//------------------------------// // Winter Dust Up // Story: Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage // by Kashin //------------------------------// Fallout Equestria: Operation Flankorage Chapter Three: Winter Dust Up “Don’t ask me where we’re going. Cause I don‘t know yet.” The E.F.S. is good.  The E.F.S. is my friend.  The E.F.S. just kept me from walking straight into a half dozen Shrikes. For some reason I couldn’t account for, the little, red lines didn’t show up until after I had entered the building and nearly knocked over a fuzzy, green mare.  She had only managed to get her pistol out of its holster and suck in a deep breath before S.A.T.S. put three smoldering holes in her head. *Fizt*  *Fizt*  *Fizt* Stress relief would need to wait. The lodge was done up in the same down-to-earth, yet elegant style as the cabin had been.  Wood paneling disguised the concrete walls and steel doors where it hadn’t been peeled away.  Large pots, filled to bursting with scented, plastic plants littered the lobby, in and amongst richly upholstered lounge couches and magazine stacked side tables.  A large, dark wood, service counter stretched across the back wall, still retaining a hint of its finish even after two centuries. Several doors led from this lounge to deeper in the building.  Two leading to stair wells, a quartet of bathrooms and a hall that turned to a floor to ceiling, open frame, which, if its stylized sandwich sign was any indication, opened into an eatery. I could hear crude, rowdy conversation from the four bars in the eatery and somepony, no; I don’t kill ponies, somebody using one of the bathrooms. I couldn’t afford to lose the element of surprise and someone was bound to notice the singed, green body, crumpled at my hooves.  I wrapped the corpse in my telekinesis and began the arduous task of dragging it behind the service desk.  Even with my magic lessening the load I had to struggle to make any real head way, at least my rifle had cauterized the wounds so I wasn’t leaving much of a blood trail. I finally managed to reach my hiding spot when the stallion’s room door swung open.  A big, fluffy, purple buck wearing a similar apparatus to Maple’s saddle, mounted with a weapon I didn’t recognize, connected by hoses to a tank on his back, marched out with an eye watering wave of stench.  I doubted a healthy pony could make that smell.  No, not a pony, damn it.  He’s not a pony, he’s a Shrike.  They’re slavers, bandits and murderers, just like the Unity.  Monsters, nothing more. “Oy!,”  The buck shouted.  “Da Boss’ been gone f’r a while, where’d she go?!”  Had he not heard the gunfight not fifteen minutes ago?  I was honestly shocked that they weren’t hunting us down yet.  This buck at least had an unnatural bowel movement as an excuse, but the others? “She’s playin wit da city ponies outside!”  A mare’s voice belted back from the eatery.  “You’d better stay.  Member last time ye in’terrupted er fun?!”  Okay, so they did hear, but thought we were on the losing end.  I supposed that made sense. “Eh, blow it out yer ass Crisps!”  The buck yelled back. “I got da’ dynamite, dat’s my job!”  Crisps voice was followed by a chorus of laughter. Dynamite?!  As if Stinky’s heavy weapon and the hoof cannons these bastards were packing wasn’t bad enough, now I had to deal with high explosives. “He he, yeah, member dat zebra back in Glyphmark?!”  The buck chuckled, making his way to the others. A zebra?  Around here?  That couldn’t be good. “Oh, yeah.  Must’a been a colt-cuddler!  Fit three whole sticks in!”  Crisps bellowed with what I could only describe as pride.  “What a boom!”  She slammed something for emphasis; I would have to guess her table from the sound of rattling bottles. I thought I was going to be ill just hearing that.  While he was a zebra, nopony deserves that.  At least it cleared up any moral ambiguity about this group. They continued to exchange brief anecdotes and praise for malefic actions as Stinky made his way to the others.  By the time I heard him sit down I was about ready to throw caution to the wind, leap up and pummel him to death with my bare hooves.  That would have turned out quite poorly, as I had learned from a particularly gruesome boast about the effectiveness of ponies as kindling, that the thing on his back was a flamethrower. If I wanted to do this I wound need to find a way to deal with them in ones or twos.  Even with a charged flare I’d still have problems as Stinky and Crisps only needed to know my general direction to incinerate or blow me apart, respectively.  But first I had to see if I could scrounge up some medicine or more stealth conducive weaponry, beams of searing light and 15mm bullets weren’t exactly subtle. After taking anything valuable from the dead Shrike, taking special care to remember to grab her caps, I left her wedged under the counter.  With Stinky’s odor still so thick in the air that it was nearly palpable, I doubted they would be able to smell her, not for a while at least and judging from all the dust and debris I was lying on they didn‘t come back here often. I slowly skulked out from behind the counter, wrapping myself in a magic field to soften my hoof steps.  This did force me to keep my weapon holstered and surrounded me in a glowing, gold aura, but as long as I stayed out of sight it would serve its purpose. I made for the stair well, careful to avoid the numerous magazines littered about the lounge. As soon as I closed the second floor door behind me all five hostile E.F.S. contacts in the lounge vanished, replaced by four new ones spread out all around me.  Where these buildings insulated with lead or something? A hall, lined with doors stretched to both sides of me before making ninety degree turns back the way I came.  A thin rug, coated with stylized ponies frolicking among pine trees, ran down the middle of both corridors, accompanied by moss green mats with white numbers outside each door.  I got the distinct impression that this floor was meant for guests who could not afford one of the ritzy cabins. My best guess, from the limited information provided to me by my E.F.S and a din of noise (it would be disrespectful to all things musical to call it singing) echoing through the halls, placed the Shrikes in rooms 04 and 23, with one patrolling the halls.  I gently dropped my telekinesis boots and floated out my beam rifle.  The patroller would be my first target. I nestled down behind a nearby trashcan and placed my weapon on top.  Deactivating my magic field, I took hold of the mouth grip.  It felt odd, holding the rubbery, orange handle between my teeth and holding the trigger with my tongue, but it was preferable to having my weapon lit up like a torch while setting up an ambush. “Trottin down cannon street!” *Gulp* “Buckin on every door!” I heard The Shrike a while before she staggered into view.  A shaggy, blue, unicorn mare with a tangled, blue-green mane, stumbled obliviously towards me.  She had three different booze bottles (vodka, scotch and absinthe, I think) orbiting around her, taking deep swigs from whichever one was closest between singing lines of a crude, drinking song... badly. “Lunadamn son o’ a bitch!” *Gulp* “I couldn’t find a whore!” I struggled to discreetly shift the eight pound gun in her general direction with nothing but my mouth.  How did earth ponies do this?  I shuddered to think what the recoil on a ballistic weapon would do to a pony’s teeth. “I fin’lly found a whore!” *Gulp* “She was r’ther thin!” The sights on this thing were a nightmare to use with the mouth grip, a gun built for unicorns and saddles if there ever was one. “Lunadamn son o’ a bitch!” *Gulp* “I couldn’t get it in!” She emphasized the last point by swinging her hoof in the air and nearly falling on her face.  Almost there, but at this rate I was fairly she would die of alcohol poisoning before she got to me... “I fin’lly got it in!” *Gulp* “Worked it all about!” She was swinging her hoof in circles over her head, barely keeping her hoofing.  If the other three could ignore this racket why was I bothering to be sneaky? “Lunadamn son o’ a bitch!” *Gulp* “I couldn’t get it out!” Wait.  They couldn’t.  Not even the Unity raiders were dense enough to miss this.  They also couldn't miss it suddenly stopping. “I fin’lly got it out!” *Gulp* “It was wet an’ sore!” She nearly tumbled into me after shaking her hoof as if she had subbed it, but didn’t seem to notice.  The lush continued past me on her unsteady way. “Da moral o dis story is!” *Gulp* “Tu never fuck a whore!” Her voice faded into incoherent noise shortly after she turned the corner, though I wasn’t sure whether it was because of whatever insulated this building or the eight shots she had taken on this stretch of the corridor alone. I floated the gun out of my mouth and back up to my eye; that felt so much more natural.  I gently placed my hoof on the handle of room 04’s door; one red bar inside.  Pushing down, I swung the door open and immediately entered SATS. The room looked very nice, albeit in dire need of cleaning.  A princess sized bed rested in a corner with moldy sheets that had once had complex, snowflake patterns.  A respectable, oak dresser had been knocked over across the door way to a light blue, linoleum tiled, private bathroom.  The Shrike herself, a shaggy, purple earth pony with black, buzz-cut mane, was seated at a writing desk, cleaning her disassembled pistol. I set up three shots on her, one in the head and two in the chest, and released the spell.  My first shot went wide, I supposed even 95% could miss sometimes, merely singeing her ear.  She had managed to pull out a knife that looked like it used to be part of a lawnmower before my second shot put a smoking, pinprick hole in her stomach and was nearly on me by the time my spell ended; scorching a second hole bellow her ribs.  I barely managed to swing up my left arm to keep her blade from my throat. WRONG HOOF!  WRONG HOOF! The improvised knife sunk into my unarmored fetlock, forcing me to bite down on my lip to keep from screaming. From her ragged breathing around her knife I could tell that I had pierced one of her lungs, but that wasn't stopping her from trying to saw through my hoof.  I howled, losing control as she hit bone.  The other two red bars on my E.F.S. started moving.  If I wasn't screwed now I would be soon.  I started firing off rapid flares while I tried to wedge my rifle out from in between us; I'd never been able to cast that quickly before. That did it.  I swung the weapon around, jammed it under the Shrike’s ribs and magically mashed the trigger until the weapon clicked empty. The stench of burning fur, cooking pony flesh and the coppery twang of my own blood made me ill.  I had burned a hole the size of my leg clean through her, leaving her a slowly burning, purple mass at my hooves. ***        ***        *** The other two hadn't proven to be anywhere near as difficult.  Apparently the thing with magical weapons was placement.  One or two of the beams could burn their way through nearly anything, as the two Shrikes with third nostrils would attest.  But since they only left needle thin holes and cauterized the wounds, poorly placed shots were little more effective than throwing darts.  Even less so now that I had managed to get flesh half melted into some of the weapons components, effectively ruining the casing. I had cleaned out the room and the dead Shrikes, but, alas, there was not a bandage to be found.  With my magic occupied keeping me mobile, I was forced to holster my weapon and hope I could find something to put me back together before another Shrike got their claws in me. I heard a mumbling noise down the hall. *Snort* “Two weeks later.” *Neeigh* Oh sweet Celestia.  The blue mare from earlier was snoring face down in a pool of mixed spirits with her fluffy rump sticking up in the air.  The martini glass with a chainsaw like sword skewering an olive on her flank was intriguing.  I knew it was an optical illusion caused by her longer coat, but I could have sworn that the sword’s teeth were moving. *Snort* “I was takin a piss.” *Neeigh* I walked closer to her and her smell finally over powered the reek of death that was clinging to me, sort of like a ashtray swimming in a mixture of liqueur, sweat and a sort of...  muskiness...  she looked so soft.  Well, horse apples, my barding was tight again.  Damn you to the moon for a thousand years pheromones. I was also having some unrelated problems with killing an unconscious pony (to be fair, all she had done was drink too much to the best of my knowledge so I couldn't tag her as a monster).  It would just come back to bite me if I left her here.  I sat down and floated out my gun. *Snort* “Lunadamn son o’ a bitch.” *Neeigh* I lined up my shot with her white EFS contact...  hold up, white?  When had it turned white?  Well if she’s not going to kill me, what right did I have to kill her? “This won’t end well for you.”  The icy voice returned. Oh, don’t you start with me.  I don’t kill ponies and that is that. “Give it time.” Her unconscious attempt at music faded as I made my way up to the next level. *Snort* “She gave me Syph’lis.” *Neeigh* Well my barding wasn’t uncomfortable anymore. ***        ***        *** The third floor had a distinctly different aesthetic from the rest of the facility.  A massive room took up most of the level with a large, train like thing, hooked to cables that ran along the ceiling dominating the space.  A series of tarnished, steel fences clashed horribly with the woodsy feel of the building, looking more appropriate for a dilapidated amusement park than a resort.  Almost the entirety of the south wall consisted of an open hole framed by some broken prewar tech.  A pair of doors and an elevator took up the North side and there was not a red bar to be seen. I took a brief moment to follow the cables up the mountain.  Being at least 24 hooves up I was able to get a far better view.  A slightly smaller copy of this building was on the far side of the cables, at least five miles away.  Small figures, barely more than specks, were milling about the building and a massive hole that had been dug into the far cliff face, leading lines of ponies to a tent city that was set up around the wooden structure.. A machine was sitting idly by the opening.  It looked like a massive chainsaw strapped to a tank, at least 30 hooves from tread to cabin.  Several flying figures were orbiting the device, to large to be pegasi and to thin for griffins.  This had to be the excavator Mayor Goldlight had told me about. I sat and brought up my rifle.  These things have effectively infinite range right? “They also leave a shining trail right back to their source.” Okay, there were only about a dozen flying ones I could manage twelve vital shots before they covered five miles. “You only have six shots left.”         Maybe I could tag a leader, that Gellwin perhaps.         “Then the rest will kill you and any time Goldlight bought you would be forfeit.”         “DAMN!”  I bucked one of the fences, falling flat on my face as my wounded leg crumpled under me. I started struggling back to all fours when I noticed something jammed under the tram.  I gently lowered myself down and started up my horn light.  There was a crushed skeleton tangled up in some of the machinery on the bottom of the vehicle.  A dusty, but otherwise intact, beam rifle and a duffel bag lay next to a half melted set of gears. I floated the rifle and bag over.  Okay, the rife wasn’t in quite as good a state as I had thought.  It looked fine, but was nearly wrecked on the inside.  It did however have a customized barrel attachment and a chassis that wasn't coated in liquefied flesh, a considerable improvement over the current state of my weapon’s casing.  I would need to swap those out when I found some tools, now for the bag. Empty soda bottle, with a cap, taking that. Empty syringe, ‘insulin’ that sounded familiar, no matter, I didn’t need it.  A crime novel, ‘True Guard Stories, Canterlot’, reading material sounded useful.  An ID card ‘MoM Director of Fun, Inkie Flash’.  A Wonderbolts lunchbox filled with what, acording to the faded sticker, had once called a banana; really didn’t need that.  And finally, a maintenance kit, how fortuitous.  Now...  How was I going to get out of this pit?         I reared up and tried to haul myself out by my good foreleg.  I grunted and strained to no avail, I couldn’t even lift one hind leg over the edge.  I just wasn’t strong enough; I would need to think of something else. I looked around, finally settling on the duffel bag and one of the fence polls; this was going to hurt allot.  I tied the bag’s strap tightly around my injured leg, above the cut, and then levitated it over the post.  Using my tied leg as an anchor I climbed up the pony height platform, my wound screaming at me the entire time.  By the time I got over my foreleg was soaked with blood, the pressure had reopened my wound.  In fact it was probably bleeding more freely than it had when originally been made.         Now, having a real chance of bleeding to death, I was in a desperate search for anything even remotely medical.         “Not to mention the five Shrikes down stairs you still need to deal with.”         Thanks, I feel much better now.  I thought going insane was supposed to make things less stressful.         “Where did you hear a daft thing like that?” Just ignore it Ocher.  If you ignore it, it will go away.  I opened one of the large doors on the other side of the tram station. A well decorated office with a large desk, a terminal and a wall safe.  There were also several posters of the same grinning, middle aged, pink mare with various sayings across the walls.  ‘A Loyal Pony is a Happy Pony’.  ‘Giggle at the Traitor, And Then Tell MoM’.  ‘Life’s A Party, And The Zebras Aren't Invited’.  ‘Pinkie Pie is Watching You, FOREVER!’.  Well that was out right disturbing.  Glad we didn’t have any of those in Shetland.         I sat down at the terminal, flicked it on and waited for my PipBuck to start up its hacking program.         ‘>Error.’         ‘>Password recovery failed.’         ‘>Terminal security will not allow access.’         ‘>Please make sure you have the latest updates.’         How was I supposed to update it?  Everypony was dead and it wasn’t like I knew programming.         ‘>Password located.’         ‘>Access granted.’         Hu?  Didn’t you just say you couldn’t access it?         ‘>Welcome Director Flash.’ Ah, the ID card I should have tried first.  Well let’s see what the Director of Fun kept on her computer. A few inventory reports, they ran out of streamers a lot.  A welcome letter to somepony name Harry who had moved into a nearby cave from Ponyville and was trying to fix up the place.  Staff assessments with little more than smiley faces and sad faces placed next to each name.  Well that's that, on to the personal files. Porn. Porn. Dragon porn.  I had always wondered how that worked. Horn enlargement, I self consciously prodded my own horn, living proof that horn size did not mean magic power (at this point I would rather have average telekinesis than an average horn). More porn.  This was ridiculous.  I liked a good show as much as the next buck and I did indeed have a section for it in my shop, as well as a few personal shots of Primrose floating about my room.  But this much and on a work terminal no less.  So unprofessional. Porn. SpikeBuck driver. So.  Much.  Porn…  Hold up, ‘SpikeBuck driver’?  That sounded interesting…  and only a little bit like porn.  I tabbed back and downloaded the file to my PipBuck. It wasn’t porn.  It actually seemed to be a 36 digit access code and installation guide for some sort of PipBuck attachment. That was all the files, now to pop the safe open. Oh, happy days.  There was a fully stocked med kit, bandages, painkillers, regeneration potions, more of that insulin stuff, a bottle of THERMAL and even a pair of purple health potions.  I ignored the rest of the safes contents, stabbed myself with a dose of Med-X and chugged one of the regeneration potions, not even taking time to savor the taste. No longer dying, I returned my attention to the wall safe.  There were several piles of pre-war bits, griffin bills and even zebra denarius.  I had no idea why somepony would need zebra money up here and, frankly, I didn’t care.  I had no idea if they still had value, but I would be dammed if I left all that money just sitting there.  Sweeping it all into my bag I noticed one final item in the back, it roughly resembled my PipBuck in style but was much smaller and looked like it would fit just above my hoof.  The SpikeBuck perhaps? I hooked in into my PipBuck and my screen immediately went dead.  Horse apples!  I just broke the thing that was keeping me alive. ‘>...Too Many Secrets...’ My PipBuck flared back to life, blinding me with updates, status reports and permissions. ‘>Black Apple SpikeBuck online.’ ‘>Please insert PipSpike to activate.’ Well that sure was...  Something.  Well, on to the next room then. ***        ***        *** ‘Ms. Ginger Crisps.’ ‘We would like to thank you for your contribution of one pregnant mare to the Unity.  Foals are the future and you have ensured that this child will have a bright one.’ ‘We have calculated your fee.  You will receive the second hand, household slave rate of 225 caps for the mother and an additional 125 for the foal, as it has yet to be corrupted by the evils that would poison it against salvation. ‘To collect your compensation, please report to The Whorl Timber Yard.  You may collect in caps, product or you may waive your fee in exchange for a regular stipend should you decide to put your skills to work for The Unity.’ ‘Sincerely, Overseer Gellwin Stormpride’ The second room seemed to be Crisps sleeping quarters; I had found the note under a beer bottle on her desk.  I didn’t know what disgusted me more, that they were selling ponies like mere livestock, or that they placed the value of a mother and her foal’s lives at less than half that of my rifle.  Regardless, I was going to make them pay for this. I took a few minutes to fit the new chassis and beam splitter muzzle attachment to my rifle before heading down to deal with the last five.  I passed the drunken mare again, but left her alone, I had bigger fish to fry. One of the Shrikes bumped into me on the way down the stairs. *Fizt* SATS let me melt through her throat before she could even yell. Pausing in front of the door to the first floor I started building up a charge in my horn. I slipped on a pair of snow goggles I had scavenged from one of the Shrikes earlier. If I was lucky, I wouldn't daze myself this time.  One over glow, that was surprisingly easy, only mild difficulty breathing.  Two, my barding was doing an admirable job of wicking away the sweat streaming off me.  I stopped at three when one of my legs gave out on me, no sense risking a burn out or unconsciousness.  Clamping my eyes shut, I bucked open the door and flooded the building with light. I opened my eyes again, only slightly dazed this time thanks to the goggles.  The other two Shrikes and Crisps, a cream unicorn with bulky saddlebags and an explosion as a cutie mark, had been examining the green mare I had hid behind the counter.  No sign of Stinky though. *Fizt*  *Fizt*  *Fizt* SATS served me well, my rifle’s twin beams disintegrating one Shrike with the first shot and spearing through both eyes of the second, causing her to run around like a chicken with its head cut off.  My third shot, unfortunately, only wounded Crisps. I was aiming for her head, but karma seemed to have other plans.  One beam speared through her thigh and the second spayed her.   She shrieked as she curled around her melted nethers.  Normally I would feel bad about doing something like this, but the slaving bitch would get no sympathy from me.  I walked down the stairs, carefully loading my last microspark pack.  I had just leveled my gun at Crisps’ head when my entire left side burst into flames. Stinky had come out of the eatery and caught me with the outer edged of his cone of flame.  If it weren’t for the fact that the flames only just reached me and my barding seemed to be at least fire resistant I would have been dead in seconds. I desperately rolled to put out the flames before they could spread, succeeding just in time for Stinky to buck me over the counter.  I landed with a crunch, judging from how painful it was to breathe and my distorted barrel; he had broken several of my ribs. I telakenetically reset my ribs and downed a health potion while I struggled back to my hooves.  I peered over the counter and came face to face with Stinky’s flamer. “Any last word ye’ li’l shit?”  He growled as Crisps crawled blindly behind him for protection. I got da’ dynamite, dat’s my job. “Ya,”  I grinned, slipping into SATS and tagging one shot on Crisps bags.  I hoped she was dumb enough to keep the detonators in.  “blow it out your ass!” *Fizt* The moment the shot was fired I dropped to the floor. With a deafening boom the room was painted with a fresh coat of Shrike. ***        ***        *** Here I was torn.  On the one hoof, the sparkling city on the horizon and its ‘Frostborn’ offered the best hope for finding Stable 114 some help.  On the other, at least 26 of my neighbors were still in the custody of The Unity and I knew one the locations of their camps (The Whorl Timber Yard had appeared on my PipBuck‘s auto-map as soon as I had read about it). That little, pink mare looks like a screamer. Primrose…  She might be there.  She was my friend.  I had failed her in Shetland, I couldn’t fail her again.  Now it was a matter of convincing Maple to come with me.  I had serious doubts that I could survive a one pony assault on an unknown number of heavily armed psychopaths using my friend and neighbors as pony shields. I trotted back out of the ruined ski lodge, magically picking pieces of the help desk out of my hide.  My hooves made soft crunching noises where the snow was crusted over with blood as I made my way to the cabin Maple was resting in.  I telekinetically opened the door and found myself staring down a pair of stacked shotgun barrels. “I probably should have knocked huh?”  I said, peering at Maple around her gun. She was looking surprisingly well put together.  She was back in her armor (a mixed blessing there) and there was no sign of her injuries. “Probably.”  She said flipping her guns up.  “I can’t tell who you are through doors without my PipBuck.” I followed her back inside the cabin.  A pile of blood soaked bandages were piled by the hearth, next to a yellow medical box popped open, with a hair pin sticking out of the lock. “How did…?”  I stammered.  “But I…  You can pick locks?” “Yes.”  She replied lying down by the dying fire. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  I asked.  If I had known I would have just brought her that damn box in the first place.  Then we could have both taken the remaining shrikes and I could have avoided a half dozen broken bones (I had broken three times as many bones in the past few hours than in the rest of my life put together). “You never asked.”  Was she kidding? “Why would I ask?!”  I yelled.  “You’re security!  It’s your job to keep locks unpicked!” “Ocher.”  She sighed, turning to me.  “I am not my job.  You of all ponies should understand that.” “Me?”  I was confused. She shrugged.  “Whatever you did in the Shetland sim, I’m sure it didn’t involve using energy weapons or jousting.” “I was a shop keeper.”  I told her frankly.  “I learned how to shoot with the family’s pester beam.  I used it to make wood carvings.”  I paused, slightly more embarrassed.  “As for the jousting...”  I thought back to when I was a foal.  It was shortly after my mother had died in an inventory accident.  Bluebolt, a colt a few years older than me, had made some insensitive remark.  I didn’t even remember what he had said to make me so angry; the whole memory was a red tinted blur.  All I knew was he opened his mouth one moment and the next thing I knew I was levitating the cash register and he was curled on the floor, bleeding profusely from a broken muzzle.  “I have a bit of a temper.” She turned to me; looking a bit surprised at my candidness.  “I wasn’t always in security.”  She fiddled with her hooves, obviously uncomfortable with the subject.  “The Stable leadership wasn’t perfect.  Sometimes ponies slipped through the cracks.”  She sighed deeply.  “I was one of them.  My foalhood was spent galloping through access tunnels with a small herd, stealing whatever I could to live.  Mostly just scraps, little things we could sell for food.” “When I was still a filly, about eleven, I made a terrible mistake.  I stole a box I thought contained a collection of Super Mare comics.  We were going to read them and then pawn them off to the other fillies and colts for bits of their lunches.”  She gritted her teeth.  “I was stupid and sloppy.  I should have checked the box.  I had always checked the boxes.“ She turned to me and put her forelegs on my shoulders.  “It was full of muffins!”  She yelled at me.  “I stole food!” I looked at her befuddled.  How was stealing muffins worse than stealing a box of collectibles?  “And that was worse?”  I asked as sensitively as I could, though I probably just came off as confused. “Worse?!”  She yelled in disbelief.  “WORSE?!”  I cringed.  That last one nearly left me deaf.  “How could...?”  She let go of me and started pacing, mumbling under her breath.  “Stupid pod-ponies.  Spend all their time in a damn paradise.  Don’t know shit from sarsaparilla.”  She turned back to me, slipping into her cold, mechanical, security officer tone.  “A Stable has limited resources.  Stealing food is the same as stealing life and is punished accordingly.”  She gently stroked The Grim Harvest with her hoof, as if it were a newborn foal.  “My herd abandoned me to the security forces.  If it wasn’t for Blossom...  I would have been recycled.”   Recycled?  How do you recycle a pony? “The same way you recycle any other plant or animal.”  My frigged delusion remarked. The same way you...  No.  They wouldn’t have.  But there was no other explanation.  The look of regret and resignation on Maple’s face confirmed it.  They would. “Recycled?!”  I yelled back, utterly appalled.  “They would kill you for accidentally stealing a box of muffins?!”  Why was I trying to help these ponies? “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”  She sighed.  “Look, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.  Now you know why I can pick locks.  I’m sorry I didn't bring it up earlier, but its not something I'm proud of.” “I...”  Best to let sleeping dragons lie.  “Okay, I’ll drop it for now.” “Good.”  Maple said, walking over to the luxurious bed.  “Lets stay here tonight,”  She started turning down the bed covers.  “there’s no telling when we will find a bed again.  An avalanche survival kit is under the bed if you’re hungry.” “Map... er, I mean, Officer Sugar.”  I piped up.  “There is something I need to talk to you about.”   “Maple is fine,”  She replied, not looking up from her work.  “I don’t usually stand on ceremony.  As for the supply box, the first rule of scavenging; always look under the bed.” “No, no.”  Just spit it out Ocher.  “I found the location of a Unity slaver camp and I’m going to shut it down with or without you.  I can’t abandon my friends and neighbors.  Not again.”         “Okay.”         “Now I know you don’t wan...  beg pardon?”         “I said okay.  Lets get going.”  She flipped her guns down and started gathering bits and bobs from around the cottage.         “I, but, you...  Really?”  I asked, flabbergasted.  “Just like that?” “Ocher,”  She said in a lecturing tone.  I just realised, she was still slightly purple.  “I may not be my job, but that doesn't mean I won't protect ponies whenever I can.”  She turned her shield emblazoned flank towards me.  “Or dole out justice to those who would harm them.”         I just sat there, dumb struck as she loaded the contents of the survival box into her saddlebags. “Oh, and Ocher.”  She turned to me on her way out the door with a dangerous smirk.  “You have had a bad few days, so I will let it slide this time.  But if you ever insult my character like that again I’ll make you a mare.” Footnote: Level Up New Perk:  Crusader-- You have improved your ability to see distant locations, you may add two additional levels of magnification whenever you zoom in (eg. x5 binoculars may be used on x5 or x7 zoom) This is a story based off the magnificent work of Kkat (Fallout Equestria) (Special thanks to DiceArt, Tsoxychor and Twitchy for helping me go over this and making it as good as it could be. And to all the good folks at Fallout: Equestria Side Stories Compilation and fallout-equestria.com)