//------------------------------// // Chapter 19 // Story: Fallout New Vegas: Unexpected Friends // by Sleepyted //------------------------------// Twilight groaned in agony. Her head felt as if it was being beaten by a sledge hammer with each pump of her heart. She goes to open her eyes but instantly clenches them shut as she is assaulted by what felt like a sun inches from her face. Groaning again she rolls over on the hard surface she was laying on and felt a hoof fall off of it. Slowly she started to open one of her eyes, hissing as the light greeted her again. Once her eyes were all the way open, which took about five minutes, she was greeted by the morning sky, slightly orange from the burning sun on the horizon. Looking to the side Twilight’s eyes went wide and stumbled back. She was currently sat on top of the large wide brimmed of one of the metal statues out the front of the outpost. Clutching a chunk of the hat tightly she looked around in slight shock at the height. Looking at her back she found her once bandaged wings were now uncovered and looked now worse for wear besides the dirty feathers and scaring around the base of them. Slowly she stretched them, groaning as they let out a few small pops and she sighed. Walking off the edge she used her wings to slow the descent and landed with a soft thud. “Now where’s Anne?” She mumbled to herself and relised just how dry and sore her throat was. “ANNE!” She croaked out, not seeing the woman anywhere she tried again. “ANNE!” She yelled louder, her throat killing her. “Huh?” came from an upside-down barrel. “Anne?” Twilight asked uncertainly. ‘THUD’ “FUCK!” said the barrel after jolting slightly. After a moment two metal clad legs lifted the rusted metal barrel up and staggered slightly. “H-huh?” Anne said, her voice echoing inside the barrel. “You alright Anne?” Twilight croaks out. Anne starts taking off the barrel, eyes winced shut slightly as she saw the morning sun. “Fucking hell I hate hangovers.” She grumbles, rubbing her eyes. “Want some water princess?” She asks, taking her bag out of the barrel. “Yes please.” Twilight croaks. Reaching into her bag Anne pulls out a bottle of slightly dirty water and takes the cap off. After drinking a fair amount she passes it to Twilight who drinks the rest greedily. “My throat still hurts.” Twilight groans, rubbing her neck. “It’s a hangover, it’s sort of what happens when you get one.” “I don’t even care that I pretty much just drank mud, I want more.” Twilight says. “Unless you want to die of dehydration you’ll have to go without it until we actually need it.” Anne says. “What even happened last night? I can’t remember what happened at all.” Twilight asks, massaging her temple to try and get rid of the bad headache she had. “Well, do you want the one that you would like or what actually happened?” Anne clarified. “Ummm, what actually happened please?” Twilight said nervously. “Well, we started with whiskey and Nuka-Cola before just going to straight whiskey when you said you could handle it, which might I add you couldn’t.” Anne started. “Then what happened.” Twilight pushed. “Well, you challenged an NCR guy to a drinking contest saying you aren’t feeling tipsy at all before falling on your face.” She said with a small chuckle. “But you wouldn’t back down and after only about two shots you started to brag about being able to fly and took off your bandages. To prove it you flew to the top of the statues before you fell unconscious on top of one. Well, that’s what I was told before I fell asleep in… a barrel.” “What were you doing then? Did you forget as well?” Twilight asked. “Well, yeah, I remember it…” Anne said nervously. “Then why do you only know what happened from one of the other troopers?” “Ummm, cause I was doing something else.” “What was it?” Twilight said forcefully. “Nothing you need to worry about.” Anne said trying to ignore the question. “Just tell me, as long as it wasn’t bad I won’t care.” Anne let out a defeated sigh, rubbing her eyes before looking at Twilight. “Fine then, if you really want to know I was busy screwing one of the troopers out back of the bar.” She said crossing her arms. Twilight adopts a large blush on her cheeks. “W-well, you don’t need to sa-“ She started but Anne decided to mess with the pony. “Would you like to know what we did? It was a whole load of fun.” She says with a large grin. Twilight can’t help but cover her face with her wings, trying to hide herself the best she could. “Alright, I-I get it.” She stutters. “Are you sure? You don’t want me to describe it to you?” Anne asks innocently as she pulls out the packet of cigarettes. “Yes, just be quiet about it already, I have too much of a headache to deal with this right now.” Twilight grumbles. Anne lights the cigarette in her mouth, putting the lighter back into her pocket as she took a drag. “Well then, we should probably go back to Primm quickly so we have enough time to get to the next town before dark.” _________________________________________________________________________ “I just got word that, there's a squad of rangers standing by .Sergeant McGee will take over as sheriff and the rangers will be his deputies, this town will be an NCR territory.” Hayes says, a small smirk on his face. “This means that aside from protection the citizens will also need to become registered NCR citizens and pay any appropriate and associated taxes.” “Yep, tell them to get here as soon as they can.” Anne says with a smile. “Roger, I’ll radio them over now.” He says offering Anne a hand who shakes it firmly. “Pleasure doing business with you Lieutenant.” Twilight says. While Hayes goes over to a large radio on the table Anne and Twilight choose that time to leave the tent. “Awesome, now let’s just keep heading down the road and get to this ‘Novac’ place.” Anne says. _________________________________________________________________________ “Umm, Twilight, we’ll have to go through Nipton to get to Novac.” Anne said nervously, seeing the bellowing black smoke in the distance. Twilight swallowed a lump in her throat. “L-let’s just get it over with quickly, those Legion soldiers left about the time we did, hopefully they didn’t come back.” Twilight replies back. After ten minutes of walking the two were on the outskirts of the burnt down town and started to travel through, Twilight covering her mouth and nose with her wings to try and block the smell away but it didn’t work that much. “Urrrrr!” Something moaned loudly, causing the two to jump back in surprise, Anne drawing her pistol. A man, tied up to a large wooden cross moaned in agony, blood dripping from the dozens of wounds along his beaten body. “Shit, he’s still alive.” Anne exclaimed, looking around. “All the fuckers are alive.” “Let’s get them down!” Twilight says, flapping her wings to lift herself off the ground and started to untie one of the binds around his wrists while Anne took out her machete and with a single whack cut through all the binding on one of hinds. Dropping the blade as the man fell forward Anne caught her and Twilight tried to slow his decent. The man wasn’t making a sound once he was on the ground, eyes closed. Bringing her head to the man’s chest as she tried to find a heartbeat. “He’s… Gone, died taking him down.” Anne said softly, sitting back and grabbing her machete and putting it back in its sheath. Twilight looked slightly shocked at the body. “He died?” Twilight said, eyes wide. “My bet is if we try to take any of the others down they’ll meet the same fate.” Anne said sourly. “But we can’t just leave them to suffer up there life they don’t exist.” Twilight protested. “Each one of them won’t survive being taken down, their bodies are too weak.” Anne says, letting out a tied sigh. “It’s up to you weather they die in pain as they are now or if we should end it for them.” She finished. Twilight’s mind was racing with a hundred different things all at once. On one hand if they left the people on the makeshift crosses then they might live longer but in great pain for the rest of it. “We should stop the pain for them.” Twilight says softly. “Alright then, I’ll do it if you want.” Anne said, pulling her varmint rifle off of her back and cocking the bolt. Twilight nods, looking away as Anne walked up to the closest hung up person. All the pony heard was the crack of the low powered rifle and the metallic clicks of the bolt going back and forth. “It’s done.” Anne said solemnly, putting the rifle back on her back. Twilight only nodded, not looking up to the dead bodies hung on display like a morbid art project. “Should we burry them?” She asked softly. Anne sighed, pulling the crumpled packet of cigarettes from her pocket. “With what? I don’t think there would be any shovels around here and to be honest I want to get out of here as soon as we can.” She said, offering the box to Twilight who shook her head. “It just feels… wrong to leave them tied up like this.” The pony said, her wings ruffling on her sides. “That means you still have morality after your days in the Mojave, never lose it.” Anne says putting a cigarette in her mouth before lighting it. “Now let’s get the hell out of here before I let everything sink in fully.” The woman says starting to walk off, Twilight followed closely behind her. “What type of sick mind must the Legion have to commit something like that? Even insane ponies would be sickened by that.” Twilight wondered, looking down at the ruined roads. “You wouldn’t want the answer to that even if I could give it to you, there are some things better left unknown Princess.” Anne said, taking a drag of her cigarette. “I think you’re right Anne, I just hope we don’t see too much of them in the future.” Twilight said as the grounds on the sides of the road suddenly becoming a cliff face, the road going through a canyon. “You and me both Princess, you and me both.” Anne sighs, chucking her smoke to the side of the road. Up ahead was an overturned truck with its contents lost with time but a few things were still around it like scrap metal, broken glass and even a few traffic cones around it. The only thing that could be heard was the squawk of a crow unseen by the duo. “So, do you want me to turn on the radio?” Anne asks, her metal feet clanking on the stone ground. “Sure, that sounds nice.” Twilight responded. Anne lifted up her arm with the large Pip-Boy on it, poking a few buttons around the screen with metallic clicking sounds. The woman didn’t realize till she was already on it that she knocked one of the traffic cones to the side and exposing the dull brown disk under it, large red light on top flashing. ‘BEEP’ “Shit.” ‘BOOM’ Anne had no time to get out of the way as the mine exploded under her left leg, sending her flying to the right and slamming into the wreckage of the truck even before the explosion died out. Twilight stumbled back in shock, the shockwave from being so close to the explosion causing a ringing in her ears. She didn’t see what happened to Anne as her eyes closed as soon as they mine went off and when she opened them all she saw was the smoldering hole and some blood around it. Twilight’s eyes went wide and her head whipped around. “ANNE!?” She called, her heart in her throat. She got no response. Just as she was going to call again but before she could there was a yell. “Waste ‘em!” Someone yelled before the air was filled with the sounds of gunfire. Up upon the top of the canyon bandits of some sort sprung from their hiding spots and started firing at Twilight. With her survival instincts kicking in the pony dove for the truck, hiding behind the rubble as she heard bullets hit the metal with pings and pangs. Looking to her side Twilight saw the prone form of Anne and instantly she felt relieved that her friend wasn’t reduced to pulp. Her eyes were open and she was staring off at the sky, eyes blinking every so often and her breathing heavy. Looking down Twilight could see that the lower part of her left leg which still was covered in her armor was all bent up with cracks and holes along the surface of the metal, blood seeping through it. “That hurt.” Anne grunt, trying to drag herself to lean against some rubble but her leg would barely move. “Fuck, that hurt a lot.” “I’m so glad you’re alive Anne.” Twilight says. “Don’t start celebrating before we’re out of this, there’s still an ambush shooting at us.” Anne said pulling the pistol out of its holster. “I ain’t gonna be walking out of here, my leg is totally fucked to hell.” “What do we do then?” Twilight asks worriedly. “Drag me, I’ll just shoot in their general direction and hopefully they will hide from the shots, just bite the back of my armor and pull me along.” She says. “What if they keep shooting?” “If we don’t do this we’re dead anyway.” “Alright.” Twilight said, leaning Anne forward and biting the metal bar going around the back of her neck. “Ready?” She asks slightly muffled. “I don’t know, am I?” “I think you are.” “Alright then, let’s go.”