//------------------------------//
// Chapter One: The Contract 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: Shades of Grey 
// by Gig 
//------------------------------//


“Wet business? What’s that?



- I kill people, dear.”      	                                       




Chapter One: The Contract



I remember seeing an old advertisement panel for some pre-war sensation park once when I was younger. The old, rusted metal plates had been so decayed by time and nuclear fallout that it had been rendered almost unrecognizable – but still you could read the commercial teaser: 
“Come to Pipsqueak’s Pirate Bay if you dare, and have the adventure of your life!”


Back then, I found it hilarious that pre-war ponies actually wanted to go on adventures. In Post-Apocalyptic Equestria, adventures actually went to you, and you usually didn’t come back in one piece.

Wherever you went on those forsaken lands, charred skeletons and dismal sights were kind enough to remind you of that simple fact: life was cheap.

Of course, some wide-eyed optimists out there thought otherwise. Every time you tuned a radio in, DJ-P0n3 talked of friendship, justice and hope. As if life did not have a price tag.

He was wrong, of course. My price sheet started at a few hundred caps. That was how much most Wastelanders’ life was worth. Ponies who wanted justice – who wanted revenge – and who couldn’t be bothered to do it themselves came to a specialist like me. 

That’s what I do for a living. I kill people.

I’ll have you know it’s an honorable job, by the way. Most of the ponies I shot were assholes in their own right anyway. You had to be if somepony was ready to spare a hefty sum for your head.

So, how could I go from bounty hunter to where I am? Let me tell you: an adventure happened. But not a brash, obvious adventure like raiders bursting through your door someday, nor the sudden rise of the need to become the Wastelands’ newest messiah. No, it was a vicious kind of adventure: the kind you didn’t realize you were on until you had half of Equestria hunting after your hide. 
It all started with a contract.



(** **)



The crack of a shot lashed out in the silence of the Wastelands like thunder, and two hundred feet downhill the mare dropped dead, half of her head missing. By the time her friends realized they were under attack, two more shots rang clear in the dusty afternoon, and they quickly followed her in death.

Once again, the silence fell in this desolated part of what used to be, once upon a time, the eastern part of Equestria.

Up the hill, I waited without a sound for movement. Then, as the corpses remained motionless on the now gore-covered road, I let a small smile creep on my face.

‘Black Toe’, wanted dead for four hundred caps.

Gazing up and down in the dusty distance, I waited for a few more minutes. While most ponies had enough common sense to run away from gunshots, sometimes – it happened – my little ambush would attract some unwanted attention. After all, three-0’-eight rounds were not known for their quietness – not to mention I had hoof-loaded pretty hot. So I stayed in my hiding spot, invisible. That was the big advantage of a dull grey coat and a darkish mane: against the desaturated Wastelands landscape, you could as well be invisible. Once you started moving, though…

But no, there was no movement, no sounds except for the soft howling of the wind between the rocks. For once, it seemed that everything had gone exactly as planned – and in the Wastelands, it was not a common occurrence. Shit usually had that uncanny tendency to hit the fan at every possible occasion.

Carefully, I got up from my prone shooting position and stretched. I had been waiting there for a little while by then. Of all the downsides my job had, lying unmoving on cold, hard places for hours on waiting for the target to show up was one there was no getting used to.

Giving one last glance at the scenery and at the mess I had made down the road, I grabbed my hunting rifle and carefully proceeded down the hill I had been perched upon.

Soon enough, I was looting the corpses.

I’ll admit it, that particular activity was quite… undignified. I had been raised in the belief the soul and the spirit carried on beyond death, to the pristine plains where the Goddesses reigned in harmony. Bodies, while not sacred, should have deserved at the very least some respect.

If only my parents could see me now, searching the warm corpses of the ponies I had killed for a hoofull of caps… But well, money’s money I suppose.

There wasn’t much in the way of plunder, though. No food, little water. The small party had been traveling light.

I frowned. It did not bode well. They probably had a base camp in the area guarded by some more of Black Toe’s friends.

I hurried up. I had chosen that particular place for the ambush because anypony on the road would have been a sitting duck for someone firing from the higher grounds. Sadly, I now stood downrange, and ‘death by irony’ was the last thing I would like to see written in my epitaph.

All things considered, it had been a pretty standard contract – no fancy requests, like slipping a live landmine in somepony’s pockets. No, I was hired by a ghoul in Friendship City – he presented himself as ‘Mr. Crowneigh’ – to take care of a couple ponies. Four hundred caps each, and I had to bring back specific, personal items from their body as a proof. 

At last, I found the token I had been looking for. It was a key – a worn out thing from before the War, without a doubt. But from the look of it, it wasn’t just any key. The blade was made out an intricate network of holes and divots, seemingly all of different alloys. The bow, on the other hoof, was a plain, if slightly sun-bleached green, and looked like somepony had scratched the writing off it, making them impossible to identify. In fact, the object looked more like an overly complex electronic device than a key, and I had no trouble imagining some paranoid Old World pervert using it to unlock some naughty socks drawer. 

I shrugged, and put the item in my leather barding. Keys without locks were about as common as locks without keys around here, and were just about as worthless. This one, as fancy as it may have looked, didn’t make exception.

 My boss probably asked for his targets’ keys because most Wastelanders didn’t have any particular personal tokens to be identified with. Of course, the Stable Dwellers had their PipBuck – though they all looked the same to me, people had ways to tell them apart – and some ponies had unique weapons or armor, but it wasn’t all that common. You couldn’t simply ask for the victim’s gun or underwear, because it would be all too easy to buy a similar one somewhere in the Wastelands, and pretend the job had been done.	

It is worth being noted, though, that any bounty hunters who ever tried pulling this stunt only did it once, before becoming the target of more professional, well, professionals. Payback’s a bitch in this hellhole.

Sometimes, a freak would tell me to bring back an eye, or a tongue, or a kidney. Or even the whole decapitated head. As satisfying as it may have sounded to them when they gave you the contract in the first place though, most ponies start feeling sick once you bring them back a severed head that had spent a week in a bag. And afterward, guess who always had to dump the trash?	

Yeah, well this is why I don’t take this kind of contracts anymore.

And then, at times, some patrons asked for the victim’s Cutie Mark. You couldn’t fake that for sure, not without some serious forgery skills. It was nonetheless unusual and more than a bit unsettling. It took a very special kind of sadism to want another pony’s Cutie Mark framed on your wall – to go that extra step beyond death, to spit on their grave one last time as you took away their very identity. 

So a half-decayed ghoul asking me to shoot a couple of ponies and bring back their keys as a proof of death did not strike me as an oddity.

But fuck… I should have known better. There’s no such thing as an easy meal in the Wastelands.



(** **)



The second target was more of a challenge, and I mentally kicked myself for not doing a background check before charging the standard price from my ghoul of a boss.

In retrospect, how could I have guessed somepony named ‘Cloud Vote’ would be at the head of a freaking fortified town in the middle of nowhere, Equestria? I expected him to be a drug addict or shady salespony. Fat chance.

To be perfectly fair, I should have seen that one coming. After all, my parents did name me Spring, and yet I became a bounty hunter. So much for guessing my special talent! What did they expect me to become, a gardener? Hell, the only things I ever planted were corpses.

Some distance west from Manehattan, that particular town had sprouted on ruins in the middle of a spooky forest. It looked fairly small, which would have explained why I had never even heard of it. Makeshift fortifications circled around the perimeter; rubble had been piled in between collapsed buildings, effectively removing all access points but one. Sentries here and there kept watch from the rooftops. It made sense. Raiders loved poorly defended towns. It provided them with a nigh-infinite source of ponies to kill, rob and rape. 

The front entrance had been cleverly closed by a horizontally hinged gate, akin to a metallic drawbridge, minus the trench. It reminded me a tad of Friendship City, and I would have bet my bottom cap that was where they took the inspiration from. Through my binoculars, I spotted four or five ponies playing cards in some kind of guard post near the gate. At least two of them had assault rifles. I cursed silently. It sure wouldn’t make my job any easier.

There weren’t a lot of ways to get inside such a place. One could walk in, and hope for the better; one could sneak in, if their skills were sharp enough; or one could attack the town head-on, assuming they had enough firepower.	

There was no way I could kill all the guards without getting noticed, and I clearly lacked an army to burn the whole town to the ground.

Only morons with a death wish would walk through the front door. For all I knew, they could have been some part of cannibalistic sect, and I would just end up being their dinner. Even if they were friendly, most ponies distrusted strangers. Should Cloud Vote realize a bounty hunter had entered town, he probably wouldn’t take long for him to connect the dots and have me suffer an unfortunate accident.

So, sneaking in it was. I sighed, massaging my temple with a hoof. Breaking in would be hard enough, but breaking out would prove to be the real challenge. Crowneigh had better spare some extra caps once I was through with this job.

Once inside, finding Cloud Vote should be a breeze. He had been elected mayor of the place, after all. Visiting the whole town beforehoof would be the prudent thing to do though: knowing where to go had saved my tail countless times in the past as I was being chased by ghouls, raiders or angry relatives of a late target. Failing to plan an escape route killed many a bounty hunter rookie – not that I complained. It meant more jobs for me.

I pointed my binoculars to the gate once again. While the guards did not strike me as very professional, I couldn’t hope to sneak by them without some kind of distraction. I doubted their card game would be distracting enough for them not to notice me…

A bottle of Applejack Daniels made an appearance on the table, soon to be followed with five shot glasses filled to the brink.

I smirked. How considerate of them.



(** **)



The night had fallen on the clearing. Down the road, the unsteady lights from Hollow Shades cast moving shadows on the uneven ground, turning the tree line into an army of monsters clawing at the dark skies.

Truly, in the darkness I belonged. Swift as a ghost, I moved from rocks to ditches, staying out of sight from the sentries on the walls. They probably couldn’t see me even if they knew I was there; still, it didn’t hurt to be prepared.

Soon enough, I reached the makeshift wall and took a careful glance inside. Then, I (very stealthily) facehoofed.
The scene was dimly lit by an arcane lantern posed on a barrel near the table. Some guards were still at their games, but the cards had long been discarded, and were lying in disarray in the dirt, along with four or five empty whiskey bottles. Only two guards – a tan mare and a dark green stallion – were still drinking what looked to be vodka, laughing and bantering with one another in drunk speak. Another stallion was standing in a corner, his eyes clenched shut. I wondered idly if he had been taking a dump or had somehow managed to pass out on his hooves. In either case, from the way he swayed left and right, he would not stay upright for very long. What a bunch of amateurs. What’s the point of having guards stand watch, if any group of raider could just walk right into the town?

Still, two guards were missing. Senses at the ready, I scanned the shadows of the plaza beyond the guard post. A couple windows were lit on the second story of a sheet bungalow. In the distance, music and laugher echoed from a small celebration of some sort. Perhaps the sentries went over there? Given the professionalism of their esteemed colleagues so far, I wouldn’t have been too surprised if they had deserted their post altogether.

I pondered my options. The lighting was probably poor enough for me to sneak by them. Shit, they were so drunk I could have probably walked right in to empty their pockets and they still wouldn’t have even noticed me. Doing so would have left me exposed in the plaza however – surely there were ponies in this town who hadn’t drowned themselves into a drunken stupor just yet.

With the same reasoning I dismissed killing them. Somepony was bound to notice the lack of sentries on watch and I needed some time to find Cloud Vote.

I spotted a door on the far right. It lead to a pre-War two-story building; most windows had been planked, yet I had a hunch I could use it to move into the town proper.

After taking a cautious glance to the three ponies – two now downing their shots, the third still constipated-asleep – I passed the gate, unnoticed in the darkness. I reached for the door, pushed the handle down…

And of course, it was locked. I barely contained a groan of exasperation and reached for a wrench and a bobby pin in my front pockets. I wasn’t half as good at lock picking as the pony who taught me the method (good ol’ Rusty Pin didn’t even need a pressure wrench, somehow), but this particular lock was a scrawny thing, and it gave way without much of a fight. I pushed the door open in silence, and on the tip of my hooves, I entered.

It was then I found out where the last two guards were.



(** **)



When you are doing the kind of jobs I do, you are bound to walk onto disturbing scenes or events eventually. Really, what some ponies did in the dark was often best left to wild guessing.

From meeting another fellow bounty hunter in a dumpster, to strangling a mare with her own frisky laces, without forgetting that one time where my target spent every waking hour whipping underage slaves just because he could, I thought I had seen it all. 

To be fair, I had seen worse.

Yet, the surreal scene of those two drunk, armored stallions having some mature fun with what could be best described as a mutated cucumber not five meters from me easily ranked among the few things that made me want to bleach my own eyes.

I assessed the situation. They hadn’t noticed my entrance but I couldn’t just walk past them. Going back was out of the question.

I gazed toward the lantern hung to the wall. If I could turn it off, it may give me the edge to…

“Why he-llow there!”

Yeah, well, so much for that plan.

Both stallions were now staring at me, an unreadable expression on their face. Not that they had a decent poker face or anything, mind you – they had simply reached such a level of intoxication I could not say if the dull glint in their glassy eyes was one of surprise, of lust, or if the dim light somehow reflected against the far end of their empty skulls.

“Hi,” I forced a smile on my lips, backing up slightly against the wall. Shit, if they were sober enough to realize I wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place…

“What’s a cute filly like ya doin’ in those parts?” he continued in a slur, stepping forward. “Wanna join the party?”

Oh, come on.

“Well, I dunno,” I bit my lips, my brain reaching left and right for a diplomatic way out. “Wouldn’t your friends out there hear us?”

“Nah, room’s soundproof enough,” he chuckled, pocking my chest with an outstretched hoof. I winced. He reeked of cheap booze and months-old perspiration. “Ya can be as noisy as you want.”

“Wonderful,” I answered, a genuine smile on my lips. Then, I violently pushed him back toward the center of the room. He stumbled, tripped on some discarded junk.

He barely had enough time to stare at the business end of my suppressed nine mil’. True enough, the subsonic round barely echoed in the cramped place.

“Wha-” his friend began, before collapsing against a table, his head now featuring a brand new, bullet-shaped hole. He slumped pitifully on the ground, his face forever stuck in a comically surprised expression.

“Luna fuck me with a jackhammer,” I muttered under my breath. Shooting two guards had never been in my plans; not on my way in at least. Sticking my left ear against the door, I waited for their friends to react. 

Seconds ticked by. I couldn’t even make out the drunken banter of the card players. With any luck, they had dismissed the muffled gunshots as something falling from a shelf – if they heard anything at all in the first place.

Still, as the two corpses on the floor were kind enough to remind me, I was now running on a clock. There had to be a key somewhere, yet for some reason the stench emanating from the dead bodies dissuaded me from looking for it. A quick tampering of the lock reset it to its closed state. It would have to do.

I carefully stepped over the mess on the floor. Reaching the other side of the room, I pushed the door open, and…

A stain of a viscous organic fluid was smeared on the top of my hoof. Turning it back toward the light, I realized it was not blood. Nor brain matter. 

Before I knew it I was scrapping the offending substance against a drawer, barely containing an outcry of rage and disgust in the process. There wasn’t much to remove, truth to be told – but the knowledge of where it came from revolted me. Ew. Just… ew. 

Okay, I had seen worse. I had been literally bathed in gore and other less-than-endearing substances quite a few times in the past. Many ponies in the Wastelands had, after all, and inadvertently getting in contact with some other pony’s bodily fluids was far from being the worse thing this world had to offer. Not to mention it wasn’t the first time, nor the last, that I got into close contact with these kinds of fluids. Yet, urgh… Those two guys had probably turned to humping one another because no mare in her right mind would even think of having some private time with them.

A cold chill formed between my ears, before running down all the way to the end of my tail. Had I not killed them in cold blood – had I not been a decent fighter, that encounter could have ended very poorly for me.

I shook my head to chasse the horrifying tableau from my mind. Instead of thinking about getting raped and whatnot, I focused my attention on the room I was in.

It was some kind of pre-war office. Metallic drawers lined the walls; two rusted decks occupied the floor. A broken terminal and countless worthless supplies littered the tiled ground. Everywhere, a thick layer of grim and dust coated every surface. The room had not been used, much less cleaned, in ages. Well, except for the two late broncos next door. My mind cringed as it pictured them going at it on the desk right in front of me. Urgh.

I decided against searching the room. It would have taken far too long for far too little profit. I had little use for staple boxes or two-centuries-old unpaid bills. In itself, the furniture was probably worth more than its contents, and nopony would have given a single cap for drawers that only stood upright because gravity had been too lazy to bring them down. The terminal was wasted; really, there was nothing of value in this room.

Beyond the desks was a single window. A quick nudge from my telekinesis dislodged the couple of rotten planks barring it, giving me a good look on the dark street beyond. Well, perhaps street was a gross overstatement to describe the muddy and unkempt dirt path that happened to separate two half-collapsed buildings in this forsaken town. There was nopony in sight. From the lack of living arrangements and of a roof, it seemed safe to assume the structure on the other side was uninhabited.

Silent as a ghost, I slipped through the opening and disappeared into the night.



(** **)



It’s funny how every time somepony founded a new community somewhere in the Wasteland, they did it driven by the holy belief they were doing something special. Something… original, unique even. As if they were part of some greater scheme, greater than the sum of its parts. To make a town like no other; the capital of a new, shinier Equestria. Yet, in the end, all those new murky holes in the ground followed the same basic pattern.

First was the security. Be it the local sheriff’s office, a guard room, or the local sadist’s shack, it was the place where the defense forces got their shit together. You could count of having at least a couple trigger-happy maniacs inside at all times. Be those raiders or pre-war justice aficionados, one could never expect them to ask question before gunning you down.

Then was the armory, often found right against the security. It could be an honest-to-goddesses secured armory, packed with guns, armor and explosives. Guys like Tenpony’s or the Rangers were fond of those. Sometimes, it was nothing more than a gun maniac’s personal arsenal – but don’t assume the latter to be any less deadly than the former. In any case, it often was any scavenger’s wet dream. Do I need to mention those stupid enough to act on that greed didn’t live long enough to enjoy it?

The Mayor-slash-Overmare-slash-Boss’ office was the place where the bigger ups had their meetings. It varied much from one town to another. You could reasonably expect it to be full of interesting loot: bottlecaps, unique (and therefore expensive) weapons, old world money… Sadly, getting to it could prove to be a real hassle.

The med bay could go from ‘that one bathroom with a half-empty first aid kit’, to ‘the pre-war hospital with cutting-edge technology’. Now that was a nice place to, ahem, scavenge in. You never had enough medical supplies in the Wastelands. 

Finally, the living quarters comprised pretty much everything else. Obviously, residents lived there. Shopkeepers often set up their business beside their home; you could also find all the little oddities that made towns stand out from one another. Tokens of bygone era littered places like Friendship City or Shattered Hoof; factories and slaves pens were the mark of Red Eyes’ Fillydelphia.

But there is one place I forgot to mention. No community would be complete without a dungeon of its own. It could be part of the sheriff’s office. It could be some gallows on the main street. It was the place where the trespassers, the thieves, the lollygaggers, the murderers, the unlucky, the rapists, the political opponents and other troublemakers were sent to meet their maker. Of course, the preferred way of dealing with such issues was usually to shoot the bastard and be done with it. In settlements however, it was sometimes preferable to keep the convicts reasonably alive for a time, whether to extort some intelligence from them, or just to make a quick cap selling them to the next passing slaver. In some places, like the Tenpony Tower, criminals were tried before being executed. Oddly, they considered killing ponies to be a crime, unless you put a lot of formality to it, in which case it became a good thing. Funny, eh?

Back to Hollow Shades. Both the security and the mayor’s office had been packed in an old police station. From the look of it, it was one of the few pre-war structures still standing on its own, so it didn’t strike me as a surprise. I couldn’t blame them for choosing a concrete building over an overgrown rusted shack. After all, winter nights could get quite freezing so far up north, and metal sheets offered very poor ballistic protection compared to solid concrete. You never know when you’re going to need some improvised cover to duck behind, after all.

All windows at ground level had been tightly closed by wooden planks and concrete bricks. A dim light seeped from the cracks. Upstairs, most window panes had been replaced instead of being filled in, yet inside it was pitch black. I couldn’t, however, find a way to climb up there. If a wing sprouting spell existed, it wasn’t one I knew. I would have to get through the ground level.

I suppose I could have gotten away with using the front entrance, especially if I found it unlocked. During the day the building would surely be crowded, or at least occupied by four or five armed ponies, but at this late hour most ponies would be sound asleep. Given the setup of the place, I expected Cloud Vote to be sleeping in his quarters upstairs, and somepony from security to be standing watch at the ground level.

Nonetheless, I had come to realize a few years before that most Old World buildings had more than one exit for some reason – something to do with fire safety, I had been told. While given the circumstances walking in from the front door would still give me the element the surprise, sneaking in through the back door would also mean I most likely wouldn’t be detected at all, giving me ample time to reassess the situation. When you’re working solo, there would be no cavalry coming to your help if things went south, so you’d better make sure not to find yourself in a position where you’d need it. 

Stealthily, I made my way around to the back door. Unsurprisingly, it was locked – which, given how common basic lockpicking knowledge was, didn’t amount to much protection. I grabbed a bobby pin from my mane and got to work.

However, as my pin broke in the barrel, the lock soon proved to be far too sturdy for such a primitive tool. Cursing under my breath, I retrieved the broken rod with a pinch of telekinesis. I threw it away and reached for my tumbler kit in my saddlebags.

Yes, I did have a tumbler kit. Ironically enough, I actually paid for it with my own hard-earned caps. However, my front pockets had very limited space for extra equipment, and once I had strapped on my breast a suppressed nine mil’, two extra magazines, a clip for my rifle, a flashlight and a pocket knife, there was little place left for a fifty-pieces quality locksmith set. In the end, I simply slid a pressure wrench into the pistol holster, and the forty-nine other pieces landed in my saddlebags. Why even bother with professional tools, when most locks could be easily defeated by a bobby pin from your mane?

Well, this kind of lock was the reason why I carried one around in the first place. Terrible lighting condition? Check. Seven pin lock? Check. All of them are security pins? Check. Almost no ledge whatsoever? Check. 

Celestia slap me and call me your bitch, I’ve seen safes with easier locks to pick.

I groaned, and finally resigned myself to spending a long time on opening this door.



(** **)



At long last, the last pin found its place in its chamber, and the lock’s barrel rotated slowly under my delicate guidance. It let out a soft click – and just like that, the door was unlocked.

A sharp gunshot tore into the night, prompting me to jump behind a nearby dumpster for cover. Panting, gun at the ready, I scanned my surrounding to locate the shooter. From the sound alone, my bets were on a shotgun, and since I did not hear any lead whistling nearby, I assumed they had either the worst aim in the Wastelands, or they were not shooting at me in the first place.

It soon became obvious I had not been spotted, as I noticed two of the sentries from earlier in the distance stumbling in the streets, away from the gates. One of them had dropped their weapon and was struggling to pick it back up. The other one – the tan mare, I reckon, though there was little light – then bucked him, yelled something about foals sleeping at this hour. The stallion muttered what sounded like an apology, finally managed to reach his shotgun, and then, just like that, they were gone.

I let out a deep breath I didn’t realize I had been holding. Getting shot at was part of the job, of course, but hell, you had to be mad to actually look forward to it.

Slowly, I got up from behind the rusty dumpster, pushed the door open and silently slipped inside.

I found myself in a dark corridor. The doors on my left and right were leading, respectively, to the toilets and a closet full of decayed cleaning supplies. From the third door down the corridor, however, light and sounds were seeping out. As I creeped closer, safety off, I realized the noises were coming from a radio.

“… and that was Let’s Go Sunning, by Sweetie Belle, brought to you by DJ Pon-3. Because sometimes, all you need is a ray of sunlight! Now, for the news… If you’ve been to Junction R-7 lately, you might have been surprised by a couple changes. That’s because everybody’s favorite rising star, the Stable Dweller, decided to go out of her way to…”

I mentally tuned out the stallion’s babble. Not only did I not care for some upstart filly playing heroes, but it really wasn’t the time for that kind of nonsense. The wooden door had really seen better days and large cracks in between its panels allowed me to get a good look inside.

In front of me, on the other side of a medium-sized room, cells with iron bars were embedded in a wall. All three were empty but one, which was occupied by a lone pony. I couldn’t clearly their features, but they were moving, so I guessed they were not dead.

On my left, another pony was seated, reading something at a desk. From the stereotypical Stetson hat on his head and the big iron on his hips, I assumed he was some kind of deputy.

“Hey, sheriff, you hear that? Even the wankers in bloody Tenpony say there’s still justice in Equestria! Mind proving them right by getting me arse out of this hole?”

His voice, wrapped in a thick accent I couldn’t quite identify, was rasp and rough – the unmistakable voice of a ghoul.

“You wouldn’t be welcome in Tenpony Tower either, meat face,” answered the sheriff without removing his eyes from his book. “In fact, they prob’ly wouldn’t even have the courtesy of putting you in jail. They’d gun ya down on the spot – not that I’m not tempted of doin’ the same.”

The ghoul spat. I could swear I saw it glow in the dim light.

“Aye, whereas you buggers locked me in this hole until the morrow, when then you’ll shoot the shite outta me. Bloody hell lad, I’m so relieved. You have my eternal bloody gratitude. I almost feel bad for rigging this whole joint with PE-4 before I got slammed.”

Now that got the sheriff’s attention, and mine, too. I sure didn’t want to end up scattered to every corner of the country as collateral of some feud I had no part in!

“I don’t believe ya.” Nonetheless, he closed his book and walked over to the cell. “Ya wouldn’t even dare risk blowing yourself up.”

“Mate, I’m a two-centuries-old zombie,” the ghoul chuckled. “I survived a bloody megaspell. Yer thinking I’d be afraid of two dozen pounds of PE-4?”

“How much C-4 you just said?!”

“C-4? Nay, mate, I use PE-4.” The prisoner’s laugh did not lose any of its creepy vibe. “If you found C-4, it probably was some other basterd who planted it.”

“But ya said ya placed charges! Did ya?!”

“Did I?”

The sheriff finally lost what little cool he had left and drew his gun right in the ghoul’s face.

“All right meatbag, stop fuckin’ with me,” he growled. “So just give me a reason – one fuckin’ reason – I shouldn’t shut that shit trap of yours the old fashioned way.”

“Well, lemme see…” The ghoul pondered aloud, clearly unfazed by the business’ end of the revolver in his face. “You can’t know for sure if I’m talking shite about the PE-4.”

“Whatever you sayin’, I ain’t buyin’ any of it anyway,” the sheriff snarled. “If ya dead, ya can’t trigger the charges, and if they’re timed, it’d be faster to look for them myself anyway. You just ain’t reliable.”

“The mayor may be a massive cunt, but he’ll be bloody pissed if I can’t show up to my execution tomorrow,” the ghoul continued with a shit-eating grin so big even I could see it from where I stood. “Yer playing with your bloody job here, lad.”

“I’m sure the mayor wouldn’t be too mad if you were to have some unfortunate accident during the night. It happens. Last chance, meatbag.”

“Ah, well then, there it is.” The ghoul stood up. “My bloody ace in the hole, innit? But you really ain’t gonna like it, wanker.”

“Let’s hear it, then, you rotten heap of shit!” The sheriff banged his gun against the bars. “What kind of bullshit are ya goin’ to serve me now, fuckhead?”

“See, smoothskin, yer assuming a bit much by thinking I am working alone.” The prisoner stepped forward. “And my business mate, my par’tner as you cowboys would say, he doesn’t care for your tone, and he’s standing right behind that door.”

Oh, Applejack fuck me with a barn, that was the door I was hiding behind. Maybe he’d seen me, maybe he hadn’t, but I couldn’t take the chance. I slammed the door open.

“What the…”

The sheriff’s sentence was cut short as I fired three rounds into him. He dropped like a ragdoll, his hat almost comically falling behind to land on his face.

Then I noticed the ghoul had jumped forward, arms outstretched throughout the bars.

“Well, bugger, I was trying to strangle him, but I suppose that works too,” he chuckled, sitting back down on his arse – ass, damn it. “Sorry, mate, I didn’t expect anybody to actually be spyin’ on late Six-Rounds and meself. I owe you a stiff drink!”

“Shut up,” I ordered as I creeped to the stairs at the other side of the room. There, I froze, my ears perked up as I listened.

“Don’t bother, stranger, there’s nobody upstairs.” Of course, the ghoul didn’t care the slightest that I’d requested silence. “Hey, what’s your name?”

Freeing prisoners often proved to be more a pain in the ass than anything else, and for a moment I considered shooting him myself… but then again he might have had some information.

“Why do you wanna know?” I asked begrudgingly as I moved back toward the cell to loot the sheriff’s corpse.

Aside from his worthless revolver, he only had a dozen caps and some .357 rounds I had no use for.

“Well, I can’t keep calling you ‘stranger’, right? Besides, I wanna know who to thanks for getting me rid of this bugger.” He seemed to notice I had begun looting the rest of the room. “Mind getting me out, by the way? It’s getting bloody oppressive in there, and I really don’t want to be here when shite hit the fan tomorrow.”

I looked up from the desk (empty, save for a heavy key ring and a box of rusted-out staples) and gauged him.

By all means, he was one ugly pegasus ghoul. With what little feathers remained on his wings, I doubted he could even fly anymore. His hairs were mostly gone, and his skin looked like somepony had tried to boil him to death. Thankfully, most of his disgusting body was hidden by a strange padded vest I assume used to be military, but it had been patched up so much I doubted there was anything left from the original outfit. 

Still, I knew better than judging ghouls on their appearances. I mean, really, some of them survived the fucking apocalypse for fuck sake, just by standing outside and not giving a shit. You just had to respect that kind of stuff.

Besides, it also meant they were damn hard to kill, and since they already died once they were often all out of fucks to give. When I wanted to bring one down, I had to make extra sure I had obliterated their head in the proper fashion, because not only the fuckers can’t bleed to death, but I’ve been told they could even regenerate body parts using radiations. Radiations!

Nonetheless, this particular ghoul seemed to be a nice enough fellow, and with him locked and disarmed I had the upper hoof, so…

“The name’s Spring,” I answered. “What’s yours?”

“People call me Sunburn. Y’know,” he pointed his face with a hoof, “because of the scars. Hey, I wouldn’t touch that if I were you. It’s my stuff.”

The stuff he had been referring to were the saddlebags dropped in a corner of the room. Two big-ass guns were strapped on either side, battlesaddle style. From the ridiculous caliber of the barrels, they had to be grenade launchers. Expensive grenade launchers… that I probably couldn’t carry if my life depended on it.

“Afraid that I might keep your toys?” I teased. Truth to be told, I would have if I could. I knew I could fetch a hefty sum from their sale in Friendship City, but only an idiot would burden themselves with that kind of gear when on a job that required the utmost discretion.

“Nay, lad.” He answered with a smirk. “But there’s enough ordinance in there to turn you and half the town into paste, and since that wanker over here –” he managed to kick the sheriff’s corpse through the bars “- tossed it like the bloody morron he is, I can’t be certain he didn’t accidently arm something nasty.”

“Wait, so you weren’t kidding about the PE-4?” I wasn’t nearly as gullible as the sheriff, but given the expensive babies I had right in front of me, there was little doubt that ghoul was some kind of pyrotechnic maniac.

As I said, ghouls: cancer-powered, and all outta fucks to give.

“It’s more the landmines I’m worried about,” he answered with a frown. “Most of them already spent two centuries underground, so they ain’t brand new anymore.”

I jumped away from the bags. I was no explosive expert, but even I knew the kind of mines one would find all over the Wastelands were sensitive as hell. Every once in a while, you’d come across the small crater left by some hapless ponies who had the bright idea of putting a hoof anywhere near one of those suckers. They didn’t even have the decency of giving you a swift death, oh no. They’d tear off a limb or two, leaving you to bleed out like an animal on the side of the road. Nasty fuckers.

I finally decided against looting Sunburn’s gear. A few hundred caps were not worth my hide.

“Hey, calm down, lad. Let me out, and I’ll take a look.”

Sure, let him out to run right into sentries outside. What a great idea.

“I’ve got business to do with Cloud Vote,” I said as I walked toward the stairs. “Then… we’ll see.”

“Don’t bother,” he called out. “Nopony’s home.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” I answered as I made my way upstairs.



(** **)



The first story had indubitably been used as an important office recently, most likely the mayor’s. Cloud Vote was not at his large mahogany desk however; for that matter, nopony was. As I got deeper into the small police station, even circling the outer walls from the inside as to not miss any hidden room, it appeared Sunburn had indeed been telling the truth. Nopony was there – in fact, from the lack of beds or any sleeping accommodations, I had to come to the conclusion that the mayor did not live in his office.

 “Well, fuck me,” I muttered. It was an unusual, unexpected, and wholly unwelcome spanner thrown into my works. 

Downstairs, Sunburn had gotten a cigarette out of Luna-knows-where and was patiently waiting for my return. He even spared me the expected ‘I told you so’ comment – I sure wouldn’t have if I were in his horseshoes. Instead, he motioned toward the keyring I had left on the desk.

“I know where he lives, ye know?” he said, before pointing toward the late sheriff. “And I really don’t mind giving you directions if that’s the kind of business you have with the bugger.”

“What makes you so sure I’m out to kill him?” I finally made my mind and picked the keys up. “I might just want to ask him a couple questions.”

“Right, and I am an honest traveling salespony.” Oh, the sarcasm was strong with this one. “Nah, lad, I’ve met many ponies in my days, and you don’t look like the kind of people who ask questions before shootin’, if ye see what I mean.”

“What gave me away, the suppressed gun or the dead body in the room?” I joked as I opened the cell. “There. Now if you don’t mind I’d like to be done with this contract before sunrise.”

“We’ve got plenty of time.” He headed toward the front door and opened it slightly. “There, see the old department store down the street?”

“I, uh…” I could have taken a look through the interstice, but it would have meant squeezing myself between the wall and the ghoul, and, well… “Mind making a little room?”

“Uh?” He looked over the shoulder, and realization dawned on what little features he had left. “Ah, sorry lad. I’m an ugly basterd, ain’t I? I swear, I’d scare meself to death with my own face if I hadn’t kicked the bucket already.”

“No, it’s not…” I stopped as I saw him lift what passed for an eyebrow amongst ghouls. “Alright, okay, it’s exactly that. No offence.”

“None taken lad.” He chuckled and took a couple steps back. “It’s the house right next to the old store. Ye can’t miss it.”

“All right.” I pursed my lips. “While we’re at it, anything else I ought to know about Cloud Vote? Living relatives or tendencies to bobby trap everything?”

“Nay, just his daughter,” he answered. “Given how quickly you got rid of Six-Shots here, it’ll be a walk in the park for ye.”

“Daughter?” I repeated. “And the rest of the family?”

“Dead.” He shot me a rotten smile. “That’s the reason he hates me guts.”

“Angry relatives eh?” I chuckled darkly. “That shit happens far too often.”

“In your line of job, maybe, but I didn’t see it coming.” Sunburn shook his head as he headed toward his discarded gear. “I dinnae ken I’d offed the basterd’s wife and parents – in two separate occasions mind ye – before I walked into town and the wankers slipped something in me drink.”

“They managed to drug a ghoul?” Shit, he was getting his bags. “Say, do you mind waiting until I’m far away before touch any of your stuff?”

 “Alright.” He stepped back and shrugged. “How much time do you think ye need?”

“Less than fifteen minutes, if your info is correct,” I answered. “I gotta find a trinket of his for my client afterward but it shouldn’t take long. Why do you ask?”

“I’m gonna blow up the building,” he answered, dead serious.

“What.” I blinked and stared at Sunburn. “Really?”

“Aye. Yer sneaky, but I’m not, and I’ll need a distraction to get of here.” A grin appeared on his scorched lips. “Besides, it’ll take some time for them to figure out what’s going on. By then, we’ll be long gone.”

“We?” I cocked an eyebrow. “Listen, there’s no ‘we’. I sure don’t need your help getting outta here, so we’ll just go our separate ways, okay?”

“That’d end in a big cock up lad,” he countered. “Who diya think everypony are gonna go to when shite hit the fan?”

“Fuck, they’ll go right to Cloud Vote’s,” I realized. “I really don’t want to run into a mob after I leaded their mayor. Shit. You sure you wanna…?”

“This joint’s gonna blow, I’m telling ya,” Sunburn chuckled. “Relax, lad. I really don’t want to pay back my debt by getting you caught. How about we meet up in the alley by the entrance? Then I’ll trigger the charges and we’ll get the bloody hell outta here.”

“That’s…” I really didn’t like depending on somepony else’s plans, especially one I had just met, but… I had seen the sentries getting relieved as I broke into the police station, and I did leave a couple of bodies near the entrance. Sneaking out would be made much easier with explosions causing mass confusion. “Fine, let’s roll with that.”



(** **)



Ironically enough, breaking in the right place turned out to be much simpler than breaking in the wrong place. For sure, there had been no backdoor this time, but the front’s lock was a joke. Finding Cloud Vote didn’t prove to be much of a challenge either: every room but one had been plunged in the dark. Why he was still up at this time of the night was for anypony to guess, but I sure wasn’t going to complain that he made my job easier.

I had entered the room without a sound, which proved to be an unnecessary precaution as he noticed the door opening. To his credit, he did try to reach for a weapon almost at once, but the barrel of my nine mil’ made it clear I would have none of that.

“Cloud Vote?” I questioned. It sounded far cheesier than I would have liked, yet it paid off to check whether you had the right pony. Once, I had to track my target for miles in the Wastelands just because I mistakenly shot a close cousin of their, so now I just ask for a name first. Even when they lied, it’s a dead giveaway.

“Crowneigh sent you, didn’t he?” Yup, I definitively had the right guy. “Do you even know-”

I shot him.

“Don’t know, don’t care.” On the other hoof, it never paid off to listen to ponies ramble. They’d say anything to try and save their hides.

Just for good measure, I put another bullet in the head. You could heal from a headshot, but two? Nah.

Without wasting any more time, I searched the body. I did find a couple of keys, but none of them matched Crowneigh’s description. 

“Right, that look like a safe key,” I mumbled, my eyes scanning the room. “And where there’s a key on a body, there’s often a safe…”

I spotted an old painting, hung against a wall. The paint had faded over the years, rendering its object undistinguishable from the background.

“That thing sure isn’t here for the decoration,” I continued aloud. “Surely he wouldn’t have…”

My telekinesis reached to the frame and tore it down. Sure enough, I found a safe waiting for me.

“Fuck, those people never learn,” I chuckled. 

The key matched the lock. Aside from some worthless documents, I found around a hundred caps, some Old World bits, a plasma defender (with no batteries), a syringe of Med-X and, of course, the key I had been looking for.

However, as I turned away to leave, a second door opened.

“Daddy, you okay? I thought I heard…” a young, feminine voice began.

Then, a few things happened almost in the same second.

The filly noticed me, as I was turning around to face her.	

Her gaze dropped from my head, to my gun, to the pool of blood I was standing in, then back to my eyes.

I began to mouth a threat.

She began to scream.

I shot her.



(** **)


Outside, I found Sunburn waiting for me in the alley, as he’d promised. The old ghoul was nonchalantly smoking a two-centuries-old cigarette, as if he had all the reasons in the world to be there.

As he saw me, he frowned:

“I heard some screaming. I suppose it was your doing?”

I pulled him deeper into the alley, toward the town entrance.

“Yeah, a little snag on the road,” I answered. “I had to shoot the daughter, but I didn’t expect her to scream the second she saw me.”

Then, noticing his wry smile, I continued:

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing lad, it’s just…” He winked at me. “You know yer supposed to bed the president’s daughter, not kill her, right?”

“Oh, shut up,” I groaned in annoyance at the reference to centuries-old movies. To be honest, I would have rather fucked the father. He hadn’t been too hard to look at – back when he had his whole head, that is. “Are the explosives ready?”

“Of course they are, lad,” he answered in mock indignation. “Would ye doubt me abilities in the matter?”

Eyebrow raised, I cast him a sideway glance.

“Aow, well, there goes my pride. Thank you bloody kindly, Spring.”

“You’re fucking welcome, Sunburn,” I answered before halting as the gate came into view. “All right. Hit it.”

“You really know how to talk to an old colt like me, don’t ye?” He murmured with a low chuckle. “Just lemme get the detonator.”

He then reached inside his saddlebags. I couldn’t help but notice he had no issues moving around in his gear, even with the large grenade launchers strapped to his side – as if he wasn’t carrying anything at all. It confirmed my suspicion that the ghoul had been in the business for a long, long time.

“There’s the bugger.” He finally produced a small remote from his bags. It was a ridiculous thing, featuring but one, giant, obnoxious red button. “Do you want to do the honors, m’lady?”

“I’m not sure…” Oh yes. “Surely I should…” Oh hell yes. “Maybe…”

A pause.

“Oh, fuck it, who am I kidding?” I finally gave in and grabbed the detonator. “Fire in the hole!”

“Wait”, Sunburn began, but already I had smashed the trigger. “I-”

The whole town exploded.



(** **)



“I did try to warn you it was going to be loud,” Sunburn pointed out.

At the very least, I think that’s what he had said, because I couldn’t hear a damn thing. I mumbled something vaguely insulting then downed my health potion. The ringing in my ears slowly began to recede.

“You know, when you said you were going to blow the building, I thought you were going to do just that,” I deadpanned in a grumble. “Not raze the whole fucking town.”

“I might have gone a wee bit overboard, but yer exaggerating,” he laughed as he grabbed a whiskey bottle from his bags. “I would’ve given you earplugs, but ye just had to smash the big red button, dinna ye?”

“Well… I was very tempting,” I admitted.

“That’s the spirit! Lemme tell you, lad, I’ve been dead for two hundred years, and stuff blowing up never lost any of its shine to my eyes.”

“To each their own, I suppose,” I said. “Where did you get that whiskey anyway?”

If a glance could kill, I’m pretty much sure the angry look he gave me then would have made the Armageddon pale in comparison. In his eyes burned the fury of a thousand suns, and his scared face twisted in a formidable rage. I heard the Bells of the Apocalypse ring for me, as an unshakable sentiment of doom overcame my senses. All of sudden, I was the unworthy target of the most tremendous of all divine wraths.

“This is no whiskey,” he bellowed, “This is SCOTCH!”



(** **)



A dozen profuse apologies later, Sunburn had dismissed the incident as being sheer ignorance, rather than malice. He then proceeded to – extensively – explain the difference between whiskey and scotch. He told me about the composition, he told me about the distillation process; but above all, I understood that one came from his motherland, and the other… didn’t. Honestly, I didn’t like either of them, but I knew better than telling him that. 

Eventually, he let the topic slide.

“So, where’re you headed, lad?”

“Manehattan, if I want to be paid,” I answered. “That’s where my client is.”

“The Rotten Apple, eh?” He looked to the east, some kind of distance in his eyes. “Haven’t been there for decades.”

“Why not?” I inquired. “Beats Fillydelphia these days, if you ask me.”

“Not for us ghouls,” he chuckled darkly. “Tenpony ain’t a nice place to go to when you’re dead. If you thought the guys over there were bigots, clearly ye haven’t seen what they do to bloody monsters like me.”

“I’m not going to Tenpony either,” I winced. “Let’s face it: to them, a bounty hunter is another word for ‘cleaned-up raider’. No, I’m heading to Friendship City.”

Sunburn looked surprised. 

“You mean the settlement inside the Statue?” As I nodded, he continued. “I’ve never been there. Do you think they’d have jobs an old ghoul like me?”

“Probably,” I shrugged. “What’s your exact line of work? Besides blowing stuff up, that is.”

“Lad, ye’d be surprised how far one can go with that on your résumé,” he chuckled. “But aye, I’m a versatile pony. I’ve been a soldier, I’ve been a bodyguard, I’ve worked in a bomb squad… ye’d be surprised to know how much undetonated ordinance there’s in Equestria. I’d bet my last few teeth that, somewhere, there’s a balefire megaspell just waiting for a swift kick to go off.”

“Shit, don’t say stuff like that,” I grimaced.

“And what about you, lad?” He inquired. “From the job you’re on, I’d say you’re a hitmare, right?”

“I’m a bounty hunter,” I growled. “There’s a difference.”

Sunburn shrugged, and took another long sip from his bottle. I shifted uncomfortably on my hooves.

“So…” I continued, “where are you headed, anyway?”

He smiled.

“Friendship City.”



(** **)


Main quest updated: The Job	
Objectives:	

[X] 	Get the keys (2/2)						(Primary)
[X]	Kill Cloud Vote				 		(Optional)
[X]	Kill Black Toe						(Optional)
[   ]	Get back to Mr. Crowneigh in Friendship City			(Primary)

Side quest added:	Let’s go sunning!	
Objectives:


[   ] 	Earn Sunburn’s loyalty					(Primary)
[   ] 	Learn more about Sunburn					(Optional)


Level up!

New perk:	
Friend of the Night: years of work in the dark made your vision sharper in low light condition.	
									“The night shall last forever!”