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// Chapter 4: Derping around. 
// Story: Fallout: Equestria -- One War to Another 
// by LightningDash NLR 
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Chapter 4 Derping around

One thing I knew it smelled BAD but I knew the poor girl couldn’t do anything about it. The shop itself was cool it had lots of ammo, weapons, radiation supplies and medicine plus a few random its and bits scattered around. Ditzy herself was sitting behind the counter with a grey hoodie on her ‘derped’ eyes still adorable even with her rotten face. Her yellow mane was nothing more than a few long clumps of yellow hair. She stood up and walked over to me with a chalk board in her hand. She smiled and wrote on the board, she flipped it over and written on it was. 
“Hello! Welcome to my shop! If I may ask, are you a ghoul too, whose muzzle fell off?” I looked her and saw a playful look in her eyes. 
I burst out laughing, she laughed too. There was no sound from her though. I wanted to ask about it but that was definitely NOT the correct thing to do.
After I stopped laughing I said “Good joke… ok fuck it.” I raised my voice and stated aloud “Ditzy Doo, you are the best pony in Equestria!”
She looked at me, her eyes focused and she wrote on the board again she showed it to me again it stated “What? Why am I the best pony in Equestria?” 
I sighed “Fine! Don’t tell anyone this EVER but… My people on my planet can see Equestria before the war. We made a cartoon that perfectly remade it up to the battle against Chrysalis at the royal wedding of Shining Armor and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, in that show we all got to see you back in Ponyville on the day that you were fixing the town hall with Rainbow Dash when you accidentally made that hole and Rainbow fell through, well ever since I saw you I thought you and Lyra Heartstrings were my joint favourite ponies. I know it sounds like crazy bullshit but it is all true.”
Throughout the whole story her face switched between shock, embarrassment, surprise then happiness. To show her I was telling the truth I took off my Armour vest and unbuttoned my Shirt. She was looking very alarmed and looking left and right. But calmed and managed to sqwee in happiness at what she saw. Underneath my shirt was a Derpy and Lyra t-shirt, they were hoof bumping and grinning with the message ‘Derp up the Music’ underneath. She gasped at the shirt and wrote ‘Wow, that’s cool but why are me and Lyra Heartstrings so different in that picture… I have 2 hooves and hands not 4 hooves.’
I did my shirt back up and put on my armour “You look like that because that is what our show put you as what you really are. NOW, right here is what we humans say ‘Anthro’ - in between Human and that Pony on my shirt, a perfect mix. Please, don’t tell anyone but I needed to tell you that you are awesome.” She smiled and walked behind the counter. After a few seconds she walked back out and put a book in my hands. I looked at the title ‘The wasteland survival guide’ I gasped.
“Wow! This is your book?” she smiled and then wrote ‘Yes, one book free to every family.’
“But I am not with family.” I was confused.
“Doesn’t matter, none of your family have one, right?” she replied with her board I nodded in return.
I walked over to the medical supplies. 
“Healing potions, MedX, Super healing potion… Dash?... RadX… where is it… AH-HA!” I picked up some Rad away and said to Derpy “How much are these each?” 
She wrote her reply quickly ‘For my biggest fan 3 caps, its usually 6 but I like you.’ I smiled back. I looked into my pocket and saw 13 coca cola caps, the sparkle cola rad cap and a beer cap. 
“Do you accept any caps?” I asked. She was confused by this and looked at me then wrote ‘What do you mean?’ I pulled out a coca cola cap and put it on the counter. “I have some caps from my world here from our drinks, instead or sparkle cola we drink Coca cola and other drinks like Pepsi and Dr pepper… would you accept those caps too or are you only interested in sparkle cola?” she thought about it for a minute before she smiled and wrote ‘Yes I remember. ALL caps are welcome. There was a Zebra drink and the caps are accepted like any other in the wasteland. So I assume yours would be good too.’ She winked her yellow eye at me and I giggled. Even after all she had probably seen and done she was still our cute little Derpy. 
“Don’t ever change Derpy, please, don’t ever change.” I said as I got all my caps out, I counted out the 15 caps in my pocket and bought 5 rad away’s. Then I realised something. 
“Derpy, I might have some very rare items with me I need to check.” I took off my bag and rummaged through all my stuff and found them, my bottles of Glens vodka, that I had hidden from everyone else and my coca colas,
I decided to be smart, remembering my Fallout 3 games and checked the pip-buck for how much they were worth; the vodka was worth 100 caps and the cola each was worth 20.
“Whoa… Human items in Equestria are worth A LOT of caps that’s what my pip-buck says.” I showed her the numbers and she nodded and wrote ‘They are very, very rare… I can offer you 18 for the cola though and 75 for the what you said ‘’HUMAN?’’ vodka.’ I decided that was fair as she was lovely and I loved her enough to let my price drop. 
“You got yourself a deal Derpy.” I said and shook her hand… it was a bad feeling and we both grimaced, It felt like a freshly peeled scab. She wrote. 
‘I need to put my gloves on, I hate being a ghoul sometimes.’ 
I replied simply: “I refuse to call at least YOU that name … I will call you...” I paused for a few seconds, thinking for something.  I shrugged and said “A Pre-war pony. You are way too nice to be called a ghoul, a ghoul describes a living dead that wants to eat you and is the same as a zombie but can’t turn you into one, so I am not calling any of you ponies that.” She cocked her head to the side as I put 16 cola’s and the vodka on the table as I talked. When I was done she simply shook her head and smiled before handing me my caps.
“Thank you, Derpy.” I said as she paid me. As I turned to leave she prodded my shoulder, holding her sign up ‘What is your name? I want to add you to the list of Friendly ponies on the back page of my copies of the book.’ I smiled 
“I can’t believe I forgot to tell you that.” I face palmed at my forgetfulness “My name is Lyra, Lyra Melody Locke if you wanted a full name.” she gasped and wrote ‘You have the same name as my old friend. No wonder you like her. Also, how do you spell your last name?’
I took the board from her and wrote the full name down with her chalk. She grinned and grabbed a pencil and wrote the name on a piece of paper on the wall. There were a few names above mine there too. Hers was at the top, Ditzy Doo. Then there were a few I couldn’t read from this far but as I reached near the bottom I saw ‘Littlepip’. Knowing this may be a chance to learn her location I spoke up. 
“Derpy, do you know where I may find Littlepip?” She looked at me, questioning why I would want to know. Then smiled and wrote down ‘She isn’t allowed in this town anymore because her efforts caused trouble for the town. But she may be seen around the Manehatten area. Or maybe somewhere near Fillydelphia, if you listen to the radio, she is being talked about by DJ PON-3. The 3 is pronounced E so sounds like DJ pony. The Ten Pony Tower radio should be on your pip-buck’ I looked at the Radio tab and saw the names the only one with signal said ‘Ten Pony Tower’.
“So DJ PON-3 must be like Three dog then.’’ I laughed to myself then nodded to Derpy. “Thank you Derpy, no matter how you feel, keep smiling.” She grinned as I walked out the door.

I walked back outside and right into Peter. “There you are!” He said, looking relieved “What did you get?” he asked. I looked behind him and saw Jordan and Nathan looking at the wasteland survival guide sign while Kieran was staring at all the ponies with interest.
“Peter, I got some Rad away and sold some cola, plus my special vodka, and oh, Derpy gave me her book.’’ I said and pulled the Guide out of my pocket.
“We sticking around or leaving?” Kieran said looking at me. I put the guide in my pocket and walked out into the street checked the Pip-Buck map for Manehatten and set a marker.
“We will be back here at some point to see Best pony again.” This caused Nathan and Jordan to grin and walk into the shop, their eyes glowing with excitement, while Peter ignored them, Kieran was wondering what the hell just happened, but shrugged it off then started to adjust settings on his pip-buck. 
“Well when they are back anyway we are heading to the Ten pony tower building in Manehatten and talk to the DJ. Speaking of which.” I switched to the Ten Pony Tower station on my pip-buck and turned it on a Deep Black American voice came through the speaker.
“Now kiddies we need to remember ghouls are ponies too. You see, when ponies have been exposed to a huge amount of radiation and haven’t had the good fortune to die, they lose their fur and manes, then their skin rots a little and they look bad. THEY . ARE . NOT .ZOMBIES ! Kiddies, we need to remember this as some of them survived the war just to be killed by us. That just isn’t fair see, BUT I am talking only about the gouls who talk with ya. Those feral ghouls that roam the underground, surround Canterlot and await their prey in the boneyard up in the hoof. They are zombies and will do anything to get a bite out of ya, so kill any you see… the poor bastards need it. Now here’s Sapphire shores –“ I turned it off and looked towards the gate, Nathan and Jordan had returned with a smile on their face and an autograph, seriously why did I forget to get one too, and were waiting for my command.
“People we are going to Manehatten. I found headphones on this thing, so I will be listening to the radio as we walk to find out about that Littlepip, such as her exploits and personality as well as her location. Let’s go.” I walked to the gate and the guards opened it.
“Good luck out there!” the guard to my right said, looking into the dark road we would soon be walking. “You’re going to need it.” He commented as we walked past and into the wastes. 
As soon as the gates were closed we walked out, following my marker on the HUD, the path was old and well used. The dead grass on either side made my heart sink a little and the distant view of a distant destroyed Ponyville made a single tear roll down my face, shaking these feelings away I grabbed my SA80 and cocked it, while the others fell in line behind me, Peter and Jordan then Nathan and Kieran behind them.
As we began to walk I grabbed my iPod and started figuring out a way to put the songs into the pip-buck. 
“Let’s see here.” I noticed a slot in the pip-buck that matched the USB port of the iPod wire. I plugged it in and saw the Pip-buck gain a new menu on screen ‘Saved Music’ I checked it and all my songs were already transferred.
“YES!” I hissed and turned on ‘Song of Storms Living Tombstone remix’ as it played I turned on the radio too to listen for an announcement. “We are officially set.” I said to Peter who nodded to me.
“Lyra, should we check the Helicopter crash for stuff?”
I shuck my head. “We managed to grab everything ‘worth’ saving Peter.” He sighed before nodding and falling silent.
As we walked I looked onwards into the dusty road wondering what awaits us in this darkened new world.
“Just so you all know, I have no idea what is to be expected out here.” I said to the group and they looked a little nervous.
“Well, I think it’s going to be fun finding out.” I said with a grin getting the others to roll their eyes at me. I looked back to the road again with a little more bounce to my step. 'This isn’t gonna be that bad after all.' I thought as a break in the clouds gave us a brief look into the beautiful blue sky above and the golden sun, lighting our way to adventure.