Chapter 5: Black Mountain Pass
“Aint no mountain high enough...”
Black Mountain loomed eerily before us like a giant, surveying his territory. The road we had been walking on began to weave and snake around the rolling hills at the foot of the mountain.
Occasionally we would see a burned out chariot or cart on the road, or sticking out of the ground, front first. A long sky wagon, at least it looked like a sky wagon, was poking out of the dirt, long abandoned by its owner. ‘If only we had one of those and a pegasus’ I thought idley to myself. Yeah, like finding a working sky wagon and a pegasus would ever happen out here in the dusty, broken remains of the desert.
I could see how Black Mountain got its name; The Mountain itself was actually black compared to the gray and pale yellows of the surrounding area. I couldn't come to any conclusion of why it was like that, so I asked my traveling companions.
“Way I hear it, there was a dragon napping up there hundreds of years ago. It slept for so long that the ash from its snoring eventually turned the mountain black and no amount of scrubbing could get it off,” Ace said, making silly hoof movements through the air.
“That's just silly,” Stitches objected, rolling his eyes, “the soil around the mountain is much richer in minerals and nutrients, thus making the soil darker. Did you never read anything about geology? Or science in general?”
“Of course I did. I learned how to make basic ammunition and explosives.”
“That's chemistry, not geology. Just forget about it.” Stitches obviously didn't care enough to start a heated debate with Ace, that he knew he would eventually lose through just giving up.
“Damn right. Dragons,” Ace said as proudly as she could, puffing her chest out. Stitches gave a small sigh and shook his head.
We rounded the last bend before the mountain itself, and then I saw the large white dishes poking out of the side. The dishes reminded me of what Tire Iron had said about a balefire bomb going off over a communications array.
“Isn't that where one of the balefire bombs landed?” I asked.
“Yeah, why?” Ace replied, turning back to me.
“Wouldn't it be heavily radioactive?”
“You'd think so,” Stitches interjected, a know-it-all look on his face, “but it’s mostly focused around the peak and the communications facility. My theory is that since it was so high up, and the fact that very few bombs managed to detonate around the desert, most of the radiation was carried away by the winds. Leaving the base and tunnel of the mountain relatively harmless.” he theorised, putting his hoof to his chin.
“Relatively? I don’t like relatively irradiated, I would prefer not irradiated.” I whined.
“Just like everywhere else in the wastelands there are pockets of radiation. More so here than most of the wastes.” Ace explained with a smile.
We started our ascent up the side of the tall mountain, passing an old road sign, heavily covered with two hundred years of graffiti, with 'Black Mountain Pass 3 kilometers” written on it. This was going to be a long trek uphill and I certainly wasn’t looking forward to it because, well, you couldn't really count anything I had experienced over the last couple of weeks as a good nights sleep, not counting being unconscious.
The first leg of the trek was easy, but over time I started to feel bogged down, like I has trying to lift lead with my hooves. Luckily for us, there was a small flat area that was designated 'Scenic Outlook.' On the other side of the road was a small wooden door in the mountain face. I opened it to find it was just that; a door on the side of a mountain, it didn't lead anywhere, just to more rock.
“What is this?” I said as I closed and opened it again, kind of wishing something would appear magically before my eyes.
“Probably some joker playing a prank on travelers. Pretty good too, you should see your face.” Ace laughed as I realized that I was pouting with disapointment.
“Alright folks, lets peel ourselves from the mystery door and have some water. We go mobile in five minutes.” Stitches informed us, taking a long swig from his canteen.
The view was rather impressive from up there, I guees while you're focused on the road ahead, you never really think about how far up you’ve gone. I couldn't see over the mountains yet, but I could clearly see Ponave Outpost and Lipton. On the horizon I could barely see Goodsands and a few kilometers east was a large, fenced-in structure that I dismissed as the NCRCF.
“Really is pretty, isn't it?” Ace said as she trotted up next to me.
“Not really.” I grumbled, not really caring.
“What do you mean, 'not really'? It’s wonderful.” she insisted.
“Its mostly just yellow, brown and gray. Maybe if the sky wasn’t covered in clouds it might be pretty.” I looked up at the white, fluffy curtain, covering the sky above us with a depressing gloom.
“Whatever.” Ace nickered, waving her hoof dismissivly, “How're you holding up?”
That was a good question. I really had to think about it, I suppose after my brother dying before my very eyes, getting shot in the head, seeing a pony's head explode, stomping a bandit's head like a bug, and seeing a lot of ponies dead or dying, I was starting to wither inside, like a plant in the automn. I had yet to see anything good in this place; it even seemed that Goodsands was a fluke.
“I don't know, Ace. I just... don't know...” I sighed before starting back up the road. Stitches saw me and gave Ace a questioning look.
“What's eating at him?” he asked, thinking I was out of earshot. I frowned and picked up the pace, trying to put my frustration into raw energy.
“Just drop it, Stitch. He'll tell you when he wants to.” I let out a small, silent sigh of relief. I don't know exactly why Ace was coming with me on my journey, but it was nice to know that she wouldn't go blabbing about everything that's happened to me over the past few days. It was nice to have someone I might be able to trust again.
------ ------ ------
We had less than half a kilometer to go before we reached the tunnel before hearing something that did not bode well, why I didn't expect it out here was beyond me. I could hear the gentle sobs of a mare, coming up ahead.
We galloped to where it was coming from, leaping over dirt mounds, rocks, and fallen power lines at top speeds. We turned the corner and were met with a purple mare clutching her bloodied leg with her hooves, her face scrunched up in sheer agony, trying to hold in her tears but failing to hold back a few choked sobs.
Ace levitated her shotgun out, and I set my varmint rifle against my shoulder with the handle in my mouth, anticipating immanent danger. Another reason I did not like this rifle was that it had an awkward bolt; with my old rifle I could slide the bolt back with my hoof easily while still supporting the rifle with my mouth and shoulder. Some viewed this as odd, but I found it more accurate than using a battle saddle.
Stitches ran up to the mare and skidded to a halt before rummaging through his saddlebags.
“Clover, I’m gonna need some help here!” He shouted. I slung my rifle over my back and trotted to the mare’s side. “Okay, keep her talking so she doesn't go any farther into shock.”
“Got it. What's your name?” I asked. gently stroking the mare’s hoof, trying to keep her as calm as I could.
“Purple Haze, who are you?” she managed to ask between choked sobs.
“My name's Clover. Where are you from?” I asked. Stitches was administering a painkiller through a syringe he had pulled form one of his pockets.
“Rust Town.” She said, starting to calm from the relaxing fluid now coursing through her veins from the syringe. I looked at Ace to see if she knew what Rust Town was, but she just shrugged.
“Okay, now where is that?”
She cringed when Stitches put pressure on her wound, trying to stop the blood seeping out from around his hooves. “Its on the other side of the mountain; my son ran away and went after him.”
“Doc, need a potion or some healing bandages?” Ace said.
“No, the healing bandages will become useless with the amount of blood she's loosing, and I have to stop the bleeding before she can have a health potion so I can clean the wound, whatever cut her was either really dirty or infected.” he looked up from the gory wound, “Do any of you have any cigarettes or cigars? Anything with tobacco?”
I remembered the pack I had taken from one of the bandits. I pulled out the pack and handed it to Stitches, trying to avoid looking at the exposed wound, I was starting to feel a little queasy.
Stitches pulled out one of the cigarettes and put the pack down before tearing it open and pouring the tobacco into the wound.
“What are you doing?” Purple Haze asked, taking deep breaths.
“Tobacco from cigarettes can reduce the amount of bleeding.” Stitches nickered, not looking up from the wound, “There, see?”. The bleeding was starting to slow, being quickly absorbed by the tobacco. “Excellent, now I can give you this.” He pulled out a bottle of antiseptic and cleaned the wound, satisfied that the tobacco had done its job. He got out a healing potion and handed it to Purple Haze, “Alright, now to deal with these burns.”
“Burns?” I asked as Purple Haze lifted her forelegs after downing the potion to reveal that her side had been horrifically burnt, the edges of which were starting to shimmer and stitch back together with the potion.
“Good thing I'm prepared.” Stitches chuckled as he pulled out another syring, different from the painkiller. It had a small disk on top of the tube, held in place with two small pipes, filled with a purple liquid.
“What is that, Stitch?” Ace asked, lowering her guard a little.
“Its a medipack. It’s like a magic potion in a syringe, but it’s more effective for burns and localized treatment.”
“Localized treatment?”
“Like, say if you've got several cuts all over but your leg is cut open then a potion would have to siphon off some magic to fix the cuts, but a medipack only heals the area around the injection.” Stitches plunged the syringe into Haze's burn. The area around the needle started to heal.
“Incredible...” I whispered before standing up again, looking down at Haze. “Alright, who did this to you?”
“I don't know. I saw my son running up the road over there, and some big monstrous thing attacked me. It was like a huge green unicorn with wings; it stabbed my leg before I could escape and shot me with some sort of lighting. Oh goddess, please save my son! You have to!” Haze pleaded.
I looked at Ace; she gave me a sly grin while levitating her shotgun beside her. I looked back at Haze.
“I do try to help as much as possible. This is no exception.” I smiled, not really knowing why I felt obliged to help.
Stitches looked at me cautiously before saying, “If you're heading up into the unknown, take these.” he handed out four medipacks and four health potions between us, I quickly deposited them into my coat pockets.
“Aren't you coming with us?” I asked once I had finished my organisation.
“This mare has lost a lot of blood and is slightly in shock. I need to stay here and make sure she's stable.”
He pulled out a small device from one of his other pockets and put one of the ends into the mare's blood. It beeped once before Stitches huffed in satisfaction. “Hm, Type Q. You're in luck.” He pulled out a blood pack from his saddlebag and inserted a needle into Haze and connected it to the red bag. He held it above his head.
“You two going or what?” he asked, finally looking back up at us.
I dropped my saddlebag, “Weapons and ammo only, Ace. We don't want to get weighed down.” She dropped her saddlebag too, and we started walking towards the road Haze had been injured on.
------ ------ ------
The road was quiet. Too quiet. The sign that previously read “Black Mountain Communications Array” had been plastered over with radiation warnings along with warnings of “Run away” or “Get back.” I gulped hard after a cold shiver coursed up my spine, I wanted to go back but there was a young colt on this mountain and he needs out help.
“I really don't like this, Clover.” Ace said with a hint of a tremble in her voice.
“I am fully aware of that, and I don't like it either. Which is why we don't want to telegraph our presence to who whatever is up here.”
“I know, but still...it’s creepy, you know?” She was levitating her shotgun closer to her.
I almost jumped out of my skin when a white tick showed up on my compass, it was approaching fast. I motioned for Ace to duck and cover behind a rock while I jumped into a ditch, covered with the remains of a scorched tree. I watched as the white tick slowed to a halt between me and Ace.
“Hey, my little ponies, I know you're out here.” A mare's voice whispered, “I'm not going to hurt you; I need to warn you.”
I peeked over the side of the ditch to see who was talking. There was a large green unicorn with wings standing before me. It was more than twice my size, and its horn was at least three times bigger than Ace's. I barely recognized this species of pony, It was the same species as the goddesses themselves, An alicorn. If I were religious or even thought the old princesses were still alive, I would have revered her as a god, but right now I was more intrigued on where the hell she came from.
“Come on out. Don't make me look for you.” she scoweled. I slowly crept up out of the ditch, rifle ready. “Ah, there you are. I come bearing a warning.” I motioned for Ace to come out. Her shotgun preceded her.
I put my rifle back on my back and opened my pistol's holster, just to be ready. “And what might that be?” I asked.
“This isn't a place where ponies are welcome. On this mountain you will find more like me, but they are hostile to your kind, and even in their weakened state, they will kill you.” The alicorn whispered.
“So why aren't you hostile?”
“That's because unlike the others up there, I have some spark of intelligence.”
“Where the hell did you come from?” Ace asked, before I could.
“We were sent by the Goddess out east to find unicorns and bring them back to her so she could gain more power. She overestimated her telepathic powers, and she lost her hold on us as we crossed the great eastern mountains. Some regained what little of our old selves remained, like me. Others however have just become husks of their former selves. I used to be a stallion and a merchant called Knick Knack before I was taken and shoved into a vat of purple liquid. That's when things got fuzzy.”
“Uh huh. Well, we're looking for a colt who supposedly ran up here, and we aren't leaving until we do.” I said, as confidently as I could. Knick Knack saw straight through my false confidence.
“The colt is okay and is being held captive up near the array. I'm waving you off right now; the alicorn who runs this group is absolutely crazy. She still claims that she can talk to the Goddess. She's ordered all of the other alicorns to attack anything on sight and that includes ponies.”
“Then why are you still here?” I asked, “If my boss was a psycho, I would just up and leave.”.
“Because her broadcasts tend to attract other alicorns here and I try to divert them to the settlement to the north. I don't want them to get wrapped up in something they don't need to be.”
“So how come I haven't heard this broadcast?”
“The array has been down for almost a month, and the technician that we have here hasn't been able to fix it yet.”
“So if you don't want other alicorns joining this crazy alicorn's herd, why not take her out?” Ace asked. It was a fair question but nothing I would ask the large, probably-kick-your-ass-in-a-heartbeat alicorn to her face.
“Because she claims to see what's in an alicorn’s mind. I don't believe her, but I’m not going to test that theory.”
“But you still want her gone?”
“Yes, I do. Why? Are you offering?”
“I might be able to help. If this 'Goddess' is making unicorns into 'husks of their former selves', I can't let it continue!” I said with a stomp. Ace looked at me seriously before looking up and remembering that she was a unicorn. She went slightly red as she looked back at the alicorn.
“Do you have a plan?” Knick Knack asked.
“Well, we were planning on sneaking past ‘monsters’, which I suppose means alicorns, and getting the colt out of there. Now I suppose we do that but get rid of the boss alicorn too.” I doubted this was going to work.
“Seems a bit shakey to me, but I might be able to help. Meet me near the array.” Knick Knack said as he...she...whatever it was, flew off.
“Crazy?” Ace asked, watching the beast crest the top of the mountain..
“Probably.”
------ ------ ------
We had come across our first group of red ticks as we made our way up to the mountain to the array. There were three alicorns ahead, two green and a blue one. One of them had a helmet and jury rigged armour along with a large gun on its battle saddle. It was going to get very hairy, very fast if they saw us.
The road was fairly narrow between the cliff and the mountain wall, but was strewn with several large rocks, them being the only thing between us and the alicorn checkpoint. We had no way to get around them.
“Any ideas?” I whisprered to Ace, trembling a little.
“Nothing that won’t get us shot to ribbons...” Ace said as she peeked over the rock.
“Well then. We're screwed.” I sighed as I looked around for anything that could help. We couldn't do anything with the scrap metal walls of the checkpoint, I had no use for the rocks around us, and the rocky walls around us were too steep to climb. That's when I did noticed something useful, a large group of loose rocks about ten meters above the road behind us. Time to get resourceful.
“Right, stay here.” I whispered to Ace as I pulled out the explosive powder from my coat's pocket and slithered across the grounds to the rocks. I started spreading the powder around and snaked it back to the rock Ace and I had hid behind. I looked over the rock and back at Ace, “We've got to move up.” I motioned, pointing up ahead. Ace sighed and rolled her eyes before moving.
We successfully snuck up to the checkpoint walls and I pulled out the pack of matches I had quickly grown to love, inhaled deeply to steady myself, and struck off a match, which was hard to do with your hooves and mouth. I lit the trail of explosive powder and hunkered down as small as I could and shoved my hooves into my ears.
I couldn't help but grin as I heard a dull thump through my hooves. I pulled them out and looked up; The loose rocks above had come tumbling down under the shockwaves of the explosion. Two of the alicorns, including the armoured one, ran out of their checkpoint. I brought up my EFS to see one more dreaded red tick behind the metal barricade walls we were hiding behind. Damn it.
“Looks like one of them got left behind.” I said and peeked around the corner to see the blue alicorn standing and staring at the charred remains of a wagon. Its wings were damaged and mangled at its sides, obviously on the losing end of a fight. I took a deep breath before signaling Ace to stay put and cover me.
I snuk up to the last alicorn, its stare still on the wagon and pulled out my knife, I was going to try and sneak around it but I might have needed my knife ready, just in case. I breathed a sigh of relief when I got around it before signaling Ace over. As if by fate, it was then the alicorn snapped out of it and turned to me. It grinned before turning completely invisible.
“Shit!” I whispered frantically scanning for any signs of the blue fuck, swinging my knife back and forth.
Ace ran over to me, only to be knocked several meters into the air, coming to a collision with a rock. She hit hard and slumped to the ground. I sheathed my knife and pulled out my pistol and tracked where I thought the alicorn was, but it was too late. The alicorn tackled me, sending me flying and landing millimeters from the sheer drop of the cliff side. I looked over my shoulder.
“Oh shit!” I shouted before trying to get up, but I was sent stright back down when the alicorn shoved its hoof onto my throat, choking me. It came into view over me, grinning from ear to ear as its horn started to glow.
It was about to unleash its magic on me before my knife floated up behind it, surrounded in a magical levitation field before plunging into the brute. The alicorn tried wailing, but it was no use, the blade was deep inside it. Ace's shotgun came up behind it and smacked against the alicorn’s head with a wet crack. The alicorn fell off me and over the cliff, plummeting to its demise.
“Thanks.” I coughed as I picked myself up. Ace was sitting up against the rock, horn glowing with the same levitation field around the shotgun and bloody knife. There was blood trickling down her head, I scrambled over to her and lifted her head, looking into her deep brown eyes, “Are you okay?” I asked, genualy worried about her safety.
“I think so. Probably have small a concussion. Nothing too serious though.” she smiled, stumbling to her hooves. “C'mon, those alicorns could be back at any moment. Best keep moving.” I followed her as she staggered along the road. I handed her a potion, but she refused to take it, making me almost pin her down to get her to drink it, she eventually gave in and gulped it down.
The next check point was up ahead. Of course, we only noticed this after I got hit by a lightning bolt.
------ ------ ------
Bullets and lightning were flying over the boulder Ace had dragged me behind. Ace was firing her shotgun over the side of the rock while I clutched my burning stomach. I wheezed and convulsed as the air filled with the smell of burnt flesh and ozone.
I tried rolling over to my side to get one of the medipacks Stitches gave me, but when I tried, pain lashed throughout my whole body like a whip, sending me right back down as Ace was trying her best to both shoot her shotgun and rummage through my pockets to get the medipack. She emptied each of them onto the ground, stopping only to reload her shotgun. I looked at the contents of my pockets on the ground. There was some ammo, some bandages and our last grenade. Thank Celestia...I thought as I looked at the grenade.
“Ace, the grenade.” I managed to rasp, barely able to breath. She picked it up, pulled the pin and flung it over to the alicorns. The fire stopped for a brief moment while the alicorns took cover. Why they did this was beyond me, It seemed they had fucking shields.
Ace put down her shotgun in fustration before finally opening the last pocket on my barding, pulling out a Medipack. She stabbed it directly into the burn and it started to heal, I gasped as my lungs inflated with air; I was able to breath again. Ace got right back to shooting as soon as the alicorns opened fire again.
I peeked around the corner of the boulder. The alicorns either thought I was dead or were too concentrated on Ace. Their shields seemed impenetrable against anything Ace threw at them. Her buckshot pinged off of the shimmering shield around the alicorns. There had to be a weakness.
Bingo.
I managed to see a brief break in the shield as one of the alicorns shot a bolt of lightning that exploded on the boulder, inches away from my head. I pulled out the varmint rifle and rolled onto my stomach, clenching my teeth against the pain. I aimed down the sights, waiting for my chance. I let the alicorn charge and shoot one more lightning strike. Five seconds between charge and shoot, it started to charge another shot.
“..two...three...four...” the shield started to shimmer before it came down. I took my chance and pulled the trigger, the inside of the alicorn's shield splattered with red before it collapsed along with the alicorn, blood oozing from a hole below its right eye.
The last alicorn was like one of the one we saw with the jury rigger armour and large gun. It seemed to have mastered its shield spell as only small holes at the front of the shield opened when it fired. Just enough for me to shoot through but the timing was hell to pin down. I took a deep breath and watched.
“Right...there!” I pulled the trigger, only managing to catch one of the alicorn's legs. It back peddled as it rose itself off of its forelegs.
“Gah! Pain!” it shouted as its concentration faded and the shield collapsed. I dropped the rifle, got up and sprayed the alicorn with my pistol. The .45 caliber bullets tore through its midsection like a hot knife through butter; and it fell to a quivering heap. I slowly trotted up to it.
“...sorry...” I whispered before shooting the last bullet in the clip into its head. I had a sudden flashback to when Shamrock was murdered, how the blood spilled from his head onto the desert sands, how his head bucked backwards as the bullet impacted. I held my head with my hoof, fighting back the image before I burst into tears. This was not the time and place to snap now.
“Holy Luna above, how did you do that?” Ace asked as she trotted out from behind the boulder. She looked back at it and whistled at the bullet and scorch marks. “I mean, there was like a two second wait between charge and shoot from that horn.”
“I counted five seconds.” I said
“No way, definitely two. They had shot at least twice by the time I counted to five.” I could have sworn it was five seconds. Then again, the projectiles did seem to move slower while I waited for my opening...
“Anyway, here's your stuff.” she levitated my belongings to me with a light grace. I really needed to sort my inventory, seeing as my disorganization almost cost me my life. I looked at my stomach to see that it had healed except for the edges of the burn which glowed a faint red as they healed slowly, even my light gray coat had started to grow back in patches thanks to the medipack.
“That was sure to have attracted some attention,” I said, looking back down the road, “I'm surprised their friends aren't here yet...” I repacked the two pockets on my stable barding with my medical supplies and the pockets on my new coat with my combat items. I was surprised that my coat hadn't got damaged in the fight, dirty yes but not damaged.
------ ------ ------
We stopped and hit the ground after two red ticks came up on my EFS. We had just narrowly avoided the first patrol we had encountered as they came to investigate the fight we had barely come out of alive.
The two alicorns ahead of us were standing close to the cliff and starting out over the desert, as if they were searching for something, a look of loss playing over their faces. We would have snuk around them if it wasn't for the fact that I had already tried with the blue alicorn and almost got tossed off a cliff. I started thinking of ways to combat these alicorns when a white tick flashed on my EFS.
One of the alicorns looked up the road to the approaching friendly, only for its head to turn to mush under the force of a large hammer, suspended in a magical field. It fell over the side of the mountain as the other alicorn was about to fire its lightning, just for its horn to be snapped under the weight of the large, blunt weapon. It's face did not survive as its magic imploded as it too fell off the cliff.
“That felt good.” Knick Knack said as he dropped the hammer. “Never did like those two.”
“Thanks for that.” I honestly didn't know what I was going to do if they had come to, and we were in the open.
“No problem. Now, the way up to the array is fairly safe compared to the road. This was the last checkpoint, but there are still a couple of alicorns up in the courtyards with the radiation. The holding cells are just past the crater in the first building on the left. I've taken care of most of the alicorns, either by hammer or distraction, and the cells should be unguarded.”
“Got it.”
“Oh, and you remember what we talked about. You'd best get rid of the crazy boss because after what I've done to help, I'll be hunted down if I stay.” and with that, he flew off back down the mountain.
“Clove, I'm not sure about this. If this crazy alicorn is the boss, who knows what it’s capable of.” Ace said. The blood from her head had dried on her coat, leaving it a dark brownish.
“I know.” I said. “But I have a plan.” I thumped my chest in confidence. I had been thinking about it since Knick Knack first mentioned it, and I honestly had a plan. Well, kind of...
We started back on the road before we came across a fallen broadcast antenna sticking out of the rich black dirt. My Pipbuck started to click.
“And that means radiation.” I casually reminded myself. It seemed to be a small dose but nothing that would kill us without prolonged exposure.
We turned a corner to find a large open space before a huge, square building underneath a huger satellite dish. Ahead of us was a set of buildings around a wide hole in the ground, most of them had been torn to pieces, but a few still remained, two in particular, one of them containing our missing colt. Along with the ruins were some shacks that seemed to be put together with sheet metal and barely anything else. The radiation levels were still surprisingly low.
“Anyone around?” asked Ace in a hushed tone.
“Nothing yet.”
We slowly moved around the crater as My Pipbuck started to click more rapidly, but not indicating lethal levels. I heard some talking from inside one of the shacks as we passed.
“What did Knick say again? There wuz pony in here?”
“I unno... head hurts. Gotta hurt sumthin else.”
Obviously not the thinking type, but easily distracted. We got around the crater and were met with something straight out of a nightmare. It was a large bulbous thing that slightly resembled a pony. Its neck was elongated and its face seemed melted with three large tentacles hanging out of its mouth. Its body was bloated and hugged the ground, bones were poking out of multiple points along its body as It propelled itself with its six legs. It stared at us with deep red eyes. I was petrified.
“What the fuck?” Ace whispered as she stepped back.
The monster leaned back, whatever was inside of it cracked loudly, before unleashing a large glob of goo that hit me square in the face causing me to back flip into a heap. It stung my entire face as I scrambled in the dirt, trying desperately to scape it off. I could hear gun shots through the goop in my ears, I rolled over and wiped my eyes on my leather coat and saw the monster, torn up as Ace reloaded her shotgun and trained it on the shack we passed. The Alicorns were sure to have heard that.
Sure enough, the lumbering brain dead beasts came crashing through the door, both with sledgehammers in their levitation field. They swung wildly at us, I managed to dive out of the way just in time, but Ace was not as fortunate as the sledge hammer came down on her hind leg.
I rolled over as a sledge hammer crashed down where my head was just a few mere milliseconds ago. My luck finally shone through as the hammer's head slipped off as the alicorn tried raise it. It looked at the stick in great bewilderment, I took the chance.
I clamped down on my pistol and unloaded a clip into the beasts head. It slumped down, its entire front covered in blood. I got and saw the other alicorn approaching Ace, lifting the hammer up above its head. I pressed down on my pistol's trigger.
Click click click.
“Fuck!” I screamed as I dropped the pistol. The hammer was about to come down on Ace.
“Play time.” The voice in my head said. I pulled out Silent Reaper, gripped the tip in my teeth and flung it through the air at the alicorn. It hit home, digging deep into the alicorn’s head, It fell on its side, bringing the hammer down about a meter away from Ace. I galloped to my fallen friend.
“Don't think anythings broken, just hurts like a son of a bitch.” she hissed through gritted teeth. I handed her a healing potion, leaving us with about four left in total, including the ones Stitches has given us.
She slowly got to her hooves, her hind leg glowing a faint red as the potion healed the muscle damage. She looked at me and smiled.
“All better.”
The voice in my head was starting to worry me. It seemed familiar, as if I had known it my entire life, but I couldn't put my hoof on it. I froze when I realized who the voice was. It was Trailblaze. The dream I had wasn't just a drea, Trailblaze was real and was in my head. He had effectively just saved Ace. He also saved me in the Lipton town hall; maybe he wasn't so bad?
“Clover? You look like you've seen a ghost...” Ace said, nudging my shoulder with a hoof. Ghosts? I don't think Trailblaze was a ghost. It would explain a lot, but I ain’t afraid of no ghosts.
“I wish...” I said. I looked at my EFS, nothing to report. I walked over to the corpse of the monster who had spit the slimey, horrendous goop in my face, which had caked gruesomely, and examined it. It was seeping a purple viscous fluid along with blood, I honestly did not want to touch it. I thought of bottling it and giving it to a scientist for analysis. I facehoofed pretty hard, making a crackling sound as I brought my hoof down through the hardening goop on my face. I shouldn't have read that 'Professor Utonium's Lab' comic book so much. Like I was going to find a professor or a lab out here.
“Don't we have a colt to save?” Ace asked, prodding me again. Celestia buck me to the moon, she was right.
We galloped to the building that supposedly held the colt, it was a two story building without any windows; it seemed appropriate for a prison. We entered through a large wooden door; the lock on it was so rusted that a swift buck was all that was needed to get in. There were three doors before the staircase, one was open to reveal an empty room while the others were locked tight. Ace went up the stairs while I started snooping around the open room.
All I could gather was that this room had not been used as a prison cell but more as a guard house. There were empty ammo boxes and a bed. Bored with the relatively empty room, I went over to the next door. Ace had found a terminal on the stairs and started poking at it. She quickly gave up with a huff and started picking the lock.
The lock on the door had been much better preserved but was still easy to pick. I could only find three bobby pins in my pocket so I took my time picking it, rushing these things often lead to mistakes.
It finally gave way after the first bobby pin broke, I turned the handle and was met with a terrible stink. I looked around the room, holding my breath. It was similar to the guard room but only had a cast-iron bed, a desk with an assortment of tools on it and a bucket in the corner. On the bed was a dead pony, judging by the look of it, he had been dead for a few weeks.
“Eugh. That's just nasty.” I cringed.
“What did you find?” Ace called down, followed by a small 'dammit' as she broke a bobby pin.
“A dead pony... Poor guy.” I sighed as I started to turn to head out. I was about to close the door when my body went rigid and I let out a choked squeak.
“I aint dead, Gringo.”
Footnote: LEVEL UP! New perk: “Mutant Hunter.” Your accuracy and timing seems to go well with dead mutants. You deal an added 20% damage to mutated creatures (Eg. Animals, ponies and Ghouls).
Skill note: Guns 50.
Special thanks to Errantindy and all the people over on the FO:E protodoc. You people are the best. (Especially Mittens.)
PS. Decided to only do skill updates every 25, 50, 75 and 100 level.