Chapter 2: Looking around.
'Wow, Canterlot... burned and looking like shit, but still Canterlot HOLY FUCKING SHIT I AM IN EQUESTRIA! Wait but why is Canterlot burned then?' This is what I was thinking when I stared at the City, so common to be seen only on TV. It wasn’t like I remembered, nor was the land around either.
“What the fuck happened to this place?” My arm feels heavy, so I looked at it to check if I hurt it, and stopped dead.
There on my arm was an odd device with a screen with multiple buttons on it, branded on the top left hand side was ‘Pip-Buck 3000’. I stared at the thing on my arm, then tried to take it off to get a better look. To my surprise it didn’t budge at all, in a panic I shook my arm in a vain attempt to remove the mini computer.
“What the FUCK IS THIS THING!” I shouted “GAAAAHHH!” My Screaming alerted Peter and Nathan.
“WHAT IS IT!?” Peter shouted, pulling out his Glock handgun.
“I believe your friend here discovered her Pip buck.” a voice sounded from behind me.
I spun around knife in hand instantly ready for anyone, but was surprised to just see a flying robot ball thing in front of me. Peter was
very quick to react, grabbing the robot and holding it tightly in his hands.
“Please let me go, I can explain some things for you.” it said.
“Peter chill ok I think it’s ok just let it go but keep an eye on it.” I ordered.
Peter did so keeping his gun pointing at it. Nathan was confused by the robot and was staring out the window at it. Jordan and Kieran climbed out of the dis-powered chopper and walked over.
“What’s going on?” Jordan asked.
The robot turned to us and said. “You don’t look like any Enclave group I have ever seen. So, I am guessing that you are NOT the Enclave. That computer on your arm is a Pip-buck. It is very useful and contains maps, information on your current health, your possessions and equipment as well as your personal perks and skills. It also contains a tracking spell called an ‘Eyes Forward Sparkle or E.F.S. as well as the Stable tech automatic targeting spell or S.A.T.S.” Its voice was emotionless and a little creepy but I had a feeling this thing was helpful so against my better judgement I trusted it.
I looked at my Pip-Buck and started pushing some of the buttons. The screen then came on, is playing a small pony grinning with its...THUMB up. Ok so were in an ANTHRO world. Oh goody, that’s just what I needed semi-humanoid ponies, but I guess that means that we would be able to access more areas than if they were normal ponies anyway so that’s a plus.
“So these things are like them Pip-Boy 3000’s from the Fallout games?” Peter asked Fiddling with the one on his arm.
I looked around and saw the others had some too, how I hadn’t noticed the fact that the large computers were on everyone’s arms was beyond me.
“Oh yeah, they are similar if I remember anything about Fallout New Vegas this should be ok to learn.” I said as I flipped through the many menus. This thing has reaching one saying ’E.F.S Activate?’ I selected ‘yes’ and I gained a HUD like in the video game.
“Wow that’s awesome.” I said as I flicked a few more menus and listing what they were upon coming to the perk page I had a look surprised to find my Military professions listed along with some other ‘perks’ I read them aloud to the others .
“Perks? I am Human, Pilot, Marine, Squad leader, Mechanic and Medic.” I was about to read the description of them when the robot spoke again.
“Well I see you are getting used to them, so here’s some advice: leave this area as soon as possible! The Canterlot ghouls know you are here and are coming.” A few seconds passed in silence. I was about to ask him what the fuck a Canterlot ghoul was when he began again.
“When you get out of here listen to the radio on the Tenpony tower frequency on your pip-buck to find out where the ‘Stable Dweller’ is. She could use your help. After you find her I’ll come back with another pony to find. That is what you need to do to make a difference around the wasteland, if you are actually interested with helping us all.”
I nodded “I plan to help. Do you guys?” the others nodded.
“Well we are here the ponies need help and we have no clear way back home right now so…let’s just fucking do it.” Jordan said shrugging.
The robot spoke again. “Thank you, when you meet Littlepip. The Stable Dweller, tell her Watcher sent you to link your teams.” With that the robot beeped and started playing strange music and flew away.
“Well shit that was reassuring.” Nathan said and we headed back to the chopper to see what’s damaged
**********
Even though the Equestrian wasteland looked like hell I could still see recognisable things I wish I could see the sky but there was a huge screen of clouds in the way.
“It’s going to rain at some point. Those clouds look very deadly.” I muttered to myself before starting to look at the Pip-buck again.
While I was looking at the Pip-Buck, Nathan looked at the engine of the chopper.
“So can you see any damage?” I asked.
He shook his head “No, it’s actually fine. Just out of power, which in turn sucks but, it is solar charged and we can boost the power with batteries or cell boosters…but we might not even need to the thing is recharging faster than ever recorded on the charts for the solar panels above... it’s like the sunlight here has more power even through those thick clouds” He says and closes the hatch.
As I am about to say something to him a red blip appears on that EFS thing quickly followed by another after.
“People we got trouble two tangos, unknown classification seen as a red blip on my EFS lets move!” I Ordered and climbed back into the chopper.
The others all instantly looked nervous. I opened the weapons locker behind my chair, grabbed my SA80 with shotgun bayonet and cocked it. A few seconds later I was outside the helicopter, walking, weapon up, keeping my eyes peeled for anything. If one if those ‘ghoul’ things were coming, I'd need to be ready. Nathan ran up behind me, his UZI 9mm up and ready. I glanced back to the chopper Kieran, Jordan and Peter was trying to rig the Chopper with enough electricity to fly away from here.
“Ok, we need you to help us get that EFS thing working on our machines, and you need to work out how that ‘SATS’ thing the robot mentioned works too.” Nathan said as we walked.
I put my hand over his mouth to shut him up, as we hid behind a rock nearby and listened. There was groaning and heavy breathing. Footsteps were heard as they got closer. A few seconds later the first one walked past and we got a good long look. Anthro pony all right and it is glowing really bright and looked like the equivalent of corpse and the wretched stench was the worst thing I had ever smelled in my whole life, and I had been knocked into the latrines back in training by a drunken sergeant.
After the ghoul walked past my gagger counter went off loudly, showing radiation was emanating from the freak. It, of course, had to hear the counter clicking and turn around. It growled and ran towards us.
“SHIT!” I shouted and put a bullet in its skull only to have it stagger and continue unaffected. “What the fuck! How could that thing survive that?” I said alarmed.
Nathan ran forward and smacked it in the face with his UZI, screaming, sending it to the floor. I spun around just in time to see another ghoul pounce at me.
“WOAH!” I shouted as I sprayed my clip into its chest.
As soon as it hit the dirt dead, I turned around to see Nathan. He was being grabbed by the original ghoul and a normal one without any glowing parts.
“LYRA HELP PLEASE!” he shouted desperation in his voice.
I was there in a flash, knife in hand. I stabbed the normal ghoul in the neck and pulled hard. Its head fell off and rolled away, splashing blood as it went.
Nathan grabbed the Glowing ghoul by the jaw and pulled with all his might. The jaw came free from its head and fell to the ground.
“GAH! Did you like that?! Have some more!” Nathan shouted and punched it in the eye.
It staggered back stumbling over its own hooves, and landed in my arms. I slammed the knife into its head and twisted. That was the end of that. There were no more targets on the E.F.S, so I put my knife away and pulled Nathan off his ass.
“Zombie Ponies, how can our day get any better!?” I said grinning like an idiot. Nathan’s reply was a good one:
“Maybe meeting one of the real ponies from the TV show that isn’t an evil zombie that tries to eat us.” he said with a bemused expression.
My gagger counter was starting to annoy me, so I walked back towards the helicopter until it went silent. “Ah that’s so much better, how much of that shit did I absorb over there?” I thought to myself while checking the number on my pip-buck screen I reached the correct menu. I saw the number of the radiation in my body: 344 out of 1000.
“Fuck, well that’s not bloody good now is it?” I looked over at the sickness level “Minor Rad sickness, Effects loss of strength, endurance and agility.” I started feeling the sickness and I coughed. “And it makes you feel like you’ve been on a 50 night drinking bender, fucking excellent!” after I finished complaining, I walked to the chopper and waited for Nathan to arrive. It had been 10 minutes before he came back.
“Where the hell have you been!?” Peter shouted from the side seat of the chopper.
Nathan just grinned and threw a bottle that I caught. I looked at the label and read the title
“Sparkle cola? I doubt it can beat Coca-Cola.” I laughed and put the bottle down. Then it hit me “Holy shit, Guys there is a stash of Coca-Cola in the red box with the orange lid.” that box was opened revealing about 300 bottles
“Cool…Where the fuck did you get all these?” Jordan asked and grabbed a bottle.
“I traded all my unused shore leave time for them, all of it added up was enough for the bottles and some chocolate.” I said with a smirk.
“So what happened to the chocolate?” Kieran asked looking over to me.
“Kieran, I am a girl you know we can’t resist chocolate when we have it.” The men laughed at me and I just shrugged. I looked at the Sparkle cola again and picked it up. I looked at the label again and saw that I had missed something.
“Oh, it's Sparkle cola Rad…Blah, blah refreshing taste blah ooh tastes like radish.” I looked at Nathan, he said he liked radishes, so I gave him the bottle. “Nathan it is supposed to taste like radishes so you are the test subject, you get to taste the first Equestrian drink.” I said with a smile.
He looked at the drink, shrugged and popped the cap and drank it down in one. What happened next was a surprise. He coughed sputtered and threw up green glowing stuff.
“GAH, what the hell man?!” Jordan shouted and backed away.
I stood there eyes wide and jaw on the floor. Nathan stared at me with a look of wanting revenge.
“I am so sorry.” I said. Completely horrified at what had happened.
He was about to reply when the choppers lights powered up, that meant we could fly. I threw myself into the pilot’s seat and started the engine. I looked over out the window as about 20 red dots appeared on the EFS.
“Oh my god…CLOSE THE DOOR WE’RE LEAVING NOW!” I shouted.
Kieran poked his head out the door hatch as the ghouls appeared over the hill; he squeaked and slammed the door closed. I began to rise as they all sprinted towards us. One of them had pounced onto the front of the chopper and held on as I flew away from the horde, unaware of the ghoul gripping the chopper until it started climbing up towards the open pilot side window.
*********
Jordan’s POV
Lyra was flying us away from the ghouls when suddenly she screamed. I looked at her and saw one of those things grabbing her through her open side view window. I was there almost instantly with the wrench I was using to secure the crates to the floor.
The ghoul pulled her arm out the window trying to bite her, causing her to let go of the cyclic stick causing the helicopter to swerve to the left.
After regaining my balance I swung the wrench at the ghoul shattering the bone in its arm and freeing Lyra from its grasp. She pulled herself back and grabbed the wheel again, causing the helicopter to straighten out. Peter fired his gun at the ghoul from his seat shooting its pointed ear off
“Shit!” he screamed as the ghoul reached for Lyra again.
“JORDAN, KILL THAT BASTARD!” Lyra shouted slapping its hand away. I complied climbing on the back of the seat and smacking its head with the wrench consistently until it fell off the helicopter.
Lyra then closed the window and vowed to never leave it open ever again. We flew over many different monuments and towns their names appearing on the screen of my Pip-buck: Canterlot was the first as we had flown over the city it was still the same as in the show, but dark and had these little pink foggy areas that peaked my interest.
“What is that pink stuff?” I asked and Lyra took a look sighed then answered.
“It looks like something similar to the Red cloud in Fallout: New Vegas… it was the, the Blood Money D.L.C I believe. Well if it is, I am never going there ever! That shit is toxic.” She said as we flew over Canterlot castle we could all see how beautiful it must have been even Peter, the non-brony of the group, was in awe. As we flew past Ponyville and up more north all I could do was stare at everything I saw until we were suddenly hit by something and the whole helicopter shook.
*********
Lyra’s POV
It had been an hour since we left Canterlot airspace and we were looking for a safe place to set us down. I had made a plan to land on the roof of a building in the next city I saw.
I could see an old statue of liberty, well the anthro pony version but still. That meant it was the city of Manehatten. It was in the very far in the distance but I could see it from the air, it was maybe an hour flight to the city by helicopter. I checked the power in the helicopter’s battery by looking at the dashboard we had enough for an hour and a half long flight so I sighed with relief finished thinking.
'Get to the city, find landing zone, wait for chopper to charge more and then figure out what the hell we are to do about finding that ‘Stable Dweller’.
That was the plan but we never made it to the city as I was flying us over a small town ,that looked inhabited but we didn’t have time to care about, the Name ‘New Appleoosa’ popped up on my new HUD. I ignored it and carried on flying as I never wanted to get involved until I found 'stable Dweller' and found out what she does.
I made a turn and passed a large crane when suddenly there the missile alarms went off then there was a large explosion off to the side where Nathan was sitting that shattered his window, causing him so scream in surprise.
We were hit by the missile I knew we were in severe trouble if it had done damage to something important so I immediately pulled up the condition screen on the dashboard: The rear propeller had slowed down and barely countered the spin the one on top was giving. So I was stuck swerving to the right and shaking the entire Helicopter. I could no longer go forward and was unable to stop us spinning to the right. The screen loaded and I saw exactly what was damaged.
The power cables in the back, the propeller at the rear, right doors, right main window and the large propeller at the top.
“DAMMIT!” I screamed as I knew we were out of options. I turned around to see what the others were doing.
Peter was securing the crates, so if we crash the supplies are not destroyed.
Nathan was holding onto his seat with all his might.
Jordan had been staring out of the window when the first impact had hit, now he was in the seat next to me, trying to help lower the growing number of system failures that were appearing all over the control panel.
Kieran was actually calm and thinking about something which he surprised me with when he spoke.
“Guys, if we crash, try to head for a hill. The ground will be softer and offer more protection even though the crash will be harder there is less chance of us getting flipped or blown up!” he yelled and I looked out for the nearest hill.
A few seconds later we were hit again and something exploded, as in the whole back propeller and the tail that was attached to the rest of the helicopter. There was only one thing left to do as we fell. Swear like drunken sailors, who had been kicked in the balls. And of course blame Nathan for it all again as it is always his fault.
“Nathan, why whenever you get in a chopper with me we explode?!” I shouted at him as the chopper smashed into the path just outside of the small town.
AFTER THE CRASH.
“Oh my God! That was worse than getting hit by that truck back in Liverpool!” I thought as I rubbed my sore head. I hadn’t been knocked out or killed so that was something but I was in really bad pain in my neck head and my leg.
I looked behind me and saw the mess that had once been our ride. There was a huge hole in the back and there were loose wires hanging everywhere.
Peter and Kieran were knocked out, Jordan was rubbing his face and Nathan was nowhere to be seen. The window on the door on his side was gone, so I could guess where he went, out the fucking window.
“Poor bastard…I better pull him off the ground.” I said as I looked back to see how badly the supplies were damaged.
The ammo boxes and the supplies were still where they were before the crash. I mentally commended Peter’s clever antics as I undid all the buckles that were pinning them to the ground. This wreck was NOT going anywhere, so having them on the ground was pointless. After a few seconds of sitting back in my chair because the pain had forced me back into it after I finished with the crates.
After about two minutes of feeling like shit I looked to Jordan who looked very dizzy. I realised that Nathan was still outside in the dirt and I needed to find him, so I tried to open the door. It was jammed closed.
“Of course.” I deadpanned this was all I needed.
“What?” Jordan moaned from next to me.
“Door's stuck.” I sighed before kicking the door hard.
It swung open and I slipped out of the helicopter and onto the ground. A massive shooting pain went up my whole left leg causing me to gasp and collapse onto the dirt ground.
‘Great my legs hurt.’ I complained internally as Jordan poked his head out the open door.
“Lyra, you ok?” he asked.
I nodded, not wanting to move. As I lay there I could hear distant shouting. It was getting louder and closer. So I picked myself of the floor, limped to the side door to see if Nathan was ok. To my surprise and horror he wasn’t lying there like I thought he would be. He was nowhere to be seen.
“Shit.” I said, worried for my friend.
The shouting was getting louder and I could make some of it out.
“Get to that thing and make sure the Enclave troops inside are captured or killed!” was the one I heard out of the jumble and I quickly started waking up the others. They weren’t hurt bad and could move, so we grabbed our backpacks, I also grabbed Nathans, and as many crates as we could carry before we ran around to the choppers other side to try run off into the direction the shouting wasn’t coming from. Unfortunately we never got far as there was a fucking sniper with a dart rifle and a good aim. The darts hit us one by one until we were all on our ass feeling numb.
I looked up to see a very surprised looking unicorn. He said something that I couldn’t hear and rubbed his face. He looked to his left and I saw an Earth pony looking at me then shrugged. I reached towards my friends, then everything went black and I hit the floor with a ‘thud’.
*********
Lyra's skills:
Barter: 15
Magical Energy Weapons: 15
Explosives: 20
Guns: 30
Lock pick: 25
Medicine: 50
Melee Weapons: 30
Repair: 60
Science: 34
sneak: 25
speech: 40
Unarmed: 20
Lyra's Perks.
Human: Living myth the ponies call you well that or mutant freak. your unusual form will make many ponies judge you unfairly but keep strong and things will get better. (Ponies don't trust you easily, +1 agility, +15 unarmed +10 melee weapons)
Pilot: Flying things comes Natural to you just finding a replacement vehicle is going to be a bitch (Can fly any Helicopter or Vertibuck you find)
Marine: Years of service has made your aim sharp and your tongue sharper use them well. (+10 Guns, +5 Energy weapons. +5 speech)
Squad Leader: Long have you led teams into hell and back with no losses to your name you are an amazing leader. (+1 Charisma, Companions are more effective)
Mechanic: You learned how to keep all your gear in check building all your engines yourself you can rig anything together with enough time. (+10 repair)
Medic: Years working with soldiers made you search for the ways of medicine you know how to keep someone alive...just as long as it isn't yourself (+10 medicine)