Fallout Equestria: The Dreamer
Chapter 3: Tales of Possessed Ponies and Murderous Plants
Redemption.
I awake to find myself lying in a dark room. I can feel vines beneath my body. So I’m still in the building. It’s too dark to see the walls of the room; in fact I could not be sure I was even in a room.
“Hello?” I call out. There is a faint echo, so I’m definitely in a room and a rather large one at that. I wait for a reply, but none comes.
Shakily, I force myself to stand up, but I collapse after only a few seconds. Why is that? I can vaguely remember getting hit in the head… by Jet. My best friend. That really hurt, and I don’t just mean my head being crushed. Being betrayed by your best friend really depresses a pony.
I try again to stand and this time I am able to remain standing. I pace a bit before again collapsing backward from the effort.
I try to remember what happened before Jet knocked me out. I was angry at a computer for some reason. Then, I picked something up and put it in my bag. What was it? Argh! Why was this so difficult?
“Fine. I’ll just check my bag for it,” I think aloud. I suddenly realize how light my back feels. My bag is missing along with the, er… thing.
Just then, the whole room lights up red, making the room look demonic. Finally able to get a glimpse of the room, I see there are various tools sitting on a table and a chair with constraints on the hoofrests and hind leg rest. There is a pony skeleton hung limply in the bindings. Blood is covering the seat. I don’t even want to know what went on here. There is a heavy metal door across from the chair.
I try the door. It’s locked. It would never be that simple. I search around the room for another method of egress. There are no other doors or windows. Actually, there might be, but vines cover all the walls.
I lie down. It’s hopeless. I am stuck at the mercy of the pony that put me here. I stare at the tile-covered ceiling (It has holes in it) and casually wonder why it doesn’t have vines covering it. I blink and suddenly there are vines there.
I sit up startled, but before I can think about it more, I hear faint hoof steps from the other side of the door. Whoever put me in here has come back to do whatever Luna-forsaken thing he’s done to the other ponies he put in this room.
I rush over to the table of tools to see if I can use anything to protect myself from the unknown demon on the other side of that door. I reach to grab a particularly dangerous looking tool with three blades that spin and a drill in the center, but it flies away as if it were afraid of my touch.
Suddenly, I am hoisted up into the air by something grabbing my left hind leg. I reach out for something to grab on to, but with hooves, it is rather difficult. I am now completely off the ground, suspended by what appears to be one of the vines covering the ceiling. My suspicions are confirmed when many more vines latch on to my body. They wrap around my body and before long I am wrapped in a cocoon of vines.
The pony on the other side of the door just made it to the door. He opens the door slowly before walking into the room. He is dressed entirely in scrubs. I can’t see any part of his body except for his eyes. Those eyes, so full of malicious intent, stare back at me, hanging upside-down from the ceiling.
He reaches over to the table with the weird tools on it and picks up a tool. It is the same tool I had tried to pick up earlier only it didn’t jump out of his hoof. He brings the horribly spinning blades to my face. He uses a gentle touch as he first pierces the skin. The pain is unlike any other pain I have ever experienced. It’s like my face is caught in a thousand fires. I scream at the top of my lungs.
“Nopony can hear you down here,” the surgeon says, his eyes narrowing and his pupils turning to slits.
“That’s what you think.” I look at the doorway. My friends are standing there, white light shining behind them. “Put him down,” Jet says forcibly.
“I don’t think so. I have grown fond of my patient.” The surgeon turns into a snake and attacks Jet. Wait, what?
With a triple shot my friends strike the surgeon-snake dead. The vines collapse and I fall to the ground. I stand back up to find myself in a field surrounded by my friends. Jet is grinning smugly, Enigma rushes over to give me a hug, and Poultice stands stoically. I can’t help having a feeling of pride at my friends. Enigma nuzzles me before planting a kiss on my cheek.
Oh! I get it now. This is a dream.
I wake up.
|><|-------|><|
I awake with a start and a frustrated demeanor. Just as my dream was getting good, it ends.
I glance around. I am lying in a dimly lit room with vines covering the floor. The room seems to stretch on forever in front of me, but the ceiling is pretty low. Large machinery lines the walls to my left and right.
I stand up, feeling a pain in the base of my neck and running down my mane. I collapse falling on my face. I have an odd feeling of déjà vu, like I have already done this before.
I decide that I don’t need to stand anymore. Even in my dream, I had fallen down twice and I don’t want to risk another fall on my face. By the end of this, I may not even have a snout.
I hear faint hoofsteps approaching me. I can see the outline of a pony in the distance. Oh Celestia! It’s Surgeon Snake!
I sprint away, only to fall on me snout… again. This time blood starts flowing out of my nose. Still, I scramble away from the figure coming towards me. I start to hyperventilate as the figure speeds up.
“Calm the buck down. It’s jus’ me,” a familiar voice insists.
“Poultice? When did you become a surgeon?”
“What are you talkin’ about?” She gets close enough to see and I realize that she’s not wearing scrubs nor does she exhibit any evidence of being a snake.
“Oh.” I blush. “Where are we?”
“The factory”
“How’d I get here? Wasn’t I…” I think for a bit. My concussion was not only a part of my dream. “Wasn’t I getting killed by Jet upstairs?”
“Ya mean you don’t remember?” I shake my head and immediately regret it, feeling a little dizzy. “Well, you ran off, excited outta your mind. I told you’re the black one to follow you so you wouldn’t die.” She pauses to admire the irony of the situation. “Then I went to explore the factory with Enigma. There are a buncha spark batteries, but other than that not much
else.” She kicks a battery that’s lying on the floor. “That’s when we heard the crash. Enigma was worried so we chased you upstairs.”
“Where is Enigma?”
“I’m gettin’ there. Calm down,” she says obviously irked by my interruption. “Well, we make it up to the second floor with no problems. Then in the middle o’ the second floor, Enigma went totally ape-shit on me. She turned around and pointed her gun at ma head. She hesitated just enough for me to grab the gun and knock ‘er out with it.
“Then I rushed up the final flight o’ stairs to find you layin’ there on the ground with the stupid one standin’ over you He reared back to kill you so I shot him in the leg. Then I sprinted at him and knocked ‘im out too. Then you got up and I told you alla this.
“Ya came up with a plan, but you only told me to get you to the basement. On the way you looked really shaky like you were gonna fall so we tried to move as fast as possible. But when the vines started attackin’ us, it slowed us down. “
“Wait, vines attacking us?”
“Yeah, the tips of the vines were crawling along the ground to attack us. If it wasn’t for ma armor it would have got me before I realized. I was able to protect you from the vines by pushin’ you outta the way. When we finally got to the basement you passed out and I have been waitin’ for you to wake up for hours.”
I tried to comprehend all of this. Two of my friends turned on us in a crazy rage. Plants started attacking. And the most insane thing, Poultice was being nice. All this crazy stuff was making my head hurt and the concussion wasn’t helping.
But the good news is I had a plan…that I can’t remember. Ugh! This building won’t give me a break.
What would past me do?
I had already succeeded in the reason I had come here for so the objective must have changed. I could have easily chosen to leave this building, so I must have wanted to save the murderous psychopaths I call my friends. But why did I want to come to the basement? I don’t know. Maybe, I needed a million spark batteries.
What else is in the basement? The generator room and the research room. I haven’t been to the research room yet so let’s try there first.
“Okay, here’s the plan…”
|><|-------|><|
The hallway was very aggressive, but we managed to make it into the research room without a scratch.
The research room is a small room with two desks in it, each of which has a working terminal on it. The room doesn’t look big enough for two ponies to work in. It was only the size of one and a half of those cubicles upstairs. A single UV light is on in the corner of the room shining on a dead vine, illuminating the room in a eerie purple.
What was my plan now? Well I might as well read the terminals.
The first terminal is the one next to the dead plant. It was locked. Not wanting another embarrassing situation I search in and around the desk. There are no notes telling the password so I was out of luck. Maybe the other one is unlocked.
I turn around and my snout shoves right into one of the medical boxes on Poultice’s flank. “Hey watch it.” That’s the fifth time I’ve hit my face since coming into this building. Great, it’s bleeding again.
“I hab to geb ober dare,” I say through the blood. We have to skirt around each other to get by, walking in a circle like we’re dancing.
Finally making it to the other side of the room, I check the terminal. Yes, unlocked. There the four company-wide memos that I had seen before, but at the end there are three notes. The first one is labeled “Promotion!” the next one is labeled “What the hay is this?” and finally, the last one is labeled “Blah.” I decide to go in order.
4.15.77
I was the star of the show. During that meeting I was the one to come up with the winning idea. I suggested the idea to enchant plants to grow by fluorescent lights instead of sunlight. I’m so smart that they gave me an entire office to myself and a fancy new title. Head Researcher. Take that everyone! Ha!
Your new superior,
Puffin Chump
Okay that was interesting. I try the next file.
5.15.77
What the hay? I was demoted yesterday. They asked me how much progress I had made in the month since I started. All I said was, “Progress on what?” and they demoted me. They brought somepony from corporate to take my job. He’s supposed to be some genius unicorn or something so he probably won’t be any fun.
The annoyed,
Puffin Chump
Really? Not working gets you in trouble, I would have never guessed. I open the last on.
5.22.77
The genius has been here for a week. He is soooooooooo snobby. I asked him if he saw the hoofball game yesterday, but he’s all like “I don’t watch hoofball, I’m too much of a douche bag to watch hoofball.” Or something like that. Whenever I try to talk to him, he insults my work ethic. What the buck is “work ethic?”
Also he’s really paranoid. Whenever he leaves his computer, he locks it and his password is like 20 letters long, but I figured it out. It’s “I can has daisyburger.” And he calls me the stupid one. At least I knew that in a room this small I could figure out what he was typing for his password.
One more thing, his face is ugly.
The awesome,
Puffin Chump
Puffin Chump may be the stupidest pony ever, but he told the information I needed, the password.
I turned around, slowly this time, to see Poultice staring at the door. “Why haven’t they gotten in yet?”
“What?”
She turns to stare right into my eyes. “Why haven’t the vines gotten in? There’s enough room to slide under the door. Why haven’t they?”
I was dumbfounded. I don’t know why.
“If you ask me it’s because they’re laying a trap.”
|><|-------|><|
The other terminal’s password was, in fact “I can has daisyburger.” Thank you Puffin Chump. This one has a bunch of audio files. Too bad I can’t play any of them.
Wait, I can.
I had completely forgotten about the PipBuck I had found upstairs.
I take it out of my bags and try to put it on, but it is locked. Well it’s a good thing I don’t need to wear it for this. I turn it on.
It shows the Stable-Tec logo while it boots up. Then it has a huge warning message: “WARNING! PIPBUCK 3000 IS NOT CONNECTED TO LIFEFORM. ABILITIES OF MACHINE WILL BE LIMITED.” I hit ignore and connect it to the terminal. It automatically downloads the files to the notes section. A pop-up appears asking “Tutorial?” I, of course, hit yes. It goes on to tell me how if I click a file, it plays it. Imagine that. Then, at the end it tells me that a wireless device called an Ear Bloom is attached to the underside of the PipBuck and can allow me to listen to music without disturbing others.
I flip it over to find that there is one. I take it out. It is a simple device designed to wrap around an ear. With a bit of trouble, I get it in my ear.
I click the first file. A stallion with a scholarly yet somehow still gruff voice starts speaking.
“Date: May 15th 2077
“It is my first day back, after the fiasco with the energy drink got me suspended. The boss assigned me to a new position, head researcher at one of the regional branches.
“This job seems beneath me, but I am content with having a job after those people died.
“I arrived expecting to get less than preferable conditions, but I could not protect me from the hell I was about to go through.
“The manager greeted me as I walked in. She seemed cheery enough. After we got the pleasantries out of the way showed me my office. It was in the basement. They buried me in a basement simply because I made a mistake.
As if that was not enough, the manager told me I had to share the space with a pony that may be the stupidest pony ever to exist. To prove my point, I will say how he greeted me. He looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Sup dude, you see the hoofball game last night?’”
I snicker. It sounded funny coming from such an intelligent mouth.
“I asked him what the project was and when he told me, I could not believe my ears. I had to make plants that grow in artificial lighting. I have to do something that complicated with him.
“These next few months are going to be torture.”
Okay that was interesting, but I knew all of that already. I look down the list of the recordings. I notice that the name of each file is the date of the file and an explanation of the recording. The next one was labeled, “5/16 Hell”. The next was labeled,
“5/18 Annoying as (see 5/16).” The next twenty or so have similar names as the first two. However, one about halfway down is labeled, “7/23 BREAKTHROUGH.” I open that file. The same intelligent, yet masculine voice starts to speak in my ear.
“Date: July 23 2077
“He found it!
“The stupidest pony in the world found the spell I’ve been working on for two months in an ancient tome said to be written by a disciple of Star Swirl the Bearded. All he did was go to the library and ask for an old spell book.
“How is this going to look to corporate? Former genius outshined by village idiot. I am never going to become an important pony again.
“Despite this fact, I still cannot help but feel excited about this. After two months of work, we finally have made some progress on making a plant fueled by artificial lighting. Of course, I still have to adapt the spell to my needs.
Even so, I plan to have a test plant ready before the end of next week.”
Again nothing that can help me now.
I glance over at Poultice. She is still watching the door nervously. When she notices that I’m staring at her, she says, “I don’t like it in here. Let’s leave.”
“Why do you hate this room so much?” I ask genuinely amused by the lack of logic in her behavior.
“I...will tell you after we get outta here” She drops her head low. “It’s not a very good story.”
What could make Poultice, a pony I have already pegged as emotionally repressed, depressed? Whatever it is, she doesn’t want to talk about it, so I leave it at that.
We head back to the factory.
|><|-------|><|
“Date: August 1, 2077
“Further studies into the spell’s effects show great predictability, sustainability, and control.
“The spell made the small vine I had chosen grow in fluorescent light, but it also did something else. It made it stop growing in the absence of light. I acquired an ultraviolet light from the hardware store to experiment on the plant, and I was delighted to discover that the plant goes into a dormant state where the magic inundated spores dissolve, allowing the vine to return to its normal state. That state is of course slowly growing in the presence of sunlight.
“However when put back under the fluorescent lights the spores grew again. This made the plant return to its fast-growing state.
“This plant also grows back quickly when cut, so it is easy to grow enough to support a community.
“Imagine the possibilities! If an apple tree is enchanted with this spell, it would grow back any picked fruit overnight! There would be no more hunger in the world!
“I can honestly say that this project is a huge success. I’m going to go down in history as one of the greatest magicians of all time. I’ll be as famous as Star Swirl the Bearded.”
“Who?” Another voice, presumable Puffin Chump, says.
“Star Swirl the Bearded…father of the amniomorphic spell? He created over two hundred spells!”
“You’re the biggest nerd ever.”
“And you have the mental capacity of a mesohippus.”
“What did you call me?”
“Prehistoric horse… I called you dumb.”
“Oh. Screw you.”
“I’m going to end the recording here to save future me from having to hear the rest of this conversation again.”
“I’m not done talk-”
The recordings before this had very little of importance on them, but this one contains enough information to make up for the lack in the others.
This recording says that when the lights are on, the plant grows. When the lights are off, the plant stops.
“Poultice, I have a plan. We need to turn off the lights.”
“Who made you leader?” Poultice asserts indignantly. “I have a plan of my own. We leave.”
I stare back at her with an expression of disbelief on my face. “Leave?”
“Yeah. The other two have obviously gone bat-shit crazy, and the door has been open this entire time, so why can’t we leave?”
Would it be better just to leave them behind? “No,” I blurt out. “I mean, if you had gone crazy, would you like it if your friends left you in a building without help.”
“I wouldn’t care. I’d be crazy.”
“Well, if there’s a chance to save them, then I am going to try it,” I insist. “Now, back to my plan. The plants will stop trying to attack us when the lights are off, so let’s turn off the generator.”
“You could die from this. You don’t even know if it’ll work.”
“Yeah, but I have to take the chance.”
Poultice lets out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Let’s go.”
|><|-------|><|
“Date: August 10, 2077
“The plant growth is incredible! Just ten days ago, I performed the spell, and now the plant is growing out into the hallway. The other ponies are getting annoyed, but I don’t care. The spell worked.
“I have spent the last ten days with a perpetual smile on my face. I’m going to be famous!
“Luna has scheduled a plan to come in a month from now to review the spell. I’m going to meet Luna!
“It’s Ironic how they tried to bury me in a cramped basement so I wouldn’t be seen by the public, when here I am getting the most publicity.
“That’s it for today. Don’t be surprised if by tomorrow, I’m famous.”
The hallway is clear, illuminated by the lights, only half of which have burnt out. The vines seem to notice me opening the door, but instead of attacking me they recede back up the stairs. Seeing my chance, we make a break to the door to the generator room.
Just then, a lone silhouette appears at the top of the stairs. As the figure steps into the light, I can see that it is Jet, only not the Jet that I know. His coat has a weird tint to it, as if it is being dyed green over its original black. His mane appears to be made entirely out of grass. His maniacal smile has disappeared, giving way to an amused, if not sinister grin. He does not appear to be crazy anymore, however something still seems off about him.
“Good evening, Icarus,” multiple overlapping voices say from Jet’s mouth. “Are you ready to join us?” Suddenly vines, presumably the ones that had receded before, appear in an arc around Jet’s body. The tendrils, now writhing around
in midair, seem to be protruding from Jet’s body, but that does not make any sense.
“Um…Jet?”
“We were once called this, but now we are one. And soon you shall be too.” Just then the tendrils lashed out at me with a speed I didn’t think possible.
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” I scramble to reach the door to the generator. It is only ten feet away, yet the vines are too fast. They’ll reach me first.
Right when I think I’m a goner, Poultice jumps in front of me blocking all of the vines from hitting me. She gets nasty cuts all over her stomach and side, but none of the vines are able to hit me. She had been able to buy me enough time to barely reach the door and slam it shut.
I don’t think I’ll ever understand Poultice. One minute, she is contradicting every word I say and the next, she is diving in front of me to save my life. There is probably some reason why she is so… inconsistent.
But now I have more important things to do, primarily turn off the generator. I walk towards the generator one step before there is a terrible bang on the door that’s protecting me from that horrible demon in Jet’s body.
“Open the door. We need you to assimilate.”
I sprint over to the generator. Where’s that cutoff switch?
The terrible bang of Jet ramming the door thunders through the small space again followed by the roaring multivoice saying, “JOIN US”
The pull chord of the generator is sitting right in front of me, but the switch is not there.
*Thump* “JOIN US.”
“Who the buck designed this machine?”
*Thump* “JOIN US.”
Wait, the terminal! It had an option that I didn’t look at. Maybe that’s the cutoff.
A new sound comes from behind me. It was the splintering of the wood protecting my life. The door can only withstand one more strong blow on its own. “JOIN US.”
I activate the terminal and sure enough at the bottom of the list there is an option labeled, “KILL GENERATOR.” I slam down
harder on that button than I had ever pressed a key before.
A low groan pierces the air as the generator powers down. The lights flicker for a little while until they eventually go out.
Even though the lights are off, the pounding on the door does not stop.
The door swings open with a loud smash. Not knowing what else to do, I slam the door back shut. The door does not shut. The tip of a single vine penetrates the opening of the room. It wiggles around feebly, but cannot reach me. The energy of the vine seems to decrease with time. I can see the vine slowing down. After a few seconds the vine ceases to move altogether.
The pounding on the door does not. Though, the enthusiasm in the voices seems to have gone. Also the pounding seems to have lessened slightly.
*thump* “Join us.” *Thump* “Join us.”
After a few more of these with no success on getting in, I decide to listen to more of the recordings that I had found.
“Date: August 30 2077”
The voice sounds sad this time.
“Today the Puffin Chump cut himself on one of the vines. He had an adverse reaction to the vine. He passed out on the floor afterward.
“The doctors got to him quick enough, but they weren’t able to diagnose his ailment. ‘A cut that small should not have made him pass out,’ they said.”
He lets out a long and drawn out sigh.
“Unfortunately, I think I may know why he passed out. Spores from the vine most likely transferred into his blood stream causing him damage.
“The doctors say he will be fine, but that does not remedy the true shame of all of this. It probably means that I’m going to get fired…again”
He lets out another sigh. Then suddenly his demeanor changes to a happy mood.
“Well the good news is that I get to experiment on the effects of the spores entering the bloodstream until I get fired. Maybe Puffin Chump might actually be used to help people in the future.
“Now where is my scalpel?”
I listen to Jet pounding on my door. Instead of a thump, it is more like a flop against the wall now.
“Join us… Join us… Join… me?”
I hear the sound of a pony collapsing outside my door. I cautiously open the door to find Jet passed out on the floor by my hooves, still with a greenish pelt. Enigma is groaning next to him, cuts all over her. She is obviously not in any condition to walk.
I take a healing potion out of her bag and force her to drink it. She puts up no resistance.
Then I work to get everypony out.
|><|-------|><|
Getting everypony out wasn’t as difficult as I thought. I managed to get Jet up the stairs by dragging him by his leg. He only hit his head a dozen time so that was pretty successful.
Poultice managed to push herself up by this point and helped me get Enigma from the second floor down to the exit. She of course had passed out when the lights went out like Jet did.
We had set up camp only a few yards away from the building. As much as I would like to leave this place and never come back, it is difficult carrying both of those ponies. The camp itself was only the tent we had stolen from the slaver encampment and a single sleeping bag. Poultice is now in the tent, trying to get some shut-eye. She had been up through my collapse and through the entire fight that ensued after my awakening. She deserved the tent.
Velv- sorry Enigma is now sleeping on top of the sleeping bag and Jet is passed out on the ground a respectable distance away.
I had decided to listen to some more of the voice recordings that the mysterious pony left for me. The last few had a bunch of technical jargon that I will never hope to understand, so I take out my ear bloom and instead look over Enigma.
She had transformed in a similar way to Jet. Wherein Jet’s coat had tinted green and his mane turned to grass, Enigma’s coat had also been shaded green, but her mane instead turned into elegant flowers. Blue Lilies to be exact. They are all small and hardly noticeable, except for two which curled around her ears to look like they were given to her by a lover on Hearts and Hooves Day. It is the most beautiful sight in the entire wasteland. She is the most beautiful mare in all of the wasteland.
I let out an audible sigh. She would never go for a stallion like me, a plain gray boring rock farmer. She probably would like a strong bronco to be her special somepony.
I look back to my PipBuck to distract myself from my thoughts. I notice a few messages down that there is an entry titled, “Balefire Bomb: Unforeseen Side Effects.” Intrigued, I start the recording.
The stallion’s voice sounds weary.
“Date: October 23 2077
“They are all dead.
“The tension with the zebras has finally reached the point where the zebras have just blown us all up.
“Now that’s perfectly fine with me. I mean, many of those ponies deserved it, but the bomb has ruined my experiment.
“Although the nearest bomb was in Harmony Falls, a wave of magical energy spread outward. The wave had mostly deteriorated by the time it reached us, so it didn’t catch us on fire. However, the wave did affect my plants.
“I had come upstairs after feeling the explosion underground. I saw that everyone had crowded around the window opposite me to see the explosion, when my benign little plants, all of a sudden, started to attack everyone. It- it was horrifying. After the plants had cut the ponies up sufficiently, the ponies turned on each other, bashing each other’s skulls into the ground.
“The last one alive, the pudgy purple one- what was his name? He was weakened and coming toward me.
“So I ran out of there as fast as I could, trying to get to the basement. Obviously the plants had become, for lack of a
better term, evil and begun to force the ponies to kill each other. I had to pull the plug on the program.
“I don’t know how I made it to the generator room, but I did and I turned it off. That stopped the attacking vines, but I only saved one other pony. He was badly injured, but his superego would not allow him to stop. He has started to use his own blood to mark on the wall. He believes that he can help somepony later to not experience the same fate as he did.
“…My entire life has changed dramatically… I don’t know what to do now…”
My heart goes out to this mystery pony. His entire life got flipped upside down, just like mine did. He lost everyone he knew
and his work. I feel like a wuss, becoming depressed for losing only my parents.
“My parents!” I exclaim, waking Enigma, who was sleeping next to me.
“Wha-huh?”
“Enigma, you’re not crazy!”
“Why would I be crazy?” she says, pushing herself up. The lilies bob during this action. Enigma tries to brush them off her head, but quickly realizes that they are attached to her body. “Eek! What is this?” She groans then collapses on the ground in a fit of dry heaves. I am surprised and confused at the fact that I think that this is really attractive in her. She spends a few seconds recovering before commanding, “Explain now.”
So I explain everything to her, from the killer plants to long dead scientist, from the PipBuck to the spark batteries, from the assault by Jet to the protection by Poultice. I tell her everything in the span of half an hour. At the end she is just dumbfounded.
“So I really tried to kill Poultice?” I nod. “Well that explains the headache.”
“Yeah she hit you pretty hard.”
“Obviously. And what about these flowers hanging around my ears?”
“I don’t know. I guess from that the vine somehow changed your DNA.”
“Does that mean-”
“Yes, you’re part plant now.”
|><|-------|><|
All throughout the time I was explaining everything to Enigma, Jet still remained unconscious. I don’t know how I feel about that. He had gone completely zany. It can’t just all wash out of his system. When he awakes, he could still be homicidal. On the other hoof, he is my best friend and the fact he isn’t awake makes me worried.
Not much I can do about it though. Poultice had drunken most of the healing potions when she had been cut up badly.
Then, Enigma used the rest to get rid of the pain all over her cause by the plant cells all screaming from the lack of artificial light.
I stare down at the food in my hoofs. As appealing as this preservative packed sweet is, I cannot eat any more of it. The stress of the day is overpowering my hunger. I look at the sky. It’s starting to get dark. Time to sleep.
As I lay my head down on the ground, I am almost immediately met with sleep.
But I can’t enjoy it because a familiar voice yells at me, “get up you fat ass! Raiders!”
Enigma floats a log in front of us for cover, while Poultice makes sure her guns are loaded. Enigma puts the log down and magics out her sniper rifle. I, myself, take out my hunting rifle and aim down at the group of four raiders charging at us.
I fire a shot at the closest raider. Dammit, missed. I hear a loud crack to my left and the first raider falls. Fine, I’ll kill the second one. I aim right at his head. I hold my breath and fire again, and miss again.
Enigma’s rifle fires again and the raider no longer has a head. Now this time, I aim at the pony farthest away. I focus as hard as I can and fire. I missed. “Oh, come on!”
I focus again on that pony. I focus a little too hard because I miss the pony whom had snuck around our camp to phalanx us. He lifts his axe up without me noticing. He has every intent to chop my head off. He swings his axe down.
Bam!
I feel blood run down my neck. I turn around to find a raider lying at my feet, a huge hole in his side. I trace the line of the shot back to my best friend holding a sawn-off shotgun in his mouth.
Jet is back.
|><|-------|><|
The battle had not lasted much longer than that. Poultice and Enigma had picked off the final two raiders while I wasted another bullet on the ground. How do ponies shoot these guns holding them in their mouths?
The adrenaline from the battle prevents me from sleeping, so I decide to listen to more of the recordings from the scientist stallion. There is only one left and it does not have a name. Curious about this mysterious recording, I click on the file.
“Date: October 24 2077
“The other pony had died overnight. He never finished his message. It just said, ‘BEWARE THE HYBRI,’ so I finished it for him. It was the least I could do for a pony whose name I can’t even remember.
“There is no more purpose for me to be here. I am leaving the building and locking it. No one will be killed by my experiment again.
“I guess I’ll go to the closest other branch to us, the one in Mareacle City. Hopefully it wasn’t bombed.
“Well goodbye Hell number 1. I don’t know why I am making this recording. It’s probably just to prolong the time before I step out into Hell number 2.
“Well, I have to leave now while it’s still light out. Although with all the cloud cover it’s getting hard to tell. The pegasi really need to do something about that.
“Oh- I just realized something. I have never said my name in any of these recordings. So here goes:
“This is Endogen saying ‘goodbye and good riddance’”
Endogen was a bitter pony when everyone was alive, but his last act before leaving the building was to help somepony complete his last wish. Maybe he had finally warmed up to people.
With closure, I manage to close my eyes.
I think about what has happened in the last few hours. First Poultice had redeemed herself in my eyes when she saved my life after disputing my plan. Then, Jet had redeemed himself by saving my life after trying to kill me. Finally, Endogen had redeemed himself for showing kindness after hating everypony.
I fell asleep easily after that with one heartwarming idea stuck in my mind.
Redemption.
Footnote: Level up!
New perk: I see my friends - You realize that not having friends sucks. You don't know why, but friends make you stronger +1 strength when you are with friends, -1 strength alone