//------------------------------//
// Chaprer 5: First mistakes 
// Story: Fallout: Equestria -- One War to Another 
// by LightningDash NLR 
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Chapter 5: first mistakes.
With my music playing and DJ PON-3 Radio on, we were walking towards Manehatten; it was going to be a long journey, but something we could manage. I looked around as we walked to see if there was anything worth investigating. Finding none, other than a tree that looked like a finger flipping you off, which Peter took a photo of, I looked at my pip-buck and checked my inventory menu. 
I had no idea how the fuck this thing knows what I am carrying and how much of it but decided not to question the magic involved. I checked my weapons first. SA80 rifle with shotgun attachment on the front and a Glock 18 with a silencer and laser sight. Ammo wise I was pretty good 660 5.56mm rounds for my rifle 72 12 gauge shotgun shells and 200 rounds for the glock. I saw the bullets for all my guns available to purchase in Derpy’s shop, except the 9mm rounds, so I knew I could restock here. 
I checked my ‘Aid’ menu to see what food and medical supplies I had, 34 colas still, A full military grade first aid kit, a healing potion 'somehow', 16 MRE’s and the 5 Rad away’s I bought from the shop. 
Satisfied I let my arm fall to my side and looked around; we were walking past an old building that looked a lot like a bus station.
“Want to take a look?” Peter asked me. I nodded and be walked over to the door. 
“Stealth, no door breach.” I whispered. I checked the HUD for red blips but could only see my friends' yellow ones. 
“Scan shows clear but be prepared for ANYTHING.” I hissed to the others and tested the door. It was locked. “Well I guess I am just going to have to pick the fucker.” I said and got the screwdriver and pin from my pocket.
“Or we could just breach the door.” Peter said to me the large man shrugging.
“You see this building mate; it’s a fucking old wreck. We can’t risk the building collapsing so I am picking the bloody door.” 
After putting Pete’s plan out the window I crouched down. This old thing looks easy enough. I thought and started picking. After a few turns of the pin the lock gave a satisfying click and I turned the handle, the door opened a little. I removed the pin and the screwdriver, and put them back into their pocket. 
“Ok, let’s move.” Nathan said and we pushed the door open.
Inside was a small burned out lobby with posters too charred to see on several billboards. There were 3 vending machines in the corner and several doors and boxes plus the till behind the counter, probably for ticket fare, which we could raid. 
“Ok Peter, Nathan you search the rooms through those doors for things like weapons ammo and most importantly look for a box with 3 butterflies on them, I saw in the guide that those are medical boxes that might have potions in them. Kieran you search those boxes for stuff and Jordan you go twat that till you see if it has any money in it. As for me, I am raiding the vending machines for drinks.” After a few brief grunts of conformation from the others I walked over to the vending machine and saw a gold coin on the floor, picking it up, I saw it was a bit. Being curious, I put it in the machine in front of me and it dispensed a Sparkle cola. 
“Wow, this thing still works!” I called to Jordan who was looking over from hitting the till with a hammer he found on the floor. Grabbing the drink I put it behind me and turned back to the machine. After a few seconds it dawned on me ‘Why isn’t this place raided?’ I turned back and looked around the lobby for anything that looked dangerous, finding nothing, I called out to the others.
“Guys this place is untouched and on a road, so I think we need to leave as soon as possible, this place MUST have something wrong with it if the ponies never touched it in what? 200 years?!” Jordan looked over and nodded.
“Thanks, I’ll keep an eye out. Kieran keep your eyes peeled for anything creepy, ok?” he called getting a response in the form of a grunt from him, who had his head in a box.
I turned to the Vending machines again and decided to wing it. I booted the front of the machine shattering the front and revealing the (Nearly empty) interior. I grabbed the five colas and moved to the next machine. This was a different machine, one of which the drinks name made Fallout New Vegas come to mind.
“Sunrise sarsaparilla, are you kidding me? That is almost EXACTLY like Sun’SET’ sarsaparilla from New Vegas, is the universe even trying!” I laughed and kicked this machines front in too, Grabbing 9 sarsaparillas’ I then moved to the final machine. Unlike the others this one was for food. 
“Apple sugar bombs… 200 year old food… fuck it! If the colas are still good then this must be too.” I muttered and smashed the glass in, taking all the boxes of apple cereal about 13 in total. That was the food we eat when either we run out of MRE’s or want something which doesn’t taste like dirt. 
I walked over to the counter and Jordan threw a bag at me. I caught it and looked inside, it had bits in, a small text box I never noticed before stated that 57 Pre-war bits were added to my inventory. I raised my eyebrow at that then looking back to Jordan.
He was filling another bag with some more bits from the till. 
“Nice Jordan congrats.” I said putting one of the newly obtained Sparkle colas onto the desk in front of him. “it’s not as nice as our coca cola but it will be an ok replacement when we run out.” I said as he put it into a pocket on his duffle bag. Someone then slammed their hand on the counter in between us, causing Jordan to jump backwards and me to pull out my glock and point it at the intruder. I looked and saw it was Kieran who had slammed the counter. He was grinning and putting a box on the table.
“Kiwi, you stupid dick! We nearly shit a brick!” Jordan shouted over the counter. 
“Oh you’re fine, shut it.” Kieran replied and opened the box inside there was 3 small boxes with the sun and moon on them. I opened the boxes and inside there were 3 very well preserved knives. They were encrusted with a different crystal per blade, one red, one blue, and one green. 
“So you found some cool knives, I guess this was some kind of post office or something not a bus depot.”  I said picking up the red one. I passed the green to Kieran and the blue to Jordan. I slid it into the second knife hilt in my shoulder that was empty, while the other 2 put theirs in an ammo pocket. 
“So we found a lot of shit, let’s wait for the others to come back and then head out before dark.” I said looking at the open door.
We waited another 5 minutes before I started to get worried, deciding that my friends were in trouble I shot up from sitting on the counter and walked in through the first door into the darkened corridor that led to other parts of the station. 
I turned on the pip-buck light and the torch on my rifle for extra light pulled my rifle into a ready position and walked down the corridor looking for Nathan and Peter. When I got quarter of the way down the corridor Jordan appeared next to me.
“We know what you’re doing, so Kieran is searching the other corridor in case they link up. Turn on your walkie-talkie we have a clear signal with each other now. The channel number is 19.4.” he said as he pulled up his rifle and walked next to me.
I did as I was advised and set up the channel on my walkie-talkie. 
“Kieran, you there?” I asked into the microphone a few seconds later I got a reply from him. 
“Yes ma’am, the coast is clear, but this area looks like a scene from a horror movie. There are skeletons everywhere!” he was nervous. Then I remembered something VERY important “Kieran when I spoke to the ghoul shop keeper, I noticed that she never had a yellow blip on my HUD like she was dead, If there are any ghouls hiding I think our pip-bucks wont be able to detect them so be fucking careful and if you see a corpse move SHOOT IT!” 'That might explain why this place was never searched' I thought to myself, I heard Jordan next to me gulp and he cocked his weapon.
As we rounded the corner I heard ‘Thump, bang, bang’ then there was an inhuman growl and some muffled shouting back at it. 
“Found ‘em.” I said and sprinted towards the sound. Roughly halfway there I was suddenly tackled to the ground, in surprise I looked up at a heavily rotten mare with glowing eyes, my pip-buck was letting me know I was sucking up radiation from her.
“GET OF ME!” I screamed and my boot met with her chest giving me room to grab one of the knives. I took out my standard knife and slammed it into her head, and gave a hard twist, to my horror she roared in my face unaffected by the knife in any way, She was beginning to force my leg back down, her teeth gnashing to tear a chunk out of me.
As she was within inches of my throat she was suddenly flung of me, impacting the wall with a loud crunch. I turned to see what happened up to see Jordan with a pipe in his hands covered in glowing blood. 
“Move Lyra!” he shouted and threw the pipe, It impacted on the ghoul’s chest, pinning her to the wall, I grabbed my pistol and fired into her face, until she stopped moving, splattering the walls with glowing blood and brains. 
“Thanks.” I said to Jordan and started to walk towards the distant shouting again, much more carefully this time. We both rounded the corner to see 3 ghouls pressed against a metal door clawing at it desperate to get in, inside I could hear Peter shouting curses and kicking the door. Two of the ghouls were glowing and the other wasn’t, so I devised a quick plan. 
“Jordan take out the glowing ones first. They are tougher and need to be dealt with.” I whispered into his ear. I got the taller one, he took the smaller. 
After a quick countdown we ran around the corner and fired. The taller ghoul was surprised and turned to attack us, but as soon as he started to move towards us the first bullets impacted his body 3 shots to the chest and 2 to the head put an end to his plans of a meal. 
The second ghoul Jordan was having trouble hitting as it was charging and ducking, with surprising skill. It got within striking range and pounced at Jordan.
It was intercepted by a kick to the legs that sent it onto the floor from me. I fired again showering the wall in its glowing brains. 
I looked up to fire at the third ghoul, but what I saw was surprising, Peter was holding it in a headlock. After a few seconds of struggling he threw it to the floor then jumped on its skull with all his weight turning its head into a pile of sludge.
“Eww Peter, damn that was gross and it’s all over your boots too.” I said, pointing at his now brain matter covered boots.  
He looked at his boots and simply kicked the remains on a wall. 
“Lyra, shut up! Nathan was chased into another part of the building, we need to find him!” he stated loudly and ran up the corridor towards the back of the building. 
“PETER, WAIT!” I called out, but it was too late as he was gone. “Dammit!”
Kieran spoke over the radio. “Hey Lyra I found Nathan, he was buried under the corpse of one of them ghoul things. I heard shouting and a gunshot and found the poor bastard a second later. We’re hiding in a room full of filing cabinets in place known as the ‘filer section’ so meet us there.” He sighed and I heard some growling. 
“Some of the bastards charged around the corner as soon as I got Nathan on his feet. So we ran in here and locked the door, they are trying to open the door but Nathan is holding the valve handle closed. Please, hurry!”

Nathan called out from the door “Sooner than later please!”
After hearing that I and Jordan sprinted down the corridors the way Peter went trying to catch up so we can help if Peter got to them first.

***********

Peters P.O.V

I ran away from Lyra and Jordan to chase after Nathan, it wasn’t a good idea but I wouldn't forgive myself, if I lost him in this hell hole. I charged full speed through the dark halls. Knife at the ready, I managed to slit the throat of the ghouls in my way without even slowing my pace. 
After another 3 minutes of running I turned a corner and ran right into a group of about 12 ghouls that were attacking a metal door similar to the one I hid behind, which meant it was a storage room. The wall had a small sign saying ‘Filing section’ but that wasn’t what interested me.
All the ghouls turned to me at once and the roar that came after was all I needed to know in this situation.
“RUN OR DIE!” I screamed and charged back the way I came with the hoard following.  As I ran around the corner I saw the one thing I didn’t want to see at that moment: Lyra and Jordan. they were running weapons ready towards me but stopped in their tracks when they saw what I was bringing in their direction. “PETER RUN!” Lyra shouted and she and Jordan started firing at the hoard of flesh hungry zombie ponies behind me.

**********

Lyra’s P.O.V
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing Peter was training a hoard of ghouls and was heading right towards us. 
“PETER RUN!” I shouted and started firing at the hoard behind my friend, Jordan doing the same; I managed to take 4 of them down while Jordan got 2. 
“I need to reload!” we both said at the same time, looking at each other in shock we realised ‘we have not got time to reload’ we turned and ran with Peter now a meter behind us and the hoard just behind him. We rounded a bend and shot through a hole in a wall leading into a delivery room.  I hopped over a conveyor belt and grabbed my pistol and knife, this time the red jewelled one, and readied for the attack. Jordan and peter carried on running past and went through a door, not noticing that I had took cover.
“Oh fuck!” I said when I noticed I was alone. The ghouls charged through the hole. Our sudden change in direction had confused them and coming right towards me I emptied my gun into the front of some of the ghouls sending 2 to the floor in a heap. The other 4 got tripped by their friends and that gave me enough time to holster my pistol and grab my other knife. I had just got ready when the first ghoul got within my range. I swung my hand to the right bringing the knife, the one without a jewel, into the ghoul’s forehead. The second ghoul swung its hand at me, intending to knock me down. I blocked in time and stabbed the jewelled knife into its chest. To my amazement it burst into flames causing me to stumble back.
That was the opening the ghouls needed as both of them pounced me at once. One grabbed me from the front, and one from behind. I shouted and swung my military knife into the front ghoul’s eye, sending it to the ground, dead before it even began to fall. The second I couldn’t reach, so I struggled to get out of its grip but before I could escape, the ghoul bit into my neck and tore a chunk of my flesh away. Agonising pain spread through my body and I did the only thing my brain would let me do at the time. I screamed.