Chapter 3: New Appaloosa.
Nathan’s POV
I woke up feeling like shit. I sat up quickly to see where I was. I found myself on top of a metal… thing. It was painted blue. I decided to look at the Pip-Buck and see where I was. The screen came up with the map.
My current location was ‘New Appleoosa’, the same place we were flying over, when we were shot down… “My friends.” I peeked over the edge to see where I was in relation to the helicopter. I could see the chopper in the distance in the middle of an open field. It was crushed and smoking.
“God dammit.” I cursed and looked to see what I was currently on top of. I was on top of a tall stack of metal train cars.
“Holy shit biscuits!” I exclaimed and looked for anyone I knew.
In the town centre there was some commotion, so I took out my binoculars and took a closer look. They had my friends and our shit from the chopper. They took them into a building with a cross on the roof.
“They took them to the hospital?” I muttered to myself.
The town around me was quite large in size and reminded me of the shanty towns that I saw in Afghanistan. Small custom built houses with multiple repairs and lots and lots of small cramped streets. After about 50 seconds of thinking I decided what I was going to do.
“Fuck it! I am going to walk into the hospital, and politely ask if I can have my friends and stuff back. If they say no ‘pretend’ to be worried. Then run outside and then come back later and break them out.” This is the dumbest idea I have ever had, and I had challenged a US navy seal to an arm wrestle. And therefore was in a cast for a month. But this beats that by about 300,000 miles.
I climbed down the train cars, only just now noticing the pain in my knee, briefly later I slipped and fell, landing on my ass on a barrel.
“If PewDiePie was here I know what he would say right now!” I muttered angrily in pain. I rubbed my sore ass as I walked around a corner right into 10 of the locals who had come to inspect the noise.
“What the fuck is that!?” the earth pony mare to the left said. After I managed to think, I weighed my answers and said the wildest one in my head.
“Hi, I’m a sexy bastard and I am going that way.’’ I pointed behind them and as they looked at the direction that my finger was pointing at, then I began running very quickly towards the hospital, which was conveniently in the opposite way.
“GET THAT THING!’’ they shouted from behind me. “Well that could have gone better!” I thought as I ran. The building was a few meters in front of me. I burst through the door, and tripped over a medical box. I landed on my face but knowing where I was, I looked up quickly right into the barrel of a mini-gun.
“Chort!’’ I said and put my face to the floor.
******************
Lyra’s POV
5 minutes earlier...
I awoke with a start. After I calmed I looked around the room It was covered in posters saying ‘Do Better, Ministry of peace’ It was a picture of my second favourite mane 6 pony Fluttershy and she was standing in front of some very evil looking zebras.
“Wartime propaganda, how I hate you so. You are the one thing that is always there in every war.’’ I said, unhappy to see Fluttershy being a part of it. I was brought out of my staring when someone asked me.
“What kind of fucking taint did you suck up and how did it make you lose your tail?” I spun around on the chair, to which I was tied and saw a large bulky earth pony with Red fur and a grey mane. The thing that worried me though was the fact he was carrying a large mini-gun and pointing it at me.
“Err what?’’ I asked, not having a clue what the fuck he was talking about.
“How much taint did you take in to become that mutated.’’ he said again pointing at me then scowled “Enclave bitch acting stupid.’’
I looked at him and was very confused and insulted.
“WHO THE FUCK IS THE ENCLAVE!?’’ I shouted, and was getting fed up of being assumed to be in a group that seem to have a similar reputation to the Nazis.
After a few seconds he looked really confused and anxious, and I knew why he was the earth pony I saw before a passed out him and his friends had shot us down thinking we were Enclave. And he didn’t want to tell me.
“So... you’re not Enclave?’’ he asked and I shook my head.
“Do I look like I am?” I asked staring at him blankly.
“Well no… then what the fuck are yo-. He was suddenly cut off, when the one person on the planet I didn’t want to see, crashed through the door and face planted onto the floor. The pony pointed the mini-gun in Nathan's face and I heard Nathan complain, using the Russian word I taught him in year 9 of high school.
“Nathan… you’re retarded.” I sighed and leaned back in the chair. The guard pony moved Nathan to a chair next to me, while pointing the mini-gun at us the whole time, I could tell he was angry with him as he threw him into the seat next to me, which then nearly fell backwards.
After staring at us for a few more seconds, he asked his question again “What the fuck happened to you… you are clearly heavily mutated, so what did you-‘’ I stopped him right there.
“We are not mutated in the slightest… have you ever heard of ‘Different species’? Because that’s what we are.” He looked at us thinking.
“Fine but what are you then?” he asked with a look in-between confusion and suspicion.
I answered, while Nathan was looking around the room. “Humans, we are-” I was cut off by the guard's shouting:
“What kind of foal do you take me for?!” he was clearly pissed at me, for what reason I didn’t know.
“What are you talking about? You asked what we are!’’ I shouted back. He growled and began to spin the chambers of the mini-gun. The sound of the spinning barrels was sending fear into my heart.
“Humans are made up in books! I know you are lying to me!” he screamed, while moving closer to me.
I nearly panicked but regained my composure quickly. I decided to keep to the truth as I explained.
“Who the hell said we were from ‘Here’ or this planet at ALL!’’ he looked shocked and a bit sceptical at that but I continued before he could open his mouth.
“My friends and I were on a routine fly test of that brand new helicopter, that you ‘Soooo happily’ destroyed, to bomb a mountain full of enemy insurgents. As we haven’t blown up our planet small troubles are larger than they are here , so we're dealing with a terrorist group known as the Taliban, instead of whatever the fuck you fight.’’
He was staring at me mouth agape. I took a peep to the left and saw that Nathan was staring at the floor, clearly worried that I was saying too much, but I didn’t care.
“Well during the flight we had, some kind of thing happen that brought us here. We have these Pip-Buck things ‘Magically’ appear on our arms and had to kill ghouls outside Canterlot. THEN after we finally escaped from them, we were shot down by you ponies and captured. So fuck everything I ever knew about the universe because this shit doesn’t happen to people… it is not normal!’’ after finally finishing my rant I looked right into the eyes of the pony, who couldn’t believe what he just heard.
“Err…’’ was the only response I got. As I expected he was very confused and had no Idea what to believe. I could almost hear the gears in his head going into overdrive. He was just staring at me eyes wide, so with nothing better to do I just waited for him to say something. This took a good five minutes for him to do because of the extent of.
“You are humans from another world. And are Non-hostile?” I nodded to him and he rubbed in between his eyes as I answered.
“Yes. We have been here less than a day and already got our ride destroyed… today was a bad day.’’ I replied getting a nod from the guard.
“I will relay this info to my boss then find out what to do.’’ He said then walked out of the room.
I stood up out of my seat and walked around the room that is when I realised something, WHY WASN’T I TIED UP! I thought but decided not to care.
Nathan was looking over, when I started to hum winter wrap up to myself, while looking in a box with a magazine on lock picking.
“What you looking at?’’ Nathan asked.
I ignored him and started to read the book. I found a page about how to pick simple and rusted locks.
“A screwdriver and a bobby pin turn the pin and then the screwdriver ? I have some of the pins for my hair, so this should be simple.’’ I said as I pulled a pin from my hair, causing the hair to fall down over my face. After I quickly sorted it out I went over to Nathan who was staring silently, thoughtfully’ trying to guess what I was doing. “Nathan, can I borrow your screwdriver?” I asked.
He looked at me and raised an eyebrow “Why?’’
“I need it.’’ I stated simply. Nathan buckled under my stare and handed it to me “Thanks elf ears.’’ I joked as I slid it into an ammo pouch that was empty along with the pin.
“Lyra?’’ Nathan asked me suddenly.
“Yes, Natalie?’’ I asked. He grumbled about the name then spoke.
‘’We are not tied up… why don’t we just leave?’’ he said. I thought he had a very valid point until I remembered that the others were in another room.
“Nathan… Kieran, Jordan and Peter are still captured.” I reminded him causing a complete half turn.
“Oh fuck!’’ he shouted. I face palmed and turned around to see the guard and his boss, a red unicorn stallion with an eye patch staring at us from the doorway.
“Hello… you see we never ran.” Was the only thing that I thought of saying at the time. The guard’s boss flipped a bottle cap in his hand and raised an eyebrow at us.
“You said they looked mutated.’’ He looked at the guard. “I see no tumours or glowing body parts.”
The guard looked at him with a surprised look on his face “But look at them, it is easy to mistake them for a ghoul. They have no fur!’’ he shouted raising his arms to point at me.
“So that makes them a mutant to you because they are furless?’’ the Boss sighed.
Nathan spoke up suddenly “Why did you shoot us down?!” I looked at him, and then back to the ponies at the door nodding for them to answer. I had guessed why but wanted confirmation.
“We thought you were Enclave pegisi spies or an invading unit from them… seeing as they are usually hostile we decided to shoot down all pegisi vertibucks that come close to town.” He said continuing to flip the cap consistently while explaining.
Nathan spoke up from beside me again. “But there must be a difference between a Vertibuck and a British Army helicopter. Why were we shot down!?” he stated angrily.
“Nathan calm down, that’s an actual order!” I hissed in his ear. I didn’t want to become a pile of meat paste and he was acting as my ticket to Hell.
The boss actually gulped, which surprised me. “Well to us anything that comes from the sky is an Enclave Vertibuck or a squad… we don’t get many griffins around, so we just assumed…” he trailed off unable to finish. I thought quickly of a question to ask him.
“Ok fine, but what is going to happen to us and our stuff that we were carrying?” I asked.
He shook his head then answered. “We were originally going to shoot you in the head and keep all your gear… But you are not Enclave and are non-hostile. So therefore we are going to let you out of here with it and our apologies. Be aware that not many ponies would be this generous but we still believe in SOME dignity in the wasteland.” The last part was a clear warning that we needed to be careful but I was so relieved to find out that we could be free that I never really took it to heart.
I was about to say something, when he spoke again. “Stick around town for a while and get your bearings. And if you need some radiation supplies you can get them in the general store.” he turned and walked out the door and the guard followed but he called back to us “Follow me to get your things and friends.”
I had no reason not to, so I did, Nathan followed after a few seconds later. We were walked down a corridor and into a small ward room with some beds in. Peter and Jordan were waiting for us while Kieran was lying on a bed. The nurses were staring, while they were bringing out our Duffle bags full of equipment we pulled out of the chopper. The room itself was a lot cleaner than I thought it would be with only a few cracks in the floor and walls, there were 3 broken lights and the posters were also less torn and dirty.
Peter saw me and walked over. “So Lyra, we get to go free?” he asked as he stared at the ponies behind me.
They nodded and gestured to our stuff “It’s all there and we never even searched it so you won’t find anything missing… We are really sorry about this whole thing and we hope we can make it up to you.”
We all were surprised when he pulled a large sack of bottle caps and held it out to us. I shook my head and was surprised to see Nathan, Peter and Jordan shaking too. I looked back to the ponies in front of me.
“We cannot accept that and will not either. Keep them.” He was staring directly into my eyes to see if I was serious. Seeing that I was, his eyes widened in disbelief.
“Really, you don’t accept… there are 5000 caps in this!?” they were so surprised that the earth pony guard dropped his mini-gun.
“We would be glad to accept them… IF we actually deserved them… so we got our stuff and we are alive, so we forgive you because you thought we were evil pegisi and it is a mistake anyon… anyPONY on the surface would have made… we will stick around town and find out what the fuck is going on in this wasteland then leave. Then we will begin our mission again to find the Stable Dweller and her crew.”
He listened to everything I said and to see if there was something he could help with; he couldn’t, so he gestured to the door “You know where the exit is, you get your friend and I will go tell the mayor of the town and the other ponies NOT to shoot you in your flanks… you have flanks right?” he had trailed off asking that question.
The response: laughing, lots of laughing “I *laugh* think that we have the same thing here, so I don’t personally give a shit.” I said holding my sides.
Jordan looked over laughing “I like this place. Coming back is defiantly ON the list of the things we need to do while travelling.” He grinned at me when he said that. I noticed what that meant. I made a note to return to New Appleoosa. The ponies left the room and I turned to Kieran “Let’s wake him up.”
***********
20 minutes later.
“Why the hell is he such a light weight when it comes to this type of stuff!?” I shouted as I slapped his face “Really we have been doing this for 20 minutes!”
He finally stirred and opened his eyes then suddenly shouted “OW WHY THE FUCK DOES MY FACE HURT!”
I face palmed and walked out the room as Peter started to explain what had happened to him. I passed through the corridor to the main room again and went to the front door. “Well moment of truth.” I muttered and walked out the door. Outside there was the entire town’s population “Take a step outside and Holy shit.” I muttered to myself.
I heard comments, lots of them too “There is one of them.” And “What the hay is that thing!”
They were all cut off by the Guard boss from earlier “I told you they weren’t ponies and that they are friendly. That is all that matters!” the crowed grumbled but walked off back to their business. Nathan walked out the door behind me and gave me my Duffle bag as the Boss walked over to us.
“See, as soon as they learn you are not here to rape and pillage us they walk away and stop caring.” He laughed to himself for a second while me and Nathan smiled.
“I just realised we never properly introduced. The name is Railright and I am pretty much the sherrif here.” I nodded and shook his hand.
“Names Lyra, thanks for letting us go.”
“Don’t mention it ok, it’s our fault you are now ride less.”
“Hey Railright it’s cool ok I never expected our luck to hold out with that helicopter anyway…surviving the entry into this place was way too lucky to begin with.” I shook my head and nodded at him.
“The name’s Nathan and I also say thanks.”
Railright smiled at him then looked back to me.
“Well the general store is over there ‘Absolutely everything’s the name.” He pointed to a building nearby “It’s run by a ghoul pony just as a warning.” He was cut off by me
“Oh, so that means that they are from the pre-war times right?” I asked. He nodded, I grinned back.
“Yes, her name is Ditzy Doo an-“
I cut him off suddenly again in excitement. “THE Ditzy Doo as in pegasus mare with a yellow mane with slightly miss-angled eyes!?’’ I asked jumping on the spot.
He raised an eyebrow then answered “Yes… Why?’’
I didn’t answer instead I squealed in delight knowing that my favourite pony was still alive, and although she was a ghoul I knew she wouldn’t look the same but I am not racist to anyone, so I didn’t care in the slightest about it.
Leaving a confused pony and marine behind, I ran down to the building named like he said ‘Absolutely everything’ and stopped outside spotting a sign on the wall ‘Wasteland survival guide. Get yours today’.
“Huh she wrote that book like Moira did in fallout 3 makes sense as they are both Derpy … clever girl.’’ I said then I then opened the door and walked inside.