Chapter 3: What about me? Well what about you?
Hooves up those of you who threw up the on their first day in the wastes?
...
Okay, dumb question. But yeah it really wasn’t a good moment. My first fight against a dangerous enemy and I choked nearly getting myself killed. If I had been alone, I would be dead. Scarlet had saved my life several time over.
HOWEVER, if I had met anyone but Scarlet at the cave, I wouldn’t have gotten into this mess in the first place.
To really hate someone you have to know them, and once you do they are either your friend or your enemy.
Or you don’t care. Or you can’t tell the difference. But that can only last for a while.
Anyway I was doing some self reflection in the Overmare’s personal bathroom...
<---------------------------------------------------->
I looked like shit.
To be exact I only looked like I had taken a dive in a pile of shit a week ago. All the blood had dried out covering me in a brown crust. My face was streaked with tears, and my mouth tasted of bile. In short, I was not a happy pony.
So why couldn’t I stop staring at myself in the mirror?
I turned to the side taking in the blood stains, my and wings and finally my cutie mark. At least that was the same as before. Come to think of it, I didn’t look that bad; The contrast between the dark brown and pure white in my coat was actually quite stunning. And if you realised that the brown was actually blood...
Sweet Celestia, I looked BADASS!
I shook my head trying to shake the silliness out.
...
It worked when I was a foal. I knew being covered in something else’s blood was not healthy. Time to do something about it.
Huh, I wonder if it would be so bad if it was my blood instead.
I stepped into the shower cubicle and turned on the tap with my magic.
Nothing happened.
I frowned trying to remember if this was the right way to use a shower. Even in my slightly addled state, I couldn’t understand what was wrong. Turn tap equals water. What had I missed?
I turned away from the shower and went back the sink, I would just have to make do. I turned on the tap.
Five caps if you can guess what happened.
...
Wrong! It made a groaning sound, spat out some dust and THEN failed to deliver the water.
...
Okay bad joke, here’s the caps, go get another drink, get me one too. I wish I had a drink to help me handle what came next.
I was beginning to see a pattern here and a nasty suspicion was beginning to grow in my mind. I went over to the toilet cubicle and looked in the bowl hope hoping there would be no water so I wouldn’t have to clean myself up with it. It was empty. My relief did little to relieve the growing despair.
I left the bathroom and went back to the Overmare’s office where I had left Scarlet. I could see her rear sticking out from under the desk as she rummaged for salvage, on the desk was a terminal with the screen glowing.
“How did hacking the terminal go?” I asked.
“Piss easy! It was already logged in. You want a breath mint?” Scarlet emerged from behind the desk and presented a thin metal tin. I recognised the container even with the label nearly worn off.
“Mintals are not known for their sweetness. We’ll sell them, don’t eat any.” I walked behind the desk ignoring Scarlet’s mutter of “can’t take a fucking joke” and settled down in the chair in front of the terminal.
It was logged in under the Overmare’s name. One Shiny Steel. Funny sort of name for a mare. There were several options but only two caught my interest. One read ‘Stable Tech Instruction for the Overmare’ and the other was a flashing warning that said ‘Critical System failure!’.
I selected the flashing warning. It confirmed my suspicions. The message read:
Warning! Critical System Failure!
Water Talisman failure error 001.
Water supplies exhausted.
Please contact the Head of Maintenance to replace water talisman.
I groaned and slumped forward. It all made sense, the lack of salvage, the hidden door being shut, the taps not working and Scarlet saying she had heard about this place some time ago.
Somepony had been here already and taken the talisman.
Can you imagine... No I see by that look you don’t need to imagine how it feels to work so hard, to risk yourself and then find out you could never had succeeded in the first place. It hurt so bad I thought my heart had stopped.
I looked over to Scarlet rummaging inside a waste bin, stupid chicken! She nearly got us killed... got ME killed chasing after something that wasn’t here! Didn’t she ever think?
I turned my attention back to the terminal to try and distract myself from my rage. I went back to the main menu and selected the Stable-Tec orders file. To my surprise it was an audio file and went thusly:
“Is this thing on? Okay here we go again. My name is Scootaloo the Vice President of Stable-Tec, if you’re hearing this it means the Stable-Tec Omega level protocols have been activated because of a Megaspell attack by the Zebras. Your job as Overmare is to keep the ponies in the stable alive, but that’s not enough. If it come to this then it means we weren’t good enough. Equestria wasn’t good enough, ponies weren’t good enough, we need to find a better way. That why each stable will be running an... experiment, a new way of doing things. The experiment is for your stable is simple but gross. One of the eggheads came up with the idea that a higher protein diet may increase a pony’s intelligence. That’s why your stable has been given a number of pigs. They’re food, not pets. The sty and abattoir is completely automated and run by robots programmed to do all the messy stuff. All you need to do is cook and eat it. I know eating meat is not a regular thing for ponies, but I have been told this may actually work out well for you. Regardless, your priority is the pony’s safety not the experiment, if at any time you feel that their lives are in danger shut it all down and act as you see fit. Good luck, may the Goddesses be with you.”
I slumped back into the chair, stunned. The last best hope for ponies to survive the apocalypse and they were running experiments on them?! Still, at least it explained the carcasses and the robots behaviour. At some point they must have started attacking ponies and... and...
I really wanted to get out of here and clean myself up.
Concentrating on the terminal again to stop my brain thinking, I found what I should have looking for the first time ‘Emergency Override: Open Stable Door’. I selected it and got out of the chair.
“We’re leaving.” I said out loud. I looked around for Scarlet but she was gone again. STUPID! STUPID! CHICKEN! I should leave her to get butchered by the robots.
“What’s happening?” she said into my ear from behind. I turned so sharply I lost my balance and fell onto my rear.
“Don’t sneak up on me! We’re leaving!” I got back on my hooves and started trotting towards the door, Scarlet followed behind.
“What about the water talisman? Our payday? Our deal?” We accelerated to a gallop as we entered the corridor.
“There is no talisman you stupid chicken! When did you hear about this place? Two, three years ago? Somepony already took the talisman! Now run!” As we entered the Atrium my fears were confirmed, the robots we had destroyed earlier were gone, probably for repairs.
In silence we charged out into the entry hall, the door had just finished opening and I didn’t want to see if it would close again.
We kept going until we hit the stairs leading back to the diner. I glanced back to the stable door in time to see one of the robots standing just inside it.
It appeared to be waving at me.
I pumped my wings and hurtled up the stairs, Scarlet did the same and we exploded out of the passage into the Pony Joe’s garage. I made a beeline for the hidden door switch and flicked it over. The door in the floor closed, hopefully for the last time. Goddesses, what a nightmare!
“Well that was pointless and futile. What’s our next move going to be? Mug Discord for books? Resurrect Star Swirl the Bearded to teach us how to play poker?” A bad joke, but I was pissed at Scarlet.
To my surprise Scarlet didn’t reply, she just turned away and trotted out through the staff door we had originally come in through.
“I said what are we going to do next? We need money, we need supplies.” I followed her out the door into the corridor.
“You tell me, I’m just a stupid chicken right?” Her tone was so foalish! Then again but then my insult had been too.
“Look,” I said through gritted teeth, “I’m sorry I called you a stupid chicken, but you have to accept that this was all your fault. You took us into that death trap!”
“Hey! I didn’t know there wasn’t a talisman! And I told you stable are always death-traps!”
“IF you had just sat down and thought for a moment then you might have realized old intel is no good!” This was getting us nowhere, figuratively speaking. We had just heading out the diner door when it happened.
“What the hay are we supposed to do now? We have no healing supplies, no money what are we supposed to doooooo!” I was tackled to the ground by Scarlet. I struggled, afraid she was about to use those deadly claws on me!
But she had other plans, she wrapped her arms around me and hauled me back into the diner. I tried to break free of her grip but was distracted by the bullet speeding past my head into the floor behind us. It shattered the tiles and was followed by a loud retort.
“Sniper! On the dunes!” Scarlet screamed into my ear. She didn’t have to tell me twice. I leapt to my hooves and dived behind the row of tables along the window laying down as flat as I could.
A sniper in this situation was bad news. There was only one way out of here, and it had no cover unless we could get through the garage door out back.
But even then, we still had no cover around the diner; it was completely flat until you hit the dunes our sniper was using.
Scarlet could fly up and flank him? Tricky, she would have to be damn fast, and the sniper would have to be a bad shot for her to get up to speed.
But if we had a distraction...
“So, you figured how we’re going to shit on this punk?” Scarlet whispered in my ear. I turned my head to see her holding onto my neck still. I had carried her from the door and not even realized. She gave a crazy grin that I couldn’t help but return.
“Depends. How fast can you fl...” I was interrupted by shards of tile flying into my face. A bullet had hit right in front of me inches from shortening my muzzle.
Acting on instinct I rolled to my right along the length of the diner, Scarlet let go with an ‘omph’ as I rolled over her. I kept going, which was the right move as shots seemed to follow me! One after another, a line of bullet holes appeared heading right for my head with each one getting closer.
I panicked. How was this sniper doing this? They had to be firing blind through the wall, yet they were clearly aiming at me. At me and not Scarlet a small voice in the back of my mind said, just like the robots. Now, isn’t that a coincidence.
Scarlet was screaming something at me from the other side of the room. I couldn’t hear it properly.
All I caught was “Shield."
Shield? Did she mean a defensive spell? I knew some, but they would take too long to cast or be too weak...
Shield...
Something went ‘click’ inside my head.
I landed on my belly and threw up an orb of pink energy that surrounded me with my horn. Just in time one final bullet smacked into the shield half a meter from my face.
I stared at the spot, lying completely motionless on the floor watching the ripples in the shield disappear. How had I done this? This shield was brilliant! Energy efficient, though I could still feel a drain on my magic, and strong pity about the colour, but nothing was perfect.
Where had I learned this? Using it felt so natural, just like flapping my wings had been.
Unity...
Something stirred in my mind, but it was made of mist, just shapes. No substance.
I shook my head, trying to rouse myself from introspection. Somepony was shooting at me. The impossibilities of my existence can wait until later.
“So you finally remembered how to do that? Good. What’s the plan?” Scarlet was looking at me with, I don’t know what sort of expression. Hope?
We needed a plan now.
Perhaps we could...
Seven bullets, tightly grouped, punched through the wall, making a beeline for my face. I felt my horn ach as the shield blocked them.
Planning.
Distraction. Kill.
Plan done.
“I’m going to create a distraction! You get up high and attack from above. Fill him full of lead!” I shouted to her.
“Okay!” she shouted back.
I stood upright, the shield moved with me remaining in a perfect sphere around me. Time to show the waste what I could really do!
I never got around to telling Scarlet, we were interrupted by those robots, but my horn getting exploded had some interesting side effects.
I could sense magic.
...
Now I know that may not seem so great but it really was amazing. Magic is usually visible sparkles, glowing and so on, but you can’t see it if your line of sight is obscured and you can’t always tell what it’s doing without using certain spells. I could do both of these. Cast a spell on the other side of a wall and I would know exactly what spell, if I was concentrating. I could do this and more.
I concentrated now on the spell surrounded me, analyzing it from the inside out until I found the parts I was looking for.
It was pretty simple really. The shield pushed back with equal force when something hit, stopping it.
I changed the spell, making it give more force when it was impacted.
I screamed and charged.
Chairs, tables, the wall, it didn’t matter the shield tore them apart, shredding them like paper and hurling the scraps away.
Blood stained Alicorn charging through a wall screaming at the top of his lungs.
Best. Distraction. Ever.
More shots bounced of my shield, it taxed me further, but I didn’t care. I didn’t need Scarlet or a plan, I would find this punk and tear him apart myself!
Unless he had backup.
Or an even bigger gun.
Errr... maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, but it was too late to stop now. I charged up the dunes, pumping my wings. When I reached the top of the first dune I didn’t stop.
I took flight.
You know how I said I flew before over the stairs? That was a lie. This was flying.
I soared, high over the dunes, my wings still pumping and my momentum pushing me forward. Below me, the dunes stretched out below me. The whole world was still, just waiting for me to glide forever.
...
Okay kind of lame description I know but I really don’t know how to describe it. It was perfect moment. Just me, the wind, the sand and the endless blue skies.
As usual, my contemplation was ruined by the real world, or, as I called it, Scarlet and the problem we were dealing with.
I could see her on the dunes shouting up at me. To my disappointment, she wasn’t standing over the body of our attacker.
I dove down to land and did so with some grace trotting forward a few paces as my wings folded up. Then I turned and galloped back to Scarlet.
“Where is the bastard?” I asked when I drew close.
“I don’t know, one moment he was right here with his rifle, the next he vanished.” She glanced around us her gun clutched in both claws.
“Buck. Back to back now.” We drew up next to each other looking in the opposite directions. I recast my normal shield altering the size so it covered us both.
We waited. Come on make a move you punk.
A minute went past.
Then another.
Three minutes.
Sweat pooled in my eyes from the strain of holding the spell. What was he waiting for? For the spell to fail? Of course he was!
“We need to move. Do you see anyplace with cover?” I whispered to Scarlet.
“There’s a rock formation about a click north of here. I know it, there’s plenty of cover and exits.” Perfect, but too far to hold the shield. Time to take a risk.
“I’m going drop the shield and throw up some sand as cover, we make for the rocks. Fly low and don’t stop.” This was a crazy plan, we had almost no chance if our mysterious attacker had a clear line of sight on us, wherever he was.
“On my mark, three, two...” I reached out and gripped as much sand as I could around me a circle.
“One... GO!” I shouted, throwing the sand up as I dropped the shield.
I charged out of the sand cloud pumping my legs and wings as hard as I could but I couldn’t get up in the air. I saw Scarlet take off flying low over the dunes just ahead of me, but rapidly drawing away.
Then she looked back at me and started to slow down.
Celestia buck me to the moon and call me Luna, she was actually worried about me! Or the pay day I represented. Still, I appreciated the thought.
I could see the rock formation up ahead. There were several large boulders all covered in sand forming craggy canyons leading off into the distance.
I dived behind one, putting it between me and the expanse of dunes, firing up my horn readying to fire.
“It’s okay, I think he’s gone for now,” Scarlet called from somewhere above me.
I looked up to see her tail flicking back and forth above my head. She was perched on top of the rock keeping look out.
“Did you get a good look, at him?” I gasped. I was really puffed out both magically and physically. I hadn’t realized until how badly until we stopped.
“No, but he was definitely a unicorn stallion. Can’t say more than that.” Scarlet dropped down next to me, and started panting. She looked pretty rough as well.
“You... Okay?” I asked between breaths of air.
“Yeah, that was a pretty good plan,” Scarlet replied, her tongue hanging out.
We must have just sat there for half an hour, just trying to catch our breath. I broke the silence first.
“Look, I appreciate what you’ve done for me but this just isn’t working out. Every move you made was sloppy, unplanned and reckless.” Scarlet snorted and turned away from me. I gripped her head with magic and turned her back.
Scarlet shoved a claw in my face and roughly pushed me away. “Shut up! You think I don’t know that?! What the hell do you know army boy!” She stalked away from me.
We sat in silence for a while. I considered just getting up and leaving, but something held me back. She had endangered my life yes but she had also saved it. She was a dammed good soldier and she knew the wastes. I needed her but did she really need me?
Scarlet surprised me by speaking out first. “I was part of something great once, or so they kept telling us. I didn’t really care, all I wanted was my pay and it was so easy to just go with it, you know. There was always someone telling me what to do. All I had to think about was how to do it.” She turned to look at me, she looked on the verge of tears. “Then it all fell apart because the people giving orders weren’t as good as they thought they were. So I thought screw it! I’ll do my own thing, I’ll give the orders for a change.” She curled up her knees and cradled her face in her claws. “That worked out so well didn’t it?”
Celestia help me! Why couldn’t they cover how to deal with crying girls in basic? Still there was opportunity here, she was a soldier, a follower and I was... well I couldn’t say I was a leader. Promotion had never been a realistic expectation for me but my improvised plans here in the wastes had kept us alive. I turned to look at Scarlet again.
If I could just get her on my side...
I wouldn’t be alone. That was what I was really afraid of. Being alone meant a cold, pointless, miserable death. Time to turn on the charm.
“I wouldn’t say it was a complete failure. You got me moving when I was about to give up, you saved my life more times than you endangered it and you didn’t give up when things went bad. That counts.” I got off my rear and walked around to look her in the eye with my best speech giving face on.
“I don’t know much about being in charge, but I know that in a battle any order is better than no orders, that you shouldn’t split your forces without reason and you don’t throw away a good soldier. Which is why I want to hire you full time.”
Scarlet turned back to me confusion and hope fighting over her expression. ”Why? I nearly got you killed? I...”
“You know the wasteland, you kill robots with your bare claws, you can sneak like a shadow and you helped me. That’s all I need. You get a fair share of any loot. I get your contract. I give the orders, you give advice. Deal? We stick together and we kill anything that tries to kill us.” I held out my hoof to her.
She glanced at it then looked me in the eye returning my level stare. “You really are a naive sort of guy and kind of sissy for an Alicorn, but you kick ass when you’re not sitting on your own. Okay you want my contract, done. But first what exactly are we going to do?”
Good question. Part of me wanted to find out how I had become an Alicorn, while another wanted to find out where Twilight’s letter had gone. Neither seemed the sort to inspire a mercenary like Scarlet. There was one thing we could agree on.
I gave her my best and possibly first attempt at a ‘badass’ smile.
“We make more bits than we know what to do with and enjoy the fact we’re alive. Think about what a great team we make! Deadly griffin mercenary and Alicorn battlemage! Who could stop us? The Lightbringer?” My own enthusiasm was making me talk shit but I didn’t care. We were a great team, with me in charge that is.
It worked, or at least Scarlet didn’t protest, she just nodded and took a thin scroll out of her jacket. “Okay I’m with you, but this better be worth it! And don’t lose my contract; getting a new one is embarrassing. And we use caps, not bits.”
I took the scroll and opened it. It was more or less what I expected: the terms of her contract, what she would and wouldn’t do and that stuff. I rolled it back up and tucked it away into my saddle bags. “Okay, our first move is getting away from here and find some place to hole up for the night to recover. Then we need to find some new supplies and a paying job. Then we find the punk who shot at us choke him with his tail until he says sorry. Sound good?” I held out a forehoof again.
Scarlet pushed it down with a claw and grinned. “I’m starting to think you just like holding hooves with me. Come on captain. We should get to cover. It’s going to be dark soon.” She trotted away into the rocks, and I followed.
We walked in silence for while, Scarlet leading the way, me trying to think of an actual long term strategy.
Making money was important, but it was just a means to an end. I needed to complete my mission. Get to Maripony, find the letter, find out how I was changed, find Twilight Sparkle and complete my mission.
But... Maripony had been megaspelled into a smoking crater by the Lightbringer. The letter could be buried under a million tons of rubble. How could I ever get to it?
What the hell are you thinking? The nasty cynical part of me asked. Why are you trying to complete a mission for a ruler who died centuries ago? Celestia, Luna, Twilight Sparkle and all the ministry mares are dead along with everyone you knew. Why does anything from back then matter? Why try at all?
But the Royal Guard, the princesses, Equestria! It’s what I lived for! What else am I supposed to do?
Whatever you want to do, was the only answer I received. I couldn’t think of a reply. Did I really want to go chasing ghosts? What did I really want?
I looked up at the griffin trotting in front of me. I REALLY didn’t want Scarlet to leave me behind, nor did I want to abandon her. It wasn’t like we had much in common, aside from the desire to not die.
Oh what the buck, that’s enough for now. Just go with it, you fool.
“You said you use caps not bits. What exactly did you mean by that?” I inquired.
Scarlet looked back at me smiling broadly. She really enjoyed being the knowledgeable one. “Well my little pony, a long time ago...”
<---------------------------------------------------->
We found a shallow cave set into the canyon wall. Not very defensible, but Scarlet was adamant that no one would know the way up like she did. I might have said otherwise but I was feeling too tired to care. It was a place to sleep and eat another can of food. That was enough.
Scarlet’s explanation about caps had been informative. I was glad I hadn’t thrown away the bag of bottle caps I got from my captors. If we found a merchant we might be able to buy something useful.
Now that we had eaten, we settled down, just resting as the sun went down. Without Celestia. It was really starting to hit me that we lived in a world without powerful goddesses watching over us. But if they had been killed by the bombs like so many others, were they really divine?
I snorted, it didn’t matter. Maybe Celestia had lied to us, or maybe we over estimated her. What mattered was staying alive.
I tried to make conversation to distract myself. “You said you were part of something great once. What were you talking about?” I asked Scarlet on the other side of the cave. She had dismantled my SMG and was using it to replace parts on her weapon as well as transferring the cartridges into magazines suited for her weapon. She froze when I voiced my question.
“What, great? ME? No no, it was nothing like that, just the usual hoo-rah crap they fed us. It was just another gang I was in. Making caps, scavenging ruins, nothing special. What about you? What was it like in the Royal Guard? I’ve heard so much about them!” Scarlet replied hastily. Her change of subject was more than suspicious, why didn’t she want to talk about her past? It didn’t matter, from what she told me about Unity, I would have been a lot worse.
“If you think you heard anything about the Royal guard then you really heard about somepony else. When the war first started they were pretty much the only professional soldiers in Equestria. But as the war progressed they weren’t enough. They were too few and too... kind. They didn’t use guns, they tried not kill their enemies, all of their training was focused on non-lethal takedowns. A relic of a kinder age. So the Princesses established the regular army, then the Steel Rangers, then the Shadowbolts and the Lunar Guard too. Now they were scary ponies. And they were all better than us. They used guns. We used magic. They got sent to the front lines. We stayed in Canterlot. It was pathetic. We changed of course. We learned, we used new more deadly spells, trained with firearms but then Celestia stood down. We had always been her guards but now we like... a useless appendix just left to wither away into nothing. The Lunar Guard took prominence and got sent to the front lines. We stayed at home, safe and useless.”
I sighed, I had wanted to get that off my chest for years. “By the time I joined the guard it was just an escape for foals of nobles to join the military but not be in any danger. A bucking joke. I was so bored but then...” My rant was interrupted by a snore. Scarlet had fallen asleep.
<---------------------------------------------------->
I dozed throughout the night, not truly sleeping. My fatigue eventually faded away as did the ache in my horn from casting the shield spell.
Come dawn. I roused Scarlet from her sleep with some difficulty and light scratches on my neck. Scarlet gulped down another can of food. I considered doing the same, but I just didn’t feel hungry. Then we settled down to make some plans.
“There’s an old Ironshod firearms factory north of here run by this guy Rusty Nail. He makes ammo and other stuff for anyone who can pay for it.” Scarlet told me between mouths of food. “He sometime hires mercs to do extra dangerous salvage runs. We should be able to get a job paid in supplies.”
We packed up what little we had and set out. It was strangely peaceful. There was no bird song or insect sounds, just the wind blowing particles of sand along. The sun blazed away above but it wasn’t too hot. I was beginning to enjoy the walk when Scarlet said something.
“Sorry I didn’t catch that, what did you say?”
“I said. BIG FUCKING SCORPION 9 O’CLOCK!”
I turned to my left in time to see a massive scorpion, it’s body as long as mine with a stinger level with my head, advancing on me. I threw up my shield just in time for as the stinger shot forward to strike at my neck. The shield stopped it with minimal effort.
I focused my magic into a blast and aimed it at the insect’s tail, the shot tore part of it away, leaving it hanging by a few threads of flesh and carapace. It let out a distressed chattering noise and started to back away. I dropped my shield and fired a triple burst at the creature’s eyes killing it instantly.
“OH YEAH! Score one for me! How do you rate that Scarlet? Scarlet?” She had vanished again.
“SCARLET!” I shouted, she couldn’t leave me alone! How could she do this? I had her contract why would she...
“Be quite and get over here you fool!” I turned to find Scarlet to the left of the path lying flat on a rocky outcrop peering down into a small valley.
False alarm. Of course she didn’t leave. Have some faith.
“Stay low. We don’t want them to know we’re here.” Scarlet said as I approached. I got down onto my knees and shuffled forward until I could see into the valley.
As I did I realized I could hear and smell what was going on in the valley.
I smelled dead flesh rotting in the sun.
I heard pitiful agonized screams.
I saw raiders.
Notes:
Level up! Level 3
Spell upgraded: Juggernaut shield – You can alter you shield spell turning it into a magical battering ram. This costs twice as much magic as normal and attempting to knock down something too heavy can cause you to burn out.
You are covered in dried blood and have some sneaking suspicions what kind. Double eeewwww.