they deem interesting.” He watched as Pinkie’s expression turned from determination to one of shocked sorrow. Her colors even seemed to fade as she fell back on all four of her hooves.
“Sorry, but that’s the way it is ‘round these parts,” he continued, shrugging. After hearing what he did about the pony’s home world, he was sure this news troubled her. However, he was thoroughly surprised when Pinkie’s cheery smile and bright pink color returned.
“Well, I may not like it; but I am a guest on your world, so I suppose I’ve gotta’ abide by how things work.”
Jacks couldn’t help but blink again. The surprises just never seemed to end with this alien.
“Well, um… If you say so…” He shook his head before turning to ED-E. “Scan the area, would ya’? I want to know how long it’ll be before anyone gets here.”
The eyebot nodded to him acceptingly, followed by raising the antenna attached to the very top of its head. It emitted several audible bleeps as its scan commenced, its antenna twitching occasionally. Roughly after a minute or two, It lowered its antenna and began beeping in its communicative fashion.
“--After a thorough scan of the surrounding area, I have located several humans traveling towards this location. The closest group’s estimated time to arrival is ten minutes. All other individuals or groups are not yet within a significant ETA of our location.--”
Jacks rubbed the scruff on his chin with his bare hand. “…Give me the details on that closest group.”
“--The nearest incoming group consists of four individuals that are traveling in single file line. They are heavily armed, and statistics show that they should be considered hostile.--”
“I should have known.”
Pinkie looked up to him as she walked over to his side. “Should have known what?”
“It’s a Legion patrol.”
“How can you tell?”
“Legion patrols travel single file to hide their numbers.”
“ooohhhhh, ok.” Pinkie looked down briefly before she looked back up at him. “Who’s the legion?”
“I wouldn’t want to go into detail about them with you, even if we had the time. But to put things simply, they are the worst kind of people that I know of. They burn entire towns to the ground, murder, rape, and/or even crucify people of all sexes and ages, and break the will and mind of everyone else in their way via a lifetime of slavery.” Jacks sneered. “And that’s putting it lightly.”
Pinkie stared at him as a look of shock and disgust contorted her face. She looked away and shook her head vigorously in an attempt to remove the images of the described atrocities from her mind.
Jacks’ sneer turned into a smirk as he looked down to Pinkie. “I suggest we leave a little surprise for them when they get here.” He saw anger in Pinkie’s eyes when she looked up to him again, though the relatively emotionless expression on her face tried to deny such negative feelings.
“What kind of surprise did you have in mind?”
Jacks pulled a rectangular block and some kind of trigger out from behind his cape.
“The kind that goes boom.”